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RECONCILIATION BY
INCARNATION

BY THE SAME AUTHOR.

THE REDEMPTION OF MAN : Discussions Bearing on the Atone
ment. In demy 8vOj price ios. 6d.
Principal Fairbaien, Mansfield College, writes : " I wish to say how stimu
lating and helpful I have found your book. Its criticism is constructive as wjell as
incisive, while its point of view is elevated and commanding. It made me feel
quite vividly how superficial most of the recent discussions on the Atonement
have been."
Professor R. Flint, D.D., writes: "Its learning, ample although that be, is
its least merit : it has the far higher and rarer qualities of freshness of view and
deep ethical insight. I hope it will find the general and cordial reception it so
well deserves."

THE BIBLE AN OUTGROWTH OF THEOCRATIC LIFE. In
crown 8vo, price 4s. 6d.
Guardian. — " This book will well repay perusal. It contains a great deal of
learning as well as ingenuity, and the style is clear.''
Dr. John Brown, of Bedford, writes: "I feel sure that such of your readers
as may make acquaintance with it will be as grateful for its valuable help as I
have been myself."

Edinburgh: T. & T. CLARK, 38 George Street.

Cs

RECONCILIATION BY
INCARNATION
THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
BY THE INCARNATION OF THE
DIVINE WORD

BY
D. W. SIMON, D.D.
PRINCIPAL OF THE UNITED COLLEGE, BRADFORD
TRANSLATOR OF
DORNER'S "HISTORY OF THE DOCTRINE OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST," ETC., AND
AUTHOR OF
"THE REDEMPTION OF MAN! DISCUSSIONS BEARING ON THE ATONEMENT"
"THE BIBLE AN OUTGROWTH OF THEOCRATIC LIFE"
"SOME BIBLE problems"
ETC. ETC-

EDINBURGH
T. & T. CLARK, 38 GEORGE STREET
1898

PRINTED BY
MORRISON AND GIBB LIMITED,
FOR
T. & T. CLARK, EDINBURGH.
LONDON : SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, HAMILTON, KENT, AND CO. LIMITED.
NEW YORK: CHARLES SCRIBNER's SONS.
TORONTO : FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY.

" Das Christenthum nun erkennen wir als eine nicht
aus den verborgenen Tiefen der menschlichen Natur
ausgeborene, sondern als eine aus dem Himmel, indem
dieser sich der von ihm entfremdeten Menschheit geqffhet
hat, stammende Kraft, eine Kraft, welcke in ihreni
Wesen wie in ihrem Ursprunge erhaben iiber Alles,
was die menschliche Natur aus eignen Mitteln zu
schaffen vermag, neues Leben ihr verleihen und von
ihrem inwendigen Grunde aus sie umbilden sollte. Der
Urquell dieser Kraft ist Derjenige, dessen Leben ihre
Erscheinung uns darsiellt, — Jesus von Nazareth, der
Erldser der durch die Siinde von Gott getrennten
Menschheit?'
Neander.

PREFACE

The central theme of this book, which I may be
allowed to say is a kind of sequel to one on The
Redemption of Man which I published in 1889, is the
Reconciliation of God and Man, that is, be it stated as
distinctly as I can state it, of God with man as well
as of man with God. In subordination to the main
theme, I have very briefly sketched, first, the Cosmology
which in my judgment lies behind the Scriptures and
the Faith of the Christian Church ; and second, some
features of the Incarnation of the Divine Word by
means of which the foundation of the Reconciliation
of God and man was laid.
My reason for adopting the unusual course of
dealing with Cosmology in a monograph on the
Atonement is the strong conviction I entertain that
the chief intellectual difficulties in the way of that
fact or doctrine are rooted in a defective or false
philosophical view of the rise, constitution, and history
of the cosmos in general and the world in particular ;
and that the principles embodied in Redemption,
particularly in the Reconciliation of God and man,
are the same principles at a higher level that are

Vlll PREFACE
embodied in the divine creation, sustentation, and rule,
in a word, the evolution, of the world.
I have also somewhat deviated from custom in the
amount of attention devoted to the doctrine of the
Incarnation. My chief reason for this is that the
view of the Atonement which I expound has for its
correlate the view I have set forth of the Person of
Christ. Neither the " moral " nor the forensic view of
the Atonement has any serious rational basis unless
Christ be an incarnate Person of the Trinity ; and
unless His Incarnation had the roots and the character
which I have taken for granted, Reconciliation could
not have been its result.
A further reason, I must confess, is the fact that
at the present moment, even an approach to a satis
factory doctrine of the Person of Christ cannot be said
to exist. Those who recoil from the more or less
veiled dualism of the traditional doctrine are taking
up either with the Swedenborgian view of Christ as
God ; or with humanitarianism more or less veiled by
philosophical terminology ; or are trying to do without
a doctrine altogether.
The theory or doctrine of " Reconciliation " which
is here set forth may be defined as personal. In a
sense, the " moral " view of the Atonement might also
be described by the same term ; but whereas, according
to it, there is only one person to be reconciled, namely,
man ; on my interpretation of Scripture and Faith there
are two persons to be reconciled, namely, God and man.
Both Reconciliation and the Incarnation, in the sense
elsewhere defined, let me repeat here, are for me real

PREFACE IX
facts or transactions — as objectively real as any other
fact or transaction, whether of the physical or spiritual
sphere. If I am asked why I hold them to be facts, I sum
marily reply, first and primarily, on the authority of
Scripture, particularly, of course, the New Testament,
which I believe to be a true reflection or record of facts,
whose outer form and inner significance the Comforter,
the Spirit of Truth, enabled the writers to grasp and
discern ; secondarily, because the witness of Scripture
has been, and is still being, confirmed by Christian
experience and insight ; thirdly, because my own
experience and intellectual insight are converting into
certainty what, at the outset, I received on authority,
and was therefore merely matter of probability.
Inasmuch as I accept the Atonement and Incarna
tion as facts, I have no difficulty in adding, that if it
should become clear to me that my theory fails to do
justice to, or misrepresents, or explains away either of
them, I shall try at once humbly to follow the example
set by all truly scientific men in dealing with facts in
other spheres, namely, cease to propound it, and set
to work again.
There is another matter to which I wish to refer,
and I will take the liberty of doing so partly in
words from the Preface to my book on The Redemption
of Man. I refer to the use frequently made of the
term " orthodox."
" Alike by those who regard themselves as forming
the ' broad,' or ' liberal,' or ' advanced ' school of
Christian thought, and by those who claim to

X PREFACE
' stand in the old path,' its employment is marked
by great looseness., Between the two opposed
parties there is, in fact, not a pin to choose as to
this particular point.
" If ' orthodox ' be applied to the faith once delivered
to the saints, to the credenda, — in this case the credenda
of the Atonement and the Incarnation, — there is such
a thing as orthodoxy and a standard of orthodoxy ;
or rather, to coin a word, orthopisty. This is what Paul
referred to when he used the words, Though we or an
ccngel from heaven preach any other gospel unto you
than that which we have preached unto you, let him
be ACCURSED. There is such a thing as a right faith,
that is, using faith in its objective sense ; there is such
a thing as the objects of faith held and presented in.
their genuine, undiluted, untwisted form. Those who
change, diminish, mutilate, misrepresent them, Paul
anathematises. " But if by ' orthodoxy ' be understood, as is only
too frequently the case, a certain right, recognised,
' doctrine,' systematic formulation or statement, explan
ation or theory of these credenda, there is not now,
and there never was, any such thing, at all events in
Protestantism. There may have been, or be now, a
show of such a thing in the Romish Church. But
even if men do no more than go direct to Scripture
to learn its teachings — and Scripture alone gives us
definite information on these credenda, so that if it
is untrustworthy we have no definite knowledge at all
about them — the results of their inquiry in the shape
of a classification, or formulation, or correlation of the

PREFACE XI
material with which it supplies them, will vary : much
more will the men differ from each other when they
try to think out or explain Scripture teachings. No
Protestant theologian has yet existed who was willing
just to repeat what his teacher taught him. Rabbi
Elieser Hyrkanus, who was praised for holding, and
of course giving out, the teachings of his teacher like
a water-tight cistern, has had no Protestant imitators.1
Even a slight reorganisation, or rearrangement of the
subject-matter, involves changes which render the idea
of a fixed standard in this sense absurd."
Critical readers will notice that I have done very
little in the way of explicit reckoning with other
writers, and that references to other works are few
and far between. The reason is not lack of apprecia
tion, but the wish to keep down the size of my book.
I should like here, however, to adduce the titles of
some of the more important recent British works
bearing on the themes of this book which I have
consulted : — Dr. Fairbairn's Christ in Modern Theology,
Lux Mundi ; Canon Gore's Bampton Lecture, and
Dissertations on The Incarnation ; the Rev. J. R.
Illingworth's Bampton Lecture, Personality, Human
and Divine, and Divine Immanence ; the Rev. R.
L. Ottley's The Doctrine of the Incarnation ; the
Rev. H. C. Powell's The Principle of the Incarna
tion ; Professor Dr. Orr's The Christian View of God
and the World; The Rev. D. Somerville's St. Paul's
Conception of Christ; the Rev. Dr. D. W. Forrest's The
Christ of History and Experience ; and last, not least,
1 Pirke Aboth, ii. ii.

Xll PREFACE
the Rev. J. Scott Lidgett's The Spiritual Principle of
the Atonement as a Satisfaction for the Sins of the
World. These and other publications deserve careful atten
tion, not only as an indication of the revival of interest
in the great problems of Systematic Theology, and for
their intrinsic value, but also because of the evidence
they furnish that the ethical principle which my never-
to-be-forgotten teacher and friend Dr. J. A. Dorner so
vigorously emphasised, is at length beginning to find
in this country the recognition due to its supreme
importance, The Index has been prepared by one of my
students, Mr. James Knox, M.A., to whom, for his
painstaking kindness, I wish here to tender very
hearty thanks.
I will venture to conclude with the words which a
great theologian of the seventeenth century, Francis
Turrettine, addressed to his readers at the close of the
Preface to his Institutio theologies elencticce : " Tu vero,
Lector Amice, dum bene dictis favorem, et erratis
veniam indulges, ' Si quid novisti rectius istis,
Candidus imperti : si non, his utere mecum.' "
Hor. Ep. I. i. 68.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER I
PAGE
Redemption — Its Three Phases or Stages . . . . i, z
Reconciliation — Liberation from sin — Deliverance from evils —
Reconciliation the chief theme of this work .... 2

CHAPTER II
The Reconciliation of God and Man  3-9
Reconciliation a fact in the history of God and man ... 3
Spiritual or religious facts as real as physical facts . . . 4, 5
Their place in the cosmic system  6
Miracles — Goethe quoted — Insight into the reasonableness of
reconciliation dependent on cosmology . . . 7-9

CHAPTER III
Cosmology presupposed by the Incarnation and Atone
ment 
Ultimate factors of the universe ....
I. Matter — Created by God — Its nature .
Views of Lotze, Tait, Schelling, Jacobi
Gnostics and Emanationists ....
II. Energy — Proceeds from God — Zwingli quoted
Works on and through matter — Letourneau .
III. Idea — Plan and laws divine
Philosophy, science, and Bible agreed .
Why forces act orderly — Tyndall .
IV. Energy and its differentiations
Idea and its differentiations — Matter and its forms

10-35 10 1213
IS
15, 1616 1718 19
20

XIV CONTENTS PAGE
V. Evolution— Heredity, variability ... .31
Recapitulation, prevails throughout, culminates in man
— Scotus Erigena and Emerson quoted . . . 21-26
VI. What about man's higher nature ? — A. R. Wallace, Cal-
derwood, Aquinas, Plato, St. Paul .... 26-28
Consciousness distinctive of man, yet incomplete . . 29, 30
VII. The cosmos and its constitutive systems . . . 31-33
VIII. Emission of divine energy — How regulated — Kenosis . 33
IX. The relations of the Persons of the Trinity to the cosmos 34, 35

CHAPTER IV
The Nature and Constitution of Man . . 36-43
I. The biological law to which he is subject .... 36-39
2. Condition of the development of the deepest potentialities . 39, 40
3. Man's environment twofold — Sir John Davies quoted . 40-43

CHAPTER V
God as the Environment of Man  44-78
God holds normally two relations to man — Cowper quoted
I. Personal relation of God to man '  45
1. The personal defined — Need of personal relations . 45, 46
2. Confirmation of history — Absolute Father needed,
alike for heart, intellect, and will — Divine inspiration 46-48
II. Vital or bio-dynamic relation of God to man ... 50
I. Organic waste of matter and energy — H. Spencer —
True of mind as well as body  51
Supplies for both drawn from physical world . . 52-55
2. Has pneumatic energy the same source ? — Considera
tions in favour of the position — Sanctioned by religious
language — Do ideas invigorate? — Le Gallienne and
Goethe quoted  55-6 1
3. Scripture teaching on the subject — Old and New Testa
ments — God, Christ, Holy Spirit .... 62-67
4. Testimony of the Church  67-69
5. Taking the fact for granted, what are the channels or
vehicles? — Four chief answers (1) Physical energy;
(2) Sacraments, Roman Catholic, Monnier quoted ;
(3) the Word of God, Luther, Calov, Quenstedt,
Hollaz, Wernsdorff, Calvin; (4) Without medium,
direct  6g_78

CONTENTS XV
CHAPTER VI
PAGE
The Divine Relation to Man conditioned by the Rela
tion of Man to God .... . . 79-100
This involved in the cosmology expounded .... 79
I. God's personal relation thus conditioned — Distinction be
tween being and behaving as a Father . . . 80, 81
1. The principle an application of biological law — The
crucial case of love .... . . 82-86
2. The truth in the view criticised — Goodness and love . 86-88
3. The right to transfer this to God — Objections . . 89-91
4. Even Fatherly action on God's part otherwise a peril 91, 92
II. God's dynamic relation thus conditioned .... 92
I. Man's control of assimilation, its reason . . 92-95
2. Involved in personality ...... 95-97
3. Inner reasonableness of the condition — Objection —
Answer — Browning quoted . . . . . 98, 99
Men's subtlest temptations from the will itself — Im
portant point involved . ... 99
CHAPTER VII
Normal Relations between God and Man, that is, of God
to Man and of Man to God  101-116
I. The relations of God to Man — Transcendent and immanent
relations ......... 101
1. The normal personal relation of God to man — Divine
relation to law . . . . . . .102
( I ) Man's natural and human environment teaches him
law  103-106
(2) Divine co-operation — The need thereof . . 106, 107
(3) How does God reveal laws? — He is Himself the
light  107-109
Laws facilitate activity — George Herbert quoted 109, no
2. The normal dynamic relation of God to man — Divine
grace or energy maintains equilibrium . . 1 11- 113
II. The normal relation of man to God — Man's relation to God
only personal — Simplest normal relation — Higher rela
tions — Milton quoted . .... 113-116
CHAPTER VIII
The Actual Personal Relation of Man to God . 1 17-127
Current notion of man's religious history — The Fall . . 118

XVI CONTENTS PAGE
I. Mistakes to be avoided  118
( I ) Exaggeration of heinousness of the first sin . . 118,119
(2) Treatment of heathenism before and after Christ as
identical  1 19-122
(3) Ascription of the sinfulness of mankind to individual
men  . .122
(4) Identification of actual and ideal sin . . . 123
(5) Estimate of guilt by overt acts . ... 124
2. Man's actual relation to God is abnormal . . . 125
(1) Irreverence; (2) Distrust; (3) Enmity . . 126, 127
CHAPTER IX
Results of the Abnormal Personal Relation of Man to
God  . . 128-164
I. The results for God — God's immanent and transcendent
relation — Energy or grace reserved . . 128, 129
God is a factor of the system of the universe . . .129
Disorder anywhere affects all factors . . . . .130
Evil results for God — Objections raised by philosophy and
common sense — Reply ..... 131-135
1. Sin and God's immanent relation . . . .135
2. Sin and God's transcendent relation . . 135
(1) God's personal relation changed — Even though there
were no anger, the condemnation of sin is a change
— Shakespeare quoted . . . 135-138
(2) Bio-dynamic relation changed . . . .138
3. Further characterisation of the change — The Ruler and
Judge in God evoked — Reaction against sin morally
obligatory — Shakespeare quoted . . 148-145
Light on the forensic view of the Atonement — What
moral government involves . 145-147
4. The divine feelings disturbed, not the divine nature —
God grieved and pained  147-150
II. The results for man  150-164
I. Scripture teachings — Evil is both result and punishment . 151
Implicit goal of sin ... ... 152
2. The results for man as an organic whole — Mankind an
organism at first — Truth in the idea of Federal Headship 1 54, 1 55
The organism injured — Testimony of history . . 156,157
3. Results for individuals, to their constitution, their func
tions or activities ...... 158-160
4. Disturbance of feeling — Reaction of the state of the divine
mind on man — Conscience — ^Eschylus and Browning
quoted . .  jg-

CONTENTS XVII
CHAPTER X
PAGE
The Rectification of the Abnormal Relations between
God and Man  165-178
I. The position — Review of the ground traversed . . . 165
II. Three views of the question  167
I . Denial that God needs to be reconciled . . 167-169
2. Legal rectification — Continuance of a legal relation no
rectification . . . . . . . .169
Double abnormality of the common view . . .170
Objections met — Political loyalty and satisfaction . . 172
Relation of Israel to Jehovah — Sacrificial system . 172-175
3. Personal rectification — Theologians shrunk from it — Per
sonal offence freely remissible — Reply . . 175, 176
4. True element in the legal or forensic conception . . 177
Fitting for the Divine Father to assert law . . 177, 178
CHAPTER XI
The Conditions of the Rectification of the Abnormal
Relations between God and Man .... 179-198
I. Condemnation and confession of sin from the point of view
of God  179
This is the case between men — Men not equally sinful —
Supposed infinitude of sin  180-185
II. Sorrow and pain because of the divine sorrow and pain . 186
So among men — No two men quite alike . . . .186
Two kinds of sorrow : first, on our own account ; second,
on account of those whom we have sorrowed — Shake
speare quoted  187-189
So between man and God . 189, 190
Each man to the extent of his fault — Not all equal — Con
gruous to the essential nature of personality . . 190-192
III. Desire to atone or offer satisfaction — Not purchase . . 193
So between men — Two ways of atoning : doing honour to
law; undoing mischief . . . . . . .195
The root is taking God's part against ourselves . . 195
CHAPTER XII
Presuppositions of the Fulfilment of the Conditions
of the Reconciliation of God and Man . . . 199-227
Orthodox and heterodox view of the conditions . . .199
The function of environment — God's special function as the en
vironment of men ....... 201-203
b

XV111 CONTENTS PAGE
I. Personal divine action necessary ..... 203
I. God Himself must bring home to man the true nature of
the sin committed, the grief caused, and the satisfac
tion due by him  203
(1) Human analogies — Parents do the same for children;
society for men — The offended ought to do it — Why
left mostly to others ? — Chief difficulty with the third
condition  203-208
All this specially applicable to God — Ad hoc divine
action needed — Evidence from history . . 210-212
(2) Significance of the experience described — Entering
into an offended one's judgment of sin is never a
merely intellectual process, but vital realisation —
Feeling applicable to God — Shakespeare's Richard
III. and Hamlet  212,217
So too with sorrow and resentment 217-219
So with the compensation due to God, terrible . 219-221
2. God must bring home to man the real purpose and mean
ing of the manifestation which caused the experience . 221
This purpose is man's deliverance . . 222-224
II. Dynamic action of God necessary . . . 224-227
Natural environment must energise in us if its appeal to con
sciousness is to be effective  224
God must reveal and energise in us to understand, appre
ciate, and bear His revelation — The Holy Spirit's work . 226

CHAPTER XIII
The Dilemma ... . . 228-231
The law that God's relation, personal and vital, is conditioned
by man's personal relation is cosmic ..... 22S
The personal divine action described is apparently fitted to
defeat its own purpose ....... 229
The fulfilment of the conditions of rectification seems to pre
cede that without which it itself is impossible — Ethical ii<rrepa
irpbrepa . ........ 230
Antinomies constituting the problem of the reconciliation of
God and man .... . . 230, 231

CHAPTER XIV
Methods Pursued with Humanity by God . . 232-251
Objection to speaking of divine methods or plans with man . 232

CONTENTS XIX PAGE
I. God worked first through the existing order of things in
the realms of humanity and nature . . . 233
This was the method pursued with the heathen . . 233
His purpose the one previously described .... 235
Special treatment of Jews denied — Mistakes into which
science of religion falls  237
I. God's deictic or revealing action and the heathen . . 239
(1) Kept alive the sense of His existence and presence —
Heathen found God everywhere . . . . 241
(2) Revelation of the divine mind regarding sin . . 242
Conscience as the " voice of God " .... 243
Natural festivals rightly made religious — Sense of sin
general, though it varied in intensity — Plato, Mar
cus Aurelius, Rig- Veda, Atharva- Veda quoted 243-245
2. God specially stirred in, and inspired, elect men . . 246
II. The second course was that pursued with Israelites . . 247
Why Abraham was called — How God proceeded with him
and his descendants  247-249
III. Failure of the methods described . . 249
Gentiles went from bad to worse . . . 249
Israelites were unfaithful . . . . . . .250
Meaning of divine failures . . . . . .251

CHAPTER XV
Some Features of the Constitution of Humanity which
have a Special Bearing on the Divine Method of
Reconciliation  252-262
I. The law of heredity and contemporaneous interaction and
intercommunication ....... 252
II. Potentialities invigorated and evoked by the efforts and
achievements of members — Lewis Morris quoted . 259-260
III. Actualisation of potentialities conditional on due response
to an appeal to consciousness .... 260-262

CHAPTER XVI
The Problem  263-275
Brief reconsideration of the conditions to be fulfilled —
1. The divine condemnation ofsin to be practically appreciated 264
2. The burden of the divine sorrow to be borne, yea, bome
away  264

XX CONTENTS
PAGEr
3. God's estimate of the dishonour done to Himself to be
realised ....¦•••• 264
4. Yet the inner meaning of the divine action to be revealed . 265
5. Whoever fulfils these conditions must be tempted yet with
out sin  265-268
6. He must be able to serve as a channel of divine energy to
the entire race, past, present, and to come . . 260-271
7. His very sufferings must be a manifestation of divine grace 271
8. He must bring appropriate influence to bear on men, so
that the new potence may be actualised 272, 273
9. A tremendous problem  273-275
CHAPTER XVII
The Solution  276-278
According to the New Testament and the faith of the Church,
it is solved by the incarnation of the Logos and what was
involved therein .....-••¦ 277
The world is already redeemed in and by Christ . . . 278
CHAPTER XVIII
The Constitutional Relation of the Logos to the World,
apart from Sin and under Sin ... . 279-305
I. The constitutional relation apart from sin . . . . 279
1. The earth is a partial immateriation of the Logos-idea 279
2. The Logos imposed accommodation on Himself in His
relation to the cosmos — Its forces not directly
wielded  281, 282
3. Self-limitation also — Kenosis correlated to self-limitation 283
(1) The divine power self-limited  283
(2) The divine knowledge self-limited — God knows the
cosmos partly by observation, specially man's free
acts ....... . 284
Foreknowledge and freedom — What man is ! . . 286
4. Immateriation is a process — Man recapitulates the whole
— Gradual approach to personality in the cosmos . 289
5. Gradual approach to incarnation in evolution — What
took place at the conception of the Son of God is
shadowed forth in Genesis, ch. i. . . . 290, 291
6. Man foreshadows the Incarnation in that he turns back
on himself and the world, and finds God in both — He
never finds himself save in God — Wordsworth quoted 292, 293
Man, however, means humanity ..... 293

CONTENTS XXI PAGE
II. The relations of the Logos to humanity under sin . . 295
Sin is an effort to use the process of evolution for the real
isation of an idea contrary to the Logos — God inter
vened — Idea of divine intervention ridiculed . 296, 297
1. A world disordered by sin demands still fuller divine
limitation, unless it is to be destroyed . 297-299
Human sin dark to God — -A man sinning is a divine
thing contradicting itself . . ... 300
Divine love is limited — The highest in God, is as it were,
partially hidden from God ..... 302
2. A step further is inevitable — The life in man acts abnor
mally on the divine life  303
A certain schism is caused in God : an anticipation of
the words, " Made sin for us," and " My God, why
hast Thou forsaken Me ? " . . . 305
CHAPTER XIX
The Actual Incarnation of the Logos . . . 306-319
The kenosis imposed on the Logos by the creation of man ; par
tial, transitory — A fuller kenosis possible . . . 306, 307
I. Light thrown on the subject by human experience . . 307
I. Every man in a true sense of divine nature, yet not con
scious of being divine — Aim of Mystics . . 308, 309
2. Significance of ideals — Logos did what man cannot do . 310
II. The difficulties that present themselves — Human experience 311
1. Possession of power and knowledge possible by man
without consciousness ..... 31 1-3 1 3
2. So by the Logos as incarnate — Unconscious of power —
Hence works regarded as given Him to do by the
Father — So also knowledge .... 313—315
Explains, first, ignorance ; secondly, tone of authority —
Ignorance, not error .... . 315-317
Ethnic Incarnations— Illingworth quoted . . 317-319
CHAPTER XX
The Supernatural Conception ... . 320-325
Conception not birth — Luke's account of the event — Matthew's
account — John's reference — Silence of Mark, James, Peter,
Paul  321, 322
1. Present thought in sympathy with the idea of Incarnation 322
2. Difficulty in the supernatural conception depends on cos
mology — Preparation in the cosmos .... 323

XX11 CONTENTS
CHAPTER XXI
PAGE
The proper Nature and Designation of the Incarnate
Word  326-329
Oscillation between two positions relatively to Christ . 326
New Testament designation "Son of God" — The Logos so
termed as Incarnate, not prior to becoming Incarnate 327, 328
Humanity a Son of God — Why the incarnate Logos is human . 329
Appollinarism  329

CHAPTER XXII
The Relation of the Incarnate Logos or the Son of
God to the Father  33°-334
Christ's relation closer than that of men, yet had its darkenings 330
Analogous human experiences — Influences which intensified His
fellowship with God ; voices, upflashings, mighty works 332-334

CHAPTER XXIII
The Fulfilment of the Conditions of Reconciliation by
the Incarnate Word  335-377
The conditions, confession, sorrow, satisfaction . . 335
I. The Son must share man's moral position without sin 335, 336
1 . The Logos renounced not His nature, but the conscious
ness thereof — Human analogies and differences . 336-338
2. Life after Incarnation more affected by sin than before
— Human analogies — Conscious and sub-conscious
regions in Christ ... . 338-340
Law of heredity — Weaknesses and conflicts through the
body — The sins of the race seemed to be His own 340-346
3. Sinlessness not due to Virgin birth — Scientific opinion
quoted  . 346-448
4. Temptibility apparently nullified by the possession of
divine power — Every man needs divine power in
order to be normal — Christ's unconsciousness of the
possession  349-353
The alternatives : either it asserted itself independently,
or He must regard it as given by the Father in
answer to prayer — Five points to be remembered
— Conclusion, He is our example in an infinitely
fuller sense than if He were a mere man . 353—356

CONTENTS XX111 PAGE
II. The specific task of the Son of God ; energising the race 356, 357
1. A moral wonder  358, 359
2. He sympathised fully with God whilst bearing the
divine inflictions  359_36i
3. Culmination in death — Death not the sole aim of
Christ's mission — Death and the "death of the
cross" not identical — Shakespeare on the fear of
death  361-364.
Christ essentially immortal, yet unconscious thereof . 364
The significance of death to Him . . . 365-367
III. Christ made satisfaction for the dishonour done to God 367-369
IV. The deictic part of Christ's task . . . 369, 370
He approaches men —
I. From without, through the Church ; — preaching : the
Written Word — New Testament and Church ; wor
ship, rites, etc. — Conduct of believers — Sympathy of
the Church with Christ  370-374
2. From within — The Holy Spirit's deictic and dynamic
action ... . . . . 374
3. An intellectualistic mistake . . . 376, 377

CHAPTER XXIV
Evidence that the Conditions of Reconciliation were
actually Fulfilled by the Incarnate Word . . 378-381
Christ's immediate aim, not actual but potential reconciliation
— Human co-operation essential  378
Contrast of heathen and Christian consciousness as regards
treatment of sin, sympathy with God, and the rendering of
satisfaction to God ..... . 379-3^1
Index .... . ... 383

RECONCILIATION BY
INCARNATION
THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN

CHAPTER I
Redemption — Its Three Phases or Stages
The redemption of man has three phases or stages.
The first is the reconciliation of God and man, that is,
of God with man and man with God, — a change in
their personal relations of the nature of that referred
to in the words of Isaiah, " I will give thanks unto
thee, O Jehovah ; for though Thou wast angry with
me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortedst
me" (Isa. xii. i). The second is liberation from sin
and restoration to righteousness, which are the negative
and positive sides of one and the same process — the
process referred to in the words of David, " Wash me
thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from
my sin ; create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew
a right spirit within me" (Ps. Ii. 2, 10). The third is

2 the reconciliation of god and man
deliverance from the evils which, regarded from one
point of view, are the result, regarded from another,
are the punishment of sin ; and the bestowal of good
— the good of which the culmination is described in
the words of The Revelation of John, " There shall be
no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying, neither shall
there be any more pain . . . Behold, I make all things
new : . . . a new heaven and a new earth " (Rev.
xxi. 4, 5, i).
The stages of redemption are distinct and successive
only in the sense in which distinctness and successive
ness may also be affirmed of the stages in the develop
ment of any living being ; though it must not be
forgotten that redemption has its negative as well as
its positive aspect, — that it involves the putting-off of
sin and the attainment of righteousness, no less than
the realisation of freedom from evil and the enjoyment
of good. Whilst reconciliation, however, is an accom
plished fact, the second and third phases of redemption,
with all that they involve, are matters of slow and
irregular growth.
The first of these stages is the chief theme of the
following passages. Their aim is to show how the
reconciliation of God and man — that is, let it be
repeated, of God with man and of man with God —
was rendered possible and initiated by the incarnation,
earthly life, sufferings, and death of the Eternal Word.

CHAPTER II
The Reconciliation of God and Man
The reconciliation in question is a fact in the history
both of God and man. The Logos undertook His
mission to our earth for the accomplishment of definite
tasks, in a definite way, for a definite end ; and when
He gave up the ghost on the cross, He had as really
finished His work — the work He came to do — as God
finished the work He had undertaken, when, as it is
said, " He rested on the seventh day from all His work
which He had made " (Gen. ii. 2). God's work was the
creative initiation of the process of evolving a world ;
Christ's was the creative initiation of the process of
redeeming it.
The effect produced by the mission of the Son of
God was a fact, which like all other facts, whatever
the domain to which they belong, presupposes other
kindred and correlate facts, constituting a system ;
this system in turn presupposes another still larger
system, of which it is a part ; and so on and on
till we get back to the infinite system of which
God and the universe are the supreme factors. No
being or relation, no effect or change, can be more
than partially understood, save in the light, first,
3

4 the reconciliation of god and man
of its own particular system, and in the light of
the whole.
In scientific procedure, it is generally necessary to
begin by marking out a certain region or subject as
the field of our investigation, and to confine attention
to it, leaving the rest of the universe out of account till
the particular investigation is completed. But, in
doing so, we need to be on our guard against two
mistakes — one, that of treating the system as isolated
in fact; the other, that of interpreting the mundane
system, if not the whole universe, in terms of the
particular system under consideration.
Into the second of these mistakes theologians used
to be supposed specially liable to fall. Perhaps the
supposition was not entirely groundless. Of late, how
ever, it has been the special besetment of their critics
the physicists, the chemists, and the biologists ; for
each of these classes of investigators has not only
endeavoured to annex the domain at least next his
own, but has cast greedy eyes also on the sphere of the
spiritual. Into the first are falling a good many at the
present day who are well disposed towards Christianity ;
nay more, who profess to be sincerely anxious to see
it safely ensconced within fortifications which shall be
impregnable alike to critical and to scientific artillery.
The independence of religion in general, and of the
Christian religion in particular, of both history and
natural science, might almost be termed the special
battle-cry of one of the most influential theological
schools of the age. Religion, it is said, forms a
domain by itself. Natural science and historical

system of spiritual facts 5
criticism go their own way, and Christian faith goes its
way ; they need not interfere with each other.
Now, the group or system of facts to which the
fact of the reconciliation of God and man belongs is
commonly described as spiritual or religious. Unfor
tunately, these terms are vaguely treated as if they
denoted something totally different from all other
phenomena, particularly as not real in the sense in
which other phenomena are real. They are allowed
to have a sort of existence of their own. Moderate
men would refuse to classify them with illusions.
Yet somehow it never seems to suggest itself that
religious or spiritual relations are real modes of
relation between real forces — both no whit less real
than the relations and forces whose reality no one
hesitates to recognise. Even if the religious or
spiritual life be regarded as a form of feeling, the
treatment in question would be unwarranted. For,
after all, feelings are as real effects of their kind as
the physical wounds which are the immediate ante
cedents of some of them. But a religious or spiritual
relation is as little merely feeling as the relation to
certain parts of our physical environment, called eat
ing, is merely feeling. Mental phenomena are either
states or activities of an entity as real as any other
entity, the former largely produced by the action
of other real entities, the latter producing real effects,
somewhere or other, on some other real entity or
entities. The change designated reconciliation, though
spiritual or religious, was as real as any that can

6 the reconciliation of god and man
take place in a system of physical forces; was
brought about by the action of a force as real as any
force working in the physical sphere ; and by action
as real as any other mode of action occurring in the
universe. Any difference that exists is one, not of
reality, but of the nature of the forces or beings which
constitute the particular system with which we are
more immediately concerned. Those forces, as has
been urged, are spiritual forces, but not therefore less
real than other forces.
But, if this is true, the question at once arises, What
place is occupied by this system among the other
systems, co-ordinate and subordinate, by which the
world is constituted ? and what effects do changes
occurring in it produce in other systems? Science
accepts it as a fact that there is no such thing as
isolation in the cosmos, not even of the constitutive
factors of systems, much less of systems ; changes
therefore happening in one system cannot but more
or less affect other systems. Does this cease to hold
good when we reach the spiritual system, which, as
we found, is as really constituted by real forces, as
any other of the systems of the cosmos?
One thing is certain, namely, that religious faiths
have always recognised the truth of what has just
been advanced. They may justly be chargeable with
clothing their recognition in fanciful forms, and with
giving the rein to exaggeration ; but this does not
warrant us in denying all force to the recognition ;
still less in ignoring its kernel. The rise, progress,
and invigoration of religion have so commonly been

RELIGION AND MIRACLES 7
associated, for example, with the remarkable physical
phenomena termed miracles, as to give rise to the
saying of the great German poet, Goethe —
" Das Wunder ist des Glaubens liebstes Kind," —
a saying which is a great favourite with those who
deny objective reality to these children of faith. But,
if the position previously taken up be sound, the words
may be a poetic expression of the truth that when
spiritual forces are specially strong and specially
active they cannot but give rise to or condition
changes in the physical system or systems with which
they are more closely interlaced — which changes in
some cases deserve to be described as miraculous.
Let expressions like an " age of faith " stand for the
fact, not merely that large bodies of men have a
stronger persuasion than usual of the reality, nearness,
and action of the invisible world, but also that God
is acting with special directness and power on the
souls of men, and that men in turn are responding
specially to the divine approaches ; in other words,
that an unusually strong interaction between the
divine and human factors of the great system of the
universe is going on — then physical signs and wonders
become not only possible but probable. Analogies
enough are furnished by the physical sphere. Un
usual stirrings in any one of its systems are at once
followed by corresponding changes, more or less
marked, in other systems. The impossibility or even
improbability of a parallel relation between the
spiritual and the physical systems is grounded solely

5 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
in the notion, either that the spiritual, somehow, lacks
reality, such as we predicate of the physical ; or else
that the spiritual differs so radically from the physical,
*or is so isolated from it that no changes in the one,
were they ever so mighty, could produce effects
warranting an appeal to analogy, such as was just
now made.
The inner reasonableness, however, of the position
just laid down, cannot be made clear as long as one
cosmology dominates the spiritual domain, and another
the physical domain, each antagonistic to the other.
A cosmology is needed which shall do justice, alike to
the facts which the science of nature has brought to
light and established, on the one hand, and to the
facts which may be in general designated spiritual on
the other — a cosmology, in other words, among whose
great momenta shall be creation and evolution, freedom
and conscience. The rectification of the relations of
God and man, of man and God, and of man and
nature, wrought out by the Logos or Word of God, in
that, through the power of the Holy Spirit, He became
incarnate, taught, lived, died, rose again from the dead
and ascended on high, presupposes a specific origin,
constitution, and evolution of the cosmos in general,
and of the earth in particular. Apart from a true
rationale of the rise of the world there can be
no true rationale of the redemption of the world.
Given one cosmology, and redemption in the Chris
tian sense — that is redemption in any sense — must
seem from beginning to end irrational ; given another
cosmology, and as faith quickens and illumines

NEED OF A TRUE COSMOLOGY 9
intellect, its reasonableness wfll become increasingly
evident.1 The scope of this treatise forbids a foil exposition
of the cosmology, which, in my humble judgment,
fulfils die conditions just laid down ; but inasmuch as
it is presupposed by the theory of the atonement, to
be hereafter set forth, it is advisable, not to say necessary,
to indicate very briefly its main features.
1 The ward redemption may/ be used in conjunction with vaikms cos
mologies, «£i with that ariGoanfy but falsely termed evolution ; but the
reality ''redemption,9 £«. the Chrisriwn redemption, which is the only
redemption, and alone really redemption, cannot foe consistently beH, save
in conjunction vith a particular cosmology.

CHAPTER III
Cosmology presupposed by the Incarnation
and Atonement
The ultimate factors of the universe or cosmos are
matter, energy, and law, or the complex of laws which
is termed idea : — matter, to which God gave existence ;
energy, which God is perennially putting forth; and
idea, with which God informs, or which He interweaves
with the energy. Neither of these factors is reducible
to the other. Into these every cosmology hitherto
attempted, really, though in "some cases unwillingly, in
others unwittingly, resolves the existences and rela
tions to be explained. One of the most eminent
physicists of the day says, indeed, " in the physical
universe there are but two classes of things, matter
and energy " ; 1 but we find him, after laying down
this position, constantly referring, not only to states
of matter and modifications of energy, but also to
laws as though they were something other than
either matter or energy. Another eminent scientist,
too, now alas ! deceased, whilst avowedly endeavouring
to supersede the Christian view of the world, affirmed
1 Tait, Properties of Matter, p. 2. Cf. Stallo, Concepts of Modern
Science, p. 39. 10

cosmology presupposed I I
very categorically that " all and every law follows as
a necessary sequence from the persistence of force and
the primary qualities of matter," 1 by which he meant
that the innumerable relations assumed by matter in
the course of the ages — relations of integration and
disintegration, of co-ordination, subordination, and in
terdependence, — that its modes of behaviour, whether
in gravitating, or cohering, or attracting, or repelling,
or combining, or organising, were all due to its very
constitution. Yet he, too, like other monists, after
a while surreptitiously introduced the very thing which
which was supposed to follow from the essence of
matter, namely, law ; for in face of the words just
quoted, he gravely asked, " Starting with these data,
namely, matter and force and the law of gravitation,
what must happen?"2 Mr. Herbert Spencer postu
lates " matter, motion, force " ; though why he should
need motion as an ultimate, in addition to the force
that presumably originates and manifests itself in and
through motion, does not appear.
This is also the implicit assumption of the Christian
Scriptures, especially of those designated the Old
Testament. It is not, of course, expressly taught ;
for to think, much more to discuss and teach such
matters, lay beyond the range of the majority of those
who wrote the biblical books. The three ultimates in
question seem to me, however, to be pretty distinctly
presupposed and indicated, not only in the cosmology
1 Critical Examination of Theism, by Physicus (G. J. Romanes), p. 52.
See, however, his legacy published by the Rev. Canon Gore.
2 Critical Examination of Theism, p. 63.

12 the reconciliation of god and man
of Genesis, but also by the references to creation found
in other parts both of the Old and New Testament.
I. Matter, which is the " constant " x element in
the cosmos, as contrasted with its variable elements,
energy and law, owes its existence to God. It exists
in consequence of His creative activity. This is the
doctrine that controlled the minds and utterances of
the thinkers whose thoughts are deposited in the
Bible, even though they do not lay it down in the
formal and explicit manner which is so natural to
Christian writers after centuries of investigation and
controversy. No word, either Hebrew or Greek, is
used which denotes exclusively or necessarily bringing
into being, as distinguished from giving mode of exist-
tence ; but the position is implied. The biblical, the
Christian, conception of God excludes the notion of
the independent eternal coexistence of all matter,
either in an ordered or unordered state : — whether it
also excludes that of the eternal creation of some
matter is a different question, — one with regard to
which eminent Christian thinkers have always differed.
It is of course not self-existent. Even if it be eternal
it is non-living, non-active; it is non-intelligent and
non-intelligible; it is non-feeling; in fine, it is non-
personal, non-spiritual. Matter is necessarily dark,
non-rational, passive or inert, non-moral.
Science and philosophy alike furnish indirect
1 " The prime postulate of science is, that there is some constant
amid all phenomenal variations." Stallo, Concepts of Modern Science,
p. 25. See Rothe's view of matter, summarised by v. Solms in Rothe's
Spekulation, etc.

ultimate factors of the cosmos 13
evidence of the correctness of this description. If, as
Lotze maintains, the only quality that can in logical
consistency be predicated of matter is impenetrability ; J
and if, to quote the words of Professor Tait, its primal
characteristic is " inertia or passivity, or dogged per
severance, but in no sense whatever revolutionary
activity " ; and if " it is the plaything of force, submit
ting to any change of state that may be imposed on it,
but vigorously persevering in the state in which it is left,
until force again acts upon it " 2 — one may well apply
to it the description given by another German philo
sopher, " dark, unintelligible, incomprehensible — a
mysterious riddle."3 Or, with Schelling, say of the
question — "Qu'est ce que la matiere? " put by Napoleon
to Jacobi, and which Jacobi confessed himself unable
to answer — " this question touches the point which
may be termed the o-tcdvSaXov, the trap of philo
sophy."4 An inert plaything, which submits to any
change of state, or perhaps rather of position, that
may be imposed on it, would seem to be, in the very
nature of the case, nothing but bare substance — the
very something, which, according to the fundamental
law or category of human thought, namely, substan
tiality, we are compelled to postulate as the subject
of qualities, or the object of action — the ultimate
thing-in-itself. And, regarded as an object of inquiry,
it would seem hopeless to be able to predicate any-
1 Naturphilosophie, sec. 27.
2 Properties of Matter, sec. 1 08.
3 Frohschammer, Die Phantasie als Grundprinzip des Weltprocesses ,
p. 232.
4 Quoted in Huber, Die Forschung nach der Matene, p. 3.

14 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
thing of that which submits to be anywhere, or any
how at the pleasure of the energy in the cosmos.
Hitherto, moreover, all efforts to agree on a deter
mination of the nature of matter in its ultimate or
primary form have proved fruitless. No fewer than
twenty-five different hypotheses on the subject are
adduced by the most comprehensively learned British
scholar of the day ; x and there are some which even
he has not noticed.2
To resolve matter into God, as gnostics and emana-
tionists did in old times, and as under other and
vaguer forms they are still doing, solves the problem
by throwing religion, ethics, and personality into utter
confusion ; and to represent it as a form of force is
either to deny to it the qualities of inertia and impene
trability, by which it is fundamentally known, or to
create the curious problem, how force should empty
itself of one of its own essential characteristics. The
theological conception of creatio e nihilo, which correctly
formulates biblical presuppositions and hints, is doubt
less unrepresentable and unfathomable — necessarily so
to beings which are themselves created ; but, besides
not being in any sense a contradictio in adjecto, it lends
itself in a wonderful way to the construction of a view
of the world which — as every true view of the world
must be that shall satisfy the human intellect — is
essentially and supremely ethical or spiritual. Monism
1 Professor Flint, in an appendix to Tait's Properties of Matter.
2 See Huber, ubi supra ; and Frohschammer's Monaden tend Welt-
phantasie. See Hettinger, Apologie des Christenthums, vol. i. p. 177 ;
and Rothe's view of creation as "Weltwerdung Gottes," or rather of His
" Natur," in Dogmatik, i. p. 146.

MATTER — ENERGY I 5
in every form, new as well as old, is logically antago
nistic alike to God, man, and nature. To resolve
either into the other is to rid ourselves of all three.
II. Energy. — The cosmology which lies behind the
Bible, which forms as it were the framework by which
its principles and facts are held together, especially that
greatest of all facts the redemption that is in Christ,
requires us to affirm that the energy which has thus
far wrought out the cosmos proceeded from God.
Matter — whether its ultimate form be a continuous
unique something, or countless discrete atoms, or
molecules and masses of which so-called atoms are
decompositions1 — having been brought into existence,
goes on to exist without active divine upholding; but
the forces whose effects in and on matter we perceive
are forms assumed by energy that takes its rise in
God. There is no energy but divine energy, and
without divine energy matter would neither move
nor act, either in one way or another. Matter moves
and acts because it is moved and energised, and that
which moves and energises it is divine energy. As
Zwingli puts it, omnis virtus, numinis virtus est.
The energy that thus proceeds from God never
exists, still less works, apart from or independently
of matter. It must not be conceived as floating after
a manner in vacuo, or hovering over matter. Not
only is matter, as far as man knows it, now actually
matter energised, but all the energy thus proceeding
from God is energy, so to speak, immateriated or
incarnated. It may be conceded that motion is the
1 Letoumeau, La Biologie, p. 5.

1 6 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
primal step towards integration, or the reverse, and
that the primal manifestation or effect of energy is
motion; but whether all modes of relation are resolv
able into modes of motion, and whether all matter is
ceaselessly in motion, as is maintained, are different
questions. At the same time, from the point of view
here taken up, I might adopt, with slight modifica
tions, the language of a writer previously quoted and
say that, " in the universe there is neither force sepa
rate from matter, nor matter separate from force. Just
as there may be said to be everywhere one substance,
veritably protean, entering into an infinite variety of
combinations ; so we may speak of one energy, con
stantly changing its forms, yet never diminishing. In
the very beginning there was nothing but moving
matter, and the entire cosmical development origin
ated with matter in motion."1
III. Idea. — That the Scriptures everywhere imply,
often distinctly hint, and occasionally explicitly teach,
that the heavens and the earth are an expression of
the divine mind ; that divine ideas, or a divine idea,
is being realised in the cosmos ; that in it God is
carrying out a great purpose and plan of His own —
this scarcely needs mentioning. That the laws of the
world are God's laws ; that the modes in which its
forces work are prescribed by Him, is certainly the
scriptural view, and as such has been set forth and
emphasised by Jewish and Christian thinkers of all
classes and ages, now in one form, then in another.
It is certainly not a discovery of the present genera-
1 Letourneau, p. 498.

COSMIC LAWS DIVINE LAWS 1 7
tion. The forces working, work as God ordains ; the
changes occurring, occur according to His design.
Were this not so, how strange that Israel's sacred
singers should call upon " fire and hail, snow and
vapour, stormy winds, mountains and hills, fruitful
trees and cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things
and flying fowl, to praise and magnify Jehovah "
(Ps. cxlviii.).
As to the fact of the cosmos being a cosmos,
human philosophy and science are at one with Scrip
ture, even though they may not always ascribe it to
God. Method, order, law, they agree, are no less
discernible in the cosmos than energy. Wherever
energy is found working, whether it be in the form
of gravitation or cohesion or chemical attraction, or
light or heat, or electricity or life — it works according
to rule or law, or those complexes of laws which may
be termed ideas. Psychical energy has also its law,
though it is endowed with and often uses the power of
disobeying it. Even what we call disorder in nature
is order in another form. The forces at work in the
volcanic eruptions of Vesuvius conform to law, whether
the lava and ashes which they emit destroy or nourish
the vines that grow on its slopes. The death-fraught
bacillus and the bacillus-destroying antidote are alike
under the sway of law ; and it is energy proceeding
from God that assumes now the one form, then the
other. Why should all the forces into which energy
differentiates itself thus be actually or ideally con
trolled by law ? Is it in the very nature of matter

1 8 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
or of energy, conceived simply as such, or of both,
to behave thus and thus, and no otherwise? This
is what the advocates of the monistic theory of the
evolution of the world tell us. The best evidence
of the inadequacy of this account of the matter is
the fact of the tendency of monism to endow matter
with other qualities than those of mere extension and
impenetrability ; such, for example, as mobility — which
is of course opposed to the inertness usually regarded
as its primary characteristic ; very elementary degrees
of vitality and sensibility ; and, indeed, to quote the
celebrated utterance of Professor Tyndall, " the pro
mise and potency" of all that is now found in the
cosmos. Pantheism seems to many to escape the difficulty
by which materialistic cosmogonies, modern no less
than ancient, are in this respect beset; for, in one
form or another, it ascribes to the universe an all-
controlling, all - ordering, all - animating soul ; and,
though denying proper personality to this soul,
certainly endows it with the powers which produce
the effects that the Scriptures and Christian thought,
not to say ethnic thought, with few exceptions, have
ascribed to the free, conscious, intelligent action of a
divine being or beings. But a solution of the problem
in question by means of pantheism means, not merely
defeat, but a confused rout ending in the destruction of
reason. IV. The energy which perennially proceeds forth
from God differentiates itself into the manifold forces
by which the work of constituting the cosmos out of

ALL POWER ESSENTIALLY ONE 1 9
matter is being accomplished ; whilst the idea which
immanently guides the energy in its work undergoes
contemporaneously a correspondent process of differ
entiation. The energy which at the very beginning,
under the control of the immanent idea, caused the
primal material elements to draw together after the
manner which is commonly termed gravitation, is
identical with that which out of scattered observations
in the person of an Owen ideally reconstructs some
animal long since extinct.
Mind power, whether of the higher kind which we
ascribe to man, or of the lower kind which we ascribe to
animals, is no less a differentiation of the energy that
is constituting the cosmos than the various forces which
are investigated by the physicist or the chemist or the
biologist. Nor is the pneumatic power or ability which
characterises those who are born again of the Spirit
anything different : — it is the psychical in man as
differentiated under the quickening influence of his
divine environment.
Like the other forms of energy in the world, the
psychical or pneumatic is never found dissociated from
matter. Pure created spirit is a pure figment of the
philosophico-theological imagination. The matter in
which energy at its present stage of differentiation is
immateriated is not, indeed, the only form of matter in
which it can be immateriated ; the irvevfia is capable
of assuming a aa>fia iruev/MiTiKov, even as the Tfnrffl
assumes a acofia ^v^ticov : without body it will never
be. The same thing is true with regard to the laws of

20 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
the cosmos — they are all diffentiations of the one idea
incorporated with energy by its divine originator.
The idea, which at the primal stage of the operations
of energy just referred to is the well-known law, "Every
particle of matter in the universe attracts every other
particle with a force whose direction is that of a line
joining the two, and whose magnitude is directly as the
product of their masses and inversely as the square of
their distance from each other," when we reach man,
has differentiated itself into the wonderfully complicated
system of laws to which the human organism is either
unconsciously and necessarily or consciously and freely
subject — these last culminating in the two great laws
formulated by Christ when He said, " The first and
great commandment is to love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind " ; and the second is like unto it, " Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself."
Matter also may be said, with Mr. Herbert Spencer,
" concomitantly to pass " from " an indefinite, incoherent
homogeneity to a definite, coherent heterogeneity," by
manifold stages of alternating integration and disinteg
ration, — a process carried on, of course, by the energy
referred to above, — the ultimate elements entering at
the beginning into the simplest physical relations to
each other ; and when man is reached, into those which
are peculiar to the brain. But from the beginning to
the end it is the same matter.
V. The process in its entirety, by which the cosmos
has thus far come into existence, is now commonly
designated evolution. Evolution has two momenta,

IDEA AND EVOLUTION 21
persistence and change; or speaking with exclusive
reference to the biological sphere, heredity and vari
ability. Taken together, these two momenta may be
regarded as constituting what is known in biology as
the law of recapitulation, of which the following lucid
and interesting description is given by an eminent
biologist recently deceased : x " Each animal has had a
pedigree stretching back through all geologic time since
the dawn of life on the globe ; and bears the mark of
its ancestry in its own development. The phases
through which it passes in its progress from the egg to
the adult represent more or less closely, in more or less
modified manner, the successive ancestral stages through
which the present condition has been acquired. Em
bryology reveals to us this ancestry because every
animal in its own development repeats this history,
climbs up its own genealogical tree. This being the
case, there ought to be, and there actually is, a parallel
ism between the embryological and the palaeontological
records." " Not as is sometimes incorrectly imagined,
that a young mammal was once like a little fish, after
wards like a reptile, and so forth ; but that the embryo-
mammal at one stage resembles the embryo-fish, at
another stage the embryo-reptile, and so forth," as
another writer puts it.2
" The record of the race-history in embryology, how
ever, is undoubtedly neither complete nor straight
forward ; but a history of which entire chapters are
1 Milnes Marshall. See Nature, Sept. 1890. Cf. H. Spencer, First
Principles, p. 337, and Article in Nineteenth Century for Nov. 1895, p. 744f.
2 Thompson, Study of Animal Life, 197.

22 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
lost ; while in those that remain many pages are mis
placed, and others are so blurred as to be illegible ;
words, sentences, paragraphs are omitted, and worse
still, alterations or spurious additions have been freely
introduced by later hands ; and at times so cunningly
as to defy detection." " Nay more, cases are found of
abrupt metamorphosis ; of transitions, which instead of
being gradual are sudden: there are not only small
jumps such as are very common in nature, but bounds
forward of startling magnitude, as e.g. from the sluggish
leaf-eating caterpillar to the dainty butterfly. Yet that
ontogeny is really a repetition of phylogeny must be
admitted, in spite of the numerous and various ways in
which the ancestral history may be distorted during
actual development." 1
It is only in the domain of animal life that evidences
of the prevalence of this law have up to the present
moment been discovered. And little or no express
effort has thus far been made to include vegetal life
within its scope ; unless Mr. Herbert Spencer's signifi
cant words, " The human germ, primarily similar to all
others, first differentiates itself from vegetal germs and
subsequently assumes the mammalian, placental, un-
1 Milnes Marshall, ubi supra. Kolliker uses the expression "Sprung-
weise auftretende heterogene Zeugung," quoted by Dr. W. Sorge in
Religion und Naturwissenschaft, 1893. " Biologists," says the author of
The New Truth and the Old Faith ("A Scientific Layman"), "now talk
of waves of ' morphological force,' in which the current of life seems to
have swelled with a new being and to have sunk again, after the birth
was over, into a period of quiet ; just as we sometimes see a family
advance until it produces a great man, then recede to mediocrity again."
"Strides or jumps as an agent in development were suggested by the
authors of the Vestiges of Creation " 1844.

THE LAW OF RECAPITULATION 23
guiculate, and lastly the human characters," 1 point in
this direction. Still less has it been extended to the
prae-organic sphere.2
So that unless it be greatly widened it will afford us
little help in getting, so to speak, inside, in laying hold
on the true inwardness of a process within the scope of
which the entire world, not to say cosmos, is embraced.
Does the law of recapitulation prevail throughout ?
does it dominate the process which led up from the
cosmic mist to vegetal life ; through that to animal life ;
and through animal to human life? Is such a widen
ing warranted ? If it is, each stage of the onward and
upward evolution of the cosmos must in some sense re
capitulate the previous stages ; or, to speak after the
manner of Hegelianism, each stage in the develop
ment must take up into itself and preserve all that
has gone before. So that, for example, the chemical
sphere will recapitulate the stages by which it was
preceded ; the vegetable stage in like manner that
which led up to it : and so forth, each new stage
naturally displaying its own specific and distinctive
characteristics. Passing up through the animal domain to man, he
too must be found recapitulating the entire previous
evolution whilst exhibiting distinctive peculiarities of
his own.
Is this the case ? Has the whole cosmic process
1 H. Spencer, Epitome of the Synthetic Philosophy, by F. H. Collins, p. 84.
2 Evolution prevails in the pne-organic sphere : — this has been pointed
out by Principal Chapman in his able, interesting, and too little-heeded
work Prx-organic Evolution ; but this is a different thing from saying that
recapitulation also prevails.

24 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
left its mark in the process of the development of man ?
Can he be said to repeat in himself the history of the
world, and to climb up his own genealogical tree ? And
does his constitution, development, activity, help us
therefore in some measure to appreciate the process by
which the world is being evolved ? Are traces both of
the prae-organic and the prae-animal stages discoverable
in him ?
One thing is certain, that energy in man is actually
found doing the chief kinds of work done by the forces
of the physical world : — the kinds of work investigated
by the physicist, the chemist, the biologist. " The
matter of the human body," says an eminent physicist,
" is the same as that of the world around us, and the
forces of the human body are identical with those of
inorganic nature. It is an apparatus exquisite and
effectual beyond all others in transforming and dis
tributing energy."
" The food we place in our stomachs is so much
combustible matter. It is first dissolved by purely
chemical processes, and the nutritive fluid is poured
into the blood. Here it comes into contact with
atmospheric oxygen admitted by the lungs. It unites
with the oxygen as wood or coal might unite with it
in a furnace. The matter products and the force
products are in both cases the same ; in the one
carbonic acid and water, in the other heat and work.
Every action of the organism belongs thus far to the
domain either of physics or chemistry." 1 The same
1 Tyndall, Fragments of Science ; Science and Man. Cf. Wundt's
Philosophic, p. 548 ; Letourneau, Biologic, p. 481.

RECAPITULATION : COSMICAL 25
energy and matter are further differentiated and trans
formed into muscle, nerve and brain matter, and
energy. These are facts. Now to their meaning — to the
analogical inferences which they seem to warrant.
May it not be said to be highly probable that if
we could trace back the genesis of any individual
man to its very fountainhead, we should find that
he began with a movement of two or more particles
of matter towards each other, either according to the
law of gravitation or to some prior law; that there
upon they cohered and attracted others; that in due
course molecules arose and then the internal motion
termed heat was set up which is the preliminary
step to chemical relations ; that thereafter arose the
combination which manifests itself in vital phenomena;
and that at last, after passing through a kind of
vegetal stage, discrete though correlate forms of
living matter coalesced to constitute the germ which
eventually, after an embryonic development recapi
tulating the evolution of the animal sphere, issued in
man.1 1 Scotus Erigena (Christlieb, pp. 267-270) says : " Inter primordiales
rerum causas homo ad imaginem Dei factus est ut in eo omnis creatura, et
intelligibilis et sensibilis, ex quibus veluti diversis extremitatibus compositus
(est) unum inseparabile fieret, et ut esset medietas atque adunatio omnium
creaturarum," De div. not. ii. 9; "Deus omnem creaturam, visibilem
et invisibilem in hominem fecit," iv. 7 ; " Omnis creatura in homine est,"
v. 25 ; " Homo in occultis naturce causis secundum quas primitus conditus
est, et ad quas reversurus est, continetur, in quantum est," ii. 7 ; "Non
immerito dicitur homo creaturarum omnium officina, quoniam in ipso
universalis creatura continetur. Intelligit quidem ut angelus, ratiocinatur
ut homo, sentit ut animal, vivit ut germen, corpore animaque subsistit,
nullius creaturte expers," iii. 37. Cf. Staudenmaier, Lehre v. d. Idee.

26 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
May we adopt, of course with modifications, the
words of Emerson quoted by Professor Tyndall in his
Fragments of Science ?
" If thou would'st know the mystic song
Chaunted when the sphere was young,
Aloft, abroad, the psean swells,
O wise man, hear'st thou half it tells ?
To the open ear it sings
The early genesis of things :
Of tendency through endless ages
Of star-dust and star-pilgrimages,
Of rounded worlds, of space and time,
Of the old floods' subsiding slime,
Of chemic matter, force and form,
Of poles and powers, cold, wet and warm.
The rushing metamorphosis
Dissolving all that pristine is,
Melts things that be to things that seem,
And solid nature to a dream."
VI. But even, if this were conceded, what about the
higher nature, functions, and activities of man, as we
term them ? Many evolutionists cry halt ! when we
reach the soul. They maintain that as its activities
are new, the energy which is manifested in them must
also be new. " The rational life of man stands out to
view on an eminence completely severed from the
scheme of organic evolution," says an eminent philo
sopher. " As an animal life — a type of physical
existence — human life is fitted into the system of
organic life on the earth. As a rational life — a type
of spiritual existence — human life is exalted above all
life besides, severed from companionship of animals."
See further, Tyndall's Fragments of Science, vol. ii. pp. 80-84, where the
process is traced from crystallisation to man.

MAN AND EVOLUTION 27
" Man belongs to two orders — the one organic, the other
spiritual." 1
Thus regarded, man would be a recapitulation as to the
body; a completely new thing as to the spirit within him.
But is there adequate reason for positing such a dual
origin for man ? Have we not, on the contrary, good
grounds for maintaining that he is a unity ? not body
alone, indeed ; not spirit alone ; but the two organically
united : or rather, to use language more in harmony with
the line of thought hitherto expounded, is he not essenti
ally a combination of matter, brought about by a highly
differentiated form of cosmic energy, working according
to a correspondingly differentiated form of the cosmic
idea ? The energy which constitutes him at the earliest
stage of his existence is to all appearance the same
energy which constitutes and acts in him at the later
stages; yea, at the very highest stage, though at the latest
stage it has become far more highly differentiated.
" I am the child of earth and air and sea !
My lullaby by hoarse Silurian storms
Was chanted ; and through endless changing forms
Of plant and bird and beast, unceasingly
The toiling ages wrought to fashion me.
Lo ! these large ancestors have left a breath
Of their strong souls in mine, defying death
And change. I grow and blossom as the tree,
And ever feel deep-delving, earthy roots
Binding me daily to the common clay.
But with its airy impulse upwards shoots
My life into the realms of light and day ;
And thou, O Sea, stern mother of my soul,
Thy tempests sing in me, thy billows roll."
H. H. Boyesen, quoted in
The New Truth and the Old Faith.
1 Calderwood, Evolution and Man's Place in Nature, 338 f. So A.
Wallace. See Thompson, p. 343.

28 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
As to this point, Thomas Aquinas long ago gave
utterance to the substantial truth when he maintained
that one and the same principle, namely, the anima, is
at once the formative principle of the body and also
the anima sensitiva, appetitiva seu motiva; nay more,
the anima rationalis sive intellectualis.1
The view just referred to leads back logically to
Plato's conception of the body as an organic whole,
complete in itself, into which the soul enters and which,
whilst partially controlled and used by it, is also in
some respects to it a kind of prison-house — a concep
tion controverted by Aquinas : 2 — a conception, too, not
withstanding the wide acceptance it has found among
Christians, untenable alike on biblical and scientific
grounds. For man is essentially a somatico-psychical
being. We may justly quote in this connection the pro
foundly significant words of St. Paul, " All flesh is
not the same flesh : but there is one flesh of men, and
another flesh of beasts, and another flesh of birds, and
another flesh of fishes " ; 3 for body and soul, alike in
beast and man, are so closely related that neither in
any case could be other than it is, save as both were
different. The idea of the loose, contingent relation of
the human body and soul implied in much teaching,
both scientific and popular, is not only groundless but
mischievous. It is scarcely needful to say that this is a totally
1 See Ueberweg, Geschichte der Philosophic, ii. 200. Cf. also Froh-
schammer, Philosophic des Thomas v. Aquino, p. 363.
2 See Frohschammer, p. 363. 3 1 Cor. xv. 39.

BODY AND SPIRIT 29
different position from that which represents mind as
a function of brain ; 1 or that which, whilst professedly
recognising to the full the difference between the
mental and the material, speaks of a " human being as
an extended and material mass, to which is attached
the power of becoming alive to feeling and thought, the
extreme remove from all that is material." 2
It is one and the same energy which at different
stages of differentiation, i.e. as different forces, does
properly physical work, then chemical, then vital of the
various kinds, and finally mental, beginning with that
which is found in the mere animal and ending with
that which is found in the various orders of created
intelligences, from man upwards.
These several forces make their appearance in the
human organism in succession ; but having once made
their appearance, they continue to exist and work,
normally in subordination, the earlier to the later, the
simpler to the more complex, the lower to the higher,
and, in general, the corporeal to the mental.
Each of these differentiations of the one energy, in
other words, each of these forces, works within its own
sphere according to its own law or laws ; and though
conflict and disorder may and do occur, the rule is
harmonious co-operation for the promotion of the
growth and development of the human organism as a
whole. The earlier and lower differentiations of this energy
do their work unconsciously, though under the control
1 Maudsley, Physiology of Mind, p. 38.
2 Bain, Mind and Body, p. 137.

30 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
of the idea of the whole. It is only the higher differ
entiation — which in general may be termed the psych
ical — that works freely, knows that it is working, and
is also more or less distinctly aware that its activities
should be conformed to an immanent, though not self-
acting, law or idea. But even the human consciousness
is not complete. As to this we may compare ourselves
to men standing on the shore of a narrow channel con
necting two seas, each concealed by a dense mist which
only now and again breaks and reveals the whence
and whither of the waters whose flow we are watching.
Meanwhile the other and earlier differentiations of the
one energy continue doing their work, all unknown to
themselves ; nay more, unknown save indirectly even
to the partially self-conscious organism. Strangely
enough, too, this energy in its mental and self-conscious
differentiation has the power to make a greater or less
use of the lower differentiations and their material com
binations, for the purpose of controlling and modifying
others. In other words, as we ordinarily say, mind can
use one part of its body in order more or less to affect
another part.
Nay more, this differentiation of energy which con
stitutes man, though itself an essential part of the
world, is able to turn round upon, to observe, to ex
amine, to investigate, to endeavour to understand and
even to modify the world and itself. Till man is
evolved the energy, which by its differentiations and
their work generates the world, remains unconscious of
itself, unless we regard, as perhaps we should, the
feelings, sensibilities, and prce-self-conscious psychical

ENERGY IN MAN 3 1
activities of the animal world as upflashings of the
coming dawn, dumb prophecies of the mind that is to
be.1 In man the world, by discovering its own secret,
discovers also the divine source of its being. Pro
foundly true, therefore, interpreted in the light of sin,
are the words of Paul, " Creation itself also shall be
delivered from the bondage of corruption into the
glorious liberty of the children of God " — that liberty
one of whose prime elements is knowing as friends,
and not being condemned to work in the dark as
servants. VII. Ideally considered, the cosmos is already, and
was from the very first, a great whole or system
completely organised ; actually it is a system of co
ordinate and subordinate systems, of each of which we
can say in turn, that it is gradually becoming actually
1 A dim and imperfect glimmering of the view thus presented is found in
the following lines from a Persian poem of the thirteenth century : —
" First man appeared in the class of inorganic things,
Next he passed therefrom into that of plants.
For years he lived as one of the plants,
Remembering nought of his inorganic state so different :
And when he passed from the vegetive to the animal state
He had no remembrance of his state as a plant,
Except the inclination he felt to the world of plants,
Especially at the time of spring and sweet flowers ;
Like the inclination of infants towards their mothers,
Which know not the cause of their inclination to the breast.
Again, the great Creator, as you know,
Drew man out of the animal into the human state.
Thus man passed from one order of nature to another,
Till he became wise and knowing and strong as he is now.
Of his past souls he has now no remembrance,
And he will be again changed from his present soul."
Masnavi (Bk. iv.) of Jalal ad Din,
quoted in Clodd's Story of Creation.

32 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
what it already is ideally. The recapitulation pre
dicated of individuals is true also of the systems which
successively arise. Each of these systems, too, has as
truly an immanent idea of its own as the cosmos to
which it belongs. Each is possessed, moreover, of a
certain measure of independence within its co-ordina
tion and subordination.
Humanity is one of these systems, constituting a
system, not merely in the looser sense in which the
term is otherwise applied, but also an organic whole,
with an idea which it is destined gradually to realise,
and consisting of individuals, each of which is in turn
a relatively independent system, or rather organism,
with its own immanent idea.
Between all the systems which constitute the cosmos
a constant interaction, infinitely varied both in kind
and degree, is going on. Every system acts on every
other system : and every factor of every system acts
on every other factor, not only of its own particular
system, but also on every factor of every other of the
innumerable systems by which the cosmos is constituted.
This follows from the fact that the cosmos is a real,
though ever-varying because ever-evolving, unity.
Referring more especially to the domain of life, one
may say that every part of the cosmos, or at all events
of the earth, holds the relation of environment to every
other part. And of the living factors, if not exclusively
yet very specially, it holds true that their normal
growth and development are conditional on the main
tenance of fitting interaction between them and a
fitting environment. This applies with as much force

DIVINE RELATION TO THE COSMOS 33
to man as to any other of the living beings which
have been or are the outcome of the process of
evolution. VIII. The emission of the energy by whose action on
matter the cosmos is being evolved, and the informing
of the energy with its regulative idea, — which regulative
idea is the articulated divine idea of the world, — is
consciously and freely controlled by God, with constant
and due regard to the successive stages through which
the cosmos passes in the process of evolution. As
soon, however, as the divine energy, either at the
beginning or at the later stages, enters on its cosmic
work it ceases to be under the direct control, or
perhaps even open to the immediate knowledge, of
God ; not, be it remarked, because of a necessity
imposed on God from without, but in pursuance of
His own plan and purpose. In other words, the divine
energy undergoes a kind of kenosis} This latter
relation of God to the world may be termed His
immanence; the former His transcendence.
The due regard at each successive step to the stage
reached by the cosmos, that is, to the specific character
istics of the beings or the system evolved just referred
to, assumes a very special character when man is
evolved. For owing to the consciousness and freedom
with which he is endowed, the divine action on him,
save indirectly through nature, has in a sense to
submit itself to his conscious pleasure and choice.
It is further obviously involved in the positions
1 See Ottley, Incarnation, iii. 285. Further reference will be made to
this kenotic element in the divine relation to the cosmos at a later stage.
3

34 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
laid down, that the cosmos, though possessing a certain
independence of its own, is in no sense self-contained
or self-sufficient. On the contrary, it is continuously
dependent on God; — God is, in fact, its living, ever active,
ever necessary originator and constitutor, as well as in
a narrower sense its environment.
Between the cosmos and God, therefore, in whom it
"lives and moves and has its being," there must
necessarily be an interaction to which the nearest
analogy is furnished perhaps by the relation between
a mother and her unborn offspring.
IX. In accordance with the hints contained in the
Scriptures, especially of the New Testament, and agree
ably to the, in point of substance, uniform teachings
of the Christian Church, the relation severally of the
three persons which constitute the Godhead to the
creation, evolution, and government of the cosmos in
general, and of the world in particular, may be ap
proximately formulated as follows. The person known
as Father is in a special sense the creator of the matter
out of which the cosmos is being evolved. The person
known as the Holy Spirit is the intra-divine centre,
and extra-divine wielder of the energy by which the
cosmos is being evolved. The person known as the Logos
or Word, who as incarnate is designated the Son of
God, is the intra-divine centre of the activity by which
the cosmic idea is formed and the extra-divine power
which informs or interweaves the complex of laws or
idea with the cosmic energy. Inasmuch, however, as
the three persons, or, as it would be more accurate to
describe them, the three personific factors of the God-

THE TRINITY AND THE COSMOS 35
head, though distinct from each other, are yet so in
each other that in a very true sense what each does
all do, and what all do each does, they are therefore
frequently referred to, alike in Scripture and in the
thought of the Church, as if certain of their functions
and activities were interchangeable.
Such are the main features of the cosmology which
lies behind the Bible ; which crops out under the
greatest variety of circumstances, though it is never
formally expounded : and within which, as if it be true,
must needs be the case, there is room for God
immanent and God transcendent, for nature and spirit,
for necessity and freedom, for law and miracle, for sin
and redemption. This cosmology is presupposed by
the doctrine or theory of the atonement, which it is my
aim in the following pages to expound.

CHAPTER IV
The Nature and Constitution of Man
In accordance with the cosmological principles
previously laid down, man may be described as con
stituted by a special differentiation of cosmic energy,
embodied in specially integrated matter, together with
which it forms a living unity, the growth development
and activity of which are designed to be controlled
and regulated by a correspondingly differentiated
indwelling law, or complex of laws, termed idea.
i. As such he is subject, along with all other living
beings, to the great biological law, that normal growth
and development depend on fitting relations between
him and a fitting environment.
Like all other beings, too, he clearly owes himself
to God ; in other words, the matter which in part
constitutes him is matter created by God ; the energy
which has organised the matter of which he consists
into a body, and which discharges a variety of functions
and puts forth a variety of activities, is divine energy ;
and the complex of laws, or, otherwise expressed, the
idea, which has either regulated the energy by
necessity, or prescribes to it its modes of action, is a
divine idea or system of laws. At the same time,

MAN S PLACE IN THE COSMOS 37
both the matter, the energy, and the idea which
constitute him arose out of the mundane system to
which he belongs ; otherwise expressed, he came into
existence not directly from God but from the world.
Immediately, he owes his existence to what we
call second causes. He is the flower of the process
of evolution. In him the process has thus far
culminated. Such being his origin and position in the world, it
would seem, and is by many maintained, that he,
equally with all preceding products of evolution, must
lack the moral nature and the spiritual needs by which
he is ordinarily supposed to be distinguished from the
animals below him, yea, even from the very highest.
How can he, it is asked, if this be true, be anything
but the highest link of the great chain of nature,
and need anything beyond what this mundane
system, including of course his fellow-men, is able to
supply ?
In the view of many, both of the friends and critics
of revelation, any such evolutionary cosmology as that
just sketched logically lands us in this conclusion ; and
for this reason most friends of revelation postulate,
in order to account for, or to render possible, the
higher nature of man, a direct divine intervention or
a new creation.
But this is a mistake, due to an imperfect apprecia
tion of some features of the process of evolution itself.
When we examine that process carefully, we find
running through the biological sphere, if not indeed
also through, at all events, a part of the prae-organic

38 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
sphere, a principle of selection which as we approach
man assumes more and more completely the character
of choice, and is more and more attended and con
ditioned by consciousness. In man this culminates ;
and as found in him we call it will, which is the
capability of conscious selection, in harmony with one or
more of the laws that constitute the system of laws,
designated his idea.
Still further, mute anticipations and prophecies of
the intellectual, affectional, and emotional character
istics of man are undoubtedly to be found among
his animal ancestors, — prophecies and anticipations
which become more and more distinct and clear as
man is approached, — but, as is recognised even by
thoroughgoing evolutionists, they culminate in man
and find in him their interpretation. It is just because
all these higher qualities reach their highest mundane
potency in man that it is possible for any one of
them to be at its highest. Especially true is it
that if the will, with its correlate consciousness, in
other words, the moral nature, remains undeveloped,
the other qualities rarely pass far beyond the animal
stage. It is ^^"-consciousness that specially differ
entiates man from the animals below him ; and
where this is little developed, there man fails also to
develop the other higher potencies with which he is
endowed. No substantial reason will exist why even the most
earnest upholder of the Christian faith should hesitate
to recognise as facts the anticipations of man's highest
qualities in the animal world, to which reference has

ANTICIPATIONS OF MAN 39
been made, if the fundamental assumptions of the
cosmology previously sketched be accepted ; that is,
if the determining factors of the process of evolution
be the divine energy and idea immanent in it, the
former differentiating itself in harmony with, or under
the control of, the latter. If matter, however, be con
ceived as having in itself the " promise and potency "
of the cosmos ; and if in addition it be treated,
consciously or unconsciously, as the self- existent
beginning of all things, then it must be allowed
such a view of man and his ancestry will contradict
the Christian faith ; but not otherwise.
2. There is another respect in which the animal
ancestry of man may be said mutely to point towards
their wonderful descendant, the heir of all the ages.
I refer to what seems to be, at all events in a limited
respect, a law, that the deepest potentialities of the
several species of the animal kingdom are never
evolved until they are fittingly acted upon by one or
more of the species that are above them. A unique
influence in this respect belongs to man as regards
the creatures below him. As the history of civilisation
teaches, he has been constantly evoking, in certain of
the creatures around him, powers which apart from
his action they had never exhibited ; powers, too,
which they have invariably only too soon lost when
his hand was withdrawn.
Such, too, is the law to which man is subject. He
also needs to be acted on by a higher environment if
his potentialities are to be evoked and realised. Nay
more, if we take heed to his history, it will be found

40 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
to bear one long testimony to the fact that the environ
ment which he needs is divine. Men are constituted
that they should " seek after God and find Him,
though He is not far from each one of us ; for in Him
we live and move and have our being. For we are
also His offspring." The closer his intercourse with
God — a thing which involves a certain measure of
acquaintance — the fuller and richer his development ;
though it is as true of him as it is analogously of the
creatures below him, that the more he withdraws him
self from the influence of his divine environment, the
greater the fall beneath himself.
So far as this law is concerned, the differences
between man and the creatures below him consist
(i) in the greater complexity of his constitution and
the consequent greater complexity of the environment,
whose action on him conditions his growth and
development ; (2) in the fact that, save at the earliest
stages of his existence, the relations which condition
his growth and development cannot be entered on
without first becoming matter of consciousness ; (3) in
the fact that, to a certain extent, the relations between
him and his environment are subject to his free control,
that in other words, within limits, he is able to control
his own development and life.
3. Answering to the double constitution and in
dwelling idea of man, his environment is also twofold,
namely, physical and psychical or spiritual, neither
really separable from the other. The world which we
call physical is itself, in point of fact, both physical
and psychical or spiritual. Accordingly, it not only

ENVIRONMENT  NATURE, MAN 4 1
supplies physical nutriment and a sphere of exercise
for the human body, besides influencing it in other
ways, but by its action on man's senses, as well as
through its indwelling laws, evokes and fosters the
activity of his intellect, and in various ways meets its
needs. Neither of these functions, however, would be
discharged, save in a very imperfect degree, apart from
the prior and contemporary action of man's properly
psychical or spiritual environment.
Shelley, and those who explicitly or implicitly share
his position, are, however, profoundly in error when
they say — " This world is the nurse of all we know ;
This world is the nurse of all we feel."
It would not be true if we were to include the human
race in the " world." Not less in error are the advo
cates of monistic evolution. Indeed, the picture they
themselves draw of the state of the human race during
the early period of its existence is the best proof of the
inadequacy of nature and men alone to serve the pur
pose of developing the higher human potentialities.
Evidence of a like intent is provided by the savages
of to-day if, as we are assured, they are essentially in
the state in which all men once were. For they are
assumed to have had no nurse of thought and feeling
save nature and one another.
The human world is the earliest and, as men are
at present, the most potent factor of their psychical
environment. The proviso which qualifies the state
ment is added because there is good reason for main
taining that the first human beings, especially if evolved

42 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
from some lower animal, however complete their poten
tialities, would not, nay more, could not, have de
veloped into men as we now know them, if they had
not been acted on by some more or less completely
developed personality.
Human beings could never, however, have been an
adequate environment, no, not even had they formed
societies that attained to a high degree of civilisation.
The highest type of man will never be produced by
the influence of man alone. An element of absolute
ness pertains to the idea immanent in man's nature,
which it is his destiny to realise, that can never be
awakened into life or developed save as he is fittingly
acted on by the Absolute.
In short, the supreme factor of man's environment
is God. This is the great presupposition of the Bible,
of Christianity as a whole, and in a special respect of
redemption. " Even so the Soul which in this earthly mould
The Spirit of God doth secretly infuse ;
Because at first she doth the earth behold,
And only this material world she views :
At first her mother-earth she holdeth dear,
And doth embrace the world and worldly things ;
She flies close by the ground, and hovers here,
And mounts not up with her celestial wings.
Yet under heaven she cannot light on aught
That with her heavenly nature doth agree ;
She cannot rest, she cannot fix her thought,
She cannot in this world contented be :
Then as a bee which among weeds doth fall,
Which seem sweet flowers, with lustre fresh and gay,
She lights on that, and this, and tasteth all,
But pleased with none, doth rise and soar away.

GOD THE ENVIRONMENT OF MAN 43
So when the Soul finds here no true content,
And, like Noah's dove, can no sure footing take,
She doth return from whence she first was sent,
And flies to Him that first her wings did make."
Sir John Davies, died 1626.

CHAPTER V
God as the Environment of Man
As the environment of man, God holds to him normally
a twofold relation, — a relation that may be designated
personal ; and one that may be described as vital or
bio-dynamic. In other words, if man is to develop
normally, God must behave towards, and act on, man
in ways analogous to those in which human persons
normally behave towards, and act on, each other; and
He must also vitally energise man, that is, communi
cate to him real strength — nourish, quicken, invigorate
him in a manner analogous to that in which he is
nourished, quickened, and invigorated, as to the body,
by his physical environment. This order of things, let
it be remembered, was constituted by God Himself:
He imposed this function on Himself, in that He
created man what he is.
" Thou art the source and centre of all minds,
Their only point of rest, Eternal Word !
From Thee departing they are lost, and rove
At random without honour, hope, or peace.
From Thee is all that soothes the life of man,
His high endeavour, and his glad success,
His strength to suffer, and his will to serve.
But O, thou bounteous giver of all good,
Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown !
Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor :
And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away ! "
COWTER, The Task.
44

god s twofold relation to man 45
Let us briefly consider these two relations.
I. A specific, direct, personal relation of God to
man is necessary to man's normal personal develop
ment, growth, and life.
i. Man personally considered is man, as capable of
thought, knowledge, affection, feeling, self-possession,
and self-control. Personal relations to men are rela
tions, or modes of behaviour, which affect or influence
them in one, or other, or all of these aspects of their
nature. As they have the capabilities or potentialities
enumerated, so they need not only to think and know,
to cherish affections, to experience feelings, and to pos
sess and control themselves ; but also to be acted on
by beings who think and know, who cherish affections,
who experience feelings, who possess and control them
selves, that is, by men. Not only the actualisation of
these various potentialities, but also the satisfaction of
corresponding wants and cravings, is impossible apart
from contact with those in whom the potentialities have
already been more or less completely actualised. In
deed, the two things are, strictly speaking, inseparable.
They are but the two sides of one and the same pro
cess or experience.
Whilst what has been advanced holds good of every
aspect of man's personal nature and life, the sense and
satisfaction of need have been, and are for the most
part, referred to and emphasised chiefly in connection
with the affections and feelings. Doubtless, too, the
majority of men are sensible of need, — which may be
come an aching void, — solely, or nearly so, in the
region of the affections and feelings, especially the

46 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
former. Nor is this altogether unnatural, for, after all,
it is chiefly through the heart, which is the seat of the
affections, that men are linked to each other ; not
through the intellect or the will ; though the latter, of
course, have their part to play. It is only when human
nature has been warped and debased by a long course
of selfishness that it becomes indifferent how men
regard it and how it regards men. Normally we all
yearn to bestow as well as to receive, receive as well as
to bestow, respect, trust, and love, which are the chief
forms or stages of true affection ; and those who either
lack or refuse to avail themselves of opportunities of
reciprocation, — those especially who refuse, — as inevit
ably undergo atrophy and degeneration as does a
bodily organ which is not supplied with nutriment, or
is not put to use. This holds equally true, however,
of both the intellect and the power of self-control,
usually termed the will. Neither of them grows and
develops healthily without fitting interaction between
them and their environment.
2. That what has just been urged is true of men in
relation to each other, history and daily observation
amply confirm. So far from being doubted, still less
questioned, the idea nowadays is in danger of being
too strongly emphasised. Environment is being mag
nified at the expense of that which is environed. A
vigorous healthy society is to be built up out of units
which have neither health nor strength of their own.
Yet true it is, and will ever remain true, that individual
men cannot realise their capabilities, or live an ideal
life, unless they are being constantly and duly acted

PERSONAL RELATION OF GOD 47
on by the human race as a whole. Not less true, how
ever, is it that humanity, as a whole, can never realise
its idea unless the individuals by which it is con
stituted are also realising their idea.
It has been too customary, indeed, to lay chief, nay
sometimes exclusive, stress on the relation of such
intercourse to the heart and its affections. Although,
considered in itself, this was a mistake, the excuse may
be pleaded for it, that the human heart needs to go forth
without let or hindrance. When it has been stirred
into activity by contact with human beings, this need
becomes a conscious desire, — a desire, or even yearn
ing, to trust, love, and reverence without limits. Other
wise expressed, we instinctively grope and feel after a
person or persons to whom we can unreservedly sur
render ourselves. Under this impulse when young we
treat, first our parents, then our friends, our teachers,
and others, as realisations of all that is most worthy of
respect, trust, and love ; and one of the intensest pains
the human soul can experience is that which ensues on
the discovery that the persons whom it has idealised
are, like itself, imperfect. When the imperfection is
moral, and the person is a father, or mother, or religious
teacher, or friend greatly admired and trusted, the dis
illusionment is exceedingly perilous.
But this capability of bestowing the reverence, trust,
and love of the whole heart cannot be called forth into
healthy activity save by One who embodies in absolute
measure the qualities which answer to these affections.
Nor, of course, can the heart of man realise the satis
faction and peace which naturally result from absolutely

48 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
normal relations to an absolutely fitting object until
it is found by and finds The One. Till then it will be
as one who beats the air, that is, it will remain restless
and discontented. This must at all events be the case,
until the heart has grown sick through hope too long
deferred, has become weary of searching in vain, and is
as good as dead.
And as an ideal father would be the fittest man to
discharge the function just described, so far as it
devolves on the human environment ; so an Absolute
Father would be the absolutely fittest to evoke and
to provide perfect nutriment and exercise for the
deepest and highest potentialities of the children of
men. But, as was previously remarked, neither human
potentialities can be evoked into actuality nor human
needs be satisfied by man alone. It is no less impos
sible for the human race than it is for the natural
world adequately to render either the one service or
the other to a single one of its innumerable members.
Each individual man, as well as the whole of humanity,
is created for God ; and God has constituted Himself
the living environment for both.
This holds good of every aspect of man's personal
nature. The Christian Church, however, as was pre
viously remarked, has made a grievous mistake in so
frequently losing sight of, or at all events in neglecting
duly to emphasise, the fact that God is the supreme
factor of man's environment, not merely relatively to
his affections and feelings, but also relatively to his
intellect and will. Our intelligence cannot work at its

THE WHOLE MAN NEEDS GOD 49
best apart from God. It is not a question merely of
receiving knowledge. No, it is a question of being
qualified to exercise our own powers of thought and to
acquire knowledge for ourselves. But God does not do
man's intellectual work for him. It might be, nay it
probably was, necessary at the earlier stages of his
history that God should do what wise human teachers
do, namely, unveil a little in order to give his human
pupil a start ; but were He to have revealed to the
extent to which most of us in our weaker moments
desire, instead of evoking and quickening, He would
have atrophied our intellectual potentialities. Divine
inspiration, in the sense in which poets, speaking
better than they knew, asked it for themselves, is the
term by which the normal action of God on the human
intelligence may fitly be designated. Man was con
stituted for it, and normally such inspiration would
have been to his intellect what the air he breathes is to
his lungs, and the light he beholds is to his eyes. That
it should have been something exceptional in his
history was not according to the divine order; — it was
a result of sin, a deviation from law.
But intercourse with God is still further the condi
tion of the attainment of that self-possession and self-
control which are characteristic of true personality.
Independence of character, power of initiative, courage,
endurance, — all that constitutes true manliness, — can
develop heathily and fully only as men walk with
God. Close fellowship with strong men has not always
this effect. But the closer our fellowship with God,
the Almighty One, the mightier we ourselves become.
4

50 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Such has been the experience of men in all ages,
though some phenomena and conceptions of religion
have given rise to the notion that it tends rather to
weakness than to strength, to unmanliness than to
manliness. II. A direct vital or bio-dynamic relation of God
is necessary to man's normal development, growth, and
life. The vital or bio-dynamic action of God consists
essentially in the communication of a specific form of
energy — the energy which man needs for the upkeep
of his pneumatic life and the discharge of his pneumatic
functions ; in a word, spiritual energy. In consequence,
however, of the vagueness commonly attaching to the
word spiritual, it is necessary to remark that spiritual
energy is as real a form of energy as gravitation or
electricity. This form of the divine action is too often
practically identified with that considered under the
last head, namely, with the personal.
The necessity for such communication is grounded,
as has been previously maintained, in the order of the
cosmos and the constitution given by God to man ;
not, as the Churches of Christ seem too often to have
implicitly taught, in the fact of sin. In other words,
it was necessary for normal man, consequently still
more for abnormal man. Its necessity abnormally is
rooted in its normal necessity.
As the position thus taken up is by some explicitly
controverted, by others implicitly, and by many, if not
most Christian believers, whether theologians or not,
scantily or imperfectly appreciated, especially in com-

VITAL RELATION OF GOD TO MAN 5 1
parison with the principle first laid down, it will be
well to consider it somewhat at length.
It would be an error, of course, to say that it has
been entirely overlooked. But owing to its having
been almost exclusively regarded in connection with and
as an integral part of the work of redemption, its funda
mental significance, not only in a theoretical but also in
a practical respect, has never been adequately realised.
1. In accordance with the cosmological principles
previously laid down, man must be described as the
highest known " differentiation of organisms," to quote
a word of Mr. Herbert Spencer's. As such he is con
stituted, first, by matter in a specially differentiated
form ; next, by a special differentiation of cosmic
energy; and both together form a living unity, the
growth, development, and activity of which are designed
to be regulated by a correspondingly differentiated
indwelling law or, perhaps rather, complex of laws or
idea. Like all other organisms, he is subject to a
constant waste of matter and dissipation of energy.
He therefore constantly needs new supplies both of
matter and energy, which have to be assimilated from
his environment.
As far as the body is concerned, both the waste of
matter and dissipation of energy are universally recog
nised. In the form of food, too, as everybody knows,
we are constantly supplying ourselves with both matter
and energy from our physical environment, namely, the
material world.
What now about the psychical side of man's con
stitution? Is that subject to the same law? If his

52 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
thinking, loving, and other mental activities or func
tions presuppose a specific differentiation of energy or
force, must it not be as really exhausted by those
activities as his bodily energy or force is exhausted by
bodily effort and toil ? Obvious as this would seem,
it is certainly not the popular idea. The man who
works with his body, he it is who claims for himself
par excellence the title working-man or labourer ; it is
only grudgingly conceded to men whose business it
is to think or to instruct; to guide the erring; to
comfort the sorrowing; to raise the fallen; and in
other ways to minister to humanity in its intellectual,
moral, and religious needs. When such men, speci
ally the last mentioned, speak of getting weary and
exhausted they gain little credence and less sympathy
from the classes referred to, unless the ministry in
question has at the same time plainly involved a con
siderable amount of real physical strain.
As a matter of fact, however, mental effort of any
kind, and even experiences which to all appearance
require no effort, involve real expenditure of psychical
energy. They do this sometimes when we are not
sensible of the body being affected in the same way,
— not, at all events, to a corresponding degree. Pro
longed and severe intellectual exertion ; seasons of
moral and spiritual wrestling, whether with ourselves
or others ; protracted religious engagements ; strong
emotions of any kind ; intense feelings of pleasure or
pain, — each and all produce effects on the mind an
alogous to bodily weariness and exhaustion. In fact,
not a function can be discharged, not an activity put

MENTAL ACTION EXPENDS ENERGY 53
forth ; nay more, not an experience of any kind, can
be gone through, — seeing that experiences, even in the
narrowest sense of the term, always and necessarily
involve reaction of some kind or degree on the part of
the organism, — without some waste of energy and loss of
matter. This needs only stating to find recognition : —
it is indeed almost too obvious for express remark.
It is commonly supposed, indeed, that exercise —
that is, effort, up to a certain point, actually increases
strength. That it is followed by a sense of exhilara
tion and invigoration, physical or mental, according to
the nature of the work done, cannot be doubted. But
it is equally certain that there has been expenditure,
not increase of energy.
The explanation of the phenomenon in question is,
primarily, that when effort is put forth, energy is drafted
off, so to speak, to the particular organ or side of man's
nature subjected to special strain, the immediate result
of which is the feeling just referred to. In point of
fact, however, whether the effort has been mental or
physical, the store of energy, as well as of matter, in
the system has been expended.
But a further effect is also produced on the system,
and it is this effect which chiefly accounts for the
notion under consideration. It may be described in
the words of a recent writer as follows : " All motion
or action is at the expense of bodily tissue, and if con
tinued too long the tissue becomes degenerate and
unable to act. Of this we have abundant evidence
after any kind of exercise that causes fatigue. But though
this is the case, healthy exercise always stimulates

54 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
the blood circulation, and. if the blood is in good con
dition and a proper supply of food is taken, the waste
of tissue caused by the exercise is speedily made good.
Indeed, it is more than made good, for the minute cells
which form the tissues of the body being stimulated by
exercise, and well supplied with pure nourishing blood,
quickly regain their normal condition, and in addition,
through increase of vitality, multiply by dividing into
two parts, each of which quickly becomes a perfect
cell, capable of discharging all the functions of a cell.
Thus, under proper conditions, temporary waste leads
to permanent growth, and the muscular system, with
proper exercise, increases both in size and strength."
What is thus expressed in terms of the organic vehicle
of energy, namely, of cells, tissue, muscle, may be also
expressed in terms of energy.
Now this holds equally good of the mental activities ;
and the law may be expressed in terms either of brain-
matter, or of the energy for which the brain-matter
serves as vehicle or organ. Provided that by means of
adequate and proper food, and as in the case of the
body in general, sufficient rest, the wasted brain-matter
and energy are adequately replenished, mental power
grows up to a certain point through and in consequence
of exercise ; though otherwise it diminishes. The
language frequently employed implying, if not positively
stating, that the bare act of putting forth our higher
energies in some way or other invigorates them, is mis
taken. Our power of thinking is not increased by the
exercise thereof; our capability of loving is not enlarged
by the simple act of loving. Were it the fact, either

APPARENT EXCEPTIONS 55
thinking and loving would not be manifestations of
energy or force, or else the store of energy would be
not only maintained but even increased by drawing
upon it. This is, however, not the case. Mental
power is no more enriched or increased by mental
exertion than corporeal strength is increased by cor
poreal exertion.
What has been just advanced is confirmed by
phenomena of another order. As a matter of fact,
daily experience teaches, not only that the body is
invigorated to discharge its various functions and put
forth its various activities by the assimilation of food —
food which is constituted of certain forms of matter
and energy corresponding and adapted to our system,
— but also that by the same means the psychical side
of our nature is quickened and invigorated. We are
actually helped to think ; and normally the stirring of
our affections is made less difficult by its assimilation.
Exceptions to this rule are apparent rather than real.
2. Now the question is, whether the energy needed
in order to live the pneumatic or spiritual life cannot
come to us through the same channels ?
The animals below man — even the highest, we are
told — draw their entire stock of energy, into whatever
forms of force it may differentiate itself, from their
physical environment ; that is, from the air, water,
food, with which that environment supplies them. The
intelligence, often wonderful, of the dog ; its affection,
sometimes enough to melt a heart of stone ; its appar
ently keen sense, within certain limits, of its own rights
and of the rights of others ; its devotion to its master

56 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
— a devotion which sometimes seems to verge on
religion ; — all these things are functions or exercises of
energy which was originally given by the natural world
and is replenished from the same source : — so at all
events it is maintained. Shall not the same thing be said
regarding man ? Why not assume that all the energy
in him too is in like manner drawn from physical
sources, and enters him through physical channels?
Many echo, Why not? nay more, they boldly affirm
that man forms no exception to the otherwise uni
versal zoological law. An eminent German scientist
of the last generation laid it down as a principle both
of science and philosophy, that der Mensch ist was er
iszt; that is, man is what he eats. If this were true,
to maintain that he needs direct divine action of the
kind under consideration would be absurd. Another
writer says : " Granting that life is from the Creator,
each being starts independently of further creation, the
influx of [physical] food being its sole further support."
This puts the contrary case in a nutshell.
Considerations of apparent importance can un
doubtedly be pleaded in favour of the view just set
forth. Let us briefly examine them. First of all, it is
recognised as an unquestionable fact by biologists, that
new differentiations of resident energy, fuller develop
ments of existing differentiations, and intenser, more
vigorous, and more staying manifestations thereof, are
conditioned, if not exactly caused, by the fitting action
of a fitting environment. Given due nutriment and
stimulus, and the various potentialities of living organ
isms will in due course not only be evoked into action,

ENERGY PARTLY SUPPLIED BY NATURE 57
but also be maintained in activity : — potentialities, too,
which had never been dreamed of; nay more, new
forms to which the description potentialities might or
perhaps would be denied.1
This law embraces man with the sole limitation
that, to a certain extent, he can consciously control
the process indirectly and directly. Shall we not then
say that, if he so choose, he can draw all the energy he
needs from his mundane environment ; and that beyond
this nothing further is requisite save that all the other
factors of his environment should so bring their influence
to bear upon him as to evoke his potentialities into
actuality? Or, to narrow the issue, in harmony with
the purpose now in view, given such assimilation and
stimulus, will not his normal spiritual growth, develop
ment, and activity, with all that it involves, be secured
by an action of the divine factor of his environment
that does not involve the communication of specific
energy? When God rises above the horizon of the
soul, and acts on it personally, as was described under
the previous head, will not a new differentiation, or a
specialisation of an existing differentiation, no less than
an intenser activity of already existing higher differen-
1 "By continued dilution of salt water the species of Crustacea desig
nated artemia has been developed into another species, and this again into
a branchipus — a genus of larger dimensions with an extra abdominal segment
and a different tail ; a genus, moreover, which is propagated sexually,
whereas the artemia, as a rule [sic], is parthenogenetic. This fact proves
specific and even general differences to originate simply through the gradual
changes of the medium and the adaptation of the organism to these new
conditions. It also disproves the notion that organic beings must be
exposed during several generations to new conditions to cause any appreci
able amount of variation — a notion adopted even by Darwin " (Lewes,
Physical Basis of Mind, p. 125 f.).

58 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
tiations, be initiated ? And to interpret this as a new
or specific communication of divine energy, — is it not
needless ? Is not this what really happens ? Is not
this all that really happens ?
This view of the matter is favoured by the following
fact. Whilst there are fixed limits to the total amount
of energy that can be stored up, so to speak, in any
individual man ; and whilst the limits within which
any particular differentiation can draw on the store in
question may also be strictly fixed, it is not only pos
sible that particular differentiations may not be utilising
all the energy at their disposal, but also that under
appropriate stimulus new differentiations may be set
up, and accordingly a new mode of activity commence.
Otherwise expressed, energy may remain latent for
lack of proper or complete relations between ourselves
and our environment. The whole energy of which
any individual is a reservoir can never be expended,
for example, in the discharge of the bodily functions,
nor in the discharge of the intellectual functions, in
addition, nor through these functions with those of the
affections superadded ; that is, so far as men are their
sole object. There will be an unexhausted residue, not
only when and so far as the process of differentiation
is incomplete, but also as often as the activity of any
one or other differentiation is not as steady and full as
it might be. Accordingly, a man who has been living
almost exclusively, say, for the body, may, under the
fitting action of a fitting environment, gradually, or
even suddenly, develop intellectual capabilities and be
awakened to intellectual activities of one or the other

NEW POWERS EVOKED BY ENVIRONMENT 59
kind — philosophical, scientific, or aesthetic — of which
neither he nor anyone else had dreamed. So, too, a
person who had apparently been self-centred, either for
the body or for the intellect, and in whom the affections
seemed well-nigh non-existent, may develop an intensity
of reverence, or trust, or love, that astonishes everyone
and revolutionises his life. Equally so with regard to
a special direction of these same affections. One who
has cared solely for his relatives and fellow-men may,
for example, become stirred by a love and zeal for God
to which he had previously been a perfect stranger
when God is revealed or draws nigh to him, as He
possibly drew nigh to ethnic men of loyal attitude
towards the highest they knew and of consequent fuller
spiritual insight; or as he actually did draw nigh to
Jewish prophets and saints, especially, however, as He
has drawn nigh to humanity in and through Jesus
Christ. There is not a little plausibility in this view of the
matter, and it commends itself to many thoughtful
minds. Nay more, whether understood or not, it really
forms the logical substructure of so-called Christian
teaching which represents man as needing for his
deliverance from sin and death, and salvation unto
righteousness and life, — for his realisation of the moral
and religious ideal, — solely instruction in truth, the
stimulus and guidance of the ideal embodied completely
in one personal life, partially in other lives, the
influence of the hope of a noble and blessed im
mortality, and so forth. For in none of these ways
can new energy be said to be imparted. All that is

60 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
thus done is to evoke or set free energy already
possessed. Countenance is undoubtedly further lent to the
notion under consideration by the language commonly
used in religious circles. Emphasis so strong is laid
on the need of God's revealing Himself to men, teach
ing them, showing them, guiding them, inspiring them ;
the importance of a lively sense of God's nearness and
favour, of an experience of His forgiving grace and
fatherly love, is so constantly exalted in prayers,
hymns, books of devotion, sermons, and theological
treatises, not to mention religious biographies, that
the energising or bio-dynamic relation of God to
man, if not positively discredited, is certainly over
shadowed. Not that, as was remarked already, it is
actually denied ; on the contrary, it is practically
recognised, at all events, implicitly when petitions or
thanksgivings are offered for help. Theologically, too,
it finds a place under the head of the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit, whose work is said to be not only to
enlighten and inspire, but also to invigorate and
quicken. So far, too, as sanctification is His special
function, so far is He conceived as putting forth
power. He creates in men a clean heart and renews
in them a right spirit, which assuredly is something
more than enlightenment, important as that may be
in its place.
In another way, too, religious people unintentionally
lend their sanction to the error I am combating.
Their conduct, if not their language, is such that one
seems warranted in ascribing to them the notion that

IDEAS DO NOT INVIGORATE 6 1
spiritual functions can be discharged without any of
the waste of energy caused by the discharge of all the
other functions ; that, in other words, though they are
essentially activities no energy is expended. At all
events, neither Christian people nor their teachers
appear to have realised that the spiritual life stands
in as thorough need of alternations of nourishment,
activity, and quietude as the bodily life; and that
as activity necessarily involves expenditure of energy
and waste of matter, if exhaustion and feebleness are
not to supervene, there must be assimilation of fresh
stores from some source or other.
Not a few, further, who formally recognise man's
need of something more than physical food, with the
energy it supplies, — more, too, than mere instruction
or stimulus ; yea, also his need of specific vitalising
and quickening, — yet really take up the position which
I am criticising. It is possible, indeed, nay even
probable, that they have not thought the matter out ;
but if they are to be judged by their words, what I
have just remarked is true.
One of them, a popular writer of the present day,
refers to the subject as follows : — " Great books are
among the batteries for the recharging of the will, — and
Emerson's ' Essay on Self- Reliance ' is, of course, a
well-known preparation of phosphates." x A kind of
substantial reality analogous to that of bread is thus
1 Le Gallienne, Religion of a Literary Man, p. 38. Goethe knew
better, for he writes — •
" Ich fiihl's, vergebens hab' ich alle Schatze
Des Menschengeists auf mich herbeigerafft ;
Quillt innerlich doch keine neue Kraft."

62 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
ascribed to books, i.e. to ideas or truths ; and a
relation accordingly postulated for them in words, if
not in intention, under the influence of sentiment,
perhaps, rather than of clear thought, analogous to that
held by their material symbol.
By religious teachers the words of the Lord Jesus
Christ are sometimes quoted, not indeed in logical
justification of the idea, but as if they obviously or
even necessarily implied it : " My words they are spirit
and they are life." Other biblical passages are also
adduced as more or less explicitly favouring the
notion. 3. Scripture teaching with regard to the vital
relation of God to man. According to the implicit
assumption and explicit teaching of the Scriptures,
man is so constituted that he cannot discharge his
highest functions and perform his highest activities,
unless to the energy which he draws from his physical
environment through the body there is superadded
energy drawn directly from his spiritual environment,
especially from God. In proportion as he assimilates
such energy is he in the best sense spiritually strong
and active ; in proportion as he lacks it is he spiritually
weak and inactive or perversely active.
This, as was previously maintained, is according to
man's original constitution : it is not a characteristic
due to the entrance of sin into the world ; though sin
is undoubtedly conceived as having intensified it. A
plant does not stand in greater need of the energy
which it draws from the atmosphere, in addition to
that which it derives from the soil and water, than

SCRIPTURE TEACHING 63
man stands in need of energy directly bestowed on
him by God — that energy which, to use the phrase of
an eminent Unitarian writer, belongs to the " reserved
possibilities which God keeps in His own hands,"
though not as the same writer seems to think, merely
for the purpose of " neutralising as effectually as
possible temporary disorder occasioned by misused
freedom," x but rather in order that true freedom and
normal development might be possible.
It is true, of course, that according to the cosmo-
logical principles from which I start all energy alike
in the natural and human worlds comes from God,
and that the higher energy in man is a preordained
differentiation of the energy which at an earlier stage
gives him real existence — which constitutes him poten
tially a man. But besides this constitutive energy,
and that which has to be constantly assimilated from
his physical environment in order to make up for the
expenditure produced by his corporeal, intellectual,
and affectional activities, he needs the influx of divine
grace. This is certainly involved in the Weltan
schauung which underlies the Bible, and after which
the faith of the Christian Church has never ceased,
and never will cease, nay more, never can cease, to
reach out so long as faith remains faith. Unless he
assimilate directly from God, not only will he remain
in the highest respect weak, and therefore relatively
inactive, but the lower systems of force in him will
tend to assert themselves too vigorously and in
dependently and thus produce disorder. Every one
1 Upton, Hibbert Lecture — Via, Veritas, Vita, p. 307 ; cf. p. 324.

64 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
knows that when the bodily force which is called vital
becomes too weak to control the force which is called
chemical, disintegration sets in through the body: — in
like manner, if the spiritual force in him is not kept at
a sufficiently high level, the whole man tends to fall
into anarchy. This is the key to the teachings of the
New Testament regarding the flesh.
Ample recognition of the principle under considera
tion is contained in the Old Testament. Passages
almost without number will suggest themselves to
careful readers of the Bible. The following are but
examples of the crowd that might be adduced. " The
everlasting God, Jehovah, the Creator of the ends of
the earth, giveth power to the faint ; and to them that
have no might he increaseth strength. They that
wait upon Jehovah shall renew their strength " (Isa. xl.
28—31). " Fear thou not ; for I am with thee : I will
strengthen thee ; yea, I will help thee " (Isa. xii. 1 o).
"Jehovah, my strength and fortress, and my refuge
in the day of my distress" (Jer. xvi. 19). " Blessed
is the man that trusteth in Jehovah ; for he shall be
like a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth
out its roots by a stream " (Jer. xvii. 7 f.). " I will
rejoice in Jehovah — Jehovah the Lord is my strength "
(Hab. iii. 19; Ps. cxix. 28). "In the day when I
called thou answeredst me, thou didst strengthen me
with strength in my soul " (Ps. cxxxviii. 3). " Blessed
is the man whose strength is in Thee" (Ps. lxxxiv. 5).
" Jehovah is a sun and shield : Jehovah will give
grace and glory : no good will He withhold from them
that walk uprightly" (Ps. lxxxiv. 1 1 ; cf. xxi. 1). "I

SCRIPTURE TEACHING 65
will strengthen the sick. A new heart also will I give
you and a new spirit will I put within you — and cause
you to walk in my statutes, and my judgments ye shall
keep and do. I will pour out My spirit on all flesh ;
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,"
etc. (Joel ii. 28).
In connection with many passages that might be
quoted — perhaps in connection with some that have
been adduced — a doubt may possibly arise whether
the writers are thinking of a communication of divine
energy, or merely of external deliverances. I question,
however, for my part, whether they drew any such a
hard-and-fast line between the external and the in
ternal as has been common among ourselves. Nay
more, I doubt whether the separation we try to make
is according to truth. If the principles which are
dominating this discussion are sound, the separation
in question is unsound. The material and the spiritual
are much too closely interwoven, no less in the cosmos
than in man, to admit of any clear and marked division.
For the Old Testament writers, to say the least, the
two spheres faded away into each other in such wise
that we shall not go wrong if we recognise the mean
ing for which I am contending whenever the context
does not distinctly forbid it. But apart altogether from
passages of the kind just referred to, the testimony to
the principle under consideration is unmistakable
enough. The New Testament is equally, if not still more,
explicit in its recognition of the principle in question.
God is in many places spoken of as the one who
5

66 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
strengthens. So, for example, in " Finally, my brethren,
be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might "
(Eph vi. i o) ; — " that ye may know what is the ex
ceeding greatness of His power to us-ward who be
lieve, according to the energy of His mighty power"
(Eph. i. 19); — "unto Him that is able to do exceed
ingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think,
according to the power that energiseth in us " (Eph. iii.
20) ; — " Whereunto also I labour, striving according to
His working, which energiseth in me mightily " (Col.
i. 29): — all which are, it is true, indirect testimonies;
but for that reason even more significant. A direct
statement of the principle is contained in the following
words : — " It is God that energiseth in you to will and to
energise according to His good pleasure " (Phil. ii. 1 3).
Christ, as is well known, represents Himself, and is
represented, as the bread of life. " I am the living
bread which came down from heaven : if any man eat
of this bread, he shall live for ever" (John vi. 51); —
" Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink
His blood, ye have no life in you " (John vi. 53; cf.
Gal. ii. 20). But to be without life is to be without
energy — without true spiritual energy. With Christ's
own words agree those of His apostles. Paul, for
example, says : " I thank Jesus Christ, who hath
enabled or dynamised in me" (1 Tim. i. 12); — "I
can do all things through Christ dynamising in
me " (Phil. iv. 13) ; — " The Lord stood by me, and
dynamised in me ; that by me the message might be
fulfilled, and all the Gentiles hear" (2 Tim. iv. 17).
So in many other places.

CHRIST AND THE HOLY SPIRIT 6y
The Holy Spirit, again, is represented as working in
those who believe. " The Spirit helpeth our infirmities :
for we know not what we should pray for as we ought "
(Rom. viii. 26); — " God grant you to be strengthened
with power through His Spirit in the inner man " (Eph.
iii. 16; cf. vi. 1 o). A great variety of gifts and graces
is traced to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and
among them power holds a prominent place.
4. Testimony of the Christian Church to the principle
under consideration.
The Church of Christ has borne well-nigh, if not
absolutely, uninterrupted testimony to the principle.
It has done so both in ways that are more directly
the outcome of living experience ; no less than in its
theology. Among the former may be reckoned prayers,
whether written and printed or extempore, hymns,
-devotional treatises, sermons, and the like. Petitions
such as that of St. Basil (329—379) are surely typical:
"" Renew in our souls a willing mind, and control by
Thy Spirit our frivolous senses. Strengthen us that
we may run in the way of Thy commandments." But
petitions for strength to vanquish temptation from
within and without ; to overcome sin ; to bear burdens ;
to walk worthily of Christ ; to fight a good fight ; to
do good work for the kingdom ; yea, to think, love,
and feel rightly, — these are the hinges on which earnest
prayer has ever turned. And even when in verbal
form they seem to be for light and guidance, rather
than for energy, as is largely the case in the liturgy of
the Greek Church, with its somewhat intellectualistic

68 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
character, — too frequently also among Protestants, —
behind them, is the implicit recognition of the fact,
that man needs divine strength, as well as divine light.
This is strikingly indicated in the following verse from
a German hymn : —
" If thou but suffer God to guide thee,
And hope in Him through all thy ways,
He'll give thee strength whate'er betide thee,
And bear thee through the evil days.
Who trust in God's unchanging love,
Build on the rock that nought can move.''
Hymns addressed to God — to the Father, Son, and
the Holy Ghost — seldom lack earnest petitions, in one
form or another, for the bestowal of the vital power
needed by the soul in its conflict with the world, the
flesh, and the devil.
As to books of devotion, sermons, and practical relig
ious works generally, they surely bear witness that the
more resolutely the Church is trying to live according
to Christ, the more frequent and full is the recognition
of the fact that man can only realise the divine idea
for him, as gracious energy is regularly communicated
to him from the living God.
Theologically the principle under consideration, as
was previously remarked, has found a place under the
head of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and His work.
Of late, indeed since the person of Christ has come to
the front of the thought of Christendom, after having
been for a long period overshadowed by His work, it
has become common to transfer to Him the function
of inward invigoration, which Scripture and the faith of
the Church assign to the Holy Ghost ; though signs

WITNESS OF THE CHURCH 69
are not wanting that the true order of the economy of
salvation, as rooted in the constitution of God and the
cosmos, will once again find adequate and explicit
recognition among Christian believers and teachers.
Shortcomings in this respect have a prejudicial effect
not only on the intellectual, but also on the practical life
of the Christian Church.
5. As to the fact of man needing energy that
proceeds directly from God if he is to grow and develop
normally, all spiritual thinkers are agreed — and with
these alone I can here concern myself. The only
question, therefore, is, In what way, by what channels,
if any, is it supplied ? Four chief answers have been
given, which most of those who have occupied them
selves with the problem seem to regard as mutually
exclusive : — they might, however, be shown, perhaps, to
be mutually complementary.
(1) The first is, that God makes use of the same
channels as those through which we receive the various
forms of physical energy for the communication of the
specific energy under consideration.
We may conceive of this taking place in the one or
the other of two ways. The energy perennially flow
ing from God may be employed as a kind of vehicle in,
with, and under which the specific spiritual energy
needed by the spirit of man is conveyed to him. In
answer to prayer there may be given to the believing
soul, as it were, along with the food which it draws
from its bodily environment, the supplies of spiritual
energy or grace which it needs and asks. If, as seems
not at all impossible, one form of physical force uses

70 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
/
another as a medium through which to transmit itself,
— this is perhaps the case with electricity or magnetism,
as also with the agency by which telepathic phenomena
are produced, — why should not God analogously avail
Himself of the cosmic energy as a medium by which to
bestow on waiting, loyal souls the specific spiritual
gift of which we are speaking ?
Approaching the matter from another side, we may
represent it to ourselves as follows. The pneumatic
man becomes such ; or rather, the merely psychical
man enters on the pneumatic stage for which he is
normally destined, not because a totally new pneu
matic nature has been engrafted, so to speak, on the
psychical stem, but because he has been so acted
on by the Holy Spirit that the energy constituting
him passes from the psychical stage of differentia
tion to that which Scripture designates pneumatic.
It is essential to the yjrv^ij to reach forward to the
irvev/ut,. The pneuma is, so to speak, the truth, the
reality of the psyche. It is according to the idea of
the latter that under appropriate environmental action,
that is, under the gracious influence of God, it should
differentiate itself into pneuma, — no less natural than
that the chrysalis should pass into the butterfly; or
that out of a common hedge-rose, by due culture, should
be gradually developed the beautiful roses which are
the ornament of our gardens and the delight of all
lovers of flowers.
But if this is a true account of the rise of the
pneuma in man, will it not be in accordance therewith
to say, that in, with, and under the energy of which

COSMIC ENERGY A VEHICLE 7 1
ordinary food is the vehicle, there lies latent, as it were,
the higher energy which the pneumatic man needs for
the sustenance, growth, and development of his higher
life ? As a crystal of alum, thrown into a solution of
sugar, alum, and salt, attracts the alum to itself, leaving
the sugar and salt untouched, thus not only increasing
its size, but even repairing its defects ; so analogously,
the pneumatic man. A man who has undergone con
version and regeneration becomes capable of a sort of
new chemical action on his environment. He evokes
a new form of energy from the ordinary food which he
takes for the upkeep of his system. The measure in
which he can do this is determined, of course, by the
growth of his assimilative power : and this again by the
degree of his loyalty to God. Accordingly, the food
which once only invigorated him for bodily work and
for psychical relations to the natural and human world,
now supplies strength for grappling with things unseen
and eternal.
Regarded in the light of these considerations, the
vast tide of energy perennially flowing from the throne
of the eternal might be described as laden with spiritual
energy, of which all may freely partake ; nay more, of
which all do partake, who have begun and are faith
fully endeavouring to foster the pneumatic life.
(2) A second position is that of Sacramentarians.
The Romish and Greek Churches teach that in the
sacraments generally, though particularly in Baptism,
the Eucharist, and Extreme Unction, grace, or in other
words divine spiritual power or energy, " in a certain
sense assumes bodily form ; that is, becomes visible or

72 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
tangible, to the end that man, who consists of body
and soul, may be able more easily to enter into connec
tion with it and with God, who is its source, as often
as he needs." x
A distinction is drawn between two things which,
in the terminology of Romish theologians, are desig
nated materia and forma? The materia of the three
sacraments above mentioned is respectively, the water,
the bread and wine, and finally the oil : — their forma,
again, in the case of Baptism, is the words, " I baptize
thee in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost " : in that of the Eucharist, the words, " this is
My body ; this is My blood " : in that of Extreme
Unction, " the Almighty and compassionate God for
give thee, through His most tender pity and this holy
anointing, the sins which thou hast committed." The
material elements possess no gracious virtue in them
selves. They owe their virtue as means of grace to
the act of consecration, of which the words just quoted
are the most essential part : but the act itself can only
be performed by a priest regularly ordained and author
ised by a bishop, who himself stands in a canonical
relation to the supreme authority of his Church ; that
is, in the case of the Romish Church, to the Pope of
Rome. After the words have been spoken, the material
elements contain or embody divine grace or energy ;
and the grace or energy is communicated to all who
fulfil the requisite conditions, as automatically, i.e. ex
1 Monnier, Katholische Theologu, p. 105,
2 Ibid. pp. 107, no, n6ff.

SACRAMENTARIAN VIEW 73
opere operato, as corporeal energy is communicated to
him who eats natural bread or drinks natural wine.
Confirmation differs from the three sacraments just
referred to, in so far as the visible elements, namely, the
Laying on of Hands and the Anointing of the forehead
with the consecrated Chrism, do not so much contain or
embody, as signify, the former, the descent of the Holy
Ghost into the soul ; the latter, the characteristics of the
grace which is communicated. This distinction is sig
nificant and worthy of notice, as we shall shortly find.
High Anglicans take essentially the same view of
Baptism, the Eucharist, and Confirmation, though they
more or less modify the manner of observance.
The position described by me under the first head
may seem to come perilously near to furnishing a sort
of justification of that of the Sacramentarians ; if not,
indeed, to identification therewith. But it needs to be
borne in mind, what both Sacramentarians and their
opponents have too often forgotten, namely, that there
is no necessary connection between Sacramentarianism,
even of the form just sketched, and Priestly or even
High Church pretensions. The universal priesthood of
believers may be, yea is a truth prior to, and deter
minant of, views of the sacraments and the word ;
indeed, of Christian rites and offices generally. It
may be doubted, too, whether this would be absolutely
denied even by the Romish Church, still less by the
Anglicans : — it is certainly allowed by those who may
be termed High Lutherans.
If the view just indicated be correct, every Christian
believer, one might maintain, ought so to wield the

74 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
word and so to consecrate even the water, bread, wine,
or other equivalents of his daily use, that they shall
become to him all that the highest of High Churchmen
can either desire or claim for the material elements of
the sacraments ; at all events, of that sacrament which
by common consent is the crown of them all, namely,
the Eucharist.
(3) A third view is, that the word of God is either a
vehicle, or the vehicle, or means of grace.
The Greek and the Romish Churches, and the
High Anglican section of the Established Church in
England, all alike hold that it is to the sacramental
words, duly pronounced by a fitting person, that the
elements owe their gracious character and power.1 In
other words, simple water, bread, wine, oil, and the act
of laying on the hands, owe to the accompanying words
the virtue which constitutes their peculiar value.
It would appear, therefore, that the " word of God,"
the divinely appointed word, forms as it were the bridge
across which, or the medium by which, supernatural
grace or energy passes into the materia or sacramental
elements. Now the Lutheran Church went a step further
than this as regards " the word," by ascribing to it not
only the function just referred to, but holding it to be
in and by itself, both as deposited in Scripture and as
preached, an independent vehicle or medium of the
gracious energy of God.
Luther, for example, taught, in opposition to the
Enthusiasts, that the Holy Ghost is given to men
1 See Monnier, 1 18.

THE WORD AS VEHICLE 75
exclusively through the medium of the word. He
speaks of it as a vehiculum gratia, as itself divine
power. " Where the word is handled," says he, " there
God Himself is in men's mouths to destroy sin, death,
and hell. The divine power necessary to accomplish
this can only come in and through the word." * Not
that on this point, any more than on any other, he was
always consistent with himself; but that such was
certainly, at intervals, his decided judgment.
Calov (161 2-1 686) also says: " The Spirit of God
operates through and with the word ; He uses the
word as a sort of vehicle by which He insinuates Him
self into our hearts." 2 " By the ordination and will of
God, even prior to and aside from its legitimate use,
the word of God has an intrinsic, divine, and sufficient
power for the production, immediately and properly,
of spiritual and divine effects, not only gracious but
punitive." So Quenstedt.3
Some of the Lutheran theologians outdid even the
Reformer himself in the ascription of power to the
word. Hollaz (1 684— 1 7 1 3), for example, says : 4 " The
word of God is the most efficacious means of salvation :
its power and efficacy are not merely objective, but
also efficient, consisting not in moral persuasion, but in
supernatural operation, not external and supervening
when used by men, but intrinsic to the word ; not
1 See Kdstlin, Luther's Theologie, ii. 493 ; cf. i. 314, 383, ii. 88, 249, 446.
2 Bretschneider, Dogmatik, p. 691.
3 Ibid. p. 691. Cf. Baier, Compend. Theol. Positives.
* Quoted by Julius Miiller in an article, " Das Verhaltniss zwischen der
Wirksamkeit des heil. Geistes unddem Gnadenmittel des gottl. Wortes,"in
Stud. u. Krit. 1856, 330 f.

76 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
accidental, but necessary, with the necessity of divine
ordination. The divine power which belongs originally
and independently to the Holy Spirit, belongs to the
word by communication and dependency on account
of the mystical and intimate union formed between it
and the Holy Spirit." Another theologian, Werns-
dorff (1668-1729) says: "Not only are we trained
and taught by the word, but also regenerated, amended,
changed. It has the power not only of admonishing
and persuading, but also of effecting and operating,
and that owing to the perpetual influx of the Holy
Spirit by which it is animated." 1
Calvin and most of the Reformed divines took up
a middle position. They held that without the co
operation of the Holy Spirit, the word of God could
not have its intended effect on. the minds and hearts of
men, and protested as vigorously as Luther and the
Lutheran theologians against the spiritualistic notion
of the Enthusiasts ; but they avoided the extreme view
of which examples have just been quoted.
(4) The fourth view is, that God communicates
energy to the human spirit without the intervention of
any medium, solely on the condition of its taking up a
position of receptivity, and of discharging the corre
sponding function of assimilation.2
In its favour may be urged the- following considera-
1 See Jul. Miiller, ubi supra.
2 Zwingli sanctions this view when he says : ' ' Gratia a solo spiritu datur.
Dux autem vel vehiculum spiritui non est necessarium. Ipse enim est virtus
et latio qua cuncta feruntur." So alsoAlsted: " Deus liberrimus est et
potentissimum agens, neque ullis mediis est adstrictus." See Schweizer,
Glaubcnslehre der Evangel. Reformirten Kirche, vol. ii. 579.

DIRECT DIVINE ACTION f^
tions. First and foremost, of course, it is taken for
granted that God is a factor, — yea, the supreme factor,
of man's environment, and that this relationship between
God and man is of the divine ordination.
Assuming this point, let it be remembered that a
relation of interaction exists between every constituent
of the system to which man belongs ; — yes, strictly of
interaction — of the most real interaction ; — interaction,
too.differing accordingto the nature of the beings related.
Now the question is, What is the nature of the
action put forth by God, the supreme factor of the
universe, on the factor man ? Is it merely personal
action of the kind which has been described as " re
sponsive breathing," inspiring, revealing, self-unveiling,
communion, fellowship? action that is morally, spir
itually stimulating? Or does it consist also in the
bestowal of vital energy, veritable power, which be
comes ours when and as we seek it, and when and as
He sees it wise to bestow?
It seems to me that the fundamental designation of
God, namely, " the Living God," He who " has life in
Himself," suggests, if it do not also involve, that He
should be a life-giver, not only in creating, but also in
sustaining, especially as regards the higher nature of
His highest mundane creature man. If in any real
sense He does act directly on man, is it not natural to
assume that at the point where they touch, there will
be a communication of spiritual energy ? — of that
spiritual energy which man needs in order to his being
what he should be, not only in himself and in relation
to the world, but particularly in relation to God ?

78 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Is not this further in harmony with the general law
of the world ? Our physical environment not only
gives us physical life at the beginning ; that is, brings
us into existence as forms of organisation, but con
stantly imparts to us energy and matter appropriate
to the upkeep thereof. It acts on us, it is true, in
other ways, e.g. mechanically, psychically; but not in
these alone. It is constantly imparting itself, — all of
itself that we can assimilate, and thus invigorates.
This is the part taken by nature in our sustentation.
In point of fact, the other relations between ourselves
and nature are dependent on the reality and normality
of the relations just considered.
Shall God's action be restricted to what, in a sense,
may be termed the lower plane of action from without ?
of solicitation and impulsion ? that is, so far as it is
direct. Or shall He act on us in every manner
characteristic of our non-divine environment? Is it
not truer to think that the modes in which the cosmos
acts on man are but reflections of the modes in which
God acts? that as it solicits, evokes, impels, reveals,
quickens, sustains, energises ; so God, its author, acts
on His spiritual creatures, as revealer, stimulator,
quickener, energiser, in harmony with their constitution
as personal, self-controlling, self-conscious, self-consti
tuting beings made in His image and likeness ?

CHAPTER VI
The Divine Relation to Man conditioned by
the Relation of Man to God
It is involved in the cosmology previously sketched,
that the twofold relation of God to man — both that
designated personal and that designated vital or bio-
dynamic — is conditioned by the personal or ethical
relation of man to God.
By a personal or ethical relation to God I mean,
first and foremost, one that is self-controlled and chosen
with adequate knowledge. This may be termed the
formal side. Whatever the content or substance of
the relation, it must be one originating in free con
scious action.
There are relations, we all know, which are neither
conscious nor free; and there are others which are
conscious but not free. These latter, notwithstanding
the consciousness which accompanies them, are not in
the true sense personal, but natural or necessary.
As to the content of the relation, — it will consist of
active intelligence and affection — the latter, normally,
in the form or at the stage either of reverence or trust or
love, or of the three in closest combination and union.
In other words, the relation will be one of self-
79

80 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
controlled obedience and loyalty; and self-controlled
reverence, trust, and love. These, in various degrees
and combinations, constitute what I mean by a pro
perly personal or ethical relation to God, — normally
considered. I. The personal relation of God to man as
affected by man's personal relation.
God can manifest Himself to us, act upon us, affect
us, in such a manner as to meet the personal needs
previously described, only as we respond to and
approach Him, in a personal way answering or appro
priate thereto.
I assume as granted and indeed self-evident, from
the point of view of this discussion, that the first
approaches are made by God. Seeing that He is the
originator of the cosmos, as well as its ever-living and
ever-active environment, what else can possibly be said ?
Let us consider the point in connection with that
relation of God in which all other lines of relationship
are now, rightly or wrongly, deemed to converge, which
is regarded as their recapitulation or crown, namely,
the relationship of fatherhood. God is our Father, our
absolute, our Heavenly Father. This, in the sense in
which the designation is here used, is a natural rela
tionship : — it is grounded in the constitution given to
man by God Himself. This relationship, let it be here
remarked in passing, neither excludes nor is incon
sistent with that of lawgiver and ruler ; on the contrary,
it necessarily includes both. Or rather, perhaps, the
element peculiar to each enters as a constitutive factor
into the complete relation of God to man. God would

GOD MAN'S NATURAL FATHER 8 1
not be the absolute Father, were He not also the
absolute lawgiver and ruler. Nor, indeed, could He
be the ideally absolute ruler and lawgiver, if He were
not also the absolute Father.
Man can no more help being, in the natural sense,
God's child, and having needs which God alone can
meet, than a plant can help being a plant, and having
certain needs which its physical environment alone can
supply. It is equally true, — though let it be reverently spoken,
— that God cannot avoid holding this relation as long
as man exists. Man's personal or ethical relation
cannot alter this natural relation. Only the reverent,
trustful, loving son is, of course, in the full sense son ;
but yet even a rebellious son is a son. Nay more, a
diabolised man would be a diabolised son ; and God
would in that case, awful as it may be to say it, be the
father of such a son.
It is one thing, however, to be a father ; another thing
to discharge all the fatherly functions. We know this
only too well in connection with men. Human fathers
sometimes fail to behave like fathers for reasons lying
solely in themselves ; sometimes because of hindrances
in the conduct or character of their children. No
father can normally discharge his fatherly functions
towards children who are unchildlike.
The position just laid down may seem ethically hard
to accept. It is so fundamental, however, to the view
of the work of Christ, which this treatise is designed to
set forth, that it must be gone into more fully than
may at first sight seem proportionate.
6

82 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
i . The principle or law involved in what has been
advanced is in reality a special form or application of
a more general principle or law of the whole biological
sphere, — that sphere of which the highest domain is
mind or spirit.
Living beings, as such, not only may, but indeed
should, be looked at from a twofold point of view,
namely, the potential and the actual. Regarded in
the former light, though they owe their existence to
another existence than themselves, still they are, they
exist. That is an unconditional fact. Their actualisa
tion, however, that is, their passage from potentiality
to actuality, depends on conditions which may or may
not be fulfilled. A seed, for example, is a seed, or a
germ a germ : a particular seed may be potentially an
orchid, or a germ an eagle : — that depends on nothing.
Each is. But whether the former become an orchid
and the latter an eagle, that depends on conditions ;
that is, on the relations which will subsist between
itself and its environment. This, as all know, is one
of the fundamental laws of life.
Does this law cease to be a law when life has become
mind, or mental life? life whose forms are thought,
knowledge, love, self-consciousness, self-control, and so
forth, — in a word, personal life ? All this may seem so
obvious as to be irrelevant; but it involves important
consequences for the subject under consideration.
Now, all living beings share to a greater or less
degree a characteristic which it is of prime importance
to note and duly appreciate. They not only begin
their existence as potentialities ; but after reaching a

THE POTENTIAL AND ACTUAL 83
certain stage of growth and development, that is, of
actuality, are able to reduce themselves back, in a cer
tain sense, in certain respects, to a certain degree, to
the potential condition. In a certain sense, I say ; — not,
of course, in the precise sense in which they were
potentialities before attaining to actuality. As to active
relations, they can be alternately potential and actual.
Take, for example, a dog. A dog may show to one
person all the attachment of which it is capable, yet a
new person coming in its way may win a certain
attachment from it ; in other words, what up to that
moment had been potential in it, may become an
actuality. Or, for some cause or other, this new per
son may excite its distrust and enmity; and thus
another kind of potentiality pass into actuality. On
the other hand, the attachment felt towards a particular
person may, through separation, fall into abeyance, may
resume in a sort the state of potentiality ; yet, by a
renewal of acquaintance, again become an actuality.
In this and other cases supplied by the world below
man there is, of course, no exercise of freedom or
consciousness. Analogous things occur in the experience of men.
Let us take the case of love, — a crucial case. Any
individual man may be actually loving only a certain
comparatively or absolutely small number of his fellow-
men ; yet there may be in him the capability, or as I
have repeatedly termed it, the potentiality, of loving a
far larger number. The conditions of a transition from
potentiality as regards the larger number might lie
partially within, partially, however, without, his control.

84 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
One of the conditions will doubtless be acquaintance ;
and that it is for him either to seek or avoid.
But there is another alternative. He may see good
reasons for suspending the love he had been cherishing
in the case of one and another of those who had shared
its manifestations. Love will then be reduced, as far
as they are concerned, to a potential state ; or to speak
more exactly, one of his activities, namely, love, as put
forth towards a particular part of his environment, will
be suspended ; for an activity love surely is, and not
merely a state of feeling, the quality or degree or even
existence of which is beyond human control. Other
wise we should not be responsible for loving our
fellow-men, still less God. Such a man does not cease
to be able to love the persons in question ; but he
ceases for the time to love and to manifest love to
them. When love is thus suspended another, and
possibly a reverse, potentiality comes into play.
It is commonly said, indeed, that what happens, or
ought to happen, is that the man loves on just the
same, but displays his affection in different ways.
Instead, for example, of smiling he frowns ; instead of
caressing he smites ; instead of giving he withholds ;
instead of causing pleasure he causes pain ; but the
love continues unchanged : it simply puts on a new,
and what is really an unnatural, face.
It may suit those who have a theory to maintain
to represent the matter thus ; but the description does.
not answer to the life. In point of fact, the love felt
by men does often pass from actuality to potentiality;
or, more fully expressed, from being a psychico-somatic

THE PRINCIPLE APPLIED TO LOVE 85
activity to a reverse state, namely, that of a psychico-
somatic potentiality. Nay more, in many cases a
different, yea opposed, potentiality passes into actuality.
The process, as a rule, sets in without any distinctly
conscious effort of the man's own. Not that it is there
fore, altogether outside his control. On the contrary,
he can check it at the very outset, if not by his own
unaided strength, yet by that strength quickened and
heightened by the grace of God.
Apart from this characteristic of man's affectional
nature, he would find himself constantly, in a sense,
beating the air. Specially would this be the case as
regards love ; for love that is not appreciated as love,
that is not reciprocated as love ; love that is treated
with indifference, or even — which may and sometimes
does occur — as an intrusion, not only fails to attain
the end immanently prescribed to it by its very
essence, but produces the reverse effect.
Still further, such a man violates one of the funda
mental laws of the biological sphere, whilst dreaming
that he is conforming his conduct thereto, — the law,
namely, that the relations of living beings to their
environment vary as their environment varies. This
is a general law, and unless a complete change arises
when life becomes mental or personal life, it must be
recognised in the form now under consideration.
It is easy to talk of loving all men alike ; but it is
as irrational as to talk of a germ or plant behaving
towards shadows as it behaves towards sunlight ;
unless, as was already remarked, the entrance of
consciousness and self-control be assumed to introduce

36 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
a new principle. It would strike every healthy
minded man as morally absurd, if not morally per
verse, if he saw pure, noble, generous, and good men
lavishing the same love on those who were unlike
themselves as they lavish on those who were like
themselves. 2. An important truth, however, must be allowed
to underlie the view of love that has been combated ;
and it is this, — that in proportion as a man is good
and true, in proportion, that is, as his very nature is
such as to go forth in all forms of normal activity, and
consequently in that form which is the highest and
greatest of all, namely, love, in that proportion will he,
whilst acting as I have described, also use means for
so changing the conduct of his fellow-man that, con
sistently with the character of both of them, his love
can be revived. What has just been advanced is in
conformity with one of the essential characteristics of
personal as distinguished from impersonal or quasi-
personal life. Neither of the last- mentioned forms of
life has the power of consciously, deliberately, purposely
modifying, or working for the modification of, its
environment, according to a preconceived method and
for a definite end. But man can do this. He is
constantly doing it in the interest of the lower aspects
of his life : — he turns the wilderness, for example, into
a fruitful field ; he alters the fruits of his garden, or
the crops of his farm, to suit the real or supposed
requirements of his body. Shall not the same principle
come into application in this higher sphere ? Shall he
not do his utmost to modify the parts of his personal

TRUTH UNDERLYING THE COMMON VIEW 87
environment which, to say the least, repress his
activities, which necessitate their being reduced to
potentiality, which thus hinder his proper growth, and
which therefore cause him pain ? Not so would he act
in relation to the bodily life ; much less ought he, then,
to act thus in relation to the mental life. Yet surely,
as was already observed, it is the same principle in
both cases.
Among the reasons which ought to have a peculiarly
strong influence with him is the ingrained need man
has of unity and harmony in his personal life. To be
under the necessity of behaving differently to the
extent defined brings with it a kind of inner discord
or schism, and is always felt to be such. It is not,
indeed, a moral schism or discord ; not, at all events,
so long as it remains within the limits which have
been suggested, if not laid down. 'Twere rather moral
discord to be related in exactly the same way to the
good and the evil. Yet it is a sort of discord, even
though it be a discord assumed or submitted to for the
sake of preserving the profounder harmonies. As
such, it demands effort for its removal ; and that
removal can only be effected — legitimately and there
fore really effected— by means of fitting changes in
the environment which has given rise to it. For, to do
what some do and advocate, namely, to steel oneself into,
indifference ; or to ignore, or to try to make up for, the
loss at one point by gain of the same kind at another
point, is not really to remedy matters. It may rather
be followed by permanent weakening, or the extinction
of the potentiality itself.

88 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Now the action which has just been described is often
loosely designated love. Action in the interest of love
— action which has the reintegration of love, the full
actualisation of love for its end — it undoubtedly is ;
but to call it love involves confusion, and is as mistaken
as it would be to designate the motive-power generat
ing the activity that alters the physical environment
by the same name as the relation of the body which
is intended to be called into existence or rendered
possible by the alterations effected.
As a matter of fact, the state of mind in question
is rather the need and desire to love than actual love.
Potentiality once drawn out into actuality, let it not be
overlooked, necessarily becomes a conscious need ; a
conscious need once awakened by having been met,
becomes a desire ; and desire always has a definite
object. But the desire for love shares with desire in
general this aiming at a definite object. Accordingly,
when love is repressed, it becomes a desire or a conscious
need ; to that extent, therefore, a potentiality, — though,
of course, as was previously remarked, not exactly
corresponding to a potentiality never before evoked.
We know how powerful desire is to beget activity for
its realisation ; how easily, too, in the region of the
affections proper, it may, for a time, be confounded
with the actual relation ; but the difference remains
and it is mischievous, as well as unscientific, to ignore
it. Among the means which a man may adopt who
desires the establishment for the first time, or the
re-establishment of the relation styled love, are such

THE PRINCIPLE APPLIED TO GOD 89
as were previously hinted at ; but they are means to
the end, and not, as some have taught, forms or
manifestations of the relation which is sought as an
end. 3. But even granting that what has been advanced
holds true of man, have we a right to transfer it to
God? Is it not, first of all, to constitute man to a certain
extent environment for God, and thus to make God in
a measure dependent on man, who is absolutely de
pendent on Him ? then, again, to introduce into the
divine constitution and life contrasts like activity and
activity held-in-abeyance, potentiality and actuality ?
further, to expose God to deprivation or pain at the
will of man ? and lastly, to subject Him to the
necessity of contriving means to attain an end — Him
the Omnipotent? And so forth.
To discuss these and other relevant questions at
length would be to discuss the doctrine of God. A
few words must therefore suffice. In my humble
judgment, whosoever recognises the reality of the world,
and in particular of man, is in logical consistency bound
to answer them in the affirmative. The creative power
of God manifested itself most supremely in that He
brought into existence that which for Him was not a
mere idea, not a mere seeming, but a veritable reality : —
a reality which, as such, in a sense enforced a certain mode
of behaviour on the part of its Creator, — behaviour, too,
differentiated according to the nature of the particular
part created ; nay more, a reality which cannot but
exercise an influence on the behaviour and life of the

90 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Creator. Logically, we empty the notion of creation
of its content, by denying this to be the case at any
one point.
Acosmism, as it has been termed, necessarily follows
from the denial of the possibility of God being influ
enced by the world ; nay more, atheism ; for what can
God be, if we and all the universe of being are one
vast illusion ? Surely the illusion of an illusion.
It may be maintained, indeed, that there is no
resemblance between the relation which God necessarily
holds to the universe as a whole, and the behaviour
with regard to which the difficulty is raised. God
having initiated the evolution of the universe, continues
the work which he has begun ; that is, continues to
supply the energy and inform it with the laws which
condition the process. Nay more, the supply of energy
is regulated according to the stages of the process
which is being carried through. To this extent He
may be said to behave even towards the natural world.
But this is all. And there is scarcely any mode in
which the universe can be said to act upon God,
unless we describe as action on God, its enforcement
of a recognition of the fact of its existence, of its
undergoing a process, and of its being constituted by
an infinite variety of factors. It needs no other
relation ; it is susceptible of no other relation.
I reply that the position is changed when we come to
the domain of mind. The question we are considering
can there be legitimately raised ; nay more, it presents
itself unsought, and must be dealt with on its merits.
The human factor of the world, — the highest known

HUMAN NEED OF GOD 9 1
product of the process of evolution, so far as the world
is concerned, — cannot be or become what it is fit to
become, according to its immanent idea, unless God
does behave towards it, — behave, that is, in the human
sense of the word behaviour. Man's most pressing
need is for a certain mode of such behaviour. Did
not Philip give unconscious utterance to the deepest
yearning of humanity when he said to Christ, " Lord,
show us the Father, and it sufficeth us"? — a yearning
which found more passionate, though perhaps not so
significant, expression in the words of the Psalmist :
" As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so panteth
my soul after Thee, O God. My soul thirsteth for
God, for the living God ; when shall I come and
appear before God ? "
But it lies in the very nature of this need, that it
can only be met, if the creature in whom it has become
a conscious desire, can also act in such a way that God
cannot meet it, — cannot, whether it be regarded from
the divine or from the human side. God the supreme
Personality is such, and the human personality has by
God been constituted such, that God cannot but let
His supply of man's deepest needs wait on the good
pleasure of man himself.
4. But to retwn to the question of the personal rela
tion between God and man. Not even the fatherliness
of God would be acceptable to man, if it were to
exhibit itself of necessity, or if it were to force itself
on men ; that is, otherwise viewed, if it were required
to be appreciated as a matter of compulsion. This,
however, involves the converse law, that if man's rela-

92 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
tion to God is unfilial, God's relation to him cannot be
fatherly. For did the fatherly relation continue un
changed, then, so far as the unfilial conduct was con
scious, God's behaviour would not only be repelled, but
might become a new source of unfilial conduct; for
constituted as man is, its tendency would be to under
mine the respect which is the foundation of all right
personal relation, yea, even of love. That which ought
to be a " savour of life unto life " might thus have
become a " savour of death unto death." What rela
tion must take the place of the fatherly, I shall have
to point out farther on.
God cannot, then, be personally to man what is
necessary to man's personal life, unless man fulfil cer
tain conditions. Apart therefrom, love is suspended,
that is, reduced from actuality to a kind of potentiality ;
and another relation, which up to that point had been
merely potential, becomes actual.
II. God's action in the supply of energy is also con
ditional on man's personal relation to Him.
The energy by which man is constituted a living
entity is drawn, as was previously pointed out, in the
last instance from God ; yea, is a differentiation of
divine energy. Man receives it, or rather, man is it, —
that is, otherwise expressed, is himself, in virtue of it,
without being asked whether he will or not. At a
certain stage in his development, however, he, i.e. the
matter, energy, and idea which constitute the living
being known as man, becomes self-conscious and assumes
self-control. I. When he has once reached this stage he can also

SUPPLY OF ENERGY CONDITIONAL 93
control ; nay more, he must exercise a certain amount
of control over the supply of the energy which is
necessary to make up the waste that is constantly
going on. This matter and energy are not, as he is
himself, a datum ; they are not like his nature, com-
pulsorily, necessarily his. He has to select, and take,
and assimilate them. Up to a certain point, all that he
needs can be drawn, as was remarked before, from the
physical world, through the medium of the body. The
energy thus secured is also, of course, divine energy ;
but it is given or withheld according to man's free
relation to it ; which relation, though obviously a rela
tion to that which is of God, is not a relation to God
Himself. It may be taken up in ignorance, or even in
denial of God ; or, whilst there is greater or less in
difference, yea, even hostility, to God.
Looked at from man's side, the relation to his natural
environment just touched on is personal, in so far as it
is self-conscious and free. Even at this lower stage,
therefore, fresh supplies of divine energy depend on the
fulfilment of personal conditions. They differ, how
ever, very markedly from those which have to be
fulfilled when the energy has to be drawn directly
from, or sought at, the hands of the personal being
designated God.
Beyond the limits just referred to, the energy supplied
by God through our natural environment ceases, as we
have seen, to be adequate to man's needs. In order to
the due discharge of his highest spiritual functions, and
the full realisation of the idea of his being, he requires
spiritual nutriment — nutriment, that is, which can only

94 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
be drawn directly from God, on his own application,
with God's consent. As already indicated, when it is a
question of the energy stored in the physical world, we
can simply take, consulting solely our own needs and
tastes, — in a normal state, wisely, of course, and with
due regard to the harmony and well-being of every
part of our environment, inorganic or organic, vegetable
or animal, insensitive or sensitive. When, however, we
seek direct divine energy or grace, we have to be
self-conscious and free, not only in the form referred to
above, but with a special content ;- — -in other words, we
must be consciously and freely reverential, trustful,
loving; at the very least, we must be ready to render
loyal obedience.
A word or two with regard to the fundamental
reason why the appropriation of energy for the upkeep
of his nature and life, at the lower as well as at the
higher stages, whether drawn from his mundane or
from his divine environment, should be so largely left
to man's own free choice, will prepare the way, to some
extent, for what follows.
The fundamental reason thereof is, that man is
designed to bear the image and likeness of his Maker
as to that which is most essential to God, namely, self-
constitution, self-making, — the controlling of his own
destiny. He cannot, of course, absolutely constitute
himself; because, unlike God, he is not eternal, has not
life in himself: he derives his being from God, and
lives by means of his environment ; but, at all events,
he has control within limits over his own action towards
his environment ; indirectly, therefore, he has in his

MAN S LIKENESS TO GOD 95
own hands the supply, constitution, and the control of
his own life. In free conscious beings God created the
highest possible counterparts to Himself: to have gone
further would, of course, have been to create gods,
which for the Christian mind — not for the heathen
mind — is a self-contradiction ; for a created god is not
absolute, not divine — not, at all events, on any but a
pantheistic or semi-pantheistic view of God and His
relation to the universe.
But man would not be the moral image of God, — to
be which is his central characteristic and supreme
glory ; — he would not, in fact, be moral at all, had he
not the self-control I have postulated for him. Were
he not consciously free over against his natural environ
ment, he would be like the animals below him, a part
of nature, and therefore like nature necessitated ; were
he not consciously free over against God, he would be a
part of God, and necessitated by God : — in neither case
would he be moral. It is the capability of self-control
that warrants us in predicating morality or immorality
of him ; for morality and conscious self-control are in
terchangeable terms.
2. That the bestowal of grace or energy directly
from God should be conditional on a relation denoted
by terms like reverence, love, loyalty, and so forth,
arises from the very nature of personality. We take,
and are at liberty to take, as was previously remarked,
what we need from nature without personal sentiments
or affections entering into consideration. But when
we have to do with persons, it is another matter. It
is so even with created persons. What is in their

96 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
power to bestow must be asked for ; nay more, asked
for in a certain way ; at the highest, the seeker is
expected to be seeking the giver, rather than what the
giver has to give. To him who seeks mine, but not
me, I either refuse altogether or give grudgingly ; — and
that is not hard or harsh, but required by a true law
of the personal life. To him, on the contrary, who
seeks first me, I say, " All mine is thine " ; — an attitude
which implies, and is impossible apart from the implicit
right to add, " All thine is mine." For no one can
seek me truly who is not truly ready to give; nay
more, who is not already actually giving himself to
me. This is most emphatically true of God. Even if
the opposite be not self-evidently irrational as regards
created persons, it is so as regards the Uncreated One,
who is also the supreme and Absolute Good, in com
parison with which any other Good scarcely deserves
the name. God willingly serves as environment,
from which we may directly supply ourselves with
the energy needed by our higher nature when we
fulfil the fundamental law, that we seek first Him,
then His ; otherwise expressed, when we take up
towards Him the appropriate, the due, personal
relation. Still further, if God is really the Supreme Good, and
the possession and enjoyment of Himself is the supreme
need of man, were He to bestow His energy without
Himself, His love to man would not be the perfect
ideal of love. On the contrary, He would in His
measure be chargeable with a weakness analogous to
that shown by earthly parents, when they consent to

DIVINE ENERGY GIVEN CONDITIONALLY 97
supply property to children who care little or nothing
for themselves ; and thus in a sense widen and fix the
personal gulf which has been opened.
3. The inner reasonableness of this will further
appear if we remember that on any other supposition
it would follow, first, that God might be bestowing His
grace, that is, His specific energy, on those who are
not His friends, and thus be putting Himself at the
disposal of a spirit of alienation or even hostility ;
secondly, that He might be furthering growth, de
velopment, harmonious and blessed life, in human
beings who the while were not conscious of enjoying
the love of God, still less of cherishing love towards
God. A vague sense of this truth has, perhaps, in part led
to the use of dynamic language regarding the properly
personal relations, to which reference was previously
made. 4. It may, however, be objected, that if it be true,
as was previously maintained, that the energy appro
priated by man from his natural environment — appro
priated, too, at his pleasure — comes really from God,
even though through the medium of the cosmic system ;
to this extent God does put His power at the disposal
even of those who may be His enemies. Why, then,
should divine communications stop there?
There is force in this objection ; but it clearly holds
good against every theistic view of the world. That
man should not only owe his existence to God, but
also be maintained and upheld by God, on whom he
turns his back, whom he forgets, misrepresents, doubts,
7

98 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
denies, disobeys, — this has ever been a mystery of
mysteries. It is not created by the theory just alluded
to. It can only be escaped in one way, — the way
which many thinkers have trodden, only to find them
selves plunging into ever thicker darkness, — the way,
namely, of dualism. The Scriptures, at all events,
teach that we " live and move and have our being in
God," and yet live our life and move our movements
to some extent in opposition to the law of our nature,
that is, to the law and will of God, whose energy
constitutes us what we are.
What answer shall be made, then, to the objection ?
There is but one. Inasmuch as the existence given to
man is not merely a statical existence, like that pos
sessed by inorganic beings, but one that grows and
•develops ; inasmuch, further, as he is himself in
tended to wield conscious, if indirect and partial, con
trol over this very growth and development; and
inasmuch as it is in virtue of divine energy alone that
either of these things is possible, seeing that other
energy there is not ; clearly, if he is to enter into the
.relation to God which conditions the communication of
the higher specific spiritual energy, without which he
cannot become the highest he is meant to become, it
must be in his power, in the first instance, to appro
priate the energy necessary for this purpose independ
ently of that condition. This power is in fact the
natural condition of the fulfilment of the higher per
sonal condition to which I am referring.
He would not, however, be able to exercise this
freedom were God not in a certain sense veiled from

OBJECTION AND REPLY 99
him ; had God not set him, as it were, at a distance
from Himself, as Browning puts it —
" God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away,
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly made man to live
And look at Him from => place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart."
Had he to receive every gift consciously and directly
from God ; were the divine source of the energy which
works in him, and by which he works, forced at every
moment on his attention ; could he not, as to conscious
ness, escape from God, he would never dare to act at
all, — choice would be out of the question ; in fact, he
would be so overawed, overpowered, that the bare idea
of choosing would scarcely suggest itself.
Or, such a position might give rise in the more ener
getic minds to a spirit of revolt against dependence.
For, indeed, the most subtle and perilous temptation which
can assail a man comes to him from that in his nature
which to a certain extent participates in the divine inde
pendence, namely, that which we call his will.
These are the two perils which those are in danger
of overlooking who yearn, or profess to yearn, under
present conditions, for a constant, direct, open vision
of the glory of God. Such open vision, now and here,
would either crush out free activity or quicken it into
antagonism. For this reason, the fact that even the
physical energy which man assimilates is really divine
energy from God is veiled ;— man sees only the physical
medium. But, on the other hand, if all the energy man needs

IOO THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
could come to him in this veiled way, he must either
be able to work out his destiny without knowing God ;
or if he came to know God from the personal side, it
might be possible that, the more he was invigorated
and the higher his development, the more abnormal
might be his personal relation to God, and consequently
his misery. As it is, the highest development is
reserved for those whose personal relation to God of
itself brings peace and blessedness, on the one hand ;
whilst, on the other hand, those who have no share in
the blessedness flowing from the sense of God's love
are shut out from the highest stages of development
open to man. They can, therefore, neither work the
highest good nor work the worst evil ; but neither can
they experience the highest blessedness nor the most awful
misery.

CHAPTER VII
Normal Relations between God and Man —
that is, of God to Man and of Man to
God
I. The relations of God to man.
The relations of God to man may be classed as
immanent and transcendent. The immanent relations
are those apart from which man would not be man ;
nay, would not exist at all. The matter which partly
constitutes him owes its origin and continued existence
to God. The specific differentiation of the mundane
or cosmic energy which organises matter into man is
divine energy. And the system of laws, or the idea,
which directs the energy in its action on matter is also
a product of the divine mind. The relation of God
thus described is mediated through the cosmic system ;
man, in other words, is not a direct creation of God.
He arose, it is true, at the precise point of the process
of evolution which had been foreordained by God ;
but his rise was not due to a special intervention, ad
hoc. And men, as we all know, now come into exist
ence through the mediation of men. In other words,
God works through " second causes," although Old
Testament writers speak poetically as if every man

102 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
were a direct product of the divine hand. If this is
true, the immanent relation of God to man must obvi
ously be of essentially the same character as His rela
tion to the world or the cosmos generally.
We are concerned here, therefore, solely with the
transcendent relations of God to man. These, for the
purpose now in view, may be classed as personal and
bio-dynamic or vital.
i. The normal personal relation of God to man.
These have already been considered in a general
way. It was pointed out that God has so constituted
men that, in addition to the action of nature and their
fellow-men, they also need His own direct personal
action, if their growth, development, and life are to be
normal ; and that this holds good, not only of the
affections and emotions, but also of the intellect and of
the powers which, in the narrower sense, are designated
active. There is, however, an aspect of the personal relation
of God which deserves more explicit notice than it pre
viously found. I refer to that which affects the law of
man's growth, development, activities, life To the con
sideration of this I shall limit myself in this connection.
That God is the supreme source of law for man is,
of course, obviously involved in the cosmology pre
viously sketched. The differentiation of energy, or the
force, which is constituting men, is as really informed
with a system of laws, otherwise expressed an idea, as
any seed or germ or plant or animal. Every living
being, from the simplest to the most complex, has its
immanent idea, or, let us call it, law ; and this law is,

GODS PERSONAL RELATION TO MAN IO3
in the strictest sense, a law of God. Not, indeed, in
the sense that in each case it owes its existence and
force to a direct enactment of God, so to speak, ad hoc ;
for, as the energy which is constituting the cosmos has
a certain self-differentiating power, so not less the idea
which is interwoven with it ; but the seat of law in all
cases is the bosom of God."
Equally true is it that " her voice is the harmony of
the world ; that all things in heaven and earth do her
homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the
greatest as not exempt from her power."
Now, as everybody knows, the beings below man are
neither conscious of being subject to law, nor have they
any power of free choice in relation thereto. Men, on
the contrary, are able to know that they are under law,
are able to discriminate between relations which are
obligatory and those which are not ; and in an immense
number of cases can freely choose how they will act,
whether they will conform or not to the claim or pro
hibition set before them.
(1) With regard to the modes of conduct binding
on them in particular cases ; in other words, with
regard to the law laid down for them by God, — laid
down in the sense previously indicated, — men's natural
and human environment co-operates with their own
intelligence for their guidance and illumination. In
other words, it acts the part of a living legislator : — it
says, " thus and thus shalt thou do, or not do." The
environment neither creates the distinction between
right and wrong, nor originates in man the capability
and tendency to draw the distinction. These are

IO4 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
inherent in him; they are as integral a part of his
mental constitution as are the capability and tendency
to distinguish between truth and error, or between the
beautiful and the ugly. " There is a right and a
wrong," man says; he says it because of a necessitation:
but when judging what is right, in the innumerable posi
tions in which life places him, he needs and uses the help
of his natural and human surroundings. These surround
ings act upon him, of course, in other ways, but at
present we are concerned with this particular point alone.
The guidance in question relates, be it observed, not
only to modes of conduct that directly affect his own
well-being, but also to behaviour that directly or in
directly affects the well-being of others.
That our environment should thus co-operate with
each one of us is surely both natural and reasonable,
in view of the fact — to which attention was previously
called — of our being all factors of one great system,
and of the interaction which constantly takes place
between the said factors. As each of us — nay more,
each cosmic existence, from an atom up to an archangel
— is alternately environment and environed, that our
environment should discharge the function referred to,
is clearly grounded in the very constitution of things.
Nature, we know, has been in unnumbered ways
the teacher of men, ever since they came into exist
ence. It has never been, indeed, as some suppose,
their only teacher: had they never had other guidance,
the strata of human history would not contain, as
they actually do, so many remains which tell of
intellectual, moral, and religious activities, of which

NATURAL AND HUMAN LAWS 105
scarcely an echo is discoverable among the lowest tribes
of men now dwelling on the earth. For all that, how
ever, it has to a large extent discharged its function ;
and, but for the misrelation of man to it, caused by the
incoming of sin, would doubtless have played perfectly
in the life of humanity the part assigned to it by the
Divine Creator. Each domain of the system to which
we belong has borne its share in our education. And
as we are constantly being reminded by poets, artists,
and scientists alike, as well as by their interpreters, the
closer we follow nature, the more open we keep our ear
to her voice, the clearer will be to us the path which
the indwelling law of our nature bids us pursue.
That the human part of our environment discharges
the function of a living law to each one of us is obvious
enough. The very rudest of our human societies —
those even which have only the most poverty-stricken
of languages, and no literature, written or unwritten —
are held together by a code of laws which often, as to
very small and apparently insignificant matters, is both
elaborate and refined, and in which every new-comer is
carefully instructed. The elaboration of laws and the
provision for their formulation and promulgation run
parallel with the organisation of men into cities and
nations, and groups of nations. So universal is the
knowledge of a nation's laws assumed to be on the
part of its members, high and low, that ignorance is
very rarely accepted as any excuse for their violation.
From earliest childhood, parents, relatives, acquaint
ances, teachers, and others with whom we have inter
course in business, in recreation, and in social, political,

106 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
and other affairs, not to mention the innumerable
things and arrangements which constitute, or are con
nected with, property, all have been incessantly telling
or showing us what we are to do or leave undone as
we pass through life. And these laws, whether laws of
custom or of legislation, are all more or less perfect appli
cations of the principles interwoven with our constitu
tion to the ever-varying circumstances in which we find
ourselves placed. They are meant to further our
growth, development, and happiness ; and, normally
considered, would have done so.
(2) What now shall be said regarding the divine
factorl Normally the other factors of the cosmos
would all, in their several places, modes, and degrees,
have discharged for each other this very necessary
ministry : — would the Divine Factor have looked on, so
to speak, with folded arms ? Would He have rendered
men no help in deciding on the relations to each other,
and to the world around them, which were fitted to
promote healthy growth and development ? To answer,
He would not, must surely be impossible for any one who
holds that the term Fatherhood best sums up the rela
tions of God to the human beings which are the very
flower of the process of evolution initiated by the
Divine Creator — for anyone who credits God with being
wise, holy, loving, good. Such a notion may be con
sistent with evolution of the naturalistic or deistic type,
— the type ignorantly accepted as truly or even alone
scientific for, at all events, the early history of the human
race, by not a few Christian theists ; it is obviously
postulated by pantheism, as well by a doctrine of the

GOD AND LAW 107
divine immanence which conceives God as the secret
actor in all activity ; but it is not really scientific — not
even as regards the earliest history of the human race,
— still less is it Christian.
Does God then co-operate? That He should do so
would seem to be in harmony with the constitution of
His own world, — the world which in a very true sense
is being formed to set forth not only his power and
wisdom, but His very deity or divinity (0et,oT7)<;).
The need for His acting as the living interpreter of
His own law, apart altogether from sin and its darken
ing influence, is also obvious enough. Every act of
every individual man has some influence greater or less,
direct or indirect, not only on the organism of humanity
to which he belongs, but also on the entire mundane
system, not to say the entire cosmos ; — how then shall
he thread his way through the infinitely complex
labyrinth of life unless, whilst one hand is held by
nature and his fellow-men, the other is laid in the
hand of the heavenly Guide who has perfect knowledge
both of the idea which he is to realise, and of the place
he is meant to fill in the great system of which he is a
member ?
(3) The only question would seem to be, therefore,
What is the mode, and what the extent, of the divine
co-operation with man in judging with regard to his
relations to himself, to nature, to his fellow-men, and to
God? In two ways, perhaps, God would normally have dis
charged this function for man. In some cases He
would doubtless have expressly prescribed to individual

108 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
men what it was His will that they should do or leave
undone ; though, so far as we can now understand, He
would have acted thus only under special circumstances
and for special purposes ; for nothing more effectually
retards the development of the moral personality, in
other words, interferes with the growth of the divine
image in man, than minute instructions with regard to
duty, which render free attention and careful judgment
unnecessary. God's chief method, therefore, would unquestionably
have been that which men of all schools nowadays
recognise as most consistent alike with the constitution
of man and with the divine nature. We all of us learn
best how to order our conduct without weakening our
own individuality, through intercourse with those whose
character and life are most completely conformed to
the mind of God. I do not now refer to the stimulus
and inspiration which we owe to them ; but to the light
they diffuse, and to the clarifying influence they exer
cise on our moral vision.
How much more fully, surely, and variously God
must thus affect those whom He blesses with His
fellowship, scarcely needs emphasising. Reference is
not infrequently made to this point in the Scriptures,
especially in the Book of Psalms. In His light, it is
promised, we shall see light. Indirectly, at all events,
it is constantly alluded to both by Psalmists and Pro
phets. With what emphasis does the Evangelist John
also press on the attention of those to whom he wrote
his Epistles, the fact that " God is light," and that those
who have fellowship with Him cannot walk in dark-

GOD THE LIGHT OF MEN IO9
ness. This is the true significance of the demand
made at the present day, that those who would walk
divinely shall company closely with Christ, and often ask
themselves what Christ would do and say under parti
cular circumstances if He were we and we were He.
Rightly considered, this is our best course ; but repre
sentations are not unfrequently given of it which, highly
Christian as they look, are more plausible than prac
ticable. His conduct, regarded in its details, was rarely
such as we should imitate if we could, or could imitate
if we wished and tried. The inward spirit of Christ
was doubtless perfect and always in harmony with the
mind of God, but as neither His nature nor His mission
were those of one who is solely a man, no imaginative
realisation of the details of His life, however perfect,
could afford us such guidance in the conduct of our
own. He was under the necessity of doing many
things which we should have no right to do ; others
which there is not the slightest probability of our ever
being in the circumstances to do ; others, again, as was
previously hinted, which we are not likely ever to have
the power to do. It is as divine, and perhaps only as
such, that He can be to us a living law ; and in this
respect His action is either identical with that of God,
or is specially mediated by the Comforter, the Holy
Spirit, whom He sends to lead us into all the truth, —
that is, truth appertaining not merely to the intellect,
but to our whole nature and life.
Apart from sin, laws are for men, but as channels or
grooves along which their activities most readily, most
naturally, most easily flow. They are, so to speak,

IIO THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
the lines of 'least resistance. As waters flow most
smoothly which find channels already existing into
which they can pour, instead of having to carve for
themselves a path through solid earth, or even rock, so
would laws, natural, human, and divine, normally rather
have smoothed the course of human life, than have
given rise to experiences like those so graphically
described by the Apostle Paul in the Epistle to the
Romans : " I see a different law in my members, war
ring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into
the captivity to the law of sin, which is in my members.
O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from
this body of death ? " Just as well-disposed children
fall in with the established order of a well-regulated
family, as it were, without effort, — in point of fact, such
regulations should always facilitate, call forth, and
intensify effort, instead of making it more difficult, as,
alas ! seems only too frequent an experience, — so
would men have fallen in with the cosmic order
established by God. Nay more, their natural attitude
towards revelations of the laws prescribing their rela
tions to each other and to God would have resembled
that of a truly scientific man when he comes face to
face with the method by which he can most effectually,
and with least expenditure of force, accomplish some
task in which he is interested.
Thus regarded, and in view of the fact that all laws
are divine laws, and that every revelation is, therefore,
in the highest sense a manifestation of the grace of
God, we may well sum up the normal relation of God
to man in the words, Love in Law and Law in Love.

LAW AND HUMAN ACTIVITY I I I
Law everywhere ; but as the expression of love : love
everywhere, but expressed in law.
" Lord, with what care hast Thou begirt us round !
Parents first season us ; then schoolmasters
Deliver us to laws ; they send us bound
To rules of reason, holy messengers,
Pulpits and Sundays, sorrow dogging sin,
Afflictions sorted, anguish of all sizes,
Fine nets and stratagems to catch us in,
Bibles laid open, millions of surprises,
Blessings beforehand, ties of gratefulness,
The sound of glory ringing in our ears :
Without, our shame ; within, our consciences ;
Angels and grace, eternal hopes and fears."
George Herbert, "Sin."
2. The normal dynamic relation of God to man.
Normally the energy, the supply of which God
reserved to Himself, would have flowed forth into the
human spirit with the regularity of a law of nature.
Any irregularity in man's present reception thereof is
due to himself. Were he related as he should be to
God, the divine relation to our higher life would be
comparable in the fullest sense to that of the sun to
our physical life. Any interruption of participation in
its light and heat is ordinarily due to ourselves.
Yet, though the stream would have flowed on with
out interruption, neither its volume nor its exact quality
would have remained ever the same. The former
would have been regulated by the amount of the waste
of energy in ourselves, the latter by the particular
character of the energy wasted. For expenditure of
energy, whatever its quantity, is always expenditure of
a particular kind. This is true not only of that which

I 1 2 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
can be supplied from our mundane environment; but
also of that which, being in the narrower sense spiritual,
has to be supplied by our divine environment. The
primary purpose of the supply from God is, of course,
to fit the spirit for maintaining the equilibrium, order,
and harmony for which the organism of man is specially
designed. Just as lower organisms need the one and
the other form of energy to be supplied along with its
material vehicle from their physical environment, if the
order, equilibrium, and harmony for which they are
designed is to be maintained ; so with man. This, be
it observed, is not to stamp the physical nature of man
as evil, any more than it is to stamp a part of the
nature of a plant or animal as evil, because each needs
special kinds of food and energy if other forces, with
their material vehicles in them, are to be kept from
falling into disorder, and thus threatening the well-
being or even life of the whole organisation.
Whilst, however, this is the primary function of
divine grace, it further distributes itself to the several
sides of our spiritual nature, proportionally to the needs
of each, any part which, owing to exceptional strain
and expenditure in the exercise of a special vocation,
has exceptional needs, receiving also special supplies.
Apart from sin and its disturbing, weakening, and
corrupting influence, the whole man would have been
morally and spiritually symmetrical, whatever else he
might have been, — that, too, in virtue of, yea, solely in
virtue of, the unbroken influx of the higher divine
energy ; at the same time, so far as he might have
been fit for special work in the kingdom of God,

THE FUNCTION OF DIVINE GRACE 113
whether intellectual or other work, he would have been
specially energised for its performance. There would
have been none of the disproportion now too often
noticeable between the general character and state Jand
the particular vocation ; or between the particular
vocation and the general character and state : but
each would have answered to the other.
II. The normal relation of man to God.
Whereas God can hold, as we saw, a twofold relation
to man, namely, personal and dynamic, man can only
hold a personal relation to God. What now is^this
personal relation, normally considered ?
In dealing with this point, it is of the utmost im
portance to bear in mind that, as was previously hinted,
a normal personal relation to God has its stages.
Once stated, this is, of course, obvious enough ; but
nothing is more common than for it to be ignored, not
only in sermons, devotional books and hymns, but also
in formal theological treatises. The traditional con
ception of the state of man as he came forth from the
hands of God, — of his endowments, of his attainments,
and of his righteousness, — has, of course, stood in the
way of the recognition of the point ; and until that
conception has been thoroughly displaced, neither the
problem of sin, nor, by consequence, that of redemption
or reconciliation, can be properly handled ; and the
pseudo-rationality of the view of the early history of
man, now universally regarded as the only one consistent
with a true and satisfactory theory of evolution, will con
tinue not only to impose upon Christian minds, but also
slowly to undermine the edifice of Christian truth and
8

114 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
life. In proportion as man's original state and relation
to God are exalted, in that proportion is his first sin
against God blackened ; and if in redemption the awful
steps have to be retraced by which he quitted God, the
more arduous do we make his return. Black enough
was and is man's sin, and arduous enough the way of
recovery ; but to depict his conduct and state as it has
often been depicted, is to make his restoration impossible,
save by the working of a miracle in him, which would
have been rather a reconstitution than a restitution.
Perhaps the simplest, earliest normal personal rela
tion to God — and with it we are here primarily con
cerned — was, as it still is, willing response to a claim
or demand for action or abstention from action : or,
taken at the potential stage, real, though possibly only
half conscious, readiness to recognise and to fulfil the
mind, will, command of God ; such readiness as a good
child feels and manifests towards a good parent.
If, without constraint, as a matter of course, with glad
ness, man had at once exclaimed, so to speak, " Here am
I ; what wilt thou have me to do ? " his attitude would
have been all that God at the outset demanded. The
word obedience may express either too little or too
much : — too little, so far as it suggests merely external
submission or conformity to, or execution of, divine
commands : too much, so far as it also suggests not
only the readiness spoken of, but also the thorough
carrying out of that to which there is a response.
The carrying out depended on the bestowal and
reception of the very energy which would have come
in answer to the attitude described.

MAN'S NORMAL RELATION TO GOD 115
The higher normal relations would have been, as
they still are, reverence, trust, love, growing in intensity,
and ever more and more closely intertwined, as inter
course with God became more intimate, and the heights
and depths and lengths and breadths of His holiness
and power and truth and goodness and love became
more clearly and fully appreciated.1
But the very earliest normal form of the personal
relation of man, capable of recognising, apprehending,
and responding to the divine, and still untouched even
by a breath of sin, towards God drawing nigh to him
with the condescending tenderness and kindness of a
Father, — a relation into which self-control, self-deter
mination was meant to enter, and did enter, — could only
have been some such a one as was just defined. Now,
according to the biblical representation of the primary
state of man, — a representation which, as to its essen
tial features, is, in my humble judgment, most rational,
besides being the only one consistent with the rest
of the biblical view of the world, — this was just his
attitude at first. As soon as he awoke to existence
and consciousness, God laid upon him a command and
a prohibition, for the purpose of evoking his moral and
spiritual potentialities into actuality ; and his immediate
response was ready conformity, without a thought to
the contrary. In an innocent nature like his there was
no room for anything else ; there was nothing in it to
generate an impulse to the contrary. Whatever of
that kind is now to be found in man is due to the evil
1 See the chapter on " Relations" in my book, The Redemption of Man,
published by Messrs. T. & T. Clark.

Il6 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
bias he inherits. In proportion as the children of
human parents now respond cheerfully and readily to
their commands, in that proportion is their relation
regarded as normal and true. No other would have
been the judgment of the Heavenly Father regarding
His children. There doubtless lay enfolded within
this spirit of obedience or loyalty which naturally ani
mated man, — which was as natural to him in relation
to God as it is natural to a plant to turn to the light, —
the reverence and awe which are the permanent bases,
the abiding though not always visible roots, of religion
and worship ; the trust and confidence which dream
not of doubt or fear, and the love which impels the
soul to act out the saying : — " I am thine, and all mine
is thine " ;- — the spirit which Milton represents Adam
as describing to Raphael —
" From among the trees appeared,
Presence divine. Rejoicing, but with awe,
In adoration at his feet I fell,
Submiss." Par. Lost, Book viii. 314.
Such also was the attitude taken up spontaneously
by himself and Eve, and further described by Milton,
in the response of the latter to the first approaches
of the tempter : —
" Serpent, we might have spared our coming hither,
Fruitless to me, though fruit be here to excess,
The credit of whose virtue rest with thee,
Wondrous indeed, if cause of such effects.
But of this tree we may not taste nor touch ;
God so commanded, and left that command
Sole daughter of His voice : the rest, we live
Law to ourselves; our reason is our law."
Par. Lost, Book ix. 648.

CHAPTER VIII
The Actual Personal Relation of Man to God
It scarcely needs remarking that if the now current
notion that man has gradually evolved upwards from
a state in which his moral and religious ideas, feelings,
state, were not only of the simplest, but also of the
lowest and grossest kind ; that whatever fall may be
predicated of him is a fall upwards to consciousness of
the difference between his actuality and the idea he was
to realise ; and that therefore his condition both always
has been and is now one of not having yet attained, not
one even of falling short, much less of blamable relapse,
— if this notion were correct the idea of redemption would
be an absurdity. The utmost that could then be con
ceded would be that education, stimulus, guidance —
the action of environment to evoke, to quicken, and to
direct effort — is a necessity ; — a necessity of the cosmic
order ; one, too, as little open to exception as the action
by which the sun evokes and quickens, nay more, also
directs the responsive activity of a plant or tree.
Christ might then be conceded a special place and
work in the moral and religious development of the
human race, analogous to those which in other domains
are assigned to great artists, poets, philosophers, scien-
117

Il8 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
tists, statesmen, inventors, and so forth, each of whom,
in the loose or " broad " manner of the present day,
might be described as a " redeemer" or " saviour," or
what not else ?
Apart from the " fact " of a fall from integrity —
such integrity as must needs have characterised an
intelligent creature just proceeding from the divine
hand — into non-integrity or sin ; and apart from the
assumption that sin has never been a moral necessity,
but was always morally blamable, the whole teaching,
both of the Old and New Testament, with regard to
the existing relation between God and man, must be
treated as the outcome of superstition.
But whilst this is true, care needs to be taken in the
discussion of the subject not to go beyond, still more
not to pervert, the direct and indirect teaching of
Scripture. i. Various mistakes- have been and still are made in
dealing with this subject, to one or two of which it is
advisable at this point to call attention.
(i) The mistake of exaggerating, not the significance,
but the heinousness of the sin committed by the first man.
The intrinsic significance of his sin is scarcely suscep
tible of exaggeration : its heinousness or guilt readily
so. No justification can be found in the Scriptures
either of the Old or New Testament for the latter mis
take. It arose, in fact, out of, or at all events had for
its correlate, and in turn found its justification in, a
corresponding exaggeration of the intellectual, moral,
and religious condition of the first man. The older Pro
testant theologians, whose views, strangely enough, still

MISTAKEN VIEWS OF SIN II9
influence the thought of Christendom, negatively where
not positively, in the way of antagonism where not in
the way of agreement, conceived the first human beings
as created in a state of integrity which was defined,
not merely negatively, as freedom from corruption, but
positively, as the possession and use of all inborn per
fections of intellect, will, heart, and body ; the enjoyment
of the blessedness of paradise ; wisdom, sanctity, know
ledge, and love to God ; health, symmetry, and beauty
of soul and body, both in themselves and in their
mutual relations ; dominion over nature, impassibility,
and immortality of body and soul.
No wonder that so exalted a being should be charge
able with guilt of the blackest hue for disobeying the
command of God, particularly under the circumstances
and for the reason stated in Genesis.
Now, though at the moment there referred to, the
development of man, both intellectual, moral, and reli
gious had still to begin, and though his knowledge and
experience therefore were necessarily of the most limited
kind, the act of disobedience was still sin ; for not only
did he recognise God as the One who had authority to
command, and whose purpose in prohibiting was good,
but it was also as natural for him to render loyal
obedience to the divine will as it is for a well-ordered
child to obey its father and mother.
(2) A second mistake is that of treating heathenism
prior to the advent of Christ, and heathenism since
Christ, — especially that which has remained untouched
by Christian influences, — as identical.
Heathenism as a whole, down to the time of Christ,

120 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
underwent a development, not in the direction of what
was less heathenish, but, though of course not with un
broken continuity, in the direction of what was more
and more heathenish. In other and perhaps more
correct words, its history down to Christ was a degra
dation. And what was true of the heathenism before
Christ is equally true, with the same qualification as
to continuity, of the heathenism since Christ.
Humanity did not, however, begin its history with
any form of what we call heathenism. As to this
matter, I defer rather to the authority of the Apostle
Paul than to that of some recent inquirers. As a
Russian; writing in French, before a false application of
the principle of evolution had blinded so many to the
true meaning of facts, has remarked : " L'etat naturel
de l'homme c'est ni l'etat sauvage, ni l'dtat de corrup
tion, c'est un &at simple, meilleur, plus rapproche" de la
divinite" ; l'homme sauvage et l'homme corrompu en
sont ^galement eloignes."1 What we call heathenism
is the result of what theology calls the Fall, that is, of
the conduct described by Paul, " Knowing God, men
glorified Him not as God : — they exchanged the truth of
God for a lie, and worshipped and served the creature
rather than the Creator" (Rom. i. 21, 25).
Heathenism, as we know it, is a degradation — an
evolution or development downwards. Many genera
tions and centuries passed away ere men became true
heathens ; that is, men who were really " vain in their
reasonings," and whose " senseless heart was darkened "
1 Ouvaroff, Essais sur les mystires d'Eleusis, p. 10, Paris, 1816.
Quoted by Tholuck in Der sittliche Character des Heidenthums.

HEATHENISM A DEGRADATION 121
(Rom. i. 21). Thousands of years passed ere they
fully deserved the terrible indictment brought against
them by Paul, in the very brief sketch of the religious
history of mankind down to Christ given in the first
chapter of the Epistle to the Romans.
Since Christ's advent the development of mankind
has been along two opposed lines. Those who
remained heathens have grown more and more hea
thenish : whilst those who have yielded to the new
impulses and visions which the race owes to the work
of Christ, have been for the most part gradually eman
cipating themselves from heathenism. But like all
human development, neither line has been straight and
unvarying. In some cases nations that had already
taken vigorous strides in the new direction grew weary,
began to go back, and have altogether lapsed into
heathenism or perished. So, too, have there been
among heathens periods when a brighter day seemed
about to dawn, and the things that were ready to
perish revived.
For be it never forgotten, there is no such thing as
real stagnation in the life of humanity. We speak,
indeed, of the unchanging East ; but even if the out
ward framework of the life remain almost unaltered,
the life itself, especially the moral and spiritual life,
becomes better or worse, slowly perhaps and almost
imperceptibly, yet really. The history of heathenism,
in fact, despite the rise sporadically of men of deeper
insight into moral and spiritual truth, genuine loyalty
to the highest and best they discerned, and earnest and
self-sacrificing, though often sadly mistaken, efforts to

122 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
do the right, especially in a religious respect, has been
such as to make it practically certain that an effective
halt in the downward path could never have taken
place apart from the redeeming activity of the divine
Father. (3) A third mistake is that of ascribing to individual
members of the race what is true of the race as a whole.
Scarcely any terms can be employed too strong to
depict the sins and sinfulness of humanity ; the sins and
sinfulness of individual men vary in degree to an extent
altogether beyond human appreciation.
Both theologians and preachers have been in the
habit of unconsciously interchanging the individual
and the race, i.e. whilst preaching and theologising.
" Man lumps his kind i' the mass. God singles thence
Unit by unit. Thou and God exist —
So think ! for certain : think the mass — mankind —
Disparts, disperses, leaves thyself alone !
Ask thy lone soul what laws are plain to thee, —
Thee and no other, — stand or fall by them !
That is the part for thee."
R. Browning, "Ferishtah's Fancies" — Camel-Driver.
In actual intercourse with men, — with men even in
heathendom, much more, of course, with those in
Christendom, — both of them have readily forgotten
their theory, and recognised the fact that there are as
many degrees and varieties of sinfulness as there are
men. The result of the mistake has unquestionably and
naturally been the generation of unreality in the moral
and spiritual consciousness of men, and extraordinary
perversions of theological reasoning. If every man's sin

ACTUAL AND IDEAL SIN I 23
is identical with that of the whole race, or at anyrate
as great as that of the whole race, no wonder that it
should be characterised as infinite, and as deserving
punishment, infinite both in quality and quantity,
whether borne by every man for himself, or by one
for all. But this is neither scriptural nor according to
fact. Yet, none the less, sin is ideally, if I may so speak,
all that it has ever been imagined ; and its final issues
will be awful beyond conception.
(4) A mistake closely resembling the one just
referred to, in fact involving the same results, is that of
identifying every actual sin with the ideal of sin, — if it
may be permitted for the moment to connect the word
ideal with that which is the violation of the ideal.
The least sin, the least violation or deviation from
the law (avofiia), doubtless may be the first step to
the greatest sin. It may also be compared to, though
it must not be identified with, a germ or a seed out of
which the beautiful flower, or the mighty tree, or the
most complicated animal organism under favourable
circumstances will develop, and to which, therefore, in
a sense might be given the name of the latter. But
even allowing the analogy, as it would clearly be a
misuse of language to call an acorn an oak, so would
it in like manner be a blunder to speak of an early, an
ordinary sin, as infinite. For to represent sins as infinite,
because God against whom they are committed is infinite,
logically involves the corresponding exaggeration of
characterising the trust or reverence or love felt by a
man towards God as infinite, because God is infinite, —

124 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
a position which no theologian, whether Romish or
Protestant, has thus far ventured to lay down.
(5) A fifth mistake is that of estimating the wicked
ness and guilt of men solely by their overt acts, and
by their own feeling, or lack of feeling, with regard to
them. Degradation and wickedness do not always increase
in the same ratio, and that for the simple reason that
degradation proper, as a rule, is largely due to the influ
ence of ancestors and contemporaries. Different people
may commit sins that are to all appearance the same,
yet the moral heinousness of the sins may be by no
means identical. Heathens may commit worse crimes
and do viler deeds than most of the inhabitants of
Christendom, yet the latter be notwithstanding worse
men. Sins committed in Christendom are more guilty
than the same sins committed in heathendom ; and the
virtues of heathen in like manner may be more virtuous
than the same acts or characteristics in Christians.
The Christian estimate of sin is, of course, the truer
in the abstract ; but between sin in the abstract and
sin in the concrete a great gulf may yawn. But to
recognise the facts I have now referred to is also to confess
that, though the heathenism of an earlier age may have
been less heathenish ; in other words, though the men
of an earlier age may have been less debased and
ignorant, less inaccessible to spiritual light and influence,
than those of the present day, they were more guilty —
their conduct towards God or the divine may have been
for that reason more conscious, and therefore more
inexcusable.

WRONG ESTIMATE OF GUILT I 25
It is in the light of this consideration that it behoves
us to read the fearful description of the Apostle Paul ::
" For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against
all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, holding the
truth in unrighteousness ; because that which is know-
able in God is manifest to them ; for God hath mani
fested it to them. For the invisible elements or aspects of
Him since the creation of the cosmos are beheld, being
understood by His works, even His eternal power and
deity : to the end that they should be without excuse "
(Rom. i. 1 8 ff).
2. Man's actual relation to God is abnormal.
To consider at length and in detail the character of
man's actual personal relation to God would involve
the treatment of at least an important part of the
doctrine of sin. As this lies aside from the scope of
the present work, though it is necessary to briefly touch
on the subject, it must suffice to cast a rapid glance at
the main features of the abnormality by which man's
personal relation to God is, and has been, characterised.
As a matter of fact, indeed, no mode in which man
can be related to God, in which he can behave towards-
God, has ever been all that it should have been ; though
we are not warranted in going to the extreme of saying
that every mode of relation and behaviour has always
been all that it should not have been. For our present
purpose, however, it will suffice to refer briefly to that.
which is central, namely, the specifically religious ; in
other words, the specifically affectional. For religion,.
though conditioned by, and conditioning, all other
phases of human life, particularly the activities of the

126 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
intellect, is in its very essence a stage or degree — ideally
the highest stage or degree — of reverence, trust, love.
(i) Men owe to God — it is grounded alike in their
own constitution and the nature of God that they
should render unto Him — reverence, reverence that
knows no limit, no break ; that is felt as obligatory,
yet given freely ; that constantly verges on awe, yet is
full of childlike joy. But what is the fact ? Both in
their representations, embodiments, and conceptions of
God ; in their constant treatment of Him in word and
deed ; yea, even in their modes of worship, they have
insulted the Most High. Even if we minimise the
guilt of their conduct, by ascribing it to involuntary
ignorance, the objective facts remain the same. All
this is awfully true of the heathen world : but it was
only too true of Israel; and it is still far from being
totally untrue of Christendom.
(2) Again, what God, on the one hand, absolutely
deserves and of moral necessity claims ; and man, on
the other, by his very constitution as a creature needs,
and would normally be impelled to render, is perfect
trust, perfect confidence. But what more natural to the
" natural man " than distrust and suspicion ? The life
of the Gentiles was one of bondage, because of fear of
the deities who, for their consciousness, had taken the
place of the Eternal Father.
The many and constant reproaches hurled against
Israel for not trusting the Lord their God testify
plainly enough that their natural, or unnatural, bias
had not been overcome : and how much easier it is
even yet, in the very heart of Christendom, to doubt

MAN S ACTUAL RELATION TO GOD I 2 7
and fear than to put our whole trust in God, — who
among us does not know alike from observation and
personal experience?
(3) Still further, the Eternal Father surely deserves
the love of His human children. We know that He
who of all born of women knew God best and knew
man best, laid down as the chief commandment — the
commandment of commandments — " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul and
mind and strength." And what should be more
natural, more satisfying, more fraught with peace and
joy to man ! Yet the fact — the awful fact it has been
and still is, that the natural mind is carnal ; that the
carnal mind is enmity against God ; and that the
hardest thing to attain unto is the love of Him who is
love. In a word, the personal relation of man to God is
irreverence, distrust, and alienation in well-nigh all
forms and degrees.

CHAPTER IX
Results of the Abnormal Personal Relation
of Man to God
I. The results for God.
It will be well at this point briefly to recall to mind
the chief features of the divine relation to the cosmos,
according to the cosmology previously expounded.
God, let it be remembered, is the ever-active origin
ator, orderer, and upholder of the universe. He is so
through the energy perennially put forth by Him, acting
on the matter created by Him, in accordance with
laws implanted by Him.
But this activity is of two kinds, if the expression
may be used, namely, immanent or natural, and trans
cendent or free and personal.
The former activity is, as it were, fixed, determined ;
it proceeds along the regular paths which science terms
laws — the laws of nature. Its method is evolution.
The latter is activity which He holds, as it were, in
reserve ; which He puts forth and directs according to
circumstances arising through the action of the crea
tures that come into existence endowed with the
capability of conscious self-control. These creatures,
namely, so far as we are here concerned with them,
128

GOD AND THE COSMOS 1 29
men, are so constituted that, as was previously pointed
out, their needs cannot be adequately met by the
natural world, i.e. by God in his immanent relation to
the cosmos : — they need what God has reserved for
His own direct bestowal.
Now what God has reserved we found may be
described as personal and vital, or bio-dynamic. Tran-
scendently He is related in both these ways. The
energy He supplies to man transcendently is supple
mentary, as I previously showed, to that which He
supplies by immanent channels. The two forms of
energy are neither mutually exclusive, nor related to
each other merely as regards quantity or degree.
Whether and how far this transcendent energy, or grace
as it is also termed, can under special circumstances do
duty for the immanent energy, is a question which I need
not stay to discuss.
This position of God is of original divine ordination,
not, in its essential character, due to human sin.
But God is Himself also a factor of the universe,
or rather of the cosmos, as it might be termed ; not
merely its originator, upholder, orderer, ruler.
The universe is a system — a system, be it remem
bered, of which nature, man, other kingdoms, and, above
all, God, are the constitutive factors. As such its parts
are not only designed to hold, but must hold, certain
definite relations to each other. A larger or smaller
number of alternative relations, all equally normal, may
be open to each part ; but, whether few or many, they
are determinate. No part can hold a relation that is
not among the prescribed relations, without, to a greater
9

1 30 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD- AND MAN
or less extent, bringing itself into conflict with the rest;
without, as it were, outlawing itself, and thus introduc
ing or increasing disorder, — which disorder is itself an
evil and brings other evils in its train. No sooner does
such disorder arise than evil arises. Logically the dis
order precedes and causes the evil ; really the one is in
a sort the very shadow of the other.
I do not wish to be understood to imply that all the
effects follow according to natural law. We are here
concerned primarily with persons and personal relations,
not with parts of mere nature and relations between
them. At the same time, though the link of connec
tion, the sequence, is not one of natural law or necessity,
it is no less real and close, yea, no less necessary.
Spiritual law is law, though, as already observed, it is
not " natural " law ; and it produces confusion to style
it " natural," whether in connection with the visible or
with the invisible world. At the same time, it may be
allowed, and needs to be remembered, that in the in
visible world, no less than in that which is visible, there
are both natural and spiritual laws, because in the
invisible no less than in the visible world there are
forces which lack, as well as those which possess, the
power of self-control. God alone is pure spirit. Wher
ever there is creaturehood, there is that which is in the
strict sense '' natural " ; though there is also that which
is within limits " spiritual " : — this is, at all events, the
case in the spheres known to us either by experience or
report. Spiritual forces, however, act no less efficiently
than natural forces ; in some cases, too, with the directness
and immediacy of natural forces ; but still, as the forces

NATURAL AND SPIRITUAL LAW 131
differ so also do their modes of action and the effects
produced by them necessarily differ. When I speak of
spiritual forces, I mean, as was previously expounded,
differentiations of cosmic energy, i.e. of divine energy,
as real as the differentiations called chemical, electrical,
vital; and when I speak of spiritual effects, I mean effects
as real as those produced by the forces just named.
These results necessarily affect, in a greater or less
degree, every constitutive factor of the universal system.
It would not, indeed, be in the full sense a system were
this not the case. Moreover, every factor by its activity
must affect, in a greater or less degree, in one or
another way, every other factor. This is true, at all
events, of the factors which in the narrower sense con
stitute the universe or cosmos. Within certain limits it
would seem to hold good even of God Himself, so far
as He has constituted Himself a factor of what I ventured
to term the theo-cosm.
This being the case, various evil results naturally
follow even for God.
Evil results for God ! The very words will evoke
criticism of various kinds. The bare idea that man's
sin should involve evil for God, no less than for the
being that commits it and the world to which the
sinner belongs, may seem intolerable. What! shall the
almighty and unchangeable God be thus, so to speak,
at the mercy of weak and changeable man ? Shall
" the infinite," " the absolute," " the unconditioned," be
conditioned and determined, yea even abnormally con
ditioned and determined, by " the finite " and " the
conditioned " ? Away with the supposition !

132 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Philosophy and " common sense '' alike set their faces
against the position. The former treats it as a self-
contradictory anthropomorphism. The latter, under
the influence of the very anthropomorphism which it
repudiates as absurd, asks, What can God care about
human conduct ? What can it matter to Him ? Alike
from the heights of abstraction, where the air is so rare
as to be scarcely breathable, from the lofty speculation
which treats and speaks of God as out beyond all that
man can possibly define or picture ; as well as from the
low-lying region of vulgar deism, which thinks it beneath
a creative, supreme intelligence to be concerned about
the doings of a world so insignificant as ours, — there
comes the question, " What is man, that the Supreme
should be mindful of him ? "
But, after all, the abstract reasoner and the disciple
of common sense, no less than the simplest believer, is
really guilty of anthropomorphising ; for until man can
really rise above and pass out beyond his own intellect,
and the connate laws and conditions of its activity, he
must reason as a man ; that is, reason anthropomor-
phically. The philosopher may plead, indeed, that he
puts into operation a power of self-criticism which
seems to enable him to use himself as a lever to lift
himself out of himself; and that the conclusions to
which that process conducts him are truer than those
of the believer. The deist, too, may urge that his con
ception of deity, though entertained by a human mind,
belongs to a higher domain of its activity than that
which he repudiates. Yet may not he too, who holds
by the concrete representations which have been charac-

EVIL RESULTS OF SIN FOR GOD 1 33
teristic of religious faiths everywhere, — ethnic and
Hebrew, no less than Christian, in his turn also criti
cise both the philosopher and the deist ? The God of
philosophy, he may retort, — what is He but an empty
abstraction ? " The absolute " and " the infinite " are
void of content; whereas if God be anything at all,
He must be, as the Scripture says, the Pleroma
(jr\ripa>fM) — the very ideal of a being and life full of
content. You think to exalt God by emptying Him ;
to make Him more real by assimilating Him to nonen
tity. Pantheism is surely nearer the truth than such
theism. The God of deism, too, the believer may say, — what
is He but the magnified image of a type of man who,
so far from transcending man, really exemplifies and
embodies the lower and lowest characteristics of men.
It is weakness, selfishness, sloth, pride, that causes
those whom your deity most resembles to withdraw
themselves from the interests and cares of their fellow-
men : — is that an exalted reason for deity taking no
interest in the conduct of the creatures whom He has
created, and refusing to participate in their experiences ?
Not superior, for this reason, is He; nay, rather in
ferior : not more God, but less God : not less human,
in a sense, but more human as distinguished from and
opposed to God. For
" A loving worm within its clod
Were diviner than a loveless God." Browning.
We, on the contrary, ascribe to Him all that we know
of highest and noblest and truest in man in the fullest

134 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
measure. We exalt God in ascribing to Him all that
is most exalted in man.
Besides, it may be pleaded that, if the universe which
God is supposed to have brought into existence be a
reality; if it have being, force, activities, laws of its
own — given, it is true, by God, but yet really and
truly, not seemingly given ; then God cannot any
longer be or live as He was before it passed out of
the region of idea and purpose into that of realisation
and actuality : it must, as a whole, have at all events a
passive influence on the divine life ; the divine life and
activities must be in some measure conditioned by it.
Nay more, if this be true of the whole, it must be pro
portionally true of the parts, for to God the parts are
as real as the whole : nor does the infinitesimal escape
His notice, any more than the immense absorbs it.
Each part has its own place and influence relatively to
God, so far as and because He Himself has assigned it
that place and influence. Not without His will, but
with His will, which, were it not so, would have been
an ineffective will, a will that was only the show and
semblance of a creative, that is, of a truly real, will.
This holds equally good with regard to man. Nay
more, if man has been created that he may love and be
loved by God ; that he may honour and glorify God ;
that he may fill a special place in the divine plans, —
then man, in particular, must hold a relation to God
congruous to his peculiar nature. What that nature
makes him capable of, and requires from him, we have
seen elsewhere. If he love God, if his love is a reality,
and if it has any significance for God, it must affect

REALITY OF THE COSMOS FOR GOD 1 35
the divine life and activity. If he fail to love, as lack
of love is no mere negation, this, too, must also in its
degree and manner touch Him from whom it is with
held. These evil results affect God in both the aspects
previously referred to, — first, namely, as the one who is
constituting the cosmos what it is ; in other words, in
His immanent relation to it : and further, as a factor of
the cosmos which He is constituting ; in other words,
in His transcendent relation to it. In both relations,
or rather, in the double relation, He is affected ab
normally. 1. Consider, first, the influence of sin on the imma
nent or constitutive relation or position of God.
In one sense, it is true, the immanent activity of
God is unchanged, unaffected, by the conduct of man.
In another respect, however, it may be said to have
been from the very first most profoundly affected. At
the same time, the very absence of change in the divine
activity ; or otherwise expressed, the continued main
tenance by God of the order which He had established,
meant that for man, as a sinner, this very order acquired
the character and assumed the position of an authority
imperatively claiming obedience, threatening punish
ment to disobedience, and manifesting hostility to
rebellion. Apart from sin, man could never have had any such
experience. It is, in fact, quite as true that by sin
comes the knowledge of law, as it is true that by law
cometh the knowledge of sin (Rom. iii. 20). The Old
Testament keeps close to the truth, when in so many
forms it represents the discord between nature and

136 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
man — its resistance to him, its refusal to serve him,
and so forth — as due to sin ; and when it treats this
conduct of nature as an expression of the mind and a
manifestation of the will of God.
2. Consider, further, the influence of sin on the trans
cendent relation or position of God.
( 1 ) A change is wrought in the personal relation of
God to man.
The personal relation of God to man would normally
have been one of satisfaction with Him as realising
His purpose and idea — satisfaction of the kind ex
pressed in Genesis, " And God saw everything that
He had made, and behold it was very good" (i. 31).
As voluntarily rendering unto God loyal obedience and
faithful, cheerful service, man would have received
approval' such as Christ expresses in the words, "Well
done, good and faithful servant" (Matt. xxv. 21. 23).
As cherishing towards God the reverence due unto His
name, the child-like, implicit confidence that answers
to the divine goodness and truth and as loving God
with all his heart and soul and mind and strength, man
would have been regarded with moral complacency,
treated with such trust as was possible on the part of
the Creator towards a creature, and blessed in the
fullest measure with a father's love.
In all these respects a change — a sad change — was
wrought by human sin.
Instead of pronouncing man good, we read that
" it repented the Lord that He had made man on
the earth " : and He said, " I will destroy man, whom
I have created, from the face of the ground ; for it

TRANSCENDENT RELATION OF GOD 1 37
repenteth Me that I have made him " (Gen. vi. 6 f.)
— words which, whether historically spoken or not,
exactly represent what was the state of the case. In
stead of approving man's conduct and character, God
condemns man in fact, if not exactly in words, of the
character of those spoken by Christ, " Thou wicked and
slothful servant," and " inasmuch as ye did it not
unto one of these least, ye did it not to Me" (Matt.
xxv. 26 f.). And in place of shedding on him the
light of His countenance, and letting him taste of the
sweetness of His friendship ; instead of trusting and
honouring him, God's face is hidden, and He lets him
feel His displeasure, His resentment, yea, even His
anger and wrath.1 A terrible change is all this : — a
change, too, made inevitable, morally inevitable, by the
change in man ; and as abnormal for God as its cause
was abnormal in man. It is, of course, abnormal on
God's part, in a sense quite different from that in which
it is abnormal on man's part, yet veritably deserving
of the designation.
Even were we to exclude from God everything of
the nature of resentment or anger, because of its emo
tional character, still we should not escape from the
position I am expounding. Suppose that, after the
manner of many theologians, we restrict His attitude
towards the sin of man to the recognition thereof as
sin, to its simple disapproval or condemnation, — this
surely would be an abnormality; for, it cannot be in har
mony with the purpose and idea of God that He should
have to pronounce the creature of His hand worthy
1 On the "Anger of God," see The Redemption of Man.

I38 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
of condemnation. Some thinkers, indeed, have felt
themselves bound by the logic of immutability to go
the full length and include even man's sin in the
eternal plan of the world ; but that is logically to abolish
the sinfulness of sin and the rightfulness of right.
Whether the condemnation be termed legal or
judicial, or governmental or moral, does not touch
the point. In any and every case God regards man
in a light, and treats him in a manner, contrary to
his own original idea; in other words, a change admit
ting of the designation abnormal must be said to have
been brought about in God's personal relation to man,
through the change in man's personal relation to God.
The view which I have been controverting found
long ago a fine advocate in Shakespeare, who, however,
seems to me here to lack the remarkable ethical insight
which he elsewhere displays —
" Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove :
O no ! it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests, and is never shaken ;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come ;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error, and upon me prov'd,
I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd."
Shakespeare, Sonnet cxvi.
(2) The bio-dynamic or vital relation of God to man
is affected. I pointed out previously that according to the
divine constitution of man, whilst he was to draw from

GODS VITAL RELATION CHANGED 1 39
the system to which he belongs both that which gave
him being and maintained it at its primary and sub
ordinate stages, God kept in His own hands, so to
speak, the key to the store from which energy needed
to be drawn for the development and sustentation of
his higher powers, and consequently for the due control
and utilisation of the lower powers. Attention was
still further directed to the fact that access to this store
of higher energy was conditioned by his personal
attitude towards God.
An alien personal attitude having been assumed
towards God. — an attitude the unchecked, ultimate
issue of which would necessarily be hatred and hostility,
— no course consistent with the divine holiness and
love remained open but to close the door to His higher
energy. Indeed, expressions like closing the door or
withholding may convey a defective, not to say a false,
impression ; for normal relations between persons in
volve participation in each other's life to the extent to
which, in the very nature of things, it is possible. In
tercommunication must be continuous and perfect.
Each must live in the other. But if either assumes an
abnormal relation, the intercommunication is at once
ipso facto checked, — checked, too, at every point. We
men experience this, though we can scarcely be said
either to bestow vital energy on each other or to with
hold it, — not, at all events, in any very appreciable
degree. Inasmuch, however, as fellowship with God
implies participation to the measure of our capacity in
all that God can give ; and seeing that God can give
not merely light, guidance, consolation, encouragement,

14O THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
sympathy, but also life — vital energy ; any break or
abnormal change in personal relations necessarily
involves lessened participation in the divine fulness ;
that is, a lessened share of the energy which comes
directly from Him. Law prevails here as truly as
in the impersonal sphere ; though as the sphere is
personal, so is the law. There is nothing of revenge
in this procedure ; in fact, even the word punishment
can only be used regarding it with certain qualifica
tions: — qualifications, however, which are fully warranted
by Scripture usage. It is in the strictest sense a moral
necessity. So plainly is it inevitable that a contrary
procedure would be immoral. For any human person
to place his powers at the free and full disposal of
another, to give another a blank cheque, so to speak, to
draw on the bank of his natural, much more on that of
his spiritual, resources, there must be fullest harmony as
to the highest moral ends of life. Not to insist thereon
would be self-contradiction and suicide. How much
more must this be true of the holy loving God !
3. The changes in question may be further and more
generally characterised as follows.
Man is placed in a system of law, the fountainhead and
living upholder of which is God. This is God's position
because He created and sustains the beings whose rela
tions, whether actual and necessary, or prescribed and
voluntary, are expressed in laws. Man as free is able,
as I have already said, not only to choose between
various modes of relation, each of which may be in
conformity with his own nature and with the nature of
the beings to which he relates himself, and as such

MAN IN A SYSTEM OF LAW 141
normal ; but also to choose relations which are opposed
alike to his own nature and to the nature of his en
vironment, and as such abnormal. He cannot exist out
of all relations : relations he must hold. He may, indeed,
assume an attitude of indifference towards this and the
other part of his actual environment ; he may ignore
it; but so far as it is actually part of his environment,
even his indifference is a positive relation, though a
wrong one.
It is also in his power to choose more actively wrong
relations : he may, for example, choose to speak of or
to his fellow-man with harshness or bitterness, when he
ought to speak with gentleness and kindness ; or he
may choose to inflict injury when he ought to confer
benefit : but the relation designed to be held by him is
unaffected by his choice ; so long as he remains a man,
it remains obligatory on him, and the man to whom
the relation is due, so long as his humanity remains
intact, cannot but demand it. Nay more, if he refuse
to demand it, to that extent he puts himself out of the
system. Refusal — on whatever ground — to require the
fulfilment of moral obligations outlaws a man as really
as refusal to fulfil tltem when required. To claim the
performance of duty — of course, in t/ie right way — is as
truly obligatory as it is obligatory to perform t/te duty
which is prescribed.
All this holds emphatically good of man in rela
tion to God. He is meant freely to love Him ; but if
he choose the reverse, the law for his relation or be
haviour remains the same. God continues, and cannot
but continue, to demand loyalty as long as He is God,

142 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
and remains at the head of the great system which
He has brought into existence. But, clearly, as soon
as God and man are over against each other under such
conditions, man must necessarily regard God chiefly, if
not exclusively, as a ruler and exactor ; and God must
regard man as a defaulter and rebel. Nay more, unless
God is ready to allow of a new mode of relation be
tween man and Himself; unless He is willing that man
should live without being loyal to Him ; He must needs
take steps to uphold the law which He has given. In
other words, He assumes, ipso facto, towards man the
relation of judge and ruler. As long as man freely
conforms to the law, i.e. as long as his relation is one
of loyalty, that of God to him is, in the nature of the
case, the relation of a Father who cares for and loves
His creature. The thought of law, rule, claim, and
their opposites neither enters the mind of man nor
makes its appearance in the behaviour of God. Sin
changes man, and man's change involves a change in
God. The element of rule and law in God at once
and necessarily manifests itself, at once and necessarily
makes itself felt.
That this should be so is in perfect harmony with
the entire constitution of the world, so far as freedom
of action in any degree or form can be predicated of it.
Inorganic beings know nothing but law, that is, the law
of necessity. For them alternatives do not exist. Not
that a variety of relations is not open to this and the
other element, as, for example, in chemistry, but that
whatever appearance there may be of selection on their
part — and sometimes there is a very remarkable resem-

SIN AND LAW 1 43
blance thereto — it is not real selection : there is no real
alternative, as in the cases I have supposed ; but the
stronger overcomes the weaker force, the temporary
union is set aside for that which is more permanent ;
the more important and essential supersedes that which
is less important and essential.
But wherever a being refuses or contravenes a rela
tion that is really prescribed, that is, is rightfully due,
the being to which it is owing, if it be one of the class
we are here concerned with, namely, personal, in justice
both to itself and to the system of which it is a member,
should, and in one form or another, at some time or
other, must, and will insist on its claim, and seek to
enforce the law. Not to confess this is implicitly to
do one or the other of two things : — either to assume
that the transgressor cannot help himself, or to deny
that the world is a system, an organised whole. The
drift at the present day is towards the former alter
native. When men commit offences we are told it is
because they are ignorant, or weak, or diseased ; or
because they have not been, somehow, fairly treated
by the system, and are on that account justified in
doing what they have done ; or, at all events, are not
to be dealt with in the way intended. Or else a denial
that the world is an organised whole is involved ; con
sequently, therefore, the contrary assumption that the
factors thereof are not meant, all of them, to hold
certain specific relations ; and still further, that those
relations can be ignored or contravened without detri
ment to their well-being. Not to assert and maintain
the law is in reality to be guilty of inflicting injury,

144 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
first on one's self and then on the system to which one
belongs. " Isab. Yet show some pity.
Ang. I show it most of all when I show justice ;
For then I pity those I do not know,
Which a dismiss'd offence would after gall ;
And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,
Lives not to act another."
Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act n. ii.
" Ignominy in ransom and free pardon
Are of two houses : lawful mercy
Is nothing kin to foul redemption." Ibid. Act n. iv.
So far as, or rather, in that, every creature is bound
to take its part in upholding and furthering the in
terests of the system, so far is it bound, not only to
guard itself against injury, as well as to refrain from
inflicting injury ; but also, as has already been remarked,
to claim a certain kind of conduct, as well as to exhibit
it. Efforts to this end may have to take the form of self-
sacrifice ; but self-sacrifice always signifies the sacrifice
of the lower for the higher, never the higher for the
lower ; it is therefore in conformity with, not opposed
to, the principle under consideration. The mode of
asserting law must, of course, be of a kind not to
involve a new and worse violation, as has often been
the case ; — so often and notably as to give rise to the
jural saying, Summa lex, summa injuria.
What is true of the lesser members of the system
is equally, in its way and measure, true of Him who
may be regarded as its supreme member, on whose
action the order and well-being of the whole depends.
If man's relation to God is not what it should be, God

RIGHT TO BE ENFORCED AS WELL AS DONE 1 45
is bound by regard, not merely for Himself, but also
for the system as a whole, and for every individual
member of the system, according to the nature and
position, to maintain and assert the law which has been
transgressed. The integrity of the divine nature and
life is no less essential to the world God has made than
it is essential to Himself. All creatures, but in a special
sense all intelligent creatures, depend on Him ; and if
He fail them, all else will fail them. How He shall
assert and maintain the law is another question ; but
that it must be asserted and maintained is out of the
question. And it is because of this that God deals
with man as I have described under previous heads.
It is from the point of view here attained that
we can best understand and appreciate the so-called
forensic, judicial, rectoral, or governmental view of the
divine relation to man, and of the atonement of Christ.
Where the traditional treatment of these subjects has
failed is in not forming an adequate conception of the
distinction between the normal or ideal relation of God
to man and His actual relation. Trinitarian, no less
than Socinian, theologians, advocates of the forensic no
less than advocates of the so-called moral view of the
atonement, have alike failed in this respect.
That it is possible to form an adequate conception of
God's normal relation to man, if God is regarded exclu
sively even as a moral Governor, can scarcely be main
tained in face of the explicit as well as implicit teachings
of Christ. His idea Father includes all that is essential
to that of a moral governor, but more : and it is the
more that differentiates it. Yet representations of God

146 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
which either exclude or thrust into the background, or
fail duly to emphasise the aspect of His relation as
moral governor, are equally defective.
Nay more, if the word moral which has been used to
qualify the designation Governor serve no other pur
pose than to exclude the notion of the immoral or purely
natural, it will need to be supplemented by some other
term, if God's full ideal relation to man is to be expressed
by the term Father. For, as Father, God is the origin
ator, not only of the constitution of men, but also of the
laws without which the constitution could not subsist,
and to confess this necessitates the confession that He
must uphold, maintain, assert those laws. Still further,
unless God is prepared to be inconsistent with Himself,
and to charge Himself with unwisdom, He must main
tain them, regardless not only of contrary desires, but as
we inaccurately and misleadingly say, of the happiness
or misery of those who sin against them. These latter
words are sometimes in place when human rulers are in
question ; but when speaking of the divine ruler and His
laws, we need always to remember that apart from their
observance misery is inevitable. Not to uphold law,
both natural and spiritual, would be to contradict the
very nature of natural spiritual forces or beings : and
such contradiction — what could it possibly mean but
misery, ruin, destruction ? Up to a certain point this
involves, of course, upholding the natural in the natural
sphere, the spiritual in the spiritual sphere ; but as the
independence of the two spheres is only a restricted one,
a point is soon reached where to uphold one is to uphold
both — to uphold the natural is to uphold the spiritual,

NECESSITY OF UPHOLDING LAW 1 47
to uphold the spiritual is to uphold the natural. As,
however, there will be occasion for touching again on
this matter in connection with the discussion of the
method of rectifying the abnormal relations between God
and man, the subject may be dropped for the present.
4. The state of the divine feelings, of the divine mind,
is disturbed. The very being, the very nature, the
very substance or essence of God cannot, of course, be
prejudicially affected by human sin. To affirm that
would certainly be inconsistent with an intelligent
recognition of the divine absoluteness and self-suffi
ciency. As the One who has life in Himself, who is
self-sustained, self-generated, absolutely self-controlled ;
as the One who is the source of all the energy that
works in the creature, — yea, of the very energy which
puts itself forth abnormally in the act of sin, — God
cannot be injured by anything that the creature may
do. Real injury for the creature means not merely
the introduction of disorder into the system of forces
by which it is constituted, but also in the long-run
a lessening of its energy. Such lessening, however, of
God's energy through the action of that which at the
bottom is His own energy is clearly unthinkable.
But a distinction may be drawn between the divine
essence or nature and the sphere of the manifestations
of the divine nature — its manifestations or expressions,
that is, in God Himself. We draw a distinction of this
kind even with regard to ourselves. A man's nature
and character may remain essentially unaltered — at all
events relatively so — whilst his emotions and feelings
are constantly varying. Within limits, in fact, the latter

I48 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
may be out of harmony with the former — may be such
as the former repudiates. They may be imposed on
him from without; they may be necessitated by the
position which some part of his environment has
assumed towards him. Yet he may be uninjured.
This is, at all events, relatively true, though, it must be
allowed, only relatively. Something of this sort is true
of God. He in Himself abides unaltered ; no injury
can be inflicted on Him as He is in Himself; but as
to His emotions or feelings, these cannot but be affected
by the conduct and state of the creatures He has
brought into existence and sustains. That this should
be possible must have formed part of His eternal
purpose. If the creature had owed its existence to
another will than the divine will, or embodied another
idea than the divine idea, or been constituted in part
of what God did not originate, then a position such as
the one laid down would be intolerable; but, as a
matter of fact, in laying Himself open to human action,
God is carrying out His own purpose. Only, we must be
careful to define its limits : and the limit above defined
seems to me to be grounded in the very nature of things.
It cannot, of course, be doubted that in man's case
his very being is largely determined not only by his
thoughts and volitions, but also by his emotions and
feelings. He, it is true, makes them ; but they also make
him. As he is, so they are ; as they are, so he becomes
and accordingly is. They constitute him, whilst he con
stitutes them. Stated in another form : we are men in
the becoming or making, and in the process of becoming
or of being made, we ourselves take a prominent — nay,

EFFECT ON DIVINE AND HUMAN FEELINGS 1 49
indeed, one might say the chief — part. We do so
indirectly, in so far as we can solicit or deprecate, open
or close ourselves to, approve or condemn, influences
which do or would operate upon us ; directly, in so far as
the control, first and foremost of our thinking ; then, in
a secondary degree, of our words and deeds ; still further,
of our affections and emotions, is entrusted to ourselves.
We are largely dependent, on the other hand, as has been
repeatedly remarked, on our environment — on God, on
our fellow-men, on the natural world — for what we be
come. This is involved in our creaturehood; in our being
but parts of a whole, members of a great body ; in the
fact that in the first instance we owe our very being,
our power, the law of our constitution, the sphere of our
life and action, to a not-ourselves, mediately to the
system to which we belong — ultimately to God.
God, as having life in Himself, determines Himself;
and even when He lets us act on Him, it is still a self-
determination. So that whilst conceding all that I
have advanced, there still remains an infinite difference
between our nature and life and their relation to each
other, and the nature and life of God and their relation
to the divine essence.
God is grieved and pained by the conduct of men.
It is scarcely necessary to adduce evidence to this
effect from Scripture. The godly men of Israel whose
thoughts about God — whether due exclusively to reve
lation, or born of a perfectly normal and natural co
operation between their minds and the Spirit of God —
are set forth in Scripture, had no doubt on this subject.
We are told in Genesis that " it repented the Lord

150 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
that He had made man on the earth, and it grieved
Him at His heart " (vi. 6) ; and in Isaiah, " But they
rebelled and grieved His Holy Spirit " (lxiii. 1 o) ; again,
" How oft did they rebel against Him in the wilder
ness, and grieve Him in the desert" (Ps. lxxviii. 40).
In the New Testament, too, a solemn exhortation is
given even to believers, to " Grieve not the Holy Spirit "
(Eph. iv. 30) by their sins.
Not only because of the conduct of man towards
Himself, and the change in His own relation to man,
is God grieved and troubled, but also because of the
failure of the world which He had made, to realise
His idea. Meant to express His invisible and eternal
glory ; to be a " a thing of beauty and a joy for ever " ;
to be a home, every part of which should reveal the
loving and wise care of the Father, and minister to the
wants and pleasure of the children : how has it fallen
short of this great ideal ! And why ? Because by the
constitution thereof, when God withheld His energy
and grace from man, energy was necessarily to that
extent withholden from nature: and because even nature
without God becomes " subject to vanity," and " groans
under the bondage of corruption " (Rom. viii. 22).
Now both the state of the world and His own rela
tion to it are abnormal ; and so far as the former may
be said to be the result of the latter, God is doubly
grieved. III. The results for man.
1. Scripture teachings.
The evils that accompany and follow upon sin,
whether they befall man or nature, are in the Scrip-

DIVINE GRIEF AT THE RESULTS OF SIN 151
tures, particularly in the Old Testament, treated and
spoken of alternately as results or fruits of sin, and as
divine inflictions or punishments for sin. This circum
stance has not been sufficiently kept in view in the
discussion of the question of sin and evil ; perhaps
because too exclusive stress was laid on the transcend
ence of God. If, however, the divine relation to the
world be conceived to be vital, organic, — or, as it is
now often termed, immanent, — the truth and fitness of
Scripture representations will be obvious. God has not
only beforehand so constituted and ordered the world,
but so maintains it, by his ever-present power and
wisdom, that sin and evil shall be most closely asso
ciated : — not always in a way that we can discern, but
really. It is not given to any human eye, armed
though it should be with the strongest and most suit
able aids that human skill can devise, to discover the
traces of disease which must lie in seeds that grow
into unhealthy plants, yet they are there, and they
come gradually to maturity. And so the sins men
commit may not at once produce their corresponding
evils in a form that man can discern, but they are
assuredly there, and time will reveal the truth. The
evils referred to are of God's ordaining, whilst they are
also of man's producing. Man does not intend to
suffer when he sins, nor does God intend man to sin
in order that he may suffer ; but when man sins he
involuntarily brings suffering on himself, and it is in
pursuance of the divine purpose and order that he
suffers ; in other words, God inflicts suffering, God
punishes.

152 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
When man sins, his design, implicit, if not explicit
and conscious, is not only to use the energy already
stored up in himself, but also the energy which he may
yet assimilate, in carrying out the devices and desires
of his own evil heart as he may like or dislike ; but he
overlooks the fact that, in the act of sinning, to the
degree to which he sins, he is cutting himself off from
the source whence are to come the supplies of energy
without which he will become incapable of further
assimilation and use ; besides putting himself in
antagonism to the system of forces in the midst of
which he lives, and without the co-operation of which
he cannot be healthy and happy. Though and whilst
renouncing normal personal relations he would fain
maintain the dynamic relation even to God, and con
sequently to the cosmos, of which I previously spoke :
— this, at all events, is the inner meaning, even though it
be not the conscious aim of his conduct. Consciously
to recognise God as what God is in Himself to him
and to the world — this seems to him in his pride a
sort of degradation and, in his unhealthy thirst for
liberty, a sort of bondage ; he vainly dreams of in
dependence. Yet the very power which he then puts
forth is derived from Him against whom he is revolting :
and even if it were possible for him to be independent,
as far as mere power or energy is concerned, the more
specifically personal elements in him — his heart and
intellect — would alike cry out for the living God. So
that sin leads man twofoldly astray :— on the one hand,
it persuades him that the personal relation to God, on
which his conscious happiness depends, is an evil ;

SINS TWOFOLD DECEIT 1 53
and, on the other hand, it flatters him that he can
obtain and use according to his own pleasure the
energy which he feels to be necessary to his healthy
existence, independently of the personal relation to
God on which it is dependent.
The truth that evils are at one and the same time
fruits of human sin and divine punishments is forcibly
brought out in various parts of the Bible, particularly
of the Old Testament. Naturally, too, let it be re
marked, in the Old, rather than in the New Testament ;
because the former, speaking generally, is specially
concerned with the law of the world and the divine
relation to it.
In the Book of Job, e.g. we read : " According as I
have seen, they that plow iniquity, and sow trouble,
reap the same. By the breath of God they perish,
and by the blast of his anger are they consumed "
(iv. 8, 9 ; cf. Prov. i. 24—3 3). Again, " The nations
are sunk down in the pit that they made ; in the net
which they hid is their own foot taken : the Lord hath
made Himself known, He hath executed judgment :
the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands "
(Ps. ix. 1 5 f. ; cf. vii. 1 4 ff). " Ah ! sinful nation, a
people laden with iniquity, . . . Why will ye be still
stricken? . . . Your country is desolate; your cities
are burnt with fire " (Isa. i. 4-7). " Hear, O Earth,
behold I will bring evil upon this people, even the
fruit of their thoughts, because they have not hearkened
unto my words : and as for my law, they have rejected
it " (Jer. vi. 1 9). " I the Lord search the heart, I try
the reins, even to give every man according to his

154 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
ways, according to the fruit of his doings " (xvii. I o).
" By the multitude of thine iniquities, in the un
righteousness of thy traffic, thou hast profaned thy
sanctuaries : therefore have I brought a fire forth from
the midst of thee, and I have burned thee to ashes
upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold
thee " (Ezek. xxviii. 1 8). " Ye have plowed wicked
ness ; ye have reaped iniquity ; ye have eaten the fruit
of lies : for thou didst trust in thy way, in the multi
tude of thy mighty men " : — " when it is my desire I
will chastise them " : — " therefore shall a tumult arise
among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be
spoiled " (Hos. x. 1 4). " Be not deceived ; God is not
mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he
also reap " (Gal. vi. 7).
2. The results for man as an organic whole.
Whether humanity came into existence as a single
individual, or as one pair or as several pairs of indi
viduals, it never was merely, it never has been, a simple
congeries or series of individuals still incomplete, though
destined one day to be completed. It was instituted as
an organism, at each stage complete in its way, though
destined gradually by a process of differentiation to
attain to a magnitude, both of members and functions,
of which at present no adequate conception can be
formed. Like other organisms, too, humanity has its
indwelling idea, which was meant to control the process
of differentiation, and at last to find full realisation.
As such it has a continuous life, both successive and
contemporaneous ; that is, life is transmitted from
generation to generation ; we inherit from those who

EFFECT OF SIN ON MAN ORGANICALLY 1 55
go before us : and life is transmitted more or less
from member to member of the organism as it exists
at any particular moment.
Now the human race was as really an organism
when there was but one pair as it is now when the
number of pairs cannot be counted. It might be com
pared at the beginning to the oak-tree just peeping
above the ground with its two cotyledons or seed-leaves ;
at the present it resembles the same tree after it has
grown and weathered the storms of centuries. In a
sense, the entire oak was in the seed, still more in the
seed-leaves ; still more in these seed-leaves and the
plumule or growing point of the stem, which could be
seen just between the cotyledons. The successive parts
do not make the oak : the oak is before and determines
the parts ; so, too, vital transmission is not merely suc
cessive, but also contemporaneous between the several
parts of the oak as they are evolved or developed.
Regarded from this point of view, let me remark in
passing, a great truth will be seen to underlie the idea
of the federal headship of Adam. If he be regarded as a
mere representative, in the ordinary external sense, — even
though the fact of his having been put in that position,
as ordinarily described, could be established, — then that
his descendants, who were not even consulted as to his
appointment, still less took an active part in it, should
be held in any way responsible for his conduct, may
well seem unjust. But if he were as truly the whole of
humanity as the seedling oak is the whole of the oak,
then that his conduct should determine to a very large
extent the course of the subsequent expansion and

156 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
differentiation of the organism may be seen to be
necessary and inevitable. To quarrel with transmission
of life, whether successively or contemporaneously, is to
quarrel with the constitution of the race — is to wish the
human race, in other words, to be stripped of its
humanity. Solidarity is a phase of this corporate or
organic or vital unity of the members of the human race.
This is the reason why, in dealing with the results
of sin, a beginning has to be made with the race
rather than with individuals. The organism was
affected before the individuals which are its successive
differentiations and products were affected. This is
the true meaning of original sin and of descriptions of
mankind as a massa perditionis.
Humanity as an organism received an injury from
sin. It received that injury at its very beginning. At
the moment when, to speak in the language of botany,
the seed began to germinate — when, on the one side,
the stem and seed-leaves made their appearance, whilst,
on the other, the root was shooting down into the soil
from which it was to draw its energy, disease entered,
and it was smitten with death because of sin. The
exact nature of the effect produced on the vital proto
plasm of humanity, on its constitutive, elementary
tissues, no one can describe. But just as any young
plant soon shows by the manner of its growth and
development whether it is healthy or not, so humanity
soon showed that, as Paul says, " by one man sin entered
into the world, and death by sin, and so death (death,
i.e. in its beginning, death considered as a process cul
minating in what we know as death) passed upon all

ORIGINAL SIN I 57
men " ; — adding what cannot, of course, be predicated
of any member of the vegetable or animal world, but
only of man — " for that all have sinned" (Rom. v. 12).
History bears one long testimony to the disordered
condition of the human organism. The members have
been divided and opposed, instead of harmoniously co
operating; both individuals and minor communities
have regarded their separate and corporate good as
incompatible ; they have therefore waged war on each
other well-nigh without cessation, either in thought or
purpose, or word or act ; and nothing has been, as a
rule, further from their thoughts than the great prin
ciple laid down by Christianity, that every man should
care for every other man's good.
The constitution thus in some way saddled, if not
with positive disease, yet with a liability or tendency
thereto, which a wrong environment or a wrong relation
to a right environment might evoke into actuality, was
transmitted to the members of the race, as they came
into existence, in varying ways and proportions. This
was true both positively and negatively. Each man,
each community, inherited a nature liable to the weak
nesses and faults of its special characteristics; and
everywhere men developed the vices of their virtues,
the weaknesses of their strengths, the shadows of their
lights, the hates of their loves. Nowhere did individuals
or communities arise who perfectly realised the idea —
or the particular differentiation of the idea — which they
were meant to embody. Nay more, as was already
indicated, they have very largely waged against each
other wars of extermination : and even where there

158 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
has been no open conflict, selfishness has been more or
less the rule of their inner and outer behaviour.
3. Results for individuals.
These results show themselves in three directions —
first, in the very constitution or nature ; secondly, in
the functions and activities ; and thirdly, in the state
of the feelings.
As is directly involved in what has just been ad
vanced with regard to the whole, individual members
of the race come into existence more or less disordered.
Some, as we know, are disordered to the point of com
plete imbecility or idiocy; others again to that of
insanity. Most — may we not say all ? — men are
weaker, as far, certainly, as their higher nature goes —
with which we are here specially concerned — than they
ought to be; and there is more or less of disharmony
between the body or flesh and the spirit. Rarely do we
meet with persons in whom the various natural powers
can be said to be fittingly blended. If there is strength
and beauty and capacity at one point, there is undue
weakness and incapacity at another. In one, the affec
tions are strong, and the intellect disproportionately
feeble ; in another, the reverse : in one, the emotions
and feelings are easily roused and touched, whilst
another is stolid and insensitive. One man is born
with a nature that at the least provocation or stimulus
bursts out into passions that like a flood break through
the restraining banks and overflow the whole life ; whilst
another goes quietly and steadily on his way, neither
tempted to evil nor stimulated to good by surroundings
apparently most fitted to do both.

EVIL RESULTS FOR INDIVIDUALS 1 59
The very seat of life has been more or less affected
by sin ; as, indeed, if man is a unity, could not but be
the case. Not merely into the body, but into the soul ;
yea, also, into that centre where both meet, evil has
forced an entrance, though no man can ever be said to
be affected by it in exactly the same way or to the
same degree as another. For individuality is every
where prevalent.
The various functions and activities of the individual
have accordingly suffered in a greater or less degree.
Man suffers from a corruptio totius naturcc, though not
from a tota corruptio totius natures, as has often been
taught ; so that not one of his activities can be said
to be perfect either in degree or mode.
He neither loves nor hates, trusts nor distrusts, respects
and reverences nor despises and contemns, with per
fect wisdom and truth. Even his intellect, which is
commonly supposed to have been either not at all or
very little impaired, works imperfectly. Instead of
being the light to the whole man, which cannot be put
under a bushel or extinguished, showing him things as
they are, it either misleads him, or fails him, or becomes
darkness. Instead of guiding, it is guided by likes
and dislikes, by desires and passions, by loves and
hates. It takes error for truth, and truth for error ;
ugliness for beauty, beauty for ugliness ; right for
wrong, wrong for right. The various intellectual
activities are seldom well balanced : — in one the ima
gination ; in a second this and that form of the judg
ment or the reasoning power; in a third the percep
tive and observative capacity ; in a fourth the senses ;

l6o THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
and so on, are strong where they should be weak, or
weak where they should be strong; not to mention
that they may be marked by defects of a more positive
character. Nor is the body, in all its members, as it should be,
the plastic organ for carrying out the behests of the
mind. Instead of that, it needs constant discipline to
fit it to do, even in moderate measure, the work which
it was designed to accomplish ; and too frequently it is
such that the cry is extorted, " O wretched man that I
am, who shall deliver me from this body of death ? "
4. Man's life is marked by disturbance of feeling.
Man's bodily and mental activities were intended to
be accompanied or followed by satisfaction and pleasure,
varying in intensity, but always stimulating to further
activity. Instead of this, unrest, unhappiness, dissatis
faction, misery, in various forms and degrees, are the
common lot of our race. Human life may not be as dark
and sad a thing as the pessimist represents; it can rarely,
if ever, be said to be not worth living at all : but it is
equally far removed from the abiding, constant bright
ness, peace, and gladness of which the optimist dreams.
As far as the majority of the human race is concerned,
there can be no doubt that suffering, more or less keen,
is their constant lot ; and if some men pass over the
stage of the world under a nearly unclouded sky, most
have to traverse it whilst darkened by storm-clouds.
Not only, however, are the feelings arising out of
man's own life of the same character as that life itself,
namely, disordered, disharmonious, unhealthy; but he
has in addition to share the pain and grief which his

PAINFUL FEELINGS DUE TO SIN l6l
conduct causes God — share it, namely, whether he will
or no.
This is in strict conformity with the constitution of
the system to which we belong. Let us approach the
position from the side of humanity. Where the vital
relation between man and man is close, it is impossible
for one to do a wrong or cause a pain to another with
out being himself in turn more or less affected by the
effect which he has produced. I am not now referring
to pain or injury which may be the result of conscious
reaction on the part of the one who is injured or pained ;
nor do I mean the action of conscience: — no, it is
something still more organic and direct. It is rooted
in the relation which Paul had in view when he wrote,
" If one member suffer, all the members suffer." Men
may and do suffer undeservedly from their fellow-
members in this manner; but they suffer also deser
vedly : and be that as it may, it is a form of suffering
far more real and common than most of us dream.
Now this may be transferred, with obvious limitations,
to God.If the relation between Him and mankind be that
expressed in the words, " in Him we live and move
and have our being," and presupposed in this discus
sion, it is clearly inevitable that if His life is disturbed
by our sin, such disturbance will organically, vitally
react on the life of sinners. As the electrical storms
in the surface of the sun, concerning which we read,
make themselves felt by waves and wavelets through
the ether till they reach our own world, and may
possibly affect so minute an object as the needle of a
ii

1 62 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
compass ; so if the heart of God is troubled and clouded,
the human soul cannot but suffer along with it. Were
God subject to merely natural law, the shadow would
be cast equally into every soul in the universe, however
pure and loyal ; but inasmuch as God has the control
of this influence, it naturally falls chiefly on those by
whom it is caused, and chills or darkens them according
to the degree of their responsibility.
This and the kindred influence of the human race
are doubtless the source of much of the uneasiness and
restlessness, of the sense of vacuity and lack, of the
gnawing and yearning to which the more highly strung
souls are exposed, and which expresses itself in the sad
ness and melancholy that so often characterise the
legends and songs of the people, and in the minor key
to which the tunes of the latter are so often set. The
energy which flows into us from the divine fountainhead,
as well as from our fellow-men, holds, as it were, in solu
tion these sadder elements ; and though the perception
of them may differ in keenness in different men,— a
difference due to various causes, partly hereditary and
constitutional, partly voluntary, — they cannot but have
a disturbing effect on the depths of the life.
This, too, is surely an abnormal relation for God to
hold to His creatures, especially if it be true of Him
that " He doth not afflict willingly " ; and that it is not
merely a privilege, but a duty, to taste of the goodness
of the Lord, and always to rejoice in Him.
Finally, there are the pains which we ascribe to
conscience. It is on these that theologians and preachers are wont

CONSCIENCE AND SIN 1 63
chiefly to concentrate attention ; and not altogether
without reason. Paul refers to them as experienced
by Gentiles, in the words : " They show the work of
the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing
witness therewith, and their thoughts one with another
accusing or else excusing them" (Rom. ii. 15). Con
firmatory sayings may also be quoted from ethnic
writings. The Greek tragedians, particularly ^Eschylus,
recognise a guilty conscience as the work of Deity —
" For Jove doth teach men wisdom, sternly wins
To virtue by tutoring of their sins ;
Yea, drops of torturing recollection chill
The sleepers : 'gainst man's rebellious will
Jove works the wise remorse :
Dread powers, on awful seats enthroned, compel
Our hearts with gracious force." x
So again —
' ' 'Tis robber robbed, and slayer slain ; for, though
Ofttimes it lag, with measured blow for blow
Vengeance prevaileth
While great Jove lives. Who breaks the close-linked woe
Which Heaven entaileth ? " 2
One may doubt, indeed, whether what we call
" pangs of conscience " are a common phenomenon of
heathenism ; at all events, in the form in which they
occur in Christendom. They are rather a product of
Christianity ; and at their purest and intensest are ex
perienced solely by Christian believers. What troubled
Gentiles was fear of the fruits or penalties of sin ; it was
rather the painful consequences than the wrong of sin
that oppressed them. And even the latter is far more
1 Tyler, Theology of the Greek Poets, p. 236.
2 Ibid. p. 239.

164 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
common and intense in Christendom than in heathen
dom. For moral and religious degradation is accom
panied with ever-increasing insensibility, not less to the
terrors of the law than to the law itself.
" How will it fare shouldst thou impress on me
That certainly an Eye is over all
And each, to make the minute's deed, word, thought,
As worthy of reward or punishment ?
Shall I permit my sense an Eye-viewed shame,
Broad daylight perpetration — so to speak —
I had not dared to breathe within the Ear,
With black night's help about me ? "
R. Browning, "Ferishtah" — Plot Culture.

CHAPTER X
The Rectification of the Abnormal Rela
tions between God and Man
I. THE position.
A brief review of the ground thus far traversed will
form a bridge to the constructive presentation of the
reconciling work of Christ, which is the main theme of
this work.
The presuppositions with which I started — presup
positions grounded in the cosmology of which the chief
features were roughly sketched — were these, first, that
a twofold relation of God, personal and vital (bio-
dynamic), conditions man's normal growth, develop
ment, activity, state : second, that this twofold divine
relation is in turn conditioned by man's personal
relation to God : third, that if man's personal relation
is normal, namely, one of reverence, trust, love, appro
priate in degree to the stage of his development, God
is able to respond, personally, with complacence and love;
vitally, with supplies of His gracious energy, propor
tionate in quantity and quality to human needs : fourth,
that man's personal relation to God is, and has been
from almost the very beginning, in varying and too
often ever-increasing degrees, abnormal, that is, one of

1 66 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
irreverence, distrust and alienation, disservice, disorder-
liness, yea, even rebellion and hostility : fifth, that the
result of this abnormal relation has been of moral
necessity divine condemnation, resentment, anger ; that
in the divine relations to man the aspect of the Divine
Fatherhood, known as rectoral or legal, has had pre
ponderance over that which we style love ; that neces
sity has been imposed on God of punishing by de
privation and positive infliction ; that disorder has been
produced in the world ; that disappointment and sorrow
have been caused to the divine heart : and sixth, that
the results for men have been disease of nature and en-
feeblement of constitution, primarily generic, then indi
vidual; disordered functions, wrong activities; affections,
perverse either in quality or quantity ; and pains and
miseries due to their own disordered state, to conscience,
and to the reaction of the troubled feelings of God.
It is quite plain that as the evils under which men,
nature, and even God Himself suffers are due to the
abnormal relation between man and God and God and
man, there can be no removal of those evils till the
abnormal relation in question has been rectified ; in
other words, till God and man have been reconciled —
God to man and man to God. Inasmuch, however, as
the wrong relation originated on the human side, it
surely follows that the human relation must first be
rectified. If it were right for God to make His rela
tions to man conditional on man's response, it must
be consistent, nay necessary, for God to make the
renewal of relations dependent on man's rectifying
action. The normal relations depended on the fulfil-

REVIEW OF THE GROUND TRAVERSED 1 67
ment of certain conditions by man ; the abnormal
relations resulted from certain conduct of man : the
cessation of the abnormal relations and the resumption
of normal relations, with, of course, the corresponding
results, depended, therefore, on the fulfilment of certain
conditions by man.
II. Three views have been taken of the rectification
now under consideration.
Whilst all are agreed that the relation of man to
God needs to be rectified, considerable differences pre
vail with regard to the question of the divine relation
to man. 1. There are those who altogether deny that in any
real sense God needs to be reconciled to man. The
idea is scouted as unworthy of Him. At the present
moment the majority of those who are regarded or
regard themselves as " broad " probably range them
selves on this side.
The objections raised to it are traceable — as it
seems to me — largely or chiefly to a false conception
of the unchangeableness of God, with regard to which
a word or two in passing may not be out of place.
Protestant theology, to leave that of the Greek and
Romish Churches out of consideration, has strangely
enough, on the one hand, laid the strongest emphasis
on the unchangeableness of God ; whilst, on the other
hand, it has also made a strong point of the objective
character of the atoning work of Christ, i.e. of its
having had not merely a manward or subjective, but
also a Godward or objective, effect. Yet this second
effect of the atonement prinid facie conflicts with the

1 68 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
absolute unchangeableness ascribed to the divine nature,
mind, purpose, will. This is a curious problem of
ecclesiastical psychology.
The inconsistency was veiled by the surreptitious
substitution of the divine law for the personality of
God : — a substitution carried out by innumerable
thinkers in all good faith ; and though unconsciously,
as dexterously as if the keenest intellect had purposely
devoted all its subtlety to the object.
By some, the divine law was hypostatised as an
" eternal law of righteousness," to which God, man,
and all beings alike must bow; by others, the relation
between God and the law was left in a certain
chiaroscuro, which rendered it possible for theologians,
and particularly preachers, to pass from the one to
the other, from the personal to the legal and the legal
to the personal, in other words, from that which
admitted of change to that which bore on its very
front the stamp of invariability, as the exigencies of
argument or practice required.
Unchangeableness has in recent days with equal
skill — skill which may be allowed to be unconsciously
exercised — been predicated of an aspect of the divine
life and character which impresses the mind as of itself
deserving the predicate, and which converts its apparent
harshness into infinite graciousness.
I refer to the divine love, which we are assured is
essentially unchangeable. God loves from eternity to
eternity, because He is love. He can do no other
than love. Whatever else may change in God, His
love knows no change. Men may change towards

DIVINE UNCHANGEABLENESS 1 69
Him, but His love towards them remains unchanged.
So far as change enters into the relations between
God and men, it is on the side of men. Their recog
nition, their sense, their experience, their enjoyment
of divine love may vary : but not divine love itself.
But love is the very heart and soul of a normal
personal relation. How, then, can it be right to speak
as if God could have held an abnormal personal rela
tion which needed to be changed?
2. The most common view has been, and probably
still is, that the abnormal relation under consideration
can be rectified by the method known as legal or
forensic. The existing relation of God to man, it will be
remembered I said, may be described as legal, judicial,
rectoral. The concession that such is the fact seems
of necessity to involve the further concession that the
mode of rectification must also be legal, judicial, rectoral,
or, to use another term, forensic.
But to insist on this is to forget that the very
relation just referred to is itself abnormal, and one of
the evil results of sin. How can an abnormal rela
tion be rectified by means corresponding to and
determined by that abnormal relation ? Or to put
the matter more concretely, that God should have to
condemn men, to be angry with them, to punish them
by deprivation and infliction, is an evil for God, is
abnormal. For surely God created man not to the
end that He might hold such a relation to him,
but one of complacency and love. It is therefore
the reverse of the relation He designed. Will this

170 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
relation be rectified by being continued! or by the
substitution of an innocent or perfectly righteous per
son for those who are really guilty ? If man endure
the fruit of his own sin, the abnormal relation of God
to him is perpetuated. If the Son of God endure
judicially the penalty for him, God takes up an
abnormal relation to the Son of God. Is this the
way to rectify the abnormal divine relation to man?
Would it thereby actually be rectified ? In one sense,
indeed, whilst the relation of God to man just referred
to may be said to be abnormal in another respect it may
rightly be designated normal. Considered in the light
of man's conduct, it is just and righteous. God would,
in fact, have acted unjustly, unrighteously, if His relation
to man had been the same under sin as it would have
been apart from sin. This righteousness of the divine
relation to man under sin is one of the things that
have led so many to conceive that, by transferring the
effects of the relation to a substitute or representative,
God would remain righteous, and yet man would be
freed from condemnation and punishment. But it was
not seen that two opposed relations of God may be
equally righteous according to the conduct of those to
whom He is related. To condemn the man who sins
is to act righteously ; to love the same man when he
turns from sin is also to act righteously : but whereas
the former is a relationship opposed to the purpose and
mind of God, that is, abnormal, the latter is in full
accord with the divine mind and purpose, that is, normal.
The view of the work of Christ too frequently set
forth has involved a double abnormality, — first, that

FORENSIC VIEW OF RECTIFICATION 171
of treating one as a sinner who knew no sin ; and
second, that of treating those as not being sinners who
were sinners. That God's relation to a man who sins
should be different from His relation to the same man
if he had not sinned, though the difference involves
abnormality for God, all will confess who are not
hindered by the idea of immutability ; but the two
forms of abnormality just referred to have been ever
felt, of late increasingly, to be saddled in addition with
unreality, if not also with injustice.
It is pleaded, indeed, that to characterise a legal
relation ipso facto as an evil result of an abnormal per
sonal or ethical relation, is to beg the question ; and
that there is such a thing as a rectoral, governmental,
legal relation between God and man which is perfectly
normal in its kind ; which is maintained by the fulfil
ment of properly legal conditions on the part both of
God and man ; which can be changed by conduct that
is on an essentially legal plane ; and which, therefore,
can be re-established by the fulfilment of conditions of
an essentially legal nature.
That this is ordinarily the case between men and
men, especially between human rulers or authorities,
and those who are subject to them, may be freely
granted. Whether it be a truly ethical, much more an
ideal, relation, is another question ; but that it is an
actual relation, nay more, that it is perhaps in most
cases and increasingly the only possible relation, cannot
be questioned. But is it permissible to apply the
terms employed to God and man ? This is the
question. It may be allowed that there is a stage in

172 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
the life both of individuals, of nations, and of the race
when God is to them, perhaps must be to them, merely
the great, glorious, righteous ruler, and when the only
real relation possible to them is one of — shall I say? —
political loyalty, the loyalty of well-disposed subjects
to a monarch who is admired for his abilities, and
reverenced and trusted for his moral qualities. This
would seem to have been, at all events, very much the
attitude of the best part of the Israelites after their
really national life began. They had not attained to a
strictly individual ethical relation to God, save so far
and as often as one and the other was elected for
some extraordinary duty or position. Their relation
resembled that of dutiful subjects to an earthly mon
arch, none of whom expect to enter into personal
intercourse with the ruler, most of whom indeed shrink
from it, but any one of whom may at any time be
summoned for an audience or intrusted with some
special mission. It was perfectly natural, nay, in a
sense normal, for men at such a stage of development,
on the one hand, to regard external works performed
with goodwill and faithfulness as acceptable services,
ensuring the favour of God ; and no less for God to
treat such men as His loyal subjects : on the other
hand, in the case of transgression, to regard certain
appointed performances or sacrifices, if offered with
confession of fault, penitence, and resolves to be
obedient, as adequate grounds of restoration to favour ;
and no less for God to restore such men to favour on
these grounds. The relation in question, however,
when it has become abnormal, as also the means of

ANALOGY OF HUMAN RELATIONS 1 73
rectification, though loosely describable as legal, are not
such in the ordinary theological sense.
Assuming, however, the relation of Israel to Jehovah
to have been, as stated, essentially one of political
loyalty ; and granting that it was the highest attainable
by them ; that the sacrificial system of Israel provided
those who offered in good faith the prescribed sacrifices
and offerings, with a means of atonement — a really valid
means — for sins committed at that stage ; and that,
accordingly, an abnormal relation could be rectified by
such means ; it does not follow that all this was merely
legal, still less that the atonement of Christ is on the
legal plane, because the system in question, as the New
Testament teaches, pointed forward to, and finds its
fulfilment in, Christ and His sacrifice.
If the sacrificial system of the Old Covenant and the
sacrifice of Christ have both to be interpreted forensic-
all}', the relation of the latter to the former would be
analogous to that, say, which the sacrifice of an ox held
to that of a pigeon, or the sacrifice of a first-born son
to that of the most precious animal. In other words,
in Christ's sacrifice all other sacrifices would culminate.
No more precious offering could possibly be offered.
Because of His personal nature and dignity, its value
might well be described as infinite. The difference,
however, between the sacrifice of Christ and the Old
Testament sacrifices would, on this view, be quantita
tive, and not qualitative. Its significance, also, would
be very much the same as that of human sacrifices
generally in relation to animal sacrifices.
The sacrifices of the Old Testament, however, were

174 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
not of this kind. When offered in the spirit and
manner that constituted an essential element of their
acceptableness, i.e. of their fitness to rectify the rela
tions that sin had disordered, they were truly ethical
or personal.
They were not, indeed, ethical at the highest stage ;
but they were such at an early and elementary stage.
They expressed a genuine sense of departure from
duties towards the rightful Lord of Israel. The duties,
though not purely outward, were not of a deeply inward
kind ; the sins accordingly had the same character.
As was the sense of sin, so were the feelings with which
the rectifying ceremonies were observed and sacrifices
offered. Sacrifices, offerings, rites, ceremonies which
altogether lacked truly ethical content were an abom
ination ; and those who were ready to seek atone
ment by such means were constantly tempted to avoid
really doing and offering what they professed to be
doing and offering. Hence, too, an offering of the
slightest intrinsic value might transcend in effective
ness for its purpose one of the greatest intrinsic
value. As a matter of fact, the logical effect of estimating the
atoning work of Christ, from the point of view just
described, was to reduce it to the level of sacrifices that
were an abomination to God ; though the real purport
and drift of the procedure was concealed from view,
partly by the personality of the sacrifice, and partly by
elements of a totally different nature introduced at a
secondary point. Its significance as the fulfilment of the
sacrifices of the Old Testament has been too often found,

QUANTITATIVE ESTIMATE OF CHRIST S SACRIFICE 1 75
not in its ethical content, but in the infinitely superior
value of Him who was offered up ; not in the fact that
He could say, " I am come to do Thy will," but that He
who died was the Son of God, and as such a person of
transcendent majesty and excellence. The worth of His
humiliation and obedience was found in the dignity of His
person. In other words, as was previously remarked, the
differentia of His work was quantitative, not qualitative.
3. The third view is that which may be designated
personal. With few exceptions theologians have shrunk from
an express recognition of the personal relation of the
work of Christ, though really involved in terms
like propitiated, satisfied, and so forth, employed to
describe it. The idea has prevailed, first of all, that to
suppose God to be personally affected, moved, dis
turbed by human sin was unworthy of Him, contrary to
His dignity ; still more to represent Him as personally
needing the fulfilment of conditions ere He would or
could lay aside His resentment. This latter notion in
particular was, and is still, denounced as essentially
heathenish, though it is to all appearance sanctioned
by no less an authority than the Apostle John when
he writes : " Herein is love, not that we loved God, but
that he loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitia
tion (ikao-fio?) for our sins " (1 John iv. 10). To be
influenced by " personal " considerations, we are assured,
is to be guilty of falling below the level of a true man ;
how much more must it be unworthy of God ! Hence
the position taken up that " personal claims, if they are
exclusively personal, may be waived." " If this theory

176 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
of sin and its punishment were complete," the theory,
namely, that " sin is of the nature of a personal offence
against the majesty of God, and that punishment is
the expression of God's just resentment," it is urged,
" God would be free to inflict or remit punishment at
His own good pleasure"; consequently reconciliation
could take place without the fulfilment of any con
ditions. If God chose, He could overlook men's sin ;
that is, the relation they hold to Him and His relation
to them could become normal without any conditions.
No greater mistake could be made. Indeed, Dr. Dale,
from whom I have quoted,1 shortly after seriously
modifies, even if he do not surrender, the position, when
he acknowledges that " God has personal claims on our
reverence and obedience," adding, however, curiously
enough, " but the phrase is ambiguous."
In point of fact, however, to put the matter at issue
in a nutshell, this legal relation of God to man, being
one of the evil effects of a prior cause, namely, the
abnormal personal relation of man to God, cannot be
changed by any similar relation or procedure. The
personal relation was changed from normal to ab
normal by ethical or personal conduct; and if it is
to be changed from abnormal to normal, it must be
as the result of ethical or personal conduct. Properly
legal relations can be constituted or dissolved or modi
fied by properly legal influences or conduct ; but in
this case, as above observed, these legal relations are
1 See his Atonement, pp. 380 ff. Cf. also Park's Atonement, etc., pp. 443,
447, 438; Crawford's Atonement, p. 176; the Roman Catholic Dorholt's
Lehre von der Genugihuung Christi, 1891, pp. 236 ff.

TRUTH IN THE FORENSIC CONCEPTION 1 77
among the abnormal relations that have to be set
aside. 4. The true element in the legal or forensic con
ception. It would appear, then, that the rectification of the
abnormal relation of God to man requires the fulfilment
of properly personal or ethical conditions.
But is not something more to be said for the view of
the subject which has held so large and so influential a
place in the thought and life of the Christian Church ?
Let it be repeated, that the legal relation of God to
man, though abnormal, is righteous and just, nay more, is
personally, that is ethically, necessary. God would not
have acted as it befitted the Divine Father to act, rela
tively either to Himself or man, had He not let man see
Him as the representative of law and experience the pun
ishment which is due to sin. But the part thus imposed
on God involves, notwithstanding, a kind of misrepre
sentation of God : God, in fact, misrepresents Himself,
so to speak, in the act of taking the part on Himself.
And yet had He not taken it upon Himself, He would
not merely, in a sense, have misrepresented Himself;
but would have been chargeable with real inconsistency.
Must not the rectification have regard also to this
divine abnormality? Must not the conditions take
into account the legal relation which God has had to
hold ; — do so, that is, directly, manifestly, specifically ?
Will it be enough simply to abolish the relation by the
fulfilment of conditions which have no express affinity
with or bearing on the relation abolished ? In other
words, must not the abnormal relationship of God be

178 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
justified, and its specific idea and significance be taken
up into the method of rectification ? Must not, there
fore, the conditions fulfilled, whilst essentially personal
or ethical, also include and recognise the properly legal
element in some form or other ? It would seem fitting,
not to say necessary, that the relation of God to the
cosmos as the living, abiding originator, upholder, and
maintainer of its order, in other words, His legislative,,
His rectoral, His legal relation, should find specific
recognition in the process by which the disturbed rela
tions are rectified. The only alternative would be to
conceive of man as either so ignorant of the meaning-
of his conduct, or so completely the playball, on the
one hand, of his natural needs, impulses, and desires,
and, on the other hand, of circumstances, that he cannot
be treated as in any true sense free and accountable.
But against any such conception the moral and reli
gious history of humanity is one long and marvellously
varied protest.
As a matter of fact, we shall find further on that
the recognition of the law element is interwoven with
and taken up into the ethical or personal rectification
of relations ; for in its inmost essence that element is
itself essentially personal and ethical, though theology,
following the lead of fallen human nature, has exter
nalised it, that is, has robbed law of the character
given it by the Apostle Paul when he speaks of it " as
holy, and righteous, and good ; yea, spiritual and unto.
life, though through sin it is unto death " (Rom. vii.).

CHAPTER XI
The Conditions of the Rectification of the
Abnormal Relations between God and
Man
I. The first condition to be fulfilled is that -man con
demn and confess his sin from the point of view of God.
This condition holds good as between offending and
offended men.
If a normal personal relation previously existing
between two men who have been estranged by the
misconduct of the one is to be re-established, the first
requirement is that the misconduct shall be recognised
as such by him who is chargeable with it. If a relation
has been changed because of a certain behaviour, either
the change is an offence or the behaviour is an offence.
To resume the relation that existed prior to the change,
before the offence is confessed to be an offence, is prac
tically to pronounce the change unjustified ; that is, to
pronounce the offence to be no offence. Men do some
times resume personal relations in a certain way, even
when this has not taken place; but either they are
relations of a kind that need not have been disturbed, or
which men do not care to allow to be disturbed, or the
resumption violates the higher laws of the moral cosmos.
But it is further also necessary, even among men,
179

180 the reconciliation of god and man
that an offender should look at his sin from the point
of view of the offended one. This will be allowed, at
all events, as far as they themselves are concerned, by
all really right-minded men. In proportion as an
offended man is a true man, in that proportion does
he expect an offender to be, at the very least, will
ing to accept his estimate of the conduct in question.
For an offender to have regard exclusively to his own
estimate is instinctively condemned as unsatisfactory.
Not less is this felt by an offender, in proportion as he
is what he should be.
There are, of course, offended men who are content
with less ; — any, yea the most, superficial confession of
having done wrong serves their purpose. But this is
either because their own moral character is superficial
and their moral judgments low, or because they are
chiefly concerned about certain inconveniences or dis
advantages that attend the state of alienation or enmity;
i.e. because the higher aspects of the personal life are
subordinated to the lower.
There are also offended men whose estimate of
offences is exaggerated ; whose amour propre, or sensi
tiveness, or self-importance, causes them to lay undue
stress on everything that affects themselves, whether
for good or evil. In such cases an offender would
need to be untrue to himself ere he could condemn
his sin to the satisfaction of the man offended, or else
to pretend to feel what he did not feel. As either
alternative would be sin, he must be content to leave
things as they are. But this rather illustrates and
confirms than militates against the principle, which is,

confession of sin the starting-point 181
first, that ere old relations are re-established, whoso sins
against another shall confess his sin to be sin ; and
secondly, shall be ready and try to judge it from the
point of view of the one sinned against. The principle
itself is not touched by defects in its application due to
the weakness, or ignorance, or perversity, or indifference
of human nature.
All this is most emphatically true of the relation
between God and man.
The starting-point in the restoration of right rela
tions is confession of sin : — " I have sinned and done
evil in thy sight." We may fail — men actually do
fail — for opposite reasons. First, because they conceive
God to be indifferent to their sins. Of what concern
can our personal relation be to God ? it is asked. Can
it matter any more to Him than the feelings of a fly
buzzing about our room matters to us? If the fly
were capable of personal feelings towards us, and we
of the same towards it, and if we could both know the
fact, the illustration would hold good ; otherwise it is
meaningless. Christianity rests on the assumption
that our personal relation is of significance to God.
We fail also — men often actually fail — because they will
not, or do not think of their conduct as really sinful ; —
on the contrary, they excuse it ; or they justify it ; or
they deny that it has any moral quality.
Here, however, a beginning must be made, or we
implicitly accuse God of hardness and unrighteousness ;
nay more, as John says : " If we say we have no sin, we
make Him a liar, and the truth is not in us." We thus
make reconciliation more difficult, instead of more easy.

1 82 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
It is not enough, however, simply to recognise
conduct as sinful, the further step must be taken of
looking at sin from God's side, in God's light. We
must take God's part against ourselves ; we must put
ourselves in His place. " Against Thee, Thee only have
I sinned and done this evil in Thy sight," was the con
fession of David when he came to himself. God
became his standard. In a general sort of way most
men who believe in God at all confess that they have
sinned ; but they do not dream of endeavouring to
form God's estimate of their sin. Yet how can a true
and thorough restoration be possible until this takes
place ? One of the most frequent difficulties in the
way of men's return to God, namely, their keen sense
of the evils under which either they or others suffer,
has its roots here. They form their own estimate of
sin, — a low human estimate, — and they fail to see a
just proportion between the sin and the punishment.
As soon, however, as a man's eyes are opened ; or
rather, as soon as he changes his point of vision, the
scene also changes, and he humbles himself beneath
the mighty hand. Sometimes the transformation is
wonderful. But until it has taken place, any new
unexpected development of sin's results, or phase of its
punishment, may suddenly convert the beginning of
self-condemnation into self-justification ; the beginning
of confession of sin into a reproach or complaint of
injured innocence.
This does not mean that every man's view of sin
shall be identical. Men are not identical to God;
their sin and its sinfulness vary in themselves, and

SIN TO BE JUDGED IN GOD's LIGHT 1 83
therefore God's estimate of them varies. Each man is
himself, and it is our individual sin and sinfulness that
we are to confess. Theologians and others have been
too much in the habit of estimating sin in the abstract,
or sin, if one may so say, in its ideal essence ; and
identifying every sinner with a sinner at his blackest
vilest, lowest. They have spoken as if all sinners
should confess sin in this sense. Yet there was truth in
the exaggeration, — truth which we must seek carefully
to conserve. Sin in its very beginning has for the law
and goal of its nature, sin at its worst, sin at its con
summation. A sinful man has entered on a course of
conduct and development which tends to a goal, and that
goal is the utmost sin of which a human being is capable.
One may doubt whether any man is truly prepared for
restoration until he have got a glimpse of this awful
fact. But it is just this fact that God sees and esti
mates : — He beholds the full-grown plant in the seed.
At the same time, this is not to represent our actual sin
at any one point as being fully grown, fully developed
sin. God sees it as it is, — an awful potentiality ; but
a less awful actuality : and that is what we, too, are to
see, or try to see, be willing to see. As a matter of
safety it may be or seem better to err on the side of
over than underestimate, if the former be really
possible; but truth is better than either.
The idea that sin is infinite, because God against
whom we sin is infinite,1 — an idea of which great use
1 " Offensa infiniti Deiinfinitas pcenas meretur," Quenstedt in Luthardt's
Dogmatik, p. 228. ' ' Reatus ex peccatis totius humani generis ortus erat
infinitus, utpote in infinitam justitiam Dei impingens," Gerhardi, Loci

184 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
has been made in the discussions of the atoning work
of Christ, — stands in the way of what I am urging. If
God regards sin as infinite, it is clearly impossible for
us to look at it from His point of view. But this
reasoning carries us too far. If sin is infinite because
God is infinite, then, as was pointed out in a previous
connection, by parity of reasoning, everything done by
man towards God must be equally infinite — every
upward glance of adoring love, every yearning to
serve and please, must be infinite ; yea, of infinite
merit, even as the least sin is of infinite demerit.
But untenable as the position is in itself, the under
lying idea or purpose was right ; for that was to take
the judgment of God as our standard — the infallibly
true divine judgment ; instead of the fallible human
judgment. Behind this mistake lay the other mistake, that all
men are equally sinful and guilty in God's sight, and
that the least sin is in His view as heinous as the most
heinous. Yet this mistake was elsewhere rectified,
especially by means of the distinction drawn between
venial and deadly sins : a distinction which, however,
was also again withdrawn when it was affirmed that all
sins in themselves are " peccata mortalia," and not one
" veniale," save through Christ.1
Unless the condition under consideration is fulfilled,
how will it be possible for us to " justify God when He
speaketh," or to acknowledge Him " clear when He
Theol. I. iv. p. 604. So, too, Bellarmine : ' ' Peccatum est offensa infinita " ;
see Gerhard, ut supra, p. 605. Cf. Dorner, Glauhenslehre, ii. 560.
1 Cf. Luthardt, p. 166 ; and Rothe'sDogmaiik, vol. i. 290, note from Hollaz.

SIN NOT INFINITE 1 85
judgeth," as David says (Ps. Ivii. 4). Yet one day, at
all events, this will be necessary.
If sin is ever to be eradicated, this condition must
be fulfilled ; for as our own free act, either in the way
of acceptance, when hereditary bias is in question, or
of origination, in the case of our own acts, sin must
become a matter of consciousness and judgment before
it can be renounced. There is no such thing as
involuntary, unconscious, that is magical, purification.
And if we are to be really purified, the divine estimate
must be taken. This is the significance, and the
infinite consolation of that prayer of David, " Search
Thou me, O God, and know Thou my heart : try Thou
me, and know Thou my thoughts : and see Thou what
way of wickedness is in me " (Ps. cxxxix.). The Epistle
of John is largely dominated by this idea. We are
to " walk in the light " of God. " God is greater than
our heart, and knoweth all things."
In short, there can be no true rectification unless there
is at the least the genuine, conscious purpose and
effort to look at sin from the point of view of God, to
see it in His light. It may be questioned, moreover,
whether this is possible unless there is also a deep con
viction that its awfulness, both relatively to God directly,
and relatively to God and man indirectly, is something
that transcends all our power to realise : — and such a
conviction, whilst not necessarily presupposing clear
vision and deliberate estimate, does imply the kind of
insight which comes to men when the Spirit of God
begins His gracious work.
II. The second condition is that man must experience

1 86 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
sorrow and pain because of the grief and pain which he
has caused God.
Repentance is never without an element of sorrow
and pain ; but all depends on whether they relate to
ourselves or to those who have been injured and
offended. Among right-minded men it is recognised as a
principle that an offender should feel sorrow for his
offence. It is not enough that he condemn his conduct;
it is not enough that he condemn it from the point of
view of the person offended : he is expected also to feel
and exhibit grief. Indeed, it is scarcely possible for
the former to be present without the latter. Doubtless,
temperament and other natural characteristics have
something to do with the degree of the feeling that
arises in connection with the consciousness of wrong
doing ; but some feeling, or something equivalent
thereto, must be experienced.
What was remarked under the last head concerning
men's ordinary treatment of offences applies here also.
They are often too indifferent, or insensitive, or they
form too low an estimate of the significance of personal
relationships and of conduct that interferes with them,
to care very greatly about the degree of feeling offenders
may exhibit. They feel too little themselves to be very
exacting in their demands on the feeling of others.
Not always, indeed. Some are over-exacting. But
neither the one class nor the other would doubt that to
feel is the right and proper thing, if they could be got
to pronounce a careful and deliberate judgment.
Surely no one can be so hardened and dead, so

SORROW AND PAIN FOR SIN 1 87
utterly destitute of the true idea of personal relation
ship, as not to confess that for a man to be troubled
and pained at his own shortcomings and sins is better
than the reverse. At all events, to mock at it or to
regard it with carelessness is to betray the gravest
demoralisation. There are, however, two sorts of emotions of the kind
under consideration. In the one case, they refer to the
offender himself; in the other, to the person offended.
The vexation, chagrin, and pain which men experi
ence when they have committed an offence frequently
have reference to the discredit, or disgrace, or suffer
ing, or loss they have brought on themselves. That
wrong has been done they do not deny ; but the
shame and vexation which the recognised fact causes
is due to its bearing upon themselves. Sometimes,
as in the case of the prouder sort, — of those who have
national, or family, or social, or official reputation
to maintain, — it may arise at the thought of the loss of
self-respect, of their having degraded themselves, or
perhaps at the thought of having sullied the honour
of their family, or nation, or what not ? They are
ashamed of themselves for having lowered themselves,
or those whom they identify more or less closely with
themselves. It may even be due to the sense of having
fallen short of their own ideal. There is a good deal
of this in certain circles ; and it is of advantage in its
way : nay more, it is often a great safeguard against
certain forms of sin.
Some men, again, have a positive distaste, or dislike,
or aversion to certain forms of sin ; and when they fall

1 88 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
into them the said feeling turns against themselves,
instead of going out towards others. Hence ex
pressions like, " I am disgusted with myself: I loathe
myself." This may have been, in part, the meaning of
clothing oneself with sackcloth and ashes, and in other
ways rendering the person unsightly.
In other cases, again, offenders may experience
vexation, irritation at themselves for causing pain, or
loss, or injury to themselves by their folly or fault.
Such states of mind sometimes, in fact, lead to or end
in the despair which seeks an escape by means of self-
destruction. But this is not the true state of mind.
Shakespeare saw this, and saw too what it ought to
be, when he says —
' ' Duke. Then was your sin of heavier kind than his.
JULIET. I do confess it, and repent it, father.
Duke. 'Tis meet so, daughter : but lest you do repent
As that the sin hath brought you to this shame, —
Which sorrow is always toward ourselves, not Heaven :
Showing we would not spare Heaven, as we love it,
But as we stand in fear, —
Juliet. I do repent me, as it is an evil ;
And take the shame with joy."
Measure for Measure, Act II. ii.
The vexation and the sorrow must refer to that
which is inflicted on the offended one, if it is to be true,
— if it is to hold the place of a condition on which
personal relations are to be rectified. Every true man
would be still further repelled if he saw that the
offender, whilst confessing his offence, was troubled
solely on account of its effect on himself; but he
would feel that hindrances were removed if he saw that
the offender was suffering what he himself suffered, —

TWO KINDS OF SORROW FOR SIN 1 89
suffering it, too, because he himself suffered it. That
would be in true harmony with the essential nature and
law of the personal life. As Shakespeare says again —
"Wherever sorrow is, relief would be.
If you do sorrow at my grief in love
By giving love, your sorrow and my grief
Are both extermined." As You Like It, Act in. v.
It is quite possible that grief and shame referring to
ourselves, and grief and shame for the grief and shame
of the offended one, may not be clearly separated or
distinguished ; but without the latter a necessary
condition of reconciliation is unfulfilled. The truer a
man is, the more completely will he look away from
the effect of his sin on himself, — or at least try to do
so, — and bewail its effect on the person against whom
it has been committed. He will exclaim : " What does
my pain and shame matter ? I deserve them ! But
they are undeserved by him whom I have injured or
grieved ! For that I am troubled ; — it is his pain and
grief that pains and grieves me; it is for him I am
distressed ! " When he can say with Angelo —
" I am sorry that such sorrow I procure,
And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart,
That I crave death more willingly than mercy ;
'Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it,"
Measure for Measure, Act v. i.
then he has really repented, and reconciliation follows.
Not otherwise is it between man and God. We
must not only condemn our sins in this light, — which
is to take His part against ourselves ; but we must also
take upon ourselves His sorrow and dishonour — the
sorrow and dishonour we have caused Him. There is

I90 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
no other way in which the grief and pain of one who
has been unjustly treated can be removed : — it must be
taken upon the shoulders, or rather, upon the heart and
emotions, of the offender. We call it sympathy, and
sympathy it is ; but the effect of sympathy in this case
is to bear away the suffering which is shared ; — when
personal suffering because of personal wrong is thus
sympathised with or borne, both the wrong-doer and
the wrong-endurer cease to suffer : — the specifically
personal suffering which is here in question is removed,
— such sympathy becomes a sort of scapegoat.
This is altogether true with regard to God ; for
what God suffers is exclusively of a personal nature.
His life, His emotions, are affected ; not His nature, not
His constitution. In man's case injury may have been
inflicted on his very nature, as well as pain caused to
his heart. When that is the case, clearly whilst the
latter is relieved by the sympathy of which I am
speaking, the former is left untouched. None the less
is a right-minded man reconciled ; and though he may
be a lifelong sufferer through the misconduct of one to
whom he is reconciled, the personal breach is healed
for ever.
When I say that we must take upon ourselves the
divine grief and suffering, that we must grieve and
sorrow for God's grief and sorrow, I mean, of course, to
the extent of our fault. Here, as in connection with
self-condemnation, there may be a sort of exaggeration;
just as there may be the reverse. Some earnest men
have written and spoken as if they ought to endure the
very pains of hell ; sometimes, too, they have worked

SORROW PROPORTIONATE TO THE SIN 19 1
themselves, or tried to work themselves, into an anguish
almost beyond their power to bear ; they have, at all
events, had the idea that because they were not utterly
crushed, because they actually could and did bear the
shame and sorrow they felt, it could not be adequate.
Possibly not ; but possibly yes. Men have not all
grieved God equally, because they have not sinned
equally ; and it is an error to speak as if all would be
measured by one and the same standard.
The condition to which attention has been called is
in accordance with the essential nature of personal life.
We are so constituted, as has been previously remarked,
that our activities shall be accompanied or followed by
feelings of pleasure or of pain. This is true of the
inner no less than of the outward man : it is true of our
intellectual and affectional activities, no less than of
those of the body. Besides the feelings which may be
described as natural, there are others which accompany
or follow upon free actions, considered in relation to
the law of right, i.e. to the indwelling idea, which is
designed to be at once the law and goal or ideal of
life and development. These are called forth when
moral judgment is pronounced. Such feelings, quan
titatively regarded, may be more or less intense ; as to
quality, they are shame or vexation, or foreboding of
evil or despair, and the like. As remarked already,
these feelings relate to ourselves. In themselves, too,
they are legitimate enough. We are constituted so
that we must thus suffer when we violate the law of our
spiritual nature, no less than that we must correspond
ingly suffer when we violate the law of our bodily nature.

192 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
But there is another phase of our being to be con
sidered. The one just referred to may be called the
centripetal : there is also a centrifugal aspect. We are
constituted for altruism. We are meant to go out of
ourselves ; though unquestionably it is equally neces
sary for us to maintain ourselves, seeing that in neither
respect can we be what we should be without the other.
An altruism which should injure the self would clearly
soon leave no self to be altruistic : altruism of this kind
would be moral suicide. No less is self-centredness
moral suicide, for the self that goes not forth stagnates,
degenerates, dies.
The principle just laid down embraces the particular
experiences dealt with above. If a man sins against
man or God, it is right that his moral judgment should
cause him pain on his own account ; but so far as he is
designed to be altruistic, he must regard his conduct
from the side of man and God, and both judge himself,
so to speak, altruistically, and feel with regard to his sin
altruistically. His sin actually causes pain to others :
— consequently, in virtue of this altruistic aspect of his
conduct, when he pronounces judgment on it, he ought
to experience pain because of their pain, just as he feels
pain on his own account. Were a man incapable of
altruism, he might sin and feel shame and pain in pres
ence of his higher self, because he had violated the law
of his own life, without at all taking into consideration
those whom he sinned against.1 But the altruistic
element requires him to include others, and to feel
1 There is actually a good deal of this in the world. It characterises
men in dealing with classes or nationalities different from their own.

SATISFACTION FOR SIN 1 93
pain and shame on their account no less than on
his own.
As has already been hinted, the two conditions —
self-condemnation from God's point of view, and grief
for the grief of God, constitute what Scripture under
stands by repentance. It is godly judgment of our
conduct, and godly sorrow for its effect upon God.
III. The third condition is that a desire be cherished
to atone, to offer satisfaction, to make amends for the
wrong committed.
The more sincerely men condemn themselves in the
true light, and the more genuinely they enter into the
sorrow inflicted on the heart of those against whom
they have sinned, the more earnest will be their desire,
if possible, to make amends : yet the deeper will be
their conviction, or at all events the stronger their
feeling, that such compensation or satisfaction is as far
removed as possible from being a purchase of favour.
On the other hand, the truer an offended one is, the
less possible will it be for him to make compensation a
formal condition of the resumption of right personal
relations ; though, at the same time, the profounder
will be his satisfaction and the purer his joy if an
offender manifest the desire to make amends. It
cannot be demanded as a condition ; it cannot be
offered as a condition ; and yet neither the offender
nor the offended one can be in the supremest
measure content, unless there is the desire and
effort, if not the accomplishment. This is one of the
antinomies which are characteristic of the personal or
ethical life.
!3

194 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
All this holds good of human relations. But it equally
applies to the relation between man and God. We can
not purchase God's favour. If the Bible, especially the
New Testament, teaches one thing more clearly than
another, it is that the favour and love of God are His free
gift; that they are this no less to the righteous than to
the sinful ; that the sinful otherwise are without hope.
Yet it is equally clear that in some sense or other com
pensation, satisfaction, is due to God and is claimed
by God. God is rejoiced when He sees us yearn
to make amends ; but God is offended if we think to
purchase His love by anything we can do. These two
apparently contradictory things are brought together
by David in one of his Psalms, when he says, first:
" Thou delightest not in sacrifice ; else would I give it :
Thou hast no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices
of God are a broken spirit : a broken and contrite heart,
O God, Thou wilt not despise." And afterwards : " Do
good in Thy good pleasure unto Zion : build Thou the
walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt Thou delight in the
sacrifices of righteousness, in burnt offering and whole
burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon
Thine altar." x Sacrifices designed to purchase God's
favour He desires not: sacrifices offered by him
who is returning to true personal relations are His
delight. There are two ways of making amends or offering
satisfaction, or atoning (stihnen), — atoning in the sense
known to all who have a deeper and intenser conscious-
1 Ps. Ii. 16-19. How some critics can find in the antithesis between
these two verses a mark of double authorship passes my comprehension.

TWO ELEMENTS IN SATISFACTION 1 95
ness of their wrong, — namely, first, doing honour to the
law that has been violated by undergoing adequate
punishment and rendering adequate obedience ; and
second, undoing the mischief done, and doing, if possible,
greater good. These two ways constitute really one
whole, not alternatives ; they supplement, do not exclude,
each other ; though sometimes the one element may be
more prominent, sometimes the other : — that, however,
depends on the persons concerned, on the circumstances,
and on the nature of the wrong.
There can scarcely be a doubt that the desire to
atone does assume the forms just mentioned. Men
are not satisfied with self-condemnation, be it ever so
severe and true ; nor with grieving at the grief and
pain which their conduct has caused : no, they recog
nise, yea, they sometimes feel overwhelmingly, that
something more is necessary ; and that more is in
essence what has been described. For whom and for
what, or by whom and by what, it is needed or de
manded may not always be quite clear to them. Their
own conception of it, if asked, will be found to have
been determined by various causes. But as to the
need, there is no doubt; that which is highest and
deepest in them cries out for it ; feelings which
transcend, and even silence, all other considerations
compel them to demand that the atonement shall be
exacted. At the very bottom it is God whose claims are
advocated, whose part is taken, by that in us which,
whilst most truly our own, yea, our very selves, is also
most truly His and of Him. The divine energy and

I96 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
idea which constitutes us will not let its own root and
source suffer wrong unatoned.
The desire in question is as completely congruous
to the very nature of personality as are the other
conditions which were considered. As a personal
being, man is meant to be, in a secondary sense, a
creator, and therefore capable of serving and giving.
In the highest and fullest sense, this capability belongs
of course to God alone : but God made us in His
image that we might, in our measure, share this divine
privilege. To desire to serve God, to offer gifts to
Him, to make Him, as it were, richer for our existence
and life, — that is, an efflux of the deepest in us — of
our central essence. God does not intend us merely
to receive, — not even from Him. It is doubtless true,
as David says : " All things come of Thee, and of Thine
own have we given Thee : — all this store that we have
prepared to build Thee an house for Thine holy name
cometh of Thine hand, and is all Thine own " (Chron.
xxix. 1 4 f.) ; yet whilst there was first receiving, there
was secondarily giving.
This law of our constitution is not abolished by sin :
it only takes another form. The impulse of the offender
ought to be, to make up for his shortcomings and mis
doings; even as the impulse of the righteous is to
render service and to glorify the name of his God.
To aim at this is in truest harmony with the natural
dignity of man : and the manhood of man is the last
thing God ignores, or would consent to weaken.
Perverse modes of effecting the purpose aimed at
may be, and have been, adopted. So, for example,

ROOTS OF THE DESIRE TO ATONE 197
when God has been regarded as a mere exactor, or
ruler, or tyrant, and men therefore have endeavoured
to satisfy Him as such. But instead of being pleased,
God was then insulted. Such has been to a large extent,
even if not exclusively, the idea of heathen humanity.
Sacrifices and offerings were designed to have an
effect on Him similar to that which bribes and gifts
were seen to have on earthly, especially Eastern, rulers
and officials. Against this notion protest is constantly
raised in the Old Testament. The prophets condemn
sacrifices that had this purpose : they commend and
require those which were meant to be a service or
compensation of love. But the error of the heathen, the
error of Israel, and the kindred errors now observable
in Christendom do not abolish the truth, — they con
firm it.
According to the view which is commonly regarded
as orthodox in all the Churches, — Greek, Romish, Pro
testant, — the satisfaction God required could be rendered
either by the punishment of the impenitent guilty them
selves, or by the transference of the punishment due to
the guilty to a righteous representative or substitute. I
have pointed out, however, that in neither of these ways
can the abnormal relation of God to man, which is the
fountainhead of the evils that call for redemption, be
rectified. At the same time, one cannot but feel that
some true principle or other must underlie ideas which
have held almost universal sway over the minds of
men. For, as was pointed out, the heathen have taken
essentially the same view of satisfaction : and the
strongest condemnation which critics can pronounce

198 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
on the so-called orthodox doctrine is that it is not
Christian, even though it be Jewish ; in other words, to
describe it as practically heathenish. A truth does,
however, underlie it, as I have repeatedly stated. That
truth seems to me to be the one which has just been
very summarily indicated.

CHAPTER XII
Presuppositions of the Fulfilment of the
conditions of the reconciliation of god
and Man
We have seen that these conditions are essentially
personal, and are threefold : first, recognition and con
fession of sin from the point of view of God ; secondly,
grief and sorrow for the sorrow caused by sin to God ;
and thirdly, sincere willingness and desire to make
satisfaction and amends for the wrong done to God.
The question now is, How shall the fulfilment of
these conditions on the part of the human race be
brought about ? It is men who have offended : it is
men therefore who in some way or other must be
brought to confess their sin, to be truly penitent, and
to make amends.
With this statement, heterodox and orthodox alike
will agree in part, though each will in part dissent from
it. The former will agree with the demand that men
themselves shall fulfil the conditions of confession and
penitence, or, in one word, shall repent ; but they
object altogether to the idea of offering satisfaction or
making amends : the latter will agree with the condi
tions laid down, especially with the last mentioned ;
199

200 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
but strongly object to the idea of any of them being
in any sense or degree fulfilled by sinners themselves.
Eliminating the third of the conditions as unworthy
of God, the heterodox regard the other two as so
obvious and natural that anything of the nature of
special divine intervention and sacrifice seems needless,
and therefore absurd. " Of course, of course," they
exclaim ; '' men must confess and lament their sins,
as committed against God; but that lies within
their own power: it is a duty plainly devolving on
them." The orthodox, on the other hand, are so impressed
with the necessity, in particular, of the third condition,
and the impossibility of the fulfilment of any one of
the three apart from divine intervention and sacrifice,
that they will condemn the words I have used as
necessitating — if true — the conclusion that Christ lived,
suffered, and died for no clear purpose.
But heterodox and orthodox are equally mistaken.
Both alike have underestimated the significance and
difficulty of the conditions in question, even of the first
two, with the result, in the case of the former, that a
superficial view has been taken, first, of the divine atti
tude towards man and his sin ; and then, of what man
needed to do in order to recover the divine favour : in
the case of the latter, that they transferred the difficulty
to the domain of public law, and sought, by enhancing
its claims to the utmost, to demonstrate the need for
the righteousness and sufferings of one, the dignity of
whose person gave them infinite value.
The constructive exposition of the method by which

MISTAKE REGARDING CONDITIONS 201
the conditions were fulfilled must, however, establish
their necessity and exhibit their rationale.
If the principles expounded at the outset of this dis
cussion be true, it is obvious that none of the conditions
described in the last chapter can be fulfilled apart from
specific divine action — divine action ad hoc. The con
stitution of the cosmos, or rather of the theocosm,
would be violated ; in other words, a miracle, according
to the false definition of it frequently given, would be
performed, if they were fulfilled without such interven
tion. But the very supposition is contradictory and
absurd. Every created member of the great system which I
have termed the theocosm is subject to the law that its
environment must work upon it, nay, more in it, if it is
to grow, develop, and act normally; though, of course,
the fact must not be overlooked that every factor is to
some extent environment, even whilst it is itself en
vironed. In other words, action, reaction, interaction,
are conditions of the normal state of created things,
alike in their distinct and in their corporate existence.
What the whole created system is to its parts, and
what the parts are to each other, that, as I have re
peatedly pointed out, God is to the whole system, yea,
pre-eminently to the subordinate system or organism
which we term humanity, with its myriads of sub
systems down to the individual man.
God is the environment of humanity considered as a
part of nature, just as He is the environment of the
world's fauna and flora : — this is what may be termed
His immanent relation. But He is also the environ-

202 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
ment of men transcendently, and as such is related to
them both personally and vitally.
What was said with regard to the cosmic system,
namely, that it must operate as such on and in its
factors if they are to develop and live normally, holds
true of God, that too both in His immanent and
transcendent relation to men. Indeed, the function
discharged by the cosmic system may not untruly be
represented as discharged by God in His immanent
relation, seeing that it is His energy and law that
originated and are constantly evolving the cosmos. It
is surely inconceivable that the law of God's immanent
relation to man should be suspended in His trans
cendent personal and dynamic relation to men.
There is this difference, however, that whereas im
manently God, that is, through the cosmos, — with the
limitations previously laid down, God and the cosmos,
as has just been hinted, might for the present purpose
be interchanged, — works in part, though not of self-
necessitation invariably, as some think, according to
strictly natural law ; — transcendently, God and man
stand over against each other as personal independent
wholes, — within the limits, of course, set by the fact
that whilst God is self-existently independent, man has
only a derived independence, — and God works on man,
according to ethical law, unto ethical ends ; in other
words, He works in harmony with the constitution of
man, for its upbuilding and renovation.
The modification introduced by the power of self-
control conferred on man does not, however, essentially
change or nullify the law. It still holds good that on

DIVINE ACTION NECESSARY TO RECONCILIATION 203
fitting action of man's divine environment depends
man's power of fitting reaction ; in a very special sense
and measure, therefore, his power of fulfilling the con
ditions of the rectification of relations, which by his own
personal conduct have been disturbed.
Under normal circumstances, as we saw, the action
of God on men is twofold, namely, personal and bio-
dynamic or vital. The abnormal circumstances due to
sin have not affected the necessity of such twofold action,
though, as we shall see, they have seriously modified the
character of the respective modes of action. Otherwise
expressed, God must work for the reconciliation of men;
or, expressed more exactly, He must work on and in
men that they may fulfil the conditions of reconciliation,
both by the method of revelation or manifestation, and
by that of quickening and energising or potentiation.
I. Let us consider, first of all, the personal action of
God, which is necessary if men are to fulfil the condi
tions of the rectification of the abnormal relation of
God to themselves, as laid down in the previous
chapter. 1 . God Himself must bring home to the human mind
His judgment of sin ; the grief and pain caused Him by
sin, and the nature of the compensation or satisfaction
due on account of sin.
(1) Into the inner, essential, and rational necessity of
such divine action we shall best gain insight by ap
proaching the subject from the side of human practice
and experience. Concrete human analogies are here
our safest, nay more, our truest, guide. For whilst they
are no whit more anthropomorphic than the most

204 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
abstract of reasonings, they are controlled by those
ethical principles which are the deepest, the most
abiding, the most sacred, as well as the all-embracing
elements of human nature.
That God should discharge this function is in exact
accordance with human procedure. It is in an ana
logous way that human offenders are enabled, either
directly or indirectly, to fulfil the conditions of recon
ciliation between themselves and those whom they have
offended. The modes in which the end is actually
attained doubtless vary ; but means are adopted, direct
or indirect, of one kind or another, either by the persons
primarily concerned, or by society and its institutions,
to bring home to offenders the significance of their mis
conduct to those who have had to suffer from it.
Children, for example, are taught more or less
thoroughly by their parents, relatives, and teachers ;
nay, not only taught, but sometimes compelled, to feel
and realise the meaning of their conduct for others ;
and where this training has had due effect, they spon
taneously endeavour to put themselves, to a greater or
less degree, in the position of those against whom they
themselves have sinned. The rule, " put yourselves in
his place," becomes to a certain extent entwined with
consciousness. When men arrive at a riper age they are brought,
in addition, under the influence of the judgments pro
nounced and carried out in particular cases by the
authorities whose recognised function it is to ensure
that a certain class of offenders shall, as far as possible,
be forced to apply an objective standard to their con-

HOW SIN S MEANING IS BROUGHT HOME 205
duct. Public opinion, in other forms, also contributes
its share towards the same result. But perhaps the
most effective aid is, or may be, personal experience of
the endurance of wrong. When we ourselves have had
to suffer, if those who cause our suffering fulfil the con
ditions referred to, we are content ; if they fail, we suffer
all the more ; and this experience sometimes, though,
alas ! by no means always, prepares us for appreciating
the significance of offences we ourselves commit. There
is still another way in which we are enabled to enter into
the judgments and feelings of those whom we offend
or injure : — and that is when they themselves let us see
what our conduct means for and to them.
Considered, as one may say, in the abstract, this surely
is the true way ; and, whether viewed in relation to the
offender or in relation to the one who is offended, ought
to prove the most effective of all. For who should be
able, regarded objectively, to reveal what an offence
really signifies as clearly and exactly as he against
whom it has been committed ? Owing, however, to
the differences in men's temperament, constitution,
development, moral training, and so forth, the signifi
cance of acts done to them necessarily and greatly
differs. And as to the interpretation put on them by
others — that in particular is apt not only to vary, but
to be very imperfect. It may be let pass; sometimes it
may seem true ; sometimes it may even be really truer
than that of the man offended ; but this is not the rule,
and, ideally considered, ought surely never to be the
case. Considered in the abstract, too, one would imagine

206 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
that what an offended person says or does with a view
to showing the meaning of an offence would not only be
truer, but also more effectual than any other means, in
opening an offender's eyes, and preparing him for the
fulfilment of the conditions on which the realisation of
reconciliation depends.
In point of fact, however, it is often, not to say most
frequently, the least effective. As a rule, unless it be
in the relation of parents to children, — with regard to
which Elizabeth Barrett Browning is profoundly right
when she says — "A mother never is afraid
Of speaking angerly to any child,
Since love, she knows, is justified of love," —
Aurora Leigh.
and even then by no means invariably, the moment a
man sets about impressing on an offender the true
nature and bearings of his conduct, not only does he
harden himself and shut eyes and heart alike, but even
feels inclined to turn upon the offended one and treat
him as though he were committing an injustice.1
There can be no doubt, however, that the fulfilment
of the conditions of reconciliation does presuppose that
the judgment of the offended one has, either indirectly or
directly, been brought to the knowledge of the offender
— been brought home to him. But as the rightness of
that which I have thus represented as an ethical neces
sity has been and is still commonly questioned, it may
be advisable to dwell for a short time on the point.
That in itself it is right and proper for an offended
1 Cf. Cain's conduct towards God relatively to Abel.

REASON FOR CONVICTING MEN OF SIN 207
one to act as has been mentioned is surely involved in
the fact that an offender is after all a self-conscious,
self-controlled being; that the offence he commits is
his own act ; that, according to the supposition, it is
committed with the knowledge that it is wrong ; that
to ignore the act altogether, or to treat it as if it were
not wrong, is therefore in reality to fail in treating the
offender as a personal being, that is, to fail in rendering
him due respect and honour. When a man resents no
notice being taken of his good or kind acts — and who
does not ? who should not ? — still more, when a man
resents the treatment of his good acts as evil, what is the
reason ? The deepest reason, I think, is that his power
of conscious self-control, i.e. his personality, that which is
most essential to him, that which constitutes his dignity
as a man, is slighted ; the less deep reason, though
possibly the one most distinctly present to conscious
ness, is that his moral honour is touched. But if the
first reason influences him, what follows ? Surely that
not to recognise and treat his wrong acts as wrong is
equally to slight his personality, his essential dignity.
A man's deliberate, conscious acts ought to be acknow
ledged and accepted as the acts of a man, whatever be
their character and effects ; whereas to ignore them, as
by pursuing the reverse course to the one under con
sideration we should be doing, is to treat his acts as
those either of an automaton or of an imbecile, or of a
creature too childish, too thoughtless, too ignorant, or
too much under the control of prejudice or passion to
be properly accountable, i.e. to be fairly and truly
regarded as the author of his own acts. This latter is the

208 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
modern tendency. As a reaction against exaggeration
and undue severity, it may be excusable ; but it cannot
be regarded as either justifiable in itself or good. A
man needs to be accepted as he gives himself; and if
not thus accepted, he is practically insulted; — practi
cally, and in the highest sense, injustice is thus done him.
Abstractly, therefore, as was remarked, it is the duty
of an offended man to contribute his share directly, if
it be needed, towards putting an offender in a position
to fulfil the condition under examination.
The boundary line between this duty and the sin of con
demning unjustly is, however, so easily crossed that, in
the concrete, men do wisely and well, unless they are more
sure of themselves than the vast majority of them can be,
to leave offenders to themselves, even when they are not
" brought to their senses," as the saying is, by the action
either of their own conscience or of public opinion, or
in more marked cases by the recognised authorities.
Action of the kind just discussed is needed for each of
the three conditions which are to be fulfilled: — the esti
mate of the offence as an offence, of the pain or sorrow
it has caused, and of the compensation which is due.
In some way or other — it may be in one or all of
the modes to which reference has been made — those
who are offended are under obligation to make clear to
offenders the heinousness of their offences; and to enable
them to estimate both the injury they have inflicted,
and the compensation which ought to be made.
As a matter of fact, this does actually take place
between man and man. A right-minded man not only
regards himself as wounded afresh, as I already indi-

DIFFICULTY OF THE TASK 209
cated, if the offender forms a low estimate in either
respect ; but, where this is the case, feels spontaneously
impelled to bring his duty home to him. He neither
can nor ought to rest content without doing what lies
in his power. Nay more, he is often driven, in
opposition to a deliberate purpose to take no notice
of offences, as by an instinct of his nature, to endeavour
to attain the end under consideration.
From what was previously advanced, it will be
obvious that the chief difficulty lies in the way of action
bearing on the third of the conditions to be fulfilled.
Can a true-minded man, it is asked, do anything to
impress on an offender even the bare fact that compensa
tion is an element in the process of reconciliation ; much
more his own estimate of its nature ? Is not this utterly
alien to his spirit ? So, undoubtedly, in one aspect it
would seem to be. He cannot certainly wish to convey
the idea that a normal personal relation is a matter of
purchase. But so far as a sense of disappointment
cannot but come over him when there is insensibility to
this aspect of the matter, and so far as a higher satisfac
tion must needs fill him when a sincere desire is exhibited
to make good the wrong inflicted, so far must he also wish
that this too may be brought home to the offender. He
may and will prefer that he should come to see it of him
self; or rather, what is truer to the facts, that the indirect
means working to that end should serve their purpose.
But this very desire, and the implicit, not explicit,
approval of the employment of means to the end,
involve the principle in question. For good reasons,
a man may shrink for his own part from using means
14

2IO THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
to attain a certain end ; but the principle is conceded
if he approve both end and means, though he ma}'
refrain from personal action, either as a matter of
expediency, or owing to a mistaken conception of his
duty, or for less worthy reasons. In one way or
another, men actually do in the long-run give expres
sion, if they can, to their own view and estimate of the
course an offender ought to adopt in order to atone for,
or make good, the wrong he has inflicted.
If all this be true with regard to man in relation to
man, it is even more emphatically true with regard to
God in relation to man. As far as men are concerned,
we are so constantly under the influence of the judg
ments which our fellow-men form and express of our
conduct, that we easily overlook the fact of our estimate
of our own conduct towards them being moulded and
determined by their estimate thereof. It is accordingly
only too natural for us to overlook the necessity for the
divine judgment on conduct being made known to men.
But if God do not pronounce judgment on sin, if He do
not lay bare its true nature, if He do not make men
understand the pain they had caused Him, and realise
what they owe Him on account of sin, how is it to be
done ? Men's views of these things as they affect
themselves and their fellow-men are often untrue
enough ; — never, perhaps, less true than when they are
most severe, or even exaggerated, — that, too, just
because they miss what is deepest and most essential :
and this untruth is too often a hindrance to personal
reconciliation. How, then, shall they be in a position
to form a true estimate of what sin is to God ? God

PRINCIPLE APPLIED TO GOD 2 I I
alone can judge it truly : God alone can therefore
enable man to judge it truly.
It may be thought, however, that no specific action
ad hoc on God's part is needed ; it may seem that, as
men ought of themselves to judge rightly, they are also
able to do so. Some who take up this position are
persons in whom God has already acted through Christ,
yea, acted specially ; — persons who, in consequence, find
it so natural, fitting, and right to judge thus that they
assume it to be within the reach of every man just as
he is, that is, to use the scriptural description, of the
natural or psychical man. But not even within Chris
tendom do we find unanimity as regards this matter ;
much less do we find it outside Christendom. " The
natural man," in the biblical sense, " knoweth not the
things of God." Regarded from the true point of view,
such a man is doubtless in an unnatural, rather than
in a natural, state ; but man is actually in the state
in which what ought to be natural and easy is un
natural and hard, or even impossible. So in the case
under consideration. Human history, apart from
Christianity, testifies only too plainly to the need of the
special action of which I am speaking. The more
awful has been man's sinfulness, the less true his estimate
of its significance. Christendom, with all its defects,
exhibits an ever-growing improvement in this respect.
The judgment of sin has perhaps never been so true
as at the present moment, and never before were so
many things branded as sinful as now.
The question therefore forces itself on us, why in
heathenism sin and insensibility to its meaning con-

212 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
stantly increased ; whilst in Christendom, or rather, from
the earliest history of Judaism down to our own day,
the reverse process has taken place. If, as only too
often happens, men look solely to the latter, and credit
their fellow-men everywhere with Christian ideas and
feelings, the conclusion is natural, that special action
on God's part was unnecessary : but, the premises being
defective, the inference is false.
Men have, of course, feared deity, and their lives
have been darkened by terrible anticipations of injury
or vengeance from the powers whom they had wittingly
or unwittingly offended : they have tried also to
propitiate, and even satisfy by compensation ; but how
far removed from the truth ! Indeed, so alien from the
truth does all this seem to many nowadays, notwith
standing their profounder appreciation of sin and
keener sense of its mischief; or, otherwise put, so un
natural, so contrary to human nature, do such ideas
and conduct appear, that the significance of the facts
entirely escapes them, and they run to the opposite
extreme of denying that there can be anything in God
or on God's part to account for the difference between
Christendom and heathendom, and of affirming that the
Christian attitude is perfectly natural to man as man.
Were this phenomenon not so common, one would
count its occurrence in a so-called age of scientific
reasoning impossible.
(2) Consider, secondly, the significance of the experi
ence thus briefly described. We will look at it, first,
from the human side.
To enter into another man's estimate of my offence

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE EXPERIENCE 213
against him is never a simply intellectual experience,
never a matter of mere thinking. A man's apprehen
sion of another's estimate of his conduct is not the
same thing as his apprehension of an ordinary fact of
nature or history, or of a truth of science or philosophy.
No ; it means, at the very least, the appropriation of
an estimate of praiseworthiness, or, as in the present
case, of blameworthiness : possibly of an accompanying
feeling of moral aversion, affecting not only the conduct
but the person. Such a man therefore condemns him
self, and more or less despises himself.
What this is, and how widely it differs from any
purely intellectual experience, everyone knows who has
passed through it. Compare, for example, the state of
mind of a man who simply knows that someone else
has committed an offence which either an acquaintance,
or society, or the public authority condemns ; and that
of a man who knows and feels that his own act is thus
condemned ; and the difference in question will appear
at once. What self-condemnation, what self-loathing,
what sense of guilt, or possibly remorse, the latter may
involve ; whilst the former leaves the mind calm, save
as it is stirred by indignation at another's sin, or
sympathy with another's disgrace.
Equally far removed from being a matter of mere
thought or imagination is the appreciation by offenders
of the suffering, or the shame, or it may be the injury
which have been caused by their conduct. On the
contrary, it involves, or, by the common consent of those
best fitted to judge, ought to involve, suffering and a
sense of shame, the intensity and burden of which are

214 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
increased by the consciousness of carelessness or more
positive faultiness.
Ordinarily, indeed, men are too insensitive, or too
self-centred, or too indifferent to be capable of experi
ences such as have been described. Only when the re
lationship between the parties is more intimate do they
occur, — not always even then. If parents sin against
children, or children against parents ; or if relatives and
friends sin against each other, the experience may be
passed through. Even when one or the other is but
the innocent cause of suffering, the experience is often
painful enough ; but when there is, in addition, the
sense of blameworthiness, still more when there are the
darker degrees of guilt, the state of mind becomes
almost unendurable — sometimes, in fact, it lands the
persons concerned either in madness or in suicide.
Nor, again, is it a matter of mere cold calculation
when an offender is really made to enter into the
question of making good the wrong done by his
offence. Who has not known something of the dis
tress or despair that fill the mind when one begins to
consider how to make good wrongs or injuries that
have been inflicted ? Sometimes the whole after-life
of men, especially of parents or children, is darkened
by the experience. The one thought, especially if
death has removed the injured one beyond reach, is,
Oh ! that he or she were here, that by years of loyalty,
or sacrifice, or kindness and considerateness, I might
make up for the shortcomings of which I am conscious !
Ordinarily, indeed, men are too careless and selfish to
trouble themselves greatly about such compensation,

ITS TERRIBLE NATURE 215
especially for personal offences ; but no right-minded
man would dream of regarding it as something to be
even excused, much less to be justified. And the more
evidently the matter is a burden, the profounder is the
respect for an offender, and the easier the establishment
of a new relation of genuine love.
If what has been advanced is true with regard to
men in their relations to each other, how much more
obviously true, if possible, in their relations to God.
To realise how He regards our sin ; to pass verily
under His condemnation ; or rather, for the divine
condemnation to become our own — that is no merely
intellectual experience, no mere act of thought. No !
it is to undergo trial and condemnation in reality; to
undergo it in a court where the indictment receives
our own endorsement, where the examination is aided
by ourselves, where no charge evokes an excuse or
denial, where no exception is ever taken to the verdict,
and where the offender, from the very depths of his
soul, cries guilty, guilty, guilty !
Even the Psalmist prayed : " Search Thou me, O
God, and try Thou me : and know Thou my thoughts,
and see Thou what way of evil is in me " ; and he
had experience of having his sins set in the light of
God: — an awful experience it was too, as the refer
ences only too distinctly indicate. We talk lightly
of God revealing His mind with regard to our sin ;
but we little think that such a revelation involves
our passing into the awful darkness and oppressed
state of soul that is denoted by the sense of guilt —
a sense of guilt which sometimes overwhelms body,

2l6 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
intellect, heart, and reduces the whole man to a wreck.
Shakespeare can tell us something of its meaning,
though he does not expressly refer the experiences
depicted by him to the action of God, unless the word
conscience is to be thus interpreted —
' ' O coward conscience how dost thou afflict me ! —
Cold fearful drops stand on my trembling flesh.
What, do I fear myself? there's none else by:
Richard loves Richard ; that is, I am I.
Is there a murtherer here ? No ; — yes, I am :
Then fly, — What, from myself? Great reason: Why? —
Lest I revenge. What? Myself upon myself?
Alack, I love myself. Wherefore? For any good
That I myself have done unto myself?
O, no ; alas, I rather hate myself
For hateful deeds committed by myself.
I am a. villain : yet I lie, I am not.
Fool, of thyself speak well : — Fool, do not flatter.
My conscience hath a thousand several tongues,
And every tongue brings in a several tale,
And every tale condemns me for a villain.
Perjury, perjury, in the high'st degree,
Murther, stern murther, in the dir'st degree :
All several sins, all used in each degree,
Throng to the bar, crying all, — Guilty ! guilty ! "
Richard III. , Act v. Scene iii.
In Hamlet, however, there is a distinct reference to
God, though the picture of the experience is scarcely
so grim and black —
" In the corrupted currents of this world,
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice ;
And oft 'tis seen, the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law : but 'tis not so above :
There is no shuffling, there the action lies
In his true nature ; and we ourselves compelled,
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults,
To give in evidence. What then? What rests?
Try what repentance can : what can it not ?

SHAKESPEARE AND CONSCIENCE 217
Yet what can it, when one can not repent?
O wretched state ! O bosom, black as death !
O limed soul, that, struggling to be free,
Art more engaged ! " Act in. Scene iii.
It is not necessary — on the contrary, it would be
untrue — to suppose that if God by specific action
brought home to men the guilt of their sin, His revela
tion would in each case be the same, and the result
the same. For though all men are sinful, all men are
not equally sinful ; and God proceeds according to
truth. Of necessity, therefore, the experiences of men
in the sphere under consideration will widely differ : no
one man can or need go through exactly the same
as another man goes through.
Equally and more obviously true is it that, when
God reveals the pain and sorrow caused Him by
human sin, and His consequent resentment, man's
experience cannot be merely intellectual. It is a
felt thing: it is a thing that first, indeed, fully lays
hold on the intellect and imagination ; but then it
stirs the heart with its affections, and especially
excites the emotions. Grandly poetical expression
is .given to one aspect of it in the Book of Revela
tion : " And the kings of the earth, and the great
men, and the chief captains, and the mighty men,
and every bondman, and every free man, hid them
selves in the dens and in the rocks of the mountains ;
and said to the mountains and rocks, Fall on us,
and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on
the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb : for the
great day of His wrath is come ; and who shall be

2l8 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
able to stand?" (vii. 15-17). The subject is referred
to elsewhere in a variety of ways, both in the Old
and New Testaments. " I have eaten ashes like bread,
and mingled my drink with weeping, because of Thine
indignation and wrath " (Ps. cii. 9, 1 o). " We are
consumed in Thine anger and in Thy wrath are we
troubled. Thou hast set our iniquities before Thee,
our secret sins in the light of Thy countenance."
" Who knoweth the power of Thy anger ? " " Make
us glad according to the days wherein Thou hast
afflicted us " (xc. 7, 8, 9, 1 5). "I will bear the indig
nation of the Lord, because I have sinned against
Him " (Micah vii. 9).1 " Indignation and wrath, tribu
lation and anguish, shall be upon every soul of man
that doeth evil " (Rom. ii. 8 f. ; cf. v. 5). The terrible-
ness of the revelation of His anger is seen, or is
represented as being seen, also in the effect produced
on the earth. " At His wrath the earth trembleth,
and the nations are not able to abide His indignation "
(Jer. x. 10). "The mountains quake at Him, and the
hills melt, and the earth is upheaved at His presence,
yea, the world, and all that dwell therein. Who can
stand before His indignation? and who can abide
in the fierceness of His anger ? His fury is poured
out like fire, and the rocks are broken asunder by
Him." " He will pursue His enemies unto darkness "
(Nahum i. 5 ff). " Through the wrath of the Lord
1 Then follow the remarkable words : ' ' until He plead my cause, and
execute judgment for me : He will bring me forth to the light, and I shall
behold His righteousness." Cf. Job xiv. 13 : " O that Thou wouldest hide
me in Sheol, that Thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath is past,
that Thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me ! "

TERRORS OF THE DIVINE WRATH 219
of hosts is the land darkened " (Isa. ix. 19; cf. Job
xxvi. 11). " Shall not His dread fall upon you ? " (Job
xiii. 11). "For our God is a consuming fire" (Heb.
xii. 2, 9).
No less must it be a cause of terrible anxiety and
trouble, an almost unbearable burden, when God lets
men get a glimpse of the debt which they have in
curred and of the satisfaction which they owe to Him.
In all ages there have been those who have, at all
events, acted as if they felt the awful burden resting on
them. Hecatombs have been sacrificed ; the most
precious treasures have been offered up ; loved ones
have been surrendered ; nay more, men have given
themselves up to torture and death, for the purpose of
satisfying an angry God. It is quite possible, indeed,
that this may have been to some extent the result
rather of priestly invention acting upon or co-operating
with the universal consciousness of sin, than of divine
action such as I am considering. This, too, may seem
fairly deducible from such words as : " The times of
ignorance God overlooked ; but now commandeth He
men that they should all of them everywhere repent :
inasmuch as He hath appointed a day, in the which
He will judge the world in righteousness by the man
whom He hath ordained" (Acts xvii. 30 f.), and " De-
spisest thou the riches of His goodness and forbearance
(avo%rj) and longsuffering ; not knowing that the good
ness of God leadeth thee to repentance " (Rom. ii. 4); " to
show His righteousness because of the passing over of the
sins done aforetime, in the forbearance (avoyjj) of God"
(Rom. iii. 25). God had not yet made the revelation

2 20 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
which should enable men to appreciate His judgment,
anger, and claim on them, and thus to fulfil the condi
tions previously referred to. There is little evidence
that their state of mind was such as it needs must have
been had that been the case — not even when the efforts
put forth to satisfy deity were the most extreme. In
fact, rightly considered, those very efforts are the best
proof that God had not done so. Had He done so,
they must surely have been paralysed — so borne down,
so crushed as to be incapable even of making an
attempt. This is not an uncommon experience as
between man and man, and has to some extent influ
enced human legislation. Demand everything that
seems just and right in cases when the offence is
heinous, the injury great, and the righteous claim
immense, and nothing will be done, nothing can be
done. If this is so as between man and man, how
much more so as between God and man !
Compensation, making up to God the wrong done
— the wrong in the withholding of reverence, trust,
love, and loyal service ; in the manifestation of irrever
ence, distrust, aversion ; in the sins of omission and
commission ; in the dishonour brought on His holy
name ; in the injury inflicted on the divine kingdom ;
in the pain and sorrow caused to the divine heart ;
and not least, in necessitating God, for consistency's
sake, to hold a relation to the world of humanity and
nature contrary to His eternal purpose — what a task !
Who must not shrink from it ? Who must not be
crushed by the very thought, if he really and truly
estimate it in the light of God ?

DESPAIR OF RECONCILIATION 22 1
The natural result of the divine action thus shown
to be necessary in order to the fulfilment of the condi
tions of reconciliation could only, therefore, be to fill men
with despair of reconciliation. It must inspire them with
dread of God ; with a desire rather to escape from Him
than to find Him. To make men feel as guilty as
they actually are; to impress them with a due sense of
the grief they have caused, and the anger they have
kindled ; and to show them all that needs to be done
by way of rectifying what has been made wrong —
there is nothing in that, so far as one can see, to
prepare the way for reconciliation. It is to lay
bare the awful gulf which sin has opened between
man and God ; not to narrow it or bridge it. It is
to awaken or intensify the sense of hopelessness and
despair. Asa matter of fact, too, men have been thus reduced
to hopelessness, even apart from such specific action as
we are considering. Though God had not revealed
His mind to them in the way we have considered,
they were nevertheless " without hope in the world " ;
nay more, they were " all their life long subject to
bondage through fear of death." In fact, the " sting of
death was sin." How much more, then, would this have
been their state if their secret and open sins, their sinful
ness, the untold mischiefs wrought by sin, and the duty
devolving on them as the authors of sin, and of the evils
following in its train, to make the wrong good, had been
set in the light of God, instead of being viewed in the
dim twilight of human conscience and human opinion.
2. God must Himself bring home to man the real

22 2 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
purpose and meaning of the manifestation which has
caused the experiences described.
Remember what that purpose is, namely, to enable
man to fulfil the conditions on which reconciliation
depends. Yet, strange to say, such fulfilment is
impossible to anyone who does not feel that God is
seeking his deliverance from sin ; nay more, that God
is practically proclaiming forgiveness, whilst and in that
He is thus unveiling the real and true significance of
sin. The states of mind previously described, considered
in their ethical relation to personal reconciliation, are
otherwise impossible. Neither manifestation of the
divine judgment, sorrow, anger, and claims alone, nor
manifestation of the divine purpose of salvation alone,
either of them by itself, could subserve the purpose.
The two must 'go together.
We shall see this if we properly distinguish the
states of mind described from other states which are
natural to the natural man, to which they are akin,
and with which, therefore, they are often confounded.
First of all, a man may feel that his load of guilt is
pressing him down, not only to the ground, but even
into the very abyss ; and yet he may be as far as
possible from entering into and ratifying the divine judg
ment, from making that judgment his own. The more
real the former experience, the darker and more awful
will be his state of mind. The latter experience, on
the contrary, is impossible apart from at least a dawn
ing conviction that the God against whom the sin has
been committed is seeking to save him from the sin
which threatens and is fraught with ruin, and which for

THE REAL PURPOSE OF GODS PROCEDURE 223
that very reason, as well as because of its essential
hostility to the divine creatures and rule, God hates ;
that He is condemning it and us, so far as we identify
ourselves with it, in order to salvation ; that to realise its
blameworthiness, as He realises it, is necessary in order
to being made as free from it as He is — that is, to becom
ing holy and therefore blessed, as He is holy and blessed.
Again, it is one thing to see, to gaze with horror on,
the evil results our sin has caused, not only to the
world which God made, and to ourselves created in
His image, but even to Him ; another thing to
sorrow in His sorrow, to be afflicted in His affliction,
to feel dishonoured in His dishonour, and even to be
angry in His anger ; in a word, to make His experience,
if I may so speak, really our own, with the recognition
of the fact that, whilst it ought not to be His, it is ours
of right, because it is of our causing. Whilst in the
one case we are ready to close our eyes, to turn away
as in horror, and would fain escape from the spectacle
and the vision ; in the other, we confess that it is
supreme mercy in God, and good for us that we should
be brought face to face with the evil we have done,
and caused to realise it as it is ; because only thus can
the fascination of sin be effectually overcome.
Still further, and lastly, it is one thing to see, with
whatever clearness, the compensation that is due to
God ; even to be weighed down by the immensity of
the task ; to despair well nigh, if not utterly, of clearing
oneself and paying off the debt one owes, and of thus
reinstating oneself in the divine favour : another and
very different thing to yearn to make good to one who

224 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
has freely forgiven and received us, and under the
inspiration of love to surrender ourselves to Him a
living sacrifice, holy and acceptable. In the former
case, every new view of our debt fills us with deeper
despair ; blank hopelessness takes possession of us ;
we are ready to say of God, " He may have a right to
the claim which He advances, but what a cruelty and
monstrosity to lay it against one who cannot fulfil it " :
in the other case, we are more and more filled with
thankfulness for the forgiving love which took us just as
we were, — naked, helpless, destitute ; and are inspired
with new desire and fresh energy to magnify His name
above all the heavens, — nay more, we regard Him as
putting an honour on us by His claim.
At the same time, the means employed by God to
attain the end seem only fitted to fill human souls with
dread of Him ; to drive them from His face ; to make
them desire, if 'twere possible, to torment Him, as He
is thought to be tormenting them ; and to brand Him
as an exacting tyrant. Thus, too, is the natural mind
prone to regard them.
II. Consider, secondly, the vital or dynamic action
of God.
The divine purpose to prepare men for the fulfilment
of the conditions of reconciliation could not be attained
without vital or bio-dynamic as well as personal action.
Careful consideration of the divine method in nature
will show that this is no new principle ; that, on the
contrary, this, no less than the principle of revelation
or manifestation, is in fullest accordance with the con
stitution of the world — at all events, as that constitution

THE DYNAMIC ACTION OF GOD 225
is conceived in this work. The divine action on man
must be both personal, — or, as I might also term it,
deictic, demonstrative, i.e. take the form of an appeal
to consciousness and to the functions whose normal
exercise is conditional on such an appeal ; and vital or
dynamic. The relation even of our natural environment to us,
involves essentially the same two things. It appeals,
on the one hand, to consciousness ; on the other, it acts
dynamically ; and each relation in turn depends on
and conditions the other. Unless it energise in us, the
appeal to consciousness will be null or destructive;
unless the appeal to consciousness be effective, there can
be no dynamic action. This is true, of course, of our
natural environment taken as a whole ; not equally true
of the several parts taken separately — taken as many
of them may practically be taken.
In this respect nature is emphatically the revelation
of God. His action on man, too, must be both deictic
and dynamic, the one normally depending on and
conditioning the other, each alternately.
All this is if possible even more true when disorder
and disease have set in. The natural environment has
to supply the means by which man may resume a
right active relation to itself; and yet unless he see
that his relation is disorderly, — -which seeing is also
partly dependent on the action of his environment, —
such dynamic action cannot take place.
Apply now the principle or law thus stated to the
relation of God to man. God must appeal to man's con
sciousness in the ways I have been describing; but, if

2 26 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
that appeal is to answer its full purpose, He must also
energise in man to bear, to see, and to appreciate the
significance of what He is doing. When we say that the
eye sees only what it brings with it, we are recognising
the principle in part. " The natural man understandeth
not the things of God, for they are spiritually dis
cerned " ; and in this case spiritual discernment does
not stand alone ; it is simply one of the functions
discharged by the whole man as spiritually energised
by God. Analogously, one might say, the natural man
beareth not the vision of the divine judgment of sin,
nor the weight of the divine anger ; still less does he
see in the manifestation of the divine judgment and
divine anger the means which God is employing for his
own salvation, — i.e. the proof that God is a forgiving and
redeeming God, — unless God energise in him to that
end. God alone can reveal the divine view of sin, and
God alone can enable man to see and appreciate it ; God
alone can make man feel the divine sorrow and anger,
and God alone can enable man to bear it ; God alone
can present, as one may put it, His bill of claims, and God
alone can enable man to understand it : — and in that
such seeing, bearing, and understanding relate as truly
to the divine purpose as to the experiences which are-
the vehicle thereof, His energy is no less needed for
the discernment of His purpose. The principle in
question is expressed by Christ Himself when He says
regarding the comforter, " He shall take of the things
of Christ and show them to you." It has found its
recognition also — a recognition now too generally,
alas ! misunderstood or misinterpreted — in the Church

THE WORK OF THE SPIRIT 227
doctrine, that before faith can be exercised not only
must Christ be preached, but the Holy Spirit must
open the eyes to see Him and prepare the heart
to receive Him ; in other words, in the doctrine of
"prevenient grace."

CHAPTER XIII
The Dilemma
According to the God-given constitution of man, we
found it to be necessary that God should act towards
man, both personally and bio-dynamically, in a certain
way termed normal, if man on his part were to be able
to behave towards God in a certain way termed normal.
This is a fixed cosmic law.
This law is not abolished by human sin, though, as
sin is an abnormal relation to God, it involved the moral
necessity of a corresponding abnormal relation of God
to man. If man was to be able to behave towards
God in the manner denoted by the term sin, God
must of moral necessity act towards, or rather react on,
man in the manner due to him as a sinner.
Considered in itself, such conduct on the part of God
towards man, as was shown, is abnormal, though con
sidered relatively to human sin righteous. So, too,
considered in itself, conduct on the part of man
towards God, such as was shown to be morally neces
sary if reconciliation is to take place, is abnormal,
though considered in relation to sin it is fit and right.
For, as was previously pointed out, it is certainly not
normal that it should devolve on God to bring home to
228

THE DILEMMA 229
man the guilt of sin : nor is it one whit more normal
for man to condemn himself; though, after sin entered,
the one was as right as the other.
The divine action towards man, previously described,
though immediately designed and fitted to impress on
him the significance of sin for God, had for its ultimate
purpose to enable man to fulfil the conditions of recon
ciliation ; in other words, though in itself a sentence of
condemnation, it was ipso facto a declaration of for
giveness. But unless this, its ultimate purpose and
essential meaning, were discerned in, with, and through
the full experience of its condemnatory force, man
would not be able to fulfil the conditions in question.
Yet the immediate effect of the divine action would
seem to be of necessity to crush man, to make him
hopeless, to reduce him to despair. So that it would
seem necessary, prima facie, to pronounce the means
and the end mutually incompatible.
The purpose referred to could not be attained by the
personal means employed, unless, in accordance with
the law just described, God also acted vitally or bio-
dynamically. Without gracious divine energising man
would not have been able either to bear the experience
brought on him or to discern its meaning; in other
words, to behave towards God as befitted the abnormal
position into which his own sin had brought him, that
is, to fulfil the conditions of reconciliation. Yet accord
ing to the order of the theocosm, it was not fitting that
such gracious energy should be bestowed save when the
personal relation of the recipient to God was normal ;
that is, in the case we are considering, save where the

230 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
conditions of rectification had been fulfilled by the reci
pient. The fulfilment, in a word, has to precede that
without which the fulfilment is impossible.
So that, first of all, man cannot fulfil the conditions
of reconciliation till he sees that God's action aims at
reconciliation, i.e. until he regards God as already
reconciled. Further, what God does to bring about
reconciliation tends to produce a sense of condemnation.
Still further, the divine energy needed in order to the
fulfilment of the conditions of reconciliation cannot
be bestowed till the conditions have been already
fulfilled. Such is the dilemma. We are face to face with
ethical vo-repa irporepa. Or, as Paul put it, " the law
which is unto life proves to be unto death " ; and yet
life can only be attained through the death which is
brought by the law.
These are not mere subtleties. They are practical
ethical difficulties : — difficulties which beset the problem
of reconciliation between man and man, no less than
between God and man. Various things are apt to
cause the affinity between the two cases to be over
looked ; but if the analogies urged in connection with
the question of the revelation of the mind of God were
valid, their affinity cannot be doubted.
In point of fact, these antinomies, or varepa trpoTepa,
as they were termed, constituted the practical problem
of the atonement whilst it was still a thing to be accom
plished. Now that the atonement is a fait accompli;
in other words, now that the practical problem has been
solved, the antinomies constitute for the Christian scien-

NOT MERE SUBTLETIES 23 1
tist the theoretical problem of the reconciliation of God
and man.
Those who have found reconciliation through Christ,
that is, those for whom God through Christ practically
solved the problem before they faced it, are in danger,
however, of imagining that there never was any such
problem to be solved. Accordingly, on the one hand,
they too frequently underestimate, or even quite mis
understand, the nature of the work done by Christ, —
they deem it something very different from, something
much more superficial, than it really was : and, on the
other hand, naturally treat discussions of the doctrine
or theory of the atonement as elaborate explanations
of something that owes most of its mystery and diffi
culty to the imagination of believers and theologians.
We shall be saved from falling into either of these
two mistakes if we go back in thought to the period
prior to the advent of Christ. For then, as we shall
find, some of the ideas which men, born in Christendom
and subjected to Christian influences, deem universally
known and well-nigh self-evidently true, lay altogether
out beyond the range of vision ; whilst others, of which
the same judgment is formed, were regarded as self-
evidently false, and their false counterparts no less
self-evidently true. In point of fact, Christianity has
not merely brought to the human mind a body of
otherwise unknown truth, but has so quickened its
power of discernment that nothing seems more natural
than to recognise and hold the said truth to be true.

CHAPTER XIV
Methods Pursued with Humanity by God
The use of words like those which form the heading to
this chapter is apt at the present moment to evoke
either contemptuous or resentful criticism. We are
supposed to have advanced far beyond the crudeness
of phrases like " The Plan of Salvation." Both reli
giously and theologically, they are a stumbling-block
and an offence.
That they should be this and worse to those who so
emphasise the immanence of God in the cosmic system
as to make it practically identical with pantheism ; or
who reduce God's r61e in human life to that of an
almighty lover who does little more than sigh and
breathe and shine forth His love, without variation or
shadow of a turning, leaving men to bask in it and
assimilate it as they bask in and assimilate the light of
the sun, is natural enough : but that those who speak
of evolution as the method of the divine working in
nature, and recognise God as a Father who counts even
the very hairs of our heads, and notices when even a poor
sparrow — that Proletarier among the birds, as Germans
call it — falls to the ground, should shrug their shoulders
at it, is surely a fine specimen of undisciplined sentiment.
232

GODS WAYS WITH MEN 233
God's " ways with men," or otherwise expressed, His
methods, never have been, are not now, and never will
be marked by the inviolable uniformity which the one
sided scientific intellect is in constant danger of glori
fying as the ideal. Whilst " righteous in all His ways,
and hoi}- in all His works," God varies with a varia
bility that transcends all human calculation, but which
belongs to the ver}- essence of spirit and life.
I. God worked first of all along lines determined
by the existing order of things in the realm of nature
and spirit; in other words, lines drawn by the consti
tution, first, of man, considered both as an individual
and as a member of the great body humanity, with its
subordinate constituent systems, the family, the tribe,
the nation ; and secondly, of the mundane and cosmic
systems, with the forces and laws, to which man is so
closely — one might almost say organically — related.
Not a few thinkers have held, and still hold, that this
was and is the only course open to God ; that any
other course would be inconsistent with the system He
has Himself constituted, and therefore inconsistent with
Himself. In all ages, they say, God has in various
ways been acting and appealing to men, externally, by
means of what may be summarily designated His
providential dealings, — by the joys and sorrows, the
pleasures and pains, the prosperity and adversity which
have come upon individuals and communities, according
as they have done what was right or wrong : internally,
through conscience, both in the individual soul and as
embodied in human laws, written and unwritten ; by
the stirrings, inbreathings, suggestings, which have been

234 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
vouchsafed to all souls without exception, but to which
the earnest seekers, the prophetic and poetical natures,
the religious geniuses, have been specially sensitive.
His gracious uplifting aid has further been nigh to all
who responded to such approaches. This, we are
assured, is all that, according to the constitution, order,
and laws of the world and humanity, He could do.
What are called special revelations, manifestations,
communications, interventions, owe any speciality that
marks them not to special action ad hoc on God's part,
but to special sensitiveness, fitness, affinity, responsive
ness on the part of those who claimed to receive them.
The position referred to is well presented in the
following words, which, though not primarily relating
to the particular point under discussion, are sub
stantially relevant. " Religious experience and the
spiritual insight which it affords are normal expressions
of human nature ; and if, as seems to be the fact, the
Semitic mind, culminating in Jesus of Nazareth,
revealed the personal relation between the finite
and the universal spirit with a vividness and fulness to
which no other section of mankind, before or since, has
attained, this is not to be understood as meaning that
the Eternal One has acted exceptionally and ab
normally in the case of the Hebrew Prophets and of
the Son of Man ; but simply as meaning that the Old
and New Testaments contain in their choicest passages
the expression of the world's deepest religious con
sciousness." l
The method just indicated was the one pursued
1 Upton, fewish Quarterly Review, October 1893, p. 152.

DIVINE METHOD WITH THE HEATHEN 235
by God with the heathen. His purpose, be it re
membered, was to enable men to fulfil the conditions
of personal reconciliation, so that He might com
municate to them the gracious energy necessary to
their deliverance from sin and evil. What was
primarily necessary on His part to this end was to
bring home to them His mind about sin, whilst at the
same time letting them discern His redemptive aim.
God sought to accomplish this object from the very
first. Speaking familiarly, one may say that the Divine
Father lost no time, lost not a moment, but began at
once — as soon as sin and alienation began — the
gracious education and discipline which the terrible
change in man's relation to Him had rendered
necessary. It was not reserved, be it remarked, for the present
day to discover and acknowledge that God has in all
ages been using means to redeem other portions of the
human race besides some Semites and some Aryans.
In the judgment of Israelites — not, moreover, the least
enlightened of them — they themselves were called,
specially led, taught, aided, and disciplined in order
that they might be " co-workers together with God " in
this work of divine mercy.
But means were employed to the same end in
dependently of the Jews, which, though not marked by
the special features that characterised the divine
dealings with them, had the same purpose. Not a few
allusions in the New Testament, some more, some less
distinct, warrant us in taking up this position.
The idea that no nation has been or should be left

236 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
alone by God has nowadays become almost a common
place of Christian thought ; it is regarded as self-
evident. So natural and right, indeed, is it conceived
to be that a good many are running to the opposite
extreme of denying that there has ever been anywhere
any such exceptionality or difference of method as it has
heretofore been customary to recognise in the case of the
Jews} God, we are told, has been caring for all men,
in all ages and lands, with equal intensity of loving
care ; and though, like a wise father, He has taken one
way with one nation and another way with another, no
one nation has been more wisely or generously treated
than another, and each has been put in as good a
position to find Him and attain blessedness as the
other. All which is doubtless true, as far as God is con
cerned. God has dealt conformably to His own love
and wisdom with all men alike ; and if all men had
been equally ready to respond to His approaches, the
one method would have been intrinsically as good as
the other, though each might have had special features
of its own, each might have differed from the other.
But men themselves have to be taken into account.
God Himself could not have dealt in exactly the same
manner with all men without inconsistency — incon
sistency with Himself and inconsistency with them.
He had to accommodate Himself to them. If men, as
Paul says, refuse to retain Him in their knowledge, if
they willingly turn their backs on Him, He must needs
let them go, in a certain respect, their own way ; He
1 See Martineau, Seal of Authority in Religion, pp. 7S> ll3-

MISTAKES REGARDING ETHNIC RELIGIONS 237
must let them eat of the fruit of their own ways,
and be filled with their own devices ; He must conform
His mode of getting hold of them to the relation
assumed towards Him. But to treat this as a " for
saking " or " letting alone " is mistaken ; — it is a divine
method, not less fatherly than that which many a
human father is morally compelled to adopt with
self-willed, wayward, unmanageable children. The
question put by Paul, " What advantage, then,
hath the Jew ? " should therefore, on this view, be
answered, not as he answered it, " Much, every way ;
chiefly because unto them were committed the oracles
of God " ; but — No advantage whatever. The Gentiles
were treated as well as the Jews, though the way taken
with the latter differed from that taken with the
former. Without, then, denying the special character of the
divine treatment of the Jews, — special treatment with
a view to their special mission, — we are bound to
acknowledge that God dealt also with the rest of men
in various ways for their redemption.
We need, however, to be on our guard against look
ing for a fulfilment of conditions among the heathen
such as was required even in Israel ; still less such as
has been rendered possible and obligatory by Christ.
A good many modern students of the history of ethnic
religion have fallen into this mistake when they profess
to discover in ethnic religious writings estimates of sin
relatively to God, which are apparently equal, or nearly
so, in truth and intensity to those found in the Bible
or present-day Christian literature.

238 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Whilst we cannot help applying to the early relation
of man to God the same general terms denoting
abnormality which we apply to the relation of many
in Christendom, it must not be supposed that the
sinfulness denoted by the terms is in the two cases
the same in degree. Sin's sinfulness varies immensely
in the concrete. Objectively regarded, every sin
of every form is, of course, a sin ; considered sub
jectively, the same sin is never in any two cases the
same. A murder committed by a savage is one thing,
by a Christian another, — even as a blow inflicted on a
mother by an angry baby is one thing, inflicted by a
full-grown son something totally different.
This consideration necessarily affects the view we
form of the conditions to be fulfilled. To refer again
to the illustration of the child : — a wise mother will do
enough to bring home even to the baby the sense of
its act being wrong ; but she will also feel that, as the
meaning of its act was superficial, so the child's
recognition of its wrongness can only be superficial.
A savage should be made to realise that a murder is a
sin to the degree of which he is capable ; but no
sensible man will consider or treat him as equally
guilty with a Christian man who has committed the
same crime. For though the crime is objectively the
same, it is not the same subjectively.
The principle holds good of the relations of man to
God and of God's treatment of man.
Another point also needs attention, namely, that, as
was previously pointed out, heathendom has not stood
still.

GOD REVEALED HIMSELF 239
What means, then, did God use for bringing the
heathen to Himself? These means, as was already
indicated, fall into two great classes, — the deistic or
revelational and the dynamic.
1. The deictic or revealing action of God.
(1) The primary necessity was that God should keep
alive in men the sense of His existence and presence.
I say keep alive, rather than reveal; for the first thing
which God did for His newly created child was to im
press it with His existence and presence. The specific
sense for God, which is as truly one of man's senses as
that for light, was so appealed to that once for all
the idea God or divine was lodged in his mind, and, by
means of the words which expressed it, became through
heredity an inalienable possession of the race.
But it needed none the less to be quickened and
filled with content, i.e. God Himself needed to become
more and more known. That He existed and was
present was a datum : what He was and how present — -
that had to be learnt. And the whole process received
a twist through the incoming of sin.
The cosmos in general, and the earth in particular,
continued to be, regarded in themselves and in the main,
what they were before sin entered. The visible world,
with its changes, order, beauty, and mystery, did not
cease to discharge its function of manifesting the in
visible power and glory of God, because man became
less and less capable of understanding it. The heavens
continued to declare the glory of God, and the firma
ment to show His handiwork.
History is full of evidence that the world's testimony

24O THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
to God was clear and loud enough to leave men, as
Paul says, without excuse. Indeed, so far from ceasing
to speak and testify of God, it became as a matter of
fact, in their eyes, so full of God, so permeated with
God, that its humblest constituents were eventually re
garded and worshipped as divine. A description given
of the Hindus by an eminent authority applies substan
tially to men everywhere : " Everything great and useful
— everything strange, monstrous, and unusual, whether
good or evil, is held to be permeated by the presence of
divinity. It is not merely all the mighty phenomena
and forces of the universe — all the most striking mani
festations of almighty energy — that excite the awe and
attract the reverence of the ordinary Hindu. There is
not an object in earth or heaven which he is not prepared
to worship — rocks, stocks, and stones ; trees, pools, and
rivers; his own implements of trade ; the animal he finds
most useful, the noxious reptiles he fears ; other crea
tures, like monkeys, for reasons difficult to assign ; men
remarkable for any extraordinary qualities, — for great
valour, sanctity, virtue, or even vice ; good and evil
demons, ghosts and goblins, the spirits of departed
ancestors ; an infinite number of semi-human, semi-
divine existences — inhabitants of the seven upper and
the seven lower worlds ; — each and all of these come in
for a share of divine honour, or a tribute of more or
less adoration." x
What was true of the natives of India was propor
tionally true of humanity in general. The world spake
audibly enough, testified distinctly enough, of the God
1 Monier- Williams, Hinduism, p. 168.

THE COSMOS AND GOD 24 1
whose energy was evolving it, and whose idea gave it
order and form.
The connection of the cosmos with God, the fact
that God was in it, that it had its life and being in God,
that His invisible power and divinity were expressed
by it — all this forced itself on men's minds. They
were perhaps more sensitive to the presence of the
divine than we are; or, at all events, the sensitiveness
to God which is native to man was in them less dulled
and reduced to inaction by exclusive attention to the
methods according to which God works. The eyes of
the modern man are too frequently " holden " — as were
those of the disciples who walked with Christ to Emmaus
— by all sorts of presuppositions, so that they do not and
cannot see what is before them. The heathen mind has
not been wrong in finding the divine everywhere : it is
the civilised mind that is wrong when it so emphasises
the process as to put it in the place of God.
But when men went on to identify this object and
that object with God, they went astray, — as far astray
as if a child should confound the gifts or productions
which an unseen father sends to remind it of his
existence, and to tell of his mind, with the father
himself. If they had identified God with the entire
cosmos in its apparent infinitude, the error would have
been grievous enough, though some excuse might have
been pleaded for it; but to confound Him with the
parts — and such parts !• — -was to dishonour, nay more,
to ungod, God in the very act of recognising Him.
But the fault lay not with the cosmos. Notwithstand
ing the influence of sin, it still retained the greater part of
16

242 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
its essential glory ; it remained full of divine meaning ;
the traces of the divine hand were as numerous as the
shells in a piece of chalk ; though there was no articulate
speech or language, and though creation's voice was
not audible to the outward ear, a harmonious song of
infinite fulness and richness ascended day by day and
night by night ; and had not man's eye and ear been
dulled by sin, he might at one and the same time
both have seen and heard the testimony borne to the
glory of its Maker.
(2) The next need was the revelation of the divine
mind with regard to sin, the bringing home the signifi
cance of sin to man, and at the same time the awakening
of hope. What God did to this end is traceable in the view
men took of the divine judgment of sin here and here
after;1 in the religious rites they observed, and the
sacrifices they offered ; and in the impression made
upon them by the dark and bright dispensations of
Providence, both in nature and history.
Though the phenomena classed under these three
heads can scarcely be said ever to have been due to
properly supernatural action, they none the less told of
the divine presence. In not a few cases, however, it is
difficult to avoid feeling that His work, though not
what is commonly called supernatural, was in some
real sense special. God drew nigh to men ; He
intervened on their behalf; He whispered to them, and
directed them in ways which compelled a recognition
of His nearness and action.
1 See specially Salmond's fine work on Immortality.

SIGNIFICANCE OF SIN BROUGHT HOME 243
Especially, however, by means of conscience, both
individual and social, and through the laws and customs
of men — family, social, national — conjoined with phe
nomena of the natural world, such as were some of
those referred to under the last head, at the same time
interpreting and being interpreted by them, God sought
to bring home to man the significance of sin for Himself.
The statement, that " conscience is the voice of God in
the soul," besides being vague, can scarcely be held to
be true if we understand by conscience the actual moral
judgments pronounced by men on their own conduct and
that of others ; yet anyone who believes in the living
relation of God to the world as a whole and humanity
in particular, can scarcely avoid recognising the divine
action in the human distinction of right and wrong,
specially in the treatment of the latter. Paul, at all
events, suggests this when, just after a reference to the
divinely given Jewish law, he goes on to speak of the
Gentiles as being " a law unto themselves," and as
showing " the work of law written in their hearts, their
conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the
meanwhile accusing or else excusing one another "
(Rom. ii. 15). When, further, men who judge others
are said to be inexcusable, seeing that they thus
condemn themselves (Rom. ii. 1), it is implied that
such conduct is a proof that they have not been left
to themselves by God.
We know, too, that save as men sank to the lower
stages of degradation, harvests, fruit gatherings, and all
the occasions on which nature regularly or irregularly
supplied their wants, or afforded them special enjoy-

244 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
ments, or brought them special gifts, gave rise, as it
was meant they should, to religious festivals ; whilst,
on the other hand, events and phenomena which in
volved suffering or deprivation or sorrow, and in
spired alarm, became the occasion of the performance
of special rites and ceremonies, and of the offering of
sacrificial propitiations.
In fact, God or gods were everywhere present ; some
divine power was believed to be everywhere at work for
good or evil ; the mind or disposition of some good or
evil spirit was constantly finding expession in threat or
blessing, in the furtherance or hindrance of human
happiness. That the world did not serve its original purpose of
being a vehicle of loving communication from God to
man, and of reverential response from man to God,
was not due to the world, but to the fact that men
" held the truth in unrighteousness " ; that " when they
knew God they glorified Him not as God, neither were
thankful" (Rom. i. 21). There can be no doubt that
the consciousness of sin and guilt has been general,
though it has varied infinitely in degrees of clearness
and intensity. The more degraded men have been by
sin, — which, according not only to Scripture, but even to
ethnic writers, is in the last instance one of the results
of sin itself, — the feebler their sense of guilt. The
higher the minds, the stronger expression do they give
to the fact of sin. " The greatest punishment of an
evil deed," says Plato, " is that its doer becomes like the
bad " ; 1 and Marcus Aurelius puts the same thought
1 De legg. v. 728.

PLATO AND THE VEDAS ON SIN 245
even more forcibly : " He who sins, sins for himself:
he who does wrong, wrongs himself, in that he makes
himself wicked." J
Very different estimates were formed of the moral
turpitude of different offences. But that sin was sin ;
that sin separated from God ; that reconciliation with
God was the supreme need of men ; and that recon
ciliation involved the fulfilment of conditions, — these
things were in one form and degree or another felt and
expressed by all.
Both the Rig -Veda and the Atharva-Veda speak
clearly on these points. In the former we read that
" the gods are haters of falsehood and punishers of all
untruth. Hence the prayer, ' Take away whatever sin
has been found in me, whether I have done wrong, or
have pronounced imprecations, or have spoken untruth.'
' May the untruth which the wise and sinless Varuna
observes in us, through thy favour, Indra, disappear ' ;
for ' those who practise untruths attain not the incon
ceivable deity.'" Whilst, according to the Atharva-
Veda, " the effect of sin is to separate man from God.
' Do I say this to my own self ? How can I get unto
Varuna? Will he accept my offering without dis
pleasure? When shall I with a quiet mind see him
propitiated ? I ask, O Varuna, wishing to know this
my sin — I go to ask the wise. The sages tell me the
same, — Varuna is he who is angry with me.' " 2
(3) Finally, God made His presence felt within the
1 IX. 4.
2 See Maurice Phillip's excellent book, 77/6.' Teaching of the Vedas, etc.,
I89S-

246 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
souls of the morally earnest, and gave inspiring grace
to elect poets, prophets, lawgivers, and religious leaders.
Save when men have sunk to the lowest depths of
moral degradation, and well nigh ceased to experience
moral stirrings, there have ever been, as was remarked
in an earlier connection, — few or many, — those who
hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and who
sought to act righteously, even though it might be in
a fitful and ineffective manner.
Wherever there have been such persons in any
number, souls have been born to which might be
applied the words, " Before I formed thee in the belly I
knew thee ; and before thou earnest forth out of the
womb I sanctified thee : I have appointed thee a
prophet to the nations " (Jer. i. 5). Prophets, lawyers,
poets, thinkers, arose who were specially sensible of the
fact that " God is not far from anyone of us, seeing
that in Him we live and move and have our being "
(Acts xvii. 27Q, who felt His breath, who responded
to His touch, and in whom He was able to energise
with unusual power. Through such men divine energy
as well as light entered the sin-sick and sin-enfeebled
body of humanity ; and quickenings, illuminings, reform
ings followed proportionate to the intensity, singleness
of eye, and power of the agents who obeyed the divine
call and followed the divine impulse. But even in the
best cases the energy was soon spent, and the effects
produced by it were limited. Not that it did not
work, but that it was insufficient for the leavening of
the whole lump ; — a far mightier force was needed than
any that could work in and through a Zoroaster, or

DIVINE METHOD WITH ISRAEL 247
a Buddha, or a Socrates and Plato, or a Marcus
Aurelius, or any other heathen who can be mentioned
or imagined as a saint.
God was willing ; but God needed agents of a
certain kind, and the organism of humanity did not
provide Him with fitting agents.
History testifies so loudly to the darker elements of
the sketch just roughly drawn that Christian thinkers
have too frequently overlooked those of a different
character. At the present moment the latter are being
so emphasised, and the former so underestimated, that
there is danger of the mission and work of Christ being
robbed of its rightful place and true significance.
II. The second course was that pursued with the
Israelites. Humanity was fast lapsing into thorough poly
theism, and the line of men who had been true to the
living tradition and holier custom handed down from
earlier days was in danger of dying out, when God
called Abraham to quit his idolatrous surroundings —
called him because he was one of the " faithful." The
divine purpose, as gradually revealed alike in word
and act, alike by promise and performance, was to take
into the service of redemption those family, tribal, and
national relationships which had already so largely be
come the means of perpetuating and diffusing error and
sin, alienation from Himself and disorder among men.
In pursuance of this plan God gradually grafted
special action on the ordinary means which He was
employing in the case of the heathen, till in a certain
sense the ordinary was filled with a significance which,

248 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
though considered in itself thoroughly normal, was yet
relatively extraordinary ; and the supernatural was felt
to be natural for God under the special and abnormal
conditions created by human sin, degradation, ignor
ance, and error.
In an external respect the life of the Israelites, fre
quently as individuals, and one may almost say regularly
as a nation, was marked by special alternations of bless
ing and curse, of happiness and misery, of reward and
punishment, the connection between which and their
conduct, and the ultimate design of which, were not
left to be discovered by their unaided intelligence, but
were directly pointed out or revealed to them. Nay
more, even miracles were sometimes employed to
express more forcibly the anger and the love of God.
Institutions also, civil and political, moral and
religious, were either taken over from the ordinary
organisations of men with a new divine sanction, or
were specially modified or ordained for the purpose of
aiding in the establishment and maintenance of right
relations between themselves and God.
For the sake further of guarding against the peril
of externalisation and ossification, against legalism and
self-righteousness, other more spiritual means were
employed. Prophets and poets were raised up for
the express purpose of setting forth the vanity of mere
sacrifices, offerings, and external observances, and the
absolute necessity of a broken and contrite heart, of
fear, humility, and faith, of righteousness and truth.
The words of the Word came to prophets : and in
a variety of ways the Logos and the Spirit sought to

FAILURE OF DIVINE METHODS 249
bring about in men the fulfilment of the conditions
necessary to redemption. In some cases, as, for ex
ample, in the writers of certain Psalms, depths are
sounded and heights scaled which seem to leave little
more to be done : and these experiences undoubtedly
were not only examples, but also prepared the way for
and in their degree energised towards the same thing
in others, — they have done so for myriads of men ; but
neither the best of them, nor all together, could enter
fully into the mind of God, still less become the channels
through which divine energy could flood the race in
sufficient measure to enable humanity to resume its
normal relation to God.
III. Failure of the methods described to accomplish
their purpose.
The Gentiles went from bad to worse. They became
more and more ignorant of God, and more and more
dead in their trespasses and sins, i.e. not perhaps,
strictly speaking, more positively wicked, but more and
more insensible to the true character of the trespasses
and sins which they were committing.
Individuals, indeed, arose amongst them, as has
already been stated, from time to time, who responded to
the inner touch of the divine hand, and to the appeals
of nature and history ; through them, too, quickening
influences — not slight — flowed into their fellow-men,
especially when they were endowed with the excep
tional gifts which fit men to be prophets, philosophers,
legislators, priests, or poets ; but the great organism
was too sick and disordered and enfeebled to be thus
adequately reached.

250 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Larger and intenser results were undoubtedly achieved
among the Israelites. In individual cases an estimate
of sin, a penitence because of sin, and a consciousness
of forgiveness are to be found which, whether or not,
as is sometimes asserted, as true, deep, clear, and abiding
as anything of the kind among Christians, are certainly
far in advance of anything discoverable among Gentiles,
and undoubtedly real and justifying as far as they went.
But the vast majority of the people fulfilled the law, at
the best, in an outward way ; availed themselves of their
specifically religious privileges perfunctorily, and turned
a deaf ear to their prophets and poets and wise men.
The deliverances, punishments, and mighty deeds of
Jehovah became accordingly rather food for pride and
presumption than means of bringing home to them the
divine condemnation, anger, claims, and grace.
There always were some who both deictically and
dynamically worked for the restoration of their fellow-
men to God, not only in Israel, but also far beyond the
limits of Palestine ; but the nation, as a whole, proved
itself so utterly unfit to serve as a channel of the quick
ening, potentiating energy of God, and a living embodi
ment of the fulfilment of the conditions of reconciliation,
that, as Paul tells us, they were broken off from the
stem because of unbelief, and blindness happened to
them (Rom. xi. 20, 23).
It may seem offensive to speak of divine failures :
and yet if God has constituted man with the power of
either yielding to or resisting His will ; if the divine
power in relation to man's will is exclusively ethical,
not physical ; and if, as a matter of fact, all godly men

MEANING OF FAILURE 25 I
bewail the fact that God has oftentimes showed mercy
to them, chastened them, instructed them, blessed them,
borne with them, striven with them in vain — what
other position can with consistency be taken up ? To
object to the doctrinal formulation of that which
prayers, hymns, personal diaries, books of devotion, and
the like prove to be matter of experience, may be the
way of sentiment, but it is none the less a way of
unreason. When we speak of failure, however, we must not
suppose that the divine work was absolutely in vain.
The immediate end aimed at was not attained ; but as
the divine purpose stood fast, even the obstinacy,
stupidity, and wickedness of men were so controlled as
to redound to the glory of God, i.e. to the glory which
consists in the accomplishment of the purpose to elim
inate sin and evil and establish the divine kingdom.
This is what Paul refers to, as far as Israel is concerned,
when he says : "If the fall of them be the riches of the
world, and the diminishing of them be riches of the
Gentiles ; how much more their fulness ? . . . Blind
ness in part is happened to Israel, until the fulness of
the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be
saved. ... As ye in times past have not believed God,
yet have now obtained mercy through their unbelief:
even so have these also now not believed, that through
your mercy they also may obtain mercy. For God
hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might
have mercy on all" (Rom. xi. 12, 25, 26, 30 f.).

CHAPTER XV
Some Features of the Constitution of Hu
manity WHICH HAVE A SPECIAL BEARING ON
the Divine Method of Reconciliation
At this point it is necessary to call attention again,
and somewhat more at large, to certain features of
the constitution of man which are involved in the cos-
mological principles previously expounded, and which
are specially presupposed by the divine method of
reconciliation. I. The first of these is, that humanity constitutes a
system or organism between all the factors or members
of which not only successive communication, but contem
poraneous interaction and intercommunication are con
stantly taking place.
All theories of the atoning work of Christ of any
importance have taken this more or less distinctly for
granted ; though now one of its aspects has been
emphasised, then another ; and though the view taken of
it may have been, in the main, external and superficial.
Humanity, however, we need to remember, is not —
as many representations seem to imply — an organic
whole in the sense of being complete. At any and
every stage, indeed, it is a sort of whole, but withal an
262

HUMANITY AN ORGANISM 253
ever-growing and expanding whole. Nor, again, is it
restricted to the human beings who, at any particular
time, form the visible population of the globe. On the
contrary, it embraces not only those who now exist on
the earth, but all who ever did exist, or who ever shall
exist thereon; in other words, the human dwellers in
the invisible world, no less than the human dwellers on
the earth. That such is its compass seems to be
clearly enough implied by the words : " For it pleased
the Father that in Him should all the fulness dwell ; and
that through Him all things should be reconciled unto
Him, . . . having made peace through the blood of His
cross, . . . whetJter those on the earth or those in the
heavens" (Col. i. 19, 20).
One day, perhaps, the organism will be complete ;
but at present it is progressing in differentiation and
development by births, from moment to moment, just
as a tree differentiates itself and develops till it reaches
its culmination.
As an organic whole, a living body compacted of
many members, a process of vital interaction and inter
communication is always going on between the con
stituent factors of humanity. There is not a member
of the whole that does not influence, and is not influ
enced by, every other member. This influence is not
merely action on, that is, stimulus, impulse, evocation ;
still less, any form of action analogous to action in the
physical sphere, but also in the strictest sense vital
communication. What living energy may be in itself,
as distinguished from other forms of energy, we know
not ; but whatever it be, just as in a tree or an animal

254 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
its pulsations, its ebbs and flows, its stirrings, at any one
point, make themselves felt more or less, sooner or
later, at every other point; so is it with the organism
mankind. This vital interaction and intercommunica
tion varies, of course, infinitely, both in quantity and
quality. It may reveal itself to consciousness, or it
may stop short and never pass out of the subconscious
region of mind ; it may exert an important or a very
insignificant influence ; but whether recognised or un
recognised, whether near at hand or afar off, whether
slight or the reverse, there is no stirring of life anywhere
that does not more or less affect the whole organism ;
what any one member experiences affects the whole.
The law of heredity, which is explicitly recognised
throughout the Scriptures, besides being presupposed
where it is not explicitly mentioned ; on which theology
has always built, and which modern science has in a
sense rediscovered for itself, assumes in reality two
forms, which may be respectively designated successive
and contemporaneous. The former is the one most dis
tinctly, if not exclusively, referred to, built upon by
Christian theology, and reaffirmed by modern science.
The other form has not yet found due appreciation :
indeed, it can scarcely as yet be said to have found
distinct recognition at all as a law ; though phenomena,
which may be regarded as suggesting and illustrating
it — some of a more, some of a less superficial character
— are now attracting attention.
When Scripture says : " I the Lord thy God am a
jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon
the children unto the third and fourth generation of

TWO FORMS OF HEREDITY 255
them that hate me," it is the law of successive
" heredity " that is recognised ; for, as might be made
quite clear, it is the manner — the correct manner of
Scripture — to represent God Himself as bringing to
pass or doing that which happens to men in accord
ance with the laws of nature, and of their own
constitution ; — they are, in fact, two ways of regarding
the same occurrences, both of which are seen to be true
when regarded from the point of view of the cosmology
presupposed by the Scriptures (cf. Jer. xxxi. 29, and
Ezek. xviii. 1 ). Paul's reasoning, " Wherefore, as by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin ; and
so death passed upon all men, in that all have sinned.
. . . Death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over
them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's
transgression. ... If by one man's offence death
reigned by one ; much more they which received abund
ance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall
reign in life by one, Jesus Christ " (Rom. v. 1 2, 1 4, 1 7),
obviously takes the same thing for granted.
As to the contemporaneous form of " heredity," may
we not find it hinted at in ,such passages as : " Speaking
the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things,
which is the head, even Christ : from whom the whole
body fitly joined together and compacted by that
which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual
working in the measure of every part, maketh increase
of the body unto the edifying of itself in love " (Eph.
iv. 1 5 f. ; Col. i. 24). And the effects traceable to
intercessory prayer, are they not also in part the result
of the law of " heredity " in this second form ?

256 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
II. The second of these characteristics is that not
only existing potentialities of humanity are invigorated,
but possibly also new potentialities are evoked in the
organism as the result of resolute effort or achievement
on the part of members, whether acting individually or
collectively. Reference was made in a previous connection to the
law of waste, recuperation, reinvigoration, and con
sequent increased invigoration to which organisms are
subject ; and in accordance with which, the result of
putting forth special effort, whether intellectual or in
the stricter sense spiritual, is an increase of the
capability of higher effort of the same kind. This
comes to pass, as was pointed out, not because effort
itself strengthens, for effort involves waste of energy ;
but because the way is thus prepared for an enlarge
ment of the reservoir in which the particular form of
energy is stored by which the work has been done —
provided, of course, that the energy expended is duly
supplied as it is expended.
The same thing must clearly hold good of the organ
ism of humanity as a whole, if it be in any real and true
sense an organism. Men of achievement enrich and
strengthen not only their own higher nature, their own
inner man, but also the higher nature and capabilities of
their fellow-men. The race becomes capable of higher
poetic, artistic, and philosophic appreciation, insight,
effort, through the work of poets, artists, and philo
sophers ; a hero endows it with the capability of higher
heroism, though no particular individual may thereafter
attain the same pitch of excellence.

POTENTIALITIES QUICKENED 257
The reverse is also true. Men who let their powers
run to waste, who live effortless lives, especially those
who lag behind in the race of life and degenerate there
by, weaken their own potentialities, as well as those of
humanity, and leave themselves and it poorer and less
capable than before.
History is full of illustrations of the working of this
law. The sensitiveness, the refinement of taste, and
the accuracy of judgment in matters of art, poetry,
oratory, and literary form, which marked the Athenians
in so high a degree for a considerable period, were
largely due to the unusual number of men who ac
complished great things in these departments. The
potentiality of the nation was heightened by the great
aims, efforts, and achievements of the poets, artists,
philosophers, orators, and writers who arose in its
midst. And the decadence of Greece, Florence, Venice,
and other states and cities in these same respects was
doubtless due to their absence.
The degree to which potentialities will be affected
in this way depends, of course, on the amount of new
energy assimilated as the result of the efforts put forth
by members. The larger the men, if their work be
proportional, the greater the channels by which energy
may flow in ; naturally, therefore, the richer the influx
and the greater the intensification of the relative
potentialities. All this holds peculiarly good of the moral and
spiritual sphere. One righteous, pure, holy, loving
life puts new possibilities of righteousness, purity,
holiness, love, within the reach of men generally.
17

258 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Here again, of course, the effect is proportionate to the
cause, though the greatness of the cause must not be
estimated by standards that are applicable to the
matters just now mentioned. The degree in which
men may become channels of special energy from God
— energy making for the spiritual elevation of the race
— does not depend on qualifications which ordinarily
discriminate them from their fellows. One may here
apply the words : " Not many wise men after the flesh,
not many mighty, not many noble, — but God hath chosen
foolish things of the world to confound the wise ; and
God hath chosen weak things of the world to confound
the things that are mighty" (1 Cor. ii. 26 f). This is the
divine rule, and it is a rule as far from arbitrariness as the
rule that for the poetic, artistic, and general intellectual
elevation of mankind God uses men of special natural
poetic, artistic, and intellectual aptitudes. That which
fits men to be channels of the divine energy in question
is essentially spiritual, not natural. It is not a gift, not
a special endowment, but an attitude, a practical relation
to God, which is obligatory on all souls alike; nor does
it depend on culture, or station, or circumstances, or
even manners.
The effect produced on mankind as a whole by any
particular man, or set or succession of men, may be
slight, — in point of fact, it cannot but be relatively
slight ; but it is real — real for the whole. Doubtless
it is strongest within the circle or nation to which the
workers belong. If at any epoch or in any land or
community there are many men of vigorous, large, and
intense spiritual life, the results become distinctly

HUMANITY ENERGISED BY GREAT MEN 259
perceptible ; partly, however, because opportunity is in
such cases afforded for the action of the characteristic
to be noticed under the next head. The promise
attached to the injunction, " Walk with wise men and
thou shalt be wise " (Prov. xiii. 20), is fulfilled in a
double way — by the conscious communication and
assimilation of wisdom, and by the vital energising now
under consideration. Analogously, too, should perhaps
be understood the words : " When it goeth well with the
righteous, the city rejoiceth" (Prov. xi. 10); and, "By
the blessing of the upright the city is exalted ; but it is
overthrown by the mouth of the wicked " (Prov. xi. 11;
cf. xxviii. 1 2).
If ever the race is to be renovated and elevated, if it
is to grow and develop according to its true idea, it
can only be by the incoming of a flood of divine
energy through some personal channels or channel to
which the way lies open into the recesses of the life of
the organism, mighty enough to raise its potentialities
to their normal intensity and force.
" For the world still needs
Its champion as of old, and finds him still,
Not always now with mighty sinews and thews
Like mine, though these still profit, but keen brain
And voice to move men's souls to love the right
And hate the wrong ; even though the bodily form
Be weak, of giant strength, strength to assail
The hydra heads of evil, and to slay
The monsters that now waste them : Ignorance,
Self-seeking, coward fears, the hate of man
Disguised as love of God.
And though men cease
To worship at my shrine, yet not the less
I hold, it is the toils I knew, the pains
I bore for others which have kept the heart

260 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
Of manhood undefiled, and nerved the arm
Of sacrifice, and made the martyr strong
To do and bear, and taught the race of men
How God-like 'tis to suffer through life, and die
At last for others' good." Lewis Morris, Herakles.
III. The third characteristic with which we are here
concerned is that the actualisation of potentialities
depends on a fit appeal being made to the consciousness
of individuals, and of their giving due response.
Every individual man begins existence as a bundle
of potentialities ; that is, he has the power in a latent
form of becoming and doing or enduring certain
things : but before these latent forces can come
into operation, he has to be acted on by corresponding
influences from without. This is no less true of the
outer man than of the inner man, of the body than of
the mind, though it attracts more attention in con
nection with the latter. Whether a potentiality is
quantitatively in a normal state — which, in view of the
lapsed state of the human race is scarcely possible — or
whether it have been occasionally heightened under
circumstances such as have been under consideration,
makes no difference ; the principle holds good. This
is obviously so in the other psychical domains. Unless
the actual achievements of a great poet, or artist, or
thinker are made known, the potentiality he has
vitalised remains latent.
In the case, at all events, of the spiritual sphere,
appeal needs to be made to the intelligence, to the will,
and to the heart.
First and foremost, the human action which has

POTENTIALITIES ACTUALISED 26 1
been the means of heightening the potentiality must be
set clearly before the minds of the members of the
race. They must be made aware of what has been
done — done for them. It must be shown to them.
Suppose, for example, that a great sacrifice has been
made for the spiritual welfare of the race ; or a
great project has been launched, and time and power
are being devoted to it — all this must be made known.
It must be proclaimed, preached " with demonstration
of spirit." Further, everything must be done that can be done
to impress the importance of a due response ; reasons
must be presented, motives urged, fears and desires
appealed to, — in other words, stimulus must be brought
to bear on the mind that has been informed. The
affections, the sense of need, nay more, self-interest,
must be aroused.
The goal is to evoke appropriate activity, to awaken
out of slumber. This, we all know, is the primary end
of instruction, and specially of preaching.
Unless there is latent capability, the communication
of knowledge will not only be fruitless, but even in
the strict sense impossible ; appeals to the heart, the
feelings, the will, must be useless, for what effort can
be put forth by one who is afflicted with incapacity ?
'Twere as rational to present pictures to the blind, and
seek to stir them to admiration, study, and imitation ; or
to call upon one whose limbs are paralysed to accom
pany his friend up a hill. If, however, the potentiality
is there, one may hope by using the proper means to
evoke effort, the result of which will be the conversion

262 THE RECONCILIATION OF GOD AND MAN
of the potentiality into an actual power that shall in
the measure appropriate to it reproduce the effects
by which it itself was originally invigorated.
It scarcely needs to be pointed out that potentialities
may also be lost by lack of response. Whether, as in
the physical domain, so also in the spiritual, they can
disappear altogether through disuse and atrophy, may
be open to doubt. In every age, however, men have
existed — probably they still exist — in whom all capa
bility of a higher life seemed to be extinct ; and who
yet, under the fitting action of a fitting environment,
developed a remarkable spiritual character. The capa
bilities had lain dormant, like the life in seeds that had
been hidden away deep in the earth, untouched by air,
atmosphere, and sunshine, awaiting action from without.
The case is different with those to whom due appeal
has been made, on whom influences fitted to evoke
potentialities into active life have been brought to bear.
Neglect to respond has results which no ignorance and
no degradation due to heredity or circumstances can
possibly bring in their train. The extinction of
spiritual capabilities, possible as it certainly must be,
can never be effected by anything but the conscious
conduct of men themselves : it can be brought about
by what Dr. Martineau expressively and aptly terms
the " canker of unfaithfulness." In a word, the death
of the inner man is always due to self-imposed starva
tion, — that is, to suicide.

THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD

CHAPTER XVI
The Problem
If what has thus far been advanced is tenable, namely,
that the rectification of the personal relation of God
to man is the first step to a rectification of the entire
relations between God and man ; and that this step
presupposes, first of all, the fulfilment by man of
certain personal conditions, to wit, the condemnation
of sin from the divine point of view, and consequent
justification of divine resentment ; sorrowing at the
pain and sorrow caused to God; and sincere desire
to make amends for the injury inflicted on God ; and
next, that God Himself has revealed or shown to men
the significance of sin to Himself; — if this is true, then,
two things are clear, namely, first, that every man must
be energised to enter into the mind of God regarding
sin : and secondly, that the energising process must be
carried out within the human race itself, in accordance
with the features of its constitution as an organism,
referred to in the last chapter. The question now
is, How and by whom this process shall be initiated ?
Who shall so potentiate the vast organism of humanity
that every member of it shall be able, each for itself
263

264 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
and proportionately to its share in the general guilt,
to fulfil the conditions on which God can resume
normal relations ?
A brief reconsideration of the precise nature of the con
ditions to be fulfilled will prepare the way for a better
appreciation of the problem in hand. The experiences,
be it remembered, are not mere processes of thought ;
but the most real possible, — that is, spiritually real.
1. The revelation of the divine mind with regard
to human sin must be borne, — it must be borne as a
practical burden ; the divine condemnation, with all
that it involves, must be felt as such ; the sin of the
race must be judged as God judges it ; nay more, the
divine condemnation must be endorsed and justified;
in short, the condemner and the condemned must, as it
were, become one.
2. Still further, the divine sorrow, resentment, anger,
must be endured, entered into, felt, in all its awfulness ;
yet at the same time be recognised and confessed as
reasonable. Grief at sin like the grief of God, anger
like the anger of God, must be felt. In a very true sense
God's burden must be borne away : God's place must be
taken. It is not merely taking the sinner's place : — it
is taking God's place, against whom the sinner has
sinned. That is the true significance of this condition.
3. Still more, the divine estimate of the dishonour
and injury inflicted by human sin, and of the magnitude
of the work necessary to make good the dishonour and
injury, must present itself to and be felt in its full
truth and nakedness. It must be realised as a work
that has to be accomplished. At the same time, the

THE PROBLEM 265
estimate must also be absolutely approved, thoroughly
accepted. The task must be cheerfully undertaken.
The claimant and the one who meets the claim must
be one in mind, one in realisation.
4. At the same time, the fulfilment of these condi
tions involves, nay more, is impossible without, an ap
preciation of the inner meaning of the divine procedure
in relation to sin. The nature of that inner meaning
has been already indicated. God condemns and is
angry at sin ; and because he condemns it and is angry
at it, therefore must He seek to remove it out of the
world He made. But such removal has for its essential
and proper aim the deliverance of sinners from their
sin; in other words, their redemption from death and
their restoration to life and consequent blessedness.
If sinners will not give up their sin, the only course
open to God is to treat them as identified with their
sin, and to become to them, as to it, " a consuming
fire." Failing this, indeed, the fulfilment of the condi
tions just mentioned would be impossible.
5. Whoever fulfils these conditions will clearly need
to know what it is to be tempted to sin, and yet to be
absolutely free from sin.
This, at first sight, must wear the appearance either
of a self-contradiction, or, at all events, of inconsistency
with what has previously been urged. The problem is
the fulfilment of certain personal conditions which, in
their very nature, are commonly held to involve parti
cipation in human sin. How can one who knows no
sin enter into the mind of God and sympathise with
God at once in His sorrow, resentment, and claims

266 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
upon the sinner ? Surely he ought rather to have been
a sinner of the deepest dye ; — a sinner who concen
trated in himself the sin of the whole race ; — a sinner
who therefore could endure in a sense what each
and all might have to endure. Is not this required
if what is thus accomplished is to be a quickening,
energising principle, as well as a manifestation to
humanity of the task to be performed ? Such a view
of the matter, however, rests on the implicit assumption
that the agent thus described is no longer the sinner
he was, that he has passed out through the depths of
iniquity and degradation into the higher sphere, that
he is one of the men, only of the very highest type, to
whom Tennyson refers —
" And dare we to the fancy give,
That had the wild oat not been sown,
The soil, left barren, scarce had grown
The grain by which a man may live." In Memoriam, LIII.
But such a passing out presupposes the very fulfilment
which is only possible after the fulfilment has taken place.
No ! such sin as it seemed necessary to postulate
would imply a sinfulness of character and nature that
would incapacitate for the fulfilment of the conditions
in question. The more sinful the sins and the sinner,
the less capable does the sinner become of appreciating
either the sinfulness of himself or of his acts.
On the contrary, it is only the sinless who can fully
appreciate the character and import of sin.
Nay more, any one who is in the least degree tainted
by sin is excluded by the fact that for this very reason
his place is necessarily in the ranks of those who have

A SINLESS ONE NEEDED 267
to be reconciled. It is said, indeed, "The susceptibility
to possible repentance and consciousness of something
short of ' Good,' rather lifts Jesus Christ for us nearer
to the standard of holiness than detains Him in the
precincts of sin. It is only in the sphere of mundane
phenomena that a Revealer needs to know more than
we : in the sphere of divine things the requirement is
that he be better, and in the order of his affections and
the secrets of his will make more approach to the
Supreme Perfection. This intervening position it is
which alone renders the function of a Mediator, —
Uplifter, — Inspirer, possible; and that not instead of
immediate revelation, but simply as making us more
aware of it, and helping us to interpret it. . . . The
train of the conspicuously righteous in their several
degrees are for us the real angels that pass to and fro
on the ladder that reaches from earth to heaven. And
if Jesus of Nazareth, in virtue of the characteristics of
His spirit, holds the place of Prince of Saints, and per
fects the conditions of the pure religious life, He thereby
reveals the highest possibilities of the human soul, and
their dependence on habitual communion between man
and God." 1
The view of the actual relation between God and
man, of the rectification of that relation, and of the
conditions towards God needing to be fulfilled ere it
can be rectified, underlying the words quoted, differs so
thoroughly from that expounded in these pages that
criticism would lead to no result. Dr. Martineau's
Christ is only a higher — let us say the highest known
1 Martineau, Seat of Authority in Religion, pp. 651 f.

268 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
— purely human revealer, inspirer, uplifter. That in His
measure, regarded only thus, He could and would have
inspired and uplifted, there is no difficulty in allowing.
Had He been really perfect, with a perfection never for a
moment, or in the least tittle of impulse, desire, thought,
purpose, still less word or act, relaxed or infringed or
strained, — that, too, throughout temptation and conflict,
— he would have inspired and uplifted in still fuller
measure. But even then He could not have fulfilled
the other conditions which have been mentioned in
this connection.
On the estimate of Him as needing repentance, He
would clearly have been among those who required the
revealing and dynamising action of God, less indeed,
far less perhaps, than any other man, yet really : — in
other words, He would Himself have been in His measure
a subject of the reconciling and redeeming grace of God.
6. There must, further, be the capability of acting as
a reservoir into which, and a channel through which,
divine energy could and would flow adequate to the
energisation of the entire race.
As was already pointed out, those who energise their
fellow-men by their achievements, or sufferings, do so
in virtue of the energy which they draw in larger
measure than usual from our natural environment.
The energy, however, which they themselves assimilate
is transmitted by them in a specifically differentiated
form : — it may be an artistic, or poetical, or scientific,
or a properly practical form ; — and as such it helps to
quicken and enrich that in their fellow-men which is
akin to itself.

RESERVOIR OF ENERGY NEEDED 269
Even so is it in the domain with which we are
immediately concerned. He who is to energise his
fellow-men for the discharge of spiritual duties and the
bearing of spiritual burdens must draw larger measures
of energy than usual from his divine environment. The
energy thus assimilated, however, is transmitted in a
specially modified form. If he have gone through
great spiritual darkness, he will energise others to do
the same ; if he have felt profound spiritual sorrow,
others through him will be helped to do the same ; if
he have gained great spiritual victories, he will make it
easier for others to do the same.
Now, he on whom the function of quickening or
potentiating every member of the organism of humanity,
for the fulfilment of the conditions which were previ
ously described, must clearly be capable of receiving
and transmitting a measure of divine energy trans
cendently vast ; and the experiences by which it is to
be specifically modified for the purpose in question
must be deep and varied beyond all estimate.
We shall feel this still more distinctly if we remem
ber that he must be able to continue to discharge the
functions of which I have been speaking until the
members of the race have been put into a position
through him also to fulfil each in his measure the con
ditions of which I have spoken. The work to be done
is a gradual work, whether we embrace in our view
merely the vast numbers of men who have already
come into existence, or think also of those who are
now coming, and still to come, into existence.
He who undertakes this tremendous task must for

270 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
ages possibly continue the work which he undertakes
and initiates. One set of conditions demands that it
be accomplished or completed in principle once for all
at one point of time, in one place, by one series of acts.
Another set of conditions not less stringently requires
that he who accomplishes the task in principle, inas
much as he has to be the living channel of energy,
must continue to take a living interest in those to whom
he aims to transmit such energy. Having become or
being one with them, he cannot give them vital energy
without at the same time entering into their needs and
state. So that in a sense one may say that he will be
continuously fulfilling the conditions to which reference
was made, even though, in another respect, they were
fulfilled once for all.
The two things just noted are, in fact, correlates.
The conditions must have been fulfilled once for all, in
order that the race might become endowed with the
potentiality of their gradual, individual fulfilment. Not,
of course, that every individual will repeat exactly
what the one has accomplished : — that is not according
to its constitution. When a great poet or artist or
thinker, or other worker, has accomplished some great
work, a new potentiality is conferred upon, or enters
into, the race. But it is not the potentiality of inde
finitely repeating what the originator has done : — it is
rather, as one may say, that of so entering into his
labour, that each man in the measure of his capacity,
under conditions which vary according to the sphere to
which they belong, makes his own that which has been
accomplished by another.

MUST REVEAL. DIVINE GRACE 27 1
7. It is further necessary that through that which
the agent of man's potentiation does and suffers there
should be revealed or manifested the grace and love of
God. As was already pointed out, in itself the mani
festation of the divine condemnation of sin, of the
divine anger, and of the divine claim on man could
not but tend rather to produce despair than hope,
defiance than humble penitence. The bare spectacle
of endurance such as we find to be involved in the
divine action by itself would have no virtue to evoke
the potentiality quickened by that endurance. That
potentiality is more than merely an intense capability
of realising the terrible nature of sin : it is also, and no
less, a greater ability of sympathising with God as
regards sin. Without the latter, as well as the former,
repentance is not real repentance. He who should
thus bear our sins must, of course, discern the gracious
purpose of God in laying them on him ; for otherwise
he would not experience truly what God was doing,
and thus quicken our potentiality of discerning the
same thing. But how was this same potentiality to be
evoked in man ? By what means ? Not, as I said,
by the mere picture of endurance — simply as such.
How, then, shall it be evoked ?
8. But, still further, the quickening of the potentialities,
their restoration to the position of real potentialities,
was not all that was needed. According to the con
stitution of human nature — a constitution which it
shares in essence with all living creatures — no potenti
ality can become an actuality, that is, realise and
manifest itself in appropriate activity, unless it is

272 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
appropriately acted upon and solicited from without.
The law of life is that a fitting environment must act
on the living principle or germ to which it itself
— environment regarded, of course, in its entirety —
has previously given existence, if that principle or germ
is to be evoked into ability to do the work for which
it is potentially fitted. If a human potentiality is to
be awakened and evoked, it has to be acted on
by a corresponding external human embodiment, i.e.
by an actualisation corresponding to itself, though
outside and independent of itself. The potentiality of
painting, e.g. has to be evoked by paintings which
embody something of the kind that it is designed when
actualised to body forth. The work for the race, by
which the race is potentiated, needs also to be brought
home to the consciousness of every member of the
race, if its vitalised potentiality is to be evoked into
actuality — a work, be it remembered, embodying,
necessarily embodying, that which every man should
body forth. Like a great moral painting, it must be
set before the human painters whose well-nigh atrophied
potentiality of painting has been quickened into new
life, if their potentiality is ever to be evoked into actu
ality. Appeal has to be made to man's freedom to
choose, and influence has to be brought to bear upon
him. Apart from such appeal and influence, his power
of choice would have no opportunity of putting itself
forth; and apart from the quickening previously de
scribed, he would have a power of choice only in name.
By nature his power of self-control, even as regards the
good that is seen, is at the best enfeebled ; generally

APPEAL TO CONSCIOUSNESS NECESSARY 273
speaking, it is reduced well-nigh to null. Through the
redeeming, potentiating action, however, it is to be so
far restored to its normal state as to be a reality in
relation to the work done on his behalf; but the work
must be presented if it is to have an opportunity of
having the due and designed effect.
The two are correlates : the former may be termed
its dynamic action ; the latter its deictic action !
But try to realise the significance of this. The
work must be presented to every member of the human
race, past, present, and to come, in such a way that the
potentiality of entering into it which has been quickened
in him shall be evoked into actuality, or at all events
have the opportunity of becoming an actuality.
9. A tremendous problem, indeed, was the one whose
chief points have just been past in review, — tremendous
especially in view of the fact that man had to be
energised to do what for him, according to his true
idea, was abnormal ; and which notwithstanding, in
view of his actual state, was right and normal. Re
pentance — to sum up in the one word the conditions
in question — involves a double effort for man, — the
effort, first, to do what at his deepest he necessarily feels —
dimly perhaps, yet really feels — he should not have to
do. Hence some of the reluctance men display to repent.
For repentance, though demanded by the contradiction
to the law or idea of his being is ipso facto opposed
to that law or idea, i.e. to the man's true self. And
secondly, it is an effort to do what is normal by one
who is actually in an abnormal state. To repent is
the only normal course for one who has fallen into sin
18

274 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
and has become sinful. But clearly to impose a special
duty on one who is indisposed towards good and dis
posed towards evil — such a duty, too, a duty which,
intrinsically considered, as was just hinted, never ought
to have been a duty, and ideally is not a duty — must
be to ask what is practically impossible. He has there
fore to be potentiated, not merely as would have been
the case apart from sin, to go on in the course which he
is pursuing ; but to retrieve his steps, to nullify his own
conduct, and to regard as worthy of him what in itself
considered is a sign of his degradation. People who
talk glibly of repentance ignore these considerations.
What must the member or members of the organism
be who shall be capable of such a work ? So to
reinvigorate the enfeebled will of every man who ever
has been or ever shall be born as that, so far as
potentiality is concerned, he shall be without excuse.
Apart from such potentiation man is incapable. He is,
as Paul puts it, " dead in trespasses and sins " (Col.
ii. 1 3) ; — not, that is, absolutely given over to sin, not
absolutely and totally depraved, as theologians of a
certain school have understood the words ; but even
as men do and say things without being properly sensible
or aware of what they are doing and saying in other
domains, that is, as though they were dead whilst living,
so men sinned, sinned constantly in thought and word
and deed, and yet were as insensible of the significance
of their conduct as though they were dead. Whether
their conduct were grossly or mildly wrong depended
on various conditions : but, whether less or more or
most wicked, they almost as thoroughly failed to

WHO SHALL QUICKEN THE ORGANISM? 275
appreciate its real character, as if they had been
actually without life.1
1 The idea which I am urging, and which is an important factor of the
theory of the work of Christ here expounded, was hinted at with a
narrower application by the Reformed theologian Olevian ( 1 536-1 587) in
his De substantia faderis grahtiti : " Ita etiam oportebat \bfav vivi-
ficare propriam mnssnm quo constaret, X670J/ incarnatum esse Spiritual
vivificuntem, h.e. ut constaret, quemadmodum est Spiritus vivificus nature
a se assumtx ita esse Spiriium vivificum omnibus' et solis qui hinc massie
inseruntur. — Eadcm Deltas qua; plenitudinem vita; in propria massa creat,
ex oa plenitudinc in nos et subjecta membra transfundit." — Heppe,
Dogmatik des dattsc/icn Pretestantismns, vol. ii. p. 218.

CHAPTER XVII
The Solution
According to the New Testament and the faith of the
Christian Church, the Logos, who was in the beginning
with God and was God, became flesh, as John puts it ; or
as it is narrated by Matthew and Luke, the Holy Spirit
overshadowed the Virgin Mary, and she conceived and
brought forth a Son of whom the angel declared, " He
shall be great and shall be called the Son of the Most
High — the Son of God " (Luke i. 31, 35). Jesus, as He
was named, by His obedience unto death, even the
death of the Cross, wrought what needed to be wrought
in order that men might attain to reconciliation to
God. In other words, using the language of the Church
and theology, the second Person of the Trinity entered
into personal union with the great body of humanity,
and as such lived, taught, wrought wondrous works,
was tempted, suffered, died and rose again that He
might render possible and initiate the reconciliation of
God and man.
The method by which the Incarnate Word accom
plished His task is indicated in the numerous passages
which either distinctly teach or imply or presuppose
276

NEW TESTAMENT TEACHINGS 277
that what Christ did and suffered is done and suffered
by men, in power of His having already done and
suffered it. Such expressions as " I am crucified with
Christ " (Gal. ii. 20) ; " Planted together in the like
ness of His death " (Rom vi. 5) ; " Communion or
participation in His sufferings being conformed unto
His death" (Phil. iii. 10); "Buried with Him, risen
with Him" (Col. ii. 10) ; " If we be dead with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with Him " (Rom.
vi. 8); " Your life is hid with Christ in God " (Col. iii. 3),
which are but a sample of many others, are the out
come of a conception which dominated Paul's thinking
even when he was not consciously going back to it
as a premise from which he reasoned — a conception
which points in the direction indicated.
Two things need, however, to be remembered, — first,
that Paul uses the word " death " to denote not merely
and solely " death," i.e. the actual dissolution of the
physical organism, but " death " as the culmination and
summing-up of Christ's whole work ; in this sense
" death " stands and is very appropriately used for the
whole. He says elsewhere, e.g. " He humbled Himself
and became obedient unto death, yea even unto the
death of the Cross." So that what he really teaches
is that in the self-humiliation, the obedience, the suffer
ings, the death, the resurrection, and the life of Christ,
humanity humbled itself, obeyed, suffered, died and
rose again to newness of life. And secondly, that when
he refers to himself and his fellow-Christians he is
not claiming something that belongs exclusively to
them. In his view, on the contrary, they have entered

278 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
into the conscious enjoyment of something that belongs
to the whole world. This seems clear enough from
particular words like, " If one died for all, then were
all dead " ; no less than from the general doctrine of
the New Testament, that the work of Christ affected
the whole world.
In short, the New Testament represents the world
as already redeemed in and by Christ.
Yet, on the other hand, it plainly enough also
teaches that each individual man, as an individual, has
to humble himself, to repent, to believe, to die, to rise
with Christ and to begin to live through His life. In
evidence of this it is only necessary to adduce the
well-known passage : " The gospel of Christ, the power
of God unto salvation to every one that believeth"
(Rom. i. 16); for by the gospel Paul means the news
of Christ and His work on behalf of men, — the work,
namely, which has just been described. So that, though
elsewhere he represents the salvation, i.e. the dying
and rising with Christ, as finished and complete ; men,
therefore, as ipso facto in some way participants
thereof, that is, as already reconciled and saved ; he
here treats salvation as conditional on believing.
In one sense, therefore, reconciliation was an accom
plished fact, forgiveness was secured by the death of
Christ ; in another sense, reconciliation or forgiveness
had to become an accomplished fact in the case of
every individual man : it would therefore seem not yet
to be complete.

CHAPTER XVIII
The Constitutional Relation of the Logos to
the World, apart from Sin and under Sin
The constitutional relation of the Logos to the world
may be looked at, first, independently of sin ; and
secondly, under the conditions imposed by sin. It is
true, indeed, that we have no experience of a world
without sin : yet it is also true that we should not even
recognise a world under sin, much less understand it,
unless we could form for ourselves some idea of a world
that is free from sin. The un-ideal is known only
through the ideal ; the ideal is known through itself.
I. Let us consider, then, the constitutional relation
of the Logos to the world, including humanity, apart
from sin.
I. The earth to which man belongs is, as we saw, a
partial immateriation of the Logos-idea. One might
even venture to term it an incarnation, in so far as an
incarnation is a specific form of immateriation. In a
vastly larger sense the cosmos or universe as a whole
is an embodiment of the Logos-idea ; though even the
universe as a whole will never exhaustively express and
manifest it. For the divine life, of whose intellectual
activity the Logos-idea is the eternal product, is
279

280 the incarnation of the divine word
absolute; its content is therefore absolute. Whereas
no cosmos, nay, no conceivable series of cosmic wholes,
could ever be regarded as absolute, either in the negative
or positive sense of the term, by anyone who regards them
as products of the divine power ; they cannot therefore
embody all that is specifically characteristic of the
Logos. Speaking, however,, without strict accuracy, the
cosmos may be described as an incarnation of the
Logos : in its measure, therefore, the world also, inas
much as it is an integral factor of the cosmos. Really
and truly, however, as was remarked already, it is an
immateriation or incarnation of one of the ideas, the
formation of which in the Godhead centres, as it were,
in the Logos.
By means of the action of the divine energy, of
which the Spirit may be regarded as the intra-divine
centre and the immediate source, matter becomes the
plastic vehicle of the specific life of the Logos, that is,
of ideas which are, so to speak, the special product
of His activity. So far as matter and its movements
are intelligible, it is, in point of fact, because they
are XoyoetSet? (logoeid) like the Logos — a partial
a7ravyacrfia t»J? 80^? koI 'xapaKTrjp rrj<s {nroo-rdo'ems
avrov (brightness of His glory and impression of His
hypostasis, Heb. i. 3). Hence such statements as,
" Without Him was not anything made that was made,"
and " All things were created by Him and for Him, and
He is before all things, and by Him all things consist "
(Col. i. 16, 17). " Things" are His specific work.
The energy is supplied, as we may say, by the Spirit ;

the logos the author of form 281
but energy alone would produce no effect on matter,
save that of simple restlessness — not even motion, so
far as the idea of regularity is associated with it.
Orderly motion is more immediately the work of Him
in whom law and idea have their specific divine seat.
Naturally, therefore, orderly action which issues in a
form of existence, which has a constitution or organisa
tion. 2. The Logos imposed on Himself accommodation
and self- limitation in His relation to the cosmos.
The full treatment of the subject of the divine
accommodation and self-limitation in relation to the
cosmos belongs to cosmology, but its connection with
the incarnation is so close that it must be referred to
at this point.
The activity of the Logos in creating the world, be
it not forgotten, is a vital, that is, a continuous, activity ;
not, however, unvarying. As such it may be said to
evolve. Vital activity which gives rise to a productive
process cannot but, in some sense, evolve with the
evolution of that which it produces. The evolution of
the cosmos by the Logos may be regarded in fact as,
in some sense, the reflex of an evolution in the Logos.
Inasmuch now as the forces which generate the
process of evolution, though, as was already laid down,
in reality differentiations of energy put forth by God,
are not directly wielded by God ; being, on the contrary,
endowed by God with a certain free independence of
their own, obviously the process in God or in the Logos
must, within specific limits, be determined by the
process in the cosmos ; the former must accommodate

282 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
itself to the latter. The only alternative is the pan
theism which identifies God with the world or the
world with God : — pantheism, which either conceals itself
under the popular expression divine immanence : or with
which Calvin is logically chargeable — strongly as he
might resent the imputation — when he says : " Nothing
happens but what He has knowingly and willingly
decreed " ; " He specially directs the action of every
creature " ; " All the changes which take place in the
world are produced by the secret agency of the hand of
God ": — " Not heaven and earth and inanimate creatures
only, but also the counsels and wills of men are so
governed as to move exactly in the course which He
has destined."
The accommodation referred to is not, of course,
imposed on the Logos by an alien or foreign will. On
the contrary, it is at the bottom included in the divine
purpose. In fact, apart from such behaviour on the
part of God, the cosmos could not have been the
gradually evolving system which it actually is. It
would have been finished and complete, so to speak, at
one stroke ; or, as the old divines used to say, by one
eternal indivisible act.
Now the principle in question came into full opera
tion, as far as the earth is concerned, when man
appeared ; for the blind or unconscious self-variability,
which up to man, partially also in man himself, charac
terises the process of evolution, takes in man, at all
events to some extent, the form of power freely and
consciously to propose to himself ends of his own, and
to choose the means by which the ends shall be

DIVINE SELF-ACCOMMODATION 283
attained. In presence of this consciously self-variable
force, which is the supreme product of the divine
creative power, the Creator's action needed and needs
to accommodate itself to that of the creature to a degree
which must sometimes seem to verge on dualism, or
to involve a kind of dethronement of the Supreme
Lord. 3. The self-accommodation of the Logos just
described passes at a certain point into self-limitation ;
or rather, self-limitation may be regarded as self-
accommodation, either in new relations or at a higher
potence. We owe the term kenosis to the Epistle to the
Philippians, where, in chap. ii. ver. 7, we read, eavrbv
iicevmo-e, he emptied himself. The self-emptying there
referred to was really a form of self-limitation, — one
imposed on the Logos by the new phase of the process
of evolution which arose out of sin. Hitherto no effort
has been made, to my knowledge, fully and logically to
correlate the self-emptying of the Logos with the self-
limitation of the Logos necessitated by the constitution
given by God to the world. I shall therefore dwell
here a little longer on the subject of the divine self-
limitation in relation to the cosmos than might other
wise have been necessary.
(1) The divine power is self-limited.
The self-limitation of God, so far as His power is con
cerned, has found well-nigh universal recognition in one
form or degree or another. God cannot, it is allowed, act
even with regard to matter as though it were not matter ;
still less with regard to matter that is mechanically or

284 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
chemically combined as if it were not combined ; still
less, again, with regard to living beings, either as if they
did not exist, or as if they were something else than
living beings : least of all, with man as conscious and
self-controlled, i.e. as in a secondary sense a self-maker
or self-creator, as if he were totally subject to a law of
necessitation, and had to act entirely in the dark, like
most of the creatures below him. Relatively to each
of these and all other classes of existences, God is
limited. He could unmake them by ceasing to sustain
them ; but as long as they remain what they are He
must needs recognise and treat them as such ; they
must therefore have a determining influence on His
life and activity; His freedom to act is bounded by
them ; He cannot act as if they were not. Obvious,
yea, even self-evident, or possibly tautological, as these
words may seem, the earlier Protestant theologians too
often really ignored or contradicted them in obedience
to an abstract doctrine of the divine omnipotence and
unchangeableness. Implicitly, too, they are contradicted
nowadays by some who regard the theologians in
question as unworthy of serious consideration. God
cannot interfere with man by power or force, — no, not
even to save a race from ruin and a world from
disorder, — that is, He cannot interfere with that which
specifically constitutes manhood, with man's spiritual
nature, with his power of conscious choice. The
human body is subject to natural law, and, within
limits, may be treated by Him as other natural beings
are treated ; but the inner man forms a sacred enclosure
at whose entrance-gate even the Almighty God must

DIVINE POWER AND KNOWLEDGE LIMITED 285
knock — knock, too, in harmony with the laws of the
personal life — ere He can secure admittance. The
thunderbolts of the Great Jove must be laid aside
when He would accomplish anything with this creature
of His hand, this worm of the dust, this Titan whom a
moth can vanquish.
(2) The divine knowledge is also self-limited.
Having gone thus far, it seems to me we must go
still further. We cannot stop short at omnipotence : we
must also include the divine omniscience.
If the energy which issues forth from God to initiate
and carry through the process of evolution under the
formative control of the Logos-idea has been endued
with a certain independence ; if, in other words, God
Himself does not Himself work everything that is
worked, directly and immediately ; if the movements,
changes, actions, and reactions in the cosmos, the
integrations and disintegrations which constitute the
cosmic process, are not due each and all directly to
conscious divine volitions : if, on the contrary, they are
brought about chiefly in the dark relatively to the energy
or forces which produce them — what follows ? Surely,
that, however complete may be the knowledge God has
of them, ideally considered, that is, regarded as parts
of the divine idea which is being realised ; actually
considered, that is, considered as successively realised in
the cosmos, He must depend for his knowledge of them
in part on observation.
All this is true of the natural world, notwithstanding
the fact that the forces evolving it work according
to methods which, however complicated and subtle,

286 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
are yet fixed. Either this, or God works directly
everything that is worked.
It is even more profoundly true of man. In his
case there are two further elements to be considered.
The first is his freedom with regard both to what he
proposes to himself to do, and to what he actually
chooses to do and sets about doing. The relation of
the divine knowledge to the products of human freedom,
whether to those which are purely mental, so far as any
phenomenon of man's life can be so described ; or to
those which are both mental and bodily, is, of course,
an old problem. Many modes of reconciling human
freedom with an assumed real divine knowledge of its
products beforehand, or with a knowledge absolutely
free from conditions, have been suggested. This is not
the place to review them. My own position is briefly
this : — if every product of the human will is certainly,
i.e. really, known to God before it comes into existence,
its coming into existence must have been certain.
Now, whatever may be said with regard to an already
existing human being, it is surely not open to question,
that if the doings of a human being not yet existing
are absolutely certain, they cannot owe their certainty
to anything in or of him. If he were in existence, it
might be said that all his acts follow of necessity from
what he was at the beginning, and from his first acts, —
that his whole life is one long chain, each link of which
is necessarily and unerringly forged in succession, even
though, because the forging process goes on behind or
beneath consciousness, he may think that he himself is
the forger. But if he is not in existence, what is it

FOREKNOWLEDGE AND FREEDOM 287
that makes them certain, and therefore certainly know-
able ? Either the will of God decreeing, foreordaining,
and therefore, of course, foreknowing everything that
shall come to pass ; or the system of the world, with
its chain of natural or necessary sequences.
But if anything is true, it is true that man is free ;
if he is not free, all is Maya. What, then, is the alter
native ? — Surely, that God has constituted a creature,
the actions of which He can only know as such when
they are performed. In presence of man, to a certain
extent, even the Great God condescends to wait ; nay
more, has Himself so ordained things that He must
wait, inquiring, What will he do ?
And let it be remembered, this being, on which God
as it were consents to wait, is itself but a differentiation
of divine energy, an immateriation of a divine idea ?
Thoughts like these, bewildering and stupefying as they
seem, are embodied, or, at all events, presupposed, in
hymns that we sing, in prayers that we offer, in devo
tional books that we read, in sermons that we hear;
but their logical implications are not duly recognised.
We give utterance in an emotional guise to that which
we either fear to face or obstinately deny when it
comes before us in the dry light of reason.
Whether we choose to confess it or no, this is self-
limitation, almost self-humiliation. It is consenting not
to control, and not even to know, that which owes its
existence, and the very possibility of self-control, to
Him who gives the consent. God, as it were, thus
hides Himself from Himself; or, if that be scarcely
accurate, He hides from Himself that to which His own

288 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
energy proceeding through the Spirit, and His own
reason acting through the Logos, has given the power
which it wields.
Man, too, employs part of his energy to do work
over which he has no direct control, and of which he
has no direct knowledge — indeed, no knowledge at all
till its results force themselves on his attention. But
he does not consciously and freely send forth the
energy on its mission, nor does he inform it with its
controlling idea or law and fix its goal : — whereas God
does all that. Here is the mystery.
If man were the creature of an anti-God, or of
another God, or of a hostile Demiurge, such a position
would be intolerable. But God Himself has made him
thus ; and when man penetrates the innermost recesses
of his own spiritual nature he is compelled to confess
that if it be not true, he himself is to himself the
greatest of frauds and delusions.
If this be true, what a stretch of limitation, of self-
effacement, so to speak, of condescending self-emptying,
has God laid upon Himself! It is not, indeed, the
kenosis which we find in the incarnation, but besides
pointing in its direction, it is surely also a long step
towards its accomplishment.
In the last instance, this and many other problems
which seem, like the image of the great goddess Diana
that fell complete down from Jupiter, to have been
launched on us by Christianity, are all rooted in the
great problem of creation : — the problem, namely, how
the absolutely living God could create that which,
whilst depending at every moment on His power,

THE MYSTERY OF CREATION 289
should also be within limits independent of and able
to disobey and even resist the power which made and
upholds it.
4. The immateriation referred to above (p. 279) is a
process which has an infinite number of stages, — a process
nowadays termed evolution, — of which man is the cul
minating, the highest product. The chief law, or, at all
events, one of the chief laws, of this process is the law
of recapitulation, by which, as was previously stated
(pp. 21 f.), is meant that each higher product of the
process recapitulates, in brief and under special condi
tions, the whole of the previous steps of the process.
It is at present recognised and traced only in the
higher spheres of animal life, but it really is universal.
Man must accordingly be regarded as the recapitu
lation of the entire mundane process. As a matter of
fact, too, there is not a force or law of the earth which
is not found operating in him, in some one form or
degree or another ; nor is there a member of the
kingdom of life between which and him there are not
affinities, more or less remote or close.
Man may well, therefore, be described as a micro
cosm, nay more, as a microlog; for so far as a Logos-
idea has become personal in him, he must in a very
special sense be akin to, and therefore represent, the
Logos. The whole cosmos, indeed, is akin to the Logos ;
for what else can be predicated of that which embodies
a divine idea, and is produced by divine energy ? But
approximation to personality in the cosmos, wherever
found, involves a special degree of kinship; nay more, a
peculiar kind of participation in the nature of the Logos,
*9

29O THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
who is not only Himself personal, but the source of
all that points towards, and actually has begun to be,
personal in the universe. And be it said, by the way,
every differentiation of energy in the cosmos is a step
towards personality, and unconsciously points and reaches
out towards it. In man personality has actually begun.
5. In the actual method of the genesis or evolution
of the beings which constitute the earth, especially the
living beings, there is a gradual approach to that of the
incarnation of the Logos.
Let it be remembered, that the energy which from
the very beginning acts on matter owes the method or
law or idea which immanently regulates it to the
Logos ; that, in point of fact, whenever a thing makes
its appearance, it does so through the co-operation of
the Spirit and the Logos. Regarded from one point
of view, the Spirit may be said to frame a body for a
Logos-idea ; from another, the Logos may be said to
inform and control the energy proceeding from the
Spirit with one of his ideas, so that out of matter it
shall constitute a thing.
According to the account given in the Book of
Genesis, it was " the power of the Highest " that,
brooding over or overshadowing the unordered cosmic
mist, initiated the process by which our earth has
become what it is. Inasmuch now as the energy then
put forth by the Spirit was not merely put forth once for
all, but was the beginning of an infinite series of acts, each
of these acts may be described as a brooding or over
shadowing. Especially is this mode of speech appro
priate when we are dealing with the higher orders of

INCARNATION FORESHADOWED IN EVOLUTION 29 1
animal life, particularly if, as there seems good reason
for believing, new species take their rise in embryo-
logical modifications, which are by no means invariably
slight variations, but not infrequently such as can be
accurately termed " leaps or jumps " of a kind only to
be accounted for on the assumption of a special self-
action on the part of the energy which differentiates
itself in the mundane forces. Not that there is inter
vention from without of any kind or degree ; — no, it is
strictly an immanent self-differentiation under the con
trol of, and in accordance with, a Logos-idea ; otherwise
expressed, it is a self-differentiation, the purpose of which
is to render possible a new immateriation of a Logos-
idea.1 Is it not permissible to shelter ourselves under the
authority of the Book of Genesis, and say that they are
caused by a brooding of the Spirit of God? that a
Logos-idea becomes flesh in them ? The Spirit is
perpetually active, and that which His activity causes
to be conceived, or, in other words, to be embodied, is
ideas of the Logos : or, if we choose to use the less
strict terms sometimes employed with regard to men
and their productions — the Logos Himself. For, as we
say of the true artist, " he puts himself into his work " ;
so may we permit ourselves to say of the divine artist
in the case under consideration, though we must not
forget the difference between the human and the divine.
6. The microcosm, man, finally foreshadows the in-
1 Immanent, however, not in the sense of independent residence in the
cosmos, but in a sense which recognises the fact that all energy perennially
flows from God. Self-differentiating, too, only in the modified sense here
admissible.

292 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
carnation in that, turning back on and examining himself
and the world, he endeavours to find God in both. Until
he appeared on the scene, the world had evolved ; but
though the higher animals had begun to feel and to
have sensations and perceptions, yea, even to judge
and in a certain objective way to draw inferences, no
evidence is adducible that any of them had made even
the beginnings of a search into their own nature and
the nature of the world. Not even of wonder is a trace
discoverable. Such search, however, is the highest,
the most abiding, and the most profoundly absorbing
of all human occupations. In a very true sense, it
may be said, too, that in men the world itself, of which
man is the flower, turns back on itself and seeks its
source, its origin, and its home. Nature, blind, deaf,
dumb, as we count it, in its way and measure shares
that " home-sickness " in which, as Novalis says, " all
philosophy begins " : — and surely the supreme problem
of all philosophy is that of the real eternal home of the
cosmos with its fulness.
At his lowest, man has always in a certain way been
groping after, if haply he might find, God ; though, as
the Apostle Paul tells us, " He is not far from any one
of us, seeing that in Him we live and move and have
our being," — specially that which is distinctive of
humanity. If, as the same apostle adds, quoting from
one of the Greek poets, we are also " his offspring,"
nothing could possibly be more natural. The profound
truth of Paul's words becomes almost startlingly evident
when it is acknowledged, as according to the positions
previously laid down it must be, that each of us is a

MAN S SEARCH AFTER GOD 293
veritable Logos-idea, conceived and infleshed by the
overshadowing power of the Spirit of God. Of the
three constitutive elements of our being, — matter, energy,
and idea, — the only one that is not of divine genus (jSelov
jivo?) is matter — the matter with which the Spirit of
God clothed the divine idea : and even matter, though
undivine, or non-divine, as owing its very being to the
originative action of God, in contrast to energy and
idea, which are, so to speak, of the very nature of God,
cannot be said to be anti-divine.
No wonder, then, that men everywhere should be
haunted by the sense of a divine presence —
" A sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean, and the living air,
And the blue sky, and the mind of man :
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."
Wordsworth, "Tintern Abbey.''
Man, in fact, never finds himself till he finds God.
And when I speak of finding himself, I do not use the
word in a merely vague sentimental, but in the most
realistic possible, sense. What he is and what he is
to become ; what are his powers and responsibilities ;
what he can do and enjoy ; what he has to hope and
fear, — man can never know, save through Him by
whom and unto whom all things are created.
At the same time, when I speak of man, I do
not mean merely the individual, but humanity — the
organism constituted by individual men ; and I take
for granted that no one member of the organism

294 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
humanity can attain the highest possible to him, in
any direction or respect whatsoever, save in conjunction
with his fellow-members, — that, in other words, humanity
and the individual man progress together, and not
otherwise. This holds as true of his sense and con
sciousness of the divine source and root of his nature
and idea as of his realisation of the latter. No mere
individual can attain alone the knowledge of God
which constitutes " eternal life." As the organism of
humanity grows, provided there is a corresponding
advance in the realisation of its idea, the knowledge of
God possessed even by individuals will become ever
richer and fuller. The knowledge which is the posses
sion of the entire body of individuals constituting the
race, though it can never be directly and consciously the
property of every individual, will have an effect on each
individual's conscious perception and thinking of God,
at any particular moment, analogous to that which
the sum total of an individual man's acquirements,
though not present to consciousness, has on his con
scious thinking of any particular constituent of the
said acquirements. Experience and observation alike
teach that the word of a philosopher or a scientist, or
even of a well-informed man, on a particular point of
a subject which he has investigated, is weightier and
more significant than that of one who has thought
less and knows less. Both, as a matter of fact, may
use the same word ; the man of profound learning
and thought may be as little conscious as an unedu
cated man of all that he has studied and pondered
bearing on the special point ; yet his word will have a

NORMAL HUMAN KNOWLEDGE OF GOD 295
richer life, a fuller import, and a greater weight than the
word of one whose knowledge and thinking are both
of them superficial.
If the development of the human race had been
normal, the larger and richer its growth, the fuller and
truer would have become the knowledge of Him by
whom all things consist, — that, too, not merely from
the point of view of the whole race, but from that of
every individual member thereof. Under such con
ditions the knowledge possessed by individuals would
have become in a certain sense generic as well as
individual. Yet, however strong his conviction that
he lived and moved and had his being in God ; that
the energy constituting him and the vast cosmos around
him was of divine origin ; still further, though his
fellowship with God might have attained the highest
degree of intimacy, his direct consciousness, relatively to
God, could never have transcended — a kind of theo-
pathy ; a theopathy, however, which, being interpreted
and strengthened by the evidences of the divine
presence and activity diffused through the world, would
have approximated ever more closely to what one
might term theoaisthesis— God-perception : — a percep
tion, even in this world, in some degree anticipating
the extatic vision of the supremely blessed beyond.
II. The relations of the Logos to humanity under
sin. The principles or methods thus far expounded are
those which characterise the evolution of the world,
and the divine relation thereto, normally considered.
But we have to do, at all events, as far the human race

296 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
is concerned, with a break, with an abnormal variation
in the process ; in other words, with the fact referred
to by the Apostle Paul, that, " as through the dis
obedience of the one man, the many were made sinners,"
that is, were set in the position or relation of sinners ;
" so through the obedience of the one shall the many
be made righteous," that is, set in the position or
relation of righteous men.
Seeing that the force — the anthropic force, as we
might term it — which has given an abnormal turn to
the process of evolution is itself a differentiation of the
energy which is generating the process, and that the
energy is the energy of the Spirit of God informed
and controlled by a Logos- idea, man may be said,
in a sense, to have captured the process and to be
using it for the realisation of an idea opposed to that
of the Logos. Otherwise put, he undertook to
establish in God's name and with God's means a
kingdom which would be essentially hostile to God.
No member of the human race has, indeed, so far as
is known, ever distinctly set this before himself as an
aim ; but it was the essential meaning of the line of
conduct on which humanity entered ; it is the logic of
sin. Shall this be permitted ? Or shall God intervene
to eliminate sin ; to check and overthrow disorder ?
If an intervention is to take place, clearly it must be
in harmony with the general principles laid down, if
one may so speak, by God Himself for the guidance of
His relation to the evolving cosmos, — the cosmos as a
whole, and the human part of it in particular. The
harmony may not appear at the first glance, but it

DIVINE INTERVENTION RATIONAL 297
must be there ; and must be discoverable by the
reverent searcher.
Grave arguments and light ridicule have times
without number been directed against the idea of God
intervening in the course of the world for the repair of
the damage supposed to have been caused by sin ;
but they owed any force they possessed either to a
false conception of God Himself, or to a false concep
tion of the divine relation to the world. This is not
the place to go into this subject, but I cannot refrain
from the remark in passing, that whether the divine
transcendence or the divine immanence be exaggerated,
the logical issue is the same. The former may be said
to be the error of all who allow their conception of God
to be dominated by the attribute of unchangeableness,
in any of its applications ; the latter, of those who look
at the world solely from the point of view of law as it
prevails in the preorganic domain.
1. If the evolution of a real world, more particularly
one that was to culminate in an organism of free
intelligences like humanity, imposed on God self-
adaptation and self-limitation, such as were previously
described, in how much greater a degree will they be
necessary when the same world has been disordered by
sin ! Obviously, supposing the intervention just re
ferred to must needs take place.
Nothing could have been easier, indeed, than for the
Logos to have withdrawn the differentiating idea by
which man is constituted what he is, and let the energy
to which it gave limits and form flow back, so to
speak, into the general stream of which it was a branch.

298 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
There seems every reason for thinking that great
numbers of such differentiations were thus dealt with
prior to the rise of man ; and that they are still being
thus dealt with. Whether we ascribe their disappear
ance to the action of the Logos ; or say, with scientific
writers, that it was due to some change in or action of
their environment which deprived them of the nutriment
and influences that conditioned further growth and de
velopment, yea, even existence ; or to their being no
longer adapted to their environment, in consequence of
the decay of the organism, the fact remains ; and from
the point of view of biblical theism, one mode of describ
ing the occurrence is as true as the other : — they are, in
reality, but different ways of stating the same truth.
Inasmuch as the divine relation to man is not only
personal but bio-dynamic, like that of his natural en
vironment ; inasmuch, further, as man's normal growth
and development, consequently his very existence,
depend on the vital action of God in him being
what it should be; and inasmuch, still further, as the
vitalising and energising relation of God to man is
conditioned by the personal relation of man to God,
the ultimate result of the personal misrelation, which
is termed sin, must have been the gradual extinction
of the human race. Like the beasts below him, man
would have " turned to dust again," — literally and
exactly. Whether the subject be regarded from the
point of view of the Logos ; or from that of the constitu
tion of the world, ordinarily termed nature, makes no
difference. Have we not a right to ask, why should a
being, constituted by divine energy, be permitted to

SIN'S FINAL OUTCOME — EXTINCTION 299
use the capabilities, opportunities, and means with
which it was equipped, not only contrary to the law of
its own constitution, but also for purposes different
from those contemplated by its originator: — nay more,
in a manner incompatible with the well-being of the
system of which it is the flower? Could such per
mission be reconciled with any conception we are able
to form of divine consistency, of divine wisdom, of
divine rectitude, nay more, of divine goodness ?
And as to the course of nature, — it is difficult to
conceive how under such conditions man could con
tinue to exist at all, much less lead a normal life,
unless we reconcile ourselves to a thoroughly deistic
or even atheistic conception of the world. That such
a gradual disappearance might have been expected
is surely taught also by the disorder, disease, misery,
and disintegration that have marked the history of
tribes and nations whose remnants still cumber the
earth, or which have actually almost totally disappeared
from its surface.
Instead of this, God imposed on Himself still greater
limitations and accommodations. He bore with men.
He remembered that they are dust. He exercised
patience. And can anything more amazing be con
ceived than that such remembrance, such bearing, such
patience, should be ascribable to the absolute God?
nay more, that they should have to be characterised as
in a sense forced on him by the creature which, more
than any other, may be said to live and move and
have its being in him ? Without divine self-limitation
and self-accommodation man could have had no real

300 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
existence at all ; still less, could he have existed as a
free being ; but obviously and emphatically least of all,
when he turned himself against the very fountain and
sustenance of his life.
If freedom imposed a certain limit on the divine
knowledge ; if the Logos needed to consent to wait for
His knowledge of what men actually chose to do till
the volition to do it was formed ; if He must still further
wait for His knowledge of the external realisation of
PI is volitions until such realisation took place, would
not sin of necessity, involve a still further kenosis or
self-emptying ? For is not sin, in addition, a something
essentially irrational, unintelligible, and dark ? Is it not
energy, or rather force, contradicting its own immanent
law ? And seeing that this law is not imposed from
without, but is both congruous to and in a sense the
expression of man's essential nature, is it not a self-
contradiction, — that, too, not merely ideal, but real?
Seeing, further, that both force and law are essentially
divine, is not a man sinning a divine thing contradicting
itself, actirtg undivinely, nay more, anti-divinely ? Can
this be other than dark to Him who constitutes man
what he is? Even to the sinner himself it is unin
telligible, because irrational, save in the sense that he
feels, or takes immediately for granted, that it is his own
act, not that of another ; his own free act, not forced
upon him either from within or from without. How
much more, then, must it be in a very true sense
irrational, and therefore, strictly speaking, unintelligible
to the Logos. This, I am well aware, is exceedingly
strange language to employ regarding one of the

SIN ESSENTIALLY IRRATIONAL 301
Persons of the ever-blessed Trinity ; but is the ethical
logic at fault? If a certain kenosis were a condition
of the evolution of the world normally, how much more
of its evolution after sin had entered ?
Sin further forces a kind or degree of kenosis even
on the divine love. As God cannot continue to hold
the same personal relation towards either humanity in
particular or the world in general, so far as it and
humanity form an organic whole, after as before the
entrance of sin, activities like that of love, and others
which constitute his specifically personal relation, must
needs be checked ; that is, be reduced in part to a
potential state.
God would be untrue both to Himself and to man
were He to behave to man after he began to sin, and
whilst he continued sinning, just as He did or would
have behaved to him apart from sin. The respect due
to human freedom involved, as was remarked in a
previous connection, the recognition of man's free
decision to sin as sinful.
He would have ignored man's free decision, i.e.
man's freedom as well as His own claims and the
claims of the system He is evolving, had He continued
to love him after sinning and whilst sinning, just as He
did or would have done apart from sin. The man of
the divine purpose and idea was to be the object of
complacency, of approval, of affection ; the actual man
is the object of disapproval, condemnation, resentment.
What about the former active relations ? Are they not
in some sense reduced to potentiality ? Just as resent
ment is a potentiality till it is called forth by sin, so.

302 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
does love become a potentiality when it encounters
sin. Yet love is the highest and most glorious of the
activities or outgoings, or, as it has been termed,
attributes of God ! " God is love'.' God does not cease
altogether to be love in the presence of sin, any more
than He becomes altogether anger when He is angry ;
but, so far as His relation to humanity is concerned,
a change comes over Him. As regards one part of the
vast cosmos which He is evolving, His loves recedes, as
it were, into partial — yea, might recede into total —
inactivity or unconsciousness. As He is said to cast
our sins behind Him into the abysses, and to forget
them, so, too, is it possible for Him to forget His love
for humanity, to deny it, — that, too, in obedience to the
will of the creature whose life is rooted in and sustained
by His love (cf. Jer. xxiii. 39 ; Hos. iv. 6).
Here we have a still nearer approach to a veritable
kenosis within God Himself. Himself, as it were, in
one relation hidden from Himself ; that relation, too,
intrinsically the divinest.
Reference has been several times made to the
apparent difficulty, on this view, of accounting for
redemption as essentially a work of love. In its very
deepest divine roots redemption is God's method of
remaining true to His original purpose, of asserting
His claims, of doing justice to Himself. To have let
sin work itself out would have been to inflict on Him
self an eternal loss — the loss of the race and world,
which at its creation He pronounced very good — good
in itself as begun, good as to the process of evolution

SIN S EFFECT ON DIVINE LOVE 303
on which it was to enter, good as to the purpose which
it was destined to fulfil.
It is a proof and act of love, because the securing, so
to speak, of the divine right, the extinction of injustice,
the crushing out of sin, signifies the restoration of man
to his true position — to righteousness, harmony, beauty,
blessedness, in a word, to love — unless man obstinately
and finally turns his back on God.
Justice to God, justice to man, and atonement for
sin, have in this respect one and the same goal as love.
2. We are compelled, however, by the premises
previously laid down, to go even a step further.
Sin has introduced, in some sense, disorder into the
very life of God Himself. For consider that this
being, man, which has sinned, is a differentiation of
divine energy, according to a divine idea. He is the
immateriation or incarnation of a Logos-idea. But let
it be also borne in mind that the energy in question is
not something that is absolutely dissociated from or
outside God. The independence which it possesses is
but relative. It may be compared with that which is
enjoyed by the branch of a vine which, though
dependent for life and well-being on the life and well-
being of the parent stem, conditions in its turn the life
and well-being of the stem, so that neither can be what
it is meant to be independently of the other, so long as
their mutual relation continues the same. The power
which constitutes and wields itself as man is being
continuously bestowed by God : it flows from God in a
living stream, constantly varying, indeed, yet never
interrupted.

304 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
If an analogous relation subsist between man and
the divine source of the energy which constitutes him ;
in other words, if the Logos is the great stem or
" vine " of which humanity is one of the branches and
individual men are the innumerable branchlets and
leaves, — one, not the only one, for the cosmos embraces,
there is reason to believe, many such branches, — then
the entrance of disease and suffering into a branch, as
it must needs affect the streamlet of life in the branch,
so must it needs affect the great stream out of which
it flows. For there is perpetual action and reaction
between the source of our being and ourselves. Not
that we can injuriously affect the divine health, but, as
was pointed out in another connection, we can, and do,
cause God pain and sorrow.
This, surely, is a still fuller degree of the self-
limitation or kenosis which we are considering.
Nay more, something of the nature even of a schism
has been introduced into the Godhead by sin. Inasmuch
as man, the sinner, is a differentiation of the energy
controlled by the Logos, is it not as though the very
Logos Himself were in some sense the occasion of the
introduction of a warring element into His own life,
if not into the life of deity, through the creature which
He had not only constituted, but was sustaining ? Had
He, the living vine, at once cast off His human branch,
the case would have been different ; but He let it
retain its place, He patiently bore with it. Such reten
tion, however, such patience,— what does it mean but
making Himself in a certain sense answerable for the
misrelation and the jar which is its result? His own

SCHISM CAUSED IN GOD BY SIN 305
life must, of course, first and foremost be affected by
it ; but the life of the Godhead would also of necessity
participate therein. And inasmuch as the offending
creature, as was just now again remarked, is a differen
tiation constituted by the Logos, may not the guilt of
its conduct in some mysterious way cast a shadow over
the relation between the Logos and the Father? As
far as the sin was concerned, would not the experience
be a kind of anticipation of that which is described in
the paradoxical, though profoundly true, words of Paul,
" He was made sin for us — He who knew no sin " ?
And as far as the shadow was concerned, would it not
be a kind of anticipation of the awful moment on the
Cross when the Son of God cried, " My God, My God,
why hast Thou forsaken Me " ?

20

CHAPTER XIX
The Actual Incarnation of the Logos
Up to the point which we have been considering, the
kenosis, which we found to be imposed on the Logos
by the very creation and sustentation of man, especially
after the entrance of sin, had not extended to that
which made the Logos a constitutive factor of the
personal life of the Godhead — if one may so speak.
If the one God or Deity is constituted by three factors,
each of which is from eternity really personal, — per
sonal, however, not in separation from the rest, but in,
with, and through the rest, or otherwise expressed, if the
Trept^doprjcns, the immeatio, the Ineinanderseyn (as the
German has it), of three personific factors conditions the
absolute personality of each, neither being absolutely
personal apart from the rest, — then the Logos, no less
than the factors designated Father and Spirit, had
His own personal self-centre, and this self-centre was
the seat of that which differentiated Him from the
Father and Spirit, no less than the ground of His
factorhood. In virtue of this He was that to Himself
which the Father and Spirit were not to Him ; though
He could not have shared the absoluteness of Deity,
306

THE LOGOS AND THE GODHEAD 307
He could not have been ®eo?, as John terms him, apart
from the Trepi^wprjaK.
What the Logos was to Himself had been subject
to certain passing or partial obscurations, as we have
seen, in consequence of the sin of the being which
owes to Himself its life and power to act. One
might say that shadows flitted across the conscious
ness of the Logos, rising mysteriously out of the
depth in which His life and that of sinful humanity
were one ; or, to employ the analogy of our own
human experience, a sense of the wrong, disorder, and
woe, which troubled the human differentiation of His
own energy, affected Him, as sometimes a strange
feeling of depression, uneasiness, wrongness comes
over us, whence and how we for our part can but
uncertainly guess.
But these experiences were partial and transitory.
There remained a still further depth into which He
might descend — the depth which is indicated in a
variety of statements in the New Testament, and which
found its formulation, if it may be so termed, in the
word i/civwcre.
But let us endeavour to approach it a little more
closely. I. The light thrown on the subject by human
experience. The experience of men is at this point instructive ;
and let it be remembered that, wide as is the difference
between man and God, the affinity between the Creator
and His image is no less real : as becomes specially
obvious when the latter is regarded from the point of

308 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
view of the cosmology presupposed throughout this
entire discussion.
I. Every man is in a very true sense essentially
of divine nature — even as Paul teaches, Oeiov yevos.
The energy of which a differentiation, in association
with matter, constitutes man, is, as was laid down, energy
continuously emanating from God : — not like matter,
created from nothing. But no man is for this reason
conscious of himself as divine ; otherwise expressed, in
no man does this divine energy directly identify itself
in consciousness with the source from which it proceeds.
In fact, whilst we say, and are compelled to say, /;
whilst we speak, and cannot but speak, of our Self; in
reality the essential content or nature of this self, of
this subjective noumenon, is veiled from us. We ob
serve its phenomena ; we cannot help predicating the
phenomena of the noumenon termed self; but direct
insight into the very nature of this noumenon we have
not : though we treat ourselves as one of the causes of
the phenomena, we cannot tell how we cause them.
However closely thinkers may go to the verge of
pantheism or panentheism, they stop short at the point
indicated. No one of them says, I am divine. The
predicate divine contains that which absolutely forbids
its application to a human self, by itself, in this direct
manner. Indirectly, the self may be logically com
pelled to make the application ; but the self as present
to consciousness never forces from the man the exclam
ation, " My Lord, my God." No man feels in the
presence of his own self, whether he take it empirically
or ideally, as every man does feel, and knows he ought

MYSTICAL IDEA OF HUMAN NATURE 309
to feel, yea, and exults to feel, when he is face to face
with the eternal and the absolute God.
In one word, the anthropic force, though divine, does
not know itself directly as such : it knows itself as
anthropic — as this particular differentiation ; but not in
its real essential character as divine. Could it do so,
it would cease to be what it essentially is, namely, a
differentiation of divine energy, and would become that
which is differentiated.
Still further, were the energy which constitutes man to
be thoroughly conscious of itself, were it to know itself,
it would recognise in itself a recapitulation of all the
forms of energy which have arisen in the course of the
evolution of the world : — for is it not the very flower
of that evolution, and the differentiation which presup
poses all the differentiations that have gone before ?
Such a direct consciousness, however, we know is not
ours. In the way of scientific reflection, we infer that
all this is true of ourselves ; but we do not and cannot
see it in ourselves, nor does the self suggest it to us.
Otherwise, at the centre, as it were, enswathed in fold
after fold, after the manner of a bulb, we should discern
the living divine spark, impressing us qualitatively, if not
quantitatively, with the absoluteness of the great sun to
which it belongs.
Consciously or unconsciously, the desire and effort of
mystics of the most diverse schools, and of nearly all ages
and lands, has been to pierce through these various
wrappings of their own nature, and, as it were, to enter into
and be absorbed in the divine kernel; or, to change the image,
to plunge into, never again to emerge from, the ocean of

310 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
the divine life through the narrow channel of the inner
most self.
2. At the same time, the bearing on this subject of
some of the phenomena of our inner life must not be over
looked. The idea of right, the idea of truth, the idea, too,
of beauty, each in its own way suggests absoluteness ;
and absoluteness and the divine are correlates. When
the admonition — Be right, act rightly ; think and speak
the truth ; aim at the beautiful, makes itself mysteri
ously, silently, and inarticulately, but yet clearly, heard
in the soul, we recognise in it a must, an imperative,
which neither we nor any other being capable of appre
hending it can under any circumstances gainsay. We
feel it to be absolute. Yet we feel it also to come from
ourselves, to be, as it were, bone of our bone and flesh
of our flesh — spiritually, — not imposed from without.
It is from without, yet from within ; it is divine, yet
human ; though no created eye can gaze on the point
where the two that seem as far asunder as the infinite
and finite meet and are one.
What man cannot help — what is a necessity of
nature to him, — that the Logos voluntarily took upon
Himself. He could not renounce the essential divinity
of His nature, that which had constituted Him from
eternity what He was. Indeed, no being can renounce
its own essential nature; for the nature, in performing the
act of renunciation, would be reaffirming and strength
ening itself. But the direct and immediate conscious'
ness of divinity, which He had enjoyed in conjunction
with the Father and the Holy Spirit from all eternity,
was interrupted during the time of His tabernacling in

LOGOS AND DIVINE CONSCIOUSNESS 3 1 1
the flesh. The essential nature, i.e. the divinity of His
noumenon, was hidden from itself: at all events, if it
ever made itself distinctly known to His consciousness,
it was only, on the one hand, intermittently as it
were, by flashes, such as sometimes may illumine the
otherwise unbroken darkness of an earthly night ;
and, on the other, through reflection on thoughts He
was able to think, words He was able to speak,
works He was able to do, transcending human power
and experience : — each of these also — the flashes and the
reflection — ministering and lending force to the other.
II. The difficulties that present themselves.
But difficulty on difficulty seems to open before us
when we think of the divine power, the divine know
ledge, the divine unapproachableness by temptation,
which belonged to the Logos, and which surely are
inseparable from His very essence.
We can but again look at the matter in the light of
human experience.
1 . Now, it teaches us that the possession of power is
in a certain measure separable from the consciousness
thereof; and that the exercise of power is not always
preceded, or even followed, by a distinct consciousness
of its nature, or extent, or even existence.
We men act thus and thus, we perform this and that,
not always because we are first conscious of the power
to do so, but simply because we have the power ; and
the consciousness of the power is awakened in us by
its exercise. Hence such sayings as that a man can
never know what he is able to do until he is in circum
stances that call forth his power. And if we have

312 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
done something exceptional, we ourselves may remain
in doubt whether we can do it again until the occasion
arises and we put ourselves to the test. In fact, a man
is revealed to himself no less than to others by the acts
which he finds himself able to perform. If the ability
had never been called forth, he would have remained
ignorant of possessing it. And all this is as true of
ordinary as it is of exceptional power.
The case is similar with human knowledge. It is
asked, indeed, how can a man know a thing and not be
conscious of the knowledge ? What we know, surely
we know. Doubtless, and yet no man ever had all
his knowledge present at one and the same moment
to consciousness. Consciousness has, in reality, very
narrow limits. Strictly speaking, it most resembles a
string of beads, of which thoughts, whether they be of
the kind which constitute knowledge proper, or relate
to sensations, feelings, emotions, and the like, are the
beads and the self the string ; and only one at once
passes through or over the field of our own inner
observation, to disappear immediately below the mental
horizon, sometimes to remain hidden for ever, some
times to be recalled by what we style memory. Now,
a piece of knowledge cannot be said to cease to be ours
because for a longer or shorter time its place in con
sciousness is taken by something else. An astronomer
does not lose his astronomical knowledge whilst he is
consciously occupied with other matters, — such, for ex
ample, as his food, or clothing, or dwelling, or instru
ments, even though for the time being they completely
absorb his attention ; and though, as far as they are

HUMAN ANALOGIES OF KENOSIS 313
concerned, he be subject to the limitations of one to
whom the heavenly bodies and their motions are a
complete terra incognita.
2. Analogously, both as regards power and knowledge
with the Incarnate Logos : — for surely, I would repeat,
it is permissible thus to reason from ourselves to Him,
our archetype ; nay more, unless we are simply to take
up a position so completely agnostic that the very fact of
the Incarnation would become incredible to us, are we
not compelled to do so, not only by our own constitu
tion, but by the very constitution of the world and of
ourselves as part of it ?
The Logos remained as truly possessed of divine
power after incarnation as He was before. But having
consented to the limitation of consciousness previously
described ; having drawn the veil of the flesh between
Himself and His proper divinity; having ceased for the
time to have a specifically divine self-consciousness, the
divine power inherent in His divine nature could not
be a matter of consciousness, as it must have been before.
As one of the Persons of the Trinity, He previously
shared the self- transparency of deity: He too " was light,
and in Him was no darkness at all." Now, however,
there was darkness — darkness, at least in part, rela
tively to His power. Yet as occasion arose, He wielded
a power over the visible and invisible worlds which
demonstrated Him the Lord of both. Such occasions
came apparently unsought. He paid no heed to, nay,
He put aside suggestions to work signs simply as such.
When he worked them, He did so either out of sym
pathy with the needs and sufferings of men, as if in

3 14 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
obedience to impulses arising out of the depths of His
being ; or because the exigencies of His divine mission
called for them ; or perhaps in consequence of thoughts
impressed on consciousness, or words spoken directly
by the Father, such as came to the prophets in the
old time. That He who was Himself possessed of
divine power should speak, as He repeatedly did, of
His works as given Him to do by the Father, and as
if He owed the power as well as the commission to do
them to the Father (see John x. 38, xvii. 4; v. 20, 36,
ix. 4, x. 25), need occasion no difficulty, if the whole
matter be regarded in the present light.
Not being directly conscious of His divine nature
and its endowments, yet retaining these same endow
ments, naturally enough when the occasion arose for
work He worked, and worked perhaps miracles : nay
more, they might produce in Him the kind of confi
dence expressed in the words, " Thinkest thou that I
cannot now pray the Father, and He shall send legions
of angels ? " The Lord Jesus Christ's meat was to do
the will of the Father; but the particular thing He
should do was apparently in most cases determined, as
we say, by circumstances. There is very little sign of
anything like a fixed plan. If the moment called for
a word, the word was spoken ; if for a prayer, a prayer
was uttered ; if for a simple act such as needed no
special endowment, then such an act ; and if an act
demonstrating the supremacy over nature and mind
that inhered in Him, then as easily, as spontaneously,
did He heal the sick, give sight to the blind, or even
raise the dead to life. Each and every act, whether

CHRIST UNCONSCIOUS OF DIVINE POWER 315
simple or mighty, was done, as far as His conscious
volition was concerned, because He deemed it to be
part of the great task entrusted to Him, and He was
no more uninterruptedly conscious of His divine power
than we are of ordinary human power.
The same thing holds true of the knowledge possessed
by the Logos — of what we term His omniscience, as
divine. He did not, and could not, divest Himself of
His knowledge without divesting Himself of His
divinity ; but in taking upon Himself flesh, and in
subjecting Himself to human limitations, He consented
to share the human capability of being unconscious of
His own knowledge. Those words of His, " My meat
is to do the will of Him that sent Me," related not
merely to His works, in the narrower sense, but also to
other functions and activities which characterised Him
as incarnate. His body, of course, shared our needs :
but even His consciousness was marked by our limita
tions. He could not think of several things at one and
the same time ; and whilst occupied, as He must needs
have been, with the manifold details which enter into
the daily life of men, however simple it may be, He
could not at the same time occupy Himself with the
questions of the kingdom which it was His mission to
proclaim and establish ; still less with the things of
which He had taken cognisance in His divine capacity
and nature. They remained, as it were, just below
consciousness. This possession and non-possession accounts for two
features of our Lord's utterances : — -first, His declaration
of ignorance of certain things ; and secondly, the

3l6 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
mysterious tone of authority, certainty, and immediacy
which mark His discourses. He knew not His
knowledge of certain things, just as is the case with
most of us ; and yet, as the unconscious possession of
extraordinary knowledge on the part of men properly
colours their tone even when speaking of ordinary things
— they cannot even then speak as other men speak — so
in Christ's case the divine knowledge which was His in
the depths temporarily covered from view, inspired all
His words with an authority which is otherwise often
inexplicable. Nay more, one may say that whilst for
consciousness His words were not shaped and filled by
this unconscious knowledge, in reality that unconscious
knowledge found voice and utterance through them —
if not as to what may be termed matters of faith, yet
certainly as to spiritual and moral truth and life. The
real content even of merely human words is not always
restricted to that which is consciously put into them.
Sometimes, nay indeed, very often, our words have less
content than they are taken to have ; but the words of
thinkers, prophets, poets may have a larger content —
larger than is appreciated by those to whom they are
addressed, — larger, too, than they themselves intend ;
that, too, partly because a richer life than can ever
express itself in consciousness uses them as its channel
or vehicle, — a life of their own, and a life which
belongs not only to them, but also to the smaller or
larger humanity which, as it were, pours its flood
through the narrow channel, first, of their spiritual
nature, and then through the still narrower channel
of their consciousness.

CHRIST UNCONSCIOUS OF DIVINE KNOWLEDGE 317
All this was emphatically the experience of the Lord
Jesus Christ. Unless we remember these possibilities
we shall inevitably be puzzled, first, by the very simple
character of his utterances ; next, by the depths within
depths which open up as we meditate on them ; and
thirdly, by the tone of absoluteness — not of the
dogmatist, not of the pedagogue, not of the self-
confident sciolist, not of the discoverer of new truth,
but of unconscious, naive absoluteness that characterises
His words.
We must not, however, ignore the difference — the
tremendous difference — between ignorance or the
temporary obscuration of His own knowledge and
error. Some modern biblical critics speak as if this
difference had never dawned on them ; and therefore
deem themselves warranted in allowing that Christ
shared the mistakes and errors of his contemporaries.
Even of men it is sometimes true that they are at
particular moments ignorant of that which they really
know ; and, speaking about themselves, they would
never confound ignorance with error.
A great deal is made, I may just remark in passing,
by certain critics of the Christian Incarnation of what
are styled parallel stories in ethnic religions. For my
own part, having regard to Christianity as a whole, and
to the part it has played in the history, in particular, of
religious life and thought, these ethnic stories seem
rather to confirm than to discredit the incarnation, which
is the central feature of the Christian faith. It is easy,
of course, to ridicule them. Their extravagances are
obvious. Considered as actual occurrences, they are

3 I 8 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
saddled with too many absurdities, incongruities, incon
sistencies, intellectual, moral, and religious, to be credible.
But surely that is not all. Have they no meaning, —
no deeper meaning? Why did men think of Deity as
assuming, either for their sake or for its own sake, the
human form ? Must not something true, something
congruous to the needs of man and the nature of God,
lie at the heart of these imaginings? Is it credible
that the idea of incarnation should have taken the
hold it did on the subtle and intensely religious Hindoo
nature, if it were little else than a symptom of mental
disease or perversity ? May we not rather regard it as
the outcome of a glimpse of the true mode in which
divine redemption would be accomplished, not to say of
the condition of the attainment of the highest fellowship
with God ? To represent these incarnations as anti
cipations, or even " unconscious prophecies " of the
Incarnation, is perhaps going too far. It seems to me
truer to the constitution of human nature, and to the
divine relation to nature and man, to distinguish
between the kernel and the husk of the stories ; and,
whilst treating the husk, with the impossible and
grotesque elements too frequently characteristic of it, as
the product of an unhealthy fancy, to regard the kernel
as supplied by genuine insight into the condition of
human redemption. As Mr. Illingworth says : " Folk
lore and mythology find endless traces of supposed
incarnations which are quite as unspiritual, and even
immoral, as they are unscientific, and conflict not only
with all canons of rational criticism, but even with the
ordinary dictates of plain common sense. Yet these

ETHNIC STORIES OF INCARNATION 319
fictions only emphasise the persistence of the instinct
which continued to invent them, because it continued
to demand them. And when at length we are con
fronted with a tale of Incarnation whose spiritual
sublimity and actual influence are absolutely unique,
its believers may fairly recognise in the previous ex
pectations of mankind an additional proof of its truth.
The event has occurred, they may reasonably say,
which man's prophetic soul divined. The Incarnation
which he so often fantastically dreamed of has at last
become a fact." *
1 Divine Immanence : an Essay on the Spiritual Significance of Matter.
My own line of thought was penned long before I made the acquaintance
of Mr. Illingworth's most thoughtful and charming work. It is a great
satisfaction to find oneself thus agreeing with one who has dealt so pro
foundly with the problems of personality, spirit, matter, especially in
relation to God. Had the scope of this book permitted, I should have had
a good deal more to say on these root-questions. If a theology that
shall do justice to the primal and essential Christian verities— not quasi-
philosophically explaining them away, nor rationalistically watering them
down — is to be constructed, a beginning must be made with problems such
as those to which Mr. Illingworth's Personality, Human and Divine, and
this new work of his are devoted.

CHAPTER XX
The Supernatural Conception
At this point we may consider the question of the
mode in which the Logos entered into the organic re
lationship to humanity of which we have spoken? In
other words, how the Son of God — -the New Man, the
Lord from heaven — was constituted ? The view that,
in my judgment, is least encompassed with difficulties,
embraces most of the facts, is most agreeable to
analogy, and falls in most with the dim anticipations,
or, as they are too often regarded, the phantasings of
the human race, is that which has commanded the
assent of the Church. It is commonly termed the
supernatural birth ; it is, and ought therefore to be con
sistently termed, the supernatural conception ; for though
the act of origination in Christ's case is traced to the
power of the Highest, overshadowing Mary, i.e. to
the Holy Spirit, and is therefore an exception to the
regular course of human origination, no hint is given in
the New Testament that the birth as such deviated in
any material respect from the birth of ordinary human
beings. Inasmuch as man is essentially soul and body, the
Logos could not have been regarded as in any sense
320

LUKES ACCOUNT OF THE EVENT 32 1
human unless He had become in this respect like His
brethren : " Forasmuch as the children are partakers of
flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of
the same" (Heb. ii. 14).
But He could not have been organically one with
humanity, save on the condition of owing His flesh and
blood to humanity. It was necessary that His body
should be drawn from essentially the same sources, and
built up out of essentially the same material as the
bodies of men generally.
The New Testament account of the transaction is
that the Holy Ghost, the source and wielder of the
energy which, in its immanent form through the human
father, is in every case the means of generating the
human embryo, took the place of the father. As Luke
reports, Gabriel said to Mary : " The Holy Ghost shall
come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall
overshadow thee. Therefore also shall that Holy
Thing which shall be born of thee be called the Son of
God" (Luke i. 35). Ordinarily the seed of the male
is the vehicle in and through which the energy with its
informing idea is deposited in the womb of the female ;
in this case, the divine source of all energy and of every
informing idea acts directly ; and what the womb in
ordinary cases does, namely, supply the earliest environ
mental nourishment and modifying influences, so in
the case before us, the womb of the Virgin Mary. It
was, be it remembered, the same energy wielded by the
same power, only wielded directly, instead of through a
human differentiation of itself.
With Luke's account agrees that of Matthew, who
21

322 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
tells us that Mary, before she and Joseph came together,
was "found with child of the Holy Ghost" (i. 18),
and that when Joseph was in doubt, " the angel
of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying,
Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee
Mary thy wife, for that which is conceived in her
is of the Holy Ghost " (i. 20). Though John does
not expressly refer to the process in the manner of
Matthew and Luke, his words, o X0709 aap% iyevero
(John i. 14), first become properly intelligible when
viewed in the light of the account given by the other
Evangelists. The subject is doubtless beset with perplexity, partly
because the transaction belongs to the domain of the
transcendent rather than the immanent, of the direct
rather than the indirect, action of God ; partly because
of the peculiar character of the event itself; partly
because of difficulties in some of the subordinate details
of the accounts given by the two Evangelists ; partly
because of the real silence of Mark, and the apparent
silence — silence at all events as far as explicit refer
ences are concerned — not only of John, but of James,
Peter, and Paul ; and finally, because of the occurrence
of incarnations under similar circumstances in connec
tion with other religions.
1. It is worthy of note that the thought of the
present century has found more and more truth in the
idea of an incarnation, however various may have been
the modes of conceiving it, and however far it may
have been from accepting the simple account of the
incarnation of the Logos given in the Gospels and

MATTHEWS ACCOUNT OF THE EVENT 323
accepted by the Christian Church. The attitude of
the modern mind to this and other Christian doctrines
contrasts markedly with that of the Rationalism and
Deism of the eighteenth century. That, at all events, a
profound truth could underlie and be embedded in the
doctrine; and that whatever defects may characterise
the shell, it had been the means of protecting and pre
serving a kernel of priceless value to the higher life of
man, never entered into their minds, and to have
affirmed it would have seemed to them as extravagant
as it seems to some of the moderns to maintain the
essentially literal accuracy of the accounts given by
the Evangelists. So far, then, we have advanced.
Ideally the incarnation is true ; but not the realistic
form of it accepted by most Christian people — that, we
are assured, is the mythical clothing of an eternal
truth. 2. As far as the difficulty attaching to the peculiar
nature of the event recorded by the two Evangelists is
concerned, a good deal depends on the general view
taken of the relation of God to the cosmos. If we take
our stand on the old antithesis between the infinite and
the finite ; or if our conception of the divine relation is
essentially deistic, clearly the transaction must awaken
serious doubts. But if we approach it from the point
of view which has dominated the discussion of the sub
ject in this work, the difficulty is decidedly lessened.
If we hold that humanity as a whole, as well as every
individual man, is a differentiation of energy proceed
ing from God ; and that in the last instance God is the
cause of the conception of every such individual man,

324 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
even though his causative energy is transmitted through
innumerable links, commonly termed second causes ;
then that the Holy Spirit should work directly, instead
of through intermediate links, as He ordinarily does,
would but be an example of the transcendent divine
action for which the cosmos in certain eventualities was
constituted. And when I speak of eventualities, I
mean such as it was in the power of man to originate
— a power, be it remembered, with which God Himself
endowed him. Ideally, one may say, such tran
scendent divine interventions were provided for in the
constitution of the cosmos. In view of the man's
power to sin, they needed to be provided for. It
would have been unwisdom instead of wisdom in God
to have created a world of the kind imagined by some
eminent theists, i.e. a world so dovetailed and mor
tised, so bound by iron law, in which link is so welded
to link, that even the Maker Himself is absolutely ex
cluded from any role with regard to it, save that of a
patient and surely sad and suffering observer.
The long preparations for some such event which
were pointed out also do something to clear up the
perplexity which it occasions.
As I stated at the very beginning, and as I have
assumed throughout, the intelligible rationality, no less
of the Atonement than of the Incarnation of the Logos
which it involves, depends on our cosmology. Not the
fact or the reception of the fact, be it observed : that is
a matter of authority, and the reception depends on a
perception of the trustworthiness of the authority,
which, though not irrational, is not wholly the result

COSMIC PREPARATION FOR INCARNATION 325
of logical processes ; on the contrary, it depends also
on subjective conditions, which may be modified by
intellectual considerations, but which neither owe to
them their existence nor solely depend on them for
their warrant.

CHAPTERiXXI
The proper Nature and Designation of the
Incarnate Word
This is not the place, even if it were possible, to sketch
the history of Christian thought, with its terminology,
on this subject.
Most people are aware nowadays that in the main
it has oscillated between two positions- — the position of
those who held the divinity explicitly, the humanity
implicitly; the other position, that of those who held
the humanity explicitly, the divinity implicitly, — both
with corresponding differences of formulation and em
phasis, with intervals during which the two were, as
far as possible, held in equilibrium. At the present
moment it is the humanity that is explicitly recognised,
the divinity only implicitly, with a tendency towards the
essential identification of the latter with the former, on
the basis of a doctrine of immanence which is logically
pantheistic in everything but the name.
It seems to me that we cannot improve on the terms
employed in the New Testament, especially in the
Gospels, — " the Son of the Highest," " that Holy Thing
which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of
God " (Luke i. 32-35) ; " the Logos who became flesh "
326

the son of god 327
— incarnate, infleshed, or carnificate ; " the Son of man" ;
" the Second Man " ; " the last Adam " ; " the quickening
Spirit"; "the Lord from heaven" (1 Cor. xv. 45 ff).
The person with whom we have to do is not actual-
iter Logos, the Second Person of the Trinity ; for He
had become flesh, He had emptied Himself of the
divine form, that is, of the specific divine consciousness.
Nor was He man ; for though, agreeably to the posi
tions previously set forth, He was essentially akin to
man, seeing that man is but a differentiation of the
energy which He informs with a Logos-idea, He differed
from man in nature, in powers, in sub-consciousness,
and in intermittent consciousness, no less than in His
moral and spiritual character.
To speak of Him solely as divine whilst incarnate,
is to ignore His incarnation, with the self-limitation it
involved ; to speak of Him as a man, like other men, and
to try to prove that as such He had a properly human
development, is to miss the essence of His person and
work, namely, that He is the Logos who had entered
into organic relation with humanity for its redemption.
The Logos was designated " Son of God " as incar
nate. Prior to incarnation He was simply the Logos, —
this is the only designation applied to Him in His
intra-divine relationship in the Scripture. The refer
ences in the Epistle to the Hebrews are to His relation
to the Father as incarnate, not prior to incarnation.
The Trinity was constituted, let it be here again said
in passing, by three personal or personific factors, each
eternally coexistent, and as such, to use the technical
term, not merely modal, but ontological. The name

328 THE incarnation of the divine word
Son and Father, on the other hand, are modal or
seconomic, i.e. they refer to the relation which arose in
consequence of the incarnation of the Logos. Jesus
the Christ was the Son of God ; there is no warrant,
however, for designating the Logos the Son of God,
and for thus representing the relationship of the Father
and Son as an eternal and immanent divine relation
ship. The expression, " Eternal generation," first
adopted by Origen, for the purpose of explaining how
an eternally existent factor of the Godhead could yet
be a Son, has no intelligible meaning, unless the Logos
or Son be resolved into the product of a process — the
process, as one may perhaps describe it, of the creative
activity of the self-sustained, self-generated divine life,
conceived as objectified in a product which is both
process and product, or a product in process of becom
ing a product.
Humanity in its entirety, according to its constitu
tion and normal relation to deity, as previously set
forth, was meant to be one of the Sons of God, — a Son,
the Human Son, — of which every member should him
self be in turn and in his measure a son, and which could
only be truly the Human Son, so far as each member
in its place was true to its divine idea and destiny. I
speak of Humanity as one of the Sons of God, because
there may be, probably there are, other rational organ
isms similar to Humanity, which are also Sons, and
constituted by Sons. Even if no express reference to
this is contained in the words, " When the morning
stars sang together, and all the Sons of God shouted
for joy " (Job xxxviii. 7), — namely, when the earth

HUMANITY A SON OF GOD 329
was founded, its measures set, and the line stretched
upon it ; yet they may be used to hint at the idea.
The incarnate Logos is human ; for how could He
in whom men are constituted men be other than human ?
but He was not, and is not a man. He is the consti
tutor of man, entering into a new relation to that which
He had constituted like Himself, in order that instead
of losing its likeness to and vital union with Himself,
and thereby its very existence, through sin, it might
throw off sin, and resume the character it had borne
and re-enter on the development for which it was
intended. He could not have discharged this function
had He and humanity not been essentially akin : it
would have been equally impossible for Him to dis
charge the function had He been a man. He was the
divine Logos, self-limited ; and as such doubly akin to,
though not one with or of, humanity, — self-limited in
order to save that which had its life through, and was,
in a very real sense part of, Himself.
Note. — The affinity between the view of the Person of Christ which I have
set forth and that ascribed to Apollinaris can scarcely fail to attract atten
tion. Anyone wishing to realise it should read the section on Apollinaris
in Dorner's History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, or in Neander's
History of the Christian Church. Harnack's Dogmengeschichte contains
nothing of consequence that is not said more fully and, in my judgment,
where there is difference, with more insight by the two writers just men
tioned. I do not care to question the affinity : — why should I ? I think Apolli
naris saw certain truths more clearly than even his greatest opponents. At
the same time, I may be permitted to say that as my agreement with Apolli
naris is not consciously due to my studies in the History of Christian Doctrines,
but in part the logical consequence of the theory of evolution from which I
take my start ; and that as, further, my view of God, of the cosmos, and
of the relations between the two, differs greatly from that of Apollinaris, it
can scarcely be just either to Apollinaris or me to label me Apollinarist.

CHAPTER XXII
The Relation of the Incarnate Logos or
the Son of God to the Father
THOUGH the Logos had consented to forego the direct
consciousness of His divinity, and therefore of His
eternal and essential relation to the Father and the
Spirit, His relation to the Father and Spirit, even as
incarnate, was incomparably richer, fuller, more certain
than that which men can hold. This is recognised
as a fact by all schools of thought ; indeed, it is treated
as perhaps His most distinctive characteristic by
those who would question whether as to nature He
essentially transcends man. Whilst this must be
acknowledged, it is, on the other hand, scarcely pos
sible to suppose that the consciousness of the Father's
nearness and love could be always equally clear, and
always fill His soul with brightness, peace, and joy.
On the contrary, He must often have been troubled by
dark clouds, vague fears, apparently causeless unrest,
— states that suggested sin. The influences to which
He had been exposed prior to incarnation acted now
with no less intensity and massiveness, and with
infinitely greater concentration ; whilst they were not
counteracted by the direct and unbroken consciousness
830

CHRIST S SENSE OF THE FATHERS LOVE 33 1
of divinity which He then enjoyed. In addition to
these old causes, new ones naturally came into operation
in consequence of the new relation to humanity into
which He had entered by His infleshment.
What force must have been added to the causes
just hinted at by the perplexities and doubts necessarily
suggested to His mind when He contrasted — and surely
He could scarcely avoid so doing — the absence of any
sense of failure, much more of sin, with the opposition,
malignity, misrepresentation, and sufferings which He
encountered ! It was probably in part these experi
ences that drove Him to spend, as He did, whole nights
in prayer. One season of conflict due to a complication
of causes, such as I have hinted at, is set before us in
the scene of the garden of Gethsemane ; though that
was probably but the culmination of a long series of
inward struggles, traceable to the darkening effect of
human sin, both on the sub-conscious depths of His
nature and on His conscious life ; as well as to the
fearful contrast between the perfection of His life, both
as regards God and man, and the awful hostility to
Him of the latter and the no less strange relation to
Him of the former — a relation so strange that at the
most terrible and tragic moment of His career it pre
sented itself to Him as a veritable forsaking.
Human beings also sometimes have experience of
what it is to be and not to be, to have lost and yet not
altogether lost; to have a vague sense of being some
thing of which all the tangible signs are absent from
consciousness, nay more, with which all tangible actualities
are in conflict ; to be haunted by dim memories of relations

332 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
with which the observable relations form a terrible
contrast, and which come and go without the possibility
of fixing them or giving them form. Something like
this, only to an infinitely intensified degree, fell to the
lot of the Son of God.
At the same time, the counteractive influences must
not be overlooked.
He doubtless realised a closeness of fellowship with
the Father, a sense of the divine nearness such as
cannot be vouchsafed to men, when He spent His nights
in prayer, or when at other times He sent up petitions
and thoughts to heaven.
What a wonderful increase of confidence and courage
and certainty must have come to Him, too, from the
occasions on which He heard the Father's voice, saying,
" This is my beloved Son " ; especially on the Mount
of Transfiguration ! even though the restricted meaning
be attached to this designation elsewhere expounded.
The wonderful powers which He found Himself able
to wield, and the extraordinary knowledge which came
to Him, might have two opposite effects : — on the one
hand, recognising them as He did as due to the direct
commission of the Father, they would be a seal of His
love and approval ; yet, on the other hand, the
remembrance of them in hours of depression, danger,
straitness and sorrow might be an occasion, at one and
the same time, both of perplexity and of temptation,
each lending strength to the other.
And what if occasionally, as might surely be
expected, there were mysterious upflashings from the
veiled divine depths of His nature compelling Him to

UPLIFTINGS OF THE KENOTIC VEIL 333
utterances such as, " I and my Father are one " ;
" Before Abraham was I am"; and many others which
tremble on the very verge of a distinct affirmation of
divinity, and which have frequently been treated as
proofs of His having a divine consciousness ? — they,
too, would be fraught alike with infinite inspiration
and terrible peril — the peril of which a hint is given to
us in one of the temptations of the desert.
A faint glimpse of experiences analogous to, though
infinitely shallower than, those of the Logos is recorded
in Wordsworth's lines —
" Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live and act and serve the future hour ;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Thro' love, thro' hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know." After-thought.
On occasion, too, of the mighty works which He
wrought — wrought sometimes at the command of the
Father, conveyed either by a consciously received
word, or by an impressed idea ; sometimes at the
impulse of His own nature stirred by what He heard or
saw around Him, or again, occasioned by some special
insight into His essential unity with the Godhead,
coming to Him through words or inward experiences,
— He probably or possibly had intermittent realisations
of His proper divinity. The veil of unconsciousness
may well sometimes have been lifted, if only for brief
moments or seasons. This, too, would help to account
for utterances like those just adduced, and others such
as " He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,"

334 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
which seem at first sight incompatible with the ordinary
tone and character of His speech and behaviour.
The great thinkers of the Church — whom, be it
observed, it is scarcely decent, still less respectful, to
treat in the cavalier fashion now only too common
among the very modern — have always recognised what
has just been noted ; but owing to their opposition to
the kenosis, or their failure adequately to appreciate its
nature and scope, they left the problem unexplained.
Such intermittence is not only a characteristic — -yea,
a marked characteristic — of the human mind, but is also
in complete harmony, nay more, of one piece, with the
view of the state of the Logos as incarnate which has
thus far been expounded.

CHAPTER XXIII
The Fulfilment of the Conditions of Recon
ciliation by the Incarnate Word
THESE conditions, as was previously pointed out, are
— (i) looking at and estimating sin in its relation to
God ; (2) sorrowing for sin because of what it is to
God ; (3) desiring to offer for sin a satisfaction that is
worthy of God. These conditions needed to be ful
filled by men ; but they could not fulfil them, unless
they were energised to do so by one who should first
fulfil them on their behalf; whose fulfilment should be
so truly that of the whole race, that each member
could be said, not merely representatively or federally,
or even substitutional^, but in all three senses, with
something added, vitally uniting them and lifting them
to the higher ethico-spiritual plane, i.e. in the sense of
bio-dynamic potentiation previously expounded, to have
died with Christ, to rise with Christ, to live with Christ,
and to be glorified with Christ.
I. But in order to the fulfilment of these conditions
the Son of God must share the moral position of the
human race, without sharing its moral failure, i.e. with
out yielding to sin. Unless He do both, He cannot be
the Saviour of the race. In other words, He must

336 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
undergo our probation, nay more, He must participate
in our infirmities in the widest sense of that word, and
be tempted in all points like as we are ; yet there must
never be or arise anything in Him or in His conduct
to cause Him to say, " I, too, share the sin and guilt
of the race." The incarnate Logos must be liable to
sin, as men are ; He must fight the human battle of
sin with essentially the same weapons as are available
for men ; He must gain the victory over sin in essen
tially the same way as men ought to gain it, if they
ever are to gain it, and must actually gain it.
Otherwise He cannot, by what He does and suffers,
energise in humanity to do and suffer with Him ; or to
express it in Paul's words, none of us can say, " I am
crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I but
Christ liveth in me, and the life which I now live in
the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who
loved me and gave Himself for me" (Gal. ii. 20 f.).
1. The Logos, as I have shown, still remained, as to
essential nature, the same Logos after incarnation that
He was before. He did not and could not give up or
empty Himself of that which constituted Him what He
was. All that He emptied Himself of, or, as it were,
suspended, was one of the functions or activities of His
essential nature, — the function or activity, namely, of
the consciousness or knowledge of His essential nature,
that is, of His nature as a factor of the Godhead, of
His divine nature. Thus remaining essentially the
same, His relation to the cosmos in general and to
humanity in particular remained, of course, essentially
the same, with the exception that His consciousness of

KNOWLEDGE OF HIS ESSENTIAL DIVINITY VEILED 337
that relation was necessarily suspended, along with His
consciousness of His own proper nature. He was still
the source of the world's idea, and mediately of the
energy that constituted it what it was ; but He was no
longer aware of the fact. The distinction between
Him personally and the energy which proceeded
through Him remained ; but He was no longer con
scious of the distinction. Men continued to be differen
tiations of His energy; but He no longer knew it, even
as He knew it prior to incarnation. Still less did He
know it immediately.
All the forms of existence and force around Him in
the world were to Him essentially what they are to us.
Men, too, were as His fellow-^men, though actually they
and all other beings were constituted what they were
by Him, and between Him and them, therefore, there
was an infinite distance.
Not that He could or did remain to Himself just
exactly what we men are to ourselves. He must have
been to Himself a strange mystery — the strangest pos
sible mystery. Every man, indeed, becomes a greater and
greater mystery to himself the longer he lives and the
more he examines himself. As long as our eyes, like
those of the fool, are in the ends of the earth, we may
seem to ourselves very simple animals, of a somewhat
higher and cleverer kind than those in the midst of
which we live ; but let our eyes, like those of the wise
man, be in our heads, then question after question
about ourselves forces itself on us, and we exclaim at
last, " It is high ; we cannot attain unto it."
How much more must this have been the case with

338 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
the Son of God ! — He could not be all that He actually
was and hold the relations He actually did, even
though He were no more aware or conscious thereof,
than we men are thus conscious, without being stirred
by wonderful impulses, startled by strange inklings,
dazzled by unearthly upflashings, and altogether agitated
to bewilderment by the mystery of his own being.
Christ, we know, was a mystery to those with whom
He had to do : the reproach or accusation of being
" beside Himself" points to words, acts, behaviour,
which could not be rhymed with each other, still
less rhymed with those of ordinary sane men.
Recognition of the position just described will help
us to understand why such an impression should
be made.
2. We saw that, prior to the incarnation, the life of
the Logos was abnormally affected by the sinful con
duct of the human differentiations of the energy of
which He was the immediate source and moulder.
This influence, however, was then kept in check by His
consciousness as a factor of the Godhead, and by the
clear knowledge that men themselves were the free
and conscious originators of the sin which was the
source of the disturbance.
The incarnation neither nullified nor suspended the
vital relation of the Logos to the world and humanity
in which the experience just mentioned was rooted :
that remained exactly what it was. Its suspension or
nullification would, in fact, have involved either the
collapse of the cosmos or the substitution of another
divine creative and sustentative mediator.

VITAL RELATION TO COSMOS UNBROKEN 339
It did, however, of course bring with it the suspen
sion of the divine consciousness just alluded to. The
sinfulness with which human conduct coloured the
energy that continuously proceeded from the Godhead,
and returned to the Godhead through Him, could no
longer be ascribed to its true cause. The Logos no
longer knew directly — whatever reflection might teach
Him — that, though inhering in His own energy, and
therefore in a sense His own, it was not a thing of His
own producing. The energy which was specifically His,
and that which was lent, as it were, to constitute and
be controlled by men, formed one indivisible whole.
The elements of good and evil, too, with which the
innumerable human streamlets that debouched in Him
were laden, all blended in Him and for Him as if they
were of His own production.
We men, too, have an analogous experience. The
reservoir of living energy which constitutes us is not
fed solely from our physical environment, but also
from the race to which we belong. At all events,
there is a constant inflow and outflow, a constant
interchange between the several members of the race,
which, though it does not abolish, yet of course
conditions, yea, partially constitutes, us what we are.
But as far as consciousness goes, the living energy in
question is one indivisible, self-contained reservoir.
We have no distinct knowledge or consciousness of
the different constituents ; we cannot discriminate
between what is our own and what comes to us
from our fellow-men. Naturally, therefore, the good
and evil with which the inflow is laden so blends

340 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
with the energy and its elements, which may be
regarded in a more strict sense as our own, that all
seems one.1 For consciousness, therefore, we are in
our individual capacity whatever all these converging
streamlets are.
The Son of God subjected Himself also to human
limitations with regard to the store of energy which
thus constituted Him. Individual men, we know, are
never entirely conscious of the life that constitutes
them. We name ourselves ; we say I or me ; we
speak of self-consciousness : but even the most self-
observant of men, — the men who have attained to the
highest degree of self-knowledge, — are never distinctly
aware at one moment of more than one or two of the
constituents of the living reservoir which they desig
nate themselves. A man can only know what is in
himself, gradually ; and each element, after it has, as it
were, presented itself or been summoned into the open
court of consciousness for examination, passes out
again into that dark region which it is now common
to call our sub-conscious selves.
So with Christ. He too was divided into a con
scious and a sub-conscious region ; and the contents of
the latter He could only know by degrees, and more or
less singly.
1 The experience might be illustrated by what physiologists term "Osmosis,"
that is, " the process by which two fluids separated by a membrane, or other
porous substance, penetrate it and mix together — the lighter fluid per
meating it most readily. Thus, when two fluids of different specific
gravity are separated by a membrane, the lighter passes through and
becomes diffused among the heavier, an appreciable quantity of which
also passes into the lighter. A fluid passes into a vessel by endosmosis„
out of it by exosmosis" (Bale, Anatomy and Physiology of Man, p. 56).

PARTIALITY OF CHRIST'S SELF-KNOWLEDGE 34 1
As in our own case, so doubtless in that of the
Son of God, the rise to consciousness of the con
stitutive elements of His life was variously determined.
Spontaneity, or what we may term such, played its
part with Him as with us ; but the various forces
outside Himself as incarnate were the chief evoking
influence : — there was the world of nature, the world
of humanity, the world of evil spirits ; and the world
of Him who for His consciousness was now necessarily
God or Father.
The world of men as He knew it, and so far as
we can learn about it from Jewish and Gentile as well
as biblical sources, was beyond measure corrupt. Satan
and his host, too, seem to have been then specially
active. It scarcely needs to be remarked, that additional
complication is lent to the case by the fact that the
Son of God, as such, was both body and psychic force.
To what extent He inherited, as men do, physical
tendencies, the germs of physical passion and disease,
we know not. He may have been born with a
physical constitution and temperament that involved
Him in ceaseless hand-to-hand battles such as those
which forced the Apostle Paul to cry out, " O wretched
man that I am ! who shall deliver me from this body of
death ? " (Rom. vii. 24). Statements like, " God send
ing His own Son in the likeness of flesh of sin " (Rom.
viii. 3) ; "A high priest able to sympathise," i.e. " to
suffer with our weaknesses " (Heb. iv. 15; cf. viii. 2) ;
" Learned obedience from the things which He suffered
or endured " (Heb. v. 8 ; cf. Gal. iv. 4), seem to warrant,

342 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
or at all events to leave open, the conclusion that He
verily had a body which needed to be watched and
struggled with and kept under control.1
Had He not derived His body from the human
organism of which He had become a member He
would not have been able to fulfil His redemptive
mission ; He could not have shared our moral position,
our temptations, our conflicts. But the flesh which
He took over from Mary, His mother, was flesh laden
with potentialities, of evil as well as of good, due to
the sins of innumerable previous generations.2 The
case is well put in the following quotation : —
" The law of heredity is one which has been, not,
certainly, discovered, but formulated by modern physio
logy. The influence of physical antecedents upon
individuals is immense. Each infant brings into the
world with it a flesh and blood which have been
specialised by the channel in which they have been
moulded since man appeared upon the earth. They
have been manufactured in a family factory which has
been at work since the family existed. All that St.
Paul would call " the flesh " is built up and modified
by all — bad and good, moral and physical — which has
passed in the lives and habits, nay, in the habitual
thoughts, of its progenitors to the first generation.
Every infant comes into the world charged and satu
rated with these antecedent conditions, stamped with
1 For a fuller presentation of the probable experiences of Christ, par
ticularly of the satanic assaults to which He was exposed, see my Redemp
tion of Man, "Passio Christi," pp. 3196°.
2 Reference will be made further on to the traditional idea that the Virgin
conception counteracted or cut off the evil due to heredity.

LAW OF HEREDITY 343
an immemorial history, penetrated through and through
with imperishable influences. In one of the councils
of the ancient Church the stiff prosaic theological
Latin is, for a moment, at once suffused with the
tenderest glow of poetry, and elevated by the most
majestic conception of imaginative speculation. Each
parent who stoops down to kiss a babe is bidden to
pause with instinctive reverence and venerate the
very hands of God which have just been lifted from
His work. So it is most truly as regards the
wonderful living principle which inhabits the frame.
But that frame is built up under a divine law of
materials which are inconceivably old, and, inasmuch
as the soul is influenced to an indefinite degree by
the body, atavism seems to derationalise the Christian
theory of morality." x
What, then, must have been the experience of the
Son of God under such conditions, inward and out
ward, constitutive and environmental ? possessed of a
sub-conscious life and a body, with which were inter
woven sinful elements due to the conduct of the race
whose energy was drawn from Himself, and with which
in addition He had organically united Himself?
We men know by sad experience what it is for
thoughts and impulses of sin to rise to consciousness,
whether by a species of spontaneity, or by the inter
action of body and soul, or through the influence of
our external environment, or through the secret in
spirations of invisible enemies, which seem for the
moment to be our own sins, — sins of the past rising
1 Church Quarterly Review, Jan. 1880.

344 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
out of the dark recesses of memory, — and we have to
do battle with them lest they become our own, either
for the second or the first time. Sometimes they are
really the ghosts of former sins; for —
" ' Of sorriest fancies' we 'companions' make,
Using those thoughts which should indeed have died
With them they think on."
Nor are we able to realise that —
" Things without all remedy
Should be without regard: what's done is done."
Macbeth, Act in. ii.
In some cases our own conduct, though not the
actual cause, may have furnished the occasion. Some
times, however, we are bewildered at thoughts and
feelings rushing in upon us like a flood which we are
unable to trace in any way to ourselves — the responsi
bility for which, therefore, we cannot take upon our
selves ; and yet they are there, inmates of our heart,
forming, as it would seem, a veritable part of ourselves.
Accordingly an indefinable sense of guiltiness takes hold
of us and well-nigh, at moments, drives us to despair.
The true explanation of this phase of human experi
ence, which, though undescribed and unmentioned, is
perhaps not so rare as some may think, is really that
the life of tile race, with its evil elements, is streaming
in on our nature at its sub-conscious depths, through the
subtle channels which connect man with man : — is it
not an exemplification of Paul's words, " Whether one
member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one
member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it"?

SUB-CONSCIOUS INFLUENCE OF HUMANITY 345
May we not use them, in a somewhat wider sense, con
cerning phenomena of the kind just referred to.
In the case of the Son of God, of course, there were
no ghosts of past sins with which He could either
directly or indirectly charge Himself. His own im
pulses and thoughts had been holy, and only holy — holy
with a holiness of which the impulses and thoughts of an
unfallen man would have been only a reflection, — true,
indeed, though faint. But the permeation to blending
of His own proper life by the sin-stained life of the
human race, both psychical and corporeal, must have
been the occasion of many phenomena bearing all the
character of sin which, though not His own, for the
reasons previously assigned, must needs have seemed
to be His own. In the truest possible way, therefore,
He thus took our sins upon Him ; He made them His
own. In a sense all the sins of men became latent in
Him ; and as they rose to consciousness, in response
to the soliciting action of the terrible visible and in
visible environment in the midst of which He lived,
He must surely have experienced a horror of great
darkness — there must have been forced from Him the
exclamation of His great prototype, " Innumerable
evils have compassed me about, mine iniquities have
overtaken me, so that I am not able to look up : they
are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart
hath failed me " (Ps. xl. 1 2).
Now, we men know that impulses and thoughts such
as have been referred to, whether we are ourselves to
blame for them or not, do prove sources of temptation
— temptation either to repeat an old sin or to commit a

346 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
new one. Sometimes they wield a kind of fascination
over us. We may disapprove, we may be faced by
thoughts which we know to be the ghosts of past sins,
and may even be engaged in seeking forgiveness for
them afresh ; yet at that very moment they may prove,
or at all events threaten to become, enticements. And
even should we be able to resist the sin to which we
are actually tempted, they not unfrequently become
the occasion of doubts with regard to God, which pos
sibly conceal within themselves still greater perils.
What fearful temptations must then have assailed
the Son of God : — temptations to dally with and com
mit, who knows what forms of actual, of racial sins?
temptations to doubt God ; temptations to despair !
And what wonder that in the Garden of Gethsemane
He should pray in an agony, and that His sweat should
become, as it were, great drops of blood falling down
upon the ground ; that He should fall on His face and
pray, saying, " O my Father, if it be possible, let this
cup pass from Me " ; and that on the Cross He should
cry, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me " ?
Looked at in the light of what has been advanced,
these descriptions seem to me to be true to the very
letter. But from a less serious estimate of the position,
the thought — horrible dictu ! — of hysterical exaggera
tion inevitably suggests itself.
3. Theologians have been almost universally of the
opinion that the sinlessness of the Son of God was
rooted first in His virgin birth, and then in His posses
sion of divine power. For the two reasons conjoined
it could be said of Him, posse non peccare, even though

SINLESSNESS AND THE VIRGIN BIRTH 347
we should be going too far to say, non posse peccare.
Apart from the conception by the Holy Ghost, the
concupiscence which so often attends ordinary concep
tion, not only on the side of the father, but also on that
of the mother, could scarcely, it is said, have been
avoided ; and if it could not have been avoided, then
from very babyhood that inherited characteristic of the
flesh which gave rise to Scripture words like the " mind
of the flesh," " fleshly," " the will of the flesh," must
have interwoven itself with and helped to determine
all His conduct. He might therefore, it is urged, have
been entangled in sin at the very moment when con
sciousness and volition awakened. The idea that sin
lessness could be secured in this way has commended
itself even to scientists of materialistic and sceptical
tendencies. The writer of the article previously quoted goes on
afterwards to say: " But if the law," that is, " of heredity,"
which had been under consideration, " seems to de-
rationalise moral theory, it rationalises Christian dogma,
especially the central dogma of the Incarnation. In
the days of the giants of scholastic philosophy it was
the fashion, after the type of Aquinas, to lay much
stress upon the conveniential, the moral suitabilities of
the great leading characteristics of the Redeemer's
person and 'work. Now the law of atavism leads us
to the convenientia of the conception of our Lord by
the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary. It has been said
that, in a company of scientific physiologists of the
most positive and material school, a discussion arose
upon the Christian miracles, and especially upon the

348 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
birth from the Virgin's womb. A Christian thinker,
who happened to be present, shrank, with some sensi
tiveness, from the free handling of a topic where a
superficial wit might so easily wound the delicate
susceptibilities of a Christian's reverence. He was
surprised, however, to find that no such disposition
appeared to exist. It seemed to be admitted that —
given a Personal God, and a design upon His part to
elevate the creatures whom He had made by entering
into a more sympathetic relation with their nature —
such a relation was conceivable upon one condition
only. It must be brought about by an intervention
which would secure ' the Second Man ' from the long-
accruing fatalities connected with the ordinary processes
of human generation. The new humanity could be
kept holy, harmless, and undefiled only by a new con
tact with the creative power of God. Such a birth can
only be expressed in the language of the angel Gabriel.
The mystery is seen through the crystal clearness of
those marvellous words. The delicacy of the sentence
is so exquisite, so unconscious, so unsuspicious, with a
purity which is at once virginal and divine, that we
are instinctively convinced that it comes to us from
' the sphere in which the miracle was wrought.' This
is an illustration-— we think a very important one — of
the mode in which newly discovered or amplified laws
of science, which from one side present new difficulties,
may from another endow Christian thought with new
fitness and new meaning. The battle-guns of one
generation may thus sometimes be melted into church
bells for the next."

UNDERLYING ASSUMPTION A MISTAKE 349
The assumption underlying this position, however,
is a mistaken one. For inherited physical tendencies,
weaknesses, infirmities, and so forth, are not, as has
been taken for granted, in themselves sinful. They
may, in the first instance they doubtless do, originate
in violations of divine law of some kind or other;
and they may, yea, often do, become the occasion or
starting-point of sin in those who inherit them ; but
considered in and by themselves, they are not sinful.
Sinful, according to Scripture and the moral law, is
only that which directly or indirectly is under our own
control. So far as evil tendencies are interwoven with
our physical constitution, they are physical ; and for
their existence the individual man is no more respon
sible than he is responsible for the thunderbolt which
incapacitates him from performing the ordinary duties
of life.These inherited physical " infirmities " were the
source of fearful temptations, especially as conjoined
with the other evil elements — the latent sins, as I ven
tured to term them — to which attention was directed ;
but in themselves they were infirmities, not sins ; and
the temptations of which they became the occasion
were also simply temptations, not sins. Nay more,
they were infirmities for which the Son of God was in
no sense responsible. He might have taken the re
sponsibility of them on Himself by giving place to
them ; but by overcoming them He kept them strictly
in the domain of the natural, that is, of the non-moral.
4. But the further reason assigned for His freedom
from sin, — namely, His divine nature and actual

35° THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
possession of divine power, — whilst, of course, adequate,
seems to nullify His temptability — the temptability
which is necessary to His being on a sufficiently equal
footing with man to fit Him for the performance of the
task He had undertaken — even more effectually than
the idea of His exemption from the hereditary weak
nesses of the body which He derived from His mother.
For the possession of divine nature and power, it is
maintained, would have prevented burdens from being
real burdens, infirmities from being real infirmities,
temptations from being real temptations. This has
doubtless been a weak link in the doctrine of the
incarnation which has not been removed or strengthened
by distinguishing what Christ was in His divine nature
and what He was in His human nature : for the dis
tinction, as too often drawn, involved real separation.
It is doubtless true that, apart from divine power, ,
the Son of God would not have been able to resist
the temptations to which He was exposed from the
flesh and from the mind ; but herein He was not an
exception. If the presuppositions on which this entire
discussion rests are valid, every man, by his very constitu
tion, needs the constant influx of spiritual energy direct
from God, if he is to grow, develop, and act normally.
Men would have needed it if not one of them had ever
sinned. Considered in the abstract, no single man now
needs it more really than He ever could have needed it,
though the need of each is larger and more pressing.
Hence the stress laid on divine " grace " in the New
Testament. Given enough grace, neither the sinful
thoughts man owes to his organic connection with the

UNIVERSAL NEED OF DIVINE GRACE 35 1
race, nor the disorderly impulses he owes to the flesh,
would ever pass the boundary line of sin. They might
cause consideration and conflict, perhaps darkness and
anguish, but not sin. Even those for which he himself
is responsible need not repeat themselves. But with
out such divine grace he is normally, still more
abnormally, helpless.
If the Son of God was endowed with infinitely more
power than we men possess, it was because He needed
it. To us the Spirit is given as we need it, — some
receiving more, some less ; to Him it was given, we
read, " without measure" because His needs were without
measure. But how did He avail Himself of this grace
or energy? Before trying to answer this question let
me recall one or two things which were previously
advanced. The consciousness of the Son of God, inasmuch as
He was essentially divine, notwithstanding that the
real nature of His own relation to Himself was veiled
from Him, must have been saturated with God to a
degree which is not possible for men. He was divine,
yet did not know Himself as such ; He was a personal
factor of the Godhead, yet did not know that He was
such. But this necessarily involved an all-pervading
sense of God ; a possession of His whole being by
thoughts of God, of a force, intensity, and richness
infinitely transcending what is possible to the holiest
and grandest of men. Yet at the same time the veil
ing in question must necessarily have caused God to
seem distinct from, transcendent to, Himself. The
content of His thought and feelings of God must have

352 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
been infinitely richer than ours ; but He was ordinarily
as far from identifying Himself with that content, as
far from saying this is the content of Myself, as any
sane man is from saying so. Mysterious upflashings
there probably were, as I previously stated, and
stirrings which gave birth to words that almost seem
to betray a distinct and formulated consciousness of
His identity with the divine, as, for example, the
saying, " I and My Father are one " ; but they never
amounted to an abiding, specific divine self -consciousness.
Whenever, then, He referred to God, of whom He was
full, He necessarily did so as to one who was distinct
from and transcendent to Himself, intimate beyond
measure though the fellowship between them might be.
Naturally also, the name by which He named God
was the name of Father ; for to know God as fully
as He knew Him was to be compelled to address and
speak of Him as Father, Holy Father, Father in
Heaven, Heavenly Father, Father par excellence. No
other word expresses all that God is in relation even
to man — Originator, Sustainer, Provider, Protector,
Illuminator, Lover, Friend. Yea, what is more, Christ
had in absolute measure the filial consciousness which
corresponded to Fatherhood as thus understood. He
felt, thought, willed, moved, lived, loved as a Son,
as the Son of God. Accordingly, at one of the
moments when something from without touched the
secret spring of His being, and gave rise to one of the
upflashings referred to, He said to Philip : " He that
hath seen Me hath seen the Father." But to convert
this into a deliberate, didactic, dogmatic, formal state-

CHRIST AND THE ABSOLUTE FATHER 353
ment of His identity with God is, as it seems to me,
to go as truly, if not perhaps so far, astray as those
do who deduce from the question : " Why callest thou
Me good ? " which He addressed to the young Jewish
ruler, the inference that He meant to repudiate the
possession of a goodness which belongs exclusively to
God, that is, to confess Himself morally imperfect.
Now, if these things are true, and if the Divine
Word as incarnate, that is, if the Son of God could
be holy only in virtue of the possession of the divine
energy which was the seat or secret of His holiness
prior to incarnation; — He possessed it, be it remembered,
as divine, though He knew it not ; He knew it also
to belong essentially to God, the Father, the God
whom He necessarily regarded as transcendent to
Himself; — if these things be true, how did He, how
could He, how must He avail Himself of this divine
energy when face to face with the temptations to
which reference has been made ?
There were only two alternatives. The one alter
native was that the divine energy, which really belonged
to Him as the Logos, should assert itself, should act,
so to speak, independently of the conscious control and
consent of the Son of God. One can conceive of the
relation between Himself as self-conscious and Himself
as not self-conscious, or below consciousness, i.e.
between Himself as self-conscious and His divine nature,
as analogous to that which men hold in part to their
own physical nature, or even in some measure to
their psychical nature. A power within us, which we
can neither watch nor directly control, causes us, for
23

354 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
example, to yawn or to do other things of which, when
done, we are aware or conscious, but which we do not
control, still less freely originate. To some extent the
higher animals act thus. A power within them — a
divine power, one might call it — acts through and by
them, they act in virtue of it ; but though in a dim
sort of way they are aware of the actions performed,
it is not they which consciously perform them. Of
them we may say, agunt ex sua natura ; but it is not a
natura that consciously controls itself.
We men in like manner, at the early stages of life,
act in obedience to impulses from within, the source of
which is hidden from our gaze, and over which we have
no control ; but such actions are not in the proper
sense moral : — they are non-moral or prse-moral. It
is only after we have become capable of watching the
impulses, and as it were furthering or calling halt to
them on their way to realisation, that for praise or
blame, for responsibility, they really are ours.
If the energy of God acted after such a manner in
the Son of God, clearly His life was as much out of
relation to ours as that of God Himself. It would
have been the mere semblance of a human life. The
body He bore would have been a mere garment and
His mind a mere instrument or organ, of the divinity
within, between which and them the connection
would have been essentially that between God and the
impersonal parts of creation. God would have been
immanent in Him in the stricter sense of that term.
The only other alternative was that He should look
upon God, His Father, as the source and giver of the

CHRIST S PRAYER FOR DIVINE HELP 355
grace and light He needed ; and that accordingly He
should ask the Father for it as He needed it. He was
conscious of needing divine energy, — conscious as we,
alas ! in our sinful self-reliance, are not always con
scious : divine energy seemed necessarily stored up
in the transcendent Father, who though more than
ready to give needed to be asked : prayer therefore
would seem to have constituted the link between a
possession which because unconscious was not a real
possession, and a utilisation which was necessary to
victory over temptation, to the bearing of the burdens
imposed and the accomplishment of the tasks under
taken. It may be objected that this amounts to nothing
more than the conscious self praying to the unconscious
self; or to the conception of prayer as a sort of
pressure on the button which sets energy free for
work ; that it is not the Father who responds, and
in responding bestows the energy ; and that the whole
is therefore an illusion — one that is necessary for a
consciousness subject to limitations like those which en
compass the minds of men, but still for all that an illusion.
Passing by the position of those who hold that
human prayers are all really of this nature, I would
point out that if the Logos were simply God this
might be a valid objection ; — but the following points
need to be taken into consideration — most of which
have been more or less fully dealt with in the course
of the discussion of the subject in hand : — namely,
first, that in some real sense the Father in the God
head is supra-ordinate to the Son and the Holy Spirit,

356 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
in other words, that the factors which constitute the
Godhead are not absolutely co-ordinate ; secondly, that
the Logos reduced Himself to unconsciousness rela
tively to both the intra-divine and extra-divine life
of deity, and thus suspended that conscious fellow
ship between Himself and the Father and Spirit
which was specifically characteristic of their life;
thirdly, that such suspension of conscious fellowship
involved a sacrifice, not only for Himself, but for the
Father and the Spirit ; fourthly, that by " becoming
flesh " the Logos surrendered the conscious, and there
fore the free, the true, the real control (not the possession)
of the divine energy by which He was essentially con
stituted ; and fifthly, that the personal, and therefore
conscious, free control over this energy must for the dura
tion of the Kenosis have rested with the other factors
of the Godhead. If these points be duly weighed,
especially the last in which the rest culminate, it will
be evident that the prayers of Christ for gracious
energy and comfort, instead of being unreal, were most
profoundly real: — that as regards them He is our
example in an infinitely grander and sublimer sense than
He could have been had He been simply a man like the
rest of us.
II. We have seen that the Logos by becoming
incarnate put Himself in the position of men, as far
as temptation to sin went, and that He had to
encounter temptation with the same weapons that
are available for man. But this was not all. A
perfect man might have done this, and have thus
shown the way to men, become their captain and

CONTROL OF THE DIVINE POWER IN CHRIST 357
leader, and deserved in a certain superficial sense the
designation Saviour. Such, too, is the idea that
appears to satisfy many at the present moment. But
this was not the specific task which the Son of God
had to accomplish. A work of the nature just described
might perhaps have sufficed for a race that merely
needed leadership, example, the realisation of the
ideal, stimulus, solicitation to the exercise of its latent
powers, and guidance in the choice of the right and
true and beautiful, — in a word, of the good. But
what the human race, as we found, needed was to be
energised to fulfil the conditions on which right per
sonal relations could be established between itself
and God — those personal relations without which
God could not be to them what was necessary to
normal growth, development, and activity.
Such energising meant the fulfilment of the con
ditions on their behalf by one of themselves ; by one
who was of their flesh and blood ; or rather, by one
whose very essence they themselves shared, who con
stituted them, in whom they consisted, and whose
work therefore was their work. The conditions in
question were, moreover, as was previously shown,
those peculiar to an abnormal state. What the race
needed was to be enabled to do that which, though
in itself abnormal, was in the case of sinful beings
right: for abnormal it surely is that a man should
condemn himself before God, and sorrow for the sorrow
he has caused God. Yet clearly, that a man who has
sinned should thus condemn himself and sorrow is
according to the true idea of man, that is, normal. It

358 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
is normality of a kind, and at a height unto which not
even the perfectly righteous can attain. For one whose
sinfulness has enfeebled his spiritual nature of himself
to fulfil such conditions would be a veritable moral
wonder. 1. This moral wonder was rendered possible by the
Son of God. He did not merely condemn sin in
others — condemn it from the point of view of God :
no, face to face constantly with thoughts and impulses
arising apparently out of the depths of His own nature
and life, and therefore apparently belonging to Him
self, — thoughts and impulses which filled Him with
dread, and yet dragged Him into conflict; He con
demned them with a divine condemnation, or rather,
freely entered into the divine condemnation which was
constantly being pronounced on them. As the things
referred to rose above the horizon of consciousness, the
first effect naturally must have been a feeling as if they
were His own, and as if He therefore were Himself
under accusation and condemnation. This would be
all the more His experience because He was sinless ;
even as in our case too, the truer and richer our
spiritual life, the intenser grows our distress at the
evil still clinging to us. Hence the possibility that a
Paul should write as he does in the Epistle to the
Romans : " O wretched man that I am, who shall
deliver me from the body of this death ? " though
he had been a believer for a quarter of a century,
and could testify, as few other men ever testified,
to the gracious deliverances wrought for him by
Christ.

THE MORAL WONDER WROUGHT BY CHRIST 359
Had the things referred to not been in a certain
sense the product of His own sub-conscious life, the
Son of God could not have entered into the shadow
of the divine condemnation ; but in point of fact He
could and did do so. Yet the moment the sentence
was pronounced He made it in the fullest respect His
own. Before the sin, which for the moment seemed to be
His, could become His, He condemned it — condemned
it because of its hatefulness to God, condemned it in
all its significance for God.
Had He not thus entered into the mind of God as
regards sin, it could not have been said of Him, " and
yet without sin " ; for the most spiritual, and there
fore the deepest, of all sins, is to look at sin solely in
its relation to ourselves or our fellow-men or the world,
and to ignore, disregard, or underestimate its relation
to God. Such a state of mind points back to or is
rooted in a personal relation, which, whether the fruit
of inherited ignorance or of disregard is alike deserving
of condemnation. Sinlessness and its positive corre
late holiness are inconceivable apart from entire sym
pathy with the divine judgment of sin.
2. But the Son of God went further still.
The miseries, sorrows, sufferings, shames, woes that
sin produced had, of course, been in a measure felt
by God, especially by the Logos, prior to the incarna
tion. A disordered world and humanity are not merely
an abomination to God, but also a source of grief
and pain, as well as an object of resentment. It
repented God that He had made man, we read, just
as it is a joy to God to receive man back to Himself

360 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
in loving loyalty. Such expressions, anthropopathic
though they may seem, must answer to a reality if
God is not merely our manufacturer and controller, but
the living Father in whom we live and move and have
our being.
As the Son of God felt the sinful thoughts and
impulses which flooded His life through the sub-con
scious channels by which He was connected with
humanity as His own ; so also naturally and necessarily
the fears and dreads, as well as the sorrows and suf
ferings of men, which were due to and inseparably
associated with sin.
Accordingly we read of Him that He was in the truest
sense a " man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief " ;
that " He bore our sicknesses and carried our sorrows " ;
that " He was wounded for our transgressions, and
bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our
peace was upon Him " ; " He was oppressed, and He
was afflicted " ; " the Lord was pleased to bruise Him ;
He put Him to grief" (Isa. liii.). This description was
literally fulfilled ; but we shall not enter into all its signi
ficance unless we recognise that the intensest grief and
sorrow, the sharpest wounding and the sorest bruising —
the heaviest burden borne by Him — was that which was
due to His sympathy with the mind and heart of God.
Had the sorrow of the Son of God been due simply
to His sympathy with human woes and sorrows, and
had it not culminated in His sympathy with the sorrow
of God, He could not have been described as being
without sin. For, as has been remarked before, one of
the saddest fruits of sin, as well as one of the clearest

CHRIST BORE OUR SORROWS 36 1
signs of human degradation, is that the thought of the
pain caused by our depravity and iniquities to God
seems not only so remote, but also so difficult to grasp,
if not so irrational. At the present day especially we
are in imminent danger of putting human needs and
claims into the very centre, and of demanding that
even God shall revolve round humanity, instead of
humanity revolving round God.
In the sufferings and sorrows of humanity the Son
of God saw a reflection of those which had been caused
the Father; nay more, He saw in them the outcome of
an abnormal relation forced on God by the rebellion of
the creatures whom He had made for fellowship with
Himself. For, as was pointed out elsewhere, God is
dishonoured, God is shamed, God is grieved and
pained because He is compelled to inflict suffering
instead of bestowing blessing, and pronouncing con
demnation where He would alone express approval.
Yea, the Son of God not only bore the sorrows and
fears inflicted by God on men, or, which otherwise
regarded, they had brought upon themselves ; but He
also justified God, and what was still more, sympathised
with God, in the sad moral necessity to which the sin
of humanity had thus subjected Him.
3. The fulfilment of the conditions to which I have
been referring culminated in death — the death of the
Cross. The becoming incarnate, i.e. the becoming a member
of the organism of humanity, naturally, and under the
circumstances, involved not only a life such as men live,
but also a death such as men die. The assumption of

362 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
the " body of sin " had for its correlate the experience
that it was a " body of death." Whatever might have
been man's experience apart from sin, — whether he
would have undergone a more or less gradual trans
formation, or a sudden though painless, dreadless
change when he reached the goal of his earthly career,
— we cannot say ; but in any case, man, as he is, is
born to suffering and death. As the Logos entered
earthly life through birth, so He must needs quit it
through death.
Two mistakes have, however, been made in the
theological treatment of this event.
The first is that of representing death as the sole
end and aim of the mission of the Son of God. As
the culmination of that part of His work which has
been under consideration, it amply deserves the prom
inence given to it in the New Testament. It did
sum up the work of the Son of God ; but it was not the
whole work : it was its most striking, most central, most
essential factor, but for all that was only a factor. His
earthly work began with His conception, and ended with
His resurrection and ascension. In a very true sense He
could not have come into the world unless He had
been prepared to die ; and as He came to the world to
save the world, so did He emphatically come to die for
the sins of the world. We need not underestimate the
significance of the death, because we deny that it alone
has significance in relation to the work of reconciliation.
The other mistake is that of identifying death with
the death of the Cross. It was the death of the Son of
God that was a necessity, — a necessity as an integral

THE DEATH OF CHRIST 363
part of His work, — but not any one particular mode of
death ; not even a death of special cruelty and violence.
Paul's words set the matter in its proper light, though
their point has rarely been appreciated : — he says,
" Obedient unto death, yea, even the death of the Cross"
as though he had meant to say, " It behoved Him to
die : He was prepared to die, because He was ab
solutely obedient, because He shrunk not from com
pleting the work He came to accomplish ; nay more,
He was ready even to be crucified, and actually sub
mitted to be crucified."
Had He died an ordinary death, it would doubtless
have had for Him all the significance which it has for
the sinful race of which He had become a member ;
but there was clearly a special fitness in His dying one
of the most awful deaths known to the then world —
a death the most cruel and the most infamous that it
was possible under Roman rule and law to inflict.
That He Himself should also in some sense anticipate
the kind of death He was to die need occasion no
surprise ; for it can scarcely have been unknown to
the Jews that this was one of the ultimate supplicia or
punishments of Roman law, and that such a punish
ment probably awaited anyone who should be delivered
up to the Roman authorities on charges such as were
likely to be advanced by the malice of the Jewish
authorities. Death, according to Scripture, is the highest and
completest fruit and wage of sin : — " the wages of sin is
death " : " when sin is finished it bringeth forth death."
As such also it has been in all ages regarded, save by

364 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
men who were too brutalised or hardened to be able to
appreciate its significance. Specially has it been feared
and dreaded in connection with the unknown future.
As Shakespeare finely puts it, through Hamlet —
" The dread of something after death,
The undiscovered country, from whose boum
No traveller returns, puzzles the will;
And makes us rather bear the ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of.
Thus conscience does make cowards of us all."
And Shakespeare does but expand and give poetic
form to the expressive words of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, "through fear of death, all their lifetime
subject to bondage!'
We of present-day Christendom scarcely appreciate
what death was and is to the heathen ; for we live
in, at all events, partial enjoyment of the fruits of the
work of Him who robbed death of its sting, and brought
life and immortality to light. We are therefore in
danger of underestimating the importance of the death
of Christ. In consequence of the veiling of His essential nature,
to which reference was previously made, the Son of
God could not be conscious of the fact of His own
inherent immortality. Unlike us, He was essentially
immortal, but He was as unconscious of the fact as
we men are, though for a very different reason — the
reason, namely, that whilst He was unconscious of what
He actually was, we not being essentially immortal,
could not have it as a fact of consciousness, even if
the region of which such a quality could be predicated
were not sub-conscious. Not that there may not have

IMMORTALITY 365
been upflashings which gave Him transient glimpses of
the fact, even as men sometimes get a vision of the
possibility, yea, destiny, of immortality open to them ;
but that it was not an abiding element of conscious
ness, save perhaps as a hope rooted in and fed by His
fellowship with and life in God.
The thought of death, on the contrary, was being
constantly forced on His attention by the experience
of men around Him ; and how could it fail to cast its
shadow over His mind, the more and not the less for
His own hope in God ?
We must remember, too, that the sin-stained life
which streamed into His nature was laden with
elements due to men's fear of death, which contact
with the fact of death naturally evoked into conscious
ness and supplied with form. We men know full well
what inarticulate fears and forebodings are, and how
terrible is their effect on our life. Naturally, in His
case they were at once interpreted and intensified by
observation of the feelings with which men around Him
universally regarded it.
The terrible significance of death to the Son of God
is clear from His conduct in the Garden of Gethsemane,
and from the words which He uttered on the Cross.
There was, however, an element in His utterances on
those occasions due not so much to the mere natural
shrinking from death as to the influence of the polluted
and therefore darkened life of men on His life.
Unless this be recognised, His attitude towards it
would be unintelligible, or even something else. Death,
even to Him, was in some sense the wages of sin. He

366 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
could not, indeed, charge Himself, or suffer Himself to
be charged, with actual sin ; and yet, as He faced the
death which sin brought into the world, He was
necessarily perplexed and distressed : — He felt as if
somehow or other, though He could not understand it,
He Himself must have brought it on Himself. Still
more completely was this His experience whilst hang
ing on the Cross. At the very threshold there was the
physical agony — agony unto death — which He then
endured ; further, inasmuch as the sin of the human
race culminated in the very crucifixion which crowned
His own sufferings, clearly the life of humanity entering
Him sub-consciously must have been most completely
laden with sin and with the fear of death, which is its
fruit, at the very moment when He Himself was
enduring death in its most terrible form. Of necessity,
therefore, He felt as if He were the sinner of sinners,
and cried out in agony, " My God, My God, why hast
thou forsaken Me ? "
Yet through all these experiences no murmur
escaped Him ; nay more, He accepted what befell
Him as in very deed the will of the Father. " Not
My will, but Thine be done," was His exclamation in
the Garden ; and " It is finished," on the Cross, — and
these were the two great testing moments of His
career. It must be borne in mind that all the suffer
ings of humanity, whether outward or inward, whether
spiritual or physical, whether individual or social, are
in the last instance, according to Scripture, directly or
indirectly the fruit of sin; which is only another way
of saying that they are effects of the reaction of God

Christ's perfect submission 367
against forces making for disorder ; that is, they are
divine punishments. When, therefore, the Son of God
took them upon Himself, and, whilst feeling them to be
what they actually were, bore them submissively, He
really entered into the mind of God regarding sin.
Had He not, however, been obedient unto death,
even the death of the Cross, He would neither have
stood the severest test to which human nature, accord
ing to its own judgment, could be put; nor would
He have borne the divine reaction against sin in its
sternest and yet justest form.
III. Christ made satisfaction or amends for the dis
honour done to the name of God.
We found that, even according to the judgment of
men, one of the conditions of true reconciliation is
that an offender should desire and put forth efforts to
make good the injury or dishonour which he had
inflicted by his sin.
This principle really underlies the sacrificial system
of heathendom, largely too even that of the Jews at
the later period of their history; but it took the form
of purchasing the favour of God, rather than that of
compensating the God who had already bestowed His
favour. The distinction is brought very sharply out,
as was previously indicated in the 51st Psalm, where
we read, " For Thou desirest not sacrifice ; else would I
give it ; Thou delightest not in burnt offering "
(ver. 1 6) ; and again, " Then shalt Thou be pleased
with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering
and whole burnt offering " (ver. 1 9). In the one case
sacrifices are means of procuring favour ; in the other,

368 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
means of expressing thanks for favour and of making
good the wrong that had been done.
Repentance is, indeed, the primary and essential
condition of reconciliation ; but neither man nor God
could be truly satisfied unless the desire arose in the
mind of the sinner to be able to make good the
dishonour and injury caused by sin. The one is as
true an ethical necessity as the other.
The Son of God fulfilled this condition by giving
Himself up for us an offering and a sacrifice to God,
for a sweet-smelling savour (Eph. v. 2). Not only
did He judge sin from the point of view of God, and
enter into its significance to God ; but He lived for the
Father. This He did first of all by seeking to undo the
dishonour done to the name of God, and by honouring
God. He could therefore say, " Now is the Son of
man glorified, and God is glorified, in Him " (John
xiii. 31) ; "I have glorified Thee on the earth, having
finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do " (John
xvii. 4). He glorified God, positively, by manifesting
and demonstrating, as had never been done before, the
essential and infinite excellence, purity, loveliness, and
goodness of God ; and negatively, by laying the axe at
the root of all the dishonour done to His name by
the distrust and errors and alienation of the human
mind. He Himself, in every beat of His pulse, every
throb of His heart, every breath he drew ; He Himself,
in every organ and movement of His being, in every
stirring of intellect, affection, and emotion, in every
inclination and purpose, in every word and deed, was

SATISFACTION OFFERED 369
a living, self-consistent, faultless demonstration that
God is at once absolute holiness and perfect love ; that
the divine goodness and righteousness were essentially
one ; and that the awful fact of evil everywhere
dogging the steps of sin is a necessity alike of the
moral nature of God and of the realisation of the
divine idea of man. God and His ways were thus
vindicated, though the vindication was essentially
ethical, not merely legal. Legal vindications have
their value ; but at the best they are imperfect and
lower forms of vindication : — vindications with which
men have to be satisfied, because the higher thing is
often unattainable. God and the law of the world —
the law for nature, the law for man — were seen in
Christ to be one ; and both alike were seen to be
essential goodness.
Christ also spent His life both in undoing the
injury done to God and preparing the way for a
good to which even the mischief wrought by sin
should have ministered. This is intimated to us
when it is said that He devoted Himself to the
establishment of the kingdom of heaven. The divine
purpose in creating the world had been temporarily
frustrated by the incoming of sin. Christ laid
the foundation of a realisation of that purpose in
a glory which will perhaps add brightness to heaven
itself. IV. Having completed the bio-dynamic task which
was the primary object of the incarnation, the Divine
Word at once entered on what one may describe
as the second, the other, part of His work, ^that,
24

370 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
namely, which I have taken the liberty of designating
deictic} As was previously pointed out,2 whilst the first and
foremost need of humanity was that it should be
quickened or energised into the capability of fulfilling
the conditions of personal reconciliation with God,
— in other words, that it should be made able to
believe and repent, — it was no less necessary that
the work of the Son of God, by which humanity had
been energised, should be made known ; should be
livingly, adequately, set before men's minds, brought
home to their consciousness and heart. This is in
strict accordance with the biological principle which
has dominated the treatment of the theme of this
work. Potentialities must first either be created de
novo, or be re-created or be quickened : then, they
must be acted on fittingly by a fit environment, i.e.
they must be evoked into actuality.
How is the Son of God fulfilling this part of His
saving work?
In harmony with the constitution and needs of men
He adopts two chief methods ; in other words, His
deictic action takes two chief forms. He approaches
men simultaneously from without and from within.
I. From without He approaches them by means of
the Church. The Church serves as the organ through
which Christ carries on His saving work in the following
ways : — First, by preaching (/ajpvyiia). " How, then,"
1 Deictic, 6etKnic6s from delia>v[u — to show, to portray, to make known,
to teach.
2 See particularly Chapters XV. III., and XVI. 8.

CHRIST AND CHURCH — PREACHING, THE WORD 37 1
asks Paul (Rom. x. 1 4), " shall they call on Him on
whom they have not believed ? And how shall they
believe on Him whom they have not heard? And
how shall they hear without a preacher ? " When God
revealed His Son in Paul, it was that he might "preach
Him among the Gentiles " (Gal. i. 16); and so faith
fully did he discharge the function that he could re
proachfully exclaim, " O foolish Galatians, who did
bewitch you before whose eyes Jesus Christ was
openly set forth crucified ? " (Gal. iii. 1 ). Preaching,
that is " testifying," was at the very first, has been
throughout these two thousand years, and is still, the
chief means of stirring up redeemed humanity to " re
pentance towards God and faith in the Lord Jesus
Christ" (Acts xx. 21).
After the death of the preachers who had personally
known the Lord, the witness borne and message
brought rested, of course, primarily on authority; yet
in so far as personal experience of salvation formed an
element of it, in so far was the /cypvy/jLa still independent
and original. The assumption or requirement of the
presence of this latter element caused Protestantism to
describe preaching in general as " preaching the Word
of God," though it might be far from a simple reitera
tion of that which was regarded as pre-eminently the
" Word of God."
The next is by the production of the Written Word.
The New Testament is par excellence the Christian
written Word ; but though almost from the very first its
books were naturally and rightly assigned a unique, not
to say absolutely authoritative and regulative position,

372 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
historically regarded, they depended on, or grew out of,
or were occasioned by, the living /ajpvyfia, and were
therefore primarily subordinate to it. When, however,
those who " from the beginning had been eye-witnesses
and ministers of the Word" (Luke i. i) disappeared
from the scene, the New Testament became pre-emi
nently the written witness for Christ and His work.
To a limited extent the Written Word of the
Church has discharged the same function as the New
Testament ; and the more it has been the outcome
of experience and divine illumination, the more
efficiently has it helped to evoke the potentialities
quickened by Christ.
Thirdly, by its worship, ordinances, rites, cere
monies, and every true embodiment and manifestation
of its life.
Sacred song, prayer, adoration, praise — especially
when the outward form and the inward spirit thoroughly
harmonise ; the rite of baptism, when its significance is
made apparent ; the Lord's Supper, when its memorial,
symbolical, and sigillic character is brought out with
a fit commingling of solemnity and familiarity; the
appropriate enlistment of art in the service of religion,
whether as regards the style of architecture or the
arrangement and decoration of the house of worship,
or the proper robing of the ministrants ; — all may, all
should, all sometimes do prove to be, means by which
Christ awakens in the soul the response of penitence
and faith.
Fourthly, by the daily walk and conduct of the
members. All believers, both as individuals and

THE CHURCH'S WORSHIP AND LIFE 373
as forming more or less elaborate organisations, are
called to be " Epistles of Christ, written not with ink,
but with the spirit of the living God; not in tables
of stone, but in tables that are hearts of flesh " (2 Cor.
iii. 3). They are living as they should when it can be
said of them as Paul said of the Romans, " Your faith
is spoken of throughout the whole world " (i. 8), and
" Your obedience is come abroad unto all men " (xvi. 1 9).
Their business is to " show forth the virtues of Him
who called them out of darkness into His marvellous
light" (1 Pet. ii. 9); and all men are to know that
they are Christ's disciples, in particular because of
their love one to another (John xiii. 35). They are
to let their light so shine before men that men may
see their good works and glorify their Father in
heaven (Matt. v. 16).
Finally, the Church discharges the function under
consideration when it enters into, shares, and ex
hibits the mind of the Lord Jesus Christ with re
gard to the present condition and future destiny of
those who do not believe unto actual salvation.
Christian men should all be able honestly, even if
with all humility, to say of themselves as did the
Apostle Paul, "being affectionately desirous of you,
we were well pleased to impart unto you, not the
gospel of God only, but also our own souls " ( 1 Thess.
iii. 8) ; or as to the spirit, " We are fools for Christ's
sake, but ye are wise : we are weak, but ye are strong :
ye are honourable, but we are despised " ( 1 Cor. iii. 1 o).
In a secondary degree the words of Isaiah must be
applicable also to them, they must bear the griefs of

374 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
their fellow-men, and carry their sorrows ; they must
be wounded for their transgressions, and bruised for
their iniquities; the chastisement for their peace must
be upon them (Isa. liii. 4, 5). They should travail in
the travail of Christ ; they should act and feel as very
mediators at the throne of grace, bearing on their souls
their fellow-men and their sins. They should be ready
to say, as Moses said when he returned unto the Lord
from witnessing the conduct of Israel, " Oh, this people
have sinned a great sin, and have made them gods of
gold. Yet now, if Thou wilt forgive their sin — ; and
if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which
Thou hast written " (Ex. xxxii. 31 f.) ; or to declare
with Paul, " I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my
conscience bearing witness with me in the Holy Ghost,
that I have great sorrow and unceasing pain in my
heart. For I could wish that I myself were anathema
from Christ for my brethren's sake" (Rom. ix. 1—3).
Through such men Christ can work ; and where He
has such co-operation the potentiality which, by His
life, works, sufferings, and death He quickened in
humanity, at once begins to express itself in appro
priate activities, even as a germ swells and grows and
develops under the stimulating influence of a fitting
physical environment.
2. From within, Christ acts upon men by the Holy
Spirit. We do well to distinguish between the deictic action
of the Holy Spirit and His dynamic and vital action ;
though it is impossible to separate them.
Whilst Christ's primary action may be said to be

THE WORK OF THE HOLY SPIRIT 375
dynamic and His secondary deictic : that of the Holy
Spirit is primarily one of revelation or manifestation,
and secondarily one of energisation — the former
directed towards evoking the potentiality which the
Son of God has quickened into actuality ; the latter,
towards enriching, energising, guiding, illuminating, and
comforting the potentiality whose actualisation has
begun through repentance and faith.
Christ Himself referred to this work of the Spirit
when He assured His disciples, " Nevertheless I tell you
the truth ; it is expedient for you that I go away ; for
if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you ;
but if I go I will send Him unto you. And He, when
He is come, will convict the world in respect of sin, and
of righteousness, and of judgment ; of sin, because they
believe not on Me ; of righteousness, because I go to
the Father and ye behold Me no more ; of judgment,
because the prince of this world is judged " (John
xvi. 7-1 1 ). So too in His conversation with Nicodemus,
" Except a man be born of water, and of the Spirit, he
cannot enter into the Kingdom of God. That which
is born of the flesh is flesh ; and that which is born of
the Spirit is Spirit. ... Ye must be born anew. The
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the
voice thereof, but knowest not whence it cometh and
whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the
Spirit" (John iii. 5-8). "When the Comforter is
come, whom I will send unto you from the Father,
even the Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the
Father, He will bear witness of Me," even as believers
bear witness of Christ (John xv. 26, 27),

376 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
3. The mistake has often been made, and is still
constantly committed, of speaking and writing as if
the change wrought in men by the preaching of the
Gospel were due primarily to the appeal made in these
various ways, as it is said, to their mind and heart, or
to their heart and conscience, including, of course, their
will. Both those who hold the forensic view of the
work of Christ and those who hold the moral view
are chargeable therewith. The former, indeed, believe
that Christ removed hindrances out of man's way to
God by His life, sufferings, and death, which the latter
deny; but as the work thus done lay outside man,
though it was of the utmost moment to him, the actual
salvation of the individual, his actual reconciliation
with God, is made really to depend on the influence
of the presentation of the story of the cross on his
mind, heart, conscience, and will.
The same position is taken up by the advocates of
the moral view as far as the individual is concerned,
with of course the difference that in presenting the
story of the cross they leave out its Godward aspect,
and emphasise exclusively the mercy and love of God
revealed in and through Christ and His sufferings.
Both of them rely on moral influence: the first men
tioned, on the moral influence of the work done for
man towards God and His law, as well as on the
divine love thus manifested ; the others, on the moral
influence of the example, sufferings, and death of
Christ as a personal embodiment and manifestation of
divine love.
Neither of them recognise that, apart from the effect

INTELLECTUALISTIC MISTAKE 377
produced on humanity by the incarnation of the Divine
Word, and all that it involved, which I have termed
potentiation — the potentiation, namely, to fulfil certain
spiritual conditions — the preaching of Christ would
have had as little influence on men generally as the
actual, visible, audible life of Christ had on His contem
poraries. But though the bare presentation of the truth, the
mere preaching of the gospel is not, in the proper
sense, the cause of the conversion and revivification
of men,1 it is a necessary condition — as necessary as
the action of light and heat, or other physical agencies,
are on a germ, if it is to develop, grow, and bear its
appropriate fruit. Christ by His life, sufferings, and
death created the germ of the new humanity, or,
at all events, quickened what was ready to die ;
and Christ Himself, as set forth, re-embodied, or re
incarnated in men who fill up that which is lacking of
His sufferings (Col. i. 24), and as brought home by the
Spirit, is the sun whose light and heat call forth the
newly quickened man into growth, development, and
activity. 1 This statement may possibly startle some. As a matter of fact, even
the most orthodox resolve the influence of the work of Christ on men into
a " moral " influence. They overlook the significance of the Pauline idea
that, in Christ's death men died, in Christ's life men live ; that is, in my
view, what I have designated, the vital potentiation of humanity, etc.
In order to escape the mistake above referred to, Lutheran and Reformed
divines represent the " Word," both written and preached, as endued,
quick with the vital energy of the Spirit, besides emphasising also the
concurrent action of the Holy Spirit. The Puritans and their true
successors did much the same thing.

CHAPTER XXIV
Evidence that the Conditions of Reconcilia
tion WERE ACTUALLY FULFILLED BY THE
Incarnate Word
In trying to estimate the work which the Son of God
Himself spoke of as having finished, we need to guard
against two mistakes, one affecting the essence of the
task itself; the other affecting its method.
If Christ's immediate aim had been to reconcile
all men to God, or to make all things really new,
we should have to confess that He had failed. His
immediate aim was, as I have set forth, to energise
the race, so that it should be capable, under appro
priate action from without, of fulfilling the conditions
of reconciliation, i.e. of the establishment of truer
normal relations between God on the one side and
man on the other, by living and dying so that men
might live and die with Him. Constituted as men
are, they can only be actually renovated with their
own consent and co-operation ; but they could be
energised or potentiated by the action of a member
of the race without their individual consent being
given. Due co-operation, either in the race or in the indi-
378

HUMANITY ENERGISED 379
vidual, can only be a thing of very gradual growth.
The initiation of the process was accomplished once
for all by Christ ; this was His merit, not ours : apart
from that initiation we should be helpless. But the
initiation is an initiation of a relation to God which
has to become ever more close and intimate. The
renovation in turn depends on the growth of this
intimacy, and on the incoming of vital energy from
God which is thereby rendered possible.
But what is the evidence that Christ by His work
has actually energised the race in its individual
members to fulfil the conditions to which attention
was called? That evidence lies in the tremendous
contrast, the radical difference, between what may be
summarily designated the Heathen Consciousness and
Christian Consciousness.
It is, as one may say, natural and easy for the
Christian Consciousness to treat sin as an offence
against God, and to try to consider it from the point
of view of God. We are not content to judge it by
the standard of men, or to regard it solely as it affects
men. But this attitude of mind had to be created.
The heathen did, indeed, ask, What is my sin to
God ? but it was only with a view to the further
question, What, accordingly, will God do to me ?
How will He avenge Himself? The less the fear
of consequences, the lower the estimate of sin. God
is only in seeming the standard. Only in seeming
is the judgment of God regarded.
Still more obvious is this difference in connection
with the second question, What does my sin mean to

380 THE INCARNATION OF THE DIVINE WORD
God ? I have sinned against Him, I have dishonoured
and grieved Him, I have brought disorder into His
world. The heathen, too, it is true, might ask this question
in a certain sense : he might ask, — Is God exceedingly
angry ? What due have I withheld ? How far have
I dishonoured Him ? But it is, again, only with a
view to the further question, How is it going to affect
me ? There is no real feeling for God. There is no
sympathy with God. This, however, is of the very
essence of the Christian consciousness. How un
worthily has the Ruler, the Father, the Friend of men
been treated. Those who are most thoroughly per
meated by the spirit and life of Christ are ashamed
and distressed because they have dishonoured the name
of God and pained His heart. To be told that this
is right surprises no one in a Christian land. Even
if we fall short of realising it, we recognise it as fitting.
But it was foreign to the heathen mind.
How has the change been effected ? The first step
was the vitalising action of the work of the Son of
God. Through Him we are potentiated ; and when
the proper influence is brought to bear on us we find
ourselves able to enter into His work, to die with Him
that we may live with Him.
At no point, however, is the contrast greater than
at the third — that which is designated satisfaction.
To work for God, to live for God, to honour God, to
glorify God, both negatively and positively, — this,
surely, is now more and more completely and gener
ally confessed to be the duty of a true man : —

EVIDENCE OF THE COMPLETION OF HIS TASK 38 1
to do so for the sake of God, and not merely for
the sake of some advantage that may accrue to
ourselves. The idea of making God Himself, for
His own sake, our aim — this, which seems to us the
very glory of man, was totally foreign to the con
sciousness of heathendom.
The sense of the ideality of such an aim is growing
stronger and deeper, amid all changes of form, from
year to year, and the conception of it broader. Why ?
Surely it is to be traced to the same cause. Christ, by
offering Himself a sacrifice to God, potentiated us to
see that to offer ourselves a living sacrifice, holy and
acceptable, is a reasonable service : by making it His
meat and drink to do the will of God, He potentiated
us to take as our highest prayer, " Thy will be done on
earth as in Heaven " ; and His work for the establish
ment of the kingdom of heaven is increasingly inspiring
us to regard that as the very goal of effort, sacrifice,
and aspiration.

INDEX

Acosmism, its origin, 90.
Adam, federal headship of, 155.
Affections, their place and satisfac
tion, 45-49.
Altruism, in judgment and feeling,
192.
Apollinaris, 329.
Aquinas on the anima, 28.
Atone, the desire to, 193-198.
Atonement, forensic view of, 145-
147, 169-175; Protestant theology
on, 167-169 ; personal view of,
175-178 ; antinomies of, 228-
230.
Bain, 29.
Basil, St., 67.
Boyesen, H. H., 27.
Bretschneider, 75.
Browning, 99, 122, 133, 164.
Browning, Mrs., 206.
Calderwood on man's place in
nature, 27.
Calov, 75.
Calvin on Scripture as a means
of grace, 76 ; and divine im
manence, 282.
Chapman, Prof., 23.
Choice, free, 94, 95, 286, 287,
300-302.
Christ, our fellowship with, 109 ;
as a sacrifice, 173 ; personal
relations of His work, 175 ; why
sinless, 265-268 ; as energising
humanity, 268, 335, 357-370;
in relation to the Father and

divine energy, 340-356 ; His
temptability, 349-351 ; His con
sciousness of God, 351-353.
Church views of Sacraments, 71-
74; of the satisfaction required
by God for sin, 197.
Clodd, 31.
Conception, the supernatural, 319-
325;
Conscience, pains of, 162-164; and
God's mind with regard to sin,
242, 243.
Consciousness of Christ, 311-319,
330-334. 3SI-3S3 5 difference
between heathen and Christian,
37L
Cosmology, need of an all-compre
hensive, 8 ; features of the biblical,
10-35 > an<I the Incarnation, 323-
325-
Cosmos, no isolation in the, 6 ;
ultimate factors of, 10 ; evolution
of the, 20 ; ideally considered,
31 ; its systems, their interactions,
32, 33 ; God's relation to the,
128-131, 134; partial embodi
ment of the Logos-idea, 279-
281.
Cowper, 44.
Creation, consequences of, on the
modes of divine behaviour, 89-
91-
DALE, Dr., on Atonement, 176.
Davies, Sir John, 43.
Death, Paul's use of the word, 277 ;
of Christ, two mistakes in the

383

384

INDEX

theological treatment of, 362,
363 ; significance of, to Christ,
364-367-
Development of man, 24, 25, 100,
148, 149.
Dualism, 98, 283.
Emerson, quoted by Tyndall, 26.
Energy, its place and function in
the cosmos, 10-31 ; emission of,
33"92j 96, in; how checked,
139 ; in man and to man, 24,
128, 129 ; spiritual, necessity of,
and mode of its communication,
50-78, 94, 256 ; its vehicles,
69-78, 130; Christ's store of,
340-356.
Environment, man's twofold, 40-78,
203 ; in spiritual growth, 56-58,
103 - 107, 225 ; errors arising,
59-62 ; persistence of its laws in
personal life, 85 ; natural, in
adequate for man's needs, 93 ; and
man's potentialities, 271-273.
Erigena, Scotus, on development of
man, 25.
Evil, how it arises, 129, 130 (see
Sin).
Evolution, its two momenta, 21 ;
God's relation to, 90 ; and the
Logos, 282, 289-291 ; anthropic
force in, 296, 309 ; God's inter
vention in, 296.
Fall, "upward," the alleged, 117.
Fatherhood, the Divine, 80-92,
142, 145. !46, 235.
Feelings, 160-164, 191.
Flint, Professor, 14.
Frohschammer, 13, 14, 28.
God, relation to the cosmos, 33, 34,
89, 128-130, 134, 178, 233, 324;
relation to man, 33, 40-78, 101-
113, 128-150, 203, 225; His
love, 89-92, 168, 232 ; kenosis
of, 301 ; results for, of man's
abnormal relation to Him, 128-
150; the, of philosophy and
deism, 132, 133 ; wrath of, 136-
138; His essence unalterable, His
emotions mutable, 147-150, 190,
233 ; unchangeableness of, views

on, 167, 168 ; His modes of action
to enable men to fulfil the con
ditions of reconciliation, per
sonal, 203-224 ; vital, 224-247 ;
methods with humanity under
sin, 232-251 ; His deictic or
revealing action, 239-251 ; self-
limitation of, in power, 283-285 ;
in knowledge, 285-289 ; vin
dicated by Christ, 369.
Godhead, personific factors, 34,
327 ; disorder and schism in the,
after sin, 304-307.
Goethe, 7, 61.
Gore, Canon, 11.
Grace, place of, in biblical Weltan
schauung, 63, 350 ; channels of,
69-78, 258, 259 ; its function
under normal relations, 1 12;
" prevenient," doctrine of, 226,
227.
Guilt, sense of, 213, 217-227, 244.
Heathenism prior to and since
Christ, 1 19-122, 231 ; and sin,
211, 212, 371; God's dealing
with, for redemption, 235-247.
Heaven, kingdom of, 369, 373.
Herbert, G., Hi.
Hettinger, 14.
Hindus and the sense for God, 240.
Hollaz, 75.
Huber, 13.
Humanity, system of, 32, 154, 252-
262 ; realising its ideal, 47 ; did
not begin with heathenism, 120 ;
results ofsin on, 154-158 ; God's
relation to, 201-203 ! under sin,
God's methods with, 232-251 ;
constitution of, and reconciliation,
252-262; its potentialities, 256-
262 ; development of, 293-295 ;
foreshadows the Incarnation, 291-
293 ; one of the Sons of God,
328, 329 ; energised to fulfil the
conditions of reconciliation, 357-
369-
Idea an ultimate factor in the
cosmos, 10, 16-18; differentiations
of, 19, 20 (see Law).
Illingworth and the Incarnation,
3i8, 319-

INDEX

385

Immortality, Christ unconscious of
His inherent, 364.
Incarnation of the Logos, 306-
3J9-
Individuals, results of sin for, 158-
164.
Inspiration, its nature and modes,
49, 234.
Israelites, relation to Jehovah, 172,
173 ; God's exceptional dealings
with the, 235-237, 247-249.
Jacobi, 13.
Jews (see Israelites).
Kenosis, of the divine energy, 33 ;
involved in God's relation to the
cosmos, 283-289 ; and to man
under sin, 297-305 ; within God
Himself, 302, 303 ; of the divine
love, 301 (see Logos).
Law, apart from sin, 109, no;
natural and spiritual, 130 ; its
range, 140-144, 146; of heredity
in Scripture, 254, 255 ; as affect
ing Christ, 342, 345, 349. _
Laws of heredity and variability,
21.
Le Gallienne, 61.
Letourneau, 15, 24.
Lewes, 56.
Logos, the, in the Godhead, 34,
306, 307 ; the, and redemption,
276 ; relation of the, to the world
apart from sin, 299-305 ; and
self-accommodation in relation to
the cosmos, 281 - 283 ; and
kenosis, 283-289; actual incar
nation of the, 306-319; His
consciousness of divinity, 310,
337 ; His consciousness of divine
power and knowledge, 313-319;
nature and designation as incar
nate, 326-329 ; relation while
incarnate to the Father, 330-
334; and to the world, 337,
338 ; as sharing our moral position,
33S-342 ! fulfils the conditions of
reconciliation, 335-369.
Logos-idea, the, the earth a partial
embodiment of, 279-281.
Lotze on Matter, 13.
25

Love, potentiality and actuality of,
in man, 83-89 ; in God, 89-92,
301.
Luther, views on Scripture as a
means of grace, 74, 75.
Man, nature and development of,
24-30, 39. 40, 45-5o; con
stitution of, 36-43, 51, 140-142,
308-310; normal relation to
God, 1 1 2-1 16; primary state of,
1 1 5-1 25; abnormal relation to
God, 125-127 ; results of, 128-
164 ; as sharing God's grief,
160-162 ; sense of guilt, 213-
224 ; his freedom, 286, 287 (see
Choice) ; his power and know
ledge, 311-313.
Marshall, M., on "Recapitulation,
21.
Martineau, 236, 262, 267.
Matter, its nature and place in the
cosmos, 10-14.
Maudsley, 29.
Milton, 116.
Miracles, probability of, 7 ; among
the Israelites, 248.
Monism, its logical issue, 15 ; its
inadequacy, 18-41.
Monnier, 73, 74-
Morris, L., 260.
Mystics, 309.
Ouvaroff, 120.
Pantheism, 18, 106, 282, 308.
Personality, consequences involved
in its nature, 95, 196 ; and con
ditions of reconciliation, 191 ; and
deliberate acts, 206-208 ; and
evolution, 289, 290.
Philosophy and matter, 13.
Plato, conception of the body, 28 ;
and sense of guilt, 244,
Pneuma, the rise of, in man, 69, 70.
Potentiality, relation to actuality in
living beings, 82-84.
Prayer, what it meant for Christ,
355-
Problem of reconciliation, summed
up and solved, 263-278.
Punishment, a moral necessity,
140, 151.

386

INDEX

Recapitulation, Law of, its
meaning and scope, 22, 23 : in
systems, 32.
Reconciliation between God and
man, 3-9, 165-178 ; presup
positions of the fulfilment of the
conditions of, 199-227 ; the
dilemma of, 228-23 : ! constitution
of humanity and the divine
method of, 252-262 ; problem of,
263 ; and forgiveness, 278 ; fulfil
ment of the conditions of, by the
incarnate Logos, 335-369 ; evi
dence of the above fulfilment,
370-373-
Reconciler, qualifications of, 265-
275.
Redemption, its three phases, 1-3.
Relations, modes of material, 16 ;
personal, illustrated, 45 ; personal,
between God and man, 44-50,
102-111 ; vital, between God and
man, 50-78, m-113 ; conditions
of, between God and man, 79~
100 ; normal, between God and
man, 101-116; actual personal,
of man to God, 117-127;
abnormal personal, of man to
God, 125-127 ; results for God
of abnormal personal, 128-150;
for man, 150-164; of Logos to
the world, apart from sin, 279-
295; under sin, 295-305; of
incarnate Logos to the Father,
330-334-
Religion, ethnic, 237 ; and Incarna
tion, 317.
Repentance, 186-193, 273, 274,
368.
Romanes, G. J., 11.
Rothe, 12, 14.
Sacramentarians, views of, on the
communication of divine energy,
71-73-
Sacrifice, Old Testament, 173,
174; heathen humanity and,
197 ; principle underlying, 367.
Schelling, 13.
Scripture, its implicit cosmology,
10 ; on vital relations of God to
man, 62 ; on relations between
spiritual and material, 65 ; as a

means of grace, views on, 74-78 ;
on primary state of man, 115—
118; on God's grief over man's
conduct, 149, 150; on the results
of sin for man, 150-154; on
heredity, 254, 255.
Selection, natural, 38, 142.
Self, consciousness of, 308.
Shakespeare, 138, 144, 188, 1 89,
216, 344, 364.
Shelley, 41.
Sin, of humanity and individuals,
122, 123 ; actual and ideal, 123 ;
due estimate of, 124, 182-184,
223 ; influence of, on the relation
of God to man, 135-150; and
suffering, 151 ; and divine energy,
152 ; original, 156 ; confession of,
181, 182; to be viewed by man
as God sees it, 182-184, 264 ;
sorrow and pain for, 186-193,
218-221, 264; God must reveal
His estimate of, 210-212, 242-
245 ; its sinfulness varies, 238 ;
and the sense for God, 239 ; as
unintelligible to the Logos, 300 ;
as introducing disorder into God's
life, 303-305, 339 ; liability of
Christ to, 336 ; as borne by
Christ, 345-358 ; Christian and
heathen view of, 371-373.
Sinlessness of Christ, 267, 268,
340-356, 359.
Soul, in relation to body, 28.
Species, destruction of, 298, 299.
Spencer, H., 11, 20, 21, 22, 51.
Spirit, Holy, in vital relation of
God to man, 60 ; place in the
Godhead, 34.
Stallo, 10, 12.
Tait, 10, 13.
Theology in Scripture, 16.
Tennyson, 266.
Testament, New, teachings regard
ing the flesh, key to, 64 ; Old,
teachings regarding communica
tion of divine energy, 64 ; Old,
on sacrifice, 173, 174, 197 ; New,
and God's dealings with heathen
ism, 235 ; New, and Christ's
work, 278.
Theocosm, the, 131, 201, 229.

INDEX

387

Theologians, and the due estimate of
sin, 183 ; older Protestant, idea
of the first human beings, 1 19;
older Protestant, and God's un
changeableness, 284.
Theopathy, 295.
Tyler, 163.
Tyndall, 18, 24, 26.
Upton, 63, 234.

Vedas, on sin, 245.
Wernsdorff, 76.
Will, definition of, 38 ; its perils,
99-
Williams, M., 240.
Wordsworth, 293, 333.
Wundt, 24.
Zwingli, 15, 76.

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hardly be said, admirably done, both in the introduction and in the commentary.
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the Gospel. The linguistic analysis leaves nothing to be desired.'
(6) Of Vincent's ' PHILIPPIANS,' The Scotsman says : ' In every way worthy of the
series which was so well commenced with the admirable commentary on the Romans
by Dr. Sanday and Mr. Headlam.'
(7) Of Abbott's 'EPHESIANS,' The Expository Times says: 'There is no work in all
the " International " series that is more faithful or more felicitous. . . . Dr. Abbott
understands these Epistles — we had almost said as if he had written them.'

*J> A Prospectus giving full details of the Series, with list of Contributors, sent free
on application to the Publishers, Messrs. T. & T. Glarh, 38 George Street, Ediribwrgh.

T. & T. Clark's Publications.

t International Kfyentogfaal yiharg.
EDITED by
Principal S. D. F. SALMOND, D.D., and Professor C. A. BRIGGS, D.D.

' A valuable and much needed addition to the theological literature of the English-
speaking nations.' — Academy.
The First Seven Volumes of the Series are now ready, viz.: —
An Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa
ment. By Professor S. R. Driver, D.D., Oxford. Seventh
Edition. Post 8vo, price 12s.
Christian Ethics. By Newman Smyth, D.D., Author of 'Old
Faiths in New Light,' etc. Third Edition. 10s. 6d.
Apologetics; or, Christianity Defensively Stated. By Professor
A. B. Bruce, D.D., Glasgow. Third Edition. 10s. 6d.
History of Christian Doctrine. By Professor G. P. Fisher,
D.D., LL.D., Tale College, New Haven, Conn. Second Edition.
12s.
A History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age. By
Professor A. C. McGiffert, D.D., New York. 12s.
Christian Institutions. By A. V. G. Allen, D.D., Professor
of Ecclesiastical History, Cambridge, Mass. 12s.
The Christian Pastor and The Working Church. By
Washington Gladden, D.D., LL.D. 10s. 6d.
(1) Of Driver's 'INTRODUCTION,' Tlie Guardian says: 'By far the best account
of the great critical problems connected with the Old Testament that has yet
been written. ... It is a perfect marvel of compression and lucidity combined.
A monument of learning and well-balanced judgment.'
(2) Of Newman Smyth's 'CHRISTIAN ETHICS,' The Bookman says: 'It is
the work of a wise, well-informed, independent, and thoroughly competent writer.
It is sure to become the text-book in Christian Ethics.'
(3) Of Bruce's ' APOLOGETICS,' The Expository Times says : ' The force and
the freshness of all the writings that Dr. Bruce has hitherto published have
doubtless led many to look forward with eager hope to this work; and there need
not be any fear of disappointment. It has all the characteristics of the author's
personality. ... It will render an inestimable service.'
(4) Of Fisher's 'CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE,' The Critical Review says: 'A clear,
readable, well-proportioned, and, regarding it as a whole, remarkably just and
accurate account of what the course and development of doctrine throughout the
ages, and in different countries, has been.'
(5) Of McGiffert's 'APOSTOLIO AGE,' Tlie Literary^ World says: 'A reverent
and eminently candid treatment of the Apostolic Age in the light of research.'
(6) Of Allen's 'CHRISTIAN INSTITUTIONS,' The Christian World says: 'Un
questionably Professor Allen's most solid performance ; and that, in view of what
he has already accomplished, is saying a great deal.'
*t* A Prospectus giving full details of the Series, with list of Contributors, sent free
are application to the Publishers, Messrs. T. & T. Clark, SS George Street, Edinburgh.

T. & T. Clark's Publications.

CONCORDANCE TO THE GREEK TESTAMENT. MOULTON-GEDEN.
A Concordance to the Greek Testament : According to the
Texts of Westeott and Hort, Tischendorf, and the English Revisers.
Edited by W. F. Motjlton, D.D., and A. S. Geden, M.A. In crown
4to (pp. 1040), price 26s. net; or in half-morocco, price 31s. 6d. net.
*** ft will be generally allowed that a new Concordance to the Greek Testament is much needed
in the interests of sacred scholarship. This work adopts a new principle, and aims at providing
a full and complete Concordance to the text of the Greek Testament as it is set forth In the
editions of Westeott and Hort, Tischendorf (.Vlllth), and the English Reuisers. The first-named
has throughout been taken as the standard, and the marginal readings have been included. Thus
the student with any one of these three editions in his hands will find himself in possession of a
complete Concordance to the actual text on which he is engaged ; while the method employed, it
may fairly be claimed, precludes the omission of any word or phrase which, by even a remote
probability, might be regarded as forming part of the true text of the New Testament On the
other hand, passages disappear, as to the spuriousness of which there is practical unanimity
among scholars.
Professor W. SANDAY, D.D., LL.D., Oxford, writes: 'There can be no question as to the
value of the new "Concordance." It is the only scientific Concordance to the Greek Testament,
and the only one that can be safely used for scientific purposes. '
'It would be difficult to overpraise this invaluable addition to biblical study. . . . For all
English students of the Greek Testament this great work is indispensable.'— Bkitish Weekly.
Prospectus, with Specimen Page, free on application.
D/LLMANN ON GENESIS.
Genesis : Critically and Exegetically Expounded. By A. Dillmann,
D.D., late Professor of Theology in Berlin. Authorised Translation.
In Two Volumes, 8vo, price 21s.
'The most perfect form of the commentarius perpetuus to the Old Testament which
the 19th century has produced.' — Prof essor Budde, Strassburg.
' Dillmann's commentaries are inimitable works for labour and insight, for the mass of
their contents, as for the thoroughness and fineness of their scholarship. They form an
indispensable basis for all further works on the same subjects. . . . There is not a living
scholar of the Old Testament but follows him to his rest with the deepest reverence and
gratitude.' — Bookman.
St. Paul's Conception of Christ; or, The Doctrine of the
Second Adam. Being the Sixteenth Series of the 'Cunningham
Lectures.' By Rev. David Somerville, M.A., Edinburgh. In
demy 8vo, price 9s.
' By its keen and profound insight, by its sanity, and by its fulness of knowledge, the
volume will at once take its place as the best authority on that department of New
Testament theology with which it deals.' — Critical Review.
' This is the work of an honest and careful student of St. Paul's writings. . . . One of
the most solid contributions that has been made to the study of St. Paul's Epistles for
a considerable time.' — Guardian.
The Christ of History and of Experience. Being the
'Kerr Lectures' for 1897. By Rev. David W. Forrest, D.D.,
Glasgow. In demy 8vo, price 10s. 6d.
' An exceedingly able treatment of a great and important subject.' — The late Professor
Calderwood. ' An eminently stimulating and improving book.' — Glasgow Herald.
' Displays marked ability, and possesses unusual interest.' — Manchester Guardian.
' . . . It is scarcely necessary, however, to specify particular passages in a book
which throughout exhibits literary and theological powers of a high order, and which
abounds in observations and criticisms which could only have been penned by a
masculine and fearless, but reverent, thinker.' — Literature.

T. & T. Clark's Publications.

DICTIONARY OF THE BIBLE.
To be completed in Four Volumes, imp. 8uo (of nearly 900 pages each).
Price per Volume; in cloth, 28s.; in half-morocco, 34s.
A Dictionary of the Bible, dealing with its Language,
Literature, and Contents, including the Biblical Theology. Edited by
James Hastings, M.A., D.D., with the assistance of John A. Selbie,
M.A., and, chiefly in the revision of the Proofs, of Professor A. B.
Davidson, D.D., LL.D., Edinburgh ; Professor S. R. Driver, D.D.,
Oxford ; and Professor H. B. Swete, D.D., Cambridge.
MESSES. T. & T. CLARK have pleasure in announcing the publication of
Volume I. of this work. Every effort has been made to make the information
it contains reasonably FULL, TRUSTWORTHY, and ACCESSIBLE.
Articles have been written on the Names of all Persons and Places, on the
Antiquities and Archaeology of the Bible, on the Ethnology, Geology, and
Natural History, on Biblical Theology and Ethic, and on the Obsolete and
Archaic Words occurring in the English Versions.
The Names of the Authors are appended to their Articles, and these names are the
best guarantee that the work may be relied on.
In addition to the Editor and his Assistant, every sheet has passed through the
hands of the three distinguished Scholars whose names are found on the title-page, and
the time and trouble they have spent upon it may be taken as a good assurance that the
work as a whole is reliable and authoritative.
The MAPS have been specially prepared by Mr. J. G. Bartholomew, F.R.G.S.
%* Full Prospectus, with Specimen Pages, from all Booksellers, or from the Publishers.
' The first volume of the " Dictionary of the Bible," which Dr. Hastings has had in hand for the
last five years, is now before us ; and we offer him our sincere congratulations on the publication of
the first instalment of this great enterprise. ... A work was urgently needed which snould present
the student with the approved results of modern inquiry, and which should also acquaint him
with the methods by which theological problems are now approached by the most learned and
devout of our theologians. . . . The names of the three scholars who have read through the entire
work in proof will, as Dr. Hastings says, give a reasonable guarantee that the articles are, as a
whole, fairly authoritative. Dr. Davidson, Dr. Driver, and Dr. Swete have given their invaluable
aid in this way, and have, besides, written more or less important articles of their own. The
Dictionary is, indeed, particularly strong in scholarship and criticism. . . . We have left ourselves
no space to speak of many important articles which we had marked for notice. We have only to
add that the book is well printed, that the maps are good, and that the price is not excessive. . . .
The work promises to be, when completed, the best biblical encyclopaedia in English. Dr. Hastings
has shown his wide sympathies by his choice of contributors, who represent many shades of
Christian opinion.'— Guardian.
' We welcome with the utmost cordiality the first volume of Messrs. Clark's great enterprise,
" A Dictionary of the Bible." That there was room and need for such a book is unquestionable.
. . . We have here all that the student can desire, a work of remarkable fulness, well up to date,
and yet at the same time conservative in its general tendency, almost faultlessly accurate, and
produced by the publishers in a most excellent and convenient style. We can thoroughly recom
mend it to our readers as a book which should fully satisfy their anticipations. . . . This new
Dictionary is one of the most important aids that have recently been furnished to a true under
standing of Scripture, and, properly used, will brighten and enrich the pulpit work of every minister
who possesses if. . . . We are greatly struck by the excellence of the short articles. They are better
done than in any other work of the kind. We have compared several of them with their sources,
and this shows at once the unpretentious labour that is behind them. . . . Dr. A. B. Davidson is
a tower of strength, and he shows at his best in the articles on Angels, on Covenant (a masterpiece,
full of illumination), and on Eschatology of the Old Testament. His contributions are the chief
ornaments and treasure-stores of the Dictionary. . . . We are very conscious of having done most
inadequate justice to this very valuable book. Perhaps, however, enough has been said to Bhow
our great sense of its worth. It is a book that one is sure to be turning to again and again with
increased confidence and gratitude. It will be an evil omen for the Church if ministers do not come
forward to make the best of the opportunity now presented them.'— Editor, British Weekly.
'Will give widespread satisfaction. Every person consulting it may rely upon its trustworthi
ness. . . . Par away m advance of any other Bible Dictionary that has ever oeen published in real
usefulness for preachers, Bible students, and teachers.'— Methodist Recorder.
' This monumental work. It has made a great beginning, and promises to take rank as one of
the most important biblical enterprises of the century.'— Christian World.
' We can, in the most cordial way, congratulate the publishers, the editor, and the contributors
on the appearance of this new " Dictionary of the Bible." We can no less cordially congratulate
biblical students on an excellent and helpful, and, on the whole, accurate and scholarly aid to their
studies. All concerned in its production seem to have done their work well and with conscientious
thoroughness. The editor has got together a very remarkable staff of contributors, representing
various Churches, but all possessing a common spirit and purpose and character. . . . There has been
no Dictionary of the Bible produced in any modern language up till now that can, on the whole, be
so unreservedly commended as this, for it is remarkable that as much care has been taken with
small articles as with large. . . . We are grateful to find scholars like Canon Driver and Professors
Davidson and Swete giving up their time to the revision of proofs, or the direction of research, in
order that they may secure more science in detail and a more satisfactory result.'— Speaker.