THE BAMPTON LECTURES
FOR MDCCCXCII

©jfcro
HORACE HART, PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY

Some Lights of Science
on the Faith
EIGHT LECTURES
PREACHED BEFORE THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
IN THE YEAR 1892

On the Foundation of the late Rev. John Bampton, M.A.
Canon of Salisbury

ALFRED BARRY, D.D., D.C.L.
CANON OF WINDSOR, LATE PRIMATE OF AUSTRALIA

London
LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO.
AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST I6th STREET
[All rights reserved]

EXTRACT
FROM THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT

OP THE LATE

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

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

PREFACE

The Lectures, as here printed, are substantially
those actually delivered, with some additional pas
sages, either omitted in delivery for the sake of brevity,
or subsequently inserted, where clearness seemed to
require it.
I have only two prefatory remarks to make upon
them. First, that they embody an attempt to take some
general view of the present relation of Science in its
largest sense to the Christian Faith ; as illustrated by
examples of its bearing, confirmatory, elucidatory, or
critical, on the substance of the Creed of Christendom,
witnessing of Christ Hihiself. It is only too obvious
that such an attempt, necessarily involving brevity of
treatment, is liable also to the danger of superficiality.
For it must indicate lines of thought, which it is im
possible to follow out with anything like exhaustive
completeness ; it will probably touch on important
controversies without ability to discuss them fully and
thoroughly. Perhaps it may seem to savour of too
great self-confidence, as dealing with a vast question

viii Preface.
as a whole, while men of high ability and learning have
thought it enough to devote themselves to the study of
single parts. But I venture to think that there is in our
own days some danger of over-specialization, losing in
the elaborate examination of each part the general pro
portion and cumulative force of the whole. In regard
to these special studies, while we listen respectfully to
the teaching of experts, there is still some value in
what is in this aspect a lay opinion — standing (so to
speak) further back from the picture, on which various
hands are employed, and thus able to gain some con
ception of the general idea, and the mutual relation and
proportion of the various parts. Pei'haps what is true
of all subjects is especially true of the Christian Faith,
which necessarily has points of contact on all sides with
the various forms of human knowledge, and of the
Christian Evidence, which depends so largely upon a
cumulative strength of combined witness, infinitely
greater than the mere sum of the forces of its various
elements. How far the attempt may have been success
fully made is another question. No one is (I suppose)
so keenly alive to the defects of a work, and its failure
to reach even his own ideal, as the author. But I am
convinced that the general idea itself is sound, and
perhaps not without some special appropriateness to
present conditions of thought.
Next, I can well understand that the view here
taken of the relation of Science to Religion may seem
too Optimistic. But there are two kinds of Optimism

Preface. ix
— the Optimism which ignores difficulties, and the
Optimism, which, seeing difficulties, yet sees, or trusts
to see, through them. It should be impossible for any
thinking man in days like our own to fall into the
first. If I have unwittingly done so, and cried, ' Peace,
where there is no peace,' it is a serious error. Certainly
our Lord Himself seems to foretell the continuing,
perhaps the increasing, existence of stumbling-blocks
in the way of faith, as the world grows older. We
seem to see already what He foreshadows to us — a
growing intensity of conflict of first principles of good
and evil, of truth and error, in proportion as old
barriers of law and convention give way before modern
boldness and exuberance of energy. But the higher
form of Optimism is surely implied in Christianity
itself. The Cross, while it is the symbol of conflict, is
the symbol also of victory. If Christ is Himself the
Truth, then, sooner or later, all real discoveries of truth
must harmonize themselves with His Word ; as all
phases of intellectual and moral vitality must be taken
up into His indwelling Life.
It appears to me — whether rightly I know not — that
this principle is now being recognised more fully on
both sides of the great antithesis. Science, while it
pursues its special developments more exhaustively
than ever, yet seems more and more alive to the need
of correlating them all in some large philosophy of
Being ; more inclined to acknowledge that the moral
insight of the soul, whatever may have been its origin

x Preface.
and course of development, has a co-ordinate function
with pure intellectual research, in discovering the
inner secret of that philosophy ; pei'haps more deeply
sensible that the search brings us into the presence of
mystery, and forces upon us the alternative of Agnos
ticism or Faith. Theology, clearing and simplifying
her fundamental principles, not that she may relax her
grasp of them, but that she may hold them more
firmly, is thus able to be more receptive of other forms
of Truth, to enter into the harmony of what we
ordinarily call the Natural and the Supernatural, and to
understand that the Spirit of Truth, who is, according
to our Lord's promise, to ' abide with us for ever,' has
His witness to the world in all that tells it of truth
and righteousness, as well as His higher witness to the
faith of the Church, guiding it more and more into all
the Truth of God in Christ.
In that conviction these pages are written, as a
humble contribution to this larger idea of the Revela
tion of God. May He, through their imperfection,
grant to some minds a glimpse of His perfect Truth !
A. B.
WlNDSOE,
October 24, 1892.

CONTENTS

LECTURE I.
LAW LEADING TO CHEIST. PAGE
I. Definition of Law, its defect and its value. Application to
the Scientific ' Reign of Law ' .... 1-7
II. Protest against the Idolatry of Law ; recognition of its true
function in leading to the higher Truth ; its relation to
the Province of Faith  7-13
III. A. The Search of Science into a First Cause, as known in
degree through its works ; its result in an ^expectancy,
satisfied only by Theism ; the ultimate alternative between
Agnosticism and Christian faith .... 13-22
III. B. The Scientific method of Induction, through Observation,
Intuition, Verification ; the element of faith involved,
especially in the second stage. Analogy to the Christian
theory of the knowledge of God, as revealed through
inspired men, and perfected in Christ . . . 22-30
III. C. The relation of Science to the substance of the faith, not
in its mysteries themselves, but in their manifestation ; as
(1) Confirmatory : Heredity and Mediation, Evolution and
the ' new Creation ' ; (2) Elucidatory : the Universe and
the universal Headship of Christ, Social Science and
Christian unity ; (3) Critical : Criticism and the Super
natural, Criticism and Holy Scripture . . . 30_39
IV. Conclusion  39-42

xii Contents.
LECTURE II.
HEEEDITT AND MEDIATION. PAGE
I. The Christian doctrine of Mediation, in relation to inherited
evil and independently of that relation. Difficulties of
Individualism, intellectual and moral, in accepting it 43_47
II. The Scientific assertion of Solidarity and Heredity. The
reality of the force of Heredity, modified by environment,
balanced by individuality; not a Determinism, but a
Predisposition ....... 47_5^
III. The reality of ' Original Sin ' and its relation to Original
Righteousness; its power as a Predisposition to evil;
exaggerations of it — as the sole Heredity, as a rigid
Determinism, as an inheritance of guilt — not parts of the
true Christian doctrine ..... 57~*>5
IV. The Mediation of the ' Second Adam,' touching man's whole
nature; a principle of spiritual Heredity, extending
through all time; its analogy, with difference, to the Natural
Law. Its Predisposition to good, not the Determinism of
the Calvinistic theory ; its universal scope of power ; the
Pentecostal regeneration of humanity ; the need of indi
viduality in reception ...... 65-81
V. The argument here of Analogy, not identity, between the
Natural and the Supernatural. The evidence of ex
perience, as the preparation for faith . . . Si-86
LECTURE III.
EVOLUTION — NATUEAL AND SUPEENATUEAL.
I. The Law of Evolution : (o) not implying an immanent Cause
only, and not' anti-Theistic ; accepting and enlarging
Teleology, and so a witness for a God ' above and through
all ' ; (b) not properly identical with Darwinism ; present
scientific opinion on the subject .... 87-102
II. The developments of Evolution in the distinct Provinces of
being ; in the Inorganic world ; in the world of Organic
life ; in the world of Humanity — in all a theory of Order,
not • Cause ; relation of each to a Supreme Will ; an
Analogy, with difference, running through all . 102-122

Contents. xiii

PAGE

III. The Christian Faith in this relation: (a) The Creation,
broadly an Evolution under the Supreme Mind, traced
simply in the lower worlds, clearly in the world of
Humanity, (b) The Manifestation of Christ, in itself a
Divine mystery, yet visibly a ' new Creation,' crowning
and transcending the Natural Order, working by a
spiritual Evolution, in the race and in the individual ;
a new and Diviner power of the Spirit, preparing for a
future Dispensation at the Second Advent . . 122-137

LECTURE IV.
CHEIST AND ALL CEEATION.
I. The Universal Headship of Christ : naturally less prominent,
when the earth seemed the centre of the Universe, and then
recognised mainly in the spiritual sphere. The knowledge
of the vastness of the Universe, bringing some bewilder
ment and inclination to Pantheism, and demanding some
expansion of the idea of Christ, as the Head . . 138-149
II. The Christian Revelation, mainly regarding humanity, gradu
ally extended beyond it : its ancient relation to Gnostic
Cosmology and Dualism ; the corresponding modern rela
tion to extended Natural Science or theory . . 149-155
III. The Headship over all Creation : the teaching of St. Paul in
the Philippians, Ephesians, Colossians ; the teaching of
the Epistle to the Hebrews ; the doctrine of the Word
in St. John, in its two-fold meaning of Transcendence
and Immanence; the truth drawn out, as by S. Atha
nasius ....... . 155-162
IV. The same Truth, in relation to modern Science : the degree
of our knowledge as to the Universal Headship, and the
bearing of the Incarnation on all Creation . . 162-169
V. Its lessons : of consecration of our enlarged knowledge ; of
reverence to the majesty of Christ ; of the finding of God,
and- the finding of man, in Him .... 169-175

xiv Contents.
. LECTURE V.
CHEIST AND HUMAN SOCIETY. PAGE
I. Unity of humanity in Christ : its relation to Social Science,
and the demand of a ' Social Gospel ' . . , 176-180
II. The history of Social conditions : the old Absolutism ; the
reaction of Individualism ; the free unity needed for
the future ........ 180-190
III. The Christian theory of unity, of each soul with God in
Christ, of all souls with one another in Him : its analogy
to the Laws of the Physical system ; its illustration in the
' Great Commandment ' — the love of self, and love of man,
harmonized in subordination to the Supreme Love of
God ......... 190-194
IV. This theory embodied : (a) in the Creation of a Catholic
Church, one in Christ, diffused all over the world ; (b)
in the regeneration of the natural unities of family,
neighbourhood, nation, race ..... 194-205
V. The Christian Socialism : centred in God ; working mainly
not through Law, but through the Spirit ; trusting in
moral forces ; applying not only to the Church, but to
the natural unities. Defects in popular Christian teach
ing; need not only of interest, but of thought . 205-21 7
LECTURE VI.
CEITICISM AND THE SUPEENATUEAL.
I. Characteristics of true Criticism, practical and scientific, and
its spiritual conditions in dealing with Christianity 218-223
II. The true functions of Criticism, first to distinguish the
essence of a thing, then to test it . . . .223,224
III. The actual Christianity in the Catholic Church, its unique
power, and its foundation on Truth, the ideal Christianity,
centred in Holy Scripture ; hoth resting on Christ Him
self, as the Life and the Light ; the witness to this rest
on Christ, from historical and literary Science . 224-231

Contents. xv

PAGE

IV. Christianity Natural : the present position of the argument
from Analogy ; the acceptance of Christianity, as the
crown of the Natural Order - .... 231-235
V. Christianity, Supernatural or Miraculous : changes of phases
of Criticism and its present form ; the development of a
Divine Law in Miracle, as a two-fold sign of Will, Divine
and yet working through man ; as related to other elements
of Revelation ; as concentrated in the Manifestation of
Christ.  235-248
VI. The Critical test, of the actual witness to Christ, of the
character of Christ Himself, of His own self-disclosure, of
the province of faith ; and its presentation of the great
alternative ........ 248-257
LECTURE VII.
CEITICISM AND HOLY SCEIPTUEE.
I, What is Scripture in itself? Its variety as an epitome of
human literature ; its unity, subjective in Inspiration,
ohjective in. its relation to the Manifestation of God in
Christ. Drawbacks and advantages of this function of
Biblical Criticism ...... 258-268
II. How has Scripture grown to be what it is ? The growth of
the Canons, and the growth of the individual books. The
enquiry to be without prejudice; the question of the
miraculous to be faced; external and internal evidence
to be balanced. The experience of past New Testament
Criticism ; the questions now really at issue in Old Testa
ment Criticism; the analogy between the two , 268-282
III. What is the basis of Scriptural Authority % The distinction
between Revelation and Inspiration, indicated in human
experience and in the Old Testament, known fully by the
word of the Lord Jesus Christ; the actual relation be
tween the two. The right and hopeful enquiry is into
the reality of Scriptural Revelation, as directly or in
directly ' the word of eternal life ' from Christ . 282-292
IV. The essentials of such Revelation. Is it sufficient ? The ques
tion answered by examination of the doctrine in itself, and
in its fruits, anticipating the further enquiry, Is it true 1 292-296

xvi Contents.
LECTURE VIII.
TEUTH IN REVELATION. PAGE
I. The essentials of Revelation. Is it true 1 Truth, as accord
ance with the Laws of being, having different meanings in
relation to the different elements of Holy Scripture 297-299
II. The Historical element. The requirement of historic
truth ; the acceptance of the miraculous element. The
stress mainly on the New Testament, secondarily on the
Old as connected with it ; the significance of modern
criticism in its various types, and the issues involved 299-307
III. The Prophetic element. The requirement of moral truth :
(a) In Law : its necessary limitations and imperfections,
leading up to the Law of Christ; yet the need in its
fundamental principles of moral truth, (b) In Prophecy :
its higher character and preparation for Christ ; its
perfection in His word, spoken by Himself and His
Apostles ; the need of perfect moral insight and truth 307-3 1 4
IV. The ' Psalmic ' element. The requirement of subjective
moral truth, in conception of God and man ; imperfections
in all others, perfection in Christ Himself . . 3 14-3 1 6
V. The Theologie Revelation. The requirement of Divine
Truth according with, and transcending, lower revelations
of God. The Scriptural Revelation widening and deepen
ing, up to perfection in the word of Christ ; in all cases at
once personal and universal; the .need here of absolute
truth, so far as it can be known to man . . 316-319
VI. The relation of Criticism to all these phases of truth ; its
inevitable enquiry, the gravity and the hopefulness of
such enquiry ....... 319—322
VII. Conclusion. Plea for comprehensiveness of view, and the
cumulative force of various evidence. The results of the
three-fold witness of Science, to the reality, the expansive-
ness, the simplicity of Christianity, as gathered up in
Christ. The cry for light, and Doininusilluminatiomea 322-329
NoTES  331-348

LECTURE I.
LAW LEADING TO CHRIST.
The Law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we
might be justified, by faith. — Gal. iii. 24.
In these famous words — wide in application, not
only to the particular struggle against Judaism, which
called them out, but to the issues of universal signifi
cance involved in it — St. Paul sets forth to us the right
relation of Law, both objectively to the manifestation
of God in Christ, and subjectively to the education of
that faith in Him, which is the essence of all true
religion. What is the form in which that relation
presents itself to us now 1 What is the underlying
meaning for us of the opposition between rest on Law,
and rest on Christ by faith, which, as in St. Paul's
days, so in all ages, has been found to be a matter of
life and death to the spirituality, and therefore to the
Catholicity, of the Gospel 1
I. Law is clearly the manifestation and expression of
a Supreme Power over the world, regarded as absolutely
and infinitely above man ; having no necessary con
nection of spiritual sympathy with the spirit within
him ; ignoring or coercing that personality of free-will,
which is his surest and most intimate consciousness;
B

2 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
and accordingly ruling over men, almost as over things,
with a despotic and undiscriminating authority. There
were those in St. Paul's day, who were ready to idolize
Law — represented especially in the strong and awful
majesty of the Law of Sinai — as the supreme exponent
of the Divine Righteousness. For they were fascinated,
as men are apt to be fascinated, by its sweeping gener
ality, its clear, stern simplicity, its infinite exaltation
above human littleness and changeableness, through
which it looks out over the turmoil and perplexity of
life with the solemn impassiveness of a great Egyptian
deity. Against that idolatry St. Paul protests with all
possible vehemence, — in the name of God, as against an
imperfect and unworthy exhibition of His Nature, who
is not Law but Love — in the name of man, as against a
childish, and even slavish, retrogression from maturer
knowledge and higher consciousness.
But mere Iconoclasm is never the true remedy for
idolatry; for thoughtful worship seldom attaches to
what has no claim whatever to reverence. So he gives
meaning and discrimination to his protest by marking
out in the text the true function of Law in the educa
tion of the higher life. ' It was ' (he says) ' the school
master ' — the iraiSaywyos — ' to bring us to Christ.'
In this description there is a double-edged significance.
On the one side, of necessary depreciation. For the
TratSaywyos (as we know), whatever might be his personal
qualifications, was still a slave, useful to protect the
free boy, and in some sense to restrain him from grosser
evil by a delegated authority, but, from the nature of the
ca,se, unable so to educate, to teach, to inspire him,- that

I.] Value and insufficiency of Law. 3
he might grow up in his rightful freedom. That Divine
function for all humanity belonged (says the Apostle)
only to One, who was the living manifestation of the
Supreme Righteousness, as a Righteousness in Love,
recognising and cherishing the free human personality,
having itself likeness to man, communion with man,
incarnation in man. And it could be realized by man
only through the faith, which in its full Christian sense
is essentially consciousness of a personal relation, im
plying reliance of the whole personality of mind and
conscience and will on some higher, and, if it is to
be absolute, on some Divine Personality, having spiritual
communion with it \ Law therefore was at best, even
if it were ' holy and just and good,' a rough and im
perfect manifestation of the true Righteousness ; and
such function as it had properly belonged to the cruder
and more childish stages of human growth. It could
regulate the outer life by fear ; it could not so lay hold
of the human spirit by love, as to give it, weak in
itself and sinful, a power to attain to righteousness
by release from the guilt and bondage of evil ; nay,
by ignoring the divine impulse of freedom, and sub
stituting for the worse bondage of sin a bondage lighter
and nobler, yet a bondage still, it might actually stir
the spirit of rebellion, the misguided desire of a false
independence to which the first Temptation appealed 2.
When it was exalted to the highest place, and justi
fication by law substituted for justification in Christ
through faith, it was necessary to speak out in stein
1 See Note A, on the true character of Faith.
¦ '-¦'-'¦•¦ 2 >See Rom. vii. 9-13. B 2

4 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
indignant protest, to reject, even in comparison to despise,
a slavish 7rai8aya>y6s, because set on the seat of the
true Teacher.
Yet, on the other hand, there is in the text a recogni
tion that Law has, and in various degrees always will
have, a real subordinate function in the education of
true humanity. 'Added it was because of transgres
sion,' to unmask and to scourge evil — ' added ' (we may
venture to say) 'because of blindness,' to guide aright
by its clear, stern warning those who had not yet grown
' to be a law to themselves ' — and so telling, not on the
few, who, at one extreme, are above law in spiritual
freedom, not on those who, at the other, fall below law
in hardened spiritual apostasy, but on the many, who
stand between the two extremes, needing spiritual re
straint and chastisement, and capable of profiting by
both. So it could in its right place become a discipline,
and (as the very word implies) enable men to be
learners from a teaching higher than its own. At least
it did reveal an eternal and sovereign Righteousness, of
which, though heaven and earth should pass, no jot or
tittle could cease to have obligation and enforcement.
So it could by contrast create a consciousness of sin,
and a 'hunger and thirst for' participation in that
' righteousness ' ; even if it could not show how to take
uway the one, and to satisfy the other. At least by
its command of obedience, it implied that obedience
Was possible ; nay, it taught that it was to issue from
love of all the mind and heart and soul ; although it
could not show how that possibility was to be realized,
and in itself tended to create a godly fear rather than

I.] The Scientific 'Reign of Law! 5
a godly love. At least it taught that the righteousness
to be loved and obeyed was the attribute of the Jehovah,
the ultimate and absolute Being, who alone is in Him
self, and is the Fount of all created life ; and that by
it the Eternal entered into moral relation with man —
a ' covenant,' which implied man's freedom, and so pre
served man's personality, even in this relation to God.
Thus in every direction Law pointed out, and even
advanced on, the various lines of approach to God ; but
it completed none ; it ' made nothing perfect.' By that
very advance, by that very imperfection, its light
function was to lead to the Christ.
Now mutatis mutandis — and I grant that the mu-
tanda are many — I cannot but think that in this con
ception is shadowed forth the relation, in which the
systematized knowledge, which we call Science, ought
to stand to the higher knowledge of God and Man in
the Lord Jesus Christ.
For Science claims it, a,s its function and its glory,
to enforce and continually to advance, both in clear
ness and in scope, the recognition of the ' reign of
Law.' I press advisedly the literal meaning of both
words. For, although the representatives of Science
are never weary of reminding us that its so-called
' Laws,' so far as the discoveries of pure observation
and experiment go, are nothing more than general
expressions of universally recurring and connected
facts, yet the persistent use of the word 'Laws,' —
drawn by analogy from our own creations in the social
and pofitical sphere, where they certainly have behind
them not only an enforcing power, but an original

6 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
cause, in will guided by purpose — witnesses to the
intellectual necessity of going beyond or below the
mere record of facts, yielded by such observation and
experiment, and implies the conviction that these re
currences are strictly ' Laws ' — that is, expressions of
some universal and supreme Power, which really,
though invisibly, reigns. If the word Law is still to
be used in scientific language, it is but right to fix
it to its own proper sense ; and in this respect it
seems plainly our duty, if we would avoid delusion or
ambiguity, to go further still, and contend that no
man ought to use the word ' Laws,' with all the asso
ciations and inferences that it carries, unless he is
prepared to complete the analogy, and acknowledge
in the Supreme Power a Supreme Will, reigning
with design and purpose, both over things and over
persons 1.
I must hold, therefore, that Science really and pro
perly declares, either by discovery or necessary infer
ence from discovery, a ' reign of Law '; and that its
ultimate conception is of a true First Cause, a supreme
reigning Power. That conception is clearly so far like
the conception to which St. Paul refers, that it views
its expression through Law, as absolute and universal,
having, or at least known to have, no spiritual relation
1 See Note B. From the scientific side, as well as the theological,
this truth appears to be increasingly recognised. I observe that the
more thoughtful advocates of a ' mechanical view of Nature ' never
theless speak of ' the Laws of Nature as the permanent expressions
of the Will '—implying self-consciousness and purpose ' of a Creative
Principle,' ' a spiritual First Cause.' (Weissmann's Studies in Descent,
English translation, pp. 713, 717.)

i.] Relation of Christian Faith to Law. 7
to individual man. Accordingly, in working out its
conclusions, it ignores, if it does not practically deny,
human personality; and it overbears by Determinism,
which is a Fatalism veiled under worship of force of
circumstances or a stream of tendency, the reality of
human freedom of will. But it fails, even more than
the law as understood by St. Paul, to account for our
moral nature, or satisfy our moral needs ; for it does
not even assume, as that assumed, the supremacy in
the Sovereign Power of a moral righteousness.
II. How stands then our position, as Christians, in
face of that proclamation of a Supreme Power, express
ing itself in Law, as the one sufficient solution of the
great problem of Being \ Like St. Paul's position in
the text, it has a two-fold aspect, of protest and of
recognition. Against the scientific idolatry of law, our protest is,
for the reason above referred to, even stronger than
his. For, as it seems to us, its claim to our worship
is still more untenable. It invites us, under the name
of progress, to a worse form of what St. Paul holds to
be retrogression ; for it bids us give up what lies at
the heart of our higher humanity — the belief in a
spiritual communion with man of the Supreme Power
as a Divine Spirit — and to accept the cruder conception
of it as perhaps an impersonal Force, perhaps a Will, but
in any case to us unknown and unknowable, to which
we have simply to yield what by a self-delusion we
hold to be our own freedom, and, in this, our own
personality. Against that invitation, even if — which is to me

8 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
more than doubtful — it satisfies our intellectual de
mand of a true and sufficient Cause, analogous to the
only cause of action and production, which we can be
said really to know, yet certainly our moral nature
revolts, claiming that any conception of the ultimate
Sovereignty over our world must satisfy its needs, at
least as much as the cravings and reasonings of the
intellect. It can hardly be doubted that the progress,
which we call civilization, tends to bring out, to guard,
to educate more and more, our free individual person
ality; and that accordingly it is a retrogression to
accept any theory of the being and rule of the world,
which has to ignore it or explain it away, instead of
simply subordinating it, and that, moreover, not to
an iron law, but to the moving of a Divine Spirit.
Accordingly, it has been felt by some who have spoken
from this place, to be their duty to vindicate, against
the idolatry of Law, the reality of personal freedom and
responsibility, and the province of that faith, which
is essentially a free personal relation of the living soul
to a living God.
But surely there is also for us a duty of recognition.
Is it not to be expected that, in its right place, the
scientific conception of Law will prove to be a vaiSaywyos
to lead us to the Christ 1 Not, indeed, in the same
way as the Law of which St. Paul spoke. For this,
as setting forth a Divine Righteousness, looked and
appealed primarily to man's moral consciousness— its
fundamental defect being that, while it thus acknow
ledged moral needs and responsibilities, it failed to
satisfy them. On the other hand, the Law, as science

I.] The 'dry light ' of Science. q
recognises it, is looked at simply from an intellectual
point of view, implying a Supreme First Cause, infinite
indeed in power, probably infinite as a Divine Mind,
but ignoring the demand of our own moral nature for
a Moral Being, at once a source and object of righteous
ness and love.
I do not mean that Science, properly so called, takes
no cognisance of the existence of a moral element in
the world and its government. For it is, of course,
an usurpation, which Oxford, in virtue of its noblest
and wisest traditions, is especially bound to repudiate,
to claim for merely physical investigation any exclusive
right to the great name of Science. The mind can
study, and must study, not only the outer world of
things, but the nearer world of personality, through
which indeed it knows what underlies mere phenomena
in that world of things. It studies that higher world,
partly as known to us by our own inner consciousness,
partly through the knowledge, aided by the light of
that consciousness, of our fellow-men ; and, when it
enters on that study, it is clear to all, who look
at facts in themselves, independently of any theories
about them, that the phenomena of will, conscience,
freedom, however they may have been developed, and
however correlated to universal law, are, to say the
least, as certain and as necessary to be accounted for,
as the visible phenomena of which our senses inform
us. But what I mean is that Science, as Science, tends
to look even at these moral phenomena, and the Power
from which they proceed, impassively through the un
derstanding, and not sympathetically through a moral

10 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
sense in ourselves. It regards them (so to speak) from
without, to observe, to tabulate, to generalize, to
theorize, under the ' dry light ' of purely intellectual
conception, without any sense of moral sympathy, alle
giance, worship — without, indeed, any realization of our
own personality in the matter — either ignoring these
elements of consciousness altogether, or possibly rele
gating them to a sphere of their own, from which the
scientific investigation of law is to be kept altogether
distinct. How far this is really philosophical — how far
it is reasonable to ignore that insight into nature and
life which belongs to our moral consciousness, adding as
it does the intuition of right to the intellectual in
tuition of causality — I do not here enquire. But that,
in fact, this is the tendency of modern thought, in
creasing with the increasing specialization of scientific
study, is (I think) beyond all reasonable doubt1.
If then Law, as Science recognises it, is to be in any
sense a ¦Kai^ayu>yo<s et? Xjoto-ToV, it will not be, as in
the Law of which St. Paul speaks, through its moral
acknowledgments, but through its intellectual dis
coveries or conceptions. It will lead up to Christian
doctrine, rather than to Christian life ; it will bear
on the truth, rather than on the grace, of the Gospel ;
if it guides us to Christ, it will be to Him as 'the
Word,' revealer at once of Godhead and Humanity, and
of both as One in Himself, rather than to Him as the
1 Dr. Martineau truly says, ' Science lays aside as obtrusive the
moral consciousness, with its postulates and beliefs, and enters the
field under pure guidance of the perceptive and comparing powers.'
(See 'Nature and God' in Essays, Reviews, and Addresses.)

i.] The Province of Faith. 1 1
Redeemer from sin and death ; if it leads on to the
adhesion of faith in Him, it is that we may be (if I
may so express it) 'justified,' not from the guilt and
bondage and moral death of sin, but from the blank-
ness of ignorance and the delusions of error.
Now the view which, in these Lectures, I desire to
suggest, is that, while scientific idolatry of Law must
supersede faith and virtually ignore the Christ, yet that
the recognition of Law in its true sphere does really thus
lead up to faith in the Gospel of Christ, as the true and
all-sufficient satisfaction of the maturest thought. I
venture to urge the truth of St. Paul's bold contention,
that such faith really belongs to maturity of idea and
character, and that the absolute rest on Law — so confi
dently set forth to us as an advance towards the firm,
sad grasp of ultimate truth, at the sacrifice of bright
childish delusions and hopes, — is really a going back
instead of forward ; because it ignores that conscious
ness of a spiritual self, which is the sign of growth out
of childhood to manhood, and that recognition in faith
of an ultimate spiritual sovereignty, ruling not by com
pulsion but through freedom, which alone can harmonize
with that inner consciousness.
Rightly have those, who in these days bear witness
for Christ, seen the need of vindicating the Province
of Faith, as a great universal power in human life and
progress, having its supreme and perfect culmination
in the faith which the Gospel claims for Him 1. And
to those who discern this clearly it will, I think, be
evident, that there are few greater fallacies than the
1 See Dr. Wace's Bampton Lectures for 1879.

12 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
frequent assumption that the faith of a mature and
scientific age, if it survives at all, must be content to
be a smaller and weaker power, than it was in those
simpler, earlier times of the world, to which the title of
' the Ages of Faith ' is popularly given. It seems to
me, on the contrary, to be like the faith of a thoughtful
manhood in the individual, as contrasted with the faith
of childhood. Narrower (so to speak) in scope ' of length
and breadth ' : for it is, no doubt, true that many
things, which in the earlier days we accepted on faith
in God or man, we have come to know, if not perfectly,
at least sufficiently, for ourselves. But yet, on the
other hand, compensating for this diminution by a
growth "in depth and height' — more deeply based
because, by its very difficulties and trials, it is forced to
go down through secondary strata to its ultimate rest
in mystery — rising to greater loftiness of idea, en
thusiasm, aspiration, because through these same per
plexities brought more closely face to face with the
Divine. It is in no unreal 'pious imagination' that
the Collect for S. Thomas' Day tells us of doubt— the
doubt (be it always remembered) which does not rest
in a complacent or despondent uncertainty, but which
resolves to investigate, and to test what reveals itself as
truth— as overruled to ' the more confirmation' of such
faith as this. It is notable that when, in that great
instance here referred to, sight was granted, the ac
ceptance of mystery was faith still, and its utterance, far
the highest and deepest of even Apostolic confessions,
went in that faith infinitely beyond what could be seen.
Now this experience is typical, an exemplification of

i.] The search into Ultimate Being. 13
the general position on which Christianity must take
its stand. When it calls its summary of doctrine a
Creed, it plainly avows that the ultimate truths on
which it rests are, in the New Testament sense of the
word, ' mysteries ' — secrets (that is) of Being revealed
to us in Christ, and accepted by our faith in His Word.
It has been indeed shown again and again by Christian
philosophy, how they are prepared for by the deepest
human instincts, as wrought out by process of reason,
both the speculative and moral reason — how they are
verified in the soul and in the world by their spiritual
power to solve our intellectual and moral problems.
But all this is but subsidiary to faith in Him, as ' having
the words of eternal life.' We have, of course, to know
in whom we believe ; but, when we do know Him, we
can then sit at His feet, and by faith ' know ' through
the Divine Mind of Christ 'that which passes know
ledge.' III. But it is well to consider, somewhat more in
detail, in what ways the scientific conception of Law
is a schoolmaster to educate us to the Christian faith,
which is at once a faith in a living God, and a faith in
Him as revealed in the true Son of Man.
It seems to me to have an important bearing, first
on the necessity of such faith, next upon its method,
and thirdly upon the substance of that which it accepts.
It is with the last of these points that these Lectures
are properly concerned. But a brief reference, to the
other two will form the right introduction to its con
sideration. (A) First, it will,. I think, be seen that Science leads

14 Law leading to Christ. [lect1.
up to the necessity of some faith in God, by its own
continual approach to discovery or inference of unity
in the Source of all Being. It is true that, along each
line of scientific thought, we are brought ultimately to
a mysterious reality, which we recognise, though we
cannot comprehend. In the study of the Inorganic
world, the process of gradual simplification of all the
infinite variety of things which fill it leads through
molecules and atoms to the mystery of Matter and
Force (if, indeed, they are distinct from each other), as
a limit beyond which it cannot go. In the study of the
Organic world the same process, pursued not so much
theoretically as historically, leads to the recognition,
not only, as before, of the matter which clothes it, but
of the mystery of the origination in the simplest form
of Life, having in it the potentiality of infinite differen
tiation and development. In the study of Humanity —
closely connected with both these worlds, but yet having
in it another and superior factor, which, however we
may theorize as to its derivation from either, is in
actual and historical experience absolutely distinct —
we come finally to the mystery of a created Personality,
implying, under whatever limits, will, thought, con
science, in the individual and in the race as a whole.
But, while these ultimate realities present themselves
to us as distinct, and all our experimental research fails
to bridge over the gulf of distinction between them,
yet (to use a well-known phrase) the ' scientific imagin
ation' is driven by an instinctive and irresistible in
ference to believe that there is ultimate unity of all
in some Eternal Being ; and this not merely an Absolute

I .] The search for the First Cause. 1 5
Being, unconnected with the created forms of existence
which we know, and, in fact, little more to us than
a necessary postulate of philosophic thought, but really
(to use the old phrase) a ' First Cause,' from which,
though we know not how, all these distinct orders of
being proceed. One great scientific leader of thought 1
has gone so far as to speak of ' the confession of the
universality of Order, and of the absolute validity in
all times and under all circumstances of the law of
Causation, as the one act of faith in the convert to
science.' Faith, indeed, in our full sense of the word,
it is not: for this implies a personal recognition of
a Divine Personality, which cannot be accorded to an
idea or a law. But, so far as it goes, there is an
instructive significance to a Christian in the definition
which follows — ' It is an act of faith, because, by the
nature of the case, the truth of such propositions is
incapable of proof. But such faith is not blind but
reasonable, because it is universally confirmed by ex
periment, and constitutes the sole trustworthy founda
tion of action.'
Nor, I think, will the scientific instinct be content
simply with the recognition of this ' First Cause ' as a
something ' unknown and unknowable.' For this de
scription of it, while, in respect of full comprehension,
it is an obvious and barren truism, yet, in respect of
partial knowledge, is contradictory to all our ex
perience of causation in the lower sphere ; where
certainly the character of a cause is in degree known
by study of the character of its effects. We must go
1 Huxley, in Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, vol. ii. p. 200.

1 6 Law leading lo Christ. [lect.
on to believe that, as it includes all these forms of
being in its Creative power, while in its essence it tran
scends them all, such partial knowledge of its nature
may be inferred from them, and best inferred not from
that which is lowest and crudest, but from that which
is highest and most comprehensive — therefore, not from
mere force or life, but from the will, guided by wisdom
and righteousness, which in ourselves we know to
dominate both, and of which we cannot even form any
conception, except as inherent in a true personality 1.
Now it seems to me clear, that in all this process,
both of discovery and of inference beyond discovery,
Science ought to be a -n-aiSaywyo? to lead up to the
realization of a God, a living God, by faith.
It has indeed been argued very forcibly, that in the
earlier stages of human thought the belief in One God
— either emerging in some distinctness, or vaguely
underlying the worship of 'gods many and lords many' —
has been in time anterior to this scientific inference of
unity, and actually the parent of it. It may well be so :
for this would only be the extension to the race of the
mental process so familiarly known in the individual
mind, in which the intuition of the moral sense antici
pates and stimulates the discursive reasoning of the
intellect. But no support can be derived from this for
the aitificial theory, which, as in the Comtist Law of the
1 Dr. Abbott, in his Through Nature to Christ, truly says that, in
the search after God, the forms of thought which we most use are
necessarily either anthropomorphic, or zoomorphic, or azoomorphic,
and that of these the first is surely the most rational, and the least
likely to he unworthy or delusive.

i.] The Great Alternative. 17
'Three States of Knowledge' — Theological, Metaphysical,
Positive — infers the reversal of the relation for which
I contend, and would make the belief in God merely
the preparation for a science, which shall supersede it.
For clearly there can be no a priori ground for holding
that these states are exclusive of one another, when it
is clear that only the first is a theory of ultimate Cause,
while the others seek merely to discern laws, through
which obviously that Cause may work 1. Nor can actual
experience justify the notion that they are thus suc
cessive and mutually exclusive, for it is certain in
fact that in various degrees they have always co-existed
and interpenetrated one another. It may well be
doubted whether the accumulation of positive know
ledge ever really dispenses with the guidance of meta
physical idea ; it is even more doubtful whether meta
physical investigation can fail, sooner or later, to enter
upon that search after the ultimate Being, which leads
to what is virtually theologie ground 2,
1 According to Comte (says Mr. John Morley) ' in the Theological
and Metaphysical states men seek a Cause or an Essence ; in the
Positive they are content with a Law.' But this is to use the word
1 Law,' in what I contend to be an improper and delusive sense, of a
mere systematized record of facts. Law in its true sense involves the
Metaphysical, and implies the Theological idea. (Article Comte in the
JEncycl. Britannica.)
2 Dr. Martineau, in his Study of Religion, quotes the remark of an
eminent English Positivist : ' You cannot make the slightest conces
sion to Metaphysics without ending in a Theology ' ; which (as he truly
says) amounts simply to the confession, ' If once you allow yourself to
think of the origin and end of things, you will have to believe in
a God.' (Preface, pp. 1, 2.) As he puts it elsewhere, ' Science dis
closes the Method of the world and not its Cause ; Religion its Cause
and not its Method.' (Essay on ' Science, Nescience, and Faith.')
C

1 8 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
Hence it must appear that for us, looking to the
position of expectancy as to the First Cause, to which
Science brings us, the real alternative is between an
Agnosticism on this supreme question, disappointing that
expectancy of the intellect, and failing to satisfy the
moral sense of unity between our own personality and
the Supreme Being, and the faith, accepting the revela
tion of a living Personal God, which at least answers the
one and satisfies the other. And naturally that revela
tion presents itself to us in vitality and substantial
power through a true Christian faith ; for this not only
accepts such revelation in a vague generality, but,
taking up the scientific inference of which I have
spoken as to the method of knowledge of the Supreme
Being, teaches that this revelation, though shadowed out
in some measure to human thought through the worlds
of matter and life, yet is made clear to us through the
world of human-kind, and perfected in a Humanity, at
once ideal and real, of a Son of Man, who is also the
Word of God.
For the other theories of a First Cause, claiming to
meet this expectancy of Science, fail to satisfy any soul
which strongly realizes its own personality, not only in
abstract thought, but by experience of the needs and
capacities of actual life, and which is thus forced to
recognise in will— acting, of course, under conditions,
but yet acting in consciousness of freedom and with
purpose— the one originative cause of action, which we
can be said really to know. Pure Materialism breaks
down necessarily under this consciousness of a spiritual
faculty of will and reason in man, which must imply in

I.] The Jntuition of the Moral Sense. 1 9
the Creative Force itself a corresponding spiritual nature,
only infinite and eternal. There is, after all, an un
answerable argument implied in the old question, ' He
that made the ear, shall He not hear 1 and He that
made the eye, shall He not see?' The Pantheistic
conception, again, of an indwelling Life in the universe,
which clothes all matter with potentialities of mind,
and of which individual being is but a fragment, breaks
down before the further consciousness, that this spiritual
life within us is a true, though mysterious, personality —
having, we know not how, a real moral freedom and
responsibility — claiming for itself a distinctiveness from
a mere course of Nature, especially implied in the power
to judge between good and evil in it — yet neces
sarily resting itself on some Supreme Personality, from
which its own life is derived, and on which that life
continually rests.
I have spoken here of the search of Science into the
problem of Being, as it is conducted — according to that
prevalent tendency to which I have alluded — under the
sole guidance of the intuition of Causality, as the great
' Form of thought ' for the pure intellect, without any
consideration of the intuition of righteousness and a
' Power making for righteousness,' which is the guiding
axiom of the moral sense. But I must in so doing
again protest against that limitation of method as un-
philosophical and unsound, a blinding of one of the two
eyes of the soul in its search after the ultimate Being.
The nature of man is one ; not through one spiritual
faculty, but through all, it must approach to the know
ledge of the Creative Power. Now clearly the intuition
c 2

20 Law leading to Christ, [lect,
of a supreme Righteousness, which must be a righteous
ness in love, is an intuition of a Supreme Personality:
for the notion of an Impersonal Something, a 'stream of
tendency making for righteousness,' is utterly unmean
ing to any one who looks into his own soul, and knows
that in himself righteousness is essentially an attribute
of his personality. I do not see how that intuition can
be rightly ignored, in considering what the nature of the
First Cause is. It does not for a moment cross the
inferences of the pure intellect ; but it undoubtedly both
confirms and supplements them. It claims a right to
speak with power for a true Theism against both
these answers of Materialism and Pantheism, which in
different ways contradict its own witness, at once ignor-
ing the human personality and denying the Divine ;
and, in order to do this, have also to deny the eternal
distinction of good and evil in themselves — the convic
tion in the soul from the Creative and Sustaining Power
not only *of sin and righteousness,' but 'of judgment '
— which is an integral and essential part of our higher
humanity. The Study of Religion has for its true
method (as Dr. Martineau has shown) the realization of
the Supreme Power as Cause, the realization of that
Power as Moral Perfection, and the union of these two
realizations in One Being, the object alike of intel
lectual and moral search.
But, however this may be, still in any case those
of us who strongly hold that a blank Agnosticism as
to the ultimate problem of Being — vainly endeavouring
to fill up the infinite void thus created with mere know
ledge, however increased in scope, however ingeniously

i.] Drawbacks to the Witness of Science. 2 1
generalized and systematized, of things and men — is an
attitude of the soul, in which the great mass of men
will certainly never rest, and of which it may be
doubted whether they ever really take it up — mainly
because, however tolerable it may be to mere specula
tion, it can never satisfy their moral needs, or bear the
wear and tear of the practical struggles of life — those
of us, I say, who hold this conviction, and seem to
themselves to see that it is verified by historical and
actual experience of mankind, will conclude that in this
respect Science must ultimately be a vaiSaywyos to
bring men to Christ.
Not, we grant, without dangers of delusion, similar to
those which St. Paul traced in the Judaizing concep
tion of Law. It may arrest the right progress of the
soul by that absorption in lower objects, which is
idolatry. If it be science, untinctured by some larger
philosophy, which teaches the correlation and right
subordination of various forms of science, it may thus
absorb the mind in the pursuit of some one partial
study — of matter, of life, of humanity — when it should
pass on to the unity beyond them all, which yet embraces
them all. Even if it avoid this perversion — and I think
that the whole tendency of thought in our own day
is to break these narrow limits, and to seek wider
and more ultimate conceptions — yet still it may' so
engross the whole energy of our nature in purely intel
lectual operation, as (according to the confession, so
nobly candid yet so mournfully significant, of one of
the great princes of science) to produce a moral atrophy,
a ' colour-blindness ' of incapacity for enthusiasm, ad-

22 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
miration, worship, which denies to the imagination and
to the heart their rightful insight into ultimate Being.
But against both these delusions we believe that there
is a safeguard in the sense of a larger humanity, with
more than intellectual capacities, which is forced on
the student, by the very fact that he is also a man,
in the actual experience of his own individual and
social life.
In its growing consciousness of difficulty and limita
tion in knowledge, Science maj% indeed, dim the ' first
thoughts ' of universal human instinct of God by the
'second thoughts' of criticism and doubt. But since
the mind cannot rest on these, we believe that it must
pass on to the ' third thoughts,' in which the first emerge
again, corrected, cleared, rationalized, and lay hold by
faith of that real knowledge of God, in Christ, which
'is the life eternal.' Just as of old, seeing at once
what it can and what it cannot give, we look seriously
and yet hopefully on its growth, and doubt not that it
must even so lead to Christ.
(B) But, again, looking upon Christian faith as not
only a faith in God, but as faith in a perfect Son of
Man, ' having the words of the eternal life,' and able in
Himself to reveal God, I cannot but think that under
another aspect, Science, by the analogy of its own pro
cesses, leads us up— less obviously, less unmistakeably
but not less really— to this final consummation. It
is often hastily assumed that the method of science
and the method of Christian faith are irreconcileable,
mutually exclusive of each other. But when we come
to look closely into these methods, we shall rather be

ij The Method of Induction. 23
struck, I venture to think, by their mutual analogy — an
analogy with difference, but a true analogy still.
I take it for granted that demonstrative knowledge
we cannot have, except of the processes of our own
mind and of its creations ; that of all that is not
ourselves — the world of things and persons and the
Creative Cause of both, and even of our own nature, so
far as by the power of reflection we study it, as if it
were a distinct being — we can but have that science
which we call Inductive, attaining in its results at most
to what we call ' moral certainty.' Now looking at that
science as a whole, both as it develops itself in the
individual man, and, much more, as it is the treasure
of the race, growing by inheritance from generation to
generation, we know familiarly the processes by which
it actually advances.
There is, first, the process of Observation, including
in this the historical study of things or men in the
past, carried on under the great axiomatic principles, of
which we have spoken, as necessary ' forms of thought '
— the idea of Causation in the intellectual, the intuition
of Righteousness in the moral sphere — and so gradually
classified and systematized, as to bring together, with
continual balance and correction, the infinite number of
single observations. Such in astronomy was the work
of the earlier ages, perfected in the great generalizations
of Kepler.
Then, perhaps at once, perhaps after many genera
tions, comes the intuition of some universal Law,
piercing to the inner meaning of all these results of
observation, which discovers to us some one great force,

£4 Law leading to Christ. .[lect.
material or spiritual, presenting itself as the Cause
of them all ; and which then accepts that discovery as
true, and goes on to deduce from it necessarily other
results, far beyond those originally observed, covering
indeed in their generality the whole field with which the
branch of science in question has to do. Such was the
action of the genius of Newton, forming the greatest
of all epochs in Astronomical science.
Then, lastly, perhaps through many hands and
many generations, succeeds the process of Verification,
testing the results, so deduced, by comparison with
actual facts, and by their coincidence confirming, perhaps
in detail correcting and modifying, the general law,
and its disclosure of the Causative power. Such is the
work, which for two centuries has gone on continually,
and in which the wonderful discovery of the last planet
of our system holds perhaps the highest place. Thus
at last stands out complete the truth of Science,
speculative or moral, to be the possession of the whole
race. Now in this, the actual process of advance of Science,
there is undoubtedly throughout an element of faith.
For it is clear that in all ages, even in our own age of
increased diffusion of knowledge and education, all the
forward steps are taken by the few ; and the mass of
men have to accept them in faith, at most testing them
by the practical experience which follows from that
acceptance. It is said, I know, that such faith is only
provisional, retaining still the power, perhaps the duty,
of understanding and verifying what is thus provision
ally accepted. But there is little substance in this

i.] The Function of Faith in Induction. 25
plea : for in actual fact, we know not only that men
generally never dream of trying to repeat the observa
tions or understand the law, but that in the vast
majority of cases they are incapable, intellectually or
morally, of even making the trial.
But it is in respect of the central portion of the
process, the intuition of the Law and through it of the
univeisal Cause, that the application of the Law of faith
is most evident. For here it is on the very few — to be
counted on the fingers in each generation — that the
progress of humanity rests. Men of genius we call
them, as distinct from the men of mere talent. They
have before them only the same materials of knowledge,
which at least in large degree, are inherited and open
to all. But to them, meditating long and deeply upon
these, the great general truth reveals itself (men
say) and often reveals itself suddenly by a flash of
intuition, and their reason, the speculative or moral
reason, is somehow quickened to see and grasp what
is dark to other men, and to declare it to the
world. Such men the world calls in a vague sense
' inspired men' ; conscious only that they are moved by
some spiritual insight or enthusiasm, unknown to lesser
minds. In that language there is a truth, which for
one who believes profoundly in a living God, having
a personal communion with man, passes beyond this
vague consciousness into something far more definite
and intelligible. In respect of all truth, he sees that
here in another sphere the double experience of the
prophet is reproduced. ' The word of the Lord came
to me ' ; for all truth is the revelation of Him : ' the

26 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
Spirit of the Lord was upon me ' : for all quickening of
the spirits of men to receive truth is by a Divine In
spiration. There are those who (like Newton) have
felt this to the very depth of their souls, and for their
high function of advance of the world's knowledge have
thanked God. But, however that be, it is clear that on
their exceptional impulse, not on the general action of
human reason, the world depends. It sits more or less
at their feet in faith. When the intuition is intellec
tual, it is mostly of the things without, and, if of God
at all, it is of Him as the Supreme Ruler, above all,
though pervading all ; and to it there is a response of
intelligence, fairly adequate from the comparatively few,
very imperfect from the many, who (to use a common
and significant phrase) take all these things ' on trust.'
If the intuition be moral, or even imaginative, it looks
more to the humanity within, individual and collective,
and, where it witnesses of God, it is of God as spiritually
present in that humanity; and accordingly the moral
or emotional response is more widely diffused, but on
the other hand, far more fully a response of faith and
trustful loyalty. Of course, in either case, this faith
in these masters of men's minds and hearts is both
limited and provisional — imperfect (that is) both in
scope and time. For they themselves are imperfect in
wisdom and righteousness, and still more imperfect in
prophetic foresight ; and absolute trust in imperfection
is idolatry. Hero-worship has at all times its right
function ; as a protest against the worship of the
multitude, it may well have its special value in our
days. But to make it absolute is necessarily impossible.

I.] The Christian Theory of Knowledge. 27
( See that thou do it not ; I am thy fellow-servant,' is
the cry of the true hero, as well as the trite saint. Yet
with all its limitations this faith in' man is living and
powerful ; perhaps on the whole it errs in excess rather
than defect ; it has been forcibly argued that it has
shown itself historically to be the greatest of all powers
that move the world.
Now, in this undoubted and powerful element of
scientific advance, is there not an analogy which makes
it a iraiSaywyos to bring us to Christ ?
For what is the Christian theory as to the growth
of the knowledge of God, and of the world and man in
Him ? Is it not that which is expressed in the fullest
sense of the famous words — that ' God of old times
spoke to the fathers in divers portions ' of the whole
truth ' and in divers manners,' but ' at the end of these
days hath spoken to us ' once for all ' in His Son ' — as
'the effulgence of His glory and the very image of
His substance ' % It declares, that, while there is for
all humanity, feeling after God and in measure finding
Him, an universal witness, — partly from the things
without, partly by the consciousness within, through
which these outer things are interpreted, — yet that it
has pleased God to reveal Himself, in sundry forms and
sundry measures, to those who were to be His prophets
to all mankind. We hold, indeed, that this process of
revelation has wrought itself out, especially and super-
naturally, within the circle of a special covenant of
knowledge and grace, given for the future blessing of
all families of the earth. But yet not exclusively; the
wisest Christian teachers have always acknowledged a

28 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
lower natural exemplification of that appointed order
in the great teachers of the world. Not without signi
ficance does Clement of Alexandria see a Greek Moses
in Plato, and Dante make Virgil lead the soul into the
lower spheres of the Divine working. Not without good
ground have we in our own days been taught to
recognise — what, indeed, Holy Scripture itself implies
— that in the dimmer light, outside the brighter pale
of the special covenant, men have not only been found
of God themselves, but have declared Him to their
fellow men. And to us all this culminates in the full
revelation in the Lord Jesus Christ, as the Light of
the world, the Light which lighteth every man and
lighteth for all time. In that theory of Christian faith,
the final and supreme element, indeed, is confessedly
and absolutely supernatural. It is in respect of the
perfection claimed for the revelation in Christ, and
therefore the unlimited trust claimed as His due, that
a real Christian faith stands out in essential distinc
tion from the qualified belief and reverence, which all
thoughtful and serious men accord to Jesus of Nazareth,
as the greatest of merely human teachers in the moral
and spiritual sphere ; and that Christianity stands out
unique among the religions of the world, and advances
its claim to be an absolute and universal religion, ac
cepting what is good and true in the other faiths
of humanity, as broken lights from that Face of God,
which is revealed in perfect radiance in Christ, but
utterly refusing to be content with a place of equality
with them, or superiority only in degree. As the
actual manifestation of Christ Himself in word and

I.J Preparation and Verification of Faith. 29
power cannot be accounted for as a part of the purely
natural order — as the Christ of the Gospel is infinitely
greater than the Christ of expectation, and even the
Christ of prophecy — so the faith claimed for Him is
unique and supernatural. Advancing that supreme
claim of authority for its Master, Christianity neces
sarily sets forth as the only justification of that claim,
the mystery of the Incarnation of Godhead in Him :
for how can there be absoluteness of trust, unless in
Him the faith in man is identified with faith in God,
who alone can claim fulness of worship from his
creatures % Yet still this supernatural element, while
it thus plainly transcends, does not contradict the
natural ; it is seen to be the crown and completion of
that natural law of faith, as a guiding element in the
growth of human knowledge, which else remains head
less and imperfect : and, therefore, so far, the perception
of that Law leads us up to Christ.
The analogy, moreover, thus suggested, applies also in
this respect — that this Divine intuition and declaration
of the whole Truth of God, has its subordinate stages, of
preparation by observation on the one hand, and of de
velopment by verification on the other. Of preparation, in
all which human thought and experience has discerned
or surmised of the working of the Providence and the
Spirit of God, and in all earlier revelations given to
meet these searchings of humanity; for these supply
(so to speak) the standing-point from which the new
revelation starts. Of development, by the continual
verification through the ages in the Church of Christ,
under the promised gift of the Spirit, of all the de-

30 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
elarations and all the promises which the Gospel
contains. But these (to use our Lord's own distinction)
xan touch only ' the earthly things,' the visible manifesta
tions (that is) of the heavenly realities : the knowledge
of those ' heavenly things ' themselves is unhesitatingly
claimed for Him, and for Him alone. The true Teacher
reveals what the mere iraiSaywyos can perhaps indicate
as possible, and as earnestly to be longed for, but cannot
know in fulness and in reality.
(C) But there is a third exercise of this function of
Law, in respect of the substance of what we call ' the
Faith,' that is the fundamental doctrines of the revela
tion to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. What can the
scientific discovery of Law, whether of nature or of
humanity, do here 1
Clearly we cannot, by the nature of the case, expect
that Science will anticipate or prove the 'heavenly
things ' themselves— the ultimate mysteries of the
Gospel, which profess to declare the counsels and the
nature of God Himself; for, if they are true at all, they
lie above the plane to which earthly science can reach.
The ' Natural Theology ' of man, through mind, con
science, imagination, heart — and all these not in separa
tion, but in combination — does, we profoundly believe,
rise up towards God. But it is to us a fundamental
acknowledgment, that its approach needs to be met,
and is met, by the revelation of God in Christ. Other
wise the very reason for such revelation is gone. To
apply in a different sense St. Paul's, words, ' If they
who are of the Law' — content with the reign of Law,
as Science discloses or surmises it — ' are heirs ' of the

I.] Relation to the Substance of the Faith 31
perfect Truth, ' then faith is made void ' and needless,
and ' Christ Himself is revealed ' in vain.'
Clearly for the same reason it cannot disprove or
ignore them. It cannot disprove them : for so to do
would be to arrogate to Science a perfect and demon
strative knowledge of all the mysteries of Being, and to
claim that the truth, which it discovers, is not only the
real truth, but the whole truth. It has no right to
ignore them, as unreal, as fantastic, as lying beyond
the possibility of real knowledge. As well might the
student of the inorganic world deny the reality of life,
because he cannot bring it under the laws or refer it to
the causes, which he finds to be working them. As
well might the student of organic life deny the reality
of mind and conscience, because he can discern neither
by his knowledge of the organisation through which it
works. No ! it is with ' the earthly things,' through which
the heavenly things are manifested, that Science has to
do. The revelation of Christ presupposes great laws of
God in the world and in humanity; it comes to us
through the witness of men — under the inspiration of
God, but men still — and is practically embodied in in
stitutions, which can be seen as telling on human society;
it appealed to men at its first coming by signs physical
and spiritual, which they could test and understand ;
it has for times past and present its signs in its historical
power over this world, and by these its fruits it offers
to be judged ; it claims to be able to give to those who
will receive it a new spiritual life, which can actually
subdue the flesh and overcome the world. In these

32 Law leading to Christ. [lect,
respects it enters on the region of human thought and
human experience, with which Science, as the systema^
tization of both, can deal, and from its own lower point
of view, is bound to deal. In respect of these it is
impossible to keep apart from each other the revela
tion accepted in faith, and the witness of Science as
understood by reason ; for the truth of God, however
known to us, is one, and the humanity which it con
cerns is one also. It is vain to attempt a separation
here between our intellectual and our moral and spiritual
nature, to assign knowledge to the one, and religion to
the other, as though the intellect had no function in
religious belief, and moral intuition no place in the
pursuit of knowledge. ' If a man ' (it has been truly
said) 1 ' be at once savant and theologian, how is he to
manage this partition of his creed — one side of him
denying all knowledge but of necessity and of nature,
and the other believing in freedom and in God % No
earnest mind can endure a life of double consciousness.'
Meeting-points there must be. We know, indeed, even
in science itself, that it is often difficult to discern
these clearly, when they are reached by two different
methods — now starting from fundamental principles,
accepted as true, and deducing from them what ought
to be — now starting from observation of actual facts, and
ascending from these to what actually is, It is but
according to our actual experience, that for a time this
may seem to involve us in contradiction and perplexity,
making men, according to their mental character,
cloubt the truth of the first principles accepted on the
1 Martineau's Nature and God,

I.] Function of Confirmation. 33
one hand, or the accuracy of the inductions made on
the other. But yet these meeting-points must really
be, and in the end they must, more or less distinctly,
be seen to be, meeting-points not of discord, but of
harmony. It is here that we may expect — and we shall find
(as I believe) grounds for justifying this expectation —
that Science will be, through its discovery of law, a
¦n-aiSaycoyos to lead us to Christ. To use the words of
a distinguished predecessor in this lectureship, it has
'its office in making perpetually clearer the true and
full meaning of revelation itself.' ' It is intended, that
as men advance in knowledge of God's works, they should
find themselves better able to interpret the message,
which they have received from their Father in heaven1.'
That office may not always be rightly discharged.
Just as in St. Paul's time there were those who idolized
the Law, and neglected or despised the Gospel of the
Spirit, and there were also those, who, in their zeal for
the freedom of the Spirit, depreciated or denounced the
Law, instead of 'using it lawfully'; so there is now a
tendency, on the one side, to insist that the truth of
Science is all in all, and that beyond it there can be
nothing but the ' unknown and unknowable,' and on the
other, in those to whom faith in Christ is the very life
of life, to undervalue scientific discovery, perhaps even
to fear or hate the advance of scientific research and
knowledge. But neither of these tendencies can hold
or ought to hold. It is often the highest wisdom of
this imperfect life to ' wait and hope ' — ' to wait ' in the
1 Temple's Bampton Lectures for 1884, p. 245.
D

34 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
possession of two truths or principles, each of which we
have reason to accept, although as yet reconcilement
may be to us impossible — ' to hope,' in a faith which
already in human experience has found some justifica
tion and reward, that in due time the whole truth will
emerge out of apparent contradictions, and what seemed
to be discords will subserve a subtler and richer harmony
— ' one music as before, but vaster.'
Now it is only with this last relation of Science to
faith, of Law to Christ, that these lectures will attempt
to deal ; and even of this it is obvious that an ex
haustive treatment would, within their necessary limits,
be impossible. All that can be attempted is to give
what appear to be specimens of this relation of the
advance of scientific conception to the unchanged essence
of our Christianity — of the manifestation (that is) of
Supreme Power through Law to the manifestation of
God in Christ, bringing with it that personal unity of
the spirit of man with the Godhead, to which the very
form of Christian baptism bears continual witness.
It appears to me that this effect shows itself in
various forms.
Sometimes it is directly confirmatory, as showing
that the great laws of humanity, which the manifesta
tion of God in Christ assumes, and through which it
works with a force supernatural and divine, are true
laws, more and more fully realized by our modern
scientific thought. In that light I would ask you to
consider the significance of the great principle of
Heredity, as showing the solidarity of all humankind,
and of Evolution in its largest sense, as illustrating

I.] Function of Elucidation. 35
the progress in all creation to a higher perfection.
The one will appear (I think) to bear on the funda
mental Christian doctrine of Mediation ; the other on
the doctrine of the Incarnation, as the germ of a new
life engrafted in humanity, destined to perfect itself
under the providence and grace of God till the end
of this dispensation. Both are incapable, of course,
of anticipating the great Christian mysteries, and
yet both prepare for them, by showing their harmony
with God's natural laws, and so lead up to the true
Revealer of the mystery of God, the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. Sometimes, again, the same witness shows itself,
rather as elucidating, and bringing out in their right
significance, certain elements of the Gospel message,
which, till that witness was borne, were comparatively
in abeyance, acknowledged, but hardly realized, by
the faith of Christendom. Eternal verities, in their
essence incapable of change or decay, yet manifest
themselves in different aspects to the conditions, in
tellectual and spiritual, of various ages of man — just as
the same eternal Creative Power manifests itself to
different cycles of time in different orders of being.
What is at one period only the background of faith
is brought into prominence, as ' knowledge grows from
more to more.' So it seems to me that the infinite
enlargement of our scientific conception of the uni
verse, as one great whole, in which the earth with all
its inhabitants is but a speck, forces us to consider the
significance of those revelations (as in the Epistles to
the Ephesians and Colossians) which speak of the Head-
D 2

36 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
ship of Christ, not only over His Church, not only over
humanity, but over all created being gathered up in
Himself, and refuse to conceive of His relation to it
as limited either by space or time. To the knowledge
of creation in the early age, it was but natural that
this grander conception of the faith should be held (so
to speak) only implicitly, as the worthy completion of
the Christian doxology to the Incarnate Son of God.
Now it seems to be brought into explicit prominence,
and to show His kingdom and salvation, expanding to
the full expansion of all the regions of His creation.
So, again, in a wholly different sphere, I cannot but
feel that the growth of the social side of the Science
of Humanity — bidding us consider how the inalienable
individual freedom is tempered and subordinated, with
out being destroyed, by the common life of human
society — forces us, as Christians, to enquire into the
doctrine of the unity of all humanity in Christ, alike
in the supernatural society, coextensive in idea with
the world itself, which we call the Catholic Church,
and in the various bonds of natural society, which He
is pleased to regenerate to a new life. Just as the
new birth of individual thought and freedom in the
sixteenth century brought out, with new force and
vitality, the truth of Christian Individualism, face to
face with God in Christ, and seeking from Him. alone
the saving gift both of pardon and of grace, so — now
that this Individualism has been established, and, taken
alone, has been found insufficient to solve the problems
of civilisation, — the truth of a Christian unity, which
shall not deny or crush, but temper and rule it, is

I.J Function of Criticism.

37

called forth by the pressing needs of our own nine
teenth century, into a prominence which as yet modern
thought has but imperfectly realized.
Sometimes, once more, this same teaching of Science
assumes towards the faith of the Gospel, an attitude
which we may call corrective and critical, coming
closest to that view of it, which I have already quoted,
as ' making ' and forcing us to make, ' perpetually
clearer the true meaning of the revelation itself.' It is
corrective, as testing, and often rejecting or modifying,
interpretations of the .eternal verities, or deductions from
them, which are really but the work of science as
theologie, and which yet we are apt to make as sacred
as the verities themselves. It is critical, as distinguish
ing in the Revelation itself what is Divine from what
is human, what is primary and essential from what is
secondary and subsidiary. As such, it leads the mind,
in theology as in other forms of thought, from absolute
scholastic systems, which claim to embrace all truth,
and form it into a vast and symmetrical but artificial
coherence, to the simpler grasp of great fundamental
principles, fulfilling themselves to us in many ways ;
while we recognise in them irregularities, which we
cannot square into rule, and mysteries which defy accu
rate definition. Clearly this effect of Science has shown,
and is showing, itself, in regard to the very conception
of what we call the Supernatural in the Revelation
— the element of Miracle in the largest sense, whether
in the realm of matter or the realm of mind. It bids
us ask what is its proper meaning and significance —
what is its relation to those natural forces and laws,

o

8 Law leading to Christ. [lect.

which it is the very object of science to discover — a
relation which must be one not of discord, not of
unison, but of harmony. Nor less clear, and hardly less
important, is the bearing of criticism on Holy Scripture,
in which the essence of that Revelation is concentrated
for us — to distinguish, though we cannot separate, the
Divine from the human element in it — to compare its
declarations with the truths discovered, with more or
less of certainty, by science, physical, historical, linguistic,
— to examine how far its main purpose, clearly spiritual,
is indissolubly connected with the forms, historical,
legal, didactic, in which it has clothed itself. It is
plain that this critical relation of Science to Eevelation
is more apt to be, or to seem to be, antagonistic, and in
some of its phases it undoubtedly deserves its common
appellation of ' destructive.' But yet it is one which
must be faced quietly and resolutely. Our duty is
not to denounce or ignore it, but (if I may so say) to
submit it in its turn to criticism from the other side,
which may distinguish in it what is really proved from
what is mere assumption, probable or improbable, and
so refuse what in it is false, while we welcome what is
true, and use it to clear our own conception of the
higher truth, which we hold in faith. The experience
of the last half-century may, I must think, read to us
here lessons of encouragement. I have myself seen
methods of such criticism come and go, sometimes
destroying each other. I have seen results of criticism,
once accepted as final and imperishable, now rejected
on all hands, and doctrines of revelation, once scouted
as unphilosophical and impossible, now allowed to

!•] The needs of our age.

39

be accordant with the truest and deepest philosophy.
But all this restless and sometimes bewildering activity
has not been in vain. In a very literal sense it
has, I think, tended to fulfil the idea of the text,
because it has taught us to pass from simply ac
cepting Christianity, as a system of doctrine and
institution, to resting in all our being on the living
Christ Himself.
IV. Under these three aspects, I shall ask you to
consider with me whether Science ought not to tend,
and has not in great degree tended, to be the school
master to bring us to a higher teaching. We cannot,
of course, be unaware that this is not the whole truth
of the case ; that the advance of Science, encroaching
(as we believe) on domains not its own, and claiming to
do what it cannot do for the full satisfaction of human
needs, has too often come to bar the progress towards
God in Christ, which it ought to further, and to unsettle
the old childlike faith of days, less knowing than our
own, yet perhaps not less wise ; that accordingly the
Christian teacher has, like St. Paul, to resist such
usurpation, to expose the vanity of such claims, to
protest against 'the science, falsely so called,' which
simply despoils us of .our spiritual inheritance and
gives us nothing in its room1. But yet it seems to
me that the brighter side of the truth, which I have
indicated, is one which needs to be dwelt upon more
frequently and more hopefully, and moreover that it
is one which our age most urgently demands, and is
1 The title, I observe, of the Boyle Lectures for 1890, by Professor
Bonney, is the ' Conflict of Science and Faith.'

40 Law leading to Christ. [lect.
ready to receive. The age is weary of mere doubts and
negations. It will not, because by spiritual necessity
it cannot, be contented with an Agnostic despair of
advance to ultimate truth, even if there be offered
accumulation of what calls itself 'positive knowledge'
of lower and secondary truths, which declines (as has
been bitterly said) even to think of ' the kernel of
nature, and goes on sifting its husks' — 'vacant husks'
(we may add), ' well meant for grain.' It honours, and
rightly honours, the advance of Science towards the
discovery of the reign of Law, for its own sake as well
as for the fruits of usefulness which it has brought ;
but it asks, ' What is there behind Law, and yet in that
Law truly though imperfectly expressed ] ' Nor will
it accept a3 sufficient the answer, 'A something not our
selves, which creates being and makes for righteousness.'
It is not enough to describe it by mere negation, and
so to make our confession of faith (as has been sar
castically said by Charles Kingsley1), a declaration
that ' the Something our Nothing is one Something.'
We must find some better answer, which can satisfy
the needs of our own inner personality in all its faculties
— the instincts Qf truth, of righteousness, of love, of
faith. Such an answer we believe to have been given,
capable of being understood by the simplest, and verified
by the maturest thought. We believe that the Living
God, who is Power, Wisdom, Righteousness, Love, has
revealed Himself to His creatures, and that this Reve
lation is perfected in the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore
we believe that all lower discoveries of His work must
1 In Phaethon, or Loose Thoughts for Loose Thinkers.

I.J Fear and Trust. 41
eventually lead to Christ, and in that confidence we
look not only calmly but gladly and thankfully on their
continual growth.
In Tennyson's ' Sea Dreams ' there is the weird vision
of a vast flood, swelling up again and again out of
a far off ' belt of luminous vapour,' not without strange
low sounds of Nature's music, breaking ' mixt with
awful light' against the heights, which are seen as
'huge cathedral fronts of every age,' and sweeping
away, one by one, the images of sacred beauty from
the niches of time-honoured reverence ; and at last
rising to — ' two fair images
Both crowned with stars and high among the stars,
The Virgin-Mother standing with her child;
Till she began to totter, and the child
Clung to the mother, and sent forth a cry.'
The allegory is plain and ominous. Were the heights
of our Christianity indeed only a grand and venerable
fabric built up by man, it might be true. But' what if
they be, as we believe them to be, the ' stone made
without hands,' going right down to the Eternal Rock
of truth, and growing, by an inner force of life, to
fill the whole earth \ What if upon them there stands,
not the mere ideal image of a holy child, but the living-
personality of Him, who can say to the wildest storm,
' Peace, be still ' ? Then we may put the desponding
suggestions of the allegory aside, and take up the old
confidence, which cries out that ' we will not fear, though
the waters rage and swell ' ; for out of that swelling rage
those heights will still rise unshaken, only brighter in

42 Law leading to Christ.
purity, more visibly majestic in strength ; and the very
waters which threatened to shake His sovereign royalty
shall be subdued to His will, even to ' make glad the
city of God, the holy place of the Tabernacle of the
Most Highest.'

LECTURE II.
heredity and mediation.
As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made
alive. — i Cor. xv. 23.
In working out the general idea already indicated,
and considering how far the witness of Science to the
reign of Law is ' a schoolmaster' to lead us to the higher
knowledge of God in Christ, we enter first on its
directly confirmatory relation to that higher knowledge;
and our consideration of this relation may well begin
by examining the bearing of scientific research into the
unity of the human race, both in the present and in
the past, upon the great doctrine of Mediation. That
doctrine lies at the root of distinctive Christianity; for
Christianity is at once a religion of God and a religion
of Humanity, and the link between the two is the
Mediation, by which God and man are made one.
(I) In the famous words of the text the whole truth
of Mediation, as a Redemption from evil, is expressed
with a graphic and comprehensive brevity. It assumes,
first, that there is a real and effective unity in our
nature, in virtue of which all humanity is viewed and
treated as a whole ; it asserts, next, an inheritance of
sin and death from a primeval origin of evil, as actually
affecting all that collective humanity; and, lastly, it

44 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
declares a Divine Mediation in Christ, taking away
that alienation of our humanity from God, which is its
spiritual death, and renewing in it the communion
with Him, which is spiritual life. That Mediation is
set forth as doubly a Redemption and a Re-creation
of humanity; primarily as restoring the higher unity,
through which ' it lives and moves and has its being '
in God, and, secondarily, through this Divine principle,
as regenerating and strengthening the bonds of the
human unity itself, which, through all ages and in all
nations and languages, should make it one. All are
one with God in Christ, and all are therefore members
one of another. The text appeals to actual experience
of this unity of all mankind in the inheritance and con
tinual intensification of a moral corruption, a germ of
evil at the beginning of human history, now inborn and
engrained in all the individual souls who make up
humanity, and sowing in all the seeds of a common
death. It declares it, as in the same experience mani
fested for a Diviner good, far more than overcoming
the evil, in the similar development of a new germ of
higher life, implanted by the Incarnation in humanity
of the Son of God, and worked out through all the
ages, gradually pervading that humanity and over
coming all opposing influences, till at His Coming again
it shall be perfected in the fulness of Eternal Life.
It must, indeed, be remembered that this view of
the Mediation, as a salvation from the sin brought in
by the Fall — glorious as it is, and perhaps closest to
the needs and aspirations of our sinful world — is yet
far from exhausting the whole fulness of its Divine

ii. J Difficulties in the Idea of Mediation. 45
meaning. The Mediation of the Son of God and Man
is set forth to us as the crown of the Divine purpose
in the very creation of humanity. ' If man ' (it has
been truly said) ' had fulfilled the law of his being, he
would still, so far as we can see, have stood in need of
a Mediator, through whom the relation of fellowship
with God might have been sustained, and deepened,
and perfected. Nor is it easy to suppose that this
fellowship could have been made stable and permanent
in any other way, than by the union in due time of
man with God, accomplished by the union of man with
Him, who was the Mediator between man and God,
and in whose image man was made.' ' The Incarnation
was,' we believe, ' independent of the Fall,' although
everything of suffering and shame ' connected with the
Incarnation was due to the Fall1.' This larger sense
seems, we may remark, clearly implied iii the cele
brated Creed of the Manifestation of the Son of God in
the Epistle to the Philippians 2, in which the first part
of the ' great humility ' — ' being in the form of God . .
He emptied Himself, taking the form of a servant ' — is
distinguished from the second part — 'being found in
fashion as a man, He humbled Himself, and became
obedient even unto death, yea, the death of the Cross.'
1 See Bishop Westcott on Tlie Gospel of Creation in The Epistles
of St. John, pp. 273-315 ; with its singularly interesting catena of
authorities from the twelfth to the sixteenth centuries. With his
conclusion most theologians will agree. ' The thought that the Incar
nation, the union of man with God and of creation in man, was part
of the Divine purpose in creation, opens to us, I believe, wider views
of the wisdom of God than we commonly embrace, which must react
upon life.'
2 Phil. ii. 6-8.

46 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
That distinction the practice of the Church embodies,
when it celebrates the first in the unclouded joy of
Christmas, and the second with the mingled sorrow
and thankfulness of Good Friday. But it is sufficient
for the present purpose to consider the Mediation as it
actually is, not to man in his original righteousness, but
to man as sinful.
Now in relation to the acceptance of this great
Christian doctrine of Mediation a twofold difficulty
has been created by the deep sense of Individuality in
the human soul — conscious (as has been said) in its
supreme moments of but two existences, God and itself.
We find a speculative difficulty, in the doubt whether
there is such a thing as real and effective unity in
human nature, and whether, after all, humanity is
anything more than a convenient term for an infinite
number of individual beings, having certain points of
natural likeness — the old contention of Nominalism
against Realism in days gone by1. We find a graver
moral difficulty, in the question how, if this unity be
real — so real as to affect our nature, even in its spiritual
relations to God — this reality of power over us can be
compatible with our own personal responsibility to
God, of which conscience bears so unhesitating a wit
ness, and, as correspondent to this, with His perfect
1 Nominalism, as represented by Eoscelin, 'the authoritative in
terpreter ' to the Middle Ages, * if not the author of the system,'
• peremptorily denied the real existence of universals ; nothing actually
is but the individual. . . . Universals were mere conventional phrases.
Each animal subsists ; the animal race is but an aggregate of thought.
Man lives ; humankind is a creation of the mind,' — Milman's Latin
Christianity, Book viii. c. 5.

il] The Law of Solidarity and Heredity. 47
righteousness of dealing with each human personality.
Like all moral difficulties, it presses more hardly upon
the soul than any question of mere speculation. It is a
perplexity well known to all students of the theology
of the past, especially in the days of St. Augustine,
and of the revival of Augustinian influence in the six
teenth century; and, if now less prominent in doctrinal
controversy than in days of a more pronounced indi
vidualism of thought, yet it constantly recurs to the
spiritual experience of the soul itself in its personal
relation to God.
(II) Now it seems clear that, in respect of this two
fold difficulty, barring the way against acceptance in
faith of the great Christian doctrine of Mediation,
the whole course of modern thought exemplifies that
character of Science, as 'the schoolmaster to lead us
to Christ,' of which in these Lectures I desire to speak.
For, in the first place, we see that its progress is
always towards an ever-increasing recognition of a true
and effective solidarity in humanity at large, through a
network of ties, binding individuals and generations
together — ties which are indeed cemented by mutual
needs, and quickened by mutual affections, yet which
obviously depend neither on need nor on affection, but
are rooted deep in that nature itself. The recognition
of this truth has indeed grown to be so strong, that
there is even some tendency to overbear by it all belief
in individuality, to study humanity only in the mass,
and to trace all growth of mind and character to the
spiritual and material environment of the personal life
— in respect of idea to refer all in the ' spirit of the

48 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
age ' — in respect of action and interest, to sink the
individual in Society. The day, therefore, may come,
when, as of old, Christianity shall have to assert,
against such exaggeration, the reality and sacredness
of individual right and freedom. But in its place the
recognition of unity is true. In practice it is of the
essence of the advance of modern civilisation, whether
in its material, or its intellectual, or its moral aspect.
In theory it is one of the latest words of our modern
science. But, beyond this, we are being taught in the same
school to refer this solidarity in the present greatly,
perhaps mainly, to the principle of Heredity ; and so to
see in it an inheritance from the parentage of the past.
Not to speak as yet of theories of common descent, not
only of humanity, but of the whole realm of organic
creation, from some original germ or germs of life — that
principle of Heredity in our race itself is being deeply
studied, both in fact and in theory, and is certainly
brought out more and more as an undoubted reality ;
through which what we may call the raw material of
character, both physical and spiritual, is seen to be
transmitted to all descendants from a common stock.
This transmitted character is discerned, moreover, as
indissolubly one in all its parts. For certainly modern
thought brings out more and more clearly the truth
that all the elements of our complex nature, distinct
yet never separate, are full of mutual actions and
reactions — that (as St. Paul indeed expressly teaches l)
the body with its appetites, the soul with its passions
1 i Thess. v. 23.

il] Limits of its power.

49

and affections, the spirit with its reason and moral
sense, are all integral parts of one true self, and ac
cordingly so tell upon one another, that no one can
be affected without influence upon the rest. Whatever
may be the force of the Law of Heredity, it is clearly
exercised on man's nature as a whole.
This force cannot, indeed, by any but mere theorists,
be conceived as absolute in determining the character
of any individual. It is modified from without in each
generation by changes in the physical and spiritual
environment of life ; and it is one chief object of civil
isation so to determine these conditions, that they may
mitigate or eradicate all that in those inherited ten
dencies is evil, and may stimulate all that is good.
But the combined effect of both these forces from with
out is still more powerfully modified in each personal
being by a real and energetic individuality, originated,
we know not how, by the creative Power — so that in
the multitude of human characters, as of human faces,
we find at once likeness and unlikeness, an underlying
element which is common, and an individual stamp of
peculiarity. What are the proportions and relations of these
various forces in producing the complex result of human
character, we can hardly estimate in any single case,
and can probably never hope to define generally
by an universal rule. As yet our whole knowledge
of the subject is crude and vague ; although the col
lection of careful observations now going on may, we
hope, do something in the direction of greater definite-
ness, and help to some rough estimate of the true

50 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
conditions of the problem. But, if it be difficult to
balance inheritance from the past and environment
of the present, how infinitely more difficult it is to
estimate and account for this undoubted, though mys
terious, element of individuality ! How it is originated,
and to what extent it is in each case a new force,
engrafting itself as a , fresh and fruitful germ on the
parent stock, we cannot even pretend to guess. Witness
the hopeless controversy of Traducianism and Crea-
tionism as to the human soul in days gone by — as far
from solution now as in the time of St. Augustine. It
is but one form of the ever-recurring mystery, of the
relation of the Ego to the Non Ego, of the reconcilement
of our own conscious personality with the reign of
universal Law, and the existence of a corporate hu
manity. It is but the highest phase of that introduc
tion of individual variations, which is one main ele
ment in the development of species in organic life.
But that in every child of man there is a balance, and
that there must be a harmony, of all these forces from
within and from without, is to us perfectly clear.
On the one hand, the reality of this continuous life
through Heredity is unquestionable. In rough gene
rality it has been observed and acknowledged in all
ages ; in our own day that reality, and some of the
laws which regulate it, have been most carefully studied,
with some results of all but moral certainty. On its
physical side we are told, in relation to the whole
organic world, that, while the evidence of the trans
mission of artificially induced peculiarities and acquired
habits of an individual is still precarious, yet ' no

H- J Force of Heredity.

5i

structural modification is so slight, and no functional
peculiarity so insignificant in either parent, that it may
not make its appearance in their offspring ' ; and that
' peculiarities which have arisen naturally, and have
been hereditary through many antecedent generations,
tend to appear in their progeny with great force 1'. On
the spiritual side it is at least equally certain, though
naturally the proof of it is less obvious, that traits of
mental and moral character, and through these procli
vities to good or evil, are similarly transmitted, in vary
ing degrees of power — and that power, moreover, more
or less intermittent — from generation to generation. In
both cases an element of complication is introduced by
the fact of double parentage, from individuals previously
unconnected with each other, and the consequent
balance or conflict of the inheritance of distinctive
characteristics from the father's and the mother's side.
But this complication does not touch the general truth
of Heredity, nor diminish the power of the combined
influence, whatever may be the still unknown laws
of its combination, on the individuality of the de
scendant. There it is, visible at all times in different
degrees as a great universal Law, and exceptionally
1 See Professor Huxley's Article on Biology in the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, vol. iii. p. 687. In relation to the physical transmission
of acquired habits, Professor Weismann goes somewhat further. His
conclusion is that ' it has never been proved, either by direct observa
tion or by experiment, that acquired characters are transmitted, and
it has never been demonstrated that, without the aid of such trans
mission, the evolution of the organic world becomes unintelligible.'
(Essays on Heredity and kindred Biological Problems. English Trans
lation. Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1889.)
E 2

52 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
illustrated to us from time to time by startling in
stances of the occurrence of a likeness, which is almost
reproduction, of some near or remote ancestor, both in
body and (perhaps in less degree) in character. We
trace it, moreover, with greater distinctness, in pro
portion to the closeness of relation to some common
parentage- — strong in family likeness, and strongest,
in all but identity of resemblance, in children twin-born
— weaker in local or national types — yet in all real,
till we come at last to the touch of nature, which
makes the whole world kin. Alike in history and in
fiction x we see how strangely the effect for good or evil
of the strain of race works, in combination or in conflict
with individual character, and with the education and
associations of present life. It is, indeed, the sense of
this continuity, which gives occasion and justification to
the historical method of the study of all that concerns
humanity, in respect of knowledge, thought, character,
as well as in respect of physical structure and condi
tions of life.
But, on the other hand, real as this power is, and
great as is in some cases its apparently preponderating
strength, still that it is not absolute — that it does
not extinguish or overwhelm individuality — is equally
obvious. That individuality comes out plainly enough on the
physical side. In fact its appearance in such variations
from the inherited type, as are favourable to victory in
the struggle for existence, is noted in the whole organic
world as one chief element in the process of Evolution.
1 As in George Eliot's Spanish Gypsy.

il] Force of Individuality. 53
In humanity it is to be traced clearly and unmistake-
ably, sometimes in striking physical contrast between
the progeny of the same parents, growing up under the
same circumstances, more often in the subtler indivi
dual differences, coexisting with the ordinary family
likeness. But it is with the reality of this individuality
in the moral and spiritual sphere that we are especially
concerned. Here we have, indeed, a witness, anterior
to all observation from without, more direct and more
impressive in its power. It comes from within. For
the personal freedom and responsibility which belong-
to a true individuality, there are both the unquestion
able and irresistible testimony of each man's moral con
sciousness — the most certain, as certain, as it seems to
me, of all the forms of consciousness of which we are
capable — and the testimony of collective humanity in all
the laws, institutions, languages of the world. To any
contrary assertion of Determinism through Heredity
Butler's grave irony applies, that, whatever be the
abstract truth of the matter, certainly in the order of
the world ' we are treated as if We were free.' But,
even scientific observation tends, in proportion to the
thoroughness and determination of its study, to con
firm this witness. If inherited genius and inherited
character are clearly traced, yet they are almost in-
variablv modified in transmission ; and that with a
modification, for which neither change of circumstance,
nor combination of parental peculiarities can adequately
account, and which in each individual, if it seems in its
beginning to be due to some natural proclivity, yet
grows to maturity by the actual effect through habit

54 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
of his own conscious energy, or his own conscious assi
milation of external influences1. This seems to be
established beyond all doubt as a constant law, and
from time to time this general law is illustrated by
startling exceptional instances of the emergence of a
dominant and overmastering individuality. As we study
the world's history, especially in the great critical epochs
of progress, the effect both of Heredity and of the
environment of life is not indeed effaced, but altogether
thrown into the shade again and again, by the brilliant
and original force of some commanding personality,
to which we find nothing like either before or after,
and on which the subsequent history of generations is
seen to turn. No doubt it has its ' epoch of preparation '
— sometimes its individual precursors. ' The hour,' as we
say, ' has come '; a wave of general influence passes over
the whole face of human society, or moves it as an under
current from below. But ' the man ' must come also
in his exceptional power and mission ; else the hour will
pass fruitless away. Even the advance of civilisation,
and the growth of democracy — over which men some
times groan, as tending to restrain free originality, and
reduce humanity to a dead mediocrity — yet will be,
I think, seen rather to alter the form and method, than
impair the force, of this influence of strong individualitv
in mind or will. It rules perhaps more by consent, but
it rules with unabated power.
The result, to which we are led by study of the actual
facts, without squaring them artificially to preconceived
1 This fact is strikingly illustrated in Mr. Galton's interesting work
on Hereditary Genius.

il] Resulting balance of Forces. 5 5
theory, is to give frank recognition to this force of
Heredity as real and strong, but to refuse to accept, in
respect of it, the rigid Determinism, which requires us
to hold that the deep inner consciousness of freedom is
a simple delusion, and that the individual is but the
product of inherited forces, developed by the environ
ment of life. It manifests itself plainly as what we
may call a Predisposition ; under which that conscious
individuality works with varying degrees of power, and
which may perhaps be held to determine practically for
the mass of men the limits of its exercise ; but which
does not take away its freedom and responsibility, either
in action for itself, or in reaction upon that general con
dition of humanity, which it has inherited. The degree
of this individual power may vary, from an almost com
plete mastery over inheritance and circumstance in the
strong, to what seems to approach to a mere slavery
under them in the weak. In the unhappy conditions
of inheritance and environment, with which we are
but too familiar in our densely crowded cities, that
slavery often appears to us as a hopeless slavery, under
which we fail to trace any personal freedom, or to under
stand any personal responsibility. The limits of its
exercise may similarly vary from a wide enlargement
to a narrow circumscription of scope. But, while
these exceptional extremes strikingly illustrate the
reality of the two distinct forces, it is in the average
case that we see most clearly their mutual action and
reaction upon each other. Perhaps the advance of
science tends at this moment to bring out more clearly
the reality of the general influence over that indivi-

56 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
duality, which is witnessed to without science by vivid
internal consciousness and by simpler observation of
experience. But the acceptance of both truths is de
manded by those actual conditions of our humanity,
which we take for granted in the shaping of our own
personal life, and in the framing and working of our
several institutions ; and I may add in passing that it
seems well to harmonize with the essentially religious
conception of life — the belief that its controlling Power
is not an iron indiscriminating Law, irreconcileable
with individual varietv and freedom, but the rule of a
Supreme Personality in an elastic and discriminating
equity, allowing for and yet directing freedom, sanc
tioning variety, and yet blending it in a comprehensive
unity, to work out one transcendent purpose.
Now if this be, as I think it is, a true sketch of the
conclusions on this subject, to which scientific investi
gation is now leading us *, it is surely clear that they
are in striking harmony with the Scriptural doctrine
brought out in the great antithesis of the text.
(Ill) In the words, 'As in Adam all die,' we find
taken for granted the truth of an inheritance from
1 Its present position maybe studied in the various works of Mr. F.
Galton, from his Hereditary Genius in 1869, to his Natural Inheritance
in 1889; inWeismann's Studies in the Theory of Descent (1880-1882)
and his Essays upon Heredity and kindred Biological Problems (Oxford,
1889) ; and in the various articles, by many able hands, which will be
found referred to under the title Heredity in the Index to the
Encyclopaedia Britanniea (9th Edition). The chief questions at
present under discussion are said to be the following, (a) The trans
mission of acquired habits ; (6) The relation between germ and sperm
elements ; (c) The real meaning of types, and the bearing of Natural
Selection upon them.

il] Doctrine of 'Original Sin! 57
the beginning of a corruption of our moral nature,
not accidental, but intrinsic and universal, having in
it, if left to work itself out, the seeds of spiritual
death. Now of this truth we may note, that its enunciation
in the New Testament, while it is perfectly clear, is
yet both simple and exceptional, bearing no proportion
to the space which it occupies, and the elaboration of
definition and treatment given to it, in some systems of
Christian Theology. It is hardly too much to say that
it belongs all but exclusively to one stage in the
Apostolic teaching, illustrated to us in the four great
Epistles of St. Paul to the Corinthians, the Galatians,
and the Romans, which mark the crisis of the Judaistic
controversy; that, even here, it is wrought out with any
degree of fulness only in one passage of the great argu
ment of Justification in the Epistle to the Romans x ;
and that solely in connection with the truth of the
Mediation of Christ, on which that argument depends,
is it treated at all.
As a rule, it is the fact of what has been called
' Original Sin,' but would better be called an inborn
tendency to sin in our human nature itself, — ca fault and
corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally
1 Rom. v. 12-19. Note the repeated emphasis on the truth that
' where sin abounded ' — overflowed in its moral consequences to all
humanity — ' grace did much more abound.' It is only in the glad
conviction of this abounding grace, flowing from the Atonement, that
St. Paul will even contemplate the natural inheritance of evil. So in
the same Epistle the brightness of the eighth chapter swallows up the
gloom of the seventh : the ' law of sin ' brings out ' the glorious liberty
of the children of God.'

58 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
is engendered of the offspring of Adam 1 ' — that Holy
Scripture bears continual witness. It is this, which
is manifested in a terrible practical reality through the
history; which is exposed, menaced, coerced, in the
stern righteousness of Law; which is dealt with by
spiritual teaching and exhortation, and by promise of
spiritual power to overcome it, in the Prophecy ; which
is confessed with repentance and prayer for forgiveness
and regeneration in the Psalm ; which is set forth with
terrible and unsparing power in St. Paul's Epistles,
especially the opening chapters of the great Epistle to
the Romans. In all these aspects it is, of course, no
new or peculiar doctrine of revelation. I do not see
how its truth can be altogether ignored by any man,
who goes about the world with his eyes open, and sees
it writ large in history, past and present, or who looks
with any truthful introspection into the workings of
his own soul. It may be extenuated at one time by
the Optimism, which feels that it is unnatural, and so
hopes that it is unreal ; it may be, as now, exaggerated
by a gloomy Pessimism into a dominant Law in human
nature. But recognised in some way it must be, and
it has been, by all thoughtful study of the world and
the soul, not as we wish them to be, but as they are.
Its terrible reality grows upon us continually, as we
ourselves advance with advancing years in our know
ledge of the world, and as humanity itself grows older
and more self-conscious. When, therefore, Holy Scrip
ture speaks on this matter, it does but set its seal of
sanction on this recognition ; and declare with certainty
1 See the Ninth Article of the Church of England.

il. J Doctrine of Original Righteousness. 59
— what otherwise might be but a probable inference, —
that in its essence it is not merely Vice, as against our
own individual nature, not merely Crime, as against
collective humanity, but sin against God — rebellion
against His righteous Will, outrage against His
Love. The true and characteristic revelation, indeed, —
which places Christianity as a religion of hope in
bright contrast with Buddhism as the religion of de
spair, and with the Pessimistic philosophies or mysti
cisms which seem to borrow from it — is what perhaps
only a revelation can proclaim with certainty. It is the
doctrine, not of Original Sin, but of Original Righteous
ness — the declaration that sin, strong and engrained as
it is, is no part of man's true nature, that as it was not
in the beginning, so it shall not be in the end — the
promise that the Divine image in man, if only he will,
shall conquer sin, not indeed, in an inherent strength
of its own, but by the salvation and the grace of God.
For this conviction it is, which alone makes life worth
living, and which yet is continually dimmed and over
clouded by sad experience, from without and from within.
Hence, in the strife of the Two Voices, we need some
Word of God to strike in with authority; some Gosjoel
of victory and salvation is of urgent spiritual necessity,
to meet and to satisfy the consciousness of weakness
and of strength — the sense of sore need and high
aspiration in every soul. It is only under the higher
light of this Gospel that Christianity dares to contem
plate the dark reality of a sin engrained in humanity 1.
1 See Note C.

60 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
But when, from the confession, sad though not hope
less, of the terrible fact the enquiry,— the inevitable
enquiry, — arises, ' How comes this fact to be % ' then
certainly the answer of Christianity points us to the
great Law of Heredity. It tells us' of an entrance
of Evil into the world, in the infancy of the human
race, by impulse from another sphere of created being
— as a germ (so to speak) of evil, fructifying and inten
sifying itself by inheritance through all man's history,
and bringing with it death \ In strict accordance,
moreover, with that internal unity of each man's indi
vidual nature, of which we have spoken, this evil, in
its origin spiritual, is represented as in its results
telling upon man's physical, as well as bis spiritual
nature, — bringing upon it the burden of labour and
of suffering, and the consummation of these in decay
and death. But, more and more clearly as the revela
tion advances, it is on the spiritual evil that the stress
is laid; it is the corruption of the image of God in
man, having in it the seeds of spiritual death, which
is seen as passing by inheritance to all men. Not, be
it always noted, that this is the whole of his natural
inheritance. As in the body, so in the spirit, the image
of God, the original righteousness, marred yet not de
stroyed by sin, remains, although in discrowned majesty,
and its effect must necessarily work through the same
Law of Heredity ; it must perpetuate and intensify
itself in a better inheritance. The goodness, as well
as the sin, of the fathers is visited upon the children.
But we are in the text concerned simply with the
1 See Note D.

Ii.] Predisposition to Evil. 61
Heredity of Evil. ' In Adam all die ' ; ' death passed
upon all ; for that all sinned.'
Now, when we look carefully at the Christian doc
trine, we must see that it points us to one form of that
inherited Predisposition in the individual, which the
study of Heredity discloses to our science of humanity.
We commonly and rightly speak of it as a fall from
righteousness. It is manifested, first, as an enfeebling
and impairing of the power of the spirit within us, a
weakening of the moral sense, which commands indeed
with unquestionable authority, but ought also to rule
with unresisted power ; it is shown again as intensi
fying the power of ' the flesh,' that is, of the turbulent
strength of the appetites and passions, till it rebels
against that authority, and disputes or usurps that
power ; it is, beyond all this, a perversion and corrup
tion even of the higher nature itself, into what may
become the reprobate mind, loving evil simply as evil,
which is a living blasphemy against humanity and
against God. Under all these aspects it seems not only
to correspond with a terrible accuracy to the facts of
our ordinary experience and consciousness, but to bring
out, in what St. Paul calls a ' Law of sin ' in us,
just the Law of Predisposition which the doctrine of
Heredity is seen to imply. It has been curiously like
that doctrine, as elsewhere taught, even in its per
versions. There has been the exaggeration of it, as if it in
cluded the whole Law of Heredity— as if (to use old
theological words) man was not only ' far gone from
original righteousness, but wholly destitute of it' — as

62 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
if, therefore, there could be no natural inheritance ex
cept of evil and of condemnation — as if it were only
on the individual side of our nature, that we could
realize, through God's personal gift of grace, the pre
servation of His image within us. Against that exag
geration there has risen protest, not only from the
practical experience of every day, but from the thought
ful study of human nature in its complex unity of good
and evil. How the doctrine of Mediation bears upon
it, we shall see hereafter. Meanwhile it is against the
exaggeration, not against the true Scriptural doctrine,
that the protest is rightly and even religiously made.
It has been exaggerated, again, just as some modern
thought exaggerates Heredity in general, into a De
terminism to Evil, against which it is vain for man to
strive, under which, indeed, individual freedom, and
with freedom responsibility, go out. The darkest
hours of spiritual experience of bondage, such as St.
Paul unveils in the seventh chapter of his Roman
Epistle, are taken as expressing the whole of man's
moral life, if life, indeed, it. can be called. A ruthless
logic, determined to reduce all to one comprehensible
system, at the expense both of actual observation and
of moral protest, goes so far as to insist on a predes
tination and reprobation through it to spiritual death,
except within the narrow circle of the elect. Like all
other phases of Determinism, it is simply an idolatry
of Law, an iron Law of Predestination, contradicting
our ineradicable consciousness of a freedom, guided by
the Providence and moulded by the Spirit of God.
But it is a phase of that idolatry which most directly

II- J Exaggerations of its power. 63
revolts our whole moral being, and which most flagrantly
sins against any worthy conception of the Divine Right
eousness. But in support of this exaggeration, which attaches
equally to non-religious forms of Determinism, there
has come one worst perversion, which belongs to it in
virtue of its religious character. As religious, it must
realize intensely the Being of a living and all-righteous
God, with whom the soul stands face to face, and before
whom, therefore, its consciousness of sin brings with
it that, which belongs emphatically to Individuality — ¦
the sense of personal guilt, with the acknowledgment
of the bitter fruits of sin, not only as an inevitable
consequence, but as a righteous retribution.
How does this consciousness bear upon the conception
of an inherited Determinism to Evil ? The answer is
that strange, almost monstrous, assertion not only of
the inheritance of a corruption of nature, but of the
imputation from the past of that guilt, which is in
alienably personal. It is, as it would seem, the very
same perversion of the truth of the visitation of the
sins of the fathers upon the children, which Ezekiel so
authoritatively rebuked 1 — mistaking, as it does, an
inheritance of consequence for an inheritance of guilt.
Yet it has been renewed again and again ; isolated
passages of Holy Scripture, against the whole tenour of
Revelation, have been pressed into its service. For it,
I need hardly say, neither history nor experience bears
preparatory witness ; against it the moral instinct of
each soul, the moral common-sense of humanity, in-
' Ezek. xviii.

64 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
dignantly protest. But it is no part of true Christian
doctrine ; many Christian thinkers, and some great
thinkers, of ancient and modern times, in that longing
for complete logical system, which has been said to be
' the last infirmity of noble minds,' have been misguided
into accepting it ; but the Church of Christ has never
made it a part of the Creed of Christendom. Our own
Church once had it earnestly pressed upon her ; but
happily she deliberately refused to admit it into her
confession of the sin of human-kind 1.
No ! in Christian doctrine, as in scientific study of
fact, Predisposition to evil is not properly Determinism.
Under it the individuality of each man still remains.
It has still its moral insight, clearly discerning the
law of the eternal righteousness 'as holy and just and
good.' It gives still its moral adhesion to that Law,
in ' the hunger and thirst after righteousness,' and the
' delight in it after the inner man.' It still has ' the
power to will present' with the soul-; and in that
power it struggles against the enslaving law of sin 2. Its
original righteousness is weakened and marred, but not
lost. Even under its worst sense of bondage it treasures
an ineradicable conviction, that in some way the un-
1 It was proposed by the 'Assembly of Divines' in 1643 to insert
in the Ninth Article the words ' together with Adam's first sin im
puted,' and to change ' very far gone from original righteousness '
into 'wholly deprived of original righteousness.' That proposition
was never accepted. Against it there is on the main principles of the
doctrine a virtual consensus between the Augsburg Confession the
Canons of the Council of Trent, and the Articles of the Church of
England. 2 Rom. vii. 12, 18, 22.

II-] ; The doctrine of Mediation. 65
natural bondage of evil can be broken ; and this inex
tinguishable hope of a salvation from sin it bases on the
belief not only in the Love, but even in the Righteous
ness, of God 1.
(IV) That hope, like all ineradicable instincts of
humanity, is not in vain. To the cry out of the dark
ness, ' 0 wretched man that I am ! who shall deliver
me from the body of this death 1 ' there has come for
eighteen centuries an answer, in which countless human
souls have found the dawn of a new day, ' I thank God
through Jesus Christ our Lord.' That answer leads up
to the great. doctrine of Mediation, 'Even so in Christ
shall all be made alive.' Necessarily this truth needs
a Word of the Lord to reveal it in certainty. Of de
liverance from the inherited bondage of sin, as of
deliverance from death, the message of the Gospel is
' Behold ! I show you a mystery.' It cannot, like the
other truth, be assumed on appeal to man's natural
consciousness and experience. In relation to these —
whatever natural hope may shine through them — it is
a mystery, a truth supernatural, to be accepted, if
accepted at all, through faith in the Self-revelation of
the Lord Jesus Christ.
Yet the Supernatural has here the clearest analogy
to the Natural. The very application of the title of
' the Second Adam,' the ' Second Man,' to ' the Lord
from heaven,' and the comparison, more fully drawn
out in the Epistle to the Romans, between ' the sin
which abounded or overflowed ' from the first Adam and
1 ' If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness' (1 John i. 9.)
F

66 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
the grace ' which did overflow more exceedingly ' from
the second, clearly show that there is still suggestion
of an analogy here, between that which is in nature and
that which is above nature. The Manifestation in the
flesh of the Son of God, always taken as a whole, indis
soluble in all its parts — in the Incarnation and the
Atonement, the Resurrection and the Ascension, the
royalty in heaven and the judgment which is to crown
it at the Great Day — is clearly set forth as involving
a new creation, a regeneration of humanity, into the
inheritance of which each individual soul enters, as into
the old Creation, by a birth, but a new birth, not of the
flesh but ' of water and the Spirit.' That which avails
for salvation in Christ Jesus (says St. Paul) is ' new
creation.' Whoever ' is in Him, is a new creature ' ;
' putting on the new man, which after God is created
in righteousness and true holiness V
In respect of that new creation, again, as of the old,
and of the corruption, which passed upon the old, the
truth of the internal unity of man's nature is distinctly
brought out. Mainly, of course, viewed as a renewed
spiritual life ' hid with Christ in God,' it is yet always
1 Gal. vi. 15 ; 2 Cor. v. 17 ; Eph. iv. 24. This truth is strikingly
illustrated in the ancient treatment of the idea of the Lord's Day, —
(not, of course, confounded, but contrasted, with the Sabbath) as at once
' the first day and the eighth ' — the beginning of the new creation
after the completion of the old, in the resurrection of humanity to a
new life by the Eesurrection of the Lord Himself. Again and ao-ain
that is implied, which is expressly brought out in the De Sabbato et
Circumcisions, ascribed to S. Athanasius, that the Lord's Day, as the
day of Creation of the Spiritual Light, is pvq/xi; dpxns fewtpas uraKnVews
(vol. iii. p. 44, Bened. Ed.).

n] Spiritual Heredity. 67
recognised as telling also upon man's bodily nature,
and for it also destined in its final perfection to ' swallow
up death in victory.' By it even the body is consecrated
anew as a temple of God, and through communion with
the Saviour ' preserved unto everlasting life.' In the
Church of Christ the Sacramental system itself is a
continual witness to this regeneration in Him of man's
nature as a whole. In Christian morality, in spite of
Gnostic fallacies and false Asceticisms, the body is held
to be sacred through this regeneration ; bodily purity
accordingly, ignored or lost in the Pagan civilisations of
the early days of Christianity, is rescued and exalted to
its right dignity : the body, instead of being looked upon
as a clog or prison-house, from which death is a joyful
deliverance of the spirit for ever, is reverenced, as here,
and in the better life of the Resurrection, destined to
be a part of our true humanity.
So touching out whole nature, the new creation is
seen as working on humanity at large (so to speak)
under a law of a spiritual Heredity in the regenerate,
for the continuous renewal of the successive generations
of men, till the consummation of all things shall come.
In the individual soul, born again into the inheritance
of the Christian covenant, it works from the beginning
on the unfolding life, with the twofold grace of justifica
tion in the one great Atonement, and of sanctifica
tion in the indwelling of Christ in the soul — the one
complete in God's infinite love, without any work of
ours — the other begun in that same love, but gradually
perfecting itself, and demanding the fellow-working
of man. For all, for each, it is thus a Mediation,
F 2

68 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
which breaks down all barriers raised by sin, and
unites God and man for ever in Him, who is both
in one.
That new creation (be it always remembered) is set
forth to us as foreordained in the Divine counsels
before the foundation of the world1, and ordained for
the whole of mankind. But to be ordained in the
eternal counsels is to have efficacy. So it is in its
grace effective in some sense from the beginning, for the
spiritual life of all humanity as such, and for the re
demption of humanity as sinful; so that man was never
left to the unchecked predisposition to evil, of which
we have spoken, and the image of God, in which he
was created after the likeness of the Son of God Him
self, was never allowed to be blotted out2. But in the
Incarnation of the Son of God, in the Divine life of
voluntary humiliation closed in the ' It is finished ' of
completed atonement, in the drawing of all in Himself
to the new life of the Resurrection, in the new birth of
humanity at Pentecost, it is brought into the course of
this visible world, to act upon humanity through the
laws of God's dispensation to it, as a new supernatural
reality; and from the Day of Pentecost onwards, it has
1 ' Ye were redeemed ... by the precious blood of Christ . . . who
verily was crdained before the foundation of the world' (i Pet. i. 18-
20.) So in Pev. xiii. 8, He is ' the Lamb slain from the foundation of
the world.' The reference is especially to the Atonement, but all the
acts ol the Divine Manifestation in Him are indissolubly one.
2 There is no limitation to the great declaration (John i. 4) ' In
Him was life : and the life was the light of men.' ' It embraces '
(sajs Bishop Westcttt) 'the experience of Judaism and Heathendom,
of pre-Christian and post-Christian times,'

ii- J A doctrine of Faith: 69
been working directly on the souls of men up to the
future perfection of the Great Day1.
All this is unquestionably a doctrine of faith. We
may see, as Christian thinkers have seen, that the
personal manifestation of God in our nature, through
an ideal yet actual humanity, is the appropriate crown
and completion of His lower manifestations of Himself,
in the world_ of Matter, in the world of Life, in the
world of humankind; and that, in its redemptive aspect,
it is that, which all the moral philosophies and re
ligions of the world have been feeling after, and in
some sense finding by anticipation and hope. We may
know, as eighteen Christian centuries have known, by
experience, that, when accepted and realized by faith,
it has wrought out these effects, both in the secret
history of the individual soul, and the visible history
' writ large ' of human society. But yet in itself it
rests on the word of the Lord Jesus Christ as the ' word
of eternal life'; it is a 'mystery' in the New Testament
sense of the word, that is, a secret of God, before
unknown or dimly seen, but now plainly revealed in
Him, even to babes. The science of humanity, as the
' schoolmaster,' may thus lead us to the true Teacher,
and even show us by their results the truth of the
lessons, which He imparts. But the truth so taught
lies in itself above the sphere with which Science has
1 The comparison, and the contrast, between the anticipations of the
Divine action on the souls of men through the Eternal Word of God,
and the perfection of that action in the Manifestation of Him in the
flesh, is wrought out fully in the Prologue of the Gospel according to
St. John (John i. 1-14).

70 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
to do. St. Paul argues in this very Epistle that, as it is
spiritually revealed, so it is spiritually discerned, ' Eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard it' ; for who through these
'hath known the mind of the Lord1'? Unknown it must
be and unknowable ; unless we are content to know it
by faith through ' the Mind of Christ.'
But yet while this is true of the ' heavenly thing,'
the mysterious reality itself, which only He can know,
yet, as to the earthly manifestation of it, we can see that
this new and Diviner spiritual force, introduced into
humanity as a whole, works there in striking analogy
to that force of Heredity, which Science indicates to us,
and which the Revelation itself assumes as known.
The analogy, of course, is not perfect ; for, as usual, the
supernatural reality transcends it. This relation to the
Mediation of the Lord is not merely to a germ of bless
ing sown in the past ; it is the perpetual communion
with a present source of life. As St. Paul expresses it2,
1 the first Adam ' was but ' a living soul,' which gave its
impulse to the race, and on earth ceased to be; 'the
second Adam is ' a quickening Spirit,' ever radiating
life, working by an indwelling Presence in humanity,
even to the end of the world ; while yet, by virtue of
His Divine Majesty, He transcends humanity in 'the
glory which He had with the Father before the world
was.' Nor, even so, is this the whole truth. As in the old
creation there is a mysterious individuality — which
' lives and moves and has its being in the God,' who
breathes into each soul the breath of life — coexisting in
1 i Cor. ii. 9, 16. 2 See i Cor. xv. 45.

ii- J Predisposition to Good. 71
harmony with the solidarity of human nature, so in
the new creation there is a still more living and sacred
individuality, of which the secret is the Presence of
Christ in each soul by the Spirit — a 'personal Chris
tianity,' as we rightly term it, which dares to say with
St. Paul, ' I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.'
But there is at the same time an indwelling Presence
in the whole body of redeemed humanity; the same
Christ, who is the Head of each man, is the Head
of the whole Church. It is the Law of Christian life,
as He Himself ordained it, that into this corporate life
every individual nature should be engrafted and in
it sustained. The existence of a Church Catholic in
all space and time is not accidental, but of the essence
of that Law; otherwise it could not correspond to and
lay hold of the human nature, which is at once indi
vidual and social. The very ordinance by Him of the
Sacraments both declares that Law and fulfils it ; for,
as has been truly said, ' that saving grace which Christ
originally is or hath for the general good of His whole
Church, by Sacraments He severally deriveth into
every member thereof1'. As in nature, so in grace,
unity, embracing and cherishing individuality, is the
true life of humanity.
It is in this corporate life in Christ that the analogy
to the force of Heredity is manifest. Inherited by the
individual by a new birth into sonship to God, and
sustained in him by grace of Communion — inherited by
the whole race by the regeneration of humanity in a
Church, which is Holy as centred on God in Christ, is
1 Hooker's Eccl. Polity, Book V. c. lvii. sect. 5.

72 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
Catholic in its continual expansion over the whole area
of human society — the Mediatorial gift manifests itself
to our actual observation as a Divine predisposition to
good, striving against and mastering the predisposition
to evil, taking up and inspiring with a higher life what
ever in our nature resists that deadly inheritance from
ancestral sin.
A ' Predisposition to good ' — the phrase, although
indeed in its ultimate sense it means a conforming
to the likeness of God, yet may well sound feeble and
inadequate and prosaic to one who by faith knows
in his own soul the Divine reality. For that reality,
so the Gospel teaches, is the implanting and the de
velopment of the ' Christ in us ' — a likeness of God
Himself, in the power to know, the power to will, the
power to love — in which we are constantly said to be
'heirs through Him' of a Kingdom of Heaven, and (in
the unique and daring phrase of the Second Epistle of
St. Peter) 'partakers of the Divine Nature1.' Faith
knows it thus in its essence. To use the words of the
maturest Apostolic utterance, at once philosophically
complete in thought, and glowing with prophetic in
spiration 2, it acknowledges this ' indwelling of Christ
in the heart'; it traces its spiritual development, first
in ' the love,' which is the free enthusiastic recognition
of unity with God in Christ, "rooting and grounding'
our whole soul in Him; next, in the 'being strong'
not, indeed, to comprehend, but 'to apprehend' — in all
' the length and breadth ' of visible expansion, and in
1 2 Cor. iv. 4 ; Col. i. 15, 27 ; Rom. viii. 17 ; 2 Pet. i. 4.
3 Eph. iii. 17-19.

ii.J Predisposition not Determinism. 73
all 'the depth and height' which lose themselves in the
invisible — that manifestation of 'the love of Christ,' the
very soul of His Mediation, 'which passeth knowledge';
and so, lastly, in the gradual ' filling up ' of our nature,
to the utmost limit of its finite capacity, with all that
is Divine of knowledge, of strength, of glory, of good
ness, 'unto all the fulness of God Himself.' But when,
leaving out of view this knowledge through faith, we
come down to the lower knowledge of observation, both
of the soul and of the world, it is just this predisposition
to good which manifests itself. For such observation
can only claim to test it in its signs and fruits ; and
that test does not fail, whether in the exaltation and
renewal of individual lives, or in the moral and spiritual
regeneration of humanity in the Church of Christ, or
even in the Gesta Christi of the civilisation of the post-
Christian world. The secret of life in the little mustard-
seed our observation cannot see ; but it can see, and it
must see, how it has taken root and overshadowed the
whole earth. The secret of pervasive influence in the
leaven it understands not ; but it does show us how
it has actually leavened, and is leavening still, the
three measures of the body, the soul, and the spirit of
every child of man, who has received it.
But even here Predisposition is not Determinism.
Even to salvation ' God enforceth not the will V Natu
rally the tendency to Determinism, so universally felt
by all who contemplate the reign of Supreme Law, and
who, being unable to reconcile with it the reality of
free will, maintain logical completeness by the sacrifice
1 See the Article ' Of Grace ' in the Forty-two Articles of 1552.

74 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
of unmanageable truth, is strongest and most serious in
religious thought. For such thought brings us face to
face with Supreme Sovereignty, not as veiled in an
impersonal Law, but unveiled in the Infinite Personality
of a living God : who, as the Source and Sustainer of all
finite being, must in some way foresee and fore-ordain
all things. Before Him he, who would find himself,
must first lose himself, in the Will of Eternal Righteous
ness and the grace of Eternal Love. Naturally, there
fore, from the days of St. Augustine downwards, those,
who feeling intensely their own littleness and sinfulness
before Him, are inclined, and even eager, to sink con
sciousness of self in the overwhelming and adoring con
sciousness of God, have been unable to conceive how a
grace of salvation and renewal, which is Divine, should
not also be irresistible. Therefore they have come at last
to hold (with the framers of the Lambeth Articles of 1 595)
that in those who have once been partakers of it 1, it is
not 'extinguished, nor fails, nor fades away, either totally
or finally'; and have accordingly been forced to explain
the unquestionable fact of failure in those who have been
admitted into membership of Christ, and believe that
they have lived in it, by denial that they who fail have
ever received that grace at all. Therefore they have been
led finally to declare that ' such grace is not assigned, is
not communicated, is not granted to all, that by it they
may be saved, if they will,' and to set forth the awful
doctrine of an absolute and irreversible election, out of
the sole will and pleasure of God, by which He from all
1 So the words stood in ths original draft, afterwards altered by the
Bishops into ' in the elect.'

il] Calvinistic Exaggeration.

75

eternity 'predestinated some to life and reprobated
others' — whether positively or negatively it matters
not — 'to Death1.' How singular the contrast of that
doctrine, in the ruthless logical dogmatism, which it
thus by degrees assumed, with the reserved and modest
treatment of the subject by St. Paul himself, even in
the ninth chapter of the Roman Epistle — where he
deals with it only as forced upon him by questions,
which should not have been asked, and even then in
the last resort by the 'What if of reverent speculation,
rather than by absolute assertion 2 ! Like the Kismet
of Islam, it has an awful and majestic simplicity; in
the absolute submission to it of a soul, willing, or
believing itself to be willing, to suffer even eternal loss
for the glory of God, there is a misguided heroism,
greater than the greatest heroism of martyrdom. But
its simplicity is no evidence of truth. It marks, as
usual in all that deals with the complex problem of
humanity, the half-truth, which is proverbially more
delusive than sheer falsehood. It is, no doubt, clear
that logically it is impossible to reconcile man's freedom
with God's Sovereignty. Milton spoke, it may be, out
of his own spiritual experience, when, as the type of
the fruitless labour of lost spirits, he chose, not the
weaving of ropes of sand, but the reasoning high
Of Providence, foreknowledge, will and fate,
Fix'd fate, free-will, foreknowledge absolute,
Which found no end, in wand'ring mazes lost.
1 The quotations are from the Lambeth Articles of 1595, for which
the leaders of the Puritan party at the Hampton Court Conference in
1604 demanded that they should be added to our XXXIX Articles.
See Note E. 2 Rom. ix. 14, 19, 22, 23.

76 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
But our wisdom is to accept truths which commend
themselves as truths, even though to our knowledge
they seem irreconcileable. And this absolute Predes
tination, extinguishing freedom, is emphatically contra
dicted by the most direct religious consciousness ; it is
incompatible, even after the subtlest attempts of rea
soning, with the confidence in the eternal righteous
ness, which asks ' Shall not the Judge of all the earth
do right ? ' by discriminating equity to every child of
man ; even though isolated passages of Holy Scripture
be wrested to its service, it is equally at variance with
the whole tenour of God's Word, alike in what it says
and in what it implies.
No ! This Predisposition to good, this prevenient
grace, this antagonistic and victorious force against
Predisposition to evil, is not absolute. Under it the
free Individuality of man has still its scope — its power
to accept and use it, and so pass from mere capacity of
spiritual life into energy — its power to reject, to mis
use, to quench it.
But, though it be not absolute, it is profoundly
and universally real. From the effect of the Divine
Mediation there is but one class of men absolutely
excluded ; and that is the class of those who delibe
rately exercise that mysterious and terrible power of
rejection, 'treading under foot' the Divine Mediator
Himself, and ' putting Him to an open shame V For
all others that Mediation has its beneficent and saving
force. Even the world of those who, before or after
He came on earth, have not known Him by faith, is
1 Heb. vi. 6, ix. 29.

n.] Its universal power. 77
known of Him, because for them He came down from
Heaven to be incarnate and to die. ' He gave His
Flesh ' (so He Himself said) ' for the life of the world.'
By His Blood (says one Apostle) ' He is the propitiation
for the sins of the whole world.' ' He is ' (says another)
* the Saviour of all men,' though ' especially of those
who believe ' ; for ' God was in Him, reconciling the
world to Himself1.' Even on that world (so He
Himself teaches) the grace of the Holy Spirit, given
through His Mediation, impresses with effective power
the three great moral realities of ' sin and righteousness
and judgment,' in order through these to lead all to
Him, and to God in Him 2 Whatever is true and
good in humanity has drawn unconsciously its strength
from that unknown Mediation; whatever there has been
of feeling after God in all the religions, which cover
the whole field of humanity, is being led through it,
as an ignorant worship, to the God unknown, but not
unfelt. But from the actual Manifestation of the Son of God
in our nature begins the new era of the complete and
living realization of that Mediatorial power by faith,
as a supreme force visibly acting upon humanity —
' drawing all men to Him ' -as ' lifted up ' for all in the
Cross and in the Ascension — 'forming Christ' as the
image of God in every redeemed soul, and through
that unity making all one in God. It is into this that,
from the Day of Pentecost onwards, Baptism has been
the entrance ; for it is through this that it is a Baptism
1 John vi. 51 ; 1 John ii. 2 ; i Tim. iv. 10; 2 Cor. v. 19.
2 John xvi. 8-1 r.

78 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
' into the Name of the Father and of the Son and of
the Holy Ghost,' and in that Divine Communion into a
• newness of life.' It is notable that in the early days
of Christianity, when such Baptism was mainly Adult
Baptism, the conscious assimilation of that new life is
spoken of commonly in the New Testament as a ' Resur
rection ' — a passing (that is) at once from death to life
in all its fulness. But when, by a natural and uni
versal inference from what was * most agreeable with the
Institution of Christ,' Baptism became in its regular
and normal type a Baptism of Infants, then it was
rather recognised (in accordance with that teaching of
our Lord Himself, which only the Gospel of St. John
records) as a ' regeneration ' — an entrance, as in the old
birth, not on the fulness, but on the germ and capacity
of the new life, and, like that old birth, brought to
bear in each nature upon the unfolding consciousness
from its very beginning, to inspire and mould for good
the whole development of thought, of conscience, of
love, of will1. In the individual soul this spiritual
growth must be, of course, known in itself to God
alone, and by human observation inferred but vaguely
from its fruits. But in relation to human society as a
whole, where the breadth of the scope of observation
gives it certainty and solidity, it has plainly shown
1 Comp. Rom. vi. 3-1 1 and Col. ii. 12, where the whole idea is of
a spiritual Resurrection, with the ' laver of Regeneration,' in Tit. iii.
5, and the teaching of our Lord, recorded by St. John at the close of
the Apostolic age (John iii. 3-13), with unquestionable reference to
the Baptism, which was then as much an established ordinance in the
Church as it is at this day.

ii.] Its full development in the Church. 79
itself as a regeneration of that whole to a higher moral,
intellectual, spiritual life. By no accident the races, on
which it laid strong hold, have become the conquering,
the ruling, the teaching, races of the world. Imper
fect as its power still is, working slowly, as the Divine
forces in humanity always do work — resisted, under
God's mysterious permission, by sin in the world
without, and by sin from within the Church and the
individual Christian soul — yet it is unquestionably the
one great advancing spiritual power already, and to
that advance the promise of a full Catholicity in the
future is a strength and an inspiration. And the
analogy to the power of Heredity in nature is perfect
in this, that each generation, each individual soul, while
receiving from that power, is able, by the development
of its own fellow-working with it, to contribute in some
degree, however slight, to its future strength, or to
weaken it by every influence of perversion or failure.
To spread the kingdom of Christ is (we say) to ' pro
pagate the Gospel ' — to help (that is) to communicate it
as a continuous life, from generation to generation,
from soul to soul.
True, indeed, it is that this Divine influence, being
spiritual, must be spiritually received, and in its re
ception, therefore, there is brought out with exceptional
clearness and vividness, the necessity for the free action
of that personal individuality, which has its central
stronghold in the spirit. The relation on which it
depends, being a living relation of the spirit to a Divine
Personality, is felt as having an elasticity and variety of
life, which cannot attach to a mere law of development.

8o Heredity and Mediation. [lect".
So the personal adhesion of faith, promised even for
the unconscious infant soul, when entering upon its
spiritual inheritance, is in various degrees of growth
essential at all times to its realisation ; and, when,
through lack of this essential condition, there have been
spiritual torpor and apparent spiritual death, it is a
familiar experience that, with sudden birth or revival
of that faith, there come epochs of spiritual resurrec
tion or refreshment ; in which it seems as if for the
first time the light and grace of the great Mediation
were given to the conscious soul ; although perhaps it
is only in the power to receive and transmit to others
that ever-present influence — to absorb and to reflect
the rays of the unfailing Sun of Eighteousness — that
there is real newness. But yet even for this there is
some natural analogy. In respect of the law of natural
Heredity, the influences, which affect the body, grow
upon the individual inevitably and insensibly, except
so far as he may indirectly strengthen or weaken them
by conscious bodily discipline. But in those, which
touch either the mind or the moral being, the indi
vidual will to receive or refuse is always more or less
plainly energetic, consciously assimilating what seems
to it good, modifying or rejecting what seems to it
evil ; and that energy comes out with a new and
exceptional force at great critical periods of the mental
and moral history. Even in this, therefore, the law of
spiritual inheritance in the Mediatorial kingdom is seen
as a supernatural and transcendent exaltation of the
natural Law of Heredity. And it is significant that to
the Apostolic insight it reveals itself as in its present

ri.] Analogy in Nature and Grace. 81
form" coextensive with it in scope, both of space and time.
For in space it touches the whole of our humanity; in
time it is to endure under its present laws, till the
end of this dispensation shall come, when the Media
torial kingdom, having completed its victorious work in
the abolition of sin and death, shall be ' delivered up
to God, even the Father, that God may be all in all'
Nay, even beyond that great day, since the seed of
newness in Christ is the seed of an eternal life — since
the union of Godhead and humanity in Him is an
eternal union — we cannot doubt that in some higher
and diviner form, the Mediation shall remain, the same
and yet not the same, to be the glory of the new
heavens and the new earth, to conform the redeemed
humanity more and more perfectly to the likeness of
Christ, and so in Him to be the life-giving power
of that perfect communion with God, which we call
heaven. In the Apocalyptic visions of heaven Christ is
still all in all, manifested under various aspects as the
true Mediator ; and the plain unmetaphorical descrip
tion of what ' we know ' of our own mysterious future
is that 'we shall see Him as He is,' and by the very
sight 'be made like Him' in the perfect image of
God. (V) So it is that our latest Science by its study of
human nature and human history should prepare the
way for faith in the Divine Revelation and be the
schoolmaster to lead us to the Christ. The striking
analogy, which it brings out now between the natural
and supernatural, goes deeper than that which Bishop
Butler so unanswerably showed, as suggested by the
G

82 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
Science of his age, in his great chapter on Mediation *.
The analogy there drawn out, in reference mainly to
the Redemptive aspect of the Divine Mediation, has only
to do with the visible working in actual life of the laws
of God's moral government of the world. But it is the
special lesson of the Science of our day to go back from
the present to the germ in the past, of which the
present is the development ; and, in accordance with
this conception, the Mediation of the Lord can now
be contemplated, as having relation to the whole growth
of our human nature from the beginning, and especi
ally as striving against and overcoming the inherited
tendency to sin from the infancy of our race. In
that view we trace an analogy both deeper and closer.
For those human mediations in action, which Butler
brings out as working in the visible world, can only
change a man's circumstances absolutely, and cannot
touch, except by consent of his own will, his inner
nature. But in both the clauses of the text the in
fluence is seen as acting antecedently on the humanity
itself, into which each is born, or born again, and
determining the conditions, natural or supernatural,
under which the individual will is to work together
with God. The more searchingly we look into the
matter, the more ready are we to accept the analogy
suggested in the text, only including in it the present
as well as the future. ' As in Adam all die, even so
in Christ all ' are made alive in conflict with evil now,
and ' shall be made alive ' in the victory over evil of
the hereafter.
1 Analogy, Part ii. c. 5.

H-] Analogy not Identity. 83
, Yes! an analogy deep and close, but not identity,
between what we ordinarily know as the Natural and
Supernatural. Both, as has been often shown — work
ing out that pregnant hint of the Analogy in which
Butler was so infinitelv in advance of his age — doubt-
less form part of one great order, to which the word
'Natural' may be applied, if we accept it (to use
his words) in ' its only distinct meaning ' of what is
' stated, fixed, settled ' under God's Law Eternal, ' our
notion' of which 'will be enlarged, in proportion to our
greater knowledge of the works of God and the dispen
sations of His Providence V But such larger unity does
not preclude or obliterate distinction between what we
usually call the Supernatural in the Mediation of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the Natural Law, exemplified
in Natural Heredity. That fundamental distinction is
of the essence of true Christianity, as contrasted with
theories, which, like the old Gnosticism, take up its
language, and strive to weave it into their own systems.
Of these theories, even if they deal with Christianity
tenderly and reverently, we have still to beware. We
look them plainly in the face, and see that, instead of lead
ing to the true Christ, as the Son of God, they seek to
include Him in the merely natural order, and refer the
spiritual progress of humanity to the working out of
that order, to which He holds but a high place, side by
side, if on a somewhat higher pedestal, with other great
1 See Anal., Part i, c. i. We may note also the splendid compre
hensiveness of Hooker's view of the ' Law eternal,' as in all its parts,
natural and supernatural forming but one mimifestation of Him who is
One. (See Eccl. Polity, Book i. cc. ii, iii.)
G 2

84 Heredity and Mediation. [lect.
leaders and teachers of men. Out of that Science we
have seen issue an attempt, not unpathetic, to frame a
worship of collective humanity, as the true Christ — as
the true revelation of God, if not the Godhead itself —
in that sense reading even the Imitatio Christi, and
venturing in its service on adaptation, or rather travesty,
of Christian theology, Christian devotion, and even
Christian ritual 1.
But that conclusion we cannot accept as scientific,
even if the moral witness of faith be put for the moment
aside, simply because it is, as has been shown again
and again, utterly incapable of accounting for the facts,
either of ideal or of actual Christianity; and because
the qualified reverence, which it accords to Him, is at
once too much and too little — too much when it makes
Him, as a mere man, the universal teacher, in respect
of humanity and of God, of all races and all ages of the
world — too little, when it is compared with what He,
so regarded, unquestionably claims for Himself. That
worship of Humanity we cannot offer; for, except
in the true Son of Man, Humanity is either a mere
1 ' The basis of Eeligion is to be found in Humanity, past, present,
and to come, conceived as the great Being ' ; who is (to use Comte's
own words) ' the ruling power within the great universal order,' ' the
undeniable Providence,' ' the supreme dispenser of our destinies,' ' the
common centre of all our affections, our thoughts, and our actions.'
' The singularity of Comte's construction ... is the transfer of the
worship and discipline of Catholicism to a system, in which the con
ception of God is superseded by the abstract idea of Humanity, con
ceived as a kind of Personality. . . . Hitherto Comte's Utopia has
pleased the followers of the Catholic, just as little as those of the
scientific spirit.' Mr. John Morley on Comte in Encycl. Britannica,
vol. vi. p. 237.

H-] The new Creation in Christ. 85
abstraction, or in the concrete a many-headed idol,
compact of iron and miry clay, of the strength of
human goodness, and the weakness and pollution of
human evil ; and, moreover, is itself but a part of
a far greater creation, in the vastness of which it is
lost, and before the forces of which its strength is but
impotence. Even for ourselves, I think we can see that the Advent
of the Lord Jesus Christ on earth is actually a new de-
a/
parture, absolutely unique in the dispensation of God ;
that it is the entrance on a higher spiritual order, the
introduction into the world of a spiritual power, as yet
unapproached and unapproachable. To learn what this
supernatural reality is we claim to be led to Christ
Himself. We convince ourselves by study of His self-
manifestation in deed, in word, in character, that we
can have a perfect and absolute faith in Him. We ask
Him what His Mediation means. He answers, in words,
which never mere man spoke, 'I, if I be lifted up, will
draw all men unto Me ' ; that ' As Thou, Father, art in
Me, and I in Thee, they also may be one in Us.' Lifted
up He has been, as once on the Cross of Atonement, so
now in the ascended Boyalty of Heaven. On His pro
mise therefore we now rest. Already we see it fulfilled
in true, though imperfect, earnest. If we know too
well the fatal power of a spiritual gravitation down
wards to evil, yet we see already a great drawing
upwards of all humanity — strangely marred and re
sisted still, but yet through all and in spite of all,
proving itself a victorious power, against the dull weight
of passive resistance and the struggling antagonism of

86 Heredity and Mediation.
positive sin. So we can, even through reason, be
brought to look on in faith to the perfect fulfilment ;
and for it, even if, for ourselves and for humanity, we
groan under the pain of conscious imperfection and of
hope deferred, we can yet be content to wait.

LECTUKE III.
EVOLUTION — NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL.
When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son . . .
that we might receive the adoption of sons. — Gal. iv. 4, 5.
The Coming of the Son of God is here set forth to
us, as fore-ordained indeed in the eternal counsels of the
Father, but yet in itself the consummation, up to which
all things had been working through the ages, till the
fulness of an ordained time had come, and till the
human race had been prepared by a Divine education
to receive the full sonship of God. Elsewhere that
same Coining is viewed, on the other hand, as the be
ginning of a new Dispensation, having also its time
appointed in the counsels of God, through which all
things are again to work up to a final consummation
at the Second Coming of the Son of God, which shall
be for humanity the entrance on a higher perfection of
sonship, 'the glorious liberty of the children of God.'
Have we for this conception, as for the doctrine of
Mediation, any analogy in the reign of Law as dis
covered by Science, through which the knowledge of
that Law becomes 'a schoolmaster to bring us to
Christ'?

88 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
(I) The very conception itself obviously suggests to
us the consideration under this aspect of that great
Law of Evolution in its largest sense, which seems to
be plainly traced in different forms through all the
provinces of being. The phrase, of doubtful accuracy
perhaps, in relation both to its history and to its ety
mology 1, has yet won its way to almost universal
acceptance, as expressing the truth that the order of
the world is one continuous growth, in which ' the
higher and more complex forms of existence follow and
depend upon the lower and simpler forms,' and which
is ' a gradual transition from the indeterminate to the
determinate, from the uniform to the varied,' from 'the
homogeneous to the heterogeneous 2.' The process is
traced with some distinctness through each distinct
province — the world of Inorganic Matter, the world
of Life, the world of Humanity; and it is partly
seen, partly surmised, that the developments in all are
correlated to one another, successively or contempo
raneously. The growth of the whole world is thus
1 'It was introduced' (says Professor Huxley) ' into biological writ
ing in the former half of the eighteenth century, to denote the mode,
in which some of the most eminent physiologists ' (Malpighi, Bonnet,
Haller) ' conceived that generation of living things took place, in
opposition to the hypothesis ' (of Epigenesis) ' advocated in the previous
century by Harvey, which alone would give him a claim to rank among
the founders of biological Science.' ' The conclusions,' he adds, ' origin
ally denoted by " Evolution " and " development " were shown to be
untenable.' Article Evolution in Encycl. Brit. vol. viii. p. 744 (ninth
ed.). 2 See the latter section of the same Article by Mr. James Sully ;
and Herbert Spencer's Essay on ' The Factors of Organic Evolution '
in his collected Essays (London, 1891).

in] What is Evolution ? 89
embraced in one great universal theory, not indeed
attempting to solve the problem of the origin of being,
or to ascertain all the causes of variation and develop
ment, but contenting itself with bringing out the
methods, under which the great whole, in its marvel
lous variety and complexity, has come to be what it is.
This, neither more nor less, is the Law of Evolution
in itself. Before we proceed to examine its bearing
upon our subject, there are two considerations which
must be kept constantly in view.
(A) The first is this — that the Law, as properly un
derstood, and as in great measure established, does not
imply what the name Evolution by its etymology might
seem to suggest, and what originally it was in all prob
ability intended to suggest — viz. that all the properties
of the higher forms of being were contained implicitly
or potentially in the simpler forms which preceded
them ; as, for example, life and consciousness in in
organic matter, or (as it was once put rhetorically)
human genius, and moral aspiration in a ' ring of
cosmical vapour.' Under these circumstances it is
perhaps unfortunate that the word should still be
used. For, as Coleridge remarked long ago, errors in
nomenclature are apt to avenge themselves by generat
ing errors of idea ; and both the advocates and oppo
nents of Evolution, while rejecting the idea etymologi-
cally suggested, seem not unfrequently to glide into
lines of argument, which are properly applicable to it.
But it is now so firmly established, that we must be
content to accept it, only guarding ourselves against
the theory, which it was first intended to imply; of

90 Evolution— Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
which it may be doubted whether it has now any real
acceptance, and of which it is certain that we can pro
duce no evidence of certainty or even probability. Nor
does it carry with it, as is often assumed, the conviction
— closely connected with this, if not substantially
identical with it — that the cause, the sole cause, of this
process is immanent in the world thus transformed. If
it did, it would be, of course, essentially Pantheistic, if
not Materialistic; and, as such, absolutely incompatible
with any belief in an original Creative Mind, at once
immanent and transcendent, guiding and determining
throughout the process of development. But this is
again a pure assumption, not only without possibility
of evidence, but clearly at variance with much of which
we are conscious in our own experience of origination
and direction, within limits, of growth under natural
laws. That assumption has, indeed, been loosely made
by some adherents of the theory of Evolution, who
seem, strangely enough, to be unable to conceive the
reality of a Supreme Will and Purpose, acting through
a fixed Order. It is often vaguely acquiesced in by
the world at large, because, in their minds, the effect
of the idea of a long process of Evolution, with many
destructions and many survivals, is to put further away
from us the working of Creative Will and Design, and
thus, naturally though of course unreasonably, to ob
scure its reality. It was against this assumption, as
virtually materialistic or Pantheistic, that the very soul,
not only of Theology, but of Religion, rose up in right
ful and indignant antagonism. Unfortunately, though
perhaps naturally, it accepted too hastily the confident

ni-] Its relation to Theism. 91
declaration that it was implied in, or indissolubly con
nected with, the law of Evolution itself1.
But the truth of the matter is now emerging plainly
enough. ' The doctrine of Evolution ' (says Professor
Huxley) 'is neither Theistic nor Anti-Theistic 2.' In
relation to the idea of Original Creation, he says,
1 It seemed to me then,' at the first reading of the Ves
tiges of Creation ' ' (as it does now), that Creation in the
ordinary sense of the word is perfectly conceivable.'
' . . . The a priori arguments against Theism, and,
given a Deity, against the possibility of Creative acts,
1 It is easy to reflect in this matter on the blindness or prejudice of
theologians. But we cannot but remember with what flourish of
trumpets the Darwinian theory of Evolution was hailed in the Anti-
Theistic camp, and pushed rashly to conclusions, which its great
author never sanctioned. Even now I read with some surprise in
Mr. Sully's part of the Article on Evolution to which reference has
been made, the following passage, ' It is clear that the doctrine of
Evolution is directly antagonistic to that of Creation ' ; while yet a
few lines below the author declines to dwell on the question, whether
' the doctrine of Evolution, in its most extended and elaborate form,
absolutely excludes the idea of Creative activity ' (Eneycl. Brit. vol.
viii. p. 752.
2 ' It has ' (he adds) ' no more to do with Theism than the First
Book of Euclid has.' . . . ' The doctrine of Evolution does not even
come in contact with Theism, considered as a scientific doctrine. That
with which it does collide, and with which it is iireconcileable, is the
conception of Creation, which theological speculators have based on
the history narrated in the opening of the book of Genesis.' He goes
on to note that ' the Evolution of a chicken from a microscopic cellular
germ to its full size and complication of structure undoubtedly goes
on every day. Therefore ' (he adds) ' to borrow an argument from
Butler, this must be consistent with the Attributes of the Deity, if
such a Being exists ; and if so, the Evolution of the Universe, which is
neither more nor less explicable than that of a chicken, must also be
consistent with these Attributes.'

92 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
appeared to me devoid of reasonable foundation.' His
conclusion is that in ' Theological Science, as a matter
of fact, physical Science has created no religious diffi
culties.' In relation to the process of development (he
adds) ' the theological equivalent of the scientific con
ception of Order is Providence'; and Theology can
accept the statement, so far as it acknowledges that
its belief in a Divine Providence presupposes and ac
counts for Laws of Order, and that by further disco
veries of them it is untouched in its essence, although
it may be modified in its conception of method. But
it must be added that it is more than an equivalent ;
for it implies the conviction that the Order itself is in
the true sense of the word a ' Law ' — an expression
(that is) of a Supreme Will acting with foresight and
moral purpose — and that through this ordained Order
the Will that framed it is still unceasingly an energetic
and unfettered cause. This conviction is one, which.
satisfies not only the intellect but the conscience and
the heart ; and the true conception of it must prevent
our accepting the conclusion that ' the doctrine of De
terminism follows' from it, 'as surely as from the
universality of natural causation, assumed by the men
of Science V
But even this declaration of neutrality in the great
conflict is not the whole truth. It was long ao-o
noticed 2 that the language of the Origin of Species,
being always plain and straightforward, is constantly
Teleological and often virtually Theistic. And now
1 See Life of Darwin, vol. ii. pp. 187, 203.
2 By the Duke of Argyle in the Problems of Faith, p. 41.

m.J Its leaning on Teleology.

93

many of the most thoughtful and philosophical expo
nents of the doctrine of Evolution declare with one
voice that it places on a wider and therefore firmer
basis the doctrine of Teleology — the belief (that is) in
a Design and Purpose, which the whole order of the
universe subserves, and is intended to subserve. It has
been said by the same acute and outspoken critic, that
while ' the doctrine of Evolution is the most formidable
opponent of the commoner and cruder forms of Teleo
logy, yet perhaps the most remarkable service to the
philosophy of Biology rendered by Mr. Darwin is the
reconciliation of Teleology with Morphology ' — the idea
of Design (that is) with the discovery of fixed Laws of
Order — ' and the explanation of the facts of both.' ' The
wider Teleology is . . . actually based on the fundamental
proposition of Evolution V Darwin himself, although
the sense of the mystery of the beginning of things, and
the great stumbling block of the existence of evil in
suffering and sin, made his mind gravitate, or perhaps
oscillate, in the direction of Agnosticism, felt (as he
says) ' the immense difficulty or rather impossibility of
1 See Darwin's Life, vol. ii. p. 201. Professor Huxley adds, 'The
Teleological and Mechanical conceptions of Nature are not, necessarily,
mutually exclusive. On the contrary, the more purely a mechanist
the speculator is, the more firmly must he assume a primordial mole
cular arrangement, of which all the phenomena of the universe are the
consequence, and the more completely is he at the mercy of the
Teleologist, who can always defy him to disprove that this primordial
arrangement was not intended to evolve the phenomena of the Uni
verse.' The statement is obviously true so far as it goes ; although
Christian faith could not accept it as an adequate statement of the
whole truth, which must include sustaining and directing Providence,
as well as original Creation.

94 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
conceiving this great and wonderful universe, including
man with his capacity of looking far backwards, and
forwards into futurity, as the result of blind chance or
necessity. When thus reflecting I feel compelled to
look to a First Cause having an intelligent mind in
some degree analogous to that of man ; and I deserve
to be called a Theist 1.' Not only, as we have said, is
his language, in respect to that phase of the theory of
Evolution, which he has made his own, plainly Teleo-
logical, but the very phrase ' Natural Selection ' — sug
gested, of course, by the experiments made by himself
with deliberate purpose, for selection under natural
law — in itself (as Mr. Herbert Spencer notes 2) ' perr
sonalizes the cause ' of Evolution.
Professor Weismann, who now occupies a foremost
place among the students and teachers of Evolution,
speaks of 'the immanent Teleology of a Universe as of
a machine 3,' because, as he clearly sees, ' the assumption
1 Darwin's Life, vol. i. pp. 312, 313.
2 See his 'Essay on the Factors of Organic Evolution.' It is
customary to regard the phrase as unfortunate ; and Darwin himself
points out defects in the Analogy between ' Natural ' and ' artificial
selection,' apologizing for 'speaking of Natural Selection as an
intelligent power ' and ' personifying Nature.' But the fact remains
that it was his own artificial selection, which suggested to him the-
vari ability of species, and that, moreover, human language is such
that it is hardly possible to avoid using terms which suggest a
directing mind. In the Essay above referred to the author laments
that even his own favourite phrase ' the survival of the fittest ' ' calls
up an anthropocentric idea.'
3 The comparison shows that the word ' immanent ' must be taken
to mean inherent or essential. For the maker is distinct from the
machine. Certainly Teleology must imply transcendence, as well as
immanence, in the First Cause.

in.] Change of View in Science and Theology. 95
of an eternal matter with its eternal laws by no means
satisfies our intellectual need for causality ' — or (as he
elsewhere calls it) ' the craving of the human mind for
a spiritual First Cause.' ' We require beyond every
thing an explanation of the fact, that relationships
everywhere exist between the parts of the Universe ' ;
and, to account for this, he declares that ' behind the
co-operating forces of Nature, which aim «,t a purpose,
we must admit a Cause . . . inconceivable in its nature,
of which we can say only one thing with certainty, viz.
that it must be Teleological.' ' By the side of mere
mechanism, it is impossible not to acknowledge a
Teleological principle.' The one question is, How
does it act 1 ' Does it interfere with the mechanism,
or is it behind as the Final Cause of the Mechanism \ '
' If we conceive a Divine Universal Power exercising
volition, as the ultimate basis of matter and of the
natural laws resident therein, we reconcile the appa
rent contradiction between the mechanical conception '
(of the Universe) ' and Teleology V
This course of thought on the Scientific side of the
question has naturally been met by a like approxima
tion towards reconciliation from the side of Theology.
It may, in view of some well-known utterances on the
subject, be doubted whether declaration of war was not
made first from the camp of Evolution. Now, however,
theologians have come to see that, raised only by a
noisy minority, it had been rashly accepted as coming
from the true leaders, and from the whole body of
1 Weismann's Studies in the Theory of Descent (English translation,
1882), vol. ii. pp.- 710-713.

96 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
their followers. Naturally they had at first come to
the consideration of the theory not without prejudice ;
for if prejudice really implies (as the word should
imply) the result of a previous rational judgment, it
may well exist in different degrees in all thoughtful
minds, when an entirely new theory is presented to
them. If they have on other grounds strongly con
vinced themselves of a fundamental principle, with
which the new theory seems to be inconsistent, they
qannot but subject to a keen and even suspicious scru
tiny the arguments, by which that theory is supported.
Thus the Theologian, who, from a wholly different point
of view, mainly moral and spiritual, had grasped, as
a part of his very being, the faith in a living God,
Creator of heaven and earth and Father of man, could
not possibly regard without suspicion a line of thought,
which through many of its prominent advocates claimed
to set that faith aside. Now that this claim is seen
to be plainly untenable, and, as such, is disavowed
in the name of Science, Theology naturally lays aside
this rightful prejudice ; it is able to consider dispas
sionately all which the theory of Evolution teaches,
either with certainty or by probable inference ; it is
not surprised to find that it harmonizes marvellously
with the great fundamental truth, to which it was
once set in deliberate antagonism.
But this course of thought on the whole subject is
singularly interesting and instructive. We cannot (be
it remarked in passing) fail to trace in it the natural
progress of human speculation, as it was shown long
ago in the old Greek philosophy, when from the prim-

in.] Teleology proper to Theism. 97
ordial material elements of the Ionic School, it passed,
through the belief in Number — that is, proportion
and combination — of the Pythagoreans, to the recogni
tion by Anaxagoras of the ' Mind which came and set
all things in order.' For, after all ingenious attempts
to wed the belief in Teleology with Pantheism — the
belief in an order, designed to an appointed end, with
the conception, whatever this may mean, of ' a Soul
of the Universe, becoming in humanity conscious of
itself,' — the fact remains, and the ' broad common-sense
of humanity will recognise it, that the discovery in the
world of a Design, whether of usefulness or of beauty,
clearly indicates the existence of the Laws of Nature
in idea before their embodiment in fact, and so connects
itself with Theism and Theism alone. ' Even in the
view of Science' (says Sir James Paget) 'the first Essence
may have been a Being, willing and knowing, the
prime Source of all the foroes whose operation we see.'
But in view of the wonders of Design (he adds) : ' I
cannot imagine anything before natural force except
Supernatural Will ; and a belief of. this kind is held by
untutored minds as if it were instinctive knowledge V
If, therefore, it be true that the Law of Evolution
strengthens, because it widens, the idea of Teleology,
it is so far a witness to a Living God — not like the
God of the older Deism, who simply sets the machine
of the Universe in motion and leaves it to work by
1 See the Hunterian Oration of 1877. The distinguished author's
conclusion is, ' Time — or, if not time, Eternity — will prove that
Science and Christian Theology are but two sides of truth, and that
both sides are as yet known only in part.'
H

98 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
itself, but One, who in the language of Holy Scripture
is not only ' above all,' but '.through all and in all.'
It will not be the first time in the history of human
thought that discoveries of Law, which at first sight
appeared to shake or dim our faith in God, have been
found only to enlarge our conceptions of the wonder
of His Creative and Sustaining Work. Perhaps, as
when, without increase of the object-glass and so of
the entering light, we increase the magnifying power
of a telescope, the effect is to diminish the brilliance
at each point in the larger field, and for a time the
clearness of our vision in it ; but the mental eye soon
accustoms itself to the changed conditions, so as under
these to see deeper into the heart of things, and dis
cover more of their wondrous order. The Teleology
of Paley — a masterpiece in itself, even anticipating
(as has been pointed out by Professor Huxley1) some
conception of Evolution — may have been made partly
obsolete by that increase of our knowledge of the unity
and development of the whole, which forbids us to
consider any one thing alone, and to examine it merely
as it is, without thought of how it came to be what
it is. But the Teleology, to which Evolution bears
witness, if less luminously direct and obvious in its
vision of the Hand of God — if troubled by the sense
of apparent waste in Nature, and the still more painful
1 ' The acute champion, Paley, saw no difficulty in admitting that
the production of things may he the result of mechanical arrangements
made beforehand, and kept in action by a power in the centre ; that is
to say, he proleptically accepted the modern doctrine of Evolution.'
(See Darwin's Life, vol. ii. p. 202.)

in-] Evolution and Darwinism.

99

sense of suffering and death — is clearly grander, subtler,
deeper, and so far a worthier thought of the Infinite
Wisdom and Power, as far above the designing and
manufacturing art of man, as the heavens are higher
than the earth.
(B) The second point to be observed — of consider
able, although perhaps inferior, importance — -is that
the Law of Evolution is not to be identified, as in
common usage it often seems to be identified, with the
Darwinian theory; which properly touches it only in
the field of Organic Life, and which, by the testimony
of its great author and his wisest followers, does not
claim to give even in that field an exhaustive descrip
tion of the whole cause of Variation and Development.
It is true, indeed, that the ' Origin of Species ' first gave
basis and reality to theories of Evolution, which had
previously been floating and shadowy, and so was, as
really as Newton's Princvpia, an Epoch-making book
in the history of human thought 1. Few men, I suppose,
1 The effect of its appearance is described most graphically in the
chapter (vol. ii. pp. 179-204) contributed to the Life of Darwin by
Professor Huxley, from which several quotations have been made.
' The publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still
more that of the " Origin " in 1859, had the effect of the flash of light,
which to a man, who has lost himself on a dark night, suddenly reveals
a road, which, whether it takes him stiaight home or not, certainly
goes his way.' Of course, he cannot quite refrain from some sarcastic
reflections on the opposition of theologians to a theory, which, it must
be remembered, was hailed, although not by its author, as anti-
Theistic ; but he candidly acknowledges that ' if a General Council
of the Church Scientific had been held at the time, we, as adherents
of Darwinism, should have been condemned by au overwhelming
majority'; and speaks of 'that complete volte'face of the whole.
H 2

ioo Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
now doubt that the mutability of allied species, once
considered as fixed and unchangeable, has been sub
stantially proved ; that the idea of the derivation of
the whole Organic World from some few simple germs
of life has gained at least considerable probability;
that a real analogy has been established between the
actual growth of the individual being from the em
bryonic cell or cells, and the supposed growth of the
whole sum of Organic beings from these original germs.
No one, again, seriously doubts that in this development
the process, which Darwin termed ' Natural Selection,'
is one potent factor. The struggle for existence, and
the survival of' those who are fittest from various causes
to meet that struggle, are (I suppose) accepted as facts,
established by patient and laborious induction, and
shown to exercise an actual and very considerable in
fluence over the differentiation of species. But whether
they are to be regarded as constituting the sole influence,
because in themselves sufficient to account for all the
facts of the case — whether the analogy already referred
to does not suggest some inherent power of differentia
tion, or what Darwin himself called ' a mysterious innate
tendency to perfectibility,' correlative to and co-opera
ting with that Darwinian process, which lays chief stress
on the effect of the environment of circumstance and
contact with other existences — is another question 1.
Scientific world, which must seem so surprising to the present genera
tion.' See also Mr. Herbert Spencer's Essays, vol. i. pp. 393-396.
1 ' How far " Natural Selection " suffices for the production of species
remains to be seen. Few can doubt that if not the whole cause, it is
an important factor in that operation. . . . But the causes and con-

in. J Imperfections of Darwinian Theory. 101
Clearly the Darwinian theory taken alone is professedly
imperfect ; for it does not profess to account, first, for
the origin of Organic Life, next, for the 'variations,'
which gave the start of advantage in the great struggle,
or lastly, for the adaptation of the outward forces and
circumstances to the capacities of the inner life, which
produces the ' fitness ' designated as the cause of sur
vival. Its imperfection in these respects was acknow
ledged with his usual candour by its thoughtful origi
nator ; and (so far as any one not an expert may venture
to pronounce an opinion) it appears to be now more and
more distinctly recognised by philosophical thinkers, as
the natural enthusiasm, excited by the enunciation and
victorious establishment of the theory, gives way to a
more thoughtful estimate of its true significance. It
is seen clearly that the causes of the differentiation of
species may be a 'tendency to vary' in an organism
' in virtue of its molecular structure, indefinite or limited
to certain directions by intrinsic conditions,' or ' a varia
tion brought about by the influence of conditions ex
ternal to it, either indefinite or defined by intrinsic
ditions of variation have yet to be explored ; and the importance of
Natural Selection will not be impaired, even if further enquiries should
prove that variability is definite, and is determined in certain direc
tions rather than others by conditions inherent in that which varies.'
(Huxley on Evolution, Encycl. Brit., vol. viii. p. 751.) So Mr.
Herbert Spencer says (Essays, vol. i. p. 397) : ' Becognising in full
this process brought into clear view by Mr. Darwin, and traced out
by him with so much care and skill, can we conclude that, taken
alone, it accounts for Organic Evolution ? Has the natural selection
of favourable variations been the sole factor 1 On critically examining
the evidence, we shall find reason to think that it by no means explains
all that has to be explained.'

102 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
limitation'; or a 'combination of both extrinsic and
intrinsic conditions.' It is, indeed, held that ' evidence
to justify the positive adoption of any one of these
views can hardly be said to exist.' Yet the present
tendency of opinion appears to incline towards the
co-existence of some internal and external influences x ;
and it may be remarked that this view harmonizes best
with the belief in one Supreme Purpose, ruling over
and combining both. But on this matter we wait
calmly for further thought and investigation. It is
with the doctrine of Evolution in general that we are
concerned, and the decision of the place occupied in it
by Darwinism, properly so called, is not to us of a
primary concern.
(II) Let us then see, somewhat more in detail, how
this general process of Evolution presents itself, partly
to the observation, partly to the speculation, of Science
in relation to our own world.
We may, indeed, not unreasonably believe that in
the vaster Universe itself, it works under the same
general Laws — in developments, however, of which we
have indeed some indications, but which are in general
unknown to us, and cannot without rashness be assumed
to be absolutely identical with those of our own wrorld.
But it will be enough to consider that world alone, of
1 See Professor Huxley's article on Biology in the Encycl.
Britannica, vol. iii. p. 690 ; and compare Mr. Herbert Spencer ' On
the Factors of Organic Evolution ' in his Essays, vol. i. pp. 389-465,
ed. of 1891 ; criticised from a Darwinian point of view in Wallace's
Darwinism, c. xiv. See also Mr. Aubrey Moore's most interesting
Essays on ' Darwinism and the Christian Faith,' in his Science and the
Faith, especially pp. 162-165.

ill. J Evolution in the Provinces of Being. 103
which we do know much, and can safely infer more,
in its three great provinces of being — the world of
Inorganic Matter, the world of Life, the world of
Humanitv. Let me here say at once that I speak of those
Provinces of Being as distinct, simply because to our
present knowledge they show themselves as distinct.
Whatever speculation, more or less imaginative, may
do to bridge over in idea the divisions between them,
yet the whole evidence is on all hands allowed to be
distinctly against the derivation of Organic Life from
Inorganic Force ; and I cannot but contend that it is
at least equally strong against the derivation of Hu
manity from the merely animal being. But I must add
that, should these breaks ever be filled up to human
knowledge, so that we may trace — what now to us is
a complete mystery — the process of transition from one
to another, I fail to see how it ought to shake our faith
in the dependence of this unbroken Evolution on the
Will and Purpose of God, although it might possibly
make some evidences of it less striking to the ordinary
mind. If a current of Electricity be passed through a
wire, having in it breaks, at each of which a pinch of
gunpowder is placed, then the ignition of that gun
powder at each break is a simple and visible evidence
of the passage of the current. If those breaks are made
up, so that the wire becomes continuous, the passage of
the current through it will lose these visible manifesta
tions of its presence ; but it will not be the less real in
itself, and its reality can be ascertained by less obvious,
but perhaps more instructive, tests. So it may be true

104 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
that those breaks in our conception of the Order
of Creation serve to bring home vividly to the mind
the irresistible inference of the action of a Supreme
Creative Will, and the fulfilment of a Supreme Pur
pose ; but the real fundamental grounds of belief in
that truth are independent of their existence, and
would be absolutely unshaken, if they ceased to exist
for us.
Now in respect of the Inorganic world of Matter and
Force, we may, I suppose, consider some form of the
Nebular hypothesis as describing what is now generally
supposed to be the process of Evolution. Out of a
homogeneous indeterminate form of what we call ne
bulous matter — such as that which our Astronomy
plainly discerns as existing now in the field of the
heavens, and even within the limits of our Solar System
— endowed, we know not how, with the simplest form
of rotatory motion, and acted upon by the forces of
light and heat — it bids us conceive that by gradual
differentiation into heterogeneous conditions, the air,
the earth with its plains and mountains and rivers,
the sea with its fixed currents and its intermittent tides,
grew out into the marvellous variety and beauty of
inanimate Nature, and into fitness to sustain Organic
Life \ We can see and turn over in our geological
strata the successive leaves of this history of Evolu
tion ; we can trace there the action of fire, of water,
of ice, of atmospheric influences, of chemical and elec
trical agencies ; we can with much probability construct
1 See Mr. Herbert Spencer's Essay on ' The Nebular Hypothesis '
', vol, i. pp. 108-181).

in.] Evolution in the Inorganic World. 105
a record of the past ages, if we are allowed to assume
— by an assumption, of course, strictly unproved1 —
that the existing physical forces, and they alone,
wrought through those ages with much the same
power which they manifest how.
But the inner meaning of this historic record Phy
sical Science unaided cannot read ; the moulding and
directing Force under which all grew from a Chaos
into a Kosm'os, it cannot adequately discern or account
for. To the inevitable enquiry, ' How under these
purely physical influences did all grow, as clearly it
has grown, into a great whole of Order and Beauty ? '
there is no real and substantial answer in vague sug
gestions of mysterious ' potentialities of matter,' ' es
sential laws of polarity of molecules and molecular
structure,' ' operations of immanent properties,' and
the like, which are hardly susceptible of any definite
meaning in themselves, and which utterly fail to ex
plain the visible unity of order, and the irresistible
inference of Design. It would surely be as reasonable
to account for the existence and working of a steam
engine, simply by the properties of iron and the expan
sive force of steam, ignoring the directing mind, which
through these worked out its preconceived end, and
the superintendence, which continually guides and con
trols it. Without Design all would be (as has been
1 At the recent meeting of the British Association at Edinburgh,
much interesting reference was made, in the President's Address and
elsewhere, to the conflict as to the duration which must be assigned
to the prehistoric ages, between the Geologists, making this assump
tion, on the one hand, and the Physicists, bringing in the correction of
other considerations, on the other.

io6 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
said by Von Hartmann) ' only a weak chaos of obstinate
and capricious forces.' To refer all to ' Laws of Nature '
gives a rational account of Causation, only if we take
them in the true sense of the word to be really ' laws ' —
the expressions (that is) of a Supreme Will and Purpose,
belonging to an Eternal Mind. Otherwise the study of
them reveals nothing but a great order of relation and
instrumentality; it yields no satisfaction whatever to
the enquiry into the Cause underlying them, although
perhaps it suggests that, as created mind discerns this
Order, and within limits uses it for its own purposes, it
is but reasonable to infer that it must be Supreme Mind,
which ordains it and works out Purpose through it.
After all we must come back to discern behind these
Laws a ' Cause of which ' (to use the words quoted
above) ' we know but one thing with certainty that it
is Teleological ' ; and to me such a Teleological Cause
as this simply means a Supreme Mind.
But at some stage of this growth, there comes in the
first germ of Organic Life, when the physical condition
of the Inorganic world is such as to give it scope and
opportunity. It is an established fact, that now, neither
by natural process, nor by art of man, is it producible
out of inanimate Matter and the Forces which pervade it.
What has been called, somewhat strangely, Biogenesis J
— the invariable production of life out of life alone —
is accepted as an incontrovertible law, even by those
whose inclination would lead them to desire and to
expect an opposite opinion. If the past is, as usual,
1 The name is now too generally established to admit of alteration ;
but surely it ought to be Zoogenesis.

in.] Biogenesis.

107

to be judged of by the present, the inference must be,
that the force of Life is different in kind from the purely
physical forces, and that, when it came into this world,
it appeared as a new power — adapting itself to the stage
already reached in the growth of the Inorganic World,
able to use its forces, and to assimilate its substance,
but not derived from them, or capable of resolution into
them. It is possible, of course, to suppose that what
we discern as an universal law now, did not hold then ;
but to assume this without a shred of evidence is to
contradict the invariable postulate of scientific investi
gation. Is it reasonable through a supposed ' intellec
tual necessity ' to ' cross the boundary of experimental
evidence, and discern in matter the promise and potency
of life 1 1 ' The introduction of life into the great Order
of the World may be reasonably referred to ' natural
forces ' — forces (that is) belonging to the system of
Nature as a whole, — but this does not imply that they
were the forces previously existing on the earth. It is
clearly a part of the general process of Evolution, but
we must remember the caution against concluding that
what is found in its later conditions was necessarily
existent implicitly in the earlier. However it came
into our world — and Science through the mouth of its
greatest leaders can only form suppositions on this
matter, of which it confesses that they 'may seem
wild and visionary 2 ' — it is the germ of a new order
1 Professor Tyndall's Belfast Address.
2 See Sir W. Thomson's (Lord Kelvin's) Presidential Address at
Edinburgh in 1871 ; where he speculates as to the possibility of ' seed-
bearing meteoric stones ' careering through space from other worlds,

108 Evolution— Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
of things — a new start (as it appears to us) in the process
of development.
But from this point the Evolution theory seems to
unfold to us with high probability a process of gradual
growth and differentiation into many forms. Looking
first to fact, in the actual growth of the individual Or
ganic being, it starts from the germ, defined as ' matter
potentially alive and having within itself the tendency
to assume a definite living form.' What is that germ \
Analysis of it only shows us, in all known instances, the
materia] elements of ' Carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
nitrogen, united in the ill-defined compound called
protein.' But there is in it something beyond the.
test of this analysis, which makes it living matter.
By that living force, in all animals and plants above
the lowest, the original cell is divided, and becomes an
aggregate of cells ; in sexual propagation the sperm
and germ cells are fused together. Gradually out
of what seems in all cases the same original protein,
there is a mysterious differentiation into an all but
infinite diversity of beings, although all seem to pass
through the same process, and to assimilate from with
out the same food.
and of ' one such falling on the earth,' which ' might, by what we blindly
call natural causes, lead to its becoming covered with vegetation.' ' The
hypothesis' (he adds) 'may seem wild and visionary: all I maintain
is, that it is not unscientific' Whatever be the value of the hypothesis,
which seems incapable either of proof or disproof, its distinguished
author rightly sees that it is consistent with the ' overwhelmingly
strong proofs of intelligent and benevolent Design all around us . . .
showing to us through Nature the influence of a free will, and teaching
us that all living beings depend on one everlasting Creator and
Ruler.'

in.] Evolution in the World of Life. 109
Starting from this observation of actual fact in the
development of the individual being, the Evolution
Theory forms the idea of a substantial analogy in the
development of the sum of all living beings from some
original germ or germs of Organic Life. The most direct
suggestion of the idea is probably due to ' the observa
tion of the existence of an analogy between the series
of gradations presented by the species, which compose
any great group of animals and plants, and the series
of embryonic conditions of the highest,' that is the most
complex, 'members of each group.' But, as we are told
on the best authority, ' the modern scientific form of the
doctrine can be traced historically to the influence of
several converging lines of philosophical speculation
and of physical observation'— including the observation
of a general unity of structure in each group, which shows
many gradations of complexity, and of organs rudimen
tary and apparently useless in our species of the group,
which are fully developed and have definite functions
in another, and also of the effects of varying external
conditions in modifying living organisms, and of the
facts of geographical distribution and geological succes
sion of life \ The great impulse, which gave fresh life
and reality to the conclusions thus gradually forming
themselves — the electric spark, which brought all these
elements into combination — was the discovery by Dar
win, and all but simultaneously by Wallace, of the
power of ' Natural Selection ' in the origination of
1 In the article on Evolution, from which I quote, Professor Hux
ley enumerates eight of these converging lines of speculation. (Encycl.
Brit. vol. viii. p. 747.)

1 1 o Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
species. From this new start the Evolution Theory
has taken firm hold of the whole mind of Physiological
Speculation : in many forms and by many hands —
after some modifications already, with more showing
themselves at no distant future 1 — it is being wrought
out. From the primordial germ of Organic Life, the first
differentiation is of vegetable and animal life, almost
undistinguishable in their simplest and crudest forms,
gradually becoming widely distinguished — mainly per
haps by the development in the animal life of what we
call Instinct, which is a foreshadowing of personality,
from the most rudimentary impulses of conscious life
up to some resemblance to our own intellectual and
moral qualities. Then in each section a continual
differentiation into genera, species, varieties, individuals
— these in their later developments becoming less sus
ceptible of change, and within the range of historical
investigation all but absolutely fixed, and incapable of
blending with one another. The comparison suggested
is of a great tree of Organic Life, having 'a common
root, whence two main trunks, one representing the
vegetable and one the animal world, spring ; and, each
dividing into a few main branches, these subdivide into
multitudes of branchlets, and these into smaller groups
of twigs.'
The idea is clearly one of grandeur and beauty, and
1 I observe, for instance, that Professor Weismann has doubts as to
the single homogeneous root of Organic Life, and inclines to think that
' numerous Organisms first arose ' simultaneously, and ' spontaneously'
— that is, of course, without derivation from one another..

in.] A theory of Method, not of Cause. 1 1 1
it at least accounts with probability for large numbers
of facts otherwise unaccountable. The evidence for it
is, and must be, infinitely less clear and certain, than
that of the Evolution of the individual being. There
are gaps in it not yet filled up ; ' missing links ' not
yet forged in the chain ; contradictions not yet removed.
From these may probably result modifications of some
portions of the theory. But it has advanced and is
advancing to completeness. Whatever corrections or
enlargements it may receive, it is universally accepted
as containing substantial truth.
But here even more clearly than in the Inorganic
World, we see that it is a Theory of Method and Order,
not of Cause. Of the origin of Life it professes not to
have the slightest knowledge ; of the character of the
indwelling force, which out of the one original cell
developes the marvellous diversity of structure in the
individual beings, and of the variations, which gave a
start to the process of Natural Selection in the differen
tiation of species, it can tell us nothing ; of the marvellous
adaptation of the external conditions of the Inorganic
World to the growth and differentiation of Organic Life
it gives no account ; the unity of all this infinite variety
of development in one great Order having a continual
progress towards a higher perfection, it sees clearly,
but it cannot find its Cause. No wonder that, as we
have seen, those who study it most deeply and philo-.
sophically are driven to go behind it in the search after
the true Cause, and that it sends them to that search
with an irresistible Teleological conviction of an over
ruling Design and Purpose. Is there, after all, a

1 1 2 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
fundamental incompatibility between it and that older
theory, which Sir Richard Owen worked out with so
much skill and force, of a general archetypal idea of
structure pervading each great family of organic being,
and varied in each species and variety in minute and
subtle gradations, so that each can discharge its
special function T ? For clearly the development under
fixed laws and gradual process of the Organic World,
no more prevents the original Creative and directive
Idea from being the true Cause of all, than the pass
ing of the individual being through all the stages of
embryonic existence from the simple cell makes it less
the creature of the Supreme Hand. That the Arche
typal Idea of the Creative Mind may fulfil itself equally,
whether it act directly or through intermediate grada
tions, we can see clearly, not only by abstract theory, but
by experience of our own ' creations.'
This province of Being has been from old time the
chosen field of Natural Theology; partly, because it
manifests overruling Design in a subtler and more
striking perfection, under the form of what, using
human analogy, men call instinctively contrivance2,
' ' Owen on the 'Nature of Limbs' (1849).
2 It is strange that even John Stuart Mill should fall into the
popular fallacy of assuming that this idea of Contrivance is unworthily
anthropomorphic, because Contrivance argues defect of power in the
Contriver. ' What is meant ' (he says) ' by Design 1 Contrivance ;
the adaptation of means to an end. But the necessity of contrivance
is a consequence of the limitation of power.' (' Essay on Theism,'
part ii.) A necessity imposed from without would, of course, be so.
But we are familiar every day in our own experience of necessity
imposed from within, by resolution to work for a special purpose and
through special instrumentality. There is sounder philosophy in

in.] Teleology in the Organic World. 113
which is simply the action of Mind working under fixed
laws for a foreseen purpose ; partly because, when we
enter upon the region of sentient life, we at once infer
from our own higher humanity, and believe that we
have strong confirmation of that inference in the obser
vation of Nature as a whole, that this Design is pervaded
by a care for these sentient creatures, and such care is
an inseparable attribute of Personality. On both sides
it is true, that the conclusions of universal human
instinct are troubled under the light of fuller knowledge
by thoughts of hesitation and perplexity — in the appa
rent waste of Nature, and the presence in it of mutual
conflict and of pain. But out of these emerges the final
thought, correcting and extending and yet establishing
the first — in part discovering, especially through the
great conception of Evolution, that what seemed to us
defects and offences really subserve a transcendent
Purpose — in part, while we recognise speculative and
moral difficulties, yet seeing that they are insufficient
to set aside the original conception — in part, if on other
grounds we have a strong faith in God, inclining to
refer them to the imperfection of our knowledge and so,
in the strict sense of the phrase, to accept them as 'trials
of faith.' If some of the simpler and cruder arguments
of the old Natural Theology are obsolete, yet in the
study of the Organic sphere of life this ' Science of
God ' lives in grander, subtler, and therefore nobler
form.Hooker's conception of ' the Law Eternal which God has set Himself
to work all things by ' — without which, indeed, no fellow-working of
His creatures would be possible. I

114 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
Lastly, from this sphere of Organic Life, we pass
into the higher sphere of Humanity. I make no
apology (as I have already said) for treating it as
distinct; for historically and actually it is distinct.
We know, of course, that in respect of man's bodily
organisation, Science has taught us to trace, not indeed
identity, but through wonderful gradations an intimate
connection, with lower orders of animal being1. We
have learnt, even beyond this, to see in what we
roughly call ' animal instinct ' similarities, more or less
strong, within the sphere of sensation, to human reason
and affection, and even to the moral sense of relation
and resulting duty; we are now discovering not indis
tinct traces of some kind of language, audible or other
wise, as a means of communication of these develop^
ments of instinct ; we see some dawning in rudi
mentary form even of that willing self-sacrifice for
the weak, fighting against the selfish struggle for
existence, which we emphatically call ' humanity.'
But, interesting as these similarities are — showing,
indeed, that the properly human faculties follow those
(so to speak) naturally, in the gradual progress towards
perfection, — yet there is an unmistakeable line of
1 See Wallace's Darwinism, c. xv. pp. 450-459, and its reference
to St. George Mivart's Man and Apes. He quotes an instructive
remark of Professor Huxley : ' In conclusion, I may say, that the fossil
remains of man hitherto discovered do not seem to me to take us
appreciably nearer to that lower pithecoid form, by the modification
of which he has probably become what he is'; and adds significantly,
' that it is an unsolved problem why no traces of the long line of man's
ancestors, back to the remote period when he first branched off from
the pithecoid type, have been discovered.'

Hi-] Distinctness of Humanity. \ \ 5
demarcation still between them and the highest in
stinct ; which can be no more really identified with them
than the internal power of structure in crystallisation
with the power of true growth in Organic Life \
'Beasts' (said our first great Anglican theologian more
than three hundred years ago) ' are in sensible capacity
as ripe as men themselves, perhaps more ripe. But
the soul of man hath a further ability, whereof is in
them no show at all, an ability of reaching higher than
to sensible things2.' That old witness is true. Man
has the power of ' seeing the invisible ' — in understand
ing and imagination, of conceiving abstract ideas ; in
moral sense, of recognising abstract principles of right,
and hearing an inner voice which ear never heard ; in
will, of curbing, in accordance with these, the physical
forces of appetite and passion, and the motives of hope
and fear; in heart, of rising above sensual or even
personal affection to the universal and spiritual prin
ciple of love ; in spirit, as all history past and present
testifies, of feeling after and finding an Invisible God,
unknown perhaps, yet known to be. With this higher
capacity are bound up the wonderful faculty of true
language, which is its outward expression, and the
capacity of education of the individual and in the race
that unlimited progress, which we call Civilisation —
1 It is not, I trust, presumptuous to note in relation to Darwin's
speculations on this subject, that his Psychology is hardly so strong as
his Physiology. So far as I can see, the great fundamental distinction
is ignored, between the power in man of abstract idea, moral and
intellectual, and the lower power of perception and deduction within
the realm of sense.
2 Hooker's Eccl. Pol. i. c. vi. sections 2, 3,
I 2

116 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
in mastery over Nature, rule over the lower orders
of animal being, discovery of the Laws of the Universe,
realization of the social, political, moral ties which bind
humanity together, advance through thought and faith
to a spiritual knowledge of God.
There this characteristic human capacity is, ob
viously, a new and distinct capacity; even the sem
blances of it in brute instinct are largely developed by
its reflex influence through what we call domestication.
The history of the world proves its absolute distinct
ness. Whatever may be guessed or inferred as to
physical and psychical ancestry, the spiritual faculty
can find no progenitor, and all efforts to trace it back
are rejected by the common-sense of human conscious
ness. Between the highest order of the brute creation
and the lowest race of man — like those savages of
Tierra del Fuego, whom Darwin at one time placed
hopelessly low in the scale, and yet recognised frankly,
not without astonishment, as capable of being civilized
by spiritual influence1, — there is clearly a great gulf
fixed. Its reality has been acknowledged by profound
believers in Evolution ; by one at least of the very
1 'Mr. Darwin' (says Admiral Sir James Sulivan) 'had often expressed
to me his conviction that it was utterly useless to send missionaries
to such a set of savages as the Fuegians, probably the very lowest of
the human race. I had always replied that I did not believe any
human beings existed too low to comprehend the simple message of the
Gospel of Christ. After many years he wrote to me that the recent
account of the mission showed that he had been wrong and I right .
and he requested me to forward to the Society an enclosed cheque for
£5, as a testimony of his interest in their good work.' This subscrip
tion he seems to have continued annually till his death. (Darwin's
Life, vol. iii. pp. 127, 128.)

in.] Its Reality and its Origin. 117
highest authorities in the Evolutionist School, who
rejoices in it as a 'relief from a crushing mental burden'
¦ — a ' hopeless and soul-deadening belief V To ordinary
minds it seems as real, if not as wide, a gulf as that
which separates the living from the lifeless realm.
We may refer it to what origin we will ; talk vaguely
of 'higher potentialities' in matter and animal life, draw
analogies (as, for example, between the Social Instincts
of Animals and the commanding moral Sense in Man)
which indicate likeness, and vainly attempt from them
to prove essential identity; or leave it alone as a matter
to us mysterious, in hope that some day it may cease
to be ' unknown and unknowable.' Or we may, on the
other hand, accept the doctrine, in which the simplest
Christianity, even the simplest Theism, finds at least
a simple and intelligible account for it in Divine Will
and Purpose, which, though man's frame be allied to
the very 'dust of the earth,' yet gave him 'the image of
God,' and with it the lordship over creation, and made
all lower things work together for his progress to
perfection. But in any case it seems clear that the
distinction is a great unmistakeable reality, and that,
1 See Wallace's Darwinism, c. xv. (Macmillan, 1890). The whole
chapter is worthy of the most careful study. His conclusion is this :
' We thus find that the Darwinian theory, even when carried out to its
extreme logical conclusion, not only does not oppose, but lends a
decided support to, a belief in the spiritual nature of man. It shows
us how man's body may have been developed from that of a lower
animal form under the Law of Natural Selection ; but it also teaches
us that we possess intellectual and moral faculties, which could not
have been so developed, but must have had another origin : and for
this origin we can only find an adequate cause in the unseen Universe
of Spirit.'

1 1 8 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
when we enter the sphere of humanity, we enter an
altogether distinct and higher province of being.
But, within that province, we cannot refuse to trace
once more the great Law of Evolution, a continual
progress towards what we call civilisation, including
both the development of the individual, and the har
monious development of the whole race as one. In
this phase of Evolution, as in others, the development
of the individual is in great degree an instructive type
of the development of the race. We look to this
individual development from the rudimentary con
dition of infancy, full of capacities as yet dormant, to
the conscious maturity of full manhood ; we can trace
the actual process, by which it is wrought out, in the
harmonious combination of these capacities within, and
of influences, material and spiritual, from without.
By no mere metaphor, but by a real analogy — which,
however, like other analogies, may have its imperfec
tions — we apply what we here learn distinctly to the
larger and more complex growth from the childhood
to the manhood of the whole race, or of the lesser
national divisions which make up the whole. The
germ of this higher life has, like the germ of the
Organic life, an order of gradual development, of which
it has been truly said that it bears a likeness to that
process of differentiation from the simple to the com
plex, which is characteristic of the lower Evolution1.
Yes ! a likeness, which consciously or unconsciously
1 See Herbert Spencer on ' Progress ; its Law and Cause ' (Essays,
vol. i. pp. 8-62), the ideas and illustrations of which are incorporated
in his ' First Principles.'

Hi.] Evolution in the World of Humanity. 1 1 9
we continually discern and imply. But yet a likeness
with difference. This higher Evolution shows itself
as one less simple, less equable, less continuous, because
in the forces working it out, there is included the real
though mysterious power of free human will, which
the sense of its mystery can not justify us in explain
ing away, and which has the power to accept and
further, and power to ignore and resist, the Laws of
humanity. Buled, of course, that power must be by
the Supreme Power ; but, after another and a freer
fashion, not by compulsion, but by some action, whether
of direct spiritual influence or of the indirect power
of circumstance, which conserves and works through
freedom. Such action of spirit on spirit within limits
we know by our own experience ; and so can conceive
it without limitation and imperfection, as a part of
the Supreme rule of God over His creatures. Thus in
this Evolution of humanity the equability and con
tinuity of progress vary, in proportion as it requires
more or less strictly the co-operation of human will.
It is greatest in the material progress of conquest over
the forces of Nature ; it is less complete in the intel
lectual ; it is less unbroken still in the moral and
spiritual sphere, where it has to meet and combat the
disturbing forces of moral evil, subtler perhaps, yet
not less intense, as the world grows older. In all,
though in different degrees, it has apparently its places
and its periods of stagnation, conflict, retrogression.
To our eyes it is not a calm unbroken stream, but a
restless sea, yet having a tide, moved by an attraction
from above, which makes it set towards an appointed

120 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
shore. In the lesser unities, as of national life, it seems
to complete the likeness to the individual life, by
showing the phenomena of sudden extinction or senile
decay; and speculation sometimes asks in its gloomier
moods, whether these phenomena may not at some
future day manifest themselves in relation to the whole
race. Nor is this human Evolution worked out wholly by
the same forces. It has its relation to the Environ
ment of things, and so to the physical laws of material
development, which, according to the old saying, we
must rule by obeying. It has the element correspond
ing to the struggle for existence — the will to live and
work — the supersession of the weak, physically, intel
lectually, morally weak, whether races or individuals,
which Darwinism shows us in the Organic World. But
it has, rising above and tempering this, the nobler ele
ment, which we call essentially ' humanity ' — the will
to love, the self-sacrifice of the strong, and the sense
of a duty laid upon them, to ' bear the infirmities of
the weak,' and to labour to strengthen and to improve
them, as working otit on their behalf the beneficent
purpose of the Supreme Power.
Yet, unlike in these and other respects, the Evolution
in humanity is not less real. We can actually discern
its working ; because in history, past and present, we
see the human race in various stages, and watch its
passage from one to another, not merely by internal
capacity and the aid of physical circumstance, but also
by the conscious action on those in the lower stages
of those who have reached the higher. In spite of

in.] The Moral Teleology. 121
the hindrances and antagonisms of which we have
spoken, under which, indeed, men groan till they are
tempted in sheer despair to exalt them into co-or
dinate or dominant Laws of life, there is, we believe,
out of the germ of the higher humanity an Evolution
towards a higher perfection.
But behind this Evolution, even more distinctly than
the others, it is impossible for deeper human thought
not to see a Supreme Power originative, directive,
immanent, but with a Design and Purpose, here felt
to be distinctly moral — ' making ' (to use the modern
phrase) 'for Truth and Righteousness ' — showing (to
use Butler's more intelligible phrase) 'the Moral Govern
ment' of a Divine Person. The universal witness to
the existence of such a Power, in all the religious and
in the noblest philosophies of the world — expressing
itself in all human languages and literatures — cannot
lightly be set aside. There that Power is — telling
both on the individual soul and on the collective
humanity — telling both by the Laws of the orderly
Environment of life (including in this for each man
the influence of his fellow-men) and by some guidance
and inspiration of that spiritual life within of thought
and conscience and will, which is the distinctive human
faculty. This development in each person cannot be
considered in isolation ; for there are great Laws, which
in respect of it bind all in one ; and yet the inde
structible consciousness of personality, which expresses
itself in all language and literature, refuses to be
absorbed and lost in human society as a whole. As
in the lower Evolutions, there must be some Supreme

122 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
Power, on which rest each and all for life and growth
— some central source of attraction, round which all
move, each with its own tendency to free motion, all
with the lesser mutual attractions to one another. For
my own part, if I realize my own moral personality,
I can form no intelligible conception of that Supreme
Power, which is not distinctly personal ; nor will human
language suffer me to speak of it without using terms
which imply personality. If all Teleology — all recog
nition of Design and Purpose — inevitably implies this,
the implication is doubly strong when that Purpose
is recognised as moral ; for moral idea and being are
of the very essence of personality. The soul of man
can bow down, and always has bowed down, to a
Divine Personality; the reserve of unbounded rever
ence, felt in all natures and most felt in the noblest,
finds its right employment in such worship. But to
a Force, a diffused Life, an impersonal Law, it can
no more pay spiritual homage, than the Three Children
could fall down and worship the golden image in the
plains of Dura. In the Evolution of the inanimate
world, our immediate inference may be of Supreme
Force, and in that of the Organic World of a Supreme
Life, while the further inference of Will and so of
Personality lies behind these ; but, in respect of the
world of conscious personal being, that which there
lay in the background comes out as the most primary
inference. There the Supreme Power must be a Su
preme Moral Will ; and what is this but a Supreme
Personality %
(III) Now if this be a true, however imperfect, sketch

in.] The Scriptural Record of Creation. 123
of what we can trace by Science, physical and meta
physical, of Evolution in the three great provinces of
being, how stands Christian doctrine in relation to it 1
We must answer, here as elsewhere, that, on the one
hand, it accepts and confirms what we discover natur
ally of the Law; it extends it on the other beyond the
reach of our discovery into the realm of the Super
natural. (A) Consider in broad outline, without discussion of
details — however interesting and important — passing
through the letter addressed to the ancient simplicity
to the spirit of the underlying truth, which is for all
time — the Eevelation of the growth of the world, as
a whole, to be what it is, not only as expressly declared
in the records of Creation, but as implied everywhere
in the Holy Scripture, which is the charter of our
Christian faith.
In the first place, it is certainly in the largest sense the
story of a development out of the nebulous Chaos, 'with
out form and void,' first of Inorganic Nature, then of the
world of vegetable and animal life, lastly of the world of
humanity. All these steps in Creation, however they
may be related in time, are recorded in one continuous
history, because all are parts of one great system, steps
in one great natural process. ' Successive Creation ' in
one sense undoubtedly there is ; for every one of these
steps is, of course, referred to the Creative Will and
Purpose, which must underlie them all, and this refer
ence is made in language, which the simplest minds
and the simplest ages could understand. But ' Suc
cessive Creation,' in the sense which has been assigned

124 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
to that word, implying a series of progressions per
saltum, and in each the bringing forth in perfection
from the beginning of all the infinite variety, now fill
ing each province of created being, is nowhere ex
pressed, nowhere necessarily implied. It is not in the
narrative itself, but in the interpretations of the narra
tive — not least, as has been noted, that of Milton in the
Paradise Lost — that this theory is found. In the
original, — ' God spake,' ' and it was so ' — the great
fundamental truth of all vital Beligion, is set forth to
us in a sublime simplicity. How it was so — this is
one of the secrets of God, which, in measure but in
measure only, it was left to the human mind to learn
by study through all ages. But in the revelation of
the growth of the great world — always regarded in
its relation to man — by these successive stages at once
of Creation and of development, Holy Scripture cer
tainly anticipated to men of old the essence of much
which we are now discovering to be in main outline
the order of fact.
It is hard to exaggerate the extraordinary signifi
cance of this anticipation. Yet in our unceasing dis
cussions on each side of the great controversy over
minute difficulties of detail in relation to this recorded
order, or etymological shades of meaning in the words
used, or the right interpretation of the ' days ' of
Creation, and the like, we are apt to lose sight of the
marvel of the essential accordance of this simple record,
coming to us through thousands of years from the ear
liest childhood of man in history, with all that the
maturest Science has slowly and painfully discovered

in.] Its pervading Teleology. 125
as to the laws and processes of the great realm of
Nature. On the Christian's view of what Holy Scrip
ture is, that accordance is easily explicable. The
Word of God naturally accords with the Works of
God. On any other who can explain what stands out
as a phenomenon strikingly unique in itself, still more
striking in its contrast with all other cosmogonies, re
ligious or philosophical, of days gone by 1
In the next place, the Scripture brings out explicitly
what mere speculation can but suggest as an inference
of reasoning, in regard to the nature of the unseen
Cause, which lies behind this process of Evolution. In
speaking of the origin of all things, it strikes in (so to
speak) decisively upon the battle of Theism and Pan
theism, by its revelation of the First Cause as an
Eternal Will, expressed in a Creative Word, working
by a Creative Spirit. But beyond this, it goes on to
bring out with equal explicitness, as ruling over each
stage of development, that which Teleology implies,
and to which, as that which we have seen, our maturest
Science bears witness — the Design of an ever-present
Wisdom, ordering it because for the Divine purpose it
was to be, and it was, ' very good.' All the lower
developments it crowns by the creation of man as
having lordship over Creation, in virtue of a spiritual
nature which is ' the Image of God,' beyond which no
development is traced in Nature, and on which accord
ingly the Creative Power is said to 'rest'; although,
indeed, the fuller teaching of our Lord hereafter de
clares in distinct reference to this ' rest ' of God ' My
Father worketh up to this moment, and so work I.'

126 Evohttion — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
For these truths, again, belong to the essence of spiritual
religion — the faith in the unceasing Providence, and
the communion with man, of a Living God.
As to the process of Evolution which Science traces
in each of the three provinces of being, there is in the
Bevelation significant difference. The purpose of that
Kevelation is to bring out God's dispensation to man ;
with other stages of His dealing with the world there
is concern, only so far as they bear on this. So to
the growth of the world of Inorganic Nature and
Organic Life, there is but brief reference. They come
from the Creative Wisdom ; they show forth God's
glory: how this may be, it matters not, if only it is.
Yet we cannot but see that, even here, the obedience
to the Creative Word of Design is set forth (so to
speak) as a natural process under natural laws. ' God
spake ' and ' it was so ' ; ' the earth and the waters
brought forth'; and we have been recently reminded x
how some of the most thoughtful of ancient authorities
held that it was causaliter, not actualiter, by reception
of the power to produce. We cannot but be reminded
by analogy of the Psalmist's reference to that embry
onic growth, in which we see now a type of the growth
of Organic Life itself, ' Thine eyes did see my sub
stance, yet imperfect, and in thy Book were all my
members written, which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there were none of them.' The precon
ceived idea and purpose in the Divine Mind, working
itself through a gradual development, here implied for
1 By Mr. Aubrey Moore (Science and the Faith, p. 176). See
Note F.

in.] Its Evolution in Humanity. 127
the individual being, may well be extended to that
Evolution of the whole, of which the individual Evolu
tion is the type.
But in the realm of humanity it has always seemed
to me that there is most plainly in the Revelation the
story of a growth from the first germ of true humanity
to its perfection. Never was there a stranger perver
sion of the original, than in that artificial picture, with
which Milton's genius has unhappily familiarized us, of
what is virtually a full-grown manhood masquerading
under the conditions of childhood. Nothing can be more
really unscriptural than the idea so commonly and so
loosely taken up on the one side, that the primeval state
of man was a state of perfection, to which all subsequent
history is a vain effort to return ; except perhaps the
random assertion on the other, that what we call the
Fall was the first step in human progress out of what
seems in this view 'a fool's Paradise.' In the Scriptural
vision of primeval humanity, we trace indeed the germs
of all civilization to come — in simple work the germ
of material civilization, in the origin of language of the
intellectual, in marriage of the social and moral, in the
hearing of the voice of the Lord God of the religious.
But it is in germ only; in a simplicity not brutish
indeed, or savage, as we now see degraded savagery,
but childlike, 'naked and not ashamed'; clearly the
beginning of a development in all the elements of
human nature — which the entrance of evil into the
world disturbed and perverted by a morbid development
of itself, but destroyed not — up to the perfection of
manhood in the dispensation on earth, and the earnest

128 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
of a higher perfection still in the world to come. The
Scriptural history of man is so far like the scientific,
that it is clearly a story of Progress. But that pro
gress it refers, not to an immanent power in man, or to
the action of a vague stream of tendency, but to the
purpose and the direction of the living God. What
indeed is the whole Scripture, but the story of such
education of humanity under His Providence and
by His Spirit — a Providence which orders all things
for the salvation from evil and perfection in good,
through history and through Law — a Spirit which
always ' strives with man,' and inspires his intellectual
and moral, as well as his spiritual life, guiding the
lawgiver, the king, even the artificer, as well as the
Prophet and the Apostle 1 In this development there
is recognised, as we have seen, the unnatural element
of an engrained power of evil, struggling under the
Law of Heredity against good, to which all observation
of the world, as it is, bears but too plain a witness.
But there by distinct promise is sealed the hope, in
herent in humanity itself, that this unnatural power
shall be at last both conquered and overruled to the
highest good. Only the scope of this Evolution is
enlarged — for the individual beyond the limits of his
life here — for humanity itself beyond the limits of this
world's appointed time.
So far, as it seems to me, the Christian doctrine
simply takes up, extends, illuminates, the great natural
Law of Evolution.
(B) But, as yet we have not viewed it as distinctively
Christian : we have not asked what is the bearing in

in.] The Incarnation a 'new Creation! 129
this aspect of the Manifestation in the fulness of the
time of the Son of God, as Son of Man ?
The truth itself of that Manifestation — let us again
put this clearly before ourselves, and proclaim it to the
world — is the Divine mystery of mysteries, a secret of
the Will and Nature of God, revealed only to faith in
the word of Him who said, ' I came forth from the
Father and am come into the world ; again I leave the
world and go unto the Father.' We should hardly dare
to bring it into analogy with the lower manifestations of
God to man, if we did not remember that in all analogy
the higher reality necessarily transcends the lower,
and that Our Lord Himself in His Parables taught
us to shadow out by comparison with earthly things
His Kingdom of Heaven. From these lower manifesta
tions, who could have conceived beforehand — who can
even now comprehend — the Personal Incarnation of
Godhead in humanity \ If it may perhaps be fore
shadowed by the recognition of the power of God, as
immanent in all creation, and more visibly immanent
(so to speak) in humanity, yet how dim this fore
shadowing, compared with the brightness of the reality !
But in what way is its actual working in the world
represented to us % It is, as we have already seen,
described as a ' new Creation ' — the beginning of a new
spiritual Order — which yet does not break continuity
with the past, but, while it brings in a Divine spiritual
force before unknown, takes up and subordinates to
its higher purpose all the forces of the old Creation.
Clearly in this representation there is a striking analogy
to all that has gone before. By what is actually in
K

130 Evolution— Natural and Supernatural, [lect,
effect a new Creation1 — whether it be connected or
disconnected with the old — we have seen at each step
the introduction into the world of a new power, as we
pass from the Inorganic realm of lifeless Nature to the
realm of Organic Life, from the realm of Organic Life
to the realm of Humanity. Now that natural progress
is shown to us as carried on to a Supernatural perfec
tion by the bringing in of a new Divine Life — at once
the Light and the Life of men — entering into the
humanity which is the crown and culmination of the
old development, in order to raise it to unity with the
Divine Nature itself. This new Creation is set forth
to us as an integral element, .as the highest element,
of the whole Divine Order — fore-ordained before the
foundation of the world — in someway coexisting with the
lower elements in anticipatory power before its actual
Manifestation — prepared for under God's Providence
through all ' the fulness of time.' The Manifestation,
being in a Personality at once Divine and human, is
necessarily complete in itself, unique, unapproachable,
begun in the visible life of Christ on earth, continued
still in its completeness in the invisible life of heaven.
From the nature of the case, its relation to the human
personality, as a living power, is a thing Supernatural,
transcending the analogy on which we are now dwelling;
But yet in its effect both on the individual and on
1 It is notable that in the record of Creation in Gen. i., the word
(K"13) which, so far as human language can express a superhuman
idea, denotes an actual creation of substance out of nothingness, is
used only in w. 1, 21, 27, first of the creation of the Inorganic world,
jiext, of the creation of animal life, and. lastly, of the creation of Man.

in.] Its twofold development in man. 131
the collective life of all mankind, it is clearly (to use our
Lord's own comparison) a seed sown in the spiritual
soil of humanity — a leaven infused into its threefold
nature — a germ to be developed through the ages of
a new dispensation, which is to last till its work shall
come to the full possible perfection, and then to give
place to a higher dispensation still, ' that God may be
all in all.'
Entering thus into the humanity, which has already
in it, as we have seen, the two developments of original
good and of an infused evil, its working necessarily
shows itself under two aspects, as having relation to
both. In respect of the one it is through the Incarna
tion simply the regeneration to a new glory of the image
of God in humanity, taking up into the highe life all
its energies, bodily, mental, spiritual, and bidding them
grow in Christ' towards the perfection which we call
heaven, and on which the Ascension was the entrance
of our human nature in Him. So far it harmonizes
itself without struggle or difficulty with the higher
humanity. But in respect to the other, it enters neces
sarily into a conflict with evil, involving pain and even
agony, but, by victory in that conflict, it becomes a salva
tion from sin and death through the mystery of Atone
ment, made in the Passion, and shown as accepted in
the Resurrection — at once (to use the Scriptural lan
guage) a Justification from sin's guilt, and a Sanctifica
tion delivering from sin's bondage. The two aspects
of its life-giving power are distinct ; ancient speculation
dwelt on the one, as that which was destined for
humanity simply as finite, on the second, as that which
K 2

132 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
was needed by humanity as sinful J ; and, without
entering on these deeper speculations, the course of
Christian thought in different ages has tended, as we
have seen, to emphasize predominantly the one or the
other, according to its predominant sense of righteous
ness or of sin in actual humanity. But, though they
be distinct, they are absolutely inseparable. As in the
body, so in the spirit, the same influence at once
strengthens health and throws off disease. As the
Christian Creed rests four-square on the Incarnation,
the Atonement, the Resurrection, and the Ascension, so
the actual Christian life realizes in one all the influences,
which these represent and which flow from them to us.
Again, the new dispensation of the kingdom, once
inaugurated, presents itself in relation to all humanity,
as working by a Supernatural Law of Evolution. It
begins from the germ of the new life, which is ' Christ
in us, the hope of glory ' ; it gradually extends itself,
' propagated ' (to use our significant phrase) from soul
to soul, till it shall be coextensive with humanity itself ;
it works itself out slowly, as all Evolution must work,
through the appointed ages, and as it works, it brings
out, that it may dominate, the antagonistic power of
evil. It is promised that it shall come to its appointed
close hereafter in a new Manifestation of the Son of
God, which shall destroy that antagonism for ever, and
open, again in the fulness of time, the higher dispensa
tion in heaven of rest, peace, communion with God,
1 I would here refer once more to Bishop Westcott's most interest
ing Essay on ' The Gospel of Creation ' in his Epistles of St. John (pp.
275-3°4)-

in.] Its Evolution through the Ages. \i

03

given by the full likeness of Christ. If it be asked
whether we can yet see the actual working of this new
life in humanity, we may answer, ' In its beginning and
imperfect growth, surely yes.' Not without significance
do we reckon the years of our history from the birth of
the Lord. The advent of Christianity into the world
has shown itself plainly to be a new birth and growth
in humanity, by the very contrast of the new with
the older civilisations of the world — taking up all that
was spiritual in them, and exalting it by the infusion
of a Diviner life, which has preserved it from their
decay — asserting itself victoriously against all antago
nistic influences — revived again and again with fresh
power out of periods of slumber and corruption — evi
dently the one great advancing and aggressive force in
the spiritual battle of the world. It is part of the great
analogy, at which we have glanced, that it works
slowly, with a slownes of which human earnestness is
impatient, eager to anticipate it by forcible and rapid
artificial creations of its own ; that it has to overcome
opposing forces of evil, which from the beginning have
been a grief and a perplexity to godly souls. But He,
whose it is, foresaw, and bade us foresee, the slowness of
advance, and the offences which must needs come. We
are content, if each soul and each age has its little part
in the progress, which needs for its accomplishment the
fulness of time.
That germ of the new life, being a spiritual life,
must work not by compulsion of Law, but through the
power of the Spirit, freely received by the individual
spirit of man.

134 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
For humanity, therefore, at large it is realized in
its fulness — in its direct, as distinct from the indirect
and reflected light, which from it is diffused over the
whole world, — only in the Church of Christ, which
represents that humanity as in faith and love accepting
the Divine gift in Him, and in spite of frailty and sin,
working with God for its development. The ideal of
that development is a continuous unbroken growth
through the ages, not only in expansion, but in purity
and intensity of power, up to its perfection in the
glorious Church, thronged with the ' multitude which
no man could number,' and in itself not ' having spot or
wrinkle or any such thing.' In practice, having to
struggle against the antagonistic power of sin from
without and from within, its progress, strangely as it
seems to us, is often checked and broken by periods of
spiritual decay, disintegration, corruption. Yet out of
these — by an experience so familiar that we take it for
granted in the Church, and forget how it contradicts
human analogies in the lower experiences of the world
— it emerges again and again in great epochs of
spiritual revival; and thus, on the whole, advances
continually in ' a progress by antagonism ' towards the
perfection, which, if we believe the Scriptural revela
tions of the future, is to be attained at last by a new
Manifestation of the Son of God Himself.
As in the race, so in the individual soul, the same
Law seems to rule. For in the individual the right
normal order is still that of an Evolution from the germ
of the new life implanted from the beginning, guiding
and ruling the unfolding of all the faculties of human

fii.J The crown of all lower Evolutions. 135
nature, subduing it gradually through the continual
supply of the Divine grace, with more or less of
struggle against the evil in it, till, when the fulness of
its time has come, it shall pass through death into a
higher stage, yet still of growth, in the unseen world
beyond the grave. But that order is too often broken
by the resistance, passive or active, of the will to this
Divine power of good, by its yielding itself ignorantly
or consciously to the power of evil ; and, when it is so
broken, either the soul, is left spiritually dead, like
dead matter thrown off from natural growth, or, the
inner life, checked but not quenched, reasserts itself
suddenly (as we deem of suddenness), on the new and
fervent adhesion of the mature will in faith, by what
is a 'resurrection' rather than a regeneration — in an
abnormal progression per saltum, rather than a gradual
growth. So every way there comes out to us the conception
of the development of the Life of Christ in humanity,
as the supernatural crown of the great Order of Evolu
tion ; and, if this be so, Science, which has traced this
order in its lower forms, thus becomes, or should be
come, the TravSaywyois to lead us to the highest in Christ
Himself. It is a part of this analogy, that in this
highest sphere of the great Order there should be
manifested a Law and a Power peculiarly its own.
For in the various provinces of being, which show
themselves to us as distinct, the one ' God fulfils Him
self in many ways.' In one sphere Evolution is ordered
through Matter and the physical forces which pervade
it; in another there is added in combination with these

136 Evolution — Natural and Supernatural, [lect.
the new force of Life, with its inner capacity of assimi
lation and growth ; in a third there comes with both
and above both the infused life of human personality,
with reason, conscience, love, and freedom of will to use
them. Closer and closer in each successive phase there
is revealed to us, in relation to created being, the Per
sonality of God — not His attributes, but Himself. So
in this the supernatural sphere of the great Order, the
new and dominant Force should by analogy be, as
indeed it is, distinctly Supernatural, in harmony with
the lower forces, but distinct from all. For it is the
completion of that relation of true personality — all the
number numberless of human souls being drawn to the
Personality, at once Divine and human, of the Eternal
Son, in a communion wrought out by the Eternal
Spirit of God, and restoring us to the sonship of the
Eternal Father. As He Himself upon earth, transcend
ing in His Divine Nature all created being, yet entered
into all phases of that being — swayed the forces of the
material world, gave or restored the power of life,
healed and ruled by a Divine sympathy the souls of
men — so there is a similar power in the new life,
which, by His presence in the soul, He implants and
sustains in humanity. Supernatural in itself, yet it
embraces, just because it transcends, all the lower
forces, which tell upon the complex nature of man.
It belongs, again, to this analogy, that even that
Kingdom of God, which the Incarnation inaugurated on
earth, should have its appointed period of development,
and then pass, by a closer relation still to God, into a
new and higher Kingdom, when the fulness of its time

in.] The future perfection. 137
has been accomplished. That for the individual man
there should be a future perfection, of body and spirit —
that the struggle of the Church militant should pass
into the peace of the Church triumphant — that both
these forms of perfection should come from perfected
communion with God — is surely so far from being a
strange thing, that it is accordant with the natural
order — nay a part of that order in the larger sense of
the word ' Natural,' at which we have already glanced.
As of the Christ in Himself, so is it also of the
1 Christ of us.' In His Divine Person there were the
material elements of His human body, akin to the
lifeless material world ; there was the physical life, a
part of the great Organic Creation ; there was the true
humanity of the spiritual nature, in which He was in
all points like His brethren ; but crowning all, and yet
interpenetrating all, there was the essence of the Divine
Nature. So the redeemed humanity, which He has made a
part of Himself, is the crown of the continuous Evo
lution from the material to the psychical, from the
psychical to the spiritual ; but yet beyond that natural
progress it rises even now into the Supernatural sphere
of regeneration and salvation, by the indwelling in it
of the Son of God ; and shall rise hereafter, when He
manifests Himself by a yet higher manifestation, into a
higher perfection, because a yet closer communion with
Him. The ' Christ in us ' is at once ' our life ' in the
present, and ' the hope of glory ' for the future.

LECTUEE IV.
CHRIST AND ALL CREATION.
In the dispensation of the fulness of the times to gather up all
things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth,
even in Him, in whom we also have obtained inheritance. — Eph.
i. 10, n.
' All things in Christ ' — the scope of this phrase, as in
the New Testament, so in all Christian thought derived
from it, grows by a continual expansion of meaning. As
our knowledge itself expands, we pass from the sphere
of our own individual being to the larger sphere of
humanity, and the earth which subserves humanity,
and then, beyond even this, to what seems to us the
infinite greatness of the Universe itself. While we
thus pass on, the light about us becomes dimmer, and
yet larger and grander in its revelations, as our spiri
tual eye adapts itself to its new conditions. We ' lose
ourselves,' on the one hand, in the increasing sense of
our own material insignificance : we ' find ourselves,'
on the other, in the wondering consciousness of the
spiritual greatness of the mind, which thus advances
continually towards the discovery of the great laws
of all being. Such advance is inevitable ; for, accord
ing to the profound teaching of Holy Scripture, the
wisdom of man — the knowledge (that is) of the end

The universal Headship of Christ. 139
and "object of his individual life — is impossible without
some glimpse of the 'Wisdom of God' in the great
laws which rule all Creation. How shall this glimpse
be ours ? If we take with us the unchanged and
unchangeable revelation of God in Christ, the two
elements of this antithesis are brought together in
one. In Him we see summed up all the infinite great
ness of ' things in Heaven and things in Earth ' : and
yet we know that in Him our own souls have ' received
an inheritance ' — the inheritance of a true sonship of
God. (I) In the course of thought as to the relation of
scientific knowledge of Law to Christ, which we are
seeking to trace out, we have hitherto considered lead
ing examples of its effect of confirmation — by the
establishment of the truth of the natural Laws of
humanity, which the Christian revelation of the Su
pernatural assumes, that it may at once fill and tran
scend them. We go on now to the effect of what we
may call elucidation, bringing out elements in the Keve-
lation given to that faith, which in earlier days, being
less correspondent with man's knowledge, were less
explicitly realized, and being less needed for strong
consciousness of God, were less practically regarded.
Still, following the rapid advance of Physical discovery,
we may consider, as thus brought out and illustrated
by modern thought, the grand declaration — briefly
enuntiated in the text, and worked out more fully
in many of the later Books of the New Testament —
of the Headship of Christ over the whole of created
being, as 'gathered up' in Him..

140 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
Naturally enough that declaration, though unhesi
tatingly accepted, remained in comparative abeyance
to the faith of earlier days. To the Psalmist or
Prophet of old, meditating on the works of God, the
earth, with all its store of wonder and beauty minister
ing to the welfare of man, occupied prominently, almost
exclusively, the field of thought. It cannot, indeed,
be supposed that in any age a thoughtful mind, gazing
on the starlit sky, or watching the sun and the moon
in their courses, could have failed to gain from such
contemplation some vague idea of an almost immeasur
able vastness in Creation, held together in a perfect
beauty and order ; and so have extended far beyond
the earth its conception of the creating and sustain
ing Sovereignty of God. The adoring wonder of the
eighth and nineteenth Psalms, and the more meditative
utterances of the Books of Job and Proverbs, show how
powerfully this irresistible conviction told upon the
imagination, and through it both upon the mind and
upon the heart. But still all this was but as a faintly
luminous background to the more vivid realization of
God on this our earth. The very revelation of God,
through the voices, which 'without speech or lan
guage' told of 'His glory and the wonder of His
works,' was but a part of His dispensation to man,
leading up naturally to the plain and explicit revela
tion in ' the Law of the Lord.' And so from it the
soul came back without shock or bewilderment, to
acknowledge God's ' visiting ' and ' regarding ' man,
as having dominion over the works of His hands,
and illuminating every human soul by the light of

iv.] The Ptolemaism of ancient thought. 141
His special Revelation of Himself. Even in the days
of St. Paul, although in the Greek schools of Philo
sophy — not least that of Alexandria, with which we
know that Tarsus was closely in touch — Astronomy,
under the guidance of Hipparchus and Ptolemy, had
advanced far towards the knowledge of our own Plane
tary System, and the observation of the numbers and
arrangements of the fixed stars ; yet still it is to be
remembered that in the Ptolemaic Astronomy the
earth was looked upon as the centre of that nearer
system, with no notion of its immeasurable insigni
ficance in comparison with the Sun, and that of the
vastness of the stellar multitude of suns and systems
numberless, there was as yet no adequate conception.
Substantially, therefore, in this matter the Apostolic
age stood very much on the same ground, as the greater
simplicity of earlier generations. Still in all the mate
rial creation the earth was acknowledged without
hesitation, as the true central sphere of the exhibition
of the Power and Wisdom and Love of God ; and this
conception of it iu the natural order led on without
difficulty to the place of humanity, as the head of that
natural order, in the new and supernatural dispensa
tion, which began in the Incarnation of the Eternal
Son. It was rather in respect of the spiritual Creation,
that the thoughts of men then gained the idea of vast
extension of God's Sovereignty beyond this earth and
its life. Man stands in his complex nature on the
frontier between the psychical and the spiritual world ;
as below him animal life extends downward in minute

142 Christ and all. Creation. [lect.
and countless gradations to its crudest forms, so above
him the spiritual life was seen as stretching upwards,
in order after order of superior being, towards the
unveiled Presence of God. Gradually through the Old
Testament itself we can trace the fuller development
of the first simple conception of these angelic orders ;
in Jewish thought succeeding, the imagination de-,
lighted to go beyond that which was revealed, and
to picture to itself 'thrones and dominions and prin
cipalities and powers ' of the celestial hierarchy— the
Diviner antitypes of the hierarchy of God's kingdom
upon earth. Yet still, as was natural, even this higher
creation was largely viewed in its relation to this our
world : the angels were recognised as God's ministers
to it — now ' shouting for joy,' as ' the morning stars
sang together ' over the new-born earth — now swaying
the powers of terrestrial Nature — now ascending and
descending on God's messages to man, to the chosen
family, to the chosen nation, to all the nations of the
earth — till at last that angelic service came to its
full culmination in the ministry to the Birth, the Life,
the Passion, the Resurrection of the Incarnate Son of
God. While, therefore, the very belief in this higher-
world gave a wonderful expansion and exaltation to. the
sense of God's Sovereignty, and of the manifold Power;
and Wisdom in which His infinite greatness expressed
itself to all His creatures, still man did not entirely
lose himself in the contemplation of it: he was not
bewildered, but simply cheered and inspired ; „ for he
felt that even through it God was ordaining a ministry
for his salvation, and so could believe that even, this

iv.] The expansion of .modern discovery. 143
higher world of being was ' gathered up in Christ ' the
true Son of Man.
But. to us all this is changed. Step by step, as
Science has enlarged our vision, the infinite vastness of
the material creation has grown, and still grows,' upon
us. Our earth is known as but one, and far from the
largest, of the planets, circling round the greatness of
the Sun ; in itself a specimen of but one stage in the
evolution of worlds out of primeval nebula ; the whole
solar system but one of a host revolving round a
central sun, and this itself again but one of a countless
multitude of heavenly bodies, so vast, so immeasurably
distant, that the mind fails to gain any conception or
even imagination of the infinite greatness of the whole.
Yet it is a whole ; through all, so far as our Science
extends, by telescopic vision, by mathematical calcula
tion, by spectroscopic analysis, the same material laws
rule, which we know more closely upon earth. And,
though we have no real knowledge, or even capacity of
sure inference, beyond this, yet the imagination cannot
resist the belief, that everywhere, as here, the higher
laws of animal and spiritual life must somehow fulfil
themselves in an appointed development; and that
man may well be but one of many orders of rational
and moral beings, belonging, not like the angels, to a
supernatural sphere, but to the natural order, of which
we see but a small part here \
1 The controversy raised many years ago by Dr. Whewell's ' Plurality
of Worlds,' was singularly interesting and instructive — showing, as it
did, on the one hand, the scantiness or absence of evidence of habita
tion of the other bodies of our system ; and, on the other, the irresistible

144 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
So partly through knowledge, partly through this all
but irresistible inference, there comes upon us a bewil
dering sense of the vast unity of the universe. Nor
is this all. As we extend through the whole the
idea of slow growth through countless ages, which
Evolution brings home to us in relation to the earth,
there is added to the sense of vastness of space an
equally bewildering conception of an almost infinite
duration of time, hardly distinguishable to our finite
minds from the eternity of existence, which ancient
speculation attributed to the Universe. But, beyond
this, from the same idea of Evolution — involving to
many minds the conception of an immanent power,
however originated or infused, in that universe, which
is gradually developed, under these great pervading laws
into matter, life, spiritual being — ther.e grows also upon
us the temptation to a Pantheistic worship of this
immanent power — this Soul of the Universe — this half-
personified Nature — as if it was not only a reality, but
the supreme and ultimate reality. It is, of course, no
new worship. What is it, after all, but the old Pytha
gorean conception, which Virgil has embodied as in
immortal verse l % But it comes upon our larger know-
power over the imagination, and through it over the intellect, of the
suggestion through analogy of a development there, under different
conditions, indeed, yet essentially not unlike our own.
1 Principio coelum et terras, camposque liquentes,
Lucentemque globum Lunae, Titaniaque astra,
Spiritus intus alit, totamque infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet.
Inde hominum pecudumque genus, vitaeque volantam,
Et quae marmoreo fert monstra sub aequore pontus.
(Aen.vi. 724-729.)

iv.J The modern Pantheism. '145
ledge now with overwhelming force. Those who just
catch and reflect the spirit of the age, tell us (like M.
Benan) that a vague sense of infinite space, infinite
time, infinite being diffused through both, is to super
sede what is held^ — strangely enough — to be a poorer
and shabbier belief in Creationism, referring all to an
Infinite Personal Mind and Will, and is to satisfy, by
a corresponding vagueness of wonder and awe, the
inherent instinct of worship in the soul.
Let me repeat once more that this Pantheism has never
really maintained itself, as a living and working force
of belief, especially when we emerge from the schools of
speculation and imagination into the realities and needs
of every-day life. Against it there rises (as has been
said) a double protest from mind and heart — from the
strong inherent consciousness of our own personality,
and with it of conscious will as the one true cause, that
we know, and of conscious design as the guiding force
of action, — from the homage of the conscience to
Righteousness alone, which cannot accept a Soul of this
world, so strangely compacted of good and evil, as its
supreme moral authority. And this intellectual and
moral sense of our own personality leads us to
the worship of a Divine Personality, and to it
alone. Nay, the very increase of our knowledge of
the laws of order and growth in the Universe, by
testifying to the spiritual greatness of the mind in us,
compels the belief in a Divine Mind, of which ours is
but the image, as the Source and Maker of these laws.
It is a strange shallowness, as well as profanity, to
acknowledge that the heavens declare the glory of the
L

146 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
finite discovering mind of Kepler or Newton, and to
deny their witness to the glory of an Infinite Creative
Mind of a living God.
But, even if we rise out of this dream to grasp what
the waking reality of life demands, and, passing through
immanence of power to the origination and guidance of
that power, ascend through stage after stage of Law,
to the final belief, old as humanity itself, in a true
First Cause, which is the source of all this infinite
vastness and complexity of Being ; still the bewilder
ing awe of its greatness remains undiminished, if
not enhanced. Just as the loftiness of some supreme
mountain-peak most grows upon us, when we rise up
to it over ridge after ridge of lower heights, so through
this process of thought the infinite greatness of the
Supreme Power impresses itself upon the soul more and
more ; and thus when the mind returns upon itself, upon
its own littleness., and the littleness of the earth which
once seemed so great, the cry ' What is man 1 ' sounds
with a new intensity and depth of meaning. Men find
it harder now, than the Psalmist found it, to add ' that
Thou so visitest,' ' that Thou so regardest man,' ' to
crown him with glory and worship.' ' Tush ' (say they)
' how shall God perceive us 1 ' Can there be knowledge,
care, love, of such infinite littleness in the Most High ?
Even if He does vouchsafe to humanity some fragment
of His universal Providence, men ask still more em
phatically, when the doctrine of the Incarnation is
presented to them, ' How can we conceive that the In
finite Godhead could deign to tabernacle in this pigmy
humanity of ours, on the earth, which is but a speck in

iv.J The difficulties of Imagination. 147
the great heaven of the Universe % Is there not here,
in a moral, instead of a material form, a perpetuation
of the old exploded Ptolemaism, which makes the earth
and man the very centre of all the works of God % '
The difficulty is, indeed, as has been truly said ', one
of the imagination rather than the reason. For to a
Mind, really infinite, it is clear that no expansion of
scope implies imperfection in consideration and care
even of its least work. In measure we can realize this
in ourselves. Even in our finite nature we see that the
slightest action is characteristic, or, in other words,
that in the slightest work the essential character of
the worker is expressed ; and the highest wisdom and
genius show themselves especially in the capacity of
uniting grasp of the idea and the leading principles of
a great whole with minuteness of provision for accuracy
and perfection of detail — whether in completeness of
mechanical design and artistic conception, or in the
subtler completeness of foresight and influence, which
belong to leadership of men. If from our own finite-
ness we turn to the vastness of the material world of
Nature, the microscope has been said in this respect to
correct the telescope ; because, while the latter extends
our vision of the grandeur of Creation, the former
shows us a perfection of usefulness and beauty in the
1 See Dr. Martineau's Essay on ' God in Nature ' ; where he ex
amines the growth of our conception of space and time, and correla
tion of forces in Nature, and shows that it is merely to imagina
tion, not to reason, that they create any difficulty in the ' religious
interpretation of Nature,' through which 'the world reports the
Power, reflects the Beauty, spreads abroad the Majesty of the First
Cause.'
L 2

148 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
minutest organism, which— however it may have grown
to be what it is — yet bears, as it is, the impress of
a creating and sustaining purpose. Nor need our
sense of the material littleness of humanity lead us to
forget the truth of the old saying that ' Nature conceals
God; man reveals him' — that His highest attributes
are brought out, not by the beauty or majesty of
Nature, but by the spiritual life in humanity, which is
the ' broken light ' from Him. Hence in the spiritual
world it is but reasonable to ask simply whether through
our intellectual and moral nature we have a sufficient
positive witness of ' God with us ' — whether the truth
of the Incarnation establishes itself to us as, both
historically and ideally, the crown of His revelations of
Himself to men — without allowing ourselves to be
troubled by bewilderment as to the infinite greatness
and variety of His relation to all His creatures. Here
' egoism is the true modesty.' It is wisdom to know in
part, and in part truly, without obscuring the reality of
such partial knowledge by the sense of our ignorance
of the Universal. If God 'fulfils Himself in many
ways,' He does not the less perfectly on that account
fulfil Himself in each.
But it is a fatal error to slight the power of Imagina
tion, either as a potent factor in human action, or as
giving a certain power of insight to human thought ;
and so this extension of our knowledge of the immeasur
able greatness and variety of Creation may well force
us to enquire more earnestly than of old, whether there.
is any corresponding phase of the doctrine of Christ,
which bears upon the being of this vast Creation as a

iv.] Right proportion in human knowledge. 149
whole, up to which, therefore, this growth of Science
leads our faith.
• (II) Now, in spite of this great expansion of thought,
the old saying remains as true as ever that
' The proper study of mankind is man ' —
man in himself and man in relation to God. In the
outer circles of our knowledge of the universe, the light
is dim and scanty, disclosing to us only a few vague
general laws of material being, with which we have
ourselves no close concern, and under which we have
no practical energy of influence. As we pass inwards
through our own system of worlds to the earth our
habitation, our light grows brighter and clearer, and
this vagueness is exchanged for an ever-increasing
definiteness and richness of knowledge ; while the
power and duty of acting with conscious purpose con
tinually increases with it. At last we come to the in
most sphere of humanity — our own individual humanity
and the collective humanity of our race — and there,
through the added intuition of the inner consciousness,
the light is at its clearest intensity; and the sense of
responsibility for our own action assumes an imperious
tone of moral command, because the power of such
action becomes more absolute. Spiritually, as well as
physically, that which is nearest, though least in itself,
becomes for us greatest to the mind and dearest to the
heart. Naturally, therefore, in a Revelation which addresses
itself to man, and which, though it diffuses an intellec
tual light, has beyond all else a moral and spiritual
purpose, the main tenour and direction of thought look

150 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
to humanity. The earth in the whole order of its past
Evolution, and in the Laws through which it is sus
tained now by the Divine Wisdom, is viewed mainly as
ministering to man, at once its highest creature and its
lord. Even the greater Creation, beyond, above, around
it, is conceived, as at once influencing the outward life of
the earth and man, and manifesting to the soul, in the
vision of its Design and Beauty, the handwriting of the
message of God. It must be so : for if it were not so,
there would be no correspondence with the actual con
ditions of human thought and life. Accordingly, when
that Revelation has its consummation in the Incarna
tion, the pervading idea is of its bearing upon the
humanity, which the Son of God deigned to assume.
It is as giving life and guidance to that humanity, that
the Headship of Christ becomes an ever-recurring phrase,
a household word in the family of God, first as the life
of each man's individual being 1, next as the indwelling
life of the whole Catholic Church, coextensive in idea
and promise with all humankind 2.
But although this is so, and although (if we may
venture thus to speak) it ought so to be, yet there is an
element of larger scope in the Revelation of Christ,
forming the background rather than the foreground of
the Divine picture, yet necessary to its completeness
as a whole. It is the truth of the Headship of Christ
over all created being — the ' gathering up of all things
in Him, both which are in heaven and which are in
earth.' It is wrought out for us mainly in the later
books of the New Testament, corresponding to these
1 See 1 Cor. xi. 3. 2 See Eph. i. 22, 23.

iv.] The ancient speculations. 151
later years of the Apostolic age, when the preaching of
the two lesser and closer Headships had done its
work, and individual souls, drawn one by one to Christ,
made up already the body of an organized and growing
Church in all provinces of the civilized world.
It was, it would seem, mainly to meet the theories
framed, and to solve the problems raised by human
speculation, that this largest Christian conception was
brought out. The Gospel, now emerging into a position
of living power and authority, which even the world
could not ignore, came necessarily into contact with all
the higher thought of the day — a day (be it remarked)
as busy in cosmological speculations and mystic theo-
sophies as our own. It could no longer be despised as a
mere Eastern superstition ; it was seen to enshrine, not
only a strong moral enthusiasm, but a mysterious wis
dom. Had it not (men began to ask) some philosophic
significance 1 How could it be interwoven with mystic
speculation as to the origin of being ? How could the
idea of a Redemption of the world — in the recognition
of which the thought of the age, strongly affected by
Christian influence, differed from the philosophies of
days gone by — be wrought into these speculative
theories \ How could Christianity in all its aspects be
harmonized with the laws of the actual world, as yet
discovered or surmised ?
In that enquiry we trace the germ of that extraor
dinary development of various speculations which we call
Gnostic — subtle, comprehensive, mystic, often fantastic
— as ingeniously elaborate, as obviously artificial, as the
cycles and epicycles of the astronomy of old days, or the

152 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
last shadowy imaginations of modern theosophy. Their
very name implies that they arose first from an ex
aggeration of knowledge above the place, which it
rightly occupies in the harmony of the full Christian
life, and next, from a disinclination to bound its capacity
of extension within the limits of faith in the Revelation
of Christi So, venturing to enter boldly the regions of
mystery, the Gnostic theories concerned themselves with
two great questions, which have exercised men at all
times, and strongly exercise them now — the speculative
question, how the Absolute Eternal Being can so enter
into relations with the finite, as to become really the First
Cause of all creation, and the Life of all finite beings
- — the moral question of the cause of the existence of
evil, physical and spiritual evil, in the world and in man,
conflicting, as it obviously does conflict, by negative
hindrance or by positive antagonism, with the superior
power of good 1t Gnostic Cosmology sought to answer
the one question by the interposition between the In-
1 Two Metaphysical problems may be particularly specified as those
which Gnosticism borrowed from, heathen philosophy, and to which
the Christian Revelation was made subordinate — the Absolute Exist
ence and the problem of the Origin of Evih , . . The search after an
Absolute first principle, the enquiry how the Absolute and Uncondi
tioned can give rise to the relative and conditioned, is one which, when
pursued as a theological inquiry, almost inevitably leads to a denial
of the Personality of God. . . . The other great problem, the Origin
of Evil, naturally assumes a similar character. . . . The Personality
of God having disappeared, the personality of man naturally disappears
with it. . . . Contemplated from this point of view, evil is no longer a
moral, but a natural, phenomenon; it becomes identical with the
imperfect, the relative, the finite. . . . Religion and morality become
nothing more than curious questions of Metaphysics.' (Mansel's
Gnostic Heresies, Lect. i. pp. ti-13.)

IV.] The Gnostic theories. 153
finite and the finite of a series of emanations — angelic
in its Jewish forms, impersonal Aeons \ ages (that is) of
time, strangely metamorphosed into beings or personifica
tions of the Divine — in the more purely Gentile forms.
Gnostic Dualism explained the other by an inherent
evil in the world of matter 2, either a force of passive
resistance to the Spirit, or a force of positive and tur
bulent antagonism. Under both aspects Gnosticism
endeavoured to weave Christianity into its own philo
sophic schemes — now (as in Valentinus) seeing in its
Author but one of many emanations from God — now
(as in Marcion) shaping it by mutilation and perversion
to express the ideas of Jewish or Gentile mysticism.
Against the first beginnings of this ' Science falsely so
1 The system of Aeons is perhaps .set forth in its wildest luxuriance
of speculation in the theory of Valentinus — ' filling the supermundane
region with a succession of Aeons or celestial beings, the ideal
prototypes of things imperfectly realized on earth.' (See Mansel,
Lect. xi. pp. 166-183.) His whole system was 'an Eclecticism
derived from various sources . . . from the Platonic philosophy . . .
from the pantheistic philosophies of India . . . from the Judaism of
Alexandria.' 2 ' The evil in the world ' in this theory ' must be due to the
Creator of the world ; it must be inherent in the world from the
beginning — the result of some weakness, at least, or some ignorance,
if not of some positive malignity, concurring in its first formation. . .
The Creator of the world, the God of the Jewish people, may be re
garded merely as an imperfect, or as a positively malignant being. . . He
may be an emanation from the Supreme God, imperfect but still a servant
of God . . accomplishing the Divine Purpose . . blindly and ignorantly. . .
Or he may be a being hostile to God ; either the offspring of some power
alien from God and antagonistic, ... or at least one so far degenerated
from the original Source of good, that his imperfection becomes in
result an actual contrariety to good.' (Mansel's Gnostic Heresies,
Lect. ii. 19, 20.)

154 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
called ' the true Christian teacher necessarily protested
with all vehemence, as destroying both the simplicity
and the solid reality of the Gospel. But yet we can see
that it was overruled to minister to the fullest develop
ment of the Christian truth itself, by forcing him to
pass in thought beyond the limits of the earth and
humanity, and to proclaim the one Eternal Son of God,
as not only the Saviour of men from evil and the Con
queror of death, but as the Head, the indwelling Light
and Life, of all created being, 'summing up all things
in Himself- — even the spiritual Creation above man of
' thrones and principalities and powers ' in heaven —
even the natural Creation below man, in the visible
realm of the earth and of all that surrounds it in the
greater universe.
Now in our own days, just as in the Apostolic age,
it seems to me that the large extension of scientific
discovery, and the still larger expansion of scientific
speculation, force us to dwell more than we have yet
done on this largest conception of the Headship of
Christ. True it is that this modern advance in en
largement of thought is widely different in character
from the old ; while yet, in the luxuriance of the ancient
speculation, we constantly come across fantastic diffi
culties and fantastic theories to meet them, which re
mind us of the philosophies of our own day. But our
modern thought deals, so far as it assumes scien
tific form, with the material, instead of the spiritual
Creation ; although, by a singularly striking and in
structive reaction, it seems to have stimulated a new
curiosity, a new boldness of theosophic speculation, a

iv.] The enlargement of Christian doctrine. 155
new growth of mystic fancy, in respect of immaterial
powers, laws, beings, not dreamt of in the merely
physical philosophy. But yet this distinction, which
naturally arises out of that direction of the expansion
of modern thought, which has been already referred to,
does not prevent its having the same effect in suggest
ing, almost requiring, this enlargement of our faith ;
nor does it prevent the old truth of the Apostolic age,
from giving the answer, which this modern thought
demands. (Ill) We have but to consider more in detail, what
that answer really is, and how it grows out more and
more definitely, with the development of Christian doc
trine, through the later books of the New Testament.
We must see that, to meet our new conditions of
thought, no new doctrine has to be added to it, even
by inference ; only that which perhaps to earlier ages
sounded but as a majestic burst of adoration, becomes
now a Divine philosophy of plainly necessary truth.
In St. Paul's teaching it belongs mainly to the
Epistles of the Captivity — naturally more meditative
in the enforced silence and retirement from the active
work of Evangelism — naturally having the character of
a profound teaching to disciples already won, in a
Church already developed, rather than of the earnest,
practical, impassioned pleading of the preacher with
those who needed to be drawn to Christ. True that in
his first teaching of the Greek mind at Corinth, he had
summed up all worship, in the consciousness as of ' the
One God the Father, of whom are all things and we
unto Him,' so of ' the One Lord Jesus Christ, through

156 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
whom are all things and we through Him1,' True
that in the Epistle to the Bomans his view of the
Redemption of Christ extends beyond humanity to 'the
whole creation,' as groaning and travailing in pain to
gether, and holds out ' the promise of its deliverance
from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty
of the children of God2.' But now these earlier
indications of larger thought are wrought out into
detail. In the great Creed of the Godhead and manhood
of the Lord Jesus Christ, drawn out in the Philippian
Epistle, His exalted majesty of Salvation is viewed
as. receiving the due homage, and therefore as affecting
the being, not only of man, but of ' things in Heaven
and things in earth and things under the earth.' But
it is in the other Epistles of the Captivity that the
great conception unfolds itself.
In the Epistle to the Ephesians the leading idea of
the unity of all men, Jews and Gentiles alike — in that
Catholic Church, which in itself extends beyond the
earth, because it starts from the eternal predestination
of God, before humanity was, and draws its life from
Him who is exalted at the right hand of God above all
heavenly powers — naturally expands, as in the text,
into the grander idea of His sovereign and eternal
relation to all created being, both in heaven and in
earth, summed up in His Divine Personality.
More distinct and explicit still is the enunciation of
the same great truth in the parallel Epistle to the
Church of Colossae, where clearly some Judaic — perhaps
1 1 Cor. viii. 6, 2 Rom. viii. 21.

iv.] The Christology of St. Paul. 157
Essenic1 — form of Gnostic speculation had sought to
fuse in a vague mysticism the grand simplicity of the
Headship of Christ, and with it the reality of the uni
versal Mediation, from which there flowed out to all
men deliverance from sin and death. There the Lord
Jesus Christ is set forth as the perfect Image — (that is)
the perfect manifestation of the Invisible God ; in whom
' dwelleth all the fulness,' all the Infinite Attributes ' of
Godhead,' and that ' bodily,' working visibly through a
true humanity; and accordingly His relation to the
whole universe, drawing its being from God, is wrought
out with deliberate and emphatic explicitness. ' First
begotten,' He is of the Father 'before all creation2,'
'through Him,' and 'for Him' all the universe was
created in its beginning'; 'in Him' now in its full
development it consists, holding together its manifold
unity of life ; on Him rest both its material and visible
existences, and its higher spiritual orders of being, the
mysterious thrones, and principalities, and powers, far
above us in heaven, as truly, though not as closely, as
the order of humanity itself, gathered into a nearer
unity with Him in the Church on earth 3.
Clear again is the same order of deeper thought in the
Epistle to the Hebrews — evidently belonging to much
the same period, evidently bearing the impress of the
Pauline teaching ; and perhaps this identity of idea is
1 See Lightfoot's Epistle to the Colossians.
2 Without entering on any etymological and grammatical reasoning,
the whole context shows that we must so render the irpaToroKos vaa-rjs
Krio-aos of the original.
3 See Col. i. 15, 16-19 ; ii. 9.

158 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
the more striking, because the special object of the
Epistle, and the special phase of thought which it
addresses, are plainly different. There again the de
claration of Christ, as ' the brightness of God's glory
and the express Image of His Person' is drawn out
into the same relation to created being ; ' through Him
the worlds were made'; 'by the word of His power
they are upheld ' ; above all, even the highest angelic
creation, He is exalted as the true Son of God ; to
Him is applied the language of the ancient adoration
of the Eternal Source of Being, who made both the
earth and the heavens in the beginning, and who shall
endure when they all shall wax old and perish 1.
Then we have but to pass on through another genera
tion to the close of the Apostolic age, and hear how
in the final utterances of St. John, the same truth
grows out to a calm and majestic completeness, and is
clenched (so to speak) by its expression in the very
name of the Christ — as ' the Word of God ' in the
mystic visions of the Apocalypse, as 'the Word of
Life ' in the profound teaching of the Epistle, as ' the
Word,' who ' in the beginning was with God and was
God' in the yet profounder Prologue to the Gospel,
enshrining the Supreme Truth, which the whole record
of that Gospel is designed to unfold and illustrate.
The Word — it is indeed 'the Name above every
name,' above even those titles of adoration at which
we have already glanced, in a twofold fulness of mean
ing. It takes up and crowns with a Divine perfection
two distinct lines of thought. In it there is, on the
1 See Heb. i. 2-4, 10-12.

iv.] The doctrine of ' the Word! 159
one hand, the completion of all the teaching and the
interpretation of the Old Testament, both on the ' Word
of the Lord,' as the full manifestation in the realm of
matter and in the realm of mind of the Invisible God
head, and on the Eternal Wisdom ' from everlasting,
from the beginning or ever the world was' working,
when ' He prepared the heaven .... gave a decree to
the sea, and appointed the foundations of the earth V
On that side it brings out the Manifestation of the
Living God, transcending, infinitely transcending, all His
Creation, which in idea is of the essence of Theism,
and which, as realized by the sense of a living rela
tion of the soul to Him, is of the essence of all vital
Religion. Into it, again, are taken up those Alexan
drine speculations — half Jewish, half Platonic and
Stoic, which we read (for example) in Philo — of the
Aoyos, not so much an express Word revealing the tran
scendent Godhead, but as an indwelling Reason of God,
energetic in all the laws of the material and spiritual
Creation — speculations which, as the Jew or the Greek
in him prevails, hover (so to speak) between a true
Personality of indwelling Being on the one hand, and a
mere personification of the Ideas and Attributes of
Godhead on the other. On this side it recognises
that immanence in created being of a Life, gradually
unfolding itself under an inherent Design of purpose,
into all the manifold forms of material, psychical,
spiritual being, which is the ' higher Pantheism ' of
1 See Prov. viii. 22-31. The whole chapter is a magnificent com
pletion of the personifications of the Divine Wisdom, which we read
in the earlier chapters.

160 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
philosophical Science \ In this (as has been truly
said 2) ' The Christian doctrine of God brings together
two one-sided views. Religion demands as a condition
of its existence a God who transcends the Universe ;
philosophy as imperiously demands His immanence
in Nature.' 'The unsolved problem of Platonism,
which is the unsolved problem of the non-Christian
philosophy in our day, is met in the Christian
doctrine.' And the consequences of both these ideas, united in
Him, are clearly drawn out. If we look to the Gospel,
He is, on the one hand, ' in the beginning ' before all Crea
tion, and in that Creation ' all things were made through
Him, and without Him was not any one thing made,
that hath been made.* ' In Him was life,' the sole in
herent Eternal life, expressed in the very Name Jehovah.
On the other hand, that life is made ' the life of men,' an
indwelling light — the light of mankind in its entirety,
and the individual light, which lighteth every man — so
that even the supreme mystery of the tabernacling in
human flesh, fore-ordained from the beginning, is but the
new and transcendent perfection of that light and life
1 See Westcott's Gospel according to St. Jffim, Introd., pp. xv-xviii.
His conclusion is that mainly St, John's doctrine is the development
of the Hebraic doctrine of the Word — ' the fulfilment of the three
distinct lines of preparatory Revelation, which were severally con
nected with the Angel of the Presence . . . with the Word of God . . ,
with Wisdom ' ; but that secondarily the speculations of Alexandria — ¦
mingling (as in Philo) ' the Stoic, the Platonic, and the Hebraic
currents of thought,' — ' quickened and developed elements, which might
otherwise have remained latent.'
2 See Mr. Aubrey Moore's singularly able and suggestive Essay on
' The Christian Doctrine of God,' in Lux Mundi,

iv.] The development of this doctrine. l6l
indwelling in humanity \ If we turn to the Epistle,
we are taught how the three great Aphorisms, ' God
is Light,' ' God is Righteousness,' ' God is Love,' which
trace up all good to the Eternal Source of Being, are
fulfilled in His true Godhead ; and yet, through all
these, He is shown as by His Incarnation indwelling in
the souls of men, and implanting there the likeness
of those very attributes of God, in earnest now, in
perfection hereafter 2.
So was gradually unfolded the largest and deepest
truth of Christ, to meet the needs and enquiries of that
Apostolic age, which has been held to be a kind of
epitome of the whole future history of the Church. As
the centuries rolled on, and Christianity asserted its
world-wide power, over the thought as well as the life
of men — in its Creed and Theology over the critical
or mystical speculation of the East, as in its Catholic
unity over the social organization and order of the
West — its greatest thinkers drew out more and more
the meaning of this complete Scriptural teaching ; till
St. Athanasius, in the great struggle on which the very
life of Christianity hung, put (so to speak) the finishing
touch to the ever-increasing realization of this great
truth. Pleading with the educated Gentile thought of
his day, he sets forth to them the origin and continuous
life of all created being, in 'the Holy Word of God,
almighty and all perfect,' who 'having entered upon
all things, and having everywhere unfolded His power,
and enlightened all things visible and invisible, holds
1 John i. 1-4, 1 3.
2 See 1 John i. 5-7, compared with ii. 9-1 1 ; iii. 2-10; iv. 8-21.
M

1 62 Christ and all Creation. [lect,
and binds all together into Himself, leaving out nothing
destitute of His power, but quickening and sustaining
each thing separately, and all as collected in one.' To
that Creative power he refers in detail all the elements
of material being — cold and heat, moisture and dry
ness — as blended by it into a harmonious whole ; in
obedience to the Word he tells how the sea holds its
place, and the earth brings forth her produce. Lastly,
summing up all, he concludes that ' as a musician,
having tuned his lyre, and harmonized together the
high with the low notes, and the middle notes with the
extremes, makes the resulting music one ; so the Wis
dom of God, grasping the universe like a lyre, blending
the things of air with those of earth, and the things of
heaven with those of air, binding together the whole
and the parts, and ordering all by His Counsel and His
Will, makes the world itself and its appointed order one
in fair and harmonious perfection ; yet He Himself,
moving all things, remains unmoved with the Father V
It would be difficult to express more forcibly and more
completely the conception at once of transcendence and
immanence in the creative power of the Word of God.
(IV) Not unlike this is the expansion of Christian
thought, suggested in our own day by the rapid en
largement of our scientific knowledge of the universe
and its pervading Order — its transcendent First Cause
and its immanent Life. That tendency has been ex
pressed in the well-known saying, that, in contrast with
1 See St. Athanasius' Oratio contra Gentes, referred to and partially
quoted by Mr. Aubrey Moore in his Essay on ' The Christian Doctrine
of God,' in Lux Mundi. See Note G,

iv.] The lesson of enlarged knowledge. 163
the natural currents of thought in mediaeval times, and
in the period which began from the Reformation, we
have now to pass from the Christology of St. Peter and
St. Paul to that of St. John, from ' Christ risen ' as our
King, and from ' Christ crucified ' as our Saviour, to
' Christ the Incarnate Word of God/ in whom all things
and all beings consist. In that saying there is, as
in such sayings generally, only a rough approximate
truth. It is evident, even from the references already
made, that the whole Christology of the New Testament
is substantially one in its essential idea, wrought out in a
continuous development. It is certain that, in realizing
our own relation to God, all these phases of Christian
faith must coexist and interpenetrate each other. The
deepest student of the mysteries of God is at the same
time the sinner, whose eye must turn to the cross, and
is ever on the way to that shadow of death, which is
lighted only by the Resurrection. But still the saying
is so far true as this — that our point of view is neces
sarily modified by our enlarged Science, which is as
a schoolmaster to bring us to understand the true
meaning of this universal Headship of our Lord Jesus
Christ, over the whole vastness of created being, and
through all the ages from the beginning to the end of
time ; while yet throughout we retain that ineradicable
sense of our own moral and spiritual personality in the
close personal relation to Him, which the text expresses
as giving us in Him our own inheritance of God \
- ' ' In every age the theory of the Divine Economy will present itself
under an aspect corresponding with the general aspect, under which
the whole finite order presents itself. It cannot but be that the
M 2

1 64 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
What is the full meaning, and what the actual power,
of this universal Headship we do not know, and we
cannot expect to know, with the same clearness which
attaches to His Headship of our own individual soul, or
His Headship of the Catholic Church. For these ap
peal to our own moral sense ; they belong to our own
spiritual life ; they concern our own salvation. With
out the knowledge of these, through mind and heart,
we cannot rightly live or die. The larger truth seems
rather to meet the needs of our intellect and imagina
tion ; and to teach us through both the lesson mainly
of wonder and adoration. It is sufficient to know of
this vast material universe, that all in the past was
called into being 'through Him'; all in the present
consists in its marvellous order ' in Him ' ; all in the
future shall work itself out ' unto Him,' to fulfil His
purpose, to manifest His glory. It is sufficient to know
that of all the spiritual order — as of men and angels, so
of any other races of rational creatures, which the far-off
orbs of heaven may contain — He is both the Light and
the Life — the Light of the intellectual, the Life of the
moral and spiritual being. It is sufficient to know that
the immanence of Divine Power in all creation, which our
views, which are entertained of the relations of man to the earth on
which he lives, of the earth to the universe, of the period of human
life to the measurable period of the existence of the objects of sense,
should affect our views of the Redemption and Consummation of man,
not in .essence, but in mode of apprehension. . . . The sovereign pre
eminence of Scripture, as the vehicle of spiritual knowledge, lies in
this, — that it finds fuller interpretation from growing experience.'
(Westcott on ' The Gospel of Creation ' in the Epistles of St. John,

iv.] The Indwelling of Christ in Creation. 165
Science seems more and more clearly to disclose, comes
from the Omnipresence in it of a Divine Personality,
after the distinct image of which our own personality
was framed — the Presence of the true and Eternal Son
of God, at once dwelling in it, and yet infinitely
transcending it. It is sufficient thus to feel of all the
immeasurable vastness of the universe, what we know
more clearly of our own life and the life of humanity —
that (according to the old theological distinction) all
things are ' from the Father ' by transcendent Will,
all things 'through the Son' by indwelling Presence,
all things ' by the operation of the Holy Spirit,' working
out the realization of that Presence, and for this brood
ing over the face of material creation, as well as moving
in the heart of the spiritual. If we can believe these
truths in broad, majestic outline, even though all de
tails be to us unknown or dimly seen, then we can go
on in willing and hopeful sympathy with every advance
of the knowledge of Nature in its largest sense, with
every new discovery of the vastness of the universe, and
the manifold unity of the Power, gradually developed
in it through immeasurable time into infinite variety — -
sure that in this immensity we shall neither lose our
selves nor lose the knowledge of God, because every
where we find the Presence of Him, in whom is the life
of our own souls, and the corporate spiritual life of the
Church of Christ.
All this belongs to the truth of the Presence of Christ
in and with the universe from the beginning ; but,
as we pursue in faith this line of thought, we shall,
I think be led naturally to infer, although we cannot

1 66 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
pretend to know, that even the Manifestation of the
Son of God in our flesh, which is the supernatural crown
of God's dispensation to humanity, and which there
fore primarily and properly concerns humanity, may yet
have some larger bearing also on this larger order of
things. For, in respect of our humanity, that deeper
teaching of the New Testament, at which we have
glanced, represents the Incarnation as having close con
nection with the indwelling in it from the beginning
of the Word of God. It passes on without break from
the life-giving power, flowing from that indwelling to
all creation, to tell how the 'Word was made flesh and
tabernacled visibly among us ' ; so that men in Him
actually beheld the Divine glory, and had revealed to
them, through the only-begotten Son, the Father, whom
no man hath seen, or can see. Even the redemptive
power of that Manifestation, while it properly concerns
men, and most closely those who have the first-fruits
of the Spirit, is spoken of as secondarily touching ' the
whole creation' — evidently by the context the whole
terrestrial Creation — waiting in eager expectation for
its final consummation. If now to us the sphere of
this indwelling power is seen to extend itself even to
the starry walls of the Universe — the flammantia moenia
mundi — must not the belief in some larger significance
of the crowning Epiphany of the Incarnation expand
with that expansion? We note that this Manifesta
tion is presented to us under two aspects — two distinct
phases of ' the great humility ' — the one, which the
humility of the Incarnation and the corresponding
glorification of the Ascension bring out to us, and

iv.] The Incarnation in its universal relation. 167
which, as being simply the crown of God's self-revela
tion and the perfection of His image in humanity,
seems to be the fore-ordained gift to humanity in itself
— the other in the greater and sadder humility of the
Atonement, offered in the Passion, sealed as accepted in
the Besurrection, which clearly is the gift of God's
unspeakable love to humanity as sinful, for its salvation
both from sin and death. We may perhaps conceive — as
religious thought has delighted to conceive — that man's
spiritual condition, as fallen in sin, although capable of
redemption and renewal to repentance, is darkly ex
ceptional among other bright orders of God's rational
creatures, who are still, as He made them, ' very good' ;
and that accordingly the manifestation of ' Christ
crucified ' belongs properly to man, and through man to
the terrestrial creation, of which he is the head and
the lord, and which, as in some mysterious way it was
overshadowed by his fall, so shall partake of his re
demption. It may be so ; whether it is so, we cannot
know. But in any case the brighter and larger aspect
of the Manifestation remains, untouched by this limita
tion, in its universal scope of bearing upon the whole
creation of God.
What that bearing is, we can but infer — with the
reverent caution of imperfect knowledge — from analogy
to that effect upon humanity, which we do know more
clearly. For in regard to man we are taught by His
own word to believe, not only in a subjective effect
through the knowledge and love of faith upon every
believing soul, but in a deeper and wider objective
effect upon the condition and nature of all humanity.

1 68 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
Now in respect of the former effect, we find that the
Revelation of Christ is certainly spoken of again and
again in Apostolic teaching, as extending its rays of
light far beyond the sphere of human nature. It is a
Revelation of God's Infinite Wisdom and Love, before
all the higher orders of rational beings ; it is that
which ' the angels desire to look into '; it is that which
'before principalities and powers in heavenly places
makes known through the Church the manifold wisdom
of God, according to the Eternal purpose, which He
purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord V May we not, as
Butler suggested long ago in respect of the manifesta
tion on earth of the Moral government of God 2, ' enlarge
our notions of the plan of Providence,' in its relation
to all rational beings, ' in some sort proportionably,' (to
use his own words) ' to what late discoveries have en
larged our views with respect to the material world ' ?
May we not extend the declaration of this illuminating
function to the whole order, whatever it may be, of
God's rational creatures % Nay, if on such high mat
ters reverent speculation be allowable, may we not go
further still, and conceive that in some way the ob
jective reality of the Incarnation may have its wider
effect, known or unknown, on all creation, which we see
more and more clearly to be in all its parts one
continuous whole — on the spiritual creation, as havinc
closest likeness to man — even on the material creation,
as closely linked with the spiritual. May it not pos
sibly even have its analogies in other spheres of being,
1 i Pet. i. 12 ; Eph. iii. io, n.
2 See Butler's Analogy, Part i. c. 3.

iv.] Spiritual lessons of the Universal Headship. 169
and so, all-perfect as it is to us, be the revelation in
humanity of some transcendent Law of Manifestation
of the Godhead to all His creatures, which fulfils itself
everywhere in His own appointed way ?
But, however this may be, certainly every way the
Light and Grace of the Eternal Son of God, incarnate
in our nature, are seen to extend through all the whole
sphere of being. He is exalted that, in the largest
sense of the word, He may ' fill all things.'
(V) What is to us the spiritual effect of this Revela
tion of Him 1 Not (I think) unlike the power of that
mysterious vision of Him in the Apocalypse, which so
grandly closes for us the story of His plainer manifesta
tion on earth. It does not tell directly upon thought
and conscience, like the record of His perfect word and
life here ; it does not speak to the heart, like the
lifting up for us on the Cross, of His infinite love ; it
does not, like the Incarnation, bring home the mystery
of ' God with us ' in such close and living power, that it
can be the main strength of our faith in the communion
of God with man, which makes the sacredness of this
present life. But it tells, as a great strain of Divine
music, upon the Imagination — that faculty in us, which
so strikingly links together the clear light of under
standing and the glow of passion — so as to stir
through it ' thought beyond our thought ' and feelings
spiritualized above mere emotion.
That spiritual effect has, as has been already said, its
special value, as (so to speak) consecrating our modern
enlargement of thought ; which in itself is apt to be
somewhat dreamy and self- forgetful, — somewhat too

170 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
far removed from sympathy with the needs and emo
tions of actual human life — somewhat dulled as to
keenness in the right human sense of the horror of
evil and of 'hunger and thirst after righteousness.'
It is not enough to muse, or even to wonder, in the
sense of the Infinite ; although no doubt, wonder (as
Carry le has taught us) is a preparatory condition of
insight into the heart of things. Marvellously that
wonder should be stirred in us — though we have been
warned that its capacity is not always preserved in
Scientific study — as we gain clearer and clearer glimpses
of the vast and manifold unity of the Universe, and
these, moreover, glimpses, which only show us how
beyond the circle of our knowledge it stretches im
measurably into the unknown. There falls on the soul
a silence of bewilderment and awe, which is a natural
preparation for reverence and worship. Yet in itself
it is but a preparation : the vague so-called ' worship of
the silent sort,' of a reverent Agnosticism, unable either
to discern or to articulate, is no living worship at all ;
for worship implies communion of human personality
with some Personality Divine. As Dr. Arnold once
said, with the keen insight of strong common sense, it
fuses the faith in God into something like the vague
admiration, with which we gaze at a beautiful sunset.
But, as we search into the infinity around us for some
thing more definite and living than this, the cry rises
more than ever ; ' Oh that I knew where I might find
Him ! ... I go forward, but He is not there ; and back
ward, but I cannot perceive Him.' Then comes to us
in this darkness the light of that Revelation of Christ,

IV.] The lesson of wonder and reverence. 171
which shows Him in personal relation to all this in
finity. When by it we can find Christ in it all — when
out of the unspeakable glory, we see the Face that we
know, and hear the Voice that we love — then only does
the preparation for worship complete itself in the
reality. God is known, as well as dimly felt, as through
all and yet above all ; and, like the elders in the
Apocalypse, we see in the exalted majesty of heaven
the Lamb slain for us, and so we can fall down and
adore in an intelligent and articulate worship Him
who liveth for ever and ever.
Nor should we omit in this connection the lesson
taught us as to the right attitude of the soul towards
our Lord Himself. It is well that we realize His per
fect humanity, having sympathy with all the trial, all
the weakness, all the suffering of our own. Through
it ' we come boldly to the Throne of Grace ' in faith ;
through it we learn the lesson of love to Him who so
loved us. But there is, as the needful complement to
this, the lesson of adoration — sometimes, as it would
seem, but imperfectly learnt by those who think of Him
only as the Son of Man. The sentimental familiarity
of some modern forms of address to Him has been noted,
as strangely in contrast with that Apostolic practice
in the New Testament, which never, except for special
reason, uses the simple ' Jesus ' of the Gospels, without
attaching to it some phrase of reverence, if not of
adoration. What can more effectually rebuke that
over-familiar tone of thought, than the vision opened
to us of Him, as exalted not only over humanity, but
over all the immeasurable vastness of created being—

172 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
receiving, as of right, a share in ' the glory and hdnour
and power ' belonging to Him who ' created all things,
and for whose pleasure they are and were created ' 1
But, beyond this satisfaction of the Imagination, and
this lesson of reverence, there are also other lessons to
be read to the intellect from this knowledge of Christ as
over all Creation. In it we find God in the universe,
and we find man.
We find God. We know how the ineradicable convic
tion of a Divine Will and Purpose of Wisdom and of Love,
both in the perfection and in the beauty of Creation, is
apt to be troubled — partly to the intellect by the sense
of mystery that we cannot fathom in its Laws — partly,
and more seriously, to the moral sense, by the intoler
able presence of evil, in suffering and sin and death ;
which, though there is now (in reaction from shallow
Optimism in the past) a tendency to exaggerate it,
as not only resisting but overmastering the Divine
Law of good, is yet only too real, both as a burden
and as a perplexity. But, when we see in all things
the Christ whom we know, these contradictions are
hushed. When we are sure that in all Creation work
that very same Wisdom and Love, which He has Him
self shown, in the bright flashes of beneficent miracle,
and in the steady radiance of His life on earth — like
what we know in man, but rising above all that here
limits and degrades it — then all the bewildering mys
tery of our Natural Theology vanishes. When, more
over, we can feel that in the great order of the world
there must be the foresight and the remedy of all those
mysterious evils, under which all creation suffers, be-

iv.] The knowledge of God and Man. 173
cause it is ruled by Him, who came down from Heaven
to take them away by the sacrifice of Himself — who
still, by His Divine Intercession in Heaven, and His
guidance of His Church on earth, is overcoming all that
militates against happiness and goodness — then, if we
still feel the moral burden of mystery, we can bear it
in faith, and see on the horizon the light of a rising
hope. Our Lord's miracles on earth are Epiphanies
of this double truth. So far as they are miracles of
creative power, and of mastery over Nature, they are
{as St. John teaches us J) simply Epiphanies of His
glory over all the world. But the miracles, more fre
quent and dearer to His Divine mercy, are the miracles
of the healing of body and soul, and of the raising of
the dead ; and these are cheering Epiphanies of the
victory of that Divine and all-pervading glory over pain
and sin and death.
Nor must we omit that last lesson, which is taught
us in the closing words of the text. In this knowledge
we find man. If we can see Christ in all creation, then
in Him the soul finds itself, as having in Him the sure
and certain inheritance of a true sonship of God. It
is not lost in the vastness and complexity of Nature ;
•it is not a mere instrument in the hand of irresistible
force ; it is not a mere bubble, to form and burst on
the stream of time. As has been already said, there is
in the soul itself a continual witness against these
dreary notions ; and the power of that witness ought
to be strengthened, in proportion to the increase of its
power of discovering in all the vastness of the universe
1 John iii. 11. ,

174 Christ and all Creation. [lect.
the laws and forces which rule it : for such power
surely indicates some likeness to the supreme Author
of all. But, when we know in that Author the Christ,
who has lived and died for each one of us, and who
draws each to the Godhead through Himself in an
individualizing tenderness of love — who has told us
that in His Supreme Majesty, still bearing the marks
of His Passion for us, He watches over and pleads for
the very least of us, and so orders all things as to pre
pare for each an appointed place with Himself for all
Eternity — then the conflict of the two voices within
us is set at rest. Infinitely little in ourselves, we are
infinitely great in Him. The old confidence of the
Psalmist receives a new strength of meaning : for we
know that the Godhead itself in Christ has ' visited
and redeemed His people.'
There is somewhere a famous picture of the Christ
in His glory. It is the face of the Divine Humanity
which we know and love so well, and by its own spiri
tual power it draws to Him the whole mind and heart.
But yet there is a new thrill of consciousness of the
infinite greatness of His majesty, when, looking closer,
we see that the glory round His head is made up of
myriads of angel faces, all catching and reflecting His
light, in proportion to their nearness, till they fade
away into immeasurable distance. So is it in the line
of thought opened to us in the text to-day, when we
see, gathered round our dear Lord and Master, all the
various cycles of being in their infinite and perfect order
i — all seen as centred in Him — all, whether near or far,
showing by reflection something of His glory. For thus

iv.] The lesson of Adoration. 1 75
the whole sphere of being is to us alive in many phases
and gradations of worship ; and by that universal wor
ship, while we still know and trust and love His perfect
humanity, we learn afresh to adore the fulness of the
Godhead in Him.

LECTUEE Y.
CHRIST AND HUMAN SOCIETY.
We, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone
members one of another. — Rom. xii. 5.
In relation to the truth expressed in these words —
once a new revelation to the world of human brother
hood, now an accepted commonplace of Christian
teaching — we may consider another exemplification of
the witness of Science to Christ, as having the effect
of elucidation, bringing out with new clearness and
brilliancy certain old truths of the Gospel message, and
transferring them (so to speak) from the background to
the foreground of Christian thought. Of such elucida
tion we have already seen one most striking example,
in the wonderful light, thrown by modern discovery or
inference of the vastness of the natural and spiritual
universe, on the Apostolic doctrine of the Christ, as not
only the Light and Saviour of humanity, but the Head
of all created being, ' gathered up in Him.' We have
now to examine the same elucidatory witness to Christ,
as borne not by the Science of the Universe, but by
what we have learnt to call the Social Science of
humanity. (I) We have in this to contemplate a unity, in-

One Body 'in Christ! 177
finitely narrower in its scope, but yet one far nearer
and dearer to us, telling, moreover, not only on the
intellect and imagination, but on the conscience and the
heart — one which, therefore, calls upon us to know it
and to serve it, with a call of imperious moral urgency.
Never has that call been more urgent than in our own
days. No one, I think, who reads with any insight the
signs of the times, will doubt that one great burning
question, which our modern civilization, if it is to live,
must resolutely and wisely answer, is the question how
human society can be really One Body, while yet it has
' many members ' — each in some sense complete in itself,
and each, for the discharge of its proper function,
needing to retain its own freedom and individuality.
St. Paul once answered that question by the simple
words ' in Christ.' The answer has been taken up and
wrought out in all the Christian centuries ; and, while
it is necessarily unchanged in its essential meaning, it
has worn to each generation an aspect corresponding
to the social knowledge and the social needs of the
age. Now that to us this knowledge has been greatly
widened and deepened — now that these needs have
been most formidably intensified — ought we not to find
that the old answer has assumed a new clearness and
depth of meaning %
It has been said (as by Laveleye) that from that
answer many of the chief modern schemes for the
regeneration of society have, consciously or unconsciously,
caught their inspiration \ It is (I th'ink) certain that
1 ' The ideas and sentiments, which have given birth to Socialism,
were deeply engraven on our minds and hearts by Christianity. . . ,
N

178 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
in our own country Christianity — not least as embodied
in a Church claiming to be national — is now more than
ever challenged to show that this answer has both a
theoretical sufficiency, and a practical reality of meaning.
The challenge may be sometimes ignorant and impatient,
assuming that to deliver a social gospel is the sole or
highest mission of the Church. But it at least implies
a belief that our Christianity has such a gospel ; and,
moreover, that, in order to proclaim it with power,
it only needs to be more thoroughly Christian — more
Christ-dike (that is) in primitive simplicity of idea, both
of the brotherhood of man and of the Fatherhood of
God 1. All men will allow that it must be fairly met.
Every Christian, who understands and accepts the teaching of his
Master, is at heart a Socialist ; and every Socialist, whatever may be
his hatred of religion, bears within himself an unconscious Christianity.'
(Lavelaye's Socialism of To-day, English translation by G. H. Orpen,
p. xix.) The accuracy of the remark plainly depends on the sense in
which the word ' Socialism ' is used. If Socialism be defined (with
Proudhon) as ' aspiration towards the improvement of society,' it is
obviously true ; if (with Adolphe Held) as ' demanding the subordina
tion of the individual to Society,' it will not be accepted without some
discrimination : if we take M. Laveleye's own definition, that it aims
at introducing ' greater equality in social conditions, and realizing
these reforms by law,' it must necessarily generate in application
much difference of opinion among those who, as Christians, equally
desire the well-being of human Society. There are few subjects on
which it is more necessary to begin by defining our terms.
1 From some recent experience I know how strong is the feeling on
this matter among working men. All directly anti-Christian move
ment has been largely superseded by Socialistic aspiration and agita
tion, and a demand from the Church of an energetic ' Christian
Socialism.' So far as I observe, if the Church is attacked, it is as
owner of property in land and endowment. If Christianity is dis
trusted it is on the ground that our actual Christianity is very

v.] Study of its idea. 1 79
My contention is that it can be met hopefully, if it be
met thoughtfully, not by superficial inference from this
or that doing or saying, but by going down to the root
of the matter. The true social doctrine of Christianity
eannot be rightly estimated by taking, for example, the
free community of goods, in the first enthusiasm of
the infant Church at Jerusalem, as a type of universal
Christian obligation, in face of the distinct evidence, that
it never extended to the Churches even of the Apostolic
age ; or by applying the letter, as distinct from the
spirit, of the Sermon on the Mount, to social conditions
and needs, utterly unlike those for which it was spoken ;
or even by taking the life, which our Lord saw to be
needful for Himself and His immediate disciples, in
the discharge of their unique mission, and enforcing it
literally on the whole body of His future Church. From
each of these indeed, we learn great lessons of principle,
bearing upon the true idea of Christian unity; and
we are taught also how under similar circumstances it
ought to be practically exemplified. But the idea must
be thoughtfully considered in itself; and, when it is
so considered, in relation to what Social Science —
not, perhaps, without receiving, directly or indirectly,
imperfectly Christian ; that, after so many centuries, its moral and
spiritual influence has failed to redress social evil and injustice ; that,
in fact, it has allied itself too much with the world as it is, not as it
ought to be. There is, at the same time, much of vehement, even
passionate, denunciation of the whole existing condition of society,
showing a deep-seated discontent, indicating again and again an
impatience of gradual development, avowing distrust of purely moral
influences, and a desire to right all supposed wrongs, either by almost
despotic law, or by revolutionary violence.
N 2

i So Christ and Human Society. [lect.
some guidance from it — has brought out to us as to the
actual Laws of human society, I believe that here once
more Science will be found to be ' a schoolmaster to
bring us to Christ.'
(II) ' One Body and many members ' — the metaphor
is probably as old and as universal as human language
itself. But, old as it is, the tendency of modern thought,
finding everywhere real analogies underlying such
metaphors, is increasingly to regard it as conveying
an objective reality of meaning. Just as Physiological
Science draws an analogy between the growth of an
individual being, and the Evolution of the whole sum
of Organic Life, so Social Science inclines to apply to
what it calls the ' Social Organism ' the laws discerned
in individual growth and life J. This application must,
indeed, be made with certain reservations, for no
metaphor drawn from a single organism can adequately
express the free individuality of each human soul,
coexisting with the unity of the whole society 2. But
the comparison goes as far, as any such comparison can
1 See, for example, Mr. Hirbert Spencer's Essay on 'Progress.'
(Essays, vol. i. pp. 8-61.) His contention is that 'the law of organic
progress,' traced in the growth of the individual being from the ovum
to full maturity, ' is the law of all progress,' both of human society,
and of the world of its material environment; and that 'this uni
formity of procedure ' ' in Social Evolution ' ' is a consequence of some
fundamental necessity.'
2 This imperfection is implied by the variety of metaphors, employed
in the New Testament to express the unity of humanity with and in
Christ, — the Body and the members, the Vine and the branches, the
building and the chief corner-stone, the husband and the wife. Each
brings out to us some peculiar feature of the truth, to which all hear
generally a common witness.

V.J Absolutism of Ancient Law. 181
go, in expressing what instinctive human consciousness
declares, that our nature is at once individual and
social — each man, as a distinct member, having an inner
world of thought, conscience, will, in which, so far as
humanity is concerned, he is absolutely alone, and yet
all being bound together into one body by a subtle
network of spiritual ties, through which there thrills
one common life. Civilization, which is the growth of
humanity, has always been recognised, as developing
both elements of this certain, though mysterious, anti
thesis, by free individual cultivation, and by harmony
of all individualities in the citizenship of a great com
monwealth, ultimately coextensive with humanity. But,
while this antithesis has always been thus acknowledged
in general, it is clear that at different times prominence
has been given, even to excess, to one or other of its
parts. Looking only to our own country, we cannot but see
how, in the England of old days, both under the feudal
system, and the first growth out of it of the kingly
power, the dominant idea was of the unity and authority
of Society, both as a whole and in its lesser social forms.
The unit of Society at large was not the individual, but
the lesser society of the family or the class ; at every
point individual action, social, political, commercial, was
always regulated and limited, often overborne, by Law.
This social condition, moreover, was accepted as natural,
because felt to be needful. Loyalty to the supreme
authority became a ruling passion, showing itself in
forms, which seem to us excessive and even fantastic ;
and its exuberance is all the more remarkable, when

1 82 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
we note that it often belonged to periods of great enter
prise and mental activity. Even in the religious life
the same leading idea asserted itself as supreme. The
Church was looked upon not so much as One Body of
living members, but rather as a great ' City of God ' —
a Kingdom of Christ under authorities ordained by
Him, in a great hierarchy culminating in His Vicar on
earth — having right and power to rule not only in
dividual action, but individual thought and faith : and
it has always seemed to me significant that, even within
that general authority of the Church, the life of stricter
submission, as in monastic communities, to an absolute
rule, in which all individual freedom was merged, was
held to be, as indeed it was called, the true ' religious
life.' Then came, in the Benaissance of the sixteenth cen
tury, the revolt of Individualism against this all-per
vading power of Law — the assertion of liberty, in idea
and thought against the iron symmetry of Scholasticism,
in action against social and political despotism, in
faith against infallible and absolute Church authority.
Gradually that assertion won its victorious way — not,
of course, without conflict, even of political and re
ligious civil war, but happily in our country without
extreme vehemence of revolution ; and for some three
centuries there was a continual advance of Individualism
— free trade and competition in our commerce — ' civil
and religious liberty ' (to use the common phrase) in
our political life, restricting within the narrowest limits
the regulating action of law — the conception of re
ligion commonly called ' Protestant,' as a spiritual force

v.] Growth of Individualism. 183
essentially personal, in which the Headship of Christ
Himself was felt as a direct Headship over the indi
vidual man, and the very idea of the One Body in Him,
though, of course, it could not be denied, was suffered
to fall into comparative abeyance — to imply, indeed,
little more than the religious association of individual
Christians, like-minded to one another, for mutual
encouragement and edification.
But now in our own days the Social problem has
evidently passed into a new phase. This change of
idea, and still more of feeling, arises from many causes.
First — perhaps most obviously — from bitter experience
of the fruits of an excessive Individualism ; partly in
the development of the natural inequality between men
to extremes of contrast between individuals and classes,
which are fairly appalling, and of which we feel that they
cannot and must not endure ; partly in the growth out
of excess of free competition of grave moral evils —
selfishness, untruthfulness, adulteration of goods, dis
honesty of reckless speculation, antagonism of classes
and cruel struggle for existence between men — which
impair both individual character and national loyalty.
It has arisen, again, through the disentanglement in our
political life of the assertion of civil and religious liberty
from the movement towards democracy, which was
formerly allied, and in removal of class privileges and
restrictions, even identified with it, but which is now
assuming towards it a position substantially of an
tagonism, because naturally inclining to sacrifice the
individual to the community. But I think that it
owes much, perhaps most, of its power to deeper Social

184 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
Science— revolutionizing the hard and narrow concep
tions of the old Political Economy1 — which studies
humanity as a whole, having its laws of corporate
growth, moral as well as physical, coming down from
the past to the present, to which individuality must
submit, and ought to submit freely. From all these
combined influences there has grown upon us a strong
conviction that in some way the old truth — that Society
is one Body, though having many members — must be
made new, as a living reality. ' Socialism ' (it is com
monly said) ' is in the air ' ; and if by Socialism is
meant, as should be meant, not this or that theory of
method, but the strong universal sense that what may
be called broadly the Socializing forces, of Law, Co
operation, Public Spirit, have now to be guarded and
1 ' The wisest Economists of our time ' (says M. Laveleye), ' have
recognised, that the exaggerated, though often well-founded, criticisms
passed on our social condition by Socialists, have been the means of
producing undoubted progress in Political Economy.' He instances
the recognition by Economists of the function of human laws of justice,
as well as ' natural laws ' of tendency, and of the infinite importance,
not only of the question of production of wealth, but of the question of
its right distribution. (Laveleye's Socialism of To-day, p. xliii.) It
is seen that ' the present distribution of wealth is perilous, alike to
those who have and to those who want.' It is felt, as was truly and
eloquently said by the President of the Economic Section of the
British Association in 1889, that 'Every year economic problems
become more complex; every year the necessity of studying them
from many different points of view, and in many different connections,
becomes more urgent. Every year it is more manifest that we need
to have more knowledge, and to get it soon, in order to escape, on the
one hand, from the cruelty and waste of irresponsible competition and
the licentious use of wealth, and on the other from the tyranny and
the spiritual death of an iron-bound Socialism.'

v.] Reaction against excessive Individualism. 185
strengthened, the saying is true. Nor can I think it
a mere accidental coincidence, that in our religious
thought and action there has been a corresponding
revival of what has been not untruly named ' Catho
licism' — the belief (that is) in the corporate life
through the Indwelling of Christ in the Church itself
— a life which has come down to us in unbroken con
tinuity through all ages since the Day of Pentecost,
and which implies some authority of direction and
regulation over individual action and faith. For reli
gious thought has necessarily connection, in various
degrees of power, with the whole of man's life. In this
case it Would seem that the religious sense of unity
preceded, and in some degree stimulated, the secular ;
and certainly the question for the Church now is how
the two impulses can rightly be harmonized together.
But, while there is, and while (if I may venture so to
say) there ought to be, this changed direction of social
thought and aspiration, yet, here as always, it must
be clear to any thoughtful mind, that the past cannot
be ignored in any of its parts, and that any attempt
to go back to the old condition of society, as strictly
organized under an almost absolute rule of law, must be
a fatal anachronism. The assertion of liberty of thought,
conditioned only by the laws of truth and righteous
ness, has been victoriously made once for all, and is
being clenched every day by new intellectual enter
prise and discovery. It can never be unmade ; and,
within limits, and those wide limits, it must carry with
it freedom of word and freedom of action. We, least of
all, can forget this in England. I do not think that

1 86 ¦ Christ and Human Society. [lect.
we have yet unlearnt the teaching which bids us
glory in ' . . . the land, which freemen till,
Which sober-suited Freedom chose,
A land, where, girt with friends or foes,
A man may speak the thing he will.'
For indeed it is deepened to us by thoughtful study
of the appointed order of being. We must see that
through such freedom, in spite of its errors, its vagaries,
its intestine conflicts, it is God's will to rule man —
neither by His Providence absolutely determining our
action, nor by His Spirit over-mastering and enforcing
our wills. All despotisms, which attempt what He
Himself will not do, are, therefore, necessarily unnatural,
retrograde against the progress which He has ordained,
and, as being unnatural, doomed to failure — whether
the failure of disruption by revolutionary violence, or
the worse failure for a time of a lethargic and deadening
success. Least of all, as it seems to me, can such usurpation
maintain itself now, in respect of that religious sphere
of life, which brings out most strongly and directly the
inalienable freedom of thought and conscience. In re
action against excessive religious Individualism, with
its inevitable conflicts and uncertainties, there has been
(as we know but too well), even in some of the noblest
minds, an eagerness to find and to obey implicitly
some voice of command, absolute as claiming infalli
bility, before which the dread responsibility of freedom
may be laid down. But this spiritual despotism can
maintain its claim only by declaring war against the

v.J Retrogression impossible. 187
invincible elements of human progress — delivering itself
(to use a celebrated phrase) ' from the yoke of history '
— resisting (that is) the irresistible law of fact, seeking
to ignore or undo the irrevocable past. Whatever,
therefore, may be the religious destiny of the future,
it seems impossible that religious despotism — whether
in the hands of a single man, or a class, or even the
whole body — can ever wield over individual freedom
the power, which once it exercised in the. imperfect
civilization of days gone by.
But perhaps the lesson, most urgently needed for our
own times, is that which bids us remember that in this
matter it makes no essential difference, whether this
despotism is one, which, as democratic, each man has
helped to make, and in which he has some infinitesimal
share. Despotism, however originated, and wherever
seated, is despotism still. In its democratic form, if it
is mitigated to each man by the consciousness of his own
consent to it, and his own power, however insignificant,
in guiding it, yet, on the other hand, it is, in its daily
pressure upon individual freedom, the most ruthless
of all despotisms, alone untempered (to use the old pro
verbial phrase) ' either by epigram or by assassination,'
and acting with a force, which collects and concentrates,
not only the wisdom and the goodness, but the folly and
the wickedness of humanity. Rightly (to continue my
former quotation) are we warned to beware lest
'banded unions persecute
Opinion, and induce a time
When single thought is civil crime,
And individual freedom mute.'

1 88 Christ ana I Human Society. [lect.
Yet, all the while, it is just that 'single thought,'
Spoken by the tongue of 'individual freedom,' which
has in the born leaders of mankind, initiated all the
chief steps of the intellectual and moral progress of
humanity. It is always the few who lead, while the
many have but to listen, and to judge whether they
can accept and follow. Even in that necessary task of
judgment, what fatal error and wrong has the world
seen ! If the vision of Truth and Goodness calls
out Hosannas to-day, what of the ' Not this man, but
Barabbas,' on the morrow % But, to go beyond that
function — to claim by force of law, or at times lawless
ness 1, to direct, control, enslave individual freedom —
to refuse it all wide scope of exercise, within the limits
of moral right and respect for the rights of others,
whether of individuals or of the whole community — this
is a fatal and disastrous usurpation, sinning against the
true law of humanity. Under whatever grand names,
with whatever high and generous hopes, it may advance,
we have learnt not only from true science of humanity,
but from terrible or disheartening experience, that, now
at any rate, such usurpation cannot stand.
No ! the unity of human society, which our age needs,
must in some way recognise and conserve the freedom
which has been won ; and it follows from this that,
1 It is notable that the lawlessness, apparently an increasing law
lessness, which is so ominous a feature of the present day, is not so
much the lawlessness of individual self-will or selfishness, as the law
lessness of combination, fighting for the supposed rights or needs
of class, party, or section ; and that it shows itself most violently,
wherever there is, rightly or wrongly, some distrust in the honesty
and energy of the administration of law.

v.] Free Unity our ideal. 189
while it will, of course, use law, both coercive and
directive, and claim that obedience to it be unhesitat
ingly rendered, it must rely mainly on influences, which
tell on the individual by free conviction, moulding
public opinion, fostering public spirit. In this direction,
as in all others, it must decline to revert in the maturity
of civilization to the reliance upon that overmastering
force of Law, which was the rightful schoolmaster of
simpler and cruder ages of society. It must aim at
harmonizing together the Individualism and Socialism,
which are really correlative, but are hastily assumed
to be antagonistic to each other ]. It must recognise,
as the actual facts of human nature demand, at once
the natural equality of all, in regard of indefeasible
human rights, and the natural inequality of all, in
respect of gifts, powers, opportunities. It must be
something higher and more spiritual than those schemes
for the reconstruction of society, which avowedly rely
on material change and improvement, as the one thing
needful, supposing that change of circumtances must
in itself surely change the man. It must have as its
1 I venture to quote on this point from a Paper at the Church Con
gress of 1890: — 'Is this true Socialism irreconcilable with right In
dividualism — as is sometimes plainly declared, more often tacitly and
practically assumed 1 The answer to the question is given by a glance
at man's nature, which is obviously at once individual in free will,
thought, conscience, spiritual aspiration, and social in the existence
and in the recognition of all the ties of which we have spoken.
Harmony, not antagonism, must be the law of the relation of these
two forces, both equally natural, both inhering in one indivisible
nature. Freedom is license, when it breaks these living ties : unity
is despotic tyranny, when it dees not merely condition, but ignores
or crushes, freedom.

190 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
ideal ' that in free and generous co-operation each shall
offer the fulness of his own life, that he may rejoice in
the fulness of the life of the whole body.' Where
shall the spirit of such unity be found \ How shall the
metaphor be realized of One Body with many members
¦ — each free and complete in itself, and yet all thrilled
by one nervous energy, one life-blood from one heart %
(III) To that question it is historically certain that
Christianity once supplied, as in the text, a very
strong and practical answer. No one can doubt that
it changed the Brotherhood of humanity, from a theory
and an aspiration into a living reality. On all hands
men are asking, Has it lost its force now ? Is it still
to solve the old problems in their new shapes, or is it
to be superseded by some newer Gospel of idea, some
newer enthusiasm of energy ?
In order to reply to this question, it is necessary to
see clearly what its theory of human unity is — what
is meant by ' One Body in Christ.'
Unity in Christ is ultimately unity through Him in
God. In the Baptism which is its appointed means,
each individual nature is baptized into the Name — that
is, into the Nature — of the Father and of the Son and
of the Holy Ghost. So, and so only, is it 'engrafted
into the body of Christ's Church.' In the Incarnation
the Eternal Son is revealed as gathering all humanity
into Himself, that He may make it one in sonship of
God ; in the Atonement, as lifted up that He may
break the bonds of sin, and draw all the individual
souls of men, as by a spiritual gravitation, to Himself
and to the Godhead through Him ; in the Resurrection

v.] The Christian Doctrine of Unity. 191
and Ascension and the Mediatorial Royalty, as continuing
till the end of the work so begun in His manifestation
here, till it shall be completed in the restitution of
all things at His Second Coming to judge the earth.
This is the primary and direct unity of all souls in Him,
as He Himself taught it, when He said, ' I am the Vine ;
ye are the branches.' Secondary and indirect, although
most real, is the unity of all with one another.
Clearly is that order marked in the text — the dia
metrically contrary order to that of most Socialistic
schemes of ancient or modern days. They are, like
Plato's, 'Divine Republics;' in which the direct unity
of all with one another — in part by the constraining
force of law, in part by an enthusiastic cultus of
humanity — is the one thing needful ; and relation of
the soul to a Supreme Power, if recognised at all,
is put far away in some mysterious background — at
most allowed to affect the inner life, in no sense con
ceived as ruling the course of human society. This, on
the other hand, is a well-centred ' Kingdom of God ' —
' One Body ' in the Headship of the Son of God and
Man. Each through that Headship has his individual
life ' hid in God ' ; all through that same Headship are
members one of another.
How striking an illustration there is of this concep
tion of human unity, in its analogy to the Law, which
in the physical universe binds our system of worlds
together ! Under that Law there is at every point
for each body the great central attraction of the sun,
source to all of force, as of light and life ; and yet, lest
all should be drawn into it, and absorbed in its vastness,

192 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
there is also at every point the velocity, tending (as we
say) to ' fly off at a tangent' — to move (that is) as for the
moment each body would move freely, if it were left to
itself alone : and this balance of the uniting central
force and the free centrifugal velocity is so absolutely
predominant in its importance, that by it, roughly yet
substantially, the orbits may be determined, in which
all move side by side in a wonderful order. Yet, when
we look more closely, we see that, subordinate indeed,
but co-existent with this great central attraction, there
is on each body a multitude of lesser attractions from
all the other bodies of the system — proportionate (I may
remark) not only to their greatness, but to their near
ness ; so that all in their motion form one great whole,
continually acting and re-acting upon another, and so
modifying, but never impairing, the effect of the primary
law, under which the great ruling power is centred in
the sun. Central force, free energy, mutual attraction
— these, and these in this order, are the great ideas
which emerge, when we study the system of which our
world is a part. As we realize them, is not a new force
given to the familiar metaphor in which the old prophet
Speaks of Christ as the ' Sun of Kighteousness,' drawing
all to Himself by moral attraction, along the living
cords of Truth and Love ? yet, so that at every moment
each has also an impulse to move freely by self-deter
mination of will, thus ' conscious,' at all times primarily,
at some critical times exclusively, ' of God and his own
soul ' ; and so that all are bound in a network of spiritual
ties to one another, and, even in this lower sense, ' no
man lives or dies to himself"?

v-] The Great Commandment. 193
Such certainly is the conception of the One Body in
Christ ; and that it is not to remain a mere abstract
conception, but to be realized in practical energy by
all, even the simplest of His disciples, He has Himself
taught us in the ' Great Commandment ' of Love. For
love is the realization of unity with self, with man, with
God. In the second great Commandment He implies,
and so allows, 'the love of self — the devotion (that is)
of each soul, with a sense of duty and even of en
thusiasm, to the man's own personal freedom and rights,
to his happiness and perfection — in which we trace
what has been called ' the will to live,' and the survival,
rationalized and tempered, of the great Law, under
which Organic Life has had its evolution of progress
towards higher forms1. In that same Commandment
He emphasizes the love of Man, but under the form of
* the love of our neighbour ' — the love, that is, of all
men, but of all in their various orders and degrees of
connection with us. We see, moreover, that, while He
clearly implies here what is taught everywhere — as by
His word, so by His example — that in degree it is to rise
above the love of self, and to call for willing self-sacrifice,
yet, in the words ' as thyself,' He distinctly teaches that
1 In this respect Christianity, recognising all the facts of human
nature, stands in contrast with transcendental theories of ' Altiuism.'
Self-love (as Butler taught us long ago) is not ' selfishness,' in the
common sense of the word, till it assumes an ue righteous and unnatural
dominance. To brand with that name the desire for individual per
fection, as crowned by the Christian hope of a personal immortality,
surely argues a strange ignoiance of what humanity really is, and of
the duty to self, which is implied in the existence of a true pei sonality,
having capacity of spiritual perfection, O

194 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
it is of the same kind, at once instinctive and rational,
moving on the same moral level, to temper the love of
self and harmonize with it, not to destroy it or overbear
it as by an essential superiority. But the key to the
right relation and harmony of both these secondary
forces He gives us in the supremacy of the First
Great Commandment of the love of God, embracing
the whole mind of the intellect, the whole heart of
affection, the whole soul of moral being, and the whole
strength of practical energy. That love of the Supreme
Power — as distinct from the wonder, and awe, and the
obedience of submission in fear, which result naturally
from any adequate conception of it — had for Israel its
inspiration in the sense of a free covenant with the
Lord Jehovah. But, in the perfection of that covenant
in the Lord Jesus Christ, it became a ' new Command
ment.' To use St. Paul's striking phrase, ' The Head
of man is Christ, and the Head of Christ is God.' The
Brotherhood of humanity in Christ — the only Fraternity
which really conserves liberty — depends absolutely on
the realization through Him, for each and all, of the
Fatherhood of God.
(IV) How then did Christianity proceed to embody
that idea in practical reality \
First of all unquestionably by the creation of a
Catholic Church, in which all peoples and all generations
should be one. I use the word creation ; but, like other
forms of Divine creation, it was a growth, evolved out
of the idea itself. Nothing can be more unhistorical
than the fancy (as, for instance, of M. Renan) that the
main conception of the first preachers of the Gospel

v.] The Creation of a Catholic Church. 195
was the formation of a great world-wide empire over
human thought and action. What was the actual fact,
as we read it in the pages of the New Testament \
' They determined not ' (as St. Paul himself testifies)
' to know ' and declare ' anything save Jesus Christ,' as
God in Man. The Catholic Church was but the natural
extension of His humanity — the TrX^pwjua (so He was
pleased to consider it) ' of Him that filleth all in all J ' ;
its unity was not made, but grew out of the unity
drawing all souls to Him.
And I may note in passing that, whenever in Church
history that true order of Apostolic teaching has been
forgotten or obscured- — whenever the first object has
been to form a Kingdom over men, and to win souls to
it, instead of simply ministering the light and grace of
Christ, and leaving it to Him to win the souls for whom
He died — whenever its unity has been made to depend
on outward bonds, however sacred, or even on direct
subordination of the soul to the voice and will of
the whole community, expressed through some form of
absolute authority — then the true Christian ideal has
been marred, with results invariably of corruption and
disaster. The new Comtist ' Church of Humanity ' has
been described by an acute critic as ' Catholicity without
Christianity,' that is, without Christ. May not its idea
have been learnt in some degree from perversions of the
true Christian idea, which practically put Catholicity
first, and Christianity only in the second place %
It is only in the Catholic Church that the true
1 Eph. i. 23. ' The head' (says St. Chrysostom on this passage) 'is
the complement of the body and the body of ths head.'
0 2

196 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
Christian ideal of the unity of all mankind is completely
set forth, and, in spite of the imperfections of sin and
error, gradually realized in anything like fulness.
Necessarily (as St. Paul shows us in the great passage
of his Ephesian Epistle 2) the soul of that unity has
its inner life in the communion with the One Spirit, the
One Lord, the One Father, of whom the One Baptism
testifies; and it shows itself through those spiritual
energies, which in our common humanity underlie all
individual and natural peculiarities — the ' one faith,' the
' one hope,' the one love, which is 'the bond of peace.' And
' of these the greatest is love ' — love to God in Christ,
and through Him to one another. For love is the free
recognition of unity, the free spirit of sacrifice, which
at once realizes self and loses self2. Old as man himself :
for is it not what we significantly call ' humanity ' % yet
undoubtedly a new creation in the life of the Church of
Christ. Necessarily the ideal of Christian aspiration is to
extend this spiritual unity, as ' Catholic,' over all the
world, so that it may interpenetrate the whole human
1 Eph. iv. 4-6.
2 At the same time the definition of Christian Love always implies
that it is to be harmonized with Truth or Bighteousness. The like
ness of Christ is to St. Paul, the ' being true in love,' and to St. John,
with characteristic variation, the 'loving in truth.' (Eph. iv. 15;
2 John 1.) In relation to some of the enthusiasms of the day, it is
necessary to emphasize the truth, that love to man, whether to indi
vidual or collective humanity, cannot rightly overbear truth and
righteousness. Sir Walter Scott's Jeanie Deans, who will not lie even
to save a loved sister, is a truer ideal than the modern heroine, who
would despise such restraint, and for such an end would cast all truth
to the winds.

V.] The Regeneration of Natural Unities. iqf
society. Just so far as this is in degree realized — as
races professedly Christian are, directly and indirectly,
Christianized — as through them races still heathen
(mostly the weaker subject-races of our modern world)
are drawn into the Christian family — it is certain in
fact that man is united in a spiritual brotherhood, the
only such brotherhood which the world has seen.
But, while this is the supreme ideal of Christianity,
yet secondarily its power is felt in the recognition and
regeneration of all the natural forms of unity — the
family, the city, the nation, the race ; and it is to be
noted, that, following out the idea implied in our
Master's description of the love of humanity as the
' love of our neighbour,' Christianity has stood forth
boldly, in contrast with many socialistic theories, to
recognise and guard the sacredness of these lesser unities
within the greater unity of universal brotherhood.- How
largely in this respect its position is justified both by
historical experience, and by scientific study of the
forces of Heredity, will be plain to most observers.
But of the fact of this graduated social action of
Christianity, harmonized with its universal enthusiasm
of humanity, there can be no doubt. Not by accident —
not merely (I think) for the sake of convenience — has
even the Church unity itself incorporated these natural
forms into its own higher life : so that the family be
comes 'the Church in the house,' the city the parish or
diocese, the nation a national Church, the whole race,
actually or potentially, the Church Catholic. It has
done this, because a Supernatural Force always har
monizes and assimilates to itself whatever is natural.

198 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
But, independently of this incorporation, Christianity,
ideal and actual, has always manifested a deep interest,
an effective influence, in respect of all these forms in
themselves, and testified that each, as one body, ought
to find its unity in Christ 1.
We know commonly, yet we hardly realize in its
fulness, the exalting effect on the life of the family of
that Christian teaching, which (as in the same great
Epistle of St. Paul) hallows all domestic relationships,
as reproductions of the Divine relations to man — the
marriage, from which the family takes its rise, as the
type of the mystical union of Christ with His Church
— its fatherhood of authority and love, as a delegation
from the Fatherhood of God — its brotherhood as a
miniature of the brotherhood of humanity in the house
of the One Father — even its service (once a slavery,
now through Christian influence, a free service) as a
not unrecognised part of the universal service of God 2.
Under that high religious sanction the sacredness of the
home has grown up among us: by that sanction against
individual lawlessness, against low materializing ideas,
and against socialistic encroachments, it is mainly guarded
still. The living inspiration of this teaching has done
what could not be done, either by the enlightened sense
of expediency, or the strong coercion of Law, or even the
philosophic sense of the creation of high moral relations
1 I may perhaps be allowed here to refer to a fuller treatment cf
this subject which I have attempted in Lectures on Christianity and
Socialism (Cassell, 1890).
2 Eph. v. 22 — vi. 9; Col. iii. 18 — iv. 1; Comp. 1 Pet. ii. 18 —
iii. 7.

v.] Family and Neighbourhood. 199
through that which serves for the physical propagation
of the race \
Less direct and powerful, yet not less real, this social
influence of Christianity over the larger and looser unity
of what we call ' neighbourhood ' — whether the neigh
bourhood of locality, most felt in old days, or the
neighbourhood of class, strongest in our own. With
regard to the former, we know how, not least in our
English history, the Church of city or village, in
setting forth the light and grace of Christ, has neces
sarily become the centre of the secular life of the com
munity, and of all the energies of local sympathy and
fellowship and charity which bind it together. With
regard to the latter, we know how in old days the
Guilds of common handicraft or commerce or art were
distinctly hallowed by religious influence — as crafts or
' mysteries ' (to use the old London civic" term) ' in the
Body of Christ.' Of such religious relation the traces
are unhappily but faint in the corresponding asso
ciations of our own day. Yet the sense of it is not
extinct. As the Church enters more and more into the
consciousness of her social responsibilities, there is a
growing tendency in these associations to revive in-
1 It is a significant fact, that at the very time of the first birth of
Christianity in the great Roman Empire, the Emperor Augustus — a
cold and far-seeing politician — felt so strongly the need of raising and
defending against a growing corruption the sanctity of the family, that
he sought vainly to protect and revive it by force of stringent law ;
and his favourite poet, himself only a genial easy-going man of the
world, mourned over the degradation of the home by an ' age prolific of
evil,' and told how ' Hoc fonte derivata, clades
In patriam popuhrmque fluxit.'

200 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
formally the old acknowledgment of religious sanction.
Certainly, in all class-aspirations and class-antagonisms,
there is urgent call to the representatives of religious
ideas to intervene, especially in the cause of the weak :
and to that call there has been in response a marked
inclination — sometimes in details wise, and sometimes
unwise — to enter upon the region even of ' business,'
and to claim in it recognition of the obligations of
Christian unity.
Certainly when we pass to the greater and nobler
unity of the Nation — although the old theory has
broken down, which, in England at least, made Church
and Nation coextensive, and added, as a matter of
course, to the natural unity into which all were born,
the higher unity into which they were born again —
still the phrase ' National Christianity ' has an informal
but substantial meaning, which is indicated by the
blazon of the Cross on our banner, and the expression of
our loyalty in a ' National Anthem.' English Chris
tianity has unquestionably moulded English history
and English character ; just as our English Bible, and
in less degree our English Prayer-Book, have coloured
English literature. It must be so ; for Christian faith
cannot but tell with power both on the loyalty, which
is here the analogue of loving reverence for Fatherhood,
and the patriotism, which expresses the Brotherhood
of the whole nation. How remarkable it is that, while
the first preaching of Christianity, in its strong em
phasis of individuality in Christ on the one hand, and
Catholic unity in Him on the other, seemed to leave no
room for the development of the lesser unities of human

v.] The Nation and the Race. 201
society yet national unity has grown up with unsur
passed vigour in Christendom, and has resisted all
efforts to crush it in the name of a larger unity, whether
civil, as in the Empire, or spiritual, as in the Church of
Rome! How infinitely stronger now the conviction
of the two correlative truths, which St. Paul united
together1, but which opposing parties have held in
separation, even in mutual antagonism — that the civil
authority, as ' an ordinance of God,' has its sacredness,
which calls for the loyal duty for conscience sake of its
individual citizens, and as a ' minister of God ' has its
responsibility of duty to every one of them, which it
cannot arbitrarily neglect ! How significant, if we con
sider it, the demand — although it may be sometimes in
practical form unwisely made and unwisely answered
— that in all our intestine conflicts, Christianity shall
step in, and cry in the name of national unity, as con
secrated by God's Law, ' Sirs, ye are brethren. Why do
ye wrong one to another % '
But it is when we come to that unity of all humanity,
which is the leading idea of all true civilization, that
this social influence of our Christianity is most clearly
felt. The old cry, ' Am I not a man and brother \ '
now somewhat hackneyed and conventional, but once
living and powerful, as the cry which shattered the
slave-trade, was the watchword, not of mere philan
thropy, but of the Christian philanthropy which re
cognises a brotherhood 'in Christ.' Still the truth
which that cry expresses is, we believe, the inmost
spirit of all true civilization. It would be, indeed,.
1 Eom. xiii. 1, 4.

202 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
folly to deny or undervalue, the other unifying forces,
which grow with the growth of the world — the material
bonds of physical communication and commercial inter
course — the intellectual unity of common knowledge
and culture — the political unities, which are aggregating
great masses of men under the supremacy of a few
dominant races^ But in all these, there are but too
obviously elements of selfishness, and therefore of dis
integration and conflict ; and even at their best, they
lie more or less on the surface, touching mainly the
outward life, and not piercing to the heart of things.
The one force of unity which, if we were only true to it,
would be pure from all disturbing elements, and would
go to the very root of human being, is the Christian
claim for our Lord and Master of the whole humanity for
which He died ; for through Him the unity of man is
centred in God, and its bonds, being spiritual, are there
fore universal.
Yes ! and in spite of the sins of actual Christianity —
its defect in energy of sacrifice, and the marring and
paralysing effect of our wretched religious divisions —
we may boldly say that it is this Christian enthusiasm,
which is the inspiration, not only of the continual exten
sion of His Church, but of the sense of moral duty and
love, even beyond the reach of this extension, to all
who are our brothers in the family of humankind. As
beyond the pale of actual conversion there extend the
Fatherhood of God and the salvation of Christ, so there
exist for us the duty and enthusiasm of brotherhood in
the ' service of humanity.' What a strange delusion it
is — not only unphilosophical in itself, but contradicted

v.] The Christian Civilization. 203
by the emphatic witness of history — to suppose that
this service stands in contrast, even in antagonism, to
' the service of God ' ! It should be especially the
one main force in that work which is so essentially
Christian — the securing to the weaker subject-races of
the world something at least of the justice, the protec
tion, the beneficence, from the stronger, which is indeed
the true ' humanity,' but which has to wage so hard a
war against the inhuman struggle for existence of
individuals and of races. It should be so ; and in
measure it is so. The ruling races of the earth are
clearly the European races — not least the English-
speaking race. The one voice, which has constantly
proclaimed and enforced on those ruling races their
duties to the weaker races of the earth, brought under
their influence or dominion, is the voice of Christianity.
It has had its failures in fighting against external forces
of evil — against commercial selfishness and political
greed — against the false science, which calmly assumes
that the black or red man must perish before the white
man's presence, when, in fact, he perishes by the white
man's sin. It has had its worse failures, through internal
fault of its own error and timidity, and the unreality of
so much of Christian profession. But look only to the
aggregate result of the power over the world, even of
our own English race, and examine the actual history
of its growth. No impartial student will fail to see
that here the supreme influence has been that of Chris
tianity, and that the beneficent character of that power
on the whole is a proof, that here Christianity has not
spoken and laboured in vain.

204 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
So in respect of these two actions— the creation of the
supernatural and purely spiritual unity of the Catholic
Church, and the breathing new life into all the forms of
natural unity — Christianity accepts the growing light,
and even the bolder and more philosophical theories,
of Social Science, as leading up to Christ. From that
Science it has learnt much in both these directions.
The study of humanity, individual and collective,
teaching the correlation and right order of its various
elements, physicid and spiritual, has certainly aided it
greatly in laying hold of the whole for Christ — body,
soul, and spirit all consecrated to God in Him. It is
not, indeed, always easy to harmonize rightly these
two parts of the Christian duty of witness to Him.
Perhaps at this moment there is some tendency — in
reaction against excessive neglect in the past — to
emphasize even disproportionately the second, till it
rivals or supersedes the first in its place of primary
dignity. To give way to that tendency would be, I
hold, a fatal error. If the clergy in their ministerial
duty, and the Church in her collective witness, should
allow devotion to what are called ' social subjects ' to
set aside or obscure their primary charge — which is
to draw individual souls one by one to Christ, and to
advance the corporate spiritual life of the Church,
through the light and grace of God — it would be a
treason to their high calling, and a neglect of the wisdom
of right proportion taught by the Master Himself;
' These things ought ye to have done, and not to leave
the other undone.' But in that right proportion, both
these forms of witness have their proper function ; and

v.] Its centre in God. 205
both, if they are to be true and effective, must keep a
firm grasp of the essential principle, involved in those
famous words, ' One in Christ.'
(V) For that principle is fruitful in practical de
ductions. First, with whatever form of human unity, higher
or lower, we are concerned, it teaches us that it must
have its centre in God, as revealed to us in humanity
through the Lord Jesus Christ. Each soul must realize,
as the dominant conception of its life, the drawing to
this Divine Centre — in a free obedience to a Divine
Law, even if it rise not to the higher consciousness
of a Divine Spirit. In that consciousness is the
strength of true Christian Individualism ; in the re
sulting unity with others, so drawn to the one centre,
the bond of the Christian Socialism. The ' manliness,'
which I take to be right self-assertion — the secret of
freedom, energy, progress, and the 'humanity,' which
is right self-sacrifice — the secret of unity and stability
— meet together under this supreme devotion, and, we
believe, under it alone, Revolt of either from it,
whether in the Stoic worship of self or the modern
worship of society, is equally an idolatry; although the
former be of the baser, and the latter of the nobler sort.
Here, as in all else, not only is the Life of Christ — hid
in God, yet laying hold by sympathy of all humanity —
our true ideal, but the reproduction of that life in us is
the very soul, as of our individual, so of our social being.
Next, it is clear that Christianity must be essen
tially a thing not of the Law, but of the Spirit.
Of course it will hold with St. Paul that ' Law is

206 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
good, if it be used lawfully,' — that is, in its right
secondary place, and as a means to a higher end. The
extent of that use, moreover, will varv under different
conditions and in different times. About the first and
most permanent function of Law there can be no division
of opinion. It must act, and that sternly and decisively,
against all unrighteous selfishness of the strong,
whether of individuals or of combinations ; as shown
either in crime and fraud and oppression of the weak,
or in evasion of the public burden, which the respon
sibility of wealth and strength lays upon them. It
must in this view, for example, be used to enforce on
the property which it protects, the duty which it owes,
both to those with whom it is immediately connected,
and to the public service, especially that of the poor
and weak. It must equally be used to protect against
violence the individual freedom of labour, and the in
dividual property which, directly or indirectly, results
from it. Other functions of law may be less un
questioned, and certainly need more caution and self-
restraint in working. But few will doubt, that, in the
present condition of civilized society, Law may be rightly
used to secure for the mass of our people such right
material environment of life, as may give fair scope
to their higher humanity, and such help in education
and culture as ma.y foster it, — supplementing always,
and not superseding, their own self-help. Perhaps
(although in this we touch more controverted ground)
it may with this view find it necessary to interfere by
regulation and restriction with commercial and social
life, and, acting in the name of the State, to super-

v.] The Law and the Spirit. 207
sede in some fields both individual action and free
co-operation. The tendency in our day has been, and
still is, towards a larger measure of this action of
' State-Socialism V It may, as seems to be generally
thought, continue to advance, or, like excessive Indi
vidualism, by experience of its insufficiency and its
evil, it may provoke reaction. But clearly, from a
Christian point of view, all this is a question of policy,
not of principle. How that good may be best secured
will be, of course, matter of opinion, on which each man
must take his own course after serious thought, agree
ing to differ with others, and believing them to be not
less earnest than himself. But it is fatal to the life
of the Church of Christ, if it can be justly accused of
lukewarmness in sympathy with the masses of His
people. We may say that while recognising that in
law interference, whether with rich or poor, should have
to prove its necessity, and justice be done to all alike,
1 On this action of the State, and on the actual extension of it in
the England of to-day, see Mr. Sidney Webb's Socialism in England
(Sonnenschein, 1890). His conclusion is that (see pp. 15, 16) 'The
progress of Socialism in England has been, and is still being, accom
plished in four chief directions: — 1. Constantly increasing restric
tions on private ownership of land and capital (Factory Acts, &c).
2. Gradual supersession of private industrial ventures by public ad
ministration (telegraphs, municipal tramways, parochial schools). 3.
Progressive absorption by taxation of unearned incomes (rent and
interest) and " rent of ability " (income tax, taxes on real property,
&c). 4. The supplementing of private charity by public organiza
tion, aiming at raising the condition of the " residuum " (public educa
tion, improved dwellings, &c.).' He assumes — I think, hastily —
that all this indicates progress, not to the right control and balance,
but to the extermination, of Individualism, and ' the realization of the
Socialistic ideal.'

208 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
yet Christian influence, in framing and administering
it, will hardly be true to the spirit of Christ, if it does
not look with chief thought and favour on that which
tends to the good, not of the few, but of the many.
But still the Christian Socialism, unlike the chief
socialistic schemes of the day, will place its chief
reliance, not on the compulsion or the authoritative
direction to be gained from Law — nor, it may be added,
even on voluntary co-operation for mutual advantage,
useful though it is, and capable of a far larger de
velopment than it has yet attained — but on the free
self-devotion of the spirit to the common good, and
that, moreover, as swayed not by a simple enthusiasm
of humanity, but by the true enthusiasm of obedience
to the Spirit of God. For this is the ' Law of liberty,'
as in the Sermon on the Mount it is placed in contrast
with the harder Law of Sinai, laid on 'them of old
time.' That Law — in itself, and as embodied in the
Life of Him who spoke it — must still be our guide, in
its spirit rather than its letter, in essential principle,
which is eternal, rather than in the practical details,
which vary with the time K In itself it is the freest
and gladdest of all devotions, because entering most
fully into the Divine blessedness of giving. Yet in the
world as it is, it involves necessarily in different degrees,
through struggle with the antagonistic forces of evil and
selfishness without and within, some cross of sacrifice.
It is, again, a part of this leading idea, that Chris
tianity teaches us to depend mainly for true unity and
progress of society on moral and spiritual forces. No
1 See Note H.

v.J Supremacy of Moral principle. 209
sane man will disregard the reacting influence of the
material environment of life ; no one, who looks at the
condition of our own English society, will doubt that
much, very much, has to be done, in order to make
it for the mass of our people worthy of a Christian
civilization. But even the soundest Pagan philosophy,
through one great master of Greek thought, declared
that in the true welfare of individual or collective
humanity, first is to be placed the moral force of
character, and only in subordination to it the outer
environment — the (3lo$ reXeios — which is necessary to
give it scope. It would be retrogressive, indeed, for
those who speak in the Name of Christ to fall below
that Pagan teaching, by accepting the theories, which
so loudly proclaim that for social regeneration we need
nothing but ' sweeping economic change,' which must
carry with it — to use their own curious and instruc
tive phrase — ' political, ethical, technical, and artistic
changes '; and for this, perhaps not unnaturally, rely
on the swift coercive action of law, national or inter
national, backed by physical force.
Christianity must read to the world a higher lesson.
Conscious that the true strength against all evils is in
living moral principle, it has laid upon it here a twofold
duty. It has to foster that strength, first and best, by
the development of the higher spiritual life of Love to
God and Man in itself, as it is ' hid with Christ' in the
soul, as it is diffused by His Presence through the
whole body of the Church* — sure that, wherever it is
real and deep, it will show how to deal rightly and
nobly with all the practical questions and duties which

2io Christ and Human Society. [lect.
present themselves. But it has also, in the second
place, boldly to proclaim and strongly enforce that
moral principle in its direct practical bearing on
the problems, and especially the antagonisms, of our
present Society — to get rid of the inveterate error,
showing itself but too often in all classes and in all
schools of opinion, which holds that the religious can be
separated from the secular life, and that the Christian
principle, acknowledged in the individual, domestic,
ecclesiastical spheres, is to be ignored in the realms of
business or of politics, In regard to these questions, its
concern is, not so much with details of special economic
and social arrangements, which need to be dealt with
by experts, but with the moral obligations of duty and
love, which should underlie and determine them ; in
these its proper task is to speak out, at once with
authority and with persuasiveness, to all parties — the
few and the many — the representatives (for example)
both of Capital and of Labour — not only in the name
of humanity, but in the name of God. It will not speak
in vain. In spite of a natural impatience of what
seems to the hasty to be but a slow, indirect, tran
scendental process, — an impatience, which ought to be,
but too often is not, corrected by historical experience,
both of the failures of mere legal compulsion, and of
the victorious strength of idea and spiritual enthusiasm
> — Christianity must still be true to its Master's method1.
1 Some of the most thoughtful of Socialistic leaders see clearly that
trust must be placed not in revolution, but in the evolution of the
natural and gradual progress, which they believe that they can discern,
towards the realization of their ideal. But even they seem inclined

v.] Reality of Moral power. 2 1 1
As it was with the monstrous wrong of slavery — de
stroyed slowly but certainly, by the declaration ' Not
a slave, but a brother beloved in Lord' — so must it
be now, in the warfare against all the lesser wrongs
which disgrace our modern Society. The weapon, not
carnal but spiritual, is mighty for the pulling down of
strongholds. In' part, the trust in this moral power is justified by
experience. History, and most of all the history of
Christianity itself, tells us plainly what an age like
ours should be the last to question — the living power
of moral idea, enthusiastically accepted, to disintegrate
strongly compacted systems of injustice and oppression.
We need but open our eyes now to the causes of our
social dangers, in order to see plainly that to generate
a higher moral life of duty and love — even to root out
a few gross moral evils, such as drunkenness, impurity,
cruelty, falsehood, dishonesty — would do infinitely more
to drive our dangers and difficulties away, than those
' sweeping material and economic changes,' and that,
in truth, these changes themselves would really follow,
while they cannot lead and determine, moral regenera
tion. These leading principles of the unity in Christ we
all, I suppose, recognise clearly in respect of the spiri
tual unity of the Church. But I would plead, that
in detail to assist Nature too much by artifical enactment ; and in the
rank and file of their followers there is far too much of this impatience
of this slow victory of idea — hardly to be wondered at among the un
educated, suffering under the pressure of severe hardship, and perhaps
injustice, but shared, and even fostered, by those who should know
better.
P 2

212 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
in all problems which present themselves to us, in rela
tion to the natural forms of human unity, still the
concern of Christianity, as Christianity, is not properly
with their material and economic, but with their moral
aspects, and with these lower elements only so far as
they subserve the higher. Those, who strive in any
way to speak and act avowedly as Christians and as
Churchmen, must never for one moment interfere 'with
the supremacy of this moral witness ; either by con
fusing it with lower and more doubtful issues, or by
allowing these to absorb their minds and engross their
chief practical energies. As we clergy individually have
often deliberately to limit our freedom of commercial
and political action, lest it should practically interfere
with our spiritual efficiency, so (I think) the Church,
as such, must beware lest, plunging, perhaps with imper
fect knowledge, into struggle and controversy on these
lower issues, she imperil her powers to do that for
which she exists — to minister the Light and Grace of
the Lord Jesus Christ. She is called upon, we know,
— sometimes even in the tone of menace — to redeem
the time and to seize critical opportunity. Be it so.
Yet, after all, as Archbishop Leighton warns us, it is
possible so to speak to our times, and the questions
which engross them, as to forget to speak to the
eternity of Divine Truth and Grace, which, just be
cause it has its fulcrum in heaven, shows its power
to move the earth.
Thus the growth of Social Science, forced upon us
by the growth of urgent social needs, still bears to
Christianity what I have called the witness of elucida-

v.] The true Social Gospel. 213
tion. It seems not indeed to demand for Christianity
a new Social Gospel, but to bring out into new light
the full meaning of the old. The Social Gospel, in its
practical application, can never go beyond the idea so
forcibly expressed in the Apostolic exhortation, 'Owe
no man anything, but to love one another.' ' Owe no
man anything' — in this we have enunciated in the
widest universality the principle of absolute Truth and
Righteousness, which, according to the old Platonic
definition, proclaims that each has a work to do for
society, and bids him do it freely and earnestly, at once
realizing self, claiming his own freedom and right, and
yet only that he may really obey that appointed service.
In the ' But to love one another ' there is the acknow
ledgment of the one debt which can never be fully paid
— the enunciation of the yet higher principle of a willing
self-sacrifice by each of his own pleasure, fame, power,
even (so far as may safely be) his own individual rights,
that he may sink himself in the cause of unity, of
progress, of peace.
That Social Gospel has been, we know, preached at
all times with various degrees of earnestness and power.
But in its ordinary proclamation we may, I think, trace
two defects, which the deeper study of Social Science
should help us to correct. The first is that — perhaps
naturally — emphasis has been laid too little on the
strong conviction of duty, which appeals mainly to the
conscience, too exclusively on the love, which touches the
heart — the ' new commandment ' of the Gospel — and on
this, moreover (as the very limitation in common parlance
of the glorious title of ' Charity' shows), in its power

2 1 4 Christ and Human Society. [lect.
to create those countless works of beneficence to the
poor, the weak, the suffering, the sinful, which are rightly
held to constitute one glory of a Christian civilization.
There are many, who in these days are apt indignantly
to repudiate all acceptance of these works of Charity,
insisting that, if Society was what it ought to be, they
would never be needed, and that it is sin against right
dignity and independence to recognise in them charity,
as distinct from duty. But such assertion argues but
little knowledge of human nature and human life.
While these are what they are, — subject to distress
and weakness and sin, full of necessary, because natural,
inequality, swayed by sentiment as well as conviction
— these works of mercy will always be necessary, and
always blessed ' both to him who gives and him who
takes.' Surely there is a true social philosophy in
St. Paul's teaching, that, while each man should ' bear
his own proper load,' as his share in the burden of
humanity, yet that, when it becomes a heavy crushing
burden, disproportioned to his strength, then we should
' bear one another's burdens and so fulfil the Law of
Christ V It is a savage independence, which would
refuse the gifts of mercy in their right function as
degrading ; for there is a blessedness in rightly re
ceiving, as true, though not as great, as the blessed
ness of giving. It is simply an inexcusable slander to
look upon them as bribes to avert spoliation, a ' ran
som ' (to use a singularly unfortunate phrase) paid as
to a natural enemy. Yet they may have been un-
1 Gal. vi. 5, 2. The word is (poprlov in the former verse; /Sdpos in
the latter.

v.] Defects in popular Christian Teaching. 2 1 5
consciously made a substitute for a wider and deeper
view of the true Christian ideal of ' Truth in Love,' in
which the massive framework of duty is clothed in the
warm flesh and blood of sentiment, and which teaches
us, not merely to relieve existent suffering, but to
remove the causes which produce it. So far our
popular Christianity may well have failed to grasp
the whole truth of the matter, and have given just
occasion to reproach.
But the second defect in the proceeding of our Social
Gospel is that, under both its aspects, it has been
perhaps too Individualistic. It has taught duty and
love in all personal relations with an unequalled power;
it may not have brought them out sufficiently in
relation to the whole community. I am not sure
whether this has not been in some measure true, even
in respect of the great spiritual unity of the Church of
Christ. But I cannot avoid the conviction of its truth, in
respect of the secular unities of class, of country, of race.
Has our Christianity failed to give sufficient sanction
and inspiration to that which we ordinarily call ' public
spirit ' — a spirit compacted of the sense of public duty,
and the self-sacrificing enthusiasm of humanity — which
resolves at any cost, except that of justice, to root out
from our social system everywhere all elements of
injustice, class selfishness, hardship, and of which surely,
even if it rise to no higher service, our Master would
have said that it was ' not far from the kingdom of
God ' % If that be so — and were it not so, I doubt
whether men would be crying out for new Social
Gospels — then here also Christianity may owe a debt

216 Christ and Human Society, [lect.
to the deeper Social Science, which has taught, and
almost forced, us to see more clearly what our old
Gospel really implies.
In one sense that lesson has been pondered already
in the Church. By many utterances, both of individual
leaders of thought and of corporate Church opinion,
from the irresponsible Church Congress to the Lambeth
Conference itself, it is plain that it has awakened
the conviction, that the Church, while it is her first
duty to devote her main effort to the fostering of the
spiritual life in Christ, for the individual soul and for the
whole Body, yet is now especially called to claim for her
Master the whole of human life in all its social relations,
and to bring the moral principles of the Gospel, which
is her charge, to bear more effectively upon a civilized
society, still, after eighteen centuries, so imperfectly
Christian. It is strongly felt that there must be dis
tinction, but no separation, between the religious and
secular life ; there must be no surrender of the world
of commercial, social, political energy to anti-Christian
or non-Christian laws ; there must be no occasion given,
even to slander, for representing our own Church as the
Church of the rich and the cultured, and not the home
of universal human brotherhood. But on these grave
matters it is not enough to feel strongly, without think
ing as deeply and seriously as we may. We shall not
have learnt the whole lesson, unless we endeavour,
under such guidance as the text gives, to see what
' One Body in Christ ' really means — what are the great
irreversible laws of human society, which it indicates.
It was shrewdly said that one of the most dangerous

v.J Thought and Action. 2 1 7
of cries was the cry that 'something must be done,'
without being sure what that something should be.
Perhaps even more dangerous is the advice ' to let
things alone' when they ought not to be let alone,
and to drift on without thinking at all, in indolence
or cowardice, till the crash comes.
Hence it is that we have to examine seriously, as
Christians, what the Christian Law of society is ; and
when we do this, we shall once more be led from
Christianity to Christ Himself — to read in the spirit
of the Sermon on the Mount the great social lesson —
to see in the relations of His life to men the great
social ideal — to recognise in His Mediation, known or
unknown, the great bond of all human society. While
it is by the expansion over all the world of the Catholic
Church that we seek to realize the highest and deepest
unity in Christ, yet we have to enter, more fully than
we have yet entered, into the meaning of those great
words — which must have some measure of fulfilment
now, as an earnest of the perfection of the hereafter —
that ' the kingdoms of this world are become the King
dom of the Lord and of His Christ.' By acting on that
conviction, we shall, as we believe, translate into a Divine
reality the laws of human society, which our Science
teaches, and even the aspirations of which Socialistic
dreams are the vague and fantastic expression. There
fore we dare not rest, until, even in what men call
secular life, we have done what we can to claim those
kingdoms for Him.

LECTTJEE YI.
CRITICISM AND THE SUPERNATURAL.
Prove all things ; holdfast that which is good. — i Thess. v. 31.
(I) The command thus addressed by St. Paul even to
the immature Christianity of Thessalonica — in direct
reference (as the context shows) to the prophecies,
which claimed to set forth a Supernatural Revelation
of God — may well be our guide, in passing from the
confirmatory and elucidatory witness of Science, to
consider the effect of its distinctly critical relation to
the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. For it describes
to us with incisive brevity the only kind of criticism,
right in principle and likely to be fruitful in results,
when we have to deal with a great power, which has
proved itself in any sense a reality. It is the criticism,
first, which claims, not to discover, but to ' test ' all
things — taking the thing criticized, as it actually pre
sents itself, and not reconstructing it out of our own
discovery or imagination. It is the criticism, next,
which, until it is forced to an opposite conclusion,
holds (with Bichard Hooker) that whatever has spiritual
life and power in it cannot be ' wholly compacted of
untruths ' but must have in it something ' which is
good,' and which it is therefore worth while 'to hold

Characteristics of true Criticism. 219
fast.' It is, moreover and above all, the criticism,
which performs its two functions simultaneously, not
waiting in suspense till the whole conceivable work of
testing is over, before it proceeds to grasp anything
firmly, but at every point laying strong and enthusiastic
hold of whatever, so far, it has found by trial to be
good, living in it by strong sympathy, and making
this experience of its inner meaning a means of ad
vancing towards larger knowledge. For so only can
we avoid the purely negative condition of bewildered
intellect and moral impotence, in which
' the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.'
Only under these conditions is a critical mind or
a critical age capable of the strong energy and en
thusiasm, which, after all, are nearer to the heart of
human welfare and progress than the keenest criticism.
Better it is for ourselves and for the world that we
hold fast an imperfect Creed, than that we stand apart,
' holding no Creed but contemplating all,' and culti
vating the critical faculty to excess, till we are afraid
of ourselves. We have learnt (I think) that this is
the only criticism of much worth in dealing with great
human things. We must not forget the lesson, when
we deal with things which claim, and not without
some prima facie evidence, to be Divine. Clearly in
the text Holy Scripture not only permits, but com
mands, the use of such criticism as this, not so much
perhaps for the origination, as for the confirmation, of
Christian faith.
I do not indeed mean that for the great mass of men

220 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
obedience to St. Paul's exhortation issues, or ought
to issue, in abstract scientific criticism. They inherit
their Christianity, as they inherit their civilization, from
the past ; and they have it brought home to them by
the teaching authority of the present. For themselves
they have mostly to be content with practical test. If
they find that this Christianity of theirs gives them
light on the great questions, which every man must
ask himself as to his own nature and destiny — if they
find that it gives them the capacity of a victorious
moral strength and enthusiasm — if they find that it
satisfies their spiritual aspiration after the Infinite and
Eternal, which is, indeed, the thirst for a living God
—they mostly rest on this, and are content to go no
further. There is sound reasonableness in this con
tentment. It shows the strong practical wisdom of
the blunt, almost humorous, reply of the blind man
at Siloam to the captious questions of the Pharisees,
' Whether He be a sinner or not ' — whether He fulfils,
or fails to fulfil, your abstract tests of a mission from
God — ' I know not. One thing I do know, that, whereas
I was blind, now I see.' There may be in many things an
' encircling gloom,' and that gloom peopled with strange,
fantastic shapes, but through my Christian faith, I find
for practical guidance and comfort a ' kindly light ';
'And in that Light of life I'll walk,
Till travelling days be done.'
But, while this is the necessary attitude of most
men, as individuals, towards great principles of Truth,
whether they are presented to them on the authority
of Revelation or Science itself, yet we may rightly

vi.]. Its spiritual Conditions. 221
claim the words of the text, as not only allowing, but
welcoming, the most searching criticism of Gospel Truth,
and implying that it has a true function to perform
for humanity, as a whole, through those who are in
each age its leaders of thought. Not least in our own
age must that function be recognised ; not least here,
in one of the great representative homes of Science and
Philosophy. It must, no doubt, depend on certain spiritual con
ditions. We do not forget what the same inspired
teacher of the Gospel elsewhere declares — that the
natural or ' psychical ' man, having in him no tincture
of spiritual insight, cannot receive or judge of the
things of God *. In this, indeed, he enunciates a general
mental law. All criticism must be wholly negative,
and therefore either barren or destructive, which has
no agreement on first principles with that which it
attempts to criticize, and therefore must have uncon
sciously prejudged the case, as unworthy of serious
investigation. Who would accept criticism on a great
symphony from a man who had no music in his soul,
or listen to the mere mathematician, to whom a master
piece of poetry ' proved nothing ' 1 For right criticism
there must be some preparation of sympathy — unknown
to the science, which is narrow and partial in its views
of truth, having lost by absorption in itself all sensibility
to great realities outside its own immediate line of in
vestigation. This is the kind of Science which, in re
lation to spiritual truth, St. Paul would have designated
1 1 Cor. ii. 14.

222 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
as ' falsely so called,' and to which he knew that the
Gospel of Christ must necessarily seem foolishness.
Thus a Science essentially materialistic — either in
theory or from that absorption in purely physical in
vestigation, to which we are peculiarly liable in the
present scientific division of labour — cannot effectively
criticize that which it utterly ignores, as lying wholly
beyond its domain of Matter and Force. A Science,
purely Psychical, looking upon humanity as merely
one element in the great system of Organic Life, and
ignoring in it anything differing in kind from the
senses, the instincts, the appetites, the passions, which
we share with the brute creatures, is equally incapable
of judging of what claims to be spiritual. Clearly the
Science, which is to criticize here with any hope of
positive results, must be so far in harmony with funda-
damental ideas of Christianity, as to recognise the
supremacy of the spiritual element of Will, Reason,
Conscience, Love, as in man himself, so in the Supreme
Power which rules humanity, and to understand, more
over, that, in the search after it, right function must
be assigned, not to the pure intellect only, but to all
these spiritual faculties of our nature. The universal
witness to these truths in the soul of man is (as our
Lord Himself teaches) the conviction of the Spirit to
the world, preparing for the knowledge of God in Him.
Only when that witness is received and realized, is the
man in any degree what Holy Scripture calls a spiritual
man, and so capable to some extent of judging from
without of what must be ' spiritually discerned.' I say
' to some extent '; for it is only from within the pale of

vi.] The two Functions of Criticism. 223
the fuller gift of the Spirit to the faith of believers, that
he can grow into the fulness of their meaning, and
find for himself the truth of our Lord's declaration,
that thus what is otherwise ' hid from the wise and
prudent ' is ' revealed to babes.' To use the words of
the text, it is only by ' holding fast,' through mind and
heart alike, what has been partially known by test,
that the soul comes to the knowledge of the inner
reality of truth.
(II) What then is the right critical function of this
higher Science in relation to Christianity %
To criticize is, first, to distinguish — to distinguish in
a complex reality what is primary, essential, eternal,
from what is secondary, accidental, temporary. So we
find out what is the essence of the thing itself, making
it what it is — as distinct from accessories not necessarily
peculiar to it, which have gathered round it, and which
can be, and perhaps at times should be, stripped off.
That office of criticism — to use again a quotation from
the Bampton Lectures of 1884 — should tend, in its
application to Religion, ' to aid Religion in clearing her
own conceptions'; 'to make perpetually clearer the
true meaning of the Revelation itself; 'to interpret
better the message, which' it believes men to have
' received from their Father in Heaven.' Largely (I
think) has that function been exercised in our own
age, by believers and unbelievers alike, and it is im
possible to doubt, that it has before it a fuller and still
more useful development.
To criticize is, next, to test. When this first duty
of distinction has been discharged, and the root of the

224 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
matter made known to us, it has then to go on to the
work described in the text — to test or prove it. It
must try to discern, first, whether it is a reality, —
whether (that is) what it declares as truth is a real
truth, accordant with the great laws of being —
whether the power which it claims to wield is a real
power, able to guide, to rule, and to exalt humanity.
Next, it has to see whether under both aspects it is
sufficient for the purpose, which it professes to serve,
and adequate to the claim of a Divine Origin and
spiritual supremacy made for it. In respect of Chris
tianity this comes very nearly to the judgment on its
double claim to be at once (to use the common phrase)
Natural and Supernatural — Natural in its harmony
with what we can discover elsewhere of the Laws of
the working of the Supreme Power over the world
and man — Supernatural in going .far beyond this,
both supplying the key to the inner meaning of what
such discovery has partially revealed to us, and ad
vancing to regions which it cannot even profess to
enter. (Ill) To the critical faculty in man, in relation to
these two main functions1, consider how Christianity
presents itself, first as an actual, then as an ideal Chris
tianity. It is essential to note that it comes to us first, not as
1 The former is Kpiviw ; the latter (as in the text) Somuafav. Much
error in criticism results from confusion of the two functions, or
inversion of their right order. Clearly we must know the essence of
a thing, before we can tell whether to accept or reject it ; otherwise
acceptance or rejection of what is accidental or subsidiary may be
made wrongly to apply to the thing as a whole.

vi.] The actual Christianity. 225
a doctrine or an idea, but as an actual and living
Force. In the individual experience, it is felt as
exercising a real power over the soul, and so over the
life. To the scientific observation of the world, it is seen
as a power or life, certainly in many respects unique
in history. The Church of Christ presents itself to our
sight and to our thought as a unique spiritual society,
which has grown continuously through eighteen cen
turies from small beginnings towards a world-wide ex
pansion. It claims by the title of 'Catholic' a future
coextensiveness with humanity itself in all countries,
all generations, all phases of character ; in part it
already justifies that claim, by moulding, directly or
indirectly, the growth of modern civilization, dominat
ing the leading and conquering races of the world,
and through them acting on all humanity, as the one
continually advancing and aggressive religious force.
The power, which it exercises over its members, is
certainly an intellectual, moral, spiritual power, with
which none can compare, in which they who, like the
great Napoleon, best know what are the capacities and
limits of earthly empire have recognised a spiritual
royalty, differing from these not in degree but in kind.
But even beyond the bright circle of its direct spiritual
sway over men — as the author of the Gesta Christi has
so strikingly shown — there is a diffused light of larger
indirect influence upon the whole civilization of man
kind in thought and action, so that the very principle
of self-sacrifice for others, which we significantly call
' humanity/ has by universal acknowledgment gained
through it a new power. Q

226 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
There is, moreover, in it by its very nature a force
of diffusive energy, through which it not only lays
hold of those without its pale, and draws them to itself
or rather to its Head, but extends to them, while they
still remain without, the rights of brotherhood, and
spends itself in labouring for their protection, their
happiness, and their goodness.
There it is — this living phenomenon of actual Chris
tianity, as a great fact of which critical investigation
must take serious account, and moreover as a unique
fact, demanding some unique explanation l. Other
powers — other great religious powers — of course, there
are ; but none like this. It is unlike the Judaism,
out of which it grew, in its capacity of world-wide
extension ; it is unlike the iron system of Islam, which
was in all its best parts a growth out of Judaism, in
recognition of the Divine in humanity, and so in power
of harmony with knowledge and progress ; it is unlike
the Buddhism, which broods over the unprogressive
races of the East, in being a religion of hope and
energy and not of despair and passiveness. It stands
1 The conclusion of Ecce Homo is as true as it is striking. ' The
achievement of Christ, in founding, by His single will and power, a
structure so durable and so universal, is like no other achievement
which history records. The masterpieces of the men of action are
coarse and common in compaiison with it, and the masterpieces of
speculation flimsy and insubstantial. . . . Who can describe that which
unites men 1 Who has entered into the formation of speech, which
is the symbol of their union ] . . . He who can do these things can
explain the origin of the Christian Church. For others it must be
enough to say, "The Holy Ghost fell on them who believed." No
man saw the building of the New Jerusalem ; . . . it descended out of
Jieaven from God' (p. 330, ed. 1866).

vi.] The Ideal Christianity. 227
alone in both inspiring and developing the good in
humanity, and grappling with the evil ; it is the one
Religion which has power to adapt itself to all races
and to all stages of civilization, and to speak with
spiritual efficacy in all the tongues of men. Accordingly
by universal confession it is the embodiment of the
only religion, in the ordinary sense of the word, which
has a vital and victorious power. What — Science must
ask — is the secret of that extraordinary power ? What
is the essential basis, on which this imposing super
structure is raised 1
The answer would be given at once on the authority
of the Master K It rests upon a Divine Revelation of
Truth — the truth of God and the truth of man : the
one condition of membership is a Creed, which is simply
the acceptance of that truth in faith ; its individual
subjects are at once disciples and in degree Apostles,
learners and teachers of that accepted truth, by the
combined powers of mind and heart and spirit ; the
charge, by a spiritual necessity laid upon it as a Church,
is to hold the truth fast, and proclaim it to every
creature. Other religions may possibly consent to be
stiffened into systems of morality, or sublimed into
nebulous enthusiasms. Christianity never, till it has
ceased to be what it is.
In this Truth is enshrined the Ideal Christianity, by
which the actual Christianity is guided and is deter
mined. It has grown to be a vast and complex body
of truth, having relation to every direction of thought,
and moulding every form of intellectual activity ; for
1 John xviii. 36, 37.
Q 2

228 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
it professes to be at once individual and universal,
teaching to each the wisdom, which is the knowledge
of the true end and perfection of his own life, by glimpse
of the Wisdom of God— the Law Eternal, that is, of
His dispensation to all humanity. As its spiritual power
over humanity extends, its very Creeds have grown from
original simplicity to elaborate subsequent development ;
it has produced in all languages a splendid literature of
its own; it has coloured the whole literature of the
races over which it has exercised power : it claims in
its philosophic aspect, as Theology, to be the Queen of
Sciences. But all this vast system of truth is centred on one
Book, which has grown up through the centuries, in
many ages, by many hands, and these often unknown,
into a marvellous unity, and which by its variety is (so
to speak) in touch with all the various phases of human
literature — history, law, poetry, philosophy — all sub
ordinated to one purpose, the manifestation of the Will
and the Nature of God. That in its intrinsic character,
and the world-wide spiritual power with which it speaks
in all the tongues of men, it is a Book of books, far above
all others, no thoughtful man can doubt. Perhaps its
uniqueness is best seen by comparing it with the other
great religious Books of the world — venerable though
they be, and having gleams in them of the Divine light,
that lighteth every man — which the scholarship of our
own day is busy in reproducing and criticizing. With
one partial exception — and that a book, which has
borrowed in idea from the ancient Scriptures, and claims
relation to them — they are virtually dead, and it is

vi.] Christianity is Christ. 229
living. For it the Church of Christ makes everywhere
in different forms a claim, the tremendous character of
which is often lost to us by familiarity — the claim which
we express in the well-known declaration that it con
tains for all men and for all times ' all things necessary
to salvation ' ; and the very word ' salvation ' implies
at once a Gospel of regeneration of the Divine image
in humanity, and a Gospel of deliverance from that
power of sin and death, which to all other forms of
thought is simply a hopeless and awful perplexity.
There, again, stands out the even stranger pheno
menon of this Ideal Christianity — challenging once more
the enquiry, ' What is the central secret of this extra
ordinary life % What is the ground of this extraordinary
claim'?' Now it is clear and it always has been clear, that — ^
as was so strikingly shown in the Bampton Lectures of
last year — Christianity, whether ideal or actual, is, in a
sense to which no other religion presents analogy, Christ
Himself. So has it been from the beginning, and must
be till the end of time. We cannot go beyond what
St. Paul said of old. It is not that He gives but that
' He is made to us,' ' Wisdom ' to the intellectual,
' Righteousness ' to the moral, ' Sanctification ' to the
spiritual element of man's nature, and so finally 'Re
demption' from the evil which darkens and perverts
them all 1. Of the actual Christianity, He is acknow
ledged as, by His indwelling, 'the Life'; of ideal
Christianity He by His Manifestation is the Light-
But yet I venture to think that the effect in our days
1 1 Cor. i. 30.

230 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
of the wonderful growth of critical power, in its first
function of distinction and insight, is to bring out with
new vividness this original and undying truth. If by
the principle of Idolatry is meant — as I suppose should
be meant — the resting on any means of manifestation
of God, instead of passing through it by spiritual in
tuition to God Himself, it has helped us against the
two subtle forms, in which alone it is now possible.
Thus Historical Science has studied and analysed the
actual Christianity, the Church of Christ in all ages. It
has bidden us look through the visible developments of
law, system, ritual, to the inner spiritual force, which
gives them life ; it has distinguished in it the obviously
human element, with all the imperfection and evil cling
ing to it, which it shares with other great world-wide
powers, from that element, which is its peculiar charac
teristic, clearly unique and claiming to be miraculous
and Divine. It makes us see plainly that this inner
reality is, in spite of all imperfections, accretions, super
stitions, the reproduction in the individual and the
community of the Life of Christ Himself; it prepares
the mind, though of course it cannot teach it, to accept
the only adequate explanation of this universal repro
duction, which Christian faith gives, in the indwelling
Presence by grace of Christ in His people.
So, again, our literary and critical Science examines
the Holy Scripture which is the embodiment of the
Christian Truth. It distinguishes in it also, by an
insight of which past ages had no conception, the human
element of imperfection and progressiveness from that
which claims to be Divine — the essential truth itself

Vi. J Christianity Natural. 231
from the forms in which it has been conveyed, and which
by their very variety bring it into living contact with
all phases of human consciousness. And the result is
to make us see clearly that the one key to its right
interpretation is the knowledge of the central Manifes
tation of Christ Himself — His Life, His Word, His
Person — that on this ultimately must rest the plenary
authority, claimed for Holy Scripture — that in relation
to this all other parts stand simply as preparatory or
explanatory, and only in that dependence can be rightly
understood and reasonably reverenced.
In both cases it seems to me plain that, in its critical
aspect, Science is the schoolmaster to lead us from
Christianity to Christ Himself. It forces us to put
aside all other enquiries for the supreme question —
' What think ye of Christ 1 Who and what is He V
In some sense it prepares the way for Faith, by showing
us that for ourselves this question means, ' Have we
ground for the absolute faith in Him, once expressed
by St. Peter, as having perfectly "the words of eternal
life," which necessarily implies the further conviction that
He is " the Son of the living God ".'
(IV) But this power of distinctive insight in scientific
criticism, when it has thus brought us face to face with
the supreme question, must also go on to define for
criticism itself both the method and the limit of its
further duty, of proving or testing the answer which
Christianity gives.
Christianity, thus centred in Christ, presents itself,
as I have said, under two distinct aspects — as at once
Natural and Supernatural ; and it would seem that in

232 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
the function of criticism towards it there is a corre
sponding distinction.
Whether Christianity is Natural it seems to have a
full right and power to judge. That it is thus Natural
— in harmony (that is) with what we can discover of the
Laws of the Supreme Power over the world and man,
and actually with them a part of the ' Law Eternal '
of all being— is the great argument of Analogy. That
argument is necessarily as old as Christianity itself. It
is implied by the very fact that in Holy Scripture the
Manifestation of Christ is described, as ordained from
before the foundation of the world, and actually em
bedded in the whole history of humanity — as the con
summation up to which all led beforehand, and by
which all that follows is to be determined till His
Second Advent. It is implied by our Lord's own use
of teaching by Parables, in which the laws of the King
dom of Heaven are illustrated, and in measure repre
sented, by the laws of the natura] world. The saying that
'Christianity is as old as the Creation,' which was once
crudely used to depreciate its supernatural authority, is
now seen to be but a perverted statement of the claim,
which is implied in the beginning of its Scriptural
record from the first origin of this world.
But there have been epochs — epochs of great advance
in the knowledge of Nature and its Laws — when this
argument has assumed a special importance. One such
epoch followed in England the great discovery of New
ton, giving predominance of interest to the study of
physical Science, affecting also the prevalent forms of
metaphysical and moral Science. It was then that the

vi.] The Argument of Analogy. 233
argument was wrought out by Butler, in relation to the
knowledge and the philosophy of his age, in that great
book, of which I hold it entirely an error to suppose
that in its essential force it is, or will be, obsolete. In
another such epoch we are living now — an epoch of a
yet more extraordinary advance of the same study under
different aspects. For us, therefore, once more the argu
ment of Analogy starts into a new prominence ; and, as
I venture to think, with an even greater advantage than
in Butler's day. True it is, that he was allowed to
assume, with a freedom denied to us, a personal and
intelligent Author of Nature. But then by the Deism
of his age this assumption was made somewhat barren.
Nature was looked upon as a great machine, set going
once for all by its Author, and then left to work under
fixed laws of uniformity, of which Miracle was clearly
a break, to be proved, if possible, by evidence against
inherent improbability. We have learnt to see that in
Nature there is not uniformity, but continual growth
and development of an indwelling Life, always producing
out of the lower the higher forms of being — that at each
great epoch in this development, there comes in a new
force, which in comparison with the lower form of
Nature preceding is supernatural — and that what we
call the miraculous in the Manifestation of Christ pre
sents itself to us as a supreme new creation, rising above
the old, yet connecting itself with it, using all its laws
and forces, while it brings in a new and Diviner power of
its own. It is plain, I think, that this larger scientific
view of Nature' diminishes greatly, if it does not alto
gether remove, the dead weight of antecedent impro-

234 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
bability, against which the argument of Butler had so
laboriously to struggle. In some of my previous Lec
tures I have tried to suggest to you certain points, in
which it absolutely confirms by analogy the great doc
trines of the Gospel.
Accordingly, as it seems to me, the whole tendency
of the scientific criticism of our own day is to conclude,
that, while, of course, there are points in Christian
doctrine, on which it cannot pronounce at all, and which
appear to it as mysterious and unreal, and while there
are other points, which seem abnormal, and therefore
constitute to the critical mind difficulties of belief, yet
that, as a whole, Christianity is emphatically Natural.
The old objections or scoffs against it as an unnatural
and unphilosophical superstition — contradicting both
Natural Science and Natural Theology — are nearly dead
and gone. Its moral and spiritual power, alike over the
individual man and over human society, is acknow
ledged as the greatest that the world has seen. Its
system of truth is recognised as containing the highest
conceptions yet attained of God and Man. Its Author
is reverenced as the greatest Son of Man, who has
created for all time a new ideal of humanity, and who,
in respect of our moral and spiritual life, is, in the
well-known words of John Stuart Mill, so accepted as
an universal guide, that by His teaching all men may
translate abstract moral idea into concrete living reality.
Accordingly in relation to the Supreme and Absolute
Being, it is largely acknowledged that the alternative
is between Christianity, and a vague* Pantheism or
dreary Agnosticism ; and, moreover, that, if Christianity

vi.] Christianity Supernatural. 235
is to endure at all, it must be the full Christianity
of Holy Scripture and the Catholic Creeds, and not
the diluted and attenuated Christianity, which in the
worship of reason, and in the fear of mystery, has been
substituted for it. So far the attempt of critical Science
to test all things has certainly brought men, with some
degree of faith and reverence, face to face with Christ ;
and we, who believe that, when lifted up to the thoughtful
gaze of men, He will fulfil His great superhuman pro
mise, and ' draw all men to Him ' in a deeper and more
absolute faith, so far may ' thank God and take courage.'
(V) But this acceptance of Christian Life and Idea
and of Christ Himself, as simply occupying the highest
place as yet known to us in the Natural scale, is fike
the ' philosophical devotion,' which Gibbon notes in
Alexander Severus ; it may prepare for Christianity,
but it is not Christianity, and ought never to assume
the name. Evidently it can have no finality about
it ; it can justify no absolute faith or devotion : it
never could have had the power or the right to claim
the whole world of humanity for its Master. Chris
tianity is nothing, if it be not Supernatural, or (if you
will) miraculous — if it is not (that is) the revelation to
the world of a new Life and Light brought to it in
Christ, differing, not in degree, but in kind, from
all others in the Natural scale — and if accordingly it
does not acknowledge in its Master an ' only begotten
Son of God,' in a Sonship essentially and infinitely
exalted above the sonship of humanity at large l.
1 The definite 'Opooimnv, as contrasted with the vague 'Ouotovo-iov,
of the Arian controversy.

236 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
Such it unquestionably was from the beginning.
Nothing is historically more certain than that its first
preaching to the world rested on the great visible
miracle of the Resurrection, with the Ascension as its
necessary consequence, without which St. Paul so
bluntly declared that the faith in it was a delusion,
and the preaching of it a lie 1. Nothing is clearer in
the New Testament than the teaching that this is but
the visible outcome of the yet greater invisible miracle
of the Incarnation — that through this He, who was
but ' made of the seed of David according to the flesh,'
is ' declared to be the Son of God with power2.' Nothing,
again, in the whole Gospel record is plainer than the
constant declaration, almost as a matter of course, that
from this invisible miracle flowed, so to speak, naturally
in the Lord's earthly life what St. John calls Epiphanies
of His Divine Glory, in the lesser miracles at once of
power and of love, which He made an integral part
of His Ministry. The miraculous character attaches to
the Manifestation of Christ as a whole ; what we com
monly call miracles are simply visible flashes from time
to time, by which it was His will to disclose the Divine
light through the veil of His humanity. To deny these
things, or to explain them away, is simply to substitute
for the historic Christianity a new religion or religious
philosophy under the old name 3.
1 1 Cor. xv. 14, 15. 2 Bom. i. 3, 4.
3 ' On the whole ' (says the author of Ecce Homo) ' miracles play
so important a part in Christ's scheme, that any theory, which would
represent them as due entirely to the imagination of His followers or
of a later age, destroys the credibility of the documents not partially

vi.] Past phases of Criticism. 237
Now what is the attitude of Scientific criticism to
wards this assertion of the Supernatural %
I am old enough to have seen it pass through at least
three phases. In my younger days the whole question
was considered on the basis, on which it was placed by
the scepticism of the old Deistic School and the answer
of Paley, reproducing with transparent clearness and
thoroughness some part of the deeper treatment of the
same question by Butler \ It was on all hands acknow
ledged, by the broad common-sense of the eighteenth
century, that miracles, as disclosures of the working
of a Supernatural Power, presumably Divine, were the
natural credentials of Revelation ; although they were
treated too much in isolation from other elements of that
Revelation, and in themselves not sufficiently viewed
as forming a whole, and having relation to the great
miracle of miracles. On this basis the argument on
both sides rested. On the one side men urged the im
probability of all that contradicted common experience,
and the general insufficiency in such cases of testimony ;
oq the other there was denial that such contradiction
was overwhelmingly improbable, and the examination
of the actual testimony of word and deed, of life and
death, by which the Christian miracles were estab
lished as unmistakeable facts. In this phase of the
hut wholly, and leaves Christ a personage as mythical as Hercules.'
(Part I. c. 5.)
1 Anal., Part II. c. vii., where he speaks of 'Miracles and Pro
phecy ' — i. e. miracle, physical and spiritual — as ' the direct and
fundamental proofs of Christianity ' ; while he goes on to point out
that these must be viewed in relation to the ' general scheme of
Revelation,' and the ' whole argument for it in one view.'

238 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
controversy it was (I think) generally allowed that the
defence was victorious against the attack. Then came
an entire change of critical attack and defence. All
examination of testimony was put aside as futile by
a high a priori reasoning that miracle was simply
impossible, because it implied deviation from irrever
sible ' Laws of Nature ' (under which, it seemed, the
Deity, if indeed a Deity there were, was bound, like
Darius under the laws of the Medes and Persians), and
that, indeed, this grand unchanging uniformity was the
best, perhaps the only worthy, expression of a Supreme
Mind; so that the apparent occurrence of miracle would
only encumber and weaken the evidence of a Revelation
from God, which it had been supposed to strengthen.
But these imposing assumptions have, I think, been
fairly exploded — by none with more brilliant and un
answerable force than by Mozley in his Bampton
Lectures of 1865 1. On the one hand, it is seen that
the so-called ' Order of Nature,' so far as it is dis*
cerned by observation, amounts simply to a statement
of constantly recurring facts in the past, and, as sucli,
1 It is, of course, clear that the masterly argument of Mozley's
Second Lecture (taking up the reasoning of Hume that observation
shows us only antecedence and consequence, and can tell us nothing
of cause), is largely an argumentum ad hominem, addressed to that
school of thought, which professes to rest only on observation and
deduction from it, and to decry all metaphysical idea. So far it is
unanswerable. Its effect, therefore, is, first, to drive the mind to
recognise the necessity of an assumption of a ruling idea, lying beyond
such observation and determining it; and then, if that necessity
be recognised, to show that faith in a living God is the only assumption
which really satisfies it, and to examine the witness borne to it by
that direct exhibition of Will, which we call Miracle.

vi.J Past phases of Criticism. 239
can have no determining force and no necessary an
ticipation of the future ; that the very conception of
unchanging Cause, and the consequent explanation of
regularity, require something beyond mere observation ;
— something of necessary assumption — something, which
(as we have seen) is called by the physicist himself an
* act of faith ' ; and that, if this something be supplied
by what properly deserves to be called faith, the
personal consciousness of a Supreme Personality — if
(as the very use of the words ' Laws of Nature ' in its
proper sense implies) we come through that faith to
the conviction that these laws of Nature are what
we properly mean by laws — (that is) expressions of
a Supreme Will — the whole argument of impossibility
falls hopelessly to the ground. On the other hand, the
somewhat transcendental contention that miracles are
needless and useless, as indications of a mission from
God1, has been shattered by a simple appeal to the
common sense, and the invariable experience, of hu
manity. So now the criticism of the real leaders of
scientific thought has come back, although with far
greater thoroughness and force, to the old ground. If
1 ' The defect of Spinoza's view ' (of the impossibility of miracle)
' is that he will not look upon a miracle as an instrument, a means to
an end, but will only look upon it as a marvel beginning and ending
with itself. " A miracle," he says, " as an interruption to the order
of Nature, cannot give us any knowledge of God, nor can we under
stand anything from it." It is true that we cannot understand any7
thing from an interruption of the order of Nature, simply as such ;
but if this interruption has an evidential function assigned to it,
then something may be understood from it, and something of vast
importance.' Mozley, Lecture I. p. 24 (ed. of 1867).

240 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
there be, indeed, a Personal God, the idea of impossi
bility or incredibility of miracle must fall. If there
is to be a special Revelation of Him, the notion not
onlv of the evidential uselessness of Miracle, but of
any serious improbability must be surrendered : for
any argument against Miracle from the analogy of the
ordinary action of the Divine Moral Government must
depend on essential likeness to the conditions and pur
poses of that action, and cannot apply to what is pre
supposed to be a unique occasion and purpose x- The
whole question must turn once more on the adequacy
of testimony in general, and of the Christian testimony
in particular. The negative contention now is not that
Miracles cannot happen, but that they do not, or did
not, happen. It is supported by some general depre
ciation of the capacity of testimony, and much sceptical
criticism of the special evidence of the Gospel record
itself. It is this form of criticism alone, which is still
alive and powerful : and it is, therefore, this that we
are now concerned to meet.
But, has all this past criticism been futile % When
the question thus returns to the old ground, does it
come back unchanged 1 Surely we must answer, No ;
and see that this testing process has enabled us to get
rid of much that is false or arbitrary in our own belief,
and to hold fast that which in it is good.
Perhaps the effect may be described briefly as the
discernment of a higher Law of Divine Order in Miracle
itself. That result shows itself, first, in the clearer idea,
1 See Mozley, Lect. II. p. 47,

VI.] The Revelation of Divine Will. 241
which we have gained of the essential characterof Miracle
in its relation to the Natural Order. The essence of
Miracle lies not in its strangeness and its power to
excite wonder, although wonder may be the first step
to fuller knowledge and understanding — not in its in
dication of some forces at work, undreamt of as yet
in our philosophy 1, although in this we take another
step onward in the same course. It includes these
things, but it is more than these. The essential point
in Miracle, as our Lord Himself taught, is that it is
a ' sign ' — a visible indication of invisible and eternal
reality. It is, as the very method of the record of
Miracle in Holy Scripture might suggest, simply a plain
and direct manifestation, in connection with known
and declared purpose, of a Supernatural Will in Nature,
which by those who believe in but One God, must be
held to be, mediately or immediately, a Divine Will.
Now as to that Will, I must hold (as has been already
said) that our own human thought traces it ultimately as
the great First Cause of all things, working through
Nature's ordinary Laws. But to our human reason it
works behind the veil, dimly seen through a series of
' second causes,' inferred, although with almost irre
sistible inference, rather than known. In Miracle it
is plainly unveiled, so that he who runs may read it.
In our Lord's miracles (for example), if the Gospel
record be true, we see the plainest exhibitions of Divine
Power, as a Power creative, a Power of rule over
inanimate Nature, a Power of rule over humanity — -
1 This is exactly the inference drawn by Herod as to our Lord's
miracles in Mark vi. 14, ivepyovaiv ai dvvdp.eit iv avrm,
R

242 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
always directed by perfect Wisdom and Love. In all
there is, therefore, (as St. John declares) a plain mani
festation of the Divine Glory.
But more than this. Miracle is wrought through
man, claiming to have mission from God ; and in this
aspect it is a sign, that his human will has a close and
conscious harmony with the Supreme Will. We note
in the course of Nature the action of this force of
human will, to our eyes variable and original, yet of
course necessarily subject to the Divine Will ; we find
it strong, just in proportion to its knowledge of that
Will, and its conscious obedience thereto. Through
these it becomes a real and powerful element, which
works together with the invariable element of Natural
Force and Natural Law, and within limits, uses these
for its own purpose. We see it, moreover, as an ad
vancing power, continually enlarging its province, as
time rolls on, and as the higher faculties of our hu
manity are more and more developed. Strange new
glimpses of the extent of that mastery of will, when
exercised over weaker minds and wills, we are gaining
in some of the researches of modern daj's — glimpses
only as yet, mere promises of larger future discovery.
Everything seems to indicate that in a humanity,
perfect in itself and perfect in harmony with the Divine
Will, such mastery might be also perfect over Nature
and over Man. It is the supernatural fulfilment of
this inference from natural analogy, which comes out
to us in fulness in the miracles of our Lord, and in
varying degrees in the miracles of His chosen servants
before and after His coming.

VI.] The Harmony with it of Human Will. 243
For here all the limits, of which we are in our own
imperfect experience conscious, are thrown down or
thrown back : and the will of man, working under
extraordinary knowledge of the Divine Will and obedi
ence thereto \ exercises a mastery to us certainly un
known, perhaps incomprehensible. How this operation
of Divine Will, working through human will, effects
itself — whether plainly through the instrumentality of
natural forces, or by processes to us inconceivable —
matters not to the essential character of Miracle. Nor,
again, is it possible for us to determine in what forms,
and on what occasions, it is credible that it should
manifest itself. For of this we are no more able to
judge than to determine why the same Divine Power
should manifest itself under this or that form in Nature.
Perhaps (to apply Butler's argument) we should expect
to find things strange to us and unlikely in the one
course of action, as we find them in the other — provided
always that the manifestation of Supreme Willbe not
obscured. In regard, moreover, to this manifestation,
since it is for the sake of men, we may expect that it
will adapt itself at different times to different conditions
and circumstances, so that in one generation it may
take forms, which would seem trivial to others, but
which were suitable to the stage of its spiritual edu
cation, and for the advance of that education in the
knowledge of the Divine will. Since, again, it is made
1 Such perfect knowledge and obedience our Lord declares, as the
law of His own miraculous action. ' The Son can do nothing, but
what He seeth the Father do. For the Father loveth the Son, and
showeth all things that Himself doeth' (John v. 19, 20).
R 2

244 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
through men, may there not be here, as in Inspiration
(which is, indeed, miracle in the realm of mind), the
admixture of a human element with the Divine — a
colouring (so to speak) of miraculous power by the
medium through which it passes \ In all these aspects,
it is clearly seen, that it is with the reality of the
manifestation of Divine Will and Purpose through man,
rather than its form or method of working, that we
are concerned. It is this which our critical thought
is to test, and, so far as it discovers it, to hold fast.
But, again, this discernment of Law applies to the
whole course of Miracle in itself, and gives a clearer
idea of the right place and force of visible Miracle in
the system of what claims to be a Revelation from
God. We have come to see that it is a fatal error to
judge of Miracle, as in itself and by itself a sufficient
witness of Him. Miracle is always, as has been said,
a sign of something greater than itself, with which it
is indissolubly connected. But in relation to a Revela
tion it has a double significance.
It is a sign, as our Lord expressly taught the disciples
of St. John the Baptist, preparatory (where such pre
paration is necessary) for the reception of a distinct
word of teaching as from God — a ' Gospel preached to
the poor' and simple. In that connection lies the
essential distinction between Miracle in the Christian
sense, and the strange unaccountable phenomena of
physical and psychical agency, which are merely wonders
and nothing more. Some of these have associations
simply puerile or sordid; some are such, that, when
thoughtfully examined, they may throw light on natural

vi.] The twofold Significance of Miracle. 245
laws, both of the world's outward order, in which they
occur, and of the minds which perceive them ; but they
certainly have no high moral and spiritual meaning
for all mankind. That, seen in that connection, espe
cially by the great mass of men, who are taught and
influenced mainly through the senses, Miracle always
has been, and always must be, most powerful, no one
who knows human nature can doubt. The inference of
Nicodemus, ' No man can do these miracles that thou
doest, except God be with him,' is the expression of the
common-sense of humanity in all ages. It may be true
* — and the dispensation of Miracle seems to suggest it —
that this witness of Miracle will tell in different degrees
of power on different ages of the world, on minds in
different stages of culture and knowledge of God. But
who can doubt that in some degree it must tell every
where, while man is what he is — in the England of
the nineteenth century, as truly, if not as powerfully,
as in the Palestine of the first ?
It is a sign, again, as He Himself also made it, of
what is the invisible reality of the Divine work. The
deliverance from bodily sickness and infirmity in the
' Take up thy bed and walk,' is a pledge and symbol
of the invisible spiritual deliverance in ' Thy sins
are forgiven thee.' In that light all careful study
has recognised the symbolic appropriateness of our
Lord's miracles, as acted Parables of His redeeming
work. In that light a thoughtful consideration of
the lesser miracles, wrought by His servants before
and after His coming, would show that these also
had a similar appropriateness to the character of the

246 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
workers, and the special work for God, that they had
to do.
Under both these aspects, moreover, we have come
to see that Miracle belongs especially to what we may
call epochs of advance and expansion in the progres
sive Revelation of God ; therefore in especial fulness to
that Life, which was the transcendent completion of all
the imperfect manifestations which had gone before;
therefore in measure to certain special and crucial
occasions, both in the preparation for His coming, and
in the extension of His kingdom. There is an economy
of Miracle, — in Himself a self-imposed restraint, — in
His servants a restraint, of which they themselves seem
to have been conscious, as imposed from- above.
But the sign has done its work, when it has pointed
to the thing signified. The work leads up to the Word
and the Life ; beyond this they must stand or fall (so
to speak) by their own intrinsic power of Wisdom and
Truth and Love, and by their harmony with all yet
known of the Revelation of God. By that intrinsic
character is decided the one choice, which remains to
us, when supernatural reality of miracle in itself is
brought home — whether to refer it to some erratic or evil
power, as the Pharisees professed to believe that devils
were cast out through Beelzebub, or to see in it the
manifest working, direct or indirect, of the finger of
God. Only by reference to that essential character of
His Ministry is there force in our Lord's argument,
that the supposition, involved in the cavil of the
Pharisees, implies the monstrous conception of a
'kingdom of Satan divided against itself,' and so

vi. J ; All centred in Christ. 247
blindly serving the advancement of a true kingdom
of Heaven.
But perhaps, above all, this progress in discernment
of Law shows itself in the concentration of all our
thought, in respect of this great subject, on that which
must be its right centre — the Manifestation of the
Supernatural in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. It
has often been noted that, in the recorded examples
of Apostolic teaching, there is but slight and general
reference to the lesser miracles of our Lord's life,
while the whole stress of witness is laid on the reality
of the great Miracle of miracles in the Resurrec
tion ; and the whole stress of argument on its signifi
cation of the true nature of Him who died and rose
again. Surely there is in this a true insight into the
heart of things. If in this the Christian faith is true,
it is clear that through the Manifestation of our Lord
on earth, we have entered upon a wholly new Super
natural order, in which, if I may so say, the manifes
tations of supernatural power are themselves natural.
This consideration applies chiefly to the Divine Life
itself incarnate in our flesh, but not exclusively. As
there is a noonday, so there are a dawn and an after
glow of the Sun of Righteousness. If, before He came,
we hold that for His Coming there was special pre
paration in the Divine Will and Purpose, it cannot
surprise us, that from time to time, at great crucial
epochs in that preparation — such as the era of the
Exodus and Eisodus, and of the great Baal apostasy
in the days of Elijah and Elisha — there should have
been visible flashes of miracle, revealing the operation of

248 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
that Will. If we believe that all which followed was the
working out and proclamation of the great Supernatural
reality, it cannot be strange to us, that, so far and so
long as was necessary, the supernatural aids to such
proclamation should have continued. We see what is
the true key to the position — where is the true centre
of the manifestation of the supernatural order. By it
we judge of all the lesser parts of that order, utterly
refusing to fritter away our strength in criticizing
them as isolated phenomena. And the effect has
always seemed to me to reverse the old proverb, so as
to make the strength of our chain to be the strength,
not of the weakest, but of the strongest link. For
certainly it is here, where it is all important, that the
great force of witness is gathered for us ; it is here
that we are best able to test truth, and to hold fast
that which satisfies the test.
In all these three ways I cannot but think that
ultimately, in spite of temporary obscurations and per
plexities, our Christian faith owes a debt to Science in
its critical function of distinction, for aiding us to rise
to a worthier and truer idea of what we mean, when
we proclaim Christianity as Supernatural. When that
idea is clearly understood, many of the commoner cavils
and denials answer themselves ; the antecedent improb
ability of exemplifications of the Supernatural order
at least so far passes away, that it can be readily over
come by force of strong testimony to its reality.
(VI) But now that the essence of the Christian asser
tion of the Supernatural is thus distinguished, as pre
sented in the Life, Death, Resurrection of the Lord

vi.J The character of the witness borne. 249
Himself, what is the effect of criticism, when it goes
on to the second function of testing its truth 1 The
answer I would venture to give is this — that it seems
in every way to be sweeping away all uncertainties and
hesitations on either side, and to be bringing us face to
face with the great alternative of faith and unbelief.
Thus it looks clearly and searchingly into the
witness borne to the truth of that Manifestation — as it
first flashed upon the world in the Apostolic preaching
— as it is embodied to us in the history and teaching of
Holy Scripture — as it is asserted in all the Creeds of the
Church from the beginning, and implied in her whole
worship and life. Knowing well the truth of the old
motto Dolus latet in generalibus, it forces us to put aside
the vague and sweeping generalities, both of wholesale
depreciation of the value of all testimony, and of the
attribution, questionable in point of fact, to the Apo
stolic age — the Augustan age (be it remembered) of the
Roman Empire — of an eager undiscriminating credu
lity. It bids us look carefully at the special case — the
definite character, circumstances, results, of the witness,
as it is actually presented to us. Then, studying first
the internal evidence, in the naturalness and graphic
vividness of the history and of the Character, which is
its centre — in the mingled loftiness and simplicity of
the teaching — in the continuity and natural development
of idea, which runs through the whole ; and next, the
external evidence, which, after much bold criticism in
the opposite direction, now brings us to the conclusion
that what we have in the New Testament, interpreted,
as it necessarily must be, by subsequent history, is

250 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
substantially the witness borne from the beginning,
by those who (to use St. Luke's phrase) were 'eye
witnesses and ministers of the word,' I cannot but
think that it has made, or is making, untenable the
so-called mythical theory, of the gradual personification
of an abstract ideal of humanity, or the gradual accu
mulation of imaginative and symbolic legend round a
real but purely human life1- And, if this be so, it
brings us (as I have said) face to face with the only
possible alternatives — on the one hand of conscious
legend, arising either out of sheer delusion in the
original witnesses, or incapacity of understanding the
difference between truth and falsehood, which it is
hard to conceive intellectually, or out of sheer deception
of the world, for purposes, perhaps great and unselfish
purposes, of their own, which under all the conditions
may be called a moral impossibility — on the other of
that acceptance of the history as true, which is the
backbone of the Creed of Christendom, and the basis
of the unique and marvellous work which Christianity
1 The crucial instance of this effect is found in the result of the
criticism of the Fourth Gospel ; of which so graphic and interesting
a picture was presented in the Bampton Lectures of 1890 (Modern
Criticism and the Fourth Gospel, by Archdeacon Watkins). That
picture itself, even independently of all argument upon it, seems almost
to decide the question, by the simple contrast of the multifarious
critical theories of this century — in their extraordinary wildness and
mutual contradictions, and their utter failure to see their way through
the difficulties they have raised to an adequate constructive account
of the thing criticized — with the simplicity of the faith in the
Apostolic origin of the Gospel, which Church tradition has held from
the beginning. The lecturer's conclusion is, I observe, that here at
any rate ' the mythical theory is dead.'

vi.] The substance of that Witness. 251
has wrought in the world. The alternative is a great,
in some sense a formidable one ; and in the know
ledge of this the mind is tempted to take refuge in
some indefinite intermediate conceptions. But this
cannot be. Clearly the matter is one in which no
such halting between two opinions is, as a permanent
position, possible, even if it be morally justifiable. If,
therefore, we think it well to have the great alterna
tive forced upon us — if we feel a strong conviction
that, when thus thoughtfully considered, it must issue
in the glad decision of faith — we may accept the posi
tion gravely and hopefully, and count that, even so,
criticism has done unconscious service in leading men
to Christ.
But criticism passes on, next, to study closely the
actual substance of that to which witness is borne. It
bids us throughout fix our eyes on the one great Central
Figure, on which all the history and teaching continually
rest. It bids us study deeply the Life, in word, action,
character, of the Son of Man Himself, painted with that
vivid reality " of which I have spoken, and to mark its
immeasurable exaltation above all other actual lives,
still more above all ideals, which early Christianity was
capable of framing. It bids us estimate it, not only in
itself, but also in relation to the whole environment,
intellectual, moral, religious, in which it appeared, and
even in comparison with the lives of His chosen servants,
whom He made His witnesses to the world. It acknow
ledges, as it must acknowledge, that the account of the
inner secret of that unique Life, which is drawn out to
us in the distinctive, yet concurrent, teachings of the

252 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
Apostolic Epistles, and which has been preserved and
developed through the ages of Christian faith, is at
least an intelligible and an adequate account ; that, if it
be true, the miraculous power over the material and the
spiritual, with which the record declares it to have been
clothed, is, both in itself and in the beneficence which
directs it, at least appropriate to it, and (so to speak)
natural ; that the Besurrection and Ascension to the
right hand of God are certainly its only worthy and
adequate conclusion. It sees, moreover, that the de
claration of this meaning of the story of Jesus of Naza
reth was a power, which against all difficulties and
antagonisms fairly conquered the world, and that the
acceptance of it, as a living truth and a revelation of the
Divine, has proved itself for eighteen centuries an ever
growing and victorious spiritual force over all races of
humankind. Then it is forced to ask, if this be set
aside, if its solid reality be evaporated into legend and
delusion, what other intelligible account can be put in
its place ; and certainly, as yet, in all the theories put
forward it has never found an adequate answer. Their
whole strength is in objection and destruction ; in con
structive power they are utterly weak. Yet it is a poor
wisdom which only sees difficulties, and does not see
through them to some tangible reality.
But yet this is not all. It teaches us to consider
carefully the Word of the Lord Jesus Himself. We have
learnt under its teaching to trace out that Word under
various forms of revelation. We study it, as gradually
wrought out in the Synoptic Gospels to the great climax
with which the first Gospel ends. We study it, as it

vi.] The claim of the Lord Himself. 253
is reflected in various forms in the Acts and Apostolic
Epistles. We study it, as it is brought out explicitly
in its deeper teachings, not to the people, but to His
disciples, in the Fourth Gospel. There we have been
taught to note, not, as in the greatest of merely human
teachers, self-effacement, but what has been called self-
assertion, but perhaps would be better called self-dis
closure — a claim, all the more startling from One, clothed
in humility and living simply for self-sacrifice, of a
Kingdom over all things in Heaven and Earth, a Priest
hood of universal Mediation, a Nature One with the
Divine. Then, seeing clearly that these things cannot
be explained away, or referred, as the shallower criticism
in days gone by referred them, to the pious imagination
of those who came after Him, it has to bring home to
us the most momentous alternative of all — the aut Deus
aut homo non bonus of the often-quoted phrase. Either
these great claims are true, or they are what we hardly
dare to name — the wild dreams of a visionary enthusiast,
the presumptuous ambitions of a nature, corrupted from
its original nobility by success, with an element of half-
conscious unreality necessarily mingling with these.
There is no intermediate standing ground — and it is
well that we should know it — between the action of the
Jews, when, in face of that superhuman claim, they took
up stones to cast at Him as a blasphemer, and the
gradually deepening of the Apostolic faith to the final
confession ' My Lord and my God.'
Lastly, in connection with this tremendous claim, it
seems to me again that critical thought brings out to
us more clearly than ever what is the real function of

254 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
Christian Evidence, in its bearing upon the fundamental
and crucial question between the Church and the world
as to the mysteries of the Gospel. It is not to give —
what, indeed, man cannot give — demonstrative proof of
those mysteries ; but to ascertain whether we have suffi
cient grounds — grounds, of course, not merely intellec
tual, but moral and spiritual — for absolute faith in the
Word of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have seen how
the Law of Faith in general has shown itself to critical
study, not only as a necessary practical factor in the
whole conduct of life and in the constitution of human
society, but as a chief means — perhaps the chief means
of all for humanity at large — of arriving at ultimate
truth, and especially moral and spiritual truth 1. It has
been seen that from the lesser and plainly limited appli
cations of this Law in relation to man, we must ascend,
if we believe in a Supreme Personal God, to the ultimate
and absolute application of it to our relations with Him.
So the true significance of the title of Christianity, as
not a Philosophy but a Faith, comes out to us ; when we
see that the faith claimed for our Master is something
more than this ordinary faith in man, increased, however
immensely, in degree — that it is, indeed, the faith un
limited and absolute, which can be given only to God
in man. Hence the true question of the acceptance of
Christianity — by which I mean the historic and definite
Christianity of the Creeds — is first, whether we can
place this transcendent faith in the Word of Christ, as
' the Word of Eternal life ' for all the children of men —
spoken by His own lips, spoken in various tones in the
1 See Lecture I. pp. 22-30.

VI.] The function of Christian Evidence. 255
Apostolic message, by which it was His will to evan
gelize the world ; and next, what is the true nature of
that Word, and how far all the elements, which make up
the large and complex fabric of Christian doctrine, are
really derived from it.
It is important that the crucial point at issue should
be thus made clear, and not in any ways confused with
those secondary considerations, with which nevertheless
Christian Evidence has to deal. It is, indeed, well, in
the largest sense of that analogy, of which I have
spoken, to examine the harmony of the great truths
of the Gospel with the Laws of Nature and Humanity — ¦
a true harmony, be it observed, as distinct from a mere
unison, because in it the Gospel note rises supreme above
all undertones. It is well also to seek to verify these
truths by their living moral effects on the soul and on
the world, and, indeed, only those who thus know them
subjectively are likely to enter into their true meaning.
But these two phases of Christian thought are (I must
again remind you) subsidiary to the study of the
one great question of the grounds of faith in Christ.
If the answer to that brings us to rest on Him, then
we sit at His feet, and learn what the New Testa
ment calls the mysteries of the Gospel — secrets (that
is) of the Divine Will and Nature, which are secrets no
longer, although still for full comprehension they pass
all knowledge, because they have been revealed through
the 'mind of Christ.' How significant and typical those
words of Martha, when, after revelation of one of the;
deepest of these mysteries, and the question ' Believest
thou this \ ' she is content simply to answer, and our

256 Criticism and the Supernatural. [lect.
Lord to accept her answer, ' Yea, Lord, I believe
that Thou art the Christ, the Son of God ! ' How
ever Christian thought may advance in knowledge,
beyond what in those early days of disci pleship was
possible, its answer must still be substantially the
same, and from that answer all else follows.
(VII) So, in all these ways, it seems to me that the
criticism of our day, just because it is more than ever
thorough, penetrating, unsparing, forces upon us the
great alternative of Belief and Unbelief, not in this or
that doctrine, but in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. I
do not disguise from myself the momentous character of
that alternative — the struggle, even to agony, which it
brings on many a thoughtful soul — the not unnatural
temptation to shrink from it, occupying the mind pro
visionally with other and easier questions, or distracting
it by practical duties and energies. But, believing (as I
have already said) in our Lord's own promise, ' I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto Me,' I cannot fear the
issue ; and, although not without deep anxiety for indi
vidual souls, I would even thank the resolute and earnest
questioning, which thus brings us face to face with Him.
It has been often said that our age is apt not to go
beyond the pathetic cry 'Lord, I believe; help Thou mine
unbelief.' It may be so. But I note that the father of
the demoniac boy in the Gospel was compassed round
with this unbelief, from which he longed to be delivered,
just so long he only had before his eyes the impotence
of all earthly skill and love to relieve his child, or only
sought aid from the imperfect disciples of the great
Master ; but, when he came to the Master Himself, saw

vi.] The Great Alternative. 257
His face, heard His Word, then he could cry ' Lord ! I
believe.' If minds — perhaps especially the enquiring
minds of this younger generation — vexed and bewildered
by all the many critical questions and controversies,
which darken the air, would only pass through them
to the supreme issue, which they force upon us, and
would turn from the complexities of actual and ideal
Christianity to be face to face with Christ Himself —
if they would but ponder His Manifestation in thought,
try its practical power by even a tentative obedience,
seek insight into its mystery by even a vague prayer to
the Supreme Wisdom — I cannot but think that this
experience would often be theirs also ; and that, while
still testing all things, which present themselves as
revelations of truth, they will be able to ' hold fast the
good,' in Him Who is the perfect Goodness.

LECTUEE YH.
CRITICISM and holy scripture.
Search the Scriptures . . . they testify of Me. — John v. 39.
Once more in these words we hear that same demand
of enquiry and judgment in things Divine, on which
we dwelt last Sunday. But it comes to us now from
a higher authority and with a greater definiteness.
For it is the word, not of the Apostle, but of the
Master Himself; and its definite application is to the
Holy Scripture, the Charter of Christian faith. In
the former clause of the text we must recognise a
distinct authorization of Biblical Criticism ; in the
second an equally distinct declaration of the essence
of the thing criticized.
To this search we must apply very emphatically
those principles of true Criticism, of which we have
already spoken. We must study Holy Scripture as
it is, not as we may fancy that it should be or must
be ; we must be at least prepared to find that it has
in it some inner life of truth and goodness ; and, even
if some things remain to us obscure and uncertain, we
must hold fast, and so come really and deeply to under
stand, whatever we can grasp as true and good. The
very tone of the text requires, with obvious right,

What is Scripture in itself? 259
that criticism, in virtue of these very characteristics,
shall, while it is keen and searching, have in it some
spirit of reverence and even of faith. For a Book,
which has been confessedly unique in its spiritual
power over humanity, has certainly a right to be
examined with reverence, and with some predisposition,
moreover, to believe that the secret of this supreme
power is the utterance through it of what is in some
supreme sense a Word of Truth, and therefore a
' Word of God.' Now it is (I think) beyond question
that such criticism as this must find by its search
through the whole texture of Scripture the witness
of Christ, which He Himself promises. The one ques
tion is ' What is the authority of that witness % Has
it a right and a power to draw to Him the intellect,
as well as the conscience and heart, of humanity, that
in Him they may have eternal life ? '
In examining that great question between Faith
and Unbelief, we have to see what are the main direc
tions of enquiry in that Biblical Criticism, which has
so wonderfully advanced to us both in scope and in
power, that in many of its aspects it may be not
untruly called a creation of the present century.
The first is ' What is Scripture in itself 1 ' The next,
' How has it come to be what it is '{ ' The third, ' What
is the ground of its claim of authority % '
(I) What is this Scripture in itself % This primary
enquiry, like all other enquiries into the nature of a
thing, results first in analysis, examining and distin
guishing its various elements ; and then in synthesis,
searching out the general principle of structure, which
s 2

260 Criticism . and Holy Scripture. [lect.
has bound them together as a whole. It is hard, I
think, for men of the younger generation adequately
to conceive the progress in this twofold enquiry, which
has been granted to the critical study of the last half
century. On the one hand, the sense of an infinite
variety has grown upon us, against the inveterate
habit of regarding the Bible as literally and formally
one Book, the same in character and fulness of Reve
lation, wherever you open it. On the other, the clearer
sense of unity has overcome, at least in great degree,
the tendency to acquiesce from various causes in a
piecemeal knowledge of the Bible, in isolated chapters
and texts, with which no thoughtful man would be
contented in any other book. In both these points
the humblest student of to-day may have a degree
of insight into the living reality of Holy Scripture,
and the wonderful analogy in this repect between the
Word and the Work of God, to which the greatest
masters of Theology were strangers in days gone by.
And we have come, moreover, to see more plainly, not
only that both these characteristics exist, but that they
are essential to any Book, which is to exercise an
universal and permanent influence over man.
For its variety brings it into touch with all forms
of human thought, and so with all ages and characters
of men. It is a commonplace now to speak of the
Bible as a literature in itself. But perhaps we hardly
enter adequately into the full meaning of this familiar
description, till we consider how that infinite wealth
of human literature, which fairly bewilders us in the
overwhelming growth of some great library, has, after

Vii.] Its variety. 261
all, a certain unity running through it. Its backbone,
as we are coming to see more and more, is in History,
past and present — the history of man, individual
and collective, in his action and his thought, — the
history of the earth, which by all its variety of treasure
furnishes the environment of his life — the history, so
far as we can read it, of the Universe, in its myste
rious vastness of time and space, in which he loses
himself in material littleness, and yet finds himself in
the spiritual greatness of knowledge and understand
ing. Yet the very record of that history brings out
necessarily the inner capacities of the humanity, which
contemplates and records it, as, indeed, they express
themselves in the very language of the record ; and
brings them out, moreover, as distinct, yet in the har
mony of mind and heart and conscience and spirit. So,
growing out of History, we have the purely intellectual
element of Science, Inductive and Deductive, which
discovers and systematizes the Laws, that underlie
all history, and the Philosophy which correlates these
discoveries together — in search, as the very name im
plies, for a Wisdom of Idea and Purpose pervading all.
We have the aesthetic element of the Poetry and Art,
which, alike in their discoveries and their creations,
idealize the imperfect realities of life — discovering not
so much wisdom and order, as beauty and grandeur
— reflecting to us not so much the dry light of
thought as the glow of passion, imagination, a pira-
tion. We have the authoritative expression of Con
science, both in the wonderful fabric of human Law,
restraining evil and enforcing right, and in the develop-

262 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
ment of Morality, freely teaching and inspiring the
principles which give life to Law. Lastly, since the
mind and heart and conscience will not rest, except
on some Ultimate Being, some Creative and Sustaining
Power, some primal Source of Wisdom and Righteous
ness, known as personal, or by irresistible tendency
personified, we have everywhere in all literature the
expression of some Religion — ' feeling after ' (to use
St. Paul's incomparable description) and in measure
'finding Him, in whom all lives, and moves, and has
its being.'
Now, if this be so, what .an immense significance
there is in the unquestionable fact, which our modern
Biblical Criticism has .made so .clear to us, that this
sketch of the manifold unity in human literature is
substantially a description of the structure of the Bible
itself! Its backbone is certainly in the history, start
ing from the beginning of our world and leading up
to the Manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ, in itself
and in its proclamation to mankind. Then out of this
grow the declaration of Law, the insight of Prophecy
and Philosophy, the Poetry of contemplation, love,
adoration. Yet all is subordinated to the knowledge
of God, in Himself, and in His relation both to the
world and to the Soul. The Scripture is essentially
an epitome of all human literature.
But it is something more than this, or it could rise
to no Divine authority. Not less striking and in
structive is the all-important distinction, which, indeed,
makes the Book unlike all other books, — that this
knowledge of God, instead of being looked upon as

vii.] Its unity, 263
an ultimate mysterious result, up to which slowly,
imperfectly, speculatively, all other lines of thought
tend, is from the beginning set forth in a declaration
of simple certitude, having authority at every point,
yet growing in fulness and clearness, till it perfects
itself in Him who is the Word of God. So it is not
only the Omega, but the Alpha, by which everywhere
these other lines of thought are themselves determined.
In History, in Law, in Prophecy, in Psalm, the declara
tion of St. Paul at Athens, is the motto of all Scrip
ture, ' Whom ye ignorantly worship, Him declare I
unto you.' By thus keeping touch with all phases
of human thought, it fastens, (so to speak) the spiritual
cords of knowledge and love into all varieties of human
nature ; by its own peculiar character of Revelation,
it gathers them all into the hand of God in Christ,
that He may draw all to Himself.
But, while in that marvellous progress of which
I have spoken, our Biblical Criticism has brought out
to us this variety, as its first and most obvious dis
covery, yet, in virtue of that last principle, it is equally
certain that it discovers to us an underlying unity
in Holy Scripture — not a dead, formal, unity as of
some artificial work of man, but the living unity,
at once of continuity and progressiveness, as in the
growth of an Organic being. Again, it is obvious that
familiarity obscures to us the extraordinary significance
of this unity, between books separated from one another
by centuries of time, by infinite difference of place, by
not less infinite difference of tone and character, in the
human authors, many of them to us unknown. For, in

264 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
the conviction that there is this unity, all deep and
thorough criticism confirms, as so often, the instinctive
inference of common-sense. We know, of course, that,
as in old days so now, there are the ol xwP^0VTes —
those who would divide the indivisible whole — dis
covering or inventing inconsistencies, even antagonisms,
as between the Old Testament and the New, so be
tween the various books or sections of books in each,
and mostly referring these to the introduction from
time to time of wholly foreign elements. But theirs
is not the criticism of the highest sort. In the cruder
forms of old Gnostic days, it was abundantly shown
by great Christian teachers to be both unhistorical and
unphilosophical. In the subtler and more learned
forms, which it wears now, it fails to stand before
the more philosophical insight, which can look through
superficial differences to essential principle. The pro
gressiveness, which the Scripture itself declares, true
criticism has certainly brought out with greater clear
ness than ever, in respect of knowledge, of moral teach
ing, of spiritual tone, of the conception by faith of
God Himself. But that it is progressiveness, not
breach of unity, is hardly questionable. That as the
growth unfolds itself from the seed, it draws in nourish
ment not only from the heaven above, but from the
earth beneath, in all the actions, and thoughts, and
faiths of men, which make the history of the world,
is true, and our increasing knowledge of that history
makes its truth more obvious. In old time it assimi
lated such germs of truth as gave spiritual vitality
to Egyptian or Assyrian or Persian religion ; in later

vii.] The subjective unity of the Spirit. 265
days it is clear that the Gospel took up much from
the large speculation and culture of humanity in the
Greek, and from the conception of an universal law
of order and righteousness, which was the glory
of the Roman. The one was undoubtedly wrought
into the development of the Catholic Creed ; the other
into the development of the Catholic Church. But
the inner life is still one, and it makes all its own,
not by crude intrusion but by strong assimilation.
From the days of Abraham to the manifestation of
his seed on earth, that growth is traced as unbroken.
It was by a true instinct that the world itself recog
nised in Christianity a growth from its old stock of
Judaism ; first, with contempt ; then with fear and
hostility; finally with homage and acceptance. The
Christ Himself it saw to be, by no mere figure of speech,
the ' seed of Abraham ' and the ' Son of David.'
Nor is it less clearly discerned where the main secret
of that unity lies.
Its subjective unity in one ultimate Divine author
ship is, of course, largely a matter of faith. Criticism
may deny, or refuse to consider, or explain away into
vague generality, this faith of Christians in a Supreme
Inspiration — wh ether of origination or selection it
matters not — which has guided and overruled all these
varieties of age and authorship to one Divine Purpose —
so that ' the holy men of old spake as they were moved,'
borne on the current of that Purpose, ' by the Spirit
of God' — so that the unity is ultimately the unity in
divers measures and manners of one Divine Voice. It
may, I say, put this aside, though I hardly know what

266 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
adequate substitute it can put in its place, as an ex
planation of what is undoubtedly an unique fact m
the literature of the world. If (to use a well-known
comparison) stones brought from various quarters, by
various hands, in various generations, all fitted into
one another, and grew into a structure of grandeur
and beauty, who would explain this in any other way,
than by the conviction that all these agents were under
the guidance of one Supreme Mind, and intelligent
instruments in working out one foreordained purpose 1
But no thoughtful criticism can refuse to see. the
secret of the objective unity of the Revelation itself,
in the undoubted gathering of all the lines of Scriptural
thought, history, law, prophecy, into :the Supreme Mani
festation of the Lord Jesus Christ — all the rays of truth
converging to Him through the ages before He came,
and diverging from Him after His, coming, to illuminate
all the regions and all subsequent ages of the world.
In spite of some recent statements to the contrary1, it
must seem to any criticism which looks to Holy Scrip
ture as a whole, and is not diverted from this general
view to minute examinations of detail, that this unity
is not matter of faith, but matter of fact. It is hard
to conceive how, even without faith in the Divine word
of the text, it can fail to see that the ancient Scriptures
in all their various elements really did testify of a
1 See for example, in relation to Prophecy, Muir's summary of
Kuenen's results in the English translation of the Prolegomena, where
he says (p. xxxi), ' The traditional conception of the Old Testament
Prophecy, as a testimony to the Christian Messiah, is repeatedly con
tradicted by scientific exegesis, and on the whole refuted.'

vii.] The objective unity in Christ. 267
Messiah to come. Critics may differ as to the reality
of special examples of this great anticipation. It may
be true that the faith, which strongly realizes the
glorious mystery of its fulfilment in Christ, has at times
read some fanciful illustrations of it into the history or
into the prophecy. It may also be true that, on the
other hand, modern criticism has inclined rto an arbitrary
and unreasonable scepticism as to these time-honoured
traditions, betraying a somewhat prosaic want of insight
into deeper analogies, and strange conceptions of the
power of very poor realities to satisfy the most glorious
aspirations of the ' Oriental mind.' But of the fact
itself there can surely be little serious question. Even
if it could not be gathered from the Old Testament
in itself, it must become evident to us, when we in
terpret it by the light of the Jewish history, which
is itself confessedly unique in the history of the world.
Still less can any one doubt that all the New Testament,
like St. John's Gospel, is written that men might believe
in Jesus of Nazareth as the Son of God, and that to
this central truth it bears one witness in many tones.
Men will differ in their judgment, whether this great
pervading idea is a glorious dream, or the witness of
a glorious reality. But surely it is there, and by it
alone the Bible can be understood. It does not depend
on the interpretation of this or that passage ; it runs
as an illuminating life through the whole body of
Scripture. It may seem, perhaps, unnecessary to dwell on what
were in my memory novelties, but are now the accepted
commonplaces of all Biblical interpretation. But in

268 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
estimating the effects of Biblical criticism upon faith,
it is right to take those effects as a whole. We must,
of course, be aware that the very application of any
criticism to Holy Scripture gives some shock to the old
unquestioning faith, which holds it to be above all
human judgment, and is content to listen to every
sentence as a complete Word of God. We cannot fail
to see that in the task of minute criticism there is some
danger of frittering away the grandeur of the whole —
perhaps of so busying ourselves in the dissection of the
body of Scripture that we lose all conception of its
soul. Nor is it to be denied that the actual results,
to which criticism has been sometimes led, are justly
looked upon as derogatory to the supreme authority of
Holy Scripture. But these drawbacks, real and serious
in themselves, are yet lost, as we believe, in the better
fruits of Biblical criticism, taken as a whole. We must
thoughtfully estimate — although, as I have said, it
is hard so to do without long retrospection and com
parison with a nearly forgotten past — the general effect
of this first enquiry of criticism, in making the Bible
infinitely more of a living reality to us, infinitely more
comprehensive in its power over all forms of thought
and progress, infinitely grander in the harmony, in which
the dominant note is the Word of the Lord Jesus Christ
Himself. So far, at least, the text has been fulfilled.
Through such criticism we have 'searched the Scrip
tures'; we have heard in them many voices coming
down to us through the centuries ; but we find that
all unite to testify of Christ.
(II) But, as in all other critical investigation, this

vn.] How has Scripture grown ? 269
enquiry as to what Holy Scripture actually is passes
naturally into the further enquiry how it came to be
what it is — what has been the process of its gradual
formation, and its establishment as an authoritative
rule of Christian faith.
The enquiry has many phases. It is important to
distinguish one from the other, and in each to see what
conclusions are already accepted, and where the crucial
point of controversy lies.
Thus, if we look at the Bible as a whole, no one
doubts for a moment that there has been a growth in
respect of what we now call the Canons of the Old and
New Testaments — of the former through centuries, of
the latter through at least two generations. On this
matter the old tradition and the new criticism are at
one. The one question which divides them is the
question, ' Within what limits, by what authority, and
under what determining causes, has this growth taken
place, first in the gathering together of the books them
selves, and then in their acceptance as a sacred and
authoritative Canon %
When we turn, next, to the individual books, and
enquire how they assumed their present form, a broad
distinction at once makes itself evident, which must not
be for a moment forgotten. These books fall into two
distinct classes. We observe that, with but few excep
tions, the books of teaching — the Prophecies of the Old
Testament and the Apostolic Epistles of the New — de
clare their origin ; that, on the other hand, the historical
narrative generally, and, in some degree, the enunciation
of law, the element of devotion, as in the Psalms, and

270 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
of philosophical meditation, as in the Proverbs, are
anonymous. On the former class of books, even if they
draw from more ancient sources, there is mostly the stamp
of unity1; in the latter clear signs : of gradual accre
tion, as in the Psalms and Proverbs, or of compilation
out of older materials, such (for example) as is implied in
the Books of Kings, and expressly avowed in the Preface
to the third Gospel. In both classes of books of the Old
Testament, but especially in the latter, there are traces
of what we now call editing in times subsequent to
their original composition 2. Now on these two classes
of books arise two questions plainly distinct in their
character and their significance. Can we accept, in the
one case, the declaration of authorship as literal and
genuine 1 Can we, in the other, trace the dates, methods
and objects of the process, by which the books gradually
assumed their present form? In both enquiries what
weight are we to assign to ancient tradition, and what
to internal criticism of the language and the character
of the books themselves ?
Into these main divisions fall tlie many enquiries as
to the formation of Holy Scripture, which now present
themselves in an almost bewildering variety. They
are obviously of great and even fascinating interest.
They have been made possible to us, as they were not
possible to our fathers, by the marvellous advance of
1 I speak, of course, generally, without ignoring such critical
questions as those which bear upon the unity of the books of Isaiah
and Zechariah.
2 See (for example) the remarkable ethnographical and geographical
notes in the hook of Deuteronomy (Deut. i. 2; ii. 10-12, 20-23;
iii. 9, 14, &c).

Vii.] The right principles of Enquiry. 271
archaeological discovery, of historical and philological
science. Perhaps at this moment they mainly absorb
critical attention ; so that, on both sides of the con
troversies which they raise, their importance, in them
selves and in comparison with other forms of enquiry,
is even exaggerated. That they have yielded much
fruit already and will yield more, few can doubt.
It would be, of course, impossible to enter here upon
any thorough examination of these questions, even if
I were presumptuous enough to hold myself qualified
for a task which requires the study of a life-time. On
many points we must listen to experts with deference,
although with some reserve still of the right and duty
of intelligent judgment. But there are at least two
leading considerations, by which, in order to form such
judgment, we must test their arguments and their
conclusions. The first is this — that this branch of critical enquiry,
which is properly historical, archaeological, and linguistic,
must not be guided by any preconceived ideas — 'pre
judices' in the true sense of the word — derived from
other considerations. It is rightly urged that we must
'take the Bible as it is.' On the one hand, it is obvious
that we cannot allow our old traditional beliefs, or even
our reverence for Holy Scripture, to blind us to con
clusions from evidences, drawn from the character,
the language, and the form of the Scriptural books,
which in any other case we should accept without
hesitation. We have already learnt that, in grace, as
in nature, the Divine Inspiration expresses itself in
methods, different from what we should have a priori

272 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
expected. We have found that modifications in our
conceptions of the human element involved in it are
perfectly consistent with an unshaken faith in the
Divine. Changes in our old traditional beliefs as to
the date and method of the composition of the Scriptural
books — unless they involve principles inconsistent with
their authority, or imputations to them of untrust-
worthiness and insincerity — will be entirely consistent
with faith in the authority and inspiration of the
Scripture. It is right therefore that those, who firmly
believe in this Divine Inspiration, should still examine
the reasons given for such changes simply upon their own
merits — judging each instance from the evidence pre
sented, and distinguishing the different issues involved
in different cases. To do this is not only a matter of
critical honesty, but it is really an evidence of a faith,
strong enough to stand trial and to be deepened thereby.
But this same principle has an even more forcible ap
plication on the other side 1. I do not mean only that
there is, on this subject as on others, an instinct of
innovation, quite as strong and arbitrary as any instinct
of conservatism, and equally needing the control of
thoughtful reason and judgment. The ' prejudice ' to
which I refer goes far deeper to the root of the matter.
If we ' take the Bible as it is,' we cannot fail to see
that it professes to be a Revelation of that Supernatural
Order of things, of which we have already spoken,
leading up to the supreme miracle of miracles, the
Manifestation of the Son of God. If now we enter
1 See Bishop Ellicott's Christus Comprobator, pp. 14, 15.

vii.] The right principles of Enquiry. 273
upon the enquiry as to its growth and origin with the
fixed idea, that all miracle is incredible whether in the
outer world of matter, or (as, for instance, in the pre
dictive element of Prophecy ]) in the world of mind —
and that, accordingly, all record of miracle done, all
prophecy which claims to look with supernatural in
sight into the future, must necessarily be the legendary
growth of later times, or the invention of ' pious fraud '
for the sake of edification, or history after the event,
prpfessing with scant honesty to predict it — if this be
so, and in much of the new criticism apparently it is
so — then such criticism cannot be impartial. Its con
clusions, even on this point, will be warped, if not vitiated
beforehand. For it has virtually to frame a new Bible
in the place of the old. On the great question of the
Supernatural we must make up our minds inde
pendently ; how it presents itself for such decision in
these days we have already tried to see. If we reject
it altogether, we must, I think, regard the Scriptures,
with which it is indissolubly interwoven, as having
only a human authority and interest. But we cannot
rightly take preconceived assumptions on the subject'
with us, when we engage ourselves in the detailed
1 See, for example, the declarations of Kuenen. ' Israelitish
prophecy was not a supernatural phenomenon derived from Divine
Inspiration, but a result of the high moral and religious character
attained by the Prophets . . . which was itself the slowly matured growth
of ages. The predictions of the propliets are nothing better than
fallible anticipations of the manner in which they considered that the
Deity must, as a necessary consequence of His character, as they
conceived it, deal with the subjects of His government' (Muir's Preface
to Kuenen's Prolegomena, pp. xxxvii-xxxix). T

274 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
study of historical and linguistic criticism of the Scrip
tural record.
Nor, again, in the next place, is our criticism likely.
to be solid and enduring, if it fails to recognise the
combined force both of external and internal evidence,
and the power of each to correct the other. Probably
in older times the balance may have inclined too much
towards the former ; tradition may have been accepted
too unreservedly, without analysis and estimate of the
correcting evidence presented to us in the books them
selves, as regards both their language and their internal
character. But I do not see how it can be doubted,
that now by reaction this inclination of the balance
has been somewhat violently and arbitrarily reversed.
Traditions, however strong and consistent, are far too
absolutely ignored. Internal criticism pronounces con
fidently, often on what seem to be largely conjectural
grounds of its own, as to the date and authorship or
compilation of this or that Scripture — as confidently,
indeed, as if it had seen the various compilers at their
work, had studied line by line the documents they used,
and had collated the successive forms through which
their productions passed. These critical conclusions
and theories themselves need not unfrequently to be
subjected to a somewhat sceptical criticism. They
have to be balanced, even if proved to be sound, against
external evidence. When they are thus resolutely
tested, whatever in them is substantial will, of course,
remain, but I believe that much, now confidently ad
vanced as all but incontrovertible, will simply vanish
away.

vii.] The New Testament Criticism. 275
We have seen this, I think, already in respect of New
Testament criticism. There the witness of external
evidence was at all times seen to be exceedingly strong
— in the all but unvarying tradition of the Church
from the beginning to the great bulk of the New
Testament, which, even, without bringing in any belief
of a special guidance into truth, it was impossible
lightly to set aside. That tradition had, moreover, a
simple, though all important, work of witness — merely
to testify to Apostolic or quasi-Apostolic authorship of
the New Testament books, and so to the fact that in
them we have, directly or indirectly, the Word of the
Lord Himself. But there came a time, when we saw that
witness either assailed, or explained away, or still more
frequently ignored and superseded, by a Criticism
proceeding on the lines above indicated — disbelieving
the miraculous and so forced to refer the Scriptural
testimony to a later date, which might give time for
myth and legend to grow up, — relying on the power of
internal criticism, guided by arbitrary theories, (as in
the Tubingen school) of tendencies and conflicts in
Apostolic times, to disintegrate the Gospel narrative ; to
turn the Acts of the Apostles from history into an
inventive Eirenicon ; to pronounce confidently on the
genuineness or spuriousness of this or that Epistle;
above all to discredit the Apostolicity of the Fourth
Gospel, the very citadel of the deepest Christian truth.
What has been the ultimate issue of this criticism I
It has necessitated stricter examination of the external
evidence ; and the effect, partly by deeper study, partly
by new discovery, has been to test and immensely to
t 2

276 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
strengthen it. It has taught or suggested some things
in the history of Apostolic days, and the interpret
ation of Apostolic writings, which have enabled us to
understand them better. But its own conclusions and
theories are in the main confessedly obsolete ; and the
old traditional beliefs, which it attacked, remain sub
stantially unchanged — only rectified in detail, and held
with a more intelligent grasp of faith.
Now the critical controversy is transferred to the
field of the Old Testament. It is a field in some sense
more beset with obscurity and difficulty. It carries
investigation back into distant centuries, in which
historic light is dim, and the external witness of
tradition necessarily far weaker than in the briefer
and more historic period of the Apostolic age. For
that investigation, moreover, we cannot as yet reckon
(as in the other case) on the existence of an atmosphere
of general knowledge, in respect of language and of
substance, which may enable us to test, and where
necessary to restrain, arbitrary boldness of theory and
assertion in those who speak as experts in both. It
needs that larger knowledge, not only of Hebrew, but
of languages cognate to Hebrew, which is a thing of
comparatively recent growth ; it has far more numerous
points of connection with the general history and
thought of humanity in days gone by. It opens,
therefore, a question, which will probably need a longer
and more complex discussion, before it is set at rest.
In considering its spiritual importance, moreover, we
have to weigh different considerations. It does not, of
course, as in the other case, concern directly the citadel

vii.] The Old Testament Criticism. 277
of our faith ; it does not touch the reality of our Lord's
Manifestation on earth ; it does not deal with the truth
of His Resurrection and Ascension. But its bearing on
these is determined by such utterances as those of the
text; in which our Lord (so to speak) clenches the
conclusion, which might be suggested by the un
doubted fact, that, both historically and ideally, His
Gospel grew out of the ancient Covenant with Israel.
However the Old Testament has come to be what it is,
no man doubts that it is substantially the Scripture,
into which He bade us search, to which He referred
again and again as an authoritative word of God, and
as in all its parts testifying of Him. So He made it an
integral part of our Christianity. So His Apostles,
taught by Him, dwelt upon it with unhesitating
reverence as having Inspiration and authority. So the
Church, resisting all attempts of old time to sever the
two Testaments from each other, has borne the same
witness in all ages, and must continue to bear it,
whatever Criticism may discover or imagine as to its
origin and its growth.
Now in this consideration there is a two-fold
significance. On the one hand, within certain limits, it has an effect
of reassurance to those who are perplexed by those
critical enquiries. So far as criticism leaves untouched
the truth declared and implied in these words of our
Master, it is obvious that we, who accept His Divine
authority, can look on undisturbed, while it pursues its
researches. However it grew up, the Old Testament is
to us what He made it, and in this is the root of the

278 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
matter. So far it is evidently true, that (as one of our
leading critical authorities in England has said1) the
conclusions of criticism ' affect not the fact of Bevelation,
but its form ' ; they do but ' help to determine . . . the
process, by which the record of it was built up ; they
do not touch either the authority or inspiration of the
Scriptures of the Old Testament ' ; they ' pre-suppose
that inspiration,' holding that 'the whole is subordinated
to the controlling agency of the Spirit of God ' ; they
do not affect ' the purposes for which our Lord appealed
to the Old Testament, its prophetic significance, and
the spiritual lessons deducible from it.'
But, on the other hand, there are certain develop
ments of modern criticism, which it is hard for a plain
man to reconcile with the acceptance of this authoriza
tion of the Old Testament by our Lord, as a part of His
Divine Revelation. It is said, for example, in relation
to prophecy, that 'it is the common conviction of all
the writers of the New Testament that the Old Testa
ment is inspired by God, and is thus invested with
Divine authority. ... In accordance with this they
ascribe Divine foreknowledge to the prophets . . . they
refer us repeatedly to the agreement between specific
prophetic utterances and single historical facts. . . . The
judgment of the New Testament . . . may be regarded
as diametrically opposed to ours V Yet, if the Gospel
record is to be trusted, that judgment is simply the
adoption of the teaching on this great subject of our
1 See Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testament
(Preface, pp. xv, xix).
2 See Kuenen, c. xiii. p. 448 (English translation).

vii.] . The issues involved in it. '279
Lord Himself. It is again boldly contended, that, as
almost a matter of course, all records of miracle must
be held to be fabulous ; principles and objects of com
position are assumed for Scriptural books hardly com
patible with historic or moral truth. How — except by
derogation from His perfect knowledge or perfect truth
fulness — can these be reconciled with the position, as
authoritative and divine, which our Lord assigns to
the Old Testament % It is on this, broadly considered,
rather than on the interpretation, however important,
of any words of His in relation to special passages,
that our attention must be fixed, with a clear concep
tion of the issues really involved. For certainly it goes
to the very root of the matter ; it does affect something
more than form and method ; it does bear on the whole
question of authority to us. To minimize the sig
nificance of its assumptions, even in the interests of a
troubled faith — to suppose that they can really fail
to affect for ordinary minds its authority as a Divine
guide of Christian thought and life — we must hold to
be a serious error, in danger at least of incurring the
censure on those who ' cry Peace, peace ; when there
is no peace.'
Now, as we examine not uncritically the process of
this Old Testament criticism itself, we cannot but be
struck with its strong similarity in principle to that
criticism of the New Testament, which had its time
of ascendency, and has now in the main passed away.
There is in it the same ignoring of external evidence.
Far, indeed, is the force of Jewish testimony from the
overwhelming strength of that which witnesses to our

280 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
New Testament books. But yet, considering the tenacity
of Eastern tradition, and the intense reverence of the
Jews for their Scriptures — noting the indications in
those Scriptures themselves of a gradual accumulation
from early times of sacred books in close connection
with the sanctuary — marking the significance of that
well-known account given by Josephus x in the Apostolic
age itself of the unhesitating belief of his countrymen,
that with the prophetic succession the formation of the
authoritative Canon of the Old Testament was bound
up, and that with the cessation of prophecy it ceased —
it must seem unreasonable to attach no weight at all
to the tradition which ascribes large portions of Holy
Scripture to Moses, to David, to Solomon, to Ezra ; and
to assume that, if some touches of legendary colouring
has passed over this tradition, this argues an entire
want of all historical reality 2. There is again, as has
been lately pointed out 3, a similar exaggeration of
internal antagonism between the Priestly and Prophetic
parties, and the reference to it of the origin — hardly
a noble or truthful origin — of books composed for
1 See Joseph, c. Apionem, i. 8 ; noting especially that he is enun
ciating not his own opinion, but the acknowledged faith of the Jews
in general, and that he expressly excludes from the category of what
is authoritative and Divine all later writings, ' after the reign of
Artaxerxes, Sia to prj yevea'dai ttjv Tav Tsprnfynyrav aKpifirj hiabo-^v.
2 Thus (for example) in relation to the work of Ezra, ' the later
embellishments of the traditions which represent Ezra as the second
author of all the books . . . can only be accepted as signs of the
universal belief in his labours, and ought not to throw discredit on
the simple fact that the foundation of the present Canon is due to
bim.' Westcott on the Canon in Dictionary of the Bible.
3 See Christus Comprobator, p. 17.

Vii.] The lesson of past experience.

281

present purposes under ancient and venerable names.
There is the same luxuriance of critical imagination,
often without a shred of external evidence, assuming
that, because this or that utterance would suit some
historical period, therefore it must necessarily belong
to it, and that, if it contains high and spiritual teaching,
it must necessarily be brought down to later times 1.
There is the same tendency to disintegration, on grounds
of superficial differences and real or supposed dis
crepancies of detail, in disregard of great underlying
unity of idea : and the same confident assumption of
certainty for these disintegrating inferences of at most
probable speculation. All these similarities may well
induce much hesitation in accepting sweeping conclu
sions, even if pressed upon us with a supposed consensus
of critical authority. The experience of the past will
teach us to pause, and rather induce expectation that,
while these critical speculations will have their value, in
clearing and (as has been said) ' rectifying 2 ' our old
traditions — while they may teach us much as to the
1 With sincere respect for Dr. Cheyne's great learning and Chris
tian earnestness, I caiinot but trace some striking exemplifications of
this arbitrary treatment in the Bampton Lectures of 1889 on The
Origin of the Psalter (see, for example, the treatment of the date of
Ps. ex. in Lect. I. pp. 20-29). The destructive result of his treat
ment, leaving to David, and even to the pre-exilian period, hardly
a single Psalm, bears, I must think, an emphatic witness against
his method.
2 The phrase is Bishop Ellicott's in the Christus Comprobator
(Sect. II). Of course, on the degree of this rectification there may
be difference of opinion: but the phrase itself is simply a plea for
due regard to the value of tradition, as modified, but not superseded,
by the analytical method of investigation.

282 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
time and method of compilation of historical books,
something as to date and immediate purpose of pro
phetic writings, something of the growth of the Psalter
and the Books of Wisdom : yet, like the New Testa
ment criticism — though, perhaps, after a longer time
and greater difficulty, from the greater obscurity of the
subject and less fulness of general knowledge thereupon
— this criticism also will spend itself, and then pass
away when it has done its work, leaving still the old
belief substantially unchanged.
(Ill) But both these enquiries into the structure and
growth of Holy Scripture have their spiritual importance
to us in their bearing on the third supreme question on
which Criticism has to speak. What is the distinctive
and essential character of the Scripture itself — on the
ground of which Christian faith claims for it a supreme
authority, as at once holding the key to the inner
meaning of other discoveries of Truth, and passing be
yond them to mysteries of the Divine Nature, which
they can at best infer in speculation or hope 1
The enquiry is usually called an enquiry into the
special Inspiration of Holy Scripture. The phrase, as
a popular description, is well sanctioned by usage ; and
may even claim an Apostolic authority. But I venture
to doubt whether it indicates the right method of in
vestigation. In strictness — and of such strictness critical
thought is more and more teaching us the importance
— we ought to speak not of the Bible, as an inspired
Book, but of the human authors of Holy Scripture, as
inspired men, ' borne along ' (to use St. Peter's phrase)
' by the Holy Ghost.' For inspiration is the action of

vii. J Revelation and Inspiration. 283
the Spirit of God upon the living spirits of men. It is
true that men are, on special occasions and for special
purposes, lifted by the Spirit above their ordinary spiri
tual selves, and that these 'holy men of old,' in relation
to the writing of Holy Scripture had, we may well
believe, just that special exaltation, above what I may
call the average inspiration of their lives. So much,
indeed, seems to be indicated to us in the recorded
spiritual experience of the prophets. True it is, also,
that words become moulding influences over the
thoughts, which they convey, and that the choice of
words for things Divine needs a guidance from above,
as truly as the choice of thoughts ; so that there is
a very true sense, though not its usual sense of dicta
tion, in which we can speak even of ' verbal inspiration.'
Under the consciousness of these two undoubted truths,
we are justified (and indeed, as has been said, we are
justified by Apostolic usage) in speaking popularly of
Holy Scripture, in its present concrete form, as an in
spired Book x. But the phrase is still in strictness
incorrect, and, as usual, its incorrectness tells against
clearness of idea. It tends to obscure the important
truth, that the writers of Holy Scripture were not merely
mechanical instruments, through which the Spirit of
God spoke — the strings or notes (as old metaphor has
it) struck by the Almighty Hand — the amanuenses
writing (as in some well-known pictures) from angelic
dictation. They were living and thinking men — moved,
exalted, inspired by the Spirit of God, but living and
1 2 Tim. iii. 1 6, where the reference to the Holy Scriptures of the
previous verse is obvious.

284 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
thinking men still, with all their peculiarities of age,
race, character. The Divine impulse might overmaster,
but it did not crush or destroy, individuality. The
prophet did not rave in mere unconscious ecstasy, like
the Pythia of Delphi. Not through human tongues
only, but through human minds, did the Divine Mind
reveal itself to the minds of His creatures.
For, in fact, we see that, under this popular phrase
of the ' Inspiration of the Bible,' are included two dis
tinct conceptions, which are properly called Revelation
and Inspiration — processes not identical, but correlative
or corresponding to each other. To convey truth from
one mind to another needs first the presentation, mani
festation, expression of truth by the teaching mind ;
this is revelation. It needs also the stimulation and
enlightenment of the intelligence of the learning mind ;
this is inspiration.
If, therefore, we would describe the question before
us accurately, we ought to see that the essential point
is the claim of Holy Scripture itself to be an unique
Revelation of God, while Inspiration is viewed as the
power by which the writers of Scripture were quickened
to understand and to declare it. This distinction of
Revelation and Inspiration is no mere question of words.
Upon some clear conception of it I believe that much
depends, for the clearing away of many errors and diffi
culties, and for bringing out the essence of the great
question here at issue between believer and unbeliever,
between the Church and the world.
The distinction ought to be clear to us from our own
experience of human teaching. Revelation to others

vii.] Distinction between the two. 285
is for us comparatively easy: inspiration of others
infinitely difficult. The truth, which we ourselves
thoroughly know, we can always reveal, by presenting,
illustrating, enforcing it to others, so far as human
language is capable of expressing it. But to inspire
the minds of learners to receive it — to stimulate intelli
gence, to give insight, even to awaken interest — this
we have to confess to be but slightly in our power,
although even that slight measure of power is the
highest quality of the teacher's art.
The distinction, again, is certainly marked out to us
in Scripture itself, as in the recurring prophetic phrases,
' The Word of the Lord came to me': ' the Spirit of the
Lord was upon me ' : 'it entered into me, as He spake.'
' The Word of the Lord came to me ' — there is Revela
tion of Divine Truth, the clear disclosure of the Will
and the Nature of God. ' The Spirit of the Lord was
upon me ' — there is Inspiration of him, who in old time
was called simply the Seer T, because his eyes were open
to behold the vision of the Lord, in later times the
Prophet, or Utterer, because charged and enabled to
declare to men what he thus saw.
But, above all, in fulness and clearness comes out
that distinction in the teaching of Him, who claims to
tell not merely of the ' earthly things ' of Manifestation
of God to man, but of the ' heavenly things ' of His
Nature in itself. For in that teaching He speaks of
Revelation as His own gift, to the world in measure,
to the Church in fulness. ' I am ' (he says) ' the Way,
the Truth, and the Life ' ; ' The words that I speak
1 1 Sam. ix. 9.

286 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
unto you are spirit and life'; 'He that hath seen Me
hath seen the Father.' The whole teaching is summed
up in His Name, as ' the Word.' ' No man hath seen
God at any time ; the only-begotten Son which is in
the bosom of the Father, He hath revealed Him1.'
But Inspiration — the ' bringing to men's remembrance '
and understanding ' whatsover He hath said to them,'
and the writing it through grace upon the heart —
this He promises as the gift of the other Paraclete, who
is the Holy Ghost2- It was by the harmony of the two
Divine works that the Day of Pentecost became the
birthday of the Church ; the Ministry of the Lord Him
self had been but preparatory for the spiritual harvest,
which then suddenly sprang up. By that harmony
now the continuing life of the Church is sustained.
The Word and the Sacraments in the Church are the
Revelation of God in Jesus Christ ; the power to
understand the one, and rightly to receive the other,
is of the grace of the Holy Spirit. The individual
Christian life is the knowledge and the reproduction of
the Divine life of Christ ; the power by which it is
realized in its perfect harmony of truth, holiness, love,
is the gift of Him, who is emphatically described as the
Spirit of Truth, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Love.
So it is that the Light of Christ has become the life of
men, and the Word revealed has become the 'engrafted
word,' growing into our nature and ' able to save the
soul 3.'
But the significance of this distinction must be carried
1 John xiv. 6, 9 ; vi. 63 ; i. 18.
2 John xiv. 22-26 ; xvi. 13, 14. s James i. 21.

vii.] Importance of this distinction. 287
somewhat further. For the full perfection of that
harmony it is, no doubt, necessary that the two pro
cesses should not only correspond, but should (so to
speak) keep pace, with one another. So it was with
Him to whom was present the whole Truth of God
and to whom was given the Spirit without measure.
But for all others — so says our own experience, and so
says the spiritual experience of the prophet, as recorded
in Scripture — Revelation may often be larger than In
spiration ; the truth (that is) revealed and uttered may
be apprehended, indeed, but not fully comprehended,
by the inspired mind. This belongs indeed to the
general Law of the Divine intercourse with man. To
have what Keble calls 'thoughts beyond their thought'
is the especial characteristic of the great leaders of
mankind — the privilege of intuitive genius, as dis
tinguished from self-conscious talent. If Ruskin dis
covered in the works of Turner great aesthetic principles
of which the artist professed himself unaware — if
Coleridge discovered deep philosophies, underlying the
creations of the unconscious genius of Shakespeare — it
by no means follows that Ruskin and Coleridge were
wrong. The truth, spoken, so far as it can be spoken,
is a thing Divine and Eternal : the inspiration to
understand, though it come from an equally Divine
and Eternal source, is yet conditioned by the finite mind
which receives it, and may have to disclose through
many minds fresh depths in the truth, as the ages
roll on.
But that general Law must have its highest and
closest application in regard to Holy Scripture, in-

288 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
proportion to the fulness and depth of the Truth with
which it has to do — in proportion also to the function,
which it has had to discharge, not only to its own age,
but to all the ages of the future. It is a great truth
which is involved in the declaration that ' no prophecy
is of private,' or personal, 'interpretation1.' To know,
for example, if we could know it, the exact conception
of the truths, which they were inspired to utter, by
Prophet or Psalmist, would by no means be necessarily
to know the whole of the Divine meaning which that
truth contained. The very use by the Apostles in the
New Testament of Old Testament utterances — so often
extending and idealizing them to a higher meaning —
is singularly instructive oh this point 2. The truth
itself was unchanged. It was the new Light of Christ,
which disclosed the fulness of its meaning ; it was
the new inspiration of Pentecost, which enabled them
to enter with new insight into that revelation. Their
light and their inspiration were indeed unique, for the
unique work which they had to do. But yet, just so
1 2 Pet. i. 20.
2 These quotations seem to fall into three classes : first, quotations in
the literal sense of the original, neither more nor less, as (for example)
the quotation in Heb. x. 38 of Hab. ii. 4, 'the just shall live by his
faith,' in the original sense of reliance on the strength and protection
of God in time of trouble ; next, quotations extending and idealizing
the original sense, as the quotation of the same text in Rom. i. 17,
where it is the motto of the whole Christian doctrine of Justification
in the Blood of the Lord Jesus Christ ; lastly, quotations, which are
rather of the nature of application, as when in Rom. x. 6-8 the words
of Deut. xxx. 11-14 are quoted with variation, and applied to the
'word of faith' in Christ, as contrasted with the external declaration
of law. Of these probably the second class is the most numerous.

vii.] Enquiry into Revelation. 289
far as that light is shed upon the Church in all ages —
just so far as the correspondent measure of Inspiration
is given — we cannot doubt that we also shall be en
abled, in that right development, which is neither
invention nor accretion, to draw continually new
wealth of meaning out of the treasure of the Eternal
Truth. But what is the practical bearing of this distinction?
It seems to me to show that the really hopeful enquiry
of criticism should be into Revelation rather than
Inspiration — into the claim of the Christian Scripture
to be the Truth of God, rather than into the question
of the nature, method, limits, of the Inspiration given to
its human authors. Truth is objective and so un
changing ; that which claims to set it forth we may
expect to be able to examine and to test. Inspiration
is subjective ; as such it must vary in form and degree ;
as such it can be fully realized only by the mind which
receives it. Of it, therefore, we can hardly hope to
discover an universal and comprehensible law. I do not,
indeed, mean that it is not, naturally and rightly, a
subject of speculation. There is much instruction in the
contrast of the mechanical theory, which made its subjects
mere instruments — their whole personality being ab
sorbed into the Divine Inspiration— and the dynamical
theory, which sees in it the regeneration and exaltation
of natural powers, preserving in them the reality of per
sonal character, and even the characteristics of race and
an age. There is much to be learnt from the com
parison and contrast of the special Inspiration of the
writers of Holy Scripture with the general inspiration
U

290 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
of humanity as such, and the fuller inspiration of
redeemed humanity in the Church of Christ. There is
much worth considering in the distinction, which has
been drawn between the inspiration of origination of
that which is new, and the inspiration of selection out
of that which is old — an Ithuriel's spear of distinction
between the true and the false. But what I would
contend is that all this is matter of speculation, not of
faith. The one all-important thing to us is to know
whether we have in Holy Scripture a real Revelation
of Truth ; how it was given, through what forms or
measures of Inspiration, is one of the secrets of
God. For that contention I think that I may claim the
sanction of the deliberate action of our own Church on
this grave matter. It is a commonplace to remark
that in her authoritative documents there is nowhere
laid down, explicitly or by implication, any doctrine of
Biblical Inspiration. Various theories upon it have
been held, and are held, freely and honestly, by her
divines and her members. But on the reality of Reve
lation a pronouncement has been made, which for
decision and definiteness leaves nothing to be desired —
that in its entirety, 'the Old Testament not being
contrary to the New,' it contains for all men and for all
ages ' all things necessary to salvation V For in this,
and not in the other, is the true Articulus stantis aut
cadentis Ecclesiae.
Once more, in the light of this tremendous claim,
this search into the true nature of the Scripture leads
1 See Articles VI. and, VII.

vii.] The one ground of its authority. 291
us directly to Christ. For on what ground alone can
it rest 1 Ultimately on this one foundation — the con
viction that it contains adequately the direct manifesta
tion to the world of the Word, the Life, the Person of
the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This manifestation is
the central essence of the Scriptural Revelation. What
St. John says of his own Gospel is true of all Scriptures
old and new, ' These things are written that ye might
believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and
that, believing, ye might have life through His Name.'
As leading up to this, we understand the preparatory
revelations of the Old Testament; as drawn from this,
we accept all which makes up the manifold perfection
of the New. In Him, and in Him alone, is the Reve
lation of God to humanity absolutely perfect, not only
in the 'earthly things' of His visible working, but in
the ' heavenly things' of His invisible Being. In Him,
and in Him alone, dwells Inspiration without measure
or limit, giving to His humanity — whatever may have
been the mysterious limitations of its finiteness — the
power to do that, for which the humanity was itself
assumed — perfectly (that is) to know, and perfectly to
declare, the whole Revelation of God: Each writer of
Holy Scripture had, we believe, just that measure of
light from Heaven, which enabled him perfectly to
fulfil his appointed part in relation to the Manifestation
of the Lord Jesus Christ — just that measure of inspi
ration, which opened his spiritual eye to discern that
light, and opened his mouth to declare it to the world.
Clearly in old time Lawgiver, Historian, Prophet,
Psalmist saw each but- a part of the full image of the
u 2

292 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
Christ to come, and of the perfect Gospel of His
Revelation of God. Even Evangelists in the New
Testament drew each his appointed and characteristic
aspect of the great picture of His actual manifestation
on earth. Even Apostles — St. James, St. Peter, St.
Paul, St. John — had each, what St. Paul calls ' his
Gospel ' to deliver ; each his own phase of the perfect
truth of Christ to set forth. In respect of light, as of
grace, ' Christ Himself is all in all.'
(IV) So, face to face with this Revelation centred in
Christ, the two questions which Criticism has to ask
are surely these, ' Is it sufficient for its avowed pur
pose 1 ' ' Is it in all its aspects true \ '
Is it sufficient for its purpose 1 This question is
answered almost as soon as asked. The Bible thus
viewed is, as we have already seen, first a Revelation of
God, as a Living God, Creator and Sustainer of all
being, Father of all men, as made in His likeness ; it is,
next, a Revelation of Man, as in that sonship, distinct
in an essential superiority from the whole inanimate
and animal world, having in him here a true spiritual
life, the germ of an immortal perfection hereafter ; it
is, above all, the Revelation of God and Man as not
only like, but really one, in that unity foreshadowed
from the beginning, and perfected by the Incarnation
of Godhead in humanity, which is at once its salvation
from sin and death, and its regeneration by a new in
dwelling Life. All this Revelation, moreover, we have,
not given in hard abstract form, but wrought out in
relation to every phase of human thought and need, and
so living to us in graphic reality.

vii. J Its intrinsic sufficiency. 293
Who can well doubt that, if it be true, it must be
sufficient for all essential human needs ?
We look at it in itself. It answers the three great
questions : ' What is the world % What am I % What
is the Supreme Power over both, in which both live \ '
Just where the thought of man runs up into mystery —
the mystery of Matter and Life in the world around us
— the mystery of our own humanity, in itself and in its
struggle against sin and death — the mystery above of
ultimate Eternal Being — it meets that searching of
thought, and shows how all the threads, lost to reason
in darkness, are gathered into the hand of a God, not
unknown and unknowable* but revealed in the Lord
Jesus Christ. What can man need more in respect of
that knowledge, which is to him the key of life, and of
that life as in communion with the Life Eternal ?
We look at it, again, through the experience of faith,
in all the Jewish and Christian centuries. The glorious
recital in the Epistle to the Hebrews of the victories of
faith may now be indefinitely extended through the
higher Christian experience. For it is matter of simple
historical fact, that in this Revelation of Christ, grasped
by the living faith of mind and heart and conscience,
men of all generations, all races, all characters — not the
few only, but the many — -have found the light of their
whole life. To the simple — the hard workers and patient
sufferers, who are, and must be, the great mass of
humankind — it has presented itself in the simplicity
which ignores difficulty; to the wise and thoughtful, it
has revealed in fulness inexhaustible the needful light
through all the difficulties and perplexities, which it is

294 Criticism and Holy Scripture. [lect.
their burden to know and feel, and the key to the inner
meaning of all the gleams and dawns of other know
ledge which, through these, it is in measure their privi
lege to see. Men have disputed over certain points
of its interpretation, and through disputes over these
points, important but yet of secondary importance, they
have divided the Christianity which should be one.
But in the great essentials of the faith there is still
a Creed of Christendom, and in this all who accept the
one Bible, are at one still. They have grasped it as
true ; and of its sufficiency, as so grasped, they have
never had to doubt.
We may look at it, if we will, even through the eyes
of serious and thoughtful unbelief. The very sense of
darkness and despondency, when it believes itself forced
to give up the old faith, and go forth into the dimness
of a twilight speculation, with perhaps some refracted
rays from the lost sun, and some flickering gleams of
earthly light — the very effort, which it often makes, to
avoid the dread inevitable alternative, and to keep
without a Divine Christ something of Christianity —
something of Christian morality, and Christian love,
and even Christian idea — they tell us pathetically how
sufficient, if it could but be accepted as true, would
be to them the revelation of the Gospel that they
have lost.
Every way, as it seems, that first question answers
itself. It is on the second — the question, ' Is it true?' —
that the great division comes. What that question
really means, and what is implied in the answer — it
will remain for us to consider hereafter.

vir.] The anticipation of its truth. 295
Meanwhile I commend to your thoughts these three
processes of Biblical criticism, of which I have spoken—^
the study of the varied structure and unity of Scripture,
which has already so largely done its work — the study
of the growth of Holy Scripture, still progressive, with
all the imperfection and promise which belong to pro
gress — the study of the substance of what it is as a
Revelation, and of the marvellous sufficiency of that
Revelation to those who can accept it. In all these
three forms of search into the Scriptures certainly the
words of the text have been fulfilled. They have
' testified of Christ ' — Christ as the central life of the
whole organic structure — Christ as the perfection of
the whole growth — Christ as the final giver of that
all-sufficient Revelation. Even so, I cannot but think
that they go some way to answer by anticipation the
question of all questions, ' Is that testimony a splendid
dream of speculation and hope, or is it a witness of
the Supreme Truth 1 ' Sternly — yet with a beneficent
sternness — Criticism forces that great question upon
us. It is well. For, as of the contemplation of Christ
in Himself, of which we spoke last Sunday, so of the
Scripture, as expressing Him to us, I cannot but believe
that this study, even so far as I have already spoken
of it, brings out everywhere in itself the stamp of
obvious reality. No such ideal could have been created
by what we can see to have been the thought and
aspiration of early Christianity. No mere ideal, indeed,
was ever so consistent in all its phases, so living in itself,
so spiritually powerful in its effect. The more we test
it, whether by deep and earnest thought, or by the

296 Criticism and Holy Scripture.
energy of practical trial, or by the insight of spiiitual
aspiration in prayer, the more we shall feel that (to
apply St. Peter's words) ' we have not followed cun
ningly devised fables, but are eyewitnesses of a Divine
Majesty1.' 1 2 Pet. i. 16.

LECTITKE VIII.
TRUTH IN REVELATION.
Search the Scriptures . . . they testify of Me . . . I am the
Truth. — John v. 39 ; xiv. 6.
(I) To the command of our Lord, addressed to all
enquirers, on which we dwelt last Sunday, as at once
the authorization and the guide of true Biblical Criti
cism, I add to-day from His later and deeper teaching to
His disciples, the utterance, which determines what
must be the essential characteristic of all that bears
witness of Him. For truth alone can testify to Truth
— truth in various forms and measures to the Truth of
a Divine Perfection.. We have already studied, and
sought to estimate, in regard of their spiritual im
portance, the first two enquiries of Criticism, into the
structure and the growth of Holy Scripture. In regard
to its final enquiry into what is the essential and
unique character of Scripture, as the ground of its
claim of supreme authority, I have suggested to you
that — [much popular usage and language notwith
standing — it should really concern itself with the
objective fact of Revelation, rather than the subjective
process of Inspiration : and that the enquiry, which is
at once all-important and hopeful, is whether that
Scripture is, or is not, a Revelation of ' all things

298 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
necessary to salvation.' Of its sufficiency for this pur
pose, if it can be accepted, there can be no question.
But does it fulfil, in all its mingled variety and unity,
the function which our Lord assigned to Himself, that
He ' came into the world to bear witness of the
Truth ' 1
This is to us above all others the question of ques
tions. On the answer depends certainly the claim of
Scripture to be in any special sense what we commonly
call it, a ' Word of God.' There is a homely insight in
the conclusion of the widow of Zarephath, that a Man
of God must speak ' a Word of the Lord ' and that this
* word in his mouth must be truth V The whole mean
ing of Holy Scripture is in its manifestation of Christ ;
and in the latter part of my text our Lord expresses
the central idea of that manifestation in the words,
' I am the Truth.' It is because He is the Truth, that
He is also ' the Way and the Life.'
If it be asked ' What is Truth % ' the general answer
must, no doubt, be, that Truth is accordance with the
great Laws of Being, the various expressions of the
supreme ' Law Eternal.' But, in applying that answer
to Scripture, we must clearly distinguish the various
elements — the History, Law, Psalm, Prophecy, both
of the Old Testament and the New — which, as we have
seen, make up its manifold unity. For in relation to
each of these the general definition of Truth has a
peculiar form of significance, and our question must be
' Has each element that specific kind of truth, which
properly belongs to it 1 ' We must not evade or obscure
1 1 Kings xvii. 24.

vitl] The truth of Revelation essential. 299
that question by the consideration, important as it is,
that the one great purpose of Scripture is to convey
spiritual truth ; that all is subordinated to that spiritual
Revelation, on which we touched last Sunday, of God,
of Man, and of God and Man made One ; that its
object is not to supersede human knowledge and dis
covery, but to ' meet and supplement these by the
disclosure of what is hid from them ; that its promise
is to make men wise indeed, but wise unto salvation ;
that we may, if we venture on such rather futile specu
lation, conceive that this Revelation might have been
given, and this Wisdom imparted, in a form less com
plex, and having fewer points of critical contact with
human literature and history. For all this does not
touch the main question. The Bible is what it is. It
is actually presented to us in that complex structure, by
which, as we have seen, it places itself in touch with
humanity in all its phases. In all the parts of this
actual structure it must be searched into, and estimated
by a right criticism, on the principles appropriate to
each. We must try to see clearly and resolutely what
in respect of each we really mean, when we speak of
the truth of the Revelation, which it thus professes to
give. (II) Thus its backbone is undoubtedly histor}' — the
history of man, and of the world as it concerns man,
from the beginning to the coming of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and the first establishment of His Kingdom
over Jew, and Greek, and Roman, as the three great
representative races of humanity. To avoid all points,
on which difference of opinion may exist among those

3 oo Truth in Revelation, [lect.
who accept the authority of Scripture, let us fix our
thoughts on the continuous thread of narrative which
begins with the call of Abraham.
In the earlier chapters of Genesis, which tell the
story of the Creation and Primeval Man, and give brief,
and often obscure, glimpses of the antediluvian world,
it is true that many profoundly believing interpreters,
ancient and modern, have held that we are reading
simply a sublime and instructive symbolic description
of a world not properly our own, designed merely to
reveal, as it certainly does reveal, great moral and
spiritual truths — the Creation of all things by God,
the nature of man made in the image of the Divine
Righteousness, the fall from it by rebellion and sin,
the hope and promise of Redemption \ It ma}7 be so ;
yet the narrative itself, as distinct from such imagina
tions from it, as Milton has made familiar to us, paints
to us in striking simplicity what we can well conceive
to be an actual picture of primeval humanit}7. But
from the Flood onwards, and still more clearly from
the call of Abraham, we have what most definitely,
and, if I may use the word, prosaically, declares itself
to be a history of facts. History or fiction it may be ;
but apologue or parable it cannot be. There is an
instructive distinction, which brings out this general
character, between the Book of Job, avowing itself by
its very form to be a magnificent Poem on a historic
1 It should be allowed that the acceptance of a symbolic theory of
interpretation of the narrative need in no way imply any want of
faith in the absolute reality of these fundamental tiuths ; and it is
certain that it has not done so in the case of many who hold it.

viii.] Historic truth.

301

basis, having all the creative freedom and right of
poetry, and the Books (for example) of Exodus or
Joshua or Samuel.
But what is confessedly the one requisite of History 1
It is well that it should be impressive, graphic, pic
turesque, and in its grave way eloquent ; it is well
that it should, as a ' philosophy teaching by examples,'
bring out the great Laws of Nature and Humanity.
But with all these things History may dispense, and yet
be history. The one thing, which makes it what it is,
is what we rightly call ' historic truth ' — truth that is
in record of facts, both the facts of event and action,
and the facts of human character. If the Scripture
narrative professes to be history, by this canon of his
toric truth it must be judged. The question does not
now turn on the enquiries of what we have spoken —
out of what materials it may have been framed, and
where, as usual, it is anonymous, by what hands and in
what times it may have been compiled. It is not even
a question of the degree in which, under the ' inspira
tion of Selection,' its writers may have been left, in
respect of details, to their own human care and study1.
The question is, whether the great substance of the
narrative — professing to record in human history the
1 This consideration bears upon the discrepancies of detail, real
or supposed, between parallel narratives, or those which apparently
come from the incorporation in one narrative of documents inde
pendent of one another. If we may judge from the analogy of New
Testament criticism, we shall (I think) find that the amount and
importance of these have been much exaggerated, and we shall be
also led to conclude that many of them are but apparent, and due to
our imperfect knowledge of the whole facts.

302 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
special preparation in the Divine Order for the Coming
of the Lord, His Manifestation on earth, and the first
beginning of its proclamation to the world — is really
true. It is with that question that finally Criticism
must busy itself — testing the narrative by comparison
with itself, and by comparison with other discoveries of
historical, archaeological, linguistic, Science, and that
question we must look plainly in the face.
In this view I would again remind you that we must
make up our minds with plainness and decision on
what is called ' the miraculous element ' in the whole
Scripture history. It is not indeed, as a careless
reader might think, sown broadcast over the history.
It has (as I have already reminded you) its own law of
distribution and order. It is concentrated in its full
brightness on the Manifestation on earth, from the
Incarnation to the Ascension, of the Lord Jesus Christ.
In the Old Testament narrative of preparation for that
Coming, the record of it is almost entirely confined to
two great eras of advance and expansion — the Exodus
and Eisodus, which were the birth of the Nation under
the Law, and the beginning of Prophecy, especially in
its victorious struggle against the Baal Apostasy in the
days of Elijah and Elisha1. In the New Testament
narrative of the Apostolic Ministry proclaiming the
Lord's Coming, it has been noted as appearing with
1 I do not, of course, venture to assert that these are the only
epochs in which miracle largely occurred. If we had equally minute
and graphic accounts of other periods in the history and of other
prophetic biographies, we might find it in them also. But still the
fact remains that only in these have we records of any remarkable
outbursts of miraculous power.

viii.] The New Testament history. 303
intermittence, and coming out in special fulness at
critical periods, such as the first great era of St. Peter's
preaching after Pentecost, and St. Paul's ministry in
the very home of Gentile magic at Ephesus *. But there
it undoubtedly is, inextricably woven with the history
which is often unintelligible or incredible without it,
recorded merely as a clear manifestation of the Divine
Will of Righteousness, in the same grave and simple
tone as what we call ordinary events. I cannot see
how any view, which holds that Miracle is incredible,
and that its records must therefore be conscious or un
conscious fictions, is compatible here with historic truth,
or perhaps even with historic truthfulness.
Now here the main stress of argument must be on
the New Testament record of the Gospel itself — on the
whole story of the Life and Death of the Lord, on the
witness to the great Miracle of miracles in His Resur
rection, and on the history of its proclamation to the
world, in itself and in all that follows from it, to open
the new era of Christianity. On it criticism has in all
ages, not least in our own, turned its most searching
light. For on the question whether it is a solid and
Divine truth, or an ideal legend, in which human hope
and aspiration cheat themselves into an imaginary ful
filment, depends the vital question whether the Creed
1 See Acts v. 12-16 ; xix. 11, 12. In the latter passage the phrase
Swdpeis oil ras Tvxovaas is instructive, as indicating what we may call
an undercurrent of miraculous power, emerging into special promi
nence on special occasions. We may note that in 2 Cor. xii. 1 2 St. Paul
alludes to displays of such power at Corinth, of which we have no
direct historic record. Comp. also Rom. xv. 19.

304 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
of Christendom is founded on the unchanging rock of
reality or on the shifting sand of imagination. We
welcome that light of criticism, which, as I have already
said, seems to me to dissipate all intermediate theories
of a mythical type, between the two great alternatives
of truth and falsehood, a ' cunningly devised fable ' and
' the eye-witness of a Divine Majesty.' For it cer
tainly makes it absolutely clear that the Christ of the
Gospel record and the Apostolic preaching is not an
ideal phantom, but a true Son of Man, who was born
and lived a real life on earth, and died on the Cross
of Calvary. But the same witness which establishes
that historic reality of His earthly life, bears with equal
cogency and simplicity on the supernatural character
of that life, as manifested in miraculous power, and
as sealed by unquestionable fact in the Resurrection.
It must be taken as it is ; its various parts cannot
be torn asunder without destroying the life of the
whole 1.
But yet, though in less degree, the same principle
must apply to the criticism of the Old Testament, which
for us Christians cannot be separated from the New.
It is well here also to look clearly at the issue involved.
By some leaders of modern criticism it is made plain
enough — when (for example) leading Old Testament
books are described, as not only having accretions and
1 The lifelike simplicity, for example, of the narratives of John ix,
and xi., which shows in every line the testimony of an eye-witness,
must bear forcibly on the truth of the miracles of the healing of the
blind man and the raising of Lazarus, which are the central features
cf these records.

viii.] The Old Testament history. 305
corruptions, but as being themselves deliberate creations
of later days 1 — when the whole history of the Taber
nacle in the wilderness, of the setting apart of the tribe
of Levi and the appointment of the priesthood, is re
presented as fabricated for the honour of the Temple
and the support of the priestly dignity2 — when the
undoubted claim of the Prophets to a supernatural
insight is declared to be but a fictitious investiture
with Divine authority of the fallible anticipations of
human sagacity, if not actually the fraud of pretended
predictions made after the event. By theologians of
soberer and more reverent temper in our own Church
these extravagant assertions are summarily rejected.
But yet we must carefully consider what is really im
plied in the assumption, as a main principle of inter
pretation, that ' in many parts of the historical books
we have before us traditions, in which the original
representation is insensibly modified, and sometimes
1 See "Wellhausen's Prolegomena (pp. 293, 294). The history, as
we have it, is ' a later repainting of the original picture ' . . . not only
' with discolouring influences in the mythical elements, but in the
uniform stamp impressed on the tradition by men who regarded
history exclusively from the point of view of their own principles . . .
There was a systematic recoining of the old tradition . . . The old
books had to be remodelled, in order to make them valuable, digestible,
and edifying.' An illustrative example is given in respect of the
visit to Bam ah (1 Sam. xix. 18-24), which is 'a pious caricature —
the enjoyment of the disgrace of the naked king.'
2 See Wellhausen's Prolegomena. ' It may seem to have been
asserted that the Tabernacle rests on a historical fiction. In truth it
has been proved ... as to the Tabernacle of the Priestly Code ; for
some kind of tent for the Ark there may have been' (p. 37). ' The
statement ' (he adds) ' is simply a dogmatic way of making history,'
with ' the absurd consequences to which it leads.'
X

306 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
(especially in the later books) coloured, by the associa
tions of the age in which the author recording it lived,'
and the claim for the Scriptural historians of freedom
' in placing speeches or discourses in the mouths of
historical characters,' which ' in some cases, no doubt,
agree substantially with what was actually said,' in
others ' develop at length, in the style of the narrator,
a compendious report'; but which may also invent
altogether ' what was deemed consonant with the temper
and aim of a given character on a particular occasion V
Similarly we must estimate clearly what is the bearing
on historic truth of the supposition of ' an unconscious
idealizing of history, the reading back into past records
of a ritual development, which was later,' representing
' the real purpose of God, and only anticipating its
realization'; and whether it is consistent with what
' our faith strongly disposes us to believe, that the
record from Abraham downwards is in substance in the
strict sense historical 2.' In the acceptance of these
principles a strong distinction is drawn, and rightly
drawn, between the Old Testament and the New. But,
if they are accepted as compatible with Inspiration, it
is hard to be sure that this distinction is one of kind
and not of degree.
Now these assertions of modern Criticism and the
reasons given for them are, of course, to be met, as has
1 See Driver's Introduction to the Literature of the Old Testa
ment (Preface, p. xvii).
2 See Lux Mundi (ed. of 1889), pp. 351, 353. It must be remem
bered that to us the main question is of Eevelation rather than
Inspiration, and so of the objective truth of the narrative, rather than
the subjective truthfulness of the narrator.

viii-] Moral Truth. 307
been done in respect of the New Testament, by full and
candid enquiry, and not by denunciation. But still it
is well that the nature of the issue should be under
stood to be no less than the question between that
substantial historic truth, which the whole tenour of
the narrative claims, and which certainly the teaching
of our Lord Himself seems to imply, and a strange
heterogeneous growth of truth and falsehood, legend
and history; of which it is hard to conceive how it'
can be accepted as a historic revelation of God's actual
dealings with men, and as holding the place given to
it by our Master in the historical preparation for His
own coming.
(Ill) But, interwoven with this great historic thread,
there is what we may call in the largest sense, the
Prophetic element" of -Scripture — its teaching (that is)
in God's Name of His Will," -His Righteousness, His"
Love, in a continuous dispensation to man. What is
needed here for a true Revelation of God ? Clearly
truth once more, but now moral truth — according with
that Eternal Righteousness, which is witnessed to by
the conscience within and written on the course of the
world without, but revealing that Righteousness in a
clear and living certainty, to inform and inspire the one
witness and to explain the other.
That teaching comes to us first through Law — the
Supreme Will of God (that is) declared in command
ment, to guide and control human conduct, and enforced
by reward and punishment in this world or in the next.
Beginning in the simple Law of the old Patriarchal
time, it starts, from the birth of Israel as a Nation
x 2

308 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
onwards, into the full searching Law, which we call the
Law of Moses ; it becomes, as in the Sermon on the
Mount, the Law of Christ, so far as His teaching is
merely Law, perfecting (as He Himself declared) what
was given to them of old time. That Law, like all
other law, must adapt itself in form and detail to the
various ages and conditions of the men to whom it was
given ; so that in its earlier stages it may allow to the
' hardness of men's hearts ' what is forbidden to the
later ; it must, if it is to grow deeply into men's
nature, take up and stamp with its own impress
existing laws, customs, traditions of humankind ; it
must necessarily at every stage contain the rule, which
is temporary in obligation, as well as the underlying
principle, which is eternal ; it must, so far as it is
strictly law, be limited by some possibility of enforce
ment, and be content to rule the outward life of conduct
rather than the inner life of the spirit. Therefore, in
all its earlier stages, it was confessedly an imperfect
preparation for a perfection in Christ, and, even from
His lips, so far as it was still Law, it was but a means
and guard to the higher life of the Spirit in Him. All
this has been rightly impressed upon us by criticism,
studying the Scriptural Law in its gradual development,
tracing in it various elements of connection with other
ancient laws, illustrating it by greater knowledge of
history. It is well. For from errors on these points
have arisen many difficulties in understanding the Law,
many fatal anachronisms in applying it, many attempts
to do through it what Law, even if perfect as Law, can
never do.

viii.] In the Law. 309
But yet for all this, if the Scriptural Law, which, be
it remembered, is a continuous development, is to have
to us any sacredness or authority, it must have, through
all these imperfections and limitations, accordance with
moral truth ; it must gradually unfold that moral truth
in growing purity and harmony, until it reaches per
fection, so far as law can be perfect, in the Law of
Christ Himself. I do not know that we can limit this
requirement to the commandments which we ordinarily
call moral ; although, no doubt, in them it will have its
fullest development. Even in the civil and ceremonial
laws, under the outward forms which have passed
away, there are implied inner principles, having a dis
tinctly moral character, which can never be obsolete.
In all its branches the supreme idea of the Law is the
basing of all moral duty, and the kindling of all moral
enthusiasm, in the first great commandment of the
knowledge and love of God. Its very purpose (as St.
Paul teaches again and again) is to assert and guard
what is called the Covenant of God with man, imply
ing real moral relations of the Infinite with the finite.
It brings out, therefore, in the individual, in the
nation, in the Church, the supreme moral conception of
Holiness — a purity (that is) of heart and mind, conse
crated, and sustained by conscious communion with
Q.ocl — as the inner secret of the life 'hid in God'
Himself, and as including all its relations of righteous
ness and love. With a view to the attainment of such
holiness, it recognises, as lying at the very root of that
Covenant, the great principle of Atonement, implied in
all Sacrifice, and expressed in the great Sacrifice of

310 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
Calvary. These ideas are fundamental and far-reaching
in their effect : only if they are morally true, can the
Law of Scripture be in any sense — what Our Lord
Himself made it — a Law of God, and a preparation for
His own kingdom.
But higher and deeper than all Law is the teaching
of what we may call in the largest sense Prophecy —
the revelation (that is) of the Will and the Nature of
God in essential spiritual principle, and the writing it
freely by force of its own intrinsic light and righteous
ness on the souls of men — implying necessarily an
inspiration from on high, in those who utter it and
those who receive it.
We have that Prophecy, running like a golden thread
through the whole of the Old Testament. There is
an element even in the Law, which as our Lord Him
self says, ' prophesies.' For it enters constantly, as no
human law can enter, into the free inner life of the
soul ; its first and great commandment is the Love of
'the Lord our God,' which no constraint of law can
engender. There is in the older prophets of unwritten
prophecy a gradual development of that spiritual teach
ing and influence, in relation to the present life in
dividual and national, by the power of which Israel
grew out of the retrograde and half-barbarous era of
the Judges into a fitness for the high religious civiliza
tion of later days. It was clearly the inner life to
the people of moral culture, freedom, progress, victorious
against despotism of material power, against supersti
tion and idolatry, against false worship of false gods,
with a victory of which Elijah at Carmel is. the glorious

viii.] In the Prophecy. 311
type. There is in the later prophets of the written
prophecy a fuller development of that same teaching,
not only as the life of the present, but as the earnest
of the Diviner life : of the future. No unprejudiced
reader can doubt that, in unfolding the working of the
whole scope of God's Righteous Will, they claim power
in various measures, not only to look back and read
it in the past, but to look onward by the light which
He gives and read it, sometimes generally, sometimes
definitely, in the* ages to come \ No student can well
doubt, that in various degrees of clearness and sublimity,
this onward looking of Prophecy gathers itself round
a future Kingdom and a future King — One who is a
true Son of Man, seed of Abraham, Son of David, yet
on whom are accumulated attributes too great for any
but an Emmanuel, ' God with us.'
For that Prophecy, taken as it thus actually is, still
more essential than even for the Law is this require
ment of moral truth — illumined, of course, as all moral
truth must be illumined, by some insight into the great
laws of being. That requirement must apply to all its
elements — to its representation of God and of humanity
— to its claim of special inspiration and prophetic fore
sight — to its gradually brightening conception of the
Messiah to come. Necessarily by that very conception
Prophecy confesses its own imperfection, as in the
Revelation which it transmits, so in the Inspiration,
1 Nothing surely can be more uncritical than to assert that ' the
prophets did not attach primary importance to the lateral and imme
diate fulfilment of their prophecies' (Muir in English translation of
Kuenen's Prolegomena, p. xxxvii). See Note I.

312 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
which gives its power to understand and declare it ; and
that imperfection will attach to its moral and spiritual,
as well as its intellectual, character. Clearly, as we
connect the prophecy with the history, and compare
prophet with prophet, we note the distinction of their
age, their mission, their character, which make them
differ from one another in the fulness and spirituality
of their message. We speak of some more than others
as clearly Messianic in foresight and Evangelical in
character. As we compare the Prophecy of the Old
Testament with the Gospel of Christ, we may be
sensible, that, as was needful for earlier and cruder
stages in the life of humanity, there may be some
shadow in it of the sternness of the Law, a more
frequent appeal to godly fear, a less constant reliance
in godly love. But yet for all there is the claim of
a ' Word of the Lord,' spoken by * the Spirit of the
Lord' ; and in that claim it must be implied that morally
the word so spoken is true.
But from this, confessedly imperfect and preparatory,
we pass on to the Prophecy of the New Testament —
the Revelation of God by the great Prophet of prophets,
by His own lips, or by the lips of those to whom He
promised that the Holy Spirit should bring home His
word, and through whom it was His pleasure to evan
gelize the world. Clearly for this the requirement of
moral truth must be absolute and perfect, if it is, as
Christian faith declares it to be, an universal and abso
lute guide to humanity. With that requirement, as an
inseparable condition, must go the requirement of a
corresponding perfection of illuminating insight into

viii.] In the New Testament Revelation. 313
the secrets of God and of man. Whatever may have
been the mysterious self-limitation of the Godhead in
humanity — on which (let me say it in passing) the ex
perience of past Christian centuries gives us but little
hope of any definite and sound conclusions — however,
in His humanity, the intuition into things Divine and
human, may have ' grown in wisdom ' by clothing itself
in gradual acquisition of form and exemplification by
detailed knowledge1 — still He claims for Himself to have
the word of eternal life, and ' life eternal is knowledge
of God.' But it is in the requirement of moral and
spiritual truth that I now speak ; and this clearly implies,
that in the great principles of the doctrine of Christ —
as, for instance, in Mediation, Atonement, Sanctification
through grace, — there must be nothing, which is not
perfectly in accord with the Eternal Righteousness and
Love of God, and the undying responsibility of man ;
that in the Christian morality of the New Testament
there must be nothing false, insufficient, one-sided,
inoperative, corresponding only to some of the moral
conditions and needs of humanity, and not to all 2 :
that in the spiritual life in Christ, both individual
1 This is but the old distinction of knowledge Svvduci and ivepyela.
2 It will be, of course, easily understood, that in the New Testa
ment special stress may he laid on some moral graces — such as humility
and purity — which, in the best morality of those days, had been
ignored or depreciated ; while others, which were already honoured
even to excess — such as ¦ manliness and intellectual enthusiasm — are
taken for granted, and rather guided and tempered than enforced.
Note, for example, the treatment of manliness in 1 Cor. xvi. 13, 14;
where it is emphatically shown to have its root in faith, and its
guiding and controlling principle in love.

314 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
and collective, there must be the full satisfaction of the
highest spiritual aspirations, and the harmony, which
this requires, of the Infinity of God and the true finite
individuality of man. Not less than this surely is
involved in the moral truth of Holy Scripture ; and
the conception clearly differs, not in degree but in kind,
from the qualified admiration and reverence, which the
world is ready to give to it, and , to the moral teaching
of Christ, which speaks in it.
(IV) But there is a third element of Scripture, closely
connected with this, which is the response of inspired
humanity to these Revelations of God in Law and
Prophecy, and which expresses to us the attitude of
the soul, as by meditation, by prayer, by adoration, it
realizes its communion with Him. We find gleams of
it interspersed through the books of history1 ; it forms
again and again an element in the utterances of the
Prophets, who speak alternately, as representatives of
God to man, and of man to God2; above all, it ex
presses itself in its meditative and intellectual aspect
in the Books of Wisdom, and in its spiritual aspect in
the great Book of Psalms. It comes to its perfection
in the devotional utterances of our Lord Himself, and,
caught from these, the outpouring of Apostolic spirits
to God.
What needs this element of Holy Scripture, that it
1 See the Psalm of triumph at the Red Sea (Ex. xv. 1-2 1) ; the
Song of the Well (Numb. xxi. 14, 15) ; the Song of Moses (Deut,
xxxii); the Song of Deborah (Judges v); the Song of Hannah (1 Sam.
ii. 1-10); the 'last words' of David (2 Sam. xxiii. 2-6).
2 See (for example) Is. xii; Jer. xx. 7-18; Jonah ii. 1-9; Hab.
iii. ; Is. xxxviii. 9-20.

viii.] Subjective Moral Truth. 315
may be, as it has been through the ages, the ideal
and the inspiration of our own devotion \ Truth, we
may answer still, and spiritual truth ; but truth sub
jective, seen (as it were) on the other side from that
which we have as yet considered, through the inner
human consciousness. The conception of God so gained
must be true in the realization of His Divine Attributes,
not of Power only or chiefly, but of Wisdom and Righte
ousness and Love. The attitude of man towards Him
must be true to the mingled dignity and lowliness,
strength and weakness, righteousness and sinfulness,
freedom and dependence, which mark our human nature
at all times, but mark it especially in the consciousness
of the Fatherhood of God. Here, also, there will be
degrees in the perfection of this grasp of spiritual truth,
as the spiritual education of humanity is wrought out
by the increasing Revelation of God. In the simple
childlike outpourings of Patriarchal faith ; in the im
pulsive and enthusiastic communings with God of the
great Lawgiver of Israel ; in the pleadings, remon
strances, longings of the Prophets ; even in the price
less and undying utterances of the Psalmists, which have
been and are the living treasures of all the Christian
ages ; there must still be imperfections. There will be
elements (as, for instance, in what we call the Im
precatory Psalms, or in the utterances of doubt and
despondency, from time to time chequering the bright
ness of faith), which, though they have by the very
force of sympathy their instruction of encouragement
and warning to us, yet the higher consciousness of
Christian faith must use, as indeed it has used them in

316 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
all the centuries, with correction from the teaching and
the example of our Master. They, indeed, whose whole
lives are penetrated with the spirit of the life of Christ,
insensibly Christianize the utterances of the older days.
For only in Him is there the subjective perfection of
spiritual being ; as it expresses itself in the prayer of
daily life, which He has given us, in the fervent prayer
of the great crises and agonies of life, in the sublime
Intercession *, which enters, and carries all humanity
with it, into the central mystery of the Divine Presence.
Even Apostolic utterances, though they catch and reflect
that perfection, yet have something of individual colour
ing, full indeed of force and beauty, but narrower and
less universal than the clear white light of the mind
of Christ Jesus. But though there be imperfections in
the disclosure through Scripture of the spiritual life,
still there must be substantial truth, with no falsehood,
no perversion, no unworthy thoughts of God's nature,
no unworthy slavishness or selfishness on the human
side. All must grow, under the true relation of God
to man, up to the supreme perfection in Christ.
Only on that condition can it be to us the ideal
revelation of our higher humanity, the unfailing and
unceasing food of our devotion of thought and worship
to God.
(V) But above all and through all these forms of
Scriptural Revelation the supreme requirement is of
what we may call Theologie truth— the truth (that is)
not of God's works, but of the Nature of God Himself;
a truth confirming and correcting, but transcending, all
1 John xvii.

viii.] Theologie Truth. 317
lower Revelations of Him. Such revelations there are.
Through all philosophic questionings, and in spite of
a consciousness of complexity and mystery in Nature,
such as our fathers knew not, the maturest thought
confirms the instinctive common-sense of mankind ; it
finds in Nature the working of a Supreme Will, cer
tainly infinite in power and wisdom, possibly in
righteousness and goodness. In Humanity, just in
proportion as it is conscious of itself, — its own will and
reason and conscience, its own capacity of truth in love
— there is a Revelation of a God — as in the secrets of
the soul itself, so in visible handwriting upon the
history of the world — a Revelation which seems to me
to be exactly the complement of the other, witnessing
primarily of His moral relation to us in righteousness
and mercy, and secondarily of His wisdom and power.
Yet both these are crossed and painfully obscured by
the great mystery of evil — the evil of suffering, pain,
apparent waste and failure in Nature, and the addition
to these of moral evil, vice, crime, sin, and death by
sin, in humanity. Clearly a true and supreme Reve
lation of God must confirm and illustrate both these
lower witnesses. But it must transcend both, in
glimpses at least of the mysteries, lying above their
ken, and in the dissipation or illumination of that heavy
cloud of perplexity which hangs over both.
It is precisely this, which the Scriptural Revelation
of God claims to do. The idea of God grows, widens,
deepens through the whole ; and we note that at each
point it is at once personal in relation, yet universal in
itself. The Creator of all the world is yet close, in

318 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
tender care and love, to the man made in His image.
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is in covenant
with His chosen servants, while yet He is always
known as the ' God Almighty,' ' the Judge ' and Ruler
'of the whole earth.' The Jehovah of that Mosaic
Revelation, which is wrought out by the whole order
of the Prophets, is the God and King of the chosen
nation of Israel, close to their action and their thought
at every point, and dwelling between the Cherubims, in
the Tabernacle or Temple which is His chosen seat
of Bevelation to them ; yet the very meaning of the
Name proclaims Him as the One Eternal Self-existent
Being, fountain of all created life, the One ultimate
object of all created reverence and love. The final
Revelation, in the word of the Lord Jesus Christ Him
self, is of the supreme mystery of the Triune Godhead,
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, stamped in
Baptism on the very forefront of our Christianity ; yet
of the fulness of that Godhead, as dwelling bodily in
the true Son of Man, whom we know, as it were, face to
face, and through Him dwelling in measure in the very
heart of the simplest humanity.
Everywhere the Nature of God, as Truth in Love, is
brought out to us, although it seems as if the two
elements were blended to our eyes in different propor
tions. The sterner element of Righteousness assumes a
prominence in the era of the Law, unknown to the
simplicity of the earlier and more childlike days ; while1
Love is as a deep undercurrent, felt rather than plainly
seen. In its turn it passes gradually from that pro
minence, as the free spirit of Prophecy rises above

viii.] In the Old Testament and the New. 319
the rigour of Law; till in Christ we know, above all.
else, that ' God is Love'; while yet that Love has still
by necessity the discriminating judgment of Righteous
ness, and, although it weeps over a Jerusalem, cannot
take away the self-chosen doom of men.
At every point, moreover, in some degree, and with
ever-increasing clearness, this Revelation of God (as
we have already seen) recognises as only too real,
although subordinate and unnatural, the power of evil
in the world. It unmasks it in the History ; it
scourges it in the Law ; it deals with it by remon
strance, rebuke, entreaty, in Prophecy; it confesses it,
sadly and almost passionately, in the Psalm. Finally,
it makes the Cross of Atonement the very badge of
Christianity, because the very expression of the true
Gospel for a world like this ; and so it claims to be
able to tell how the guilt of sin is already forgiven, its
power already broken, and how it is destined in the
hereafter to vanish away.
It is on the truth of this Revelation — the only al
ternative, as the world's experience seems to show, to
a blank agnosticism as to the Supreme and Absolute
Being — that the sacred authority of Holy Scripture
depends. If it be what it claims to be, it must be
in essence the most perfect Revelation of God which
humanity is capable of receiving; there must be no
secrets of God, which can be told and need to be told
to man, not contained in it, and capable of being drawn
out for all generations by the Spirit of God, as the
inspiration of the higher life in Him.
- (VI) This, and not less than this, is what is implied

320 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
in the belief in the Truth of Holy Scripture, as in all
its lines of development in history, law, prophecy, de
votion and meditation, expressing in different measures
and forms Him who is Himself the Truth. With the
examination of this, above all, criticism is concerned ;
it has to see in each branch of its witness, where the
root of the matter lies, and then to ascertain whether
it strikes deep down into the eternal foundation. The
task is a great one, and in some sense a formidable one
to every thoughtful and reverent mind. Yet it must
be done. It is vain to deprecate or denounce such
criticism. The mind of man must think for itself, even
on that which is presented to it by the very highest
earthly authority ; even on the Scripture, witnessed to
as in a special sense a Word of God by the Church of
Christ, following in this, as closely as she may, the
teaching of her Master. For it has in this a moral
responsibility, not a mere intellectual interest. It has
to make truth, as we say, ' its own,' to realize it sub
jectively, as a part of itself and of its life. If it is to
do this, it must not only know in whom it believes,
but in measure know what is the real meaning and
essence of that which is received in faith. And, indeed,
the whole tenour of Holy Scripture itself implies, not
only permission, but command, so to do. Of it the
famous words, on which we have already dwelt, are
typical, ' Prove, or test, all things : hold fas"t that,' and
that only, ' which is good.'
But it is nevertheless well that we should understand
clearly what is really at issue, and consider thought
fully what is involved in .critical conclusions or specu-

viii.] The results of right Criticism. 321
lations, which we may be called upon somewhat hastily
to accept. For this consciousness breathes into our
judgment the needful spirit of caution, gravity, re
verence. It may even guide that judgment in no small
degree. For, just as we should distrust a train of in
genious intellectual reasoning, which landed us in a
plainly immoral result— just as we should hesitate to
believe what might seem a plausible consensus of
evidence against a character, which we have learnt to
trust, as we should trust ourselves — so it is not wrong
ful prejudice, if those who by faith and by experience
have come to recognise a Divine Spiritual power in
Holy Scripture, take with them this conviction, as one
important element of consideration, in examining critical
speculations, which may even seem to ascribe to it
qualities inconsistent with that known character.
Then, if only these conditions be fulfilled, we need
certainly have no ultimate fear of Criticism. We can
not, of course, without shutting our eyes to facts, be
free from anxiety as to its immediate effect upon the
faith of individuals, especially when it takes from them
old conceptions and interpretations, which are not un
naturally mistaken for the truth, round which they
have grown, We cannot be unaware, that there may
well be some general effect of unsettlement on the
whole tone of mind of the many, who do not, perhaps
who cannpt, study and understand the criticism itself,
but who are obliged to know vaguely that it exists,
and that it professes to change much which has in days
past been accepted without hesitation. But for the
truth itself of the Revelation in Holy Scripture we are
Y

322 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
taught, not only by a rational faith, but by much past
experience, the sure conviction that the mere specula
tions and inventions, which are but the nebulous
accompaniments of solid and true criticism, will spend
themselves and mostly pass away ; but that the effect
of its proper distinguishing and testing power will be
to clear up for us what is confused and doubtful in our
faith, to remove some accretions which have gathered
round it, and some theories of our own about it, which
change like ourselves, and so to bring out its truth —
historical, moral, spiritual — not only more clearly and
surely than ever, but in closer living relation to Him,
who is the Truth itself.

(VII) And so, with this reference to that aspect of
the subject which is now so greatly occupying thought
ful minds, I draw to an end the argument, which I
have desired to submit to your consideration, and
which is, after all, simply this — that the key, which, in
view of our advancing search into the secrets of Being,
opens so many doors in the Palace of Truth, must
surely be the master-key of the Great King.
I am, of course, aware that the very plan of such
argument precludes the working out of each element
with that thoroughness of mastery, which has so often
distinguished the treatment from this pulpit of more
special subjects. But I would venture to suggest the
importance, even at this cost, of attempting from time
to time some comprehensiveness of view, especially in
days like our own. For we live in an age of which an
exhaustive specialism, if it be a glory, is also. a danger

viii.] Plea for comprehensiveness of view. 323
— gaining, no doubt, much depth of special insight,
but apt to lose the right proportion of the parts of the
great whole, and, in relation to faith, to rest the whole
stress of thought and aspiration on one strand, and not
the whole; of ' the threefold cord which is not quickly
broken.' True indeed it is, that in the great life of
humanity these various specialisms will by degrees find
their right place ; if each contributes its single note,
all, even through some apparent discords, will blend
more or less in the harmony of the collective Wisdom.
But truth, and especially moral and religious truth,
concerns the individual, as well as the race ; it is his
life, as in its right vividness, so in its right proportion.
So every man, while, if he is wise, he will accept from
experts the results of their special and often lifelong
study, will yet for himself stand (so to speak) further
back than they are apt to stand from the picture of the
whole, and look at it through the eyes of the simple
humanity within him.
For let me remind you, that in this view the cumu
lative force of various testimonies is far greater than
the sum of these testimonies themselves, and that it
increases with immense rapidity, as their number and
variety grow. It is so familiarly in the forensic evidence
of the ' two or three witnesses' : the effect of the second
far more than doubles the first: the addition of the
third mostly turns probability into moral certainty.
It is so in historical or scientific coincidence, especially
if the testimonies yielded are of different kinds ; as
when internal evidence suddenly gains support of
external; when the conclusions of mechanical science
Y 2

324 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
are confirmed by the study of life or mind ; when
deductions from some general principle are met by
coincident results of observation and induction. It is
true in matters admitting of demonstration, that no
number of probabilities can make a certainty : but that
saying is not true in relation to the moral certainty, on
which so much of our life and the life of the world
depends. And I may add that this strength from
coincidence, while it must apply primarily to the
evidence, in which all agree, yet secondarily, by estab
lishing the credibility of each witness, attaches even to
that on which each speaks alone. It were well that
this fact, so well known in our law-courts, were more
often recognised in the courts of philosophical investi
gation. Hence, I think, the importance of the view, which
our consideration has brought before us, of the various
relations to multiform Science of the one Gospel of
Christ, which is indeed Christ Himself. On their
variety, as well as their number, their aggregate
force depends. Each, as it seems to me, has its
special lesson, yet all these lessons are to be read
into one.
Thus we considered, first, the striking relation of
the scientific discoveries in Heredity to the Christian
doctrine of Mediation, and of the scientific principle of
Evolution to the doctrine of the Incarnation, as at once
the consummation, ordained from the beginning, for
which all the natural order of the world of humanity
was the preparation, and the beginning of a higher
Supernatural Order, to pass hereafter into the yet

viii.] Various aspects of truth brought out. 325
higher perfection which we call heaven. That relation,
which is perhaps the most modern form of the great
truth of Analogy, tells us (I think) chiefly of the reality
of the Christian truth. It shows it now to our fuller
knowledge — substantially as our first great Anglican
theologian showed it to the knowledge of three hundred
years ago — as the supreme element of the Law Eternal,
of which the order of all human life and history is the
expression. It is the perfection, and not the contra
diction, of ' the Reign of Law ' ; which, if we are to
take the word ' Law ' in its only proper sense, is the
Reign of Supreme Will, the Reign of God.
Then, next, we passed from this to the elucidation
by increasing knowledge of certain elements of the
doctrine of Christ, which remained comparatively in
obscurity, if not in abeyance, in earlier times — as in
the new light thrown by our knowledge of the vastness
of the universe on the Apostolic teaching of the Head
ship of Christ, not only over humanity, but over all
created being in heaven and earth, and by our Social
Science, alike in its discoveries and its problems, on the
doctrine of the unity of all human society, as One Body
in Christ. The idea suggested here is rather of the
expansiveness of the Gospel, to meet new lights and
new needs ; which is the sure sign of a rich vitality in
it, capable of indefinite growth in a true development,
as distinct from the dead and inelastic symmetry of an
artificial system, which must necessarily have its day,
long or short, and then cease to be.
Lastly, the critical attitude of our modern science,
chiefly in its historical and literary aspects, towards the

326 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
Gospel, although at first sight it may appear to be
unsympathetic, even antagonistic — in respect both of
the Supernatural character of the Gospel itself, and of
the supreme authority of the Scripture, which expresses
it — yet has its function of distinction of what is of the
essence of both, and of examination of the evidence,
external and internal, on which it is based. Its
effect here is to bring out the solid simplicity, in the
true sense of the word, of the Gospel, as it is centred
in Christ Himself. Whatever is unreal, unsubstantial,
uncertain in our popular Christianity, it may well de
stroy. But the merely negative and destructive action
of criticism is at best secondary, and only preparatory
for the higher positive duty of discovery and test of the
real inner truth. We who believe in our heart of hearts
that He, who is Himself the Truth, is in the Gospel,
must welcome the most searching criticism, which may
bring us to rest on Him, and on Him alone.
It is in the combination of all these various forms of
investigation — each approaching the central object on a
different side — that the force of the resultant witness
lies. And that combination — to dwell once more on
that which has been touched again and again — depends
on the directness with which all lead us through
Christianity to Christ Himself — to His Manifestation,
as the crown of all revelations of God in the visible
Law and Order of His Creation — to the Light of His
Gospel, as that which, when the barriers of ignorance
are gradually thrown down, illumines more and more
all the breadth and length, and all the height and depth
of Being — to His Person as the Eternal Word of God,

viii.] The final rest on Faith. 327
in Himself the truth, and in His Gospel and His Church
the -Giver of truth to men. Each line of light con
verges to Him ; and all unite to form the brightness
which encompasses Him. So they guide us to Him ;
they claim for Him our homage. When they have
done this, their function is over.
For the rest we must have the guidance of Faith.
In His Face there is a glory above all else, spiritual,
transcendent, Divine. If it be as we believe, the Beve-
lation through the Incarnation of Godhead of all the
mysteries of heaven, it claims true Faith as its due.
The alternative to that Faith, as human thought more
and more clearly sees, is not Science, but Nescience — the
confession as to all ultimate Being of the unknown and
unknowable. To that Faith (be it always remembered)
we are drawn, not only by the understanding, but by
the conscience in its hunger and thirst after righteous
ness, by the heart in its inexhaustible capacity of re
verence and love, by the spirit in its ineradicable
aspiration after the Infinite and Eternal. Science, even
were it complete, could satisfy and develop but one part
of our nature, leaving the rest to an unsatisfied atrophy ;
while the knowledge, which is our life because it comes
from the Life Eternal, must appeal to and develop all.
We, who realize this character of the true knowledge,
have necessarily a twofold position in relation to Science.
If Science, as we ordinarily understand the word, claims
to be the sole and all-sufficient knowledge of God and
Man, then, like the Law in St. Paul's days, claiming
that absolute devotion which is worship, it will become
an idol ; and against idolatry Christian thought utters

328 Truth in Revelation. [lect.
continual and effective protest. To do this is a good
and a needful, if a painful, work. But if Science confess
its imperfection and limitation, as insufficient to meet
all the needs and capacities of humanity, it will be — as
I trust we have in some aspects seen that it is — a
Schoolmaster to lead us to Christ ; and I contend that
to welcome it in this its true character is not only a
higher and gladder work, but the one most urgently
needful in these our days.
The cry of Science is that, which escaped on the eve
of death from the lips of one of its great masters, for
'Light, more light.' Is there any loss here, men ask,
in these our days, of the force of the answer to that cry,
which is embodied in the motto of this ancient Univer
sity — Dominus illuminatio mea — the confession of faith
in Him who said ' I am the Truth,' ' I am the Light of
the World'?
I trust not : I believe not. There is much change,
no doubt, in the form and tone, in which that answer is
given now. It may be less plainly and soberly ex
pressed than in days gone by, in the law and order of
the common life, and in the good old conventions which
at once express and influence opinion. Men may specu
late (especially in the sanguine hopefulness and uncon
scious self-confidence of younger days) more freely —
nay, if you will, more wildly, — on great questions, which
the inherited life of past centuries once accepted, or
seemed to accept, as settled in themselves for ever, and
therefore only needing to be visibly represented in the
venerable beauty of this place, and embodied in its
institutions. Perhaps we of the older generation may

viii.] Dominus illuminatio mea. 329
be pardoned, if we sometimes think that in the growinc
tendency to specialism of study, even from early academic
days, there is some risk of being content with partial
and broken lights of truth, instead of recognising the
full Light, in which all are blended. But if it be true,
as they testify who best know, that, with a growth of
intellectual activity and culture, there is also at least
as high a standard as of old, not only of moral life, but
of free spiritual interest in the light and grace of God
in all their workings for humanity — then we, who are
confident that these things can come only from One
Divine Source, must see in them still not only the
reality, but the recognition, of the old truth — freer per
haps, and therefore with all the inevitable irregularities,
but therefore also with the intensity and reality, of free
dom. For the sake of all who have part in. the life of
this place — for the sake of the country and the Church,
on which that life must be a leading influence for evil
and for good — God grant that this our belief and hope
may be justified by the reality ! If freedom of thought,
feeling, action, grow from more to more, yet the word
of Christ remains, ' I am the Truth,' ' In My Word ye
shall know the Truth,' and it is ' the Truth' only, which
' shall make vou free.'

NOTES.

Note A, p. 3.
It is important to emphasize this sense of personal relation
to a Supreme Personality as of the very essence of Christian
faith. For the word ' Faith,' like other words which have
their true home in the religious sphere, is now apt to be
loosely used of all intuitions of truth short of demonstration,
and especially of the inference, from things visible and tangible,
and so within the reach of observation, of the invisible
principles underlying these, which cannot be discovered by
observation and are incapable of logical proof, but which are
the necessary guides of observation and thought and are con
tinually verified by results.
Now, it is notable that, in the one passage of the New
Testament, which gives us an abstract definition of faith (Heb.
xi), the first opening of that definition corresponds to this
wide genei-alifcy; for it speaks of it as 'the substantiation of
things hoped for, and the test of things not seen ' ((XinCoy-ivoiv
VTroo-rao-LS, Trpayn&Teov e\eyxos ov j3\.eTrop,eva>v). This is simply
what in modern language would be called ' the realization of
the Invisible,' in the present and in the future. In this sense
it might include all the highest actions of our complex nature,
through its intellectual and aesthetic, through its moral and
spiritual faculties — all, in fact, which constitutes the true
humanity in us, as superior to the capacities working within
the sphere of sense, which are plainly shared by us with the
animal creation. The inclusion is deeply significant ; for it

332 Note A.
implies that this general action of our humanity is (so to speak)
the raw material of the true faith, which is to be unfolded
in the following verses; so that this faith is emphatically
natural to man as man, an integral element of his spiritual
nature. But starting from this general definition, the whole chapter
goes on to stamp upon faith its own proper impress, bringing
out, in relation both to the visible world and the course of
human history, the reference of all these invisible principles to
a Divine Personality; and this closer and more definite con
ception of faith, implied in every line, comes out explicitly in
ver. 27, where it is described as seeing not merely the Invisible
(T6 aoparov) but Him who is Invisible (Ton aoparov). Except
in the consciousness of this personal relation, all the glorious
description of Faith and its fruits would be unmeaning and
unintelligible. When we pass from this particular passage to examine the
general use of the word faith in the New Testament, especially
in the writings of St. Paul — tracing it through the phases of
the Credo Deum and Credo Deo up to the Credo in Deum — it is
obvious that this essentially personal character continually
grows in clearness and intensity. It is the one means of the
living consciousness of God as our God ; it is not the idea of
Christ, but it is Christ Himself, who ' dwells in the heart by
faith.' Necessarily it perfects itself in the love which can
attach only to personality : for ' he, that loveth not, knoweth
not the God who is Love.'
Nothing less than this is faith in the Christian sense. We
may accept the vaguer meanings given to the word, so far as
they are preparations for this higher and more definite
meaning. But such acceptance must be under protest, so that
it may not obscure the nature of the real crucial difference
between faith and unbelief — that the one realizes, and the
other denies or ignores or doubts, the Divine Personality, as
having ' covenant ' of relation, or rather of unity, with the

Note B. 333
personality of man. For it is just this characteristic of faith,
which opens it, on the one hand, to the most childlike sim
plicity, and makes it, on the other, the rest of the maturest
thought. Note B, p. 6.
Law (says our first great Anglican theologian), is 'That
which doth assign unto each thing the kind, that which doth
moderate the force and power, that which doth appoint the
force and measure of working . . . for some foreconceived
end for which it worketh' (Hooker's Eccl. Pol. Book I. c. ii.
sect. i). Properly (as he goes on to say) it is imposed by a
superior Will : but he chooses to use it, with due explanation,
of that which is self-imposed with a view to a fore-ordained
end ; as in ' the Law Eternal, which God before all ages set
down for Himself to do all things by,' or, as in what St.
Paul calls for men, 'the law of liberty,' 'the law which they
are to themselves.'
But in any case it is essentially the expression of Power,
Purpose, Will. To use it for a mere formula, declaring, with
out explaining, a recurrence of facts in simple antecedence
and consequence, is not only theoretically improper, but
practically delusive — transferring to what is a mere descrip
tion of mode something of that idea of Cause, secondary or
primary, which attaches to the word 'Law' in its proper
sense. Many difficulties and controversies would have been
spared, if it had been always remembered that, for instance,
the 'Law of Gravitation' is simply the enunciation of an
universal fact, and the ' Law of Evolution ' a description of
order and method. Behind the Law, so understood, lies the
investigation of Cause. But even to use the word in reference
to a First Cause, recognised as a merely Impersonal Power,
whether a material force or a diffused life, is, to say the least,
an ambiguous and questionable use. The fact is, that in
both cases the instinctive and universal conceptions implied

334 Note 'C
in human language, and apparently incapable of eradication
from it, bear testimony against the ambiguities or negations,
which seek to express themselves in that language.

Note C, p. 59.
A Theology, which starts practically from Original sin,
and not from Original righteousness, overborne in man but
never lost, cannot well claim to be in a true sense Scriptural,
however- it may press into its service certain passages from
Scripture. But yet, as all men, who study human life and
nature, incline to Pessimism on the one hand, or Optimism on
the other, so, in different minds and under different conditions,
Christian Theology, however orthodox, has been coloured by
predominance, now of the deep sense of sin and the misery
which it brings on humanity, now of the still deeper sense
of the ineradicable good in that humanity, in spite of its
acknowledged imperfection and corruption.
Accordingly, although the truth of Christ must be seen
by all to rest foursquare, as in the Apostles' Creed, on the
Incarnation, the Passion for us, the Resurrection and the
Ascension to the right hand of God, yet it may be said that,
in the one case, Theology tends to a Gospel primarily of the
Atonement, going back to the Incarnation as a preparation
for it, and in the other to a Gospel of the Incarnation,
implying a Mediation in which the Atonement is included
as the leading and determining element. To this division,
moreover, of speculative Theology there corresponds, as
always, a certain practical distinction — in preaching between
a preaching mainly of Conversion and Justification, and a
preaching of Sanctification and Edification — in view of life,
between the view, ascetic or Puritan, which flees from the
world, as sinful and so antagonistic to God and to redeemed
humanity, and the view, which embraces all knowledge and
culture, all social affection and duty, all joy and brightness

Note C. 335
in the world, as parts of man's original birthright, never
wholly lost, and now restored to man in the Kingdom of
Christ. In the earlier centuries, as we see by the great Catholic
Creeds, and by the controversies out of which they emerged,
it is this latter Theology which is distinctly predominant.
It is on the mystery of the Incarnation, as the manifestation
of the Godhead in the true Son of Man, and the union of
the two Natures in Him, a\n0&s, reAicos, dSiatpe'rwj, ao-vyxyTais,
that, as in the Nicene Creed, the whole stress is laid. Of
the Atonement it is held sufficient to say, that ' for us men
and for our salvation, He came down from Heaven, and was
incarnate . . . and was crucified for us.' It was in the West
— struggling for conversion of the Empire and the barbarians,
and in this struggle painfully conscious of the engrained
power of sin, both in its subtler and its cruder forms —
rather than in the more thoughtful and philosophical East,
that, through the Pelagian Controversy and the Augustinian
Theology, the Gospel of the Atonement assumed a prominence,
which for centuries it retained, and which was certainly (as
all the various Articles of the Sixteenth Century bear witness)
brought out with fresh strength and intensity at the Refor
mation. But in our own days it seems plain that in this,
as in some other points of faith, we are forced to go back —
not, of course, without important modifications, embodying
what the later forms of Theology have taught us — to the older
Theology of the First Centuries, and so to the Gospel of the
Incarnation, in all the breadth and fulness of its meaning.
We observe that the course of the Christology of the
Apostolic age is from the first proclamation of the risen Christ,
as the 'Lord and King,' to the 'Christ crucified,' whom St.
Paul preached at Corinth, glorying in the Cross, which was a
stumbling-block to the Pharisaism of the Jew, and foolishness
to the intellectuality of the Greek ; and next, from the Christ
crucified to the Christ incarnate, the Eternal Son of God,

336 Note D.
tabernacling in human flesh, who is the great subject of
the later Epistles of St. Paul and the writings of St. John.
The progress was natural ; for the spiritual meaning of the
Resurrection to humanity at large depended on the reality
of the Atonement, as the conquest of sin for all mankind ;
and the possibility of the one Atonement for all rested on
the Incarnation of Infinite Godhead in the Great Sufferer.
So only, it may be, could the stupendous truth of God
made man, the Infinite incarnate in the finite, be grasped
through gradual development of Christian faith. We, ' on
whom the ends of the world are come,' have to enter upon
the fulness of this development. While we use all these forms
of the proclamation of Christ, we must rest ultimately on that
which is at once largest and deepest. In relation to all
practical and social life, we still claim all the kingdoms
of the world to be the kingdom of the risen Christ. In our
struggle against sin and misery, we still preach the doctrine
of the Cross, as the one only truth which can light up its
darkness — the measure of the sinfulness of sin and the
measure of redeeming Love. But, if we have to go down
to the foundation of all truth, claiming all the thought
and will of humanity for God, we have to teach beyond
all else the doctrine of the sublime opening of the Fourth
Gospel — the doctrine (that is) of the Eternal Word, taking
to Himself our human nature, and making it in Himself one
with God. Note D, p. 60.
It is impossible not to note the profound psychological
truth, underlying the simplicity of the narrative of the Book
of Genesis, when we look at it in itself, rejecting all the fabric
of unreality, which human speculation and imagination have
raised upon it, and putting aside for a time even the fuller
Scriptural treatment of the subject in subsequent revelations.
The origination of evil in the race, as there described,

Note D. 337
corresponds most closely with what our daily experience
discloses, as the ordinary process of its origination in the
individual. It is shown, first, as using appeal to desires innate
in man, both physical and spiritual— desires natural in them
selves, but apt to break their proper subordination to the
control of a supreme Law of righteousness in the Divine Will.
It is described, next, as receiving its first impulse by tempta
tion from a spiritual power of evil, deliberately using this
perverted force of desire, and denying or misrepresenting the
Law, which should restrain it. Such power over the individual
is famifiar to us as exercised by evil men ; in the origination
of evil in the race, it is described as coming from some super
natural power, impersonated in the false wisdom of the
serpent. Its essential character is then shown as the claim of
a false independence of God — the desire in man to be ' as a
god' to himself. In it he assumes the right to know both
good and evil — obedience (that is) and resistance to the Divine
Will — as distinct principles of conduct, and to choose between
them as by an inherent right, instead of knowing and loving
only what is good as his true life, and recognising evil simply
as the unnatural and monstrous negation of that good. In
respect again of the penalties of sin, the narrative dwells only
on its plain physical penalties, of labour and weariness and
fruitlessness on the one hand, of suffering and subjection to
bondage on the other — both shared by all humanity, though
apportioned in predominance to the two sexes — and the
natural end of these in physical decay and death. The
heavier spiritual penalty is but implied in the sublime irony
of the passage, ' their eyes were opened, and they knew that
they were naked'; for the sense of shame is the instinctive
cowering of the sinful from the sight of God, in conscious
helplessness and guilt, awaiting His righteous judgment.
In accordance with the true order of God's Word, what is here
only implied, is left to be wrought out explicitly in the more
advanced stages of His revelation ; in which death physical,

338 Note E.
in the withdrawal of the breath of life, is seen as a symbol of
the death spiritual, in the loss of the higher life of the Spirit
of God. From all, finally, there is given a promise of deliver
ance, not without struggle and suffering, by ' the seed of the
woman' — obviously clear as to its reality, while absolutely
mysterious as to the character and method of its fulfilment —
again a Protevangelium, to be developed hereafter.
It would be difficult to find a more striking exemplification,
first of the ' double sense ' of Holy Scripture — the profound
teaching to the maturity of human thought in the fulness of
times, through the simpncity capable of being in measure
understood in the childhood of the race, and, next, — in com
parison with human mythologies and philosophical specula
tions as to the origin and character of evil — of what St. Paul
means when he declares that ' the foolishness of God is wiser
than men.'
Note E, p. 75.
The text of these Articles is an instructive illustration of
the ruthless dogmatism, to which the resolute uncompromising
logic of a religious Determinism can lead. Even as some
what timidly softened by the Bishops, they run thus : —
1. Deus ab aeterno praedestinavit quosdam ad vitam,
quosdam reprobavit ad mortem.
2. Causa movens praedestinationis ad vitam non est prae-
visio fidei, aut perseverantiae, aut bonorum operum, aut ullius
rei quae insit in personis praedestinatis, sed sola voluntas
beneplaciti Dei.
3. Praedestinatorum definitus et certus est numerus, qui
nee augeri nee minui potest.
4. Qui non sunt praedestinati ad salutem necessario propter
peccata sua damnabuntur.
5. Vera, vera, et justificans Fides, et Spiritus Dei justifi-
canter non exstinguitur, non excidit, non evanescit in electis,
aut finaliter, aut totaliter.

Note E. 339
6. Homo vere fidelis, i.e. fide justificante praeditus, certus
est, plerophoria fidei, de remissione peccatorum suorum et
salute sempiterna sua per Christum.
7. Gratia salutaris non tribuitur, non communicatur, non con-
ceditur, universis hominibus, qua servari possint, si voluerint.
8. Nemo potest venire ad Christum, nisi datum ei fuerit, et
nisi Pater eum traxerit. Et omnes homines non trahuntur a
Patre, ut veniant ad Filium.
9. Non est positum in arbitrio aut potestate uniuscujusque
hominis salvari.
Those, who read these terrible utterances in the light of
earlier theological speculation, will see how they deliber
ately close every loophole of escape from the absolute iron
Determinism, which, in the sense of the Sovereignty of God,
utterly loses and abjures the true individuality of man. It is
no wonder that those who believed them, or thought that they
believed them, were dissatisfied with the Lutheran doctrine
of ' Justification by faith,' which, if it rightly places the origin
of salvation in God's Love in Christ, yet by the very re
quirement of faith evidently implies some fellow-working
of human will, asserting itself that it may surrender itself.
Still less is it surprising, that they should have been utterly
discontented with what have been ignorantly called our
' Calvinistic Articles' (Art. XVI, XVII).
For the XVIIth Article, while, closely following the very
words of Holy Scripture, it dwells on the whole process of
salvation, from the Supreme Will and grace of God, through
all the steps of cab", obedience to that call through grace,
justification, adoption, conformation to the image of Christ
and religious walking in good works ; yet (a) is resolutely
silent as to reprobation to death, (b) continually implies
the fellow-working of man, (c) positively declines to make
Election a fundamental Article of the Faith to be pon
dered by all, and (d) declares that we are to receive
God's promises, as they are set forth generaliter (that is to
z 2

34o Note F.
all mankind) in Holy Scripture, and not to presume to enter
into the secret Will of God. The XVIth Article expressly
acknowledges that, ' after we have received the Holy Ghost,
we may depart from grace given and fall into sin, and by
the grace of God, we may arise again and amend our lives.'

Note F, p. 126.
St. Augustine, He Genesi adZitteram, c. xxiii, has a remarkable
passage (referred to but not quoted by Mr. Moore), curiously
anticipating the course of evolutional speculation. He first
traces the gradual growth of a tree, in stem and branches, in
leaves and fruit, from the seed, in which (he says) ' ilia omnia
fuerunt primitus, non mole corporese magnitudines, sed vi
potentiaque causali. . . . Quid enim ex arbore ilia surgit aut
pendet, quod non ex quodam occulto thesauro seminis illius
extractum atque depromtum sit 1 ' He then proceeds to draw
out substantially that analogy between the growth of the
individual being and the evolution of the sum of all beings,
with which we are now familiar : ' Sicut in ipso grano invisi-
biliter erant omnia simul, quae per tempora in arborem surge-
rent, ita ipse mundus cogitandus est, cum Deus simul omnia
creavit, habuisse simul omnia quae in illo et cum illo facta
sunt . . . sed potentialiter et causaliter, priusquam per tem-
porum moras ita exorirentur.' This opinion of St. Augustine
is referred to in the passage from St. Thomas Aquinas, of
which Mr. Moore gives a translation : ' Alii enim expositores
dicunt quod plantse productte sunt actu in suis speciebus . . .
secundum quod superficies litterse sonet. Augustinus autem
dicit quod causaliter tunc dictum est produxisse terram herbam
et lignum, id est producendi accepisse virtutem . . . Ante ergo
quam orirentur super terram, factse sunt causaliter in terra.
Confirmatur autem hoc etiam ratione, quia in illis primis
diebus condidit Deus creaturam originaliter vel causaliter, a
quo opere postmodum requievit, qui tamen postmodum secun-

Notes G, H. 341
dum administrationem rerum conditarum per opus propa
gations usque modo operatur. . . . Non ergo in tertia die
productse sunt plantse in actu sed causaliter tantum ' (Summa
Theologies, pars prima, qusest. lxix. Art. ii).

Note G, p. 162.
The original of this remarkable passage (Oratio contra Gentes,
sect, xiii.) is here subjoined: —
Autos yovv 6 iravTobvvapos Kal Travreketos ayios 6 rod FTarpos
Aoyos. «ri/3ds rots irotn Kal Ttavrayov ras eavrov Svvap:eis eipairkd-
o-as, (cat Cameras ra re <paiv6p.eva Kal ra aopara Travra, els eavrov
crvvixei Kal ouo-fpCyyet, p-qbev eprjpov rrjs eavrov bvvdpecos a-nokekoi-
Ttas, dkka iravra Kal bid irdvrcov Kal e/cacrroi> Ibtq, Kal adpows opov
ra oka £u>oiioiG>v /cat bia<pvkaTTo&v' ras re dp^dy Trdo-qs alcrdrjTrjs
oicrias atirep etcu 8epp.a Kal \jrvxpa Kal vypa, Kal frjpd els ez> ovyKe-
pavvva>v . . . piav Kal avpcpaivov diroreAet app.ovi.av . . . Olov yap el tls
kvpav iJ.ov<nKbs appoadpevos Kal rd /3apea rots d£e<n Kal ra pecra
rots &Kpois rfj Te\vrj avvayaydtv, iv rd o~rip.aiv6p.evov pekos aTtore-
kolrj' otjtcos Kal 17 tov &eov 2o$ta, to okov as kvpav eneyaiv, Kal ra,
ev aepi rots Im yrjs crvvayayibv, Kal ra ev oipaviS rots ev depi, Kal ra
oka rots Kara p.epos avvaTTToov Kal Trepidywv r(3 eauroC vor/pari koX
dek.rip.aTi, eva tov Kocrpov Kal piav rr\v tovtov tA£iv aitoTekel, Kak&s
Kal fipp.oa-p.evtt)s, avros pev d/az>?j™s pevoiv irapd rco ITarpt.

Note H, p. 208.
The portion of the Sermon on the Mount, which is usually
known as its Law, is the second section (Matt. v. 17-48).
It begins with the famous declaration that in it our Lord
does ' not destroy the Law and the Prophets ' — the moral
element of the old Covenant, as expressed both in the sternness
of the Mosaic Law, and the freer and more spiritual teaching
of the Prophets—' but perfects ' it by His own higher au
thority. It ends in the sublime ideal of our moral life, as an
z.3

34 2 Note H.
imitation of God : ' Be ye perfect, as your Father, which is in
heaven, is perfect.'
But this perfecting of the Law shews itself under different
aspects. First, in relation to the sixth and seventh Command
ments, it simply strengthens and spiritualizes the Law, as
still Law. It carries into far stronger and wider develop
ment the prohibition of evil and selfish passions, both of
violence and of lust, extending that prohibition from action
to word and thought, and enforcing it with a far greater
sternness than that of the Law of old time. Next, in relation
to the third Commandment it more distinctly idealizes the
Law. From the prohibition of false swearing, which ' takes
God's Name in vain,' it rises to the command of that pure,
instinctive truthfulness, which needs not the sacredness of
the oath to sustain it, and which reverences all that marks
the presence of God too much to invoke it rashly. Lastly,
in relation to the law of retaliation and to the recognition of
friend and enemy in the battle of life, it leads the disciples
of Christ to rise above law and its stern unvarying justice,
in all that concerns their own interest and rights— to decline
to accept the protection or vengeance against evil, which all
law, which has to keep together an imperfect human society,
must offer— to refuse to meet evil by evil, and to be ready by
forgiveness, love, blessing of our enemies, to overcome evil
with good.
Of this threefold application of the principle of this perfec
tion of the Law, no difficulty can be felt in theory, although
infinite failure is confessed in practice, as to the first and
second elements. The first is felt simply to enforce, in the
usual sense of the phrase, obedience to the spirit rather than
the letter of the law ; the second bears merely a striking
witness to the truth, that one great function of law is to foster
the growth of character, and that character, when fully and
rightly developed, goes beyond all legal requirement. These
two truths come home to us without difficulty; the verdict

Note H. 343
of conscience upon them is but clenched by a Divine authority.
But it is on the third — the law of absolute self-sacrifice, in
non-resistance and unbmited forgiveness of evil, that serious
thought often does feel difficulty, not because the law is too
hard for flesh and blood, but because it seems to ignore jus
tice, and accordingly to tend to the disintegration of society.
Of course it belongs to individual action, in that region of
our experience, which is beyond and above law. The old
command of retaliation properly (see Ex. xxi. 24, Lev. xxiv.
20, Deut. xix. 21) applied to the national enforcement of law,
and to those who were charged with it. They cannot put it
altogether aside, although they may make punishment, not
a matter of crude and simple retribution, but a deterrence
from crime and a chastisement of the criminal for his refor
mation. When San Carlo Borromeo, the great Archbishop of
Milan, was fired at in his own chapel by a villain whom he
had had to punish ecclesiastically, he forgave the assassin,
and dismissed him with kindness. But the Government of
the day seized him, and punished him. It could not do what
in his own individual person the saintly Archbishop felt
himself free to do. For the authority which rules a people
is, as has been well said, simply the trustee and guardian
of the rights and welfare of the nation at large, and of its
individual citizens. Even the community of one generation
is similarly placed in charge of the whole of the national
mission and life. Each nation, again, has a trust of responsi
bility for the peace and order and welfare of the world. All
must, if need be, defend this trust against wrong. To sur
render it would be to give up that which is our own.
But, even in regard of individual action, we must still beware
of the error of resting on the letter, which, under changed
circumstances, must change, and not on the principle, which
is unchanging. As to the letter — that Our Lord intended
His command of non-resistance to evil and absolute self-
sacrifice to be literally obeyed by His immediate disciples.

344 Note H.
we cannot well doubt. By that simple manifestation of love,
as in Himself so in them, a new commandment was to be
established, a new witness for peace borne to the world. That
still by those who take up directly His Divine mission to men,
this same witness has to be borne, and is borne effectively,
exactly in the same way, the whole tenour of our missionary
enterprise and the special witness of its martyrdoms most
plainly show. As to the spirit — that His command applies
to all time in the principle of an unbmited forgiveness and
sacrifice, so far as it can be, of our own pride, our own
interests, even our own rights, if by such sacrifice we can
serve and win others, is equally certain ; and the more in our
own life we can carry it out, the better will it be for us and
for humanity.
In the practical obedience, however, to that command, there
is a grave consideration, which cannot be put from us, that,
while we can unreservedly sacrifice self if we will, we cannot
disregard the good of others — the good of the offender himself,
for whom it may well be better that he should be restrained
and punished for evil-doing — the good of ¦ society, which
certainly and mainly depends on the maintenance of law
and justice.
The consideration extends beyond even this immediate
subject. It clearly applies to all individual self-assertion and
self-defence, in relation to others and in relation to society at
large. This may for the same reasons become in right measure
a duty; it may even be a needful contribution to the true
welfare of the whole. Just as unhappily in the England
of the nineteenth century we cannot literally ' give to every
man who asks,' lest we should do evil, instead of good, to
him and to the world, so an absolute sacrifice of self, not to
the service of God, but to the service of men, may unwit
tingly infringe the great laws of freedom and righteousness,
by which He is pleased to govern humanity.
The right discrimination in this matter is difficult at all

Note I. 345
times ; and in a complex civilization like our own, it is far
more difficult than under the simpler conditions of earlier
days. It is but too easy, moreover, to cheat ourselves into
the belief, that we are yielding to this larger sense of duty,
when we are really shrinking from self-sacrifice. But yet
the difficulty and the danger of self-delusion have to be faced.
There are times, when, in order to keep our Lord's command
in the spirit, we have to break it in the letter. Happiest are
they, to whom such times come but seldom.
Note I, p. 311.
The present tendency of criticism as to the predictive
element of Prophecy, shews an extreme reaction from that
older opinion, which, as is seen in common parlance, identified
Prediction with Prophecy (even pressing into its service a
false etymology of the word ' prophet '), or at least held
Prediction to be its all-important element, and which was
accordingly inclined to trace fulfilments of prophecy every
where without sufficient ground. It has been rightly seen
that the Prophet is simply one who speaks for God, because
' the Word of God comes to him,' and ' the Spirit of God is
upon him ' ; that his true mission is to set forth the eternal
Law of Righteousness and Love, in relation to the present
at least as much as to the future ; that some of the greatest
prophets, such as Elijah and St. John Baptist, foretold (so
far as we know) little or nothing ; that even the great
Prophet of prophets Himself made prediction but a small
part of His prophetic office; that many of the supposed
fulfilments of Prophecy have been on critical investigation
found to be arbitrary or at least uncertain. Accordingly
there has been a tendency to ignore, if not to deny, the pre
dictive element of Prophecy altogether, so far as it involves
anything of supernatural foresight. That tendency has been
sometimes expressed with great boldness, as for instance by

346 Note I.
critics of the school of Kuenen ; even where it is not unhesi
tatingly accepted, it has shown itself in some inclination to
deny prediction or to explain it away, at least in the great
mass of the instances, which were once familiarly known and
accepted. It is necessary, therefore, for those who accept the authority
of our Lord and His Apostles on this matter, to remind
themselves, that, although prediction is but a subordinate
element in Prophecy, it is a real, and, if we may so say, a
natural, element in the prophet's Mission. The Prophet
claimed to be able to enter, in the measure granted him,
into the mind of God, to whom past, present, and future
are all one. The power of prediction, especially where no
visible miracle was wrought, was one unmistakeable sign
that this claim was a true claim ; and it should be noted
that, so far as the prophets formed a recognised succession,
the fulfilment of the prediction of an older prophet might
in this respect give authority to the utterances of his suc
cessors. But, beyond this, since the prophet had to show
clearly to men the working of the righteous Will of God in
human history, and since ' the mill of God grinds slowly,
though it grind exceeding small,' it might often be that the
present generation was not sufficient to display that working
adequately, and that accordingly he who interpreted the
mind of God, might need to see in measure, as He sees
perfectly, the germs of the future in the present, and to extend
his view, and the view of his hearers, to the ages to come ;
and this, moreover, definitely or indefinitely, as God might
give him power. Lastly, if this predictive power is natural
in itself to those, who speak for God, it was certainly specially
appropriate to a religion, which, like that of Israel, ' had its
golden age in the future,' and in which all the various
elements were avowedly preparatory and anticipatory of that
future perfection. Since, moreover, this future undoubtedly
centred round a Messiah to come, all prophetic predictions

Note I. 347
would appropriately gather, in greater or less degree, round
Himself and His kingdom, either as distinctly 'Messianic'
in personal reference to the King, or ' Evangelical' in
anticipation of the spiritual character of that kingdom.
Given, we may say, the reality of Prophetic Inspiration
and of the Messianic anticipation, the reality of this power
of prediction becomes, so to speak, natural in the supernatural
sphere. It is, therefore, no wonder that the prophets of old time
did undoubtedly assert this power; that our Lord Himself
and His Apostles as unquestionably took it for granted, and
appealed to it in them ; and that, as in His discourse on the
eve of the Passion, He plainly exercised it Himself. It is
unnecessary to quote special instances on this matter. The
whole tenour, both of Old Testament Prophecy, and of the
New Testament teaching, is unintelligible without it; the
plainest declarations would have to be taken in a singularly
' non-natural sense.' Every instance in detail of the apparent
non-fulfilment of this or that prophecy constitutes a difficulty,
which must be fairly and candidly met. Of such difficulties
some may be, and have been, solved ; others to our present
knowledge remain insoluble. But, if it is true that, for the
supernatural reality of predictive power in general, we have
the authority of Him, who ' expounded to His disciples in all
the prophets, the things concerning Himself,' and ' to whom,' as
the Apostolic testimony declares, 'all the prophets bear witness,'
these difficulties will be in a literal sense ' trials of faith.'
The criticism, which holds to the opinion that prophecy
is but 'fallible anticipation' of what wise and good men
think likely to be under God's dispensation, protests (as
through Kuenen) against what it calls 'the absolutism' of
the view, that 'it must either abandon its idea of the work
of the Israelitish prophets, or deny all value to the twofold
testimony of the New Testament, and even to the life and the
word of Jesus.' But it is hard to see what third course is

348 Note I.
really open. No doubt there are cases of what the writer calls
' application ' as distinct from ' interpretation,' and ' homiletic
employment of the Old Testament ' as distinct from ' exposi
tion.' But these are very far from covering the whole ground ;
and the only way of setting aside the many cases, which are
plainly interpretations and expositions, is avowed to be by
questioning ' the authority of the New Testament ' — which, if
our records be genuine, is that of our Lord and His Apostles —
' in the domain of Exegesis.'
Here, as in the cognate sphere of visible miracle, it is well
to see that the real issue is of the existence of the supernatural
in the whole dispensation, of which the Incarnation is the
centre.

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