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COLLECTION

THEOLOGICAL ESSAYS

VARIOUS AUTHORS.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION,

GEORGE R. NOYES, D.D.,
PROFESSOR OF SACRED LITERATURE IK HARVARD UNIVERSITY.

BOSTON:
AMERICAN UNITARIAN ASSOCIATION,
21 BKOMFIELD STREET.
1856.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
The American Unitarian Association,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of Massachusetts.

CAMBKIDGE :
STEREOTYPED AND PRINTED BY METCALP AND COMPANY.

CONTENTS.

PAGE
Introduction. By George R. Noyes  v

Faith and Science. By M. Guizot  1
The Law and the Gospel. By Bev. Baden Powell. ... 27
The Doctrine of Inspiration. By Dr. F. A. D. Tholuck. . 65
Holy Scripture. By Rev. Rowland "Williams  113
Servants of God speaking as moved by the Holy Ghost. By Rev.
Rowland "Williams.  127
The Spirit and the Letter, or the Truth and the Book. By Rev.
Rowland "Williams  147
On the Causes which probably conspired to produce our Saviour's
Agony. By Rev. Edward Harwood  167
Of our Lord's Fortitude. By Rev. William Neweome. . . 197
The Doctrine of the Atonement. By Benjamin Jowett. . . 221
On Righteousness by Faith. By Benjamin Jowett. . . . 239
On the Imputation of the Sin of Adam. By Benjamin Jowett. . 265
On Conversion and Changes of Character. By Benjamin Jowett. 273
Casuistry. By Benjamin Jowett.  299
On the Connection of Immorality and Idolatry. By Benjamin
Jowett  321
The Old Testament. By Benjamin Jowett. . ... 325
On the Quotations from the Old Testament in the New. By Benja
min Jowett.  329
Fragment on the Character of St. Paul. By Benjamin Jowett. . 341

IV CONTENTS.
St. Paul and the Twelve. By Benjamin Jowett. . . . 357
Evils in the Church of the Apostolical Age. By Benjamin Jowett. 383
On the Belief in the Coming of Christ in the Apostolical Age. By
Benjamin Jowett  393
The Death of Christ, considered as a. Sacrifice. By Rev. James
Foster  403
The Epistles to the Corinthians, in Relation to the Gospel History.
By Rev. Arthur P. Stanley  415
Apostolical Worship. By Rev. Arthur P. Stanley. . . . 437
The Eucharist. By Rev. Arthur P. Stanley. ... 443
Unity and Variety of Spiritual Gifts. By Rev. Arthur P. Stanley. 447
The Gift of Tongues and the Gift of Prophesying. By Rev. Ar
thur P. Stanley  453
Love, the greatest of Gifts. By Rev. Arthur P. Stanley. . . 472
The Resurrection of Christ. By Rev. Arthur P. Stanley. . . 477
The Resurrection of the Dead. By Rev. Arthur P. Stanley. . 482
On the Credibility of Miracles. By Dr. Thomas Brown. . . 485

Note A  505
NoteB  512

INTRODUCTION.

The following collection of Theological Essays
is designed for students in divinity, Sunday-school
teachers, and all intelligent readers who desire to gain
correct views of religion, and especially of the char
acter, use, and meaning of the Scriptures. It was
suggested by the recent excellent Commentary on the
Epistles of St. Paul by Mr. Jowett, now Professor of
Greek in the University of Oxford. Understanding
that this work was not likely to be reprinted in this
country, and that the high price of the English edition
rendered it inaccessible to most readers, it appeared to
me that a collection of Theological Essays, which
should include the most important dissertations con
nected with that Commentary, would be a valuable
publication. Mr. Jowett seems to me to have pene
trated more deeply into the views and spirit of Paul,
and the circumstances under which he wrote, than any
previous English commentator. Some of the best
results of his labors are presented in the Essays which
are now republished in this collection. Mr. Jowett's
notes might have been more satisfactory in some
respects if, in addition to other German commen
taries which he has mentioned, he had made use of
those of De Wette and Meyer. But no illustrative
dissertations in any German commentary with which
a*

VI INTRODUCTION.
we are acquainted are equal in value to those of
Jowett. His freedom and independence are espe
cially to be admired in a member of the Church of
England, and Professor in the University of Oxford.
In the selection of the dissertations by other writers,
regard was had partly to their rarity, and partly to
their intrinsic value, and the light which they throw
on important subjects which occupy the minds of re
ligious inquirers at the present day. Three Essays
are taken from Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature,
an English periodical conducted by clergymen of the
Established Church, of which few copies are circu
lated in this country. The first, by M. Guizot, the
eminent writer and statesman of France, presents the
subject of Faith in an interesting point of view, and
closes with an admirable lesson on the importance of
the free discussion of religious subjects.
The second Essay, by Rev. Baden Powell, an emi
nent Professor in the University of Oxford, and author
of several well-known publications, contains an able
discussion of a very important subject, which appears
to be now attracting some notice in this country ;
distinguished divines of the Baptist denomination
taking the view of Dr. Powell, and some of the Or
thodox Congregationalists opposing it. The prevalent
opinion, which regards the Old Testament as an au
thority in religion and morals equally binding upon
Christians with the New, appears to me to have had
a disastrous influence on the interests of the Church
and the interests of humanity. The history of the
civil wars of England and Scotland, the early history
of New England, and the state of opinion at the pres
ent day on the subjects of war, slavery, punishment
for religious opinion, and indeed punishment in gen-

INTRODUCTION. vii
eral, illustrate the noxious influence of ftie prevalent
sentiment. A writer in one of the most distinguished
theological journals in this country has been for some
time engaged in the vain attempt to prove, in opposi
tion to the plainest language, that the laws of the
Pentateuch do not sanction chattel slavery. It was
not thus that the great champion of the Protestant
Reformation proceeded, when the authority of the Old
Testament was invoked to justify immorality. "When
some of his contemporaries were committing unjusti
fiable acts against the peace and order of the commu
nity, and vindicated themselves by appealing to the Old
Testament, Luther wrote a treatise entitled " Instruc
tion on the Manner in which Moses is to be read,"
containing the following passage, which, in the clear
ness and force of its style, might have been imitated
with advantage by some of his countrymen : " Moses
was a mediator and lawgiver to the Jews alone, to
whom he gave the Law. If I take Moses in one com
mandment, I must take the whole of Moses. Moses
is dead. His dispensation is at an end. He has no
longer any relation to us. I will accept Moses as an
instructor, but not as a lawgiver, except where he
agrees with the New Testament, or with the law of
nature. When any one brings forward Moses and
his precepts, and would oblige you to observe them,
answer him thus : ' Go to the Jews with your Moses !
I am no Jew. If I take Moses as a master in one
point, I am bound to keep the whole law, says St.
Paul.'  If now the disorganizers say, ' Moses has
commanded it,' do you let Moses go, and say, ' I ask
not what Moses has commanded.' ' But,' say they,
' Moses has commanded that we should believe in
God, that we should not take his name in vain, that

VU1 INTRODUCTION.
we should honor our father and mother, &c. Must
we not keep these commandments ? ' Answer them
thus : ' Nature has given these commandments. Na
ture teaches man to call upon God, and hence it is
natural to honor God, not to steal, not to commit
adultery, not to bear false witness, &c. Thus I keep
the commandments which Moses has given, not be
cause he enjoined them, but because nature implanted
them in me.'  But if any one say, ' It is all God's
word,' answer him thus : ' God's word here, God's
word there. I must know and observe to whom this
word is spoken. I must know not only that it is
God's word, but whether it is spoken to me or to an
other. I listen to the word which concerns me, &c.
We have the Gospel.' " * I would not be understood
to maintain every sentiment which Dr. Powell has
advanced ; but his views in general appear to me not
only sound, but highly important.
The Essay on the subject of Inspiration, by Tho-
luck, is to be found in English only in the same for
eign journal. The views of a biblical student who
enjoys so great a reputation among Christians of
various denominations in all parts of the world need
no recommendation. The translation I have carefully
compared with the original, and found to be made
with great fidelity and accuracy.
The three Essays which follow on the use and
character of the Scriptures are taken from a recent
volume of sermons, entitled " Rational Godliness,"
by Rev. Rowland Williams, a clergyman and distin
guished scholar of the Established Church of Eng
land, having been delivered before the Chancellor and

* See the passage in Luther's works, or as quoted by Bretschneider,
Dogmatik, Vol. I. p. 181.

INTRODUCTION.

University of Cambridge. They appear to me suffi
ciently valuable to be reprinted. The writer may be
thought by some to undervalue external authority,
while maintaining the rights of intuition and expe
rience as means of attaining Christian truth. But
have not many Christians since the time of Paley
paid too exclusive regard to the former ? It seems to
me that those who accept the New Testament records
of miracles as genuine and authentic, will not fail to
receive from them their due influence, and will be in
no danger of attaching too great importance to intui
tive faith and Christian experience. The older the
world grows, the less must religious faith depend on
history and tradition, and the more on the power of
the human soul, assisted by the promised Paraclete,
to recognize revealed truth by its own light.
The four Essays which follow relate .to the great
subject of the Atonement by Christ, and are designed
to establish the true view of it, in opposition to cer
tain false theories which human speculation has con
nected with it, dishonorable to the character of God,
pernicious in their influence on man, and having no
foundation in the Scriptures or in reason. The Essay
on the Causes which probably conspired to produce
our Saviour's Agony, is by a distinguished English
scholar of the last century, the author of an Introduc
tion to the New Testament, and of a translation of
the same, which, though it departs too much from the
simplicity of the Common Version, is highly creditable
to the author as a critic and a man of learning. The
Essay which is here republished is commended by
Archbishop Newcome in his very valuable observa
tions, which follow, on substantially the same subject,
— the Fortitude of our Saviour. The two Essays

X INTRODUCTION.
appear to me to give a triumphant vindication of the
character of our Saviour from the charges which have
been brought against it by unbelievers, and, hypothet-
ically, by some Christian divines, founded on certain
expressions of feeling manifested a short time before
his death, which his faithful historians have recorded
for our instruction and consolation.
It so happens that that part of one of the specula
tive theories connected with the Christian doctrine of
atonement which is most repulsive to the feelings of
many Christians, is absolutely without foundation in
the Scriptures, or in the faith of the Church for many
centuries after the death of Christ. I refer to that
opinion which represents him as receiving supernatu
ral pain or torture immediately from the hand of God,
over and above that which was inflicted by human
instrumentality, or which arose naturally from the
circumstances in which he, as God's minister for es
tablishing the Christian religion, was placed, and from
the peculiar sensibility of his natural constitution.
The very statement of this theory by some distin
guished theologians shocks the feelings of many Chris
tians like the language of impiety. Thus Dr. Dwight
says : " Omniscience and Omnipotence are certainly
able to communicate, during even a short time, to a
finite mind, such views of the hatred and contempt of
God towards sin and sinners, and of course towards a
substitute for sinners, as would not only fill its capa
city for suffering, but probably put an end to its
existence. In this manner, I apprehend, the chief
distresses of Christ were produced." * What ideas !
The omnipotence and omniscience of God are first
* Dwight's Theology, Vol. II. p. 214.

INTRODUCTION. xi
called in to communicate a sense of his hatred and
contempt to a sinless man, and, secondly, the suffer
ings and even the death of Christ are represented as
the immediate consequence of his sense of God's
hatred and contempt !
Dr. Macknight, a theologian of considerable celeb
rity, gives a somewhat different view, but equally
appalling. He says : " Our Lord's perturbation and
agony,- therefore, arose from the pains which were
inflicted upon him by the hand of God, when he made
his soul an offering for sin-.  Though Jesus knew
no sin, God might, by the immediate operation of his
power, make him feel those pains ichich shall be the
punishment of sin hereafter, in order that, by the visi
ble effects which they produced upon him, mankind
might have a just notion of the greatness of these
pains  His bearing those pains, with a view to
show how great they are, was by no means punish
ment. It was merely suffering." * Such is the repre
sentation of Dr. Macknight, in a treatise entitled
" The Conversion of the World to Christianity " !
Calvin, it is well known, represents our Saviour
as actually suffering after death the pains of hell ; a
representation, however, which differs not materially
from those of Dr. Dwight and Dr. Macknight, except
in reference to time and place.
A recent work by Krummacher, which has been
industriously circulated in New England, contains a
representation similar to that of Dwight and Mac
knight, in language still more horrible. Other recent
writers in New England have sanctioned the same
view. * See Macknight, in Watson's Tracts, Vol. V. p. 183.

INTRODUCTION.

Now to this theory a decisive objection is, that it
has not the least foundation in the Scriptures, and
that it is in fact inconsistent with the general tenor of
the New Testament, which speaks of Christ's suffer
ings in connection with the obvious second causes of
them, recorded in the history; namely, the reviling and
persecuting of his enemies, the coldness and desertion
of his disciples, the dark prospects of his mission*
his blood, his death, and the terrible persecution of his
followers, which were to precede the establishment of
his religion. Of the immediate infliction of pain by
the Deity, over and above what Jewish malice in
flicted upon him, we find not a word. There is not a
particle of evidence to show that any of the sufferings
of Christ were inflicted upon him by any more direct
or immediate agency on the part of God, than those
of other righteous men who have been persecuted to
death in the cause of truth and righteousness. The
text in Isa. liii. 10, — " Yet it pleased the Lord to
bruise him ; he hath put him to grief ; when thou
shalt make his soul an offering for sin," &c, — is often
referred to. But such an application of this text can
be shown to be wrong in two ways : — 1. It can be de
monstrated, on principles of interpretation universally
acknowledged, that the " servant of God," in this
and the preceding chapters, denotes, at least in its
primary sense, the Jewish church, the Israel of God,
who suffered on account of the sins of others in the
time of the captivity at Babylon. I cannot, for want
of space, go into a defence of this view. But I fully
believe it to be correct, and it is maintained by the
most unbiassed and scientific interpreters of the Old
* Luke xviii. 8 ; Matt. xxiv. 24.

introduction. xiii
Testament* 2. The language in question denotes
no more direct and immediate agency of the Deity,
than that which is everywhere, both in the Old Tes
tament and the New, ascribed to the Deity in refer-.
ence to the sufferings of the prophets and apostles.
Comp. Ps. xxxix. 9, 10; Jer. xv. 17,18; xx. 7, &c;
xi. 18, 19 ; Lam. iii. So in the New Testament, if
St. Paul tells us that Christ was " set forth as a pro
pitiatory sacrifice," he also says, " For I think that
God has set forth us the apostles last, as it were
appointed to death." Indeed, there is no idiom in the
Scriptures more obvious " than that which represents
all the blessings and afflictions of life, by whatever
instrumentality produced, as coming from God.
Modern speculative theologians, not finding in the
sacred history, or in any Scripture statement, any au
thority for their supposition of a miraculous suffering
or torment, inconceivable in degree, inflicted by the
immediate agency of God upon the soul of Christ,
resort to mere theory to support their position. If,
say they, Christ was not enduring " vicarious suffer
ing," inconceivable in degree, inflicted on his soul by
the immediate exertion of Almighty power, then it
follows that he did not bear his sufferings so well as
many martyrs, — so well as " the thieves on the cross,"
so well as " thousands and millions of common men
without God and without hope in the world." f
Without repeating the explanations of Dr. Harwood
* That the phrase " servant of God " is a collective term, denoting
the people of God, comprehending the Jewish nation, or the better part
of the Jewish nation, that is, the Jewish Church, has been maintained by
such critics as Doderlein, Rosenmiiller, Jahn, Gesenius, Maurer, Knobel,
Ewald, Hitzig ; also by the old Jewish critics, such as Aben Ezra, Jar-
chi, Abarbanel, and Kimchi.
t See Stuart on Hebrews, Exc, JQ- P- 575.
6

xiv introduction.
and Archbishop Newcome, it' may be remarked, —
1. That at best this is only an argument ad Christia-
num. The sceptic and the scoffer are ready to accept
the statement of the orthodox divine, and to tell him
that, while the manner in which Christ endured his
sufferings is matter of history, his way of accounting
for them is pure theory.
2. It is very remarkable that the speculative theolo
gians have not seen that a quality exhibited in such
perfection by "thousands and millions without God
and without hope in the world," " by the thieves on the
cross," and, it might have been added, by any number
of bloodthirsty pirates and savage Indians, was one the
absence of which implied no want of moral excellence ;
that it was a matter of natural temperament, of phys
ical habits, and of the firm condition of the nervous
system, rather than of moral or religious character.
Moral excellence is seen, not in insensibility to pain
or danger, but in unwavering obedience to duty in
defiance of pain and danger. The greater sense Jesus
had and expressed of the sufferings which lay in his
path, the greater is the moral excellence exhibited in
overcoming them. In order to satisfy myself of the
perfection of the character of Jesus, all I wish to
know is that his obedience was complete ; that his
grief, fears, and doubts were momentary ; that his
most earnest expostulations and complaints, if so they
may be called, were wrung from him by causes which
are plainly set forth in the sacred history, while he
was engaged without hesitation, without voluntary
reluctance, nay, with the most supreme devotion of
his will, in the greatest work ever wrought for man.
For my part, I am not ashamed to say, that I have
a distinct feeling of gratitude, not only for the work

introduction.

which Christ performed, but for every expression of
human feeling, whether of grief, or momentary doubt,
or fear, or interrupted sense of communion with God,
which he manifested. I should feel that I was robbed
of an invaluable treasure of encouragement and con
solation, if any one expression of feeling, whether in
his words or otherwise, caused by such sufferings as
all men, in a greater or less degree, are called to en
dure, should be blotted from the sacred record. In the
midst of deep affliction, and the fear of deeper, noth
ing has given me greater support than the repetition
of the prayer in Gethsemane, once uttered in agony
of soul, " If it be possible, let this cup pass from me !
Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt ! " Now
I know that " we have not a high-priest which cannot
be touched with the feeling of our infirmities ; but was
in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin."
3. Those who maintain that the character of Christ
was imperfect or sinful, unless he received immediate
ly from the hand of God inconceivably greater suffer
ings than were occasioned by human instrumentalities,
and the second causes which are matters of history,
do not make it clear how by their theory they relieve
his character from the charges which they have hypo-
thetically brought against it. If the manner in which
Christ endured his sufferings was unworthy of him, —
if it was faulty or sinful, — if his expressions in
the garden of Gethsemane, or upon the cross, were
wrong, — then no degree of suffering "which the hu
man imagination can conceive to have been endured
by him can make them right. Strength of temptation
can palliate what is wrong, but cannot make it right.
Whatever was the nature of Christ's sufferings, how
ever great in degree, and however immediately they

INTRODUCTION.

were inflicted by God, still, unless his memory of the
past, as recorded in the Gospels, was wholly effaced,
he had greater advantages than other men. He knew
what testimonials and powers he had received from
God. He knew that he was the object of Divine love.
He knew that he had consented to his sufferings, and
that they were a part of his work ; he had no sense of
sin to aggravate them ; he knew that they were for
a short time, and that they were certainly to be fol
lowed by a glorious resurrection, and by endless bless
edness for himself and his followers. How then are
what Dr. Dwight calls " the bitter complaints " of
Jesus absolutely justifiable on his theory of the nature
and causes of Christ's sufferings, if not on that view
which has its basis, not in mere reasoning, but in the
Scripture history, and which is set forth by Dr. Har-
wood and Archbishop Newcome in this volume ?
If all the mental and bodily sufferings naturally caused
to Jesus by the malice of the Jews, the desertion of
his disciples, and all the circumstances in "which he
was placed, cannot justify our Saviour's expressions,
whether in language or otherwise, then no sufferings
or torments the human imagination can conceive to
have been immediately inflicted by God can justify
them. In fact, the knowledge that they were inflicted
immediately by the hand of God would have a ten
dency to make them more tolerable. Who would not
drink the cup certainly known to be presented to his
lips by the hand of his Almighty Father ? I have no
difficulty in the case, because I believe all the expres
sions of Jesus in relation to his sufferings, which have
been supposed to indicate a want of fortitude, to have
been momentary, extorted from him by overpowering
pain of body and mind.

INTRODUCTION. XVU
It is also to be observed, in connection with the
preceding remarks, that what may be called the rich
imagination of Jesus, as displayed in the beauty of
his illustrations and his parables, as well as various
expressions of strong feeling on several occasions
in the course of his ministry, indicate an exquisite
sensibility, which no debasement of sin had ever
blunted. Without anticipating what is said in the excellent
Essays of Dr. Harwood and Archbishop Newcome,
I may make one more remark. Injustice seems to me
to have been done to Jesus by comparing his short
distress of mind on two or three occasions with what
may have been as short a composure of some distin
guished martyrs, — Socrates for instance, — without
taking into view the habitual fortitude of "Christ. Now
if any one believes that the feelings which Socrates
exhibited when he drank the hemlock in prison, as
described by Plato, were all which entered his mind
from the time when he incurred the deadly hatred and
persecution of the Athenians, and that no doubts or
fears or misgivings occurred to him at any moment,
in the solitude of his prison or elsewhere, I have only
to say that his view of what is incident to human
nature is very different from mine. Would Jesus
have prayed, an hour before his suffering in Geth
semane, that his disciples might have the peace, and
even the joy, which he possessed, had not the habitual
state of his feelings been tranquil and composed ?
Panegyrists have described the bravery with which
some martyrs have endured their sufferings before the
eyes of their admirers. Jesus, who suffered not with
a view to human applause, but to human consolation
and salvation, was not ashamed or afraid to express
b*

XV1U INTRODUCTION.
all which he felt, and his faithful biographers were not
ashamed or afraid to record it.
I have intimated that the view of the cause of our
Saviour's principal sufferings, which I have endeavored
to oppose, is not found in the Scriptures, nor in the
general faith of the Church. It is the fruit of com
paratively modern speculation. For proof of the last
assertion, I refer to the standard works on the history
of Christian doctrines. In regard to the principal ut
terance of our Saviour, to which reference has been
made in relation to this subject, in the words of the
first verse of the twenty-second Psalm, I cannot agree
with those who find in them no expression of anguish
or tone of expostulation, and who suppose them to
be cited by our Saviour merely in order to suggest the
confidence and triumph "with which the Psalm ends ;
but which do not begin before the twenty-second
verse. Under the circumstances of the case, the
words appear to have had substantially the same
meaning when uttered by Christ as when uttered by
the Psalmist. They should not be interpreted as the
deliberate result of calm reflection, but as an outburst
of strong involuntary emotion, forced from our Saviour
by anguish of body and mind, in the words which
naturally occurred to him, implying momentary expos
tulation, or even complaint. But that the interruption
of the consciousness of God's presence and love was
only momentary, both in the case of the Psalmist and
of the Saviour, is evident, first, from the expression, My
God! my God! repeated with earnestness; secondly,
from the expressions of confidence in the course of the
Psalm, which might follow in the mind of Christ as
well as in that of the Psalmist ; and thirdly, from the
usage of language, according to which the expression

INTRODUCTION. xix
" to be forsaken by God " merely means " not to be
delivered from actual or impending distress." The
very parallel line in the verse under consideration,
" Why art thou so far from helping me ? " is, accord
ing to the laws of Hebrew parallelism, a complete
exposition of the language, " Why hast thou forsaken
me ? " So Ps. xxxviii. 21, 22, " Forsake me not, O
Lord ! O my God, be not far from me ! Make haste
to help me, O Lord, my salvation ! " Other passages
are Ps. x. 1, xiii. 1, lxxiv. 1, Lxxxviii. 14.
As the historical passages in which Christ expressed
his feelings under the sufferings which he endured or
feared, are of great interest, it may be satisfactory to
many readers if I translate, and place in a note at the
end of the volume* the expositions of them given by
men who are regarded by competent judges of all
denominations of Christians as standing in the very
first rank as unbiassed, learned, scientific expositors of
the Scriptures. De Wette, Liicke, Meyer, Bleek, and
Liinemann will be admitted by all who are acquainted
with their writings to stand in that rank.
After the Essays on the, nature and causes of the
sufferings of Christ, and the manner in which he bore
them, I have selected two on the design and influence
of these sufferings in the atonement which he effected :
one by that admirable writer, James Foster, f the most
celebrated preacher of his day, of whom Pope wrote,
long ago, " Let modest Foster, if he will, excel
Ten metropolitans in preaching well " ;
and the other by Professor Jowett, of whom I have al
ready spoken. The two dissertations, taken together,
* See Note A.
t By accident this Essay does not appear in its proper place in this
volume, but will be found on page 403.

XX INTRODUCTION.
appear to me to give a very fair and Scriptural view
of the Christian doctrine of atonement.
The great variety of theories which the specula
tions of Protestants have connected with the Christian
doctrine of atonement is alone sufficient to show on
what a sandy foundation some of them rest. As
sacrifices of blood, in which certain false views of
Christian redemption had their origin, passed away
from the world's regard gradually, so one error after
another has been from time to time expunged from the
theory of redemption which prevailed at the time of
the Protestant Reformation. Luther laid it down plain
ly, that the sins of all mankind were imputed to Christ,
so that he was regarded as guilty of them and pun
ished for them. Thus he says : " And this, no doubt, all
the prophets did foresee in spirit, that Christ should
become the greatest transgressor, murderer, adulter
er, thief, rebel, and blasphemer that ever was or could
be in all the world. For he, being made a sacrifice
for the sins of the whole world, is not now an innocent
person and without sin ; is not now the Son of God,
born of the Virgin Mary ; but a sinner, which hath
and carrieth the sin of Paul, who was a blasphemer,
an oppressor, and a persecutor ; of Peter, which denied
Christ ; of David, which was an adulterer, a murder
er, &c  Whatsoever sins I, thou, and we all
have done, or shall do hereafter, they are Christ's own
sins as verily as if he himself had done them 
But wherefore is Christ punished ? Is it not because
he hath sin, and beareth sin ? " * Luther's theory was
once the prevalent one in the Protestant Church.
It is also to be observed, as it contributes to the
better understanding of the New England theories
* Luther on Gal. iii. 13.

INTRODUCTION. XXI
which prevail at the present day, that the view of
Luther was at one time almost universal in New
England. In the year 1650, William Pynchon, a gen
tleman of learning and talent, and chief magistrate of
Springfield, wrote a book in which, in the language
of Cotton Mather, " he pretends to prove that Christ
suffered not for us those unutterable torments of God's
wrath which are commonly called hell torments, to
redeem our souls from them, and that Christ bore
not our sins by God's imputation, and therefore also
did not bear the curse of the law for them."
The General Court of Massachusetts, as soon as
the book was received from England, where it was
printed, immediately called Mr. Pynchon to account
for his heresy, dismissed him from his magistracy,
caused his book to be publicly burned in Boston mar
ket, and appointed three elders to confer with him,
and bring him "to an acknowledgment of his error.*
They also chose Rev. John Norton, of Ipswich, to
answer his book, after they had condemned all the
copies of it to be burned. f Mr. Norton's answer is.
now before us, in which he repeats over and over
again the prevalent doctrine of the time : — " Christ
suffered a penal hell, but not a local ; he descended
into hell virtually, not locally ; that is, he suffered the
pains of hell due unto the elect, who for their sin de
served to be damned." " Christ suffered the essential
penal wrath of God, which answers the suffering of
the second death, due to the elect for their sin, before
he suffered his natural death." " Christ was tor
mented without any forgiveness ; God spared him
nothing of the due debt."

* See Records of Massachusetts Bay, Vol. IV. Part I. pp. 29, 30;
also Holland's History of Western Massachusetts, Vol. I. p. 37, &c.
t See Note B.

XX11 INTRODUCTION.
Flavel, a Nonconformist clergyman in England,
whose writings continue to be published by the Amer
ican Tract Society, and who was contemporaneous
with John Norton, thus writes : " To wrath, to the
wrath of an infinite God without mixture, to the very
torments of hell, was Christ delivered, and that by
the hands of his own Father." * "As it was all the
wrath of God that lay upon Christ, so it was his
wrath aggravated in diverse respects beyond that
which the damned themselves do suffer." f
In the Confession of Faith $ owned and consented
to by the churches assembled in Boston, New Eng
land, May 12, 1680, and recommended to all the
churches by the General Court held October 5, 1679,
is contained the following (Chi VIII. 4) : " The Lord
Jesus Christ  underwent the punishment due to
us, which we should have borne and suffered, being
made sin and a curse for us, enduring most excruciat
ing torments immediately from God in his soul, and
most painful sufferings in his body." This was
copied verbatim into the celebrated Saybrook Plat
form, adopted by the churches of Connecticut, Sep
tember 9, 1708.
Some of the preceding views, for questioning which
one of the wisest and best men in Massachusetts was
so much harassed as to feel obliged to leave the
Commonwealth, are now as universally rejected as
* Fountain of Life Opened, p. 10, Ser. IV. fol. edit.
t Ibid., p. 106.
j: This Confession was taken, with a few slight variations in conformity
with the Westminster Confession, from the " Savoy Declaration," that is,
"A Declaration of the Faith and Order owned and practised in the
Congregational Churches in England ; agreed upon and consented
unto by their elders and messengers at the Savoy [a part of London],
October 12th, 1658," which may be seen in " Hanbury's Historical Me
morials," p. 532, &c.

INTRODUCTION. xxiii
they were once received. But the most objectionable
part of them, in a religious point of view, that which
supposes supernatural sufferings or tortures to have
been immediately inflicted by the Deity upon the soul
of Christ, is still retained by many. The late Pro
fessor Stuart, as we have seen, supported this view on
the ground that the character of Christ for fortitude
would otherwise suffer. Many of the books indus
triously circulated by the Orthodox sects among the
laity contain the doctrine in a very offensive form.
The Assembly's Catechism, which declares that Christ
" endured the wrath of God," evidently in the sense
of Norton and Flavel, is scattered by thousands
among the people, and made the standard of faith
in the principal theological school of this Common
wealth. Vincent, whose explanation of the Assem
bly's Catechism has just been republished by the
Presbyterian Board of Publication, says : " He, to
gether with the pain of his body on the cross, endured
the wrath of God, due for man's sin, in hjs soul."
With the progress of intellectual and moral philos
ophy, however, the doctrine of the imputation of sin
to one who had not committed it, came to be held as
a mere fiction by many, who yet retained that part of
the old doctrine which maintains that Christ bore the
punishment of the sins of all mankind. This view
avoids the now evident fiction involved in charging
the sins of the guilty upon the innocent ; but it has
no advantage over Luther's doctrine in reference to
the character of the Deity. Luther's theory paid so
much homage to the natural sentiments of justice in
the human soul, as to make the attempt, though a
vain one, to reconcile the conduct which his theology
ascribed to God with those sentiments. Luther, with

INTRODUCTION.

John Norton and others of his school, felt as strongly
as any Unitarian of the present day, that, where there
is punishment, there must be guilt, and an accusing
conscience.* They held, therefore, that Christ was
punished because he was guilty, and " sensible of an
accusing conscience." But the more modern theory,
which holds that Christ bore the punishment of all
men's sins without bearing their guilt, involves the
idea of punishment without guilt in him who suffers
it. It takes away the hypothesis which alone gave it
even the show of consistency with the justice of God.
The perception of the incongruity involved in the
supposition that one should receive punishment who
is without guilt, has therefore led many theologians
to give up this part of the old theory. It was aban
doned by many in England as long ago as the time
of Baxter. In New England, since the time of Dr.
Edwards the younger, several theological writers have
maintained that, as there can be no punishment with
out a sense of guilt and condemnation of conscience,
but only pain, suffering, torment, it is erroneous to say
that Christ endured vicarious punishment for the sins
of mankind. Vicarious pain or torment might be en
dured by the innocent, but not vicarious punishment.
Some, also, on the ground that the sufferings of Christ
bear no proportion, in amount and duration, to the
punishment which was threatened against sinners,
have even rejected the term vicarious as inapplicable.
Dr. Dwight says : " It will not be supposed, as plainly
it cannot, that Christ suffered in his divine nature.
Nor will it be believed that any created nature could
in that short space of time suffer what would be
equivalent to even a slight distress extended through
* See Norton's Answer, &c. p. 119.

INTRODUCTION. XXV
eternity." * " When, therefore, we are told that it
pleased Jehovah to bruise him, it was not as a punish
ment." f " It is not true," says Edwards the younger,
"that Christ endured an equal quantity of misery to
that which would have been endured by all his people,
had they suffered the curse of the law  As the
eternal Logos was capable of neither enduring misery
nor losing happiness, all the happiness lost by the
substitution of Christ was barely that of the man
Christ Jesus, during only thirty-three years ; or rather
during the last three years of his life." J Dr. Em
mons says : " His sufferings were no punishment,
much less our punishment. His sufferings were by
no means equal in degree or duration to the eternal
sufferings we deserve, and which God has threatened
to inflict upon us. So that he did in no sense bear
the penalty of the law which we have broken, and
justly deserve." §
But this concession of the more modern New Eng
land theologians to the imperative claims of reason is
not of so much importance as it may at first view
appear. To say that Christ did not endure the punish
ment of the sins of mankind, nor indeed any punish
ment whatever, but only an amount of suffering or
torment which, in its effect as an expression of the Di
vine mind, and in upholding the honor of the Divine
government, was an equivalent to the infliction of the
punishment threatened against sin, is of little avail,
so. long as it is maintained that the chief sufferings of
our Saviour were of a miraculous character, incon
ceivable in degree, immediately inflicted upon him by
* Ser. LVf. Vol. II. p. 217.
t Ibid., p. 211.
X Sermons on the Atonement, Works, Vol. II. p. 43.
§ Works, Vol. V. p. 32.

xxvi INTRODUCTION.
the hand of God over and above those which he in
curred from human opposition and persecution in the
accomplishment of his work. The concession is made
to philosophy, not to religion. So far as the Divine
character is concerned, it is of little consequence
Whether you call the sufferings of Christ punishment, or
only torture immediately inflicted by God for the mere
purpose of being contemplated by intelligent beings.
Suppose that Christ had ordered the beloved Apos
tle John to be crucified, in order to show his dis
pleasure at sin, when he forgave Peter, of what conse
quence would it be to say that John was not punished,
but only tortured, for the sin of Peter? Would
Christ deserve the more to be regarded as a righteous
being, an upholder of law, a wise moral governor, for
inflicting inconceivable anguish of body and mind
upon John as the sole ground and condition of forgiv
ing the sin of Peter ?
How many of the theologians of New England at
the present day retain this theory of miraculous suf
fering immediately inflicted by the Deity upon the
soul of Christ, I have no means of ascertaining. It
is not easy to see why the advocates of the govern
mental theory, after admitting that the sufferings of
Christ were finite and of brief duration, that they
were not the punishment, nor, as a penalty, equivalent
to the punishment, of the sinner, should seek by mere
ratiocination to magnify the sufferings of Christ be
yond what the sacred history has recorded them to be,
and to bring in the omnipotence and the omniscience
of the Deity to inflict a pain which human malice and
second causes could not inflict. The mere amount
of suffering does not seem to be essential to this
theory. The Scriptures contain, as we have seen,

INTRODUCTION. XXvii
nothing for it. On the contrary, they seem to be
positively against it, in insisting, as they do, on the
blood of Christ, the death of Christ as a sacrifice,
rather than on what he suffered before he died. It is
just to state that I do not find, in the sermons on the
atonement by Dr. Edwards the younger, Dr. Em
mons, and Dr. Woods, reference to any sufferings of
Christ, except those which were naturally incident to
the discharge of his duty. True, they say nothing
against the view held by Dr. Dwight, Dr. Macknight,
and some recent writers. But it is to be hoped that
they omitted the theory of miraculous suffering, im
mediately inflicted by the Deity upon the soul of
Christ, because they had abandoned it. May the
time soon come when all the advocates of the govern
mental theory shall cease to insist on a fragment of
the old theory of penal satisfaction, which has no his
torical foundation, which is shocking to the feelings
of many Christians, and strengthens the objections of
the enemies of Christianity.
On the other hand, it appears to me that some
writers, looking at the subject chiefly in the light of
the principles of moral and religious philosophy, have
given a somewhat imperfect view of the sentiments
of St. Paul respecting the significance of the death
of Christ, by maintaining that he limited the influence
of it to its immediate effect in producing the refor
mation and sanctification of the sinner. This latter
view is indeed prominent -throughout the Apostle's
writings. Christians are represented as being bap
tized to the death of Christ ; that is, to die to sin as he
died for it ; to be buried in baptism to sin, and to rise
to a new spiritual life, as he was buried and rose to a
new life. But the Apostle regards the death of Christ,

XXV1I1 INTRODUCTION.
not only as exerting a sanctifying influence upon the
heart, but as having a meaning and significance, con
sidered as an event taking place under the moral
government of God, according to his will. Its mean
ing serves, according to him, at the same time to
manifest the righteousness of God, and his mercy in
accepting the true believer. " Whom in his blood,
through faith, God has set forth as a propitiatory sacri
fice, in order to manifest his righteousness on account
of his passing by, in his forbearance, the sins of
former times." * It is true that the design of this
providential event was still manifestation, and that the
contemplation of the sacrifice, and the appropriation
of it by faith, were regarded by the Apostle as leading
to repentance and sanctification, as "well as to peace
of mind. But he contemplates it in this passage
under another aspect. He has what may be called a
transcendental, as well as a practical, view of this, as.
of all events. He contemplates the death of Christ,
taking place according to God's will, as illustrating
the mind of God ; as manifesting his righteousness,
though he forbore adequately to punish the sins of
former times, and in mercy accepted as righteous the
true Christian believer. His view seems to be that
God, by suffering such a person as Jesus, standing in
such a relation to him, having a sinless character, and
sustaining such an office in relation to the world as
Christ did, to suffer and die a painful and ignomin
ious death, has declared how great an evil he regards
sin to be, and how great a good he regards holiness
to be ; in other words, his hatred of sin, and love of
holiness. The greatness of the evil of sin, and of the
* Rom. iii. 25.

INTRODUCTION.

good of righteousness, are to be seen in the greatness
of the sacrifice which God, in his high providential
government of the world, appointed, and which in the
fulness of time Christ made. Why is not this view
of St. Paul correct ? God is surely to be seen, not
only in the works of nature, in the intuitions of the
soul, in immediate revelation, but also in the events
of Providence. Especially the fact, that under the
moral government of God the most righteous men,
those in whom the spirit of God dwells most fully and
most constantly, are willing to incur reproach and suf
fering in the cause of truth, righteousness, and human
happiness, shows that the Giver of the Holy Spirit, the
Source of all righteousness, regards sin as a great evil,
and righteousness as a great good ; that is, hates sin,
and loves holiness. Much more, then, if Christ, in
whom was the spirit of God without measure, who
knew no sin, and who was in various ways exalted
above the sons of men, becomes, according to the will
of God, and by his own consent, a sacrifice for sin,
does he illustrate his Father's hatred of sin, and love
of holiness.
It appears to me that Edwards the younger, and
other advocates of what is called the governmental ,
theory, have connected with, the view of the Apostle
Paul two great errors. One consists in regarding that
as the direct and immediate design of the death of
Christ which was only incidental to it, as a providen
tial event. This appears from the fact that the death
of Christ is everywhere in the New Testament de
nounced as an evil and a crime. Of course, then, it
was opposed to the direct revealed will of God.
Everywhere in the New Testament we may learn
that the direct design of God in sending his Son was

XXX . INTRODUCTION.
that the Jews, as well as others, should reverence him.
" This is my beloved Son, hear ye him." " He that
honoreth not the Son, honoreth not the Father."
" Woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is
betrayed." It is admitted by all, that the direct will
of God is declared in his commands rather than in his
providence. Unless the Jews had acted against the
will of God, it could not be said that by " wicked
hands" they had crucified and slain the Saviour.
But when, instead of hearing and reverencing Christ,
they persecuted and crucified him, this event was
overruled by Divine Providence, so as to convey a re
ligious lesson concerning the attributes of God, and
his government of the world. •, JThere is no more evi
dence that the Jews were inaiagated by God to crucify
Christ, than to kill any prophet who had preceded
him. There is no more evidence that this was ac
cording to the will of God, than any murder which
ever took place. The Apostle Paul undoubtedly de
clares that Christ gave himself for us according to the
will of God (Gal. i. 4) ; and that God had set him
forth as a propitiatory sacrifice to manifest his right
eousness (Rom. iii. 25). But he uses similar language
in regard to many other events. Thus he declares
that Pharaoh, the tyrant, was raised up to make
known the power of God. (Rom. ix. 17.) But will it
be pretended that God gave existence and power to
Pharaoh for the direct and exclusive purpose of mak
ing known his power, and that his power could not
be made known in any other way ? Was it not the
will of God that Pharaoh should be a just and benefi
cent sovereign ? It is evident from the nature of the
case, as well as from the current phraseology of the
Scriptures, that the treachery of Judas, and the cruci-

INTRODUCTION. XXXI
fixion of Christ, were not more immediately ordained
by God, than any other case of treachery and murder
which ever took place in the world. It is plain, then,
that the manifestation of the righteousness of God by
the sacrifice of Christ, referred to by St. Paul, was the
incidental or indirect design of it, as an event taking
place under the government of God, against his re
vealed will. The crucifixion of Christ declares the
righteousness of God, just as the wrath of man in all
cases is caused to praise him.
That the manifestation of the righteousness of God
was only the incidental design of the sacrifice of
Christ, appears also from this circumstance, that it is
only when so regarded that it conveys to a rational
mind an impression either of his righteousness or his
wisdom. That God should so love the world as to
send Christ to enlighten, reform, and bless it, though
he foresaw that he would not accomplish his purpose
without falling a sacrifice to human passions, gives
an impression of his benevolence, and of his h'atred
of sin and love of holiness. But if he had imme
diately and directly commanded the Jewish priests to
sacrifice him, or the Jewish rulers to insult, torture,
and crucify him, simply that as an object of human
contemplation he might manifest the righteousness
of God, and his hatred of sin by his infliction of tor
ture on an innocent being, then no such effect would
be produced by it. The Jewish priests themselves
would have said that such a sacrifice was heathenish,
an offering such as the Gentiles used to make to
Moloch. All the world would say, that such a God-
commanded sacrifice, such a direct and immediate
infliction of suffering by the Almighty upon an inno
cent being, for the main purpose of making known his

XXX11 INTRODUCTION.
dispositions, and maintaining the honor of his govern
ment, was a manifestation of any attribute rather
than righteousness. We might believe an express
verbal declaration, that such a direct infliction was
designed to show God's righteousness ; but in the
fact itself of such torture, one could perceive neither
righteousness nor wisdom. This may be clearly illus
trated by an example.
If a human sovereign, the emperor of Russia for in
stance, being engaged in war with a rebellious prov
ince, and having a son distinguished by military
skill, courage, and humanity above all his subjects,
should send him at the head of an army, and expose
him to all the casualties of war, in order to bring the
province into submission, and this son should actually
suffer death through the opposition of the rebels, who
would not admire the self-denial and benevolence ex
hibited by the monarch ?
Suppose now, on the other hand, that the rebels
' should, by the labors and sacrifices of that son, have
been brought to repentance and submission, and
should humbly sue for pardon, and that the monarch
should say, " I will forgive you, but in order to express
my feelings concerning the crime of rebellion, and to
uphold the honor of my government, and maintain
the cause of order, I must, as the condition of the for
giveness of your crime, inflict inconceivable anguish
of mind and body upon my well-beloved son in the
sight of all my subjects," and should actually do it
with his own hands, would riot the whole, civilized
world condemn such a monarch as guilty of injustice,
cruelty, and folly ? The consent of the son, could it
be obtained, would only serve to deepen the cruelty
and folly of the father.

INTRODUCTION. XXXlii
The incidental effect of the sufferings of the Apostles
is spoken of as designed, as expressly as that of the
sufferings of Christ. Thus St. Paul says, " Wheth
er we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and
salvation." * Again, " Yea, and if I be offered up
upon the sacrifice and service of your faith," f &c.
Again, he speaks of himself as " filling up what is
wanting of -the sufferings of Christ," % thus implying
that his own sufferings had the same general purpose
as those of his Master. Again, the casting away of
the Jews is represented by Paul in one verse as the
reconciling or atonement of the world ; in another, as
the punishment of the Jews for their unbelief. §
It is readily conceded that a greater prominence,
importance, and influence are assigned by Paul and
other New Testament writers to the sacrifice of Christ,
than to that of other righteous men. This is owing
in part to his pre-eminent character, his supernatural
powers and qualifications, the dignity of his office as
head of the Church, and to the peculiar circumstances
of his life and death. He had a greater agency than
others in the work of the Christian atonement, of
which, however, the Apostles were yet ministers. ||
He was the head of the Church.
The minds and feelings of the Apostles must have
been in the highest degree affected by the ignominious
death of their Master. It was the subject of the
deepest gratitude that the blessings which they en
joyed were purchased by his blood. They had lost all
hopes when he expired. His death was opposed to
all their views of the Messiah. They had supposed
that he would live for ever, ^f This expectation was
* 2 Cor. i. 6. t Phil. ii. 17. % Col. i. 24. § Rom. xi. 15, 20.
|| 2 Cor. v. 18. 1" See John xii. 34 ; Matt. xvi. 22.

XXXIV INTRODUCTION.
probably not wholly effaced from their minds till they
saw him expire. When they preached the Gospel to
the Gentiles, they preached the religion of one who
had suffered like the vilest malefactor. The circum
stance that the death of Christ was so ignominious
was a strong reason for their insisting upon it the
more, as the means through which they enjoyed the
blessings of Christianity. The cross was a stum
bling-block to the Jew, and folly to the Gentile. The
oftener objections were made to it, the more would
the Apostles be led to dwell upon it, and to present it
in every light in which it could be presented. In re
flecting upon the meaning of it as a providential
event, the analogy between it and the sin-offerings of
the Jews struck their imaginations forcibly. Certain
passages in the prophetic writings, especially Isa. liii.,
which was originally spoken of the Jewish Church,
were adapted to impart additional emphasis to this
analogy. It is also very possible that I may have too closely
defined the meaning of Paul and other Apostles, in
representing the death of Christ as a sacrifice". This
idea having once taken full possession of their imagi
nations, they may not always have kept in mind the
boundary which divides figurative from plain lan
guage. They may have connected certain sacrificial
ideas or feelings with the death of Christ, which a
modern cannot fully appreciate, or strictly define.
Being born Jews, familiar with sacrifices from their
infancy, and writing to those who, whether Jews or
Gentiles, had been accustomed to attach the same
importance and efficacy to them, it was natural that
they should represent the death of Christ in language
borrowed from the Jewish ritual, and that they should

INTRODUCTION. XXXV
attach an importance to it which savors more of the
religion which they had renounced, than of that
which they had adopted. But so far as the question
whether the atonement by Christ was effected by vica
rious punishment, or vicarious suffering, is concerned,
it is of no consequence how much importance the
Apostles attached to the sacrificial view. For there is
no reason to believe that in literal sacrifices vicarious
punishment, or suffering, was denoted, or that the pain
endured by the animals offered had anything to do
with their efficacy or significance.*
The other error in the theory of Edwards the
younger, and other advocates of the governmental
theory, consists in representing the sufferings of Christ
as absolutely necessary, as the ground of forgiveness,
in the nature of things, or in the nature of the Divine
government, or on account of the Divine veracity in
reference to the declaration, The soul that sinneth, it
shall die. Now in regard to this last consideration,
that of the Divine veracity, it is certain that the threat
ened penalty of transgression is no more executed
when the sinner is forgiven in consequence of severe
suffering inflicted upon Christ, than if he were for
given, without such an infliction, in consequence of
the eternal mercy of God. For the penalty was
never threatened except against the sinner. Of course
it can never be executed except upon the sinner.
It has also been maintained by the advocates of the
governmental theory, that to forgive sin on any other
ground than that of the infliction of suffering upon
Christ, equivalent, in the impression produced by it,
to the eternal punishment of all the wicked, would
* See Christian Examiner for September, 1855.

XXXVI INTRODUCTION.
operate as encouragement of wickedness. But it is
not easy to see why those who would be encouraged
in sin by the hope of being forgiven through the eter
nal mercy of God, would not also be encouraged in
sin by the hope of being forgiven through the suffer
ing inflicted upon Christ, or through any consideration
founded on past historical fact. The forgiveness is
certain to him who repents and becomes a righteous
man on either theory, and may encourage an evil-
minded person in one case as well as the other.
He who can harden himself in sin in consequence of
the infinite mercy of God in forgiving the penitent,
can do the same thing in consequence of the exceed
ing love of Christ as manifested in his death.
That the advocates of some of the old theories
should- maintain the absolute necessity of vicarious
suffering, does not appear strange. But that the ad
vocates of the governmental theory should maintain
its absolute necessity as the condition of the forgive
ness of sin, so that the Divine mercy could not be
exercised, and the honor of the Divine government
maintained without it, is surprising. Having denied
that the sufferings of Christ are in any sense the
punishment of the sins of men, or that they are in
any sense penal in their nature, it is singular that
they should believe them to be absolutely necessary
in order to vindicate the righteousness of God, and
cause his government to be respected, so that, without
these sufferings as a condition, the mercy of God
could not and would not have been exercised in the
forgiveness of sin. What! Have men no reason to
believe in the righteousness of God, and to respect
his moral government, unless they can be convinced
of the historical fact that' he immediately and directly

INTRODUCTION. XXXvii
caused inconceivable sufferings to Christ, as the indis
pensable ground of his forgiving a single sin ? Have
the unnumbered millions of the human race, who
never heard of Christ, and yet believe in the forgive
ness of sins, no reason to have faith in the righteous
ness of God, and to respect his moral government ?
Have the instinctive faith of the human soul in all
the perfections of God, the condemnation of sin in
the conscience, the retributions of Divine Providence,
the intimations of a judgment to come in the human
heart and in Divine revelation, no force to convince
men that God hates sin and loves holiness, though he
be long-suffering and ready to forgive ? Would all
these considerations lose their force with one who
should believe that God could forgive a penitent,
thoroughly regenerated transgressor for his own. eter
nal mercy's sake alone? Cannot a father forgive a
penitent son, without conveying the impression that
he is pleased with sin ?
It has been alleged by Edwards the younger, and
others, that the very fact of the sufferings and death
of Christ as means of manifesting the righteousness
of God, and maintaining the honor of his government,
implies their absolute necessity; because otherwise
they would not have been allowed by the Deity to
take place. I am wholly unable to perceive on what
principle the mere occurrence of the crucifixion of
Christ by the Jews shows its absolute necessity, more
than the occurrence of the murder of any prophet or
apostle shows its absolute necessity. But it will not
be pretended that the purposes of God in the renova
tion of the world could not have been accomplished
unless Stephen had been stoned to death, and James
beheaded, and Peter crucified, however great may
d

XXXV1U INTRODUCTION.
have been the actual influence of these cases of mar
tyrdom in the regeneration of the world. Indeed, to
argue the absolute necessity of the sacrifice of Christ
from the fact of its actual occurrence, is to argue the
absolute necessity of every murder that ever occurred
in the world. Of course no one has ever denied the
necessity of the sufferings of Christ in the same gen
eral sense in which the sufferings of all righteous men
are necessary, or in which all the evil in the world is
necessary. Bishop Butler, in the fifth chapter of Part
Second of his Analogy, has shown that by the stripes
of righteous men in general, under the government of
God, the people are often healed ; and of course that
Christ might suffer in a similar way, and for similar
ends. But he did not attempt to find anything on
earth -analogous to the theories on which I have been
remarking. If he had made the attempt, he would
have found such analogy only in the practice of the
most barbarous Oriental despots. It appears to me
that he is guilty of a gross violation of the common
use of language when he says, that " vicarious pun
ishment is a providential appointment of every day's
experience." No one has ever doubted or denied the
vicarious punishment of Christ in the sense in which
vicarious punishment is matter of every day's expe
rience. Every Unitarian, every Deist, would accept
such a creed. But this paradoxical use of language
has been generally rejected and condemned by mod
ern theological writers of every name.* It serves
only to confound things which differ.
Dr. Edwards and others have also argued the ne
cessity of the sacrifice of Christ from the ancient
sacrifices of the Jews. But as there was no absolute

* See pp. xxiv, xxv.

INTRODUCTION. XXXIX
necessity for these sacrifices of animals, — as they
were of human origin, and only tolerated, or at most
sanctioned, by the Deity, — of course there could be
no absolute necessity for the sacrifice of Christ; though
when it was made, its good effects might be pointed
out by the Apostle glancing his eye of faith over the
events which took place under the government of
God. As to the verse, " Without shedding of blood,
there was no remission," the meaning is, that under
the actual dispensation of the Jewish law, as per
mitted or appointed by God, there was no remission
without a sacrifice.* The remark has no relation to
the nature of things, or to the absolute necessity of
the Divine government, but only to a usage which
had passed away.
Some passages from the New Testament have also
been adduced for the purpose of proving that the
sacrifice of Christ was absolutely necessary, as the
ground of Divine forgiveness, in the nature of things,
or of the Divine government ; such as Luke xxiv. 26,
" Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and
to enter into his glory ? " Also verse 46, " It behoved
Christ to suffer," &c. But it is evident that the neces
sity here referred to by Christ arises simply from that
of the fulfilment of prophecy. That he did not con
sider them absolutely necessary, is evident from his
prayer to have the cup pass from him. See New-
come's remarks, pages 207, 210 of this volume.
Allowing, as we have done, that the sacrifice of
Christ incidentally illustrates the righteousness as
well as the love of God, its absolute necessity as a
ground of Divine forgiveness is not more evident from
* On the subject of the Jewish sacrifices, in their bearing on the work
of Christ, see Christian Examiner for September, 1855.

xl INTRODUCTION.
any language of Scripture, than the absolute necessity
of such a tyrant and oppressor- as Pharaoh. For the
Apostle adopts similar language respecting Pharaoh :
" Even for this same purpose have I raised thee up,
that I might show my power in thee, and that my
name might be declared throughout all the earth."
Will it be pretended that the power and the name of
Jehovah could not have been made known except by
raising up just such a tyrant as Pharaoh ? The Apos
tle is quite as explicit in declaring the design of the
exaltation of Pharaoh to be that of manifesting the
power of God, as in declaring the design of the sacri
fice of Christ to be that of manifesting the righteous
ness of God.
My general conclusion is, that the Apostle Paul
considers the death of Christ under two aspects : — 1.
He regards it as an event taking place under the prov
idence of God, and according to the Divine will, and
in some sense a sacrifice incidentally manifesting the
righteousness of God in connection with the exercise
of his mercy. See Rom. iii. 21 - 26. 2. He regards
it in its immediate moral and religious influence upon
the heart and life of the believer. See Rom. vi., vii.,
&c. He does not appear to regard it as an indispen
sable evidence of the Divine righteousness, without
which it could not be seen, but only as a new and
signal illustration of it in connection with his mercy.
The latter view is the most prevalent. The first
view relates to the enlightening influence of Christ's
death ; the second to its sanctifying influence. In
both cases the influence of it is upon God's sub
jects, not upon God himself. Perhaps both views
are united in the text, " He made him who knew no
sin to suffer as a sinner in pur behalf,, that we through

INTRODUCTION. xii
him might attain the righteousness which God will
accept." *
I have preferred, for obvious considerations, to dis
cuss the subject in the light of Scripture rather than
of mere reason. But in regard to the sufficiency of
the governmental theory to satisfy the reason, I cannot
forbear quoting a few lines from a recent Orthodox
writer, the author of the Sermon on the Atonement
in the Monthly Religious Magazine, which has re
ceived some attention among us. " How could the
suffering of one human being, either in amount, or as
an expression of God's feelings towards his law, sin,
and holiness, be equivalent to the eternal punishment
of the wicked, to the smoke of their torment ascend
ing for ever ? The suffering of one created being for
a few days or years would be, in comparison, as a
drop to an ocean  We are quite familiar with
the answer which is made to reasoning of this kind, —
with the argument, that the union of the Divine na
ture with the human gave a boundless dignity and
worth to the sufferings of that human nature, though
having no part in them. But we are constrained to
say, that it never commended itself to our judg
ment, or gave us the least satisfaction. We cannot
see how the Divine nature had, we think we see that
it had not, any share in the atonement, if it had no
share in the sacrifice which constituted it ; nor how it
could give dignity and worth to sufferings by which
it was entirely unaffected. We have heard illustration
after illustration upon this point ; but to our mind it
is like sailing in the face of the wind." f These re
marks are the plain dictates of common sense. I have
* 2 Cor. v. 21.
t See the New Englander for July, 1847, p. 432.
d*

xiii INTRODUCTION.
no doubt that the time will come when the doctrine
that a clear perception of the righteousness of God
absolutely depended on the sufferings " of the man
Christ Jesus during only thirty years, or rather during
the last three years of his life," * will be regarded with
greater wonder than the doctrine of Luther and Fla-
vel and John Norton now is.
There are some other differences of opinion among
New England theologians, which it will be sufficient
only to mention. Thus, while some limit the suffer
ings necessary for the atonement to the death of
Christ, others take in those of his whole life. Again,
while some suppose his sufferings to have been only
such as were inflicted by the instrumentality of man,
and arose naturally out of his peculiar circumstances
and character, others regard his chief sufferings as
miraculous, inflicted by the immediate hand of God,
independent of those inflicted by human instrumen
tality. There is also a great difference of opinion among
the New England theologians as to what constituted
the atonement. Even among those who have rejected
the doctrine of the imputed righteousness of Christ,
some make the perfect obedience of Christ a constitii-
ent part of it ; others not. Dr. Dwight and some
recent writers have maintained, with much earnest
ness, that the obedience of Christ is an essential part
of it. But Dr. Jonathan Edwards the younger, who
seems to be followed by the majority, writes : " I
venture to say further, that not only did not the atone
ment of Christ consist essentially in his active obe
dience, but that his active obedience was no part of
his atonement, properly so called, nor essential to it." f
* Edwards the younger. See Works, Vol. II. p. 43.
7 t Works, Vol. n. p. 41.

INTRODUCTION. xliii
On the other hand, the most distinguished New
England writer in the Baptist denomination, Dr. Way-
land, has expressed the opinion, that -the perfect obe
dience of Christ was all that was essential to the
atonement. " In what manner did Christ's appearing
on earth have any effect upon our moral relations ?
To this various replies have been presented. It has
been said that his unparalleled humiliation, or his
lowly and painful life, his bitter death, were of the
nature of a suffering of the penalty of the law. I,
however, apprehend that this explanation has not al
ways been satisfactory to those who have borne in
mind the character of the law which we have violated,
and the awful holiness of the Being against whom
we have sinned. Besides, the sufferings of Christ,
considered by themselves, were not severer, nor was
his death itself more excruciating, than that of many
martyrs, confessors, and missionaries  His obe
dience had been so transcendent in virtue, he had so
triumphantly vanquished all our spiritual enemies, and
put to shame all the powers of darkness, that I know
not whether anything more was demanded. ' The
Lord was well pleased for his righteousness' sake ' [his
obedience], for he had magnified the law and made it
honorable. That this was the case would seem prob
able, because there is no reference in the Scriptures to
his Suffering after death." *
There is also a difference of opinion among New
England theologians as to the question whether the
Divine, or only the human, nature of Jesus suffered
and died. Thus a recent writer, the Rev. Mr. Dutton,
whose Sermon on the Atonement has been thought
worthy of being republished in the Boston Monthly
* Wayland's University Sermons, pp. 147, 160.

xliv INTRODUCTION.
Religious Magazine, maintains the former opinion, —
an opinion which strikes me as not only unchristian,
but atheistic in its tendency. I have no more fear of
its prevalence than of the prevalence of atheism, and
therefore shall offer nothing in refutation of it. It is
but just to say, however, that this view has found
very few advocates. All the distinguished New
England theologians, such as Hopkins, Edwards the
younger, Dwight, Emmons, Woods, and others, limit
the sufferings of Christ to his human nature* Nor
has a different opinion ever found its way, so far as I
know, into the confession of faith of any church in
Christendom. John Norton undoubtedly gave the
orthodox or generally received opinion on this point
when he wrote, " The second person of the Trinity,
 together with the Father and the Holy Ghost,
did inflict the torments of hell upon the human na
ture." f
The dissertations selected from the Commentary on
St. Paul's Epistles by Mr. Jowett are those which
were thought to be most suitable for publication in
this volume. I should have been glad to insert two
other dissertations from the same work ; namely,
that on Natural Religion, and that on the Compar
ison of St. Paul with Philo. But the former, in set
ting aside some of the usual proofs of the existence
of the Deity, did not appear to me to contain such
explanations and qualifications as might make it useful
to readers unacquainted with the writer's philosophy.
The latter was omitted because, though learned and
valuable, it was not likely to be useful to persons un
acquainted with the Greek language.
* See page xxv. t Norton's Answer to Pynchon, p. 122.

INTRODUCTION. xiv
Several valuable Essays have been selected from
the recent Commentary on the Epistles to the Corin
thians, in two octavo volumes, by the Rev. Arthur P.
Stanley, Canon of Canterbury, who is somewhat
known in this country by his Life of Dr. Arnold. His
work on the Epistles to the Corinthians manifests the
same scholarship and independence, united with rev
erence, which distinguish the Commentary by Pro
fessor Jowett.
The closing Essay on the Credibility of Miracles,
by Dr. Thomas Brown, the distinguished author of
the well-known Lectures on the Philosophy of the
Human Mind, has been for some time out of print.
It appears to me to meet the objections of Mr. Hume
in a far more satisfactory manner than they have been
met by most writers on the subject.
It cannot escape the notice of the reader, that very
few of the Essays in this volume were written by pro
fessed Unitarians. Most of them are by eminent
divines and scholars of the Church of England. But
in the circulation of books the great question should
be whether they contain true and just views, and not
by whom they were written. That we have been
able to select so large a volume of Essays on very
important subjects from writers of the Established
Church of England in harmony with the views of
Unitarians, is a fact highly encouraging in regard to
the progress of truth, and at the same time highly
creditable, not only to the independence of the writers,
but to the practical freedom which at present prevails
in that church. No one of them, I believe, has yet
incurred any higher penalty on account of his publica
tions than that of rewriting his name. It is to be

xlvi INTRODUCTION.
hoped that the results to which several of the learned
writers have arrived, notwithstanding the natural bias
arising from their ecclesiastical connections, will se
cure for them, from different classes of readers, that
candid and attentive consideration which their impor
tance demands. The voice which comes from this
volume is the united utterance of Episcopalians, Lu
therans, and Unitarians.
Cambridge, May 7, 1856.

ES SAYS

FAITH AND SCIENCE*

Bt M. GTJIZOT.
One of the questions which, theology has oftenest debated,
— the foremost, perhaps, at least in the sense that it serves
for a prologue to all others, — is the eternal antithesis of rea
son and faith. From the powerlessness of reason and the
necessity of faith, certain writers make the point of departure
and the termination of their works. The same idea at this
time inspires and fills almost entirely a multitude of religious
writings, whose object is to invoke faith, not to regulate, but
to oppress, the reason. I shall not pretend to treat this ques
tion in all its extent, as it involves the entire problem of hu
man nature and knowledge. I wish, in fact, rather to investi
gate the real and natural acceptation of the word faith, so
powerful and so mysterious, and exercising such a different
empire over the soul of man, sometimes illuminating, and
sometimes misleading it ; — here, the source of the most won
derful actions ; there, the veil thrown over the basest designs.
I wish to ascertain if, according to plain language and the
common thought of mankind, there is, in reality, that oppo
sition and incompatibility which certain writers endeavor to
institute between faith and reason, between science and faith.
Such an examination is, perhaps, the best means of solving
* Translated in Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature, Vol. V., New
Series, from. Meditations et Etudes Morales, par M. Guizot. 2de edition.
Paris. t

A FAITH AND SCIENCE.
the question which lies concealed under these terms, — of ob
taining from them, at least, glimpses of the solution.
No one can doubt that the word faith (foi) has an especial
meaning, which is not properly represented by belief (croy-
ance), conviction (conviction), or certitude (certitude). Cus
tom and universal opinion confirm this view. There are
many simple and customary phrases in which the word faith
(foi) could not be replaced by any other. Almost all lan
guages have a specially appropriated word * to express that
which in French is expressed by foi, and which is essentially
different from all analogous words.
This word, then, corresponds to a certain state of the hu
man soul; — it expresses a moral fact which has rendered
such a word necessary.
We commonly understand by faith (foi) a certain belief of
facts and dogmas, — religious facts and dogmas. In fact, the
word has no other sense when, employing it absolutely and
by itself, we speak of the faith.
That is not, however, its unique, nor even its fundamental
sense ; it has one more extensive, and from which the relig
ious sense is derived. We say : " I have full faith in your
words ; this man has faith in himself, in his power," &c. This
employment of the word in civil matters, so to speak, has
become more frequent in our days : it is not, however, of
modern invention; nor have religious ideas ever been an
exclusive sphere, out of which the notion, and the word, faith,
were without application.
It is, then, proved by the testimony of language and com
mon opinion, first, that the word faith designates a certain
interior state of him who believes, and not merely a certain
kind of belief; that it proceeds from the very nature of con
viction, and not from its object. Secondly, that it is, however,
to a certain species of belief — religious belief — that it has
been at first, and most generally, applied.
* In Greek vop.t£ei.v, mcrreieiv ; in Latin, sententia, fides ; in Italian,
credenzq, fede ; in English, faith, belief; in German (if I mistake not),
glauben.

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 3
Thus, the sense of the word has been special, in fact and in
its origin, although it is not fundamentally so ; or rather, the
occasion of the employment of the word has been special,
although its sense is not so.
It would but be a fact without importance, and sufficiently
common in the history of the formation of languages and
ideas, if the true and general sense of the word faith was
reproduced entire in its special employment ; but it has been
otherwise. The specialty of the usual acceptation of the
word has profoundly obscured the general sense; the true
notion of faith has undergone an alteration under the notion
of religious faith. And from this disagreement between the
historical senses, so to speak, and the philosophical sense of
the term, have resulted the obscurity of the moral fact which
it expresses, and the greater part of the errors to which it
has given place.
In truth, the words which express an interior disposition,
a certain state of the human soul, have almost always a
fixed and identical sense, which is independent of the interior
object to which the disposition refers, and of the external
cause which produced it. Thus, men love different objects ; —
they have contrary certitudes ; — but the words love, certitude,
in ordinary language and common life, do not less preserve,
always and for all, the same sense ; their general acceptation
remains and prevails, whatever be the specialty of their em
ployment ; and the passions, interests, and errors of those
who make use of them do not want, nor have they the power,
to alter it.
The destiny of the word faith has been different. Almost
exclusively applied to religious subjects, what changes its
sense has undergone, and still undergoes every day !
Men who teach and preach a religion, a doctrine, or a re
ligious reformation, in making their appeal with all the energy
of the freed human spirit, produce in their followers an en
tire, profound, and powerful conviction of the truth of their
doctrine. This conviction is called faith ; neither masters
nor disciples, nor even enemies, refuse it this appellation.

4 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
Faith, then, is but a profound and imperious conviction of a
rehgious dogma ; it matters but little whether it has come in
the way of reasoning, or controversy, or of free and liberal
investigation : that which characterizes it, and gives it a claim
to be called faith, is its energy, and the dominion it exercises,
by this title, over the entire man. Such has been at all times
— in the sixteenth century for example — the faith of great
reformers and their most illustrious disciples, Calvin after
Luther, and Knox after. Calvin, &c.
The same men have presented the same doctrine to persons
. whom they were not able to convince by methods of reason
ing, examination, or science, — to women and to multitudes in
capable of long reflection : they have made their appeals to
the imagination, to the moral affections, and to the suscepti
bility of being moved and of believing through emotion. And
they have given the name of faith to the result of this work,
as to that of a work essentially intellectual," of which I spake
just now. Faith has become a rehgious conviction which
was not acquired by reasoning, and which took its rise in the
sensuous faculties of man. This is the idea which mystic
sects attach to faith.
The appeal to man's sensuous nature, and the resulting
emotion, have not always sufficed to bring forth this faith.
Other sources have then been appealed to. They have en
joined practices, and imposed habits. It is absolutely neces
sary that a man should, sooner or later, attach ideas to his
actions, and that he should attribute a certain meaning to that
which produces in him a certain effect. The practices and
habits have conducted the mind to the beliefs from which
they themselves were derived. A new faith has appeared,
which has had for its principal and dominant characteristic
submission of the mind to an authority invested with a right
to regulate the thoughts whilst governing the lips.
In short, neither the free exercise of the intelligence, nor
the sentiment, nor practices, have elsewhere succeeded in
producing faith. We have said that it is not communicated,
and that it is not in the power of man to give it, nor to ac-

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 5
quire it by his own pecuhar endeavors ; that it demands the
interposition of God, — the action of grace ; — grace has
become the preliminary condition, and the definitive charac
teristic of faith.
Thus by turns the word faith expresses : —
lstly. A conviction acquired by the free labor of the hu
man mind.
2dly. A conviction obtained by means of the sensitivity
(sensibilitc), and without the concurrence, often even against
the authority, of the reason.
3dly. A conviction acquired by the very submission of the
man to a power which has received from on high the right to
command. 4thly. A conviction wrought by superhuman means, — by
divine grace.
And according as the one or the other of these different
faiths, if we may so speak, has prevailed, religion, philosophy,
government, and the whole of society have been observed to
vary, simultaneously and by a necessary correspondence.
How has the same word been able to subserve so many
different, and even contradictory acceptations ? What is that
mysterious fact which presents itself to minds under such
different aspects ? Has the necessity of legitimating the fun
damental principle, and the system of the government of dif
ferent rehgious beliefs, alone caused the variation of the
notion of faith ? or rather, do all these definitions correspond,
on some one side, with that state of the human soul; and
have they no other irregularity than that of being partial and
exclusive ?
These are questions which cannot be solved, so long as
men persist, as they have done to this day, in characterizing
faith by^its causes, or its external effects. It is in itself that
the fact must be considered ; we must search out what is the
state of mind where faith reigns, independently of its origin
and its object.
Two kinds of beliefs co-exist in man : • — the one, which I
will not call innate, — an inexact and justly-debated expres-
1*

b FAITH AND SCIENCE.
sion, — but natural and spontaneous, which germinate and
establish themselves in his mind, if not without his knowl
edge, at least without the co-operation of his reflection and
will, by the development solely of his nature, and the in
fluence of that external world in the midst of which his life
is spent. The others, laborious and learned, the fruit of
voluntary study, and of the power which a man has, whether
to direct all his faculties towards an especial object with the
design of knowing it, or of reflecting upon himself, and of
perceiving that which passes within him, and of giving
himself an account of it, and thus of acquiring, by an act of
the will and reflection, a science which he possessed not
before, although the facts which it has for its object subsist
equally under his eyes, or within him.
That there is moral good and evil, and that man is bound to
avoid the evil, and to fulfil the good, — this is a natural, prim
itive, and universal belief. Man is so constituted that it de
velops itself in him spontaneously, by the course merely of
his life, from the first appearance of the facts to which it must
apply itself, very long before he could know himself, and could
be able to know that he believed. Once originated, this belief
acts on the soul of man almost as the blood circulates in his
veins, without his willing it, and without his thinking of it.
The greater part of mankind have never given it a name,
nor formed for themselves a general and distinct idea of it :
it does not, however, the less subsist in them, revealing itself
every time that the occasion presents itself, by an action, a
judgment, or a simple emotion. Human morality is a fact
which does not stand in need of human science to throw light
upon it.
Like every other fact, this also can become a matter of
science. The moral being beholds itself, and studies itself: it
renders account to itself of the principle of its actions, judg
ments, and moral sentiments : it assists at' the spectacle of its
own nature, and pretends not only to know, but to govern it,
according to its acquired knowledge. Naturally and sponta
neously, belief in the distinction of moral good and evil thus

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 7
becomes reflective and scientific. Man remains the same ;
but he was self-ignorant, and acted simply according to his
nature ; nevertheless he knows himself, and his science pre
sides over his action.
This is but an example ; I could cite a thousand others of
the same kind. Man carries within himself a multitude of
beliefs of which he has the consciousness, but not the science ;
which external facts awaken in him, though they have never
been the chosen objects and the special aim of his thoughts.
It is by beliefs of this kmd that the human race is enlightened
and guided ; they abound in the spirit of the most meditative
philosophy, and direct it oftener than the reflective convictions
to which it has arrived. Divine wisdom has not delivered
over the soul and life of man to the hazards of human science ;
it has not condemned it to expect all its intellectual riches
from its own proper work. It is, — it lives ; that is enough :
by this sole title, and by the progressive development of this
fact alone, it will possess lights indispensable for guiding its
life, and for the accomplishment of its destiny. It can aspire
higher ; it can elevate itself to the science of the world, and
of itself; and, by the aid of science, can exercise over the
world, and itself a power analogous to creative power. But
then it will be required that it should only build on the prim
itive foundation which it has received from Providence ; for
just as all natural and spontaneous belief can become scien
tific, so all scientific conviction received its source and its
point of support in natural belief.
Of these two kinds of belief, which merits the name of
faith ?
It appears, at first sight, that this name agrees perfectly
with natural and spontaneous beliefs ; they are exempt from
doubts and disquietude ; they direct man in his judgments and
actions with an imperial authority which he does not dream of
eluding or contesting ; they are natural, sure, practical, and
sovereign. Who does not recognize in all this the character
istics of faith ?
Faith has in effect these characteristics; but it has also

8 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
others which are wanting to natural beliefs. Almost unknown
by the very man whom they direct, they are for him, in a
certain way, as external laws, which he has received, but not
appropriated, and which he obeys by instinct, but without
having given to them an intimate and personal assent. They
suffice for the wants of his life ; they guide, warn, urge on,
or restrain him, but without, so to speak, his own concurrence
with them, and without awakening within him the sentiment
of an interior, energetic, and powerful activity ; and without
procuring for him the profound joy of contemplating, loving,
and adoring the truth which reigns over him. Faith has this
power. It is not science, still less is it ignorance. The mind
which is penetrated by it has never, perhaps, rendered, and
perhaps never will render, an account of the idea which has
obtained its faith ; but it knows that it believes it ; it is before
it, present and living ; it is no longer a general belief, a law
of human nature, which governs the moral man, as the laws
of gravity govern bodies ; it is a personal conviction, a truth
which the moral individual has appropriated to himself by
contemplation, by free obedience and love. From that time
this truth does much more than suffice for his life ; it satisfies
his soul ; and stiU more than directing, it enlightens it. It is
surprising how men live under the dominion of this natural
belief that there is moral good or evil, without our being able
to say that it has their faith ! It is in them as a master to
whom they belong and whom they obey, but without seeing
him, and without loving or rendering him homage. That any
cause whatever, revealing, so to speak, the consciousness to
itself, should draw and fix their regards upon this law of their
nature ; that they acknowledge and accept it, as their legiti
mate sovereign ; that their understanding should honor itself
in contemplating it, and their liberty in obeying it ; that they
should conceive of their soul, if I may so speak, as a hearth
where truth concentrates itself to spread from thence its light,
or as the sanctuary where God deigns to dwell ; all this is
more than simple and natural belief, — it is faith.
The difference between these two states of the soul is so

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 9
real and so profound, that it has been at all times, and still is,
one of the principal sources of the diversity of religions and
the division of churches. The one is principally applied to
spread, or to maintain, general beliefs, fixed and incorporated,
in some way, in the habits and practices of life : in short,
analogous, by the mode of their influence, to those irreflective
and almost instinctive behefs whereof God has made the
moral condition of the human race. The others have had,
above all, to awaken for the heart and in the soul of each
individual, a personal and intimate belief, which should give
him a lively feeling of his own intellectual activity and liber
ty, and which he might consider as his own peculiar treasure.
The former have marched, so to speak, torch in hand, at the
head of nations ; the latter have sought to place within each
man movement and light. Neither the one nor the other
tendency ever could become exclusive ; there have been facts,
behefs profoundly individual in religions, which least of all
provoke their development ; there are, also, men governed by
general and legal behefs, external, in some sense, to their
soul, in religions the most favorable to the interior life of the
individual. It is not the less true, that, at all times, one or
the other of these tendencies has ruled in various religions ;
and not only in various religions, but, by turns, in the same
religion at various epochs of its existence ; so that the differ
ence of the two corresponding states of the soul, and the
character of that to which truly the name of faith belongs,
are clearly imprinted in the history of humanity.
Eeflective and scientific beliefs, on the contrary, have this
in common with faith, that they are profoundly individual,
and give a lively feeling of interior and voluntary activity.
Nothing belongs more to the individual than his science ; he
knows where it commenced, and how it has become enlarged,
and what means and efforts have been used to acquire it ;
and what it has added, so to speak, to his intellectual worth,
and to the extent of his existence. But if, by that means,
scientific behefs are nearer to faith than natural and irreflec
tive behefs, yet, on other sides, they remain much farther

10 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
removed from them, and from the first they are confined to
doubt and uncertainty. They measure, "and almost admit,
various degrees of probability ; and even when they are con
fident of their legitimacy, they do not deny that they can be
modified, and even overturned, by a wider and more exact
science ; — whilst the most entire and immovable certitude is
the fundamental characteristic of faith. All science is felt to
be bounded and incomplete ; every man who studies, what
ever be the object of his study, however advanced and as
sured he himself may be of his own knowledge, knows that
he has not reached the boundary of his career, and that for
him, as for every other, fresh efforts will lead to fresh progress.
Faith, on the contrary, is in its own eyes a complete and
finished behef; and if it should appear that something yet
remains for it to acquire, it would not be faith. It has noth
ing progressive, — it excludes all idea that anything is want
ing, and judges itself to be in full possession of the truth
which is its object. From thence proceeds a vast inequality
of power between the different kinds of conviction ; faith,
freed from all intellectual labor and from all study, (since, so
far as knowledge is concerned, it is complete,) turns all the
force of. its possessor towards action. As soon as he becomes
penetrated by it, only one task remains for his accomplish
ment, — that of causing the idea which has taken possession
of his faith to reign and to be realized without. The history
of religions — of all religions — proves, at each step, this ex
pansive and practical energy of behef, with which the char
acters of faith have been converted. It displays itself even
on occasions when in no way it appears provoked or sustained
by the moral importance or the visible grandeur of results.
. I could cite a singular example of it. In the course of our
Eevolution, the theoretical and actual superiority of the new
system of weights and measures quickly became for some
men, who were the subordinate servants of an administration
charged with establishing it, a complete and imperious truth,
to which nothing could be objected, added, or refused. They
pursued from that time its triumphs with an ardor, an obsti-

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 11
nacy, and sometimes a prodigious devotion. I have known
a public officer, who, more than twenty years after the birth
of the system, and when no one scarcely dreamed of disturb
ing himself a"ny more about it, gave himself up, day and
night, to extraordinary labors, letters, instructions, and verifi
cations, which his superiors did not demand, and which he
had often great trouble in causing to be adopted, in order to
accelerate its extension and strength. The new system of
weights and measures was for this man the object of a true
faith ; he would reproach himself for his repose, whilst any
thing remained to be done for its success. Scientific behefs,
even when they would admit of immediate application, rarely
carry a man so to struggle against the outer world as to re
duce it under his dominion. When the human mind is, above
all, preoccupied with the design or the pleasure of knowledge,
it there concentrates, and, so to speak, exhausts itself; and
there remain for it neither desires nor powers to be otherwise
employed. Scientific behefs, accustomed to doubts, to groping
in darkness, and to contempts, hesitate to command : without
efforts and without anger, they make their appeals to igno
rance, uncertainty, and even error, and scarcely know how to
propagate themselves, or to act, but by methods which con
duct to science ; that is to say, by inciting to meditation and
study, they proceed too slowly to be able to exercise outward
ly an extensive and actual power.
Perhaps, also, the very origin of scientific behefs might be
counted amongst the causes which deprive them of that em
pire, and that confidence in, action and command, which is the
general characteristic of faith. It is to himself that man
owes his science ; it is his own work, the fruit of his own
labor, and the reward of his own merit. Perhaps, even in
the midst of the pride which such a conquest often inspires, a
secret warning feehng comes over him, that, in claiming and
exercising authority in the name of his science, it is to the
reason and the understanding of one man that he pretends to
subjugate men, — a feeble and doubtful title to great power ;
and which, at the moment of action, can certainly, without

12 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
their own consciousness, cast into the soul of the proudest
some timidity. Nothing hke this is met with in faith. How
ever profoundly individual it is, from the time it has entered
into the heart of man, it signifies not by what means, it ban
ishes all idea of a conquest which can be his own, or of a
discovery the glory of which he can attribute to himself.
He is no longer occupied with himself; wholly absorbed by
the truth which he believes, no personal sentiment any longer
raises itself with his knowledge, excepting the sentiment of
the happiness it procures for him, and of the mission it im
poses upon him. The learned man is the conqueror and the
inventor of his science ; the believer is the agent and the
servant of his faith. It is not in the name of his own su
periority, but in the name of that truth to which he has
yielded himself, that the behever claims obedience. Charged
to procure for it sovereignty, he bears himself, in reference to
it, with a passionate disinterestedness ; and this persuasion
impresses upon his language and upon his acts a confidence
and authority, with which the proudest science would in vain
endeavor to invest itself. Let us consider how different is the
pride which is produced by science, from that which accom
panies faith : the one is scornful and full of personality ; the
other is imperious and full of blindness. The learned man
isolates himself from those who do not comprehend what he
knows ; the believer pursues with his indignation or his pity
those who do not yield themselves to what he believes. The
first desires personal distinction ; the other desires that all
should unite themselves under the law of the master whom
he serves. What can this variety of the same fault import,
excepting that the learned man beholds himself, and reckons
himself, in his science, whilst the believing man forgets and
abdicates himself in favor of his faith ? It is further necessary
to explain how the same idea, the same doctrine, can remain
cold and inactive in the hands of the learned man, and with
out any practical use even in men whose understanding it has
illuminated ; whilst, in the hands of the believer, it can be
come communicative, expansive, and an energetic principle of
action and power.

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 13
Faith does. not, then, enter exclusively either into the one
or the other of these two kinds of beliefs, which, at first sight,
appear to share the soul of man. It partakes of, and at the
same time differs from, natural and scientific beliefs. It is,
like the latter, individual and particular : like the former, it is
firm, complete, active, and sovereign. Considered in itself,
and independent of all comparison with this or that analogous
condition, faith is the full security of the man in the possession
of his belief; a possession freed as much from labor as from
doubt ; in the midst of which every thought of the path by
which it has been reached disappears, and leaves no other
sentiment but that of the natural and pre-established harmony
between the human mind and truth. As soon as faith exists,
all search after truth ceases ; man considers himself to have
arrived at his object ; his behef is no longer for him anything
but a source of enjoyments and precepts ; it satisfies his un
derstanding and governs his life, bestows upon him repose,
and regulates and absorbs, without extinguishing, his intellect
ual activity ; and directs his liberty without destroying it.
Is he disposed to contemplation ? his faith opens an ilhmitable
field for his thoughts ; they can run over it in all directions,
and without fatigue, for he is no longer vexed by the ne
cessity of reaching the object, and discovering the path to
it; he has touched the boundary, and has nothing more to
do but to cultivate, at his leisure, a world which belongs to
him. Is he called to action ? He throws himself wholly into
it, sure of never wanting impulse and guidance, tranquil and
animated, urged on and sustained by the double force of duty
and passion. For the man, in short, being penetrated by
faith, and within the sphere which is its object, the under
standing and the will have no more problems to solve, and no
more interior obstacles to surmount : he feels himself to be in
the full possession of the truth for enlightening and guiding
him, and of himself for acting according to the truth.
But if such is the state of the human soul, if faith differs
essentially from other kinds of behef, it is evident at the same
time that neither natural nor scientific beliefs have anything
2

14 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
which excludes faith ; that both one and the other can invest
their characters with it ; and, further still, that either one or
the other is always the foundation on which faith supports
itself, or the path which leads to it.
See a man in whom the idea of God has been nothing but
a vague and spontaneous behef, the simple result of a course
of life and of external circumstances, — an idea which holds
a place in his mind and conduct, but on which he has never
fallen back and fixed his intellectual regards, and which he
has never appropriated to himself by an act of voluntary and
briefly-sustained reflection. Let any cause whatsoever — as
a great danger or sorrow — strike him with a powerful emo
tion, and present to riim the misery of his condition and the
weakness of his nature, and awaken within him this need
of superior succor, — this instinct of prayer, often lulled to
sleep, but never extinguished in the heart of man. All at
once the idea of God, till then abstract, cold, and proud, will
appear to this man, living, urgent, and particular ; it has
attached itself to him with ardor, — it will penetrate into all
his thoughts, — his behef will become faith ; and Pascal will
be borne out when he said, " Faith is God sensibly realized
by the heart."
Another has lived in submission to religious practices, with
out having associated with them any truly personal convic
tion; as an infant, others might make a law for him; as
master of himself, he has retained the habit of obedience,
docile to a fact rather than attached to a duty, and not dream
ing of penetrating farther into the sense of the rule than to
verify its authority. A time has arrived when occasions and
temptations to offend against this law have presented them
selves ; a contest has arisen between the habits and tastes,
between the desires, and, perhaps, the passions. What this
person could practise without thought has now become a sub
ject of reflection, anxiety, and inward sorrow. To preserve
its empire, it becomes necessary that the rule, until then mis
tress only of the exterior life of the man, should penetrate
and establish itself within his soul. It has succeeded in that ;

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 15
and to remain true to his practices, he has been required to
make sacrifices for them ; and he has made them. The state
of his soul is changed : habit is converted into conviction ;
practice into duty ; and observance into moral want. In the
day of trial, the long submission to a general rule, and to a
power clothed with the right to prescribe, has brought forth a
particular and individual adhesion of thought and will, — that
is to say, what was wantmg to faith.
For scientific behefs this transition to the state of faith is
more difficult and more rare. Even when, by meditation, rea
soning, and study, any one has attained to conviction, he re
mains nearly always occupied with the labor which has con
ducted to it, his long uncertainties, the deviations by which he
has been misled, and the false steps he has made. He has
arrived at his object, but the remembrance of the route is
present to him, with all its embarrassments, accidents, and
chances. He has come into the presence of light, but the
impression of the darkness, and the dubious lights he has
crossed, are yet present to his thoughts. In vain his convic
tion is entire ; there are yet to be discovered traces of the
labor which has presided over its formation. It wants sim
plicity and confidence. There is a certain fatigue connected
with it, which enervates its practical virtue and fruitfulness.
He finds trouble in forgetting and overthrowing the scaffold
ing of the science, in order that the truth, of which it is the
object, may wholly belong to his nature. We might say, the
butterfly is restrained by the shell in which it was born, and
from which it is not fully disengaged.
Nevertheless, although the difficulty is great, it is not in
surmountable. More than once, for the glory of humanity,
man, by the force of his intelhgence and scientific meditations,
has reached to behefs, to which there has been wanting none
of the characteristics of faith, — neither fulness nor certainty
of conviction, nor the forgetfulness of personahty, nor expan-
siveness and practical power, nor the pure and profound
enjoyments of contemplation. Who would refuse to recognize
in the behef of the most illustrious Stoics in the sovereignty

16 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
of moral good, — in Cleanthes, Epictetus, and Marcus Aure
lius, — a true faith ? And was not the rehgious faith of the
principal Reformers, or Reformed, of the sixteenth century,
Zwingle, Melancthon, Duplessis Mornay, the fruit of study
and science, as weU as the philosophical doctrines of Descartes
and Leibnitz ? And lately, under the idea that falsehood is
the source of all the vices of man, and that at no price, in
no moment,, and for no cause, can it be necessary to swerve
from the truth, did not Kant arrive, by a long series of medi
tations, to a conviction perfectly analogous to faith? The
analogy was such, that the day when his certainty of the prin-
ple became complete and definite constituted an epoch in his
memory and life, as others call to mind the event or the emo
tion which has changed the condition of the soul ; so that,
dating from that day, according to his own testimony, he lived
constantly in the presence, and under the empire, of this idea ;
just as a Christian hves in the presence, and under the em
pire, of the faith from which he expects salvation.
Reflective and scientific beliefs can be converted into faith :
the difficulties of the transformation are much greater, and
the success much more rare, than when natural and spontar
neous behefs are concerned. Nevertheless, the transforma
tion of science into faith can be, and sometimes is, accom
plished ; and if more frequently science stops far short of
faith, it is not because there exists something opposed and
irreconcilable in their nature, but because faith is placed at
the boundary of that course which science is not in a con
dition wholly, and of itself, to accomphsh.
Nevertheless, it is easy, if. I mistake not, to observe the
fault of these theories which I enumerated at the commence
ment, and which men and the world so ardently dispute. It
is their fundamental error, that they have not regarded faith
in itself, and as a special state of the human mind, but in the
mode of its formation. They have been thus induced to
assign for its essential and exclusive characteristic such and
such origins, from which it is possible that faith may be de
rived, not admitting it as legitimate, however, or even real,

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 17
but when it had a certain especial power ; and rejecting and
denying all faith when derived from a different source, al
though it should place the soul of man in the same disposition,
and produce the same effects. It is true that faith often re
ceives its origin from an emotion, as the mystics contend ; but
it is also produced by submission to authority, as the Roman
Catholic doctors with reason say ; and also from reflection,
science, and a full and free exercise of the human under
standing, although both the one and the other refuse their
assent to this. In his liberal wisdom, God has offered more
than one way for arriving at that happy state when, tranquil
at length in the possession of his behef, man dreams of noth
ing but of enjoying and obeying what he regards as the truth.
There is faith in knowledge, since it has truth for its object ;
and man can reach it by the faculties which he has received
for knowing. There is also love in faith ; for man cannot see
the fulness of truth without loving it. The sensuous faculties
and the emotions of the soul are sufficient to engender faith.
In short, in faith there are respect and submission ; for truth
commands, at the same time that it charms and enlightens.
Faith can be. the sincere and pure submission to a power
which" is regarded as the depository of truth. Thus the va
riety of the origins of faith, of which human pride would
make a principle of exclusion and privilege, is a benefit be
stowed by the Divine will, which, so to speak, has placed faith
within reach of all, in permitting it to take its origin from
each of the moral elements which constitute faith, — namely,
knowledge, submission, and love.
As for those who, rejecting every kind of explanation and
origin of faith merely human, will see nothing in it but the
direct and actual interposition of God and especial grace,
their notion, if apparently more strange, is at bottom more
natural ; for it touches the problems which do not belong to
man to solve. In the external and material world, when a
powerful, sudden, and unexpected phenomenon appears, which,
at a stroke, changes the face of things, and seems not to at
tach itself to their ordinary course, nor to explain itself by
2#

18 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
their anterior state, man instantly refers it to a real and par
ticular act of the will of the Master of the World. The
presence of God can alone explain for man that which strikes
his imagination and escapes his reason ; and where science
and experience cannot reach, there he assigns an especial and
immediate act of God. Thus the thunderbolt, the tempest,
earthquakes, vast floods, concussions, and extraordinary revo
lutions of the globe, have been taken for signs and effects of
the direct action of God, up to the time when man has dis
covered for them a place and an explanation in the general
course, of facts and their laws. The same want and the same
inclination rule man in the ideas he has formed about the in
terior world, and the phenomena of which he himself is the
theatre and the witness. When a great change and moral
revolution have been accomplished in his soul, when he per
ceives himself to be illuminated by a light, and warmed by a
fire, hitherto unknown, — he has taken no notice of the myste
rious progress, the slow and concealed action, of ideas, senti
ments, and influences which were probably for a long time
preparing him for this state. He cannot attribute it to an act
of his own will ; and he knows not how, so to speak, to trace
back the course of his interior hfe for the purpose of discov
ering its origin. He refers it, therefore, to a divine will,
special and actual. Grace alone could have produced this
revolution in his soul, for he himself did not make it, nor does
he know how it was produced. The birth of faith, above all
when it proceeds from natural and irreflective beliefs which
pass, without the intervention of science, to this new state,
often bears this character of a sudden revolution, unforeseen
and obscure for him who undergoes it. It is, then, very plain
that the idea of the direct interposition of God has been in
voked on this occasion. In the sense which people have com
monly attributed to this idea, it withdraws itself and retires,
here as elsewhere, before a more attentive study and a more
complete knowledge of facts, their connection, and their laws.
We are led to acknowledge that this state of the soul, which
is called faith, is the development — differently conducted,

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 19
sometimes sudden and sometimes progressive, but always
natural — of certain anterior facts, with which, although essen
tially distinct, it is connected by an intimate and necessary tie.
But supposing this recognized, and faith thus conducted to the
place which belongs to it in the general and regular course
of moral phenomena, a grand question always remains, the
question lying hid at the bottom of the doctrine of grace, and
which indirectly this doctrine attempts to solve. In ceasing to
see God in the tempest and thunder, narrow and weak minds
figure to themselves that they shall no more meet with him,
and that they shall nowhere any more have need of him. But
the First Cause hovers over all second causes, and over all facts
and their laws. When ah the secrets of the universe shall have
unveiled themselves to human science, the universe wiU yet
be a secret to it ; and God appears to withdraw himself from
before it, only to invite and constrain it to elevate itself more
and more towards himself. In the science of the moral world
the same thing happens. When people shall have ceased every
moment to invoke grace, and grace alone, to explain faith, it
will always remain to be learnt what power presides over the
life of the soul ; how truth reveals itself to man, who is un
able either to seize or reject it, according to his own will ;
from whence comes that fire whose hearth is evidently ex
ternal to himself; what relations and communications^ exist
between God and man ; what, in short, in the interior hfe of
the human soul, is the share of its own activity and freedom,
and what it must attribute to that action which proceeds from
without, and to that influence from on high which the pride or
the levity of the human mind endeavors not to know. This
is the grand problem, the problem that presents itself the
moment we touch that point where the things of earth and
man are joined to that higher order on which man and the
earth so clearly depend. The doctrine of grace is one of the
attempts of the human mind to solve it. The solution, at
least in my opinion, is beyond the limits assigned to human
knowledge. I have endeavored to determine with precision what faith

20 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
is in itself, independently of its object ; I have laid down the
characteristics of this state of the soul, and the different paths
by which man can be conducted to it, whatever may be, so to
speak, its materials. By this means we may be able to suc
ceed in ascertaining the true nature of faith, and in bringing
it into clearer hght, disengaging from every foreign element
the moral fact concealed under this name. I hasten to add,
nevertheless, that this moral fact is not produced indifferently
in all cases ; that all human behefs, whether natural or scien
tific, are not equally susceptible of passing from the condition
of faith ; and that, in the vast field where human thought is
exercised, there are objects especially calculated to awaken a
conviction of this kind, to become materials for faith.
This is a fact which is attested even by the history of the
word, and which I noticed at the beginning ; its common ac
ceptation is also special. At first sight, it seems to be exclu
sively consecrated to religious behef; and although it lends
itself to other uses, and although, even in our own days, its
sphere seems to be enlarged, it is evident that, in a multitude
of cases where it is concerned (for example, with geography,
botany, technology, &c), the word faith is out of place ; that
is to say, the moral state to which this word corresponds is
not produced by such subjects.
As faith has its pecuhar interior characteristics, so it has
also its exterior necessary conditions ; and it is distinguished
from other modes of belief of man, not only by its nature,
but by its object.
But what are the conditions, and what is the external
sphere, of faith ?
Up to a certain point we can determine and catch glimpses
of them, from the very nature of this state of the soul, and its
effects. A behef so complete, so accomplished, that all intel
lectual labor seems to have reached its termination, and that
man, wholly united with the truth of which he thinks himself
to be in possession, loses all thought of the path which has
conducted him to it, — so powerful, that it takes possession of
the exterior activity, as weU as of the human mind, and makes

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 21
submission to its empire in all things a passionate necessity,
as well as a duty, — an intellectual state, which can be the
fruit, not only of the exercise of the reason, but also of a
powerful emotion, and of a long submission to certain prac
tices, and in the midst of which, when it has been once de
veloped, the three grand human faculties are actively em
ployed, and at the same time satisfied, — the sensibility, the
intelligence, and the will ; — such a condition of soul, and such
a behef, demand in some sort occasions worthy of it, and must
be produced by subjects which embrace the entire man, and
put into play all his faculties, and answer to aU the demands
of his moral nature, and have a right, in turn, to his devoted-
ness. Intellectual beauty, and practical importance, appear then,
a priori, to be the characteristics of the ideas proper for
becoming the materials of faith. An idea which should pre
sent itself as true, but at the same time without arresting by
the extent and the gravity of its consequences, would produce
certitude ; \>ut faith would not spring from it. And so prac
tical merit — the usefulness of an idea — would not suffice for
begetting faith ; it must also draw attention by the pure beauty
of truth. In other words, in order that a simple behef, natural
or scientific, should become faith, it is necessary that its ob
ject should be able to procure the pleasures of activity, as
well as of contemplation, that it may awaken within the
double sentiment of its high origin and power ; in short, that
it should present itself before man's eyes as the mediator
between the moral and the ideal world, — as the missionary
charged with modelling the one on the other, and of uniting
them. Facts fully confirm these inductions, drawn from the mere
nature of the moral phenomenon I am studying. Whether
we regard the history of the human race, or whether we
penetrate into the soul of the individual, we see faith through
out applying itself to objects in which the two aforesaid con
ditions are united. And if sometimes the one or the other
of these conditions is wanting, — if, on some occasions, the

22 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
object of faith should appear in itself denuded of ideal
beauty or practical importance, — we may hold it for certain,
that it is not so in the thought of the behever. He will have
soon discovered, from the truth which is the object of his faith,
consequences and applications which for others are obscure
and distant, but for him clear and infallible. Before long his
ideas, which appear to have but one aim and one useful merit,
will be elevated in his mind to the rank of a disinterested
theory, and will possess in his eyes all the dignity and all the
charm of truth. It is possible that the believer is deceived,
and that he exaggerates the practical worth or intellectual
beauty of his idea ; but even his error, agreeing in this with
the reason and experience of the whole human race, is but a
new proof of the necessity of these two conditions for the
production of faith.
We can understand, however, why the name of faith is
almost the exclusive privilege of rehgious behefs : these are,
in fact, those whose object possesses in the highest degree the
two characters which excite the development of faith. Many
scientific notions are beautiful and fruitful in their applica
tion ; pohtical theories may forcibly strike the mind by the
purity of their principles and the grandeur of their results ;
moral doctrines are yet more surely and generally invested
with this twofold power ; and either has often awoke faith in
the soul of man. Nevertheless, in order to receive a clear
and lively impression, sometimes of their intellectual beauty
and sometimes of their practical importance, there is almost
always required a certain amount of science, or sagacity, or,
at aU events, a certain turn of public manners and the social
state, which are not the portion of all men, nor of all times.
Rehgious behefs have no need of any such aids ; they carry
with themselves, and in their simple nature, their infallible
means for effect. As soon as they penetrate into the heart of
man, however bounded in other respects may be the develop
ment of his intelligence, however rude and inferior may be
his condition, they will appear to him as truths at once sub
lime and common, which are apphcable to all the details of

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 23
his earthly existence, and open for him those high regions,
and those treasures of intellectual life, which, without their
hght, he would never have known. They exercise over him
the charm of truth the most pure, and the empire of interest
the most powerful. Can we be astonished that, as soon as
they exist, their passage to the state of faith should be so
rapid, and so general ?
There is yet another reason more hidden, but not less
decisive, and which I regret I can only refer to ; — the object
of rehgious behefs is, in a certain and large measure, inacces
sible to human science. It can verify their reality; it can
reach even to the limits of this mysterious world, and assure
itself that there are facts to which the destiny of man infallibly
attaches itself; but it is not permitted to reach these facts
themselves, so as to submit them to its examination. Struck
by this impossibility, more than one philosopher has concluded
that there was nothing in them, since reason could perceive
nothing, and that rehgious behefs address themselves but to
the fancy. Others, bhnded by their impotence, have tardily
sprung forward towards the sphere of superhuman things,
and, as though they had succeeded in penetrating into it, have
described facts, solved problems, and assigned laws. It is
difficult to say which mind is the most foolishly proud, that
which maintains that what it cannot know is not, or that
which pretends to be capable of knowing all that is. What
ever may be the case, neither the one nor the other assertion
has ever obtained for a single day the avowal of the human
race ; its instinct and practices have constantly disavowed the
nothing of the incredulous, and the confidence of theologians.
In spite of the first, it has persisted in believing in the exist
ence of an unknown world, and in the reality of those rela
tions which hold mankind united to it ; and notwithstanding
the power of the second, it has refused to admit that they
have attained the object, and lifted the veil ; and it has con
tinued to agitate the same problems, and to pursue the same
truths, as ardently and laboriously as at the first day, and as
if nothing had yet been done.

24 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
See, then, what, in this respect, is the situation of man.
Natural and spontaneous rehgious beliefs are produced in
him, which, by reason of their object," tend at once towards
the state of faith. They can arrive at it by means foreign
to reasoning and science, — by the emotions and by practices ;
and the transition is often thus actually brought about. One
other way appears open before man. Rehgious behefs natu
rally awaken within him the want of science, which not only
desires to render an account of them, but aspires to go much
farther than they can conduct it, to know truly this world of
mysteries, of which they afford it glimpses. Oftentimes,
though, if I mistake not, wrongly, it flatters itself it has suc
ceeded ; and thus theology, or the science of divine things, is
formed, which is the origin of that rational and learned faith,
of which so many illustrious examples do not permit us to
contest the reality. Often, also, man, by his own confession,
fails in his enterprise ; the science which he has pursued after
resists his most skilful endeavors, and then he falls into doubt
and confusion, — he sees those natural and irreflective behefs
darkened, which served him for his starting-point ; or, in fact,
despairing of the variety of his attempts, and always tor
mented by the want of that faith which he has promised him
self to establish by science, he returns to his early behefs, and
requires of them to conduct him to faith, without the help of
science ; that is to say, by the exaltation of his sensuous
faculties, or by submission to a legal power, the depository
of the truth which his reason cannot seize.
Theology itself, from the moment when it announces itself
as a science of the relations of God with man and the world,
and presents to the human mind its solutions of the rehgious
problems which besiege it, proclaims nothing less than that
these problems are impenetrable mysteries, and that this
science is interdicted to human reason ; and that faith, born
of love, submission, or grace, is alone able to open the under
standing to truths, which, however, theologians undertake to
reduce to systematic doctrine, in order to be able to teach or
demonstrate them to the reason. To such an extent does a

FAITH AND SCIENCE. 25
feeling of the powerlessness of human science, in this matter,
remain imprinted upon him in fact; although everywhere
man appears to boast himself of having escaped it.
Thus, also, is explained that obscure physiognomy, if I may
so express myself, which appears to be inherent in the word
faith, and which has so often made it an object of a kind of
distrust and dislike to strict and free minds. Frequent above
all within the rehgious domain, and there oftentimes invoked
by the powerful and learned, sometimes for the purpose of
making up for the silence of the reason, and sometimes for
the purpose of constraining the reason to be silent, faith has
been considered only under this point of view, and judged only
after the employment to which it lends itself on this occa
sion. People have concluded that this behef was essentially
irrational, blind, and the fruit of ungoverned imaginations ;
or else imposed by force, or fraud, on the weakness or ser
vility of the mind. If I have truly observed and described
the nature of that which bears the name of faith, the error
is evident. On the contrary, faith is the aim and boundary
of human knowledge, the definite state to which man aspires
in his progress towards truth. He begins his intellectual
career with spontaneous and irreflective behefs ; at its termi
nation is faith. There is more than one way — but none
certain — for leaping over this interval ; but it is only when
it has been leaped over, and when behef has become faith,
that man feels his nature to be fully satisfied, and gives him
self up wholly to his mission. Legitimate faith, that is to say,
that which is not mistaken in its object, and addresses itself
really to the truth, is then the most elevated and most perfect
state to which, in its actual condition, the human mind can
arrive. But faith may be illegitimate ; it may be the state
of mind which error has produced. The chance of error
(experience at every step proves it) is here even much
greater, as the paths which lead to it are more multiphed, and
its effects more powerful. Man may be misled in his faith
by feehngs, habits, and the empire of the moral affections, or
of external circumstances, as well as by the insufficiency or
3

26 FAITH AND SCIENCE.
the bad employment of his intellectual faculties ; for faith can
take its origin from these different sources. And, neverthe
less, from the time of its existence, faith is hardy and am
bitious ; it aspires passionately to expand itself, to invade, to
rule, and to become the law both of minds and facts. And
not only is it ambitious, but bold ; it possesses and displays,
for the support of its pretensions and designs, an energy,
address, and perseverance, which are wanting to almost all
scientific opinions. So that there is in this mode of behef, far
more than in any other, chance of error for the individual,
and chance of oppression for society. For these perils there
is but one remedy, — liberty. Whether man believes, or acts,
his nature is the same ; and to avoid becoming absurd or
guilty, his thought stands in need of constant opposition and
constraint, as well as his will. Where faith is wanting, there
power and moral dignity are equally wanting ; where liberty
is wanting, faith usurps, then misleads, and at length is lost.
Let human behefs pass into the state of faith ; it is their
natural progress and their glory ; and in their effort towards
this object, and when they have reached it, let them constant
ly continue under the control of the free intellect ; it is the
guaranty of society against tyranny, and the condition of
their own legitimacy. In the coexistence and mutual respect
of these two forces reside the beauty and the security of
social order.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
By the Eev. BADEN POWELL, M. A., F. E. S., E. G. S.,
BATIIJAN PROFESSOR OP GEOMBTRT IN THE UNIVERSITY OP OXFORD.

'O yap Xpianavia-fios ovk els 'IouSaJtr/ioi' imorev<rev aK\a 'iov
Saia-fibs els XpioriawoyibV, as jraca y\attraa 7rtOTev<ra(ra els Qeov
owtixBt)  Ignatius ad Magnes. $ x.
"For Christianity hath not believed in Judaism, but Judaism in
Christianity ; — that every tongue having believed in God might sound
forth together." * Introduction.
Among- persons professing to receive the Bible as the au
thentic record of what in general they believe is Divine Reve
lation, it is remarkable how little attention is commonly given
to the obvious diversity of nature and purport in those very
distinct portions of which the sacred volume consists. To
any one who does but for a moment reflect on the widely
remote dates, the extremely diversified character of the
contents, the totally dissimilar circumstances and occasions
of the composition, of the several writings, it must be ob
vious how essentially they require to be viewed with care
ful discrimination as to the variety of conditions and objects
which they evince, if they are to be in any degree rightly
understood, or applied as they were intended to be. But
manifest as these considerations are, and readily admitted
* I should translate the last clause of this quotation, " that every
tongue which believed might be gathered together unto God." — G. B. N.

28 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
when simply put before any reader of the most ordinary
attainments and discernment, it is singular to observe how
commonly they are practically lost sight of in the too preva
lent modes of reading and applying Scripture.
In this point of view it must be allowed a matter of the
most primary importance, as bearing on the whole purport
and design of the Bible, to apprehend rightly the general
relation, but at the same time the characteristic differences, of
the Old and New Testament, the Law and the Gospel, the
distinctive character to be traced and the sort of connection
actuaUy subsisting between them. Nor does this turn on con
siderations of any nice or critical kind, demanding extensive
learning to appreciate, or deep study to judge of; it imphes
a mere reference to matters of fact, which require but to be
indicated to be understood, so that it is the more remarkable
how commonly they are overlooked.
Yet on no subject, perhaps, are more confused and unsatis
factory ideas more commonly prevalent ; not only among or
dinary, careless, or formal readers of Scripture, but even
among many of better information and more serious rehgious
views, a habit is too general of confounding together the con
tents of all parts of the sacred volume, whether of the old or
new dispensations, of the Hebrew or of the Christian Scrip
tures, into one promiscuous mass, regarding them, as it were,
all as one book, or code of religion, and of citing detached
texts from both, and promiscuously taking precepts and insti
tutions, promises and threatenings, belonging to peculiar dis
pensations, and applying them universally, without regard to
times, persons, or circumstances. And such a mode of appeal
ing to Scripture is sometimes even defended, as evincing a
meritorious reverence for its divine character, and upheld as
a consequence from the belief hi its inspiration. Yet in
whatever sense that behef be entertained, adopting even the
strictest meaning of the term, it surely by no means follows
but that inspired authority may have a reference to one ob
ject and not to another, — a precept or declaration may have
been addressed to one party or in one age, and not designed

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. • 29
for another, — without any disparagement to its divine char
acter. From a thoughtless, desultory, or merely formal habit of
reading the divine Word, it is not surprising that there should
result an adoption of those low and unworthy notions which
prevail so commonly as to the character and genius of the
Christian religion ; and . which especially arise from the con
fused combination of its principles with those of older and less
perfect dispensations. That such ideas should obtain ready
acceptance with the many will not surprise those who con
sider the various causes in different ways operating to lower
and degrade the exalted purity and simplicity of the Gospel
to the level of the corrupt apprehensions of human nature,
especially among the mass of the ignorant and unthinking
nominal professors of a belief in its doctrine.
But it must be a matter of more astonishment that such
notions should find encouragement with some who professedly
look at Christianity in a more enlightened sense, and avowed
ly seek to receive it in no blind, formal maimer, but in the
spirit of its evangelical purity. Yet such unhappily is the
case. And whether from mere want of thought on the one
hand, or from preconceived theories on the other, or even in
some cases (we must fear) from more mixed motives, so un
prepared are men to entertain more distinct views, that the
very announcement of them is commonly altogether startling
and even painful to their prepossessions, and especially when
these questions are found to be mixed up with certain points
of supposed practical obhgation and religious observance ; it
follows, that when a more explanatory view of the subject is
presented, the hearers too generally turn away with impa
tience, or even with disgust and offence.
Without indulging the hope of being able to remove or
conciliate such opposing feelings in all instances, it will be at
least the endeavor, in the following exposition, to avoid giving
offence by the assumption of a polemical tone ; yet to state
the case of Christianity as independent of previous dispensa
tions, simply in reference to the matter of fact, with that plain-
3*

30

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.

ness which the cause of truth demands, according to the tenor
of the evidence furnished by Scripture, and in the desire to
maintain and elucidate the pure and enhghtening principles of
the New Testament, according to what appears, at least to the
author, their unadulterated and evangehcal simplicity.
I. The Primeval Dispensations.
The general nature, character, and connection of the suc
cessive divine dispensations recorded in the Bible, as briefly
described by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (i. 1),
— the announcements in. various measures and " portions,"
and under various " forms " or " aspects," * made in times
past to the fathers by the prophets, — fuUy accords with what
we collect in detail from the writings of the Old Testament,
and affords the only simple and satisfactory clew to the inter
pretation of them.
The view presented to us is that of successive revelations,
systems, covenants, laws, given to different individuals, fami
lies, or nations, containing gradual, progressive, and partial
developments of the truth, and intimations of the Divine will
for their guidance, accompanied with peculiar positive insti
tutions, adapted to the ideas of the age and the condition of
the parties to whom they were vouchsafed.
Thus peculiar revelations are represented as having been
made — each distinct from the other, though in some instances
including repetitions — to Adam, to Noah, to Job, to Abra
ham, to Isaac and Jacob, to the Israelites, first by Moses,
afterwards by a succession of prophets, as well as in some
instances to other people; as, for example, to the Nine-
vites (if the book of Jonah be regarded as historical) ; —
while, in contradistinction to aU these, we are told, " in these
last days God hath spoken unto us by his Son " (ib.), in a
universal, permanent, and perfect dispensation ; — the earlier
and more partial were not made " to us," or designed "for us."
Yet it is important to trace the history and character of
# This is clearly the force of the original, irdKvjiepSis kcu ¦noKvrpotras.
Heb. i. 1.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 31
these former dispensations, in order more fully to elucidate
the distinct nature and independence of the last ; and espe
cially to remove prevalent misconceptions from a subject
which, however plain when historically and rationally con
sidered, has been involved in much difficulty from gratuitous
and often visionary theories.
When we consider the very imperfect intimations, often
mere hints and allusions, given in the Hebrew records, as to
these early rehgious institutions and the design of them, as
well as the obvious and wide differences in the circumstances
of those people and times from our own, the discerning reader
at once sees how little they can haye been intended to be
understood- as containing any permanent elements of a uni
versal religion, as seems to have been sometimes imagined.
In the plain terms of the narrative we discover nothing of the
kind, and in the comment on it which the New Testament
supphes, we have direct assurance to the contrary.
In general, we find only that the servants of God in those
ages were accepted in walking each according to the lights
vouchsafed to him ; while in other respects we see pecuhar
institutions and announcements specially adapted to the pecu
har ends and purposes of the dispensations. Thus we trace
from the first the approach to God through sacrifices, offer
ings, and formal services.
Some infer from the account of the Divine rest after the
creation, that there was a primeval institution of the Sabbath,
though certainly no precept is recorded as having been given
to man to keep it up. But since, from the irreconcilable con
tradictions disclosed by geological discovery, the whole narra
tive of the six days' creation cannot now be regarded by any
competently informed person as historical,* the historical
character of the distinction conferred on the seventh day falls
to the ground along with it. Yet even without reference to
* I do not here pretend to enter on the evidence in support of this con
clusion. It will be found fully discussed in my work, On the Connection
of Natural and Divine Truth, 1838, and in my article " Creation," in
Kitto's Cychpmdia of Bib. Lit.

32 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
this consideration, some of the best commentators have re
garded the passage as proleptical, or anticipatory.
Afterwards we find the distinction of clean and unclean
animals introduced, and the prohibition of eating blood, in
the covenant with Noah (Gen. ix. 1), of which the Sabbath
formed no part ; nor can we find any indication of it in the
history of the other patriarchs : a point particularly dwelt
upon by the early Christian divines, who adopted the behef
of the Jews of their age in interpreting their Scriptures.*
Some have dwelt on the mention of the division of time by
weeks t in several parts of the early Mosaic history : yet
* Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Trypho, 236, 261) says, "The patriarchs
were justified before God not keeping Sabbaths," and " from Abraham
originated circumcision and from Moses the Sabbath," &c. Irenseus (IV.
30) and TertuUian (Ad Jud., XL 4) both declare that "Abraham without
circumcision and without observance of Sabbaths believed in God," &e.
t The early and general adoption of the division of time into weeks
may be obviously and rationally derived from the simple consideration,
that among all rude nations the first periodical division of time which
obtains is that of lunar months, while those conspicuous phenomena, the
phases or quarters of the moon, correspond to a week nearly enough for
the common purposes of such nations.
The universal prevalence of this division by weeks among Eastern
nations from a very remote period is attested by various ancient writers.
Dio Cassius ascribes the invention of it to the Egyptians, and assigns
the origin of the planetary names of the days. (Hist. Rom., XXXVU. 18
19.) Oldendorf found it in the interior of Africa. ( Jahn, Archxol. Bib.,
art. " Week.") The Brahmins also have the week distinguished by the
planetary names. (Life of Galileo, 1 2 ; Laplace, Precis de I'Hist. d'Astron.
16.) The Peruvians divide lunar months into halves and quarters, i. e.
weeks, by the phases of the moon, and besides have a period of nine
days, the approximate third part of a lunation" : thus showing the com
mon origin of both. ( Garcilasso, Hist, of the Incas, in Taylor's Nat. Hist.
of Society, I. 291, 292.)
So also the Romans had their " Nundinse." On the other hand the
Mexicans have periods of five and of thirteen days, with names to each
day. (Norman on Yucatan, i. 85, and Trans, of American Ethnog. Soc., I.
58. ) And the week is not known to the Chinese, nor to the North Ameri
can Indians (Catlin, II. 234) ; facts opposed to the idea of any universal
primitive tradition.
Allusions to a sanctity ascribed to the seventh day by the early Greek

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 33
it by no means follows that, because the historian adopts a
particular mode of reckoning, it was therefore used by the
people of whom he is writing : but were it so, this would not
imply the institution of the Sabbath.
In ah the early dispensations rehgious truths are conveyed
under figures, and obligations enforced by motives, specially
adapted to the capacities and wants of the parties addressed.
Thus temporal prospects are always held out as the immediate
sanctions ; and the mode of announcement adopted is always
that in which God is represented as vouchsafing to enter into
a covenant with his creatures ; — the form is always that of a
poets, such as the ej36"o/iaTn 8* eVetra KarrfKvQev lepbv rjp.ap of Homer,
and like expressions of Callimachus, Hesiod, &c, are quoted by Clemens
Alexandrin. (Strom., V.), and expressly described by him to have been
derived from the Jews, with whose Scriptures so many parallelisms are
found in the classic authors.
Generally, however, the universal superstition of the sacredness of the
number 7, combined with the equally common propensity to attach sanc
tity to particular periods and days, are sufficient elements out of which
such ideas would naturally take their rise.
Among the ancient Romans festivals were held in honor of Saturn,
with a reference to commemorating the Saturnian or Golden age, and
with this idea it was unlawful on the day sacred to Saturn to go out to
war (Macrobius, Lib. I. ; Saturn., c. 16), and it was held unlucky to
commence a journey or undertake any business : a superstition alluded
to by Tibullus (Eleg. I. 3, v. 18), " Satumi aut sacram me tenuisse
diem." What particular feast is here referred to there is nothing to show. The
supposition of some of his commentators, that it meant the seventh day
of the week, is wholly gratuitous. But if it were so, the idea would be
naturally and obviously borrowed from the Jews, whose customs, espe
cially the Sabbath, are so frequently alluded to by the Roman writers ;
and, from their wide dispersion, must have been generally familiar, as ill
fact we learn from the boast of Josephus (Adv. Ap., II.) and of Philo,
that " there is no place where the Sabbath is not known," and the testi
mony of Theophilus Antiochus (Lib. II., Ad Arist.) to the same effect, as
well as others often cited : which show the strict preservation of the ob
servance among the scattered Jews ; and it may possibly have been con
formed to by others, or the occasion laid hold of as convenient for other
purposes : as, e. g., we are told by Suetonius (Lib. XXXII.), " Diogenes
grammaticus disputare sabbatis Rhodi solitus."

34 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
stipulation of certain conditions to be fulfilled, and certain
blessings or punishments to be awarded as they are fulfilled
or not ; — and these conditions, always of a precise, formal,
positive kind, not implying merely moral obligations. The
spirit of all these covenants was that of " touch not, taste not,
handle not " (Col. ii. 21), involving a ground and motive of
obedience precisely adapted to the very infancy of the human
race. Such was the very covenant with Adam in Paradise :
" Eat not of the tree, — or thou shalt die." Nor can it be
denied that, if the Sabbath had formed a part of that covenant,
it was an institution exactly in keeping with it : Eat not of
the tree, — keep holy the seventh day. The same idea of a
covenanted stipulation of positive observances, in which sacri
fice was the most prominent, characterizes all the succeeding
announcements, — from the covenant of circumcision with
Abraham down to the more detailed and complete scheme of
the Mosaic Law.
In these early and imperfect dispensations it is idle to look
for any great principles of universal moral application, as has
been sometimes fancied : — for instance, finding authority for
capital punishment in the precept given to Noah (Gen. ix. 6),
or for tithes in the example of Melchisedec (Gen xiv. 20).
So far from perceiving any support for the idea, that because
a precept or institution was from the beginning, it was there
fore designed to be of universal and perpetual obligation, on
the contrary, we rather see in its very antiquity a strong pre
sumption that it was of a nature suited and intended only for
the earliest stage of the rehgious development of man.
But apart from these peculiarities, we trace all along the
announcement of " the promise " (Gal. iii. 19), which was
before the covenant, and to which the fathers looked as not
transitory.' Christianity, by fulfilling the promise, supersedes
all previous imperfect dispensations: itself emphatically a
New covenant, the very reverse of a recurrence to a primitive
religion (as fancied by some). The patriarchs, and especially
Abraham, are set forth as examples of faith in the promise ;
and in this respect Christian believers are called children of

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 35
Abraham (Gal. iii. 7) : but manifestly not in the sense of
their retrograding to an older and less perfect state of things :
the whole tenor of the Divine revelation is clearly stamped
with the character of advance.
H. The Judaical Law.
The manifest design of the book of Genesis was not to
teach us a primitive religion, but to form an introduction to
the Law for the Jews. It has been well observed, that " to
understand Genesis we must begin with Exodus " ; from the
actual history and circumstances of the people we can best
appreciate what their books spoke to them.
Those events in the previous history are always selected
and enlarged upon which have a direct reference to points in
the subsequent institutions, or were anticipations of the Law,
or the rudiments out of which its ordinances were framed.
Thus, the narrative of the six days' creation, first announced
in the Decalogue, and afterwards amplified in Genesis, as has
been already observed, can now only be regarded as an
adaptation of a poetical cosmogony (doubtless already familiar
to the Israelites) to the purpose of enforcing on them the in
stitution of the Sabbath. And in like manner the other insti
tutions of primeval worship (already adverted to) — the
sacrifices, the distinctions of clean and unclean animals, the
prohibition of blood, and afterwards the appointment of
circumcision, the choice of a pecuhar people, the promise
of Canaan — form the prominent topics, as being the begin
nings of the Mosaic covenant, and approximations towards
tfee system of the Law.
The object of the Law was declared to be, in the first in
stance, to separate the people of Israel by pecuhar marks and
badges from all other nations, as a people chosen for the high
ends and purposes of the Divine counsels (see especially
Exod. xix. 5 ; xxxi. 13 - 17 ; Deut. xiv. 1 ; xxvi. 16 ; Ezek.
x-x. 9 — 12). This was to be effected especially by such dis
tinctions as those of circumcision, the prohibition of inter
marriages, or any participation with idolaters ; by all their

36 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
exclusive usages and ceremonies, but chiefly by the marked
singularity of the Sabbath, which, along with the Passover,
was appointed earlier than the rest of the Law, and was em
phatically declared (Exod. xxxi. 16 ; Ezek. xx. 12 ; Neh. ix.
14, &c.) to be a distinctive sign between God and the people
of Israel, which they were always to remember to keep up ;
a pecuharity further evinced by its being always prominently
coupled with the sanctity of the temple, the new moons and
other feasts (Lev. xix. 30 ; Isa. i. 13 ; lxvi. 23 ; Hos. ii. 11 ;
Ezek. xiv. 17), and one of the pledges by which the proselyte
was to take hold of the covenant (Isa. lvi. 6). The directions
for the mode of observing it were minute and strict ; and the
precepts always precisely regard the observance, not of one
day in seven, but of the seventh day of the week as such, in
commemoration of the rest after the Creation,* though in one
respect also it is afterwards urged as reminding them of their
deliverance out of Egypt (Deut. v. 14). These distinctions
constituted at once their security and their motives of obe
dience. The Law throughout is a series of adaptations to them
and their national peculiarities.
Yet it is often spoken of as something general, as " a pre-
hminary education of the human race " ; t but the plain history
discloses nothing but the training of one single people for a
specific purpose.
We see continued exemplifications of wise adaptation to
the Jewish national mind in the entire mode of the delivery
of the Law amid terrors, signs, and wonders ; and especially
in the oral announcement of the Decalogue from Sinai ; while
its consignment to tables of stone is expressly stated to be for
* The Jewish Rabbis have always understood the institution to belong
to the particular day of the cessation of the Creation, enjoined on the peo
ple of Israel, as they say,"" that they might fasten in their minds the be
lief that the world had a beginning, which is a thread that draws after it
all the foundations of the Law or principles of religion." (Rabbi Levi of
Barcelona, quoted by Patrick, on Exod. xix.) The same idea occurs
in a Jewish form of prayer quoted also by Patrick.
t See Pusey on Rationalism, I. 156.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 37
a memorial or "testimony" (Exod. xxxi. 18; xxxiv. 29) to
the covenant, of which these precepts constituted some of the
more primary stipulations. And throughout the whole Law
we trace equal adaptations in the form and manner of the
precepts and injunctions : all minute and literal, not rising
to any broad principles, which the Israelites at that time
would have been incapable of comprehending.
The distinction adopted by many modern divines between
the " ceremonial " and the " moral " law appears nowhere in
the books of Moses. No one portion or code is held out as
comprising the rules of moral obligation distinct and apart
from those of a positive nature : such a distinction would have
been unintelligible to them ; and " the Law " is always spoken
of in Scripture as a whole, without reference to any such
classification ; and the obligations of ah parts of it, as of the
same kind.
In particular, ¦ what is termed the moral law is certainly
in no way pecuharly to be identified with the Decalogue.
Though moral duties, are specially enjoined in many places
of the Law, yet the Decalogue certainly does not contain all
moral duties, even by remote implication, and on the widest
construction. It totally omits many such, as, e. g., beneficence,
truth, justice, temperance, control of temper, and others ; and
some moral precepts omitted here are introduced in other
places. Equally in the Decalogue and the rest of the Law, we find
precepts referring to what are properly moral duties scattered
and intermixed with those of a positive and formal kind, and
in no way distinguished from them in authority or impor
tance ; but both connected with the peculiarities of the dis
pensation, expressed in a form accompanied with sanctions
and enforced by motives precisely adapted to the character
and capacity of the people, and such as formed part of the
exact stipulations of the covenant.
Their duties were urged more generally in some passages
(as, e. g., in Deut. xi. 21, 22 ; iv. 27, &c.) on the consid
eration of national blessings ; in others on more particular
4

38 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
grounds, such as the motives assigned for filial obedience
(Exod. xx. 12) in a long life ; the recompense for benefi
cence and equity (Prov. xix. 17"; Ps. xii. 1 ; xxxvii. 25,
&c.) ; the appeal to the dread of Divine vengeance (Exod.
xxiv. 17; Deut. iv. 24; Isa. lxvi. 16; Deut. iv. 31); and
the remembrance of benefits conferred. In general their
reward was to be found in obedience : to keep the statutes
and ordinances was to be " their wisdom and their righteous
ness " ; and the great maxim and promise was, " He that
doeth these things shall live in them " (Deut. iv. 6 ; vi. 25 ;
Lev. xviii. 5).
The Law conformed to many points of human infirmity : it
offered splendid rites and ceremonies to attract popular rever
ence, and wean the people from their proneness to the gross
ceremonies of idolatry. It indulged the disposition to observe
" days, and times, and seasons '' by the Sabbaths and feasts,
and by occasional fasts, originally only a symbol of ordinary
mourning, but afterwards invested with a rehgious character
(Isa. lviii. 5 ; Joel ii. 12). It commended avenging and san
guinary zeal, especially in the punishment of blasphemers
(Lev. xxiv. 14; Deut. xiii. 9). It sanctioned the ¦" lex talio-
nis " (Exod. xxi. 23), — " life for life, eye for eye, tooth for
tooth," — that most perfect idea of retributive justice to the
uncivilized mind ; and in general it connected the idea of
punishment with that of vengeance, the most congenial to a
barbarous apprehension. If it restricted marriages within
certain degrees of kindred, it at least connived at polygamy ;
and allowed a law of divorce suited " to the hardness of their
hearts " (Matt. xix. 8). The Law altogether was established
with a regard to the infirmity and blindness of the people,
"in consideration to transgressions " * (Gal. hi. 19).
While it prohibited idolatry, it represented the Deity under
human similitudes, with human passions and bodily members,
* This appears to me to be the proper force of the adverb x°Plv ner0
used by the Apostle. From its etymology it must be supposed to imply
"because of," in a, favorable or indulging sense. It seems to correspond
to wpos in Matt. xix. 8.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 39
as, e. g., weary and resting from his work, angry, repenting,
and jealous of other gods ; and designated more particularly
as " Jehovah," the national God of Israel, &c. . It is not one
of the least remarkable of these anthropomorphisms that (as
in former instances) the disclosure of the Divine purposes is
made under the figure of Jehovah entering into a covenant
with his people, an idea specially adapted to a nation of the
lowest moral capacity. All points of duty were proposed
under the form of precise stipulations, (just as in other times
rehgious vows, temperance pledges, subscriptions to creeds,
&c. have been adopted,) to keep a stronger hold on those in
capable of higher motives. The immediate appeal to divine
sanctions sensibly present, and the enforcement of moral
duties under the form of a positive engagement, were pre
cisely calculated to influence those who had no apprehension
of pure principles of moral obhgation, or of a higher spiritual
service. Again, obedience was to be rewarded and sin to be visited
by blessings or judgments on the posterity of the offender
(Exod. xx. 5), not merely in the sense of the ordinary conse
quences of good or bad conduct in the parents naturally in
fluencing the fortunes of the children, but by a pecuhar
providential interposition. And in connection with this was
another striking peculiarity of the covenant, that obedience
and disobedience were both regarded as national, for which
national rewards and judgments were to be awarded; the
whole people in the aggregate being represented as possessing
a collective and common responsibility. These peculiarities
were obviously connected with the absence of those higher
motives and sanctions which would be derived from the doc
trine of a future state ; which clearly formed no part of the
covenant, even if believed by some pious and enlightened in
dividuals, and in later times hinted at by the prophets.
The obligations of the Law were strongly declared to be
perpetual (as, e. g., Exod. xxxi. 17 ; Lev. xvi. 34 ; xxiv. 8 ;
2 Kings xvii. 37, &c. ; Isa. Iv. 3), and the covenant everlast
ing, — expressions which cannot now be taken literally.

40 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
Its privileges might at all times be extended to strangers
by their undergoing the initiatory rite. This was in later
ages extensively realized (see Exod. xii. 48 ; comp. with Isa.
lvi. 6; and Deut. xxix. 11).
The prophecies of the future extension of the Mosaic re
ligion might in a first sense apply literally to this extension of
proselytism, — the coming in of remote nations to the Jewish
church and worship, resorting to its temple, adopting its rites
and offerings, and keeping its festivals and Sabbaths : as we
know was in fact largely fulfilled before the introduction of
the Gospel (Isa. lvi. 3 ; lxvi. 11, 12, 19 -23 ; Micah iv. 1 ;
Zech. viii. 21 ; Amos ix. 11 ; comp. Acts ii. 5, &c).
These predictions are, however, also figuratively interpreted
of the spread of -the Gospel and the glories of the spiritual
Zion. If so, all the particulars in the description must be
interpreted by the same analogy ; if Israel and the temple be
metaphorical, then the sacrifices, new moons, and Sabbaths
must be so likewise ; if these latter are taken literally, we can
only understand the whole hterally, or we violate all rules of
interpretation and analogy.
The precision and formality of the Law were in some de
gree extended and spiritualized by the Prophets. The words
of Ezekiel (xviii. 3) have been understood as positively ab
rogating the punishment of the posterity for the sins of the
father ; and Isaiah (i. 13, &c.) strongly decries the sacrifices
and Sabbaths. They also gave intimations that the Law was
to come to an end, or rather to be superseded by a better and
more spiritual covenant (Isa, ii. 2 ; Jer. xxxi. 31 ; Ezek.
xxxvi. 25 ; Mal. iv. 2 - 6). Malachi, the last, connects the
two dispensations, — looking backwards to Moses and for
wards to Christ and his forerunner.
John the Baptist was the minister of an intermediate or
preparatory dispensation. He accordingly recognized all ex
isting obligations, but reproved hypocrisy and formality, and
urged repentance and its practical fruits (Luke iii. 10 - 14 ;
Matt. iii. 7). He more especiaUy announced the kingdom of
heaven as at hand, and pointed to Jesus as " the Christ," " the

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 41
Lamb of God " who should bring it in (John i. 27, 29), and
" take away the sin of the world."
IH. The Teaching of Christ.
In the teaching of Jesus we find no repeal of an old dis
pensation to introduce a new ; but a gradual method of prep
aration by spiritual instruction for a better system.
During his ministry on earth, the kingdom of heaven was
still only " at hand " and " to come " (Mark i. 15 ; Matt. vi.
10). Serious misconceptions often arise from applying his
instructions without remembering that he was himself em
phatically " made under the Law " (Gal. iv. 4), and address
ing those under it as still in force.
To the Jews in general he inculcated moral and spiritual
duties ; not any change in existing grounds and principles, but
reform in practice. He censured severely the hypocrisy and
ostentation of the Pharisees and their followers ; their exces
sive minuteness even in matters ordained, and their " making
of none effect " the divine law by human additions (Mark vii.
13). Yet he offered no disparagement to the Law as such.
While he insisted on its weightier matters, he would not have
its lesser points neglected (Matt, xxiii. 23). He enlarged its
spirit, yet acknowledged its letter as the rule still in force on
the Jews. His own example was emphatic. His plain
declaration implies none of those refined distinctions which
have been sometimes drawn as to the meaning of the terms
" destroy" and "fulfil" (Matt. v. 17) ; to quiet the apprehen
sions of the Jews as to his having a design hostile to the Law
and the Prophets, he assures them that the very aim of his
hfe was to obey it in every particular, "to fulfil," in their
phrase, " all righteousness " (Matt. hi. 15). And so his Jew
ish foUowers were exhorted to " keep the commandments " if
they " would enter into hfe " (Matt. xix. 17) ; and doing so,
they were " not far from the kingdom of God " (Mark xii.
34), though not yet in it. Not the least of the commandments
was to be broken ; no part of its force to fail during that age
or dispensation (Matt. v. 18).
4#

42 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
Thus far in general : in more special instances we find him
upholding the authority of the existing church and its teach
ers, and the appeal to its tribunals (Matt, xxiii. 1 ; xviii. 17).
He recognized the Mosaic law of marriage and divorce, and
though he limited the latter more strictly (Matt. xix. 8), it
was to repress the gross abuse of it which then prevaUed ;
and this only under an express reference to what was the
original design of the institution from the authority of the
books of Moses.
He referred to fasting as an existing rite under the Law,
though sternly reproving the hypocritical and ostentatious
performance of it (Matt. vi. 18; comp. Isa. lviii. 5). In the
same terms he censured formality and ostentation in almsgiv
ing and prayer (Matt. vi. 1 - 5) ; and taught that offerings at
the altar were not to be omitted, though reconciliation was
of more importance (Matt. v. 23).
He particularly and repeatedly reproved the Pharisaical
moroseness in the observance of the Sabbath : himself wrought
cures on it, and vindicated works of charity and necessity
(Matt. xii. 1) ; yet only by such arguments and examples as
the Jewish teachers themselves allowed, and their own Scrip
tures afforded authority for. But he did not in any way
modify or abolish it, or substitute any other for it, though he
fuUy asserted his power to do so ; and expressly urged upon
them the consideration that it was made for " the man " * (i. e.
those to whom it was appointed), and not " the man " for it ;
as an institution of a permanent kind connected with the
moral ends of man's being ; adapted to the parties for whom
it was designed, but having nothing in its nature of unchange
able or general obhgation to which mankind were to conform.
He defeated insidious questions by an appeal to the Law
itself: " What is written? " (Luke x. 26 ; Mark x. 3, &c.) ;
and taking occasion from a point disputed among them,
he enforced the two great commandments (Matt. xxii. 37 ;
* This is clearly the force of the original (Mark ii. 27), 8ia tov av-
Bpamov.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 43
comp. with Deut. vi. 5 ; Lev. xix. 18 ; Matt. vii. 12 ; Tobit
iv. 15) as the sum of the Law and the Prophets, and in general
urged obedience on the very principle and promise of the
Law itself: " Do this, and thou shalt live " (Luke x. 28 ; Rom.
x. 3 ; Gal. hi. 12 ; comp. with Lev. xviii. 5 ; Ezek. xx. 11 ;
Neh. ix. 29).
He took the Decalogue as the text of his instructions to the
Jews (Mark x. 19 ; Matt. v. 21, &c. ; xix. 16, &c.) ; and
made many enlargements upon it : giving them new precepts
expressly in addition to it, and not as unfolding anything
already contained or implied in it, and expressly contrasting
his own teaching with what " was said of old." But we find
no modification or softening of the Law, no repeal of one part
and retaining another, as is often imagined.
Christ's teaching during his ministry was plainly but pre
liminary and preparatory to the establishment of the new dis
pensation. His general discourses were simply practical, yet
with an obvious peculiarity of adaptation to the ideas of the
Jewish people. " The mysteries of the kingdom " were veiled
in parables to the multitude, explained to the disciples in
private, and understood only by those who " had ears to hear "
(Matt. xiii. 9-17). During his ministry "the kingdom of
heaven suffered violence " (Matt. xi. 12), the more enlight
ened partially understood it, and the strong in spirit forced
an entrance.
He pointed to the necessity of a new beginning from first
principles (Matt. ix. 17 ; xviii. 1), for becoming as httle chil-
dren ; holding out the prospect of a progressive enlighten
ment (John viii. 31), urging the Jews especiaUy to search
their own Scriptures (John v. 39), (those in which ye think
ye have eternal life,) in support of his claims, and insisting
especiaUy on a new and higher " regeneration " than that ac
knowledged by the Rabbis (John hi. 3).
He repeatedly declared his mission to be only to the House
of Israel. In some few instances, indeed, Gentiles came to
him; but no distinct instruction was given, except in the one
remarkable case of the woman of Samaria, which is peculiar-

44 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
ly important as being the only distinct reference in Christ's
teaching to the new dispensation as extending to the Gentiles,
and the termination of the old with respect to the Jews (John
iv. 21).
According to the whole system disclosed in the New Testa
ment, it is clear that Christ's kingdom could not properly begin
tiU after his death and resurrection (Luke xxiv. 46). Its ex
tension to aU nations, though more than once hinted at in his
discourses (Matt. viii. 11 ; John x. 16, &c), and indirectly
figured out in several of the parables, was not positively an
nounced till the final charge was given to the Apostles (Matt.
xxviii. 19 ; Mark xvi. 16 ; Luke xxiv. 47 ; Acts i. 8).
IV. The Teaching of the Apostles.
The preaching of the Apostles in the first instance was
confined to Jews and proselytes, who continued under the Law
and in the worship of the synagogue, simply adding the belief
in Jesus as the Messiah, and joining in Christian communion.
The Apostles themselves conformed to the Law in all par
ticulars, even St. Paul, while he claimed the hberty of doing
otherwise ; and St. Peter was reproached with inconsistency
in deviating from it even in one point (Acts xxi. 24 ; Gal.
ii. 11).
The first great step was the announcement of the abolition
of the separation between Jew and Gentile, commenced in
the commission to Peter to convert Cornelius (Acts x. 34).
Yet in fact Christianity was long confined chiefly to Jews or
proselytes, or Gentile converts from among those who had
previously in some degree conformed to the Law. In address
ing such parties the appeal would be naturaUy made to the
Old Testament as furnishing proofs of Christianity.
Of the preaching to the Samaritans nothing is recorded,
but it was doubtless accordant with the words of Christ to the
Samaritan woman, and could involve httle reference to Jewish
obligations. When purely Gentiles, or heathens, were addressed, there
is no evidence or instance of any reference being made to

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 45
Old Testament authority, to the Law as preliminary to the
Gospel, or to any supposed primitive religion, as to a sort of
prior, but forgotten, obhgation. The appeal was (in ah the
few cases recorded) to the natural evidences of one God, to
the moral law of conscience, and then directly to the fact of
Christ's resurrection and its consequences. Such wasx the
tenor of St. Paul's discourse at Lystra and at Athens (Acts
xvii. 22 ; xiv. 17), and such the purport of his whole elabo
rate argument in the beginning of the Epistle to the Romans
(Rom. i. 18 ; ii. 14, &c), where he positively and pointedly
makes his appeal to the Gentiles, not on the ground of the
revealed law, but solely on that of natural reason and con
science. And just as he referred the Jews to their Scrip
tures, so, to enforce his argument with authorities to the hea
then, he quotes their own poets (Acts xvii. 28 ; 1 Cor. xv. 33 ;
Tit. i. 12).
The omission of any reference to previous obligations
(which, if they had existed, were certainly unknown) is em
phatic. Any supposed universal law given to the Patriarchs
would clearly have required to be revived, but no intimation
or even aUusion of the kind is to be found in the records of
the Apostolic teaching. Such a reference, for example, was
manifestly requisite for any revival of a primeval Sabbath,
had it been contemplated ; but it is needless to say, no such
intimation can be found. The only aUusion to the subject at
all is addressed to the Hebrews (Heb. iv. 4), and the turn of
the aUusion is figurative and obviously quite different.
The very natural behef of the Jews, that the Gentiles were
incapable of justification, except through conformity to the
covenant of circumcision, at a very early period led to attempts
to impose the Law on Gentile converts (Acts xy. 1 - 28), until
the Apostohc decree finally settled the question, in which cer
tain observances only are retained and prescribed, described
as practically "necessary" from the circumstances of the
times : the omission of all others, as meats, Sabbaths, &c, is
emphatic, as weU as the absence of any recognition, whether
generally of the Law as such, or of any previous dispensation,

46 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
or of any part of it, or an enlarged or modified view of its
precepts to be made the rule of Christian obedience. But
so inveterate were the prepossessions of the Jews, that later
attempts of this kind were continuaUy made, which called
forth the special censures of St. Paul, and the strongest argu
ments against these notions so destructive to the real spirit of
the Gospel, such as form the main purport of his Epistles to
the Galatians and Colossians, of material portions of those to
the Romans, and the Second to the Corinthians (as, e. g.,
2 Cor. iii., &c), and of scattered declarations in nearly aU.
Hence the expression Christian " liberty " obviously applies
only by way of contrast to the particular instance of Judaiz-*
ing, while the assurance " ye are not under the Law, but under
grace," (the necessity for which arose solely from the same
cause,) is most carefuUy guarded against any such misapplica
tion as would sanction sin, any tendency to the preposterous
doctrine of Antinomianism (Rom. vi. 1, 14). No such lan
guage need have been used with respect to Gentile converts
but for such attempts at enslaving them. The Apostle ad
dressed distinctly both those " under the Law," — the Jews, —
and those " not under the Law," — the Gentiles ; the former
generaUy were stiU under it, though they might have been
released from it. But the latter could not be released from
that to which they had never been subject. To say that they
were free from the law of the Hebrews was indeed 'true, but
superfluous ; they needed not to be told so ; what was to bring
them under it ? certainly not the Gospel.
The strong feeling of the Jews with respect to the distinc
tion of circumcision appears, however, very reasonable; it
was not a mere national prejudice, but arose purely out of the
belief in the Divine authority of the covenant, and to them
seemed to involve all the other obhgations of the Law, not to
be abrogated without the loss of that distinction. Hence the
difficulty of the argument with them. It is, however, con
ducted with consummate skill by the Apostle, directing his
reasoning with admirable effect, so as at once to bear on the
case of the Gentiles, and with equal force on that of the Jews,

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 47
in a way which they must acknowledge as conclusive on their
own principles (as in Rom. xi. 13, &c).
He maintained himself a compliance with the ordinances
yet subsisting : " to the Jews he became a Jew," as " under
the Law " ; to the Gentiles as " without the Law '' (1 Cor. ix.
20) : but this was no deceptive assumption, since he actually
was in one sense both.
The distinction of meats, clean or unclean, of days to be
kept holy or not, remained actuaUy in force to the Jewish
Christians until their convictions became sufficiently enlight
ened to see the abolition of those distinctions. To the Gen
tile it was equally clear that they were not obligatory on him,
while his service was a spiritual one in faith. In Sabbaths
and meats each might judge for himself (Rom. xiv. 5, 6) ;
there was no moral immutable obhgation, but neither was to
judge the other. Both acting in faith were exhorted to mu
tual charity, a line of conduct pre-eminently recommended by
the Apostle's own example' (1 Cor. x. 23 ; viii. 13, &c). But
there was no compromise of essential truths ; we cannot but
be struck with the contrast of the Apostle's liberality of sen
timent with his strenuous assertion of Christian freedom.
" Christ crucified " (1 Cor. i. 25) was preached alike to Jew
and Greek, the Author of Salvation equally to those under
the Law and those without it (Rom. xv. 8, 9).
To both parties it was argued that they stood equally con
demned in the sight of God. The Gentiles were expressly
shown to be in this state of condemnation from their own
moral depravity, not from any sentence of a covenant which
their remote forefathers had broken, as some have fancied.
Setting aside the total unreasonableness of such an imagina
tion, nothing can be more clear or positive than the argument
of St. Paul, that they stood condemned expressly without any
such revealed law, and solely by their violation of the law of
conscience, written by natural light in their hearts (Rom. ii.
15). StiU less were they to be awakened by any terrors of
the law of Sinai given to the Jews.
On the other hand, the Jew stood condemned because he

48 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
had transgressed the law of revelation, which he acknowl
edged to be holy, and just, and good, and in which he beheved
himself justified. St. Paul therefore expressly argues, that
he was not only not justified, but positively condemned, by that
very Law in which he trusted and made his boast, which " he
approved " and " served with his mind " ; yet in truth, " with
his flesh he served sin " (Rom. vii. 25, &c.).* The difficulty
was to convince the Jew, that he stood condemned by his own
law ; that " by it he had the knowledge of sin," that " the
strength of sin was the Law," but the victory in Christ.
Both being thus alike under condemnation, though by differ
ent laivs, it followed that both were to be accepted and justi
fied on another, a new and common ground, that of faith in
Jesus Christ ; and the grand point thus was, that the line of
separation was removed; aU distinctions were merged and
lost in the greater privilege now conferred by the Gospel, " of
the twain was made one new man" (Eph. ii. 11 — 22 ; 1 Cor.
vh. 19 ; Gal. vi. 15 ; Col. hi. 11), Christ was to be all and
in all.
Christ redeemed the Jews " from the curse of the Law "
(Gal. hi. 15 ; iv. 3) ; the GentUe "from all iniquity" (Tit. ii.
14). Both were called to repentance and faith, but on differ
ent grounds ; both led, though by different ways, to moral
duties ; to the Jew obedience was " the fulfilment of the Law "
(Gal. v. 14; Rom. xiii. 8), "the end of the commandment"
(1 Tim. i. 5), " the pure service '' (James i. 27 \_dp-qo-Keta']),
" the royal law according to the Scripture " (James ii. 8) ; to
the Gentile without any such reference it was simply "the
things just, and pure, and true" (Phil. iv. 3), in accordance
with the natural moral sense ; to " live soberly, righteously,
and godly" (Tit. ii. 12) ; to walk "honestly " (Rom. xiii. 13) ;
but all this based on the high and peculiar motives of Chris
tian faith.
To the Jews the grounds of Christian obligation were often

* Such at least appears to me to be the real and plain tenor of this
chapter, so often imagined difficult to rescue from the eager grasp of the
Antmomian.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 49
represented and enforced by analogies drawn from the Old
Testament Thus the Gospel itself is by analogy, and with
especial reference to the words of the Prophets, called a
.covenant (Heb. viii. 6; comp. Jer. xxxi. 31): not implying
that there was really any covenant, but only that it stood in
the same relation to Christians as the covenant did to the Jews ;
since it is expressly distinguished (indeed the whole argument
of the Apostle turns on the distinction, Gal. iii. 18)* as not
really a covenant, but a free promise and gift ; not the
act or deed of two parties as a compact, but of one as a gift
or a testament.
The Jew was to be brought graduaUy to see his dehverance
from the "bondage" (Gal. iv. 25; 2 Cor. iii. 6-14; Heb.
xii. 18) of Sinai, effected by his increasing faith and knowl
edge, supported by the arguments from Abraham (Gal. iii. 6 ;
Rom. iv. 1), and the Prophets (Hab. ii. 9 ; Heb. vh. 18) ;
" the Law being his schoolmaster to bring him to Christ" (Gal.
iii. 24). The Law ceased at no one time, but to each indi
vidual as his belief and enlightenment progressively emanci
pated him (Rom. xiv. 1 - 6).f It was never formaUy re
scinded : it died a natural death.
Wherever the cessation of the Law is spoken of, it is as a
whole, without reference to moral or ceremonial, letter or
spirit. We find no such distinction as that " the Law, as being
of Moses, was abrogated, yet, as the Law of the Spirit, still
binding " ; J the language of St. Paul is utterly opposed to
any such idea. .
But if all this had been otherwise, it would little concern
us ; the Law should be contemplated as a national and local,
* The obscurity of the passage is admitted ; but what I have here
stated appears to me to be the real tenor of it, though fully aware of the
existence of difference of opinion among commentators.
t The Rabbis held that distinctions of meats and even the Law itself
were to cease when the Messiah came, as also the Sabbath, arguing ex
pressly from Isa. Ixvi. 23. (R. Samuel, in Talmud, in titulo Nidr.
Cited by Grotius de Ver., V. 9, 10.)
t See Life of Dr. Arnold, I. 355.
5

50 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
rather than us a temporary dispensation ; for, had it not been
temporary, it would still have been restricted to one people :
the Gentiles would have had no part or concern in its con
tinuance (unless as becoming proselytes to it), nor had they
in its cessation. Christianity as addressed to the Gentiles was
not founded on Judaism : * nor does it imply any substitution
of one obligation for another : it stands simply on its own
ground : the essential character of its institutions is indepen
dent. Its few observances were in fact at first adopted along
with those of Mosaism, by the churches " of the circum
cision," who formed so large a part of the early Christian
community. From this circumstance the teaching of the Apostles would
necessarily exhibit a large infusion of Judaical ideas; and
we accordingly find them introducing a multitude of adapta
tions of passages from the Old Testament; besides maxims
and proverbial sayings (e. g. Rom. xii. 20 ; James v. 20 ;
1 Pet. iv. 8) and forms of expression, habitual among the
Jews, which sometimes, mistaken for original sentiments, lead
to serious misconceptions. Their reasonings would naturaUy
be built upon opinions currently received, and on appeals to
the Jewish Scriptures, of undeniable force to those who
recognized its authority; and the introduction of analogies
and applications of the incidents and language of the Old
Testament (e. g. Rom. vii. 1 ; Eph. vi. 1 ; 1 Pet. hi. 10 ;
1 Tim. v. 18) for the instruction of converts who could only
be convinced through such associations of the new truths with
the old.
* Sec the whole paragraph in Ignatius (partially quoted at the begin
ning of this essay) for an eloquent exposition of this idea. It includes
a passage which, as I think most unnecessarily, has been the subject of
much discussion, as supposed to allude to the Lord's day ; but it appears
to me that the simple sense of KVpiaKj] fcoq is " the Lord's life," which
was to become the pattern of the spiritual life of those Jewish converts
who saw their emancipation from the Law, and therefore lived pjjiceTt
o-afifiaTifrvres, — dXKa Kara KvpiaKr/v £ahv ftovrer. See my article
" Lord's Day," in Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Biblical Literature,

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 51
It is in this way only that the Apostle Paul sanctions any
use of the Old Testament Scriptures ; as in the practical and
typical accommodation of passages to points of Christian in
struction (Rom. xv. 4; 1 Cor. x. 1, &c). It was thus that
even to Timothy the Old Testament was stiU to be " profit
able," but only when apphed " through faith in Jesus Christ "
(2 Tim. hi. 15). And thus St. Peter (the very Apostle of
the circumcision) commends the use of the prophetical writr
ings, only as preparatory and auxiliary to the Gospel (2 Pet.
i. 19). The more we consider the nature of the precise points of
analogy dwelt upon, the more we perceive the independent
spiritual characteristics of the Gospel to which they point ; as
in the typical application of the temple to the body of Christ,
and thence to the community of Christians (1 Cor. hi. 16);
of Jerusalem to that which is above (Gal. iv. 26 ; Heb. xii.
22) ; the laver to regeneration (Tit. iii. 5, Xovrpov ; Exod.
xxx. 18, &c.) ; the altar and sacrifices primarily to the death
of Christ (Heb. xiii. 10 ; x. 1, &c.) ; and thence in a lower
sense to almsgiving (Heb. xiii. 16 ; Phil. iv. 18) ; to praise ;
to the reasonable service of Christians (Rom. xii. 1 ; Heb.
xi. 20) ; the priesthood primarily to the person and office of
Christ, though, in a secondary sense, to aU Christians (1 Pet.
ii. 9) ; circumcision to purity of heart (Deut. x. 16; xxx. 6 ;
Jer. iv. 4 ; Rom. ii. 29 ; Col. ii. 11) ; the anointing to grace
{1 John ii. 20) ; the Sabbath to the rest reserved for the
faithful (Heb. iv. 9). In after times the same desire of adap
tation without apostolic warrant, and carried often to extrav
agant lengths, led to a larger use of the Old Testament
among Christian writers, and the spirit of allegorizing and
evangelizing all parts of it. The Apostles' arguments and
representations, misunderstood from want of consideration of
the circumstances, and appeals ad hominem taken positively,
in modern times have become subjects of endless mistake and
confusion. But in the Apostles' teaching we find no dependence recog
nized of the one system on the other ; no such idea as that of

52 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
a transference of Old Testament ordinances to Christianity ;
or the fulfilment of one in the other : for example, we find no
appeal to the Old Testament for the basis of marriage, the
reference of St. Paul (Eph. v. 31 ; 1 Cor. vh. 2) to the pri
meval precepts being made only incidentaUy, and the Chris
tian institution essentiaUy grounded on a different principle ;
we perceive no carrying on of the priesthood in the Christian
ministry (which was derived from the officers of the syna
gogue, not of the temple) * ; no continuation of sacrifices in the
Lord's supper, or of the Sabbath in the Lord's day (charitable
collections were made on the first day. of the week,f 1 Cor.
xvi. 2), precisely because it was not the Sabbath, on which
they were unlawful.
Yet, from a misconception of points of analogy in such
cases, often directly at variance with the express words of the
Apostles, opinions have prevailed on these and the like points
tending not a httle to perplex and impair the shnplicity of the
Gospel. All the essentiaUy Christian institutions were independent
and simple. We must carefully distinguish from the more
essential and permanent, some minor ordinances of a purely
temporary and occasional character, which certainly bear a
more formal appearance ; but were evidently adopted for the
sake of peace and union, and especiaUy for the great objects
of mutually concihating the Jewish and Gentile converts, or
from a wish not abruptly to violate existing customs ; as, e. g.,
the injunctions in the apostolic decree (Acts xv.), already
referred to ; and some of those given by St. Paul to the
church at Corinth (as throughout 1 Cor. v., vi., and vh.), and
to Timoty (1 Tim. v., &c).
The same may be said of the practice of fasting (see Acts
* See Vitringa, De Synagoga, of which valuable work an excellent
abridged translation has been published by the Rev. J. L. Bernard.
London. 1842.
t Cocceius, quoted by Vitringa, says : " This was ordained on the
first day of the week, as being regarded non ut festum sed ut epyao-iiiov."
See Bernard's Vitringa, pp. 75 and 167.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 53
xiii. 2) ; there does not exist a single precept or hint for its
general adoption by Christians, much less is there any sanc
tion for other ascetic observances, which soon claimed an
availing merit utterly at variance with the spirit of the Gospel.
So far as they had begun to prevaU, they met with unequiv
ocal censure (Col. ii. 18 - 23 ; 1 Tim. iv. 3, 8) from St. Paul.
Of other institutions of Christian worship, very little can be
coUected from the New Testament. At first the disciples met
daily for prayer and communion (Acts ii. 26). In one in
stance afterwards it may be implied that they assembled
pecuharly on the first day of the week (Acts xx. 7) ; and in
the latest period of the New Testament age " the Lord's day "
is spoken of once, but whoUy without explanation (Rev.
i. 10).
The ministry and form of church government were bor
rowed directly from the synagogues, which were actuaUy the
churches of the Jewish converts. Certain pecuhar regula
tions also were connected with the extraordinary gifts (Mark
xvi. 17), as temporal visitations (1 Cor. xi. 30, &c), and the
power of inflicting them (1 Cor. v. 5), and the anointing of
the sick (James v. 14, comp. with Mark xvi. 18, and vi. 13).
Christianity, as indeed it is hardly conceivable should have
been otherwise, was at first communicated and estabhshed in
the way of adaptation in its outward form to existing ideas
and conditions. Thus it won its way at first according to the
economic dispensations of divine grace; while its spiritual
essence asserted its internal influence over the disciple who
had the capacity to receive it ; and under whatever outward
aspect, the words of Christ were verified, " The kingdom of
heaven is within you."
V. Subsequent Views of the Law and the Gospel.
The tendency to engraft Judaism in a greater or less degree
on Christianity in the early Church, the steps by which such a
system advanced and gained ground, and the extent to which
it was carried, are not difficult to trace or to explain. But
the pecuhar turn which has been given to somewhat sirnilar
5*

54 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
ideas in modern times is, apparently, much less easy to justify
or account for on any rational principles.
The constant appeals of the Apostles to the Old Testament
in their arguments with the Jews were doubtless of the most
primary importance and convincing cogency with those they
addressed ; to the Gentiles they would. not have been so ; yet
the pecuhar character and result of the appeal was, no doubt,
felt to be precisely that of valuable testimony extorted from an
adverse party, and brought to support our cause, and there
fore in constantly exhibiting which a sort of triumph is felt.
Hence the more general introduction in the early Church,
even among the Gentiles, of the Old Testament Scriptures,
and the prominence given to them, which continued by custom
long after the original occasion had ceased.
But, for the Gentile converts, with the broad distinction
between themselves and the Jewish churches before their
eyes, this reference to the Jewish Scriptures could not by
possibUity degenerate into such inconsistent notions of their
apphcation as would suppose Gentile Christians brought under
the obhgations of the old precepts.
Without direct Judaizing, however, the gradual adoption
of some Judaical forms in Christian worship naturally arose
out of the synagogal model on which all the first churches
were framed. And it would not be a matter of surprise if,
occasionaUy, Judaical ideas should have been thus mixed up
with Christian doctrines, institutions, and practices, even to a
greater degree than we find was the case.
The Jewish converts continued, along with their other pe
culiarities, to observe the Sabbath, which, it is hardly neces
sary to say, the Gentiles did not. From an early period it
seems probable that both Jewish and Gentile churches had
begun to hold rehgious assemblies on the first day of the
week. But it is from Justin Martyr* (a. d. 140) that we

* Justin., Apol. i. § 67. For other authorities on this point the reader
is referred to my article, " Loed's Day," in Kitto's Cyclopaedia of Bib
lical Literature.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 55
first learn the regular establishment of this practice, as weU
as its professed ground and object ; as being the day on which
the work of creation was begun, and on which also the new
spiritual creation was commenced by the resurrection of
Christ. Other writers * adopt more fanciful analogies, refer
ring to the Mosaic creation ; yet always distinctly such as to
exclude aU idea of any reference to a primitive Sabbath (had
they beheved in it), which would have been an entire con
fusion of ideas between the day of the commencement of the
creation and that of its cessation.
In the course of the first few centuries many corruptions
had crept in ; and we then for the first time trace some in
creasing precision in the observance of the Lord's day, upheld
in certain expressions of TertuUian f (a. d. 200), Dionysius
of Corinth (somewhat later), Clement of Alexandria,^: HUary,§
and others.
These writers speak of the Lord's day in conjunction with
the Sabbath, but always in the way of contrast, and as ob
viously distinct institutions. And doubtless, with the view of
concihating the Judaizing churches it was that the celebration of
both days was afterwards enjoined, both in the so-called Apos
tolic Constitutions || (a forgery of the fourth century), and by
Constantine,!' who first prohibited business on the Lord's day,
* In the spurious Epistle of Barnabas (which, as generally allowed a
forgery of the second or third century, may be taken as evidence of
views then held) the writer makes out a comparison of the six days of
the Creation with six ages of the world, followed by a seventh of rest
under the Gospel, to which is to succeed an eighth of final triumph, and
" therefore," he adds, " we keep the eighth day with joy, on which also
Jesus rose from the dead." (Ep. I. 15.)
t De Orat. § 23. J Strom. VII. 744.
§ Comm. in Psalm. Prol. || Apost. Const. VLI. 24.
IT Euseb. IV. De Vit. Const. 18. Sec also Jortin's Remarks, DX 326.
A singular exemplification of the continuance of this twofold observ
ance, carried out even to a great degree of rigor, and preserved to mod
ern times, has been presented in the discovery by Major Harris of an
ancient Judaized Christian church in the interior of Ethiopia. Some
thing similar has also been noticed by Mr. Grant among the Nestorians
in Armenia.

56 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
with a special exception in favor of the labors of agriculture.
The Council of Laodicea,* however, took an opposite tone,
and censured the Sabbath, whUe it enjoined the Lord's day.
But though a certain kind of assimilation between the two
institutions was carried farther by some later writers, yet
neither was the observance itself pushed to the extent which
has since been sometimes contended for ; nor was it possible
for that confusion of ideas between the two institutions to
arise which in modern times has occasionaUy prevailed ; and
stiU less was such a notion as that of any transfer of the obli
gations of the one to the other, or any change in the day, ever
conceived.f Down to later times we trace some remains of the observ
ance of the Sabbath in the solemnization of Saturday as the
eve or vigU of the Lord's day.
The constant reference to the Old Testament law on the
part of the Jewish converts not unnaturaUy led to the disposi
tion to find for it at least some sort of allegorical application
to the Gentiles. Thus, guided possibly by the figurative
language of the Apostle (Heb. iv. 4), and the fondness for
what they termed evangelizing the Old Testament, some of
the Fathers adopted the idea of a metaphorical interpretation
of the fourth commandment (where, of course, the hteral
sense could not apply) in the case of Gentile converts, as
meaning the perpetual service of a Christian life. %
More generaUy, the practice of introducing even thus in
directly the sanctions of the Old Testament in later times

* Counc. of Laodicea, Can. XXLX.
t Yet so inveterate has this absurd idea become in the minds of mod
ern divines, that even so acute and independent a writer as Bishop War
burton, arguing too expressly against the Sabbatists, speaks inciden
tally of " a change in the day having been made by the primitive Church,"
which it most assuredly never was. (Div. Leg. IV. 34, note.) ¦
% Thus Justin Martyr (Dial, cum, Trypho, 229) says, 2a/3j3a7-i'£«i»
fjp.a.s 6 Kaivbs vofios Siarravrbs i8e\et. And later, to the same effect,
Augustine (Ep. 119) observes, "Inter omnia decern prsecepta solum
ibi quod de sabbato positum est figurate observandum prsecipitur."

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 57
began to assume the character of a more direct habitual ac
knowledgment of its authority. And in the earlier stage of
the Reformation, some more precise theories of this kind found
ready support in the extravagant notions of the literal appli
cations of Scripture into which the violent reaction of opinions
carried a portion of the Reformers, involving very pecuhar
notions of what was termed " the moral law " of the Old Tes
tament, and the obhgation of the Sabbath as a chief point and
instance of it : a phrase, the very use of which betrays some
confusion of thought, and has been at the root of aU the
popular errors on the subject.
The main outline of the theory seems to have been this :
it was held that the Old Testament, and more especiaUy the
Decalogue, was designed to convey a revelation of the moral
law to all mankind ; that this law, without reference to any
anterior distinctions of natural morality or the like, derives its
whole force and obhgation from the sole wUl of God positively
declared, and is to be found specially summed up in these
precise commandments ; that ah men are really subject to it
even though in ignorance of it, whether Jews or Gentiles ;
but aU, even when endeavoring to hve by it, are in a state of
bondage and stand condemned by it : from this bondage and
condemnation the Gospel by grace and faith releases them,
and they are then free from the law of works, and enjoy
" Christian liberty." And there are not wanting some who
pushed this idea still further, and would in fact make this
freedom involve a release from the obhgations of morality ;
which is indeed no more than- a direct consequence, if moral
obligations are derived from no other source than those
positive commandments. Such was the consistent theory
of Antinomianism, a theory which might appear starthng
to those not versed in theological systems, but which re
ceived obvious proof from the hteral apphcation of Scripture
texts. But against such tenets of legal and sabbatical formahsm,
Luther, with his accustomed masterly grasp of the breadth
and depth of evangelical principles, most strenuously con-

58 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
tended,* as did also Calvin,t especiaUy denouncing the notion
of the moral obhgation of the Sabbath as one of the " folhes
of false prophets " (nugae pseudo-prophetarum), more forcibly
still in his French version, as " mensonges des faux docteurs."
Calvin also appears once to have had an intention of fixing
the day of Christian worship on Thursday, as he said, " to
evince Christian liberty " ; and in a similar spirit Tindal says,
" We are lords of the Sabbath, and may change it to Monday
or any other day, or appoint every tenth day, or two days in
a week, as we find it expedient." % The idea of changing a
Divine institution, if obhgatory at all, stiU shows some of the
common confusion prevailing in the Reformer's mind.
The complete doctrine of an identification of the Lord's
day with the Sabbath seems to have been first formaUy pro
pounded by Dr. Bound (1595), — a divine of great authority
among the Puritans, — from whom it was adopted by the
Westminster Assembly in their Confession, and thence has
become a recognized tenet of the Scottish and other Presby
terian communions in Great Britain and America, though as
wholly unknown to the Continental Protestants as to the old
unreformed Church.
In later times this idea has been variously modified. Some,
acting up to the commandment in strictness, consistently keep
holy the seventh day of the week. Many adopt the distinc
tion of the Jewish Sabbath, though We can find but one Sab
bath mentioned in the Bible, or speak of the Christian Sab
bath, — an institution whoUy without warrant in the Christian
Scriptures. Some turn away from aU such distinctions, as
mere questions of words and names. It is indeed wholly un
important by what name we choose to designate anything;
but it is important that we are not misled by the name to mis
take the thing.
It is, however, a tenet nowhere inculcated in the authorized
formularies of the Church of England. The Decalogue in-
* Comm. on Gal. iv. 8 - 11. t Instit., II. c. 8, § 28-34.
t Reply to Sir T. More. See Morer on Lord's day, 216.

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 59
troduced into the Communion Service is of course to be fairly
interpreted by the Catechism ; where the explanation of the
fourth commandment is simply, " to serve God truly all the
days of my hfe," and that such a continual service is the only
Christian Sabbath accords with the ideas of the Fathers
before referred to.
It is true, among the divines of most approved reputation
in the Enghsh Church there has been all along a division of
opinion on the subject, not unmixed probably with the contin
ued struggle between the Puritanizing and the Catholicizing
extremes of the Reformation. They nearly all, however,
even those most opposed to the Puritanical views, more or
less seem intent rather on endeavoring to moderate between
opposing opinions and attempting a middle path of compro
mise, than on grasping firmly the broad principle and main
taining a clear consistency in their own views.
With many the plea of utility prevails : they aUege that
the restraints of the Law are stiU requisite for the many :
that " a preparatory discipline is as needful now as former
ly " ; * that the terrors of the Law are necessary to prepare
men for the mercies of the Gospel. Yet in the case of a
divine appointment, what right have we to model its applica
tion according to our ideas of the necessity of the case, or our
conceptions of utility ? Again, it is often elaborately argued,
on the other hand, that such or such institutions are in their
nature ceremonial, or would be burdensome or impracticable
for general adoption, and on that account are to be beheved
not generally obligatory.
But the real question is, Supposing they were not so, were
they intended to apply to us ? In a question of divine obh
gation it is not the supposed exceUence of an institution which
would make it obligatory, any more than its inconvenience or
inutility would annul it were it reaUy enjoined.
Many who argue in support of the abrogation of the Law
in fact take unnecessary trouble to prove the abolition of
* See Pusey on Rationalism, I. 134.

60 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
obligations of which they have not shown the existence.
Others, contending for the repeal of some parts of the Law,
labor to defend the exceptions before they have established
the rule. The onus probandi hes on those who would im
pose the obhgation, not on those who contend that it never
existed. It might be thought that the great natural principles of
right and wrong evinced by reason would be too plain to
admit of misapprehension or question. Yet when the refer
ence is made to such principles of moral sense implanted in
our nature, there are many who object to such a view of
moral obhgation as carnal and unevangehcal.
It is, however, on all hands admitted, that when we- turn to
the pages of the New Testament, in point of fact aU duties
which can come under the denomination of moral, on any
theory, are distinctly included and laid down even in hteral
precepts, (though certainly nowhere exhibited in any one
code or summary,) but, much more, implied and involved in
the whole spirit and tenor of the doctrine of Christ and the
Apostles. This then to all parties may suffice to furnish a
simple unassailable basis of Christian moral obhgation.
It is no doubt true also that some of the same moral duties
(though by no means all of them) were enjoined in particular
precepts of the Mosaic Law and the prophetical books.
But those who receive the Gospel simply as the universal
revelation of God's wUl wiU surely acknowledge the obhga
tion of those duties, not because they may be found prescribed
in the Old Testament, but because they form part of the spirit
and principles of the New.
On any intelligible view of the principles of moral obhga
tion, it is perfectly clear that a precept to consecrate any por
tion of time is in its nature a positive, not a moral injunction :
that on no moral grounds can we regard one day as more
sacred than another ; and practical reasons for devoting set
portions of time to rehgious purposes cannot apply to one
seventh more than to any other portion of time. If so, just in
the same way it might be argued, for example, cleanliness is a

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 61
virtue ; hence the ablutions and purifications of the Law are
moral precepts perpetually binding.
But though there is no foundation for Sabbatism in natural
morality, yet there is a deep-seated one in natural formalism.
No moral or religious benefits, however, can justify a corrup
tion of Christianity or the encouragement of superstition.
The plea of civil and social benefits derivable from such
observances has been the favorite argument with many who
take up the question rather on the ground of external policy
than of religious truth, — and especially as maintaining a con
venient hold on the minds of the multitude, which they are
desirous to secure even by legislative coercion. In a word,
their Sabbatism is precisely that of the legislators and philos
ophers of the heathen world, who by the very same arguments
upheld their rehgious festivals.* Nor can we faU to trace
precisely the same spirit in the Jewish Rabbis, who, weU
knowing human nature, avowed the maxim, doubtless most
acceptable to the many, — " The Sabbath weigheth against
aU the commandments." j
Such, however, are the views which, in one form or an
other, have become very general among our countrymen, who,
under the narrow prepossessions of an exclusive education, (in
which the Decalogue, in its letter, whoUy unexplained, too
often forms the main rehgious instruction,) are commonly
surprised and scandalized when they find in other Christian
countries those tenets whoUy unknown in which they have
been kept studiously blindfolded by rehgious teachers, many
of whom, too, know better.
Increased intercourse and information, however, it may be
hoped, is now opening the eyes of many to the peculiarly
* Thus Seneca speaks of the practice of all legislators to enjoin pub
lic festivals and periods of relaxation as essential to the good of the
state (De Tranq. Anim.) ; and Plato, carrying the matter higher, says,
" The gods, pitying mankind born to painful labor, appointed for an
ease and cessation of their toils the recurrence of festival seasons ob
served to the gods." • (De Leg., XX. 787.)
t Midrash, in Exod. xxvi.
6

62 THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL.
national prejudices on these subjects; an object to which
nothing seems more likely to contribute than attention to the
simple matter-of-fact view of the whole question here at
tempted to be foUowed up. Conclusion.
To recapitulate and conclude : — " God spake in times past
in sundry portions and under divers forms to the fathers " ;
but " in these last days unto us by his Son." AU the Divine
declarations are to be understood according to their manifest
purpose, and with reference to the parties addressed. It may
be true, that " God spake these words," but not therefore to
US. Our concern is not with what was at first, but with what
has been revealed " in these last days." The Old Testament
is to us nothing, except as apphed in the New. Temporary
dispensations have passed away, and with national dispensa
tions we have no concern. We Gentiles are " not under the
Law," not because it has been abolished, but because to us it
never existed. The New Testament does not bring us under
the Old. If we were not " under grace," we should only be
under nature, not the Law.
Meats and days, ordinances and Sabbaths, if primeval,
have ceased ; if Judaical, are national. To introduce such
observances under the plea of utihty and policy, is to disparage
Divine authority. Expediency is not to be set up against
truth. Our sole rule must be that of Gospel truth : to adopt
any other is to pretend to know more of the wiU of God than
is revealed in the Gospel. Christianity recognizes the uni
versal and eternal moral law ; but exalts and enlarges it, and
sets it on a firmer basis. Distinctions of days have no con
nection with morahty ; under the Gospel no one day is more
holy than another ; its service is a perpetual one, " in spirit
and in truth."
Christianity is not the religion of Moses, nor of Abraham,
nor of Adam, but something far better. To mix it with ex
traneous additions, even from those dispensations, is to pervert
its very nature and object, which is to supersede and crown

THE LAW AND THE GOSPEL. 63
them all ; — to impair its efficacy by ingrafting on it an un-
evangelic formahsm most ahen from its spirit ; — to lay it
open to the attacks of the objector, and give the strongest
handle to scepticism. And to instil such principles in educa
tion in these times is but to lay the train for a fearful reac
tion ; when, on the contrary, it ought to be the more peculiar
endeavor of every sincere and enlightened advocate of the
Gospel to vindicate its spiritual and rational character, and
the practical simplicity of its principles, — at once the source
of its power, the test of its truth, and the ground of its sta
bility and perpetuity.

THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION.
By Dk. F. A. D. THOLUCK,
PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY IX THE UNIVERSITY OF HALLE.*

Part I. — HISTORICAL.
Sect. 1. — Introductory. — The Reformers and their Imme
diate Successors. — Origin, in Modern Times, of the rigid
View of Inspiration.
The older form of doctrine concerning the Inspiration of
the Scriptures furnished Rationahsm with one of its chief
points of attack upon the teaching of the Church. This older
doctrine, however, does not reach so far back as the age of the
Reformation. As regards the great witnesses of the Refor
mation, so mightily had the word of God in the Scriptures
made good to their hearts the " demonstration of the spirit
and of power" (1 Cor. ii. 4) belonging to it, that, without
feeling any necessity to account in detaU for those constituent
parts of Scripture, in which that word of God was not con
tained, they bore this testimony as with one voice, — " Here
is the word of God, the standard of all Truth."
But, in proportion as matters drew near to the close of that
first Protestant period, in which, through the testimony of the
Holy Spirit in the soul and the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures
reciprocally, the direct evidence of Evangelical truth was sus-
* Translated from the German for Kitto's Journal of Sacred Literature.
6*

66 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
tained in hfe ; and in proportion as controversy, sharpened by
Jesuitism, made the Protestant party sensible of the necessity
of an externaUy fortified ground of combat; in that same
proportion did Protestantism seek, by the exaltation of the
outwardly authoritative character of the sacred writings, to
recover that infallible authority which it had lost through its
rejection of inspired councUs and the infalhble authority of
the Pope.
In this manner arose, amongst both Lutheran and Reformed
divines, not earher, strictly speaking, than the seventeenth
century, those sentiments concerning the inspiration of Holy
Scripture which regarded it as the infaUible production of the
Divine Spirit, not merely in its religious, but in its entire con
tents ; and not merely in its contents, but also in its very form.
In both Protestant churches (the Lutheran and the Reformed)
it was taught that the writers of the Bible were to be regard
ed as writing-pens wielded by the hand of God,* and amanu
enses of the Holy Spirit who dictated,! whom God uses as
the flute-player does his instrument ; f not only the sense,
but also the words, and not these merely, but even the letters,
and the vowel-points, which in Hebrew are written under the
consonants, — according to some, the very punctuation, — pro
ceeded from the Spirit of God.§ It is true, that there are
modes of conception and expression, and individual diversities,
apparent in the sacred authors ; but these were to be regarded
only as the effect of the Holy Spirit's adaptation. || It might
be further submitted as a question, whether the Holy Spirit
descended to grammatical errors, barbarisms, and solecisms.
By Musaeus and some others, indeed, this was asserted to be
the case : but by the greater number such an assumption was
considered blasphemous ; and by Quenstedt and others the
difficulty was so far disposed of, that what to the Greeks was
# " Dei calami." t " Spiritus sancti dictantis notarii."
% Quenstedt, Theol. Didact. Polem., P. I. 55. Heidegger, Corp. Theol.,
II. 34.
§ Calovius, I. 484. Maresius, Syntag. Theol., p. 8.
It, Theol. Didact. Polem., P. I. 76.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 67
a barbarism, was not necessarily such in the eyes of the
Church .* By some, again, the thorough purity and classical
character of the New Testament language were asserted, f
With greater or less consistency and strictness, this opinion
is still adhered to by the Bark of Scotland [and the Free
Church]. It has also found in Professor Gaussen,J of the
Evangelical Academy at Geneva, a devout and rhetorical
defender, causing even a violent breach in the bosom of that
institution. In Germany it has been advocated by Rudelbach,
whose treatise, however, in the Luiherischen Zeitschrift von
Rudelbach und Guericke, from 1840 tiU the present time
(1850), has been occupied solely with the historical part of
the question. But among the great majority of German
theologians, the defenders, too, of an orthodox theology, in
consequence of the historico-critical bibhcal investigations in
troduced since the middle of the last century, the rigidity of
the system which prevaUed during the seventeenth century
has been more and more relaxed ; and the Protestant theology
of foreign countries also, such as that of the Church of Eng
land and of the Dissenters, as also that of the French, Dan
ish, and Swedish churches, has given to the dogma of inspira
tion a more liberal construction.
In the succeeding historical part of this Essay, which, by
the way, makes no pretension to scientific fulness and com
pleteness, it shall be shown, first of aU, that the more liberal
aspect referred to has no unfriendly bearing upon Evangelical
doctrine. So far from its being open to the suspicion of being
the fruit of modern Rationahsm, it has, on the contrary, found
advocates in all ages of the Church, and, at least, was involun
tarily developed as soon as a person reflected upon the pecu
liarities of the text. By the Lutheran historian of the doc
trine, mentioned above,§ witnesses of this kind are for the
most part passed over in sUence, especially those in the early
* Ibid., p. 84.
1 H. Stephens, Seb. Pfochen, Hollaz, Georgi, and others.
J In his work, " La Theopneustie, ou l'lnspiration P16niere," &c.
6 Rudelbach.

68 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
Church. The present Essay will supply this defect. But
although this be so, not only is it impossible on this account
to consider it un- Christian, it cannot even for once be shown
to be un-Lutheran. Of course, we say this on the assumption
that we do not regard the rigorous , propositions of Lutheran
divines, any more than the more hberal individual expressions
of Luther, as constituting the measure of what is Lutheran,
but confine our attention solely to the Lutheran confessions
of faith. For, whUe the more rigid definitions of inspiration
above ahuded to are omitted in some Reformed symbols,* for
instance, in the Formula Consensus, the Lutheran symbols
contain no express declaration whatever upon the inspiration
of the Scriptures. The expressions which have a bearing
upon the question in the symbolical books are found collected
by KoUner in his Symbolic der Lutherischen Kirche, p. 612.
Sect. 2. — The Inspired Word distinguished.
The word inspiration^ borrowed from 2 Tim. iii. 16, char
acterizes the contents of the sacred writings as having pro
ceeded from the breath, the spirit of God. In what man
ner arises in the minds of the readers of a theopneustic J
writing this conviction of its origin ? We answer : It arises
from the certamty that the effects produced by the contents of
the writing upon the intellect, the will, and the feeling, are
capable of leading to a religiously moral self-satisfaction, —
as that passage expresses it, they are able " to make the man
of God perfect." Now the truth is, that, properly speaking,
the Scripture is for those contents — for the divinely effica
cious facts, expressions, and truths — only the vessel which
contains them ; but the immediate consciousness, by metony
my, transfers what may be predicated of the contents, to the
containing vessel itself. A clear illustration of this is supphed
by Gal. ih. 8 : " And the Scripture, foreseeing that God would
justify the heathen by faith, preached before the Gospel unto
* Standards, or doctrinal creeds. — Te.
f " Eingeistung " = inspiriting.
\ Divinely inspired.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 69
Abraham, saying, In thee shaU aU nations be blessed." Here
the gift of prophecy is ascribed to the writing itself, because
it contains predictions. Those parts of the contents of Scrip
ture, however, from which the effects above referred to do not
directly flow, such as a genealogical table, a hst of encamp
ments, and the like, stand more or less in indirect connection,
at least, with the rest.
As long, then, as the immediate rehgious consciousness has
not developed itself into reflection, it extends the idea of in
spiration to these portions of Scripture also, although not
without the slumbering acknowledgment that the Divine
breath, or spirit, does not exercise an equal control through
out the whole : in proportion as it is external and incidental
is it less in degree. That this acknowledgment does slumber
in the background is evident as soon as reflection is directed
to such incidental externalities. Let us suppose it to be
proved to the simple-minded Christian that Paul, in 1 Cor. x.
8, where he writes, " There feU in one day twenty-three thou
sand," must have committed an error of memory, inasmuch as
in the Old Testament narrative recording the fact,* the num
ber twenty-four thousand is given ; or, that Matthew commits
an error of memory when he ascribes the passage concerning
the thirty pieces of sUver to Jeremiah, f whUe it reaUy occurs
in Zechariah xi. 12, 13. What condition would he be in?
At first, doubtless, he would confidently declare that no error
of memory could exist, — that there might be some other
solution of the difficulty ; although to aU learned men such
solution were unknown. But suppose that upon this it should
be explained to him that Paul, in 1 Cor. i. 16, while writing
an inspired Epistle, does really not lay claim to infaUibUity of
memory in such details.]: What would be his reply to this ?
From his own rehgious necessity, he would have no objection
whatever to offer to such (supposed) failure of memory ; only
he would stiU be unable to suppress the fear, that, by conced-
* Numb. xxv. 9. t Matt, xxvii. 9, 10.
J "And I baptized also the household of Stephanas : besides, I know
not that Ibaptized any other."

70 THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION.
ing failure of memory in one place, other and more material
truths of Scripture might lose their certainty and infalhbhity.
If one could only set him at rest on this matter, — by making
it manifest to his mind that the evidence of no material truth
would be thereby impaired, — he would doubtless willingly
abandon the accuracy of those statements, as a thing not
essential to his religious wants.
Sect. 3. — The Fathers.
With this kind of unreflecting reverence for the Sacred
Scriptures as records proceeding from the Spirit of God, and
pervaded by him, we find the ancient Church Fathers also
fiUed. We discover amongst them no searching exposition,
no elaborated theory. Nay, what is altogether remarkable, we
do not find these things even during the lapse of succeeding
centuries, untU, after the Reformation, we reach the doctrinal
theology of the Lutheran and Reformed churches. Men were
satisfied with general and occasional expressions. Where
the Church Fathers, without reflecting more precisely upon
detaUs, give us the sum total of their impression concerning
the Holy Scripture, they acknowledge their belief in its in
spiration, and designate it by the names, " Divine writing,"
" divinely inspired writing," " Instrumentum divinum," " C03-
lestes Literse," &c.
Justin Martyr, about the middle of the second century,
says : " Such exalted things could not be known by human
reflection, but only by means of a heavenly gift which de
scended upon holy men. These men needed no artificial
eloquence, — no skilful art of disputation: but they merely
yielded up their pure souls to the inward operation of the
Divine Spirit. As a bow upon a lyre evokes tones of music,
so the Deity used these pious men as instruments to make
known to us heavenly things." *
" The Holy Scriptures," says Origen, in the third century,
* Cohort, ad Gentes, c. 8. [Eor his views on the inspiration of the
Prophets, see his Apol. I., 56, 57, ed. Paris, 1815. — Te.]

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 71
" are penetrated throughout as by the wind by the fulness of
the Spirit ; and there is nothing therein, either in the Prophets,
or the Law, or the Gospels, or in the Apostolical writings,
which does not proceed from the Divine Majesty." *
Eusebius, in the fourth century, commenting on Psalm
xxxiii. 34, declares : " I hold it to be presumptuous for any
man to say that the Holy Scripture has erred." j
Augustine, also, in the fourth century, declares it as his
" most settled behef, that none of the writers of the books
called canonical committed any error whatever in writing." J
At the same time, however, they may have had in view
the sense of Scripture more than the words ; for so carelessly
were verbal citations then made, that the writers who flour
ished up to the end of the second century quote the language
of Scripture sometimes from oral traditions, but for the most
part merely from memory, and, at times, with the greatest
deviations from our text. Besides, the Old Testament was
known to them only in the Alexandrian Greek translation
(Septuagint), and they must, therefore, if they claimed for
the Book a literal inspiration, extend it, without any warrant
for so doing, to that translation also. This Justin Martyr
does ; but none else.
* At the same time, it is important to bear in mind that many
of their expressions give far more explicit proof that their
general statements concerning the divinity of the sacred
writings are not to be understood absolutely. At all events,
# In Jerem. Horn. XX.
t Also his Eccles. Hist., Lib. III. cap. 24.
t " Ego solis eis scripturarum libris, qui jam canonici appellantur,
didici hune timorem honoremque deferre, ut nullum eorum auctorem
scribendo aliquid errasse firmissime credam."
[At the same time, it cannot be denied that passages are also to be met
with, especially in Augustine and Jerome, from which it is evident that
there were occasions on which they were compelled to modify their views.
Thus Augustine accounts for the variations found in many parts of the
Gospels on the principle that each writer exercised freely his mental
faculties, and presented his own peculiar aspect of facts and circum
stances, &c. Henderson, Div. Insp., 2d ed., p. 50. — Tn.]

72 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
they did not refer to it in the sense in which it has been
taught by the post-Reformation divines.
We begin with a man who was an immediate disciple of
our Lord, — the Presbyter John. Far from entertaining the
idea that the contents of their writings were supernaturally
delivered to the Apostles, — and, by the way, the passage in
Luke i. 1 - 3 would not agree with such a supposition, — he
relates concerning the composition of the Gospel of Mark
as foUows : " He (Mark) was the interpreter of Peter, and
carefuUy recorded all that he retained from him in his
memory, without binding himself to the chronological order
of the words and deeds of Christ." *
In like manner, Irenasus, about the end of the second cen
tury, cannot have held the opinion that the contents of Paul's
writings had been imparted to him whUe in a purely passive
state. A treatise was composed by this Father " On the Pe
culiarities of the Pauline Style,'' in which he acknowledges
the unsyntactic construction of the Apostle, and accounts for
it on the ground of " the rapidity of his utterances, and the
impulsiveness of spirit which distinguished him." f Such
an influence of his personal peculiarity upon his expres
sions would be incompatible with the assumption that the
Apostle at the time of inspiration was in a purely passive"
state. Origen, although in other respects an advocate of the most
rigid theory of inspiration, boldly makes a distinction between
the words of the Lord and those of the Apostles. He says :
" Those who are truly wise in Christ are of opinion that the
Apostolical writings have indeed been disposed wisely, credi
bly, and with reverence for God ; but, nevertheless, not to be
compared with such declarations as 'Thus saith the Lord
Almighty.' And on this account we must consider whether,
when Paul says, ' AU Scripture is inspired by God and use-
* Eusebius, Eccles. Hist., III. 39.
t " Velocitas sermonum suornm, et propter impetum, qui in ipso est,
spiritfts."

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 73
ful,' * he includes his own Epistles, and whether he would
exclude some parts of them, such as those where it is said,
' That which I speak, I speak not after the Lord' ;f and this,
' As I teach everywhere in every church ' ; % and again, ' At
Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, what persecutions I endured' ; §
and other hke things which here and there he has written of
his own knowledge, and by authority (<ar igovo-iav), but yet
which have not flowed forth purely and entirely from divine
inspiration." || He declares, also, that, according to the his
torical sense, an insoluble contradiction exists between John
and Matthew in relation to our Lord's last Passover journey.
" I beheve it to be impossible," he says, " for those who upon
this subject direct attention merely to the external history, to
prove that this apparent contradiction is capable of being
harmonized." IT
Augustine, who, on the one hand, is unwiUing that it should
be said that Christ wrote nothing, since the Apostles were
only his hands in writing,** declares, nevertheless, on the
other hand,tt that each of the Evangelists has written, some
times more and sometimes less fully, as each remembered,
and as each had it in his heart : JJ and asserts §§ that the words

* Dr. Tholuck's rendering : " Alle Schrift ist von Gott eingegebcn
und niitzlich.'' Gr. LTacra ypacprj 8e(mvevo-ros Kai a><pe\i/K>s, k. t. X.
2 Tim. iii. 16. — Te.
t 2 Cor. xi. 17. Also comp. 1 Cor. vii. 40.
X 1 Cor. iv. 17. 4 2 Tim. iii. 11.
|[ In Johann., Tom. I. p. 4, ed. 1668.
1 Ibid., Tom. I. p. 183. — Te.
** De Consensu Evangel., I. 35. ft Ibid., II. 12.
XX " Ut quisque meminerat, et ut cuique cordi erat."
§§ De Consensu Evangel., II. 28. " Quae cum ita sint per hujusmodi
evangelistarum locutiones varias, sed non contrarias, rem plane utilissi-
rnam. discimus et pernecessariam, nihil in cujusque verbis nos debere in-
spicere, nisi voluntatcm, cui dcbent verba servire, nee mentiri quemquam,
si aliis verbis dixerit quid ille voluerit, cujus verba non dicit : ne miseri
aucupes vocum apicibus quodammodo literarum putent ligandam esse
veritatem, cum utique non in verbis tantum, sed etiam in cajteris omni
bus signis animorum non sit nisi ipse animus inquirendus."
7

74 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
of the Evangehsts might be ever so contradictory, provided
only that their thoughts were the same.
Jerome, who was an accomplished grammarian, so fully
recognized the diversities incident to the style of the Apostles,
that he often imputes solecisms to their language, and writes
of Paul that he had used " sermone trivii," street language.*
The great bishop and expositor, Chrysostom, who declared
such confidence in the Scripture as to say that aU the contra
dictions (enantiophonien) found there are, after all, only ap
parent contradictions (enantiophanien),f has nevertheless taken
the liberty to remark upon the words of Paul in Acts xxvi. 6 :
" He speaks humanly, and does not throughout enjoy grace,
but it is permitted him even to intermix his own materials." %
We see, then, that even amongst the ancient Church Fa
thers, although they had a general impression of the divinely
inspired character of Scripture, the opinion that its language
was human and imperfect was held to be unmistakable ; that
verbal contradictions, nay, contradictions even in matters of
fact, were ascribed to it without hesitation ; and that the au
thority of the Apostohcal writings was regarded as secondary
to those which were said to have proceeded immediately from
God himself.
Sect. 4. — Views of Inspiration in the Roman Catholic
Church. — The Scholastics.
The Cathohc Church, since the time when the dogma of
the infalhbihty of ecclesiastical tradition as the interpreter of
* Ad. Eol., 3. 1. " Jerome, when commenting on the passage Gal
v. 12, finds no difficulty in supposing that St. Paul, in the choice of an
expression, is governed by the vehemence of an emotion, arising how
ever, out of a pure temper of heart. ¦ Nee minim esse, si Apostolus ut
homo, et adhuc vasculo clausus infirmo, vidensque aliam legem in cor
pore suo captivantem se et ducentem in lege peccati, semel fuerit hoc
loquutus, in quod frequenter sanctos viros cadere perspicimus ' " Nean
der, Church Hist., IV. p. 12, ed. Clark. — Te.
f Opera, Tom. VH. p. 5. *
X Ibid., Tom. X. p. 364. 'AirfpomW SmXeyerm Kal ov navraXov
¦ns xapiros d„o\ain, d\\a Kal nap' iavrov t\ avyx<opetTai do-cpepecv.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 75
Holy Scripture was developed, must still less have felt a
desire to give any extension to the doctrine of Inspiration.
The Scholastics, when they treat of any principle of theologi
cal science, certainly give expression to the idea that the
latter has a principle different from philosophy, — the revelatio
laid down in Holy Scripture ; but into the question concerning
the extent of its inspiration, they do not, at least more closely,
enter. Expressions marked by liberahty transpire even dur
ing these dark times. Thus Bishop Junihus,* in the sixth
century, to the question, " How is the authority of the sacred
books to be considered ? " returns the answer, "Some are
of perfect authority, some of partial authority, and some of
none at aU." Amongst the second class (those of partial au
thority) he included the book of Job, the books of Chroni
cles, Ezra, and others ; and amongst the last class (those of
no authority whatever), those which are properly Apocryphal.
In the ninth century, Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, writes :
" What absurdity wUl foUow if the notion is maintained, con
cerning the Prophets and Apostles, that the Holy Spirit in
spired them not only with the sense of their predictions, and
the forms or arguments of their phraseology, but also that he
fashioned in their hps the very words themselves bodUy and
outwardly." \
In the works of the Greek Catholic expositor Euthymius
Zigabenus, in the twelfth century, the foUowing words are
found upon Matt. xii. 8 : "It is not to be wondered at if one
Evangelist relates this, and the other passes by that ; for they
did not write down the Gospels immediately from the hps of
Christ, so as to be able to give a perfect impression of aU his
words, but many years after he had spoken. And since they
were men, they were liable to omit many things through for-
getfulness. This wiU explain to you how one may have re
corded what another may have omitted. Oftentimes they have
made large omissions, simply for the sake of brevity; some
times because they thought the matter to be unnecessary."
# De Partibus Div. Legis, 1.8. t Adv. Eredegisum, c. 12.

76 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
The Scholastic theology introduced a distinction between
what directly, and what indirectly, belongs to faith ; a distinc
tion which is pertinent to our subject, and may also serve as
a basis for a theory of inspiration. " Those things belong
directly to faith," says Thomas Aquinas, in the thirteenth cen
tury, " which to us are pre-eminently of Divine origin, as,
that God exists in a Trinity of persons ; and to hold a false
opinion concerning these is the very cause of heresy. On
the other hand, things belonging to faith indirectly, are those
from which follows anything contrary to faith, as if, for ex
ample, any one should assert that Samuel was not the son
of Elkanah ; for from this it would foUow that the Scripture
is false."* From the interest here mentioned there arises also, amongst
ourselves, ever afresh, the practical heed of an unexception
able and uniform inspiration of the Scripture. How this need
is to be judged of wiU be the subject to be handled in our
second part. Here the language of the great Church Father
just quoted (Aquinas), may only serve as a testimony that
the rehgious consciousness in man, when it reflects upon itself,
makes a distinction between the several parts of Scripture
agreeably to which the necessity also for its inspiration is a
mediate or an immediate necessity. Besides, the Scholastics,
in contending for the exclusion of aU error, have been so far
from maintaining strict consistency, that we find at least in Abe
lard a concession of individual doctrinal errors. He says (" Sic
et Non," ed. Cousin, p. 11) : "It is certain that the Prophets
themselves were at times destitute of prophetic grace, and
that in their official capacity as Prophets, while believing that
they were in possession of the spirit of prophecy, they de
clared, by their own spirit, some things that were fallacious ;
and this was permitted them in order to preserve their hu
mility, — in other words, that they might more truly know the
difference between themselves as persons receiving Divine
assistance, and as relying solely upon the guidance of their

* Summa Theol., I. Qu. 32, art. 4. (Ed. Antw. 1585.) — Tu.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 77
own spirit." He then cites the instance of Peter, who on
account of a deviation from the truth had been so severely
censured by Paul, and adds : " What wonder is it, therefore,
seeing that it is certain that even Prophets and Apostles were
not entirely free from error, if amongst so great a number of
Church Fathers a few writings appear to have been issued
containing mistakes."
The Cathohc Confession of the Counch of Trent has given
no more direct explanation of the sense in which the Sacred
Scripture is to be considered as divinely inspired than the
Lutheran symbols.* In "Sessio IV. the canonical writings
are mentioned, and it is there only incidentaUy stated that
the Apostles wrote as it was dictated to them by the Holy
Ghostf The opinions of Catholic theologians have so moved
between two boundary lines, that by some, in the same man
ner as by the Protestants, the strictest hteral inspiration has
been advocated, % whUe by others inspiration has been re
stricted to those portions only which contain doctrinal matter ; §
but the decisive authority of the Church interfered not with
their differences. By the most eminent authorities, — the
Jesuit Bellarmine, the Dominican Camas, the learned Bon-
frere, the jesuiticaUy famous Cornelius a Lapide, and others,
revelatio proper was distinguished from divine assistance
(assistentia) ; the latter being an influence which kept those
from error who wrote by the force of their own minds. ||
Many amongst them make no scruple in conceding that the
Evangehsts faU into errors. The celebrated Canus supposes
an error of memory in Stephen in the passage Acts vii. 16.%
Erasmus treats in like manner some passages in Matthew.
# Creeds. t " Spiritu sancto dictante."
X Vide Casp. Sanctius, Salazar, Huet, and Este.
§ Antonius de Dominis, Richard Simon, Henry Holden in the Analysis
Fidei, 1685, &c.
|| Quenstedt, I. ch. 4, p. 67 et seq. ; Rich. Simon, in his Criticisms on
the New Test., I. c. 24.
If Where Ephron the Hittite is called " Ephron the father of Sichem."
Comp. Gen. xxiii. — Te. 7*

78 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
Maldonatus, in referring to Matt. xxvi. 28, " For this is my
blood of the New Testament," &c, declares his behef that
the words of the institution of the Lord's Supper have been
more correctly given by Matthew and Mark than by Luke
and Paul.* Antonius de Dominis judges as foUows concern
ing such defects : " Mistakes of this kind, which touch not the
substance of the fact, neither do, nor can do, any injury to the
faith ; nor do they relate to any portion of the Divine Faith
which demands behef, but to that which carries with it a
knowledge which is merely human, and thought out by the
mind*-" f Sect. 5. — Lutheran and Reformed Divines.
The leading dogmatical works of the two Protestant church
es, % the Loci Theologici of Melancthon, and the Christian
Institutes of Calvin, hke the symbolical writings of the Lu
theran Church, propound no doctrine of Inspiration. They
convey a general impression of the divinity and credibility
of the Bibhcal writings, and nothing more. With many
strong expressions, Luther bears testimony to the Bible as a
book whose entire contents are useful and salutary ; § in which
are no contradictions ; || and every letter, nay, every tittle, of
which is of more significance than heaven and earth together ; If
and so on. And yet he has not hesitated to utter the well-
known offensive declarations concerning the Canon of Holy
Scripture. It is true that at a later period he considerably
softened down his opinions on these points, but he stiU freely
ascribed to the Scriptures imperfections or logical errors. In
his preface to Linken's " Annotations on the first Five Books
of Moses," ** he says : " Doubtless the Prophets studied the
writings of Moses, and the last Prophets studied the first, and
wrote down in a book the good thoughts which the Holy Spirit

* Quenstedt, I. ch. 4, p. 75 ; R. Simon, I. p. 185.
t R. Simon, I. p. 525.
X The Lutheran, and the Reformed or Calvinistic Church — Te
§ Walch, 1. 1196. Ibid., II. 1758.
II Ibid., VIH. 2140. 1 Ibid., VHI. 2161. ** Ibid., XIV. 172.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 79
excited (vom H. Geiste eingegeben) within them. But allowing
that these good, faithful teachers and searchers of the Scrip
ture sometimes build with a mixture of hay, straw, and stubble,
and not entirely with silver, gold, and precious stones, the
foundation nevertheless remains unshaken ; as for the other,
the fire wiU consume it." Luther also took the liberty to un
derstand Old Testament words in a sense different from that
which is given them as they are explained in the New Testa
ment. This passage from Isa. vin. 17, 18, — " And I will wait
upon the Lord, that hideth his face from the house of Jacob,
and I wiU look for him. Behold, I and the children whom
the Lord hath given me are for signs and for wonders in •
Israel," &c. — is understood, as quoted by the author of the
Epistle to the Hebrews (ii. 13), as. a declaration made by
Christ ; but Luther, in his Commentary upon Isaiah, explains
it as a declaration by the Prophet himself.* Concerning the
argument of Paul, conducted on the ground of a typical ap
prehension of the history of Hagar and Sarah,t he frankly
declares that it " is too unsound to stand the test, and yet it
throws a clear light upon the question of faith." In relation
to the sections forming the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew,
and the twenty-first chapter of Luke, where commentators
have had much disputation as to what portions refer to the
destruction of Jerusalem, and what to the end of the world, he
is of opinion that Matthew and Mark have mixed both events
together indiscriminately, and do not observe the order which
Luke has observed. % According to Genesis xii. 1-11, God
first appeared to Abraham in Haran ; according to Acts vii.
2, he had already appeared to him in Mesopotamia. Luther
observes upon this : " It appears to me that Moses narrates
this history carefuUy and accurately: not so Stephen, who
has only borrowed it from Moses. Now, it often happens
that, when one gives a plain, hasty narration of anything, he
does not pay such close attention to all the circumstances, as

* Walch, VI. 121 et seq. t Gal. iv. 22 et seq.
X Walch, XI. 2496.

80 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
they must do who wish to write faithfully a history of past
occurrences, for the benefit of posterity. Moses is an his
torian : Stephen rehes upon the fact that the history stands
written by Moses " [and that hence his hearers, perusing that
history, were in no danger of being misled by his cursory
detail of facts]. In Gen. xv. 13, the duration of the Egyp
tian bondage is given as four hundred years ; Exod. xii. 40,
gives it at four hundred and thirty years ; while Paul, on the
contrary, in Gal. iii. 17, following the Septuagint and the
Samaritan (Pentateuch) reckons the time from the period
when the promise was given to Abraham until the end of the
Captivity, at four hundred and thirty. Now, Luther first
endeavors, under the guidance of Lyra, by unnatural wrest
ing, to reconcUe this calculation of Paul with the text, and
then, at Gen. xv. 13, he makes the admission that here the
historian " does not very closely and accurately calculate the
time."* With him, however, such questions are generaUy insignifi
cant. Of mistakes in answering questions concerning matters
purely historical, he says : " These mistakes are of such a
nature as to do no damage to the faith, nor do they prejudice
our cause ; concerning Truth alone must we firmly adhere to
the Sacred Scripture, and rigidly defend i% whUe we leave
to others things that are darker, to be settled by their own
judgments." j Giving his opinion on the book of Job in his
" Table Talk," he observes : " This book, exceUent as it is,
was not written by him (Job), nor concerning him only, but
all the afflicted. Job did not actually utter the words ascribed
to him ; but his thoughts were such as are there represented.
The book unfolds itself before us, both in matter and execu
tion, much after the manner of a comedy, and the strain of its
argument is almost that of a fable." \
The same hberal mode of viewing the verbal fidelity and
the chronological accuracy of the history, presents itself in
* Walch, XI. 1448. t Ibid., 1089.
X CoUoquia, ed. Erankf. 1571, H. 102.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 81
Calvin's Harmony of the Gospels. Luke — to give an in
stance — has related that temptation of Christ as second,
which in Matthew is the third. Upon this Calvin remarks :
" It signifies nothing at ah, for it was not the intention of these
Evangelists so to weave the thread of history as always to
preserve exactly the order of time, but to coUect, as they
would present in a mirror or on a tablet, a summary of those
things which it is most advantageous for us to know concern
ing Christ."
Luke * differs from Matthew f in his manner of stating the
command of our Lord concerning that high manifestation of
patient endurance, where a man, after being deprived of one
garment, yields up again another. Calvin, referring to this,
simply observes, " Diverse readings in Matthew and Luke
change not the sense." In the Epistle to the Hebrews, chap.
xi. 21, the passage found in Gen. xlvii. 31 is quoted accord
ing to the Greek version (Septuagint), % which foUows a
reading different from the Hebrew text. § Calvin briefly
remarks, " We weU know that the Apostles were not, in this
matter (of quotation), so very precise ; but in reahty there is
httle difference." Concerning 1 Cor. x. 8, where Paul men
tions twenty-three thousand instead of twenty-four thousand,
Calvin says, " It is not a new thing, where it is not intended
to present a minute enumeration of individuals, to give a
number which substantially approximates the actual truth."
Upon Matthew xxvii. 9, he says it is clear that Zechariah
must here be read instead of Jeremiah ; and adds, " How the
name of Jeremiah crept in here, I confess I do not know, nor
am I anxious about the matter." In that candid way does
Calvin judge concerning the more external errors of memory.
And as to the doctrinal contents of Scripture, he speaks as
foUows : " Seeing that heavenly oracles are not of every-day
occurrence, they obtain complete authority among believers
* Chap. vi. 29. f Chap. v. 40.
X Kat 7rpoa,eKvvrjo7ev irri to aKpov rijs pdfidov avrov.
§ Eng. Vers, from Hebr. : " And Israel bowed himself upon the bed's
head."

82 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
only when they prove themselves to have proceeded from
heaven, as if the very living words of God themselves are
distinctly heard therein."
Zuinglius, in treating of the Church Fathers, has given a
canon which accords infaUibUity to Christ alone, so withhold
ing it from the Apostles. These are the words : " It is not
true that the writings of all holy men are infallible ; nor is it
true that they do not err. This pre-eminence must be given
to the Son of God alone out of the whole human race." *
The immediate foUowers, also, of the German Reformers,
as weft as those of the Swiss Reformers, speak of certain
imperfections in the Biblical writers, in a manner not con
sistent with very extreme notions of Inspiration. Bugen-
hagen, f in the scheme he drew up for harmonizing the narra
tives of our Lord's passion, remarks : " Consider that the
Evangehsts wrote each for himself what they saw, and often
times while they record what occurred, they are heedless of
the order of occurrence." He also takes especial care to
expose the errors of the Alexandrine translation (Septuagint),
which have sometimes been transferred to the New Testa
ment. Likewise Breuz, upon Rom. ix. 25, J remarks, " that the
quotation does not give the true sense of the Old Testament
text, but that the purport is the same.
Bullinger, the Swiss, very ingenuously aUows that the
sacred penmen were hable to errors of memory. In reference
to 1 Cor. x. 8, he writes : " Transcribers easily faU into error
in stating numbers ; but sometimes the writers also were led
by treacherous memories into the commission of mistakes."
Castelho, another Swiss theologian, complains that Paul, in
* Schriften von Usteri und VSgelin, H. 247.
t Bugenhagen was a distinguished promoter of the Reformation in
Denmark. Vide MUnter's Kirch. Geschichte von Danemark und No'r-
wegen. — Te.
{ " As he saith also in Osee, I will call them my people which were
not my people ; and her beloved, which was not beloved." Quoted from
Hos. ii. 23.

THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION. 83
Rom. ix., has not expressed his meaning more fully and
openly ; and brings against the Apostle's logic the charge, that
it confounds together two comparisons which ought to have
been kept distinct,* &c.
Moreover, after Melancthon, the Lutheran Church had no
knowledge of such definitions concerning inspiration as repre
sent it affecting minute detaUs. The " Loci Theologici " of
Chemnitz, 1591, leave the dogma of the Holy Scriptures j
entirely undiscussed; and even John Gerhard, at the com
mencement of the seventeenth century (1610-25), while
indeed in his " Loci Theologici," that most important dogmat
ical work of the Lutheran Church, he has definitions of great
strictness upon the authority of Scripture, and its perfection,
nevertheless said _ nothing in his earlier writings upon the
subject of its inspiration. % Definitions that go into detaU
first occur in " Systema Theologicum " of Calovius, § in the
second half of this century (1655 - 77). As to what opinions
the Reformed Church adopted on the subject, we may say
that its earher confessions confine themselves entirely to the
mere assertion of the inspiration of the Bible as a dogma.
The " Formula Consensus Helvetici," which appeared not
earher than 1675, declares in detail concerning the Old Tes
tament: "It is divinely inspired (Becnvvevo-ros), equally as re
gards the consonants, the vowels, and even the vowel-points,
or at least as it regards the force of the vowel-points, both as
to matter and as to words." || To this position most of the
divines of the Reformed Church adhere. Inspiration, in the
widest extent of the idea, is especiaUy vindicated by the
erudite Professor Voetius, of the University of Utrecht, in a
* Dial. H. De Electione, pp. 103, 107, 132.
t The dogma concerning the nature and authority of Scripture. — Te.
X By direction of Dr. Tholuck in a recent communication the transla
tion here varies slightly from the original text. — Te.
§ Calovius died 1686. It is said that he daily offered up the petition,
" Imple me, Deus, odio haereticorum ! " — Te.
|| " Tum quoad consonas, tum quoad vocalia, et puncta ipsa, sivo
punctorum saltern potestatem, et tum quoad res, tum quoad verba,
0e6irvevo~Tos" -

84 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
treatise entitled " Quousque se extendat Auctoribus Scripturse
Inspiratio." * " Not a word," it is here said, " is contained in
the Holy Scriptures which was not in the strictest sense in
spired, — the very interpunctuation not excepted : even what
the writers previously knew was given them afresh by inspi
ration ; and this was the case, not indeed as it regards impres
sions of things intelligible by the exercise of their natural
faculties, but as it regards formal conception and actual
record." In direct contradiction to Luke i. 1 - 3, to the ques
tion, " Whether ordinary study, inquiry, and premeditation
were necessary for writing (the Scriptures)," it is rephed
(p. 47) : " No ; for the Spirit immediately, extraordinarily,
and infallibly moved them to write, and both inspired and
dictated the things to be written."
Besides the two great Protestant Churches, the adherents
of Luther and Calvin, we must also take into consideration
the followers of Socinus. Agreeing with the Reformers re
specting the inspiration of the Scriptures, it was nevertheless
maintained by Socinus, in his treatise " De Auctoritate Scrip
tural," t that into things " which are of smaU moment," the
Evangelists and Apostles have aUowed shght errors to enter ;
and agreeably with such a notion, the commentators of this
party, here and there, acknowledge errors of memory in the
Biblical writers.
But, even amongst the great Protestant Churches, there
went forth in the seventeenth century, side by side with that
extreme theory already mentioned, another of a more mod
erate character. This, however, met with great opposition.
In the Reformed Church (foUowers of Calvin), we find
learned theologians, of the French Academy at Saumur espe
ciaUy, unhesitatingly admitting here and there an incorrect
apprehension of the Old Testament by the writers of the
New, or errors of memory. We also find German Reformed
theologians, -such as Junius, Piscator, and others, equally free
in their sentiments. The liberal tendency of opinion thus
* " Disputationes Selects," p. 1. t Chap. I. p. 15.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 85
manifested was reduced to more general exegetico-dogmatical
principles by the Arminian party, who were thrust out of the
Dutch Reformed Church. Grotius, in his " Plea for Peace," *
avows his belief that the historical books of Scripture, in dis
tinction from the prophetical, can lay claim to nothing beyond
credit for the abUity of the writers, and their sincere desire to
communicate the truth.")" In the treatise " Riveti Apologia
Discuss.," p. 723, it is asked, by way of affirmation to the
contrary, '' Has Luke said, The word of the Lord came to
Luke, and the Lord said to him, Write ? " A thorough re
modelling of the earlier theory of inspiration, and its reduc
tion to some such form as has been defended by the supra-
naturahsts of more recent v times, is found in the Eleventh
Letter in the works of the Arminian Le Clerc. J Episcopius §
ascribes to the Apostles only an assistance of the Divine
Spirit in the composition of works which proceeded from
their own determination ; and allows that in such passages
as the genealogy in Matthew ch. i. errors may possibly have
crept in.
In the Lutheran Church it was Calixt, || in the middle of
the sixteenth century, who gave forth a more hberal theory of
inspiration. The distinction between revelatio and assisten-
tia or directio divina, which had widely prevailed in the
Cathohc theology, he adopted, and maintained " that God did
not reveal in a pecuhar manner to the sacred writers those
things which naturally struck their senses, or were otherwise
known to them ; but still that he so directed and aided them
as that they should write nothing contrary to the truth."
Nay, more, he even limits the revelatio to those truths only
* " Votum pro Pace Ecclesiastica.''
t Opera Theol., ed. Amsterd. 1679, III. 672. —Te.
X "Scntimcns do quclques Theologiens do Hollandc sur I'Histoire
Critique du V. Test." Composee par Eich. Simon. 1685.
§ "Instit. Theologias," III. 5. 1.
|| Eor an account of this remarkable divine and controversialist, see
Moller, " Cimbra Literata," and Mosheim by Murdoch, Cent. 17, S. 2, p.
2, ch. 1. Schlegel's note to sect. 21. — Te.

86 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
which Thomas Aquinas had fixed upon as the pecuhar and
direct objects of faith.
These sentiments were still more widely diffused by the
school of the Helmstadt theologians. In the Swiss and
French Reformed Churches, the sentiments of Le Clerc met
with a welcome reception. In the " Theologie Chretienne "
of the celebrated Pictet, Professor in Geneva (1702), the
inspiration of Scripture is limited to the truth which was
knowable by Revelation alone. From this were distinguished
— whUe based upon it — those conceptions which were pecu
har to the Apostles themselves. Revelation was restricted to
those tilings which by natural means were not known to them.
As to aU other things a divine guidance in preventing error
was adopted. Sect. 6. — State of Opinion in England.
A freer treatment of. the question — namely, the limitation
of inspiration to the subject-matter — has from the first, along
with individual advocates of a more rigid view, found place in
the Enghsh Church.* Several Dissenters, also, eminently
distinguished for their exemplary piety, occupy the same
hberal ground.")" The Presbyterian Church of Scotland alone
has continued up to the present day to adhere to the straitest
acceptation of the idea of inspiration. The free spiritual
insight of Baxter in that celebrated work, " The Reformed
Pastor," is especiaUy surprising. He says : " As the glory of
the Divine Maker shines more brUhantly in the whole frame
of nature than in an individual grain, stone, or bisect ; and in
the whole man, more than in any particular part of least
comeliness ; so also the authority of God shines forth more
visibly in the whole system of Holy Scripture and holy doc
trine than in any minor part. Nevertheless, for the advan-
* Vide Lowth's Vindication of the Old and New Test., 1692; Wil
liams's Boyle Lecture, 1695 ; Clarke's Div. Authority of Holy Script,
1699, &c.
t Baxter's Method. Theol. Christ. 1681 ; Doddridge's Dissertation on
Inspiration of N. Test., &c.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 87
tage of the whole system, these parts are not wanting in
beauty any more than the others, such, as the hair and naUs.
But their authority is to be seen more from then- agreement
with the whole of Scripture, and from their more distinguish
ing portions, than from themselves separately." Here alone
in an orthodox divine of the seventeenth century does the
question meet with a complete treatment, in which, on the one
hand, the conception of Scripture as an organism, and, on the
other hand, the argument from the testimony of the Holy
Spirit, stand forth as fundamental ideas.
Sect. 7. — Progress of Opinion in Germany, fyc. in
the Eighteenth Century.
With the beginning of the eighteenth century, in Germany,
the firmly buUt fabric of the traditional ecclesiastical system
began, upon this question as upon others, to totter. The
foUowing circumstances were instrumental in bringing about
this result. The peculiarity of the Calixtine efforts has been
pointed out in a recent Monograph upon George Calixt, as
foUows : " There lies therein the opposition of religious to
dogmatic salvation,* together with an appeal to the nature
and foundation of the early Apostohc Church. To such an
extent had exclusive zeal in attaching importance to dogmas
been carried, that the body of dogmatic declarations, sepa
rately and conjointly, had nearly been exalted to the position
of an arbiter respecting the reception or non-reception of
eternal life. Against this domination over, and entire absorp
tion of, faith by mere dogma, Calixt raised his voice." f In a

# That is, we suppose, Salvation through the possession of religious
principle was opposed to salvation (so called) through the mere reception
of certain dogmas. — Te.
t Gasz : George Calixt, und der Synkretismus, p. 11. "Syncretism."
— This term, in the seventeenth century, marks the great controversy
between Calixt and the more bigoted sections of the Protestant Church.
This divine had travelled much abroad, and intercourse with different
churches had given him a liberalized tone of feeling which led him to
propose a cessation of hostilities between Protestants and Romanists,

88 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
manner purely practical, the same necessity made itself felt in
the pietism which arose at the end of the seventeenth century.
Led on by the exclusively practical power of inward religion,
this pietism was indifferent to the dogmatical system of the
day, and attended solely to the fundamental truths, by means
of which the rehgious life in man is awakened. The estab
lished doctrine of inspiration was not even touched upon by
Spener, except that he impugns the notion of the pure pas-
siveness of its recipients, and maintains the influence of human
peculiarities upon the form of the discourse or writing.* As,
however, traditional reverence for the earher dogmatical sys
tem gave way, and as the spiritual tone of pietism was again
corrupted into mere externalism, — in that proportion was
preparation made, as soon as scientific appliances could be
so directed, to combat as erroneous and dangerous those
decisions which had hitherto been considered as indifferent.
In addition to this, there came an impulse from without.
Earher even than in Germany, a relaxed notion of inspira
tion, nay, indeed, a notion reducing it to its very minimum,
had spread itself in England. From the beginning of the
eighteenth century, the writings of the laxer Enghsh clergy,
of the Dissenters as well as of the Deists, had found an ever-
increasing reception amongst the theologians of Germany.
Besides, about the middle of the century, orthodox culture,
and the inward spiritualism promoted by the pietists,, had
been superseded amongst many of the German divines by a
purely literary interest. From the scrutiny of this new
and — " not to unite together and become one body, as his opponents
interpreted him to mean, but — to abstain from mutual hatred, and cul
tivate mutual love and good-will." He was an Aristotelian in Philos
ophy, as a theologian had strong sympathy with the Fathers, and
wished to find in the " Apostles' Creed " and the usages and doctrines
of the first five centuries a common ground of union for the three oreat
sections of German Christians, the Eoman Catholic, the Lutheran,
and the Reformed or Calvinist Churches. This doctrine was branded
as "Syncretism." Mosh. Eccl. Hist., Cent. 17, Sect. 21. Notes by
Schlegel. — Te.
t Consilia Theologica, I. p. 46 et seq.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 89
power, those contradictions which had been discovered 
indubitable fruits of historico-critical inquiry during the domi
nancy of the more rigid theory of inspiration — could not
remain concealed. The history of the middle of the eigh
teenth century gives us the impression that that was a. period
of general mental indolence, not only in theology, but also in
phUosophy, in the arts, and in pohtics. Even that which had
been retained from the earher theory of inspiration, moved on
now with difficulty only as a dead tradition, in respect to
which living faith was quite as much wanting as courage for
a total negation of it. Upon this age of indolence, about the
middle of the century, there foUows, in the second half of it,
in the province of Theology as in others, an energetic striv
ing to beat out new paths. The spirit of the age had been
already ahenated from the kernel of the earher doctrines of
faith ; it now began to break in pieces and cast away what
yet remained of the sheU, and to seek a new kernel. Thus
the diminution of the dogma of inspiration, which had hitherto
been ever advancing, at last degenerates into its complete
negation. As one of the earhest representatives of the in
cipient insecurity, who were stiU, through reverence for eccle
siastical tradition, shy in taking bolder steps, the theologian
Matthew Pfaff of Tubingen may be mentioned, whose lean
ing towards the position occupied by Calixt and the Armin-
ians but UI concealed itself behind a cautious phraseology.*
The aim of this first part of our treatise has now been
attained. It has been proved that the assumption of an in
spiration extending to the entire contents, to the subject-matter
and form of the sacred writings, has so httle claim to the
honor of being the only orthodox doctrine, that it has only
been the opinion of, comparatively speaking, an exceedingly
smaU fraction. Since now the symbolical writings of the
Lutheran Church have not so much as once erected a barrier
in the way of a freer construction of the doctrine, the Lu-
# Introduction to his " Notaj Exeget. in Evangel. Matt." 1721. Also
his "Institutiones Theol. Dogm. et Moral." 1719. He died 1760.
8*

90 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
theran, who is true to his symbols, can take no umbrage at
the establishment of such a free construction.*

Part H. — EXEGETICO-DOGMATIC.
Preliminary.
We have submitted^ that belief in an absolute (schlecht-
hinnige) inspiration of the Scripture was by no means first
abandoned by Rationahsm. So far from this being the case,
we may say that at no period whatever was such an opinion
generaUy entertained. During the period of ecclesiastical
faith, first from the age of the Fathers up the Middle Ages,
and then again from the Reformers to the beginning of the
eighteenth century, we have observed an increasing restriction
put upon those hberal definitions which had been received
from the very beginning. If, then, a growing limitation might
take place in the interest of Faith, there may be also a
growing freedom from limitation in the same interest. This
wiU occur as soon as Faith has become more conscious of its
peculiar nature, and has been distinguished from that which
forms the peculiar business of science. After such earnest
conflicts of science with the earher forms of theology, in the
midst of which Christendom became stUl more conscious of
the foundations of faith, we in modern times have arrived at
a point where a deeper apprehension of the doctrine of in
spiration, derived from the nature of faith, should result as
one of the fruits of those conflicts.
Let us more accurately define the subject of inquiry. The
question is not whether the Holy Scripture includes inviolable
# The reader will remember that Professor Tholuck is a member of
the Lutheran Church. Hence his justification. In England, also, we
are in the main free from authoritative declarations on this point. While
the Bible is firmly held to be of paramount authority as embodying the
will of God to man, the rule of faith and practice, none but the ill-
informed or bigoted will trench upon the inquirer's peace. — Te.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 91
divine contents, a revelation from God. We profess faith
in the contents of the Law, as revealed ; so of the Prophets ;
and so of the teachings of Christ, and of the Apostles. Thus
much any one may profess, and yet feel himself urged to
abandon the inspiration of the Bible in the current sense of
the term.
By inspiration, as distinguished from revelation, is custom
arily understood, since the time of Calovius, and especially
since the time of Baumgarten,* the communication by God t
of the entire written contents of Scripture, whether the matter
written down was previously known to the writers or not.
The most recent advocate of the more rigid theory, Professor
Gaussen, says expressly that the Holy Spirit by inspiration
did not at aU aim at the iUumination of the writers, — they
were nothing more than transient instruments, — a view was
had rather to their books. %
Now we can weU imagine the believer's heart, when pre
disposed to take a side in favor of the more narrow theory,
turning away with displeasure from any lax notions on the
subject. Certainty in matters of faith depends upon a be
lieving disposition ; properly, indeed, only certainty concern
ing the true doctrine of salvation ; but still it may be asked,
Can this certainty be sufficiently stable, if everything which
stands, not only in direct, but also in indirect connection with
this doctrine of salvation be not also true ? That absolute
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures advocated by Professor
Gaussen thus appears clearly to the Christian mind as a re
hgious necessity. We must, however, first of all, draw atten-

* " De Discrimine Revelationis et Inspirationis." 1745.
t " Die gottliche Eingebung."
X " It is of consequence for us to say, and it is of consequence that it
be understood, that this miraculous operation of the Holy Ghost had not
the sacred writers themselves for its object, — for these were only his in
struments, and were soon to pass away ; but that its objects were the
holy books themselves, which were destined to reveal from age to age to
the Church the counsels of God, and which were never to pass away."
Theopneustia. — Te.

92 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
tion to the fact that this external certainty is not wholly given
therewith. Consider the position of the unlearned reader.
What does it avail you, says the Roman Cathohc, to have an
infalhble document, unless you have also an infalhble trans
lation ? And what could an infaUible translation avail you,
without an infaUible interpretation ? Nay, verily, your learned
men themselves, who abide by the original text, — whence de
rive they certainty concerning its correctness ? Does not the
number of various readings in the New Testament alone, ac
cording to modern calculation, exceed fifty thousand ? One can
and must yield to our pious friend, Professor Gaussen, and
confess that, essentiaUy, the great majority of these readings
are immaterial. But this is by no means the case with them
aU. That it is not indifferent, for example, whether the
passage concerning the Trinity in 1 John v. 7, 8 be genuine
or not, Professor Gaussen so decidedly acknowledges, that he
beheves the defence of the received reading must at aU risks
be undertaken, notwithstanding the passage is found in no
Greek Codex except the Codex Britannicus* of the six
teenth century ; in the Codex Ravianus, which is a copy
partly from the Complutensian Polyglot and partly from the
third edition of Stephens ; and in the Vulgate only since
the tenth century. B one credible testimony in reference
to this subject were not of equal weight with many, a host
of others might easily be added ; but this instance must now
suffice. The Christian who can feel his faith certain and out of
danger only in a diplomatic attestation derived from without,^
can find peace only by repairing to the (so-caUed) infaUible
* Codex Brit. — Otherwise called Codex Montfortianus or Dublinensis.
This is one of the cursive manuscripts, and belongs to the library of Trin
ity College, Dublin. It closely resembles the Vulgate in the much dis
puted passage referred to in the text, and in many others. Dr. Tholuck
uses the title given it by Erasmus. Dr. Davidson is of opinion that it
could not have originated earlier than the fifteenth century. (Kitto's
Cyclop., Art. Manuscript. Bibl.) — Tk.
t An external written authority. — Te.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 93
Roman pontiff. * But it is not weU for us to prescribe to
Divine wisdom the mode in which it may best and most safely
conduct men to their object of pursuit (i. e. certainty of faith).
Consider how former apologists for this strict theory of in
spiration acted ; and, indeed, how its most recent apologist,
already mentioned, acts. Their manner throughout, for ex
ample, of giving prominence to the passage, " All Scripture
is given by inspiration of God," 2 Tim. hi. 16, is as if their
theory depended entirely upon the testimony of the Bible
concerning itself. But, in truth, their argument all through
depends simply upon what, in their estimation, is the de
mand of the religious necessity in man. Are we so much
as conscious whether it is not from this rehgious exigency that
we sometimes even wish that the Scripture itself were quite
differently arranged ? Who does not feel the need of possess
ing an indubitable record from Christ's own -hand? Who
does not wish that the New Testament were equal in extent
to the Old? Who, moreover, would not deem it a wiser
arrangement, if, instead of giving us the first three Evange
hsts with similar contents, one of them had been directed
carefully to record those passages in the life of Christ which
they have now, aU of them, entirely omitted ? Rightly has it
been objected by Thiersch to Mbhler's j construction of the
* Comp. Tholuck's " Gesprache tlber die vornehmsten Glaubensfra-
gen," p. 176.
t Mohler (died 1838) is one of the ablest writers of the Roman Cath
olic Church. He was once an adherent of Schleiermacher's views, but
afterwards opposed them, and took a prominent part in the controversy
against Protestantism. He, in company with Hermes, sought to base
the Romish dogmas upon a more profound and philosophical basis, not
by reference to Scripture and the practice of the early Church, but to the
nature of man, and the exigencies of his position, considered a priori.
In short, he removed the data of the controversy entirely from the exter
nal to the internal or subjective. In this manner, much against their in
tention, the writings of Hermes and Mohler, by promoting a virtually
Protestant spirit, namely, that of private judgment, did much towards
undermining the authority and infallibility of the Pontiff and the Church.
Vide Mohler's Patrologie; also his Symbolik. Mainz, 1832. — Te.

94 THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION.
Church, that the whole argument rests upon an a priori accom
modation of historical facts, upon a presumed divine necessity ;
but that history, and even the history of the Church and of
its corruption, takes shape, not according to opinions antece
dently established in the mind of the student, but must be re
ceived in the fashion in which it unfolds itself. What can
we say when we hear Bellarmine representing a divine in
fallible translation of the Bible as a necessity on the ground
of this fact, namely, that the great majority of those prelates
who form the decrees of Councils are ignorant of Hebrew ! *
Which were the more Christian wish, that the prelates, since
the Old Testament has been written in Hebrew, should learn
that language, or that, since the prelates have no inclination
to do this, the sun should regulate itself according to the
clock, and an infaUible Latin Bible be added to the Hebrew ?
It were wiseibr men not to prescribe the way for satisfying
their religious wants, but rather submissively to seek to ap
prehend the wisdom of God in that which has been given us
by it.
Granted that a theory of inspiration of a less rigid kind
would abate in some measure the stringent proofs of our faith :
how, then, would Pascal be right when he perceives divine
wisdom in the fact that faith is not estabhshed by external
evidences ? And is it not true that modern conviction, arrived
at through doubt and internal conflict, is the possession of the
behever much more fully than would have been the case by
any divine contrivance by virtue of which, whenever a ques
tion arose, an external oracle instantly supphed an answer ?
We may therefore readUy lend an ear, when so great a
number of witnesses for the faith, after conscientious exami
nation, assure us that that rehgious necessity to which men
appeal in support of an absolute (schlechthinniges) inspira
tion of the Scriptures cannot possibly be right, since in the
very Scripture itself there are found decisive facts which
stand opposed to it. We shaU pursue our inquiry hi the
foUowing order : —
* Opera, I. De Verbo Deo, 2. 10.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 95
Sect. 1. — Arguments against the absolute* inspiration
of Scripture derived from the condition of the Biblical writ
ings themselves.
Sect. 2. — Arguments to the same effect derived from the
declarations of the Biblical writers concerning themselves.
Sect. 3. — Alleged proofs from Scripture itself of its
absolute inspiration.

Sect. 1. — Arguments against the Absolute Inspiration and
the Infallibility of Scripture, derived from the Nature of
the Document itself.
Were the Biblical writer, in the strict sense of the word,
nothing more than an instrument of utterance through which
God speaks to men, must we not also expect that no human
imperfection in any respect should be contained in Scripture ?
Not only must eternal truths, be free from aU error, and from
aU former imperfection ; but also the ordinary historical, geo
graphical, and other facts must be correctly reported through
out. Nay, we might even demand the absence of aU Ungual
imperfections. We have seen that a behef in inspiration
to this very extent has been actuaUy demanded by many.
On the contrary, in relation to the language a Divine accom
modation has been conceded by others. That the language
of the New Testament in no respect varies from the HeUe-
nistic Greek current at the time, is clear as dayhght. It is
true that it might be reasonably maintained that the Deity, in
order to become intelligible to that generation, must speak to
them not in classic Greek, to which they were not accustomed,
but in the more corrupt dialect with which they were familiar.

# "Prom the general tenor of our author's language, it would appear
that the original word, schlechthinnig, — a word not yet in very common
use among German writers, — may be fairly represented by the word
" absolute." By this term Professor Tholuck designates a theory which
errs by excess of strictness and credulity, — such as that of Professor
Gaussen. — Te.

96 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
But then in the language of the New Testament books, not
only dialectic, but also individual* characteristics of language
appear. The style of Paul, and that of John, correspond
entirely with what we know from other sources of the indi
vidual characters of these Apostles respectively. If herein
also one should wish to find a Divine accommodation to the
manner of speech peculiar to these Apostles, such an assump
tion would be the less satisfactory, since no adequate ground
for any accommodation of the kind can be discovered.
But in addition to this, especiaUy in Paul, there are cer
tain imperfections of style, t imperfections, too, founded in his
own peculiarities. For example, his vivacity very frequent
ly occasions him to leave a sentence unfinished, through for
getting the conclusion. If the Divine accommodation is to
be extended to these individual defects, then we must say that
such a caricature of Divine accommodation is not only aim
less, but, in so far as such defects actually embarrass the un
derstanding, positively self-defeating. Assuredly, therefore,
we have no choice but to abandon this position, and to admit
the influence of human pecuharity upon the contents of Scrip
ture. But even this must be farther extended, namely, to the
form of the thoughts recorded. That is to say, the peculiarity
of a Paul, of a John, or of a James, is to be understood as
seen in the mode of putting forth Christian truth. The life
of our Lord in the fourth Gospel, for example, is recorded in
a manner different from that exhibited in any of the other
three Gospels, — a manner, indeed, which, from the person
ahty of John, is quite conceivable.
As unto persons who from different elevations view the
general mass of a town, the houses group themselves in
various forms, and present different centres ; so the above-
* That is, wherein the idiosyncrasies of the individual writers are ap-"
parent. — Te.
t It is regretted that a passage on the defects of the Pauline style, to
which Dr. Tholuck in a private communication refers us, cannot here be
cited, — the work containing it, Redepennig liber Origenes, not being with
in reach. — Te.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 97
mentioned Apostles present Christian truth under diversified
points of view, according to their personal peculiarity, and
according to the progress of their inward development. To
Paul, the interposition of a righteousness by faith, acquired
through Christ, — to John, the communication of a true eter
nal life, — to James, the illustration of the law as a law of
freedom, — are the ground ideas respectively. And must
this pecuharity, too, be nothing more than the product of a
Divine imitation ? * We cannot forbear inserting here the
words of a* profound writer, who has become an intellectual
polar star to many inquiring minds in England and America,
— I mean Samuel Taylor Coleridge, f
" Why should I not [believe the Scriptures throughout to
be dictated, in word and thought, by an infaUible intelhgence] ?
Because the doctrine in question petrifies at 'once the whole
body of Holy Writ, with aU its harmonies and symmetrical
gradations, — the flexile and the rigid, the supporting hard
and the clothing soft, — the blood which is the life, the in-
teUigencing nerves, and the rudely woven, but soft and stringy,
cellular substance, in which aU are imbedded and lightly bound
together. This breathing organism, this glorious pan-harmon-
icon, which I had seen stand on its feet as a man, and with a
man's voice given to it, the doctrine in question turns at once
into a colossal Memnon's head, a hollow passage for a voice ;
a voice that mocks the voices of many men, and speaks in
their names, and yet is but one voice and the same ; and no
man uttered it, and never in a human heart was it conceived.
Why should I not ? Because the doctrine evacuates of all
sense and efficacy the sure and constant tradition, that all the
several books bound up together in our precious famUy Bibles
were composed in different and widely distinct ages, under the
# "Divine imitation," — gtittlichen Mimilc. By these terms our author
means, God interposing to produce effects similar to those which would
naturally follow the idiosyncrasies of the writers : which, being unneces
sary, and contrary to the analogy of the divine proceedings, is not to be
admitted. — Te.
t Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit, pp. 31- 36. Lond. 1840.
9

98 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
greatest diversity of circumstances and degrees of light and
information, and yet that the composers, whether as uttering
or as recording what was uttered and what was done, were all
actuated by a pure and holy spirit, one and the same, — (for
is there any Spirit pure and holy, and yet not proceeding
from God, — and yet not proceeding in and with the Holy
Spirit ?) — one Spirit, working diversely, now awakening
strength, and now glorifying itself in weakness ; now giving
power and direction to knowledge, and now taking away the
sting from error ! Ere the summer and the months of ripen
ing had arrived for the heart of the race, — whUe the whole
sap of the tree was crude, and each and every fruit lived
in the harsh and bitter principle, — even then this Spirit with
drew its chosen ministers from the false and guilt-making
centre of self. It converted the wrath into the form and
organ of love, and on the passing storm-cloud impressed the
fair rainbow of promise to aU generations. Put the lust of
self in the forked lightning, and would it not be a spirit of
Moloch ? But God maketh the hghtaiing his ministers ; fire
and hail, vapors and stormy winds, fulfilling his words.
" ' Curse ye Meroz,' said the angel of the Lord ; ' Curse ye
bitterly the inhabitants thereof,' sang Deborah. Was it that
she caUed to mind any personal wrongs, rapine or insult, that
she or the house of Lapidoth had received from Jabin or
Sisera ? No : she had dwelt under the palm-tree in the
depth of the mountain. But she was a mother in Israel ;
and with a mother's heart, and with the vehemency of a
mother's and a patriot's love, she had shot the hght of love
from her eyes, and poured the blessings of love from her hps,
on the people that had jeoparded their lives to the death
against the oppressors; and the bitterness awakened and
borne aloft by the same love she precipitated in curses on
the selfish and coward recreants who came not to the help of
the Lord, to the- help of the Lord against the mighty. As long
as I have the image of Deborah before my eyes, and whUe
I throw myself back into the age, country, circumstances, of
this Hebrew Boadicea, in the not yet tamed chaos of the

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 99
spiritual creation, — as long as I contemplate the impassioned,
high-souled, heroic woman, in all the prominence and individ
uality of wiU and character, — I feel as if I were among the
first ferments of the great affections, — the proplastic waves
of the microcosmic chaos sweUing up against, and yet towards,
the outspread wings of the Dove that lies brooding on the
troubled waters. So long all is well, all replete with instruc
tion and example. In the fierce and inordinate I am made
to know, and be grateful for, the clearer and purer radiance
which shines on a Christian's paths, neither blunted by the
preparatory veil, nor crimsoned in its struggle through the
aU-enwrapping mist of the world's ignorance ; whilst in the
self-oblivion of these heroes of the Old Testament, their ele
vation above aU low and individual interests, above aU, in the
entire and vehement devotion of their total being to the
service of their Master, I find a lesson of humility, a ground
of humihation, and a shaming, yet rousing, example of faith
and fealty. But let me once be persuaded that aU these
heart-awakening utterances of human hearts, — of men of
hke faculties and passions with myself, mourning, rejoicing,
suffering, triumphing, — are but as a Divina Com/media' of a
superhuman — O, bear with me, if I say — Ventriloquist ;
that the royal Harper to whom I have so often submitted
myself as a many-stringed instrument for his fire-tipped fingers
to traverse, while every several nerve of emotion, passion,
thought, that thinks the flesh and blood of our common hu
manity, responded to the touch, — that the sweet Psalmist of
Israel was himself as mere an instrument as his harp an
automaton ; — poet, mourner, and supphant, aU is gone ; aU
sympathy at least, and all example. I listen in awe and fear,
but likewise in perplexity and confusion of spirit."
[Coleridge proceeds i& foUows : —
" Yet one other instance, and let this be the crucial test of
the doctrine. Say that the book of Job throughout was dic
tated by an infaUible inteUigence. Then reperuse the book,
and stiU, as you proceed, try to apply the tenet ; try if you
can even attach any sense or semblance of meaning to the

100 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
speeches which you are reading. What ! were the hoUow
truisms, the unsufficing half-truths, the false assumptions and
mahgnant insinuations of the supercihous bigots, who cor
ruptly defended the truth, — were the impressive facts, the
piercing outcries, the pathetic appeals, and the close and
powerful reasoning with which the poor sufferer, smarting at
once from his wounds, and from the oil of vitriol which the
orthodox liars for God were dropping into them, impatiently
but uprightly and holily controverted this truth, while in will
and in spirit he clung to it, — were both dictated by an infaUible
intelligence ? Alas ! if I may judge from the manner in which
both mdiscriminately are recited, quoted, appealed to, preached
upon, by the routiniers of desk and pulpit, I cannot doubt that
they think so, or rather, without thinking, take for granted
that so they are to think ; the more reachly, perhaps, because
the so thinking supersedes the necessity of aU afterthought."]
But, what is of still greater importance, we also find
throughout the Old and New Testaments numerous proofs of
inaccuracy in statements of fact. An anxious orthodoxy has
of course endeavored to rebut these accusations, and every
where to maintain absolute accuracy. This has been accom
plished, however, only by so many artificial and forced sup
ports, that the Scripture set right after this fashion wears
more the appearance of an old garment with innumerable
seams and patches, than of a new one made out of one entire
piece. It is quite true that the adversaries of Christianity
have .professedly fallen upon many discrepancies where none
are really to be found ; but in many places, where we can
compare Scripture with Scripture, we meet with difficulties
where either the contradiction will not admit of removal at
all, or but very imperfectly. Xn proportion as the reader is
destitute of the skiU which learning gives, in that proportion
wUl'he be unconscious of these facts, and be prepared con
fidently to boast in his defence of a verbal inspiration, for
" What one does not know, gives him no annoyance." * Tins
* " Was ich nicht weiss, maclit mich nicht heiss." — Prov.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 101
remark is apphcable, too, to our excellent friend Professor
Gaussen, who, in his book already quoted, has given such an
eloquent vindication of plenary inspiration.
By way of proof, we must enter into some details. Out of
numberless instances, however, we shaU select only a few :
for if by one or two proofs the matter appears beyond dis
pute, there is no need to multiply arguments. Entire accu
racy throughout can no longer be maintained. We make a
distinction between errors in translation and errors in fact,
which occur in the Bibhcal writers.
1. The New Testament authors have made abundant use
of the Greek translation executed in Alexandria, called the
Septuagint.* This was natural, since this translation was not
only generaUy known to the Jews who spoke the Greek lan
guage, but, at the time of the rise of Christianity, was also in
high repute in Palestine. Now there are found in several
books of that Greek translation, especially in the Book of
Psalms, not a few material misapprehensions of the proper
sense ; or, at least, readings differing from our Hebrew text, t
Notwithstanding this, however, the writers of the New Testa
ment, here and there, even when the argument depends upon
particular words, go not to the original Hebrew text, but
foUow the Greek translation. This Professor Gaussen admits
in page 236 of his work. % He assumes, however, through
the whole of his defence, that .he has made good the position
that the Apostolical writers hi all those places where stress is
laid on the quotation, have actually made their quotations
from the original Hebrew. This judgment is in this general
sense incorrect. It is true in reference to Paul and Matthew ;
but our author forgets the Epistle to the Hebrews, in which
the original (Hebrew) text is never attended to, not even in
those places where the author argues from passages which, as
* On this version see Dr. Davidson's article in Kitto's Cyclop, of
Bibl. Liter., sub voce.
t Comp. Davidson's Sacred Hermeneutics, pp. 334, 338, et seq. Also
Dr. Henderson's Lect. on Div. Insp., p. 375, 2d ed.
X Engl. Transl., p. 84.
9#

102 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
they are translated, exhibit material errors. * We admit that
many of the older orthodox interpreters attempted, at least
with some of these passages, to explain the Old Testament
text in the sense adopted by the author of this Epistle, t But
the passage (chap. ii. 13) quoted from Isa. viii. 17, 18, Luther
explains, and the rest Calvin explains, in the sense demanded
by their Old Testament connection, without any regard to the
manner in which they are quoted in our Epistle. From the
author's way of arguing from Old Testament passages, it can
scarcely be maintained that they were merely applied for
hortatory purposes. This would not readUy be conceded
even by the advocates of strict orthodoxy. If this solution
then is rejected, we are not aware that any others remain to
help us to avoid the concession, that passages of Scripture
quoted incorrectly, and in a way not altogether corresponding
with their proper original meaning, have been used, by way of
argument. 2. We leave this part of our subject, and pass on to inac
curacies in matters of fact. When such inaccuracies must be
proved by instances of collision between the Bibhcal and
extra-Biblical witnesses, the Christian, having faith in the
Bible, wUl hesitate to admit their existence. But he can
hardly persist in his hesitation, if cases are adduced where
the writers report either the very words of our Lord, or
matters of pure fact, with irreconcUable variations the one
from the other. It is true that here also many charges of
contradiction have been proved to be groundless. Some,
however, remain, where the Christian critic cannot with
the most candid mind disown discrepancies, — discrepancies
in which one only of the reports given can be faithful.
The Sermon on the Mount, according to Luke vi. and Matt.
v. - vii., presents, in this twofold narration, such manifold
variations, that many of the older commentators assumed the
* Comp. chap. ii. 6, 12, 13 ; x. 5 ; xii. 26.
t Dr. Tholuck controverts the Pauline authorship of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, and deems the weight of evidence to be rather in favor of
Apollos. — Te.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 103
delivery of two separate Sermons on the Mount, and to this
solution of the difficulty Professor Gaussen stiU adheres. The
opposite view, however, was adopted by Chemnitz and Calo
vius, and is also received by all the more recent writers of the
present century. If we grant this, then the confession ap
pears unavoidable that the same ideas are reproduced by the
two Evangelists in different forms. The ideas expressed by
Matt. v. 40 and vh. 16, are in those places given forth in
a different form from what they assume in Luke vi. 29, 44.
Matt. vh. 12 differs from Luke vi. 31. Now when Chem
nitz, in order to estabhsh the thorough correctness of the
narrations, assumes that the same thought in the same dis
course may have been twice expressed by our Lord in a
different form and position, he only introduces a makeshift,
which, while it removes from the reporters the charge of dis
crepancy, reflects no httle discredit upon the method of dis
coursing adopted by Christ himself. With Luke vi. 29 and
Matt. v. 40 he has not been bold enough to use this expedient,
although he was compelled to admit that by the two Evan
gelists the violence supposed to be committed is represented
under different forms.*
Stier also, who deems it altogether objectionable to admit
that in Matthew, who was an Apostle, there is found any
departure whatever from historical accuracy, has been com-
peUed to allow in Luke what in Matthew he has protested
against, f He has even given up generaUy the defence of
verbal truth and correctness. " The Spirit of God," he says,
* Luke vi. 29. " And him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to
take thy coat also."
Matt. v. 40. " And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take
away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also."
These and many other similar variations must be fatal to any theory
of verbal inspiration ; but since on either side the ethical principle enforced
is the same, the value of the Bible as the depository of moral and re
ligious truth is not necessarily affected. Comp. also Luke vi. 20-23,
and Matt. v. 3 - 12 ; Luke vi. 30, and Matt. v. 42 ; Luke vi. 27, 28, 35,
and Matt. v. 44, 45. — Te.
t Stier's Reden des Herrn nach Matt., pp. 170, 308.

104 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
" so put the Evangelists in mind of the discourses of our
Lord, that they might write them, not word for word, or with
entire fulness according to the letter ; but the Spirit of Truth
has withal permitted no essential untruth whatsoever to oc
cur." * Professor Gaussen alone persists in maintaining that
such formal diversities, where found, must have as their origi
nator the Holy Spirit himself, to whom (he says) it is per
mitted to express the same thought in various forms of lan
guage. Certainly. Only it must be remembered that along
with this is also given up the strictly faithful recording of the
discourses of our Lord, who actually delivered them only in
one of two ways.
If, now, by an examination of the Scripture in detaU, we
discover a human side, on account of which the Bible is not
to be declared free from defects and errors, then the question
is, How can a theory of inspiration, which shall be consistent
with these phenomena, be established ? The historical part
of this treatise has proved how by a great number of theo
logians, both Protestant and Catholic, a positive Divine co
operation was asserted only in relation to that portion of the
contents of Holy Writ which was revealed, or the truths
which were the proper objects of faith ; f from which position
it follows that revelation and inspiration are identical. As it
regards the remaining contents, it was held that a negative
Divine efficacy was present, serving as a defence against vital
error, i. e. error damaging to the doctrine of faith. To this,
as we have seen above, amounts the language of Stier even,
if we take into account certain portions of his writings ; al
though, judging from others, he approximates more nearly
than any other German theologian to the older idea of in
spiration ; so also the views of the more recent English theo
logians, among the Dissenters as weU as among the clergy of
the Episcopal Church. Dr. Henderson designates it as the
fruit of prejudice to say that the Holy Scripture in aU its
* Stier's Reden des Herrn nach Matt., p. 74.
t " Den eigentlichen Glaubenswahrheiten."

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 105
parts alike has been inspired by the Spirit of God in such a
manner as that thereby human co-operation was superseded.*
The prevailing doctrine, even in the strictest form of it
both in the Catholic and in the Protestant Church, makes
such a distinction between the separate contents of Scripture
as must necessarily lead, at least, to a charitable judgment of
the difference of opinion which has obtained upon the subject.
We have already seen how Thomas Aquinas made a distinc
tion between that truth which is given by God principaliter,
as the proper object of faith, and those other portions of Scrip
ture which belong to faith only indirectly.^ The most rigid
writers upon dogmatic theology amongst the Lutherans,];
make a simUar distinction between that which belongs to faith
generally, and that which belongs to faith specially considered:
to the latter belong only the dogmas of faith ; to the former,
aU the remaining contents of Scripture. The opinion of the
Jesuit Tanner, that aU things whatsoever which the Bible
contains, " even the account of the fox-tails of Samson, and
the building of the tower of Babel," &c, belong to the articles
of rehgious faith, is nothing less than ridiculous.
It is therefore clear, that when these theologians feel con
strained to draw the fence of inspiration around the entire
written word, it is only from the apprehension that, if this
were not done, the portion which properly belongs to faith
would thereby be made insecure. In one place this fence
cannot be completed. Even by the most stringent defenders
of inspiration no means have been discovered whereby they
could evade the confession that it does not he before us diplo
matically certain ; but that the decision concerning it must be
left to the scientific investigations of the learned. The con
sequence which results from this is one of importance. The
Bible, as it appears to us, can in no case pass as verbally
inspired ; therefore also its contents cannot in all their details
# Lect. on Div. Insp., p, 296 et seq., 2d ed.
t Vide p. 76, ante.
X Quenstedt, Theol. Didact. Polem., Tom. I. 4, 2, 5 ; and K6nig,
Theol. Posit. Proleg., Sect. 133.

106 THE DOCTRINE OF INSPIRATION.
throughout be considered as externally guaranteed. Professor
Gaussen himself is forced to aUow this ; and he rests satisfied
with admiring that Divine guidance whereby things are so
brought about, that, notwithstanding the great uncertainty
which surrounds individual "readings," yet no Scripture
truth which is an object of faith ( Glaubenswahrheit) is un
settled, since each rests upon more than one passage, and even
the various readings only give shades, and not real diversity
of meaning. Now if this consideration suffices here to give
comfort to the mind, why should it not avail also if faUure of
memory, and errors in certain historical, chronological, geo
graphical, and astronomical detaUs must be admitted ? and if
here and there a passage appears to be spurious ? or if,
amongst the canonical books, a few are found that are un-
canonical ? It is an undeniable fact, that hundreds of the
most distinguished Christians, who have brought forth fruit in
joyful faith, and have stood forth in that respect prominently
as Christian exemplars, have thus judged concerning the
Scriptures, and have nevertheless been ready to lay down
their hfe for the Gospel.
We proceed upon the same ground as that upon which,
with the Christian, the Divine evidence of an inspiration of
the Scripture rests, and say : This belief entirely coincides
with, and stands entirely in relation to, belief in the Divine
contents* Faith in a Divine inspiration of Scripture relates,
first of all, to that truth witnessed by the " demonstration of
the Spirit and of power," by which (according to 1 Cor. ii. 4)
the Apostle estabhshed behef in his preaching in the hearts
of the Corinthians ; that is, the Christian doctrine of salvation.
This doctrine approves itself to us as truth, when the man
becomes conscious that his intercourse with God is re-estab-
* That is, we have Divine evidence of the inspiration of Scripture
only from those parts which have been derived from God. The further
question, what parts have been thus derived, must be determined by a
variety of considerations, but principally by that which our author pro
ceeds to consider ; i. e. the fitness to produce moral effects — towards
making perfect the man of God. — Te. .

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 107
hshed ; that for time and for eternity he enters into proper
relation to his God ; that thus, and thus alone, he can become
a true man of God* " If the Spirit of God," he may ask,
" had not exerted a ruling power over the recording of this
saving truth, and of the facts upon which the truth is founded,
how could the recorded word have this effect upon me?" It
we Christians of the present day ascribe to the written word
of the Lord what those servants of the High-Priest ascribed
to the word then spoken to them, t must not the written be
substantially the same as the spoken word ? If we also ex
claim, after reading the Scripture about the holy sufferings
and death of the Lord, as that centurion did after he had
witnessed them, " Truly this man was the Son of God ! " J
must not these sufferings and this death, in all their essential
features, have been faithfully recorded to us ? We are speak
ing of fidelity of record with respect to words and facts essen
tially. It may be a matter of dispute, a hundred times over,
where the hne of demarcation between the essential and non
essential is to be drawn ; but that such a distinction, although
subject to uncertainty, does really exist, is witnessed by the
speech and logic of every nation where the question has
been entertained. There is much that is non-essential, which
still in some respects touches the essential ; but there is also
that which does not touch it at all. The words, like the facts,
of Scripture, have a kernel and a sheU. To the former, the
witness of the Holy Spirit is direct and absolute ; to the
latter, only indirect and relative. The great idea that the
disciple of the Lord, in so far as his own selfish interest alone
is concerned, — suppressing the slightest tendency to vindic-
tiveness, — should seek by kindness to subdue his enemy,
remains entirely the same, whether Christ uses the example
of him who, when sued at law, yields up his cloak in addition
to his coat, as Matthew puts it, § or that of him who on the
highway is robbed of his cloak, and yields up his coat also, as
Luke puts it. || The fact of our Lord's resurrection remains
# 2 Tim. iii. 17- t The allusionls probably to John vii. 46. — Te.
X Mark xv. 39. $ Chap. v. 40. || Chap. vi. 29.

108 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
equally certain, whether he first appeared to these persons or
to those. The Evangehsts have even passed over in entire
silence the important appearing to the five hundred, of whom
Paul speaks in 1 Cor. xv. 6.
This belief in saving truth and fact leads us on still farther.
The word of the Lord makes us certain that the Apostohcal
writers of New Testament books must have written by the
Spirit of God, because as bearers of this his word, and as
promoters of his work, they received from him the promise
of the Holy Ghost.* If this Spirit inspired f them during
their oral report, how could he faU them in their written re
port ? Always, indeed, holding fast that distinction already
mentioned of essential and non-essential, we shall stiU feel
convinced of this, that neither upon the communication of
historical knowledge, gained by their own experience, nor
upon the revelation which they had received from God, could
their natural subjectivity exercise any obscuring influence.
And faith in Christian truth and fact, thus confirmed, hke
faith in their inspiration, will now also determine our convic
tions concerning the Old Testament religion. That the Mo
saic economy according to its ritual part was in a symbolico-
dogmatical respect, according to its ethical part in an ethical
respect, a preparative to the Christian economy, even the
imperfectly enlightened but ingenuous inquirer cannot deny.
But the luminous eye of that dispensation, through which pre
eminently the preparing Spirit, which diffuses itself through
out aU, gleams upon us, is the prophetic part. The more
clearly we perceive this in the documents written a thousand
years before, the more unquestionable does it appear that
there is a Divine co-operation in the production of the record.
If moral and religious perfection, if the kingdom of God in
Christ upon earth be the highest aim of humanity, must not
that document which is the most powerful agent in promoting
this, and in which Christendom has had, and still has, the
fertilizing spring and the guiding rule of faith, be an especial
# Comp. Jojin xiv. 26 ; xv. 26, 27 ; xvi. 12 - 14.
t Beseelen, to animate, to quicken.

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. 109
object of that Providence which controls the events of the
world ? In other words, must not far other than ordinary
means have been used for the purpose of its record and pres
ervation ?^ Suppose that of the written monuments of classical
antiquity no authors had been preserved except those of the
iron and brazen ages, or that the works of the silver and
golden ages had come down to us only in copies which were
thoroughly corrupt and unrestorable by any criticism, what
then had become of our classic culture ? In hke manner,
what had become of our Christian culture if nothing had been
handed down to us from Christian antiquity except perhaps
the Apocryphal books of the Old Testament, or the General
Epistles of the New, or even the Gospels, in a state at once
mutilated and no longer capable of being deciphered? It
were presumption to declare upon mere a priori grounds
what Providence ought to have done, or ought to have pre
vented, in order to have secured for us a record answering to
aU the conditions of a sufficing certainty. But that Provi
dence must be eminently active in this respect is an unavoid
able supposition to every one to whom the religio-moral sig-
nificancy of this record in history has become manifest. And
have we not in this collection of books, embracing a period of
more than three thousand years, the clearest proofs of a con
trolling Providence ? We have already mentioned that, in
spite of the fifty thousand various readings found in the New
Testament, the sense of it in the main remains steadfast.*
Further, a criticism, which in part has been led on by a
decidedly negative interest, has for a hundred and fifty years
submitted the books of both Old and New Testaments, in a
body, to the most fiery ordeal. And with what result ? In
as far as it pertains to the principal books of the New Testa
ment at least, — if we omit a very small minority of German
* " It has been truly said, that such is the character of the New Tes
tament Scriptures, that the worst copy of the Greek text, and the worst
translation, represent the original with sufficient accuracy to secure all
the highest ends of Christian instruction." Rev. S. H. Godwin, Introd.
Lcct. at opening of New Coll. — Te.
10

110 THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION.
theologians who are of a contrary opinion, — a growingly
strong conviction among learned men of their authenticity.
This Bible, written by kings, herdsmen, priests, fishermen,
and tent-makers, and entirely as if by accident bound to
gether into a whole, does it not nevertheless produce the
impression of a collection of documents put together with the
most careful deliberation ? From the creation of man and
his faU, to the apocalyptic proclamation, " Behold, I make aU
things new," one book, stretching thus over the entire field of
the history of mankind, leads them on in their journey from
its very beginning to its close. In the Old Testament, as in
the New, we have first of all the divine facts presented, then
such books as exhibit the faith and spirit of the community
which by those facts have been confirmed, and lastly, the pro
phetical writings which conduct from the Old Testament to the
New, and from this again to the " new heaven and new earth "
where the consummation of redemption shall be realized !
We have now come to the close. We have declared what,
with respect to inspiration, is certain to faith, — what, even
to every common Christian reader, admits of certamty, —
upon the ground of the testimony of the Spirit and of power.
What is not here embraced belongs more properly to scientific
research. The faith which has become conscious of its own
nature will readily yield to science its due province in this re
spect. A sound condition of the Church cannot be thought of
without science ; for though it be granted that science has, in
the service of human over-curiousness and unbehef, a hundred
times brought injury to the Church, still we are bold to aver
that in the service of truth, morality, and faith it has quite
as frequently brought life and blessing to the Church. We
know weU that timid minds will be frightened to find that
upon so many points they are dependent on the investigations
of learned men. If this does not satisfy that these points are
by no means essential, there is no help for them. There are
suspicious souls who, if celestial spirits made their appearance
to them, would not believe unless they brought authorized
written certificates from another world. We Christians, how-

THE DOCTRINE OP INSPIRATION. Ill
ever, who occupy a higher platform than that of written cer
tificates as vouchers, must learn to believe in the witness of
the Spirit. What would a Paul say to him whose faith in
the Son of God would be doubtful, because he did not know
whether, in Acts xx. 28, the correct reading was " the Church
of God " or " the Church of the Lord " ; or because he could
not feel certain whether "vinegar," as Matthew says,* or
" wine mingled with myrrh," as Mark says, f was offered to
the Saviour on the cross ; or whether Christ healed the blind
man on his entrance into, or on his departure from Jericho ; {
or whether the passage, John xxi. 24, 25, was subjoined by
John himself, or by a friend of his ? To such a doubter, I
say, what would a Paul answer ? He would teU him, " Man,
thy hour is not yet come ! "
* Matt, xxvii. 34. t Mark xv. 23.
J- Comp. Matt. xx. 29 ; Mark x. 46 ; Luke xviii. 35.

HOLY SCRIPTURE.

By ROWLAND WILLIAMS, B. D.,
FELLOW AND FORMERLY TUTOR OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND PROFESSOR OF
HEBREW AT LAMPETER.

" Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written for our learn
ing, that we, through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, might
have hope." — Romans xv. 4.
The study of history has always been allowed to be one
of the happiest means of awakening and improving the mind.
It has even been caUed wisdom, teaching by instances. For,
if it rise in any degree to its high vocation, it summons the
men of past times to move before us as they lived ; it enables
us to hear them, though dead, yet speak ; to appreciate, per
haps, the difficulties which surrounded them ; and, by the un
conscious effect of sympathy, to ingraft on our own minds the
power of confronting with no less manliness any similar trials
which may possibly beset our path. So eminently is this
true, that the man who has traced with throbbing heart the
career of great patriots, stricken down perhaps by overwhelm
ing odds, or of great thinkers, who have either embodied their
wisdom in legislation, or bid the eloquent page glow with its
record for ever, has in all probability assimilated himself in
some measure to the mighty of whom he has read : for he
has lived over in thought what was their life in act : he has
thus drunk into their spirit, and by breathing a kindred
atmosphere has become partaker of their very nature.
10*

114 HOLT SCRIPTURE.
But if such assertions may be ventured of great men and
deeds in general, they more emphatically apply to such
records as we have inherited of the earnest aspirations of
good men, in any time or country, to the eternal Source of
their being, and the mysterious Controller of their destiny.
That solemn ritual of Greek tragedy, which our own Milton
did not disdain to recommend as a repository of "grave, sen
tentious wisdom " ; those orators who could tell an incensed
multitude, that they rejoiced in having brought down on their
country a disastrous defeat (if Heaven so ordered it), rather
than see her forfeit her old character for honor, and her con
sciousness of self-respect ; those still loftier teachers, to whom
their country's mythology was only the fanciful expression of
a far higher and more remote, yet ever-present principle ; and
he, who declared the world to bear as clear a testimony to its
Author, as a finished poem does to the existence of a poet,
while no reaUy great man, he thought, could be without a
certain divine inspiration, — all these, I say, and other records
of kindred meaning, stir us with an emotion of sympathy far
deeper than is inspired by the ordinary subjects of the his
torian. We watch with intense interest such men groping
their way towards an eminence of light, on which not our
own arm has placed us ; we sigh at the weakness of our race,
as we occasionally see them wander in some hopeless maze of
speculation; and we can scarcely refrain from an exulting
cry, when some pure conscience and reaching intellect seems
almost to lay hands " unknowingly " upon the very mercy-seat
of the unsearchable I am that I am. ^
Yet after aU, the result accruing from such teachers among
the Gentiles is rather touching our hearts with wholesome
emotion, than furnishing our minds with any groundwork on
which doctrine may be reared. We read them as sympathiz
ing critics, but cannot sit at their feet as pupils. We have
need therefore to look elsewhere for more definite teaching.
And if we seek such aid in the Hebrew Scriptures, we soon
find reason to believe, that He who nowhere kept himself
without witness yet gave the Spirit in larger measure to those

HOLY SCRIPTURE. 115
who knew him by his name Jehovah, and worshipped him on
Sion, the mountain of his holy place. Nor is it necessary
here to dwell on that mere external evidence, which in itself
is not unimportant. The space which custom allots me may
be more profitably employed in directing your thoughts to
some of the characteristic features of the books themselves.
We are speaking now of the Hebrew Scriptures. Perhaps
the first thing to notice is the manifest fidelity of the writers,
both as respects the manners of their country, the character
of the people described, and the infirmities, nay, the very
crimes even, of men whom- they delight to honor. We read
hi their pages of life as it now exists in the East ; and as it
may be beheved with partial variation to have existed for
many ages. We find no attempt to represent king, or prophet,
or priest, as perfect : the tyranny of one, the passion of an
other, the weak connivance of the third, are set forth in their
naked simplicity. And this ingenuous character is the more
striking, because it is directly opposed to the usual genius of
Oriental narrative, which delights rather in pompous and in
flated exaggeration. It is also opposed more especially to the
writings of the later Scribes and Rabbins, which abound in la
borious trifling and transparent fable. Nor can any reason be
given for this superiority of the older books more obviously
true, than that the writers conceived themselves to be acting
under a responsibility of a strictly religious kind. They took
up the pen to celebrate events which were not merely the
triumphs of their race, but the manifestations of the power
and the truth of the Lord God of Israel. They had heard
that he abhorreth the sacrifice of lying hps, and they would
not blot the Scriptures animated by his Spirit with any lying
legend, or cunningly devised fable. Hence arises (what, as
far as the East is concerned, seems to have been then un
precedented) the strictly historical and trustworthy character
of Hebrew literature. Growing up under the shadow of the
temple, superintended by those who worshipped a God of
truth in the beauty of holiness, yet read every seventh year
in the ears of all the people, it has that double guaranty

116 HOLT SCRIPTURE.
which is derived from intelhgent and sacerdotal authority,
and from exposure to the contemporaneous criticism of masses
of mankind. Even those books, such as Kings and Chroni
cles, which dwell chiefly on the outward history of the nation,
have hence no common . interest. They carry us as it were
behind the scenes of an important part in the great drama of
the history of the world. They show us events happening,
and the subtle causes which produced them ; man proposing,
but God disposing ; Israel rebelling, and Jehovah smiting ;
Cyrus rearranging his conquests, and Jehovah (whom the
conqueror knew not) wielding liim as an instrument to restore
his people Israel.
Yet a stiU higher interest attaches itself to this collection
of records, when we consider them as a history emphatically
of religion : that is, in the first place, of the aspiration of the
human heart to its Creator.* For we then read of men of
hke passions with ourselves, treading a course which resem
bles in its great analogies our own ; men now striving, and
now at peace ; now sinning, and (as a consequence) suffering ;
now crying unto the Lord, and the Lord hearing them, and
delivering them out of aU their trouble. It is from this point
of view, that the Book of Psalms, in particular, may come
home to every one of our hearts. Who cannot trace, in the
vivid delineation of the Psalmist's personal experience, in his
humihation, his strong crying, and his tears, his trust in God,
his firm assurance of the final triumph of the right, a type, as
it were, and a portrait by forecast, alike of the struggles of
whatever is noblest in the whole human race, and especiaUy
of Him, its great Captain and its Head, who was to cherish
the almost expiring flame, until he made the struggle end in
victory ? Do we fret, as it were, in uneasy anxiety at our
* If any one supposes such a sentence as this either to exclude the
preparations of the. heart by God's providence and grace, or to imply
indifference or despair as to truth (as if thoughts and inferences were
less trustworthy than sensations), I can only wonder at his ingenuity in
misunderstanding. What would such a person think of the first and
second books of Hooker 1

HOLY SCRIPTURE. 117
short hfe, and its ever-threatening end, — the Psalmist teaches
us to make such fear an instrument of spiritual growth.
" Lord, let me know mine end, and the number of my days,
that I may be certified how long I have to live." " Teach me
to number my days, that I may apply my heart unto wisdom."
Yet, notwithstanding such appeal, do our spirits sink within
us, either for our own backsliding, or for the blasphemy of
the multitude on every side ? How is such a feeling expressed
better than in the words, " My heart panteth, my strength
hath failed me : and the sight of mine eyes hath gone from
me. My lovers and my neighbors did stand looking, upon my
trouble ; . . . . and they that went about to do me evU talked of
wickedness, and imagined deceit all the day long " ? Would
we have some one, ahke righteous and friendly, to whom we
may appeal with confidence ? " Lord, thou knowest all my
desire, and my groaning is not hid from thee. O Lord my
God, be not thou far from me." Or does the consciousness of
our own unworthiness bow us down, so that almost we say
with St. Peter, " Depart from me, O Lord, for I am a sinful
man " ? Again, we may adopt the piteous cry, " Innumerable
troubles are come about me ; my sins have taken such hold
upon me, that I am not able to look up ; yea, they are more
in number than the hairs of my head, and my heart hath
failed me." " O Lord, let it be thy pleasure — that is, let it
be the wih of thy free grace — to dehver me ; make haste,
O Lord, to help me."
But, again, are such hopes and aspirations the jest of the
ungodly, and do the drunkards make songs upon us, because
we mourn in our prayer, and are vexed ? " Fret not thyself,"
says the same faithful monitor, " because of the ungodly ;
neither be dismayed at the proud doer : yet a httle while, and
the ungodly shall be clean gone : hope thou in the Lord, and
keep his way : when the ungodly shaU perish, thou shalt see
it." Yet does the kingdom of Heaven tarry, and the founda
tions of the earth seem out of course ? " Tarry thou the
Lord's leisure," is stUl the precept ; " be strong, and he shaU
comfort thine heart " : let the man of the earth leave much

118 HOLY SCRIPTURE.
substance for his babes ; but as for us, we wUl behold the
presence of God in righteousness : the clay cometh for us to
be satisfied with his presence, when we wake up transformed
according to his hkeness.
What is it, then, brethren, which afflicts us ? Sickness, and
pining, of the body or of the heart, shrinking from the sneer
of the wicked, remorse for our own sin, fear of again offend
ing, fear of death, and of the dim unseen which is behind
death ? In aU these things the Psalmist persuades us we are
more than conquerors ; for in the light which God shed upon
him in the vaUey of shadows we too see hght : we too have a
share in the songs of faith, which God his maker gave him in
the night of his affliction. Said not the Apostle weU, there
fore, " Whatsoever things were written aforetime, were written
for our learning ; that we, through patience and comfort of
the Scriptures, might have hope " ?
It may be interesting to remark here, that, although a very
rigid criticism would find slender grounds for determining how
many of the Psalms were absolutely written by David the
son of Jesse, there is a sufficient consonance between the
events of his life and the sentiments of a large portion of the
number, to countenance decidedly that behef, which was the
tradition alike of the Jewish Church and of our own. There
is the same contrast in the life between David innocent and
David guilty, as in the Psalms between his joyful exuberance
of trust and his deep cry of remorse. Contrast in your
memories the shepherd stripling, with his heart yet unstained,
going forth to do battle with the giant warrior, and the guUty
king ascending the hUl with downcast brow, not daring to let
his mighty men scourge the Benjamite, who had cursed the
Lord's anointed. " Let him curse ; the Lord hath said unto
him, Curse David." Now this is the difference between inno
cence and guilt. Even so, how jubUant the cry of commun
ion with his God : " The Lord is my strength : whom then
shaU I fear ? " And how sad the agony of penitence : " Deep
caUeth unto deep at the noise of thy waterspouts ; all thy
waves have gone over me ; my soul is fuU of trouble, and my
hfe draweth nigh unto heU."

HOLY SCRIPTURE. 119
May we not learn there, brethren, the eternal and inefface
able difference between doing the thing which is right, and
forsaking the law of Him whose name is Holy ? And was
not such a lesson one of the principal reasons for which Scrip
ture was written? Yet even in such dark depths we find
Scripture stUl written for our consolation : since a way of
sighs and tears, but still a way of hope, is pointed to in the
words : " Thou shalt make me hear of joy and gladness, that
the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice."
On turning forward to the Prophets, we find their general
character is very much the same. One of their most striking
features is their evidently intense perception of spiritual
truths. This is the more remarkable, because mere religion
(as taught by a priesthood) has been thought sometimes to
blunt the moral sense, by making the Deity an arbitrary
being, who acts apart from the eternal laws of right. Where
as it is apparent on the face, that neither the Psalmist nor the
Prophets had any low or mean conception of the services
of that sanctuary where the honor of Jehovah dwelt. The
Psalms were in fact the main part of the Jewish liturgy ; for
the strains which now sweep through Westminster Abbey are
the same as were chanted of old in. the temple of Sion ; and
the Prophets never burst out into such indignant strains, as
when their hearts burn within them at the sight of altars
thrown down, the ark taken, or the temple defiled. Yet with
all this, they ever lay most emphatic stress upon the weightier
matters of the Law ; upon the moral dispositions, and mental
being, which are both the graces of the Holy Spirit and the
processes by which we grow up into the fuU stature of the
children of God.
If the hands are full of unjust gain, " bring no more in
cense, it is an abomination." If the feet are swift to evil,
" who hath required it of you to tread my courts ? saith the
Lord." Will your solemn assembhes at new moons, and your
Sabbaths, atone for a double heart, and for adding sin to sin ?
Can you by passionate prayers and ceremonial observances
make a covenant with death ? That is indeed to make lies

120 HOLY SCRIPTURE.
your refuge. Judgment and righteousness are the line and
the plummet with which the Lord layeth his sure foundation-
stone. " Come now, let us reason together, saith the Lord :
if your sins be as scarlet, shall they * be as white as snow ? if
they be red like crimson, shall they (at the same time) be as
wool ? " Think it not, is the inexorable answer implied in
the original : but " if ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat
the good of the land." " Wash you, make you clean : cease
to do evil." " Let the wicked forsake his way, and the un
righteous man his thoughts : and let him return unto the
Lord, for he wUl (then) have mercy upon him ; and to our
God, for he wiU abundantly pardon."
We have in such texts, which might be multiplied indefi
nitely, distinct intimation of the irreconcilable aversion of the
Almighty to any form of moral evil, yet of his abundant
readiness to pardon and save the sinner returning from his
sin. Now it is this truly spiritual character of the Bible
which fits it to be a book for all nations. Hence we do not
fear to put it in the hands of the most ignorant, not indeed
disparaging other means of grace, or forgetting that Scriptural
language may be made the vehicle of the worst passions, and
alleged to support the most dangerous errors : but we do so in
the conviction, that to the pure all things are pure, and in the
trust that He whose word came of old to prophets and teach
ers of righteousness, will not suffer even the record of the
same word which then came to return altogether empty.
Hence also our anxiety to place the same record of many a
divine message to guilty man in the hands of the heathen :
not from any bigoted dogma that the God and Father of aU
consolation will burn his children for not knowing what they
were never taught ; but from a perception, that the record of
the holy words of prophets and evangehsts has a natural
tendency to awaken whatever is good in man, and so (if prop-
* This interrogative rendering is grammatically as probable as the
common one, and, in sequence of thought, more so. [The common
version of this text seems to me more correct ; the condition of repent
ance being implied. — G. R. N.]

HOLY SCRIPTURE. 121
erly used) to help forward the moral restoration of a faUen
nature. Thus then we believe with the Apostle, that what
ever things were written aforetime, were written for our in
struction. There is, yet further, however, a distinct (but kindred)
feature in the Hebrew prophets, which stamps their writings
with pecuhar value. It is that dim yet undoubting anticipa
tion of a more perfect way than any commonly known in
their age, which was to be revealed when the Hope of Israel
should come. In other words, it is that foreboding of One
anointed with the Holy Spirit and with power, which may
especiaUy be termed the spirit of prophecy ; and in virtue of
which we ascribe to its possessors a more than ordinarily
large measure of (that sacred impulse, which may be de
scribed as) inspiration. We do not indeed assert, that the
Hebrew prophets knew precisely what manner of salvation
they foretold ; for they often shadow it forth under such tem
poral deliverances, as to make the hteral or Jewish interpre
tation of their predictions not altogether unreasonable. Nor,
indeed, do they themselves make any claim to omniscience.
The word of the Lord comes to their heart or conscience for
a particular purpose, and they speak it ; but where their own
faculties and usual means of information can come into play,
they naturally exercise them. Thus their language is simple
Hebrew, and only when they reach Babylon, Chaldaic ; the
countries which they describe are those adjoining their own ;
their general range of knowledge is that of their age ; in
short, the circumscribed limits of their horizon stand out at
every turn. StiU amidst this imperfect knowledge we find
those accents which stir the heart like the sound of a trumpet,
foretelling with the strongest confidence the ultimate triumph
of pure rehgion, the springing of a righteous Branch out of
the stem of Jesse, and the reign of a King who should execute
justice and mercy. New virtues, they say, shall flourish with
this new dispensation ; the nations shaU not learn war any
more ; the sacrifice of the (human) heart shall be counted
above that of bulls and oxen.
n

122

HOLT SCRIPTURE.

Although then some circumstances in the description of
God's First-born and Elect, by whom this change is to be
accomplished, may primarily apply to collective Israel, [many
others * will admit of no such apphcation. Israel surely was
not the chUd whom a virgin was to bear ; Israel did not make
bis grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death ;
Israel scarcely reconciled that strangely blended variety of
suffering and triumph which was predicted of the Messiah.]
^But however that may be, it is indisputable that a change
has partly come about, and is stUl partly proceeding ; such as
these ancient seers foretold. There is a growing society in
the world, which, though ever lashed by stormy waves, seems
stiU founded on a rock. Its members own as their Head one
whom they hail as Prince of peace ; an anointed one, a first
born, and an elect, — a Person, in whose mysterious unity
they are able to combine things which might have been
deemed incompatible : majesty and weakness, grace and awe,
suffering and conquering, death and immortality, frail man
and perfect God. f In him the mystery is unveiled, the riddle
is read aright. In his kingdom men are exalted by humihty,
triumphant by patience, immortal by death : and to this his
city not built with hands we are now taught by the interpret
ing revolution of events to apply what Isaiah spake of his
ideal Sion : " Arise, shine ; for thy hght is come, and the
glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the dark
ness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people :
but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory shaU be
seen upon thee. And the Gentiles shaU come to thy hght,
and kings to the brightness of thy rising."
Thus, after the lapse of centuries, the world has seen the
grand anticipations of those who worshipped Jehovah in a
httle corner of the world, fulfilled in a sense more magnificent
* I no longer feel confident of the assertion in brackets ; but now be
lieve that all the prophecies have primarily an application nearly con
temporaneous. — Febrmry 11, 1855.
t This appears to mo to be true only in the sense that the moral char
acter of the Deity is discerned in " the face of Jesus Christ." — G. R. N.

HOLY SCRIPTURE. 123
than they themselves expected. Perhaps indeed this gift of
foresight is not really more excellent or desirable than such a
keen perception of the truths which concern our peace as we
have .already found in the Old Testament. Nor dare I say
that the one has not been sometimes confounded with the
other. Yet this gift of prediction, as distinct from predica
tion, is so remarkable a quahty as to invest the prophetical
writings (according, at least, to the more received view of
them) with a character almost unique, and to furnish a dis
tinct ground for the Apostle's holding, that " whatever
things were written aforetime were written for our instruc
tion." But if for his instruction, brethren, who had seen the Lord
Jesus, much more for that of those whose lot is cast in later
days. We, too, like St. Paul, may have our hearts warmed
by whatever is glowing and excellent in the older writers ;
we, hke him, may trace the great stream of Divine Provi
dence, and admire the unconscious prefigurements of the great
Teacher of the world ; we, moreover, unhke him, may gather
corresponding instruction from his own writings also, and from
those of his companions in the ministry of the word. For
though these later writings are scarcely comprised in the
Scriptural canon to which our Saviour appealed, yet they
come from men who had the best opportunities of informa
tion ; who had seen the Son of God incarnate, and had been
animated by the Holy Spirit of God descending ; who also,
in the power of what they believed, either from eyesight or
from credible testimony, converted kingdoms, and buUt up
the Church of Christ on the ruins of the gigantic power which
they overthrew. Either the Apostles therefore' understood
Christianity, or else no one did. And now, suppose St. John
or St. Peter were at present to reappear on earth, with what
eager and devout curiosity should not we appeal to either of
them in our controversies, and entreat him to clear up our
difficulties ! Who would deny his narrative of some miracle
of our Lord's, or dispute his opinion as to what was pure and
undefiled religion ? But then may we not say, that such a

124 HOLY SCRIPTURE.
power of appeal is already in our hands ? St. John writing
cannot be less trustworthy than St. John preaching. In
neither case could he be termed omniscient; in both cases
men might carry away a wrong conception of his meaning ;
yet surely in both we ought (as Christians) to award him and
his feUows a respectful and candid hearing. On this ground
then, that the Apostles generally saw our Lord, and had the
best means of information as to his religion, their writings
seem to be properly added to those of the Old Testament
which they explain. They were men, indeed, compassed
with infirmities hke ourselves, and they professed only to
know in part, and to prophesy in part. Yet God has not
given us any higher written authority, and the highest which
he has given must be sufficient for our salvation. But why
reason from theory ? Search rather their writings in prac
tice, brethren, and you wiU find them sufficient for your peace.
If indeed you disdain rational and proper helps, such as a com
petent knowledge of the original tongues, and of the customs,
manners, and modes of thought of the persons using them,
you may stumble grievously in this, as -in any other inquiry.
You may then, if both unlearned and also unstable, wrest the
Scriptures to your own destruction. But if you are content
to start with such a key as the Church puts into your hands
in the form of the three primitive creeds, or of the Enghsh
prayer-book generaUy, you cannot go greatly wrong, even
in speculation. And if you use the Scriptures, as they were
intended to be used, chiefly for warning, for encouragement,
for consolation, you will find them the Book of books, — a
shrine from whence light wiU stream on your path, and an
oracle whose words wiU be comfort to your soul.
For, after all difficulties which may be raised, and all dis
tinctions which must be made, these Hebrew and Christian
Scriptures seem hkely ever to constitute the book dearest to
the downcast and the contrite, — to the bereaved, the outcast,
and the Magdalene, — to aU them that are stricken or afflicted
in mind, body, or estate. So CoUins, a man of the rarest
genius and largest endowments, solaced the lucid intervals of

HOLY SCRIPTURE. 125
an overwrought and shattered inteUect with one book, — " it
was the best," he said, — and it was the Bible. So many a
soul stricken with remorse has been lured back to the way
of hfe ; and so (what after all, beheve me, is far better)
many a pure spirit has been strengthened to preserve its gar
ments of fine linen unspotted through hfe, and so entered
without doubt into an inheritance undefiled.
Lastly, from the same source, we ever may derive strength
to resign those whom we love best into the hands of a merci
ful Creator and Redeemer ; not fearing also ourselves, when
God shaU caU us, to answer, " Even so, Lord : for so it
seemed good in thy sight. Now therefore into thy hands we
commend our spirits ; for thou hast redeemed us, O thou
God of Truth."

11*

SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING AS MOVED
BY THE HOLY GHOST.*
By ROWLAND WILLIAMS, B. D.,
FELLOW AND FORMERLY TDTOR OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND PROFESSOR OF
HEBREW AT LAMPETER.

" Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost." —
2 Peter i. 21.
So long as the rehgion of Christ is recommended only by
the inherent weight of its ideas, it stands on nearly the same
ground as the sentiments of justice or of right, if considered
prior to their being exemplified in history, or embodied in
law. Few minds, we may hope, are so brutishly depraved as
not to acknowledge their neighbor's right to his own life, to
the fruit of his labor, and to fair deahng in all social trans
actions, if only the conceptions of those things are brought
calmly and deliberately within cognizance of their thought.
But yet the naked idea of justice is not found powerful to
restrain men's actions with anything hke the dominion which
it is capable of acquiring when its principles have been em
bodied in law, transgression of them forbidden by penalty,
and instances of their operation in aU the transactions of life
# Preached before the University of Cambridge [Eng.], on the Second
Sunday in Advent, December, 1854.

128 SERVANTS OF GOD SPEAKING AS
recorded and set forth in the history of a nation. So far,
indeed, as the subjects of a realm are concerned, the authority
which practically binds them is not that of the abstract senti
ment of justice, but the positive law of the land.
A man is not permitted to argue that his conception of
justice gives him a social claim ; it is law which must ratify
that claim, define its measure, and lay down the method of
enforcing it. There is nothing in our own land so lofty, and
not many things so minute, as not to faU within the range of
positive and written law. But yet this law, which gives
majesty to the sceptre, and edge to the sword, extending its
ample shield over the hves of subject miUions, and enforcing
even for its own errors a sacredness which the wisest are the
slowest to dispute, has behind it and underneath it a power
greater than its own. For it is itself the creature of human
thought ; the ever-growing and often-varying embodiment of
the conceptions of mankind ; and although legislators, judges,
and reformers, or even martyrs in the cause of freedom, may
have spoken it of old, as they were moved by the providence
and the Spirit of God, teaching them either through experi
ence or through impulse, yet it is often marked by the imper
fections of its time. The vessels in which the great treasure
of the desire of justice was embodied, may have been vessels
of earth ; and if it is to retain its hold upon advancing gen
erations, it must purify itself ever by contact with the hving
fountains of justice ; must adapt its interpretation to new
exigencies of social life ; and must beware lest, by supersti
tious tenacity of the letter, any violence be done to the spirit,
— even to that sense of righteousness in man, which is ever
being trained upward, to realize the unwritten word of God.
Now we may very reasonably say, that to ourselves, as
members of the Church of England, the great standard of
theological doctrine must be that volume of Holy Scriptures
which embodies the experience of the Church of old ; the
record of her revelations, and the tradition of her spiritual
life ; the transfusion, as it were, of her spirit into writing ;
which also the Church of our own land has stamped with

MOVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 129
authority, by adopting it as her written law. There are many
obvious advantages in having so easy a court of appeal : an
authority which teaches by example as well as by precept ; a
judge not biassed by our controversies of the day ; and a
record extending over a sufficiently ample range of time for
questions of all kinds to have found in it a practical solution,
— for the blessings of innocence, and for the judgments which
wait on crime, to have been each very signally exemplified ;
and for the often-contending (though they ought to be har
monious) claims of king and priest and people, of power and
weakness, of wealth and poverty, to have each had a limit
assigned to them ; — a sentence, as it were, having been
passed upon them by that experience of generations which
expresses the verdict of the great Ruler of the world. More
over, it must be noticed, that Scripture wiU have a greater
sacredness than law, because it deals with a subject-matter
stiU more sacred ; and although the relations which the two
bear to the thing written about may be the same, yet since
the subjects are different, the writings wUl also differ.
Yet it ought ever to be acknowledged, that this Holy Scrip
ture, which aU members of our Church so justly regard with
veneration, has also something behind it deeper* and far
holier stiU ; and if that spirit by which holy men spake of
old is for ever a living and a present power, its later lessons
may well transcend its earlier ; and there may reside in the
Church a power of bringing out of her treasury things new
as weU as things old.
If it had been the will of Almighty God, we cannot doubt
his power to have instructed mankind by pouring before their-
gaze from the beginning all the treasures of his providence,
and aU the wonders of his grace. But it has pleased Him,
who doeth all things weU, to train up his Israel as a child, and
to make the experience of bygone generations a landmark for
* To deny this, is to deny Christ far more utterly than the Galatians
did ; and for any one to call such sayings an inversion of the groundwork
of Christianity, only shows the urgent need there is for servants of God
to preach them.

130 SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING AS
those who were to come. There was a time when as yet the
Bible was not, and we must not think that it was necessary
to salvation. For the Spirit of God may have then striven
with men ; possibly even his Eternal Offspring, the not yet
Incarnate Word, may have preached through the movements
of conscience, and through words of warning, in the days of
Noah. Certainly Enoch may have walked with God ; Mel-
chisedec may, in the sanctity of a Gentile priesthood, have
blessed Abraham ; the faith of the patriarch in One who
was his shield and his exceeding great reward, may have
been counted to him as righteousness ; and aU these, and
others whom no man can number, may have been gathered to
the spirits of just men made perfect, if not before any records
existed, at least centuries before the earhest of our sacred
books took their present form.
But when the patriarchs have grown into twelve tribes,
they are become a nation, and a nation must have a history ;
when they come out from the house of bondage, and conquer
a new land, the Author of their deliveranoe, and the Giver
of their conquest, must have his wondrous works recorded ;
when they have law, which is to be enforced by human rulers,
though with reference to the Divine Ruler, it must be written
in some express form ; or, just as man, because he has the
gift of reason, wiU utter speech with meaning, so the nation,
because thoughts are stirring in its breast, must have a voice
to speak forth the national mind ; and if the life which ani
mates its thoughts be truly religious, the words which are
their utterance must be sacred words. Thus, where there is a
church, there must be a Bible or a liturgy ; where there is a
true temple, there will be solemn psalms ; where decay or
formahsm creeps over the servants of the sanctuary, if the
spirit of God has compassion on his people to awaken them,
there wiU arise prophets, whose prote'st wiU be couched in
accents pregnant with eternal truth ; who wUl say to the dry
bones, u Live," and to the prostrate Church, " Stand upon
thy feet."
Thus, although man is gathered to his fathers, yet, as

MOVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 131
nations and churches represent, throughout fleeting genera
tions, the everlasting providence and spirit of God, so it is
probable they will strive to prevent their best thoughts from
being swept into forgetfulness ; and they wiU, by writing, give
a permanent shape to their record of things temporal, and
to their perception of things divine.
Then, again, if the destined course of the world be reaUy
one of providential progress, if there has been such a thing
as a childhood of humanity, and if God has been educating
either a nation or a church to understand their duty to him
self and to mankind ; it must follow, that, when the fulness of
hght is come, there wiU be chUdish things to put away. Not
(indeed) that any part wiU have been useless in its day ;
perhaps a certain unalterableness of spirit may run through
every link of the chain. Yet, if the chain is one of living
men, each link must have a freedom of expansion, and there
wiU be a power of modifying mere circumstance very differ
ent from the bare continuity of inanimate things. Hence, if
the religious records represent faithfuUy the inner life of each
generation, whether a people or a priesthood, they wUl all be,
in St. Paul's phrase, divinely animated, or with a divine life
running through them ; and every writing divinely animated
wiU be useful ; yet they may, or rather they must, be cast in
the mould of the generation in which they were written;
their words, if they are true words, wiU express the customs
of their country, the conceptions of their times, the feelings
or aspirations of their writers ; and the measure of knowledge
or of faith to which every one, in his degree, had attained.
And the limitation, thus asserted, of their range of knowl
edge, wiU be equaUy true, whether we suppose the short-com
ing to be, on an idea of special Providence, from a particular
dictation of sentiment in each case ; or whether, on the more
reasonable view of a general Providence, we consider such
things permitted rather than directed ; the natural result of a
grand scheme, rather than a minute arrangement of thoughts
and words for each individual man. It may be that the
Lord writes the Bible, on the same principle as the Lord

132 SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING AS
builds the city ; or that he teaches the Psalmist to sing, in
the same sense as he teaches his fingers to fight ; thus that
the composition of Scripture is attributed to the Almighty,
just as sowing and threshing are said to be taught by him ; *
for every part played by man comes from the Divine Dis
poser of the scene.
By some such process, however, as has above been sketched,
it has pleased the Giver of all wisdom to bring about for us
through his providence the writing of these sacred books,
which comprehend (1.) the literature of the Hebrew people,
(2.) the oracles of Jehovah's priesthood, and (3.) the expe
rience of the apostles of Christ.
For such seems to be a division under which we may
naturally class those many voices of the Church of God, or
those records of the spiritual convictions of the great society
in which the fear of the Lord has been inherited from gen
eration to generation, the aggregate of which books we call
the Bible. ShaU we venture to glance at each of these
divisions in turn? We claim for the oldest of our sacred
books an antiquity of perhaps fifteen hundred years before
the Christian era. But the external evidence for their ex
istence can hardly be said to extend over more than half
that period. For all the earlier half, we rely chiefly upon
the contents of the books themselves. Nor can we even
.appreciate this kind of evidence without a certain freedom of
investigation, which proceeds upon what Hooker assumes as
the primary revelation of the human understanding. Yet
from this kind of evidence we are able, for a large part of the
earlier books, to prove an origin of very high antiquity.
Partly, the language agrees with what the date requires ; as
in the earlier books of the Pentateuch there are Egyptian
words ; partly, the manners agree, whether we glance at the
ancient castes of Egypt, as attested by her monumental
stones, or at the wandering tents of the patriarchal tribes ;
partly, again, the general scenery is true in character ; and,
# Isaiah xxviii. 23-29.

MOVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 133
still more decisively, the general tone of feehng, and the men
tal horizon, as it were, of the writers, is exactly what we
should expect, as in due proportion to the age in which their
lot was cast. Only, it must be added, that all these proofs of
genuineness are also equaUy proofs of a positive limitation to
the range of knowledge. We cannot in one moment say,
these books were written in such an age because they have
the knowledge of that age, and in the next moment argue that
they have a divine omniscience, and therefore were dictated,
or, as it were, dropped from heaven ; for this would be, with
the greatest inconsistency, to destroy our own argument and
to introduce miracle, where we have been assuming the faith
fulness of God's providence ; as if we said, that the rain *
and the sunshine are a contradiction to those laws of the Au
thor of Nature which seem intended expressly to guide them.
Here, therefore, both for the above reasons, and for others
to be mentioned hereafter, let me in all humihty protest
against that unwise exaggeration which makes the entire
Bible a transcript of the Divine omniscience, or a word of
God for all time, without due reference to the circumstances
and to the range of knowledge of those holy men who spake
of old. The writers, after all, are men ; and the condition of
mankind is imperfection. They were holy men and servants
of God ; but yet all human holiness and all human service
is only comparative, and a thing of degree. They spake ;
but speech is the organ of thought ; therefore there is noth
ing in the Scripture but what was first in the mind of the
scribe. Nihil est in Scripto, quod non prius in Scriptore.
They spake of old ; but aU old times represent, as it were,
the chUdhood of the human race, and therefore had childish
things, which we must put away. The Holy Ghost was their
teacher ; but the province of this eternal Agent in our re
demption is not to give knowledge of earthly facts, which we
know by the providence of the Father, nor yet to give a new
revelation of things heavenly, which we know by the positive
* Dr. Powell of St. John's.
12

134 SERVANTS OF GOD SPEAKING AS
incarnation of the Son ; but the province of the Holy Ghost
is rather to quicken our conceptions of things otherwise
known ; to hallow our impulses, restrain our wanderings, and
guide our steps in those paths which the Father and the Son
have already laid down for us to walk in.
But let no one therefore suppose that this limitation of the
knowledge of the sacred writers should lessen the sacredness,
or destroy to us the usefulness, of that hterature which, ac
cording to the measure of its time, the Church of God spake
of old. We may receive the message of the servants as true
without for a moment dreaming that the great Master had
communicated to them aU the knowledge of his eternal plan.
We may acknowledge the history a very wonderful one, be
cause the events which it records were first wonderful. On
the same principle as the very structure of the Hebrew sen
tence is a written echo of the chant of the temple, so that
acknowledgment of the living God, which they whom the
nations despise, and Christians often misrepresent, have held
fast amidst a thousand persecutions, runs throughout their
history as a memorial of the mighty works of Jehovah in the
land of Ham, and by the Red Sea.
Without here venturing upon the very debatable ground
of where miracle begins and where providence ends, or
without determining (what perhaps is by no means so impor
tant as many may suppose) how much we ought strictly to
assign to each, we may safely say, the entire history, or htera
ture, is one which seems destined to be the handmaid of true
rehgion in the world. Just as the ancient Greek manifested
the sensitiveness of his organization and the activity of his
mind by a literature moulded in beauty and full of specula
tion ; and as the Roman, whose mission it was to civilize the
world with law, spoke the firm language of history and of
manly virtue ; so the Hebrew, having been wonderfully
trained, laid the wisdom of the Egyptians^ the feet of Je
hovah ; he looked upon the earth and its fulness, and he said
aloud, " It is the Lord's " ; he saw kings reign, and he felt
that One mightier than they had set fast their thrones ; he

MOVED BT THE HOLY GHOST. 135
heard of his fathers migrating, and marrying, and burying
their dead in a strange land ; and he felt that not one of these
things was disregarded in the sight of Him who teacheth the
wild-fowl their course through the heaven, and who uphold-
eth also our steps in hfe : or he bowed in the sanctuary on
Mount Zion ; and, as the question arose, " Who shall ascend
into the hiU of the Lord, or stand in his holy place ? " the
Spirit of God within him made answer, " He that hath clean
hands and a pure heart ; that hath not spoken the name of
Jehovah over falsehood, nor sworn to deceive his neighbor."
Thus, in short, the spirit which runs through the hterature
of the Hebrews is eminently a rehgious spirit ; in their his
tory, and in their proverbs, and in the common stories of the
people, though these may have been moulded somewhat in
Oriental form, there is • a true reference of aU things to the
wiU of a righteous Lord.
But, stiU more emphatically, the same character apphes to
the direct utterances of the great teachers of righteousness ;
to the oracular songs of the Temple, and to the kindling ac
cents in which the prophets woke the conscience of their
compatriots, as they denounced the fierce anger of a Judge
long provoked by incurable sin. There priest and prophet
go harmoniously hand in hand ; so that the attempts of the
assaUants of church polity to sever their functions are but
vain. It is the province of the priest, not only to teach the
difference between the holy and the profane, but also that his
hps should keep knowledge ; and again, however earnestly
the prophet may cry aloud for reformation of heart, he yet
never ceases to maintain the sacredness of whatever has
had spoken over it the holy name of the Most High.
Only we cannot judge either one or the other truly, unless
we regard them in the closest connection with the history of
the people among whom they are written. For they are not
so much a word of God, externaUy dropping from heaven, as
a true confession to God, responding from the heart of man.
Both the deep sighing of passionate devotion, and the fervent
trust in a dehverer out of national bondage, would lose half

136 SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING AS
their value, unless we believed that they came from men who
prayed earnestly for themselves ; who had tasted the rod of
the oppressor ; and who were concerned about the realities
of their own mind and their own time. But why should not
their devout sayings, and all the heroic deeds of trust, or love,
or magnanimity, serve to the same end in rehgion, as the his
tory of kingdoms in politics, and the strains of poetry in edu
cation, without our presuming to assign to the writers an in
fallibility which they never claim for themselves ? We may
read Moses, not for his physical geography, but for his ten
commandments and his history. We may read the book of
Joshua, not for its astronomy, but for a tremendous example
of the law by which God sweeps corrupt nations from the
earth ; we may find in Kings and Chronicles, not imaginary
and faultless men, but subjects of Divine providence, instances
of Divine teaching, and all that blending of interest with in
struction, which the history of a devout people, told with
reference to the Judge of the whole earth, is ever calculated
to afford. We may also fully admit the unalterableness of
Scripture, in the sense that deeds truly done cannot be un
done, and fixed principles cannot be changed ; nor would it
be modest, to weigh the personal authority of even the most
spiritual teacher now, against that of the Apostles who fol
lowed Christ ; but yet we need not suppose that the arm of
the Eternal is shortened, or that his Holy Spirit ever ceases
to animate the devout heart. Above aU, let noman blunt the
edge of his conscience, by praising such things as the craft
of Jacob, or the blood-stained treachery of Jael ; nor let the
natural metaphor, by which men caU a sacred record "the
word of God," ever blind us to the fact, that no text has
been found, from Genesis to Revelations, in which this holy
name is made a synonyme for the entire volume of Scripture ;
but rather, the spirit is often, especially in the New Testa
ment, put in opposition to the letter, and the living word, as
for instance it was spoken by the Apostles, is constantly dis
tinguished from the written tradition of the days of old.
Most commonly in the New Testament, the phrase word of

MOVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 137
God means' the gospel of Christ, or the glad tidings of the
Messiah being come. It should also be noticed, that, whUe
the discoveries of modern traveUers do so far confirm the
books of the Old Testament, as to show their historical char
acter, they give no countenance to any exaggerated theory of
omniscience, or dictation, but rather contravene any dream
of the kind. When men quote discoveries as confirmations
of the Bible, they should consider in what sense and how far
it is confirmed by them.
And now, if we pass on to the experience of the apostles
of Christ, we shaU- find ample means for enabling us to fix
its true value upon the record of Holy Scripture. However
true it may be, that we know less of the individual writers,
and of the precise dates of the three earher Gospels, than
our fathers took rather for granted, yet it is certain that they
express the belief and the preaching of the Church in the
first century of the Christian era. Thus, instead of three
men, we may rather appeal to the united testimony of the
hundred and twenty persons who constituted the infant
Church before the day of Pentecost.
And although some few books, such as the Epistle from
which our text is taken, have their authorship reasonably
caUed in question, yet modern criticism does, on grounds of
internal evidence, agree very closely with that behef as to the
genuineness of the Apostohc writings in general, which" the
primitive Church adopted, from traditions of her own. (This,
by the way, is an instance in which our modern freedom of
investigation has added a fresh argument to our evidence.)
In these books, then, we find traces of a new spirit in the
world. We have the thoughts of those who walked with
Christ, and heard the gracious words which he spake. We
have the simple fervor of one apostle ; the despondent diffi
dence of another; the angelic loveliness and the love of a
third ; and, above all, we have the Judaic learning, the awak
ened mind, the passionate zeal, the practical energy, and the
combining wisdom of St. Paul. The Epistles of this one
writer wiU alone prove that, whenever our Gospels may have
12*

138 SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING AS
been, perhaps, moulded out of the familiar converse of the
Apostles into their present form, the behef in our Lord's
resurrection from the grave was at least current long before
the destruction of Jerusalem.
Now, aU these writers of the New Testament appear partly
as antagonists of the Old, and partly as witnesses who confirm
it. Partly they are antagonists, for even the doctrines of
Christ find fault with much that had been spoken of old. He
appeals from the law of Moses about marriage to the purer
instinct of the heart, as that which had been from the begin
ning ; he refuses to confirm the law of retaliation ; and both
he and his apostles, but especiaUy St. Paul, turn men's
thoughts from the tradition of the wisdom of old time, which
was principaUy enshrined in the Bible, to that hfe of the soul
which comes of the Holy Ghost, and to the ever-expanding
law which is both written in the heart, and which accumulates
enactment from experience. For St. Paul's " tradition " con
tains his Hebrew descent, and his circumcision on the eighth
day, with many other things which had been purely scrip
tural. They had aU been written in the volume of the Book,
and yet he repudiates them all.
Whereas, on the other hand, the Scribes and Pharisees call
the foUowers of Jesus accursed for not knowing the law ; by
which they mean the Scripture. They even pride themselves
on searching the Scriptures, for they thought that therein
they had eternal hfe. Yet our Lord does not hesitate to
blame them, as searching the Scriptures in vain.
So again, St. Paul caUs the Galatians foohsh for desiring
to be under the law, under which term he includes the book
of Genesis. He is quite in accord with Jeremiah, who had
prophesied a time under Christianity when the word of God
should be written, not in book or stone, but on the fleshly
tables of the heart, or in the conscience of reasonable beings.
Yet, it is true, the same Apostle thinks that the Divine
Teacher of mankind had never ceased to warn his Church
of old ; and that by the great principle of trust in an unseen
but all-righteous Guide, he had led its members from the

MOVED BT THE HOLT GHOST. 139
beginning ; and hence all the utterances of that Church, or
the traditions of the Old Testament, are divinely animated ;
they are written for our instruction ; for who would not hsten
to the lessons of a great history of thought, or would spurn the
inheritance of his ghostly fathers ? And thus their tendency is
to make the servant of God wise, putting him, through the
medium of an enlightened understanding, on the track as it
were of Christian salvation.
Again, while the writings of the apostles of Christ repre
sent chiefly the principle of the living spirit, they are them
selves the utterance of the Church, or of that society which is
the habitation of the ever-present Spirit of God ; and, when
duly preserved, they are capable of being themselves handed
down as an inheritance or a tradition ; yet, as being a tradition
of a spiritual age, they may become witnesses, either for sober
history against vague mysticism, or for the lively inspiration
of the heart against the more lifeless tradition of a grosser
and more formalized age.
What blessed lessons, then, may we not derive, if we are
wise, from those holy books ? What evidences do they not
afford of our faith ! They do not merely record, so much as
absolutely talk of the inspired hves of the men who indited
them. What warning do they not utter, as with a trumpet's
sound, when we, forgetful of the Rock from whence we are
hewn, become neghgent in the work of the Lord ! What
comfort do they not breathe, in all our sorest distress, — in
our perplexity of mind, in our pain of body, and in our lowli
ness of estate ! By cherishing their words we assimUate our
thoughts to the minds of apostles, and saints, and martyrs ;
casting, as it were, our earth-bound affections over again in a
holier mould, and so drinking of the deep fountains which
have their source in the weU of life beneath the throne of the
majesty of God our Saviour.
Let no man be ashamed, if the page on which such words
are written is often wet with his tears ; or if their fashion,
though in many things it be temporal, give shape and voice
to his deepest thoughts of things eternal. Neither inteUect,

140 SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING AS
nor humanity, nor devotion, can anywhere be better purified
and strengthened than in the homely page either of our fa-
mhiar Prayer-book or of our Bible. There our sorrow and
our guUty alarm wUl almost inevitably flee for comfort ; and
there, if we are wise, we shaU learn in time to discipline our
youth, and to purify our joy.
But yet, brethren, let no inconsiderate exaggeration, and
no polemical reaction from overstrained claims of the Church
of Rome, induce us to mistake the spirit of the Gospel or of
the Cross for the letter of the Bible. A man may know his
Bible by heart, and yet tum a deaf ear to the word of God.
He may lay stress on temporary accidents, such as anointing
with oil; and may be blind to eternal principles, such as
faith, hope, charity. He may even express the most malig
nant passion in Scriptural phrase, as if truth were more true,
or mahce were less hateful, because the vehicle in which it is
conveyed may be of Aramaic form. Thus some have de
fended slavery because they truly observe that St. Paul's
epistles do defend it, and even condemn attempts to abohsh it
as the work of men " proud, knowing nothing." * Yet it is
evident, that God had destined slavery to flee away in time
before the principles with which the Gospel is pregnant.
Thus our rehgion is one thing, and the books which record it
are another. Some, again, have laid unreasonable stress upon
the accidental opposition of Christianity to the governments
and religions of the corrupt generation in which it was first
founded ; and hence many irrational arguments against kings
and priests ; yet it is evident that the sacredness of the office
of governor, and of teacher, and of rightful minister in the
sanctuary, must last as long as this world endures. How
many, again, with most unfair sophistry, distort various texts
of Scripture in order to force them unnaturally into a har
mony which they suppose needful ; whereas the very idea of
a divine teaching, which hes at the bottom of the Bible, im
plies also the idea of progress, and makes it natural for the
* 1 Tim. vi. 2-4.

MOVED BT THE HOLY GHOST. 141
newer sentences to differ from the old. So, again, every new
science has to run the gauntlet of opposition, until, after forcing
its way through bitter searchings of heart, it is at last pre
tended to be in harmony with those texts which were once
(more truly, but yet quite irrelevantly) aUeged to oppose it.
Time would fail me to teU of Puritan perverseness, of fanati
cism passing into tyranny, of science persecuted, reason in
sulted, morahty depraved, and the Gospel of Christ congealed,
mutilated, and clipped, as it were, of its wings, because men
have assumed what the Bible does not assume, that inspira
tion means omniscience, or that the All-gracious Father, who
taught men of old, has his unsleeping eye blinded or his arm
shortened, so that he can teach us now no more. But per
haps no single study has suffered so much from this cause
as the interpretation of the Bible itself. It may, however,
be suggested, whether devotion also has not suffered some
what. For although the Psalms and other sacred writings
are a treasury of expressions which harmonize admirably
with the deepest breathings of our hearts ; yet, when men
compile prayers from these with servile imitation, as school
boys take verses from the poets, the spirit of devotion is apt
to be exorcised. And this is one reason why modern prayers
are so inferior to the ancient liturgies ; for so long as the
Church of old beheved in the real presence of the Holy
Ghost, she waxed mighty in prayer as she grew rich in ex
perience ; then the storehouse of her hturgies became heaped
with things old, and yet her heart ever indited good matters
that were new ; and from those fountains the stream of prayer
has flowed into all lands, until, at last, our bishops and pas
tors, as if they despaired of the promise of Christ, would
take no weapon in hand that had not been hammered on the
Jewish anvil. And so, many of our modern prayers have
become a lifeless patchwork of texts ; * a disquisition to the

# Compare Jeremy Taylor, Preface to Golden Grove. Would that
those who in our own time have right manfully endeavored to heal the
disease of unreality in our devotional compilations, did not too often

142 SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING AS
people, instead of a crying to God; and, as there is little
affection in them which might even savor of the spirit, so
there is often something which offends the understanding.
We have fallen, in this respect, far below the level which
the genius and the piety of Hooker had attained three cen
turies ago. That iUustrious champion, both of the purity of
the Gospel of Christ and of the freedom of the human mind,
shows clearly, in the second book of his immortal work, how
Scripture may become " a misery," and " a torment," and " a
snare " ; and his counsel is most truly judicious, that we
should beware, lest, by claiming for Holy Scripture more
than we ought, we provoke men to deny it its due ; lest, in
fact, we pervert the Bible itself, and either destroy the
spirituality of our faith, or give occasion to many perverse
delusions; or, again, provoke tiU we almost justify a most
dangerous reaction into scoffing infidelity.
But if such was Hooker's counsel in his own time, how
much greater need is there that some one, either in his spirit,
or in that of the incomparable Jeremy Taylor, should speak
words of even bolder counsel now ! For it hath pleased the
Giver of our thoughts, and the Disposer of our lot, to enlarge
on all sides the boundaries of human knowledge. There is
no science of the heavens above, or of the earth beneath, or
of the waters under the earth, which has not revealed mys
teries of its own ; or which does not refuse to be limited by
the brief range of the Hebrews, who in all such things were
learners rather than teachers. Again, our more extended
familiarity with other literatures daUy shows us that aspira
tions congenial to those of the Hebrews had been taught
elsewhere by the God of the spirits of all flesh. But, above
all, the critical interpretation of the sacred volume itself is a
bring their own remedies from the dregs of the Middle Ages : and often,
by assembling merely the dolorous portions out of Scripture, make work
in feminine and sensitive natures for physicians of the body, (I speak
from sad observation, ) rather than do the work of the Physician of souls.
But the true kingdom of God brings peace and joy in believing, with
childlike confidence.

MOVED BY THE HOLY GHOST. 143
study for which our generation is, by various acquirements,
eminently qualified. Hence we have learnt that neither the
citations usuaUy made in our theological systems, nor even
those adduced from the Old Testament in the New, are any
certain guide to the sense of the original text. The entire
question of prophecy requires to be opened again from its
very foundation. Hence, to the student who is compelled to
dweU on such things, comes often the distress of glaring con
tradictions ; and with some the inteUect is clouded, whUe the
faith of others has waxed cold. If the secret religious his
tory of the last twenty years could be written, (even setting
aside every instance of apostasy through waywardness of
mind, or through sensuality of life,) there would remain a
page over which angels might weep. So long, indeed, as
such difficulties are thought absolutely to mihtate against
Christianity, the strong necessity which the best men feel for
Christian sentiment will induce them to keep the whole sub
ject in abeyance. Yet surely the time must come when God
will mercifuUy bring our spirit into harmony with our under
standing. Perhaps a greatness and a place not far from the
Apostles in the kingdom of heaven may be reserved for
some one, who, in true holiness and humUity of heart, shall
be privheged to accomplish this work. We can almost sym
pathize with that romantic though erroneous faith, which has
made some men attempt to roU back the stream of human
knowledge, and to take refuge from doubts in a dream of
living infalhbUity. But all such attempts must fail ; for the
God of truth wiU make them faU. He who dwells in hght
eternal does not promote his kingdom by darkness ; and He
whose name is Faithful and True is not served by falsehood.
K knowledge has-wounded us, the same spear must heal our
wound. Nor can I close without humbly asking the grave, the
reverend, and the learned, whether all this subject does not
caU for greater seriousness, tenderness, and frankness. Who
would not be serious on observing how many men's hope of
heaven is bound up with behef in the infalhbUity of a book,

144 SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING AS
which, every day convinces us, expresses, as regards things of
earth, the thoughts of faUible men ? Or who would not pity
rather than blame, when the very inquiries in which the love
of God and zeal for his honor first engaged us seem to intro
duce (according to popular theories) the most distressing con
tradictions ? Or who is so blind as to think the cause of
eternal truth should be defended by sophistries, of which a
special pleader would be ashamed ? One would make large
allowance for the conscientious anxiety of those eminent per
sons, whose position makes them responsible as bulwarks of
the faith; and who are ever dreading the consequences to
which the first outlet of the waters of freedom may tend.
But may God in his mercy teach them, that nothing can be
so dangerous as to build on a false foundation. The ques
tion, how far we would go, will best be answered by ex
perience. Only it never wiU be safe to stop short of the
Truth. But, in fact, almost everything doubtful, or, at least, every
thing transparently erroneous, in our sacred books, might be
surrendered to-morrow with httle or rather no detriment to
the essentials of the Christian faith. It is strangely unreason
able for men to argue that they cannot believe God ought to
be worshipped in spirit and in truth, unless they are also con
vinced that Cyrenius was president of Syria, or that the
Cretans were always liars. Nor ought any one to doubt
whether God made sea and land, because it may fairly be
questioned how far the poetry in Joshua about the sun stand
ing stUl (or the aUegory in Jonah about the whale) ought to
be interpreted hteraUy.
Almost all difficulties which are fairly raised belong to
those things of earth, about which weU-meaning Martha was
unnecessarily cumbered; while the hfe and the power and
the salvation are the inalienable inheritance of Mary, while
she sits in calmness at the feet of the Saviour.
Let not then exaggerations, or polemical inferences, frighten
us in vain. We may grant to the Romanist, as well as to
many Anglicans, that the Church was before the Bible, as a

MOVED BT THE HOLY GHOST. 145
speaker is before his voice ; and that Holy Scripture is not
the foundation of the Christian faith so much as its creature,
its expression, and its embodiment. But it wUl not therefore
follow that this Holy Scripture should be sealed in dead
languages, or withheld from men thirsting for the words of
life. Nor ought any modern mystic to persuade us that the
history of the Divine dealings of old is ever useless to the
human mind ; and yet we may concede that the two things
from which Scripture sprang are for ever in the world, —
I mean the conscience of man, and the Holy Spirit of God.
From these two, meeting in the Church, the Bible derives its
origin, its authority, and its power to persuade.
I exhort, therefore, every soul who hears me to value
highly the Bible ; to read it, pray over it, understand it.
But yet beware of lying for God ; or of ascribing infaUibUity
to men of like passions with ourselves ; or of sacrificing the
spirit which enhvens to the letter which deadens.
So may you deserve the praise of those ancient Beroeans,
who are ever honored because they were more ingenuous
(eiyeveo-Tepoi), or because their minds were candid in receiv
ing the truth. So too wiU you be, not infidels, but behevers
in Holy Writ, when it tells you that its authors knew only in
part, and prophesied only in part ; so wiU you avoid attrib
uting blasphemy to them, by caUing the word of God that
which they profess to speak as men ; and even to speak as
fools ; so wiU you not make them, as writers, more than they
were as speakers ; nor will you sever, as they did not sever,
their inspiration from that of the congregation at large, when
they exclaim, "I think that I too" (SokS be Kay<&),.that is, "I,
as well as others, have the Spirit of God." But above aU,
so will you be blessed, as servants of that living God who is
never weary of creating, and whose promise is that he will
dwell- among us ; and so too disciples of Jesus, who prayed,
not for his Apostles only, but for all who should believe
through their word ; whose most precious testament was, not,
I give you the Bible, but, " I send you the Comforter, even
the Spirit of truth " ; and whose binding promise is, not, I
13

146 SERVANTS OP GOD SPEAKING, ETC.
am with the first generation of Christians, and possibly with
the second, but, " Lo, I am with you alway, even to
THE END OP THE WORLD."*
* Abundant proofs of the non-Petrine origin of the Epistle called St.
Peter's Second, are given in the second edition of Bunsen's Hippolytus,
from whence, however, I did not learn it. Even Eusebius had said, " Of
the writings named as Peter's, I know only one Epistle genuine." Hist.
Eccl. III. 3. The internal character of the Epistle corresponds with this
external disavowal. But if any one asks me, Why then take your text
from it 1 such a questioner, I presume, thinks that a sentiment cannot be
true, or worthy of commentary, unless it be a particular Apostle's ; that
is to say, he thinks things are true because they are written, instead of
being written because they are true ; or again, 'he thinks that the Church
has not authority sufficient to persuade even her own ministers what
books they shall lecture upon. But to no one of these propositions am
I able to assent ; nor again do I feel any difficulty in adopting the senti
ment of my text, whoever may have written it.
Having said positively that nowhere in Holy Scripture is the term
" word of God " made an equivalent or synonyme for the Bible, I may
refer to the Sermon on the Kingdom of God for an explanation of some
texts usually misapplied. I did not make up my own mind on this spe
cific point until after a consideration extending over many years. The
two texts most favorable to the vulgar Pharisaism are perhaps St. Mark
vii. 13 and vii. 7 ; but in the one, the thing intended is the fifth command
ment, as we see from St. Matthew xv. 4, 9, where also we find things
both Levitical and Scriptural condemned by our Lord (see ver. 10, 11) :
and in the other, the antithesis is not between written and unwritten,
but between divine will and human precept. Perhaps irapdSoo-ts means
precept oftener than tradition.
It should, however, be clear, that I know of no tradition, ecclesiastical
or other, worthy to be named in the same day with St. Paul's Epistles ;
and I admit Kara crvp^e^rfKos the approximate coextensiveness of our
New Testament Scriptures and of Apostolic doctrine ; only I cannot vio
late the first principles of Christianity itself, as well as of human reason,
by putting the letter before the spirit, or the books before the religion, as
our popular tradition does. We are rightly taught that " all Holy Scrip
ture is written /ot-omj- instruction." Whenever, therefore, it is used to stunt
our knowledge, or fetter our spirits, it must be misapplied ; as we read
that it was by the great Tempter.

THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER, OR THE
TRUTH AND THE BOOK.*
Bt ROWLAND WILLIAMS, B. D.,
FELLOW AND FORMERLY TUTOR OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND PROFESSOR OF
HEBREW AT LAMPETER.

" After the way which (they) call heresy, so worship I the God of my
fathers." — Acts xxiv. 14.
There certainly was a time when to be a member of the
Society of Friends implied something greater than more or
less harmless peculiarities ; for they bore witness before
princes and people, in bonds and persecution, for the great
principle of the spirit of the living God, and were not
ashamed. L° then one of them had been asked, Do you not
worship the God of battles ? he might possibly have answered,
No ; and again, if he were told that the Almighty is called
in the Old Testament the Lord of hosts, it is conceivable
that he might have rejoined, But we have better oracles.
Immediately upon this might have been raised a cry, This
man is an infidel, for he denies the Scriptures ; or rather an
atheist, for he disowns the Lord of hosts. Yet the Quaker
again might plead, that he had learnt to know God, not so
much by might, or by power, as by the spirit wherewith he
has taught us to call him, " Our Father which is in heaven."
* Preached before the Vice-Chancellor and University of Cambridge
[Eng.], in King's College Chapel, on March 25, 1855.

148 THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER,
He might go on to affirm, that, in thus recognizing the eternal
I AM under his more blessed character as the Prince of
Peace, he did not for a moment deny the same Lord to have
been known as Almighty by the patriarchs, and as Eternal by
the Jews ; but still, that the sundry times and divers man
ners of ancient revealing had somewhat melted in the bright
ness of the revelation of that Spirit, which cometh forth from
the Father and the Son. Thus, that many things " said of
old time," * in the rigor of the letter, must now be interpreted,
or rather expanded, in the freedom of life ; and so, after a
manner which, even if it were called heresy, was yet the
manner of Christ and his apostles, he worshipped the God of
his fathers.
Nor would such an answer be unlike in spirit to those
which the great Apostle of the Gentiles often urges in vain
upon the attention of his irritated countrymen. For it is not
only at Athens that he is caUed an introducer of new divini
ties ; but at Jerusalem he is denounced as one who taught
apostasy from the sacred place, and the Book of the Law,
and the worship of the God of the Hebrews.f Difficult as it
may be, with our scanty information, to reconcUe some parts
of his conduct — such as the " being at charges " in partici
pation of sacrifice in the temple — with his argument in the
Epistle to the Galatians, we are yet able to observe a
wonderful blending of courage with dehcacy in his manage
ment of the many intricate questions which are proposed to
him. He does not think that the Father of the spirits of
all flesh was a God of the Jew only, and not also of the
GentUe, yet he concedes there may have been great advan
tage in those opportunities of enlightenment, and in that
faithfulness of the Divine promises, which belonged to the
* Compare the running antithesis, St. Matt. v. 21 - 27, 31, 43, with
Jer. xxxi. 31, 32 ; Heb. viii. 8 - 10 ; 2 Cor. iii. 4 - 14 ; 1 Cor. ii. 7 ; iii.
1 ; 1 John ii. 20 - 27.
•f The common charge against the early Christians was, with Jews,
infidelity; with Gentiles, atheism. The word heresy had not yet ac
quired its technical sense.

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 149
chosen people of old. So he admits even the Law of Moses
to have been in its idea holy and pure, yet he contends that
this sanctity was not from the fact of its being imposed with
penalties at the Exodus, but from its participation in those
older and holier principles of which Abraham had the promise,
and even the GentUes a scripture in their heart. The Law,
then, so far as it is Mosaic, and penal, or even outwardly
preceptive, can never be the highest guide of those who have
the mind of Christ, — yet its ancient records may stUl be
useful ; and not only would he quote them largely, in address
ing Jews who " desired to be under them," as he quotes even
Gentile prophets in addressing Athenians, but his own mind
was evidently imbued with reverential affection towards those
songs of Zion which (as the liturgy of his race) he must often
have sung in solemn services, and to those deeply searching
prophets whose fervent spirit, ever penetrating from the form
of godliness to its power, was so often a type of his own.
Again, the Apostle does not seem able to contend, that the
entire scheme of Christianity is legible in the Old Testament
with that perfect clearness which some modern interpreters
would compel us to acknowledge ; and our favorite citations
of prophecy find in him httle place ; but yet he thinks there
was always a unity in the Divine dealings ; the predestination
of the Gospel may have been veiled, but yet it must have
been predestined * as a scheme for caUing men to repentance
from aU eternity; and though this veiled design had lurked
under the choice of temporal Israel, and under the offering of
slain beasts, and the form of written precepts, yet its mean
ing (mystery) would be revealed in the uncovering to aU men
of the face of the Father, — in the hvely sacrifices of men
saying by the spirit of Christ, " Lo, I come to do thy will," f
— and in the purified vision of consciences quickened by a
faith which should draw life from love, and thereby be the
fulfilment of the highest law.

* First chapter of Ephesians.
t Compare Psalm xl. 8 and Hebrews x. 7 -
13*

150 THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER,
Thus is St. Paul a servant, faithful to Christ, and yet wise
in the wisdom of Moses ; bringing out of his treasury things
new, without dissociating them rudely from things old.
Now we cannot say that any change so great as that
heralded by the first preachers of Christ is to be expected in
our own time. For certainly the words of Christ, in their
highest meaning, do not pass away. May there not, however,
be something sufficiently analogous for the great .Apostle's
example in tins, as in other respects, to have been written for
our instruction, though upon us the last dispensation is come ?
Even in the same generation, there are many persons who
may claim alike the designation of Christians, yet whose con
ceptions of the Gospel differ so widely, that no one of them
could adopt the views of any other one without a change of
mind so sweeping as to be painful. Even in our own Ifves,
if we have made it our business to study religion, either as a
matter of thought or of practice, we cannot but be conscious
of passing through certain changes of apprehension. When
we are chUdren, we think as chUdren ; and when we are men,
we put away childish things. But, much more, in a succes
sion of generations, very great differences may be expected to
prevail in the mode of holding a truth essentially the same.*
The Christianity of the early Fathers of the Church is hardly
that of St. Augustine ; still less is it that of St. Anselm, f or
of Calvin. The great object of our faith remains the same
yesterday, to-day, and for ever ; but those reflections from his
thoughts, which are thrown figuratively J on the mirror of our
understanding, may be darker or more distinct, from day to
day. Perhaps even the very truth which saves the soul,
* See some admirable remarks on this, needed now more than when
they were written, in Professor Hey's Norrisian Lectures, edited by
Bishops Kaye and Turton.
t A sufficient notion of St. Anselm may be got from some recent
Bampton Lectures by Mr. Thompson; but the accomplished author
seems to be hardly aware how much more profound what the Pathcrs
meant was than the supposed improvement of St. Anselm.
X iv alviyfum. 1 Cor. xiii. 12.

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 151
whether it be called faith, or love, or Christ, or the Holy
Ghost, may be held with more or less clearness. Or, if this
be thought necessarUy simple and uniform, still there is a
point, which may be difficult to define, — but there is a point,
at which the truth of things eternal comes in contact with our
experience of things temporal, and there the knowledge, the
manners, the favorite studies, of every generation of Christians
may indefinitely vary, and give a bias in proportion to their
mode of conceiving of some of the associations of their faith.
Thus, in our own time, our wider acquaintance with both
nations and languages, our habit of scrutinizing ancient rec
ords and comparing different faiths together, as weU as the
cultivation of those mental inquiries which approach, if they
do not touch, upon rehgion, have aU tended to awaken a spirit
which some condemn, and others welcome, but which most
observers wiU admit to exist. Even if discoveries which
must affect the general shape of our conceptions as regards
Divine Revelation are not now made for the first time, yet a
knowledge of such discoveries, confined perhaps once to a
few scholars, is now diffused amongst masses of men ; and the
real significance, or the import, with which some character
istics of our sacred literature are pregnant, is far more clear
ly discerned, from the opportunities which we enjoy for com
paring such things with simUar phenomena elsewhere. There
is a leaven which may have been in the world before, but
which is now fermenting through the three measures of meal.
Hence arises the question, how a growing spirit of scepticism
in some quarters, and of perplexity in others, ought to be met
by those who are responsible both to God and man for the
stability or the progress of religion in the world. And if it
be now, as ever, the abiding sentence of the Almighty, that
whoso rejects knowledge shaU be rejected from being priest
before him, a few suggestions on this subject may well claim
your attention, brethren, in these walls, which were conse
crated to be a nursery of the faith of Christ, and upon this
our solemn Feast-day.
There are some persons who look on aU the tendencies

152 THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER,
above aUuded to with undisguised alarm ; and others who do
so with hope, or at least with perfect tranquUlity of faith.
Does not this difference of view imply, that there are also two
sets of persons, one laying exclusive stress upon the evidences
of the body, the other regarding rather those of the mind ? It
is obvious to remark, that these two aspects ought *to be com
bined rather than separated ; but we find that a tendency in
either one direction or the other is apt to preponderate so
much as to give a practical impress to a man's character, and
to the cast of his behef.
The first set consider man as a mere animal, and divorce
him by nature from God and from immortality. They may
do this, either from a materiahzing philosophy of the senses,
or from an ultra- Augustinian emphasis on the fall of Adam ;
but in either case, they leave as wide a gulf between God and
mankind, as that which Mahomet was unable to fill. As to
any pure voice of conscience, or better aspiration of the heart
leading us upward, they almost boast of considering aU such
things utterly untrustworthy; they cast a disdainful glance
over the great history of the Gentile world, and find in it no
traces of the finger of the God of the spirits of all flesh ; and
if they are asked, How then does God teach man ? they
answer, By Moses on Mount Sinai, and by our blessed Lord
in Jerusalem ; and these two revelations are so attested by
miracles, that we cannot doubt their truth, while on account
also of the same miracles we have our attention imperiously
arrested by the Book which records them ; and are then led
to regard that Book as not only true, but exhaustive of truth,
and unquestionably the very word of God. Thus only, as
they conceive, can we arrive at the satisfaction of certainty ;
for as to any agreement of the contents of the Book with our
moral and intellectual being, that is at best a secondary and
an untrustworthy kind of evidence ; our great foundation is
miracle, and our only result is the Bible.
On the other hand, our second set of thinkers look upon
mankind as something different from the beasts that perish.
They regard him rather as the child of God ; faUen indeed,

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 153
or falling ever, below that which his Maker caUs good, and
his own earnest expectation groans for ; yet still trained by
Providence ; appealed to, however indiscernibly, even from
childhood upwards, by something of spiritual experience ;
and, from the mould in which he was formed, not destined to
find rest or happiness apart from that Being whose image he
bears. Nor is this, as they contend, a fanciful conception,
but one to which all history bears witness, — the greatest men,
and the noblest nations, and the most enduring virtues, having
been everywhere sustained by some vestige of such a behef ;
nor ought it to be aUowed, according to aU human analogies,
that the admixture of various errors is any argument against
a truth, which may yet survive, as the redeeming principle,
among them. So that just as Christianity had the Law as its
schoolmaster among the Jews, it may also have had a prep
aration of men's minds by training for it, from the great
teachers of righteousness in Hellas, and from the masters of
polity at Rome. And just as these to the ancient Gentile, so
our conscience with aU our experience of history may be to
us now, what Moses and the Prophets were to the Jews, in
respect of the great Teacher and Saviour to come.
Here then is a tone of thought very different from the one
first described. If we attempt to Ulustrate the two from
ancient heresies, we might say the first has an Ebionite ten
dency ; the second is in danger of some form of Gnostic
error. Or, if we consider them both as interpreting things
connected with Scripture, the one would say, that the phy
lacteries of the Jews, with texts, were worn in obedience to
express revelation; the other would see in them a strong
figure * of exhortation corrupted into a formal usage. So by
TJrim and Thummim, one would understand, that a light,
grossly physical, and yet supernatural, falling on the high-
priest's breastplate, made its stones oracular ; while the other
* Compare Exodus xiii. 9-16 with Numbers xv. 38, 39. Does the
greater literalness of the later book (considering also the signs of com
pilation in its twenty-first chapter) betray an interval of some genera
tions 1

154 THE SPTRIT AND THE LETTER,
would imagine rather a symbol of that hght which God gives
to his upright ones in the clearness of understanding. Per
haps, again, the Shechinah of the temple (or even of the
tabernacle) might admit of a similar variety of interpreta
tion. Again, if we ask the followers of the two tendencies we
are describing for their watchwords, one wiU reply, the in
falhbUity of the Bible ; but the other will say, the truth of
Christ. So, the one would define Christianity as the rehgion
contained in the Bible ; whereas the other would call it the
Gospel, as being good news ; or the doctrine of the Cross, as
being self-sacrifice ; or, in short, the rehgion of Christ. The
one, then, pays its principal aUegiance to the Scripture, which
is true ; but the other to the Truth, which is also written.
Again, the one finds a duty, and even takes a pleasure, in
opposing the Bible, by means of the sharpest conceivable
contrasts to aU the whispers of natural equity, to the purest
yearnings of our affections, and to the presentiments of our
conscience ; whereas the other never hesitates to say, that
the Bible itself is either a providential embodiment of those
very things, which are the witness of God in man, and can
not be disparaged without blasphemy ; or else at least it is a
result, for which, under the good guidance of God, they had
been preparing the way.
It is now easy to understand why the advocates of our
first manner of thinking are so disquieted by anything which
teUs, I do not say against the general truth, but against the
infallibility of the Sacred Records, which they make not only
the symbol, but the foundation, of their faith. For they have,
as it were, desecrated life and all its experiences ; they have
in effect, if not in intention, removed God from it as far as
they can ; they think all its fair humanities, whether art, or
music, or literature, have at best httle to do with religion, and
are perhaps dangerous to it. Hence they survey their progress
with indifference, diversified only by fits of panic ; while as
for the deep sense of things eternal, wherewith our Maker
encompasses us, — the crying out of the heart and the flesh

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 155
for the living God, the instantaneous response of every un-
corrupt conscience to the sayings of our Saviour upon the
mount, and the calm happiness which comes of weU-doing,
— they have either so materialized * their own souls that
they are not conscious of such experiences, or else they think,
that, apart from a particular fashion of speech, such things
are utterly untrustworthy, and possibly may be of the Devil.
In short, they have staked their cause upon one argument.
It may be doubted if that is the one St. Paul would have
recommended, or if it would have been chosen by those who
had been longest at the foot of the Cross. "Except they
see signs and wonders, they will not believe." When, then,
their tendency of opinion reaches its full result, such men's
religion becomes neither a leaven fermenting through human
nature, nor a vine rooted and growing, nor a living and a
moulding power ; but it is as an image faUen down once for
aU from heaven, with no analogy in nature, with no parallel
in history, with no affinity among the Gentiles, and (except
for some special reasons) with no echo to its fitness from the
human heart. Hence, however, it is only natural for any
encroachment on the solitary ground of such persons' faith to
appear " dangerous " ; and since the great recommendation
of all their cast of sentiment was its fancied safety, they are
in proportion alarmed. Thus it is painful to them even to be
told of little discrepancies in our sacred books ; they cannot
understand that a true teacher of religion may be imperfectly
informed in other things, though analogous instances might
strike them every day ; even the idea of religious growth,
which pervades the whole Bible, is not kindly accepted by
them, or is confined to one or two great epochs of dispensa
tion ; and as for the many inquiries of great literary and his
torical interest, which the criticism of the Sacred Volume
involves, they have so prejudged such questions, that they
either will not acquire the knowledge requisite to answer
them, or they shut their eyes to any fresh form of the answer,
* That is, in St. Paul's language, " made carnal."

156 THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER,
as it appears in the light of to-day ; or they even raise an
outcry against the investigation of any more consistent stu
dent, as if it were a triumph of " infidelity," — and thereby
they most unwisely make it so. Certainly, their heart does
not stand fast ; for they are afraid when any fresh tidings
come, either from general knowledge, or from fervent and
self-sacrificing devotion, or from a critical study even of the
Bible. But turn we now to those who, reverencing the letter at
least as deeply as St. Paul did, have yet grounded their faith
mainly on the spirit, without neglecting the aids of the un
derstanding. They are persuaded that they may justify the
ways of God by rendering to. the intellect its own, and yet
render to faith the things that are faith's. Nay, rather, they
think that doing the one is a condition necessary to the other.*
Clearly, then, it does not disturb them to learn that the pur
pose of God, though veUed from the Jews (pvo-rripiov), had
made the GentUes, even of old, heirs of a certain salvation
of the soul. Hence they approach with calmness such ques
tions as how far Moses took anything from the wisdom of the
Egyptians, or whether HeUenizing Hebrews f had used lan
guage adopted by St. Paul and St. John; they can even wel
come any fresh instances that God has left himself nowhere
without witness ; and, since both providence and grace have
ultimately One Giver, they can easily believe that the one
has been a cradle for the other. Perhaps, indeed, the won
derful correspondence between the spiritual judgments of the
Gospel and of the purest searchers after godliness elsewhere,
* The saying, Believe, that thou niayest understand, belongs more to
principles than to facts, and may be as much misused as its opposite,
Let me understand, that I may believe. Por it has been applied to dark
ness as often as to light. Hence it might be better to say, Love the truth,
that thou mayest know it. Por this would give nearly the same lesson, and
be less liable to abuse.
t Good Jacob Bryant wrote a book to prove that Philo resembled St.
John ; and although his chronology requires to be inverted, his proof of
the resemblance holds good.

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 157
is not one of the least arguments for the true divinity of Christ.
For it shows that the Wisdom which took flesh in him came
from the Supreme and Universal Teacher of mankind. Nor,
again, do Christians, such as I now speak of, require a great
gulf between the experiences of devout men to-day and those
of the servants of God in the days of old. One of their great
reasons for believing things written in Scripture is, that they
experience the same. They are persuaded of the comfort of
prayer, the peace of trustfulness, the joy of thanksgiving, the
rightful rule of hohness, the necessity of repentance, and the
wholesomeness of a discipline of conscience ; and they gladly
welcome the forgiveness of sins. .Because God teaches such
things now, they more easily believe he taught them of old.
Nor have they any desire to doubt, that He who thus fash
ioned the hearts of his people, may also have exhibited great
wonders of old to their external sense. The great majority
of them, indeed, implicitly beheve the letter of every miracle
in the Bible ; yet they would never be so iUogical as to make
these remote and often obscurely attested events the proof*
of things being true which they know by experience, and
which are so far more important in saving the soul alive.
Hence many of them beheve the miracles for the sake of the
doctrines ; and this order is more truly Christian than the
converse. Some of them, however, would remark, that the
modern definition of a miracle is far too technical ; in the old
Hebrew mind, everything was a great wonder which caused a
present awe of the great Governor of the world. Thus the
morning roU of the tide, and the stormy wind arising, were
great wonders ; and though other things, to which the same
name is applied, may seem more extraordinary, yet we can
believe the Divine agency in them to have marched along the
sflent path of forethought rather than with the Cyclopean

# This is almost too forcibly put in the striking wish of Mr. Maurice,
that persons, resting their faith as Christians on the ten plagues of Egypt,
might find all Egyptian experiences tend to shake it. See his Sermons
on the Lessons from the Old Testament.
14

158 THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER,
crash of strength and force. As to our Saviour's miracles,
indeed, they are even wrought generally with the concurrence
of the receiver's faith ; and they are aU signs of mercy, or
parables full of meaning ; and, again, so far as the element
of power is brought out in them, it is rather as exemplifying
the rule of a very present God over nature, than as " evi
dence " * for truths which are themselves far more evident
Hence, whether an event should be considered as more or less
miraculous, is always a question to be decided by the proba
bilities of the particular passage, whether prose or poetry,
contemporaneous or remote ; and is never to be prejudged as
if it affected either way the foundations of our faith, f
From such a tone of thought as regards miracles, we may
expect those who entertain it to approach the more important
* Has not the ambiguity of the term evidence somewhat misled our
modern apologists 1 It may have meant clearness, or visibility, as of
Truth and Justice ; but they take it in the sense of legal testimony, and
so entangle themselves in special pleading.
t Suppose any one brought up to understand as literal prose Cow-
per's hymn, He plants his footsteps in the sea,
And rides upon the storm, —
would it be an utter loss to him to discover that the terms were figura
tive ? or might they still express to him a truth ? Apply the same idea
to many of the Psalms, such as the eighteenth, which the Hebrew title
makes a description of David's deliverance from Saul. May it not also
apply to other poetical parts, such as part of Habakkuk, and to such
fragments as are expressly quoted from the book of Jasher (I do not say
all that have been conjecturally ascribed to it), especially if some of them
closely resemble the ode in Habakkuk t But it will be said, here was a
poetical intention ; and it is a wide leap to interpret plain prose on such
principles. This distinction should have its weight. Still the fondness
of some nations for apologue or parable, the tendency of ideas to clothe
themselves in narrative, and the possibility of traditions, once oral or
poetical, having subsequently taken form in prose, are all things which
may suggest themselves to critical readers, and should weigh for what
they are worth in each case, and for no more. But if scholars wantonly
exaggerate difficulties, or state them with indecency or scoffing, the case
is diiferent. I have never intended doing so, and have no sympathy of
feeling with any one who does.

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 159
subject of prophecy, without suffering their reverential pre
possessions to take an undue form of prejudice, or any disap
pointment of them to be a cause of overwhelming alarm.
Suppose that what Bishop Butler said hypothetically on this
subject should now be come actuaUy upon us, — suppose
that things often treated as direct literal predictions of Christ
should have been spoken primarily of some king, or prophet,
or nation. Such a result may cause great distress, and even
desolation of mind, to those who make theology a mere
balance of texts, and make the peace of God, which passeth
all understanding, depend upon the critical accuracy of illus
trations borrowed in the New Testament from the Old. But
no such grievous consequence follows to men who have been
so born of the Spirit, that they believe Christ's words because
they are spirit and truth. They are no more surprised that
their Saviour should appear under earthly images in the Old
Testament; than that he should be called " the carpenter's son "
in the New. Their conception of him is not formed by bal
ancing the imperfect utterances of childhood against those of
the fuU-grown stature of the servants of God ; but it rather
takes in the height of that great idea at which the Church
arrived when she stood as it were by the goal ; for then she
looked back with understanding on the race of Him who,*
though manifested in the flesh, had been justified in the spirit,
and who, though seen only by Apostles, had been preached to
nations ; and whom she found so beheved upon, as a king,
throughout the world in which he once had not where to lay
his head, that she felt, surely God must have received him up
into glory. For they aU along admit the idea of training ;
and so, the principle of life and of growth. It was natural
for the people of Nazareth to see in Jesus only Joseph's son ;
# 1 Timothy iii. 16, where I have ventured to paraphrase that reading
of the Greek which seems on the whole best attested. It should be
compared, for the sense of angels, with ch. v. ver. 21 of the same Epistle ;
and for the general sentiment, with Romans, ch. i. vv. 3, 4. On this, as
on other questions of text, I am glad to fortify myself with the authority
of Dr. Tregelles.

160 THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER,
it was natural for the old Hebrews to think of the righteous
king, and the afflicted prophet, and the chosen people, before
they rose to the conception of a verily Divine wisdom and
love, uncovering itself in substance, and pervading the con
ceptions of all nations.
But where, then, some one will ask, are our " evidences " ?
It may be answered in two words, the character of Christ and
the doctrine of Christ. Or to say the same thing in the words
of St. Paul, we preach Christ the power of God, and Christ
the wisdom of God. J£ priests embody the idea of conse
cration, he is holy, — if prophets that of knowledge or vision,
he is the great speaker of truths which touch the heart, — if
kings imply rightful rule, he, or his spirit, is that which
should sway our thoughts, — if the poor and afflicted are the
special care of God, was ever affliction like his ? — if teachers
do a sacred work, if martyrs throw a fire upon the earth
which is not quenched, if the shepherd to his fl<5ck, and the
husband to his wife, and the pastor to his people, have aU
some office of beneficence, and so something of sacredness
from their having been designed in the love of God ; — all
these things are, as St. Paul says, " brought to a head in
Christ " ; he concentrates and exhibits in his life, in his doc
trine, in his death, and in the holy spirit whereby he ever
lives, and wherewith he animates the whole body of his
Church, the Divine perfection of those exceUences, of which
fragments, and shadows, and images, are scattered through
out the world elsewhere. And however true it may be, that
our rehgion is in its essence attachment to Christ as a person,
this can never mean to his name, or to his power, as if he
were jealous or arbitrary ; but rather * to that goodness and
that truth which he embodies, and which commend themselves
by their excellence to the faith of the pure in heart.
Those then come to Christ who believe in the spirit of
Moses and of Isaiah, and who would have listened to each
prophet of truth from time to time among the Jews, — who
* The issue raised in this sentence is vitally critical, and pregnant.

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 161
would stand by Socrates as he drank his hemlock among the
Greeks, — and who, in short, in aU times and places, would
acknowledge the authority of whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever are lovely, whatsoever are of good report. Now
this kind of free allegiance, from love, and for the excellence
of the object's sake, is perhaps not exactly that of those who,
starting with the Bible, — or even with the Divine authority
of our Lord, — infer from thence dogmatically the exceUence
of his precepts ; but it is more hke that of the Apostles, who
saw the superhuman beauty of our Lord's truth and patience,
and his majesty made perfect through sufferings ; and then
reasoned * upward, Surely this was the Son of God.
Such a mode of thought has also the advantage of starting
more from the purer moral instincts of our nature. Yet it is
so far from fearing reason, that it finds, in a way, confirma
tions everywhere. It is under no temptation to wrest texts
into conformity with systems ; or to congeal the outpourings
of passionate penitence into materials for syUogisms ; or to
make traditional applications of prophecy, whether due to
the devout rhetoric of the early Church, or to the very im
perfect criticism of St. Jerome f in his Vulgate, either parts
of the faith, or perilous supports of it. It can readily wel
come with hearty gratitude whatever discovery in science, or
language, or history, may so far dissociate from the Jews
those .who may yet, like the Jews, remain chUdren of a
Divine promise ; nor is it with dismay, but with thanksgiving,
that it sees many of their temporal images, time after time,
give way to that eternal pattern which Moses saw in the
Mount, and which- the servants of God may now see more
* The Apostles felt goodness, and inferred God. We assume God,
and demand acknowledgment of goodness. Which of these is the more
wholesome argument t The answer may somewhat depend upon what
conception of Deity we start with.
f In Haggai ii. 7, the Hebrew says desires, or desirable things, and the
context shows silver and gold to be intended. But St. Jerome said,
Veniet desideratus omnibus gentibus, and we have followed in his track.
But are those who clamorously make such things proofs of Christianity
its friends 1 14*

162 THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER,
clearly revealed to them in conscience, and experience, and
understanding. For that which is written in the nature of
things is shown us by God.
But if persons thus thinking are less restrained from the
free adoption of whatever consequences the mind may work
out, so long as it works in righteousness, they are far more
bound to purge their mind's eye, and to keep the whiteness of
their soul unspotted from evU. For their faith has only
ceased to be a congeries of human propositions, that it may
better become a divine hfe. And although some of them
may meditate with Butler, how far the mysterious grace of
God is given us on a system, so that, if we saw the whole
range of things, it would appear to us regular and natural,
rather than contra-natural, yet the belief in that " Spirit
which is holy, supreme, and life-giving," * is far more a gov
erning principle of their hves, than can ever be the case
with men who substitute the bonds of system for those of
truth, and the letter for the spirit.
Hence it will be found, all great reformers, either of life
or institutions, have had something in them of the spirit we
now speak of. Nor has it been quite unknown even to men
in other respects of most opposite views : it has burst forth,
now in that earnest preaching which rent the veU of the in
visible world, and made men tremble or exult at the present
realities of judgment or salvation ; and it has wrought again
in those who reared once more the standard of the Cross as
a thing to hve by, in a luxurious and garrulous age ; it allies
itself most eminently to the Gospel, but it can also flow
along the channels of the Church ; its more prominent ad
vocates in England have been men whose eccentricity some
what marred their usefulness, but it may weU harmonize
with the affectionate soberness of that Prayer-book, which it
should forbid us to sever, so widely as we do, from the in
spiration of our Bible. It woke in Reginald Pecock some
presage of the Reformation, when as yet this CoUege was
* Nicene Creed.

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 163
not ; it found no obscure utterance in Hooker, when he taught
that " the rules of right conduct are the dictates of right
reason " ; it is assumed, either tacitly or expressly, in the
grand discourse of Jeremy Taylor ; it is more formaUy put
forward by Barclay, whose broad and unqualified propositions
are yet on more than one account weU worthy of being
studied ; it moves, though in fetters, across the pages of the
more learned Puritans, and especiaUy of Milton; it takes a
form of wisdom, toleration, and faith, amidst the vast learning
of Cudworth, and his kindred teachers of a godly humanity ; *
it is not ahen to the Evangelical Platonism of Leighton ; nor
is it quite quenched by the arrogant temper of Warburton,
whose learning and whose courage ahke led him to acknowl
edge some light in the Gentile world ; but with greater fond
ness it loved to linger amid the deep reasonings of Butler,
prevented only by his Laodicean age from bearing in him its
fuU fruit ; it took a form of subtle idealism, and alhed itself
to " every virtue " in Berkeley ; it had no mean representative
in this place, in the thoughtful candor of Professor Hey, over
whose moderation any brief triumph of zeal in our time may
only pave the way for a dangerous reaction ; it sounds, not
ineloquently, but too uncertainly, from the deep struggles of
Coleridge ; and it found a happier expounder in him whose
recent loss we . may weU deplore, the Guesser at Truth, and
the preacher of the Victory of Faith. Est et hodie, nunc
tacendus : olim nominabitur. In our own time, indeed, those
who entertain it at aU have felt themselves urged alike on the
negative side by the necessities of historical criticism, and on
the positive by the deep hunger of men's spiritual affections,
to cross over more and more from the scribe to the apostle,
from the letter to the spirit, from the formula to the feeling
which engendered it.
How many questions now arise before me which time wiU
not permit to handle at due length ! WiU this freedom, which
even the highest controUer of our destiny is in some measure
# E. g. John Smith, who has been praised in such opposite quarters.

164 THE SPIRIT AND THE LETTER,
awakening among us, always know where to stop ? It wiU be
led, perhaps, by the inexorable laws of historical criticism to
alter our modes of conceiving of some portions of Hebrew
hterature, which are comprehended in our Bible ; and even
questions apparently barren may sometimes, to the scholar,
be fruitful in inferences.* It may also observe so much of
local or sensible imagery, t hi describing things which eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, that it may almost indefinitely
lessen the field of inteUectual definition, though sparing that
of conscientious expectation. It may, for instance, somewhat
merge the doctrine of a resurrection in the idea of immortal
ity ; X and it may lay not so much stress on a day of judg
ment, as on a Divine retribution. But wiU it also apply St.
Paul's idea of our Lord's laying down his mediatorial king
dom, § not to any one moment hereafter, but to that period,
whatever it may be, in each man's life, when he has been
brought . by the Son to the Father, — so that it shaU be no
longer necessary for the Son to pray for men || so enhghtened,
since the Father himself loves them, because they have con
ceived of him according to the picture revealed of him in his
well-beloved Son ? How far whl this be a dangerous intensi
fication of what is yet a true feeling of the economic nature
# It is morally certain, that the books of Joshua and of Daniel are
each four hundred years later than the date ordinarily ascribed to each ;
and this fact leads to inferences which it would be wise to meet practically,
by either modifying our cycle of Old Testament lessons, or by giving
the clergyman at his discretion a liberty of doing so.
t If any one considers the various opinions on the state of disembodied
souls before the day of judgment, he will find them turn on a clash of
conflicting metaphors, or on a balance of allusions, each borrowed from
some temporal usage.
J As Bishop Butler evidently did, but Isaac Taylor's Physical Theory
of a Puture Life may be read on the other side.
§ Read carefully 1 Corinthians xv. 24-28; but compare Pearson on
Sitting on the Bight Hand, in the Creed. It was reckoned a peculiarity
in the profound Origen that he prayed only to the Pather through the
Son ; but, at the altar, the whole African Church, and perhaps the
Church Catholic, did so.
|| St. John's Gospel xvi. 25 - 27 ; Colossians i. 15.

OR THE TRUTH AND THE BOOK. 165
of the office of the Mediator ? Or wiU the same spirit go so
far with any, as to think it unimportant through what imagery
God may frame in us thoughts of. things ineffable ; so that
whether memory or fancy lend the shadow, and whether
faith * be nourished more from fact or from thought, still the
real crisis of our souls shaU hang upon our ever holding fast that
eternal substance of the Divine Light, the radiance of which
is wisdom, and truth, and love, and which enhghteneth every
man, both at its coming into the world in the flesh, and also
long before ? This last would sound like a dangerous revival
of Gnostic imaginations. Yet would even the wUdest flight
of such aberrations be so dangerous to the spirit of rehgion,
as that secular-minded Ebionitism into which the opposite
tendency, the mere sifting of the letter, is ever apt to drift,
the moment it escapes from the influence of tradition ? To
answer all such questions would require a prophet rather
than a preacher. One thing, however, is clear, and that I
desire to say very seriously : the spirit of inquiry is most
likely to go hand in hand with reverence, if no other checks
be imposed upon it than such as come of conscience and of
truth. This also, brethren, let us be unshakably persuaded
of, whatever other things fad, the attempt to realize in our
selves the mind which was in Christ Jesus has never been
found to fail any man. This, after aU, seems to be what
constitutes a Christian.
The prospects of an attack must depend very much upon
the conduct of the defenders. If those who have leisure,
learning, and authority encourage persons less informed, not
merely in entertaining as opinions, but in asserting as foun
dations of the faith, things which scholars are ashamed to
say, there must come a crash of things perishable, in which
also things worth preserving may suffer shipwreck. Whereas,
if the same persons were wise to distinguish eternal meaning
from temporal shape, it would still prove that, though the
Church is beaten by waves, yet she is founded on a rock.
* Compare Hebrews, tenth and eleventh chapters.

ON THE CAUSES WHICH PROBABLY CONSPIRED
TO PRODUCE OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.*
Br EDWARD HARWOOD, D. D.

ADVERTISEMENT.
The following Dissertation was composed about fourteen
years ago. Upon reviewing it, I saw no reason to depart
from the theory and sentiments it advances. The manner in
which it is compiled requests the reader's candid and favor
able censure. The reason which originally induced me to
write it was my dissatisfaction with the schemes which gloomy
and systematic divines have devised to account for our Lord's
agony; some ascribing it to the unappeased wrath of Al
mighty God, now hurled in all its tremendous vehemence
upon this Ulustrious sufferer; others, to the temptation and
onset of the DevU, into whose tyranny, during this hour of
darkness, he was freely delivered ; and others to the whole
accumulated weight of the sins of the whole world, which the
wisdom and justice of God appointed that he should now sus
tain, in order that he might experimentally feel their infinite
demerit, and, by supporting in his own person the oppressive
load, accomplish the proper atonement and expiation of them.
I hope an attempt to vindicate the equity, rectitude, and good
ness of God, and to justify the conduct of our Lord on this
* First published in London, 1772.

168 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
occasion, by evincing that there is nothing in this transaction
which eclipses, or in the least diminishes the lustre of his
divine character, wiU be deemed laudable, however I may
have failed in the execution of my design. I had not seen,
till within these few weeks, Mr. Moore's exceUent pamphlet
on this subject, which was published by Doctors Lardner and
Fleming, and printed by Noon, 1757. It gives me great
pleasure and satisfaction, as it is no small confirmation of this
Essay, to find that the reflections and sentiments of this
ingenious writer on this subject have so happUy coincided
and harmonized with my own.

DISSERTATION.
Bt the adversaries of our divine religion it has often been
suggested that the concluding scenes of our Redeemer's hfe
are attended with circumstances which reflect no great honor
upon his character. From that expression, My God! my
God ! why hast thou forsaken me ? one of the most eminent
of the Deists asserteth, that our Saviour, a little before his
death, publicly renounced the cause in which he had been
engaged, and even died in that renunciation. How injurious
and false this aspersion is, need not be evinced, since the
whole tenor of our Saviour's history contradicts it, and every
where displays a most exalted and consummate virtue. It is
in the highest degree absurd to suppose that our Lord should
publicly abjure his rehgion, and yet die to confirm it and give
it its last sanction. He came to bear witness to the truth,
and he gave the strongest proof of the justness of his preten
sions to the character he assumed, that he was the Messiah
and Lawgiver of the world, and that the cause in which he
had embarked was the cause of God and Truth, for he sealed
this cause with his blood.
His agony in the garden of Gethsemane has been very
undeservedly the subject of calumny and detraction. It has
not infrequently been intimated, that during this scene of

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 169
sufferings our Lord's behavior was very far from beina- con
sistent with the rest of his life, and that he meanly and ab
jectly shuddered at the prospect of calamities which, notwith
standing, it was his destiny to meet* Persons, who have
rejected Christianity, and alleged the causes of their rejecting
it, have insinuated, among other things, that this agony of
grief hath all the appearance of a dishonorable timidity, that
our Saviour in a dispirited manner sunk under the afflictions
which he had rashly brought upon himself, by assuming the
character of a Reformer, — whereas, if he had been conscious
that his doctrines were true, and that his mission was divinely
authorized, he would have sustained them with an heroic
fortitude and magnanimity worthy such a cause. Instead of
this, in the prospect of his last sufferings, he is overwhelmed
in despondency, and betrays a pusUlanimity unworthy a com
mon phUosopher. Instead of embracing with virtuous trans
port so noble an occasion, now offered him, of attesting the
truth of his mission and ministry by sufferings, he shrinks
back at the view of them, faUs into dishonorable tremors, is
plunged into the last terror and confusion, and with vehement
importunity implores Almighty God to extricate and save
him from them. Let this cup pass from me !
But if we impartiaUy consider the history in which this
agony of distress and sorrow is recorded, we shall be con
vinced that it was not want either of virtue or of fortitude to
sustain his impending sufferings, which dictated these words.
There is nothing in them inconsistent with the general tenor
of his conduct, — nothing in them that can make us suspect
the truth of his pretensions, or that hi the least diminishes
the divine worth and dignity of his character. Our Saviour
was clothed with human nature, and is he to be censured for
having the sensibihties of human nature ? Is his conduct to
be loaded with reproach and contumely, because he was not
a proud, unfeeling Stoic,f and did not manifest an entire
* See Voltaire's late treatise Sur la Tolerance.
X " Was there not something pusillanimous and inconstant in this part
15

170 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
apathy and insensibihty in his sufferings? Is it any dis
paragement to our blessed Lord, any imputation on his wis
dom or his virtue, that he was affected with the sorrows and
sufferings of humanity ? " Jesus," as a judicious writer has
weU observed, " was sensible of his own and others' suffer
ings, and conceived a dread and horror at them. He was so
sore amazed and full of grief, as earnestly to pray, that, if it
were possible, the cup might pass away from him. A true
picture this of genuine humanity in distress. It is natural to
us to hate pain, and to have an abhorrence of misery. The
constitution of our beings requires it should be so. It is the
first and strongest principle the Creator hath cast into the
human frame. The philosophy taught in the heathen world
by Zeno and his foUowers, that pains and afflictions are no
evfls, and that a wise man should be hardened against aU
sense of them, was truly perversive, not perfective of the
nature of man. To feel calamities when they come upon us,
of our Saviour's conduct i I answer, No. Those expressions are far
too narsh, and cannot be applied to our Lord without manifest injustice.
He had not, indeed, that intrepidity, for which the rude heroes of history
are celebrated, who were fearless and undaunted in their greatest dan
gers. What then ? Was a character expected in him that required a
peculiar warmth of the blood and juices, and the impetus of some crimi
nal passion, to form and exhibit ? Natural courage is well known to be
mechanical, and to rise and fall with a certain temperature of the body.
The passions, says Mr. Grove, which have most filled the world with
heroes, are vainglory, and a dread of the reproach of cowardice. Moral
Philosophy, Vol. II. p. 259. What is to be looked for in the blessed
Jesus is a perfectly moral character. Now a manly, virtuous courage is
so far from being incompatible with, that it supposes, fear. Por as that
is inspired with a sense of what is just and honorable, the fear of infamy
to one's self, or of injury to others, must needs take place, inasmuch as
the objects are evils that ought, if possible, to be avoided, and when and
in whomsoever those fears shall coincide with the natural fear of death, a
passive fortitude is all that can be expected.
" And as to inconstancy of mind, I ask, Who is there among the sons
of men, or what are they, whom the circumstances of time and place, in
respect to a cruel and ignominious death, will not sensibly affect ? A
person, doomed to suffer as a state criminal, may indeed put on the stoic
on such an occasion, and in point of prudence, as it is called, or for the

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 171
or upon others, and to give vent to our tears,* is much more
congruous and suitable to our frame and station, than the
apathy and rant of the Stoics. We are connected with flesh
and blood, made with selfish and social affections and passions,
and placed here in a state of discipline ; and a tender, suscep
tible temper better becomes us, and wiU sooner perfect our
virtue, than insensibUity and foolhardiness. This considera
tion alone, if there were none other, should make us not
ashamed of Jesus in his agony in the garden, or on the
cross." t
The foUowing account of this awful scene is exhibited by
the four Evangehsts. " When Jesus had spoken these words
[that consolatory discourse recorded in the fourteenth, fif
teenth, and sixteenth chapters of St. John's Gospel] he went
forth with his disciples over the brook Cedron, where was a
garden [Gethsemane], into which he entered and his disciples.
And he saith to the disciples, Sit ye here, while I go and
sake of his honor, stifle his passions from the view of others. And no
doubt but that this has often been the case. But our Lord acted upon
no such mean motives. He felt things to impress him differently, and he
told what he felt. The mind is not answerable for these different impres
sions. They are unavoidable to it, and the result of the human frame.
Had not Jesus shown a reluctancy to the evils now before him, the reality
of his sufferings might justly have been called in question. And so far
was he in this his behavior from acting an inconsistent or inconstant part,
that, notwithstanding he felt a greater uneasiness to himself than at any
other time, he stood firm to the noble resolution he had formed, of an
entire submissive obedience to the Divine Will. There is then no im
peachment of the courage and constancy of our Lord. His character
remains unsullied, yea, shines through the darkest cloud that ever passed
over him." — Moore on our Saviour's Agony, pp. 88 - 90.
* They who of all writers undertake to imitate nature most, oft intro
duce even their heroes weeping. See how Homer represents Ulysses,
Od. I. ver. 151 ; II. ver. 7, 8. The tears of men are in truth very differ
ent from the cries and ejulations of children. They are silent streams,
and flow from other causes ; commonly some tender, or perhaps philo
sophical, reflection. It is easy to see how hard hearts and dry eyes come
to be fashionable. But, for all that, it is certain the glandular lachrymales
are not made for nothing. Religion of Nature Delineated, p. 139, note.
t Moore on our Saviour's Agony, pp. 102, 103.

172 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
pray yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons
of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful, to be sore amazed,
and very heavy. And he saith to them, My soul is exceed
ing sorrowful, even unto death : tarry ye here and watch.
And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and
fell on the ground and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be
possible, let this cup pass from me ! nevertheless, not my wiU,
but thine, be done ! And he cometh unto the disciples, and
findeth them fast asleep, and saith unto Peter, What, could
ye not watch with me one hour ? Watch ye and pray, lest
ye enter into temptation ; the spirit is wUling, but the flesh is
weak. He went away the second time, and prayed, 0 my
Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink
it, thy will be done ! And he came and found them asleep
again, for their eyes were heavy, neither wist they what to
answer him. And he left them and went away again, and
prayed the third time, saying the same words. And there
appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
And being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his
sweat was, as it were, great drops of blood falling down to
the ground. And when he rose from prayer, and was come
to his disciples, he found them sleeping for sorrow ; and he
saith unto them, Sleep on now and take your rest : it is
enough, the hour is come : behold, the Son of Man is be
trayed into the hands of sinners." * Let the reader figure to
himself our Lord's situation at this time, and consider what
images must necessarUy obtrude upon his mind. His ministry
was now closed, — he was in a few moments to be appre
hended and treacherously delivered into the power of those
who had long thirsted for his blood, — his beloved disciples
were going to abandon him in his adversity, — and in two days'
time, by wicked hands, he would be crucified and slain. Jesus
now had a strong conscious perception of all these impending
calamities. Let the reader's imagination represent to him

* I have formed the several circumstances related by different Evange.
lists into one continued narrative.

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 173
the state of our Saviour's mind in this awful crisis ; and
with the full idea of his situation before him, let him con
sider, whether the following painful reflections crowding into
his soul, in this melancholy hour, might not naturaUy produce
that scene of distress and horror the sacred writers have
recorded. Section I.
One cause which no doubt greatly contributed to distress
our blessed Saviour, now his ministry was concluded, was the
distressing reflection that his painful labors and benevolent at
tempts to convert and reform the Jews had proved generaUy
unsuccessful. In the fulness of time God the Father had sent
him from heaven among men, and empowered him to work
many stupendous and beneficent miracles in confirmation of his
divine mission and character. Li the space of three years
and a half, he had in person visited the cities, towns, and
viUages of Judasa, and in all of them had effected such aston
ishing operations and supernatural cures, as could evidently
be ascribed to nothing but to the immediate power and
agency of God. He had dehvered to his country a perfect
system of religion and morals, enforced by the strongest en
couragements, and recommended by his own virtuous and
irreproachable conduct. And yet his conduct, his doctrines,
his precepts, his miracles, had been able to make little im
pression on the hearts of this depraved people. They de
spised the meanness of his birth and the obscurity of his
family. They were prejudiced against the place of his edu
cation, and declared it impossible that a prophet should ever
arise out of Nazareth. So averse had they been from all
conviction and instruction, and so deliberately determined to
shut their eyes against the clearest hght, that they attributed
the most amazing displays of Divine power to a compact
and intercourse with Beelzebub. This man doth not work
miracles, but by Beelzebub the prince of the devUs. Instead
of attending his public ministry with minds sincerely disposed
for the reception of truth, they contrived low clandestine
15*

174 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
arts to ensnare him, and hoped, from some incautious ex
pressions into which they might betray him, to accuse him as
a traitor to the Roman government, and effectuate his con
demnation and death as an enemy to Ctesar. These were the
illiberal and dishonorable expedients they employed to murder
the Messiah. Are such principles and dispositions as these
friendly to truth and virtue ? Is a nation, which manifests
such a character as this, and frames such measures as these
against the life of a holy and good man for remonstrating
against their superstition, bigotry, and immoralities, to be
convinced by the force of evidence, and moved by the
charms of an amiable example ? So far were they from
examining his doctrines and pretensions to the high character
he assumed, with coolness and candor, that they practised
every method to prevent them from being admitted, and ex
cluded those from their synagogues who openly professed
them. How determined and inveterate their virulence was
against our Lord's person and usefulness, we may judge from
this single most egregious instance of it, their solemnly de
liberating in council to destroy Lazarus, merely for being the
subject of one of his miracles.* Impossible, therefore, was
it for our Saviour to propagate his rehgion in a nation so
prejudiced and depraved. All his attempts to make them
virtuous and everlastingly happy proved ineffectual.
Now this wrung his benevolent heart with the acutest
anguish. The consideration that his country should have
rejected that system of divine truths he had been delegated
from God his Father to deliver to them, overwhelmed him
in the deepest sorrow and distress. When he now reviewed
the past years of his ministry, it fiUed him with great and
painful concern, that his miracles had been so numerous, but
his success so very inconsiderable. He had made it the
uniform study of his life to diffuse happiness around him,
to do good to the souls and bodies of men, had performed

* " But the chief priests consulted that they might put Lazarns also to
death." John xii. 10.

, ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 175
the most benevolent cures, taught the most exceUent doc
trines, exhibited a perfect character, to engage his country
to embrace a religion which came recommended and enforced
by so many evidences of its credibUity and divine authority.
But what converts had he made, what effects had the cause
of God and truth, of liberty and immortality, produced ?
This was the painful reflection which now wounded his soul.
He had come to his own, but his own had not received him!
That nation, whose guardian angel he had probably ever
been, and whom he had anxiously superintended in every
period of time and change of government, had now rejected
his person and his doctrines, and were going to imbrue their
hands in his blood as an impostor. This disingenuity and
ingratitude transfixed his soul, and a painful review of the
insuperable prejudices, enormous corruptions, and determined
impenitency of his country must necessarily oppress him, in
this hour of darkness, with very deep distress, and contribute
its weight of woes to produce that agony which he now
endured. Section H.
Another cause which conduced to occasion this extreme
dejection and sorrow of our blessed Saviour, was the percep
tion he had that he would immediately be abandoned by all
his disciples and friends in these his last extremities. If my
readers have ever known, by unhappy experience, the cruelty
and infehcity of being deserted by a friend, at a time of im
pending adversity and distress, let them now recaU to mind
what they suffered on that occasion, and transfer their thoughts
to our Saviour's sensibUities in the hke circumstances. His
disciples had been the companions of his labors. He had
selected them from the world to be his attendants and friends.
To them he had unbosomed his soul. Having loved his own,
he loved them unto the end, says St. John'. He maintained for
them a most faithful and affectionate love, from the time he
chose them to the last period of his hfe. They had relin
quished their famUies, their occupations, and all their con-

176 ON the causes op our saviour's agony.
nections, to adhere to him and his cause. They had during
the whole course of his ministry accompanied him from place
to place, and mutuaUy shared with him the reproach and
odium of the world. But O dire reverse ! O Adversity,
how seldom art thou a witness to faithful friendship ! The
companions of his labors, from whose fidelity he might rea
sonably expect consolation, and whose firm adherence to his
person and interests he might naturally hope would now give
a sanction to the cause he and they had espoused, dishonor
ably desert him. When these last calamities invade him, lo,
they fly,* and suffer persecution and death to overwhelm him,
alone and unsupported. At a time when probably he should
want the aids of true friendship most, to attest his innocence
and assuage his sufferings, they have abandoned him, and
appear ashamed of the cause in which they had aU em
barked. But not only their unfaithfulness and disgraceful desertion
of him, but the ingratitude and treachery of Judas, no doubt,
in these moments he now spent in the garden of Gethsemane,
must wound his generous mind with the most cruel anguish.
We find that this baseness of Judas gave our Lord great
distress. " When Jesus had thus said, he was troubled in
spirit, and testified and said, Verily, verily, I say unto you,
one of you shall betray me ! " John xiii. 21. The reflection,
that, in that small number whom he had selected to be his
particular friends and companions, one should prove so un
grateful and perfidious as for a paltry sum to betray him to
his enemies, and that in a very short time he should see this
very person, whom he had admitted into his friendship, head
ing a mob to apprehend him, — the bitter reflection must rend
a bosom so susceptible as our Saviour's appeareth to be.
" Great minds have a delicacy in their perception. They
feel ingratitude more than others, as they are less deserving

' At simul intonuit, fugiunt, noc noscitur ulli,
Agminibus comitum qui modo cinctus erat."
Ovid. Trist.

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 177
of it. And indeed the best of men have met with this sort
of iU usage. David, more than once, deplores the hke in
language which shows how sensibly he was touched. ' Yea
my own famUiar friend, in whom I trusted, who did eat of
my bread, hath lift up his heel against me. For it was not
an enemy that reproached me, then I could have borne it ;
but it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine ac
quaintance.' " *
Such was the situation of our Saviour. Rejected by the
Jews ; abandoned by his disciples. The review of life pain
ful, the immediate prospect full of horror. Invaded with
such complicated distress, can we wonder that he should so
earnestly implore Almighty God to save him from this hour,
and to let this cup pass from him that he might not drink it ?
It is the natural language of piety and virtue in distress : the
first prayer which a dependent creature in afflictive circum
stances addresses to Heaven. Section IJJ.
Another cause which may justly be assigned to account for
this agony and the petition he preferred to God, was the
strong perception of that insult, ignominy, and torture he was
shortly to endure. The perception of these dreadful evils,
we may reasonably suppose, greatly impressed his mind, and
strongly affected his exquisitely tender and delicate sensibili
ties. His mind anticipated all that cruel and inhuman treat
ment he should very shortly experience, — the immediate
arrest and seizure of his person, his illegal trial, his impris
onment as an impostor, his outrage from the Roman soldiers,
who would treat him with the last indignities, scourge* him,
clothe him in robes of mock royalty, and insult him as the
rival and enemy of Cassar, — and, as the completion of aU
these evils, his condemnation to suffer the ignominious and
excruciating death of crucifixion. Over these scenes his
mind now brooded. He had the fuU idea of them impressed
* See Moore's Inquiry, p. 46.

178 ON THE CAUSES OF OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
on his soul. In the dire apprehension of these impending
horrors, a mind possessed of such exquisite sensibihties must
suffer great depression. The view of these approaching evils
forced from him that petition, Father, save me from this
hour ! By which is manifestly meant the hour of death, as
Grotius judiciously interprets it. It is to this the author of
the Epistle to the Hebrews refers, when he says, that our
Lord in the days of his flesh offered up prayers and supplica
tions, with strong crying and tears, unto Him that was able to
save from death. Heb. v. 7. I leave it to my reader's
imagination to represent the situation of his Saviour in these
moments. Let any person, endowed with the feelings of
humanity, declare, whether in such circumstances the petition,
Let this cup pass from me, be not natural language, and an
exit big with barbarity, contumely, and horror is not to be
deprecated. If the human mind shudders at the fancied
representation of pain so exquisite and durable, and a death
so excruciating and reproachful, who can with any consistency
and honor censure our Saviour, in such a situation, for discov
ering a sense of it ? We might as reasonably blame him for
being a man, and for having the common affections, feelings,
and sensations of human nature. Was our Saviour a frantic
and extravagant Stoic, whose divine tranquUlity pain and
human evils could not solicit ? Did he ever teach his foUow
ers that pain was no evil, or in his own "person ever discover
a total apathy and unconsciousness of the calamities and
sufferings with which he encountered? Nothing less true.
He assumed humanity, and had all the sensibihties of hu
manity. He had, says the Apostle, a feeling of our infirmi
ties, feeing tempted in all points just . as we are. Our Lord
discovered great sensibility of soul. Jesus wept, — shed tears
at the grave of his amiable deceased friend, Lazarus. Tears
were also observed to stream from his eyes, when he looked
down upon the city and uttered those pathetic expressions
over it. O that thou, even thou, hadst known the things that
belong to thy everlasting peace; but now they are hidden
from thine eyes! He had an exquisite sense of human

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 179
misery. In these unhappy exigencies he would offer up
prayers and supphcations with strong crying and tears. And
could brutal insult, illegal condemnation, opprobrious mockery,
disgraceful imprisonment, cruel buffeting and scourging, a
mock investiture with royalty, public ignominy and crucifixion
invade his heart, unaffected and unimpressed ? Would not
the certain immediate prospect of this train of evils make
strong impressions on a -mind so susceptible of strong im
pressions? Had he met and sustained the shock with un
feeling unconcernedness, and supported these his sufferings
with an absolute insensibility of them, it would then have
been asserted that he was not reaUy invested with human
nature, and that the assertions of his historians, that he was
a man, were entirely hypothetical and imaginary. B he had
endured these evils with a torpid composure, it would have
been said that he never felt them, and that the human form
he exhibited to the world was merely ideal and visionary.
So that in this case strong objections would have been formed
against the truth and reahty of his person. Had he met his
sufferings with a fearless intrepidity, and appeared in the midst
of them with an idiot serenity, the world, I am persuaded,
would have been more dissatisfied with his conduct, would
have formed it into an argument against the truth of the
Christian rehgion, and revUed its author as a frantic Stoic or
an unfeeling enthusiast.
Do we admire some of the phUosophers for their contempt
of pain ? Do we applaud their boasted tranquillity of mind,
which no tortures could discompose, and secretly wish that
our Lord had sustained his affliction with as great constancy
and fortitude as some of them ? But let me freely declare,
that if we admire these old sages for their doctrines of in
sensibility of pain, and for their serenity of mind in the
midst of the most racking disorders, we really admire them
for phUosophical madness, and a wUd, extravagant, infatuated
quixotism- Our passions are part of our nature. They can
never be eradicated. We can by no arts and arguments
annihilate our sensibUities. It is frenzy to attempt or to

180 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
affect it. Our Saviour never taught, or practised upon, such
an unnatural system. He had the same perception of human
misery with ourselves, and suffered in the conflict, just as we
do. Dr. Whitby delivers it as his opinion, that this extreme
dejection and agony of our Saviour arose from the strongly
impressed apprehension of those dreadful sufferings which
would so speedily befall him, and further says, that it is ex
tremely difficult to assign any other cause of this excess of
sorrow and dispiritedness which now seized him. Some con
siderable time before, the thought of this violent exit seems
greatly to have impressed our Saviour's mind. " I have a
baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it
be accomplished ! Now is my soul troubled : but what shaU
I say ? Father, save me from this hour ! " Consider the
wretchedness of such a death ! The exquisite torture of hav
ing the hands and feet perforated with naUs, being fastened
to a cross, and for days and nights continuing, as many of
these wretches did, in all this agonizing -pain, tUl all the
powers of hfe were exhausted in a lingering and most miser
able manner. Think of this, and then censure our blessed
Lord for being appalled at the prospect. Think of what he
suffered, and you will see cause to justify the petition he
preferred to Heaven amidst these pangs : " My God ! my
God ! why hast thou forsaken me ? " Impress your minds
with an affecting sense of a person so iUustrious, of innocence
so distressed, of sufferings so intense and durable, of indig
nities and insults so dishonorable and injurious, of a death
so excruciating and full of horror, and of such a spectacle
displayed before angels and men, and then reflect whether
his agony in the garden of Gethsemane may not be accounted
for. Then consider, whether you cannot rationally account
for such a supplication in such a situation : 0 my Father, let
this cup pass from me ! It was the near prospect and antici
pation of such sufferings and such an exit as this, which made
him, in the days of his flesh, offer up the most importunate
requests and supphcations, with strong cries and tears, to that
Being who was able to extricate him from death, — and he
was heard in that he feared.

ON THE CAUSES OF OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 181
Section IV.
It is highly probable that at this time our Lord had a
strong perception of the various troubles and persecutions to
which his disciples and foUowers would be subjected, in con
sequence of their attachment to him and his rehgion. This
thought would greatly depress him, and deeply wound his
tender spirit. And I make no doubt but the prescience and
distinct view he had of that multiplicity of sorrows and suf
ferings which would invade his adherents after his death,
greatly contributed to his present agony and extreme dejec
tion. He knew they had to contend with innumerable diffi
culties in attempting to reform a superstitious and corrupt
world. He evidently foresaw that the system of religion and
morals he had delivered would everywhere be spoken against,
would, on account of its genius and nature, prove a stumbling-
block to the Jews, and to the Greeks foolishness. He knew
that, for propagating his religion in the world, and for their
inviolable adherence to his cause, they would endure the most
miserable torments and deaths which the genius of men could
devise, or the cruelty and odium of persecutors inflict. All
these scenes of future persecution now crowded into his mind,
and the painful anticipation overwhelmed him. It was his
exquisite benevolent feelings which occasioned this, extreme
distress. The reflection that so many innocent persons
should be involved in these calamities for embracing and
spreading his doctrine, was too painful for him to support.*
They were for several centuries to struggle under the incum
bent weight of established error and superstition, — prince
and magistrate, priest and people, would be confederated
against them, — they were to wrestle, not only against flesh
and blood, the common prejudices of mankind, but to contend
with principalities and powers and spiritual rulers in high
* TmvSe yap 7r\eov (pepto
To irevBos, rj Kal -rijs ip.rjs ''jrvxV1 n*?1-
Sophocles, (Ed. Tyran., v. 93.
16

182 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
places ; the secular sword would be everywhere unsheathed
to extirpate the cause in which they had embarked; they
would be driven from city to city, from country to country,
Jews and Greeks differing in other things, but agreeing in
this, to exterminate them and their religion from the world ;
they would be the objects of such implacable odium and
detestation, that whoever should kiU them would be esteemed
as doing God eminent service ; they were to endure poverty
and indigence for their unshaken constancy to their principles,
to wander about in deserts and mountains, and to seek refuge
in dens and caves of the earth, being destitute, afflicted, tor
mented ; they were to be precipitated into prisons and dun
geons, to be exposed to the fury of wild beasts, to afford
sport and diversion for a brutal rabble, and to be made a
spectacle to the world, to angels and men ; for the sake of
Christ they were to be killed all the day long, to be accounted
as sheep for the slaughter. These subsequent calamities our
Lord perfectly knew. He saw the gathering storm which
would soon break over their heads. He had met with every
injury and indignity for his endeavors to reform a wicked
nation, and from his own experience he knew that the same
principles and conduct in them would produce the same con
sequences, and render them equally obnoxious to a depraved
world. He knew they had every opposition to expect from
those whose rehgious errors they condemned, and whose im
moralities they freely censured ; that superstitious and wicked
persons, of aU others, would most strenuously exert them
selves to destroy a kingdom of truth and righteousness, by
murdering those who attempted to erect and establish it.
This reflection awakened all his tenderness, and his benevo
lence made him feel exquisite anguish for his faithful, suffering
followers. Here his affections were powerfully excited, and
his painful solicitude for the future fortunes of his disciples
overpowered his soul. He loved them with the greatest
warmth and delicacy of affection. Having loved his own
who were in the world, he loved them to the end ; and this
love caused him to enter intimately into their future distresses,

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 183
and affectionately to share them by a generous condolence.
He antedated them, he represented them strongly to his mind
and by a painful anticipation, and exquisite sympathy, now
felt aU the severe force and weight of these evils. What
mental anxiety and distress he felt on account of their future
miseries and persecutions appears from that consolatory dis
course, recorded by St. John, which was addressed to these
his mournful and melancholy friends, who were in the last
dejection at the thought of his departure from them. If the
world hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated
you. Remember the word that I said to you, The servant is
not greater than his Lord. IS they have persecuted me, they
wUl also persecute you ; if they have insidiously watched my
words, they wUl insidiously watch yours also. Verily I say
unto you, you shaU weep and lament, but the world shall re
joice. With great reason, therefore, we may suppose that all
these scenes of future woe now crowded into our Lord's mind
at once. Love, pity, sympathy, benevolence, were the great
emotions and passions which labored in his breast. The
opposition his cause would meet with in the world, and the
dreadful sufferings in which those would be involved who
maintained it, wrung his heart with the acutest anguish, and
overwhelmed it in the deepest sorrow. This painful reflec
tion, conspiring with the other causes I have alleged, produced
the deplorable situation here recorded, rendered him unequal
to the shock, made the assistance of an angel necessary to
support and strengthen him, and caused him to sweat, as it
were,* great drops of blood faUing to the ground.
* Observe, this is only a simile or comparison of the Evangelist to
illustrate the profuseness of our Saviour's sweat. 'EyeWro 8e 6 ibpas
avrov 'Q2EI 6p6p.$oi olparos. Luke xxii. 44. Just as all the four
Evangelists, intending to give their reader a just idea of the rapid descent
of the Holy Spirit upon Christ, after his baptism, compare it to the
velocity of a dove, 'G2EI nepio-repdv, — not that the Holy Spirit assumed
the shape of a dove, but descended and alighted upon our Lord with the
rapidity with which a dove darts from the sky to the earth. Probably
there was now the same appearance as at the day of Pentecost. The

184 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
Section V.
It appeareth to me, also, that the impending calamities and
ruin of his country, in consequence of their enormities and
of their ingratitude and wickedness in rejecting and crucify
ing him, may be reckoned as one of the principal causes
which produced this agony. It is a very unjust and ground
less objection which Lord Shaftesbury hath advanced against
the Christian religion, that the author of it never recom
mended private friendship and the love of our country.
Every one who is in the least acquainted with the life of
Christ, cannot but know that our Lord was an example of
both these. From his most intimate friends, the Apostles, he
selected one, whose amiable temper and disposition appear to
have been most similar to his own, and whom he honored
with a peculiar delicacy and tenderness of affection. And
how well he loved his native country appears from the whole
of his life. He confined his instructions and labors solely to
the lost sheep of the house of Israel, declaring that to them
only he was sent. Never was there a philosopher or hero
who loved his country with a more generous ardor of the
truest and noblest benevolence than our blessed Saviour, if a
constant study and active disposition to promote the welfare
and happiness of the community in which one is born may
be styled the love of one's country. Dear to us, says Tully,
are our parents, our children, our relations, our friends ; but
our country compriseth and embraceth everything that is
word 8p6pj3oi is very beautiful and expressive. It does not occur in the
New Testament but only in this passage. It signifies large globules, thick
and clammy clots of gore or sweat, pitch, milk, &c. Hesychius explains
Bpopfios by a\pa irayu, newnybs i>s fiovvoi. — norafios apa r<3 vbari
Bpipfiovs dcrcpaXrov dvaBiSoi rroWovs, " Mixed with the water, the
river sendeth up many large clots of bitumen." Herodotus, Clio, p. 386,
Vol. I. Glasg. "Qa-T iv ydkaKTi Bpopfiov alparos o-irdo-ai. iEscbyli
Choeph., vers. 531. Opdpfiq 8' e'pigev alparos (plXov yd\a. Ibid.
vers. 544. hlparos Bpopfiovs piXavas, " Large black globules of blood."
Hippocrates, Lib. HI. § 19, edit. Linden.

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 185
dear and valuable to us. In conformity to this maxim our
Saviour reaUy acted. He broke every parental and fraternal
connection, aU the ties- of consanguinity, and forsook all the
endearments of private life to consult the welfare of his
country. What can be more pathetic and expressive of the
warmest benevolence, than that complaint and lamentation he
uttered over his incorrigible and devoted country, — " O that
thou, even thou, hadst known in this thy day the things that
belong to thine everlasting peace ! " The strong perception
he had of their imminent calamities forced him in this plain
tive and affectionate manner to deplore their wretched fate.
One of the Evangehsts informs us, that when he drew near
the city he wept over it. Generous minds feel strongly for
the unhappy. It was benevolence, pity, and love for his
unfortunate country, which caUed forth his grief, and caused
him to shed these tributary tears, at once the affecting memo
rials of his love, and the awful tokens of its approaching
doom. As he had a perfect knowledge, so he had a painful
sympathetic sense, of those dreadful calamities which would
shortly overwhelm his country, for their enormities in dis
obeying ' and murdering the Lord of life. " Daughters of
Jerusalem," said he to the women who were beating their
breasts and deploring his unhappy fate, when he was led to
Calvary, " weep not for me, but weep for yourselves and for
your chUdren : for behold the days are coming in which they
shaU say, Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never
bare, and the breasts that never gave suck. Then shall they
begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the hills,
Cover us ; for if they do these things in a green tree, what
shaU be done in the dry ?" Accordingly, in about forty years
after his resurrection, the Romans invaded Judasa, spread
desolation everywhere, at last invested the capital, enclosed
an infinite number of people in it, who had then come from
aU parts to celebrate the Passover, drew lines of circum-
vaUation round them, and thus devoted them to all the
miseries of famine, pestilence, and war. After incredible
numbers had perished by mutual assassinations and famine,
16*

186 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
the city was stormed and plundered, the temple burnt, the
buildings demohshed, the walls razed from the foundations,
the greatest part of the Jews were put to the sword, the rest
sold for slaves into foreign countries. These calamities, in
severer than which never was any nation involved, had their
completion in Adrian's time, who pubhshed an edict prohib
iting every Jew, on pain of death, from setting a foot in
Judasa. All these scenes of national calamity and ruin our Lord
perfectly knew ; and the painful apprehension and view made
him commiserate his falling country. What affection, pity,
sympathy, and sorrow are mingled in that pathetic exclama
tion : " O Jerusalem ! Jerusalem ! thou that killest the proph
ets, and stonest those that are sent to thee ! How often would
I have gathered thy children, eve'n as a hen gathereth her
chickens under her wings, but you would not ! Therefore vis
your house left unto you desolate." Now if our Saviour's
mind, in the course of his ministry, was so much affected and
depressed by the thought of his country's disobedience, and
of their deplorable ruin, the certain effect of it, how much
more may we justly suppose must he be dejected and dis
tressed when he was now entering upon those sufferings
which he knew would assuredly bring on his devoted country
these dreadful inflictions. Tf he indulged and manifested
such grief for only one single person, for the death of his
dear friend Lazarus, how inexpressibly must he suffer for
the destruction of a very large collective body of men, to
whom he was connected by the common endearing bond of
natural affection and country?
Li this manner, I apprehend, the agony of our Lord, and
his prayer to God that this cup might pass from him, may
be rationaUy accounted for, without recurring to any impious
and absurd hypothesis which derogates from the wisdom, rec
titude, and goodness of the Deity, and disparages the inno
cence and merit of this illustrious sufferer, ascribing it, I
mean, to the dereliction and wrath of God, the temptation
and tyranny of Satan, into whose power he was during this

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 187
scene totaUy dehvered, or to the incumbent weight of all
the sins of the whole world, whose ponderous and oppressive
load, during these moments, he was permitted of God to
feel and support. I humbly conceive that his unsuccessful-
ness in reclaiming and reforming, the Jews ; the desertion of
his disciples ; the perception of the insult and UI usage he was
shortly to sustain, — the arrest and seizure of his person, the
Ulegal process through which he was to pass, the injurious
and contumehous treatment he would experience in the con
duct of it, being buffeted, delivered up to the Romans, vested
with mock royalty, scourged, imprisoned, crucified ;- the fore
sight of the calamities and persecutions of his foUowers for
maintaining and spreading his -religion ; and the imminent
destruction of his country ; — these are causes adequate to
such an effect. Especially if we add, that the great and un
remitting labor in which he had been employed for the five
days which preceded his agony must necessarily have con
tributed to render him lew and weak at this time, and reduced
him to a state of great debility and lassitude. This combi
nation of painful ideas collecting, as in a focus, their whole
accumulated energy and force, and pouring in a strong vehe
ment stream upon an exquisitely sensible and tender spirit,
so entirely penetrated and overwhelmed it, as to render the
interposition of a heavenly messenger necessary to strengthen
and support him. So violent was the commotion excited by
these sad images obtruding aU at once upon his mind, that
he complained that his soul was exceeding sorrowful, even
unto death.* And in such a situation, amidst the tumult of

# The expressions used by the sacred writers to represent the intense-
ness of his agony are the most strong and emphatical which could
have been employed. IlepiXiOTos, exceedingly sorrowful, excessively dis
tressed. XlepiKviros iariv f) yjrvxri pov Has Bavdrov. Matt. xxvi. 38.
'TLKBapfteladai, used by .Mark, ch. xiv. 33, signifies to bo stunned and
overwhelmed with any passion, to be fixed in astonishment, to be lost in
wonder and amazement. It is used to express the extreme terror and con
sternation of the women at the unexpected sight of an angel in our Lord's
sepulchre. Mark xvi. 5, 6. And the great amazement of the multitude

188 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
so many painful reflections crowding in perpetual succession
upon a delicate mind, and in the near prospect of such inju
rious treatment and such an excruciating death, is not the
consternation and sensibility our Lord expressed natural, and
the petition he preferred to heaven, in such a crisis, if it
pleased God to let this cup pass from him, the very first
dictate of the human heart, and the genuine, constant language
of a dependent creature when involved in distress ?
I shaU conclude this Dissertation with the reflections of a
very judicious author.* " In the first place," says this inge
nious writer, " this befell our Lord just as he had finished his
public ministry. Intenseness of thought, in a long course of
at beholding the miracle wrought on the lame man. Acts iii. 11.
'Ahnpovelv is a strong expression, and signifies to be in great dejection, to
suffer the last anguish and disb'ess of mind. KXeondrpav irepiepeve, Kal
Ppahwovo-qs dh-qpovcov fjXve, " He [Antony] anxiously expected Cleo
patra ; and upon her delaying to come, he sunk into the last dejection
and distress." Plutarch in Vita Antonii, p. 939, edit. Prancof., 1620.
'E(j> <i 8rj 6 erepos avrav dhnpovrjo-as, iavrbv ecrcpa^e, " On which ac
count one of them was so dejected, that he laid violent hands on himself."
Dio.Cassius, Tom. II. p. 924, edit. Reimari, Hamburg, 1752. Kdv
rovrm Kal tcov 'PapaLcov nvts dhnpovrjcravTes, ola iv xpovia ndXiopKia,
perecrTrjo-av, " In the mean time some of the Romans, being extremely
dejected, as is usual in a tedious siege, revolted to the enemy." Dio Cas-
sius, p. 1080, ejusdem editionis. 'H8npovei piv yap bp5>v to rrapdXo-
•yov rrjs yvvaiKOs wpbs avTov picros ovk dnoKeKpvppevov, " He suffered
the last anguish and distress at seeing his wife's abhorrence of him, which
he did not expect, or she study to dissemble." Josephus, Tom. I. p. 760,
edit. Havercamp. 'Hh-qpovovv he, pr] (pddcras KaTaXva-ai rt) irdv epyov
ovk i£apKeo~eL TTpbs reXos dyayeiv tijv rrpoaipeo-iv, " But they were in
the utmost distress, lest the king, after demolishing the whole work, should
not be able to execute his design." Josephus, p. 778, Haverc. 'hbrjpo-
vovvra he tov fiao-iXea inl ttj a7rayopevo~ei, " The emperor being great
ly distressed at this repulse." So/.omen, Hist. Eccles., Lib. I. p. 14, edit.
Cantab. 1720/ 'Ahijpovovvras hi tovs Ihiovs CTTpanaiTas cos ryrrndev-
ras opcov, " Seeing Ms soldiers greatly dejected on account of then- being
defeated." Socrates, Hist. Eccl., p. 137. See also p. 356, edit. Reading,
Cantab. 1720.
* Moore on our Saviour's Agony, pp. 83 - 86.

ON THE CAUSES OF OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 189
exercise, is, ordinarily, productive of, or succeeded by, per
ceptions that are irksome and tedious. Such sort of busi
ness naturally ends with fatigue ; and fatigue discovers itself
through all the avenues of the senses, as well in the mind as
in the body. And at such a season, it is notorious, the pas
sions of grief and sorrow lie most open and exposed to objects
which excite pain. Evils that are at other' times tolerable,
come now with double force, and make deep impression. The
observation on this circumstance was the result of the first
branch of our inquiry. It is repeated here because it serves
to iUustrate the reasons, or is itself one, why Jesus began to
be sorrowful and very heavy.
" Again. This happened to him when he was entering
upon a new scene of sufferings. At such a crisis we find
things future begin to have an actual existence, and are, as it
were, quickened into life. The passions, big with expecta
tion, are ready to break forth to meet their objects. There
is always something vivid and strong in the perception of
bare novelty itself. But when the novelty has a group of
painful objects, the perceptions are more interesting, and
alarm the whole human frame. Let us suppose one's self to
be about being reduced from a state of affluence to penury ;
or to be bereaved of one's friends ; or to undergo the ampu
tation of a leg or an arm ; what kind of perceptions should
we have? Would they not create a horror to the mind,
agitate the animal spirits, or strike on the fine fibres of the
heart and brain so as to make us shudder? If this he
agreeable to common experience on such occasions, common
experience is a clew that will help to unravel the causes of
the sore amazement of our Lord at this juncture.
" Again. He was now on the spot where he was to pre
pare himself and meet his sufferings. There may be facts
transacted, or a variety of events to which we are subject,
which wiU make the bare sight of places raise a combination
of ideas and disturb and perplex the mind. It is so natural
to connect things with places, that very often we make the
latter a sort of focus where the moment of the whole business

190 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
is collected. Have we a cause to litigate, or are we called to
defend our country ? The entrance into the court of judi
cature, or first view of the field of battle, shall give a more
warm and sensible turn to the affections and passions, than per
haps we shall feel through the whole trial, or meet with in the
actual engagement. And if this was not exactly the case of
our Lord, yet as he came hither on purpose to prepare and
meet his sufferings, those sufferings must necessarily be rep
resented and brought to the full view of his imagination.
In order to suit ourselves to a condition, that condition must
be surveyed and entered into by the mind. Wherefore we
may suppose, that the first perception our Lord had, when
he was at the place, was the kind and importance of the
evils to which he was now to submit. This supposition is
both pious and natural. Then we address the Supreme
Beings with propriety, when we have viewed the exigency
of our affairs. We seldom need to court objects of pain.
They are known to intrude themselves too often with a sort of
eagerness. But in the present circumstance they are called
for, and the attention of the mind to them is, as it were,
demanded. Wherefore our Lord could not but be conscious
of the perception he had of the evils before him. And that
consciousness must increase in proportion to the number and
weight they bore. It is agreeable to the natural order of
things that it should be so. So that it is no wonder if a round
of misery was the only perception he was for a time con
scious of. Now here was he to be betrayed by one of his
own disciples, seized and bound like a thief, abandoned by
his friends, led away and treated with cruel and indignant
usage. And the consequences hereof, replete with evils,
found easy access, we may suppose, to a mind like his. The
language of the best human heart on such an occasion would
be, 0 what will become of my country, and of the men I
love ! What an agitation would a man feel in his animal
spirits, and how acute and powerful the operation between
his passions and their objects in such a state and crisis as
this ! It is evident ¦ the perception of misery, now, is right,

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 191
and as it should be ; and the commotion that ensues is natural
and what wiU be. With respect to the latter, reason is too
subhme, or comes too slow to have anything presently to do
in the case. The violence of the commotion must cease
before the understanding can attend to the dictates of reason.
After this manner, probably, was Jesus exercised at this
juncture." * " When Christ is compared to men who are said to have
slept sound before a painful death, and to have discovered
no sensibility in any period of it, the nature and use of his
example is not considered ; his natural weakness, if it may be
so called, being better calculated to show the strength of his
faith, and therefore affording more encouragement to us to
foUow his steps.
" But certainly our encouragement to follow Christ in suf
fering and dying is greatly lessened by the notion of his
having had a power over his own sensations, so that in any
situation he could feel more or less at pleasure, and even put
an end to all sensation 4>y a premature death, which is strictly
prohibited to aU his foUowers, and justly esteemed unbecom
ing the firmness that is expected of other men. Christians
who entertain this idea of their Saviour cannot have reflected
on the nature of the case.
" It may be said that, if Christ only felt as a man during
his agony, we should find something similar to it in the ac
counts of some of the martyrs. But the probabihty is, that
no history of any martyr was ever written with such perfect
fidelity as that of Christ by the Evangelists. It has been too
much the object of the writers, and from the best views,
namely, the encouragement of others, to exhibit the fortitude
and heroism of the sufferers in the strongest light.
" It must also be considered, that what a person suffers in
his own mind, in the expectation of pain and death, is gen-

* From the Theological Repository, Vol. VI. pp. 314-319.—
G. R. N.

192 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR, SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
eraUy known only to himself; and that the affections of the
bodily frame are seldom so great, when he is in company, as
to be visible to others. What our Saviour himself felt would
not have been known, if he had not, for the best reasons,
chosen that some of his disciples should be witnesses of it.
For anything that appears, his agony might not last half an
hour, and presently after it he was perfectly composed ; and
his behavior the day foUowing was such as could have given
no person the least suspicion of what he had felt the pre
ceding night.
" But though nothing is related of any particular martyr
that approaches to the case of our Saviour, yet, besides what
we may judge from our own experience in the expectation
of less evils, of what must have sometimes been felt in the
expectation of greater ones, some circumstances are occa
sionally mentioned by martyrologists, which sufficiently Ulus-
trate the account of the Evangelists. There are numberless
cases in which martyrs are represented as peculiarly intrepid
during their trial, and also immediately before, and even
during the time of extreme torture, compared with what
they had felt on the more distant view of it, though the man
ner in which they were affected by that more distant view
is not distinctly noted.
" Many letters are preserved of martyrs, written in the
interval between their apprehension and their deaths. But,
besides that historians would seldom choose to publish any
letters except such as, in their opinion, would do them credit,
and serve the cause for which they suffered, that is, show
their fortitude, a man who is capable of writing must be
tolerably composed, and would not in general be himself in
clined to dwell upon circumstances which would give himself
and his friends pain.
" From the account of one of the English martyrs, how
ever, namely, Richard Woodman, it may easily be coUected,
that his sufferings during his conflict with himself, when, as
he says (Fox's Book of Martyrs, Vol. III. p. 673), while he
was ' loth to forego his wife and children and goods,' were

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 193
extreme. ' This battle,' he says, ' lasted not a quarter of an
hour ; but it was sharper than death itself for the time, I
dare say.' After this he appears to have been perfectly
calm, and he suffered with great fortitude.
" Having now, I presume, some idea of the extreme dis
tress and agony of mind under which our Lord labored,
greater perhaps than any other man had ever felt before
him, and also of the causes which produced it, let us consider
his strength of mind in supporting the prospect of them.
That he should wish to avoid going through the dreadful
scene, we cannot think extraordinary. He would not have
been a man if he had not, .and that this wish should be ex
pressed in the form of a prayer to that great Being at whose
sovereign disposal he and all mankind always are, was quite
natural. In a truly devout mind, which respects the hand of
God in everything, an earnest wish and a prayer are the
same thing. Our Saviour, in this agony, did pray that, if it
was possible, the bitter cup might pass from him. But by
possible must, no doubt, be meant consistently with the designs
of divine government. He therefore only expressed his desire
that his painful death and sufferings might be dispensed with,
if the same great and good ends could have been attained
without them. For there can be no doubt but that with God
all things are naturally possible. Our Lord's wish or prayer
was therefore only conditional, and not absolute. He did not
wish to be excused from suffering, whatever might be the
consequence. Even in this most painful state of apprehen
sion, he did not look to himself only, but to God, and the
great ends of his government.
" We may think it extraordinary that our Lord should for
a moment suppose that what he wished or prayed for' was, in
any sense of the word, possible, knowing, as he himself ob
serves, that for that end he came unto that hour ; his dying,
with a view to a future resurrection, being a necessary part
of that plan which he was to be the principal instrument in
executing. But, besides that, in a highly agitated state of
mind, the thing might for a moment appear in a different
17

194 ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY.
hght, our Lord weU knew that the appointments of God,
even when expressed in the most absolute terms, are not
always so intended. We have more instances than one of
similar orders and appointments, by which nothing was
meant but the trial of a person's faith.
" This was the case when Abraham was ordered to offer
up his beloved son Isaac. Till the moment that his hand
was actually raised to slay his son, that patriarch had no
reason whatever to think that the death of his son, and that
by his own hand, was not intended by the Divine Being.
The order for the destruction of Nineveh in forty days was
also dehvered in absolute terms, though it was intended to be
conditional, and in the event did not take place. Notwith
standing, therefore, aU that had passed in the communica
tions which Jesus had with God, he could not teU but that
possibly his death might not be necessary, and that the same
end might be gained without it. In these circumstances, con
sidering the natural love of life, and the dread of pain and
death, the merest possibihty, or the supposition of a possi
bUity, would certainly justify our Lord's prayer, especially
when it is considered that, in the same breath with which he
uttered it, he added, Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou
wilt. Notwithstanding the dread and horror of mind with
which he viewed his approaching sufferings, he had no objec
tion to them, if it was the determined wiU of God that he
should bear them. This was a degree of resignation and
fortitude which far exceeds anything that we read of in
history. In all other instances in which persons have sweated
through the fear of death, they would have given, or have
done, anything to have avoided it. To them it appeared the
greatest of aU evils.
" The courage which any man may show whUe his nerves
are firm, is not to be compared with that of our Saviour's,
when his were, in a manner, broken and subdued. It was
not only whUe he was calm, and had a perfect command of
himself, but when his perturbation and distress of mind was
bo great as to throw him into a profuse sweat, that he said,

ON THE CAUSES OP OUR SAVIOUR'S AGONY. 195
Not as I will, but as thou wilt. No man in any cool moment
can form to himself an adequate idea of the heroism of this
act. Because no man, in a cool moment, and under no terror
of mind himself, can teU what his own wishes and prayers
would be in a state of such dreadful agony as that of our
Saviour. It wiU therefore be greater than he can conceive
it to be. It is probable that nothing but the consciousness of
his pecuharly near relation to God, and his full assurance of
such a state of future glory as no other man would ever
arrive at, could have supported him, and have preserved his
resignation and fortitude, in a state of mind so peculiarly
unfavorable to them."

OF OUR LORD'S FORTITUDE.
Bt WILLIAM NEWCOME,
ABCHBISHOP 0? ARMAGH, AND PRLAUTE OF IRELAND. *

Our Lord exhorted his apostles not to fear their perse
cutors, who kiUed the body and could not kiU the soul ; but
rather to fear Him who was>able to destroy both body and soul
in hell.t This was an exhortation to fortitude in professing
and propagating the true rehgion. His example taught this
duty in its whole extent.
He showed a noble contempt of worldly greatness by ap
pearing in a low condition of life. *During his pubhc minis
try he had not where to lay his head, X some of his pious
attendants ministered to him of their substance, § and he
paid the tribute-money by miracle. || He suffered hunger,
thirst, and weariness ; he was ever contending with the dul-
ness of his disciples, the incredulity of his kinsfolk, and the
reproaches and injuries of the Jews. And he " pleased not
himself "IT; but submitted to many and great evhs, that he
might please God and benefit mankind.
Let us observe in particular instances what " contradiction
of sinners " ** he endured, and what greatness of mind he
displayed. * Prom his " Observations on our Lord's Conduct as a Divine In
structor," &c.
t Matt. x. 26, 28. X Matt. viii. 20. § Luke viii. 3.
|| Matt. xvii. 27. T Rom. xv. 3. ** Heb. xii. 3.
17*

198 OP OUR lord's fortitude.
When he had pronounced forgiveness of sins to a paralytic,
some of the Scribes and Pharisees charged him with blas
phemy for invading God's prerogative. But they made the
accusation in the reasonings of their hearts ; and did not
avow it openly. Notwithstanding this, Jesus, unawed by
their authority, firmly but calmly expostulated with them for
their evil thought ; * and argued that the discernment of a
man's moral state might justly be allowed to him whom God
had vested with the power of working miracles.
Having healed a man on the Sabbath, who had labored
under an infirmity for thirty and eight years, the Jews per
secuted him and sought to kUl him. Jesus answered, " My
Father worketh hitherto, and I work " : f My Father pre
serves, governs, and benefits the world without distinction of
days ; and therefore I also extend good to men on the Sab
bath. This mode of expressing himself furnished the Jews
with an additional reason for seeking his life. Observe now,
throughout the whole of the discourse immediately following,
with what magnanimity our Lord perseveres in the same
language. " The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he
seeth the Father do." J " The Father loveth the Son, and
showeth him aU things which he himself doeth." § " The
Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto
the Son : that all men should honor the Son, even as they
honor the Father." ||
Probably on the Sabbath after he had restored the lame
man at the pool of Bethesda, our Lord intrepidly vindicated
his disciples against the Pharisees, who had censured them
for plucking and eating ears of corn on that day. % And,
thinking it expedient to wean the Jews from their excessive
veneration for the law which he was about to abohsh, on the
Sabbath which next succeeded, though the Scribes and Phari
sees watched him, he healed a man with a withered hand

* Mark ii. 6 - 11. t John v. 17. J Ver. 19. § Ver. 20.
|| Ver. 22, 23. So ver. 21, 26, 30, 36, 37, 43, 45.
% Luke vi. 1-4.

OF OUR LORD'S FORTITUDE. 199
pubhcly in the synagogue.* This fiUed them with madness ;
and they took counsel how they might destroy him.
Afterwards, as he was teaching in one of the synagogues
on the Sabbath, he restored a woman who had been bowed
together eighteen years, confuted the ruler of the synagogue
who with indignation restrained the people from coming to
be healed on the Sabbath, reproved his hypocrisy, as he
concealed many vices under this semblance of piety, and
made aU his adversaries ashamed, f
Again : as he was eating bread with a ruler of the Phari
sees on the Sabbath, and those of that powerful sect insidi
ously observed his conduct, a man with a dropsy stood before
them. Jesus said to the teachers of the Law and the Phari
sees, Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath day ? Knowing how
invincibly he reasoned on this point, they kept silence. But
Jesus " took him, and healed him, and sent him away." J
Conscious of his rectitude, he was fearless of their power.
Once more : at the Feast of Tabernacles, though it was
the Sabbath, Jesus made clay and opened the eyes of one
blind from his birth : § and he wrought this miracle imme
diately after the Jews had taken up stones to cast at him,
and had sent officers to apprehend him. ||
I do not find in the history of the Apostles that they had
the disengagement from prejudice, and the courage, to imi
tate this part of our Lord's conduct.
There are other instances which show that Jesus paid no
deference to the wrong notions of the leading Jews. The
Scribes and Pharisees murmured because he ate with pub
licans and sinners in the house of Matthew the publican. %
This censure did not deter him from saying to Zaccheus, a
chief of the publicans, at a time when multitudes surrounded
him, This day I must abide in thine house.**
When the Scribes and Pharisees from Jerusalem asked

* Luke vi. 6-11. t Luke xiii. 10-17. t Luke xiv. I -
§ John ix. 14. || See ch. vii., viii., ix. If Luke v. 30.
** Luke xix. 2-7.

200 OF OUR LORD'S FORTITUDE.
him why " his disciples walked not according to the tradition
of the elders, but ate bread with unwashen hands " ; he
expostulated with them for their hypocrisy, proved to them
that they made void the commandment of God by their tra
dition, characterized them as blind leaders of the bhnd, and
thus introduced his explanation of moral defilement: "He
called unto him aU the multitude, and said unto them,
Hearken unto me, aU of you, and understand." *
Another proof of our Lord's fortitude was, that, although
his first preaching at Nazareth had exposed his life to
danger,! the unbehef, the ingratitude, the outrage and vio
lence of his countrymen, could not divert him from attempt
ing their conversion a second time. X
We have seen how undauntingly he reproved his enemies
on just occasions ; and these were often the Jewish rulers
who had his life in their power.
He met death for the wisest and best ends, the glory of
God and the salvation of mankind. He astonished his timid
disciples by the readiness with which he went before them
in the way to Jerusalem, on the approach of the Passover at
which he suffered ; § when they all knew that his enemies
were conspiring against his life, and he himself knew that
he should suffer a most painful and ignominious death: he
entered the city in a kind of public triumph : in the hearing
of the multitude he reproved the vices of the Scribes and
Pharisees to their face, || with unequaUed energy, and with
words " quick and powerful, and sharper than a two-edged
sword " : % when Judas rose from the paschal supper to
betray him, he said to his disciples, with wonderful com
posure, " Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glo
rified through him " : ** he witnessed before the high-priest,
and before Pontius PUate, a good confession ; and showed
that he voluntarily submitted to death, because he had mirac-

* Mark vii. 1 - 15. f Luke iv. 29. X Mark vi. 1-6.
§ Mark x. 32 ; Luke xix. 28. || Matt, xxiii. 1.
IF Heb. iv. 12. ** John xiii. 31.

OP OUR lord's fortitude. 201
ulously preserved his life at the preceding feasts of Taberna
cles and Dedication.*
It is natural to object, that our Lord's agony was incon
sistent with the fortitude which some good men have actually
displayed. I shaU give this objection its fuU force ; f and
shall consider it with the attention which it demands.
We read that our Lord • often foretold his sufferings, and
many particulars of them; that he most sharply rebuked
Peter for wishing them far from him ; + and that when Moses
and Elias appeared to him at his transfiguration, they spake
of his departure which he was about to accomphsh at Jeru
salem. § He likewise knew that, according to the ancient
prophecies, the Messiah ought to suffer what the Jews in
flicted, || and to enter into his glory : T and accordingly he
predicted his resurrection on the third day,** his ascension
into heaven, ft and his elevation to his glorious throne. XX B
must be added, that his pre-existing and divine state gave
him a large and perfect view of this and every other plan
of God's moral government.
On the other hand, we must consider that our Lord was
perfect man, and left men an example that they should follow
his steps. §§ He partook of flesh and blood, |||| hke the chU
dren given him by the common Father of all. " Li all things
it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren ; that he
might be a merciful and faithful high-priest." He said to his
apostles, " Ye are they who have continued with me hi my
temptations." 1HT " He was in aU points tempted like as we

* John viii. 59 ; x. 39.
t Celsus thus states it, Orig. 1. 2, § 24. Ti dSv norviarai Kal ohvpe-
rat, Kal t6v tov oXidpov <p6@ov evXerai napahpapelv, Xeyav o>he ttcos '
Q 7rarcp, k. r. X.
X Matt. xvi. 22, 23. § Luke ix. 31.
|| Mark ix. 12 ; John iii. 14 ; Luke xviii. 31 ; xxii. 37 ; John xiii. 1, 3 ;
xix. 28.
IT John xvii. 24 ; Matt. xix. 28 ; xxv. 31.
** Matt. xx. 19. ft John vi. 62. Xt See the texts quoted at %
§§ 1 Pet. ii. 21. |||| Heb. ii. 13, 14, 17. TT Luke xxii. 28.

202 OF our lord's fortitude.
are, yet without sin " ; * that he might be touched with the
feeling of our infirmities. He himself was " compassed with
infirmity"; f that he might pardon the ignorant and erro
neous, and be moderately and not rigorously affected towards
them. We must also carefully remark of him, that he possessed
the most exquisite feelings of human nature in the highest
degree. X He was susceptible of joy, which instantly burst
forth in devout thanksgiving. § He was prone to compassion,
and repeatedly melted into tears. The innocence of chUdren
engaged his affection ; his heart was open to the impressions of
friendship ; and when he saw any degree of virtue, he loved
it. || He was grieved at unbehef, and had a generous indig
nation against vice : and we find him touched with the quick
est sense of his own wrongs : " Aae ye come out as against
a thief, with swords and staves, to take me ? " If
Sometimes he spake of his sufferings with the greatest
sensibility. " I have a baptism to be baptized with : and
how am I straitened tUl it be accomplished ! " ** " Now is
my soul troubled : and what shaU I say ? Father, save me
from this hour ! But for this cause came I unto this hour." ft
It is true that he frequently foretold his death with much
composure; and that he sternly reprehended Peter, when,
from worldly views, that apostle began to rebuke him for
uttering one of these predictions. XX
The horror of the sharpest sufferings which can be under
gone wUl sometimes be greater, and sometimes less, in the
firmest and best minds ; §§ as the evU is considered in its own
nature, or under the idea of duty and resignation to God.
The contest between reason and religion, and the natural
dread of the greatest evils, must subsist when the most per-
* Heb. iv. 15. t Heb. v. 2.
X See Barrow, Vol. I. Serm. XXXII. p. 475, ed. fol. 1683.
§ Matt. xi. 25. Luke x. 21. || Mark x. 21. T Matt. xxvi. 55.
** Luke xii. 50. tt John xii. 27. Xt Mark vui- 32-
§§ Ignominise cruciatuum et mortis horrorem in Christi carne modo
majorem modo minorem fuisse apparet. Grot, in Matt. xvi. 23.

OF OUR LORD S FORTITUDE. 203
feet virtue is caUed on to suffer them : and where it ends in
a becoming resolution, and a pious submission to the wise and
great Disposer of all events, the character is a consummate
one in a moral and religious view.*
Let us now turn our eyes to our Lord's conduct on the
night before his crucifixion. Nothing can exceed the sedate-
ness, the wisdom, and benevolence, which appear throughout
the whole of it at the celebration of the paschal supper. He
first gently censured the contention for superiority which had
arisen among the Apostles, t He then illustrated his doctrine
of humility by an example of it, in washing their feet. He
proceeded to declare with much emotion his knowledge of
Judas's ungrateful and perfidious intention ; J he mentioned
the aggravations and the dreadful consequences of his guUt ;
but described the traitor covertly, and addressed him ob
scurely, tUl compeUed by Judas's own question to point him
out publicly. He exhorted his disciples to mutual love with
a paternal affection. § Bi consequence of Peter's declared
self-confidence, he foretold his faU; but when Peter vehe
mently repeated his asseveration, our Lord did not repeat
his prediction. || He instituted a most simple, expressive,
and useful rite in commemoration of his death; instructed,
advised, and comforted his disciples with the most unbounded
affection ; and closed with a solemn act of piety as striking a
scene as imagination can conceive of lowliness and benignity,
of prudence and wisdom, of decorum and majesty, of com
posure and resignation.^
He then resorted to his accustomed place of retirement,
* Aristotle thus describes the man of fortitude : Set <poj3eio-dat pev,
inropeveiv he, " Evils must be feared by him, and yet undergone." Magna
Mor., p. 160, ed. Du Val. So Eth. Nicom., III. vii. 1 : (pofiricreTai pev
ovv Kal Ta ToiavTa ' as he hel, Kal as Xoyos, vnopevel, tov KaXov eveKa,
" The man of fortitude will fear human evils ; but will undergo them as he
ought, and as reason prescribes, for the sake of what is becoming and
right." t Luke xxii. 25, &c. J John xiii. 21. § John xiii. 34.
|| Matt. xxvi. 35. IT John xvii.

204 OP OUR LORD'S FORTITUDE.
and where he knew that Judas would execute his treason : for
he knew aU things which should befaU him.*
I shaU now inquire what were the causes of that agony f
and deadly sorrow, X of that sore amazement and heavy an
guish, § which seized him on the approach of his sufferings ;
and which drew from him such intense and persevering sup
phcations that God would avert them.
I cannot suppose that he was penetrated with a sense of
God's indignation at this time. That is the portion of those
* John xviii. 4.
t The word dyavia, Luke xxii. 44, has not so strong a sense as the
corresponding one in our language. It properly signifies the fear which
men have when they are about to contend with an antagonist ; and in this
sense is opposed to great fear. When Hector was on the point of engag
ing with Ajax, the Trojans feared greatly ; but Hector only rjyavia.
See Dionysius Hal. in Clarke's note on II. VH. 216. Aristotle describes
it to be fear at the beginning of an undertaking : (pofios tis irpds dpXrjV
epyov. Probl. II. 31, p. 691, ed. Du Val. The Stoics denned it to be
the fear of an uncertain event : 0o'/3os dSijXoi; wpdypaTos. Diog. Laert.
Zeno, VII. Sect. 113, p. 435, ed. Amst. 4to. It is twice used by Diodorus
Siculus for the anxiety of the Egyptians while the Nile was rising, ed.
Wess., p. 44. And an apposite passage is quoted by Lardner on the
Logos, p. 7, from Nic. Damascen. apud Vales, excerpt, p. 841, where all
are said to be dyaviavTes, and Julius Cassar to be fjeo-ros dyavias, while
Octavius's life was in danger from illness. " Per catachresin poniturpro
quovis timore," says H. Stephens in voc. and accordingly in Syr. dyavia
is rendered by fear, from bm, timuit. See Wetstein in loc.
X H. Stephens translates the word iK0apfiiopai, " Stupore attonito per-
cellor, Pavore attonito perterreor." He derives it from Bfpra, stupeo. It
denotes wonder ; see Mark x. 32 ; Luke iv. 36 ; v. 9 ; Acts iii. 10, 11 ;
ix. 6. It also denotes that fear which often accompanies wonder. Com
pare Mark xvi. 5, 6, with Luke xxiv. 5, Matt, xxviii. 5. The word
BdpfHrjo-ev, II. I. 199, is explained by Didymus, icpo^rjdn, it-enXdyr).
See Pearson on the Creed, Article Suffered.
§ 'Ahr/pav, whence dh-qpovia , is derived from dhea taidio afficior, pro-
prie proe dofatigatione. "Ahos signifies satictas ; defatigatio, qu* est
laboris velut satietas. And Eustathius defines dhnpav, " one who fails,"
(animo concidit, ) as it were from a satiety of sorrow. '0 £K Xuotjs, as
ola Kai twos Kopov, (bs SSos Xeyerai,) dvairenTaKms. See H. Stephens :
Reimar's Dion Cassius, p. 924, note, § 215. Wetstein in loc. Phil. ii. 26.

op our lord's fortitude. 205
only who do evil. A voice from heaven repeatedly pro
nounced our Lord the beloved Son of God, in whom he was
well pleased. And he was now about to evidence his obedi
ence and love to his Father in a most illustrious manner.*
He was also about to sanctify himself f for the sake of his
disciples, and of aU mankind. And what are his own words ?
" Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my
hfe that I may take it again." X
Nor was Christ at this time under the immediate power of
Satan. Li the concluding scenes of his hfe, the evU one
might be said to " bruise his heel," § because he afflicted him
by his mstruments. After the temptation, the Devil is said to
depart from him "for a season." ||- If the phrase implies that
he returned during our Lord's agony and sufferings, what his
emissaries and imitators did may be attributed to his agency.
When our Lord said to his apostles, at the paschal supper,
" the prince of this world cometh " ; % the meaning is, that he
was coming by those unjust and violent men who resembled
him. And again, when Jesus said to the Jewish rulers, " this
is your hour, and the power of darkness " ; ** he meant the
power of wickedness, of men who hated the light, and came
not to it lest their deeds should be reproved. But that the
mind of Christ was now disquieted and harassed by Satan
himself is a horrid idea, the dictate of gloomy minds, and
wholly inconsistent with God's goodness to the Son of his
love.ft Nor was he oppressed and overcome by the sense that he
was to bear the sins of mankind in his own body on the
tree ; XX and to redeem us from the curse of the law, being
made a curse for us. §§ A foresight of conferring unspeak
able benefits on the human race would tend to aUeviate, and
not to embitter, the sufferings of the benevolent Jesus : unless
* John xiv. 31 .
t John xvii. 19 ; Matt. xx. 28 ; xxvi. 28 ; 2 Cor. v. 14.
X John x. 17. § Gen. iii. 15. || Lukeiv. 13.
f John xiv. 30. ** Luke xxii. 53. ft Col. i. 13.
XX 1 Pet. ii. 24. §§ Gal. iii. 13,
is

206 of our lord's fortitude.
at this time he was [judiciaUy] stricken, smitten of God, and
afflicted ; * an idea which the prophet excludes, and which
his own sinless rectitude and God's perfect goodness exclude.
Though God had wise reasons for not restraining those who
afflicted our Lord, yet he was so far from heightening his
afflictions above their natural course, that he sent an angel
from heaven to strengthen him.t Jesus suffered by the
wickedness of men ; but he was not punished by the hand of
God. Nor should his death, and the bitter circumstances
precedhig it, be considered as a fuU compensation to strict
justice ; but as God's merciful and gracious method of recon
ciling man to himself.
Those divines entertain the most just and rational notions
who do not think that our Lord's brdken and dejected spirit
was a trial supernaturally induced ; but assign natural causes
for the feelings which shook his inmost frame. He felt for
the wickedness and madness of those who persecuted him in
so unrelenting a manner, notwithstanding his beneficent con- .
duct, his laborious and admirable instructions, and the con
vincing evidences of his divine mission ; for the irresolution,
timidity, and despondency of his friends, and for the ingrati
tude, perfidy, and guilt of the wretched and devoted Judas.
He foresaw the unjust offence which his death on the cross
would give both to Jews and GentUes ; the exemplary de
struction of his country ; the spirit of hatred and persecution
which would arise against his Church, and even among those
who were called by his name ; and the unbelief and sins of
mankind, which exposed them to such a weight of punishment
here and hereafter. And these and such hke painful sensa
tions and gloomy prospects made the deepest impression at a
* Isa. liii. 4.
t Luke xxii. 43. That some omitted this part of the history, see
Lardner's Cred., Part II. Vol. IH. p. 132 ; Hist, of Heretics, 252 ; and Gro-
tius's note in loc, who says : " BlaudabiUs fuit et superstitio et temeritas
illorum qui hanc pai-ticulam et sequentem de sudore delevere. — Christus
destitutus divinitatis in se habitantis virtute, humanaeque naturse relictus,
— opus habuit angelorum solatio."

of our lord's fortitude. 207
time when he had a lively view of the immediate indignities
and insults, of the disgrace, and horrid pains of death, which
awaited him during the long and sharp trial of his wisdom
and goodness.*
When he came to the place where a foUower and friend
was to betray him, and where the Jews were ignominiously to
seize and bind him as a malefactor, the scene excited a per
turbation of mind, and he was depressed by sorrow and an
guish proportioned to his exquisite sensibility, the conscious
ness of his wrongs, and his extensive foresight.
And how did our Lord act under the extreme sorrow
which overwhelmed him ? He offered up the foUowing pray
er to his Father : f " My Father, aU things which are fit and
right are possible with thee : if it be possible, if the wise plan
of thy moral government admit of it, let this bitter and deadly
cup pass from me : nevertheless, not as I wiU, but as thou
wilt. If this cup of pain and torture cannot pass from me,
but that I drink it, thy wiU be done." + He thrice addressed
himself to his Father in words of the same import And
being in an agony, having the prospect of an excruciating
death immediately before him, he prayed the more intensely :
and his body was so affected by the state of his mind, that
drops exuded from him, the copiousness of which bore resem
blance to drops of blood. § The author of the Epistle to the
* See most of these causes well enlarged on in Dr. Harwood's Disser
tation on our Saviour's Agony. ¦
t Jortin says, after Grotius on Matt. xxvi. 39 : " We must observe that
our Lord was made like unto us in all things, sin excepted ; and that,
upon this and other occasions, he experienced in himself what we also
frequently find within us, two contrary wills, or, to speak more accurate
ly, a strife between inclination and reason ; in which cases, though rea-
¦ son gets the better of inclination, we may be said to do a thing willingly,
yet with an unwilling mind." Vol. IV. Serm. III. p. 42. The whole
discourse should be attended to by those who study this subject. I like
wise recommend a careful perusal of Lardner's Sermons on our Lord's
Bufferings. X Matt. xxvi. 39, &c., and parallel places.
§ Tout Travels eKeivovs, Kal irapariXrio-iovs alparoe 6p6pj3ois, ihparas
i£ihpao-e. Photii ep. 138, p. 194, ed. Land. 1651.

208 op our lord's fortitude.
Hebrews observes that he " offered up prayers and supphca
tions to him who was able to save him from death, with a
strong cry and with tears ; and was heard " from the filial
reverence with which he prayed.* God administered to him
extraordinary consolation, f But thus far only his 'supphca
tions avaUed. For the cup of death was not removed from him.
Of this scene our Lord intended to make three of his
apostles witnesses : for he advanced only a small distance
from them, and the moon was full. But they slept through
sorrow ; contrary to their Master's commands, ever given for
the gravest reasons, and which should have been particularly
obeyed in Such circumstances. At the close of it he said,
The design for which I separated you from my other disciples
being ended, "sleep on now, and take your rest." J On
uttering these words, he heard the approach of those who
came to apprehend him, and immediately added: "It is
enough : the hour is come : behold, the Son of Man is betrayed
into the hands of sinners. Bise, let us advance : behold, he
who betrayeth me is at hand." §
Here some observations are necessary.
The Captain of our salvation, who was made perfect
through sufferings, || set a most useful example to his followers
who were doomed to undergo the same fiery trial. He gave
them no lesson of a proud and stoical insensibUity. The
natural evUs of life he treated as evUs ; % and a violent
death by lingering torture, as the greatest natural evil.
* Heb. v. 7. f Luke xxii. 43. J Matt. xxvi. 45.
§ Mark xiv. 41, 42. The word dfl-evet, which Hesychius explains by
drvoxprj, e^apKel, seems a retracting of what he had just allowed. " But
enough of sleep." He is represented as speaking to the instant.
|| Heb. ii. 10.
T With a view to the evils which arc thick sown in life, or, perhaps, to
the persecutions of his followers, he observed, that sufficient unto the day
was the evil thereof. (Matt. vi. 34.) He spoke the language of nature,
when he called the temporal advantages of riches good things ; and
Lazarus's pain and poverty, evil things. (Luke xvi. 25.) And, again,
when he thus foretold Peter's crucifixion, that another should gird hinij
and carry him whither he ivoidd not. (John xxi. 18.)

op our lord's fortitude. 209
He foresaw that some of his disciples would madly court
persecution.* But he gave no sanction to such enthusiasm
by his own conduct. He had before taught them to use pru
dence in avoiding persecution ; f and he now taught them to
pray against it with perseverance and earnestness, but at the
same time with the most entire resignation. And this is true
constancy in a Christian martyr, if he first fervently prays
against sufferings which every man must abhor, and then
firmly undergoes them, if it is God's will not to avert them
from him. It was fit that our Lord's example in this respect
should be openly proposed to the world ; and I beheve that
every sober and pious Christian, of the greatest constitutional
fortitude, has publicly or secretly followed it, from the irre
sistible bent of human nature. X
Our Lord also taught Christians in aU ages, what the
depravity of the world made it necessary for many to bear in
mind, that a state of the sharpest sufferings was consistent
with the favor of God ; and that the most perfect innocence,
and the brightest prospect of future glory, could not over
come the natural horror of them. To prevent despair in any,
he made himself a pattern to the weakest and tenderest of
mankind.f " He sanctified the passion of fear, and hallowed
natural sadnesses, that we might not think the infelicities of
our nature and the calamities of our temporal condition to
become criminal, so long as they make us not to omit a duty.
He that fears death, and trembles at the approximation of it,
and yet had rather die again than sin once, hath not sinned
in his fear : Christ hath hallowed it, and the necessitous con
dition of his nature is his excuse." ||
I have supposed that our Lord prayed against his death,
and not against his dejection of mind ; agreeably to his words
in another place, where his crucifixion must be meant :
* Lardner's Testimonies, II. 174, 358 ; HI. 349, 351. On Heretics,
p. 238.
t Matt. x. 23. X See Luke xviii. 7.
§ Archbishop Tillotson, Serm. CXXXVI. p. 236, fol.
|| Bishop Taylor's Life of Christ, p. 488.
18*

210 of our lord's fortitude.
" Shall I not drink of the cup which my Father hath given
me ? " * I do not else see how the Apostle's words have due
force ; where he observes that our Lord prayed to him who
was able to save him from death.if I cannot else understand
St. Matthew's words, " O my Father, if this cup may not
pass from me, unless I drink it, thy will be done " : J which
must refer to a future cup of suffering, and not to one wliich
he had already drunk. Nor do the strong expressions used
by our Lord admit of the other supposition. He could not
doubt whether it were possible § that God could remove from
him his discomposure and dismay.
I say then that our Lord prayed against his death : " My
Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me." || " Fa
ther, aU things are possible with thee : remove this cup from
me." 1f " Father, if thou be willing to remove from me this
cup, well." ** However, he immediately added words to this
effect : " Nevertheless, not my wUl, but thine, be' done." But
how could he pray against an event which he himself and so
many prophets had foretold ? Lardner has answered, that,
notwithstanding predictions, good and evU will influence the
mind; and we should perform our duty suitably to our cir
cumstances. Our Lord, says he, foretold the faU of Peter,
the treachery of Judas, and the destruction of Jerusalem;
and yet used the natural means to prevent them, ft What
this judicious writer has suggested may be strengthened by
observing that many of God's commands and predictions,
though expressed absolutely, appear in the history of his
providence to have been conditional and revocable. Abra
ham was commanded to sacrifice his son ; and God recalled
the command, when he had proved his faith and obedience. XX
David besought God for his chUd with fasting and tears, after
Nathan had foretold his death : for he said, " Who can tell
whether God will be gracious unto me, that the child may
* John xviii. 11. t Heb. v. 7. X Ch. xxvi. 42.
§ Matt. xxvi. 39, 42 ; Mark xiv. 35, 36. || Matt. xxvi. 39.
IT Mark xiv. 36. ** Luke xxii. 42.
tt Sermons, Vol. II. p. 70. Xt Gen. xxii.

op our lord's fortitude. 211
live ? " * Jonah was sent to prophesy against the inhabitants
of Nineveh, that their city should be overthrown in forty
days ; and yet God spared them on their humiliation and
repentance, f God said to Ahab by the Prophet Elijah,
" Behold, I wUl bring evil upon thee " : X and yet the sentence
was remitted in part ; for God afterwards declared that, be
cause Ahab humbled himself, he would not bring the evU in
his days ; but in his son's days would he bring the evU on
his house. And though, in Hezekiah's sickness, God said to
him by Isaiah, " Give charge concerning thy family ; for thou
shalt die, and not hve '' ; § yet, in consequence of his fervent
supplication, God healed him on the third day, and added
to his hfe fifteen years.
But why were not the prayers offered up by our Lord
effectual ; since he said to Peter very soon afterwards,
" Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he
shall give me at hand more than twelve legions of angels ? " |]
I answer, because our Lord prayed with resignation to his
Father's wUl, and not absolutely. "None took his life from
him, but he laid it down of himself. He had power to lay it
down, and he had power to take it again." IT He submitted
to death from a conviction of its fitness. When his anguish
of mind was allayed, and his commotion natural to man
subsided, his language was, " ShaU I not drink the cup which
my Father hath given me ? " ** " How [else] shall the
Scripture be fulfilled, that thus it must be ? " as if this par
ticular reason for his death had been recoUected by him, or
had been recalled to his mind ft by the angel who appeared
to him. XX
But it may be urged that he, who had a glory with the
* 2 Sam. xii. t Jon. iii. X 1 Kings xxi. 21, 29.
§ 2 Kings xx. Here see 1 Sam. xxiii. 12 ; Jer. xviii. 7, 8 ; xxxviii. 17.
|| Matt. xxvi. 53.
1 John x. 18. ** Matt. xxvi. 54 ; Mark xiv. 49.
tt See Mark ix. 12 ; Luke xviii. 31 ; Matt. xxvi. 24.
t{ Luke xxii. 43.

212 op our lord's fortitude.
Father before the world was, * must have known the neces
sity of that event against which he prayed.
I answer, that to assert the strict and absolute necessity of
Christ's death becomes not us who know so httle of God's
unsearchable ways ; t that we do not understand the manner
in which the divine and human natures were united in Christ,
and therefore may doubt whether the superior nature did not
sometimes forsake the inferior, X and withhold its communica
tions from it ; and that the wise providence of God might so
order events as they would most benefit the world in a moral
view, and therefore might exhibit our Lord in such circum
stances as fiirnished most instruction and consolation to his
persecuted followers.
I now proceed to show our Lord's composure of mind, after
he had thus strongly expressed the perturbation which had
been raised in him by his foreknowledge of the many dark
events which awaited him, and particularly by his abhorrence
of a violent and excruciating death.
He went forth to meet the traitor, and the officers sent to
apprehend him ; § he discovered himself to them ; || and
when God had struck them with such a miraculous awe that
* John xvii. 5.
t See Ben Mordecai, Letter VI. 85, p. 748, &c, 8vo.
X See Ben Mordecai, VI. 89. " As to the objection that the weakness
of the flesh was absorbed in the divinity, it may just as safely be asserted
that the power of the divinity was absorbed in the flesh : for as to the
consequence of the conjunction of the angel of the covenant with the
flesh in which he was incarnate ; or in what degree the temptations of
Christ might affect him ; that is, how easy or how difficult it might be
for Christ to resist them ; I presume we are entirely ignorant : and have
no right to argue from our ignorance against the fact itself." And Gro
tius and Tillotson say that the Divine Wisdom communicated itself to
Christ's human soul according to his pleasure, and as circumstances re
quired. Grot, on Mark xiii. 32. Tillotson, Vol. IX. p. 273. Beza also
says, " Imo et ipsa BedrnTos plenitudo sese, prout et quatenus ipsi libuit,
humanitati assumptaj insinuavit." On Luke ii. 52. These three last
authorities are quoted by Mr. Farmer on the Temptation, p. 130. See
Mark iii. 9 ; Luke ix. 52 ; Mark xi. 13 ; xiii. 32 ; Matt. xxiv. 20.
§ John xviii. 4. II John xviii. 5.

OF OUR lord's fortitude. 213
they fell on the ground,* and had thus demonstrated Jesus's
power of restraining their violence, our Lord made them
this wise and benevolent request, " B ye seek me, let these
[my attendants] depart." f He nhldly addressed the perfidi
ous Judas : X he was so collected as instantly to perceive the
necessity of working a miracle to prevent the iU consequences
of Peter's affectionate but rash violence ; § and he forewarned
that apostle, and aU mankind, that drawing the sword in the
cause of his rehgion would involve /the good and bad, the
persecuted and persecutor, in undistinguished destruction : ||
he declared his readiness to fulfil the Scriptures by his
death : If he meekly expostulated with the people for their
violent and disgraceful manner of apprehending him : ** while
he stood before Caiaphas, he showed a composed attention to
Peter's irresolution and timidity,j"t and penetrated him with a
sense of them by the majesty of his eye : at the same time,
he rephed with the most exemplary self-command to the
officer who struck him for answering the high-priest, in a
manner full of reason and dignity : XX before Caiaphas, and
the whole councU of the chief priests, elders, and scribes, he
entered into no vindication of himself, no explanation of his
perverted expressions, against the false witnesses suborned to
accuse him : §§ but when adjured by the living God to say
whether he was the Christ, the Son of the blessed God, he
answered, I am ; though he knew that they would impute it
to him as blasphemy, a crime which by the law of Moses
was punishable with death. ||||
Fortitude under actual sufferings, is patience ; and sub
mission to them because they are the wiU of God, is resigna
tion. How did Jesus act, when those who beheld him spat in his

# John xviii. 6. t John xviii. 8.
X Matt. xxvi. 50 ; Luke xxii. 48. § Luke xxii. 51.
|| Matt. xxvi. 52. If Matt. xxvi. 54. ** Matt. xxvi. 55.
tf Luke xxii. 61. XX J°nn xviii. 23. §§ Matt. xxvi. 62.
|||| Lev. xxiv. 16.

214

of our lord's fortitude.

face;* when they blindfolded him, and smote him on the
face with the palms of their hands, or struck him with their
staves ; when they derided his prophetic spirit and Messiah-
ship in this taunting language, Prophesy who is he that smote
thee? Under all these circumstances of indignity, "he
opened not his mouth, hke a lamb led to the slaughter." t
When he stood before PUate, he astonished him by not
seeking to avert death in the usual way of defending himself
against the accusations of his enemies : J and as before the
Jewish high-priest and council he acknowledged himself to be
the Christ, the Son of God, which had the appearance of
blasphemy ; so before the Eoman governor he confessed that
he was a king, which had the appearance of sedition. §
Before Herod he conducted himself with the same majesty,
the same patient endurance of wrongs, and the same resolu
tion to decline the means of self-preservation which became
his peculiar circumstances. || He refused to gratify the idle
curiosity of the tetrarch by working a miracle, and to give
that account of his life and ministry which might have been
credited on the authority of others : for which Herod and his
soldiers treated him with contempt and scorn, and sent him
back to PUate arrayed in a gorgeous robe, in derision of his
claim as a king.
When our Lord was again brought before PUate, a robber
and a murderer % was preferred to him by that very multitude
* Matt. xxvi. 67, 68, and parallel places. What a very strong mark
of contempt spitting on a person is accounted in the East, see in Bishop
Lowth on Isaiah 1. 6. Demosthenes closes the aggravating circumstances
of a striker in this manner, orav KovhiXots, otov iirl Kopprjs, when with
the hand, when on the cheek .- he adds, these circumstances Kivel Kal i^iorno-i,
move and transport with rage ; and in the same oration he observes, ovk
earl t&v ¦advrav ovhev v/Hpeas aqbopnTorepov, of all things there is noth
ing more intolerable than petulant and insolent injury. In Midian. So
Quinet. Lib. VI. c. 1 : "Plurimum affert atrocitatis modus, si contumeliosC :
ut Demosthenes ex parte percussi corporis invidiam Midise quajrit."
f Isa. liii. 7. t Matt, xxvii. 13, 14.
$ John xviii. 37. II Luke xxiii. 8- 11.
U Matt, xxvii. 20, and parallel places,

op our lord's fortitude. 215
who had heard his divine instructions, and seen, or perhaps
experienced, his beneficial power : * nor did even this vile
indignity extort from the meek Jesus a w;ord of expostula
tion. Then PUate commanded that Jesus should be scourged ; f
after which severe and ignominious punishment the whole
band of the Boman soldiers made him their sport, crowned
him with thorns, clothed him in purple, dehvered him a mock-
sceptre, paid riim mock-adoration, addressed him with mock-
titles of royalty, spat on him, and smote him on the head.
The sight of Jesus, thus derided and afflicted, did not satiate
the fury of his enemies ; but after they had afforded him a
further opportunity of displaying his dignity, and resolution
to meet death, by giving no answer to Pilate's question,
" Whence art thou ? " J they extorted the condemnation of
him from his worldly-minded judge by their loud and artful
solicitations. §
Then was Jesus led away to be crucified : his cross, or part
of it, was laid on him, as the manner was ; and he bare it till
his exhausted strength sunk under it : " and two others also,
who were malefactors, were led with him to be put to death." ||
On the way, a great multitude of women bewailed and la
mented him : but he turned about to them, and, with a heart
fuU of commiseration, bade them deplore their own impending
sufferings, and not his ; declaring at the same time," but in
figurative and covert language, that, if the innocent suffered
* Josephus, speaking of the Pharisees, says, Toaairnv he eXovcn tt)V
lo-xyv irapa ra rrXr]8ei, as Kal Kara fiao-CXeas n Xiyovres, Kal koto.
dpx<-epias, eidbs mo-reieo-dat.- Ant. 13. 10. 5, quoted by Harwood
on John ii. 24. " They have so much power with the people, that, even if
they allege anything against the king or high-priest, they are immediately
believed." t John xix. 1-3, and parallel places. J John xix. 9.
§ We may account for Pilate's conduct from his knowledge of Tibo-
rius's extreme jealousy and cruelty.
|| So Luke xxiii. 32 should be translated and pointpd. " Sed oblitus
sum Lucse xxiii. 32 in KaKovpyoi utrinque hypostigmen notare," says H.
Stephens, in his curious preface to his Greek Testament, 12mo, 1576.

216 OF OUR lord's fortitude.
such calamities, much greater would befaU those whose crimes
made them ripe for destruction : " If they do these things in
the green tree, what shall be done in the dry." *
When he came to the place of crucifixion, he was offered
wine mingled with myrrh, which was designed to blunt the
sense of pain by inducing a state of stupefaction : but he
received it not : he declined this office of humanity, that he
might show himself unappaUed by the horrors of instant
crucifixion ; and that he might fuUy possess his reason, and
thus display the virtues suitable to his high character in the
season of so severe a trial.
A title, deriding his royal descent and dignity, was placed
on the cross to which he was fixed. He was crucified be
tween two malefactors ; and, probably while the nails were
piercing his hands and feet, when the sense and feeling of his
ignominious sufferings were strongest, he thus prayed and
pleaded for his murderers : " Father, forgive them ; for they
know not what they do." f
Bi this situation, which might have excited the pity of the
most unfeeling spectator, and of the bitterest enemy, X our
Lord was reviled and mocked, his power was questioned, his
prophecies perverted, and his dignity blasphemed, by the
Jewish people, by the Boman soldiers, and by the chief
priests, scribes, and elders ; the rulers mixing themselves with
the throng, to feast their eyes with his sufferings, and to insult
him under them.
But such conduct served only to display the greatness of
the sufferer. The patience of Jesus remained unmoved. Here,
as when he stood before his judges, he left his life and doc
trine, his prophecies and miracles, the supernatural knowledge
displayed by him, and the voices from heaven which bare him
* Luke xxiii. 27-31. t Luke xxiii. 34.
X Qeapa h' rjv
Toiovtov olov Kal o-TVyovvT irroiKTiaai.
CEd. Tyr. 1319.
" Such a sight
Might raise compassion in an enemy."

of our lord's fortitude. 217
witness, to speak for him a stronger language than words
could convey. As Origen observes,* his sUence, under aU
the indignities and reproaches which he met with, showed
more fortitude and patience than anything said by the Greeks
under their sufferings.
And again, when one of the malefactors reproached him,
he answered him not : but when the other said, " Lord, re
member me when thou comest into thy kingdom," f he thus
acknowledged himself to be a king, and one who had the keys
of heaven and hell : X " Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt
thou be with me in paradise " ; in the state of those who are
separated, as in a garden of dehght, for God's acceptance.
It is a remarkable instance of our Lord's composure, that,
in the midst of his exquisite pains, he recommended his
mother to that most benevolent Apostle, St. John.
The next circumstance in the order of events is, that about
the ninth hour our Lord cried with a loud voice, " My God !
my God ! why hast thou forsaken me ? " § As the words in
the original Psalm || do not import a derehction of the Deity,
they cannot be thus understood when used by our Lord. In
this strong language the Psalmist described imminent distress.
and danger IT from the sword ** of scornful ft an(l mighty
enemies. XX He did not mean that he was totally forsaken by
Jehovah, whom he afterwards entreated not to be far from
him, §§ whom he called his strength, |||| whom he characterized
as not hiding his face from the afflicted, HTf and to whom he
promised praise and thanksgiving in return for the mercies
which he implored.*** Li the same terms our Lord expressed
the greatness of his anguish ; when, in the prophetic words
of the Psalm, which is sometimes apphcable to David and
sometimes to the Messiah, " he was poured out like water,
his bones were separated from each other, his heart was like
* Lib. VII. § 54 - 56, pp. 368, 369. Lardner's Test. II. 317.
f Luke xxiii. 42. X Eev. i. 18. § Matt, xxvii. 46.
|| Psalm xxii. t Ibid., 11. ** Ibid., 20.
tt Ibid., 7, 8. Xt IbM., 12, 13, 21. §§ Ibid., .11, 19.
|||| Ibid., 19. HIT Ibid., 24. *** ttid., 25.
19

"18 op our lord's fortitude.
wax, it was melted within him." * Our Lord's language, I
say, was dictated by extreme suffering, and not by distrust.
In the style of the Hebrew Scriptures,! when God permitted
individuals or nations to be oppressed and afflicted, he was
said to hide his face from them, to forget, reject, or forsake
them. Our Lord could not suppose that God had cast him
off, because immediately before and after these words he
reposed an entire confidence in him. During his crucifixion
he twice called God his Father, J he declared his assurance
that he should enter into a state of happiness, § and accord
ingly he resigned his departing spirit into his Father's hands. ||
He likewise saw, during the space of three hours before he
expired, that God miraculously interposed in his behalf, by
(hminishing the hght of the sun and shedding a comparative
darkness over the whole land, or, at least, that part of it
which was adjacent to Jerusalem. When Jesus had thus
poured forth his sorrows, in the words of a sacred hymn
which foretold many circumstances of his death, God, who
had, as it were, hidden his face from him for a moment, had
mercy on him with everlasting kindness, % and speedily closed
the scene of his sufferings. For, immediately after this,
" Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that
the Scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst." ** This thirst
was the natural consequence of his pains, and of that effusion
of blood which was occasioned by piercing his hands and his
feet. But, unless it had remained that the prophecy f f of the
Psalmist should receive its fuU completion, XX h was a circum
stance on which he would have observed a majestic silence :
such was his command over himself, and so attentive was he

* Psalm xxii. 14.
t See Job xx. 19 ; Psalm xxxvii. 25 ; xxxviii. 10, 21, 22 ; xiii. 9 ;
xliii. 2 ; lxxi. 11, 12, 18 ; Isa. xlix. 14 ; liv. 7, 8.
{ Luke xxiii. 34, 46. § Ibid., 43. || Ibid., 46.
If Isa. liv. 7, 8. ** John xix. 28.
tt See Lardner's Test., II. 303, $ 24, where Origen objects that Jesus
was unable patiently to endure thirst.
XX See Psalm lxix. 21 ; Matt, xxvii. 34.

op our lord's fortitude. 219
that not one jot or tittle of the prophets should pass away.
" Now there was set a vessel fuU of vinegar," * the mean
drink of the Roman soldiers ; and one of the by-standers filled
a sponge with vinegar, and placed it upon a bunch of hyssep,
and by means of a reed advanced it to his mouth. " When
Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is fin-
ished " : f the prophecies concerning me, antecedently to my
death, have had their accomplishment: I have finished my
laborious and painful course : I have thus far performed thy
wiU, O God. Immediately after this, he expired with word3
expressive of a perfect rehance on God, and a firm persuasion
of his acceptance : " Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit." X
Thus did our Lord appear as great in his sufferings as in
his actions, in his death as in his hfe ; and thus did he exhibit
a wonderful example of forgiveness and composure, of mag
nanimity and conscious dignity, of filial love and pious resig
nation, in the midst of the most horrid tortures that human
nature is capable of sustaining.

* John xix. 29, andparallel places.
t John xix. 30. X Luke xxiii. 46.

THE DOCTEINE OF THE ATONEMENT.
By BENJAMIN JOWETT, M. A.,
REQIUS PROFESSOR OF GREEK IN THE UNIVERSITY OE OXFORD.*

The doctrine of the Atonement stands in the same relation
to the doctrine of righteousness by faith, as the object in the
language of philosophy to the subject. Either is incomplete
without the other, yet they admit also of being considered
separately. When we pierce the veil of flesh, and ask the
meaning of the bleeding form on Mount Calvary, a voice
answers, " The atonement once made for the sins of men."
It seems like'the form of any other dying man, but a mystery
is contained in it. We penetrate deeper into the meaning of
the word " atonement," and new relations disclose themselves
between God and man. There is more than we see in that
outward fact, more than we can understand in that mysterious
word, " The Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the
world." " God in Christ reconciling the world to himself,
and not imputing their trespasses unto them."
Yet how can this be, consistently with the truth and holi
ness of God ? Can he see us other than we really are ? Can
he impute to us what we never did ? Would he have pun
ished us for what was not our own fault ? It is not the pride
of human reason which suggests these questions, but the
* From his Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles, &c.
19*

222 THE doctrine of the atonement.
moral sense which he himself has implanted in the breast of
each one of us. Here is a lesson of comfort and also of per
plexity ; Jesus Christ is a corner-stone and a stumbling-block
at once. We can hardly receive the consolation without seek
ing to remove the perplexity. Our faith would shake if taken
off the foundations of truth and right. The feeble brain of
man reaches but a little way into the counsels of the Most
High : — " My thoughts are not as your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways," saith the Lord. But no difference be
tween God and man can be a reason for regarding God as less
just or less true than the being whom he has made. He is
only incomprehensible to us because he is infinitely more so.
It might seem at first sight no hard matter to prove that
God was just and true. It might seem as if the suggestion
of the opposite needed no other answer than the exclamation
of the Apostle, " God forbid ! for how shaU God judge the
world ? " But the perplexities of the doctrine of the Atone
ment are the growth of above a thousand years ; rooted in
language, disguised in figures of speech, fortified by logic,
they seem almost to have become a part of the human mind
itself. Those who first spoke of satisfaction were unconscious
of its inconsistency with the Divine attributes, just as many
good men are in our own day ; they do not think of it, or
they keep their minds off it. And one cannot but fear
whether it be stiU possible so to teach Christ as not to cast a
shadow on the holiness and truth of God ; whether the wheat
and the tares have not grown so long together, that their hus
bandman, in pulhng up the one, may be plucking up the
other also. Erroneous as are many modes of expression
used on this subject, there are minds to whom they have
become inseparable from the truth itself.
The doctrine of the Atonement, as commonly understood, is
the doctrine of the sacrifice or satisfaction of Christ for the
sins of men. There are two kinds of language in which it
is stated: the first figurative, derived from the Old Testa
ment ; the second logical, and based chiefly on distinctions of
the schoolmen. According to the first mode of expression,

the doctrine of the atonement. 223
the atonement of Christ is regarded as a sacrifice, which
stands in the same relation to the world in general as the
Jewish sacrifices did to the individuals who offered them.
Mankind were under a curse, and he redeemed them, just as
the blood of buUs or of goats redeemed the first-born de
voted to God. That was the true sacrifice once offered on
Mount Calvary for the sins of men ; of which all other sacri
fices, since the beginning of the world, are types and shadows,
and can never take away sin. Wherever the words blood, or
sprinkling, or atonement, or offering, occur in the Old Testa
ment, these truly refer to Christ ; wherever uncleanness, or
impurity, or ceremonial defilement are spoken of, these truly
refer to the sins of men. And, as nearly aU these things
are purged with blood, so the sins of mankind are purged,
and covered, and veiled in the blood of Christ.
To state this view of the doctrine at length, is but to
translate the New Testament into the language of the Old.
Where the mind is predisposed to receive it, there is scarcely
a law, or custom, or rite of purification, or offering, in the
Old Testament, which may not be transferred to the Gospel.
Christ is not only the sacrificial lamb, but the paschal " lamb
without spot," the seal of whose blood makes the wrath of
God to pass over the people ; he is Isaac on the altar, and
also the ram caught in the thicket, upon whom is laid the
iniquity of man. Neither need we confine ourselves to this
circle of images. Mankind are slaves, and Christ ransoms
them: he is the new Lord, who has condescended to buy
them, who pays the price for them, which price is his blood.
He is devoted and accursed for them ; he pays the penalty
For their sins ; he washes them in his blood ; he hides them
from the sight of God. All that they are, he is ; all that he
is, they become.
Upon this figurative or typical statement of the "doctrine of
the Atonement is raised a further logical one. A new frame
work is furnished by philosophy, as the types of the Old
Testament fade and become distant ; figures of speech acquire
a sort of coherence when buUt up into logical statements ;

224

THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT.

they at length cease to be figurative, and are repeated as
simple facts. Rhetoric becomes logic, as the age becomes
logical rather than rhetorical ; and arguments and reasonings
take the place of sermons and apologies.
The logical view of the doctrine of the Atonement com
mences with the idea of a satisfaction to be made for the sins
of men. God is ahenated from man ; man in like manner is
ahenated from God. The fault of a single man involves his
whole posterity. God is holy, and they are sinful ; there is
no middle term by which they can be connected. Mankind
are miserable sinners, the best of whose thoughts are but evil
continually ; who have a corrupt nature which can never lead
to good. They are not only sinners, but guUty before God,
and in due course, in the order of Providence, to suffer pun
ishment for their sins. Their present life is one continued
sin ; their future life is one awful punishment. They were
free to choose at first, and they chose death, and God does
but leave them to the natural consequences.
Were we to stop here, every honest and good heart would
break in upon these sophistries, and dash in pieces the pre
tended freedom and the imputed sin of mankind, as well as
the pretended justification of the Divine attributes, in the
statement that man necessarUy or naturaUy brought everlast
ing punishment on himself. No slave's mind was ever re
duced so low as to justify the most disproportionate severity
inflicted on himself ; neither has God so made his creatures
that they will he down and die, even beneath the hand of him
who gave them life. But although God, it is said, might in
justice have stopped here, there is another side of this doc
trine which must be viewed as inseparable from it, and was
known from the beginning; namely, that God intended to
send his only begotten Son for the redemption of mankind.
God was always willing that mankind should be saved. But
it was just that they should suffer the penalty. He could not
save them, if he would. He felt hke a judge who pitied the
criminal, but could not "in foro conscientiso '' acquit him.
Man was fearful of his doom, and God wiUing to save ; but

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 225
the least particle of the Divine justice must not be impeached •
the sentence must be exacted to the uttermost farthing.
At this point is introduced the sacrifice of Christ. The
Son takes human nature upon him, and dies once for aU.
The Father, before angry, and alienated, and averse to man,
is reconcUed to him through the Son. His justice is satisfied
in Christ ; his mercy is also shown in Christ. The impossi
bility has become possible ; the necessity, in the nature of
things, for the condemnation of man, has been done away.
Nor can it be urged that the offences are the sins of many ;
the satisfaction is only of one. For the satisfaction is of
itself infinite, sufficient not for this world only, but for many
more ; yea, if it please God so to extend it, for the universe
itself, and aU things that are, have been, or shaU be in it.
And this scheme, as already remarked, must not be con
sidered in part only, but as a whole. When God created
man, " sufficient to have stood, though free to fall," he fore
saw also his faU, redemption, and sanctification in a single
indivisible instant. Therefore we. should thankfully accept
the whole scheme, and not stop to reason on a part. He who
condemned us is the same as he who redeemed us through
Christ. There was one way of death leading onward to
eternal punishment ; there was another way of life leading
to salvation, which God, to our infinite gain and his own loss,
was pleased to take. Neither can we doubt, if we may say
so reverently, that God himself was under a sort of constraint
to take this way, and no other, for the salvation of mankind.
Had it been otherwise, he would have surely spared his only
Son. The chasm in the moral government of the world could
only be fiUed up by the satisfaction of Christ for the sins of
all mankind.
Thus far the parts of the logical structure are "fitly
joined together"; but the main question is yet untouched:
" In what did this satisfaction consist ? " Was it that God
was angry, and needed to be propitiated like some heathen
deity of old ? Such a thought refutes itself by the very in
dignation which it calls up in the human bosom. Or that, as

226

THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT'.

" he looked upon the face of his Christ," pity gradually took
the place of wrath, and, hke some conqueror, he was willing
to include in the reversal of the sentence, not only the hero,
but all those who were named after his name ? Human feel
ings again revolt at the idea of attributing to the God in
whom we live and move and have our being, the momentary
clemency of a tyrant. Or was it that there was a debt due to
him, which must be paid ere its consequences could be done
away ? But even " a man's " debt may be freely forgiven,
nor could the after payment change our sense of the offend
er's wrong : we are arguing about what is moral and spiritual
from what is legal, or, more strictly, from a shadow and fig
ment of law. Or that there were some " impossibilities in
the nature of things," which prevented God from doing other
than he did ? Thus we introduce a moral principle superior
to God, just as in the Grecian mythology fate and necessity
are superior to Jupiter. But we have not so learned the
Bivine nature, believing that God, if he transcend our ideas
of morality, can yet never be in any degree- contrary to them.
Or, again, if we take a different line of explanation, it may
be urged that the atonement is not a satisfaction of Divine
justice, but only a " quasi satisfaction," or rather an exhibition
of Divine justice in the eyes of mankind and of the angels.
Something of this kind may be supported (according to one
interpretation of the passage) by the words of the third
chapter of Romans, " To show forth, I say, at this time his
righteousness on account of the non-observance of sins that
are past " ; where the reason given for the manifestation of
Christ seems to be the justification of the ways of God to
men. According to this view, it is regarded as shocking, that
God himself should have needed any atonement or satisfac
tion. But yet it would seem as if God's horror of sin were
not sufficiently marked, — that man, to use a homely phrase,
was let off too easUy, — unless there were some great and
open manifestation that God was really on the side of truth
and of right. To demonstrate this was the object of the
death of Christ. It was a reality in one sense, that is, so far

THE DOCTRINE OP THE . ATONEMENT. 227
as the sufferings were real ; an appearance in another, as its
true import related to mankind and the world, and not to
God. If this scheme avoids the difficulty of offering an unworthy
satisfaction to God, and so doing violence to his attributes, we
can scarcely free it from the equal difficulty of interposing a
painful fiction between God and man. Was the spectacle
real which was presented before God and the_ angels on
Mount Calvary ? If we say no, then we can neither trust
our eyes or ears, nor the promises of God, nor the words of
Scripture. B the greatest fact of the whole is an iUusion,
why not aU else ? That the chief figure in the scene is the
Son of God, only makes the illusion the more impossible. Or
if we say that it was aU real, and yet that its great object was
an exhibition to men and angels, to what a wonderful strait-
ness do we reduce Divine power, which can only show forth
its justice by allowing men to commit in itself the greatest of
human crimes, that redeems the sin of Adam by the murder
of Christ! This second theory has no advantage over the
preceding, except that which the more shadowy statement
must ever have, in rendering difficulties themselves more
shadowy. It avoids the physical Ulusion of the old heretics,
and introduces a moral illusion of a worse kind.
For if we substitute for " satisfaction " " demonstration or
exhibition of Divine justice," we are not better off than in the
previous attempt to explain "satisfaction." How could the
sufferings of a good or Divine man exhibit the righteousness
of God ? Rather they would seem to indicate his indifference
to those sufferings in permitting them ; in not giving his Son
" ten legions of angels " to overcome his enemies. Is it to
the Roman soldiers, or to the Jews, or to the disciples, that
this exhibition is supposed to have a meaning; or to the
world afterwards, who, in the sufferings of Christ, are ex
pected to see for all time the indignation of God against sin ?
When the doctrine is stated, it betrays itself. For how could
there be an exhibition of Divine justice which was known to
be a fiction ; which, if it were true and real, would be horrible

228 THE DOCTRIJfE OP THE ATONEMENT.
and revolting ; which not only exhibits the sins of the guUty
laid upon the innocent, but aUeviates human feelings by assur
ing us that they are laid upon that innocent Being, not as the
payment of a penalty or satisfaction of the Divine nature, but
as the demonstration of Divine justice ? The doctrine thus
stated is the surface or shadow of the preceding, with the sub
stance or foundation cut away. It removes one difficulty,
and, in removing, it raises up a number of others.
Whether, then, we employ the term " sacrifice," or " satis
faction or exhibition of Divine justice," the moment we pierce
beneath the meaning of the words, theological criticism seems
to detect something which is irreconcUable with the truth and
holiness of God. Gladly, if it were possible, we would rest
in the thing signified, and know only " Jesus Christ, and him
crucified." But, in the present day, we can no longer receive
the kingdom of God as little children. The speculations of
theologians have insensibly taken possession of the world;
the abstractions of a thousand years since have become the
household words of our own age ; and before we can buUd
up, we have also to clear away.
We are trespassing on holy ground. There will be many
who say, It is good to adore in sUence a mystery that we can
never understand. But there are " idols of the temple," as
weU as idols of the market-place. These idols consist in
human reasonings and definitions which are erected into arti
cles of faith. We are willing to adore in silence, but not the
inventions of man. The controversialist naturaUy thinks, that,
in assailing the doctrine of satisfaction as inconsistent with
truth and morality, we are fighting not with himself, but with
God. True reverence proceeds by a different path; it is
careful to separate the human from the Divine; figures of
speech from realities ; the history of a doctrine from its truth ;
the formulas of schoolmen and theologians from the hope of
the believer in life and death : it is fearful, above all other
tilings, lest it cast the faintest shadow of a cloud on that
which is the central hght of all rehgion, the justice and
truth of God.

THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 229
Li aU ages of the world, and in every country where Chris
tianity is preached, the Old Testament has ever been taking
the place of the New, the Law of the Gospel, the outward
and temporal of the spiritual and eternal. Even where there
has been no sensible image to which mankind might bow, they
have fiUed up the desire of their eyes by imagining an out
ward form (of doctrine it may be) instead of resting in higher
and unseen objects of faith. Ideas must be given through
something ; those of a new religion ever clothe themselves in
the old. The mind itself readily faUs back on the "weak
and beggarly elements" of sense and imagination. To be
told that Christ performed the greatest act that was ever done
in this world, does not seem so much as to be told that he was
the sacrifice for the sins of men. All history combines to
strengthen the illusion ; the institution of sacrifice is regarded
as part of a Divine design in the education of the world.
We cease any more to inquire how far the blood of buUs or
of goats can be a real or adequate representation of the rela
tion in which Christ stood to his Father and mankind. We
delight to think of the rehgions of aU nations bearing witness
" to him that was to come."
It must be remembered that the Apostles were Jews ; they
were so before their conversion ; they remained so afterwards
in their thoughts and language ; they could not lay aside their
first nature, or divest themselves at once of Jewish modes of
expression. Sacrifice and atonement were leading ideas of
the Jewish dispensation ; without shedding of blood, there was
no remission. In thinking of the death of Christ and the
fulfilment of which he spoke, it was natural to them to think
of him as a " sacrifice " and " atonement " for sin. To him
bear all the prophets witness, as weU as the types of the law
and the history of the Jewish people. AU their hfe long they
had been sacrificing and living in the commandments of the
Law blameless. What a striking view must it have been
to their minds, that their rites and ceremonies were not in
vain, but only done in ignorance of their true design, and
import ; not that they were nothing, but that there was more
2Q

230 THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT.
in them than the chief priests and Pharisees could even con
ceive ! And the very deadness of them as practised by the
Jews in general, and the entire passing away of their original
meaning, would greatly assist their new application. There
was something in the sacrifices that they could not compre
hend, as they truly felt that there was in the death of Christ
also far more than they could understand, and they interpreted
the one by the other. And when once the thought was sug
gested to men's minds, at every opening of the book of the
Old Testament a new hght feU upon the page : the history of
Abraham, the settlement in the promised land, the least de
tails of the Temple and the Tabernacle, were written for their
instruction. It is in the Epistle to the Hebrews that the reflection of
the New Testament in the Old is most distinctly brought
before us. There the temple, the priest, the sacrifices, the
altar, the persons, of Jewish history are the figures of Christ
and the Church. In the Epistles of St. Paul it is the rarity
rather than the frequency of such images which is striking.
It is the opposition and not the identification of the Law and
the Gospel which is the leading thought of his mind. But in
the Epistle to the Hebrews they are fused in one ; the New
Testament is hidden in the Old, the Old revealed in the New.
And from this source, and not from the Epistles of St. Paul,
the language of which we are speaking has passed into the
theology of modern times. While few persons, comparatively
speaking, have ever understood the relation of the Law and
faith in the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians, the lan
guage of the Epistle to the Hebrews is famihar to aU.
We cannot avoid asking ourselves the question, how far
these notions of sacrifice or atonement can have the same
meaning for us that they had for the first believers. We
may use the words correctly ; every one may imagine them
selves to understand them; but are we not mistaking our
famUiarity with the sound for a reahzation of the thing signi
fied ? The Apostles lived amid the temple sacrifices ; the
smoke of their offerings, even in the city of Jerusalem under

THE DOCTRINE OF THE ATONEMENT. 231
its Roman governor, as of old in the wUderness, stiU went up
before the Lord; the carcasses of dead animals strewed the
courts of the temple. It would be a sight scarcely tolerable,
to us ; neither, if at the present moment we could witness it
in remote parts of the world, could we bear to think of what
we saw as typical of the Gospel. Nor, indeed, do we think
of what we are saying when we speak of Christ offered for
the sins of men ; the image is softened by distance, and has
lost its original associations. We repeat it as a sacred word,
haUowed by the usage of Scripture, and ennobled by its
metaphorical apphcation. The death of Christ is not a sacri
fice in the Levitical sense ; but what we mean by the word
sacrifice, is the death of Christ.
The notion of sacrifice gained a new foundation in the
after history of the Church and the world. More and more,
as the Christian Church became a kingdom and a hierarchy,
did it see the likeness of itself in the history of the Jewish
people. The temple which had been pulled down was again
buUt up ; the spirit of the old dispensation revived in the
new ; there was a priest as well as a sacrifice ; a Church
without which there was no salvation, as much separated from
the world as the Jews from the heathen of old. What was a
shadow to St. Paul was becoming a reality to the Nicene, and
had actuaUy become one to the Mediaeval, Church. The
body and blood of Christ was not only received spiritually in
the celebration of the Lord's Supper, but hteraUy offered
again and again in the sacrifice of the Mass, as formerly by
the Jewish, so now by the Christian priest. A priesthood
and a sacrifice naturaUy implied each other. As Christ in a
figure bore the person of the high-priest entering once into
the holy place, so the priest in turn bore the person of Christ.
And after the notion of the priesthood passed away in the
Reformed Churches, that of the atonement and sacrifice,
which during so many centuries had been supported by it,
was still retained, because it seemed to rest on a Scriptural
foundation. The " antithesis " of the Reformation was not
between the Gospel as without sacrifices, and Romanism as

232 THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT.
retaining sacrifices, or between the law as having a mediator,
and the promise as a more " open way " ; but between the
Gospel as having one mediator, and a sacrifice once offered,
and the Roman Church with many priests, and the ever-
recurring sacrifice of the Mass.
An additional support for the doctrine of a sacrifice or
satisfaction is found in the heathen sacrifices, which, like the
Jewish, are viewed only by the hght of their Christian fulfil
ment. All the religions of the world, it has been said, agree
in enjoining sacrifices. They seem to conspire together in
bearing witness to Him that was to come. Can we account
for this common witness, except upon the supposition of a
primeval revelation ? Certainly, it may be argued that we
cannot affirm the Divine origin and the typical meaning of
the Jewish sacrifices, without admitting the same with respect
to heathen sacrifices also. That could hardly be a sign Di
vinely appointed for the Jewish people, which, in almost every
nation under heaven, the hght of human reason discovered
for itself. Was it, then, a Divine revelation to both or nei
ther ? B we say, to both, we are compeUed to admit, in
reference to the heathen world, that the farther we trace
backward the indications of old language or of mythology, the
slighter are the vestiges of a promised revelation. We can
not, therefore, assume one in the particular instance of the
institution of sacrifices. B we say, to neither, we seem to
reduce the Jewish dispensation to the level of the heathen ;
it is " the first of the Ethnic religions," as Goethe said,
" but stiU Ethnic." We may escape from this alternative by
pointing out the superior morahty of the Old Testament ;
its revelation of the true God ; its anticipation of truths
utterly unknown to other nations in the age of the world in
which the Law was given: still we cannot help admitting
a connection of some kind between the heathen and Jewish
custom of sacrifices.
But not to pursue the alternative here suggested, we may
go on to ask the further question, " What was the inward
meaning among the heathen of that outward rite which they

THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 233
termed sacrifice ? " Did they, as a modern writer has ex
pressed it, intend to imply, by this act of sacrificing an ani
mal, that they acknowledged the claim of a superior power
over their own life ? Did they mean to say, " As I now
devote to thee this victim, O ApoUo, Juno, Jupiter, so do I
acknowledge myself justly devoted to thee " ? They meant
(1.) that the gods, who were like men, should feast hke men;
this is the prevailing character of the sacrifices in Homer.
They meant (2.) in the East something unintelligible to us,
but closely connected with the deification of animal life ; from
the blood of the animal a power seemed to flow forth upon
the earth, which by a sort of magic communicated itself to
the offerer. They meant (3.) to supply a want, and, in later
times, to perform an ancient rite, which stiU subsisted, though
the meaning of it had long passed away ; if, indeed, it could
have been said to express anything except the vague and un
defined awe of the first sons of men towards the mysterious
beings by whom they were surrounded. They meant (4.)
the abohtion of ceremonial pollution, the purification of guilt
like that of the Alcmasomdas in a panic-stricken nation.
They meant to do an act, which varied with the character of
the people or the state of religion, cheerful or sad, of obh
gation or free wiU ; differing in Greece and the East, and to
the Greek in the age of Pericles and in that of Homer,
which might be nothing more than Fetichism, which might
comprehend also the devotion of the Decii. They meant,
however, nothing which throws any hght on the mystery of
the death of Christ. Human sacrifices, which are in outward
act the nearest, are in spirit the farthest removed from it.
Heathen and Jewish sacrifices rather show us what the
sacrifice was not, than what it was. They are the dim,
vague, rude, (may we not say ?) almost barbarous expression
of that want in human nature which has received satisfaction
in Him only. Men are afraid of something; they wish to
give away something ; they feel themselves bound by some
thing ; the fear is done away, the gift offered, the obhgation
fulfUled, in Christ. Such fears and desires can no more oc-
20*

234 THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT.
cupy their souls ; they are free to lead a better life ; they are
at the end of the old world, and at the beginning of a new
one. Nature and Scripture and the still smaU voice of Christian
feeling give a simpler and a truer explanation of the doctrine
of the atonement than theories of satisfaction or the history
of sacrifice, — an explanation that does not shift with the
metaphysical schools of the age, which is for the heart rather
the head. Nature bids us look at the misery of the whole
creation groaning and travaUing together until now ; Christian
feeling requires only that we should cast all upon Christ,
whose work the Scripture sets forth under many different
figures, lest we should rest in one only. This variety is an
indication of the simplicity with which we are to learn Christ.
The Jewish sacrifices had many meanings and associations.
Nor are these the only types under which the Mediator of the
new covenant is set forth to us in Scripture. He is the sin-
offering, and the paschal lamb, and the priest, and the temple,
aU in one. Out of all these, why are we to select one to be
the foundation of our theological edifice ? As figures, we
may stUl use them. But the writings of the Apostle supply
another kind of language which is not figurative, and which
underhes them aU ; which is far more really present and
hvely to us than the conception of a sacrifice, and which
remains within the limits of our spiritual consciousness, in
stead of passing beyond them. That is the spirit of which
the other is the letter ; the substance of which it is the form
and shadow.
I. Everywhere St. Paul speaks of the Christian as one
with Christ. This union with him is a union, not in his death
merely, but in aU the stages of his existence ; hvhig with
him, suffering with him, dying with him, crucified with him,
buried with him, rising again with him, renewed in his image,
glorified together with him, — these are the expressions by
which this union is denoted. There is enough here for faith
to feed on, without suUying the mirror of God's justice or
overclouding his truth : peace and consolation enough without

THE DOCTRrNE OP THE ATONEMENT. 235
raising a suspicion which secretly destroys peace. It is a
great thing to set Christ always before us as an example ;
and he who does so is not far from the kingdom of heaven.
But that of which the Apostle speaks is not merely the
example of Christ, but communion with him ; the indweUhig
of Christ in our hearts, the conscious recognition that he is
the wiU and the power within us to do rightly.
n. But. we need also to pass out of ourselves, and find
an assurance which is independent of the liveliness or in
tensity of our own consciousness. We wish to know that
when we close our eyes the hght is there ; that when the
grave covers us, there is a God to whom we stiU live. That
assurance is given us by the life and death of Christ. That
perfect harmony of nature, that absolute self-renunciation,
that pure love, that entire resignation, continued through
life and ending in death, are facts, independent of our feel
ings, which remain as they were, whether we acknowledge
them or not. Not the sacrifice, nor the satisfaction, nor the
ransom, but the greatest moral act ever done in this world,
— the act, too, of one in our likeness, — is the assurance to
us that God in Christ is reconcUed to, the world.
HI. It is a true and Christian feeling, that, after ,we have
done aU, we are unprofitable servants. Even the best of us
weU know that the less we think of our own hves the better.
Our actions will not bear taking to pieces, — the garment
of self is a ragged and tattered patchwork. B an eminent
servant of God could rise from the grave and read the narra
tive of his own life, written by another, he would feel pain
at the recital of his virtues. " Not unto us, O Lord ! not
unto us, but unto thy name be the praise." And yet this
most true sense of man's unprofitableness is accompanied
also by an unshaken confidence in the mercy of God. No
account can be given of this confidence, which is quite un
like the confidence we feel in the honesty, or good faith, or
character of one of our feUow-men. There are rules for
judging of this too ; but they are different in kind from those
by which we judge, or ought to judge, of ourselves in rela-

236 THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT.
tion to God. He who has this confidence finds the reasons
of it desert him the moment he begins to consider them. He
is two persons in one, hoping against hope, if so be that God
wiU be merciful ; and all the time not the less assured of his
mercy. Philosophy, rather than faith, going beyond this
double consciousness, seeks by a theory of satisfaction to
harmonize the discordant elements. " God is alienated in
himself, but reconciled in Christ ; man is evil in himself, but
holy in Christ." Such statements are neither phUosophy nor
faith ; they do but afford a transient resting-place to the mind,
which is satisfied with an answer to its peculiar difficulty,
however narrowing it may be to its view of " the ways of
God to man."
IV. There is more in the life and death of Christ than we
pretend to fathom. Definite statements respecting the rela
tion of Christ either to God or man are but human figures
transferred to a subject which is beyond speech and thought.
There may seem to be a kind of feebleness in faUingback on
mystery, when the traditional language of ages is so clear and
explicit. But mystery is the nearest approach that we can
make to the truth : only by indefiniteness can we avoid put
ting words in the place of things. We know nothing of the
objective act on God's part, by which he reconciled the world
to himself, the very description of it as an act being only a
figure of speech; and we seem to know that we never can
know anything. While clinging to the ground of fact, we
feel also that there is more in that fact than we see or under
stand. This is not a ground of fear, but of hope, — not of
uncertainty, but of peace. There is hope and peace in what
we see : yet more as we beheve in possibUities of which we
are ignorant.
We can hve and die in the language of St. Paul and St.
John, without fear for ourselves or dishonor to the name of
Christ. We need not change a word that they use, or add on
a single consequence to their statement of the truth. There
is nothing there repugnant to our moral sense. There are
others to whom tradition and devotional use may have made

THE DOCTRINE OP THE ATONEMENT. 237
another kind of language familiar, who employ it by a sort
of happy inconsistency, without perceiving the contradiction
which it involves to the attributes of God. Neither let them
condemn us, neither let us condemn them. There is enough
in what has been said, and in the very nature of the subject
itself, to make us tolerant of each other. It is a natural,
though hardly excusable weakness, to clothe with pecuhar
awe and sacredness that which is reaUy of human invention ;
to be zealous in defence of those points which we instinc
tively know to be least capable of standing the test of theo
logical criticism.

ON EIGHTEOUSNESS BY FAITH.

Bt BENJAMIN JOWETT.

No doctrine in later times has been looked at so exclu
sively through the glass of controversy as that of justification.
From being the simplest it has become the most difficult ; the
language of the heart has lost itself in a logical tangle. Dif
ferences have been drawn out as far as possible, and then
taken back and reconciled. The extreme of one view has
produced a reaction in favor of the other. Many senses have
been attributed to the same words, and simple statements
carried out on both sides into endless conclusions. New for
mulas of conciliation have been put in the place of old-
established phrases, and have soon died away, because they
had no root in language or in the common sense or feeling of
mankind. The difficulty of the subject has been increased by
the different degrees of importance attached to it : whUe to
some it is an articulus stantis aut cadentis ecclesice, others
have never been able to see in it more than a verbal dis
pute. The abstract as weU as controversial form of the doctrine
of righteousness by faith has arisen out of the circumstances
of the age in which it seemed to revive. Men felt at the
Reformation the need of a spiritual religion, and could no
longer endure the yoke which had been put upon their fathers.
The heart turned inwards upon itself to commune alone with
God. But when the need was supplied, and those who had

240 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
felt it could no longer remain in the stiUness of the closet, but
formed themselves into a Church and an army, going forth to
war against principalities and powers and the wisdom of this
world, they found no natural expression of their behef; they
had to borrow the weapons of their enemies before they could
take up a position and fortify their camp.
In other words, the Scholastic Logic had been for six cen
turies previous the great instrument of training the human
mind ; it had grown up with it, and become a part of it.
Neither would it have been more possible for the Reformers
to have laid it aside than to have laid aside the use of lan
guage itself. Around theology it lingers stiU, seeming reluc
tant to quit a territory which is pecuharly its own. No
science has hitherto fallen so completely under its power ;
no other is equaUy unwilling to ask the meaning of terms ;
none has been so fertile in reasonings and consequences.
The change of which Lord Bacon was the herald, has hardly
yet reached it ; much less could the Reformation have antici
pated the New Philosophy.
The whole mental structure of that time rendered it neces
sary that the Reformers, no less than their opponents, should
resort to the scholastic methods of argument. The difference
between the two parties did not he here. Perhaps it may be
said with truth that the Reformers were even more schoolmen
than their opponents, because they dealt more with abstract
ideas, and were more concentrated on a single topic. The
whole of Luther's teaching was summed up in a single arti
cle, " Justification by Faith." That was to him the Scriptural
expression of a Spiritual rehgion. But this, according to the
manner of that time, could not be left in the simple language
of St. Paul, but needed to be guarded by the strictest defi
nitions first, and was then hable to be drawn out into endless
conclusions. And yet, why was this ? Why not repeat, with a slight
alteration of the words rather than the meaning of the Apos
tle, Neither justification by faith nor justification by works,
but " a new creature " ? Was there not yet " a more excel-

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 241
lent way " to oppose things to words, — the life, and spirit,
and freedom of the Gospel, to the deadness, and powerless-
ness, and slavery of the Roman Church ? So it seems
natural to us to reason, looking back after an interval of three
centuries on the weary struggle ; so absorbing to those who
took part in it once, so distant now either to us or them. But
so it could not be. The temper of the times, and the educa
tion of the Reformers themselves, made it necessary that one
dogmatic system should be met by another. The scholastic
divinity had become a charmed circle, and no man could
venture out of it, though he might oppose or respond with
in it.
And thus justification by faith, and justification by works,
became the watchwords of two parties. We may imagine
ourselves at that point in the controversy when the Pelagian
dispute had been long since hushed, and that respecting Pre
destination had not yet begun ; when men were not differing
about original sin, and had not begun to differ about the
Divine decrees. What Luther sought for was to find a for
mula which expressed most fuUy the entire, unreserved, im
mediate dependence of the believer on Christ. What the Cath
olic sought for was so to modify this formula as not to throw
dishonor on the Church by making religion a merely personal
or individual matter ; or on the lives of holy men of old, who
had wrought out their salvation by asceticism; or endanger
morahty by appearing to undervalue good works. It was
agreed by aU, that men are saved through Christ ; — not of
themselves, but of the grace of God, was equaUy agreed
since the condemnation of Pelagius •, — that faith and works
imply each other, was not disputed by either. A narrow
space is left for the combat, which has to be carried on within
the outworks of an earher creed, in which, nevertheless, the
greatest subtlety of human thought and the greatest differ
ences of human character admit of being displayed.
On this narrow ground the first question that naturally
arises is, how faith is to be defined. Is it to include love and
holiness, or to he separated from them ? B the" former, it
21

242 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
seems to lose its apprehensive, dependent nature, and to be
scarcely distinguishable' from works ; if the latter, there is a
logical subtlety in the statement, which, although made by
Luther, could scarcely be retained even by his immediate
foUowers, much less by the common sense of mankind.
Again, is it an act or a state ? are we to figure it as a point,
or as a hne ? Is the whole of our spiritual hfe anticipated in
the beginning, or may faith no less than works, justification
equally with sanctification, be conceived of as going on to
perfection ? Is justification in God or man an objective act
of Divine mercy, or a subjective state of which the believer
is conscious in himself? Is the righteousness imparted by it
imputed or inherent, an attribute of the merits of Christ, or
a renewal of the human heart itself? What is the test of
a true faith ? And is it possible for those who are possessed
of it to fall away ? How can we exclude the doctrine of
human merit consistently with Divine justice ? How do we
account for the fact that some have this faith, while others
are destitute of it, and this apparently independent of their
moral state ? If faith comes by grace, is it imparted to few
or to all ? And in what relation does the whole doctrine
stand to Predestinarianism on the one hand, and to the Cath
olic or Sacramental theory on the other ?
Such are a few of the most obvious questions to which this
controversy has given birth. To which some obsolete differ
ences of an earher date might be added ; such as the theory
of congruity and condignity, in which an attempt was made
to transfer the analogy of Christianity to heathenism, and to
look upon the doer of good works before justification as a
shadow of the perfected behever. Neither must we omit to
observe that, as the doctrine of justification by faith had a
close connection with the Pelagian controversy, carrying the
decision of the Church a step farther, in not only making
Divine Grace the source of human action, but in requiring
the consciousness of it as weU in the believer himself: so also
it put forth its roots in another direction, attaching itself to An
selm as weU as Augustine, and comprehending the idea of satis-

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 243
faction ; not now, as formerly, of Christ offered in the sacrifice
of the mass, but of one sacrifice, once offered for the sins of
men, whether considered as an expiation by suffering, or im
plying only a reconciliation between God and man, or a mere
manifestation of the righteousness of God.
Such is the whole question, striking deep, and spreading
far and wide with its offshoots. It is not our intention to
enter on the investigation of all these subjects, many of which
belong to the history of the Church, but have no real bearing
on the interpretation of St. Paul's Epistles, and a compara
tively slight one on our own life and practice. Our inquiry
wiU embrace two heads : (1.) What did St. Paul mean by
the expression " righteousness of faith," in that age ere con
troversies about his meaning arose ; and (2.) What do we
mean by it, now that such controversies have died away, and
the interest in them is retained only by the theological stu
dent, and the Church and the world are changed, and there is
no more question of Jew or Gentile, circumcision or uncir-
cumcision, and we do not become Christians, but are so from
our birth. Many volumes are not required to explain the
meaning of the Apostle ; nor can the words of eternal life
be other than few and simple to ourselves.
There is one interpretation of the Epistles of St. Paul
which is necessarily in some degree false ; that is, the inter
pretation put upon them by later controversy. It seems to
be legitimately derived from the text ; and it is really intro
duced into it. Our minds are fined with a particular circle
of ideas, and we catch at any stray verse and make it the
centre of our previous ideas. The Scripture is never looked
upon as a whole, but broken into fragments, and each frag
ment made the corner of a new spiritual edifice. Words
seem to be the same, but the things signified by them are
different. Luther and St. Paul use the same term, " justified
by faith " ; and the strength of the Reformer's words is the
authority of St. Paul. Yet, observe how far this agreement
is one of words : how far of things. For Luther is speaking
6olely of individuals, St. Paul also of nations ; Luther of faith

244 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
absolutely, St. Paul of faith as relative to the law. With St.
Paul faith is the symbol of the universality of the Gospel.
Luther entirely excludes this or any analogous point of view.
Li St. Paul there is no opposition of faith and love ; nor does
he further determine righteousness by faith as meaning a faith
in the blood or even hi the death of Christ ; nor does he sup
pose consciousness or assurance in the person justified. But
aU these are prominent features of the Lutheran doctrine.
Once more ; the faith of St. Paul has reference to the evil of
the world of sight ; which was soon to vanish away, that the
world in which faith walks might be revealed ; but no such
aUusion is implied hi the language of the Reformer. Lastly ;
the change in the use of the substantive " righteousness " to
"justification" is of itself the indication of a wide difference
between St. Paul and Luther; and not without significance,
as showing the direction which this difference has taken.
These contrasts make us feel that St. Paul can only be
interpreted by himself, and not from the writings even of one
who had so much in common with him as Luther, much less
from the treatises of theologians of a later date. It is the
spirit of St. Paul which Luther represents, not the meaning
of his words ; nor is there wanting a link of human feeling
which makes them kin. Without bringing down one to the
level of the other, we can imagine St. Paul returning that
singular affection, almost hke an attachment, to a hving friend,
which the great Reformer felt towards the Apostle. But this
degree of personal attachment or resemblance in no way
lessens the necessary difference between the preaching of
Luther and of St. Paul, which lay partly in their individual
character, but chiefly in the different circumstances and modes
of thought of their respective ages. At the Reformation we
are at another stage of the human mind, in which system and
logic and the abstractions of Aristotle seem to have a kind
of necessary force, when words have so completely taken the
place of. things, that the minutest distinctions appear to have
an intrinsic value.
It has been said (and the remark admits of a peculiar

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 245
apphcation to theology) that few persons know sufficient of
things to be able to say whether disputes are merely verbal
or not Yet, on the other hand, it must be admitted that,
whatever accidental advantage theology may derive from
system and definition, mere accurate statements can never
form the substance of our behef. No one doubts that Chris
tianity could be in the fullest sense taught to a child or a
savage, without any mention, of justification or satisfaction or
predestination. Why should we not receive the Gospel as
httle chUdren ? Why adopt abstractions which are so subtle
in their meaning as to be in the greatest danger in their
translation from one language to another ? which are always
running into consequences inconsistent with our moral nature,
and the knowledge of God derived from it ? which are not
the prevailing usage of Scripture, but technical terms which
we have gathered from one or two passages, and made the
key-notes of our scale ? The words satisfaction and predesti
nation nowhere occur in Scripture ; the word regeneration
only twice, and but once in a sense at aU similar to that which
it bears among ourselves ; the word justification twice only,
and nowhere as a purely abstract term.
But although language and logic have so transfigured the
meaning of Scripture, we cannot venture to say that all theo
logical controversies are questions of words. B from their
winding mazes we seek to retrace our steps, we still find
differences which have a deep foundation in the opposite
tendencies of the human mind, and the corresponding division
of the world itself. That men of one temper of mind adopt
one expression rather than another, may be partly an acci
dent ; but the adoption of an expression by persons of marked
character makes the difference of words a reality also. That
can scarcely be thought a matter of words which cut in
sunder the. Church, which overthrew princes, which made the
line of demarcation between Jewish and Gentile Christians
in the Apostohc age, and is so, in another sense, between
Protestant and Catholic at the present day. And in a deeper
way of reflection than this, if we turn from the Church to the
21*

246 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH*
individual, we seem to see around us opposite natures and
characters, whose lives reaUy exhibit a difference correspond-
•ing to that of which we are speaking. The one incline to
morality, the other to religion; the one to the sacramental,
the other to the spiritual ; the one to multiplicity in outward
ordinances, the other to simplicity ; the one consider chiefly
the means, the other the end ; the one desire to dwell upon
doctrinal statements, the other need only the name of Christ ;
the one turn to ascetic practices, to lead a good life, and to do
good to others, the other to faith, humility, and dependence on
God. We may sometimes find the opposite attributes com
bine with each other (there have ever been cross divisions on
this article of behef in the Christian world ; the great body
of the Reformed Churches, and a smaU minority of Roman
Catholics before the Reformation, being on the one side ; and
the whole Roman Catholic Church since the Reformation and
a section of the Protestant Episcopalians, and some lesser
communions, on the other) ; still, in general, the first of these
characters answers to that doctrine which the Roman Church
sums up in the formula of justification by works ; the latter
is that temper of mind which finds its natural dogmatic ex
pression in the words " We are justified by faith."
These latter words have been carried out of their former
circle of ideas into a new one by the doctrines of the Refor
mation. They have become hardened, stiffened, sharpened,
by the exigencies of controversy, and torn from what may
be termed their context in the Apostolical age. To that age
we must return ere we, can think in the Apostle's language.
His conception of faith, although simpler than our own, has
nevertheless a pecuhar relation to his own day ; it is at once
wider, and also narrower, than the use of the word among
ourselves, — wider in that it is the symbol of the admission
of the GentUes into the Church, but narrower also in that it
is the negative of the law. Faith is the proper technical
term which excludes the law ; being what the law is not, as
the law is what faith is not. No middle term connects the
two, or at least none which the Apostle admits, untU he has

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 247
first widened the breach between them to the uttermost.
He does not say, " Was not Abraham our father justified by
works (as well as by faith), when he had offered up Isaac
his son on the altar ? " but only, " What saith the Scripture ?
Abraham beheved God, and it was counted to him for right
eousness." The Jewish conception of righteousness was the fulfilment
of the Commandments. He who walked in all the precepts
of the Law blameless, like Daniel in the Old Testament, or
Joseph and Nathanael in the New, was righteous before God.
" What shaU I do to inherit eternal life ? Thou knowest the
Commandments. Do not commit adultery, do not steal, do
not bear false witness. All these have I kept from my youth
up." Such is a picture of Jewish righteousness as it presents
itself in its most favorable light. But it was a righteousness
which comprehended the observance of ceremonial detaUs as
well as moral duties ; it might be nothing more than an obe
dience to the Law as such, losing itself on the surface of
" religion, in distinctions about meats and drinks, or forms of
oaths, or purifications, without any attempt to make clean
that which is within. It might also pierce inward to the divid
ing asunder of the soul. Then was heard the voice of con
science crying, " All these things cannot make the doers
thereof perfect." When every external obligation was ful
filled, the internal began. Actions must include thoughts
and intentions, — the Seventh Commandment extend to the
adultery of the heart; in one word, the Law must become
a spirit. But to the mind of St. Paul the spirit presented itself, not
so much as a higher fulfilment of the Law, but as antago
nistic to it. From this point of view, it appeared, not that
man could never fulfil the law perfectly, but that he could
never fulfil it at all. What God required was something
different in kind from legal obedience. What man needed
was a return to God and nature. He was burdened, strait
ened, shut out from the presence of his Father, — a servant,
not a son; to whom, in a spiritual sense, the heaven was

248 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
become as iron, and the earth brass. The new righteousness
must raise him above the burden of ordinances, and bring
him into a living communion with God. It must be within,
and not without him, — written, not on tables of stone, but on
fleshly tables of the heart. But inward righteousness was no
peculiar privflege of the Israchtes ; it belonged to aU man
kind.1 And the revelation of it, as it satisfied the need of
the individual soul, vindicated also the ways of God to man ;
it showed God to be equal in justice and mercy to aU man
kind. As the symbol of this inward righteousness, St. Paul found
an expression already in use among the Jews, — righteous
ness by faith, — derived from those passages in the Old Testa
ment which spoke of Abraham being justified by faith. The
very idea of faith carried men into the unseen world, — out
of the reach of ordinances, — beyond the evil of this present
life ; it revealed to them that world which was now hidden,
but was soon to appear. The Jewish nation were too far out
of the way to be saved as a nation : the Lord was at hand.
As at the last hour, when we have to teach men rather how
to die than how to live, the Apostle could only say to those
who would receive it, " Believe ; all things are possible to
him that believes."
Such are some of the peculiar aspects of the Apostle's
doctrine of righteousness by faith. To our own minds it has
become a later stage or a particular form of the more general
doctrine of salvation through Christ, of the grace of God to
man, or of the still more general truth of spiritual rehgion.
It is the connecting link by which we appropriate these to
ourselves, — the hand which we put out to apprehend the
mercy of God. It was not so to the Apostle. To him grace
and faith and the Spirit are not parts of a doctrinal system,
but different expressions of the same truth. " Beginning in
the Spirit" is another way of saying "Being justified by
faith." He uses them indiscriminately, and therefore we
cannot suppose that he could have laid any stress on distinc
tions between them. Even the apparently precise antithesis

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 249
of the prepositions ev hid varies in different passages. Only
in reference to the law, faith, rather than grace, is the more
correct and natural expression. It was Christ, or not Christ ;
the Spirit, or not the Spirit ; faith and the law, that were the
dividing principles; not Christ through faith as opposed to
Christ through works ; or the Spirit as communicated through
grace, to the Spirit as independent of grace.
Ulusive as are the distinctions of later controversies as
guides to the interpretation of Scripture, there is another
help, of which we can hardly avail ourselves too much, — the
interpretation of fact. To read the mind of the Apostle we
must read also the state of the world and th'e Church by
which he was surrounded. Now, there are two great facts
which correspond to the doctrine of righteousness by faith,
which is also the doctrine of the universality of the Gospel :
first, the vision which the Apostle saw on the way to Damas
cus ; secondly, the actual conversion of the GentUes by the
preaching of the Apostle. Righteousness by faith, admission
of the Gentiles, even the rejection and restoration of the
Jews, are — himself under so many different points of view.
The way by which God had led him was the way also by
which he was leading other men. When he preached right
eousness by faith, his conscience also bore him' witness that
this was the manner in which he had himself passed from
darkness to light, from the burden of ordinances to the power
of an endless hfe. Bi proclaiming the salvation of the Gen
tUes, he was interpreting the world as it was ; their admission
into the Church had already taken place before the eyes of
aU mankind ; it was a purpose of God that was actuaUy ful
filled, not waiting for some future revelation. Just as when
doubts are raised respecting his Apostleship; he cut them
short by the fact that he was an Apostle, and did the work of
an Apostle ; so, in adjusting the relations of Jew and Gen
tile, and justifying the ways of God, the facts, read aright,
are the basis of the doctrine which he teaches. All that he
further shows is, that these facts were in accordance with the
Old Testament, with the words of the prophets, and the deal-

250 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
ings of God with the Jewish people. And the Apostles at
Jerusalem, equally with himself, admitted the success of his
mission as an evidence of its truth.
But the faith which St. Paul preached was not merely the
evidence of things not seen, in which the Gentiles also had
part, nor only the reflection of " the violenee " of the world
around him, which was taking the kingdom of heaven by
force. The true source, the hidden hfe, to which justification
attaches, is Christ. It is true that we nowhere find in the
Epistles the expression " justification by Christ " exactly in
the sense of modern theology. But, on the other hand, we
are described As dead with Christ, we hve with him, we are
members of his body, we foUow him in aU the stages of his
being. All this is another way of expressing " We are jus
tified by faith." That which takes us out of ourselves and
links us with Christ, which anticipates in an instant the rest
of life, which is the door of every heavenly and spiritual
relation, presenting us through a glass with the image of
Christ crucified, is faith. The difference between our own
mode of thought and that of the. Apostle is only this, that to
him Christ is set forth more as in a picture, and less through
the medium of ideas or figures of speech ; and that whUe we
conceive the Saviour more naturally as an object of faith, to
St. Paul he is rather the indweUing power of hfe which is
fashioned in him, the marks of whose body he bears, the
measure of whose sufferings he fiUs up.
When in the Gospel it is said, " Believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and thou shalt be saved," this is substantiaUy the same
truth as " We are justified by faith." Yet we may note two
points of difference, as weU as two of resemblance, in the
manner in which the doctrine is set forth in the Gospel as
compared with the manner of the Epistles of St. Paul. First,
in the omission of any connection between the doctrine of
faith in Christ and the admission of the Gentiles. The
Saviour is within the borders of Israel ; and accordingly little
is said of the " sheep not of this fold," or the other husband
men who shaU take possession of the vineyard. Secondly,

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 251
there is in the words of Christ no antagonism or opposition to
the Law, except so far as the Law itself represented an im
perfect or defective morahty, or the perversions of the Law ¦
had become inconsistent with every moral principle. Two
points of resemblance have also to be remarked between the
faith of the Gospels and of the Epistles. In the first place,
both are accompanied by forgiveness of sins. As our Sav
iour to the disciple who affirms his belief says, " Thy sins be
forgiven thee " ; so St. Paul, when seeking to describe, in the
language of the Old Testament, the state of justification by
faith, tites the words of David, " Blessed is the man to whom-
the Lord will not impute sin." Secondly, they have both a
kind of absoluteness which raises them above earthly things.
There is a sort of omnipotence attributed to faith, of which
the behever is made a partaker. " Whoso hath faith as a
grain of mustard-seed, and should say unto this mountain, Be
thou removed and be thou cast into the sea, it shall be done
unto him," is the language of our Lord. " I can do aU things
through Christ that strengtheneth me," are the words of St.
Paul. Faith, in the language of the Apostle, is almost synony
mous with freedom. That quality in us which in reference to
God and Christ is faith, in reference to ourselves and our
fellow-men is Christian hberty. " With this freedom Christ
has made us free " ; " where the spirit of the Lord is, there
is hberty." It is the image also of the communion „of the
world to come. " The Jerusalem that is above is free," and
" the creature is waiting to be delivered into the glorious
hberty of the children of God." It applies to the Church as
now no longer confined in the prison-house of the Jewish
dispensation ; to the grace of God, which is given irrespec
tively to all ; to the individual, the power of whose will is
now loosed ; to the Gospel, as freedom from the Law, setting
the conscience at rest about questions of meats and drinks,
and new moons and Sabbaths ; and, above aU, to the freedom
from the sense of sin. The law of the spirit of hfe is also
the law of freedom.

252 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
In modern language assurance has been deemed necessary
to the definition of a true faith. There is a sense also in
which final assurance entered into the conception of the faith
of the Epistles. Looking at men from without, it was possi
ble for them to fall away finaUy ; it was possible also to faU
without faUing away ; as St. John says, there is a sin unto
death, and there is a sin not unto death. But looking inwards
into their hearts and consciences, their salvation was not a
matter of probabihty ; they knew whom they had believed,
and were confident that He who had begun the good work in
them would continue it unto the end. AU calculations re
specting the future were to them lost hi the fact that they were
already saved, — ol o-a£6pevoi and ol <ra8r)o-6pevoi indifferently.
To use a homely expression, they had no time to inquire
whether the state to which they are caUed was permanent
and final. The same intense faith which separated them from
the world, and aU things in it, had already given them a part
in the world to come. They, had not to win the crown, — it
was already won : this life, when they thought of themselves
in relation to Christ, was the next ; as their union with him
seemed far more true and real than the mere accidents of
their temporal existence.
A few words wiU briefly recapitulate the doctrine of right
eousness by faith as gathered from the Epistles of St. Paul.
Faith, then, according to the Apostle, is the spiritual prin
ciple ^hereby we go out of ourselves to hold communion with
God and Christ; not hke the faith of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, clothing itself in the shadows of the Law; but
opposed to the Law, and of a nature purely moral and spirit
ual. It frees man from the flesh, the Law, the world, and
from himself also ; that is, from his sinful nature, which is the
meeting of these three elements in his spiritual consciousness.
And to be " justified " is to pass into a new state ; such as
that of the Christian world when compared with the Jewish
or Pagan ; such as that which St. Paul had himself felt at
the moment of his conversion ; such as that which he reminds
the Galatian converts they had experienced, " before whose

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 253
eyes Jesus Christ was evidently set forth crucified " ; an
inward or subjective state, to which the outward or objective
act of calhng, on God's part, through the preaching of the
Apostle, corresponded; which, considered on a wider scale,
was the acceptance of the Gentiles and of every one who
feared God ; corresponding in like manner to the eternal
purpose of God ; indicated in the case of the individual by
his own inward assurance ; in the case of the world at large,
testified by the fact ; accompanied in the first by the sense of
peace and forgiveness, and implying to mankind generally
the last final principle of the Divine government, — " God
concluded aU under sin that he might have mercy upon all."
We acknowledge that there is a difference between the
meaning of justification by faith to St. Paul and to ourselves.
Eighteen hundred years cannot have passed away, leaving
the world and the mind of man, or the use of language, the
same as it was. But whUe acknowledging this difference, our
object is not to base some new doctrine upon our natural in
stincts, or to rear some fabric of philosophical speculation,
framed in the same terms, yet different in meaning and spirit.
Christianity is not a philosophy, but a life ; and religious
ideas, unless designed to destroy the simplicity of religion,
must be simple and practical. The true use of philosophy in
reference to religion is to restore its simplicity, by freeing it
from those perplexities which the love of system or past
philosophies, or the imperfection of language, or the mere
lapse of ages, may have introduced into it. To understand
St. Paul we found it necessary to get rid of the scholastic
definitions and deductions, which might be described as a sort
of mazy undergrowth of some noble forest, which must be
cleared away ere we can wander in its ranges. Neither is it
less necessary for ourselves to return to the plain letter of
Scripture, and seek a truth to live and die in ; not to be the
subject of verbal disputes, which entangle the religious sense
in scholastic perplexities. Whatever logical, necessity there
may be supposed to be in drawing out Christianity as a sys
tem, whether as food for the inteUect, or as a defence against
22

254 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
heresy, the words of eternal life will ever be few and simple,
" Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved."
Once more, then, we return to Scripture ; not to explain it
away, but to translate it into the language of our own hearts,
and to separate its accidents from its essence. Looking at it
as a rule of hfe and faith for ourselves, no less than for the
early Church, we must not leave out of sight the great differ
ences by which we are distinguished from those for whom it
was first written. The greatest difference of all is, that the
words of life and inspiration as they were to them are to us
words of fixed and conventional meaning ; they no longer
express feelings of the heart, but ideas of the head. Nor is
the difference less between the state of the world then and
now, not only of the outward world in which we live, but of
that inner world in which we ourselves are. The Law is
indeed dead to us, and we to the Law, and yet the whole
language of St. Paul is relative to what has not only passed
away, but has left no trace of itself in the thoughts of men.
The perpetual variations and transitions of meaning in the
use of the word Law, which have been enlarged upon else
where, tend also to a corresponding variation in the meaning
of faith. We are not looking for the immediate coming of
Christ, and do not anticipate, therefore, in a single generation,
the whole course of the world, or the history of a life, in the
moment of baptism or conversion. To us this hfe and the
next have each their fixed boundary, — time and eternity,
as we call them, — which it would appear mysticism to do
away. Last of aU, we are partakers of this world, and not
whoUy living in the world to come ; which makes it difficult
for us to imagine the intensity of meaning in such expressions
as " dead with Christ," " if ye then be risen with Christ."
The neglect of these essential differences between ourselves
and the first disciples has sometimes led to a distortion of
doctrine and a perversion of life, in the attempt to reproduce
exactly the scriptural image ; where words have had nothing
to correspond to them, views of human nature have been
invented to suit the language of St. Paul ; thus, for example,

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 255
the notion of legal righteousness is indeed a fiction as applied
to our own times. Nor, in truth, is the pride of human
nature, or the tendency to rebel against the will of God, or to
attach an undue value to good works, better founded. Men
are evil in aU sorts of ways : they deceive themselves and
others ; they walk by the opinion of others, and not by faith ;
they give way to their passions ; they are imperious and
oppressive to one another. But if we look closely, we per
ceive that most of their sins are not consciously against God ;
the pride of rank, or wealth, or power, or inteUect, may show
itself towards their brethren, but no man is proud towards
God. No man does wrong for the sake of rebeUing against
God. The evil is not, that men are bound under a curse by
the ever-present consciousness of sin, but that sins pass un
heeded by ; not that they wantonly offend God, but that they
know him not. So, again, there may be a false sense of
security towards God, as is sometimes observed on a death
bed, when mere physical weakness seems to incline the mind
to patience and resignation ; yet this more often manifests
itself in a mistaken faith, than in a rehance on good works.
Or, to take another instance, we are often surprised at the
extent to which men who are not professors of religion seem
to practise Christian virtues ; yet their state, however we
may regard it, has nothing in common with legal or self-
righteousness. Leaving, then, the scholastic definitions, as well as the
peculiar and relative aspect of the Pauline doctrine, we have
again to ask ourselves the meaning of justification by faith.
We may divide the subject, first, as it may be considered in
the abstract ; and, secondly, as consciously appropriated to
ourselves. I. Our justification may be regarded as an act on God's
part. It may be said that this act is continuous, and com
mensurate with our whole lives ; that although " known unto
God are aU his works from the beginning," yet that, speaking
as men, and translating what we term the acts of God into
human language, we are ever being more and more justified,

256 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
as in theological writers we are admitted to be more and
more sanctified. At first sight it seems that to deny this
involves us in a fiction and absurdity ; that is, it is a kind of
fiction to say that we are justified at once, but sanctified all
our life long. Yet consider it practically, and is it not so ?
B we look at the truth objectively, must we not admit that it
is his unchangeable wUl that all mankind should be saved ?
The consciousness of justification in the mind of the behever
is but the knowledge of this fact, which always was. It is
not made more a fact by our knowing it for many years or
our whole life. And this is what is witnessed to by actual
experience ; for he who is justified by faith does not go about
doubting in himself or his future destiny, but trusting in God.
From the first moment that he turns earnestly to God he is
sure that he is saved ; not from any confidence in himself,
but from an overpowering sense of the love of God and
Christ. II. It is an old problem in philosophy, What is the begin
ning of our moral being ? What is that prior principle which
makes good actions produce good habits ? Which of those
acts raises us above the world of sight? Plato would have
answered, The contemplation of the idea of good. Some of
ourselves would answer by the substitution of a conception of
moral growth for the mechanical theory of habits. Leaving
out of sight our relation to God, we can only say, that we
are fearfuUy and wonderfully made, with powers which we
are unable to analyze. It is a paraUel difficulty in religion
which is met by the doctrine of justification by faith. We
grow up spiritually, we cannot tell how ; not by outward acts,
nor always by energetic effort, but stihy and silently, by the
grace of God descending upon us, as the dew faUs upon the
earth. If we imagine a person anxious and fearful about his
future state, strainhig every nerve lest he should faU short of
the requirements of God, overpowered with the memory of
his past sins, — - that is not the temper of mind in which he
can truly serve God, or work out his own salvation. Without
peace it is impossible for him to act. At once and imme-

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 257
diately the Gospel teUs him that he is justified by faith, that
his pardon is simultaneous with the very moment of his be
lief, that he may go on his way rejoicing to fulfil the duties
of life ; for, in human language, God is no longer angry
with him.
IH. Thus far, in the consideration of righteousness by
faith, we have obtained two aspects of the doctrine, in which,
even when regarded in the abstract, it has stiU a meaning ;
first, as expressing the unchangeableness of the mercy of
God; and, secondly, the mysteriousness of human" action.
As we approach nearer, we are unavoidably led to regard the
gift of righteousness rather in reference to the subject than to
the object, in relation to man rather than God. What quality,
feeling, temper, habit in ourselves answers to it ? It may be
more or less conscious to us, more of a state and less of a
feeling, showing itself rather in our hves than our hps. But
for these differences we can make allowance. It is the same
faith stUl, though showing itself in divers ways and under
various circumstances. We must suppose it conscious for us
to be able to describe it.
IV. The expression " righteousness by faith " indicates,
first, the personal character of salvation ; not what we do, but
what we are, is the source of our acceptance with God. Who
can bear to think of his own actions as they are seen by the
eye of the Almighty ? Looking at their defective perform
ance, or analyzing them into the secondary motives out of
which they have sprung, do we seem to have any ground on
which we can stand with God"? is there anything which satis
fies ourselves ? That which makes us acceptable to God is
something besides all this, which frees us from the burden
of our good works, which raises us above the tangle of human
hfe. The love of a parent to a child is not measured out in
proportion to the chUd's good qualities. And although the
measure of God's love to man is perfect justice, yet the rela
tion in which we can most adequately conceive of God is,
that of a person to persons, who condescends to draw us
towards him, who aUows us to attach ourselves to him. The
22*

258 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
symbol and mean of this personal relation of man to God is
faith ; and the righteousness which consists not in what we
do, but in what we are, is the righteousness of faith.
V. Faith may be spoken of in the language of the Epistle
to the Hebrews, as the substance of things unseen. But
what are the things unseen ? Not merely an invisible world
ready to flash through the thraldom of the material at the
appearance of Christ ; not angels, or powers of darkness, or
even God himself seated, as the Old Testament described, on
the circle of the heavens ; but the kingdom of truth and jus
tice, the things that are within, of which God is the centre,
and with which .men everywhere by faith hold communion.
Faith is the belief in the existence of this kingdom ; that is,
in the truth and justice and mercy of God, who disposes aU
things, — not perhaps in our judgment for the greatest happi
ness of his creatures, but absolutely in accordance with our
moral notions. And that this is not seen to be the case here,
makes it a matter of faith and not of sight, that it wiU be so
in some future world, or is so in some ways that we are
unable to comprehend. He that beheves on God believes,
first, that he is ; and, secondly, that he is the rewarder of
them that seek him.
VI. Now, if we go on to ask what is it that gives us this
absolute and present assurance of the truth and justice of
God, the answer is, the life and death of Christ, who is the
image of God and man alike, the Son of God ; the First-born
of the redeemed. We know what he himself has told us of
God, and we cannot conceive perfect goodness separate from
perfect truth ; nay, this goodness itself is the only and the
highest conception we can form of God, if we confess and
comprehend what the mere immensity of the material world
tends to suggest, that God is a Being different in kind from
any physical power ; a Being of whom the reason of man,
however feeble, forms a far truer (though most inadequate)
conception than imagination in its highest flights. Admit the
statements of the Gospel respecting Christ ; it is not so much
a matter to be proved by dubious inference from texts, as

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 259
manifest on the surface that he is Divine in all that truly con
stitutes divinity except this outward garb of flesh.
That is the only image of God which we are capable of
conceiving ; an image not of physical, nor even of spiritual
power, seen in the sufferings rather than in the miracles of
Christ our Saviour ; the image of perfect goodness and peace
and truth and love.
We are on the edge of a theological difficulty; for who
can deny, that the image of that goodness may fade from the
mind's eye after so many centuries, or that there are those
who recognize the idea and may be unable to admit the fact ?
Can we say that this error of the head is also an error of the
heart ? The hves of such unbelievers in the facts of Chris
tianity would sometimes refute our explanation. And yet it
is true that Providence has made our spiritual life dependent
on the behef in certain truths, and those truths run up into
matters of fact, with the belief in which they have ever been
associated ; it is true also, that the most important moral
consequences flow from unbelief. We grant the difficulty :
no complete answer can be given to it on this side the grave.
Doubtless God has provided a way that the sceptic no less
than the believer shaU receive his due ; he does not need our
timid counsels for the protection of the truth. If among
those who have rejected the facts of the Gospel history some
have been rash, hypercritical, inflated with the pride of in
teUect, or secretly ahenated by sensuality from the faith of
Christ, — there have been others, also, upon whom we may
beheve to rest a portion of that blessing which comes to such
as " have not seen and yet have believed."
Vn. In the Epistles of St. Paul, and yet more in the
Epistle to the Hebrews, the relation of Christ to mankind
is expressed under figures of speech taken from the Mosaic
dispensation : he is the Sacrifice for the sins of men, " the
Lamb of God that taketh away the sins of the world " ; the
Antitype of all the types, the impersonation of the Jewish
Law. There are two ways in which we may treat such
expressions ; we may regard them as figures of speech, which

260 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
from their variety and incongruity with each other, we seem
justified in doing (compare " Essay on the Doctrine of the
Atonement"), or as realities, true so far as we are capable
of conceiving, about which we may as surely reason as about
any other statements of fact: thus, for example, we may
speak of the infinite sacrifice of Christ ; of nothing less being
capable of satisfying the wrath of God ; of God seeing man
in Christ other than he really is. But such expressions,
whatever comfort they may have given those who think of
God under human figures, seem inevitably to dissolve when
we rise to the contemplation of him as the God of truth,
without parts or passions, who knows all things, and cannot
be angry with any, or see them other than they truly are.
What is indicated by them, to us who are dead to the Law,
is, that God has manifested himself in Christ as the God of
mercy ; who is more ready to hear than we to pray ; who
has forgiven us almost before we ask him ; who has given us
his only Son, and how wUl he not with him also give us all
things ? They intimate, on God's part, that he is not extreme
to mark what is done amiss ; in human language, " he is
touched with the feehng of our infirmities " : on our part,
that we say to God, " Not of ourselves, but of thy grace and
mercy, 0 Lord." Not in the fulness of life and health, nor
in the midst of business, nor in the schools of theology ; but
in the sick chamber, where are no more earthly interests, and
in the hour of death, we have before us the living image of
the truth of justification by faith, when man acknowledges,
on the confines of another world, the unprofitableness of his
own good deeds, and the goodness of God even in afflicting
him, and his absolute reliance, not on works of righteousness
that he has done, but on the Divine mercy.
VIII. A true faith has been sometimes defined to be, not
a faith in the unseen merely, or in God or Christ, but a
personal assurance of salvation. Such a feehng may be only
the veil of sensualism ; it may be also the noble confidence of
St. Paul. " I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 261
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." It may be like the anticipation of
any other fact ; or an emotion, resting on no other ground
except that we beheve ; or, thirdly, a conviction deeply rooted
in our life and character. The whole spirit of Scripture, as
weU as our own knowledge of human nature, seems to re
quire that we should have this personal confidence in our own
salvation : and yet to assume that we are at the end of the
race may make us lag in our course. Whatever danger there
is in the doctrine of the Divine decrees, the danger is nearer
home, and more liable to influence practice, when our belief
takes the form of personal assurance. How, then, are we
to escape from the dilemma, and have a rational confidence in
the mercy of God ?
IX. This confidence must rest, first, on a practical sense of
the truth and justice of God, rising far above perplexities of
fact in the world around us, or the tangle of metaphysical or
theological difficulties. But although such a sense of the
truth or justice of God is the beginning of our final assur
ance respecting ourselves, yet a link of connection is wanting
before we can venture to appropriate that which we acknowl
edge in the abstract. The justice of God may lead to our
condemnation as weU as to our justification. Are we, then,
in the language of the ancient tragedy, to say that no one can
be counted happy before he dies, or that salvation is only
imparted in a certain qualified sense before the end of our
course is seen ? Not so : the Gospel encourages us to regard
ourselves, beyond aU doubt or scruple, as already saved ; for
the work of Christ is already done, and we have already par
ticipated in it and appropriated it by faith. But this appro
priation of it means nothing short of the utter, entire renun
ciation of self and its interests, the absolute wUl and intention
to conform to the service of God. He who feels this in him
self feels also the absolute certamty of salvation. Only while
we are halting between right and wrong, between this world
and the next, can we have any doubt of our future destiny.

262 ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH.
Thus then we seem to find a rational ground for final
assurance, beginning in a clear insight into the perfect justice
and mercy of God, and ending in an entire appropriation of
it to ourselves, dependent only on the unreservedness of our
devotion to his service. The same difficulty may seem to
spring up again with the question, how we are to define an
unreserved devotion to the service of God ; or, in other
words, what is such a true faith as is sufficient to justify a
final assurance ? To which it may be answered, first, that we
know it by such test as we know the truth and sincerity of any
other disposition of mind or heart, that is, by the effects ; and,
secondly, that unless our faith be real in a sense far above
the ordinary conventional belief even of good men, none can
be justified in making it the ground of final assurance.
" And now abideth faith, hope, and love, these three ; but
the greatest of these is love." There seems to be a sort of
contradiction in love being placed first, and yet faith the sole
instrument of justification. Love, according to some, is pre
ferred to faith, because when faith and hope are swallowed
up in sight, love abides still. Love, according to others, is
one principle of justification, faith another. The true reason
seems to be, because love describes a closer and more inti
mate union with God and our fellow-men than faith. It is
a kind of pre-eminence that love enjoys over faith, that it
has never yet passed into the technical language of theology.
But there is a reflection that these words of St. Paul natu
rally suggest in reference to our present subject. It is this :
Christian truth has many phases, and will be received by one
temper of mind in one way, by another in another. There
is diversity of doctrine, but the same spirit : love is the more
natural expression to St. John, faith to St. Paul. Human
minds are different, and the same mind varies at different
times ; and even the best of men have but a feeble sense of
the unseen world. We cannot venture further to dim that
consciousness by confining it to one expression of belief;
and therefore, while speaking of faith as the instrument of

ON RIGHTEOUSNESS BT FAITH. 263
justification, because faith best indicates the apprehensive,
dependent character of 'our Christian life, we are bound also
to deny that the truth of Christ is contained in any one
statement, or the Christian life hnked to any one quahty.
We must acknowledge the imperfection of language and
thought, seeking rather to describe than to define the work
of the Spirit, which has as many forms as the quahties, tem
pers, faculties, circumstances, and accidents of our nature.

ON THE IMPUTATION OF THE SIN
OF ADAM.
Br BENJAMIN JOWETT.

That so many opposite systems of theology seek their
authority in Scripture,, is a fair proof that Scripture is differ
ent from them all. That is to say, Scripture often contains in
germ, what is capable of being drawn to either side ; it is in
distinct, where they are distinct ; it presents two lights, where
they present only one ; it speaks inwardly, whUe they clothe
themselves in the forms of human knowledge. That indis
tinct, intermediate, inward point of view at which the truth
exists but in germ, they have on both sides tended to extin
guish and suppress. Passing allusions,, figures of speech,
rhetorical oppositions, have been made the foundation of doc
trinal statements, which are like a part of the human mind
itself, and seem as if they could never be uprooted, without
uprooting the very sentiment of religion. Systems of this
kind exercise a constraining power, which makes it difficult
for us to see anything in Scripture but themselves.
For example, how slender is the foundation in the New
Testament for the doctrine of Adam's sin being imputed to
his posterity, — two passages in St. Paul at most, and these
of uncertain interpretation. The httle cloud, no bigger than
a man's hand, has covered the heavens. To reduce such
subjects to their proper proportions, we should consider :
First, what space they occupy in Scripture ; Secondly, how
far the language used respecting them is hteral or figurative ;
23

266 imputation op the sin of adam.
Thirdly, whether they agree with the more general truths of
Scripture and our moral sense, or are not " rather repugnant
thereto " ; Fourthly, whether their origin may not be prior to
Christianity, or traceable in the after history of the Church ;
Fifthly, how far to ourselves they are anything more than
words. The two passages alluded to are Rom. v. 12, 21, 1 Cor. xv.
21, 22, 45 - 49, in both of which paraUels are drawn between
Adam and Christ. Bi both the sin of Adam is spoken of, or
seems to be spoken of, as the source of death to man. " As
by one man's transgression sin entered into the world, and
death by sin," and " As in Adam all die." Such words ap
pear plain at first sight ; that is to say, we find in them what
we bring to them : let us see what considerations modify their
meaning. B we accept the Pelagian view of the passage,
which refers the death of each man to actual sin, there is an
end of the controversy. But it does not equally foUow that,
if what is termed the received interpretation is given to the
words, the doctrine which it has been attempted to ground
upon them would have any real foundation.
We wiU suppose, then, that no reference is contained in
either passage to " actual sin." Bi some other sense than
this mankind are identified with Adam's transgression. But
the question still remains, whether Adam's sin and death are
merely the type of the sin and death of his posterity, or more
than this the cause. The first explanation quite satisfies the
meaning of the words " As in Adam all die " ; the second
seems to be required by the parallel passage in the Romans,
" As by one man sin came into the world," and " As by one
man many were made sinners," if taken literaUy.
The question involves the more general one, whether the
use of language in St. Paul makes it necessary that we
should take his words hterally in this passage. Is he speak
ing of Adam's sin being the cause of sin and death to his
posterity, in any other sense than he spoke of Abraham being
a father of circumcision to the uncircumcised ? (Chap, iv.)
Yet no one would think of basing a doctrine on these words.

IMPUTATION op the sin OP ADAM. 267
Or is he speaking of all men dying in Adam, in any other
sense than he says in 2 Cor. v. 15, that if one died for all,
then aU died. Yet in this latter passage, while Christ died
hterally, it was only in a figure that all died. May he be
arguing in the same way as when he infers from the word
" seed " being used in the singular, that " thy seed is Christ " ?
Or, if we confine ourselves to the passage under considera
tion: Is the righteousness of Christ there imputed to be
lievers, independently of their own inward holiness? and if
so, should the sin of Adam be imputed independently of the
actual sins of men ?
I. A very shght difference in the mode of expression
would make it impossible for us to attribute to St. Paul the
doctrine of the imputation of the sin of Adam. But we
have seen before how varied, and how different from our
own, are his modes of thought and language. Compare i. 4,
iv. 25. To him, it was but a shght transition, from the iden
tification of Adam with the sins of all mankind, to the repre
sentation of the sin of Adam as the cause of those sins. To
us there is the greatest difference between the two statements.
To him it was one among many figures of the same kind, to
oppose the first and second Adam, as elsewhere he opposes
the old and new man. With us this figure has been singled
out to be made the foundation of a most exact statement of
doctrine. We do not remark that there is not even the
appearance of attributing Adam's sin to his posterity, in any
part of the Apostle's writings in which he is not drawing a
parallel between Adam and Christ.
n. The Apostle is not speaking of Adam as fallen from a
state of innocence. He could scarcely have said, " The first
man is of the earth, earthy," if he had had in his mind that
Adam had previously existed in a pure and perfect state.
He is only drawing a paraUel between Adam and Christ.
The moment we leave this paraUel, all is uncertain and un
determined. The logical consequences which are appended
to his words are far out of his sight. He would hardly have
found language to describe the nature of Adam's act, whether

268 IMPUTATION OP THE SIN OP ADAM.
occurring by his own free wUl or not, or the way in which the
supposed effect was communicated to his posterity.
HI. There are other elements of St. Paul's teaching,
which are either inconsistent with the imputation of Adam's
sin to his posterity, or at any rate are so prominent as to
make such a doctrine, if held by him, eomparatively unim
portant. According to St. Paul, it is not the act of Adam,
but the law, that
" Brought sin into the world and all our woe."
And the law is almost equivalent . to " the knowledge of sin."
But original sin is, or may be, whoUy unconscious ; born with
our birth, and growing with our growth. Not so the sin of
which St. Paul speaks, which is inseparable from conscious
ness, as he says himself : " I was alive without the law once,"
which would be dead, if we were unconscious of it.
IV. It wiU be admitted that we ought to feel still greater
reluctance to press the statement of the Apostle to its strict
logical consequences, if we find that the language which he
here uses is that of his age and country. From the circum
stance of our first reading the doctrine of the imputation
of Adam's sin to his posterity in the Epistles of St. Paul,
we can hardly persuade ourselves that this is not its orig
inal source. The incidental manner in which it is aUuded
to, might indeed lead us to suppose that it would scarcely
have been intelligible, had it not been also an opinion of
his time. But if this inference should seem doubtful, there
is direct evidence to show that the Jews connected sin and
death, and the sins and death of mankind, with the sin of
Adam, in the same way as the Apostle. The earliest trace
of such a doctrine is found in the apocryphal Book of Wis
dom, ii. 24. It was a further refinement of some of their
teachers, that when Adam sinned the whole world sinned;
because at that time Adam was the whole world, or because
the soul of Adam comprehended the souls of all, so that
Adam's sin conveyed an hereditary taint to his posterity. It
was a confusion of a half physical, half logical or metaphysi-

IMPUTATION OF THE SIN OF ADAM. 269
cal notion, arising in the minds of men who had not yet learnt
the lesson of our Saviour : " That which is from without
defileth not a man." That human nature or philosophy some
times rose up against such inventions is certainly true ; but
it seems to be on the whole admitted, that the doctrine of
Augustine is in substance generally agreed to by the Rabbis,
and that there is no trace of their having derived it from the
writings of St. Paul.
But not only is the connection of sin and death with each
other, and with the sin of Adam, found in the Rabbinical
writings ; the type and antitype of the first and second Adam
are also contained in them. In reading the first chapters of
Genesis, the Jews made a distinction between the higher
Adam, who was the hght of the world, and had control over
aU things, who was mystically referred to where it is said,
they two shall be one flesh ; and the inferior Adam who was
Lord only of the creation ; who had " the breath of hfe," but
not " the living soul." Schcettgen, I. 512 - 514, 670 - 673.
By some, indeed, the latter seems to have been identified with
the Messiah. By PhUo, on the other hand, the Xdyos is iden
tified with the TrpaTos 'Ahdp, who is without sex, while the
avOpanos xoticos is created afterwards by the help of the angels.
It is not the object of this statement to reconcile these varia
tions, but merely to indicate, first, that the idea of the first
and second Adam was familiar to the Jews in the time of St.
Paul, and that one or other of them was regarded by them
as the Word and the Messiah.
V. A shghter, though not less real, foundation of the doc
trine has been what may be termed the logical symmetry of
the imputation of the righteousness of Christ and of the sin
of Adam. The latter half is the correlative of the former ;
they mutuaUy support each other. We place the first and
second Adam in juxtaposition, and seem to see a fitness or
reason in the one standing in the same relation to the fallen
as the other to the saved.
VI. It is hardly necessary to ask the further question,
what meaning we can attach to the imputation of sin and guilt
23*

270 IMPUTATION OP THE SIN OF ADAM.
which are not our own, and of which we are unconscious.
God can never see us other than we reaUy are, or judge us
without reference to all our circumstances and antecedents.
If we can hardly suppose that he would allow a fiction of
mercy to be interposed between ourselves and him, stiU less
can we imagine that he would interpose a fiction of ven
geance. B he requires holiness before he wiU save, much
more, may we say in the Apostle's form of speech, wUl he
require sin before he dooms us to perdition. Nor can any
thing be in spirit more contrary to the hving consciousness of
sin of which the Apostle everywhere speaks, than the con
ception of sin as dead unconscious evil, originating in the
act of an individual man, in the world before the flood.
On the whole, then, we are led to infer, that, in the Au
gustinian interpretation of this passage, even if it agree with
the letter of the text, too httle regard has been paid to the
extent to which St. Paul uses figurative language, and to the
manner of his age in interpretations of the Old Testament.
The difficulty of supposing him to be allegorizing the narra
tive of Genesis is shght, in comparison with the difficulty of
supposing him to countenance a doctrine at variance with
our first notions of the moral nature of God.
But when the figure is dropped, and allowance is made for
the manner of the age, the question once more returns upon
us, " What is the Apostle's meaning ? " He is arguing, we
see, kut av8pa7rov, and taking his stand on the received opin
ions of his time. Do we imagine that his object is no other
than to set the seal of his authority on these traditional be
hefs ? The whole analogy, not merely of the writings of St.
Paul, but of the entire New Testament, would lead us to
suppose that his object was, not to reassert them, but to teach,
through them, a new and nobler lesson. The Jewish Rabbis
would have spoken of the first and second Adam ; but which
of them would have made the apphcation of the figure to aU
mankind ? A figure of speech it remains still, an aUegory
after the manner of that age and country, but yet with no
uncertain or ambiguous interpretation. It means that " God

IMPUTATION OP THE SIN OF ADAM. 271
hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth " ; that
" he hath concluded ah under sin, that he may have mercy
upon aU " ; that life answers to death, the times before to the
times after the revelation of Jesus Christ. It means that we
are one in a common sinful nature which, even if it be not
derived from the sin of Adam, exists as really as if it were.
It means that we shaU be made one in Christ by the grace
of God, in a measure here, more fuUy and perfectly in
another world. More than this it also means, and more than
language can express, but not the weak and beggarly ele
ments of Rabbinical tradition. We may not encumber St.
Paul with the things which he " destroyed." What it means
further is not to be attained by theological distinctions, but
by putting off the old man and putting on the New Man.

ON CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF
CHARACTER
Br BENJAMIN JOWETT.

Thus have we the image of the life-long struggle gathered
up in a single instant.* In describing it we pass beyond the
consciousness of the individual into a world of abstractions ;
we loosen the thread by which the spiritual faculties are held
together, and view as objects what can, strictly speaking, have
no existence, except in relation to the subject. The divided
members of the soul are ideal, the conflict between them is
ideal, so also is the victory. What is real that corresponds
to this, is not a momentary, but a continuous conflict, which
we feel rather than know, — which has its different aspects
of hope and fear, triumph and despair, the action and reaction
of the Spirit of God in the depths of the human soul,
awakening the sense of sin and conveying the assurance of
forgiveness. The language in which we describe this conflict is very
different from that of the Apostle. Our circumstances are
so changed that- we are hardly able to view it in its simplest
elements. Christianity is now the estabhshed religion of the
civilized portion of mankind. Bi our own country it has
become part of the law of the land; it speaks with authority,
it is embodied in a Church, it is supported by almost univer
sal opinion, and fortified by wealth and prescription. Those
who know least of its spiritual hfe, do not deny its greatness
* Viz., in Eom. vii. 7 - 25.

274 , CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER.
as a power in the world. Analogous to this relation in
which it stands to our history and social state, is the relation
in which it stands also to the minds of individuals. We are
brought up in it, and unconsciously receive it as the habit of
our thoughts and the condition of our life. It is without us,
and we are within its circle ; we do not become Christians,
we are so from our birth. Even in those who suppose them
selves to have passed through some sudden and violent
change, and to have tasted once for all of the heavenly gift,
the change is hardly ever in the form or substance of their
behef, but in its quickening power ; they feel, not a new creed,
but a new spirit within them. So that we might truly say
of Christianity, that it is " the daughter of time " ; it hangs
to the past, not only because the first century is the era of
its birth, but because each successive century strengthens its
form and adds to its external force, and entwines it with more
numerous links in our social state. Not only may we say,
that it is part and parcel of the law of the land, but part and
parcel of the character of each one, which even the worst of
men cannot wholly shake off.
But if with ourselves the influence of Christianity is almost
always gradual and imperceptible, with the first behevers it
was almost always sudden. There was no interval which
separated the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost,
from the baptism of the three thousand. The eunuch of
Candace paused for a brief space on a journey, and was then
baptized into the name of Christ, which a few hours previously
he had not so much as heard. There was no period of pro
bation like that which, a century or two later, was appro
priated to the instruction of the Catechumens. It was an
impulse, an inspiration passing from the hps of one to a
chosen few, and communicated by them to the ear and soul
of listening multitudes. As the wind bloweth where it list-
eth, and we hear | the sounds thereof; as the lightning shineth
from the one end of the heaven to the other ; so suddenly,
fitfully, simultaneously, new thoughts come into their minds,
not to one only, but to many, to whole cities almost at once.
They were pricked with the sense of sin; they were melted

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER. 275
with the love of Christ ; their spiritual nature " came again
like the flesh of a little chUd." And some, like St. Paul,
became the very opposite of their former selves ; from scof
fers, behevers ; from persecutors, preachers ; the thing that
they were, was so strange to them, that they could no longer
look calmly on the earthly scene which they hardly seemed
to touch, which was already lighted up with the wrath and
mercy of God. There were those among them who " saw
visions and dreamed dreams," who were " caught up," hke
St. Paul, " into the third heaven," or hke the twelve, " spake
with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance." And
sometimes, as in the Thessalonian Church, the ecstasy of con
version led to strange and wUd opinions, such as the daily
expectation of Christ's coming. The "round world" itself
began to reel before them, as they thought of the things that
were shortly to come to pass.
But however sudden were the conversions of the earhest
believers, however wonderful the circumstances which at
tended them, they were not for that reason the less lasting or
sincere. Though many preached " Christ of contention,"
though " Demas forsook the Apostle," there were few who,
having once taken up the cross, turned back from " the love
of this present world." They might waver between Paul
and Peter, between the circumcision and the uncircumcision ;
they might give ear to the strange and bewitching heresies of
the East ; but there is no trace that many returned to " those
that were no gods," or put off Christ ; the impression of the
truth that they had received was everlasting on their minds.
Even sins of fornication and uncleanness, which from the
Apostle's frequent warnings against them we must suppose to
have lingered, as a sort of remnant of heathenism in the
early Church, did not wholly destroy their inward relation to
God and Christ. Though " their last state might be worse
than the first," they could never return again to hve the life
of all men after having tasted " the heavenly gift and the
powers of the world to come."
Such was the nature of conversion among the early Chris-

276 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER.
tians, the new birth of which by spiritual descent we are our
selves the offspring. Is there anything in history like it ? any
thing in our own hves which may help us to understand it ?
That which the Scripture describes from within, we are for a
while going to look at from a different point of view, not with
reference to the power of God, but to those secondary causes
through which he works, — the laws which experience shows
that he himself imposes on the operations of his spirit. Such
an inquiry is not a mere idle speculation ; it is not far from
the practical question, " How we are to become better." Im
perfect as any attempt to analyze our spiritual life must ever
be, the changes which we ourselves experience or observe in
others, compared with those greater and more sudden changes
which took place in the age of the Apostle, wiU throw hght
upon each other.
Bi the sudden conversions of the early Christians we ob
serve three things which either tend to discredit, or do not
accompany, the working of a simUar power among ourselves.
First, that conversion was marked by ecstatic and unusual
phenomena ; secondly, that it feU upon whole multitudes at
once ; thirdly, that, though sudden, it was permanent.
When we consider what is implied in such expressions as
" not many wise, not many learned," were caUed to the
knowledge of the truth, we can scarcely avoid feehng that
there must have been much in the early Church which would
have been distasteful to us as men of education ; much that
must have worn the appearance of excitement and enthu
siasm. Is the mean conventicle, looking almost like a private
house, more like that first assembly of Christians in the large
upper room, or the Catholic church arrayed in all the glories
of Christian art ? Neither of them is altogether like in spirit
perhaps, but in externals the. first. Is the dignified hierarchy
that occupy the seats around the altar, more hke the multi
tude of first believers, or the lowly crowd that kneel upon the
pavement ? If we try to embody in the mind's eye the forms
of the first teachers, and stiU more of their followers, we
cannot help reading the true lesson, however great may be

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER. 277
the illusions of poetry or of art Not St. Paul standing on
Mars' Hill in the fulness of manly strength, as we have him
in the cartoon of Raphael, is the true image ; but such a one
as he himself would glory in, whose bodily presence was
weak and speech feeble, who had an infirmity in his flesh, and
bore in his body the marks of the Lord Jesus.
And when we look at this picture " full in the face," how
ever we might by nature be inchned to turn aside from it, or
veU its details in general language, we cannot deny that many
things that accompany the religion of the uneducated now,
must then also have accompanied the Gospel preached to the
poor. There must have been, humanly speaking, spiritual
delusions where men lived so exclusively in the spritual
world ; there were scenes which we know took place such as
St. Paul says would make the unbeliever think that they
were mad. The best and hohest persons among the poor
and ignorant are not entirely free •from superstition, according
to the notions of the educated ; at best they are apt to speak
of religion in a manner not quite suited to our taste ; they
sing with a loud and excited voice ; they imagine themselves
to receive Divine oracles, even about the humblest cares of
life. Is not this, in externals at least, very hke the appear
ance which the first disciples must have presented, who
obeyed the Apostle's injunction, "Is any sad? let him pray;
is any merry ? let him sing psalms." Could our nerves have
bome to witness " the speaking with tongues," or " the ad
ministration of baptism," or the love-feasts as they probably
existed in the early Church ?
This difference between the feehngs and habits of the first
Christians and ourselves, must be borne in mind in relation
to the subject of conversion. For as sudden changes are
more likely to be met with amongst the poor and uneducated
in the present day, it certainly throws light on the subject of
the first conversions, that to the poor and uneducated the
Gospel was first preached. And yet these sudden changes
were as real, nay, more real than any gradual changes which
take place among ourselves. The Stoic or Epicurean plulos-
§4

278 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER.
opher who had come into an assembly of behevers speaking
with tongues, would have remarked, that among the vulgar
religious extravagances were usually short-lived. But it was
not so. There was more there than he had eyes to see, or
than was dreamed of in a philosophy hke his. Not only was
there the superficial appearance of poverty and meanness and
enthusiasm, from a nearer view of which we are apt to
shrink, but underneath this, brighter from its very obscurity,
purer from the meanness of the raiment in which it was
apparelled, was the life hidden with Christ and God. There,
arid there only, was the power which made a man humble
instead of proud, self-denying instead of self-seeking, spiritual
instead of carnal, a Christian instead of a Jew ; which made
him embrace, not only the brethren, but the whole human
race, in the arms of his love.
But it is a further difference between the power of the
Gospel now and in the first ages, that it no longer converts
whole multitudes at once. Perhaps this very individuality in
its mode of working, may not be without an advantage in
awakening us to its higher truths and more entire spiritual
freedom. Whether this be so or not, which is not our present
question, we seem to see a diminution of its coUective force
on the hearts of men. In our own days the preacher sees
the seed, sown gradually, spring up ; first one, then another,
begins to lead a better life ; then a change comes over the
state of society, often from causes over which he has no con
trol ; he makes some steps forwards and a few backwards,
and trusts far more, if he is wise, to the silent influence of
religious education than to the power of preaching ; and, per
haps, the result of a long life of ministerial labor is far less
than that of a single discourse from the lips of the Apostles
or their followers. Even in missions to the heathen the vital
energies of Christianity cease to operate to any great extent,
at least on the effete civilization of India and China ; the
limits of the kingdoms of hght and darkness are nearly the
same as heretofore. At any rate it cannot be said that Chris
tianity has wrought any sudden amelioration of mankind by

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER. 279
the immediate preaching of the word, since the conversion of
the barbarians. Even within the Christian world there is a
paraUel retardation. The ebb and flow of reformation and
counter-reformation have hardly changed the permanent land
marks. The age of spiritual crises is past. The growth of
Christianity in modern times may be compared to the change
of the body, when it has already arrived at its full stature.
In one half-century so vast a progress was made, in a few
centuries more the world itself seemed to " have gone after
Him," and now for near a thousand years the voice of ex
perience is repeating to us, " Hitherto shalt thou go, but no
further." Looking at this remarkable phenomenon of the conversion
of whole multitudes at once, not from its Divine but from its
human aspect, that is, with reference to that provision that
God himself has made in human nature for the execution
of his will, the first cause to which we are naturally led to
attribute it, is the power of sympathy. Why it is that men
ever act together is a mystery of which our individual self-
consciousness gives no account, any more than why we speak
a common language, or form nations or societies, or merely in
our physical nature are capable of taking diseases from one
another. Nature and the God of nature have made us thus
dependent on each other both in body and soul. Whoever
has seen human beings coUected together in masses,- and
watched the movements that pass over them, like " the trees
of the forest moving in the wind," wiU have no difficulty in
imagining, if not in understanding, how the same voice might
have found its way at the same instant to a thousand hearts,
without our being able to say where the fire was first kindled,
or by whom the inspiration was first caught. Such historical
events as the Reformation, or the Crusades, or the French
Revolution, are a sufficient evidence that a whole people, or
ahnost, we may say, half a world, may be " drunk" into one
spirit," springing up, as it might seem, spontaneously in the
breast of each, yet common to aU. A parallel yet nearer is
furaished by the history of the Jewish people, in whose sudden

280 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER.
rebelhon, and restoration to God's favor, we recognize literally
the momentary workings of, what is to ourselves a figure of
speech, a national conscience.
In ordinary cases we should truly say that there must have
been some predisposing cause of a great political or rehgious
revolution ; some latent elements acting alike upon all, which,
" though long smouldering beneath, burst forth at last into a
flame. Such a cause might be the misery of mankind, or the
intense corruption of human society, which could not be
quickened except it die, or the long-suppressed yearnings of
the soul after something higher than it had hitherto known
upon earth, or the reflected hght of one religion or one move
ment of the human mind upon another. Such causes were
actually at work, preparing the way for the diffusion of Chris
tianity. The law itself was beginning to pass away in an
altered world, the state of society was hollow, the chosen
people were hopelessly under the Roman yoke. Good men
refrained from the wild attempt of the Gahlean Judas ; yet
the spirit which animated such attempts was slumbering in
their bosoms. Looking back at their own past history, they
could not but remember, even in an altered world, that there
was one who ruled among the kingdoms of men, " beside
whom there was no God." Were they to suppose that his
arm was straitened to save ? that he had forgotten his tender
mercies to the house of David ? that the aspirations of the
prophets were vain ? that the blood of the Maccabean heroes
had sunk like water into the earth ? This was a hard saying ;
who could bear it ? It was long ere the nation, hke the in
dividual, put off thq old man, that is, the temporal dispensa
tion, and put on the new man, that is, the spiritual Israel.
The very misery of the people seemed to forbid them to
acquiesce in their present state. And with the miserable
condition of the nation sprang up also the feehng, not only
in individuals, but in the race, that for their sins they were
chastened, the feeling which their whole history seemed to
deepen and increase. At last the scales fell from their eyes :
the veU that was on the face of Moses, was first trans-

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER. 281
figured before them, then removed ; the thoughts of many
hearts turned simultaneously to the hope of Israel, " Him
whom the law and the prophets foretold." As they listened
to the preaching of the Apostles, they seemed to hear a truth
both new and old ; what many had thought, but none had
uttered ; which in its comfort and joyousness seemed to them
new, and yet, from its familiarity and suitableness to their
condition, not the less old.
Spiritual hfe, no, less than natural life, is often the very
opposite of the elements which seem to give birth to it. The
preparation for the way of the Lord, which John the Baptist
preached, did not consist in a direct reference to the Saviour.
The words " He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and
with fire," and "He shaU burn up the chaff with fire un
quenchable," could have given the Jews no exact conception
of Him who " did not break the bruised reed, nor quench the
smoking flax." It was in another way that John prepared for
Christ, by quickening the moral sense of the people, and
sounding in their ears the voice, " Repent, for the kingdom of
heaven is at hand." Beyond this useful lesson, there was a kind
of vacancy in the preaching of John. He himself, as " he was
finishing his course," testified that his work was incomplete,
and that he was not the Christ. The Jewish people were
prepared by his preaching for the coming of Christ, just as
an individual might be prepared to receive him by the con
viction of sin, and the conscious need of forgiveness.
Except from the Gospel history and the writings of Jose
phus and Philo, we know but httle of the tendencies of the
Jewish mind in the time of our Lord. Yet we cannot doubt
that the entrance of Christianity into the world was not sud
den and abrupt ; that is an illusion which arises in the mind
from our slender acquaintance with contemporary opinions.
Better and higher and holier as it was, it was not absolutely
distinct from the teaching of the doctors of the law either hi
form or substance ; it was not unconnected with, hut gave
life and truth to, the mystic fancies of Alexandrian phUoso-
phy. Even in the counsels of perfection of the Sermon on
24*

282 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER.
the Mount, there is probably nothing which might not be
found, either in letter or spirit, in Philo or some other Jewish
or Eastern writer. The pecuharity of the Gospel is, not that
it teaches what is whoUy new, but that it draws ^ out of the
treasure-house of the human heart things new and old, gath
ering together in one the dispersed fragments of the truth.
The common people would not have " heard him gladly," but
for the truth of what He said. The heart was its own wit
ness to it. The better nature of man, though but for a mo
ment, responded to it, spoken as it was with authority, and
not as the Scribes ; with simplicity, and not as the great
teachers of the law ; and sanctified by the life and actions of
Him from whose lips it came, and " who spake as never
man spake."
And yet, after reviewing the circumstances of the first
preaching of the Gospel, there remains something which
cannot be resolved into causes or antecedents ; which eludes
criticism, and can no more be explained in the world than
the sudden changes of character in the individual. There are
processes of life and organization about which we know noth
ing, and we seem to know that we shall never know anything.
" That which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die " ;
but the mechanism of this new life is too complex, and yet
too simple for us to untwist its fibres. The figure which St.
Paul applies to the resurrection of the body, is true also of
the renewal of the soul, especially in the first ages, of which
we know so httle, and in which the Gospel seems to have
acted with such far greater power than among ourselves.
Leaving further inquiry into the conversion of the first
Christians' at the point at which it hides itself from us in
mystery, we have now to turn to a question hardly less mys
terious, though seemingly more familiar to us, which may be
regarded as a question either of moral philosophy or of theol
ogy, — the nature of conversion and changes of character
among ourselves. What traces are there of a spiritual power
stUl acting upon the human heart? What is the inward
nature, and what are the outward conditions of changes in

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER. 283
human conduct ? Is our life a gradual and insensible progress
from infancy to age, from birth to death, governed by fixed
laws ; or is it a miracle and mystery of thirty, or fifty, or
seventy years' standing, consisting of so many isolated actions
or portions knit together by no common principle ?
Were we to consider mankind only from without, there
could be no doubt of the answer which we should give to the
last of these questions. The order of the world would
scarcely even seem to be infringed by the free-will of man.
In morals, no less than in physics, everything would appear
to proceed by regular law. Individuals have certain capaci
ties, which grow with their growth and strengthen with their
strength ; and no one by taking thought can add one cubit to
his stature. As the old proverb says, " The boy is father to
the man." The hves of the great majority have a sort of
continuity : as we know them by the same look, walk, man
ner ; so when we come to converse with them, we recognize
the same character as formerly. They may be changed;
but the change in general is such as we expect to find in them
from youth to maturity, or from maturity to decay. There
is something which they do not change, by which we perceive
them to be the same. B they were weak, they remain so
still ; if they were sensitive, they remain so stiU ; if they
were selfish or passionate, such faults are seldom cured by
increasing age or infirmities. And often the same nature
puts on many veils and disguises, different indeed on the
surface, but within unchanged.
The appearance of tins sameness in human nature has
led many to suppose that no real change ever takes place.
Does a man from a drunkard become sober ? from a knight
errant become a devotee ? from a sensuahst a behever in
Christ ? or a woman from a hfe of pleasure pass to a romantic
and devoted religion ? It has been maintained that they are
the same still; and that deeper similarities remain than the
differences which have sprung up on the surface. Those
who make the remark would say, that such persons exhibit
the same vanity, the same irritability, the same ambition ;

284 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER.
that sensualism stUl lurks under the disguise of refinement,
or earthly and human passion transfuses itself into devo
tion. This "practical fatalism," which says that human beings
can be what they are and nothing else, has a certain degree
of truth, or rather, of plausibility, from the circumstance that
men seldom change wholly, and that the part of their nature
which changes least is the weakness and infirmity that shows
itself on the surface. Few, comparatively, ever change their
outward manner, except from the mere result of altered cir
cumstances ; and hence, to a superficial observer, they appear
to change less than is really the fact Probably, St. Paul
never lost that trembling and feebleness which was one of
the trials of Iris life. Nor, in so far as states of the mind
are connected with the body, can we pretend to be whoUy
free agents. The mind does indeed rule the body, but in a
subtle and mysterious way, as it were by predisposing it to a
particular course of action. The body may enslave the
mind : it is the image of freedom, not of slavery, which
expresses the relation of the mind to the body.
B from this external aspect of human things we turn in
ward, there seems to be no limit to the changes which we
deem possible. At any moment we can form the resolution
to lead a new life ; in idea at least no time is required for
the change. One instant we may be proud, the next humble ;
one instant shining, at the next repenting ; one instant, hke
St. Paul, ready to persecute, at another, to preach the Gos
pel ; fuU of malice and hatred one hour, melting into tender
ness the next. As we hear the words of the preacher, there
is a voice within telling us, that " now, even now, is the day
of salvation " ; and if certain clogs and hinderances of earth
could only be removed, we seem ready to pass immediately
into another slate. But besides such feelings as these, which
we know to be partly true, partly Ulusive, every one's ex
perience of himself appears to teach him, that he has gone
through many changes and had many special providences in
life ; he says to himself that he has been led in a mysterious

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER. 285
and peculiar way, not hke the way of other men, and had
feehngs not common to others ; he compares different times
and places, and contrasts his own conduct here and there,
now and then: Bi other men he remarks simUarity of char
acter ; in himself he sees chiefly diversity. Other men seem
to move by regular rule and order, while his own actions are
instinct with wiU and life. Is he then the only exception, or
do other men appear to themselves to be exceptions too ?
Common sense, of course, replies, that what our inward
experience assures us of, every other person of the same
reflection and sensibility is assured of too. And yet it does
not follow, that this inward fact is to be set aside as the result
of egotism and self-consciousness. It may be not merely the
dreamy reflection of our life and actions in the mirror of self,
but the subtle and delicate spring of the whole machine. To
purify the feehngs or to move the will, the first sense may be
as necessary to us as the second is to regulate and sustain
them. Even to the formula of the fatalist, that " freedom is
the consciousness of necessity," it may be replied, that that
very consciousness, as he terms it, is as essential as any other
link hi the chain in which " he binds fast the world." With
out touching further on the metaphysical question of the free
dom of the wUl, we wUl proceed to consider some practical
aspects of this supposed regularity or irregularity in human
conduct. For the doctrine of conversion, the morahst substitutes
the theory of habits. Good actions, he says, produce good
habits ; and the repetition of good actions makes them easier
to perform, and " fortifies us indefinitely against temptation."
There are bodily and mental habits, — habits of reflection,
and habits of action. Practice gives skiU or sleight of hand ;
constant attention, the faculty of abstraction ; so the practice
of virtue makes us virtuous, that of vice, vicious. The more
meat we eat, to use the illustration of Aristotle, in whom we
find a cruder form of the same theory, the more we are able
to eat meat ; the more we wrestle, the more able we are to
wrestle ; and so forth. If a person has some duty to perform,

286 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER.
say of common and trivial sort, to rise at a particular hour in
the morning, to be at a particular place at such an hour, to
conform to some rule about abstinence, we teU him that he
wUl find the first occasion difficult, the second easy, and the
difficulty is supposed to vanish by degrees until it wholly
disappears. If a man has to march into a battle, or to per
form a surgical operation, or to do anything else from which
human nature sin-inks, his nerves, we say, are gradually
strengthened; his head, as was said of a famous soldier,
clears up at the sound of the cannon ; like the gravedigger in
Hamlet, he has soon no " feehng of Ms occupation."
From a consideration of such instances as these the rule
has been laid down, that " as the passive impression weakens,
the active habit strengthens." But is not this saying of a
great man founded on a narrow and partial contemplation of
human nature ? For, in the first place, it leaves altogether
out of sight the motives of human action ; it is equally suited
to the most rigid formalist, and to a moral and spiritual being.
Secondly, it takes no account of the limitation of the power
of habits, which, neither in mind nor body, can be extended
beyond a certain point ; nor of the original capacity or pecu
har character of individuals ; nor of the different kinds of
habits, nor of the degrees of strength and weakness in differ
ent minds ; nor of the enormous difference between youth
and age, chUdhood and manhood, in the capacity for acquiring
habits. Old age does not move with accumulated force, either
upwards or downwards ; they are the lesser habits, not the
great springs of hfe, that show themselves in it with in
creased power. Nor can the man who has neglected to form
habits in youth, acquire them in mature hfe ; like the body,
the mind ceases to be capable of receiving a particular form.
Lastly, such a description of human nature agrees with no
man's account of himself; whatever moralists may say, he
knows himself to be a spiritual being. " The wind bloweth
where it listeth," and he cannot " tell whence it cometh, or
whither it goeth."
All that is true in the theory of habits seems to be implied

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER. 287
in the notion of order or regularity. Even this is inadequate
to give a conception of the structure of human beings. Order
is the beginning, but freedom is the perfection, of our moral
nature. Men do not live at random, or act one instant with
out reference to their actions just before. And in youth
especially, the very sameness of our occupations is assort of
stay and support to us, as in age it may be described as
a kind of rest. But no one will say that the mere repe
tition of actions until they constitute a habit, gives any ex
planation of the higher and nobler forms of human virtue, or
the finer moulds of character. Life cannot be explained as
the working of a mere machine, still less can moral or
spiritual life be reduced to merely mechanical laws.
But if, whUe acknowledging that a great proportion of man
kind are the creatures of habit, and that a great part of our
actions are nothing more than the result of habit, we go on
to ask ourselves about the changes of our life, and fix our
minds on the critical points, we are led to view human nature,
not only in a wider and more liberal spirit, but also in a
way more accordant with the language of Scripture. We no
longer measure ourselves by days or by weeks ; we are con
scious that at particular times we have undergone great revo
lutions or emotions ; and then, again, have intervened periods
lasting perhaps for years, in which we have pursued the even
current of our way. Our progress towards good may have
been in idea an imperceptible and regular advance ; in fact,
we know it to have been otherwise. We have taken plunges
in hfe ; there are many eras noted in our existence. The
greatest changes are those of which we are the least able to
give an account, and which we feel the most disposed to refer
to a superior power. That they were simply mysterious, like
some utterly unknown natural phenomena, is our first thought
about them. But although unable to fathom their true na
ture, we are capable of analyzing many of the circumstances
which accompany them, and of observing the impulses out
of which they arise.
Every man has the power of forming a resolution, or,

288 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER.
without previous resolution, in any particular instance, acting
as he wiU. As thoughts come into the mind one cannot teU
how, so too motives spring up, without our being able to trace
their origin. Why we suddenly see a thing in a new light,
is often hard to explain ; why we feel an action to be right or
wrong which has previously seemed indifferent, is not less
inexplicable. We fix the passing dream or *sentiment in
action ; the thought is nothing, the deed may be everything.
That day after day, to use a famUiar instance, the drunkard
wUl find abstinence easier, is probably untrue ; but that from
once abstaining he wiU gain a fresh experience, and receive a
new strength and inward satisfaction, which may result in
endless consequences, is what every one is aware of. It is
not the sameness of what we do, but its novelty, which seems
to have such a peculiar power over us ; not the repetition of
many blind actions, but the performance of a single conscious
one, that is the birth to a new hfe. Indeed, the very same
ness of actions is often accompanied with a sort of weariness,
which makes men desirous of change.
Nor is it less true, that by the commission, not of many,
but a single act of vice or crime, an inroad is made into our
whole moral constitution, which is not proportionably in
creased by its repetition. The first act of theft, falsehood, or
other immorality, is an event in the life of the perpetrator
which he never forgets. It may often happen that no ac
count can be given of it ; that there is nothing in the
education, nor in the antecedents of the person, that would
lead us, or even himself, to suspect it. In the weaker sort
of persons especiaUy, suggestions of evil spring up we cannot
teU how. Human beings are the creatures of habit;" but
they are the creatures of impulse too ; and from the greater
variableness of the outward circumstances of life, and espe
cially of particular periods of hfe, and the greater freedom
of individuals, it may, perhaps, be found that human actions,
though less liable to wide-spread or sudden changes, have
also become more capricious, and less reducible to simple
causes, than formerly.

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER. 289
Changes in character come more often in the form of feeling
than of reason, from some new affection or attachment, or
alienation of our former self, rather than from the slow
growth of experience, or a deliberate sense of right and
duty. The meeting with some particular person, the remem
brance of some particular scene, the last words of a parent
or friend, the reading of a sentence in a book, may call forth
a world within us of the very existence of which we were
previously unconscious. New interests arise such as we
never before knew, and we can no longer lie grovelling in the
mire, but must be up and doing ; new affections seem to be
drawn out, such as warm our inmost soul and make action
and exertion a delight to us. Mere human love at first sight,
as we say, has been known to change the whole character and
produce an earthly effect, analogous to that heavenly love of
Christ and the brethren, of which the New Testament speaks.
Have we not seen the passionate become calm, the hcentious
pure, the weak strong, the scoffer devout ? We may not
venture to say with St. Paul, " This is a great mystery, but
I speak concerning Christ and the Church." But such in
stances serve, at least, to quicken our sense of the depth and
subtlety of human nature.
Of many of these changes no other reason can be given
than that nature and the God of nature have made men
capable of them. There are others, again, which we seem to
trace, not only to particular times, but to definite actions,
from which they flow in the same manner that other effects
follow from their causes. Among such causes none are more
powerful than acts of self-sacrifice and devotion. A single
deed of heroism makes a man a hero ; it becomes a part of
him, and, strengthened by the approbation and sympathy of
his feUow-men, a sort of power which he gains over himself
and them. Something like this is true of the lesser occasions
of life no less than of the greatest ; provided in either case
they are not of such a kind that the performance of them is
a mere violence to our nature. Many a one has stretched
himself on the rack of asceticism, without on the whole
25

290 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER.
raising his nature; often he has seemed to have gained in
self-control only what he has lost in the kindlier affections,
and by his very isolation to have wasted the opportunities
which nature offered him of self-improvement. But no one
with a heart open to human feehngs, loving not man the less,
but God more, sensitive to the happiness of this world, yet
aiming at a higher, — no man of such a nature ever made a
great sacrifice, or performed a great act of self-denial, with
out impressing a change on his character, which lasted to his
latest breath. No man ever took his besetting sin, it may be
lust, or pride, or love of rank and position, and, as it were,
cut it out by voluntarily placing himself where to gratify it
was impossible, without sensibly receiving a new strength of
character. In one day, almost in an hour, he may become an
altered man ; he may stand, as it were, on a different stage
of moral and rehgious hfe ; he may feel himself in new rela
tions to an altered world.
Nor, in considering the effects of action, must the influence
of impressions be lost sight of. Good resolutions are apt to
have a bad name ; they have come to be almost synonymous
with the absence of good actions. As they get older, men
deem it a kind of weakness to be guilty of making them ; so
often do they end in raising " pictures of virtue, or going over
the theory of virtue in our minds." Yet this contrast be
tween passive impression and active habit, is hardly justified
by our experience of ourselves or others. Valueless as they
are in themselves, good resolutions are suggestive of great
good ; they are seldom wholly without influence on our con
duct ; in the weakest of men they are still the embryo of
action. They may meet with a concurrence of circumstances
in which they seem to grow spontaneously, coinciding with
some change of place, or of pursuits, or of companions, or of
natural constitution, in which they acquire a double power.
They are the opportunities of virtue, if not virtue itself. At
the worst they make us think ; they give us an experience of
ourselves ; they prevent our passing our hves in total uncon
sciousness. A man may go on aU his life making and not

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER. 291
keeping them ; miserable as such a state appears, he is per
haps not the worse, but something the better, for them. The
voice of the preacher is not lost, even if he succeed but for a
few instants in awakening them.
A further cause of sudden changes in the moral constitution
is the determination of the wUl by reason and knowledge.
Suppose the case of a person living in a narrow circle of
ideas, within the limits of his early education, perplexed by
innumerable difficulties, yet never venturing beyond the waU
of prejudices in which he has been brought up. A new view
of his relation to the world, and to God, is suddenly pre
sented to him ; such, for example, as in St. Paul's day was
the grand acknowledgment that God was not the God of the
Jews only, but also of the Gentiles ; such as in our own age
would be the clear perception of the moral nature of God,
and of his infinite truth and justice. He is convinced, not
only of the supernatural character, but of the reasonableness,
of religion, and it becomes to him at once a self-imposed law.
No longer does the human heart seem to rebel ; no longer
has he " to pose his understanding " with that odd resolution
of TertuUian, " certum quia impossibile." He perceives that
the perplexities of rehgion have been made, not by the ap
pointment of God, but by the ingenuity of man.
Lastly. Among those influences, by the help of which the
will of man seems to disengage itself from the power of habit,
must not be omitted the influence of circumstances. If men
are creatures of habit, much more are they creatures of cir
cumstances. These two, nature without us, and " the second
nature " that is within, are the counterbalancing forces of our
being. Between them (so we may figure to ourselves the
working of the mind) the human wiU inserts itself, making the
force of one a lever against the other, and seeming to rule
both. We faU under the power of habit, and feel ourselves
weak and powerless to shake off the almost physical influence
which it exerts upon us. The enfeebled frame cannot rid
itself of the malady ; the palsied springs of action cannot be
strengthened for good, nor fortified against evU. Transplanted

292 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER.
into another soil, and in a different air, we renew our strength.
In youth especiaUy, the character seems to respond kindly to
the influence of the external world. Nature and the God of na
ture have given us many aids in the battle with self, the great
est of which, humanly speaking, is change of circumstances.

We have wandered far from the subject of conversion in
the early Church, into another sphere in which the words
"grace, faith, the spirit," have disappeared, and notions of
moral phUosophy have taken their place. It is better, per
haps, that the attempt to analyze our spiritual nature should
assume this abstract form. We feel that words cannot ex
press the life hidden with Christ in God ; we are afraid of
declaring on the housetop, what may only be spoken in the
closet. If the rites and ceremonies of the elder dispensation,
which have so httle it them of a spiritual character, were a
figure of the true, much more may the moral world be
regarded as a figure of the spiritual world of which rehgion
speaks to us.
There is a view of the changes of the characters of men
which begins where this ends, which reads human nature by
a different light, and speaks of it as the seat of a great struggle
between the powers of good and evil. It would be untrue to
identify this view with that which has preceded, and scarcely
less untrue to attempt to interweave the two in a system of
" moral theology." No addition of theological terms wiU
transfigure Aristotle's Ethics into a " Summa Theologia?.''
When St. Paul says, " 0 wretched man that I am, who shaU
deliver me from the body of this death ? " "I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord"; he is not speaking the
language of moral philosophy, but of religious feeling. He
expresses what few have truly felt concentrated in a single
instant, what many have deluded themselves into the belief
of, what some have experienced accompanying them through
hfe, what a great portion even of the better sort of mankind
are wholly unconscious of. It seems as if Providence aUowed
us to regard the truths of religion and morality in many ways

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OF CHARACTER. 293
which are not whoUy unconnected with each other, yet
paraUel rather than intersecting ; providing for the varieties
of human character, and not leaving those altogether without
law, who are incapable in a world of sight of entering within
the veil.
As we return to that " hidden hfe " of which the Scripture
speaks, our analysis of human nature seems to become more
imperfect, less reducible to rule or measure, less capable of
being described in a language which all men understand.
What the believer recognizes as the record of his experience
is apt to seem mystical to the rest of the world. We do not
seek to thread the mazes of the human soul, or to draw forth
to the light its hidden communion with its Maker, but only to
present in general outhne the power of rehgion among other
causes of human action.
Directly, rehgious influences may be summed up under
three heads : The power of God ; the love of Christ ; the
efficacy of prayer.
(1.) So far as the influence of the first of these is capa
ble of analysis, it consists in the practical sense that we are
dependent beings, and that our souls are in the hands of
God, who is acting through us, and ever present with us in
the trials of hfe and in the work of life. The believer is a
minister who executes this work, hardly the partner in it ; it
is not his own, but God's. He does it with the greatest care,
as unto the Lord and not to men, yet is indifferent as to the
result, knowing that aU things, even through his imperfect
agency, are working together for good. The attitude of his
soul towards God is such as to produce the strongest effects
on his power of action. It leaves his faculties clear and
unimpassioned ; it raises him into communion with nature and
God ; it places him above accidents ; it perfects strength in
weakness. It gives the assurance of a real and present
possession of aU things, as St. Paul says : " All things are
ours, whether life or death, or things present or things to
come." It is the source of power and freedom. It affords
the perfect peace of a soul stayed on God.
25 *

294 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER.
In merely human things, the aid and sympathy of others
increase our power to act : it is also the fact, we can work
more effectuaUy and think more truly, where the issue is not
staked on the result of our thought and work. The confi
dence of success would be more than half the secret of suc
cess, did it not also lead to the relaxation of our efforts.
But in the hfe of the believer, the sympathy, if such a figure
of speech may be allowed, is not human, but Divine; the
confidence is not a confidence in ourselves, but in the power
of God, which at once takes us out of ourselves and increases
our obligation to exertion. The instances just mentioned
have an analogy, though but a faint one, with that which we
are considering. They are shadows of the support we re
ceive from the Infinite and Everlasting. As the phUosopher
said that his theory of fatalism was absolutely required to
insure the repose necessary for moral action, it may be said,
in a far higher sense, that the consciousness of a Divine
Providence is necessary to enable a rational being to meet
the present trials of hfe, arid to look without fear on his
future destiny.
(2.) But yet more strongly is it felt that the love of Christ
has this constraining power over souls, that here, if any
where, we are unlocking the twisted chain of sympathy, and
reaching the inmost mystery of human nature. The hght,
once for all, of Christ crucified, recalling the thought of what,
more than eighteen hundred years ago, he suffered for us, has
ravished the heart and melted the affections, and made the
world seem new, and covered the earth itself with a fair
vision, that is, a heavenly one. The strength of this feeling
arises from its being directed towards a person, a real being,
an individual hke ourselves, who has actually endured all
this for our sakes, who was so much above us, and yet became
one of us and felt as we did, and was, like ourselves, a true
man. The love which he felt towards us, we seek to return
to him ; the unity which he has with God, he communicates
to us. By looking upon him we become like him, and at
length we see him as he is. Mere human love rests on in-

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER. 295
stincts, the working of which we cannot explain, but which
nevertheless touch the inmost springs of our being. So too
we have spiritual instincts, acting towards higher objects, stiU
more suddenly and wonderfully capturing our souls in an
instant, and making us indifferent to aU things else. Such
instincts show themselves in the weak no less than in the
strong ; they seem to be not so much an original part of our
nature, as to fulfil our nature, and add to it, and draw it out,
until they make us different beings to ourselves and others.
It was the quaint fancy of a sentimentalist to ask whether
any one who remembers the first sight of a beloved person,
could doubt the existence of magic. Much more truly we
may ask, Can any one who has ever once known the love
of Christ doubt the existence of a spiritual power ?
(3.) Another power or instrument by the help of which
we become servants of God, which is of a peculiar nature,
and seems to be intermediate between feehng and action, and
to partake of both, is prayer. Prayer is the concentration of
faith in a definite act, which is at once inward and outward,
the influence of which on the character, like that of any other
act, is proportioned to its intensity. The imagination of doing
rightly adds little to our strength ; even the wish to do so is
not necessarUy accompanied f)y a change of heart and con
duct. But in prayer we imagine, and wish, and perform aU
in one. Our imperfect resolutions are brought into the pres
ence of God; our weakness becomes strength, our words
deeds. No other action is so mysterious ; there is none in
which we seem, in the same manner, to renounce ourselves
that we may be one with God.
Of what nature that prayer is which is effectual to the ob
taining of these results, is a question of the same kind as what
constitutes a true faith. That prayer, we should answer,
which is itself most of an act, which is most immediately
foUowed by action, which is most truthful, manly, self-con-
troUed, which seems to lead and direct, rather than to follow,
our natural emotions. Prayer is the very reverse of the
assertion of ourselves before God ; yet in kneeling before

296 CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER.
him, while we remember that he is God, he bids us remem
ber also that we are men, whom, even when humbled before
him, he would not have faU below the reason that he has
given us.
In prayer, as in aU religion, there is something that it is
impossible to describe, and that seems to be untrue the
moment it is expressed in words. Bf the communion of man
with God, it is vain to attempt to separate what belongs to
the finite and what to the infinite. We can feel, but we can
not analyze it. We can lay down practical rules for it, but
can give no adequate account of it. It is a mystery which
we do not seek to fathom. In aU religion there is an element
of which we are conscious ; there is that beyond which we
feel rather than know.
This indistinctness in the very subject of rehgion, even
independent of mysticism or superstition, may become to
inteUectual minds a ground for doubting the truth of that
which wiU not be subjected to the ordinary tests of human
knowledge, which seems to elude our grasp, and retire into
the recesses of the soul the moment we ask for the demon
stration of its existence. Against this natural suspicion let
us set the fact, that, judged by its effects, the power of re
ligion is of aU powers the greatest. Knowledge itself is a
weak instrument to stir the soul compared with rehgion ;
morality has no way to the heart of man ; but the Gospel
reaches the feelings and the intellect at once. In nations as
weU as individuals, in barbarous times as weU as civilized, in
the great crises of history especiaUy, even in the latest ages,
when the minds of men seem to wax cold, and aU things re
main the same as at the beginning, it has shown itself to be
a reality without which human nature would cease to be what
it is. Almost every one has had the witness of it in himself.
No one, says Plato, ever passed from youth to age hi un
belief of the gods, in heathen times. Hardly any educated
person in a Christian land has passed from youth to age
without some aspiration after a better life, some thought
of the country to which he is going.

CONVERSION AND CHANGES OP CHARACTER. 297
As a fact it would be admitted by most, that at some period
of their hves the thought of the world to come and of future
judgment, the beauty and loveliness of the truths of the Gos
pel, the sense of the shortness of our days here, have wrought
a more quickening and powerful effect than any moral truths
or prudential maxims. Many a one would acknowledge that
he has been carried whither he knew not ; and had nobler
thoughts, and felt higher aspirations, than the course of his
ordinary hfe seemed to allow. These were the most im
portant moments of his hfe for good or for evU ; the critical
points which have made him what he is, either as he used
or neglected them. They came he knew not how, sometimes
with some outward and apparent cause, at other times without,
— the result of affliction or sickness, or " the wind blowing
where it listeth."
And if such changes and such critical points should be
found to occur in youth more often than in age, in the poor
and ignorant rather than in the educated, in women more
often than in men, — if reason and reflection seem to weaken
as they regulate the springs of human action, this very fact
may lead us to consider that reason, and reflection, and edu
cation, and the experience of age, and the force of manly
sense, are not the links which bind us to the communion of
the body of Christ ; that it is rather to those qualities which
we have, or may have, in common with our fellow-men, that
the Gospel is promised ; and that it is with the weak, the
poor, the babes in Christ, not with the strong-minded, the
resolute, the consistent, that we shall sit down in the king
dom of heaven.

CASUISTRY.

By BENJAMIN JOWETT.

Religion and morality seem often to become entangled in
circumstances. The truth which came, not " to bring peace
upon earth, but a sword," could not but give rise to many
new and conflicting obhgations. The kingdom of God had
to adjust itself with the kingdoms of this world ; though " the
children were free," they could not escape the fulfilment of
duties to their Jewish or Roman governors ; in the bosom of
a family there were duties too ; in society there were, many
points of contact with the heathen. A new element of com
plexity had been introduced in aU the relations between man
and man, giving rise to many new questions, which might be
termed, in the phraseology of modern times, " cases of con
science." Of these the one which most frequently recurs in the
Epistles of St. Paul, is the question respecting meats and
drinks, which appears to have agitated both the Roman and
Corinthian Churches, as well as those of Jerusalem and
Antioch, and probably, in a greater or less degree, every
other Christian community in the days of the Apostle. The
scruple which gave birth to it was not confined to Christian
ity : it was Eastern rather than Christian, and originated in a
feehng into which entered, not only Oriental notions of physi
cal purity and impurity, but also those of caste and of race.
With other Eastern influences it spread towards the West, in

300

CASUISTRT.

the flux of all rehgions, exercising a pecuhar power on the
susceptible temper of mankind.
The same tendency exhibited itself in various forms. Bi
one form it was the scruple of those who ate herbs, while
others "had faith" to eat anything. The Essenes and
Thcrapeutae among the Jews, and the Pythagoreans in the
heathen world, had a similar feehng respecting the use of
animal food. It was a natural association which led to such
an abstinence. In the East, ever ready to connect, or rather
incapable of separathig, ideas of moral and physical impurity,
— where the heat of the climate rendered animal food un
necessary, if not positively unhealthful ; where corruption so
soon infected the remains of animals ; where, lastly, ancient
tradition and ceremonies told of the sacredness of animals and
the mysteriousness of animal life, — nature and religion alike
seemed to teach the same lesson, it was safer to abstain. It
was the manner of such a scruple to propagate itself. He
who revolted at animal food could not quietly sit by and see
his neighbor partake of it. The ceremonialism of the age
was the tradition of thousands of years, and passed by a sort
of contagion from one race to another, from Paganism or
Judaism to Christianity. How to deal with this "second
nature " was a practical difficulty among the first Christians.
They were not an Essene sect ; and the Church could not
exclude those who held -the scruple, could not be narrowed
to them, could not pass judgment on them at all. Hence the
force of the Apostle's words : " Him that is weak in the faith
receive, but not to the decision of doubts."
There was another point in reference to which the same
spirit of ceremonialism propagated itself; namely, meats
offered to idols. Even if meat in general were innocent
and a creature of God, it could hardly be a matter of indif
ference to partake of that which had been " sacrificed to
devils " ; least of aU, to sit at meat in the idol's temple. True,
the idol was " nothing in the world," — a block of stone, to
which the words good or evU were only misapplied ; but it
was impossible that the first behevers could so regard it.

CASUISTRT. 301
When they saw the worshippers of the idol revelling in im
purity, they could not but beheve -that a spirit of some kind
was there. Their warfare, as the Apostle himself had told
them, was not against flesh and blood, but against principali
ties, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this
world. And if they had been completely free from super
stition, and could have regarded the heathen religions which
they saw enthroned over the world simply with contempt, stiU
the question would have arisen, What connection were they
to have with them and with their worshippers ? a question
not easy to be answered in the bustle of Rome and Corinth,
where every circumstance of daily life, every amusement,
every pohtical and legal right, was in some way bound up
with the heathen religions. Were they to go out of the
world ? if not, what was to be their relation to those without ?
It was a branch of this more general question, the beginning
of the difficulty so strongly felt and so vehemently disputed
about in the days of TertuUian, which St. Paul discusses in
reference to meats offered to idols. Where was the line to
be drawn ? Were they to visit the idol's temple, to sacrifice
hke other men to Diana or Jupiter ? That could hardly be
consistent with their Christian profession. But granting this,
where were they to stop ? Was it lawful to eat meats offered
to idols ? But if not, then how careful should they be to
discover what was offered to idols ! How easily might they
fall into sin unawares ! The scruple once indulged would
soon gather strength, untU the very provision of their daUy
food would become difficult by their disuse of the markets of
the heathen.
A third instance of the same ceremoniahsm so natural to
that age, and to ourselves so strange and unmeaning, is illus
trated by the words of the Jerusalem Christians to the Apos
tle, " Thou wentest in unto men uncircumcised, and didst eat
with them " ; a scruple so strong that, probably, St. Peter
himself was never entirely free from it, and at any rate
yielded to the fear of it in others when withstood by St. Paul
at Antioch. This -scruple may be said in one sense not to be
2(j

302

CASUISTRT.

capable of an explanation, and in another not to need one.
For, probably, nothing can give our minds any conception of
the nature of the feehng, the intense hold which it exercised,
the concentration which it was of every national and rehgious
prejudice, the constraint which was required to get rid of it
as a sort of " horror naturalis " in the minds of Jews ; while,
on the other hand, feehngs at the present day not very dis
similar exist, not only in Eastern countries, but among our
selves. There is nothing strange in human nature being
hable to them, or in their long lingering and often returning,
even when reason and charity ahke condemn them. We
ourselves are not insensible to differences of race and color,
and may therefore be able partially to comprehend (allowing
for the difference of East and West) what was the feeling of
Jews and Jewish Christians towards men uncircumcised.
On the last point St. Paul maintains but one language :
" Bi Christ Jesus there is neither circumcision nor uncircum-
cision." No compromise could be aUowed here, without
destroying the Gospel that he preached. But the other ques
tion of meats and drinks, when separated from that of cir
cumcision, admitted of various answers and points of view.
Accordingly, there is an appearance of inconsistency in the
modes in which the Apostle resolves it. All these modes
have a use and interest for ourselves. Though our difficulties
are not the same as those of the early Christians, the words
speak to us, so long as prudence, and faith, and charity are
the guides of Christian life. It is characteristic of the Apos
tle that his answers run into one another, as though each of
them to different individuals, and aU in their turn, might
present the solution of the difficulty.
Separating them under different heads, we may begin with
1 Cor. x. 25, which may be termed the rule of Christian
prudence : " Whatsoever is sold in the shambles, that eat,
asking no question for conscience' sake." That is to say:
" Buy food as other men do. Perhaps what you purchase has
come from the idol's temple, perhaps not. Do not encourage
your conscience in raising scruples : hfe wiU become impossi-

CASUISTRT. 303
ble if you do. One question involves another and another and
another without end. The manly and the Christian way is to
cut them short ; both as tending to weaken the character, and
as inconsistent with the very nature of spiritual religion."
So we may venture to amplify the Apostle's precept, which
breathes the same spirit of moderation as his decisions re
specting celibacy and marriage. Among ourselves the remark
is often made that " extremes are practicaUy untrue." This
is another way of putting the same lesson : B I may not sit
in the idol's temple, it may be plausibly argued, neither may
I eat meats offered to idols ; and if I may not eat meats
offered to idols, then it logically follows that I ought not
to go into the market where idols' meat is sold. The
Apostle snaps the chain of this misapplied logic : there
must be a limit somewhere ; we must not push consistency
where it is practicaUy impossible. A trifling scruple is raised
to the level of a rehgious duty, and another and another,
until rehgion is made up of scruples, and the hght of life
fades, and the ways of hfe narrow themselves.
It is not hard to translate the Apostle's precept into the
language of our time. Instances occur in politics, in theology,
in our ordinary occupations, in which beyond a certain point
consistency is impossible. Take for example the foUowing :
A person feels that he would be wrong in carrying on his
business, or going to public amusements, on a Sunday. He
says : If it be wrong for me to work, it is wrong to make the
servants in my house work ; or if it be wrong to go to pubhc
amusements, it is wrong to enjoy the recreation of walking on
a Sunday. So it may be argued that, because slavery is
wrong, therefore it is not right to purchase the produce of
slavery, or that of which the produce of slavery is a part ;
and so on without end, until we are forced out of the world
from a remote fear of contagion with evil. Or I am engaged
in an employment which may be in some degree deleterious
to the health or injurious to the morals of those who are
employed in it, or I let a house to another who is so en
gaged. Numberless questions of the same kind relating to

304

CASUISTRT.

the profession of an advocate, a soldier, or a clergyman, have
been pursued into endless consequences. In all these cases
there is a point at which necessity comes in and compels us
to adopt the rule of the Apostle, which may be paraphrased,
" Do as other men do in a Christian country." Conscience
may say, " He who is guilty of the least, is guilty of ah."
In the Apostle's language it then becomes " the strength of
sin," encouraging us to despair of aU ; because in that mixed
condition of hfe in which God has placed us, we cannot
fulfil aU.
Bi accordance with the spirit of the same principle of doing
as other men do, the Apostle further implies that behevers
are to accept the hospitality of the heathen. (1 Cor. x. 27.)
But here a modification comes in, which may be termed the
law of Christian charity or courtesy : Avoid giving offence,
or, as we might say, " Do not defy opinion." Eat what is
set before you ; but if a person sitting at meat pointedly says
to you, " This was offered to idols," do not eat. AH things
are lawful, but aU things are not expedient, and this is one of
the not expedient class. There appears to be a sort of in
consistency in this advice, as there must always be incon
sistency in the rules of practical hfe which are relative to
circumstances. It might be said : " We cannot do one thing
at one time, and another thing at another ; now be guided by
another man's conscience, now by our own." It might be
retorted : " Is not this the dissimulation which you blame in
St. Peter ? " To which it may be answered in turn : " But a
man may do one thing at one time, another thing at another
time, ' becoming to the Jews a Jew,' if he do it in such a
manner as to avoid the risk of misconstruction." And this
again admits of the retort : " Is it possible to avoid miscon
struction ? Is it not better to dare to be ourselves, to act hke
ourselves, to speak like ourselves, to think like ourselves ? "
We seem to have lighted unawares on two varieties of human
disposition : the one harmonizing and adapting itself to the
perplexities of hfe, the other rebelling against them, and seek
ing to disentangle itself from them. Which side of this argu-

CASUISTRT. 305
ment shaU we take ; neither, or both ? The Apostle appears
to take both sides ; for in the abrupt transition that follows,
he immediately adds, " Why is my liberty to be judged of
another man's conscience ? what right has another man to
attack me for what I do in the innocence of my heart ? " It
is good advice to say, " Regard the opinions of others " ; and
equally good advice to say, " Do not regard the opinions of
others." -We must balance between two; and over aU, ad
justing the scales, is the law of Christian love.
Both in 1 Cor. viii. and Rom. xiv. the Apostle adds another
principle, which may be termed the law of individual con
science, which we must hsten to in ourselves and regard in
others. " He that doubteth is damned ; whatsoever is not of
faith is sin." All things are lawful to him who feels them to
be lawful, but the conscience may be polluted by the most in
different things. When we eat, we should remember that
the consequence of foUowing our example may be serious to
others. For not only may our brother be offended at us, but
also by our example be drawn into sin ; that is, to do what,
though indifferent in itself, is sin to him. And so the weak
brother, for whom Christ died, may perish through our fault ;
that is, he may lose his peace and harmony of soul and con
science void of offence, and all through our heedlessness in do
ing some unnecessary thing, which were far better left undone.
Cases may be readily imagined, in which, like the preced
ing, the rule of conduct here laid down by the Apostle would
involve dissimulation. - So many thousand scruples and opin
ions as there are in the world, we should have to go out of
the world to fulfil it honestly. AU reserve, it may be ar
gued, tends to break up the confidence between man and
man ; and there are times in which concealment of our opin
ions, even respecting things indifferent, would be treacherous
and mischievous ; there are times, too, in which things cease
to be indifferent, and it is our duty to speak out respecting the
false importance which they have acquired. But, after aU
qualifications of this kind have been made, the secondary
duty yet remains, of consideration for others, which should
26*

306

CASUISTRT.

form an element in our conduct. B truth is the first principle
of our speech and action, the good of others should, at any
rate, be the second. " If any man (not see thee who hast
knowledge sitting in the idol's temple, but) hear thee discours
ing rashly of the Scriptures and the doctrines of the Church,
shall not the faith of thy younger brother become confused ?
and his conscience being weak shall cease to discern between
good and evil. And so thy weak brother shaU perish for
whom Christ died."
The Apostle adds a fourth principle, which may be termed
the law of Christian freedom, as the last solution of the diffi
culty : " Therefore, whether ye eat or drink, do aU to the
glory of God." From the perplexities of casuistry, and the
conflicting rights of a man's own conscience and that of an
other, he faUs back on the simple rule, " Whatever you do,
sanctify the act." It cannot be said that aU contradictory
obligations vanish the moment we try to act with simplicity
and truth ; we cannot change the current of hfe and its cir
cumstances by a wish or an intention ; we cannot dispel that
which is without, though we may clear that which is within.
But we have taken the first step, and are in the way to solve
the riddle. The insane scruple, the fixed idea, the ever-
increasing doubt begins to pass away ; the spirit of the child
returns to us ; the mind is again free, and the road of life
open. " Whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of
God " ; that is, determine to seek only the wUl of God, and
you may have a larger measure of Christian liberty allowed
to you ; things, perhaps, wrong in others may be right for
you. The law, then, of Christian prudence, using that modera
tion which we show in things pertaining to this life ; or the
law of Christian charity, resolving and, as it were, absorbing
our scruples in the love of other men ; or the law of the
individual conscience, making that right to a man, in matters
in themselves indifferent, which seems to be so ; or the law
of freedom, giving us a spirit, instead of a letter, and enlarg
ing the first principles of the doctrine of Christ ; or all

CASUISTRT. 307
together, shaU furnish the doubting believer with a sufficient
rule of faith and conduct. Even the law of Christian charity
is a rule of freedom rather than of restraint, in proportion as
it places men above questions of meats and drinks, and en
ables them to regard such disputes only by the light of love
to^jod and man. For there is a tyranny which even free
dom may exercise, when it makes us intolerant of other men's
difficulties. " Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is
hberty " ; but there is also a hberty without the Spirit of the
Lord. To eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man ; but
to denounce those who do, or do not do so, may, in St. Paul's
language, cause, not only the weak brother, but him that
fancieth he standeth, to fall ; and so, in a false endeavor to
preach the Gospel of Christ, men " may perish for whom
Christ died."
The general rule of the Apostle is, " Neither circumcision
availeth anything, nor uncircumcision " ; " neither if we eat not
are we the better, neither if we eat are we the worse." But
then " aU things are lawful, but aU things are not expedient,"
even in reference to ourselves, aqd still more as we are mem
bers one of another. There is a further counsel of prudence :
" Receive such an one, but not to the determination of his
doubts." And lastly, as the guide to the spirit of our actions,
remember the words : " I wUl eat no meat as long as the
world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend."
Questions of meats and drinks, of eating with washen or
unwashen hands, have passed from the stage of rehgious
ordinances, to that of proprieties and decencies of life. Nei
ther the purifications of the law of Moses, nor the seven pre
cepts of Noah, are any longer binding upon Christians.
Nature herself teaches all things necessary for health and
comfort. But the spirit of casuistry in every age finds fresh
materials to employ itself upon, laying hold of some question
of a new moon or a Sabbath, some fragment of antiquity,
some inconsistency of custom, some subtlety of thought, some
nicety of morality, analyzing and dividing the actions of daily

308

CASUISTRT.

life; separating the letter from the sph-it, and words from
things ; winding its toils around the infirmities of the weak,
and linking itself to the sensibility of the inteUect. Out of
this labyrinth of the soul the behever finds his way, by keep
ing his eye fixed on that landmark which the Apostle himself
has set up : " Bi Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth
anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature."
There is no one probably, of any rehgious experience, who
has not at times felt the power of a scrupulous conscience.
In speaking of a scrupulous conscience, the sense of remorse
for greater offences is not intended to be included. These
may press more or less heavily on the soul ; and the remem
brance of them may ingrain themselves, with different de
grees of depth, on different temperaments ; but whether deep
or shallow, the sorrow for them cannot be brought under the
head of scruples of conscience. There are "many things in
which we offend all," about which there can be no mistake,
the impression of which on our minds it would be fatal to
weaken or do away. But quite independently of real sorrows
for sin, most religious persons in the course of then- lives have
felt unreal scruples or difficulties, or exaggerated real but
shght ones ; they have abridged their Christian freedom, and
thereby their means of doing good ; they have cherished
imaginary obligations, and artificially hedged themselves in a
particular course of action. Honor or truth seems to be at
stake about trifles light as air, or conscience has become a
burden too heavy for them to bear in some doubtful matter of
conduct. Scruples of this kind are ever hable to increase :
as one vanishes, another appears ; the circumstances of the
world and of the Church, and even the comphcation of mod
ern society, have a tendency to create them. The very form
in which they come is of itself sufficient to put us on our
guard against them ; for we can give no account of them to
ourselves ; they are seldom affected by the opinion of others ;
they are more often put down by the exercise of authority
than by reasoning or judgment. They gain hold on the
weaker sort of men, or on those not naturally weak, in

CASUISTRT. 309
moments of weakness. They often run counter to our wish
or interest, and for this very reason acquire a kind of tenacity.
They seem innocent mistakes, at worst on the safe side, char
acteristic of the ingenuousness of youth, or indicative of a
heart uncorrupted by the world. But this is not so. Crea
tures as we are of circumstances, we cannot safely afford to
give up things indifferent, means of usefulness, instruments of
happiness to ourselves, which may affect our hves and those
of our children to the latest posterity. There are few greater
dangers in religion than the indulgence of such scruples, the
consequences of which can never be seen until too late, and
which affect the moral character of a man at least as much
as his temporal interests.
Strange as it may appear, it is nevertheless true, that
scruples about lesser matters almost always involve some
derehction of duty in greater and more obvious ones. A
tender conscience is a conscience unequal to the struggles of
life. At first sight it seems as if, when lesser duties were
cared for, the greater would take care of themselves. But
this is not the lesson which experience teaches. In our moral,
as in our physical nature, we are finite beings, capable only
of a certain degree of tension, ever hable to suffer disorder
and derangement, to be over-exercised in one part and weak
ened in another. No one can fix his mind intently on a
trifling scruple, or become absorbed in an eccentric fancy,
without finding the great principles of truth and justice in
sensibly depart from him. He has been looking through a
microscope at life, and cannot take in its general scope. The
moral proportions of things are lost to him ; the question of a
new moon or a Sabbath has taken the place of diligence or of
* honesty. There is no limit to the illusions which he may
practise on himself. There are those, all whose interests and
prejudices at once take the form of duties and scruples, partly
from dishonesty, but also from weakness, and because that is
the form in which they can with the best grace maintain
them against other men, and conceal their true nature from
themselves.

310

CASUISTRY.

Scruples are dangerous in another way, as they tend to
drive men into a corner in which the performance of our
duty becomes so difficult as to be almost impossible. A vir
tuous and religious hfe does not consist merely in abstaining
from evil, but in doing what is good. It has to find oppor
tunities and occasions for itself, without which it languishes.
A man has a scruple about the choice of a profession ; as a
Christian, he believes war to be unlawful ; in famUiar lan
guage, he has doubts respecting orders, difficulties about the
law. Even the ordinary ways of conducting trade appear
deficient to his nicer sense of honesty ; or perhaps he has
already entered on one of these hnes of life, and finds it
necessary to quit it. At last, there comes the difficulty of
" how he is to hve." There cannot be a greater mistake than
to suppose that a good resolution is sufficient in such a case
to carry a man through a long life.
But even if we suppose the case of one who is endowed
with every earthly good and instrument of prosperity, who
can afford, as is sometimes said, to trifle with the opportuni
ties of hfe, stUl the mental consequences will be hardly less
injurious to him. For he who feels scruples about the ordi
nary enjoyments and occupations of his feUows, does so far
cut himself off from his common nature. He is an isolated
being, incapable of acting with his feUow-men. There are
plants which, though the sun shine upon them, and the dews
water them, peak and pine from some internal disorder, and
appear to have no sympathy with the influences around them.
So is the mind corroded by scruples of conscience. It cannot
expand to sun or shower ; it belongs not to the world of hght ;
it has no intelligence of, or harmony with, mankind around.
It is insensible to the great truth, that though we may not do '
evil that good may come, yet that good and evil, truth and
falsehood, are bound together on earth, and that we cannot
separate ourselves from them.
It is one of the pecuhar dangers of scruples of conscience,
that the consequence of giving way to them is never felt at
the time that they press upon us. When the mind is worried

CASUISTRT. 311
by a thought secretly working in it, and its trial becomes
greater than it can bear, it is eager to take the plunge in hfe
that may put it out of its misery ; to throw aside a profession
it may be, or to enter a new religious communion. We shaU
not be wrong in promising ourselves a few weeks of peace
and placid enjoyment. The years that are to follow we are
incapable of realizing : whether the weary spirit will require
some fresh posture, wiU invent for itself some new doubt ;
whether its change is a return to nature or not, it is impossi
ble for us to anticipate. Whether it has in itself that hidden
strength which, under every change of circumstances, is capa
ble of bearing up, is a question which we are the least able to
determine for ourselves. In general we may observe, that
the weakest minds and those least capable of enduring such
consequences, are the most hkely to indulge the scruples.
We know beforehand the passionate character, the active yet
half-reasoning intellect, which falls under the power of such
Ulusions. In the Apostolic Church " cases of conscience " arose out
of religious traditions, and what may be termed the cere
monial cast of the age ; in modern times the most frequent
source of them may be said to be the desire of logical or
practical consistency, such as is irreconcilable with the mixed
state of human affairs and the feebleness of the human intel
lect. There is no lever hke the argument from consistency,
with which to bring men over to our opinions. A particular
system or view, Calvinism perhaps, or Catholicism, has taken
possession of the mind. ShaU we stop short of pushing its
premises to their conclusions ? Shall we stand in the mid
way, where we are hable to be over-ridden by the combatants
on either side hi the struggle ? ShaU we place ourselves
between our reason and our affections ; between our practical
duties and our intellectual convictions ? Logic would have us
go forward, and take our stand at the most advanced point, —
we are there already, it is urged, if we were true to ourselves,
— but feehng, and habit, and common sense bid us stay where
we are, unable to give an account of ourselves, yet convinced

312

CASUISTRT.

that we are right. We may listen to the one voice, we may
hsten also to the other. The true way of guiding either is
to acknowledge both; to use them for a time against each
other, until experience of life and of ourselves has taught us
to harmonize them in a single principle.
So, again, in daily life cases often occur, in which we must
do as other men do, and act upon a general understanding,
even though unable to reconcile a particular practice to the
letter of truthfulness or even to our individual conscience. It
is hard in such cases to lay down a definite rule. But in
general we should be suspicious of any conscientious scruples
in which other good men do not share. We shall do right to
make a large aUowance for the perplexities and entanglements
of human things ; we shaU observe that men of strong minds
brush away our scruples ; we shall consider that not he who
has most, but he who has fewest scruples, approaches most
nearly the true Christian. For, as the Apostle says, " What
soever is not of faith is sin " ; and " Blessed is he who con
demned not himself in that which he aUoweth."
So far we seem to arrive at a general conclusion hke St.
Paul's : " Whether ye eat or drink, do all to the glory of
God " ; " Have the spirit of truth, and the truth shaU make
you free " ; and the entanglements of words and the perplexi
ties of action shall disappear. But there is another way in
which such difficulties have been resolved, which meets them
in detail ; namely, the practice of confession, and the rules of
casuistry which are the guides of the confessor. When the
spirit is disordered within us, it may be urged that we ought
to go out of ourselves and confess our sins one to another.
But he who leads, and he who is led, alike require some rules
for the examination of conscience, to quicken or moderate the
sense of sin, to assist experience, to show men to themselves
as they really are, neither better nor worse. Hence the
necessity for casuistry.
It is remarkable, that, what is in idea so excellent that it
may be almost described in St Paul's language as " holy,
just, and good," should have become a by-word among man-

CASUISTRT. 313
kind for hypocrisy and dishonesty. In popular estimation, no
one is supposed to resort to casuistry but with the view of
evading a duty. The moral instincts of the world have risen
up and condemned it ; corruptio optimi pessima. Bad as it
is, it has a good side, which is the chief source of its influence.
It wiU be proper for us to consider it from both sides, — in its
origin, and in its perversion. Why it existed, and why it has
railed, furnish a lesson in the history of the human mind of
importance and instruction.
The unseen power by which the systems of the casuists
were brought into being was the necessity of the Roman
Catholic Church. Like the allegorical interpretation of Scrip
ture, they formed a hnk between the present and the past.
At the time of the Reformation the doctrines of the ancient,
no less than of the Reformed faith awakened into life. But
they required to be put in a new form, to reconcUe them to
the moral sense of mankind. Luther ended the work of self-
examination by casting all his sins on Christ. But the
casuists could not thus meet the awakening of men's con
sciences and the fearful looking for judgment. They had to
deal with an altered world, in which the spectres of the past,
purgatory, penance, mortal sin, were again rising up. Hal
lowed as they were by authority and antiquity, they could not
cast them aside, they could but explain them away. B they
had placed distinctly before men's' eyes, that for some one act
of immorality or dishonesty they were in a state of mortal
sin, the heart true to itself would have recoiled from such a
doctrine, and the connection between the Church and the
world would have been for ever severed. And yet the doc
trine was a part of ecclesiastical tradition ; it could not be
held, it could not be given up. The Jesuits escaped the
dilemma by holding and evading it.
So far it would not be untrue to say, that casuistry had
originated in an effort to reconcile the Roman Cathohc faith
with nature and experience. The Roman system was, if
strictly carried out, horrible and impossible ; a doctrine not,
as it has been sometimes described, of salvation made easy,
27

314 CASUISTRT.
but of universal condemnation. From these fearful conclu
sions of logic the subtlety of the human intellect was now to
save it. The analogy of law, as worked out by jurists and
canonists, supphed the means. What was repugnant to hu
man justice could not be agreeable to Divine. The scholastic
philosophy, which had begun to die out and fade away before
the light of classical learning, was to revive in a new form,
no longer hovering between heaven and earth, out of the
reach of experience, yet below the region of spiritual truth,
but, as it seemed, firmly based in the life and actions of man
kind. It was the same sort of wisdom which defined the
numbers and order of the celestial hierarchy, which was now
to be adapted to the infinite modifications of which the actions
of men are capable.
It is obvious that there are endless points of view in which
the simplest duties may be regarded. Common sense says,
" A man is to be judged by his acts," " There can be no mis
take about a lie," and so on. The casuists proceed by a
different road. Fixing the mind, not on the simplicity, but
on the intricacy of human action, in the hope of gaining sim
plicity they study every point of view, and introduce every
conceivable distinction. A first most obvious distinction is
that of the intention and the act ; ought the one to be sepa
rated from the other? The law itself seems to teach that
this may hardly be ; rather* the intention is held to be that
which gives form and color to the act. Then the act by itself
is nothing, and the intention by itself almost innocent. As
we play between the two different points of view, the act and
the intention together evanesce. But, secondly, as we con
sider the intention, must we not also consider the circumstances
of the agent ? For, plainly, a being deprived of 'free-will can
not be responsible for his actions. Place him in thought
under the conditions of a necessary agent, and his actions are
innocent. Or suppose a man ignorant, or half ignorant, of
what is the teaching of the Church, or the law of the land,
here another abstract point of view arises, leading us out of
the region of common sense to difficult and equitable con-

CASUISTRT. 315
siderations, which may be determined fairly, but which we
have the greatest motive to decide in favor of ourselves. Or
again, try to conceive an act without reference to its conse
quences, or in reference to some single consequence, without
regarding it as a violation of morahty or of nature, or in
reference solely to the individual conscience. Or imagine
the will half consenting to, half withdrawing from its act ; or
acting by another, or in obedience to another, or with some
good object, or under the influence of some imperfect obh
gation, or of opposite obhgations. Even conscience itself may
be at last played off against the plainest truths.
By the aid of such distinctions the simplest principles of
morahty multiply to infinity. An instrument has been intro
duced of such subtlety and elasticity that it can accommodate
the canons of the Church to any consciences, to any state of
the world. Sin need no longer be confined to the dreadful
distinction of mortal and venial sin ; it has lost its infinite and
mysterious character ; it has become a thing of degrees, to
be aggravated or mitigated in idea, according to the expe
diency of the case or the pliabihty of the confessor. It be
comes difficult to perpetrate a perfect sin. No man need die
of despair ; in some page of the writings of the casuists wUl
be found a distinction suited to his case. And this without in
any degree interfering with a single doctrine of the Church,
or withdrawing one of its anathemas against heresy.
The system of casuistry, destined to work such great re
sults, in reconcihng the Church to the world, and to human
nature, hke a torn web, needing to be knit together, may be
regarded as a science or profession. It is a classification of
human actions, made in one sense without any reference to
practice. For nothing was further from the mind of the casuist
than to inquire whether a particular distinction would have a
good or bad effect, was liable to perversion or not. His object
was only to make such distinctions as the human mind was
capable of perceiving' and acknowledging. As to the physi
ologist objects in themselves loathsome and disgusting may be
of the deepest interest, so to the casuist the foulest and most

316

CASUISTRT.

loathsome vices of mankind are not matters of abhorrence,
but of science, to be arranged and classified, just like any
other varieties of human action. It is true that the study of
the teacher was not supposed to be also open to the penitent.
But it inevitably followed that the spirit of the teacher com
municated itself to the taught. He could impart no high or
exalted idea of morahty or rehgion, who was measuring it
put, as it were, by inches, not deepening men's idea of sin,
but attenuating it, and doing away its awful and mysterious
nature. The science was further comphcated by the " doctrine of
probability," which consisted in making anything approved or
approvable that was confirmed by authority; even as was
said by some of a single casuist. That could not be very
wrong which a wise and good man had once thought to be
right, — a better than ourselves perhaps, surveying the cir
cumstances calmly and impartially. Who would wish that
the rule of his daily life should go beyond that of a saint
and doctor of the Church ? Who would require such a rule
to be observed by another ? Who would refuse another such
an es'cape out of the labyrinth of human difficulties and per
plexities ? As in aU the Jesuit distinctions, there was a kind
of reasonableness in the theory of this ; it did but go on the
principle of cutting short scruples by the rule of common
sense. And yet what a door was here opened for the dishonesty of
mankind ! The science itself had dissected moral action until
nothing of life or meaning remained in it. It had thrown
aside, at the same time, the natural restraint which the moral
sense itself exercises in determining such questions. And
now for the application of this system, so difficult and com
plicated in itself, so incapable of receiving any check from
the opinions of mankind, the authority, not of the Church, but
of individuals, was to be added as a new lever to overthrow
the last remains of natural religion and morality.
The marvels of this science are not yet ended. For the
same changes admit of behig rung upon speech as weU as

CASUISTRT. 317
upon action, until truth and falsehood become alike impossible.
Language itself dissolves before the decomposing power ;
oaths, hke actions, vanish into air when separated from the
intention of the speaker ; the shield of custom protects false
hood. It would be a curious though needless task to foUow
the subject into further detaUs. He who has read one page
of the casuists has read aU. There is nothing that is not
right in some particular point of view, — nothing that is not
true under some previous supposition.
Such a system might be left to refute itself. Those who
have strayed so far away from truth and virtue are self-
condemned. Yet it is not without mterest to trace by what
false lights of phUosophy or rehgion good men, revolting
themselves at the commission of evil, were led, step by step,
to the unnatural result. We should expect to find that such a
result had originated, not in any settled purpose to corrupt the
morals of mankind, but in an inteUectual error ; and we could
hardly avoid reflecting how fearfully and wonderfully our
moral nature was composed, when an inteUectual error had
the power to produce such consequences. Such we find to be
the fact. The conception of moral action on which the sys
tem depends, is as erroneous and imperfect as that of the
scholastic philosophy respecting the nature of ideas.
1. It ignores the difference between thought and action.
Actions are necessarily external. The spoken word con
stitutes the lie ; the outward performance, the crime. The
highest wisdom, it is true, has identified the two. " He that
looketh on a woman to lust after her hath already committed
adultery with her in his heart." But this is not the rule by
which we are to judge our past actions, but to guard our
future ones. He who has thoughts of lust or passion is not
innocent in the sight of God, and is hable to be carried on to
perform the act on which he suffers himself to dweU. And,
in looking forward, he wUl do well to remember this caution
of Christ ; but in looking backward, in thinking of others, in
endeavoring to estimate the actual amount of guilt or tres
pass, if he begins by placing thought on the level of action,
27*

318 CASUISTRT.
he will end by placing action on the level of thought It
would be a monstrous state of mind in which we regarded
mere imagination of evil as the same with action ; hatred as
the same with murder ; thoughts of impurity as the same
with adultery. It is not so that we must learn Christ. Ac
tions are one thing, and thoughts another, in the eye of con
science, no less than of the law of the land ; of God as weU
as man. Morality ventures a little way into the spiritual
world ; it would be apt to lose its nature if it went further.
However important it may be to us to remember that the all-
seeing eye of God tries the reins, it is no less important to
remember also that morality consists in definite acts, capable
of being seen and judged of by our fellow-creatures, impossi
ble to escape ourselves.
2. It is quite true that actions the same in name, are,
in the scale of right and wrong, as different as can be im
agined ; varying with the age, temperament, education, cir
cumstances of each individual. The casuist is not in fault
for maintaining this difference, but for supposing that he can
classify or distinguish them so as to give any conception of
their innumerable shades and gradations. AU Ms folios are
but the weary effort to abstract or make a brief of the indi
viduality of man. The very actions which he classifies
change their nature as he writes them down. Know our
selves we sometimes truly may, but we cannot know others,
and no other can know us. No other can know or under
stand us in the same wonderful or mysterious way ; no other
can be conscious of the spirit in which we have lived. No
other can see that which is within. God has placed a veil of
flesh between ourselves and other men, to screen the naked
ness of our soul. Into the secret chamber he does not require
that we should admit any other judge or counseUor but him
self. Two eyes only are upon us, — the eye of our own soul,
the eye of God, — and the one is assisted by the other. The
knowledge which they give us of our own nature is different
in kind from that which the confessor extracts from the books
of the casuists.

CASUISTRT. 319
3. There are many cases in which our first thoughts, or, to
speak more correctly, our instinctive perceptions, are true and
right ; in which it is not too much to say, that he who delib
erates is lost. The very act of turning to a book, or referring
to another, enfeebles our power of action. Bi the arts we pro
duce an effect, we know not how, by some simultaneous move
ment of hand and thought, which seem to lend to each other
force and meaning. So in moral action, the true view does not
separate the intention from the act, or the act from the cir
cumstances which surround it, but regards them as one and
absolutely indivisible. In the performance of the act and in
the judgment of it, the wUl and the execution, the hand and
the thought, are to be considered as one. Those who act
most energeticaUy, who in difficult circumstances judge the
most truly, do not separately pass in review the rules, and
principles, and counter-principles of action, but grasp them at
once, in a single instant. Those who act most truthfully,
honestly, firmly, manfully, consistently, take least time to
deliberate. Such should be the attitude of our minds in aU
questions of right and wrong, truth and falsehood : we may
not inquire, but act.
4. Casuistry not only renders us independent of our own con
victions, it renders us independent also of the opinion of man
kind in general. It puts the confessor in the place of ourselves,
and in the place of the world. By making the actions of men
matters of science, it cuts away the supports and safeguards
which pubhc opinion gives to morality. The confessor, in the
sUence of the closet, easily introduces principles from which
the common sense or conscience of mankind would have
shrunk back. Especially in matters of truth and falsehood,
in the nice sense of honor shown in the unwillingness to get
others within our power, his standard will probably faU short
of that of the world at large. Public opinion, it is true,
drives men's vices inwards ; it teaches them to conceal their
faults from others, and if possible from themselves, and this
very concealment may sink them in despair, or cover them
with self-deceit. Yet the good of this is, on the whole, greater

320 CASUISTRT.
than the evU. Not only is the outward aspect of society
more decorous, and the confidence between man and man less
hable to be impaired, but the mere fact of men's sins being
known to themselves and God only, and the support afforded
even by the undeserved opinion of their fellows, are of them
selves great helps to a moral and religious hfe. Many a one
by being thought better than he was has become better ; by
being thought as bad or worse, has become worse. To com
municate our sins to those who have no right to know them
is of itself a diminution of our moral strength.
To conclude, the errors and evils of casuistry may be
summed up as foUows : It makes that abstract which is con
crete, scientific which is contingent, artificial which is natural,
positive which is moral, theoretical which is intuitive and
immediate. It puts the parts in the place of the whole, ex
ceptions in the place of rules, system in the place of expe
rience, dependence in the place of responsibility, reflection in
the place of conscience. It lowers the heavenly to the earth
ly, the principles of men to their practice, the tone of the
preacher to the standard of ordinary life. It sends us to
another for that which can only be found in ourselves. It
leaves the highway of public opinion, to wander in the laby
rinths of an imaginary science ; the hght of the world, for
the darkness of the closet. It is to human nature what
anatomy is to our bodily frame ; instead of a moral and
spiritual being, preserving only " a body of death."

ON THE CONNECTION OE IMMORALITY AND
IDOLATRY.
Br BENJAMIN JOWETT.

" An idol is nothing in the world," says the Apostle ; " yet
he that commits fornication sins against his own body." It is
foolishness to bow to an idol ; but immorality and licentious
ness are real and essential evU. No mere outward act can
make a man different from what he was before, while no in
ward act can leave him the same after as before its perform
ance. A behef about Jupiter or Hades is not necessarily
inconsistent with truth and purity of hfe. The evils, whether
of a heathen or of a Christian country, are not always asso
ciated with the corruptions of religion. Whence, then, the
connection often spoken of by theologians, and not unfelt by
the heathen themselves, between immorality and idolatry ?
It is first to be sought for in their origin. As the Chris
tian rehgion may be regarded as the great pillar and rock of
morahty, so the heathen religions sprang up in an age prior
to morality. We see men, in the dawn of the world's history,
just raised above the worship of stocks and stones, " making
themselves gods to go before them." These gods represent
partly the maxims and opinions of uncivilized races, partly
the actions and passions of mankind in general, partly the
irregularity of the course of the world itself, the fearful law
of which is the wayward fancy of heaven. Must not such
an enthronement of injustice above tend to confuse and stunt
the natural ideas of morahty ? The God who had possession

322 CONNECTION OF IMMORALITT AND IDOLATRT.
of the heart of man was a half physical, half demoniacal,
and in part also human, being, who represented the vices of
mankind on an ideal stage in aggravated proportions, yet not
without a certain affinity to man himself. The worst side of
humanity, the false notion of the order of the world, the
capricious passions of individuals, the enmities of nations,
were deified and perpetuated in him. Human nature grew
and human beings spread over the earth ; but they carried
with them, wherever they went, the weary load of super
stition, the chains of servitude to their former behefs, with
which their separate existence as a nation seemed to be bound
up. Far otherwise would it have been if the good of states,
or the dictates of natural feeling and affection, had been made
the standard to whjch religion was to conform. And accord
ingly it has everywhere happened, that, as reflection has
gained ground, or civilization spread, mankind have risen up
against the barbarities of early mythology, either openly dis
owning them or secretly explaining them away ; and thus in
either case bearing witness that idolatry is not on a level
with man's reason, but below it. In the case of the Greeks,
especiaUy, many of the grosser forms of religion disappeared
from -the hght of day into the seclusion of the mysteries.
But the connection between idolatry and immorality does
not arise merely out of the degradation of the nature of God,
or the consecration of the vices of one age, as examples for
another. Idolatry is a sort of rehgious passion, almost on a
level with a physical want, which from time to time bursts
forth and gives rein to every other passion. Bi the presence
of the gods themselves in the . idol's temple, as the festive
pomp passes, or the mystic hymn sounds, there is a place for
sensuality. It is not repugnant, but acceptable to them, and
a part of their service. Impure rehgious rites are not the
invention of magicians or priests, but deeply rooted in human
nature itself. Like every other impulse of man, sensual love
seeks to find expression, and perceives likenesses and resem
blances of itself in the world around. It is one of the ele
ments of nature-worship, consecrated by antiquity, and in

CONNECTION OP IMMORALITT AND IDOLATRT. 323
later times graced and half concealed by art. The deification
of it belongs -to the earliest, simplest, grossest forms of human
behef. The introduction of the Bacchanalia at a compara
tively late period in the history of Greece, and the attempted
introduction of them at Rome, is ah indication of the partial
reawakening of the same rehgious passions when older modes
of faith failed to satisfy them. Yet more monstrous forms of
evil arose when in things not to be named men seemed to see
a likeness to the operations and powers of nature. The
civilized Greek and Roman knew well that there were fren
zies of rehgious licentiousness unworthy of a rational being,
improper and dangerous for a government to allow. As East
and West met and mingled, the more did these strange rites
spread themselves, passing from Egypt and Phoenicia to
Greece, from the mountains of Phrygia to the streets and
temples of Rome.
But, besides this direct connection between idolatry and
every form of moral evil, there is also an indirect and general
influence which it exercised, even in its better form, adverse
to morahty. Not from religion, but from phUosophy, come
the higher aspirations of the human soul in Greece and Rome.
Idolatry detains men in the world of sight ; it offers an out
ward form to the eye and imagery to the fancy ; it draws the
many-colored veU of art over the corruption of human nature.
It heals the strife of man with himself superficially. It takes
away the conscious want of the higher life, but leaves the real
need. But morahty has to do with an unseen world : it has
no form nor comeliness, when separated from the .hope which
the Gospel holds out ; it is severe and stoical in its demands.
It tells men to look within ; it deepens the battle with self.
It presents duty almost as an abstraction which in the face
of death they must pursue, though there be no reward here,
though their name perish for evermore. The spirit of all
idolatry is the very opposite of this ; it bids men rest in
this world, it pacifies them about another. The nature of
God, who is the ideal and perfection of all morality, it lowers
to the level of man ; the virtue which is above, the truth

324 CONNECTION OF IMMORALITT AND IDOLATRT.
which is beyond us, it embodies in the likeness of the human
form, or the wayward and grotesque fancies of the human
mind. It bids us seek without for what can only be found
within. There remains yet a further parallel to be drawn between
immorahty and idolatry in the age in which St. Paul himself
hved, when the ancient religions had already begun to be
discredited and explained away. At this time they had be
come customs rather than behefs, — maxims of state, rather
than opinions. It is, indeed, impossible to determine how far
in any minds they commanded respect, or how much of the
reverence that was refused to estabhshed modes of worship
was accorded to the claims of newly-imported deities. They
were in harmony with the outer world of the Roman Empire,
— that is, with its laws, institutions, traditions, buUdings ; but
strangely out of harmony with its inner hfe. No one turned
to the mythology of Greece and Rome to find a rule of hfe.
Perhaps no one had ever done so, but now least of all. Their
hold was going or gone ; there was a space in the mind of
man which they could not longer fill up, in which Stoic and
Epicurean philosophers were free to walk ; the chUl darkness
of which might receive a ray of light and warmth from the
Alexandrian mystic ; where, too, true voices of phUosophy
and experience might faintly make themselves heard, and the
heart ask itself and find its own solution "of the problem,
" What is truth ? " In all this latter period the relation of
morahty to rehgion might be said to be one of separation and
antagonism. And, upon the whole, this very freedom was
favorable to right and truth. It is difficult to determine how
far the spectacle of a rehgion which has outlived its time
may corrupt the moral sense, how far the necessary disbehef
of an existing superstition tends to weaken and undermine
the intellectual faculties of mankind ; but there can be httle
doubt that it does so less than if it were stiU beheved, and
still ministered to the sensuality or ignorance of the world.

THE OLD TESTAMENT.
Bt BENJAMIN JOWETT.
'Hw'fta 8' av imorpeTfrr] irpos Kvpiov, Trepiaipelrai to KaXvppa. — 2 Cor.
iii. 16.
Thus we have reached another stage in the development
of the great theme. The new commandment has become
old ; faith is taught in the Book of the Law. " Abraham
had faith in God, and it was counted to him for righteous
ness." David spoke of the forgiveness of sins in the very
spirit of the Gospel. The Old Testament is not dead, but
alive again. It refers not to the past, but to the present.
There are the truths that we feel most deeply written for our
instruction. There are the consciousness of sin, and the
sense of acceptance. There is the veiled remembrance of a
former world, which is also the veiled image of a future one.
To us the Old and New Testaments are two books, or two
parts of the same book, which fit into one another, and can
never be separated or torn asunder. They double one
against the other, and the New Testament is the revelation
of the Old. To the first believers it was otherwise : as yet
there was no New Testament ; nor is there any trace that
the authors of the New Testament ever expected their own
writings to be placed on a level with the Old. We can
scarcely imagine what would "have been the feehng of St.
Paul, could he have foreseen that later ages would look, not
to the faith of Abraham in the Law, but to the Epistle to the
Romans, as the highest authority on the doctrine of justifica
tion by faith ; or that they would have regarded the aUegory
28

326 THE OLD TESTAMENT.
of Hagar and Sarah, in the Galatians, as a difficulty to be
resolved by the inspiration of the Apostle. Neither he who
wrote, nor those to whom he wrote, could ever have thought,
that words which were meant for a particular church were to
give hfe also to aU mankind ; and that the Epistles in which
they occurred were one day to be placed on a level with the
Books of Moses themselves.
But if the writings of the New Testament were regarded
by the contemporaries of the Apostle in a manner different
from that of later ages, there was a difference which it is far
more difficult for us to appreciate, in their manner of reading
the Old Testament. To1 them it was not half, but the whole,
needing nothing to be added to it or to counteract it, but con
taining everything in itself. It seemed to come home to
them ; to be meant specially for their age ; to be understood
by them as its words had never been understood before.
" Did not their hearts burn within them ? " as the Apostles
expounded to them the Psalms and Prophets. The manner
of this exposition was that of the age in which they hved.
They brought to the understanding of it, not a knowledge of
the volume of the New Testament, but the mind of Christ
'Sometimes they found the lesson which they sought in the
plain language of Scripture ; at other times, coming round to
the same lesson by the paths of aUegory, or seeming even in
the sound of a word to catch an echo of the Redeemer's
name. Various as are the writings of the Old Testament,
composed by such numerous authors, at so many different
times, so diverse in style and subject, in them aU they read
only — the truth of Christ. They read without distinctions of
moral and ceremonial, type and antitype, history or prophecy,
without critical inquiries into the original meaning of passages,
without theories of the relation of the Old and New Testa
ments. Whatever contrast existed was of another kind, not
of the parts of a book, but of the law and faith ; of the earlier
and later dispensations. The words of the book were all
equally for their instruction; the whole volume lighted up
with new meaning.

THE OLD TESTAMENT. 327
They read the Old Testament after the manner of their
age, and found every verse suggestive of the circumstances
of the Church, and of the life and death of Christ. Are we
doing more than foUowing their example, if we read the
Scriptures by the light of those principles, whether of criti
cism or of morahty, which, in our own age, we cannot but
feel and know, and of which it is as impossible for us to divest
ourselves, as it would have been for them to faU of seeing
Christ in the lives of the Patriarchs ?

ON THE QUOTATIONS FROM THE OLD TES
TAMENT IN THE NEW.
By BENJAMIN JOWETT.

The New Testament is ever old, and the Old is ever en
twined with the New. Not only are the types of the Old
Testament shadows of good things to come ; not only are the
narratives of events and lives of persons in Jewish history
" written for our instruction " ; not only is there a deep-rooted
identity of the Old and New Testament in the revelation of
one God of perfect justice and truth ; not only is " the law
fulfiUed in Christ to aU them that believe " ; not only are the
spiritual Israel the true people of God : a still nearer, though
more superficial connection is formed by the volume of the
Old Testament itself, which, like some closely-fitting vesture,
enfolds the new as well as the old dispensation in its language
and imagery, the words themselves, as weU as the thoughts
contained in them, becoming instinct with a new hfe, and
seeming to interpenetrate with the Gospel.
This verbal connection of new and old is not pecuhar to
Christianity. All nations who have ancient writings have
endeavored to read in them the riddle of the past. The
Brahmin, repeating his Vedic hymns, sees them pervaded by
a thousand meanings, which have been handed down by tra
dition : the one of which he is ignorant is that which we
perceive to be the true one. Without more reason, and
almost with an equal disregard or neglect of its natural im
port, the Jewish Alexandrian and Rabbinical writers analyzed
28*

330

QUOTATIONS FROM THE

the Old Testament; in a simUar spirit Gnostics and Neo-
platonists cited hnes of Homer or Pindar. Not unlike is the
way in which the Fathers cite both the Old and New Testa
ment ; and the manner in which the writers of the New
Testament quote from the Old has more in common with this
last than with modern critical interpretations of either. That
is to say, the quotations are made almost always without
reference to the connection in which they originally occur
and in a different sense from that in which the Prophet or
Psalmist intended them. They are fragments culled out and
brought into some new combination ; jewels, and precious
stones, and corner-stones disposed after a new pattern, to be
the ornaments of another temple. It is their place in that
new temple, not their relation to the old, which gives them
their effect and meaning.
Such " tesseUated work " was after the manner of the aee :
it was no new invention or introduction of the sacred writers.
Closely as it is wrought into the New Testament, it belongs
to its externals rather than to its true life. There are few,
if any, traces of' it in the discourses of our Lord himself,
though it frequently recurs in the comments of the Evan
gehsts. The fact that aU rehgions which are possessed of
sacred books, and many even without them, have passed
through a like secondary stage, however different may have
been their relation to the earher forms of the same religions
from that in which the Gospel stands to the Old Testament,
leads us to regard this verbal connection as a phenomenon of
the mind which may receive light , from heathen parallels.
There seem to be times in which human nature yearns toward
the past, though it has lost the power of interpreting it.
Overlooking the chasm of a thousand years, it seeks to ex
tract from ancient writings food for daily life. The mystery
of a former world lies heavy upon it, hardly less than of
the future', and it lightens this burden by attributing to " them
of old time " the thoughts and feelings of contemporaries.
It feels the unity of God and man in all ages, and it attempts
to prove this unity by reading the same thoughts in every

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW. 331
word which has been uttered from the beginning. Even the
words themselves it wUl sometimes alter in conformity with
the new spirit which appears to pervade them.
The Gnostic and Alexandrian writings are a meeting-point
between the past and the future, in which the present is lost
sight of, and ideas supersede facts. But something analogous
is observable in the New Testament itself; which may be
described also as the meeting-jpoint of past and future on the
ground of the present, taking its origin, not from ideas, but
facts. The mode of thought of the age by which the old is
ever new, and the new ever entwined with the old, is common
to both ; and language, equaUy with thought, seems to relax
its bonds, and lose those harder lines of demarcation and
definition which make it incapable of spiritual hfe. Grad
ually and naturaUy, as it were a soul entering into a body
that had been prepared for it, the new takes the form of the
old.. Yet the very truth and power of the Gospel prevent
this new creation from resembling the fantastic process of
Eastern heresy. The writers of the New Testament adopt
the modes of speech and citation of their age, but they also
ennoble and enlighten them. That traces of their age should
appear in them is the necessary condition of their speaking
to the men of their age. To mankind then, as to individuals
now, God would have us speak in a language that they can
understand. StiU, however striking may be the superficial similarity,
essential differences he beneath. There are three pomts
which may be said to distinguish the manner in which the
Old Testament is quoted in the New, from the manner in
which early poets are quoted by heathen writers, or the
Old Testament itself by- Alexandrian or Christian authors.
First, the Old Testament looks forward to the New, as the
New Testament looks backward on the Old. Reading the
Psalmists or Prophets, even with the veil on our eyes, which
was also on theirs, we cannot but feel that they were pil
grims and strangers, looking for more than was on the earth,
whose sadness was not yet turned into joy. There are

332

QUOTATIONS PROM THE

passages in which the Old Testament goes beyond itself, in
which it almost seems to renounce itself ; even solitary ex
pressions, of which it might be said, either in Christian or
heathen language, " that it speaks not of itself" ; or, that
" its voice reaches to a thousand years." It is otherwise with
heathen hterature. There is no future to which Homer or
Hesiod lopked forward ; no higher moral truth beyond them
selves which they dimly see. The life of the world was not
to awaken in their song. They were poetry only, out of
which came statues of gods and heroes. Secondly, if the
connection between the Old and New Testament be on the
surface arbitrary, or, more properly speaking, after the man
ner of the age, that deeper connection which lies below is
founded on reason and conscience. The language of the
greater part of the Old Testament is the natural, may we not
say the most true and inward, expression of Christian feeling.
Bi the hour of sorrow, or joy, or repentance, or triumph, we
seem to turn to the Old Testament even more readUy than
to the New. Thirdly and lastly, not to speak of the great
difference in degree, a difference in kind is observable be
tween the way in which quotations are made use of by the
Alexandrian writers and in the New Testament. In the one
they are the form of thought ; in the other, the mode of ex
pression. That is to say, while in the one they exercise an
influence on the thought ; in the other, they are controlled by
it, and are but a sort of incrustation on it, or ornament of it ;
in some cases the illustration or allegory through which it is
conveyed. The writings of St. Paul are not the less one in
feeling and spirit because the language in which he con
tinually clothes his thoughts is either avowedly or uncon
sciously taken from the Old Testament.
Even in our own use of quotations we may observe a sort
of necessary inconsistency which illustrates the mode of cita
tion in the New Testament. We resort to quotation not only
as an ingenious device for expressing our meaning ; it is also
an appeal to an authority. And yet its point or force fre
quently consists in a shght, or even a great, deviation from

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW. 333
the sense in which a quotation was uttered by its author.
Its aptness lies in its being at once old and new ; often in
' bringing into juxtaposition things so remote, that we should
not have imagined they were connected ; sometimes in a word
rather than in a sentence, even in the substitution of a word,
or in a logical inference not wholly warranted.
Something analogous to this we find in the quotations of
the New Testament. They unite a kind of authority with a
new interpretation of the passage quoted. Sometimes the
apphcation of them is a sort of argument from their exact
rhetorical or even grammatical form. Their connection often
hangs upon a word, and there are passages in which the word
on which the connection turns is itself inserted. There are
citations too, which are a composition of more than one
passage, in which the spirit is taken from one and the words
fi-om another. There are other citations in which a simi
larity of spirit, rather than of language, is caught up and
made use of by the Apostle. There are passages which are
altered to suit the meaning given to them ; or in which the
spirit of the New Testament is substituted for that of the
Old; or the spirit of the Old Testament expands into that
of the New. Lastly, there are passages, though but few of
them occur in the writings of St. Paul, which have one sense
in the Old Testament, and have an entirely different or
opposite one in the New. Almost aU gradations occur be
tween exact verbal correspondence with the Greek of the
LXX. ; and discrepancy in which resemblance is aU but lost :
between the greatest similarity and difference, almost oppo
sition, of spirit in the original passage and its application.
In no passage in the Epistles of St. Paul is there any
certain evidence that the first connection was present to the
Apostle's mind.
The quotations in the writings of St. Paul may be classi
fied under the following heads : —
I. Passages in which (a.) the meaning, and (/3.) the words
of the Old Testament are altered, or (y.) both : the altera
tions, sometimes arising from no assignable cause, sometimes
from a composition of passages.

334

QUOTATIONS FROM THE

H Passages in which (a.) the spirit or ((3.) the language of
the Old Testament is exactly retained, or with no greater
variation of words than may be supposed to arise out of dif
ference of texts, and no greater diversity of spirit than neces
sarily arises from the transfer of any passage in the Old
Testament into another connection in the New.
in. Allegorical passages.
I. (1.) An instance in which the meaning of the quotation
has been "altered, and also in which the new meaning given
to it is derived from another passage, occurs in Rom. ii. 24 :
ro -yap ovopa tov 8eov hi vpds ^Xaacpvpelrai iv rots edvefftv • where
the Apostle is speaking of the scandal caused by the violence
and hypocrisy of the Jews. The words are taken from Isa.
hi. 5 : hi vpds hiairavrbs to ovopd pov {SXao-tpn petrol iv tois edvetri '
where, however, they refer, not to the sins of the house of
Israel, but to their sufferings at the hand of their enemies.
The turn which the Apostle has given the passage is gathered
from Ezek. xxxvi. 21 — 23 : Kal icpeio-dpnv avrmv hid to ovopd
pov to dywv o e'PefirjXacrav o'ikos 'lcrpanX iv tois eSveaiv ov cia-jj\-
8oo~av .iKei, *. i. X.
A composition of passages occurs also in Rom. xi. 8, which
appears to be a union of Isa. vi. 9, 10 and xxix. 10. The
play upon the word tdvn (nations = Gentiles) is repeated in
Rom. iv. 17 (Gen. xvii. 5), Gal. iii. 8 (Gen. xii. 3).
(2.) A similar instance in which the general tone of a
quotation is taken from one passage, and a few words added
from another, is to be found in Rom. ix. 33 : Ihoi riBnpi iv
Ziav Xldov npoo-KoppaTos Kal irirpav o-KavhdXov Kal 6 wio-Tevav in
avra ov KaTaio~xyv8i)o-eTai. The greater part of this passage
Occurs in Isa. xxviii. 16 : iSou iya ipfidXXa els rd depeXia 2«W
Xl8ov iroXvreXrj, eKXeKTOV, aKpoyaviaXov, evripov, els rd BepiXia air^s,
Kal 6 rno-revav ov ph. KaTaio-xvv8n. But the words XlSov wpocr-
Ko'/i/xaros are introduced from Isa. viii. 14. And the remainder
of the passage (koI .... Karaio-xwdrjo-eTai) is really inconsist
ent with these words, though both parts are harmonized in
Him who is in one sense a stumbhng-stone and rock of of
fence ; in another, a foundation-stone and chief corner-stone.

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW. 335
(3.) A slighter example of alteration occurs in 1 Cor. hi.
19, where the Apostle quotes from Ps. xciv. 11 : Kvpms yiva-
o-Kei Toils hiaXoyio-povs rav crocpav on fieri pdraioi. Here the
words rav crocpav are substituted for rav dvdoarrav in the
LXX., which in this passage agrees with the Hebrew. They
are required to connect the quotation in the Epistle with the
previous verses. A simUar instance of the introduction of a
word (nds) on which the point of an argument turns, occurs
in Rom. X. 11 : Xeyei yap ff ypacprj • rrds 6 iricrrevav lit avra ov
KcmHo-Ywftjo-eTcu ¦ where the addition is the more remarkable,
as the Apostle had quoted the words without n-Ss a few verses
previously. (4.) Another instance of addition, rathSr than alteration, is
furnished by 1 Cor. xiv. 21 : ev tco vopa yeyparrrai • on, ev erepo-
yXao-crois Kal ev ^etXeo-ti/ erepav XaXrjcra rw Xaa Tovra, Kal ovh
ovras elaaKovtrovral pov, Xeyei Kvpios. This quotation, which is
said to be " written in the law " (comp. John x. 34, xii. 34,
xv. 25), is from Isa. xxviii. 11, 12, where the words in the
LXX. are hid cpavXicrpbv xeiAecov, ^lo: yXao-o-rjS erepas, on XaXfj-
o-ovo-i ti5 Xaa roira, and in the Enghsh translation, " with
stammering hps and another tongue will he speak unto this
people." But the last words, ovh' ouras elo-aKovo-ovrai, are
taken from the following verse, where a clause nearly simUar
occurs in a different connection : Xiyovres airols, tovto to dvd-
iravpa r<5 irewavTi, Kal tovto to o-vvTpippa,/Kai ovk TjBeXno-av aKov-
eiv, v. 12. The whole is referred by the Apostle to the gift of
tongues, which. he infers from this passage "to be a sign
to unbelievers."
(5.) An adaptation, which has led to an alteration of
words, occurs in Rom. x. 6 — 9': 17 he « Trio-Teas hiKawo-vvn
ovra Xeyei * prj e'mrjs iv ttj Kaphia crov ' 'tis dvafirjo-eTai els tov
ovpavdv ,- tovt' eo-ri XP10~TOV Karayayelv • 7} tis KaTafirjcreTai els
Trjv afivcrcrov ; tovt earl XP10~T0V *K veKpav avayayetv. dXXd Ti
Xeyei ; iyyvs crov to prjpd io~Tiv, iv TCf o-rdpari crov Kal iv ry Kap
hia crov • tovt' eo~Ti to pijpa rrjs irlo-reas, o Knpvcraopev • on idv
6p6Xoyr)o-rjS ev rco o-Toparl crov Kvpiov 'incroiiv, Kal mcrTevcrns iv Trj
Kaphia crov on d 6ebs atrov rjyeipev e/c veKpav, cradrjcrji. The sub-

336

QUOTATIONS FROM THE

stance of this passage is taken from Deut. xxx. 11 - 14 : 6Vi %
evroXn avrrj r\v iya ivreXXopal croi o-ijpepov ovx virepoyKos ecrriv, oihe
paKpav and crov iariv • ovk ev tco ovpava dva eo~rl, Xe-ycw • tis dva-
fino-erai fjpTv els tov ovpavov, Kal Xrj^rerai rjpiv avrrjv, Kal aKovcravres
ainriv -iroiT)cropev ; oihe rrepav Trjs daXdcrcrns icrrl, Xeyav • ris hiaire-
pacrei r)piv els to rrepav Trjs daXdo-orjs, Kal Xafty f/plv avrrjV, Kai
aKovo-TTjv f/plv TTOir}o-ri avrrjv, Kal troirjcropev ; eyyvs o-ov ecrri rd pijpa
crcpohpa, ev tco crrdpaTi crov Kal ev Tjj Kaphia crov Kal ev rais X^P0*'
o-ou, 7roieiK aijrd. To these verses the Apostle has added what
may be termed a running commentary, applying them to
Christ To make the words rrepav rijs SaXao-o-ns thus apph
cable, the Apostle has altered them to els ttjv &j3vcro-ov, a
change which we should hesitate to attribute to him, but for
the other examples which have been already quoted of similar
changes. (Compare also Rom. xi. 8; xii. 19; Eph. v. 14.
The latter passage, in which the name of Christ is introduced
as here, being probably an adaptation of Isa. Ix. 1.) Con
sidering the frequency of such changes, it would be contrary
to the rules of sound criticism to attribute the introduction of
the words to a difference of text in the Old Testament.
(6.) The words of 1 Cor. XV. 45, ovras Kal yeyparrrai ¦ '"Eye
vero 6 rrparos Ahap eis yfrvxnv £acrav • 6 eo~xaTos 'Ahap els irvevpa
faomiovv, afford a remarkable instance of discrepancy, both
in words and meaning, from Gen. ii. 7 : evecpvcrno-ev els rd
Trpdcrarrov avrov rrvonv fcoijs • Kal eyevero 6 avdparros els yjrvxrjv
£ao-av • to the two clauses of which the Apostle appears to
have apphed a distinction analogous to that which Philo
draws (De Legum Alleg., I. 12 ; De Creat. Mun., 24, 46)
between the earthly and the heavenly man (Gen. ii. 7 and
i. 27). H A good example of the second class of quotations is
the passage from Hab. ii. 4, quoted in Rom. i. 17 : & he hUaios
h ma-Teas (rjaerai • which occurs also in two other places,
Heb. x. 38, Gal. iii. 11, which the LXX. read, 6 he SUaios Ik
irio-reas pov ^aerai, and the English version translates from
the Hebrew, "but the just shaU live by his faith." It is
remarkable, that in Rom. i. 17, Gal. iii. 11, it should be

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW. 337
quoted in the same manner, and that shghtly different either
from the LXX. or the Hebrew ; in Heb. x. 38 it agrees pre
cisely with the LXX. Like the other great text of the
Apostle, " Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him
for righteousness," it is an instance of the way in which the
language of the Old Testament was enlarged and univer
salized in the New; the particular faith of Abraham or of
the Israelite becoming the type of faith generally for all
mankind in all ages.
Other examples of the second class of quotations are to
be found in such passages as the following : " Blessed is the
man whose iniquity is forgiven, and whose sin is pardoned ;
blessed is the man to whom the Lord doth not impute sin,"
Rom. iv. 7, from Ps. xxxii. 1,2. " The reproaches of them
that reproached thee fell on me," Rom. xv. 3, from Ps. Ixix.
9. "Who hath believed our report?" Rom. x. 16, from
Isa. lui. 1 ; in which the instinct of the Apostle has caught
the common spirit of the Old and New Testament, though
the texts quoted contain no word which is a symbol of his
doctrine. Passages which might be placed under either head are
Rom. x. 13, " Jacob Jhave I loved, and Esau have I hated,"
the words of which exactly agree with the LXX., although
their original meaning in Mal. i. 2, 3, whence they are taken,
has to do, not with the individuals Jacob and Esau, but with
the natives of Edom and Israel : the cento of quotations in
Rom. hi. descriptive of the wickedness of the Psalmist's
enemies, or of those who were the subjects of the prophetical
denunciations, which are transferred by the Apostle to the
world in general, Rom. xii. 20, " Therefore if thine enemy
hunger, feed him ; if he thirst, give Mm drink ; for in so doing
thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head," the words of which
are exactly quoted from the LXX. (Prov. xxv. 21, 22),
though the meaning given to them is ironical ; for which
reason the succeeding clause, " But the Lord shaU reward
thee," which would have destroyed the irony, is omitted.
DU. Once more. Bi a -few passages only the Apostle, after
29

338 QUOTATIONS FROM THE
the manner of his time, has recourse to aUegory. These are :
1. The allegory of the woman who had lost her husband, in
Rom. vii. ; 2. Of the children of Israel in the wilderness, in
1 Cor. x. ; 3. Of Hagar and Sarah, in Gal. iii. ; 4. Of the
veh on the face of Moses, in 2 Cor. iii. ; 5. Abraham himself,
who is a kind of centre of allegory, the actions of whose hfe,
as weU as the promises of God to him, are symbols of the
coming dispensation ; 6. The history of the patriarchs, and
cutting short of the house of Israel, in Rom. ix., x. Of these
examples, the first, third, and fourth are what we should term
iUustrations ; while the second, fifth, and sixth have not mere
ly an analogous or metaphorical meaning, but a real inward
connection with the life and state of the first believers.
A few general results of an examination of the quotations
from the Old Testament in St Paul's Epistles, may be
summed as follows : —
1. The whole number of quotations is about eighty-seven,,
of which about fifty-three are found in the Romans, fifteen in
1 Corinthians, six in 2 Corinthians, ten in Galatians, two in
the Ephesians, one in 1 Timothy. Of these nearly half show
a precise verbal agreement with the LXX. ; while, of the
remaining passages, at least two thirds exhibit a degree of
verbal similarity which can only be accounted for by an
acquaintance with the LXX.
2. None of these passages offer any certain proof that the
Apostle was acquainted with the Hebrew original. That he
must have been acquainted with it can hardly be doubted
yet it seems improbable that he could have familiarly known
it without straying into parallehsms with the Hebrew text, in
those passages in which it varies from the LXX. His ac
quaintance with it was probably of such a kind as we might
acquire of a version of the Scriptures not in the vernacular.
No Englishman incidentally quoting the English version from
memory would adapt it to the Greek, though he might very
probably adapt the Greek to the Enghsh. On the other
hand, the Apostle must have possessed a minute knowledge
of the LXX., as is found by the fragmentary character of the
quotations, no less than their verbal agreement.

OLD TESTAMENT IN THE NEW. 339
3. Several of these quotations are what may be termed
latent quotations, as, for example, Rom. iii. 4; x. 18 ; 1 Cor.
vi. 2 ; ix. 7 ; xv. 25, 27 ; while a few others, as, for example,
Rom. xii. 19 ; 1 Cor. xv. 45, are hardly, if at aU, discernible
in the text of the Old Testament. The very familiarity with
the Old Testament which has led to the first of these two
phenomena, may be in part also the cause of the second. As
the words suggest themselves unconsciously, so the spirit
without the words occasionally comes into the Apostle's mind ;
or the language and spirit of different passages blend in one.
4. There is no evidence that the Apostle remembered the
verbal connection in which any of the passages quoted by him
originally occurred. He isolates them wholly from their con
text; he reasons from them as he might from statements of
his own, " going off upon a word," as it has been called, in
one instance almost upon a letter (Gal. hi. 16), drawing in
ferences which in strict logic can hardly be aUowed, extend
ing the meaning of words beyond their first and natural
sense. But all this only implies that he uses quotations from
the Old Testament after the manner of his age ; clinging
more than his contemporaries to the spirit and less to the
letter, his very inaccuracy about the letter arising partly
from his feehng for the spirit.
5. It seems strange that the Apostle should use the law to
estabhsh the law, and at the same. time condemn the law by
itself. What made him apply one text to the law, " The man
that doeth these things shaU hve in them," and another to the
Gospel, " The word is very nigh unto thee, even in thy
mouth and in thy heart ? " No answer can be given to this
question. To separate the Old Testament into two parts, to
throw away one half, and make the other the means of con
veying the Gospel to the minds of his hearers, to bring forth
from his treasury things new and old, and to harmonize aU in
one spirit, is a part of his appointed mission.

FRAGMENT ON THE CHARACTER OF
ST. PAUL.
By BENJAMIN JOWETT.
Ot'Sare he 6Vt St' dcrBiveiav rrjs crapKos einyyeXicrdpnv vpiv to irpore-
pov, Kal rbv neipacrpbv vpav iv ttj crapKi pov • ouk i^ov8evr)craTe oihe
i£eirrvo-aTe, dXXd as ayyeXov 8eov ihe^aade pe, as Xptcrrbv 'lr)crovv.
— Gal. iv. 13, 14.
The narrative of the Gospel gives no fuU or perfect like
ness of the character of the Apostles. Human beings do not
admit of being constructed out of a single feature ; nor is
imagination able to supply detaUs which are reaUy wanting.
St. Peter and St. John, the two Apostles whose names are
most prominent in the Gospels and early portion of the Acts,
both seem to unite two extremes in the same person ; the
character of St. John combining gentleness with vehemence,
almost with fierceness ; while in St. Peter we seem to trace
rashness and timidity at once, the spirit of freedom at one
period of his life, and of narrowness and exclusiveness at
another. He is the first to confess, and the first to deny
Christ. Himself the captain of the Apostles, and yet want
ing in the very quahties necessary to constitute a leader.
Such extremes may easily meet in the same person ; but we
do not possess sufficient knowledge to say how they were
really reconcUed. Each of the Apostles grew up to the ful
ness of the stature of the perfect man. Even . those, who to
us are httle more than names, had individual features as
hvely as our own contemporaries. But the mention of their
sayings or acts on four or five occasions while they foUowed
the footsteps of the Lord on earth, and then on two or three
29*

342 CHARACTER OF ST. PAUL.
occasions soon after he was taken from them, then once again
after an interval of twelve or fourteen years, is not sufficient
to enable us to judge of their whole character. We may
distinguish Peter from John, or James from either ; but we
cannot set them up as a study to be compared with each
other. More features appear of the character of St. Paul, yet not
sufficient to give a perfect picture. We should lose the in
dividuality which we have, by seeking to ideahze and gen
eralize from some more common type of Christian hfe. It
has not been unusual to describe St. Paul as a man of reso
lute wUl, of commanding energy, of high-souled eloquence, of
classic taste. Not of such a one would the Apostle himself
" have gloried." It was not the wisdom of this world which
he spoke, but " the hidden wisdom of God in a mystery."
AU his hfe long he felt himself to be one " whose strength
was perfected in weakness " ; he was aware of the impression
of feebleness which his own appearance and discourse made
upon his converts ; who was sometimes in weakness and fear
and trembling before them, " having the sentence of death in
himself," and at other times " in power and the Holy Ghost
and in much assurance " ; and so far from having one un
changing purpose or insight, that though determined to know
one thing only, " Jesus Christ and him crucified," yet in his
manner of teaching he wavers between opposite views or
precepts in successive verses. He is ever feeling, if haply
he may find them, after the hearts of men. He is carried
away by sympathy, at times even for his opponents. He is
struggling to express what is in process of revelation to him.
Such are some of the individual traits which he has left in his
writings ; they are traits far more interesting and more like
himself than any general image of heroism or goodness.
Whatever other impression he might have made upon us,
could we have seen him face to face, there can be little doubt
that he would have left the impression of what was remark
able and uncommon.
There are questions which it is interesting to suggest, even

CHARACTER OP ST. PAUL. 343
when they can never receive a perfect and satisfactory an
swer. One of these questions may be asked respecting St.
Paul : " What was the relation in which his former hfe stood
to the great fact of his conversion ? " He himself, in looking
back upon the times in which he persecuted the Church of
God, thought of them chiefly as an increasing evidence of the
mercy of God, which was afterwards extended to him. It
seemed so strange to have been what he had been, and to be
what he was. Nor does our own conception of him, in rela
tion to his former self, commonly reach beyond this contrast
of the old and new man; the persecutor and the preacher
of the Gospel ; the young man at whose feet the witnesses
against Stephen laid down their clothes, and the same Paul
disputing against the Grecians, fuU of visions and revelations
of the Lord, on whom in later life came daUy the care of aU
the churches.
Yet we cannot but admit also the possibUity, or rather the
probable truth, of another point of view. If there were any
among the contemporaries of St. Paul who had known him
in youth and in age, they would have seen simUarities such as
escape us in the character of the Apostle at different periods
of his life. The zealot against the Gospel might have seemed
to them transfigured into the opponent of the law ; they
would have found something in common in the Pharisee of
the Pharisees, brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, and the
man who had a vow on his last journey to Jerusalem. And
when they heard the narrative of his conversion from his
own hps, they might have remarked that to one of his tem
perament only could such an event have happened, and would
have noted many superficial resemblances which showed him
to be the same man, while the great inward change which
had overflowed upon the world was hid from their eyes.
The gifts of God to man have ever some reference to
natural disposition. He who becomes the servant of God
does not thereby cease to be himself. Often the transition is
greater in appearance-than in reality, from its very sudden
ness. There is a kind of rebellion against self and nature

344

CHARACTER OF ST. PAUL.

and God, which, through the mercy of God to the soul, seems
almost necessarily to lead to reaction. Persons have been
worse than their fellow-men in outward appearance, and yet
there was within them the spirit of a child waiting to return
home to their father's house. A change passes upon them
which we may figure to ourselves, not only as the new man
taking the place of the old, but as the inner man taking the
place of the outer. So fearfuUy and wonderfully are we
made, that the very contrast to what we are has often an
inexpressible power over us. It seems sometimes as if the
same religious education had tended to contrary results ; in
one case to a devout life, in another to a reaction against it ;
sometimes to one form of faith, at other times to another.
Many parents have wept to see the early rehgious training of
their children draw them, by a kind of repulsion, to a com
munion which is the extreme opposite of that in which they
have been brought up. Such facts as these have but a
remote bearing on the character of St. Paul ; but they serve
to make us think, that aU spiritual influences, however an
tagonistic they may appear, have more in common with each
other than they have with the temper of the world ; and that
it is easier to pass from one form of faith to another, than
from leading the life of all men to either. There is more in
common between those who anathematize each other, than
between either and the spirit of toleration which characterizes
the ordinary dealings of man and man, or much more the
Spirit of Christ, for whom they are alike contending.
Perhaps we shall not be far wrong in concluding, that
those who have undergone great rehgious changes, have been
of a fervid, imaginative cast of mind ; looking for more in
this world than it was capable of yielding ; easily touched by
the remembrance of the past, or inspired by some ideal of the
future. When with this has been combined a zeal for the
good of their fellow-men, they have become the heralds and
champions of the religious movements of the world. The
change has begun within, but has overflowed without them.
" When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren," is the

CHARACTER OP ST. PAUL. 345
order of nature and of grace. In secret they brood over
their own state ; weary and profitless their soul fainteth with
in them. The religion they profess is a rehgion not of hfe to
them, but of death ; they lose their interest in the world, and
are cut off from the communion of their feUow-men. While
they are musing, the fire kindles, and at the last " they speak
with their tongue." Then pours forth irrepressibly the pent-
up stream " unto all and upon all " their fellow-men ; the
intense flame of inward enthusiasm warms and lights up the
world. First, they are the evidence to others ; then, again,
others are the evidence to them. All rehgious leaders cannot
be reduced to a single type of character ; yet in all, perhaps,
two characteristics may be observed ; the first, great self-
reflection ; the second, intense sympathy with other men.
They are not the creatures of habit or of circumstance, lead
ing a blind life, unconscious of what they are ; their whole
effort is to realize then- inward nature, and to make it palpa
ble and visible to their feUows. Unlike other men who are
confined to the circle of themselves or of their family, their
affections are never straitened ; they embrace with their love
aU men who are like-minded with them ; almost all men too,
who are unlike them, in the hope that they may become
hke. Such men have generally appeared at favorable conjunc
tures of circumstances, when the old was about to vanish
away, and the new to appear. The world has yearned
towards them, and they towards the world. They have
uttered what all men were feeling ; they have interpreted the
age to itself. But for the concurrence of circumstances, they
might have been stranded on the solitary shore, they might
have died without a foUower or convert. But when the
world has needed them and God has intended them for the
world, they are endued with power from on high ; they use
all other men as their instruments, uniting them to them
selves. Often such men have been brought up in the faith which
they afterwards oppose, and a part of their power has con-

346 CHARACTER OP ST. PAUL.
sisted in their acquaintance with the enemy. They see other
men, hke themselves formerly, wandering out of the way in
the idol's temple, amid a burdensome ceremonial, with prayers
and sacrifices unable to free the soul. They lead them by
the way themselves came to the home of Christ. Sometimes
they represent the new as the truth of the old ; at other times
as contrasted with it, as life and death, as good and evil, as
Christ and anti-Christ They relax the force of habit, they
melt the pride and fanaticism of the soul. They suggest to
others their own doubts, they inspire them with their own
hopes, they supply their own motives, they draw men to them
with cords of sympathy and bonds of love ; they themselves
seem a sufficient stay to support the world. Such was Lu
ther at the Reformation ; such, in a far higher sense, was the
Apostle St. Paul.
There have been heroes in the world, and there have been
prophets in the world. The first may be divided into two
classes ; either they have been men of strong wUl and character,
or of great power and range of intellect ; in a few instances,
combining both. They have been the natural leaders of man
kind, compelling others by their acknowledged superiority as
rulers and generals ; or in the paths of science and philoso
phy, drawing the world after them by a yet more inevitable
necessity. The prophet belongs to another order of beings :
he does not master his thoughts ; they carry him away. He
does not see clearly into the laws of this world or the affairs
of this world, but has a hght beyond, which reveals them
partiaUy in their relation to another. Often he seems to be
at once both the weakest and the strongest of men ; the first
to yield to his own impulses, the mightiest to arouse them in
others. Calmness, or reason, or philosophy are not the words
which describe the appeals which he makes to the hearts of
men. He sways them to and fro rather than governs or con
trols them. He is a poet, and more than a poet, the inspired
teacher of mankind ; but the intellectual gifts which he pos
sesses are independent of knowledge, or learning, or capacity;
what they are much more akin to is the fire and subtlety of

CHARACTER OP ST. PAUL. 347
genius. He too, for a time, has ruled kingdoms and even led
armies ; " an Apostle, not of man, nor by men " ; acthig, not
by authority or commission of any prince, but by an imme
diate inspiration from on high communicating itself to the
hearts of men.
Saul of Tarsus is called an Apostle rather than a prophet,
because Hebrew prophecy belongs to an age of the world
before Christianity. Now that in the Gospel that which is
perfect is come, that which is in part is done away. Yet, in
a secondary sense, the Apostle St. Paul is also " among the
prophets." He, too, has " visions and revelations of the
Lord," though he has not written them down " for our in
struction," in which he would fain glory because they are not
his own. Even to the outward eye he has the signs of a
prophet There is in him the same emotion, the same sym
pathy, the same " strength made perfect in weakness," the
same absence of human knowledge, the same subtilty in the
use of language, the same singleness in the dehvery of his
message. He speaks more as a man, and less immediately
under the impulse of the Spirit of God ; more to individuals,
and less to the nation at large ; he is less of a poet, and more
of a teacher or preacher. But these differences do not inter
fere with the general resemblance. Like Isaiah, he bids us
look to " the man of sorrows " ; like Ezekiel, he arouses men
to a truer sense of the ways of God in his dealings with them ;
like Jeremiah, he mourns over his countrymen ; like all the
prophets who have ever been, he is lifted above this world,
and is " in the Spirit at the day of the Lord." (Rev. i. 10.)
Reflections of this kind are suggested by the absence of
materials such as throw any light on the early life of St.
Paul. All that we know of him before his conversion is
summed up in two facts, " that the witnesses laid down their
clothes with a young man whose name was Saul," and that he
was brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, one of the few Rab
binical teachers of Greek learning in the city of Jerusalem.
We cannot venture to assign him either to the " choleric " or
the " melanchohc " temperament. [Tholuck.] We are un-

348 CHARACTER OF ST. PAUL. -
able to determine what were his natural gifts or capacities ; or
how far, as we often observe to be the case, the gifts which he
had were called out by the mission on which he was sent, or
the theatre on which he felt himself placed " a spectacle to
the world, to angels, and to men." Far more interesting is it
to trace the simple feelings with which he himself regarded
his former hfe. " Last of all he was seen of me also, who
am the least of the Apostles, that am not worthy to be called
an Apostle, because I persecuted the Church of God." Yet
there was a sense also that he was excusable, and that this
was the reason why the mercy of God extended itself to him.
" Yet I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbe
lief." And in one passage he dwells on the fact, not only
that he had been an Israehte, but more, that after the strictest
sect of the Jews' religion he lived a Pharisee, as though that
were an evidence to himself, and should be so to others, that
no human power could have changed him ; that he was no
half Jew, w-ho had never properly known what the law was,
but one who had both known and strictly practised it.
We are apt to judge extraordinary men by our own stand-.
ard ; that is to say, we often suppose them to possess, in an
extraordinary degree, those qualities which we are conscious
of in ourselves or others. This is the easiest way of con
ceiving their characters, but not the truest. They differ in
kind rather than in degree. Even to understand them truly
seems to require a power analogous to then- own. Their
natures are more subtile, and yet more simple, than we readily
imagine. No one can read the ninth chapter of the First, or
the eleventh and twelfth chapters of the Second Epistle to
the Corinthians, without feeling how different the Apostle St
Paul must have been from good men among ourselves. We
marvel how such various traits of character come together
in the same individual. He who was "full qf visions and
revelations of the Lord," who spake with tongues more than
they all, was not " mad, but uttered the words of truth and
soberness." He who was the most enthusiastic of all men,
was also the most prudent ; the Apostle of freedom, and yet

CHARACTER OF ST. PAUL. 349
the most moderate. He who was the strongest and most
enhghtened of all men, was also (would he have himself re
frained from saying ?) at times the weakest ; on whom there
came the care of all the churches, yet seeming also to lose
the power of acting in the absence of human sympathy.
Qualities so like and unhke are hard to reconcile ; perhaps
they have never been united in the same degree in any other
human being. The contradiction in part arises, not only from
the Apostle being an extraordinary man, but from his being a
man like ourselves in an extraordinary state. Creation was
not to him that fixed order of things which it is to us ; rather
it was an atmosphere of evil just broken by the hght beyond.
To us the repose of the scene around contrasts with the tur-
inoU of man's own spirit; to the Apostle peace was to be
sought only from within, half hidden even from the inner man.
There was a veU upon the heart itself which had to be re
moved. He himself seemed to faU asunder at times into two
parts, the flesh and the spirit ; and the world to be divided
into two hemispheres, the one of the rulers of darkness, the
other bright with that inward presenee which should one day
be revealed. In this twihght he hved. What to us is far off
both in time and place, if such an expression may be allowed,
to him was near and present, separated by a thin film from
the world we see, ever ready to break forth and gather into
itself the frame of nature. That sense of the invisible which
. to most men it is so difficult to impart, was like a second na
ture to St. Paul. He walked by faith, and not by sight ;
what was strange to him was the life he now led ; which in
his own often repeated language was death rather than life,
the place of shadows, and not of realities. The Greek phUos-
ophers spoke of a world of phenomena, of true being, of
knowledge, and opinion ; and we know that what they meant
by these distinctions is something different from the tenets of
any philosophical school of the present day. But not less
different is what St. Paul meant by the life hidden with Christ
in God, the communion of the spirit, the possession of the
mind of Christ ; only that this was not a mere difference of
30

350

CHARACTER OF ST. PAUL.

speculation, but of practice also. Could any one say now, —
" the life," not that I hve, but that " Christ liveth in me " ?
Such language with St. Paul is no mere phraseology, such as
is repeated from habit in prayers, but the original conscious
ness of the Apostle respecting his own state. Self is banished
from him, and has no more place in him, as he goes on his
way to fulfil the work of Christ. No figure is too strong to
express his humiliation in himself, or his exaltation in Christ.
Could we expect this to be otherwise when we look hack at
the manner of his conversion ? Could he have looked upon
the world with the same eyes that we do, or heard its many
voices with the same ears, who had been caught up into the
seventh heaven, whether in the body, or out of the body, he
could not tell ? Must not his whole life have seemed to him
like a gradual revelation, an inspiration, an ecstasy? Once
he had looked upon the face of Christ, and heard Him speak
from heaven. AU that followed in the Apostle's history was
conthiuous with that event, a stream of light flowing from it,
" planting eyes " in his soul, transfiguring him " from glory to
glory," clothing him with the elect " in the exceeding glory."
Yet this glory was not that of the princes of this world,
" who come to naught " : it is another image which he gives
us of himself; — not the figure on Mars' hiU, in the cartoons
of Raphael, nor the orator with noble mien and eloquent ges
ture before Festus and Agrippa ; but the image of one lowly
and cast down, whose bodily presence was weak, and speech
contemptible ; of one who must have appeared to the rest of
mankind hke a visionary, pierced by the thorn in the flesh,
waiting for the redemption of the body. The saints of the
Middle Ages are in many respects unlike St. Paul, and yet
many of them bear a far closer resemblance to him than is to
be found in Luther and the Reformers. The points of resem
blance which we seem to see in them are the same withdrawal
from the things of earth, the same ecstasy, the same conscious
ness of the person of Christ. Who would describe Luther by
the words " crucified with Christ " ? It is in another manner
that the Reformer was called upon to war, ; — with weapons

CHARACTER OF ST. PAUL. 351
earthly as weU as spiritual, with a strong right hand and a
mighty arm.
There have been those who, although deformed by nature,
have worn the expression of a calm and heavenly beauty ; in
whom the flashing eye has attested the presence of thought in
the poor, withered, and palsied frame. There have been
others again, who have passed the greater part of their lives
in intense bodily suffering, who have, nevertheless, directed
states or led armies, the keenness of whose intellect has not
been duUed, nor their natural force of mind abated. There
have been those also, on whose faces men have gazed " as
upon the face of an angel," while they pierced or stoned them.
Of such an one, perhaps, the Apostle himself might have glo
ried ; not of those whom men term great or noble. He who
felt the whole creation groaning and travailing together untU
now, was not like the Greek drinking in the life of nature at
every pore. He who through Christ was crucified to the
world, and the world to him, was not in harmony with nature,
nor nature with him. The manly form, the erect step, the
fulness of hfe and beauty, could not have gone along with
such a consciousness as this ; any more than the taste for ht
erature and art could have consisted with the thought, " not
many wise, not many learned, not many mighty." Instead of
these, we have the visage marred more than the sons of men,
the cross of Christ to the Greeks foohshness, the thorn in the
flesh, the marks in his body of the Lord Jesus.
Often the Apostle St Paul has been described as a person
the furthest removed from enthusiasm ; incapable of spiritual
illusion ; by his natural temperament averse to credulity or
superstition. By such considerations as these a celebrated
author confesses himseff to have been converted to the belief
in Christianity. And yet, if it is intended to reduce St Paul
to the type of what is termed " good sense " in the present
day, it must be admitted that the view which thus describes
him is but partially true. Far nearer the truth is that other
quaint notion of a modern writer, " that St. Paul was the
finest gentleman that ever hved"; for no man had nobler

352 CHARACTER OF ST. PAUL.
forms of courtesy, or a deeper regard for the feelings of others.
But " good sense " is a term not weU adapted to express
either the individual, or the age and country in which he
lived. He who wrought miracles, who had handkerchiefs
carried to him from the sick, who spake with tongues more
than they all, who lived amid visions and revelations of the
Lord, who did not appeal to the Gospel as a thing long set
tled, but, himself, saw the process of revelation actually going
on before his eyes, and communicated it to his feUow-men,
could never have been such an one as ourselves. Nor can
we pretend to estimate whether, in the modern sense of the
term, he was capable of weighing evidence ; or how far he
would have attempted to sever between the workings of bis
own mind and the Spirit which was imparted to him.
What has given rise to this conception of the Apostle's
character has been the circumstance, that with what the world
terms mysticism and enthusiasm are united a singular pru
dence and moderation, and a perfect humanity, searching the
feelings and knowing the hearts of all men. " I became all
things to aU men, that I might win some " ; not only, we may
beheve, as a sort of accommodation, but as the expression
of the natural compassion and love which he felt for them.
There is no reason to suppose that the Apostle took any in
terest in the daily life of men, in the great events which were
befalling the Roman Empire, or in the temporal fortunes of
' the Jewish people. But when they came before him as sin
ners, lying in darkness and the shadow of God's wrath, igno
rant of the mystery that was being revealed before their eyes,
then his love was quickened for them, then they seemed to
him as his kindred and brethren ; there was no sacrifice too
great for him to make; he was willing to die with Christ,
yea, even to be accursed from Him, that he might " save some
of them."
Mysticism, or enthusiasm, or intense benevolence and phi
lanthropy, seem to us, as they commonly are, at variance with
worldly prudence and moderation. But in the Apostle these
different and contrasted quahties are mingled and harmonized.

CHARACTER OP ST. PAUL. 353
The mother watehing over the hfe of her chUd has all her
faculties aroused and stimulated ; she knows almost by in
stinct how to say or do the right thing at the right time ; she
regards his faults with mingled love and sorrow. So, in the
Apostle, we seem to trace a sort of refinement or nicety of
feeling, when he is deahng with the souls of men. All his
knowledge of mankind shows itself for their sakes ; and yet
not that knowledge of mankind which comes from without, re
vealing itself by experience of men and manners, by taking a
part in events, by the insensible course of years making us
learn from what we have seen and suffered. There is another
experience that comes from within, which begins with the
knowledge of self, with the consciousness of our own weak
ness and infirmities ; which is continued in love to others, and
in works of good to them ; which grows by singleness and
simplicity of heart. Love becomes the interpreter of how
men think, and feel, and act, and supplies the place of, or
passes into, a worldly prudence wiser than the prudence of this
world. Such is the worldly prudence of St. Paul.
, Once more : there is in the Apostle, not only prudence and
knowledge of the world, but a kind of subtilty of moderation,
which considers every conceivable case, and balances one
with another ; in the last resort giving no rule, but allowing
aU to be superseded by a more general principle. An in
stance of this subtile moderation is his determination, or rather
omission, to determine the question of meats and drinks, which
he first regards as indifferent, secondly, as depending on men's
own conscience, and this again as limited by the consciences
of others, and lastly resolves aU these finer precepts into the
general principle, " Whatever ye do, do aU to the glory of
God." The same qualification of one principle by another
recurs again in his rules respecting marriage. First, " do not
marry unbelievers," and " let not the wife depart from her
husband." But if you are married, and the unbeliever is wil
ling to remain, then the spirit of the second precept must
prevaU over the first. Only in an extreme case, where both
parties are willing to dissolve the tie, the first principle in turn
30*

354

CHARACTER OP ST. PAUL.

may again supersede the second. It may be said in the one
case, " Your children are holy " ; in the other, " What knowest
thou, 0 wife, if thou shalt save thy husband ? " In a similar
spirit he withdraws his censure on the incestuous person, lest
such an one, criminal as he was, should be swaUowed up with
overmuch sorrow. There is a religious aspect of either course
of conduct, and either may be right under given circum
stances. So the kingdoms of this world admit of being re
garded almost as the kingdom of God, in reference to our
duties towards their rulers ; and yet touching the going to law
before unbelievers, we are to think rather of that other king
dom in which we shall judge angels.
The Gospel, it has been often remarked, lays down princi
ples rather than rules. The passages in the Epistles of St.
Paul which seem to be exceptions to this statement, are ex
ceptions in appearance rather than reality. They are relative
to the circumstances of those whom he is addressing. He
who became " all things to all men," would have been the last
to insist on temporary regulations for his converts being made
the rule of Christian life in aU ages. His manner of church
government was the very reverse of an immutable and un
bending law. In aU his instructions to the churches, the
Apostle is ever with them, and seems to follow in his mind's
eye their working and effect ; whither his Epistles go, he
goes in thought ; absent, in his own language, in the body,
but present in spirit. What he says to the churches, he
seems to make them say ; what he directs them to do, they
are to do in that common spirit in which they are united with
him ; if they hve, he hves ; time and distance never snap
the cord of sympathy. His government of them is a sort of
communion with them ; a receiving of their feelings and a
pouring forth of his own, hardly ever bare command ; a sph-it
which he seeks to infuse into them, not a law by which he
rules them.
Great men are sometimes said to possess the power of com
mand, but not the power of entering into the feelings of others.
They have no fear of their feUows, but neither are they al-

CHARACTER OP ST. PAUL. 355
ways capable of immediately impressing them, or of perceiv
ing the impression which their words or actions make upon
them. Often they live in a kind of solitude, on which other
men do not venture to intrude ; putting forth their strength on
particular occasions, careless or abstracted about the daily
concerns of hfe. Such was not the greatness of the Apostle
St. Paul ; not only in the sense in which he says that " he
could do aU things through Christ," but in a more earthly and
human one, was it true that his strength was his weakness, and
his weakness his strength. His dependence on others was in
part also the source of his influence over them. His natural
character was the type of that communion of the Spirit which
he preached ; the meanness of appearance which he attributes
to himself, the image of that contrast which the Gospel pre
sents to human greatness. Glorying and humUiation, life and
death, a vision of angels strengthening him, the " thorn in the
flesh " rebuking him, the greatest tenderness not without stern-.
ness, sorrows above measure, consolations above measure, are
some of the contradictions which were reconciled in the same
man. The centre in which things so strange met and moved
was the cross of Christ, " whose marks in his body he bore " ;
what was " behind of whose afflictions " he rejoiced to fill up.
Let us look once more, a httle closer, .at that " visage marred "
in his Master's service. A poor decrepit being, afflicted per
haps with palsy, certainly with some bodily defect, — led out
of prison between Roman soldiers, probably at times faltering
in his speech, the creature, as he seemed to spectators, of ner
vous sensibihty, — yearning, almost with a sort of fondness, to
save the souls of those whom he saw around him, — spoke a
few eloquent words in the cause of Christian truth, at which
kings were awed, telhng the tale of his own conversion with
such simple pathos, that after ages have hardly heard the
like. Such is the image, not which Christian art has delighted to
consecrate, but which the Apostle has left in his own writings
of himself; an image of true wisdom, and nobleness, and af
fection, but of a wisdom unlike the wisdom of this world ; of

356 CHARACTER OF ST. PAUL.
a nobleness which must not be transformed into that of the
heroes of the world ; an affection which seemed to be as
strong and as individual towards all mankind, as other men
are capable of feeling towards a single person.

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.

Bt BENJAMIN JOWETT.

The narrative of the second chapter of the Epistle to the
Galatians suggests an inquiry, which lies at the foundation of
aU inquiries into the history of the early Church : " In what
relation did St Paul stand to the Apostles at Jerusalem ? "
To which inquiry three answers may be given: (1.) the
answer which identifies the preaching of St Paul and the
Twelve ; or, (2.) which opposes them ; or, (3.) which, without
absolutely either identifying or opposing them, allows for im
portant differences arising from variety of external circum
stances and of individual character. The first answer is that
which would be gathered from the Acts of the Apostles,
which- presents only the picture of an unbroken unity ; a
view to which the Church in after ages naturally inclined,
and which may be said to be caricatured in the explanation
of Chrysostom and Jerome, that the dispute between the
Apostles at Antioch was only a concerted fiction. Secondly,
the answer which would be supplied by the Clementine homi
lies, in which St. Paul sustains the character of Simon Magus,
and St. Peter is the Apostle of the Gentiles ; such an answer
as would probably have been given also in the writings (had
they been preserved to us) of Marcion, by whom St. Paul in
turn was magnified to the exclusion of the Twelve. The
third answer is that which we beheve would be drawn from
a careful examination of the Epistles of St Paul himself, the

358 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
only contemporary documents : " Separation not opposition,
antagonism of the followers rather than of the leaders, per
sonal antipathy of the Judaizers to St. Paul rather than of
St. Paul to the Twelve."
The inquiry to which these three answers have been given,
unavoidably runs up into the more general question of the
relation of the Gospel of the circumcision and the uncircum-
Cision, and of the Jew to the Gentile. B in the second
century these distinctions yet survived, if animosities against
St. Paul were burning stiU, if a party without the Church
ranged itself under his name, if later controversies have any
thing in common with that first difference of circumcision and
uncireumcision, if in the earliest ecclesiastical history we find
a sUence respecting the person and an absence of the spirit
of St. Paul, it is impossible to separate these facts from the
record of the Apostle himself, that on a great occasion the
other Apostles " added nothing to him " ; and that at Antioch,
which was more peculiarly his own sphere, he withstood Peter
to the face. We recognize in the personal narrative of the
Epistle to the Galatians, the germ of what reappears after
wards as the history of the Church. And had no record of
either kind survived, had there been no hint anywhere
dropped of divisions between St. Paul and the Twelve, no
memorial extant of Judaizing heresies, we should feel that
some account was stiU needed of the manner in which circum
cision became uncireumcision, and the Jew was lost in the
Gentile. Probably we might conjecture not in all places with
equal readiness, nor equally after and before the destruction
of Jerusalem or the revolt under Adrian, nor without impart
ing many elements of the Law to the Gospel, nor, in accord
ance with the general laws of human nature, without some
violence of party and opinion.
Events of the greatest importance in the history of man
kind are not always seen to be important, until the time for
preserving them is past. They have vanished into outline,
and the detaUs are filled up by the imagination or by the
feelings of a later generation. This is especiaUy the case

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 359
with such events as stand in no relation to the pubhc life of
the time. Events of this kind, the most fruitful in results,
may disappear themselves as though they had never been ;
they may also be magnified by present interests into false and
exaggerated proportions. Who can tell what went on in a
" large upper room " about the year 40 ? which may, never
theless, have had vital consequences for the history of the
world and the Church. Allusions in contemporary writings
wUl be often insufficient to retain the true meaning of institu
tions or events, or to dispel the errors that may distort or
cover them. And the events which of aU others are least
likely to preserve their real aspect, — most subject to be for
gotten on the one hand, or to be exaggerated on the other, —
the most hable to be perverted, the least possible to read
aright even in contemporary writings, — are the differences of
the first teachers of a religion, when they leave no permanent
impress on its after history.
These are the reasons why, on such a subject as the one
we are considering, so much is left for speculation and for
conjecture ; why the result of so many books is so smaU ;
why there is so much criticism, and so little history. Not
only are the materials slender, but the light by which they
are seen is feeble ; and hence the new combinations and con
structions of them are necessarily uncertain. They cannot
be left to he flat upon the page of Scripture ; least of all can
they be put together on the pattern of ecclesiastical tradition.
Church history, hke other history, may be made by the work
ings of the* human mind to acquire a deceitful unity ; it may
gather to itself form and feature ; it may convey a harmo
nious impression, which, from its mere internal consistency, it
is difficult to resist; The philosophy of history readily weaves
the tangle, developing the growth of ideas and connecting
together causes and effects ; but the unity which it creates is
only artificial. Some other combination may be equally
possible. Tradition, on the other hand, has a natural unity ;
but it is the unity of idea, which a later age gives to the past.
It teUs not what a former generation was, but what an after

360 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
one thought it should have been. Many things came to light
in the second century, which were unknown in the first. StUl
more in the third, that were unknown in the second. We
turn from " this idol of the temple " to our earliest materials,
the least hint in which, slender as they a,re, wiU be often of
more value than all later traditions put together.
Many causes combine to produce a singular iUusion in
reference to the Church of the Apostolic age. There is the
universal temptation to look back to a time when human
nature was better than it is, when virtue and brotherly love
were not an ideal only, but had an actual habitation on the
earth among men. The times of the Apostles are the golden
age of the Church, in which, without spot, or wrinkle, or any
such thing, it seems to come from the hands of its Divine
Author, — the New Jerusalem descending from heaven, ar
rayed in a portion of that glory with which the faith of the
Apostles clothed it. Such is the idea which we instinctively
form of the primitive Church, prior to any examination of
the New Testament.; an idea which is with difficulty laid
aside in the face of the plainest facts. The misconception is
' further increased by the circumstance, that in modern times
even more than in ancient, we have made the first century
the battle-field of our controversies ; instead of asking what
was right, or true, or probable, what was the spirit or mind of
Christ, we have constantly repeated the question, " What was
the belief, constitution, practice, of the primitive Church ? " —
a question which we had, in reality, the smallest materials for
answering, and which we had, therefore, the greatest tempta
tion to answer according to our previous conception. The
vacant space was in some way to be filled up. Could any
thing be more natural than that it should be filled up with the
features of the third century ? B we analyze closely what
is the origin of many famihar conceptions respecting the
Apostolic Church, we shall find that they consist of a sort of
ideal, clothed in some of the externals of TertuUian or of
Augustine, and conforming, as far as possible, to the use
and practice of our own time.

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 361
The slightest knowledge of human nature is sufficient to
assure us, that in the primitive Church there must have
existed all the varieties of practice, belief, speculation, doc
trine, which the different circumstances of the converts, and
the different natures of men acting on those circumstances,
would be likely to produce. The least examination of the
Epistles is sufficient to show, not only what must have been,
but what was. Even the Apostles and their immediate fol
lowers did not work together in the spirit of an order ; but
hke men of strongly marked individual character, going by
different roads to what did not always prove to be a common
end. Not to anticipate the great division of which we are
about to speak, Paul, and Barnabas, and Apollos, and even
Priscilla and Aquila, seem to have their separate spheres of
labor and ways of acting ; and a similar difference, though
6hghtly marked, is observable in the relation of St. Peter to
St. James. When the Apostles were withdrawn, the differ
ences which had commenced during their hfetime were not
likely to disappear ; in aU that conflict of opinions, philoso
phies, religions, races, they must, for a tinie at least, have
found food, and gathered strength.
Leaving such general speculations, wo will now go back
to the subject out of which they arose,' — the difference of St.
Paul and the Twelve, " the little cloud no bigger than a
man's hand," the sign of that greater difference which spread
itself over the face of the Church and the world.
The narrative of this difference is contained in the second
chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians. The Apostle begins
by asserting his Divine commission and independence of
human authority, with an emphasis which imphes that this
could not have been acknowledged by. the Judaizing Chris
tians. After a few sharp words of remonstrance, he touches
on such points in his personal history as tended to show that
he had no connection with the Twelve. It was not by their
ministry- that he was converted ; and after his conversion, he
had seen them only twice ; once for so short a time that he
was unknown by face to the churehe- of Judaea ; on the latter
31

362 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
of the two occasions, they had " added nothing to him " in a
conference about circumcision. Afterwards, at Antioch, when
Peter showed a disposition partially to retrace his steps, at
the instigation of certain who came from James, he withstood
him to the face, and rebuked his inconsistency, even though
his helper, Barnabas, and aU the other Jews, were against
him. The reason for narrating all this is to show, not how
nearly the Apostle agreed with the Twelve, but how entirely
he maintained his ground, meeting them on terms of free
dom and equality.
There are features in this narrative which indicate a hostUe,
as there are other features which also indicate a friendly,
bearing in the two parties who are here spoken of. Among
the first may be classed the mention of false brethren, " who
came in to spy out our hberty in Christ Jesus." Were they
Jews or Christians ? and how came they to be present if the
Apostles at Jerusalem could have prevented them ? The
number of them seems to indicate that there was no strong
hne of demarcation between the Jews and Christians at Jeru
salem ; and from the tone of the narrative we can hardly
avoid drawing the conclusion, that the other Apostles scarcely
resisted them, but left the battle to be fought by St. Paul.
The second point which leads to the unfavorable inference is
the manner in which the Apostles of Jerusalem are spoken
of, — " those who seemed to be somewhat, whatsoever they
were, it maketh no matter to me " ; ol hoKovvres elval n, v. 6,
who are shown by the form of the sentence to be the same as
01 hoKovvres arriXoi eivai, in v. 9. Thirdly, the distinction of
the Gospels of the circumcision and uncireumcision, which
was not merely one of places, but in some degree of doctrine
also. Fourthly, the use of the words (vrroKpio-is) " hypocrisy,"
and (Kareyvao-pevos) " condemned," in reference to Peter's
conduct; and, lastly, in v. 12, the mention of certain who
came from James, under whose influence the Apostle sup
posed Peter to have acted ; which raises the suspicion of a
regular opposition to St. Paul, acting in concert with the
heads of the Church at Jerusalem. In the end, the other

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 363
Apostles were determined by the fact, that a Church had
grown up external to them, which was its own witness.
Yet in this very passage there are also kindlier features,
which restore us more nearly to our previous conception of
the Apostolic Church. In the first place, there is no indica
tion here, any more than elsewhere in the Epistles, of an
open schism between St. Paul and the Twelve, which, had it
existed, could not have failed to appear. Secondly, the
differences are not of such a nature as to preclude the Church
of Jerusalem from receiving, or the Apostle from giving, the
alms of the Gentiles. Lastly, the expression, ol hoKovvres
elvai rt, " who seemed to be somewhat," although ironical, is
softened by what follows, ol hoKovvres elvai o-rvXoi, " who
seemed to be pillars," in which the Apostle expresses the real
greatness and high authority of the Twelve in their separate
field of labor. Singular as the juxtaposition is of the false
brethren, the Apostles " who added nothing to him," " the
persons who came from James," the tone of the passage, as
well as of every passage in which they are named, shows
that on St. Paul's part there could have been no personal
antagonism to the Twelve.
But not to anticipate the conclusion, we must here enter on
a further stage of the same inquiry, the evidence supplied by
the Epistles of St. Paul, and other portions of the New Tes
tament, on the subject which we are considering. Is it a
mere passing incidental circumstance, happening for once in
their hves, that the Apostles of Jerusalem and St Paul met
and had a partial difference ? or is the difference aUuded to,
in a manner so unlike the violence of later controversy,
merely an indication of a greater and more radical difference
in the Church itself, faintly discernible in the persons of its
leaders ? We might be disposed to answer " yes " to the first
alternative, were the first two chapters of the Galatians all
that remained to us ; we are compelled to say " yes " to the
second, when we extend our view to other parts of Scrip
ture. Everywhere in the Epistles of St. Paul and in the Acts of

364 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
the Apostles, we find traces of an opposition between the
Jew and Gentile, the circumcision and the uncireumcision.
It is found, not only in the Epistle to the Galatians, but in a
scarcely less aggravated form in the two Epistles to the
Corinthians, softened, indeed, in the Epistle to the Romans,
and yet distinctly traceable in the Epistle to the Philippians ;
the party of the circumcision appearing to triumph in Asia,
at the very close of the Apostle's hfe, in the second Epistle
to Timothy. In all these Epistles we have proofs of a reac
tion to Judaism, but, though they are addressed to churches
chiefly of Gentile origin, never of a reaction to heathenism.
Could this have been the case, unless within the Church itself
there had been a Jewish party urging upon the members of
the Church the performance of a rite repulsive in itself, if
not as necessary to salvation, at any rate as a counsel of per
fection, seeking to make them, in Jewish language, not merely
proselytes of the gate, but proselytes of righteousness ? What,
if not this, is the reverse side of the Epistles of St Paul?
that is to say, the motives, object, or basis of teaching of his
opponents, who came with " epistles of commendation " to the
church of Corinth, 2 Cor. iii. 1 ; who profess themselves " to
be Christ's " in a special sense, 2 Cor. x. 7 ; who say they
are of Apollos, or Cephas, or Christ, 1 Cor. i. 12 ; or James,
Gal. ii. 12 ; who preach Christ of contention, Phil. i. 15, 17 ;
who deny St. Paul's authority, 1 Cor. ix. 1, Gal. iv. 16 ; who
slander his hfe, 1 Cor. ix. 3, 7. We meet these persons at
every turn. Are they the same, or different? Are they
mere chance opponents ? or do they represent to us one spirit,
one mission, one determination to root out the Apostle and his
doctrine from the Christian Church ?
Nothing but the fragmentary character of St. Paul's writ
ings would conceal from us the fact, that here was a concerted
and continuous opposition. The same features recur, the
same spirit breathes, the same accusations are repeated
against the Apostle. Of going back to dumb idols there is
never a word ; it is not that sort of return which Paul fears,
but the enforcement of circumcision, the observance of days

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 365
and weeks, the loss of the freedom of the Gospel. It hardly
needs to be proved, that St. Paul everywhere and at aU times
met with opposition ; it is equally evident on the surface of
the Epistles, that this opposition chiefly proceeded from Ju
daizing Christians. StiU the question recurs, In what rela
tion did its leaders stand to the Apostles at Jerusalem ? Be
fore attempting to answer this question finaUy, we must pause
a moment to coUect in one the evidence supplied by the Acts
of the Apostles.
That from the beginning the elements of a division existed
in the Christian Church is clear from the murmuring of the
Grecians against the Hebrews for the neglect of their widows
in the daily ministration, which led to the appointment of the
seven deacons. Indeed, they may be said to have pre-existed
in the Jewish and Gentile world ; many " schoolmasters "
were bringing men to Christ, and the past history of man,
then as now, seemed occasionally to reawaken in the feelings
of individuals. A first epoch in the history of the division is
marked by the death of Stephen, which scattered a portion
of the Church, whom the very circumstance of their persecu
tion, as well as their dispersion in foreign countries, would
tend to alienate from the observance of the Jewish law. A
second epoch is distinguished by the preaching of St. Paul
at Antioch ; immediately after which we are informed that
the disciples were first caUed Christians. Then follows the
Council, the more exact account of which is supplied by the
Epistle to the Galatians, to which, however, one point is
added in the narrative of the Acts, — the mention of certain
who came from Jerusalem to Antioch, saying, " Except ye
be circumcised, ye cannot be saved." Passing onwards a
little, we arrive at the address of St. Paul to the elders of
the church of Ephesus (Acts xx. 29, 30), which seems to
allude to the same alienation from himself which had actually
taken place in the Second Epistle to Timothy (2 Tim. i. 15).
At length we come to St Paul's last journey to Jerusalem,
and his interview with James, which was the occasion on
which, by the advice of James, he took a vow upon him, in
31*

366 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
hope of calming the apprehensions of the multitude of " the
many thousand Jews who believed and were all zealous for
the law," in which passage express reference is made to the
decree of the Council. These leading facts are interspersed
with slighter allusions, which must not be passed over as
unimportant. Such are the words, " Of the rest durst no
man join himself to them," indicating the way of life of the
Apostles ; " A great company of the priests were obedient
unto the faith," vi. 7 ; " They that were scattered abroad upon
the persecution of Stephen, preached the word to, Jews only,"
viii. 4 ; the priority attributed to James in Acts xii. 17, " Go
show these things to James and the brethren " ; the mention
of the alms brought by Barnabas and Saul to Jerusalem in
the days of Claudius Cassar, xi. 29. Such in the latter half
of the Acts (xxiii. 6) is the declaration of St. Paul that he
is a Pharisee. Nor is it without significance, that, in the dis
cussion of this question of the admission of the Gentiles, no
reference is made to the command of the Gospels, " Go and
baptize aU nations," nor to the intercourse of Peter with Cor
nelius ; and that nowhere are the other Apostles described as
at variance with the Jewish Christians ; nor in the whole
later history of the Acts as suffering persecution from the
Jews, or as taking any share in the persecution of St. Paul.
Now, with all the circumstances of the case before us,
what shall we say in reply to the question from which we
digressed ? What was the relation of the Judaizing Chris
tians to the Apostles at Jerusalem ? Did those who remained
behind in the Church regard the death of the martyr Stephen
with the same feelings as those who were scattered abroad?
Were the Apostles at Jerusalem one in heart with the breth
ren at Antioch ? Were the teachers who came from Jeru
salem to Antioch, saying, "Except ye be circumcised, ye
cannot be saved," commissioned by the Twelve ? Were the
Twelve absolutely at one among themselves ? Are the com
mendatory epistles spoken of in the Epistle to the Corin
thians, to be ascribed to the Apostles at Jerusalem? Can
"the grievous wolves," whose entrance into the Church of

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 367
Ephesus the Apostle foresaw, be other than the Judaizing
teachers ? Lastly, Were the multitude of believing Jews,
zealous for the law, and quickened in their zeal for it by the
very sight of St. Paul, engaged in the tumult which follows ?
These are different ways of stating the same question, or sub
ordinate questions connected with it, which of themselves
assist in supplying an answer.
If we conceive of the Apostles as exercising a strict and
definite authority over the multitude of their converts, living
heads of the Church as they might be termed, Peter or
James of the circumcision, and Paul of the uncireumcision,
it would be hard to avoid connecting them with the acts of
their followers. One would think that, in accordance with
the spirit of the concordat, they should have " delivered over
to Satan " the opponents of St. Paul, rather than have lived in
communion and company with them. To hold out the right
hand of feUowship to Paul and Barnabas, and yet secretly to
support or not to discountenance those who opposed them,
would be httle short of treachery to their common Master,
especially when we observe how strongly the Judaizers are
characterized by St. Paul as the false brethren who came in
unawares, „the false Apostles transforming themselves into
Apostles of Christ, " grievous wolves entering in," &c. Noth
ing can be more striking than the contrast between the vehe
mence with which St. Paul treats his Judaizing antagonists,
and the gentleness or sUence which he never fails to preserve
towards the Apostles at Jerusalem.
Yet it may be questioned whether the whole difficulty does
not arise from a false conception of the authority of the Apos
tles in the early Church. Although the first teachers of the
word of Christ, they were not the acknowledged rulers of the
Catholic Church ; they were its prophets, not its bishops.
The influence which they exercised was personal rather than
official, derived doubtless from their having seen the Lord,
and the fact of their appointment by himself, yet confined
also to a comparatively narrow sphere ; it was exercised in
places in which they were, but hardly extended to places

368 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
where they were not. The Gospel grew up around them,
they could not tell how ; and the spirit which their preaching
awakened soon passed out of their control. They seemed no
longer to be the prime movers, but rather the spectators of
the work of God which went on before their eyes. The
thousands of Jews that believed and were zealous for the law,
would not lay aside the garb of Judaism at the bidding of
James or Peter ; the false teachers of Corinth or of Ephesus
would not have been less likely to gain followers, had they
been excommunicated by them. The movement which, in
twenty years from the death of Christ, had spread so widely
over the earth, they no more sought to reduce to rule and
compass. It was out of their power, beyond their reach, ex
tending to churches which had no connection with themselves,
of the circumstances of which, they were hardly informed, and
in which, therefore, it was not natural that they should inter
fere between St. Paul and his opponents.
The moment we think of the Church, not as an ecclesias
tical or political institution, but as it was in the first age, a
spiritual body, that is to say, a body partly moved by the
Spirit of God, but dependent also on the tempers and sympa
thies of men, and swayed to and fro by religious emotion, the
narrative of Scripture seems perfectly truthful and natural.
When the waves are high, we see but a little way over the
ocean ; the very intensity of religious feeling is inconsistent
with a uniform level of church government. It is not a regu
lar hierarchy, but " some apostles, some prophets, some evan
gelists, others pastors and teachers," who grew together " into
the body of Christ" The image of the earher Church that
is everywhere presented to us in the Epistles implies great
freedom of individual action. Apollos and Barnabas were not
under the guidance of Paul ; those " who were distinguished
among the Apostles before him " could hardly have owned his
authority. Nor is any attempt made to bring the different
churches under a common system. We cannot imagine any
bond by which they could have been linked together, without
an order of clergy or form of church government common to

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 369
them all ; and of this there is no trace in the Epistles of St.
Paul. It was hard to keep the church at Corinth at unity
with itself; how much harder to have brought other churches
into union with it !
Of this fluctuating state of the Church, which was not yet
addicted to any one rule, we find an indication of a different
kind in the freedom, almost levity, with which professing
Christians embraced " traditions of men." Nothing was less
hke the attitude of the church of Corinth towards the Apos
tle, than the implicit behef in a faith " once delivered to the
saints." We know not whether ApoUos was or was not a
teacher of Alexandrian learning among its members, or what
was the exact nature of " the party of Christ," 1 Cor. i. 12.
That heathen as well as Jewish elements had found their way
into the Church is indicated by the false " wisdom," the denial
of the resurrection, and the resort to the idol's temple. In the
church at Colossse, again, something was suspected by the
Apostle, which is dimly seen by us, and seems to have held
an intermediate position between Judaism and heathenism ; or
rather to have partaken of the nature of both. It was wis
dom the Greek sought after, the want of which in the Gospel
was his great stumbling-block, which he was most likely,
therefore, to intrude upon its teaching. The tendency of the
Jew was at once to humanize and mysticize it ; he could never
have enough of wonders (1 Cor. i. 22), yet was unable to
understand its true wonder, " the cross of Christ"
Amid such fluctuation and variety of opinions we can imag
ine Paul and Apollos, or Paul and Peter, preaching side by
side in the church of Corinth or of Antioch, like Wesley and
Whitefield in the last century, or Luther and Calvin at the
Reformation, with a sincere reverence for each other, not
abstaining from commenting on or condemning each other's
doctrine or practice, and yet also forgetting their differences
in their common zeal to save the souls of men. Personal re
gard is quite consistent with differences of rehgious behef;
some of which, with good men, are a kind of form, belonging
only to their outer nature, most of which, as we hope, exist

370 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
only on this side the grave. We can imagine the followers of
such men as we have been describing incapable of acting in
their noble spirit, with a feebler sense of their high calling,
and a stronger one of their points of disagreement ; losing
the great principle for which they were alike contending in
" oppositions of knowledge," in prejudice and personality.
And lastly, we may conceive the disciples of Wesley or of
Whitefield (for of the Apostles themselves we forbear to
move the question) reacting upon their masters, and drawing
them into the vicious circle of controversy, disuniting them in
their lives, though at the last hour incapable of making a sep
aration between them.
Of such a nature we believe the differences to have been
which separated St Paul and the Twelve, arising in some
degree from differences of individual character, but much
more from their followers, and the circumstances of their hves.
They were differences which seldom brought them into con
tact, and once or twice only into coUision ; they did not with
logical exactness divide the world. It may have been, " I
unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision " ; and yet
St. Paul may have felt a deep respect for those " that seemed
to be pillars," and they may have acknowledged thankfully the
success of his labors. It is not even necessary to suppose
that the agreement of the Council, the terms of which are dif
ferently described in Galatians ii. and Acts xv., was minutely
observed for a long period of years. The freedom which
made it possible that the differences between Jew and GentUe
should coexist, made it impossible that the Twelve should
always be able to control their foUowers, and unlikely that
they themselves should wholly abstain from showing their
sympathy towards those who seemed to be joined to them by
the ties of nationality. A party in the church of Corinth
sought to call itself by their name, in opposition to that of St.
Paul : it was they, probably, who gave " the epistles of com- "
mendation " to those who taught at Corinth : they, or at least
one of their number, sent messengers from Jerusalem to An
tioch, at a critical moment, in the dispute about circumcision.

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 371
Admitting even the darkest color that can be put upon
these latter facts, stiU the absence of aU hostile allusion to the
Twelve in the writings of St. Paul, the circumstance of the
Jerusalem church being supported by the contributions of
the Gentiles, the other circumstance of teachers of the cir
cumcision being among the companions of St. Paul in his
imprisonment (Col. iv. 10, 11), the appeal to the witness
and example of the other Apostles (1 Cor. xv. 5, ix. 5), are
sufficient to justify the view which we took at the outset of
the relation of St. Paul to the Twelve : " Separation, not
opposition, antagonism of the followers rather than of the
leaders, personal antipathy of the Judaizers to St. Paul, more
than of St. Paul to the Judaizers." Many things must have
been done by the fanaticism of professing adherents, of which
it was impossible for the Twelve to approve, — which, when
separated by distance, it was equally impossible for them to
repress. Even at Jerusalem, under the eye of the Apostles,
though it may be uncertain whether " the multitude zealous
for the law " were the same or partly the .same with that
which was engaged in the tumult against St. Paul, it is plain
that James speaks of them as incapable of being swayed by
his authority. It was the impossibility of exercising this
authority that justified the Twelve, and made it possible, in
spite of their adherents, that they should remain in the love
of their common Lord towards St. Paul.
Regarding, then, the whole number of behevers in Judsea, in
Greece, in Italy, in Egypt, in Asia, as a sort of fluctuating
mass, of whom there were not many wise, not many learned,
not aU governed by the maxims of common prudence, needing
many times to have the way of God expounded to them more
perfectly, and, from their imperfect knowledge, arrayed against
one another, subject to spiritual impulses, and often mingling
with the truth Jewish and sometimes heathen notions ; we
seem to see the Twelve placed on an eminence above them,
and, as it were, apart from them, acting upon them rather than
governing them, retired from the scene of St. Paul's labors,
and therefore hardly coming into conflict with him, either by

372 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
word or by letter. They led a life such as St. James is
described as leading by Hegesippus, " going up into the
temple at the hour of prayer," reverenced by a multitude of
followers zealous for the law, themselves, like Peter, half
conscious of a higher truth, and yet by their very position
debarred from being its ministers. Though bearing the com
mon name of Christ, it was not by accident, but by agreement,
that they were led to labor in different spheres. The world,
as we might say, was wide enough for them both. The Apos
tle St. Paul's rule is not to intrude upon another man's labors,
but he does not aim at confining any province or district to
himself or to his followers. He makes no claim to be the visi
ble head of any section' of the Church, but only the servant of
Christ Even the hold he retains over his own converts is
precarious and uncertain. The idea of a Catholic Church
one and indivisible throughout the earth had not as yet come
into existence, though the way for it was preparing, and the
elements out of which it arose were already working.
The inquiry into the relation in which St. Paul stood to
the Twelve runs up into a further question respecting the
Gospel which they preached. " What was that different
form or aspect of Christian truth which was called the Gospel
of the circumcision, as compared with that of the uncireum
cision ? " Was it a difference of doctrine~or of practice, of
belief or of spirit ? Viewed as a matter of doctrine, we are
almost surprised to find into how small a compass the differ
ence reduces itself. So St. Paul himself seems to have felt,
even amid his strongest denunciations of the Judaizing teach
ers. AU were baptized in the name of Christ, with whom
the Twelve had walked while he was upon earth ; whom St.
Paul, equally with them, had seen with the spiritual eye, as
" one born out of due time." It was the same Christ whom
they preached (there was no dispute about this), though the
manner of preaching may have differed with difference of
natural character or education, or the different manner of his
revelation to them. " Other foundation could no man lay," as
the Apostle says to the church at Corinth, though he might

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 373
build many superstructures. It was not " another Gospel,"
as he indignantly declares to the church in Galatia, for there
was not and could not be another. Or, according to another
manner of speaking (2 Cor. xi. 4), it was still Jesus, though
another Jesus ; and the spirit, though another spirit. In the
church of Rome, as the Apostle writes to the Philippians,
there were those who preached Christ of contention, in which
the Apostle nevertheless rejoiced, as an honor to the name of
Christ That in the Judaizing teachers, as weU as the Apos
tles themselves, St. Paul saw at any time true though mis
taken preachers of the Word, is a fact of great significance in
reference to our present purpose. The cross of Christ was
pecuharly the symbol of St. Paul, yet all probably, or almost
aU, looked with common feelings of affection to Him who died
for them.
But not only did St. Paul and the Twelve regard the name
of Christ with the same feelings (a statement which might be
made almost equally of nearly all the earliest heretical sects),
but they agreed also in considering the Old Testament, rightly
understood, as the source of the New. The mystery of past
ages was latent there. Through so many centuries, it had
been misunderstood or unknown : it had now come to light.
The same God who at sundry times and in divers manners
spake in times past to the fathers by the prophets, had in
these last days spoken to men by his Son. There was no
opposition between the Old Testament and the New ; it was
the law, with its burden on the conscience, and its questions
respecting meats and drinks, and new moons and Sabbaths,
which contrasted with the Gospel.
Once more : besides the name of Christ, and the connection
of the Old and New Testament, another point common to St
Paul and the Twelve was their expectation of the day of the
Lord. Nowhere does the Apostle appear so much " a He
brew of the Hebrews," as in speaking of the invisible world.
He opposes this world and the next, as the times before and
after the coming of the Messiah were divided by the Jews
themselves ; he sees them peopled with a celestial hierarchy
32

374 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
of good and evil angels. He is waiting for the revelation of
Antichrist, and the manifestation of the sons of God. The
same signs follow the reception of the Gospel in the churches
founded by the Twelve and by St. Paul ; " The Holy Ghost
fell upon them as upon us at the beginning," might have been
the description of the church of Corinth, no less than of the
church at Jerusalem. And, as St. Paul says, in the Epistle
to the Romans, in reference to the admission of the Gentiles,
" God is no respecter of persons," Peter commences his
address to Cornelius with the words, " Of a truth I perceive
God is no respecter of persons."
Even setting aside the last passage, as hard to reconcile
with the subsequent conduct of Peter, stUl enough remains to
show that the Gospel preached by St. Paul and the Twelve
was in substance the same. To preach to the Gentiles, it
must be remembered, was a command of Christ himself. If,
with the exception of the Epistle of St. James, we have no
epistles extant which bear the impress of Jewish Christianity,
still we can hardly doubt that the three first Gospels repre
sent in the main the model on which was based the teaching of
the Twelve ; that is to say, the difference between St Paul's
Epistles and the Gospel of St. Matthew is a fair measure of
the utmost limits of the' distance which separated the Apostle
of the Gentiles from the Apostles of the Circumcision.
Admitting such -points of agreement, the differences lie
within narrow limits ; they could not have originated in any
thing that we should consider fundamental articles of the
Christian faith. They may have arisen out of a sympathy
for, or antipathy towards, the Alexandrian learning. The
mere difference of language may have made the same kind
of difference between the church at Jerusalem and those
founded by St Paul, as divides the Old Testament from the
later Apocryphal books. Much also, humanly speaking, may
have arisen from the difference in their way of life. Those
who went up to the temple at the hour of prayer, who hved
amid the smoke of the daily sacrifices, could hardly have felt
and thought and spoken as the Apostle of the GentUes,

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 375
wandering through Greece and Asia, from city to city, in
barbarous as well as civilized countries ; they at least could
not have been expected to say, " Let no man judge you of a
new moon or a Sabbath day." Like our Lord remaining
within the confines of Judaea, there were many truths which
they were not called upon to utter in the same emphatic way
as St. Paul.
Such are a few conjectures respecting the nature of the
difference which separated St Paul from the Twelve. The
point that is independent of conjecture is, that it related to
the obligation on the GentUes to keep the Mosaic law. It
is characteristic of the earliest times of the Church, that the
dispute referred rather to a matter of practice than of doc
trine. Long ere the Gospel was drawn out in a system of
doctrine, the difference between Judaism and Christianity was
instinctively felt. There were times and places in which,
even in the mind of the' Christian, Jewish prejudices seemed
too strong for the freedom wherewith Christ had made him
free. There was no difficulty in aUowing that aU nations
were to be baptized in the name of Christ, and that there was
to be one fold and one Shepherd. This had been determined
by an authority from which there could be no appeal. The
difficulty was to go in " to men uncircumcised, -and eat with
them," amid the derision or persecution of Jews, or Jewish
Christians. Our Lord had decided that Gentiles were to be
admitted to the Church ; but on what conditions they were to
be so admitted, was left to be inferred from the spirit of his
teaching. There was no putting an end to the controversy ;
and the timidity of St. Peter, and the conciliatory temper of
St. Paul, indicate a disposition to maintain these scruples, or
an unwillingness to disturb them.
The adoption of a theory, which, however innocently, we
fail to carry out in practice, almost necessarily involves incon
sistency. Suppose a person maintaining hberty of conscience,
yet refusing to avaU himself of that liberty, or to act as
though he maintained it, is it not nearly certain that, when
surrounded by particular influences, he would cease to maintain

376 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
it ? Few, comparatively, have sufficient strength of character
to carry a single speculative principle through life. Expe
rience shows that inconsistency, so far from being rare, is the
commonest of all faihngs. Narrowness of intellect, and fee
bleness of perception, are quite as common causes of it as
weakness of character. The mind, under the pressure of new
circumstances, and in a strange place, ceases to perceive that
old principles are stUl applicable. Its sympathies draw it one
way, its sense of right another. The habits of youth, or the
instincts of childhood, reassert themselves in mature life. He
who is the first, and even the ablest, to speak, may be often
deficient in firmness of wiU or grasp of mind. Such reflec
tions on human nature are sufficient to explain the conduct of
Peter, and they are confirmed by what we know of him.
Adding to our former indications of the relations in whicn
the Apostle of the Gentiles stood to the Twelve such further
evidences as we are able to glean from the teaching and
character of St. Peter and St Paul, we have to carry our
inquiry into a third stage, as it reappears once more in what
may be termed the twilight of ecclesiastical history, — that
century after the Neronian persecution, of which we know
so little, and desire to know so much ; the aching void of
which we are tempted to fill up with the image of the century
which succeeds it. To coUect together all the scattered rays
which might iUustrate our subject, would carry us too far into
the general history of the Church, and lead to discussions
respecting the genuineness of Patristic writings, and the truth
of events narrated in them. The " romance of heresy "
would be the mist of fiction, through which we should en
deavor to penetrate to the hght. The origin of episcopal
government, which seems to stand in a sort of antagonism to
heresy, would be one of the elements of our uncertainty.
We should have to begin by forming a criterion of the credi
bility of Irenseus, Clement, TertuUian, Origen, and Eusebius.
But a subject so wide is matter not for an essay, but for a
book ; it is the history of the Church of the first two cen
turies. We must therefore narrow our field of vision as

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 377
much as possible, and confine ourselves to the consideration
of this third stage of our subject, so far as it throws a remote
light back on the differences of the Apostles, drawing con
clusions only which rest on facts that are generaUy admitted.
Two general facts meet us at the outset, which it is neces
sary to bear in mind in the attempt to balance the more par
ticular statements that follow. First, the utter ignorance of
the third century respecting the first, and earher half of the
second. We cannot err in supposing that those who could
add nothing to what is recorded in the New Testament of the
hfe of Christ and his Apostles, had no real knowledge of
lesser matters, as, for example, the origin of episcopacy.
They could not appreciate ; they had no means of preserving
the memory of a state of the Church which was unlike their
own. Irenaeus, who lived within a century of St. Paul, has
not added a single circumstance to what we gather from the
New Testament. Eusebius, with the writings of Papias and
Hegesippus, and all ecclesiastical antiquity before him, has
preserved nothing which relates to the difference of St. Paul
and the Twelve, or which throws the smallest light on any
other difficulty in the New Testament. The image of the
primitive Church which they seemed to see, when it was not
mere vacancy, was the image of themselves.
The second general fact is the unconsciousness of this igno
rance, and the readiness with which the vacant space is filled
up, and the Church of the second century assimilated to that
of the third and fourth. Human nature tends to conceal that
which is discordant to its preconceived notions ; silently
dropping some facts, exaggerating others, adding, where
needed, new tone and coloring, untU the disguise of history
can no longer be detected. By some such process has the
circumstance we are inquiring into been forgotten and re
produced. Not only what may be termed the " animus " of
concealment is traceable in the strange account of the dispute
between the Apostles, given by Jerome and Chrysostom, but
in earher writings, in which the two Apostles appear side by
side as cofounders, not only of the Roman, but also of the
32*

378 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
Corinthian church ; as pleading their cause together before
Tiberius ; dying on the same day ; buried, according to some,
in the same grave. The motive, or, more strictly speaking,
the unconscious instinct, which gave birth to this acknowl
edged fiction was, probably, the desire to throw a veil over
that occasion on which they withstood one another to the face.
And the truth indistinctly shines through this legend of the
latter part of the second century, when it is further recorded
that St. Paul was the head of the Gentile Church, Peter of
the circumcision.
.Bearing in mind these two general facts, the tendency of
which is to throw a degree of doubt on the early ecclesiastical
tradition, and so to lead us to seek for indications out of the
regular course of history, we have to consider, in reference to
our present subject, the following statements : —
1. That Justin, and probably Hegesippus and Papias, liv
ing at a time when the Epistles of St. Paul must have been
widely spread, were unacquainted with them or their author.
2. That Marcion, who was their contemporary, appealed
exclusively to the authority of St. Paul in opposition to the
Twelve. 3. That in the account of James the Just, given by Jose
phus and Hegesippus, he is represented as a Jew among
Jews ; living, according to Hegesippus, the hfe of a Nazarite ;
praying in the temple until his knees became hard as a
camel's, and so entirely a Jew as to be unknown to the people
for a Christian ; a picture which, though its features may be
exaggerated, yet has the trace of a true resemblance to the
part which we find him acting in the Epistle to the Galatians.
4. That in the Clementine Homilies, A. D. 1 60, though a
work otherwise orthodox, St. Paul is covertly introduced
under the name of Simon Magus, as the enemy who had pre
tended visions and revelations, and who withstood and blamed
Peter. No writer doubts the allusion in these passages to
the Epistle to the Galatians. Assuming their connection, we
cannot but ask, as bearing on our present inquiry, What was
the state of mind which could have led an orthodox Christian,

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 379
who lived probably at Rome, about the middle of the second
century, to affix such a character to St. Paul ? and what was
the motive which induced him to veil his meaning ? What,
too, could have been the state of the Church in which such a
romance could have grown up? and how could the next
generation have read it without perceiving its true aim?
Doubtful as may be the precise answer to these questions, we
cannot attribute this remarkable work to the wayward fancy
of an individual ; it is an indication of a real tendency of the
first and second century, at a time when the flame was almost
extinguished, but still slumbered in the mind of the writer of
the Clementine Homihes.
5. Lastly, that in later writings we find no trace of the
mind of St. Paul. His influence, for a season, seems to
vanish from the world. On such a basis as " where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is hberty," it might have been
impossible to rear the fabric of a hierarchy. But the tide of
ecclesiastical feehng set in an opposite direction. It was not
merely that after-writers feU short of St. Paul, or imperfectly
interpreted him, but that they formed themselves on a differ
ent model. It was not merely that the external constitution
of the Church had received a definite form and shape, but
that the inward perception of the nature of the Gospel was
different. No writer of the latter half of the second century
would have spoken as St. Paul has done of the Law, of the
Sabbath, of justification by faith only, of the Spirit, of grace.
An echo of a part of his teaching is heard in Augustine ;
with this exception, the voice of him who withstood Peter to
the face at Antioch was sUent in the Church until the Refor
mation. Gathering around us, then, once more, the grounds on
which our judgment must be formed from the Epistles of St
Paul, the Acts of the Apostles, and the earliest ecclesiastical
tradition, we arrive once more at the thrice-repeated conclu
sion, that the relation of St Paul and the Twelve was separa
tion, not opposition ; antagonism of the followers, rather than
of the leaders ; enmity of the Judaizers to St. Paul, not of

380 ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE.
St. Paul to the Judaizers. NaturaUy, the principle of the
Apostle was triumphant ; commencing like the struggle of
Athanasius against the world, it ended as the struggle of the
world must end against the half-extinct remnant of the Jewish
race. But the good fight which the Apostle fought, was not
immediately crowned by the final victory. In the dawn of
ecclesiastical history, as the Twelve were one by one with
drawn from the scene, the battle was stiU going on, dimly
seen by us within and without the Church ; its last shadows
seeming to retire from view in the Easter controversy of the
second century. Two events especially exercised a great
influence on it. First, the destruction of Jerusalem, and the
flight to Pella of the Christian community ; secondly, the
revolt under Barchocab ; both tending to separate, more and
more, both in fact and the opinion of mankind, the Christian
from the Jew. At length, the succession of Jewish Christian
episcopacy ceased ; the first Bishop of ^Eha Capitohna being
a Gentile. That that intermediate century of which we know so httle
was not a period in which the Church had reason to glory, is
witnessed to by the very absence of memorials respecting it.
There was a want of great teachers after the Apostles were
withdrawn ; then, according to the idea of a later generation,
when there were no more hving heads, heresy sprang up.
There was something in that century which those who fol
lowed it were either unwilling to recaU, or unable to compre
hend. The Church was in process of organization, fencing
itself with creeds and hturgies, taking possession of the earth
with its hierarchy. The principle of St. Paul triumphs, and
yet it seems to have lost the spirit and power of St. Paul.
There is no more question of Jew and Gentile ; but neither
is there any trace of the freedom of the Apostle. The lesson
which that age sUently learned, was that of ecclesiastical
order and government. It built up the body of Christ from
without, as St. Paul had built it up from within. And there
would have been the same inconsistency in supposing that the
doctrine of the Apostle could have been fuUy received in the

ST. PAUL AND THE TWELVE. 381
second century, as in supposing that he himself would have
preached it in Palestine in" the first.
It would be vain to carry our inquiry further, with a view
to glean a few doubtful results respecting the first half of the
second century. Remote probabilities and isolated facts are
hardly worth balancing. By some course of events with
which we are imperfectly acquainted, the providence of God
leading the way, and the thoughts of man following, the Jewish
Passover became the Christian Easter ; the Jewish Sabbath
the Christian Sunday ; circumcision passed into uncireum
cision ; the law was done away in Christ, whUe the Old Tes
tament retained its authority over Gentile as weU as Jewish
Christians ; and the party which would have excommunicated
St. Paul, before the end of the second century had itself left
the Church. The relation of St. Paul to the Twelve may be
regarded as the type and symbol, and, in some degree, the
cause of that final adjustment of the differences between Jew
and Gentile, without which it would not have been possible,
humanly speaking, that the Gospel could have become an
universal religion.

EVILS IN THE CHURCH OF THE APOS
TOLICAL AGE.
Bx BENJAMIN JOWETT.

Were we, with the view of forming a judgment of the
moral state of the early Church, to examine the subjects of
rebuke most frequently referred to by the Apostles, these
would be found to range themselves under four heads :
first, hcentiousness ; secondly, disorder ; thirdly, scruples of
conscience ; fourthly, strifes about doctrine and teachers. The
consideration of these four subjects, the two former falhng in
with the argument of the Epistle to the Thessalonians, the
two latter more closely connected with the Romans and the
Galatians, will give what may be termed the darker side of
the primitive Church.
1. Licentiousness was the besetting sin of the Roman
world. Except . by a miracle, it was impossible that the new
converts could be at once and whoUy freed from it. It lin
gered in the flesh when the spirit had cast it off. It had ¦
interwoven itself in the pagan religions ; and, if we may be
lieve the writings of adversaries, was ever reappearing on
the confines of the Church in the earliest heresies. Even
within the pale of the Church, it might assume the form of a
mystic Christianity. The very ecstasy of conversion would
often lead to a reaction. Nothing is more natural than that
in a hcentious city, hke Corinth or Ephesus, those who were
impressed by St. Paul's teaching should have gone their way,
and returned to their former life. Bi this case it would

384 EVILS IN THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH.
seldom happen that they apostatized into the ranks of the
heathen: the same impulse which led them to the Gospel
would lead them also to bridge the gulf which separated them
from its purer morality. Many may have sinned and repent
ed again and again, unable to stand themselves in the general
corruption, yet unable to cast aside utterly the image of inno
cence and goodness which the Apostle had set before them.
There were those, again, who consciously sought to lead the
double life, and imagined themselves to have found in hcen
tiousness the true freedom of the Gospel.
The tone which the Apostle adopts respecting sins of the
flesh differs in many ways from the manner of speaking of
them among moralists of modern times. He says nothing of
the poison which they infuse into society, or the consequences
to the individual himself. It is not in this way that moral
evils are presented to us in Scripture. Neither does he
appeal to public opinion as condemning them, or dwell on the
ruin involved in them to one half of the human race. True
and forcible as these aspects of such sins are, they are the
result of modern reflection, not the first instincts of reason
and conscience. They strengthen the moral principles of
mankind, but are not of a kind to touch the individual soul.
They are a good defence for the existing order of society ;
but they wiU not purify the nature of man, or extinguish the
flames of lust.
Moral evils in the New Testament are always spoken of as
spiritual. They corrupt the soul ; they defile the temple of
the Holy Ghost ; they cut men off from the body of Christ.
Of morahty, as distinct from religion, there is hardly a trace
in the Epistles of St. Paul. What he seeks to penetrate is
the inward nature of sin, not its outward effects. Even its
consequences in another state of being are but slightly touched
upon, in comparison with that living death which itself is. It
is not merely a vice or crime, or even an offence against the
law of God, to be punished here or hereafter. It is more
than this. It is what men feel within, not what they observe
without them, — not what shall be, but what is, — a terrible

EVILS IN THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 385
consciousness, a mystery of iniquity, a communion with un
seen powers of evil.
All sin is spoken of in the Epistles of St Paul as rooted
in human nature, and quickened by the consciousness of law ;
but especially is this the case with the sin which is more than
any other the type of sin in general, — fornication. It is, in a
peculiar sense, the sin of the flesh, with which the very idea
of the corruption of the flesh is closely connected, just as, in
1 Thess. iv. 3, the idea of holiness is regarded as almost
equivalent to abstinence from the commission of it. It is a
sin against a man's own body, distinguished from all other
sins by its personal and individual nature. No other is at the
same time so gross and so insidious ; no other partakes so
much of the slavery of sin. As marriage is the type of the
communion of Christ and his Church, as the body is the
member of Christ, so the sin of fornication is a strange and
mysterious union with evU.
But although such is the tone of the Apostle, there is no
violence to human nature in his commands respecting it. He
knew how easily extremes meet, how hard it is for asceticism
to make clean that which is within, how quickly it might itself
pass into its opposite. Nothing can be more different from
the spirit of early ecclesiastical history on this subject, than
the moderation of St. Paul. The remedy for sin is not celi
bacy, but marriage. Even second marriages are, for the
prevention of sin, to be encouraged. In the same spirit is his
treatment of the incestuous person. He had committed a sin
not even named among the Gentiles, for which he was to be
delivered unto Satan, for which aU the Church should humble
themselves ; yet upon his true repentance, no ban is to sepa
rate him from the rest of the brethren, no doom of endless
penance is recorded against him. Whatever might have
been the enormity of his offence, he was to be forgiven, as in
heaven, so on earth.
The manner in which the Corinthian church are described
as regarding this offence, before the Apostle's rebuke to them,
po less than the lenient sentence of the Apostle himself after-
33

386 EVILS IN THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH.
wards, as well as his constant admonitions on the same sub
ject in all his Epistles, must be regarded as indications of the
state of morality among the first converts. Above all other
things, the Apostle insisted on purity as the first note of the
Christian character ; and yet the very earnestness and fre
quency of his warnings show that he is speaking, not of a sin
hardly named among saints, but of one the victory over which
was the greatest and most difficult triumph of the cross of
Christ. 2. It is hard to resist the impression which naturaUy arises
in our minds, that the early Church was without spot, or
wrinkle, or any such thing ; as it were, a bride adorned for
her husband, the type of Christian purity, the model of Apos
tolical order. The real image is marred with human frailty 4
its evils, perhaps, arising more from this cause than any other,
that in its commencement it was a kingdom not of this world ;
in other words, it had no political existence or legal support ;
hence there is no evil more frequently referred to in the
Epistles than disorder.
This spirit of disorder was manifested in various ways. In
the church of Corinth the communion of the Lord's Supper
was administered so as to be a scandal ; " one was hungry,
and another was drunken." There was as yet no rite or
custom to which all conformed. In the same church the
spiritual gifts were manifested without rule or order. It
seemed as if God was not the author of peace, but of confu
sion. AU spoke together, men and women, apparently with
out distinction, singing, praying, teaching, uttering words
unintelligible to the rest, with no regular succession or subor
dination (1 Cor. xiv.). The scene in their assembhes was
such, that if an unbeliever had come in, he would have said
they were mad.
Evils of this kind in a great measure arose from the ab
sence of church authority. Even the Apostle himself per
suades more often than commands, and often uses language
which implies a sort of hesitation whether his rule would be
acknowledged or not. The diverse offices, the figure of the

EVILS IN THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 387
members and the body, do not refer to what was, but to what
ought to be, to an ideal of harmonious life and action, which
the Apostle holds up before them, which in practice was far
from being realized. The Church was not organized, but was
in process of organization. Its only punishment was excom
munication, which, as in modern so in primitive times, could
not be enforced against the wishes of the majority. In two
cases only are members of the Church " delivered unto Satan "
(1 Cor. v. 5 ; 1 Tim. i. 20). It was a moral and spiritual,
not a legal control, that was exercised. Hence the frequent
admonitions given, doubtless because they were needed :
" Obey them that have the rule over you."
A second kind of disorder arose from unsettlement of mind.
Of such unsettlement we find traces in the levity and vanity
of the Corinthians ; in the fickleness with which the Gala
tians left St. Paul for the false teachers ; almost (may we not
say ?) in the very passion with which the Apostle addresses
them ; above all, in the case of the Thessalonians. How few
among aU the converts were there capable of truly discern
ing their relation to the world around ! or of supporting them
selves alone when the fervor of conversion had passed away,
and the Apostle was no longer present with them ! They had
entered into a state so different from that of their feUow-
men, that it might well be termed supernatural. The ordi
nary experience of men was no longer their guide. They left
their daUy employments. The great change which they felt
within seemed to extend itself without, and involve the world
in its shadow. So " palpable to sense " was the vision of
Christ's coming again, that their only fear or doubt was how
the departed would have a share in it. No religious belief
could be more unsettling than this : that to-day, or to-morrow,
or the third day, before the sun set or the dawn arose, the
sign of the Son of Man might appear in the clouds of heaven.
It was not possible to take thought for the morrow, to study
to be quiet and get their own hving, when men hardly ex
pected the morrow. Death comes to individuals now, as
nature prepares them for it ; but the immediate expectation

388 EVILS IN THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH.
of Christ's coming is out of the course of nature. Young
and old alike look for it. It is a resurrection of the world
itself, and implies a corresponding revolution in the thoughts,
feelings, and purposes of men.
A third kind of disorder may have arisen from the same
causes, but seems to have assumed another character. As
among the Jews, so among the first Christians, there were
those who needed to be perpetually reminded, that the powers
that be were ordained of God. The heathen converts could
not at once lay aside the hcentiousness of manners amid
which they had been brought up ; no more could the Jew
ish converts give up their aspirations, that at this time " the
kingdom was to be restored to Israel," which had perhaps
been in some cases their first attraction to the Gospel. A
community springing up in Palestine under the dominion
of the Romans, could not be expected exactly to draw the
line between the things that were Cassar's and the things
that were God's, or to understand in what sense " the chil
dren were free," in what sense it was nevertheless their
duty to pay tribute. The frequent exhortations to obey
magistrates, are a proof at once of the tendency to rebellion,
and of the energy with which the Apostles set themselves
against it.
3. The third head of our inquiry related to scruples of
conscience, which were chiefly of two kinds ; regarding either
the observance of days, or the eating with the unclean or unbe
lievers. Were they, or were they not, to observe the Jewish
Sabbath, or new moon, or passover ? Such questions as these
are not to be considered the fancies or opinions of individuals ;
but, as mankind are quick enough to discover, involve general
principles, and are but the outward signs of some deep and
radical difference. In the question of the observance of
Jewish feasts, and stUl more in the question of gohig in unto
men uncircumcised and eating with them, was implied the
whole question of the relation of the disciple of Christ to the
Jew, just as the question of sitting at meat in the idol's tem
ple was the question of the relation of the disciple of Christ

EVILS IN THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 389
to the Gentile. Was the Christian to preserve his caste, and
remain within the pale of Judaism ? Was he in his daily life
to carry his rehgious scruples so far as to exclude himself
from the social hfe of the heathen world ? How much pru
dence and hberty and charity was necessary for the solution
of such difficulties ?
Freedom is the key-note of the Gospel, as preached by St.
Paul. " All things are lawful." " There is no distinction of
Jew or Greek, barbarian or Scythian, bond or free." " Let
no man judge you of a new moon or a Sabbath." " Where
the spirit of the Lord is, there is hberty." And yet, if we go
back to its origin, the Christian Church was born into the
world marked and diversified with the features of the relig
ions that had preceded it, bound within the curtains of the
tabernacle, colored with Oriental opinions that refused to be
washed out of the minds of men. The scruples of individuals
are but indications of the elements out of which the Church
was composed. There were narrow paths in which men
walked, customs which clung to them long after the reason of
them had ceased, observances which they were unable to
give up, though conscience and reason alike disowned them,
which were based on the traditions of half the world, and
could not be rehnquished, however alien to the spirit of the
Gospel. Slowly and graduaUy, as Christianity itself became
more spread, these remnants of Judaism or Orientahsm dis
appeared, and the spirit which had been taught from the
beginning, made itself felt in the hearts of men and in the
institutions of the Church.
4. The heresies of the Apostolical age are a subject too
wide for illustration in a note. We shaU attempt no more
than to bring together the names and heads of opinion which
occur in Scripture, with the view of completing the preced
ing sketch.
There was the party of Peter and of Paul, of the circum
cision and of the uncireumcision. There were those who
knew Christ according to the flesh ; those who, like St. Paul,
knew him only as revealed within. There were others who,
33*

390 EVILS IN THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH.
after casting aside circumcision, were still struggling between
the old dispensation and the new. There were those who
never went beyond the baptism of John ; others, again, to
whom the Gospel of Christ clothed itself in Alexandrian
language. There were prophets, speakers with tongues, dis-
cerners of spirits, interpreters of tongues. There were those
who looked daily for the coming of Christ ; others who said
that the Resurrection was passed already. There were seek
ers after knowledge, falsely so called ; worshippers of angels,
intruders into things they had not seen. There were those
who maintained an Oriental asceticism in their hves, " forbid
ding to marry, commanding to abstain from meats." There
was the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, the synagogue of Satan,
who " said that they were Jews and are not," " the woman
Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess." There were
wild heretics, "many Antichrists," "grievous wolves, enter
ing into the fold," apostasy of whole churches at once. There
were mingled anarchy and hcentiousness, "filthy dreamers,
despising dominion, speaking evil of dignities," of whom no
language is too strong for St. Paul or St. John to use, though
they seem to have been separated by no definite line from the
Church itself. There were fainter contrasts, too, of those
who agreed in the unity of the same spirit, aspects and points
of view, as we term them, of faith and works, of the Epistle
to the Romans and the Epistle to the Hebrews.
How this outline is to be filled up must for ever remain, in
a great degree, matter of speculation. Yet there is not a
single trait here mentioned, which does not reappear in the
second century, either within the Church or without it, more
or less prominent as favored by circumstances or the reverse.
The beginning of Ebionitism, Sabaism, Gnosticism, Mon-
tanism, Alexandrianism, Orientalism, and of the wild hcen
tiousness which marked the course of several of them, are
aU discernible in the Apostolical age. They would be more
correctly regarded, not as offshoots of Christianity, but as the
soU in which it arose. Some of them seem to acquire a tem
porary principle of life, and to grow up paraUel with the

EVILS IN THE APOSTOLICAL CHURCH. 391
Church itself. As opinions and tendencies of the human
mind, many hnger among us to the present day. Only after
the destruction of Jerusalem, with the spread of the Gospel
over the world, as the spirit of the East moves towards the
West, Judaism fades and dies away, to rise again, as some
hold, in the glorified form of a mediaeval Church.
Such is the reverse side of the picture of the Apostolical
age ; what proportions we should give to each feature it is
impossible to determine. We need not infer that all churches
were in the same disorder as Corinth and Galatia ; nor can
we say how far the more flagrant evils were tamely submitted
to by the Church itself. There was much of good that we
can never know ; much also of evil. And perhaps the gen
eral lesson which we gather from the preceding considera
tions is, not that the state of the primitive Church was better
or worse than our first thoughts would have suggested, but
that its state was one in which good and evil exercised a more
vital power, were more subtly intermingled with, and more
easfly passed into, each other. AU things were coming to the
birth, some in one way, some in another. The supports of
custom, of opinion, of tradition, had given way ; human na
ture was, as it were, thrown upon itself and the guidance of
the spirit of God. There were as many diversities of human
character in the world then as now ; more strange influences
of rehgion and race than have ever since met in one ; a far
greater yearning of the human intellect to solve the problems
of existence. There was no settled principle of morality
independent of and above rehgious convictions. All these
causes are sufficient to account for the diversities of opinion
or practice, as weU as for the extremes which met in the
bosom of the primitive Church.

ON THE BELIEF IN THE COMING OF CHRIST
IN THE APOSTOLICAL AGE.
Bt BENJAMIN JOWETT.

The behef in the near approach of the coming of Christ is
spoken of, or imphed, in almost every book of the New Tes
tament, in the discourses of our Lord himself as well as in
the Acts of the Apostles, in the Epistles of St. Paul no less
than in the Book of the Revelation. The remains of such a
belief are discernible in the Montanism of the second century,
which is separated by a scarcely definable line from the
Church itself. Nor is there wanting in our own day a dim
and meagre shadow of the same primitive faith, though the
world appears dead to it, and all things remain the same as at
the beginning. There are still those who argue from the very
lapse of time, that " now is their salvation nearer than when
they believed." All religious men have at times blended in
their thoughts earth and heaven, while there are some who
have raised their passing feelings into doctrinal truth, and
have seemed to see in the temporary state of the first con
verts the type of Christian life in all ages.
The great influence which this belief exercised on the
beginnings of the Church, and the degree of influence which
it still retains, render the consideration of it necessary for the
right understanding of St. Paul's Epistles. Yet it is a sub
ject from which the interpreter of Scripture would gladly
turn aside. For it seems as if he were compelled to say at
the outset, " that St. Paul was mistaken, and that in support

394 BELIEF IN THE COMING OP CHRIST.
of his mistake he could appeal to the words of Christ himself."
Nothing can be plainer than the meaning of those words, and
yet they seem to be contradicted by the very fact that, after
eighteen centuries, the world is as it was. In the words
which are attributed, in the Epistle of St. Peter, to the unbe
lievers of that day, we might truly say that, since the fathers
have fallen asleep, all things remain the same from the be
ginning. Not only do " all things remain the same," but the
very belief itself (in the sense in which it was held by the
first Christians) has been ready to vanish away.
Why, then, were the traces of such a behef permitted to
appear in the New Testament ? Some wiU say, " As a trial
of our faith " ; others wiU have recourse to the double senses
of prophecy, to divide the past from the future, the seen from
the unseen. Others will cite its existence as a proof that the
books of Scripture were compiled at a time when such a belief
was stiU living, and this not without, but within, the circle of
the Church itself. It may be also regarded as an indication
that we were not intended to interpret Scripture apart from
the hght of experience, or violently to bend life and truth
into agreement with isolated texts. Lastly, so far as we can
venture to move such a question of our Lord himself, we may
observe that his teaching here, as in other places, is on a level
with the modes of thought of his age, clothed in figures, as it
must necessarUy be, to express " the things that eye hath not
seen," limited by time, as if to give the sense of reality to
what otherwise would be vague and infinite, yet mysterious in
this respect too, for of " that hour knoweth no man " ; and
that however these figures of speech are explained, or these
opposite aspects reconciled, their meaning dimly seen has
been the stay and hope of the behever in all ages, who knows,
nevertheless, that since the Apostles have passed away, all
things remain the same from the beginning, and that " the
round world is set so fast that it cannot be moved."
The surprise that we naturaUy feel, when the attention is
first called to this singular discrepancy between faith and ex
perience, is greatly lessened by our observing that even the

BELIEF IN THE COMING OF CHRIST. 395
language of Scripture is not free from inconsistency. For the
words of our Lord himself are not more in apparent contra
diction with the course of experience, than they are with
other words which are equaUy attributed to him by the Evan
gelists. He who says, " This generation shall not pass away
until aU these things be fulfilled," is the same as he who tells
his disciples, " It is not for you to know the times and the
seasons which the Father hath put in his own power," and
" Of that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of God, nor
the Son, but the Father." Is it reverent, or irreverent, to
say that Christ knew what he himself declares " that he did
not know " ? Is it consistent, or inconsistent, with the lan
guage of the Gospels, that the Apostle St. Paul should at first
have known no more than our Lord had taught his disciples ?
or that in the course of years only he should have grown up
to another and a higher truth, that " to depart and be with
Christ was far better " ? Is it strange that, from time to time,
he should change his tone, seeming by this very change to say,
" Whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot teU " ;
when our Lord himself at one time speaks of " Jerusalem
being encompassed by armies " ; at another, gives no answer
to the question, " Where, Lord ? " but, " Where the carcass is,
there wiU the eagles be gathered together " ? Our concep
tion, both of place and time, becomes indistinct as we enter
into the unseen world. And does not the Scripture itself
acknowledge these necessary limits of its own revelation to
man ?
But instead of regarding this or any other fact of Scripture
as a difficulty to be explained away, it will be more instruc
tive for us to consider the nature of the belief, and its prob
able effect on the infant communion. Strictly speaking, the
expectation of the day of the Lord was not a belief, but a
necessity, in the early Church ; clinging, as it did, to the
thought of Christ, it could not bear to be separated from him :
it was his absence, not his presence, that the first believers
found it hard to realize. " Yet a httle while, and they did
not see him ; but yet a little while, and they would again see

396 BELIEF IN THE COMING OF CHRIST.
him." Nor was it possible for them at once. to lay aside the
material images in which the faith of prophets and psalmists
had clothed the day of the Lord. We readily admit that
they lingered around " the elements of the law " ; but we must
admit also that the imagery of the prophets had a reahty and
fact to them which it has not to us, who are taught by time
itself that all these things " are a shadow, but the substance is
of Christ."
We naturally ask, Why a future life, as distinct from this,
was not made a part of the first preaching of the Gospel ?
Why, in other words, the faith of the first Christians did not
exactly coincide with our own ? There are many ways in
which the answer to this question may be expressed. The
philosopher will say that the difference in the modes of
thought of that age and our own, rendered it impossible, hu
manly speaking, that the veil of sense should be altogether
removed. The theologian will admit that Providence does
not teach men that which they can teach themselves. WhUe
there are lessons which it immediately communicates, there is
much which it leaves to be drawn forth by time and events.
Experience may often enlarge faith, it may also correct it
No one can doubt that the faith and practice of the early
Church, respecting the admission of the Gentiles, were greatly
altered by the fact that the Gentiles themselves flocked in ;
" The kingdom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent
took it by force." In like manner, the faith respecting the
coming of Christ was modified by the continuance of the world
itself. Common sense suggests, that those who were in the
first ecstasy of conversion, and those who after the lapse of
years saw the world unchanged, and the fabric of the Church
on earth rising around them, could not regard the day of the
Lord with the same feelings. While to the one it seemed
near and present, at any moment ready to burst forth, to the
other it was a long way off, separated by time, and as it were
by place, a world beyond the stars, yet, strangely enough,
also having its dwelling in the heart of man, as it were the
atmosphere in which he lived, the mental world by which he

BELIEF IN THE COMING OF CHRIST. 397
was surrounded. Not at once, but gradually, did the cloud
clear up, and the one mode of faith take the place of the other.
Apart from the prophets, though then, beyond them, spring
ing up in a new and living way in the soul of man, corrected
by long experience, as the " fathers one by one fell asleep,"
as the hope of the Jewish race declined, as ecstatic gifts
ceased, as a regular hierarchy was established in the Church,
the behef in the coming of Christ was transformed from being
outward to becoming inward, from being national to becom
ing individual and universal, from being Jewish to becoming
Christian. It must be admitted as a fact, that the earliest Christians
spoke and thought about the coming of Christ in a way differ
ent from that which prevails among ourselves. Admitting this
fact, we have now to consider some of the many aspects of
this belief, and its effect on the lives of believers. It is hard
for us to define its exact character, because it is hard to con
ceive a state of the Church, and of the human mind itself,
unlike our own. In its origin it was simple and childlike, the
belief of men who saw but a little way into the purposes of
Providence, who never dreamed of a vista of futurity. It was
not what we should term, an article of faith, but natural and
necessary ; flowing immediately out of the hfe and state of
the earliest behevers. It was the feeling of men who looked
' for the coming of Christ as we might look for the return of a
lost friend, many of whom had seen him on earth, and could
not beheve that he was taken from them for ever. But it was
more than this ; it was the feeling of men who had an intense
sense of the change that had been wrought in themselves, and
to whom this change seemed like the beginning of a greater
change that was to spread itself over the world. It was the
feeling of men who looked back tfpon the past, of which they
knew so little, and discerned in it the workings of the same
spirit, one and continuous, which they felt in their own souls ;
to whom the world within and the world without were reflect
ed upon one another, and the history of the Jewish race was
a parable, an " open secret " of the things to come. It was
34

398 BELIEF IN THE COMING OF CHRIST.
the feehng of men, each moment of whose lives was the meet
ing-point to them of heaven and earth, who scarcely thought
either of the past or future in the eternity of the present.
Let those who think this is an imaginary picture recall to
mind, and compare with Scripture, either what they may have
read in books or experienced in themselves, as the workings
of a mind suddenly converted to the Gospel. Such an one
seems to lose his measure of events, and his true relation to
the world. While other men are going on with their daily
occupations, he only is out of sympathy with nature, and has
fears and joys in himself, which he can neither .communicate
nor explain to his feUows. It is not that he is thinking of
the endless ages in which he wUl partake of heavenly bliss ;
rather the present consciousness of sin, or the present sense
of forgiveness and of peace in Christ, is already a sort of
hell or heaven within him, which excludes the future. It is
not that he has an increased insight into the original meaning
of Scripture ; rather he seems to absorb Scripture into him
self. Least of all have persons in such a state of mind dis
tinct or accurate conceptions of the world to come. The
images in which they express themselves are carnal and
visible, often inconsistent with each other, if they are unedu
cated, wanting in good taste, yet not the less the realization
to them of a true and lively faith. The last thing that they
desire, or could comprehend, is an intellectual theory of an
other life. They seem hardly to need either statements of
doctrine or the religious ministration of others ; their concern
is with God only.
Substitute now for an individual a church, a nation, the
three thousand who were converted on the day of Pentecost,
the multitudes of Jews that believed, zealous for the law ;
imagine them changed at the same instant by one spirit, and
we seem to see on a larger scale the same effects foUowing.
Their conversion is an exception to the course of nature ;
itself a revelation and inspiration, a wonder of which they can
give no account to themselves or others, not the least wonder
ful part of which is their communion with one another. They

BELIEF IN THE COMING OF CHRIST. 399
come into existence as a society, with common hopes and
fears, at one with each other, separated from mankind at
large. What they feel within spreads itself over the world.
The good and evil that they are conscious of in themselves,
seem to exist without them in aggravated proportions ; a fel
lowship of the saints on one side, and a mystery of iniquity
on the other. They do not read history, or comprehend the
sort of imperfect necessity under which men act as creatures
of their age. The same guilt which they acknowledge in
themselves they attach to other men ; the same judgment
which would await them is awaiting the world everywhere.
In the events around them, in their own sufferings, in their
daily life, they see the preparations for the great conflict be
tween good and evil, between Christ and Behal, if, indeed,
it be not already begun. The circle of their own hfe in
cludes in it the destinies of the human race itself, of which it
is, as it were, the microcosm, seen by the eye of faith and the
hght of inward experience. This is what the law and the
prophets seemed to them to have meant when they spoke of
God's judgments on his enemies, of the Lord coming with ten
thousand of his saints. And the signs which were to accom
pany these things were already seen among them, " not in
word only, but in power, and in the Holy Spirit, and in much
assurance." To us the preaching of the Gospel is a new beginning,
from which we date aU things, beyond which we neither desire
nor are able to inquire. To the first behevers it was other
wise ; not the beginning of a new world, but the end of a
former one. They looked back to the past, because the veU
of the future was not yet lifted up. They were hving in " the
latter days," the' confluence of all times, the meeting-point of
the purposes of God. They read all things in the hght of the
approaching end of the world. They were not taught, and
could not have imagined, that for eighteen centuries servants
of God should continue on the earth, waiting, like themselves,
for the promise of his coming. They were not taught, and
could not have imagined, that after three centuries the Church

400 BELIEF IN THE COMING OF CHRIST.
which they saw poverty-stricken and persecuted should be the
mistress of the earth, and that, in another sense than they
had hoped, the kingdoms of this world should become the
kingdoms of the Lord and of his Christ. Instead of it, they
beheld in a figure the heavens opening, and the angels of God
ascending and descending ; the present outpouring of the
Spirit, and the evil and perplexity of the world itself, being
the earnest of the things which were shortly to come to pass.
It has been often remarked, that the behef in the coming
of Christ stood in the same relation to the Apostolic Church
that the expectation of death does to ourselves. Certainly
the absence of exhortations based upon the shortness of hfe,
which are not unfrequent in the Old Testament, and are so
familiar to our own day, forms a remarkable feature in the
writings of the New Testament, and in a measure seems to
confirm such an opinion. And yet the similarity is rather
apparent than real ; or, at any rate, the difference between
the two is not less remarkable. For the feeble apprehension
which each man entertains of his own mortality can bear no
comparison with that living sense of the day of the Lord
which was the habitual thought of the first Christians, which
was not so much a " coming " as a " presence " to them, as its
very name implied (rrapovo-ia). How different also was the
event looked for, no less than the anticipation of it ! There
is nothing terrible in death ; it is the repose of wearied na
ture ; it steals men away one by one, while the world goes
stUl on its way. We fear it at a distance, but not near. But
the day of the Lord was to be a change, not to the individual
only, but to the world ; a scene of great fear and great joy at
once to the whole Church and to all mankind, which is in its
very nature sudden, unexpected, coming " as a thief in the
night, and as travail upon a woman with child." Yet it
might be said to be expected, too, so strange and contradic
tory is its nature ; for the first disciples were sitting waiting
for it, " with their lamps lighted and their loins girded." It
was not darkness, nor sleep, nor death, but a day of light and
hfe, in the expectation of which men were to walk as children

BELIEF IN THE COMING OP CHRIST. 401
of the light, yet fearful by its very suddenness and the ven
geance to be poured on the wicked.
Such a belief could not be without its effect on the lives of
the first converts, and on the state of the Church. WhUe it
increased the awfulness of hfe, it almost unavoidably with
drew men's thoughts from its ordinary duties. It naturally
led to the state described in the Corinthian church, in which
spiritual gifts had taken the place of moral duties, and of
those very gifts, the less spiritual were preferred to the more
spiritual. It took the mind away from the kingdom of God
within, to fix it on signs and wonders, " the things spoken of
by the prophet Joel," when the sun should be turned into
darkness, and the moon into blood. It made men almost
ready to act contrary to the decrees of Caesar, from the sense
of what they saw, or seemed to see, in the world around them.
The intensity of the spiritual state in which they hved, so far
beyond that of our daily life, is itself the explanation of the
spiritual disorder which seems so strange to us in men who
were ready to hazard their lives for the truth, and which was
but the natural reaction against their former state.
It is obvious that such a behef was inconsistent with an es
tablished ecclesiastical order. A succession of bishops could
have had no meaning in a world that was to vanish away.
Episcopacy, it has been truly remarked, was in natural antag
onism to Montanism ; and in the age of the Apostles as weU,
there is an opposition, traceable in the Epistles themselves,
between the supernatural gifts and the order and discipline of
the Church. Ecclesiastical as weU as political institutions are
not made, but grow. What we are apt to regard as their
first idea and design is in reahty their after development, what
in the fulness of time they become, not what they originaUy
were, the former being faintly, if at all, discernible in the new
birth of the Church and of the world.
Nor is it unreasonable to suppose that the meagreness of
those historical memorials of the first age which survived it,
has been the result of such a belief. What interest would be
attached to the events of this world, if they were so soon to
34*

402 BELIEF IN THE COMING OF CHRIST.
be lost in another ? or to the lessons of history, when the na
tions of the earth were in a few years to appear before the
judgment-seat of Christ ? Even the narrative of the acts
and sayings of the Saviour of mankind must have had a dif
ferent degree of importance to those who expected to see with
their eyes the Word of life, and to us, to whom they are the
great example, for after ages, of faith and practice. Among
many causes which may be assigned for the great historical
chasm which separates the life of Christ and his Apostles
from after ages, this is not the least probable. The age of
the Apostles was an age, not of history, but of prophecy.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST, CONSIDERED AS A
SACRIFICE.*
By JAMES FOSTEK, D. D.

One of the positive institutions of Christianity is what we
commonly call the Lord's Supper. And as in this accordance,
the death of Christ is commemorated under the notion of a
sacrifice, I shaU, before I specify the moral uses of it, en
deavor briefly to explain and vindicate that representation ;
which is the more necessary, because nothing in the whole
Christian doctrine has been more grossly misrepresented, or
given its adversaries, who take their accounts of it from party
writers, and not from the New Testament itself, (a method of
proceeding that argues great unfairness and prejudice,) a
more plausible occasion to triumph. But if the matter be
rightly considered, it wiU appear that the advantages which
they think they have against the Christian rehgion upon this
head are but imaginary. For,
1. The New Testament nowhere represents God as a
rigorous, inexorable being, who insisted upon futt satisfaction
for the sins of men, before he could be induced to offer terms
of reconciliation. It says, indeed, not one word of satisfac
tion, much less of strict and adequate satisfaction, not a
syllable of the infinite evil of sin, of infinite justice, the
hypostatical union, or " the Deity's being so united to the
man Christ Jesus, as that the two infinitely distinct natures
* Erom the Defence of the Christian Revelation, in reply to Tindal.

404 DEATH OF CHRIST.
constitute one person," and, " by virtue of this union, giving
an infinite value to the sufferings of the human nature, and
enabling it to pay a strict equivalent to God's offended vin
dictive justice." All this, I say, is the invention of more
modern ages, (which, by subtle distinctions, and metaphysical
obscurities, have deformed true Christianity to such a degree,
that scarce any of its original features appear,) and bears not
the least similitude to the language of the New Testament ;
in which the Divine Being is always described as slow to
anger, merciful, and condescending to the frailties and infirmi
ties of mankind; and forgiveness of sin represented, not as-
a thing for which a price of equal value was paid, and which
might consequently be demanded in strict justice, but as a
voluntary act of pure favor, and the effect of free and un
deserved goodness. Nay, further,
2. The New Testament never asserts, that God could not
have pardoned sin without a sacrifice, nor, consequently, that
the death of Christ, considered in that view, was, upon any
account, absolutely necessary. If indeed it be proved that
this method is of Divine appointment, this wUl and ought to
satisfy us, that there are wise reasons for it, but it cannot be
inferred from hence, that it was absolutely necessary, or that
the same wise purposes might not have been as effectuaUy
answered some other way. Nor,
3. Does the Christian religion anywhere expressly declare,
or so much as intimate to us, that natural reason could not
discover God to be a propitious being, and ready to be recon
ciled to his guilty creatures upon their repentance ; but, on
the contrary, lays down this as the fundamental point of aU
religion, and consequently as a principle that might be argued
with great probability, that " God is a rewarder of them who
dUigently seek him," Heb. ii. 6, and supposes, that the1 great
goodness, which he has demonstrated in the general constitu
tion of things, and course of providence, was a rational en
couragement to the Gentile world to serve and worship him,
in hopes of acceptance and mercy.
4. It is of great importance to observe, that the death of

DEATH OP CHRIST. 405
Christ, as appears, would have happened, if it had never been
designed as a sacrifice, and consequently was not appointed
arbitrarily and solely with a view to that. The true state of
the case seems to be this. The wise and merciful God, hav
ing compassion on the ignorance and degeneracy of the world,
determined, at a certain time fixed by his infinite wisdom, to
interpose, and when they had corrupted the religion of nature,
and were not hkely to recover the right knowledge of it, teach
them their duty by an external revelation. The person
whom he chose to be his messenger is characterized as his
Son, an innocent person, of great dignity and excellence,
whom he had before employed in the most important trans
actions, and who was highly beloved and favored by him ;
and the principal reason of his employing one so extraor
dinary as his minister upon this occasion, we are told in the
New Testament, was to concihate greater attention and re
gard to. his doctrine. Matt. xxi. 37; Heb. i. 1, 2 ; ii. 2, 3.
We are to take it, therefore, I think, that the first view of
God in sending Christ into the world was, that, as a prophet,
he might restore the true rehgion, and publish the glad tidings
of life and immortality, and by this means reform the errors
and vices of mankind.
But, as he was sent to preach a most strict and holy doc
trine, among a people abominably corrupt and vicious, to
recommend a rational and spiritual worship of the Deity to
those who were fond of form and ceremony, and resolved the
whole of the rehgion into external rites and traditional super
stitions, and assumed the character of their Messiah, or king,
when both his circumstances in hfe, and the rehgion he
taught, contradicted the expectations they had entertained of
temporal pomp and grandeur under the Messiah's govern
ment, and consequently disappointed all the views of their
covctousness and ambition, he gained comparatively but few
converts, and was abused and persecuted by the priests and
men in power, whom the multitude blindly followed, and at
last put to death with great torment and ignominy. From
this plain and unquestionably true account of the fact, it

406 DEATH OF CHRIST.
appears that his sufferings were the natural consequence of
attempting to reform the manners of a degenerate age, and
opposing the superstition and darling prejudices of the Jewish
nation ; and could not be avoided, but by such a compliance
on his part, as would have been inconsistent with virtue and
integrity, or by a miraculous interposition of Providence.
And God, who foresaw all this, appointed that the death of
Christ, which really happened in the natural course of things,
should be considered as a sacrifice.
Let me observe, by the way, that by considering the matter
in this light, aU objections against the justice of God, in
determining that an innocent person should suffer for the
guilty, are entirely obviated. For the death of Christ was
not appointed absolutely and arbitrarily with this view, but,
which is vastly different, and cannot sure have the least
appearance of injustice, it fell out just as other events do, in
the common course of things ; and aU that can be immediately
attributed to God in the whole affair is, that he sent him into
the world, though he foresaw the consequences of it ; and
ordered that his death, which would have happened without a
miracle, if there had been no such design, should be regarded
as a sacrifice. Though, I must own, I cannot see, if the
matter had been otherwise, how it could be unjust, or tyran
nical, to propose even to an innocent person to suffer, with his
own free consent, in order to promote so great a good ; espe
cially if we suppose, what the Christian revelation expressly
teaches in the present case, that he would be gloriously and
amply rewarded for it. Having thus removed aU the difficul
ties of any moment that lie against this doctrine, the only
thing that remains is to show what wise ends might be served
by it.
I shall not inquire into the original of expiatory sacrifices,
which were as early in the world as the first accounts of his
tory ; whether they were owing to an express appointment of
God, as may seem probable from the history of Moses, or had
their rise from the fears and superstition of mankind, who,
being uneasy under a sense of guilt, confused in their reason-

DEATH OF CHRIST. 407
ings about the goodness of the Deity, and uncertain whether
he would accept them, notwithstanding past offences, upon
their repentance and reformation only, (though, I make no
doubt, they might have argued this truth, with a good deal of
probability, even from the light of nature,) would naturally
fly to every little expedient, that their bewildered imagina
tions suggested might be proper ; and so began first with
sacrificing brute creation, and afterwards, as their distrust and
fears increased, had recourse, in many heathen nations, to the
abominable practice of human sacrifices. Which shows plain
ly, that their reason was more and more perplexed, and cor
rupted, and- darkened to a prodigious degree, with respect to
the very fundamental principles of religion and virtue.
B sacrificing was entirely a human invention, it would be
hard to give any account of it, more /than of innumerable
other superstitions, which, in the darkness and extreme de
pravity of the Pagan world, almost universally prevailed.
Human sacrifices are a disgrace to our nature, as well as in
the highest degree dishonorable to God. And for others,
there is no foundation at all in reason to suppose that they
could expiate the guUt of moral offences, or be of the least
efficacy towards reinstating the sinner in the Divine favor.
On the other hand, if sacrifices were originally of Divine
appointment, they could not be designed to propitiate the
Deity, because the very institution of them necessarily sup
posed that he was already propitious. For what end then
were they ordained ? Was it because the all-wise and merci
ful Governor of the world delighted in the blood of innocent
animals ? Or was he fond of being served with great ex
pense and ceremony ? These are low and unworthy concep
tions of him. All the uses therefore that it was possible, in
reason, for sacrifices to serve, or, consequently, that they
should be designed to answer, if they were of divine original,
may I think be reduced to these two ; namely, keeping up a
firm belief of God's reconcilableness, and being ready to
forgive his guUty creatures upon their repentance, and, at the
same time, a strong sense of the evil of sin, and their own

408 DEATH OP CHRIST.
demerit upon the account of it. In this view of standing
memorials and testimonies to the most important truths, they
might be very useful ; but proper expiations they neither
were, nor could b'e, whether they began from superstition, or
immediate revelation.
And now the death of Christ may be very fitly represented
as a sacrifice, nay, described in the strongest sacrificial
phrases, since it answered completely aU the rational pur
poses that expiatory sacrifices could ever serve. It is a
standing memorial of God's being propitious, and inclined, as
the Christian revelation assures us, not only to forgive sin in
part, but entirely, and not only to remit the whole of the
punishment, which the sinner had deserved, but moreover to
bestow on him the glorious reward of eternal happiness upon
his sincere repentance and reformation, and persevering in a
virtuous course. So that it removes the uncertainty of our
natural reasonings, and is wisely calculated to maintain in all
ages a firm belief of that fundamental principle of all re
hgion, which men's superstitious fears had very much cor
rupted and darkened, and gives the strongest possible en
couragement to virtue.
Again, the death of Christ considered under the notion of
a sacrifice wUl be, to the end of the world, a most lively
memorial of the evU and demerit of sin. Nay, as God, in
his infinite wisdom, has ordered it in such a manner, that
nothing less should be considered as the sacrifice for the sins
of the world than the death of a person so dear to him and
of such transcendent dignity and excellence, he has by this
appointment declared much more strongly his displeasure
against sin, and what the sinner himself deserved to suffer,
and cut off more effectuaUy from wilful and impenitent
offenders all ground of presumptuous hope and confidence
in his mercy, than it was possible to do by any sacrifices of
brute creatures. So that by the way in which he has con
descended to pardon us there is the utmost discouragement
given to vice, and the greatest care taken that could be by any
method whatever to preserve the honor of the Divine gov-

DEATH OF CHRIST. 409
ernment, and the reverence due to the authority of its laws.
For, besides what hath been already suggested, a sense of our
UI deserts upon account of our transgressions, of which the
death of Christ represented as a sacrifice is a most affecting
memorial, has a natural tendency to inspire us with the deep
est humility, and fill us with shame and remorse for having
deviated from the rule of right, and consequently to make us
more circumspect and regular in our future behavior ; and a
sense of God's great goodness in freely forgiving our offences,
when we had merited quite the contrary, must, if we have
any sentiments of gratitude or honor, make us solicitous to
please, and fearful of offending him.
B it be asked, how the death of Christ can answer the
purpose of an expiatory sacrifice, when it happened in the
natural course of things, and was not appointed directly, and
only with that view, I answer, that, such sacrifices being
never designed to propitiate the Deity, or as proper expia
tions, but memorials, in the manner above explained, there is
no difficulty in accounting for it. For, in all other cases, it
was God's appointing and accepting the sacrifice only, that
made it a proper memorial ; otherwise it could have no sig-
nificancy, but what the fancy and superstition of men sug
gested. The use of sacrifices, therefore, depending entirely
on his institution of them, or at least the use of those which
were directly of his ordaining being that, and that only, which
he intended, it foUows, in the very nature of the thing, that if
he is pleased to caU the death of Christ a sacrifice, and would
have it considered under that character, it must be a fit
memorial of all he designed should be represented by it.
And, besides, it has been shown, that there are several cir
cumstances which render it a more useful memorial, than
any other sacrifices that were ever offered.
Let me add to what has been said concerning the advan
tages of considering the death of Christ as a sacrifice in
general, that by its being described as the one offering which
has " perfected for ever them that are sanctified," Heb. x.
14, the Christian religion has guarded, in the most effectual
35

410 DEATH OF CHRIST.
manner, against the, use of all sacrifices for the future, and
particularly against, human sacrifices, one of the most mon
strous corruptions of anything which has borne the name of
religion, that ever appeared in the world. And I would hope,
that even its adversaries will allow this to be a great argu
ment in its favor, that it was so wisely suited to the state of
the world at that time, and not only abolished sacrificing, but
in a way accommodated in some measure to the general con
ceptions and prejudices of mankind, and consequently the •
more likely to take, guarded against the revival of a custom
afterwards, (preserving however all the rational uses of it,)
which had been the source of infinite superstition.
Should it be said, that there is no need of such memorials
as sacrifices were, and the death of Christ is represented to
be, because if the Christian religion had asserted clearly that
God is a propitious being, and particularly expressed the
terms upon which his guilty creatures might be reconciled to
him, — if it had declared absolutely against the use of all sacri
fices, and condemned especially the barbarity and inhumanity
of human sacrifices, — this alone would have been sufficient ;
I answer, that it might indeed have been sufficient ; but how
does it appear, which is the point on which the argument
wholly turns, that the appointing a memorial of these things,
in the sacrifice of Christ, is useless ? Thus much is unde
niable, that these things do not in the least interfere. But,
besides, was not the great end in view most likely to be se
cured by positive declarations, and a standing memorial both,
that will naturally give hght to and strengthen each other ?
To which we may add, that the superstition of men will in
some circumstances pervert the plainest words ; but it is not
so easy to evade the design of a memorial, especially in that
very way, namely, under the notion of a sacrifice, to which
their superstition would directly tend.
There is nothing, that I can find, advanced by the author
of Christianity as old as the Creation, upon this head, but
what has been fully obviated, or goes upon the common mis
takes of the Scripture doctrine of Christ's sacrifice. Only,

DEATH OF CHRIST. 41]
whereas, he says, " that the reasons assigned for it could
never influence those who never heard of Christ." * I allow
it. But what then ? Is it not enough, that they may be of
great use to those who have heard of him ? Nay, the doc
trine of Christ's being a propitiation for the sins of the whole
world is not therefore useless, because a great part of the
world know nothing of it, since it is of the highest moral
advantage to those who enjoy the Christian revelation ; as it
represents to them the universal goodness of the common
Father of mankind, and that " in every nation, he that feareth
God, and worketh righteousness, is accepted with him " ; and,
consequently, encourages universal benevolence, and an es
teem of the whole rational creation, however distinguished by
external privileges, and restrains that spiritual pride and
insolence, which prompt many Christians, to the reproach of
our holy religion, (and is indeed too common in all rehgious
sects, who imagine the superiority to be on their side,) to
confine, the favor of God to themselves, and despise, censure,
and condemn all others.
I proceed now to point out a few of the excellences and
eminent advantages of that positive institution of Christianity,
in which we commemorate the death of Christ, and particu
larly under the character of a sacrifice. And the moral uses
of it are so plain, and withal so various, and exceeding great,
that it may be questioned, whether anything of a positive
nature can possibly be appointed, that has a stronger tendency
to promote the practice of virtue, nay, as wUl sufficiently
appear by just enumerating them, of the most amiable, gen
erous, and heroic virtue.
In general, as we perform this service in honor of Christ,
we thereby, as weU as by baptism, solemnly profess our belief
of his religion, and consequently engage to make it the rule
of our behavior. But to mention some of its peculiar ad
vantages. Frequently commemorating the death of Christ,
as a sacrifice for sin, must maintain in us a constant, firm
* Christianity, &c., p. 418.

412

DEATH OF CHRIST.

belief of that first principle even of natural rehgion, that God
is ready to forgive all sincere penitents, and " a rewarder of
them that diligently seek him " ; and, at the same time, as it
sets before us our own great demerit, must impress a strong
and lively sense of the goodness of God, in freely pardoning
our offences, and rewarding so abundantly our sincere though
imperfect virtue ; the natural consequence of which will be,
shame for having done amiss, and affronted the government
of so gracious and compassionate a Being, and the highest
abhorrence of such an ungenerous conduct for the future.
B we reflect, with becoming gratitude, on God's wonderful
benevolence and mercy to mankind, it is impossible but this
must produce a cheerful obedience to aU his commands, and
especiaUy a delight in doing good after his most excellent and
perfect example. Again, when we remember, that the very
design of the death of Christ was " to redeem us from aU
iniquity," and make us " zealous of good works," Tit. ii. 14,
and that upon these terms only we are to expect any ad
vantage from it, nothing can have a more powerful tendency
to excite to strict and universal purity.
Further, if we consider our partaking of this ordinance as
a communion, " the cup of blessing, which we bless, as the
communion of the blood of Christ, and the bread, which we
break, as the communion of the body of Christ," 1 Cor. x. 1 6,
by which we acknowledge all sincere Christians, however
denominated and distinguished, as our brethren, members
together with ourselves of the same spiritual body, or society,
entitled to the same privUegeSj and having the same " hope
of their calling " ; that " we, being many, are one bread, and
one body, because we are aU partakers of that one bread,"
ver. 17; — this must be of excellent. use to promote mutual
esteem, concord, and harmony ; and, if the true intention of
it was followed, would make Christians regard one another ac
cording to their real merit, and not for the trifling peculiarities
of any particular sect, and effectuaUy reconcUe all party
differences ; by which means impositions upon conscience, vio
lent controversies, unscriptural terms of communion, schisms,

DEATH OF CHRIST. 413
persecutions, which have been of fatal consequence both to
religion and civil society, would be entirely prevented. But
lest we should stop here, and confine our benevolence to the
household of faith, considering the death of Christ as " a pro
pitiation for the sins of the whole world," 1 John ii. 2, will
naturally inspire a universal love of mankind. For there is
an irresistible force in the Apostle's argument, " B God so
loved us, we," who are dependent upon and obliged to each
other, and cannot subsist without a mutual intercourse of good
offices, " ought much more to love one another." Chap. iv. 11.
Indeed, commemorating the death of Christ in a devout
and solemn manner, in its entire design, and with all its cir
cumstances, will suggest the greatest and most generous sen
timents, and afford motives to the most extensive and heroic
benevolence that mankind can possibly practise. For, besides
what has been already hinted, if we consider that God gave
his Son to die for us while we were enemies, Rom. v. 10,
this must kill all the seeds of malice and revenge in us, and
raise such a noble spirit of humanity and compassion as the
greatest injuries shall not bear down and extinguish; which
will be further strengthened by reflecting on the behavior of
Christ, who under the greatest abuses and indignities pitied
and prayed for his persecutors. His example, hkewise, in
choosing to die rather than forfeit his integrity, and to pro
mote the happiness of mankind, will teach us, and accordingly
it is thus inculcated by St. John, 1 John iii. 16, to sacrifice aU
private considerations, nay, life itself, for the public good ;
and, besides, has a tendency to beget in us an entire submis
sion to Providence under the worst circumstances that may
befall us, and an undaunted fortitude, resolution, and con
stancy of mind, when we are called to suffer in a good cause,
and for the advancement of truth and virtue. And all these
arguments will receive an additional force, when we reflect
that the example we commemorate is that of a friend and
generous benefactor, an example that is in itself amiable, and
which we should consequently be ambitious to imitate ; and
from the innocence and dignity of the sufferer.
35*

414 DEATH OP CHRIST.
As therefore it appears that we cannot commemorate the
death of Christ in the manner in which Christianity has com
manded it, without having our resolutions to practise univer
sal virtue strengthened, and improving in the greatest, most
amiable, useful, and godlike dispositions, which this institution
has a peculiar and most admirable aptitude to excite and con
firm ; need I add anything more to prove that it is worthy
of God, a being of absolute purity, a being of most perfect
and universal goodness ? Or that it is becoming the wisdom
of his providence, and suitable to the great end he has in
view, the rectitude and happiness of the moral creation, to
oblige us by a law made on purpose, and the practice of a
plain, significant rite, to enter frequently upon such reflec
tions as are of the utmost inoral use, and yet, without some
institution of this kind, (considering how httle inclined the
bulk of mankind are to think, unless they are put upon it,)
are likely to be omitted, or very much neglected ; and, be
sides, cannot reasonably be expected to have that weight
and influence in a slight, cursory, occasional meditation, as
they wiU very probably, when they are considered as a
solemn act of devotion, which we perform in obedience to
an express Divine command ?

THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS, IN
RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY.
Bt ARTHUR P. STANLEY, M. A.,*
CANON OP CANTERBURY.
" Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord t" — 1 Cor. ix. 1.
The two Epistles to the Corinthians, as has been already
observed, are eminently historical ; and in the course of the
remarks made upon them it has been my object to draw out
as clearly as possible every iUustration or testimony which
they afford to the history of the early Church. But there is
another kindred question, which is so important in itself, that,
though partiaUy touched upon in the several passages which
bear upon it, it may yet not be out of place at the close of
these Epistles to consider it as a whole.
The question which the Apostle asked of his Judaizing op
ponents, and which his Judaizing opponents asked of him,
" Have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord ? " is one which in
our days has been often asked in a wider sense than that in
which the words, were used by the Apostle or his adversaries.
" Is the representation of Christ in the Epistles the same as
the representation of Christ in the Gospels ? — What is the
evidence, direct or indirect, furnished by St. Paul to the facts
of the Gospel history? If the Gospels had perished, could
we from the Epistles form an image of Christ, like to that
which the Gospels present ? Can we discover between the
Epistles and the Gospels any such coincidences and rescm-
* Erom his Commentary on the Epistles of Paul to the Corinthians.

416 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
blance as Paley discovered between the Epistles and the
Acts ? Is the ' Gospel ' of the Evangelical Apostle different
from the ' Gospel ' of the Evangelistic narratives ? "
Such an inquiry has been started sometimes in doubt, some
times in perplexity. It is suggested partly by the nature of
the case, by that attitude of separation and independent action
which St. Paul took apart from the other Apostles, and which,
even irrespectively of his writings, awakened in the minds of
his opponents the suspicion that " he had not seen the Lord
Jesus," — that he was not truly an " Apostle of Christ," and
that therefore " he taught things contrary to Christ's teach
ing." It is suggested also by the attempts which in later
times have been made, both by those without and by those
within the outward pale of Christianity, to widen the breach
between the teaching of the Epistles and the Gospels ; both
by those- who have been anxious to show that the Christian
faith ought to be sought in " not Paul, but Jesus " ; and by
those who believe and profess that " the Gospel " is contained,
not in the Evangelical History, but in the Pauline Epistles.
From many points of view, and to many minds, questions
like these will seem superfluous or unimportant. But, touch
ing as they do on various instructive subjects, and awakening
in some quarters a peculiar interest, they may well, demand a
consideration here. The two Epistles to Corinth are those
from which an answer may most readUy be obtained, both
because they contain all, or almost all, of the most important
aUusions to the subject of the Gospel history, and also be
cause they belong to the earliest, as well as the most undis
puted, portion of the Apostohcal writings. At the same time,
it will not interfere with the precision or unity of the inquiry,
if it includes such iUustrations as may be furnished by the
other Epistles also.
I. The first class of coincidences to which we most naturally
turn, are those which relate to isolated sayings of Christ.
This (partly for reasons which will be stated hereafter) is the
least satisfactory part of the inquiry. It cannot be denied
that they are few and scanty, and that, in these few, there

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 417
is in no case an exact correspondence with the existing
narratives. There are in St. Paul's Epistles only two occasions on
which our Lord's authority is directly quoted. Li 1 Cor. vii.
10, when speaking of marriage, the Apostle refers to a com
mand of the Lord, as distinct from a command of his own,
and'as the command he gives the words, " Let not the wife
depart from her husband." In 1 Cor. ix. 14, when speaking
of the right of the Apostles to receive a maintenance from
those whom they taught, he says, " Even so the Lord ' or
dained ' (huTagev) that they which preach the Gospel should
live of the Gospel." In neither case are the exact words of
the existing records quoted ; but we can hardly doubt that he
refers in one case to the prohibition, " Whosoever shall put
away his wife .... causeth her to commit adultery " (Matt v.
32 ; Mark x. 11 ; Luke xvi. 18) ; in the other, to the com
mand to the Twelve and the Seventy, " Carry neither purse
nor scrip nor shoes, . . . .for the laborer is worthy of his hire "
(Luke x. 4, 7 ; Matt. x. 9, 10).
To these quotations we may add, that in the Acts of the
Apostles (xx. 35), in his speech to the Ephesian elders,
" Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, It is
more blessed to give than to receive." It is also to be observed,
that, in closing the discussion on the conduct of Christian as
semblies (1 Cor. xiv. 37), he says, " If any man think himself
to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the
things that I write unto you are commandments of the Lord "
(xvpiov evToXai). The form of expression seems to imply that
here, as in vii. 10, he is referring to some distinct regulation
of Christ, which he was endeavoring to follow out. But if
so, this, like the saying just quoted in Acts xx. 35, is now
nowhere to be found.
Four other passages may be mentioned, which, not from
any distinct reference on the part of the Apostle, but from
their likeness of expression, may seem to have been derived
from the circle of our Lord's teaching, (a.) " Being reviled, we
bless " (Xoihopovpevoi eiXoyovpev, 1 Cor. iv. 28), may have some

418 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
relation to Luke vi. 28, " Bless them that curse you " (eiXo-
ye-Tre robs Karapapivovs). (/3.) " Know ye not that the saints
shall judge the world?" (1 Cor. vi. 2) may refer to Luke
xxii. 30 (Matt. xix. 28), " Te shall sit on thrones, judging
the twelve tribes of Israel." (y.) In the command that the
woman is to " attend on the Lord without distraction " (eiird-
pehpov .... dnepio-irdo-ras, 1 Cor. vii. 35), the two emphatic
words are substantially the same as are employed in the nar
rative containing the commendation of Mary. " Mary sitting "
(irapaKa8ia-ao-a), "Martha cumbered" (rrepieo-irdro, Luke X. 39,
40). (8.) Bi 1 Cor. xiii. 2, " Faith, so that I could remove
mountains" may be an allusion to Matt. xvii. 20.: " If ye
have faith, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence''
These instances, however, are aU too doubtful to serve as the
foundation of an argument.
With respect to all, however, three remarks may be made,
more or less important : First, their want of exact agreement
with the words of the Gospel narrative imphes (what indeed
can hardly be doubted for other reasons), that, at the time
when the Epistles to Corinth were written, the Gospels in
their present form were not yet in existence. Secondly, this
same discrepancy of form, combined with an unquestionable
likeness in spirit, agrees with the discrepancies of a similar
kind which are actuaUy found between the Gospel narratives ;
and, when contrasted with the total dissimilarity of such iso
lated sayings as are ascribed to Christ by Benseus, show that
the atmosphere, so to speak, of the Gospel history extended
beyond the limits of its actuaUy existing records, and that
within that atmosphere the Apostle was included. The Apos
tle, to whom we owe the preservation of the saying, " It is
more blessed to give than to receive," has thereby become to
us truly an " Evangelist." Thirdly, the manner in which the
Apostle refers to these sayings proves the undisputed claim
which they had already established, not only in his own mind,
but in that of the whole Church. He himself still argues
and entreats " as the Scribes " ; but he quotes the sentence of
Christ, as that from which there was to be no appeal, " as of

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 419
one having authority." " Not I, but the Lord " (1 Cor. vii.
10), is the broad distinction drawn between his own sugges
tions respecting marriage, and the principle which the Lord
had laid down, and which accordingly is incorporated in three
out of the four Gospels, and once hi the discourse especially
designed to furnish the universal code of Christian morality.*
So, too, the command that the teachers of the Gospel were
"to live of the Gospel" (1 Cor. ix. 14), had received such
entire and absolute acceptance, that it was turned by the Ju
daizing party into a universal and inflexible rule, admitting
of no deviation, even for the sake of Christian love. Already
the Lord's words had become the law of the Christian so
ciety ; already they had been subjected to that process by
which, as in later times so in this particular instance, the less
enlightened disciples have severed the sacred text from the
purpose to which it was originally applied, and sacrificed the
spirit of the passage to a devout but mistaken observance of
the letter.
H. From the particular sayings, we turn to the particular
acts of the life of Christ. These, as might be supposed,
appear more frequently, though still not so generaUy as at
first sight we should naturally expect.
To the earher events it may be said that the allusions are
next to none. " Born (yevopevov) of the seed of David after
the flesh" (Rom. i. 3), " born of a woman" (yevopevov ck
yvvaiKOs), " born under the law" (yevopevov vrrb vbpov), Gal. iv.
4, are the only distinct references to the Nativity and its ac
companiments. So far as they go, they illustrate the stress
laid by the Evangehsts on the lineage of David (Luke ii. 4,
23, Matt. i. 1), on the announcement and manner of his
birth (Luke ii. 4, Matt. i. 23), and on the ritual observances
which immediately followed (Luke ii. 21 - 24). But this is
all ; and perhaps the coincidence of silence between the
Apostle and the two Evangehsts, who equally with himself
omit these earlier events, is more remarkable than his slight
* Matt. v. 32 ; Mark x. 11 ; Luke xvi. 18.

420

THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,

confirmation of the two who record them. The likeness to
St. Mark and St. John in this respect may, if we so consider
it, be regarded as instructive as the unlikeness to St. Luke
and St. Matthew.
Neither is there any detailed allusion to the ministry or
miracles of Christ. To the miracles, indeed, there is none,
unless it be granted that in the expression, " Ye cannot par
take of the Lord's table, and the table of devils " (haipoviav)
(1 Cor. x. 21), the peculiar stress laid on that word, not else
where used by the Apostle, is deepened by the recollection
that He whose table they thus profaned had so long and
often cast out the very demons with which they now brought
themselves into contact. To the general manner, however, of
our Lord's mode of life, there is one strong testimony which
agrees perfectly both with the fact and the spirit of the Gos
pel narrative. 2 Cor. vin. 9, "For your sakes He became.
poor " (errraxevo-e). To this we must add the corresponding,
though somewhat more general, expression in Phil. ii. 7.
"He took upon Him the form of a slave" (pop<pb,v hovXov).
It is possible, perhaps probable from the context, that in both
these passages the Apostle may have meant generaUy the
abnegation of more than earthly wealth and power, the as
sumption of more than earthly poverty and humiliation. But
the context shows, ajso, that poverty in the one case, and
lowliness of life in the other, each in its usual sense, were the
special thoughts in the Apostle's mind ; and in the case of
" poverty," the word (enraxevo-e) can signify nothing less than
that He led a life, not only of need and want, but of houseless
wandering and distress. It points exactly to that state, im
plied rather than expressly described in the Gospels, in which
" He had not where to lay His head " ; and in which He per
severed " when He was rich " ; that is, when He might have
taken the " kingdom of Judaea," " the kingdoms of the world,"
and " twelve legions of angels " to defend Him.
But it is in the closing scenes of our Lord's life that the
Apostle's allusions centre. In this respect, his practice is
confirmed by the outward form of the four Gospels, which

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 421
unite in this portion of the history, and in this portion only.
This concentration, however caused, is the same both in the
Evangelists ' and in the Apostle. His " Gospel," it would
seem, in his narrative of the events of the Evangelical his
tory, began with the sufferings of Christ. " First of all, I
delivered to you how that Christ died for our sins " (1 Cor.
xv. 8). And the main subject of his preaching in Corinth
and in Galatia was the crucifixion of Christ, not merely the
fact of his death, but the horror and shame of the manner
of his death. "The cross of Christ" (1 Cor. i. 17, 18) ;
" Christ crucified " (ib. ii. 23) ; even vividly, and, if one may
so say, graphically portrayed before their eyes ; " Jesus
Christ was evidently set forth (' as in a picture,'. rrpoey pdcprj)
crucified amongst them" (Gal. iii. 1).
The distinct allusions to His sufferings are few, but precise ;
for the most part entirely agreeing with the Gospel narra
tives, and implying much more than is actuaUy expressed.
There are two not contained in these Epistles, but certainly
within the limits of the teaching of the Apostle., One is the
aUusion to the agony in the garden, in Heb. v. 7 : "In the
days of his flesh, when he had offered up prayers and sup
plications and strong crying and tears unto Him that was able
to save him from death, and was heard in that he feared."
That the account is drawn from a source independent of the
four Gospels is clear from the mention of tears, which on that
occasion nowhere occurs in the Gospel narratives. But the
general tendency is precisely similar. The other is the aUu
sion in 1 Tim. vi. 13, to " the good confession " which Christ
Jesus " witnessed before Pontius Pilate." This is the more
remarkable, because, although it may be sufficiently explained
by the answer, " Thou say est," in Matt, xxvii. 11, yet it
points much more naturally to the long and solemn interview
peculiar to the narrative of St. John. (John xviii. 28 - xix.
12.) But the most definite and exact agreement of the Apos
tle's writings with the Gospel narratives is that which, in
1 Cor. xi. 23 - 26, contains the earliest written account of the
institution of the Lord's Supper. It is needless to point out

422 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
in detail what has already been shown in the notes on that
passage. But it is important to observe how very much it
imphes as to the Apostle's knowledge of the whole story.
Not only are the particulars of this transaction told in almost
the same words, — the evening meal, the night of the be
trayal, the Paschal loaf, the Paschal cup, the solemn insti
tution, — but the form of words is such as was evidently
part of a fixed and regular narrative ; the whole history of
the Passion must have been known to St. Paul, and by him
been told in detaU to the Corinthians ; and, if so, we may
fairly conclude that many other incidents of the sacred story
must have been related to them, no less than this which, but
for the peculiar confusions of the Corinthian Church, would
have remained unrecorded.
The Resurrection, like the Death, of Christ, is the subject
of allusions too numerous to be recounted. But here, as in
the case of the Death, we have one passage which shows us
that not merely the bare fact was stated, but also its accom
panying circumstances. This is the almost necessary infer
ence from the enumeration of the various appearances of
Christ after his Resurrection, as recorded in 1 Cor. xv. 4-7.
Here, as in the four Gospel narratives, a distinct prominence
is given to the Burial of Christ, here, as there, in connection
with the Resurrection rather than the Death ; here, as there,
the appearances are described as occasional only, not constant
or frequent ; one of those to which the Apostle refers (that to
Peter) is alluded to in the Gospels (Luke xxiv. 34) ; the
appearance to the Twelve is described in Matt, xxviii. 16 (?) ;
Mark xvi. 14; Luke xxiv. 36 ; John xx. 19. On the other
hand, the mention of the appearance to James, and to the five
hundred brethren, shows that, although in substance the same
narrative, it is different in form ; the source is independent ;
there are still the same lesser discrepancies between the
Apostle and the Evangelists, as between the several Evan
gelists themselves.
It may be observed, in concluding these detailed references
to the Gospel history, that they almost aU, so far as they

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 423
refer to one Gospel narrative rather than another, agree with
that of St. Luke. The exceptions are the doubtful allusions
to the interview recorded by St John, in 1 Tim. vi. 13 ; the
saying recorded by St. Matthew, in 1 Cor. xiii. 4 ; and the
agreement with St. John and St. Mark, rather than with St.
Luke, in omission of distinct references to our Lord's early
history. AU the rest, even to words and phrases, have a re
lation to St. Luke's Gospel, so intimate as to require some
explanation ; and there is no reason why we should not adopt,
the account anciently received, that the author or compiler of
that Gospel was the companion of the Apostle.
These are the main facts which are recorded from the Gos
pel History. Perhaps they wiU not seem many ; yet, so far
.as they go, they are not to be despised. From them a story
might be constructed, even if we knew no more, which would
not be at variance — which, in all essential points, would be
in unison ¦ — ¦ with the Gospel narrative.
in. But the impression of this unison will be much con
firmed, if from particular sayings or facts we pass to the
general character of Christ, as described in these Epistles.
(1.) It may be convenient, in the first instance, to recall
those passages which speak of our Lord in the most general
manner, — 1 Cor. i. 30, Which tells us that " He was made unto
us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemp
tion " ; 1 Cor. vin. 6, which speaks of " the one Lord Jesus
Christ, by whom are all things, and we by him " ; 1 Cor. xv.
45, in which He is called " the second Adam " ; 2 Cor. v. 1 6,
19, in which He is spoken of as the Judge of all men, and
that in Him was God, reconciling the world unto himself by
Him. Other passages to the same effect might be multiplied,
but these wiU suffice.
We are so familiar with the sound of these words, and so
much accustomed to apply them to other purposes, that we
rarely think of the vastness and complexity, and at the same
time freshness and newness, of the ideas implied in their first
application to an actual, individual Man. Let us imagine our
selves hearing them for the first time, — perceiving that they

424 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
were uttered by one who had the deepest and most sober
conviction of their truth, — perceiving, also, that they were
spoken, not of some remote or ideal character, but of One who
had lived and died during the youth or early manhood of him
who so spoke. Should we not ask, like the Psalmists and
Prophets of old, " Who is this King of glory ? Who is this
that cometh, travelling in the greatness of his strength?"
With what eagerness should we look for any direct account
, of the life and death, to which such passages referred, to see
whether or not the one corresponded with the other ?
Let us (for the sake of illustration) conceive ourselves, in
the first instance,, turning to the Apocryphal Gospels, — the
Gospels of the Infancy, of James, of Thomas, and of Nicode-
mus, from which (it is no imaginary case) was derived the
only picture of our Lord's life known to the Arabian and Sy
rian tribes of the seventh century, in the time of Mahomet ;
and we should at once feel that with the utterly trivial and
childish fables of those narratives the Apostle's representation
had no connection whatever. The Koran, wishing to speak
with high respect of " Jesus, the Son of Mary," contains a
chapter devoted to the subject. The following is the speech
which He is represented as uttering, to commend himself to
the Jews : " I come to you, accompanied by signs from the
Lord. I shall make of clay the figure of a bird ; I shall
breathe upon it, and, by God's permission, the bird shall fly.
I shaU heal him that was born blind, and the leper ; I shab
by God's permission, raise the dead. I will tell you what
you have eaten, and what you have hid in your houses. All
these facts shall be as signs to you, if you wiU believe. I
come to confirm the Pentateuch, which you have received
before me. I wiU permit to you the use of certain things
which have been forbidden you. I come with signs from
your Lord. Fear Him and obey me, — He is my Lord and
yours. Adore Him ; this is the right path." * It may be
that the Arabs to whom this picture of Christ was presented
* Koran iii. 43. 44.

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 425
could not have risen at the time to anything higher. But we
cannot wonder that such a picture should have produced no
deep impression upon them, or have seemed inferior to the
prophet who had himself risen up amongst them. And from
seeing what might have been the image of Christ presented to
us, we may form a liveher notion of that which has been
presented to us.
From these Apocryphal Gospels let us suppose ourselves
turning for the first time to those of the New Testament. No
one, even though doubting the inferences which the Apostle
draws, could doubt that the Christ there exhibited must haye
been He of whom he spoke. Even if the name were differ
ent, we should feel sure that the j>erson must be the same.
Here alone in that age, or any age, we should find a life and
character which was truly the second beginning of humanity ;
here, if anywhere, we should recognize God speaking to man.
In that life, if in any life, in those words and deeds, if in any
words and deeds whatever, we should see the impersonation
of wisdom, and righteousness, and hohness, and redemption.
As the readers of the Prophets instinctively acknowledged
that to Him bare all the Prophets witness, so, if we had up to
this time been readers of the Epistles only, and now first be
come acquainted with the Gospel narratives, we should even
thus far be constrained to say, " We have found Him of
whom ' Paul in his Epistles wrote,' Jesus of Nazareth, the
son of Joseph." *
The Apostle's words, then, thus considered, may be re
garded, on the one hand, as a striking testimony to the general
truth of the Gospel narrative ; on the other hand, as a strik
ing prediction of what has since taken place. On the one
hand, they presuppose that a character of extraordinary great
ness had appeared in the world ; and such a character,
whatever else may be thought of it, we actually find in the
Gospels. We feel that each justifies the other. The image
of Christ in the Gospels will be by all confessed to approach
* John i. 45.
36*

426 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
more nearly to the description of the Second Adam, the new
Founder of humanity, than any other appearance in human
history ; and if we ask what effect that life and death pro
duced at the time of its appearance, we are met by these ex
pressions of the Apostle, uttered, not as if by any effort, but
as the spontaneous burst of his own heart, within one genera
tion from the date of the events themselves. And as these
expressions correspond with the past events to which they
refer, so also do they correspond with -the future to which
they point. If the expression of " the Second Adam " was
meant to characterize a great change in the history of the
human race, we should expect to find such a change dating
and emanating from the time when the Second Adam had
appeared. Such a change we do in fact find, of which the
beginning is crowned with the hfe of Christ. It is true that
the great division of modern from ancient history does not
commence tiU four centuries later ; and it is undeniable that
the influx of the Teutonic tribes at that time had a most im
portant influence in moulding the future -destinies of the
civilized world. But still the new life which survived the
overthrow of the Empire had begun from the Christian era.
Christianity, with aU that it has involved in the religion, the
arts, the literature, the morals of Europe, beyond aU dispute
originated with Christ alone. The very dates which are now
in use throughout the world are significant, though trivial,
proofs of the justice of the Apostle's declaration, that Christ
was the Second Man ; that " as in Adam all had died, even
so in Christ all were made alive."
(2.) Thus much would be true, even if nothing more pre
cise were recorded. But every shade of this general charac
ter is, if one may so say, deepened by the Apostle's more
special aUusions ; and although perhaps, without the help of
the Gospel narratives, we might miss the point of his ex
pressions, yet with that help the image of Christ comes out
clearly, and we stiU see it to be no invention of the Apos
tle's imagination, but the same historical definite character
which is set before us in the Gospels.

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 427
(a.) " Christ Jesus was made unto us wisdom" (1 Cor. i.
30.) " Bi Him were hid all the treasures of wisdom and
knowledge." (Col. ii. 3.) " The spirit of wisdom is given to
us in the knowledge of Him." (Eph. i. 17.) These expres
sions may be merely general phrases of reverence, but how
much clearness do they gain when they are compared with
the actual display of wisdom stored up in the living instruc
tions of Christ ! There is no special reference by the Apos
tle to any of the parables or discourses of the Gospels. But
how completely do those " things new and old," " brought out
of his treasure " (Matt. xiii. 52), answer to this general de
scription of His character. " Wisdom " is not the attribute
which a zealous convert would necessarily think of applying
to the founder of his religion. It is so applied by the Apos
tle, and -we see from the Gospels that his apphcation of it
cannot be questioned.
(b.) He frequently speaks of " the truth of Christ," and he
dwells especially on the certainty and fixedness which charac
terized all His life. " In Him was not yea and nay" but
" yea and Amen." (2 Cor. i. 20.) It is at least a striking
illustration of these passages to remember what Christ again
and again says of himself in St. John's Gospel, as having
come into the world for the purpose of bearing witness to the
truth, as being the Truth ; * it is more than a mere conjec
ture to read in the Apostle's words the echo of the solemn
asseveration and ratification of truth which runs through all
the Gospel discourses, " VerUy, verUy, Amen, Amen, I say
unto you."-
(c.) The Apostle urges on his converts the freedom of the
doctrine which he preached, its contrast to the narrowness and
mystery and concealment of the Jewish law, and he tells
them that they must attain this freedom through. " the Spirit
of the Lord," that is, of Christ, and through contemplation of
his likeness. We turn to the Gospels, and we find in their
representation of Christ this very freedom of which the Apos-
* John viii. 32 ; xiv. 6 ; xviii. 37.

428 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
tie speaks exemphfied in almost every page ; the sacrifice of
the letter to the spirit, the encouragement of openness and
sincerity, there emphatically urged by precept and example,
at once give an edge and a value to the Apostle's argument,
which else it would greatly want.
(d.) The Apostle expressly appeals to the history of Christ
as an example of surrendering his own will for the sake of
the scruples of others. " We that are strong ought to bear
the infirmities of the weak" and not to please ourselves, for
even Christ pleased not himself, but, as it is written, " the re
proaches of them that reproached thee fell on me." (Rom. xv.
1, 3.) " Give none offence .... even as I please all men 
Be followers of me, even as I am of Christ." (1 Cor. x. 32,
33 ; xi. 1.) Of this consideration for human weakness and
narrowness, the direct instances in the Gospel narrative are,
perhaps, less striking than the general indication of this pecu
har aspect of the true Christ-like character. Yet his con
stant, though not universal, acquiescence in the forms of the
Mosaic law ; the limits within which he restrained his own
teaching, and that of his disciples ; the many things which
he withheld, because his disciples were not then able to bear
them ; the condescension to human weakness which runs
through the whole texture of the Gospel history, — fully jus
tify the Apostle's appeal, not the less from the very indirect
ness of the apphcation.
(e.) He beseeches his converts not to compel him to say or
do anything which shall be inconsistent with " the meekness
and gentleness (irpavTns Kal emeUeia) of Christ." (2 Cor. x. 1.)
These words are not the mere expressions of ideal adoration ;
they recall definite traits of a hving human person. They
describe traits which could not be said to be specially exem
plified in the Apostle himself, but which were exemphfied to
the full in the life and teaching of Him to whom the Apostle
ascribes them.
(f.) In many passages the Apostle speaks of Love. Bi
1 Cor. xiii. 1 - 13, he describes it at length. It is a new virtue.
Its name first occurs in his Epistles. Yet he speaks of it as

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. .429
fixed, estabhshed, recognized. To what was this owing ? To
whom does he ascribe it ? Emphatically, and repeatedly, he
attributes it to Christ. " The love of Christ." " The love of
God in Christ." Now in all the Gospels, the self-devoted,
self-sacrificing energy for the good of others which the word
" Love " (dydirn) denotes, is the prevailing characteristic of
the actions of Christ ; in the first three, the word itself is not
used ; but in the fourth, it is used even more emphatically and
repeatedly than by St. Paul ; and thus, besides its general
testimony to the truth of aU the Gospel narratives, it specially
serves to knit together in one the thoughts and words of St.
Paul and St. John.
(g.) On one occasion only the Apostle gives us an instance,
not of what he had " received " of Christ as on earth, but of
what had been revealed to him concerning Christ by himself.
In answer to his entreaty thrice offered up to Christ as to his
still present, ever-hving friend, there had been borne in upon
his soul, how we know not, a distinct message, expressed as at
his conversion in articulate words, " My grace is sufficient for
thee, my strength is perfected in weakness." In the similar
mode of revelation at the time of his conversion, " Why per-
secutest thou me ? " "I am Jesus whom thou persecutest,"
the spirit of the whole expression is the same as that which in
the Gospels represent Christ as merged in the person of the
least of his disciples. So these words of Christ, reported by
the Apostle himself in his Epistle, are an exact reflex of the
union of \ divine strength with human weakness which per
vades the narrative of aU the Gospels. There is the same
combination of majesty and tenderness, the same tones of
mingled rebuke and love, that we know so weU in the last
conversations * by the Sea of Galilee, the same strength and
virtue going forth to heal the troubled spirit, as of old to
restore the sick, and comfort the afflicted-f
We have now gone through the enumeration of all the most
* John xxi. t Luke vi. 19 ; viii. 46.

430 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
important allusions to the facts of the Gospel history which
St. Paul's epistles contain, ¦ — an enumeration tedious per
haps in itself, and without profit to many. Yet, before we
proceed, I would ask those who have followed me thus far to
pause for a moment, and reflect on the additional strength or
liveliness which this enumeration may have given to their
conceptions of the Gospel history. It is not much, but, con
sidering from whom these instances have been taken, — from
a source so near the time, from writings whose genuineness
has never been questioned by the severest criticism, — it is
something if it may suggest to any one a steadier standing-
place and a firmer footing, of however narrow hmits, amidst
the doubts or speculations which surround him. Nor, I trust,
can it have been wholly unprofitable to have approached from
another than the usual point of view the several features of
our Lord's hfe and character which I have just enumerated,
— to dwell on the Apostolic testimony rendered, one by one,
to the several acts and words, still more to the several traits,
most of aU to the collective effect, of the character, which we
usually gather only from the Gospels. His severe purity of
word and deed, — His tender care for even the temporal
wants of his disciples, — the institution of that solemn part
ing pledge of communion with Himself and with each other,
— the hope of a better life which He has opened to us,
amidst the sorrows and desolations of the world, — His stead
fastness and calmness amidst our levity and httleness, — His
free and wide sympathy amidst our prejudice and narrow
ness, — His self-denying poverty, — His gentleness and mild
ness amidst our readiness to offer and resent injuries, — His
love to mankind, — His incommunicable greatness and (so
to speak) elevation above the influence of time and fate, —
all this, at least in general outline, we should have, even if
nothing else were left to us of the New Testament but the
passages which have just been quoted.
It may still, however, be said, that these indications of the
Apostle's knowledge of the Gospel history are less than we
might fairly expect ; and we may stUl be inclined to ask why,

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 431
when there are so many resemblances, there are not more ?
why, if he knew so much as these resemblances imply, he yet
says so little ?
It is perhaps impossible to answer this fully, or, at any rate,
to answer as it deserves within the limits here prescribed.
But some suggestions may be made, which, even if they do
not entirely meet the case, may yet be sufficiently important
to deserve consideration.
First, it must be remarked that the representation of "the
life, and work, and character of Christ, in aU probabihty, be
longed to the oral, and not the written, teaching of the Apos
tle. The Gospels themselves have every appearance of
having grown up out of oral communications of this kind ;
and the word " Gospel," which must have been employed by
the Apostle substantially for the same kind of instruction as
that to which it is applied in the titles of the histories of our
Lord's life, is by him usually, if not always, used in reference,
not to what he is actually communicating in his Epistles, but
to what he had already communicated to his converts when
present. This supposition is confirmed by the fact, that the
most express quotation of a distinct saying of Christ occurs,
not in a letter of the Apostle, but in the eminently character
istic speech to the Ephesian elders (Acts xx. 18 - 35), and
that, in the two passages in the Epistles to the Corinthians
where he most clearly refers to what he had " delivered " to
them whilst he was with them (1 Cor. xi. 23 - 26 ; xv. 3 - 7),
it is clear that his instructions turned not merely on the gen
eral truths of the Christian faith, but on the detailed accounts
of the Last Supper, and of the Resurrection. Had other
subjects equaUy appropriate in the Gospel history been re
quired for his special purpose, there seems to be no reason
why he should not equally have referred^ to these also, as
communicated by him during his stay at Corinth. His oral
teaching - — that is to say, ' his first communication with his
converts — would naturally touch on those subjects in which
all believers took a common interest. The instances of that
teaching, in other words, the everlasting principles of the
Gospel, are contained, not in tradition, nor yet (except through

432 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
these general allusions) in his own writings, but in the four
Gospels. His subsequent teaching in the Epistles would
naturally relate more to his peculiar mission, — would turn
more on special occasions, — would embody more of his own
personal and individual mind. " I, not the Lord." * And in
ancient times, even more than in our own, in sacred authors
no less than classical, we must take into account the effect of
the entire absorption of the writer in his immediate subject,
to the exclusion of persons and events of the utmost impor
tance immediately beyond. Who would infer from the history
of Thucydides the existence of his contemporary Socrates ?
How different, again, is the Socrates of Xenophon from the
Socrates of Plato ! Except so far as the great truth of the
admission of the Gentiles was, in a certain sense, what he
occasionaUy calls it, " his own " peculiar " Gospel," he had
already " preached the Gospel " to his converts before he
began his Epistles to them. In the Epistles he was not em
ployed in " laying the foundation " (that was laid once for all
in " Jesus Christ," 1 Cor. iii. 10), but in " buUding up,"
" strengthening," " exhorting," " settling."
But, over and above this almost inevitable distinction, he
was in his Epistles — in his individual deahngs with his con
verts — swayed by a principle which, though implied through
out his writings, is nowhere so strongly expressed as in these
two. When called to reply to his Jewish opponents, who
prided themselves on their outward connection with Christ, as
Hebrews, as Israelites, as Ministers of Christ, as Apostles of
Christ, as specially belonging to Christ (2 Cor. v. 12, x. 7,
xi. 22, 13), when taunted by them with the very charge
which, in a somewhat altered form, we are now considering,
that he had "not seen Jesus Christ our Lord" (1 Cor. ix. 1),
his reply is to a certain extent a concession of the fact, or
rather an assertion of the principle by which he desired to
confront any such accusations. With the strongest sense of
freedom from all personal and local ties, with the deepest conj
sciousness that from the moment of his conversion aU his past
* 1 Cor. vii. 12.

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 433
hfe had vanished far away into the distance, he answers,
" Though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet hence
forth know we him no more." (2 Cor. v. 10.) Startling as
this declaration is, and caUed forth by a special occasion, it
yet involved a general truth. It is, in fact, the same pro
found instinct or feeling which penetrated, more or less, the
whole Apostolical, and even the succeeding age, with regard
to our Lord's earthly course. It is the same feeling which
appears in the fact, strange if it were not well known, that no
authentic or even pretended likeness of Christ should have
been handed down from the first century ; that the very site
of his dweUing-place at Capernaum should have been entire
ly obliterated from human memory ; that the very notion of
seeking for relics of his life and death, though afterwards so
abundant, first began in the age of Constantine. It is the
same feehng which, in the Gospel narratives themselves, is
expressed in the almost entire absence of precision as to time
and place, — in the emphatic separation of our Lord from his
kinsmen after the flesh, even from his mother herself, — in
his own solemn warning, " What and if ye shaU see the Son
of man ascend up where he was before : the words that I
speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life. It is the
spirit that quickeneth, the flesh profiteth nothing." And this
is the more observable when contrasted with the Apocryphal
Gospels, which do to a great extent condescend to the natural
or Judaic tendency, which the Gospels of the New Testament
thus silently rebuke. There we find a " Gospel of the In
fancy," filled with the fleshly marvels that dehghted afterwards
the childish minds of the Bedouin Arabs ; there first are
mentioned the local traditions of the scene of the Annunciation,
of the Nativity, of the abode in Egypt ; there is to be found
the story, on which so great a superstructure has been built in
later ages, of the parents and birth of her whom the Gospel
history calls " blessed," but studiously conceals from view.*
The Apostle's reserve no doubt was strengthened by his
* See " Evangelia Apocrypha" (ed. Tischendorf), pp. 1 - 11, 68, 79 -
81, 184, 191-201. 87

434 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS,
antagonism with his Jewish opponents ; but the principle on
which he acted is applicable to all times. It explains in what
sense our Lord's life is an example, and in what sense it is
not. That hfe is not, nor ever could be, an example to be
literaUy and exactly copied. It has been so understood, on
the one hand, even by such holy men as Francis of Assisi,
who thought that the true " Imitation of Christ " was to re
produce a fac-simile of aU its outward circumstances in his own
person. It has been so understood, on the other hand, by
some in our own day, who have attacked it on the express
ground that it could not, without impropriety, be literaUy re-
enacted by any ordinary person in England in the nineteenth
century. But it is not an example in detail ; and those who
try to make it so, whether in defence or in attack, are but
neglecting the warning which Bacon so beautifuUy gives on
the story of the rich young man in the Gospels : " Beware
how, in making the portraiture, thou breakest the pattern." *
In this sense the Christian Church, as well as the Apostle,
ought to " know Christ henceforth no more according to the
flesh." AU such considerations ought to be swallowed up in
the overwhelming sense of the moral and spiritual state in
which we stand towards Him. Bi this sense (if we may so
say) He is more truly to us the Son of God than He is the
Son of man. His life is our example, — not in its outward
acts, but in the spirit, the atmosphere which it breathes, — in
the ideal which it sets before us, — in the principles, the mo
tives, the object with which it supplies us.
This brings us to yet one more reason why St. Paul's
Epistles contain no further details of our Lord's ministry. It
was because they were to him, and to his converts, super
seded by an evidence to himself, and to them, far more con
vincing than any particular proofs or facts could have for
them, — the evidence of his own hfe, of his own constant
communion with Him in whom he lived, and moved, and had
his being. He had, no doubt, his own peculiarities of charac
ter, his own especial call to the Gentiles. These gave a turn

* Bacon's Essays, Vol. I. p. 41.

IN RELATION TO THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 435
to his life, to his teaching, to his writings. These gave the
Epistles a character of their own, which will always distin
guish them from the Gospels. But stiU the spirit which per
vaded both alike was (to use his own words, often and often
repeated) " of Christ," and " in Christ." " The life that he
lived in the flesh, he lived in the faith of the Son of God,
who. died and gave himself for him." And this " faith," on
which he dwells with an almost exclusive reverence, is not, it
must be remembered, faith in any one part or point of Christ's
work, but in the whole. " Faith in his Incarnation," " faith
in his merits," "faith in his blood," are expressions which,
though employed in later times, and, like other scholastic or
theological terms, often justly employed as summaries of the
Apostle's statements, yet are, in no instance, his own state
ments of his own belief or feeling.* Measured by the re
quirement which demands these precise forms of speech from
the hps of aU behevers, the Apostle no less than the Evan
gelists wiU be found wanting. The one grand expression, in
which his whole mind finds vent, is simply " the faith of
Christ." It is, as it were, his second conscience ; and, as men
do not minutely analyze the constituent elements of conscience,
so neither did he care minutely to describe or bring forward
the several elements which made up the character and work
of his Master. And though these elements are distinctly set
forth in the Gospels, yet the Gospels agree even here with
the Epistles, in that they, like the Epistles, put forward not
any one part, but the complex whole, as the object of adora
tion and faith. The language of our Lord in the Gospels,
like that of St Paul regarding him in the Epistles, is (not
" Beheve in my miracles," " Believe in my death," " Beheve
in my resurrection," hut) " Believe in me."
FinaUy, if it be said that this is an impression too vague
and impalpable to be definitely traced, the answer is in the
Apostle's character. Much there was doubtless peculiar to
himself, much that was pecuhar to his own especial mission.
But, if in any human character we can discern the effect pro-
* The apparent exception in Rom. iii. 25 is, it need hardly be ob
served to those acquainted with the original language, only apparent.

436 THE EPISTLES TO THE CORINTHIANS.
duced by contact with another higher and greater than itself,
such an effect may be discovered in that of St. Paul : " The
love of Christ," * the love which Christ had shown to man,
was, as he himself teUs us, his " constraining " motive. That
love, with the acts in which it displayed itself, was the great
event which rose up behind him as the background of his life ;
as the single point from which all his thoughts diverged in the
past, and to which they converged again in the future. Unless
a love, surpassing all love, had been manifested to him, we
know not how he could have been so constrained ; and, we
must also add, unless a freedom from his past prejudices and
passions had been effected for him, by the sight of some high
er freedom than his own, we know not how he could have
been thus emancipated.
Such a love, and such a freedom, we find in St. Paul's
Epistles. Such a combination — rarely, if ever, seen before,
rarely, alas ! seen since — is one of the best proofs of the
reality of the original acts in which that combination was
first manifested. The Gospel narratives, as we now possess
them, were, in all probability, composed long after these Epis
tles. But the hfe which they describe must have been
anterior. That life is " the glory," of which, as the Apostle
himself says, his writings and actions are " the reflection."
Whatever other diversities, peculiarities, infirmities, impass
ably divide the character of the Apostle from that of his
Master, in this union of fervor and freedom there was a com
mon likeness which cannot be mistaken. The general im
pulses of his new life — " the grace of God, by which he was
what he was " — could have come from no other source.
Whatever may be the force of the particular allusions and
passages which have been collected, the general effect of his
whole hfe and writings can hardly leave any other impression
than that — whether by " revelation," or by " receiving "
from others, whether " in the body, or out of the body," f we
cannot tell — he had indeed seen, and known, and loved, and
followed Jesus Christ our Lord.
* 2 Cor. v. 14. t Gal. i. 12 ; 1 Cor. xi. 23 -xv. 3 ; 2 Cor. xii. 3.

APOSTOLICAL WORSHIP.
By Eev. ARTHUR P. STANLEY.
I Cor. xiv. 26 - 40.
It may be important, at the close of this Section, contain
ing, as it does, the Apostle's final advice on Christian worship,
to sum up all that this Epistle, combined with the other notices
in the New Testament, has presented to us on this subject.
First. The Christian assemblies of the Apostolical age, un
like those of later times, appear not to have been necessarily
controUed by any fixed order of presiding ministers. We
hear, indeed, of " presbyters," or " elders, " in the churches of
Asia Minor,* and of Jerusalem.! And in the church of
Thessalonica mention is made of " rulers " (rrpo'io-Tapevovs
vpav) ; X and, in the churches of Galatia, of " teachers " (t<3
Karnxovvri). § As the object is here only to give the state
of the Church at the time of these Epistles to Corinth, no
notice need be taken of the aUusions in Epistles of a later
date. But no aUusion is to be found to the connection of
these ministers or officers, if so they are to be caUed, with the
worship of the Apostolic Church, and the omission of any
such is an almost decisive proof that no such connection was
then deemed necessary. Had the Christian society at Corinth
been what it was at the time when Clement addressed his
Epistle to it, or what that at Ephesus is imphed to have been
* Acts xiv. 23. t Acts xi. 30 ; xv. 6, 22, 23.
{ 1 Thess. v. 12. 4 Gal. vi. 6.
37*

438 APOSTOLICAL WORSHIP.
in the Ignatian Epistles, it is almost inevitable that some
reference should have been made by the Apostle to the pre
siding government which was to control the ebulhtions of
sectarian or fanatical enthusiasm ; that he should have spoken
of the presbyters, whose functions were infringed upon by
the prophets and speakers with tongues, or whose authority
would naturally moderate and restrain their excesses. Noth
ing of the kind is to be found. The gifts are to be regulated
by mutual accommodation, by general considerations of order
and usefulness ; and the only rights, against the violation of
which any safeguards are imposed, are those of the congre
gation, lest " he that fills the place of the unlearned " (that is,
as we have already seen, " he that has not the gift of speak
ing with tongues ") should be debarred from ratifying by his
solemn Amen the thanksgiving of the speaker. The gifts
are not, indeed, supposed to be equally distributed, but every
one is pronounced capable of having some gift, and it is im
plied as a possibility that " all " may have the. gift of prophe
sying or of speaking with tongues.
Secondly. Through the gifts thus distributed, the worship
was carried on. Four points are speciaUy mentioned : —
(1.) Prayer. This, from the manner in which it is spoken
of, in connection with the tongues, must have been a free out
pouring of individual devotion, and one in which women were
accustomed to join, as well as men.*
(2.) What has been said of prayer may be said also of
Praise or Song, ¦^aXpos.'f We may infer from Eph. v. 19,
where it is coupled with " hymns and odes " (vpvois Kal ahals),
that it must have been of the nature of metre or rhythm, and
is thus the first recognition of Christian poetry. The Apoc
alypse is the nearest exemplification of it in the New Testa
ment (3.) Closely connected with this, both in itself and by the
context, is Thanksgiving. The " song of the understanding "
is specially needed in the giving of thanks. J In this passage
* xiv. 13 - 15 ; xi. 5. t xiv. 15, 26. J xiv. 16.

APOSTOLICAL WORSHIP. 439
we have the earliest intimation of a liturgical form. Although
the context even here implies that it must have been a free
effusion, yet it is probable that the Apostle is speaking of the
Eucharistic thanksgiving for the produce of the earth ; such
as was from a very early period incorporated in the great
Eucharistic hymn used, with a few modifications, through all
the liturgical forms of the later Christian Church. And from
this passage we learn that the " Amen," or ratification of the
whole congregation, afterwards regarded with pecuhar so
lemnity in this part of the service, was deemed essential to
the due utterance of the thanksgiving.
(4.) " Prophesying," or " teaching," is regarded (not by the
Corinthians, but) by the Apostle as one of the most impor
tant objects of then- assemblies. The impulse to exercise this
gift appears to have been so strong as to render it difficult to
be kept under control.* Women, it would seem from the
Apostle's aUusion to the practice in xi. 5, and prohibition of it
in xiv. 34, 35, had felt themselves entitled to speak. The
Apostle rests his prohibition on the general ground of the
subordination of women to their natural instructors, their
husbands. Thirdly. The Apostolical mode of administering the Eu
charist has already been delineated at the close of chap. xi.
It is enough here to recapitulate its main features. It was
part of the chief daily meal, and, as such, usually in the
evening ; the bread and wine were brought by the contribu
tors to the meal, and placed on a table ; of this meal each one
partook himseff; the bread was placed on the table as a loaf,
and then broken into parts ; the wine was given at the con
clusion of the meal ; a hymn of thanksgiving was offered by
one of the congregation, to which the rest responded with the
solemn word " Amen."
These points are aU that we can clearly discern in the
worship of Apostolic times, with the addition perhaps of the
fact mentioned in Acts xx. 7, and confirmed by 1 Cor. xvi. 2,
* xiv. 32

440

APOSTOLICAL WORSHIP.

that the first day of the week was specially devoted to their
meetings. The total dissimilarity between the outward aspects of this
worship and of any which now exists, is the first impression
which this summary leaves on the mind. It would seem at
first sight as if almost every vestige of the Apostohc forms
was gone, and as if the present forms had no basis in that
age on which to ground themselves. But this impression is
reheved by various important considerations. First, when
we consider the state of the Apostohc Church as described in
the Acts and in this Epistle, it is evident that in outward cir
cumstances it never could be a pattern for future times. The
fervor of the individuals who constituted the communities, the
smaUness of the communities themselves, the variety and
power of the gifts, the expectation of the near approach of
the end of the world, must have prevented the perpetuation
of the Apostohc forms. But if Christianity be, as almost
every precept of its Founder and of its chief Apostle pre
sumes it to be, a rehgion of the spirit, and not of the letter,
then this very pecuharity is one of its most characteristic
privileges. No existing form of worship can lay claim to
universal and eternal obhgation, as directly traceable to Apos
tolic times. The impossibility of perpetuating the primitive
forms is the best guarantee for future freedom and progress.
Few as are the rules of worship prescribed in the Koran, yet
the inconvenience which they present, when transplanted
into other than Oriental regions, shows the importance of the
omission of such in the New Testament.
But, secondly, there are in the forms themselves, and in
the spirit in which the Apostle handles them, principles im
portant for the guidance of Christian worship in all times.
Some of these have been already indicated. In this last con
cluding Section, the whole of this advice is summed up in
two simple rules : " Let aU things be done unto edifying," and
" let all things be done decently and in order."
" Let all things be done unto edifying."
"Edifying" (oi/coSo/uj) has, as already noticed in xiv. 3,

APOSTOLICAL WORSHIP. 441
the pecuhar sense both of building up from first principles to
their practical application, and of fitting each member of the
society into the proper place which the growth and rise of the
whole buUding require. It is " development," not only in
the sense of unfolding new truth, but of unfolding all the
resources contained in the existing institution or body. Hence
the stress laid on the excellence of "prophesying," as the
special gift by which men were led to know themselves (as
in xiv. 24, 25, " the secrets of their hearts being made mani
fest"), and by which (as through the prophets of the older
dispensations) higher and more spiritual views of life were
gradually revealed. Hence the repeated injunctions that
all the gifts should have their proper honor ; * that those
gifts should be most honored by which not a few, but all,
should benefit ; f that all who had the gift of prophecy
should have the opportunity of exercising that gift ; X that all
might have an equal chance of instruction and comfort for
their own special cases.
" Let aU things be done decently and in order." §
" Decently " (eio-xnpdvas) ; that is, so as not to interrupt the
gravity and dignity of the assemblies. " In order " (xara
Ta£iv) ; that is, not by hazard or impulse, but by design and
arrangement The idea is not so much of any beauty or
succession of parts in the worship, as of that severe and
simple majesty which in the ancient world, whether Pagan or
Jewish, seems to have characterized all solemn assembhes,
civU or ecclesiastical, as distinct from the frantic or enthu
siastic ceremonies which accompanied UUcit or extravagant
communities. The Roman Senate, the Athenian Areopagus,
were examples of the former, as the wild Bacchanalian or
Phrygian orgies were of the latter. It is to impress this
character on Christian worship, that the Apostle has con
demned the rejection by the women of the Greek custom of
the veil, || the speaking of women in the assemblies,^ the in-
* xii. 20-30. t xiv. 1-23. X x^T- 29-31.
§ xiv. 40. II xi. 1. -16. 1 xix. 34.

442 APOSTOLICAL WORSHIP.
discriminate banqueting at the Lord's Supper,* the interrup
tion of the prophets by each other, t " The spirits of prophets
are subject to prophets," is a principle of universal applica
tion, and condemns every impulse of rehgious zeal or feeling
which is not strictly under the control of those who display
it. A world of fanaticism is exploded by this simple axiom ;
and to those who have witnessed the religious frenzy which
attaches itself to the various forms of Eastern worship, this
advice of the Apostle, himself of Eastern origin, wiU appear
the more remarkable. The wUd gambols, yearly celebrated
at Easter by the adherents of the Greek Church round the
chapel of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, show what
Eastern Christianity may become ; they are living proofs of
the need and the wisdom of the Apostolical precept.
To examine how far these two regulations have actually
affected the subsequent worship and ritual of Christianity, to
measure each Christian liturgy and form of worship by one
or other of these two rules, would be an instructive task.
But it is sufficient here to notice, that on these two points
the Apostle throws the whole weight of his authority ; these
two, and these only, are the Rubrics of the Primitive Church.
* xi. 16-34. t xiv. 30-32.

THE EUCHARIST.
Bt Rev. ARTHUR P. STANLEY.
1 Cor. xi. 16-34.
It has been truly said, though with some exaggeration, that
for many centuries the history of the Eucharist might be con
sidered as a history of the Christian Church. And certainly
this passage may be regarded as occupying in that history,
whether in its narrower or larger sphere, a point of remarkable
significance. On the one hand, we may take our stand upon
it, and look back through its medium, on some of the institu
tions and feehngs most pecuhar to the first commencement of
the Apostolic age. We see the most sacred ordinance of the
Christian rehgion as it was celebrated by those in whose
minds the earthly and the heavenly, the social and the rehg
ious aspect of life were indistinguishably blended. We see
the banquet spread in the late evening, after the sun had set
behind the western ridge of the hUls of Achaia ; we see the
many torches * blazing, as at Troas, to light up the darkness
of the upper room, where, as was their wont, the Christian
community assembled ; we see the couches laid and the walls
hung,f after the manner of the East, as on the night of the
betrayal ; we see X the sacred loaf, representing, in its com
pact unity, the harmony of the whole society ; we hear the
blessing or thanksgiving on the cup§ responded to by the
joint " Amen," such as even three centuries later is described
as like a peal of thunder ; we witness the complete realiza-

* Xapnd&es ixavai, Acts xx. 8. t vrrepaov ecrrpapevov, Matt. xxvi.
{ 1 Cor. x. 17; xi, 29. $ x. 31.

444

THE EUCHARIST.

tion, in outward form, of the Apostle's words, suggested
doubtless by the sight of the meal and the sacrament blended
thus together, " Whether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye
do, do all to the glory of. God."* "Whatsoever ye do in
word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God and the Father by him." f
This is one side of the picture ; but there is another side,
which is exhibited here also, and which imparts to this
passage its peculiar interest. Already the difficulties of
bringing an ideal and an actual life together make themselves
felt What the falsehoods of Ananias and Sapphira were to
the community of property at Jerusalem, that the excesses
and disorders of the Corinthian Christians were to the primi
tive celebration of the Eucharist. The time was come, when
the secular and the spiritual had to be disentangled one from
the other ; the " simplicity " and " gladness " of the first Apos
tolical communion was graduaUy to retire before the Apos
tolical rebuke. The question arose whether the majesty, the
tenderness, the awe of the feast should be lost in a senseless
orgy, and it is (humanly speaking) by means of this verdict
of the Apostle against the Corinthian church, that the form
of the primitive practice was altered, in order to save the
spirit of the original institution. It is of the more impor
tance to remember the extent of the danger to which the
celebration of the Eucharist was then exposed ; because a
great part of its subsequent history would seem to be a
reaction, in part just, in part exaggerated, against the corrup
tion which then threatened it ; a reaction encouraged by the
extreme severity with which that corruption is denounced by
* Col. iii. 17.
t Perhaps the nearest likeness now existing, to this union of social
intercourse with religious worship, is to be found in the services of the
Coptic Church. The Eucharist indeed is even more divested of its char
acter of a supper, than in the Western Churches. But there is an air of
primitive freedom, and of innocent enjoyment, blended with the prayers
of the general service, which, bearing as it does the marks of long an
tiquity, conveyed to me, on the one occasion on which I witnessed the
worship of the Copts in then- cathedral at Cairo, a livelier image of the
early Christian assemblies than anything else I ever saw,

THE EUCHARIST. 445
the Apostle, and which was itself called forth by the great
ness of the crisis. This is the last mention of the adminis
tration of the Lord's Supper, according to the ancient fashion ;
the " Supper " itself had ceased to be a supper, as early as
the beginning of the first century, as we learn from the
Epistles of the younger Pliny ; * and was celebrated, if not
very early in the morning, at least before the night, although
in some Egyptian cities the practice of partaking of it on the
evenings of Saturday still continued in the fourth century, f
The social meal was divided from it under the name of
" Agape," or " Love-feast," but still continued to be cele
brated within the walls of churches as late as the fifth cen
tury, after which it disappears, having been already con
demned by councils on account of abuses similar to those
here described at Corinth. X Thus the Eucharist became
more and more set apart as a- distinct sacred ordinance ; it
withdrew more and more from the possibility of the Corin
thian desecration, till at last it was wrapt up in the awful
mystery which has attached to it, in the highest degree, in
the churches of the East, but in some degree in the churches
of the West also, both Protestant and Roman Catholic.
Beginning under the simple name of " the breaking of bread,"
and known from this Epistle by the social and almost festive
appellations of " the Communion," and " the Lord's Supper,"
it first receives in Pliny the name of " Sacramentum," and in
Justin Martyr that of " Eucharistia " ; both, indeed, indicating
ideas of strictly Apostohcal origin, though more closely con
nected with the words, and less with the act, than would have
been the case in the first Apostolical times ; till in the days
of Chrysostom it presents itself to us under the formidable
name of the " Dreadful Sacrifice."
These two views of the Lord's Supper have been thus
set forth in this place side by side ; because, as has been
said, they both to a certain extent appear together in this
chapter. A careful investigation of the passage will prob-
* X. 97. t Sozomen, A. E. vii. 19.
X Bingham's Antiquities, Book XV. ch. 7.
38

446 THE EUCHARIST.
ably lead to the conclusion, that as, on the one hand, the
general view of the Apostohcal practice, its simplicity, and
its festivity, as imphed in the Apostle's arguments and in
his designation of the ordinance, have been in later times
too much underrated ; so, on the other hand, the severity
of his denunciation against unworthy partakers has been too
generaUy and too rigorously enforced; because the partic
ular object, and the particular need of his rebuke at that
time, have not been clearly understood. The Holy Com
munion can never be again exactly what it was then ; and
therefore, although his words wiU always impart to the great
ordinance of Christian worship a peculiar solemnity, yet
the real lesson which they convey relates now more di
rectly to such general occasions as that out of which his
warning grew, than to the ordinance itself. The joy and
almost merriment of the first Christian converts after the
day of Pentecost could not now be applied to the Eucha
rist as it was then, without fear of great profaneness and
levity. But the record of it implies that with a serious and
religious life generaUy there is nothing incompatible in the
freest play of cheerful and innocent gayety. Bi hke manner,
although we cannot without superstition imagine that the
judgments which the Apostle denounced wiU fall on a dese
cration of the Communion different in all its circumstances
from that which occurred at Corinth, yet there may stiU
be an irreverence towards sacred things, a want of broth
erly kindness, a dulness in discerning the presence of Christ,
even in our common meals, which may make us fear " lest
we eat and drink condemnation to ourselves." And in the
Communion itself the Apostle's words are instructive, as
reminding us that " the body of the Lord," to which he
looked, was, as elsewhere in his writings, so here, the body
which is represented by the whole Christian society. So
the Apostle conceives it to be in aU times and places, aud
not least in the institution especially intended to exhibit the
unity and community of interests, feelings, and affections, to
produce which is always described as one chief purpose of
the Death of Christ, shown forth in the Lord's Supper.

UNITY AND VARIETY OF SPIRITUAL GIFTS.
Bt Rev. ARTHUR P. STANLEY.
1 Cor. ch. xii.
The historical value of this chapter has been sufficiently
set forth in the notes. It is the most detailed contemporary
record of the extraordinary powers which manifested them
selves in the Christian society during the first century ; and
which, however they may be explained, confirm the narra
tive in the Acts of the Apostles, and illustrate that in the
four Gospels, especially the statement in Mark xvi. 17-20:
" They went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord work
ing with them, and confirming the word with signs following " ;
that is, " casting out devils, speaking with tongues, taking up
serpents, drinking poison without hurt, and laying hands on
the sick for their recovery." They resolve themselves into
two classes : (1.) Those which relate to healing exactly cor
respond with the description of the miracles of Peter and
John,* and with the aUusion in James v. 14, 15 : "Is any
sick among you ? let him caU for the elders of the church ;
and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the
name of the Lord : and the prayer of faith shall save the
sick, and the Lord shall raise him up." (2.) The gifts of
teaching which are here classed under the names of " proph
ets," " teachers," " knowledge," " wisdom," are implied rather
than expressly claimed in the authority which the narrative
* Acts iii. 1 -10; v. 12-16; ix. 33-42.

448 UNITY AND VARIETY OP SPIRITUAL GIPTS.
of the Acts ascribes to the numerous speeches of the Apos
tles. But to gifts of this kind allusions are expressly made
in the intimations in Matt. x. 20, John xvi. 13, of "the Spirit
speaking in the disciples," and " guiding them into all truth."
And to the same effect are the passages in Rom. xii. 6 - 8 :
" Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is
given to us, whether prophecy, let us prophesy according to
the proportion of faith ; .... or he that teacheth, let him
wait on teaching, or he that exhorteth, on exhortation." Eph.
iv. 7, 11 : " Unto every one of us is given grace  He
gave some, apostles ; and some, prophets ; and some, evan
gehsts ; and some, pastors and teachers." 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11 :
" As every man hath received the gift, even so minister the
same one to another  If any man speak, as the oracles
of God." The Apostle seems to claim this gift for himself,
both by implication in all his Epistles, and expressly in 1 Cor.
vh. 40 : "I think that I also (i. e. as well as others) have the
Spirit of God." Of the special gifts of prophesying, and of
speaking with tongues, there wiU be another occasion to speak
in considering the fourteenth chapter. It is in the highest
development of these various forms of the gift of teaching,
that we find the only direct traces of what in modern lan
guage is caUed " inspiration " ; and although the limits of such
a gift, and the persons in whom it existed, are never clearly
defined, the description of it is important, because, unhke the
other gifts, its results can still be appreciated. We cannot
judge of the gifts of healing ; their effects have long since
passed away. But we can judge of the gift of teaching by
the remains which it has left in the .writings of the New Tes
tament ; and these remains incontestably prove that there
was at that time given to men an extraordinary insight into
truth, and an extraordinary power of communicating it.
It is important to observe, that these multiplied allusions
imply a state of things in the Apostohcal age, which has
certainly not been seen since. On particular occasions, in
deed, both in the first four centuries, and afterwards in the
Middle Ages, miracles are ascribed by contemporary writers

UNITY AND VARIETY OP SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 449
to the influence or the rehcs of particular individuals ; but
there has been no occasion when they have been so emphati
cally ascribed to whole societies, so closely mixed up with the
ordinary course of hfe. It is not maintained that every mem
ber of the Corinthian church had aU or the greater part of
those gifts, but . it certainly appears that every one had some
gift ; and this being the case, we are enabled to realize the
total difference of the organization of the Apostolical Church
from any through which it has .passed in its later stages. It
was stiU in a state of fusion. Every part of the new society
was instinct with a life of its own. The whole atmosphere
which it breathed must have confirmed the belief in the im
portance and the novelty of the crisis.
But yet more remarkable, both as a proof of the Divine
power and wisdom which accompanied this whole manifesta
tion, and also as affording a lesson to after times, is the man
ner in which the Apostle approaches the subject, and the
inference which he draws from it. His object in enumerat
ing these gifts is, not to enlarge on their importance, or to
appeal to them as evidences of the Christian faith ; it is to
urge upon his readers the necessity of co-operation for some
useful purpose. Such a thought at such a moment is emi
nently characteristic of the soberness and calmness which
pervade the Apostle's writings, and affords a striking contrast
to the fanatical feeling which regards all miracles as ends and
not as means ; and which despises, as alien and uncongenial,
the ideas of co-operation, subordination, and order.
This chapter has a yet further interest. It is the intro
duction of a new idea into the Sacred Volume. It has been
truly observed, that the great glory of the Mosaic covenant
was, not so much the revelation of a truth before unknown,
as the communication of that truth to a whole people, — the
first and only exception which the Eastern world presented to
the spirit of caste and exclusion. But even in the chosen
people this universal sympathy with each other, and with the
common objects of the nation, can hardly be said to have
been fulfiUed as it was intended.
38*

450 UNITY AND TARIETY OP SPIRITUAL GIFTS.
The idea of a whole community swayed by a common
feehng of mterest and affection, was not Asiatic, but Euro
pean. It was Greece, and not Judasa, which first presented
the sight of a ndXis or state, in which every citizen had his
own political and social duties, and lived, not for himself, but
for the state. It was a Roman fable, and not an Eastern
parable, which gave to the world the image of a " body
politic," in which the welfare of each member depended on
the welfare of the rest. And it is precisely this thought
which, whether in conscious or unconscious imitation, was
suggested to the Apostle, by the sight of the manifold and
various gifts of the Christian community.
The image of the Christian Church, which the Apostle
here exhibits, is that of a living society in which the various
faculties of the various members were to perform their sev
eral parts, — not an inert mass of mere learners and subjects,
who were to be authoritatively taught and ruled by one smaU
portion of its members. It is a Christianization, not of the
Levitical hierarchy, but of the republic of Plato. It has
become in after times the basis, not of treatises, on church
government, but of Butler's Sermons on the general constitu
tion of human nature and of human society. The principle
of co-operation, as generally acknowledged in the economical
and physical well-being of man, was here to be applied to
his moral and spiritual improvement. The peculiar element,
which the Apostle blends with this general idea of social and
moral union, is that which could only be given by the Chris
tian faith. There would always be the fear lest an object
so high and abstract as the promotion of man's moral welfare
might seem indistinct, and be lost in the distance. Something
nearer and more personal was required to be mixed up with
that which was indistinct from its very vastness. The direct
object, therefore, of Christian co-operation, according to St
Paul, was to bring Christ into every part of common life, to
make human society one living body, closely joined in com
munion with Christ. And lest this comparison of the Church
with the human body might in one respect lead to error,

UNITY AND VARIETY OP SPIRITUAL GIFTS. 451
because there resides such a sovereignty in the brain or head,
that in comparison of its great activity some of the other
members may be called passive; therefore the functions of
the head in the Christian Church are by the Apostle assigned
exclusively to Christ himself.*
This idea of the Christian community in the Apostohcal
age was kept up, not only by the universal diffusion of the
spiritual gifts, but by aU the outward institutions of the
Church; by the primitive mode, as already described, of
celebrating the Lord's Supper ; by the co-operation of the
whole community in the expulsion or restoration of offend
ers ; by the absence, as would appear from this chapter, of
any definite form of government or constitution ; and, in the
church of Jerusalem, by the community of property.
Of these institutions most, if not all, even before the ter
mination of the Apostolical age, had been either greatly
modified or had ceased to exist ; and the gifts, from which
the institutions derived their hfe and spirit, had, as the
Apostle himself anticipated, almost, if not altogether, van
ished away. But the general truth which their existence
suggested to the Apostle is stUl applicable to the natural gifts
which constitute the variety of aU civilized society.
If Christ be truly Lord of aU, if to him have truly been
committed all things both in heaven and on earth, then we
may trace his hand, not only in the extraordinary and super
natural, but in the ordinary and natural gifts of men ; the
earliest form of the Christian society was, as it were, a micro
cosm of the world at large ; what was supplied to it in its
first stage by miraculous intervention, is to be sought for now
in the various faculties and feehngs which it has compre
hended within its sphere. And therefore it is truly a part of
Christian edification to apply what St. Paul and St. Peter f
* For this whole subject of the idea of the early Church and its rela
tions to the institutions of later times, I cannot forbear to refer to the in
structive passages in Arnold's Fragment on the Church, pp. 149, 150.
t Rom. xii. 6-8; 1 Cor. xii. 28; 1 Pet. iv. 10, 11. See Arnold's
Sermons, Vol. XX. 217 ; VL 300.

452 UNITY AND VARIETY OP SPIRITUAL GIFTS.
have said of the diversity and relative importance and final
cause of the first extraordinary display of the gifts of the
Spirit, to the analogous variety of the gifts of imagination,
reasoning powers, thought, activity, means of beneficence.
Variety and complexity are the chief characteristics of civili
zation ; and it is one of the many indications of the new
birth of the world involved in the introduction of the Gospel,
that these very same qualities, by which human society is
now carried on in nations and in churches, should thus appear
impressed on the face of primitive Christianity.

THE GIFT OF TONGUES AND THE GIFT OF
PROPHESYING.
By Rev. ARTHUR P. STANLEY.
1 Cor. xiv. 1 - 40.
The Apostle now arrives at the point to which his argu
ment on the spiritual gifts has throughout been converging, —
the special tendency of the Corinthian church to exaggerate
the importance of the gift of tongues in comparison of the
less extraordinary, but more useful, gift of prophesying. It
becomes necessary, therefore, to form some general notion of
the nature of these gifts and their relation to each other.
(1.) The gift of " prophesying " or of " the prophets."
The word "prophet" (rrpocp^rns) is derived in the first in
stance from the interpreters of the pagan oracles, who spoke
forth or expounded the uninteUigible answers of the Pytho
ness of Delphi, or the rustling of the leaves of Dodona. In
a metaphorical sense it is used of poets, as interpreters of the
Gods or Muses. It was then adopted by the LXX. as the
best equivalent of the " nabi " or " seer " of the Old Testa
ment. In the New Testament it is used for a gift which,
though in many respects similar to that of the older covenant,
was a revival, rather than a continuation, of the ancient pro
phetical office. According to the common Jewish tradition,
prophecy had expired with Malachi ; and there is no recorded
instance of it between his time and the Christian era. It is
true that the apphcation of the name to the Baptist and to
Christ, shows that the appearance of a prophet was not a

454 GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY.
thmg unlooked for* Our Lord speaks as if proverbially
of " a prophet having no honor." f Zacharias is said " to
prophesy." J Anna is said to be " a prophetess." § But the
frequency of the gift, if not its existence, was regarded as a
special sign of a new dispensation, and as such its universal
diffusion is described at the day of- Pentecost. " Your sons
and your daughters shaU prophesy, .... and on my servants
and on my handmaidens I wUl pour out .... of my Spirit ;
and they shall prophesy." || In the subsequent narrative of
the Acts, prophets and prophetesses are spoken of as every
where to be found in Christian congregations : " Then came
prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch  One of them
named Agabus signified by the Spirit that there should be
great dearth throughout all the world." f " There were in
the church that was at Antioch certain prophets and teachers ;
as Barnabas, and Simeon that was called Niger, and Lucius
of Cyrene, and Manaen, which had been brought up with
Herod the tetrarch, and Saul." ** " Judas and Silas being
prophets." ft At Cassarea, Philip the Evangelist had four
daughters " which did prophesy." XX In aU the Epistles, the
gift of prophecy occupies a conspicuous place in all enumera
tions of the gifts of the Spirit, The Apocalypse itself is
called " a prophecy "; §§ and " the spirit of prophecy," |||| and
" the prophets " as " servants of God," and " witnesses," are
often mentioned IHf as in the Christian Church. Not only
does this wide-spread appearance and variety of prophetical
characters agree with the fact of its general diffusion through
the whole Corinthian church, but the meaning is substantially
the same in aU the cases where it occurs. Throughout the
New Testament, as throughout the Old, and, it may be added,
* Matt. xiv. 5 ; xxi. 11 - 46 ; Mark xi. 32 ; Luke i. 76 ; vii. 26, 28,
39 ; xiii. 33 ; John iv. 19 ; ix. 17.
t Matt. xiii. 57. X Luke i. 67. § Luke ii. 36.
||. Acts ii. 17, 18. 1 Ibid. xi. 27, 28. ** Ibid. xiii. 1.
tt Ibid. xv. 32. XX Ibid. xxi. 9. §§ Rev. i. 3 ; xxii. 7, 10, 18.
1U| Ibid. xix. 10.
HI Ibid. xi. 3, 6, 10, 18 ; xvi. 6 ; xviii. 20, 24 ; xxii. 6, 9.

GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY. 455
in the use of the Arabic word " nabi " in the Koran, the
prominent idea is, not that of prediction, but of delivering
inspired messages of warning, exhortation, and instruction:
and the general object of the gift, as elsewhere implied, is
exactly that here spoken of: building up, exhorting, and com
forting " ; * " convincing, judging, and making manifest the
secrets of the heart." f The ancient classical and Hebrew
sense prevaUs everywhere. Epimenides and Mahomet, on
the one hand, Elijah and Paul on the other hand, are called
" prophets," not because they foretold the future, but because
they enlightened the present.
(2.) We now come to the " gift of tongues," which is a
much more difficult subject. The most important passages
relating to it are those contained in this chapter, and the
aUusions to it in xii. 10, 28, as "divers kinds of tongues"
(yevn yXacro-av), and xiii. 1 : " Though I speak with the
tongues of men and of angels." To these we must add Mark
xvi. 17: "These signs shall follow them that believe 
They shall speak with new tongues" (yXao-o-ais XaXfjo-ovo-i
Kaivdis). There are also the descriptions of the gift at the
day of Pentecost, Acts ii. 3 - 21 ; at the conversion of the
twelve disciples of John the Baptist, Acts xix. 6.
It is nowhere else mentioned by name, though several
other passages have been thought to contain allusions to it.
Luke xxi. 15 : "I wiU give you a mouth and wisdom, which
all your adversaries shaU not be able to "gainsay." Eph. v.
18 : "Be not drunk with wine wherein is excess (compare
Acts ii. 13) : but be fiUed with the Spirit; speaking in your
selves (XaXovvres eavrols) in psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs, singing and making melody in your hearts to the
Lord." 1 Thess. v. 19: "Quench not the Spirit; despise
not prophesyings." 1 Pet. iv. 11: "Each one as he has
received a gift  If any man speak (XaXcI), let him speak
as the oracles of God."
The only allusion to this gift as still existing after the
* Rev. xiv. 3. t Ibid. xiv. 25.

456 GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY.
Apostolic times, is in Irenseus adv. Hasr. vi. 6 : " We hear
many brethren in the Church, having prophetical gifts, and
by the Spirit speaking in all kinds of languages." Many
speculations occur in the later Fathers on the subject ; but
their historical testimony to the nature of the gifts may aU
be summed up in one sentence of Chrysostom, in his com
ment on this chapter : " This whole place is very obscure ;
but the obscurity is produced by our ignorance of the facts
described, which are such as then used to occur, but now no
longer take place."
Such are the data on which we have to proceed. The fol
lowing conclusions may be attained with tolerable certainty : —
First. The gift in question is always described as some
thing entirely new in the Apostohcal age. " They shaU
speak with new tongues." * The • effect on the spectators at
Pentecost is of universal bewilderment and astonishmentf
It is described as the special mark foUowing upon conver
sion X (whether immediately before baptism, § or immediately
after ||). It is, moreover, spoken of as in an especial man
ner a gift " of the Spirit," that is, the new manifestation of
God in the hearts of Christians. Hence its appearance at
the day of Pentecost : " They were all filled with the Holy
Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit
gave them utterance." 1 Hence " the speaking with tongues "
was the sign that Cornelius had " received the Holy Spirit." **
Hence, when Paul placed his hands on the disciples at Ephe-
sus, " the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spake with
tongues." ft Hence the very name of "the Spirit" and
" spiritual gifts " seems to have been appropriated to this gift,
at Corinth and elsewhere. Compare the argument in xii.
1 - 13, and the particular expressions in xiv. 1, 12, 14, 37 ;
and perhaps 1 Thess. v. 19 ; Eph. v. 18.
Secondly. It was closely connected with the gift of
*. Mark xvi. 17. t Acts ii. 7, 12. X Mark xvi. 17.
§ Acts x. 46. II Ibid. xix. 6. f Ibid. ii. 4.
** Ibid. xx. 44, 46, 47. tt Ibid. xix. 6.

GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY. 457
prophesying. This appears not only from these chapters
where the two are always compared, as being, though differ
ent, yet homogeneous, in xii. 10 - 28, xiii. 1, xiv. 1-6,
22 - 25, but from the notices in the Acts. In Acts ii. 17 - 21,
Peter, in his justification of himself and the Apostles, de
scribes it under no other name than " prophesying " ; and in
Acts xix. 6, the converts are described "speaking with
tongues and prophesying." To the same effect is the con
nection in 1 Thess. v. 19, where "quench not the Spirit" is
followed by " despise not prophesyings."
Thirdly. Whilst it foUows from what has been said, that
this gift, like that of prophesying, must have been a posses
sion of the spirit and mind of the speaker by an extraor
dinary influence, over which he had little or no control, it
would seem that its especial distinction from prophesying
was, that it consisted not of direct warning, exhortation, or
prediction, but of thanksgiving, praise, prayer, singing, and
other expressions of devotion: "pray with the tongue";
" my spirit prays " ; " I sing in the spirit " ; " thou givest
thanks (eiXoyds) in the Spirit." * " We hear them speaking
the wonderful works of God." f " They heard them speaking
with tongues, and magnifying God." X And this is Ulus-
trated, if not confirmed, by Eph. v. 19 : " Speaking ... .-in
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making
melody .... to the Lord, giving thanks always."
Fourthly. It would appear that these expressions of devo
tion were outpourings of the heart and feelings, rather than
of the understanding ; so that the actual words and meaning
were almost always unintelligible to the by-standers, sometimes
to the speakers themselves. " He that speaketh with a
tongue speaketh not to men, but to God; for no one heareth;
and in the Spirit he speaketh mysteries ; .... he that speak
eth with a tongue edifieth himself" [and not the Church]. §
"If I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit
* 1 Cor. xiv. 13 - 16. t Acts ii. 11.
X Ibid. x. 46. § 1 Cor. xiv. 2, 4.
39

458 GIFTS OF TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY.
you ? " * " Let him that speaketh with a tongue pray that he
may interpret" f " If I pray with a tongue, my spirit
prayeth, but my understanding is unfruitful." X " If thou
givest thanks in the spirit, how shall he that filleth the place
of the unlearned say .Amen to thy giving of thanks ; for he
knoweth not what thou sayest." § "I had rather speak five
words with my understanding, that I may instruct others also,
than ten thousand words with a tongue." || " Making melody
in your hearts." If To the same effect are the passages which
describe the impression produced on by-standers : " If aU
speak with tongues, and the unlearned or unbelievers come in,
will they not say that ye are mad ? " ** " Others, mocking,
said, They are full of new wine " ; where, though the words
are described as spoken in jest, they are deemed of sufficient
importance to be refuted by Peter.f f Compare also Eph. v.
19, where the injunction " to be filled with the Spirit" and to
" speak in themselves," is preceded by the prohibition, " be
not filled with wine."
Thus far there is no difficulty in combining the several
accounts. It is sufficiently clear that it was a trance or
ecstasy, which, in moments of great religious fervor, espe
ciaUy at the moment of conversion, seized the early behevers ;
and that this fervor vented itself in expressions of thanks
giving, in fragments of psalmody or hymnody and prayer,
which to the speaker himself conveyed an irresistible sense
of communion with God, and to the by-stander-an impression
of some extraordinary manifestation of power, but not neces
sarily any instruction or teaching, and sometimes even having
the appearance of wild excitement, like that of madness or
intoxication. It was the most emphatic sign to each individ
ual believer that a power mightier than his own was come
into the world ; and in those who, like the Apostle Paul,
possessed this gift in a high degree, « speaking with tongues
* 1 Cor. xiv. 6. t R)id. xiv. 13. X Ibid. xiv. 14.
$ Ibid. xiv. 16. II Ibid, xiv, 19. If Eph. v. 19.
** 1 Cor. xiv. 23. ft Acts ii. 13- 15.

GIFTS OF TONGUES AND OF PROPHECY. 459
more than they aU," * it is easy to conceive that, when com
bined with the other more remarkable gifts which he pos
sessed, it would form a fitting mood for the reception of
"God's secrets" (pvo-Trjpia),^ and of " unspeakable words,
which it is not lawful for man to utter," " being caught into
the third heaven," and into " Paradise." X And thus the
nearest written example of this gift is that exhibited in the
abrupt style and the strange visions of the Apocalypse, of
which the author describes himself, almost in the words of St.
Paul, as " being in the Spirit on the Lord's day," and " hear
ing a voice as of a trumpet!" § an(l " seeing a door open in
heaven," and " a throne set in heaven," || and seeing " the
New Jerusalem," " the river of life," and " the tree of life." IT
But a difficulty arises when we ask, What was the special
form which these outpourings of devotion and these prophetic
trances assumed? This must be sought in the names by
which they were caUed: (1.) "Speaking with tongues"
(XdXeTv yXd>o-o-ais) ; ** " speaking with a tongue " (XaXSv
yXacro-ri).ff (2.) " The tongues " (at yXdcrcrai), XX "a tongue"
(yXacro-av),§§ "kinds of tongues " (ye'vn yXao-o-av). ||j[ (3.)
" Speaking with other tongues " (XaXelv Mpais yXao-o-ais), 1ft
" speaking with new tongues " (yXacrcrais XaXi\crovo-iv Kaivdis).***
The use of the word " tongue " (yXao-o-a) need not neces
sarily imply a distinct language of a nation. The only occa
sions on which it is ever so used in the New Testament are
in the poetical language of the Apocalypse ; ttt m aU which
it is used in the phrase " kindreds, and nations, and peoples,
and tongues," as is the corresponding phrase in Dan. iii. 4, 7,
v. 19, vi. 25 ; Judith iii. 8. In Gen. xi. 7, ttjv yXao-o-av is
* 1 Cor. xiv. 18. t Ibid. ii. 7 ; iv. 1 ; xiv. 2 ; xv. 51.
X 2 Cor. xii. 4-6. § Rev. i. 9.
|| Rev. iv. 1. If Rev. xxi. 1 ; xxii. 1, 2.
** 1 Cor. xiv. 5, 6, 23, 39 ; Acts x. 46 ; xix. 6.
ft 1 Cor. xiv. 2, 4, 13, 14, ]8. 19, 27. XX Ibid. xiv. 22.
§§ Ibid. xiv. 26. " |||| Ibid. xii. 28.
Iff Acts ii. 4. *#* Mark xvi. 17.
ftf Rev. v. 9 ; vii. 9 ; x. 11 ; xi. 9 ; xiii. 7 ; xiv. 5 ; xvii. 15.

460 GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY.
used in the phrase, " Let us confound their language," as a
translation of naip, which, however, in aU other places in
that chapter (verses 1, 7, 9) is translated cpavrj or x«Xor. The
word ordinarily used, in sacred as in classical Greek, for " the
language of a nation or country" is hidXeKros, as in Acts i. 19,
ii. 6, 8, xxi. 40, xxii. 2, xxvi. 14. We may, therefore, con
clude that the word "tongue" (yXda-o-a) was applied to this
spiritual gift, partly from the fact that the word in classical
Greek was naturally applied to strange, uncommon expres
sions, as in Aristotle,* partly from the circumstance that, in
the use of this gift, " the tongue " was hterally the organ em
ployed, the mind, as it were, remaining passive, whilst the
tongue gave utterance to words of which the speaker was
hardly conscious. That these meanings were both intended
to be conveyed, is confirmed by the manner in which kindred
expressions are used. When, in xiii. 1, the Apostle says,
" Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels "
(rats yXacrcrais to>v dvBpimav XaXco Kal rav dyyeXav), it is clear
from the last word that he was not thinking of languages or
dialects, but of every conceivable- form of speech or style.
And when, in xiv. 9, he says, " So ye, unless ye utter by the
tongue (hid rijr yXacrcrns) " a clear sound," it is clear that he
is using the word in reference to the phrase so often repeated
in the immediate context, " speaking with a tongue " (XdXdv
yXdcrcrrj). It is probable, however, that this peculiarity of
style or speech was, if not always, yet occasionaUy, height
ened by the introduction of foreign words or sentences into the
utterances thus made. The expressions " kinds of tongues," f
" new tongues," X " other tongues," § though they need not of
necessity imply anything more than a variety or a novelty of
modes of expression, yet become more appropriate if some
thing of a new language, or of different languages, were
united with these new or various modes. This is the impres
sion conveyed by the comparison of " the speaker with
* Rhet. IH. 3, 4 ; Poet. XXI. 6. t 1 Cor. xii. 10, 28.
X Mark xvi. 17. § Acts ii. 4.

GIFTS OF TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY. 461
tongues " to " a barbarian " (i. e. a foreigner),* and of the
sign of tongues generaUy to the sign of foreign languages,
" other tongues and other lips " (erepoyXacrcrois Kal ev XeiXeo-iv
irepav), spoken of in Isaiah, xxviii. 11. | And such certainly
must be the meaning of the first recorded appearance of the
gift on the day of Pentecost, however it may be explained in
detail. The stress laid on the variety of nations there as
sembled, and the expressions, " every man heard them in his
own language " (rfj Ihia hiaXeKrco), X "how hear we every man
in our own language, wherein we were born ? " § " we hear
them speak in our tongues (ev Tats rjperepais yXacrcrais) the
wonderful works of God," || can hardly be explained on any
other supposition than that the writer meant to describe that,
at least to the hearers, the sounds spoken seemed to be those
of distinct languages and real dialects. If this account is to
be taken literaUy, it would imply that the fervent expressions
of thanksgiving which on that occasion, as on others, consti
tuted the essential part of the gift, were so far couched in
foreign dialects as to be intelligible to the natives of the
several countries. And viewing this passage in connection
with the general spirit and object of the Acts, we can hardly
avoid seeing, in the emphatic record of this peculiar charac
teristic of the gift, the design of pointing it out as the natural
result and the natural sign of the first powerful and public
manifestation of a religion whose especial mission it was to
break through the barriers which divide man from man and
nation from nation. Such a signification, however suitable to
the occasion of the first revelation of a Universal Church,
would not be equaUy appropriate, and is certainly not re
quired, in the more ordinary manifestations of the gift. But
it is not difficult to see that the effect described as occurring
on the day of Pentecost might grow out of, and form part of
the more general nature of " the tongues," as described in the
rest of the New Testament. As Xavier is said to have

* 1 Cor. xiv. 11. t Ibid. xiv. 21, 22. X Acts ii. 5.
4 Ibid. ii. 8. || Ibid. ii. 11.
39*

462 GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY.
understood and made himself understood by the Indians,
without knowing their language, and as, even in ordinary
matters, persons in a highly wrought state of feeling are
enabled to understand each other, though not speaking the
same language, so this gift, which, above aU others, lifted the
speaker out of himself, might have the same effect. And
the peculiar form of language ordinarily used as the vehicle
of communication at that time would contribute to the same
result. HeUenistic Greek, compounded as it was of Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew, and instinct with that pecuhar life and
energy which we see it assume in the various styles of the
New Testament, especially in St. Paul and in the Apoca
lypse, was almost in itself " a speaking " in divers "kinds of
tongues." It has often been remarked, that the spread of this
dialect by the conquests of Alexander was a providential
preparation for the spread of the Gospel ; and there is noth
ing more strange in the development of this peculiar lan
guage into the gift of tongues, than in the development of the
natural powers of strength and inteUect into the gifts of
"ministry," of "wisdom," and of "knowledge." AU the vari
ous elements of Aramaic and Hellenic speech, latent in the
usual language of the time, would be quickened under the
power of this gift into a new hfe, sometimes intelligible,
sometimes unintelligible, to those who heard it, but always
expressive of the vitality and energy of the Spirit by which
it was animated.
It needs hardly to be observed after this comparison of the
various passages which speak of this gift, that, even if foreign
words were always part of its exercise (of which there is no
proof), there is no instance and no probability of its having
been ever used as a means of instructing foreign nations, or
of superseding the necessity of learning foreign languages.
Probably in no age of the world was such a gift less needed.
The chief sphere of the Apostles must have been within the
Roman Empire, and within that sphere Greek or Latin, but
especiaUy Greek, must have been everywhere understood.
Even on the day of Pentecost, tiie speech of Peter, by which

GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY. 463
the first great conversion was effected, seems to have been in
Greek, which probably all the nations assembled would suffi
ciently understand ; and the speaking of foreign dialects is
nowhere alluded to by him as any part of the event which he
is vindicating and describing. The Epistles, in like manner,
were aU written in Greek, though many of them are ad
dressed to the very nations whose presence is described in
the Acts on that occasion ; the people of " Judaea, Cappa-
docia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, and the dwellers at Rome."
When the Lycaonians addressed Paul and Barnabas in the
speech of Lycaonia,* there is no mention of Paul and Bar
nabas answering them in that language. According to one
of the oldest traditions, Peter is described as employing Mark
for an interpreter.")" Irenasus, who alone of the early Fathers
alludes to the gift of tongues, and that in a manner which
seems to imply diversity of language, J was himself obliged
to learn the Gaulish language. And, lastly, the whole chap
ter now in question is inconsistent with such a supposition.
The church of Corinth is described as full of speakers with
tongues, and yet evidently no work of conversion was going
on, nor any aUusion made to such a work as a possible object
for the gift. Yet had such an object been, within even its
distant scope, the argument almost imperatively demanded
that it should be noticed, and that the Apostle should have
said, " Why do you waste so great a gift on those who can
not profit by it, when you might go forth beyond the limits of
the Empire to preach with it to the Scythian and Bidian
tribes ? "
The subject must not be left without reference to similar
manifestations which may serve, either by way of contrast or
resemblance, to iUustrate its main peculiarities. In the Pagan
world the Apostle's words, at the opening of the twelfth
chapter, of themselves remind us of the unconscious utter
ances which accompanied the dehvery of the ancient oracles,
when the ejaculations of the Pythoness stood to the inter-

* Acts xiv. 11. t Eus. H. E. III. 39. X Adv. Hair. VI. 6.

464 GIFTS OF TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY.
preters of the oracle in a relation similar to that which ex
isted between the speakers with tongues and the prophets.
In the Jewish dispensation we may compare the burst of song
and trance, which accompanied the first great display of the
prophetical spirit in the time of Samuel, "a company of
prophets coming down from the high place with a psaltery,
and a tabret, and a pipe, and a harp before them," and proph
esying ; and " the Spirit of the Lord " descending upon those
who witnessed the spectacle, however unprepared for it
before ; so that they too caught the inspiration " and proph
esied also," and were " turned into other men," and passed
days and nights in a state of ecstatic seclusion.* What the
" tongues " were to the " prophesyings " at Corinth, the trance
of Saul was to the Psalms of David. But it is perhaps in
subsequent periods that the nearest outward likenesses to the
gift of " tongues " can be found. The wide difference be
tween the character, inteUectual, moral, and spiritual, of the-
early Christian Church, and that of the sects in which such
later manifestations have appeared, places a deep gulf be
tween the Apostolical gift and these doubtful copies. Still
as the preaching, the teaching, the government, the gifts of
knowledge, of wisdom, of ministry, which appear in the
Apostolical age, are illustrated by the analogous institutions
and faculties of less sacred times, so the excitement and
enthusiasm, and the gifts more especiaUy associated with this
aspect of the early Church, may be illustrated no less from
the expressions of later enthusiasm. Such phenomena, how
ever inferior to the manifestations of the Apostolical times,
have their origin in the same mysterious phase of human life
and human nature, which was included with so much besides
of the most opposite character in the wide range of the
spiritual influences of Apostolical Christianity.
The earliest of these manifestations was the alleged ec
static state of the Montanists at the close of the second cen
tury. " There is at present a sister amongst us," says Ter-
* 1 Sam. x. 5, 6, 10; xix. 20-24.

GIPTS OP TONGUES AND OF PROPHECY. 465
tullian, " who has obtained the gift of revelations, which she
receives in the congregation or solemn sanctuary by ecstasy
in the Spirit, who has converse with angels, sometimes even
with the Lord, and sees and hears sacred truths (sacramenta),
and discerns the hearts of some, and ministers remedies to
those who want them. Also, according as the Scriptures are
read, or the Psalms sung, or exhortations (adlocutiones)
uttered, or petitions presented, so from these several sources
materials are furnished for her visions. We had happened
to be discussing something about the soul, when this sister
was in the Spirit. After the conclusion of the service and
the dismissal of the congregation, she, after her usual manner
of relating her visions (for they are carefuUy recorded that
they may be examined), amongst other remarks, said the
soul was shown to me in a bodily form, the spirit appeared,
but not of an empty or shapeless quality, but as something
which gave hope of being held, tender and bright and of an
aerial hue, and altogether of human form."
Another instance was the utterance of strange sounds
among the persecuted Protestants of the South of France, at
the beginning of the last century, commonly called the
" Prophets of Cevennes," of- whom full accounts are to be
found in the " Histoire des Pasteurs," by Peyrat ; of the
" Troubles de Cevennes," by Gibelin ; and of the " Eghses
de Desert," by C. Coquerel. There is also an "Impartial
Account of the Prophets," by an eyewitness, in A Letter
to "a Friend,* on their appearance in England, where they
excited much attention and the ridicule of Lord Shaftesbury
in his " Characteristics." There is httle of detailed interest
in these descriptions ; but they are remarkable, especiaUy the
last named, as bearing testimony to the good character and
general sobriety of the persons professing to be inspired.
But the most important of these manifestations, as the one
claiming the most direct connection with the Apostolical gifts,
was the so-called " gift of tongues " in the foUowers of Mr.
* London: Morphew, 1708.

466 GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY.
Irving, about 1831-1833. Of the exercise of this gift,
accounts are here subjoined from two eyewitnesses : the first,
a behever in its Divine origin at the time he wrote ; the
second, a believer and actor in the transactions which he
describes, but at the time that he wrote rejecting their Di
vine, though stUl maintaining their supernatural (though
diabolical) origin.
(1.) " As an instance of the extraordinary change in the
powers of the human voice when under inspiration, I may
here mention the case of an individual whose natural voice was
inharmonious, and who besides had no ear for keeping time.
Yet even the voice of this person, when singing in the Spirit,
could pour forth a rich strain of melody, of which each note
was musical, and uttered with a sweetness and power of ex
pression that was truly astonishing, and, what is stUl more sin
gular, with a gradually increasing velocity into a rapidity, yet
distinctness of utterance, which is inconceivable by those who
have never witnessed the like; and yet, with'aU this appar
ently breathless haste, there was not in reality the slightest
agitation of body or of mind. In other instances, the voice
is deep and powerfully impressive. I cannot describe it
better than by saying that it approaches nearly to what might
be considered a perfect state of the voice, passing far beyond
the energies of its natural strength, and at times so loud as
not only to fill the whole house, but to be heard at a con
siderable distance ; and though often accompanied by an
apparently great mental energy and muscular exertion of the
whole body, yet in truth there was not the slightest disturb
ance in either; on the contrary, there was present a tran-
quiUity and composure, both of body and mind, the very
opposite to any, even the least degree of excitement.
" Every attempt at describing these manifestations, so as to
convey an accurate knowledge of them to others, is sure to
fail ; since, to have any adequate perception of their power,
they must be both seen and felt. Yet, were it otherwise, my
conscience would scarcely aUow me the hberty of entering
into so minute a detail ; for the consciousness of the presence

GIFTS OF TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY. 467
of God in these manifestations is fraught with such a holy
solemnity of thought and feehng, as leave neither leisure nor
inclination for curious observation. In a person alive to the
presence of the Holy Ghost, and overwhelmed by his mani
festations beside and around him, and deeply conscious that
his heart is naked and exposed unto the eye of God, one
thought alone fills the soul, one way of utterance is heard,
' God be merciful to me a sinner.' Nor can the eye be
diverted from the only sight that is then precious to it, far
more precious than life itself: 'The Lamb of God, that
taketh away the sin of the world.' " *
(2.) "After one or two of the brethren had read and
prayed, Mr. T. was made to speak two or three words very
distinctly, and with an energy and depth of tone which
seemed to me extraordinary, and it fell upon me as a super
natural utterance which I ascribed to the power of God ; the
words were in a tongue I did not understand. In a few
minutes Miss E. C. broke out in an utterance in English,
which, as to matter and manner and the influence it had upon
me, I at once bowed to as the utterance of the Spirit of God.
Those who have heard the powerful and commanding utter
ance need no description ; but they who have not, may con
ceive what an unnatural and unaccustomed tone of voice, an
intense and riveting power of expression, with the declaration
of a cutting rebuke to aU who were present, and apphcable
to my own state of mind in particular, would effect upon me
and upon the others who were come together, expecting to
hear the voice of the Spirit of God. In the midst of the
feehng of awe and reverence which this produced, I was
myself seized upon by the power, and in much struggling
against it was made to cry out, and myself to give out a con
fession of my own sin in the matter for which we were <
rebuked  There was in me, at the time of the utter
ance, very great excitement ; and yet I was distinctly con-
* A Brief Account of a Visit to some of the Brethren in the West of
Scotland. Published by J. Nisbet, London, 1831, pp. 28, 29.

468 GIFTS OP TONGUES AND OF PROPHECY.
scious of a power, acting upon me beyond the mere power of
excitement. So distinct was this power from the excitement,
that, in all my trouble and doubt about it, I never could
attribute the whole to excitement" * " I read the fourth
chapter of Malachi ; as I read the power came upon me, and
I was made to read in the power. My voice was raised far
beyond its natural pitch, with constrained repetitions of parts,
and with the same inward uphfting which at the presence of
the power I had always before experienced." f " WhUst
sitting at home, a mighty power came upon me, but for a
considerable time no impulse to utterance ; presently, a sen
tence in French was vividly set before my mind, and, under
an impulse to utterance, was spoken. Then, in a httle time,
sentences in Latin were in like manner uttered ; and, with
short intervals, sentences in many . other languages, judging
from the sound and the different exercise of the enunciathig
organs. My wife, who was with me, declared some of them
to be Italian and Spanish ; the first she can read and trans
late, the second she knows but httle of. In this case she was
not able to interpret nor retain the words as they were
uttered. All the time of these utterances I was greatly tried
in mind. After the first sentence, an impulse to utterance
continued on me, and most painfully I restrained it, my con
viction being that, until something was set before me to utter,
I ought not to yield my tongue to utterance. Yet I was
troubled by the doubt, what could the impulse mean, if I were
not to yield to it ? Under the trial, I did yield my tongue
for a few moments; but the utterance that broke from me
seemed so discordant that I concluded the impulse, without
words given, was a temptation, and I restrained it, except as
words were given me, and then I yielded. Sometimes single
words were given me, and sometimes sentences, though I
# Narrative of Facts characterizing the Supernatural Manifestations,
in Members of Mr. Irving's Congregation and other Individuals, in
England and Scotland, and formerly in the Writer himself, by Robert
Baxter. 2d edition, Nisbet, London, 1833, pp. 5 - 7.
t Ibid., p. 12.

GIFTS OF TONGUES AND OF PROPHECY. 469
could neither recognize the words nor sentences as any lan
guage I knew, except those which were French or Latin." *
" My persuasion concerning the unknown tongue, as it is
caUed (in which I myself was very little exercised), is, that
it is no language whatever, but a mere collection of words
and sentences ; and in the lengthened discourses is, most of it
a jargon of sounds ; though I can conceivo, when the power
is very great, that it will assume much of the form of a con
nected oration." f
It must again be repeated, that those instances are brought
forward, not as examples of the Apostolical gift, but as iUus-
trations of it. But, however inferior they may have been
to the appearances of which they were imitations or resem
blances, they yet serve to show the possibility of the same
combination of voice, and ecstasy, and unknown or foreign
words, as has been described in the case of the Apostohc
gift; they show also how, even when accompanied by ex
travagance and fanaticism, such a manifestation could still be,
in a high degree, solemn, impressive, and affecting. It was
the glory of the Apostolical age, that, instead of dwelling
exclusively on this gift, or giving it a prominent place, as has
been the case in the sects of later days, the allusions to it
are rare and scanty, and (in the chapter now before us,
which contains the fullest account of it) even disparaging.
The Corinthian Christians, indeed, regarded it as one of the
highest manffestations of spiritual influence ; but this was the
very tendency which the Apostle sought to repress. The
object of this Section of the Epistle, as of the whole dis
cussion on spiritual gifts of which it forms a part, is to re
strain, moderate, and reduce to its proper subordination, the
fervor, the enthusiasm, the eccentricity, so to speak, occa
sioned by these gifts, and to maintain beyond and above
them the eternal superiority of the moral and religious
elements which Christianity had sanctioned or introduced.
In this respect, as in many others, the mission of the
* Narrative of Facts, &c, pp. 133, 134. t Ibid., pp. 134, 135.
40

470 GIFTS OF TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY.
Apostle was analogous to, though at the same time whoUy un
like, that of the ancient prophets. There was in the early
Christian Church no fear (except from the Jewish party) of an
undue development of that ceremonial and hierarchical spirit,
against which the Prophets and Psalmists, from Samuel and
David downwards, had so constantly lifted up their voices to
assert the paramount importance of justice, mercy, and truth ;
of obedience above sacrifice ; of a broken and contrite spirit
above burnt-offerings of buUs and goats. It was from an
opposite quarter that these great spiritual verities were en
dangered in the beginning of the Christian Church ; but the
danger was hardly less formidable. The attractions of mi
raculous power, of conscious impulses of a Divine presence,
of a speech and an ecstatic state which struck all beholders
with astonishment, were the temptations which, amongst the
primitive Gentile Christians, threatened to withdraw the
Church from the truth, the simplicity, and the soberness of
Christ and of Paul, as the stately ceremonial of the Jewish
worship had, in ancient times, had the like effect in withdraw
ing the nation of Israel from the example of Abraham and
the teaching of Moses. That the gifts were not less neces
sary to sustain the first faith of the Apostolical Christians,
than the Levitical rites were to sustain that of the Jewish
people, does but render the illustration more 'exact What,
therefore, the protests of Isaiah and Amos are against the
corruptions of the ancient Jewish priesthood, what the pro
tests of the Apostle himself in the Epistles to the Romans
and Galatians are against circumcision and the rites of the
Mosaic Law, that this chapter is against all those tendencies
of the human mind which delight in displays of Divine
power more than in displays of Divine wisdom or goodness,
which place the evidence of God's spirit more in sudden and
wonderful frames of feeling and devotion, than in acts of use
fulness and instruction, which make religion selfish and indi
vidual rather than social. Gregory the Great warned Au
gustine of Canterbury not to rejoice that spirits were subject
to him by miraculous power, but that his name was written in

GIFTS OF TONGUES AND OP PROPHECY. 471
the Book of Life through the conversions which he had
effected. The attempts of Paley to rest Christianity solely
upon its external evidence have, in our own times, been
rejected by a higher and more comprehensive philosophy.
The great body of the Christian Church has, in all ages,
given little heed to the extraordinary displays of power, real
or pretended, by particular sects or individuals. In all these
cases the warning of the Apostle in this chapter has been at
hand, to support the more rational and the more dignified
course (if so it may without offence be called), which minds
less enlightened, and consciences less ahve to the paramount
greatness of moral exceUence, may have been induced to
despise. B the Apostle's declaration, that " he himself spake
with tongues " " more than they all," when combined with
his other qualities, is a guaranty that the Apostolical gift of
tongues was not imposture or fanaticism ; yet, on the other
hand, his constant language respecting it is a guaranty no
less that gifts such as these were the last that he would have
brought forward in vindication or support of the Gospel
which he preached. The excitable temperament of Eastern,
as compared with Western nations, may serve to explain to
us, how it was that conditions of mind like that implied in the
gift of tongues should have accompanied, without disturbing,
a faith so lofty, so sober, so dispassionate, as that of the
Apostle. But it also makes that soberness the more remark
able in the Apostle, born and bred in this very Oriental
atmosphere where, as is still shown by the exercises of the
Mussulman dervishes, nothing is too wild to be incorporated
into religious worship ; where, as is stiU shown by the ready
acceptance of the legends of Mahomet and the Mussulman
saints, nothing is too extravagant to be received as a miracle.
He acknowledged the truth, he claimed the possession, of this
extraordinary power ; and yet he was endowed with the
wisdom and the courage to treat it as always subordinate,
often even useless and needless.

LOVE, THE GREATEST OF GIFTS.
Br Rev. ARTHUR P. STANLEY.
1 Cor. xii. 31 -xiii. 13.
This passage stands alone in the writings of St. Paul,
both in its subject and in its style ; yet it is the kernel of the
whole Epistle. This Epistle finds its climax here, as that to
the Romans in the conclusion of the eighth chapter, or that '
to the Hebrews, in the eleventh. Whatever evil tendencies
he had noticed before in the Corinthian church, met their
true correction in this one gift. To them, whatever it might
be to others, to them, with their factions, their intellectual
excitements, their false pretensions, it was all-important.
Without this bond of Love he felt that the Christian society
of Greece would as surely faU to pieces, as its civil society in
former times had appeared to philosophers and statesmen to
be destined to dissolution, without the corresponding virtue
of cpiXia, or mutual harmony. Therefore, although in a
digression, he rises with the subject into the -passionate fervor
which in him is only produced by a directly practical object.
Unlike the mere rhetorical panegyrics on particular virtues,
which are to be found in Philo and similar writers, every
word of the description tells with double force, because it is
aimed against a real enemy. It is as though, wearied with
the long discussions against the sins of the Corinthian church,
he had at last found the spell by which they could be over
come, and uttered sentence after sentence with the triumphant
cry of " Eureka ! "

LOVE, THE GREATEST OP GIFTS. 473
The particular motive for the introduction of the passage
hi this place was, as we have seen, the wish to impress upon
his readers the subordination of gifts of mere display, such
as the gift of tongues, to gifts of practical utility, such as
prophecy. And analogously the same truth still needs to be
impressed : " To all but one in ten thousand," it has been
well said, " Christian speculation is barren of great fruits ; to
aU but one in ten thousand, Christian benevolence is fruitful
of great thoughts." Such is the directly practical result of
the chapter. But the very style shows that it rises far above
any immediate or local occasion. On each side of this chap
ter the tumult of argument and remonstrance stUl rages : but
within it, aU is calm ; the sentences move in almost rhythmi
cal melody; the imagery unfolds itself in almost dramatic
propriety ; the language arranges itself with almost rhetorical
accuracy. We can imagine how the Apostle's amanuensis
must have paused, to look up on his master's face at the sud
den change of the style of his dictation, and seen his counte
nance lighted up as it had been the face of an angel, as the
sublime vision of Divine perfection passed before him. What
then, let us ask, is the nature and origin of that new element
of goodness, of which this is the earliest detaUed description ?
In the first place, the word dydrnj is, in this sense, alto
gether peculiar to the New Testament ; and in the New
Testament, to the writings of Paul, Peter, and John. It is a
remarkable fact, that the word, as a substantive, is entirely
unknown to classical Greek. The only passage where it is
quoted in Stephens's Thesaurus as occurring, is in Plutarch's
Symposium ; and there it has been subsequently corrected
by Reiske from iydmns &v to the participle dyani]crav. The
verb dyanav, indeed, is used in classical Greek, but in the
sense only of acquiescence and contentment, or of esteem
and value. It is in the LXX. that we first find it employed,
to designate what we call " love " ; and it is there introduced
(probably from its likeness in sound to the Hebrew words) to
represent 3nx and 3JJJ (" ahab " and " agab "), both words
expressive of passionate affection, drawn from the idea of
40*

474 LOVE, THE GREATEST OF GIFTS.
panting, aspiring after a desired object. The substantive dyamj
only occurs in Cant. ii. 4, v. 6, viii. 6, 7, for sexual love, and
is there probably suggested by the Hebrew feminine from
•"I3i™ ("ahabah").* The pecuharity of its use in the New
Testament is, that when used simply, and unexplained by
anything else, it is equivalent to benevolence based on relig
ious motives. The Old Testament (in the word 3HN) ex
hibited the virtues both of conjugal affection and of friendship
passing the love of women, as in the case of David; it ex
hibited also, in the case of David, the same passionate devo
tion transferred from man to God, as is wonderfully shown
throughout the Psalms ; it exhibited, lastly, the same feehng
emanating from God himself towards his pecuhar people, the
spouse of his choice, the daughter of Zion. The Greek
world also exhibited in a high degree the virtue of personal
friendship, which was, indeed, so highly esteemed, as to give
its name (cpiXia) to affection generaUy. Domestic and con--
jugal affection, strictly speaking, there was not. The word
(epas), which most nearly approaches to the modern notions
of love, expressed either a merely sensual admiration of
physical beauty, or, when transferred in the sublime language
of Plato to a loftier sphere, an inteUectual admiration of ideal
beauty. The writers who at Alexandria united the last
efforts of Grecian philosophy with the last efforts of Jewish
religion, went a step in one sense beyond both the Old Testa
ment -and also the Greek literature, though in another sense
below them both. Benevolence to man, as man, expressing
itself in the word cpiXavBpan-la, occupies in the writings of
Philo very much the same position as that occupied in the
New Testament by dydisr). But whUst it breaks through the
narrow limits in which the love of the Hebrew dispensation
was confined, it loses its intensity. It becomes an abstrac
tion to be panegyrized, not a powerful motive to be acted
upon. Bi contradistinction to aU these, and yet the complement

* So Bdpis, " a boat," is used as the translation of riV3, " a palace."

LOVE, THE GREATEST OP GIFTS. 475
and completion of all, is the Love, or dydnn, of the New
Testament. Whilst it retains all the fervor of the Hebrew
aspiration and desire, and of the personal affection of the
Greek, it ranges through as wide a sphere as the compre
hensive benevolence of Alexandria. WhUst it retains the
religious element that raised the affections of the Hebrew
Psalmist to the presence of God, it agrees with the classical
and Alexandrian feehngs in making its chief object the wel
fare of man. It is not Rehgion evaporated into Benevolence,
but Benevolence taken up into Religion. IB is the practical
exemplification of the two great characteristics of Chris
tianity, the union of God with man, the union of religion
with morality ; Love to man for the sake of Love to God ;
Love to God showing itself in Love to man.
It is, perhaps, vain to ask by what -immediate means this
new idea was introduced to the Apostle's mind ; it may be
that this very passage is the expression of his delight at first
fuUy grasping the mighty truth which henceforth was never
to pass from him. But the impression left by the words rather
is, that he assumes it as something already known ; new,
indeed, in its apphcation to the wants of the Corinthian
church, but recognized as a fundamental part of the Christian
revelation. Is it too much to say, that this is one of the
ideas derived expressly from what he caUs " the revelations
of the Lord " ? that it is from the great example of self-
sacrificing love shown in the life and death of Jesus Christ,
that the Apostle, and through him the Christian world, has
received the truth, that Love to man for the sake of God
is the one great end of human existence. "A new com
mandment he gave unto us, that we should love one another,
as he loved us. Greater love hath no man than this, that he
lay down his life for another." Until Christ had lived and
died, the virtue was impossible. The fact of its having
come into existence, the urgency with which the Apostle
dwells upon it, is itself a proof that he had lived and died
as none had ever lived and died before. And it is further
remarkable, that a word and an idea which first appears

476 LOVE, THE GREATEST OP GIFTS.
in the writings of St. Paul should receive its fuU meaning
and development in those of St. John. To the minds of
both these great Apostles, amidst all their other diversities,
" Love " represented the chief fact and the chief doctrine
of Christianity. Has it occupied the same place in Chris
tian theology or Christian practice at any later period ?

THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.
Bt Rev. ARTHUR P. STANLEY.
1 Cor. xv. 1-11.
The foregoing Section is remarkable in two points of
view : —
First. It contains the earliest known specimen of what
may be called the Creed of the early Church. In one sense,
indeed, it differs from what is properly called a Creed, which
was the name applied, not to what new converts were taught,
but what they professed on their conversion. Such a pro
fession is naturally to be found only in the Acts of the Apos
tles ; as an impassioned expression of thanksgiving, in Acts
iv. 24 — 30 ; or more frequently as a simple expression of
belief, in Acts viii. 37, where (in some manuscripts) the eu
nuch, in reply to Philip's, question, answers, "I believe that
Jesus Christ is the Son of God " ; and in Acts xvi. 31, xix.
5, where the same, or nearly the same, is imphed of the
jailer of Philippi and of the converts at Ephesus. But the
value of the present passage is, that it gives us a sample of
the exact form of the oral teaching of the Apostle. As has
been before remarked, it cannot be safely inferred that we
have here the whole of what the Apostle . means to describe
as the foundation of his preaching ; partly because of the
expression "first of all," partly because, from the nature of
the case, he brings forward most prominently what was
specially required by the occasion. StiU, on the whole, the
more formal and solemn introduction of the argument, as in

478 THE RESURRECTION OP CHRIST.
xi. 23 (" I dehvered, I received "), and the conciseness of the
phrases ("died," "was buried," and the twice-repeated ex
pression " according to the Scriptures "), imply that at least
in the third and fourth verses we have to a certain extent the
original formula of the Apostle's teaching. And this is con
firmed by its similarity to parts of the Creeds of the first
three centuries, especiaUy to that which, under the name of
the Apostles' Creed, has been generally adopted in the
churches of the West.
Of the details of this primitive formula, enough has been
said in the commentary. It is important, besides, to observe
its general character. Two points chiefly present themselves,
as distinguishing it from later productions of a similar nature :
(1.) It is a strictly historical composition. It is what the
Apostle himseff caUs it, not so much a Creed as a " Gospel " ;
a " Gospel " both in the etymological sense of that word in
English as well as in Greek, as a " glad message," and also
in the popular sense in which it is applied to the narratives
of our Lord's hfe. It is the announcement, not of a doctrine,
or thought, or idea, but of simple matters of fact ; of a joy
ful message, which its bearer was eager to disclose, and its
hearers eager to receive. Dim notions of some great changes
coming over the face of the world, vague rumors of some
wide movement spreading itself from Palestine, had swept
along the western shores of the Mediterranean ; and it was
in answer to the inquiries thus suggested, that Apostle and
Evangelist communicated the " things that they had seen or
heard." Thus it was that the Apostle's " Gospel " was con
tained in the brief summary here presented, and such a
summary as this became the origin of the " Gospels," and, ac
cording to the wants of the readers, was expanded into the
detaUed narratives which still retained the name of " glad
tidings," though, strictly speaking, it belonged only to the
original announcement of their contents.
(2.) A point of subordinate interest, but still remarkable
as belonging solely to the Apostohcal age, is the emphatic
connection of the facts announced with the ancient dispensa-

THE RESURRECTION OP CHRIST. 479
tion. Amongst all the forms, some of them of considerable
length, which are preserved, of the creeds of the first four cen
turies, there are only two (that of TertuUian * and of Epipha-
nius, f from whom, probably, it was derived in the Nicene
Creed), which contain the expressions here twice repeated,
" according to the Scriptures," and in those two probably
imitated from this place. The point, though minute, is of
importance, as helping to bring before us the different aspect
which the same events wore to the Apostolical age and to the
next generations. If, in so compendious an account of his
preaching the fundamental facts of the Gospel history, the
Apostle thinks it necessary twice over to repeat that they
took place in conformity with the ancient prophecies, it is
evident that his hearers, Gentiles as in this instance they
were to a great extent, must have been not only familiar with
the Old Testament, but anxious to have their new faith
brought into connection with it. Later ages have dehghted
in discovering mystical anticipations or argumentative proofs
of the New Testament in the Old ; but these words, express
ing, as they do, the general feehng of the Apostolical writ
ings, carry us back to a time when the events of Christianity
required, as it were, not only to be illustrated or confirmed,
but to be justified, by reference to Judaism. We have in
them the sign that, in reading this Epistle, although on the
shores of Greece, we are still overshadowed by the hills of
Palestine ; the older covenant still remains in the eye of the
world as the one visible institution of Divine origin ; the
" Scriptures " of the Old Testament are stiU appealed to with
undivided reverence, as the stay of the very writings which
were destined so soon to take a place, if not above, at least
beside them, with a paramount and independent authority.
Secondly. This passage contains the earliest extant ac
count of the resurrection of Christ. Thirty years at the
most, twenty years at the least, had elapsed, that is to say,
about the same period as has intervened between this year
* Adv. Prax. c. 2. t II- P- 122.

480 THE RESURRECTION OP CHRIST.
(1855) and the French Revolution of 1830 ; and, as the
Apostle observes, most of those to whom he appeals as wit
nesses were still living ; and he himself, though not strictly
an eyewitness of the fact of the resurrection, yet, in so far
as he describes the vision at his conversion, must be con
sidered as bearing unequivocal testimony to the belief in it
prevailing at that time. It is not, however, the mere asser
tion of the general fact which gives especial interest to this
passage, but the details of the appearances. The belief in
the fact is sufficiently implied in other Epistles of the same
date, and of genuineness equally incontestable ; as in Rom. i.
4 ; iv. 24, 25 ; v. 10 ; vi. 4 - 10 ; viii. 11, 34 ; x. 9 ; xiv. 9 ;
2 Cor. iv. 10, 11, 14 ; v. 15 ; Gal. i. 1 ; 1 Thess. i. 10 ; iv. 14.
Indeed, it is almost needless to quote particular passages to
prove a conviction which the whole tenor of the Apostle's
writings presupposes, and which has hardly ever been doubt
ed. But this Epistle on several occasions not only implies
and states general facts, but descends into particular details
of the Gospel history. Accordingly, in this passage we have
here the account of five appearances after the resurrection,
besides the one to himself. The general character of the
appearances remarkably agrees with that in the Gospel nar
ratives. They are all spoken of as separate and transient
glimpses, rather than a continuous and abiding intercourse.
Some of the instances given are certainly identical in both.
Such are the appearances to the two collective meetings of
the Apostles. The appearances to Peter, to the five hun
dred, and to James, are distinct from those in the Gospel
narrative ; and it may be remarked that this variation itself
agrees with the discrepancies and obscurities which charac
terize that portion of the Gospel narrative. The appearance
to James in particular, agreeing as it does with the account of
a rejected Gospel (that according to the Hebrews), and not
with those of the canonical Gospels, indicates an independent
source for the Apostle's statement. The appearance to Peter
is also to be noticed especially, as an example of an inci
dent to which there is an aUusion in the Gospel narra-

THE RESURRECTION OP CHRIST. 481
tive* which here only receives its explanation. The ap
pearance to the five hundred is to be observed as exempli
fying with regard to the Apostle's relation, with regard to the
Gospel narratives, what is often to be observed with regard
to his relation to the Acts ; namely, that he, writing nearer
the time, makes a fuller statement of the miraculous or won
derful than is to be found in the later accounts ; the reverse
of what is usually supposed to take place in fictitious narra
tives. The result, therefore, on the whole, of the comparison of
St. Paul's narrative with that of the Gospels, is, —
(1.) That there must already have existed at this time a
belief in the main outline of the Gospel story of the Resur
rection, much as we have it now.
(2.) That the Gospel to which his statements, as elsewhere
so here, bear the closest resemblance, is that of St. Luke,
thus confirming the usual tradition of their connection.
(3.) That with regard to the Resurrection in particular,
there was, besides the four accounts preserved in the Gospels,
a fifth, agreeing with them in its general character, but differ
ing from them as much as they differ, from each other, and,
whUst it is earlier in time, giving stronger attestations to the
event. * Luke xxiv. 34.

41

THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.
By Rev. ARTHUR P. STANLEY.
1 Cor. xv. 35 - 58.
This passage is important, as exemplifying what may be
called the soberness of the Apostle's view of a future life.
He enters into no detaUs, he appeals to two arguments only :
first, the endless variety of the natural world ; secondly, the
power of the new life introduced by Christ. These two
together furnish him with the hope, that out of God's infinite
goodness and power, as shown in nature and in grace, hfe wiU
spring out of death, and new forms of being wholly unknown
to us here will fit us for the spiritual world hereafter. On
one point only he professes to have a distinct revelation, and
that not with regard to the dead, but to the living. So firmly
was the first generation of Christians possessed of the belief
that they should live to see the second coming, that it is here
assumed as a matter of course; and their- fate, as near and
immediate, is used to Ulustrate the darker and more mysteri
ous subject of the fate of those already dead. That vision
of " the last man," which now seems so remote as to live only
in poetic fiction, was, to the Apostle, an awful reahty ; but it
is brought forward only to express the certamty that, even
here, a change must take place ; the greatest that imagination
can conceive. The last of the human race wiU have passed
away ; but in that moment of final dissolution, the only
thought that is present to the Apostle's mind is not death, but
life and victory. The time was approaching, as it seemed,

THE RESURRECTION OP THE DEAD. 483
when, in the language of modern science, " not theindividual
only, but the species of man, would be transferred to the list
of extinct forms," and all the generations of men would be
" gone, lost, hushed in the stiUness of a mightier death than
had hitherto been thought of." To us the end of the world,
though now indefinitely postponed, is a familiar- idea ; then it
was new in itself, and its coming was expected to be imme
diate. As in that trial of his individual faith and patience,
mentioned ih the Second Epistle,* it was revealed to him that
" Christ's grace was sufficient for him " ; so also in this trial,
which appeared to await the whole existing generation of
men, it was (so he seems to tell us) declared to him "in
a "" revealed " mystery," that in that great change " God
would give them the victory" over death and the grave,
"through Jesus Christ."
The question, with which the passage opens and which
even in later times has often been asked again with elaborate
minuteness, "How are the dead raised up, and with what
body do they come ? " is met with the stern reproof, " Thou
fool " ; nor is what we call " the resurrection of the body,"
properly speaking, touched upon in these verses. The diffi
culties which have been raised respecting the Resurrection in
the Apostle's time or in our own, are occasioned by the futUe
endeavor to form a more distinct conception of another hfe
than in our mortal state is possible. The inquiry which he
answers is hke that of the Saddueees,. " In the resurrection
whose wife shaU she be of the seven ? " and the spirit of his
reply is the same as that of our Lord, " In the resurrection
they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the
angels of God in heaven  God is not the God of the
dead, but of the living." All that the Apostle directly asserts
is, that whatever body there may be after death will be
wholly different from the present, and that the infinite variety
of nature renders such an expectation not only possible, but
probable. His more positive belief or hope on this subject
* 2 Cor. xii. 8, 9.

484 THE RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD.
must be sought, not here, but in 2 Cor. v. 1-6. This much,
however, may be inferred from the two passages combined,
and from such expressions as Rom. viii. 23, " The redemption
of our body"; Rom. viii. 11, "He that raised up Christ
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies " ; Phil.
iii. 21, "Who shaU change our vile body, that it may be
fashioned like unto his glorious body " ; — namely, that the
Christian idea of a future state is not fully expressed by a
mere abstract belief in the immortality of the soul, but requires
a redemption and restoration of the whole man. According
to the ancient creed of Paganism, expressed in the well-
known lines at the commencement of the Iliad, the souls of
departed heroes did indeed survive death ; but these souls
were not themselves, they were the mere shades or ghosts of
what had been ; " themselves " were the bodies left to be
devoured by dogs and vultures. The Apostle's teaching, on
the other hand, is always that, amidst whatever change, it is
the very man himseff that is preserved ; and, if for the
preservation of this identity any outward organization is
required, then, although " flesh and blood cannot inherit the
kingdom of heaven," God from the infinite treasure-house of
the new heavens and new earth will furnish that organiza
tion, as he has already furnished it to the several stages of
creation in the present order of the world. "If God so
clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is
cast into the oven, shall he not much rather clothe you, 0 ye
of httle faith?"

THE CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES.
Bt THOMAS BROWN, M. L\, F. R. S. Ed.,
PROFESSOR OP MORAIi PHILOSOPHY IN THE UNIVERSITY OP EDINBURGH.*

The possibility of the occasional direct operation of the
Power which formed the world, in varying the usual course
of its events, it would be in the highest degree unphilosophi-
cal to deny : nor can we presume to estimate the degree of its
probability; since, in many cases, of the wide bearings of
which on human happiness we must be ignorant, it might be
the result of the same benevolent motives which we must
suppose to have influenced the Divine mind in the original
act of creation itself. But the theory of the Divine govern
ment, which admits the possibility of such occasional agency,
is very different from that which asserts the necessity of the
perpetual and uniform operation of the Supreme Being, as
the immediate or efficient cause of every phenomenon. The
will of the Deity, whether displayed in those obvious varia
tions of events which are termed miracles, or inferred from
those supposed secret and invisible changes which are ascribed
to his providence, is itself, in all such cases, to be regarded
by the affirmer of it' as a new physical antecedent, from
which, if it really form a part of the series of events, a differ
ence of result may naturally be expected, on the same prin
ciple as that on which we expect a change of product from
any other new combination of physical circumstances.

* Erom a note to his " Inquiry into the Relation of Cause and Effect.'
• 41*

486 THE CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES.
It is on this view of the Divine wiU, — as itself, in every
case in which it may be supposed to operate directly in the
phenomena of the universe, a new circumstance of physical
causation, — that every valid answer to the abstract argument
of Mr. Hume's Essay on Miracles must, as I conceive, be
founded. The great mistake of that argument does not con
sist, as has been imagined, in a miscalculation of the force of
testimony in general : for the principle of the calculation
must be conceded to him, that, whatever be the source of our
early faith in testimony, the rational credit which we after
wards give to it, in any case, depends on our belief of the less
improbability of the facts reported, than of the ignorance .or
fraud of the reporter. If the probabilities were reversed, —
and if it appeared to us less probable that any fact should
have happened as stated, than that the reporter of it should
have been unacquainted with the real circumstances, or
desirous of deceiving us, — it matters httle from what prin
ciple our faith in testimony may primarily have flowed : for
there is surely no one who will contend, that, in such a
case, we should be led by any principle of our nature to
credit that which appeared to us, at the very time at which
we gave it our assent, unworthy of being credited, or, in
other words, less likely to be true than to be false.
Whether it be to experience that we owe our belief of
testimony in general, or whether we owe to it only our
knowledge of the possibilities of error or imposition, which
makes us hesitate in admitting any particular testimony, is
of no consequence then to our belief, in the years in which
we are called to be the judges of the likelihood of any ex
traordinary event that is related to us. It is enough that we
know, as after a very few years of life we cannot fail to know,
that it is possible for the reporter to be imperfectly acquainted
with the truth of what he states, or capable of wishing to
deceive us. Before giving our complete assent to any mar
vellous tale, we always weigh probabUity against probability ;
and if, after weighing these, it appear to us more likely, on
the whole, that the information is false, than that the event

THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES. 487
has really happened, in the manner reported, we should not
think ourselves in the slightest degree more bound to admit
the accuracy of the narrative, though a thousand arguments
were urged, far more convincing than any which have yet
been offered, to persuade us, that there is an original tendency
in the mind, before experience, to believe whatever is related,
without even the shghtest feehng of doubt, and consequently
without any attempt to form an estimate of its degree of
probability. It is not in any miscalculation, then, of the force of general
testimony, whether original or derived, that the error of Mr.
Hume's abstract argument consists. It lies far deeper, in the
false definition of a miracle, which he has given, as " a viola
tion of the laws of nature " ; — a definition which is accordant,
indeed, with the definitions that have been usually given of it
by theologians, but is not on that account more accurate and
precise, as a philosophic expression of the phenomena in
tended to be expressed by it. To the theologian himself it is,
I conceive, peculiarly dangerous ; because, while it makes it
essential to the reality of a miracle, that the very principle
of continued uniformity of sequence should be false, on which
our whole belief of causation, and consequently of the Divine
Being as an operator, is founded, it gives an air of incon
sistency, and almost of absurdity, to the very assertion of a
miracle, and at the same time deprives the doctrine of mira
cles of its principal support against an argument, which, if his
definition of them were philosophically a just one, Mr. Hume
must be allowed to have urged very powerfully against them.
Bi mere philosophy, however, the definition, though we
were to consider it, without any theological view, simply as
the expression of certain phenomena of a very peculiar kind,
is far from being just. The laws of nature, surely, are not
violated, when a new antecedent is followed by a new conse
quent; they are violated only when, the antecedent being
exactly the same, a different consequent is the result : and it'
such a violation — which, as long as it is a part of our very
constitution to be impressed with an irresistible behef of the

488 THE CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES.
uniformity of the order of nature, may be said to involve,
relatively to this behef, a physical contradiction — were
necessarily implied in a miracle, I do not see how the testi
mony of any number of witnesses, the wisest, and most hon
orable, and least interested from any personal motive in the
truth of what they report, could afford evidence of a miracle
that might amount to proof. The concurring statements
might, perhaps, be sufficient to justify a suspension of judg
ment between belief and disbehef; but this suspension is the
utmost which the evidence of a fact so monstrous as the se
quence of a different consequent when the antecedent had
been exactly the same, could reasonably claim. When we
have once brought our mind to beheve in the violation of the
laws of nature, we cannot know what we should either be
lieve or disbelieve, as to the successions of events ; since "we
must, in that case, have abandoned for the time the only prin
ciple on which the relation of cause and effect is founded :
and, however constant the connection of truth with testimony,
in the most favorable circumstances, may be, it cannot be
more, though it may be less, constant than the connection of
any other physical phenomena, which have been, by suppo
sition, unvaried in their order of sequence, till the very
moment of that supposed violation of their order in which
the miracle is said to consist.
Let us suppose a witness, of the most honorable character,
to state to us a fact, with which he had every opportunity of
being perfectly acquainted, and in stating which he could not
have any interest to deceive us, but might, on the contrary,
subject himself to much injury by the public declaration ; —
it must be allowed, that it is in the highest degree improbable
that his statement should be false. To express this improba
bility in the strongest possible manner, let us admit that the
falsehood of his statement, in such circumstances, would be
an absolute miracle, and therefore, according to the definition
that is given of a miracle, would be a violation of a law of
nature. It would be a miracle, then, if, in opposition to his
former veracity and to his own interest in the case supposed,

THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES. 489
he should wish to deceive us ; but if it be a miracle, also,
which he asserts to have taken place, we must, equally
whether we credit or do not credit his report, believe that a
law of nature has been violated, by the sequence of an un
accustomed effect after an accustomed cause ; and if we must
believe such a change as constitutes an absolute violation of
some law of nature, in either case, it- is impossible to discover,
in the previous equal uniformity of nature in both cases, —
without the belief of which regular order of sequence we
cannot form the notion of physical probabilities at all, — any
ground of preference of one of these violations to the other.
Though we were to admit, then, to testimony in general all
the force for which Dr. CampbeU and other writers have so
laboriously, and, as I conceive, in relation to the present argu
ment, so vainly contended, — and though we were to imagine
every possible circumstance favorable , to the veracity of the
reporter to be combined, — the utmost that can be implied in
the admission is, that it would be a violation of a law of
nature, if the testimony were false ; but if it would not be
more so than the aUeged violation of a law of nature con
cerning which the testimony is offered, and if, beyond the
uniformity of antecedence and consequence in the events of
the universe, we cannot form a notion of any power what
ever, a suspension of judgment, and not positive belief, in a
case, in which, before we can believe either of the violations,
we must have abandoned the very principle on which our
whole system of physical belief is founded, is all which the
propounder of a miracle, in this view of it, can be supposed
reasonably to demand.
It would be vain, in such a case of supposed opposite mira
cles, to endeavor to multiply the improbabilities on one side,
and thus to obtain a preference, by counting the number of
separate witnesses, aU wise, all possessing the means of accu
rate information, all honorable men, and aU perfectly disin
terested, or having personal motives that, if they were less
honorable, would lead them rather to refrain from giving
evidence ; since the only effect of this combination of evidence

490 THE CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES.
would be to add to the probabiUty of the statement, which, if
once we have admitted the falsehood of it to be miraculous, is
already as great as it is possible to be. It is a miracle, that
one witness, who has had perfect opportunities of accurate
observation, and every motive of personal interest to give a
true representation of an event, should yet, in opposition to
his own interest, prefer to give a false account of it. That a
hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred thousand witnesses,
should, in the same circumstances, concur in the same false
account, would be a miracle indeed, but it would only be a
miracle stiU. Of probability there are many degrees, from
that which is merely possible to that which is almost certain ;
but the miraculous does not admit of gradation. Nobody
thinks that the conversion of water into wine at the marriage-
feast in Galilee would have been a greater miracle if the
quantity of transmuted water had been doubled ; and a com
mentator would surely render himself a little ridiculous, who,
in descanting on the passage of the Israelites through the
Red Sea, should speak of the myriads of liquid particles of
the mass that were prevented from following their usual
course, as rendering more miraculous the passage itself, than
if the number of drops had been less by a few scores or hun
dreds. But if this numerical calculation would be absurd in
the one case, when applied to a number of particles of matter,
each of which, individually, may be considered as exhibiting
the influence of a miraculous interposition of a Power sur
passing ' the ordinary powers of nature, it is surely not less
absurd, when applied to a number of minds, in each of which,
in like manner, a violation of an accustomed law of nature is
supposed. It is a miracle, that one drop of water should
become wine : it is a miracle, that a thousand drops of water
should be so changed. It is a miracle, that a single witness,
with many motives to declare the truth, and not one motive to
utter a falsehood, should yet, with great peril to himself,
prefer to be an impostor: it is a miracle, that a thousand
witnesses, with the same motives, should concur, at the same
risk, in the same strange preference. In miracles there are

THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES. '491
truly, as I have said, no degrees. The Deity either must act
or not act, — or, according to the false definition which I am
opposing, a law of nature must either be violated or not vio
lated. There may be less than a miracle ; but there cannot
be more than a miracle.
As long as a miracle is defined to be a violation of the law
of nature, it is not wonderful that it should shock our strong
est principles of behef; since it must require from us the
abandonment, for the time, of the only principle by which we
have been led to the belief of any power whatever, either in
God himself, or in the things which he has created ; — whUe,
at the same time, it is defined to be that which must, by the
very terms of the definition, be as improbable as false testi
mony can be in any circumstances. It may be less, but it
cannot be more, worthy of the name of a miracle, that we
should be deceived by the testimony of the best and wisest of
mankind, as to a fact of which they had means of the most
accurate knowledge, than that any other event should have
happened, which is admitted by the reporters of it to be a
violation of the order of nature, as complete as the falsehood
of the testimony which reports it to us, in these or in any
circumstances, itself could be.
With Mr. Hume's view of the nature of a miracle, then,
¦ — if we rashly give our assent to his definition, — it seems
to me not very easy to get the better of his sceptical argu
ment. The very assertion of a violation of a law of nature
is, as we have seen, the assertion of something that is incon
sistent with every principle of our physical faith : and, after
giving all the weight Which it is possible to give to the evi
dence of concurring witnesses, with the best means of knowl
edge, and no motives of interest that could lead them to wish
to deceive, we may perhaps succeed in bringing one miracle
against another, — the miracle of their falsehood against the
physical miracle reported by them, — but we cannot do more
than this : we cannot render it less a violation of a law of
nature, — and less inconsistent, therefore, with the principle,
which, both speculatively and practicaUy, has guided us in all

492 THE CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES.
our views of the sequences of events, — that the reported
miracle should have happened, than that the sage, and amia
ble, and disinterested reporters should knowingly and inten-
tionaUy have labored to deceive us.
The definition, however, which asserts this apparent incon
sistency with our experience, is not a just one. A miracle is
not a violation of any law of nature. It involves, therefore,
primarUy, no contradiction, nor physical absurdity. It has
nothing in it which is inconsistent with our behef of the most
undeviating uniformity of nature : for it is not the sequence of
a different event when the preceding circumstances have been
the same ; it is an effect that is new to our observation, be
cause it is the result of new and pecuhar circumstances. The
antecedent has been, by supposition, different ; and it is not
wonderful, therefore, that the consequent also should be
different WhUe every miracle is to be considered as the result of an
extraordinary antecedent, — since it flows directly from a
higher power than is accustomed to operate in the common
trains of events which come beneath our view, — the se
quence which it displays may be regarded, indeed, as out of
the common course of nature, but not as contrary to that
course ; any more than any other new result of new combi
nations of physical circumstances can be said to be contrary
to the course of events, to which, from the absolute novelty
of the circumstances, it has truly no relation whatever, either
of agreement or disagreement. B we suppose any one, who
is absolutely unacquainted with electrical apparatus and the
strange phenomena • which that apparatus can be made to
evolve, to put his hand accidentally near a charged conductor,
so as to receive from it a shght shock, though his sensation
may be different from any to which he had been accustomed,
we do not believe that he wUl on that account consider it as a
proof of a violation of a law of nature, but only as the effect
of something which was unknown to him before, and which
he will conceive therefore to be of rare occurrence. Bi a
miracle, in like manner, nothing more is to be supposed. It

THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES. 493
is the Divine wiU, that, preceding it immediately, is the
cause of the extraordinary effect which we term miraculous ;
and whatever may be the new consequent of the new ante
cedent, the course of nature is as little violated by it, as it
was violated by the electrician who for the first time drew
lightning from the clouds, or by the aeronaut who first as
cended to a region of the air of more ethereal purity than
that which aUows the gross substance of a cloud to float in it.
The Highest of aU powers, of whose mighty agency the
universe which sprung from it affords evidence so magnificent,
has surely not ceased to be one of the powers of nature, be
cause every other power is exercised only in delegated and
feeble subordination to his omnipotence. He is the greatest
of aU the powers of nature ; but he is still one of the powers
of nature, as much as any other power, whose hourly or
momentary operation is most familiar to us : — and it must
be a very false philosophy indeed, which would exclude his
omnipotent wiU from the number of powers, or assert any
extraordinary appearances, that may have flowed from his
agency, to be violations of an order, in which the ordinary
sequences were different before, because .the ordinary ante
cedents in aU former time were different. There may be, or
there may not be, reason — for this is a different question —
to beheve, that the Deity has, for any particular purpose,
condescended to reveal himself as the direct producer of
phenomena that are out of the usual course of nature ; but,
since we are whoUy unacquainted with any limits to his
power, and cannot form any notion, therefore, of events, as
more or less fitted to be the physical consequents of his wUl
to produce them, it would evidently be absurd for us to speak
of any phenomenon that is said to be consequent on his wiU,
as a violation of the natural order of the phenomena that
might be expected to flow from an energy, of the transcendent
extent of whose operation we are ignorant, and know only,
that it is worthy of .a reverent and grateful admiration, far
surpassing what our hearts, in the feebleness of their worship,
are capable of offering to it,

494 THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES.
The shock of an earthquake, and the descent of stones
from the sky, are not regarded as violations of any law of
nature, though they are phenomena of very rare occurrence,
which require a peculiar combination of the circumstances
that physically precede them. What these circumstances are,
the witnesses of the resulting phenomena may be wholly un
able to state ; but as they have been witnesses of the great
results, they know at least, that the necessary combination,
whatever it may have been, must previously have taken
place. By the assertors of a miracle, the same necessity is
always supposed. They do not contend, that, when the ex
traordinary event, which they term miraculous, happened, the
previous circumstances were the same as at other times, when
no such event was consequent ; any more than a meteorolo
gist contends, that, when stones fall from the air, the previous
circumstances, however much their difference may have been
beyond his power of observation, were absolutely the same
as in the faU of rain or snow, or in any other phenomenon of
the atmosphere that is more familiar to us. On the contrary,
they contend that the difference of the effect — as proved
by the evidence of their senses, or of indubitable testimony,
in the same way as the truth of any other rare phenomenon
is established — implies an extraordinary cause : and since
all the circumstances of which the mere senses could judge,
previously to the miracle, were the same as had frequently
existed before, without any such marvellous result, they sup
pose the difference to have been in something which was
beyond the sphere of the perceptive organs, and have re
course to the Divine volition, as a power of which the
universe itself marks the existence, and which, in all the
circumstances of the case, it seems most reasonable to con
sider as the antecedent of the extraordinary effect.
That a quantity of gunpowder, apparently as inert as the
dust on which we tread, should suddenly turn into a force of
the most destructive kind, aU the previous circumstances con
tinuing exactly the same, would be indeed contrary to the
course of nature, but it would not be contrary to it, if the

THE CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES. 495
change were preceded by the application of a spark. It
would not be more so, if the antecedent were any other
existing power, of equal efficacy ; and the physical influence
which we ascribe to a single spark, it would surely not be too
much to claim for that Being, to whom we have been led by
the most convincing evidence to refer the very existence of
the explosive mass itself, and of all the surrounding bodies on
which it operates, and who has not a less powerful empire
over nature now, than he had at the very moment at which it
arose, and was what he willed it to be.
To that Almighty Power the kindling of a mass of gun
powder, to which our humble skill is adequate, is not more
easy, than any of the wonders which we term miraculous.
Whatever he wills to exist, flows naturally from that very
wiU. Events of this kind, therefore, if truly taking place,
would be only the operation of one of the acknowledged
powers of nature, producing indeed what no other power
might be capable of producing, but what would deserve as
much to be considered as the natural consequence of the
power from which it flows, as any other phenomenon to be
regarded as the natural consequence of its particular ante
cedent. In the assertion of a miracle, therefore, whatever
other reasons of doubt there may or may not be in any par
ticular case, there is no longer the primary physical absurd
ity of a violation of a law of nature to be brought against
the physical absurdity of another violation of a law of nature,
— or of the asserted agency of a particular power, as marked
by a breach of that very order the uniformity of which is all
that constitutes our very notion of power itself. Every law
of nature continues as it was ; for every antecedent has its
ordinary effect. We have only physical probabilities to be
weighed with physical probabilities, precisely as in any other
case in which any very extraordinary event is related to us ;
and according as the difference of these is greater or less, our
doubt or belief or disbelief is to be the result.
The argument of Mr. Hume, in the only part of his Essay
that is of importance in the philosophy of general belief, is

496 THE CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES.
an abstract one ; and it is not the object of the present Note
to enter into an historical and logical review of the proba
bility or improbability of any particular miracles, but only to
consider that abstract argument, in the universal apphcation
which its ingenious author was inclined to make of it, as
sufficient, of itself, to preclude the necessity of examining the
evidence of any miracle whatever, even in circumstances
which, if the event related had been of any other kind,
would have been regarded as in the highest degree favorable
to the veracity of the reporters.
The assertor of a miracle — according to the view which
I have taken of it, and which it seems to me impossible not
to take of it, if the phenomenon to which that name is given
be minutely analyzed — is not the assertor of a violation of
any law of nature. What he asserts is the operation of a
power that must be aUowed to have existed truly at the mo
ment of the alleged miraculous event, whether we admit or
do not admit that particular operation, — the greatest of all
existing powers, since it is by it alone that every other power
of nature is what it is, — and of which, as of not less irre
sistible dominion now than it was in the moment of the
original Creative wUl, what we term the laws of nature are
nothing more than the continued manifestation.
If, indeed, the assertor of a miracle had to combat with an
atheist, it wiU be aUowed that the conditions of the reasoning
would be changed, and that it would be impossible for him to
obviate the force of the abstract negative argument, till he
had previously estabhshed the truth of the first principles of
theism ; — as little possible, as it would be to prove lightning
to be an electrical phenomenon to one who persisted in the
denial of such a power as electricity. A miracle is stated to
be the result of the operation of one of the powers of nature,
whose very existence is denied by the atheist ; and if the
existence of the power itself be denied, the operation of that
power in any case must also be denied. To the conception
of an atheist, therefore, every miracle would be truly a viola
tion of a law of nature, in the strictest sense of that phrase,

THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES. 497
and would of course involve all the physical absurdity that is
implied in such a violation: the antecedent would seem to
him the same, while the consequent was asserted to be dif
ferent ; because in his denial of the existence of any super
human power is involved the denial of that new antecedent
from which the miracle, as itself a new consequent, is sup
posed physically to flow, like any other physical consequent
of any other antecedent.
If, however, the existence of the Deity be admitted, and,
with his existence, the possibUity of his agency, in circum
stances in which it would be more for the advantage of his
creatures that he should operate, than that he should abstain
from operating, — the possible occurrence of which circum
stances can be denied only by those who profess that they are
capable of comprehending the infinite relations of events, and
thus of ascertaining exactly, in every case, what would be
more or less for the happiness of the universe, — then is the
evidence of his asserted agency to be regarded in the same
manner as the evidence of any other extraordinary event,
that is supposed to have resulted from any other new com
bination of physical circumstances. It is to be met, not with
a positive denial, nor with a refusal to examine it, but with a
cautious slowness of assent, proportioned to the extraordinari-
ness of the marvellous phenomenon. Strong, and closely
bordering on disbelief, as our first feeling of doubt may be, it
is still necessary, before we think ourselves authorized to
disbelieve, that we should examine what, even though at first
it may seem to us little worthy of being credited, may not on
that account be positively false ; and if, on examination, we
find the evidence to be such, that we could not hesitate in
admitting it, if it had related to any other species of extraor
dinary event, the result of any other combination of physi
cal circumstances, so rare as never before to have been
recorded by any observer, we surely cannot think ourselves
justified in rejecting it altogether, because the physical power
to whose agency it is supposed to bear witness, is the greatest
of all the powers of nature. 42*

498 THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES.
In this discussion, we are never to forget, what I have
already frequently repeated, that a miracle, if it truly take
place, far from violating any physical law, is, in the pecuhar
circumstances in which it takes place, the natural result of
the operation of a physical power, as much as any other rare
phenomenon ; and we may, therefore, derive some light, in
our inquiry, from the consideration of the frame of mind
with which we receive the narrative of any other physical
event, so extraordinary as to be altogether new to our ex
perience. When we first heard of the fall of stones from the sky,
there was considerable slowness to admit the fact ; and this
slowness, in such circumstances, it will be allowed, was ac
cordant with the spirit of sound philosophy. But after the
concurring reports of many creditable witnesses, have we
remained incredulous, because a meteor so very strange may
never have come under our own observation, — though for
year after year, in every season and in every seeming variety
of heat and light and moisture, we may have been most watch
ful observers of all the changes of the atmosphere ? There
is not a philosopher, whatever theory he may have formed of
their origin, who is not now convinced that such bodies have
truly faUen on the surface of our earth : — and why is he
convinced ? It is because the extraordinary fact, which has
probably never come under his own observation, has been
attested by many witnesses, able to form a judgment of it,
and having no motive of interest to give a false report. But
the power that is capable of working miracles is a power that
must be believed to exist, as truly as the power, or combina
tion of powers, in the upper regions of the atmosphere, or
above our atmosphere, by which we suppose the aerolite to
be produced. The event which we term miraculous, if there
truly be such an event, is as natural a result of Iris operation
in particular circumstances, as the aerolite of the rare com
bination of circumstances in which that peculiar atmospherical
phenomenon has its origin. If the testimony of many sage
and disinterested witnesses be capable of proving the one, it

THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES. 499
is equally capable of proving the other. The extraordinari-
ness of the event, in both cases, should indeed, as I before
said, make us pecuharly cautious in examining the evidence
on which it is asserted ; it affords, in the first statement of the
fact, a presumptive improbability ; and if this strong primary
doubt, which, without amounting to' disbehef, might in various
circumstances approximate to it, were aU for which Mr.
Hume's argument had contended, there would have been
little reason to dissent from his doctrine. But the extraor-
dinariness, though demanding greater caution, does not, of
itself, furnish counter-evidence. Above all, it does not entitle
us to say at once, that whatever evidence can be offered on
the subject is unworthy of our examination. We have still
to examine the evidence of the extraordinary physical facts
that are termed miracles, as we have to examine the evidence
of any other extraordinary physical facts, that are reported
to us under any other name.
He who was able to form the universe as it is, and to give
life to man and everything which lives, may be presumed, if
such be his pleasure, to be capable of giving life to a body
that lies before us in death, inert and insensible indeed at
present, but not more inert and insensible than the mass
which was first animated with a living soul. God exists,
then ; his power is ever present with us ; and it is capable of
performing all which we term miraculous. We may be
assured, indeed, — for this the regularity of the apparent
sequences of phenomena -justifies us in believing, — that he
will not himself appear as the direct operator of any wonder
ful change, unless for some gracious purpose, like that which
led him originaUy to the performance of the first miracle that
produced everything which exists before us. But, as he
operated then, he may operate again ; from a similar gracious
purpose we may infer a similar result of benefit to the world ;
and it certainly would be a most unwarrantable argument,
which, on the acknowledged fact of one great miracle of crea
tion, would found a reason for asserting that no miracle is
afterwards to be credited, and from the many provisions for

500 THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES.
existing happiness infer that He whose beneficence at one
time operated in the production of these, cannot be reason
ably expected at any other time to do what, by supposition,
it would be for the happiness of the world that he should do.
It is essential, indeed, for our belief of any miraculous
event, that there should be the appearance of some gracious
purpose, which the miracle may be supposed to fulfil ; since
all which we know of the operation of the Divine power in
the universe, indicates some previous purpose of that kind.
Li our own nature, and in everything that exists around us,
and that is capable of affecting us in any way, there is proof
of the existence of a Divine operator, and of the connection
of a beneficent design with his operation, as much as, in any
other physical sequence of events, there is proof of a perma
nent relation of any other antecedent to any other conse
quent. The same principle, then, which leads us to expect
the hght of another day from the rising of the morrow's sun
above the horizon, or, in a case more analogous because more
extraordinary, the fall of a stone from the sky, if the cir
cumstances should recur which are necessary for the produc
tion of that rare meteor, would justify our expectation of the
sthl rarer phenomena which are termed miracles, if we had
reason to believe, at any time, that circumstances had oc
curred, in which the happiness that was in the view of the
Divine mind, in the original miracle of creation, would be
promoted by a renewal of his mighty agency. It will be
acknowledged, indeed, that, from our ignorance of the wide
relations of events, we are very UI qualified to judge accu
rately of such circumstances. But though we may be very
likely to be mistaken in determining them, it is not the less
true, that such circumstances may exist ; and that, in that
ease, the denial of the probabihty of a miracle would itself be
inconsistent with belief of that very principle of uniformity,
from which the experience that is said to be opposed to
miracles derives its whole force, — the principle according to
which we believe, that, in all simUar circumstances, what has
been once will be again.

THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES. 501
If the creation of man was an act that was worthy of the
Divinity, it was worthy on account of its object; and if other
miracles tend to the same great object, they surely were not
excluded by that primary miracle, with the beneficent. purpose
of which they are in harmony. Is there any reason which
can be urged, a priori, to show, that a power which operated
once is therefore never to operate again, and that it would be
unworthy of Him who surrounded his creatures with so many
means of increasing happiness, and endowed them with facul
ties of progressive advancement in knowledge, to give them,
when a portion of that progress was completed, a revelation
of truths of a higher order, by which they might become still
more wise and happy ? And if it would not be unworthy of
Him who loved mankind, to favor them with such views of
his moral government of the world, and of the futurity that
awaits them, as might have this salutary influence, it could
not be unworthy of Him to sanction his revelation by dis
plays of extraordinary power, that might be sufficient to mark
the high Author from whom it came. God exists : that he
has deigned to operate, the whole universe, which is the
result of that operation, shows ; — and it shows, too, that
when he did thus deign to operate in that greatest of aU
miracles, which the sagest and most cautious deniers of every
other miracle admit, the antecedent volition was a will of
good to his creatures, in perfect analogy with that antecedent
graciousness of will of which the assertors of other miracles
suppose them to be the consequents.
B, before stating his abstract argument, Mr. Hume had
established any one of the following propositions, — that there
is no proof of any power by which the universe was formed,
— or that the power which formed the universe, and was the
source of all the regularity which we admire in nature, exists
no longer, — or that the race of beings for whom, still more
than for any other of its various races, our earth appears to
have been formed, have now become wholly indifferent to the
great Being, who then, by his own immediate agency, pro
vided for them with so much care, — or that it is inconsistent

502 THE CREDIBILITY OF MIRACLES.
with his wish for the happiness of his creatures, which that
early provision for them shows, that he should make to them
at any time such a revelation as would greatly increase their
happiness, — or that, if we should still suppose him capable
of making such a revelation, he could not be expected to
sanction it with the authority of such events as those which
we term miracles, — then, indeed, when either the Divine
power was excluded from the number of the existing powers
of nature, or his agency in the particular case was excluded,
and when nothing, therefore, was left to be compared but the
opposite probabilities or improbabilities of breaches of the
famUiar sequences of events, the argument on which the
Essayist is disposed to found so much, might have been
brought forward with irresistible force. But if it be admitted
that a Power exists, who wrought the great miracle of crear
tion with a gracious view to the happiness of man, — that
there is no reason to believe this happiness to be less an
object of Divine benevolence than it was originally, — that
a revelation, of which the manifest tendency was to increase
this happiness, would not be inconsistent with such benevo
lence, t — -and that, if a revelation were deigned to man, a
miracle, or series of miracles, might be regarded as a very
probable sanction of it ; — then, since a miracle would be only
the natural result of an existing physical power, in the pecu
liar and very rare circumstances in which alone its mighty
energy is revealed, the evidence of its operation is to be
examined, precisely like the evidence of any other extraor
dinary event. There is no violation of a law of nature,Jiut
there is a new consequent of a new antecedent. The extraor
dinary combination of circumstances, of which a miracle is
the physical result, has now taken place ; as when an earth
quake first shook the hills, or a volcano first poured out its
flood of fire, after the earth itself had perhaps existed for
many ages, there was that combination of circumstances of a
different kind, of which earthquakes and volcanoes are the
natural results.
A miracle, I repeat, if it truly take place, is as httle con-

THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES. 503
trary to any law of nature, as any other phenomenon. It is
only an extraordinary event, the result of extraordinary cir
cumstances ; — an effect that indicates a Power of a higher
order than the powers which we are accustomed directly to
trace in phenomena more familiar to us, but a Power whose
continued and ever-present existence it is atheism only that
denies. The evidence of a miracle, therefore, being the
evidence, not of any violation of a law of nature, but of a
fact that is reducible, hke every other fact, to the physical
operation of one of the powers of nature, does not form a
class apart, but is to be considered exactly hke the evidence
of any other extraordinary phenomenon, that depends on
circumstances over which we have no control. It is to be
admitted or rejected, therefore, not simply as being evidence
of a miracle, but as evidence which is, or is not, of sufficient
weight in itself to establish the reality of the extraordinary
phenomenon, in support of which it is adduced. It leaves
the mind still free to examine, in every particular case, the
likelihood or unlikelihood of the mighty agency which is
asserted; but in the freedom of a philosophic mind, which
knows that there truly exists a Power capable of doing what
is asserted to have been done, it wiU find only such doubt as
leads to greater caution of inquiry, and not instant disbehef
or unexamining rejection.
I have already said, that it is not the object of this Note
to enter into an examination of the credibility of any particu
lar set of miracles : it is only to show that the general abstract
argument, with which Mr. Hume would render unavailing
the most powerful testimony that can be imagined to be
offered in support of asserted facts of this kind, has not the
overwhelming force which he conceived it to possess. By
correcting the false definition which has been generaUy given
of miracles, with an analysis of them which appears to me
more philosophic, I would reduce them to the rank of other
physical facts, and in this hght would claim for them the same
examination which we give to the reports of other phenomena
that are wholly new to us, — an examination that may be

504 THE CREDIBILITY OP MIRACLES.
accompanied with the strongest doubt, and may terminate in
disbehef, if the evidence be slight and scanty, but which may
terminate also in belief, and be accompanied with doubt pro
gressively fainter and fainter, as the evidence in the course of
inquiry appears to be of greater force. This title to be ex
amined, it might, perhaps, be too much to claim for any mira
cle, if it were asserted to be the actual violation of those laws
of nature, on the behef of the uniformity of which our very
examination of its probability must proceed. But it is not
too much to claim for it, when it is shown not to involve the
inconsistency that is implied in a violation of a law of nature,
but to be only the physical operation of an existing power, as
httle opposite to the regularity of nature, in the particular
circumstances in which it is said to take place, as any other
new phenomena that result from new combinations of physical
circumstances. There is not a phenomenon, however famUiar
now, which had not at one time a beginning ; and I may say
even, that there is not a phenomenon which was not origi
naUy, as flowing from the Creative will, an event of this
very class. Everything has once been miraculous, if miracu
lous mean only that which results from" the direct operation
of a Divine power; and the most strenuous rejecter of aU
miracles, therefore, if we trace him to his origin, through the
successive generations of mankind, is an exhibitor, in his own
person, of indubitable evidence of a miracle.

NOTES.

NOTE A.
(See page xix.)

" The high antiquity of the account of the agony in the
garden," says De Wette, "is attested by Heb. v. 7, and by its
internal verisimilitude and beauty, "especially as it is given
in Matthew. This internal verisimilitude and beauty must
not be disturbed by unnatural suppositions, as where some
(Thiess, Paulus) suppose a bodily feebleness and enervation,
and others (Olshausen) a mystical abandonment by God.
The foUowing observations may serve to place the narrative
in a proper light Heroic indifference to suffering, the want
of which Celsus and other opposers of Christianity have
charged upon Jesus, belongs not to the primitive Christian
ideal. The moral strength of the Christian is the Divine
element, which is mighty in human weakness. It is a touch
ing and consoling truth, that Jesus felt the full weight of his
sufferings, wholly shared with us the weakness of humanity,
and went before us in overcoming it through the power of
prayer. The ground of his anxiety was fear on account of
his sufferings (ver. 39) ; but not merely on account of his
bodily pain. We must also take into view the pain which he
felt that the object of his mission could be attained only
through rejection, persecution, blood, and death, and thus con
sider the pain which he felt on account of sins not his own,
for which he was to suffer." *
* De Wette on Matt. xxvi. 36.
43

506 NOTE A.
" Jesus cries out in the language of Ps. xxii. 1, and the
question arises, In what sense did he use this verse ? Cer
tainly he intended to express something passing within himself,
but yet borrowed from, and of course in conformity with, the
sense of the passage in its connection with the Psalm. Bi
both connections complaints are made of great suffering, which
overpowers human nature and disturbs its harmony with
God, — a suffering so great, that he who bears it believes
himseff bereft of the assistance of God. But we know that
a man cannot at any time be literally forsaken by God ; since
he is omnipresent. Nor can a truly pious man, in his per
manent consciousness, believe himself to be forsaken by him ;
as this would be impious. The thought expressed in the
quotation can only be regarded as a transient, momentary
obscuration of our Saviour's consciousness of God. So, in
the original passage, the tone of complaint is changed at last
by the Psalmist into one of confidence and hope. Of all
persons Jesus could least be, or believe himseff to be, deserted
by God; since in him the consciousness of God was most
perfect. Yet this consciousness might momentarily be dis
turbed by the transient ascendency of human weakness. For
we must suppose a certain infirmity in Jesus, in accordance
with his liability to temptation imphed in Matt. ch. iv. Since
he made use of the words of Ps. xxii., it is more than prob
able, that he called up before his mind its whole contents, and
of course the change of complaint into comfort. On this
supposition, the disturbance of his consciousness of God ceased
immediately after his utterance of the words of the first
verse, and thus his language has the same import as that
which he used in ch. xxvi. 39 would have had, if he had
only said, ' B it be possible, let this cup pass from me,' and
had not added, ' Nevertheless, not as I wUl, but as thou wilt'
The suffering which Jesus experienced for a moment was not
mere bodUy pain, but pain of soul on account of the sins
for which he suffered. See on xxvi. 39. But we must
not suppose it to have been a suffering which expiated the
sins of men, and absolutely sunk itself in them, if we would

NOTE A. 507
not darken the sin-conquering - strength of Jesus upon the
cross. The lovers of the horrible may compare Olshausen,
and Ebrard, p. 693, &c." *
On John xii. 27, De Wette also remarks : " After this lofty
burst of enthusiasm, human weakness makes itself felt for a
moment in Jesus, and with noble openness he gives expres
sion to it in the language, ' Now is my soul troubled, and
what shall I say ? Father, save me from this hour !'....
But with the expression of submission to the Divine will, in
the language, ' Father, glorify thy name ! ' i. e. cause [through
my death] that men shaU acknowledge and honor thee as
what thou art, as Father ! the spirit of Jesus triumphs over
the flesh, as in Matt. xxvi. 39, in the words, ' Not as I will,
but as thou wilt.' "
Dr. Liicke, in his comments on John xii. 27, 28, remarks :
" When Jesus says, ' Now is my soul troubled,' &c, it seems
as if he were interrupted in the thoughts which had occupied
his mind in ver. 23 - 26, by a strong emotion, so that he was
not in a condition to continue them. The excitement of his
feelings does not whoUy overmaster him. He can think — he
can speak; but it is so strong that his utterance becomes
abrupt and brief, so that for a moment he knows not what to
say ; — ' and what shaU I say ? ' What is it that so deeply
moves him ? What is it which against his wUl takes posses
sion of his soul ? It is the thought of his impending death,
which in ver. 23-26 presses upon him with so much power.
But how? Jesus has spoken of his death with so much
clearness as to represent it as necessary for the salvation of
his kingdom, and as the principal means of his glorification.
Ba general, death has had for him, the holy one, no sting.
No pain even on account of the temporary interruption of his
work by death appears in ver. 25 and 26 to have affected his
mind. How then are we to explain the fact, that his soul is

* De Wette's Exegetisches Handbuch, Matt, xxvii. 46.

508 NOTE A.
now so much shaken by the thought of his impending death ?
This would be wholly inexplicable, were it not true that the
only-begotten son of God was also the son of man, so that he
was subject to the involuntary emotions of the soul, — to the
purely human feeling of fear as weU as of joy. The strong
joy in life which man naturally possesses includes in itseff
as naturally the fear of death. It is according to a holy law
of nature that death has its terrors for men, especiaUy death
in youth, in the freshness of life. B we also regard the
death of Jesus as the culminating point of his conflict with
the sinful world, it acquires even for a holy spirit a dismaying
power. A soul so delicately organized as we must conceive
that of the Redeemer to have been, must necessarily have
been seized by it. But Jesus was seized by it only for a
moment. A permanent possession by it such as prevents aU
thought, all speech, is under any circumstances inconceivable
in the spirit of the only-begotten son of God, and especiaUy
immediately after what he has said with such clearness and
explicitness in verses 23-26. As in other cases the virtue
of the Redeemer in conflict appears at the same moment
in triumph, and as the passive state of his mind suddenly
changes into an active one, so also here. Even in the very
expression of his dismay, he rises above it. But it is in his
prayer to his Father that his divine rest and composure com
pletely return. Yet it is only by degrees that the emotion
subsides, and the waves of mental agitation become stiU.
Thus the language of the Redeemer is an actual prayer.
' Father, save me from from this hour ! ' the hour of death.
So vivid is the thought of this, that he sees himself already
in the midst of it. He is in conflict, he suffers, now. Hence
the words, ' Save me from this hour ! ' Griesbach and
Lachmann read the sentence interrogatively. According to
their pointing, the prayer acquires a peculiar character. Jesus
asks, as it were, whether he should so pray. Thus in not
venturing or resolving so to pray, he manifests a degree
of resignation. But De Wette supposes that the language
should be understood without the interrogation, as an actual

NOTE A. 509
prayer; as in Matt. xxvi. 39. He is right. The prayer
naturally expresses the opposition, the conflict, between his
fear of death and the spirit of resignation which belonged
to the consciousness of his Divine mission. The question
'What shaU I say?' is the expression of this conflict in
prayer. But the conflict is victoriously ended, when he says,
'But for this cause came I to this hour.' These words,
being the concise expression of strong feehng, are obscure.
B we regard it as doubtful whether the phrase, ' to come to
this hour,' epxecrBai els rrjv &pav, means to come to an ap
pointed hour with the idea of experiencing it, we may take
fjXdov, ' I came,' in an absolute sense, as denoting the coming
of the Redeemer into the world ; and els rfv &pav ravr-nv, ' to
this hour,' as denoting the design of his coming, namely, the
suffering of the hour of death. Bi this case we may refer
hid toSto, ' for this cause,' to the same, so that as an indefinite
expression it becomes more closely defined by els rfv &pav
Tairrjv, ' for this very hour.' [In this way the rendering will
be, "It was for this I came, — for this hour."] But on a
comparison of the phraseology with elaepxeadai els t^v £aip>,
'to enter into life,' "in Matt. xix. 17, els Tn,v KaTairavo-iv, 'to
enter into rest,' in Heb. hi. 11, and els rreipao-pdv, 'into temp
tation,' in Matt. xxvi. 41, the doubt is removed. As in verse
23 the hour for Jesus is said to have come, so he has now
come to this hour in the sense of experiencing it [In this
way the rendering of the Common Version is correct, " for
this cause came I to this hour."] But what is meant by
' this cause ' ? It is not definitely expressed. How is it to
be understood from the connection ? According to De Wette,
' this cause ' means either ' to die,' or to fulfil what is ex
pressed in verse 24. But the former is tautological, the latter
too remote. Olshausen supposes ' this cause ' to denote the
redemption of mankind. But this gives only a general view
of the meaning, and is not indicated in the connection.
Meyer is right in understanding ' this cause,' on account of
its connection with what follows, as relating to Christ's glori
fication. It is, as it were, an abbreviated expression of the

510 NOTE A.
words in verse 23, ' Now is the Son of Man glorified,' which
floated in the mind of John in the conception of the prayer.
In the prayer this is more definitely expressed in the words,
' Father, glorify thy name.' This is the absolute object, in
which everything else is included. With this absolute ' for
this cause,' our Lord recovers the divine clearness and bright
ness of his spirit, which he had before his soul was momen
tarily and involuntarily troubled, as in verse 23. It is the
glorification of the Divine name, the New Testament name
of Father, in which his own glory as Son was included, for
which he prays with full confidence. With the same spirit of
submission the simUar -agitation of his soul in the garden of
Gethsemane begins and ends." *
Meyer, on Matt, xxvii. 46, remarks : " Jesus expresses his
feeling in the first words of the twenty-second Psalm. It is
the feeling of being' momentarily overpowered by the sever
est pain  By the words, ' Why hast thou forsaken me ? '
Jesus expressed what he personally felt, his consciousness of
communion with God having been for a moment interrupted
by his sufferings. But this momentary subjective feeling is
not to be confounded with an actual objective abandonment by
God (against Olsh. and the older commentators), which at
least in the case of Jesus would have been a physical and
moral impossibility. .... To find, with the older dogmatic
theologians, the vicarious feeling of Divine wrath in the
cry of anguish, ' Why hast thou forsaken me ? ' is to go be
yond the New Testament view of the atoning death of Christ,
as also that of the agony in Gethsemane. On the other
hand, the opinion of some interpreters, that Jesus, when he
quoted the first verse of the Psalm, had in his mind the
whole of it, is arbitrary, and brings into his condition of im
mediate feeling the heterogeneous element of reflection and
citation." Bishop Pearson, than whom no writer of the Church of
* Commentar ttber das Evang. des Johannes, ad he.

NOTE A. 511
England has greater authority with Episcopalians, remarks
on Matt. xxvi._29 : " These words infer no more than that he
was bereft of such joys and comforts from the Deity as
should assuage and mitigate the acerbity of his present tor
ments." *
The long note of Bleek on Heb. v. 11 is substantiaUy the
same as the briefer one of the recent commentator Lunemann :
" Who in the days of his flesh, when he had offered up
prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto
Him that was able to save him from death, and who was
heard on account of his fear of God." On this Lunemann
remarks : " Bi characterizing God as ' Him that was able to
deliver Christ from death,' is implied the subject of Christ's
prayer, namely, deliverance from death."
De Wette, in his note on the same passage, maintains that
our Saviour's prayer mentioned in it was for preservation
from death, even ff elo-aKovcr8els drrb rijs eiXafHetas should be
understood as meaning " and was heard and dehvered from
his fear." De Wette supposes that " the being heard " may
refer not even to the resurrection of Christ, but only to the
strength given him to endure his sufferings, which was sug
gested to the writer by the tradition of the strengthening
angel, recorded in Luke xxii. 43.
Ebrard, in his note on the passage, remarks : " Christ was,
in reference to his prayer to be preserved, heard, and thus
saved, dnb t^j evXafieias, from his fear. But then there is in
these very words, drrb rqs eiXafteias, a hmitation of elo-aKovo-Bels,
and was heard. He prayed to be preserved from the death
which threatened him, and was heard and saved from the fear
of death." f

* Pearson on the Creed, Art. IV. f Ebrard on Heb. v. 7.

512 NOTE B.
NQTg.B.
(See page xxi.)
All that is to be said in defence of our ancestors in refer
ence to this and other cases of interference with the rights of
conscience, or what Roger WUliams caUed soul-freedom, is
that they acted up to their principles ; which are strongly stated
in Norton's Epistle Dedicatory to the General Court, which is
prefixed to his Answer to Pynchon : " That licentious and pes
tilent proposition, The care of religious matters belongs not to
the magistrate, is a stratagem of the Old Serpent and Father
of lies, to make free passage for the doctrine of devils ; an
invention not unlike Saul's oath, the trouble of Israel and
escape of the enemy; a Satanical device tending to under
mine the policy of God; attempting to charm that sword
with a faUacy, whose dexterous and vigorous use instrumen-
tally puts away evil from Israel, and turneth every way in its
manner to keep the path of the tree of hfe. The rusting of
this sword of Divine execution in the scabbard hath been
more destructive unto truth than the drawing of the sword of
persecution."

THE END.