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By the same Author.
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Sermons Preached in the Parish Church of Barnes, 1871-1876.
CONTENTS.
Thankfulness for God's Mercies— Subjection to the Civil Power— Christ's Prophecy of the End
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— The Remedy of Sin — With Christ in Paradise— Christ the Resurrection and the Life — The
Hope of the Resurrection — The Three Resurrections — The Hope of the Christian — The Pub
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— Present Salvation — The Marks of the Children of God — Against Religious Narrowness —
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The First Book of Common Prayer of Edward VI. and the
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Medd, M.A.

THE ONE MEDIATOR

THE OPERATION OF THE SON OF GOD
IN NATURE AND IN GRACE

EIGHT LECTURES DELIVERED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
IN THE YEAR 1882
ON THE FOUNDATION OF THE LATE REV. JOHN BAMPTON, M.A.
CANON OF SALISBURY

PETER GOLDSMITH MEDD, M.A.
RECTOR OF NORTH CERNEY, GLOUCESTERSHIRE J HONORARY CANON OF ST. ALBAN'S
AND EXAMINING CHAPLAIN TO THE BISHOP J
FORMERLY FELLOW AND TUTOR OF UNIVERSITY COLLEGE \
LATE RECTOR OF BARNES

RIVINGTONS
WATERLOO PLACE, LONDON
MDCCCLXXXIV

NOVUM TESTAMENTUM IN VETERE LATET,
VETUS TESTAMENTUM IN NOVO PATET. St. Augustine.

©xfOtB
PBIIfTED BT E. PICKARD HALL, M.a., AND HOBACE HAKT
peinterb to the university

EXTRACT
FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT
OF THE LATE
REV. JOHN BAMPTON,
CANON OF SALISBURY.
 " I give and bequeath my Lands and Estates to the
" Chancellor, Masters, and Scholars of the University of
" Oxford for ever, to have and to hold all and singular the
" said Lands or Estates upon trust, and to the intents and
" purposes hereinafter mentioned ; that is to say, I will and
" appoint that the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ox-
" ford for the time being shall take and receive all the rents,
" issues, and profits thereof, and (after all taxes, reparations,
" and necessary deductions made) that he pay all the re-
" mainder to the endowment of eight Divinity Lecture Ser-
" mons, to be established for ever in the said University, and
" to be performed in the manner following :
" I direct and appoint, that, upon the first Tuesday in
" Easter Term, a Lecturer be yearly chosen by the Heads
" of Colleges only, and by no others, in the room adjoining
" to the Printing-House, between the hours of ten in the
" morning and two in the afternoon, to preach eight Divinity
" Lecture Sermons, the year following, at St. Mary's in Ox-
" ford, between the commencement of the last month in Lent
" Term, and the end of the third week in Act Term.

vi Extract from Canon Bamptofis Will.
" Also I direct and appoint, that the eight Divinity Lecture
Sermons shall be preached on either of the following Sub
jects — to confirm and establish the Christian Faith, and to
confute all heretics and schismatics — upon the divine au
thority of the holy Scriptures — upon the authority of the
writings of the primitive Fathers, as to the faith and prac-
' tice of the primitive Church — upon the Divinity of our Lord
' and Saviour Jesus Christ — -upon the Divinity of the Holy
' Ghost — upon the Articles of the Christian Faith, as compre-
1 hended in the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds.
" Also I direct, that thirty copies of the eight Divinity Lec-
' ture Sermons shall be always printed, within two months
' after they are preached ; and one copy shall be given to the
' Chancellor of the University, and one copy to the Head of
' every College, and one copy to the Mayor of the city of
' Oxford, and one copy to be put into the Bodleian Library ;
' and the expense of printing them shall be paid out of the
' revenue of the Land or Estates given for establishing the
' Divinity Lecture Sermons ; and the Preacher shall not be
paid, nor be entitled to the revenue, before they are
' printed. " Also I direct and appoint, that no person shall be quali-
' fied to preach the Divinity Lecture Sermons, unless he hath
' taken the degree of Master of Arts at least, in one of the
' two Universities of Oxford or Cambridge ; and that the
same person shall never preach the Divinity Lecture Ser
mons twice."

PREFACE.
The object of the following Lectures is to exhibit, in out
line, the twofold Mediatorial Character which belongs to the
Eternal Son of God, as the sole Means wherethrough the ad
extra action of the Godhead has ever proceeded.
Assigning to Him alone, as Holy Scripture does, the great
function of Mediation between the Infinite Godhead and the
Universe ; regarding Him, the Personal Wisdom and Word of
the Father, as the one channel through which the Holy Spirit,
Who is revealed as the Life and Power and Energy of the
Godhead, has ever flowed forth, both in the act of Creation
and upon things created, for their continual maintenance in
being and for their development, we distinguish between
{a) His Creative and (b) His Redemptive, or New-Creative
Mediation. Roughly speaking, this division corresponds to
the customary distinction between Nature and Grace; and
were we limiting our view of the august Work of the Son of
God to His relations with fallen man it might suffice to adopt
that customary distinction, and to confine ourselves to His
redemptive action only. Looking, however, at His Work and
Function in a wider view, and at an earlier stage, as the
Ao'yos aaapKos, i. e. as He has operated in the invisible angelic
world as well as upon Mankind, and upon Mankind before the
Fall as well as since, we perceive that that distinction did not
at first exist. The first Creation was a Creation in grace, both
of angels and men. The distinction between Nature and
Grace, between the Natural and the Supernatural, did not exist.
The Natural was supernatural, the Supernatural was natural.
At least they co-existed, if they were not indeed identical ;
the Supernatural enveloping and interpenetrating the Natural.

viii Preface.
Such would seem to be the true, the ideal, the normal con
dition of created life, to be one day realized in the Consum
mated State. The entrance of sin it was that created for
Man, and in man's thought, the sharp division between the
Natural and the Supernatural, between Nature and Grace. The
higher endowments of creaturely life in close conscious com
munion with God were cut off by the alienation induced by
sin. The lower elements remained, constituting Man's natural
life and powers ; so-called because they are those which belong
to him by birth, and put him in relation with that visible
world around him which we call Nature.
Hence arose the necessity for the One Mediator to undertake,
beyond His original creative function, a Redemptive function
also. This involved in fact a New Creation, a Regeneration ;
and necessitated, for its ultimate effectuation, that Incarnation
of the Eternal Son, which had been conceivable, possible, even
probable, as the predestined means of the Consummation of
Creation, in its union with the Creator, even apart from sin.
But it will be my endeavour to show, that, in an inferior and
preparatory way, the One Mediator, in His love and pity for
our fallen race, as the One Being to Whom of natural right
the function of Redemptive Mediation necessarily belonged,
was continuously exercising that redemptive function, though
after a veiled manner, from the very first beginnings of human
history until the fulness of the times was come. We are not
to wonder at the, to us, seemingly slow movement of Him to
Whom a thousand years are as one day. Science requires us to
assume the lapse of long ages of preparation before the first
creation of Man upon the earth. This protracted evolutionary
process may well prepare us, by way of analogy, for the long
recorded preparation for the New Creation of Man through
the Incarnation.
Viewing the work of Christ in this way we seem to gain a
grander idea of the Purpose of God in His making of Man in
His own Image, and a firmer grasp of the magnificent

Preface. ix
Personality of the Eternal Son, and of His function as the
central force in all History, and the ultimate Judge, as He is
the present King, of men. We rise also to worthier thoughts
of the glories of that New Creation for the realization of
which so stupendous means have been employed ; to worthier
conceptions of the destiny of Man as united to God through
the One Mediator, and so filled with the Life and Power and
Energy of God.
So regarded, the Christian Theology stands forth as indeed
a worthy Revelation of God, full of deep inner hopefulness and
joy. Its cardinal truths of the Trinity and the Incarnation
find their due and necessary and satisfying place in our
thoughts about God and His relation to us. It is seen, further,
to include a true and most cheering Anthropology, which
adopts all the certainties of Science, and co-ordinates them in
their due place and proportion. It helps in this way not
a little to the removal, or relief, of many difficulties which
oppress the modern mind from the darker side of life as
naturally viewed, its sadness, its apparent disappointing
waste. The days of Unitarianism, Deism, or Theism, as possible
forms of final and permanent thought and belief for thoughtful
religious men, are past. It will more and more be seen that
there is no standing-ground between the Catholic, i.e. the
Nicene, Faith, and blank Agnosticism for the polished and
refined, or a coarse Materialist Communistic Secularism —
socially and politically dangerous— for the rest ; however
at once intellectually unsatisfying and untenable (in the last
resort and when fully thought out), and also morally hopeless
and degrading, both forms of the latter alternative must be.
Unitarian thought and the more religious forms of Deism
have laid usually much stress on the ' Fatherly ' character and
loving goodness of God. Rightly enough ; but they have
seemed to suppose that an earnest faith in these Divine
Attributes removed the moral and intellectual ground and

x Preface.
necessity for a strictly Atoning and Redemptive Work, or,
indeed, for any idea of Mediation at all as exercised by Christ.
They have argued back from the parental relation and feeling
among human beings to its existence in the Divine Being, as
the reflex of what we ourselves are conscious of in our own
best and deepest selves. The argument is, to a certain extent,
true and sound ; for it is of the nature of analogical reasoning
that it may be applied in illustration either way. That God
is like Man is true, as well as that Man is like God. But it is
far more deeply and cogently true that it is the human
Fatherhood that is the reflex of the Divine, not vice versa. It
was the mistake of Arius to argue as if the human Fatherhood
were the original, and must rule and limit our conception of
the Divine. On the contrary, quite apart from and antecedent
to any such faint finite imperfect reflection, God is, in Himself
and by His very essential Nature, and prior to Creation, a
Father ; and that, not in any merely analogous sense, but in
the strictest and most perfect, the only perfect and absolutely
true sense. This thought the Catholic Faith, adequately in
terpreting the Bible Revelation of God, gives to us who sorely
need it, in the stress of life, and in view of the anguish around
us from the sight and sympathy of which we cannot quite
escape, though we should harden our hearts against it with an
armour of threefold brass. The thoughtless or the prosperous,
the indifferent or the protected classes — the men and women
who, from will or from circumstance, are cut off from whole
some contact with their fellows, and know not, or only by
hearsay, what human life can sink to among the unhappy
multitudes of our great modern cities — these may escape the
felt necessity of having a faith, intellectual or moral, one way
or the other, positive or negative, as to God and His relation
to Man. But others there are whom sympathy, or duty, or
circumstance has compelled to look beneath the surface of our
hollow civilization, and to gaze into that deepening abyss of
misery-producing sin and sin-producing misery with which,

Preface. xi
especially in these days of selfish and narrow party-govern
ment, all merely secular methods are so ludicrously powerless
to deal. These know full well that, as truly as nothing but
the supernatural forces of real and full, that is, of Catholic
Christianity can supply any sufficient remedies for these
evils, so, equally truly, the mere intellectual and moral con
templation of the problem they present must, when pursued
to the end, lead to either the acceptance of the Faith and
hopes of Catholic Christianity, as the only tolerable intellectual
solution, the only possible moral stay, or else to a condition
both of heart and mind which is something other than human ;
to a life of the sheerest selfish worldliness, or worse ; to a life
whose sole principle is, practically, Let us eat and drink, for
to-morrow we die, and from which, in the end, intellect as well
as heart is stamped out.
A persuasion that even among those who are Catholic
Christians, and who heartily embrace and hold fast the
Nicene Faith, there are many who have not fully entered
into the height and depth of their glorious inheritance, nor
really proved its applicability in face of the difficulties,
speculative and practical, which meet us in modern life,
has led to this present work. The larger view of Christ's
operation in the field of history, and in the world of man
from the beginning, which, within such limits as were al
lowed, I have, however humbly and insufficiently, endea
voured to present, does seem to me a real stay of faith, a
contribution, such as is quite congenial to the purpose of
Canon Bampton's foundation, to the Evidences of the truth
of the Christian Religion.
Among genuine and candid seekers after truth, the Chris
tian faith needs only (I am persuaded) to be seen and known
to be accepted. But, for it to be thus seen and known,
partial presentations of it will not suffice. It cannot be
doubted that among the many deteriorating effects of 'our
unhappy divisions' a weakened and inadequate presentation

xii Preface.
o'f Christianity (even intellectually regarded) must be in
cluded. Men have pulled the Faith in pieces ; parties have
appropriated this or that portion which was to them more
congenial or attractive, and have become by their mere par
tisanship prejudiced against other portions of the common
Truth which were more specially upheld and asserted by
others : while the partisan maintenance of even important
and necessary truths (whether it were Justification by faith
or the need of Sanctification, or the efficacy of Sacraments,
or the primitive truth about the state of the departed, or
the constitution of the Church as the Kingdom of God) has
tended to their exaggeration, distortion, or even caricature.
The Catholic Church herself, in all her branches, has suffered
from these causes. The total effect on the maintenance of
the Christian Faith in the world has been disastrous.
Hardly less to be lamented, as a further result of division
and controversy among Christians, is the diversion and
waste of power, of time and interest, which might otherwise
have been profitably spent in, what is so greatly needed,
that deeper, closer, calmer, and more philosophic study of the
Christian Faith as a whole, and of the inspired Scriptures,
whereby the great Christian Society should bring out of her
treasure things new as well as old; should set, if need be,
old truths in a new light, show their applicability to the
more trying conditions of our complex modern life, and
bring forward into their due prominence, whether in her
own consciousness or in that of the world in which and
for which she exists, those truths (and such we are persuaded
there are) which belong indeed to the original deposit, but
are yet latent in the pages of the Bible, unrealised, or at
least, so far, not applied. In the department of Eschatology,
for example, there is much, very much, yet to be done in
this direction. Here, as in other subjects, it is the candid
patient labour of many thoughtful and believing minds, and
their calm and forbearing comparison and correction of re-

I

Preface. xiii
suits, that are required, to arrive, in the end, under the
good guidance of the Holy Spirit of God, at precious and
practically profitable and influential truth.
What is, perhaps, more needed than anything else at the
present time, to deepen, to give breadth and continuity to,
theological thought amongst us, is a deeper, closer, and com
pleter, study of the Old Testament Scriptures. Some have
almost seemed to think that the gift of the New Testament
had rendered the Old superfluous ; that since the fuller revela
tion of God in Christ all was useless and antiquated that had
gone before. No greater mistake could be made in Theology ;
not only because we cannot dispense with the Old Testament
in the general argument for Christianity, but also because the
revelation contained in it — which is also, in a very true sense,
a revelation of God in Christ — is not itself exhausted in lead
ing up to and preparing for the New Testament. The present
generation, in this country as elsewhere, has seen much done
alike for the criticism and for the exegesis of the New Testa
ment ; and there are indications that the study of the Greek
Language has advanced as far as it ever will. There are now
but few passages in the New Testament of which the render
ing, given the Greek Text, is doubtful or obscure. But the
recent Westminster Revision, with its many unwarrantable —
it may, in some cases, almost be said, its demonstrably un
tenable — alterations, from an insufficiently balanced view of
authorities, and from the unwholesome method of settling
such questions by majorities in too large a body, has shown
that there is much still to be done for the permanent settle
ment of the Text.
- With the Old Testament the case is different. Of the Text,
it may be, perhaps, true to say, there is at once far less
material and far less occasion for any reconsideration ; though
there is yet a large field open in the determination of the
relation of the Septuagint Version to the Hebrew Original.
But as regards the Translation, and the clearing up of pass-

xiv Preface.
ages and phrases at present wrongly rendered or obscure, or
even wholly unintelligible, there is much yet to be done. A
correct and adequate exegesis must, of course, wait for this,
and for a fuller and more generally diffused knowledge of
the original languages and their cognates than exists at
present. Let us hope that we are on the way to this. Let
us hope that the Revised Version of the Old Testament may
mark a great step onward ; and that, with other benefits, this
generation may be delivered from the mostly misleading
arbitrariness of chapters and verses in either Volume, and
may have seen the last of the enormity of presenting Isaiah
in such an outward form as that in which most of us had to
make our first acquaintance with him \ Let us hope also that
the students of the future will begin with a stimulating, if a
humbling, sense of how much yet remains to be done, in the
way of close and fruitful study of the Old Testament as a
whole, and of the Psalms and the Prophetic portions in par
ticular : how much towards the settlement of the true prin
ciples of interpretation, especially, for example, of the symbolic
and hyperbolic language of Holy Scripture, and towards the
making such principles generally known and understood,
when settled, and towards the clearing of the true view of
Prophecy, Messianic or otherwise, if indeed there be any
Prophecy which is not Messianic.
Further, let us hope that the study of the Old Testament
will be earnestly taken up by those who know and feel that,
except to Christian faith, it is and must remain a sealed book ;
a book in the reading of which there is, and must ever remain,
a veil on the faces of those who, from whatever cause, reject
the historic Christ in Whom it is at once fulfilled and — not
done away, but lifted to the full height of its glorious signifi-
1 In the meantime I would earnestly commend to the attention of students and
intelligent readers the beautifully printed Revised English Hxble, edited by the
Rev. Drs. Gotch and Davies, Jacob and Green. Eyre & Spottiswoode, London,
1877.

Preface. xv
cance, and invested for ever with an inexhaustible interest.
May they remember that it was in the lifelong knowledge of
these Scriptures that they had lived whom yet the merciful
Lord upbraided as foolish, and slow of heart to believe, whose
understandings He had to open, that they might understand
the Scriptures, beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, and
expounding unto them in all the Scriptures the things concerning
Himself. May they remember that, now as then, it is only
the Divine Eternal Word Who, through His in-breathed Holy
Spirit, can enable men to see clearly throughout the Bible its
one great Subject, which is Himself, in Whose Light alone
can we see light.
The believing Christian, however, in the outset, his faith may
have been helped by the converging force of very various
considerations, has, of course, the witness in himself, in his
certain inward experience of the reality of contact with God
and of supernatural grace, i. e. of the operation upon him of
the Holy Spirit, in mind and heart, in answer to prayer.
To honest enquirers Christianity may be defended on both
historic and philosophic grounds. Our age needs both lines
of defence. Perhaps the general English mind is more open
to the historic argument ; for it generally finds the concrete
more congenial to it than the abstract. But of real thought
on any subject there is little enough in the absurd hurry of
modern life. And in the way of the effect of even the
historic defence of Christianity there is the obstacle of the
scanty knowledge possessed by most of the history of our
Race, even so far as it is contained in the Bible, and their
consequent disadvantage in estimating the force of the his
toric argument. It may, however, help some if they are led
to regard the Bible in its true light, namely, As the History
of the Work of the One Mediator as the ' Educator ' of Man
kind, the Record of the gradual progressive development
of that Work, from Paradise to Pentecost. Throughout that
long and chequered history, the Christ, the Eternal Word,

xvi Preface.
Whose Incarnation was foreshadowed as well as predicted
from the first, is at once the Author and the Subject of the
Revelation; throughout it, and beyond it, for the Olivet
Discourse (St. Matt. xxiv. and xxv.) and the Apocalypse carry
us on to the predicted Consummation of the pre-Christian
Age in the Judgment of Jerusalem, while the latter chapters
of the last Book of the Bible, compared with the parallel
earlier utterances of Christ Himself — the real author of the
Apocalypse also — place us at the right view-point for our
present Dispensation — the Millennial Times of the Gentiles —
and disclose sufficiently, though in general outline, its career,
the main features of its close, and its glorious results in the
new Heaven and Earth. Such a view gives the necessary
unity to Revelation and to the Bible as its Record ; and, by
bringing out distinctly its progressive character, meets at
once many difficulties, or rather anticipates and forestalls
them. In the face of unbelief, amid whatever drawbacks from
the weakness of faith or the imperfection of life among
Christians, or from their grievous dissensions, the Religion
and the Society of Christ stand out through nearly nineteen
centuries as tremendous facts ; facts lodged in the very
centre of the active moving world, and of its activities ; facts
that cannot be denied or ignored, facts that must be ac
counted for in the past, that must be reckoned with in the
present ; facts which enshrine a spirit and a force which are
found, and ever will be found — else must the lover of man
kind despair indeed — to be, in the face of whatever oppo
sition, incompressible, indestructible, Divine.
P. G. M.
Nokth Cebnet Reotobt, Cikencester,
August, 1883.

CONTENTS.

LECTUKE I.

THE CREATION OF ALL THINGS THROUGH THE SON OF GOD.

SECTIONS 1-7. Introductory 
1. Peace with and Love of God necessary for Knowledge of Him
2. The Intellect to be used in the study of spiritual Truth
3. The Creeds contain all Fundamental Truth ...
4. The Supernatural must b6 accepted or rejected
5. Pre-eminent importance of the Nicene Creed . . .
6. Practical value of the Creeds in every-day life
7. Spiritual Truth is only spiritually discerned . . .
8. The first truth about God is His Only-ness ...
9. God is essentially a Father 
10. The Son is The One Mediator of the Father's Action
11. God, in Himself, and as related to Creation 
12, 13. In and after the Act of Creation the Son is the Mediator
14. Holy Scripture on the Natural Mediation of the Son
15. Creation is through the Eternal Word, 
16. Whose Existence is its necessary antecedent condition
17. The Godhead is manifested in and through the Eternal Word,
18. as the Son, the Only-Begotten, 
19. and as the Image of God 
20. The Father is the Fountain, the Son the Well, of Life ...
.21. Old Testament intimations of the Trinity 
22. The Universe is upheld by the Son of God 
23. Loss involved in partial views of His Mediation 
24. The Incarnation is the full development of Mediation,
25. but the Son, even before that, was the One Mediator . . .
26. The Old Testament insufficiently studied 
27. Christ the Supreme Personage in History 
b

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18, 20
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XV111

Contents.

LECTTJBE II.

THE SON OF GOD THE LIFE AND LIGHT OF ALL CREATION.

28. Life is given to all through the Son of God, 
29. Who is the Sovereign Lord over all that lives
30. and the Heir of all things 
31. The Consummated Universe to be His Heritage . . .
32. Grandeur of the Created Universe ; No antagonism between Science
and Theology 
33. Much of the Bible still imperfectly understood ...
3 4. Judaism looked forward to the future ; 
35. So also does Christianity 
36. The Son of God is the Light of the World 
37. Spiritual Illumination is only through Him 
38. Distinction between ' soul ' and ' spirit ' in Man ...
39. Effects of the withdrawal of the Holy Spirit from Man
40. The Priesthood of the Only-Begotten Son 
41. The essence of Worship is Self-Saerifice 
42. Connection of Priesthood with Primogeniture
43. Priestly relation of the Son to all Creation 
44. The unseen Angelic world 
45. The Angels' worship of God presupposes a Revelation
46. Angels employed in the administration of the Universe
47. Interest of the angels in the glories of Creation 
48. Moral life, and Probation, of the angels : Origin of Evil
49. Self-assertion against God the inner essence of Sin
50. The outward form of the first act of sin 
51. Effects of sin on angelic natures 
52. Foreseen loss through sin of some angels and men

45
46 475° 5i
54565758
62 63
64 66
68 7i
72 7477
8184
85

9092

LECTUKE III.

THE CREATION OF MAN; ITS RELATION TO THE INCARNATION.

53. The gradations of Organized Life 
54. /The processes of Nature the object of Science
55. Man is the Head of the visible world, 
56. and the most representative of all creatures
57. 'Traducianism' and ' Creationism ' both true
58. The Incarnation, probably, not contingent
59. Its effects reach beyond Mankind 

 96

 97

 99

..

 100

 102
 106
 109
Contents. xix
SECTIONS PAGE
60. It alone links Creation to God,  113
61. and secures its permanence and continual development  114
62. Scripture intimations of its wider Purpose  117
63. God's ultimate and all-inclusive Purpose  118
64. The Incarnation meets any true elements in Pantheism  122
65. Pantheism congenial to fallen man's thought of God  125
66. Only in Christ can Man bear the nearness of God  127
67. Unsatisfying hopelessness of Pantheism  128

LECTURE IV.
THE PREPARATION FOR THE INCARNATION : THE THEOPHANIES.
68. The long Preparation for the Incarnation  132
69. Patience needed under difficulties as to Faith  1 34
70. The Son of God the 'Life' and the 'Truth' to all,  137
71. and the ' Educator ' of Man from the first  138
72. Primeval Worship  140
73. Entrance of Sin into Man's world   142
74. Adoration of God for His mercy  144
75. The ' Protevangelium '  145
76. The primitive usage of Animal Sacrifice  145
77. Mediatorial relation of the Son to fallen Man  148
78. The Christian Faith the Key of Man's past History  150
79. The Ante-diluvian Dispensation  153
80. Its close was an ' End of the world '  •  1 54
81. Period from Noah to Abraham : Sodom and Gomorrah  156
82. The Mediator is also the Judge  157
83. The "Theophanies ' in the Old Testament  160
84. Primitive Christian belief that all Divine Dispensations,  162
85. and communications to Man, were through the Son of God,  164
86. Who is the ' Angel of the Lord '  166
87. The Incarnation no isolated fact  170
88. Illustrative passages from the New Testament  173
89. Unity of Operation of the Three Divine Persons  177
90. Saint Augustine's divergence from the primitive view  181
91. Hypothesis that the 'Angel of the Lord' was a creature  183
92. Cessation of the 'Theophanies' accounted for  187
93-111. Detailed Examination of the 'Theophanies'  189
93. Divine Appearances to Abram  189
94. Appearances of the 'Angel of the Lord' to Hagar  191
ba

xx Contents.

95. To Abraham on Moriah ; to Jacob at Luz, in Haran, at Mahanaim,
at Bethel  192
96. Visit of the three Angels to Abraham  195
97. The Appearance to Moses in the Burning Bush   197
98. The Pillar of Cloud and of Fire  199
99. The Divine Guardian of Israel  200
100. The Appearance to Balaam;  203
101. To Joshua before Jericho  205
102. To the People at Bochim : to Gideon  209
103. To the parents of Samson  210
104. The Angel of the Pestilence  212
105. The Vision' of Ezekiel  214
106. Appearances in the Book of Daniel  216
107. The Vision of 'The Ancient of Days'  217
108. The ' Great Vision ' of Daniel  ." 220
109. The Visions of Zechariah  224
110. The ' Angel of the Covenant ' in Malachi  230
111. These Appearances a bond between the Old Covenant and the New 231

LECTURE V.
THE MEDIATION OF THE SON OF GOD UNDER THE LAW.
112. The Christian Faith the only Key to past Revelation  233
113. The earlier Mediation of the Son of God was veiled  236
114. Old Testament hints explained by the Risen Christ  237
115. The Son operated behind and within the Legal System ; His Spirit
was in the Prophets  238
116. His Priestly Function under the Law  241
117. Development of Sacrifice in the Mosaio System  242
118. Underneath the Law lay the earlier Gospel of Faith  244
119. Grace was vouchsafed through the Unseen Mediator  246
120. Levitical Worship a shadow of the Heavenly  246
121. Christ sacrificed is the Sustenance of Man's Life  248
122. Significance of the ' Perpetual Passover '  250
123. The Unseen Christ fed His ancient People  251
124. The Kingly Sovereignty of Christ  253
125. The strife of good and evil in human History  255
126. The Theocratic constitution of Israel : the Judgment of Egypt ... 259
127. The Judgment of Amalek  262
128. The Judgment of the Canaanites  262

Contents. xxi
SECTIONS PAGE
129. God the Son especially 'the God of Israel; ' and their King  263
130. Judgments inflicted on them by their Unseen King  266
131. The first downfall of Jerusalem  267
132. Grandeur of the Calling of Israel  268
133. Modern critical study of the Bible  273
134. The study of God's Purpose is permitted  275
135. Need of realizing the Royalty of Christ  276
LECTURE VI.
THE INCARNATION; THE WORK OF THE INCARNATE MEDIATOR, ON
EARTH, AND IN THE UNSEEN.
136. The 'fulness of the time'  280
137. demanded some striking change  282
138. The Incarnation fully constituted the Son The One Mediator ... 288
139. The Incarnation is especially a message of Peace  290
140. The special work of Christ began with His Baptism  292
141. His Fasting and Temptation  293
142. His Work as Prophet  296
143. His Work as Priest, First, In the Upper Chamber  299
144. The three stages of the One Sacrifice  303
145. Gethsemane  3°9
146. His Passion  3*°
147. His Death  3"
148. The Unseen State  3J3
149. No further probation after death ;  314
150. but development and progress  3J6
151. The Work of the Mediator in the Unseen  318
152. The ' spirits in prison '  3X9
153. Increase of joy to the departed from Christ's Work  321
LECTURE VII.
THE WORK OF THE MEDIATOR DURING THE GREAT FORTY DAYS.
154. Importance of the great Forty Days  324
155. Christ, as King, organizing His Kingdom  326
156. The Seven Great Sayings ; First, Peace  328
157. The Second Saying, Commission  329
158. The Third Saying, Power  ,•¦• 3^9

XX11

Contents.

159. The remaining Four Sayings : The 'Power of the Keys'
160. The Pastoral Charge, by the Lake 
161. The Baptismal Commission, on the Mountain 
162. The Final Charge, at Bethany 
163. The Ascension 
164. Distinction between ' natural ' and ' spiritual ' Mediation
165. The Gift of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost 
166. The Action of the Apostolic Ministry 
167. Ideal life of the first Christian Church 
168. The forty years' Respite of grace to Jerusalem 
169. The three visible Appearances of the Ascended Christ
170. The date and purpose of the Apocalypse, 
171. which is an enlarged form of Christ's Prophecy on Olivet
172. Secondary ' applications ' of Inspired Prophecy 
173. Later examples of Christ's Judicial action 

PAGE 33°332 333335
335337 338
34°342343 344
345 349355 357

LECTURE VIII.

THE WORK OF THE MEDIATOR AFTER THE ASCENSION.

174. The temporary rejection of the natural Israel 
175. The Binding of Satan : The Reign of Christ, 
176. and of the Saints with Him 
177. The Ideal of Salvation in Christ 
178. The Millennial Reign 'within the veil' 
179. In Church Worship Heaven and Earth are one, 
180. especially in the Holy Communion 
181. The royalty of the Christian calling, 
182. secured and perfected in the Unseen State 
183. Christ's Work continually applied in the Church, 
184. by the Power of the Holy Ghost, through a ministrative priesthood
185. The One Mediator ever acts invisibly ; 
186. as Prophet ; 
187. as Priest; 
188. as King 
189. claiming the allegiance of all 
190. He is also the Judge 
191. Evils resulting from the unfaithfulness of Christians 
192. The predicted ' Apostasy ;' Anti-Christ 
193. The order and sequence of the ' Last Things ' 

359360363364 368369 37°
37i372 372373375376"377379380 382382385
389

Contents.

xxin

SECTIONS 194. The 'Passing-away' of this earth and heaven
195. The descent of the 'New Jerusalem' 
196. The consummated union of Christ with His Church
197. The uncovenanted saved 
198. Various degrees of blessedness 
199. The Consummated State a complex Society,
200. with an ordered government, under Christ the Head of Humanity

PAGE

391

394



396



401

 • 

402

404
1 of Humanity
406
APPENDIX I.
I. The Angels illuminated by the Son of God
II. The Angels are not merely spirits 
III. The Universe administered by agency of angels
IV. The essence of the first sin was Pride 
V. The fall of the Angels irremediable 
VI. Appearance of the Son of God in Paradise ...
VII. The Theophanies 
VIII. The Co-inherence of the Three Divine Persons
IX. The Title A donai belongs especially to the Son
X. Christ's Commission was given to the Church as a whole
XI. The Apocalyptic Babylon is Jerusalem
XII. The Millennial 'Binding of Satan'
XIIL Bible Ideals 
XIV. Christ the Minister of the New Covenant
XV. Antichrist 
XVI. The Restoration of the Jews 
XVII. The Surrender of the Kingdom 
411411414 416
419 423
426 5025°3505 5°952453i54°545553
563
APPENDIX II.
Additional Notes and References
Index 
57i578
LECTURE I.
THE CREATION OP ALL THINGS THROUGH
THE SON OF GOD.
St. John i. 3. Tlavra 81' avrov eyevero, nal )(G)pis avrov iyevero
ovbe kv o yeyovev. (All things came into being through
Him, and apart from Him came not into being even any
one thing that has come into being.)
1. It is a deep truth that Pectus est quod facit
theologum (It is the heart that makes the theologian).
It is ' the Peace of God which passeth all understand
ing ' that keeps us in the knowledge and in the love of
God ; in both, if in either. And the peace of God is
that inward condition in which the soul, embracing
heartily the essentials of Christian Faith, rests with
entire confidence on the revealed love of God in Christ,
and, yielding itself back to God with answering love,
desires before all things that His Will may be done
' in earth as it is in heaven.' This is the condition of
the children of God, wrought in them by the Holy
Ghost, the Comforter, the Sanctifier, the Enlightener,
without Whose help there can be no true knowledge
of the things of God. His Presence in the Soul, the
accompaniment of the indwelling therein of Him Who
is 'our Peace,' keeps both heart and mind ' in the know-
B

2 The Peace of God and the Love of God [lect.
ledge and love of God and of His Son Jesus Christ
our Lord.' But, in the growth of the Christian Life
within us, each helps on the other, and tends to
increase it in mutual reaction. The love of God, the
will to do His Will, the accompaniment of each ap
proach towards even the barest thought of Him by a
reverent longing, by the impulse of adoration, these
are the first elementary conditions of any real know
ledge of God. Where these are absent, there, although
the very highest themes that can engage the human
intellect may be treated of, and with the highest reach
of power whereof that intellect, learned, thoughtful
and informed, is capable, the discussion yet becomes
but one of mere empty names, representing different
ideas to different thinkers, and wholly barren of results^
of any value either intellectual or moral. Where they
are present the intellectual and spiritual vision of
Truth, though necessarily imperfect as to both exten
sion and intension, is clear in itself so far as it reaches,
and in its gathering strength furnishes ever fresh
motive and material for adoring love.
It is by this reaction of heart and mind on each
other that a faith, warm to the height of an absorbing
passion, and rational and intelligent to the utmost
reach of those faculties which ' the Father of Lights,'
our Creator, has given us, is nourished and sus
tained. For ' in order to the searching of the Scriptures^ and
the drawing therefrom of true Knowledge, there is
need of a good life and. a pure soul and the virtue- that
is according to Christ, in order that the mind, makin^

I.] necessary for the Knowledge of God. 3
its way thereby, may be enabled to attain and to ap
prehend the things after which it reaches forth, so far
as it is possible for the nature of man to learn about
God the Word. For without a pure mind and the
imitation of the life of the Saints would not any one
be able to comprehend the writings of the Saints '
(St. Aihanasius on the Incarnation, chap. 57).
Therefore, at the outset, I would pray in the words
of the illustrious Bishop Bull at the opening of his
great work in defence of the Nicene Faith : —
Te vero Sanctissime Jesu, aeterni Patris co-aeternum
Verbum, ego peccatorum maximus, servorum Tuorum
minimus, supplex veneror, ut huic labori meo, in hono-
rem Tuum sanctaeque Ecclesiae Tuae utilitatem (Te
KapSioyvwo-Tqv testor) suscepto, benedicere, meaeque im-
becillitati in hoc gravissimo negotio pro immensa Tua
inisericordia, atque in Tui amatores propensissima vo-
luntate subvenire atque opitulari digneris. Amen.
[O most holy Jesus, the Co-eternal Word of the
Eternal Father, I, the chief of sinners, and the least
of Thy servants, do humbly beseech Thee that Thou
wouldest vouchsafe to bless this labour of mine,
undertaken (as Thou, 0 Searcher of hearts, dost know)
for Thine honour and the good of Thy holy Church,
and to succour and help mine infirmity in this most
weighty work ; for Thine infinite mercy's sake, and
Thy most ready favour towards them that love Thee.
Amen.] 2. It need hardly be said to a Christian congregation,
that our intellectual powers, finite as they are in
their scale, and hindered as they now are in their action,
B 2

4 The Intellect to be used [lect.
especially on moral and religious subjects, by their
association with a nature morally corrupt and de
generate, are yet God's own precious gift to us, part
of our likeness to Himself, and so are to be used, and
not cowardly and faithlessly suppressed, in our ap
proaches to Him 'in knowledge of Whom standeth
our eternal life.' The Christian believer need not think
it a worthy sacrifice to God to withdraw the reverent
action of his mind from any subject-matter of thought,
even the very highest. On the contrary, he thinks it
his religious duty to press it. He does not fear that
the action of Eeason must of itself be hurtful to faith.
Such fear, from his stand-point, seems really as irre
verent and profane as it is groundless. He accepts cer
tain data, the fundamental cardinal Truths of Natural
and Eevealed Religion, as he feels himself, even intel
lectually, constrained to do by the cumulative converging
force of a vast mass of considerations of very varied
sorts, rational, moral, or mixed, d priori or inductive,
historic, or growing out of his study of himself, his
own subjective constitution, his moral and spiritual
necessities and aspirations. But in these data he finds
an inexhaustible field for the exercise of the very
highest and most delightful thought ; while, in the
standing results of such thought, in the sublimely
coherent and satisfying view of God, of Nature, of
History, and of Man, so opened up, he finds further
strong confirmation of the truth of those data them
selves. Compare Horner, Person of Christ, Vol. I, Preface, p. viii.
'Whoever reveres Christianity as accordant with the

r.] in the study of spiritual Truth. 5
highest reason, must also presume a progressive unfold
ing and strengthening of Reason through the power of
Christianity, and that no term can be fixed for Reason
in this advance. If in Christ be found, as Theology
must hold to be the case, the key to the world's History,
and the solution of all enigmas, it is not humility, but a
self-willed inactivity, to refuse to seek how we may ever
better and better apply this key for the resolution of all
mysteries.' And Ibid., Introd. p. 73. ' It is the tendency
of the Christianity, which has through the Holy Ghost
become subjective, to penetrate the whole sphere of the
soul ; and the man who should attempt to except the
knowledge department from that, and to abide in simple
immediate belief, would subject belief itself, which has
already knowledge as an element in it, and thereby con
secrates the knowledge faculty itself, to similar infirmities
with those which we see arise where faith does not pass
over into practice, but seeks to hold this sunk in itself.
.... The historical vocation of Christianity will not be
satisfactorily fulfilled where men rest contented with
being firm in the faith, with the deliverance of souls
from the world, but only there where Christian know
ledge, or science, is also held to be the work and vocation
of the Church along with that.'
Also Shedd's History of Christian Doctrine, Preface, p. v.
' It is a common remark that a powerful statement is
a powerful argument. This is true of the dogmas of
Christianity. But there is no statement of revealed
truth more clear, connected, and convincing, than that
which it obtains in the gradual and sequacious construc
tions of the Church, from century to century. Let any
one trace the course of thinking by the theological mind,
upon the doctrine of the Trinity, e. g., and perceive how
link follows link by necessary consequence; how the
objections of the heretic or the latitudinarian only elicit
a more exhaustive, and at the same time more guarded,
statement, which carries the Church still nearer to the

6 The Creeds contain all Fundamental Truth, [lect.
substance of revelation, and the heart of the mystery ;
how, in short, the trinitarian dogma, like Christian life
itself as described by the apostle, " being fitly joined
together, and compacted by that which every joint sup-
plieth, maketh increase unto the edifying of itself" into a
grand architectural structure, — let this process from be
ginning to end pass before a thinking and logical mind,
and it will be difficult for it to resist the conviction that
here is science, here is self-consistent and absolute truth.
It cannot be that the earnest reflection of all the Christian
centuries should thus have spent itself upon a fiction and
figment. The symbol in which this thinking embodied
itself must be the exponent of a reality. Such is the
impression made, and such is the unavoidable inference.'
3. For us those data are the great primary truths
about God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, which are
embodied in the Catholic Creeds. The fact that these
truths, reverently pondered, are seen to be in them
selves so luminous and coherent, and, further, to go
an appreciable way towards explaining the phenomena
of Nature, of Man, and of historic Bevelation, shews
(it would seem) very forcibly their own impregnable
truth. To the Christian they furnish a clue and a key
to much that without them is, and must remain, a
confused and inextricable, and, in its bearing on our
selves, our toilsome and suffering, our at best imperfect
and unsatisfying lives, a truly painful riddle.
In any system which is short of the full Catholic
Nicene Christianity many precious shreds and frag
ments of truth may indeed be attained to which may,
and do, nourish the moral and spiritual life in such
souls as heartily embrace them with a faith that keeps

i.] The Supernatural must be accepted or rejected. 7
itself open to fuller convictions as they may be offered.
But that full rounded satisfyingness, moral and intel
lectual, which is felt by the thoughtful Catholic be
liever to be so great a stay of faith, so great an
assurance of truth, can belong only to the complete
system of Bevealed Truth. Towards this full conviction
tends all hearty acceptance even of fragments of super
natural truth ; for it is a necessary consequence of the
coherency of a true system that the clear apprehension
of even portions of it has a tendency to lead on the
mind, which candidly pursues the trains of thought
thus opened up, to the apprehension of further truths,
and, ultimately, of the whole.
4. The true dividing fine in thought as to this class
of subjects is that between the acceptance of the
Supernatural and its rejection. Given the Supernatural,
the Catholic Scheme is possible. All will admit this.
And the Catholic maintains that, rightly understood and
fully apprehended, it is as certain as it, and it alone,
is fully and intellectually satisfying. Objections and
hesitations as to any parts of the Catholic Faith by
those who are Christian believers are felt to arise,
either from misapprehension as to what the Truth really
is, i. e. from objection to something which is supposed
to be intended but is not ; or else from the presence,
it may be quite unconsciously, of a way of looking
at unfamiliar truths, against which 'our unhappy
divisions' may have prejudiced their minds, that is
rationalistic (so called), but really unbelieving. In the
sectarian, and puritanical, and grievously miscalled
' evangelical,' rejection of certain Catholic Verities there

8 Pre-eminent importance [lect.
is much that is really due to this cause. And where
it exists outside, and in antagonism to, the organization
of the Church, it has shewn historically an unmis
takable tendency to work gradually downwards to
wards the ultimate rejection of the Supernatural, first
by individual teachers and thinkers, and then by con
gregations and communities.
From whatever causes (and they are manifold) the
rejection, or, if such an attitude of mind be really
tenable, the neutral non-acceptance of the Supernatural
is not uncommon in the present day. The tendency
is more and more for the world to be divided between
those who thus reject or ignore the Supernatural, and
those who accept the Catholic Scheme of Revealed
Truth as held by the Undivided Church, and stated
in the Nicene Creed as completed at the Council of
Constantinople. 5. In that document is enshrined all necessary funda
mental religious truth. In their hold of that the three
great branches of the Catholic Church are one. The
baptized man who holds that is a Catholic Christian
so far as his individual faith is concerned. Such an
one should find his natural home, and the warm
welcome of Christian brotherhood, in any portion of the
three great Catholic Communions with which he may
be, for the time being, in local contact. The ordained.
man must of course accept, in addition, the existing con
stitutional system, and the current practical teaching,
of the communion in whose executive he seeks to work.
But the first necessary steps towards the Re-union of
Catholic Christendom, which, if Christianity is to hold

i.J of the Nicene Creed. 9
its own, is obviously the great need of the immediate
future, will be the abandonment, at least to the extent
of ceasing to insist upon them as necessaries, of all con
stitutional features which are not common alike to all
three Communions, and the abolition of all express
adhesion, subscriptionary or otherwise, except only to
the Nicene Creed.
Let not this view be misunderstood, as if it were
meant that the area of certain and precious truth is
limited to the actual statements of this Creed. One
purpose of these Lectures is to shew that, taking the
foundation truths of this Creed as a key to unlock the
Holy Scriptures, there may be shewn to be, beyond
them, a large body of further truth, deeply interesting
and deeply important ; of truth which by its own
beauty and consistency and by the way in which, to the
eye of thoughtful faith, it lights up the whole field of
History and of Prophecy, furnishes a strong h posteriori
confirmation of the truth and strength of the founda
tion on which it is built, of the germ-truths from which
it is developed. But these further truths, beyond
those clearly expressed in the Creed, are not in them
selves vital. They are not necessary to the personal
spiritual life, or the union of the soul with Christ in
and through His Church. They are not fundamental.
They heed not, and, if they need not they ought not,
to be required of any as a condition either of member
ship or of office in the Church of Christ.
6. All vital and practical Religion grows out of a>
true conception of God, of His Nature, Being, Cha*
racter, and Purpose ; for on that depends our con-

10 Practical value of the Creeds [lect.
ception of His relation to Creation, to Man, and to
ourselves, and of our consequent relation and duty to
Him. It is from her strong instinctive over-ruling sense of
this, as well as of what is due to God and abstractedly
true in itself as a matter of Revelation, that the Chris
tian Church has always so strenuously insisted on the
necessity and importance of the doctrines of the Trinity
and the Incarnation. These truths, which are in
perfect harmony with Reason, though transcending
reason, and undiscoverable without Revelation, she has
ever felt to be no mere curious speculation, no cold
abstract and unpractical refinements of a remote and
over-subtle philosophizing, without bearing on cha
racter and life, and so admitting of being variously
viewed by the subjective intellect this way or that,
without danger or loss to the moral and spiritual
nature. Far on the contrary, the great champions of
the Catholic Faith, men like Athanasius, ever deeply
felt that they were not contending for barren in
tellectual victories or even for Truth in the abstract
(though that is precious), but were fighting really (not
to mention the honour of God) for the moral and
spiritual welfare, for the joy and comfort, ay, for the
possibility of the patient endurance without apathy
and despair in their every-day life, as well as for their
hopes of an eternal hereafter, of the poor and the un-
instructed, the toiler and the serf, the woman and the
child. It was the late Frederick Denison Maurice who
said that St. Athanasius ' asserted the eternal genera
tion of the Son not as a dry dogma, but as a living

I.] in every-day life. 1 1
principle in which every child and peasant was in
terested ' (Letter to Br. Jelf).
I adopt with gratitude the following passage from the
Bampton Lectures of 1879 (by the Rev. Henry Wace) : — ¦
' It is from this point of view that the Creeds of the Church
are to be approached, and when they are placed in this
light, all the appearance of mere speculative dogmatism,
which is attributed to them by scepticism, at once melts
away, and seems scarcely to need refutation. They are not
mere abstract statements respecting the nature of God.
They embody the most moral, the most human, the most
touching and affecting conceptions which can stir the
depths of the heart. If the Creeds are the distinctive
characteristic of the Christian Church, it is not because
Alexandrian metaphysics, or any mere theological specu
lations, had elaborated theories about the Divine nature.
That was the work of the Gnostics, of the Arians, and
of similar heretics. It was because, as a matter of
certain apprehension and most blessed fact, our Lord
Jesus Christ, fulfilling in His life and death and resur
rection the promises of the Old Testament, had revealed
to men the image of a God of infinite love and light,
had brought that God home to them in their very flesh
and blood, had assured them of reconciliation and union
with Him, had offered Himself as a propitiation for their
sins, and in answer to their prayers had bestowed on
them a grace and power, which they felt in daily expe
rience to be the first-fruits of redemption. It is the
whole of Christian life, the whole of that intense moral
and spiritual illumination we have been contemplating,
which constitutes the background of the creeds, and
bestows on them their vital force and reality. The
revelation of God, as we have seen in previous Lectures,
was the life of faith from its earliest dawn— the strength
of Abraham, the hope of the Prophets, the sum and
substance of the life of our Lord. In Him, His life, His

1 2 Spiritual Truth only spiritually discerned, [lect.
death, His resurrection, His ascension, it had become the
daily food of Christian souls ; and when, in Arianism, the
last and most subtle attempt was made to divide Him
from God, and thus to prevent us from feeling that, in
union with Him, we were in union with God, it was not
the Christian intellect, so much as the Christian heart,
that revolted. It was this impulse which animated
St. Athanasius. The spirit which really moved him may
be perceived in his treatise Be Incarnatione Verhi, written
before the controversial period of his life, and of which
the central idea is the recovery, through Jesus Christ,
of the glorious image of God which the human soul had
lost. It was probably to the intense devotion of St.
Antony to God and Christ, as much as to the schools
of Alexandria, that he owed his inspiration.'
7. If to any, devoid of the humility and of the
living faith which are at once the condition and the
consequence of that inward illuminating presence of
the Holy Spirit of God without which there can be
no true grasp of theological truth, such doctrines have
been, even in their orthodox statement, the subjects of
a mere intellectual exercise, they have ever been worse
than barren. They have tended, under such absence
of real spiritual life, to become perverted, distorted, and
depraved, and so untrue even in their intellectual
statement. For spiritual and supernatural truth, if it
is to be to any even abstractedly and intellectually
true, apart from its influence on practice, must be
' spiritually discerned.' On such subjects only the
' unction from the Holy One,' operating as well on the
intellectual as on the moral elements in the complex
unity of Man's nature, can give the true knowledge
of divine things, the living growing knowledge which

i.J The first truth about God is His Only-ness. 1 3
St. Paul calls iirlyvwa-is. This kind of knowledge is
the result of the gift of 'the spirit of wisdom and
revelation ' by which the eyes of our understanding are
enlightened (Eph. i.). And of this gift a genuine
moral sympathy with the Will of God is the necessary
condition ; for only ' if any will to do the Will of God
shall he know of the doctrine.' Only to ' the pure in
heart,' to those (that is) whose will is in sincere
endeavour attuned to God's Will, does the promise
belong that they shall see God in either the humble
partial knowledge, ' through a glass darkly,' which
belongs to this the pilgrimage of our exile, or in the
open vision ' face to face ' hereafter in the Fatherland,
in the 'City which hath foundations.'

8. ' There is but one living and true God. . . . And
in unity of this Godhead there be three Persons, of one
substance, power, and eternity : the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Ghost ' {Article I).
Christian Religion begins with an intense grasp of
the Unity, that is, the Only-ness, of God. The Catholic
believer does not admit the use of the term 'Unitarian'
as in itself expressive of an idea of God antagonistic
to his own; for his belief in the Trinity of Persons is
not only consistent with but demands the antecedent
fundamental verity of the absolute and indivisible
Unity of the Divine Essence, a verity which underlies
his whole conception of God and of Religion. He is
as essentially Unitarian as he is Trinitarian. But any
presentation of the thought of God which is negatively
Unitarian, (that is, Unitarian without being at the

14 Only-ness in God is not Loneliness. [lect.
same time Trinitarian, as, for example, in Moham
medanism, Socinianism, Deism, or Theism,) he rejects as
essentially inadequate, untrue, impossible. The Jewish
Old Testament belief was not (as we shall see) Uni
tarian in this negative sense. It simply asserted the
Only-ness of God, the Uniqueness, the Singularity of
God, regarded ah extra, as well as the Unity (though
this was naturally less insisted on) ah intra. But
neither the one nor the other is so asserted in the
Scriptures of the Old Testament as to exclude the
conception of Plural Personality within the Godhead.
On the contrary, they rather, when closely examined,
suggest it. They are not only consistent with, they
prepare the way for, the Christian beliefs of the Trinity
and the Incarnation.
The Only-ness of God is one thing, and is a neces
sary truth even of natural reason ; for it flows neces
sarily from the primary conception of God as the
Infinite, the Absolute, the Self-existent Being, as a
Pure Spirit locally incomprehensible (immensus). The
Loneliness of God is altogether another thing, and to
deny the Plural Personality, to assert the personal
singularity, of God is to assert the Loneliness of God.
Such an assertion presents us with the essentially cold
and sterile conception of a sterile being, a God from
whom the attribute of Fatherliness is essentially and
eternally absent ; who is, and ever must be, set at an
unapproachable and unrelated distance from all other
being ; whose existence is indeed incompatible with the
existence of any other forms of being. For such a con
ception of God renders the actual fact of the existence

I.J God, being Love, is essentially a Father. 15
of other beings than Himself unintelligible and absurd,
and tends to resolve itself into the conception of a
mere blind force, a Fate or Destiny, or even practically,,
for man, to blot out the thought of God altogether,
and land him in, at best, Agnosticism.
9. Glorious indeed in its contrast to a thought so
barren is the faith of the Christian in One Who is,
essentially and by His very Nature, a Father. We
worship One Who could not be otherwise, and so was
always and eternally a Father, in the strictest, fullest,
and most perfect sense conceivable, in such wise that
all other Fatherhood in created life follows from, grows
out of, and is the partial and imperfect reflection of
His essential and perfect Fatherhood. Our God is
Love; and Love is a relative term, and implies im
mediately and necessarily an object of love, and that
object a Person ; and love, to> be perfect, must be be
tween Persons perfect and equal. Wherefore, by an
Eternal Generation from the depths of the Divine
Fecundity, Which is the source of all Life, there is
eternally begotten an Only Son, Who is the forth-
flashing Brightness of the Father's Glory, the Very
Image or Impress of His Person, the Likeness, the
perfect reproduction, the adequate expression, of the
Invisible God, and so a satisfying object of His Love,
a Beloved Son, in Whom He is eternally well-pleased,
for in Him He eternally contemplates the perfect
reflection of His own glorious Nature and Attributes.
So strict is the Substantial Oneness of the Son with
the Father that the Son is the Word of the Father,
the Logos, the Thought, the Reason, the Wisdom, of

16 TheSontheOne Mediator of theFather s Action, [lect.
the Father ; and so the Means wherethrough the inner
Will and Purpose of the Godhead has passed outwards
into realization.
10. The Father has ever worked through the Person
of the Son. The Son is THE ONE MEDIATOR,
acting from and for the Divine Nature towards all else
that is. This Mediatorial Character and relation, which
it is the purpose of these Lectures to set in a clearer
light, belongs to Him as involved in His Filial Rela
tion; that is to say, it flows out of that relation
naturally and necessarily so soon as the fact of Creation
is added to the primary fact of God. To use the
language of scientific Theology, it is an ' economical '
function and relation ; but it rests on an anterior onto-
logical and metaphysical relation. It is not a part of
His Filial Personality as necessary a priori to its con
stitution, but it flows from it. The thought of Media
tion becomes necessary as soon as from the absolute
thought of God we pass to the related thought of
Creation, and the Bible Revelation distinctly attaches
that Mediation to the Person of the Eternal Son, in
respect alike of the Works of Creation, of Administra
tion, and of Redemption. This is the truth which,
under the guidance of Holy Scripture and of Catholic
Theology, it will be our endeavour to trace as it is
exhibited, at least in its grand outlines, in Nature and
in Grace. The task has been undertaken in the belief
that the full reach and scope, in depth and height, of
the aggregate intimations of Holy Scripture on the
subject have been very generally only imperfectly ap
prehended and insufficiently taken account of; and in

I.] God in Himself, and as related to Creation. 17
the hope that, in the course of our Work, considerations
may be suggested which may be helpful towards meet
ing some current difficulties ; or, at any rate, may Open
up to the thought of reasonable faith, and of faith-
quickened reason, such a view of the grandeur and
coherence of the Bible Scheme of things as may
at once confirm and extend, and uplift into a more
glorious and confident hopefulness, the faith of thought
ful believers.
11. In the first place, however, it is necessary that
we should remind ourselves of the necessity of keeping
clearly in our thoughts throughout the distinction
between the timeless and absolute, the properly eternal,
the unconditioned and unrelated Existence of God in
Himself, as He is in His inner Divine and inscrutable
Being, and His Existence and Operation in relation
to the Created Universe. So long as we think and
speak of the Divine Being only as He is in Himself,
there is no place for the thought of Mediation. And,
further, as we dwell on the clear teaching of Holy
Scripture, that it is ever through the Person of the
Eternal Son that God is in relation to Creation, we
must remember that the Mediatorial Character whereof
we shall speak throughout is one whereby the Son,
Con-substantial and Co-equal with the Father, operates,
not by way of inferiority, though it be in connection
with His Filial Subordination, not as a rpoTros vTrap^ew,
or a necessary mode of his Subsistence, but by way of
'condescension' and 'economy.' For, conceivably, it had
not been so, had no act of Creation ever taken place, had
there never been anything but God. In a past Eternity,
c

1 8 In and after the Act of Creation [lect.
before Time was, God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit
rested in the Manifestation of Himself to Himself, blest
in the overflowing Love of the Divine Persons each to
other; yet contemplating all possible action, Creation
included (since Creation did take place) as presently
realized to Him in Whose Absolute and Infinite and
purely Spiritual Existence there is no Past, Present,
or Future.
12. The thought of Creation, so difficult a concep
tion in itself, is rendered easier (so to speak) and more
intelligible when viewed in the light of the revealed
internal relation of the Son to the Father. That
relation seems, we cannot indeed say to necessitate
Creation, but at least to render it more probable and
more explicable. There is much that is suggestive and valuable on this
point in Dr. J. J. van Oosterzee's Christian Dogmatics,
section lv., on ' God's Plan of the World.' (Hodder and
Stoughton, 1874.)
Creation, that palmary and all-inclusive miracle,
once admitted as the act of a Personal free-willing God,
motived by supreme Love as well as executed by su
preme Wisdom and Power, then the Revelation of Him^
self and of His Love by the Almighty in the narrower
and more special and intimate sense to and through
the hearts and consciences of men, culminating in the
supreme Revelation of His Character in His Incarnate
Son and in the New Creation, of which, as of the Old
Creation, the Son is the Head and Centre, becomes
natural, consistent, and probable. Certainly, as re
gards the Natural Creatiou, as soon as we think of

i.] the Son is the One, the Universal, Mediator. 19
the Father as the Creator Whose inner Will has gone
forth in a Fiat which has called into existence a whole
Universe out of nothing, from that moment the lan
guage of Holy Scripture compels us to attach a.
Mediatorial Character to the Son. We use the term
' Mediator,' as esteemed theological writers have done
before, in its strictly proper and. derivative meaning of
' One who is a means of intercourse between two other
parties, and through whom action passes from either
to other,' a meaning much wider than its too commonly
restricted application to Christ as the atoning and re
conciling Mediator between Man, as fallen and sinful,
and God His Maker. Mediation in this latter sense,
as exercised by the Eternal Son, however specially
necessary and unspeakably precious, is still a part of a
larger whole. It is a special function of a larger office,
a result of a wider Mediatorial relation in which He
stands to unfallen as well as to fallen natures, indeed
to all created existence. To regard in this way Christ's
special atoning work, with its unspeakably touching
circumstances of love-compelling tenderness exhibited
in the extremest humiliation and suffering, is (we are
persuaded) to take a truer and more firmly-grasping
view, a worthier, because a more comprehensive view,
and at the same time (if we may use the expression)
a more intelligible view, of His whole relation to us.
Such a view tends to satisfy more completely our sense
of fitness with reference to His special work of Man's
Redemption : while at the same time the sense of the
inconceivable grandeur of His relation to the whole
scheme of things cannot but overwhelm us the more
C 2,

2Q Theological writers on the [lect.
with wondering and adoring gratitude at the thought
of His suffering Love for us. Lord, what is man that
Thou visitest him 1 and the son of man that Thou so
regardest him?
13. On this point Bishop Bull writes thus, ( We must
note, in opposition to Bellarmine and other papists, that
Hilary expressly affirms (as it is clear that the ancients
taught in common) that our Saviour was a Mediator
even in the giving of the Law, and previous to the
Incarnation ; and, therefore, is not a Mediator merely in
respect to His human Nature, seeing that He had not
as yet assumed it ; and yet this is what they have
earnestly maintained.' Defence, of the Nicene Creed, IV.
iii. 14.
Similarly Cardinal Newman, in his History of the
Arians, II. 3. % : ' Our Lord is called the Word or Wisdom
of God in two respects ; first, to denote His essential
presence in the Eather, in as full a sense as the attribute
of wisdom is essential to Him ; secondly, His mediator-
ship, as the Interpreter or Word between God and His
creatures.' And again (II. 4. 5) : ' Of the two titles
ascribed in Scripture to our Lord, that of Logos ex
presses with peculiar force, His co-eternity in the One
Almighty Father. On the other hand, the word Son
has more reference to His derivation and ministrative
office. A distinction resembling this had already been
applied by the Stoics to the Platonic Logos, which they
represented under two aspects, the evbiaderos, and the
¦K-poQopiKos, i. e. the internal thought and purpose of God
and, its external manifestation, as if in words spoken.
The terms were received into the Church ; the evbid6eros
standing for the Word, as hid from everlasting in the
bosom of the Father, while the TrpocpopiKos was the Son
sent forth into the world, in apparent separation from
God, with His Father's name and attributes upon Him,
and His Father's will to perform. This contrast is

I.] Natural Mediation of the Son.

21

acknowledged by Athanasius, Gregory Nyssen, Cyril, and
other post-Nicene writers ; nor can it be censured, being
scriptural in its doctrine, and merely expressed in philo
sophical language, found ready for the purpose.'
And the same writer, in a Christmas Day Sermon on
the Incarnation : ' He is called the Word of God as
mediating between the Father and all creatures ; bring
ing them into being, fashioning them, giving the world
its laws, imparting reason and conscience to creatures
of a higher order, and revealing to them in due season
the knowledge of God's Will.' Newman's Parochial
Sermons, Vol. II.
Compare Dollinger, First Age of the Church, Book II.
Chap. ii. ' The Son as His Image reveals the otherwise
invisible Father, as the brightness of the sun is manifested
in its rays. By Him and iu Him (by a creative act of
His Person) were all things made; as the Mediator of the
Divine work He has formed the whole universe.' And
again, ' He is the Only-Born of the Father, for He is the
Word the Father has outspoken into separate personal
existence out of the fulness of His Being, and by whom
alone He speaks. This Logos was, and now is, the organ
and medium of creation ; by Him all was made, and He
alone is life, and gives life, of body or of soul 5 for in
Him all life is contained as its Principle and Fountain.
As the Light of man He shone into the darkness which
grew out of man's alienation from God, even before
He was incarnated ; but the darkness comprehended
Him not, and when He came as Man to His own
people the multitude of them rejected Him. The world,
as the Apostles teach, was created not only by, but for,
the Son, and for His sake ; for He is its immediate End,
in Him its every end is realised, and therefore has God
given it Him for an inheritance, and put all things
under His feet.'
And Martensen, Christian Dogmatics, § 125. ' As the
mediator between the Father and the world, it appertains

22 Holy Scripture on the Natural, [lect1.
to the essence of the Son not only to have His life in the
Father, but to live also in the world. As " the heart of
God the Father," He is at the same time the " eternal
heart of the world," through which the divine life streams
into creation. As the Logos of the Father, He is at the
same time the eternal Logos of the world, through whom
the divine light shines into creation. He is the ground
and source of all reason in the creation, be it in men or
angels, Greek or Jew. He is the principle of the law
and promises under the Old Testament, the eternal light
which shines in the darkness of heathenism ; and all the
holy grains of truth which are found in heathenism were
sown by the Son of God in the souls of men. During
His pre-existence, however, He was merely the essential,
not the actual, mediator between God and the creature ;
for the antagonism between the created and the un
created was as yet done away with merely as to the
essence, not as to existence {essentia, escistentia) ; the
strife between God and the sinful world was healed
merely in idea, not in. life and reality. In His pre-
existent state, therefore, the Son regards Himself as the
One who is to come in and through history ; who pre
pares beforehand the conditions under which the reve
lation of His love can take place, His incarnation in the
fulness of the times can be effected, and the manifesta
tion be made by which the idea of Him as the mediating
God will attain complete realization.'
Hengstenberg also, Christology, Vol. IV. Appendix III,
finds ' in the Old Testament the doctrine of a revealer
of God, who is equal to God, and yet distinct from Him,
a mediator between God and the world.'
14. The leading passages of Holy Scripture on the
relation of the Eternal Son to the work of Creation are
the following : —
I Cor. viii. 6. Efj Geo? 6 liarnp, e£ ov to vavra, kou

i.J or Universal, Mediation of the Son. 23
rjfxeh els avrov' kou eh Kyoto? 'Irjcrovs Xpiaroi, St' ov tci
iravra kou rmeh Si avrov. (There is One God, even the
Father, out of Whom are all things, and we unto Him :
and One Lord, Jesus Christ, through Whom are all
things, and we through Him.)
Colossians i. 15. "Of ecrriv eiK(bv rov Qeov rov aopdrov,
TrpooTOTOKOS "jra&r]s KTiarews' on ev avrw eKTicrdri to -nravra,
ra ev roh ovpavoh Kai ra em rqs yys, to opara Kai ra
aopara, e'ire Qpovoi, e'ire Kvpiortjres, e'ire ap-^a'i, e'ire e^ovo-lai.
ra Travra 01 avrov kou eh avrov eKricrrai' Kai airro? ecrriv irpo
TravTbov, kou ra irdvra ev avrta avviarriKe. (Who IS the
Image of the Invisible God, the Firstborn of all crea
tion : for in Him were all things created, the things in
the heavens and the things on the earth, the visible
things and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions
or principalities or powers ; all things (or, the whole
universe) were created through Him and unto Him ;
and He is before all things and in Him all things
consist (or, hold together).)
Hebrews i. 2. At' ov Ka\ row aiwva? eirolrjo-ev. (Through
Whom also He made the worlds — or, ages.)
St. John i. 2. Tldvra Si' avrov eyevero' Ka\ xwph avrov
eyevero ovSe ev o yeyovev. (All things came into being
through Him: and apart from Him came not into
being even any one thing that has come into being.)
On these passages compare the following : — ' The ab
solute universal mediation of the Son is declared as
unreservedly in this passage from the First Epistle to
the Corinthians, as in any later statement of the Apostle.'
Bishop Lightfoot of Durham, Colossians, Introd. III.
p. ia2. Third Ed. 1879.

2,4 Commentaries on these [lect.
' The heresy of the Colossian teachers took its rise in
their cosmical speculations. It was therefore natural that
the Apostle in replying should lay stress on the function
of the Word in the creation and government of the
world. . . . AH things were created through Him, are
sustained in Him, are tending towards Him. Thus He
is the beginning, middle, and end of creation. This He
is because He is the very image of the Invisible God,
because in Him dwells the plenitude of Deity.' Ibid*
p. 116.
- Christ's mediatorial office in the physical creation
was the starting-point of the Apostle's teaching, His
mediatorial office in the spiritual creation is its principal
theme. ... If the function of Christ is unique in the
Universe, so it is also in the Church. He is the sole
and absolute link between God and humanity. Nothing
short of His personality would suffice as a medium of
reconciliation between the two. Nothing short of His
life and work in the flesh, as consummated in His
passion, would serve as an assurance of God's love and
pardon. His cross is the atonement of mankind with
God- He is the Head with whom all the living mem
bers of the body are in direct and immediate commu
nication, who suggests their manifold activities to each,
who directs their several functions in subordination to
the healthy working of the whole, from whom they
individually receive their inspiration and their strength.
And being all this He cannot consent to share His
prerogative with others. He absorbs in Himself the
whole function of mediation. Through Him alone, with
out any interposing link of communication, the human
soul. has access to the Father.' Ibid. p. 117.
Again, on ev avr£, 'All the laws and purposes which
guide the creation and government of the Universe reside
in Him, the Eternal Word, as their meeting-point. The
Apostolic doctrine of the Logos teaches us to regard the
Eternal Word as holding the same relation to the

I. J Passages of Holy Scripture. 25
Universe which the Incarnate Christ holds to the
Church. He is the source of its life, the centre of all
its developments, the mainspring of all its motions.'
Ibid., Notes on Col. i. 16.
On 81' avrov, ' As all creation passed out from Him, so
does it all converge again towards Him. On the com
bination of prepositions see Rom. xi. 36. . . . He is not
only the A, but also the J2 ; not only the dpyf\, but also
the reXos of creation  In the Judaic philosophy of
Alexandria the preposition bid with the genitive was
commonly used to describe the function of the Logos in
the creation and government of the world . . . The Chris-
, tian Apostles accepted this use of bid to describe the
mediatorial function of the Word in creation,' not how
ever as 'a passive tool or instrument,' which would be
rather denoted by the simple instrumental dative <S, bat
as ' a co-operating agent.' Ibid.
On els avrov, ' All things must find their meeting-point,
their reconciliation, at length in Him from Whom they
took their rise — in the Word as the mediatorial agent,
and through the Word in the Father as the primary
source. The Word is the final cause as well as the
Creative agent of the Universe . . the goal . . as He was
the starting-point.' Ibid. But the whole of Bishop
Lightfoot's full notes on Coloss. i. 15-17 should be very
carefully studied.
And Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, Section lvi. 6. ' It
is an essential element in the Christian belief in creation
that He Whom we confess as Redeemer was in His
higher nature the mediate cause of the creation . . .
These expressions (in the passages of Holy Scripture
above quoted) can be taken in no secondary sense. . . .
They are wholly in harmony with that which the Gospel
proclaims concerning the nature of the Logos, and so
much the better do they explain to us wherefore no
other than the Christ is the centre of God's Plan of the
world (§ Jv.) and the Redeemer of a race to which He

26 Creation through tJie Word, Whose Existence [lect.
originally stood in the closest relation. That which
many a philosopher dimly conjectured, namely, that God
did not produce the world in an absolutely immediate
manner, but, some way or other, mediately, here presents
itself to us as invested with the lustre of revelation, and
exalts so much the more the claim of the Son of God to
our deep and reverential homage.'
15. In considering these passages of Holy Scripture
we observe that their force is greatly weakened and
their meaning obscured by the rendering of the im
portant preposition Sid as by rather than through in
our Authorized Version. In places where the work
of Creation is alluded to passively, as in St. John i. 10,
'O /coVyuo? Si' avrov eyevero (The World was made by
Him — rather, The World came into being through
Him), the impression conveyed to an English reader
is that of exact equivalence to ' He made the World,'
whereas, in reality, they express the means rather
than the primary Originating cause. But we see
clearly that wherever anything further is said of the
work of Creation, beyond the primary truth that it
was the act of God as an Almighty Personal Agent,
the Eternal Son is revealed as the Medium of His
Action, the invariable and the sole medium, without
Whom was not anything made that was made. (St.
John i. 3.)
1 6. In that remote beginning, of which the opening
words of the whole Bible as of St. John's Gospel tell
us, in that beginning of all else that is outside the
timeless existence of Him Who has no beginning, no
end, even then, by a necessary and eternal existence

i.J is its necessary antecedent condition. 2 7
before all Creation, the Word was. His Uncreated
Existence is the necessary antecedent condition of all
created existence. He is in this sense ¦wpwroroKos nrdo-^
Krlo-ews, The Firstborn before all creation. (Coloss. i. 15.
See on this Bishop Lightfoot's exhaustive note, and
Dr. Liddon's Sixth Bampton Lecture.) The thought
of an impersonal or uni-personal God creating anything
might be almost described as theologically aro-wov, im
possible, or at least unworthy of the Creator and the
Creation alike. For the creature, at the highest, must
necessarily be at an infinite distance beneath the
Creator, and could never, of itself and by itself, how
ever grand and vast, be a worthy and adequate exhi
bition of His Force, or a worthy object of His Love,
Who is Himself Infinite. If the Power and Fecundity
of God must express itself at all it must express itself
worthily, adequately. It must beget that which is
equal in Being and Essence to His own Infinity,
perfect as Himself in moral attributes, complete in
likeness to Himself, worthy and sufficient to have its
Being in His Bosom, in a word, a Son. That posited,
the minor, however stupendous, exhibition of the Divine
Fecundity and Love and Life, in the evoking created
existences out of nothing, is in due place, and becomes
to our thought conceivable and natural. For the Love
Which God is makes Him essentially Self-Communica
tive. And His primary and necessary and plenary
Self-communication is the Eternal Generation of His
Only-Begotten Son. We see then that St. Paul's
statement that the Son is before all things, is more
than a mere enhancement of the dignity of the Son.

28 God manifested in and through [lect.
In the connection in which it stands it amounts to a
declaration that the existence of the Son is a necessary
antecedent condition of the existence of anything else
outside the Being of God.
17. God's lower Self-communication, of Himself as
Being and Life, is to Creation. This is not essential
or necessary from His very Nature and the Law of His
Being, but springs from the superabundant overflowing
of His Love. The Sight of God manifested is the
overflowing joy of all intelligences in the proportion in
which they are morally and intellectually capable of it.
This is essential joy, for it is the Joy of God. In the
Three Persons of the Ever-Blessed Trinity there is an
infinite capacity of this supreme Joy. In an absolute
and plenary sense the Father knoweth the Son, and
the Son knoweth the Father, and as the spirit of man
which is in him knoweth the things of a man, even so the
Spirit of God knoweth the things of God ( 1 Cor. ii. 11).
In the sight of Himself in a Perfect Son is the
supreme overflowing Joy of the Father. In the sight
of the Father is the supreme overflowing Joy of the
Son. Only to the Divine Persons can this supreme
Joy belong, for only the Divine has infinite capacity to
know and to contain, to apprehend and fully to com
prehend, the Infinite. But this joy might be com
municated to inferior capacities according to their
measure. The Love of God willed that it should be
so communicated; and with that joy, and as an essential
part of it, the answering attracted love towards God
which the sight of Him compels : and, with that again,
the movement towards God in a growing likeness to

i.J the Eternal Word, 29
Him on Whom the gaze of loving adoration is ever
fixed; and, as a consequence of this, multiplied in
finitely among the inconceivable multitudes of the
countless worlds of an Universe of inconceivably vast
extent, as a consequence of this, in the thought of the
sum-total of creaturely happiness and of creaturely
loving worship, so rendered possible, an increase of that
(which admits of no increase), the Joy and the Glory
of the adorable Author of all.
But this glorious result must be attained through
the Son, the One Mediator. It is inconceivable with
out Him, apart from Him. In His Existence first, by
an essential, and so eternal, act of Self-Communication
of the One Original Being and Life, lay the possibility
of further, though inferior, communication of being and
life, and of consciousness of themselves and of God, to
created and dependent natures.
And so Creation must be through Him, as the
Thought, Reason, Wisdom, and, further, the Speech of
God. For He is the Logos in both senses, ivSidOeros
and TrpoipopiKos (see above, § 1 3). The inspired use of
the word to express His inner and eternal relation to
the Father compels the further conception of a mani
festation ad extra, in addition to that of His supplying
ad intra the Manifestation of God to Himself.
Compare Dr. Liddon, Bampton Lectures, Led. V. ' The
Logos necessarily suggests to our minds the further idea
of communicativeness; the Logos is Speech as well as
Thought. And of His actual self-communication St.
John mentions two phases or stages ; the first creation,
the second revelation. The Word unveils Himself to the

30 as the Son, the Only- Begotten, [lect.
soul through the mediation of objects of sense in the
physical world, and He also unveils Himself immediately.
Accordingly St. John says that "all things were made"
by the Word, and that the Word Who creates is also the
Revealer : " the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among
us, and we beheld His glory." '
1 8. Again, Creation must be through Him as the
Son, and dependent on His Existence as the Son ; the
Generation of the Son being the essential, necessary,
eternal, infinitely perfect result of God's productive
power, in which, as in their germ and principle, all
other forms and degrees of production were contained,
as the Ideas and Archetypes of all created things were
eternally in the mind and thought of God.
Liddon, Bampton Lectures, Lect. VI. 'There was no
creative process external to and independent of Him ;
since the archetypal forms after which the creatures are
modelled, and the sources of their strength and con
sistency of being eternally reside in Him.' . . . . ' In ev,
airy .... although the preposition immediately expresses
the dependence of created life upon Christ as its cause it
hints at the reason of this dependence, namely, that our
Divine Lord is the causa exemplaris of creation, the
Koa^os vorjros, the Archetype of all created things.'
As the word Movoyevys (Only-Begotten, or rather,
Only-Born) expresses the unique and transcendent
relation of the Second Person to the First within
the One Indivisible Essence, so the word IIpoororoKos
(First-born) as used by St. Paul (Coloss. i. 15) in the
phrase UpoororoKot xa'o-^y Krio~ewi (First-born before all
Creation) expresses His unique and transcendent and
necessary relation to all created existence. In the

i.J the Image, of God. 31
beginning, when God created the Heavens and the
Earth, the Word already was, and so through Him was
the whole Universe (ra. irdvro.) created.
19. Again, Creation must be through the Second
Person as He is the T&hwv (Image) of the Invisible God.
If such elements and features of the Nature and Attri
butes of God as could be manifested in the miniature
forms of created and finite life were to be thus mani
fested and expressed — -for the greater glory of God in
the delight felt by His intelligent creatures in the
beauty and order, and in the forces and powers and
uses of a vast Universe, as exhibitions of the Power
and Wisdom and Love of God, and so a mirror wherein,
in a measure, God Himself might be seen and known
(see Acts xiv. 15-17 ; Romans i. 19, 20) — if there was
to be this kind of Revelation of God, then it must
necessarily be through Him Who is absolutely, perfectly,
and adequately, the Image of God. It pre-supposes His
Pre-existence. Liddon, Bampton Lectures, Lect. VI. 'The eUdv is
indeed originally God's unbegun, unending reflection of
Himself in Himself; but the elwov is also the Organ
Whereby God, in His Essence invisible, reveals Himself
to His creatures. Thus the eiKutv is, so to speak, naturally
the Creator, since creation is the first revelation which
God has made of Himself.'
This is more especially seen to be a necessary truth
when viewed on its moral side. If on any minor scale
the moral attributes of God, His Righteousness and
Purity, His Holiness and Love, were to be expressed
in created and finite natures, to whom should be given

32 TheFather the Fountain,theSontheWell,of Life. [lect.
the capacity of an unspeakable happiness in the pos
session and exercise, towards Him and towards each
other, of natures and qualities like those of God, then,
necessarily, such finite natures must be created, as Holy
Scripture tells us they were, in the image and after
the likeness of God. For this reason again, and more
especially, must they be created through Him who is
the absolute and perfect Image of God.
20. And further, if weaker and dependent life, in
beings created out of nothing and so finite, was to
be called into existence, it must be through Him in
Whom was Life by plenary and infinite communica
tion from the Father, that is, through the Son ; for as
the Father hath life in Himself, so hath He given to
the Son to have Life in Himself (St. John v. 26), so
that He as well as the Father is Life, the Life of all
that lives. Life must flow from the Father, the in
exhaustible Fount and Spring of all Life, into Him
Who is the overflowing and inexhaustible Reservoir of
Life, the Well of Life Who is with God (Psalm xxxvi.
9), and so to Creation from Him from Whose fulness
all else that lives has received (St. John i. 16) its several
share of the gift of Life.
21. Standing thus on the level of New Testament
Revelation, and looking back on the partial and pre
paratory Revelation of the Old Testament as Christian
believers, we see in it, whether in its dogmatic state
ments, its historic records, its actual religious ob
servances, or its forward-looking prophetic utterances,
a far deeper and fuller meaning than they who lived
under the Old Dispensation, or even they who were

I.] Old Testament intimations of the Trinity. 33
the vehicles of its Inspiration, oould themselves be
conscious of. In this we find a real confirmation of
our faith. Such thoughts are indeed no argument to
those who believe not ; and are not offered as such.
But to the believer in Inspiration, who knows that
holy men of old spake as they were moved by the
Holy Ghost, the allegation, that such and such a view
is beyond the thought and consciously-intended meaning
of those writers themselves at the time, is no difficulty
whatever. Inspired as they were to speak of things to
come, the scope of their utterances must necessarily
have been beyond the grasp of their own conscious
thought. They knew this ; they knew that not unto
themselves but unto us they did minister the things
(1 Peter i. 12) the fulfilment of which was announced
by the first preachers of the Gospel, and for this very
reason they searched what and what manner of time
the Spirit of Christ which was in them did signify.
(Hid.) To limit the meaning and scope of the Sacred
Writings of either Testament to that of which their
human writers were conscious, and to treat that as
necessarily exhaustive, is, of course, really to deny
Inspiration altogether.
In the plural name of God ; in the form of the
utterance of the great resolve, Let us make man in
our image, after our likeness; in the sayings, Behold,
the man is become as one of us, and, Let us go down
and confound their language; in the Whom shall I
send, and who will go for us, of the great vision of
Isaiah ; we discern not a mere dignity of phrase, but
the intimation of a great mystery. In like manner,
D

34 The Personal Wisdom of God [lect.
in much of the Old Testament language about the
word of God we trace an admissible and very striking,
if not always a necessary, personal sense ; of which
indeed the paraphrases and commentaries of later
Jewish writers themselves after the close of the Old
Testament Canon show an evident consciousness.
Among the most remarkable phenomena of the Old
Testament, as preparatory to the full disclosure of the
existence of personal distinctions within the Divine
Nature, and of the great work of the Son of God, are
the occasional Appearances of God in visible form ;
especially when taken in connection with the general
statement of Holy Scripture that None (ovSels) hath
seen God at any time. These will demand a separate
consideration, as examples of the truth enunciated by
St. John that, before the Son of God came unto His
own land and people in the actual Incarnation, He
was in the world though the world knew Him not.
(St. John i. 10, n ; on which see Professor Westcott in
the Speaker's Commentary.) But there is one sublime
passage which now, to us, and viewed as we may and
must view it, is full of so glorious light and beauty that
we cannot more appropriately illustrate what has now
been set forth than in its exquisite language. It is the
Eternal Personal Wisdom of God Who speaks, (Pro-
¦^verbs viii) : —
The Lobd possessed Me, the Beginning of His Way,
Before His works of old.
I was anointed from everlasting,
From the first, from the beginnings of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,

i.J the Agent of Creation. 35
When there were no fountains abounding with water.
Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills, was I brought forth.
While as yet He had not made the earth, nor the fields,
Nor the first clods of the world.
When He prepared the heavens I was there ;
When He set a canopy over the face of the deep :
When He established the skies above:
When the fountains of the deep waxed strong :
When He gave to the sea its bounds,
That the waters should not pass their border;
When He appointed the foundations of the earth ;
Then I was by Him, I the Builder ;
And 1 was daily His delight, rejoicing always before Him;
Rejoicing in His habitable earth;
And my delights were with the sons of men.
On the whole we should judge that the truth, re
vealed in various forms with such uniform consistency
in Holy Scripture, that the Father created all things
through the Son has the appearance of a necessary
truth, the expression of that which, Creation being
given, could not be otherwise. Indeed we might
almost assume d priori that such a character of ne
cessity, arising from the Law of His own Being
whereby God is What He is, would attach to the
mode of the Divine operation, especially in so supreme
an example of it ; so that we may believe not only that
it is so, but that it could not be otherwise. In this
sense therefore, that the original act of Creation passed
necessarily through Him as its effecting Agent, we
ascribe to the Son of God, as such, and in His Divine
Personality, an inherently Mediatorial character re
latively to Creation as a collective whole, and especially
d 2

36 The Universe upheld by the Son of God. [lect.
to created life, and, more especially again, to intelligent
and conscious created life in personal beings with will
and moral choice.
22. But we have not yet exhausted the sublime
statements of Holy Scripture as to the relation of the
Son of God to the Universe. He is not only the
Agent of its beginning and origination, He is also the
Means of its continuance and preservation. In Him
as well as through Him, were all things created, and
in Him all things consist (Coloss. i. 17); for He
upholdeth all things by the word of His power (Heb.
i. 3). This is said expressly of the Son ; and so of
Him, doubtless, may we correctly understand the more
general statement of the Apostle to the heathen
Athenians that in God we live, and move, and have
our being (Aets xvii. 28). In like sense must we
understand also the language of St. John (Gospel, i. 4),
that in Him was Life, and the Life was the Light
of men. This indeed carries us further than our pre
sent point;. but because it does so it includes it. For
by Light we must here understand moral and in
tellectual Light, as both derived to Man from the Son
of God, being the higher forms of that life which they
have from Him Who is the Life. But if the higher
forms of life are from Him, much more the lower life,
which is their ground and condition, and so their whole
being, is from Him in Wliom we live. Conversely, as
Creation must Scripturally be considered as holding
together in the Word, so are we taught that the
Word has always been and is in Creation. So St.
.John says, He was in the world, and the world was

I.] Loss involved in partial views of His Mediation. 37
made by Him, though the world knew Him not.
This is the truth of His immanence in creation as
the very base and ground-condition of its continuance.
In this truth again, viewed thus on its two sides, as
the world is in Him and as He is in the world, is
inherently contained the idea of a mediatorial relation
in respect of the preservation, as well as in respect of
the origination, of the Universe.
23. We cannot but think that Christian Theology
has lost, both in breadth and depth and height, from
the general absence of sufficient appreciation of these
far-reaching and pregnant truths ; and from the cus
tomary restriction of the idea of Mediation on the
part of the Son of God to His redeeming work for
man as fallen. Nothing, we may readily allow, can
be more natural than that restriction. We miserable
heirs of sin and shame, conscious of the evil and moral
failure and alienation from God in ourselves, and
sickened by the grotesque misery and sin and de
gradation of human nature, especially as it has been
and is without Christ, and so, for the most part,
amid all its griefs, without hope and without God, we
cannot but dwell with overpowering amazement, and
gaze with an absorbing interest, on the work of moral
and spiritual restoration as wrought by the Incarnate
Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus. But — such is the
limitation of human powers — the very fact that we
do so, and rightly and necessarily do so, creates the
risk of insufficient attention to other glorious truths,
which are not only equally true, but are also perfectly
harmonious with the truths which more especially and

38 The actual Incarnation of the Son is [lect.
vitally concern us ; nay, further, lead us on and up to
the fuller, larger, conception of a whole of which such
special truths are a part, and so put these special
truths themselves into a truer position in the abstract,
and tend to give us a firmer and more unassailable
grasp of them. When it is seen that to the Eternal
Word of God, the Second Person in the One, Holy,
and Undivided Trinity, there belongs, as such, a Me
diatorial Character, and that all the ad extra action of
the Eternal Father has passed, and passes, and that
necessarily, through Him, the One Mediator, alike in the
origination and in the maintenance and administration
of the Universe — our conception of which and of its
extent and possibilities has been so wonderfully en
larged by the discoveries of Science even within the
last fifty years, and of which we and our little globe
seem to form so infinitesimal a part — then the special
character of His Mediation in the affairs of this un
happy province of His illimitable Realm, the special
kindness and (piXavOpw-n-la (love to man, Titus iii. 4)
whereby according to His mercy He saved us from
the deathly grasp of His and our enemy, seems to
fall into its place. Stupendous as it is, and, possibly,
unique in its manifestation of the moral attributes of
Him Whose very Being is Love, it becomes almost
(as we may say) natural and of course.
24. Mediation, in the sense of Atonement and Re
conciliation as between God and man as fallen, and of
conveyance of grace from God to man as fallen, does
not exhaust the idea of Mediation as between God and
man as man. Had man never sinned, Mediation and

i.J the complete development of Mediation, 39
a Mediator had still been needed, as the means of
communion between him and his Maker, the means
whereby the longing love and worship of the creature
should ascend to the Creator, and progressive blessing
descend from Him upon the creature ; and of this
Mediation, when fully developed, the Incarnation might
still, even without the necessity of the Atoning Suf
fering and Death, have been the ultimate and perfect
form. Thus the great saying (1 Tim. ii. 5), There is
One God, and One Mediator betiveen God and men,
the Man Christ Jesus, had still, in any case, been
emphatically true, even had sin not made it necessary
for Him to give Himself a ransom for all. It does
not follow that, because, in that saying, the Apostle
lays especial emphasis on the Humanity of the Mediator,
therefore His Mediation is to be thought of only as
restricted to His reconciling work between God and
man as sinful. Since that is the special subject of the
passage (as the mention of the ransom shows), nothing
is more natural than that attention should be so drawn
to the Incarnation ; but it does not therefore follow
that the Incarnation, as the union of the Creator with
the creature, though actually effected in the nature
of man, may not have far wider bearings, and extend
in its effects and benefits to the whole of that Creation
of which man, compounded as he is of elements material
and spiritual, is the wonderful epitome and microcosm.
Thus we are led to the great thought that the In
carnation as the perfect instrument of Mediation, in its
widest sense, may have been included in the original
thought, in the Eternal Purpose, of God, even apart

40 but He was the Mediator even before that. [lect.
from the foreseen contingency of the entrance of Evil
and Sin, and so of death and ruin in separation from
God, into a portion of His very good Creation. But
of this we shall speak hereafter. (Lecture III.)
25. That the Son of God as Incarnate is the Mediator
of Redemption is the faith of all Christians ; and, being
accepted as a broad foundation truth of our religion,
needs no special enforcement now. It will be our endea
vour to exhibit in the closing Lectures ( VI, VII, VIII)
of this series the special forms and phases of this work,
in its earthly and in its heavenly stages.
Yet, just as we believe that a strictly Mediatorial
work and function belongs to the Son of God in His
Divine Nature, in respect of His general sovereign
relation to the Universe, in its origination and in its
continuance and administration (and this apart from
the special work of Redemption), so we believe that,
in the special work of Redemption, His gracious in
terest in and intervention for His creature man is not
to be restricted, if we would rightly understand it in
its due connection and place, to the period since His
actual Incarnation. Rather is that the climax of a
long course of previous visitations and dispensations
of mercy, whereby it was, in various ways, as we can
now clearly see, foreshadowed and prepared for by the
loving, though as yet the veiled and unrecognised,
action of the gracious Son of God, the tender and
patient iraiSaywyos (Educator), to use the expressive
phrase of St. Clement of Alexandria, the 'loving
Wisdom of our God' (Newman's Bream of Gerontius),
Who rejoiced in His habitable earth from the be-

i.J The Old Testament insufficiently studied. 41
ginning of its existence, and Whose delights were ever
with the sons of men, to whose nature He was one day
to link Himself in vital personal union, and so make it,
and us, His very own for ever ; to Whom be the glory
for ever and ever. Amen.
26. The recollection of this truth (on which perhaps
sufficient stress is not generally laid in the thoughts
of even devout and educated believers), is, we are per
suaded, really necessary to the full strength of the
argument for Christianity. It is, no doubt, only
natural that the writings of the New Testament should
have been more studied than those of the Old. Their
original language is more generally known ; the ren
dering of them in the Authorized Version is more
accurate than that of the Old. They contain fewer
difficulties ; their meaning, on the whole, lies more on
the surface ; their application to our own spiritual life
and its circumstances is more direct and obvious. A
mistaken and partial view of St. Paul's teaching has,
perhaps, in certain schools of thought, led to an untrue
disparagement of the Old Testament as compared to
the New, as if it were opposed, and even contradictory
to it ; as if there were an impassable chasm, an entire
breach of continuity, between the Christian and all
previous Dispensations. The language of our Seventh
Article, that 'The Old Testament is not contrary to
the New, for both in the Old and New Testament
everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who
is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both
God and Man,' and that ' The old Fathers did not look
only for transitory promises,' still bears witness to a

42 Continirity of God's dealings with Mankind, [lect.
sense on the part of our Reformers of the existence of
some misapprehensions of this kind in some forms of
theological thought current in their day. And this,
notwithstanding the equally real phenomenon of a
tendency in some quarters to lay undue stress upon,
and, often in a mischievous way, to revive and adopt
certain features of Jewish civil and social life, or of
Jewish moral and religious habits of thought.
Surely any failure to perceive and to take due
account of the great truth of the continuity and pro-
gressiveness of God's dealings with mankind as fallen
through successive dispensations of mercy, any dis
regard or forgetfulness of the essential coherence of
the Old and New Testaments, of the Jewish and
Christian Churches, involves a serious weakening of
our grasp of Revelation as a whole, and of our sense
of its grand historic reality as enshrined, first, in the
very being of the Jewish Race and of the Catholic
Church, and, secondly, in the Literature, inspired or
other, of both. We will even go farther and say, that
it must, in our judgment, deprive us of the one and
only key to the true interpretation of past human
history as a whole ; and, consequently upon that as
well as in itself, disable us from anything but the
merest conjecture as to its future course and ultimate
destiny. It must leave it, as a whole, in our view of
it, nothing but a tangled mass of confused and un
intelligible details, a puzzle wholly insoluble and
arbitrary, a riddle to which we have no clue, painfully,
nay vitally, interesting as it is to the true patriot and
the generous humanitarian, amid the growing diffi-

i.J Christ the Supreme Personage in History, 43
culties, social, industrial, political, of the older nations ;
not to speak of the deeper but connected evils which
the march, however magnificent, of a material civi
lisation, and the advancement, however striking, of
science, theoretical or applied, can do nothing to cure
or to remove, and, for the masses of mankind, but little
to relieve or to compensate.
27. Judaism was a forward-looking Religion; and
so, essentially so, is Christianity, its perfected de
velopment. Christianity, and Christianity alone, has
the hopes of the future in its bosom, the key of the
future in its hand. The common corporate consciousness
of believing Christendom knows this ; because, amid
whatever eclipses of faith among individuals or nations,
its eye has been ever uplifted to One glorious Per
sonage, Eternal and Divine, One grand central Figure,
Who dominates human history from first to last, as
He does all history of worlds of being beyond our
ken, One Who, now as always, always as now, before
or since His manifestation in the flesh, is the King of
Men, the real operative and controlling spiritual force
in human history throughout, the Alpha and the
Omega, the Beginning and the End, the Eternal Son
of God, the Lord, and the Heir, of all things, for us
made Man. To Him as Man in His ascended glory is
given the Name that is above every name, that in the
Name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven,
and things on the earth, and things under the earth;
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father (Phil. ii. 10).
Of old, The Lord sat throned above the Beluge (Psalm

44 the King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.
xxix. 9), and now, as then, the Lord sitteth King for
ever. Him we own as King of Kings, and Lord of
Lords, to Whom all power is given, in Heaven and on
earth (St. Matt, xxviii. 18), in the unseen worlds and in
the seen, in things eternal and in the things of time : —
Ever since the world began hath Thy Throne been prepared,
Thou art from everlasting.
The floods are risen, 0 Loud,
The floods have lift up their voice ;
The floods lift up their waves.
The waves of the sea are mighty, and rage horribly :
But yet the Lobd Who divelleth on high is mightier. (Ps. xciii.)
The Lord is King, be the people never so impatient :
He sitteth betioeen the Cherubim, be the earth never so unquiet.
(Ps. xcix.)
The faith of the Christian in this great cardinal
truth of the Supremacy of Christ in the affairs of
men, and in His continuing guidance and governance,
from His unseen Throne in heaven, both of His Church
and of His World, cannot but be greatly strengthened
by the closer study of the record contained in the
Old Testament Scriptures of the energising of the
Word among men before His Incarnation.

LECTUEE II,
the son op god the life and light
of all creation.
St. John, Gospel, i. 4. 'Ev airy far) tfv (In Him was life).
St. John, First Epistle, v. 13. 'O eXo>v rov vlbv 2X« rr,v frfr- 6 pf,
excov rov vlbv rov &eov t^v frr\v ovk e^ei (He that hath the
Son hath life : he that hath not the Son of God hath not
life).
St. John, Gospel, xiv. 6. 'Eyco dpi 77 obbs rat j) a\.rj6ua nal fi (a>rp
ovbeh epxerai 7rpoy rov -narepa, el pr] bi epov (I am the Way,
the Truth, and the Life ; none cometh unto the Father but
through Me).
28. Seeing, then, that a Mediatorial character belongs
necessarily to the Son of God because the Act of Crea
tion was necessarily through Him, we have next to
point out that that Mediatorial character is thence
forward exhibited in continuous action in the inflowing
of Life, in all its forms and forces from the lowest to
the highest, into all living creatures from the Almighty
Father through the Son.
Strictly speaking, the Life of all that lives is the
energy in them of the Holy Spirit of God, Who is
to fyoTToiov (the Giver of Life). This energy is mani
fested, in infinite gradations, in an ascending scale
from the lowest and most rudimentary forms, from
mere growth and movement and instinct through

46 Life is given to all thro^lgh the Son. [lect.
thought and will and moral affections and conscience
up to spiritual affinity to God. But that Life passes
ever and only through the Son of God to all created
existence. The Incarnate Christ vouchsafed a typical
example of this truth when, on His first meeting with
His Body, His redeemed Church, in His risen and
glorified Humanity, now become, as the result of His
finished work, the sacramental Organ Whereby Life in
its highest form and fulness was to be communicated
to that Body, He, on the first Easter-night, breathed
on His disciples and said, with words of creative power,
Receive ye the Holy Ghost, giving the great Gift, in its
anticipatory measure, by that expressive outward and
visible sign. Christian faith has ever seen in this car
dinal incident the antitype, for the New Creation, of
that breathing into Man's nostrils the breath of life
which marked the first creation.
29. As the mediating source of life to all that lives,
on Whom all life depends, the Son of God, in personal
subordination to the Father, is, by necessary conse
quence, the Sovereign Lord also and King over all
that lives. The Royalty of the Only-Begotten con
sists, or is exhibited, in the dependence of all created
existence upon Him. This gives Him a right of
supreme dominion over all, ' implying,' as Bishop
Pearson expresses it (Creed, Article II), 'a right of
possession and a power of disposing.' This Royalty
belongs to His superior Nature as the Son of God and
the Heir of all things. It is, as Bishop Pearson says,
inherent in His Divinity, and so is to be distinguished
from the dominion over all things which was ' bestowed

ii.] The Son is the. Heir of all things, 47
upon His Humanity.' The Human Royalty of Christ
grows out of this His inherent and Divine Royalty by
way of necessary consequence. It was bestowed im
mediately upon His Incarnation ; though developed, or
manifested, by successive stages corresponding to the
progressive stages of His Work. It was completed at
His Ascension and Enthronement in our flesh at the
Right Hand of God.
But long ere the Incarnation His Throne had been
established with the Father (Psalm xlv. 6 ; Heb. i. 8).
During the elder Dispensations, in a mystery not as
yet fully revealed, He had been King and Priest after
the order of Melchizedek. Him the Lord had set as
King upon His holy hill of Zion (Psalm ii.) Of Him
it had been written, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit
Thou at My right hand. . . . The Lord shall send the
rod of Thy power out of Zion, Be Thou Buler even in
the midst among Thine enemies (Psalm ex.) The In
carnation, and the taking up the bestowed Royalty
of which Bishop Pearson speaks, were the predestined
visible manifestation of that inherent Royalty which
had throughout belonged to Him as the Son, which
the bestowed Royalty presupposed, and on which it
ultimately rested.
30. From the Eternal Sonship of our Lord, and
connected with His inherent Royalty, flows also, first,
His Divine, and then His Human Heir-ship. His
Heir-ship and Sonship over all in His Father s House
is, as Bishop Pearson expresses it, ' the necessary con
sequence of His Filiation ' as the Only Son of God,
Who ' ?0ijice (appointed) Him Heir of all things' (Heb.

48 for Whom all things were made. [lect.
i. 2), Who loveth Him and hath given all things into
His hand (St. John iii. 35), Who sheweth Him all
things that Himself doeth (v. 20), so that What things.
soever the Father doeth these also doeth the Son likewise
(v. 19). Hence the Son can say, looking back upon a
far-reaching past, My Father worketh hitherto, and I
work (v. 17), a saying whose height of meaning the
Jews immediately apprehended rightly, and so sought
the more to kill Him, for they perceived that, so
speaking, He claimed God as His Father in a peculiar
and unique sense (liarepa "iSiov e'Xeye rov Qeov), making
Himself equal with God (v. 18). By His Heir-ship
He was ever Lord and Master over God's House, i.e.
over the Universe (Heb. iii. 2-6), faithful in His ad
ministration to Him That appointed Him, not only in
a grander sphere than Moses, but in a superior and
wholly unique relation, not as a servant, but as a Son,
Himself Divine, worthy of more glory than Moses by
how much He That built the House hath more honour
than the House. For every house is builded by some
one; but He that built All Things is God. The same
truth lies also in St. Paul's words to the Colossians
(i. 16), that as all things were created through the Son
and in the Son, so also were all things created for
Him (eU avrov), towards Him, or with a view to Him.
This expression seems to point onwards to some great
consummation in the remote future when, the Divine
Plan being fully worked out, all things should become
His in their completed and perfect and eternal state,
when the process of evolution was complete, and so
should be His abiding possession and inheritance, His

ii.] All Creation summed up in the Incarnate Son. 49
Kingdom, vitally and organically linked with Himself,
even as to its material elements, through the pre
destined Incarnation. It is in this connection that we
must take account, in interpreting the «'? avrov (for
Him), of St. Paul's language to the Ephesians (i. 10),
wherein he says it was part of the mystery of God's
Will according to His good pleasure which He purposed
in Christ unto a dispensation of the fulness of the seasons
to sum up all things (rather the whole universe, avaice-
<pa\atwo-ao-6ai ra. iravra) in the Christ, both the things in
the heavens and the things upon the earth, in Him, in
Whom also we were made an heritage. Our Authorized
Version in this passage wrongly renders (eKkripwdripev)
in Whom also we have obtained an inheritance ; for the
declaration here is not that we inherit with Christ as
joint-heirs (a glorious truth referred to three verses
later), but that we ourselves are included as a part in
Christ's heritage, by our predestination, to His praise
and glory. Compare Dean Alford's note on Ephesians i. 10, 11.
'All creation is summed up in Christ. It was all the
result of the love of the Father for the Son, and in the
Son it is all regarded by the Father. The vastly
different relation to Christ of the different parts of
creation is no objection to this union in Him ; it affects,
as Bengel says, on Rom. viii. 19, " each genus according
to its own receptivity." The Church, of which the
Apostle here mainly treats, is subordinated to Him in
the highest degree of conscious and joyful union : those
who are not His spiritually, in mere subjugation, yet
consciously; the inferior tribes of creation, unconsciously:
but objectively, all are summed up in Him; in whom
we (Christians, all, both Jews and Gentiles: who are
E

50 The Consummated Universe [lect.
resolved below into " me" and "you": see on ver. ia) were
also (besides having, by His purpose, the revelation of
His will, ver. 9. — Not, A.V. "in whom also") taken for
His inheritance (the prevalent idea of Israel in the Old
Test, is a people whom the Lord chose for His inhe
ritance; see Deut. iv. 20; ix. 39; xxxii. 9; 3 Kings
viii. 51 ; al.) Olshausen calls this " the realization in time
of the election in Christ spoken of before," viz. by God
taking to Himself a people out of all nations for an
inheritance — first in type and germ in the Old Test.,
then fully and spiritually in the New Test.'
31. The idea of Christ's Heir-ship throws our thoughts
onwards to a distant future ; to a future we know not
how distant even yet. Herein we perceive the dif
ference between His sovereign Royalty as King and
His dignity as Heir of all things. His Royalty is
present and immediate, from the first moment of the
beginning of creation. His Heir-ship carries with it a
promise of something future. For its realization it
waits through the long protracted processes, as they
seem to us, of a wondrous evolution, the length of
time required for which is only now beginning to be
apprehended by scientific discovery, but which won
derfully enhances our conception of the scale and
grandeur of the Creation, of its history, and of its
meaning and purpose. That purpose is, That in
its perfect consummation it should be the glorious
Heritage of the Only Son of God. I speak of Creation
in its largest, most inclusive, sense of To. Udvra (the
Universe), the majestic whole, with its worlds within
worlds of inanimate and animated existences, of merely
animal or of conscious intelligent existences, up to the

it.] the Heritage of the Incarnate Son. 5 1
very highest. Vast, inconceivably vast, as it is, there
is yet a wondrous unity and continuity throughout it.
It evidently forms one whole ; . and is, as evidently,
in all its powers and forces (whether blind, and so
abjectly under uniform material law, or conscious and
so acting under the higher and more spiritual law of
will and choice), in all its methods and processes, in
all its ends and purposes, subordinate or inclusive,
the manifest product of one originating Mind, under
the over-ruling guidance of one all-controlling Will,
but all working towards one final end, the ultimate
perfection, as a whole and in all its parts, of the whole.
And all to be, when so perfected, the Heritage and
everlasting Possession of the Son of God ; to be united
to God in Him and through Him Who is Himself, in
His Incarnation and in His thenceforward abiding Hu
manity, the crowning product of Creation, imparting
His glory and His worthiness to the whole.
Compare Dorner, Person of Christ, vol. iv. p. 332.
'To the very important thought, That the God-man,
Jesus Christ, is not merely a means of humanity, that
is, for the work of redemption in particular, but is also
an end in Himself served by the entire world, too little
importance has frequently been attached.'
32. Does this seem too grand a view of Creation?
Be it remembered, First that, perhaps, we cannot have
too high thoughts, too great expectations, of that
which God, infinite in power and in wisdom, has
vouchsafed to make ; nor deem too highly of its ca
pabilities or of His resources. There is no end of
His greatness. We honour Him by thinking much
E 2

52 Grandeur of 'the Universe as an Object of 'study, [lect.
of, by meditating with reverent and patient study on,
even the lowliest things that He has made. Only
Almighty Power could have made the very lowest of
them. Marvellous are Thy works, and that my soul
knoweth right well. The more intense the adoring
faith of the Christian, the deeper is the interest with
which he observes and studies even the material part
of God's Creation and the lower forms of life; the
more eager and respectful the attention with which he
welcomes each fresh addition to the gradually un
folding Revelation of the manifold wisdom of God as
displayed in that world of Nature which, perhaps, we
separate too sharply, and mark off too jealously, from
the world of grace. Not only the lower forms of life,
but even the forms of inorganic matter on which the
great temple of Life itself is founded and built up,
and the mighty forces stored up even in that which is
yet merely material, are worthy of close and attentive
study. Such study — gradually unfolding their mani
fold wonders, and the new and unimagined uses to
which they may be applied, in ministering to human
life and realising Man's appointed lordship over nature
— can but raise, for the devout and thoughtful mind,
its conceptions of the meaning and ultimate destiny of
the whole, and of the magnificent scale of the pur
poses of God. Later generations will marvel that it
could ever have entered into the thought of any that
there could be any antagonism between true Theology
and true Physical Science ; or that God's Revelation
of Himself in Creation and Nature could be a less true
(albeit a less glorious) Revelation of Himself than is.

ii.] No antagonism between Science and Theology. 53
His Revelation of Himself in Redemption; or that
there could possibly be any real contradiction between
the ascertained truths of the one and those of the
other. That it has ever been so is but one amoBsr
the many illustrations of the infirmity of narrowness
which besets our human nature. Men's minds have
become enamoured of the special pursuits to which
their thoughts have early been directed, and in which
they have subsequently become absorbed. Either of
these great themes is so vast that it may well take up
the whole field of any one man's thoughts. This,
when it has been so, has tended to decrease sympathy
with the other ; partly because of its necessary un-
familiarity, partly because of the selfish pride which
some minds take in their own pursuits, especially when
those pursuits are the property of comparatively few.
Certainly there has been and is an, it may be un
avoidable, one-sidedness on both parts. Theologians
and religious men have, as a rule, known too little
and thought too little about Physical Science in any of
its departments. They have, quite needlessly, dreaded
it ; quite unworthily disparaged it ; and have been all
too ready to suppose that its ascertained truths could
be mischievous to faith. And, equally, men of science
have too often, perhaps more often of the two, dis
played a supercilious ignorance of theological truth
which has warped their minds,- in some cases, into an
even ostentatious animosity to faith, and made them
too ready to claim a premature triumph over some
truth of Religion, real or supposed, long before they
had really established the exact truth of their own

54 The Christian welcomes all scientific discovery, [lect.
supposed discovery, much less fully thought out its
relation to other truths, even of the physical sort.
Certainly, to the believing student of Nature, as he
watches with the deepest interest for each new en
largement of man's knowledge of Nature and of Man,
no feeling can occur but one of adoring gratitude. He
rejoices that He Whom he knows as the true Light
that lighteth every man should, by His operation in the
natural sphere of man's reason, have led on any to new
knowledge of His methods and processes in Nature ;
though, if it be so, they acknowledged not the guidance,
but prided themselves, or allowed others to flatter
them, as though by their own power or strength they
had gotten them this wealth. The Christian welcomes
gladly the grander thoughts presented of what may be
the ultimate consummated perfection and beauty of
that material habitation, or the forces and uses of those
material powers, which shall be placed at the disposal
of Man in his fully redeemed state, when the royal
charter of the glorious liberty and sovereignty of the
children of God, as shadowed forth in the Eighth
Psalm, shall, at the length, be fully realized in the
Kingdom of the Christ, the Perfect, the Ideal Man, the
King of Men.
33. Great as have been the advances in both de
partments within our own generation, and specially
hopeful as is the greatly increased interest in biblical
study, there still remain, in both, large tracts of pre
cious truth to be explored and made our own. There
are yet, it can hardly be doubted, regions of truth,
both Natural and Revealed, of which glimpses and

ii. J Much of the Bible still imperfectly understood. 55
guesses, it may be, have flashed on rare occasions on
the choicer and more thoughtful spirits among man
kind, but which did not become the abiding realized
possession of their fellows, nor even of themselves.
And there are again, it may be, truths, more ascer
tained and familiar, which are far, as yet, from having
been so thought out as to yield their full heritage of
precious acquisition ; far, as yet, from having been
duly co-ordinated in their proper relation to other
acknowledged and connected truth, and so brought
to bear with due and needful influence on human life
and action. In the Revelation of God's purposes, as
well as of His past dealings with mankind, enshrined
in the inspired pages of the Bible, there yet remain,
we are fully persuaded, some far-reaching, and, when
duly ascertained, some influential truths and principles
which are at present altogether overlooked, or but
dimly and uncertainly apprehended, in the thoughts
of Christians in general.
Compare Dollinger, First Age of the Church, Preface,
' These beginnings ' (the Original Apostolic Church)
' contain the powers and secrets of a culture which,
embracing the whole of humanity in its universal scope,
is still, after eighteen centuries, ever receiving new life
and in constant growth; there is laid up in them a
wealth of creative ideas, a fulness of new forms in
Church, in State, in Art, in Knowledge, and in Manners,
which are far, indeed, from being exhausted ; nay, more,
which in time to come will bring to light developments
in knowledge and in life that as yet we can scarcely
conjecture.'
This is especially the case in regard to the escha-

56 Judaism looked forward to the future ; [lect.
tological portions of the Old and New Testament;
and indeed generally in regard to the whole question
of the interpretation of the Prophetic language of
Scripture, and, as throwing light upon this, the re
lation to it of actual subsequent History. There are
not wanting signs that the questions connected with
subjects of this kind, the heart-searchings and diffi
culties that arise as to what the Christian Religion
really means and has to say as to the present condition
and as to the destiny in the great hereafter of vast
multitudes of the human race, both within and without
the local pale of Christendom, have become already so
practical and pressing as to compel the Church of God
to face them, and to say, when many and various
minds have been brought to bear upon them, what
thoughts the Word of God warrants us in entertaining
as to the hopes and possibilities of the future, and,
even better still, what new present duties may mani
festly lie before herself.
34. Judaism of old exhibited the most surprising
vitality, and survived the extremest changes of con
dition, because it was a forward-looking religion. Its
golden age was ever in the future! Its eye was
ever watching for Him Who was to come. It lived
not only in hope, but by hope. What its inner corpor
ate mind, so to say, as a whole is now, in its present
state of trance and suspended animation, God only
knows, Who for the times of the Gentiles hath shut
up all in unbelief that He might have mercy upon all.
What we do know is, that, even now, the Race to which
the gifts and calling of God are without repentance

II.] so also does Christianity. 57
(aperapeXrjra, unaltered, unrecalled, on His part) is not
dead, but sleepeth, with veiled eyes ; and that some
wondrous future, in connection with some great acces
sion of renewed life to the Church at large, is yet in
store for it. (See St. Luke xxi. 24. Bomans xi. 25-32.)
35. And, like Judaism, Christianity can live only as
a forward-looking religion. It must show itself in each
generation equal to and abreast of the present, the
ever-changing present, as it keeps emerging from the
womb of time. But more, it must convince each pre
sent generation that it can never be exhausted, or
superseded, or cast aside as done with. It must show
that, so far from that, it is the One, the One true, and
absolute religion, the Religion of Humanity; and that
it carries within its bosom the hopes and promises of
the future for the whole human Race. It must show
that its principles and organization alone, as they once
did successfully in the Fifth and following centuries,
and again in the Ninth and Tenth, can again carry the
worn-out societies of a long-standing civilization across
the catastrophic changes which, as in centuries gone
by, so again in the future, may overtake the world of
men ; or can preserve alive the forces which may re
constitute them under new conditions. It will be a
grander and more difficult service for the Church of
Christ than any she has been called to in the past ; by
how much the ruin and disruption of Nations and
Society from causes developed from within are ever
worse than those inflicted by external violence and
aggression, which often have carried within themselves
the means of their own repair. This Christianity must

58 Calvinism is not Christianity. [lect.
do on the stage of History, and in the sphere of temporal
things. But further she must show that she alone has the
key which can open any way out of the difficulties,
speculative, perhaps, but real, as affecting the pur
poses and character of God, which occur to the modern
mind on the subject of the Everlasting Future. Cal
vinism, with its premature and unreal completeness of
an apparently rounded logical system, had its answer
for these questions, its remedy for these difficulties ;
a remedy worse than the disease, an answer which
only raised deeper questions than it solved. Its system
led, as it could only lead, those who were trained in it,
if they reflected upon it at all and did not shut their
eyes to it, to a denial of the very existence of Him
Whom it misrepresented and caricatured. But Cal
vinism, as a religious force, is dead. Thoughtful be
lievers who have been associated with its outward
forms and confessions of doctrine, must, if they remain
believers, exchange its narrow trammels and reject its
intolerable conclusions for the healthier and diviner
atmosphere, the largior et purior aether, of a Faith more
Catholic and true, more worthy of God and Man.
36. The thought of Christ's Heir-ship, as the Only
Son of God, has carried us on to the thought of the
ultimate consummated glory of that vast realm of
created Life which is to be His Heritage. We are
now more particularly concerned with the Bible Reve
lation of His functions towards. Creation whereby,
through the instrumental agency of the Holy Spirit
of Life and Light, the progress of Creation towards

ii. J The Son of God is the Light of the World. 59
that final destiny is being slowly evolved. We have
dwelt already (in Lecture I.) on the Mediatorial cha
racter of the Son of God, the One Mediator, as the
Means wherethrough all Existence and Life have
passed from the Father to the finite and dependent
forms of being. We must now consider Him as the
Medium of Light and Knowledge, and especially of
spiritual Knowledge ; as the Revealer, and especially as
the Revealer of God, the Knowledge of Whom is the
highest endowment of the Creature, to all his intel
ligent and rational creatures, angelic as well as human.
(See Appendix, Note 1).
It is as He is the Logos, the Thought, the Reason,
the Wisdom, and, further, the Speech, of God that this
function belongs to the Son of God ; as He is the true,
the Eternal, Light from Light, Which was, and Which,
coming into the world, lighteth every man.
Compare Prof. Westcott (in the Speaker's Commentary)
on St. John i. 9. He connects ipxpptvov ds rbv Kotrpov
(coming into the world) with to <£o>s (the Light), not
with iravTa avdpuTtov (every man), and says, ' It seems
best to take it more literally, and yet more generally,
as describing a coming which was progressive, slowly
accomplished, combined with a permanent being, so that
both the verb (was) and the participle (coming) have
their full force, and do not form a periphrasis for an
imperfect. The mission of John was one and definite;
but all along up to his time the Light of which he came
to witness continued to shine, being revealed in many
parts and in many ways. There was the Light, the true
Light, which lighteth every man; that Light was, and yet
more that Light was coming into the world. The same
idea of a constant, continuous coming of the Word to

60 IntellectualLightisonlythroughtheSonofGod. [lect.
men is found in vi. 33, 50, where that cometh (0 Kara-
fiaivw) stands in marked contrast with that came (0
KaTaPas, vv. 51, 58). Taken in relation to the context,
the words declare that men were not left alone to inter
pret the manifestations of the Light in the Life around
them and in them. The Light from whom that Life
flows made Himself known more directly. From the
first He was (so to speak) on His way to the world,
advancing towards the Incarnation by preparatory reve
lations. He came in type and prophecy and judgment.'
.... 'The latter expression, which lighteth every man,
describes the universal extent of its (the Light's) action.
The words must be taken simply as they stand. No man
is wholly destitute of the illumination of " the Light."
In nature, in life, and conscience it makes itself felt in
various degrees to all.' And, again, on ' lighteth every
man,' ' The idea is distinct from that of " all men " (v. 7).
The relation is not collective, corporate, as it is here
presented, but personal, and universal while personal.
The reality of this relation furnished the basis for the
crowning fact of the Incarnation. The world was made
for this re-gathering.'
As nothing has any being or life except through and
in the Son of God, so no rational creature has any
knowledge, any intellectual perceptive or reasoning
power, except also through, and in, and from Him ;
such intellectual life and power being such portion of
the Life-giving Spirit of Light as is vouchsafed, in
infinite varieties of degree and of form, to each creature
according to its God-given capacity of receiving it.
This gift is not to be thought of as restricted to only
the moral and spiritual life and light and knowledge of
such creatures as, in heart and will and affection, open
themselves towards God in conscious responsive love ;

n.] Varying relation of Intellect to Moral Character. 61
but also as covering those far lower, far less precious
and abiding, manifestations of merely rational power
which, resting, in God's wondrous handy-work, on a
physical base, and closely connected with the healthy
condition of physical organs, in the marvellous complex
constitution of Man, are yet themselves exquisite in
power and subtlety and beauty, though sometimes,
alas! morally apart from God. The kinds and de
grees of relation between the moral and the intellectual
elements in man are almost infinitely various. They
may co-exist in a high perfection of each, in an Origen,
an Athanasius, a Basil, a Leo, an Augustine, an Anselm,
an Aquinas, a Butler ; or the moral and spiritual ele
ments, in a very high development of earnestly re
ligious and conscientious life, may co-exist with but
moderate intellectual power ; or, again, purely intel
lectual gifts of the very highest kind, imaginative,
speculative, or practical, may be strangely accompanied
by an, apparently, almost total absence of moral sen
sibility and conscience, and be not inconsistent, as in a
Napoleon, with a character utterly base, self-centred,
and contemptible. The co-existence of great intel
lectual powers with low moral stature is more possible
and more frequent than the co-existence of high moral
character with low intellect. And the reason is, that
merely intellectual power is essentially of a lower kind
in the scale of life than moral and spiritual power. It
lies nearer to the physical and material bases of life,
and so varies with their condition and force. It does
not necessarily presuppose, though it ought to subserve,
the high development of the moral and spiritual ele-

62 Spiritual Illumination is vouchsafed [lect.
ment in human nature. Contrariwise, any considerable
growth of moral and spiritual character does presup
pose, as its necessary antecedent condition, a fair
strength of the intellectual element also ; and, in turn,
contributes to it. But even in the possible and actual
separation of high gifts of intellect and genius from real
moral goodness, nay, even in their actual association
with moral meanness and badness, we claim them all
as manifestations of the energy, as forms, if lower
forms, of the working, of Him Who is the only Light
of the world, the Eternal Logos of God.
The human intellect is part of that Image of God
wherein Man was created. It is the finite counterpart
and miniature of the Intellect of God. Within its
limited range of subjects and of powers it works accord
ing to the same laws ; and so — I speak now of that
action of the lumen siccum of the pure intellect on
abstract subjects, of which we may take Mathematics
as the type— it works certainly and truly, and with
absolute assent-compelling force. Hence, in the natural
sphere, in the realm of material nature, it is the proper
and legitimate organ of truth.
37. But if we claim the creature's knowledge of
truth in the lower departments of Nature and Creation
as the result of the working of Him Who is the Reason
of God on and in finite intelligences created in His
Image, much more do we, necessarily, assign to the
same only Source of Light and Illumination the higher
knowledge of moral and religious truth, the knowledge
of duty and of God, and the overpowering motives, con
trolling conduct, which are involved in and arise out of

II.] only through the Son of God. 63
such knowledge. None — no creature — knoweth the
Father save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth
reveal him. The Son is the Way, the Truth, and the
Life ; no one cometh unto the Father but through Him.
This great truth is obscured by the familiar mistransla
tion of our Authorized Version no man; but it is as
true of the highest angelic intelligences as of Man. No
created mind has immediate and independent know
ledge of, or access to, the great source of Life. All
must be alike indebted for whatever measure of Light
they have, whether on the highest or lowest subjects of
thought, to the Mediation of the Son of God.
38. We have Scriptural warrant for distinguishing
between the soul and the spirit of man ; and therefore
for distinguishing between the operation of the Eternal
Logos on the one and on the other. The intellectual
powers in man are to be classed as belonging rather to
the soul, which is the living mass of natural vital
powers intimately associated with a material organism,
and clothed, for this present life, in a grosser robe of
¦flesh, whereby it is at once both put into necessary con
tact with the grosser objects of this lower world, and
also shielded, for needful protection as for needful pro
bationary discipline and moral exercise of faith, from
the otherwise overpowering impact of ever-present
spiritual realities with which it is closely surrounded.
The crown and summit of this living mass of natural
powers in man is the spirit, the highest element in
man's nature, that wherein he is most like God, and
whereby he most specially and directly apprehends
God and the realities of the spiritual world. With

64 Weakness of the spirihial element in Man. [lect.
this are intimately connected the Will and Affections
and moral nature of man ; so connected as to influence
and be influenced by it. This is the weakest element
in man, in his merely natural condition as fallen ; so
weak as to seem, in some cases, wholly latent and
dormant, a mere capacity rather than an active energy.
This weakness is a consequence of the fallen moral
condition of man, whereby material and sensible objects
appeal to him with overpowering, it may be with ex
clusive, force, through his lower faculties and tendencies ;
while the spiritual faculty, the eye of faith, is left
unexercised until it becomes, it may be, wholly be
numbed and powerless, as does any other power or
faculty from prolonged entire disuse. Yet is it always
there ; for it is an essential part of the living complex
of Man, without which he were not truly man.
39. The human spirit, being that constituent of man
which is most like the nature of God, Who, and Who
alone, is essentially and merely Spirit, is that wherein
the Spirit of God, working through the Eternal Son,
most directly acts ; and by His action on which He
enables man to apprehend God, and to hold communion
with Him. It is also that from which, because of the
intimate dependence of its action and condition on the
moral will in man, the Holy Spirit of God soonest
necessarily withdraws Himself, when, and for so long
as, through the perverting influence of temptation,
internal or external, the moral will averts itself from
God in disobedience. The consequences of this with
drawal, which is in direct proportion to the degree of
consciousness and wilfulness in, and of continued per-

II. J Effects of the Withdrawal of the Holy Spirit. 65
sistent adhesion to, the act of disobedience, are a pro
portionate dulling of the spiritual perceptiveness and a
weakening of the faculty of apprehending God. Those
consequences may, conceivably, amount, in the end,
when the will has finally and decisively rejected God,
to the total and irrecoverable extinction and loss of all
moral and spiritual capacity ; sealing the creature's final
alienation from God in the highest and noblest element
of its indestructible being ; yet leaving still, it may be,
the merely reasoning and speculative intellectual powers
untouched. For these are rooted in and depend for
their action upon the lower life, the more material ele
ments of the human constitution; they draw their
stimulus and their pabulum originally from the objects
of the natural creation, apprehended through the organs
and powers of sensation ; and they are, in their opera
tion upon such object-matter, wholly independent of the
moral condition, of the affections and the will.
Yet even as conceived of in this condition, in fallen
angel or in sinful man ; and in man in whatever con
dition of being, in the flesh, in the temporary disem
bodied state, or in the final state after the Resurrection;
the yet remaining merely intellectual energies and life of
rational creatures, even in their moral estrangement from
the Creator, are still due to the operation within them
of the Spirit of Life and Light, Which proceedeth from
the Father, given through the Son, and, in Him, still
sustaining their being. And in the cases of the finally
lost, although the perverse will of the creature has
caused it to fail in attaining the end of its being in
full conscious union through its spirit with God, it may
F

66 The continued life, even of the lost, is of God. [lect.
yet well be that such lower life as is possible for it,
in its material and intellectual elements, (being evolved
and working, as indeed it must work if it exist at all,
in the strictest conformity to the laws impressed on
Creation as the expression of the Creator's highest
wisdom and power) may be, nay must be, a real mani
festation of the Divine Life and power. As such it
must be perfect in its kind, and so redound to the
glory of God ; however, under the actual conditions
into which sin has brought its unhappy subject, and
disconnected by the rebellious will from that which
should have been the crowning glory and blessing of
the perfect life, it does but minister to the suffering
and punishment of the creature. This it does by no
arbitrary enactment (so to speak), which might con
ceivably have been otherwise, but by way of inevitable
and necessary, i. e. natural, consequence ; consequence
which has its unalterable roots in that very essential
Being and Nature and Character of God whereby He
is that He is, and that unchangeably, and whereby He
is, and must be, a Law unto Himself in Will and in
Action, and so a Law unto all else that is. In some
such sense as this, in the final and unalterable state,
when the economic Kingdom of the Son shall have
been laid down upon the subjection of all things to
Him, when all active power of evil and rebellious
opposition to God and to His Son and Spirit shall have
been broken and quenched for ever, it may be that,
even in the lost, God shall be all in all. (See § 52.)
40. From His universal ministration, of Life and
Light,, we pass on to consider another mediatorial

n.] The Priesthood of the Only-Begotten Son. 6 J
function of the Son of God, and one with which the
notion of Mediation is usually more closely connected, the
Function of Priesthood. This also we must contemplate
as it assumes a wider range than merely the making
reconciliation for the sins of men ; and, again, as in
cluding in its operation not men only but the Holy
Angels also. We must consider the Eternal Son as
the One acceptable Presenter of the worship of all
that lives, through Whom, and through Whom alone,
it does, or could, pass upward with acceptance to the
Father. This is true, while, at the same time, He is,
with the Father and the Holy Ghost, the Object of
Worship, and of Him as the Only-Begotten it is espe
cially said, Let all the angels of God worship Him.
His sole acceptable presentation of the worship of the
Creature pointedly excludes the thought of Him as
part of Creation. It is because He is Uncreated and
Divine, the ' Venerandus, verus et Unicus Filius ' (' the
honourable, true and Only Son') of the Eternal Father ;
and because, as such, His Knowledge and Love of the
Father are alone adequate, because infinite ; that all
worship, the very inner essence of which is love, must,
necessarily, go up through Him, in Whom alone the
Father is absolutely and perfectly well-pleased, since
He alone can love the Father as He is worthy to be
loved. Herein lies the moral, and the sufficient, reason
of the Sole Acceptable Priesthood of the Eternal Son.
Hence in this sense also of loving, longing, worship
None cometh unto the Father but through Him. It is
His sole and inalienable prerogative as the Only-Be
gotten, the First-born, the Only-Born, the Well-Beloved,
F 2

68 The essence of Worship is Self Sacrifice, [lect.
to be the One and only High-Priest of Creation, the
One Mediator, at once of every good and perfect gift of
blessing and of grace from the Father of Lights to each
and all, and of the due return of homage and of worship
to the Father of whom the whole family in heaven and
earth is named.
41. For Worship, that is, Sacrifice, Self - Sacrifice,
absolute self-surrender without reserve of the whole
being as a whole-burnt-offering kindled by the fire of
love, which God Himself, through His Spirit given
through His Son, has lighted within, on the altar of
the heart — this is the first, the supreme, duty, the one
all-inclusive duty, of every creature of God's hand.
Work and Service and Obedience come next ; but they
come as wrapped up in, as part of, as consecrated by,
Worship, that is, by Sacrifice. And this entirely apart
from Sin and Expiation ; for it is inherent in the very
nature of the creaturely relation ; which is essentially
dependent, and bound, in its first and every thought and
conscious movement, to acknowledge itself so.
The restriction of the thought of worship to human
worship only ; the restriction of the conception of
Sacrifice to expiatory sacrifice only as offered on behalf
of sinful men ; the loss of the thought that Sacrifice,
in its essential and permanent central idea, is, (quite
apart from and anterior to any idea of sin,) the very
inner reality of all worship towards God on the part
of every creature, even the very highest and holiest,
and that for the Presentation of that Sacrifice the
intervention of a Divine Priest is needed in order to
make it either possible or acceptable ; have greatly

ii-] Expiation necessitated by Sin. 69
lowered and damaged and narrowed our conceptions
of worship as the supreme duty of the Creature ; even
as the restriction of the thought of Mediatorship and
Sacrifice to the gracious intervention of the Eternal
Son on behalf of fallen and sinful man has narrowed
and thrown out of its proper proportion our thought
of the dignity and glory of the Son, and of 'the grandeur
of His Work.
Sin, of course, brings in another element into Wor
ship and Sacrifice. Sin creates a gulf between the
creature and God ; and only a Mediator, a Priest, can
bring the creature back again to God even when it
wills to be brought ; or can make atonement and satis
faction on its behalf for the injury and wrong done to
the Majesty of the Supreme Lawgiver by an act of
disobedience. There is a new need, that of expiation ;
and there is a greater and to us more evident need of
a Mediator. But tfie standing truth, that, from the first instant
of Creation there has been a Mediator between the
Father and Creation, One through Whom, necessarily,
Creation came into being, renders it easier for us to
apprehend alike the necessity, and (such is the love
of God) the probability, of an Atoning Mediator who
should undo the mischief of sin ; and, this being so,
the impossibility that it can be any other than the
Uncreated Mediator, through Whom and for Whom
were all things made, the Eternal Son.
But our immediate thought is of Him, the Beloved,
the TipwroroKos irao-rps Krlaews, as yielding back to the
Father and offering up, with the infinite acceptableness

70 Worship must be offered through the Son. [lect.
of His own supreme and divine and sole adequate wor
thiness, the sacrifice, finite, yet complete in that it was
all that each had to give, of the self-devoting worship
of unfallen angels and man. Even of such none could
approach the Father but by Him. He is the Way, as
well as the Truth and the Life, for all ; the link between,
the medium of communication both ways, to and from,
between the Creator and the created universe, by His
office and function as the Son, the Image, the Word,
the Reason, the Wisdom, of the Father ; and this He
was even before, in the fulness of the time, He became
such, in an unspeakably closer and more intimate
sense, in our Nature, as the Man Christ Jesus.
The Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving and ador
ation which is due to the Almighty from His rational
creatures could not, of itself, even considered collectively,
and accompanied by the fullest loving self-surrender of
each and all, be adequate, because necessarily finite.
But, ascending to Him through the Son of His love,
in Whom He is always well-pleased, and seen in Him,
it becomes so. It needed no expiation, no washing in
the Blood ; but it needed completeness and perfection.
These only the Infinite Co-Equal Son could give ; and
so we cannot but believe that the conscious worship of
the angel host in Heaven, if not of unfallen man in
Paradise, was necessarily and consciously offered through
the understood and realized Mediatorship and Priest
hood of the Eternal Son.
If this is not expressly revealed, it is not revealed,
partly because it follows necessarily, on reflection, from
truths which are revealed; such as that None comeih

ii.] Connection of Priesthood with Primogeniture. 7 1
unto the Father but through Him ; and partly because
the Bible is, primarily and most importantly, the history
of the Redemption of Mankind from Sin .
42. In the early beginnings of human history and
under the earliest Dispensations Priesthood was con
nected with Primogeniture. The firstborn was the Priest.
This primeval ordinance was the earthly and human
reflection of the Divine prerogative of the Son of God ;
and so may be taken to be of itself suggestive and
illustrative of a mysterious fact in the Divine Nature
and in the relation of the Divine Persons to each
other ; not indeed necessarily, as they are related to
each other in their absolute Being, but as they together,
and regarded in their Unity, are related to created exist
ence. We have another example of this reflex illustration
of the Divine from the Human Nature, the possibility
of which arises out of Man's creation in the image, after
the likeness, of God, in the noteworthy Divine utterance
concerning Man, and one uttered before that image and
likeness had been injured or defaced, It is not good for
man to be alone. This saying indicates the existence
of a corresponding mysterious necessity, on an infinite
scale, in the Divine Nature, and that not in His related
but in His Absolute and Essential Existence, a necessity
of Social Companionship ; and so points directly to a
Plurality of Persons in the Divine Essence ; for the idea
of companionship is only realized between Persons, and
equal Persons. Nay further, bearing in mind the fore
seen Incarnation of God, as viewed by Him to Whom
past, present, and future are one, it might, perhaps,
even be said, that the outward visible form and frame

72 Priestly relation of the Son to all Creation, [lect.
of Man was also part of his creation in the eternally
conceived and predestined Image of Him Who was, in
the fulness of time, and to human apprehension, Him
self to become Man in actual outer historic fact.
An interesting and curious account of some crude cari
catures and exaggerations of this thought, in relation to
the complete humanity of Christ in body and soul, is
given in Dorner's Person of Christ (Div. ii. vol. ii. chap. ii.
p. yi^). He traces them from their rise in the Lutheran
and Reformed Churches, 'as the 17th century drew to
a close,' through the Quakers (Barclay), the Anabaptists
(Hoffmann and Menno Simonis), P. Poiret, and several
English writers down to Dr. Isaac Watts.
Thus the Priesthood of the Firstborn, of the Head
of the Family, in the earliest human society, his func
tion as the depositary and guardian and transmitter of
primeval truth about God and the presenter of worship
to God, seem to point to an analogous function, on a
scale of infinite grandeur, belonging to the Son of God,
the TlpoororoKos -Trdatji Krlo-ew? (The Firstborn before all
creation) ; a function to be fully manifested in the
Incarnation, whereby He actually became a part of,
and the Head of, that Creation which He summed up
and represented.
43. That event, in itself and in its consequences, espe
cially in its sacramental extension, brought the One
Mediator into the closest possible connection with
human nature ; and, in and through it, with that lower
material creation at the head of which Man stands.
But His Priestly relation to Creation at large and to
Man as part of it does not depend on, though it is
consummated and perfectly manifested in, His actual

ii-] even before His Incarnation.

73

Incarnation. By His Firstborn Sonship, and by the
Mediatorial Character which belongs to Him as the
Agent of Creation, He is essentially not only the
Medium of Light and Knowledge, as of Life and joy
and blessing and grace, to all orders of intelligent
beings from the highest, but also the High Priest of
their Worship, the Presenter of their homage, the
Offerer of their sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving,
in Whom alone and through Whom alone, associated
with the infinite merit and perfect well-pleasingness
which belongs to Him as the Perfect Son, the worship
of the heavenly host has ever ascended with acceptance
to the Father. Ere sin entered into God's fair universe,
and while as yet was no estrangement between Him
and any of His creatures, and so no need as yet of
atonement and reconciliation, there was, for all this,
need of One Who should stand between the Uncreated
and the created Life ; One Who, Himself Uncreated,
and Divine, could yet enter into relation with created
Life as existing through, in, and for Him ; One in
Whom the creature could see, and through Whom the
creature could know, as much as its capacity, in each
individual case, could bear and contain of God, Whom,
immediately, None hath seen or can see ; One in Whom
and through Whom the Father could look with satis
faction and complacency upon His own Creation ;
which, however inconceivably grand and glorious, in
kind and quality, or in scale and magnitude of forces
and of extent, must be essentially finite, at least in
quality and degree, and so at an infinite distance be
neath the Perfections and the Majesty of God. Thus

74 The unseen Angelic world. [lect
it needed its association with the Divine Son, through
Whom it came into existence, in Whom it continued to
exist ; and Who must be in it, if either it were to be
worthy of the Divine approval and a worthy object on
which God's love should rest, or its conscious worship
and adoration and love, the first and highest duty of
every creature capable of them, were to come up with
acceptance before Him, relieved of that necessary imper
fection and insufficiency which must always cleave to
the best efforts of even the highest and purest of God's
creatures and children.
Him the Only-Begotten, of Whom it is said, Let all
the angels of God worship Him, all, save the rebellious
angels, have ever acknowledged in His threefold func
tion ; as the Sovereign Lord of the Divine Kingdom
and Ruler of all ; as the Prophet and the Revealer, in
that all they know of God they know through Him by
the Holy Spirit of God Who is in them through Him ; and
as the One Priest, in that they approach not God in loving
worship, save in and through Him. And in and through
Him, the Beloved, they have ever enjoyed an acceptable
access to, and a blessed communion with, the Father
of Spirits ; they have ever enjoyed, as through the
same Mediation, a continual influx of grace from Him.
44. The Sadducees of old, the rationalists of their
day, believed in neither angel nor spirit. But the
Church of God, in all its stages and through all its
successive dispensations, has ever confessed both. God's
human children (among whom primeval truth, contin
ually reinforced as it has been and enlarged by fresh
revelations, has ever been earnestly and joyfully em-

II J God alone is pure Spirit. 75
braced and cherished) have always believed that above
themselves in the scale of God's Creation, though not
more than themselves the objects of His Fatherly love
and care, there is, in the unseen spiritual world, which
is ever around us, though at present veiled from our
eyes by our tabernacles of flesh, a glorious hierarchy
of Angels and Archangels, of Thrones and Bominions,
Principalities and Powers, greater, in what ways and
degrees we know not, than human beings in power
and might. (2 Pet. ii. 11).
Though often spoken of as spirits, we are not to
suppose that the angels are merely and purely
spiritual in the strict and proper sense of the term.
To be mere Spirit, to exist in an absolute inde
pendence of space and time, to be Incomprehensible
(immensus) and Eternal, is the sole prerogative of the
Self-Existent Being. This truth has been unfortu
nately obscured by the misrendering of our Authorized
Version, not corrected in the Westminster Revision,
of Tlvevpa 6 Geo'? by God is a Spirit, instead of by God
is Spirit. For to say ' God is a Spirit/ seems to repre
sent Him as one in a class of existences which may be
we know not how large ; whereas His Existence in all
its Modes and Attributes is singular and unique. To
say ' God is a Spirit,' sets the Divine and angelic
natures, alike unseen by us but not alike unseeable,
in a rank by themselves. It draws the line below
them ; and then, below that line, begins to think and
speak of human nature. However natural it be thus
to draw the line in common language at the line of
sight, it is yet misleading. The true line, one cannot

76 All created life is associated with Matter, [lect.
doubt, is that which necessarily exists between Un
created and Infinite and Absolute Existence and all
that is created and finite. The former is, in Itself,
wholly apart from matter ; and existed, in and from
eternity a parte ante, before matter was. The latter
would seem, alike from the hints and suggestions of
Holy Scripture, and from various philosophical con
siderations, to be necessarily connected, though (it
may be) in infinitely various ways, with matter, of (it
may be) infinitely various degrees of materiality. We
must remember, what is obviously true as soon as
thought of, that the air in an empty room (to take this
as an illustration) is as strictly material as are its walls
and its floor ; and that, still within the limits of the
strictly material, there may be we cannot limit what
further advances in the direction of greater subtlety and
ethereality, the material being simply relative to the
acuteness of sense in the percipient. Physical Science
abounds with illustrations of the way in which subtle
forms of matter, often wholly imperceptible in them
selves by our ordinary senses, permeate grosser forms,
which cannot resist their passage and their influence ;
and, further, of the fact that the mightiest forces of
Physical Nature, Electricity, for example, are associated
with and embodied (if we may use the term) in the
subtlest forms of matter. Extending in this way our
conception of the material, and remembering that what-
ever is material must have outward form and local
circumscription, we seem compelled to believe that all
forms, even the highest, of created life are necessarily
associated with, defined and individualized by, a mate-

II.] which is of infinitely various degrees. 77
rial embodiment or envelope, and so are subject to the
laws of space as of time, i.e. are here and not there,
and must move, with a movement that takes time,
from one point to another. And the necessity for this
individual definition becomes, perhaps, greater in the
higher forms of life, in which it is associated with
reason and will and personality. All Science points, it
has been said, to a wonderful continuity in Nature and
in all created life so far as we know it. We may well
believe that such continuity still largely prevails in the
unexplored regions where, as yet, we cannot trace it.
Of Man it is said, Thou madest him a little lower than
the angels ; and to Man, redeemed to the consummated
perfection of his nature, which shall then as now include
a body though a spiritual one, it has been promised
by the Son of God that he shall be equal to the angels
(St. Luke xx. 36), and, as the angels of God in Heaven
(St. Matt, xxiii. 30). It is not then difficult for us to
understand that the superhuman beings of the unseen
angelic world are, even to the very highest, not mere
spirit, but clothed in a material embodiment ; and that
of human form, for so Holy Scripture always represents
them, though unspeakably excelling in beauty and in
power. (Appendix, Note 2.)
45. Revelation gives us no account of the first cre
ation of these glorious beings ; but clearly implies their
existence anterior to that of Man. Bishop Bull (Vol.
I. Sermon XI.) adopts the opinion, which he says was
general among divines of his day, that ' the angels were
created some time within the six days; ' but the grounds
he alleges for it seem very insufficient. Their normal

78 The Angels' worship of God ' [lect.
dwelling-place is uniformly spoken of in the Old and
in the New Testament, and by our Lord Himself, as
Heaven. By this term, used, as it always is in Holy
Scripture, in contradistinction to Earth, we must under
stand the place, or rather, perhaps, the condition, of
God's nearer Presence and unimpeded Self-manifesta
tion; such portions, that is, and conditions of the
Universe and of created life as have not been over
shadowed by the dark cloud of sin. In that happier
sphere the angels do always behold the Face of our
Father Which is in Heaven (St. Matt, xviii. 10). To
them the Universe is one vast Temple, wherein God
dwells, and which is illumined by the Shekinah-Glory
of His Presence manifested in His Son. Their first
duty, their highest occupation, their chiefest joy and
delight is the adoring worship of God. Twice, in
wondrous vision, has a glimpse of their worship been
vouchsafed in ecstatic spiritual trance, to human eyes,
and the sound of their hymn of praise been heard by
human ears; once under the old Dispensation to the
great evangelical prophet ; once under the New to the
beloved disciple, in his exile for his testimony to his
Lord. With that worship the worship of man redeemed
in and by the Incarnate Christ, the One Mediator and
Head of angels and of men, has in the Catholic Church
been wondrously made one, in her highest act of Eu-
charistic Thanksgiving, wherein, throughout all lands
and through all her centuries, she has ever joined
' with angels and archangels, and with all the company
of Heaven,' in magnifying God's glorious Name, ever
more praising Him and saying, ' Holy, holy, holy, Lord

ii.] presupposes a Revelation of God 79
God of Hosts, Heaven and Earth are full of Thy Glory,
Glory be to Thee, 0 Lord most High.'
This worship presupposes, as its necessary antecedent
condition, some sight of God, some revelation of God to
the angels, some knowledge, and that we can hardly
doubt, notwithstanding Hooker's language on the sub
ject, progressive, perhaps endlessly progressive, know
ledge of God, His Nature, His Will, His Work, His
Ways, and of their own relation to and consequent
duties towards Him. For on this knowledge and sight
of Him their worship of Him is founded. We cannot
doubt that the Medium of this Revelation of God to
the Holy Angels is the Eternal Son, the Logos, the
Revealer, Who is their Light as well as their Life, in
that through Him, standing therefore to them in a
most truly and strictly Mediatorial relation, there is
a continual inflowing into them, into their minds and
spirits, of the Holy Spirit Himself of God. He, the
Third Person in the Most Holy Trinity, is the quicken
ing Life in them, freely ministered to them, according
to their several individual capacity, and that a growing
one, through the Son of God.
Hooker, H. P- Book I. vi. 1, writes, ' In the matter of
knowledge there is between the angels of God and the
children of men this difference : angels already have full
and complete knowledge in the highest degree that can be
imparted to them ; men, if we view them in their spring,
are at the first without understanding or knowledge at
all. Nevertheless, from this utter vacuity they grow by
degrees, till they eome at length to be even as the angels
themselves are.' The words italicised seem too strong ;
but perhaps Hooker did not mean them to be taken

80 to them through His Son. [lect.
absolutely, but only to draw a contrast between the
infantile beginnings of human beings and the (appa
rent) creation of angels at once in full adult perfection,
not of knowledge, but of powers and faculties.
It may seem a mere speculation, but is it not a
justifiable and a probable one 1 to add, that to the
angels, of whom, as we have seen, we are to conceive
as clothed with spiritual bodies of human form, may
be vouchsafed the sight of God in visible form ; and if
so, of course, in human form, and that, of course, asso
ciated with the Divine Person of the Eternal Son, in
Whom alone can any created being see God. We
know that it was part of God's Purpose and Will
to assume, when the fulness of the time was come, the
actual flesh and blood, the whole nature, of Man ; as
well as that outward form which, in varying degrees
of glory and power and beauty, is common to men and
angels : and so no marvel if, for manifestation to them,
He should, even before the actual Incarnation, assume,
whether permanently or occasionally, to them and to
their apprehension, a visible human form ; even as in
such form He, on occasion, manifested Himself to the
Patriarchs and to others of the Old Covenant.
However this may have been, it was in the Eternal
Son, Who is the visible Image of God, that they saw God,
whether inwardly or outwardly, and knew God in His
Glory and in His Beauty and in His moral Attributes.
In His visible works in Creation which lay outspread
before their gaze, and whereof they were part, they saw
God and knew Him in His Wisdom and in His Power ;
watching with absorbing interest the slow evolution 'of

ii.] Gradations of rank in the Heavenly Hierarchy. 8 1
His mighty Plan, desiring to look into it. So seeing
God and knowing Him, they loved Him and they
worshipped Him. But they worshipped Him through
the Son, the One Mediator; He their High Priest
gathering up into Himself their pure and holy, yet
of itself, because creaturely, finite and inadequate love
and worship, uniting it to His own perfect and infinite
Love of the Father, binding it to His own absolute
identity of Will with the Father's, and so giving it
a worth and an acceptability which in itself it could
never attain unto.
46. But Worship is not the sole element and occu
pation of the angels' life. Perfectly they do God's
Will which is their one Law, revealed to them through
His Son their King ; and this in Work and Service as
well as in adoration and praise. Of what nature is this
work and service % Holy Scripture gives only general
suggestive hints on this highly interesting subject :
yet its intimations are sufficiently clear, as to certain
broad lines, to furnish trustworthy material for our
devout meditation on a topic which occupied the last
thoughts on earth of Richard Hooker, ' the number and
nature of angels, and their blessed obedience and order.'
(Life, in Keble's Edition, p. 85.) There are evidently
distinctions of rank and power, and probably of natural
endowment, among them. Their general name of An
gels, a name expressive not of nature but of office and
function, denotes that they are God's messengers or
agents, specially towards the human race ; and that
both of mercy and of judgement. Above the angels
in general are the Archangels ; beings evidently of a
G

82 Angels employed, in subordination to the Son, [lect.
higher rank and place to whom the angels are subor
dinated. Some distinctions in the celestial Hierarchy
are also clearly implied in the special designations
Thrones, Dominions, Principalities, and Powers. (Eph.
i. 21 ; Col. i. 16 ; i Pet. iii. 22.)
For the principle of a graduated subordination,
through the various degrees of i^ovala (delegated au
thority) committed to various ranks of intelligent
beings, evidently runs throughout the whole adminis
tration of the Divine Government of Him Who is ever
the author, not aKarao-rao-ias (of confusion and unsettle-
ment), but of order and of peace (1 Cor. xiv. ^2>)- Is
not this the finite counterpart of the mysterious Subor
dination of the Second and Third Persons of the Holy
Trinity within the Divine Nature Itself? And is not
the one safeguard and guarantee of its due and orderly
operation the willing subjection and loyal submission
of all, from the highest to the lowest, to the Supreme
Divine Authority of the Son of God Himself, the
angels' King '? God rules the Universe through His
Son ; the Son of God rules through His subordinate
agents, angelic and human, who are empowered for
their work and duty, under Him and in their ordered
subordination one to another, by the Spirit Which pro-
ceedeth from the Father and is given, through the Son,
to them according to the several ' office and work ' of
each. (Compare the Formula of Ordination.) But the
Son of God is Sovereign over all, the Object of Divine
Worship to all. This supremest rank on the Father's
Throne belongs to Him, First, in His pre-existent Divine
Nature (Heb. i. 5, &e), and here of native and inherent

ii. J in the Administration of the Universe. 83
right ; and, Secondly, by gift and bestowal, in His Incar
nate Nature also (St. Matt, xxviii. 1 8 ; Philipp. ii. 9.) The
angels are His willing servants. Even in His deepest
humiliation in the hour of the power of darkness it was
so. In Gethsemane there appeared unto Him an angel
from heaven strengthening Him (St. Luke xxii. 43). This
may probably be understood of the special guardian
angel of His Holy Humanity. But He could also say
to St. Peter on the same occasion, Thinkest thou that I
cannot now pray to my Father, and He shall presently
give me more than twelve legions of angels? (St. Matt.
xxvi. 53.) But the services of that mighty army, the
Hosts of the Lord of Hosts, were among the consequent
prerogatives of that Divine Glory which was then, for
the time, purposely and willingly laid aside.
But part of His Divine Prerogative as the Son and
Heir is the Rule over and the Administration of that
vast realm of created Life which had come into being
through Him, and is maintained in being in and by
Him, and of which the angels are a part. Holy Scrip
ture, though it satisfies no vain curiosity, and gives no
ground or encouragement to rash speculation, yet does
so repeatedly reveal the fact of the employment of
angels as subordinate agents in the realm of nature
and as wielding its powers, under God and according
to His Will, for mercy or for judgement, as to convey
the impression that the cases specially recorded are
only the manifested specimens and examples of what
is really a general principle, a predominant feature, in
the systematic economy of the Universe. (Appendix,
Note 3.) G 2

84 Interest of the Angels in the glories of Creation, [lect.
47. Certainly the Revelations of Science as to the
scale of Creation, the grandeur of its forces, the wonder
ful character of its phenomena, seem to make it quite
natural to believe that it may well furnish a worthy
field for the exercise of the highest faculties of created
intelligences of the very highest order and the most
glorious endowments. We see, as yet, but a little way,
whether over the extent or into the depths of Creation;
and yet how pure, how elevating, how absorbing the
pleasure and interest with which we survey that little !
With what eager anticipation of greater wonders and
glories still does even the untrained bystander, the
ISiwrttf (layman), watch for further knowledge of things
hidden as yet, but whose revelation may be the crowning
reward of further patient toil, to the glory and praise
of God ! That such toil is one of man's appointed tasks
and duties, as it is most surely the means of some of
his greatest enjoyments, we do not doubt. But if so,
how much more to those higher natures who in intel
lectual grasp, as in other gifts, are greater in power
and might ? That the promise to redeemed mankind of
equality with the angels, in our future state of complete
restoration, includes an unspeakable advance in the
powers brought to bear on the investigation of nature,
its capacities and uses and its general purpose, and
consequently a proportionate increase in the ground
and motive for the most joyful adoration and praise,
cannot surely be questioned. To enter more and more
fully into the sublime truth, that all things came into
being through the Son of God, continue in being in
Him, and tend to their ultimate perfection through

ii.] Moral Life, and Probation, of the Angels. 85'
Him and for Him ; to learn more and more of the won
drous relations of all things to Him Who is the Alpha
and Omega of the Whole, and of the meaning and con
sequences of that connection with Him which is as yet
only revealed to us in the general statement of the
fact ; to see all this with an ever-growing insight, and
so to realize ever more and more the Divine Glory and
Dignity of Him Who yet, ' for us men and for our sal
vation, came down from Heaven and was Incarnate by
the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made
Man,' — this must surely be no small part of the future
joy of those who shall through Him have realized the
end of their being.
48. Yet, great as is in this respect the joy of the
angels, in which we hope to share, far above this stands
their wondering delight in the fuller manifestation of
the moral Attributes of God as not only the Almighty
Creator but also the all-loving Father, Who longs for
the answering conscious love of His finite created chil
dren made in His Image, after His Likeness, and so with
will and affections, with moral nature and capacity of
love. Material Nature, grand and glorious as it is, is
yet in itself, even in its highest animated forms, but
the ground and basis of a higher, a moral and spiritual
life, the evolution of which is its higher, more inclusive,
aim and reason for existence, and to which it is its
place and function subordinately to minister. Here
again the recorded Revelation which God has given to
man answers no curious questions, and leaves much, as
yet, in deep and impenetrable mystery. Yet it does
reveal, in broad outline, the tremendous truth that, in

86 Entrance of Evil into the Creation [lect.
the earlier world of conscious intelligent life of the
angelic order, the mightiest issues of a moral and
spiritual kind had already been tried, and with the
most tremendous and far-reaching results, ere yet Man
was born on this lower earth. Moral and spiritual Evil
had been generated in even the highest of the heavenly
places ; and on a scale of extent and of intensity which
staggers human thought. The revelation of this fact
to man was necessary to account for the condition in
which he finds himself and all things around him.
And although little beyond the fact of the existence
of evil in evil beings, prior to and external to man and
man's world, is revealed in Holy Scripture ; yet that
little, combined with the moral knowledge open to man
by natural means, through the observant study of his
own moral constitution and the experience of life in
himself and his fellows, may lead us so far as to the
following conclusions : —
God made all things good; and, especially, all per
sons, i.e. all beings endowed with a distinct individual
conscious existence. He made all such conscious per
sonal beings to be susceptible of Himself, conscious of
Himself, as well as of themselves and of each other,
and of the world around them. For this He endowed
them, not only with mind and intellect, perceptive and
reflective, faint finite shadows of His own Divine Logos,
but also with moral affections, that they might love
Him, the Source of their being and of all their joy.
But that love should be love it was necessary that it
should be given. Love not consciously felt and willed,
love not given by a conscious, voluntary movement of

ii.] through the necessary Free-will of the Creature. 87
the creature towards its God is not love at all. Love
extorted (were that conceivable) from an unwilling
subject were hardly more a contradiction in terms.
Hence the very purpose of the creature's existence
could not possibly be attained without the added gift,
awful and godlike as it is, of Will, self-choosing, self-
determining Will, really free, else were it no Will at all.
God, by the very law of His Existence, and because
He is Love, must of necessity present to the apprehen
sion of His conscious and susceptible creatures every
conceivable and possible reason why they should love
Him, and so He attract their love. But, equally of
necessity, the response must rest in the bosom of the
creature himself. Thus when there was no evil in the
Universe, there was the inevitable possibility of evil, in
the inevitable existence of Free- Will ; inevitable if
there were to be any forms of finite personal life.
The temptation, the probation (an essentially neces
sary condition of the moral discipline and development
of the creature towards God), lay in the very thought
that it was possible to withhold love from God Who
claimed it. This withholding must amount to a violent
conscious act of wilful defiance and self-assertion against
God ; it must amount, in effect, in tendency, and in its
real essential character, to that attempted annihilation
of God which is the real inner essence of all sin, which
is the irreconcileable contradiction of God. Love from
the creature towards God must necessarily be the love
of submission and obedience, nay of worship ; and must
carry in itself of necessity the acknowledgment of de
pendence. A possible refusal was the possibility of

88 Pride and Self-assertion against God [lect.'
the assertion of independence ; of the assertion, that is,
of a position which is the sole prerogative of the Al
mighty, the Self-Existent.
49. We can thus, in some measure at least, under
stand that the original sin, the primary root of all sin,
the defiant act of him who, whatever his rank in the
scale of created life (and it may conceivably have been
the highest), was the first leader of rebellion against
the sovereign supremacy of God, was Pride. It was
the lust of independence at whatever cost ; the longing
for a separate kingdom of his own, the assertion of
self and of self-sufficiency, the dethronement, the anni
hilation of God, the deification of self. (Appendix,
Note 4.)
In this all-inclusive sin, this root of sin, which
carries in itself that which is the very damning essence
of all sin (the rebellion, namely, of self and its will
against God and His Will, the absolute defiance of
God whensoever His Will crosses any form of self-will,
or contradicts any gratification on which self-will may
be set), there is further inherent a special jealousy and
envy, a special conscious rejection, of that royal Heir
ship and present eternal Sovereignty over the whole
realm of created Existence which belongs inherently,
by right of His First-born Sonship, to the Only-Be
gotten. Hence arises an essential antagonism, absolute
and irreconcileable, so long as the counter-claim of rival
sovereignty is maintained against Him by the author
of Evil. This one fact is of supreme and overruling
import in the view and estimate of the revealed Work
of Him Who ' was manifested that He might destroy the

ii.] the inner essence of Sin. 89
works of the devil, and make us the sons of God and
heirs of eternal life.' It points to the Son of God at
once as the necessary and only champion of fallen,
suffering man as against the great rival, the invader,
the usurper, the tempter and seducer of a weaker
and mor6 ignorant being into disobedience and sin.
It points to the necessity, for His own glory and
honour's sake, as well as from pity towards those who
were the victims of the lie, of the revindication by the
Son of God in person of His own rightful and inalien
able authority ; and, of course, to the absolute certainty
of His ultimate complete triumph, and the full re-
establishment of His Kingdom over man and man's
world, in righteousness and in truth, and therefore in
happiness and in peace. It reveals, to the full, the
deep malignity and, as well, the deep humiliation of
sin, in that it shows the active, the purposed, the
conscious, the aggressive, the personal character, in its
ultimate aspects, of the opposition and conflict between
Good and Evil, and the deadly irreconcileable hatred
that must exist between their personal representatives ;
and it involves, further, the awful truth that the willing
service of sin involves the being taken captive by the
evil one at his will ; and so, in the result, sooner or
later, however veiled and disguised at first, the con
scious submission to the evil one of the sin-enslaved
soul and its worship of him as God.
50. In what formal act the first sin of the devil
and his angels took shape on their yielding their free
will to the inwardly generated suggestions of pride,
we are not expressly told. It may have been in itself

90 The outward form of the first act of sin. [lect.
a very simple act ; as simple as the plucking of the
forbidden fruit ; yet carrying with it all its awful
consequences, just because it was the known and under
stood act of rebellion and disobedience. Holy Scripture,
in one place bearing on the subject, seems to intimate
that it was the overstepping, the transgression, of
appointed local bounds. The Epistle of St. Jude tells
us that some of the angels kept not rt\v eavrSiv apxyv (their
own principality), but left ro 'ISiov ohrirripiov (their proper
habitation). Some commentators refer this to what is
mentioned in the second chapter of Genesis, The sons
of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and
they took them wives of all which they choose; interpreting,
as the Septuagint translators do, the sons of God to
mean angels. This is a most uncertain interpretation,
and seems to involve insuperable difficulties. But were
it accepted, it by no means follows that the act, which
was one of lustful sin, is to be identified with the act
to which St. Jude refers. His language would rather
point to what other passages of the Bible render pro
bable, that to the holy angels were assigned, under
the Son of God, defined regions of God's created
Universe, over which, in their several ranks, they were
to exercise a delegated authority, subject to the Will
of God as declared through His Son. The sin pointed
to seems rather that of pride and rebellion, leading them
to refuse to confine themselves within the limits which
God had assigned them.
51. It is easy to imagine how such a sin may have
had to the full all the characteristics of a wilful and
deliberate defiance of the power of Almighty God and

ii.] Effects of sin on angelic natures. 9 1
of the authority of His Son, and may have resulted at
once in the complete and final estrangement and se
paration from God, Who alone is Life and Light, and
so in the necessary banishment of the rebels from the
Light of His Presence and their confinement in ever
lasting chains of darkness unto the judgement of the Great
Day (St. Jude 6). Such an act as theirs may well have
been an act of spiritual suicide. Certainly Holy Scrip
ture gives no hint of any possibility of their restoration.
For them, for the devil and his angels, is the eternal
fire prepared. (St. Matt. xxv. 41 : Appendix, Note 5.)
In their simpler, though higher, nature, in the ori
ginal adult completeness of each individual angel in
his rank and place, in the more immediate and direct
relation of each one separately, as apart from his fel
lows, to the Father of Spirits, to the Eternal Son, their
Lord and King as well as their Mediator, and to the
Holy Spirit, we may see considerations which would
give to the act of sin and rebellion, in them, a specially
deadly character, in addition to its enhanced heinous-
ness arising from the absence, in their case, of any
external temptation or seduction. The act of sin, in
the case of each one who fell, must have been much
more a conscious, wilful, and deliberate act, done with
foresight of its consequences, and so much more of
the nature of a sin against the Holy Ghost, on Whose
continued presence with them and within them, con
sciously apprehended and longed-for, depended their
continued spiritual life and its growing development.
Their rebellion would involve a distinct conscious re
jection and exclusion of Him and of His influences, by

92 Foreseen loss through sin [lect.
an act of will which, in a more purely spiritual nature
than that of man, would at once cut off the spirit from
the Source of good, and fill it with darkness and with
defiant hatred of God, such as must draw after it exclu
sion from the light of Heaven and imprisonment under
the chains of a self-made darkness, in an, apparently,
hopeless condemnation.
52. We are thus brought face to face with the awful
fact of the existence of evil ; not of mere pain, which
has its manifold uses, and is singularly evanescent,
forgotten almost as soon as past ; but of moral evil, of
hatred of good, of spiritual wickedness in high places,
in the highest ranks of being ; of an accursed delight
in drawing others into rebellion against God, in bring
ing degradation and ruin on God's pure and perfect
handiwork ; and of consequent awful suffering and de
gradation, present and future (must we not say eternal V),
as the portion of the wicked angels themselves.
Before so inscrutable a mystery we bow, in humble
acceptance of the fact. We acknowledge its difficulty ;
which is, not that we cannot account for its origin, for
the possibility lay (as we have seen) in the awful godlike
gift to the creature of Free-will, a gift we can easily see
to be inevitable if there was to be moral life and capa
city of loving God in the creature, — but rather this,
that the abuse of that inevitable gift of Free-will, in
the case of we know not how many of God's highest
creatures, was, if not inevitable, at least foreseen in the
prescience of God. This we must allow. God foresaw
it all ; and yet God created angels and men. We
exult with joy and thanksgiving in the manifestation

n.J of some angels and men. 93
of love and wisdom and power in the material Uni
verse ; and still more in the gifts and powers and
happiness of angels and of men ; yes, of human beings
even in this present life, much more in the thought
of them redeemed and glorified and happy for ever.
We dwell with amazed delight on the thought of so
vast, so illimitable, a sum of happiness ; of happiness
realized in the present and expanding for ever with
an illimitable capacity of development. But there is
the thought of the inevitable shadow ; — ' This is not
true of all.' There are those who will be. must be,
shut out of it ; we know not how many, of angels and
of human beings ; and that for ever, in misery, con
scious, deserved, endless. It is no question, or only to
a comparatively slight extent, of what may be the
proportion of the lost to those, we doubt not incon
ceivably the greater number, in whom ultimately the
end of their being will be blessedly realized. The
mind refuses to cast, in such a matter, a balance of loss
and gain, or to say that the cost, however appalling
when regarded in itself, sinks into insignificance in
comparison with the object secured. We stagger at
the thought that any creatures, conscious, intelligent,
immortal, formed for unspeakable happiness in loving
and seeing God, should yet be cut off from Him for
ever in misery unending ; and that God, in creating
them, foreknew this. We know and are persuaded
that the Judge of all the earth will do right. We know
that the final award of the Righteous Governour of the
universe upon all will be absolutely just and absolutely
merciful. We know that God gives to each one of

94 Nature of God's Presence to [lect.
His creatures exactly as much, in kind and in degree,
of His presence, as it is momently capable of ; and that
unless this were so it must absolutely cease, and that
instantly, to exist at all. We know that from any
originally capable of it, the gracious and welcome Pre
sence is withdrawn solely because of their self-caused
incapacity to receive it. But if we add, as we must, to
the subjective consciousness, on the part of the creature,
of this poena damni, of this loss of the spiritual Presence
the further consciousness of the continuing close natural
Presence (inevitable as the very condition of its exist
ence at all), of a Being Whom it hates, and whose
presence must therefore be to it simply that of a con
suming fire, we are confronted at once with a thought
whose overpowering horror makes us dumb. It is this
thought, much dwelt upon in the present day, which
forces so many upon one or other of the two expedients
of Universalism or Annihilationism as a way of escape.
Men would fain persuade themselves, in the presence
of so great a difficulty, that either future punishment
must in every case be corrective, and in the long run,
after whatever prolonged discipline, be finally in every
case successful ; or else that, in the case of those who
shall be finally incorrigible, it shall end in their ceasing
to exist. (See above, § 39.)
It is no part of our present task to discuss these rival
theories. We only remark that, as Origen perceived,
the difficulty is not really removed unless the case of
the angels be included as well as that of mankind.
And we have been drawn into mentioning it onlv
because it is inherent in the very thought of any

ii.] the conscioztsness of the lost. 95
creation at all, such as, as a matter of fact, we know it.
As so inherent we must accept it ; content to await its
explanation, but knowing, meanwhile, that the Creator
is as purely Merciful and as purely Just as He is Al
mighty, and that the mystery of Creation, when fully
unfolded, will be only the final and complete manifest
ation, to the heart and mind of every intelligent
creature, of all the attributes of Him Who is Love.
On the Fall of the Angels and the Origin of Evil see
Hooker, E. P. Book I. iv. 3, and Book V. Appendix No. 1.
(Keble's Edition, Vol. II. p. 565.)

LECTURE III.
THE CREATION OF MAN; ITS RELATION
TO THE INCARNATION.
Genesis i. 26. " And God said, Let us make man in our image,
after our likeness. ... So God created man in His own
image, in the image of God created He him."
53. We have already seen that the first dividing line
in the scale of Being is that between the Self-Existent
and the Created, the Infinite and the Finite, the merely
Spiritual and the Material. Below that line, first and
highest are the Angelic natures.
Looking at the scale of Being from its lowest point,
we find at its base mere inorganic matter, various in
form, stupendous in bulk, passively subject to uniform
law, without growth, yet subject to changes of the
extremest kind under the operation of uniform law.
Above this we draw a second dividing line, to mark off
— what is clearly distinguishable from it, though in its
lowest forms passing almost insensibly into it — organ
ized matter, i.e. matter associated with life; an associa
tion which is evidenced by growth and reproduction.
A third dividing line is that which separates between
the upper, or invisible, created world, the angelic world,
and the lower, or visible, created world, the world of
which we are immediately a part, and with which we
are familiar. This is a very decisive line ; though
(possibly) not in itself so much so as is commonly

in.] Gradations of Organized Life, 97
thought ; (for the higher spiritual spheres of the purely
divine and of the angelic life surround us always and
everywhere ; and we are immersed in them, though we
apprehend them not save by faith) ; yet for us as men
a decisive line, because it is the limit of our natural
and ordinary sight.
Beneath this line are the Human, the Animal, and the
Vegetable worlds of Organized Life, clearly connected,
albeit through infinite gradations. Of these the higher
forms at each stage include the essential constituents
of the lower, together with their more distinguishing
elements ; while Man, the highest form of organized
living matter within the visible sphere of this lower
world, though formed of the very dust of the ground,
includes and represents, in his constituent elements,
alike both the purely material, the vegetable, and the
animal world ; but with these combines those higher
elements which difference him absolutely and essentially
from the lower creatures, notwithstanding his points
of resemblance and links of connection with them, and
which make him human.
54. Holy Scripture teaches us that the creation of
the invisible world of the angels preceded that of the
visible world and of man ; but by what space of time it
gives us no idea. Such was no part of its purpose ;
which is, to record the story of God's dealings with
His creature Man. It begins with the statement of
the fundamental truth that the existence of the visible
and material world, of the Heavens and the Earth, is
due to the creative act of God, an act which took place
in the beginning, in some remote, possibly in some
H

98 Processes of Nature to be studied by Science, [lect.
*
inconceivably remote, past. The first two verses of the
Book of Genesis allow for as many millions of years as
modern science (whose divinely-appointed task and duty
it is to study physical nature) may discover it to be
necessary to postulate. And in its subsequent descrip
tion of the order of creation and the successive develop
ment (or evolution, if we like to use the word) of things
created, a development which culminates at last in
Man, there is really nothing that is not quite reconcile-
able with the really attested truths of Physical Science.
More than this we need not, we have no right, to ask.
The investigation of processes, the observation of the
Laws (so-called) which govern the development of
material nature and the evolution of life tip to its
highest visible forms, whether from a primordial germ
or otherwise (or rather, we should say, the observation
of the course which, as a matter of fact, that develop
ment has followed), is within the grasp of man's natural
intellectual powers patiently and laboriously exercised ;
and so is left to them for their exercise, to the glory
and praise of God and to the benefit of man. What
Revelation insists on, in perfect conformity with the
common sense and verdict of mankind, and with the
necessary conclusions of the highest Reason, is the
fundamental truth, that, behind all material nature
and its phenomena, behind all that exists and which
man can apprehend, there is a Personal and intelligent
and Almighty Will, a Self-Existent Uncreated Life,
the great First Cause of all, the present Sustainer and
Upholder of all, the all- wise and all -merciful Ruler and
Controller of all.

in.] Man, the Head of the visible world, 99
55. At the head of this lower and visible sphere of
created nature stands, by divine appointment, Man, the
sovereign and lord, under God, of all ; the being for
whose sake this lower world was made, and to whom
it, and all that is in it, leads up ; crowned with glory
and honour by his Creator, Who made him, in this his
destined dwelling-place, to have dominion over the works
of His Hands, and put all things under his feet. Placed
thus in the scale of intelligent created life Man is made
a little lower than the angels, as belonging to a clearly
different sphere, the epitome and representative of an
order of things more closely bound up with matter ;
clothed in a body of flesh and blood, itself a marvellous
piece of God's handiwork, wrought out of the very
elements of the ground on which he walks, and ani
mated, in the present life, by a living soul, a ^vyy,
which ministers to and subserves his higher life of
intellect and spirit. It is a part of this closer relation
to matter, this possession, at least in the first stage of
its existence, of an animal nature, that the Human Race
was not created at once in a certain definite number of
individuals, as it is thought the angels were, each in
his full adult completeness, from the first ; but in posse,
as contained in the Protoplast, in the primeval pair,
and so developed by the unbroken succession of natural
generation, by reproduction from them. There is no
thing analogous to this in the angelic nature. We are
expressly told that they neither marry nor are given in
marriage. Here is a marked distinction between the
' bodiless powers ' — bodiless though not merely spirit or
un-material — of the heavenly world, and man with his
h 2

ioo and the most representative of all creahires. [lect.
compound 6\6ic\ripov of body, soul, and spirit. In the
connection of each individual with those who have gone
before, in the natural relationship of a constitution of
flesh and blood inherited from a common source, there
is in the Human Race a unity and a solidarity which,
apparently, belongs not to the angels.
This must be borne in mind, as throwing a light on
some features of the Christian Religion, especially in
its sacramental aspect; and helping us somewhat to
understand the work of Redemption, as carried out on
behalf of man, and not, so far as we can see, of the
angels who sinned.
56. It is the peculiar feature of Man's position in
the scale of Created Life that he is of all creatures the
most completely representative. His compound nature
is the most complete summary, the microcosm, of all else
that is. In his spiritual nature he is like the angels,
and has the capacity, as redeemed, of becoming, in his
full consummation, equal to the angels (lo-dyyeXoi, St.
Luke xx. 36). In his lower nature he includes the
elements of all that is beneath him in the lower forms
of life, and even of brute inorganic matter.
In these facts we may perhaps see some of the rea
sons why, if there was to be a union of the Creator with
the creature, it should take place in our nature.
Saint Thomas Aquinas shews (iii. 4, 1) that it is only
in Human Nature that the two conditions of meetness or
dignity and of necessity are united. To the irrational
creation dignity is wanting ; to the superhuman or
angelic, necessity. For the angels (he argues) are not
generated as men are ; nor born, as men are, under a law

in.] The Compound Constitution of Man. 101
of original sin, to the inheritance of a tainted nature.
There is no abstract common angelic nature. Each angel
is, from his first creation, perfect in his own personality,
from which it follows that the Son of God could not have
taken the angelic nature without superseding, indeed
annihilating, the personality of some one particular angel ;
and the sin of the evil angels, who might seem to satisfy
the condition of necessity, is (he says) irremediable.
Human nature as the highest product of the creative
energy of God as exercised in this lower visible and
earthly sphere, was perfect and complete in the Proto
plast, in whom were germinaUy contained all the several
individual members of the race which was to grow from
him as from its original seed and root : in the Proto
plast, in the Adam, not in the first pair, but in the man
alone, from whom, and not separately, the woman was
derived by a subsequent special act of God's creative
power. The material substratum of Man was first
formed in the perfection of its physical organization,
with all its contained capacities ; whether by direct
immediate act, or by slow evolution from lower forms,
is really immaterial. Into this God breathed the breath
of life, and man became a living soul (^vyh Xfio-a) in
dwelling in a natural body (<ra>pa ¦^¦v-^ikov), which was
the tabernacle not only of the soul (^vx^i) and the mind
(vovs), but also of his spirit (-n-veSfjia), the highest, the
most godlike, the immortal, element in his compound
constitution ; and further, of (what is closely associated
or rather identified with this) his Will, his Personality,
his Self, of which the body, the soul, and the mind,
and all that belongs to the constitution of human
nature in the mass as common to all, were to be the

1 02 ' Traducianism ' and ' Creationism ' [lect.
subordinate and subservient instruments and organs,
to be used and controlled by his Will, under the
supremacy of Conscience, to the glory and praise of
God. 57. We are thus able to distinguish clearly between
what belongs to the individual and to the Race ; to the
common Human Nature of all, and to the separate,
solitary, responsible self of each. And it will be
important to distinguish them clearly when we come
to consider the fact of the Incarnation. Much has
been written, from the days of Teriullian downwards,
on the question of the origin of the soul in each indi
vidual; and the rival theories of Traducianism and
Creationism have found their advocates. What is
needed, as it would seem, to enable us to thread our
way through this controversy is a steady recollection
of the Scriptural distinction between the three great
elements in the constitution of each man, his o-oopa, -^v^t,
and wvevpa (body, soul, spirit). The question is con
fused so long as the distinction between the two latter
is merged in the general term ' soul.' Speaking accu
rately, the ' soul,' or ^v^, is the animal, natural, and
earthly life-force of man ; intimately associated with,
profoundly influenced by, his physical and material
nature ; running up, on its upper side, into his mind or
intellect (vovi), which is the highest form of natural life
in man as man, but very closely connected with, and
dependent upon, the varying condition of those material
organs of his bodily nature through which the life of
the intellect manifests itself. It is, perhaps, most
probable that Traducianism, or the theory which main-

in.] both true, from different points of view. 103
tains the transmission of the soul by derivation from
parents, is very largely true, though not sufficient
wholly to cover the facts. The fact of the large
amount of hereditary propagation of qualities, both
purely bodily and of a higher kind, in natural disposi
tion and temper and in intellectual capacities and apti
tudes, within the sphere which we have just defined,
does not really admit of doubt. These inherited quali
ties, dispositions, and tendencies, physical, moral, and
intellectual (distinguishable, but most closely and inex
tricably connected) form the first and closest inner circle
— as our circumstances and conditions, moral, social,
educational, and otherwise, form the second and outer
circle — of that tangled web of influences with which
each man's several self, in will and spirit and personality,
has responsibly to deal. They constitute the material
of his trial, and probation, or part of it ; the first, and,
often, the most determining part. He is not responsible
for them, though he is for his use and development of
them. God knows them, for He providentially or
dained them. And God allows for them in His esti
mate, at each moment and in the end, of each man's
self-determined relation towards them, and of his total
resultant character, when probation is complete.
Yet, while we incline to think that, in respect of
those lower elements of each man's nature which, vari
ously balanced in each individual case, are yet the con
stituents of that human nature which is common to all,
the traducianist view is probably correct and true; it
should be remembered that we do not thereby mean
that human nature, with all the possibilities of its

ie>4 God's Creative Energy is continuous, [lect.
future development in specific cases and in individuals,
Was once for all divinely created in the case of Adam
and then left to develop itself. God does not sit apart
from His Creation, as the Deistic theory of Transcendence
would have us think; but is immanent in it at all times.
In Him it has its being. Without the immanent Pre
sence of Him Who upholdeth all things by the word of
His power, it must sink at once, as a whole and in all
its parts, into non-entity. The coming into existence,
therefore, the yeveo-is, of each separate form of life, spe
cific or individual, is still the act of, and is by the will
of, God the Creator, whose creative energy is thus a
continuing energy, not a mere act of the past over and
done with. If the Fifty-first Psalm speaks the lan
guage of Traducianism, the Hundred and thirty-ninth
speaks that of Creationism ; and both with absolute and
equal truth. Behold, I was shapen in wickedness, and
in sin hath my mother conceived me. Yet Thou hast
covered me in my mother's womb, &c. The gift of life
is, in each separate case, God's direct gift, by His
creative Spirit, the Lord and Giver of Life, operating
through His Eternal Word. Though it be in the lower
portion of man's nature, and though it operate,, not
directly and immediately, as in the creation of the Proto
plast, nor as in the Incarnation of the Second Adam,
but through intermediate agencies ordained of God
which bind the resulting individual to the whole mass
of which he is a member and an outgrowth, each indi
vidual child of Adam must make to the Almighty Cre
ator and Father the same acknowledgment, Thy hands
made me and fashioned me (Psal. cxix. 73). But when

ill .J Life is God's gift to each individzial man. 105
from this region of our complex life we turn our thoughts
towards that which is strictly speaking individual and
separate, to the Will, the Spirit ; and further, and
behind that again, to the immortal personality and
Self, we may well adopt the strict theory of Creation
ism, and believe that God 'is daily and hourly creating
those myriads of human souls which He infuses into
the bodies prepared by His Providence ' (Pusey, Daniel,
Preface, p. xxii). We believe that there is, in the
strictest and most direct and immediate sense, a sepa
rate and special gift of the highest life from the Creator
to each separate man in his separate and inalienable
responsibility. Here is that which, in the sight of God
and in the highest sense, each man is. Here is that which
(whatever may, as a consequence of sin, befall the lower
elements of his nature in whole or in part, in conjunc
tion with -this, or in separation from it, i.e. in the inter
mediate state) yet is, and must remain, immortal and
indestructible. Yet we must remember that God's original creation
of man contemplated (so to speak) no such separation
of what He had joined together in so wondrous a com
plex ; and included no such dissolution, temporary or
otherwise, of the parts which go to make up the whole
nature of Man as we call death. Sin entered into the
world, and Death by Sin. Death is the wages of sin.
The constitution (oXo/cXtjpov) of Man, as God made
Him, in His own image, after His likeness, and as
He has recreated him in Christ, is a complex unity
of body, soul, and spirit, a nature compounded of,
and so representative of, the various distinctive parts

106 The Incarnation not contingent, [lect.
of God's whole creation from the highest to the
lowest ; and so, as our argument now brings us to see,
the natural and likely point in the scale of being at
which so marvellous a Union of the Creator with His
own creation might h priori, could we have regarded
it a priori, have been expected to take place, as in point
of fact it has taken place.
58. These considerations must lead us on to the further
thought that so great an event as the Incarnation, as
great, to say the least, as the original Creation of the
Universe out of nothing, cannot have been dependent
on the (so to speak) contingent event of "the entrance
of evil into the Creation, or the Fall of Man ; or have
been (so to speak) only posteriorly necessitated as the
means of the Redemption of Man. There would seem
to be sufficient antecedent and d priori reasons for it,
apart from its great, and to us nearer, aspect as a
means of Redemption from the grasp of evil and the
evil one. It is of a truth so stupendous in itself, that it
would seem to be, if we may so express it, worth while,
apart from its use in the Redemption of Man. So
great a fact must carry consequences of the most far-
reaching, and, to us, at present, inconceivable kind, to
every person, to every thing, that belongs to, and forms
part of that, Creation of which, by that act, the Creator
Himself became a part, thus linking it, and for ever, to
Himself, in its whole sweep from the highest to the lowest.
We have drawn indeed a line, naturally and neces
sarily, in our view of the scale of being, between man
and the angelic world; for that is the present limitation
of our sight — a limitation necessary, for intelligible

Iii.J and, through Man, unites all Creation to God. 107
reasons, in connection with our work and duty and
probation in this present life. But when the present
veil of flesh is removed we shall (perhaps) see that there
is no great break or interruption ; and that there is (so
to say) a natural and easy ascent from the nature of
man, such as God made and designed it to be, and will
bring it to be in Christ, up to the lower ranks of angelic
life. The holy angels are spoken of in Holy Scripture as
the Sons of God ; but so also is the First Adam, and so
also are mankind as redeemed in Christ. Man was
created in the Image, after the Likeness of God, after
the Pattern (that is) of the Eternal Son, the Word,
Who is the Image of God, after Whose pattern he is
also re-created. This statement marks the original and
still possible dignity of our nature, whose crowning
glory and distinction it is that in it the Union of the
Creator with the Creature could be effected ; that it
could become the abiding tabernacle, by a personal union,
of the Eternal Son of God. A nature which was open
to such a possibility as this is indeed but a little lower
than the angels, and may readily be believed to have its
abiding place, when sin is done away, in that everlast
ing kingdom of heaven to which the holy angels already
belong, and to which the Risen Life of the Second Adam
points as its true home.
Such being the position and dignity of Human Nature
in the scale of being, it has been the thought of many
deep Christian thinkers, both in ancient and modern
times, that the Incarnation would have taken place in
any case, even had it not been the method of Man's

108 The Incarnation probable, even apart from evil. [lect.
deliverance from a fall into sin. and from a bondage
under the dominion of evil; though, apart from the
necessities of the struggle with evil, it had not in
volved the pain and shame and death upon the Cross
of the Incarnate One. Great names like Saint Anselm
and Saint Thomas of Aquinum may be reckoned on the
other side. They Would not trace the necessity of the
Incarnation higher than the Fall, and the consequent
scheme of Redemption. Yet is there nothing contrary
to the analogy of the faith in the Scotist view, and
much, alike in theoretical reason based on Revelation,
and in the express intimations of Revelation itself, to
suggest such a belief.
Considering the sublime and overpowering character
of such an event in itself, it would seem to be, as we
may so say, too great to admit of its being thought
of as in any way contingent on any, however fore
seen, action of free-will in the creature. The entrance
of evil into the Creation was contingent, not neces
sary. Its possibility lay (as we have seen) in the gift
of Free- Will, itself the necessary condition of moral
life. Its being foreseen, in the all-knowing prescience
of God, does not diminish its contingency; though it
be true that we, with our finite understanding, cannot
reconcile the existence of Free-Will nor the real con
tingency of its action and its consequences with the
Divine Foreknowledge. But it seems difficult to think
that so transcendent a fact as the Union of the Creator
with the creature in a personal conjunction can have
been merely possible, depending on the direction taken
by the will of the creature.

in.] Its Effects reach beyond Mankind. 109
59. Neither can we think of limiting its results and
effects to the particular creature Man in whose nature
that union was actually effected. At whatever point
in the scale of created Being the Creator entered into
personal conjunction with it, must not the effects of
the contact be felt, and that abidingly and unceasingly,
throughout the whole %
Mr. "Wordsworth, Bampton Lectures of 1881, speaking
(Lect. VI. p. 186) more especially of the Atonement,
writes thus, of the 'magnificent fulness and richness of
result which the New Testament ascribes to the work of
Christ, as the prophets had foreshadowed it. It takes
into its view the whole human race, from first to last
(Romans v. 18, 19; 1 Tim. iv. 10). And not only does
it extend to all the sons of Adam, but it has a graoious
influence upon the highest angels, nay, upon the in
animate creation also. It is, to use St. Paul's glorious
language, the recapitulation, the reunion of all things,
both that are in heaven and are on earth (Eph. i. 10;
Col. i. 20). It is a revelation of love made to the powers
on high, as well as to ourselves. It is one of the things
which " angels desire to look into" ' (1 Pet. i. 12).
And, p. 189. ' But if the Atonement is what we have
seen that it is proclaimed to be, an act influencing the
whole creation, it touches a very large region of which
we have only the faintest conception.'
If this be true of the Atonement, it must be true
a fortiori of the Incarnation, its necessary condition.
For is there not a wonderful continuity in created
life, certainly as we know it up to the dividing line
of our sensible perception'? And may we not infer
at least the possibility of the existence of such con
tinuity in regions of life beyond our present sight?
There is (we have seen) no sufficient reason to sup-

1 1 o The Life of the Son of God sacramentally given [lect.
pose that created beings of a superhuman order are
pure Spirit, as God is, and almost certainly God alone ;
but rather that they are associated with matter, which,
in subtler and more ethereal kinds but still in the same
essential form and outline as our own, may enclose their
personality and their spirit, and be the seat and instru
ment of their powers, as truly as our own grosser and
animal bodies are to us in this present life. And the
Divine association of matter with the personality of the
Son of God may (should we not rather say must 1) have
its far-reaching influence even on those superhuman
unfallen natures — natures which, although needing no
atonement or cleansing from sin, might yet be advanced
to higher developments, and nearer approach to God
through His Son, than had been possible, even to them,
apart from the Incarnation. The Catholic Christian
being, as such, an earnest believer in the reality, and,
for the highest life of the creature, the necessity of
Sacramental Grace — that is, of the inner and most truly
real communication, to the very innermost depths and
ultimate seats of life, of the very essential nature and
life of the Son of God as a quickening Spirit — is com
pelled to believe that, even to the very highest- unfallen
natures, whose life, glorious as it is, is yet finite and
dependent because created, the real communication of
the Life of the Son of God is the source, the only
source, of life. And not of life only,- but of growth
also and development, spiritual and intellectual, such
as needs the conscious willing co-operation and con
currence of the creaturely personal will, laying hold,
with conscious grasp, of the nourishment offered by

ill.] is necessary for the perfection of the Creature.

in

Him Who is Angels' Food, and joyfully assimilating it
in growing likeness to Him Who is the very perfect
Image of the Father, after whose likeness angels as
well as men were created (for they are expressly and
specially called the Sons of God, Job i. 6; ii. i; xxxviii.
7), and in Whom alone they also can attain their per
fection. Such infusion of life into them through the
Son of God may have received an immense development
through His association with created Nature.
There was in the first Paradise, even for unfallen
man, a tree of life of which he was to eat, and live for
ever; the outward and visible sign, at once, and the
conveying medium, of an inward and spiritual gift of
life. And, in the description of the final, the consum
mated state of redeemed Man, in the New Heavens and
Earth, the Tree of Life is again introduced (Rev. xxii. 2).
We have in this the clear intimation of the necessity of
Sacramental media for the nourishment of the higher,
that is, the conscious forms of creaturely life in all its
stages and conditions. There would be certainly no
thing strange in the existence of an analogous means
of life for angelic beings. And if the Tree of Life be
but the type and figure of that real communication of
His own nature which, since His Incarnation, the God-
Man has provided within the enclosure of His Church
for us men, it were not unreasonable to believe that
some corresponding increase of the nearness and efficacy
of the means by which, from Him, their life is sustained
may have taken place for the angels also, when the
Son of God became, like them, a creature and associated
with matter.

H2 The Incarnation the means of "its communication, [lect.
For though He took not on Him the nature of angels
(since had He done so, He had not then united with
Himself this lower order of things to which we and
what is below us belong), yet He took on Him our
nature as including, in a sense, more than, more various
elements than, the angelic nature ; as including the
same elements, albeit in lower form and power, and
others to which they are strangers ; so linking Himself
with them through us, in a way in which He could
not, it would seem, have linked Himself with us
through them.
And if there be through the Incarnation openings of
benefit, means of development, and so prospects of
greater advancement in the path of perfection, alike
to the natures of angels and of men, which could
not have otherwise been theirs, then we may well
believe that the great condition of such means of
advancement would not, even apart from the redemp
tion of fallen man, have been withheld. For the works
of God are, in each kind, of the highest possible degree
of goodness, whether actual or prospective, in esse or
in posse. None are perfect, i. e. consummated, all at
once, from the first instant of their existence; for it
belongs to God only to be absolutely and infinitely
Perfect without Progress. In Him alone fact and
capacity are identical. In Him alone there is no
Development, only Manifestation.
' God alone excepted, who actually and everlastingly
is whatsoever he may be, and which cannot hereafter be
that which now he is not: all other things besides are

in.] The Incarnation alone links Creation to God, 113
somewhat in possibility, which as yet they are not in
act.' (Hooker, E. P., I. v. 1. vol. i. p. 215.)
As for His works, they are very good, even in their
germinal beginnings ; and they tend, in conformity with
His designs, to a (possibly) endless progress. Such pro
gress, in the case of beings with an intellectual, moral,
and spiritual nature, is a progress in the knowledge and
love of God, and of His works, and in growing likeness
to Himself; a progress which the personal Union of the
Mediator-Son with the Creation which came into being
through Him, and exists in Him and for Him, must be
the most powerful means conceivable of promoting.
On this ground also, then, we may well conceive of
the Incarnation as designed from the first (to use the
language of time, which alone human thought can use)
together with, and involved in, the Creation of a
Universe of finite Life, distinct from God ; and so as
included in the Eternal Thought of God. For in Him
all that is, or shall be, or could be, existed ideally,
in a past Eternity, ere yet ought else but God began
to be.
60. Further yet, we may truly say that, apart from
the Incarnation there is, and must ever be, an infinite
gulf and chasm between the Self-Existent and all
derived and finite life, however exalted and glorious,
however good in its beginnings, however inconceivable
to us its prospect of perfectibility. There is no com
parison between that which is finite, however grand its
scale, and that which is absolute and infinite. As well
from the highest point as from the lowest of created
life, the gulf to the Uncreated is infinite. Mediation
I

114 and secures its Permanence, [lect.
becomes a necessity if there is to be any relation between
God and the Creature. The Son of God has ever been
that Mediator ; naturally, since all Creation is through
Him. He bent across the gulf, we doubt not, from the
first, in loving condescension towards His creatures ; who
could only know God, and draw near to God, and draw
life from God, through Him and in Him. Yet was Me
diation not perfect until He could be in them {St: John
xvii. 23), as well as they in Him. To bend across the
gulf, with whatever yearning love, is not to bridge it ; nor
is creation linked to the footstool of the Almighty save
by the flesh of Christ ; nor is all conscious immortal
life bound in one great communion of Saints, to which
belong an innumerable company of angels as well as all
the general assembly and Church of the first-born, who
are enrolled in heaven, and the spirits of just men made
perfect, save in Him Who, in His Incarnation, is the
Beginning of the New Creation of God as of the old
(Rev. i. 14), the Father of the world to come (Isa. ix. 6),
the Mediator of that New Covenant (Heb. xii. 24) which
was a fresh departure in the ways of God towards His
creatures. 61. A further argument may be drawn from the
permanence of the Incarnation. If its sole reason were
the redemption of sinful man, it is conceivable that,
that work completely effected, in the consummated
glory of the Elect, or, at furthest, at that ultimate point
when, all things being made subject unto Him, the Son
shall have delivered up the kingdom unto the Father
(1 Cor. xv. 24-28), the Son might lay aside the Human
Nature which He had assumed. But, on the contrary,

in.] about which Physical Science hesitates, 115
Holy Scripture teaches, and the Church has always
believed, otherwise ; namely, that the Union so effected
is ' never to be divided' (Art. ii). But if the permanent
union of Creation, in all its height and depth, with the
Creator, be a further object beyond and above the un
doing the mischief of sin, then that object was a reason
for the Incarnation, even had there been no sin. And
this may meet some difficulties that have been sug
gested by physical philosophy as to the permanence of
Creation and of Matter. Looking at the Creation
merely from the point of view of philosophic science,
physicists have thought that a time must come when
the forces originally implanted in nature will have worn
themselves out by a 'degradation of energy/ and all
return to coldness, darkness, and nonentity.
The able and thoughtful writers of an interesting
volume entitled ' The Unseen Universe,' resort indeed,
in the search for something which may avert such a
catastrophe, to the hypothesis of an invisible order of
things, 'in which we may find the origin of the molecules
of the visible Universe,' and also the ' explanation of the
forces which animate these molecules,' an unseen universe
' intimately connected with' the visible world, 'connected
by bonds of energy with it,' originally imparting energy
to it, ' also capable of receiving energy from it, and of
transforming the energy so received.' But inasmuch
as the authors themselves admit, nay assert, that this
unseen universe is itself not only created but material,
we do not see that anything is gained. The line of
sight of our present human powers of sense, is an
insufficient ground on which to base a difference as of
1 2

1 1 6 and also its continual development. [lect.
kind between what we now can see, and what, still
material, is too subtle and ethereal for us to see. It
is more philosophical to assume the real continuity of
the Created Universe as it is on either side of our line
of sight, especially since an interchange of energy is
expressly admitted, and the great principle of conti
nuity throughout all that is on our side of that line,—
' that principle which has been the guide of all modern
scientific advance' (Unseen Universe, Preface), is ear
nestly contended for by these writers. Indeed, at the
close of their First Chapter (§ 49) they tell us they
agree in the position which looks upon the invisible
world not as something absolutely distinct from the
visible universe, and absolutely unconnected with it,
as is frequently thought to be the case, but rather as
a universe which has some bond of union with the
present. Christian thinkers have always believed that
the whole created universe, invisible and visible, ani
mated or inanimate, depends absolutely for its existence,
from moment to moment, on the upholding will of God,
on the immanent spiritual presence throughout it of
Him in Whom are all things. May they not add to
this the further thought, that in the permanence of the
Incarnation, in the everlasting association of the Son
of God with the whole nature of man, in its visible and
invisible elements alike ; and so with that material sys
tem of things of which man is the crown and sum, we
have the sure promise of the everlasting continuance,
and (may we not add?) of the progressive development,
pari passu with the development of man, of the mate
rial system of things which is the home and habitation

in.] Scripture intimations of wider Purpose. 117
of intelligent life, and of which man is a part ; and
which he needs, and will continue to need, as the object
of his reverent study, and the theatre of his consum
mated powers % In the securing of this we may guess
a reason for the Incarnation apart from man's need of
deliverance from sin.
Grounding, then, our reverent thought on so high
mysteries on the facts of the Revelation contained in
Holy Scripture, we can see reasons why we may, at
least permissibly, believe that the perfect redemption
of fallen man and of his dwelling-place by means of the
Incarnation, was part of a larger purpose which, per
fectly and wonderfully, effected that and much more
besides. 62. It does not therefore surprise us to read in the
introduction of that one Epistle of St. Paul from which
personal salutations are absent, which was circular and
general in its character, and so dealt with the great
truths of Christianity on a higher level and in a more
abstract way of statement than others, that part of
what God has made known to us Christians of the
mystery of His Will is this, That according to His good
pleasure which He purposed in Christ, He should, in the
dispensation of the fulness of the times, sum up (or gather
together) in one all things in Christ, both the things in the
heavens and the things upon the earth, even in Him
(Ephes. i. 9).
Neither, again, do we wonder that in another epis
tle, addressed to a Church which was troubled by the
speculations of a false and whimsical philosophy (the
earlier form of Gnosticism), he should insert a few words

1 1 8 God's ultimate and all-inclusive Purpose, [lect.
to maintain the supreme and unique position of the
Christ as the sole Mediator between the Creator and
the created world, the Agent through Whom it ori
ginally came into being, the Life by Whom all things
consist, the abiding, and the sole and sufficient link
between it and God ; For it was the good pleasure of
the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell, and
through Him to reconcile all things unto Himself, having
made peace through the blood of His cross : through Him,
I say, whether things upon the earth or things in the
heavens (Coloss. i. 19).
63. Of the ultimate and all-inclusive purpose of God
in creation we can only say that it was for His own
glory, for the Manifestation of Himself; not to Him
self, for that already was, in His eternal ideal Thought
as permanently subsisting in His Eternal Son, the ade
quate Expression of Himself in Himself, (i.e. in His
Divine Essence), and containing in Himself all the po
tentialities of Creation. Not to Himself therefore would
God manifest Himself in Creation, but to created in
telligences who, through His Son, should know Him,
and love Him, and glorify Him, to their own unspeak
able happiness at the same time. God's all-inclusive
purpose includes a benevolent purpose towards His
rational and conscious creatures, but is not merely
identical with it. It includes it, and transcends it.
Our first thought here must be The Lord hath made all
things for Himself (Proverbs xvi. 4), not merely for the
happiness of the creature independently of moral be
haviour ; but, foreseeing that, as a fact, the moral life,
and consequent happiness, of any must involve the

in.] Creation, of itself, necessarily imperfect, 1 1 9
freedom of the will of all, and the abuse of that free
dom by some ; and yet, notwithstanding such propor
tion (whatever it be) of loss, impelled to create by some
preponderating motive, against which such loss could
not be weighed. We are sure that that motive, and
the methods of its ultimate perfect realization, are
altogether holy and just and good, and perfectly con
sistent with the nature and character of Him whose
very being is love. This thought human reason can
pursue no further, nor remove, though it feels, the
difficulties that surround it. We bow the head before
them ; but in unshaken faith in the righteousness and
in the love of God. Clouds and darkness are round
about Him — yet righteousness, we are sure, and judg
ment are the foundation of His Throne (Psalm xcvii. 2 ),
and His tender mercies are over all His works (Psalm.
cxlv. 9).
But if there be a purpose of God — the Manifestation
of Himself and of the resources of His Being, for His
own glory — beyond, though including the happiness
of the creature ; — that purpose itself the product of
an overruling necessity within the Being and Will
of God, i.e. arising from His very Being and Character,
whereby He is a Law unto Himself — then such all-
inclusive purpose may well have included, as a necessary
part of it, His personal conjunction with His own Creation.
For it is only in the Incarnation that the perfection
of Creation is attained. Creation, in itself, apart from
God, is necessarily finite. Not in its highest individual
reach, not in its aggregate totality, can it be otherwise,
as instanced in the furthest future developments of the

1 20 and only perfected through the Incarnation, [lect.
very highest created life ; for at whatever future stage
of even a conceivably endless progress, it is still, by
the very law of its being, finite, and so defective.
Hence it is necessarily imperfect ; regarded in itself
it must ever be inadequate as an expression of either
God's Power or Love, or as a manifestation of His
Character. There is no other conceivable way in
which this otherwise eternally insoluble difficulty could
be got over but by the Incarnation. An indefinite and
eternal progress of the creature towards God (which
is probable), would, even if such a progress were con
ceivable (which, perhaps, it is not) without the Son of
God and His Incarnation as its means, still leave the
creature at an infinite distance from God, and without
an ideal Pattern after which its progress should move.
The Son of God, as Incarnate, completes and crowns
creation ; removes its inherent defect ; makes it per
fect, and that beyond all thought, and in such wise that
nothing could conceivably be added to the glory of its
quality, as it is in Him its Head. The work so finished
is indeed worthy of God. Without this supreme
thought all conceptions of nature and of God must be
comparatively unworthy and insufficient. Without this
thought they cannot be, in the true deep sense of the
word, 'religious.' That thought alone binds man to
God. To have given that thought to man, realized
absolutely and literally in outer visible historic fact,
this is the crowning glory of Christianity, which is
therefore ' the One Religion.'
Compare Liddon, Bampton Lectures, V. p. 396, on
the relation of the Incarnation to Creation : ' Between

in.] Creation and Incarnation not contradictory. 121
the processes of Creation and Incarnation there is no
necessary contradiction in Divine revelation, such as is
presumed to exist by certain Pantheistic thinkers. The
Self-incarnating Being creates the form in which He
manifests Himself simultaneously with the act of His
Self-manifestation. Doubtless when we say that God
creates, we imply that He gives existence to something
other than Himself. On the other hand, it is certain
that He does in a real sense Himself exist in each object
which He creates. He is in every such object the con
stitutive, sustaining, binding force which perpetuates its
being. Thus in various degrees the creatures are temples
and organs of the indwelling Presence of the Creator,
although in His essence He is infinitely removed from
them. If this is true of the irrational and, in a lower
measure, even of the inanimate creatures, much more is
it true of the family of man, and of each member of that
family. In vast inorganic masses God discovers Himself
as the supreme, creative, sustaining force. In the gra
duated orders of vital power which range throughout the
animal and vegetable worlds, God unveils His activity as
the fountain of all life. In man, a creature exercising
conscious reflective thought and free self-determining
will, God proclaims Himself a free intelligent agent.
Man indeed may, if he will, reveal much more than this
of the glory of God : he may shed forth by the free
movement of his will, rays of God's moral glory, of love,
of mercy, of purity, of justice. But whether each man
will make this higher revelation depends not upon the
necessary constitution of his nature, but upon the free
co-operation of his will with the designs of God. God
however is obviously able to create a being who will
reveal Him perfectly and of necessity, as expressing His
perfect image and likeness before His creatures. AL
nature points to such a being as its climax and con
summation. And such a Being is the Archetypal Man
hood assumed by the Eternal Word. It is the climax
of God's Creation ; it is the climax also of God's Self-

122 The Incarnation meets and satisfies [lect.
revelation. At this point God's creative activity becomes
entirely one with His Self-revealing activity. The Sacred
Manhood is a creature, yet it is indissolubly united to
the Eternal Word. It differs from every other created
being, in that God personally tenants It. So far then
are Incarnation and Creation from being antagonistic
conceptions of the activity of God, that the Absolutely
Perfect Creature only exists as a perfect reflection of the
Divine glory. In the Incarnation God creates only to
reveal, and He reveals perfectly by that which He
creates. ' The Word was made flesh and dwelt among
us, and we beheld His glory.'
64. Before we leave this part of our subject it may
be well to point out that the Incarnation of God does,
as a fact, correspond to and satisfy, to the fullest
conceivable degree, that instinctive and true feeling of
the universality of God, and of His close presence
with Nature and with Man, which earnest thought on
God, and on the mystery of Creation and of Life, has
always exhibited ; and of which Pantheistic speculation
in its various forms, all agreeing, however, in this
fundamental thought, is the blind and groping ex
pression. In the midst of, and underlying, grossly polytheistic
forms of beliefand practice, the esoteric thought of serious
thinkers about God has ever realized and dwelt upon
His immensity, His universality, His all-embracing in
finity, His sole Self-Existence, His sole Eternal Exist
ence, alone and apart from space and time, His sole
inexhaustible self-originated Life, His sole origination
and maintenance of the life of all that lives, His im
manent Presence, in, behind, and underneath, as the
very condition of its existence, to all else that is, visible

ill.] the true elements in Pantheistic thought. 123
and invisible. The thought that in Him we live, and
move, and have our being, because we are His offspring,
was one that rose naturally to the lips of a speaker,
thoughtful and educated as well as inspired, when, in
the then world's intellectual centre, he addressed the
educated representatives of Greek culture and philosophy
(Acts xvii. 28). It was a true thought, though it was a
thought which was theirs as well as his; for which reason
he recalled them to it. It would find an echo in the
minds of the Epicureans and Stoics who encountered
Paul, and who would be struck by the Jewish speaker's
reminder of its occurrence in Greek poets of their own,
like Aratus and Cleanthes, whom he showed to be part
of his intellectual heritage as of theirs. It is a deeply
true thought, and, as such, is an essential part of
Christian thought about God and His relation to the
Universe and to Man, though it be (so to say) only a
truth about His natural relation to them (see Dean
Plumptre on Acts xvii. in Bishop Ellicott's N. T. Com
mentary for English readers). But when we reflect
how much more clearly defined a meaning it has, and
of how much closer and more intimate a relation it
speaks, to the fully trained ear of Christian Faith, and
to the soul that embraces with thoughtful loving ac
ceptance the glorious truths of the Trinity and the
Incarnation, we see another proof and example of the
perfect coherence and consistency and continuity of the
fully-apprehended Christian Revelation with the highest
and best natural thought of man about God ; we mark
another example how the added light of the Christian
Revelation throws a brighter and intenser glory about

124 God is in Creation, and in Man, through [lect.
those earlier known verities which formed the best
part, the true part, of previous Religions, Jewish or
Heathen. If in God we live and move and have our being, we
Christians know more particularly that it is in and
through the Eternal Son of God ; through Whom the
original life of the Living God has come forth upon
Creation, and in Whom all creation consists ; and this
is a general, and, so to call it, a natural truth. But
we further believe, that, through the Incarnation of the
Son, Who has thereby become the beginning of the
Second, the New, Creation, (which the Father willed to
bring about within (as it were) and above the first,
the old, the natural, creation), a still closer bond than
could exist before has been formed between God and
the Creature, a bond involving their personal conjunc
tion, and that for ever. We believe that through that
bond there is a closer Presence in man (not in all, not
in man as man, but in the believing, baptized, and.
regenerate) of the Divine Spirit — an mdwelling, in his
heart and mind, and affections, in his whole nature, of
God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost ; and further we
believe also that this is the cause and secret of man's
true life, and the pledge of its endless continuance in
progressive development. Believing this we believe
what is perfectly consistent with the lesser, earlier, more
natural truth, which is true of the life of all, that in
God, whose offspring all men are, as men, we live, and
move, and have our being naturally. Nay, we are as
sured that, believing thus, we believe what any who
accept and reflect on that simpler truth should have no

ill.] His Son. Pantheism is congenial to 125
difficulty in accepting also as antecedently probable ;
considering the power and the love of God, or the
preciousness in His sight of His creature man, and the
marvellous capacities of human nature, in thought and
spirit, when living, as it was meant to do, in God, by
God, for God.
For want of the restraining guidance of a true
religion, men to whom these thoughts of the nearness
of God to Man and to all that is, have come home,
as flowing from any worthy, even natural, thought
about God and Nature, have thrown them, sometimes
(not always), into a pantheistic, and so untrue and
dangerous form and connection ; when they have so
dwelt on the universal, ever and everywhere, present
immanence of God in Nature and in Man as to identify
and confound God with Creation ; to the loss of the
overpowering and controlling thought of His awful and
transcendent Personality, and of the absolute incompre
hensible, purely spiritual, nature of His Supreme Es
sence and Being. Such a system is clearly atheistic.
An impersonal God is no God at all. The very con
ception of such a God is to us impossible, any true
sense of the word 'God' being maintained. And our
consciousness, witnessing to an inalienable, and, as we
instinctively feel, an indestructible personality, wit
nesses against such an endeavour as indeed absurd and
irrational. For irrational it must needs be to claim
a separate personality for ourselves, each in our several
individuality, and deny it, except in a collective and
unreal sense, to the Supreme.
65. Yet it is not unnatural. It may be accounted

126 Man's natural thought about God. [lect.
for. Indeed, a close and vivid apprehension of the
nearness of God to every one of us, as the necessary
substratum of our own being, and of our consequent ab
solute dependence on Him, must (unless we can feel that
we can be at peace with Him, can be sure that He loves
us, and so be drawn to love Him in return) overpower
us by its very awfulness. For, rightly understood, it
carries with it the tremendous thought of a Supreme
Personality that enfolds us in its inevitable grasp ; the
thought of One Who is about our path and about our
bed, and spieth out all our ways, of One from Whom
there is no escape, now or hereafter, One to Whom
we are responsible, One Who is over us, above us,
distinct from us, One Who is our Judge.
It is a way of escape from this thought, so oppressive
to the natural mind, to welcome the suggestion that
God, in Whom we are and Who is in us, is not distinct
from ourselves ; that we and all that is, visible and
invisible, material and immaterial, are God, and God
is all that is, and only that ; that He (if we should not
rather say It) is the soul and life of the visible universe,
which is (as it were) His body ; that He is personal, if
at all, only in us who are personal ; if we indeed are so
ourselves, if indeed we be not mere foam-bubbles on
the surface of an infinite and eternal ocean of life, from
whose heaving bosom we flash up into a momentary
existence of our own, only to be reabsorbed and merged
again for ever. Such a thought of God, if the word is
not to be avowedly parted with, is tolerable to the
natural and unregenerate mind, if it speculates at all
on subjects so mighty. But to the mind that knows not

m.] Only in Christ can Man bear the nearness of God, 127
God in Christ, as the Lover and Redeemer of sinners,
and as, in Christ, a reconciled and loving Father ; to the
mind whose thoughts, desires, and aspirations are con
fined within the limits of the present and the visible,
and which is really self-centred the while, and conscious
of that within on which God cannot look with favour ;
the thought of the ever-present Personality of the living
God, is and must be, unwelcome, nay, intolerable.
Man cannot know God unless he at least wills to know
Him. He will put Him from him. He will substitute
for Him any vain self-created imagination, any idolum
speeds of his own. He will speak of an anima mundi,
an all-pervading substance, an infinite life, or 'force,'
a ' stream of tendency,' an ' unknown God,' but not of
a living personal God, Whom man can know as an ever
present Friend, in Whom man can trust, with Whom
man can walk, and that joyfully and securely, amid
the trials and the sometimes darkness, of this present
life, on Whom man can lean when flesh and heart fail,
because He is spiritually known and experimentally
felt to be the strength of his heart, and his portion for
ever (Psalm lxxiii. 25.)
66. It is only in Christ that man can realize, or
endure when he has realized, the thought of the inti
mate nearness of God. All pantheistic systems begin
with that; but they end by, practically, if not in terms,
denying God, or reducing Him to a mere Idea or ab
straction. Through the Incarnation, and through the
extension of the Incarnation through the Sacraments,
the nearness of God to man is realized in a height of
verity and fulness, inconceivable before and unima-

128 being united to God without absorption, [lect.
gined ; so that men may become partakers of the divine
nature (2 St. Peter i. 4), even as God became partaker
of human nature; and, being 'knit together in one
communion and fellowship in the mystical body of
God's Son Christ our Lord,' may be one in the Father
and the Son, even as the Father is in the Son and the
Son in the Father (St. John xvii. 21-23). I*1 fne
strength of this faith the Christian can say, I am per
suaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor prin
cipalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to
come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall
be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in
Christ Jesus our Lord (Rom. viii. 38, 39.)
And this inseparable love is no absorption. It is no
merging of individual being in an ocean, even of love.
Rather the very joy of it, the secret of the Lord which
is with them thai fear Him (Psalm xxv. 14), is the sense
of a conscious personal grasp of a Person, the answer of
heart to heart, the Divine to the deepest needs of the
Human, the human to the overflowing fulness of the
Divine ; the sense of being individually loved by One
of Whom each can say, He loved me and gave Himself
for me (Gal. ii. 20), the joy of self- surrendering love to
Him, of unreserved sacrifice of the will, itself intensely
realized in its individual self-ness, to the Will of Him
Who made us for Himself, that from us He might enjoy
the love of hearts that love Him with a willing con
scious love, and so grow continually into the likeness of
Him, and so into fuller life.
67. The very thought of such a perfectibility of
man's nature had not come to man save through that

ill.] Unsatisfying hopelessness of Pantheism. 1 29
Incarnation through which alone it can be realized.
But in the thought of it, and in the sole conceivable
realization of it, under any circumstances, through the
intimate union rendered possible by the Incarnation,
we may see at once some reason for believing that the
Incarnation would, even apart from the entrance of sin
and evil into the Universe, have taken place, as the
one means to the highest perfection of the Creature,
and, at the same time, the more than satisfaction of
that instinct which has expressed itself among all think
ing races of mankind in the varied forms of Pantheistic
speculation. We see in the Incarnation the satisfaction
of the portions of truth which may be traced in these
speculations, and which have given them their vitality,
without that accompanying denial of all beyond the
visible, that rejection of any individual future life, which,
in so many systems, have bounded human life at either
end by an impenetrable wall of blank non-entity, and
reduced that human life itself, as men and women know
it, to what, if it were not too seriously painful, would
be ridiculous and grotesque, a life without sense or
meaning or object or explanation ; a life in the observa
tion of which the bystanding cynic might amuse himself
so long as health and sunshine lasted, but in which no
thoughtful man could, after its first fresh years of
novelty were over, find any pleasure ; a life from which,
when its spring was gone, and its brightness had faded,
the speediest exit were the thing most to be desired,
for it must be necessarily a life without hope.
It was Schopenhauer's exclamation, ' What ! this world
the work of a God ? Nay, rather of a devil.' On the

130 Unsatisfying hopelessness of Pantheism.
other hand, F. H. Jacobi, whose religion was mere
natural Theism without a Mediator, ' My watchword and
that of my reason is not my Ego, but one Who is more
than I, Who is better than I, one Who is entirely dif
ferent from me, namely, God. I neither am, nor care to
be, if He is not.' (Sendschreiben an Fichte.)
On the subject of Sections 63-66, the student will
find much that is valuable in Dr. Mill's work on The
Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels, Part I. section iv. —
in Martensen's Christian Dogmatics, sections 37-45, On
the Nature of God (translated in Clark's Foreign Theo
logical Library)— in Liddon's Bampton Lectures, Lect.
VIII. 1. 2, On belief in our Saviour's Godhead as an
' effective safeguard against Pantheism '¦ — and in Ooster-
zee's Christian Dogmatics (Hodder and Houghton, 1874),
Section xlv. a, The Idea of God, and Section xlviii, God's
mode of existence.

LECTURE IT.
THE PREPARATION FOR THE INCARNATION:
THE THEOPHANIES.
Genesis xxviii. 12. And he dreamed, and behold, a ladder set
up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven : and
behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.
And, behold, the Lord stood above it, and said, I am the
God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac ....
17. And he was afraid, and said, How dreadful is this place !
this is none other but the House of God .... 19. And he
called the name of that place Beth-el.
Genesis xxxi. 1 1 . And the Angel of God spake unto me in a
dream, saying, Jacob : And I said, Here am I. And he
said, I am the God of Beth-el.
Genesis xxxii. 24. And Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled
a man with him until the breaking of the day .... 30. And
Jacob called the name of the place Peniel : for I have seen
God face to face, and my life is preserved.
Genesis xlviii. 15. And he blessed Joseph and said, God, before
Whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God
which fed me all my life long unto this day, the Angel
which redeemed me from all evil, bless the lads.
Hosea xii. 3. By his strength he had power with God ;
Yea, he had power over the Angel, and prevailed ;
He wept and made supplication unto Him :
He found him in Beth-el, and there He spake
with us ;
Even the Loud God of Hosts; — the Lokd is
His memorial.
K 2

132 The Long Preparation [lect.
Isaiah lxiii. 9. In all their affliction He was afflicted,
And the Angel of His Face saved them:
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them;
And He bare them and carried them all the
days of old.
68. That so great an event as the Incarnation of
God, an event than which nothing can be conceived
greater, whether in itself or in its possible conse
quences, should be preceded by a prolonged and mani
fold Preparation is only what must naturally be ex
pected. We are accustomed to dwell much on certain
features of that manifold Preparation, such, for example,
as Prophecy and Promise, which, dawning in the
Protevangelium that announced the ultimate triumph
of the Seed of the woman, was repeated and expanded
in later promises, to Abraham and the Patriarchs, and
by renewed additions and developments grew fuller
and brighter and more detailed, up to the close of
the Old Testament Canon. We are accustomed also
rightly to regard the whole History of the Chosen
People, their peculiar divinely -ordained institutions,
their Priests, their Prophets, their Kings, as all closely
and pointedly typical, as constituting, indeed, one
great Prophecy in act. The marvellous correspondence
which the instructed Christian traces in the Person
and Life, the Offices and Work of Christ, and in the
History of His Church, to this great pre-existing sys
tem of Prophecy verbal and typical, is to him one of
the strongest proofs of the truth both of the Christian
Religion and of its original records in the New Testa
ment. He sees before him a great historical phe
nomenon of the most remarkable and influential kind,

IV. J for the Incarnation, 133
the permanent monuments of which, as a whole, and
in its grand outlines, as secured in the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures, and in the uninspired history of
the Jewish People alike and of the Christian, are far
above out of the reach of any hostile criticism ; a
phenomenon extending over many centuries, and affect
ing, undoubtedly for good, the prominent races of the
world ; a phenomenon of which no reasonable and
sufficient explanation can be given save on the sup
position of its truth and reality, its supernatural reality,
as a mighty result of a Divine Providence ruling man's
destiny and man's world. And further, extending his
view be}-ond the pale of express covenants, as he has
been taught to extend it by many Christian writers,
both of earlier times, as, for example, the great repre
sentatives of that broad philosophic school of Christian
thought of which Alexandria was the centre, or, in our
own generation and country, such writers as Arch
deacon Hard wick (in his Christ and other Masters),
Archbishop Trench (Hulsean Lectures of 1846), and the
Bampton Lecturer of last year, he finds among Heathen
Races of all ages and countries yearnings which only
the Christian Beligion can satisfy, ideas which it alone
can realize, thoughts, practices, expectations, resting
originally, according to their most probable explana
tion, on traditional remains of primeval religion and,
belief1, or else the natural growth of Humanity as it
1 ' Such thoughts, the wreck of Paradise,
Through many a dreary age
Upbore whate'er of good and wise
Yet liv'd in bard or sage.'
(Keble, Christian Year, Trinity IV.)

134 to which all previous history leads up. [lect.
is ; but which, in either case, point to Christianity and
to nothing else, or must be wholly unaccountable. In
this again we trace an over-ruling influence which has
never deserted the human race in even its furthest
wanderings from the Light of God. We see, with an
enlarging faith and hope in the ultimate destiny of
Man, gracious gleams amid the deepest darkness ; rays
which could only come from Him Who is the True
Light which, coming into the world, lighteth every man;
guidance which could only be vouchsafed by Him Who,
in His love and in His pity, was in the world, even when
the world knew Him not, the Eternal Son of God.
It is well that we should learn thus to dwell with
deepest interest on the breadth and variety of the
great Preparation for the universal, the everlasting
Gospel of the Kingdom of God on earth, and for that
supreme crisis in its development, the actual Incarna
tion. It is well that we should fully see and feel how
all things lead up to that. The more we study pre
vious History in the light of so great a thought, the
more natural (so to say) and probable will the Incarna
tion itself appear to us to be ; to us, and indeed, we
must think to any who, believing in an intelligent and
loving Creator and Father of our race, and together
with any worthy conception of the dignity and capaci
ties of human nature combining any sufficient know
ledge of its actual condition, its wants, its misery, its
degradation, are compelled perforce to conclude that
the Almighty must care for us, must reveal Himself
to us, must draw us towards Himself.
69. Many here are young, and therefore inex-

iv. J Patience needed under difficulties as to Faith. 135
perienced ; with little real knowledge yet of themselves
or of the world, present or past, Christian or Heathen.
But to judge of the questions raised in our day as
in others, in this place as elsewhere, as to the very
fundamental postulates of any religious belief, requires
a very wide and comprehensive view afield, a very
close and candid look within ; a knowledge of human
nature, in self and others, which only a larger and
fuller experience of life can bring. Believe me, the
argument for or against Christianity, for or against
those deep common moral human truths about God
and man which lie at its base, does not lie in a nut
shell. Questions about them can in no wise be even
understood with so short an experience as yours ; much
less can they be determined by any offhand formula,
however apparently clever. In this matter ' short
methods ' are of no avail : and a wise man, in the face
of alleged religious difficulty, will always suspend his
judgment, at least until he has really grasped the con
ditions of the problem.
But such questions will press for an answer. Not
perhaps while life is pleasant, and all seems bright and
fresh before you, not while felt health and strength in
body and mind fill men with sufficient enjoyment in
mere existence and in the natural exercise of their
powers in the present, and with buoyant hope for the
future, a future which, with the unlooked-for changes,
inward and outward, which it will assuredly bring to
themselves and to others, they cannot as yet possibly
realize or anticipate. But when the first flush and
bloom of life is over, and men have learnt by ex-

136 Experience of life strengthens Faith, [lect.
perience (by which alone they can learn them) their
weakness as well as their strength, their needs as well
as their powers, their dependence as well as their
freedom; and, at the same time, have better guessed
the possible grandeur of their nature in the height and
depth of its capacities and its yearnings, moral, in
tellectual, spiritual, in its sense of power in will, in its
consciousness of an ideal for which it feels it was made,
but which it equally feels it can never realize within
the limits of this present life ; when, on a fuller view,
for good and evil, of the lives of others, it may be
others with whom, and with whose welfare and destiny
our own lives are bound up, there comes to us a
humbler, a diviner pity for human nature in general,
and for ourselves, in whom, as in others, the wreck we
see, and the misery we cannot bear to think of, are at
least possible, then, in a fitter mood to sympathise with
God Who knows it all, then, with a larger capacity to
understand God's ways — which are not our ways —
men come to feel that, after all, they may trust Him,
even in the darkest dark, that above and beyond all
difficulties there must be, after all, a remedy and an
explanation. And then comes back the faith, full,
strong, impregnable, that the human misery which we
know to be real, and the reach and capacity of im
mortal happiness which we know to be real too, even
in the lowest and most miserable, must have, the one its
sufficient cure, the other its complete realization, here
after if not here ; both alike procured and ensured, for all
who do not put them from them and destroy their own
capacity for them, by the Incarnation of the Son of God.

iv. J The Son is ' The Life' and ' The Truth' to all. 137
70. We have seen that all God's intelligent creatures,
angelic as well as human, were formed not only to live
by and from and in Him, but also consciously to know
Him, to love Him, to worship and to serve Him ; and
all these in an ever-advancing progress. It is clearly
revealed that the life of all, in all its forms, lower or
higher — that life which is in them the present energy
of the Holy Spirit of God, the Life-giver — comes to
them from the Eternal Father, the Original Source of
all Life, through the Eternal Son; Who thus bears, and
that necessarily, a Mediatorial character, both towards
the angelic world, and also towards the human world,
even regarded as unfallen. He is to all the Life.
But, further, to all God's intelligent creatures, He is
also the Truth. Their intellectual powers and their
spiritual perception and knowledge are alike, we have
seen, through Him, the Word and Wisdom of the Father,
Whom none can know save through Him. The language
of the Synoptic Gospels, in the remarkable Johannine
passage which is common to St. Matthew (xi. 27) and
St. Luke (x. 22), is as express on this point as that
of the fourth Evangelist. No one (ovSeli) knoweth the
Son, but the Father ; neither doth any know the Father,
save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to
reveal Him. Thus that None cometh unto the Father,
but through the Son is a necessary, an eternal truth.
Only in and through the Son, the perfect Image of the
Father, can any created spirit look upon the Invisible
Godhead, or learn the Nature, the Character, and the
Love of Him Who dwelleth in Light unapproachable
(1 Tim. vi. 16), Whom no man hath seen, nor can see;

138 The Creator of Man was also [lect.
but of Whom it is said, He that hath seen the Son hath
seen Him (St. John xiv. 9), for the Only-Begotten Son,.
Which is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared
Him (i. 18).
From these deep and universal truths it follows that
from his first Creation Man has been indebted for what
ever spiritual knowledge he has enjoyed, in whatever
condition of being, to the Mediation of the Son of God.
71. In Primeval Man we contemplate a being created
indeed in the image of God, but whose likeness to God
must be realized by probation ; created in grace, and en
dued with Original Piighteousness, but as yet inexperi
enced, untried, and with all his development before him.
Sin and the experience of evil were no necessary steps
in that development ; though the possibility of them
was. But we believe that Man's merciful Creator was
also his Educator from the first; and that, in that
closer communion which is the normal state of man,
and which, until sin entered and estrangement from
God by sin, existed in the primeval state, He vouch
safed to him such guidance and instruction, such a
Revelation in fact, as should make him understand, in
its essential features, his position in Creation, his rela
tion to other creatures and to the world around him,
and to Him Who made him and them.
Compare Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, § lviii. p. 322.
' Even a, priori we may safely assert that if there is really
a God, who willed to be known and worshipped by men,
He must begin by revealing Himself, and affording them
so much light as to the creation of the world as was
called for by their capacity and need. For he who wills

IV.] his Educator from the First. 1 39
the end must also will the means ; and this law has its
application even to the Supreme Wisdom. Knowledge
touching the origin of things was — as the foundation
of all religion — indispensable ; and this could not be
attained to unless it were furnished by Him. In what
way this may have taken place is a question which
certainly will never be answered, and also is, in a certain
respect, of comparatively small importance. Here we
are concerned with the great principle, and that prin
ciple can be rejected only where one no longer reserves in
his thinking a place for a personal God, and a direct
community between Him and the humanity allied to
Him. Not a little combines to lead us to conjecture
that in the first age, before the Fall, this communion was
much more intimate than in after ages ; and the religious
faith in a higher education of humanity leads naturally
to the conviction that the highest Educator has in this
respect least of all " left Himself without witness." '
So Bishop Bull, Vol. II. Disc. V. On The State of
Man before the Tall, ' It is apparent from the account of
Moses, that the first man in the state of integrity was
(as we have heard Tertullian expressing it) Deo de
proximo amicus, " the intimate friend of God," that he
should coelestia portare, "bear heavenly things," and
sustain the approaches of the shechinah, or majestic
presence of God, without any regret or starting back ;
that he could maintain a conference or discourse with
God (as we have heard St. Basil speaking) in the same
tongue or language, as we read Gen. ii. 15, 16, 19-23.
 It is likewise evident from the same history of
Moses, that Adam in the state of integrity had a know
ledge of certain things unaccountable upon any other
hypothesis but this, that his mind was irradiated with a
divine illumination.'
We cannot doubt that the Mediator of this Revela
tion was the Son of God; nor when, before or after

140 Primeval Worship. [lect.
the Fall, we read of interviews of the Loed God with
man, and of the Loed God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day, can our thoughts turn to any other,
or refrain from picturing a visible, and if so, of course
a human, though pre-eminently glorious, Form, as well
as an audible and articulate Voice (Appendix, Note 6).
72. And as Man received from God manifested to
him in and through the Son, so must he also have given
back to God. The Head and Representative of all
life below his own, gifted with those powers of
Thought and Speech, of Will and conscious Love,
which should qualify him to be the Priest of this lower
world, Man was the mouthpiece of its otherwise dumb
and inarticulate Worship, the link and the expression
of its allegiance to the Almighty Creator of all.
What was the outward form of this Worship we are
not told. But inasmuch as its inner essence must
necessarily have been the grateful sacrifice of himself
and of all that God had given him, so it is not in
conceivable that some offering of the fruit of the
ground, which was the Almighty's gift to him as the
support of his life, may have been the ordained and
understood form, or part of it, of its outer exhibition ;
whether we do or do not suppose the unfallen life to
have continued for a space sufficient for its actual
exercise. Adam in Paradise, like Cain afterwards, was
a tiller of the ground. Cain's offering at the end of
days, (an expression which may possibly mean on the
seventh day, the hallowed day of rest from the Crea
tion,) may very naturally have been, though incomplete
under the altered circumstances, the continuation of a

IV.] The Eucharistic Sacrifice. 141
custom which did not originate with him — it is quite
inconceivable that it should have done so, or within
the fallen life of man — but may well have been a part
of the religious life of Paradise, being the natural and
obvious acknowledgment from him who was placed
there to till the ground and to draw the sustenance of
his fife from its produce. Its defect would seem
to have been the absence of any confession of sin,
and of any expression of faith in an atonement by
blood K
It may be observed here, in passing, how remarkably
and yet how simply, and, we may almost say, con
veniently, the Christian Offering of the Catholic Church,
the Eucharistic Sacrifice, combines and represents both
elements, the thank-offering, for natural sustenance (the
' oblations ' of the Liturgy, accompanying the offering
of our substance in the ' alms ') and the sin-offering of
expiation (in the ' perpetual memory ' of the Sacrifice
of Christ). These, with the Offering of ' ourselves, our
souls and bodies,' now in renewed union with Christ, as
a whole burnt-offering, complete the idea of sacrifice.
Thus the Service of the Holy Communion includes all
the essential elements of Sacrificial Worship, as it has
ever existed, in whatever varieties of form, in all ages
from the beginning, whether among God's chosen
People, or, as a survival by tradition from primeval
times, among Heathen Races also, among whom the
Offering of Bread and Wine was as uniform and familiar
1 See Macdonald, Introduction to the Pentateuch, Book III. Ch. iii.
Sect. i. 1, on The Offerings of Gain and Abel.

142 Entrance of Sin into Mans World. [lect.
a feature of Sacrifice as it was among the Jews them
selves 1.
73. ' Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree,'
it does not fall within the scope of these Lectures to
speak particularly. The threat was, In the day that
thou eatest thereof, dying thou shalt die. It was fulfilled.
The essence of Death is separation from God, in Whom
alone is Life. That result began to show itself in
stantly. The working out of the sentence in its full
effects, in body and mind, in heart and affections, in
soul and spirit, was only a question of time. All is
summed up in the first utterance of fallen Man, I
heard Thy Voice in the garden, and I was afraid be
cause I was naked, and I hid myself. Fear, shame,
estrangement, had already taken the place of filial
confidence and love.
But evil was not to triumph. God's Purpose in
the Creation of Man and Man's World was not to be
frustrated. Delayed it might be, as we count delay,
by the intrusive operation of a rival will; but this
downfall was to be so marvellously over-ruled as to
give occasion to a still greater display of the wisdom
and resources of God, and especially of His Fatherly
Character of Love, in a future New-Creation which
should more than replace the lost glories of the old
1 On this point the student may be referred to the very interesting
and valuable passage on The Universality and Uniformity of Sacrifice
in Archdeacon Freeman's Principles of Divme Service, Part.. II. Ch. i.
Sect. 4.

iv.] Announcement of the Incarnation. 143
recovering Man from the grasp of evil, and binding
him in the closest conceivable union with God, and so
opening up to him once more the path to the highest
blessedness and joy.
As the first consequence of the changed relation of
God and Man, the agent and representative of evil is
expressly cursed ; and the age-long strife between Good
and Evil throughout human History, and the in
evitable antagonism between their personal representa
tives, are plainly announced. But while the consequent
suffering to the Seed of the woman is foretold, the
assurance of His final triumph is from the first de
clared, It shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise
His heel.
Here, with the Targums, (which paraphrase, as else
where, the Name of God by the phrase the Word of the
Loed,) and with the Christian Fathers almost uni
versally, we understand the Divine Person, the Loed
God, Who thus first preached the Gospel in the hear
ing of our first parents, and revealed the great central
truth that the triumph over evil should be achieved by
One in our nature, to have been Himself the Son of God,
thus entering on a new phrase of His inherent Mediator-
ship, and beginning to manifest Himself as the Saviour
and champion of Man against the Evil One, man's
seducer and oppressor, and His own envious adversary
and rival. ' The Targums here and generally paraphrase the Name
of the Most High by " the Word of the Loed," more
especially in those passages where is recorded anything
like a visible or sensible representation of His Majesty.

144 Adoration of God for His mercy. [lect.
The Christian Fathers almost universally believed that
every appearance of God to the patriarchs and prophets
was a manifestation of the Eternal Son. Compare John i.
18.' (Bishop Harold Browne in The Speaker's Commentary,
on Gen. iii. 8.) See also his Exposition of the Articles,
Art. I. Section II. On the Old Testament intimations of
a plurality of Persons in the Godhead. Also, as to the
Targums, Canon Churton on Gen. iii. 8. in the S.P.C.K.
Commentary.
74. At this point, whatever we may think as to the
question, Whether, without the necessity of redeeming
Man from sin, the Son of God would have taken Man's
nature upon Him, we cannot but pause to adore, upon
the first announcement of the Divine Purpose of mercy
towards our race.
Let us prostrate ourselves in spirit before so mar
vellous a condescension. Let us humbly thank God
for His unspeakable gift of His Only-Begotten Son;
and this especially in connection with the accompany
ing revelation of the Suffering therein involved, now
that Sin had entered into the tvorld, and death by sin.
An Incarnation of God with no sin of man to atone for
and remove, and so with no suffering or shame for the
Incarnate One, had been the theme of the most awed
thanksgiving, the occasion for the very highest reach
of wonder, love, and praise ; but, when, as it actually
is, it is the stooping of the Eternal Son, for love of
Man, ' for us men and for our salvation,' to shame and
dishonour, to agony and death, what words of human
speech, what thoughts of human heart, what but the
profoundest worship, on every mention, on every thought
of it, of which our whole nature which He so greatly

iv.] The 'Protevangelium.' 145
loved and valued, is capable in its every element, in
body, soul, and spirit, can be the meet acknowledg
ment of so great a mystery of love ; a mystery whose
very amazing, nay, overpowering inconceivableness is, to
the heart which knows its own sore need, the sure de
monstration of its truth ?
75. We cannot tell in what sense the stupendous
promise, as we see it to have been, was understood by
Adam and Eve ; nor how far, if at all, they realized
its import. Some have thought that Eve's saying on
the birth of Cain indicates her belief that he was the
promised Seed. I have gotten a man, even Jehovah is
the literal rendering of the present Hebrew Text in
Genesis iv. 1 ; but the Septuagint renders through, or
by means of, God, indicating the presence of a preposi
tion and the reading Elohim instead of Jehovah ; and
the Vulgate follows it exactly.
But at least the promise assured them of mercy.
It kindled a hope which should be, as widespread
traditions show it to have been, the cherished posses
sion, amid whatever perversions and corruptions, of
their descendants generally. And it was the germinal
seed and root of that unbroken growth of enlarging
Prophecy which became the special distinction of
the Chosen Race until it culminated in the Angelic
Salutation. 76. We, looking back from the sure ground of a
completed Revelation, can trace with thankful interest
from the very first the presence and the love of the
predestined Mediator, (Whose Suffering in our flesh we
perceive to be indicated in the allusion to the bruising

146 The Primitive Usage [lect.
of His heel). And we observe the symbolic intimation
of His remedial Death, vouchsafed even before the ex
pulsion from Paradise, in the act of the Loed God Who
made unto Adam and to his wife coats of skins, and
clothed them; an act which, as involving the death of
an animal, was the first proclamation of at once the
necessity and the possibility for the sinner of cleansmg
and remission by blood. In the absence of any express
statement we cannot be sure that the death of the
animal, so slain to supply a covering, was sacrificial,
a distinctly ordained addition to the primeval offering
• of the fruit of the ground ; but the supposition that
it was so would be at least thoroughly consistent with
the acceptance of animal sacrifice as offered by Abel
and with the marked rejection of Cain's sacrifice ; a
rejection which seems to imply the neglect on his part
of a known duty. We know that the animal was
not slain for food ; and it is hardly conceivable that
its death should have had no deeper significance, no
higher purpose, than to provide a covering.
Bishop Bull, Vol. I. Sermon VIII., p. 205. ' The
Church of God hath always believed that Adam re
pented, and laid hold on the mercy of a second covenant,
and was received again into divine favour ; although
there be no express mention of this in his history.
Thus, we do not read of any precept or law given by
God to Adam after his fall, but we find the practice of
sacrificing in his family. And it will be very difficult
to him that considers the matter thoroughly, to imagine
that he invented that rite of his own head; he was
taught it therefore by the command and institution of
God. And it is highly reasonable to think, that at the

iv.] of Animal Sacrifice. 147
same time, when God gave a second law and institution,
he encouraged him also to the obedience of it, by a
promise of acceptance and restitution to his former
favour. Upon this hope doubtless he renewed his alle
giance to his Creator, and devoted himself to the worship
and service of God, and taught his sons, Cain and Abel,
to do so likewise. From him they learned to present
their several offerings to the Lord, Gen. iv., where we
read also, ver. 4, 5, that God had respect to Abel's offering,
and declared his acceptance of it by some visible sign,
taken notice of by his brother Cain ; probably, as the
Hebrew doctors tell us, " by a fire from heaven, inflaming
his offering." ' See also Bishop Harold Browne, on Gen.
iv. 3, in The Speaker's Commentary ; and Freeman, Principles
of Divine Service, Part II. Chap. II. Sect, iii., especially
paragraph 8, and Note there.
However this may be, the usage of animal sacrifice,
accompanying and accompanied by the Unbloody
Offering of the fruit of the ground, and that very soon
expressly stated to be in the determinate form of
Bread and Wine, is the marked central feature of
outward religious worship among all races of mankind
from the first \ The two kinds of sacrifice combine to
form the standing witness at once to the primary duty
of Eucharistic Thanksgiving to Him Who is the Author
and supporter of man's life (in devout acknowledgment
that all he is and has is from God and must be
rendered back to God), and to the sad reality of sin
and consequent estrangement, needing an intervening
death of one who stands in the place of and represents
the offerer. In this added feature were involved for
the offerer both the penitent confession of sin and
1 See Trench's Hulsean Lectures, 1846, Lect. IV.
L 2

148 Mediatorial relation of the Son [lect.
consequent forfeiture of life and the humble faith that,
through the Death of Another which God would
accept, the forfeited life might be restored and the
estrangement done away. That such was the inner
meaning of this primitive and otherwise inexplicable
institution we can hardly doubt. Whether all who
took part in it realized this meaning is another thing,
and need not be supposed in order to believe that
such was its inner meaning. Yet one can hardly
doubt that the higher spirits at least among God's
specially-favoured people did take part in it with a
forward-looking faith in Him That was to come, and
with some consciousness that, in thus drawing near to
God in His then appointed way, they were accepted
of Him.
7 7. Such acceptance we are sure was vouchsafed to
them for the sake of One Who, though as yet unre-
vealed, was the Mediator even then. We have seen
(Lecture II.) that for the acceptance of the Worship
of even the Holy Angels there was need of the con
descending intervention of the Only-Begotten Son.
There was the same need for Man in his brief con
dition of primeval innocence. And now, for Man
fallen, the need was greater. It was supplied. What
ever acceptableness belonged to the worship of the best
and holiest, an Abel, a Noah, a Melchizedek, belonged
to it only as passed upward to the Throne of the
Most High by the Priestly Action of the Eternal Son.
Nor was there any other channel of blessing from
God to Man. Whatever knowledge of God and of
their duty, whatever hope for the future came to

iv.] to Mankind after the Fall. 149
men's sin-darkened minds, came to them through Him
Who is ever the only Light of the world. Whatever
discipline of mingled mercy and judgement, throughout
the long preparation, was vouchsafed to Man, whether
in the Heathen condition, as it grew and developed
itself, or within the favoured circle of the Chosen,
was administered through Him. Whatever strivings
of God's Spirit wrought within the spirit of man, in
whatever condition, under whatever circumstances, fav
ourable or otherwise, wrought through Him. Through
the long four thousand years of chequered history,
sacred or profane, His was the unseen guiding Hand,
His the unseen controlling governance.
He was never at any time far from His creature Man.
In a true sense He was ever in the world, though the world
knew Him not. He had ever, even in the darkest hours,
His nearer People ; the few who were even then the
beginning of His Kingdom ; on whom rested whatever
light reached men from Heaven — and it reached them
through Him — among whom was cherished from the
first the stream of true traditional religion ; in the
inner bosom of whose personal, family, social, or
national life were treasured up the hopes of the whole
world. Of those hopes He was throughout the centre
and the stay. The faith of Israel looked ever onward
from the first, to a personal Deliverer, to One Who
should come. The growing light of Prophecy, age after
age, sustained and developed this faith, until it was
realized in Him Whose love and mercy were, like His
personal dignity, beyond all actual expectation, though
not beyond what a truer and more spiritual insight

150 The Christian Faith, lighted up [lect.
might — and possibly in some few instances of the
specially pure-hearted and devout actually did, at least
in occasional glimpses — discern, in the recorded inci
dents of inspired History, and in the written utterances
of inspired Prophecy.
78. We Christians indeed possess the key of a fully-
developed Faith. Above our horizon the Sun of Right
eousness has fully risen. Baptized with the Holy Ghost
we have an unction from the Holy One. Through the
Christ, her Divine Head, the Church, which is His
Body, thefidness of Him thatfilleth all in all, has, from
the first Paschal In-breathing onwards, received, for her
distinctive possession as an abiding Gift, not the spirit
of the world, but the Spirit Which is from God, that we
might know the things that are freely given to us by God
(1 Cor. ii. 12). Partaking of this Gift, he that is
spiritual has, in his measure, the mind of Christ, and
so discerneth that which can be only spiritually dis
cerned. In the language of Saint Paul on this subject
there is very deep and important truth ; though it
be truth not always sufficiently remembered even by
those who readily admit it. The natural man (-^v^i/cbs
avOpcoiros) receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God ;
for they are foolishness unto him. Hence it is that No
man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy
Ghost. True, as we may so express it, in a literal
and outward sense, and as the expression of a coarser
distinction, in the first age of the Church, when the
Gospel was first proclaimed to an ignorantly unbe
lieving crowd, such language is true still ; not in that
sense only, but also of those who are professed Christian

iv.] by the Holy Spirit, 151
believers, and far from insincere or doubtful, but within
whose hearts and lives the inward fire of a real spiritual
life has hardly yet been kindled into an avowed and
living flame ; or who, even when it has been so kindled,
deal with religious questions, in thought and study,
or in argument and teaching, not always in a con
sciously religious spirit, but, too much so at least if
not altogether, as an intellectual question, a thesis, or,
worse still, as a badge of party-distinction, to be hotly
contended for as against those who, within or without
the pale of belief, have difficulties about it, and to be
wielded, in a half-contemptuous spirit, against such
as the instrument of their discomfiture. Such is not
the mind of Christ ; and in whatever proportion it
exists, in sect, or school, or party, it must, in such
proportion, weaken their power of spiritual discern
ment ; not only hindering the acquisition of fresh
lights on Inspired Revelation, such as the devout study
of it in the right spirit would surely lead the Church
to in successive ages, but also tending to render in
effective the even eager maintenance of the common
and necessary truths long known and acknowledged.
Church History, in all ages and countries, bears abun
dant witness to the reality of this danger. Next to
the worldly and godless lives of professed believers,
it is perhaps the chiefest cause of the present obvious
weakness and barrenness of Christianity in the world.
The glorious Faith of Catholic Christendom, as it is
crystallized in the Creeds into gems that blaze with
living light and beauty, as sentence after sentence
rises heavenward from glowing hearts and lips in the

152 is the Key of Man's past History. [lect.
worship of the Church, is no mere result of human
dialectic or scholastic disputation, no mere triumph
of intellectual skill, no bold flight of philosophic specu
lation ; though the great names of the conciliar epoch
may rank with the highest in those respects. No — it
was rather the outcome of the tears and the prayers, the
struggles and the sorrows, the passionate adoring love,
the resistance unto blood for Jesus' sake, of those who,
being holy and humble men of heart, had real insight
into things divine and spiritual ; of men and women
in whose hearts it lived, and who lived and died by it,
in days when the world, even the world that called
itself Christian, was against them. This faith, which
we by God's mercy inherit and have known, perhaps
too cheaply and too easily, from childhood is, especially
when warmly and lovingly held and embraced, and
studied in the light which the Spirit of God supplies,
the Key to the past, as it is the consolation and the
joy of the present, and the ground and stay of the
hope of the future.
It is the Key of the past. It sheds its clear light
from the height of the Christian stand-point over the
chequered history of the long Preparation for the
Incarnation, the long vaiSaywyla (the Education) of our
race. It discloses to us throughout the presence and
the operation of One, 'unseen yet ever near,' Who
was deeply and graciously interested in the welfare
of mankind ; Who was framing an election which was
no proscription of the rest, but the means and method
of the ultimate blessing of all ; holding communication
with its chosen spirits, from time to time, in mysterious

iv.] The Ante-Diluvian Dispensation. 153
visits, through an audible voice, and even in visible,
though temporary, manifestations. And all this the
fruit of that condescending love whereby He Who is,
necessarily, in His own inner Divine Being, Infinite
and, to created eyes, invisible as is the Father Himself,
yet stooped to Man's necessity and weakness through
successive economies of mercy; wherein, in absolute
unity of Will and work with the Eternal Father,
Whose purposes He was, as Mediator, carrying out,
and with the Eternal Spirit by Whom He carried them
out, He revealed to fallen Man such knowledge of God,
and of His Purpose and Will, as Man, from time to
time, was able to bear ; until the time came when,
in place of His secret working, He should stand revealed
in our flesh as the One Mediator between God and men,
the Man Christ Jesus.
79. Looking at the Ante-Diluvian Dispensation, a
clearly defined aiu>v (Age) closed by a decisive ending,
an ' end of the world,' we observe the following leading
features : —
First, the early and marked distinction between
the Church and the World, the faithful and the dis
obedient, the seed of the woman and the seed of the
serpent, showing itself, first, in the history of Cain and
Abel. Cain, accursed and banished from the presence
of the Lord, becomes the founder of merely secular
life. Seth is appointed instead of Abel ; and in him
and in his son Enos, the Patriarchs of the line of which
the Christ was to be born, the other stream, of the
religious life of Man, is begun and carried on. The
fifth chapter of Genesis opens with a markedly fresh

154 The Close of the First Age [lect.
beginning, and records the first origin of the distinctive
Kingdom and Church of God upon earth. In the
brief narrative we discern the setting apart of some
special place for the customary worship of God, of
which, doubtless, the chief feature was Sacrifice, and
the recognized Minister the Head of the Family, the
First-born, i.e. after Adam, Seth, and then Enos, the
heads of the line in which the true tradition of religion
was carried on ; Noah, the last, being expressly styled
a preacher of righteousness (2 Pet. ii. 5) 1. In Enoch
we see the great Saint of the earliest Church, the first
of whom it is said that he walked with God, and of
whom, as of Abel, the New Testament witnesses ex
pressly that the principle of his life was faith ; that
principle which in all ages has bound religious men to
God and to the Unseen. He was not, for God took him,
witnessing again, as before in the case of Abel, that
prolonged life in this world is not God's best gift to His
Chosen, and that Man's true life is that within the veil.
80. The close of the First Age was brought on by
the corruption of the Church and the diminution of its
numbers to the eight members of a single family. The
sons of God, the descendants of Seth, those who from
his day had called upon the Name of the Lord, inter
married with the daughters of men. To this the
extreme corruption of mankind seems to be expressly
attributed by the Sacred History ; as if through this
the salt of the earth had by gradual deterioration lost its
savour. The solemnly typical character of the crisis is
1 Macdonald, Pentateuch, Book ILL Ch. iii. Sect. 1 ; Freeman, Prin
ciples of Divine Service, Part II. Ch. i. Sect. 3.

iv.J was an ' End of the World! 155
witnessed to by the use made of it by way of warning
in our Lord's language on two recorded occasions ; first,
in the seventeenth chapter of Saint Luke's Gospel,
following up His answer to the question of the
Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come ; and,
later, in the great eschatological Prophecy uttered on
the Mount of Olives, in answer to the similar enquiry
of His four Apostles. A similar use of the great
primeval example of mercy and of judgment occurs in the
Second Epistle of Saint Peter, whom we know to have
been one of the small circle of listeners to the Olivet
Discourse, and who was, almost certainly, present on
the earlier occasion also. The warning that lies in the
words of the Master and the disciple alike is this, That
this awful history was to repeat itself, both as regards
the sin and the judgment of the ungodly and as re
gards the deliverance of the faithful ; but both on a
grander scale. The picture of the world before, the Flood
is that of a world broken loose from the restraints of re
ligion, with no faith but in the present and the visible,
and giving unrestrained liberty to the natural tendencies
of man in worldliness, violence, and lust; and this in
the face of merciful warning from God through the
preaching of Noah during at least a hundred years,
during which the longsuffering of God waited, while the
Ark was a preparing (1 Pet. iii. 20), but met only with
scoffing and unbelief. The Day of Judgment came ;
and this first epoch of human History is awfully closed
by what was indeed an End of the world, a o-wreXeia rov
almvoi, the consummation of one Age, the opening of
another.

156 The Second Beginning of Human History, [lect.
81. Noah and his Family, the saved Church of God,
stepped forth from the Ark upon a new Earth ; and
human History began once more ; but soon to manifest
afresh the old antagonism between religion and irre-
ligion. An express curse is laid on Canaan for an act
of , sin; and he becomes, like Cain, the progenitor of a
sinful race. A merely earthly social and political life,
rising, apparently, under the leadership of Nimrod to
the thought of a world-empire of which Babel was to
be the centre, developed itself apart from the kingdom
of God on earth among the descendants of Ham ; and
was frustrated by special divine intervention. True
religion was, however, preserved in the family of Shem,
until we reach the critical epoch of the Call of Abraham,
in whose family the hopes of the world, and the pledge
and promise of Redemption for all, were to be specially
centred and treasured up, to the temporary exclusion of
other races until such time as the great Promise should
be fulfilled to the blessing of all.
Compare, as to the purpose of mercy involved in the
favour shown to the Race of Abraham, Dr. A. B. Bruce's
Chief End of Revelation (Hodder and Stoughton, 1881),
Ch. II. p. 82. ' Israel is regarded as elected to be a
missionary people to spread the knowledge of the true
God among the nations. . . . The prerogatives of Israel
as an elect race . . . consist in being the vehicle through
which God conveys His grace to all others,' and so we
must ' regard election as merely a method by which God
uses the few to bless the many.' And, page 90, In
Abraham's life ' God revealed Himself as One having in
view, as His end in guiding the course of history, the
religious well-being of mankind, and adopting for that
purpose the method of election.' Again, Ch. III. p. 128,

IV.] Second Example of Divine Retribution. 157
' We know what to say to Rousseau when he complains
of the proscription of the whole human race, Israel
excepted. There was no proscription in the case ; election
does not mean proscription, but is a method by which
one is used to bless the many.'
This, again, was, in a true sense, though in a gentler
way, a coming to judgment. God's special choice of
one Family, out of all the earth, to represent His King
dom ; to stand in a nearer relation to Himself, initiated
and sealed by a formal covenant with its perpetual sign
and token ; to be the depositaries and guardians of the
true primeval and traditional religion and the sole
recipients of further express Revelation ; and, above all,
to be the Family of whom, according to the flesh, the
Christ should come — all this was in its very nature a
Kplo-is, a separation. It involved the comparative and
temporary rejection of the Gentile world in general : and
was closely accompanied by a very visible judgment of
vengeance upon the worst representatives of that Gentile
world in the Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. To
that event, as to the Flood, an especially pointed typical
character belongs. This is plain from the allusions to
both events in the later Scriptures of the Old Testament,
and the use made of both by our Lord and His Apostles,
as illustrative examples and pledges of the Divine
Retribution on sin.
82. Here we have to remark — what is a point of
grave and serious importance, yet often overlooked —
that the operation of the Son of God as the Mediator in
the Divine Administration is not to be regarded as ex
clusively one of Mercy. In both Testaments alike we

158 The Mediator is also the fudge. [lect.
are divinely taught that the Mediator is also the Judge ;
that in that capacity also the Son acts for the Father,
the Father through the Son. This truth the Lord has
Himself revealed to us, in the words, The Father judgeth
no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son
(St. John v. 22. See Prof. Westcott, in the Speaker's
Commentary on St. John v. 20-30.) His full revelation
in this function is, of course, reserved for the Incarnate
stage of His Work. The Father hath given Him
authority (ej~ovo-lav) to execide judgment because He is a
son of man (St. John v. 27). Both in solemn Parables
and in express predictions Christ declares that this
judicial function belongs to Him, and will be exercised
by Him, as the Mediator of the New Covenant. As
such He disclosed Himself in His character of Judge as
decisively as in His character of Saviour. He spoke
clearly as One Who when the time of their visitation,
their accepted time, their day of salvation, was over,
would surely condemn the impenitent and unbelieving.
by whom His offered mercy had been rejected. At the
close of His earthly Ministry He warned the doomed
Church and City in the awful Parables of the Wicked
Husbandmen (St. Mat. xxi. 33), and of the Marriage
of the King's Son (St. Mat. xxii. 1). He sentenced
Jerusalem when He said I would — ye would not.
Behold your house is left unto you desolate (St. Mat.
xxiii. 37; St. Luke xiii. 34). He forewarned His
Apostles of the impending calamity ; so wording His
prophetic discourse as to lead on the thoughts of all
who heard, or should read, it to that last great Judg
ment of all the Nations (ivavra to. edvrj) when He, as

iv.] Examples of His Coming to Judgment. 159
Judge and King, should sit on the Throne of His Glory
(St. Mat. xxv. 31). In answer to their adjuration He
said to Caiaphas and the ruling Council of the apostate
nation, Presently shall ye see the Son of Man sitting on
the Bight Hand of Power, and coming in the clouds of
Heaven (St. Mat. xxvi. 64). He waited through that
generation for forty years, as He had forborne with their
fathers in the wilderness, not willing that any should
perish, but that all should come to repentance (2 Pet. iii. 9).
He saved the penitent and believing remnant, when,
warned into watchful preparedness by His words on
Olivet, the Jewish Christians of Jerusalem escaped for
their lives to Pella, the Zoar of the Church. Then, and
not till then, He visited the once faithful city, now
become an harlot, a Babylon, not a Jerusalem, with the
most fearful judgment the world has ever seen, marking
decisively the final close of the Mosaic Dispensation as
indeed a o-wriXeia too alwvos, the passing away of one
Age, the beginning of another, the judicial inauguration
of the times of the Gentiles (St. Luke xxi. 24 ; Bom.
xi. 25).
But he must be a careless reader of the Old Testa
ment History, so typical and significant throughout,
who does not discern therein similar critical epochs of
judicial visitation, accompanied in each case by the
same marked deliverance of the faithful, and signalizing
the commencement of a new stage in the development
of the Kingdom of God. So it was at the close of the
Ante-diluvian Age. So it was at the Call of Abraham
and the Judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah. So it was
at the Judgment of Egypt and the Exodus. So it was

160 The ' Theophanies' in the Old Testament, [lect.
at the Conquest of Canaan and the Judgment of the
Seven Nations. These, and such later events also as
the downfall of Samaria and the Northern Kingdom,
the Conquest of Jerusalem, the Captivity, the Return,
the suffering under Antiochus, must be viewed in a line
(so to speak) with their New Testament analogues, the
Final Judgment on Jerusalem and the Calling of the
Gentiles, if we would understand rightly the true cha
racter of either series or their place in the development
of the Divine Purposes, as they slowly unfolded them-
selves under the Providential guidance of One Who,
though long unseen, was ever at work, overruling the
weakness and waywardness, the failures and the sins,
of mankind and of His People, and Whose Personality
is fully disclosed to us in the New Testament Reve
lation. 83. In looking at the past Education of the World
in preparation for the transcendent event of the Incar
nation, less consideration perhaps than was due has
been bestowed on one very remarkable feature of it, as
recorded in the Old Testament, the visible Appearances
(Apparitiones, ' Theophanies ') of God to Man at certain
critical epochs. To these, regarded in addition to the
verbal Promises and Prophecies, and to the closely
typical character which belongs as well to the whole
history as to the prominent institutions and personages
of God's ancient people, an especial importance attaches
over and above their interest as marking occasions or
communications of a special nature ; for they are, in the
language of Bishop Bull, ' preludes of the Incarnation,'
and so an important part of its evidence.

iv.] They occur at critical periods. 16 1
We find them just when we should naturally expect
them if at all ; not so much in the settled and matured
religious life of the nation in its destined home in the
Holy Land ; not so much, if at all, when the regular
Priesthood and the Prophetic Order were normally dis
charging their proper functions as the religious guides
and teachers of the Jewish People ; but, speaking
generally, in the earlier beginnings of their religious
history as a nation peculiarly related to God, or else in
times of difficulty, distress, and change.
In one class of passages it is said that God, or the
Lord (Jehovah), appeared, with no express mention
of the outward form or manner ; yet with indications
usually decisive enough, even in each case taken by
itself, and absolutely so when all of like kind are con
sidered together, that what is described is intended to
be understood as indeed a visible Appearance of a
Divine Person.
In other passages there is mention of audible com
munications of God to Man, and indeed of a colloquy
between them, without any express assertion of a
visible appearance. Yet a close observation will lead to
the conclusion that in these also the inspired historian
intended his reader to understand that the Divine in
terlocutor was visibly present. Examples of this are,
The hearing by Adam and Eve of the Voice of the Lobd
God walking in the Garden in the cool of the day 1 ; The
1 Of this St. Augustine says, ' Quomodo enim possit ad litteram
intelligi talis Dei deambulatio et collocatio non in specie humana non
video.' And, again, ' Non temere dixerim si Paradisum quemdam
corporalem locum ilia Scriptura insinuat [and the names of the four
M

162 Bp. Bull follows the early Christian [lect.
Loed's interview with Cain; Also God's blessing of Noah
and his sons, and His speaking unto Noah and his sons
with him, when He established His covenant with them
and ordained the rainbow for its token. Distinct from
passages of this class are others (of which we are not
speaking at present) in which all that is said or implied
is that God spake audibly (as, for example, in His call
of Samuel) to the ear of man, in waking life, or in
visions and dreams \
Lastly, there is a striking group of passages in
which there is undoubtedly intended a visible Appear
ance as of an Angel or a Man, while yet in each instance
the communication is undoubtedly from God ; and the
progress of the narrative compels the reader to think
of a very close and solemn Presence of the Almighty.
84. Before investigating these passages in detail it
is necessary to insist afresh on the great underlying
truth, that the One Medium of the Divine communi
cations to mankind, whatever may have been their
special outer form (and that was various), has ever
been throughout the Second Person of the Holy Trin
ity, the Eternal Word. Bishop Bull, in the opening of
his immortal Treatise in Defence of the Nicene Creed,
an effort expressly designed to meet the Arian teaching
of one Christopher Sandius, whose writings (published
rivers seem to compel us to this, not to mention the general dangers
and uncertainty of (so-called) spiritual interpretation of plain narrative
statements] deambulare ibi Deum nisi in aliqua corporea forma nullo
modo potuisse.' (Be Trinitate, II. Cap. x. 17, 18).
1 Yet in the narrative of Samuel's Call in 1 Sam. iii. the wording
of ver. 10 is noticeable, 'And the Loed came, and stood, and called as
at other times, Samuel, Samuel.'

iv.] writers in believing that 163
at Cologne in 1676) 'were then everywhere in the
hands of students of theology and others,' lays down, in
language borrowed from Tertullian's argument against
the Patripassian heresies of Sabellius, Noetus, Praxeas,
and others, this truth, as the very first proposition
of his work, that ' from the beginning the whole order
of the Divine Administration has had its course through
the Son ('.a primordio omnem ordinem divinae dis-
positionis per Filium decucurrisse')1. He then pro
ceeds to draw it out at length and in detail, and refers
to it repeatedly throughout his argument as a truth of
the utmost importance.
That this should have been so will, after our previous
consideration of the relation of the Son of God to the
work of Creation in general from the beginning, seem
natural, consistent, and what was to be expected, as in
full harmony with that relation. But, further, and very
evidently, it also harmonizes with the great central
truths of the Incarnation, the Pre -Existence, and the
true Godhead of Christ, and of the Plurality of Persons
within the One Divine Essence ; and not only harmo
nizes with them but goes a long way towards establish
ing them. This it is clear Bishop Bull very strongly
felt ; and herein he only followed the undoubted belief
of the early Christian writers and Apologists, of whose
general view the language quoted from Tertullian is
a correct expression. His own assertion, many times
repeated, is 'That the Catholic Doctors of the first
three centuries all with one accord taught this : ' and
1 Bull, Def. Nic. Creed, Translation in Oxford Library ofAng.-Cath.
Theology, Part I. p. 15, Part. II. p. 596.
M 2

164 Divine communications [lect.
he adds, ' One who is ignorant of this is a stranger to
the writings of the Fathers,' and that ' The Catholic
Doctors of the Church after the Council of Nice agree
on this point with the Nicene Fathers *.' A few pages
later he states the view alluded to, which he says the
ancient Doctors ' had learnt from Apostolical tradition,'
as follows; — 'God the Father, as He at first framed and
created the world through His Son, so through the
same Son did He afterwards manifest Himself to the
world. Therefore the Son of God, although in the last
times of His Incarnation He has at length held familiar
intercourse with mankind, still always from the very
earliest period of its existence presided over the Church;
and even under the Old Testament, though by a hidden
and secret dispensation, showed Himself to holy men V
85. It would then follow from this principle that He
Who in the earlier Dispensations immediately com
municated with Man, on the occasions alluded to, was
the Personal Word of the Eternal Father, the Eternal
Son. Where the communication was by audible word
or voice only, nothing would seem more natural than to
regard it as the Voice of Him Who is The Word of God.
The Voice of the Father is indeed declared in Holy
Scripture to have been heard by man ; but that is in
the New Testament, and during the Incarnate Presence
of the Son on earth at the times when the Voice was
heard, as at the Baptism and the Transfiguration, and
1 Def Fid. Nic. Li. 2.
2 Ibid. Li. 12. But the whole of Bishop Bull's first chapter, and
of Book IV. Chap, iii, should by all means be carefully read in con
nection with this subject.

iv.] were always through the Son ; 165
again, at the close of the Ministry in answer to our
Lord's direct appeal, Father, glorify Thy Name. (St.
John xii. 28.)
But if in the Old Testament the spoken word an
nounced the Presence more especially of God the Son,
much more the visible Appearance accompanying the
Voice ; for of Him alone, as Dr. Mill says, ' a personal
apparition can be catholically supposed V So the an
cient Church undoubtedly thought ; on the following
grounds. Holy Scripture, speaking of the Almighty in
His absolute Divine Being, says, None (ovSeU) hath seen
God at any time (St. John i. 18) : None can see Him
and live (Exod. xxxiii. 20) : Whom no man hath seen,
nor can see, Who dwelleth in light that none can approach
unto (1 Tim. vi. 16). It follows therefore, since God in
Himself, in His essential Nature, is necessarily invisible
to the Creature, being Pure Spirit, that when we read
that God appeared unto any ; that Moses and the
Elders saw the God of Israel; and that Isaiah saw 'the
King, the Lord of Hosts,' or, again, that others, as the
Patriarch Jacob at Bethel, seeing the Angel of the
Lord saw God and yet lived ; we are driven to
understand it of God in special relation to the Creature,
not of God either Father, Son, or Holy Ghost, in His
absolute Being as He is in and to Himself; and so of
the Second Person rather than the First, since it is
through Him that the One God is in relation with
Creation and with all that is finite.
Again, It is a common-place of Patristic Theology
that the Father is never spoken of as Sent, but is
1 Mythical Tnterp. of the Gospels, Appendix E, 2nd ed. 1861, p. 359.

1 66 and that the 'Angel of the Lord' [lect.
always the Sender, and the Son the Sent, in an especial
manner. On this ground also it may be said with
confidence that the Manifestations of the Divine to
human sense suit rather the Person of the Son than
of the Father ; especially when regarded in the light
of the subsequent actual Incarnation, and as providen
tially intended as a help to prepare the minds of men,
both before and since the Incarnation, for the full
acceptance of that stupendous fact itself.
86. For it should be carefully noted that Holy Scrip
ture makes specific mention of one who is preeminently,
and in a unique sense, The Angel of the Lord (of
Jehovah), of one who stands alone in unapproachable
dignity, one in whom (to use the language of Dr.
Pusey) ' God accustomed His creatures to the thought
of beholding Himself in human form.' Such a title,
like that of Apostle (Heb. iii. i), which has much the
same meaning — a meaning expressive not of nature, but
of office — may well be applied to the Son of God, Who
Himself speaks so distinctly of His mission of mercy
from the Father, especially in the Fourth Gospel, in
which His Divine dignity is most fully declared.
' Nor is the office itself of an angel or announcer of
the Father's will unbecoming Him. In a word, God
the Father could not have become an angel consistently
with His prerogative as Father ; for then He would have
been sent by another, Who yet is indebted for His
authority to no one. To the Son of God, however, both
the name of God altogether belongs, as being most true
God ; and also the appellation of Angel, forasmuch as He
is in such wise very God, as to be God of God, and was,
therefore, capable of receiving and undertaking, con-

iv.'] was the Logos. 167
sistently with the dignity of His Person, the mission and
dispensation committed to Him by God, of Whom He is.
This, without doubt, was the very thing which the
Fathers meant, who wrote the Synodical Epistle from
the council of Antioch [a. d. 269] to Paul of Samosata ;
who contend that He, who in the Old Testament from
time to time appeared to the Fathers and conversed with
them, was the Son ; " Being attested sometimes as an
angel, sometimes as the Lord, and sometimes God; for
it were impious to suppose that the God of all is called
an angel ; but the angel of the Father is the Son, being
Himself Lord and God ; for it is written, ' The Angel of
great counsel' (Me'yaA?js /3ov\rjs ayyeAos, Isa. ix. 6. LXX.)"
[Routh, Beliq. Sacr. Vol. II. p. 470]. Here the holy
Bishops clearly teach that the Name of God and Lord
are applicable to the Father and to the Son alike, but
that the appellation of Angel, as indicating a mission
from another, is by no means suited to the Father, who
can no more be said to be sent than to be born of another ;
but to the Son, as being begotten of the Father, it may
be rightly applied ; and on that account He is called in
the Scriptures " the Angel of great counsel." ' (Bull,
Def. Nic. Creed. IV. iii. 8.)
Hengstenberg writes, ' The New Testament distin
guishes between the hidden God and the revealed God —
the Son or Logos — connected with the former by oneness
of nature, who from everlasting, and even at the creation
itself, filled up the immeasurable distance between the
Creator and the creation, — Who has been the Mediator
in all God's relations to the world, — Who at all times,
and even before he became man in Christ, has been the
light of the world, and to whom, specially, was com
mitted the direction of the economy of the old covenant.
It is evident that this doctrine stands in the closest
connection with the Christology, — that it forms indeed
its theological foundation and groundwork. . . . The
question then is, Whether any insight into this doctrine

1 68 This view held by modern writers. [lect.
is to be found as early as in the Books of the Old
Testament. Sound Christian Theology has discovered
the outlines of such a distinction between the hidden and
the revealed God, in many passages of the Old Testament,
in which mention is made of an Angel or Messenger of
God.' (Christology of the Old Testament, 2nd Ed. Vol. I.
p. 107.) On this whole subject the student may usefully
refer to this work, Vol. I. pp. 107-122; and Vol. IV.
Appendix III. p. 285 et seqq. He deals with the
arguments of two principal opponents of this view among
the German biblical writers, Hofmann and Delitzsch,
who maintain the Angel of the Lord to be a created angel.
Kurtz (Geschichte des alien Bundes) at first agreed with
Hengstenberg, but afterwards adopted the view of Hof
mann and Delitzsch. Among later English writers the
view maintained in these Lectures is held by Dr. Gordon,
Christ as made known to the Ancient Church (Edinburgh,
1854); Canon Barry, Article Angel, in Smith's Bible
Dictionary, i860; Macdonald, Introduction to the Pen
tateuch, 1861 ; Steward, Mediatorial Sovereignty, 1863;
Dr. Walsh, Bishop of Ossory, in his very interesting
work, The Angel of the Lord, or Manifestations of Christ
in the Old Testament (Seeley, 1876); and the Speaker's
Commentary ; also by the Danish Bishop of Seeland,
Dr. H. Martensen, in his Christian Dogmatics, 1866.
The consideration, in combination, of the numerous
passages in which these phenomena occur seems to
compel the admission that their language is not satis
fied by the hypothesis of a message from God through
a created angel in whom God was ; through whom, act
ing in His Name, God spoke. Their force is cumulative.
Such an hypothesis cannot (we believe) by any possi
bility be made to fit all. And if it does not fit all, if
in any even single instance it is admitted that God

¦ iv.] Language of Dr. Mill and Card. Newman ; 169
(that is, of course, the Son) manifested Himself in
visible human or angelic form, temporarily assumed
for the purpose of such manifestation, then, obviously,
nothing is gained by insisting on it in the few instances
in which it may be apparently more tenable. Surely
it is better to adopt the explanation which the passages
themselves seem naturally to invite, or even to demand ;
an explanation which gives a consistent meaning to
them all, and which has ample support in Christian
exegesis from the earliest times, not to mention the
singular and suggestive paraphrase so general in the
Targums of the Name of the Most High by ' The Word
of the Lord.' Dr. Mill says that the Christian Fathers ' frequently '
speak ' of the Son of God as appearing in the Old
Testament, and as the special object of the provocation
of the Israelites ; ' and speaks of ' the indubitable in
stances of His manifestation as the sole image of God to
man.' Mythical Interpretation of the Gospels, Appendix E.
p. 356. Compare Newman (Parochial Sermons, Vol. II.
p. 39, On the Incarnation), ' We read in the Patriarchal
History of various appearances of Angels so remarkable
that we can scarcely hesitate to suppose them to be
gracious visions of the Eternal Son. For instance ; it
is said that ' the Angel of the Lord appeared unto '
Moses ' in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush ;'
yet presently this supernatural Presence is called ' the
Lord,' and afterwards reveals His name to Moses, as ' the
God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.' On the other hand,
St. Stephen speaks of Him as ' the Angel which appeared
to Moses in the bush.' Again he says soon after that
Moses was ' in the Church in the Wilderness with the
Angel which spake to him in the mount Sina;J yet in
the Book of Exodus we read, ' Moses went up unto God,

1 70 Hengstenberg, and Prof. Btirton. [lect.
and the Lord called unto him out of the mountain ; '
'God spake all these words, saying' (Exod. iii. 2 ; Acts
viii. 35-38; Exod. xix. 3; xx. 1.), and the like. Now,
assuming, as we seem to have reason to assume, that the
Son of God is herein revealed to us, as graciously minis
tering to the Patriarchs, Moses and others, in angelic
form, the question arises, What was the nature of the
appearance ? We are not informed, nor may we venture
to determine; still, anyhow, the Angel was but the
temporary outward form which the Eternal Word
assumed, whether it was of a material nature, or a
vision.' Compare Hengstenberg, Christology, Vol. IV. Appen
dix III. p. 309. ' That the Angel of the Lord is the
Logos of John, who is connected with the supreme God
by unity of nature, but personally distinct from him,
was, if we except the Fathers mentioned above [i. e.
SS. Augustine, Jerome, and Gregory the Great], the
universal doctrine of the Early Church. [The italics are
Hengstenberg's.J The Fathers of the first Synod in
Antioeh [a.d. 269], in a letter sent to Paul of Samosata
before his deposition, affirm that ' the Angel of the
Father, being himself Lord and God, jtxeyaAjjs /BouArjs
ayye\os [the angel of great counsel, LXX. and Vulg.
Isa. ix. 6.] appeared to Abraham and to Jacob, and
to Moses in the burning bush.' He then refers to the
well-known passages of Justin Martyr, quoted also by
Bull and Burton, viz. Apol. i. ch. 63, and Dialogue with
Trypho, § 59-61.
87. Following Bishop Bull, Dr. Burton says that
' all the early Fathers agreed with Justin Martyr in
referring these manifestations of Jehovah to God the
Son ' * ; and ' they assert (he adds) over and over again,
1 Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ,
Sect. 23, p. 37, where see his ' references to the works of the Fathers '
to ' prove this point.'

iv. J Bearing of this truth on Christian Evidences. 1 7 1
that the Person Who appeared to the Patriarchs could
not be an angel, because He is called God, and Jehovah,
and they as expressly assert that he who revealed
himself as God and Jehovah was not the Father, but
the Son1'.
It was evidently felt among believers from the first
that the Christian argument compelled a close attention
to these peculiar and remarkable phenomena ; and,
whether we are or are not to include them as among
the things concerning Himself which in all the Scriptures
the Risen Lord expounded to the first believers, in the
Emmaus-walk and in the Upper Boom, there can be no
doubt whatever as to what was the current view re
specting them in the Church of the first centuries both
before the Nicene Council and after it (Appendix, Note 7).
The fact that such was the current view throughout a
critical and formative period, when Christianity was on
its defence against Jew and Gentile alike, and was
engaged in the gigantic endeavour to win both to
Christ, is surely of great weight as showing its felt
value in the general scheme of Christian Evidences.
The actual Incarnation of God is a fact so tremendous,
and one so difficult, as the history of Arianism shows,
for the human mind really to accept, notwithstanding
the presence of the idea (of course in unworthy forms)
over a large area of heathen thought, that we may well
understand that the first preachers and Apologists were
glad to be able to point not merely to a growing clear-
1 Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ,
Sect. 23, p. 40. 'This,' says Dr. Pusey, Daniel, p. 515 note, 'was
the common belief of the earliest Fathers.'

172 The Incarnation is no isolated fact. [lect.
ness of prophetic intimation in the ancient Scriptures,
the knowledge of which was then widely accessible to
Gentile inquirers, but also to these very striking ' pre
ludes ' of it. Understood as the early Christians un
derstood them they do very greatly prepare the way
for, and support a belief in, the actual and permanent
Incarnation of the same Divine Saviour Whose gracious
intervention they loved to trace from the very begin
nings of human history. They felt that the Sun of
Righteousness existed before it rose in its splendour ;
that, from the first It flashed its rays above the dark
horizon, in pledge and assurance of the coming meridian
glory. They felt — and it is surely the feeling of every
thoughtful and instructed Christian — that the Incar
nation is no strange, sudden, isolated, unrelated fact in
the history of Man, but is rather the centre and the
key of all History. All before it led up to it : all that
followed grows out of it or is subordinate to it. The
very grandeur of the fact requires that it should be so.
Nor when we consider how, when the fulness of the time
was come, God sent forth His Son made of a woman, can
we Christians feel it any derogation from the Divine
Dignity of the Son, or at all unlike Him Whom we
worship, Whom we love, that He should, at the crises
of the great Preparation, have previously manifested
Himself, for the moment, in outward seeming of human
or angelic form % Only through this thought, we are
persuaded, or not without it, shall we realize to the full
the evidential force of the continuity of the Old and
New Testaments — a truth possibly somewhat lost sight
of in days when an almost too exclusive and dispropor-

rv.J Passages from the New Testament 173
tionate attention is bestowed on the New Testament.
Only thus shall we make the Ancient Revelation bear
its due and intended part in sustaining the great argu
ment that an Incarnation was to be expected, as the
means of Man's Salvation, and that He Who did become
incarnate was in very truth Divine, God of God, Light
of Light, Very God of Very God.
88. At this point let us ask ourselves what grounds
we of this day, at this distance from Apostolic tradition,
can discern in Holy Scripture for such a view. The
special grounds derived from the Old Testament will
become apparent as we examine the narratives them
selves of these occurrences ; for we shall find the de
scriptions of them to be so worded as to compel us to
distinguish between the Sender and the Sent, to admit
the Divine Character of the Sent, and, if so, then, of
course, to recognise in Him the Person of the Son.
Looking at the New Testament it is necessary that
due weight should be given to the following passages : — ¦
In the Prologue of Saint John's Gospel: In the Word
was Life; and the Life was the Light of men, and the
Light shineth in the darkness and the darkness compre
hended It not  The true Light Which lighteth every
man was coming into the world. He was in the world,
and the world was made by Him, and the world knew
Him not. These words we believe to point to the pre-
existent and more general operation of the Logos among
mankind ; but, if so, then a fortiori they include an
operation among His own. His special operation to
wards the Chosen Nation is alluded to in the immedi
ately following words, He came unto His own, and His

174 which indicate the close relation [lect.
own received Him not. On the first occasion on which
the Jews saw a gleam of His latent claim to an unique
relation to the Father He said My Father worketh even
until now, and I work (St. John v. 1 7), showing His
co-operation throughout with the Father, especially in
works of mercy ; and showing at the same time the
mystery, within the One co-equal Godhead, of His
Filial Subordination to the Father; — The Son can do
nothing of Himself, but what He seeth the Father do ; for
what things soever He doeth, these also doeth the Son like
wise ; summing up with His unparalleled claim, That all
men should honour the Son, even as they honour the
Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the
Father which sent Him. Again, the Lord Himself says,
Your Father Abraham rejoiced to see My day, and he
saw it and was glad (St. John viii. 56), a passage which,
although its exact meaning is uncertain, is frequently
used by the Fathers in proof of the Pre-existence of
Christ. These passages, however, are general. More
closely bearing on the point before us is that most
touching utterance of the rejected Christ, wherein, look
ing back through long preceding dispensations of grace
and mercy (for the language will not endure a restric
tion of its reference to the short three years' ministry
in Galilee and Judaea), the Lord, in the language of di-
vinest pity, at a supremely critical moment, pronounces
His parting words of irrevocable doom, as, for the last
time, He leaves the Temple, once His Father's House,
in the evening of the Tuesday before His Passion : —
0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets,
And stoneth them that are sent unto her.

IV.] of Christ to the Ancient Church. 175
How often willed I to gather up thy children together,
Even as a mother-bird gathereth up together her own brood
under her wings.
And ye willed not !
Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.
(St. Matt, xxiii. 37. St. Luke xiii. 34.)
This was the summing-up of a long history, which
dated from the far past ; for the context carries back
His words How often to the days of righteous Abel, the
first typical martyr-witness to the one Atoning Death.
With these words of the Son Himself as to His past
work in the world and in the Church we may compare
the saying of the writer of the Epistle to Hebrews (xi.
26), that Moses esteemed the reproach of Christ greater
riches than the treasures of Egypt. The expression the
reproach of Christ may indeed be variously understood;
but the general implied reference to a close relation of
Christ to His ancient People is undoubted.
Dean Alford, ad loc, says, ' Christ was ever present in
and among God's people ; and thus De Wette well and
finely says here, " The Writer calls the reproach which
Moses suffered, the reproach of Christ, as Paul, 2 Cor.
i. 5, Col. i. 24, calls the sufferings of Christians the
sufferings of Christ, i. e. of Christ dwelling, striving,
suffering, in His Church as in His body ; to which this
reproach is referred according to the idea of the unity of
the Old and New Testaments, and of the Eternal Christ
[the Logos] already living and reigning in the former." '
Dr. Moulton, ad loc. (in Bishop Ellicott's New Testament
Commentary for English Readers), says, ' Throughout the
whole of their history the people of Israel were the
people of the Christ  He who was to appear in the
last days as the Messiah was already in the midst of
Israel (John i. 10).'

176 The ' spiritual Rock' was Christ. [lect.
And Saint Paul speaks more expressly in i Cor. x.
of a close relation of the ancient Israel to Christ ; i. A
relation of mercy, in the words They drank continually
(Zttivov) out of a spiritual Bock accompanying them, and
that Bock was Christ.
Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln, ad loc. : ' The testi
mony of Holy Scripture is uniform to the effect, that in
their wanderings through the wilderness, the Israelites
were fed with a constant supply of Bread from Heaven,
and of Water from the Boc/c  Wherever the Israelites
were, there was a Rock, — not moving from place to place,
.... but one ready to supply them with water, by the
Divine inwardly-working power of the ever-present
spiritual agency and virtue of Christ which followed
them, and made the material rock to gush out with
water  It was another and spiritual Rock which
wrought the whole work, and that was Christ, ever
present with them.'
Alford, ad loc. : ' So the Targum on Isaiah xvi. I :
" They shall bring gifts to the Messiah of the Israelites,
who shall be strong, inasmuch as in the desert he was
the Rock, the Church of Zion ; " so also in Wisdom x.
15 ff., the wisdom of God is said to have been present in
M.oses, to have led them through the wilderness, &c.
That the Messiah, the Angel of the Covenant, was
present with the Church of the Fathers, and that his
upholding power was manifested in miraculous inter
ferences for their welfare, was a truth acknowledged no
less by the Jew than by the Christian.'
Canon Evans, in The Speaker's Commentary, ad loc,
but speaking more particularly of the Manna : ' No doubt
this " corn of heaven " was, in a way unknown to us,
given by Him who fifteen centuries later gave Himself
the "true bread" from heaven. The Word, not yet in
carnate, was ever moving in the midst of Israel. But
this presence of Christ does not exclude the idea of

iv.] The operation of the Father, the Son, 177
angelic mediation. Inasmuch as the manna is called
" the bread of angels," the power of the Word in this
oft-repeated miracle may have been put forth by the
mediation of angels ministering to Him : compare Jacob's
ladder. This idea is in keeping with the fact that the
Law of Sinai was ordained by a twofold agency, (1) of
angels clustering in the foreground of Jehovah, (2) of
Moses standing in the foreground of Israel ; but as below
Moses was the congregation, so above the angels was
the Word, and above the Word was God ; see ch. iii. 22.'
See the Notes on the whole passage.
2. A relation of judgment, in the words Neither let
us tempt Christ (or the Lord) as some of them also
tempted, and were destroyed of serpents.
Here Bishop Wordsworth, reading Xpurrov, notes : —
' From this and other passages (e. g. Heb. xi. 27) the
Fathers inferred that the Eternal Word of God revealed
Himself before His Incarnation by Angels to the
Patriarchs, and administered the affairs of the Old
Dispensation. See S. Cyril, Cat. x. 6, 'j ; Euseb. E. H.
1-3; and Bp. Fell here.'
89. There are, however, two points of essential im
portance which should here be made clear and carefully
borne in mind.
First : That in speaking, whether of the Theophanies
in particular, or of the ancient Economies in general,
we do not in any way, even in thought, separate,
though we do distinguish, the operation of the Son
from the operation of the Father or of the Holy Spirit.
The operation of One is the operation, the co-operation,
of All. For the All-holy Three, Father, Son, and
Holy Ghost, are One in Purpose, One in Will, One
N

178 and the Spirit, is one operation. [lect.
in Act. Hence in speaking in a special manner of the
presence and action >of the Eternal Son we must not
be understood to thereby exclude, even in thought,
the co-operat've presence and action of the Father
and of the Holy Spirit ; only we say that their
presence and action are exhibited in an especial way,
in an exclusive manner, through the Son ; that He is
always the Mediator of their action.
Bishop Bull, Def. Nic. Creed, IV. iv. 9 (Library of Ang.-
Cath. Theol. Vol. II. p. 641), says, 'The Father and the
Son are in such sense One, as that the Son is in the
Father and the Father in the Son; and that the One
cannot be separated from the Other. This mode of union
the Greek Theologians call ¦nepix^pw1''! an,l the Latins,
i. e. the Schoolmen, some circumincession, others circum-
insession.' And Cardinal Newman, saying that ' This
doctrine of the coinherence, as protecting the Unity
without trenching on the perfections of the Son and
Spirit, may even be called the characteristic of Catholic
Trinitarianism, as opposed to all counterfeits, whether
philosophical, Arian or Oriental ; ' quotes (through Pe-
tavius) from St. Basil as follows, ' Neither can He [the
Son] be severed from the Father, Who is ever of and in
the Father; nor again disunited from His own Spirit,
Who operates all things by means of it  For we
must not conceive separation or division in any way, as
if either the Son could be supposed without the Father,
or the Spirit disunited from the Son ' (Newman, Arians, II.
iii. p. 101). And, ' In His eternal union with God there
was no distinction of will and work between Him and
His Father ; as the Father's life was the Son's life, and
the Father's glory the Son's also, so the Son was the
very Word and Wisdom of the Father, His Power and
Co-equal Minister in all things, the same and not the
same as He Himself.' (Newman, Parochial Sermons,

iv.] The Divine Essence of the Son is invisible ; 179
Vol. III. p. 180, Sermon XII, on The Humiliation of
the Eternal Son. See Appendix, Note 8.)
Secondly : When we say that it was especially the
Son Who spoke, Who appeared in visible form, angelic
or human, we must not be thought for an instant to
mean that the Son of God is, as such, and in His
Divine Essence, more visible, more comprehensible,
less infinite, than the other Two Persons of the All-
holy Trinity. His Godhead is equal, His Majesty co-
eternal : He is of one Substance with the Father.
What is meant is, That it has been His gracious part
to veil His essential Divine Majesty and glory in
order to enter into close relation with His creature
Man, in His loving condescension and for the purposes of
those successive, and progressive, dispensations of mercy
which it was His part to conduct and to administer ;
and that it was His part to do this, and to be especially
sent, as He Himself repeatedly declares He was sent,
by the Father to do this, because He is the Word,
the Wisdom, the Son, the Image of the Father. That
is to say, the special infra-divine and eternal relation
in which the Person of the Son stands to the Person
of the Father in the one co-equal and co-eternal Divine
Being, the essential relation whereby He is the Son
and not the Father, is, as soon as created existence
is postulated, the necessary foundation of a special
necessary relation to it, of a relation of being between
it and the Fathej, a relation of Mediation. We must
conceive of the Filial relation as eternal and intra-
divine ; that is, we must conceive of it as not neces
sitating any Mediatorial relation, finite and created
N 2

180 yet He reveals God, being His 'Image! [lect.
existence not being conceived of as necessary ; but,
once given the existence of finite life, then — so the
Bible Revelation compels us to think — there arises
forthwith a special relatedness of the Son of God to
the Universe, because He is the Word and Wisdom
of the Father, and through Him the operation of the
Father passes evermore, and that exclusively, whether in
creating, or in continually sustaining and administering
the Universe ; and through Him also, and only, passes
(what is of even more consequence, since the very
existence of the Universe is a means to it as an end)
the progressive Self-Revelation of God to the Universe.
Perhaps we shall not be wrong in supposing that it
may be with some reference to this latter function
of the Second Person, a function so appropriate to
His Sonship, that He is so pointedly and significantly
designated the EIkwv, the Image, the Adequate Pre
sentation of God. We cannot doubt that, in so far
as angels or men are blessed, in their hearts and minds,
with that illumination which comes from the know
ledge of the glory of God, they are so in so far as, for
them — for each according to his growing capacity of
apprehending and receiving it — that glory is revealed
in the Face of Jesus Christ (2 Cor. iv. 6).
'The primitive writers, with an unsuspicious yet re
verend explicitness, take for granted the essentially
ministrative character of the iitoarao-is or Person of both
Son and Spirit as compared with the Father's ; still of
course speaking of them as included in the Divine Unity,
not as external to it. Thus Irenaeus, clear and unde
niable as is his orthodoxy, yet declares, that " The Father

IV.] Different view suggested by S. Augustine 181
is ministered to in all things by His own Offspring
and Likeness, the Son and Holy Ghost, the Word and
Wisdom, of Whom all angels are servants and subjects."
In like manner an vnriptaia is commonly ascribed to the
Son and Spirit, and a praeceptio, fiov\ri<ns, and OiX^a to
the Father, by Justin, Irenseus, Clement, Origen, and
Methodius, altogether in the Spirit of the Post-Nicene
authorities already cited; and without any risk of mis
leading the reader, as soon as the Second and Third
Persons are understood to be internal to the Divine
Mind, connaturaliu instrumenta, obedient (at most) in no
stronger sense than when the human will is said to be
directed and influenced by the reason. Gregory Na-
zianzen lays down the same doctrinewith an explanation,
in the following sentence : " It is plain," he says, " that
those designs which the Father conceives, the Word
fulfils ; not as a servant, or not entering into them, but
with full knowledge and a master's power, and, to speak
more suitably, as if He were the Father." (Bull, Def. II.
xiii. 10.)' (Newman, Arians, II. iii. p. 97.)
90. It seems to have been some anxiety on these
two points which led Saint Augustine, in some pas
sages at least of his writings, and more especially in
his Treatise on the Holy Trinity, to take on this sub
ject a fine somewhat different from that which was
universal among Christian thinkers and writers before
the Nicene Council, and general for long afterwards.
And in his own portion of Christendom, where (owing
to the decreasing intercourse with the East, and the
growing ignorance of the Greek language, consequent
on the break-up of the Roman imperial system) his
authority became too exclusively dominant, he was
extensively followed, in this as in other matters, by
later Western and ultra-Latin theologians, here as else-

1 82 from fear of Arianism. [lect.
where wanting the grandeur and breadth and culture
of the great Greek Fathers. He seems to have feared
that to dwell much on the thought of a near and
visible, though only occasional, converse of the Son
of God with mankind in earlier times, though a decisive
help towards establishing His Pre-existence, might,
after the experience of the Arian controversy, have
tended to weaken men's hold of the cardinal truth
of His essential Divine dignity, and to derogate from
His Divine Glory. The Arians (he tells us) argued
— though it is obviously an inference that does not
even apparently follow from the phenomena of which
we are speaking; — That the Son was 'visibilis per suam
substantiam,' and therefore inferior to the Father,
different from Him, mutable, and even mortal ; and,
again, that His being ' sent' by the Father showed
a lesser dignity and a lower nature. Hence in speaking
of the Apparitiones he hesitates and wavers in his view
as to which of the Divine Persons may have more
especially manifested Himself on any such occasion.
He argues that it may have been the Father, or it
may have been the Holy Spirit ; and dwells much,
and rightly, on what we have seen is an important
truth, the invariably united co-operative action of the
Three Divine Persons. His. reasoning is evidently
constrained by the pressure of recent and contempo
raneous controversy ; for Arianism was stronger per
haps, in his day, in the- West than in the East. For
this reason, as well as because it is a deflection from,
the earlier and more general view, it seems natural
to distrust it. It is surely no more derogatory to the

iv.] Hypothesis of a created angel 183
Divine dignity of the Logos to believe that He did,
on adequate occasion, from time to time, and for
a time, as the working out of His merciful purpose
towards our race required, assume, or manifest Himself
in, or through, a visible form to Man, than to believe
that He assumed our nature permanently in a real
Incarnation. Nor can there be any risk — a risk of
which, clearly, the earlier Christian writers are wholly
unconscious — of such a belief tending to unworthy
conceptions of His dignity and Person, when once the
two cautions on which we have insisted are duly con
sidered and remembered.
91. The hypothesis that he who was seen was a
created angel commissioned to speak in the Name of
the Lord, has been based on the authority of Saint
Augustine. A late theology in both East and West,
coinciding with a wholly unscriptural cultus of the
Blessed Angels, has favoured this view, which har
monizes with and lends itself to the support of super
stitious ideas ; while in earlier days, when the point
which, was pressed was the (supposed) creaturely char
acter of the Angel of the Lord rather than the reverence
and worship recorded to have been offered to and
accepted by him, it was naturally adopted by the
Arians, with whose conceptions of the Son of God it
seemed most to agree.
On the general subject of this Lecture Hengstenberg's
Appendix III, on The Divinity of the Messiah in the
Old Testament, in the fourth volume of his Christology,
should be studied. His statement, that Origen favoured
the view that the Angel of the Lord was ' not a Person

1 84 adopted by some later writers [lect.
connected with God by unity of essence, but an inferior
angel through whom God issues and executes his com
mands, and who speaks and acts in his name,' seems
based on insufficient evidence. Of Fathers who adopted
this novel view (first developed by S. Augustine) he names
only SS. Jerome and Gregory the Great ; adding, ' It
was afterwards defended by several Jewish commentators,
e. g. Abenezra  It was then adopted by many Roman
Catholic expositors, as well as by the Socinians and
Arminians, especially Grotius and Clericus  And in
modern days, also, it has not lacked defenders. Many
rationalistic writers declared themselves in its favour,
e.g. Vater, Gesenius, Bretschneider . . . Baumgarten-
Crusius, Hofmann. . . .The reasons which led to the
adoption of this hypothesis were very various. The
Fathers already mentioned believed that it was rendered
necessary by certain passages of the New Testament.
The Roman Catholic writers were actuated by the wish
to secure a biblical foundation for the worship of angels.
The Socinians, like the Jewish commentators before
them, were impelled by their dread of the doctrine of the
Trinity. The Arminians were influenced partly by their
low estimate of the worth of the Old Testament, and
partly by their secret Socinian tendencies ; and the
rationalists by their dislike of everything deep, and their
antipathy to the doctrine of the Trinity, which could not
be true, unless the way had been prepared for it from the
very first commencement of revelation, and the truth of
which would be rendered a priori more probable, if this
could be proved to have been the case.'
But the phenomena of the passages of Holy Scrip
ture in which these occurrences are related, phenomena
which, to be rightly apprehended, must be studied
as a whole and in their collective weight, will not
really lend themselves to this hypothesis. The iden
tification of Himself by the Speaker with the Divine

IV.] not really tenable. 185
Being in the language He uses, whether of promise
or of threat; the acceptance of worship without reproof,
or even the insistance upon it, (so sharply contrasted
with the decisive rejection of it when tendered under
a mistake to the created angel in the Apocalypse ;) the
awful undefinable sense of nearness to God, and of
surprise at having seen God and yet lived, on the
part of the favoured subjects of these manifestations ;
the permanent memorials of these occurrences, in sig
nificant names of places, or in objects specially set up
to commemorate them ; all these features combine with
irresistible force to render it untenable.
Another reason why the supposition of a created
angel simply acting as a representative ambassador
of God is untenable is derived from the consideration
of those passages in which the outward form seen is
expressly stated to have been human. It is not sup
posed that in these instances any actual living human
personality was employed as the temporary instrument
of the manifestation. Such a supposition is obviously
out of the question, on account of their transient
nature, among other reasons. Yet clearly these in
stances are of the same class as those in which there
is express mention of The Angel of the Lord. Neither
is it doubted that the outward visible form and appear
ance of The Angel of the Lord were really essentially
human, however, even unspeakably, more glorious and
beautiful ; for the term angel, it must" be remembered,
is not necessarily descriptive of nature, but only of
office and function ; and the outward appearance of the
angels, as seen by men, is always described in Holy

1 86 Anthropomorphic language of H. Scripture, [lect.
Scripture as human. Thus it comes to the same thing
whether it be said that the Lord appeared in human
or in angelic form. In either case what was seen was
a human form; from which it would seem most
naturally to follow that it was only a form temporarily
assumed as the tabernacle and visible instrument of
a veiled Personality, which was really that of the Son
of God. ' It must have been somehow in connexion with the
idea expressed in man, as created after the Divine
image, and also in view of a want (Ps. xvii. 15), which,
originating, no doubt, in that primal constitution, was
intended to find its full satisfaction in the assumption of
the human nature by the Divine, but which ignorantly
sought a substitute in deifying man, that, whenever
God visibly appeared to any of his people, it was under
the human form (see Gen. xviii.). To the same cause
must be ascribed the extensive use of anthropomorphic
and anthropopathic language in the Scriptures, especially
in the Pentateuch, as containing the earliest revelations.
This mode of describing the Divine Being many regard
as conveying only unworthy and confused ideas of the
Spiritual and Unimpassioned, without at all taking into
consideration whether such language may not even be a
necessity arising as well from man's limited conceptions
as from his original constitution. But without entering
here into a discussion of this point, it may be remarked
that the use of such language, corrected as it is by other
express declarations, constitutes in reality one of the
chief excellences of Scripture, evincing its adaptation to
the capacities of its readers, and is, moreover, not only
consistent with, but indispensable to the idea which lies
at the foundation of the revealed scheme — that man is
the image of the Creator, and so the chief medium for
disclosing the Divine glory and perfections, and in the

iv.J Reasons of cessation of ' Theophanies.' 187
realisation of which idea through Him, who is absolutely
" the image " of God, being God and man in one person,
revelation reaches its completion. Indeed, a sufficient
vindication of the language in question is the distinct
and correct conceptions which it conveys of the Great
Being thus brought down to human apprehension, and
quite different from anything to which reason or philo
sophy has ever attained. In such cases the infinite and
the personal are usually antagonistic. Thus, whereas the
personality of God vanishes in the pantheism of India,
his infinity is, on the other hand, lost in the polytheism
of Greece. Not so, however, with the God of the Bible,
who is thus seen to have been no creation of human
reason, but is in every respect a self-manifestation of the
Invisible.' (Macdonald, Introduction to the Pentateuch,
Book III. Ch. i. Sect. 1. Vol. II. p. 22>
92. Should an explanation be asked of the cessation
of these peculiar manifestations, it is probably to be
found in the completed organization of the Jewish
Church in its settled form; especially as marked by
the institution, in the person of Samuel and onwards,
of the Prophetic Order, as the ordinary channel of
special and authoritative communication from God to
His People. The case is parallel to, the presence gene
rally of the Miraculous in the initial epochs of religious
history, Jewish and Christian, and its absence after
wards. And, noting in the beginnings of the Christian
Church the special, though occasional, manifestations of
the Risen, and even of the Ascended Christ (see Lecture
VII), we should on similar grounds expect their non
occurrence afterwards in the normal settled life of the
Catholic Church, partly because the permanent Incar
nation of the Son of God, for which the Theophanies

1 88 Similar reasons operative in New Test. [lect.
were a preparation, had actually taken place, partly
because, in and through the Life and Work of the
Incarnate Son, we possess a complete Revelation —
complete for our present stage ; and partly because,
in the Gift of the Holy Ghost to the Church, and in
the Sacramental System ordained by Christ, of which
the Holy Spirit is the informing Power, we possess,
individually and corporately, a continued and constant
real, supernatural, spiritual Presence, nay an In
dwelling within us, of Christ, which far exceeds the
nearness and the blessedness' of His visible earthly Pre
sence to our senses. Ye't in the early beginnings of our
Faith, in the first generation, ere yet the infant Church
was settled and organized, the Ascended Lord did visibly
show Himself in special and exceptional circumstances.
To His first martyr He vouchsafed the vision of His
Glory in His ready human sympathy and love ; to the
persecutor Saul, in His dazzling Majesty and Power;
to Ananias, in vision, directing him to baptize the now
chosen vessel who should bear His once hated Name
before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel ;
and not seldom afterwards, to Saint Paul himself, (for he
was favoured with abundant visions and revelations of
the Lord, 2 Cor. xii. i and 7 ;) and yet once again, to
the beloved Apostle, an exile in Patmos for the word of
God, and for the testimony of Jesus Christ. But these
manifestations were exceptional. The normal life of
the Militant Church is the life of faith, whereby she
endures as seeing Him Who is invisible (Heb. xi. 27).
The world beholdeth Him not, but we behold Him ;
for the world neither sees nor knows, and so cannot re-

IV.] Detailed Examination of the Theophanies. 1 89
ceive, the Spirit of Truth ; but we know Him, because
He dwelleth with us, and is in us (St. John xiv. 17). If
the Lord, as to an ordinary bodily Presence, went away
from us, it was because it was expedient for us; for such
Presence must be local, limited, outward, and He would
be with us, and within us, each and all. If for a little
while His Church saw Him not, again, after a little
while, from the Resurrection, and still more from Pente
cost, onwards, she has seen Him again, because He is
gone to the Father (St. John xvi. 16). He has fulfilled
His promise, I will see you again, and our heart rejoices
with a joy that none can take from us ; (ver. 22) for on
us rests His special benediction, Blessed are they that
have not seen, and yet have believed (St. John xx. 29).
93. Proceeding to examine the incidents themselves
of this nature, as recorded in the Bible, we find the
first explicit assertion of an appearance of the LorJd
to man in Genesis xii. 7. After His frustration of the
first rival attempt at a world-supremacy in the case of
Babel, the Son of God lays the first foundations of His
own special kingdom, in the world but not of it, in His
summons to Abram to get him out of his country, and
from his kindred, and from his father s house, and His
promise to make him a blessing in whom should all
families of the earth be blessed. Then, on Abram's
first arrival in Canaan, The Lord again appeared unto
Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land.
There Abram builded an altar unto the Lord who
appeared unto him ; thus beginning a practice which
he ever afterwards adhered to, and which the Kingdom
of God has observed ever since, of setting apart a defi-

190 Appearances of God the Son to Abram ; [lect.
nite spot of earth, in the name of the whole, which is
really God's, as sacred to the worship of the Almighty ;
a visible witness, amid the usurpations of evil which
have ever surrounded it, to God's claims and man's
duty, and a centre of union to God's people, who, at
His altar, call upon His Name.
More remarkably we trace the Mediation of the Son
of God in the mysterious and peculiarly solemn trans
action recorded in the Sixteenth Chapter of Genesis.
Here it is no Targum, but the original Sacred Text
itself, which twice says that The Word of the Lord (an
expression here used for the first time) came unto Abram
in vision, and made an express covenant with him by
sacrifice (see Psalm 1. 5). This is also the first occasion.
on which we find the title Adonai, which (see Psalm
ex. 1) belongs in an especial manner to the Son,
addressed to God in conjunction with His Name
Jehovah (Appendix. Note 9). The language of the
passage seems to imply that the mode of the mani
festation, which was by night, was other than the
usual one ; especially in that, in the solemn passing of
the covenanting parties between the divided portions
of the animals slain in sacrifice (a custom alluded to
in Jeremiah xxxiv. 18, 19), the Lord was represented,
not by any human or angelic form, but by a smoking
furnace and a lamp of fire that passed between those
pieces. This symbol of the Divine Presence seems to
be anticipated in the mention of the flaming sword
placed with the Cherubim at the east of the garden of
Eden to keep the way of ihs tree of life; and also to
foreshadow the like symbol in the Burning Bush, and

iv.] to Hagar, as ' The Angel of the Lord' ; 191
in the Pillar of Fire, and in the Shekinah. It may be
due to this feature of the revelation, and to the absence
of any visible form, that especial mention is made of
The Word of the Lord coming to Abram ; as though its
first intimation was merely by a voice.
94. The Sixteenth Chapter of Genesis introduces to
us One Who, there, and in many other places of the
Bible, is preeminently entitled The Angel of the Lord.
The unique grandeur of this Personage is distinctly
marked in every instance in the Sacred Text, if not
always in the Authorized Version. Dr. Pusey, speaking
on this point (Daniel, p. 515), says, 'Whether it were
God the Son Who so manifested Himself beforehand —
as was (he adds in a note) the common belief of the
earliest fathers — His Godhead invisible, as in the days
of His flesh, or no, yet there was one known as The
Angel of the Lord, distinct from and above all the
rest.' He stands, everywhere, alone and unapproach
able. There is but one so called ; just as there is also
but one in the Holy Scriptures who is called the Devil,
the Satan, the Adversary. Further — (if one may say so
pace tanti viri, who prefers, as 'more probable ' the hypo
thesis of a created angel, who was, he thinks (Daniel,
p. 520) the Archangel Michael) — In every place where
The Angel of the Lord is introduced His divine cha
racter and dignity are also most clearly intimated.
Who can this be but the Son of God, the Word of the
Father 1
Nothing can be more touchingly beautiful, more
appropriate in its tenderness and pity, more absolutely
worthy of Him Who, as The Son of Man, came to seek

192 to Abraham, at Moriah; to Jacob, at Luz; [lect.
and to save that which was lost, than His first appearance
under this express title and character of The Angel of
the Lord. <&i\avQpa>iro$ yap 6 Kvpios (as says St. Cyril of
Jerusalem, speaking of the Appearances of Christ under
the Old Testament) ae\ arufji.'7repi(pep6fievos Tali ij/xeTepaii
ao-6evelai?. (Benignus est enim Dominus, semper ad no
stras infirmitates sese indulgenter demittens, ' For the
Lord is loving to man, ever graciously condescending
to our infirmities V) Thus He came first on an errand
of consolation and of promise to the helpless Hagar, an
outcast in the wilderness, first alone (Gen. xvi. 6-14),
and then with Ishmael her child (Gen- xxi. 9-20) ; and
the impression left on the mind of Hagar is clearly
indicated in the correct rendering of Genesis xvi. 13 :
She called the name of Jehovah Who spake unto her,
Thou God seest me ; for she said, Have I also here seen
[i. e. lived] after seeing God 1 Wherefore the well was
called Beer-lahai-roi [i. e. The well of the living that saw
God J.
95. Similarly, with like tender care for His own in
their necessity (see Gen. xxxv. 3), and as reassuring
visible specimens, recorded for their perpetual encou
ragement, of that ordinarily invisible but minute and
' never-failing Providence ' whereby even the very hairs
of their heads are all numbered, the gracious Angel of
the Lord appeared to Abraham (Gen. xxii. 10) when
he stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his
son; to Jacob as he lay asleep on the stones at Luz
(Bethel) on the first night of his long exile (xxviii. 10),
and again, twenty years later, to announce its close
1 Catechesis X. cap. vi.

I V.J in Haran, at Mahanaim, at Bethel. 193
(xxxi. 11). In this last instance He Who is introduced
as The Angel of God says, I am the God of Bethel, ivhere
thou anointedst the pillar, and where thou vowedst a vow
unto me, thus identifying Himself with the Lord (the God
Almighty of Gen. xlviii. 3) Who stood above the ladder
which bound heaven and earth together, the ladder on
which the angels of God, His ministering servants to
Man, were ascending and descending, and which the
same Divine Saviour, speaking with human lips to the
guileless Israelite, identified with His own incarnate
Self (St. John i. 51). It is observable here that in the
account of the first appearance to Jacob the title The
Angel of the Lord is not given to Him Who speaks ;
naturally enough, because the visible presence of the
created and ministering angels is a marked feature of
the incident. Yet, since on the next occasion (Gen.
xxxi. 11) the Angel of the Lord expressly says, I am
the God of Bethel, we may infer that on other similar
occasions also, as the mysterious wrestling (xxxii. 24)
and the final Appearance at Bethel (xxxv. 9), it was
the Angel of the Lord Who was seen, even when He is
not expressly introduced by that title. The total im
pression that remained on the mind of the patriarch, on
his reviewing, at its close, his long eventful life, is
plainly indicated in the form of his blessing on Joseph
and his sons (xlviii. 15); — God, before whom my fathers
Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all
my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed me
from all evil, bless the lads. He had not the clear con
ception of the relation of the Blessed Persons in the
One Godhead which Christian faith gives to us; yet
o

194 Reference in Hosea xii. to 'the Angel', [lect.
he identifies The Angel which redeemed him with The
God of his fathers, and he uses the word bless in the
singular number (Appendix, Note 9). This view is deci
sively confirmed by the language of the Prophet Hosea
(xii. 3), who describes the wrestling of Jacob with the
Man Who rebuked the enquiry after His Name, and of
Whom the patriarch said, I have seen God face to face,
and my life is preserved, in the following words : —
By his strength he [Jacob] had power with God:
Yea, he had power over the Angel, and prevailed :
He wept, and made supplication unto Him :
At Bethel, He found him,
And there He spake with us ;
Even Jehovah, the God of Hosts ;
Jehovah is His memorial.
' This " angel " we feel authorized in identifying with
"the angel of the covenant" (Mai. iii. 1), in whom was
God's " Name " (Exod. xxiii. 2 1). In the original account
in Genesis xxxii. there is no mention of an " angel " ; the
mysterious Wrestler is described in v. 24 as " a man," but
afterwards in v. 30 is identified by Jacob with " God." '
(Prebendary Huxtable, in Speaker's Comm. ad loc.)
The reference of ' he wept ' to the angel (as making
supplication to Jacob to let him go), which Mr. Hux
table {ibid.) mentions as 'adopted by Saadia, Rashi,
Aben Ezra, Kimchi, and Hitzig,' arises probably from
the view that the mysterious visitor was only a created
angel. Dr. Pusey writes (ad loc. in Minor Prophets) ' He then
Who appeared to Jacob, and Who, in Jacob, spoke to all the
posterity of Jacob, was God ; whether it was (as almost
all the early fathers thought) God the Son, Who thus
appeared in human form to the Patriarchs, Moses,
Joshua, and in the time of the Judges, under the name of

iv.] Visit of the three Angels to Abraham. 195
the Angel of the Lord, or whether it was the Father. God
Almighty thus accustomed man to see the form of Man,
and to know and believe that it was God.'
96. In contrast with these wholly gracious manifest
ations stands the visit of the three angels to Abraham
preparatory to the Doom of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen.
xviii, xix) ; a visit full of mercy to him and to Lot, but
closing with a most solemn disclosure of the judicial
character of the One Mediator. Here we must first
observe that the opening statement, And the Lord
appeared unto him by the oaks of Mamre, is an intro
ductory heading to the whole narrative, summing up
the meaning and general result of the whole, and
defining its character. Describing the manner of the
Appearance, the narrative proceeds to say, Three men
stood by him. He does not see them coming ; he lift up
his eyes and looked, and, lo, they are there. He ad
dresses them as one 1, 0 Lord (Adonay, not My Lord),
if now I have found favour in Thy sight. In the pro
mise of the Heir, One speaks, He said, I will certainly
return unto thee, and Sarah thy wife shall have a son.
Henceforward to the close Abraham's interlocutor is each
time called The Lord (Jehovah) ; both before the men
(that is, the other two of the three visitants) went away
towards Sodom, and afterwards, during the communi
cation of the purpose of judgment and the ensuing
intercession of Abraham. The exact progress of the
incident appears to be this :— After the hospitable
entertainment under the oak, and the promise of the
1 So the present Text, Lxx., and Vulg. ; but St. Aug. de Trin. ii. 10,
says, ' per pluralem numerum invitat, ut hospitio suscipiat.'
O 2

196 Abraham s Intercession before the Lord. [lect.
Heir, the men (i. e. the three) rose up from thence and
looked towards Sodom, and Abraham went with them to
bring them on the way. The way led by Abraham's
customary place of worship, the place where he stood
before the Lord (xviii. 22 ; xix. 27), which commanded
a view of the land of the plain (xix. 28). At this sacred
spot The Lord said, Shall I hide from Abraham that
thing which I do? After the communication of the
coming judgment the men (i.e. the two created angels)
turned their faces from thence, and went toward Sodom ;
but Abraham stood yet before the Lord ; or, if we adopt
the remarkable variation resting on Jewish tradition
and accepted by Bleek and Geiger (see Cheyne and
Driver)1, The Lord stood yet before Abraham. Then
Abraham drew near, and made his intercession, four
times addressing Him Whom he acknowledges as The
Judge of all the earth, as the Lord (Adonay). At the
close the Lord went His ivay, as soon as he had left
communing with Abraham: and Abraham returned unto
his place; and the two angels (xix. 1 should have the
article before two angels, as Lxx. ol Svo ayyeXoi) came on
even to Sodom, where Lot was sitting in the gate. In
the remainder of the narrative, especially when care
fully compared with the earlier portion in ch. xviii,
it is abundantly clear that these two were created
angels in human form. They describe themselves as
sent by the Lord to destroy the place. They are
treated by Lot as men up to that moment. It is only
when, on the morrow, they insist on his immediate
1 Bible with various Renderings and Readings. (Eyre and Spot-
tiswoode, 1876.)

iv.] The Judgment of Sodom and Gomorrah. 197
escape, that his language seems to acknowledge in
them a supernatural character. Then there is (if we
adopt the received pointing of the Hebrew Text) a
change to a more marked petition to one, in the sin
gular, Lot said unto them, 0 not so, Lord (Adonay) 1,
&c, recognising a messenger and an instrument of the
Lord, but otherwise, in the character of his entreaty
generally, indicating no consciousness of being in the
immediate Presence of the Lord Himself. That the
unseen Judge should use the ministry of His creature-
angels in the actual immediate execution of punish
ment, especially of the reprobate as distinct from the
chastisement of the elect, while He Himself personally
talked with Abraham, The friend of God, harmonizes
with other examples in Holy Scripture 2. Yet the true
ultimate agency is clearly enunciated in the significant
declaration of xix. 24, Then the Lord rained upon
Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the
Lord out of heaven.
97. Passing to the Book of Exodus (chap, iii) we
meet the same Divine Personage operating on a
grander scale for the redemption of His People and
the discomfiture of their enemies. He Who spake to
1 The Masorites note this (as in xviii. 3) as ' holy,' i. e. addressed to
God, reading it with Kamets {Adonay), not Pattahk (Adonai, my
lords, as xix. 2), but it is uncertain, perhaps. Gesenius, Lexicon, fHX,
takes it on one page as Adonai, plural, on the next as Adonay,
singular. 2 For example, in Rev. xiv. 14-20, while the harvest of the earth is
reaped by the golden-crowned One, like unto a Son of Man, Who sat
upon the white cloud, the gathering of the vine of the earth, to cast it into
the great wine-press of the wrath of God is the work of a created angel.

198 The Appearance to Moses in Horeb [lect.
Moses in the wilderness of Horeb from the flame of
fire in the bush, and said, Draw not nigh hither : put off
thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou
standest is holy ground ; He Who said J am the God of
Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and
before Whom Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to
look upon God, was the Angel of the Lord, and yet the
Lord God of the Hebrews (v. 18), the I am teat I am1.
There is an absolutely unanimous consent of the Fathers
that the special Divine Personality here manifested,
though not, of course, without the concurrent Presence
and Co-operation of the Father and the Spirit also, was
that of the Eternal Son. And if so here, then, surely,
on the similar occasions also, both before and in the
1 The Church seems to sanction the thought that the Angel Who
appeared in the Bush was Christ, by her conjunction, on the Fifth
Sunday in Lent, of Exodus iii. as the First Lesson at Matins with St.
John iii. 58, in the Epistle.
The appointment of Genesis xviii. as an Evening Lesson on Trinity
Sunday was probably due to St. Augustine's language in the Be
Trinitate, ix. 1 1. 20, etc., where he labours to show that the three ' men '
or ' angels ' may have represented the Three Persons of the Blessed
Trinity, the two who went on to Sodom representing, more especially,
the Second and Third Persons, because they say they were 'sent,'
(though he admits (cap. 13. 23) that he cannot recollect that the
Holy Spirit is anywhere called an ' angel ') ; while the specialty of
address to one in the singular, so marked in Abraham's language, and
also, though much less so, in Lot's, he takes to indicate only Their
Unity and Identity of Substance. But his comment exhibits plainly
the difficulties inseparable from his peculiar view ; and only sets in
a clearer light the simplicity and consistency of the primitive Catholic
view, that the Lord Who ' appeared ' was ever the Son of God. But
of course, this chapter, like all the narratives of the Theophanies has a
weighty force in the establishment of a plural Personality in the God
head ; and that is the first necessary step towards the full faith in the
Holy Trinity.

iv.] in the Burning Bush. 199
after history. In fact this signal manifestation throws
a flood of light on both the earlier and later examples
of the kind we are discussing ; and if we are compelled
to admit that there is here an especial action and mani
fested Presence of the Logos there can be no valid
reason against admitting the same Presence in other
instances also which are really, in essentials, analogous.
It is natural, after this, to suppose that the Lord Who
in the subsequent history, up to and after the Exodus,
spake to Moses, was the Eternal Son.
Thus Dr. Mill writes (Mythical Interp. of the Gospels,
Appendix E, p. 153), 'That the Angel of the Lord who
preceded the children of Israel from Egypt in the cloud and
in the fire, was (agreeably to Exod. xiii. 20, 21, compared
with xiv. 19, 20 ; Num. xx. 6, &c), the Lord Himself,
possessor of the incommunicable name niPPj and that
this Angel of the Covenant (as he is termed in Mai. iii. 1,
compared with Gen. xlviii. 15, 16, &e.) is the Uncreated
Word, who appeared in visible form to Jacob and Moses,
and who was in the fulness of time incarnate in the person
of Jesus Christ, is the known undoubted faith of the
Church of God, and needs not to be enlarged on here.
This same Uncreated Angel, in whom was the name of the
Lord, is promised by the mouth of Moses, in Exod. xxiii.
20-23, to continue to precede the armies of Israel, and cut
off the Canaanites before them.' But, following Theodoret,
and also the Rabbis Tanchuma and Moses Ben Nachman,
he proceeds to express a view (to be presently noticed)
that the sin of the golden calf led to a permanent with
drawal of the Divine Presence and substitution of a
created angel, and that the Captain of the Lord's Host,
who appeared to Joshua before Jericho, was the Arch
angel Michael.
98. The next special mention of The Angel of the

200 The Divine Angel-Guardian of Israel, [lect.
Lord after the Burning Bush (Exod. xiv. 1 9) identifies
Him with the Lord Who (xiii. 21) went before them by
day in a pillar of a cloud to lead them the way, and by
night in a pillar of fire to give them light ; and who
(xiv. 24) looked unto the host of the Egyptians through
the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host
of the Egyptians, even as once again He troubled those
who, when He said unto them, I am, went backward and
fell to the ground (St. John xviii. 6).
99. Next we find a remarkable passage which, on a
superficial view, has been thought to show an express
substitution of a created angel in the place of the Son
of God as the Guardian of the Host of Israel, and so to
authorize the weaker interpretation of the phrase The
Angel of the Lord in earlier and later passages. The
real force of the passage is the exact opposite of this.
It runs as follows (Exod. xxiii. 20) : Behold I send an
Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring
thee into the place which I have prepared. Beware of
him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not
pardon your transgressions : for my name is in him.
But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I
speak ; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and
an adversary unto thine adversaries. For mine Angel
shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites,
&c. . . . and I will cut them off. These words of promise
occur at the close of a continuous section of three chap
ters (xxi, xxii, xxiii), in which Moses communicates to
the people the Revelation made to him in the Mount,
where he was, in an especial and peculiar manner, in
the immediate presence of God. The language used

IV.] withdrawn after the Worship of the Calf, 201
points, especially when regarded in the light of that
used in the narrative of the manifestation at the Burn
ing Bush, to a Divine Angel, and so to the Son of God ;
for it says, My name is in him. This could be said of
no created angel. And so far Dr. Mill would agree.
The sin of the golden calf (xxxii.) threatened a differ
ence. The act of idolatry broke the covenant; and
then (xxxiii.) the Lord said unto Moses ... J will send
an angel before thee; . . . for I will not go up in the
midst of thee ; for thou art a stiff-necked people ; lest I
consume thee in the way. The breach that was made
between God and the People by this sin is indicated by
Moses' removal of the Tent of Meeting to the outside of
the camp, afar off from the camp (v. 7), and by the
absence of the Cloudy Pillar from above it, until Moses,
who, with Joshua, had not participated in the idolatrous
worship, entered into the Tent, when it came to pass,
that the Cloudy Pillar descended, and stood at the door
of the Tent, and He talked with Moses. But, in esti
mating the consequences of this transgression, we must
take account of the Repentance of the People, and of
the Intercession of Moses. When the people heard these
evil tidings, they mourned : and no man did put on him
his ornaments (v. 4), and The children of Israel stripped
themselves of their ornaments by the mount Horeb (v. 6),
and When Moses went out unto the Tent, all the people
rose up and stood every man at his tent door, and looked
after Moses, until he was gone into the Tent . . . and all
the people saw the Cloudy Pillar stand at the door of the
Tent ; and all the people rose up and worshipped, every
man in his tent door. And the Lord spake unto Moses

202 restored after Moses* Intercession. [lect.
face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend (vv. 8-10).
Then followed Moses' Intercession, and the gracious
answer of God to him (vv. 12-17). Moses said unto the
Lord, See thou say est unto me, Bring up this people:
and thou hast not let me know whom thou wilt send with
me . . . And he said, My Presence [13s, My Face,
cf. Isa. lxiii. 9] shall go with thee [Lxx. avros ¦n-poiropeo-
o-o/j.al o-ov] and I will give thee rest. And he said unto
him, If thy presence pP;J?> Thy Face] go not with
me [Lxx. Ei fn avros au o-v/unropevrj], carry us not up
hence. For, &c. . . . And the Lord said unto Moses, I
will do this thing also that thou hast spoken. Further,
in the next chapter, when Moses went up the second
time unto Mount Sinai, with the second tables of stone,
and the Lord descended in the Cloud, and stood with him
there (vv. 4, 5), again Moses interceded" and received a
gracious answer (9, 10), If now I have found grace in thy
sight, 0 Lord (Adonay), let my Lord (Adonay), I pray thee,
go among us: for it is a stiff necked people ; and pardon our
iniquity and our sin, and take us for thine inheritance.
And He said, Behold, I make a covenant, &c. Thus the
covenant-relation was renewed ; and, with it, the guar
dianship of the Angel in Whom was the incommunicable
Name ; and its outward token, the Cloudy Pillar, was
restored to its customary position above the Tabernacle.
Conformably with this view the Prophet Isaiah, when,
long afterwards, he set himself to mention the loving
kindnesses of the Lord, and the praises of the Lord,
according to all that the Lord had bestowed on them,
and His great goodness towards the house of Israel, savs
(lxiii. 7) : —

iv.J Appearance of the Angel of the Lord to Balaam 203
So He was their Saviour.
In all their affliction He was afflicted,
And the Angel of His Face saved them :
In His love and in His pity He redeemed them ;
And He bare them, and carried them all the days of old.
Where the Septuagint Version, very remarkably,
runs as follows : —
Kai eyevero avrois eh o-anvplav e/c -nacrris OXi^reoos avr&v.
ov ttpeafivs, ovbe ayyekos, a.XX' avrbs eaaxrev avrovs,
bia to ayairav avrovs Kai (f>elbeo-0ai avr&v'
avrbs eXvrpdoaTO avrovs, /cat aveXafiev avrovs, k.t.X.
100. Before leaving the history of the Pentateuch we
notice an Appearance of The Angel of the Lord which
prepares us for His remarkable Manifestation of Himself
in a military character, as the Leader and Protector of
God's people, in the Book of Joshua. It is that to
Balaam on his way to curse Israel (Numbers xxii, xxiii,
xxiv). In considering this very noteworthy passage
it should be observed, first, that here, as elsewhere, a
visible manifestation and approach of God or the Lord
for the purpose of converse is implied throughout. God
came unto Balaam (xxii. 9). God came unto Balaam by
night (20) and said . . . the word that I shall say unto
thee that shalt thou do. Compare (38) The word that
God putteth in my mouth, that shall I speak (compare
xxiii. 12 and 26, and xxiv. 13). After this it is natural
for Balaam to say (xxiii. 3) peradventure the Lord will
come to meet me (LXX. el fioi (paveirai 6 Geo? ev o-vvavTrjO-ei),
and whatsoever he sheweth me I will tell thee. And
God met Balaam (Lxx. icpdvi 6 Qe6s t<5 BaXadf*.) . . .
And the Lord put a word in Balaams mouth. And

204 evidently a Divine Manifestation. [lect.
again (15), Stand here . . . while I meet the Lord yonder.
And the Lord met Balaam, and put a word in his mouth.
Next, in the narrative of the Appearance, first to the
ass and then to Balaam himself, of the Angel of the Lord
with His sioord drawn in His hand1, He is called
throughout The Angel of the Lord 2, and never simply
an angel. He speaks as God, Thy way is perverse before
me, and only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that
thou shalt speak (see xxii. 20). Lastly, observe the
effect on Balaam ; he bowed down his head, and wor
shipped 3 on his face . . . and said, I have sinned ; and
his twice repeated allusion afterwards (xxiv. 3, 4 and
15, 16) to his blindness at first, and the awful disclosure
that followed when his eyes were opened : —
A revelation to Balaam the son of Beor,
And a revelation to the man unclosed (or, closed4) of eye,
1 Compare Joshua v. 13, and 1 Chron. xxi. 16.
2 The Vulg., unlike the Lxx., having introduced Him as Angelus
Domini, afterwards in every instance calls him simply angelus. This,
added to the absence of the definite article in Latin, weakens the effect
considerably. 3 The word in the Hebrew is the same as that rendered worshipped
of Joshua, in Joshua v. 14. Curiously, the Lxx., which omits it there,
gives here a full rendering, Kvtyas Trpoo-eKvvrjo-e ra wpoo-amia avrov.
4 I. e. if we read Dns? as Vulg. (cuius obturatus est oculus), Eng.
A. V. margin, and Drs. Gotch and Davies in their very valuable
Revised English Bible (Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1877); also (according
to Cheyne and Driver's Bible with various Renderings and Readings,
(Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1876), Hengstenberg, Hupfeld, Roediger, and
Keil. The other reading Bnt£>, unclosed, has in its favour, according to
the same authorities, ' the Lxx., Targums, Peshito, most Jews, Gesenius,
Ewald, and Knobel. If we read closed, the allusion is to Balaam's
blindness before he saw the Angel; as falling, and hawing the eyes opened
alludes to xxii. 31, and his prostration in worship. The student will

IV.] Appearance of the Captain of the Lord's host 205
A revelation to him who heard the words of God,
Who beheld 1 the vision of the Almighty,
Falling, and having the eyes opened.
In this latter passage the English reader can only
think of the ordinary verb for speaking, in the thrice
repeated hath said of the Authorized Version ; which
fails entirely (as also do the Septuagint and the Vulgate)
to convey the force of the original, and its inherent
thought of a very special and solemn' disclosure. The
addition of ev v-wvw (in sleep) by the Septuagint trans
lators to beheld the vision, &c, which probably misled
the A. V., into the unwarrantable addition of into a
trance after falling, is possibly merely dishonest.
10 1. We pass to the Book of Joshua, the faithful
servant who was guiltless of the idolatry which had
temporarily interrupted the covenant-relation between
God and His People, and to whom God's favour had
ever been vouchsafed. Here we find a characteristic
and appropriate Appearance of the great Protector of
Israel at the critical period which followed the passage
of the Jordan. The passage (the internal continuity of
which is, most unfortunately, obscured by the division
of the chapters) covers the close of the fifth and opening
of the sixth chapters. The Appearance is that of a Man
with his sword drawn in his hand, Who announces Him
self as the Captain, or Prince, of the host of the Lord ;
observe that the A. V. has no right to insert into a trance after < fall
ing.' Gotch and Davies render ' falling to the ground.'
1 ™.!?. . . nJ™?. Gesenius says ntn means 'specially, i. To see God,
sometimes pp. of the actual vision of the Divine presence. Ex. xxiv. 1 1,
They [Moses and the Elders] saw God. Job xix. 26. 27, Even from
[or without] my flesh shall I see God, whom I for myself shall see?

206 to Joshua before Jericho, [lect.
and Who not only accepts without rebuke the prostrate
worship of Joshua, but, as if on purpose to remind him
of what must have been, in every detail, deeply im
printed in his memory from his close association with
Moses — the Manifestation at the Burning Bush — bids
him also, as Moses had been bidden, Loose thy shoe from
off thy foot, for the place whereon thou standest is holy,
and in the remainder of the interview is expressly
styled the Lord.
It is remarkable that any, at least, of those who
admit the Manifestation at the Burning Bush to have
been Divine, should hesitate about this, in the face of
so clear indications of a Divine Presence. Justin
Martyr (Dial, cum Tryphone, cap. 62.) so understood
it, as well as Eusebius the historian (E. H. I. ii.), ' and
others, as Theodoret witnesses in his Questions on the
Book of Joshua1 ; ' so also, among ourselves, Archbishop
Usher, Bishops Patrick and Watson ; also Stackhouse,
Allix, Woodward, Scott, D'Oyly, and Mant ; and, in our
own day, Chancellor Espin in the Speaker's Commen
tary, Prebendary Davey in the S.P.CK. Commentary,
and Dr. Walsh (Bishop of Ossory) in The Angel of the
Lord: so too Protestant Commentators generally 2-
On the other hand, Dr. Mill lays great stress on a
curious scholion on the place in Eusebius (preserved by
his editor Valesius, who says it is ' written by the hand
of the very antiquary who wrote out the Manuscript '),
1 Valesius, on Euseb. I. ii. Among the ' others ' is Origen, in his
Sixth Homily on the Book of Joshua, as preserved in Rufinus' Latin
Translation. See Burton, Ante-Nicene Fathers, § 210.
2 See Hengstenberg, Christology, vol. i. p. 121.

IV.] not an appearance of the Archangel Michael 207
to the effect that 'the Church thought differently,'
chiefly on the ground that the being who appeared
to Joshua did not call himself God, but God's chief
captain, a dignity rather ministerial than supreme.
Valesius states that ' the rest of the Fathers ' thought
he was 'not the Son of God, but rather Michael the
Archangel.' This view (adopted by Dr. Mill1, and
also, as 'most probable,' by Dr. Pusey2, but claiming
expressly among the Fathers the name of Theodoret
only) is evidently based on the peculiar phenomena of
the Lxx. Version of the passage. It is observable
that in Joshua v. 14, the inntt^l (and did worship;
the word used of Balaam's falling flat on his face when
he saw the Angel of the Lord) is altogether unrepre
sented in the Greek. Again, in Joshua's question,
What saith my Lord unto his servant f ^TTN is rendered
not Kvpie (Lord), but AeWoTa (Master). These two
peculiarities considerably lower the effect of the original ;
which is further weakened by the severance of the
fifth verse in the narrative, And the Lord said unto
Joshua, from its proper connection with the appearance
of the Captain of the Lord's Host. To Dr. Mill's
argument, that the title Captain (ap-^to-r pdrriyos) implies
' only a ministerial superintendence,' it may be replied,
that it does so not at all more than the title Angel
or Messenger, which the same high authority frankly
admits is elsewhere given to the Son of God ; or than
the title Captain of our Salvation, which it is possible
1 Mythical Interp. Gosp. p. 353. Appendix E.
2 Daniel the Prophet. Lecture ix. p. 520.

208 but of God the Son coming in Judgment [lect.
was applied to our Lord by the writer of the Epistle
to the Hebrews from a recollection of this incident.
He further urges, 'that it seems most natural and
obvious to conceive that the Lord sent this message
to Joshua by the mouth of his Archangel ; ' but there
is really no very evident reason why it should be
more ' natural and obvious.' in this case than in the
case of the Burning Bush. It was, indeed, really far
more than a ' message.' It was, in truth, a much-
needed assurance, vouchsafed in such outward and
visible form as should make it more surely decisive and
effectual, that the same invisible Divine Leader Who
had brought their fathers safely through the wilderness
would be also with this younger and less experienced
generation, in their terrible task of reducing the war
like races of Canaan and their strongly-fenced cities.
It was an assurance, too, from Him Who, after the
death of Moses, spake expressly unto Joshua (i. 5),
saying, As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee :
I will not fail thee nor forsake thee .... Have not
I commanded thee ? Be strong and of a good courage ;
be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed : for the Loed
thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. And it
Was, further, a most expressive and much-needed token
that the fearful work of extermination which was at
that moment before the Israelites was indeed a Divine
judicial Visitation on the Seven Nations, whose iniquity
was now full ; and that their execution of it was a duty
warranted, as it could alone be warranted, by a most
undoubted special Divine Command. The drawn
sword in the hand of the Son of God we, at least, can

iv. J Appearances in the Book of Judges. 209
now clearly perceive to indicate Who was the real,
though invisible, Agent in that act of doom.
This question, however, may really be considered as
ruled by the allusion to the Conquest of Canaan in
the inspired Psalm of Habakkuk, who cries, after
grateful thanksgiving to the Lord for the glories of
the Exodus,
Sun and moon stand still in their habitation,
At the flash of Thine arrows which go swiftly,
At the shining of Thy glittering spear,
In wrath Thou marchest through the land,
In anger Thou dost thresh the Heathen,
Thou marchest forth for the salvation of Thy People,
For the salvation of Thine Anointed.
102. In the Booh of Judges we find mention of three
Appearances of The Angel of the Lord : First, to the
People at Bochim, where, speaking directly as in the
Person of God, and with evident reference to the last-
mentioned occasion, He rebukes them for their re
missness in not having fully carried out their duty in
the execution of that Judgment on the Canaanites,
of which they were the appointed instruments. Akin
to this is the language of Deborah's song of triumph
for the victory of Barak over Jabin and the Canaanites
of Hazor (Judges v. 23), Curse ye Meroz, said the Angel
of the Lord, curse ye ever the inhabitants thereof The
Angel of the Lord may have made the communication
of ch. iv. 6, 7, to Deborah. The curse was effectual ;
Meroz ' disappears from history.' (Pusey, Daniel,
p. 518.)
The second is that to Gideon (Judges vi. 11) during

210 The Appearance to Gideon; [lect.
the oppression of Israel by the Midianites. The
passage should be carefully studied and closely com
pared with the other similar narratives. It will then
be felt, in this as in the other examples, that it is
almost, if not quite, impossible to resist the conclusion
that, even weakened as it is in our Authorized Version,
it conveys, and was intended to convey, the impression
that He Who was seen and Who spoke was, and was
understood by Gideon to be, a Divine Person. Notice
especially Gideon's first address, 0 my Lord (^1M
Adoni, simply) not yet recognizing the Divine character
of the visitant ; then the remarkable expression, The
Lord looked upon him and said, where the readings of
the Septuagint curiously waver between eTreo-rpe^-e
and e-7re'/3\e\^e)/, reminding us of o-rpoxpeh 6 Kvpio?
ei/e'/3Ae\J/-e tw Tlerpw (the Lord turned and looked upon
Peter, St. Luke, xxii. 61); then the recognition of a
Divine Lord ("O^t*, Adonay), and, upon this, the
proposal of the offering, e^olo-w rrjv 8vo-lav kui 6v<rw
evwTnov aov : then the fire out of the rock, the expres
sion of awed surprise, Alas, 0 Lord God ! for because
I have seen the Angel of the Lord face to face ; the
instant gracious re-assurance, And the Lord said unto
him: Peace be to thee! Fear not, thou shalt not die;
and, lastly, the abiding memorial, Then Gideon built
an altar there unto the Lord, and called it Jehovah-
Shalom. 103. The third Appearance recorded in the Book of
Judges is that in the fourteenth chapter, to the wife
of Manoah, and then to Manoah himself, to announce
the birth of their son, Samson, who should be the

iv. J to Manoah and his wife; 211
deliverer of the people from the sore oppression
of the Philistines. Here again, to a mind unpre
possessed and simply looking at the evident purport
of the Hebrew narrative, the phenomena are those of
a distinctly divine manifestation ; that is, of a Divine
Personality in a visible form. The appearance is that
of a man of God, whose countenance was like that of
the Angel of God, very terrible, distinctly human, but
divinely majestic. On the second visit of this, The
Angel of the Lord, Manoah proposes hospitable enter
tainment, like that of Abraham to the three angels, not
knowing as yet that He was the Angel of the Lord.
The Angel declines to receive it, Though thou detain me,
I will not eat of thy bread — there could be no merely
equal friendly fellowship between them— adding, If
thou wilt offer a burnt-offering, thou must offer it unto
the Lord. This leads to Manoah's question, What is
thy namef The answer is surely decisive as to the
Divine Personality that speaks, Why askest thou after
my name, seeing it is Wonderful ? Is not this He, Who
to the Patriarch Jacob, when he asked (Gen. xxxii. 29),
Tell me, I pray thee, thy name, made answer in like man
ner, Wherefore is it that thou dost ask after my name f
Is not this He of whom Isaiah prophesied that His
name should be called Wonderful, "'N??, the same
word, in the original, as that used to Manoah by
the Angel of the Lord Himself? Then, like Gideon,
Manoah offered the kid and the meal-offering upon the
rock to the Lord, and He (i. e. the Lord, for the words
the angel are inserted by the Authorized Version in
P 2

212 The Angel of the Pestilence, [lect.
Judges xiii. 19 without any authority) did wonderously:
where the word rendered wonderously is identical in
root with His Name Wonderful ; i. e. He acted in a
supernatural manner, consistently with His Name ;
For it came to pass, when the flame went up toward
heaven from off the altar, that the Angel of the Lord
ascended in the flame of the altar, Manoah and his wife
looking on, and they fell on their faces to the ground ....
Then Manoah knew that he was the angel of the Lord,
and Manoah said unto his wife, We shall surely die
because we have seen God, expressing the natural and
invariable feeling on the first realization of so awful
a nearness of God. Yet his wife reassures him with
her expression of the next feeling that swells up in
the devout and believing soul, at the thought of the
condescending love and mercy thus shown, on these
and like occasions, by the One Mediator, the one and
only Saviour of the world, the one Redeemer of the
oppressed, the suffering, and the lost; — If the Lord
were pleased to kill us, He would not have received a
burnt-offering and a meal-offering at our hands, nor
have showed us all these things; neither would He at
this time have made us hear a thing like this.
104. With regard to the angel of the pestilence
which visited Jerusalem as a punishment for David's
sin in numbering the people, the evidence of the
passages (2 Sam. xxiv. 16, &c, and 1 Chron. xxi.
15, &c.) seems to invite the belief that it was the One,
the Supreme, the Divine and uncreated Angel, Who
appeared. The account in 2 Samuel introduces the
angel of the pestilence first as the angel simply (but

iv.J seen by David on Moriah. 213
Lxx. 6 ay<ye\os rov QeoO), but immediately afterwards
speaks of him as The Angel of the Lord (6 ayyeXos
Kvplov). The account in 1 Chronicles introduces him
as an angel ; but afterwards four times speaks of him
as The Angel of the Lord. David's vision of him,
standing .... with his sword drawn in his hand, recalls
the Appearance to Joshua before Jericho, this latter
descriptive phrase being, in both the Hebrew and
the Septuagint, identical in the two passages. The
prostration of David and the elders at the sight,
David's prayer unto God, the angel's command to
David to set up an altar to the Lord on the spot, and
the answer from heaven by fire, recall features of
similar manifestations in earlier days. Further, the
rendering of 2 Chron. iii. 1 by the Seventy, which
is followed by our own Translators of 1 6 1 1 in their
text, shows plainly that they regarded it as an
Appearance of the Lord. In this they were probably
influenced by the important consideration that the
name of the spot, the site of the future Temple,
namely, ha-Moriah (Lxx. 'A^upla, or 'Afiopla), a name
given only in this place and in the narrative of the
Sacrifice of Isaac1, means in Hebrew The Vision, or
The Appearance, of the Lord. On the other hand, the
present Hebrew Text iTv:) "W« seems rather to re
quire the qui demonstratus fuerat (referring to in
monte Moria) of the Vulgate, and the marginal
rendering of our Authorized Version.
As might naturally be expected, we find further
mention of the Angel of the Lord in the critical
1 Gen. xxii. 2, Hebrew Text, but Lxx. «s rip, y^vritv if far.

214 Later Appearances. [lect.
period of the life of Elijah ; first, on his flight from
the threats of Jezebel to Horeb, the Mount of God
(i Kings xix) ; and again, to bid him send God's
message of death to the idolatrous Ahaziah (2 Kings i).
After this we have no direct record of the inter
vention of the Angel of the Lord in the history of
the Chosen People, except as the destroyer of the
Assyrian host, which threatened Jerusalem in the reign
of Hezekiah. (2 Kings xix. 35, and Isaiah xxxvii. 36.)
In the Book of Job we find (xxxiii. 23) a passage on
which Dr. Pusey writes as follows : — ' This same angel,
I think, was meant by Elihu, the Angel-interpreter, one of
a thousand, who sheweth unto man Ms righteousness, i. e.
how he may be righteous in God's sight, and is gracious
unto him, and saith, redeem him from going down into the
pit, I have found a ransom. For it is the office of no
mere created Angel, but is anticipative of Him Who
came, at once to redeem and to justify ; as S. Gregory
says (ad loc.) " It is as though the Mediator of God and
men said, ' since there hath been no man, who miffht
appear a righteous intercessor for man, I made Myself
man to make propitiation for man'." This, then, in
itself, involves a distinction among the heavenly beings,
so far at least that, in the earliest books, as well as in
Daniel, we hear of one Angel above those ordinarily
spoken of.' (lectures on Daniel, p. 519.)
105. It is, however, to be observed, that while after
the deliverance from Sennacherib we find no express
record of the appearance, or present action, on earth of
the Angel of the Lord, yet in the later prophets of
the critical times of the Captivity and the Restoration
— in Ezekiel, in Daniel, in Zechariah, and in Malachi 
we find renewed assurances, in varied forms, of the

IV.] The Vision of Ezekiel. 215
close and watchful interest and superintending care of
the Divine Son of God over the Church and Nation
whose fortunes He had guided, and whose character
He had been forming, by manifold discipline, of mercv
and of chastisement, from the first. To Ezekiel and
Daniel He manifests Himself in vision under a human
form ; to Zechariah as The Angel of the Lord ; while
Malachi speaks of Him as The Angel of the Covenant.
The Prophecy of Ezekiel opens with the magnificent
Vision of the four living creatures, the cherubim, and
over them the Throne of God, and upon the throne the
Appearance of a Man above upon it, and round about
an appearance of brightness, as of the rainbow. The
seer describes the glorious appearance of Him Who
sat on the throne in terms that closely correspond with
St. John's description of the same Divine Object in the
opening of the Apocalypse. This, he tells us, was the
appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Loud;
words that might seem to have suggested to the author
of the Epistle to the Hebrews the language in which
he speaks of the Eternal Son as the brightness of the
Fathers glory and the express image of His person.
And when he saw it, he, as St. John, fell upon his face,
and heard the voice of one that spake. The Speaker,
Who is later on spoken of as the God of Israel (Ezek.
x. 20), and Whose Presence is indicated and accom
panied by the visible Shekinah, the glory of the God of
Israel, speaks throughout in the Person of the Lord
Jehovah; and declares Himself the Divine Being
against Whom the House of Israel had sinned in all
their rebellious history. He denounces His judgments

216 Appearances in the Book of Daniel. [lect.
against them, while promising mercy and restoration
to a faithful remnant, and foretelling His judgments
on the Heathen nations around.
Towards the close of the Prophecy (ch. xl.) the
long detailed symbolical description of the restored
city and temple is prefaced by a renewed reference to
the same Divine Person, manifested in human form, as
Himself communicating the description to the prophet,
and bidding him Declare all that thou seest to the house
of Israel 1.
The passages in Ezekiel which are to be especially
noted, as indicating the intervention of the Son of God,
as, in an especial manner, the God of Israel, are the
following : — The Appearance of a glorious man, i. 2,6,
28; viii. 1-3; xl. ,3; xliii. 6; xlvii. 1: The visible
Shekinah denoting the Divine Presence, i. 28 ; iii. 23 ;
viii. 4 ; ix. 3 ; x. 3, 1 8-20 ; xi. 23 ; xliii. 3 ; xliv. 4 :
The Son commanding the service of created angels, ix, x :
The Divine character of Him who appeared to the
Pro'phet, i. 28 ; xliv. 1, 3, 6, 9, 15, 27; xiv. 9, 15, 18;
xlvi. 1, 16; xlvii. 13, 23 : xlviii. 29.
106. Passing to the Book of Daniel, the Apocalypse
of the Old Testament, we note first the two instances
of the intervention of an angel sent by God for the
protection of His faithful martyr-servants ; First (ch.
iii), of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah from the burning
fiery furnace; and, Second (ch. vi), of the prophet him
self from the den of lions. In each case it is said, in
the first by Nebuchadnezzar, in the second by Daniel,
that God sent his angel. In the first the visible human
1 Compare the 'great vision' of the closing chapters (x, xi, xii) of
Daniel.

tv.J The Vision of ' The A ncient of Days', 21 7
form, but glorious like a son of the gods (iii. 25), is
expressly said to have been manifested to the heathen
king. Neither passage speaks certainly of any divine
personality in the angel. This is as we should have
expected, from his being spoken of in the first instance
by, in the second to, a heathen. Nebuchadnezzar and
Darius might well believe (see notes ad loc. in the
Speaker s Commentary)' in this intervention of super
natural ' messengers ' of God ; but from them the full
possible truth in its highest form must necessarily be
veiled. On the other hand, there is certainly nothing
to hinder, and perhaps something to suggest, the
thought of the action of the Angel of the Lord in the
highest sense ; of Him Who manifested Himself to His
first martyr under the New Covenant in the moment of
his supreme need.
107. There is greater difficulty in attaining a clear
view of the Vision (ch. vii) of the Ancient of days and of
one like a (not the) son of man, who came to the Ancient of
days, and they brought him near before him. And there
was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, &c.
Saint Augustine (De Trinitate, II. xviii. 33) understands
the Ancient of days to be the Father, and the one like
unto a son of man, the Son, both seen ' in visible form '
by the prophet. There are grave difficulties in the
way of supposing this, especially in this one solitary
instance, of the First Person of the Holy Trinity.
Such a supposition must be, as we have seen (§§ 70, 84,
85, 89), contrary to the whole current of Scripture
language on the subject: and it has led, in some
portions of the Church, to very painful results in

2 1 8 its peculiarity paralleled by [lect.
Christian Art. The superficially apparent necessity for
it is founded on the prima facie exclusive reference of
the phrase one like a son of man to Christ ; from which
it would seem to follow that the Ancient of days must
be the Father, because of the prophet's distinct mention
of Him. But we, very humbly, think another view is
possible. Adhering to the deeply important principle
that the visibly manifested God is ever the Divine Son,
we would suggest that a close comparison of the three
evidently related passages (Isaiah vi, Ezekiel i, and
Daniel vii) in which a vision of the glory of the Lord is
described by Old Testament prophets, with each other
and with the corresponding description (Bevelation i)
by the Seer of the New Testament (not forgetting the
revelation, and the language in which it is described,
vouchsafed to the three Apostles, of whom Saint John
was one, on the Mount of Transfiguration), compels us
to the conclusion that one and the same Personage is
described in all the four passages ; and that the last of
them removes all doubt as to Who that is. The Old
Testament passages disclose a glorious human Form
enthroned on high ; and all three describe the vision
in closely similar language. The New Testament dis
closes a vision of the same Form, like unto a son of man,
but now appropriately walking in the midst of the seven
golden candlesticks, which symbolise His redeemed
Church on earth; and describes Him in terms that
agree with the earlier visions. The Ancient of days is
then the Son of God as manifested in His Divine glory.
To the ancient Church (for example, to Daniel) He was
God, simply ; to us He is ' God of God,' the Son, not

iv. J that to St. John in the Apocalypse. 219
the Father. But, regarding the Vision from the sim
pler, the earlier, stand-point, there is no difficulty in
supposing that the one like a son of man, whom we
now know to be really one with the Ancient of days,
represents, in their then distinctness, the then future
facts of the Incarnation and that Kingdom of the Incar
nate which is so wonderfully foretold in the Prophecy
of Daniel. To us who are in and of that Kingdom, and
who know the fuller truth, He Who as Man received it
is one with God Who gave it ; but, for the clear pre
sentation of the truth before it was realized in fact, it
was necessary that its two elements should be separately
presented. In illustration of this view of the passage
it may be remarked, that we find an exact parallel in
the Fourth and Fifth chapters of the Revelation. The
same enthroned Form is seen ; human in appearance,
for the Sealed Book is in His right hand. It is God the
Son of God manifested in His Divine character. As
the Incarnate Redeemer He is separately presented as
a Lamb as it had been slain, in which character He
came and took the book out of the right hand of him that
sat upon the throne. Here the difficulty, if it be one,
is the same as in the Vision of Daniel. And the solu
tion is the same : In each case both representations
belong to the same Person, Who unites, as we Chris
tians know, two Natures, and so two Characters, two
Offices, two sets of functions. Further, closely regard
ing the phrase employed (which is not the Son of Man,
but one like a son of man1, we may discern an intima-
1 The A. V. ' one like the Son of man ' is inaccurate on the face of
it, apart from any reference to the original or the Lxx., neither of

220 Share of the Saints in the Kingdom. [lect.
tion of the further marvel that the Kingdom of the
Incarnate is not for Himself only, but is, in its measure,
shared by them also whom He is not ashamed to call
His brethren (Heb. ii. 1 1 ). There was given unto Him a
Kingdom (Dan. vii. 14); but also (18) the Saints of the
Most High shall take the Kingdom, and possess the King
dom for ever, even for ever and ever. The kingdoms of
this world (22) made war with the saints, and prevailed
against them ; until the Ancient of days came (only the
Son ' comes,' and He ' came ' in His Incarnation), and
judgment was given to the saints of the Most High ; and
the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom. . . .
And (27) the kingdom and dominion, and the greatness
of the kingdom under the whole heaven, shall be given to
the people of the saints of the Most High, whose Kingdom
(Lxx. n e^ovo-la avTov) is an everlasting kingdom, and all
dominions shall serve and obey him. (Compare St. Matt.
xix. 28 ; St. Luke xxii. 30 ; 1 Cor. vi. 2 ; Bev. ii. 26 ;
iii. 2 1 ; xx. 4.) In Chap. viii. ver. 1 5 the appearance
of a man most probably refers to the angel Gabriel ; but
there is separate mention also of the voice of a man which
commands him to make Daniel to understand the vision
of the Ram and the He- goat described in the earlier
verses of the chapter. No further description is given ;
but the command to the created angel is suggestive of
the Supreme Angel. (Compare Ezekiel ix, x; Zechariah
i. 8-1 1 ; ii. 4 ; iii. 4 ; vi, 7 ; on which see § 109, &c).
108. The Book of Daniel concludes with the account
which has the article ; for there is not, nor can be, any like The Son
of man. The original simply means a human being, referring only to
the visible appearance.

IV.] The ' Great Vision ' of Daniel. 221
(occupying chs. x, xi, xii) (1) of what the prophet styles
(x. 8) the great vision of a certain man clothed in linen,
whose glorious appearance he describes in terms that
seem to point to the Son of God, and (2) of the great
revelation which He vouchsafed to him of what should
befal his people in the latter days, not in this case com
manding a created angel to interpret, as in the last
example, which had reference to heathen kingdoms, but
undertaking the task Himself. There is doubtless
much that is difficult both in the matter and in the
language of this passage ; but the identification of the
Man clothed in linen with the Angel of the Lord and
with the Prince of princes of Dan. viii. 25, seems at
least probable. He is clearly distinct from, and appa
rently superior to \ Michael, who is one (or the first) of
the chief princes (the archangel, St. Jude 9, Bev. xii. 7),
and is the prince, or guardian-angel, of Israel.
Comparing the language of Judges v. 23 : —
Curse ye Meroz ! said the angel of the Lord,
Curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof !
Because they came not to the help of the Lord,
To the help of the Lord among the mighty ;
we need not, perhaps, find a serious difficulty in the
allusions to the help of Michael (x. 13, 21).
More difficult is the mention (x. 13) of successful
withstanding by the prince of the kingdom of Persia
during one-and-twenty days ; but the accomplishment
1 E. g. note the language used in xi. 1, ' I— even I— stood to confirm
and strengthen him, where the "him" is not Darius but Michael
(x. 22). Rev. J. M. Fuller, ad loc. in Speaker's Commentary.

222 Interest of the angelic world [lect.
of God's great purposes is, we know, delayed by the
action of His creatures, not only in active opposition
as enemies, but in the intercessory pleading of His
'holy ones' for those (it may be unworthy) on whose
behalf they are interested. Compare Abraham's inter
cession for Sodom, and the language of the angel
of judgment to Lot, whose mere presence was a hin
drance, Haste thee, escape ; for I cannot do anything till
thou be come thither. There is reason to believe that
the struggle of opposing principles, embodied — and
that, doubtless, to any but the Supreme Intelligence,
in the strangest mixture and confusion — in the con
flicting forces of human society and politics, is watched
with the most absorbing interest by angelic spirits,
good and evil, among whom there is some mysteriously
corresponding conflict. And as the Satan, the Accuser,
the Adversary, stands at the right hand (Zech. iii. i) of
the holy and good (and this may be true of nations or
churches as of individuals) who are on God's side, to
resist them ; or intrudes into the assembly of the sons
of God (Job i. 6) when they come to present themselves
before the Lord, to point out the mixture of their
motives, the defects and infirmities of their characters,
or worse, their sins — so the holy angels, the lovers of
mankind, may plead for respite and merciful considera
tion for individual souls, for classes, for parties, for
nations, for causes, which are not wholly on God's side,
which are mixed and doubtful, yet not wholly evil ;
and may put forward what is good in them (though, if
it be so, the evil that is in them outweighs it) either in
arrest or delay of judgment, or in plea for the advance-

iv.J in the strife between good and evil. 223
ment of their (supposed) interests, i.e. as those interests
are partially viewed by finite intelligences. The great
drama of human history, especially as viewed in the
light of the Incarnation, may well be, in its gradual
unfolding of the high purposes of God, the object of
the closest attention to a vast cloud of (to us unseen)
witnesses ; and may be among the things (perhaps the
chief thing) which the angels desire to look into. We
may be sure that it presents to the deeply engaged
thought of their superior intelligence the field on which
the one supremely vital issue, of the great conflict
between good and evil, is being fought out, and on
which it will be finally and gloriously decided. On
that great issue there is war in heaven, war between
principalities and powers, in the heavenly places ; and
sides, we doubt not, are taken, and zealously main
tained, in a generous spirit of loyal partizanship for
the good and the true and right, and of earnest sup
port to whatever, amid the tangled web of human
affairs, seems to angelic minds to make for them, and
for the final victory of good. Some glimpses of the
inner process of this tremendous struggle were disclosed
to the man greatly beloved, for his own support and that
of God's ancient Church, in a time of special trial, and
for the enlightenment and consolation of the Church of
all future ages. It was not unbecoming the dignity, or
inconsistent with the functions, as it was wholly con
sonant to the loving-kindness, of the One Mediator re
vealed as the great High Priest, the man clothed in linen,
i.e. the priestly vesture (Dan. x. 4, xii. 6. 7), that He
should Himself disclose in outline the future fortunes

224 Appearances in the Visions of Zechariah. [lect.
of His Church to His long-tried and faithful martyr-
servant. 109. The next mention of any revelation of the
Angel of the Lord under that title occurs in the series
of eight prophetic visions which the prophet Zechariah
saw by night, on the four and twentieth day of the eleventh
month (Sebat) in the second year of Darius, and which
are recorded in chs. i. 7. to vi. 8 J. In the most recent
English commentary (by Canon Drake in the Speakers
Commentary) on this passage, the identification of the
Angel of the Lord with Jehovah is fully admitted. On
the other hand, Dr. Pusey (Minor Prophets, ad loc.)
allowing the man riding upon a red horse to be ' doubt
less the same who appeared to Joshua in form of man,
preparing thereby for the revelation of God manifest in
the flesh] thinks ' it probably was St. Michael,' as St.
Jerome tells us the Jews of his day thought. Yet, with
the deepest respect for the judgment of so great a
biblical scholar, it must be said that it is hardly possible
to read his language on the subject, either in his
Lectures on the Prophet Daniel (pp. 515-522) or in his
commentary on Zechariah, without feeling that it seems,
as it were involuntarily, to bear witness to the fuller
truth of the more primitive view and to its far higher
consistency and clearness.
1 In the later portion the following passage is noticeable, as
showing, by the parallelism, the divine character ascribed to the
Angel of the Loed : —
In that day shall the Lord defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem;
And he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David;
And the house of David shall be as God,
As the Angel of the Lord before them. {Zech. xii. 8.)

iv.] Dr. Pusey's comments upon them. 225
Compare, for example, observing the capitals, On Zech.
) 8 ' He [the rider on the red horse] rides here, as Leader
of the host who follow Him ; to Him the others report,
and He instructs the Angel who instructs the prophet.'
On i. 12, ' So the Angel of the Lord, in whom God was,
exercised at once a mediatorial office with God, typical
of our Lord's High Priest's prayer (St. John xvii) and
acted as God.' On ii. 1, A man with a measuring line in
his hand. 'Probably the Angel of the Lord, of whom
Ezekiel has a like vision. " He who before [Dr. Pusey is
quoting from St. Jerome ad loc.] when he lift up his eyes
had seen in the four horns things mournful, now again
lifts up his eyes to see a man of whom it is written (Zech.
vi. 12), Behold a man whose name is the Branch ; of whom
we read above (i. 8), Behold a man riding upon a red horse,
and he stood among the myrtle trees, which were in the bottom.
Of whom too the Father saith ; He builded my city (Heb.
xi. 10), whose builder and maker is God. He too is seen
by Ezekiel in a description like this (xl. 3), a man whose
appearance was like the appearance of brass, i.e. burnished
and shining as fire, with a line of flam in his hand and a
measuring reed." ' Surely it is easier to understand this of
the Son of God than of any creature. To Him (see § 107)
a comparison of Ezekiel's description with St. John's in
the Apocalypse seems decisively to point. Again, on iii.
1 , Joshua, the High Priest, standing before the Angel of the
Lord, ' probably to be judged by him ; as in the New
Testament, to stand before the Son of Man ; for although
standing before whether in relation to man or God, ex
presses attendance upon, yet here it appears only as a
condition, contemporaneous with that of Satan's, to
accuse him. Although, moreover, the Angel speaks with
authority, yet God's Presence in him is not spoken of so
distinctly, that the High Priest would be exhibited as
standing before him, as in his office before God.' And on
iii. 4, And Ee [the Angel of the Lord] spake to those who
stood before Him, ' the ministering Angels who had waited
Q

226 The five ' Dramatis personae' [lect.
on the Angel of the Lord to do His bidding.' And on
vi. 8, Then cried he upon me, ' Then God, or the Angel of the
Lord, who speaks of what belonged to God alone, called
me (probably ' loudly ') so as to command his attention to
this which most immediately concerned his people. These
have quieted My spirit in the North country, or rather, have
made my anger to rest on, i.e. have carried it thither [i.e. to
Babylon] and deposited it there, made it to rest upon
them [the Chaldaeans], as its abode, as St. John saith of
the unbelieving, The wrath of God abideth on him.'' And
on xii. 8, The house of David shall be as God, i.e. in Christ,
the Son of David, ' And this the prophet brings out by
adding. As the Angel of the Lord before them, i.e. that one
Angel of the Lord, in whom His very Presence and His
Name was ; Who went before them, to guide them. Else,
having said, like God, it had been to lessen what he had
just said, to add, like the Angel of the Lord.' Surely the
language of these comments is far more consistent with
the earlier belief that the Angel of the Lord was the divine
Son of God than with the later one that he was the
Archangel Michael.
The chief difficulty felt by the student of these eight
visions is that of clearly distinguishing and identifying
the superhuman dramatis personae with whom the pro
phet is in ecstatic communication. They appear to be
five in number, viz. : —
I . The man riding upon a red horse, who stood among
the myrtle trees (i. 8). He is clearly identified (i. n)
with The Angel of the Lord.
2. The riders on the red, speckled, and white horses.
These are subordinate created angels, who report to the
Angel of the Lord.
3. The angel described by the prophet in eleven
places (i. 9, 13, 14, 19 ; ii. 3 ; iv. 1, 4, 5 ; v. 5, 10 ; vi.

iv.] of the Eight Visions of Zechariah. 227
4) by the phrase the angel that talked with me, or, more
exactly, that spake in me. So Dr. Pusey, ad loc, who
adds, ' The very rare expression seems, meant to convey
the thought of an inward speaking, whereby the words
should be borne directly into the soul without the inter
vention of the ordinary outward organs. God says to
Moses (Numbers xii. 6-9), If there is a prophet among
you, I the Lord will make Myself known unto him in a
vision, I will speak [lit.] in him in a dream. My ser
vant Moses is not so — In him will I speak mouth to
mouth; and Habakkuk says (ii. 1) of the like inward
teaching, I will watch to see, what He will speak in me.
It is the characteristic title of one attendant-angel, who
was God's expositor of the visions to Zechariah.' Simi
larly Canon Drake (Speakers Commentary, ad loc.)
says he was ' The [created] angel, whose office it was
... to interpret to the prophet what he saw and
heard.' 4. In the third vision (chap, ii.) the man with a
measuring line in his hand, whom Dr. Pusey thinks to
be ' probably the Angel of the Lord, of whom Ezekiel
has a like vision.'
5. In the same vision (ii. 3) another angel, who went
out to meet the angel that talked with the prophet, when
he (the angel) went forth.
Besides these must also be observed in three places
(i. 13, and 20, and iii. 1) the mention of the Lord, Who
is in each almost certainly identified with The Angel
of the Lord.
There is in many passages considerable uncertainty
as to the exact reference of the relative pronouns he,

228 ' The angel which spake in' the Prophet, [lect.
him, Sec. ; for example, i. 21 ; ii. 4, 8 ; iii. 1. 4 ; iv. 11,
12, 13, 14; v. 1, 3; vi. 7, 8.
Perhaps the chief peculiarity of this series of visions
lies in the action of the angel which spake in the pro
phet. It is perhaps not quite clear that he was a
created angel. His peculiar function of interior in
struction seems to point to a higher Power. In i. 9
the prophet says to the man on the red horse (for the
angel that spake in him has not yet been mentioned),
0 my lord (^""iN Adoni), what are these, i. e. the other
riders on horses 1 The angel that spake in him (now first
mentioned) said unto him, I will shew thee what these be.
Yet it is not he, but the man that stood among the
myrtle trees, who really gives the explanation, These are
they whom the Lord hath sent to walk to and fro through
the earth. Here is identity of function and of action, if
not of personality. It is possible — may we not sup
pose 1 — that the same Divine Logos may be thus sepa
rately presented at once as the Angel of the Lord and
as the angel that spake in the prophet. Or it may be,
possibly, that the latter is a mysterious hint of the
operation of the Holy Spirit, One in Substance, as One
in Will and Purpose, with the Logos, as with the
Father, though distinct in Person ; for example, in
i. 12 it is observable that though the Angel of the Lord
intercedes with the Lord of Hosts, the Lord answers,
loith good and comfortable words, not the Angel of the
Lord, but the angel that spake in the prophet. This
angel it was who communicated them to the prophet,
and bade him announce them. This would seem to
suggest the inward operation of the Logos through the

IV. J Special passages in Zechariah, 229
Holy Spirit. A close examination of the action and
language ascribed in these visions to this mysterious
angel seems to show that they may consist with either
hypothesis. They are, perhaps, better explained by
either than by that of a created angel ; but best 1, per
haps, by the supposition of a separate presentation of
the One divine Angel of the Lord, at once under that
title, and also as the angel that spake in the prophet,
including the possibility (or certainty ?) that the agency
whereby the Angel of the Lord, at the same time that
He was seen outwardly, spake inwardly in the prophet,
was that of the Holy Spirit. Looked at in this way
the surface ambiguity of the reference of the pronoun
he in i. 21 becomes intelligible. It may equally refer
to the Lord of ver. 20, or to the angel of ver. 19.
Similarly of the pronoun He in iii. 1. In vi. 7 and 8
the same pronoun, though its last antecedent is the
angel (vi. 5), i. e. the angel that spake in the prophet
of vi. 4 — yet introduces language which, with Dr.
Pusey, we can only assign to ' God, or the Angel of the
Lord.' Here is another apparent identification of the
latter with the angel that spake in Zechariah.
Our view of the Divine Personality of the Angel of
the Lord is strongly supported by such passages as ; —
i. 11. The inferior angels whom the Lord had sent to
walk to and fro through the earth report to the Angel
of the Lord.
iii. 2. The Lord who said unto Satan, The Lord

1 Because of the (apparently) visible appearance (ii. 3 and v. 5) of
the communing angel, which seems alien to the Holy Spirit.

230 and in Malachi, [lect.
rebuke thee, 0 Satan, must be The angel of the Lord,
before Whom the High Priest stood.
iii. 4. He gives orders to the created angels that stood
before him.
iv. 8, 9. The word of the Lord came unto me, saying
. . . the Lord of hosts hath sent me unto you — with which
compare the similar language of ii. 8-1 1, which is only
intelligible as spoken in the Person of the Eternal Son,
sent by the Father.
1 10. Our survey of the passages in the Old Testa
ment which speak of the Angel of the Lord closes with
the well-known wrords of Malachi, which are confessedly
decisive as to His Divine character. We read (Malachi
iii. 1), The Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to
his temple, even the Angel of the covenant, whom ye
delight in. On this Dr. Pusey writes thus : — ' He who should come
was the Lord, again Almighty God, since, in usage too,
none else is called u the Lord" ("n^pf ^x- 33- I7 > 34*
23 ; Is. 1. 24 ; 3. 1 ; 10. 16, ^ ; 29. 4) as none else can
be. The temple also, to which He was to come, the
temple of God, is His own. The Messenger, and the Angel
of the Covenant, plainly, even from the parallelism, is the
same as the Lord.'' He then quotes from Pococke, as
follows : — ' All Christian interpreters are agreed that this
Lord is Christ, Whom God hath made both Lord and Christ,
and Who is Lord over all (Acts 2. 36 ; 10. 36) ; by Whom
all things were made, are sustained and governed ; Who
is, as the root of the word imports (vhn fr°m \1ii), *^e
basis and foundation, not of any private family, tribe, or
kingdom, but of all ; by Whom are all things- and we by
Him ; and Whose we are also by right of redemption ;
and so He is Lord of lords and King of kings, deservedly

iv.J indicating the Divine Personality 231
called the Lord ; ' and adds, of his own, ' A? then the
special presence of God was often indicated in connection
with the Angel of the Lord, so, here, He Who was to come
was entitled the Angel or messenger of the covenant, as
God also calls Him the covenant itself (Isa. 42. 6), I will
give Thee for a covenant of the people, a light of the Gentiles.
He it was, the Angel of His Presence (Isa. 63. 9), Who
saved His former people, in Whom His Name was, and
Who, by the prerogative of God, would not pardon their
transgressions (Ex. 23. 21), He should be (Heb. 12. 24;
8. 6) the Mediator of the new and better covenant.'

in. Thus we trace throughout the volume of the
Old Testament the gracious intervention, from time to
time, of the Son of God, the One Mediator, in the
character of The Angel of the Lord, sent by the Father,
and seen in human form by man, in waking life and in
vision, in significant preparation for His permanent
Incarnation. This great Presence, so clearly appre
hended by the earlier Christian writers and Apologists,
and, in later times, so largely admitted, outside the
Roman and Greek Communions, i. e. by the great
majority of orthodox reformed, and especially English,
biblical writers, lights up the whole previous Dispensa
tion with a wonderful anticipation of the glorious future
Gospel. It binds together, as nothing else does, the
Old Testament in a compact unity with the New ;
giving a special strength and consistency to the great
Revelation contained in the two. Read in the light of
this bond 'of coherence, the great saying of Saint Augus
tine receives additional force and meaning, Novum Tes-
tamentum in vetere latet ; Vetus Testamentum in novo

232 of the ' Angel of the Lord!
patet ; and, taking prophecy in its widest, truest, sense,
i. e. for the whole inspired utterance of the whole Bible
as a historic Revelation, it is seen clearly that its spirit,
its whole inner meaning and aim, is the bearing witness
to Jesus, the Same in the yesterday of the Old Cove
nant, as in the to-day of the New.

LECTURE Y.
THE MEDIATION OF THE SON OP GOD UNDER
THE LAW.
Psalm ii. 6. ' As for Me, I have anointed My King upon Zion,
the mountain of My Sanctuary.'
112. From the consideration of the Theophanies we
pass on to consider the general action of the One Medi
ator under the Law. It may conveniently be regarded
under the familiar division into the Prophetic, the
Sacerdotal, and the Regal. But first it must be pre-
mised that it is throughout a veiled action. Only the
Incarnation reveals Him as the One Mediator between
God and men, the Man Christ Jesus. Only the New
Covenant — and it is its crowning glory — discloses to us,
in visible and human presence, and speaking with tender
human accents, the one invisible Divine Personality of
the Eternal Son, the living and life-giving Personal
Word (i Cor. xv. 45), of Whom it could then alone be
said that that Life was manifested, and we have seen it ;
we have heard Him, we have seen Him with our eyes,
and our hands have handled Him ; we have eaten and
drunk with Him after He rose from the dead ; and, That
which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that
ye may have communion with us ; and truly our com
munion is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus
Christ (1 St. John i. 1, &c). Such language as this—

234 Full revelation, impossible before, [lect.
language of divine unspeakable blessedness, language
declaring the stupendous fact which lies at the base of
our common Christian Faith and Life and Hope — could
not have been written before the long-promised union
had become an accomplished fact, and, further, had
been clearly realized, both in itself, its historic reality,
and its permanence, and in some, at least, of its results
and consequences, by those who were nearest to it.
Before that time the gracious intervention of the Son
of God between God and man, real as we can now see
it to have been, was necessarily veiled ; because the
time had not yet come when mankind, even as repre
sented by the Chosen Race, could safely bear the
revelation of a plural Personality within the Divine
Essence, or rise to the glorious faith in a Mediator
between itself and God Who should be Himself Divine;
and Whose true Divinity should set in a clear light the
essential Fatherhood of God, and that without in the
least obscuring the fundamental truth of the Divine
Unity. How clearly Christian thought can now accept
and embrace, in all the fulness of each and without
confusion, the sublime verities of the Trinity in Unity
and of the Unity in Trinity, as well as of the permanent
Incarnation of the Second Person in the perfection and
reality of our human nature ; and can feel, not only
that they are true, as matter of Eevelation, but also
that they must be true by reason of their absolute
satisfyingness, morally, intellectually, and spiritually;
every thoughtful and instructed Christian is well
aware. Hence to such an one the Faith of the Nicene
and Athanasian Symbols is the one possession which

v.] now vouchsafed to Christian faith. 235
in his estimation transcends all others. It is that for
the sake of which he most prizes the gift of life,
and the added grace of his election to Baptism and
education within the Christian Pale. It is that for
which, as a present joy and an endless promise, he
most thanks God, the Knowledge of Whom, the Only
True God, and of Jesus Christ Whom He has sent, he
knows to be, even now, Eternal Life. In the One
Faith, in these Symbols so clearly stated, so sharply
and distinctly, yet guardedly, defined, he feels himself
to .possess the condensed essence and sum, as to all
necessary points, of the great Revelation of the Being
and Character and Purposes of God, and of the redeem
ing Work of Christ. And, further, in that definite
Faith he finds the one key to the right understanding
of the Revelation itself, as a whole, and in its separate
parts and progressive stages, notwithstanding the va
riety and complexity of structure and contents which
arise from its actual historic form. To him — if he has
really understood and prized the full glory of his
Catholic inheritance — the Three Divine Persons into
Whose One Name he was baptized stand clearly re
vealed in their blessed relation to himself, .in their
several yet united work of love unspeakable toward
himself; the Father Who made him, the Son Who
redeemed him, the Holy Ghost Who sanctifieth him,
Three Persons and One God, in Whom, even now, in
an ineffable nearness and reality, in a supernatural as
well as in a natural sense, he lives and moves and has
his being, and Who dwells in him, an ever-present joy
which only sin can take away or interrupt.

236 Before the Incarnation, the Mediation [lect.
113. But before the completed Incarnation, with
its consequences — consequences which could only be
reached through it — of the removal of sin by the
Atoning Death, and the Gift of the Holy Spirit of
enlightenment and renewal to all who by repentance
and faith were capable of It, this could not be. Hence
the operation of the Mediator was, as a rule, itself me
diate; itself, the while, secret and undisclosed, although
incessant. It effected itself through the instrumentality
of inspired men unto whom the Word of the Lord came,
and through the subordinate agency of the standing
institutions which they by divine command originated.
And it effected itself also through the general super
intendence of a ' never-failing Providence ' ordering all
things, small and great, in human history; and, yet
again, through those inward voices and inspirations to
which, by the mercy of Him Who is the common Maker
of all, the conscience of no man has ever, save through
his own fault, been a stranger. Thus secret was the
ordinary operation of the unseen Word of God in the
world of man as in the realm of nature. Only (as we
have seen) at specially critical periods of the seemingly
slow Preparation for the Kingdom of God, there were
directly presented to the sense of ear or eye, or both,
communications as from God ; and then in a manner
so evidently exceptional and mysterious as at once to
make the occasions more impressive and yet free from
any danger of weakening men's sense of the sole un
approachable Majesty and Only-ness of the One God ;
while, at the same time, they filled the heart of God's
People with an abiding sense of His love and tender

v.J of the Eternal Son was veiled. 237
care for them, individually or as a nation, especially in
circumstances of danger and distress. Who it was that
thus audibly, and even visibly, spake to the Patriarchs
and Prophets, to the earthly mediator of the Legal
Dispensation, to the Judges and Deliverers of the
Jewish Nation, they themselves could not, needed not,
to fully know as we know now. It was enough for
them to know that God did speak to them ; and that
their consequent duty was absolute and imperative.
Yet in the circumstances of such special manifestations,
as they stand recorded, and in the inspired language
also of Psalmists and of Prophets, there was that which
not obscurely intimated not only the Divine Personality
of Him Who sent but also, as distinct, that of Him
Who was sent, Who came, and Who was actually heard
and seen.
114. How they to whom these revelations were
vouchsafed, or they who in after ages read the record
of them, solved the difficulty (if they were conscious of
it, and reflected upon it), we are not told. Yet the
intimations were there. Beyond the Visitations and
Appearances which were discussed in the last Lecture,
such passages as Thou art my Son, this day have I
begotten Thee (Psalm ii. 7), or, The Lord said unto my
Lord (Jehovah said to Adonai), Sit Thou on My right
Hand (Psalm ex. 1), might have raised the question in
other minds than theirs to whom Christ pointedly put
it, If David in spirit call the Christ his Lord, how is
He then his son? (St. Matt. xxii. 42). We may well
believe that when, but a few days later, the Divine
Word Himself, walking with the sorrowful pair on that

238 Behind Israel's Prophets, Priests, and Kings, [lect.
Easter-Sunday afternoon on the way to Emmaus, ex
pounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things
concerning Himself (St. Luke xxiv. 13), or when, for
the larger party assembled that evening in Jerusalem
in doubt and fear, He opened their understanding that
they might understand the Scriptures, the occurrences
we have specially considered must have been among
those which, now lighted up with a new and unex
pected light, carried into their inmost souls that inex
tinguishable faith, both in the Messiah-ship and in the
true Godhead of Jesus, which was later embodied in
the inspired volume of the New Testament, and on
which, as on an indestructible rock, the Catholic Church
is built. 115. The consideration of the veiled Mediatorial
relation of the Son of God to the Chosen People under
the Law naturally begins from the appearance of The
Angel of the Lord to Moses in the Burning Bush. We
have seen (Lecture IV) that the unanimous consent of
primitive Christian antiquity regards this as a mani
festation of the Son of God. With this we must con
nect the very remarkable visible revelation of the God
of Israel to Moses and the Elders on the occasion of
the Ratification of the Covenant after the Giving of
the Law (Exod. xxiv). In these two incidents we find
disclosed at its very commencement the Personality
which really operated behind the outward adminis
tration of that whole Legal System which was inau
gurated by these two cardinal incidents. The Prophets,
Priests, and Kings of ancient Israel, beginning from
Moses and Aaron themselves, were not merely the types

v.] was the ' One Mediator,' the Eternal Son, 239
of One greater Who was to come. They were through
out, in their whole exercise of their several functions,
the subordinate agents and instruments, for the pro
gressive education of His People, of one unseen con
trolling Hand, one guiding over-ruling Mind, the Hand
and Mind of One Who was indeed the Angel, the
Messenger, of the Lord to His People, Himself Divine.
This disclosure, standing as it does at the opening of
the Mosaic Dispensation, and renewed, as it was from
time to time, during its course, must be allowed to
have a decisive influence on our whole view of the
period. Looking at the unique phenomenon of Hebrew
Prophecy as a whole the Christian student feels com
pelled to take up with regard to it this position, That
all those to whom any portion of the spirit and gift
of Prophecy was vouchsafed, from the Patriarchs and
Moses and Samuel onwards, were the earthly visible
human mediators of a growing Revelation of the Sal
vation that was to come, but that behind them (so to
speak) and within them, in their inspired prophetic
utterance, was the true, the One Mediator, the Word
of God, invisibly, through them, teaching His Ancient
Church the growing truth about Himself and His
future Work, for them, for us, and for all the world.
As we have already seen, 'H fiaprvpla rov 'Irjo-ov earl to
¦7rvevpi.a t^? irpo(pt]Teias ('The bearing witness to Jesus
is the spirit of Prophecy,' Bev. xix. 10) from the
Protevangelium onwards ; and the Spirit of Christ, the
Logos, the Eternal Word and Wisdom of the Father,
was in them (1 Pet. i. 11), for their sake and for our
sake who were to follow. Thus in the Prophetic Func-

240 the Jesus of the Sermon on the Mount, [lect.
tion was Christ the true, though the as yet unrevealed,
Mediator, the gracious and considerate HaiSayooyoi (Edu
cator) communicating to each generation, through His
chosen instruments, such supernatural knowledge of
spiritual truth and of God's loving purposes towards
Mankind as each was able to bear, until He, the Great
Prophet like unto Moses, unto WJwm they should hearken,
being raised up from the midst of them, of their brethren,
from among themselves (Deut. xviii. 15), should stand
revealed in human flesh, and should speak to them the
New Law, not amid the terrors of Sinai,
' In cloud and majesty and awe,'
but sitting, a Man amongst men and women and chil
dren, on the green mount that overhangs the sun-
flashing ripples of the Galilaean Lake. Then was He
listened to by the simple folk of despised Galilee eagerly,
reverently, earnestly, delightedly, for never man spake
like this man. They hung upon Him (St. Luke xix. 48),
the humble especially, and the poor. Their hearts burned
Avithin them as they listened ; for His words awoke an
answering chord in all that was best and truest and
deepest, most truly human, and so most akin to His
perfect human nature, in man or woman. They hung
upon Him, for they felt, as children do, by instinct,
the warm kindred love out of whose glowing depths
His utterance came ; while yet He taught them as One
That had authority, and not as the Scribes (St. Matt. vii.
29). Yet was it He Who, in their long past history as
a Nation, in His love and in His pity, had redeemed
them (Isa. lxiii. 9), Who had led them forth like sheep,

v.] Christ s Sacerdotal Function under the Law. 241
and carried them in the wilderness like a flock (Psalm
Ixxviii. 52). It was He Who through their long day
of grace in time of old had stretched forth His hands in
varied longsuffering appeal, though it were to a diso
bedient and gainsaying people (Isa. lxv. 2) ; as once again
He was to stretch them forth all the day long upon the
Cross of shame. It was He from Whom, as He sat
enthroned in His Divine Royalty, Isaiah received His
prophetic commission. It was He of Whom the vision
was vouchsafed to Ezekiel also, to Daniel, and to
Zechariah. It was He Who could say, Before Abraham
was I AM. (St. John viii. 58.)
116. The earthly exhibition of the Sacerdotal
Function of the Mediator received in the Ancient
Church its most specific development under the Mosaic
Law. Up to that time the original connection of
Priesthood with Primogeniture had prevailed. Sacer
dotal duties, and indeed prophetic also, had been exer
cised by the Heads of Families1, and in connection with
the general governing powers which belonged to them
in Patriarchal days and in a simpler and less developed
society.
1 The Elders of Israel ; see Exod. iii. 16 ; iv. 29 ; xviii. 12 ; xix. >].
They are spoken of in Exod. xix. 2 2 as the priests which came near to
the Lord. In the very remarkable account of the Covenant Sacrifice
in Exod. xxiv. there is mention made, as of an almost official class, of
the young men C"?W, Lxx. tovs veavia-Kovs) of the children of Israel, as
offering, i.e. doing the actual work of, the sacrifices by command of
Moses. These would seem to have corresponded to the Levites of the
later hierarchy, and were probably the eldest sons of still living fathers.
Compare the ol vearepot. and of veavia-Koi of the narrative of Ananias and
Sapphira (Actsv). R

242 Development of the Sacrificial [lect.
The time came, in connection with the numerical
growth of the people, with their deliverance from serf
dom, and their constitution into a free Nation, when a
more highly organized system was needed, involving
the separation and the thenceforward distinct exercise
of functions, religious and civil, which had previously-
been united. This new and special official hierarchy
was instituted by Moses, who, as the mediator appointed
by the special call of God at the Burning Bush, himself
exercised supreme authority in both departments. He
first, by Divine direction, set apart his eldest brother
Aaron and his family, and afterwards the whole tribe
of Levi, for the exclusive performance of priestly duties;
and it is expressly stated that God took the Levites to
be especially His own instead of all the firstborn among
the children of Israel (Numbers iii. 5-13, and 40-51 ;
viii. 5, &c. ; and xviii. 6).
117. This change was accompanied by a large further
development, under special divine direction, of the sa
crificial system ; and by the institution of other marked
rites and ceremonies of religious worship. But all had
one great object in view, namely, to deepen, in the
mind and conscience of the worshippers, the sense of
sin and of the awful justice and holiness of God, of
the barrier placed by sin between Man and God, and
of the consequent need of Atonement, and that by
blood. By the Law was to be the knowledge of sin
(Bom. iii. 20). By the commandment sin was to be
seen to be exceeding sinful (vii. 1 3). The impossibility
of drawing near to a holy God without the intervention
of an ordained, and so acceptable, sacrifice of atone-

v.] System in the Mosaic Covenant. 243
ment, the principle that without shedding of blood there
is no remission (Heb. ix. 22) — these were to be deeply and
lastingly imprinted in the conscience of the Jewish Race,
and, through them, on that of mankind; in order that so
the necessary moral foundation might be laid, in the inner
conviction of sin, and in the sense of guiltiness before
God (Bom. iii. 19), for the joyful acceptance of the
Gospel of salvation — i. e. of forgiveness and justification
through faith in the blood of Christ (25). To this great
object tended the special institutions of the Sin-Offer-
ing, as an addition to the primitive Whole-burnt-
Offering and Peace-Offering ; of the Tabernacle, with
its Holy of Holies unapproachable save by the High-
Priest alone ; of the peculiar and significant Ritual of
the Great Day of Atonement; and of the constant
daily morning and evening sacrifice. All spoke, in
striking and varied ways, of One Who was to come ;
of One Who should be at once ' Himself the Victim and
Himself the Priest,' at once The Lamb of God, without
blemish and without spot, and the one true and only and
abiding Priest, the true Aaron and the true Melchize-
dek, in Whose One Offering of Himself, made once for
all, ' single and complete,' this whole elaborate and
complicated, this burdensome, yet highly significant
and expressive, system should be completely fulfilled
and realized ; its whole substance and essential purpose
absolutely secured for ever ; so completely, so abso
lutely, as to render its longer actual continuance first
needless and then mischievous ; while the standing
record of its divinely-ordained, though only temporary,
provisions, was still preserved in the inspired volume
R 2

244 But underneath it lay the earlier [lect.
of the Pentateuch, to teach the abiding principles which
underlay them, and to point for ever, as the Christian
student sees it to point, to Him Who is the sum and
substance of them all ; and so to throw a most instruc
tive and always needed light on the whole redemptive
work of the Christ, in principle and in detail, and so on
the divinely-ordained constitution and usages of the
Catholic Church.
It was a great system of human mediation ; sanc
tioned and appointed by God Himself, yet actually
administered by earthly agents. But it was, as a
whole, like the Tabernacle, or Temple, which was its
visible centre, a gigantic Parable (Heb. ix. 9), looking
forward to, all along, and lasting up to («?) the time now
present, the Christian Dispensation. It was a parable
whereby the Holy Ghost was ever this signifying, to all
who had spiritual apprehension to perceive it, that such
a system was necessarily only provisional, because, in
itself, essentially incomplete and ineffectual, wholly
unable to make him that did the service perfect as per
taining to the conscience, and so necessarily destined to
lead up to, and, having led up to, to pass away before,
the Perfect Work of Reconciliation and Atonement
which should be wrought once for all by Him to Whom
it pointed. Ti8. But it must be carefully remembered that
underneath the Legal System inaugurated at Sinai
there lay throughout, not superseded nor disannulled
by its parenthetical character and temporary purpose,
the knowledge of, and the faith in, that earlier Gospel
of Justification by Faith, and consequent peace with God

v.] Gospel of Justification by faith, 245
and power to walk with God, which had been preached
before to Abraham in days of old (Gal. iii. 8); and of which
the record remained in the oldest traditions of the race
and in their earliest Scriptures. ' The Church,' writes
Bishop Moberly of Salisbury, 'believed in Christ and
was accepted in the Beloved ages before He was born
in Bethlehem 1/ It was through a simple faith in that
everlasting Gospel, then a forward-looking faith in Him
That was to come, as it is now an upward-looking faith
in Him Who has come, that the Legal System had
whatever justifying power it had ; whatever ability to
bring any peace to the sin-stricken conscience. But,
joined with this gospel faith, the pious observance of
the Mosaic Law, in humble loyalty to the God of Israel,
did evidently bring peace to the conscience, and ensured
acceptance with God, and the grace which could enable
men and women to live a holy life well-pleasing to
Him; until the race should bloom at last into the
spiritual grace and beauty of her whom all generations
call blessed, the precious flower of royal David's line,
the Lily of Nazareth, the Mother of God.
Canon Barry writes, ' Our Lord is declared (see
1 Pet. i. 20) "to have been fore-ordained" as a sacrifice
" before the foundation of the world." . . . The material
sacrifices represented this Great Atonement, as already
made and accepted in God's foreknowledge, and to those
who grasped the ideas of sin, pardon, and self-dedication,
symbolized in them, they were means of entering into
the blessings which the One True Sacrifice alone procured.
The whole of the Mosaic description of sacrifices clearly
1 Great Forty Days, Appendix, Third Edition, p. 285.

246 and grace through the Unseen Mediator, [lect.
implies some real spiritual benefit to be derived from
them.' (Article ' Sacrifice/ in Smith's Bible Dictionary.)
rig. And as it cannot be doubted that whatever
knowledge of spiritual truth came to the saints of the
older covenants came to them through the Son of God,
the One Revealer to Man, in whatever condition, of the
things of God ; so neither can it be doubted that what
ever spiritual grace, whether of forgiveness or of sanc-
tification, was vouchsafed to them — and the high level
of possible spiritual attainment may be estimated by
the examples of Elijah and Daniel and the Baptist, not
to speak of Mary — was so vouchsafed through the secret
action of the One Mediator through Whom alone all
good things are given by God to Man. Even under the
old Covenants, notwithstanding their immeasurable in
feriority to the New, the Holy Ghost, in whatever dif
ferent manner or measure, was truly given, as souls were
able to receive Him. This is clearly witnessed to by
Holy Scripture, as, for example, in David's great peni
tential prayer (Ps. Ii. n, 12). It lies also in St.
Stephen's declaration, to the worldly and unbelieving
Church-Rulers of his day, that the resistance of them
selves and their predecessors to the light and grace and
purpose of the system of which they were the official
administrators, and their characteristic ill-treatment of
the truest representatives of its real spirit, was a
resistance to the Holy Ghost that arose from unconverted
hearts (Acts vii. 5,1).
120. So again, whatever acceptance accrued to the
worship and service, national or individual, of the Old
Covenant, whatever degree it afforded of real communion

v.] Levitical worship a shadow of the Heavenly. 247
with God, was due, as it could only have been due, to
the unseen action of the One true and only Priest,
Whose Priestly Function, in the making an effectual
Atonement, in the acceptable presentation of Worship,
in an all-prevailing Intercession, it was the one glory,
as it was the underlying purpose, of the Mosaic Ritual
to prefigure and to set forth.
In regard to this point due weight must be given to
the emphatic and repeated declaration that, in every
particular, the Levitical system, the Tabernacle, its
arrangements, its ritual, were the earthly copies of a
heavenly pattern and original, revealed, first, to Moses
in the Mount (Exod. xxv. 9 and 40 ; xxvi. 30 ; Num.
viii. 4 ; Acts vii. 44 ; Heb. viii. 5), and again, by special
inspiration, to David when he was preparing the plans
for the Temple on Moriah (1 Chron. xxviii. 12, 19).
Above it all (so to speak) and behind and through it
all, the eye of faith can, now at any rate, discern a
heavenly reality then existing, yet kept in the back
ground until the actual Incarnation and the completed
work on earth of Christ as the real Minister of the
Sanctuary, and of the- true Tabernacle which the Lord
pitched, and not man (Heb. viii. 2), should render its full
disclosure possible, and inaugurate a spiritual worship
— the worship of the Catholic Church — which, though
still necessarily under earthly conditions, is yet, in inner
spiritual reality and power, and as apprehended by
Christian faith, truly and absolutely one with the
present worship of Heaven. Meantime, and until,
through the Life and Death, through the Resurrection
and Ascension, of the Incarnate Son, men could be

248 Meaning of the Partaking of sacrifices, [lect.
admitted, through the Rent Veil, to the united worship
of the one Family in heaven and earth (Eph. iii. 15),
the Levitical High-Priest and the Levitical system
served unto the copy and shadow (Heb. viii. 5), in dim
parabolic representation, of the sublime realities of the
Heavenly Sanctuary. They faintly pictured, under
earthly conditions, the invisible action of Him Who
was foreknown indeed before the foundation of the world,
but was manifested at the end of the times (1 Pet- i. 20),
Who, in purpose, to be outwardly and visibly realized
and exhibited in due season, was already the Lamb
slain from the foundation of the world (Bev. xiii. 8).
121. The correspondence, in broad primd facie
unmistakable principle, and even in detail, between
the sacrificial system of the Mosaic Law and the work
of Christ in its propitiatory aspect, is so well under
stood that it is needless to dwell upon it further.
More necessary is it to insist on the spiritual meaning
of the actual participation, by eating and drinking, of
the ancient sacrifices, as setting forth a connected and
important, yet now less sufficiently and generally real
ized truth ; namely, That the Eternal Son of God is,
especially as sacrificed, the true inward sustenance of
the essential life of man ; a life supported, not merely
by the mental contemplation, however devout and
believing, of Christ and of His work, but by a real,
however mysterious, communication and assimilation,
throughout his whole being in body, soul, and spirit,
of the life of the Second Adam as a Quickening Spirit
(1 Cor. xv. 45).
The Primitive Sacrifices were either Whole Burnt-

v.J Sin-Offering an addition to Primitive Sacrifice. 249
Offerings, expressive of the complete dedication and
consecration of the offerer to God, or else Peace-Offer
ings, of which part was offered to God by fire, and part
eaten by the worshipper. The Unbloody Offering of Bread
and Wine was an invariable accompaniment and append
age of both forms of animal sacrifice ; and this in Gentile
as well as in Jewish usage. Of this, in like manner, one
portion was offered to God, and the other partaken of by
the worshipper. The ideas of this religious eating and
drinking were those of peace and acceptance, of union
and communion with God, manifested by the worshippers
being received as guests at His Table (see the record,
Exodus xxiv, of the Sacrifice on the great occasion of the
Inauguration of the Mosaic Covenant) ; also of joyful
thanksgiving and gratitude for this privilege; and,
further, of the mutual love and peace and communion
between the worshippers themselves. (See Exod. xviii.
12; 1 Cor. x. 17.)
The special Sin-Offering, and, with it, the greater
prominence given to the generally expiatory character
which necessarily from the first underlay all animal
sacrifices, belong to the Levitical system, as designed to
enforce upon the conscience the conviction of sin and the
need of atonement. Once instituted, the Sin-Offering
took precedence of the Burnt-Offering, the Peace-Offer
ing, and the Meal-Offering. This was in order to show
the necessity of expiation before there could be accepted
approach to God. This order may be observed in the
two accounts of the Consecration of Aaron and his sons
to the Priesthood (Exod. xxix. and Levit. viii). Of the
Sin-Offering the worshipper did not partake (levit. vi.
30). What was not offered upon the altar was consumed
outside the camp. But in the completed system the Offer
ings which were partaken of, i.e. the Meal- Offering ac
companying the Whole Burnt-Offering, the flesh of the
Peace-Offering (see Levit. viii. ix etc.), and the Meal-
Offering which accompanied the Peace-Offering, pre-

! 50 Significance of the ' Perpetual Passover! [lect.
supposed, and were based upon, a preceding Sin-Offering
of atonement. The Meal-Offerings were partaken of by
the priests exclusively. It was the flesh of the Peace-
Offering which was partaken of in common by the priests
and the offerers, in token of communion with each other
and with God.
122. But by far the most remarkable and significant
occasion of the partaking by all of the flesh of the offered
victim was, that of the annual Passover. This was an
institution unique and peculiar, and specially ordained by
God under circumstances, and at a time, which were
calculated to invest it for ever with peculiar solemnity.
The sacrificial character of the ordinance cannot really
be doubted by any who consider the pointedly sacrificial
use of the blood ; which, like that of the Sin-Offering,
was wholly poured out at the foot of the altar by the
priests. Indeed it has been said with truth ' to embrace
the peculiarities of all the various divisions of sacrifice1,'
which were instituted as part of the later revelation made
to Moses at Sinai.
But in the case of the Passover the flesh of the lamb
was wholly eaten by the worshippers ; the expiatory
feature being solely, though most pointedly, supplied by
an outpouring of the blood. ' The whole substance of
the sacrificed lamb was to enter into the substance of
the people2;' Their acceptance at God's Table as His
children, His firstborn (Exod. iv. 22; Heb. xii. 23), an
acceptance based on a sufficient atonement, was to be
marked in the completest way possible; and the truth
was decisively indicated that the true sustenance of the
life of man comes to him from communion with God.
The full spiritual meaning of what is here typically
expressed is, of eourse, apprehended only by Christian
faith. The Passover-lamb was the most marked and
special type of the Lamb of God That taheth away the sin
1 Canon Barry, Art. Sacrifice in Smith's Bible Dictionary.
2 Canon Cook, in Speaker's Commentary on Exod. xii. 9.

v.J The Unseen Christ fed His ancient People, 251
of the world; and Who suffered exactly at the moment
when the Passover lambs were sacrificed. But by lift
ing up the accompanying meal-offering and drink-offer
ing into a sublime significance and power ; by perpetuating
them, while all other forms of sacrifice were abolished,
as the standing memorial of His Saving Death ; He had
provided a means whereby, in a wholly spiritual and
heavenly mystery, His life-giving Humanity might be
wholly communicated to His faithful people as the true
Bread of Life.
123. But we have even' more direct Scriptural ground
for believing that, in some true sense, though not
necessarily by them, or by all of them, understood or
apprehended, Christ was Himself the Sustenance of His
ancient people. St. Paul, in his Pirst Epistle to the
Corinthians, drawing a- parallel, by way of warning,
between the circumstances of Christians under the new
Covenant and those of their forefathers under the old,
points out the typical and parabolical character of the
Church in the Wilderness on its way to the Promised
Land, and speaks as if the close relation, as it was now
perceived to have been, of the Son of God to the Church
of old, was a commonplace among the Christian teachers
of his day. He finds the analogue of the Christian
Eucharist in the miraculous food and drink which
supported the Israelites in their pilgrimage. They did
all eat the same spiritual meat ; and did all drink the same
spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual Rock
that followed (or accompanied) them ; but the Rock was
Christ. What relation, if any, St. Paul's words may have
to Jewish traditions supplementing the narrative of the
Pentateuch we cannot here discuss. We need look only
at two broad statements which he makes ; first, That
the supply of Manna and of water was spiritual, i. e.
miraculous or supernatural ; second, That the true,
though unseen, agent of the supply was Christ. The
narrative of Moses distinctly states that the supply

252 as part of His ever-watchful care of them. [lect.
of Manna was continuous ; it followed, or accompanied,
them. It also mentions distinctly two occasions (at
Rephidim, Exod. xvii, in close connection with the first
mention of the Manna, and at Kadesh, Numb, xx) on
which water was procured by striking the Rock. Whether
there were other occasions of special need of water, and, if
so, how that need was met, we are not expressly told ;
though we might infer, perhaps, with the fairest proba
bility, that it would be by striking the Rock. But
the watchful ever-present though unseen protection of
Christ over the Church in the wilderness is a truth,
at any rate, that lies clearly in St. Paul's language in
this place ; as also in his saying, a few verses later,
Neither let us tempt Christ, (or, the Lord), as some of
them tempted; implying that their faithless disobedient
and presumptuous murmuring and complaining were
really against Christ.
Certainly I cannot believe that the real teaching of
such passages as these, and of the Old Testament facts
alluded to in them, is exhausted by the hypothesis of a
merely typical prophetic reference to Christ and His work
for or His gracious gifts to the Christian Church ; as if
He as well as they were as yet wholly future ; as if He
had not then a real existence in active, though hidden,
relation to the then Dispensation and to those who were
His People under that Dispensation. Neither can I look
with patience on the untold loss of strength to the
Christian argument, especially with Jewish unbelief, that
results (as I cannot help thinking) from a view which,
however true as far as it goes, is wholly inadequate
to cover the whole ground, to explain all the facts of the
Old Testament History, or to lay that firm and broad
foundation which Almighty God, in His earlier Church,
in His earlier Scriptures, and in the ever-watchful con
trol of His 'never-failing Providence' in History, has
really laid, for those stupendous superstructures, the
Doctrines of the Trinity and of the Incarnation, and the

v.J The Kingly Sovereignty of Christ 253
Institution of the Catholic Church, the Kingdom of God
on earth, with its Divine-Human Mediator in Heaven,
operating at once there and on earth, which He has made
one with Heaven, and supplying all our needs through
His Sacraments and means of grace.
124. The third special aspect under which we have
to consider the manifold operation of the unseen Me
diator under the elder Dispensation is that of His
Kingly Sovereignty.
It has always been the characteristic of unregenerate
human nature to rebel against this Royalty of Christ,
and to chafe under His stringent rule of absolute moral
right. Let us break their bonds asunder and cast away
their cords from us (Ps. ii. 3). This has been due to
two causes, one natural, one supernatural. There has
been a natural tendency in man since the fall to rebel
against the rule, in either form of it, secret or revealed,
of the Mediator King, because His rule is necessarily
one of absolute holiness, justice and goodness. To Him
it is said (Ps. xiv. 7) : —
Thy Throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever,
The Sceptre of Thy Kingdom is a Sceptre of Equity,
Thou lovest righteousness and hatest wickedness.
Before Him 'the unruly wills and affections of sinful
men,' whether as tending to sin against themselves or
against other men, or directly against Christ and His
Throne, must be controlled and put down ; and His
Law, whether of Sinai or of the Galilaean Mount, de
mands an absolute submission and observance. Against
these claims unregenerate human nature must rebel.
But behind this obvious cause there stands in the
darkness the dread form of the Rival King, the head

254 opposed by the rival kingdom of evil, [lect.
of another and a hostile kingdom, the Prince of Evil,
Satan, the great ' adversary ' of all good ; one in whose
arms the whole world, as unredeemed and left to itself,
lieth ; one who could say, not without truth, of the
power and glory of the kingdoms of this world, that
they are his, and to whomsoever he wills he gives it, on
the one condition of worshipping him. With him there
stand, associated under his sway, mighty spirits of evil,
principalities and powers, rulers of the darkness of this
world. From the devil and his angels has ever pro
ceeded, in the first instance, as from its original source,
all conscious, purposed, organized resistance to the
Kingdom and Sovereignty of the Son of God. Be
tween it and them there must be implacable hostility.
And they are mysteriously permitted to entice mankind
from their true allegiance, and to use them as the
instruments of their deadly warfare against Christ
and His Church, in their hopeless endeavour to de
throne Him from that Royal Lordship which is His
by double right, of Creation and of Redemption ; or at
least to hinder the progress of His Kingdom, and to
retard its beneficent action among mankind. The cor
rupting influences of human sin, in its various forms of
pride, ambition, selfishness, sensuality, covetousness, on
human life and institutions, domestic, social, political,
bring them down, even among professedly Christian
nations, to so low a moral and spiritual condition that
they may be only too easily wielded by the devices of
the great statesmen of the kingdom of evil against
the Kingdom and the Throne of Christ, and as means
towards the ultimate accomplishment — an accomplish-

v.] throughout human history! 255
ment which will we know be permitted to be realized
for a brief period at the close of the present Dispen
sation — of what has been evidently their ceaseless
endeavour all along, from Babel onwards, namely, to
bring all the glory, and especially all the power and
force, of the kingdoms of this world into one hand,
under one sole master of a vast world-empire, who
shall be the willing tool and vicegerent of the unseen
Evil One, who, -in and through him as the final Anti
christ, shall receive, what he has ever lusted after, the
worship of mankind, stamping out in blood and fire
every known upholder of the rights of Christ and of
His Church against his unrighteous rule.
125. The careful student of the history of mankind
traces the course of this prolonged strife, the one great
inclusive question at issue in the world's probation ;
and sees in it the real key to human history. A'lXivov,
aikivov, elite, to 6" ev vikoltw (' Sing a dirge, a dirge of
sorrow ; yet let the good prevail : ' Aeschylus, Aga
memnon, 159), is his reflection and his prayer, as he
ponders over the mingled misery and glory of its
effects in the past ; the misery of the sin and suffering,
the hindrance and delay of God's purposes, resulting
from the temporary victories of evil ; the moral glory
and grandeur of all faithful witness to that which was
good and true and right ; the joy of the ultimate
successes won by patient endurance through the birth-
throes which have lifted the world to each higher level
of moral and spiritual light and life, and helped it
forward on the path of the only true progress.
In elder days, in the infancy and childhood of the

256 The conflict renewed after the Flood, [lect.
human race, the Reign and the Kingdom of Christ and
the rival reign and kingdom of Satan were both in the
background and unseen. They strove together in the
arena of human life and history, themselves as yet
undisclosed. In the Antediluvian World evil was in the end
triumphant ; until the One Mediator, Who is also the
Judge, came in predicted judgment and swept it away
in the Visitation of the Flood. His Kingdom was
reduced to a single family. It was cast down, but not
destroyed. The hopes of the world and the promise of
Redemption were carried over in the Ark, above the
destroying waters of the deluge wherein the old world
perished, to a fresh beginning, under covenant and
promise, in new heavens and a new earth.
But again the old struggle broke out afresh ; for the
evil one had still his foothold in the world, in the sinful
nature of man. The next climax was Babel ; the next
catastrophe the Confusion of tongues, and the dis
persion of the earliest would-be founders of a secular
world-empire. Still there was as yet no visible distinction between
the Church and the World. The forces that strove
together in the world of man were not, as yet, so out
wardly pronounced and accentuated as to be gathered
apart into opposing camps. For it is the normal, and
should be the ultimate, form of human society, that
what we now distinguish as Church and State should
be one ; only the same Society, of the same persons, in
different aspects ; the social and political life of Man
and the powers and institutions which belong more

v.] Primeval religion soon corrupted. 257
directly to that life, working harmoniously with his
moral and spiritual life and with the institutions de
signed to foster his progress towards the highest good ;
and both operating consciously and as of set purpose,
according to God's known and revealed Will, on the
acknowledged basis of an authority in either case
equally derived from Him. Such is the ideal. On
such lines human history began. Some approach to
its realization, in a simple and homely and rudimentary
form, was possible on the narrow scale and amid the
simpler arrangements of patriarchal times. But the
growth of populous and extended empires, the gather
ing of men in great cities, the development of war, and
its offspring, the slavery of captive men and women,
were always against its proper and continuous evolution
towards perfection ; for they all worked too exclusively
on the side of that which, under whatever brilliant and
seductive exterior, was mostly evil in its effects on the
moral and religious life of all those who, whether as
agents and promoters, or as helpless sufferers, came
within their influence. Worship began to take idolatrous
forms ; and the old primeval religion handed on by
tradition began to be seriously corrupted in the direc
tion of Polytheism and gross superstition, with their
inevitable accompaniment of increasing moral de
basement. Martensen says, ' Among the various attempts to give
a connected picture of the religious systems of heathen
dom, those of Hegel (in his philosophy of religion) and
of Schelling (in his newer system) are the most worthy
of note. Without entering here into particulars, we must

258 Hence a 'Church' called out from the world, [lect.
explain our decided preference for that of Schelling,
because he has endeavoured to draw a distinct line of
demarcation between Mythology and Revelation, between
the wild and the noble olive tree ; whereas Hegel looks
upon all religions as branches of one and the same stem,
whose top and crown is Christianity. The fact that
Hegel, in his philosophy of religion, looks upon the
Greek, the Jewish, the Roman religions, as ramifications
of the same development, clearly shows that he overlooked
the decided divergence of the history of religion in two
separate directions/ (Christian Dogmatics, § 120.)
Hence it became necessary, if a witness to true re
ligion was to be preserved among mankind, that a
' Church ' should be created, a body of men ' called
out ' from the general mass of mankind, and the founda
tions laid of a Kingdom of Heaven upon earth, in the
world, but not of it. For earth, as such, or rather the
world of human life on earth, was no longer part of the
Kingdom of Heaven, since its forces and institutions
had been so largely laid hold of by an usurping evil
power which had turned them against their own true
Founder and Lord. Wherefore the One Mediator, the
Royal Son, and Heir of all things, secured for Himself,
in the Call of His faithful servant Abraham, a fresh
footing in the world that of right was all His own.
By that act He laid the foundations of a Church which
should be His special and avowed Kingdom ; and which,
though its life must ever be that of a beleaguered fort
ress surrounded by hostile invaders 1, should be, as a
city set on an hill that cannot be hid, His standing
1 A itapenfioXri, see Speaker's Commentary on Rev. xx. 9.

v.] The Theocratic constitution of Israel 259.
visible witness in the world which is, de jure, His own,
and the pledge of its future complete re-conquest.
That Church has had a continuous, however che
quered, existence ever since. The Bible and Christian
history are the record of its life and work under the
guiding hand of its Founder and its King, its Protector
and also its Judge.
1 26. The creation of the national life of the Israelites,
after their deliverance from their lengthened bondage
under the world-power in Egypt, its development in
connection with their religious mission as the then
Church of God on earth, and the Theocratic Con
stitution of the whole under God manifesting Himself
in His Son as their King, was (as we may say) an
endeavour to revert to the true Ideal. It was an
endeavour to create, on a scale not so large as to
endanger its success, yet in a locality so central as to
make it widely influential, a specimen of a rightly
ordered human polity ; which should secure, in the form
and to the degree then attainable, the higher ends of
human life ; and should, further, serve as an example
to the world of man's true relation, individually and
nationally, to God and to the world, and, in their
essential principles and inner spirit, of the institutions
best adapted to maintain men and nations in that
relation. This again was a new beginning in human history;
and of an important kind. A change had come over
the religion and spirit of Egypt since Joseph's time ;
a change for the worse, morally and religiously. A
comparatively pure religion (for a devout servant of
s 2

260 a re-assertion of the Divine Royalty of [lect.
God like Joseph could marry the daughter of one of
its priests) had degenerated into an idolatrous super
stition, with features, at least in its exoteric manifes
tations, of the grossest kind. Selfish vaingloriousness
and covetousness were the characteristics of the rulers,
who gratified themselves at the cost of untold misery
to the people. The Church of God, once protected,
was oppressed. But a day at once of deliverance and
of judgment came, when The Angel of the Lord ap
peared to Moses in the flame of fire in the bush. That
Angel was (we have seen) the Loed (Jehovah), the
Messenger of the Lord (Jehovah) ; the Same Who had
appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob ; the God
of their fathers, Who, for the deliverance of His Peo
ple, would make bare His holy Arm in the sight of
the Nations. His message by His specially-appointed
earthly ambassador to the earthly king, who had made
himself but an instrument of Satan, was the royal
mandate of the real King both of Israel and of Egypt,
Let My People go, that they may serve Me. Warning
was given on refusal ; and gentler preliminary judg
ments inflicted in mercy were a call to, and an op
portunity of, repentance. At length, after reiterated
appeal in vain, when the blind world-power finally
refused in its unbelief to see the spiritual, and so
invincible, character of that with which (or, should
we not rather say % the Divine Omnipotence of Him
with Whom) it was contending, the hour, of deliverance
for the one and judgment for the other, struck on
that much to be remembered night when, at midnight,
there arose a great cry throughout all the land of Egypt,

v.] the Eternal Son, Who judged Egypt, 261
for there was not a house where there was not one dead :
and a few days later the decisive blow was dealt, when,
as for Pharaoh and his host, He overwhelmed them in
the Bed Sea. That was a Day of Judgment for the
land of Egypt, the world of that day ; and the Judge
was He to Whom the Father hath committed all judg
ment, even His Eternal Son,
' The Mediator in His wrath
Descending down the lightning's path,'
{Christian Year, Easter V),
for the discomfiture of the enemies of His people, whose
affliction He had seen, and whom He came down, in
His love and in His pity, to deliver. Then the re
joicing Leader and the ransomed Nation sang their
grateful praise in one of the most glorious bursts of
inspired poetry: —
In the greatness of Thy Majesty
TIiou hast overthrown them that rose up against Thee.
* * * * * *
Thou in Thy Mercy hast led forth the People whom Thou hast
redeemed,
Thou hast guided them in Thy strength unto Thy holy habitation.
******
Thou wilt bring them in and plant tliem
In the mountain of Thine inheritance,
The place, 0 Lord, which Thou hast made for Thee to dwell in,
The Sanctuary, 0 Lord, which Thy hands have established.
The Lord shall reign for ever and ever. (Exodus xv.)
In all this we see a typical and exemplary instance of
the mingled exercise of mercy and judgment by the
One Mediator in His character and function of the
Righteous Judge and King.

262 and Amalek, and Canaan. [lect.
127. A lesser instance followed quickly, when Moses,
with his hands upheld by Aaron and Hur on the hill
above, represented the unseen Interceding Power, and
Joshua below, representing the unseen Royal and
Judicial Power, fought with Amalek, and discomfited
him and his people with the edge of the sword. And the
Lord said unto Moses, Write this for a memorial in a
book, and rehearse it in the ears of Joshua ; for I will
utterly put out the remembrance of Amalek from under
heaven. Why % Because the hand of Amalek is against
the throne of the Lord, the Lord will have war with
Amalek from generation to generation. (See Exodus
xvii. 8-16. The correct translation of ver. 16 is that
in the margin. See Speaker s Commentary.)
128. But this, significant as it was, was but the
foreshadowing of the greater work entrusted to Joshua
a few years later in God's tremendous Visitation of
Judgment against the Seven wicked Nations of Canaan,
whose iniquity, at length, was full. This event is
especially to be regarded as a solemn judicial Act of
God, a Day of Judgment and of vengeance on out
rageous wickedness, like the Visitation of the Flood,
or that on Sodom and Gomorrah. Effected by the
instrumentality of the Israelites, it was the solemn
act of the Unseen King, the righteous Judge, strong
and patient, Who, though too often ignored and unac
knowledged, even by Christian Nations, yet throughout
human history ever standeth before the door (St. James
v. 9). It is one great function of the divinely-recorded
history of the People of Israel to exhibit in operation,
now on themselves, now among Heathen Nations, as it

v.J God the Son especially 'the God of Israel f 263
is one great function of Hebrew Prophecy, like the
song of a bystanding Chorus, to draw attention to,
the Divine Administration and Government of human
affairs, and the consequent sure vindication, in the
long run, of the essential and eternal distinction be
tween right and wrong, the consequent sure witness
borne to the truths that, over all, the Unseen Lord
is King, and that it is only righteousness (that is,
allegiance to Him and to His broad Moral Law), that
permanently exalteth a nation.
i2g. God, as revealed in the Person of the Son, was
in an especial manner ' The God of Israel.' The
markedly Theocratic character of the Mosaic Legis
lation, in its original idea, left no place for a visible
or human king. It regarded the institution of an
earthly monarch, even though understood to be but
the visible representative, the earthly vicegerent, of
Jehovah, as a deflection from the perfect original
ideal ; a condescension to human infirmity, and to
an earthliness of aims, which was sure to draw mis
chief after it, though it might be controlled and
overruled for good.
In truth the Lord was their King, ever-present,
though invisible ; His Presence was visibly and locally
symbolised by the Cloudy Fiery Pillar that rested
over the Tabernacle, which was His Palace, His
dwelling-place among them. The Mercy-Seat, placed
upon the Ark of the Covenant within the Holy of
Holies, was His Royal Throne, where He visibly
dwelt, during the period of the first Temple, in the
Shekinah, the cloud of glory, between the Cherubim.

264 and their King ; seen by Isaiah, [lect.
There the great Gospel Prophet saw Him, the Lord
(Adonay) sitting upon a throne high and lifted up;
and his train filled the temple. Above it stood sera
phim . . . And one cried unto another and said, Holy,
Holy, Holy, is the Lord of hosts! . . . Then said I,
Woe unto me, for I am undone . . .for mine eyes have
seen the King, the Lord of hosts. (Isaiah vi.) And
from the King Himself Isaiah received, like St. Paul,
His direct commission as His ambassador, His Pro
phet. His eyes saw Him whom the Elders of the
Chosen Race, in the first generation of their national
history, saw with Moses and Aaron, when they saw the
God of Israel, on the great occasion of the Covenant-
Sacrifice. (Exodus xxiv.) But He whom they and
Isaiah saw was not the Father, nor the Holy Trinity,
Whom no man hath seen, nor can see; though the
threefold Sanctus bears witness to the then, as every
where and always, equal and indivisible presence of
the Divine Three. Equally present They were ; for
They are inseparable in presence as in operation ;
yet not equally sensibly manifest or visible. To be
so manifested, in visible form, on temporary occasion
as of old, or in gracious permanence through the
Human Nature, which He took for ever in His In
carnation, is the unique and special condescension of
the Son, the One Mediator; and for the purposes of
His Mediation; as the Divine Agent of God's purposes
amongst mankind. Him Isaiah saw, as the beloved
disciple witnesses. (St. John xii. 41.) He saw His
glory (His who afterwards became our Jesus), and He
spake of Him. Him he saw ; and doubtless in human

v.J worshipped by, ruling, and protecting 265
form, however overwhelmingly majestic and sub
lime. Him the Seraphim worshipped ; and to Him, thus
mysteriously enthroned amongst them, with, as we
Christians know, the Father and the Spirit, One with
Him, as He with Them, was the loyalty of the re
deemed Nation exclusively due ; to Him the God
of Israel, their King, their Protector, when they were
faithful and obedient, their Judge when they rebelled
and disobeyed, and gave His honour to them that were
no gods. To Him went up the daily tribute of offered
sacrifice and incense and of vocal praise, in a divinely-
appointed elaborate and costly worship, through the
hands of an appointed Priesthood who were the officers
of His Court. From Him, through the instrumentality
of His appointed ambassadors the Prophets, from Moses
and Samuel onwards, came the authorized and unap^
pealable teaching of either the Written Code as given
at Sinai, or the inspired word of the living Prophet,
saying, Thus saith the Lord. And this sufficed for
the normal and regular life of the Jewish People, as
Church and Nation, both in one. From Him also, as
occasion was, came the stirring summons to a Moses,
or a Joshua, a Gideon, a Barak, to stand forth, as the
heaven-sent leader and commander of the People, in
their warfare against their enemies. From Him came
also the victory that was granted them, often through,
apparently, wholly inadequate means. But this ruling
and military action was not provided for by any
standing institution or order of men resting on a
basis of original divine appointment, like the Priestly

266 the Chosen People; and visiting them [lect.
and Prophetic orders ; and so far as it, quite naturally,
arose after and out of the institution of the Monarchy,
it was condemned ; especially as involving anything
like a standing army. This, because War was not, in
any of its forms, the business of God's People. The
Conquest under Joshua was wholly exceptional ; wholly
indefensible, except as resting on the express and un
doubted command of Him Who used the sword of
Joshua as His instrument of judgment against the
Wicked Nations. While defensive wars, or wars of
deliverance from oppression, were only the result of
their national unfaithfulness and their deflection from
the divinely-given ideal. Had they as a nation stead
fastly sought first the Kingdom of God, and its righteous
ness, they had been exempt from these chastisements ;
which yet were in mercy, the greatest mercy possible
under the circumstances which their wilfulness and
disobedience had created for themselves.
130. Under the Judges and under the Monarchy,
before the Disruption, and, after it, in the separate
careers of Judah and Israel, successive examples occur
to illustrate the controlling Rule of the unseen King
and His various disciplinary dealing with them, in
mercy or in judgment, according as the nation was
faithful to its high vocation, or lapsed and failed in its
allegiance and was enticed into the high treason of
idolatry. But for the more signal instances of its
exercise we naturally look to the catastrophes in either
case ; the judicial Visitations which, after prolonged
but, alas, useless warning, closed the history of the
Ten Tribes in a sense, and as a nation, for ever, of

V.J with judgment for their sins; 267
the less faithless Judah for a time. These events, duly
considered, are full of the most important teaching as
to the principles on which the Mediator-King deals
with His earthly Church and Kingdom, whose Lord
and Judge He is as well as her Saviour and Redeemer \
For He is The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gra
cious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth;
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and trans
gression and sin; and that will by no means clear the
guilty ; visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the chil
dren, and upon the children's children, unto the third and
to the fourth generation. Such was the solemn declar
ation of the character of Him Who dealt with Israel,
and of the grand principles of His government (Exod.
xxxiv. 5, where see Speakers Commentary).
131. The first downfall of Jerusalem and of the
Jewish Church beneath the Chaldaean Empire is doubt
less to be regarded as a true Lay of the Lord, a true
Coming of the Lord to judgment. Yet even in the crash
of that terrible Visitation, the faithful remnant were
preserved ; for the sake of future hopes, and for the
sake of past promises on which those hopes were based.
For they are the promises of One Who cannot fail ;
they are the word of One Who hath sworn by Himself,
and Whose gifts and calling are therefore at^erafxeXriTa
(not repented of, or subject to change of purpose on
1 ' The Last Judgment must be regarded not as an isolated act, but
as the, in the highest sense, natural, result of all that precedes, the
crown of the whole of that judicial activity of the King of the Kingdom
of God, which extends throughout all history.' Van Oosterzee, Christian
Dogmatics, cxlvii. 2.

268 fudging also their enemies and oppressors, [lect.
His part). On them the faithful minority could rest :
and, as represented by the Prophet Micah, could say
(vii. 18-20),
Who is a God like unto Thee, That pardoneth iniquity,
And passeth over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage !
He retaineth not His anger for ever, because He delighteth in mercy.
He will turn again, He will have compassion upon us;
He will subdue our iniquities;
And Thou wilt cast all their sins into the depth of the sea.
Thou wilt perform the truth to Jacob, the mercy to Abraham,
Which Thou hast sworn unto our Fathers from the days of old.
Closely, and very instructively, accompanying the
visitation of the unfaithful Church, came also the judg
ment on the tyrant and oppressive world-power. The
same Almighty Hand, as it had already crushed Nine
veh, so, using Cyrus and his Medes and Persians as
its instrument, it swept away that proud Babylonian
Empire which, under Nebuchadnezzar, had been itself
the agent of God's chastisement upon the backsliding
Church and Nation. The nation to whom they shall be
in bondage will I judge, said God, of Egypt the oppres
sor of Israel of old; and the same was true now of
cruel and idolatrous Babylon, the haughty conqueror of
Jerusalem. 132. From the first, the temporary, downfall, capti
vity, and dispersion, our thoughts are carried instinc
tively onwards to that greater and unparalleled Catas
trophe of which it was but the typical 'shadow and
forewarning ; and we look with awe on that Bay of
Judgment upon the Jewish Church and Nation when,
after their decisive rejection of their King in His
nearest and most gracious self-revelation to them, the

v.J Grandeur of the calling of Israel. 269
Roman armies were the angels of His wrath, and the
eagles gathered together round the carcase.
If thou hadst known, at least in that thy day — is the
reflection that rises irresistibly to our lips. Had they
rightly conceived and duly laid to heart their high
destiny, their unique and unparalleled mission, in the
centre of the nations of the earth, on the great high
way, between East and West, between North and South,
of the Ancient World ; had they as a nation realized,
in their full glory and blessedness, the singular privi
lege of their special nearness to God, their guaranteed
prosperity, in the highest and truest sense, under His
wing, and the grandeur of the work which He had
given them to do for Him and for Mankind ; they had
then, in the first place, furnished to the world in its
secular, its natural, aspect, a much needed example of
a well-ordered and permanent state, with the best secu
rities for the most solid earthly happiness, national,
domestic, social, and individual ; under the most fa
vourable conditions for the steady development of all
that is best and most precious, as well as most digni
fied, in human nature. Then, and far more importantly,
had they, in the second place, and at the same time, more
completely subserved the intentions of the Divine TtcuSa-
7070'? (Educator) in holding up the light of spiritual
and religious truth and the example of devout God-fear
ing life and conduct, and in extending the remedial in
fluences of these (as a leaven) among other nations. The
illumination vouchsafed to Moses enabled him to con
ceive something of this sort, and with inspired fervour to
set it before the Israelites; as, for instance, more especi-

270 What might have been [lect.
ally, in the Book of Deuteronomy. The same inspira
tion enabled the Prophets of Israel, from time to time,
in glowing God-breathed words of warm appeal, to re
call the thoughts of a stiffnecked and rebellious people
to some worthier sense of their high and noble calling.
And the glory and beauty of that calling, thus set forth,
may have been more or less fully, more or less steadily,
apprehended by some at least of the elect spirits of the
Jewish Church. Such as were loyal and faithful, it
may have been in lowly place and in lives of humble
obscurity, helped on, in their measure, the mighty
purpose, whether they knew it or not, whether they
entered consciously and sympathetically into it or not,
by the mere goodness and blessedness of lives spent in
loyal love and dutiful obedience to God, the God of
Israel, their King. Had such appeals been more suc
cessful, had such lives been more generally character
istic of the Nation than they were, we can well imagine
how much more rapidly the Divine Education of the
world, so largely dependent as it was on the progress
and fortunes of the Jewish race, might have developed
itself, and ripened, both among Jews and Gentiles, into
an earlier readiness for the Christ, the true King, not
of the Jews, only, but of all Mankind, the Saviour of the
World. Then had the fulness of the time, waiting so
mysteriously on human wills, and arrested and delayed
by human wilfulness and perversity, and by sin-engen
dered incapacity for receiving spiritual ideas, come ear
lier (and, may we say 1 more blessedly), than it did.
Then, possibly, He had come unto His own, and His
own had received Him. Then, possibly, had the Jewish

V.J had they been faithful to it. 271
Church and Nation, as such, and not its children only,
welcomed Him with loud and genuine Hosannas to the
Son of Bavid. Then, possibly, with joyful unanimity,
and without a catastrophe which has no parallel in
history, had a Christianised Judaism, the Old Covenant
dissolving and transfigured without a breach into the
New, found in the Jews, not its most bigoted and violent
antagonists, but most fervent and effectual missionaries
for the spread of the glad tidings of moral deliverance
throughout the world. Then, possibly, had the King
dom of God come in peace as well as in power; without
the birth-pangs which marked the deliverance of the
Christian daughter from the Jewish mother ; and those
times of restitution the sooner and the more fully come,
the pictured glories of which stand forth in the glow
ing descriptions of the inspired Prophets of both Cove
nants 1 ; glories which have received an immeasurably
1 I add here a valuable passage from Canon Boyd Carpenter's Expo
sition of the Apocalypse (chap, vi, in Bishop Ellicott's New Testament
Commentary for English Readers), which I did not see until some
months after this Lecture was written ; — ' There are two lines of
thought in the Bible, and these give rise to two apparently contradic
tory sets of pictures. There are the pictures of what would be the
state of the world were the principles of Christ fully and universally
accepted ; and there are the pictures of the world as it will be because
men do not fully accept them. The first set are the ideal, and include
the abolition of war, social injustice, poverty, when the golden age and
reign of righteousness shall dawn. When, however, we speak of this
as ideal, we do not imply that it is visionary ; it is the sober statement of
what would actually take place were the rule of Christ admitted in the
hearts and lives of men, and what will take place whenever they do so.
But between this grand possibility and its realization stands the way
ward, and tortuous, and weakened human will, which either rejects or
fatally but half adopts the teachings of God. This will of man, seen in

272 The fill 'Restitution' still delayed, [lect.
larger measure of realization in the Catholic Church of
the times of the Gentiles, as they received a faint and
shadowy realization in the re-constituted Church and
the rebuilt Temple of the Return from the Captivity;
but which wait yet for a fuller and grander develop-
a world which is directly hostile to Christ, and in a Church which is
but half faithful to Him, must be convinced ere the true ideal of Christ
shall be attained, and the fulness of His kingdom made manifest. Thus
the ideal pictures are postponed, and the world, which might have been
saved by love speaking in gentleness, must be saved by love speaking
so as by fire. Now in the earlier Christian times the hope of an ideal
kingdom, soon to be realized in the immediate establishment of Christ's
kingdom, was very strong. The first disciples yearned to see it imme
diately set up. " Wilt Thou at this time restore the kingdom 1 " The
golden light of hope lingered long in their minds ; they lived in the
memory of those prophecies which foretold the cessation of war, sorrow,
pain, and death. They thought, now that Christ had come, the Mes
sianic kingdom in its utter gladness must immediately appear. They
forgot the Prince's visit to the far country ; they forgot the citizens who
hated Him, and rejected His rule ; they forgot the session at God's right
hand till His enemies were made His footstool. They thought the day
of the Lord, in the sense of the perfecting of His reign, was at hand ;
they forgot that the Heavenly Bridegroom must gird His sword upon
His thigh, and that His arrows must be sharp in the heart of the King's
enemies (Ps. xiv. 3, 5). The vision of these seven seals is the repeti
tion of the warning against such forgetfulness. The ideal Kingdom
might come if mankind would receive it, but it must be established by
conviction, not by coercion ; and so the actual history of the growth of
the Kingdom would be different from the ideal ; the Church, like her
Master, must be made perfect through sufferings ; where He was, His
servant must be; through much tribulation the Kingdom must be
entered. The seals unfold, then, the general aspects of the world's
history after Christ's ascension. Certain features would continue • war
famine, disease, death would remain. They might, indeed, have been
abolished had Christ's own received Him ; but as it was, the fact of
the world's will being in opposition to God's will opposed the mani
festation of the peaceful Kingdom.'

v.] Modern critical study of the Bible 273
ment when the times of the Gentiles shall be fulfilled,
and the long-suspended destiny of Israel as an instru
ment in the hand of God shall at length be manifested
as life from the dead; when the heart of the blind Nation
shall turn, at last, to their one true Lord and King, and
the veil shall be taken away from their eyes, and Joseph
shall be revealed to his brethren, in His love, and in
His Majesty and Power.
To think thus, whether in respect of what might
have been or of what may yet be, is not, as some might
deem, to give the rein to baseless fancies. We are
persuaded that the observant and believing student of
Revelation as a whole must think otherwise.
133. Much patient and valuable labour, and of a
kind that needed to be done, has been bestowed in the
course of the last fifty years on the outer criticism of
the writings in which Revelation is enshrined. The
freest handling has been liberally applied. Every con
ceivable theory, as to their origin, authorship, date,
text, integrity, and authenticity, has been broached ;
and has been, or is in process of being, warmly and
eagerly discussed. Much that is true and valuable will,
no doubt, be reached as the total abiding result of such
discussion, when it has had its perfect work. That day
is not yet ; as the indefensible alterations of the Greek
Text of the New Testament, in the recent Westminster
Revision, very plainly show. But that the final result,
whensoever, and after whatsoever oscillations of opinion,
it shall at length be attained, will only be to set in a
clearer light than ever the essential truth of the great
historic Revelation of which the Bible is the record, the

274 often too partial and microscopic. [lect.
believing and instructed Christian, who never doubted
it, begins already distinctly to perceive. It is well that
the gold should be tried in the fire : its purity will thus
be only the more clearly demonstrated. But it may be
doubted whether such minute critical investigations
do not tend, (like the modern realistic fashion of dwell
ing so much on the outer earthly setting of Reve
lation, and the profuse illustration of its history and
its personages from Eastern manners, customs, and loca
lities, and from contemporary history,) to draw away
men's interest and attention, to some extent, from the
Revelation itself. It may be doubted whether the
microscopic study of its several component parts does
not interfere with the perception of its general cohesion
and meaning as a whole. Yet it is only by careful and
balanced study of God's Revelation as a whole, gradually
developed under the action of His Providence in human
history until its final completion in the Incarnate Christ,
and illustrated by the after history of the Church and
of the World, that a true, an adequate, a growing, con
ception of its meaning can be attained ; or a firm assur
ance of its impregnable position, as a light shining in a
dark place, in the deepening conflict of the Faith with
unbelief, be secured ; and the true principles of its full
interpretation, especially as bearing on the future de
velopment of the Divine purposes in human history, be
discovered. No more necessary work, it would seem,
can be done, in these days, than to recall men's thoughts
from this minute piecemeal study, in a disputatious and
often a pedantic spirit, of the outside preliminary ques
tions and circumstances of Revelation, to its inner

v.] The study of God's Purpose is permissible. 275
essence and principles as a whole ; for as a whole it
must in the long run be accepted or rejected.
134. Some endeavour to grasp the Almighty's ideal
purpose (if we may so express ourselves), in His Self-
manifestation, whether in Nature or in Grace, notwith
standing its having been so far crossed and its realiza
tion delayed, within the scope of man's world, by dis
obedience and sin, is (it may well be thought) both
permissible and helpful to the loyal believer ; whose one
desire is to be faithful to it, so far as he knows it, and
so far as his powers and circumstances, environed and
imprisoned as he is by infirmity and imperfection, will
permit. It is permissible, for such things the angels desire
to look into ; and we much more, by how much they
concern us more closely, since they are for us a matter
of life and death; and, again, because, to a certain
extent, and up to the limit of such extent, the materials
for such an endeavour are supplied to our reverent con
templation ; in Nature, as dutifully studied by candid
and patient Science, in Revelation, and in the course of
human History before and since the Incarnation. Fur
ther, the devout study of God's Purpose, as revealed,
is not only permissible but useful, and even necessary.
So far as it is revealed, it is surely revealed in order
that his servants may understand it, and concur with it,
and co-operate with Him for its furtherance, for the
good of all. The mischievous effects of the want of a
sufficient appreciation of it are seen in the narrowness
of view which thinks only of future individual salva
tion, and is a ready prey to that spirit of disunion and
separation which is the bane of modern Christianity.
t 2

276 The assistance of the Holy Ghost is promised, [lect.
The true conception of a Christian is of a man now
already consciously redeemed and saved by Christ ; filled
by Him with a new life throughout his moral and spiri
tual nature, and that life the indwelling force and power
of the Holy Spirit of God. He is a man pledged to
serve his Saviour, whose he is, with all his powers ; and
enlisted for that very purpose in the ' Salvation Army'
which Christ formed for the conquest of the world, the
Catholic Church, the whole company of Baptized Be
lievers throughout the world ; a man who, saved himself,
desires to help all others, as he can, out of the power of
darkness into the Kingdom — the present Kingdom, full
of life and joy and blessedness — of God's dear Son. In
the case of the English-speaking peoples, even among
earnest believers in the essential truths of Christian
faith, the idea of the Kingdom of Heaven, of the
Church as a corporate whole, an organized body — the
Body, and the Kingdom, of the Christ — and of its insti
tution as such by Him for the very purpose of its being
an unequalled power in the world for good, has been
almost lost ; and with it, to a very great extent, as our
lamentable and even ridiculous failures show, the power
of really adequate and successful missionary effort, whe
ther at home or abroad.
135. To the exercise of their powers by Christian
believers in the endeavour rightly to understand, and
so to work with, the drift of God's revealed purpose
and method, the assistance of the Holy Ghost is pro
mised. In other times, the special direction given by
the circumstances and necessities of the day to general
Christian thought has led to a fuller realization, which

v.] to lead Christians to fuller truth, 27 7
has been almost like a fresh discovery, of previously
latent truth. Compare Dorner, Person of Christ, vol. i. Iritrod. p. 48,
' History of Dogmas has to show how the objective
tendency concerning Christ, given for all times, is, in the
entire fulness of all its elements, more and more disclosed
to the consciousness of the Church in virtue of her work,
conducted by the Holy Ghost. No generation of the
Church, least of all the first, has the entire riches of the
Apostolic preaching vitally in it : the word of Christ and
His Apostles rather stretches beyond and over each, as
the all-sufficient norm, even to the end of time.'
And Dollinger, First Age, Preface, p. viii, ' Christians
themselves [i.e. of the First Age] were very far from
appreciating the reach, and the force for the world's
culture, of those spiritual and moral powers laid up in
the bosom of their society, and entrusted to their care
and administration. On the other hand nearly two
thousand years of Christian history are spread before our
eyes ; we are in a position to embrace and measure the
process of development working itself out by an internal
law of necessary sequence, -a continually advancing and
constructive process, never, indeed, transcending the
original fulness of its internal being, but far surpassing
the simple outlines and primitive forms of thought and
life in the Apostolic age. In the light of this long
experience, where every age is a commentary to illustrate
the preceding one, we can pierce more deeply into the
teachings of the Apostolic Church, and exhibit all its
bearings more fully than former generations could.'
This process has also led to a hardly less blessed
revision of opinions largely held, and sometimes, un
happily, enforced, at least in portions of the divided
Church, but which varied from the real truth of Reve
lation by either defect or distortion or exaggeration.

278 and, especially, to worthier thoughts [lect.
We cannot refuse to hope and believe that there is
yet room, as there certainly is need, in the Church of
the present and of the near future, for the further bene
ficial operation of a similar process in both its forms ;
First, in the revision of current opinions, often the lifeless
residuum of old controversies between partial and one
sided schools of thought, and now simply a dead- weight
on Christian thought and a stumbling-block to faith ;
and also in the bringing forth into the light, as the
realized and conseiously-held possession of the Christian
Body, of truths, — it may be germinant and pregnant
truths, and, in future circumstances of the Church,
highly practical and controlling truths, — which are, as
yet, an unused part of the deposit, latent and unper-
ceived, or, if once present to the mind of the Church,
since overlaid and forgotten.
Among these will be a fuller, worthier, grasp of the
great conception of the Kingdom of Heaven, and a
quickened appreciation of the Royalty of Christ, as the
Only-Begotten Son of God, the Sovereign Heir of all
things ; and more especially of His claims in His relation
to the whole human world, as King, the Prince of the
Kings of the Earth, the one perfect Ideal Man, the
Head of the Church and of Humanity, the King of
Kings, and Lord of Lords. And this we may expect
to be accompanied by a stronger sense of the paramount
duty, before all things, of earnest loyalty to Him, of earnest
work for Him, and for His kingdom ; and, springing
out of this, a drawing together of those who call Him
their Lord and King into a closer love and union with
each other, as part of His most clearly expressed will ;

v.] of the Royalty of Christ. 279
a more wholesome dread of offending Him and drawing
down His judgments by breach of His commandments,
or hindrance of the progress of His kingdom, or re
sistance to His holy rule of moral righteousness in
personal, or in public life, religious or secular 1.
1 An interesting illustration of the value of the due presentation of the
Royalty of Christ comes (November, 1882) from the missionary field of
East Central Africa. The Rev. Chauncy Maples, of the Universities Mis
sion, in a Paper on T/ie Method of evangelising uncultured Races (No.
9 of Occasional Papers, Oxford Mission Press, Calcutta), writes thus : —
' The fact is certain that here where I am writing (at Masasi) it is the
doctrine of Christ the Eternal Son of God, the King of men and
angels — together indeed with the central fact of the Incarnation, and the
Sacrifice of the Cross — that, by the grace of the Holy Spirit, has proved
the attractive power, compelling belief in and attention to the preach
ing of Christianity. Even while saying that the sacrifice of Christ's
Death has drawn them, I cannot but add that it was the fact of the
Offering made by the Person of the Son of God that seems to have
filled them with awe, and brought them to the very foot of the Cross
. . . the Majesty of Christ has compelled their allegiance, and brought
them to Him in fear and awe with a sense that they must obey . . .
God in His attribute of infinite and absolute Power is thoroughly
believed in by all the native races. From this we start . . . Next we
speak of His Kingdom upon earth, and exhibit Him as conferring the
Government upon His Son, and sending Him down to us to take His
great power and reign. By this time we have reached a doctrine
which will not sound strange in their ears. Massing themselves as
they do under their local chieftains . . . they yield them a cheerful and
hearty obedience . . . with all this practical and daily recognition of
their duty as subjects of a king they hear of the Omnipotent One as
their great King, and not theirs only but the King of all nations and
kindreds and tongues . . . Messiah the Anointed One they bow before,
ere they have learned to realize that He and Jesus the Saviour are one.
That God's Son is God, co-equal in majesty, power, and might, co
equal in the Godhead, with the Father, suggests no doubt to their
mind. Henceforth God the Omnipotent is for them Messiah their
King, and they press forward for admission to His Kingdom.'

LECTUKE VI.
THE INCARNATION; THE WORK OF THE INCARNATE
MEDIATOR, ON EARTH, AND IN THE UNSEEN.
St. John i. 14. 'O Ao'yos aap£ eyevero, ko.1 eaK-qvcoaev ev fjiuv.
(The Word became Flesh, and tabernacled among us.)
136. At length the fulness of the time was come.
Even the non-Christian student of history is compelled
to admit the propriety of the expression as applied to a
period when, if ever, some new birth of time, some fresh
and powerful spiritual upheaving, might suitably find
its place, as the close of one epoch, the beginning of
another. Many extended forms of secular civilization,
in some of which the material elements of human great
ness, in others the intellectual, in others the political,
predominated, had in their turn arisen. All but the
last, the Roman, had fallen into decay; leaving such
permanent elements as they had for the possession of
the future. Many ancient forms of religion, all origi
nally containing elements of truth from primeval tra
dition, had run their several courses downward, into
degeneracy and corruption ; and had all, without excep
tion, practically passed away. Moral forces (I am speak
ing, of course, of the Heathen world), had also equally
exhausted themselves. Their failure, operating, as it
ever must, to the degradation of personal, domestic,
and social life, and not without its effect in the disin-

The 'fulness of the time' 281
tegration also of political life, and consequent develop
ment of despotic imperialism, had produced the condi
tion of society which the literary remains of its own
historians and poets — and, remembering the loathsome
revelations of Herculaneum and Pompeii, we may add,
its monumental and artistic remains also — combine
with Saint Paul to describe, to our horror indeed, but
also for our warning. Not less marked symptoms of
impending change are discernible in the condition of
God's ancient People. The sceptre had departed from
Judah (Gen. xlix. 10). Roman procurators and gover
nors ruled Syria and Palestine. Caesar's coinage was
current in the Holy Land. His legions kept the peace
at Caesarea and in Jerusalem. The old Theocracy was
in all but its last stage. It had but one more oppor
tunity to reject before its fall. Yet its subjects were
now a world-wide people. Its moral and spiritual
influence were more widely extended than ever. In
every city of the Roman Empire, and beyond it, was a
Jewish community ; with its synagogue, with its Old
Testament Scriptures, now translated into Greek, and
its regular worship of the One true God ; a centre of
light amid the surrounding darkness, a witness to pre
sent truth, the nurse of the cherished expectation of
further and fuller light. All these phenomena were ex
hibited in the very local centre of the world, the coun
tries that border on the Mediterranean basin, the great
highway of nations. The 'Pax Romana' held the world
together and at rest. Inter-communication by sea and
land was highly developed. The necessities of govern
ment, commerce, and religion, the two last especially

282 demanded some striking change. [lect.
operative on the Jews, created a constant movement to
and fro of large bodies of men, which was highly favour
able to the rapid transmission and dissemination of new
ideas. Concurrently with all this there was the remark
able prevalence of a very general expectation of the im
minent coming of some great one, who should arise in
the East, and should rule the world. However true it
be that this belief first spread among the Jews, and
must have been communicated to the Gentiles by con
tact with them, the fact is attested by the impartial
witness of Virgil and Tacitus and Suetonius 1, as well
as by that of Josephus 2 and the writers of the New
Testament. 137. The co-existence of all these elements, which
make up the then fulness of the times, is simple matter
of hard dry history. It is for the impartial student to
consider its explanation, and to weigh its significance,
first, as it stands as a phenomenon by itself, and, even
so, demanding with imperious outcry some new develop
ment, some onward step ; and, secondly, as it stands
related to the subsequent course of history, which
equally witnesses, and under our very eyes continues
to witness, to very remarkable changes, in the highest
regions of human life, dating from that time ; changes
only explicable in the hypothesis of the introduction,
at that time, of new forces into human society ; forces,
as Christians maintain, of supernatural and divine
origin, the gift of One ' whose never-failing Providence
ordereth all things in heaven and in earth,' of One who,
1 Virgil, Eclogue,'iY. ; Tacitus, Histories,^. 1 3 ; Suetonius, Vespasian, 4.
2 Josephus, Jewish War, VI. v. 4.

vi.J The Incarnation of the Son of God 283
revealed or unrevealed, recognised or unknown, has
been throughout, and is, the merciful and gracious
UatSayoiyof, the Guide and Educator of the world.
What, then, was the great event, which, occurring
at such a crisis, is the secret impelling force and cause
of the striking changes in the condition of mankind
discernible, as matter of fact, in their later history, to
our own day ? Only Christianity gives the true answer.
' O Love how deep, how broad, how high,
It fills the heart with ecstasy,
That God the Son of God should take
Our mortal form for mortals' sake !
He sent no Angel to our race,
Of higher or of lower place;
Wearing our robe of human frame
Himself to save His world He came.
Nor willed He only to appear;
His pleasure was to tarry here;
And God, made Man, with man would be
The space of thirty years and three V
1 ' 0 Amor quam exstaticus,
quam effiuens, quam nimius,
qui Deum Dei Filium
unum fecit mortaiium !
Non invisit nos angelo,
seu supremo, seu infimo;
carnis assumens pallium
venit ad nos per Se Ipsum.
Non solum Se ostendere
voluit, sed convivere
Deus-homo hominibus
hie annis triginta tribus.'
(From a Mediaeval Cento, given in Mone's Lateinische Hymnen des
Mittelalters, Freiburg, 1853, vol.i. p. 67.)

284 constituted Him the perfect Mediator, [lect.
Yes : The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.
The Son of God, Who had all along been the Angel of
Mercy to the human race, as He had ever been the
One Mediator of Life and Light from the Godhead to
the Created Universe, now, at length, ' for us men and
for our salvation, came down from Heaven, and was
incarnate, by the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary ; and
was made man.' Consubstantial from everlasting with
the Father, He now took our flesh ' of the substance of
the Virgin Mary His Mother, and that without spot of
sin, to make us clean from all sin.'
By this act His Mediatorship was, at length and for
ever, constituted in its full absolute pre-ordained com
pleteness and perfection. That which all along had
been prepared for and foretold ; that towards which all
things had before been tending, at the length was fully
realized. The most stupendous event happened which
thought can conceive ; the most stupendous, whether
in itself or in its consequences — consequences which can
have no limit, whether in the ranks of created exist
ence, or through the process of the unending future.
The actual Union of the Creator with the Creature
was effected in the Person of the Eternal Son.
At this point I thankfully insert a passage, on the
too frequent insensibility among Christians to the gran
deur of the Incarnation, from a Sermon (No. XLII) by
Dr. Dwight, the (Congregationalist) President (1795-
1817) of Yale College, New Haven, U.S.A.
' No subject presents to us so wonderful an example of
condescension as the Incarnation of Christ ; nor could any
fact fill our minds with the same astonishment, were it
not that we have been accustomed to hear it repeated

vi.] Too frequent insensibility to the 285
from the cradle, and, like the state of the weather, ren
dered an object of perpetual familiarity ; a thing, almost,
of course, in the ordinary current of our thoughts, by in
creasing inculcation. From these causes we pass it with
out serious attention, and, even when we dwell ftpon it,
scarcely realize its nature. The impressions which it makes
on the mind, resemble those made on the eye of such
as have been long accustomed to them, by a delightful
landscape, a stupendous cataract, or a mountain which
loses its summit in the clouds. At the view of these
a stranger is fixed in exquisite delight, and has all his
thoughts engrossed and his emotions absorbed by the
wonderful scene. No language will, in his view, serve
to describe, and no picture to image, on the one hand, the
beauty, or on the other, the sublimity, of these illustrious
objects. To do them justice in his representations, and
to spread fairly before others the views, formed of them
by his own mind, he will labour in thought, select and
refuse, alternately, the language which offers itself, and
will at last sit down discouraged, without a hope of
being able to render his conceptions visible to other eyes,
or to do anything like justice to what was so magnificent
in the view of his own. Those, in the mean time, who
have long lived in the neighbourhood of the same objects,
will in many, though not indeed in all instances, survey
them without emotion, and even without attention ; ap
parently as insensible to their beauty and grandeur as the
horses which they ride, or the oxen which they drive.
Such seem but too commonly to be the views formed by
most men concerning the Incarnation of Christ, and such
the insensibility with which it is but too generally re
garded. Even Christians, like their predecessors men
tioned in the Gospel, are, in innumerable instances, "fools "
in this respect, "and slow of heart to believe," or even to
realize. But let us, for a moment at least, lay aside these
obtuse views, these " eyes " which " are dull of seeing,"
these " hearts " too " gross to understand." Let us shake

286 grandeur and blessedness [lect.
off the torpor which benumbs our frame, and rouse our
selves to perception and feeling. Let us regard this
wonderful subject with common justiee, and common
candour. The glorious Person, who in the Scriptures is desig
nated by the appellation, 'O Ao'yo? rov &eov, or the Word
of God, " in the beginning created the heavens and the
earth;" and said, "Let there be a firmament, and there
was a firmament." His hand also lighted up the flame of
the sun, and kindled the stars. He " upholds " the uni
verse " by the word of His power ; " and preserves order
and regularity throughout all the parts of this amazing
system. In the heavens He shines with inexpressible
splendour. On the earth He lives and works, provides
and sustains, and satisfies the wants of every living thing.
Throughout immensity He quickens into life, action,
and enjoyment the innumerable multitudes of intelligent
beings. The universe which He made, He also governs.
The worlds of which it is composed. He rolls through the
infinite expanse with an almighty and unwearied hand,
and preserves them in their respective places and motions
with an unerring harmony. From the vast storehouse
of his bounty, he feeds and clothes the endless millions
whom His hand has made, and from the riches of His
own unchangeable mind, informs the innumerable host of
intelligent creatures with ever improving virtue, dignity,
and glory. To all these He allots the respective parts
which they are qualified to act in the boundless system of
good which His wisdom contrived, and His power has
begun to execute ; furnishes them with the means of being
useful in His eternal kingdom ; and thus prepares them
to be amiable and excellent in His sight, and instru
ments of perpetually increasing good to each other.
At the bead of this great kingdom He " sits upon a
throne high and lifted up," "far exalted above all
heavens;" surveys, with intuitive view, and with divine
complacency, the amazing work which His voice has

vi.] of the fact of the Incarnation, 287
called into being, and beholds it increasing without in
termission in happiness, wisdom, and virtue, and advanc
ing, with a regular progress, towards consummate glory
and perfection.
Although " He is not worshipped, as though He needed
anything, seeing He giveth unto all life, and breath,
and all things ; " yet before Him angels bow and veil
their faces. " The four living ones rest not day nor
night, crying. Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who
wast, and who art, and who art to come." And the whole
multitude of the heavenly host, " the number of whom is
ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thou
sands," unite in the everlasting song, "Blessing, and
honour, and glory, and power, be unto Him that sitteth
upon the throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever."
From this stupendous height of greatness and enjoy
ment, this Divine Person, passing all the bounds between
God and man, between the infinite mind and lifeless
matter, united himself to "man, who is but a worm;"
assumed to himself a human soul and a body, and in a
manner incomprehensible by us, and not improbably by
all other creatures, became thenceforth God-man, insepa
rably united in one most wonderful and mysterious Person.
 What were the views which angels formed of
this new and astonishing event ? Easily may we imagine,
that all heaven was lost in wonder, and buried in silence,
to behold this transition from infinite glory to supreme
humiliation, from the throne of the universe to a tene
ment of clay. How instinctively ought we, uniting with
angels in the same views and the same emotions, to behold,
wonder and adore ! '
As was befitting, the Incarnation was, at the first, a
secret known only to a few ; and, most probably, not
by any, even of them, realized, in full consciousness of
its mighty, its awful significance, until after the Resur
rection and the gift of the Holy Ghost. At the first,

288 which brought fresh possibilities of [lect.
as always, the Kingdom of God cometh not with observa
tion. The ever blessed visit of the angel of the An
nunciation was, probably, for long years a cherished
secret in the families of Joseph and Mary, of Zachariah
and Elizabeth. The Gloria in Excelsis sounded but in
the ears of a few humble shepherds abiding in the fi eld.
The meaning of the Star in the East was understood
only by the few whom it drew on their pilgrimage to
the cradle at Bethlehem1. To others, as to us, the
knowledge of these things, and of Him Whose coming
they announced, came from the lips, and from the pens,
of others. But it is a knowledge to whose objective
historic reality, to whose moral and spiritual power,
the Christian not only believes each subsequent page
of the world's history, but also his own daily experience
and inner life, to bear their more than sufficient witness.
138. The Eternal Son of God was now in very truth
a daysman Who could lay His hand upon us both (Job
ix. 33), and so a perfect Mediator. And as He had been
the Mediator all along, in the earlier, less perfect, pre
paratory stages of His Work, not only between God
and man, but also between God and the heavenly host
of intelligent and immortal beings superior to man, so
was He still. To them also the mystery of the Incar
nation opened up fresh views of the manifold wisdom
and resources, and of the inestimable love, of God ; and
(we cannot doubt) new openings of spiritual advance
ment in the knowledge and love of God, and of closer
communion with Him. For, in that it was the closest
possible union between the Creator and the Creature,
1 Compare St. Ignatius, Ep. to the Ephesians, xix.

vi.] advancement to the whole Creation. 289
it was, though actually effected in the nature which
was a little lower than the angels, the closest union with
them also. Nay more, since the Nature of Man is the
microcosm of Creation, including and representing all
its elements, from the highest to the lowest, the Incar
nation unites even material nature to the Creator. It
is in very truth, even to our imperfect apprehension,
and, of course, with consequences which we cannot at
present even guess at, a recapitulation, a gathering
together, a summing up in one, all things in Christ,
both the things in the heavens and the things upon the
earth (Eph. i. 10).
In the Incarnate Son we see united, in the most inti
mate way conceivable, and that indissolubly, the abso
lute Divine perfection and the crown and summit of
creaturely perfection ; and that in a material and object
ively visible form. In Him the idea of God in Creation
is absolutely realized ; in Him, but not for Him only ;
for His Incarnation is the beginning of a New Creation,
whereby the old Creation, even in this province of it,
which we know only too well, of fallen man and his
fallen world, may be uplifted to otherwise unattainable
degrees of glory and beauty, of goodness and perfection,
in an undreamt-of nearness to God, and in unimagined
inflowings, through the contact and union thus estab
lished, of the Holy Spirit of God, ' the Lord, the Life-
giver/ ever and only vouchsafed through the One
Mediator. But for us the Divine Son becomes, through His
Incarnation, a personage in human history. As Man
He performs for man, and on man's earth, a ' finished
u

290 The Incarnation is especially [lect.
work ' of Redemption, and of Reconciliation of man to
God, which results in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit,
as the one regenerating and renewing influence, upon
man. It will be the endeavour of this and of the
remaining Lectures of this series to trace this work,
in its progress and main features, as a work of Salvation
through Mediation.
139. On earth peace, goodwill toward men. — Such was
the chant of the angel-choir, announcing the essential
feature, as towards man and his supreme need, of the
heaven-sent message of which the manger-birth in Beth
lehem was the outward and visible sign. Peace I leave
with you, My peace I give unto you, was the last bequest,
the dying legacy, of the Christ to the little flock of His
believing followers. Peace be unto you, was His first
joyful salutation, when, on the first Easter-night, He
manifested Himself again among them in His Risen
Glory ; and proceeded to give them, from Himself, as
He breathed upon them, His redeemed ones, His Mysti
cal Body, that all-inclusive gift of the very Spirit and
Life of God which comes at once when peace is re-estab
lished between man and God; Receive ye the Holy
Ghost. The inherent and essential evil of sin, which the Son
of God came from Heaven as the Son of Man to undo,
and so to destroy the works of the devil, is its being
defiance of God, mistrust of God, separation from God,
opposition to God. Sin means war against God ; war
against His Law and Will, in obedience to which the
creature's happiness and perfection must necessarily
consist. It involves a perversion on the part of man

vi.] a message of Peace to Man. 291
of all the elements of his nature into instruments of
this opposition. All the minor forces, agencies, and
circumstances, intended to be subservient to the glory
of God and the happiness of man, to which man's will
and man's influence can reach, are degraded and abused
by sin. The results of this alienation from God had
abundantly showed themselves in the past history of
mankind, before the Flood and after it. And now once
again a fulness of the times was come. Again, all the
world, Jewish and Gentile alike, was become guilty before
God (Romans iii. 19). Once more was come a time of
visitation, for both ; a time of judgment, or of mercy
which should prevent judgment; or, in truer, deeper,
wider view, a time both of mercy and of judgment ;
a day of mercy for those who would accept it, knowing
the time of their visitation, feeling and acknowledging
their need, longing for its satisfaction, looking for re
demption ; a time of the blessing of peace for those who
were sons of peace ; (and in this sense we may under
stand the reading, if it be the true one, eV avOpanrou
evSoictas, ' Et in terra pax hominibus bonae voluntatis '),
'On earth be peace,
And love towards men of love — salvation and release,'
(Christian Year, Christmas Day)
or else a day of judgment ; and that the more severe
for the mercy which had been offered, but in vain, and
whose rejection left no more that could be done.
For all, then, who should accept Him, the. Son of
God came as the Ambassador of Peace. He came to
carry into execution the counsel of peace (Zech. vi. 1 3)
TJ 2

292 Christ's whole Life infinite in value, [lect.
which was in the heart of God towards man ; and to
bring back man to God ; potentially, all men ; actually,
all who should not finally and decisively resist His grace.
140. But we premise first, that, in our reverent
and adoring study of the Mediatorial Work of the
Incarnate Lord, as it is set before us in the fourfold
picture of the Holy Gospels, and in the inspired com
ment upon it furnished by the remaining books of the
New Testament, we devoutly acknowledge an untold
value and efficacy in the whole earthly life of our Lord.
From His Birth and Circumcision, and His Presentation
in the Temple at forty days old, onwards to His
second Presentation as a ' son of the law ' at twelve
years old, and onwards to His Baptism, we acknowledge
an infinite worth in His humiliation ; in His perfect obe
dience, active and passive ; in His gracious submission
to the conditions of a human existence ; in His conse
quent experimental sympathy with man ; in the moral
and spiritual growth of His holy Manhood ; in the
absolute and ideal perfection of His human character as
in the Father's sight, and in the atoning virtue and
satisfaction resulting therefrom, by way of reparation
to the Majesty of God for the wrong done by the sin
of the race, which in His Incarnation He represented
as its new Head, the Second Adam, the Father of
the World to come 1.
1 Isaiah ix. 6. Lowth, who, strangely, has no note oh this verse,
renders ' The Father of the everlasting age.' The Vulgate is Pater
futuri saeculi, following one reading of the Lxx, which is strangely
confused in this verse. See Dean Payne Smith, Messianic Interp. of
Isaiah, Sermon II.

vi.] His special Work began with His Baptism. 293
Yet all this, precious and necessary as it was, was
but preparatory for the great work, the public, the
official work, which stands before us in the pages of
the Evangelists, and which is to be dated from His
Baptism, Fasting, and Temptation. Up to His Bap
tism, He was Jesus of Nazareth. Baptized by the
new Elijah, His great forerunner; receiving in His
holy Manhood the gift of the Holy Ghost, sacramen-
tally indicated by the outward and visible sign of the
dove (as a ' token and pledge,' such as the public nature
of His future work demanded, to the Baptist and other
bystanders, who should bear witness of it) ; receiving
this Gift ' for the office and work ' of the Messiah to
the Church of God ; and receiving therewith the testi
mony, and commission, of the Father, in the Voice from
Heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son in Whom I am
well pleased, the Incarnate Son stands forth from that
moment as The Christ, the Anointed, He who was
to come, the Holy One of God, the Apostle and High
Priest of our Profession, the Messenger of the New and
better covenant, the Captain of our Salvation, our Adam,
our Melchizedek, our Moses, our Aaron, our Joshua,
our David, our Prophet, our Priest, our King, our one,
our only, our perfect, our all-sufficient Mediator.
141. As before, it will be convenient to consider the
work of the Incarnate Son under the three aspects,
the Prophetic, the Sacerdotal, the Regal ; and in that
order, which was the order of its progressive outward
development. We premise, however, that we must not
too sharply separate them into distinct and successive
epochs ; but must remember that, from the first, and

294 Throughout He was Prophet,Priest, & King. [lect.
throughout, the three aspects are present together, con
stituting together one continued and complex function
vested in the Person of the One Mediator. Even in
the earlier, the hidden, portion of the great Life, they
latently co-existed. The Message of Peace at His
Birth carried within itself, germinaUy, the pledge and
promise of all three, as needed for its effectual realiza
tion. His Circumcision, and His Name of Jesus,
told of a priestly work of obedience and sacrifice, and
consequent deliverance from sin. The homage of the
Wise Men at His cradle in David's City acknowledged
Him as King. His understanding and answers at
twelve years old revealed, even to the Masters in
Israel, the presence of One Who stood among them
rather to teach than to learn.
But it is, of course, to His public Work, as the
Anointed, that we must look for the full exhibition of
His Mediation. That Work dates from His Baptism ;
which, with its special gift of the Holy Ghost, and its
express acknowledgment by the Father of His Sonship,
was His Ordination. (Compare above, §§ 40, 42, and
Hebrews iv. 14 to v. 5, observing the pointed allusions
to Christ's Sonship in connection with His Priesthood.)
Into the mystery of His forty days' retirement in the
wilderness, His Fasting, and Temptation, we cannot
penetrate ; even as we cannot penetrate into the mys
tery of Gethsemane. Yet, as that final Agony, so these
also, we cannot doubt, were necessary parts of His re
deeming work. In them also, Son though He were, was
He already learning obedience by the things which He suf
fered (Heb. v. 8) ; already realizing, in His human con-

vi.] His Fasting, and Temptation. 295
sciousness, the awful greatness of the work to which
His Baptism had called Him ; and, as the Man Christ
Jesus, looking in the face the now imminent realization
in Himself of those old inspired pictures, in prophetic
strain, of the ideal Servant of the Lord, Who must be,
at once, the Man of Sorrows, and the glorious King of
Righteousness and Peace. Tempted He was the while,
by the Evil One, who was fired by an imperious and
exacting curiosity to find out if He, the circumstances
of whose Birth and Baptism were so remarkable, were
indeed the Son of God, His predestined Vanquisher1.
Tempted He was throughout His preparation of lonely
communion with His Heavenly Father ; searched
through and through with patient craft, that tried each
avenue of His human nature, by the offered thoughts
and suggestions which (we are surely right in suppos
ing), were summed up in that final Temptation of
which two of the Synoptic Gospels give us the par
ticulars ; and which reproduced the same appeals, to
fleshly appetite, to worldly ambition, and to spiritual
pride, which have combined to form the trial of man
from the first Adam onwards.
But the prince of this world came, and found nothing
in Him.
' 0 loving wisdom of our God !
When all was sin and shame,
A second Adam to the fight
And to the rescue came.
1 Compare chap. xix. of St. Ignatius to the Ephesians, on the con
cealment from ' the prince of this world ', of the full import of the
Conception, the Birth, and the Death of the Lord, the three Mysteries
' which were wrought in the silence of God.'

296 His Teaching, as supreme Prophet, [lect.
0 wisest love ! that flesh and blood
Which did in Adam fail,
Should strive afresh against the foe,
Should strive and should prevail1.'
142. Victorious, and in the added strength of suc
cessful conflict, the presage of final triumph for Himself
and for us ; comforted by the ministry of angels ; the
Messiah returned, in the power of the Spirit, into Galilee,
and began His work as the supreme Prophet, the
Revealer of the Father. He taught in their synagogues,
and preached the Gospel of the Kingdom, accepted at
the first, nay, glorified of all. His fame spread, as His
supernatural mission was evidenced by His miracles of
healing, as well as by the character and style of His
teaching. Great multitudes followed Him ; and so gave
occasion to the more blessed antitype of Sinai ; when
He, the 'Lord of Might
Who to the tribes on Sinai's height
In ancient times did give the Law
In cloud and majesty and awe2,'
now, with gracious words from human lips, spake the
great New Law of His Kingdom in the Sermon on the
Mount ; announcing His coming not to destroy, but to
1 Newman, Bream of Gerontius.
2 Compare the second of the greater Antiphons which, beginning
with 0 Sapientia on Dec. 16, were said, according to the ancient Use
of Sarum, before the Magnificat at Vespers up to Christmas Eve. It
is addressed to our Lord, and runs thus : ' O Adonai et dux domus
Israel, qui Moysi in igne flammae rubi apparuisti, et in Sina legem
dedisti : Veni ad redimendum nos in brachio extento.' On these Anti
phons is founded the beautiful Latin Hymn for Advent ' Veni veni
Emmanuel,' No. 49, in Hymns Ancient and Modern.

VI.] on the Mount, and afterwards ; 297
fulfil ; deepening and extending the outer law of the
ancient Decalogue, once given to them of old time, by
His supreme authoritative word, But I say unto you ;
wielding, Himself the Personal Word, that word of God
which is living and powerful, and sharper than any
two-edged sword, piercing, in its searching inward re
quirement, and in its insistance on outer practical fruit,
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of
the joints and marrow, and discerning the thoughts and
intents of the heart (Heb. iv. 1 2). In this we see a car
dinal specimen of the One Mediator's exercise of His
Prophetic office. That office was continued in His
Parables and Discourses, and in His controversial argu
ments with the Jews in Jerusalem. It was closed, for
the first stage of His work, first, by those great escha-
tological predictions which were uttered on the Mount
of Olives on that memorable Tuesday in the Holy
Week of His Passion, and in which He so strikingly
claims for Himself the sovereign judicial authority
over all mankind ; and then, two days later, by the
precious words of comfort and of promise recorded by
the pen of the beloved disciple who lay on His bosom
at the last Supper. As to all the verdict of His hearers
was the same ; — They wondered at the precious words
that proceeded out of His mouth ; Never man spake like
this man ; for He taught them as one that had authority,
and not as the Scribes. Thus perfectly, in spoken word
and in living character, did the great Prophet of Naza
reth of Galilee, the Incarnate Eternal Word and Wis
dom of the Father, reveal the Father to the world, in
His awful holiness and in His 'tender love towards

298 completed by inward illumination. [lect.
mankind.' Hence He could say, He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father ; and, From henceforth ye know
Him, and have seen Him. Thus perfectly did He, Who
is the One true Light of the world, manifest the One
Father's Name unto the men whom He gave Him
out of the world (St. John xvii. 6), giving unto them
the Father's word (14), the words the Father gave Him
(8) ; so giving eternal life to as many as He had given
Him; for this is life eternal, to know Him the only true
God, and Jesus Christ Whom He hath sent (2, 3).
The solemn converse in the Upper Room, or on the
moonlight walk to the Garden, closed the first, the out
ward stage of His teaching Prophetic work. Then were
uttered the last words of His which were written for
our learning, and whose record remains to us. After
His glorification, by His Death and Resurrection, His
teaching, as evermore the Great Prophet, the standing
Light of the World, is inward, as well as outward. Hence
forward it is inspiration, as well as utterance ; inspira
tion lighting up all past utterances of His, in the Old
Testament and in the New ; and accompanied by fresh
exegetic utterances as to the Prophetic Revelation of
Himself and His work in those Old Testament Scrip
tures which His disciples were now, for the first time,
enabled thoroughly to understand; utterances which,
though unrecorded, were of the very highest im
portance ; for, coupled with the cardinal fact of the
Resurrection, they evidently wrought a complete
change in the disciples' conception of the Person
and Work of the Master ; and they were more
over (as we cannot doubt) the true original source of

Vi.] The Priestly work of the Incarnate Son 299
that Christian interpretation of the Scriptures which
has ever since been traditionally held by the Catholic
Church, and without which they are dumb and unin
telligible. Now to enable them to grasp that interpre
tation, the Holy Ghost was given, without Whom no
man can say that Jesus is the Lord. Mysterious
illumination, such as was not possible before, could pass
from the Christ to His believing and loving disciples.
At once and without delay, on the very afternoon of
His Resurrection-day, a new spiritual influence from
Him is felt by the two whose hearts burned within them
while He talked with them by the way, on the Emmaus-
walk, and while He opened to them the Scriptures, begin
ning at Moses and all the Prophets, and expounding unto
them, so that they saw, as they had never seen them
before, the things concerning Himself (St. Luke xxiv. 26,
32). Further, on the same evening, an hitherto impos
sible illumination (St. John vii. 39) was vouchsafed to
them together with the larger body of the disciples,
the eleven and them that were with them, upon whom
He sacramentally breathed the Holy Ghost, so opening
their understanding, that they might understand the
Scriptures (St. Luke xxiv. 33-48. St. John xx. 19-
23)- 143. The fuller outward exhibition of the Priestly
Function of the Incarnate Word begins on that evening
of the Last Supper, which saw the close of the earthly
and outer form of His Prophetic Teaching. The sacri
ficial commemorative eucharistic ordinance of the Old
Covenant, the Annual Passover, having been duly ob
served for the last time (or being in course of observance,

300 was first specially exhibited on the [lect.
for the text is uncertain), the Messiah vests Himself for
the exercise of His office as the Great High Priest. He
began by laying aside His garments, even as the Leviti
cal high-priest, when about to enter into the Holy of
Holies on the great Day of Atonement, laid aside the
holy garments which, in the ordinary exercise of His
typical ministry, He wore/or glory and for beauty (Exod.
xxviii). He took a towel, and girded himself; for the
work He was about to undertake was a work of cleans
ing. He needed not to wash Himself, as those high
priests ; for the cleansing was needed by others, not by
Him. Robed in the perfect purity of His spotless
humanity (foreshadowed by the linen garments pre
scribed for the Aaronic high-priest during the atone
ment service, for the fine linen is the righteousness of
saints (Rev. xix. 8). He washed the Apostles' feet.
This was a sacramental act of striking symbolic mean
ing. It carried with it, for all but one who could not
receive it, an inward spiritual grace of absolution ; for
after it He said, Ye are clean, but not all. Thus were
the Apostles' thoughts directed towards, and their souls
and spirits inwardly prepared and fitted for, something
of high and heavenly import that was to follow. Some
among them in express terms, in their longing to sit on
His right hand and on His left, at His Table, and in His
Kingdom; others virtually, as Thomas when he said
Let us also go, that we may die with Him; and the rest
in their exceeding sorrow at the announcement that one
of them should betray Him, had declared that they
were able to drink of the cup that He should drink of,
and to be baptized with the baptism that He was to be

vi.] occasion of the Last Supper, 301
baptized with. They knew not what they said. Only
they knew they loved Him ; and He had chosen them
to be the seed and beginning of that subordinate repre
sentative priesthood in His Kingdom, whereby, in vis
ible earthly form necessitated by the cessation of His
natural Presence, His supreme sole Priesthood as the
Only Mediator should, through all generations of the
Church below, until He should come again, be, instru-
mentally but effectually, exercised and exhibited. So
must they, and they alone, in whom the whole subse
quent Priesthood of the Catholic Church was at that
moment wrapped up and germinally contained, be associ
ated with Him in that solemn act of manifold depth of
meaning which was at once to follow. To them now
was His pledge to be fulfilled, Ye shall drink indeed of
My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am bap
tized with (St. Matt. xx. 20-28. St. Mark x. 39). And
as they had been already taught, by word and by
example, that the inner secret of priesthood is the very
lowliest self-abasement and self-sacrifice, and meant,
not lordship over others, but humble service and minis
tration for the welfare and cleansing of their souls ; so,
now and henceforward, were they to learn also, for
themselves, as He for Himself, that the great work in
which they were to be united with Him for the salva
tion of the world should be, so far as concerned the
world's relation to them, not one of honour but of
shame, not one of welcome, but of opposition ; a work
of inward and outward suffering, of martyrdom, of
death ; and then, and not till then, the glory and the
joy, in the realized Kingdom of Heaven, for which they

302 which spiritually marked the [lect.
should toil and suffer, they with Him, He with them,
until His coming again.
They sat at His Table in the Upper Room ; but they
knew not yet the height or depth of suffering or of
glory for which they were, in that blest Communion of
sacrifice and of sacramental conjunction, knit and made
one with Him, for His and their one but manifold
Work. He had given them an example. He had long
since told them of what they must give up for Him,
and of the cross they must bear after Him ; and now
He said, Verily, Verily, I say unto you, The servant is not
greater than his Lord ; neither he that is sent greater
than He that sent him. It must be enough that the
disciple should be as his Master, and the servant as his
Lord. The Old, the Mosaic Covenant, the Covenant of Sinai,
was about to pass away — to pass away, through the
obstinacy and unpreparedness and unbelief of its sub
jects, in blood and fire. This as to its outward and
visible passing, after forty years more of patient waiting
on the Judge's part ; the goodness of God continually
calling them to repentance, and an Ark of safety con
tinually being builded up before their eyes, in the
growing, though suffering, Christian Church.
But in inner spiritual reality the Old Covenant was
already passing away, or passed. Behold your House is
left unto you desolate had been said already, as He left
the temple, for the last time, on the Tuesday afternoon.
Then was uttered the true Mera^aivw/uev evrevdev (Let
us depart hence) 1. This Passover observance, in which
1 This of the farewell to the Temple. The farewell to the city, now

vi.] passing away of the Old Covenant. 303
He had desired with great desire to take part with them
before He suffered, was the last.
As before God, and in the sphere of inner heavenly
realities, what passed in the Upper Chamber signafized
the beginning . of the end, as the Rending of the Veil
marked the very ending, of the Old Dispensation.
Between these limits of time, from the moment when,
the actual Passover-meal now finished, the Lord, the
true Aaron and the true Melchizedek, took the Bread,
and blessed it, and brake it, and gave it to the Bisciples,
saying, Take, eat; This is My Body Which is being
given for you ; and, of the Cup, This is My Blood of the
New Covenant, Which is being shed for you and for
many for the remission of sins ; down to the moment
when He said It is finished, and gave up the Ghost, is
one great continuous Sacrificial Work. Between those
limits lay, as a completed act, the achievement of man's
salvation, the taking away the sin of the world, the
Atonement, the Reconciliation, by one great deed of
full, true, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and
satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world, by the
offering once for all of His Body and Blood, His Life,
His whole Self, by the One Mediator, the One and only
High-Priest. 144. Or rather, perhaps, we may think of it as one

fixed in its murderous purpose, and so virtually doomed, and into
which He was to enter no more save as a prisoner, is recorded in the
words iyeip«r8e, ayafiev evrevdev {Arise, let us go hence), with which He
left the Upper Chamber on His way to the Kedron and Gethsemane.
For the Uera^aivrnj^v evreidev, see Josephus, Jewish War, II. xxii. 1 ;
and VI. v. 4 ; also Tacitus, Histories, v. 1 3.

304 Three stages of the One Great Sacrifice, [lect.
great drama, in which, though they are closely con
nected and form a continuous whole, three successive
acts may be distinguished. For, first, we distinguish
clearly and decisively, by the light of the circumstances
themselves and of the language and demeanour of the
Lord, between what we may call severally the active
and the merely passive stages of the Great Sacrifice ;
between the scene in the Upper Chamber, on the one
hand, and the Lord's sufferings at the hands of His
enemies from the moment of His midnight arrest, on
the other. Between these two lies Gethsemane, and its
awful mystery of Agony ; wherein seem mingled the
mightiest actings of a resolved self-sacrificing Will and
the severest passive suffering in inward moral and spi
ritual anguish, unknown, inconceivable. Then, inwardly
and outwardly alike, in the sole unapproachable gran
deur of His Atoning Love, in the lonely majesty of the
absolute submission to which, for love of His Father,
and of us, He had devoted Himself, He trod the wine
press alone, and of the people there was none with Him
(Isaiah lxiii. 3).
The first of these three stages has a certain marked
completeness in itself. We must remember that the
very constitutive essence of sacrifice is the inner sacri
fice of the Will, the Self, in absolute surrender and
devotion to the Will of God, whatever that may be.
This inner sacrifice is kindled only by the heaven
sent fire of a supreme love of God. Without that no outer
sacrifice, of however severe suffering, avails anything.
For though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and
though I give my body to be burned, and have not love,

vi.] Christ's Sacrifice of His Will grew 305
it profiteth me nothing. The willing submission to out
wardly imposed suffering, coming from the act of others,
of God, or man, or evil spirit, is germinally contained
(and this whether the suffering to follow be fully and
consciously foreseen or no), in the inner sacrifice of the
will which goes before. That inner sacrifice is made,
and renewed, on occasion, as God calls for it, in perfect
love to God ; and so (for perfect love involves this), in
perfect trust in God ; in the absolute confidence that
nothing can befal, or be laid upon, the self-sacrificing
spirit but by His permission ; and that all must turn
to His praise and glory in the furtherance of His great
purposes of Love, and in the moral perfecting of the
spirit itself. Such a self-sacrificing Will belonged to
our Lord throughout His whole life. Yet were there
mysterious crises of its higher development through
conflict ; as, for example, in His lonely trial in the
wilderness ; and once more when the icaipos (season) until
which, after His Temptation, the Devil departed from
Him, came round again, on the near approach of His
Passion and of the hour of the power of darkness. To
these occasions we may (I think) be right in adding a
third, not obscurely intimated in the Gospel record as
occurring between them ; namely, in close connection
with the Lord's Transfiguration. That event, which
happened when, as at other times, He was spending the
whole night in solitary communion with His Father,
was signalized by not only the temporary revelation of
His inner glory, but also by the appearance of the two
great Saints of the Old Covenant, the representatives
of the Law and the Prophets, who spake of His decease
x

306 throzighout His whole life, and was, [lect.
which He should accomplish at Jerusalem; and by the
renewed testimony of the Voice from Heaven to His
unique Sonship, as the Beloved. Further, in each of
the Synoptic Gospels, the narrative of the Transfigura
tion is immediately both preceded and followed by
marked predictions of His Sufferings, Cross, and Death.
In the same immediate connection Saint Luke (ix. 51)
writes, It came to pass, when the time was come that He
should be received up, He steadfastly set His face to go to
Jerusalem ; and Saint Mark (x. 32), that as they were
in the way going up to Jerusalem, Jesus went before
them: and they were amazed; and as they followed they
were afraid. With the foreknowledge of the inevitable
suffering which was to be the price of man's redemp
tion, with the ever-increasing pressure of that fore
knowledge, grew, in like ratio, in the human con
sciousness of the Saviour, the stedfast purpose of
unlimited self-sacrifice. Yet were these earlier oc
casions but so many steps which led to the Upper
Room, as surely as the next steps thence were to
Gethsemane, and thence to Calvary. Tuesday had
seen the solemn close of His teaching, the last of His
warnings to His people, as the great Prophet Who was
to come. Wednesday's plot of the wicked husbandmen
with the traitor disciple for the murder of the Son and
Heir was not unknown to Him. He entered the Upper
Chamber with the shadow of that treachery on His
heart. He knew that His hour was come : and so He
said, With desire have I desired to eat this Passover with
you before I suffer. His Passion was already at the
door.

vi.] actively, completed in the Upper Room, 307
It is this that gives its deep, its undying, its immense
significance to His every act, every word, every gesture,
on that solemn night. It is this that discloses the real
meaning of His exhibition of Himself as our Great
High Priest, the Mediator of the New Covenant, when
He blessed the Bread and Wine, and, so blessing them,
consecrated them to be the sacred symbols of His Body
and His Blood, then and there, in the inner and essen
tial reality of His self-devoting will, given, broken, and
shed, as the sacrifice and token of the New Covenant,
for the remission of sins. It was, in the highest spiri
tual sense, a Sacrificial Act. It carried in itself all that
followed ; and so it was complete in its acceptableness ;
even as was Abraham's surrender of his child of promise,
and Isaac's surrender of himself for a whole burnt-offering,
though not outwardly consummated in blood. Abra
ham, by that act — an act loaded with deepest typical
meaning — -spared not his own son, but freely gave him,
a willing victim, to the death, from whence also he
received him in a figure (Heb. xi. 19). The father's
sacrifice was in the long three days' sad journey to
Moriah, and in the taking (it needed not the use) of
the knife to slay his son. The sacrifice of the son was
in his willing submission, whereby he was bound and
laid upon the altar, upon the wood. Even so was
Christ's Body given, and His Blood shed, for the remis
sion of sins, when, by His own act, the Bread was
broken and the Wine poured out.
Compare Archbishop Thomson, in Aids to Faith, Essay
VIII. On The death of Christ:—
' When He speaks of " My Blood of the New Cove-
x 2

308 the scene of a true Sacrifice, [lect.
nant,"no doubt the word Sacrifice is dispensed with ; but
there must be very few, we should hope, who cannot
discern in such words the " sacrificial allusion." ' (I.)
Again, ' It cannot be denied (we might almost say
that before Mr. Jowett it never was denied) that the
words of the institution of the Lord's Supper speak most
distinctly of a sacrifice. " Drink ye all of this, for this
is My blood of the new covenant," or, to follow St. Luke,
"the new covenant in My blood." We are carried back
by these words to the first covenant, to the altar with
twelve pillars, and the burnt-offerings and peace-offerings
of oxen, and the blood of the victims sprinkled on the
altar and on the people, and the words of Moses as he
sprinkled it : " Behold the blood of the covenant which
the Lord hath made with you concerning all these words "
(Exod. xxiv.) No interpreter has ever failed to draw
from these passages the true meaning : " When My
sacrifice is accomplished, My blood shall be the sanction
of the new covenant." The word sacrifice is wanting ;
but sacrifice and nothing else is described. And the
words are no mere figure used for illustration, and laid
aside when they have served that turn, '"Do this in
remembrance of Me." They are the words in which the
Church is to interpret the act of Jesus to the end of time.
They are reproduced exactly by St. Paul (i Cor. xi. 25).
Then, as now, Christians met together, and by a solemn
act declared that they counted the blood of Jesus as a
sacrifice wherein a new covenant was sealed; and of the
blood of that sacrifice they partook by faith, professing
themselves thereby willing to enter the covenant and be
sprinkled with the blood." (I. 2.)
Communion followed; and, upon that, the solemn typi
cal High-Priestly Intercession, the Lord's own Prayer
for His Church so long as it should be ' militant here in
earth.' In that prayer He expressly says, 'I have finished
the work that Thou gavest Me to do.' The active Sacrifice

vi.] passively consummated in the Agony, 309
was, at that moment, made and accepted, or such language
could not have been used. In what remained, at least
from the Arrest onwards, He was rather passive than
active. Hence His silent submission, whereby, unless
when forced to speak, like a sheep before her shearers is
dumb, so He opened not His mouth. Hence, in the final
moment, the noticeable use of the passive form It is
finished. 145. At the entrance of the Olive-Garden we rever
ently pause. To the endurance of all that might
await Him there He had submitted Himself already in
the Self-oblation of the Upper Chamber. There was
the mysterious conflict, with strong crying and tears;
but it was not the struggle of resistance ; it was the
struggle of the resolved and devoted Will, enforcing
itself and its imperious determination on the natural
reluctance of the lower elements of a genuine human
nature, whose very perfectness and purity, in body,
soul, and spirit, could only give it a more sensitive
susceptibility to suffering, and a stronger aversion to
both the humiliation of death and the deeper humilia
tion and degradation of a close, though it were but a
vicarious, contact with sin, when on Him were laid
the iniquities of us all. We watched with Him in
spirit, as, a few weeks ago, the awful night came
round \ More inwardly touching than even the Cross
itself we found that sight on which our spirits gazed.
In life's hardest battles, in the fiercest soul-conflicts,
when the struggle is that of a sin-weakened will
against a nature not merely reluctant, but actively
1 This Lecture was delivered in Easter-tide.

310 and in the Passion, of the One [lect.
rebellious, in hours when prayer alone with God is our
only stay, it is to the thought of Gethsemane ; it is to
the remembrance of Him, Who under the Easter moon,
beneath the gnarled olive-trunks, bowed Himself to the
dust for us, that we turn for strength ; knowing that
in Him, the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, we
have not an High Priest that cannot be touched with
the feeling of our infirmities, but was in all points
tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
' To the still wrestlings of the lonely heart
He doth impart
The virtue of His midnight agony.'
(Christian Year, Wednesday before Uaster.)
Wherefore we pray, 'By Thine agony and bloody
sweat, Good Lord, deliver us ;' or, more touching still,
with our Greek brethren, Ai ayvwo-Twv arov TraQrj/j.drwv,
'Pvo-ai was, Kvpie (By Thine unknown sufferings, Good
Lord, deliver us).
146. In the third stage of His one great Sacrifice,
viz. from His arrest to His giving up the ghost, the
great High-Priest was merely passive in the hands of
His enemies; patiently submissive to whatever, in
malice or in ignorance, Jew or Gentile, rulers or rabble,
governors or soldiers, inflicted upon Him in His most
holy Flesh, which He gave for the life of the World.
That is, He was passive outwardly. Inwardly, the
active energy of His will was working throughout;
for only when He willed He bowed His Head, and
gave up the ghost. None (ovSels) took His life from
Him, but He laid it down of Himself. He had power

VI.] Prophet, Priest, and King. 311
to lay it down, and He had power to take it again
(St. John x. 18). Nay, even in uttered word and act,
in this last extremest stage of His voluntary humilia
tion and self-abnegation, did the One Mediator show
on occasion His latent royal and divine character. His
inalienable Majesty was there when, as soon as He
said I am He unto the noisy multitude, whom He
rose from His knees in Gethsemane to meet, they went
backward, and fell to the ground (xviii. 6). Before Caia-
phas, and before Pilate, He acknowledged, in differing
but appropriate ways, His royal dignity as the Son of
God. To both also He indicated His prophetic cha
racter. When adjured by Caiaphas, He answered, in
language that involved His claim to the Messianic
dignity of Prophet and of King, that He was the Christ;
nay, He was the Son of God; and He foretold His
sitting on the right hand of power, and His coming,
in their time, in the clouds of Heaven. To Pilate He
admitted that He was a King, though His Kingdom
was not of this world ; and, further, that He came into
this world to bear witness to the truth. To the daughters
of Jerusalem, on the Via Dolorosa, He prophesied of
the days of judgment that were coming, when men
should begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to
the hills, Cover us. As Priest He interceded for the
Gentile soldiers who nailed Him to the Cross, Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do. As King
He listened graciously to the prayer of the Penitent
Thief, Lord, remember me when Thou comest in Thy
kingdom. But as regards His present relation to the
Jewish and Gentile powers, in whose hands He was a

312 The Death of Christ. [lect.
helpless victim, He was, in this stage, simply passive,
until He willed to say, It is finished.
147. With these words, being put to death in the
flesh, but preserved alive in His human spirit (1 St.
Peter iii. 1 8), He passed into the vast populous realms
of the Unseen ; submitting still, since He willed by
the grace of God to taste death for every man, to that
abnormal and contradictory separation of soul and body
which is the wages of sin, the ' debt ' of sinful nature;
the work of him who was a man-slayer (avdpwiroKTovos)
from the beginning ; and which, in itself a degradation
and disgrace for that human nature which was origin
ally made in the image of the Living God, was an in
finitely greater humiliation for Him in Whom was no
sin. Yet this too He willed. This too was wrapped
up in the Offering of the Cup in the Upper Chamber,
when He poured out His Soul unto death (for the
blood is the life), and so was numbered with the
transgressors, accepting their lot ; and so bare the sin
of many and made intercession for the transgressors
(Isaiah liii.). This was involved in His Incarnation,
since sin had entered into His world. Forasmuch
as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also
Himself likewise took part of the same, that through
death He might destroy Him that had the power of
death, that is the Devil, and deliver them who through
fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage
(Hebrews ii.).
The state of death was, while it lasted, a pro
longation of His voluntary humiliation ; but it was a
necessary part of the work of our Redemption, which

vi.] The Unseen State. 313
He had undertaken. For it was a time, we cannot
doubt, of most important action on the part of the
One Mediator, during His sojourn in the unknown
dwelling-place of that vast and growing ' majority '
(ol TrXeloves) of those imperishable souls of men whom
He came to save.
148. The veil that hangs between us and that great
unseen world, Sheol, or Hades, or Paradise, however
Holy Scripture designates it, in whole or in part, has
scarcely been lifted, even in the recorded words of the
Lord Himself. What the rapt Apostle saw or heard
in Paradise he expressly tells us it is not possible for
man to utter (2 Cor. xii. 4). Only the broadest out
lines are revealed to us. But these are revealed ; and
so are fitting subjects for our earnest thought and
meditation. The continued, uninterrupted, conscious ex
istence of each human spirit, disembodied, but not there
fore necessarily disassociated altogether from matter (as
is, perhaps, usually, but superficially, assumed to be
the case), nor without some envelope or vehicle, how
ever subtle, of its living essential vital forces, which
gives it outer form and locality and individualization ;
sensibility, perhaps greatly intensified, to pain and
pleasure, inward and outward, mental and physical ;
continued memory, and power of utterance and con
verse; recognition of others in the same mysterious
abode, and, consequent upon such power of converse
and such recognition, the possibility, at least, of social
life ; knowledge of what has passed on earth since
their decease, by whatever means conveyed, direct, or
through intercourse with later comers ; interest in those

314 Ho probation in [lect.
left behind ; hope or fear, for them and for itself — these
surely must be allowed by the believer in the Chris
tian Scriptures to be general features, clearly enough
revealed, of the condition of all departed souls in the
great Unseen ; which, we shall do well to remember, is
not so much a ' future state,' (except to each one of us
who are still in the flesh,) but is the actual present
state of the vast mass of mankind. Further, if faith
must insist that thus much must be conceded, it must
also follow, from the continuance of essential life, with
memory and power of converse, that there is also moral,
mental, spiritual movement, growth, development ; and
this aided and quickened by a nearer perception of
spiritual things, consequent upon the introduction of
the soul to great hitherto unseen realities, simul
taneously with its removal from this present life, and
its being unclothed of that grosser frame of flesh and
blood by which it was in relation with this visible
world. 149. There is, indeed, after the term of this earthly
life is reached, no further probation ; no opportunity of
repentance in the proper sense of the word, that is, of
inner change of mind from the love of evil and the life
of sin to the love of good and of God, and the life of
earnest endeavour after holiness. The whole tenour of
Holy Scripture is against so unfounded and dangerous
a supposition; and implies that, however it may be
only as yet in germ, and that undiscernible by anv
but the all-searching Eye, the final direction and de
termination of the moral choice is really taken, for
good or evil, within the allotted limits of the present

vi.] the Unseen State; 315
life. Natural moral science, based on observation and
experience, apart from revelation, points unhesitat
ingly to a like conclusion ; and even heathen philo
sophy fully recognises the solemn significance of life,
in its opportunity for the exercise of moral choice, and
for the growth of habitual moral attitude and tend
ency into finally settled determination of character.
Further, it should be remembered, as bearing upon our
view of this highly important question, that, ideally
and in the original purpose of man's Creator, his Moral
Governor, and Judge, the intermediate state, of sepa
ration of soul and body, is abnormal and unintended.
That state is a dislocation of the true continuity of
man's full and complete life, a strange thing, the re
sult of sin, a deflection, however overruled for good
by the manifold resources of the infinite mercy of
God. Man, as originally created, was created for Life,
not for Death ; for life in his okoKKripov (whole con
stitution) of body, soul, and spirit (1 Thess. v. 23) ; for
life upon this earth, which, under whatever altered
conditions of glory and of beauty, when its travail-time
is over, and it shall have been delivered from the
bondage of corruption, we have no real reason to doubt
will always be man's dwelling-place. But he was
created, and that, as we have seen (§§ 48, 71) neces
sarily, in a state of probation ; and it is obviously
fitting, and almost, we may say, required by the very
idea of probation, that it should come at the opening
of his endless career, and begin, as it does begin, as
soon as free will and power of moral choice are felt
within him. But if the originally-intended sphere and

3 16 only development and progress [lect.
stage of this probation be his natural earthly life in the
flesh, and the natural condition and circumstances of
human social life common to him and his fellows ;
and if, in fact, his very probation lies in, and is con
stituted by, that condition, those circumstances; then
it would seem to follow — apart from the observed de
cisive and often (apparently) unalterable effects result
ing, and that often very early, from our probation, as
we know it, in the present condition of our life— that
an extension, or a renewal, of probation in a state of
being so strange, so different, so unintended, is not to
be expected, and would be unavailing ; especially when
it is considered that that state of being is itself a penal
state, a consequence of sin.
150. On the other hand, although this be so, and
although we have no ground for looking for further
probation on the other side the grave, nor for re
newed opportunities of an inner vital change from
darkness to light, from death to life, in the moral
centre of our being, the conscious will ; we may, we
must, believe — since we believe in the uninterrupted
continuance of the real life, and in the carrying over
the grand total result of this life across the change of
death into the Unseen state — we must believe in the
continuance of progress, development, and growth ; for
life, in every or in any sense of the word, implies them ;
only it is a development in the direction already de
cisively taken.
In these considerations we see the opening for a
great work of the Father of spirits on the countless
millions of millions of the human souls for whom Christ

Vi.J in the direction already taken. 317
died ; a work to be carried on through Him, the One
Mediator, in Whom and through Whom and for Whom,
as the Image of God, those souls were made,. and Who
died for them that He might, if they do not defy Him,
restore that image within them.
God alone knows the determinate moral condition
and capacity of each of the souls that He has made, at
the moment when He summons it into the Unseen.
We may be quite sure that their moral conditions and
capacities vary infinitely ; that is, in degree ; though of
kind and quality there can be, in the last resort, but
two. We may be quite sure that, in the placing of
each on this or that side of the dividing line — the
acceptance or the rejection of God, so far as He has,
in various ways and degrees for each, presented Him
self to each in the opportunities of earthly life — the
Judge of all the earth will do absolutely right, with
absolutely perfect knowledge, with infinitely perfect
and tender discriminating love. Moral capacity — so
awfully different, so infinitely varied, are men's lots,
men's opportunities, in life — may be present, though in
the very lowest conceivable degree, the merest germ
of as yet unextinguished possibility. The living spark
may be there, though it defy our microscopes. God
can discover, and will tend it. We may trust Him
never to break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking
flax. We may trust Him to fan it into a living flame
of love, and to place it in the most favourable circum
stances for its development. What the process may
be, or the time taken up in it, we cannot, need not,
guess; but of the fact itself we must be absolutely

3 18 The work of the One Mediator [lect.
certain ; and of the loving agency therein of the Divine
HmSaycoyos, the One most gracious Mediator, breathing,
from Himself, upon each morally living soul, as each
can bear them, and together with whatever needful
discipline of inward or outward pain, the renewing in
fluences, the freshening dew, of His own Holy, patient,
loving, creative and re-creative Spirit, the Lord, the
Life-Giver. 151. We may joyfully believe that untold millions
of waiting souls in God's safe keeping, with various de
grees of spiritual capacity, each very precious in God's
sight, and part of His Son's reward, from all the races
of mankind, within God's special covenants and from
outside them 1 ; were the subjects, whether consciously
longing and hoping for it or not, of some such grace
and mercy, when the one white and spotless Soul from
among the children of men, the Soul of Jesus, passed
from the Cross of shame to the Paradise of joy ; to
be followed thither so quickly by one surely accepted,
yet as surely most undeveloped, soul, from the cross
beside His own.
In that vast realm, we may be well assured, are
many mansions, many abodes of exact fitness to their
destined occupants ; abodes which are, for each, their
own place. Into one portion, whose name of Para
dise recalls man's first happy state, Christ's Soul
passed at once, carried (it may be) by angels ; there to
be recognised by the expectant faithful, from Abel, its
first inhabitant, to Joseph of Nazareth, and the Baptist,
and others who had known the Lord in the flesh. In
1 See St. Matthew viii. 10-12, and St. Luke xiii. 28-30.

VI.] upon souls in the Unseen State. 319
their place of peace and rest and refreshment they saw
Him Whom they had believed in, for whose coming
they had longed ; and they were glad. They saw the
great Prophet of whose coming Moses had foretold ;
and whose very presence was a fresh revelation to
them of God and of His love, and of the gathering
mercy of His gracious dealings with them. They saw
the great High Priest Whom their old ritual had fore
shadowed ; the Lamb of God Whom their sacrifices
had prefigured, and Who had now taken away the sin
of the world. They recognised their King, the royal
David, fresh from the overthrow of the great Goliath ;
and they knew that His appearance there was but the
presage of still greater triumphs for Him and them.
152. Beyond this we have at least one highly sig
nificant intimation of another work, in another portion
of the great Unseen, which may, very probably, be
taken, like so many other things in Holy Scripture
(which cannot tell us everything), as a typical and
suggestive example and specimen. Beyond, below, the
Paradise of God, Christ descended ad inferos. We are
not to understand this, and probably those who placed
it in the Creed never so meant it, of the Hell of Fire
(ij ye'ewa too irvpoi), prepared (that is, originally), not for
man, but for the Devil and his angels. Of the portion
of any human beings in that nothing is said until after
the General Resurrection and the Judgment. But, short
of that, Saint Peter, in a well-known passage (1 Pet.
iii. 18), as to whose meaning surely Bishop Pearson is
wrong and Bishop Horsley right, speaks of the (j>v\dicq
(prison, or safe keeping), in which were detained the

320 The case of the Antedihwians. [lect.
souls of the Antediluvians who had perished in the
Flood, when it overtook the world of the ungodly;
among whom, at the last, they were found, notwith
standing long previous warning, when once the long-
suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, the
preacher of righteousness, while the Ark was a pre
paring. They were outside the Ark of safety by their
own act. They perished by an awful visitation of
judgment ; which was the end of their world. They
had no share in the New Heaven and the New Earth,
over which the Dove flitted, and across which the
Rainbow of mercy shone, when the waters were abated,
and the purpose of the Ark was served. Yet to them
the human spirit of Christ went and preached — rather,
His own Herald, He went and proclaimed (eK^po^e) —
can we doubt % a proclamation of mercy. The destruc
tion of the flesh, the awful and sudden judgment, from
which there was no longer any possible escape, may
have been the very means of compelling, at the last,
that repentant turning to God which should preserve,
or rekindle, ere yet too late, the spark of life within
them, and so render it possible for their spirits to be
saved, albeit we know not in how for ever diminished
glory and beauty, in the day of the Lord Jesus
' (i Cor. v. 5). In what necessary discipline of not
quite despairing uncertainty and expectation they had
waited those long ages ; what spring of renewed life
and love the visit and the proclamation of Christ,
turning hope into certainty, had brought them ; what
further training should lead their and others' souls
upwards, in the intermediate time till Christ shall come

VI.] Increase of peace and joy 321
again, to close, as He then opened, this present Dis
pensation, we cannot say. But the thought of this
passage rightly apprehended must (we may humbly
submit) widen the range of our conceptions with
reference to the manifold variety, the unfailing yet
varied mercy, and the inconceivably vast scale, of
God's dealings, as their moral Governour, their All-
loving Father, with the infinite variety of human souls,
in all their infinitelv varied relations to Himself, that
do not, with final defiance, refuse His mercy and re
nounce Himself.
153. That an increase of light and peace and joy, in
possession and in hope, was diffused through His un
seen Kingdom for all who were able, and as each was
able, to receive it, we cannot doubt. It has been so
for His believing people on earth, even while they are
still in the flesh, and are in heaviness through manifold
temptations. Saint Paul, looking forward to his rest
in Paradise, whose joys, disclosed in his rapture, he
could remember with longing though he could not
utter them in words, could desire to depart, and to
be with Christ, as far better than even his loving and
assured communion with Him in this life ; and so as
making death, for him, a gain. By this we know
that whether in itself (that is, because of some objec
tively closer spiritual Presence of the Lord to faithful
souls in the Unseen) or by reason of some change for
the better, in themselves, or in their removal from
worldly distractions and temptations, they are in closer
communion with Him than here on earth ; comforted,
not in Abrahams bosom, but in His; safe in the ever-
Y

322 resulting to souls in the Unseen [lect.
lasting arms. Perhaps the change to increased blessed
ness is from both causes, objective and subjective ; or,
rather, we may distinguish three causes ; some nearer
manifested Presence of the Lord; some upward spring
of soul and spirit into greater nearness to and capacity
for Him, such as must indeed necessarily result to the
living and capable soul from His nearer manifestation
of Himself; and, thirdly, the greatly more favourable
conditions in which the soul finds itself, through its
deliverance from the burden of the flesh, and its in
troduction into the 'joy and felicity' of God's chosen,
its rejoicing with the gladness of His People, its giving
thanks with His inheritance (Psalm cvi. 5). But, so
far as the change is in some nearer Presence of the
Son of God, we should perhaps be more right in con
necting it, not with anything that took place during,
or upon, the visit of His disembodied spirit to the
Unseen, but rather with the spiritual consequences
that followed, to Himself and to His Church, (which,
militant or at rest, is His Body,) upon His Resurrec
tion ; when His Manhood, from whose temporarily
separated elements His Godhead had never been dis
sociated, was reconstituted in its entirety, and fully
glorified ; and upon His Ascension, when He Who had
descended first into the lower parts of the earth (Eph.
iv. 8-10), Who had gone down to the lowest depths
where anything human was to be found, ascended up
far above all the heavens, that He might fill all things.
So, filling all things, He, the glorified God-Man, the
new Head and Centre of Redeemed Humanity, filled
both the Church on earth and the Church in Paradise

vi.J from the Work of the One Mediator. 323
with an abiding nearer real spiritual Presence than was
possible before ; and the Church in Paradise with an
even nearer Presence than was vouchsafed to the
Church on earth ; either as nearer in itself and in the
modes and agencies of its manifestation and communi
cation, or in the quickened receptive capacity of its
subjects, or in both.

Y 2

LECTUEE VII.
THE WORK OF THE MEDIATOR DURING
THE GREAT FORTY DAYS.
Acts i. a. 'O 'IjjctoSs . . . evreikap,evos rots ' Awooro'Aots hia Tlvev- ¦
paros 'Aytov, oi)s e£e\e£a.TO, avekr](p9rj. ols Kai irapeaTrjcrev
eavrov (&vra fxexa to ¦naQeiv avrov, ev ttoWols reKju?jptoi9, Si
ijfjLep&v reaaapaKovra dTTTa.v6p.evos avrols, /cai Keycav ra nepl Trjs
fiacnkeias rov ©eov. (Jesus . . . having given commandments
through the Holy Ghost unto the Apostles whom He had
chosen, was taken up ; to whom also He shewed Himself
alive after His Passion by many proofs, visibly appearing
unto them during forty days, and speaking the things con
cerning the Kingdom of God.)
154. The period of the great Forty Days which
followed the Resurrection is one of the most important
and pregnant stages of the great work of the One
Mediator. He was raised in power. He was declared
to be the Son of God with power, by the Resurrection
from the dead. In the perfected Majesty of His God-
penetrated Humanity, the Son of God, the Man Christ
Jesus, was now crowned with glory and worship. God
made Him to have dominion of the works of His hands,
and put all things in subjection under His feet (Ps. viii).
All power (e^ouo-la, delegated authority) was given unto
Him in heaven and in earth (St. Matt, xxviii. 18).
In His Resurrection, as in their pledge and promise,
were necessarily wrapped up and contained His Ascen
sion into Heaven and His Exaltation to the right
hand of the Father on His Throne on high.

Christ's Work during the Forty Days 325
But within the limits of this period there was a
great plastic constitutive work to be done, of highest
moment. It was not merely that inner Prophetic
work, of which we have already spoken, whereby, by
the in-breathing of His Spirit, now His without measure,
and communicable from His holy Humanity, He opened
their understandings that they might understand their
own ancient Scriptures, and see Him in them all ; and
so gave to His Church the only key to unlock the Old
Testament, imparting to them the first fresh springs
and principles of that Christian exegesis which sup
plied the basis of primitive Apostolic preaching, teach
ing, and writing ; that Christian exegesis which, pre
served in the New Testament and in Catholic tradition,
has been her light and her treasure ever since. It was
not merely His gracious Priestly Absolution, when, to
His bewildered and fear-stricken Apostles who, in His
hour of trial, all forsook Him and fled, and to Peter,
who had thrice denied Him, He sent, by the mouth of
Mary of Magdala, His brotherly token of loving re
conciliation, Go to My brethren, and say unto them, I
ascend unto My Father and your Father, and to My
God and your God; nor when, at night, though the
doors were shut, He fulfilled for the first time, as the
beginning of an incalculable series still prolonging
itself, His promise, where two or three are gathered
together in My Name there am I in the midst of them ;
and Himself, immediately in His own Person, as since
by the mouth of His ordained ambassadors, gave, visibly
and audibly, His message of forgiveness, Peace be unto
you. It was more than these. These were true and

326 was the work of the King [lect.
vitally necessary exercises of His Prophetic and High-
Priestly functions ; vitally necessary as a preparation
for His next following work with them, and upon them,
and for them, and for us.
155. That work was a Royal Work. He had now
received for Himself a Kingdom, and had returned.
He was now to constitute and organize that Kingdom ;
which was to be the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of
Heaven upon earth, the Kingdom of which He, the
Eternal Son of God and Heir of all things, was now,
in His Human Nature, the Sovereign Lord and Head,
the Founder, the Law-Giver, the Ruler, the Beginning,
and the End. It was to be a Kingdom of chosen ones,
of those whom the Father had given Him, in the world
but not of it ; a Kingdom of men called out to live
above the world, an eiacXiio-la, a Church ; a Kingdom of
human beings in the closest living union with Himself;
a Society of men and women who were to be members of
Himself, of His flesh and of His bones, as Eve of Adam's;
a multitude of souls which, in their united totality, were
to be His Bride, His Body of which He is the Head.
For this, from the first beginning of His earthly
ministry, He had been making preparation. The Gospel
He had preached was the Gospel of the Kingdom. The
good tidings He had brought to Zion was that the
Kingdom of Heaven was at hand. He had spoken of
it as future, though imminent, On this Rock I will
build My Church. He had gathered its materials to
gether in the small circle of His believing followers.
He had first called into special nearness to Himself His
twelve Apostles; and laid the foundations of His

vii.] organizing His Kingdom. 327
Church in a clergy 1 ; in Peter and his brethren, the
first joints in the strong vertebrate column round
which the Body was to be formed, until it should
have grown to its consummation in the measure of the
stature of the fulness of the Christ.
Now, having shewed Himself to them alive after His
Passion by many infallible proofs, having lifted up their
thoughts and their faith to apprehend the full spiritual
grandeur of Himself and of His Work — that work
wherein they were to -he associated with Him — He, in
solemn converse from time to time, gave commandments
unto the Apostles whom He had chosen, and spoke unto them
of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God (Acts i.).
A very special and weighty significance belongs to
the recorded Sayings of those ' great Forty Days.' The
now more than ever manifestly supernatural character
of Him Who spake them ; His declared royal and
Divine dignity; the altered manner, the increased so
lemnity, of His converse with His followers ; its occa
sional and, however overflowing with tenderness and
love, its solemn and mysterious character, recalling the
manner of His Old Testament manifestations as the
Angel of the Loud ; the pregnant authoritative, legisla
tive, and imperative brevity of the Sayings themselves ;
their very unlikeness, in respect both of substance and
manner as well as of circumstances, to anything in His
previous discourses and teaching ; all these features
combine to invest them with peculiar and signal in
terest, and to show that they are the dicta of a
1 Compare Gleanings from the writings of the E.t. Hon. ~W. E. Glad
stone, vol. iii. p. 262.

328 The First Saying, Peace; the Second, [lect.
Founder, the organic laws of an original Legislator,
the fiats of a Creator ; introducing a new order of
things on the earth, and setting on work in the
hearts and souls of men, and so in the life-springs of
human society, new forces ; and those from a super
natural and spiritual sphere, from a supernatural and
spiritual centre, from Himself, the One Mediator. All
that He had said and done in the earlier, the pre
liminary, stage of His work as Incarnate led up to
what He said and did in this formative period. All
before was preparatory to this ; all was anticipatory of
this. All that has happened since in the history and
development of His Church, from Pentecost onwards,
has grown, and is growing, out of this.
156. What then are these precious words of power
whose creative energy is working still in the Church
of God ?
They are few, as they are brief. Yet here I can do
little more than draw your attention to them in order ;
commending to your study, for a fuller treatment of
them, the special discourses upon them of a former
Bampton Lecturer, Bishop Moberly of Salisbury, and his
Bampton Lectures, on a connected subject, of 1868.
First in order, as I have pointed out, is the message
of forgiveness, Peace be unto you; a message at once
both royal and priestly, the Absolution of the Great
High-Priest, the Pardon of the King. There is great
evangelic force in the primary and immediate bestowal
of this gift. Forgiveness, and consequent peace with
God, is ever the first necessity of man, the first con
dition of communion with God, of work for God. The

vii.] Commission; the Third, Power; 329
disciples could not have been what they were to be,
the beginners of His Kingdom, the first-fruits of the
great harvest of redeemed souls, the first results them
selves of His finished work upon the Cross ; still less
the effectual heralds of its blessedness to others ; until
the words of reconciling love, from the present lips of
the great Messenger of the New Covenant Himself,
had wrought their comforting and strengthening effects
within their own souls.
157. Then, and not till then, could He speak the
Second word, which, in view of His approaching bodily
withdrawal, and the consequent necessity of the delega
tion of His authority to others, human instruments,
who should act in His Name, constituted and com
missioned the Church, which is His Body, to be, in its
corporate totality, His representative and agent on
earth ( Appendix, Note 1 o). As My Father hath sent Me,
even so send I you. Brief as they are, no words could
be more full of germinant and abiding power.
158. The Third word follows at once; for the dele
gation of authority must be accompanied with the com
munication of energy, of life and power, of wisdom
and of grace, in which to wield it : Receive ye the Holy
Ghost. And this, accompanied by the significant in
dication of what had not been wanting at the opening
of the first stage of His redemptive Ministry (the stage
of His own immediate, present, visible operation), when,
at His Baptism, the Holy Ghost descended upon His
Sacred Manhood, His natural body and soul, in visible
bodily form, like a Dove. So now, His preliminary
gift, by way of foretaste, of the Holy Ghost to His

330 The remaining four, directive and [lect.
Body Mystical, was marked by the accompaniment and
conveyance of an inward spiritual grace by an outward
visible sign. In this circumstance we observe a sig
nificant example of that Sacramental principle which,
recognising at once and meeting the complex character
of human nature with its material embodiment, and
man's infirmity and backwardness in faith, was to be so
prominent and peculiar a feature in His Church of the
future. He breathed upon them, now that the barrier
of sin had been removed. Then, as ever since, the
second, or rather, we should say, the simultaneous gift
of the New Covenant (for it ever accompanies forgive
ness, and is part of it, and the pledge of it), the gift
of the Holy Ghost, for all needful light and grace and
help, was instantly conveyed to those who by His
Absolution had been made both fit and able to receive
it. In the light of that inward gift they were now
enabled to appropriate His teaching, as He proceeded
to open their understanding, that they might understand
the Scriptures, and might see, as they had never yet
before been able to see, notwithstanding the words He
had spoken to them while He was yet with them in
the flesh, the fulfilment, in Him, and in His sufferings
and Resurrection, of all that had been written in the
Law of Moses, and in the Prophets, and in the Psalms
(St. Luke xxiv.).
159. All this was to empower them for the work
they were to do. The remaining Sayings are impera
tive in form, and indicate the essential features of that
work which they were to do in His Name.
They were to go, and, in His Name, to preach, or pro-

vii.] imperative ; The Power of the Keys ; 331
claim, repentance and remission of sins among all nations,
as a gospel of good news, to every creature, beginning
at Jerusalem. They were to be to others the witness
of these things, of His Atoning Death, of His glorious
Resurrection, and of the forgiveness and grace which
had come thereby to themselves in their own personal
experience. As a society of forgiven men, the accepted
children of God, they were to announce to others the
same blessing on the same terms ; nay, they were to
convey it in effectual power, Whosesoever sins ye remit,
they are remitted unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye
retain, they are retained. Thus ' Our Lord Jesus
Christ left power to His Church to absolve all sinners
who truly repent and believe in Him V Henceforward,
the Church was empowered to wield, by the hand of
her authorized executive, from St. Peter onwards, the
keys of the Kingdom of Heaven ; to open the door of
formal admission, as on the day of Pentecost, to all
who believed and were willing to be baptized ; to
exclude all who disbelieve and reject the message of
mercy when offered, so retaining their sins in full con
demnatory power over them ; and further, since sin
was sure to reappear among the baptized, to exercise,
for the spiritual welfare of all — of the Body, the Society,
as a whole, and of its several members — a double dis
cipline of salutary efficacy, in the judicial exclusion
from Christian fellowship of notorious and impenitent
evil livers, so long as they remained such, and in the
forgiveness and readmission of such offenders upon
their repentance and amendment ; and yet again, since
1 See Absolution, in the Services for the Visitation of the Sick.

332 The Pastoral Charge, to the Ministry; [lect.
sin within the Christian body, though not ' notorious,'
might be voluntarily felt, as a restraining bar from
full communion, or, on the approach of death, might'
weigh with awful downcasting force on even the
faithful and the penitent, to convey, by the mouth of
her duly-ordained officers, the special individual as
surance of pardon to all who truly repent and un-
feignedly believe.
1 60. Next, in what Saint John expressly describes
as the third time that Jesus shewed Himself to His
disciples after that He was risen from the dead (the
evening appearances, on the Easter-Night, and on the
Octave of Easter, being, apparently, the two that pre
ceded it), the Lord, speaking especially to Saint Peter
as the chief of the Apostles, and in him to his and
their successors to the end, and insisting on proved
personal love to Himself as a needful inward qualifica
tion, gives to His ordained Ministers their special
teaching commission within the fold of the Church
itself, Feed my Lambs; feed my sheep. The general
proclamation (Ktipvo-o-eiv, &c.) of the Gospel of the Grace
of God to those without, the publication of the great
facts of the Life and Death and Resurrection of Christ,
and of the consequent possibilities of forgiveness and
salvation to penitent sinners, with a view to their
being brought into the number and society of the
o-aiXpnevoi (Acts ii. 47), this is one thing ; the careful
feeding and training, the gradual upbuilding of those
within, is another thing. Both are recognised, in their
several distinctness, in the final Baptismal Commission.
(See St. Matthew xxviii. 19, 20: 7ropeu0eVre? ovv paOrj-

vii.] The Baptismal Commission, at the 333
Tevcrare . . . (3aTTTifyvTes . . . StSacricovTe?, k.t.X., Go, make
disciples . . . baptizing . . . teaching.) The former is
surely open to the zeal of the members in general of
the Christian Society, working loyally in a spirit of
love and goodwill, not of envy and strife, and contention
(Philipp. i. 15), and in union with the authorized
officers of the Church : the latter seems to be rather
a special function of these last, as requiring fuller and
higher knowledge and experience, and closer and more
exclusive devotion to the work of teaching, as well as
special empowering gifts, conveyed in ordination ; with
out which gifts none, surely, would dare to undertake
so awful and so responsible a task.
161. It was on what must, perhaps, be considered
the most public, and otherwise remarkable, occasion of
the Lord's Manifestation of Himself after His Resurrec
tion, that He gave the Baptismal Commission which
contains the conclusive revelation of the Doctrine of
the Holy Trinity. In the Upper Chamber Jesus had
said to the Apostles, After I am risen again, I will go
before you into Galilee (St. Matthew xxvi. 32 ; St. Mark
xiv. 28). On the actual Resurrection morning, first
the angel at the sepulchre, and then the Lord Him
self, repeated to the women this promise for the dis
ciples, that they should see Him in Galilee ; with a
command to meet Him there for that purpose. St.
Matthew, who records these promises, records their
fulfilment (xxviii. 16), The eleven disciples tvent into
Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed
them. It is impossible to resist the conclusion that
others were present besides the Eleven ; that this

334 meeting on the mountain in Galilee. [lect.
great occasion was, in fact, a general meeting of our
Lord's followers, including all who could by any possi
bility attend. (So Olshausen, Stier, Alford ; so Canon
Cook, in Speaker's Commentary.) And, if so, the occasion
may, very probably, be identified with that of which
St. Paul speaks (i Cor. xv. 6), when the Risen Christ
was seen by above five hundred brethren at once. The
largeness of the number present may well account for
St. Matthew's next statement, that when they saw Him,
and worshipped Him, some doubted. The Eleven, and
others present with them in Jerusalem, had certainly
seen Him at least twice before, on the Easter Night
and on its Octave, and so had been satisfied of the
reality of His Resurrection. But others among the
large number of His Galilsean followers may well have
hesitated on this- their first occasion of seeing Him;
and then, possibly, at some distance, at least at first,
for in the next verse it is said that Jesus came towards
them (irpoaeXOwv) and so spake unto them the great
words, All authority hath been given unto Me in Heaven
and on earth, Go ye therefore and make disciples of all
the nations, baptizing them into the Name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost: teaching them to
observe all things whatsoever I commanded you : and, lo,
I am with you all the days even unto the consummation
of the age.
Here the One Mediator speaks in the fulness of His
Mediatorial Power ; exercising, in a great authoritative
act, that plenary sovereignty as Prophet, Priest, and
King, wherewith He was now, since His glorification
through His Passion, solemnly invested in His In-

vii.] Final Charge to the Apostles at Bethany. 335
carnate Nature ; revealing, once for all, decisively and
distinctly, His relation to the Father, as One with Him
in Essential Deity; and, further, disclosing the distinct,
but equally Divine, Personality of the Holy Spirit,
through the gift of Whom to His Church His own
continual Presence with them was to be for ever as
sured, giving His own authority to their acts, sacra
mental and otherwise, done in His Name.
162. With this charge, given to the disciples in
general, must be compared the final charge, given to
the Apostles at Bethany, before the Ascension. The
record of this is preserved in the closing verses of St.
Mark and of St. Luke's Gospel, and in the first
chapter of the Acts of the Apostles (vv. 4-8). It is
noticeable, first, for the universal sweep of its com
mission, Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel
to every creature ; Secondly, for its authoritative declara
tion of the terms of salvation, He that believeth and is
baptized shall be saved, and its equally authoritative de
nunciation of the consequence of rejecting the preached
and offered Gospel, He that disbelieveth shall be con
demned ; and, Thirdly, for its promise of the miraculous
powers over various forms of evil, bodily and spiritual,
and of speaking with new tongues, which should ac
company and attest the first proclamation of the Gospel.
The promise of the great Gift of the Father was re
newed, and they were commanded to tarry in the city
of Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on
high (St. Luke xxiv. 49).
163. And so, from the summit of the Mount of
Olives, when He had said these things, as they were

336 The Ascension into Heaven. [lect.
looking, while He blessed them, He parted from them,
and was carried up into heaven, and a cloud received
Him out of their sight (St. Luke xxiv. 5 1 ; Acts i. 9), and
He was received up into Heaven, and sat on the right
hand of God (St. Mark xvi. 19).
Then was the language of the Twenty-fourth Psalm
fulfilled—
'Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates;
And be ye lift u/p ye everlasting doors;
And the King of Glory shall come in.
Who is this King of Glory ?
T/ie Lord strong and mighty;
The Lord mighty in battle,
Even the Lord of Hosts, He is the King of Glory.'
Then also was fulfilled the typical ministration of the
great Day of Atonement. The great High Priest, the
true Aaron, the One Mediator, now passed through the
heavens (Heb. iv. 14), and entered within the veil into
the true Sanctuary of the Universe, the very Presence
of the Invisible Eternal God, having obtained eternal
Redemption for us (Heb. ix. 1 2). Then the great Sacri
fice, once made in the Upper Chamber and upon the
Cross, was offered, presented, pleaded, before the im
mediate Presence of the Father, an offering and a
sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour (Eph. v. 2) ;
perfectly and for ever, in its continual presentation,
through the continued Presence in Heaven of the Lamb
as it had been slain (Rev. v. 6), reconciling Heaven and
earth, and uniting them in one; in one Communion,
one Church, one Family, with one life and one worship,
one service and one work.

vii. J Distinction of' natural ' & ' spiritual ' Mediation. 337
164. At this point it becomes necessary to direct
our attention afresh to the distinction between the
functions of natural and of spiritual Mediation as both
exercised by the One Mediator ; a distinction identical
with that between Nature and Grace, as commonly
understood among Christians. The natural life of all
that lives owes, as we have seen, its origin and main
tenance to the instrumentality of the Eternal Son,
through Whom the Creative fiat of the Godhead passes
forth into actual external realization. But, in beings
endowed with a moral and spiritual nature, angels or
men, there is a deeper inner life, of the will and of
the affections. This is their spiritual life, the life of
grace. Of this also the Son of God is the Mediator.
Whatever spiritual life, in its varied forms and degrees,
reaches any, it is ever and only the presence and
action, within heart and soul, of the Holy Spirit of
God, ever and only given through the One Mediator.
The all-inclusive loss of the fall of man was the with
drawal of this life. Sin is contradictory to it. The
wages of sin is death, first, in the spirit, and in the
higher life of man ; then in the body and the lower,
the natural, life. The great work of the Redeemer was
the recovery of this higher life for man. Its first
necessary part was the removal of sin, its next a New
Creation, a Regeneration, of human nature. This was
the great work of Christ's spiritual Mediation. Fore
shadowed and prepared for by lesser exercises of the
same gracious function through a long series of ages,
it could only be fully achieved on His actual Incarna
tion. He must become one of us, though without sin,
z

338 The Gift of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost, [lect.
in order that He might be the Second Adam, the new
Head and Centre of the New Creation, the Father of
the world to come. And, since sin had entered in, He
must vanquish sin and its author in our nature ; though
it were only through His own voluntary submission
to the law of sin and suffering and death that He
could destroy him that had the power of death (Heb.
ii. 14).
165. This great work was now completely effected.
Already, as we have seen, on the very day of His
Resurrection, with loving eager haste, the Saviour
began to apply its restorative powers to those whose
faith in Himself rendered them capable of such restora
tion. Yet was this, for the present, only by way of
preliminary pledge and foretaste. His entrance into
the true Holy of Holies, there to appear in the Presence
of God for us, and His enthronement as King in the
Kingdom of God, must precede the full restoration of
the great Gift of the Holy Spirit of God, man's true,
man's highest life. For that great result, that crown
ing blessing, was to be at once the fruit of the all-pre
vailing Intercession of the Great High Priest in the
true, the Heavenly Sanctuary, and the bounteous gift,
the gracious royal largess, of the Risen and Ascended
King. It came at Pentecost on the united assembled
praying Church, which was then, according to the
Baptist's prophecy (St. Matt. iii. 11), baptized with the
Holy Ghost and with fire. Then was the Body of the
Christ fully born into its new regenerate life, the life
of the new, the spiritual creation, the life of living
membership in Him, as to body, soul, and spirit, the

vii.] was the Sacramental Gift of Life from Christ, 339
life of organic union with the Christ, and, in Him and
through Him, with God.
The manner of the bestowal of the gift was essen
tially sacramental. It was accompanied by the double
outward sign, the rushing mighty wind, betokening the
power of the Spirit in the Church as a collective whole,
and the divided tongues like as of fire, resting upon each
one of them, betokening His living influence in and
upon each severally. In that all-inclusive gift were
germinally contained all the powers and forces, all the
gifts and graces needed for the full development of the
Body Mystical of the Christ. It was the conclusive
token of accepted Atonement ; it was the pledge of
full and complete Reconciliation, of Peace, of Sonship ;
for it was the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba,
Father (Rom. viii. 15). It made those who received it
sons of God (St. John i. 12), uniting them to the Eternal
Son, their Head. It was Life in Christ, Who thereby
became the true inner life of His Church and of each
member thereof (Col. iii. 3, 4). It was a life which
should grow and strengthen, in both its forms, the in
dividual and the corporate, in the original Church, the
then Body of the Christ (1 Cor. xii.), which first re
ceived it; and in the thenceforward growing and ex
panding Church, as it spread itself, like leaven,
through the mass of unregenerate human nature, by
the continual admission, on Faith, Repentance, and
Baptism, of new members, like those three thou
sand, the first-fruits of Christian preaching, in whose
favour the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven were
first used on the Day of Pentecost itself, and who
z 2

340 and the beginning of the Church's life. [lect.
were the earnest of the great harvest that was to
follow. The record of its earliest growth is contained in the
Book of the Acts of the Apostles and in the Apostolic
Epistles. In these documents we have, preserved for
all time, the history of the first manifestation of Chris
tianity in the world ; of the first exhibition of its
principles, moral and social ; and of the development
of the constitution and working of the Catholic Church,
according to the principles imparted by its Divine
Founder to its first officers and members. What we
find in the latter half of the volume of the New Testa
ment, from the Acts onwards, are not detailed instruc
tions, nor precise rules and laws; but the concrete
historic exhibition, in actual life and work, of certain
great principles of order and of conduct, together with
the record — and this is a specially precious feature of
the form which the literary monuments of original
Christianity providentially took — the record of certain
typical specimen cases, which remain as examples of
the application of the principles which the Teaching
and Spirit of the great Head had lodged within His
Church, to be developed for its guidance and govern
ance as occasion arose.
1 66. It seems demonstrable that the great Gift of
Pentecost was, like the sacramental inbreathing of the
Paschal night, bestowed not on the Twelve Apostles
only, but on the larger body of the believing disciples in
general then present in Jerusalem ; on the then Body
of Christ, in fact, together with its already developed
organs and duly authorized and acknowledged execu-

vii.] Action of the Apostolic Ministry. 341
tive officers, of whom Saint Peter was first (Appendix,
Note 10). For the present, and for immediate needs,
those organs, those officers, were the Twelve alone ; the
Twelve as one, with St. Peter their mouthpiece. Thus
when the first converts from the outside world put
their first question to the Church, Men and brethren,
what shall we do f it was to Peter and the rest of the
Apostles ; and Peter answered them. In the College
of the Apostles were then stored up and contained all
the needful powers and resources, for Teaching and
for Government, of the Christian Ministry.
Teaching and government were their work ; but their
inherent powers for that work were to be exercised,
even during the early years of their united residence
at the original centre, Jerusalem, according to a due and
orderly and already divinely-provided course ; of which
order the primacy of Saint Peter was the guarantee and
representative. And for the minor and subordinate
exercise, in lesser defined departments or localities, of
parts of that work, (which in its entirety was theirs,
and for which they were responsible in chief,) they were
empowered to provide, and did provide, as occasion
arose. It is even probable that on the very day of
Pentecost itself the principle of delegation came already
into use, and that the Apostles, exactly as their Lord
Himself had done (St. John iv. 1, 2), either in whole or
in part, baptized the ' three thousand by the hands of
others deputed to the task. In the general body of
the original believers, small as it then was, there would
still be those differences of age, position, character, and
aptitudes, which would obviously mark out some

342 Ideal life of the first Christian Church, [lect.
rather than others for subordinate duties under Apo
stolic direction. One such distinction (we can hardly
doubt) would be the circumstance of having been, by
the Lord's own call, one of the Seventy. Another might
well be the belonging to the family of the Lord Him
self, or to a priestly family.
167. The beautiful picture of the First Church, con
tained in the opening chapters of the Acts of the
Apostles (see especially the latter verses of chapters ii.
and iv.), has an undying attraction for us. It is the Ideal
of what the Church of Christ, the Kingdom of God on
earth, should be ; in itself, and as a power for good in
the world. Peace and unity, brotherly love and self-
obliterating helpful service, joyful thanksgiving wor
ship, and holy high communion with God, a simple
and gladsome social life one with another — these are
its plain and striking features. They are exactly what
the life of man ought to be, as lived in the great
thought of the central fact of the Resurrection, in itself
so wondrous a revelation of the higher, the eternal life
for which man was made ; and which was now re-opened
to him, and, in the power and force of the Pentecostal
gift, placed within his reach, now and for ever.
Thus a new, a supernatural force and agency, lodged
in the Catholic Church as its organ and instrument,
was now planted in the midst of the hostile world, for
its recovery to God. What should ideally, had the
ancient Israel been faithful, have come by continuous
and peaceful development without a break, must now
call out an intenser opposition to God, to His Purpose,
and to His Method. It must be seen that, in the

vii.] opposed by the unbelieving world. 343
result, He, who was essentially the Prince of Peace,
and the Ambassador of Peace, had come not to send
peace on earth, but a sword. The settled and matured
hostility to Jesus on the part of the classes who de
termined the attitude and action of the Jewish nation,
sealed irremediably as it had been by the murder of the
Messiah, must necessarily extend itself to His Church.
The breach declared from the moment when they rejected
Him and His Kingdom, in the fatal words, We have no
king but Caesar, could only grow wider until it ended
in their downfall and destruction. The gift, a palpable
gift which they both saw and heard, which He shed
forth, according to ancient prophecy and to His own
more recent promises, was the proof at once of His
Resurrection and of His Ascension and Enthronement.
It was the sure pledge that He Who had gone away
into afar country had now received for Himself a King
dom ; and was now by the Right Hand of God exalted as
Prince and Saviour, as both Lord and Christ (Acts ii. 36),
as Lord of all (x. 36). And it was also the proof that,
having received for Himself His Kingdom, He would
return in power and majesty, coming in the clouds of
Heaven, and that ere that then living generation should
pass away, for the judgment of the apostate Church.
168. Meantime, throughout the whole of that genera
tion, by the space of forty years, there was to be a
respite of grace. The offer of mercy was to be specially
made to the Jews, both of Palestine and of the Dis
persion, and to them first, ere the Mediator should be
come the Judge. Unto them first God, having raised
up His Son Jesus, sent Him to bless them in turning

344 Three Manifestations of the Ascended Christ, [lect.
away every one of them from his iniquities (Acts iii. 26),
and offering them, no longer as a Nation, but one by
one, a home among the true Israel of God, a citizen
ship in the New Jerusalem. The record of this work,
and of the announcement of the Gospel throughout the
world and the opening of the New Covenant to the
Gentiles, is preserved in the inspired literature of the
New Testament. It was a work of difficulty, of suffer
ing, of martyrdom. Hence three special manifestations
of the risen and ascended Christ, the now Incarnate
Son of God, in His glorified humanity, are recorded.
169. These manifestations recall, and are to be con
sidered in a line with, those appearances, in human or
angelic form, under the Old Covenant, which, as prepa
ratory to the Incarnation, we considered in Lecture IV,
and, like them, they occur on special and critical occa
sions. Their character is thus marked as unusual ; as
not belonging to the normal manifestation of Christ
through the Holy Spirit in and to His Church. The
first of these was that to St. Stephen, immediately
before his martyrdom. In his trial before the Council
the two now opposing influences met face to face ; the
official Jewish Church, apostate, rejected, and already
doomed, in its resistance to the Holy Ghost; the
Christian Church, full of the Holy Ghost, and of faith
in Jesus as the Messiah. He Who had said, Lo, I am
with you all the days, was not wanting to His faithful
witness at that supreme moment. Stephen, the first
to die for the Faith of Christ, looked up steadfastly to
heaven, saw the Shekinah-glory, and Jesus standing on
the right hand of God, and said, Behold, I see the heavens

vii.] The Date of the Apocalypse. 345
opened, and the Son of Man standing on the right hand of
God. In intimate connection with this was the second
manifestation of the ascended Jesus to Saul the persecut
ing zealot, who had stood by, consenting to the murder
of Saint Stephen. It forced open his closed heart to the
overpowering conviction that the despised Jesus, Whom
in His followers he persecuted, was indeed the Lord.
It converted him into Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles,
the chosen vessel to carrv that Name which he had
hated before the Gentiles and kings and the children of
Israel (Acts ix. 1 5). The third manifestation was that
vouchsafed to the beloved exile of Patmos, the com
panion and partaker with the then much- suffering
Church in the tribulation and Kingdom and patience
which are in Jesus (Rev. i. 9). Again, the gracious and
encouraging Revelation of Him Who, in His unseen
glory is the Prince of the kings of the earth (Rev. i. 5),
as well as the Head and Lord, -the Guide and Governour
and Protector of His Church, was sorely needed. Once
made, it serves for her assured support and comfort
through all time until He shall come again.
170. It is no part of our present task to discuss the
questions of the date, and consequent true primary
reference, of the Apocalypse. It must suffice to say
here that the study of it led me long since to the con
viction that its date lies within three years or less of
the catastrophe of the Jewish War and of the downfall
of Jerusalem. The time was one of great excitement
among the Jews ; not in the Holy Land only, but
throughout the world. It was, consequently, a time
of great trial for the Christian communities every-

346 The Jewish believers were especially [lect.
where. They were exposed to the combined hostility, at
once, of the unbelieving Jews, and of the Gentile powers,
who ignorantly confounded them with the everywhere
detested Jews, and hated them accordingly1. The
Christians of Jewish race would, for obvious reasons,
be likely to suffer most from both these quarters ; and
many might well, under their circumstances of fearful
trial, be tempted to apostatize. Their still remaining
1 The few years immediately preceding the Destruction of Jerusalem
by Titus were in fact, and that in an increasing degree year after year,
the time of that dXtyis p.eyakri (the Great Tribulation, the Tribulation
of these days) which was so specifically foretold in the Olivet Pro
phecy [St. Matt. xxiv. 9, 21, 29); of which, as a necessary antecedent
condition of the incoming of the Kingdom of God, the Apostles fore
warned their converts (Acts xiv. 22 ; 1 Cor. vii. 28); which had become,
before the date of the Epistle to the Hebrews, a very present fact
(Heb. -a. 32-34); which St. John shared in, with the rest {Rev. i. 9),
and out of which the souls of the martyrs passed into the Presence of
the Lamb (Rev. vii. 14). It seems to have coincided with, or at least
to have fallen within, that period during which the Devil, who had
previously been the Prince of this World (St. John xii. 31) and had,
especially through the agency of idolatrous religion, deceived the whole
world, i. e. especially the Gentiles (Rev. xii. 9 ; xx. 3, 8 : 1 Cor. x. 30),
was cast out into the earth (Rev. xii. 9 ; compare St. Luke x. 18;
St. John xii. 31), and so had great wrath, because lie knew that he had
but a short time (Rev. xii. 12) before the mystery of God should be
finished (x. 6, 7), and vented that great wrath in persecuting the woman
(the faithful Church, the true Israel) which brought forth the man
child, and in going to war with the remnant of her seed, which kept the
commandments of God, and held fast the testimony of Jesus Christ
(xii. 13, 17). The short time was closed by the millennial binding of
Satan, consequent upon that coming of Christ in His Kingdom which
was signalized outwardly by the fall of apostate Jerusalem, and the
presence of which Kingdom on earth, in the Catholic Church of the
Times of the Gentiles, marks and guarantees the temporary abeyance
of the full power of the imprisoned deceiver.

vii.] persecuted by their own unbelieving 347
strong attachment to their own ancient system, and
their intense national pride in their beautiful capital,
and their great Temple with its stately worship — feel
ings which, in their case, could not possibly escape the
contagion of the special excitement then prevalent
among their brethren — would tend (it can hardly be
doubted) to increase the force of that temptation. The
whole system in which they had grown up, round
which their deepest affections had entwined themselves,
and which had necessarily left so deep a mark upon
them, was plainly threatened with destruction. The
very thought of its passing away had almost driven
their race to madness. That such should be the end
of their excited expectation of a Messiah Who should
be, in their worldly sense, the Prince of the kings of
the earth, and should not only deliver them from their
subjection to Rome, but place them in a position of
supremacy in the world, was to the Jews an intoler
able thought. The Christian Jews would know of the
ominous predictions which the first, the more specially
Hebrew, Gospel has preserved, in the record of Christ's
great Prophecy on Olivet, and of the words of Christ
to Caiaphas. And not the Christian Jews only. We
cannot doubt that that answer to Caiaphas was care
fully treasured up against Christ and His Cause in the
memories of non-Christian Jews ; and they might well
have gained a knowledge of the Olivet discourse also
from Christian relatives. The presence of this know
ledge, and the consequent passionate feeling it would
naturally generate, is very clearly indicated in the
testimony of the suborned false witnesses against Saint

348 countrymen, as well as by the Heathen, [lect.
Stephen (Acts vi. 13), This man ceaseth not to speak
blasphemous icords against this Holy Place and the Law :
for we have heard him say, that this Jesus of Nazareth
shall destroy this place, and shall change the customs
which Moses delivered us. It is not difficult to imagine
the bitterness and violence of the feelings which would
be thus aroused in the minds of the still unbelieving
Jews against their Christian countrymen ; nor the in
tensity of the pressure, moral and otherwise, to which
these would be subjected in consequence. Nor can we
wonder that, under such circumstances, the thought
should have come back again, to the minds of some at
least among them, Can it be, after all, that Jesus is
what Christians maintain He is 1 They knew that God
spake to Moses (St. John ix. 29). They knew that the
ancient and venerable religion of their race rested on
the acknowledged foundation of a great historic revela
tion. Was it really necessary to acquiesce in the belief
that all its outward and visible splendour must pass
away for ever, and be as if it had never been 1 Was
the Christian allegation true, that its real inward
essence was imperishably secured in the Work and in
the Church of Christ ? Could it be that the humble
Christian Church of those days, the sect that was
everywhere spoken against, was to be, and that ex
clusively, what it should all end in 1 Putting ourselves
into the position of that first generation of Hebrew
believers, we may well imagine their difficulties, their
sore temptations. That the Church survived and
triumphed notwithstanding such difficulties, not to
speak of others which, like these, were peculiar to that

vii.] The Apocalypse is an expanded 349
time, is one among the many sure proofs of her super
natural origin. It was to meet such difficulties, and to
strengthen them against such strong, subtle, and plau
sible temptations, that the Epistle to the Hebrews was,
very evidently, written; to arm them beforehand at
once against the growing intensity of the special per
secution they had already begun to suffer from, and
against the heavy blow, now imminent, of the visible
downfall of that system which, to the insight at least
of spiritually-minded Christians, had long been decay
ing and waxing old, and was ready to vanish away
(Heb. viii. 13) 1.
171. With the same state of things fit in the mes
sages and the revelation of the Apocalypse, the date
of which its style and language combine with other
considerations to place as early as I have indicated.
It were strange indeed, were it possible, that of the
four Evangelists the one who alone is named among the
small group of the four actual listeners to the discourse
on Olivet (see St. Mark xiii. 3) should have left no
record of it ; especially since it is he who gives such
prominence in his Gospel to our Lord's controversy
with Jewish unbelief. But if we suppose the Apoca
lypse to be a special fuller revelation on the same sub
jects as occupy the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth
chapters of Saint Matthew's Gospel and the parallel
passages in the other Synoptics ; to be, as it were, a
fuller form, an expansion, on a larger canvas, of the
1 Compare also the Epistle of St. James, the Bishop of Jerusalem,
written under the same general circumstances, at a somewhat earlier
date ; observing especially i. 2, 3, 12 ; ii. 6, 7 ; v. 2, 7-1 1.

35° form of Christ's Prophecy on Olivet ; [lect.
solemn prophecy to which Peter and James and John
and Andrew had listened as they sat with Jesus, on that
last Tuesday evening, on the slopes of Olivet, facing
the setting sun, with the doomed city and its glorious
Temple lying full in their beauty at their feet, such
difficulty is removed.
The downfall has proved so great, so terrible, so
complete, the period it closed has so completely passed
away, that later generations have failed sufficiently to
estimate either the grandeur and the glory of the Jeru
salem of that day, and of the system of which it was the
visible centre and representative, or the very peculiar
and critical character of the whole epoch. Hence has
arisen a failure to perceive the true primary bearing
alike of the Olivet discourse and of the Apocalypse ;
and a sort of feeling that the language is too grand
and high-flown for such an application. But this latter
difficulty in the way of a truer view arises in great
measure from a too literal habit of mind in estimating
the symbolical, and consequently, (as it seems to the
more prosaic Western mind,) the hyperbolical character
of the language and imagery of prophetic Scripture.
Looking closely at the twenty-fourth chapter of Saint
Matthew, we discern a clear line between the first and
the second portions of the great prophecy. Surely our
Lord Himself has given us the key to the primary ap
plication of the first portion. It lies in His words, as
reported, with all but verbal identity, by the three Sv-
noptics (St. Matt. xxiv. 34 ; St. Mark xiii. 30 ; St. Luke
xxi. 32), Verily, I say unto you, this generation shall not
pass away till all these things be fulfilled. For one primary

vii.] both refer to the Comings of Christ. 351
and very practical purpose of the prophecy was to
warn beforehand those whom it would actually closely
concern ; in order that, when the time came, they
might secure their safety by flight; as we know the
Christians of Jerusalem did. But after these words the
discourse changes its character. It passes into a general
warning to all Christians, and especially (St. Matt. xxiv.
45) to the clergy, of the necessity of watchful readiness
for that later, and greater, coming of the Son of Man to
Judgment, of which the Visitation on Jerusalem was a
type. In this second portion, in marked contrast to the
assurance that the former portion would be fulfilled
within that generation, we find clear indications of the
lapse of an indefinitely long time. They lie in the phrase
while the Bridegroom tarried (yjooi>/£oi'to?) and in the
Lord's return (in the Parable of the Talents, St. Matt.
xxv. 19), after a long time. Distinct again from this
portion is the solemn description of the final Judge
ment of the Gentile world (iravra ra eOvt]) with which
the discourse closes, and which is without any note of
time, further than what is implied in its position as fol
lowing the Parables of the Virgins and of the Talents.
But the decisive character of the break after verse 34
is clearly marked ; for the next words carry us on from
the fall of Jerusalem to the final Consummation.
The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but My
words shall not pass away. But of that day and hour,
i. e. in which the heaven and the earth shall pass away,
knoweth not any, no, not the angels of heaven, but My
Father only.
The parallel place in Saint Mark has here the re-

3 5 2 Time of the still future Coming not revealed, [lect.
markable addition, Neither the Son. This gives still
greater point to the sharp contrast of the uncertainty
(humanly speaking) of the time of the great future
and final Consummation of the Age to come (the
Christian Dispensation, then only beginning), with the
express declaration of the Son that the close of the
then Age, the Jewish Dispensation, would certainly
be seen by men then living. The difference of the
two statements is also further marked by their close
and immediate juxtaposition. The addition ovSe 6
vtos (neither the Son) perhaps only expresses what is
really implied in the /movos (only) of « fr\ 6 varijp nov
/uoVo? (but My Father only). The Lord's saying, re
corded in Acts i. 7, should be compared in this con
nection ; — It is not for you to know times or seasons,
which the Father set in his own power. The knowledge
of the doom of Israel, after its long history, was
appropriate even to the human nature of Him Whom
it closely concerned as the King of the Jews, and Whose
sentence, in fact, it was. The future consummation of
the Christian Age (alwv) of the times of the Gentiles,
then only beginning, was a mystery upon which, just
because it was only beginning (or, biblically speaking,
only to begin on the downfall of Jerusalem), no light
was as yet vouchsafed to any created intellect. The
issues of our dispensation lay in the free-will of man
to the action of which it was subjected, as well in the
offer of the Gospel as in the commission, and com
mand, to spread it. How many, and whom, out of the
world, the Father should give to the Son, was, together
with the relation of man's free-will to such act of

vii.] The first Coming to Judgment not unexpected; 353
gift, an impenetrable secret and mystery, hid in the
Absolute and Sovereign Will of the Eternal Father;
not revealed, at the time Christ spoke on earth, to the
human mind of even the Eternal Son. And there was
no experience light as yet, at that date, upon it. The
attitude of the rulers of the Jews was, indeed, already
fatally determined, and their doom thereby sealed.
But the attitude of the Jews of the dispersion was
(perhaps) not yet so ascertained at the time our Lord's
words were spoken, and upon that attitude much
depended. It was otherwise thirty or thirty-five years
later, as we know from the later Epistles of the New
Testament, and from the Apocalypse. Hence (it would
seem) the greater fulness (as compared with the Olivet
Discourse) of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God
gave unto Him, and which He sent and signified by His
angel unto His servant John (Rev. i. 1) to testify unto
the then Christians these things in the Churches (xxii.
16). They were then things which must shortly come to
pass (i. 1). Upon them was to follow the Millennial
period ; a long, but wholly indefinite, period, to be
closed by the General Resurrection and Judgment;
but that at a day and hour of which the inspired
volume gives absolutely no indication whatever. It
only intimates that it will be, to the generation on
whom it comes, awfully sudden and unexpected ; prob
ably because of their unbelief and consequent mere
worldliness. The catastrophes that came upon the
world a.d. 67 to 70, were not unexpected; and the
men of that time were not altogether, like the con
temporaries of Noah, absorbed in worldly business and
A a

354 after it the present ' Millennial' Period, [lect.
enjoyment. On the contrary, there was distress of
nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for
fear, and for looking after those things which were
coming on the earth (St. Luke xxi. 25). This again is
an indication that, from the words ' Heaven and earth
shall pass away ' to the close of the Olivet Discourse
the reference is to things that are now still future.
It is very observable that there is a parallel break and
change of subject in the Apocalypse ; through which,
from the fourth chapter onwards, we trace a general
analogy, though on a greatly enlarged scale, to the
Prophecy on Olivet. The doomed city is the same in
both. The once faithful city had become an harlot
(Isaiah i. 21), a Babylon, not a Jerusalem, a 'city of
confusion,' not a ' Vision of Peace ' ( Appendix, note 11).
The Elect Church was to be delivered from her hatred,
and placed beyond reach of the misery of her downfall,
the description of which is completed in the eighteenth
chapter. Then it is announced (xix. 7) that ' the Mar
riage of the Lamb is come,' and we are reminded of the
Parable of the Ten Virgins in the Olivet Prophecy
(St. Matt, xxv), and the imagery there employed. After
this follows (Rev. xx) the Millennial period, which,
according to the most reasonable and probable interpre
tation, seems to answer generally to the present actual
dispensation (see Lecture VIII and Appendix, note 12);
and then, with manifest reference to Christ's own words
in Saint Matthew, the Seer exclaims (xx. n), And I
saw a great white throne (the "throne of His glory")
and Him that sat on it, before whose face the earth and
the heaven fled away : and there was no place found for

vtl] Secondary ' applications' of Prophecy 355
them. And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before
God  And I saw (xxi. 1) a new heaven and a
new earth : for the first heaven and the first earth were
passed away.
172. In offering this comparatively simple solution
of a problem on which, through long ages, volumes
have been written, with the general result only of
making confusion worse confounded, and, in some in
stances, of bringing contempt and ridicule on a deeply
interesting and solemn subject, and even on Biblical
Exegesis generally, it is necessary to say that it deals
only with the original primary and immediate reference
at once of the Apocalypse — as a revelation, shortly
before the event, of the coming downfall of Judaism,
and of Jerusalem, its centre — and of the corresponding
portion of the Saviour's eschatological discourse. Of the
Revelation, chapters four to nineteen inclusive, the ' Pre-
terist ' view seems the true view. But it is the nature
and characteristic of New Testament, as it is of Old
Testament, Prophecy, to have, beyond its primary, and
(so to say) intended, reference, beyond the immediate
historic fulfilment which was consciously anticipated
by the prophet himself, the capability of further ' appli
cations 'by way of analogy; and so of further fulfil
ments, it may be of varied scales of magnitude — but
always proportional — under parallel circumstances of
the Church and of the world, or of portions of either.
This truth is indeed only a higher way of saying that
' History repeats itself,' i. e. that human affairs are not
the sport of chance, that they are under a moral govern
ment, and that a uniform one, under which like causes
A a 2

356 in later History, religious and secular, [lect.
produce like effects. The immediate historic occasions
and fulfilments of Bible Prophecy may be said, with
the exceptions of such clearly marked portions as point
without question and by the very nature of the case to
the still future end of all things, to lie wholly within
the Bible itself. But being, as they are, striking
examples and specimen cases of the method of the
Divine Government, and of the principles on which
that Government is administered, they have a second
ary and typical reference — and that a divinely intended
reference — of the most instructive and important kind,
to later events, persons, and circumstances, of a similar
character. And to this analogical reference we can
place no limit, since it depends only on the recurrence
of an analogous condition of things.
The second and final downfall of the earthly
Jerusalem, itself foreshadowed by the first, and in
cluded .together with the first in the vista of such
prophecies as Leviticus xxvi. and Deuteronomy xxviii.
foreshadows, for all time, the doom of a faithless and
apostate Church wheresoever found. This permanent
applicability of inspired prophecy, and of the exem
plar cases of the Mediator's Government of His Church
recorded in the Bible history, is but the analogue in
the spiritual sphere, in the religious life of man, of
what we may also observe in the natural sphere of
man's earthly, civil, and social life. God's dealings
with Egypt, with Nineveh, with Tyre, with the
earthly Babylon, themselves the subjects of fore
warning prophecy, are again but patterns and ex
amples of His dealing with other nations and cities

vii.] Examples of this, in the case 357
under like circumstances, and so far as they are like.
As it was with Sodom and Gomorrah, so it was with
Herculaneum and Pompeii. As it was with the literal
Babylon, so with pagan Rome. As with Tyre and
Egypt, so, in their secular and political aspect, has it
been — though in lighter measure, because of the
Christian remnant within them — with Venice, with
Constantinople, with Spain, and with Holland.
173. In the Christian Church it may be that, in the
latter days, the falling-away (aTvoo-racria, apostasia) of
which Saint Paul speaks (2 Thess. ii) may bring about
an awful parallel to the last days of Jerusalem ; and
the fearful language of the Apocalypse may receive
its final illustration in the case of once Christian
nations into whose empty house, once guarded by faith,
the evil spirit, which had been exorcised by Christ,
has returned, bringing with him seven other spirits more
wicked than himself, and so making their last state
worse than their first (St. Matt. xii. 43-45) 1. Meantime,
the history of the once flourishing Churches of the
East, of Asia Minor, and of North Africa, and, more
1 These words were indeed uttered with express reference to the
then existing generation; as is clear from (1) the connection (which
see) in which St. Matthew records them, and (2) from the closing sen
tence which he, the Hebrew Evangelist, preserves, Even so shall it be
also unto this wicked generation. St. Luke, in the parallel passage
(xi. 24-26), introduces the saying about the unclean spirit without its
introductory connection with the wickedness of that evil and adulterous
generation of Jews, and without the closing sentence above quoted. Do
these omissions in the Gentile Gospel — this abstinence from pointing
the saying directly at the then living generation of Jews — contain
a hint that the saying may be analogously true in Gentile Churches
1?

358 of Nations and of Churches.
strikingly still of Alexandria, of Constantinople, or,
nearer home, of mediaeval Scotland1, may furnish
examples, in varied measure, of historic parallel to the
downfall of Jerusalem, and of the judicial action of
Him Who was seen walking in the midst of the seven
golden candlesticks, and Who, in the messages to the
seven Churches, has indicated, for all time, the prin
ciples of His dealing with those who bear His Name,
and are set to do His work in His kingdom of heaven
upon earth.
1 It has been estimated that in mediaeval times the Catholic Church
owned one-third of the soil of the kingdom of Scotland.

LECTURE Till.
THE WORK OP THE MEDIATOR AFTER
THE ASCENSION.
Hebrews xii. 22. 'AXXa Trpoo-e\r]Xv6a.Te 2i&)z> opei koI iroXei ©eov
(&vtos, lepovoaXrjfj. eitovpavlu), Kai p.vpiacriv ayyeXuiv, -navqyvpei
icat, eKKXnaiq nputTOTOKUtv ev ovpavols a-noyeypap.ixevuiv, Kai Kpirrj
©«o ttovtoov, km. TTvev/xaai biKaCwv TereKeia>p.iva>v, Kai hiaOrjKrj's
veas p-ecrirrj 'Iijcroi?. (But ye are come unto mount Sion, and
unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem,
and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general
assembly and Church of the firstborn, which are enrolled
in Heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits
of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the
New Covenant.)
174. The judgment upon the Jewish Church, de
cisively and visibly marked by the destruction of the
old Jerusalem, the mystical Babylon, inaugurated as
decisively the times of the Gentiles, and launched the
Catholic Church on its wonderful career. The Gentiles
which followed not after righteousness attained to right
eousness, even the righteousness which is of faith, accept
ing Him as Lord and King Who had been to Israel a
stone of stumbling and a rock of offence, but Who, fall
ing upon them in awful judgment, had ground them, as a
nation and a polity, to powder. Only the election, now
merged in the true, the spiritual, Israel of God, had
obtained that which had been the great end of their
Church and nation, the reason for its existence. The

360 The temporary rejection of the ancient Israel, [lect.
rest were blinded; cast away, like branches broken off
God's good olive tree, into whose place the Gentiles
were grafted in. So, in that wonderful Providence
of God, the thought of which, with its ever mingled
mercy and judgment, drew from Saint Paul the burst
of adoring amazement which closes the eleventh
chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, all the sub
sequent generations of the Jewish race, themselves not
partakers in the sin of their fathers, have been born
into that condition of inherited unbelief, of invincible
ignorance, and (humanly speaking) inevitable blind
ness, in which, for this age, God hath shut them all up
together, in order that, in some way known unto Him
self, He may have mercy upon all.
175. Satan, who, as a strong man armed, had reigned
as king, nay more, as the god of this world, over the
Gentile races in the days of their ignorance, was now
dethroned. A stronger than he had come upon Him,
and met him on his own ground, the world of man,
which he had invaded, and over which he had usurped
authority. Even in the preliminary stage of His re
deeming work the Christ, speaking with reference to
the subjection of the demons to His delegated repre
sentatives acting in His Name, had said, I beheld Satan
as lightning fall from Heaven (St. Luke x. 1 8). Later,
as the great crisis drew on, He had said, on the third
occasion when the Father's Voice was heard from
Heaven (St. John xii. 23, &c), Now is the judgment of
this world ; now shall the prince of this world be cast
out. And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw
all men toward Myself. And later yet, in the final

viii.] The Binding of Satan. 361
discourses that followed the great self-oblation- of the
upper chamber, He said, projecting His and the
Apostles' thoughts onward to the time after Pentecost,
The Paraclete shall convince the world about judgment,
because the prince of this world hath been judged. At
last, A stronger than he had come upon him, and had
overcome him, and taken from him all his armour
wherein he trusted, and divided his spoils. The king
most mighty of the forty-fifth Psalm had girt His sword
upon His thigh, and in His Majesty had begun to ride
on prosperously on behalf of truth and meekness and
righteousness. The rider on the white horse of the
Apocalypse was gone forth conquering and to conquer.
The Kingdom of God had come upon the earth
(St. Luke xi. 20). That work of recovery had begun,
the ultimate result of which should be that the
kingdoms of the world -should, fully and for ever, become
the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ (Rev. xi.
15, 16). Thus the Millennial Period of the Apocalypse
was opened by the binding of Satan, the great ad
versary, the secret animating spirit of the rival world-
power (see Rev. xiii. 2, 4). His action was restrained ;
so that wherever the Kingdom of God came, and with
it the new spiritual forces, the powers of the age long
looked for, but now come (Heb. ii. 5 ; vi. 5 ; ix. 9), he should
deceive the Gentiles no more, till the thousand years
should be fulfilled (Rev. xx. 2, 3). Thenceforward, from
the definite setting up of Christ's Kingdom, even on
earth and amid the circumstances of this mortal life of
man, within the now world-wide Church of Christ, as
within a charmed circle held for Him by the God-

362 The Reign of Christ, [lect.
inspired, God-supported, faith and devotion of His
believing people militant in the power of His Name,
not Satan, but the Crucified, is King. Much more does
He reign in and for the Church at rest in that
Paradise within the veil ; wherein are stored, their
earthly warfare over, the ever-increasing 'majority' of
redeemed souls, who constitute the incomparably larger
portion of the Church which, on earth or within the
veil, is but one Communion of Saints, one Kingdom of
God. Over that Kingdom, from His ascended glory,
where He sits, in our nature, on the throne of the
Universe, at the right hand of God, He reigns, the
One Mediator, the Man Christ Jesus, the Head of
the Church ; and shall reign until He hath put all His
enemies under His feet. Moses with the Elders of
Israel, and afterwards Isaiah and Ezekiel, had seen
Him in His glory under the old dispensation. Once
more the Seer of the Apocalypse beheld Him, now
presented under the expressive symbol of the Lamb,
that is, as the incarnate and once suffering Redeemer,
now associated in equal glory with Him That sat on the
Throne ; and receiving, as within the Triune Godhead,
Which was manifested in Him, the worship of the
Church, of the Angels, and of all Creation (Rev. v) 1.
1 Notwithstanding the distinction between Him That sat on the
throne and the Lamb, I fncbne to think that both are to be understood
of the Son ; the first of the Son in His Eternal and Divine Nature,
as the Creator, the second of the Son as the Eedeemer, as sacrificed
i. e. in His Human Nature. The distinction in Dan. vii. between the
Ancient of Bays and the son of man should perhaps be understood
in the same way (see § 107). Certainly St. John's description of Him
Whom he saw walking amid the seven golden candlesticks recalls Daniel's

viii.] and of His Saints, in and with Him. 363
176. He reigns not alone. To a wondrous present
reality of high spiritual privilege, the pledge and the
earnest of future manifested glory, God, Who is rich in
mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, hath
quickened us also with Christ ; given us the new spiritual
life, in Him and with Him, in the first Resurrection, the
resurrection of the soul to grace ; and so hath raised us
up together with Christ, and made us to sit together with
Him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus (Eph. ii. 4).
His people also, the subjects of His Kingdom, the
members of the Church which is His body, has Christ
made to be kings and priests unto God and His Father
(see Exod. xix. 5, 6 ; Isa. lxi. 6 ; 2 Pet. ii. 5, 9 ; Rev.
i. 6; v. 10; xx. 4), and to live and reign with Him
upon (or over) the earth (iirl tJJj 7J7?), i. e. within the
visible earthly sphere of man's present life1.
How are we to understand words which seem so
great, especially as applied to anything now existing \
Perhaps the following considerations may help us. An
ideal redemption is depicted in the New Testament,
especially in some of the great sayings of Christ — ideal,
but not in the sense, God forbid, of its being unreal,
unattained, impossible ; for, in itself, and as regarded
description of the Ancient of Bays. The words spoken by Him That
sat upon the throne, in Kev. xxL 5, suit perfectly the Son in His divine
Nature. Or, we may understand it of the Triune God, as Isa. vi ; but
with more especial reference to the Son, inasmuch as a visible form,
and that human (see verses 1 and 5), is indicated. See Bp. "Words
worth, ad loc. It should be recollected that the whole description is
symbolical, and the language, as it were, hieroglyphical.
1 The Westminster Revisers of 1881 read in Rev. v. 10 fiao-iXeiovcriv
(they do reign) for ^amXeiaofiev (we shall reign).

364 The Ideal of Salvation in Christ, [lect.
from the point of view of the finished work of Christ,
it is real from the moment of the Pentecostal gift.
To us who are, of God's unspeakable mercy, the sub
jects of it, it is real as far as, at each moment of our
spiritual history, we grasp it with living faith, and
yield ourselves to it and to its influences with answer
ing will. We, in our weakness and littleness of faith,
in our slowness of heart to believe, are straitened in
ourselves, and almost stagger at our own high destiny;
nay, not destiny, for that is future, say rather, at the
greatness of our present joy. According to thy faith
be it unto thee is ever true. As our faith is, so are we.
And we, in a lowering atmosphere of weakly faith,
half-informed and so half-hearted, or even of bold
scoffing unbelief — though that is really less dangerous,
for it rouses and stimulates faith by reaction, and
provokes enquiry, which always, if it be candid,
strengthens faith — we, amid these adverse influences,
too often fail to grasp and to appropriate, and so to
make fruitful within us, the great things our Lord has
done for us, the unspeakable gifts and graces He has
placed within our reach. Yet, for all that, the Ideal
is true. It is before us, above us, around us, within us,
secured for ever and immovable, a kingdom which can
not be shaken, which we, so far as concerns God's gift
to us, God's calling of -us, have received. It may be ours,
if we will ; ours in present conscious joy, ours in future
everlasting, ever-growing, fulness, if we holdfast grace,
whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and
godly fear (see Heb. xii. 18-29). (Appendix, Note 13.)
177. What is this Ideal % How shall we express it \

viii.] the present Gift of Eternal Life, 365
I answer, It is Life in Christ, life moral and spiritual,
life eternal, present and everlasting. Death is the
evil one's great triumph. Death, spiritual, moral,
physical, is his great work as the accursed antagonist
of God, and the slayer, from the beginning, of man made
in God's Image and Likeness. The Son of God, the
One great Mediator of life, natural and spiritual, to all
creation, came in our nature, to destroy the works of the
devil (1 St. John iii. 8) ; to take away the sin of the
world; to give a new life from Himself, the Second
Adam, and that more abundantly, to the race wThich,
without Him, was, and must remain, dead in trespasses
and sins. And the life which He brought to man
was that Life which is in Him; the God-Man, without
measure (St. John iii. 34) ; and which overflows from
Him to us ; even the living energy of the creative
Spirit of God, the Lord, the Life-Giver. The true
conception of the ideal redemption, and of salvation, as
Christ has procured it for us, and offers it to each one
severally whom God's mysterious election has called,
and has brought to the knowledge of Christ in this
life, is that it is Eternal Life. The way to the fuller
and more fruitful grasp and apprehension of that
conception is simply to meditate on the thought of
spiritual, the only real, life, in the light at once of our
own experienced need and of our Father's divine pro
vision for that need in and through Christ our Lord.
So meditating, we begin to see light in His light, by,
first, realizing how real, how intolerable a death is the
state of willing slavery to sin, of estrangement from
God, now, in a fear and hatred which forecast an

366 in the ' First Resurrection', [lect.
eternal separation. So meditating, the inner eye is
opened to spiritual things ; and the ' second sight,'
the spiritual sight, of faith awakes within us. We
realize, with growing consciousness, the realities of
that spiritual world with which we find ourselves, as
Christians, in relation. We grasp Christ and His work
by faith. Justified by faith we have peace with God
through Him. Peace with God — and that, first and
foremost, in the sense of assured and abiding forgive
ness of our sins and conscious acceptance with Him as
His sons in Christ — is our great, our standing necessity.
In Christ we have this peace. Then, further, we feel
the blessedness of our covenant-relatipn as initiated and
sealed, in abiding effect, in the ' One Baptism for the
remission of sins/ whereby we were graciously lifted
out of the natural state of death, and new-born into the
Family and Kingdom of God. Then we know that by
that ingrafting we were brought into contact with the
new, the supernatural, spiritual life which circulates
through the Body of Christ, and which is the very
Spirit, the very Life, of God. By that grace we are
raised with the first Resurrection, the moral and
spiritual resurrection ; the essential resurrection, for it
carries with it, for all who abide in it, the promise of
the uninterrupted growth into all that is to follow.
Of this first Resurrection and of the Life Eternal
into which a man is born thereby, Christ speaks in the
saying (St. John v. 24), Verily, verily, I say unto you,
He that heareth My word, and believeth Him that sent
Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment;
but is passed from death unto life. And He speaks of

viii. J viz. Of the Soul to Grace. 367
it as a present thing, resulting at once from the
acceptance of the Gospel as preached, directly or in
directly, by Himself; for He adds, Verily, verily, I say
unto you, the hour is coming (i. e. after Pentecost) and
now is (i. e. in the then presence and teaching of the
Incarnate Mediator) when the dead (i. e. in the natural
state of spiritual death) shall hear the Voice of the Son
of God ; and they that hear (i. e. with willing acceptance
and obedience) shall live 1-
Once in this Life Eternal, and continuing in it, the
believer has, in Christ's Ideal, no death to fear. The
essential change is made. TJiere is no condemnation to
them which are in Christ Jesus . . . For the law of the
Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus has made them free from
the law of sin and death. Hence Christ can say, Who
soever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die; i. e. the
1 That our Lord is speaking in St. John v. 25, 26, of a spiritual re
surrection from a spiritual death is evident from (1) the phrase they
that hear, implying a willing reception of, and attention to, the voice of
the Son of God. There is nothing like this in the contrasted verse 28 ;
for all that are in the graves must hear, whether they will or not ;
(2) From the addition and now is. The contrasted bodily resurrec
tion is wholly future. (3) All that are in the graves (28) points to
the physically dead; and so, by contrast, shows that 25 speaks of
spiritual death. (4) Shall come forth (i. e. out of the graves), as con
trasted with shall live, points to the same interpretation. Compare,
for the present gift of the risen, the eternal, life to the regenerate
believer (St. John iii. 14-16, 36; iv. 14; vi. 40, 47, 51, 54-58;
viii. 51 ; x. 10, 28 ; xi. 25, 26 ; xvii. 3. Romans vi. 3-11 ; viii. 1-11.
Coloss. ii. 12, 13; iii. 1-4. 1 St. John v. 11, 12). This life is real
now, though often feeble, and always imperfect, always forfeitable by
lapse into unbelief and disobedience. Faithfulness and patient continu
ance in well-doing to a death in the Lord secure it for ever. Hence
St. John's language about the (present) millennial reign with Christ of
the faithful dead within the veil (Rev. xx. 4-6).

368 The full Millennial Reign ' 'within the veil! [lect,
physical death to which our mortal bodies are still
liable is no death to the man, the self, but an upward
step to fuller life, and so a gain, being thq introduction
to a closer nearness to Christ, Who has abolished death
and brought life and immortality to light through the
Gospel (2 Tim. i. io);
1 78. We can now understand that, for the believer
whose life is in Christ (i. e. whose life is Christ's life in
him), eternal life is a present possession ; and the same in
essence, and in spiritual reality and continuity, whether
here or within the veil. Hence we can understand
how, in a true sense, Christ's faithful people live and
reign with Him even on the earth ; though it be true
that the Millennial Reign revealed to Saint John has
its truer and fuller, though now present and contempo
raneous, realization, both objectively and subjectively,
only for the redeemed in Paradise, in the Jerusalem
which is above (Gal. iv. 26; Heb. xii. 22; Rev. iii.
1 2 ; xxi.).
To the eye of faith, which apprehends present
spiritual fact, the work of the One Mediator is, though
waiting as yet for its full manifestation in the final
consummation, still so far in itself complete, as that,
the dividing barrier of sin and death being done away,
the seen and the Unseen are already reconciled and
made one. The Communion of Saints embraces both.
Even to Christians still in the flesh it is said, Ye are
come unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the Living
God, the Heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable
company of angels, to the general assembly and Church
of the Firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to

viii.] spiritually one with the Church on earth ; 369
God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men,
i. e. the faithful departed of the older Dispensations,
now at length, through the work of Christ, made per
fect, and to Jesus the Mediator of the New Covenant.
Already our citizenship is in heaven. (Philipp. iii. 20.)
Already we are fellow-citizens with the saints and of
the household of God. (Eph. ii. 19.) Already we
belong to the Jerusalem which is above, which is the
mother of us all. (Gal. iv. 26.) And the spiritual
greatness of our calling sheds its heavenly glory and its
beauty over the oft darksome and toilsome lot, in this
world, of many a lowly Christian life that is lived in
the light of that faith, under the observation of scarcely
any eyes but those of God and His holy angels.
Gloria haec est omnibus Sanctis ejus. Such honour have
all His saints (Ps. cxlix. 9) ; and, perhaps, most of all
those who are His secret ones.
1 79. This now actual spiritual unity of Heaven and
earth finds its expression in the Worship of the Church.
In her holy services, and most completely and charac
teristically in the sacred mystery of her Eucharistic
Sacrifice and Communion, believers, as an holy and
royal priesthood, permitted to offer up spiritual sacri
fices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Pet. ii. 5
and 9) have access through Him, by One Spirit, unto
the Father. In our solemn sacramental Liturgy, the
only full expression of our worship, the only worthy
exhibition of our relation to God as His redeemed
children, we lift up our hearts unto the Lord. From
that moment we are more in Heaven than on earth.
The veil is done away between them ; and ' with
Bb

370 and one in Worship, especially [lect.
angels and archangels, and with all the company
of heaven,' we laud and magnify, in the threefold
Sanctus which is part of the revealed worship of
Heaven, Him of Whose glory not heaven only but
also the whole earth is full (Isaiah vi. 3 ; Rev. iv. 8).
180. The life which is in harmony with this worship
is the life already of Heaven upon earth. The all-
inclusive ordinance of the Holy Communion, the very
crown and sum of the Gospel, as it enables God's for
given children to plead before Him on earth, even as
the Mediator Himself ever pleadeth it still in Heaven,
that One and only Sacrifice (of the Lamb slain from
the foundation of the world) which is the one and only
ground and means of that effectual atonement on
which alone their hopes depend, so it conveys to
them, presently, that continual cleansing, refreshment,
and renewal which, amid the infirmities and trials of
this present life, they continually need. It maintains
and strengthens their living union with Christ, and,
in and through Him, with God. For it is the actual
communication of the Body and Blood of Christ (1 Cor.
x. 16) as a quickening Spirit (1 Cor. xv. 45) to us in
our whole nature of body, soul, and spirit. It is the
living link which binds each quickened soul to the
One Mediator. It is the chief of the joints and bands
whereby all the Body, having nourishment ministered
from the Head, is knit together (Col. ii. 19) ; keeping
up in each his membership in Christ's Body, and so
securing for each that constant inflowing of the ful
ness of Christ's life whereby the whole Body increaseih
with the. increase of God. It maintains in each one

viii.] in the Holy Communion. 371
that eternal life of which we have spoken. And it
carries with it the sure promise of that bodily re
surrection and glorification at the last day (St. John vi.
39, 40, 44, 54) which shall be the token of the realized
completeness of our salvation, the means of the final
manifestation of the Sons of God (Rom. viii. 19), when
the righteous shall shine forth as the sun in the kingdom
of their Father (St. Matt. xiii. 43), and shall be as the
angels of God in Heaven ; nay more, shall be like Him
(1 St. John iii. 2) Who died for them and rose again ;
for He shall change the body of our humiliation that it
may be fashioned conformably to the Body of His glory,
according to the working whereby He is able even to
subject all things unto Himself (Philipp. iii. 21).
181. Looking forward through the present life to this
full consummation and bliss, both in body and soul,
which is daily presented to our faith and hope in the
closing words of the Creeds ; and feeling that he has
already received, in Christ, a kingdom that cannot be
moved, and is already introduced to, and surrounded
by, eternal realities most blessed; the Christian, at
peace with God, and delivered from the heathen's
perpetual bondage through the fear of death, does
indeed, in a most true, albeit a most unworldly sense,
reign, with a royalty of which the most highminded
Stoic never dreamed. The Christian knows that, with
the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith,
he is delivered from the various forms of the world's
degrading bondage, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the
eyes, or the pride of life; and has learnt to estimate
more truly the dignity and the capacity of that human
Bb 2

372 Christ's provision, in the Church, [lect.
nature which the hopeless pessimism of much modern
anti-Christian thought would lower to a depth whence
only its misery could redeem it from contempt.
182. Yet the very grandeur of such a ' state of salva
tion ' secures humility ; for in this stage, however real,
it is not indefectible. To embrace with a fuller faith
the glory of his calling is for the thoughtful Christian
only to feel more acutely the contrast of his own
shortcoming and unworthiness. Even a Paul must
say, Not as though I had already attained, or am as
yet made perfect ; but I press on, if that I may lay
hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ
Jesus. (Philipp. iii. 12.) Even a Paul, straining for
ward unto those things which are in front, must press
on toward the goal unto the prize of our calling above
of God in Christ Jesus (ver. 14), if by any means he
might attain unto that rising up from out of the general
body of the dead (ej-avdo-Tao-iv rtjv iic veKpwv, a peculiar
phrase used only in this place), which is the crown
of life for those who are faithful unto death, and
which the language about the millennial reign seems
to assign already, in some high unspeakable spiritual
reality, to the saints in the Unseen, as their present
reward, the outgrowth, the secured further develop
ment, in unbroken continuity, of that eternal life which
had been begun in them even while still in the flesh ;
and the pledge of the assured consummation of their
adoption, in the future redemption of their bodies.
183. Forgiveness, peace, life, in and through the King
dom of God on earth, and through its life-giving Sacra
ments and means of grace, are the blessings enjoyed by

viii.] for the continued application of His Work, 373
the believer from the finished work of the One Mediator
the Prophet, Priest, and King, of that Kingdom which
is the Catholic Church. For in that Kingdom Christ
has made a perfect provision for the conveyance and
application of all the benefits of His work of re
demption to individual souls in each generation. For
this purpose, among others, the Catholic Church exists,
as a divinely-organized Body with a divinely-ordained
constitution and officers. In the place of Christ's
visible, bodily, local, limited presence is now substi
tuted an invisible but universal presence, in and with
His Body mystical, through His Holy Spirit. To that
Body he gave the great commission to represent Him,
to act in His Name, to carry on His work ; As My
Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when
He had said this, He breathed on them, and said unto
them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost. But He had already
provided, in the creation, and in the acknowledged
position, of the Apostolic College, for the orderly ex
hibition of that living energy which He then breathed
into His Body. Though all were priests and kings, yet
were there those who were so, by His own appoint
ment, in a special sense, and with a special ministry,
as the recognized executive officers and organs of His
Body. They were to act, and through them the Body
was to act, in Christ's Name (1 Cor. v. 4 ; 2 Cor. ii. 10),
and ' by His commission and authority.' (Article XXVI.)
1 84. For the mediatorial work of the Son of God, at
length fully organized in its completeness by His
great redemptive acts as Incarnate, had now to be car
ried on and applied for that which was the great object

374 through the Operation of the Holy Ghost, [lect.
of it all, the bringing back man, and man's world, to
God, to a fuller life in God than had belonged to man
even as unfallen. It was to be carried on at once both
in Heaven and on earth, which were now made one ;
in Heaven openly, immediately, by the direct personal
action of the Mediator Himself as the High Priest of
the New Covenant, Who, within the veil, ever liveth to
make intercession for us, pleading evermore, as the
Lamb as it had been slain, His own one offering of
Himself; presenting evermore, with absolute accept
ance, before the Father, the worship of His redeemed
Church ; and showering down the Father's answering
grace upon it. On earth also in deepest, highest
spiritual reality, though all invisibly to the eye of
sense, was the same work to be carried on by the ever-
present operation of the same Mediator, Whose promise
was, Where two or three are gathered together in My
Name, there am I in the midst of them, and, Lo, I am
with you all the days, even unto the consummation of the
age. The Agent of this spiritual presence, the living
Power and informing Force of this spiritual opera
tion, within the militant Church, is the Holy Spirit
of God; using (since the conditions of our earthly
life render such intervention necessary for man's re
ligious as for his natural welfare) the present, local,
visible, ministrations of men, called and empowered by
Him ' for the office and work of priests in the Church
of God.' This subordinate, delegated, ministrative
priesthood is simply the visible instrument whereby
the one and only High Priest exhibits and exercises on
earth His own sole inalienable and ever-continuing

viii.] and a ministrative priesthood. 375
Priesthood. He ordained it originally in the College of
the Apostles ; who were not His * successors,' but only
the visible representatives of Him Who still fived, and
Who, though invisible, was and is, since His Ascension
and His gift of the Holy Ghost, more than ever present,
filling all things (Eph. iv. 10). But the Apostles, like
the Levitical priests, were not suffered to continue by
reason of death (Heb. vii. 23). Successors they must
have ; for the work of Christ must be as near, and His
Church as effectually operative, to each succeeding
generation as to the first believers after Pentecost,
Hence — and we cannot doubt, according to the prin
ciples wherein the Lord Himself had instructed them,
when, during the great Forty Days, He spake unto them
of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of Heaven — the
Apostles provided such successors in the local Episco
pate, wherein the Christian priesthood, in its totality
of powers and responsibilities, has ever since been
vested in chief; to be exercised locally, in clearly
specified departments of spiritual function, for the
ordinary charge of Christ's flock, through the subordi
nate delegated service of those of the second order,
who receive their commission through the bishops, as
they through their predecessors.
185. But behind, and above, and through, as well as
besides and beyond, all these visible arrangements —
which, depending on men which have infirmity, are, and
must be, ever liable to defect in working — stands and
acts, in His unapproachable prerogative, the Great High
Priest (tw dylmv Aeirovpyos Heb. viii. 2), the Minister
of the true Tabernacle, giving power and efficiency to

376 The One Mediator ever acts invisibly, [lect.
the means and ministers of grace which are His own
ordinance ; yet visiting also, in direct and immediate
action, through His Holy Spirit, the hearts and souls,
individually and severally, whom the Father has given
Him, and has, by His Providence, called ' to the know
ledge of His grace and faith in Him ;' knitting each
one directly to God in the one Communion of Saints,
which is His own Body mystical, and assuring therein
to each separate baptized soul, according to its need of
the moment, an open access to Himself, and, through
Himself, to the Father ; vouchsafing ever to each
several living member in the Body His own indwelling
presence in the believing heart, and His own ever
ready sympathy and loving help. It is these constant
ever-present blessings that make the gracious work of
the One Mediator to be to even the humblest Christian
a fact of his daily and hourly experience. Thus, the
Spirit of God, which he has, and knows that he has,
though only in and through Christ, beareth witness
with his own spirit — a witness within himself — that he
is the child of God, and that God is indeed a Father,
loving, and ready to help. (Appendix, Note 14.)
186. The living Church of God on earth is at once the
outcome and the depositary of these supernatural forces
and agencies. Hers they are, through the grace of
her Founder and Head, her Bridegroom and her Lord.
By them she lives in Him ; with the promise that, as
a whole, the powers of the kingdom of darkness and
of death shall never prevail against her. For her, and
through her, as the city set on an hill that cannot be
hid, the Mediator exercises on earth, for the salvation

viii.] in His Church; as Prophet ; as Priest, 377
of all men, His threefold function of Prophet, Priest,
and King.
First, as Prophet ; His inspiration — acting on His own
earlier utterances of the Old Testament, as well as on
His later utterances in the flesh immediately prepara
tory to the New Covenant — revealed to the first Church,
from Pentecost onwards, and to the Church of all time,
all necessary truth as to God, His loving Fatherhood
and His purpose of mercy towards mankind, and as to
His own Person and office and His redeeming work.
His mercy provided that the preservation and trans
mission of that revealed truth should not depend on
the uncertainties of merely natural human tradition,
either oral or written. He guided its first authorita
tive teachers to commit it to writing, under special in
spiration, for all time. And so, in the later volume of
Holy Scripture, completing the earlier, the Incarnate
Word, as the Final Prophet, reveals God to man ; ap
pointing His Church the while to be ' the witness and
keeper ' of that revelation ; and not that only, but also,
through that unction from the Holy One wherewith she
was anointed from the first, the one authoritative judge
of its true meaning. Thus, in all that it most concerns
man to know for his highest welfare, now and here
after, the Church is the Light of the World, shining by
the Light of Him to Whom it is her one work to
bring all who do not hate the light, but will come to it.
187. Christ's priestly action, through the Church and
her ministry, conveys and seals, to the penitent and be
lieving, all needful grace, whether of initial forgiveness
and regeneration or of continual renewal and progressive

378 especially through the Sacraments ; [lect.
sanctification. For this work He uses that sacramental
system, whereby an inward gift of grace is connected
with an outward and visible sign, which is one of the
special features of His Church as a divine and super
natural institution. This principle (besides the great
example of the Incarnation itself) is unmistakeably in
dicated on those three cardinal occasions that mark the
three stages of the Saviour's Work ; the gift of the Holy
Ghost to Himself in His Baptism, by which gift He was
constituted the Messiah ; His preliminary communica
tion of the Spirit to His Body on the Easter night ;
and His plenary gift of the same Spirit on the Day of
Pentecost. That gift, then fully given, was the all-
inclusive Sacrament. It united, for all needs and pur
poses of spiritual life and action, corporate or indi
vidual, the Body to the Head. Of the informing
power and energy so given — involving an extension of
the Incarnation from the Son of God as glorified man
to the living members of His Body — all other sacra
mental ordinances are but particular examples, sub
ordinate and special forms. In the highest of these
forms, the Holy Communion, as indeed in all the acts
of His Church done in His Name, Christ Himself is
the real, though unseen, Operator, the one true Priest.
Through it He pleads on earth, hidden in spiritual
mystery, that one and only Sacrifice of Himself, once
made, which He pleads openly and immediately in
Heaven ; while His Church, acting by her priesthood,
pleads it through Him, as her highest, her all-inclusive,
act of worship. Through it also He Who gave Him
self, His flesh and blood, as the true Paschal Lamb,

vm.J and also as King, claiming 379
the Bread of Life, to the Apostles in the upper
chamber, gives Himself now, by the hands of their
successors, to nourish the souls of His people, and to
preserve them, body and soul, unto everlasting life ;
communicating to each, in heavenly reality, His own
God-penetrated humanity, His human nature, so made
to each a quickening spirit, the one antidote to the
flesh and blood, the old nature, of the first Adam which
is in us all, and counterworking it in a growing con
formity to Himself. Nothing less real than this will
satisfy the language of the Apostle : The cup of bless
ing which we bless, is it not the communication of the
Blood of Christ? The bread which we break is it not
the communication of the Body of Christ ? ( 1 Cor. x. 1 6).
Nothing less real than this will reach down to the
deeplying bases of our subconscious being ; or heal and
cleanse the innermost springs of our tainted humanity,
in body, soul, and spirit.
188. Passing to the third function of the Christ : In
the Church on earth, as in the Jerusalem above, and over
'Angels and Archangels and all the company of Heaven,'
the Incarnate Mediator reigns as Lord and King. His
Law — the law of absolute and perfect moral righteous
ness and truth — is the acknowledged rule and standard
for all His people ; a law reaching to the minutest
details of conduct even in thought and feeling ; a law
finding its highest expression in a supreme personal
devotion to Himself, as the one supreme and perfect
example and pattern, the master, and the owner, of the
Christian's whole self.
The Christian Society is the Kingdom of the righteous

380 the allegiance and service of all [lect.
King. It exists by its allegiance to Him. Its work
is to reconquer the world for Him ; and to make His
law of moral righteousness, justice, purity, and love
prevail among mankind, until the evils that afflict
humanity are done away by a willing conversion of
man's will to God, and so God's Kingdom comes in
such wise that His will shall be done in earth as it is
in Heaven. For this Christ died ; for this Christ lives
and reigns ; for this, through His Church on earth and
her children, so far as they are faithful to their glorious
calling, Christ works still among mankind, that He may
bring men back to God, and undo the work of the devil.
189. Passing by the mystery of His relation, in this
life or in the great Unseen, present or future, to the
masses of Heathendom and to the Jewish race, it be
hoves us to remember that, at least for professedly
Christian nations, churches, institutions, their relation
of earnest loyalty and faithfulness, or otherwise, to Him
and to the beneficent work of His Kingdom, is decisive
of their destiny ; since for the work of that Kingdom,
and for the glory of its King, they exist, as means to
ends. Christ's law is the law of right. His Kingdom
is the kingdom of light, of purity, of peace, of love,
of brotherly kindness between man and man, between
class and class ; the kingdom of hope, for time and for
eternity, and of endless progress for human nature. Re
sistance to that law, opposition to that Kingdom and
hindrance of its work, are high treason against hu
manity ; and seal, after whatever warning, the doom
of all, individuals or societies, who in unprincipled and
reckless self-seeking commit themselves to such courses.

viii.] to Himself and to His Kingdom, 38 1
The high-handed oppression, nay, the negative, cold-
hearted, indifferent neglect of even the least and lowest
of those who, in Christ's wide sense, are our neighbours,
is never overlooked, forgotten, or forgiven by Him
Who said, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least
of these My brethren, ye did it not to Me. His motto
truly is — and it is a worthy blazon for the true ' King
of men,' the King of kings — ' Homo sum ; nihil humani
alienum a Me puto' (I am a Man; nought that is
human deem I strange to Me). His sentence is, That
it were better for any that a mill-stone were hanged
about his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of the
sea, than that he should offend one of His little ones
(St. Matt, xviii. 6-10). If we would know the true
'enthusiasm of humanity' we must learn it in the
school of Christ. If we would promote the true brother
hood of man we must study its deep underlying
principle at the feet of Him Who ' for us men, and for
our salvation, came down from heaven, and was in
carnate by the Holy Ghost, of the Virgin Mary, and
was made man,' that He might seek and save that
which was lost, and might lay down His life for His
friends. The call to, and the opportunity for, faithful
service to Christ as King, and loving unselfish labour
in the cause of man, come, and with sufficient plain
ness, to each generation, in the order of that over
ruling providence of God which controls all things,
alike in the spiritual and in the natural sphere, in the
affairs of men, through the universal mediation of the
Eternal Son. It is the appointed task, and the duty
of each generation to discern the signs of its own time,

382 being the Governour and fudge of all. [lect.
to watch for the time, and the special form, of its own
visitation; and, at least in its own day, to know, and
to heed, the things that belong unto its peace (St. Luke
xix. 41-44).
190. For the King is also the Judge. Above the
Church and above the world, above the whole life of
man in whatever condition or relation, He sits en
throned in majesty supreme ; wielding, for the pur
poses of His righteous government as of His redeeming
work, all power in heaven and in earth ; judging com
munities, nations, classes, Churches, all those special
associations and combinations of men which belong to
this present life only ; judging also, in their several,
their incommunicable, responsibility, all men's indi
vidual souls, according to those their infinitely various
relations to Himself, to His Moral Law, and to the
calls and opportunities which He has given them,
which He alone can know; storing up the materials for
His future righteous Final Judgment of each separate
soul in the Great Day.
191. We ventured humbly to conjecture (§ 131), in
the light of God's evident purpose in human history,
what might have followed, possibly, had the ancient
Israel of God proved faithful to their high vocation
and their widespread opportunities for good. What
shall we Christians say, as we cast our eyes back across
the nearly nineteen centuries of the chequered history
of the Kingdom of God on earth 1 Have they to whom
it was committed brought forth the fruits thereof them
selves, or laboured as they ought to extend its blessings
to others as yet outside 1

vin.J Evil consequences of the 383
And what have been the manifest consequences of
failure and of unfaithfulness %
We can but sketch them in outline. Yet the Chris
tian student can never refuse to admit as certainly
among them the generally slow progress from the
first ; and, next, the desolation of the Christian East
and of Northern Africa by the scourge of Islam %
Surely the salt had lost its savour, ere it could be so
cast out and trodden underfoot of men ! Surely it
was He Who is ever saying to each one of His
local Churches I know thy works, Who thus in judg
ment removed His own candlesticks out of their place !
(Rev. ii. 5).
The second great and abiding disaster induced by
the unfaithfulness of Christians to the spirit of Christ
and of His Gospel is the breach of unity ; first, be
tween East and West, for which the arrogant pre
tensions of the see of Rome must be held mainly re
sponsible ; and, later, within the West itself, when the
further growth of those pretensions, and the only too
successful resistance to all attempts at improvement
had brought about the intolerable state of things which
resulted in the Reformation, and in the inevitable
severance — it would seem, for ever — of English-speak
ing Christianity from the Catholicism of Continental
Europe. Had the earlier movements of the fifteenth century
towards the reform of acknowledged abuses in doctrine
and practice been welcomed and guided by the then
ecclesiastical authorities, at Rome and elsewhere, it is
conceivable that unmixed good might have resulted

384 unfaithfulness of Christians. [lect.
to Western Christendom and beyond it. Delay and
resistance, in this as in other instances, largely turned
what might have been wholesome reform and recovery
into destructive revolution, except in England ; and
the present religious condition of Continental Europe,
whether among Protestants or Roman Catholics, is the
unhappy result. The Church of England did reform
herself; though at the cost of a separation and an
isolation of which, though the guilt lies not at her
door, the depressing effects have not been unfelt by
her ; while contact with the Continent and its extremer
spirits imported alien elements which proved the source
of religious division within her own borders.
From this lamentable breach of visible organic unity
in the most important and influential provinces of the
Kingdom of the Christ on earth — lamentable from that
very stern necessity which more than sufficiently justi
fied it at the time, and has additionally justified it
since, and justifies it still — there flow, nevertheless,
inevitably, certain further admitted evils, not only to
that English-speaking Christianity which is rapidly
occupying the whole earth, but to Christianity at large
and everywhere, in whatever form. Among these evils
are certainly to be reckoned, a grave weakening of the
Church's witness in the world in general to Christ and
to His Revealed Truth, whether within the local limits
of professed Christendom itself, or in missionary efforts
beyond its pale ; and, further, an injurious relaxation,
within the Church's own borders, of wholesome moral
discipline over her own professing members ; and, what
is very largely consequent on this, an impaired power

viii.] Call to increased devotion. 385
of resistance to growing moral evils in society at large,
such, for example, as our own generation has seen,
both at home and in Continental Europe, in America,
and in the Colonies, in regard to the, laws affecting
marriage. Nor can we fail to note and to grieve
over the wasteful diversion in party-strife of the time
and money, the energy and interest, which ought to
be exclusively devoted to the common objects of the
great Christian Society ; or the more than danger of
the substitution of party loyalty and zeal in the place
of the supreme love of Christ and of His cause ; of a
mischievous onesidedness in doctrinal belief, and a feeble
and imperfect grasp of Christian truth, arising from
strong prejudice against certain portions or aspects of
it ; with a consequent distortion and exaggeration of
other portions ; and, generally, it is much to be feared,
a lowered standard of Christian fife and holiness and
devotion. 192. Whether before the end the Church at large
shall see any lessening of or recovery from these evils,
God knoweth. The urgent call upon all who feel them
to greater devotion and unworldliness in personal life,
to a more loving spirit of Christian brotherhood, to an
increased earnestness in the study of God's Holy Word,
and, above all, to a stronger faith in the power and
grace of the Holy Spirit, and to increasing prayer for
its more abundant' outpouring on all who name the
Name of Christ — all this is abundantly self-evident.
Our own Church, in our own generation, has seen
much to revive our hopes, and to make us thankfully
feel that God is still with her. But it is not possible
c c

386 The predicted '' apostasy,' and Anti-Christ, [lect.
to overlook the clear intimations in Holy Scripture of
a dark time in the future before the personal visible
return of the Mediator. There shall come a falling
away first, an apostasy from the faith, among Christian
nations. This, we can hardly doubt, will coincide with
the close of the present millennial period, which will
be marked by the loosing of Satan out of his prison
(Rev. xx. 7), the temporary recovery of his ascendancy
over the nations (to edvrj, the Gentiles, i. e. the un-
christianized, or de-christianized, races), and the con
sequent revival of Paganism, for a final strenuous
effort against Christianity under the leadership of the
Lawless One (2 Thess. ii. 8) ; who, as the almost in
carnation of the Evil One, shall have been permitted,
for the moment, to gather into his one hand all the
kingdoms of the world and the glory, and the power, of
them, and to use his anti- Christian universal dominion
in the endeavour to suppress all worship but that of
himself, a worship in effect equivalent to the worship
of his master, the great rival of the Christ, the Evil
One himself. This lawless one, the devil's agent, is
to be identified with the Antichrist, of whose certain
coming, in the last days of this the last time, we read
in the Epistles of Saint John, the latest utterances of
New Testament inspiration. (Appendix, Note 15.)
The history of the world in its purely secular aspects,
and consequent hostile relation to the Kingdom of God,
has had its types of this dread personage, even as the
history of God's people on earth had its types of the
Christ before the Incarnation. We may trace them in
the history of a Nimrod, a Pharaoh, a Nebuchadnezzar,

viii.] Possible development of 387
an Antiochus, a Nero ; while, within the period of
Christian history, there are not wanting, (in some fea
tures, for example, of the great French Revolution,
and of its outgrowth, democratic imperialism,) sugges
tions of what might happen on a greater, or even a
world-wide scale, if only the simultaneous and con
nected rejection and overthrow at once of Christian
faith and of that civil subordination and established
government, which letteth. hitherto, and will let until it
be taken out of the way (2 Thess. ii. 7), should give to
some master-mind, who was willing to submit to the
Evil One's condition, If thou wilt fall down and worship
me, the opportunity to wield, possibly under the pre
text, and in the name, of order and of humanity, those
monstrous forces of violence and destruction, which
some strange fatality seems, in our day, to impel
civilized nations to heap together, in their outrageous
armaments by sea and land.
For indeed a world-wide unity, in the most literal
sense — for good or evil — is no longer an impossible
dream. The development of communication has made
the world of man all but a self-conscious whole. A
deed of horror enacted in sufficiently high place sends,
as the phrase is, a ' thrill of horror through the
whole civilized world,' and that instantly ; and the
universal world's opinion of it is expressed ere the
material earth has completed another revolution on its
axis. Clearly, the completest concentration of force
into one world-power wielded by one hand, for what
ever purpose, is already within sight. Neither are
the vast and complicated financial operations of modern
c c 2

388 a world-wide godless power. [lect.
times, and the consequent extensive power of con
trolling, or paralyzing, the energies of whole nations,
without their manifest importance in this point of
view. Blows may be struck by unscrupulous wicked
ness and over-reaching ambition which would be felt
instantly throughout the whole extent of civilization.
Meantime the pressure of increasing populations, out
growing the resources of nations, must necessarily tell
on the stability of existing institutions and order,
which are nothing to those who starve, or at best
live but miserably, in spite of them. It is obvious
enough that a very conceivable combination of in
fluences like these may give at once the opportunity
and the momentum to changes of the widest and the
most destructive sweep. (Appendix, Note 16.)
That such an opportunity, when it has fully come,
will be snatched at by the Evil One in his hatred of
Christ and His Kingdom, and with a momentary ap
parent success, the observant student of Holy Scripture
and of human history cannot really doubt. The thought,
were awful to him indeed, but for his sure faith that,
now as ever,
The Lord sits throned above the waterflood,
The Lord remaineth a Xing for ever ;
and that the moment of the deepest darkness shall be
the herald of the dawn of the great future Day of the
Lord, which will be marked by the visible personal
return of the Mediator, with His risen and glorified
saints, to be followed by the general Resurrection of
the dead, and the general Judgment.

Viii.] The Resurrection of the Saints ; 389
Through some. such awful crisis and catastrophe, the
scale and grandeur whereof no human imagination, in
its highest flight, can reach to picture, must the final
and complete regeneration of man and of his world,
social and material, through the now fully developed
work of the One Mediator, be attained, in the new
heavens and the new earth, wherein dwelleth righteous
ness (2 Pet. iii. 7-14).
193. And yet, though it was once indeed true that
Eye had not seen, nor ear heard, neither had entered
into the heart of man, the things which God hath pre
pared for them that love Him (Isaiah Ixiv. 4) ; St. Paul
was able to add (1 Cor. ii. 9), But God hath revealed
them to us by His Spirit ; and at least some faint outline,
some few general features, and those in a certain order
and sequence, of the great Restoration of all things
(Acts iii. 21) are revealed to Christian faith and hope,
in the eschatological portions of the New Testament.
Among such features are the following : —
A clear distinction between the resurrection of the
saints, i. e. of those who are of the Body Mystical of
Christ — which our Lord Himself, four times in His
great eucharistic discourse (St. John vi.), assures us He
will effect on the last day — and the resurrection of the
dead in general. St. Paul tells us that The dead in
Christ shall rise first, as a simultaneous accompaniment
of the descent of the Lord Himself from heaven with a
shout, with the voice of the archangel and the trumpet
of God (1 Thess. iv. 16). This precedency is also inti
mated in the same Apostle's language to the Co
rinthians (1. xv. 22), As in Adam all die, even so in

390 their session with Christ in His Throne; [lect.
Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his
own order ; Christ the first-fruits ; afterwards they that
are Christ's at His coming. Then cometh the end. At
the same time the living saints, who do not sleep, but
are alive and remain, shall be caught up, together with
the glorified dead, in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the
air ; and so, having been changed in a moment, in the
twinkling of an eye, into incorruption and immortality,
to be ever with the Lord ; and so to accompany Him in
His progress to the earth, whither He shall come, in
visible majesty as the Son of man (St. Matt. xxv. 31),
in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, and
shall sit upon the throne of His glory; and before Him
shall be gathered all the nations (iravTa to. 'iQvr\, all the
Gentiles), i. e. those who are not part of His Mystical
Body. To His glorified saints, with all of whom He shall
thus come (1 Thess. iii. 13), and who, collectively, are
His Body, Christ will then fulfil His promises, To him
that overcometh will I grant to sit with Me in My
throne, even as I also overcame and am set down with
My Father in His throne (Rev. iii. 21); and, To him
will I give authority over the nations ; and he shall
rule them with a rod of iron, as the vessels of the potter
are broken to shivers (Psalm ii. 8) ; as I also have re
ceived of My Father (Rev. ii. 26). Thus will the great
words of Saint Paul's appeal to the Corinthians (1. vi. 2)
be actually realized, Do ye not know that the saints
shall judge the world 1 . . . know ye not that we shall
judge angels?
Then shall the chosen Twelve — in yet a fuller sense

viii.] The ' passing-away' of this earth and heaven. 391
and in fuller manifestation than they do even now,
within the veil, in the incipient and imperfect regenera
tion of this present millennial period — Sit upon twelve
thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel (St> Matt.
xix. 30).
194. Concurrently with this Manifestation (eTucpdveia,
Titus ii. 1 3) of the glory of our great God and Saviour
Jesus Christ, which is the blessed hope of Christians,
will be the passing away (Rev. xxi. 1) of this present
heaven and earth, the scene of man's sin and misery
and of the triumphs of evil. They shall flee from His
face, and no place be found for them (xv. 11). This He
Himself promised (St. Matt. xxiv. 35 ; St, Mark xiii.
31 ; St. Luke xxi. 33, irapekevo-ovTau, in all three pas
sages). This, in his vision, the seer of Patmos saw
fulfilled (-TraptjXOe, Rev. xxi.). Another of the listeners
to the Olivet discourse, St. Peter, witnesses (2. iii. 10)
to the same expectation in connection with the coming
(rhv irapovo-lav) of the Day of God. It will come, he
says (with evident reference to St. Matt- xxiv. 43, and
St. Luke xii. 39), as a thief in the night ; in the which
the heavens shall pass away (again the Lord's own
word, TrapeXeuo-ovrai) with a great noise, and the elements
shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and
the works that are therein shall be burned up (or, dis
covered), . . . the heavens being on fire shall be dissolved,
and the elements shall melt with fervent heat ; for, as he
expressly reveals (2. iii. 5), As the heavens that were
from of old, and the earth compacted out of water and
amidst (or, through) water, by the word of God; by
which means the world that then was, being overflowed

392 The new heaven and earth, [lect.
with water, perished ; so the heavens that now are, and
the earth, by the same word, have been stored up for
fire (or, stored with fire), being reserved against the day
of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.
The Apostle's reference to the earlier destruction of
the earth by the agency of water, and whole tenour
of this as well as of the parallel passages, seem to
point to a great physical catastrophe, such as even
the latest conjectural speculations of physical science
leave ample room for, whereby the material dwelling-
place of man — throughout, by some mysterious sym
pathy, bound up with man's destiny — shall be regene
rated into a condition adapted to his now consummated
life in what will be a celestial body, a spiritual body,
wherein he shall bear the image of the heavenly Man
(i Cor. xv. 40, 44, 49) ; the present body of his humilia
tion being transformed so as to have become conformed
according to the body of Christ's glory, according to the
working of His power even to subject all things unto
Himself (Philipp. iv. 21) — but still a body. As man
is, so his destined home and dwelling-place must be.
It fell with him, cursed for his sake (Gen. iii. 17). It
shall be redeemed with him, so that there shall be no
more curse, (Rev. xxii. 3). It is but a false and mis
taken ' spirituality ' that ignores or denies this clear
Scripture revelation, so plainly consonant to reason and
to natural expectation; and speaks vaguely of some
remote unreal ' heaven,' utterly discontinuous with all
the ipr&dge.i history of the race, and fevery individual
of it. It is a dishonour to the Creator's wondrous
work in His material universe of Nature to suppose

viii.] the dwelling-place of redeemed man. 393
that even this minute and humble portion of it —
which yet has been the scene of the Incarnation of
the Son of God — must be thrown aside and perish for
ever as a hopeless failure, wrecked, overmastered,
violated, dishonoured, for all its beauty and its wonder,
by the too successful malice of the enemy of God. It
cannot be. Not in vain did Christ teach us to pray to
our Father, Thy Kingdom come ; Thy will be done, in
earth as it is in heaven. His will shall be done, not
only by man, as by the holy angels, whose equal he
then shall be (lo-dyye\oi, St. Luke xx. 36), but also in
earth, as in heaven. For indeed the contrast, the op
position, shall be done away, in visible realized fact,
as it is already, spiritually, and to faith ; and ' earth '
shall become part of 'heaven.' For 'heaven' is no
confined locality, but is wherever God, Who is every
where, can manifest Himself fully to creatures fully
capable of Him. And so the glory which shall be re
vealed in us shall be accompanied by a glorious re
generation of our ancient home. The loveliness of
nature, which, even in its temporary obscuration and
almost ruin, we have loved, and for which, as the
wreck of Paradise, we have blessed our and its Creator
— though we have discerned, and that but in transient
glimpses, the fringe of His garment, the outer skirts
of His magnificent beauty and His almighty power —
shall be restored and revealed, and that beyond that
primal beauty, for the sight whereof, even in its first
beginnings,
The morning stars sang together,
And all the sons of God shouted for joy. (Job xxxviii. 7.)

394 The descent of the New Jerusalem, [lect.
Such was the faith of the toiling and despised Apostle,
whose own bodily presence was weak, and his speech
contemptible; such his hope, as he laboured for the
uplifting of the outcast and the vile in the disgusting
cities of the pagan East, or, for two whole years, a weary
prisoner in the imperial city. To him it was revealed
that The creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own
will, but by reason of Him Who subjected it in hope ;
because the creation itself also shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of
the children of God (Romans viii. 19).
195. In full, and, indeed, in exclusive agreement
with the revelation that the scene of man's consum
mated life in the Resurrection will be the regenerated
earth, a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness; is the statement that the holy city, the
great city, the new Jerusalem, the holy Jerusalem, was
seen coming down from God out of heaven, descending
out of heaven from God, having the glory of God ; filled,
that is, with the Shekinah-brightness of His mani
fested presence. This city is the redeemed and glori
fied Church, now in the Unseen, and not yet fully
glorified, partaking as yet only of the first resurrection
(§ 177); but which, though now Jerusalem which is
above, is yet the mother of us all, the city whereof we,
whose citizenship is already in heaven (Philipp. iii. 20),
are already fellow citizens with the saints (Eph. ii. 1 9),
the city which hath the foundations, whose builder and
maker is God (Heb. xi. 10), the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, to which, in inner spiritual
membership, already we are come (xii. 22), the city

viii.] wherein God Incarnate will dwell on earth. 395
which, alike in the thought of St. Peter (1. ii. 4) and
of St. John (Rev. xxi. 22), and of St. Paul (Eph. ii. 20),
was being slowly upbuilded of living stones, until it
should grow into an holy temple in the Lord (i. e. Christ)
in Whom Christians are now being builded together, on
Him the chief corner stone, elect, precious, for an habita
tion of God through the Spirit.
Therein, in its full consummation, the tabernacle
(o-Kr/vv) of God is with men, in the visible Presence of the
glorified humanity of the Incarnate Son ; and He will
tabernacle with them, and they shall be His peoples, and
Himself shall be God with them (compare Emmanuel),
their God. And God shall wipe away all tears from
their eyes ; and death shall be no more ; neither shall
there be mourning, nor crying, nor painful toil (7J-0V0?,
labour and sorrow, Psalm xc 10) any more; for the
first things are passed quite away.
Such is the Christian's hope ; not vague, shadowy,
unreal and elusive ; but, in its great essential outlines,
clear, definite, and real; a hope the definiteness and
certainty of which, as to be realized, beyond all hope,
at the longed-for coming of the Lord, may prove the
stay and anchor of believing souls, in the sore stress
of the darker days towards the end, when the founda
tions are cast down (Ps. xi.), and there is not one godly
man left, and the faithful are minished from among the
children of men (xii. 1) ; when the man of the earth is
exalted against them, and the patient abiding of the meek
seems like to perish for ever (ix. 18).
Then will the cry go up, on earth and within the veil,
as once in earlier' days it went up, and not unheeded,

396 ConsummatedunionofChristwilh His Church, [lect.
from the victims of Neronian and Jewish persecution,
How long, 0 Lord, holy and true? (Rev. vi. 10). And
the answer shall come, in the sudden Manifestation of
Him Who sitteth upon the throne, and Who, His work
of judgment finished, shall proclaim, Behold, I make all
things new (xxi. 5).
He bade His beloved Apostle record these wondrous
disclosures, that they might remain for the perpetual
comfort of His people ; He said unto me, Write ; for
these words are faithful and true, a revelation from
Him Who is the faithful and true witness, the beginning
of the new, as of the old creation of God (Rev. iii. 14).
196. Then, sin and evil subdued and banished, the
last enemy destroyed, in all his forms, it can be said
of the great work of the One Mediator, It is done
(Teyove) ; All has come to pass (xxi. 6). And then, since
perfect union between God and man is the one in
clusive purpose, and result, of that work — a result
realized through the Incarnation — the vision is pre
sented of the Bride, the Lamb's wife (ver. 9) whom He
loved, for whom He gave Himself, that He might pre
sent her to Himself a glorious Church, not having spot
or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy
and without blemish (Eph. v. 25).
The description that follows, Revelations xxi. 10-23,
shows that by the Bride, who is identified with the
heavenly city, the holy Jerusalem, is intended the
glorified Church in its corporate totality as the mysti
cal Body of the Christ, one with Him, through sacra
mental union, bone of His bones, and flesh of His flesh
(Genesis ii. 23 ; Eph. v. 29-32).

viii.] His Bride, and Mystical Body, 397
Does this blessed company include the faithful of
the earlier covenants 1 It would certainly seem so.
There was a time when Christ could say that Among
them that were born of women there had not risen a
greater than John the Baptist, but yet that the least in
the Kingdom of heaven was greater than he (St. Matt.
xi. 1 1). But that was before the work of Christ was
finished, and before the Kingdom of heaven was
' opened to all believers.' We must remember that
there was no breach of spiritual continuity between
the Jewish Church and the Christian. In the persons
of the remnant according to the election of grace (Rom.
xi. 5), of whom the Blessed Virgin and the Apostles
may be regarded as typical examples, the Jewish
Church bloomed, after the Resurrection and Pentecost,
into the Christian Church, the Kingdom of heaven, the
good olive tree of Romans xi., into which the Gentiles,
cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, were
ingrafted; and from which the unbelieving Jews,
natural branches though they were, were broken off.
But what of those elder faithful who had passed into
the Unseen before Christ came in the flesh 1 or who
had, like old Simeon and Anna, and the Baptist, seen
Him and believed on Him, but had died before the
Holy Ghost was given, and so before sacramental union
with Him was possible ? Surely it is of these, the
faithful children of faithful Abraham, the true seed of
him who rejoiced to see Christ's day (St. John viii. 56),
who in all his pilgrimage looked for the city which hath
the foundations, whose builder and maker is God, that
that Epistle speaks in which we should naturally

398 including the saints of the older [lect.
expect allusions to their spiritual state. These all
died in faith, not having received the promises, but
having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them
and embraced them (Heb. xi. 1 3). They had to wait ;
but in sure hope. For them, for these longing seekers
after a better country, even an heavenly, God, Who is
not ashamed to be called their God, had prepared a city
(ver. 16). In darker times, God's nameless martyrs of
the elder faith, those of whom the world was not worthy,
were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might
obtain a better resurrection (ver. 35). Yet they received
not the promise, God having provided some better thing
concerning us, that apart from us they should not be
made perfect (ver. 40). So things stood for them when
they died ; and afterwards also, until Christ's finished
work brought in eternal redemption for them and for
us. 'When He had overcome the sting of death, He
opened the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers1.' What
mysterious change passed over their spiritual condition,
or how effected, on the visit of the human spirit of Jesus
to the unseen state, we are not told. But we doubt not
that what many prophets, and kings, and righteous men
had long desired to see, and had not seen them, and to
hear, and had not heard them (St. Matt. xiii. 17; St.
Luke x. 24), they saw at last, in the presence of the
promised Seed of the woman, and heard with rapture
from His own lips. Christ Himself has told us (St.
Matt. viii. 1 1) that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob should
sit down in the Kingdom of Heaven, and with them many
1 * Tu devicto mortis aculeo : aperuisti credentibus regua coelorum.'
The Te Beum.

viii.] covenants, now ' made perfect', 399
Gentiles from the east and from the west, from the
north and from the south ; and that at a time when the
children of the Kingdom, they whose very heritage it
was, were cast out into the outer darkness. (Compare
also St. Luke xiii. 28, to the same effect.) Accord
ingly St. Paul's language to the Ephesians (ii. 14, &c.)
of Christ our Peace, Who hath made both Jew and
Gentile one, and hath broken down the middle wall of
partition between us ; and of the result of His work in
making in Himself of the twain one new man, and in
reconciling both unto God in one body, viz. that one
household, city, temple of God which is built upon the
foundation, not of the Apostles only, but of the Prophets
also, may better be understood as including the faith
ful Israel of all generations, than as restricted to the
believing remnant at Pentecost and afterwards. So
it is that the writer to the Hebrews, who, looking at
their past condition, had described it as one of longing
expectancy, speaking afterwards of the contrasted l
present, includes now in that city of the living God, the
1 Heb. XI. 40. ha firj xmpls rj/icov TiKeicoBSxri, compared with xii. 23,
Trvevfiacn biicaiav TeTe\eia>fieva>v. Observe also the remarkable language
of St. Paul to the Philippians (iii. 8, &c), of his longing to win Christ,
and to be found in Him, if by any means (he says) I might attain to
the rising up out from among the dead (i^avda-raa-iv i< t5>v veKpav, com
pare St. Luke, xx. 35). Not as though I had already attained, either
were already perfected (rjfti] TfreXflcofim) ; but I follow after . . . I press
toward the mark for the prize of the calling above of God in Christ
Jesus. He looks and longs for that nearer and everlastingly assured
relation to Christ which is the crown of life to the faithful in the
Unseen ; and so speaks, naturally, in this same Epistle of the gain of
death, and so of his desire to depart, and to be with Christ, which is
far better (i. 2 1).

400 and reigning with Christ. [lect.
heavenly Jerusalem, to which the Christian Hebrews
were already come (Heb. xii. 22) the spirits of just men
(i.e. the departed faithful of the older covenants) now
made perfect. Consistently with this inclusion of the
elder faithful in the mystical body of the Christ, Saint
John sees, through the opened door in heaven (Rev.
iv. 1), the four and twenty thrones round about the
throne of the Redeemer, and thereon four and twenty
elders sitting, clothed in white raiment, and having on
their heads crowns of gold. These we may safely
understand to be the representatives of the two
covenants, now at length united. Is it in any con
nection with some such access of blessedness that we
have, in the specially Hebrew Gospel (St. Matt, xxvii.
52), the mysterious statement that, in some inner rela
tion with the death and resurrection of Christ, many
bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of
the graves, after His Resurrection, and went into the
holy city, and appeared unto many? We cannot be
lieve that this was only a Lazarus resurrection, nor
that they who had thus in a manner shared in the
Lord's triumph over death and corruption, were re
mitted to the darkness of the grave 1.
1 St. Matthew records this where he does, evidently in connection
with the opening of tlie graves which accompanied, perhaps by way of
consequence, the earthquake which marked the moment of Christ's
Death ; but the resurrection of the old Saints, their coming out of the
graves and being seen in Jerusalem, are clearly to be understood as
following Christ's Resurrection. In connection with so suggestive an
incident one naturally thinks of the cases of Moses and Elijah, who
appeared in glory at the Transfiguration. Their cases were very special.
Elijah had not died at all. Moses died indeed, but scarcely with the

viii.] The 'saved' from among the Gentiles. 401
197. We conclude, then, that the heavenly Jerusalem,
which is the mystical body and the Bride of Christ,
includes the elder saints, at least from Abraham on
wards, who, living before Christ came, died in faith,
but who, after and through His finished work, were
made perfect. We must next inquire whom, among
the finally saved, it does not include.
The prior resurrection of the saints, whom Christ
brings with Him, and who are assessors with Him in
the judgment of the world ; the pointed use, in the
Saviour's description of that judgment, of the clearly
defined phrase iravTa ra eOv>], all the Gentiles, i. e. the
uncovenanted races of mankind ; their trial by the
test of the corporal works of mercy, done according to
the instincts of common humanity and the dictates of
natural conscience, or left undone in defiance of them ;
the surprise expressed, even by those who are accepted,
at the relation of their good works to Him before
Whose bar they stand; the evident ignorance, alike
of those on the right hand and of those on the left, of
common death of all men ; and, though he passed, as to his hody,
under the hand of him that hath the power of death, that is, the devil,
the mention by St. Jude (9) of the contention of St. Michael the arch
angel with the devil about the body of Moses, indicates its speedy deli
verance from the bondage of corruption, and so explains its glorified
condition in the days of Christ. One might have expected that Enoch,
also translated like Elijah, would have been found with him and Moses
on the Holy Mount. His absence there is one among the various in
dications of a clear line between the antediluvian period (or almv) and
the subsequent age. That would seem a dispensation by itself its
close and end of the world. Hence, again, the special mention (1 St.
Peter iii. 19) of Christ's preaching in the unseen state to the spirits
of those who perished in the flood.
Dd

402 God judges according to opportunities, [lect.
what is a commonplace among Christians — all point
with convergent force to the conclusion that the judg
ment described is that of humanity out of Christ ; i. e.
first, of those countless myriads of millions of the
human race to whom, whether within or beyond the
local pale of professing Christendom, the knowledge
of Christ never came in this earthly life, and among
whom therefore will be those (we know not how
blessedly many) of whom St. Paul speaks as Gentiles
which, having no law, do by nature the things of the law,
and are a law unto themselves, in that they shew the work
of the law written in their hearts (Romans ii. 14); and,
secondly, alas, of those fallen Christians who, though
they knew the way of righteousness, through the know
ledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, yet turned
from the holy commandment delivered unto them, and
so, through the love of sin, were again entangled in the
pollutions of the world, and overcome (2 St. Peter ii. 20).
198. The Lord did not answer the question of
curiosity, Are there few that be saved? but put it aside
with a practical exhortation to His disciples to take
the highest aim. Yet He has revealed to us ex
pressly — what our natural sense of right might safely
assure us of— that He will judge all according to their
opportunities ; That servant which knew his Lord's will,
and prepared not himself, neither did according to His
will, shall be beaten with many stripes. But he that
knew not, and did commit things worthy of stripes, shall
be beaten with few stripes. For unto whomsoever much
is given, of him shall be much required : and to whom
men have committed much, of him they will ask the

Vlli.J Various degrees of blessedness. 403
more (St. Luke xii. 47; compare Romans ii. 12). He
has said that In His Father's house — that house which
was built by Him Who built all things (ra. iravra, the
universe, Heb. iii. 4) , that great house, wherein are not
only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and
of earth ; and some to honour, and some to dishonour
(2 Tim. ii. 20), but still within the house, for use, and
not for destruction — in that house are many mansions.
He went indeed to prepare specially a place for those
to whom He spake. They were to sit on thrones. And
for His faithful in general, His elect, for those whom the
Father had given Him, those of whom He said, The
glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they
may be one, even as We are One ; I in them, and Thou
in Me, that they may be made perfect in one (TeTeXeiw-
nivoi eis ev, St. John xvii. 23) ; for these also He prayed, I
will that they also be with Me where I am, that they may
behold My glory which Thou hast given Me ; with Him,
that is, in that Holy Jerusalem which descendeth out of
Heaven from God, having the glory of God (Rev. xxi.
1 o) ; which had no need of the sun, neither of the moon,
to shine in it, because the glory of God did lighten it,
and the Lamb is the light thereof, the Incarnate Saviour,
, in Whom God visibly tabernacles with men, from Whose
Face the Glory of God 1 beams forth, in Whose light the
saints see light, seeing Him, Who is light, as He is.
1 Buxtorf, in his Leodc. Talmud., s.v. fU*3B>, and in Hist. Arcae
Foederis, cap. xiv. shows, from their own writings, that the Shekinah,
according to the opinions of the ancient Jews, was the Messiah, and
that He was called by that name because He tabernacled in the Pillar
of the Cloud and of Fire, as afterwards in the Tabernacle and the
Temple.
D d 2

404 Loss through persistent abuse of Free-Will. [lect.
Short of this supreme blessedness, which is theirs
only who are of His Body, there is a blessed share in
life eternal, a place in His heavenly Kingdom — if not
in its centre and capital, the heavenly city — for those
innumerable happy subjects of the Divine King who —
doubtless in ordered ranks, and in many various but
progressive degrees of nearness — shall inhabit the
other portions of the regenerated earth, enlarged as
its capacity shall then be by the absence of any sea
(Rev. xxi. 1).
199. Such is the kind of conception the Bible revela
tion seems to yield of the future state when closely
studied. The want of attention to it has lamentably
narrowed men's thoughts of the merciful purposes and
just fatherly government of the Almighty Father of
spirits, the God of the spirits of all flesh ; has created
wholly groundless difficulties in the way of faith and
religion ; and given rise to unworthy thoughts of
God. It is an awful thought, indeed, and full of
solemn warning, that any should finally perish through
their wilful resistance, throughout their (doubtless suf
ficient) time of probation, to the light which God has
offered them. Yet it cannot be otherwise : seeing
that God respects to the last that freedom of the will
which is part — the highest part — of His own image in
His creature man (see jf 48, 51). Yet, with the awful
deduction disclosed in such verses as Revelations xxi. 8
and xxii. 11 and 15 *; the picture given in the Word
1 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and mur
derers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars,

viii.J The Consummated State a complex Society. 405
of God differs as light from the deepest darkness, from
the miserable Calvinism which, in days gone by, has
crushed and darkened the minds and hearts of many
even good and holy Christians.
Further, another evident feature of the Consummated
State of man, represented as it is under the forms of a
city and a kingdom, is its social and political character,
its evidently furnishing a field for the exercise, and the
combined and organized exercise, in a varied and com
plex administration and government, and in the pursuit
and communication of knowledge, of all the highest
capacities of human nature, and free scope for the de
velopment, through the endless ages of eternal life, of
its noblest instincts and powers.
The seer of the Apocalypse, having described the
glories of the heavenly city, proceeds (Rev. xxi. 24) to
speak of the nations (again ra. eduij, the Gentiles) who
shall walk in the light thereof, and of the kings of the
earth who shall bring their glory and honour — the glory
and honour of the nations — into it. He speaks, in very
intelligible symbolism, of the abundant grace of the
Holy Spirit, which, as a pure river of water of life,
clear as crystal, he saw proceeding (eKiropev6/j.evov, the
very word used, in his Gospel, of the Holy Ghost) out
of the throne of God and of the Lamb; and of the
abundant supply of the Tree of Life, whose fruit is the
shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone;
which is the second death.
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still : and he which is filthy, let
him be filthy still.
Without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers,
and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maheih a lie.

406 The Parables of the Talents and Pounds, [lect.
sacramental food of the saints, while its leaves are said,
by a distinction to be carefully noted, to be for the
healing of the nations.
Among these saved nations, as even among the
saints, will, doubtless, be included many who, when the
mercy of God first found them, were, in the saddest
spiritual reality, the poor, and the maimed, and the halt,
and the blind, recovered from the streets and lanes of
the city, and from the highways and hedges, and made
welcome at the great supper, that God's house may be
filled (St. Luke xiv. 16).
200. Over these saved nations, the saints, with and
under Christ the King, shall reign for ever and ever ;
labouring (we cannot doubt), in grateful love to Him
Whose servants (SoOXoi) they are, Whom they worship,
Whose Face they see, Whose 'Name is upon their fore
heads, for the further development of the less favoured
ones in the knowledge of God and in progressive near
ness to Him ; for still, as ever, from Abraham onwards,
election means, not the proscription, not the exclusion,
but the blessing and the elevation of the non-elect.
Thus will the hints of the two parables of the
Talents and the Pounds be absolutely realized. (See
St. Matt. xxv. 15-30 ; and St. Luke xix. 1 1-27.) The
position of both these parables throws them clearly
into the future ; and shows that they speak of what
will happen on the great coming day of account. The
Son of man, preparing to travel into afar country, calls
His own servants, and puts them in trust, every man
according to his several ability, and straightway takes
His journey. After a long time, He cometh and reckoneth

viii. J and the Beatitudes, fulfilled. 407
with them; and what is His reward to His good and
faithful servants 1 It is fresh and greater opportunities
of helpful service and of work for others. That is the
joy of the Lord ; of Him Who came not to be ministered
unto, but to minister. And so His blessing is, Well
done, good and faithful servant (SoUko?) ; thou hast been
faithful over a few things, I will set thee over many
¦ things: Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord. In the
parable of the Pounds the teaching is to the same
effect. Having gone into a far country, and having
received for Himself His kingdom and returned, He
summons His servants to the reckoning. The reward
of faithful service is similar — Have thou authority over
ten cities ; Be thou also over five cities. A picture is
here presented of a world-wide and populous kingdom,
under the present and visible rule of the Prince of
Peace, such as should fully and absolutely realize in
glorious fact all the glowing pictures of future blessed
ness, of which the pages of Revelation, from beginning
to end, are full ; such as should indeed be worthy of
God's purpose in the creation of man, and of the great
work of the One Mediator through which it is to be
brought about. Then shall the high promises of Christ's
beatitudes, renewing as they do, and enhancing, the
language of such portions of the older Scriptures as
the thirty-seventh Psalm, be indeed fulfilled ; The meek
shall inherit the earth ; the poor in spirit shall find that
theirs is the kingdom of heaven ; the pure in heart shall
see God; they shall behold His presence in righteous
ness, they shall be 'satisfied, when they awake, with His
likeness, with the revelation to their enraptured sight

408 God will be ' all in all.'
of His image, His similitude, in the Face, the Person, of
Jesus Christ (Psal. xvii. 16 ; 2 Cor. iv. 4-6).
To this End, denoted by the declaration (Rev. xxi. 5)
of Him that sat upon the throne, It is done : I am Alpha
and Omega, the beginning and the end, does Holy
Scripture lead us up ; the end, when He shall deliver
up the kingdom to Him who is God and Father (tw ©ea>
Kai Uarpi) ; when the Son of God shall have put all
enemies under His feet; when the last enemy, even
death, shall have been destroyed; when the Divine
ideal of man shall have been realized, in the final sub
jection of all things (Psal. viii. 6) under the feet of the
Divine Son of man, the Head of regenerate Humanity,
Who shall then also Himself be subject unto Him that
put all things under Him, that God may be all in all
(1 Cor. xv. 24-28. Appendix, Note xvii.)

thy kingdom come,
thy will be done in earth,
as it is in heaven.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

Note I. § 36.
The angels owe their illuminati on to the Son of God.
Compare St. Augustine, Be Civitate Dei, xi. 9. ' Profeeto facti
sunt (angeli) participes lucis aeternae, quod est ipsa incom-
mutabilis Sapientia Dei, per quam facta sunt omnia, quern
dicimus unigenitum Dei Filium ; ut ea luce illuminati, qua
creati, fierent lux, et vocarentur dies participatione incommuta-
bilis lucis et diei, quod est Verbum Dei, per quod et ipsi et
omnia facta sunt.'
Compare also the passage from St. Gregory the Great, given
in the next note. Note II. § 44.
The holy angels are not merely spirits.
Compare St. Basil, Be Spiritu Sancto, § 34. T&v ixkv ovv
aKXcov eKaarr] bwa^eoiv ev Treptypa7rr<3 T07T<j> ruy\dveiv ittnioTfVTai.'
6 yap ra> KopvrjXlto iiturras biyyeXos ovk r\v ev ravra /cat Ttapa rco
<£>i\iinrip, ovbe 6 airo rov BvoLao'TrjpCov tu> "Layajjia SiaXeyo/ievos Kara
tov avrov Kaipov Kai iv ovpavw rr\v oIkuov ardoiv iitXrjpov. (Of
the other powers then, each one is believed to be in a circum
scribed space. For the angel that visited Cornelius was not in
the same place as with Philip [i. e. he was at Csesarea, and not
at Azotus, see Acts viii. 39J; nor did be who conversed with
Zacharias from the altar occupy also at the same time his
proper station in Heaven.)
And St. Ambrose (Be Abraham, II. viii. 58, p. 338). ' Nos
autem nihil materialis compositionis immune atque alienum
putamus, praeter illam solam venerandae Trinitatis Substantiam,

412 The holy angels [app.
quae vere pura ac simplex sincerae impermixtaeque naturae
est.' And St. Augustine (Be Trinitate, III. i. 4) speaks of the
angels as ' ipsum suum corpus cui non subduntur sed subditum
regunt mutantes atque vertentes in species quas vellent ac-
commodatas atque aptas actionibus suis ; ' — and (Hid. 5) ' an
ipsa propria corpora sua transforment in quod voluerint, accom
modate ad id quod agunt V
And St. Gregory the Great, in a passage [Moral. II. iii. p. 39)
which follows a thought of St. Augustine's in Be Genesi ad
litteram VIII. xxiv. 45, ' Quomodo enim aut semper assistere,
aut videre semper Faciem Patris possunt [angeli], si ad minis-
terium exterius pro nostra salute mittuntur? Quod tamen
citius solvimus, si quantae subtilitatis sit angelica natura pen-
samus. Neque enim sic a divina visione foras exeunt, ut in-
ternae contemplationis gaudiis priventur : quia si Conditoris
aspectum exeuntes amitterent, nee jacentes erigere, nee igno-
rantibus vera nuntiare potuissent ; Fontem Lucis, quem egre-
dientes ipsi perderent, caeeis nullatenus propinarent. In hoc
itaque est nunc natura angelica a naturae nostrae conditione
distincta, quod nos et loco circumscribimur, et caecitatis
ignorantia coarctamur: angelorum vero spiritus loco quidem
eircumscripti sunt, sed tamen eorum scientiae longe super nos
incomparabiliter dilatantur. Interius quippe exteriusque sciendo
distenti sunt, quia Ipsum Fontem scientiae contemplantur.
Quid enim de his quae seienda sunt nesciunt, qui scientem
omnia sciunt? Eorum itaque scientia comparatione nostrae
valde dilatata est, sed tamen comparatione divinae scientiae
1 There is a good passage on this subject in the book de Spiritu et Anima
falsely ascribed to St. Augustine (and given in the Appendix to vol. vi. in Migne's
edition of St. Aug.), as also to Hugh of St. Victor, but which Aquinas assigns to
a ' nameless Cistercian monk,' whom the Benedictine editors of St. Aug. suppose to
be one Alcherus, a monk of Clairvaux. It runs thus : ' Nihil enim invisibile et
incorporeum natura credendum est praeter solum Deum, id est, Patrem et Filium
et Spiritum Sanctum. Qui ex eo incorporeus et invisibilis dicitur quia infinitus
et incircumscriptus, simplex et sibi omnibus modis sufficiens, ee ipsum sustinet
et idipsum. Et cum ubique sit in semetipso invisibilis et incorporeus esse dig-
noseitur. Omnis vero rationalis creatura corporea est. Angeli et omnes virtutes
corporeae sunt, licet non carne subsistant. Ex eo enim intellectuals naturas
corporeas esse dicimus, quia loco circumscribuntur.'

note ii. J are not merely spirits. 413
angusta : sicut et ipsi illorum spiritus comparatione quidem
nostrorum corporum, spiritus sunt, sed comparatione summi et
ineircumscripti Spiritus, corpus. Et mittuntur igitur et assis-
tunt : quia et per hoc quod circumscripti sunt, exeunt : et per
hoc, quod intus quoque praesentes sunt, numquam recedunt.
Et Faciem ergo Patris semper vident, et tamen ad nos veniunt :
quia et ad nos spiritali praesentia foras exeunt, et tamen ibi se,
unde recesserant, per internam contemplationem servant 1.'
And St. John Damascene {Be Fid. Orthod. Lib. II. cap. 3,
quoted by Rev. Robert Owen, Bogmatic Theology, ch. viii. 1),
' An Angel is called incorporeal and immaterial as far as relates
to us ; for everything being compared to God, the Alone Incom
parable, is found to be crass and material ; for the Divinity
Alone is really (ovras) immaterial and incorporeal.' Bishop
Macaire, Rector of the Ecclesiastical Academy of St. Petersburg,
in his Theologie Bogmatique Orthodoxe (a valuable Exposition of
the Catholic Faith as conceived by the holy Orthodox Eastern
Church, Three vols, Cherbuliez, Paris and Geneva, 1857-1859),
quotes the same passage, and gives many valuable references to
the Fathers. Vol. i. Partie II. Sect. 2, chap. i. § 65, p. 474.
Bishop Bull says (Vol. i. Serm. XI. On the Existence and
Nature of Angels), ' The angels of God are not such spirits as
God . . . is. . . . But we cannot so certainly and positively tell
what kind of spirituality that of the angels is, whether it be void
1 I have transcribed this beautiful passage for the sake of the clerical reader.
The priest's lips should keep knowledge .... for he is the angel of the Lord of
Hosts {Mai. ii. 7) ; and Saint Gregory here shows us, in the instance of the holy
angels, how exterior work, to be effectual and blessed, whether for consolation or
for instruction, must ever be conjoined with the 'joys of the internal contem
plation' of the ' Fount of Light, ' revealed in Him Who is the ' Face of the Father,'
even His Eternal Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Compare the thought of Mr. Keble's
lines for St. Matthew's Day: —
' There are in this loud stunning tide
Of human care and crime,
With whom the melodies abide
Of th' everlasting chime ;
Who carry music in their heart
Through dusky lane and wrangling mart,
Plying their daily task with busier feet,
Because their secret souls » holy strain repeat.'

4 14 Administration of the Universe [app.
of all manner of corporeity, as modern divines generally hold, or
joined with some certain corporeity, not of the grosser sort, either
fleshly, or airy, or fiery, but most subtle and pure, like that
of the highest heaven, which is styled their 18101; oltinrfipiov,
their proper habitation, as some of the ancient doctors believed.'
Bishop Bull does not tell us who the ' modern divines ' of his
date are. We cannot therefore be sure in what sense they spoke
of ' corporeity.' Bull evidently would not restrict ' corporeity'
to the ' grosser sort ; ' and rightly ; for any material envelope
of a finite spirit may accurately be called a 'body.' So Holy
Scripture speaks of 'heavenly' as well as 'earthly' bodies, of
•spiritual' as well as 'psychic' bodies. Our Lord's declaration
that the risen saints in their glorified bodies shall be like, and
equal to, the angels, really involves the fact that the angels have
' bodies ' of the ' spiritual ' and ' heavenly ' sort x.
This is not an idle and unprofitable speculation ; for it is an
essential part of the true Scriptural conception of the future Con
summated State, involving the further conception (which is equally
Scriptural) of a suitable and worthy dwelling-place, i. e. the re
generated earth, and of a real active fulness of happy social life and
work, which offers a definite and substantial prospect in the great
future to Christian Faith and Hope. The vague, shadowy,
unsubstantial, unimaginable ' Heaven,' which dimly floats about
in the indefinite language generally current on this class of
subjects, has furnished only too abundant material to scoffing
unbelief. It certainly can never be an effective counterweight
to the attractive temptations of this present life, or become to
any human imagination solidly enough present and real to
help any to be content to lose his life here, that he may fmd it
there. This thought is further drawn out towards the close of
Lecture VIII. Note III. § 46.
Administration of the Universe by the agency of angels.
St. Augustine Be libero arbitrio, III. xi. 32. ' Tales sunt
optimae, et sanctae, et sublimes creaturae coelestium vel super-
1 St. Aug. De Utti. Jejimii, i. i (Migne, VI. col. 707) speaks of the angels as
' spiritus rationales coelestibus corporibus praesidentes.'

note in.] by the agency of angels. 4 1 5
coelestium potestatum, quibus solus Deus imperat ; universus
autem mundus subjectus est. Sine istarum offieiis justis atque
perfectis esse universitas non potest.' And § 33, ' Illi [naturae
sublimioris officii, scil. angelicae] data est potentia omnia con-
tinendi officio proprio .... Nee tamen sua majestate continet
omnia, sed inhaerendo Illius Majestati, et Ejus imperiis devo-
tissime obtemperando, a Quo et per Quern et in Quo facta sunt
omnia.' And Enarr. in Psalm. CHI. § 9. ' Praepositi sunt angeli
eoelorum super potestates aereas et inde procedit verbum quod
fit hie. Intuentur enim legem fixam, legem aeternam, jubentem
sine scriptura, sine syllabis, sine strepitu, fixam semper et
stantem; intuentur angeli corde mundo, et ex ilia faciunt
quidquid hie fit, et potestates ex ilia ordinantur a summis usque
in ima.'
And Be Civitate Be"i, VII. xxx. ' Haec autem facit atque
agit unus verus Deus ; sed sicut Deus, id est ubique totus, nullis
inclusus locis, nullis vinculis alligatus, in nullas partes sectilis,
ex nulla parte mutabilis, implens coelum et terram praesente
potentia,' non indigente natura. Sic itaque administrat omnia
quae creavit, ut etiam ipsa proprios exereere et agere motus
sinat. Quamvis enim nihil esse possint sine Ipso, non sunt
quod Ipse. Agit autem multa etiam per angelos : sed non nisi
ex Se Ipso beatificat angelos.'
And Be Genesi ad litteram, VIII. xxiv. 45. ' Sublimibus
angelis Deo subdite fruentibus, et Deo beate servientibus, sub-
dita est omnis natura corporea, omnis irrationalis vita, omnis
voluntas vel infirma vel prava ; ut hoc de subditis vel cum
subditis agant, quod naturae ordo poscit in omnibus, jubente
illo cui subjecta sunt omnia.' He speaks also (ibid. xxv. 47) of
the ' creaturae angelicae actio, per quam universarum rerum
generibus, maximeque humano, providentia Dei prospicitur.'
Bishop Bull (Vol. i. Serm. XII. The Office of the holy Angels).
' The providence of God in the government of this lower
world, and therein more especially of the children of men, and
most especially of those who love and fear him, is in great part
administered by the holy angels.'

41 6 All rational beings have Free-Will. [app.
The reader may also consult Chapter VIII. of the Rev.
Robert Owen's Bogmatic Theology. He says, § 3 : ' They are
God's vicegerents in the administration of the universe; a
position which is amply supported by testimonies of Scripture,'
which he proceeds to give. Also, ibid. : ' Besides, the Angels
are regarded as presiding in some mysterious way over the
destinies of kingdoms and nations. This notion is universal in
Christian antiquity.' Note IV. § 49.
The essence of the first sin was Pride.
So Hooker, in the valuable fragment printed as an Appendix
to Book V. (Vol. ii. in Keble's ed.) in the third part, Touching
Predestination, p. 567 : ' In presupposing that the will of God
did determine to bestow eternal life in the nature of a reward,
and that rewards grow from voluntary duties, and voluntary
duties from free agents ; it followeth that whose end was eternal
life, their state must needs imply freedom and liberty of will.
A part therefore of the excellency of their nature was the free
dom of their will .... Out of the liberty wherewith God by
Creation endued reasonable creatures [the italics are Hooker's],
angels and men, there ensued sin through their own voluntary
choice of evil, neither by the appointment of God nor yet
without his permission .... Touching permission, if God do
naturally hate sin, and by his knowledge foresee all things,
wherefore did not his power prevent sin? ... . Because, in
wisdom (whereupon his determinate will dependeth), he saw it
reasonable and good to create both angels and men perfectly
free, which freedom being a part of their very nature, they
could not without it be that which they were : but God must
have left them uncreated, if not endued with liberty of mind.
Angels and men had before their fall the grace whereby they
might have continued if they would without sin : yet so great
grace God did not think good to bestow on them, whereby
they might be exempted from possibility of sinning; because
this latter belongeth to their perfection who see God in fulness
of glory, and not to them who as yet serve him under hope.

note iv.] The angels fell through Pride. 417
.... We see therefore how sin entered into the world. The
first that sinned against God was Satan. And then through
Satan's fraudulent instigation man also. The sin of devils grew
originally from themselves without suggestion or incitement
outwardly offered them .... and as our Saviour himself saith
of them, They stood not in the truth [St. John viii. 44] whereby
it may be very probably thought that the happiness even of
angels depended chiefly upon their belief in a truth which God did
reveal unto them [Hooker's italics] : The truth of that personal
conjunction which should be of God with men. For Christ,
although a Redeemer only unto men, might notwithstanding be
revealed unto angels as their Lord, without any reference at all
to sin, which the knowledge of Christ a Redeemer doth neces
sarily presuppose. So that man, their inferior by degree of
nature, they must in Christ the Son of God advanced unto so
great honour adore. Which mystery the too great admiration
of their own excellency being so likely to have made incredible,
it is unto us the more credible, that infidelity through pride was
their ruin.'
So Bishop Macaire (Theologie Bogm. Orthodoxe, § 68), ' Suivant
quelques-uns (e. g. St. Greg, le Theologien) ce chef etait, avant
sa chute, le premier et le plus parfait de tous les esprits crees1;'
and, f le diable . . . tomba par son orgueil. Cette opinion est
effectivement fondee sur la Parole de Dieu . . . . 1 Tim. iii. a, 6
.... Parmi les saints Peres qui partageaient cette idee nous
nommerons Saint Gregoire le theologien (Hymn. Sacr. Serm. VI.);,
Saint Athanase le Grand (Oral, de Virginitat. in Opp. t. I. p. 824,
ed. Commel.) ; Saint Ambroise (Epist. lxxxiv. 2) ; Saint Leon,
1 St. Gregory the Great {Moral. IV. 9) speaks of him as ' That apostate angel,
who had been so created as to be pre-eminent over all the rest of the legions of
angels.' Macaire quotes also St. John Damascene {Fid. Orthod. II. 4) as speaking
of him as ' Parmi les puissances angeliques, le chef de la celeste hieYarehie, auquel
Dieu commit la surveillance de la terre.' Tertullian {Adv. Marcion. II. 10) calls
him ' eminentissimus angelorum,' ' archangelus,' and ' sapientissimus omnium,
antequam diabolus.'
8 I cannot verify this reference, but I find the following in St. Ambrose : — Expos.
in Ps. cxviii. (i. <=. cxix.), vers. 51, p. 1046 (Migne, Ambr. I. 1283), ' Ipse diabolus
per superbiam naturae suae amisit gratiam. Denique dum dicit : Ponam thronum
meum super nubes . . . et ero similis Altissimo {Esai. xiv. 13 et 14), consortiis excidit
E e

41 8 The sin of the angels. [app.
pape de Rome *; .... En general, ce fut l'id^e de presque tous
les anciens Docteurs de l'^glise ; on la trouve dans Origene, in
Ezeoh. Horn. ix. a ; Basile le Grand, sur le iie, et sur le x6 chap.
d'Isaie; Chrysostome, in Genes. Horn, xxii.; Cyrille d'Alex-
andrie, Contra Anthropomorph. cap. 17; Theodoret, Abr. du Bogm.
div.; Jerome, in cap. 16 Ezeoh.; Augustin2, Jean Damascene,
Exp. de la Foi Orthodoxe, liv. ii. chap. 4, etc'
On the question, 'en quoi proprement consista l'orgueil de
I'esprit dechu, qui constitua son premier peche ? ,' Macaire says
(ibid.), 'A cet egard les opinions furent partagees. Quelques-
uns, se fondant sur les paroles d'Isaie (xiv. 13, 14) pensaient
que le diable eut la pretention d'etre egal a Dieu dans son
essence et de sieger avec lui sur un seul et meme trone (Cyrill.
Alex, in Joann. lib. v.) .... Suivant d'autres, l'Etoile du matin
tombee du ciel aurait refuse d'adorer le Fils de Dieu, soit qu'elle
eut envie ses prerogatives (Lactantius, Biv. Inst. ii. 8), soit
qu'ayant su par revelation que ce Fils de Dieu devait unjour
souffrir, elle eut doute de sa divinite, et n'eut pas consenti a le
reconnaitre pour Dieu (S. Greg. Mag. Moral, ii. 17)/
The student may also consult Owen, Bogmatic Theology,
chap. ix.
angelorum.' And in the Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans (if indeed that
be a genuine work of St. Ambrose), chap. xii. 16, 'Non alta sapientes. Alta
sapere superbia est ; nam et diabolus cum alta sapuit, apostatavit.'
1 E.g. Serm. IX., i. e. De Collectis IV. (Migne's ed. vol. i. col. 160), ' Incentor
ille auctorque peccati primum superbus ut caderet, deinde invidus ut noceret,
quia in veritate non stetit' {Joan. viii. 44).
2 Macaire does not here give a traceable reference ; but the following may
suffice : — DeVeraReligione,ca,]). xiii. 26, 'Ille autem angelus magis seipsum quam
Deum diligendo, subditus ei esse noluit, et intumuit per superbiam, et a summa
essentia deficit, et lapsus est.' De Civ. Dei, XI. xv. : ' Illud, quod ab initio diabolus
peccat, non ab initio ex quo creatus est peccare putandus est ; sed ab initio peccati,
quod ab ipsius superbia coeperit esse peccatum.' XII. vi. : ' Cum vero causa
miseriae malorum angelorum quaeritur, ea merito occurrit, quod ab Illo qui summe
est aversi, ad seipsos conversi sunt, qui non summe sunt : et hoc vitium quid
aliud quam superbia nuncupatur ? Initium quippe omnis peccati superbia ' (Eccli.
x. 15). XIV. xi. . ' Superbus ille angelus, ac per hoe invidus, per eamdem super
biam a Deo ad semetipsum conversus, quodam quasi tyrannico fastu gaudere
subditis, quam esse subditus eligens, de spirituali paradiso cecidit.'

NOTE V.] 419
Note V. § 51.
The fall of the angels irremediable.
Terttjllian, On the Flesh of Christ, § 14, ' Never has restoration
been promised to the angels. Christ has received from the Father
no commission about the salvation of angels. What the Father
has neither promised, nor committed to Him, Christ could not
carry out.'
St. Augustine, On St. John's Gospel, Tract. CX. (Migne, vol. iii.
p. 1924), 'Since however we know that the Creator of all good
has conferred no grace for the restoration of bad angels, we infer
that their fault has been judged so much the more damnable as
their nature was more sublime than ours. For by how much
they were better than we, by so much the less ought they to have
sinned. Whereas, in offending the Creator, they proved so much
the more assuredly ungrateful for His kindness, by how much
they had been created with greater mercy ; nor were they
satisfied with forsaking Him, but they must also deceive us.J
And on Galatians, iii. 20 (ib. p. 2122), ' The angels who fell
not from the vision of God have no need of a mediator by whom
they should be reconciled. And the angels who, with none to
persuade them, fell by their own unfaithfulness, are not reconciled
by any mediator.'
And Against Julianus, Book VI. xxii. (Migne, x. p. i553)> com
paring the sin of Adam with that of his posterity, he says, ' For
by how much a rational nature is itself higher, by so much its
fall is more ; and as its sin is more incredible, so is it more to be
condemned. And so the angels fell irreparably, forasmuch as
To whom more is given, from him is more required (St. Luke xii. 48).
And so the more excellent their nature, the more they owed a
willing obedience. Hence by not doing what they ought they
are so punished, as that they can no longer even wish [to do
what they ought], and are destined to even eternal torments.'
And, City of God, XIII. xxiv. 6 (Migne, vii. p. 402), 'The
e e 2

420 The fall of the angels irremediable ; [app.
deserter angels, although in a certain sense they are dead by
sinning (for they deserted the Well of Life, which is God, by
drinking Whereof they might have lived in wisdom and blessed
ness) : yet could not so die as to cease altogether to live and feel.
For they were created immortal ; and so, after the last judgment,
they will be cast down into the second death, so as not even
there to be without life; forasmuch as they will not even be
without feeling, since they will be in pains.' This passage, it
may be observed, is strongly adverse to the modern notion of
' Conditional Immortality.'
St. Thomas Aquinas, Sum. Part I, Quaest. Ixiv. Art. 2 (Migne,
vol. i. p. 1137), 'It must be firmly held, according to the
Catholic Faith, That both the will of the good angels is con
firmed in good, and the will of demons obstinately fixed in evil.
Yet you must seek the cause of this fixedness, not in the gravity
of their fault, but in the condition of their nature or state. For,
as Damascene says (Orthod. Faith, Bk. II, ch. iv), Their fall is to
the angels what death is to men. Now it is manifest that all
deadly sins of men, great or small, are pardonable before death ;
but after death unpardonable, and abiding for ever.' The whole
passage deserves study. He argues that in the angels both
' Apprehension ' (or Perception) and ' Will ' have a wider sweep,
and consequently a more decisive operation, than in men. ' An
Angel apprehends immoveably, through intellect [or vovs] in the
same way that we men apprehend a few first principles [e. g.
" The whole is greater than its part "], but man by reason [Ao'yoy,
Biscursus, a weaker faculty than vovs, being mediate and indirect,
and not intuitive], apprehends moveably, by running (discurrendo)
from one thing to another. Hence also the will of man adheres
to anything moveably, as having the power of even departing
from it and adhering to the contrary ; whereas the will of angels
adheres fixedly and immoveably. . . . Hence it has been usually
said that " the free will of man is flexible, both before his election
and afterwards ; but the free will of the angels is flexible before
election, but not afterwards." Wherefore the good angels, once
adhering to righteousness, were confirmed therein ; but the evil
ones, sinning, were obstinately fixed in sin. . . . The mercy of

note v.] Tertulliah, Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm. 42 1
God delivers penitents from sin. But those who are not capable of
repentance adhere immoveably to evil, and are not delivered by
the divine mercy. . . . The sin whereby the devil first sinned
still remains in him, as to the desire.'
And' again, Sum. Part III. Quaest. iv. Art. 1 (Migne, iv. p. 55),
he argues that it is only in human nature that the two conditions,
viz. of fitness, or meetness, or dignity (congruentia), and of necessity,
are both found. To the irrational creation dignity is wanting ;
to the superhuman, or angelic, necessity. For the angels are not
generated, as men are ; nor are they, as men are, born under a
law of original sin, to the inheritance of a tainted nature. There
is no abstract common angelic nature. Each angel is, from his
first creation, perfect in his own personality. Hence it follows
that the Son of God could not have taken the angelic nature
without superseding, or, indeed, annihilating, the personality of
some one particular angel. And the sin of the evil angels, who
might seem to satisfy the condition of necessity, is, he says,
irremediable. St. Anselm alludes to this question in two places of his
treatise Why God was made man, viz. i. 17 and ii. 21. In the
first, to Boso's question, 'Why the fallen angels could not be
restored,' he simply answers, ' When you see the difficulty of our
restoration, you will understand the impossibility of their recon
ciliation ; ' and proceeds to give reasons why the loss could not
be repaired by the creation of more angels, but must be made
up from mankind. The second passage is as follows : — ' As for
the reconciliation of the devil, about which you enquired, you
will perceive it to be impossible, if you diligently consider that
of man. For just as man could not be reconciled unless by God
becoming Man, and so able to die, and one by Whose righteous
ness that might be restored to God which He had lost by Man's
sin ; so the condemned angels cannot be saved, unless by God
becoming an angel, one who could die, and who through his
righteousness could recover for God what the sins of the others
had taken away from Him. And just as man could not (non
debuit) be lifted up again by means of another man who was not
of the same race, even though he were of the same nature ; so no

422 St. Anselm on the non-redemption of angels, [app.
angel can (debet) be saved by means of another angel, although
they are all of the same nature ; since they are not of the same
race,' as men are. For the angels are not all from one angel, as
all men are from one man. Again: this also hinders their
restoration, That as they fell when none other tempted them to
fall, so they ought (debent) to rise up again without help from
any other ; and this is impossible for them. For they cannot
otherwise be restored to the dignity which they would have had ;
since without any other help they would, by their own power,
which they had received, have stood fast in the truth (St. John
viii. 44), if they had not sinned. Wherefore, if any thinks that
the redemption through our Saviour ought some time to be ex
tended even to them, he is shown by reason itself to be misled by
reasoning. And this I say, not as if the value (pretium) of His
Death did not, in its greatness, prevail against all the sins of
men and of angels ; but because a reason that cannot be altered
is against the restoration of the lost angels.' The first of St.
Anselm's two reasons is identical with the second, quoted above
from St. Thomas Aquinas, viz. That there is not the same
solidarity and interdependence in the angelic as in human
nature, and so we cannot conceive the possibility, in their case,
of their sacramental ingrafting into a new stock ; nor understand
how One in their nature could so, as Head of all, represent all, as
that His Righteousness and Life and Death should atone for all.
If, as rationalising Christians view it, the Life of Christ were
but the exemplary exhibition of perfect morality, and His Death,
so far as it was more than part of that, only the crowning proof
of love, and the supreme motive of gratitude ; then indeed it, or a
similar exhibition in angelic nature, might avail, by an external
motive and attractive power, for the recovery of the angels also.
But it cost more to redeem our souls. Our disease is deeper than
could be reached by anything merely operating as a standard, or
even a motive, presented ab extra, on a will itself weakened and
biassed by the act of sin.

note vi.] 423
Note VI. § 71.
Visible appearance of the Son of God to Adam in Paradise.
St. Augustine, On Genesis (Ad Litt. VIII. xviii. 37), ' How then
did God speak to him [Adam] ? Whether inwardly, in his mind,
through the understanding, that is, so that he should intelligently
perceive the will and command of God without any bodily sounds
or resemblances of bodily things ? I do not think that God so
spake to the first man. For the Scripture narrates these things
in such wise that we should rather believe that God spake to
man in Paradise in the same way as He afterwards spake to the
Fathers, to Abraham, to Moses, that is, in some bodily form or
appearance. Hence is it also that they heard His Voice, as He
walked in Paradise at eventide, and hid themselves (Gen. iii. 8).'
Again, ibid, xxvii. 5°) speaking of this same passage of
Genesis, he says, ' That this [the visibly walking in the garden]
was done, not by means of the very Substance Itself of God, but
by means of the creature which is subject to Him, no man who
knows the Catholic Faith can by any means doubt. But I
have here thought it right to speak somewhat more fully on this
subject, because certain heretics [the Arians, Benedictine JVote]
think that the Substance of the Son of God is visible of itself
without the assumption of any bodily form, and that, accordingly,
before He took a body of the Virgin He was Himself (they
imagine) seen by the Fathers, as if it were only of God the
Father that it is said, Whom no man hath seen, nor can see (1 Tim.
vi. 16) ; because the Son was seen before He took on Him the
form of a servant, and that by His own very Substance ; which
impiety is to be utterly rejected by Catholic minds.' I have
here rendered St. Augustine's Substantia by Substance, the phrase
of our English Nicene Creed and Articles. Perhaps Essence (ovaia)
would convey the thought better to modern ears. The passage
is valuable as showing exactly the false inference (which St.
Augustine calls ' impietas ') of the Arians, who, appealing to the
general belief of the Church that the Son of God did appear in
visible form to man under the old Covenants, argued illogieally
from that admitted fact that He was essentially inferior to the

424 The visible Appearances of God, related in [app.
Father even in His pre-existent Nature, and so less than Divine.
The Catholic knows that invisibility is not a Personal attribute of
the Father only, but an essential attribute of the Godhead as
such, and so common to the Three Persons. The form seen was
not the uncreated Ipsa Substantia of the Son, which is as invisible
as that of the Father, being indeed that of the Father, nor was
the Ipsa Substantia seen in it ; but it was a temporarily-assumed
form, from the ' Subdita Ei creatura.' See Lecture IV. §§ 89,
90, p. 179, &c.
Thomas Scott, in his Commentary on Gen. iii. 8, says : ' Some
visible tokens of the Lord's Presence, perhaps in human form,
seem here intimated, of which we shall hereafter find undeniable
instances ; and which should be considered as anticipations of
His incarnation, who is called the " Word of God." '
Lange, on the same, in his Bibel-werk (edited by Schaff, pub.
by T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1868), says : — ' Delitzsch maintains
that God appeared to man as one man appears to another, though
this had not been the original mode of the divine converse with
him. The Theophanies had their beginning first after the fall ;
and according to his explanation " God now for the first time
holds converse with men in an outward manner, corresponding
to their materialisation and alienated state." On the other hand
Keil maintains, " that God held converse with the first men in a
visible form, as a Father and Educator of His children, and that
this was the original mode of the Divine revelation, not coming
in for the first time after the fall." .... We must rea-ard as
unanswered, in what respect the Theophanies (which were mediated
in all cases through vision-seeing states of soul) are to be
distinguished from real outward appearances in human form.'
Keil seems more right than Delitzsch: in whose lano-uao-e
* to to '
connecting ' materialisation ' with man's ' alienated state,' there
is a latent Manichaeism. Man was ' material ' as God made him.
There was no more reason against the ' mode of the Divine con
verse ' being outward and visible before the Fall than afterwards.
Lange's assertion, that 'the Theophanies were mediated in all cases
through vision-seeing states of soul,' is mere assumption ; and
contrary to the plain meaning of the Bible narrative, which, in

note vi.] the Bible, were real and outward. 425
most cases describe them simply as ' real outward appearances in
human form.'
The distinction between prophetic ' vision ' and ' real outward
appearances ' seems marked in Numbers xii. 6, ' If there be a
projjhet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in
a vision, I will speak unto him in a dream. Not so my servant Moses.
He is faithful in all my house. With him will I speak mouth to
mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of
the Loud (TVW* rOTpri) shall he behold. Compare Exod. xxxiii. 9,
when, after the sin of the golden calf, to distinguish the ' faithful
ness,' of Moses as contrasted with the unsteadfastness of Aaron
and the people, the cloudy pillar descended, and the Lord talked
with Moses, and spake unto him face to face, as a man speakelh unto
his friend, just as at the tent door He had talked with Abraham
the friend of God (Gen. xviii. i ; Isa. xii. 8; St. James ii. 23),
and with Jacob at Peniel (xxxii. 30). But there are degrees of
nearness in the talking/ace to face ; for The Lord talked with the
people face to face in the mount out of the midst of the fire (Beut.
v. 4). What is common to all such instances is a certainly
objective manifestation by ' outward appearance ' and audible
' voice ' as opposed to an inward and subjective ' vision ' to the
spirit and mind only. But while Moses saw the similitude
(r073.Fl), it is expressly said that the people did not (Beut. iv.
12, 15) ; they only heard a voice, and saw the fire. For ordinary
saints the vision of the Likeness, or Similitude, of God (which is
Christ) is reserved for the future life. David anticipates it in
Psalm xvii. 15, I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness,
i.e. with the sight of Thine Image or Similitude (^rO^ttF!, Lxx.
yopra(jQr[0-opai iv ru ocpdrjvai ttjv b6£av oov) *-
1 The Lxx. in Numbers xxii. 8, also, renders njpn by 56£av {ttjv S6£av Kvpiov
fTBe) ; which is too strong an expression, and is contradicted by Exodas xxxiii. 18-23,
so far as regards Moses in the days of his flesh. The Glory is, as one may so say,
' within,' or ' behind ' the visible similitude or likeness ; but does not fully shine
forth, since mortal man could not bear it. Perhaps Adfa (which, etymologically,
would mean visible glory) might mean to a Greek less than Tina to a Hebrew.
Hence Lxx. in Exod. 33, 18 renders ^-jnSTlNM} '?!Orj '~EiMpavia6v poi aaxvr&v.
[Cod. Alex. Aeff 6v poi ri\v atavrov 86£av~], as if with a feeling that, for that passage,
rljv So£av aov merely would not have been strong enough.

426 Dr. Pusey' s estimate [app.

Note VII. § 87. On the Theophanies.
The following passages are here given from the writings of the
early Christian Fathers, in illustration, for the English reader,
of the original and primitive view of the ' Theophanies ' ; viz.
That it was the Eternal Son Himself Who did, visibly, as the
' Angel of the Lord ' or otherwise, manifest Himself, in human
or angelic form, temporarily assumed for the purpose, under the
old Covenants.
It should be observed that, from the different and distant
localities to which they belonged, the writers cited are (so it
happens) singularly representative of the whole Church ; and
further that they introduce this view, as their subject or
argument requires, not as if it itself needed argument or support,
or as an idea of their own, but as the current thought of the
Church of their day, universally acknowledged and accepted, and
so capable of being itself employed as an argument. Later
writers who oppose it, or hesitate about it, yet admit one and all
its general, nay, universal prevalence in the earlier ages of the
Church. There is, in truth, a consensus against which the
hesitations of Saint Augustine really avail but little.
I. St. Justin Martye, born in Samaria about a.d. 100, suffered
at Rome a.d. 166. I give the extracts from the Oxford Transla
tion in the Library of the Fathers. The Preface introducing that
Translation, and written by Dr. Pusey upon an unfinished draft
by the Rev. John Barrow, D.D., speaks thus of the value of
St. Justin's writings : —
' He had ample means of knowing what was the faith and
practice of Christians throughout the world in his own as well as
in earlier times (p. iii.) .... Eusebius . . attests the estimation
in which his writings were held as authentic descriptions of the
Christian Church of his age. In statement of fact, therefore,
respecting Christian history and doctrines, St. Justin may be
regarded as most trustworthy ' (p. iv.) ' The most important use
of the writings of this early age is to be found in the evidence
which they offered respecting the doctrines then held by the body

note vii.] of St. Justin Martyr. 427
of Christians spread throughout the world. It is indeed to us a
matter of the highest concern to know assuredly what the truths
were which our Blessed Lord and His Apostles taught. And in
connection with what we read in Holy Scripture, and that which
the Church teaches from Scripture, the testimony given by the
faith of the sub-Apostolic Church is invaluable ' (p. xi). ' That
Justin on the whole represented faithfully what the universal
Church of his own age held, we may feel assured from the fact
already noticed, his publishing the Dialogue with Trypho, for the
purpose of challenging contradiction if he had been unfaithful in
his representations; as well as from the esteem in which his
writings were held by the Church of his own and the following
age' (p. xiii). From this favourable estimate of St. Justin,
Dr. Pusey (himself inclining, see § 94, p. 191, to prefer the
later view of the Theophanies) proceeds somewhat to detract
in regard to the matter before us in this Note. He says
(p. xiv.), ' It is very necessary to keep in mind, that the doctrine
of the Church is to be distinguished from the views and theories
formed respecting it, no less than from the arguments by which
Theologians maintain it ; even though those views be widely
spread and generally received. For instance, it is quite certain
that the Church held most deeply the true Divinity of our
Blessed Lord, though many of the arguments by which Justin
would establish it from the Old Testament may seem invalid, and
based upon erroneous notions. One may question with St.
Augustine, whether the appearances recorded in the early Books
of Scripture were those of the Son Himself personally, as
St. Justin, in common with almost x all Christian antiquity until
1 Dr. Pusey does not give references to any early exceptions. The few there
are apply chiefly to the appearance of the Captain of the Lord's host to Joshua.
Among them are, I. St. Athanasius, see p. 457 : t,. Theodoret (a.d. 450) who, in
Qucest. iv. in Jesum filium Naue says ' I think it was Michael the Archangel,' but
quotes no authority, and gives no reason except the erroneous view (see § 99. p.
200) that a created angel was permanently substituted as the guardian of Israel
after the sin of the calf; and, 3. The anonymous and undated scholion to Valesius'
MS. of Eusebius (Hist. I. 2) see § 101, p. 206. Thus Dr. Pusey's qualifying
' almost ' has but little support. Nor is there more for the extraordinary state
ments of Dr. Mill {Myth. Interp. Gosp. Append. E. p. 355) that Theodoret's opinion
has, ' with two remarkable exceptions (viz. St. Justin Martyr and Eusebius the

428 St. Justin's belief as to the Theophanies [app.
St. Augustine, so strenuously maintains, without detracting
from the exceeding value of his testimony to the great truth
which underlies his exposition : the personal Preexistence and
Divinity of the Word.'
Upon this it may be remarked that the interpretation given
by St. Justin of the Old Testament narratives in question is
certainly not put forward by him as a ' view ' or a ' theory,' but
as a well-understood and generally acknowledged belief. Sup
ported as it is beyond all gainsaying by a very extensive mass of
evidence throughout the ante-Nicene ages, it approaches itself
much more nearly to being a ' doctrine of the Church' than a
' view ' or a ' theory' ; which could have had no weight in. either
an Apology addressed to a Heathen Emperor, or an argument held
with a Jewish unbeliever. Indeed it is evident that to have used
such an argument on his own sole authority (which would have
argued it a novelty, unknown to the Church) would have been
certain to engender needless difficulties in the minds of those he
desired to win to the Faith. It could only be of any real force
under two conditions. 1. That it should be the generally
accepted belief of the Christian body ; 2. That to those who, like
Trypho, accepted the Old Testament, it should admit of being
shown to be, not in solitary instances but throughout a whole
series, the most probable, natural, and consistent interpretation of
the sacred narrative itself. The very fact that the Arians of the
fourth century (illogically enough) appealed to it proves its
acknowledged currency throughout the Church. The earlier
use, by a few, and subsequent dropping, of such terms as
' mingling ' (to 'express the closeness of union of our Lord's
Divine and Human natures ') because afterwards ' abused by the
Historian), received the sanction of the ancient Church/ and that the anonymous
scholiast's ' allegation of general catholic consent ' (to his reasons for supposing the
Captain of ike Lord's host to be the Archangel Michael) is ' unquestionably true.'
What is to be observed is, 1. That a variety of opinion as to this one Manifestation
— a variety evidently largely due to the Lxx. version (see § 101, p. 207) — does
not affect the consentient interpretation of the Theophanies as a whole : and 2.
That the amount of ascertained adhesion among early Christian writers to Theo-
doret's view is exceedingly small, if any. His own reputation for orthodoxy was
too uncertain for his opinion to have much weight. But see the allusions in the
passages which follow to the Appearance to Joshua.

note vii.] was not a ' view' nor a ' theory! 429
Apollinarians ' ; or as ' conjunction ' (crvva<peia), because abused
by the Nestorians, are not really parallel cases ; and should not
be seriously adduced as an argument for the surrender of an
admittedly wide-spread view, in possession of the ground from
the first days of Christianity, affecting large tracts of the Old
Testament Scriptures (not to say the whole of them throughout)
and holding so cardinal a position in the Christian argument.
I add one more passage from Dr. Pusey's Preface, bearing on this
subject : — ' The supposition that whereas in the Old Testament
God is said to have appeared to man, it was the Son Who so
appeared, lasted on to the time of St. Augustine. It is used as
an argument of the Divinity of the Son, since He Who so
manifests Himself is declared to be God. The supposition itself
implied nothing derogatory. What more natural than to think,
that He Who, in the fulness of time, vouchsafed to become Man,
did beforehand accustom man to the thought of His appearing in
human form, by appearing in a form which He had created.
Not the supposition itself (which occurs in the most ¦ accurate
Fathers, as St. Cyprian, and even St. Athanasius himself) but
statements connected with it, were less carefully worded ' (p. xvi).
I append the passages themselves from St. Justin : —
1. Apology, i. 63 (Oxf. Transl. p. 48). 'But the Word of
God is His Son, as I have already said, and He is called
Angel and Apostle, for He declares all that ought to be known,
and is sent to proclaim what is told, as indeed our Lord
Himself said, He that heareth Me, heareth him that sent Me.
And this will be clear from the writings of Moses, in which it is
said as follows : And the Angel of God spake unto Moses in aflame
of fire out of the midst of a bush, and said, I Am That I Am, the
God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God
of thy fathers ; go down into Egypt, and bring up My people. And
what followed, you who wish may learn from them ; for it is not
possible to write all the events in this book, but thus much has
been said to prove that Jesus, the Christ, is the Son and Apostle
of God, being formerly the Word ; and at one time appearing in
the form of fire, and at another in the image of incorporeal
beings, but now by the will of God, being made man for the

430 The Theophanies. [app.
human race, He endured also to suffer all that the devils caused
to be inflicted on Him by the senseless Jews; who, having it
expressly said in the Mosaic writings, And the Angel of God spake
with Moses in a flame of fire in the bush, and said, I Am That I
Am, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob ;
affirm that it was the Father and Maker of all things Who
spoke thus. Hence also the Spirit of prophecy upbraids them
as follows : Israel hath not known Me, My people hath not under
stood Me. And again, Jesus, as we have shown, when with
them, said, No one knoweth the Father but the Son, nor the Son
but the Father, and those to whom the Son will reveal Him. The
Jews then always thinking that the Father of all things spoke
to Moses — He Who spoke to him being the Son of God, Who is
called both Angel and Apostle — are rightly upbraided both by
the Spirit of Prophecy, and by Christ Himself, as knowing
neither the Father nor the Son : for they who say that the Son
is the Father, are proved neither to know the Father, nor that
the Father of all things has a Son, Who, being moreover the
First-born Word of God, is also God, and Who formerly, through
the shape of fire, and through an incorporeal image, appeared
to Moses, and the other Prophets ; but now, in the time of
your government, as I said before, was made man of a Virgin,
according to the counsel of the Father, for the salvation of those
who believed on Him.'
2. Bialogue with Trypho, 34 (Oxf. Transl. p. no), ' Where it is
said, Give the King Thy judgments, 0 God (Psalm lxxii. 1) ; because
Solomon was a king, you say that the Psalm was spoken of him,
whereas its words plainly show that it was spoken of the eternal
King, i.e. Christ ; for Christ is spoken of as a King, and a Priest,
and God, and Lord, and an Angel, and a Man, and Captain of
the host, and a Stone, and a Child that is born, etc'
3. Ibid. 56 (p. 138, a full discussion of the Appearance to
Abraham recorded in Genesis xviii. and xix.), ' Moses, that blessed
and faithful servant of God, declares that He Who was seen by
Abraham at the oak of Mamre was God, accompanied by two
angels, who were sent for the condemnation of Sodom, by Another,
namely, by Him Who always remains above the heavens, Who

note vii.] St. Justin Martyr. 431
has never been seen by any man, and Who of Himself holds con
verse with none, Whom we term the Creator of all things, and
the Father. . . . What I assert, I will endeavour to prove to
you who understand the Scriptures ; namely, that there both is,
and that we read of, another God and Lord under the Creator of
all things, Who is also termed an Angel, in that He bears
messages to men, whatever the Creator, above Whom there is no
other God, wills to be borne to them. . . . He Who is said to
have appeared to Abraham, to Jacob, and to Moses, and is called
God, is other than the Creator of all things ; other I mean in
number, not in will ; for I assert that He never did (nor said)
anything but what the Creator of the world, above Whom there
is no God, willed Him to do or to say.'
4. Ibid. 68 (p. 144, On the Appearances to Jacob), ' Moses
has written again, that He Who was seen by the Patriarchs, and
Who is called God, is also termed Angel and Lord, in order that
you may thus perceive Him to be a minister of the Father of the
universe. [He quotes the passages from Genesis xxxi, xxxii, xxxv.]
.... When Jacob fled from his brother Esau, the same Angel,
and God, and Lord, appeared to him, Who also appeared to
Abraham in the form of a man, and afterwards wrestled with
Jacob in the same form.' [He quotes Gen. xxviii. 10-20.]
5. Ibid. 59 (p. 146, On the Appearance in the Burning Bush),
' The same Angel, and God, and Lord, and Man, Who appeared
as man to Abraham and Jacob, also appeared to and conversed
with Moses in a flame of fire out of the bush.'
6. Ibid. 60 (p. 146, In answer to Trypho's objection that the
Angel who appeared and God who conversed with Moses at the
bush were two distinct Persons), ' Even if it be so, my friends,
that both an Angel and God appeared together in that vision to
Moses, yet .... That God Who said to Moses that He was
the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob,
will not be the Creator of the universe, but He Who was proved
to have appeared to Abraham and Jacob, who ministers to the
will of the Creator of all things, and who in the judgment of
Sodom also ministered to His counsel. So that even if there
were two, as you say, an Angel and God, yet no one who has the

43 2 The Theophanies. [app.
least sense will venture to assert, that the Maker and Father of
all things left those realms which are above the heavens, and ap
peared on a little spot of earth. ... In that vision He alone,
who is both called an Angel and is God was seen by and con
versed with Moses. ... As the Scripture calls Him who ap
peared to Jacob in his dream an Angel, and then declares that
that very Angel who was then seen by him in that sleep, said,
I am the God who appeared to thee when thou fleddest from the face
of thy brother Esau ; and we read in the time of Abraham in the
destruction of Sodom, The Lord brought this judgment /row the
Lord in heaven ; so when the Scripture here says that an Angel
of the Lord appeared to Moses, and afterwards declares that He
is Lord and God, it means the same Person whom in many
passages it points out to have ministered to the will of that
God, Who is above the world, and to Whom there is none
superior. . . . 61. He once calls Himself Captain of the host,
when He appeared to Joshua the Son of Nun in the form of man.'
7. Ibid. 126 (p. 226), ' But if you had known, Trypho, who
He is that is called at one time Angel of Great Counsel, and a
Man by Ezekiel, and like the Son of Man by Daniel, and a little
Child by Isaiah, and Christ and God who is to be worshipped
by David, and Christ and a Stone by many, and Wisdom by
Solomon, and Joseph, and Judah, and a Star by Moses, and the
East by Zechariah, and One who must suffer, and Jacob, and
Israel, by Isaiah again, and a Rod, and a Flower, and chief
Corner-Stone, and Son of God; if you had known this, Trypho,
you would not have blasphemed Him Who has already come,
and been born, and suffered, and ascended into heaven ; who will
also return again ; and then your twelve tribes shall mourn.'
8. Ibid. 127 (p. 228), ' I suppose that I have sufficiently shown
that when my God says, God went up from Abraham, or, The Lord
spake to Moses, and, The Lord came down to see the tower which
the children of men built, or, God closed, the Ark of Noah from
without, you should not suppose that the Unbegotten God Him
self descended or went up from any place ; for the ineffable
Father and Lord of all things neither comes to any place, nor
walks, nor sleeps, nor rises up, but always remains in His own

note vii.] St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis. 433
place wherever it is, seeing quickly and hearing quickly, not
with eyes or ears, but by an ineffable power — (and yet He beholds
all things, and has knowledge of all things, and none of us is hid
from Him) — nor is He moved nor contained in any place, not
even in the whole world, having been even before the world
was made ; how then could He speak to any one, or be seen
by any one, or appear on the smallest spot of earth ? when
the people could not even look on the glory of him who was
sent by Him in Sinai ; and Moses himself was unable to enter
the tabernacle, which he had made, if it were filled with the
glory of God, and the Priest could not endure to stand before
the Temple when Solomon brought the ark into the house at
Jerusalem, which he himself had built, — then neither Abraham,
nor Isaac, nor Jacob, nor any other man, ever saw the Father
and Ineffable Lord of all things whatever, and of Christ Him
self; but Him, who, according to His will, is both God His
Son, and His Angel from ministering to His will; who, He
determined, should be born as man of the Virgin, and who once
even became fire when He conversed with Moses from the bush ;
for if we do not understand the Scriptures thus, it will follow
that the Father and Lord of all things was not in heaven when
it was said by Moses, And the Lord rained upon Sodom fire and
brimstone from the Lord out of heaven. And again when it was
said by David, Lift up your gates, 0 ye princes, and be ye lift up,
ye everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in. And
again when he says, The Lord saith unto my Lord, Sit Thou on My
right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool. And that
Christ being Lord, and being in His own nature God the Son of
God, and being formerly manifested with power as man, and an
angel, and in the form of fire as in the bush, appeared also at
the judgment which was brought upon Sodom, has been proved
at length by what I have said.'
II. St. Melito, Bishop of Sardis, a.d. 168. He addressed an
Apology to the Emperor M. Antoninus. The Rev. W. H. Sim-
cox in his recent interesting volume, The Beginnings of the Christian
Church, chap, viii, after speaking (p. 389) of Saint Melito as
' undoubtedly one of the chief theologians of his age, and one of
if

434 The Theophanies. St. Melito. [app.
the most honoured persons in the Church,' presents us (from
Canon Cureton's version, in his Spicilegium Syriacum) with the
following passage from the extant fragments of his writings : —
' We have made collections from the Law and the Prophets
relative to those things which have been declared respecting our
Lord Jesus Christ, that we may prove to your love, that He
is perfect reason, the Word of God ; who was begotten before
the light ; who was Creator together with the Father ; who was
the fashioner of man ; who was all in all ; who among the
Patriarchs was Patriarch ; who in the law was the Law ; among
the priests Chief Priest ; among kings Governor ; among prophets
the Prophet ; among the angels Archangel ; in the voice the
Word ; among spirits Spirit ; in the Father the Son ; in God
God — the King for ever and ever. For this is He who was pilot
to Noah ; who conducted Abraham ; who was bound with Isaac,
who was in exile with Jacob, who was sold with Joseph, who was
captain with Moses, who was the divider of the inheritance with
Jesus the Son of Nun, who in David and the prophets foretold
his own sufferings, who was incarnate in the Virgin, who was
born in Bethlehem, who was wrapped in swaddling-clothes in
the manger, who was seen of the shepherds, who was glorified
of the angels, who was worshipped by the Magi, who was pointed
out by John, who assembled the Apostles, who preached the
kingdom, who healed the maimed, who gave light to the blind,
who raised the dead, who appeared in the temple, who was not
believed on by the people, who was betrayed by Judas, who was
laid hold on by the priests, who was condemned by Pilate, who
was transfixed in the flesh, who was hanged upon the tree, who
was buried in the earth, who rose from the dead, who appeared to
the Apostles, who ascended to heaven, who sitteth on the right
hand of the Father, who is the rest of those that are departed,
the reeoverer of those who were lost, the light of those who are
in darkness, the deliverer of those who are captives, the guide of
those who have gone astray, the refuge of the afflicted, the bride
groom of the Church, the charioteer of the Cherubim, the captain
of the Angels, God who is of God, the Son who is of the Father,
Jesus Christ, the King for ever and ever. Amen.' ' This,' adds

note vii.] St. Theophilus. St. frenaeus: 435
Mr. Simcox, ' is not only orthodox theology — it is second century
theology. The thought of the Divine Word pervading the Old
Testament — appearing in the revelations made to the Patriarchs
and Prophets, and foretold by their typical deeds and sufferings,
as well as by their inspired words — is one that has never indeed
ceased to influence Christian theology ; but it has in later ages
been less insisted on, indeed less clearly conceived. The reason
is that the second century was the time when it was necessary to
maintain, against both Jews and anti- Jewish heretics, that " the
Old Testament is not contrary to the New ; for both in the Old
and New Testament everlasting life is offered to mankind by
Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being
both God and Man." As other controversies arose, the faith was
expressed in other forms ; but the old form never entirely passed
out of memory.'
III. Theophilus. Bishop Bull writes (Befence, Nicene Creed,
Bk. I, ch. ii, § 5), ' Theophilus of Antioch (writing to Autolycus,
Bk. II) asserts that it was the Son of God, who appeared to
Adam shortly after the fall, and that " assuming the person of
the Father and Lord of all, He came into Paradise in the person
of God, and conversed with Adam ; " ' upon which passage the
student should see Bishop Bull's remarks in Bk. Ill, ch. vii. § 1,
in which he vindicates Theophilus, as in other places he has to
vindicate others of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, against the super
ficial misunderstanding of them by the Jesuit Petavius.
IV. St. Lrenaeus, born in Asia about a.d. 140; a disciple
of St. Polycarp, as he of St. John ; succeeded Pothinus who was
martyred a.d. 177, as Bishop of Lyons ; died about a.d. 200.
1. Against Heresies, III. 6 (translated by Dr. Burton, Testi
monies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Bivinity of Christ, p. 78),
' In the overthrowing of Sodom, the Scripture says (Gen. xix. 24),
And the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah fire and brim
stone from the Lord out of heaven. For it signifies in this place
that the Son, Who had also been conversing with Abraham, had
received power from the Father to judge the people of Sodom on
account of their iniquity .... And in another place the Son
speaks to Moses, saying, i" am come down to deliver this people
f f a

436 The Theophanies. [app.
(Exod. iii. 8), for it is He Himself Who descended and ascended
for the salvation of men. It is by the Son therefore who is in
the Father, and has the Father in himself, that He Who is truly
God has been manifested unto us, the Father bearing testimony
to the Son, and the Son announcing the Father.'
2. Also III. xi. (quoted by Dr. Burton, p. 84, as follows) : —
' The Word of God conversed with the patriarchs before Moses
in his divine and glorious character [koto, to QeUbv ko.1 evbo£ov
&pl\ei, secundum divinitatem et gloriam colloquebatur, i.e. as
not being yet incarnate] : to those under the law, He fulfilled the
office of a priest : and after this, becoming man, he sent the gift
of the Holy Ghost into all the earth.'
3. Also Ibid. IV. xvii. (I translate from Grynaeus' Latin ed.
after Erasmus, Basileae, I571)) 'Wherefore the Jews departed
from God, receiving not the Word of God, but thinking that
through Himself they could know God the Father, without the
Word, that is, without the Son ; knowing not Him Who in
human form spake to Abraham and Aaron, and Who said to
Moses, Seeing, I have seen the oppression of My people in Egypt, and
am come down to deliver them. For this Son, Who is also the Word
of God, from the beginning made preparation (praestruebat),
since the Father needed no help of angels, for His making the
Creation, and forming Man, for whose sake also the Creation
was made.'
4. Ibid. IV. xxiii. On ' Had ye believed Moses, ye would have
believed Me, for he wrote of Me. Yes ; for everywhere in his
writings is the Son of God embedded [inseminatus, iusown],
sometimes indeed talking with Abraham, sometimes eating with
him, sometimes again bringing judgment on the people of Sodom :
or, again, when He is seen, and guides Jacob on his journey, and
speaks from the Bush with Moses.'
4. IV. 37. Speaking of the various modes in which prophetic
announcements were made of the coming Saviour and His Work :
— ' For not by speech only did the prophets prophesy, but by
vision also, and by their manner of life, and by acts which
they did, according as the Spirit suggested. Accordingly on
this principle they saw God Who is invisible. As Isaiah says,

note vii.]

St. Irenaeus.

437

/ saw with my eyes the King, the Lord of hosts ; announcing that
man was to see God with his eyes and to hear His Voice. Where
fore also on this principle they saw also the Son of God as man
conversing with men, prophesying that which was to be hereafter
.... And the Word indeed spake with Moses, appearing in bis
sight, as a man speaketh with his friend .... Now the Word
of the Father, forasmuch as He is rich and manifold, deelareth
[Himself] not in any one single form, nor was seen by those
that saw Him in one character only, but according to the oc
casions of His dealings ; as it is written in Daniel that He was
once seen by those who were around Ananias and Azarias and
Misael, standing by them in the burning fiery furnace and de
livering them from the flame ; and the appearance (he says) of the
fourth was like the Son of God.'

The student may compare also
Adv. Ear. I. iv. Et cur
quum invisibilis sit Deus, pro-
pbetis apparuerit non in una
forma, sed aliter aliis, intelligas.
III. vi. Deo Quo [sc. Filio]
iterum dicit, Deus Deorum
Dominus loquutus est, et vocavit
terram. (Ps. 1. i.) Quis Deus?
De Quo dixit : Deus manifeste
veniet, Deus noster, et non sile-
bit : hoc est Filius, Qui secun
dum manifestationem homini-
bus advenit, Qui dicit palam :
Apparui his qui Me non quae-
runt. III. xi. Accipiens eos qui a
terra essent panes, et gratias
agens, et iterum aquam faciens
vinum, saturavit eos qui re-
cumbebant, et potavit eos qui
invitati erant ad nuptias: os-
tendens quoniam Deus Qui fecit

the following : —
terram, et jussit earn fructus
facere, et constituit aquas et
edidit fontes, Hie et benedic-
tionem escae et gratiam potus
in novissimis temporibus per
Filium suum donat humano
generi, incomprehensibilis per
comprehensibilem, et invisibilis
per visibilem, cum extra Eum
non sit, sed in sinu Patris ex-
istat. Deum enim, inquit, nemo
vidit unquam, nisi Unigenitus
Filius Dei, Qui est in sinu
Patris, Ipse enarravit. Patrem
enim invisibilem existentem,
Ille Qui in sinu Ejus est Filius,
omnibus enarrat. Propter hoc
cognoscunt Eum hi quibus re-
velaverit Filius, et iterum Pater
per Filium Filii sui dat
agnitionem his qui diligunt
Eum.

438

The Theophanies.

[app.

For the explanation of the
language used here see Lect. IV.
§ 89, p. 179-
III. xviii. Unus igitur Deus
Pater, . . . et unus Christus
Jesus Dominus noster veniens
per universam dispositionem, et
omnia in Semetipso recapitu-
lans. In omnibus autem est et
homo plasmatio Dei : et homi-
nem ergo in Semetipso recapi-
tulatus est Invisibilis et visibilis
factus, et Incomprehensibilis
factus comprehensibilis, et Im-
passibilis passibilis et Verbum
homo, universa in Semetipsum
recapitulans, uti sicut in super-
coelestibus et spiritalibus, et
invisibilibus princeps est Ver
bum Dei, sic et in visibilibus
et corporalibus principatum
habeat, in Semetipsum prima-
tum assumens, et apponens Se
metipsum caput Ecclesiae, uni
versa attrahat ad Semetipsum
apto in tempore.
III. xx. In principio Verbum
existens apud Deum, per Quem
omnia facta sunt, Qui et semper
aderat generi humano . . . no-
vissimis temporibus secundum
praefinitum tempus a Patre
unitum suo plasmati, &c.
IV. xi. Qui a prophetis ado-
rabatur Deus vivus, Hie est
vivorum Deus, et Verbum Ejus
Qui et locutus est Moysi [i.e.
at the Bush, in the words, /
am the God of Abraham, the

God of Isaac, and the God of
JacoH], Qui et Sadducaeos re-
darguit . . . Ipse igitur Christus
cum Patre vivorum est Deus,
Qui et locutus est Moysi, Qui
et Patribus manifestatus est.
[Cap. xii.] Et hoc ipsum do-
cens dicebat Judaeis, Abraham
pater vester exultavit ut videret
diem meum, et vidit, et gavisus
est. . . . Juste igitur derelin-
quens terrenam cognationem
omnem, sequebatur Verbum
Dei, cum Verbo peregrinans, ut
cum Verbo moraretur. . . . [The
whole passage is beautiful, but
too long to transcribe.] Non in
cognitas igitur erat Dominus
Abrahae cujus diem concupivit
videre : sed neque Pater Do
mini : didicerat enim a Verbo
Domini, et credidit Ei. [Com
pare with this IV. xvi.] Nontan-
tum propter Abraham hoc dixit
[Abraham pater vester exulta
vit, &c.,], sed ut ostenderet quo-
niam omnes qui ab initio cog-
nitum habuerunt Dominum et
adventum Christi prophetave-
runt, revelationem acceperunt
ab Ipso Filio, Qui et novissimis
temporibus visibilis et passibilis
factus est.
IV. xiv. Arguing the pre-
existence of Christ, be points
out the error of supposing that
only 'a temporibus Tiberii
Caesaris commemoratus est
Pater providere hominibus, et

note vii.]

St. Irenaeus.

439

non semper Verbum Ejus una
cum plasmate fuisse ostende-
batur.' Ibid. Bonum autem placitum
Patris Filius perficit : mittit
enim Pater, mittitur autem et
venit Filius. Et Patrem quidem
Invisibilem et Interminabilem,
quantum ad nos est, cognoscit
suum Ipsius Verbum, et cum
sit inenarrabilis Ipse enarrat
Eum nobis. Rursum autem
Verbum suum solus cognoscit
Pater : utraque autem haec et
sic se habere manifestavit Do
minus, et propter hoc Filius
revelat agnitionem Patris per
suam manifestationem. Agnitio
enim Patris est, Filii manifes-
tatio. Omnia per Verbum ma-
nifestantur. Ibid. Per legem et prophetas
similiter Verbum et Semetip
sum et Patrem praedicabat. Et
audivit quidem universus popu-
lus similiter : non similiter au
tem omnes crediderunt : et per
Ipsum Verbum visibilem et pal-
pabilem factum Pater ostende-
batur, etiamsi non omnes simili
ter credebant Ei : sed omnes
viderunt in Filio Patrem : invi-
sibile etenim Filii Pater, visibile
autem Patris Filius. . . . Omnia
autem Filius administrans Pa-
tri, perficit ab initio usque ad
finem, et sine Illo nemo potest
cognoscere Deum. Agnitio
enim Patris Filius, agnitio au

tem Filii in Patre et per Filium
revelata. Et propter hoc Do
minus dicebat, Nemo cognoscit
Filium nisi Pater, neque Patrem
nisi Filius, et quibuseunque
Filius revelaverit. Eeveiaverit
enim, non solum in futurum
dictum est, quasi tunc inciperet
Verbum manifestare Patrem,
cum de Maria natus, sed com-
muuiter per totum tempus posi-
tum est. Ab initio enim as-
sistens Filius suo plasmati, re
velat omnibus Patrem, quibus
vult, et quando vult, et quem-
admodum vult Pater.
IV. xxxvii. Prophetae ab
eodem Verbo propheticum ac-
cipientes charisma, praedicave-
runt Ejus secundum carnem
adventum, per quern commixtio
et communio Dei et hominis
secundum placitum Patris facta
est, ab initio praenunciante
Verbo Dei, quoniam videbitur
Deus ab hominibus, et conver-
sabitur cum eis super terram,
et colloquetur et adfuturus est,
id est ab universo suo plasmate,
salvans illud. . . . Enarrat ergo
Filius ab initio Patris, quippe
Qui ab initio est cum Patre,
Qui et visiones propheticas, et
divisiones charismatum, et min-
isteria sua, et Patris glorifica-
tionem consequenter et compo
site ostenderit humano generi
apto tempore ad utilitatem . . .
et propterea Verbum dispensa-

440

The Theophanies.

[app.

turn Paternae gratiae factus est
ad utilitatem hominum, propter
quos fecit tantas dispositiones,
hominibus quidem ostendens
Deum, Deum autem exhibens
hominem : et invisibilitatem
quidem Patris custodiens, ne
quando homo fieret contemptor
Dei, et ut semper haberet ad
quod proficeret : visibilem au
tem rursus hominibus per mul-
tas dispositiones ostendens
Deum, ne in totum deficiens
homo cessaret esse. Gloria
enim Dei vivens homo. Vita
autem hominis visio Dei.
IV. xxxviii. Rachel prae-
figurabat Ecclesiam, propter
quam sustinuit Christus : Qui
tunc quidem patriarchas suos
et prophetas praefigurans et
praenuntians, praeexercens su-
am partem disposition ibus Dei,
et assuescens haereditatem
suam obedire Deo, et peregri-
nari in saeculo, et sequi Verbum
Ejus, et praefigurare futura.
Nihil enim vacuum, neque sine
signo apud Eum . . . Non enim
propter eos solos qui tempori
bus Tiberii Caesaris credider-
unt Ei venit Christus, nee
propter eos solos, qui nunc sunt
homines, providentiam fecit

Pater : sed propter omnes
omnino homines, qui ab initio
secundum virtutem suam in
sua generatione et timuerunt
et dilexerunt Deum, et juste et
pie conversati sunt erga proxi-
mos, et concupierunt videre
Christum, et audire vocem
Ejus. Quapropter omnes hu-
jusmodi in secundo adventu,
primb de somno excitabit, et
eriget tarn eos, quam reliquos
qui judicabuntur et constituet
in regnum suum. Quoniam
quidem unus Deus, Qui patri
archas quidem direxit in dis
positiones suas.
V. i. Showing the literal
reality of the Incarnation
through Mary, as compared
with previous temporary ap
pearances : —
Praediximus autem quoniam
Abraham et reliqui prophetae,
prophetice videbant Eum, id
quod futurum erat per visionem
prophetantes. Si igitur et nunc
talis apparuit, non existens
quod videbatur, quaedam pro-
phetica visio facta est hominibus,
et oportet alium expectare ad-
ventum Eius, in quo talis erit,
qualis nunc visus est prophe
tice.

V. St. Clement of Alexanduia, President of the Catechetical
School there, about a.d. 190, where Origen was among his pupils.
Throughout his treatise entitled Paedagogus he speaks of
Christ by that title, as the ''Educator,' or 'Instructor'; as in
his Exhortation to the Gentiles, chap, i., he speaks of the ap-

note vii.] St. Clement of Alexandria. 441
pearing, in His Incarnation, of 'the pre-existing Saviour,' the
'Word, Who was with God,' the ' At8ao-/caAos, by Whom all
things were made.' Perhaps be got the thought from the LXX.
of Hosea v. 2, 'Eyco be 7rai8ei>rrjs vix&v, a passage which (Paed.
I. 7.) he says 'the Word spake respecting Himself.'
1. The Instructor, Bk. I, ch. 7 (I adopt the Rev. W. Wilson's
Translation, in Clark's Ante-Nicene Library), ' Our Instructor is
the holy God Jesus, the Word, who is the guide of all humanity.
The living God Himself is our Instructor. Somewhere in song
the Holy Spirit says with regard to Him, [he quotes Beut.
xxxii. 10-12] .... Again, when He speaks in His own person,
He confesses Himself to be the Instructor : I am the Lord thy
God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt (Exod. xx. 1) . . . .
This was He who appeared to Abraham, and said to him, I am
thy God, be accepted before me (Gen. xvii. 1, 2); and in a way
most befitting an instructor, forms him into a faithful child,
saying, And be blameless ; and I will make my covenant between
me and thee, and thy seed. There is the communication of the
Instructor's friendship. And He most manifestly appears as
Jacob's instructor. He says accordingly to him, Lo, I am with
thee, to keep thee in all the way in which thou shall go ; and I will
bring thee back into this land ; for I will not leave thee till I do
what I have told thee. He is said too to have wrestled with
him. And Jacob was left alone ; and there wrestled with him a man
(the Instructor) till the morning. This was the man who led,
and brought, and wrestled with, and anointed the athlete Jacob
against evil. Now that the Word was at once Jacob's trainer and
the Instructor of humanity [appears from this] — He asked, it
is said, His name, and said to him, Tell me what is thy name ?
And He said, Why is it that thou askest my name? For He
reserved the new name for the new people — the babe ; and was
as yet unnamed, the Lord God not having yet become man.
Yet Jacob called the name of the place, " Face of God." For I
have seen, he says, God face to face, and my life is preserved
(Gen. xxxii. 30). The face of God is the Word by whom God
is manifested and made known. Then also was he named Israel,
because he saw God the Lord. It was God, the Word, the

44 2 The Theophanies. [app.
Instructor, who said to him again afterwards, Fear not to go
down into Egypt .... It is He also who teaches Moses to act as
instructor .... It was really the Lord that was the instructor
of the ancient people by Moses ; but He is the instructor of the
new people by Himself, face to face. For, Behold, He says to
Moses, my angel shall go before thee, representing the evangelical
and commanding power of the .Word, but guarding the Lord's
prerogative. In the day in which I will visit them, He says, /
will bring their sins on them ; that is, On the day on which I will
sit as judge I will render the recompense of their sins (Exod.
xxxii. 33, 34). For the same who is Instructor is judge, and
judges those who disobey Him ; and the loving Word will not
pass over their transgression in silence .... Formerly the older
people had an old covenant, and the law disciplined the people
with fear, and the Word was an angel; but to the fresh and
new people has also been given a new covenant, and the Word
has appeared, and fear is turned to love, and that mystic angel is
born — Jesus .... The law is ancient grace given through Moses
by the Word. Wherefore also the Scripture says, The Law was
given through Moses (John i. 17), not by Moses, but by the Word,
and through Moses His servant. Wherefore it was only tem
porary; but eternal grace and truth were by Jesus Christ.
Mark the expressions of Scripture : of the law only is it said
was given; but truth being the grace of the Father, is the
eternal work of the Word ; and it is not said to be given, but to
be by Jesus, without whom nothing was (John i. 3). Presently,
therefore, Moses prophetically, giving place to the perfect In
structor, the Word, predicts both the name and office of Instructor,
and committing to the people the commands of obedience, sets
before them the Instructor. A prophet, says he, like me shall
God raise up to you of your brethren (Beut. xviii. 15), pointing out
Jesus the Son of God.' On this passage the student may also
refer to Burton, Testim. Ante-Nicene Fathers, §§ 78, 79.
2. Ibid. I. ch. 11, 'Of old He [the Word] instructed by
Moses, and then by the prophets .... One alone, true, good,
just, in the image and likeness of the Father, His Son Jesus,
the Word of God, is our Instructor ; to whom God hath entrusted

note vii.] St. Clement of Alexandria. 443
us, as an affectionate father commits his children to a worthy
tutor, expressly charging us, This is my beloved Son : hear Him
(Matt. xvii. 5).'
3. Exhortation to the Heathen, chap, i, 'The Saviour, who
existed before, has in recent days appeared . . . The Word, who
"was with God," and by whom all things were created, has
appeared as our Teacher; that as God He might afterwards
conduct us to the life which never ends. He did not now pity
us for the first time for our error ; but He pitied us from the
first, from the beginning .... Our ally and helper is one and
the same — the Lord, who from the beginning gave revelations
by prophecy, but now plainly calls to salvation .... Let us run
to the Lord the Saviour, who now exhorts to salvation, as He
has ever done, as He did by signs and wonders in Egypt and the
desert, both by the bush and the cloud, which, through the
favour of divine love, attended the Hebrews like an handmaid.
By the fear which these inspired He addressed the hard-hearted ;
while by Moses, learned in all wisdom, and Isaiah, lover of
truth, and the whole prophetic choir, in a way appealing more
to reason, He turns to the Word those who have ears to hear.
Sometimes He upbraids, and sometimes He threatens . . . The
Saviour has many tones of voice, and many methods for the
salvation of men ; by threatening He admonishes, by upbraiding
He converts, by bewailing He pities, by the voice of song He
cheers. He spake by the burning bush, for the men of that day
needed signs and wonders. He awed men by the fire when He
made flame to burst from the pillar of cloud — a token at once of
grace and fear : if you obey, there is the light ; if you disobey,
there is the fire ; but since humanity is nobler than the pillar or
the bush, after them the prophets uttered their voice, — the Lord
Himself speaking in Isaiah, in Elias, — speaking Himself by the
mouth of the prophets. But if thou dost not believe the pro
phets, but supposest both the men and the fire a myth, the Lord
Himself shall speak to thee, Who, being in the form of God,
thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but humbled Himself
(Phil. ii. 6), He, the merciful God, exerting Himself to save
man.'

444 The Theophanies. [app.
4. I take the next passage from Burton's Ante-Nicene Fathers,
together with his comment upon it. ' Upon the words (Ps. xxiv.
6 ; LXX. xxiii. 6), This is the generation of them that seek him,
that seek the face of the God of Jacob, Clement (Strom, vii. 6)
makes the following observations : " The prophet has given a brief
description of the man of knowledge (rov yvmariKov). David has
shown to us cursorily, as it appears, that the Saviour is God,
calling him the face of the God of Jacob, who has given us glad
tidings and instructions concerning the Spirit : wherefore also
the Apostle (Heb. i. 3) has called the Son the express image of his
Father's glory, who hath taught us the truth concerning God,
and expressly declared that God the Father is one and alone the
Almighty, whom no man knoweth, save the Son, and he to whom the
Son will reveal Him (Matt. xi. 27)." This passage (says Burton)
becomes more intelligible, when we remember that Clement calls
Christ the face of the Father. It was his opinion, as it was of
all the early Fathers, that whenever God is said in the Old
Testament to be seen, as He was by Jacob (Gen. xxxii. 30) and
by Moses (Exod. xxxiii. 1 1), face to face, it was not God the
Father, but God the Son, who appeared; and thus they called
the Son the face of the Father, or that form under which He
chose to reveal Himself to man. Thus in the passage already
quoted (Burton, p. 153), he says, "The face of God is the Word,
by whom God is made manifest and known ; " and in another
place (Strom, v. 6), "The Son is called the face of the Father, the
Word who took our flesh, and revealed that which belongs pecu
liarly to the Father." .... Clement therefore conceived David to
have intended Christ, when he speaks of the face of the God of
Jacob.' (Burton, § 94, p. 176).
VI. Tertullian, born at Carthage about a.d. 150, died about
A.D. 23O.
1. Be Praescript. Haeret. 13. (The passage, which is a sort of
Creed, is given by Dr. Burton, Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 236.)
' Now the Rule of Faith is — That there is absolutely One God,
and He none other than the Creator of the world, Who produced
all things out of nothing through His Word sent forth before all
things : That this Word is called His Son, in the Name of God

note vii.] Tertullian. 445
variously seen by the Patriarchs, ever heard in the Prophets,
finally by the Spirit and Power of God the Father brought into
the Virgin Mary, made flesh in her womb, and being born of
her came forth Jesus Christ ; That He thereafter preached the
New Law and the new promise of the Kingdom of Heaven,
wrought miracles, was nailed to the Cross, rose again the third
day, and, being carried into the Heavens, sitteth at the right
hand of the Father ; That He sent in His stead the Power of the
Holy Ghost, to guide believers ; That He will come with glory to
take the holy to the enjoyment of eternal life and heavenly pro
mises, and to doom the unholy to perpetual fire after the raising
up again of either sort together with the restitution of their
flesh. This Rule instituted, as shall be shown, by Christ, admits
among us no questions, save those which heresies bring in, and
which make men heretics.'
2. Against Marcion, II. 27. A very remarkable passage, given
at length by Dr. Burton (ibid. p. 220), from whose rendering
(with the necessary correction of some inaccuracies) I give the
following : — ' God could not have entered upon converse with
man unless He had assumed both the feelings and affections of
man, by which He could temper that greatness of His Majesty,
which is intolerable to human weakness, by a humility which
is indeed unworthy of Him, but which is necessary for man's
sake, and so far therefore worthy of God, because nothing is so
worthy of God as the salvation of man. . . '. Nay, we even
declare that Christ always acted in the name of God the Father ;
that it was He Who from the beginning held converse and inter
course (conversation — congressum) with patriarchs and prophets,
the Son of the Creator, His Word, Whom by production from
His own very Self He made His Son, and thenceforward set
Him over His own whole dispensation and will, making him a
little lower than the angels, as it is written in David [Tertullian
evidently refers here to the Theophanies in human form] : by which
lowering He was also appointed by the Father unto those things
which you object to as human, that He might learn thoroughly
(ediscens), even already from the beginning, that human nature
which in the end He was to be. It is He Who came down;

446 The Theophanies. [app.
He Who inquires ; He Who requests ; He Who swears. But
that the Father is seen by no man even the common Gospel will
testify, when Christ says, None knoweth the Father save the Son.
For He Himself in the Old Testament had declared None shall
see God and live, clearly marking the Father as invisible, in
Whose authority and Name He Himself Who was seen, the
Son of God, was God. . . . Therefore, whatever you require as
worthy of God will be found in the Father, Who is invisible and
unapproachable and unmoved, and, so to say, a philosopher's
God [i. e. as God might be thought of by unassisted human
reason]. But whatever you object to as unworthy will be found
in the Son, Who who was both seen, and heard, and conversed
with, the witness and minister of the Father, uniting in Himself
man and God : In His mighty acts, God, in His weakness, man ;
so that He bestows upon man what He takes from God ; in fact,
the whole of my God, in your estimation a humiliation, is a
Sacrament of man's Salvation. Yes, God was wont to associate
with man, that man might be taught to act divinely. God
acted on a level with man, that man might be able to act on a
level with God. God was found little, that man might become
as great as possible. Thou that disdainest a God like that, I
know not whether thou canst with faith believe that God was
crucified.' It is almost impossible to reproduce the forcible
grandeur of the original; 'Totum denique Dei mei, penes vos
dedecus, sacramentum est humanae salutis. Conversabatur Deus,
ut homo divina agere doceretur; ex aequo agebat Deus cum
homine, ut homo ex aequo agere cum Deo posset ; Deus pusillus
inventus est, ut homo maximus fieret. Qui talem Deum dedig-
naris, nescio an ex fide credas Deum crucifixum.'
3. Against Marcion, III. 9 : ' Wherefore even He Himself
(Christ), together with angels, appeared then before Abraham
in true flesh indeed, though not as yet born, because not as yet
needing to die, but learning already to converse among men.'
4. Ibid. IV. 10 : 'In like manner also acknowledge Christ as
the forgiver of sins in the pages of the same prophet (Isaiah,
from whom he quotes liii. 12 and i. 18), and Micah also (he
quotes vii. 18). Nay, even had nothing of this kind been fore-

note vii.] Tertullian. 447
told with reference to Christ, I had still had instances of this mer
ciful kindness on the part of the Creator, assuring me of the
dispositions of the Father in the Son also. I see the Ninevites
obtained pardon of their sins from the Creator, not to say that
it was even then from Christ, since from the beginning He has
acted in the Father's Name. . . . He was seen by the King of
Babylon in the furnace, together with His martyrs, a fourth, like
unto a son of man. The very same was revealed to Daniel
expressly as the Son of Man coming with the clouds of heaven
as Judge, as the Scripture also declares.'
5. Concerning the Flesh of Christ, 14. Arguing against those
who said that Christ bore the nature of an angel, that there was
an angel in Christ, he says : — ' He is indeed called the Angel of
great Counsel, i. e. the messenger or announcer, by an expression
which denotes not His nature but His office ; for He was to
announce to the world the great thought of the Father, namely,
concerning the restitution of man. Yet He is not on that ac
count to be understood to be an angel in the same sense as some
Gabriel or Michael. For the Son also is sent by the lord of the
vineyard to the husbandmen, as well as the servants, to ask of
the fruits ; yet not on that account must the Son be reckoned
one of the servants because He afterwards took up the duty of
the servants. Wherefore I could easier say, if it be so, that the
Son Himself is the Angel, i.e. the Messenger of the Father,
than that there was an angel in the Son. . . . What more need
be said ? As to all this hear Isaiah crying out (lxiii. 9), No
angel, nor ambassador (legatus), but the Lord Himself saved them'
On this Dr. Burton remarks, p. 209 : ' All this reasoning about
angels seems to be introduced because Tertullian was aware of
Jesus being spoken of in the Old Testament as the Angel or
Messenger of lh<e Covenant. To those who believe, as all the
early Fathers believed, that the Angel of the covenant was no
other than God Himself, this will be sufficient to prove that
Tertullian acknowledged the divinity of Christ.'
6. Against Praxeas (who taught the Sabellian or 'Patri-
passian ' heresy, which ' confounded the Persons,' i. e. denied the
Personal distinctions, within the One Godhead), § 13 : * Never

448 The Theophanies. [app.
do we utter from our lips the expression " Two Gods," or " Two
Lords ; " not as though the Father were not God, and the Son
God, and the Holy Ghost God, and each one God, but formerly
[i. e. in the O. T. Scriptures] two were spoken of as God and Lord,
in order that, when Christ came, He might both be acknowledged
God and styled Lord, because the Son of the God and Lord. For
if but One Person, whether of God or Lord, were found in the
Scriptures, then certainly Christ were not admitted to the name"
of God and Lord. For, in that case, none other were spoken of
save One God and One Lord, and the result would be that the
Father Himself would seem to have come down, because but one
God and one Lord was read of ; and that whole Economy of His
would be overshadowed which has been with forethought pro
vided and arranged as a groundwork for our faith. But since
Christ came and was known by us, that He it was who formerly
had been reckoned distinct as the second from the Father, and
third together with the Spirit ; and since now the Father is
through Him more fully revealed ; now indeed the name of God
and Lord is fully brought into openness. . . . Accordingly I would
absolutely not speak of " Gods " or "Lords," but would follow the
Apostle ; i. e. if both the Father and the Son must be spoken of
together, I would style the Father God, and would speak of
Jesus Christ as Lord. But speaking of Christ alone I shall be
able to speak of Him as God, as doth the same Apostle (Rom.
ix. 5) Of whom Christ came, who is (he says) God over all, blessed
for ever. For speaking separately of the sun's ray, I should call
it " the sun ;" but speaking of the sun, whose ray it is, I should
not in the same breath call the ray too the sun. For although
I should not make two suns, yet I should speak distinctly of the
sun and its ray as two things, two forms of one and the same
undivided substance, and so of God and His Word, of the Father
and the Son.'
Ibid. § 14: 'And further that principle which declares that God
is invisible supports us who insist on two Persons, the Father and
the Son. For when Moses in Egypt longed for the sight of the
Lord, saying, If therefore I have found favour in Thy sight, mani
fest Thyself to me, that I may see Thee and know Thee ; Thou canst,

note vii.] Tertullian. 449
not, He said, see My Face ; for there shall no man see My Face and
live, that is, He shall die that hath seen Me. For we find that both
God was seen by many, and yet none of those who saw Him died ;
that God was indeed seen, according to the capacity of man, not
according to the fulness of His Divinity. For the patriarchs are
recorded to have seen God, Abraham and Jacob, for example,
and the prophets also, as Isaiah, as Ezekiel, and yet died not. . . .
Now therefore He Who was seen must be another, because He
Who was seen cannot also be described as invisible." In ch. 15 he
proceeds to argue from the same distinction in the New Tes
tament, quoting St. John's saying (i. 18) No man hath seen God
at any time, and St. Paul's (1. Tim. iv. 16) Whom no man hath
seen, nor can see, and showing that it is always and only the Son
Who is seen, whether before or after the Incarnation. ' If these
things are so, it is evident that He was ever seen from the
beginning, Who was also seen in the end ; and that He was not
seen in the end, Who never was seen from the beginning, and
so that there are Two, the Seen and the Unseen. It was there
fore always the Son that was seen, always the Son that con
versed, always the Son that wrought, by the authority of
the Father and by His Will, for The Son can do nothing of
Himself but what He seeth the Father doing, doing, that is in
Mind \sensu, which Tertullian and the Latin of Irenaeus use
as equivalent to the Greek vovs]. For the Father acts in
Mind, but the Son, seeing it, carries through (perficit) that
which is in the Mind of the Father. In this way all things
were made through the Son, and without Him was not any
thing made.
Ch. 16. 'And think not that only the works of the creation
were made through the Son, but also whatever has been thence
forward done of God. For the Father, Who loveth the Son and
hath given over all things into His hand, hath loved Him from
the beginning, and hath given over all things from the begin
ning . . . and with no exceptioD of any time, for all things would
not be given over if they had not been so given in all time. It
was therefore the Son, Who from the beginning acted as judge,
overthrowing that most haughty tower, and scattering the

450 The Theophanies. [app.
tongues, punishing the whole world, by the violence of waters,
raining, God from God, fire and brimstone upon Sodom and
Gomorrah. He too it was always Who came down and talked
with men, from Adam to the Patriarchs and Prophets, in vision,
in dream, in a glass (in speculo), in a riddle (in aenigmate) ever
from the beginning paving the way for His own plan (ordinem
suum praestruens) which He was about to follow up to the end.
Thus was even God ever practising (ediscebat) to converse on
earth with men ; and no other God than the Word, Who was to
become flesh. Now He was thus practising, in order that He
might establish faith in us, that we might the more readily
believe that the Son of God has come down into the world, when
we perceived that even of old something of the same kind had
been done. For for our sakes, as they were written, so were
they also done, upon whom the ends of all ages are come. For thus
did He even then know the feelings of man; He Who was about to
take upon Him even the very essential elements of Man — Flesh,
and Soul ; questioning Adam as though He knew not, Where art
thou, Adam ? repenting that He had made man, as though He
had not foreseen all ; tempting Abraham, as though He did not
know what is in man ; offended with some, and then recon
ciled to the same; and whatever else heretics lay hold of as
unworthy of God, and destroying [the idea of] the Creator, not
knowing that these things belonged to the Son, Who was to
undergo even the sufferings of human nature, thirst and hunger
and tears, and even birth and death itself, being for this made
of the Father a little lower than the angels. . . . But what a
thing is it, that that Almighty God, the Invisible, Whom no man
hath seen nor can see, Who dwelleth in light that none can approach
unto, Who dwelleth not in things made with hands, at the sight
of Whom the earth trembles, and the hills melt like wax, Who
grasps the whole world in His hand like a nest, Whose throne
is Heaven, and the earth His footstool, in Whom is all space,
Himself in no space, Who is the utmost bound of the whole
Universe, that He, the Most High, walked in Paradise at eventide,
seeking Adam; and closed the ark after Noah's entering in; and
with Abraham refreshed Himself under the oak ; and called to

note vii. J Tertullian. 451
Moses from the burning bush ; and in the furnace of the Baby
lonian King appeared with the three, though called a Son of
man; were it not that these things were done in appearance, in a
glass, in a riddle (in imagine et speculo et aenigmate)? And of
a truth neither of the Son of God had these things been to be
believed had they not been written ; perhaps not to be believed,
even had they been written, concerning the Father, Whom these
people bring down into Mary's womb, and set before Pilate's
judgment-seat and shut up in Joseph's sepulchre. And from
this accordingly their mistake is evident. For being ignorant
that even from the beginning the whole order of God's Dispen
sations has had its course through the Son, they believe that the
Father Himself was both seen, and conversed, and wrought, and
suffered hunger and thirst . . . and so that one only Divine
Person, that is, the Father, always acted in those things which
really were done through the Son.'
7. Against the Jews, Chap. 9. Professor Burton, giving a
passage from the Treatise Against Marcion, Book III. ch. 16,
writes as follows : — ' The same passage occurs nearly word for
word in Tertullian's work against the Jews, c. 9, where he
says, " He who spoke to Moses was the Son of God, who was
always visible [rather, Who also ever was seen, i. e. Who also
always was He Who was seen] ; for No one hath ever seen God
the Father and lived ; and therefore it is evident that the Son of
God himself spoke to Moses, and said to the people, Behold, etc.
(Exod. xxiii. 20)." We have only to observe that Tertullian
refers these words to Christ ; and yet if we look to the Book of
Exodus, it is impossible to doubt but that they were spoken by
the Almighty himself: and the passage is more remarkable,
because Tertullian and all the Fathers considered the Angel
here promised to be Christ : so that Christ promised that he
would send himself; which is wholly unintelligible, unless we
believe that the Father and the Son are one. That Tertullian
believed so [i. e. that they are One in Essence, but distinct in
Person] is plain from this passage.' (Burton, § 122, p. 226.)
What we must understand is, That the promise from the
Father of the accompanying guidance and protection of the
G g2

452 The Theophanies. St. Hippolytus. [app.
Divine Angel of the Lord was itself spoken through the Word,
the Eternal Son, Who is Himself the Angel of the Lord.
VII. St. Hippolytus, about a.d. 220, a disciple (so Photius
says) of St. Irenaeus and teacher of Origen ; Bishop of Portus
Romanus, and a martyr.
1. On Baniel iii. 22 (Lagarde's Hippolytus, § 84): 'They
who were in the furnace were bedewed by the Angel, ehpocri-
Covro : ' evidently from ver. 25 of the Fragment of Theodotion's
Greek version of Daniel, which contains The Song of the Three
Children, But the Angel of the Lord came down into the oven
together with Azarias and his fellows, and made the midst of the
furnace as it had been a moist whistling wind, o>s nvev^a bpooov
hiaavpiCpv. Compare the next passage, on Ban. iii. 25,
' The hand of God touched with compunction (xarevv^ev) the
heart of the King, so that, acknowledging Him [the Son of
God] in the Furnace he glorified Him. . . . The Scripture
showed beforehand that the Gentiles would acknowledge when
incarnate Him Whom of old not yet incarnate (aaapKov) Nabu-
chodonosor saw and acknowledged in the furnace, and confessed
that this was the Son of God. . . . He (the King) called out
the names of the three, but the name of the fourth he could not
utter. For Jesus was not yet born of the Virgin.'
2. On Ban. vii. 18 (Lagarde's ed. § 103): 'The heavenly
King shall be openly shown to all, no longer seen through an'
appearance as in a vision, nor revealed in a pillar of cloud on the
top of a mountain [i. e. as at Sinai] ; but, with powers and
angelic hosts, incarnate God and man, Son of God and Son of
man, coming to the world as judge from heaven.'
3. On the great vision of The Man clothed in linen, Ban. x. 5 (La
garde's Hippolytus, § 59. 24, p. 160) : ' Whereas in the first vision
lie says, The angel Gabriel was sent, here it is not so, but it is
the Lord he sees, not yet indeed perfectly man, but appearing " in
the form of man," as he says, And, behold, a man clothed in linen,'
[i. e. (St. H. says) the ieptm/cos yj.r(>>v, or priestly vesture]. Then,
after quoting the words of the man clothed in linen to Daniel,
he says, ' And who was the speaker but the Angel who was
assigned to the people?' clearly meaning the Divine Angel ; for

note vii.] Origen. 453
he adds (ibid. 28, p. 162) : ' This was He Who withstood Moses
in the inn when he was taking his uncircumcised child into
Egypt \Exod. iv. 24, where for the Heb. TV\TV the Lxx. has
ayyeAos Kvpiou]. . . . And now, saith He, I will shew thee the
truth (Ban. xi. 2). Could the Truth tell him anything else but
the truth ? Wherefore He saith to him, Behold, three Kings shall
arise in Persia.' And on xii. 5, etc. (ibid. 42, p. 167) : ' Who was
he [the man clothed in linen] that stood upon the water [of the
river], but the very One, concerning Whom they [the law and
the prophets] long ago foretold, Who was in the last days to
be openly borne witness to by the Father at the Jordan, and
plainly pointed out to the people by John.'
VIII. Origen. Born in Egypt about a.d. 185 ; a disciple of
St. Clement of Alexandria, and of St. Hippolytus ; President of
the Cathedral School of Alexandria, died a. d. 255.
I take the following from Dr. Burton's Testimony of the
Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ :—
1. 'Origen, Selecta in Genesim, vol. ii. p. 43, Upon those
words in Gen. xxxii. 24, And Jacob was left alone, and there wrestled
a man with him, &c, Origen has this commentary : — " Who else
could it be that is called at once man and God, who wrestled
and contended with Jacob, than He, who spake at sundry times and
in divers manners unto the Fathers (Heb. i. 1), the holy Word of
God, who is called Lord and God, who also blessed Jacob, and
called him Israel, saying to him, Thou hast prevailed with God ?
It was thus that the men of those days beheld the Word of God,
like our Lord's Apostles did, who said, That which was from the
beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, and looked upon, and
our hands have handled, of the Word of Life (1 John i. 1), which
Word and Life Jacob also said, and added, I have seen God face
to face'' It has been observed already, that all the Fathers con
sidered it to have been Jesus, who revealed himself to the
patriarchs.' (Burton, § 207, p. 305.)
2. ' Upon Joshua v. 13, &c. [the Vision of the man with the
sword drawn in his hand] Origen (In Jesum Nave, Horn. VI, § 3),
remarks : " Joshua therefore not only knew that he was of God,
but that he was God : for he would not have worshipped, if he

454 The Theophanies. St. Cyprian. [app.
had not known him to be God. For who else is Captain of the
host of the Lord, except our Lord Jesus Christ?" This exactly
agrees with the sentiments of all the Fathers, that the God who
appeared either in a human form or in that of an angel, to any
of the Patriarchs, was Jesus Christ.' (Burton, § 210, p. 308.)
3. ' Origen, in Psalm 1. 2 : Our God shall come and shall not
keep silence, &c. . . . He, at whose birth we say, " Emmanuel is
come visibly, and does not keep silence," . . . will convince the
world of sin or declare the will of His Father : for He is called
the Angel of great counsel.' (Burton, § 226, p. 314.)
4. ' Origen, in Je?-em., Horn. IX : The Word that came to Jere
miah from the Lord (xi. 1). Whenever it is said that the Word
came to Jeremiah, or to any of the prophets, Origen understands
it of Christ the Word of God. " I know no other Word of the
Lord, but him, of whom one evangelist says, In the beginning
was the Word ; and the Word was with God, and the Word was
God. It is particularly necessary for this to be known by us
ecclesiastics who conceive that there is the same God of the Law
and of the Gospel, the same Christ, both then and now and for
ever."' (Burton, § 241, p. 321.)
5. 'Origen, upon these words, Ps. lxxx. 7, Cause thy face to
shine, and we shall be saved, says, " He here calls Christ the Face:
for he is the image of the invisible God (Col. i. 15) :" and upon
Ps. cxix. 58, which he translates, I entreated thy face with my
whole heart, he says, " The face of God is the express image of his
substance (Heb. i. 3), as I have often observed." ' (Burton, § 94,
p. 178.)
IX. St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, martyred 14 Septem
ber, 258. His evidence is contained in the second of his three
books of Scripture Testimonies against the Jews. He shows
(chs. 1, 2), 'That Christ is the Wisdom, and (ch. 3) the Word,
(4) the Hand1 and Arm, of God.' The thesis of his fifth
chapter is, 'That the same Christ is the Angel, and God;' as
to which he quotes Gen. xxii. 11, the Angel's call to Abraham
out of heaven; and xxxi. 11-13, where the Angel of the Lord
speaks of Himself to Jacob as the God of Bethel, Ego sum Deus
1 Compare St. Athanasius' Orations against the Arians.ii. 71.

note vii.] St. Athanasius. 455
quern vidisti in loco Dei; and Exod. xiii. 21, for the presence
of God (i. e. Christ) in the pillar of cloud and of fire ; and xiv.
] 9, the protecting care of the Angel of God in the pillar ; and
xxiii. 20, 21, the express appointment of the Angel as their
protector. Of his sixth chapter the thesis is, ' That Christ is
God,' and he alleges in proof Gen. xxxv. 1, God said unto Jacob,
Arise, go up to the place Bethel, and dwell there ; and make there
an altar to that God Who appeared unto thee when thou fleddest
from the face of Esau thy brother.
X. The Council of Antioch, held in 269, which condemned
the heresy of Paul of Samosata, furnishes the following im
portant passage. It occurs in their letter to Paul, stating the
belief ' preserved in the Catholic Church from the time of the
Apostles to that day,' and given in Routh's Reliquiae Sacrae,
vol. ii. p. 466.
' Him the Begotten Son, the Only-Begotten Son, Who is
the Image of the Invisible God, the First-born before all creation,
the Wisdom, and Word, and Power of God, existing before the
ages, not by foreknowledge, but in essence and substance, God
the Son of God, we, having known Him in both the Old and New
Testament, do confess and preach  He it was, Who, ful
filling the Father's counsel, appeared to and conversed with the
Patriarchs, being witnessed to, in the same sections and in the
same chapters, sometimes as an Angel, sometimes as the Lord
(Kvpws), sometimes as God. For it were impious to think that
the God of the Universe is called an Angel : but the Angel of
the Father is the Son, Himself being Lord and God.' See above,
Lect. IV, § 86, p. 167.
XI. St. Athanasius, born at Alexandria, about a.d. 297;
attended his bishop at the Nicene Council, a.d. 325 ; became
himself bishop of Alexandria, a.d. 326 ; died a.d. 373.
The following passages are from his Biscourses against
Arianism, as translated by Dr. Newman, who in his prefatory
notice (2nd ed., Pickering, 1881) styles them ' the greatest work
of their author.'
1. Orat. I. 38 (I refer to Dr. Bright's edition of the Greek
Text, Oxford Press, 1873) : 'If He did not pre-exist . . . how

456 The Theophanies. [app.
were all things made by Him ? . . . And if it was after His
death that He received His worship, how is Abraham seen to
worship Him in the tent, and Moses in the bush? and how,
as Daniel saw, were myriads of myriads, and thousands of
thousands ministering unto Him ? ' To this passage Dr. New
man appends this footnote, ' All this implies a traditional and
authoritative interpretation of the Old Testament.'
2. Orat. II. 13 : 'If then they suppose that the Saviour
was not Lord and King, even before He became man and
endured the Cross, but then began to be Lord, let them know
that they are openly reviving the statements of Samosatene.
But if, as we have noted and declared above, He is Lord and
King everlasting, seeing that Abraham worships Him as Lord,
and Moses says, Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon
Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven ; and
David in the Psalms, The Lord said unto My Lord, Sit Thou on
My right hand ; and, Thy Throne, 0 God, is for ever and ever;
a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of Thy kingdom, and, Thy
kingdom is an everlasting kingdom ; it is plain that even before
He became man, He was King and Lord everlasting, existing
as Image and Word of the Father.'
3. Orat. III. 12 : ' And if the Patriarch Jacob, blessing His
grandchildren Ephraim and Manasses, said, God who fed me all
my life long unto this day, the Angel that delivered me from all
evil, bless the lads, yet none of created and natural Angels did he
join to God their Creator, nor, rejecting God that fed him, did
he from any Angel ask the blessings on his grandsons ; but in
saying, Who delivered me from all evil, he showed that it was no
created Angel, but the Word of God, whom he joined to the
Father in his prayer, through whom, whomsoever He will, God
doth deliver. For knowing that He is also called the Father's
Angel of great Counsel, he said that none other than He was the
Giver of blessing, and Deliverer from evil. Nor was it that he
desired a blessing for himself from God, and for His grand
children from the Angel, but for them too from Him whom he
himself had besought, saying, I will not let Thee go except Thou
bless me (for that was God, as he says himself, I have seen God

note vil] St. A thanashis. 457
face to face), for Him it was that he prayed for a blessing on the
sons of Joseph also.
' It belongs then to an Angel to minister at the command of
God, and often does he go forth to cast out the Amorite, and is
sent to guard the people in the way1; but these are not his
doings, but of God who commanded and sent him, whose also
it is to deliver whom He will deliver. Therefore it was no
other than the Lord God Himself whom he [Jacob] had seen,
who said to him, And behold I am with thee to guard thee in all
the way whither thou goest ; and it was no other than the God
whom he had seen, who kept Laban from his treachery, ordering
him not to speak evil words to Jacob ; and none other than
God did he himself beseech, saying, Rescue me from the hand of
my brother Esau, for I fear him ; for in conversation too with his
wives he said, God hath not suffered Laban to injure me 
[III. 13]. But if it belong to none other than God to bless and
to deliver, and none other was the deliverer of Jacob than the
Lord Himself, and Him that had delivered him the Patriarch
besought for his grandsons, evidently none other did He join to
God in His prayer, than God's Word, whom therefore he called
Angel, because it is He alone who reveals the Father.'
These passages sufficiently show St. Athanasius' general agree
ment with the current belief of the primitive Church, at least
as to the earlier Theophanies. As to the later ones, in the
narratives of which there is more specific mention of the Angel,
he adopts the view that the being seen was a created angel, in
whom God, through His Son, spoke. Compare, Orat. II. 23,
' Manoe the father of Samson, wishing to offer sacrifice to the
Angel, was thereupon hindered by him, saying, Offer not to me,
but to God' But this is an inexact quotation (if indeed it be in
tended for more than a loose general reference) of Judges xiii. 16,
whether in the Hebrew or the Septuagint, which agree. Again,
1 St. Athanasius takes the Angel Protector of the Israelites for a created angel.
But see above, Lect. IV. § 99. If the Divine Angel was the guardian of Jacob—
and this St. Athanasius asserts— it would seem to follow a fortiori that He was
the guardian, in the crisis of their fortunes, of the nation descended from Jacob ;
unless, indeed, when they were actually under the guilt of the sin of idolatry, and
until they repented.

458 ' The Theophanies. [app.
Orat. III. 14 : ' And he who beholds a vision of angels [he refers
to St. Luke xxiii. 23], knows that he has seen the Angel, and
not God. For Zacharias saw an Angel [he had been alluding to
the appearance of Gabriel to the father of St. John the Baptist];
and Esaias saw the Lord. Manoe, the father of Samson, saw an
Angel ; but Moses beheld (iOecoprjo-e) God. Gideon saw an
Angel, but to Abraham appeared God. And neither he who
saw God beheld an Angel, nor he who saw an Angel considered
that he saw God 1 ; for greatly, or rather wholly, do things of
created feature differ from God the Creator. But if at any time,
when the Angel was seen, he who saw it heard God's voice, as
took place at the bush ; for the Angel of the Lord was seen in a
flame of fire out of the bush, and the Lord called Moses out of the
bush, saying, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham,
and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, still was not the
Angel the God of Abraham, but in the Angel God spoke. And
what was seen was an Angel, but God spoke in him. For as
He spoke to Moses in the pillar of a cloud 2 in the tabernacle, so
also God appears and speaks in Angels. So again to the son
of Nun He spake by an Angel. But what God speaks, it is
very plain He speaks through the Word, and not through
another.' XII. Eusebius, Bishop of Caesarea, a.d. 314 to 340; pro
minent at the Nicene Council. For his life, theological
opinions, and works, see Canon Bright's Introduction to his
edition of the Ecclesiastical History (Oxford Press, 1872), and
Bishop Lightfoot of Durham's Article in Smith's Bictionary of
Christian Biography.
1. The second chapter of the Ecclesiastical History is a
' Summary Statement of the Pre-existence and Divinity of
Christ,' Who is spoken of as ' The Living God the Word, Who
was in the beginning with the Father, . . . the first and only
1 But Jacob wrestled with a man {Gen. xxxii. 24) and yet (30) ' considered that
he saw God,' as St. Athanasius himself admits, above, No. 3 ; and so Hagar,
Gen. xvi. 7-14; see above Lect. IV. § 94; and so Joshua v. 14, 15; and so
Manoah, Judges xiii. 22 ; and so David, 1 Chron. xxi. 16, 17.
2 But see Exodus xiv. 19, 20, 24, for the identity of ' the Lord ' with the Angel
of the Pillar.

note vii.] Etcsebius of Caesar ea. 459
Offspring of God, the Chief-Captain (apxiarparriyos) of the
rational and immortal host in heaven [evidently referring to
Joshua v. 14, Lxx.], the Angel of the great Counsel, the Minister
of the unspeakable purpose of the Father, the Creator, together
with the Father, of the whole Universe, next after the Father,
the Cause of all things, the true and only-begotten Son of God,
of all created things Lord and God and King.' The whole
chapter should be read ; but the following passages may be
presented here : ' Him, from the first birth of man, all, as many
as are said to have been eminent for righteousness and excellent
godliness, both at the time of that mighty servant Moses,
and before him, to begin with, Abraham, and his sons, and as
many as thereafter were holy men and prophets, contemplating
with the pure eyes of the mind, acknowledged, and, as to the
Son of God, assigned Him His due honour. And He ... is
established a Teacher [Ai8do-KaA.os, compare St. Clement's IlaiSa-
yuryo-i] to all men of the knowledge of His Father. And so the
Lord God is related to have appeared in the common form of
man to Abraham as he sat by the oak of Mamre ; who, falling
down forthwith, though he saw with his eyes a man, worships
Him as God, and entreats Him as Lord ; and confesses that he
was not ignorant Who He was, saying these very words, 0 Lord,
that judged all the earth, shall Thou not do judgment ? For since
reason cannot allow that the unbegotten and unchangeable
Essence of God the Almighty should transform itself into the
appearance of a man, or by the likeness of any created thing
deceive the eyes of the beholders, or, again, that the Scripture
falsely feigns these things, then (if it be not lawful to say it
was the First Cause of all things) who else, that is visible in
human fashion, can be spoken of as God, and Lord, and Judge
of all the earth, and doing judgment, but only the Pre-existent
Word? Of Whom in the Psalms also it is said, He sent His
Word, and healed them, and delivered them out of their destruction.
Him, as Lord next after the Father, Moses very clearly speaks
of, when he says, The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrah
brimstone and fire from the Lord. Him too, again appearing in
human fashion to Jacob, the divine Scripture speaks of as God,

460 The Theophanies. [app.
and as saying to Jacob, Thy name shall no more be called Jacob,
but Israel shall be thy name, because thou hadst power with God:
at which time Jacob called the name of that place Vision of God,
saying, For I saw God face to face, and my life was preserved.
And of a truth it is not lawful (ov de/jus) to suppose that the
Theophanies recorded were only of created and subject angels
and ministers of God ; for whensoever any such does appear to
men, the Scripture does not conceal it, saying expressly that
not God, nor the Lord, but angels spake; as may easily be
proved by innumerable testimonies. To Him also, as the Com
mander of the heavenly angels and archangels and the super
natural powers, and, as it were, the Minister of the Father,
entrusted in the second place with the royalty and government
over all, did Joshua, the successor of Moses, give the name of
" Chief Captain of the power of the Lord," when he saw Him
no otherwise than again in the form and fashion of a man.
[Eusebius quotes Joshua v. 13, &c] Whence, from these very
words (i. e. of taking off the shoes, &c), thou must know that
This was none other than He Who spake to Moses also ; for
asmuch as the Scripture speaks in the very same words as in
this case [he quotes Exod. iii. 4, &c.].' Further on, in the same
chapter, after describing the early general falling away of man
kind from God, he says, 'Then indeed the first-begotten and
Pre-existent Wisdom of God, the same Word that was before,
in His exceeding loving-kindness towards man, appeared to His
subjects, sometimes by vision of angels, and sometimes by Him
self to one or two of the men of old, God's favoured ones ; and
no otherwise than in human form, because it was not possible
in any different way.'
In his Bemonslration of the Gospel, a work which Bishop
Lightfoot of Durham characterises as ' probably the most im
portant apologetic work of the early Church,' we find, amid
some confusion and inconsistency of thought, much that bears
on the subject of the manifestation of God through the Son
under the elder dispensations. The student may look at
Book IV, chapters 4 and 6, and would be repaid by the reading
of the whole of Book V, from which the following passages are

note vil] Eusebius of Caesarea. 461
given. He should however remember that Eusebius expresses
himself sometimes in language which scarcely harmonises with
that clearly defined view of the revealed relations of the Eternal
Son to the Eternal Father, which resulted ultimately from the
Arian controversy when fully worked out, and which has been
the precious heritage of the Catholic Church ever since. He
lived in the heat of the conflict, and acted much with Arian or
Arianizing friends ; and learned as he was — perhaps too learned,
or at least too merely literary, and far too voluminous a writer —
he was certainly not a clear thinker, or he would have seen that
only the Catholic faith, for which Athanasius contended, main
tains clearly at once the Unity of the Godhead and the true
Godhead of the Son, neither of which verities Eusebius would
have denied. The fault of his statement is that he pushes the
distinctness of Personality too far, and gets himself into a
dilemma in which, logically, he must either admit two Gods,
or else deny Godhead to the Son. He fails to see this, because
the idea underlying his language is really the absurd one of
degrees of Godhead.
2. In Book V his object is to show from the Old Testament
the distinctness in Personality between the Father and the Son.
Commenting (ch. 8) on Gen. xix. 23, he points out, as above,
the distinction between the Lord the Son and the Father in
heaven, Who had committed to Him the punishment of the
ungodly. In ch. 9 he enumerates the appearances to Abraham,
from Gen. xii. onwards, and remarks on Abraham's intercession
(Gen. xviii). 'That this was said to angels, or to any of the
ministers (Xetrovpy&v) of God, I do not think could be fittingly
affirmed : for it does not belong to any ordinary being to judge
all the earth. Nay, it is no angel that is spoken of in the
earlier verse, but some one greater than an angel, even God
and Lord, Who near the forementioned oak was seen, together
with the two angels, in the form of man ; ' and he goes on to
say it was the Word of God ; adding, ' whence even until now
by the people on the spot the place is reverenced as sacred, for
the honour of those who there appeared to Abraham, and the
terebinth is to be seen there even now.'

462 The Theophanies. [app.
3. Similarly, in chs. 10-12, he quotes and discusses the nar
ratives of the appearances to Jacob ; showing how He Who is
spoken of as the Angel of the Lord is also clearly identified with
the Lord and God, and yet was not the Father, but He ' Who
ministers and declares to men the things of the Father,' i. e. the
Word, though 'the Scripture expressly calls Him God and
Lord, honouring Him with the title of the four letters by which
the Hebrews are accustomed to express the exclusive unutterable
and incommunicable Name.' On Gen. xxxv. 1 he distinguishes
the speaker, Whom he supposes was the Father, from Him to
Whom He commands Jacob to build an altar, Who was, of
course, the Son.
4. In chapter 11 he takes the angel in the flame of fire in
the bush for a created angel, in whom, or through whom, God
spoke, referring the appearance to the angel but the voice to
God ; and he distinguishes between the (supposed created) angel
who went before the camp of Israel (Exod. xiv. 19) and the
Word, Whom he associates with the Cloudy Pillar. This mis
take very probably arises from his knowing the Old Testament
only in the Greek Versions, which certainly, by the omission of
the article, and in other ways, greatly obscure the undoubted
unique pre-eminence of The Angel of the Lord. He admits the
identity of the Angel of God with the Divine Son in the Theo
phanies to Abraham and Jacob ; but, apparently, not in the
later ones, where there is any mention of angels. This makes
his repeated decisive identification of the Captain of the Lord's
Host in Joshua with the Son the more remarkable. He seems
totally unconscious that any Christian ever thought it was
St. Michael or any creature angel. See below, No. 10, p. 465;
also Bern. Evan. Book VI, Introd. ; Book VIII, Introd.
5. In chap. 13, on Exod. iii, he writes : ' As in the case of the
prophets from among men, Isaiah, for example, and Jeremiah,
.and the like, that which was seen was a man, but it was God
Who was communicating (Qeo-ni{a>v) through him who appeared,
as through an instrument (hi dpyavov) ; and as it was the Person,
sometimes of Christ, sometimes of the Holy Spirit, sometimes
of the God over all, that spake through the prophet: so to

note vii.] Eusebius of Caesar ea. 463
Moses, who is now before us, the highest God over all com
municates, through the angel that appeared, the words above
quoted. Of which the sense would be as follows : ' To thee
indeed, O prophet, as to one who is learning, and cannot yet
grasp more than an angelic vision, I have for the present willed
my angel to be visible, and of Myself I declare My Name only to
thee, teaching thee that I am that I am, and that My Name is
the Lord (Kvpios); but to thy fathers I declared not this alone,
but also bestowed upon them a greater thing than this, for
I was seen by them. But Who this was Who was seen by the
fathers, and that it was not the God over all, has been shown
already, when we showed that He Who is God and Lord is
named Angel of God. How then, in this passage, does He Who
is beyond everything, Himself being the only God over all, say
that He was seen by the Fathers ? is a question any one might
naturally ask. And the question may be solved, if we attend
to the exact language of the divine Scripture. For, while it
runs in the Seventy (Exod. vi. 3), And I appeared unto Abraham,
and Isaac, and Jacob, being their God (&ebs avr&v &v, Heb.
,rTt2J bNS), Aquila says, And I appeared unto Abraham, and
unto Isaac, and unto Jacob in a mighty God (Iv ©ecu IkovSi).
From this it is clear that the God over all, Who is alone, did
not Himself appear by His own self; but spake to the fathers,
not as to Moses, through an angel, or through the bush, or the
fire, but in a mighty God. Thus through the Son was the
Father seen by the patriarchs also, according to His saying in
the Gospels, He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father. For in
Him and through Him was the knowledge about the Father
revealed. But when He [the Father] appeared for the benefit
of men He was wont to be seen through the human form of His
Son1, giving thereby beforehand to His favoured ones the
pledge and earnest of His Son's future presence among men for
the salvation of all ; whereas when about to become the avenger
of the ungodly and the chastiser of the Egyptians, He mani
fested Himself not now in a mighty God, but in an angel
1 I. e. through a form or appearance like that of the humanity which the Son
was afterwards to unite permanently to Himself.

464 The Theophanies. [app:
minister of His vengeance \ and in the form of fire, and of the
flame which was all but ready to consume them, like the wood
of the wild thorn. Thus they say that, while the bush was an
enigmatical emblem of the wild, cruel, and untamed worth-
lessness of the Egyptians, the fire symbolised the vengeful and
chastening power that should overtake them.'
6. In chap. 14, Of the Cloudy Pillar, quoting Exod. xix. 9 ;
xiii. 21; Num. xii. 5 ; and Exod. xxxiii. 9, he says : ' The people
saw the Pillar of the Cloud, but to Moses he spake. But who
spake ? Obviously the Pillar of the Cloud, He Who before
appeared to the fathers in human fashion . . . the Word of God,
Who on that occasion, because of the multitude, was beheld, both
by Moses himself and by the people, in a cloudy Pillar, because
they were not capable, as the fathers were, of seeing Him in the
form of man. For it was to perfect men that the power be
longed of seeing beforehand His future Manifestation among
men as Incarnate, which, forasmuch as the whole people could
not at that time apprehend, He was seen of them sometimes in
fire, so as to inspire fear and awe ; sometimes in cloud, as giving
them laws in dim shadow, and under a veil (eireo~K.iao7iJ,ivm nal
KeKakvp.[xeva>s vopLoOeruv)2; and of Moses too, in like manner, for
their sakes.'
7. In chap. 15, As to the Angel Protector and Guide, he
quotes Exod. xxiii. 20, &c. (the original promise of the Divine
1 Observe the inconsistency of this with Eusebius' assertion that He Who
appeared to Joshua before the conquest of Canaan was the Son of God. See
below, p. 466.
2 So Dem. Evan. iv. 10. ' The Word of God, the Saviour of the world, by the
merciful Will of the Father, Who loved mankind, lest the race dear to Himself
should sink in the depth of ungodliness, did meanwhile flash forth some faint and
feeble rays of His own Light, through the prophet Moses, and through devout men
both before and after him, and put forth already, in the enactments about religion,
the healing remedy for the ills of men. Wherefore the Word Himself, legislating
{vo/j.o8eTwv) through Moses, speaks plainly to the Hebrew Nation {Lent, xviii. 2),
After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do : and after
the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do ... I am the
Lord your God. . . . These and innumerable other pious instructions and injunctions
God the Word in early days laid upon them as the Lawgiver through Moses, in a
kind of introductory way furnishing them with the elements of a godly life, by
means of symbolB and a certain shadowy and bodily worship.'

note vii.] Eusebius of Caesarea. 465
Angel), and immediately, xxxii. 34, and xxxiii. 2 (the substitu
tion of the created angel after the sin of the calf), without any
perception of the difference between them, remarking upon them,
' That these are the utterances of no angel, but of God only, is
clear to any one. But of what God, save Him Who was seen
by their forefathers, Whom Jacob clearly spoke to as an Angel
of God ? But this, we saw, was the Word of God, Who is styled
both Son of God, and Himself God and Lord.'
8. Chapter 16. He regards the Decalogue as uttered by the
Son, Who is teaching therein to Moses and the Israelites due
reverence to God the Father. So also, chapter 17, on the pro
clamation of the Name of the Lord, Exod. xxxiv. 5.
9. Chapter 18. On Exod. xxiv. 10, They saw the God of
Israel, after quoting the Septuagint, which glosses thus, they
saw the place ivhere the God of Israel had stood, he says, ' Instead
of which Aquila says, And they saw the God of Israel, but
Symmachus, And they saw in vision the God of Israel. Now,
because of the text, None hath seen God at any time, some one
perhaps might suppose the present expression to be contrary to
that wholesome saying, as implying that the invisible nature
was visible. But if you take this also of the Word of God,
Who at sundry times, and in divers manners, was seen by the
fathers, in the same way as in the cases already shown, you will
no longer seem to fall into contradictions. It shows that the
God of Israel there seen was the very same as He Who appeared
also to Israel, when there wrestled a man with him.'
10. Chapter 19. On Joshua v. 13, &c, he compares (as,
above, Eccl. Hist. I. 2) the command to Moses at the bush, and
says : ' It was then one and the same God Who spake to both,
as is proved by the command. But now He speaks His Will
(detml(ei) through the Chief Captain of His Power, while to
Moses He did so through the angel that was seen. But far
above all the celestial armies .... Who else could there be
than the Word of God, His first-begotten Wisdom, His Divine
Offspring? Reasonably then on this present occasion is He
called the Chief Captain of the power of the Lord, as elsewhere
the Angel of great Counsel, enthroned together with the Father,
Hh

466 The Theophanies. [app.
the eternal and mighty High-Priest. And it has been demon
strated that He, the same, is both Lord and God, and Christ,
anointed by the Father with the oil of gladness. Appearing
therefore to Abraham by the oak He shows Himself with the
calm aspect and peaceful form of a man, indicating thereby
beforehand (i:pooi\>.ia.{p\ievoi) His saving presence [i.e. as In
carnate] among men ; and to Jacob, who was about to struggle
like a practised wrestler against enemies, He appears as a man ;
and for Moses and the people He led the way in an appearance of
cloud and of fire, showing Himself at once terrible and over
shadowed [or, veiled]. But since Joshua, the successor of
Moses, was about to engage in warfare with the old inhabitants
of Palestine, strange nations and very wicked, He naturally
shows Himself with His sword drawn and sharpened against the
enemy, all but declaring through the vision that it was indeed
Himself Who, with unseen sword, should with Divine power
pursue the ungodly, fighting together with His own, and
sharing the conflict with them. For which reason He season
ably styled Himself the Lord's Chief Captain'
XIII. St. Hilary, Bishop of Poitiers, a.d. 353. Before con
sidering the important passages from St. Hilary's great work
Against the Arians, or, On the Holy Trinity, ' the first great con
tribution, in the Latin tongue, to the discussion of this great
dogma of the Christian faith ' (Canon Cazenove, in Art. Hilarius
Piclav., in Smith's Bid. of Christian Biography) the student
should note the following remarks of the Benedictine Editors,
prefixed to Book IV : —
'Constans apud veteres videtur opinio, Filium ab initio
mundi variis se modis hominibus spectabilem praebuisse.
Hoc diserte docent Justinus Martyr, Irenaeus, Origenes, Theo
philus Antioch., Clemens Alexandr., Tertullianus, Cyprianus,
Patres Antiocheni Concilii contra Paulum Samosat., ut mit-
tamus Faustinum Presbyterum, Ambrosium, Leonem, aliosque
plurimos. Se ne ab iis quidem hoc negatum est qui Ario
favebant. Idipsum passim praedicat Eusebius in lib. Dem.
Ev., et Sirmiense concilium contra Photinum eos anathemate
damnat qui aliter senserint.

note vn.J The Benedictines' Note on St. Hilary. ^67
' Seel cum in hac doctrina fraudem moliti sint Ariani, ut
Filium, qui visibilis ac visus sit, a Patre invisibili natura
dissimilem praedicarent ; alte retinendum, Sanctos Patres ita
Deum visum asseruisse, ut cum Augustino, Lib. II. Cont.
Maximinum, cap. 26, n. 12, senserint, "divinitatem non per
substantiam suam, in qua invisibilis et immutabilis est, sed
per creaturam sibi subjectam mortalium oculis apparuisse cum
voluit." Ac ne peregrina hue adsciscamus, locuples hujus rei
testis est Hilarius, Lib. II. n. 45 et 46. "Certe," inquit, "qui
ante angelus, nunc etiam homo est : ne naturalem hanc esse
Dei speciem diversitas hujus ipsius assumptae creationis pate-
retur intelligi. Adest autem Jacob etiam usque ad luctae
complexum in habitu humano .... Sed idem postea et Moysi
esse ignis ostenditur : ut naturae creatae turn potius ad spe
ciem, quam ad substantiam naturae, fidem disceres." Acute
Augustinus, Epist. alias cxn. nunc cxlvii, num. 20, in ilia
Moysi verba, Si inveni gratiam ante te, Ostende mihi temet
ipsum. " Quid ergo," inquit. " Ille non erat ipse 1 Si non esset
ipse, non ei diceret, Ostende mihi temetipsum, sed, Ostende
Deum : et tamen si ejus naturam substantiamque conspiceret,
multo minus diceret, Ostende mihi temetipsum. Ipse ergo erat
ii\ea specie, qua apparere voluerat : non autem ipse apparebat
in natura propria, quam Moyses videre cupiebat."
' Si ex proximis Scripturae verbis ipsum Deum a Moyse
visum recte asseruit ; pari ratione concedendum est ipsum
Deum eidem Moysi in rubo dixisse : Ego sum Deus Abra
ham, etc., verumque Deum Agar allocutum esse, cui clamavit :
Tu Deus, qui adspexisti me. Neque hoc etiam negant ii
Patres, qui in visis illis veros angelos adstitisse arbitrantur.
Non enim existimant angelos illos Dei ac Domini nomen sibi
attribuisse, quia ut legati Dei ac Domini nomine loquebantur ;
quis enim legatus regis, imperatoris, aut principis sibi arroget
npmen, cujus personam repraesentat 1 Sed ideo potius, quod
Deus ipse in illis loquebatur. Hoc diserte docet Athanasius
Or. IV. cont. Arian., pag. 4671: . . . . Ita et Hieronymus,
cap. III. ad Gal. : " Quod autem lex ordinata per angelos, hoc
vult intelligi, quod in omni Veteri Testamento, ubi angelus
primum visus refertur, et postea quasi Deus loquens inducitur,
1 Comp. above, p. 458.
H h 2

468 The Theophanies. [app.
angelus quidem vere ex ministris pluribus quicumque sit visus,
sed in illo mediator loquatur, qui dicat ; Ego sum Deus Abra
ham." His accedit Augustinus, 1. II. contra Maximin., cap.
26. n. 11: "Quaero quis apparuerit Moysi in igne quando
rubus inflammabatur, et non urebatur. Quamquam et illic
angelum apparuisse Scriptura ipsa declarat .... In angelo
autem Deum fuisse quis dubitet 1 " Juxta hos Gregorius Papa,
Praef. in Job, c. 2 : " Angelus, qui Moysi apparuisse dicitur,
modo angelus, modo Deus memoratur. Angelus videlicet
propter hoc quod exterius loquendo serviebat ; Dominus
autem dicitur, quia interius praesidens, loquendi efficaciam
ministrabat. Cum ergo loquens exterius ab interiori regitur,
et per obsequium angelus, et per inspirationem Dominus
nominatur." '
The passages in St. Hilary are the following : —
1. On the Holy Trinity, IV. 23. On the Appearance to Hagar,
' He Who is called the Angel of God is Himself Lord and God.
Now according to the Prophet the Son of God is The Angel of the
great Counsel (Isa. ix. 6. Lxx). He is styled The Angel of God
in order that the distinction of the Persons might be clear ; for
He who is God from God is Himself also the Angel of God. But
in order that the honour that is due may be given him He is
proclaimed both Lord and God. 24. . . . Can there be any doubt
that the Same Who is called the Angel of God is again called
also God ? ... To Abraham God speaks ; but to Hagar spake
the Angel of God. Therefore He is God, Who is also the Angel :
because He Who is the Angel of God is God born from God.
But He is called the Angel of God because He is the Angel of
the great Counsel. Yet the very same is afterwards plainly
shown to be God, lest He Who is God should be thought to be
only a [created] angel.' Compare V. 11, 13.
2. IV. 27. On Gen. xviii. xix., ' Abraham adores one [of the
three men], and acknowledges Him to be the Lord. . . . For
though He was seen as a man, Abraham nevertheless adored
Him as Lord ; acknowledging in fact the mysterious intimation
of His future Incarnation (sacramentum scilicet futurae corpora-
tionis agnoscens).' In 28 he clearly distinguishes the two who

note vil] St. Hilary of Poitiers. 469
visited Lot in Sodom as created angels ; but says the Lord Who
rained judgment on Sodom from the Lord was the Son, and
quotes St. John v. 22. So, in 30 and 31, of the Appearances to
Jacob, ' To Jacob also God came in human form. And not only
came but is declared to have wrestled with him. ... Of a truth
it was God ; because Jacob had power with God, and Israel saw
God.' Compare V. 15, 16, 19, 20.
3. IV. 32. ' But let us see whether elsewhere as well as to
Hagar this Angel of God is known to be God. Clearly He is
so known. And not God only, but also The God of Abraham, and
the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. For the Angel of the
Lord appeared to Moses from the bush, while the Lord speaks
from the bush. Whose voice do you suppose must be understood ?
whether His who was seen, or some other's ? Here there is no
room for mistake. For the Scripture saith \Exod. iii. 2, &c], He
Who appeared in the bush, speaks from the bush ; the place both
of the vision and the voice is one and the same ; nor is any other
heard than He Who was seen. He Who is the Angel of God
when seen, the same too when heard is the Lord ; while the very
Lord Who is heard is presently known to be the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob. Forasmuch as He is called the Angel of God,
He is shown to be not alone by Himself and solitary . . . while
in that He is styled Lord and God, He is proclaimed in the
honour and in the name of His own Nature.' Again, in 33,
commenting on the words (which are in the Lxx, but not in the
Heb. or Vulg.) of the Song of Moses, Beut. xxxii. between 42
and 43, Rejoice, ye heavens, with Him, and let all -the angels of God
worship Him ; 43, Rejoice, ye Gentiles, with His People, and let all
the sons [or, angels] of God honour Him, he says : — 'And lest you
should think that honour is claimed for One Who is not by
nature God, and should suppose that in this place Moses thought
of honouring God the Father, whereas in truth the Father must
be honoured in the Son, observe the blessing which, later in the
same passage (Beut. xxxiii. 16), he assigns to Joseph. For he
says, And let the things vjhich be according to the good will of Him
That dwelt in the bush come upon the head of Joseph. God therefore
is to be worshipped by the sons of God, but God Who is also the

47° The Theophanies. [app.
Son of God. And God is to be honoured by the angels of God,
but God Who is the Divine Angel of God; for from the bush
appeared God the Angel of God, and the things which are accord
ing to His good will are desired for Joseph when he is being
blessed. Not therefore because He is the Angel of God is He
on that account not God ; nor, again, is He not the Angel of
God because He is God ; but, by a marked reference to a Plurality
of Persons, and by the thought of the Unbegotten as distinct
from the Begotten, and by the revelation of an economy depend
ing on heavenly mysteries, He has taught us that we must not
think of God as solitary, since both the angels of God and the
sons of God must adore a God Who is both the Angel and the
Son of God.' Compare also V. 2 1 .
4. V. 1 1. ' The meaning of the word " angel " points rather to
office than to nature. . . . Accordingly the Law, or rather God
through the Law, purposing to intimate the distinct Personality
of the Father's Name, spoke of God the Son as the Angel, that is,
the Messenger, of God. For it clearly signifies His office in the'
title Messenger, while it confirms the verity of His Nature by the
Name it gives Him, in that it calls Him God. But we have
here a relation arising from the economy, not a relation of Being.
For we proclaim nothing else than the Father and the Son ; and
we so affirm the co-equality of Nature involved in these Names
as to show that the Generation of the Only-Begotten God from
the Unbegotten God involves the absolute verity of His Godhead.
Now this use of the terms " Sent " and " Sending" means nothino*
else than the Father and the Son ; yet it in no wise takes away
the verity of Nature, nor in the Son destroys the full possession of
Divinity by Nature. For none can doubt that the nature of the
parent is reproduced together with the generation of a son.'
5. V. 17. 'The mysterious incidents (saeramenta) of the Law
prefigure the mystery of the Gospel Dispensation, [i.e. the In
carnation] : and the Patriarch sees and believes what the Apostle
contemplates and preaches. For whereas the Law is the shadow
of things to come, the outward appearance of the shadow ex
presses the reality of the substance. And God in the likeness of
man is both seen and believed and adored, Who in the fulness of

note vii.] St. Hilary of Poitiers. 471
time was to be born in the likeness of man. For there was
assumed to the sight the outward appearance of the reality that
was prefigured. But then, under the Law, God was only seen in
the likeness of man, not born : afterwards, He was also born that
which He appeared. And familiarity with the outward appear
ance temporarily assumed helps us to grasp the reality of His
Birth. ... In Gospel times the shadow becomes substance, the
semblance reality, the visible appearance actual nature ; yet is
there no change in God Himself.'
6. V. 23. That the Law was given to Moses by the Divine Son
of God as Mediator.
7. V. 33. That it was the Only-Begotten Son of God Whose
glory Isaiah saw : quoting St. John xii. 41.
8. Commenting on the old Latin version of the Lxx of Prov.
vm. 22, Kupios i-KTio-i p.e o\pyj\v 6bS>v avrov els epya avrov, Bominus
creavit me initium (or, in initium) viarum suarum in opera sua, he
has, Be Trin. xii. 45, a valuable summary passage which covers
the whole ground : —
' Ultimae dispensationis sacramentum est, quo etiam creatus
in corpore, viam se Dei operum est professus 1. Creatus
autem est in vias Dei a saeculo : cum ad conspicabilem
speciem subditus creaturae, habitum creationis assumpsit. 46.
Videamus itaque in quas Dei vias, et in quae opera a saeculis
creata sit, nata ante saecula ex Deo Sapientia. Vocem deam-
bulantis in Paradiso Adam audivit (Gen. iii. 8). Putasne deam-
bulantis incessum nisi in specie assumptae creationis auditum :
ut in aliqua creatione consisteret, qui inambulans fuerit
1 The Benedictine footnote here is important : — 'Duplex hie distinguitur Verbi
dispensatio, ultima scilicet, qua novissimus temporibus homo factus inter homines
conversatus est ; altera vero ab initio saeculi : ex quo varias variarum creationum
species assumens multifarie multisque modis visus est Patribus : cum ex illo usque
tempore, inquit Eusebius, lib. v. Dem. Ev. c. 19, salutarem suum ad homines ad-
ventum exordiretnr. Quod autem Dei Filius, modo in forma angeli, modo in forma
hominis, modo in assumpta ignis ac nubis specie visus sit, ut singulis pro cujusque
affectione congrueret, edisserit idem Eusebius, ibid, a cap. 9 ad 19. Quibus con-
gentit Augustinus, Epist. clxiv. ad Mood. n. 17 : Ab initio generis hvmuini, vel ad
arguendos malos, sicut ad Cain ac prius ad ipsum Adam uxoremque ejus, vel ad
consolandos bonos, vel ad utrosque admonendos, ut alii ad salutem suam crederent,
ipse utique (Christus) non in came, sed in spiritu veniebat, visis congruis alloquens
quos volebat, sicut volebat.'

472 The Theophanies. [app.
auditus 1 Non requiro qualis ad Cain et Abel et Noe locutus
sit, et benedicens quoque Enoch qualis adfuerit. Angelus ad
Agar loquitur (Gen. xvi. g, 13) : et utique idem Deus est.
Numquid speciei ejusdem est cum angelus videtur, cujus est
in ea natura qua Deus est 1 Certe species angeli ostenditur,
ubi postea Dei natura memoratur. Sed quid de angelo dicam 1
Homo ad Abraham venit (Gen. xviii. 2). Numquid secundum
hominem in creationis istius habitu Christus talis assistit,
qualis et Deus est 1 Sed homo loquitur, et corpore assistit,
et cibo alitur : verumtamen Deus adoratur. Certe qui ante
angelus, nunc etiam homo est : ne naturalem hanc esse Dei
speciem diversitas hujus ipsius assumjutae creationis pateretur
intelligi. Adest autem ad Jacob etiam usque ad luctae com-
plexum in habitu humano, et manum conserit, et membris
nititur, et lateribus inflectitur, et in omni motu nostro inces-
suque consistit (Gen. xxxii. 24). Sed idem postea et Moysi
esse ignis ostenditur ' (Exodi iii. 2); ut naturae creatae turn
potius ad speciem, quam ad substantiam naturae fidem disceres.
Habuit turn in se potestatem conflagrandi, non tamen naturalem
suscipiens urendi necessitatem : quia sine rubi damno confla-
gratio ignis apparuit. 47. Curre per tempora, et intellige
qualis visus sit, vel Jesu Nave nominis sui prophetae, vel Esaiae
etiam cum (Joan. xii. 41) evangelico testimonio visum praedi-
canti, vel Ezechieli usque ad conscientiam resurrectionis as-
sumpto (Ezech. xxxvii.), vel Danieli hominis filium in aeterno
saeculorum regno confitenti (Dan. vii. 13, 14) caeterisque aliis,
quibus se in habitu variae creationis ingessit, in vias Dei et in
opera Dei, ad cognitionem scilicet Dei et nostrae aeternitatis
profectum. Quid hie nunc haec humanae salutis dispensatio
turn impiam aeternae nativitatis contumeliam molitur ? Creatio
ista a saeculis est : caeterum ante saecula infinita nativitas est.
Vim sane nos dictis afferre contende, si Propheta, se Dominus,
si Apostolus, si sermo ullus ad divinitatis aeternae nativitatem
creaturae retulit nomen. In his enim omnibus Deus, qui io-nis
consumens est, ita creatus inest, ut creationem ea virtute qua
assumpsit absumeret : potens abolere rursum, quod tantum ad
causam contemplationis exstiterat.'
XIV. St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan from a.d. 374 to a.d. 397.
1. In his work On Abraham, Book I. ch. vi. speakino- of the

note vii.] St. Ambrose. 473
Appearance recorded in Gen. xviii. and xix, he clearly dis
tinguishes one of the ' three men' as Divine : ' 32. Illi Deus ap
paruit ad quercum Mambre. 33. Deus illi apparuit et tres
aspexit. 36. Tres vidit, et unum Dominum appellavit, ipsius
solius se servum fatetur. Deinde conversus ad duos quos mini-
stros arbitrabatur,' etc. And, ib. § 49, of the two who went on
to Sodom : ' Illi qui ad Abraham simul cum Domino venerant,
Sodomam petierunt viri ; ' and 50 : ' Ubi gratia largienda est
Christus adest : ubi exercenda severitas, soli adsunt ministri,
deest Jesus.'
2. And on the sacrifice of Isaac, Ibid. ch. viii. § 78, on Gen.
xxii. 14 : ' Yocavit Abraham nomen loci illius, Bominus videt, ut
dicant hodie: In monte Bominus apparuit, hoc est, quod apparu-
erit Abrahae, revelans futuram sui passionem "corporis, qua
mundum redemit.'
3. On Jacob, Book II. ch. iv. 16 ; on Gen. xxviii. 11 : 'Vidit
angelos Dei ascendentes et desceudentes, hoc est, Christum prae-
vidit in terris, ad quern angelorum caterva descendit atque
ascendit, pbsequium proprio domino pio praebitura servitio; ' and
on Gen. xxxii. 24 : ' Luctatus est cum Deo.'
4. On Psalm xxxv. § 18 : ' Angelis angelus factus est Dei Filius,
prophetis propheta.'
5. On Psalm cxix. Sermon xviii. § 29, he says, addressing the
Jews : ' Miramini Moysen, quia patres vestros per mare siccis
duxit vestigiis. Moyses non imperavit, sed impetravit : non
jussit mari, sed servivit jubenti fluctibus. Moysen laudatis, quia
regem Pharao cum exercitu suo mersit : Moyses orabat, et alius
imperabat. Moyses precabatur, Christus operabatur. Moyses
fugiebat, Christus insequebatur. Moyses columnam sequebatur,
ut nocturnas tenebras declinaret : Christus illuminabat. Moysen
agnoscitis, quia aquae amaritudinem temperavit. Moysen agno-
scitis, quia aquam produxit de petra : Christum non agnoscitis,
qui vere illius Aegyptii regis stravit exercitum, et abyssi mersit
profundo.' (Migne's ed. vol. i. pt. ii. p. 1462.)
6. On St. Luke, Book I. § 24, on the appearance of the angel
to Zacharias in the Temple : ' Bene apparuisse dicitur ei, qui eum
repente conspexit. Et hoc specialiter aut de angelis, aut de Deo

474 The Theophanies. [app.
Scriptura divina tenere consuevit : ut quod non potest prae-
videri, apparere dicatur ; sic enim habes, Apparuit Beus Abrahae
ad ilicem Mambre. Nam qui ante non praesentitur, sed repentino
videtur aspectu, apparere memoratur. Non enim similiter sensi-
bilia videntur, et is in cujus voluntate situm est videri, et cujus
naturae est non videri, voluntatis videri. Nam si non vult, non
videtur; si vult, videtur. . . . 25. Et quid de hominibus lo-
quimur, cum etiam de ipsis coelestibus virtutibus et potestatibus
legerimus quia Beum nemo vidit unquam (Joan. i. 18) ? et addidit
quod ultra coelestes est potestates : Unigenitus Filius qui est in
sinu Patris, ipse enarravit. Aut adquiescatur igitur neeesse est,
si Deum Patrem nemo vidit unquam, Filium visum esse in
veteri Testamento ; et desinant haeretici ex Virgine ei principium
dare, qui antequam nasceretur ex Virgine, videbatur : aut certe
refelli non potest, vel Patrem, vel Filium, vel certe Spiritum
Sanctum, si tamen est Spiritus Sancti visio, ea specie videri,
quam voluntas elegerit, non natura formaverit ; quoniam Spiri
tum quoque visum accepimus in columba. Et ideo Deum nemo
vidit umquam : quia earn quae in Deo habitat plenitudinem di-
vinitatis nemo conspexit, nemo mente aut oculis comprehendit.'
7. In his Treatise On the Faith, Book I. ch. iv, after a passage
on the union of the human with the Divine in the Incarnation,
showing that it does not trench on the Unity in Trinity, he adds :
' Such is our faith. Thus God willed Himself to be known by
all. Thus the Three Children believed, and felt not the flames
around them. . . . For there was present in the appearance of
an Angel One Who showed that under the number of the
Trinity praise should be offered to one Divine Power. God
was being blessed [i. e. in the Song of the Three Children], the
Son of God was being seen in the form of an angel, the grace
of the Holy Spirit was . speaking in [the Song of] the children.'
And, ibid. ch. xiii : ' The heathen King saw in the fire together
with the three Hebrew youths the form of a fourth like as of an
angel : and because he thought he excelled the angels, he
judged Him to be the Son of God. ... So too, Abraham saw
three, and adored One.'
8. In the same chapter, commenting on the Voice of the

note vii.] St. Ambrose. 475
Father at the Transfiguration, he says : ' This [the Son of God]
is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,
Who appeared to Moses in the bush, of Whom Moses says, He
that is hath sent me unto you. The Father spake not in the
bush, the Father spake not in the desert : but the Son spake to
Moses. . . . This is He That gave the Law, the Same That
spake to Moses, saying : I am the God of Abraham, the God of
Isaac, the God of Jacob. This therefore is the God of the patri
archs, This is the God of the prophets.'
9. Ibid. Book II. ch. ii. he shows the merciful goodness of
Christ from His benefits to the Israelites of old : ' Is not He
good, Who, when six hundred thousand of the people of the
Jews were fleeing before their pursuers, suddenly divided the
yawning Red Sea tide and made its waters stand on an heap,
in such wise that the waves guarded the believers, and, turning
back again, drowned the unbelievers? Is not He good, at
Whose bidding the seas were made solid for them that fled, the
rocks made liquid for them that thirsted ; that the act of the
true Creator should be acknowledged, when the water grew firm
and the rock flowed? For which reason, that thou shouldest
own the work of Christ, the Apostle said, Now that Rock was
Christ. Is not He good, Who, lest hunger should attack them,
fed so many thousands of people in the wilderness with bread
from heaven . . . and caused that through forty years their
raiment waxed not old . . . setting in this before believers a
pledge and type of the future resurrection ? '
10. Ibid. Book II. ch. viii. § 71. Proving, against the Arians,
that Christ is not inferior to the Father as touching His God
head, he says : ' He Himself speaks to Abraham, By Myself have
1 sworn (Gen. xxii. 16). Now the Apostle shows that He Who
swears by Himself cannot be inferior [he quotes Heb. vi. 13, 14] ;
Therefore Christ had none greater, and so He swore by Himself.
... 72. Or if they will have it that it would seem to have been
said of the Father, the rest agrees not thereto : for neither did
the Father appear to Abraham, nor did he wash the feet of God
the Father, but His in Whom was the appearance (figura) of the
Man He was to be. Finally the Son of God says, Abraham saw

476 The Theophanies. , [app.
My day, and was glad. It was He therefore Who sware by
Himself, Whom Abraham saw.'
11. On the Holy Spirit, Book I. ch. iv : f There is one Son, Who,
according to the history of the Old Testament, was offended by
Adam, seen by Abraham, adored by Jacob.' On this the
Bened. Editors write : ' The Son is said to have been offended
by Adam, because Ambrose, like very many of the ancient
Fathers, is wont to assign the Creation of the world, and all the
Apparitions of the Old Testament, to the Son/
12. The following passages also may be referred to in the
valuable early commentary on St. Paul's Epistles which is
usually given as an Appendix to the Works of St. Ambrose : —
(a) On Rom. ii. 22. Op. S. Ambr. Tom. ii. P. ii. p. 40 (70) : (b) Ibid.
On Rom. x. 13, p. 87 (144) : (c) On 2 Cor. v. 19-31, p. 184 (297) :
(d) On Coloss. i. 15, Qui est imago invisibilis Bei, p. 264 (422).
XV. St. Jerome, born about a.d. 346, died a.d. 420. There
is not much in this writer that bears on the subject of the
Theophanies ; neither in what he does say is he always consistent.
His expositions of Holy Scripture are not of very great value.
He has preserved much that is interesting of the interpretation
of the Old Testament current among the Jews of his day, with
which he was thoroughly acquainted ; but the Christian inter
pretation, as given by him, seems often fanciful and far-fetched.
1. On the Appearances to Jacob he writes as follows: — (a)
Against the Pelagians, III. 8 : ' Afterwards he fights with an
angel in the form of man, and is strengthened by the Lord.
Instead of Jacob or Supplanter, he received the name of Most
upright [man] of God (Rectissimus Dei). . . . Peniel is interpreted
Face of God. Wherefore Moses writes [01 Jacob] I saw the Lord
[or God] face to face, and my life is preserved, not in the inward
reality (proprietate) of His Nature, but by the gracious con
descension of His mercy.' (b) In His Hebrew Questions on
Genesis xxxii. 27, he has a full note on the name Israel, entirely
repudiating its interpretation as Man (or Mind) seeing God,
though he says this was the current view (i.e. among Chris
tians) ' ; and paraphrasing the Angel's words thus : ' For as I am
1 ' Omnium pene sermone detritum . . . Quamvis igitur grandis auctoritatis sint,

note vii.] St. Jerome. 477
a prince; so too thou who hast been able to wrestle with me
shalt be called a prince. And if thou couldest strive with me
who am God, or Angel (for many interpret it variously), how
much more with men, i. e. with Esau, whom thou needest not
fear ? ' (c) Commenting on Hosea's allusion, xii. 3, he prefixes
to a Latin rendering of the LXX, which agrees with the present
Hebrew, his own Vulgate rendering, which does not : Infortitu-
dine sua direcius est cum angelo, et invaluit ad angelum, et confortatus
est; and in his exposition, which agrees best'with the view of
a created angel in whom or through whom God spoke (nominis
ejus quod illi ab Angelo et a Deo impositum est), he yet
speaks of Jacob as ' roboratus benedictionibus angeli, qui ipse
est Deus.'
2. On the Appearance to Moses at the Bush he adopts the
primitive and usual view, Against Jovinian, Book I. 20 : ' Moses,
when he saw the great vision, the Angel, or the Lord speaking
in the bush, was by no means able to approach him, until he had
loosed the latchet of his shoe.'
3. On the Song of Deborah, Judges v. 23, Curse ye Meroz,
saith the Angel of the Lord, he quotes, and seems to adopt, the
Jewish interpretation of the Angel of the Lord as Michael.
4. On Isaiah's Vision (Comm. on Isa. Bk. III. vol. iv. p. 92)
he interprets the threefold Sanctus as ' showing the mystery of
the Trinity in One Godhead,' and adds, that ' we teach in ac
cordance with the Evangelist John (xii. 41) and the Apostle
Paul (Acts xxviii. 25), that the Son of God was seen in the
Majesty of one who reigned as King, and that the Holy Spirit
spake.' Compare also Comm. on Ezek. i. 22, &c.
5. On Ezekiel, ch. i. (Works, vol. v. p. 20), he says : ' That we
must understand the Man [seated on the sapphire throne] of
et eloquentiae ipsorum umbra nos opprimat, qui Israel virum, sive mentem videntem
Deum transtulerunt : nos magis Scripturae, et Angeli, vel Dei, qui ipsum Israel
vocavit, auctoritate ducimur, quam cujuslibet eloquentiae saecularis.' No doubt
the crabbed old scholar was hitting hard, according to his custom, some definite
writer whom he wishes to extinguish by the epithet ' saecularis.' One wishes he
had given his name. Perhaps it was Eusebius of Caesarea. In his comment on
Hosea xii. 12 he accepts the interpretation of Israel as 'videntem Deum,' Works,
vol. vi. p. 142 ; and again on Nahum ii. 2, vol. vi. p. 551.

478 The Theophanies. [app.
God the Father we are taught by many proofs. Among which is
that place in the Gospel (St. Matt. xxi. 33), A certain man planted
a vineyard, &c, . . . and, presently, He sent his servants. . . And,
last of all, he sent his son. And again, A certain man made a
marriage for his son. Not that the Son is excluded from reign
ing, of Whom Isaiah wrote, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne,
high and lifted up ; but that in the Father the Son reigns also.
. . . And in Daniel also (vii. 9) God the Father is brought in as
sitting, and the Son of Man is brought (offertur) to Him that
He may receive the Kingdom. And in the Apocalypse of John
(iii. 21 ; vii. 9, 10, 17) the same things are written of the Son.'
What the ' many proofs ' are he gives us no idea ; of the weight
of the ' proofs ' alleged the reader must judge.
(b) On the Vision of the Man with the line of flax, and the
measuring reed, Ezek. xl. 5, &c, he says (vol. v. p. 465) : ' It is He
of Whom it is written, Behold, the man Whose name is the Branch
(Zech. vi. 12). . . He stood in the gate because through Him we
enter in to the Father, and without Him we cannot enter the
City of God. . . This Man, in whose hand was the line, . . . spake
to the prophet. He who spake to Ezekiel was the True Architect,
Whom Paul the Apostle imitated.' And on ver. 5 (Ibid. p. 471),
'Whereby it is clear that the Lord and Saviour, Who is the
True Architect, proves the stones, which are fit to be placed in
the foundations of the temple, which in the middle courses, and
which in the upper.'
6. On Baniel iii. 49, LXX. and Vulg., (vol. v. p. 641) : ' The
Angel of the Lord, to wit, the Divine Word comes down, and
strikes off the burning heat of the flame.' And on iii. 25 (Lxx.
Vulg. 92) : ' The appearance of the fourth, whom he calls like the
Son of God, we must take either for an angel, as the Seventy
have rendered it, or in very truth, as very many think, for the
Lord and Saviour. Yet I know not how the impious King
should deserve to see the Son of God. Wherefore, after Sym-
macbus, who renders, The appearance of the fourth, the likeness of
sons, not of God, but of the gods, angels are to be understood, who
very frequently are called both gods, and sons of gods, or of God.
This according to the history [i.e. the literal primary narrative

NOTE vii.] St. Jerome. 479
sense]. But in type this angel, or Son of God, prefigures our
Lord Jesus Christ1.'
(b) On vii. 9 (ibid. p. 668), I beheld till the thrones were set, and
the Ancient of days did sit : ' The many thrones which Daniel saw
seem to me the same as John speaks of as the four and twenty
thrones ; while the Ancient of days is He Who in John sits alone
upon the throne. Also the Son of Man, Who came to the Ancient
of days is He Who by John is called the Lion of the tribe of
Judah. . . God is spoken of as seated, and as the Ancient of days,
that the bearing (habitus) of the Eternal Judge may be shown
forth.' [But this would rather point to the Son.]
(c) On viii. 16, 17 (ibid. p. 676) : 'The Jews suppose the man
who commanded Gabriel to make Daniel understand the vision to
be Michael.'
(d) On xii. 5, &c, he takes the two angels on the river banks
for the guardian angels of the Persians and of the Greeks, and
the man clothed in linen, which was upon the waters of the river, for
' that most merciful angel ' whom ' he had seen at the beginning,
clothed in linen' (x. 5), who 'had offered the prayers of Daniel
in the sight of God, when the angel of the Persians withstood
him one and twenty days' (x. 13, which see, as showing that it
was not Michael, and so must have been the divine Angel of the
Lord. St. Jerome in his Comment, on ch. x. distinguishes him
of course from Michael ; but his language, on the whole, implies
that he thought him a created angel).
7. His Commentary on Zechariah (vol. vi. p. 775, &c, Migne,
col. 1417, &c.) is curiously interesting from his careful contrast
throughout of the Christian interpretation with that which he
had learned from his Jewish instructors (' a quibus (he says) in
Veteri Testamento eruditi sumus '), who only saw St. Michael
where the Church sees her Lord. Space forbids a sufficient
analysis. The student must examine it for himself.
8. On Malachi iii. 1 (vol. vi. p. 20) he takes Christ to be the
speaker ; 'Behold, I send My messenger, &c, is said in the person
1 He adds, ' qui ad fornacem descendit inferni, in quo clausae, et peccatorum et
justorum animae tenebantur, ut absque exustione, et noxa sui eos qui tenebantur
inclusi mortis vinculis liberaret.'

480 The Theophanies. [app.
of Christ, that He sent John in the wilderness of Judaea to
preach, &c. . . . but what follows, And the Lord, Whom ye seek,
&c, He speaks of Himself as of another, according to the
custom of the Scriptures. And none doubts that that Lord
is the Saviour, Who is the Creator of all, and is called the Angel
of the Covenant, and the Angel of the great counsel!
XVI. St. Augustine. Born a.d. 354; baptized, 387; Bishop
of Hippo, 395 ; died, 430. I have already, in Lect. IV. § 90,
described the novel attitude taken up on this subject by this
great and too influential writer; and need only now refer the
student to the numerous passages, often too lengthy to quote,
which bear upon it. The fullest and most important will be
found in his Sermons Be Scripturis, V. VI. and VII. (Works,
vol. v. col. 57-66) ; in his Answer to Maximin the Arian Bishop
(vol. viii. col. 743, &c), Book I. iii. and xv., and II. ix. and
xxvi1; and in the Be Trinitate (vol. viii. col. 815, &c),
Book II. chs. v. to the end, and III. Prooem. and chap, i., where
II. xvii. 32 and xviii. 35, with Prooem. 3, seem to supply a
summary expression of his matured opinion. It should be re
membered that the two books Against Maximin were among his
latest works, having been written about 427, and after his
Retractations, while the Be Trinitate occupied him from about
400 to about 412 or 413.
The points to be noted are, on the whole, That his language
bears witness to the existence of the earlier, and, as I humbly
believe 2, the truer view 3 ; That he clearly shows how his own
1 The student who wishes to understand the Arianism with which the Western
Church of St. Augustine's day had to contend would find himself repaid by the
study of the Sermo Arianorum (vol. viii. col. 678), with his answer to it ; and
of his Epistles 170, 238-242, in volume ii. ; of the Tractates on St. John's Gospel
(in vol. iii.), Nos. 18, 20, 36, 37, 59, and 71 ; and of Sermons 52, 117, 118, 139,
140, 341, and 384.
2 On the threefold ground of, The plain sense of the Hebrew Text, The con
sensus of the Primitive Church, and, The deep inner consonance with the revealed
Office and Function of the Eternal Son.
3 E.g. in Sermon VII. §§ 3 and 6, on Exod. iii. {Migne's ed. vol. v. col. 64),
where, speaking of the two views, he admits, ' quarum quaelibet vera sit, ambae
secundum fidem sunt;' and Tractates on St. John, liii. 12, on John xii. 37-43
(vol. iii. col. 1779), that Moses and Isaiah saw the Lord Christ, though not 'sicuti

note vii.] St. Augustine. 481
opinion was influenced by the dread of Arianism and of its abuse
of the earlier belief of the Apparitions of the Son of God 1 ; and,
That his ignorance of Hebrew, and his dependence, practically,
on inaccurate Latin Versions of the Greek Versions, of which,
until they were superseded by the labours of St. Jerome, there
were only too many in circulation, really disabled him from
dealing closely with the Old Testament, and, as his comments
nearly always show, prevented his seeing the full force of the
Bible narratives of the Theophanies 2.
The Arian fallacy was, That as the Son of God was, ad
mittedly, ' sent,' and ' appeared,' therefore He was ' visibilis per
suam substantiam,' and therefore of a ' Substance ' inferior to the
Father, i. e. in His pre-existent as well as in His Incarnate
Nature. To this St. Augustine rightly answered, That the Son
is not ' visibilis per suam substantiam,' — if He were, Moses had
not needed after he had seen Him and heard Him, to ask, Show
me Thy glory ; — That the Divine Nature .is essentially, in Itself,
invisible ; and equally so, of course, in all Three Persons ; That
God manifested His Presence on occasion, only ' per subjectam

est,' adding, 'Ostendit ergo se, etiam antequam susciperet camera, oculis homi-
num, sicut voluit, in subjecta sibi creatura, non sicuti est.'
1 See esp. § 4 of Sermon VII. ; Answer to Maximin. II. xxvi. ; De Trin. II. ix.
15, and xv. 25. ' Filium Dei delirantes haeretici in sua substantia visum volunt; '
and xvi. 27 : 'A miseris creditus est, non per creaturam, sed per seipsum visibilis
Filius Dei ; ' and, ibid. : ' Stulti qui putant per ea quae supra dicta vel gesta sunt,
substantiam Dei oculis ejus [Moysis] fuisse conspicuam.'
s E. g. in Quaest. in Meptateuchum, XCI. (vol. iii. p. 630) he takes the pro
mised Angel in the great passage, Exod. xxiii. 20, to be Joshua ' who brought in
the people into the land of promise ; ' ibid. XCIX. p. 632, he comments on his Latin
version of the LXX. misrendering, viderunt locum ubi steterat ibi Deus Israel,
where the Heb. has They saw the God of Israel. Similarly De Trin. II. xv. 25.
In Sermon VII. (vol. v. p. 65), ' Dixit et propheta, Audiam quid loquetur [in me]
Dominus Deus {Psal. lxxxv. 9). Qui loquitur in homine, loquitur in angelo.
Ideo apparuit Moysi angelus Domini, et dixit Ego sum qui sum. Habitatoris vox
est, non templi.' But the words in me are not in the Hebrew. De Trin. II. x. 19
furnishes an example of the misleading weakening of the narrative by the render
ing of both run* and -^im by Kvpios only in the LXX. and Dominus only in
the Latin. In De Trin. II. xviii. 34 (vol. viii. p. 868) he finds it possible to write,
on Visus est Dominus Abrahae, ' non unus aut duo sed tres apparuerunt viri,
quorum nullus excelsius aliis .eminuisse ductus est, nullus honoratius effulsisse,
nullus imperiosius egisse.'
II

482 The Theophanies. [app.
creaturam 1 ; ' and added, that God Who so manifested Himself
might be any one of the Three «Divine Persons, or even ' tota
Trinitas ' as One.
The questions at issue are, (a) As to this last idea, and (b)
Whether the ' subjecta creatura,' when not an inanimate material
thing, as the Fire, or the Cloud, but an, apparently, human or
angelic being, was a separate personal entity or not. As to
(a), Abstractedly, we may admit it conceivable, as, of course,
within the Divine Power. The question is, Whether to think
so of the Father or the Spirit is consistent with the revealed
principles of the Divine Economy towards Man, and especially
with the great underlying principle, That all Manifestation is
through the Son, whether to eye as the Image, or to ear as the
Word; and, again, Whether to think so does not, in the end,
create some fresh and needless difficulties, and more than it
removes2 (if indeed there be any real difficulty which needs
1 E. g. Quaest. in Meptateuchum, Lib. II. ci. (vol. iii. p. 632) : 'Quod ergo se
ostendit specie corporali vel signis corporaliter expressis, non substantia ejus <
apparet, qua est ipse quod est, sed assumptio formarum visibilium ejus omnipo-
tentiae subjacet.' This language is entirely consistent with the earlier view; if
not, indeed, exclusively so, yet more so than the supposition of a created angel
(whether always fie same, e.g. St. Michael, or different on different occasions);
because it equally covers the appearances in the Fire and in the Cloud, and in
human or angelic form, as all equally in themselves impersonal and only tempo-
' rarily assumed, the speaking and acting Personality being all the while ex
clusively that of the Son of God. The later view involves a needless difficulty
because of t'.e abiding personality of the (supposed) created angel in or through
whom God manifested Himself. Also Contra Maximin. I. xv. and II. xxvi. §§ 10
and 12 (vol. viii. p. 811), 'per subjectam sibi creaturam.' And De Trin. II. v.
10 : ' Apparuit foris in creatura corporali, qui intus in natura spirituali oculis
mortalium semper occultus est ; ' and, ibid. vii. 12:' Illae species corporales ad
demonstrandum quod opus fuit ad tempus apparuerunt, et postea destiterunt ; ' and,
ibid. ix. 16, 'per subjectam suae potestati corpoream creaturam;' and, ibid. x.
1 7 ; xiv. 24 ; xv. 26. In Tractat. on St. John's Gospel, iii. 17,18 (vol. iii. p. 1403)
he says, 'Moyses vidit nubem, vidit angelum, vidit ignem; omnis ilia creatura
est ; typum Domini sui gerebat, non ipsius Domini praesentiam exhibebat ....
Loquebatur cum Moyse Angelus, portans typum Domini .... Facta sunt ilia
visibilia corporaliter per creaturam, in quibus typus ostenderetur : non utique
substantia ipsa demonstrabatur et manifestabatur.'
2 E.g. the Saint himself is evidently conscious {Sermon VII.) that, if the
Divine Presence in the three ' men ' (equal created angels, as he supposes) who
visited Abraham is indicative of a Trinity of Equal Persons in One Nature, so the
visit of two to Lot might be taken to intimate a 'duali'atem.'

note vii.] St. Augustine. 483
removal) ; whether, indeed, it does not end, not so much in
guarding the true equal Consubstantial Godhead of the Son, as
in risking the lowering the whole conception of the Godhead,
as e. g. in the thought which (needlessly, as I humbly think x)
St. Augustine admits, that the ' Antiquus dierum ' of Baniel vii.
9 was a visible Appearance of the Eternal Father.
As to (b), May it not be said that, the Manifestation con
fessedly being ' per subjectam creaturam,' it is easier, more
natural, and more consistent to suppose the ' subjecta creatura,'
the 'visibilis species,' to have had, in every instance, and not
merely in the instances of the Fire or the Cloud, no personality
of its own, but to have been merely the temporary vehicle and
medium of the visible and audible manifestation of the Son of
God, Whose One Divine Personality was behind it and operated
through it, than to suppose that the Appearance, when intro
duced as angelic or human, was, immediately, that of a creature
angel, with distinct — and so, of course, permanent — personality
of his own, and only mediately an Appearance of a Divine
Person ? Not to mention the further difficulty that, in the cases
where the Appearance is introduced as human in outer aspect,
it must still be held to be angelic (for no one supposes a human
personality was ever so employed), and so to involve the cum
brous hypothesis of a merely apparent humanity covering an
angelic reality, behind which again is the Divine Personality.
St. Augustine admits that the Father is never spoken of as
' sent.' The Son, of course, is constantly so spoken of. To
Him, therefore, the title of the Angel of the Lord is entirely
appropriate. But the hypothesis that the unique Being so spoken
of throughout the Old Testament was a created angel, in whom,
as in a temple, God temporarily dwelt, and through whom God
spoke, as He spake by the Prophets who said Thus saith the
Loud, does not satisfy the language- of Holy Scripture ; for the
utterances of the Angel of the Lord are clearly wholly distinct
in form from those of the inspired Prophets. They spoke indeed
in the name of God, but never as God, i.e. in the Person of
God, as the Angel does.
1 See Lecture IV. § 107, p. 217.
ii 2

484 The Theophanies. [app.
The passages in St. Augustine which bear on specific Theo
phanies are the following : To Abraham and Lot, Serm. VII.
(vol. v. col. 6$), Quaest. in Heptateuch. I. xxxvii-xliii. (vol. iii.
col. 558), Be Civitat. Bei, XVI. xxix. (vol. vii. col. 508), Cont.
Max. II. 5 (vol. viii. col. 806) ; To Jacob, Enarr. in Psalm, cxlvii.
27 (vol. iv. col. 1936), Serm. V. (vol. v. col. 57), Serm. CXXII.
(alias, Be Verbis Bominixl. vol. v. col. 681), Cont. Max. II. 9
(vol. viii. col. 810) ; To Moses, Enarr. in Psal. cxxxviii. 8 (vol. iv.
col. 1788), Serm. VI. and VII. (vol. v. col. 59), Serm. XXIV. cap.
xiv. (vol. v. col. 161), Cont. Max. II. 11 (vol. viii. col. 812); To
Joshua, Quaest. in Hept. VI. vii. (vol. iii. col. 778) ; To Gideon,
Ibid. VII. xxxi. &c. (col. 802) ; To Manoah, Ibid. Ii. (col. 822).
XVII. At this point may be added a very interesting testi
mony to the prevalence in the West of the older view of the
Theophanies, even in St. Augustine's own day. It is that of the
great Christian Latin poet Prudentius, who was born in Spain
in a.d. 348, and lived on into the early years of the fifth century.
In the first part of his poem entitled Apotheosis, on the Godhead
of the Son, he is arguing especially against the Sabellian con
fusion of the Divine Persons. At line 22 he says, — -
' Quisque hominum vidisse Deum memoratur, ab ipso
Infusum vidit gnatum : nam Filius hoc est,
Quod de Patre mioans se praestitit inspiciendum
Per species, quas possit homo comprendere visu. 25
¦Nam mera majestas est infinita, nee intrat
Obtutus, aliquo ni se moderamine formet.
Hoc vidit princeps generosi seminis Abram,
Jam tunc dignati terras invisere Christi
Hospes homo, in triplicem numen radiasse figuram. 30
Hoc conluctantis tractarunt brachia Jacob.
Ipse dator legis divinae accedere coram
Jussus, amicitiae collato qui stetit ore
Comminus, et sacris conjunxit verba loquelis
Carnis in effigie Christum se cernere sensit.' 35
Again, line 43 : — ' Quid apertius, absque aliena
Quam sumat facie, Verbum non posse videri1!

note vil] Prudentius. 485
Posse tamen, quum malit idem, numquam Patre viso 45
Terrenis oculis, habitu se ostendere nostro :
Saepe et in angelicas vel mortales moderatum
Induci species, queat ut sub imagine cerni.
Hoc Verbum est, quod vibratum Patris ore benigno
Sumsit virgineo fragilem de corpore formam. 50
Inde figura hominis nondum sub carne, Moysi
Objecta, effigiem nostri signaverat oris
Quod quandoque Deus Verbi virtute coactum
Sumturus corpus, faciem referebat eandem.' 54
And line 71 : —
' Ergo nihil visum, nisi quod sub carne videndum
Lumen, Imago Dei, Verbum Dfeus, et Deus ignis ;
Qui scutum nostri peccamen corporis implet.
Nam lucis Genitor, Verbi sator, auctor et ignis,
Creditur extra oculos ; ut Apostolus edocet auctor,. 75
Qui negat intuitu fontem deitatis adiri.
Credite, nemo Deum vidit, mihi credite, nemo.
Visibilis de fonte Deus, non ipse Dei fons
Visibilis. Cerni potis est qui nascitur, at non
Innatus cerni potis est. Latet os Patris illud,. 80
Unde Deus : qui visibilem se praestitit olim,.
Tale aliquid formans in sese, quale secuta est
Passio, quae corpus sibi vindicat ; ardua nam vis
Est impassibilis.'
Again, line 128 : —
' Quern si perspicuum mortalibus infitiaris,
Fare age, quern videat Babylonis ab arce tyrannus
Innocuas inter flammas procul exspatiantem.
******
Filius ille Dei est. . . .
Filius (haud dubium est) agit haec miracula rerum ;
Quern video : Deus ipse, Dei certissima proles. 139
. . . Semper in auxilium Sermo Patris Omnipotentis 155
Descendit servando homini : mortalia semper
Admiscenda sibi proprio curavit amore :
Ut socianda caro, Dominoque implenda perenni,
Degenerem vitam, quae tunc animalis agebat,

486 The Theophanies. Prudentius. [app.
Exemplo mutaret heri, similesque per artus 160
Cernere consortem terreni adsuesceret oris;
Participemque suum visu velut obside nosse,
Et consanguineo paullatim accedere Christo.'
Again, line 300, of God speaking to Moses : —
' Coram proditus ipse,
Ipse Deus, trepidum mortalem mitis amico
Inbuit adloquio, seque ac sua summa retexit.
Nimirum meminit Scriptor doctissimus, illo
Orbis principio non solum nee sine Christo
Informasse Patrem facturae plasma novellae :
Fecit, ait, condens hominem Deus, et dedit olli 305
Ora Dei, quidnam est aliud, quam dicere, solus
Non erat 1 atque Deo Deus adsistebat agenti,
Quum Dominus faceret Domini sub imagine plasma !
Christus forma Patris, nos Christi forma et imago,
Condimur in faciem Domini bonitate paterna, 310
Venturo in nostram faciem post saecula Christo.
Possum multa sacris exempla excerpere libris,
Ni refugis, quae te doceant, non in Patre solo
Vim majestatis positam, sed cum Patre Christum
Esse Deum : velut illud ait Genealogus idem : 315
" A Domino Dominus flammam pluit in Sodomitas."
Quis Dominus 1 Tie quo Domino ? si solus ab arce
Siderea spectat Pater, aut ardescit in iras ?
Filius armatam Domini Patris ignibus iram
Spargebat Dominus : sunt unum fulmen utraque.' 320
XVIII. St. Leo the Geeat, Bishop of Rome, a.d. 440-461,
who, ' as a preacher and writer, may be said to have lived in the
light of the Incarnation1,' has many valuable passages on the
general preparatory character of the earlier Dispensations, their
ordinances and incidents, as significative of the future Incarna
tion and Passion of the Son of God. The two following bear
more particularly on the subject of this note.
1 Preface to translated Sermons of St. Leo on the Incarnation, by the Eev. Canon
Bright. See also the full article on St. Leo, in Smith's Dictionary of Christian
Biography, by the Eev. Charles Gore, Vice-Principal of Cuddesdon.

note vii.] St. Leo the Great. 487
1. As to the general pre-existent operations of the Son, Serm.
XXV. iv. (vol. i. 85, Migne 2 10), 'For although, even in former
ages, the light of truth was sent forth for the illumination of
the holy fathers and prophets, as David says ; 0 send forth Thy
light and Thy truth (Ps. xliii. 3), and in divers manners, and by
many signs, the Godhead of the Son declared the works of Its
presence ; yet all those significant things and all those wonders
were testimonies to that Mission whereof the Apostle speaks,
But when the fulness of time was come, God sent forth His Son,' &c.
(Gal. iv. 4.)
2. Contrasting the Incarnation with the Theophanies, Epist.
XXI. ii. (vol. i. 855, Migne 791), ' Of course the Almightiness of
the Son of God might have appeared for the instruction and
justification of men in.such wise as to both the patriarchs and the
prophets He did appear, in the semblance (specie) of flesh ; as
when He wrestled (Gen. xxxii. 24), or joined in converse, or as
when He did not decline the courtesies of hospitality, or even
partook of food placed before Him (Gen. xviii). But these out
ward semblance (imagines) were tokens (indices) of this Manhood
whose reality these mystic significant events announced should
be assumed of the stock of the fathers that went before. And
thus that mystery (sacramentum) of our reconciliation which
was determined before eternal times 1 was fulfilled by no mere
figures, because the Holy Ghost had not yet come upon the
Virgin, nor the Power of the Highest overshadowed her ; that
within her undefiled womb, Wisdom might build her house (Prov.
ix. 1), and the Word be made flesh (St. John i. 14), and by the
meeting of the form of God and the form of a servant in one Person
the Creator of times might be born in time, and He through
Whom all things were made might Himself be brought forth as
part of all things (inter omnia gigneretur).'
XIX. St. Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome from a.d.
590-604, shows on this subject, as might be expected, strong
traces of the influence of St. Augustine 2. Indeed, though he
1 'Ante tempora aeterna.' He is evidently quoting the irpb -xpSvtuv aiaviuv (Vulg.
ante tempora saecularia) of 2 Tim. ii. 9, though the Ballerini (in Migne) do not
print the phrase as a quotation, nor give the reference.
2 The Benedictines' Life of St. Greg., Bk. IV. iv. 2, speaks of the 'Doctrina

488 The Theophanies. St. Gregory the Great, [app.
speaks of Abraham and of Moses as ' talking with God,' and of
Isaiah as ' eumdem Dominum contemplatus 1,' he seems to have
no thought but of created angels as the actual speakers in the
Theophanies 2. His comments have but little independent value,
since his ignorance of Hebrew and Greek made him entirely
dependent on the Latin Versions3. Yet the student should look
at his exposition of Job xxviii. 12, Where shall wisdom be found,
&c, Moral, in Job, Lib. XVIII. cap. liv. (Migne, vol. ii. col. 600
(91), and at his full discussion of the Ways in which God speaks to
man, Ibid. Lib. XXVIII. cap. i. (ii. 893 (447) on Job xxxviii. 1*.
His comments on the Appearance to Moses at the Bush may
be seen in Moral. XXVIII. i. 8 (vol. ii. 895, Migne 450), and
Homil. in Ezechiel. Lib. I. Homil. vii. 10. In this latter work
he devotes eight Homilies to the exposition of Ezek. i., explaining,
on ver. 26, the likeness of the appearance of a man, seen upon the
Augustiniana, quam ipse sitibundus hauserat et inebriatus eructabat.' See also
his own opening of his Horn, in Ezechiel.
1 Horn, in Ezek. I. viii. 19 ; Begul. Pastoral. II. vii.
2 This gets him into the difficulty of having to account for their acceptance of
worship, as, e. g. from Abraham, Lot, and Joshua, while in Rev. xix. 10, xxii. 9,
they expressly forbid it. He meets the difliculty, in two places, Moral. XXVII. xv.
29, and XL. Homil. in Evan. Lib. I. Homil. viii., not by saying that the worship
was offered to God in the angel, not by any distinction of degrees of worship, but
by frankly saying that under the Old Covenant the angels ' aequanimiter se con-
cedebant adorari,' because they despised man as 'carnalibus corruptionibus de^
ditum, nee ab eisdem carnalibus corruptionibus redemptum,' and so as ' weak and
abject ; but that afterwards they were afraid to do' so, when they saw the height
to which Human Nature is raised in Christ.' Does this idea account for the
language of the old hymn, placed by Daniel, Thesaur. Hymnol. vol. i. p. 191,
No. 162, among Hymns of unknown authorship written 'circa saec. vi-ix.,' 'Tre-
mentes vident angeli Versa vice mortalium: Culpat caro, purgat caro, Kegnat
Deus Dei caro,' ' In awe and wonder angels see, How changed is man's estate
by Thee,' Sec. 1
3 Benedictin. Praefat. Gen. xviii.
* Here he even declares the Father's voice from heaven, St. John xii. 28, to
have been uttered ' per angelum,' and ' rationali creatura administrante' ; and
blunders curiously in his reference to the passage, ' Dicente Domino, Pater, clarifka
Filium tuum, ut et Filius tuus clarified te [St. John xvii. 1], protinus respondetur :
Clarificavi, et iterum clarificabo ' [xii. 28] . Towards the close of this chapter he says,
' Scriptura Sacra nunquam Patrem, nunquam Spiritum Sanctum, et nonnisi per
incarnationis suae praedicationem Filium, angelum vocat.' So Moral, in Job XL
xii. 19 (I. 373, Migne 962) he restricts the title 'Magni consilii angelus' to the
Lord as Incarnate.

note Vii.] St. Basil. St. Chrysostom. 489
likeness of the throne, of our Lord, Who (he says) is the ' firma-
mentum' above the 'animalia' (i.e. in His earthly life, the first
stage of His Incarnate life), while the 'thrones' (Ezekiel says
throne) are the highest rank of the ' Virtutes angelicae,' quoting
Col. i. 16,' above whom, though 'potestates Deo proximas,'
1 elevatus est Mediator Dei et hominum homo Christus Jesus,'
in His glorified, risen, and ascended life. Addressing himself
(Ibid. Lib. I. Homil. viii. 31) to the question how St. John (xii.
41) says Isaiah saw the glory of Christ, while Ezekiel saw 'non
gloriam, sed gloriae similitudinem,' he says that St. John had
been just speaking of Christ's miracles as manifesting on earth
a certain glory ' in factis,' or ' in rebus,' which it is possible for
man to see, and which, accordingly, Isaiah saw ; while of the glory
' in coelo, sicuti est ... in semetipso,' Ezekiel could, of course,
only see the ' similitude' But the language of the Bible will
hardly bear this distinction between the two visions. Surely
Isaiah's was as ' heavenly ' as Ezekiel's, ' though neither was of
God ' sicuti est ; ' as the human appearance shows. On Ezek. xl.
(Homil. in Ez. II. i.) he explains the Man Whose appearance was
like the appearance of brass of Christ as Incarnate.
XX. Before passing to later writers of Latin Christendom
we may note two passages from the Greek writers of the latter
part of the fourth century.
1. St. Basil the Great, Bishop of the Cappadocian Caesarea
a.d. 370-379, writes, on the Angel who appeared to Moses at
the Bush, Ttj ovv o avrbs Kai ayye\os Kai ®ebs ; apa ojjy/ wept 08
fiefj.a9rJKaijiei>, on Kakurai to ovop,a avrov Meyra\»js /3oi>Aijs ayyeXos ;
. . . ' I2ore koI 6 Zttl tov Mwaioas ovra kavrbv ovopido-as, ovk oaAos tIs
Ttapa tov ®eov Aoyov toi> ev a.p)(fj ovra irpos tov &ebv vorjdeirj. Contra
Eunomium, II. J 8, Op. Tom. i. p. 253.
2. St. Chrysostom, Bishop of Constantinople a.d. 398-407, of
whose commentaries on the Old Testament only some small por
tions have come down to us, writes On Genesis, Homily xlii., 'Ev ry
(TKr/vfj tov 'Afipahpi Kai ol ayyeXot Kai 6 tovtoov Aeo-iroTrjs Kara, ravrov
ibtpd-no-av. Op. Tom. ii. p. 598. See also Horn. xvi. in Actt. Apost.
XXI. In the later Latin Church the Augustinian view pre
vailed, as was to be expected; but not exclusively. Aquinas

490 The Theophanies. Later Latin Writers, [app.
writes, ' Hoe autem quod Angeli corpora assumpserunt in
Veteri Testamento, fuit quoddam figurale indicium quod Ver
bum Dei assumpturum esset corpus humanum. Omnes enim
apparitiones Veteris Testamenti, ad illam apparitionem ordinatae
fuerunt, qua Filius Dei apparuit in carne.' Summae I. Quaest. Ii.
Art. 2. And to the same effect Summae III. Quaest. xxx. Art. 3.
See also Prima Secundae, Quaest. xcviii. Art. 3, On the giving of
the Law ' per angelos/ Later Latin Theologians, like Lyranus,
Abulensis, and the Jesuit Commentators Suarez and Cornelius
a Lapide, take the same general view, identifying the Angel of
the Cloudy Pillar and of the vision to Joshua with the archangel
Michael, as ' olim praeses synagogae Judaeorum sicut nunc est
praeses Ecclesiae Christianorum.' On Judges vi. 14, And Jehovah
looked upon him ( Gideon), Cornelius glosses ' puta Angelus legatus
Domini, ej usque personam repraesentans.' With reference to the
(supposed) difficulty of Gideon's not being a priest, he quotes
Abulensis as thinking that the angel sacerdotally offered the
sacrifice, while he himself maintains that the offering (minchah)
was not presented by Gideon as a sacrifice, but only as hospitable
refreshment. The same difficulty, of course, occurs in the
Appearance to Manoah. Here Cornelius (who thinks, with
Serarius, that the angel was St. Michael) adopts the view that
it was a sacrifice, but that the angel offered it. This idea,
obviously, is hardly consistent with his view that the angel
(who, he says, accepted worship, not indeed ' latria,' but ' dulia')
was God's ' Vice-gerent,' and at least for the time and for
each occasion, ' repraesentabat Dominum, sicut legatus reprae-
sentat principem a quo mittitur.' His comment on the as
sumption, by the angel who appeared to Manoah, of the name
' Wonderful' or ' Secret ' must be read in extenso, for its weak
ness to be appreciated. On the other hand, another Jesuit
writer, nearly contemporary with a Lapide, the Portuguese Ant.
Fernandius, in a work/» Visiones V.T. (ed. nova, Lugduni, 161 7)
expressly dealing with the question, Apparueritne Moysi Beus ipse,
an aliquis Angelus (visio sexta, on Exod. iii. Comment. II. & 1,
p. 179), sets out both views, with authorities, and concludes,
' Nobis videtur probabilius esse . . . Deum ipsum et speeialiter

note vii.] Jewish fnterpretation. 49 1
Verbum Divinum interdum apparuisse Patribus in veteri Testa-
mento.' He quotes Theodoret for the wrestling of the Divine
Son with Jacob. To the argument of Abulensis, that ' nee in
promulgatione legis, opere omnium Veteris Testamenti celeber-
rimo, Deus erat, qui loquebatur Moysi, ut patet ex illo ad Galat.
iii. 9, Lex ordinata per angelos in manu Mediatoris' and that, if
not then, then never ' Deum alicui apparuisse, sed Angelum loco
Dei,' he answers well, ' Illud . . . non significat Angelos dedisse
legem, sed suum ibi exhibuisse ministerium : nam constat in-
sonuisse tubas, micuisse ignes, audita tonitrua, et haec ipsa
ministerio Angelorum facta, nee aliud voluisse Paulum.' On the
Vision of Isaiah, he says, p. 293, ' Sub hujusmodi similitudinibus
[sc. in aliqua similitudine corporali] visus est saepenumero Deus
a veteribus Patriarchis.' On the Vision of Ezekiel, ch. i. 26-28,
he says, p. 391, ' Hac forma secundum omnes intelligitur Christus ;
nam sicut ilia ex electro et igne constabat, ita Christus .... ex
divina humanaque natura.' On Ban. ix. 5, he thinks ' the man
clothed in linen ' was the angel Gabriel, quoting ' Cassianus Collat.
8, and D. Gregor. 17 Moral. 8,' for an idea that he had a special
guardianship over the Jews of the Captivity.
XXII. Jewish Interpretation. A full investigation of the
later Jewish views of the Theophanies is impossible within the
limits of this Note. It is a suspicious circumstance that, in the
main, it coincides with the Augustinian view. The student will
find much that is interesting on the point in a Translation
(London, 1837) by the late Dr. McCaul, to whom the Hebrew
was almost a mother tongue, of the Commentary on Zechariah,
by Rabbi Bavicl Kimchi (son of Joseph Kimchi) of Narbonne,
about the time of the Third Crusade, a.d. 1190. Kimchi iden
tifies the Angel of the Lord with the man Gabriel of Ban. ix. 21.
Dr. M°Caul, speaking for himself, says, p. 9, ' It has been re
peatedly proved by Christian writers that this Being is none
other than the Son of God ' ; and mentions especially Mr. Faber
in ' Horae Mosaicae/ and Dr. Pye Smith on The Messiah. He
vindicates, p. 11, the rendering of i"fijT ^7^ by The Angel
of the Lord, and thinks that ' there is but one person thus called.'
At p. 15, ' The being designated by the title The Angel of the

492 The Theophanies. Jewish View. [app.
Lord is called also mrP, Jehovah, the proper Name of God ; and
from the Rabbinical Commentaries it appears that this inference
is not peculiar to Christians, nor forced from the text in order
to suit their doctrinal views, but that the rabbies, who made
it their peculiar care to overthrow every interpretation favourable
to Christianity, were nevertheless constrained, by the plainness
and frequency of such passages, to come to the same conclusion.'
They tried to explain this away by saying that the messenger
was called by the Name of Him that sent him. Yet they
admitted that the Name TVlTT1 was incommunicable. 'Why
then (p. 19) is it communicated to The Angel of the Lord ? There
can be but one answer : Because He partakes of that Substance
and Essence which makes the communication of the Name suit
able ; or, in other words, because The Angel of the Lord is very
God." And Dr. M°Caul refers to the Appearance to Jacob, Gen.
xxxi. The shifts to which the later Jewish Commentators were
driven, in their endeavour to evade the evident force of such
passages, are well illustrated by the remarks of R. Bechai on this
Appearance. He says, ' If interpreted literally, the words / am
the God of Bethel mean The God that appeared to thee in Bethel.
But according to Cabbalistic interpretation, this angel who calls
himself The God of Bethel, is the goodness spoken of in the words
I will make all my goodness pass before thee (Exod. xxxiii. 19) ; and
he is the house mentioned in the words Who was faithful in all
my house ; for a man's goodness is his house, and therefore he says
of himself, I am the God of Bethel. And so it is said of Jacob,
He called the place "El-Bethel." But, behold, even according to
the literal interpretation of the verse, it is certain that the angel
is the God of Bethel; and understand this.' (Comment, in loc.)
Dr. M°Caul, p. 22, refers to Menaehem of Rekanata for the
same opinion ; and speakingy p. 25, of the Burning Bush, says,
' R. Bechai testifies unreservedly to the fact that the Angel here
calls himself The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. " Ask not,"
he says, " how Moses could hide his face before the angel, for the
angel mentioned here is the Angel, the Redeemer, of Whom it is
written / am the God of Bethel. And in like manner it is said
here, I am the God of thy Father, the God of Abraham, the God of

note vii. J Modern Writers. 493
Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and he it is of whom it is said, My
Name is in him. (Comment, in loc.)." R. Moses ben Nachman
goes a step further ; he not only confirms the fact, but rejects
the explanation, that the angel was speaking in the name of Him
that sent him. His words are, " The explanation, that in the
words I am the God of thy father the messenger spoke in the
language of Him that sent him, is not correct, for Moses' degree
in prophecy was too high for him to hide his face before the
angel .... This angel was the Angel, the Redeemer, for it is
said, My Name is in him. He it is who said to Jacob, / am the
God of Bethel ; and of him it is said, And God called to him. [i. e.
to Moses out of the Bush] .... And thus it is written [in one
place] And the Lord brought us out of Egypt (Beut. vi. 21) ; and
[in another place] it is written And he sent an angel, and hath
brought us forth out of Egypt (Num. xx. 16). Again, it is said,
The angel of his presence saved them, that is to say, The angel who
is his presence (Isa. lxiii. 9). For it is written, My presence shall
go, and I will give thee rest (Exod. xxxiii. 14). And this is what
is said, The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple,
even the messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he
shall come (Mai. iii. 1)." ' After quoting this from Naehmanides,
Dr. M°Caul sums up as follows : — ' We have here the confession
of Jews, that that Being who is called the Angel of the Lord says
of himself that he is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob ; that
this is the plain meaning of the text. What, then, is the con
clusion ? What can it be but that he is what be claimed to be ?
We have seen that there is but one Being who is called the
Angel of the Lord; secondly, That the Name of this one Being
is Jehovah, the incommunicable Name of God ; and, thirdly,
That this Being says of himself, distinctly and unequivocally,
that he is the God whom Jacob worshipped, the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob ; and we have seen, fourthly, That this is as
plainly asserted by the Jews as by us. There is but one possible
conclusion, and that is, that this Being is very God.'
XXIII. Modern Writers. John Diodati, of Geneva, in his
useful Annotations on the Bible, Eng. Trans. 2nd ed. 1648, main
tains consistently the primitive view that the Angel of the Lord,

494 The Theophanies. Ode, ' De Angelis! [app.
and the Being seen in human form by the prophets, was the Son
of God. Space forbids quotation ; but see his clear comment on
Exod. xxiv. 10 ; xxxii. 34 ; xxxiii. 14; xxxiv. 9. So Archbishop
Usher, in his Annates Vet. Test. 1650, writes, p. 38, ' Jesus Dominus
noster, Princeps militiae Patris sui, Jesu typico ad Jeriehuntem
stricto gladio apparens, promittit se populum defensurum.' So
Bishop Patrick, who quotes this from Usher. So Matthew Henry,
1706, in most cases, following Patrick. So Thomas Scott, de
cisively and, in most cases, consistently; see especially on Gen.
xxxi. 13 ; xxxii. 30 ; Joshua v. 13 ; Judges ii. 1 ; v. 14 ; xiii. 18.
So D'Oyly and Mant, 1818, who quote Stackhouse, Dr. Hales,
Bishop Kidder, Shuckford (see on Exod. iii.), Dean Allix, Dr.
Woodward and Bishop Watson (Joshua v. 13), Pyle (Judges ii. 1),
for the primitive view.
The student should also consult the copious work of Jacobus
Ode, Be Angelis, Traj. ad Rhenum, 1739, 4to. pp. 1068, especially
his concluding Sect. X. Be Angelo Jehovae, Filio Bei, in which he
argues against certain classes of writers who adopt the ' created-
angel ' hypothesis, e.g. Roman Catholics, who wished to find an
argument for the worship of angels, Remonstrants, who wished
to establish their opinion that the mystery of the Holy Trinity
is nowhere revealed in the Old Testament, and Socinians, like
Crellius and Schlichtingius, who thereby got rid of an argument
for the pre-existence of Christ, p. 1017. On Judges vi. he writes,
p. 1042, ' Quern Gideon, v. 13, vocat iJ-fN cum Chireck, quando
nondum eum Divinam esse Personam cognoverat, eumdem sibi
melius ex sermone cognitum, vv. 15 et 22, vocat "0~[N cum
Kametz signatum . . . Divina Persona quae et Angelus Jehovae
et Jehova ipse voeatur, et divina ad homines in salutem populi
sui legatione functus fuit, debet fuisse Filius Dei, ob relationem
quam tanquam Sponsor et Mediator habet tarn ad Deum Patrem
quam ad electos homines, Sibi in aeterno pacis consilio in haere-
ditatem datos, ut ipso opere demonstraret Se demandatum Sibi a
Patre, atque liberrime suseeptum munus fideliter administrare,
et populi sui curam gerere.' Vid. Jes. 48. 16 ; et 61. 1, 2. At
p. 1043 he quotes Habickhorstius, Calovius, and Vitringa, as
thoroughly answering objections alleged to his view. The

note vii.] Living English Writers. 495
Manoah vision, he says, p. 1045, is well defended by Vitringa,
Observat. Sacr. Lib. IV. cap. 15. § 4-13. The angel spoken of
by Elihu, Job xxxiii. 23, was, he says, the Son of God, p. 1046.
Of living writers among ourselves, besides those enumerated
on p. 108, Bishop Wordsworth of Lincoln favours the primitive
view. On Josh. v. he writes, ' The ancient Jewish Church ....
believed that the Captain of the Lord's Host was the Word
of God. ... So Calovius, Gerhard, Pfeiffer,'Lightfoot.' Quoting
Origen (Qu. 6), ' Joshua perceived that He was not only of
God, but was God. For he would not have worshipped Him
unless he had recognized Him to be God. And (it may be added)
if this Person had been only a created angel, he would not have
received adoration from Joshua, but have said, " See thou do it
not ; worship God." And who is the Captain of the Lord's Host,
but the Lord Jesus Christ ? ' — he concludes, ' On the whole,
then, this sublime vision may be regarded as a vision not of
any created being, but of the Son of God Himself, the Lord
Jehovah ; ' and refers to ' The vision vouchsafed to Moses at the
Bush,' as being, ' as all Christian antiquity believed, a vision of
the Son of God.'
Again, On Judges ii. 1 : ' Who was this Angel who came from
Gilgal to Bochim? Probably the Second Person of the Holy
Trinity. He speaks as God.'
And on Judges vi. 11, ' an angel of the Lord] Who seems to
have been no other than God the Son : see vv. 14 and 16, where
He is called Jehovah ; and see above, note on Gen. xxii. 1 1 ;
Exod. iii. 2 ; xxiii. 20, 23; xxxii. 34; xxxiii. 2 ; Josh. v. 13 ;
Judg. ii. 1 ; below xiii. 19.' And, on ver. 23, ' Here then was a
mysterious vision of the Son of God Himself, before His Incar
nation.' And, on Judges xiii. 3, ' the angel of the Lord]. From vv. 18,
19, and 22, it appears that this was no other than a Divine
Person, the Son of God, who had appeared to Gideon.' And,
on ver. 19, 'The "Angel of the Lord" was no other than the
Lord God Himself, Whose name is Wonderful, the Son of God.'
Otherwise Canon Liddon, who in the second of his Bampton
Lectures of 1866 has a passage on the Theophanies, in connection

496 The Theophanies. Liddon, Payne Smith, [app.
with the subject of Old Testament ' intimations of the existence
of a Plurality of Persons within the One Essence of God.'' In
the course of a summary of the Bible narratives of these Appear
ances, which, naturally, points almost irresistibly to the earlier
view about them, he writes, with especial reference to the three
Appearances of the Angel of the Lord in the Book of Judges,
' We are scarcely sensible of the action of a created personality, so
completely is the language and bearing that of the higher nature
present in the Angel.' Yet, on the question ' Who was this'
Angel?,' while admitting as 'beyond dispute' that 'the earliest
Fathers answer with general unanimity that he was the Word or
Son of God Himself,' and that their view f has been more gene
rally advocated by English divines,' he thinks that the Augus-
tinian interpretation, though ' not unaccompanied by considerable
difficulties when we apply it to the sacred text,' yet ' certainly
seems to relieve us of greater embarrassments than any which it
creates.' He describes the ' general doctrine ' of St. Augustine
to be, ' that the Theophanies were not direct appearances of a
Person in the Godhead, but Self-manifestations of God through
a created being.' But this, which, as we have seen, was also the
' doctrine ' of the post-Christian Jewish Commentators, is, ob
viously, no help whatever towards the proof either of a Plurality
of Persons within the Divine Essence, or of the Incarnation of
the Second Person. An Urii-personal God could manifest Him
self ' through a created being,' angel or man ; and the Mussul
man, or the Unitarian, might say that He did so manifest Himself
in Jesus. The Augustinian view, in that it expressly does not
restrict them to being manifestations of the Second Person
' through a created being,' really detaches them from all ' relation
to the doctrine of our Lord's Divinity ; ' for it detaches them
v from all ascertained specific relation to Him whatever, whether
as God or as Man ; and so, at the same time, destroys altogether
their character as ' anticipations of a coming Incarnation.' Amicus
Augustinus, sed magis arnica Veritas. We may not call any man
' master ' upon earth.
Dean Payne Smith, of Canterbury, in an Excursus to Genesis,
in the recently published First Vol. of Bishop Ellicott's 0. T.

note vii.] Steward's ' Mediatorial Sovereignty'. 497
Commentary for English Readers, wavers in his view, omitting to
notice that he, whoever he be, who is introduced as pre-eminently
The Angel of the Lord, is always one and the same. He seems to
think that, while, sometimes, the ' manifestation of Deity was so
high ' that ' we may fearlessly connect this angel with our blessed
Lord, called "the angel of the covenant" in Mai. iii. 1,' yet,
' generally it was created angels who were the medium of com
munication between God and man.' But if there be Oue only
who is The Angel of the Lord, then what he is in the instances
where his identification with a Divine Person is so evident
that it must be admitted, that he is in all instances. And is
there not really a sufficient intimation of his identity in every
instance ?
I close this Note with a passage from a valuable work which
is not, I fear, so widely known as it deserves to be among
students of Theology, Steward's Mediatorial Sovereignty (% vols.
8vo., Clark, Edinburgh, 1863), Part I. chap. iv. p. 113.
' The Angel must be accounted God, in whatever way we may
explain this ; or the Scriptures not only teach falsehood but
blasphemy. Nor can the Socinian hypothesis that the Angel
signifies no more than some sensible form of appearance but
without personality, or, at most, but a temporary one ; or even
the Arian hypothesis that the Angel was a real person, and a
very glorious one, though not God, relieve these texts of such
imputations. For, on the former showing, the Angel was no
more entitled to put himself forth and to speak as if he were God,
than any image, or thing whatsoever, because employed as a
medium of communication. Here the medium is not the person
employing it, and therefore cannot be represented to be that
person consistently with truth, and without teaching us that we
may regard as God that which is not God ; and may, therefore,
pay worship on this principle of representation to that which is
not God, as if it were God Himself, which is the very essence of
idolatry. . . . Nor does the Arian hypothesis which ascribes the
highest creature rank to the Angel, go any further toward a just
exposition than the former. It is true, it is more plausible in
one respect than the other because it allows a substantial per-
Kk

498 The Theophanies . Steward 's 'Mediatorial [app.
sonality to the Angel, but it halts altogether when it professes
to explain to us why this Angel is called God, and speaks and
acts as if he were God. By allowing personality proper, there
fore, it is driven to admit Divinity in an improper, and therefore,
in a false sense as ascribed to the Angel, which amounts to an
imputation on the veracity of Scripture, and a sanction to
idolatry, though by a more plausible path than the other ....
It remains, then, that the grand initial oracle of Revelation is
the true key to this mysterious appellation, " the Angel of the
Lord" — namely, the plurality of persons in the Divine Nature,
the very unity of which not only admits but requires such dis
tinctions as this appellation implies. Their essential relations as
Triune give rise to an order of agency and outgoing strictly con
formable to, and in effect, expository of them, since all things
are designed to manifest God to His creatures, and to glorify
Him as He is. Hence, we can understand how the term Angel as
well as the term Word may distinguish a person truly God,
though these cannot be applicable to each person of the Godhead
indiscriminately. He whose Angel this divine Person is, must
be supreme on the ground of personal priority to Him who is His
•Angel; and this order, therefore, cannot be arbitrary and in-
vertible. This fact becomes fully manifest when the New
Testament statements on this point are applied to elucidate
the more vague and general statements of the Old. In them,
personal relations are brought out, not only as consistent with
the Unity, but as of its very essence  Now this shows us
at once, why the term Angel is used to denote the Mediating
Beity : it belongs to Him as " the head of all principality and
power.'' He is the Angel or Envoy, who is not only the head of
a whole host of these " ministering spirits," but in a very peculiar
sense the Minister of God on behalf of the world. It is His
ministry that gives rise to every other, and that ordains and sets
all these in motion. It is the vinculum or bond between " Him
whom no man hath seen, nor can see," and the creatures made
like Him, and to be restored to Him, by Him who is " become
one of us."
' Thus, we see that Angel implies the position of a Mediator

note vii.] Sovereignty'. Archbishop Trench. 499
and all the prerogatives and works proper to Him, while it has
this advantage over the term Word, that it is more strongly
personal. It cannot be resolved into personification  It is
also worth notice, that the passage in which the first mention
occurs of " the angel of the Lord " is in the chapter immediately
following the one opening with the first mention of the " Word
of the Lord " in a sense undoubtedly personal, as if this collation
of the terms Word and Angel were meant to form together an
outset in the career of mediatorial personality , which from this point
onward acquires increasing variety and fulness of expression ; while
the evidence before adduced is in proof that the functions any
more than the office of the Mediator did not take date from this
point, but connected the manifestations now referred to with the
earliest times. It is but distinct personal development that now
occurs ; a fact which supposes official pre-existence just as cer
tainly as it does a personal one, and in entire keeping with th?
germinant principle inherent in all the divine counsels and
works, of which the history of Creation itself supplies a great
example.' I thankfully add here a passage from a precious little volume
which I did not see until after these Lectures were delivered,
Archbishop Trench of Dublin's Five Cambridge University Sermons
of Nov. 1 856 (Macmillan). It is indeed a passage which covers
more than the point immediately before us in this Note ; but
my readers will only value it the more on that account. It does
indeed indicate, if it may be permitted to me to say so, a worthy
grasp at once of the grandeur of the Christian Faith, and of the
lines which the English Theology of the future, and especially
its Apologetic, should follow. It is from the First Sermon, On
Christ the Only Begotten, p. 9.
' If we would be delivered from these dangers, and re-assert
for that which is the queen-science of all, her rightful dominion
over the hearts and spirits of men, we must learn to fall back
more on those transcendant truths of which the prologue of
St. John is full — to meditate on them more fully and more fre
quently — to bring them into greater prominence for ourselves
k k 2

500 The Theophanies. Archbishop Trench [app.
and for others — to believe that it was not for nothing that this
Scripture, or the first chapter of Colossians, was written. We
must learn to connect our Lord's manifestation in the flesh,
not indeed less with all which followed it, his death, his resur
rection, his ascension, his glorified sitting at the right hand of
the Majesty on high ; but to connect it more with that which
preceded, his eternal generation, the glory which He had with
the Father before the world was, the creation of all worlds by
Him, and above all, of man, not merely by Him, but in Him,
and for Him, and to Him ; and this so really, that even had
there been no Fall and Incarnation, a coming forth on his part,
as at once the root and perfect flower of our nature, would
probably not the less have been.
' It behoves us, indeed, to speak with hesitation and modesty
on a matter like this. Had there been no Fall, the conditions
under which that transcendant manifestation of love and of
honour done to man must have taken place, would of course have
been infinitely different from those under which the Eternal Son
did actually exchange the form of God for the form of a servant,
and become obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.
Those conditions, more glorious seemingly, would have been less
glorious in reality, for they would have lacked the glory of
suffering, the unfathomable wonder of that infinite self-denial
which stooped to the fallen and the guilty, and shared the
miseries of the one and the penalties of the other. But the
thing itself, we may reverently believe, would not the less have
been. They only re-affirm what has been the conviction of many
theologians in all times, who are persuaded that the headship of
the race of man would have pertained to Him not the less, to
whom all headship of men or of angels rightly appertains ; all
things in heaven and in earth being recapitulated in Him ; since
only in this recapitulation could the race of Adam have attained
the end of its creation, the place among the families of God, for
which from the first it was designed.
'In this view, the taking on Himself of our flesh by the
Eternal Word was no makeshift, to meet a mighty, yet still a
particular emergent, need ; a need which, conceding the liberty

Note vii.] on probable fncarnation in any case. 501
of man's will and that it was possible for him to have continued
in his first state of obedience, might never have occurred. It
was not a mere result and reparation of the Fall, such an act
as, except for that, would never have been ; but lay bedded at a
far deeper depth in the counsels of God for the glory of his Son,
and the exaltation of that race formed in his image and his like
ness: For against those who regard the Incarnation as an
arbitrary, or as merely an historic event, and not an ideal one as
well, we may well urge this weighty consideration, that the Son
of God did not in and after his ascension strip off this human
nature again ; He did not regard his humanity as a robe, to be
worn for a while, and then laid aside ; the convenient form of
his manifestation, so long as He was conversing with men upon
earth, but the fitness of which had with that conversation passed
away. So far from this, we know on the contrary that He
assumed our nature for ever, married it to Himself, glorified
it with his own glory, carried it as the form of his eternal
subsistence into the world of angels, before the presence of his
Father. Had there been anything accidental here, had the
assumption of our nature been an afterthought (I speak as a
man), this marriage of the Son of God with that nature could
scarcely be conceived. He could hardly have so taken it — taken
it, that is, for ever— unless it had possessed an ideal as well as
an historic fitness ; unless pre-established harmonies had existed,
such harmonies as only a divine intention could have brought
about between the one and the other.
' What those pre-established harmonies were, the words of the
heathen poet, but words adopted and made his own by the
Christian Apostle, declare — " For we are all his offspring ; " words,
be it remembered, not addressed to the regenerate, and on the
ground of their regeneration, but addressed by St. Paul to his
heathen listeners at Athens. Children of this world, children of
wrath, as all or nearly all of those listeners may well have been
when he addressed them, he yet did not fear to bring them back
to their divine original, to remind them of the ideal heights and
primeval destinies of man— all forfeited in Adam, and now won
back and recovered in Christ ; but which yet had been only re-

502 Co-fnherence of the Divine Persons. [app.
coverable, because they were a portion of man's original inherits
ance ; because in the fact that man was God's offspring, or God's
race, the possibility lay that One should come forth from God,
He too God's Son from eternity, fulfilling this name to the utter
most ; who should place his shoulders under the mighty ruin of
our race, should arrest its fall, and so vindicate his right to ex
claim, " The earth and its inhabiters are dissolved. I bear up
the pillars thereof." It seems to me, therefore, that in discours
ing of the Word made flesh, we may fitly, as regards the re
deemed, carry back our thoughts to that creation of man in
God's image and likeness, which alone rendered an Incarnation
possible. We may fitly also, as respects the Redeemer, declare
that we regard that but as one step, the last indeed, and most
glorious one, of his manifestation, that He who so manifested
Himself then, had been manifesting Himself from the beginning
of the world ; and not of our world only ; for the Apostle speaks
of another and a higher world in these words, " When He bringeth
in the First Begotten in the world He saith, And let the angels
of God worship Him." But yet in our world also we may affirm
that He had been manifesting Himself long before, patriarch and
prophet walking in his light, encountering Him, as He, the
Angel of the Covenant, the Captain of the Lord's Host, preluded
his Incarnation by transient assumptions of a human form. Yea,
every spark of higher life which was not trodden out in heathen
dom, we have a right, resting on this Scripture, to declare that
it was He who kept it alive, that this light shining in men's
darkness, was his light, his unextinguished and inextinguishable
witness in the hearts and consciences of men.'
Note VIII. § 89.
The inseparable Co-inherence of the Three Bivine Persons.
This truth is a necessary part of the essential conception of
the Co-equal Trinity of Persons in the One Divine Essence.
It follows from the idea of the Infinity which belongs to the
Supreme Spirit, both in Person and in Essence. Infinities
cannot be mutually exclusive; but must necessarily coincide

note ix.] The title Adonai. 503
and interpenetrate each other. Exclusion implies limitation;
which is foreign to the Divine Nature. So Bishop Bull says,
Bef. Fid. Nic. II. ix. 23, that the Three Divine Persons ' inti
mately cohere together and are conjoined One with Another ;
and thus that they exist One in the Other, and, so to speak,
mutually run into and penetrate Each Other, by a certain
ineffable itepixd>pr]o:is, which the Schoolmen call circuminsessio.'
The lowest and nearest form of the thought is that by which
the Three are necessarily conceived of as equally locally present
everywhere. Above that is the thought of their moral unity
of Will, and, consequently, of Operation. But the thought of
Their indivisible and inseparable Unity, as They are absolutely
and in themselves, in the senses alike of Existence, Presence, and
Operation, is quite consistent with the thought of a special
manifestation, relatively to us, of One Person (i. e. the Second)
more than the Others, whether in presence or in operation ; or,
if the expression be preferred, a special manifestation of the
Godhead, in presence and in operation, through the Second
Person, Whose function it is, as the Image of God, to reveal and
to exhibit God to the creature. St. Hilar. Pictav. Be Trinitate,
VIII. 51 (Migne, 273), says the Father 'videtur in viso, operatur
in operante, loquitur in loquente,' i. e. in the Son. See also
a fine passage in St. Augustine, Be Trinitate, II. v. 9, on the Una
voluntas Patris et Filii et inseparabilis operatio, and the con
sequent share of the Son in His own Mission and Incarnation.
See also ibid. x. 18. The classical passage in English theology on
the Trepix<>>pwis is that with which Bishop Bull closes his great
work in Befence of the Nicene Faith, Book IV. ch. iv. § 9-14.
Note IX. § 93.
The title Adonai belongs especially to the Son.
There is much that is valuable on this point in the Commen
tary upon the Apostles' Creed by Dr. Thomas Jackson, Dean of
Peterborough, 1639 ; see Bk. VII. ch. xxxvi. § ^-y : 'That this
name Adonai is so peculiar to the Son of God as 6 Ao'yos is, I
dare not affirm : for 6 Aoyos doth nowhere, to my remembrance,

504 The Son especially entitled Adonai. [app.
denote any other Person in the blessed Trinity besides the Son,
whereas the name Adonai is an expression which many times
refers unto the Trinity or Divine nature. . . . But in many
passages of the Old Testament both names are expressed ac
cording to their proper consonants. And in all these places
the name Adonai refers only to the Son, as the name of four
letters denotes the Father. As in Ps. ex. 1. . . . I durst not have
been so bold as to have gathered this general rule from my own
observation, unless I had found it excellently observed and
proved at large by Petrus Faber, in his Dodecamenon, cap. 8.'
On Joshua vii. 7 he (ibid.) quotes Masius, Comment, in Josuam,
as follows : ' Joshua calls God by two names . . . Adonai, Je
hovah. The former setteth out God's ruling power, the latter
hath respect to God's essence. . . . Seeing Adonai hath an eye to
God's ruling power, it agrees manifestly to the Son, and repre
sents him to us, by whom as God the Father made the world,
so he ruleth it. In this point the diviner sort of Hebrew
authors (diviniores Hebraeorum philosophi), called cabalists, as
sent to, as when they teach that the name Adonai is as it were
the key by which entrance is opened to God Jehovah ; that is,
to God, as it were hid in His own essence ; and that it is the
treasure in which these things bestowed on us by Jehovah are
all deposited ; and that moreover it denoteth the great Steward
(oeconomon ilium magnum) who disposeth of all, and nourisheth
and quickeneth all things under Jehovah ; and finally, that no
man can approach near Jehovah but by Adonai, because there
is no other way or course at all to come to him ; and that there
fore the Church thus begins her holy prayers : "Adonai," that is,
"Lord, open my lips, and my mouth shall shew forth thy praise."
These and such-like passages are extant in the book entitled
" The Gate of Light," and in the book called ©"IDEM DID, that
is, " The Name explicated." '
Again, Book XI. ch. vii. : ' The name Jehovah, which is usually
rendered Kvpios, Bominus, or Lord [Lord], is alike common to
every person in the holy Trinity, as expressing the nature of the
Godhead — he that is being itself; howbeit, even this name is
sometimes in peculiar sort attributed unto Christ. But that

note x.] Christ's Commission to the whole Church. 505
Christ, or the Son of God, is in these places personally meant,
this must be gathered from the subject, or special circumstances
of the matter, not from the name or title itself. But the name
Adonai, which properly signifies lord or king, as fiaaikevs in
Greek doth (implying as much as the pillar, or foundation of the
people), is the peculiar title of the Son of God, or of God in
carnate. And for attributing this title unto Christ as his
peculiar, the apostle St. Paul had a good warrant out of the
prophetical writings, especially the Psalms. . . . This title of
Lord — Adonai — is used most frequently in those psalms which
contain the most pregnant prophecies of Christ or the Messias'
exaltation. [Jackson then refers to Psalms ii, xiv, ex, lvii, cviii,
and proceeds]. These fundamental points of faith are clear from
this collation of Scripture : first, That Adonai, or Lord, was the
known title of the Messias, whom the Jews expected in our
Saviour's time ; and this was the reason that the Pharisees had
not a word to answer or rejoin unto our Saviour when he
avouched that the Messias was to be the Son of God, because
Bavid in spirit called him (Adonai) Lord. Matt. xxii. 45. The
second, That he that was Adonai, or the Messias, was likewise
Jehovah, truly God, because David did not in spirit only call
him Lord, but did in spirit worship him as his Lord and God,
with the best sacrifice that he could devise, as appears from
psalm lvii. 8.'
On Malachi iii. 1 Dr. Pusey writes : ' He Who should come
was the Lord, again Almighty God, since, in usage too, none
else is called " the Lord," as none else can be ; ' and notes that
Malachi's phrase pTHH is elsewhere used only in Ex. xxiii. 17 ;
xxxiv. 23 ; Isa. i. 24 ; iii. 1 ; x. 16, 33 ; xix. 4 ; which passages
see, for their decisive identification of |TWn with Jehovah of
Hosts, the God of Israel.
Note X. § 157.
Christ gave His great Commission to the. Church as a whole.
A considerable volume might be written on the unhappy
practical results that have followed, in the long history of the

506 Christ's Commission and Gift of the Holy [app.
Church, from misrenderings of important words and phrases in
Holy Scripture — such e. g. as the ' Ipsa conteret caput tuum' of
Gen. iii. 15, or the ' one fold' (Vulg. unum ovile) of St. John x.
16 — and from misconceptions of important passages or incidents
which, taken up and repeated by one writer after another
without examination, have given currency to theories and
doctrines unbalanced and defective if not erroneous. Of this
last kind is the very general failure not only to insist on but
even to perceive the sufficiently evident and certainly not un
important fact that the great words of the Easter-Night Com
mission (St. John xx. 21), As My Father hath sent Me, even so send
I you . . . Receive ye the Holy Ghost : Whosesoever sins ye remit,
&c, were spoken, not to the Apostles only, but to the then
Church collectively, as a corporate whole, the Body of Christ.
The following facts bearing upon the right appreciation of this
point must be carefully observed : —
1. The similar language first uttered to St. Peter, St. Matt.
xvi. 18, as the then representative and nucleus of the Church
that was to be, the rock on which it was to be built (for such
is the plain natural sense of our Lord's allusion to the name
He had Himself given him), had been repeated (St. Matt, xviii.
17), and with renewed promise, to the Church collective. To
have restricted it, when used on the third occasion, to the
Apostles only, would have been a retrograde step. The Power
of the Keys was, in fulfilment of the two previous promises —
observe the future tenses in St. Matt. xvi. and xviii. — now, the
first moment it was possible, actually vested in the Body, for
exercise by the Body through its duly appointed and recognised
organs and officers.
2. St. Luke xxiv. 33 &c. and St. John xx. 19 &c. unquestion
ably refer to the same occasion, viz. the first meeting of the
assembled disciples after the Crucifixion, the meeting on the
Easter-Night. In describing those who were present, St. John
uses the general term disciples, including, of course, by implica
tion the Apostles in his special note that the one absentee was
Thomas. St. Luke expressly says that the company gathered
together, to which the two returning from Emmaus joined

note x.] Ghost were to the whole Church. 507
themselves, was the eleven, and them that were with
THEM. 3. The post-Ascension meeting, Acts i. 13, &c., in the upper
room, probably the large upper room furnished which was the
scene of the Last Supper, and, very possibly, was in the house of
Mary, the mother of John Mark and sister of Joses and
Barnabas, is expressly stated to have been a collective meeting.
And, under the guidance of St. Peter, it performed a very
solemn corporate act in the election of St. Matthias, such as it
could hardly have done save by virtue of the Commission of
St. John xx. 21.
4. A close study of the passage, (the connection of which is
impaired by the break between the first and second chapters of
the Acts,) and especially of the Greek of Acts i. 13, 14, 15, and •
ii. 1, points irresistibly to the conclusion that the Pentecostal
Gift also was bestowed on the Church as a whole, and not on
the Apostles exclusively. ' There is the same emphatic state
ment, in almost the same words, of the assembling of all, with
one accord, in one and the same place, in the account of the
Pentecostal meeting as there is in that of the post-Ascension
meeting. It is certainly more natural to understand the em
phatic all of the first verse of the second chapter, of the larger
number, the hundred and twenty at least, whose constituent
elements, so representative in character, had been specially
enumerated a few verses before, than to restrict it to the twelve
Apostles only.
' Again; If the Church as a whole, the original body of the
first believers, did not receive the Holy Spirit on the Easter-
night and at Pentecost, but the Apostles only, when did they
receive it? Though doubtless baptized with the preliminary
baptism of John unto repentance, it does not appear that they
ever received Christian Baptism, as did the three thousand who
were added, not to the Apostles, but to the Church, after St.
Peter's sermon. There is absolutely no indication of the ex
clusive bestowal of the Baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire
on the Apostles only, and its subsequent bestowal, by, through,
or from them, on the rest of the first believers ; but, on the

508 Christ gave His Spirit to the whole Church, [app.
contrary, every indication of their having received the Gift at
one and the same time. The idea of such a distinction would
probably not have occurred to the first or second generation of
believers. It is altogether a later growth ; natural indeed, be
cause the Gift, originally bestowed on the Body, was, as the
Church grew, bestowed on new converts, through Baptism and
Confirmation, by the authorized officers of the Body ; that is, by
the Body, or, more exactly, by the Head and the Body acting as
one indivisible organism, through the organs of the Body.
' A yet further argument, and one (it would seem) of some
force, may be drawn from the consideration that there would
have been somewhat of inappropriateness, to say the least, in
St. Peter's quotation of the prophecy by Joel of the great dis
tinctive blessing of the New Covenant as then and there, in-
cipiently, fulfilled, if a passage which promises an outpouring
upon all flesh . . . sons and daughters . . . young men and old men
. . . servants and handmaidens, had been realized only in the
persons of the Twelve. What assurance would a gift limited to
the officers of the Church have given to others, as yet outsiders,
that they also, upon repentance and Baptism, might receive the
Gift of the Holy Ghost? Or what meaning, upon the narrower
exposition, can we attach to the words, For the Promise — i. e. the
Promised Gift — (compare the Greek of Acts ii. 39 with that of
i. 4, and the ' Tu rite Promissum Patris ' of the Veni Creator) —
is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even
as many as the Lord our God shall call ?
' Moreover, it is to be noticed, whatever it may be worth,
that the languages miraculously spoken were certainly more
than twelve in number. We must suppose, surely, that what
actually took place was not an unmeaning display of miraculous
powers in unintelligible speech, but that various groups, of
men of various languages among the multitudes who thronged
the Holy City and the Temple at a great festival, found them
selves severally addressed in their own tongues wherein they were
born, by one or more of these Galileean Christians who spoke to
them the wonderful works of God in the Death and Resurrection
and Ascension of the Christ, which stupendous facts, with the

note xl] The 'Babylon ' of the Apocalypse. 509
talk about which the whole city would be ringing, were attested
by the miracle before them.
' And, lastly, to mention another point in the same line with
our present argument ; after the first touch of persecution, when
Peter and John had been put in hold for a night, and brought
up next morning before the Sanhedrim, we read (Acts iv.) that
being let go they went to their own company, and reported all that
the chief priests and elders had said unto them, and that they,
when they heard that, lifted up their voice to God with one accord,
and prayed that prayer to which was vouchsafed an almost
second Pentecost, so that the place was shaken wherein they were
gathered together, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,
and they spake the Word of God with boldness. And the multitude
of them that believed were of one heart and soul. This again does
not read as if the company assembled were only the remaining
ten Apostles.
' We conclude then that the great endowments of the Lord's
abiding Presence and the indwelling Life of His inbreathed
Spirit were bestowed, not on the Apostles only, not on the
Apostles first, and through them on the Body, but at once on
the whole Church as a Body, and on the Apostles in and with,
and as part, albeit the most highly organised and vital part, of
the Body mystical of the Christ.' (From a Sermon, by the
present writer, as Select Preacher, before the University of
Oxford, Oct. 23, 1 88 1.)
Note XI. § 171.
The 'great city! the 'Babylon] of the Apocalypse was
Jerusalem.
I confess it has long seemed to me, as an independent but
earnest student of the Apocalypse— the very absurdities written
about which create a deeper interest in it, and a stronger desire
to revindicate its own plain and direct but very solemn and awful
meaning— that it is demonstrable, from the Book itself, that the
great city so repeatedly spoken of, and identified with the Harlot
Woman, is none other than the old, the earthly, the apostate,

510 The 'Babylon ' of the Apocalypse is, [app.
the doomed Jerusalem of a.d. 30-70, and not Rome Pagan at
all ; and only Rome Papal by secondary and analogical applica
tion, such as may have touched, and may yet touch, in very
varying degrees of intensity, but in every case with very solemn
reality, the Christian Church of very various ages and countries.
The scanty limits of a note preclude a full treatment of the ques
tion ; but I would ask the candid student to consider the follow
ing points, in the light especially of the now very generally
accepted earlier date of the Apocalypse, and of its contemporane
ousness (speaking generally) with the Epistles of St. James,
St. Peter, and to the Hebrews.
Two ' cities,' and two only, are spoken of and sharply con
trasted in the Apocalypse, the old Jerusalem and the new 1.
1 Kaivi], not via, like ovpavbs Kaivbs ical yrj Kaivrj, implying the contrast, not of
juxtaposition, but of related, i. e. continuous succession and substitution, the old
being removed and transfigured into the new. If the new city was a Jerusalem,
the word jcaivos really carries within it the proof that the old was a Jerusalem also.
See Trench, N. T. Synonyms, Second Series. The organic vital connection be
tween the old, which was dissolved and perished, lay in the believing remnant, the
l/cA.0717, the anapxh, the Hundred and Forty-four Thousand, who were contributed
by the old Jerusalem to the making of that efs icaivos dvSpaiiros of Eph. ii. 15,
which is the Israel of God, Gal. vi. 16. The same contrast, it should be observed,
runs through St. Paul's language in Gal. i v. 2 2-3 1 . It was, in fact, very early
familiar to the Christian thought of the first generation. It is at least arguable
that 77 iv Ba0v\iovi avviKXacrh of I Pet. v. 13 is really another example of an
early Christian symbolical identification of the city, which they knew to be doomed
for its apostasy, with ' Babylon,' as with * Sodom ' and ' Egypt ' in Rev. xi. 8.
The accompanying salutation of Md/wos 6 vlos pov looks like it. Mark's home was
at Jerusalem, in that house in which was, very probably, the large upper room
which was both the scene of the Last Supper and the first rendezvous and head
quarters of the Christians, and from which it is very possible St. Peter was
actually writing. Even those who (wrongly, as I think) maintain ' Babylon ' to
be Pagan Borne, admit that its use here is symbolical. But it may be replied
with much force to those who maintain that view, that, if so, the destruction of
the Apocalyptic Babylon must be an event yet future. Nothing at all comparable
to it has ever yet happened to Rome, Pagan or Papal; it did happen to the
Jerusalem of A.D. 70. I would ask the unprejudiced reader to take notice, in
weighing the arguments of writers who maintain that the N. T. Babylon is
Rome, that all which have any weight or veri -similitude apply, in the same kind
of sense, with much greater force to Jerusalem, and that many which do not
suit Rome at all, or only with a twist, suit Jerusalem obviously and naturally.
The mistake about the date of the Apocalypse was clearly the first origin of the
mistaken interpretation, which we observe early; e. g. Tertullian, Adv. Judaeos,
9 : ' Sic et Babylon apud Joannem nostrum Romae urbis figura est, proinde et

note xl] primarily, the old Jerusalem. 511
The contrast first appears in the message to Philadelphia.
It is between them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are
Jews, and are not, and the city of my God, the New Jerusalem, iii.
9, 12.
The old 'city' is first mentioned in xi. 2, where the epithet
tj]v ayiav and the mention of the Temple combine to identify it
with the old Jerusalem. In xi. 8 it is called fj iroKis r/ p.eyakt),
and is again distinctly identified with Jerusalem by the addition
which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord
was crucified. In eight other places the great city is spoken of,
viz. xiv. 8; xvi. 19; xvii. 18 ; xviii. 10, 16, 18, 19, 21. The
epithet rj /xeyaKr], in fact, becomes specific and distinctive, and
very evidently applies only to one and the same city throughout.
A close examination will show that there is really no doubt of this.
But in xiv. 8, the anticipatory announcement of her fall, the
great city is expressly called Babylon, i. e. in the same symbolical
sense in which it had before been spiritually called Sodom and
Egypt. In xvi. 19, while, in respect of the effects of the
earthquake it is, by separate mention, contrasted with the cities
of the Gentiles — a contrast which points to Jerusalem — it is
again expressly identified with Babylon. In xvii. 5, the name
of the Harlot is Babylon the great. Here the epithet rj ixeyakr)
identifies her with fj iroAts r\ ixeyakt] of xi. 8, etc. We can hardly
doubt the reference to Isa. i. 21, How is the faithful city become
an harlot! It was full of judgment ; Righteousness lodged in it;
but now murderers, any more than the reference in xi. 8 to Isa. i.

magnae et regno superbae et sanctorum debellatricis.' But the early history of
the Apocalypse is obscure. It served, no doubt, its immediate purpose ; but it
had no wide circulation in the early church. When it became more generally
known it was, at first, received with hesitation. By the time it was generally
known and acknowledged, its original purpose had been wholly served, and then
practically forgotten, in the clean sweep made of the old Jerusalem. Another
great persecuting city had, by that time, fully declared its hostility to Christ and
His Church ; and Pagan Rome and its world-wide power was, to Christians of the
second and third century, ' l'ennemi.' What more natural than that, when the
Apocalypse came into their hands, they should apply it to Rome and read in it
the assurance of Christ's ultimate and complete victory ? And they were right,
in a sense, in so doing ; and only wrong in not knowing, or not realising, that
there had been already a decisive and infinitely important fulfilment.

512 The 'Babylon ' of the Apocalypse is, [app.
io. The biblical fitness of the epithet to the spiritual fornication
and adultery of that evil and adulterous generation cannot be
doubted. The sin described was one of which no pagan city,
only one which had once been the chosen of the Lord, could really
be guilty. But it was very distinctly the sin of that old
Jerusalem with which the New Jerusalem is contrasted as the
Bride, the Lamb's wife1. Xvii. 18 again identifies the Harlot
Babylon with fj iroXts fj ixeyakr\; and, again, xviii. 2, io, 16, 19,
20, 21. The common epithet, fj p.eyak-q, thus so emphatically
repeated, really binds together in absolute identity the earthly
Jerusalem and the Apocalyptic Babylon. The additional epithet
of xviii. 10, rj tto'Ais rj lorxypd (not mighty, but strong), was sin
gularly applicable to Jerusalem, as Titus and his legions found
to their cost.
How is it that this identification, which clears away innumer
able difficulties and supplies the real key to the meaning of the
Book, has been so generally overlooked? Probably from two
principal causes. 1. The Harlot's being seated upon the scarlet-
coloured, seven-headed Beast (xvii. 3), or upon the seven moun
tains, xvii. 9. For the Beast of xiii. 1 is the then pagan world-
power, the Roman Empire, really animated and worked by the
Dragon, the Prince of the World (St. John xii. 30 and xiv. 30,
where see Westcott in Speaker's Commentary), and upheld by the
other, the two horned lamb-like Beast of xiii. 11, i.e. the" false
idolatrous religion of Paganism, which then insisted on the
worship of the Emperor, the embodiment of the Beast, an insist-
anee which made martyrs both among Jews and Christians. 2.
The greatness and splendour of the Babylon described, and her
world-wide relations and influence.
As to 1 : Her being seated upon the Beast indicates a relation
certainly, i. e. of being really supported, not by God, but by the
world-power. The base apostate worldly Judaism of that period,
especially of the Jewish kinglets, and the dominant parties,
whether courtly Herodians, popular Pharisees, or Sadducsean
High Priests, really did rest upon, depended, for its very exist-
1 Compare Isa. lvii. 8; Jerem. ii. 2, 20; iii. throughout; iv. 30; xi. 15; and
xiii. 27: also Ezekiel, chs. xvi, xxii, xxiii, and xxiv, throughout.

note xl] primarily, the old Jertisalem. 513
ence in power and supremacy upon the Roman world-power.
And they knew it ; and the Romans knew it, and despised them
accordingly. But this relation points, at the same time, to dis
tinctness, not to identity ; and passed easily into that relation of
hostility (xvii. 16) by which the ten horns, and the beast, hated
the harlot, and made her desolate and naked, and ate her flesh, and
burned her utterly with fire, when God put it in their hearts to do
his mind . . until the words of God (Levit. xxvi., Beut. xxviii., St.
Matt, xxiv.) should be fulfilled.
As to 2 : (a) The great harlot sat (xvii. 1) upon many waters,
i.e. (15) peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. So,
through the Jews of the Dispersion then spread through the
whole Roman oiKovjiivrj and beyond it, Jerusalem and Judaism,
did sit, as truly, though not in the same way, as Imperial
Rome rested upon and ruled over her subject peoples. See the
account of the Day of Pentecost ; and Josephus' description of
the representative gatherings at the great Jewish Festivals.
(b) The harlot is the great city which holds a royal, or queenly,
position (rj expvaa fiaa iXdav) over the kings of the earth (xvii. 18).
We have already seen that the one city which in the Apocalypse
is called the great is identified with Jerusalem. The question
here is, Who are intended by ol /3acri\ei9 t9j<s yrjs ? In connection
with which it should be remarked that the true estimate of the
primary purpose and reference of the Apocalypse has probably
been very much hindered by the frequent translation of yi) by
' earth,' Where the reference really is the restricted one, to the
' land,' i. e. of Judaea and Palestine. The ordinary reader has
been thus thrown far a-field, and has lost the scent altogether.
Setting aside the Epistles, in which, from the nature of their
subjects and their being addressed to Churches out of Palestine,
the usual reference is naturally wider, let any one examine the
N. T.. usage of the Word yrj in its local or geographical sense,
especially in the phrase ol (3ao-i\eis rrjs y??s (as, for example, it is
exhibited, in a conspectus, in Bruder's ed. of Schmidt's Concord
ance) and the following results will be apparent : —That, fn the
Gospels and the Apocalypse — leaving out passages in which the
frequent contrast of earth with heaven, or the addition of vaoa,
Ll

514 The Babylon of the Apocalypse is, [app.
ok-n, or some equivalent phrase, defines the wider use, and sug
gests the rendering ' earth ' or ' world ' — the natural, probable,
or even certain rendering is usually the restricted one, ' land,'
the Land of the Jew1. Certainly it seems to me that the
1 Matt. xvii. 25 : Of whom do the Icings of the land take tribute t A reference to
the Galileean Peter's personal knowledge of the usage of the local kings and
tetrarchs is more natural than a wider one. Mat. xxiv. 30 : Then shall all the
tribes of the land mourn (jcotyovTai), and they shall see the Son of Man coming in
the clouds of heaven with power and great glory ; compared with Rev. i. 17 : Behold,
he cometh with clouds, and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him,
and all the tribes of the land shall mourn (ic&f/ovTtu) because of him ; and with the
parent passage, Zech. xii. 10-14, which see, especially in Lxx. observing the uSifiovraL
of ver. 10, and the «<5^ctoi ^ yq (here unquestionably the Jews' land) Kara <pv\c\s
<pv\as. But Matt. xxiv. 30, especially taken in connection with the Lord's solemn
answer to Caiaphas, xxvi. 64, refers to the Lord's coming in His Judgment of
Jerusalem. Matt, xxvii. 25 : vaaav ri\v yqv, with its parallels, Mark xv. 33, Luke
xxiii. 44, o\rjv rrjv 7771', of the miraculous darkness at the crucifixion, is surely in
the restricted sense, notwithstanding the iraoav and the oknv. When St. Mark,
a few verses later, wishes to express a wider reference, xvi. 15, his phrase is els
rhv k6<xju>v imavra. Luke iv. 25, throughout all the land, is yet restricted, and
so A. V. And xviii. 8, When the Son of Man cometh shall he find faith ore the
earth, might as well, or better, be in the land. Certainly it is consistent with the
view of this subject taken in these Lectures, that the coming spoken of should
be the Lord's Coming in Judgment on Jerusalem. See the preceding verse (and
the clear reference to its language in Rev. vi. 10 ; and xxi. 23) There shall be
great distress in the land, and wrath upon this people. Here the Authorised Version
has land, for the restriction is unquestionable, the general distress of the Gentile
nations upon the earth being separately foretold in ver. 26. The unrestricted use
is well marked, by Traces and the context, in ver. 35 ; for the Lord had passed, at
ver. 34, from His immediate subject to its awful future analogue, which is future
still. Acts iv. 26 is a serviceable passage as to the usage of ol f3acrt\els rrjs 7771,,
which it quotes from Ps. ii. I ; for, as ver. 27 says, there was in the movement
against Jesus just that combination of the Heathen with the People, and of the
rulers (like Pontius Pilate) with the Kings of the land (Herod), which the Psalm
foretells. And it throws light on Rev. i. 5 : Jesus Christ . . .. the first-born of the
dead, and the ruler of the kings of the land. They had combined against Him,
and would not have Him to reign over them, saying, We have no King but
Cozsar; but His Resurrection, (from the sealed and guarded tomb) showed His
lordship over them, and over Ca?sar ; and He had made His believing people to
be Kings and Priests with Him unto His God and Father. In vi. 15, the reference
may well be the restricted one. The manifest allusion to Isa. ii. 10-22, and
Hosea x. 8, looks like it. What sort of men, morally, the kings of the land were,
and the great men, and the rich men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men,
of the Jewish world of A.D. 1-70, we have ample evidence in the New Testament.
See especially, besides the passages which refer to the Herods, Matt, xxiii. 1 3-39 ;
Luke vi. 24-26; xvi. 14-31; James i. 10, 11; ii. 6, 7; iii. 14 to v. 6. The
following juxta-position is surely very curiously instructive as to whom the Seer

note xl] primarily, the old Jerusalem.

5*5

peculiar phrase holds a royal position, describes very naturally the
relation of the Jerusalem of that generation to the kings of the
land. Not one of them was king of her, seated in Jerusalem as in
his own capital. That might have been said of Herod the Great,
and, in a greatly diminished sense, of the brief nine years' reign
of his son and successor Archelaus. But from a. d. 6 Judaea was
a Roman province ; while yet the usual residence of the Governor
at Csesarea, and the absence of any national king at Jerusalem
itself, after the subdivision of the original kingdom of Herod
the Great among his sons, the Tetrarchs, who then became the
kings of the land, combined to give to the stately and splendid
city, still the religious centre, not only of the whole land, but of
the world-scattered race of the Jews, just that quasi-independent
and capital character which is indicated by the phrase Zyovo-a
/3atriketav, and which would minister to at once the pride and
the advantage of its ruling classes, among whom the High
Priest and the Sanhedrim would naturally hold the first place.
Milman, Hist, of the Jews, writes (Book XII.), ' The Sanhedrim
was probably confined to its judicial duties — it was a plenary
court of justice, and no more — during the reigns of the later
Asmonean princes, and during those of Herod the Great and his
describes as paralysed with fear at the tokens of imminent judgment. History
perhaps furnishes few groups more likely to be so affected than that of which
Herod Antipas was the centre when he kept his birthday festival in his castle of
Machaerus. 8. Marc. vi. 21. 'HpiiSrjs rots yevealots Apoc. vi. 15. Ka! 01 0acri\ets ttjs 777s,
avrov BtiTrvov iiroiei Tofs pteyiarTa,a;iv xal ol fieyiaraves, Kai oi jrAoiiffioi, Kai
avrov Kai rois xi^l^PXms Ka^ Tt"s irp&rots ol xl*-'laPX0l> Ka^ °' Svvaroi, K.r.K.
Tijs Fa\i Kaias, K.r.X.
The peculiar word jteyicrTaves occurs nowhere else in the New Testament except
in Rev. xviii. 23, where it has a consistent and indeed identical meaning. The
merchant princes who ministered to and grew rich by the luxury and splendour of
the Jerusalem of that epoch may well have been the great ones of the land. Per
haps we have a picture of one member of the class in the passage about the rich
man and Lazarus, the connection of which with the preceding context can only be
that it furnishes an example of the prevailing dishonesty, worldliness, covetous-
ness, and impurity of the upper classes of Jewish society at that date. The level
of New Testament usage of such a phrase as ol 0acn\€is rrjs yijs is illustrated by
the circumstance that S. Matthew speaks, ii. 22, of Archelaus reigning as King,
{0aoi\eJei) in the room of Ms father Herod, while the Roman authorities never
gave him the title of Paffi\evs, but only that of iBvipxys.
L 1 2

5 1 6 The Babylon of the Apocalypse is, [app.
son Archelaus. To the despotism of the two latter there was
no check, except an appeal to Rome. When Judaea became a
Roman province the Sanhedrim either, as is more likely, assumed
for the first time, or recovered, its station as a kind of senate or
representative body of the nation ; possessed itself of such of the
subordinate functions of the government as were not actually
administered by the Roman procurator ; and probably, on
account of the frequent changes in the person of the high priest,
usurped, in some degree, upon his authority.' These Rulers of
the Jews were practically enthroned in Jerusalem, and supported
by the world-power of the Roman Beast. In them the per
sonified Jerusalem (Rev. xviii. 7) glorified herself, and waxed
wanton, and said in her heart, I sit a queen, and am no widow
(though the sceptre was departed from Judah), and shall see no
sorrow. But it was upon them that fell the scathing denuncia
tions of both the Baptist [St. Matt, iii., St. Luke iii.), and the Christ
(St. Matt, xii., St. Luke xi., St. Matt, xxiii). It was their doom
the Lord scarcely veiled in the fateful Parables of St. Matt. xxi.
and xxii. It was their sentence He judicially pronounced at the
close of His public teaching, as He left the Temple for the last
time, St. Matt, xxiii. 35-39. It was the execution of that
sentence, within the lifetime of the men before whom He stood,
that, in the hearing of the seer of the Apocalypse, He solemnly
predicted, in answer to the High Priest's adjuration at His
Trial (xxvi. 64).
(c) The description in the eighteenth chapter of the wail of
the interested classes over the downfall of the harlot city, the
lament of the kings of the land, and the merchants of the land,
who grew rich by her, and the shipmasters, and mariners, and as
many as gain their living by the sea, will not be thought inap
plicable to the Jerusalem of a. d. 70 by any one who has tried to
realise the grandeur of the city at that epoch as it is pictured in
the pages of Josephus, and who thinks of the enormous and far-
reaching traffic which the mere necessities of the multitudes of
her annual visitors must have created, with the accumulated
wealth and luxury to which it must have given rise for those
who conducted it. It is not a great mercantile city that is

note xl] primarily, the old Jerusalem. 5 1 7
described. If it were, the description would suit Rome no better
than Jerusalem, though it might suit the Corinth, or, still more
closely, the Alexandria of the day. It is the description of
a eity which was a large consumer of both necessaries and
luxuries, and a profitable customer to the merchants of these things ;
and it suits Jerusalem exactly.
(d) And if it be said (xviii. 3) that all the Gentiles drank of
the wine of the wrath of her fornication, i. e. (I suppose) were
spiritually injured and corrupted by the religious unfaithfulness
of the Jewish Church, can it be doubted that the general moral
and religious condition of the Jews, then in contact, through
their dispersion, with the whole Gentile world, was such as to
operate to the serious discredit of religion in the Gentile mind,
and to the grievous hindrance of the spread of Christianity
among those who ignorantly, but very naturally, confounded it
with a Judaism which they had equal reason to hate and to despise ?
The first offer of the Gospel was made everywhere to the Jews,
who might have been everywhere its most effectual missionaries.
How they, as a race, rejected it, we know from the Acts of the
Apostles. And the deep-lying moral causes of that rejection,
the moral sins and defects in consequence of which, combined as
they were with a proud, exclusive, fanatical, profession of a true
religion, the very name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles
through them, we learn from the latter half of St. Paul's second
chapter to the Romans. It was an awful failure, after so grand
a history, so long and wonderful a providential preparation, in
Palestine and ' beyond it. It is not surprising it should have
drawn after it an awful judgment ; a judgment felt even to the
extremest bounds of that world-wide system of which Jerusalem
was the centre.
Another cause which has contributed to the mistaken identifi
cation of the Apocalyptic Babylon with Rome has been the
exclusive reference of such passages as vi. 9-1 1; xi. 18; xv.
2-4 ; xvi. 6 ; xvii. 6 ; xviii. 20, 24 ; xix. 2, to Christian martyrs,
whereas the reference really is to the saints and martyrs of the
Old Covenant, the great cloud of witnesses (p.apTvpa>v), the men and
women of days long past, of whom the world was not worthy,

5 18 The Apocalyptic Babylon is Jerusalem, [app.
and whose deeds of faith are celebrated in the eleventh of
Hebrews. The passage vi. 9-1 1 seems clearly to recall our
Lord's language in St. Luke xviii. 7 : Shall not God avenge his
own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long
with them ? I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. The cry
for vengeance was a just cry ; yet it was of the spirit of the Old
Dispensation rather than the New. It was the echo of the
dying words of that Zechariah whom, in the days of Joash,
they slew between the altar and the temple, The Lord look upon it,
and require it (2 Chron. xxiv. 20-22), and to whose martyrdom
the Lord specially referred, when, in His parting words of
judicial doom, He said to the Jews of His day that upon them
should come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth . . . Verily,
I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation,
upon that Jerusalem, which killed the prophets and stoned them
that were sent unto her (St. Matt, xxiii. 34, &c). Different was
the spirit of the first martyr of the New Covenant, who, after
the example of His Master, prayed for his murderers, Lord, lay
not this sin to their charge. With the others God bore long.
Waiting was their trial. They received not the promise: God
having provided some better thing for us, that they without us
should not be made perfect. The grace of perfect charity was a
gift of the Holy Spirit (God's good things, St. Matt. vii. 11, com
pared with St. Luke xi. 13), which gift could not be until after
Jesus was glorified (St. John vii. 39), for which reason he that
was least in the kingdom of heaven was greater than the greatest
of the saints of old (St. Matt. xi. 11). They therefore must
wait for their perfecting. Only now were white robes given unto
them, for they must be washed and made white in, the blood of
the Lamb. And even then it was said unto them that they
should rest yet for a little season, until their fellow-servants also
and their brethren, St. Stephen and St. James and their fellow-
sufferers at the hands of Jewish unbelief, that should be killed
as they were, should be fulfilled. In like manner, in the seven
remaining passages given above, in which this special sin of the
old Jerusalem is mentioned as drawing down judgment upon
her, the reference is certainly to the martyrs of the Old

note xl] Analysis of the Apocalypse. 519
Covenant, though not always exclusively, but including also,
as e. g. in vi. 11, the martyrs of Jesus, who, it is to be observed,
are separately mentioned in xvii. 6, I saw the woman drunken
with the blood of the saints and of the martyrs of Jesus. Here the
separate mention of the two shows that two distinct classes are
intended, and that the primary reference in this and the parallel
places is to the Old Testament saints. It is nothing less than
astonishing that this should have been so overlooked, see e. g.
Alford's note on vi. 1 1 ; but the mistake has had a most mis
leading influence on the interpretation of the Apocalypse. This
leading point is made more clear by a close observation of the
passage in which the Christian martyrs are plainly spoken of.
It is xx. 4 : And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and
¦judgment was given unto them : and I saw the souls of them that
had been beheaded for the testimony of Jesus, and for the word of
God, and such as worshipped not the beast, neither his image . . .
and they lived, and reigned with Christ a thousand years. The
phrase 1 saw the souls recalls vi. 9, and shows that this is the
Christian counterpart of what the seer saw before. But they
are not under the altar, a phrase which recalls Jewish associa
tions, just as beheaded, a word never used in the earlier passages,
points distinctly to martyrdom at Roman hands, such as was
St. Paul's. On the contrary, they are enthroned with Christ.
And the vision is at a markedly later stage of the divine dis
pensations, after the binding of Satan had introduced the
millennial period, the times of the Gentiles.
I append a. brief analysis of the Apocalypse, as referring in
its immediate and primary (but not exclusive) application to
Christ's coming in judgment upon the Old Jerusalem and the
fallen Church of the Old Covenant.
Ch. iv. describes the scenery and setting of the- great
Revelation. The first trumpet-voice is probably, see i. 10, that
of Jesus. 'O Kadrjp.evo's, visible, human in form (v. 7), is the
representation of the Eternal Son, but regarded in His divine
nature; God, but 'God of God.' It is observable that in the
Apocalypse the Father is not distinctly mentioned by that
personal name, except in i. 6, His Father (i. e. of Jesus), and

520 Analysis of [app.
xiv. i, His Father (i.e. of the Lamb). The Godhead, the One
Divine Being, is spoken of throughout as (i) God, ©eo's, simply ;
or (2) as the Lord, Aeo-irorqs, once, viz. by the Old Testament
martyrs, vi. 10 (compare Acts iv. 24, and the only other in
stances of its use, both expressly of Christ, 2 Pet. ii. 1, and
Jude 4) ; (3) the Lord God, Kvpios 6 ©eos, xxii. 5, 6 ; and (4) the
Lord God Almighty, or All-ruling, 6 Kvpios 6 ©eos 6 UavTOKpdrap,
in nine places. The Lord Jesus in His human nature is pre
sented separately and distinctly, under the symbolical form of
the slain Lamb. The relation of the Man Christ Jesus to the
Godhead could be best brought out in this way. The recollec
tion of His visible humanity was at this date fresh in the
memory of the Church and of living persons. This wonderful
Book, thus presenting Him distinctly in His humanity, yet
identifies Him absolutely with the Lord God, and exhibits Him
worshipped as so identified; observe especially v. 18-14. He
is the A and 12, the Eternal. To bring this out would seem to
be one great object of the Book, an underlying link of con
nection with the fourth Gospel. And naturally, if it was to
comfort and support Christ's persecuted and suffering people
under and through the awful period of the 6kC\j/is fj peyakri,
which not in Judaea only but everywhere preceded and ac
companied the great catastrophe of Judaism.
The twenty-four elders are the patriarchs of the Two
Covenants. The four living creatures represent the powers of organic
animated creature-life.
Ch. v. The seven-sealed book is the Apocalypse itself. The
Lamb is the Saviour in His human nature, worshipped by the
elders, the angels, and every creature, as identified with 6
Ka0?jjtxez>os. Chs. vi, vii. The seven seals opened, vi. First seal: The
rider on the white horse is Jesus, as King, Conqueror and •
Judge, cp. xix. 11. Second, third, and fourth seal: the agents
and instruments of Judgment, War, Famine, Pestilence. Fifth
seal : The cry for vengeance from the Old Testament martyrs,
answering to the fourfold Come (not Come and see) of the four

note xl] the Apocalypse. 521
living creatures. Sixth seal: Signs of judgment immediately
imminent, cp. St. Matt. xxiv. 29, St. Luke xxiii. 30, but suspended
for the gathering together (Matt. xxiv. 31) and sealing of the
elect, i. e. the believing remnant from among the Jews, the
fKkoyrj of Rom. xi. 5, 7, the first-fruit (a-napxri) of Rom. xi. 16
and Rev. xiv. 4. Vii. 9-1 7 is a preliminary glimpse, proleptic,
after the manner of this Book, of the great Gentile Catholic
Church, including, ver. 13, the Christian martyrs who kept
coming (epxoiJ.evoL, 14) out of the Great Tribulation, which was
then actually going on.
Ch. viii. The Seventh Seal opened discloses the Seven Trumpet
Angels, the highest in rank, who stand (not stood) before God
(eo-T^Kacrt, implying permanent place and dignity), of whom Gabriel
is one, St. Luke i. 19. The Trumpets, chs. viii-xi, disclose in
order the process and method of Judgment, as the Vials the
actual execution. The first four Trumpets should be closely
compared with the corresponding Vials, both exhibiting plagues
on land, sea, waters, and celestial luminaries.
Ch. ix. The Three Woes, introduced by the last three
Trumpets. The First Woe (fifth Trumpet), the army of Locusts
from the Abyss, under their king, Abaddon, the angel of the
Abyss. The Second Woe (sixth Trumpet), the loosing of the
four angels from the river Euphrates, with their army of horse
men. The fifth and sixth Trumpets seem to be closely con
nected, and to announce (perhaps) the mustering of the hosts of
Rome, the instruments of judgment.
Ch. x. The Preparation for the Seventh Trumpet, which will
announce the Fiual Woe or actual consummation of Judgment.
The Mighty Angel of x. 1, Who is almost certainly the Son of
God (cp. i. 15, 16, and the Man clothed in linen of Ban. x. and
xii.), announces, ver. 6, that there shall be delay no longer, but
that, on the sounding of the seventh Trumpet, the mystery of God
should be finished, as declared to his servants the prophets.
Ch. xi. 1-14. The Episode of the Two Witnesses : scene,
Jerusalem. I have no theory as to whom we are to understand
by the Two Witnesses. They are described in language which
recalls at once Joshua and Zerubbabel in the Book of Zechariah,

522 Analysis of [app.
and Moses and Elijah of elder days. The reference is, ap
parently, to eminent witnesses for Christ within the doomed
city during the dark period of its final agony. It would seem
very probable that St. James the Just, the a8eA$o0eo's, the first
Bishop of Jerusalem and writer of the Epistle, who was martyred
in Jerusalem in 69, was one. The other has been thought to
be St. Peter.
Ch. xii. The Sun-clothed Woman (cp. Joseph's Dream, Gen.
xxxvii. 9), is the Ancient Church of Israel regarded as faithful,
the Mother of the Messiah, her royal Man-Child, Whom the
devil, acting through Herod the Great, seeks to devour. His
Incarnation dethrones the devil, who is cast down from heaven
to earth, cp. Luke x. 18 ; John xii. 31. But for a short while,
i. e. up to his millennial confinement in the Abyss, he has great
wrath, and causes much misery on earth, especially during the
6kl\jfis fj jxeyakrj (Matt.sxiv. 21; Mark xiii. 19; Luke xxi. 23 ;
xxiii. 29). He persecutes the woman and the faithful remnant
(Rev. xii. 13-17) ; but a place of refuge was prepared (6 and 14,
compared with Matt. xxiv. 15, &c.) and the Christians escaped,
as we know, from the beleaguered city to Pella.
Ch. xiii. The Beast, who, like the Dragon, has seven heads
and ten horns, is the then world-power, imperial Rome, seen
also in vision by Baniel, ch. vii. It combines the features of the
preceding world-powers, the Macedonian, the Medo-Persian, and
the Babylonian, the Leopard, the Bear, and the Lion. Its in
visible animating power is the devil, ver; 2. It persecutes both
Jews and Christians. The two-horned lamb-like Beast, ver. 11,
is the false idolatrous religion of Paganism, the false prophet of
xvi. 13; xix. 20; xx. 10. It enforces, on Jews and Christians,
the worship of the emperor and his image, as the impersonation
of the Beast. The number of the Beast, 666, is the numerical
value of the Hebrew letters of CAESAR NERO.
Ch. xiv. The contrasted Vision of the Heavenly Power, the
Lamb and His company stationed on Mount Sion. The an
nouncement of the fall of Babylon in ver. 8 is proleptic, antici
patory of ch. xviii. So also the visions of Judgment, the
Harvest, 14-16, and the Vintage, 17-20, are anticipatory.

note xl] the Apocalypse. 523
Chs. xv, xvi. The Seven Vials, the actual execution of Judg
ment. Ch. xv. The Vision of the Blessedness of the Martyrs, whose
number being now fulfilled the time of vengeance was come.
Ch. xvi. The Wrath of God actually poured forth upon the
land ; the Seven Vials answering to the Seven Trumpets, each
to each. Ver. 13 reveals in close conjunction the rival trinity
of evil, the Dragon, the Beast, and the false Prophet : i. e. (1) the
unseen animating spirit of evil in the background; (2) his
visible manifestation, and instrument and embodiment; and
(3) the bad moral and spiritual influence prbeeeding from them,
and seducing men to the worship of the evil one. Verses 14-16
are proleptic, and anticipatory of xix. 17-19, and xx. 8, 9.
Chs. xvii, xviii. The great Judgment upon Jerusalem described
more fully.
Ch. xvii. The Vision of Jerusalem as Apostate, the contrast
to the Vision of the faithful Israel as the Sun-clothed Woman of
ch. xii. She sits upon the scarlet Beast, i. e. is upheld by the
world-power of Imperial Rome, until it and its subordinate
kings, the ten horns, turn against her, to fulfil the will of God
and make her desolate.
Ch. xviii. The Fall of Babylon, in vengeance for the blood of
the Saints. Nothing comparable to this has ever happened to
any city save the Jerusalem of a.d. 67-70. It has no reference
whatever to Pagan Rome, the analogues of whose fall must
be sought in the fulfilled Old Testament prophecies against
Nineveh, Babylon, and Egypt, the great world-powers of old
and oppressors of God's people. It has a proportional analogical
reference to the Christian Israel, to Christian nations, churches,
cities, whensoever, and so far as, they, or any of them, the Seven
Churches of Asia, the Churches of North Africa and the East,
of Constantinople, of Rome, or of England, reproduce the sins and
faithlessness of the ancient Israel.
Ch. xix. Joy in heaven over the Triumph of Christ, Who
re-appears as the conquering rider on the white horse, crowned
not now with a wreath or garland, orecpavos, vi. 2, but with
many diadems (SiaSjj^ara irokka) xix. 13, King of kings, and Lord

524 The Millennium, or, [app.
of Lords, at the head of the armies of heaven, cp. Joshua v. 14.
The mention of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (for which
compare the corresponding portion of the Olivet Discourse,
Matt. xxv. 1-13) and of the contrasted Ar-mageddon Supper of
the great God, and the accompanying destruction of the Beast
and the false Prophet, are both proleptic, the former anticipatory
of xxi. 1 — xxii. 5j the latter of xx. 8-15.
Ch. xx. The Millennial binding of Satan in the Abyss. On
some points in this and the remaining chapters of the Apoca
lypse, see Notes XII, XV, and XVI, of this Appendix,
Note XII. § 171.
The Millennium, or, The Period of the Binding of Satan.
After his successful temptation of Man, the great adversary,
6 laravas, the old serpent, the great red dragon of Rev. xii. 3, the
Bevil, maintained a usurped power over Man and man's world.
He had a kingdom (Matt. xii. 26; Mark iii. 24; Luke xi. 18;
Rev. xi. 15), a kingdom of darkness (Col. i. 13); and was the
ruler of this world (John xii. 31), claiming a power and right
of disposal over its kingdoms (Luke iv. 7)- His agents, the
daemons, were the world-rulers of this darkness (Eph. vi. 12).
His power exercised through them as his angels was the
delegated power (efouo-ia) of darkness (Luke xxii. 53 ; Col. i. 13).
As he had beguiled Eve through his subtilty (2 Cor. xi. 3), so he
continued to deceive mankind, especially ra eOvrj, the uncove-
nanted races, the Gentiles (Rev. xii. 9 ; xx. 3, 8) ; lusting after
man's worship, through pride and jealousy of God, especially of
the Eternal Son ; drawing men's offered worship aside to him
self and his agents (1 Cor. x. 20 ; Rev. ix. 20, comp. Lev. xvii. 7;
Beut. xxxii. 17 ; Ps. cvi. 37), and tempting even the Incarnate
Son Himself to worship him.
The Incarnation broke this power of darkness, and began the
desolation of its kingdom. Not, perhaps, the Incarnation as a
mere fact in itself, but the operation of the Incarnate One as
soon as He began to act in the power of the Holy Ghost

note xii.] The Period of the Binding of Satan. 525
received at His Baptism (Luke iv; 1). There is no sign of the
disturbance of Satan's power until after Christ's victory in the
hand-to-hand struggle of the Temptation. After that He Who,
like his forerunner, made the good news of the near approach
of the kingdom of Heaven the first great subject of His preaching,
began to show His power over evil in His miraculous cures,
especially of human beings possessed with daemons. It is in
connection with the exercise of this His power by His delegated
agents the Seventy that He makes the remarkable statement
(Luke x. 18), / beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. By
that time some mighty change had taken place in the unseen
spiritual realm ; the power of evil had received some mighty
check. This is alluded to in Rev. xii. 7-10 as the war in heaven,
which, clearly subsequent to the Incarnation and the Birth of
the Man-Child, resulted in the casting out of the devil and his
angels from heaven to earth. The effect of this was a specially
malicious outburst of evil on earth in the period a.d. 30 to 70,
the devil's short time of great wrath (Rev. xii. 12). We may
thus account for the prevalence of demoniacal possession, and
the other remarkable evils and miseries of that time both among
Jews and Gentiles1, and for the great Tribulation (f) dkt\jns fj
ixeydkri, Matt. xxiv. 21, 29 ; Mark xiii. 19, 24; Rev. i, 9 ; vii. 14)
which so sorely tried the Christians until the Coming of Christ
to Judgment in the Destruction of Jerusalem.
Successive blows were dealt at the kingdom of evil as the
Work of the Incarnate One progressed. A strong light is
thrown upon the struggle by a great saying of our Lord, which
is organically connected with the Millennial passage in the
Apocalypse. It is given in Matt. xii. 22-45 and its parallels,
Mark iii. 22-27, and Luke xi. 14-26. The evil one had been
indeed 6 laxypos, the mighty one, but the Mightier One, 'O 'loxv-
po'repos, had come upon him, and, in a preliminary manner,. had
bound him ; not, as yet, so as to prevent his doing evil, e. g. pos
sessing men, but so as signally and manifestly to undo the evil
which he did, for the greater glory of God and of His Son.
The Millennia^JBmdmg, as the result of the completed work of
1 Compafl th«j£markable language of Tacitus, Histories i. chs. 2, 3.

526 The Millennium, or, [app.
the Risen, Ascended, Glorified, and Enthroned Christ, is here
foreshadowed. The Saviour's next great utterance, bearing on the forward
movement of the awful drama which was being enacted at that
critical epoch, is that recorded in John xii. 28, &c, as following
upon the third utterance of the Father's Voice from heaven,
Now is the judgment (vvv Kpicris (crisis) eort) of this world: now
shall the prince, or ruler, of this world be cast out outside : and I
(nayai), if I be lifted up, will draw all men to myself (¦npb<s lp.avTov,
i. e. to Myself), i. e. as the one true King, both of Jews and
Gentiles ; for He was, in deep inner spiritual reality, to reign
gloriously from the Tree, even in the moment of His deepest
apparent humiliation. But when these words were spoken the
casting out, i. e. out of this world as his kingdom and sphere of
power, was yet future, e/c/3\rjcb7o-erai efco, but imminent. The
final struggle, we cannot doubt, was in Gethsemane and on
Calvary. Then was their hour, and the power of darkness (Luke
xxii. 53). It was only through death that JesuS finally overcame
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil, and, with the
exception only of the brief permitted loosing at the close of the
Millennial Period, broke for ever his power over man in life and
in death, and over man's world. Thenceforward the unclean
spirit was exorcised. He was gone out of man. The house was
ready for the good Spirit of God as its legitimate possessor and
inhabitant ; and into the little band that were ready to receive
It, and who were the beginnings of His Church, Jesus inbreathed
It, in a preliminary way, on the Easter Night.
But the first open declaration of the victory was the Gift of
the Holy Ghost at Pentecost ; and, since possession by Him
depends on man's good will, for He is not a Spirit of violence,
so now for the Jewish Church and Nation the question was,
Would they welcome into their empty house Him Whom Jesus
as King had shed forth, or would they not ? They answered as
Jesus had foreseen ; and with the result that He foresaw, their
repossession, in sevenfold greater force, by the evil spirit, so
that their last state was worse than the first. See again the
whole passage, Matt. xii. 22-45, especially the close, Even so

note xii.] The Period of the Binding of Satan. 527
shall it be also unto this wicked generation. Comp. Acts vii. 51 ;
xiii. 40-52; xxviii. 25. From among God's ancient People
only a remnant (Rom. xi. 5), an election (7), a first fruit (16,
cp. Rev. xiv. 4), viz. the sealed 144,000 of the Apocalypse^
welcomed the Holy Spirit; and they, after having been carefully
guarded, by God's wonderful Providence, through the great
tribulation until after the decisive visible manifestation of the
Kingdom of Christ in the visitation of the apostate Church,
were added to the Gentile Tikripa>p.a which God called to fill the
gap created by their fall, and so were absorbed into the Catholic
Church of the Times of the Gentiles.
In the inner spiritual realm that decisive visible manifestation
was marked by the Millennial Binding of Satan, which is to
last through the now current Dispensation of the Times of the
Gentiles; for by the thousand years we are to understand a long
but, to us, wholly indefinite period. The Fall of Jerusalem, the
mystical Babylon, was the token that the kingdoms of this world
had become the kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ (Rev. xi. 15),
and that the Lord God All-Sovereign is King (Rev. xix. 6). During
the millennial period Christ's faithful ones, His martyrs and
saints, who have been raised with Him in the First Resurrection,
the resurrection of the soul to grace, now reign with Him
within the veil. Nay, inasmuch as in idea, but, as yet, in fact
only inchoately and imperfectly, the Church is already Christ's
kingdom on earth, His believing people who have the first fruits
of the Spirit, the pledge of the full reality of the great hereafter,
do, even in this life, reign with Him, being made to sit together
with Him in the heavenly places (Eph. ii. 6). They possess
already, though not as yet indefectibly, the franchise and
citizenship of the Heavenly City (Phil. iii. 20), being the children
of the free woman, the Jerusalem which is (as yet) above, which is
the mother of us all (Gal. iv. 26-31), and being, in the Com
munion of Saints, already one in Christ with those within the
veil. The kingdom of the Regeneration, though not as yet fully
manifested on earth, is already begun in Heaven, since the Son
of Man, its King, took His seat upon the throne of His glory
(Matt. xix. 28), on His Resurrection and Ascension. Into the

528 The Millennium, or, [app.
kingdom of the regeneration believers are admitted by Baptism,
the laver of Regeneration (Tit. iii. 5), which engrafts them into
membership with their glorified Head, so that, in their measure
and proportion, they share, in and with Him, its blessings now.
This was impossible before the Resurrection of Christ. But
then He overcame death, for Himself and for His members.
He broke down the barrier between the merely earthly life and
the eternal spiritual life, and ' opened the kingdom of Heaven
to all believers.' Thenceforward believers could pass, through
Him, from death unto life (John v. 24), from the merely natural
and mortal to the eternal life ; so that for them, abiding in Him,
death was abolished (1 Tim. i. 10). Hence the frequent con
nection in Holy Scripture, between the Resurrection (of course
presupposing the Death) of Christ and our Baptism ; between
His Resurrection, as the Firstborn from the dead, and our
Regeneration. For the former — St. Paul (Rom. vi. 4-11) speaks,
as of a past fact in the experience of Christians, of a death and
burial unto sin in baptism, and a rising again to newness of
life, wherein we are alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord;
of a justification from sin in its guilt, and a deliverance from
its dominion and power. Again, in Col. ii. 11-14, he speaks of
our burial with Christ in Baptism, and our rising again with Him
through the faith of the operation of God Who raised Him from the
dead, accompanied by a forgiveness of all trespasses, and a being
quickened into a new life together with Christ. And St. Peter
tells us (I. iii. 21) that the baptism which doth now save us does
so by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ; while — for the latter — he
speaks (I. i. 3) of God's having begotten us again (avayevvrfo-as)
unto a living hope, by the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Thus the
Christian ' state of salvation ' entered into by Faith and the
Sacrament of Holy Baptism, and persevered in by Faith and the
Sacrament of Holy Communion, is a state of life and light, a
ijew and eternal life as contrasted with the old natural state of
darkness and of death in trespasses and sins. Christ said it
should be so ; His Apostles say it is so. Christ said it should
be so; To Nicodemus, John iii. 3, 14, 15; To the Samaritan
woman, iv. 14, compare vii. 38 ; To the Jews, v. 24-29. This

note xii.] The Period of the Binding of Satan. 529
last is a specially important passage, because it is the foundation
of the idea of a spiritual resurrection consequent upon faith and
acceptance of Christ, and explains the distinction of Rev. xx.
4-6, between the first resurrection, that is, of the soul to the
new life of grace, which introduces to the millennial reign with
Christ, first, in the Communion of the Catholic Church, and,
secondly, more fully in Paradise, and so to the ultimate bodily
resurrection, the redemption of our body (Rom. viii. 23), which is
still future. To these same Jews again (v. 40) Christ com
plained that they would not come to Him that they might have life.
To the Galilaeans in the synagogue at Capernaum (vi.) He
announced Himself as the Bread of God, the Bread of 'Life , which,
coming down from Heaven, should give life unto the world; and,
more particularly, that the Bread which He would give was His
Flesh, for the life of the world, that Whosoever eateth His Flesh
and drinkeih His Blood hath eternal Life, as a present possession,
through the First Resurrection, and should have its crown and
completion in the raising of the body in the Second Resurrection
in the last day. A man eating of that Bread should not die, but
live for ever. These were indeed words of eternal life. To
Martha professing her faith in the distantly future bodily
resurrection of the dead at the last day, He said, I am now ('Ey<a
elpu) the present actual Resurrection and the Life. He that
believeth in Me, He said, though he had died, as Lazarus had,
yet shall he live, and whosoever being alive believeth in Me shall
never die. And the Risen Lord, meeting His Body of believing
followers for the first time on the Easter Night, breathed at
once into them the Spirit of Life from Himself, even as at the
beginning of the old, the natural, Creation, He had breathed into
the nostrils of His creature man the breath of his natural life.
So the Apostles understood His words and acts; and so they
deemed of the present reality and blessedness of the spiritual,
the eternal, Life, given, in Him, to His members.
The Millennium must then be conceived of as preceding the
final, the bodily, resurrection; as being, in fact, now current,
contemporaneously with the present conditions of earthly human
life. A careful comparative study of the passages which bear
m m

5 30 The close of the Millennium. [app.
on the question would seem to dispose entirely of those ideas
of a pre-millennial personal return of Christ, or of a post-
resurrection millennium, which were the foundation of that
Judaizing and fanatical millenarian belief, or ' Chiliasm,' which
the Church has rejected. It is to be observed that in the
cardinal passage, Rev. xx. 1-6, on the reign of the Saints with
Christ, it is not said that they shall during the period there
spoken of reign with Him on the earth. The unauthorized
importation, from v. io, of these last words, understood in the
literal, bodily, and visible sense, has been the cause of much
confusion and mistake, from which the Seer's significant phrase,
' I saw the souls,' &c. (comp. vi. io) might have saved the
careful reader. The passage v. io will, of course, have its full
and literal realization hereafter in the Consummated Regenera
tion after the bodily Resurrection, when the New Jerusalem, the
Heavenly City, that is, the Body of the Covenanted Faithful,
shall have come down from heaven to earth, xxii. 5, to be the
capital and centre of Christ's world-wide Kingdom of righteous
ness and peace, wherein the will of God shall be done on earth
as it is in heaven.
The predicted circumstances also of the close of the Mil
lennium further indicate that the period itself precedes the
end of the present age and determines before it. As towards
the close of the Jewish Dispensation, so towards the close of the
now current times of the Gentiles, Holy Scripture forecasts that
a loss of faith, probably gradual, among once Christian nations
will bring on, as its result and climax, the falling away, or
Apostasy (rj- aTrooraola, 2 Thess. ii. 3). Then the house, the
fabric of Christian society, having become empty, no longer
indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, no longer owning as its
King the Mightier One (6 10-xupo'repos), though swept and gar
nished with the highest results of a refined material civilization,
is repossessed by the mighty one, 6 ioxvpos, the unclean spirit,
who returns to it, bringing with him seven other spirits more wicked
than himself, so that the last state of de-Christianized society
becomes worse than its original heathenism. See Luke xi. 14-12 ;
and note that whereas St. Matthew, the Hebrew Evangelist,

note xn.] Bible Ideals. 531
preserves, in the parallel passage, xii. 45, the words of Christ
which intimated the fulfilment of His parabolic saying within
that. very generation, Even so shall it be also unto this wicked gene
ration, i. e. in the case of the Jewish Church, St. Luke, writing
for Gentiles, omits them, so .giving the saying a wider appli
cation, and indicating its possible realization in the case of the
Gentile Church also. This repossession by the evil one of the
once Christian Gentile society is consequent upon, or coincides
with, his being loosed from the abyss. He recovers, for a time,
his power, and goes forth (Rev. xx. 7-9) to use it in the old way,
viz. to deceive the nations, especially the nations which are in the
four corners of the earth, Gog and Magog (Query, The outlying
still unchristianized races ?), and to gather them together for a final
general attack on the still existing Christian Church. See
Notes XV and XVI in this Appendix.

Note XIII. § 176.
Bible Ideals.
On this subject I venture to quote a somewhat fuller passage
on the thought contained in the text, from a sermon preached
by the present writer at Oxford, as Select Preacher, in February,
1883:- " Holy Scripture presents to us a manifold revelation, or un
veiling, of things and persons spiritual and unseen, and far
above the reach of our natural faculties. The same is true, in
a measure, of the great conceptions of physical science; espe
cially, for example, in the department of Astronomy. But,
while these are intellectually delightful, and even absorbing —
nay, to the devout student (and it has been truly said, 'The
undevout astronomer is mad') a real help to faith, a felt
stimulus to worship — the ideal conceptions of Inspiration are
all this and more. For these, coming as they do from the
Almighty Creator of man, appeal to man's whole nature, to
his speculative intellect, to his moral affections and his con
science, and to his poetic and artistic faculties; and their in-
m m 2

532 Bible Ideals. [app.
fluenee is then duly and normally, and, as we may say, ideally
felt, when they make their proper impression on each of these
elements of human nature, normally susceptible and duly
balanced. But, ideal as they are, in their height and completeness of
perfection, they are not unreal — which is the too common
English conception of the Ideal. They are not unreal, in either
the sense of being non-existent, or of being impossible to exist ;
or of having no tendency to exist among those to whom they
are proposed as Ideals ; or of having no uplifting force on the
lives and characters of even the most unpromising of their
possible and conceivable subjects.
On the contrary — they are inherently and forcibly practical ;
because of their exact adaptation, by way of complement and
counteraction, to the dull and lowering, the dark and depress
ing, the, surely, but for them, despairing conditions and cir
cumstances of our human life, as it is known to all but the
unenviable few whom either -an apathetic callousness, or else
a childlike acquiescence in the sunshine of a material prosperity,
dispenses from the necessity of reflection, and lands in a con
scious or unconscious agnosticism, of either the sunny and
cheerful kind, or else the dull, the gray, the leaden kind.
Among inspired Ideals are the following : —
First, the great Ideal of God, the Infinite, the Absolute,
the Uncreated, the Eternal ; Father, Son, and Holy Ghost,
our Maker, our Redeemer, our Sanctifier ; our indwelling, ever
present friend ; Whose very being is light and love, answering
unspeakably to all that man, with either mind or heart, can
long for, 'Whose very greatness is a rest
To weaklings as we are.'
Then, the Ideal of the Spiritual, the Heavenly, world ; the
world of the Angels ; created spirits, countless in number,
excellent in power, glorious in beauty, not mere spirit, as God
only is, but clothed and defined in spiritual or heavenly bodies
and so needing, and therefore enjoying, a material dwelling-
place, God's vast universe of unimaginable beauty and grandeur.

note xiii.] The Bible Ideal of Worship. 533
Next, the Ideal of Man, a little lower than the Angels, yet
crowned with glory and honour ; the lord of this lower world,
with all things put in subjection under his feet, the child, the
son, of God, created for full communion with God in a never-
ending moral, intellectual, and spiritual advancement.
Then, the Ideal of Eternal Life, as the normal and destined
condition of Angels and of men ; a life whose essence is the
knowledge and the love of God as revealed in and through
the Eternal Son, the Mediator, the Incarnate, in Whom, for
His heritage and possession, are summed up and united for
ever all things, both the things in the heavens and the things on
earth (Eph. i. 10).
Then, the Ideal of Redemption, as the inconceivable revelation
of the love and of the resources of God, Father, Son, and Holy
Ghost, exercised in the recovery of man from sin and death,
and his exaltation to a consummated blessedness, in body and
soul, of which the glorified Manhood of Christ is at once the
Ideal, the pattern, and the pledge.
Other inspired Ideals, more or less particularly involved in
these, might be specified ; such, for example, as the moral Ideal
exhibited, for our love, our reverence, and our imitation, in the
human life and character of Jesus, as the Perfect Man.
That of which I would now speak more particularly is, the
Ideal of Worship, as set before us in the Bible.
It is an Ideal to the grasping of which the average English
mind is, not without reason, thought to be somewhat unapt.
For any moderately worthy acceptation of it involves a strong
and realising sense of the unseen ; of persons ' unseen, yet ever
near,' of purely spiritual relations, purely spiritual agencies,
purely spiritual results — results, I mean, purely spiritual and
private in their first impact and operation upon our nature ;
but, surely, when they are real, evidencing their reality in
results and effects plain and traceable enough in those outward
features of life and conduct which are the visible fruits of cha
racter, known and read of all men.
Our defective imaginativeness reduces the power of realising
unseen objects. It detracts so much from faith, and, propor-

5 34 Symbolism of the Tabernacle and Temple, [app.
tionately, weakens the impulse of adoration, in respect of both
its imperious over-awing necessity and its beneficial effect on
the worshipper.
And, besides this cause, there is yet another which is very
operative in the way of favouring an inadequate sense of either
the obligation, the blessedness, or the real nature of worship ;
and that is, the failure to grasp the true and full meaning
of the Communion of Saints, that great fact of fundamental
Christian belief on which the inspired Ideal of Worship really
rests — I mean, the fact that, to us Christians, since and through
the work of Christ, Heaven and Earth are one, and so their
worship one.
Let us look, for a moment, at the very evident symbolism
of the Tabernacle and the Temple. There was the outer court
for the general congregation. Here the sacrifice was actually
offered. But it was in the Holy Place, within the first veil,
into which only the priests might enter, that it was presented,
by the sprinkling of the blood, accompanied by the offering
of the Incense on the golden altar ; while into the Most Holy
Place, within the second veil, the high priest alone entered,
once in each year, with the blood of the sacrifice of the great
day of atonement. This inner Holy of Holies was symbolical
of Heaven, the place of the immediate presence of God. But
when the way into the holiest of all was made open by the
blood of Christ, the veil was rent in twain ; the barrier between
Heaven and the earthly Church (symbolised by the Holy Place)
was done away in Him ; and while a full view (as one may so
say) was now afforded to faith into the opened Heaven and
of the mercy-seat of God, whither the great High Priest
entered to present His once-offered sacrifice of Himself, the
general condition also of God's whole redeemed people was
raised. Admitted as a royal priesthood they were now em
powered to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus
Christ, in that true Holy Place, the Christian Church, now,
through the opened veil, made one with the true Holy of Holies,
the Heaven beyond.
Henceforward, from and after the completion of the work of

note xiii.] Unity of Heaven and earth in Christ. 535
Christ, in His Ascension and His Gift at Pentecost, Heaven
and earth, spiritually, i.e. in respect of spiritual privilege, are
one. Access is free ; the barrier is removed. Christ, ever
spiritually present with it and within it, binds His Church on
earth to Himself in Heaven, the Body to the Head, by the
link of an indwelling supernatural life, which is the indwelling
presence of the Holy Spirit of God. This is the eternal life
of which Christ speaks, as the present (though not, as yet,
the indefeasible) possession of His people. Hence it is that
Christ's language ignores death : He that heareth My word, and
believeth Him that sent Me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into
judgment, but is passed from death unto life. He is that bread
which came down from heaven, of which he that eateth shall live
for ever. If a man keep my saying, Christ says, he shall never
see death. I am the resurrection and the life : he that believeth
on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live ; and whosoever liveth
and believeth in Me shall never die.
These are great words, most glorious, most blessed : so great,
so blessed, that we dare not even venture to conceive as possible
the appropriation of them to ourselves, did we not remember
whose words they are, Who is the Very Truth, whose repeated
reproach to even the nearer circle of His own disciples was for
the littleness of their faith ; Who seems to labour to make us
believe that it is our Father's good pleasure to give us the kingdom.
He spake not such words, of the sublime reality and complete
ness of His Redemption of us, to delude or to mislead us, but that
we might dwell on them, feed on them, appropriate them, live
on them, live by them, die by them. Do not let us minimise
their greatness. Great as they seem, even to us, they are
doubtless yet greater than they seem ; and they are doubtless
truer than they seem great. For we cannot measure either
their greatness or their truth. We think at once too much
and too little, both of life and of death. We think too little,
too lowly, of what death may mean in its perfect work; for
we cannot realise the depth of complete and final separation
from God ; while yet we think too much of it, in its nearer,
its natural, its physical side towards us ; for we do not, in our

536 Bible Ideals. [app.
littleness of faith, realise the completeness of our redemption
from it. So, in like manner, we think too much, too highly,
of life in its nearer and lower and more familiar aspects, in
our fear of losing it; while- we think too little, too lowly, too
feebly of what it may be, of what it is, in its hidden fulness
of spiritual, heavenly, eternal, reality, in and from God through
Christ the Incarnate Son. Our inner life lies in this, that He
is one with us beyond all thought, through His real communi
cation of His Body and Blood to us, to and through the entire
bkoKk-npov of our God-created nature in body, soul, and spirit,
down to the deepest sub-conscious bases of our compound, yet
coherent, life ; so that we are one with Him, members of His
Body, of His Flesh, and of His Bones, one with Him in an in
destructible life — indestructible so long as we are in Him.
St. Paul, in his eighth chapter to the Romans, supplies us
with a good example of what I have called ' inspired Ideals ; '
of that high characteristic of the Bible revelation, of which
Cardinal Newman speaks in a great sermon for the Epiphany,
whereby ' Holy Scripture oft-times .(he says) represents things
as God views them, and as they are in His providential pur
pose, and speaks more commonly of the divine design . . . than
of the measure of fulfilment which it receives at this time or
that ... or it speaks of the profession of the Christian ... or
of the tendency of the divine gift in a long period of time,
and of its ultimate fruits.' So he expresses this feature ; and
its underlying principle and explanation he indicates in the
following passage: — 'Whereas God is one, and His will one,
and His purpose one, and His work one, whereas all He is
and does is absolutely perfect and complete, independent of
time and place, and sovereign over Creation, whether inanimate
or moral, yet in His actual dealings with this world, that is,
in all in which we see His Providence, in that man is im
perfect, and has a will of his own, and lives in time and is
moved by circumstances, God seems to work by a process, by
means and ends, by steps, by victories hardly gained, and
failures repaired, and sacrifices ventured. Thus it is only when
we view His dispensations at a distance, as the Angels do,

note xiii.] St. Paul's language about Predestination. 537
that we see their harmony and their unity ; whereas 'Scripture,
anticipating the end from the beginning, places at their very
head and first point of origination all that belongs to them
respectively in their fulness.'
Accordingly the fulness of man's salvation — of which we
cannot think too highly, seeing Who it was that wrought it,
how He wrought it, with what love, and at what cost He
wrought it (thus giving us the measure of the value He set
upon our nature, which Himself created, and of the high
destiny for which He created it) — is in Holy Scripture set
forth in the fulness of God's design, which cannot really fail ;
set forth ' viewed as God's work,' which is ever perfect ;
viewed as God's work in itself, without man's co-operation ;
a picture of what God's work always and essentially tends to
be, ought to be now, and might be now, if Christians had
perfect, absolute, and entire faith; and what it will be abso
lutely hereafter, in the final state, in and for all those who
shall attain that world.
, In this way the language about predestination is accounted
for, Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate ; whom He
did predestinate, them He also called; whom He called, them He
also justified ; whom He justified, them He also glorified. It is
the Divine Ideal of man's redemption, viewed from God's side,
viewed as it is His purpose, viewed in its completeness.
In that view the salvation of the elect is an accomplished
fact. And the gifts and calling of God are without repentance.
He does not recall them. But their operation in individual
cases depends on individual free-will. It is for us to grasp,
in living faith and hope, and to grow up to the glory of, the
high calling wherewith we are called, the grandeur of our in
heritance in Christ. And the first step to that is, to believe-
that His words of what He has done for us, and of what is,
in and by Him, offered even to such as we are, are absolutely
true. By His death He hath destroyed death. He has abolished
death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the
Gospel. It is indeed a ' Gospel.' 0 Beath, where is thy sting ?
0 Grave, where is thy victory ?

538 The revealed Worship of Heaven. [app.
So in the ideal view, that is, the only worthy, the only
adequate, the only real, and Scriptural view, of Christian
Worship, Heaven and Earth are one, their worship one.
A worship of Heaven there is. Isaiah saw it. John saw it.
And, before Isaiah, Moses saw, alone in the mount with God,
a heavenly original and pattern, revealed to him, to copy in
the arrangements and the ritual of the Tabernacle, which, with
its priests, was to serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly
things (Heb. viii. 5), and especially of the mystery of propitiation
and atonement. With no mention of that feature — -for it was
the worship of the sinless seraphim which was revealed to him
— Isaiah reports the words of their Sanctus Hymn, Holy, Holy,
Holy, is the Lord of Hosts. The whole earth is full of His Glory.
Through the door opened in Heaven, St. John (Rev. iv. 1) saw,
as Isaiah, the solemn worship offered to One that sat on the
throne, and heard again the Sanctus, Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord
God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come. But, round
about the throne he saw, as worshippers, not alone the six-
winged living creatures, but, on four and twenty thrones, the
four and twenty elders, the crowned and glorified representatives
of the Israel of God, of both the earlier and the later stage,
now united and made one new man in Christ (Eph. ii. 14). But
here, in significant addition to the song of worshipful praise
for the glory of Creation — Thou art worthy, 0 Lord, to receive
glory, and honour, and power : for Thou hast created all things,
and for Thy pleasure they are, and were created, — there follows
the thanksgiving for the greater wonders of redemption. And
this is especially addressed to One Who is revealed under the
expressive symbol of the Lamb as it had been slain, and Who is
immediately afterwards identified, as an equal object of worship,
with Him that sitteth upon the Throne. Naturally, this special
thanksgiving of the redeemed belongs to the Israel of God ;
The four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb . . . and
they sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy . . . for Thou wast
slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood out of every
kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation. But this again is
followed by a hymn from an outer circle of the myriads of

note xiii.] The Worship of the New Jerusalem. 539
angels, Worthy is the Lamb that was slain . . . and that again
by the voices of every creature, in heaven, and earth, and sea,
saying, Blessing, and honour, and glory, and power unto Him that
sitteth upon the Throne, and unto the Lamb for ever and ever.
And this is a picture of the actual worship of this present
dispensation, now going on, in the unseen state within the
veil. It is not the worship of the consummated state, after
the resurrection, in the new heaven and earth, after the return
of the Bridegroom, after the marriage supper of the Lamb in
the holy, the heavenly city, the New Jerusalem, the true
'vision of peace,' then planted upon the regenerated earth.
For its brief description of that state the Apocalypse waits
until its closing chapters, after the present millennial reign.
The worship which St. John describes in the fourth and fifth
chapters must be conceived of as the worship, now going on,
of the Church beyond death, of the new Jerusalem which is
the mother of us all, the City which hath the foundations, whose
builder and maker is God ; the city which, in old days, from
Abraham onwards, God's faithful people knew of, and longed
for, and sought for, declaring plainly that they were strangers
and pilgrims on the earth; the city which, in due time, as
God's plan providentially unfolded itself, was typically fore
shadowed to the faith of the devout Israelite by the glories of
the earthly Jerusalem and the Hill of Zion, from David and
Solomon onwards ; the city to which, and to no earthly Sinai
or Jerusalem, we Christians are come, the city wherein already
our citizenship is (Philip, iii. 20), though
'By Babylon's sad waters
Mourning exiles now are we ; '
the Jerusalem which is above, and is free ; the Mount Sion, the
city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, in whose ranks
are included the innumerable company of the angels, as well as
the general assembly and Church of the Firstborn of the new
Covenant, and the spirits of the just of the older Covenants,
now at the length, — after patient waiting, God having pro
vided some better thing for us, that they without us should not
be made perfect (Heb. xi. 40)— now at the length made perfect,

54-Q Christ the Mediator of the New Covenant, [app.
through the work of Jesus, the Mediator of that new Covenant
whereinto they are now united, so that their twelve repre
sentatives are enthroned together with the twelve whom Jesus
chose, and to whom He promised that, in the regeneration,
when the Son of Man should sit on the throne of His glory, as
He has done ever since His ascension, they also should sit on
twelve thrones with Him, the Princes, and the Judges, of His
Israel. Into this Regeneration, into this new Covenant, into this
world to come — or rather, to us, now come (for the writer to
the Hebrews spoke from the point of view of the time before
that judgment of the old Jerusalem, which was the formal and
manifest inauguration of the millennial period, the times of the
Gentiles) — into this redeemed world, now truly, though not
yet fully come, we were admitted at our Baptism, when first
we tasted its powers (Heb. vi. 5), and were made partakers of
the Holy Ghost, Who is its inner regenerating and renewing
force. Thus, in the true conception of that great article of
our Creed of which I spoke as the foundation of any true idea
of Christian worship, 'The saints on earth and those above
But one communion make.' "

Note XIV. § 185.
Christ the Minister (Aarovpyos, Heb. viii. 2) of the New Covenant.
Let me here earnestly commend the attention of my readers
to the valuable and interesting exposition by my venerated
predecessor in the parish of Barnes, the late Canon Melvill,
of Heb. viii. 2. A minister (keirovpyo's) of the sanctuary, and of
the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man. The
sermon is entitled ' Christ the Minister of the Church,' and is the
second in the volume of his sermons published by Rivingtons
in 1833, and also in Vol. I of their edition of 1872. Its lan
guage is remarkable, alike as having been first published in
the very year of the first issue of the Tracts for the Times, and

note xiv.] The Chtirch is the True Tabernacle. 541
as coming from the quarter of Church opinion with which
Canon Melvill was usually more particularly identified. 0 si
sic omnes ! I quote some of the leading passages by way
of a short analysis ; but the whole sermon deserves careful
study. ' St. Paul had in view those portions of the mediatorial work
which are yet being executed, and not those which were completed
upon earth. . . . The priesthood now enacted in heaven was
that on which he wished to centre attention. . . . Christ in
heaven and not Christ on earth is sketched out.'
Then, as to the meaning of the phrase the true tabernacle, &c.
' The most correct and simple idea appears to be, that, inasmuch
as Christ is the high priest of all who believe upon His name,
and inasmuch as believers make up His Church, the whole
company of the faithful constitute that tabernacle of which He
is here asserted the Minister. If we adopt this interpretation,
we may trace a fitness and accuracy of expression, which can
scarcely fail to assure us of its justice. The Jewish tabernacle,
unquestionably typical of the Christian Church, consisted of the
outer part and the inner ; the one open to the ministrations of
inferior priests, the other to those of the high priest alone. Thus
the Church, always one body whatever the dispersion of its
members, is partly upon earth where Christ's ambassadors
officiate, partly in heaven where Christ Himself is present.
St. Paul, referring to this Church as a household, describes Jesus
Christ as Him " of whom the whole family in heaven and earth
is named (Ephes. iii. 15);" intimating that it was no inter
ference with the unity of this family, that some of its members
resided above, whilst others remained, as warriors and sufferers,
below.. So that, in considering Christ's Church as the tabernacle
with its holy place, and its holy of holies — the first on earth, the
second in heaven — we adhere most rigidly to the type, and, at
the same time, preserve harmony with other representations of
Scripture.' ' We only keep up the imagery of Scripture when we take the
Church as that "true tabernacle" whereof the "Redeemer is the
Minister." '

542 Christ present with the earthly Church. [app.
'The "true tabernacle" is the collective Church of the
redeemed, whether in earth or heaven.'
Proceeding then to speak ' in the first place, of Christ as
Minister of the Church on earth,' he says, ' Now it is of first-rate
importance that we consider Christ as withdrawn only from the
eye of sense, and, therefore, present as truly after a spiritual
manner with His Church, as when, in the day of humiliation, He
moved visibly upon earth. The lapse of time brought no inter
ruption of His parting promise to the Apostles, " Lo, I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the world (Matt, xxviii. 20)."
He has provided, by keeping up a succession of men who derive
authority, in unbroken series, from the first teachers of the faith,
for the continued preaching of His word, and administration of
His sacraments. And thus He hath been all along the great
minister of His Church, delegating, indeed, power to inferior
ministers who "have the treasure in earthen vessels " (2 Cor. iv. 7) ;
but superintending their appointment as the universal bishop,
and evangelizing, so to speak, His vast diocese through their in
strumentality. We contend that you have no true idea of a
Church, unless you thus recognize in its ordinances, not merely
the institution of Christ, but His actual and energizing presence.
You have no right, when you sit down in the sanctuary, to regard
the individual who addresses you as a mere public speaker,
delivering an harangue which has precisely so much worth as it
may draw from its logic and its language. He is an ambassador
from the great Head of the Church, and derives an authority
from this Head which is quite independent of his own worthiness.
If Christ remain always the minister of His Church, Christ is to
be looked at through His ministering servant, whoever shall
visibly officiate. And though there be a great deal preached in
which you cannot recognize the voice of the Saviour ; and though
the sacraments be administered by hands which seem impure
enough to sully their sanctity ; yet do we venture to assert that
no man, who keeps Christ steadfastly in view as the " minister
of the true tabernacle," will ever fail to derive profit from a
sermon, and strength from a communion. The grand evil is, that
men ordinarily lose the chief minister in the inferior, and deter-

note xiv.] His Intercession 'within the veil! 543
mine beforehand that they cannot be advantaged unless the
inferior be modelled exactly to their own pattern. They regard
the speaker simply as a man, and not at all as a messenger. Yet
the ordained preacher is a messenger, a messenger from the God
of the whole earth. His mental capacity may be weak — that is
nothing. His speech may be contemptible — that is nothing.
His knowledge may be circumscribed — we say not, that is
nothing ; but we say, that whatever the man's qualifications, he
should rest upon his office. And we hold it the business of a
congregation, if they hope to find profit in the public duties of
the Sabbath, to cast away those personal considerations which
may have to do with the officiating individual, and to fix stead
fastly their thoughts on the office itself.'
' Christ, though removed from visible ministration, has yet so
close a concernment with all the business of the sanctuary —
uttering the word, sprinkling the water, and breaking the bread,
to all the members of His mystical body — that He must
emphatically be styled " a minister of holy things, of the true
tabernacle which the Lord pitched and not man." '
Thus far of Christ's indirect mediate action in the visible
earthly Church through His commissioned .representatives.
'But whilst the office of minister thus includes duties whose
scene of performance is the holy place, there are others which
can only be discharged in the holy of holies. These appertain to
Christ under His character of High Priest, no inferior minister
being privileged to enter " within the veil." You must, we
think, be familiar, through frequent hearing, with the offices of
Christ as our intercessor. You know that though He suffered
but once, in the last ages of the world, yet, ever living to plead
the merits of His sacrifice, He gives perpetuity to the oblation,
and applies to the washing away of sin that blood which is as
expiatory as in its first warm gushings. In no respect is it
more sublimely -true than in this, that Jesus Christ is " the same
yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." The high priests of Aaron's
line entered, year by year, into the holiest of all, making con
tinually a new atonement " for themselves and for the errors of
the people " (Heb. ix. 7) . But He who was constituted " after

544 His acceptable presentation of our Worship, [app.
the order of Melchisedec " king as well as priest, entered in once,
not " by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood "
(Heb. ix. 1 2), and needed never to return and ascend again the
altar of sacrifice. It is not that sin can now be taken away by
anything short of shedding of blood. But intercession perpetuates
crucifixion. Christ, as High Priest within the veil, so immor
talizes Calvary that, though " He liveth unto God," He dies con
tinually unto sin. And thus, " if any man sin, we have," saith
St. John, " an advocate with the Father" ' (1 St. John ii. 1).
' Once more. We may regard the prayers and praises of real
believers as incense burnt in the true tabernacle, and rising
in fragrant clouds towards heaven. Yet who knows not that this
incense, though it be indeed nothing less than the breathing of
the Holy Spirit, is so defiled by the corrupt channel of humanity
through which it passes, that, unless purified and etherealized, it
can never be accepted of God ? The Holy Ghost, as well as
Christ Jesus, is said to make intercession for us. But these inter
cessions are of a widely different character. The Spirit pleads
not for us as Christ pleads, holding up a cross, and pointing to
wounds. . . . He holds in His hands the censer of His own
merits, and, gathering into it the prayers and praises of His
Church, renders them a sweet savour acceptable to the Father.
Perfumed with the odour of Christ's propitiation, the incense
mounts ; and God, in His condescension, accepts the offering, and
breathes benediction in return.'
' To all true believers Christ Jesus is literally the Minister of
the sanctuary, preaching through the preacher, and administering
through his hands the Sacraments. ... As the High Priest of
His people, Christ offers up continual sacrifice, and burns sweet
incense. And when you combine these particulars, you have
virtually before you the Saviour in the pulpit of the sanctuary,
the Saviour at the altar, the Saviour with the censer; and thus,
seeing that He officiates in the whole business of the divinely-
pitched tabernacle, will you not confess Him the minister of that
tabernacle ? '
Passing to 'ministerial offices discharged by Christ towards
the saints in glory,' as distinct from what He does on behalf of

note xiv.] Antichrist. 545
His still militant Church, he restricts Christ's priestly action to
(a) atoning sacrifice for sin, which he says they do not need,
being ' beyond the power of sin,' and (b) intercession, in the
sense of presenting the prayers and praises of His Church, which
he also regards as needless for ' the saints in glory,' because ' the
music of their praises is rolled from celestial harps, and requires
not to be melodized.' This last assertion is probably erroneous.
It seems to be more true that the worship of the creature, being
necessarily finite and defective, needs, even in the case of the
very highest saints and angels, to be presented through the One
Mediator. See Lect. II, § 40, 41, 43, 45. But Canon Melvill
dwells exclusively, though with great eloquence, on our Lord's
ministrations as ' preacher or instructor ' in the unseen Church,
concluding as follows : — ' Removed as is the Church within the
veil from the ken of our observation, ... we can yet be con
fident that in the Holy of Holies there goes onward a grand
work of instruction ; and thus ascertaining, that, as a preacher
to His people, Christ's office is not limited to those who sojourn
in the flesh, we can understand by the " true tabernacle " the
Church above conjointly with the Church below, and yet pro
nounce, unreservedly, of Jesus, that He is " a minister of the true
tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man." '

Note XV. § 192. p. 386.
Antichrist.
It is very remarkable that the general subject of ra eo-xara
and, as part of it, the coming of the Antichrist, should have
formed so prominent a portion of the earliest recorded apostolic
preaching. The general subject is present in the thought of
St. Peter's sermon in Acts iii. It was part of that great thought
of the coming Kingdom of God, which was dominant in the
earliest preaching alike of the Baptist, of the Saviour, and of
His Apostles. It is especially prominent in the earliest writings
of the New Testament, St. Paul's Epistles to the Thessalonians,
written to a Church in which he had only spent three weeks,
N n

546 The Bible revelation [a pp.
yet alluding to the apostasy, and to the coming of that man of
sin, the son of perdition, that Wicked one, as among the things
which, while he was yet with them, he had told them of, 2 Thess. ii.
Looking back to the Old Testament it would be surprising if
David, as a great representative of the Kingship of Christ, had
not been led by the Spirit to speak prophetically of its great
opponent ; and no attentive student can read those three deep
and wonderful Psalms, ix, x, and xi — Psalms which so appro
priately follow the charter of the ideal greatness of the Perfect
Son of Man in Psalm viii — without perceiving that he was so
led1. Doubtless they had their fitness to the circumstances
of David's life ; but they point onward to a greater than David,
to greater enemies and a greater conflict, followed by a greater
triumph, than his. The history of the age-long struggle between
the kingdoms of light and of darkness furnishes its types and
forecasts of the great enemy in such personages as Cain, Nimrod,
Pharaoh, Sennacherib, Nebuchadnezzar, and Antiochus Epi-
phanes, to be followed by Nero and Simon the Son of the Star.
But the special prophetic revelation of him is to be looked for,
as the Church has ever believed, in Baniel, vii. 8, and 20, seqq.
(See Pusey' s Lect. on Ban., p. 81, &c), and viii. 8 seqq.; and
xi. 36, seqq. (Pusey, p. 96). In the Olivet Prophecy Christ
speaks of the rise of false Christs and false prophets ; and though
there is a distinction between the essential idea of civtixpiotos,
as the antagonist of Christ, and ^euuo'xptoros, the false pretender
to his character, we may yet, with Archbishop Trench 2, ' cer
tainly conclude that the final Antichrist will present himself
to the world as, in a sense, its Messiah ; not indeed as the
Messiah of prophecy, the Messiah of God, but still as the
world's Saviour : as one, who, if men will follow him, will make
their blessedness, giving to them the full enjoyment of a present
material earth, instead of a distant and shadowy heaven ; abolish
ing those troublesome distinctions, now the fruitful sources of
1 See Isaac Williams, The Psalms interpreted of Christ. We may indeed include
also the next three Psalms, xii., xiii., xiv., appropriately followed by Psalm xv.,
the pictured character of the accepted citizens of the Holy City.
2 On the two words in N. T. Synonyms, First Series.

note xv.] of the future Antichrist. 547
so much disquietude and pain; those, namely, between the
Church and the world, between the spirit and the flesh, between
holiness and sin, between good and evil. It will follow, there
fore, that, however he will not assume the name of Christ, and
so will not, in the letter, be a ^/evboxpio-ros, yet, usurping to
himself Christ's offices, presenting himself to the world as the
true centre of its hopes, as the satisfier of its needs and healer
of its hurts, he will in fact take up into himself all names and
forms of blasphemy, will be the great x//-eu8o'xptoros and avri-
Xpio-ros at once.'
In the Apocalypse, the revelation, in ch. xiii. verses 1-10,
which obviously directly refer to Ban. vii, is of the antichristian
world-power (then pagan Rome) which the personal Antichrist,
foreshadowed by Nero, the antichrist of that day, will wield :
while verses 11-17 speak of the false teaching, philosophic or
religious (so-called), personified in the false prophet of Rev.
xix. 20 and xx. 10, which, as his forerunner, will prepare the
way of Antichrist before him. The same kind of revelation is
indicated in our Lord's connected reference to false Christs and
false prophets. It appears again in St. John's Epistles, in which,
as he speaks (I. ii. 18) of the future coming of Antichrist as
a known part of Christian belief, and of there being, even then,
many (preliminary and typical) antichrists, so he speaks also
(I. iv. 1—3) of many false prophets gone out into the world, and of
a spirit of antichrist, whereof they had heard that it should come,
which was even now already in the world, and which is included
in St. Paul's expression, 2 Thess. ii. 7, the mystery of lawlessness,
which doth already work, i.e. in antagonism to the mystery of
godliness, the Divine Incarnation, 1 Tim. iii. 16.
The to Karexov (that which letteth, or holds back, the Antichrist
from being revealed in his own time, 2 Thess. ii. 6), personified in
the next verse as 6 kotsx^" k'Ti (he who now letteth) is best
understood, with the ancients1, as, immediately, i. e. in St. Paul's
day, and long afterwards, the civil power of Rome, as the then
embodiment and security of good and orderly government
(compare St. Paul's language in Rom. xiii. 1-7, and 1 Tim. ii.
' E. g. Tertullian, He Res. Carnis, c. 24 ; Liber Apologetic™, c. 32, and 39.
BT n 2

548 The spirit of ' lawlessness.' [app.
1-3, and his own actual appeal to Caesar); and then,
secondarily, secure and orderly civil government generally.
The taking out of the way of old imperial Rome was quickly
followed by the appearance of the Mahometan antichrist. It
seems that what is to be expected is the development, of which
we even now see the beginnings, within the old Christian civi
lization, of an uncontrollable and anarchical spirit of lawlessness,
which shall finally overthrow every form of civil government
and destroy the whole existing fabric of society. It will be,
on a practically world-wide and international scale, the supreme
instance of that democratic decomposition which the student of
history and of politics is familiar with from Plato and Aristotle
onwards, in states great or small, in the later stages of their
history. The tendency towards it has not been as rapid in
Christendom, as in the older pagan polities ; partly because
of their larger size and their freer scope for colonial expansion ;
but more because of the presence within them, or their identifi
cation with, the Christian Society, which is the salt of the earth.
But when the salt shall have lost its savour, through the weaken
ing or loss of faith, and through the divisions of Christendom,
it may well be that the natural downward tendencies of merely
human organizations, stimulated and inflamed by the overgrowth
of population, with its attendant hopeless misery for large classes
of the people, may result in the complete overthrow of to
Kovrkxov ; which, after all, when unsupported by the presence
of living moral and religious principle in its subjects, reposes,
ultimately, only on brute force, and so must go down before
stronger brute force in the hands of irresistible multitudes.
Then, still on the lines of the old familiar process, but on
a grander scale, will be the opening for 6 rvpavvos, the world
wide popular hero, the world's messiah, the ' saviour of society/
who shall bring in the secular ' good time coming,' in which,
having at length got rid by combined effort, under his leader
ship, of the incubus of a supernatural religion, and substituted
for it the ' religion of humanity,' culminating in the worship
of the personal Antichrist, as the head and representative of
humanity, and, really, through him, of the Evil One who is

note xv.] The ' loosing of Satan! 549
behind him, the ' tribes of the earth,' amid much promise of
unexampled material success and prosperity, shall give them
selves up to a wholly secular existence, eating and drinking,
marrying and giving in marriage, with a firm persuasion that all
things are to continue as they were from the beginning of the
creation, 2 Pet, iii. 4.
Antecedently to this the Millennium (see above, Note XII.
p. 524), closes with the loosing of Satan. This is probably a
gradual process, coinciding with, and possibly dependent and
consequent upon, that gradual decay of faith among once Chris
tian Nations which will culminate in The Apostasy, which is a
condition precedent of the Manifestation of the Lawless One.
This Son of Perdition, a title which indicates his ultimate destiny,
will be the visible earthly agent of the Evil One ; indeed, his all
but incarnation, but that incarnation would imply a creative act,
which he cannot compass. The nearest approach possible for
him is his complete ' possession ' of one who, for the sake of the
Devil's bribe, the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them,
shall be willing to comply with the Devil's condition, All this
will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me, as a pre
liminary to his own receiving, as the representative of the Devil,
the worship of mankind, as the Man-God, the deified head of
humanity, the accursed parody of the Christ. Archbishop
Trench writes (Five Cambridge Sermons, Macmillan 1857, Serm.
I. p. 18) ' "God is man," or " Man is God" — we must choose
between these two statements, and accept the tremendous con
sequences of our choice. A time in the development of the
history of our race arrives, when these are the only alternatives
for every man. And if we are willing to believe St. Paul and
St. John, be sure, brethren, that the question in the end will
present itself to every man in a very palpable form, and one
from which there shall be no escape, but that he must answer it
one way or the other. Will he accept the God-man, Him who
was God from everlasting before He was made man ; or in lieu
of Him, a man-god, a man that has lifted up himself, and been
lifted up by the consent of his fellows, to this blasphemous
height ? Nor is it Scripture alone which declares this : he must

550 Archbishop Trench on Antichrist. [app.
be blind indeed to the moral signs of the times, who cannot per
ceive this mystery of iniquity, the last and the crowning one,
already working ; this world-wide conspiracy, the same of which
David spake in the second Psalm, spreading through an apostate
Christendom, which is ripening more and more for an open
revolt from its Lord. " Man is God," this is the new Gospel,
which is seeking to supplant the old, or " God is man." It
needs hardly be observed that this new gospel is indeed atheism,
and that veiled under thinnest disguise. For " Man is God,"
what after all does it amount to but this — "Man is man"? for
they who so speak, having in this very utterance evidently
renounced a belief in God, in a Being, that is, greater, better,
holier, wiser than man, have no right to retain and juggle with
a name which belongs to another and a higher range of things
than any which they would acknowledge, to deck themselves
with its spoils, and by aid of these to cover and conceal their
own miserable poverty ; crouching, like some barbarous horde,
beneath the ruins of temples and palaces which they themselves
have destroyed. But leaving this, which is but by the way, the
time will assuredly arrive when every man will have to choose
for the one or the other. So it was at the first founding' of the
Church, when martyr and confessor first took their side, braving
all and enduring all, rather than that they would give to any
other man the honour and the worship which was rightfully
their Lord's. So shall it be once more, amid fiercer fires and
yet sharper trials, when the Church is passing through the final
agony, " the great tribulation," which shall precede its entrance
into glory. What the God-man is, in meekness, in patience, in
love, in holiness, this the history of Jesus of Nazareth abund
antly declares. Nor are we left in total ignorance of what the
man-god will prove. We need but to study him in the com-
pletest manifestation which he has yet assumed, I mean, of
course, in the deified emperors of Rome, a Tiberius, a Nero,
or a Domitian, and we may a little guess the moral lineaments
which he will wear. What altogether he will be, it is reserved
for the final Antichrist, in his yet more complete opposition to
all which is divine, in the final apotheosis of man, to declare ;

note xv. J St. Hippolytus on Antichrist. 551
when he, being indeed incarnate sin, shall " as God sit in the
temple of God, showing himself that he is God," and being
accepted and worshipped as such by all save the little company
(and they will be a little one then), who shall recognize in Jesus
of Nazareth the only begotten of the Father, and who in the
strength of this confession, " I believe in Jesus Christ, the Son
of God," shall overcome at last by the blood of the Lamb, issuing
triumphantly from those fires in which they shall have been
purified and made white and tried. To this decision, to this
solemn consummation, the world's moral history, " the times of
the Gentiles," are travelling, and by ever faster strides.'
The aim of the unseen agents and statesmen of the dark kingdom
of evil has ever been at world-wide empire, the concentration of
the world-power into one hand. This is, very evidently, becom
ing more and more possible, and probable. It seems that it will
be realized, for a brief period, in the person of the Antichrist ;
who will use it in the furious endeavour to destroy the Faith
and the Church of Christ from off the earth, as the great
obstacle in the way of his designs, and especially of the world's
worship of himself. Among early Christian writers, Hippolytus
Romanus (a. d. 200) has left a special treatise On Antichrist
which reeals passages in Origen's writings, and, as might be ex
pected from his having been a hearer of Irenseus, has some points
in common with the latter's treatise Against Heresies. He
describes Antichrist, whom he identifies with the ' little horn' of
Ban. vii. 8, as in close particulars a parody of Christ, as a ' cir
cumcised Jew,' ' of the tribe of Dan/ who will ' send forth false
apostles/ and ' gather together the scattered people,' and who,
' as the Saviour raised up and showed his holy flesh as a temple,
will himself raise up again the temple of Stone in Jerusalem,'
and 'restore again the kingdom of the Jews'; that he will be
' a tyrant and king,' ' ruling over the whole world/ ' a terrible
judge,' ' a son of the devil,' ' a vessel of Satan,' ' a shameless
fighter against God.' Describing (§ 54) his ' mode of action,' he
says ' He will summon all the people (i. e. of the Jews) to him
self from every country of the dispersion, claiming them as his
own special children, promising to restore (d7roKaraar7]o-eii>) the

552 'St. Cyril of Jerusalem on Antichrist, [app.
countiy and to raise up again their kingdom and people, that he
may be worshipped as God by them ;' that (§ 55) he will also
' summon to himself humanity (ttjv avdpamorrjTa), wishing to
claim for himself what does not belong to him, promising deliver
ance to all, though unable to save himself ; that (§ ^6) ' having
gathered together to himself the people which everywhere has
become unbelieving, he will, at their invitation, come to per
secute the saints, their enemies and opponents,' and ' being
puffed up by the Jews, who seek at his hands vengeance against
the servants of God, will begin to send out against the saints
edicts for the destruction everywhere of all who will not adore
and worship him as God.' Hence the ' great tribulation ' and
fierce persecution ; which will, however, last only a short time,
being cut short by the Coming of Christ. All this shall befal
(§ 43) in the last seven years, the last ' week of years,' of this
Age ; the Persecution falling in the last half week, or three and
a half years ; at which time also ' the two prophets, Enoch and
Elias,' whom Hippolytus identifies with the Two Witnesses of
the Apocalypse, will reappear, as the forerunners of the Second
Coming, ' to proclaim the imminent Epiphany of Christ from
heaven, and, working signs and wonders, to turn men to repent
ance because of their exceeding lawlessness and ungodliness.'
The XVth Catechetical Lecture of St. Cyril of Jerusalem
(a. d. 350) is also on this special subject, and deserves the atten
tion of the student. It agrees, for the most part, very closely
with St. Hippolytus' Treatise, which in all probability St. Cyril
had seen ; for the works of Hippolytus were very widely circulated
in the East1. On the passage (§ 15) in which he says that ' Anti
christ, wishing to deceive the Jews into the belief that he is
the Christ, will show a zealous anxiety for the rebuilding of the
Temple,' i. e. at Jerusalem, of which he understands 2 Thess. ii. 4,
his Benedictine editor Tutteus notes that this was a very general
opinion, and quotes St. Gregory Nazianzen, Orat. xlvii. as inter
preting the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place, of
1 Antichrist, who will be believed by the Jews to be Christ, and
' See Dr. Salmon's article, ' Hippolytus Romanus ' in the Diet, of Christian
Biography.

note xvi.] The Restoration of the Jews. 553
will be seated in the rebuilt Temple, and will seem to be King of
the whole world.' It seems hardly possible to resist the belief
that some remarkable movements among the Jews may be con
nected with the close of the Times of the Gentiles, until the fulfil
ment of which Jerusalem is to be trodden down of the Gentiles,
St. Luke xxi. 24. Perhaps the world-diffused race may do for
the furtherance of the aims of this pretender what they would not
do for the religion of Jesus. Ancient Christians based their
thought that this will be so on St. John v. 43, If another shall
come in his own name, him ye will receive. It is quite conceiv
able that in future schemes of world-wide Empire the Jews may
play a large part, especially in the financial aspects of any such
movement. They have, alas, motives enough for a virulent spirit
of revenge towards Christendom. But see the next Note. On
the general subject of Antichrist the student may consult
Dr. Doellinger's Appendix I, On the History of the Interpretation
of the passage about the Man of Sin, in his First Age of the Church,
and the article 'Antichrist' in J. H. Blunt's Bictionary of
Boctrinal and Historical Theology.
Note XVI. § 192. p. 388.
The Restoration of the Jews.
The whole subject of Inspired Prophecy relating to the des
tinies of the children of Abraham needs, perhaps, a careful re
investigation. It runs through the whole Bible Revelation from
first to last; and a just view of it may be necessary to a just view
of the whole with which it is so intimately bound up. It can
hardly be denied that the general tenour of Old Testament pro
phetic language with regard to God's treatment of and purposes
towards the Jews does point to a recovery and a restoration to
His favour, and to their own country, which are beyond what has
already happened in their past history, whether in the Return
from the Captivity, or in the Maccabean deliverance from the
godless tyranny of Antiochus Epiphanes, or in the offer to them
of the kingdom of God and the admission of the believing remnant

554 The Bible revelation concerning [app.
into the Catholic Church, their merging in it, the true Israel
of God : i.e. it points to something which is still future, it is not
yet exhaustively fulfilled. To think this is entirely consistent
with the fullest acknowledgment of a most glorious and blessed
spiritual fulfilment, in the Christian Church, of the promises to
Abraham and to David, and of the later prophecies to and con
cerning the People of Israel.
The student should carefully consider, as a whole, the follow
ing passages : —
I. The Law. The germinal parent passage, the promise to
Abram, Gen. xii. 1-8, compared with xxiii. 4, Acts vii. 3-5, and
Heb. xi. 8, etc. : Gen. xiii. 1 4, etc. : The Solemn Covenant, xv.
7, etc., especially 18 : xvii. 8, the Sign of the Covenant: The
Promise to Isaac, xxvi. 2-5 : To Jacob, xxviii. 13 : Jacob's
faith in the Promise, xlvii. 29 ; xlviii. 4, 21 : Joseph's faith in
the Promise, 1. 24.
Exod. iii. The promise of the immediate and primary ful
filment. Lev. xxvi. The enjoyment of the land depends on observance
of the Covenant, cp. Beut. v. 33 and Beut. viii. and Beut.
passim : Lev. xxvi. 33, The Scattering; 41, The promise, even
then, to repentance.
Num. xiv. The people, through their faithlessness, cannot
enter the land.
Beut. xxviii. 64, The Scattering : xxx, The promise to re
pentance. II. The Prophets. Joel, the first to speak of The Bay of the
Lord, forewarns of judgment through a people great and strong,
yet invites to repentance, promises restoration, and the Gift of
the Holy Ghost, cp. Acts ii. 16, etc., and passes on to the Final
End in the Judgment of the Gentiles, and the New Jerusalem.
His prophecy in fact is a germinal epitome of the whole sweep
of inspired prophecy, later prophecies, even to the Apocalypse
inclusive, being but the expansion of its topics.
Amos, Warnings of awful judgment against Israel and Judah,
yet with the promise of Restoration, ix. n, etc.
Hosea, i. and ii., God's Church guilty of whoredom ; conse-

note xvi.] the Future of the Jews. 555
quent judgment, yet promise of Restoration : iii. 4-5, Restora
tion : so also vi. 1-3, xi. 8-1 1, and xiv.
Micah, ii. 12, 13, Salvation of a Remnant : iv. 1-8, The final
Consummated State.in the New Jerusalem; (observe the identity
of iv. 1-3, with Isaiah ii. 2-4) : vii. 20, The sureness of the
promise, a verse reproduced in the Benedictus, Lu. i. 70, etc.
Isaiah, i. 24 : ii. 2—4 : iv. 2-6, Restoration of the Divine
Presence : vi. 13, Even at the worst a stem remains: xi, xii.
(xi. 4 is applied by St. Paul, 2 Thess. ii. 8, to the destruction
of Antichrist) : xiv. 1-3, Return from Captivity, not necessarily
exhaustively fulfilled in any past returns : xxv, xxvi, point to
the Pabngenesia, xxv. 8, 9 and xxvi. 19, looking on to the
Resurrection (as Dan. xii. 2, 3, 13) as a necessary part of it:
xxx, Judgment followed by Restoration, so xxxi, xxxii : xxxii,
The out-pouring of the Holy Spirit, cp. xliv. 1-5 : xxxiii.
1 5—23, Restoration : xxxiv, The Judgment of the Anti-Christian
world : xxxv, The Pabngenesia : xl. 1— 1 2, The great Fore
runner of the Advent, cp. Mai. iii. iv, fulfilled primarily, but
not exhaustively in St. John Baptist : also xlix. 14, etc.; Ii. 9
to Iii. 1 2 ; liv, lv ; lxi-lxiv ; lx. 1 7, etc. and lxvi.
Zephaniah speaks of judgment, invasion, the conversion of the
Gentiles, the salvation of a remnant of Israel, and the Restora
tion of Zion and Jerusalem.
Habakkuk, ii. 2, 3, comparing Heb. x. 33, and the LXX ;
also ii. 14 ; and Obadiah 15-21.
In Jeremiah the passages to be noted are iii. 12-18 ; xvii.
25, 26, compared with xxii. 4 ; xxiii. 3-8; xxiv. 4-7 ; xxx,
xxxi; and xxxiii. 14-22.
In Ezekiel xi. 16-20, compared with xxxvi. 24, etc.; xvi.
60-63 ; xx. 40-44 ; xxxvii ; and chs. xl-xlviii.
Daniel speaks much of the final time of trouble (xii. I, cp. xi.
33) under Antichrist, of whom Antiochus Epiphanes was an
eminent type ; hints, xi. 45, at his opposition to Christ, cp.
viii. n and 25, his suppression of Christian worship in the
(restored and Christian) Sanctuary at Jerusalem, viii. 11, xi.
31, with the help of the unbelieving Jews, xi. 31 ; his substitu
tion of his own temple-palace in its place, xi. 45. But he does
not dwell on any pre- Advent restoration of believing Christian
jewSj — though his language about the Sanctuary, and the daily

556 St. Paul's langttage in Rom. xi. [app.
sacrifice, which Antichrist destroys, implies it — but passes on
to the Resurrection, in which he is promised a share.
The three last prophets, the prophets of the Return from
Babylon, speak, no doubt, of the joys and blessings of that'
restoration, and point onwards to the Coming of Christ, of
which it was a type and a pledge. Yet they do so in language
which blends in prophetic fore-shortening the glories of the
First and of the Second Coming, and so is not yet exhausted.
Observe especially Haggai ii. 6-9 and 20-23, on which see
Dr. Pusey's commentary; Zechariah, ii. 10-13, especially re
garded as spoken by the Eternal Son ; viii. 1-8 (comparing
2 Sam. vii. 11 and Rev. xxi. 7), and viii. 20-23 ; and xii-xiv,
where see Pusey on xii. 1, xiv. 2, 4, 5, etc. ; and Malachi iii.
and iv, where see Pusey on iii. 1, 2, on the ' blending of the first
and second coming of our Lord;' and on iv. 5, on the return
of Elijah.
The language of St. Paul in Romans xi. seems absolutely to
forbid the thought that these prophecies have already, and,
indeed, long since, been exhaustively fulfilled. Eighteen cen
turies of subsequent history, exhibiting the Jewish Race shut up
indeed together in unbelief, yet still guarded throughout in their
marvellous national and religious distinctness, only make the
Apostle's inspired language to be now even more remarkable
than when it was uttered. He speaks of some future recovery
which shall be, as it were, life from the dead. How are we to
understand this expression? One speaks with hesitation. On
these subjects thought moves' among mysteries which the future
course of events alone can fully unravel. Any suggestions must
be tendered with the humblest submission to the corrective
thought of other believing students of Holy Scripture, and to
the ultimate judgment of the collective Christian Body. Yet
God wills that the intimations which He has vouchsafed to His
Church in the sure word of prophecy should be given heed to, as
unto a light shining in a dark place ; and the more so, as the end
draws nearer and the times grow darker. For us, and for those
that come after us, to do so is a duty exactly analogous to
that of the first generation of (especially Jewish) believers, with

note xvi.] The Final Combination against Christ. 557
regard to the enigmatic hints of the Olivet Prophecy ; the duty
of watching the signs of the times in a spirit of faith in His sure
deliverance at the moment of sorest need, a faith which in their
case was fully justified by the event. Looking then in this spirit
at St. Paul's language, may it mean that, in the predicted, and
now visibly incipient decay of faith among Gentile Churches, a
movement towards faith in Christ on the part of the Jews, or
some considerable proportion of them, may revive Christianity
in the world ; and that, coincidently with the return of the Jews
in large numbers, whether with Christward tendencies or other
wise, to their own land, Jerusalem, when the times of the Gentiles
shall have been fulfilled, may become once more, through the faith
of Christian Jews, the centre of Christian life in the world ? If
so, it would naturally be the great object of attack for the
mighty unbelieving world-power, then combining the forces of
the de-christianised Gentile nations with the races, the Gog
and Magog of prophecy, which have always resisted Christian
influences, and with the still unbelieving Jews who seek a false, a
merely earthly Messiah, and find him — in Antichrist. To this
Rev. xx. 9 seems to point, speaking of a time, evidently the very
climax of the last time, when, after the close of the millennial
times of the Gentiles, after the loosing of Satan, the camp (irapep.-
pokri) of the Saints and the beloved city, are threatened by alien
hosts, and the typical period of Hezekiah, face to face with the
insolence of Rabshakeh and the might of Sennacherib, is repro
duced, on a grander scale ; but with like result, in the end ;
though, apparently, not without the temporary capture of the
Christianized Jerusalem, the profanation of its restored (Christian)
Temple by the abomination of desolation, and its conversion into the
Temple-Palace of the temporarily successful Antichrist, who,
seated there, will claim the worship of mankind. Compare Baniel
viii. 11, xi. 31, etc., and 45 (on which last see Speaker's Com
mentary) and 2 Thess. ii. To some such events the Apostles
evidently looked forward, with a faith which, we cannot doubt,
was grounded on the prophecies of old, as those prophecies were
interpreted to them, First, by the general view of the Old
Testament imparted to the Church by the Lord Himself after

558 The Re-appearance of Elijah. [a pp.
His Resurrection, and, Secondly, by their own inner spiritual
illumination, the mind of Christ, which they had, 1 Cor. ii. 15,
the unction from the Holy One, 1 John ii. 20.
Should we be right in connecting with these events the
prophetic intimation, which so significantly closes the Volume
of the Old Testament (Mai. iv.), of the re-appearance of the
Prophet Elijah ? It would seem so. If the Apostles and disciples
in general were aware of the disclosure made by the angel Gabriel
to Zacharias in the Temple that his child should go before the
Lord their God in the spirit and power of Elijah ; or of the Lord's
saying. St. Mat. xi. 14, to the multitudes concerning John, — If ye
will receive (d fle'Aere be£ao-Qai) it (or, him), this is Elijah which is
to come : He that hath ears to hear, let him hear, — still they did not
take in its real meaning, nor discern its fulfilment. Accordingly,
after the appearance of Elijah at the Transfiguration, they very
naturally reminded the Lord of the prophecy, and of the teaching
of the Scribes founded upon it. His answer is remarkable.
While He said indeed that Elijah was already come, — meaning,
as they were then led to perceive, the Baptist, i. e. in the spirit
and power of Elijah, — He yet said that Elijah indeed cometh first,
and shall restore all things, anoKaTaoTrjo-n iravra. Compare St.
Peter's language as to the cmoKaTaaTaais irdvTcov, in Acts iii. 21,
the only other passage in which this phrase occurs, and then with
a distinctly future reference. Christ's words leave room for, if
indeed they do not directly assert, a further coming of Elijah,
which is still future. He had come, and he had not come. See
the Baptist's own answer, John i. 21. In spirit and power he had
come, through and in the Baptist. In literal, personal, visible,
bodily presence he had not yet come; but will come, in the End.
Are we permitted in respect of this, and of some parallel cases in
Holy Scripture, to conjecture something like this, That, had it
been possible for the faith of man to have risen fully to the
thought that, in spirit and power, in idea, Saint John Baptist,
than whom among those born of women there had not arisen a greater,
was Elijah ; and so to have accepted him as such, obeyed his
teaching, and so been led to embrace Jesus with heart-surrender
ing loyalty as the Christ, The Son of God, The King of Israel ;

note xvi.] Literal fulfilments for the unspiritual. 559
then no more had been needed ; the prophecy had been, not
partially and imperfectly, but sufficiently, fulfilled, and so ex
hausted ; the Gospel of the Kingdom had been fully accepted,
first, by a loyal Israel, then by the general world ; the Kingdom
of God had fully come, in the Regeneration of the world ? If ye
will to receive it (or, him), this is (croro's eoriv) Elijah which is lo
come. The idea is real to those who, morally and spiritually, are
able to receive it. And the initial requisite is a moral willingness,
et Oekere, such as was in those few devout souls of that generation
who really waited for the consolation of Israel, whose eyes there
fore saw God's salvation, and who thankfully knew that they
saw it. Full childlike faith realizes all, even now, and lives in
Heaven now ; for to it the New Jerusalem, the Catholic Church,
is already in the midst of them, and they in the midst of it. The
Kingdom of God is within them ; though it has not come with
observation to the general world. The pure in heart see God. But
they, that generation of Israel as a whole, did not will to receive
the stern preacher of repentance and holiness ; and so to them he
was not Elijah which was to come. So there must be for them,
and for their unbelieving descendants, a literal bodily personal
return of the actual visible Elijah ; as also, after it, of the Son of
God, when every eye, in the most absolutely literal sense, shall see
Him, and they also which pierced Him. A spiritual fulfilment
suffices for the spiritually-minded ; for the rest there must be
a bodily fulfilment. So when the Lord comes in visible glory,
it will not be to or for the spiritual, who, by faith and sacraments,
shall have been, and shall be, His very own, members of His Body,
of His flesh and of His bones. For all such, if already departed,
shall be brought with Him; and if still alive and remaining on earth,
shall be caught up to meet Him in the air, and, changed, in a moment,
in the twinkling of an eye, into Resurrection glory, shall also come
with Him, and with Him shall sit on His Throne, and judge the
world, when He shall come to be glorified in His saints, and to be
marvelled at in all them that believe, in that day, 2 Thess. ii. 10 ; cp.
St. Jude, 14, 15. Even now, of course, God and Christ and the
spiritual world are really as near as they will be when Christ
shall come again. Believers realise this. The visible appear-

560 The Fathers on the Return of Elijah, [app.
ance, within the conditions of this present age, and to the bodily
eye of those still in the flesh, is, perhaps, needed only for those
— the last and worst generation of unbelievers — who cannot
otherwise be made to acknowledge Him to Whom every knee
must bow, and Whom every tongue must confess. And to such His
manifestation of Himself must be as a consuming fire. From this
His previous manifestation of Himself to His own redeemed,
within the veil, whether at the last for the purposes of their
return to earth with Him, or at any intervening time, is a
distinct thing, alike in nature and in time.
Certainly the Fathers speak of a visible re-appearance of
Elijah in his own person as to be expected before the future
visible Advent of the Lord. Dr. Pusey, in a Note to his two
Bristol Sermons of 1850 on ' The Danger of Riches,' remarking
first, of our Lord's saying Elijah shall first come, and shall
restore all things, that ' When He so spake, John was beheaded,'
proceeds to say, ' Hence Justin Martyr speaks positively : " Our
Lord hath in His teaching delivered this very thing, saying that
Elias shall come ; and ive [Christians as opposed to Jews] know
that this shall be, when our Lord Jesus Christ is about to come
in glory from heaven." Dial. c. Tryph. § 49.' Dr. Pusey refers
also to two places in Tertullian, Be Res. Carnis, 22, and Be
Anima, 35 ; to St. Jerome on Mat. xi. 14 (Migne's ed. vol. viii.
p. 72), a passage apparently referring to the last-mentioned
place of Tertullian ; to St. Greg. Nyss. Testim. adv. Jud. t. ii.
p. 120 ; Auct. de Prom, et Praed. Dei, c. 15 ; to Theodoret and
St. Cyril Alex, on Malachi ; Andreas Caesar on Rev. ; and to
St. Greg. Mor. XIV. 23, on Job xviii. 20 (Migne, i. 1053);
Mor. XX. 34, on Job xxx. 23 (Migne, ii. 178) ; and Homil. VII.
in Evangelia, § 1, on John i. 19-28 (Migne, ii. 1100) — as all
' speaking positively ' of a future personal bodily re-appearance
of the great Prophet Elijah as the forerunner of the Second
Advent. The first two of the three places in St. Greg, are
remarkable, for in both he distinctly expresses the idea that
Elijah, since he did not die, is still in the flesh, in which he will
return, to die under the persecution of Antichrist, 'Etsi ad
coelum raptus Elias esse perhibetur, mortem tamen distulit,
non evasit .... Veniet restiturus omnia, quia ad hoc nimirum

note xvi.] Some join Enoch with Elijah. 561
huic mundo restituitur ut et praedicationis munera itnpleat,
et carnis debitum solvat ; ' and in the first— like Tertullian, de
Anima, 50, St. Hil. in Matt. xvii. and St. Ambrose, in Psal.
xiv — he couples Enoch with Elijah, saying of both, ' ad medium
revocabuntur, et crudelitatis ejus [Antichristi] saevitiam in sua
adhuc mortali carne passuri sunt.' This would seem hard to
reconcile with what is said about Enoch in Heb. xi. 5, and
with the appearance of Elijah together with Moses in glory
(Luke ix. 30) at the Transfiguration. St. Hippolytus similarly
connects Enoch and Elijah, whom he speaks of as the two
witnesses of Rev. xi. and the ' forerunners and heralds of the
Epiphany of Christ from heaven ; ' see him On Antichrist, 43,
&c. ; also in the treatise (numbered 14 in Lagarde's ed.) On
the End of the World, &c, § 21 ; also On Daniel (Lagarde, 5*9,
p. 160) § 22, compare also § 42. Dr. Pusey also, in the same
note, quotes St. Augustine, as follows, ' What John was to the
First Advent that will Elias be to the Second Advent. As
there are two Advents of the Judge, so there are two heralds :
the Judge indeed one and the same, but the heralds two,' Horn.
on St. John, iv. § 5 ; and, again, ' It is exceedingly well known
(celeberrimum) in the discourses and hearts of the faithful that
through this Elias, the great and wondrous Prophet, the law
being explained to them, the Jews will believe in the true
Christ, i. e. our Christ. For with good reason is his coming
hoped before the Coming of the Saviour as Judge, who now too
is, with good reason, believed to be alive ; ' also St. Chrysostom,
as follows, ' When He saith " Elias indeed cometh and will
restore all things," He means Elias himself, and the conversion
of the Jews which is then to take place ; but when He saith,
" Which was for to come," He calls John Elias, with regard to
the manner of his ministration  For as the other shall be
the forerunner of the Second Advent, so was this of the First.'
St. Chrys. on St. Matt. Horn. lvii. 1. See also Pusey's full note
on Mai. iv. 5, in his Minor Prophets.
But all this is yet within the limits of this present age,
though at the very close of it. Thus little time is left for the
development of results from any revival of religion in the world
through any turning of the Jews towards Christ. It is cut short
o 0

562 The Restoration, in 'the Regeneration! [app.
by furious persecution, perhaps exasperated by the revival itself;
crushed by the temporary success of world-wide imperial secular
power wielded by Antichrist, whom in the very darkest moment
of his apparently complete triumph over Him the Lord shall
destroy with the brightness of His Coming. It is therefore on the
other side of that Coming, and of the General Resurrection and
Judgment, that we are to look for the final full and permanent
realization of the promised glories of the great Regeneration, as
.they are pictured in the far-reaching prophetic anticipations of
both the Old and New Testament. Then it may be that the
revelation of the mystery latent in St. Paul's reference in Rom.
xi. 32, to purposes of mercy in the mind of God towards the
many generations of Jews who, during the times of the Gentiles,
have all been shut up together in unbelief, may light up with
wondrous meaning the Apostle's anticipation of life from the
dead, through their recovery1, in that Resurrection-state the
hope of which, as the promise made of God unto their fathers (Acts
xxvi. 6), lay so deep in the heart of religious Jews before and
at the time of Christ ; which St. Paul so earnestly longed that he
might by any means attain unto (Philipp. iii. 11) ; for the sake of
which he exercised himself to have always a conscience void of offence
(Acts xxiv. 14-16) ; unto which, he said, our twelve tribes, instantly
serving God night and day, hope to come (xxvi. 7)-
1 It is not, of course, supposed that St. Paul's meaning is that all the Jews who
since Christ have been born into an inherited condition of unbelief, through in
vincible ignorance, will, in the unseen state, now or hereafter, be brought to a saving
knowledge of and belief in Christ ; but that, in the case of such as have lived
good lives according to their opportunities, and their natural and Old Testament
knowledge of God and of His will, their inherited and, humanly speaking, inevitable
unbelief will be no bar to the completion of their salvation by the revelation to
them of the Christ Whom they had negatively rejected, ignorantly, in unbelief.
Perhaps we may parallel this principle of the Divine dealings with the case of the
mere outside heathen, who have never heard of Christ, and have had only the
natural light and law of our common humanity to guide them, either in belief or
practice. To such as, in that condition, have, in however blind feeling after God,
followed that light and obeyed that law, and not, in hard selfishness, rejected and
trampled them under foot, we are compelled by St. Matt. xxv. 31, &c, and Romans
i. 18 to ii. 16, to believe, with thankful rejoicing, that mercy will be shown, and
acceptance ; and that, through the unknown Christ, at length graciously revealed
to them, «¦ place, most blessed albeit not the highest, will be opened to them,
in the Eternal Kingdom of God.

NOTE XVII.] 563
Note XVII, § 200.
The Surrender of the Kingdom.
The one explicit passage on this mysterious subject is 1 Cor.
xv. 20-28. It is important to observe that St. Paul is there
clearly speaking, as he is also in the later verses, 45 etc., of
Christ in His human nature, as the Second Adam, the Pattern,
the Ideal Man, the Head of Regenerate Humanity. Hence there
is no question of the Divine Royalty and Kingdom which eternally
belong to Him as the Only Begotten Son ; and so no opening
to the heretical thought of Marcellus of Ancyra and Photinus,
who, ignoring alike ' His pre-eternal existence and His endless
kingdom ' (ttjv npoaidtviov virap^iv re nal ttjv ankeijTrjTov jiao-ikuav,
Socrates, H. E. II. 19) spoke of His Godhead as only a sort of
temporary ' extension of the Godhead of the Father' (Iktoo-'iv
Tiva ttjs rov Ylarpbs OeorrjTos, Theodoret. II. 10) to be withdrawn
at the close of the Dispensation (juera ttjv o~up.Ttaaav olK.ovop.iav
¦nakiv a.vao~irao-6r\vai Kai vvo-Takr\vai 7ipos Toy Otov, ef oSirep e£eTa9rj,
Ibid.), and of the Son's ' being resolved into the Father ' (ava-
kveodai, St. Cyril. Hierosol. Catech. Ilium, xv. 30) \ The king
dom spoken of, of which His future subjection to the Father will
be the delivery to the Father, is to be associated in our thoughts
entirely with His incarnate life and redeeming mediatorial work.
1 See Cyril's whole passage on this subject ; also St. Ambrose, De Fide, V. cap.
xii-xv. (ed. Migne, vol. ii. col. 677). Note especially § 148, 'Si ut Filius hominis
regnum accepit Dei Filius, ut Filius utique hominis etiam traditurus est quod
accepit : Si ut Filius hominis tradifc, ergo et ut Filius hominis subjectionem,
utique per conditionem carnis, non per majestatem divinitatis, agnoscit ; ' and
154, 'Non utique secundum divinitatem subjectus est Dei Filius;' and 165, 'Si
per natuiam subjiceretur, semper subjectus maneret : cum vero subjiciendus
dicatur in tempore, dispensationis ergo susceptae, non perpetuae infirmitatis erit
ilia subjectio ; ' and 1 72, ' Secundum humanae naturae assumptionem erit ilia sub-
jectio.' See also Archdeacon Norris' note, in his 'New Testament,' on the place in
1 Cor. xv, and his reference to St. Chrysostom. Bernardin of Picquigny writes
well, in his Triplex Expositio, on 1 Cor. xv. 25, etc., ' Oportet Christum a, dextris
Dei sedentem regnare eo quo coepit modo . . . usquequo Pater aeternus, suum
adimplens promissum, ponet omnes ejus inimicos sub pedihus ejus, id est, usque ad
finem mundi . . . Tunc et ipse Filius, ut homo, cum omnibus suis, id est, Christus
caput Ecclesiae, cum omnibus membris suis, subjicietur Deo ; Deumque gratus
adorabit, laudabit, et glorificabit in aeternum.'
0 0 2

564 The Bible sequence of ' The Last Things! [app.
It is to be dated from His Glorification and Exaltation in His
Resurrection and His Ascension ; which Glorification and Ex
altation are the reward of His Sufferings and of His perfect
obedience unto death. It is that which is spoken of in Psalm
ex. and in John xii. 23, xiii. 31; Matt. xxvi. 64, xxviii. 18,
Acts ii. ^, iii. 21, v. 31, vii. 55, ix. 3, x. §6; Rom. xiv. 9 ; Eph.
i. 20-23; Philipp. ii. 9-1 1 ; Col. i. 18-20, iii. 1 ; Heb. ii. 5, etc.,
x. 12, 13 ; and Rev. i. 13-18, v. 6-14, vi. 2, vii. 9-17, xiv. 14,
xvii. 14, xix. 11-16, xx. 11-T3, compared with Matt. xxv. 31,
etc. It is given to Him as Man, for the purpose of overcoming
all evil and all opposition to Himself and to God, and so of
ultimately realising the Divine Ideal of Man and Man's World
in their perfect conformity to God's Will, and to His great
Purpose in their Creation. It is noticeable how the inspired
Apostolic thought recurs to the language of Psalm viii., as the
Divine Ideal of Man, the great Charter of Humanity, first
realized in Christ the Second Adam, and, through Him and His
completed Work, to be realized in His members also. Eph. i. 22
quotes Ps. viii. 6 ; so does Heb. ii. 5, &c, and notably the great
passage 1 Cor. xv. 27, 28. The outward token of the completion
of Christ's Work, of the great Consummation, for which all
Creation, groaning and travailing in pain together, waits with us,
is the redemption of our body (Rom. viii. 23), the final victory over
the last enemy, in the Resurrection, which, immediately following
the final overthrow of the Bragon, the Beast, and the False Prophet,
the trinity of evil (Rev. xv. 13, xix. 20, xx. 10), immediately
precedes the casting of Death and Hades into the lake of fire
(Rev. xx. 14). Then the New Heaven and Earth, and the
descent upon it of Christ with His redeemed and glorified Church,
the holy city, the new Jerusalem, wherein He shall reign over the
House of Jacob for ever, and of His Kingdom there shall be no end
(Luke i. 33). Then under Christ as the Head of every man, the
true King of Men, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the
Kingdom and dominion and the greatness of the Kingdom under the
whole heaven shall be given to the People of the Saints of the Most
High (Ban. vii. 27), in whom are realized at once the characters
and the promised blessings of the Eight Beatitudes.

NT.xvil] Christ's abiding Presenceon the' New Earth! 565
So far all seems plain. But what is not generally realized, it
is to be feared, among us now is this— That the Bible Revelation
distinctly ends with Christ on earth, the renewed earth, and that
for ever, as the home and dwelling-place of that Regenerated
Humanity of which He is the abiding Head, in that Humanity
of His which, including His Mystical Body vitally united to
Himself, is the true Temple of the Lord God Almighty, John ii. 21 ;
Col. ii. 9 ; Rev. xxi. 22; 1 Cor. vi. 19, iii. 16; 2 Cor. vi. l6;
Eph. ii. 21. The characteristic and all-inclusive ultimate bles
sing, as promised alike in the Old Testament pictures of the
Final State and in the New Testament echoes of them, is ever
this, The Tabernacling of God with men, so that He shall dwell
with them, and they shall be His People, and God Himself shall be
with them ('Emmanuel'), their God (Rev. xxi. 3). The abiding
guarantee of this supreme blessing is the Presence on earth of
the Incarnate Son, the Second Adam, and also the abiding
Emmanuel. Earth will then be part of Heaven ; the contrast,
opposition, or distinction between them for ever done away,
God's will being done on earth as it is in Heaven, and so His
kingdom fully come. For Heaven is no special distinct locality
in the great universe of space ; but is wherever God can fully
manifest Himself to His fully receptive creature. And that He
will do this on earth to Man, when sin, the one barrier to His
gracious and loving Manifestation of Himself in and through
His Son, is done away, when the Son's work for Man is com
plete — this is the final sum, and the most blessed closing assur
ance, of the Bible Revelation. I humbly believe it to be a great
drawback from the strength and definiteness of our faith and
hope that this is not more realized among us than it is ; and
that the minds of so many are possessed with vague ideas of
some final disappearance of this present earth — ideas favoured by
the misrenderings of our English Version, which speaks of the
end of the world where it should speak of the close of the age — and
of some shadowy Heaven — no one knows where — to follow ; a
heaven of a shadowy so-called merely ' spiritual' happiness — no
one knows what — but something utterly unlike and alien from
our present human social existence. The language of the Lord's

566 The primitive belief , J ewish and Christian, [app.
Prayer, and of His Parables of the Talents and the Pounds, the
language of St. Paul in Romans viii., and of general prophetic
description, re-stamped by New Testament Inspiration in 2 Pet.
iii. and Rev. xxi., xxii., are the standing warrant of a much
more glorious and definite anticipation, a far more truly human,
real, and presently influential hope.
This great thought has the support, if anything were needed
beyond Holy Scripture, of early traditional belief alike among
Christians and Jews. Mede says (Paraphrase and Exp. of
2 Pet. iii, Works, vol. ii. p. 754) that it was one ' R. Samuel,
one of the Doctors of the Gemara or Gloss of their Talmud,
which was finished about 500 years after Christ/ who im
peached and opposed, in the latter times, 'the more ancient
opinion and tradition of the Renovation of the World ; ' and
that ' After this time there appears to have been amongst the
Jews a sect of the followers of the opinion of this R. Samuel,
which at length was greatly advanced by the authority of that
learned Maimonides .... Nevertheless Aben Ezra, who lived
not long after Maimonides, maintained still the contrary, as
others also did ; ' and he mentions particularly a Tractate of
R. Isaac A barbinel, ' wherein all the arguments brought against
the Renovation are confuted.'
Among the Fathers, St. Cyril of Jerusalem, in the 4th cent.,
witnesses to the same belief in his XVth Calechesis, § 3, saying
that ' on the glorious coming of our Lord Jesus Christ from
heaven, yiverai rov koo-jxov tovtov o-vvrekeia Ka\ 6 yevrjros ovtos Koo-pos
irakiv avaKaivcrroiuTai. eireiSr) yap Kai <p6opa Ka\ KkoTrrj Kai /xot^fta
Ka\ rrav et'Sos apapTiav ixv@1 *nL TVS yVs Kal dlpara c<p' alpao-iv iplyr),
iv t<£ Koo-pa iva prj ptivrj to Bavpao-rbv tovto diKrjTrjpiov avoplas
rtaikripapevov, Trapepxerai 6 Kocrpos ov~tos, Iva 6 KaKkiav auabtixSjj.'
And he speaks, ibid., of a Resurrection of Nature as well as of
Man, EiAjJo-ci roiiy olpavoiis 6 Kipios, oi>x Iva aVoXeo-j; tovtovs, dXX'
iva avrovs irdkiv Kakkiovas eyelprj .... dvdcrTao-iv irpooSoKwpev Kai
rav ovpavwv .... Hapepxfrai toivvv ra (paivopeva, Kai epxcrat ra
irpooSoKwpeva to. tovtcov KaXkiova.
Similarly Origen, whom Mede (vol. ii. p. 766) quotes as say
ing, Contra Celsum, lib. Ill, Ovk apvoipeda to KaBdpaiov irvp, Kai
Ttjv tov Koo-pov <f>Sopav, iirl Kadaipeo-ei Trjs KaKias Kai avaKaivixrsas tov

note xvii.] of the 'Renovation of the World! 567
navros, words more noticeable because Origen was a strong
opponent of all ideas of a carnal millennium on earth, such as
those of Cerinthus, Papias, and Nepos (if Eusebius' report of
them, H. E. iii. 28, 39, and vii. 24, is to be trusted) or those
ascribed to Apollinaris, for whose views see Epiphanius, III. 26.
The passage which Mede quotes from Tertullian, Adv. Mar
cion. III. 24, and a strange passage in Lactantius, Inst. Div.
VII. 24-26, both obscure the whole subject by placing the
Advent of Christ, the Resurrection and Judgment, and the
Descent of the New Jerusalem before, and the Reign of Christ
and His Saints, and His dwelling with them, on a happy and
peaceful earth, during, the Millennial Period. This involves
Lactantius in the express assertion of the co-existence on earth
of the glorified saints in the risen state with the ' nationes,'
their subjects, still ' in corporibus,' in the natural life, though
preserved from death through the Thousand Years, after which
the ' princeps daemonum,' being loosed, will seduce them into a
war against the Holy City which will end in their utter de
struction. All this is absurd. It arises from i. The taking the
. First Resurrection of Rev. xx. 5 to be a literal bodily Resur
rection-1; and, 2.. The transference to the Millennial Period of
features that belong only to the Final, the Consummated and
heavenly State. The Millennial Period ended, Lactantius says,
' Renovabitur mundus a Deo, et coelum complicabitur, et terra
mutabitur ; et transformabit Deus homines in similitudinem
angelorum, et erunt candidi, sicut nix ; et versabuntur semper
in conspectu Omnipotentis, et Domino suo sacrificabunt, et
servient in aeternum. Eodem tempore fiet secunda ilia et
publica omnium resurrectio, in qua excitabuntur injusti ad
cruciatus sempiternos.' These last words bear witness to the
expectation of the ' Renovation of the World ; ' but it is impos
sible that either Tertullian or Lactantius can have had the
actual text of the Apocalypse before them while they wrote
as they did on the general subject.
St. Augustine writes, De Civ. Dei, xx. 14 (Migne, VII. 679),
' Peracto quippe judicio tunc esse desinet hoc coelum et haec
terra, quando incipiet esse coelum novum et terra nova.
1 See St. Augustine's argument that it is a spiritual Resurrection, De Civ. Dei,
xx. vii. vii., Migne, vol. vii. col. 665.

568 The 'Surrender of the Kingdom! [app.
Mutatione namque rerum, non omni modo interitu transibit
hie mundus. Unde et Apostolus ait, Praeterit enim figura
hujus mundi, volo vos sine sollicitudine esse. Figura ergo
praeterit, non natura.' On this passage Bishop Newton,
Prophecies, Dissert, xxv. p. 597, writes thus, ' And indeed why
should the new heaven and the new earth be destroyed, when
there shall be no more sin, when "there shall be no more
curse," when " there shall be no more death % " The heaven and
the earth of old (2 Pet. iii. 5) for the wickedness of man perished
by water : " The heaven and the earth which are now, are re
served unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of
ungodly men ; " but why should not the new heaven and the new
earth be preserved, " wherein dwelleth righteousness 1 " '
It would seem then that the Surrender of the Kingdom is co
incident with the Return, in fulfilment of the Angels' predic
tion, Acts i. 1 1, of the Second Adam, the Man Christ Jesus from
the Right Hand of the Father, to the Renovated Earth, when He
shall have put down all rule and all authority and power, ami put
all things under his feet. For this exercise of power such as He
has wielded from His Ascension till His Return there will be no
further need, when the great Purpose for which it is wielded
shall have been for ever secured. As Man, the Head and King
of His Elect Church and of redeemed Humanity, His place will
be for ever with Man, in Man's new and everlasting home, the
gloriously regenerated earth, to guide and direct the progressive
moral and spiritual development, through the agency of His
great instrument, His Elect Church, His mystical Body, of the
myriad millions of ra. idvrj, the uncovenanted saved. For this
work He will reign over the House of Jacob for ever, and of His
Kingdom there shall be no end. While He will be the Head
of every man (1 Cor. xi. 3), God will be His Head (ib.), and as re
deemed Humanity will be Christ's, so Christ will be God's ( 1 Cor.
iii. 23). Subjection, in perfect submissive and active conformity
of will, has ever, in the days of His Flesh, and since, been the
mark, and indeed the very moral perfection, of the Son of Man.
We need not therefore stumble at the revelation that, when the
Divine Ideal in the Creation of Man shall have been in Him

note xvii.] Christ, the Head of redeemed Humanity, 569
fully realized, it will be so still. Such filial subjection and
conformity are the very crown of Human Nature; and must
therefore be chiefly seen in Him, the Pattern. Nay, it will be
the very seal and token, indeed, in a sense, the cause, of His abid
ing Royal Supremacy over the Race He so loves, and for whose
sake He was content to sanctify Himself, and, Son though He ivere,
and the Captain of our Salvation, to learn obedience by the things
which He suffered, and, being made perfect through sufferings, so to
bring His many brethren unto glory ; a glory of which, for Him and
for them, the very essence is perfect subjection to God, in
supreme love to the Father, with all the heart, with all the soul,
and with all the mind. ' Sancti subjiciuntur Deo ut patri ; Deum
laudant, amant, glorificant, ut omnium bonorum auctorem.
Deus sanctos diligit ut filios, omnium suorum bonorum posses-
sione replet et beatificat, ut suae felicitatis haeredes. O beatum
commercium ! O felicem sanctorum Deo subjectionem ! Ergo
Deo subjici et servire, regnare est ; nee est alia sanctorum bea-
titudo, aut aliud regnum aeternum quam Deo subjici, servire,
Deum amare, adorare, laudare ' (Bernardinus a Piconio, in 1 Cor.
xv. 28).
Such, it would seem, will be the final expanded result, after
slow evolution, of the mysterious intimation, the typical secret,
which lay hid in the Presence of the Shekinah Cloud and Light
upon the Mercy-seat in the Holy of Holies in the Tabernacle of
Israel in the Wilderness. The process of its evolution may be
traced through such marked stages as the following : — The Con
quest of the Heathen Races and the Possession of the Promised
Land, events typical of the saints' final Inheritance of the Earth ;
The fuller development of the Theocratic Idea — taking a more
visible and outward form because of the backwardness of their
unspiritual hearts — in the Holy City, with its permanent Temple,
and with the glorious Palace and extended rule of its Peaceful
King, in the Solomonic era ; all true and most significant types
(see Psalms xiv. and lxxii.) though earthly, and so partial and
imperfect, and destined to be broken and cast aside ; Next, in
more spiritual wise, through the Captivity, and then the Disper
sion, resulting in an extended currency of better moral and spiritual

5 jo binds it to God through His Incarnation.
ideas among the Nations; Then through the Catholic Church of
the Times of the Gentiles, a spiritual Israel of God spread through
out the world, for the redemption of such among the Nations as
will to be redeemed. All these are stages working upward to a
glorious, a complete, a permanent fulfilment, in the Regeneration.
The outward and visible sign, the eternal guarantee and secu
rity, of the final completed blessedness of redeemed Humanity ;
the indestructible conduit and channel, where through as through
a Sacrament, God will ever inflow into the Saints, and overflow
upon the Nations ; will be the actual Presence in flesh, upon the
renovated earth, of the One Mediator, the Incarnate Son, the God-
Man, the Shekinah, the Image, and Glory, of God, Emmanuel,
God with us, our King, Perfect God and Perfect Man, the Head
of every man, as God of Him.
GLORIA IN EXCELSIS DEO,
ET IN TERIIA PAX HOMINIBUS BONAE VOLUNTATIS.

THY KINGDOM COME,
THY WILL BE DONE, IN EAIITH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN.
AMEN.

EVEN SO, COME, LORD JESUS.

APPENDIX II.

ADDITIONAL NOTES AND REFERENCES.
Sect. 8. p. 14. The Old Testament prepares the way for the Christian
beliefs of the Trinity and the Incarnation. — See St. Hil.
Pictav.'s argument, in his De Trinitate, Books IV.- and V, that
God in the Old Testament is not ' solitarius ; ' also Book VI.
19 and VIII. 47 ; also Tertull. adv. Prax. 5.
9. p. 15. God is eternally a Father. — St. Leo, Serm. XXIV. (vol i.
84, 210), ' Sempiterne enim Filius, Filius est ; sempiterne Pater,
Pater est;' also Pearson, Creed, Art. II. His only Son. III.
Ibid. The Father contemplates Himself in the Son.— St. Hil. Pictav.
De Trin. IX. 36 (Migne, vol. ii. col. 307).
10. p. 16. The Father has ever worked through the Son. — St. Ath.
Cont. Ar. III. 12, ov&iv 8e iariv, 0 prj SY Yloi ivepyel 6 Harrjp.
21. p. 33. On the Plural Name of God. — Liddon, Bampton Lect. II.
p. 72.
22. p. 37. Mediatorial relation of the Son in respect of the preserva
tion of the Universe. — St. Irenaeus, adv. Haer. V. p. 586.
42. p. 7 r. Reflex illustration of the Divine from the Human Nature. —
Tertull. adv. Prax. 5.
48. p. 87. Free-Will essential to finite personal life. — St. Thomas
Aquin. Sum. Ia. Qu. lxiii. Art. 1, in ed. Migne, vol. i. p. n 20.
56. p. 100. Man the representative microcosm. — Bp. Andrewes, Ser
mons, Vol. i. Serm. XVI. p. 275 ; and Bp. Bull, Works, Vol. i.
Serm. XI. On the Existence and Nature of Angels, p. 267 ; and
the Russian theologian, Macaire, Bp. of Vinnitza, Theologie Dog-
matique Orthodoxe, Part. II. ch. i. § 76, p. 517 ; and Noirlieu,
Dogmes Principaux du Christianisme, ch. x. p. 224.
59. p. 111. Possible benefit to the angels from the Incarnation. — St.
Hippol. Against Beron and Helix, 2 (Lagarde's ed. p. 59, 1. 26).
lb. p. 112. Created things not instantly consummated. — St. Iren.
Adv. Haer. IV. cap. 73, p. 520; St. Hil. Pictav. De Trin. XI.
44 (Migne, II. 488).

572 Additional Notes and References, [app. ii.
Sect. 68. p. 134. Pity felt by the Ao'yos ao-apKos for the Gentiles. —
Commenting on Ps. lxix. 26, where the Lxx. has ko.1 irrl to aKyos
rav rpavpdrav fiov Trpoo-eBrjKav, St. Hippolytus, Ag. the Jews, 7 (ed.
Lagarde, p. 66. 16), paraphrases, TlpoTepov pev akyos elxov ^s
(pikdvBpamos 8ia tt)v irknvtjv tuiv e'Bvcov, akk' im. to akyos TrpoaeBrjKdv
poi erepov TrkavrjBeVTes Kai avTo'i.
70. p. 138. Revelation to Primeval Man. — St. Ath. De Incarn., quoted
by Bull, Disc. V. On the state of Man before the Fall, Bull's
Works, vol. ii. p. 103.
71. p. 140. Visible Appearance of the Son to Adam. — St. Hippol.
Fragment 21, in ed. Lagarde, p. 125.
73. p. 143. Targum Paraphrase of the Name of God. — Pearson, Creed,
Art. II. His only Son, I. ' Thirdly/ note.
82. p. 158. The Mediator is also the Judge. — St. Iren. Adv. Haer.
IV. cap. lxx. p. 507.
83. p. 161. Add. to refs. in Note, St. Aug. De Genesi ad litt. VIII.
xviii. 37; Migne, iii. Part. I. p. 387.
95. p. 192. To the ref. to St. Cyril Hierosol. Catech. x, add the follow
ing, from St. Hippolytus, De Antichristo, 3, on the impartial
tenderness of the Word, 'EwetSr) to iavrov evcnrkayxvov Kai airpoo-a-
TToht]TTTOv evdeiKWTat 8ta ndvTwv Tav dylav 6 Aoyos, e'<po8ia£a>v Kai
pv0pt£cov avrov ws epneipos laTpbs ivpbs ra rpiiv o~vp<f)epovTa eTTio-rd-
pevos ttjv tu>v dv6pu>TT<x>v daBevetav, Toils pev dyvoovvTas eKdiddo~Keiv
77eipdrai, tovs Se irkavwpevovs eiTio'Tpetpei els ttjv eavrov dkrjBivrjv
680V, rols pev pera. jrlcrTias tj<)Tovo-iv evKokms eipio-Kopevos, rots Sc
KaOapots ofipaon Kai d.yvr\ Kapdia Kpoiuv Tr)v Bvpav iwiBvpovo-iv evBvs
dvoiyopevos. OvOeva yap aTrofiaXkeTai tu>v eavToii Sovkav a>s prj ovra
a^iov tu>v Beiav pvo-Tijpiav, ov ttKovo-iov irporipwv nevrjTos oiSe
7Tevr]Ta dia. to perpiov i^ovBevwv ovhe j3dp(3apov oveibifav ouSe tov
evvovxov tts pr) avBpumov dcpoplfav oibe Brjko (ha ttjv e'£ dpxrjs ¦yei'O-
pevtjv TrapaKor)v p.ioS>v ovfte tov appeva dia Tr)v irapdfiao-iv aTipd^av,
aKkd ndvras BdkTrcov ko.1 Trdvras cra>£ea> imBvpaiv, Ttdvras vlovs 0eov
KarapTto-ai Bikav Kai tovs ndvras ay'iovs els eva Tekeiov avBpamov
Kakav. 'Er yap Kai 6 tov Qeov Hals, Si ov Kai rjpus tuywtcs tt)v
Bid tov 'Ayt'ov XlvevpaTos dvayevvrjo'iv els eva rekeiov Kai enovpdvtov
HvBpioirov 01 ndvres Karavrijo-ai erriBvpovpev. 'Ernic^r) yap 6 Aoyos
tov Qeov acrapKos &v evedvaaro ttjv dylav erdpKa eV rrjs ayias irap-
Bevov as vvp<pios Ipdnov e^vtpdvas eavra rjv ra> o-ravpiK<3 TrdBei, (wras
vvyKepdo-as to Bvryrbv i)pa>v crapa rrj eavTOv bvvdpei Kai pi£as T<S dcpdapra
to ipdaprbv Kai to doSeves rfj lo~xvpa uaso-n tov dwokkipevov av8pamov.

app.il] Additional Notes and References. 573
Sect. 95. p. 193. The Angel which redeemed me.— Rather, The Angel
the Redeemer, ?KJn r\i6m. See Macdonald, Pentateuch, III. ii.
1, vol. ii. p. 240.
96. p. 196. The two created angels.— See Euseb. Dem. Evang. V. ii.
P- 237-
lb. p. 197. Add to note 2. — So St. Ambrose, De Abraham, I. vi. 51
(Migne, i. 440) on Gen. xix. 1, ' Ubi gratia largienda est, Christus
adest: ubi exercenda severitas, soli adsunt ministri, deest
Jesus.'
99. p. 202. Its outward token, the Cloudy Pillar. — Compare Num
bers, xiv. 14.
101. p. 209. The invisible Agent in that act of doom. — So Euseb.
Dem. Evan. V. 19.
105. p. 215. To Ezekiel and Daniel. — And see, before Ezekiel, Amos
vii. 7, and ix. 1.
108. p. 221. Add to note. — St. Hippolytus, in his comment on the
passage (Lagarde's ed. No. 59. § 24, p. 160), takes the Man
clothed in linen to be 6 Kvpios, and distinguishes him from St.
Michael.
lb. p. 222. May put forward what is good in them. — See St. Thomas
Aq. Ia. Qu. cxiii. Art. 7, ad fin.
lb. p. 223. Priestly vesture. — So St. Hippolytus speaks of the lepan-
kos xlTmv °f the Word, On the Vision of Baniel, ed. Lagarde,
p. 161, 1. 4.
112. p. 233. The familiar division into the Prophetic, the Sacerdotal,
and the Regal Action of the Mediator. — The earliest occurrence
of this that I have met with is in Euseb. Bern. Evan. Book
VIII. Prooem. p. 363.
lb. p. 235. The one key to the right understanding of Revelation. —
Comp. St. Leo, Serm. LXVI. ii. (Migne, vol. i. col. 365 (256)).
113. p. 236. Secret and undisclosed, although incessant, operation
of the Mediator. — Comp. St. Athan. Cont. Ar. III. xxx. p. 184.
115. p. 239. Teaching His ancient Church. — So St. Hippolytus, Ag.
Noetus (Lagarde, No. 3. § 12. p. 51, 1. 24), 'Ev tovtois toIvvv \y6-
pat Kai 7rpocj)rjTais\ rrokirevdpevos 6 Adyos eepBeyyero irepl eavrov (fjSTj
yap avrbs eavrov Krjpvl; eyevero) heiKvimv pekXovra Aoyov <paiveo-8ai
ev dvBpimois, Si' rjv alriav ovras e'fioa, 'Ep(pavr)s e'yevoprjv to'is epe
fir) tjr)TOvcriv, evpeBrjV tois epe prj eirepuTa>criv, Isa. lxv. I ; also On
Antichrist, § 2 (Lagarde's ed. p. 2, 1. 12), Ovtoi yap irvevpan npo-

574 Additional Notes and References, [app. ii.
djrjTiKw ol narepes KarrjpTio-pevoi Kai im' avrov tov Ao'you d^ias Tertprj-
pevot, opydvav SiKrjv iavrols r)va>pevoi, exovres ev iavrois aei Tov Aoyov
as nkrJKrpov, Si ov Kivovpevoi dirr)yyekkov ravra anep rjBekev o Geoff
ol n-pocpiJTCu. Ov yap e'£ ISias Svvdpeas i(j>BeyyovTO (fii) nkava>) ouoe
awep airol e'ftovkovro. TaCra eKrjpvrrov, akkd rrpusrov pev Sia tov
Aoyov e'o-o(j)i£ovTo 6p8£>s, eweira Si opapdrcov npoeSiSdaKovTO ra pek-
kovra Kakas, eiff ovra ireneiapevoi ekeyov ravra, drrep avrois ijv pdvois
dwb rov Qeoi anoKeKakvppeva, rois Se komois diroKeKpvppeva. Also,
see Burton, Testim. Antenicene Fathers, § 95, p. 179, for the
language of St. Clement of Alexandria on this point, speaking
of Christ as 6 Trpotprjrqs 7rpo(prjTwv Kai Kvpios iravrbs irpocprjriKOV
koyov.
Sect. 118. p. 244. That earlier Gospel of Justification by Faith. —
See Card. Newman, Parochial Sermons, Vol. ii. Serm. VIII.
pp. 94, 95 : ' The evangelical covenant, which was not to be
preached till near two thousand years afterwards, was re
vealed and transacted in Abraham's person . . . He was justi
fied by faith, he trusted in God's power to raise the dead, he
looked forward to the day of Christ, and was vouchsafed a
vision of the Atoning Sacrifice on Calvary;' and the following
beautiful places of St. Leo, Serm. XXXI. (Migne, vol. i. col.
234(11 1) ), ' Omnes sancti qui Salvatoris nostri tempora prae-
cesserunt, per hanc fidem justificati, et per hoc sacramentum
Christi sunt corpus effecti, exspectantes universalem creden-
tium redemptionem in semine Abraham . . . qui est Christus;'
Serm. LII. (i. 314(199)), 'Non enim quia secundum inscruta-
bile propositum Sapientiae Dei novissimis diebus Verbum caro
factum est ideo salutiferae Virginis partus extremi tantum
temporis generationibus profuit, et non se etiam in praeteritas
refudit aetates. Omnis prorsus antiquitas colentium Deum
verum, omnis numerus apud saecula priora sanctorum in hac
fide vixit et placuit; et neque patriarchis, neque prophetis,
neque cuiquam omnium sanctorum, nisi in redemptione Domini
nostri Jesu Christi salus et justificatio fuit ;' and Serm. LXIII.
ii. (i. 354 (244) ), ' Una enim fides justificat universorum tempo-
rum sanctos, et ad eamdem spem fidelium pertinet quidquid
per mediatorem Dei et hominum Jesum Christum vel nos
confitemur factum vel patres nostri adoravere faciendum ; '
and Serm. LXVI. i. (i. 365 (255)), 'Redemptio Salvatoris, de
struens opus diaboli et rumpens vincula peccati, ita magnae

app. ii.] Additional Notes and References. 575
pietatis suae disposuit sacramentum, ut usque ad consumma-
tionem quidem mundi praefmita generationum plenitudo de-
curreret, sed renovatio originis per justificationem indiscretae
fidei ad omnia retro saecula pertineret. Incarnatio quippe
Verbi, et occisio et resurrectio Christi, universorum fidelium
salus facta est, et sanguis unius justi hoc nobis donavit, qui
eum pro reconciliatione mundi credimus fusum, quod con-
tulit patribus, qui similiter credidere fundendum.' (Cap. ii.),
' Nihil ergo, dilectissimi, ab antiquis significationibus in Chris
tiana religione diversum est, nee umquam a praecedentibus
justis, nisi in Domino Jesu Christo salvatio sperata est,
dispensationibus quidem pro divinae voluntatis ratione varia-
tis, sed in idipsum coruscantibus et legis testimoniis et pro-
phetiae oraculis et oblationibus hostiarum : quia sic congruebat
illos populos erudiri, ut quae revelata non caperent, ob-
umbrata susciperent, et major Evangelii esset auctoritas, cui
tot signis totque mysteriis veteris Testamenti paginae de-
servissent ; de quibus Dominus profitebatur, quod non venerat
legem solvere, sed adimplere.' Also St. Gregory the Great,
Homil. in Ezech. Lib. H. Horn. iii. 16 (Migne, Vol. ii. col.
966(1338)), 'Et quidem ab Abel sanguine passio jam coepit
Ecclesiae, et una est Ecclesia electorum praecedentium atque
sequentium . . . Non divisi [antiqui patres] a sancta Ecclesia
fuerunt, quia mente, opere, praedicatione, ista jam fidei sacra-
menta tenuerunt, istam sanctae Ecclesiae celsitudinem con-
spexerunt, quam nos non adhuc praestolando sed jam habendo
conspicimus. Sicut enim nos in praeterita passione Redemp-
toris nostri, ita illi per fidem in eadem ventura sunt salvati ; '
and Ibid. Horn. iv. 7 (ii. 977 (1345) )> ' Ipsa fi(les at(lue ipsum
meritum tenuit corda praecedentium quae replevit corda se
quentium sub novo testamento positorum;' and Ibid. Horn.
v. 2 (ii. 985(1352)), 'Omnes electi, sive qui in Judaea esse
potuerunt sive qui nunc in Ecclesia existunt, in Mediatorem
Dei et hominum crediderunt et credunt.' See also Canon
Bright's Sermons of St. Leo on the Incarnation, note 13, p. 94.
119. p. 246. The secret action of the One Mediator. — St. Hippol.
Comment, in Genes. Lagarde's ed. § 46, p. 139, '0 Kvpios as
Ylbs rd Si a>v eKe'ivoi [ol rav warepaiv emo-qpoTaroi, who were only
oiKerai] yeyovaeri kapvpol KexoprjyrjKev avrols' roiydproi keyovo-iv on
eK tov Trkr/paparos airov ndvres rjpels ekafiopev.

576 Additional Notes and References, [app. ii.
Sect. 136. p. 282. The remarkable prevalence of a very general ex
pectation. — Read Newman's Two Sermons on The Kingdom of
the Saints — Parochial Sermons, Vol. ii. Sermons XX. XXI.
144. p. 307. Christ's act in the Upper Chamber was sacrificial. —
Comp. the Aiard^eis ra>v dy'iav anoo-rokav, Sid 'lmrokvrov (Constitt.
Apost. Lib. VIII.), given as No. 7 of Lagarde's Hippolytus,
§ 26, nepl evra^ias, p. 88, 1. 9, Tlparos rolvvv ' Apxiepevs 6 povo-
yevr)s Xpiaros1, ovx eavrat rr)v riprjv &p7rdo~as, dkkd irapd tou Ilarpbs
Karao-raBeis' off yevopevos avBparros Si' rjpds Kai ttjv irvevptiTiKrjv
Bvo-'iav Ttpoa<pepav avTa t<5 Sew Kai LTatpi irpb tov rrdBovs fjpiv Sierd-
£aro povois tovTo rroie'iv, K.r.k.
148. p. 313. Disembodied men are not mere spirits. — St. Irenaeus,
Adv. Haer. II. lxiii. p. 241, 'Plenissime Dominus docuit non
solum perseverare animas, sed et characterem corporis, in quo
etiam adaptantur, custodire eundem, et meminisse eas operum
quae egerunt hie et a quibus cessaverunt, in enarratione quae
scribitur De Divite et Lazaro ; ' and Ibid. cap. Ixiv. p. 242,
' Manifestissime declaratum est et perseverare animas . . . et
habere hominis figuram, ut etiam cognoscantur, et meminerint
eorum quae sint hie'
151. p. 318. Christ's preaching in the Unseen. — St. Hippol. Frag
ments, On Daniel, No. 102 in Lagarde, p. 180, KaraxBovlav Se
[/Sao-tXeic], on Kai ev veKpols ekoyio-Brj, evayyeki£dpevos rats Tav aylav
ij/vxais, Sid Bavdrov Bdvarov vikuiv ; and St. Irenaeus, A dv. Haer.
IV. xiv ; and St. Augustine, Cont. Julian VI. xxii. (Migne,
vol. x. col. 1553.)
177. p. 367. The First Resurrection is spiritual. So St. Augustine
argues, De Civ. Dei, xx. vi, vol. vii. 665.
178. p. 368. Christ's faithful people live and reign with Him even
now. Compare the ' Quern nosse vivere, Cui servire regnare
est,' of the Second Collect at Matins; and St. Aug. Civ. Dei,
xx, ix (vol. vii. col. 672), ' Interea dum mille annis ligatus est
diabolus, sancti regnant cum Christo etiam ipsis mille annis
eisdem sine dubio, et eodem modo intelligendis, id est, isto
jam tempore prioris ejus adventus .... Ecclesia et nunc est
regnum Christi, regnumquae coelorum. Regnant itaque cum
illo etiam nunc sancti ejus, aliter quidem, quam tunc regna-
1 Compare the title 'O 'Apxiepevs 6 davyupLros, ' The Incomparable High Priest,'
applied to Christ a few Hues further on in the same passage.

app.il] Additional Notes and References. 577
bunt ; ' and, a few lines afterwards, of the Faithful Departed,
' Quamvis ergo cum suis corporibus nondum, jam tamen eorum
animae regnant cum Ulo, dum isti mille anni decurrunt. Unde
in hoc eodem libro et alibi legitur, Beati mortui, qui in
Domino moriuntur, amodo et jam dicit Spiritus, ut requi-
escant a laboribus suis; nam opera eorum sequuntur illos.
Regnat itaque cum Christo nunc primum Ecclesia in vivis
et mortuis.'

pp

INDEX.

Thefigwes refer to the Sections of the Lectures, and to the pages of the Appendix.
The Roman numerals refer to the Notes in the Appendix.

Abraham : His Call, 81 ; Sacrifice of
Isaac, 144.
Absolution : the power of, 159.
Adonai, 93, 96, 101, 102, 109, 114, 129,
142 ; ix. p. 503.
Agony, the, 144, 145.
Amalek, the Judgment of, 127.
Ancient of Days, the, 107, 175.
Angel of the Loed, the : Is the Eter
nal Son, 86, &c. ; not a created angel,
91, &c. ; His Appearances, 86-m,
'55-
Angels : 44, &c. ; unscriptural cultus
of, 91 ; their interest in this world,
108, ill ; are enlightened by the Son
of God, 1; have bodies, II; fell through
pride, iv.
Annihilationism, 52.
Antediluvians, the, 79, 125, 152.
Antichrist, 192 ; xv. p. 545 ; xvi. p.
557-
Apostasy, of the Jews, 167, &c. ; the
Final, 173, 192.
Apostolic Succession : Canon Melvill on,
xrv. p. 542.
Appearances, Visible, of God, 83, &c. ;
see ' Theophanies.'
Arianism, 87, 90.
Atonement, Day of, 143 ; see ' Sacrifice.'
Acts: chap. i. §§ 155, 162; i. 7, § 171 ;
i. 13 ; x.p. 507 ; ii. § 165 ; X. p. 508 ;
iii. 21, § 193; iii. 26, § 168; iv. 32,
§ 167, X. p. 509; v. § 116; vi. 13,
§ 170 ; vii. § 169 ; vii. 44, § 120 ; vii.
51, § 119; ix. § 169; xvii. 28, § 22,
64.
Apocalypse, the : date of, 170 ; Is an ex
pansion of Christ's Olivet Prophecy,
171, 172 ; Preterist view of, 172.
Alford, Dean, 30, 38.
St. Ambrose : on Angels, II, IV ; on the
Theophanies, VII. p. 47 2 ; on the Sur
render of the Kingdom, xvii. p. 563.
St. Anselm : on angels, v.
Aquinas, St. Thomas, 56 ; on angels, v.

St. Athanasius, 1, 6 ; vn. p. 455.
St. Augustine, 83 ; on the Theophanies,
90, 107 ; VII. p. 480 ; on angels, I, 11,
in ; on Gen. iii. 8 ; VI ; on the Reno
vation of the World, XVII. p. 567.

Babylon: of the Apocalypse, 171; xi.
P-5°9-
Beatitudes : the Eight, fulfilled in the
Consummated State, 200.
Bible : still imperfectly understood,
Pref. p. xii. §§ 26, 33 ; critical study
of, 133-
Barry, Canon, 118, 122.
St. Basil : on angels, 11 ; on the Theo
phanies, vii. p. 489.
Bellarmine, 13.
Bernardinus a Piconio : on 1 Cor. xv.
24-28 ; xvii. pp. 563, 569.
Browne, Bishop Harold, 73, 76.
Bruce, Rev. A. B., 81.
Bull, Bishop, 1, 13, 45, 71, 76, 84, 86,
89 ; on angels, 11, in.
Burton, Rev. Dr., 97 ; vii. p. 451.

Caiaphas, Christ's answer {0, 82, 146,
170.
Calvinism, 35.
Christ. See Son, The Eternal.
Christianity : a forward-looking Reli
gion, 27, 34, &c.
Church, the: the worship of, 72. 120,
XIV. p. 540 ; the Church and the
world, 125; the Pentecostal Church,
174, 183, 186 ; Christ's Commission
to, 157, x. p. 503.
City : the ' Great City ' of the Apoca
lypse, 171 ; XI. p. 510.
Co-inherence, 89 ; viii. p. 502.
Commission, Christ's to the Whole
Church, 157; x.p. 505.
Communion, the Holy, 72, 143, 179,
180.
Communion, of Saints, 175, 178.

Index.

579

Councils : Antioch, vii. p. 455.
Covenant, the Mosaic, 117; close of, 143.
Creation, 12 ; through the Son, 14, &c. ;
necessarily finite and imperfect, 63 ;
needs the Incarnation, 63 ; grandeur
of, 32, 47-
Creationism, 57.
Creeds, the Catholic, 3, 5, 6.
1 Chronicles: xxi. 15, § 104.
2 Chronicles: 11. xxiv. 20, xi. p. 518.
Colossians: i. 15. §§ 14, 18, 30; i. 16,
§ 30; i. 19, § 62; ii. 19, § 180.
1 Corinthians: ii. § 78 ; ii. 9, § 193;
v. 5. §§ r52- 183; vi. 2, § 193; x.
§§ 88, 123 ; x. 16, §§ 180, 187 ; xv.
6, § 161; xv. 22, § 193; xv. 24-
28, § 200. xvii ; xv. 40, § 194 ; xv.
45, §§ 121, 180.
2 Corinthians : ii. 10, § 183; iv. 6, § 89 ;
xii. 4, § 148.
Carpenter, Canon Boyd, 132.
Cheyne and Driver, Bible with various
Renderings, 96, 100.
St. Clement of Alexandria, 25 ; vii. p.
. 44°-
St. Cyprian : on the Theophanies, VII.
p. 454.
St. Cyril of Jerusalem, 94 ; on the Re
novation of the World, xvii. p. 566.

Dwight, Rev. Dr. : on man's insensibi
lity to the Incarnation, 137.

Death : of Christ, 147 ; of man, 149 ;
progress after, 150.
Delegation : the principle of the Chris
tian Ministry, 1 66.
Difficulties as to Faith: Pref. p. xv.
§ 69-
Discipline : exercised by the Church, 159.
Disembodied : the disembodied state, 147.
Dispensation, Ante-diluvian, 79, 125 ;
Noachian, 81 ; Abrahamic, 81, 93,
125 ; Mosaic, 117, 143.
Dispersion, Jews of the, 136, 171.
Daniel, iii. and vi., § 106 ; vii., § 107 ;
xiv. p. 546; viii. 15, § 107 ; x., xi.,
and xii., § 108.
Deuteronomy, xxviii., § 172 5 xi- P- 5I3-
Damascene, St. John : on angels, II.
Delitzsch, 86 ; vi.
Diodati, John : on the Theophanies, VII.
P- 493- ^
Dollinger, Rev. Dr. von, 13, 33, 135 !
xv. p. 553-
Dorner, Person of Christ, 2, 31, 42,
135- P

Earth: Renovation of the, 149, 193,
194; xvn. p. 565.
Egypt : the judgment of, 82, 126.
Elders of Israel, 116.
Election: is not proscription, 81; the
^Election from apostate Israel, 1 74.
Elijah, 104; future re-appearance of,
xvi. p. 560.
End of the world, the, 80, 193-200 ; xv,
XVI, XVII.
Eschatology: Pref. p. xii. § 171 ; XVII.
P- 5^4-
Eucharist, the, 72, 143, 179, 180.
Evidences, Christian : Pref. p. xv.
§ 87.
Exegesis: source of Christian, 154, 158 ;
xvi. p. 539.
Exodus, the 82.
Ephesians: i. 9, § 62 ; i. 10, § 30, 138 ;
ii. 4, | 176; ii. 14, § 196; ii. 19,
§§ 178, 195; ii. 20, § 195; iv. 8,
§ 153; iv. 10, § 184; v. 25, § 196;
v. 29-32, § 196.
Exodus : iii, § 97 ; xiii, § 97 ; xiv,
§§ 97, 98 ; xv, § 126 ; xvii. 8, 6 127 ;
xxiii, § 99 ; xxv, 9 and 40, § 1 20;
xxvi. 30, § 120 ; xxxii, § 99 ; xxxiii,
§ 99 ; xxxiii. 9, vi ; xxxiii. 20, § 85 ;
xxxiv. 5, § 130.
Ezekiel : i. § 105 ; x. 20, § 105 ; xl.,
&c, § 105.
Eusebius, of Csesarea, vii. p. 458.
Evans, Canon of Durham, 88.

Father — God the Father— Never
visibly seen, 85 ; never said to ' be
sent,' S5, S8.
Fatherhood of God : Pref., p. ix. §§ 8, 9.
Forty: the ' Great Forty Days,' 154.
Freeman, Archdeacon, 73, 76, 79.

Gentiles: the 'Times of the Gentiles,'
174; xn. p. 527.
Gethsemane: The Lords Agony, 46,
144, 145.
Tfj : New Test, use of, xi. p. 514, note.
Gog and Magog, xvi. p. 557.
Gospel : anterior to and underlying the
Law, 118; App. 11. p. 573-

58o

Index.

Grace: Nature and Grace, Pref. p. i.
§ 164; the Gospel of Grace underlay
the Law, 118, 119 ; App. II, p. 573.
Galatians: iii. 8, § 118; iv. 26, § 178.
Genesis: ii. 17, § 73 ; ii. 18, § 42 ; iii.
15. § 73; Hi. 17, §194; iii- 21, § 76;
iv- 1, § 75 ! vi. 2, § 80 ; xii, § 93 ;
xv, § 93; xvi, § 94; xviii, §§ 91,
96 ; xix, § 96 ; xxi, § 94 ; xxii, § 95 ;
xlviii. 15, § 95.
Gladstone, W. E., 155.
Gotch and Davies, Rev. Drs. : Revised
English Bible, Pref. p. xiv. note,
§ 100.
St. Gregory the Great: on angels, II,
IV ; on the Theophanies, VII. p. 487 ;
on the Justification of the 0. T. saints
by Faith, App. II. p. 574.

Hades, 147.
Harlot : the Harlot upon the Beast, XI.
p. 512.
Heathenism : at the date of the Incar
nation, 135.
Hell, 152.
Habalckuk: iii. 11, § 101.
Hebrews: i. 2, § 14; i. 3, § 22 ; i. 8,
§ 29 ; ii. 14, § 147 ; iii. 1, § 86 ; iii.
2, § 30 ; iii. 22, § 178 ; iv. 14, §141 ;
vii. 23, § 184; viii. 2, § 185 ; xiv. p.
540 ; viii. 5, § 120; ix. 9, § 117 ; xi.
io, § 195; xi. 13, § 196; xi. 19,
§ 144; xii. 22, § 195.
Hosea : xii. 3, § 95.
Hardwick, Archdeacon, 68.
Hengstenberg, 13, 86, 91.
St. Hilary, of Poitiers : on the Theoph
anies, vii. p. 466 ; his De Trinitate,
App. 11. p. 571.
St. Hippolytus : on the Theophanies,
VII. p. 45 2 ; on Antichrist, xv. p. 551 ;
App. 11. p. 572 ; on Christ in the an
cient Church, App. 11. p. 573.
Hooker, 45, 46, 52, 59 ; iv.
Horsley, Bishop : on 1 St. Peter iii. 18,
§ i52-
Huxtable, Prebendary, 95.

tion, 24, 112, &.C., 137, 164; the'sum-
ming up ' of all things, 30, 59, 62 ;
not contingent on sin, 58, &c. ; VII. p.
500 ; secures the permanence of the
material creation, 61 ; the long pre
paration for, 68 ; adoration of God
for, 74; not an isolated fact, 87;
men's insensibility to the grandeur
of, 137-
Intellect : to be used on religious sub
jects, 2 : relation of to moral charac
ter, 36, &c.
Intermediate : the Intermediate State,
147.
Isaac : the Sacrifice of, 144.
Israel : grandeur of the calling of, 132;
consequences of unfaithfulness of, 132.
Isaiah: vi, §§ 107, 129; ix. 6, §§ 60,
86, 140 ; liii, § 147 ; lxiii. 3, § 144 ;
lxiii. 7, §§ 99, 115 ; Ixiv. 4, § 193 ;
lxv. 2, § 115.
St. Irenaeus, 89 ; on the Theophanies,
VII. p. 435 ; disembodied men are not
mere spirits, App. II. p. 576.

Ideal : the Ideal of Redemption, 176,
&c. ; xiii. p. 531; Bible 'Ideals,'
xiii. p. 531.
Incarnation : the Incarnation the
completed development of Media-

Jerusalem: its first downfall, 182 ; final
fall of, 132, 171 ; the Babylon of the
Apocalypse, 171 ; xi. p. 509 ; the
' New Jerusalem,' 195.
Jews : future Restoration of, 132 ; xvi.
p. 553 ; their view of the Theopha
nies, vn. p. 491 ; Prophecies relating
to, xvi. p. 554.
Joseph : a type of Christ, 132.
Judaism, 27; the Judaism of our Lord's
time, XI. p. 512.
Judgment : the judgment of the Ante
diluvian world, 79 ; of Sodom, 82, 96 ;
of Egypt, 127 ; of Amalek, 127 ; of
the Canaanites, 128 ; of Israel, 130;
of Judah, 131 ; of Nineveh, 131 ; of
Babylon, 131; of the later Jerusalem,
132, 167, 168, 170, &c. ; of Christian
Churches, 173, 189, 190; the Gene
ral Judgment, 197.
Judicial character of Christ, 82, 190.
St. James: his general Epistle, 17L
Job : xxxiii. 23, § 104 ; xxxviii. 7,
§ 194.
St. John's Gospel : i. 3, §§ 1, 14; i. 4,
§ 22 ; i. 9, §§ 36, 68, 77, 88 ; i. 10,
§§ 15, 21, 88: i. 14, § 136; i. 18,
§§ 7°. §5 5 v. §§ 30, 82, 88 : v. 24,
&c, § 177; vi. 39, §§ 180, 193; viii.
56, §§ 88, 196 ; x. 18, § 146 ; xii. 23,

Index.

58t

§ 172 ; xii. 28, § 85; XII. p. 526 ; xii.
41, § 129 ; xiii. § 143 ; xiv. 31, § 143 ;
xvii, §§ 142, 144, 198 ; xviii. 6, § 146 ;
xx. 19, §§ 142, 157, 183; xx. 21, x.
p. 506 ; xxi, § 160.
Joshua: i. 5, § 101 ; v. vi, § 101.
St. Jude : § 50 ; ver. 9, § 196.
Judges : ii, § 102 ; iv. v, § 102; v. 23,
§ 108 ; vi. 11, § 102 ; xiv, § 103.

KaivSs : use of, XI. p. 510, note.
Kare%ov : to xarexov of 2 Thess. ii, XIV.
P- £47-
Keys, power of the, 159, 165, 183, 187.
Kingdom of God, 124, &c, 135, 167,
188.
Kingly function of Christ, 124, 135,
155. ^7< l88> l89 ; xv"- P- 5^3-
Kings of the earth, xi. p. 513.
Kings : 1. xix, § 104 ; 11. i. § 104.
Keble, Rev. John, 68, 126, 139, 146, II.
Keil, vi.

Lamb : the Lamb as it had been slain,
175-
Law : the law of Moses, 117, 143.
Lawless : the lawless one, 192 ; XV. p.
548-
Lawlessness, of the last times, xv. p.
548.
Life Eternal, 177.
Logos; A070S aaapKos, Pref. p.i. ; App.
II. 572.
Loosing of Satan, xv. p. 549.
Lost spirits, angelic and human, 39, 51,
&c, 199.
Leviticus: xxvi. § 172 ; XI. p. 513.
St. Luke's Gospel: ix. 51, § 144; x. 18,
§ 175, xn. p. 525; x. 22, § 70; x.
24, § 196; xi. 14-26, xii. pp. 525,
53°; xii. 39, § 194; xii. 47, § 197;
xiii. 28, §§ 151, 196; xiii. 34, § 88;
xiv. 16, § 199; xvii, § 80; xix. 11-
27, § 200; xx. 36, § 194; xxi. 24,
§§ 34, 82; xxi. 25, § 171; xxi. 32,
§171; xxi. 33, § 194 ; xxii. 43, § 46 ;
xxiv. 27, 45, Pref. p. xv, §§ 87, 114,
142, 154, 158 ; xxiv. 33, § x. p. 506 ;
xxiv. 50, § 162.

Martyrs : the Martyrs in the Apoca
lypse, XI. p. 517.
Mediation : natural and spiritual, Pref.
p. i. 164.
M^iffrai/es : New Testament use of, XI.
p. 515 note.
St. Michael, the Archangel, 97, 108,
109, vii. p. 427.
Millennium: 170, 171, 175, 178, 182,
xn. p. 524.
Malachi: no; iii. 1, viii. p. 503; iv.
xvi. p. 558.
St. Mark : x. 32, § 144 ; x. 39, § 143 ;
xiii. 3, § 171; xiii. 30, §171; xiii.
31, § 194; xiv. 28, § 161; xvi. 19,
§ 162.
St. Matthew : v. 3, &c, § 200 ; viii. II,
§ 196; x. 8, § 151; xi. n, § 196;
xi. 27, § 70; xii. 43-45, § 172, 175,
xii. p. 525 ; xiii. 17, § 196; xiii. 43,
§ 180; xviii. 6-10, § 189; xix. 30,
§ 193 ; xx. 20, § 143 ; xxi. 33, § 82,
xi. p. 516; xxii. 1, § 82, xi. p. 516 ;
xxiii. 37, §§ 82, 88 ; xxiv. 34, § 171 ;
xxiv. 35, § 194 ; xxiv. 43, § 194 ;
xxiv. 45, § 171 ; xxv. 15-30, § 200 ;
xxv. 19, § 171 ; xxv. 31, § 82, 193 ;
xxvi. 26, § 143 ; xxvi. 32, § 161 ;
xxvii. 52, § 196 ; xxviii. 16, § 161 ;
xxviii. 18, § 154; xxviii. 19, § 154.
Micah, vii. 18, § 131.
Macaire, Bishop : On angels, 11. iv.
McCaul, Dr. : Kimchi on Zechariah,
vn. p. 491.
Macdonald, Rev. Donald : On the Penta
teuch, 71, 79.
Maples, Rev. Chauncy, 135.
Martensen : Christian Dogmatics, 1 3,
67, 126:
Maurice, Rev. F. D., 6.
Mede : On the Renovation of the World,
xvii. p. 566.
St. Melito : On the Theophanies, vn.
P- 433-
Melvill, Rev. Canon : On Heb. viii. 2,
xiv. p. 540.
Mill, Dr., 67, 85, 86, 97, 101.
Milman, Dean: History of the Jews,
xi. p. 515-
Moberly, Bishop of Sarum, 118, 156.
Moulton, Rev. Dr., 88.

Magog, Gog and Magog: xvi. 557.
Man: the Microcosm, 55, &c. ; App. 11.
P-571-

Nature and Grace: Pref. p. i. 164.
Nicene Creed : importance of the, 5.
Numbers : iii. 5, § 116 ; iii. 40, § 116 ;

582

Index.

viii. 4, § 120 ; viii. 5, § 116 ; xii. 6,
vi ; xviii. 6, § 116; xxii.-xxiv, § 100;
xxii. 8, vi. note.

Newman, Cardinal, 13, 86,
xiii. p. 536.

141

Old Testament: insufficiently studied,
Pref. p. xiii. § 41.
Only-ness, of God, 8.
Ode, Jacobus : De Angelis, On the Theo
phanies, vn. p. 494.
Oosterzee, Van ; Christian Dogmatics,
12, 14, 67, 71, 130.
Origen : On the Theophanies, vn. p. 453.
Owen, Rev. Robert: Dogmatic Theology,

Pantheism, 64, &c, 67.
Parables: the Talents, 200; the Pounds,
200.
Paradise, 147, 148, 151, 175.
Passover, the, 122, 143.
Peace : the fruit of the Incarnation,
138.
Pentecost, 165.
nepixi>pi]<ns, 89, VIII. p. 502.
Persecution : of the Jewish Christians,
17°. !95-
Predestination : St. Paul's language on,
xiii. p. 536.
Priesthood : connected with primogeni
ture, 42, 116, 141; the Christian
priesthood, 143, 166, 183, 184, 185;
Melvill on, xiv. p. 542.
Probation : of angels, 48, 7 1 ; no pro
bation after death, 149.
Prophecy, Hebrew, 115, 129, XVI. p.
553-
Purpose : God's all-inclusive Purpose
the Manifestation of Himself, 63 ;
the purpose of God may be studied,
134-
St. Peter's Epistles: I. i. n, § 115; 1.
i. 12, § 21 ; 1. i. 20, § 118; 1. ii. 4,
§ 196; I. ii. 5, 9, § 179; 1. iii. 18,
§ 147, 152 ; 1. iii. 19, § 196, note ; 1.
iii. 20, § 80; 11. iii. § 194.
Philippians : i. 21, § 196 ; ii. 20, § 178 ;
iii. 8, § 196, note; iii. 12, 14, § 181 ;
iii. 20, § 195 ; iii. 21, § 180; iv. 21,
§ 194-
Proverbs: viii. 22-31, § 21.
Psalms: ii. §§ 29, 112, 114, 193; viii.
§§ 5F> !54' 2°°; ix- x. xi. xvi. p. 546;
ix. 18, § 195; xi. § 195 ; xii. § 195

xvii. 15, VI.; xxiv. §163; xxxvii.
§ 200 ; li. § 119 ; xciii. 2, § 27 ; xcix.
1, § 27; ex. § 29, 114.
Pearson, Bishop : On the Creed, 29, 152
Plumptre, Dean of Wells : On Acts xvii-
64.
Prudentius : On the Theophanies, vn.
p. 484.
Pusey, Dr., 87, 94, 95, 101, 102, 104,
109 ; on Justin Martyr, VII. p. 426 ;
on the return of Elijah, xvi. p. 560.

Reign : of Christ on earth, xvii. p. 565 ;
of the Saints with Christ, 176, 181,
182, 193, App. 11. p. 576.
Renovation of the World : 194, XVII.
p. 566; App. 11. p. 577.
Resurrection: of the Saints, 193, 197 ;
the 'First Resurrection,' 177, XII.
p. 527 ; the General Resurrection,
193. 197- . . o
Retribution : examples of Divine, 80, &c,
96, 127, 128, 130-132.
Revelation : The Book of the. Revelation ;
see 'Apocalypse.'
Royalty of Christ, 27, 124, 135, 175,
176, xvn. p. 565.
Revelation: analysis of, xi. p. 519; i.
§ 107; ii. 5, § 191; iii. 12, §178;
iii. 21, § 193; iv.-xix. § 172 ; iv. 1,
§ 196 ; v. § 172 ; v. 6, § 163; v. 10,
§ 176 ; vi. § 132 ; vi. 10, § 195 ; xii.
§ 170; xiii. 2, 4, § 175; xviii. xi.
p. 516; xix. 7, § 171 ; xix. 10, § 115;
xx.' § 171, 175; xx. 4, § 176; xx. 7,
§ 192 ; xxi. §§ 178, 194, 195, 196,
198 ; xxi. 8, § 199 ; xxi. 24, § 199 ;
xxii. 11, 15, § 199.
Romans: ii. 14, § 197 ; iii. §§ 117, 139 ;
viii. 19, § 194, XIII. p. 536 ; xi. xn.
p. 527, xvi. p. 556; xi. 25-32, §§ 34,
82, 196.
Sacraments, 59, 165, 179, 183, 187.
Sacrifice : is the essence of worship, 41 ;
animal sacrifice, 76 ; the Eucharistic
Sacrifice, 72, 143, 179; meaning of
the partaking of sacrifices, 121;
sacrifice of the will, ,144 ; inner es
sence of sacrifice, 144.
Salvation : the ' state of salvation,' 177,
&c.
Sanhedrim, XI. p. 515.
Sapientia : the antiphon, 0 Sapientia,
142.
Science : not antagonistic to theology,
23 ; is the study of Nature, 54.

Index.

583

Septuagint, Pref. p. xiii. 100, 102.
Sheol, 148.
Sin : necessitates expiation, 41 ; entered
through free-will, 48; essence of, is
pride, 49 ; sin of the Angels, 50, &c.
Sin-offering, 121.
Sodom, the Judgment of, 82, 96.
Son: the Eternal Son, 8, 9, 16 ; is
the Mediator as the Son, io, &c. ;
upholds the universe, 22, 28; royal
character of, 29 ; is heir of all things,
30, 31 ; the Light of the World, 36 ;
His Priesthood, 40, &c. ; the ' Educa
tor' of mankind, 25, 71, 78, 137,
150 ; the Mediator from the first, 77 ;
judicial character of, 82 ; was always
the medium of Divine Communica
tion, 85 ; is the Angel of the Lord,
86-1 1 1 ; pre-incarnate appearances
of, 83, &c. ; His prophecy on Olivet,
80, 170, 171 ; is invisible in His Di
vine Essence, 89 ; is the Image of
God, 89 ; was Mediator under the
Law, 112, 1 20 ; His Kingly Function,
124, 129; was 'the God of Israel,'
129 ; His Incarnation, 137 ; value of
His earthly life, 140; His Baptism,
140 ; His work as Man, 140, &c. ;
Temptation, 141 ; teaching, as Pro
phet, 142 ; Priestly Function, 143 ;
Last Supper, 143, App. 11. p. 576;
His Agony, 144 ; Transfiguration,
144 ; Death, 147 ; action in the Un
seen State, 147, &c, 195 ; Resurrec
tion, 154 ; commission to the Church,
157, &c. ; commission to St. Peter,
160 ; commission to baptize, 161 ;
Final Charge, 162 ; Ascension, 163;
His answer on oath to Caiaphas, 170;
His Mediation after His Ascension,
184, &c. ; His future post-Millennial
reign on earth, 195, 200, xvii.p. 565.
Spirit — The Holt Spirit — His help
needed in theological study, 1, 7, 78;
is the life of all that lives, 28, 70 ;
inbreathed by Christ, 158 ; gift of,
at Pentecost, 165, 167, 187; given,
at Easter-night and on Day of Pente
cost, to the whole Church, 166, X.
p. 505 ; bears witness within Chris
tians, 186.
Spirit of man, 38, &c, 56, 57 ; disem
bodied, 148; spirits in prison, 152.
St. Stephen's martyrdom, 160, 170.
Subordination of the Son, ii.
Succession, Apostolic : Canon Melvill
on, xiv. p. 542.
Supper, the Last, 143.

Samuel, 11. xxiv. 16, § 104.
Sandius, Christopher, 84.
Schopenhauer, 67.
Shedd : History of Christian Doctrine,
2.
Smith : Dean Payne Smith of Canter
bury, on the Theophanies, VII. p. 496.
Steward's Mediatorial Sovereignty, vn.
p. 497.

Tabernacle and Temple : symbolism of
the, xiii. p. 534.
Targums, 73, 86.
Theocracy of Israel, 126, 129, 136.
Theology not antagonistic to science,
32-
Theophanies, 83, &c. ; cessation of, 92 ;
examined in detail, 93-11 1; of the
ascended Christ, 168, 169, Appen
dix, Note vn.
Time : the fulness of the time, 1 36.
Traducianism, 57.
Transfiguration, the, 144.
Tree of life, the, 59.
Tribulation, the great, 169, 170, xn.
P- 525-
Trinity — The Holt Trinity — Old
Testament intimations of, 21.
Trinity of evil, XI. p. 523 ; xvii. p. 534.
Thessalonians : I. iii. 13, § 193; 1. iv.
16, § 193; 1. v. 23, § 149; 11. ii.
§§ 172, 192, xv. p. 545, xvi. p. 557.
Timothy: 1. ii. 5, § 24; i.vi. 16, §§ 70,
85 ; 1 ii. 20, § 198.
Titus : ii. 13, § 194 ; iii. 5, xii. p. 628.
Tertullian, 84; on angels, V; on the
Theophanies, vn. p. 444; on the
Millennium, xvii. p. 567.
St. Theophilus : on the Theophanies,
vn. p. 435-
Thomson, Archbishop of York, 144.
Trench, Archbishop of Dublin, 68, vn.
p. 499 ; xv. p. 549.

Unitarianism, Pref. p. ix. 8.
Unity, of God, 8.
Unity among Christians: unhappy re
sults of breach of, Pref. p. ix. 191.
Universe, the, grandeur of, 32, 47.
Universalism, 52, 199.
Unseen State, the, 147, 148, 178 ;
Christ's Presence in, 153. 178.
Unseen Universe, the, 61.

584

Index.

Version, Revised Westminster Version
of 1881, 43, 133.
Valesius, on Eusebius' Hist. Eccl., 101.

War : not designed for God's people,
129.
Wicked One, the, of 2 Thess. ii., 192,
xv. p. 545.
World-power, the: Babel, 125; Egypt,
126; Imperial Rome, xi. pp. 512,
522; of the future Antichrist, 192,
xv. xvi.

Worship: must be through the One
Mediator, 41, &c, 76; offered by
angels, 45 ; of the Catholic Church,
120, 179, xiii. p. 538.
Wace: Bampton Lectures, 192.'
Westcott, Rev. Dr., 36, 82.
Wordsworth, Bishop of Lincoln, 88.
Wordsworth, Canon John, Bampton
Lectures, 59.

Zechariah, 109.

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Conjectural Emendations of Passages in
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Sophocles.

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The Annual Register.

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The Fiftieth Year of the Reformation of
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A Charge.

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The Church in Wales.

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Capital Letters in Holy Scripture.
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A Narrative of Events connected with
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