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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

William T. Lusk Fund

THE DOCTRINE OF
THE CHURCH

SEWANEE THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY

General Editor — The Rev. Arthur R. Gray, Chaplain of
the University of the South.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH, by the Rt. Rev.
A. C. A. Hall, D.D., LL.D., Bishop of Vermont.
THE BOOK OF COMMON PRAYER, by the Very Rev.
Samuel Hart, D.D., LL.D., Dean of Berkeley Divinity
School. (In Preparation.)
THE OLD TESTAMENT, by the Rev. Loring W.
Batten, Ph.D., S.T.D., Professor of the Literature and
Interpretation of the Old Testament, General Theological
Seminary. (In Preparation.)
THE NEW TESTAMENT. (To be arranged for.)
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY OF THE FIRST THREE
CENTURIES, by the Very Rev. Chas. L. Wells,
Ph.D., Dean of Christ Church Cathedral, New Orleans.
( In Preparation.)
ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY FROM THE THIRD
CENTURY, by the Very Rev. Chas. L. Wells, Ph.D.
(In Preparation.)
ECCLESIASTICAL POLITY, by the Rev. George Wil
liam Douglas, D.D., Canon of the Cathedral of St. John
the Divine, New York. (In Preparation.)
APOLOGETICS. (To be arranged for.)
CHRISTIAN ETHICS. (To be arranged for.)
»*» In uniform volumes, i2-mo, cloth, printed on imported
English paper, price $1.35 per volume, post prepaid.

THE UNIVERSITY PRESS
OF SEWANEE TENNESSEE

SEWANEE THEOLOGICAL LIBRARY
THE
DOCTRINE OF THE
CHURCH

BY
A. C. A. HALL, D.D., LL.D.
BISHOP OF VERMONT

AT THE UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH
SEWANEE, TENNESSEE

)i t^^

< ^
J

EDITOR'S PREFACE
THE object of this series is to provide for the
clergy and laity of the Church a statement, in
convenient form, of its Doctrine, Discipline and
Worship — as well as to meet the often expressed de
sire on the part of Examining Chaplains for text
books which they could recommend to Candidates
for Holy Orders.
To satisfy, on the one hand, the demand of general
readers among the clergy and laity, the books have
been provided with numerous references to larger
works, making them introductory in their nature;
and on the other hand, to make them valuable for use
in canonical examinations, they have been arranged
according to the Canons of the Church which deal
with that matter.
It is the earnest hope of the collaborators in this
series that the impartial scholarship and unbiased at
titude adopted throughout, will commend themselves
to Churchmen of all types, and that the books will
therefore be accorded a general reception and adopted
as far as possible as a norm for canonical examina
tions. The need of such a norm is well known to all.
And finally a word to Examining Chaplains. They
will find that the volumes are so arranged that it will

EDITOR'S PREFACE

be possible to adapt them to all kinds of students.
The actual text itself should be taken as the minimum
of requirement from the Candidate, and then, by
reference on their part to the bibliographies at the
end of each chapter, they can increase as they see fit
the amount of learning to be demanded in each case.
It has been the endeavor of the editor to make these
bibliographies so comprehensive that Examining
Chaplains will always find suitable parallel readings.
If in any way the general public will be by this
series encouraged to study the position of the
Church, and if the canonical examinations in the
different dioceses can be brought into greater har
mony one with another, our object will be accom
plished.
Arthur R. Gray.
Easter, 1909.

PREFACE
A FEW words may be allowed by way of Pref
ace:
I. The book is distinctly intended for learners, and
not for doctors in Theology. It may be regarded as
a first hand-book. If (as may be the case) I have
erred in the way of simplicity and brevity, I shall,
from my experience with those for whom the manual
is primarily intended, count it an error on the right
side. 2. References have generally been made to later
rather than to older writers, because the former may
more easily be consulted, and because for the most
part the)' preserve and present the best of earlier
thought, expressed in modern terms.
3. While it is hoped that an abundance of Scrip
tural passages have been cited or referred to, no at
tempt has been made to bring together all the pas
sages connected with each point.
4. Two thoughts must continually be kept in
mind : (a) Christian doctrine is largely, if not exclu
sively, concerned with truths that are revealed. We
shall expect these to be above the reach of unaided
reason; (b) Nevertheless reason will try to under
stand what is revealed.

PREFACE

5. Orthodox belief and religious living are closely
connected. The one is to be a help to the other.
We should build up our our own and one another's
moral and spiritual life on the foundation of our
most holy faith.
"The Incarnation opened Heaven, for it was the
revelation of the Word; but it also reconsecrated
earth, for the Word was made flesh, and dwelt
among us."
A. C. A. H.
Epiphany, 1909.

THE CREEDS

THE APOSTLES' CREED
I BELIEVE
I. In God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth :
2. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord :

3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost,
Born of the Virgin Mary :

4. Suffered under Pontius Pilate,
Was crucified, dead, and buried :
5. He descended into hell;
The third day he rose again from the dead :
6. He ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of God the
Father Almighty:
7. From thence he shall come to judge the quick
and the dead.
8. I believe in the Holy Ghost:

9. The holy Catholic Church ;
The Communion of Saints :
10. The Forgiveness of Sins :
II. The Resurrection of the body:
12. And the Life everlasting. Amen.

CREDO ¦ .. •
I. in Deum, Patrem. Omnipotentem, Creatorem coeli
et terrae. s
2. Et in Jesum Christum Filium ejus unicum, Domi-
• num no'stpim: ¦{ h

3. qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria
Virgine:

4. passus sub Pontio Pilato, crupifixus, mortuus, et
sepultus:
5 . descendit ad inferos; tertia die resurrexit a mortuis:
6. ascendit ad coelos, sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris
omnipotentis:
7. inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos,.
8. Credo in Spifitum Sane turn:

?
9. Sanctum Ecclesiam Catholicam ; Sanctorum com-
munionem:
¦10. remissionem peccatorumr j
1 1, camis resurrectionem:
12. vitam aetemam. Amen,

THE NICENE CREED
I BELIEVE
I. In one God the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth,
And of all things visible and invisible :
2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of
God ;
Begotten of his Father before all worlds,
God of God, Light of Light, Very God of very God ;
Begotten, not made ;
Being of one substance with the Father;
By whom all things were made :
3. Who .:or us men and for our salvation came down from
hf^aven,
And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary,
And was made man :
4. And was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate ;
He suffered and was buried :
5. And the third day he rose again according to the Scrip
tures :
6. And ascended into heaven,
And sitteth on the right hand of the Father :

7. And he shall come again, with glory, to judge both the quick
and the dead ;
Whose kingdom shall have no end.
8. And I believe in the Holy Ghost,
The Lord, and Giver of Life,
Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son [
Who with the Father and the Son together is' worshipped
and glorified ;
Who spake by the Prophets :
9. And I believe one Catholic and Apostolic Church :
10. I acknowledge one Baptism for the remission of sins :
II. And I look for the Resurrection of the dead:
12. And the Life of the world to come. Amen.

I . et? eva ®e6v IlaTepa TravroKparopa, TroLrjrrjV ovpavov
Kai 'yrj^, oparav re iravrmv koI aopdrcov.
2. Kat et? eva K.vpiov 'Irjo-ovv 'K.pia-Tov, tov vlbv tow
0eoO TOV fiovoyevfj, tov e'« tov IlaT/jo? yevvrjOevTa
irpb TrdvTcov TOiv almvmv, <f>a)9 e/c ^coto';, ffeov aXi;-
0iv6v ex ®eov aXrjdivov, yevvrfOevTa ov iroirjOevTa,
6p,oovaiov TO) HaTpi- Si ov Tib ttuvtu iyeveTO-
3. Tov Si fffici'; Tov<; avOpdnrovi kuI Sia ttjv '^/aeTepav
ccoTrjpiav KUTeXOovTa e'« tmv ovpavMV, kui ffapKco-
OevT^ eK IIveu/iaTO? 'Ayiov xal Mapia? T97? Trap-
devolv, KOI ivavOpcairrjaavTa •
4. "SiTovptoOevTa re virep -qfiMV iirl TIovtiov UiXutov,
Kat. iradovTa Kal Ta^evTa •
5. Koit avacTTavTa Ty TpiTtj '^fJ-epa /caTa to,'! ypa<f)d<i •
6. Kaili aveXddvTa et? toii? ovpavov^ koX Kade,6fievov
i/c m^L&v TOV IlaT/jo?,
7. Katl irdXiv ipy(p/xevov fieTO, So^tj? Kpivai ^mvTa<: koI
veKphvf ¦ ov Tij? /3a(n\eia<; ovk ^aTai re'Xo?.
8. Kat let? to Tlvev/jtaTO dyiov, to Kvpiov Kal to ^coottoiov,
TO iic tov IlaT/OO? iKTropevofjievovjt to criiv IlaTpt Kal
"Tia> jcrvfiTrpotrKwovfj^vov Kal avvSo^a^o fievov, to Xa-
Xrjactv Sia:, tSiv 'irpo<^rjTS)v.
9. Et? ix.Cav dyiav KaOoXiKrjV Kal aTTOCTToXiKrjv eKKX-q-
aiav
10. '0/*o\p7cB iv ^dTTTia-fxa et? d<l>e<Tiv d/jiapTiSv
II. lIpo(^SoKS avdaTaaiv veKpSv,
12. Kat tcor/v TOV fJt,eXXovTO<! alSvo^. 'Afiijv.
 ^
Note. — Tiie above is the Nicene Creed as said in the Greek liturgies, i. e.
the Creed of jlerusalem, with the Nicene additions as ratified at Chalcedon. ,

CONTENTS
Chapter I. — Belief
The Nature of Faith — To believe a fact, to believe
a person, to believe in a person — Grounds of belief :
the revelation of God in nature, history, reason and
conscience, the Prophets, Christ — The revelation in
Christ final, but its significance continually un
folded — Formation of Creeds — They state facts not
theories — Their relation to Scripture — Authority
of the Church : That of a witness — Internal testi
mony — Moral character of faith — Faith and rea
son — Faith and theology — Theological dogmas —
The order of belief.
Chapter II. — God the Creator
Belief in God — Natural arguments — Teaching of
the Old Testament — Teaching of Christ and the
Apostles — God is Spirit — Self-existent — Infinite —
A person — Almighty — Omniscient. Rival Systems:
Dualism — Monism (Materialism, Pantheism) — God's
immanence and transcendence — Creation and Evo
lution — Man the crown of creation — The image of
God — Rational, moral, immortal. Angels : their
probation — The devil.
Chapter III. — God the Tri-une Being
The Unity of God more fundamental than the Trin
ity — Disclosure of the Trinity in the Baptismal
commission — Picture at our Lord's Baptism — -
Teaching of His farewell discourse — Teaching of the

16 CONTENTS
Apostles — The essential and the economic Trinity —
Analogies of the Trinity — The term 'Person' used
of the Trinity — The Monarchia — Subordination —
Hooker's summary — The Quicunque vult.
Chapter IV. — The Incarnation
The Incarnation the climax of God's self-manifesta
tion — The four great doctrinal decisions concerning
the Incarnation: (i) Christ was truly God — How
the disciples came to this conviction; (2) He became
completely man ; (3) The human nature was insepar
ably linked with His divine person — The title
OeoTOKO'i — The communicatio idiotnatum,; (4) The
divine and human natures remained unconfused —
Ubiquitarianism — The Quicunque vult.
Chapter V. — The Atonement
The Fall of Man — Transmission of disordered
nature — The Atonement variously represented: (i)
The manifestation of God's love; (2) The example
of a perfect human life; (3) A moral victory over
temptation; (4) A perfect satisfaction — meaning
of propitiation; (5) All effected by Christ's Blood.
Symbolism of the Levitical sacrifices. Christ's
sacrifice involves no division of attributes in the
Trinity — He is our Representative not our Substi
tute — His obedience is His sacrifice — He died ^_;'
sin,/!?;' sin, to sin.
Chapter VI. — The Resurrection
Meaning of the Descent into Hades — The Vital
and the Personal Union in Christ — His disembodied
soul not inactive — The Resurrection a sign repeated
ly promised — Continually pressed by the Apostles :—

CONTENTS 17

This involves a real resurrection. The Resurrection
no return to former conditions — Difference between
Christ's resurrection and such as had occurred before.
The resurrection "according to the Scriptures."
Purposes of the appearances after the resurrection.
The Ascension the exaltation of our nature — Assur
ance of sympathy in Heaven — Christ present by His
Spirit, though removed from sensible cognizance.
The Return to judgment.
Chapter VII. — The Holy Ghost
Relation of the Spirit's work to that of Christ — The
Giver of Life — The deity of the Holy Spirit — His
distinct personality — His interior operation — "The
Lord and the Life-giver" — "Who spake by the
Prophets." The single or double Procession.
Grace the operation of the Spirit of God — requires
our cooperation — not irresistible — the Paraclete.
Chapter VIII. — The Church
The Church corresponds with man's social being —
Not a voluntary organization but a spiritual organ
ism. Admission to the Church by Baptism (our
promises and God's gift) — sealed in Confirmation —
maintained in the Eucharist — The principle of Sacra
ments — This fellowship broken by sin — Spiritual
discipline. The Notes of the Church: (i) One, (2) Holy, (3)
Catholic, (4) Apostolic — The transmission of the
ministerial commission. Different organs of the
body having each its appropriate function. The
Catholic Church the elect body — Our individual
share in the privileges of the Church : election, justi
fication, sanctification, glorification.

18 CONTENTS 
Chapter IX.— Eschatology
Continued existence after death not a distinctive
Christian doctrine — Sanctioned by Christ, with the
added doctrine of the resurrection of the body. This
not a return to former conditions of life — the spirit
ual body. The soul not unconscious in the inter
mediate state — The condition of the faithful de
parted one of progress, aided by prayers. Their
future glory described under many allegorical fig
ures, all summed up in perfect Life. The opposite
of this is spiritual Death, likewise variously de
scribed — Irretrievable ruin a possibility — due to
persistent rejection of God's purpose. This life the
term of probation. Final reward or doom no arbi
trary appointments, but the working out of the law
of Retribution. Question as to the endless existence
of the lost. Appendices
A. — The Christian doctrine of God (James Orr).
B. — Creation and Evolution (G. H. Curteis).
C. — Possession by evil spirits (T. B. Strong).
D. — The Incarnation (W. Bright and B. F.
Westcott). E. — Scripture and Church Authority (S. Cyprian
and Abp. Bramhall).
F. — Predestination and Election (C. Gore).
G. — Physical Death and its connection with sin
(C. Gore).
H.— Eternal Life and its loss (W. E. Gladstone).

THE DOCTRINE OF
THE CHURCH I.
BELIEF
The Nature of Faith. — Belief primarily means in
tellectual assent, the acceptance of a statement as
true on the authority of the speaker. In this sense
belief may have varying degrees of certainty, corres
ponding with the authority of the speaker (his knowl
edge and his veracity). The acceptance of God's
word will be absolute ; our faith is unhesitating when
once we are assured that a statement is from Him.
Religious faith is a knowledge of spiritual facts,
which could not be discovered with certainty by
man's unaided reason, but which are revealed by
God. But Christian faith means more than mere intel
lectual assent. It stands for the acceptance by the
whole man, in mind and heart and will, of the
divine word, so that the man shall be moulded by
the truth revealed. Further still, faith is specially
used of a relation and attitude towards a person. In
this sense it means not only belief that such an one
exists, and belief that what he states is true, but
also the trustful surrender of ourselves to the person

20 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 
in whom we believe (as a wife to her husband, a pupil
to his master, soldiers to their leader). It is to faith
of this kind directed towards God and our Lord Jesus
Christ that the great promises in the New Testament
are made,' e.g.:
"He that believeth in me, though he die, yet shall
he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall
never die." (John xi. 25, 26.)
"We believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be
justified by faith in Christ." (Gal. ii. 16.)
It is this spiritual attitude of self-surrender which
should be expressed by our profession of belief in
God, in His incarnate Son, and in His Spirit. The
Catechism thus rightly summarizes "what we chiefly
learn" in the Articles of the Creed: We believe in
God the Father who made us ; in God the Son who
redeemed us; and in God the Holy Ghost who sancti
fies us. All the truths which we profess to believe,
gather around the persons of the tri-une God, in
whom we believe. These truths we unhesitatingly
believe as facts — that all things in heaven and earth
were made by God; that the incarnate Son was
miraculously born in our nature, that He died and
rose again, etc. We recognize the Church which the
Spirit forms, the forgiveness of sins that He bestows,
we look for the resurrection and the life of the world
to come for which He prepares us. But all these
truths we regard in their relation to the Father the

I See Note C in the author's Bedell Lectures The Relations of
Faith and Life, on the use of iriaTeveiv in the New Testament
with different prepositions and cases.

BELIEF 21
Son, and the Holy Spirit, as telling us about God and
what He has done and does for us.^
For this entire acceptance of God's promised word
and the surrender of ourselves to Him, we must seek
and use the promised aid of the Spirit of God illumi
nating our intellectual and strengthening our moral
faculties. Like all true knowledge, faith is appro
priated and certified by experience, the experience of
spiritual life. (See 2 Peter i. 5, John iv. 42, 2
Tim. i.i2.)
Grounds of Belief . — God has made known to us in
various ways, and in a progressive development,
Himself, His working and His mind:
I. Nature, the work of His hands, gives a re
flexion, however fragmentary, of the Creator. (Rom.
i. 20, 21; Acts xiv. 17.)
2. History shows the working of His Providence
gradually accomplishing His purposes, and making
for the triumph of right.
3. The individual Reason and Conscience are en
lightened by the Word of God. (John i. 9; Rom.
ii.15.) (The above belong to what is called Natural Reli
gion, and are common to all men. Such knowledge of
God as is thus given is presupposed in direct revela
tion. )

' Bishop Lightfoot says, " The phrase which occurs in the
revised Nicene and other creeds, TvicrTeveiv et? mKX-qaiav,
though an intelligible, is yet a lax expression, the propriety of
which was rightly disputed by many of the fathers, who main
tained that TTKTTeveiv et? should be reserved for belief in God
or in Christ." (Galatians ii. 16, p. 115.)

22 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

4. He has from time to time raised up prophets
and teachers to receive special revelations of His
mind, and to declare to others what they have re
ceived. By the Prophets (in this wider sense of the
word) He formed and trained Israel, His chosen
people, in special preparation for the coming of His
Son, whom they were taught to look for as the
Messiah. (John iv. 22.)
5. Finally He sent His incarnate Son. "God, hav
ing of old time spoken unto the fathers in the
prophets by divers portions and in divers manners,
hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his
Son." (Heb. i. i, 2.)
In Christ's life and teaching we have for this world
a full and final revelation (i) of God — His being and
character and purposes, and (2) of m.an — his origin
and destiny, the true standard of his life, his relation
to and means of approaching his Maker. This reve
lation, made once for all in and through Christ (Jude
3 ; Gal. i.8; 2 John 9), and recorded in the New Testa
ment Scriptures, is continually unfolded and its bear
ings applied by the Holy Spirit, whom Christ sends to
dwell in His Church. (Johnxiv. 26, xvi, 13.) The ex
ternal testimony finds a response and sanction in the
experience of the Church and of its individual mem
bers. But while the spiritual value of the truths gives
to them a new force and justification, it must always
be remembered that their value and significance de
pend upon the reality of the facts ; and that the dec
larations of the Gospels or the Creeds are not mere
symbols of subjective spiritual truths. The renewal
of human nature, conquest of sin and death, union

BELIEF 23
with God, are the great spiritual truths represented
by the Incarnation, the Passion and Resurrection,
and the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. But
these values in spiritual experience are made possible
by the actual facts stated in the Creed.
What Christ and the Apostles in His name taught,
that we accept without hesitation, as absolutely true.
To this revelation the Christian Church bears con
stant testimony. Its leading truths are summed up
in the Creeds.
Formation of Creeds. — The gradual formation of
the Creeds we are able to trace as expansions of the
Baptismal formula or charge in Matthew xxviii. 19.'
In Romans vi. 1 7, xii. 6, i Timothy vi. 20, 2 Tim
othy i. 13, Hebrews v. 12, x. 23, we have hints of a
form of sound or healthful words, summarizing the
great truths of the Christian religion, to be carefully
guarded.* Irenaeus (a. d. 180) says that the Church, though
dispersed throughout the whole world, has received

' On this passage and its authority see Dr. Sanday's article
"God," in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible,Vo\. II. pp. 213,
214, and an article in The Journal of Theological Studies ior S)e.y-
tember, 1905, on " The Lord's command to baptize," by Dr.
Chase (now Bishop of Ely), who concludes an exhaustive ex
amination of the question by saying, "The whole evidence —
such I believe must be the verdict of scientific criticism — es
tablishes without a shadow of doubt or uncertainty the genu
ineness of Matthew xxviii. 19."
* For a full discussion of the Creed see E. C. S. Gibson, The
Thirty-nine Articles, Article VIII, and the same author's vol
ume on The Three Creeds in the Oxford Library of Practical
Theology.

24 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
from the Apostles and their disciples this faith : " In
one God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth and the sea, and all things that are in them ;
and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who be
came incarnate for our salvation ; and in the Holy
Spirit, who proclaimed through the prophets the dis
pensations of God, and the advents, and the birth
from a virgin, and the passion, and the resurrection
from the dead, and the ascension into heaven, in the
flesh, of the beloved Christ Jesus, our Lord, and His
manifestation from heaven in the glory of the Father
to gather all things in one, and to raise up anew all
flesh of the whole human race." — (Against Heresies,
bk. I, ch. X.)
What is called the Apostles' Creed represents in its
main structure and contents the baptismal creed of
all local churches, whether Eastern or Western, in
early Christian times. Its particular form is that of
the local church at Rome, the use of which, on account
of the commanding position of the imperial city, na
turally became more widely known in Western
Christendom than that of other remote churches.
We can trace it from the middle of the second cen
tury. The Creed was gradually expanded till it
reached its present form in the seventh or eighth
century, largely through the assimilation of articles
of the baptismal confessions of other parts of Chris
tendom. The Nicene Creed is so called because (save some
later additions) it was set forth at the council of
Nicea (a. d. 325), to guard the truth of our Lord's
Godhead, which was impugned by Arius. (See ch.

BELIEF 25
IV.) Later the third part of the Creed was devel
oped, to guard the truth of the Godhead of the Holy
Spirit. If this was not agreed upon by the Council
of Constantinople (a. d. 381), the Creed in its full form
was recognized by the Council of Chalcedon (a.d. 45 1).
The elaboration of the Creed (which will be illus
trated by a comparison of the second article in the
Apostles' Creed with the Nicene) was forced upon
the Church by heretics rather than voluntarily under
taken. Fuller dogmatic statements were rendered
necessary when the simple meaning of earlier state
ments was denied or explained away. The object of
the Church was not to limit Christian thought, but
rather to keep wide the region of truth in opposition
to various heresies which attempted to contract it by
denying one or other element thereof (for instance,
either Christ's true Godhead or His real manhood).
The Church's balanced statements are intended to
preserve the full truth. In this way they guard
freedom. The Creeds state Facts not Theories. — It is further
to be noted that the Creeds state facts not theories ;
we profess our belief in great truths revealed by Al
mighty God, not in explanations of those truths. No
doctrine of the Trinity, as a method by which in
thought we reconcile the truth of the absolute unity
of God with His three-fold being, is propounded for
our belief; nor any theory as to the manner in which
the divine and human natures are united in the single
person of our Lord Jesus Christ ; nor any explana
tion of the vray in which His death avails for our rec-

26 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
onciliation with God. It is the same with reference
to the exact limits or organization of the Christian
Church, the way in which the inner grace is linked
with the outward sign in sacraments, or the nature of
the resurrection body. It is the fact, and not the ex
planation of the truth, which moulds the life, and
which is de fide, important as an intelligent grasp of
the truth must be. Here is the legitimate distinction
between Faith and Theology.
Relation of Creeds to Scripture. — The Creeds sum
marize in a partially systematic order the chief truths
taught in the Scriptures. Their statements may all
be proved by Scripture, though in their earliest forms
they existed before the New Testament Scriptures
were written. The Church holds that it has been so
ordered by God's Providence that all truths neces
sary for our spiritual life are contained in the Scrip
tures which the Church accepts as canonical. To
these she appeals as a check upon human inventions,
and particularly to the writings of apostles and
apostolic men, as her purest tradition of the revela
tion given by Jesus Christ.
Authority. — The function of the Church is rather
that of Witness than of Judge. The Church holds the
records of those to whom the revelation was original
ly given. By their agreement or harmony with these
records, and with the continuous tradition of the
Church, opinions are tested. For its acceptance the
opinion must be a legitimate explanation of a re
vealed truth, or a necessary deduction from it, the
balancing force of other revealed truths being ob-

BELIEF 27
served. No other kind of 'development' of Christian
doctrine is warranted.
The general consent of the Church is understood
to express the mind of the Spirit, who dwells in the
faithful to lead them into all the truth.* Individual
opinions are checked and balanced by the evidence
of fellow-members of the body. This is the princi
ple of the Church's authority in matters of faith.
The authority of the Church does not supersede,
but influences and guides our own individual judg
ment. The external witness of the Church is of the
nature of evidence, expert evidence we might say,
appealing to our judgment. With the external testi
mony should correspond the internal evidence of our
moral sense and of our afTections. God makes His
appeal to the whole man. It is for this reason, in
part, that faith is counted of such great importance in
the New Testament. Acceptance or rejection of the
divine message, when fairly brought before a man, is,

5 On the ultimate appeal in matters of faith to Scripture, and
to Scripture as interpreted by the Catholic Church, and in sub
ordination to this supreme authority to the decisions of a
national Church, see (for the Fathers) S. Cyprian and (for An
glican divines) Abp. Bramhall, quoted in Appendix E.
See also Article VI, " Of the Sufficiency of the Holy Scriptures
for Salvation," XX " Of the Authority of the Church," and XXI
" Of the Authority of General Councils," and Gibson's com
ments thereon. We use tradition as a help towards arriving at
the true sense of Scripture, not as an additional source of Chris
tian doctrine. The same Convocation which in 1571 imposed
subscription to the Thirty-nine Articles on the English clergy,
required preachers to take care that they never preach aught to
be religiously held and believed by the people, except what is
agreeable to the doctrine of the Old and New Testaments, and
what the Catholic fathers and ancient bishops have collected
from the same doctrine.— (Cardwell, Synodalia, I. p. 126.)

28 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH 
in general, a test of his character, of those moral
quahties which must affect the intellectual judgment,
his sincerity and purity of heart, his obedience, his
correspondence with previous opportunities."
He that hath to him shall be given.
Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
He that willeth to do His will, he shall know of the
teaching whether it be of God.
He that is of God heareth God's words. (Mark
iv. 25 ; Matt. v. 8; John vii. 17, viii. 47.)
Faith and Reason. — That which is proposed for
acceptance by faith must never be contrary to reason.
Faith lays hold on truths made known to us, which by
our unaided powers we could not have discovered, or
at which we should only have guessed as probable.
But we can only employ for the reception of truth
the faculties with which God has endowed us. Faith
is no additional faculty. It is reason illuminated by
the Spirit of God. A new power is given by grace to
the existing natural faculty. If we were asked, on
whatever authority, to believe something that is con
trary to our reason, we should be obliged to refuse.
Faith may go beyond our experience ; it is above
reason ; but it can never contradict the verdict of our
senses, our reason, or our conscience.
Faith and Theology. — The great facts of our relig
ion are unchangeable. The faith of the Church con
cerning their substance is unalterable. But explana^

« See the second of the author's Bedell Lectures, " The Effect
of Life on Faith."

BELIEF 29
tions of the truth will vary with stages and phases of
human development — development of the race as of
the individual. As the truth is expressed in the lan
guage of each nation, so it must of necessity be con
ceived and expressed in harmony with the thought
and philosophy of the age. Thus the theology, the
systematic and philosophical presentation of the
Church's faith, may show a variation between the
first, the fourth, the sixteenth and the twentieth cen
turies. The same truth, e. g. of the Trinity, or the
Redemption, or the Sacraments, or the future life,
will be somewhat differently apprehended and ex
plained at different periods. The definitions of a
later age must not contradict nor be at variance
with those already accepted by the Church, though it
is conceivable that the same truth might be expressed
in other words.
Theological Dogmas. — Scientific theology is not
merely a systematic exhibition of what we believe ;
it aims at showing the reasonableness of our belief.
As systematic it must necessarily be dogmatic.
"Dogma is definition, nothing more. It presupposes
that we know certain truths not alone with the certi
tude of spiritual experience, but according to the
categories of the intellect. If we know nothing, we
cannot dogmatize ; if we know anything with cer
tainty, we must dogmatize. It is to be regretted
that the word dogma has been appropriated so ex
clusively to the formulating of religious truth, for this
obscures the identity of the process with clearness oi
definition in all branches of knowledge. There are

30 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
dogmas of science, dogmas of philosophy, dogmas of
trade, just as truly as there are dogmas of religion.
The difference of subject matter and methods of ar
riving at conclusions ought not to blind us to this
obvious fact" — (W. L. Robbins, An Essay toward
Faith, p. 156.)
Order of Belief . — The order of belief, i. e. the pro
cess by which persons come to an acknowledgment
of the Christian faith, may vary. Many persons
may be first impressed by the life and teaching of
Jesus Christ. Accepting Him as Master, they recog
nize that He made claims altogether inconsistent with
moral excellence in a created being; the doctrine
of the Trinity comes to them as a welcome explana
tion of what would otherwise be a hopeless puzzle.
They come to believe in a personal God through be
lief in Jesus. But all the while there has been in the
background of their mind an idea of God, which is
now called forth and clarified. In an exposition of
Christian doctrine it will be best to follow the logical
order, to which all must ultimately come for an in
telligent apprehension of the faith, by whatever truth
they may have been first attracted.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
F. Temple, " The Relation between Religion and Science."
(Bampton Lectures, 1884.)
P. N. Waggett, " The Scientific Temper in Religion."
P. N. Waggett, "Religion and Science." (Hand books for
the Clergy.)
J. R. Illingworth, " Reason and Revelation."
B. F. Westcott, "The Historic Faith," cc. I and II.
W. L. Robbins, " An Essay toward Faith."

BELIEF 31
W. L. Robbins, "Apologetics." (Hand books forthe Clergy.)
A. C. A. Hall, "Relations of Faith and Life." (Bedell Lectures.)
V. H. Stanton, "The Place of Authority in Matters of Re
ligious Belief."
T. B. Strong, " Authority in the Church." (Hand books for the
Clergy.) T. B. Strong, " God and the Individual."
I. A. Dorner, "A System of Christian Doctrine," Introduction.
(Clark's Foreign Theological Library.)
H. Martensen, " Christian Dogmatics," Introduction.
Hamack, " History of Dogma."
J. H. Skrine, "What is Faith?"
J. F. Bethune-Baker, " Introduction to the Early History of
Christian Doctrine."
T. B. Strong, " A Manual of Theology."
A. J. Mason, " The Faith of the Gospel."
F. J. Hall, "Authority, Ecclesiastical and Biblical."
D. Stone, " Outlines of Christian Dogma."
T. A. Lacey, " The Elements of Christian Doctrine."
A. E. Bum, " An Introduction to the Creeds."
H. B. Swete, "The Apostles' Creed."
E. C. S. Gibson, "The Three Creeds." (Oxford Library of
Practical Theology.)
C. A. Heurtley, " De Fide et Symbolo."
C. A. Swainson, " The Nicene and Apostles' Creeds.''
J. Pearson, " Exposition of the Creed."
J. Lias, " The Nicene Creed."
T. H. Bindley, "The Oscumenical Documents of the Faith."
E. C. S. Gibson, " The Thirty-nine Articles."
B. J. Kidd, " The Thirty-nine Articles."
J. H. Newman, "The Grammar of Assent."

II.
GOD THE CREATOR
Belief in God. — The first article of our Creed, "I
believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven
and earth," means this at any rate, whatever more it
means :
We acknowledge one supreme Being, in whom we,
and all things, live and move and have our being ; a
spiritual Person, having powers of thought and affec
tion and freedom of action, such as we associate with
our minds and hearts and wills, and of which our
powers of thought and feeling and choice are a re
flection; 'the living God,' who intervenes and rules
and judges in the affairs of men; a moral Being,
whose action is characterised not merely by almighty
power but also by infinite wisdom and perfect good
ness. How do we reach this belief? As Christians we
believe in God because we are taught of Him by
Jesus Christ. Our Lord did not teach a systematic
theology. He assumed the existence of God, and to
a large extent a knowledge of His character. This
had been partially given in previous revelations; to
all men in Nature, History, Reason and Conscience ;
to the Jews by special teachers, called Prophets,
raised up from time to time to declare to others
what God had taught them concerning Himself.
Through these prophets Israel was made "a sacred

GOD THE CREATOR 33
school of religious knowledge for all mankind." —
(Athanasius, de fncamatione, xii.)
The existing conceptions of God Christ corrected
when necessary and supplemented, telling us more
about His character, and by implication, at any rate,
about His being.
Natural Arguments. — Behind the direct revelation
there was and is a natural conception of God, imper
fect, often faulty, sometimes perverted, which is
partly derived by tradition from an original revela
tion, such as primitive man was fitted to receive,
party derived from man's own thought. The idea
of God is always and everywhere a growing idea.
Man's first conceptions of God are extremely anthro
pomorphic; the gods of Egypt were magnified
human beings. As man advances in intelligence,
and culture his conception of God is necessarily
elevated.' The lines of thought by which, apart from direct
revelation, we arrive at the idea of God may be
grouped under the following heads, which are placed
not in their philosophical sequence, but rather in the
actual order in which the arguments commonly pre
sent themselves. The words of John Stuart Mill may
here be quoted : "The sender of the alleged message
is not a sheer invention. There are grounds inde
pendent of the message itself for belief in his reality —
grounds which, though insufificient for proof, are suf
ficient to take away all antecedent improbability from

' For a concise description of the primitive ideas of God, see
Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual and Religion.

34 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
the supposition that a message may really have been
received from him." '^
I. Cosmological. — This is an a posteriori 3.x^\xvci&c\.t,
from what we observe in Nature. (Comp. Rom. i.
20, Ps. xix. I.) The mind is so made that it demands
a cause for every effect. We trace back all that we
perceive to some First Cause, which must of necessity
be self-existing. As no cause can impart what it has
not in itself, we gather that the First Cause must be
personal. (Ps. xciv. 9.) We are thus led to the recog
nition of a self-existent fashioner of the universe.
2. Teleological. — Correspondences and adjustments
in the world show design. The gradual working out
of a design through many stages of development
heightens rather than otherwise the force of this con
sideration. The adaptation of means to ends points
to the First Cause as an intelligent and intellectually
powerful being. If some imaginable universe might
have existed without a Creator, we feel that the uni
verse with which we are acquainted could not.
3. Moral. — Our consciousness of right and wrong,
of approval and disapproval, suggests an authority in
dependent of and above men, to whom we are re
sponsible. (Comp. Rom. ii. 15.) All phenomena
must be taken into account, phenomena of the moral
world not less than facts of the physical world.
4. Ontological. — An a /m;-? argument, resting on
the idea of pure being. That which is conceived in
the mind must have an objective reality.

' From his posthumously published essay, " On Theism," part
IV. p. 213, of essays on religion.

GOD THE CREATOR 35
5. Historical. — From the common consent of man
kind we see that human nature is so constituted that
the belief in God instinctively commends itself to
men. (
These are not merely parallel or disconnected ar
guments ; they are complementary and converging.
Teaching of the Old Testament. — Among the cove
nant people (Rom. ix. 4) man's thought is taken up
and purified by progressive revelations, to the
Patriarchs, in the Law and , by the Prophets.
These are the truths about God which stand out
most clearly in the Old Testament Scriptures :
I. His sole Sovereignty. — Hear, O Israel: the
LORD our God is one LORD : and thou shalt love
the LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all
thy soul and with all thy might. (Deut. vi. 4, 5.
Comp. Isa. xliv. 6-8.)
2. His Self-existence. — God said unto Moses, I
I AM THAT I AM : and he said, Thus shalt thou say
unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto
you. (Ex. iii. 14.)
3. His inscrutable being. — Canst thou by search
ing find out God?
Canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?
It is high as heaven ; what canst thou do ?
Deeper than Sheol; what canst thou know? (Job
xi. 7, 8.)
4. His Omniscience. — I have declared the former
things from of old ; yea, they went forth out of my
mouth, and I shewe^-them: suddenly I did them.

36 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
and they came to pass. ... I have declared it to
thee from of old ; before it came to pass, I shewed it
to thee. (Isa. xlviii. 3, 5 ; Comp. Ps. cxxxix. 1-18.)
5. His Omnipotence. — It is he that sitteth above
the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are
as grasshoppers ; that stretcheth out the heavens as a
curtain, and spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in ;
that bringeth princes to nothing ; that maketh the
judges of the earth as vanity, etc. (Isa. xl. 22-26.
Comp. xliv. 24-28.)
6. His Righteousness. — A God of faithfulness and
without iniquity,
Just and right is he. (Deut. xxxii. 4).
The LORD, the LORD God, merciful and gracious,
longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,
keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity
and transgression and sin, and that will by no
means clear the guilty. (Ex. xxxiv. 6, 7. Comp.
Isa. vi. 1-5.)
Teaching of Christ. — This thought of God, de
veloped among the Jews, especially on the side of
His moral character, is sanctioned and emphasized by
Jesus Christ. Christ's own teaching is mostly in
direct. He makes God known as His Father, whose
character He represents. Accordingly in the writ
ings of the apostles, God is continually spoken of as
"the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Jesus acts
in His name, as He would act. As the incarnate
Word He translates God's character into language of
human conduct. God's holiness is understood in the
purity of Jesus; God's love in the self-sacrifice of

GOD THE CREATOR 37
Jesus ; God's justice in His discrimination and con
sideration. The following points stand out conspicuously in
Christ's teaching about God, following upon and ex
panding the earlier Jewish doctrine :
I. His absolutely spiritual being (John iv. 24).
2. His righteousness is manifested especially in
love, without any obscuring of His hatred of evil.
3. His care for individuals, while the stress before
had been upon the nation of Israel. He is con
tinually spoken of as "our heavenly Father" {e. g.
Matt. vi).
4. His care for all nations, and not only for Israel.
Teaching of the Apostles. — It would be a useful
practice to gather from the teaching of the apostles
points in the doctrine about God that are insisted on.
The following are only hints :
His spiritual being inaccessible in Himself (i Tim.
i. 7, vi. 15, 16, Acts vii. 48, xvii. 24);
His inscrutable and manifold wisdom (Rom. xi. fin.,
Eph. iii. 10);
He is absolutely one, and consequently cares for
all, and requires undivided devotion (i Tim. ii.
4, 5, Rom. iii. 29, i Cor. viii. 4) ;
the Creator of all (Acts xiv. 15-17, xviii. 24, Heb.
iii. 4, iv. 4),
and Judge (Acts xvii. 31, Rom. ii. 5),
knowing the hearts (Acts xv. 8, Heb. iv. 13);
Eternal (2 Pet. iii. 8) ;
Omniscient (Acts ii. 23, iii. 18);

38 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Omnipotent (Eph. iv. 20) ;
the Source of all good (J as. i. 17);
absolutely Holy (J as. i. 13);
requiring holiness (Heb. ii. 14, i Pet. i. 17);
our Saviour (Tit. ii. 10).
Attributes of God. — Such descriptions lead to a
consideration of the attributes of God. By these we
mean what is attributed or ascribed to God, corres
ponding with what in man we call faculties or quali
ties. These are not constituent elements of the di
vine being, but rather activities or characteristics
thereof The attributes of God are sometimes
classed as :
I. Absolute — His infinity, eternity, blessedness;
2. Relative — His omnipresence, omniscience, etc.;
3. Moral — His holiness, truth, love, etc.
About some of these descriptions or attributes a
few words may be said by way of guarding against
misunderstanding :
I. "God is Spirit,'' not « spirit, as if he were one
among many. But this is His nature. (John iv. 24,
Deut. iv. IS ; Isa. xl. 18, 25.) "Without body, parts
or passions."
For the sake of vivid presentment God is often
spoken of in material terms. This is an instance of
the common representation of spiritual realities under
figures drawn from material existence. We ought
always to consider what the figure stands for.
"When the Old Testament speaks of the hand,
arm, mouth, lips, and eyes of God ; when He makes

GOD THE CREATOR 39
bare His holy arm (Isa. Hi. lo); lifts up a signal to
the nations (xlix. 22) ; is seen at the head of the
Medes mustering His hosts, and His military shout is
heard (xiii. 4) ; all this is but the vivid conception of
His being, His intelligence, His activity and universal
power over the nations whom He directs." — (A. B.
Davidson, in Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, II.
p. 198.)
Man is made in God's image ; that is, our spiritual
being, with its powers of reason and affection and
choice, is a created and imperfect resemblance of
God's uncreated being, intelligent, loving, free. All
the emotions of which men are conscious, and all the
human conduct corresponding to these emotions, are
thrown back upon God. Impassible is not the same
as unfeeling. Our changing moods and feelings are
a reflection of the steady and unalterable regard with
which a perfect moral being must view the corres
pondence (or lack thereof) with His will in things and
persons. God is not a magnified man, but man's na
ture does reflect God's. "If anthropomorphism as
applied to God is false, if God does not exist in man's
image, yet theomorphism, as applied to man, is true ;
man is made in God's image, and his qualities are,
not the measure of the divine, but their counterpart
and real expression." — (Gore, Bampton Lectures,
p. 125.)
2. God is self-existent, (a) This is probably the
meaning of the name "Jehovah," or more properly
"Yahweh" (Ex. iii. 14, 15, vi. 2, 3). (b) The idea
is involved in that of a First Cause, to which all

40 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
else that exists may be traced back, through what
ever process of origination, (c) It is this which
distinguishes God from all created beings. What
ever gifts or powers they have, of whatever kind,
they received them from Him. He is the one being
who has everything and has received nothing.
3. God is infinite, (a) When we speak of God as
infinite we must guard against a misconception which
is really a denial of the true meaning of the word.
The infinite is not that which is extended through all
space, but that which exists independently of space,
which includes all space within its own boundless
existence. In the same way eternal is not equiva
lent to indefinite duration through all time. The
eternal is that which is not only through or before or
beyond, but above all time, to which the limits of
time do not apply. The infinite God is equally pres
ent to the smallest and the largest of created things.
He is not like an earthly monarch concerned only
with general laws, while leaving to subordinate
officers all details of execution and administration.
Not a sparrow falls to the ground without our
heavenly Father's knowledge. The hairs of our head
are all numbered (Matt. x. 29, 30). (b) We must
also observe that there is a self-limitation of God in
volved in the very act of creation. He calls into ex
istence something which is not Himself He is, in a
sense, limited by the existence of this with Himself
4. QoA \s 2l. person. — Powers of consciousness and
choice which are found in man can be only the re
flexion of corresponding features of the divine being.

GOD THE CREATOR 41
(Dan. iv. 17, Eph. i. 11.) (Seethe Cosmological argu
ment, p. 34.)
Because God is thus personal, "the living God,"
and no mere Soul of the Universe, we can reasonably
approach Him in prayer, (i) both assured that He has
a care and interest in our concerns, and (2) that He
will respond to our petitions in whatever way His
wisdom and love see best. God is not bound by laws
of nature as if they existed independently of Him
self, or as if He had once for all laid them down and
was subject in His action to their regulation. The
laws of the universe express our observation of the
regularity of God's working, always in the best way
(not in any tentative fashion), and therefore ordinarily
in the same way. We shall expect that His action will
be in accordance with His ordinary method, and not
after any arbitrary fashion. But having all the forces
of the universe at His disposal. He can apply them so
as to serve His purposes and His people's needs.
5. God is almighty. When we say that God is al
mighty we do not mean that He can do anything,
but that He is restrained by no external law. This
is more exactly the sense of iravTOKpdToyp, the Sov
ereign Ruler, which is the original of our 'Almighty'
in the Creeds. God is free to do what He wills, but
He cannot will that which would contradict the law of
His own being — His truth, love, holiness. Nor
will He contravene the freedom of choice with which
He has endowed His moral creatures. By bestowing
on them the prerogative of free-will. He has voluntarily
limited His own action. In this way God tolerates
the presence of evil in the world, while He limits its

42 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
operation and overrules it for ultimate and highest
good. The devil is no second god or principle of
being, but merely a rebel creature, who has abused
the free-will with which God endowed him.
6. God is omniscient. A difficulty is sometimes
felt in reconciling man's freedom of choice (a fact of
which we are experimentally certain) with God's om
niscience or foreknowledge (which is a necessary ele
ment of His infinite and eternal being). The diffi
culty is in great measure overcome by the considera
tion that while God's knowledge goes before men's
actions in the order of time, it does not go before
them in the order of causation. God sees our actions
because we perform them (all things being present to
Him); we do not perform them because He sees
them, any more than seeing a distant object through
a telescope, or a minute object through a microscope,
causes the presence of the object. We see it with
the aid of the glass, because it is there, though in
distinguishable by our limited and unaided vision.
Rival Systems. — Over against the belief and teach
ing of the Church concerning God are two rival sys
tems of thought. (Polytheism, though widely spread,
need scarcely be taken into account as a third, since,
wherever any intelligent statement of it is attempted,
it is seen to recognize, in the background of its
many gods, one supreme deity, whether personal or
impersonal. )
I. Dualism, which asserts the existence of two
first principles, one good and the other evil, the latter
being often identified with matter.

GOD THE CREATOR 43
2. Monism, the converse of Dualism, which asserts
that evil does not really exist, but is only a lesser de
gree of goodness, and denies the distinction between
matter and spirit, taking either the form (a) of Ma
terialism, which denies all spiritual existence, or (b)
of Pantheism, which regards all created things as be
ing in truth a part of the divine nature. (On the
Christian doctrine of God as embracing the elements
of truth in different antagonistic systems, see Orr,
quoted in Appendix A. )
In connection with Creation two questions present
themselves to thinking persons at the present day:
the question of God's Immanence and the question of
Evolution. It should be said that neither of them is
a new thought. Both have been in the minds of
theologians from early times. In systems of The
ology recently popular, both were doubtless largely
ignored. Both have been brought to the fore of late.
I. God's Immanence and Transcendence. — There is
no real question in the Church's mind between God's
Immanence and His Transcendence, as if they were
mutually exclusive. Both are true. They are differ
ent and supplementary aspects of the truth. If we
have a right idea of God's infinite being (immensus
is the Latin word for 'incomprehensible' in the
Athanasian hymn), we shall recognize that all
created beings, personal and impersonal, exist within
His boundless being. He is not a distant God, im
measurably removed from the world. "In Him we
live and move and have our being." (Acts xvii. 28.
Comp. Ps. civ. 29, 30.) Nor again was anything once

44 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

called into existence by God's/«^ and thereafter left
to itself until the powers communicated wore them
selves out. God is the Creator and Preserver of all.
Moment by moment He upholds that which He has
called into being. In Him all things consist and
hold together. (Col. i. 17; Heb. i. 3; John v. 17.)
And by all things we mean each in particular.
While this is most certainly true, and there can only
have been a lack of realization, and not a denial, of
the truth in people's minds, it is also most certainly
true that in every respect the Infinite transcends the
finite. Creation is not co-extensive with the Creator.
(Eph. iv. 6.) Heaven and earth are full of His glory;
but they do not comprise His perfections. We shall
recognize this perhaps most clearly in considering
the moral being of God. If He were only immanent
and not transcendent, there could be no higher mani
festation of His holiness, no truer ideal, than the im
perfect sanctity of His servants. Immanence, so far
as it is opposed to transcendence, means that God is
expressed, and only expressed, in the world.'
Such a doctrine, that God is the universal being of
whose substance we all form a part, not only obscures
the personal being of God and His holiness; but it

'The following quotations from The New Theology, \>y R. J.
Campbell (given by Bishop Gore in his volume, The New
Theology and the Old Religion,^. 43), illustrate this position;
" God is the mysterious power which is finding expression in
the universe and which is present in every tiniest atom of the
wondrous whole. I find that this power is the only reality I
cannot get away from ; for, whatever else it may be, it is myself."
— {The New Theology, p. 35.) " The real God is the God ex
pressed in the universe, and in yourself." — (Ibid. p. 10.) "There
is no dividing line between God's being, and ours." — (Ibid. p. 34.)

GOD THE CREATOR 45
also tends to obliterate the reality of sin, and any
true responsibility in man, for his real personality is
lost in the ocean of life, of which he is merely a
bubble on the surface. Against such vague notions,
a recrudescence, it should be remembered, of Pagan
ideas which the Christian religion conquered, the
Christian creed utters its emphatic protest when it
tells of God the Creator, the Redeemer and Restorer,
the Judge of all. Christian doctrine should guard
against both errors, the immersion of God in nature,
and the isolation of nature from God. — (P. N. Wag
gett, Religion and Science, p. no.)
II. Creation and Evolution. — The question be
tween Evolution and Special Creation is not like that
of the Immanence and the Transcendence of God.
The latter, as we have seen, presents no real con
trast. The two thoughts are supplementary the one
to the other. On the other hand. Evolution or Devel
opment is contrasted with Special Creation. But,
(it is to be remembered), the contrast is only be
tween different processes of Creation. "If we be
lieve, as we have seen that Christian Theology has al
ways believed, in a Divine Creator not only present
behind the beginning of matter but immanent in its
every phase, and cooperating with its every phenome
non, the method of His working, though full of
speculative interest, will be of no controversial im
portance." — (J. R. Illingworth, in Lux Mundi, p.
142.) The theory of evolution is in no sense a denial of
Creation. It helps us to understand more of the way

46 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
in which the world was fashioned, emphasizing the
patience, as well as the wisdom, of the Creator,
gradually leading on His work to higher stages, with
marvellous adaptation and a steady progress towards
a perfect end. We see Him rendering each of the
things of His Creation "at once a revelation and a
prophecy, a thing of beauty and finished workman
ship, worthy to exist for its own sake, and yet a step
to higher purposes, an instrument for grander work. "
— (J. R. Illingworth, in Lux Mundi, p. 139.)
Evolution in the physical order corresponds with
what we recognize to be the general method of God's
dealing in the social order, and in our individual life.
We see the development of institutions, or advance in
character, (a) by stages, (b) working towards a per
fect end, (c) with adaptation to circumstances, (d)
through the cooperation of agencies and instru
mentalities. Man the Crown of Creation. — Evolution, like Holy
Scripture, makes man the crown of creation in this
world. At the base of the scale is inorganic matter;
then we rise to organic life in the vegetable world ;
then comes animal and sentient life through insect,
fish, reptile, bird and mammal, till we reach man. In
him we find a self-conscious, personal, rational, moral
being. This is the teaching alike of Evolution and of
Scripture. Man is the crown and masterpiece of the
whole edifice of creation. Nothing higher than man
is looked for. Development is now within humanity,
in man's rising to his best, and specially in moral
progress.

GOD THE CREATOR 47
As regards his lower nature it matters little for re
ligious purposes whether we regard man as created
immediately out of the dust of the ground, or whether
we suppose that many stages intervened through
which the dust of the ground (his ultimate material
origin) was gradually fashioned into the form of man.
At a particular point God bestowed upon man a dis
tinct gift of life beyond that which came (directly or
indirectly) from the dust of the ground. In both ac
counts of the Creation (Gen. i. and ii.), while man is
represented as sharing the nature of the world around
him, he is spoken of as having a unique nature, made
"in the image of God," with reference to his mental
and moral faculties.
Man made in the image of God. — The image of
God in which man is made consists, (i) in his rational
being; he can understand the world that God has
made. Reason in man and the reason expressed in
nature must be the same in kind, or there could be
no relation between them; (2) in his moral being.
He recognizes duty, distinguishes between good and
evil, right and wrong. He can choose, and within
limitations is self-determining. It is the power of
will and self-determination which most of all consti
tute m^cn.' ?, personal being.
These faculties of reason, affection, conscience and
will belong to man by nature. The higher activities
of the soul we designate spiritual, as distinct from
the vital functions of the body, with its appetites,
desires and impulses. By the exercise of these
higher faculties man is capable of entering into
spiritual relations with his invisible Creator.

48 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Man is a created image of God in his being and
faculties, and is intended to reflect the moral charac
ter of God. Possessing faculties which make him
resemble God, he is to use them so that his action
resembles God's. In God the perfect harmony of His
power and wisdom and goodness constitute His holi
ness (almighty power always exercised in accord
ance with infinite wisdom and in perfect love). So
it is with holiness in man.
In the right exercise of his power of choice consists
man's goodness; by its misuse he falls away from
God and from his own true dignity.
These natural powers of man being so great it is
generally believed that immortality is a part of the
image of God in which man is made; that this too is
a part of man's natural endowment, rather than a su
peradded gift of grace. But this opinion cannot be
regarded as a matter of faith, and it is disputed by
many.* Where it is held, the distinction must be care
fully noted between this endlessness of existence, the
indestructibility of the frame of his spiritual being,
and the eternal life which is the reward of those who
have with God's aid cultivated and exercised aright
their natural capacities. Of this eternal life spiritual
death is the counterpart, by which is meant, not an
nihilation, but the waste and wreck, through misuse,
of capacities and powers that must continue to exist,
though in a ruined condition.
The Angels. — Man is not the only intelligent crea
ture that God has made. As beneath him are

*See W. E. Gladstone, "Studies subsidiary to the works of
Bishop Butler."

GOD THE CREATOR 49
lower creatures that share his physical, but not his
spiritual, being; so we are taught in Holy Scripture
that there are higher intelligences which share his
spiritual, but not his physical, being. These spiritual
intelligences are called Angels, and apparently are of
many ranks. (Eph. i. 21; Col. i. 16; i Pet. iii. 22.)
The angels, like man, were created upright; but
as they were moral beings like him must pass through
probation, and exercise their power of choice. Some
fell and became fixed in evil, their spiritual being with
its clearer vision rendering their fall irreparable. Of
the evil or fallen angels the devil or Satan is the
leader, and exerts the powers bestowed on him by
God for His service, in antagonism to His purposes
and for the seduction and ruin of His creature man.
(Mk. iv, 15; John viii, 44; Eph. vi, 12; i Peter v, 8;
Jude 6; i John iii, 8; Rev. xii, 9.)^

' Concerning Angels, good and evil, see Gore's Dissertations,
pp. 21-27, Lect. II. of the author's Baldwin Lectures, Christ's
Temptation and Ours, znd the article "Angels" in Hastings's
Dictionary of the Bible by A. B. Davidson, as well as the quo
tation from T. B. Strong in Appendix C.

50 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. R. Illingworth, "Personality, Human and Divine." (Bamp
ton Lectures, 1894.)
J. R. Illingworth, " The Divine Immanence.''
Aubrey Moore, "The Christian Doctrine of God," in Lux
Mundi. F. J. Hall, "The Doctrine of God."
James Orr, " The Christian View of God and the World,"
Lectures III, IV, V.
" C. E. D'Arcy, " Christianity and the Supernatural" (An
glican Church Handbooks), a modern plea for the place of
Transcendence. C. E. Luthardt, " Fundamental Truths of Christianity."
H. Lotze, " Microcosmus," bk. VII. and bk. IX. cc. 4 and 5.
H. T. S. Eck, " Sin" (Oxford Library of Practical Theology).
W. H. Hutchings, " The Mystery of the Temptation," Lec
ture III.
E. H. Jewett, " Diabolology.''
W. Knight, " Aspects of Theism."
Robert Flint, " Theism."
E. Griifith-J ones, "Ascent through Christ."

The editor would also call attention to the essay entitled
"Angels" in Dr. Sanday's," Life of Christ in recent research."
References to a more thorough study of the reasons for be
lief in God will be found in the volume upon Apologetics in
this series.

III.
GOD THE TRI-UNE BEING
The Unity of God more fundamental than the
Trinity. — In order to think rightly — or not of ne
cessity to think wrongly — concerning the doctrine
of the Trinity, we must be quite clear about the ab
solute and indissoluble Unity of God. This is a more
fundamental truth than that of the Trinity. It was not
until this belief had been firmly impressed upon
the Jewish people, by all the teaching and experience
of the Old Testament, that God ventured to dis
close the further truth of the Trinity; that within
the absolute and indissoluble oneness of the Supreme
Being there is a distinction which, for lack of better
terminology, we speak of as a distinction of Persons;
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Un-
instructed people are apt to begin with the thought
of the three Persons, and then work back to the one
nature common to the three, in the same way that
we think of three individual men sharing a common
human nature. But with God we must begin with the
thought of His oneness, and then within that one
ness we are taught to recognize a three-fold mode of
being. It has been pointed out that the very titles by
which the three Persons of the Trinity are known to
us imply the unity of their life. "They are not
proper names, like those of heathen divinities, but

52 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
titles of relationship, which involve each other, and
would be meaningless alone. Fatherhood is impossi
ble without sonship, and sonship without fatherhood;
a spirit (in the sense in which the word is applied to
the Holy Ghost) is impossible without one whose
spirit it is." — (Mason, Faith of the Gospel, p. 48.)
The disclosure of the Trinity in the New Testa
ment is made most clearly by our Lord in the great
commission delivered shortly before His ascension:
"Go, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing
them into the name of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost." (Matt, xxviii. 19.) Here our
Lord is giving a summary of that which is to be taught :
disciples are to be won to acknowledgment of the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The first and
second of these titles are evidently personal; the
third must be, likewise. The joining in this connec
tion of the name of the Supreme God with that of a
created representative and of a divine influence would
be inconceivable. Moreover, "the name" is dis
tinctly singular; it is the one name of God, who is
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. This is His name (we
may say) fully written out, whereby Christians are to
know Him, as in former times He was made known
to His covenant people as God Almighty, the God of
their fathers, I AM, the Self-existent One, the Holy
One of Israel, the Lord of hosts. (Ex. iii. 13-16, iv.
2, 3; 2 Kgs. xix. 22; Isa. i. 4, v. 24.) Into this Name
Christians are baptized into acknowledgment of, sur
render to, and fellowship with God so described.
Our Lord's baptismal commission in the name of
the Tri-une God is illustrated by the vision of the

GOD THE TRI-UNE BEING 53
Trinity vouchsafed at His own Baptism, which
stands near the beginning of each of the Synoptic
Gospels. (Matt. iii. i6, 17; Mark i, 10, 11; Luke
iii. 21, 22.) The voice of the Father was heard testi
fying to the beloved Son, upon whom the Spirit was
seen descending. This picture of the Trinity forms
a sort of frontispiece to the Gospel, giving an illus
tration of what will be explained in our Lord's teach
ing that follows. The voice speaking in conscience
and nature and history, which from its authority we
recognize as coming from heaven, is interpreted to us
as the voice of the Father, who is made known to us
in His Son manifest in human form ; on the Son in
our nature descends and rests the Spirit of God to
hallow Him and fit Him for His work. As we are
united to Christ by faith and obedience, and through
the sacraments which He ordains for this purpose, so
we are accepted by God in Him the well-beloved Son,
and God's Spirit is imparted to us as Christ's mem
bers. What was externally represented in objective
vision at Christ's Baptism is in the spiritual sphere
continually realised in the administration of Christian
Baptism. In the strength of this vision we are to go
forth, as did Christ, to meet temptation, to accom
plish our work, to bear suffering. The representa
tion of the Trinity at the beginning of the Gospel and
the commission to baptize in the name of the Trinity
at its close, should be taken together as illustrating
one another, and as showing the meaning of inter
mediate teaching during the Lord's ministry. Es
pecially prominent in this respect is the last discourse
(John xiv. -xvi.), in which our Lord prepared His

64 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
disciples for His departure and promised another
Helper in His place.
In this farewell address —
(i) Jesus declares, "He that hath seen me hath
seen the Father' ' (xiv. 9), which cannot be explained
save by the recognition of Him as really the incarnate
Son of God, of one nature with the Father and mani
fest in our nature.
(2) He speaks of the Spirit as taking His place
(xiv. 16), which would be impossible unless the Spirit
were a personal being like Himself, and equally with
Himself (though in a different manner) representa
tive of the Father, and proceeding from Him.
(3) Personal distinctions are clearly implied in the
words, "I will pray the Father, and He shall give
you another Comforter" (xiv. 16). The Son prays;
the Father hears and gives ; the Spirit comes.
(4) A real equality is implied in the promises, "I
will come unto you," and "We will come unto you"
(xiv. i8, 23).
(5) These same promises (that the Father will send
the Spirit in Christ's name, that Christ will send the
Spirit from the Father) point to the unbroken unity
of the Godhead, the real oneness of the Tri-une
Being. "He [the Spirit] will come unto you," "I [the
Son] will come unto you," "We [the Father and Son]
will come unto you," are interchangeable phrases.
The Son comes by or in the Spirit ; the Father comes
by or in the Son. This is what is called in technical

GOD THE TRI-UNE BEING 56
language the doctrine of co-inherence or circuminses-
sion. The divine Three do not act separately or
apart as distinct individuals. (Gore, Bampton Lec
tures, page 145.)
This high and spiritual teaching of the last dis
course does not stand alone either in St. John's
Gospel or in the Synoptists, though it stands pre
eminent. (Comp. John i. i, 18, x. 30, xvii. 5; Matt.
xi. 27.)
It prepares us for what we find in the writings of
the apostles. In 2 Cor. xiii. 14 (written be
fore any of our Gospels) we have St. Paul in the
Apostolic Benediction praying, "The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the com
munion of the Holy Ghost be with you all." Here
is (i) a clear association of Jesus Christ and the Holy
Spirit with God as equally objects of worship and
sources of blessing; (2) an equally plain recognition
of a distinction of personal existence on the part of
God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
This passage again stands not alone, though pre
eminent, among testimonies to the belief of the
apostles based on the teaching of the Lord Jesus.
(Comp. Eph. iv. 4; Rev. i, 4, 5; i John ii, 22, 23.)
Other passages will be given under Chapter IV, on
the "Incarnation," and in Chapter VII, on the
"Holy Ghost."
Such passages demand for their reasonable and har
monious interpretation the Church's doctrine of the
Trinity. Without it they would be inconsistent with
the recognition of the Unity of the Godhead, which
we find taken over from the Old Testament, e. g

56 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Mark xii. 32; i Corinthians viii. 4; i Timothy ii. 5;
James ii. 19.' The apostles, it must always be re
membered, had all been trained in the strictest
Monotheism. With this fundamental truth they had
to reconcile the teaching of their Master, and their
convictions, about Himself and the Spirit He prom
ised to send.
The Essential and the Economic Trinity. — By the
doctrine of the Trinity we do not only mean that God
has a three-fold relation to us, as our Creator, Re
deemer, and Sanctifier. This by itself would be the
error of Sabellius, who taught that the Trinity rep
resented God in three characters ; under one aspect
He was called the Father, under another aspect the
Son, and under a third aspect the Holy Spirit; in
other words, that the Father took oar nature as the
man Christ Jesus ; and after dying for our salvation
operates on our hearts as the Holy Ghost.' We
mean that this three-fold relation to us is based upon
a three-fold distinction within Him-self, that God
eternally exists in a three-fold mode of being. Father,

' Hear, O Israel : the LORD our God is one LORD. (Deut.
vi. 4, etc.) Hints there were in the Old Testament of a plurality
of persons in the Godhead, that we can recognize as we look back
from the fuller revelation of the New Testament. (See Gibson,
Thirty-nine Articles, Vol. I, pp. 93-98; also at the end of A. B.
Davidson's article, " God," in Hastings's Dictionary of the
Bible, Vol. II. p. 205.)
' Norris, Rudiments of Theology, pp. 32-33, Gibson, Tht
Three Creeds, p. 238. This was the reason, that it seemed to
favor such a conception, of the Church's rejection of the word
irpdacoira as applied to the Trinity.

GOD THE TRI-UNE BEING 57
Son, and Holy Spirit. The outer relations of the
Godhead to the world and to man rest upon the inner
relations of the divine life. This conception was
forced upon the Church, as we have seen, by the
teaching of Christ concerning Himself and con
cerning the Spirit, if the principle of Monotheism
were to be preserved. This conception of a Trinity
in Unity once gained, it became fruitful in sugges
tion of further thoughts about the Godhead. The
Son was thought of as eternally mirroring the
Father's perfections, and so as the object of the
Father's love. This led on to the thought of the
Spirit as the bond of love between the Father and
the Son.
Whether such thoughts were in the mind of
of St. John when he wrote "God is love," is a ques
tion of little importance. It was seen that in the
light of this thought the words, and the conception of
God which they expressed, gained a fuller meaning
and justification. God did not become love when His
creative work was begun. Within His own being
He found an adequate object of His contemplation
and love. Love is a relation between persons. It is
because there are within the Godhead relations
which admit of a perfect interchange and reciprocity
of affections that God can truly be said to be Love.
Thus there is seen to be a richness in the divine life,
which is altogether excluded by the thought of God
as a solitary unit. In that case His were a barren
life, without scope for the exercise of the highest
affections. In this light we see that the doctrine of
the Trinity has its bearing on practical life. God is

58 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Himself the pattern of social life and of interde
pendence.' Analogies of the Trinity. — Various analogies of the
Trinity may be traced in human life, which may
partly (but only, of course, imperfectly) illustrate or
shadow forth the divine Threeness in Oneness.
I. Our own created spiritual being (what we speak
of as our 'soul') is absolutely one; it cannot be di
vided, as the body from the soul, or members of the
body one from another. But within this real unity
there is a distinction of powers or faculties, each
having its own function, while the soul acts through
each, and all act (or should act) harmoniously ; e. g.
the memory, the understanding, and the will.
We may speak either of the memory recalling, the
understanding reasoning, and the will deciding, or
of the person remembering, understanding, choosing.
In like manner we speak of God creating, redeeming,
sanctifying; or we attribute to the Father, as the
source of all life, the work of creation, to the Son
redemption, to the Holy Spirit sanctification.
As we rise in the scale of being, distinctions be
come more clear. The distinction in man of faculties
rises in God to the higher distinction of persons.

" Gore, Bampton Lectures, pp. 147, 148 ; Mason, Faith of the
Gospel, pp. 53-59; Sanday, Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol.
II. pp. 206, 208. For the metaphysical need of plurality in the
life of God, and the effect of our conception of the absolute be
ing of God on His relation to us, see R. H. Hutton, Theological
Essays, " The Incarnation and the Principles of Evidence," p.
231 (second ed.) .

GOD THE TRI-UNE BEING 59
2. In created social life we may see a resemblance
to the uncreated Trinity. The family (the unit of
society) is made up of the man and his wife (his
coequal partner) and the child, which is the offspring
of them both.
In this illustration the difference must be carefully
remembered between, on the one side, the created
life which exists in time, and, on the other, the un
created and eternal Hie. In the Godhead there is no
earlier and later existence, as in the human family.
The divine Son is always being begotten by the
Father, the Holy Spirit is always proceeding from
the Father and His coequal and coeternal Son.* ,^
The two titles given in Holy Scripture to the
Second Person of the Trinity, the Son and the Word
of God, supplement and balance one another. Either
would be liable to misinterpretation without the
other: (a) By itself the title 'Son' might suggest a
later coming into existence; this idea is corrected by
the title 'Word' or 'Wisdom.' A word is an uttered
thought. Our fragmentary words express the pass
ing thoughts of our minds; the one Word of God
discloses His whole mind. God could never have
been without His Word. The Son is as essentially
present with the Father, in as full and necessary a
sense, as the attribute of Wisdom is ever with Him.
(b) On the other hand, the title 'Son' gives an em-

*aet yewoLTai, Origen, Horn, injerem. ix. 4. Comp. De
Principiis, \.y. " His generation is as eternal and everlasting
as the brilliancy which is produced from the sun," and Atha
nasius : " Begotten, not by the will of the Father, but by the ne
cessity of the Father's nature."— ( O^a/. contr. Arian. iii. 62.)

60 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
phasis to the idea of personal existence which is lack
ing in the title 'Word.' The use of both titles re
minds us that all our language must be inadequate to
express divine mysteries. Human terms can only be
used of God by way of accommodation to our finite
intelligence." The term 'Person' used of the Trinity. — The term
'Person' in English suggests a greater distinction
than is intended when we speak of the Trinity, as the
Latin persona comes short of the truth.* By 'persons'
° AU attempts to explain the nature and relations of the Deity
must largely depend on metaphor, and no one metaphor can ex
haust these relations. Each metaphor can only describe one
aspect of the nature or being of the Deity, and the inferences
which can be drawn from it have their limits when they conflict
with the inferences which can be truly drawn from other meta
phors describing other aspects. — (Bethune-Baker, Introduction
to the History of Christian Doctrine, p. i6o.)
• " There is but one person in God, in the sense in which we now
use the word ; but in the one divine personality there are three
different modes of subsistence, and to these the Latin fathers ap
plied the term persona, while the Greeks used hypostasis''
Steenstra, The Being of God, p. 189. Hypostasis in popular
Greek signified something solid and firm. It was adopted in
the language of philosophy to signify the reality underlying an
appearance or a mental conception. This was not far re
moved from Being or Substance, and at times it was understood
as an equivalent to ovcria. But in Christian theology it was
strictly used to express the severalty of the Father, the Son,
and the Holy Spirit. There was danger in this term so used ;
danger of its being taken to mean too separate an existence, as
the Latin word persona might easily imply too little separation.
For the history of the use of the terms oiicrta and vTr6<TTaai<;,
see Gibson, Articles, I. pp. 107-111.

GOD THE TRI-UNE BEING 61
as applied to the Trinity we do not mean three
separate individual beings (which is the sense in
which we use the word of our fellow men). These
might be of a different character, and so forth, where
as in the Godhead there is but one will, one love, one
holiness. The Son is of one substance (or essence)
with the Father; that is, not only of one eternal, in
finite and uncreated being; of one omnipresence,
omnipotence and omniscience, but likewise of one
moral being, of one love, truth, justice and holiness.
This excludes any parcelling out of the divine at
tributes (such as has often prevailed in popular the
ology), so that the Father was thought of as all jus
tice and holiness, while mercy and love were em
bodied in the Son. It was this dualistic conception
of God (clean contrary to the Scriptural representa
tion) which led by a perfectly natural reaction to the
Unitarianism of Channing.' The Son is the "ex
press image," the exact representation of the Father;
the Word made flesh acts out in our nature and amid
our circumstances God's character, so that Christ
could say, "he that hath seen me hath seen the
Father." (Heb. i. 3, John xiv. 9.)
The doctrine of the Monarchia and of Subordina
tion. — The unity of the Godhead is further empha
sized by what is called the doctrine of the Monarchia,
which guards the force of the term Father applied to

' Tritheism is belief in three separate Principles, or the di
vision of the divine substance among three several Beings. Uni
tarianism is the denial of the existence of personal relations
in the divine substance.

62 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
the first person of the Trinity, regarding Him as the
fount of deity in the eternal life of the Trinity, from
whom Son and Holy Spirit derive their divine being.
This is in accordance with Christ's own words, "As
the Father hath life in himself, even so gave he to
the Son to have life in himself . " (John v. 26; comp.
vi. 57, and xvi. 13-15.) With the recognition of
this truth follows the Subordination of the Son,
whose being is eternally derived, to the Father,
whose being is underived, and of the Holy Spirit to
the Father and the Son, as deriving His being from
both. The term subordination implies not in
feriority, but derivation.'
This distinction of persons in oneness of being, this
subordination in equality, this derivation in coeternal
life, is summarily expressed by Hooker:
" 'The Lord our God is but one God.' In which
indivisible unity notwithstanding we adore the Father
as being altogether of himself, we glorify that consub-
stantial Word which is the Son, we bless and magni
fy that co-essential Spirit eternally proceeding from
both which is the Holy Ghost. Seeing therefore the
Father is of none, the Son is of the Father, and the
Spirit is of both, they are by these their several pro
perties really distinguishable each from other. For
the substance of God with this property to be of none
doth make the Person of the Father ;*the^very self
same substance in number with this property to be of
the Father maketh the Person of the Son ; the same
substance having added unto it the property of pro.

'Liddon, Bampton Lectures, pp. 202, 310. Westcott, St.
John's Gospel, detached note on xiv. 28.

GOD THE TRI-UNE BEING 63
ceeding from the other two maketh the Person of the
Holy Ghost. So that in every Person there is im
plied both the substance of God, which is one, and
also that property which causeth the same person really
and truly to differ from the other two. Every per
son hath his own subsistence which no other besides
hath, although there be others besides that are of the
same substance. " — (Eccl. Pol. V. Ii.)
It is the same Scriptural truth that is stated rather
than explained, and in a form easy to commit to mem
ory, in the Athanasian Hymn, Quicunque vult.
The Catholic Faith is this : That we worship one
God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity ;
Neither confounding the Persons: nor dividing
the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another
of the Son : and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and
of the Holy Ghost, is all one : the Glory equal, the
Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son : and such
is the Holy Ghost.
The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate: and the
Holy Ghost uncreate.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incom
prehensible: and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible.
The Father eternal, the Son eternal: and the
Holy Ghost eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals: but one
eternal. As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor

64 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
three uncreated : but one uncreated, and one incom
prehensible. So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Al
mighty : and the Holy Ghost Almighty.
And yet they are not three Almighties: but one
Almighty. So the Father is God, the Son is God: and the
Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods : but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord: and
the Holy Ghost Lord.
And yet not three Lords : but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian
verity : to acknowledge every Person by himself to be
God and Lord;
So are we forbidden by the Catholic Religion : to
say. There be three Gods, or three Lords.
The Father is made of none : neither created, nor
begotten. The Son is of the Father alone: not made, nor
created, but begotten.
The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son:
neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceed
ing. So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one
Son, not three Sons : one Holy Ghost, not three Holy
Ghosts. And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other:
none is greater, or less than another ;
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal to
gether: and co-equal.
So that in all things, as is aforesaid : the Unity in
Trinity, and the Trinity in Unity is to be wor
shipped.

GOD THE TRI-UNE BEING 65

BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. R. Illingworth, " The Doctrine of the Trinity."
W. N. Clark, " Outlines of Christian Theology." Part I. § iv.
R. C. Moberly, " Atonement and Personality," Chap. VIII.
D. Waterland, " The Importance of the Doctrine of the
Trinity." P. H. Streenstra, " The Being of God as Unity and Trinity."
E. C. S. Gibson, " The Thirty-nine Articles," Article I.
A. J. Mason, "The Faith of the Gospel," Chapter II.
Leighton Pullan, " Lectures on Religion," Chapter IV.
J. P. Norris, " Rudiments of Theology," Pt. I, Chapters II and
IV. Darwell Stone, " Outlines of Christian Dogma," Chapter III,
T. A. Lacey, "The Elements of Christian Doctrine," Chapter
I, sect. ii.
T. Christlieb, " Modem Doubt and Christian Belief ," Lect IV.
2, Trinitarian Conception of the Divine Nature.
S. Augustine, De Trinitate.
H. Lotze, " Microcosmus," Vol. II. p. 486 £f. 4th edition.
I. A. Dorner, "A System of Christian Doctrine," Vol. II. Pt.
I. (Clark's Theological Library.)
Dawson Walker, " One God or Three ?" (English Church
Manuals.)

The Editor would refer those interested in the trinitarian
conceptions which are found in other religions to W. William
son " The Great Law," Book I, Chapter IX.

IV.
THE INCARNATION
The Incarnation the climax of God' s self-manifes
tation. — By the Incarnation is meant the union of
human nature with divine nature in the one person of
God the Son. "The Word was made flesh" (John
i. 14). This is the climax of God's self-manifesta
tion, (i) He had made Himself known through
Nature, which bears the impress of its Maker's
power and wisdom (Rom. i. 20; Ps. xix. i; Acts
xiv. 17). (2) In History and by His Providence
He had more clearly revealed His moral char
acter, guiding events and bringing about the triumph
of truth and justice. (3) In the Conscience of all
men the Word of God spoke, giving a knowledge of
right and wrong, however confused the lines may
often have become (Rom. ii. 5; John i. 9). (4)
Through the Prophets, men whom He raised up to
receive and transmit His message. He made known
more of His mind and will, and that in increasing
measure (Heb. i. i). These were not confined to
the Jewish people, though Israel was preeminently
the sacred school for all the world of religious in
struction. (Ath. de Inc. xii.) In the fulness
of time (Gal. iv. 4), the stage of God's final reve
lation of Himself in this world, the Word of God
Himself became flesh, took human nature, and there
in acted out God's true character, translated the

THE INCARNATION 67
divine perfections into language that we can under
stand, the language of human conduct; and at the
same time shewed what man's life should be.
"What Jesus was, God is. What Jesus was, man
should be, and by His help may more and more be
come. ' '
Four great doctrinal decisions. — The various
points of doctrine in the Incarnation may conveni
ently be considered under the four great decisions at
which Christian thought, represented and expressed
by great representative Councils of the Church, ar
rived through the controversies of the fourth and
fifth centuries. These can hardly be better ex
pressed than in Hooker's words: "There are but
four things which concur to make complete the
whole state of our Lord Jesus Christ: his Deity,
his manhood, the conjunction of both, and the dis
tinction of the one from the other being joined
in one. Four principal heresies there are which have
in those things withstood the truth : Arians by bend
ing themselves against the Deity of Christ; Apolli-
narians by maiming and misinterpreting that which
belongeth to his human nature; Nestorians by
rending Christ asunder, and dividing him into two
persons; the followers of Eutyches by confounding
in his person those natures which they should dis
tinguish. Against these there have been four most
famous ancient general councils: the council of
Nice [a. d. 325] to define against Arians, against
Apollinarians the council of Constantinople [ a. d.
381], the council of Ephesus [ a. d. 431 ] against
Nestorians, against Eutychians the Chalcedon coun_

68 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
cil [a. d. 451]- In four words, aXrfdw, TeXeoK, aSi-
aipeTCDf, aa-vy'x^uTeo'; — truly, perfectly, indivisibly, dis
tinctly; the first applied to his being God, and the
second to his being Man, the third to his being of
both One, and the fourth to his still continuing in
that one Both : we may fully by way of abridgment
comprise whatsoever antiquity hath at large handled
either in declaration of Christian belief, or in refuta
tion of the foresaid heresies. Within the compass
of which four heads, I may truly affirm, that all
heresies which touch but the person of Jesus Christ,
whether they have risen in these later days, or in any
age heretofore, may be with great facility brought to
confine themselves. " (Eccl. Pol. V. liv. 10.)
In somewhat simpler language the "four defini
tions which the Church universal has made binding"
may be thus summarized :
(i) "That Christ is of one substance with the
Father ;
(2) that He was completely human;
(3) that His humanity had no independent centre
of personality in itself;
(4) but that in the unity of the one divine person
both Godhead and manhood remain, two natures in
one person." — (Gore, The New Theology and the Old
Religion, p. 191.)
I. Christ truly God. — Our Lord's earliest disciples
first became convinced that Jesus of Nazareth, their
Master, was the Christ, the long-expected Messenger
and Representative of God, for whom Israel was

THE INCARNATION

looking, whose coming and work had been foretold
under divers titles and figures by the prophets of old.
Promises that primarily had a wider scope, referring
to the chosen nation, as the seed of Abraham (Gen.
xxii. i8) or to the royal line of David (2 Sam. vii.
12-16; Ps. Ixxxix. 19-37), or to the prophetic order
(Deut. xviii. 15), were seen in the light of later
prophecies, especially those concerning the Servant
of the Lord (Isa. xl-liii; Matt. xii. 18), to be concen
trated on a /^rj<?;2«/ representative of the nation, in
whom the Lord would manifest Himself, to judge,
redeem, and govern His people.^ The Messiah or
the Christ (in English the Anointed One) was the
title given to the expected Messenger. While He
was to be a Prophet to make God's will fully known,
and a Priest to reconcile the people to God, His
function was chiefly that of a King to rule over the
people in God's name (Pss. ii, Ixxii; Isa. ix, xi, xxxii;
Dan. ii. 44, vii. 27).''

i"The deepest and most permanent element pervading the
varied imagery of the prophets is the thought of the advent
of Jehovah Himself to judge, redeem, and govern His peo
ple, and to sanctify them by the bestowal of His Spirit. (Ezek.
xxxvi. 25-27, xxxvii. 27.) The Redeemer who should come to
Zion would be Himself divine." (Comp. Isa. lix. 16-20; Amos
iv. 1 2 ; Isa. ii. xxxii.) — (Ottley on " The Incarnation " in Hastings's
Dictionary of the Bible, II. p. 459.)
» " He will be the ideal king, whose mind and action shall be in
entire accord with the will of God, who will be God's true rep
resentative upon earth, in whose day and through whom God
will make good all His promises, and who will lead all men to
honor the God of Israel, and to respect Israel as God's people."
(V. H. Stanton, art. " Messiah," in Hasting's Dictionary of tht
Bible, II. p. 353.)

70 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
While for the most part the Jews of our Lord's
time had an earthly conception of the Messiah's work
and reign, trusting that he would throw off the yoke
of the Roman conqueror and restore Israel again to
a high place among the nations, they generally looked
for a supernatural Messiah, of more than human
dignity (John vii. 27). He was commonly thought
of as in some way preexisting.'
Accordingly, convinced by His words and works
that their Master was "the Coming One," the dis
ciples during His earthly ministry acknowledged
Jesus as the Son of God in some special and unique
sense (Matt. xvi. 16, xiv. 33).
Later, after reflexion and with the aid of the Holy
Spirit, they came to see that the words they used had
a deeper and higher meaning than they had realized
or intended when they used them. They came to be
lieve that Jesus was not merely a great Prophet and
Messenger — the expected Messiah, but that He was
the Son of God become man, not a man on whom
Divine influence had come in altogether unique
fashion, but in His inmost being. His real person,
God. This conviction these disciples gathered :
(a) from their Master's claims which were altogether
inconsistent with moral excellence in any created be
ing: e.g. to be the universal and final judge (Matt.
XXV. 31); to give rest and satisfy the spiritual needs

' There was a thought of the Messiah as preexisting in some
extra-territorial region, partly based on Dan. vii. This could be
harmonized with the thought of a descendant of David having
been first caught up from the earth and preserved for a glorious
manifestation. {Ibid. p. 355.)

THE INCARNATION 71
of all (Matt. xi. 28-30); requiring absolute obedi
ence and devotion (Mark viii. 38); associating Him
self with God (Matt. xi. 28-30, xxviii. 19; John x.
29, 30); never admitting any fault (John viii. 46);
attributing virtue to His death (Mark xiv. 24), review
ing God's law (Matt. v. 21, 22, etc.).
(b) from seeing what the prophecies really in
volved (e.g. Isa. xl. 3; Zech. xiii. 7; Ps. ex. i; Isa.
ix), and how the prophecies were " fulfilled" in Him;
(c) from His life (John i. 14, i John i. 1-3);
(d) from His resurrection (Rom. i. 4;Johnxx. 28).
This belief the apostles manifested by rendering to
Him divine worship and utter self devotion (Phil. i. i);
by associating Him with the Father, as the Object
of doxologies (Rev. i. 5, 6, v. 13); as the Source of
blessings (2 Cor. i. 2 and xiii. 14).
The problem which early Christians had to face,
which the Church had later to think out, was, how
to harmonize this recognition of Christ's divinity
with the fundamental truth (in which the apostles as
Jews had all been grounded) of Monotheism, i. if. that
there is but One Supreme Being.
The answer of the Church (based on our Lord's
own teaching, recorded in the New Testament Scrip
tures), was the doctrine of the Trinity, that within
the absolute and indivisible Oneness of the Divine
Being there is a three-fold mode of life. (See Chapter
III. on the Trinity, p. 51). From all eternity the
Father had His co-equal Son, essentially one with
Him as His Wisdom or Word. It was by the

72 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
agency of this Word, the utterance of God's mind,
that all things in the beginning were created. The
Son was Himself not created, as something external
to the Divine Being, but begotten; God's own and
only Son by nature, sharing all His Father's at
tributes; God the Son of God (John i. i8). Light
streaming forth from Light, of one substance or es
sence with the Father.
This was the final answer of the Nicene fathers to
the question forced upon the Church by various
speculations, and at last by the heresy of Arius, who,
while giving all manner of lofty titles to our Lord,
flatly denied that the divine Son was coeternal with
the Father, making Him the highest of all created
beings, but really external to the divine essence.
(i) Thus are excluded not only mere humanitarian
conceptions of our Lord, but likewise any idea of
Him as a secondary deity. It was against any such
notion as this that Athanasius persistently argued in
opposition to the semi-Arians, as fatal to Christian
ity, as a relapse, however unintentional, into Pagan
polytheism. (2) This formal declaration of belief in our Lord's
Godhead, contained in the Nicene Creed, its framers
and upholdei^s always contended was no new article of
faith; it was only the explicit statement of what the
Church had always believed, a definition called forth
and rendered necessary by the denial or explaining
away of the meaning of earlier and simpler profes
sions of belief. "Thus we have received," "so we
believe, ' ' was the testimony of the representatives of
all parts of Christendom.

THE INCARNATION 73
(3) In all the explanations thus given to safeguard
the truth, orthodox theologians have been careful to
insist on the inadequacy of human language to ex
press divine relations. It was the rationalistic argu
ment of Arius that since an earthly father was prior
to his son, therefore the Divine Son must be later in
origin than His Father. The faulty logic of this ar
gument was easily shown when it was pointed out
that sequence of time does not belong to God and His
life; but that it really belongs to the essence of the
filial relation to share the father's nature (whatever
that may be).
But, while refuting false by true logical reasoning,
Athanasius and his followers always insisted that the
human mind is no true measure for the Divine Be
ing. We must be content with an intelligent grasp
of what is revealed, without expecting that we can
comprehend all that we apprehend.
II. Christ completely Man. — ¦ The Son of God, who
is of one substance with the Father, became man,
taking human nature in its completeness. There
were ancient heretics (the Docetics) who regarded
the human body of Christ as a mere phantom. This
error is far removed from our thought. The reality
of the body in which Christ was born ; which received
nourishment and grew, which suffered hunger, weari
ness and pain, which was slain and buried, is to us
unquestionable. A more subtle error was that of Apollinaris, who
supposed that the Eternal Logos took the place in
Christ of the rational human soul (the vov<i as dis-

74 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
tinct from the "^v^v). This position was adopted in
a reaction from Arianism, in the endeavor to put as
great a difference as possible between our Lord and
any created being. The Word of God was thought of
as becoming directly the controlling power and prin
ciple of the physical elements of Christ's nature.
Any such idea is expressly excluded by the wit
ness of the New Testament Scriptures, which tell
not only —
of Christ's growth in bodily stature, but also of His
advance in intellectual wisdom (Luke i. 52);
of His affections; of love (John xi. 5, Mark x. 21),
and anger (Mark iii. 5),
of joy (Luke xi. 21),
and grief (John xi. 35, Luke xix.
41, Mark xiv. 34),
of hope (Heb. xii. 2),
and fear (Heb. v. 7) ;
of His human will, which He surrendered to His
Father's will (Luke xxii. 42).
Moreover the Scriptures point to a moral advance,
not from bad to good, but from the perfection of
flawlessness to the perfection of ripened maturity, as
He advanced in favor with God as well as with man,
(Luke ii. 52), as He learned obedience by the things
which He suffered (Heb. v. 8), and was made per
fect through sufferings (Heb. ii. 10).
With these testimonies to the completeness of
Christ's manhood should be considered the many in
stances of His praying, lifting up, that is. His hu
man heart to God in communion with His Father,

THE INCARNATION 75
and calling forth His power, showing that His human
nature was subject to the law not only of growth but
of dependence which belongs to all created and finite
beings.' In the power of the anointing Spirit He
performed His ministry (Luke iv. i, i8, v. i6, 17;
Acts X. 38).
It is clear from these passages that the word
"flesh" in John i. 14 is not used in an exclusive
sense, as referring only to the body. It rather stands
for human nature on the side of its frailty. (Comp.
John iii. 6; Matt. xvi. 17, xxiv. 22.) The Son of
God took all the elements of our nature, even the
lowest. It was in accordance with this teaching of Scrip
ture that the Church emphasized in the Creed Christ's
birth of a human mother, showing Him to be really
one with us, as He is really one with God.
Our Proper Preface for the Christmas festival bears
witness to the same truth :
"Thou didst give Jesus Christ, thine only Son, to be
born as at this time for us; who, by the operation of
the Holy Ghost, was made very man, of the sub
stance of the Virgin Mary his mother; and that with
out spot of sin, to make us clean from all sin."
Thus are guarded the reality of Christ's sympathy,
the truth of His example, the rescue and restoration
of our whole nature. All these would be lost, if Christ
had no human will, with power of choice and de-

* See The Prayers of Jesus Christ, by C. J. Vaughan. The
instances of our Lord's own prayers are all given in an Appen
dix to The Christian Doctrine of Prayer (Bohlen Lectures), by
the author.

76 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
termination, on which depends the real character of
human conduct.
"He was made man!' Whatever is necessary to
human nature, all that makes man man, all the con
stituents of a normal human experience. He took
upon Himself.
Sin does not belong to human nature, however uni
versal an accompaniment it may be in our experi
ence. Like physical disease, sin is an abnormal ac
cident, a disorder to be rectified. When the Son of
God took our nature, by the Spirit's quickening
power, of a Virgin mother. He took it free from dis
order. Body, mind, heart, and soul were in perfect
correspondence with God's design for man's nature.
It was in the likeness of 'sinful flesh,' subject to
temptation, bearing the external penalty of man's
transgression, encompassed with evil in the world
around; only by struggle could its purity be pre
served, its perfect development be secured.* By this
struggle a m.oral victory was gained over sin and

* Roman, viii. 3. " St. Paul declares that the Father sent
His own Son to redeem us in ' the likeness of the flesh of sin.'
The word 'likeness' ro/;tot'i5t)/;ta] is the same as that used
in the similar passage (Phil. ii. 7), where we are told that the
eternal Son in love for us ' emptied Himself ' so far as to take
the 'form' [/iOjO^^], or essential characteristics, of our servile
human nature ; nor only its essential characteristics, but also
the outward conditions or 'likeness' of common men as they
are. The point is that Christ, who Himself as man 'knew
no sin' [2 Cor. v. 21], appeared amongst us under all the
circumstances of sin, and with no outward or apparent differ
ence between us and Him — 'in all points like as we are'
with the single exception of sin in the will or in the nature." —
(Gore on Ep. to the Romans, Vol. I, pp. 278, 279.)

THE INCARNATION 77

Satan. Man, who had been defeated, reversed the
defeat in the person of Christ, his human powers be
ing aided by the Spirit of God. (Gen. iii. 15.)
Thus was given a fresh start to human nature.
Christ became a Second Adam, a fount of renewed
humanity, of which we are made partakers by the
Spirit of God and through the sacraments Christ has
ordained for this purpose. In Him all are to be
made alive.
III. Christ one indivisible Person. — It is especially
to the union of the two natures, human and divine, in
the one person of Christ, that Hooker's saying is ap
plied: While the mystery, as taught in Holy Scrip
ture, is more true than plain, many human specula
tions concerning it are more plain than true. (Eccl.
Pol. V. Iii. I.) On the one hand, there is the error
of Nestorianism (whether Nestorius was personally
involved in it or not),* which, insisting on the com
pleteness of the human nature assumed by the Son of
God, attributed to it a distinct human personality,
or independent centre of action. Thus an association
of persons (the Son of Mary-^ with the Son of God)
was substituted for a union of natures in the one
eternal person of the Son or Word of God, who,
without ceasing to be all that He ever was, became
man, taking to Himself a complete human nature,
subject to all the laws that govern human nature.
Of the manner or extent in which the human nature
was affected by the divine with which it was conjoined
in the person of Christ, we cannot tell. (Hooker,

'See J. F. Bethune-Baker, "Nestorius and Nestorianism.'
6

78 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Eccl. Pol. V. liv. 7, 8.) He lived His human life as
man, subject to the limitations of the manhood which
He had assumed. It would appear from the Gospels
that it was only on exceptional occasions and for
great purposes connected with His mission that He
permitted the almighty power or the infinite wisdom
of His Godhead to penetrate the physical and in
tellectual faculties of His human nature.
It ought to be kept in mind (but often is not) that
the Eternal Word was not confined in His presence
or operations to the human form in which He mani
fested Himself on earth. He was still and ever in
the bosom of the Father —
Verbum supernum prodiens
Nee Patris linquens dexteram, —
still and ever upholding all things, and lightening
every man (John i. 9; Heb. i. 3; Col. i. 16, 17).
To focus the sun's rays on a particular spot is not to
give an exclusive possession of them to that spot.'
It is all important for a right understanding of the
Incarnation that our thought should always begin
with the divine person who became man. Defective
theories for the most part are based on the thought of
a human person upon whom, in altogether unique
measure, divine influence came, in like manner as

"'Whatever of self-limitation was necessary, He always re
mained in possession of His powers, recognizing a law of re
straint where restraint was necessary." " The measure of the
self-restraint is the capacity of the perfect manhood to re
ceive, assimilate, and cooperate with divine power.'' (F.
Weston, The One Christ, pp. 136, 139.)

THE INCARNATION 79
upon the prophets. The "I" in Christ, the centre of
His being, is divine. (See Appendix D.)
Against any conception of an alliance between
a holy man, Jesus, and the Word of God, the Coun
cil of Ephesus (a. d. 431) approved the title
6€ot6ko<! (Mother of God, or rather God-bearer) applied
to the blessed Virgin Mary; not, of course, mean
ing thereby that Mary was, in any sense, the
mother of Christ's divine nature, but that He who
was born of her in His human nature, was God
the Son.'
In connection with this title (given not for the
honour of Mary but to safeguard the dignity of her
Son), should be remembered the theological phrase,
the Communicatio idiomatum, or "interchange of
properties." This means that, recognizing the
singleness of the personality of Christ, and at the
same time the indissoluble union of the humanity
with this one Divine Person, we are at liberty to use
expressions properly belonging to one nature only, of
the Person, who as Incarnate possesses both. —
(Strong, Manual of Theology, p. 116.)

' In the Greek word ffeoTOKO'! the component ^eo'? is log
ically a predicate, and as such is absolutely justified and cov
ered by the Catholic doctrine. On the other hand, in the
English phrase Mother of God, ' God' is practically a subject
rather than a predicate, and therefore includes logically the
person of the Father. OeoTOKO'i, Deipara, God-bearer, are not
strictly equivalent to li7)T7]p Oeov, Mater Dei, Mother of God.
—(Bethune-Baker, Early History of Christian Doctrine, pp.
262, 263.)

80

THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

Scriptural Predicates :

What is divine of Man —
e.g. The Son of man
who is in heaven
(John iii. 13).

What is human of God —
e.g. The Word was made
flesh (John i. 14).
God purchased the
Church with his own
blood (Acts XX. 28).
The princes of this world
crucified the Lord of
glory (i Cor. ii. 8).
That which was from
the beginning, which
we have seen and our
hands handled, of the
Word of Life (i John
i. I).
i. e. not of the Godhead,
but of Christ's one Person
in His manhood in His Godhead^

i. e. not of the Manhood,
but

"The solution of the Nestorian difficulties, so far
as it was a solution, was reached in the teaching that
it was not the person of a man that was assumed by
the Logos, but man; i. e., human nature, human
characteristics and attributes, which could be taken
up by the divine Person, the Logos, and entered upon
and made His own."
"The Person who enters upon the conditions of
human life, and accepts the limitation of His divine

"W. Bright, S. Leo on the Incarnation, p. 130 (2d ed).

THE INCARNATION 81
life which is involved by those conditions, is divine ;
but all the human experiences are his, and in that
sense he is human too." — (Bethune-Baker, Early
History of Christian Doctrine, p. 294. )
IV. The divine and human natures unconfused. — The
opposite error to Nestorianism, and a reaction there
from, is Eutychianism, which, contending against a
dual personality in Christ, confounded the divine and
human natures, regarding the manhood as practically
absorbed in the Godhead. This would really result
in a composite nature, half human, half divine, and
Christ would be neither man nor God. Any such
confusion of natures and their properties the Church
condemns, maintaining a true distinction between the
divine and the human, and the integrity of each in
its own sphere.
Ubiquitarianism. — The form in which this error
perhaps most commonly meets us is a vague idea of
Christ's human nature as being now ubiquitous.
This notion arises in part from a failure to distin
guish between the person of Christ, the incarnate Son
of God, and the human nature, which He assumed
and ever wears. As the Son of God He is present
everywhere, and since He became man we have the
assurance of His sympathy gained by human experi
ence, and of the fellowship with us that comes from
sharing our nature. He who is the Son of Man is
present everywhere. But this is quite different from
supposing that His huma7i nature, even now that it is
exalted to the right hand of God, is exempted from
all the limitations that belong to it as something

82 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
created and finite. Christ can manifest Himself in
His human nature to whom and as He will; the
Spirit takes of the things of Christ and imparts them
to us, not only truth to our intelligence, but the vir
tue also of His glorified humanity through the Sacra
ments. But His human nature remains subject to
limitation. "Supernatural endowments are an advancement,
they are no extinguishment of that nature whereto
they are given." — (Hooker, Eccl. Pol. V. Iv. 6.)
A balanced statement of the Church's doctrine on
the Incarnation thought out through the controver
sies of the fourth and fifth centuries, is given in the
second part of the Quicunque vult :
The right Faith is, that we believe and confess:
that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God
and Man ;
God, of the Substance of the Father, begotten be
fore the worlds: and Man, of the Substance of his
Mother, born in the world ;
Perfect God, and perfect Man: of a reasonable soul
and human flesh subsisting;
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead : and
inferior to the Father, as touching his Manhood.
Who although he be God and Man : yet he is not
two, but one Christ;
One; not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh:
but by taking of the Manhood into God ;
One altogether; not by confusion of Substance:
but by unity of Person.

THE INCARNATION 83
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man : so
God and Man is one Christ;
Who suffered for our salvation: descended into
hell, rose again the third day from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right
hand of the Father, God Almighty : from whence he
shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
With this may be compared the teaching on these
points of the second of the Articles of Religion:
Of the Word or Son of God, which was made very
Man.— The Son, which is the Word of the Father,
begotten from everlasting of the Father, the very and
eternal God, and of one substance with the Father,
took Man's nature in the womb of the blessed Virgin,
of her substance : so that two whole and perfect Na
tures, that is to say, the Godhead and Manhood, were
joined together in one Person, never to be divided,
whereof is one Christ, very God, and very Man.

84 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Bull, " Defence of the Nicene Creed."
R. Hooker, " Ecclesiastical Polity," book V. cc. 1-lvii.
H. P. Liddon, "The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus
Christ" (Bampton Lectures, 1866).
C. Gore, "The Incarnation of the Son of God" (Bampton
Lectures, 1891).
C. Gore, " Dissertations on subjects connected with the In
carnation." I. A. Dorner, " Doctrine of the Person of Christ."
R. L. Ottley, " The Doctrine of the Incarnation."
R. I. Wilberforce " The Doctrine of the Incarnation."
H. C. Powell, "The Principle of the Incarnation."
A. J. Mason, " The Conditions of our Lord's Life on earth"
(Paddock Lectures, 1896).
E. H. Gifford, "The Incarnation" (a study of Phil. ii. 5-11).
H. V. S. Eck, "The Incarnation" (Oxford Library of Prac
tical Theology).
V. H. Stanton, " The Jewish and the Christian Messiah."
W. P. DuBose, " The Gospel in the Gospels."
W. P. DuBose, "The Ecumenical Councils."
W. Bright, " The Age of the Fathers."
W. Bright, " S. Leo on the Incarnation," with notes.
J. F. Bethune-Baker, " Introduction to the early history of
Christian Doctrine."
F. Weston, " The One Christ."
C. L. Slattery, " The Master of the World."
F. Bruce. " The Humiliation of Christ.''
C. A. Briggs, " The Virgin Birth of our Lord."
James Orr, " The Virgin Birth of Christ."
J. Armitage Robinson, " Some Thoughts on the Incarnation."
E. Griffith-Jones, "Ascent Through Christ," Bk. II., cc. i, ii.

V.
THE ATONEMENT
The Fall of man. — "For us men and for our salva
tion," that is, for our rescue and restoration, the Eter
nal Son of God took our nature and lived our life.
Whether the Incarnation would have taken place
apart from the need of man's rescue is a question
that has been debated by theologians.' It need not
here claim our attention. As a matter of fact, human
nature had fallen into disorder; man was not living
in correspondence with God's design for him. He
had been deceived by appearances, and had sought
happiness in passing pleasure and in the indulgence
of the lower desires of his nature at the expense of
the higher. Appetites and whims had carried cap
tive what should have been the ruling powers of rea
son and conscience. Thus he had fallen under the
bondage of the Evil One. From this condition he
needed rescue and restoration. To procure and be
stow this the Son of God, by whom as the Father's
agent all things at the first were made, entered this
world in human form, that He might win man back
to his true allegiance, and therein to his true free
dom, dignity and welfare.
The fall of man is represented to us in Genesis iii.
'For the Scotist and Thomist theories, see D. Stone, Out
lines of Christian Dogma, p. 55, and Westcott's Epistles of
St. John, ^'p. 273-275.

86 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
under a figurative description.' What is clear is
this, that man, however imperfectly developed, was
in the favor of God. By an act of disobedience he
forfeited that favor; instead of rising higher by the
right exercise of his power of choice in accordance
with God's will, he fell from his true dignity, and
his progress was retarded. "Sin is the disobedience
of intelligent beings whom God has created, and
whom He has endowed with a free will, which they can
use or misuse." ^ God's commandments are not arbi
trary, however little we at the time may realize their
purpose. They mark out the path of our peace and
well being. Man's disobedience to God is conse
quently a contravention of the laws of his own being.
Sin is lawlessness {avop,Cd), and necessarily involves
ruin individual and social (i John iii. 4). By this
violation of the law of his being, disorder is intro
duced, and spiritual death ensues, the forfeiture of
God's hallowing presence, from which man has
withdrawn. Of this inner spiritual death, the death
of the body is an outward figure and expression.*
Transmission of disordered nature. — The trans
mission of a disordered spiritual nature, however
difficult the problems which it suggests, is in line
with what science and observation teach us about

''¦ An excellent vindication of " the story-like form in which
the Hebrew prophet couched his sublime teaching" is given
in Lecture V. of Curteis's Boyle Lectures on Scientific Ob
stacles to Christian Belief.
'J. B. Lightfoot, St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians, p. 185.
* Rom. V. 12-15. See Note D in Vol. II. of Gore's Exposition
of the Epistle to the Romans.

THE A TONEMENT 87
heredity, and about the very close and intimate con
nexion between the material and the spiritual ele
ments of man's being. We must guard against an
exaggeration and caricature of the doctrine of origi
nal sin. The sin of our parents or of our first pa
rents is not imputed to us, nor are we punished for
their transgressions, however we may be involved in
the consequences thereof. The sin or sinful condi
tion in which we are born is to be regarded chiefly as
the result of the loss of a supernatural gift of grace,
by which God intended that our nature should be
raised to its true dignity of conscious dependence on
God and fellowship with Him. Without this grace
as a guiding and controlling principle our nature loses
its harmony and right direction. Observation and
experience shew us in human nature (as we know it)
a bias towards evil, and a consciousness of disorder
in the universal sense of shame.
The Atonement variously represented. — The Atone
ment is the making at one of God and man. This is
represented in the New Testament Scriptures in many
aspects and under various figures. These mark out
lines of thought by which we are encouraged to seek
an intelligent grasp of the mystery, which doubtless
involves much that is beyond our fathoming :
I. By the manifestation of God's love in Christ,
His incarnate Son, man is won back from erroneous
conceptions of God as a stern and hard taskmaster,
or a distant ruler indifferent to the fate of His crea
tures. "God commendeth his own love toward us, in
that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us"

88 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
(Rom. V. 8). God's love, we must always remem
ber, as we are plainly taught in Holy Scripture, was
the moving cause, not the result, of what Christ did.
"God so loved the world, that he gave his only be
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should
not perish, but have eternal life" (John iii. i6).
2. By the splendid example of a perfect hum,an life
which Christ gave, man is attracted and weaned from
false conceptions of life and happiness. By His ex
ample, as by His teaching, Christ corrects our ordi
nary estimate of values. Putting aside wealth,
pleasure and the world's honors. He showed that
man's life consists not in what he has, but in what
he is; that self-sacrifice for others brings truer hap
piness than self-assertion or self-seeking; that virtue
is more to be prized than fame, and God's approval
and love than the world's applause. Lifted up on
the cross of shame and suffering Christ draws all to
Himself, by the moral beauty of His example, as well
as by the assurance of His sympathy.
3. By wrestling with temptation Christ rescues
man from bondage to evil. Neither the English
word 'redeem,' nor the Hebrew and Greek words
for which it is used as a translation, necessarily con
vey any idea of a price paid. The word is often sim
ply equivalent to the effecting of deliverance or
emancipation. In this sense it is frequently used
with reference to the deliverance of Israel from bond
age in Egypt or from captivity in Babylon ; e. g. "Say
unto the children of Israel, I am the Lord, and I will
bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyp
tians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I

THE A TONEMENT

will redeem you with an outstretched arm, and with
great judgments" (Ex. vi. 6).
"Thou in thy loving kindness hast led the people
that thou hast redeemed : Thou hast guided them in
thy strength to thy holy habitation" (Ex. xv. 13).
"Thus saith the Lord that created thee, O Jacob,
and he that formed thee, O Israel : Fear not, for I
have redeemed thee; I have called thee by thy name,
thou art mine" (Isa. xliii. i).
"The Lord hath redeemed Jacob, and will glorify
himself in Israel" (Isa. xliv. 23).
So, in a more general way, of the Messiah it is
sung. He shall redeem or deliver His people from op
pression and violence : precious shall their blood be
in his sight. (Ps. Ixxii. 14.)
There is no idea of payment here; rather the
thought is of the display of might ; the Redeemer is
the Avenger.
In this sense Christ redeems or delivers man from
the power of sin and Satan. "He shall save His peo
ple from their sins" (Matt. i. 21). "Ye were re
deemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or
gold, from your vain manner of life handed down from
your fathers ; but with precious blood, as of a lamb
without blemish and without spot, even the blood of
Christ" (I Pet. i. 18).
"He gave himself for us, that he might redeem us
from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a people for
his own possession, zealous of good works." (Tit.
ii. 14; comp. Gal. i. 3, 4.)
This moral emancipation could not be effected by
the mere display of force. It could only be accom-

90 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
plished by moral exertion, by the putting forth of
spiritual power, by wrestling with temptation and re
sisting the Evil One. This involves pain and strug
gle. So does Jesus Christ deliver us at the cost of His
blood, of His life spent and laid down in battling
against our spiritual foes, (i Pet. i. i8; Eph. i. 7.)
This is the figure under which the restoration of
man is first promised in Holy Scripture. The seed
of the woman, at the expense of his own heel being
bruised in the encounter, shall bruise the serpent's
head. (Gen. iii. 15.) This is the figure by which
our Lord first illustrates the effect of His death.
The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep
in doing battle with the beast of prey who would
ravage the flock. (John x. 11.) There is no idea
here of paying a penalty to God, as if His anger had
to be bought off. Nor is there any idea of paying a
ransom to Satan, as if he had any rights over fallen
man. This is a grotesque caricature of the truth
that Satan, the prince of this world, held men in his
grasp, from which they were delivered by the moral
victory of Christ's perfect obedience in spite of
every seduction and of every assault. The prince of
this world came to Christ and tested Him in what
we call specifically the Temptation and in the
Passion; but found nothing in Him on which he
could lay hold, nothing inconsistent with absolute
love and loyalty to the Father. (John xiv. 30.)° He
was obedient to death, even to the surrender of His
life, and that on the cross. (Phil. ii. 8; John xii. 31.)

^See the last of the author's Baldwin Lectures, Christ's
Temptation and Ours.

THE A TONEMENT 91
Thus was the prince of this world cast out. Christ
is represented in His passion as wrestling with
spiritual foes. He puts off from Himself the temp
tations by which they would ensnare, the bands by
which they seek to hold Him. So on and by the
cross He triumphs over them and displays them as
His captives. (Col. ii. 15.)*
In this sense we are said to hepurchasedhy Christ,
bought, that is, at cost, from the power of Satan,
from an evil life, from indifference and self-love, for
His service, in which we shall find our true freedom,
that He may use us for His purposes, (e. g. Tit. ii.
14; Rev. V. 9; I Cor. vi. 20.)
4. Christ offers a perfect satisfactiou or reparation
for sin. — "He is the propitation for our sins; and not
for ours only, but also for the whole world" (i John ii.
2).' To propitiate is to render propitious or favor
able. With reference to God's regard of man this is
effected chiefly by the removing of that which neces
sarily causes displeasure. A holy being must abhor
that which is contrary to his own nature. So long
and so far as man clings to that which is evil, he

• Note the three verbs :
cnreKSva-d/jLevo';, He stripped off from Himself, by wrest
ing freed Himself.
iSeiyfidncrev, like a conquerer returning in triumph, H
displays the captives, the trophies He has won.
6piafi^€va-a<;, He leads them in the triumphal procession.
"The paradox of the crucifixion is placed in the strongest
light — triumph in helplessness and glory in shame. The con
vict's gibbet is the victor's car."— (Lightfoot in loc.)
' See Westcott's note in loc.

92 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
must be under the divine displeasure. Christ by His
passion and obedience unto death delivers man from
evil, and so reconciles him to God. The Lamb of
God takes away the sin of the world.
At the same time, as the representative of man
kind. He offers a reparation to God for the sins
and offenses by which His holiness has been violated.
If such a reparation be not a requirement of divine
justice, it certainly is an instinct of the human heart,
which would find its perfect expression in the Son of
man. In the case of one whom we may have injured
or pained, we are not content with amending our con
duct for the future, nor simply with an apology in
words. We desire, if possible, to make what amends
we can, to manifest our sorrow, and hence we would
gladly suffer in the other's service, to prove our change
of mind. Even so Christ on our behalf endured pain
and humiliation and death, not as a penalty imposed
upon Him by God, but as a protestation of His love
for His Father above all things, and of His grief at
the offenses against His Father committed by men in
preferring to Him pleasure and gain and honor.
By the offering of such a reparation it may have
been made possible for God to forgive man freely
without exposing Himself to misunderstanding as
thinking lightly of sin, or lowering the standard of
holiness. (Comp. Rom. iii. 24-26.)
5. The Atonement (as a reparation, a deliverance,
a purchase, an exhibition of God's love, and of man's
true character) is spoken of as effected by Christ's
Blood. We must guard here against any unworthy
and materialistic ideas. Blood in Holy Scripture is

THE ATONEMENT

the constant symbol of life. Blood shed stands for
life laid down; blood sprinkled for life imparted.
Christ's blood is shed for us, in that His life is sur
rendered in obedience unto death. His blood is
sprinkled on us, in that by the Holy Spirit, and es
pecially in the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Com
munion, we are made partakers of His glorified hu
manity which was perfected through suffering.*
Symbolism of the Levitical Sacrifices. — We may
note some leading points in the symbolism of
the Levitical Sacrifices, and the light they throw
on our Lord's Sacrifice, in which they found their
realization : "
I. That which was offered (whether an animal vic
tim or an offering of the fruits of the earth) was
given to God as a symbol of the personal and moral
surrender of the offerer, whether an individual or
the people as a whole.
2. In the case of an animal victim, it was not the
mere death that constituted the offering ; it was the
blood which had passed through death which was
offered to God, representing the life broken away
from this lower world. This, offered on the altar,
was said to 'cover' the disobediences of the people.
3. In certain cases, as of purification, a portion of
the blood was sprinkled on the offerer, represent
ing the impartation to him of a new life accepted by
God, to purge away the old defilement.
8 See note on the significance of the Blood of Christ in West
cott, The Epistles of St. John, p. 34 ff.
» See E. F. Willis, Worship of the Old Covenant; W. P.
DuBose, Soteriology.

94 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
4. The Other features of sacrifice led up to the sac
rificial meal, in which the worshipper partook of that
which had been accepted by God, and so was made a
guest at His table. This fellowship (at-one-ment)
with God was the end of sacrifice.
These further points should be kept in mind in
order to guard against unworthy notions of our Lord's
Sacrifice :
I. As has been insisted on in the chapter on the
Trinity, there is no division of attributes, or differ
ence of character, between the Father and the Son.
The holiness which required the sacrifice was the
holiness of the Son as of the Father : the love which
provided the sacrifice was the love of the Father as of
the Son.
2. Christ is not our Substitute, but our Leader and
Representative : (a) He is not a man, an individual
member of the race, but the Son of man, the repre
sentative of the race ; (b) He did for us what, with
out His aid, we could never have attempted ; but now,
if we would benefit by what He has done for us, we
must share in it. We are baptized into His death.
We must continually mortify all our evil and corrupt
desires. His death and resurrection /i7>' us must be
reproduced in us.
3. Scripture constantly affirms that Christ 'bore
our sins ;' but that He 'bore the punishment of our
sins,' never. To the consequences of our sins He
voluntarily submitted Himself, that He might fight
out our battle, and hallow all our experiences by His
sympathy and example.

THE ATONEMENT 95
4. He offered to God no external oblation, but
Himself, in absolute and perfect correspondence with
His Father's will. This is the essence of all accept
able sacrifice, "Lo, I come to do Thy will, O God"
(Heb. X. S-io). It is this which we proclaim and
plead in the Eucharist (i Cor. xi. 26), His obedience
unto death ; it is this which we are pledged to repro
duce, in our lives, offering to God ourselves, our souls
and bodies, as a reasonable, holy and living sacri
fice (Rom. xii. i).
5. To guard against a one-sided view of Christ's
Passion, it is well to remember that —
(i) He died by sin, at the hands of sin. This is
the historical view of the Passion, given in the Gospel
narratives, the basis of all further theological and
spiritual explanation, both in our Lord's teaching and
that of His apostles, and in the prophecies and types
of the Old Testament. Envy, hatred, worldliness, cov-
etousness, sensuality and cowardice combined to put
Jesus to death.
(2) He died for sin :
(a) in general, to secure forgiveness and make
reconciliation ;
(b) in particular, offering reparation and satisfac
tion for our offenses. (See p. 89.)
(3) He died to or from sin, separating Himself
entirely from its entanglements. (Rom. vi. 1-14.)
Thus the external physical death was the expression
of the inner repudiation of all that would hinder per
fect obedience and love to God.

96 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Leighton Pullan, "The Atonement." (Oxford Library of
Practical Theology.)
A. C. A. Hall, "The Forgiveness of Sins." (Sermon III., Our
Lord's Sacrifice the ground of Forgiveness.)
A. C. A. Hall, "Christ's Temptation and Ours." (Baldwin
Lectures, 1896), Lect. VI.
H. N. Oxenham, "The Catholic Doctrine of the Atone
ment." J. McLeod Campbell, " The Nature of the Atonement."
W. P. DuBose, " Soteriology of the New Testament."
W. P. DuBose, " The Gospel according to St. Paul."
W. H. Hutchings, " Some aspects of the Cross."
W. O. Burrows, " The Mystery of the Cross."
R. W. Dale, "The Atonement."
J. H. Beibitz, Gloria Cruets.
A. Lyttleton, "The Atonement" (in Lux Mundi).
Sanday and Headlam, "The Epistle to the Romans," p. 91 ff.
C. Gore, " Epistle to the Romans."
C. Gore, "The New Theology and the Old Religion." (Lect.
IV., The idea of Sin; VII., The Atonement; Sermon III., The
Christian idea of Sin.)
G. Bull, " The State of man before the Fall."
G. H. Curteis, "Scientific Obstacles to Christian Belief."
(Boyle Lectures, 1888. Lect. V. and VI., The Fall and Re
demption.) R. C. Moberly, " Personality and Atonement."
J. M. Wilson, "The Gospel of the Atonement." (Hulsean
Lectures, 1898.)
H. C. Beeching, " The Bible doctrine of Atonement."
E. Griffith-Jones, " Ascent through Christ." (Bk. I, cc. iv., v.,
vi., vii.)
I. A. Dorner, " System of Christian Doctrine." (Vol. II, part
ii. § 71 ff.)

VI.
THE RESURRECTION
Meaning of the Descent into Hades. — The descent
into Hades is emphasized in the Creed as witnessing
to the reality and integrity of Christ's manhood, and
so to His perfect sympathy with us in all the experi
ences of life. (By Hades or Hell is meant, of course,
the common abode of departed spirits, and not Ge
henna the place of punishment for the guilty.) "He
has won for God and hallowed every condition of
human existence. We cannot be where He has not
been. He bore our nature as living: He bore our
nature as dead." — (Westcott, Historic Faith, p. yj.^
The vital and the personal union in Christ. — Death
was to Christ, as to all men, the severance of the vital
union between soul and body. His body was laid in
the grave; His soul went into the world of spirits.
The resurrection was the restoration of the vital union
between soul and body, so that He lived again in the
integrity of human nature. Meanwhile the personal
or hypostatic union, whereby His human nature was
joined to the divine in His single person, was never
severed. The body in the sepulchre was the human
body of the eternal Son of God ; the soul in Hades
was the human soul of the eternal Son of God.
Chris fs disembodied soul not inactive. — The soul of
Christ was not unconscious or inactive in the spirit

98 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
world. "Being put to death in the flesh, but quick
ened by the spirit, .... He went and preached unto
the spirits in prison" (i Pet. iii. 18-20). Concerning
this passage, and hence throughout his treatment of
this article of the Creed, Pearson is misled by the un
doubtedly wrong reading rai irvevixaTi, which he un
derstands to refer to the Holy Ghost : but a-apKl and
TTvevp^aTi (both without the article) are contrasted as
the physical and the spiritual elements of man's na
ture, his body and soul.
The spirits in prison mentioned by S. Peter are
those who were once disobedient in the days of Noah,
not heeding his warnings of the coming flood, by
which, as a temporal punishment, they were destroyed.
To such Christ proclaimed the deliverance He had
wrought, the forgiveness He had won for all true
penitents by His cross and passion.
The Resurrection a sign repeatedly promised. — The
Resurrection was the sign repeatedly promised by our
Lord as a proof that His claims were true. When
having been put to an ignominious death He was
raised to life again, this would be an attestation that
He was all He claimed to be, a messenger from God,
the promised Messiah, God's Son in an altogether
unique sense. Born of the seed of David according
to the flesh. He was declared to be (marked out cis)
the Son of God with power, according to the spirit
of holiness (His divine nature) by the resurrection
from the dead. (Rom. i. 4; Matt. xii. 38-40, xvi. 4;
Mark x. 32-34; John ii. 18-22.)

THE RESURRECTION 99
And continually pressed by the apostles. — Accord
ingly it was on the fact of the resurrection that the
apostles based their teaching. They consistently
preached "Jesus and the resurrection." (e. g. S. Peter,
Acts i. 22, iv. 33, X. 41, etc.; S. Paul, Acts xvii. 18,
31 ; I Cor. XV. 1-17.)
It was this fact which had wrought the great change
in the disciples' own attitude and temper. It was
this to which they appealed in preaching both to
Jews and to Gentiles.
This sign involved a real resurrection. Immortality
of influence or continued bodiless existence would
give no such attestation. A restoration to the in
tegrity of human life, physical as well as spiritual,
was required, and it is to this that the apostles bore
witness. They saw their Master, they conversed with
Him, He ate before them; in spite of their mis
givings and doubts He convinced them of His
identity by voice and manner and by the wound-
prints in His hands and feet. (Acts x. 41 ; Luke
xxiv. 30, 31 ; John xxi. 13.)
The Resurrection not a return to former conditions. —
At the same time the resurrection was not a return to
the old conditions of life. This idea is wholly excluded
both by the narratives of the risen life and by the
apostles' comments thereon. What is clear is that
the sepulchre on Easter morning was found empty.
The Lord had risen. No one ever pretended to have
seen Him rise. The body that had been laid in the
grave had been re-assumed by the spirit in a new
mode of existence. He passed through the closed

100 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
door. He appeared and disappeared as He pleased,
and in different forms according to the occasion. His
body was now a spiritual body, <y5ni,a irvevfiariKdv.
Freed from former limitations, and entirely under
the control of the indwelling spirit, it no longer be
longed to this lower sphere, while yet capable of
being manifested to the senses.
Difference betweeu Christ's resurrection and such as
had been before. — Thus Christ was the "first-fruits of
them that slept" (i Cor. xv. 20). Others had been
called back to the old life. Not to mention instances
in the Old Testament Scriptures, our Lord during
His ministry had raised from the dead the daughter
of Jairus, the son of the widow of Nain, and Lazarus.
(Mark V. 21-43; Luke vii. 11-17; John xi.) But in
these cases there was only a relaxation of the grasp of
death. The person returned to the old conditions.
He was still subject to death. Christ rose to a new
kind of life, over which death had no power.
The Resurrection "according to the Scriptures." — In
the Creed, as by St. Paul, Christ is said to have been
raised again "according to the Scriptures." And our
Lord Himself shewed His disciples from the Law,
the Prophets, and the Psalms (the three divisions of
the Old Testament Scriptures) that it was necessary
that the Christ should suffer and rise again (Luke xxiv.
27, 44-46). The reference probably is not only to
particular texts and predictions, such as Ps. xvi. 8
(cited by S. Peter, Acts ii. 25), Hos. xiii. 14, and Isa.
liii, but also to the whole record of God's dealing
with His people, collectively and individually, in which

THE RESURRECTION 101
He is continually seen bringing good out of evil, life
out of death, construction out of dissolution. This law
is specially illustrated in the deliverance of Israel
from bondage in Egypt, and later from captivity in
Babylon, and in the histories of Isaac, Joseph, David,
Daniel, Jonah. All these experiences of God's ser
vants would be recapitulated in the Messiah, as the
great Representative of His people and of the race.
Purposes of the appearances of the risen Lord. —
Our Lord's appearances during the forty days be
tween His resurrection and His ascension we may re
gard as intended —
(i) to convince the disciples of the truth of His
resurrection ;
(2) to wean them from reliance on His sensible
manifestation, while assuring them of His being con
tinually present, though unseen, and always ready to
intervene on their behalf;
(3) to give the great commissions to the apostles,
whereby the virtue of His death should be continually
applied to men.
Having died to sin and having been perfected
through suffering, He became the author of eternal
salvation to all them that obey Him. (Rom. vi. 10;
I Pet ii. 24; Heb. v. 9.)'
The Ascension. — The Ascension is the perfecting of
the Resurrection. Christ's risen body no longer be-

' See note on the " The Place of the Resurrection of Christ
in the teaching of St. Paul," in Sanday land Headlam on
Romans, p. 116 ff.

102 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
longed to this lower world. The greater part of His
life after the resurrection was "hid with God." He
came forth and manifested Himself to His disciples
for special purposes from time to time during that
period. When these purposes were accomplished,
He finally withdrew from their sensible cognizance.
What change the "receiving up into heaven"
may signify, we cannot tell. It is the figure used to
express the raising of Christ's manhood to the glory
which ever belonged to His divine person.
The Ascension marks the exaltation of our Lord in
His manhood above all created beings ; angels and
authorities and powers are made subject unto Him.
But it would be an error, confounding the manhood
with the Godhead, to ascribe ubiquity to Christ's
glorified humanity.
The Session. — At the Ascension Christ retained in
spiritualized and glorified form the human nature which
He had assumed. Presenting it, perfected through
suffering, before God, He fulfilled the types of the
ancient sacrifices, in which the blood of the victims
was offered to God, symbolizing the life that had
passed through death. So Christ, our great high
priest, entered within the veil and presented Himself
before God on our behalf, as our representative.
Human nature in His person is seen perfectly corres
ponding with God's design foj- man. Thus exalted
in our nature Christ ever lives to make intercession
on our behalf His presence as the Son of man at
the right hand of God is the pledge that human
needs are understood in heaven. His humanity is

THE RESURRECTION 103
made the channel for the communication of divine
gifts to men. As the Head of all He received gifts
for men, and distributes these gifts to His people ac
cording to their several needs. These gift:s are all
summed up in the gift of the Holy Spirit, imparted
from the glorified Head to the members of His mys
tical body. By His Spirit He is present with His
people for spiritual purposes, meeting them in prayer
and sacrament. His removal from our sensible cog
nizance, in a presence circumscribed by conditions
of time and space, was a necessary condition for this
higher and spiritual presence. (Comp. John xvi, 7.)
The Return to Judgment. — We are taught to look
for a manifestation of Christ at the end of this present
age. In glorious majesty the Redeemer will appear
as the Judge of all. This will be the culmination of
many judgments, or crises, in which the sovereignty of
the Son of man has been progressively manifested.
In particular the Fall of Jerusalem, which meant the
entire ending of the Jewish dispensation and the es
tablishment of the Christian Church as God's repre
sentative in this world, was spoken of by our Lord as
a figure of the final judgment, and of the establish
ment of His kingdom upon the overthrow of all op
posing forces.
God has appointed a day in which He will judge
the world by that Man whom He has ordained.
Christ's coming to judge with the Father's authority
will be the final act in the vindication of Him who was
unjustly condemned and despised, a symbol of the
reversal of human judgments in that day. In part the

104 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
manifestation of the Son of man will be the judg
ment. By their likeness or unlikeness to Him, the
pattern of the race, men will be judged, and by the
use which they have made of the victory He has
won on their behalf, and of the help which He has
offered them.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
W. J. Sparrow Simpson, "Our Lord's Resurrection." (Ox
ford Library of Practical Theology.)
H. B. Swete, "The Appearances of our Lord after the
Passion." W. Milligan, " The Resurrection of our Lord."
W. Milligan, "The Ascension and Heavenly Priesthood."
B. F. Westcott, " The Gospel of the Resurrection."
B. F. Westcott, " The Revelation of the Risen Lord."
H. Latham, "The Risen Master."
H. P. Liddon, "Easter at St. Paul's."
E. H. Plumptre, "The Spirits in Prison."
E. Griffith-Jones, "Ascent through Christ," Bk. III., cc.
and ii.
A. B. Bruce, "Apologetics,'' Bk. III.
Charles Harris, " Pro Fide," ch. xxii.
W. H. Turton, "The Truth of Christianity," Pt. III., ch. xvii.

VII.
THE HOLY GHOST
Relation of the Spirit's work to that of Christ. —
The Trinity in its relation to us may be expressed
thus : the Father is God in His infinite Being,
"whom no man hath seen, nor can see." (i Tim.
vi. 1 6.) The Son, Jesus Christ, is God as man, the
Word made flesh, acting out God's true character
before our eyes, in our nature and amid our ex
periences, showing us at once what God is, and
what man made in God's image should be, and may
by His help become.' (John i. i8.) The Holy Spirit
is God in men and women, reproducing by de
grees in Christ's disciples the perfect pattern that
has been given to us by Christ. The same perfect
holiness, truth, purity, and love that we worship in
God, and that was manifested in the human life and
work of Jesus Christ, is communicated to us by
the Holy Spirit, making us partakers of the divine
nature. (2 Pet. i. 4.)
The Word of God approaches us from without, and
gives an external objective revelation; the work of
the Spirit is within and subjective, acting upon our

^"What Christ effected in the world of history, the
Spirit inwardly appropriates and brings into the inner world
of the human soul ; this has been the office of the Spirit of God
from the beginning." — (Luthardt, Saving Truths of Christian
ity, p. 177.)

106 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
own faculties, and enabling them to correspond with
the external revelation.^ (Eph. i. i8.)
Thus we see the meaning of the title 'Spirit,' as
given to the third person of the Trinity. The Di
vine Being is Spirit. That describes His nature.
(John iv. 24.) The poverty of language compels us to
use the same word to express the going forth of the
divine activity.' This we recognize in the love of the
Father for the Son, returned by the Son to the Father
(in this sense the Spirit is spoken of as the Bond of
the eternal Trinity),* and in the communication of di
vine life to created beings.
The Giver of Life. — The Holy Spirit is spoken of
in the Nicene Creed as the Life-giver. From the be
ginning this has been His office — to communicate
from God life to the world.
Physical life is a sharing of the life which is in God.
Intellectual, rational life is a further sharing of His
life. Moral and spiritual life makes man God's son in
a higher sense than any lower creature. Christ came
to restore man's divine sonship, that man might have
life, and have it more freely and richly. (John x. 10.)

^ In English the older word ' Ghost ' is in this applica
tion exactly equivalent to ' Spirit,' but probably to most per
sons it suggests a somewhat more personal idea than belongs
to Spirit.
' See Elements of Christian Doctrine, by T. A. Lacey (p.
177), who quotes S. Thomas Aquinas: " Quo nomine quaedam
vitalis motio et impulsio designaturj prout aliquis ex amort
dicitur moveri, vel impelli ad aliquid faciendum." {Summa, I.
x.xvii. 4.)
*See Chapter III, p. 51.

THE HOLY GHOST 107
This He accomphshed (i) by hallowing our nature in
His own person, through His own life of struggle and
discipline, in which all His human faculties were con
tinually under the control of the Spirit of God, and
then (2) by breathing forth on His disciples the
Spirit by which His human nature had been sancti
fied. So He imparted to them the life of God which
had been manifested in the flesh in His earthly ex
perience, (i John i. I, 2; I Tim. iii. 16.)
This gift of holiness (described as love and light),
the highest degree of God's life that is conceivable,
does not obliterate our personality. It is the com
munication of God's life to us, rather than the ab
sorption of our life in God. The natural faculties
with which we are endowed, our memory, our reason,
piir affections, our conscience, and our will, are raised
by the life-giving Spirit of God to a higher energy ;
we are enabled to become our best selves. °
Something has already been said in the chapter on
the Trinity about our Lord's teaching concerning the
Holy Spirit, and of the apostles' understanding
thereof as shown in their writings. Some other pas-
.sage,s of Scripture treating of the Spirit may be cited,
which will show (i) His Deity, (2) His distinct Per
sonality, (3) His interior operation (see above, p.
ids), and (4) the association of His operation with
that of the Word or Son of God.
I. The Deity of the Spirit. — The Godhead of the
Spirit is plainly" implied by our Lord's warning that
'"All the life of God in us is nothing except as it is all our
own freedom, all our own selves, all our own activity and life in
God."— (DuBose, High Priesthood and Sacrifice,^. 219.)

108 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH

\

i

blasphemy against the Spirit hath never forgiveneuj
(Mark iii. 29), and by S. Paul's teaching that b}}^
His indwelling He makes our souls and bodies tern' _
pies of God (i Cor. iii. 16, vi. 19), while S. PeteJ^
distinctly says that to lie to the Holy Ghost is to li
to God (Acts V. 3, 4). 1
2. His distinct Personality. — That the Spirit oi f
God is no mere impersonal attribute or influence, is ,
shown by our Lord's designation of Him as another .
Helper (TrapdKXrjTov, a personal title) to take Hi^ .
place (John xiv. 16-26), and by His attributing t( ,
Him personal actions, as teaching, guiding, remind j _
ing, bearing witness. He can be grieved (Ephi
iv. 30); He distributes gifts and is expressly dy-
tinguished from the gifts which he distributes (i C»-^j.
xii. 4-11)." In S. Paul's description of the Spir,iP|j..j ,
intercession He is plainly distinct from the Fai ^
with whom He intercedes, and from us for whonP' 1^
pleads (Rom. viii. 26, 27).' r
a
3. His interior operation. — As has been said,ij j^i
operation of the Spirit is within, enabling the crei ^
to correspond with the call of the Word of ,{p„j'
This would seem to be the Spirit's function in na' . ^
this was His part in the Incarnation — (i) quickl • '
 t ^
* While the same term, irvevfia, is used both for the ^ p
and His gift, as a rule (though not an invariable rule ' . . ,
S. John's writings) the presence of the article, to ttIe; »
marks the divine Person, while the noun without th* . ,'
stands for His^ift or influence. k
'The use of the masculine pronoun eKelvot in St. Job . -
, ^. '^ ¦' in XIV. 26
is emphatic.

THE HOLY GHOST 109
the powers of the Virgin mother (Luke i. 35),
(2) anointing the sacred manhood of our Lord for
His life and work (Luke iii. 22, iv. i; John i.33;
Acts X. 38 ; Heb. ix. 14). In like manner He "spake
by (Sia) the prophets," quickening their powers both
of insight and of proclamation (2 Pet. i. 21).' So by
His inspiration He leads us into all truth of faith
and of life, He aids us in prayer, kindling our affec
tions towards God, and suggesting the petitions
which God will be pleased to hear (Rom. viii. 20,
27, V. S).
4 The Spirit of Christ. — In all He works with
the Son of God. As by the Spirit of God Christ
casts out demons (Matt. xii. 28), so it is the
Spirit's function to take of the things of Christ and im
part them to us. (John xvi. 14.)' He is "the Spirit
of Christ" coming to us through the manhood of

^"The prophets in Israel were men specially illuminated by
the Holy Ghost, men who had a peculiar insight into the coun
sels of God. This knowledge enabled them to predict. En
lightened by the revelation they saw the true drift of things, as
it were, from the point of view of God ; they saw what a crisis
demanded, how it looked in the spiritual world. . . . Thus
prophets were men of their age. They looked upon the
life around them with a gaze quickened by the inspiration of
God, and they read off from it the laws of God's Providence,
and predicted on its basis that which was to come. We rarely,
if ever, find them speaking from a historic standpoint not their
own." — (Strong's Manual of Theology, '^. zjt.)
'" From the Father, by the Son, through the Spirit, all things
are. That which the Son doth hear of the Father, and which
the Spirit doth receive of the Father and the Son, the same we
have at the hands of the Spirit as being the last, and therefore
the nearest unto us in order, although in power the same with
the second and the first." — (Hooker, Eccl. Pol. I. li. 2.)

110 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Christ which He has hallowed, in which His holiness
has been manifested.
The Lord and Life-giver. — The distinct enuncia
tion of what had always been the Church's implicit
faith with regard to the Spirit of God, was called
forth, like the explicit declaration of her faith in the
Incarnation of the Son of God, by denials of the
truth. In repelling false notions the faithful came to
a clearer understanding and expression of their be
lief So it was that when in the middle of the fourth
century Macedonius and his followers taught of the
Holy Spirit, as Arius had taught of the Son, that He
was a creature (ktictixcl) of God, there was added to
the existing profession of belief "in the Holy Ghost"
(which was all the Creed of Nicea affirmed), the fur
ther words declaring Him to be "the Lord and
the Life-giver, (to Kvpiov Kal to ^coottoiov), who pro
ceedeth from the Father, who with the Father and
the Son is worshipped and glorified, who spake by
the prophets.""
The Single or Double Procession. — The controversy
concerning the Filioque, or the Double Procession of
the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son, is
largely a matter of ecclesiastical history. It must be
admitted that the clause was introduced into the

'"This addition to the Nicene creed (proper) is first found in
a creed given by Epiphanius (Ancoratus, § ii8) in 374. It was
perhaps sanctioned by the Council of Constantinople (381),
which condemned the heresy against which the words were a
protest; in any case the Creed containing the addition was
recognized by the Council of Chalcedon (451).

THE HOLY GHOST 111
Creed without proper authority, the Western Church
having no right to amend a Confession of Faith
that belongs to the whole Church, without the
assent of Eastern Christendom. Moreover, the ac
tion of the Western Church may be considered
irregular, in that it was taken by no council, but
by papal authority, and that largely under the
pressure of secular sovereigns. On the doctrinal
side divergence may have been partly due to a
difference between the Greek word, eKiropeveffOai,
(which was understood as meaning to go forth as
from a source) and the Latin, procedere, (which
simply indicates going forth, without necessarily
involving any idea of origin). Eastern theologians
are bent on preserving the single source {-irrjy^,
"¦PXv) of deity, which Western divines also recog
nize, (ch. Ill, p. 51.) The Son derives His being
from the Father; so does the Holy Spirit. But
since the Son is the express image of the Father,
it is argued that the Son must have a share in
the communication of life and being to the Spirit.
It must, of course, be kept in mind that there
is no question of priority in time, only of or
der and thought, with regard to the mutual re
lation of the Persons of the Trinity. God exists
always, eternally, in a three-fold manner. So un
derstood there is no impossibility of reconcilia
tion between Eastern and Western doctrinal posi
tions. The East would recognize not only a tem
poral mission of the Spirit from the exalted Christ,
but also such an eternal procession from the
Son as did not interfere with the acceptance of

112 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
the Father as the single fount of the divine
life." Passages of Scripture may be cited on either side ;
but they can be harmonized in the light of what has
been said ; e. g.
the Spirit proceeds from the Father (John xv. 26),
from the throne of God and of the Lamb (Rev.
xxii. i);
He is sent by the Son (John xv. 26),
He is called the Spirit of Christ (Rom. viii. 9;
Phil. i. 19; I Pet. i. 11; Gal. iv. 6).
The operation of the Spirit of God on the spirit of
man we call Grace. The word Grace comes to have
this meaning by three steps: (i) Originally the
word means favor, the good will which God has for
His people. But God's good will is never senti
mental; His favor is not inoperative. His mercy
comes forth to supply the needs which He sees. So
(2) Grace stands for any gift, spiritual or temporal,
which God freely gives us of His bounty; and (3) in
particular the gift of spiritual aid which He bestows
on us to enable us to live aright and attain our final

" " It is of great importance to insist that there is no radical
dogmatic difference on this point between the Eastern and the
Western Churches. Both held precisely the same beliefs, and
hold them still ; but they describe them in different ways. And a
point like this could hardly have been a subject upon which two
churches could have suspended communion, if it had not been for
the rancour which political disputes imparted to the discus
sion." — (Strong, Manual of Theology, p. 172; Comp. Stone,
Outlines of Christian Dogma, pp. 28, 29 ; Lias, The Nicene
Creed, pp. 254-263. Swete, History of the Doctrine of the Pro
fession of the Holy Spirit.)

THE HOLY GHOST 118
blessedness. Of this aid man would stand in need
were his nature unfallen, in order that he might at
tain his true end of fellowship with God. Still more
in our disordered condition are we dependent for
guidance and self-control on the grace of God. It is
important to remember amid the frequent use of the
word, in various technical phrases, that Grace is no
abstract spiritual force, like electricity in the atmos
phere, to be captured and applied. It is nothing else
than the touch of the Spirit of God on the spirit of
man ; the touch of the Spirit of love and truth and
purity, to enlighten our reason, to quicken our con
science, to purify and expand our affections, and to
strengthen our will.
It follows that Grace requires our cooperation. It
is never irresistible. The Spirit of God may be
"grieved" or even "quenched." We are to work out
our own salvation with fear and trembling, because it
is God who worketh in us. (Phil. ii. 12.) So S.
Paul describes the work of grace in his own experi
ence : By the grace [or help] of God I am what I am ;
and His grace [or help] which was bestowed upon me
was not found vain [it was not fruitless, but accom
plished its intended purpose] ; but I laboured more
abundantly than they all [the other apostles] ; yet not
I [of my own initiation or strength], but the grace [or
help] of God which was with me [prompting and en
abling me.] (i Cor. XV. 10.)
The Paraclete. — Grace is spiritual help. The
Spirit of God is given to strengthen us with power
in the inward man. (Eph. iii. 16.) Here we see

114 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
the meaning of the title by which our Lord constant
ly described the Holy Spirit whom He promised to
send — "the Paraclete." (Johnxiv. i6, 17, 26, xv. 26,
xvi. 7.) The Greek word means quite literally one
who is called to our side to help us in any difficulty.
In the margin of the Revised Version of the New
Testament the word 'Helper' is given as an alterna
tive for 'Comforter,' and for a single word this is
probably the best to express the sense of the original.

BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. C. Hare, " The Mission of the Comforter."
J. E. C. WeUdon, "The Revelation of the Holy Spirit."
W. H. Hutchings, "The Person and Work of the Holy
' Ghost." A. C. A. Hall, "The Work of the Holy Spirit, illustrated by
New Testament Symbols.''
R. C. Moberly, " Atonement and Personality," cc. VIII and
IX. C. A. Swainson, " The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit."
H. B. Swete, " The History of the Doctrine of the Procession
of the Holy Spirit."
R. W. Dale, " Christian Doctrine," ch. VI, The Holy Spirit.
J. F. Bethune-Baker, " Introduction to the Early History of
Christian Doctrine," ch. VIII.

VIII.
THE CHURCH
The Church corresponds with man's social being. —
Man is created a social being, having relations with
his fellows. He is dependent on them for the full de
velopment and exercise of his powers. As civiliza
tion advances, this becomes the more evident. No
one is sufficient unto himself. (Gen. ii. i8.)'
The same law applies to man's regenerate life.
Christ came not to call individual disciples to follow
Him in isolation. He formed His disciples into a
sbciety which He called His Church. (Matt. xvi. i8,
19, xviii. 15-18.) This Christian society succeeded
to the prerogatives of the Jewish Church as God's
chosen people and His authoritative representative
in the world. But it differs in two respects from the
Jewish Church: (i) The Christian Church is
catholic, universal, gathering men from all nations,
whereas the Jewish Church was national, limited
practically to the descendants of Jacob. (2) The
Christian Church is endowed with higher spiritual
gifts, with the presence of the Spirit of God, which
could not be bestowed until the redemption of man
had been wrought out. (John vii. 39.)
Not a voluntary organization, but a spiritual or
ganism. — The Church according to God's design is

' Comp. Aristotle, Pol. I. 2, <l>vtT€i iroXiTiKov ^S)Ov.

116 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
not a voluntary organization which Christians may
join or not, as they deem best for their own edifica
tion or for the service of others. It is the Body of
Christ, the blessed company of all faithful people, to
which we are joined when we are united with Christ
by Baptism, and in which we are to be nourished
and trained.
"Men were not brought to Christ and then deter
mined that they would live in a community. Men
were not brought to Christ to believe in Him and
His Cross, and to recognize the duty of worshipping
the Heavenly Father in His name, and then decided
that it would be a great help to their religion that
they should join one another in that worship, and
should be united in the bonds of fellowship for that
purpose. In the New Testament, on the contrary,
the Kingdom of Heaven is already in existence, and
men are invited into it. The Church takes its
origin, not in the will of man, but in the will of the
Lord Jesus Christ." — Abp. Temple, Individualism
and Catholicism?
Admission to the Church by Baptism,. — We are ad
mitted to the fellowship of the Church (a) on the
promise on our part (explicit or implicit): (i) Of
Renunciation of the Devil (under whose power we
were born), the World, and the Flesh ; (2) Of Belief
' Comp. Bp. Satterlee : " Observe that [the Kingdom of Heaven
or the Church] was an organism, not an organization. This
distinction is never to be lost sight of. An organization is a
federation formed by men ; an organism is a body endued with
the power of life, and created by God." — {New Testament
Churchmanship, p. 123.)

THE CHURCH 117

in Christ and His revelation; (3) Of Obedience to
His commandments.
(b) We then receive the washing of regeneration
and renewing of the Holy Ghost, the cleansing of
the body by water being the symbol of the cleansing
of our inner nature by the Spirit of God. With
the forgiveness of sins is the communication of a
new life, as we are made members of Christ, children
of God, and inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven.
Our Baptism is "sealed," by a further gift of the
Spirit to dwell in us, through the laying on of the
hands of the Chief Pastor in Confirmation. This
regenerate life is to be continually nourished by the
spiritual food of Christ's body and blood in the Holy
Communion. The fellowship of the Church maintained in the
Eucharist. — In the Eucharist, according to our
Lord's command, we continually proclaim His
death — that is, the moral victory of His obedience
even to the laying down of His life. In this triumph
of the Son of Man we glory and make our boast, and
along with our praise and thanksgiving for the re
demption He has won for all men, we claim our share
in the benefits of His sacrifice by feeding upon the
body which was given and the blood which was shed
on our behalf.
Thus our union with our Lord is continually ce
mented ; we draw into ourselves the virtue of His re
newed humanity, and should grow into His likeness
more and more. The Sacrament of our Lord's body
and blood is the great pledge and symbol of the
fellowship of His disciples one with another, as

118 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
they are all made partakers of the one bread. The
common life takes possession of all the members of
the body. The celebration of the Holy Communion is
accordingly the great central act of the Church's wor
ship. With her sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving
she offers in Christ's name her most solemn prayers
and intercessions on behalf of all, pleading His
merits whose death she shews in the memorial He
Himself instituted.
The principle of Sacraments. — Sacraments are not
charms, working with any magical effect. They are
divinely ordained meeting-points with God, where
He pledges to meet His people and bestow on them
gifts of spiritual blessing, provided they approach
His ordinance with right and fitting dispositions.
The outward and visible sign is more than a con
descension to our infirmity; it follows the analogy
of the two-fold nature in which God made us, and
the law of the Incarnation by which He restored our
nature. Man, with his material and spiritual being, is a
sacrament; Christ, "God manifest in the flesh," is a
sacrament; the special links between Christ and
man, whereby He communicates His grace to us, are
naturally sacramental. As in man, as in Christ, so
in the Sacraments both parts, the outward and the in
ward, are equally real, each in its own sphere. It is
not by our senses that we can lay hold of the inward
part of a sacrament, but by faith, the action of our
inner being. Baptism is the sacrament of new birth ;
by it we are made members of Christ. Holy Com
munion is the sacrament of spiritual nourishment ; in

THE CHURCH 119

it, by contact with Christ's renewed manhood, our re
generate life is continually strengthened.
Corresponding with the ideas of Birth and Nour
ishment a distinction is to be noted between Baptism
and the Lord's Supper, which is recognized in the
Catechism. In Baptism there are but two things to
be considered :
(i) The outward, visible sign — water, wherein the
person is baptized In the Name of the Father, and of
the Son, and of the Holy Ghost;
(2) The inward spiritual grace — the death of the
person unto sin, and his new birth unto righteous
ness. In the Lord's Supper there are three things to be
considered :
(i) The outward, visible sign — the bread and
wine; (2) The inward part or thing signified — the body
and blood of Christ ;
(3) The spiritual grace, or the benefits — the
strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the body
and blood of Christ, as our bodies are strengthened
and refreshed by the bread and wine.
In Baptism the person is consecrated ; new life is
imparted directly to him. In Holy Communion the
bread and wine are consecrated ; spiritual food is pro
vided which is then to be given to the communicant.
The very idea of feeding, it must be remembered, in
volves spiritual activity on the part of the communi-

120 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
cant, and not the mere passive reception of gifts of
grace.' The fellowship broken by sin. — The union with
Christ by the gift of His Spirit, which it is the ob
ject of sacraments to form in the fellowship of the
Church which is His body, is interrupted by sin.
Any wilful violation of Christ's command, in the way
of omission or of commission, involves a certain with
drawal from fellowship with Him. Grievous or per
sistent sin forfeits His presence. Yet not all sin is
unto death, (i John v. 17.) Upon true repentance
sins may be forgiven and the penitent restored to the
fellowship which had been forfeited. But the spirit
ual disease may be such that unaided its cure is well
nigh impossible.
Spiritual discipline. — As we were admitted to the
fellowship of the Church on the condition of our
promise of conformity to the Christian standards, so
our privileges in the Church are conditional on our
loyalty to Christian faith and life. The Church may
suspend, or even remove from her fellowship and
privileges those who are guilty of grievous transgres
sions. Such discipline is exercised both for the ben
efit of the offender, that he may be won to repentance
and a better mind, and also to preserve the Church

'To 'eat 'and to 'drink' is to take in oneself by a voluntary
act that which is without, and then to assimilate it and make it
part of oneself. It is, as it were, faith regarded in its converse
action. Faith throws the believer upon and into its object;
this spiritual eating and drinking brings the object of faith into
the believer." — ( Westcott on St. John vi. 53.) This consideration
explains and justifies the disuse of Infant Communion.

THE CHURCH 121

from contamination and laxity. On sufficient evi
dence of repentance, a person may be restored to his
forfeited position in the Church.
Such disciplinary action is provided for by our
Lord's warrant, and by the practice of the apostles.
Christ gave to His Church not only the right but the
duty to bind and to loose, i. e. to pass judgments as
to what is to be permitted and what is not to be per
mitted in the Christian society (Matt, xviii. 15-18);
and after His resurrection He gave the further power
and duty to apply these judgments to persons, to ab
solve and to retain sins. (John xx. 23.) This power
is chiefly exercised in admitting to or repelling from
the Sacraments.
The exact rules for the exercise of spiritual discip
line on these lines will be determined by ecclesias
tical legislation, and will vary in details at different
times and in different countries. It must always be
remembered that in the exercise of discipline, per
haps even more than in the administration of the
Sacraments, the bishop or priest acts, not in an iso
lated ministerial capacity, but as the president of the
body as well as in the name of Christ. So St. Paul,
in the exercise of discipline at Corinth, associated
the local church with himself in both the exclusion
and the reconciliation of the offender, (i Cor. v.
3-11 ; 2 Cor. ii. 6-10.)
A distinction was made in early days between what
was called the lesser and the greater excommunication.
The former excluded persons from participation in the
Eucharist, but did not expel them from the public
prayers, in which, like the catechumens preparing for

122 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Baptism, they were allowed to share in various de
grees. By the greater excommunication, persons
were wholly debarred from the society of the faith
ful — "not only excluded from communion in sacred
things, but shunned and avoided in civil conversa
tion as dangerous and infected persons." — (Bingham,
Christian Antiquities, XVI, ii. 7, 8.)
This severer punishment would correspond with
our Lord's words, "Let him be unto thee as an
heathen man and a publican" (Matt, xviii. 17),
and with St. Paul's, "With such an one, not even
to eat" (i Cor. v. 11). This was the delivering
unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the
spirit might be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus;
the withdrawal, that is, of the protection enjoyed by
those who in the midst of an evil world are made citi
zens of the Kingdom of Heaven, and the surrender of
them to the "prince of this world." (i Cor. v. 5; i
Tim. i. 20.) Our Lord Jesus Christ is, of course, the
Supreme Authority, who annuls a sentence of re
mitting or retaining which is not according to His
will. A further limitation must also be noted. A
solemn excommunication, extending even to the de
nial of Christian rites at burial, is not to be regarded
as a final sentence on the person's eternal condition.
In such a case the Church leaves the person to God's
judgment, to whom all is known, not having the evi
dence of repentance which would warrant her in pro
nouncing his reconciliation and restoration.
The Notes of the Church. — The Notes or marks of
the Church are four. The Church is One, Holy,

THE CHURCH 123

Catholic, and Apostolic. These notes are character
istics of the Church's being, however sadly at differ
ent times they may be blurred as outward marks dis
tinguishing the Church from other societies in the
world. They should characterise her life and teach
ing and work.
I. The Church is One. There is one Body as there
is One Spirit. (Eph. iv. 4.)
(a) This oneness is recognized by faith, as the
Church is itself, in its spiritual character, an object of
faith, although to natural sight it is but one among hu
man societies. The unity of the Church is not some
thing to be striven after, though it is to be realized
more and more. It is because the Church is One
Body, that Christians are bidden to live as befits that
unity, to endeavor to preserve the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace. Objective, spiritual unity
should lead us to pray and work for the reunion of all
Christian people in one visible body, that the
Church may act with strength and decision. (John
xvii. 22, 23.)
(b) Again, unity is quite distinct from union.
There might be agreement among different bodies of
Christians to act in concert; this would be union.
The intended unity of the Church is something far
beyond this; it is the assertion of one divine society,
extending through the world, embracing persons of
all ages and classes and nations and temperaments,
with its confession and proclamation of one body of
revealed truth, and its ministration by a divinely
commissioned ministry of the same divinely ap
pointed sacraments.

124 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
(c) This unity extends through all ages, as well as
through all lands. That which really belongs to the
Church's constitution, or to her faith, must be com
mon to every age. That which was introduced at
any date later than the time of the apostles cannot
be an essential part of the deposit.
(d) This unity of the Body extends to the unseen
world. All who have been duly baptized into Christ,
and have not forfeited their position in Him, are
members of the one Body, though they may no longer
be in the flesh. The spiritual bonds which bind to
gether those on earth, however scattered, bind to
gether likewise those in Paradise with those on earth.
Thus the Communion of Saints, the fellowship one
with another of all the consecrated people of God, is
another description of the Holy Catholic Church.
The first clause speaks of the Christian society on its
corporate side; the second (in apposition with the
first) tells of the unity of the several members of the
Body. (e) It is the oneness of the Church, through
out the ages and throughout the world, which gives
to her decisions their ultimate authority. A council
of the Church does not derive its authority chiefly
from the vote of the Bishops assembled. They bear
testimony to what has been the Christian tradition
in their several churches. And again the decision
arrived at, if it is to be of lasting obligation, must
commend itself to the Church generally. Thus
it is recognized as the voice of the Spirit of God
speaking in and through the Spirit-bearing Body of
Christ.

THE CHURCH 125

In this light the authority of the Church is seen to
be no arbitrary imposition of rules or doctrine on the
body of believers by certain officers ; it is rather the
consent of the body at large on matters of grave im
portance, to wnich individuals bow.
2. The Church is Holy as the Body of Christ, in
which the Holy Spirit dwells to lead its members
into all truth, of life as well as of faith. (John xvi. 13.)
The Greek word translated 'Holy' really means con
secrated, rather than actually holy in inner experi
ence. It was used of Israel as the consecrated people
of God. To this position, with higher endowments,
the Christian Church has succeeded. (Ex. xix. 6;
I Pet. ii. 9.) The Communion of Saints is the fel
lowship of the consecrated servants of God, who in
deed are called to be saints in the subjective sense.
As the realization of the note of Sanctity is marred
by man's failure to correspond with God's design
and to cooperate with His inspirations, so the note
of Unity is likewise marred, and of necessity, since
it is only in submission to the lordship of Christ and
the rule of His Spirit that individual wilfulness can
be controlled in humility and charity.
Our Lord's parables of the Tares and of the Drag
net prepare us for the presence within the Kingdom
of those who do not really belong to it in spirit.
(Matt, xiii.)
3. The Church is Catholic, as being intended to
gather the elect from all nations and all classes.
(Matt, xxviii. 19.) Each needs the truth and grace
which are entrusted to the Church ; and the Church

126 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
needs each. Each is to bring its special contribu
tion to the common treasury, for the enrichment of
the Church's thought, and the display of different
virtues belonging to the Christian character. No
chasm between different races, or sets of people, could
be greater than that which existed between Jew and
Gentile in apostolic times. The question of the
Church's catholicity was threshed out in the contro
versy concerning the admission of Jew and Gentile
into the Christian society on terms of perfect
equality. In that fellowship "there can not be Greek
and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian,
Scythian, bondman, freeman ; but Christ is all, and
in all" (Col. iii. ii). The varieties of education
and temperament and taste which mark the different
members of the body of Christ are intended to have a
mutually balancing and supplementing effect. At
the same time they call for the exercise of mutual
forbearance and a large-hearted generosity. This
should be a characteristic of the Catholic Church.
4. The Church is Apostolic, as built upon the foun
dation of the apostles and prophets, from whom it re
ceived the treasures of truth and grace entrusted to
them by Christ. The apostles were trained by our
Lord during His earthly ministry, to act as His rep
resentatives when He should have left the earth, that
He might work with them and through them. As
the first Christians continued steadfastly in the
apostles' teaching and fellowship, and in the break
ing of bread, and in the prayers (Acts ii. 42), so all
generations of Christendom were intended to be gath
ered round the ministry, inheriting authority from

THE CHURCH 127

the apostles, and to be held together by this chain
running through all generations. The authority
which the apostles received to act in Christ's name —
beyond that which belonged to them as the original
witnesses of His life and recipients of His revela
tion — was not a personal gift. It was transmitted
to those who came into their place. God's gifts con
tinue as long as the needs which they are intended to
supply. "Therefore it is that the Christian minis
try still includes in it the office of teaching, for edu
cation is necessary for every soul born into the world,
and the office of governing, for decency and order are
still necessary for the quiet and union of the Chris
tian brotherhood. And so the office of applying the
gifts of grace, the priestly office, is continued while
there is guilt to be washed away, sinners to be recon-
conciled, believers to be strengthened, matured, com
forted." — (J. H. Newman, Parochial Sermons, Vol.
II, St. Peter's Day.)
The commissions which in the persons of the apos
tles the Church received to carry on Christ's work,
to proclaim His truth to all nations, to win all to the
obedience of the faith, constitute her His agent and
representative on the earth. This is the function of
the Body, to carry out the purposes of the Head.
For this the Church is endowed with His Spirit.
The ministry an organ of the body. — The Church
being one body has many members. There are vari
ous organs in the body, each having its special func
tion to perform on behalf of the whole body. So it is
with the ministry of the Christian Church. It exists
not by itself nor for itself. Much confusion of

128 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
thought would be avoided if this figure of the body
were kept in mind. The body must have appropriate
organs for the discharge of different functions. A
living body does not create its own organs, nor sub
stitute one for another. They are marked out from
the beginning as parts of the living organism. The
eye sees, the ear hears, the lips speak on behalf of
the body, and with the power that comes from the
common life of the body. So within the body of
Christ there are orders of men marked out to whom
the authority of government and ministry was com
mitted by Christ. They are not external to the
body, nor have they exclusive authority. Through
them the Church acts.
Christ gave some to be apostles, and some
prophets, and some evangelists, and some pastors and
teachers, with a view to fitting the saints for the
work of ministry for the building up of the body of
Christ. (Eph. iv. ii, 12.)
These titles mark out different offices and kinds of
service, general and local. From the apostles' time
(i. e. at latest before St. John passed away), three per
manent orders of ministers were recognized in the
Church — Bishops, Presbyters, and Deacons. The
Bishops alone had authority to ordain and commis
sion others, who were chosen by the Church.
Transmission of the ministerial commission. — By
such a ministerial succession a warrant and guaran
tee is provided for the administration of the Sacra
ments, which depend for their efficacy not on the in
dividual minister's personal holiness or worthiness,
but on the institution of Christ. When with right

THE CHURCH 129

dispositions we approach His ordinances. He pledges
Himself to bestow upon us the spiritual gift appro
priate to each, e.g. cleansing and regeneration in
Baptism, spiritual nourishment and refreshment in
Holy Communion. With a ministry able to shew its
continuity from those to whom Christ first gave His
commission, we have a guarantee of validity, i. e. the
security of His approval.*
The Catholic Church the elect body. — The Catholic
Church is the elect body gathered out of all nations,
as Israel of old was the chosen nation among all peo
ples; chosen to accomplish God's purpose, in bearing
witness to Him before all. Such a choice is entirely
in accordance with the general law of God's dealing,
whereby some individuals or classes or nations are
endued with special gifts to be used not merely for
their own advantage, but on behalf of all. There is
no idea of arbitrary favouritism, but rather of a re
sponsible trusteeship, which must necessarily involve
a stricter judgment. The conversion of the whole
world to Christ is nowhere foretold ; witness among
all nations is the Church's duty.
Having considered the Church as the body of
Christ, it is needful now to treat of the individual
Christian's share in the privileges of the kingdom of

* This is the sense in which Ignatius uses the word ' valid '
(Belaid), when he says, " Let that be counted a valid eucharist
which is under the bishop or one to whom he has committed
it." Ad Smyrn. § 8. We may well rejoice in this security of
the Church's ministrations without presuming to pronounce
any judgment upon the efficacy of other ministrations which
have not the like guarantee.

130 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
heaven. The Church is the company of the elect, of
those, that is, who are called by God and who corres
pond with His call. Why some should be within
reach of the means of grace (which is more than a
question of local contiguity) and others not, belongs
to the secret things of God's Providence. This is
clear, that Election is to grace and not to glory. Our
final acceptance with. God depends on our faithful and
persevering correspondence with His grace. When
a man corresponds with God's call, and by the aid of
His Spirit submits himself to Christ in earnest re
pentance and faith, seeking His grace as He has
promised to bestow it, he is justified; ?. ^. his past
sins are pardoned for Christ's sake, with Whom he
is now united, and from Whom he receives a gift of
renewed spiritual life. This initial grace of regener
ation, if diligently pursued and cultivated, will lead
to a progressive sanctification, as the person's con
duct and character are more and more controlled by
the Spirit of God, and Christ's likeness is continual
ly reproduced in His servant. This sanctification is
the firstfruits of our final glorification, the earnest
of our future inheritance. (Rom. viii. 30.)

THE CHURCH 131

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Dr. Hort, " The Christian Ecclesia."
W. Sanday, " The Conception of Priesthood."
Bishop Lightfoot, " The Christian Ministry " (in appendix to
Philippians.) G. Moberly, " The Administration of the Holy Spirit in the
Body of Christ." (Bampton Lectures, 1868.)
W. Palmer, " The Church of Christ."
R. Field, " The Book of the Church."
A. Robertson, " Regnum Dei." (Bampton Lectures, 1901.)
C. Gore, "The Mission of the Church."
C. Gore, " Roman Catholic Claims" (especially cc. Ill and
rV, on 'Authority ' ).
E. Tyrrell Green, " The Church of Christ, her Mission, Sacra
ments and Discipline."
W. Lock, " The Church" (in Lux Mundi).
C. Gore, " The Church and the Ministry."
R. C. Moberly, "Ministerial Priesthood."
A. W. Haddan, " Apostolical Succession in the Church of
England." J. R. Illingworth, " Sacraments," ch. VIII. in " Christian Char
acter." F. Paget, " Sacrament^s" (in Lux Mundi) .
R. I. Wilberforce, " The Doctrine of Holy Baptism."
Darwell Stone, " Holy Baptism." (Oxford Library of Practi-
tical Theology.)
A. J. Mason, " The Relation of Confirmation to Baptism."
A. C. A. Hall, "Confirmation." (Oxford Library of Practical
Theology.) C. Gore, " The Body of Christ."
Darwell Stone, " The Holy Communion."
F. Meyrick, " The Doctrine of the Holy Communion."

IX.
ESCHATOLOGY
Survival after death. — A continued existence after
death, with a future recompense for conduct in this
world, is not a distinctively Christian doctrine. It
was held with various degrees of clearness by both
Jews and heathen, and may be regarded as a human
instinct asserting itself in spite of the pressure of the
universal fact of death. It was generally in propor
tion as men rose to higher conceptions of human na
ture and its relation to God that they looked with
confidence to the survival after death of the real self —
that in us which thinks and remembers, which feels
love and hate, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, that
which chooses.^ Where men have lived like beasts,
they have been content to die like beasts. Those
who have realized their higher powers, and in par
ticular their capacity for communion with God, have
clung to the assurance that He will not leave their
souls in Hades, nor suffer them to perish. (Job xix.
25-27; Pss. xvi. 8-1 1, Ixxiii. 23-26.) This expecta
tion of future life is sanctioned and confirmed by
Jesus Christ. Life, imperishable and incorruptible

1 " Our moral feelings and emotions are not subject to de
terioration or abatement with the lapse of years, down to the
latest, in the same manner and degree as are the powers of
memory, perception, reflexion." — (W. E. Gladstone, Studies
subsidiary to the works of Bishop Butler, p. 150.)

ESCHA TOLOG Y 133

life, is brought to light (2 Tim. i. 10.)'' both by
His teaching and especially by His resurrection,
which shewed not only that man as a spiritual being
survives death, but that his nature is to be restored
to its integrity, physical and spiritual.'
The resurrection of the dead. — A resurrection, we
are told, awaits all, both good and bad, that all may
receive in the body a recompense for the things done
in the body. (John v. 29; Acts xxiv. 15; 2 Cor. v.
10.) Man is by nature a composite being, with
spiritual and material elements marvellously inter
woven one with another. The disembodied spirit is
not man in the integrity of his being. The very
close and intimate connexion between soul and body,
which science discloses and experience notes, may be
thought to render probable (on the supposition of the
soul's survival) a restoration of that union, the break
ing of which in death seems so unnatural. "The
body which has been so long the associate and part
ner of the soul's life, the instrument of its will, the
minister of its passions, mingling lower physical sen
sations with that higher life of thought and feeling
which belongs to it, could not be altogether cast away
without impairing the completeness of our being,
"See EUicott, Pastoral Epistles, in loc, p. 116.
'On the Old Testament hope of immortality and the Chris
tian doctrine, see Dr. Liddon 's sermon, " Immortality," in his
University Sermons, Series I, and the Appendix to Lecture V.
in The Christian View of God and of the World, by James Orr,
where it is contended that the Hebrew hope of future life was
never limited to the immortality of the soul, but involved a res
toration of the whole personality, in which the body too had
a share.

134 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
without imperiling the continuous identity of our
changeful existence." — (Liddon, Some Elements of
Religion, p. 117. Comp. Westcott, Historic Faith,
pp. 13s, 136.)
This General Resurrection will be at the Last Day,
at the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ. Of
this and the subsequent judgment various figurative
descriptions are given in the New Testament Scrip
tures. (Matt. xvi. 27, XXV. 31 sq.\ John v. 27-29;
I Thess. iv. 16, 17; Rev. i. 7, xx. 11, 12.) The chief
points emphasized concerning the judgment are —
(a) the vindication of God's righteousness,
(b) the manifestation of all men as they truly are
and have become,
(c) the bringing of all before the Son of man. Who
is the Judge of all. (Rom. ii. 5 ; 2 Cor. v.
10; John V. 27.)
How this last Coming of Christ to judgment shall
be accomplished which reveals the world to itself, we
know not, and it is idle to speculate. (Westcott,
Historic Faith, pp. 90, 91, 97.) Every manifestation
of Christ involves a Kpiai<i. His last appearance
will bring this world to a close, when final sentence
will be pronounced on all.
Not a return to former conditions. — The resurrec
tion will not be for us, any more than it was for our
Lord Jesus Christ, a return to old conditions of bodily
life. (See Chap. VI, p. 97.) Gross and crude ideas
of a re-gathering and combining of the particles of
which the body was composed are expressly excluded
by St. Paul's teaching. "Flesh and blood," he says,

ESCHA TOL OGY 135

"cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth
corruption inherit incorruption. " (i Cor. xv. 50.)
Our bodies must be adapted to their new environ
ment, transformed into the likeness of the Lord's
risen body. (Phil. iii. 21.) The apostle illustrates
the relation of the future body to the present body by
the relation of a plant to its seed. (i Cor. xv.
36-38. ) The one is the real outcome of the other ; it
is not the restoration of the seed to its former condi
tion. We do not expect at harvest time to receive
back the seed which was put into the ground; we
should be greatly disappointed if we received only
this. We look for the waving ears that are the out
come of the seed.
By the "spiritual body," of which St. Paul speaks,
is not to be understood (as some people imagine) a
body composed of the thinnest kind of gaseous sub
stance, (i Cor. XV. 44.) A body made up of spirit
would be a contradiction in terms. A spiritual
body (a&na irvevfiaTiKov) means rather a material
body which is altogether under the dominion and
control of our higher being which we call 'spirit,'
corresponding to its needs, and having perhaps its
character impressed upon it. The "natural body"
(o-WjLia yjrvxi-icov) is a body adapted to the mere life
of nature, where the higher faculties have not been
quickened by the touch of the Spirit of God. What
the principle of unity, the connecting link between
the present and the future body may be, we cannot
tell, any more than we can exactly tell what binds
together in one the constantly changing atoms of
our present bodies, about the identity of which

136 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
through different periods and stages of life we have
no doubt.
The disembodied soul. — Meanwhile the disem
bodied soul retains a conscious existence. The term
'sleep,' used of death, applies to the body rather than
to the soul. We may rather expect a quickening of
the spiritual powers of memory, thought and affection,
and an intensifying of their operations, when released
from the burden of the flesh. When our Lord's hu
man soul departed from the body it was not uncon
scious. Put to death in the flesh. He was quickened
in the spirit, in which He went and preached unto
the spirits in prison, (i Pet. iii. i8, 19.) He prom
ised to the penitent robber that he that very day
should be with Him in Paradise. In His parable
of Dives and Lazarus, neither were unconscious in
the spirit world. (Luke xxiii. 43, xvi. 22-25.) St.
Paul desired to depart and to be with Christ as being
'far better,' even when for him to live was Christ. It
would be no gain for one whose life was lived in
fellowship with Christ to be in His presence as
an unconscious log. The departed, Christ said,
speaking of the Old Testament patriarchs, "live
unto God." (Luke xx. 38. Comp. i Pet. iv. 6.)
The intermediate state. — ^The condition of the
faithful departed we may believe to be one of prog
ress. Because probation is over, it by no means
follows that education has ceased. They have not
yet attained their perfection. The resurrection of the
body ushers in the complete life of the world to come.
Their full joy is to be attained when their nature is

ESCHA TOLOG Y 187

restored to its integrity, the body no longer being a
clog upon the soul, but in its transfigured and
spiritualized condition being made a fitting instru
ment for the soul's service of God. Meanwhile,
freed from the distractions of the world as well as
from the burden of the corruptible flesh, the spirit
learns to see things as they really are. In the nearer
presence of God there must be a growing desire for
all good things, a reaching out more and more after
Him in Whom is all goodness. At the same time, as
the spirit reviews the past in the light of God and
judges itself by true standards, there will be deepened
penitence, and in deepened penitence increasing pu
rification. As we follow the departed with our
thoughts, we may offer prayers for their perfecting as
well as thanksgiving for all that God has done for
them. We may commend them continually to God's
loving care and protection, and ask Him to supply
their needs as He sees and knows them, and to lead
them on in His knowledge and love in whatever way
He wills. For such prayers we have the sanction of
the early liturgies of the Church, which ask for the
departed a continual increase of peace and rest and
light, a merciful judgment at the Last Day, and a
joyful welcome into the heavenly kingdom."

'It may be sufficient to quote one such prayer, from the
Liturgy of St. James: "Remember, O Lord God, the spirits of
all flesh, of whom we have made mention, and of whom we have
not made mention, who are of the true faith, from righteous
Abel unto this day ; do Thou Thyself give them rest there in the
land of the living, in Thy kmgdom, in the delight of Paradise,
in the bosom of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, our holy
fathers ; whence pain and grief and lamentation have fled away ;

138 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
In regard to its authority Dr. Mason says :
"Probably no well-informed person doubts that
prayers for the dead, and in particular prayers at the
Eucharistic Sacrifice, are as ancient as Christianity
itself, and have as complete a sanction as the uni
versal custom of the Church can give  If there
is but one generally acknowledged prayer for a de
parted Christian in the New Testament (2 Tim. i.
18), no disapproval of such prayers is either ex
pressed or implied. The absence of them is perhaps
to be explained by the expectation of Christ's im
mediate return, which drew away attention from the
'brief waiting of the faithful dead,' partly also by
the joyful certainty of a glorious issue which the
Lord's resurrection had newly shed over the waiting
state." — (A. J. Mason, Purgatory — The State of
the Faithful Departed — Invocation of Saints, pp.
59-61.) Purgatory, as commonly taught and understood
among Roman Catholics, is an unwarranted and one
sided development of a belief in an intermediate state
in which the disembodied soul grows in holiness, and

where the light of Thy countenance looks upon them and gives
them light for evermore." — F. E. Brightman, ^ojferw Liturgies,
p. 57. Compare Translations of the Primitive Liturgies, by J.
M. Neale and R. F. Littledale, where an appendix gives sixteen
specimens of the more interesting among the intercessions for
the departed found in early liturgies, with the two special ob
jects (i) of proving the antiquity and catholicity of the practice,
and (2) of showing the distinction between the prayers for the
departed offered by the early Church, which presuppose them
to be in a state of blessedness, and the later Roman doctrine of
a purgatory from which the departed soul has to be delivered as
from a state of misery.

ESCHA TOL OGY 139

so in fitness for the full joy of heaven. (See Marten-
sen, Christian Dogmatics, 'The Intermediate State.')
"The departed are in God's hands; but it is possi
ble that He may allow our prayers to help them, and
we cannot point to any evil that is likely to come
from such prayers, provided only that we do not allow
ourselves to be led into adopting dreams and fictions
concerning their condition." "God's revelation has
made known to us that this other world exists ; but it
has not pleased God to reveal secrets in the fulness
that we long for. . . . We have no right to lift the
veil which He has not lifted, and it is contrary to the
whole character of His revelation to put our own hu
man imaginations by the side of the revelation itself,
and to adapt our spiritual life to dreams, however
beautiful. We may be sure that there is good rea
son why God has limited our knowledge, and we
must bow to these limitations." — (Abp. Temple,
Charge, 1898, pp. 16, 17.)
The future glory of the saints. — The future per
fected glory of God's faithful servants is described in
Holy Scripture under many figures. While we insist
on the allegorical character of the representations, we
must remember that metaphors stand for realities.
Figurative descriptions are frequently employed in
the Bible in order to bring home to us great spiritual
truths which otherwise we could not readily grasp.
There are five chief figures round which gather the
allegorical descriptions of the world to come in the
Revelation of St. John, which may be regarded as an
epitome of the other books of Scripture on this sub
ject:

140 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
(i) The blessed are represented as crowned. The
crown stands for the royalty of character which they
have gained by victory over temptation. They are
kings and priests unto God, ruling over things around
them, as they offer themselves in perfect obedience
to do His will. (Rev. ii. lo, iv. 4, i. 6; 2 Tim. iv. 8.)
(2) They are arrayed in bright vesture, their white
robes telling of the cleanness of heart, the stain-
lessness of life, which at last is theirs. (Rev. iii. 5,
vii. 13, 14, xix. 8.)
(3) The perpetual music of harp and song denotes
the perfect gladness with which all service of what
ever kind is rendered. (Rev. xiv. 2, 3, xxii. 3.)
(4) The unclouded light represents the clear and
ever growing knowledge in which they rejoice as
all perplexities are unravelled. (Rev. xxi. 23, xxii.
4, 5; I Cor. xiii. 12.)
(5) The city in which they are pictured as having
their abode tells at once of companionship — it is no
solitary life — and of the variety of employments and
the opportunities for mutual service, in which they
rejoice. (Rev. xxi. 2, 10-27; Eph. v. 19; Heb. xii.
22.) "The happiness of which good men shall partake is
not distinct from their godlike nature. Happiness
and holiness are but two several notions of one
thing."* That which is pictured in Holy Scripture

* Quoted from John Smith, the Cambridge Platonist, On the
Happiness and Holiness of True Religion, by Malcolm MacColl
in his Christianity in relation to Science and Morals (lectures
on the Nicene Creed), p. 312.

ESCHA TOLOG Y 141

is "the perfect life where men, being at last perfectly
what men ought to be in soul and body, live the perfect
life in the perfect city ; adoring God, the Three in One,
with all the angelic hosts: beholding God in all things,
and all things in God : enjoying all the richness of
universal truth and beauty, all the joy of mutual love
and fellowship and service, in a progress which can
never end, where there can never be lack of novelty
or variety, so infinite is the richness of the being of
God in whom all spirits live." — (C. Gore, Creed of
the Christian, p. io6.)
Eternal Life. — All this is summed up in the prom
ise of Life. The life everlasting of which the Creed
speaks is not equivalent merely to immortality. It
stands for the true, the blessed life in the full enjoy
ment and exercise of all their faculties, the perfect
satisfaction of all parts of their being, which shall be
theirs in whom the Blessed Spirit of God has been al
lowed to accomplish His sanctifying work. This is
the life which is life indeed, which Christ came to
gain for man, which the Holy Spirit, the Life-giver,
communicates, which is to be cherished and devel
oped here, which shall have its perfect realization
hereafter, (i Tim. vi. 19; John x. 10; Rom. viii.
2, 23.)
Eternal Death. — The profession of belief in the
Life Eternal, the full, true, perfect life to which the
servants of God finally attain, for which God made
us, Christ redeemed us, the Holy Spirit prepares
us — inevitably suggests the thought of the possi
bility of failure. The loss of life, the absence of life

142 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
where it should be found, is death, (i John v. i6 sq.;
Rev. iii. 14, xxi. 8.) This is the portion of those
who believe not and obey not. It is not a penalty
which is inflicted upon them from without, but a
wreck and ruin in which they involve themselves.
He that soweth to the flesh shall of the flesh reap —
not annihilation but — corruption, shrivelled ears not
worth the harvesting. This is what is contrasted
with sowing to the spirit, and of the spirit reaping
life eternal. (Gal. vi. 7, 8.)
This wreck and ruin of our nature is described in
Holy Scripture, like the perfected development of our
nature, under various figurative expressions. Some
of these are derived from the valley of Hinnom, out
side the walls of Jerusalem, which served as a
charnel house, where the refuse of the city was con
sumed. So we are told of the unquenchable fire of
God's holiness, that must torture since it was not al
lowed to purify the soul ; and of the undying worm
which represents the gnawing of remorse. (Mark ix.
43 j^./ Matt. v. 22.) In like manner souls are de
scribed as in outer darkness, banished from the joy
of God's presence; as bound in chains of evil habit
to which they allowed themselves to become en
slaved; the gnashing of teeth is the image of
despair. (Matt. viii. 12; 2 Pet. ii. 4; John viii.
34.) About this doom a great deal of unwarranted teach
ing has been common. Many questions are appar
ently left unanswered in Scripture, about the num
ber or proportion of the lost, about the nature of their
suffering, and its possible mitigation. All this has

ESCHA TOLOG Y 143

been a fruitful source of not very profitable specula
tion, ° Of these two points we are sure:
(i) Irretrievable and final ruin is an awful possibil
ity. This is clear from our Lord's words. Of one
He said, "Good were it for that man if he had
never been born." (Matt. xxvi. 24.)° This saying
of our Lord, if it stood alone, would seem to
be decisive against the theory of Universal Re
storation. If, after whatever prolonged period of
purifying suffering, the soul were at length to attain
final and unending beatitude, would not this make
worth while any remedial discipline ?
(2.) This utter and hopeless ruin can only be
brought about by man's deliberate and persistent re
jection of God's purpose and design. We are as sure
of God's mercy as of His justice. We know that He
willeth not the death of any ; that He will do all He
can on our behalf ; but He cannot save us in spite of
ourselves ; He will not force our will ; in doing so He
would destroy man in the process of saving him.
(Ezek. xxxiii. 11; John v. 39, vi. 37; i Tim. ii. 4.)
This life the term of probation. — So far as we are
told this life is the appointed period of man's pro
bation. On his use or misuse of his opportunities

5 See an extremely thoughtful sermon, " Sin and Judgment,"
in Dean Church's volume. Human Life and its Conditions.
'Compare Matthew xii. 31, 32, and Newman's lines :
" Christ on Himself, considerate Master, took
The utterance of that doctrine's fearful sound.
The fount of Love His servants sends to tell
Love's deeds ; Himself reveals the sinner's hell."
— (Lyra Apostolica, lxxxiii."The Wrath to Come.")

144 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
here depends his future lot. A reason for this may
be seen in the necessity that man's choice should be
made while he is in the integrity of his complex
being, with body as well as soul. The moral bent is
sufficiently exhibited here. We have no warrant for
teaching that it can be radically altered elsewhere.
Our final salvation depends on our union with
Christ. Many leave this world without opportunity
of believing on Him. We are in no way bound to
suppose that these are all ultimately lost. For those
who have been true to the light given them in con
science and in imperfect religious systems, God may
have means in the unseen world for bringing them
into union with Christ corresponding to the ministry
of His Word and Sacraments, by which He communi
cates or offers His grace to us in this world. They
are not saved by the imperfect religion which they
profess ; but by virtue of their obedience to the light
vouchsafed, a gleam from the Light that lighteneth
every man, they are prepared and fitted to accept the
fuller revelation, when it is presented to them. True
to the voice of the Eternal Word, though they knew
not whose voice it was, they are prepared to obey
Him when He is manifested to them. (John
xviii. 37.)
The law of Retribution. — The final reward of the
righteous and the doom of the wicked. Heaven and
Hell, Life and Death, are seen to be no arbitrary ap
pointments. They are the result of the law of Retri
bution, which prevails throughout the universe, ma
terial and moral, that whatsoever a man soweth that
shall he also reap. We sow our thoughts and rea

ESCHA TOLOG Y 145

our actions, we sow our actions and reap our habits,
we sow our habits and reap our character, we sow
our character and reap our destiny. Every man will
go to his own place, the place for which he has be
come fitted.
"Death only transplants us out of this world, with
which we are so familiar, into another world: trans
plants us with the character which in this world we
have made for ourselves unchanged, into that un
familiar world beyond, where God is waiting to see
us judge ourselves as He judges us." — (C. Gore, The
Creed of the Christian, p. 104.)
There remains a question as to the endlessness, not
of the loss, for that we have seen may be final and ir
retrievable, but of the existence of the lost, of those
who have hopelessly lost their true life. Is their
ruined existence necessarily indefinite, eternal.' or
may there be in the end a final destruction of the
being which has failed of its true purpose ? To this
question no decided answer has been given by the
Church, nor by the Scriptures on which her teaching
is based. The answer must depend in part upon an
other question, the reply to which is perhaps more
often assumed than considered : Is man by nature im
mortal, or is endless life (which should be distin
guished from a mere survival of death) a part, while
only a part, of that higher and eternal life to which
man is destined to attain by his correspondence with
God's grace and obedience to His law? In other
words, does God necessarily uphold in endless exist
ence a being which has forfeited its true life .? Such
a doctrine of conditional immortality has been held

146 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
by devout men in the Christian Church. Neither
Scripture nor any decree of the Church has closed
the door against such an opinion. This is all that
can be said.
From Thy wrath and from everlasting damnation,
from the bitter pains of eternal death, good Lord
deliver us. Who didst come that man might have life
and have it in abundance !

BIBLIOGRAPHY
J. E. C. WeUdon, " The Hope of Immortality."
S. D. F. Salmond, " The Christian Doctrine of Immortality.''
C. L. Slattery, " Life beyond Life.''
H. L. Goodge, "The First Epistle to the Corinthians," ch. xv.
(in Westminister Commentaries.)
W. Jackson, " The Doctrine of Retribution." (Bampton Lec
tures, 1875.)
H. M. Luckock, " After Death."
F. W. Farrar, " Mercy and Judgment."
E. B. Pusey, "What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punish
ment." E. H. Plumptre, "The Spirits in Prison."
A.J.Mason, "Purgatory — The State of the Faithful De
parted — Invocation of Saints."
S. C. Gayford, " Life after death."
Edward White, " Life in Christ."
W. E. Gladstone, " Studies subsidiary to the Works of Bishop
Butler," pt. II. cc. i-v.
W. R. Huntington, "Conditional Immortality."

APPENDICES APPENDIX A
The Christian Doctrine of God
In Christianity, as nowhere else, the severed por
tions of truth found in all other systems are organ
ically united, while it completes the body of truth by
discoveries peculiar to itself. The Christian doctrine
of God, for example, may fairly claim to be the syn
thesis of all the separate elements of truth found in
Agnosticism, Pantheism, and Deism, which by their
very antagonisms reveal themselves as one-sided-
nesses, requiring to be brought into some higher har
mony. If Agnosticism affirms that there is that in
God — in His infinite and absolute existence, which
transcends finite comprehension. Christian theology
does the same. If Pantheism affirms the absolute im
manence of God in the world, and Deism His abso
lute transcendence over it, Christianity unites the
two sides of the truth in a higher concept, maintain
ing at the same time the Divine immanence and the
Divine transcendence.
Even Polytheism in its nobler forms is in its own
dark way a witness for a truth which a hard, abstract
Monotheism, such as we have in the later (not
the Biblical) Judaism, and in Mohammedanism, ig
nores — the truth, namely, that God is plurality as
well as unity — that in Him there is a manifoldness

148 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
of life, a fulness and diversity of powers and mani
festations, such as is expressed by the word Elohim.
This element of truth in Polytheism Christianity also
takes up, and sets in its proper relation to the unity
of God in its doctrine of Tri -unity — the concept of
God which is distinctively the Christian one, and
which furnishes the surest safeguard of a living
Theism against the extremes of both Pantheism and
Deism. . . .
To take a last example. Positivism is a very direct
negation of Christianity ; yet in its strange 'worship
of Humanity' is there not that which stretches across
the gulf and touches hands with a religion which
meets the cravings of the heart for the human in
God by the doctrine of the Incarnation ?
It is the part of a true and wise theology to take
account of all this, and to seek, with ever-increasing
enlargement of vision, the comprehensive view in
which all factors of the truth are combined. — (James
Orr, The Christian view of God and the World, pp.
12, 13.)

APPENDIX B
Evolution and Creation
Since the hypothesis of Evolution is nothing else
than an attempt to explain how the heavens and
the earth were created, leaving the statement quite
untouched that they were created, it is difficult
to see how the two notions can come into collision
with one another. The one simply takes up the
story where the other leaves it off. And we have
only to place them end to end, thus: 'From God
all things took their origin; and by successive
stages of evolution He made them to become what
they now are : ' in order to see quite clearly how
the ancient and the modern statements are mere
ly one line prolonged. We may, therefore, de
cline to argue (as is frequently done) that the
Evolution theory remains at present in a very pre
carious condition — though the allegation is true.
For I hold it quite unworthy of Christians to show
any slight, or even to accord a reluctant acceptance,
to the only theory of Creation which has hitherto
thrown any light on this mysterious subject. For it
is not light, it is darkness, to say (with the ancient
sages) 'water is the first principle of all things,' or
'fire is the first principle,' or 'all things come out
of a cosmic egg,' or 'the world came forth by an
oversight while Brahma slept. ' Nor is it sufificient
to assert, with the ancient Hebrews, that 'Jehovah

150 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
spake the word and all things were made.' The
question now raised by Science is the further ques
tion, 'What, more precisely, did Jehovah speak?
What were the laws which proceeded out of His
mouth?' And if it should be ascertained — as it
promises to be — that the creative laws, which have
produced all this marvellous complexity we find
around us, were the same on a vast scale as those
which we see with our eyes at work on a small scale ;
if it should appear that births, not startling appari
tions, have throughout been God's method; that His
laws have always been laws of growth (as we know it
in the crystal, the plant, the animal), not of abrupt
finality; and that steadfast continuity of plan has
characterized creation, not a fitful and feeble caprice;
surely all these discoveries come home to us as, in
the highest sense, human, rational, intelligible. The
conception of the primal creative 'word' is now ex
panded into that of a majestic stream of legislation,
permeating and controlling all things; the creative
'fiat' is rescued from humiliating comparison with a
magician's potent spell; and the statement becomes
for the first time clear and comprehensible, that 'by
the Word — the Logos, or intelligible reason — of
God, all things in heaven and earth were made.' —
(G. H. Curteis, The Scientific Obstacles to Christian
Belief, pp. 56-58, Boyle Lectures, 1884.)

APPENDIX C
Possession by Evil Spirits
It is argued that in the matter of possession by
evil spirits Christ was only using the ordinary
phraseology of His time; that diseases which we
now place under the head of hysteria, hypochondria,
lunacy, etc., were then ascribed to the direct agency
of evil spirits; and that, according to His usual
plan, Christ made no attempt to change the popular
conviction. Of course there is no theoretical objec
tion to applying this principle in this case, pro
vided it be certain that there is no such difference in
it compared with the others [such as the critical
questions connected with the authorship of the books
of the Old Testament] as will render the applica
tion of the rule misleading. But it is by no means
clear that this is so. The existence of the Evil
One and of spirits of evil is not altogether a matter
for the scientific understanding to verify. It is in
large measure a moral question.
I. Every man is conscious in a more or less de
gree of temptations — that is, of positive incitements
to evil. These may be explained in two ways —
either as the suggestions of our own lower nature, or
as provocations from without. In the first case, we
ourselves are the whole and sole cause of the sugges
tion; for the motions of the lower nature are just as
much ours as those of the higher. We cannot, as

152 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Aristotle observed, make ourselves responsible for
our good actions only. It is plain that if this be so,
temptation cannot occur to us without a certain de
gree of sinful acquiescence ; we are tempted when we
give ear to the suggestions of the lower part of our
selves. On the other hand, there is in moral natures
of a powerful kind a firm conviction of violent strug
gle, not only with the lower part of self, but with a
mighty and masterful will. It is doubtless true that
a consciousness akin to this occurs in persons of a
nervous and hysterical temperament; but it stands
in their case to the conviction of a saint, as senti
mentality stands to constant love. And we believe
that the conviction of a struggle with a masterful
will increases rather than diminishes in proportion
to the strength and acuteness of the character, so
that in a mind enlightened by perpetual communion
with the Father, and incapable of producing sugges
tions of evil from within, it reaches a point at which
no doubt could be possible.
II. In nature also, there are certainly signs of a
wrong influence at work; not merely of a feeble
realization of the laws of being, but of positive ruin
and evil. To attribute all this to the action of God
would be profane, to the action of man would be im
possible. A third possibility remains, therefore,
one which has the authority of Scripture upon its
side, as well as a large body of human belief, that an
evil spirit is at work in the world as well as in the
secret chambers of the heart, to whom some at any
rate of the evil in nature is due. The whole subject
is profoundly mysterious and obscure, the one thing

APPENDIX C 153

which is clear about it being this, that the existence
of the Evil One, and of those spirits who follow his
lead, is a question which none of our senses can
settle; it must depend upon the exercise of those
powers in us which enable us to distinguish physical
and moral evil.
If these contentions be held valid, it would follow
that our Lord in ascribing certain physical ailments
to the direct agency of evil spirits, and not others,
and in revealing the history of His own Temptation,
must not be regarded merely as adopting current
phraseology, but as really exercising His own moral
insight. The difference between this point of view
and that of science might possibly be settled by an
extension of our scientific knowledge; some of the
cases now assigned to merely physical causes may,
hereafter, be allowed to be manifestations of the
powers of darkness. — (T. B. Strong, A Manual of
Theology, pp. 126-128.)

APPENDIX D
The Incarnation
The self-same Person, or Ego, who had dwelt
in the bosom of the Father as Son or Word, and
as God from, in, and with the Father, did in the
Incarnation attach manhood to His Godhead — did,
without compromising His divine life, enter into
the conditions of human life, and surround Himself,
so to speak, with a new sphere of being and action:
so that the work of redemption was wrought, not by
a holy human individual in close alliance with the
Eternal Son and thoroughly penetrated by the Spirit,
but by the very Eternal Son Himself, clothed in hu
manity, but retaining His personality inviolate, and
therewith the attributes or perfections which in truth
'are Himself,' although for the most part making
them ineffective, or suspending their activity, within
the limits involved in the assumption of 'the form of
a servant. ' Thus, according to this grand belief,
did the one Christ bring God and man together by
virtue of which His preexisting divinity and of the
humanity which for our sakes He put on. — (W.
Bright, The Age of the Fathers, Vol. II. p. 258.)
"The Word was made flesh." (John i. 14.)
The following main truths must be held as ex
pressed in the words when they are fairly inter
preted :

APPENDIX D 155

(i) The Lord's humanity was complete, as against
various forms of ApoUinarianism, according to which
the divine Logos supplied the place of part of that
which belongs to the perfection of Manhood \i. e. a
rational soul]. (The Word \>eci.xae flesh, and not a
body or the like.)
(2) The Lord's humanity was real and permanent,
as against various forms of Gnosticism, according to
which He only assumed in appearance, or for a
time, that which was and remained foreign to Him
self. (The Word became flesh, and did not clothe
Himself in flesh.)
(3) The Lord's human and divine natures remained
without change, each fulfilling its part according to
its proper laws, as against various forms of
Eutychianism, according to which the result of the
Incarnation is a third nature, if the humanity has
any real existence. (The Word became flesh, both
terms being preserved side by side.)
(4) The Lord's humanity was universal and not
individual, as including all that belongs to the es
sence of man, without regard to sex or race or time.
(The Word hecz-me flesh and not a man.)
(5) The Lord's human and divine natures were
united in one Person, as against various forms of
Nestorianism, according to which He has a human
personality and a divine personality, to which the
acts, etc., belonging to the respective natures must
be referred. (^The Word became flesh and dwelt,
etc., without any change of the subject to the verb.)

166 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
(6) The Word did not acquire personality by the
Incarnation. He is spoken of throughout, not as a
principle or an energy, but, whatever may be the in
herent imperfection of such language, as a Person.
So far, perhaps, we can see generally a little of the
Truth, but the attempt to express the Truth with
precision is beset with difficulty and even with peril.
Thus in using the words 'personality' and 'imper
sonal' in relation to Christ, it is obviously necessary
to maintain the greatest reserve. For us 'per
sonality' implies limitation or determination, i. e.
finiteness in some direction. As applied to the di
vine nature therefore the word is not more than a
necessary accommodation required to give such dis
tinctness to our ideas as may be attainable. The
word 'impersonal,' again, as applied to the Lord's
human nature, is not to be so understood as to ex
clude in any way the right application of the word
'man' (avdpairo'i) to Him, as it is used both by Him
self (John viii. 40) and by St. Paul (i Tim. ii. 5).
The phrase The Word became flesh is absolutely
unique. The phrases which point towards it in St.
John (i John iv. 2), in the Epistle to the Hebrews
(ii. 14), and in St. Paul (Rom. viii. 3, Phil. ii. 7,
I Tim. iii. 16) fall short of the majestic fulness of
this brief sentence, which affirms once for all the
reconciliation of the opposite elements of the final
antithesis of life and thought, the finite and the in
finite. — (B. F. Westcott, The Gospel according to St.
John, p. II.)

APPENDIX E
Scripture and Church Authority
For religious and simple minds there is a short
method whereby to put off error, and to discover
and extract the truth. For if we return to the
head and original of Divine tradition, human error
ceases; and having seen into the grounds of the
heavenly sacraments, whatever lay hid under the
gloom and cloud of darkness, is laid open to the
light of truth. If a conduit conveying water, which
before flowed copiously and abundantly, should sud
denly fail, do we not go to the fountain, that
there the reason of the failure may be ascertained,
whether the springs having failed, the water has
dried up at the fountain-head; or whether, flow
ing thence in unimpaired fulness, it is stopped in the
middle of its course; that so, if through the defect
of leaks or obstructions in the conduit the water
supplied have been hindered from flowing in a con
tinuous and unbroken stream, then, the conduit
being repaired and strengthened, the water, kept to
gether, may be supplied for the use and consumption
of the city in the same abundance and fulness where
with it issues from the fountain ? This then it now
behoves the priests of God to do who keep the
Divine commandments, that if the truth has in any
respect tottered and faltered, we should go back to
our Lord, as our head, and to the Evangelic and

158 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
Apostolic tradition ; that so the grounds of our action
might spring thence, whence both our order and
origin took its rise.— (St. Cyprian (a. d. 256),
Epistle Ixxiv, to Pompeius.)
I submit myself and my poor endeavours, first, to
the judgment of the Catholic oecumenical essential
Church; which if some of late dates have endeav
oured to hiss out of the schools as a fancy, I cannot
help it. From the beginning it was not so. And if
I should mistake the right Catholic Church out of
human frailty or ignorance (which for my part I have
no reason in the world to suspect; yet it is not im
possible, when the Romanists themselves are divided
into five or six several opinions, what this Catholic
Church, or what their infallible judge is), I do im
plicitly and in the preparation of my mind submit
myself to the true Catholic Church, the spouse of
Christ, the mother of saints, 'the pillar of Truth.'
And seeing my adherence is firmer to the infallible
rule of Faith, that is, the Holy Scriptures inter
preted by the Catholic Church, than to mine own
private judgment or opinions; although I should un
willingly fall into an error; yet this cordial sub
mission is an implicit retractation thereof, and I am
confident will be so accepted by the Father of
Mercies, both from me and all others who seriously
and sincerely do seek after peace and truth.
Likewise I submit myself to the representative
Church, that is, a free general Council, or so general
as can be procured ; and until then, to the Church of
England, wherein I was baptized, or to a national

APPENDIX E 159

English Synod: to the determination of all which,
and each of them respectively, according to the dis
tinct degrees of their authority, I yield a conformity
and compliance, or at the least, and to the lowest
of them, an acquiescence. — (Abp. Bramhall (a. d.
1656), preface to the Reply to the R. C. Bishop of
Chalcedon, Works, Vol. II, p. 22.)

APPENDIX F
Predestination and Election
There are two ideas commonly associated with pre
destination which St. Paul gives us no warrant for as
serting. The one is the predestination of individuals
to eternal loss or destruction. That God should create
any single individual with the intention of eternally
destroying or punishing him is a horrible idea, and,
without prying into mysteries, we may say boldly,
that there is no warrant for it in the Old or New
Testaments. God is indeed represented as predesti
nating men, like Jacob and Esau, to a higher or
lower place in the order of the world or the church.
There are 'vessels' made by the divine potter to pur
poses of 'honour,' and 'vessels' made to purposes
(comparatively) of 'dishonour:' there are more hon
ourable and less honourable limbs of the body.
(Rom. ix. 21 ; i Cor. xii. 22, etc.) But this does not
prejudice the eternal prospects of those who in this
world hold the less advantageous posts. With God
is no respect of persons.
Again God is represented as predestinating men
to moral hardness of heart where such hardness is a
judgment on previous wilfulness. Thus men may be
predestined to temporary rejection of God, as in St.
Paul's mind the majority of the contemporary Jews
were. That was their judgment, and their punish
ment. (Comp. St. Matt. xiii. 13-15; St. John xii.

APPENDIX F 161

39, 40.) It was however not God's first intention for
them nor His last. . . . (Rom. xi. 29, 32; i Tim.
ii. 4.)
Once again, the idea of a predestination for good,
taking effect necessarily and irrespective of men's
cooperation, is an idea which has been intruded un
justifiably into St. Paul's thought. It exalts his
whole being to consider that he is cooperating with
God, and that the conditions under which he lives
represent a divine purpose with which he is called to
work. . . . but he never suggests that it does not lie
within the mysterious power of his own will to with
draw himself from cooperation with God. It is at
least conceivable to him that he should himself be re
jected (i Cor. ix. 27). . . .
Certainly when St. Paul dwells upon the thought of
divine predestination he dwells upon it in order to
emphasize that through all the vicissitudes of the
world's history, a divine purpose runs; and especially
that God works out His universal purposes through
specially selected agents, 'His elect,' on whom His
choice rests for special ends in accordance with an
eternal design and intention. And the sense of
cooperating with an eternal purpose of God inspires
and strengthens him. For God will not drop His
work by the way. . . . (Rom. viii. 28-30; Phil. i. 6.)
This predestinated body, the Church, is what in
another word St. Paul calls the 'elect' or 'chosen.'
The idea of election has had a very false turn given
to it, partly through mistakes which have been al
ready alluded to, partly because the idea of election
has been separated from another idea with which in

162 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
the Bible it is most clearly associated, the idea of a
universal purpose to which the elect minister. No
thought can be more prominent in the Old Testament
than the thought that some men out of multitudes
have been chosen by God to be in a special relation
of intimacy with Him. 'You only have I known, O
Israel, of all the families of the earth.' But this elec
tion to special knowledge of God, and special
spiritual opportunity, carries with it a corresponding
responsibility. . . . 'You only have I known of all
the families of the earth; therefore will I visit upon
you all your iniquities.' (Amos iii. 2.) The fact is
that the principle of inequality in capacity and oppor
tunity runs through the whole world both in individ
uals and in societies. A great genius or a great na
tion, has special privileges and opportunities, but also
in the sight of God, who judges men according to
their opportunities, special responsibilities. But also
(and this is by far the most important point) the
special vocation of every elect individual or body is
for the sake of others. It is God's method to work
through the few upon the many. That is the law of
ministry which binds all the world of strong and
weak, of rich and poor, of learned and ignorant, into
one. Thus Abraham had been chosen alone, but it
was that, through his seed, all the nations of the
earth should be blessed. Israel was exclusively the
people of God, but it was in order that all nations
should learn from them at last the word of God.
The apostles were the first 'elect' in Christ with a
little Jewish company. 'We' — so St. Paul speaks of
the Jewish Christians — 'we who had before hoped in

APPENDIX F 163

Christ. ' But it was to show the way to all the Gen
tiles ('ye also, who have heard the word of the truth,
the gospel of your salvation'), who were also to con
stitute 'God's own possession' and His 'heritage.'
The purpose to be realized is a universal one : it is
the reunion of man with man, as such, by being all
together reunited to God in one body. — (Chas. Gore,
The Epistle to the Ephesians, pp. 64-71.)

APPENDIX G
Physical Death and Its Connection with Sin
It may be urged by a biologist, 'The fact of physi
cal death is inextricably interwoven into the structural
growth of the world long before men appeared. But
Christianity regards it as a mere consequence of
human sin.' This is not the case. Long before
science had investigated the early history of life on
our globe. Christian teachers both in East and in
West — St. Augustine as well as St. Athanasius —
had taught that death is the law of physical nature,
that it had been in the world before man, and 'man
was by nature mortal,' because, as being animal, he
was subject to death. How then do they interpret
the language of Scripture ? In this way : They hold
that if man had been true to his spiritual nature, the
supernatural life, the life in God, would have blunted
the forces of corruption, and lifted him into a higher
and immortal state.
Certainly, in some sense, death, as we know it, for
man, is regarded, especially in the New Testament,
as the penalty of sin. But then what do we mean
by death ? If sin is said to have introduced human
death, Christ is constantly said to have abolished it.
'This is the bread that cometh down from heaven,
that a man may eat thereof and not die. ' 'Whoso
ever believeth on me shall never die.' 'Christ Jesus
abolished death.' Sin, then, we may suppose, only

APPENDIX G 165

introduced death in some sense such as that in which
Christ abolished it. Christ has not abolished the
physical transition from this world to the invisible
world, but He has robbed it of its terror, its sting,
its misery. Apart from sin we may suppose man
would not have died ; that is, he would never have
had that horrible experience which he has called
death. There would have been only some transition
full of a glorious hope from one state of being to
another. We are in the region of conjecture. All that I am
here interested in asserting is that Christianity never
has held to the position that human sin first intro
duced death into the world. What it has taught is
that human death, as men have known it, with its
horror and its misery, has represented not God's in
tention for man, but the curse of sin.— (Chas. Gore,
The Epistle to the Romans, Vol. II. Note E.)

APPENDIX H
Eternal Life and Its Loss
The leading office of the Gospel, in its bearing
on the world to come, was to make known, not
misery, but salvation. Its direct concern was with
the moral and spiritual part of man; the part in
which he had received a deadly wound; the part
which supplies the true enduring basis of what he
is, the basis of his character. To heal that wound,
to supply that character with a fund of enduring
vitality, it did not furnish him with particular
information as to the conditions of the life to come :
but, leaving his ignorance to be dispelled at the
proper season when it shall arrive, revealed the one
great secret which comprised in itself every other
that concerned him, the mode and means of his re
union with God.
But in the shadow of this glorious teaching lay an
other inevitable question : What shall be the lot of
those who reject it? This question was small and
remote for the hundred and twenty elect souls in the
upper room, set upon pursuance of the truth and the
right. But it gradually grew large and larger still
for the Church, as it spread from land to land, and
obtained the world's confessed, or professed al
legiance. The provision for meeting this question
was ready to hand. It lay, in a certain sense, out
side the Gospel ; and was anterior to it, like other

APPENDIX H 167

laws of our human nature, and of the government of
the world by its Author. But this law, like all other
antecedent and perpetual laws, was acknowledged by
the Gospel; it was the law of 'indignation and wrath,
tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that
doethevil.' (Rom. ii. 8, 9.) But it was acknowl
edged with a sorrow which is shown by the compara
tively fluctuating or shadowy manner in which this
sad reverse of the picture is presented ; the insepara
ble but obscure underside, so to speak, of the great
foundation-stone of our peace and happiness. How
much do we know of the lot of the perversely wicked ?
They disappear into pain and sorrow ; the veil drops
upon them in that condition. Every indication of a
further change is withheld ; so that, if it be designed,
it has not been made known, and is nowhere incor
porated with the Divine teaching. Whatever else
pertains to this sad subject is withheld from our too
curious and unprofitable gaze. If men cannot re
strain their thoughts, their affections, from further
speculation, let them take good heed that, as it is
necessarily weak and shadowy, so it be deeply tinged
with modesty and awe.
Let there not be the presumption of assimilating
hope or surmise with the solid truth of the great
revelation. The specific and limited statements sup
plied to us are, after all, only expressions in particu
lar form of immovable and universal laws, on the one
hand, of the irrevocable union between suffering and
sin; on the other, of the perfection of the Most
High; both of them believed in full, but only in part
disclosed and having elsewhere, it may be, their

168 THE DOCTRINE OF THE CHURCH
plenary manifestation, in that day of the restitution
of all things, for which a groaning and travailing
creation yearns. — (W. E. Gladstone, Studies sub
sidiary to the works of Bishop Butler, pt. II. ch. iv.)

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