YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

CHRISTIANITY AND MORALITY

THE BOYLE LECTURES

FOR 1874-5

'"All this means only morality.' Ah! how far
nearer to the truth would these men have been
had they said that morality means all this." —
Coleridge. Aids to Reflection. Conclusion.

CHRISTIANITY AND MORALITY
OR THE CORRESPONDENCE OF THE
GOSPEL WITH THE MORAL
NATURE OF MAN
THE BOYLE LECTURES
FOR 1874 AND 1875
BY HENRY WACE M.A.
CHAPLAIN OF LINCOLN'S INN
PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN KING'S
COLLEGE LONDON

THIRD EDITION
LONDON
BASIL MONTAGU PICKERING
196 PICCADILLY 1877

TO MY WIFE

IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE

OF LABOUR SHARED AND FAITH SUPPORTED

PREFACE.
' I %HE general subject of the two courses of Boyle
Lectures contained in this volume is the Evi
dence in behalf of the Christian Faith afforded by the
Moral Nature of Man. The author proposed to deal
more particularly with those objections which, ad
mitting the supreme obligation of Morality, deny that
it requires any such religious support or superstructure
as Christianity affords. Starting from the sense of
Right and Wrong, he has endeavoured to show that
it can only be explained upon the supposition of our
standing in intimate relation to a spiritual world and
to a Divine Person, and that it involves spiritual
cravings for which Christianity alone offers an ade
quate satisfaction. He has at the same time attempted
to vindicate Christian Truths from some of the mis
apprehensions which are displayed respecting them

viii PREFACE.
in current objections, and to exhibit their correspon
dence with the conscience and the experience of Man.
In the second course of Lectures this general sub
ject is treated with especial reference to the objections
prominently urged of late, especially by Mr. Matthew
Arnold and Mr. W. R. Greg, against the possibility
of our recognizing a Personal God, and of receiving a
supernatural Revelation from Him. Speaking gene
rally, the author has endeavoured in the first course of
Lectures to exhibit the moral and spiritual reality of
Christian truths ; while in the second course he has
dealt with the vital question of the validity of the
primary assumptions which those truths involve.
January, 1876.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE SECOND EDITION.
T N this edition the text has been carefully revised,
and in some instances, as in the Lecture on The
Province of Faith, the argument has been more fully
or more clearly developed. In this part of his task
the author has been greatly assisted by the criticisms
bestowed upon his work, and he takes this opportunity
of expressing his gratitude for the generous appre
ciation with which his efforts have been received.
November, 1876.

ADVERTISEMENT TO THE THIRD EDITION.
'T'HE present edition is a reprint of the Second.
October, 1877.

EXTRACT FROM A CODICIL TO THE LAST
WILL AND TESTAMENT OF THE
HON. ROBERT BOYLE.
Dated July 28, 1691.
" T T 7HEREAS I have an intention to settle in
» V my lifetime the sum of Fifty Pounds per
annum for ever, or at least for a considerable number
of years, to be for an annual salary for some learned
Divine or Preaching Minister, from time to time to
be elected and resident within the City of London or
circuit of the Bills of Mortality, who shall be enjoined
to perform the offices following, viz. — To preach Eight
-Sermons in the year, for Proving the Christian Re
ligion against notorious Infidels, viz., Atheists, Theists,
Pagans, Jews, and Mahometans, not descending lower
to any controversies that are among Christians them
selves ; these Lectures to be on the first Monday of
the respective months of January, February, March,
April, May, September, October, November, in such
church as my trustees herein named shall from
time to time appoint j1 to be assisting to all Com-
1 The Boyle Lectures are now preached in the Chapel Royal,
Whitehall, on some of the Sundays following Easter Day, in
the afternoon.

xii EXTRACT FROM WILL OF HON. R. BOYLE.
panies, and encouraging of them in any undertaking
for Propagating the Christian Religion in foreign
parts ; to be ready to satisfy such real scruples as
any may have concerning these matters, and to
answer such new objections and difficulties as may be
started, to which good answers have not yet been
made  I will that after my death Sir
John Rotherham, Serjeant-at-Law, Sir Henry Ashurst,
of London, Knight and Baronet, Thomas Tennison,
Doctor in Divinity, and John Evelyn, sen., Esq., and
the survivors or survivor of them, and such person or
persons as the survivor of them shall appoint to
succeed in the following trust, shall have the election
and nomination of such Lecturer, and also shall and
may constitute and appoint him for any term not ex
ceeding three years, and at the end of such term shall
make a new election and appointment of the same or
any other learned Minister of the Gospel, residing
within the City of London or extent of the Bills of
Mortality, at their discretions."

Page

CONTENTS.

FIRST COURSE.
Lecture I. The Character of the Prevalent
Doubt  i
Romans i. 16. " For I am not ashamed of the
Gospel of Christ ; for it is the power of God unto
salvation to every one that believeth."
Lecture II. The Primary Motive or Ultimate
Desire  17
Matthew v. 3 . " Blessed are the poor in spirit ;
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."
Lecture III. Righteousness a Personal Rela
tion  36
Romans i. 28. " They did not like to retain
God in their knowledge."
Lecture IV. The Divine Personality . . 55
Isaiah Iv. 8, 9. " For my thoughts are not
your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,
saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your
ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."

xiv CONTENTS.
Page
Lecture V. The Practical Problem ... 73
Romans i. 18. "For the wrath of God is
revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men."
Lecture VI. The Principle of Atonement . 93
1 JOHN ii. 1, 2. "My little children, these
things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if
any man sin, we have an advocate with the
Father, Jesus Christ the righteous : and He is
the propitiation for our sins."
Lecture VII. The Meaning of Justification . 113
Romans v. 1. " Therefore being justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord
Jesus Christ."
Lecture VIII. The Method of Sanctification . 138
ROMANS viii. 22, 23. " For we know that the
whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain to
gether until now. And not only they, but our
selves also, which have the firstfruits of the
Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves,
waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption
of our body."

SECOND COURSE.
Lecture I. The Province of Faith . .169
Romans i. 17. " For therein is the righteous
ness of God revealed from faith to faith ; as it is
written, The just shall live by faith."

Lecture IT. The Witness of Conscience to a
Personal God 
Psalm cxxxix. i. " O Lord, Thou hast searched
me, and known me."

189

CONTENTS. xv
j Paee
Lecture III. The Witness of Conscience to a
Moral Creator  205
Psalm cxxxix. 14. " I will praise Thee ; for I
am fearfully and wonderfully made : marvellous
are Thy works ; and that my soul knoweth right
well."
Lecture IV. The Witness of Conscience to a
Moral Governor  221
Psalm cxxxix. 8-10. " If I ascend up into
heaven, Thou art there : if I make my bed in hell,
behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of
the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of
the sea ; even there shall Thy hand lead me, and
Thy right hand shall hold me."
Lecture V. The Moral Witness to Jesus Christ 239
1 John i. 3. " That which we have seen and
heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have
fellowship with us ; and truly our fellowship is with
the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."
Lecture VI. The General Evidence of Reve
lation  258
Hebrews i. 1, 2. " God, who at sundry times
and in divers manners s pake in time past unto the
fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days
spoken unto us by His Son."
Lecture VII. The Doctrine of the Trinity a
Moral Revelation  275
2 Corinthians xiii. 14. " The grace of the
Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the
communion .of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.
Amen."
Lecture VIII. The Travail of the Creation . 294
Romans viii. 19. " For the earnest expecta
tion of the creature waiteth for the manifestation
of the sons of God."

BOYLE LECTURES

FIRST COURSE

1874

LECTURE I.
CHARACTER OF THE PREVALENT DOUBT.
Romans i. vy. ®°~
" For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ ; for it is the
power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth."
THE Lecturer on this Foundation is enjoined to
preach eight sermons in the year " for proving
the Christian Religion against notorious Infidels — viz.,
Atheists, Theists, Pagans, Jews? and Mahometans —
not descending lower, to any controversies that are
among Christians themselves." It would seem to be
the first duty of any one entrusted with this com
mission to endeavour to ascertain what are the
peculiar forms of unbelief against which it is most
urgent at the time to prove the Christian Religion.
Each generation has its difficulties and dangers ; and
it would be a waste of opportunities if successive
Lecturers did not endeavour to adapt their arguments
to the successive needs of their times. From this
point of view some of the subjects suggested in Boyle's
B

2 CHARACTER OF THE [lect.
will may at once be put aside as unsuitable to the
moment In proportion, indeed, to the development
of commerce and the spread of Christian races over
all parts of the earth, the relation of Christianity to
the other Religions of the world becomes of increasing
interest. A very short time ago it attracted, on a
special occasion,1 a remarkable share of public atten
tion ; and it may be that the discernment of the
great man who founded these Lectures led him to look
forward to a period when the controversies of Chris
tians with Pagans and Mahometans would be of
greater importance to the welfare of mankind than
controversies which, in his day and in ours, are nearer
home. Indeed, one of the most distinguished of my
predecessors vindicated not long ago the foresight of
the Founder in a memorable series of Lectures on this
subject,2 But apart from the presumption which
would be involved in an attempt to follow him, this is
not the topic which now forces itself most strongly on
the attention of the Christian apologist, as he surveys
the state of religious thought in England and in
Europe. It is scarcely possible to mistake the result of such
a survey. That which is chiefly to be discerned, alike
among friends and foes, is a deep conviction that the
Religion of the Christian nations is gravely menaced
1 On the Day of Intercession for Missions, Dec. 20, 1872.
2 The late Rev. F. D. Maurice, in his Boyle Lectures on "The
Religions of the World, and their Relations to Christianity."

I.] .PREVALENT DOUBT. 3
from within. It is not from Pagans or Mahometans,
it is not from Jews, considered only as the professors
of an antagonistic religion, that the danger arises ; it
is from the dominant philosophies, from some of the
most distinguished men of science, from some of the
most acute critics of Europe. Few competent ob
servers will doubt that these writers have been suc
cessful, to a degree which cannot be viewed without
apprehension, in shaking the confidence both of
cultivated and of uncultivated society in the truths
of our Religion. The doubts thus generated are dif
fused far more widely than is generally avowed.
That they are as firmly rooted as is sometimes
alleged may, indeed, well be questioned. But that
the very air is heavy with them, that they pervade
alike literature and society, that they are not con
fined to the learned, that they perplex parents and
confuse the young — these are the facts with which
the apologist has in the present day to deal. It is no
time for him to be contented, as in happier days, with
addressing himself to the pleasant task of adorning or
elaborating some of the outer defences of Christianity,
bringing out its undesigned coincidences, or its more
delicate harmonies with human nature or with history.
He has to deal with influences, open or disguised,
which are sapping the very foundations not merely of
orthodox Christianity but of Christian civilization.
He has to confront men whose writings he reads,
whose faces he sees, whose friendship he shares, but

4 CHARACTER OF THE [lect.
who have abandoned for themselves, and for as many
as they can legitimately influence, the characteristic
elements of his Faith.
But the gravity of this state of opinion is at once
alleviated and aggravated by one important peculiar
ity. Bishop Butler, in the Advertisement to his great
work, says — "It has come, I know not how, to be
taken for granted by many persons, that Christianity
is not so much as a subject of inquiry ; but that it is,
now at length, discovered to be fictitious." Subject
to the exception which I proceed to notice, such a
statement would be at least as true in the present day.
But something is implied in the tone of this observa
tion which is more fully explained in what follows.
Butler adds — " And accordingly they treat it as if, in
the present age, this were an agreed point among all
persons of discernment, and nothing remained but to
set it up as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule,
as. it were by way of reprisals for its having so long
interrupted the pleasures of the world." No such
statement as the latter could 'now be written with
justice. The foes we have to meet are more worthy
of our steel. The complaint has sometimes been
made against the chief Christian writers and preachers
of the last century, that they were too exclusively
moralists. It may be suggested by such passages in
Butler as I have just quoted, whether this tendency
was not forced upon them by the circumstances of
their time. He frequently speaks as if he were deeply

i.J PREVALENT DOUBT. 5
concerned to argue, not merely against impugners of
Revealed, or even of Natural Religion, but against
men who doubted the very obligations of Morality —
men against whom it was necessary, by considering
the constitution of human nature, to defend such
truths as that Duty and Interest coincide, and that we
are naturally adapted to a virtuous course of action.
Contrasting with this the state of feeling at the present
day, we may see reason to think that, if the writers of
this school directed their energies in a special degree
to this part of the struggle, they there, at all events,
won the day. Controversies, indeed, of. the gravest
importance are now prevalent respecting the founda
tion and the nature of Morality ; and these contro
versies are perhaps pregnant with deeper consequences
to the practical observance and determination of
moral conduct than is generally recognized. If the
theory of Utilitarianism were victorious, it has already
been made evident by the speculations of some of its
advocates that it would not leave Christian practice
untouched. But, at all events, the supreme necessity,
and, in some sense, the supreme obligation of the
more conspicuous principles of Christian Morality is
fully admitted by all the writers with whom we have
practically to deal. It is, indeed, more than admitted ;
it is erected into the one sole pillar of the new edifice
they would establish. Their chief position is that it
is really the sum and substance of Christianity itself;
they pay homage to what they designate the " sublime

6 CHARACTER OF THE [lect.
morality " of the Sermon on the Mount and of our
Lord's character, and they complain that this beauti
ful and simple revelation has been overlaid and
obscured by the theological speculations of St. Paul
and of the chief Christian theologians.
Two examples will afford a sufficient illustration.
One writer1 is eager to dissipate, by the shafts of wit
and ridicule, the metaphysical abstractions with which,
as he says, Greeks and Latins clouded the simple
religious conceptions of the Hebrew mind ; but his
aim is to bring into greater prominence the existence
of "an Eternal Power which makes for righteousness,"2
and he recalls the Christian Church, with an insight
from which, in some respects, it may derive no little
instruction, to the truth that its essential principle is
departure from iniquity. Another writer,3 not less
influential, protests that his only object is to vindicate
" the grand and simple creed " which he discerns in
the teaching and example of Christ. That sacred
Character, respecting which the Christian feels it
presumptuous to speak in terms of praise, has in this
age asserted in an extraordinary degree its claim as a
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold; especially in his book, " Literature
and Dogma."
2 Mr. Arnold generally speaks of " the Eternal not ourselves "
which makes for righteousness ; but as he sometimes calls it a
Power, I trust I may be excused for preferring, as a rule, to quote
the latter, and the more English expression.
» Mr. W. R. Greg, especially in " The Creed of Christendom •"
see Preface to third edition, p. xciii.

I.] PREVALENT DOUBT. 7
moral standard for homage and imitation ; and scarcely
any one who has a right to the public ear would
venture to speak in depreciation of the moral example
of Christ. All this, moreover, is obviously no passing
homage paid to virtue. It is the expression of a deep
and sincere desire to know what is good and to do it.
If such is the attitude of the chief writers with whom
the Christian apologist has now to contend, it is
certainly not less the attitude of those perplexed souls
to whom he has to offer guidance. The dominant
feeling among them is that they would believe if they
could. They feel the want of a religious faith, but
there are some things in what they have been taught
to regard as the Christian Revelation by which their
intellectual and moral nature is repelled ; and mean
while they cling to the faithful discharge of their duty
as to a sure foothold. The danger, in short, of which
I spoke at the outset does not arise from men who
have any private interest in disbelieving, but from
men who have a sincere desire to know the truth and
to follow it.
This characteristic, I observed, is at once an aggra
vation and an alleviation of the dangers in question.
It aggravates them, because objections urged in this
sincerity, and with this earnestness of purpose, carry a
weight which, in all ages and all circumstances, has
been wanting to frivolous or immoral objections. If
righteousness could be produced and sustained without
Christianity, it might indeed be a question for grave

8 CHARACTER OF THE |_lect.
discussion how far there would remain any practical
necessity for Christian doctrine. I speak, of course,
of Christianity and of Christian doctrine in the general
sense affixed to them by our Church. Some of the
writers I have referred to claim, indeed, to be the true
exponents of Christ's teaching. But it is of no avail
in this controversy to dispute about words, still less to
distinguish minutely between various Confessions of
Faith. The substance of that which has been hitherto
called Christianity is sufficiently embodied in our
Creeds and Formularies, and it is this which is me
naced. When this Faith is widely pronounced to be
an unnecessary subtilty of human philosophy, not by
reckless sceptics, but by men of high aims and noble
efforts, it is obvious that the forces arrayed against us
become more formidable than ever.
On the other hand, there is this immense alleviation
of our difficulty. The substantial acceptance by our
opponents of the moral teaching of Christianity affords
us at once a common ground. We are pursuing, at
least in respect of the present life, the same object in
principle ; and the sole question is by what means we
may attain it. They tell me that I am complicating
and obscuring a grand and simple truth with obsolete
theological subtilties ; I contend that they are ob
structing the realization of the very truth they admire,
by abandoning the only sure way to it. But if we
both can fix our minds on that truth itself and ask our
selves what it involves, we have at once common pre-

i.J PREVALENT DOUBT. 9
mises from/which to start and a common purpose to
guide us in our inquiry. Probably, indeed, this has
always been the case in a greater degree than has
been generally recognized ; but it is so conspicuous in
the present day as to afford us a vantage ground of
which we are bound to avail ourselves.
Such appears to me the peculiar aspect of infidelity
which now chiefly demands attention. Its ultimate
causes are various, and for its full confutation it needs
a proportionate variety of argument. Certain scientific
assumptions or deductions are held to be incompatible
with those allegations of miraculous facts on which the
Christian creed is based. On philosophical grounds
objections are raised to the very possibility of a true
Theology. Undoubtedly, unless objections of this kind
could be answered, the only effect of presumptive argu
ment would be to reveal a distressing abyss between
our desires and our knowledge, our wants and our
capacities. The Christian creed reposes on a historic
basis ; and if that could be shaken, no pleas derived
from the cravings of our nature would sustain the super
structure. On the other hand, the character of the
evidence necessary to command our belief in an alleged
occurrence necessarily varies in some degree with its
intrinsic probability. There might be evidence suffi
cient to compel our belief of anything not intrinsically
asburd, however improbable and inconceivable ; there
may, on the other hand, be allegations which no amount
of evidence, however apparently trustworthy, would

ro CHARACTER OF THE [lect-
induce us to believe. But between these two extremes,
thevalueof the evidence and the probability of the event
are concurrent elements in determining our assent. If,
accordingly, it could be shown that the most vital
necessities of man's moral nature could be met without
the miraculous facts alleged in the Creeds and the
doctrines based upon them, it would be far more diffi
cult than at present to gain a hearing for the evidence
on which they rest. But if, on the other hand, it should
appear that those doctrines, and those alone, satisfy the
imperious cravings of our moral and spiritual nature —
if the conviction can be aroused that they supply a
fatal deficiency in the highest moral teaching, and in
the noblest efforts of moral practice — in this case, I do
not say that we raise a presumption in favour of the
facts having occurred, but we certainly diminish the
difficulty of procuring assent to them. They are
brought within the sphere of experiences which it is
not unreasonable to expect ; they acquire a character of
verisimilitude, and find a place in the general consti
tution of human nature. In another course of Lectures
I hope to meet some of those philosophic or scientific
objections, just referred to, which are directed against
the primary assumptions of Christianity ; but it ap
peared to me that it would clear the way and would
help to put the mind in a right attitude for considering
them, if, in the first instance, we inquired into the
practical signification of Christian truths in reference
to that Morality which is, on all hands, admitted to be
essential.

I.] PREVALENT DOUBT. n
Such is the course of thought to which I invite atten
tion in the present series of Lectures. The state of
mind with which I propose to deal may be briefly
•described. I hear men who admit the paramount
claim of right over wrong setting up as the sole
standard for right the utilities and necessities of the
present world. I see others throwing scorn, if not
ridicule, on the notion of the idea of righteousness being
in any way dependent on the belief in a Personal God.
As a necessary consequence, all notions of personal
¦satisfaction rendered to such a Being are rejected as
superstitious figments. The great truths of Christian
Theology cease to have a practical meaning. The
doctrine of the Trinity becomes an idle speculation ;
Atonement and Justification are forensic fictions.
Such are the explicit allegations of the chief represen
tatives of this moral school. If you listen to its
simpler and less advanced disciples, they will speak
in something of the following strain : — " I am sure that
God is good, and that there must be many ways of
coming to Him, and not one only — or that one would
have been diffused over the whole earth ages ago.
To be honest and conscientious, and in spite of many
falls to struggle all our lives after our highest ideal of
good — I cannot now believe that this will not satisfy
Him. We cannot justly be held responsible for many
sins to which the tendency is inherited ; and though we
may have free-will, it is not so free as is sometimes
represented. And if we feel it would be unjust for
God to punish us in the way the Bible says, I do not

12 CHARACTER OF THE [LECT.
see that the injustice would be remedied by the sacrifice
of a perfectly innocent person." This, I apprehend, is,
to say the least, a very prevalent form of disbelief, and
has a great influence in inducing men and women to
lend a favourable ear to the more scientific difficulties
to which I have adverted.
It is an unwelcome task to give expression in a
Christian church to negations of our faith ; but the
first duty of a disputant is to understand his opponent's
case, and to indicate the points to which his argument
will be directed. It will be my pleasanter duty in the
succeeding Lectures to consider one by one the truths
which modern moralists would thus evacuate of any
practical import, and to show that they are, at all events,
far profounder interpretations of the facts of human
nature than the bare moralities which are left to us with
out them. There is, indeed, something amazing in the
fact that such a vindication of the reality of Christian
doctrines should be necessary. The strange thing is
not that they are denied and attacked, but that they
are treated as mere obsolete subtilties. It would be
pardonable to indulge in some indignation at the easy
confidence with which they are thus contemptuously
dismissed, did we not remember that Christians them
selves may be in great measure responsible for such
an eclipse of faith. I venture to assert that, even
from those who have discarded them, Christian truths,
or the dogmas of the Christian Church, demand a
more patient and a more respectful consideration than

i.] PREVALENT DOUBT. 13
they often receive. Be they true or false, one thing
cannot be denied of them — that they have been as
sociated with the mightiest revolutions in human
thought, and with the noblest of human aspirations.
Christianity is different from all religions in this —
that, from the time it was promulgated, it has been
inseparably blended with the progress of the human
race, and that it has moulded the civilization of the
nations upon whom all hopes for the future depend.
It is easy to say that the doctrine of the Trinity at
one time, or the doctrine of Justification at another,
were mere philosophical or scholastic conceits. The
fact is undeniable that they were believed by the best
men of the day to be inseparably bound up with their
intensest struggles. They were real to them, what
ever they may now be to others ; and we owe at least
so much respect to such men, as well as so much
consideration for ourselves, as to make sure that we
understand what that reality was before we reject it.
In fact, by some means or other, it has come to
pass that even thoughtful and intelligent minds are
possessed by utter peryersions of Christian doctrine,
and betray what can only be called a total ignorance
of its real meaning. Here, for instance, is a short pas
sage from a work republished recently by a man of
mature and cultivated mind. " In Christ's grand and
simple creed," he says, "expressed in His plainest
words, ' eternal life ' was the assured inheritance of
those who loved God with all their hearts, who loved

14 CHARACTER OF THE [LECT.
their neighbours as themselves, and who lived purely,
humbly, and beneficently while on earth : — in the
Christian sects and churches of to-day, in their re
cognised formularies and their elaborate creeds, all
this is repudiated as infantine and obsolete ; the
official means and purchase-money of salvation are
altogether changed ; eternal life is reserved for those,
and those only, who accept, or profess, a string of
metaphysical propositions conceived in a scholastic
brain and put into scholastic phraseology "J — and so
on. Now, if statements like these were made by ob
scure or reckless writers, they would not be worth
notice ; thoughtful and well-instructed Christians know
what a miserable travestie they are of the real Revela
tion of the Gospel, and one would have thought no
writer who deemed himself competent for such a vast
task as the purification of religion could have put
them forward. But we have to deal with facts ; and
the evident fact is that Christian Theology seems, for
numbers of inquiring minds, to have lost its meaning.
It is, unhappily, true that Christian theologians and
Christian sects have contributed thus to narrow and
obscure the great truths of the New Testament. They
have too often petrified them in hard " schemes of
salvation," and have lowered them to the level of
their own conceptions. But the Creeds and the chief
Christian Formularies themselves, and the Scriptural
language which they interpret, stand on independent
'Mr. Greg's " Creed of Christendom," 3rded., Introd., p. xciii.

i.J PREVALENT DOUBT. 15
grounds, and claim a more thoughtful and impartial
judgment. There is nothing, in short, which the Christian apo
logist may more justly demand of his modern oppo
nents, than that before they finally reject these dogmas
they should once more endeavour to understand them.
You tell me they are obsolete, and if not dead, are
doomed. Be it so ; but let them, at all events, " die
in the light." I do not say that such dogmas are
capable of demonstration ; but this may certainly be
demonstrated — that they mean an infinite deal more
than the critics in question suppose ; that they go
deeper and touch human nature more nearly than
such objectors at all apprehend ; and that to dismiss
them thus summarily is to leave out of account one
of the vastest and noblest spheres of human experi
ence. I am here to argue, and not merely to proclaim
a belief, or to indulge in exhortation ; but this at least
I may be allowed to say- — that I am jealous for some
of the grandest characters who have illustrated human
nature, when I find the doctrines to which they clung
as their very life cast aside as having no essential
human meaning. As a mere matter of fact, the souls
of men have been stirred by these truths into deeper,
grander, and more lovely harmonies than by any other
influence that can be named. Augustine may some
times be a rhetorician ; but those profound and en
nobling emotions which are betrayed in his Confessions
are part of the heritage of the world, and no theory

16 CHARACTER OP PREVALENT DOUBT, [lect.
can be accepted which does not worthily explain
them. Luther may have been rough and impetuous ;
but the exquisite childlikeness and faith of his cha
racter demand to be explained and justified, and there
can be no doubt that, as a matter of fact, they were
mainly created by his religious belief. When I con
template such characters I can exclaim, in the words
of the text, " I am not ashamed of the Gospel of
Christ." Admit, for the sake of argument, at the
outset of these discourses, that its truth is open to
question. Yet, at all events, even the dogmas which
are most obnoxious to modern thought have had a
noble and inspiring influence ; and even amid the
perplexities of argument one is continually tempted
to exclaim, " Malo cum Platone errare quam cum istis
recte sentire." I had rather experience those profound
emotions which history shows to have been evoked by
these dogmas, and by none others, than share the
apparent superiority of the most serene philosophy.
It seems necessary to vindicate the significance of such
dogmas once more to the ears of the present genera
tion. I propose in the following course of Lectures to
make this attempt ; and, at the same time, to argue
with our opponents from assumptions which they fully
admit. May the Spirit of God aid this imperfect
endeavour to elucidate the truth, through Jesus Christ
our Lord !

i i.J THE PRIMARY MOTIVE. 17

LECTURE II.
THE PRIMARY MOTIVE OR
ULTIMATE DESIRE.
Matthew v. 3.
" Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of
heaven." I HAVE already indicated the point from which I
propose to start in the present course of Lectures.
What we find admitted on all hands, among those
whose doubt or denial of Christianity is now of any
serious import, is the supreme obligation of Morality.
In other words, we may take it as an admission that,
apart from any question of Religion, there is Right
and there is Wrong ; that right is the highest and
wrong the lowest, and that those whom I address
prefer the highest at any sacrifice to the lowest with
out any apparent sacrifice at all. The question is,
What does this admission involve ? and does it not,
if pushed to itsconsequences, point to the Christian
religion as the only satisfactory answer to its de
mands ? C

1 8 THE PRIMARY MOTIVE [lect.
Now, on entering upon that subject this afternoon,
it may be as well to refer, once for all, to a class of
speculations which at the present day possess peculiar
interest, and which cannot, therefore, be passed over ;
but which, nevertheless, for the purposes of this
inquiry, it would seem not merely possible but ne
cessary to put on one side. I mean the various
speculations of modern science into the origin and
development of the Moral Sense in general, and of
our perceptions of Morality in particular. Whatever
may be the final result of such inquiries, it is unques
tionable that the moral faculties and perceptions of
mankind have, in some important points, been gradu
ally developed ; and science must be trusted to in
vestigate the ultimate germs from which this develop
ment has proceeded. Probably we are very far yet
from understanding in how extensive a sense it is
true of our nature that "from the dust we are taken."
But the question of what elements a thing is com
posed, or the question of the manner in which it is
developed, is so entirely distinct from the question
of its capacities and relations when in a developed
and compounded state, as, for many purposes, to
throw little light on the latter. Water, for instance,
is a compound of two gases in a certain proportion ;
but no idea whatever of the qualities of water could
be gained from merely^ considering the qualities of
those two gases in their uncompounded state. The
mysterious action of Nature's laboratory unites and

n.J OR ULTIMATE DESIRE. 19
•converts them in one moment into a liquid, with uses,
¦relations, characteristics wholly different in kind from
those of its two elements. Doubtless, our knowledge
of its elements is of value to us in the employment of
it ; but still the properties and uses which it possesses
in this compound state may, for general purposes, be
considered independently of its origin. Similarly, in
considering the general significance of man's moral
nature, we have no need to embarrass ourselves with
the discussion of theories which are solely concerned
with its development. Some philosophers may ex
plain that development by the principle of associa
tion, others by the preponderance of permanent over
transitory instincts, others by the unconscious opera
tion of perceptions of utility. Others niay think that
all such influences have co-operated. But our moral
nature presents certain facts and relations as actually
existing, which are, for all purposes of action, inde
pendent of such considerations. We have desires and
duties which must equally be satisfied, no matter how
they arose ; and, for the purposes of our life, we have
to accept them as realities without inquiring into their
origin. In times when philosophical analysis is pecu
liarly successful, there is, perhaps, no more common
fallacy than to suppose that when we have resolved a
feeling or a substance into its elements we know
all about it. On the contrary, its importance and
significance as a whole are, as a rule, absolutely
distinct from those of its component parts.

20 THE PRIMARY MOTIVE [lect.
We may therefore, without the least disrespect to
these philosophical theories, discard them from our
consideration so far as our present purpose is con
cerned. If it were necessary, indeed, to enter upon
them, it would be impossible to find in this field of
inquiry any sufficiently solid basis on which to found
an appeal in behalf of so intensely practical a matter
as religious belief. Science on such subjects is in a
state of flux, and it would be hard if we had to wait
for its final conclusions. But the main facts of human
life, the dominant needs of human nature, are subject
to no such uncertainty. The Christian preacher or
apologist is on perfectly clear and independent ground.
in appealing to the experience of his audience to say
what Right and Wrong mean to them at the present-
moment, and what are the moral obligations and
spiritual cravings of which they are conscious. The
main facts of the Planetary System were known
before the Law of Gravitation was discovered ; and,
nearly two centuries since the discovery, we are still
groping after a knowledge of the elementary constitu
tion and development of that System. Similarly, the
great relations in which the soul stands may be firmly
interpreted and thoroughly grasped, while inquiry
into the philosophical laws of its action and growth is
left in abeyance. Having rendered this homage,
therefore, to philosophy at the outset, we may, in the
sequel of our inquiry, deal with the ordinary facts of
life, use its ordinary language, and consider ourselves-

ai.] OR ULTIMATE DESIRE.

21

to be talking less of human Nature than of human
Beings. I wish to ask the kind of questions which
are proposed rather by poets than by philosophers ;
not by the mere intellectual faculty, but by the soul
itself, with its various faculties of heart and mind — by
each human being in his complete individuality. It is
on this broad basis that any solid faith must be
founded ; and if it can be thus established, philo
sophical inquirers may the more securely pursue their
laborious task of analysis and explanation.
To turn, then, in this spirit to the question of the
significance of Right and Wrong, it will be observed
that the inquiry divides itself into two distinct
branches. There is first the question of the idea of
Right and Wrong in itself, and secondly the question
of what is right and what is wrong. In other words,
there is a distinction between the general principle
that I am bound to do right, and the subordinate
principle that this or that thing is right. The obliga
tion of Morality and the standard of Morality require
separate consideration. It may be, indeed, that from
the Christian point of view the answer to the one
question is the answer to the other. But in the facts
of life they are distinguished, and it is from those
facts we are starting. It is right for a man to act
according to his conscience ; but it does not follow
that because he is so acting the action is right in
itself. On the contrary, persons acting conscientiously
have committed acts which violate any recognized

22 IHE PRIMARY MOTIVE [lect,
standard of Morality. If the actors believed that they
were under an obligation to act as they did, we may
abstain frdm condemning them personally, though we
may have to condemn their acts. They Obeyed the
highest principle of their nature, though, from pre
judice or want of instruction, they were grievously
mistaken ih applying the subordinate principles. A
man can only act up to his knowledge ; and if he
does this, it may consistently be said of him; in a kind
of paradox, that he is doing right although he is doing
wrong. This, it may be observed in passing, affords
an adequate explanation of some passages in the
Scriptures, in which persons are applauded for acts
Which are in themselves indefehsible. At all events,
these instances are sufficient to remind us that the
sense of obligation to do right is one thing, and the
recognition of a true standard of right and wrong is
another. It is in relation to the former of these questions
that Morality possesses its highest significance ; and
its bearing in this respect may be discussed in a
second course of these Lectures. But it will be con
venient to consider the latter question first ; and it
will be best for our purpose to consider it in the
manner in which it has been approached by indepen
dent moralists — namely, by considering the ultimate
desire of the human heart. I do not say the ultimate
object of life, for that would be to look far beyond
the horizon open to our natural faculties. But we

ii.] OR ULTIMA IE DESIRE. 23
are competent to observe what is really the dominant
desire of the soul, and we cannot avoid the conclusion
that the course of action which satisfies this must be
that which we were intended to pursue. From this
point the great Greek moralists started ; and from
this point, also, the most distinguished of recent
English philosophers commenced his defence of his
utilitarian scheme of Ethics.
I do not know that there is really much doubt about
the answer to the question. The most observant of
Greek philosophers commenced his great treatise on
Ethics, more than two thousand years ago, by de
fining the chief good of life as Happiness ; and that,
too, is the definition which, with some modification, to
be presently noticed, the modern English philosopher
accepts. It is an estimate of human impulses which
the Christian, it would seem, is least of all in a position
to contest. It has indeed been made a reproach
against Christian morals that they set before us selfish
aims, and call on us to do right, not for the sake of
Right in itself, but for the sake of the reward which it
brings. The answer to such a reproach may be found
in a passage1 of the Greek philosopher already re
ferred to ; who shows that the ideas of virtue and
happiness are inseparable, though that of happiness is
the larger and the more comprehensive. But it would,
at the least, seem evident that the Scriptures recog
nize fully that happiness is not merely the desire of
1 Arist., Eth. Nic. i. 5.

24 » THE PRIMARY MOTIVE [lect.
mankind, but the legitimate desire.^ All their com
mandments are "commandments with promise," ex
pressed or implied. One of their most characteristic
words, perhaps, is that which opens the text— the
word " Blessed." Blessedness, indeed, may be distin
guished from happiness, but only as expressing a
higher degree or kind of it ; and for the purposes
of the present argument the distinction is unimpor
tant. The key-note of the Psalms is struck in their
first verse : " Blessed is the man that hath not walked
in the counsel of the ungodly." But the teaching
of our Lord offers the most conspicuous of all ex
amples of this characteristic. The Sermon on the
Mount, which is recognized as the embodiment of
His moral teaching, is based, from beginning to end,
on this principle. It commences with a series of beati
tudes ; it ends with the assurance that the observance
of His word will be followed by permanent security.
" Whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth
them, I will liken him unto a wise man which built his
house upon a rock." The key-note of His morality is
blessing. He is the greatest of all preachers of self-
sacrifice. But how does He recommend it ? " He that
saveth his life shall lose it ; but he that loseth his life
for my sake and the Gospel's, the same shall save it."
Thus, in the very words which command self-sacrifice,
He sanctions the instinct of self-preservation. It
would be difficult to name a single passage from the
Gospels in which self-sacrifice is recommended without

1 1. J OR ULTIMATE DESIRE. .- 25
reference to an ultimate blessing as the result ; and
«uch, at all events, must have been the impression left
on the mind of the Apostle who commences his
-epistle with the words, " These things write we unto
you that your joy may be full." There appears
no sense, in any of the writers of the New Testament,
that they are making any real sacrifice in the cause
they have adopted. It was not in days of real mar
tyrdom that men spoke as if their sufferings demanded
the admiration or even sympathy of others. " What
things were gain to me," says another Apostle, " those
I counted loss for Christ. Yea, doubtless, and I count
all things but loss, for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the
loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I
may win Christ and be found in Him." A deep joy
pervades the souls of all the Apostles ; and they sup
ply, perhaps, the most vivid illustration of the Aristo
telian definition that happiness is the energy of the
soul in its highest excellence.
But does not the experience of our own hearts com
pel us to admit the truth of this estimate of human
impulses ? It need not be said that every sin which
men commit is due to the pursuit of happiness in
some mistaken form ; but do we, in point of fact, ever
separate that pursuit from our highest ideal of virtue ?
Bitter as any present denial may be which we either
impose on ourselves or recommend to others, do we
•ever fail to say, either to them or to our own hearts,

26 THE PRIMA R Y MO TI VE [LECTV
that the truest happiness lies in the path of dutyf"
Far be it from me to deny, what the Greek philosopher
already quoted admits, or rathei asserts — that virtue
and righteousness are desirable for their own sakes !
But they are also desirable for something beyond them
— for that complete satisfaction of the energies of our
nature, of which they are the necessary condition-
It is not difficult, indeed, to understand that noble
indignation of the soul, exemplified in many great
heathens, who, despairing of themselves and of their
kind, clung to righteousness as the one good thing
they could secure, protesting that this, at all events,.
was a certain blessing, though every other happiness-
should be denied. If the Psalmist exclaims, " A day
in Thy courts is better than a thousand," the Roman J
could also exclaim, that a single day spent well, and
in accordance with the precepts of philosophy, is to be
preferred to an immortality spent in error and sin.
But magnificent as are these expressions of heathen
virtue, they lacked that animating and satisfying ele
ment which rendered Christian virtue contagious, and
which sent martyrs to the torture and to death, not
merely with resignation, but with joy. Doubtless
martyrdom has been similarly borne in other religions ;.
but, putting aside those expressions of noble despera
tion to which I have referred, it has been everywhere
under the same belief that martyrdom was the path
1 Cicero, Tusc. v. 2.—" Est autem unus dies bene et ex pr*-
ceptis tuis actus peccanti immortalitati anteponendus "

ii. J OR ULTIMATE DESIRE. 27
to bliss. In thus indissolubly combining duty with
happiness, and the pufsuit of the one with the pufsuit
of the other, the Scriptures do but reflect the universal
verdict of human experience.
No fault, therefore, can be found, from the Christian
point of view, with a philosophy which accepts happi
ness as the dominant aim of human life, and tests the
rectitude of actions by their tendency to produce it.
The fault to be found with it is that it fails so lament
ably to satisfy the conceptions it arouses. In many
cases it has to abandon, as practically unattainable,
the greatest happiness of the agent who most faithfully
pursues its dictates ; and, above all, it has to relegate
to an uncertain future the possibility of extending its
benefits to the majority of those with whom it deals.
Great numbers of mankind, it observes,1 have been
satisfied with but a moderate share of happiness ; and,
in the course Of a long succession of generations, who
will perish in the bfeach — I am quoting the language
of the modern advocate of this doctf ine— the grand
sources of human suffering may be " in a great degree*
many of them almost entirely," conquered. Mean
while every one who has a moderate amount of moral
and intellectual requisites is " capable of an existence
which may be called enviable." It has to be recog
nised that, in a certain very imperfect state of the
world's arrangements, a man may best serve the hap
piness of others by the absolute sacrifice of his own ;
1 Mr. J .S. Mill on " Utilitarianism," 5th Ed., pp. 19—24. ; J

28 THE PRIMARY MOTIVE [LECT.
and the standard of right, we are told, is not the
agent's own happiness but that of all concerned. Now
far be it from me to deny the nobleness of such con
ceptions, considered in themselves ! But what I would
ask is whether they offer any adequate satisfaction to
the wants of human nature, and whether they take
any sufficient account of that dark side of human life,
which they admit it must require a long succession of
generations to remove ? It is hard enough to believe
that the noblest souls are doomed to disappointment ;
and it would mar even that moderately enviable exis
tence, which is described as the lot of the human race,
to know that it had been bought by the sacrifice
of their own greatest happiness by some of the greatest
of men. But that which all such philosophies leave
out of account is the question, What is to be done
meanwhile, and even at the best, with the vast mass of
sorrow, suffering, and disappointment in the world ?
Taking things as they are, and as they must be for at
least generations to come, it is absolutely impossible
that the mass of mankind can find lasting happiness
in this world. There is much more of it, perhaps, than
we often realise ; and divines are too often liable to
the charge of conventionally depreciating the enjoy
ment of the present life. But if we wish to know
which aspect of life in the long run prevails, we have
only to consider what is the tone of the books, and the
temper of the writers, who have most touched the
world. There is, as I have been saying, a deep source

II.] OR ULIIMA2E DESIRE. 29..
of joy revealed in the Bible ; but it is not the joy of
this world's enjoyment. Is it by tragedies or by
comedies that the heart is most touched ? The sad
ness of a great poet like Dante is an essential element
in his power, and the greatest poem in the world ends
with a lamentation over a tomb.
Such speculations, in fact, are comparatively easy so
long as they remain in their philosophical generality ;
but when we come down to individual human beings, .
when we think of those with whom we personally have
to deal, when we realize distinctly the millions of disap
pointed or bereaved or injured hearts of which the
world is full, we feel that a doctrine which points to a
remedy in the course of successive generations is clearly
inadequate to our need. Consider the life of one of
those suffering souls which, from no fault of its own, is
doomed through life to bear, perhaps unseen, the burden
of the sins or the vices of another : and is it possible to
rest satisfied with a view of life which, if it does not
deny, at least puts out of sight as a matter of entire
uncertainty, the prospect either of present relief or of
future reward ? Granted that there is the deepest
pleasure in serving, at any sacrifice, one you love. But
what is to be the remedy for that deepest of all anguish,
so often endured — to know that the sacrifice is made in
vain ? Is nothing needed to sustain the soul under a
long strain of fruitless endurance ? A manifestation
may now be noticed in European thought which may
not unreasonably be considered the natural result of

30 THE PRIMARY MOTIVE [lect.
such philosophy. I mean the popularity of writers like
Schopenhauer or Von Hartmann, who reproduce the
pessimism and the hopelessness of Buddhism. The sad
ness of life is far too real to be long left out of sight ; and
if you erect a philosophy which disregards it, you will
find it creating a philosophy or a religion of despair.
It may, however, be replied that, after all, such a
view of life does but accept facts as it finds them.
Over the greater part of the world, and for the greater
part of history, men and women have had to face, and
have succeeded in facing, this terrible burden of woe ;
and nothing more has been possible than to produce
in the long run, for the greatest number, the greatest
amount of happiness practicable. The mysterious fact,
indeed, must be acknowledged, that the great majority
of mankind have been left without the alleviation for
which they crave. This is not, however, a difficulty
peculiar to Christianity ; while it is equally observable
that the great mass of men have sought a refuge in
imagining some happier future, and embodying their
imaginations in a religion. But it is Christianity alone
which has at length met these cravings and miseries
directly ; and it may now be perceived what a pre
sumption is raised in favour of its truth by the very
philosophy which would supplant it. The text I have
taken is the opening proclamation of the Sermon on
the Mount ; it is the key of our Lord's teaching. He
came announcing the kingdom of heaven— a spiritual
realm, different from that we see, but not less real not

II.] OR ULTIMATE DESIRE. 31
less present, not less open to our enjoyment ; and He
proclaimed that within this realm there was to be
found satisfaction for all the wants which the world
fails to satisfy, and a remedy for the miseries it inflicts.
The poor in spirit, the meek, and the persecuted — the
possessors of those gentler virtues which in an age and
an empire of successful force were apt to be trampled
out of sight — might here find their shelter, their exer
cise, and their reward. It was a proclamation which
swept with a master-hand that vast mass of sad and
suffering life of which I have spoken : and is it any
wonder that, if sustained by revelations of miraculous
power, illustrated by a perfect Example of suffering,
and vindicated by a glorious resurrection.it enabled the
weak things of the world to confound the strong, that
it bestowed on the suffering a greater tenacity of pur
pose than on the happy, and that the very symbol of
sorrow became the most victorious standard in the
world ?
Let it be observed, moreover, that what our Lord
revealed is no mere future compensation for present
.sorrows, but a spiritual realm in which the noblest
¦energies of the soul may be continually developed, in
spite of the adverse circumstances which surround it
here. The poorness of spirit, the patience and meek
ness He describes, are not like the oriental character
istic of blank resignation ; they are the hopeful
endurances of a soul clinging to spiritual realities, and
developing new energies of faith and insight. " Not

32 THE PRIMARY MOTIVE [LECT-
only so," says the Apostle, " but we glory in tribula
tions also, knowing that tribulation worketh patience,.
and patience experience, and experience hope, and
hope maketh not ashamed ; because the love of God
is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which
is given unto us.'' Thus the great work of the martyrs,,
in their lives and deaths, was not merely that they
bore testimony to the creeds they professed, but, still-
more perhaps, that they revealed to the world new
spiritual realities, tempers more heavenly, and virtues-
more divine than it had yet dreamt of, and that they
thus gradually brought its spirit under the spell of the
kingdom of God. From the moment this Sermon on
the Mount was preached, there was not a suffering
heart which had not, so to speak, a new spiritual
career opened to it. Christ had revealed a kingdom
" in which every one could work and no one could be
defrauded of his labour,"1 and in which absolute satis
faction was to be obtained for all the permanent needs
of the soul. Christ in the Gospels asks of no one the
sacrifice of his highest happiness for the good of others.
On the contrary, He assures all that they will find their
own highest and absolute happiness in seeking that of
others, at any apparent cost. " There is no man that
hath left wife, or children, or friends, for my sake and
the Gospel's, but shall receive a hundred-fold in this
present life, and in the world to come life everlasting."
1 Preface to Bacon's " Novum Organum," edited by the Rev.
'J. S. Brewer, King's College, London.

ill.] OR ULTIMATE DESIRE. 33
There is not one, however burdened, to whom He does
not promise peace and rest.
In short, taking this world by itself, you have to
admit that happiness is the desire of men's souls ; and
you are not less compelled to allow that, in a vast
number of instances, if not in the majority, it can
never be attained. But admit into your consideration
that spiritual region which Christ unveiled, and you
have then an assurance that, even in this present life,
no soul need be maimed of its aspirations, that the
hardest duty may be alleviated by spiritual sympathy,
and the darkest path illumined by a heavenly light.
Ask your own experience whether it be not so. Have
you not seen many a face, marked perhaps by years
of mental or bodily pain, but nevertheless brightened
by internal gleams of spiritual radiance ? These
characters are not merely enduring — they are living,
acting, developing their deepest energies, and feeling
all the increasing joy of a heavenly existence. Here,
too, is that "complete life" which the philosopher
deemed requisite to fulfil his conception of happiness.1
The spiritual energy is at work now, and it will last to
the perfect day.
Must it not, then, be admitted that Christ, at all
events, spoke to men's deepest thoughts and feelings
when, instead of proclaiming to them mere sublime
moralities, He commenced His work by unveiling to
their vision this new world ? It is upon this revelation,
.' friS' iv ply Te\elifi. — Arist, Eth. Nic. i. 5.
D

34 THE PRIMARY MOTIVE [LECT..
as reflection will convince you, that the whole teaching
of the Sermon on the Mount is based. Christ does
not rely merely upon men's apprehension of the neces
sity of purity of heart for pureness of life. He warns
them that they are brought under the searching laws of
a spiritual kingdom; He speaks of spiritual condemna
tions more terrible and inexorable than legal or moral
judgments ; He exhorts men to lay up for them
selves treasures in heaven. He bids them do their
alms and say their prayers in secret, that their Father
which seeth in secret may reward them openly..
Accordingly, it may be true that some of the injunc
tions in the Sermon on the Mount are not reconcilable
with the dictates of utility or even of morality as
calculated solely for the horizon of this world. Christ
did not say that they were. But He came to reveal a
new kingdom with new laws, and He calls on us to
guide our conduct by reference to it.
We may, then, fairly bring our inquiries to-day to-
this conclusion : — We have seen that nothing could be
more in harmony with the souls of men and the needs
of their position than the revelation of a realm of
existence beyond that which is afforded to their moral
nature in the present world— a realm both future and
present, in which the most important parts of their
lives must be passed, and which would have the power
to transmute morality, as much as morality has the
power, even in this world, to transmute their physical
nature. Did a message which proclaimed such a

ii.] OR ULTIMATE DESIRE. 35
Revelation deserve to find that presumption in its
favour which, as a matter of fact, it obtained ? If so,
then we are led from the most elementary truth of
ethics to conclude that the standard of our actions
must be furnished by something beyond the facts and
persons we have to deal with in the visible world ;
that we must take account of realities beyond our
natural ken, and revealed by Christ alone. I do not
say that this affords more than a presumption ; that
is all I am at present offering to show. But it is a
presumption which, at the outset, should bespeak the
most favourable consideration of the further claims of
Christianity.

36 RIGHTEOUSNESS [lect.

LECTURE III.
RIGHTEOUSNESS A PERSONAL RELATION.
Romans i. 28.
" They did not like to retain God in their knowledge."
THE considerations adduced in my last Lecture
led us to look beyond the world of our visible
relations for a sphere capable of satisfying that longing
for happiness which is one of the most elementary
instincts of the human soul. Admitting the legiti
macy of that craving, we saw that it was only by
leaving out of account at least one-half of life that we
could find in the visible world any response to it;
and so far as the standard of right may be determined,
as it certainly may in some sense, by reference to this
ultimate instinct, it followed that it was necessary to
take into account, even for our present guidance, the ,
relations of our spirits to an invisible and spiritual
realm — in short, to a Kingdom of Heaven such as
Christ proclaimed.
There are, in fact, several types of character which
moralists who have abandoned the Christian basis

in.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 37
have condemned, but which the Gospels especially
applaud, and which have at all events this testimony
in their favour— that they never fail to enlist sympathy
and homage. How much reason, for instance, have
we not continually to be grateful for that meekness
and patience under injuries, that endurance, at once
sorrowful and hopeful, which has been a characteristic
virtue of Christian saints, and which has won so many
desperate souls back to their true allegiance ! I am far
from saying that no such virtues have been practised
apart from a knowledge of Christianity. It is the
very thesis of these Lectures that the Moral Nature
of man anticipates the answer which Christianity offers
to its aspirations.1 But does not history bear witness
to the fact that these suffering virtues have been im
measurably strengthened and diffused by that new
element of hope and sympathy which was opened to
them by the Sermon on the Mount ? They all existed
in human nature, like plants half developed in some
gloomy shade ; but since the moment when Christ
poured upon them the light of the Kingdom of Hea
ven, they have flourished with a new luxuriance.
This argument, however, though it may have weight
with many minds, appeals, perhaps, somewhat too
much to distinctly Christian sympathies ; and the
question of the standard of Right and Wrong leads on
other grounds to the presumptions now contemplated.
1 " O Testimonium animae naturaliter Christiana?." — Ter
tullian, Af>olog. 17.

38 RIGHTEO USNESS [lect.
It has been observed, by the distinguished writer to
whom I referred last Sunday,1 that, though no ques
tion might seem to lie more closely at the root of our
practice, there is nothing which has been the subject
of more doubt and discussion. To judge of Right and
Wrong is what we have to do every day of our lives ;
and yet philosophers are even now disputing with
respect to the ultimate tests by which they are to be
determined. It is the dominant question in those
Socratic dialogues which first awoke in the West a
deep interest in ethical inquiries ; and it has been often
observed in what tentative conclusions the Athenian
philosopher and his disciples seem to end. Whatever
definition or description is propounded fades into
indistinctness under his analysis ; and that profound
solution, which seems ultimately to be suggested in the
Platonic theory of Ideas, has been at once the admira
tion and the perplexity of the world. Now, without
entering on these or later disquisitions, it may be
asked whether there be not one important fact in the
case which is independent of them. If we examine
the ordinary matters in which righteousness is con
cerned, we shall find that they mainly consist in a
certain relationship between persons. It is as impos
sible now as in the time of Plato to define them ade
quately by any abstract or external measure. The
acts, indeed, are comparatively few which may not,
under some circumstances or other, be justifiable ; that
1 Mr. Mill on "Utilitarianism," pp. i and 2.

in.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 39
which constitutes, as a general principle, the rightness
or wrongness of an act consists in the relationship of the
actor tathe persons whom it affects. What have been
called the self-regarding virtues, such as Purity and
Manliness, and, in particular, the duty of Truthful
ness, as applying to the soul under all circumstances,
may at first seem to offer an exception ; but it will
appear in the sequel that these instances also fall
under the same general rule when duly enlarged.
It would seem, indeed, we may go further, and say
not merely that the rightness of actions depends on
the relation of the actor to others, but that the right
eousness of each individual consists in his personal
relation to other persons, and must be estimated by
that relation, and not by the bare acts which he does.
The soul of man in this respect is very different from
his body ; and the neglect to distinguish between the
characteristics of the two is, perhaps, especially in days
when science has concentrated our attention so much
upon the body, a frequent cause of misconception.
The excellences and defects of man's bodily nature
may in great measure be determined by the separate
consideration of each individual ; excepting, indeed,
the intimate interdependence of the sexes, in which we
observe an especial reflection of moral laws of health.
With this exception it is generally possible to pro
nounce whether the organism is in a healthy state or
to describe its maladies by reference to itself alone ;
and if it be diseased it can be cured independently.

4o

RIGHTEOUSNESS Elect;

It is, in this respect, like a plant, or any other external
thing of which the life is solitary, and of which the-
main characteristics may be described without refer
ence to any other plant or thing of the same kind.
But in the familiar saying, that man is a social animal,,
we are pointed to the distinction I am now observing
— a distinction which separates him, as that saying
implies, from even the highest part of the lower crea
tion. The fact that he cannot live alone renders his-
moral condition at any moment dependent on his re
lations to the other persons who surround him. If a
moral observer wished fully to describe the condition
of any one of us, he would be baffled unless he could
not merely see into our own hearts, but were also
informed of our various family and social connections
past and present ; nay, unless he also had an insight
into the hearts of those with whom we are connected.
We are not merely individuals with a certain organ
ization ; we are parents or children, husbands or wives,
masters or servants, friends and citizens. The question
of whether we are right or wrong is a question of how
we feel and act towards the many persons with whom
we thus have to deal. The characteristic virtues of a
child depend both upon his feeling a certain relation
ship towards his parents and upon his acting accord
ingly. The virtue of a husband or a father does not
consist merely in his exercising, to the best of his-
power, and for the general good of his family, the
faculties called out by his work as an individual man,

in.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 41
but in a certain constant state of feeling towards his
wife or his children ; and this state of feeling will itself
necessarily be modified by their feelings towards him.
It is this consideration which renders the definition
of Right and Wrong so impracticable in detail. Law
accumulates rule upon rule, but can never overtake
the multitudinous variations which spring from our
personal relationships. Equity itself is obliged con
tinually to confess that it fails to grasp them exactly ;
and the utmost justice it can render is often but rough.
It cannot take fully into account honour and affection,
and all the delicate shades of feeling, which, in their
accumulated effects, go so far to determine characters
and to characterize actions. Not the least remarkable
witness to this truth is borne by the acute observation
of Aristotle. If any man could have defined virtue
by a rule, it is he. His definiteness, his logical exact
ness, are points in which he is most conspicuously
contrasted with his great rival. Yet what is his-
memorable definition of virtue ? x I need not trouble
you with the whole of it ; but he says it consists in a
relative mean, to be determined by reason. He can
not, however, stop here ; and he is obliged to add,
" Such a mean as a wise man would determine." In
other words, he is obliged to introduce, for the deter
mination of what is right in each case, that personal
estimate which only a living person can exercise. It
1 Eth. Nic. ii. 5. — ¦'BtTTiv dpa i] &peT7j e|is TrpoaiperiKij, iv p£tr&rrp-t.
odcra ttj irpbs 7jp,as, capiap/viq \6yuj ual ws i\v 6 ipphvifxos bplireiev.

_42 RIGHTEOUSNESS [lEcr.
will be observed, moreover, that these personal rela
tions do not merely form a part of life ; they deter
mine, for moral purposes, the whole of it. There is no
work we do which is not done either in obedience to
or for the benefit of others ; and our moral excellence
in doing it cannot be judged without reference to the
spirit in which we act towards those persons.
If these observations be just, it follows that, so far as
ordinary morality extends, the righteous state of our
souls depends essentially on the personal relations
which we bear to others, and upon those they bear to
us. Both elements have to be taken into account. A
man's nature cannot be fully developed unless those
with whom he has to do are rightly disposed towards
him. Without that, he may, of course, act rightly to
wards them ; but if you wish to bring out the full play
of his moral nature, it is necessary that his parents,
his wife, his children, his friends, should feel towards
him as they ought, and should thus evoke the true in
stincts of his nature. If you wish to develop all the
righteousness of which a man is capable, you must
have a wise man and a philosopher constantly by his
side ; you must put righteous people around him ; and
in proportion as his heart answers to their hearts will
he himself become righteous. It is seen from this
point of view that righteousness is distinguished from
love as being only a partial aspect of that higher ex
cellence. Righteousness, we might almost say, is the
metaphor ; love is the reality : because the reality of

m.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 43
life consists in the relation of persons to persons, and
not in the relation of persons to a rule.
Now, it would seem obvious to what these consider
ations point. If the essence of righteousness consists
in personal relations, is it probable that this character
istic of our nature stops short at the point where our
highest development and deepest interests commence ?
Are we not strongly impelled by the argument from
analogy to conclude that a characteristic which clings
to us up to the last verge of direct observation con
tinues to attach to us beyond it ? Let it be remem
bered that it is in the highest characters we know
that this personal relation is most strongly developed.
Men have tried continually to separate themselves from
such relations ; and the effort has not been made only
in Christian times and countries. On the contrary, it
has probably been more often witnessed under the
influence of heathen philosophies and in pagan society.
The conception of the highest excellence as consisting
in self-sufficiency was not suggested by Christian di
vines. But it is not in Stoics or hermits that our
hearts recognize the highest types of human character.
It is in those who have followed that supreme Example
whose whole life consisted in the constant discharge
of the offices of love. Now, without asking you to
contemplate that moment when the earthly relation
ships which have thus, to the last hour, been identified
with the best energies of our souls cease to live save
in the memory of those who are left, it is sufficient to

44 RIGHTEOUSNESS [lect..
take into account the circumstances of our present life,
in order to recognize that the soul has necessities and
energies into which human relations cannot enter..
Are not some of the deepest struggles of the soul those
which force it actually to disregard human affections >
Has not the demand to hate father and mother, wife
and children, been often exemplified in great lives ?
Even in humble careers are we not, sometimes by be
reavement, sometimes by still worse wounds, thrown
back upon something within ourselves ? What is that
something ? Is it credible that the soul should exist
in a region of personality in all else, that this personal
relationship should grow more and more intense as the
deepest feelings of nature are successively experienced,
and that when the sympathy and love of wife or hus
band fail, we should be driven into an uninhabited
region of mere law, order, and necessity ?
It may, indeed, be admitted, even by many who-
reject the Christian conclusion, that the transference
of the idea of a personal relationship from that which
is temporal to that which is eternal, from that which
is human to that which is divine, was due to an irre
sistible impulse in the mind. They will only say that
the conclusion is not justifiable, and that with more
careful reasoning we must cease to assert it. Such
objections will need a more full examination.1 But,.
meanwhile, can it be fairly denied that an analogy
which harmonizes with the whole verifiable experience
' See the second course of these Lectures.

Hi.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 45
of human nature carries the strongest presumptive
weight ? The Scriptures do but assert that our highest
spiritual relations are similar in kind to those into
which they merge, and from which they can often be
scarcely separated. The whole of morality is summed
up by them in the saying, "Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself." What more probable, what
more natural, than to presume that all the spiritual
life which reaches beyond our relation to our neigh
bour is summed up in the expression, " Thou shalt
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart " ? Again, I
must reserve the explanation and justification of that
great conception of the Divine Being. But that there
must be some being, in our relationship to whom con
sists the higher life of our souls, is a conclusion which
at least harmonizes with the whole of our other ex
perience. The righteousness of the soul then becomes
of the same character, in whatever sphere it is exerted.
As moral righteousness consists in love, so spiritual
righteousness consists in it ; and there, as here — in
heaven, as on earth — it is in the influence of Person
upon Person that the health of our nature consists.
I will venture here to point out that this con
sideration meets that apparent exception to the relative
character of virtue, which, as I observed before, might
perhaps be noticed in the obligation to such duties as
purity and truthfulness. Under one aspect, indeed,
all such virtues are essentially social ; and it appears
some confirmation of the view now urged, that self-

46 RIGHTEOUSNESS [lect,
respect itself is most effectually developed, not in a
solitary, but in a social life. It is only in association
with his fellows that a man fully learns what he owes
to himself. But I think that those who value truth
fulness, for instance, most highly will acknowledge an
instinct that its deepest hold upon their allegiance
does not lie merely in its importance to their fellows.
Truth in the inward parts, even if they had nothing to
do with externals, they feel to be the foundation of all
virtue in their nature. 1 would observe, then, that
this demand for truth does seem to be laid at the
foundation of righteousness in that summary of
human duty which is based upon the Faith now in
question. The Ten Commandments are, perhaps,
primarily to be regarded as the constituent laws of a
nation ; but they have been not less justly regarded
at all times as embodying the substance of private
morality. Accordingly, after the command to have
only one God, comes the command not to take God's-
name in vain — a command which, in a time when all
solemn promises were oaths, would naturally be
understood as demanding, in God's name, truth in
word and deed. To men who believed that in their
inner and permanent consciousness they were always
in immediate relation to a supreme spiritual Being,
the observance of truth became the first necessity of
their lives. Similarly, it will hardly be denied that
Christianity has quickened intensely the sense of
obligation to purity in thought as well as in deed ;

in.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 47
and it has done this, in accordance with the exhorta
tion of St. Paul,1 by teaching men to regard themselves
as members of Christ, and thus bringing them in their
most secret consciousness into relation with a perfectly
holy person. The moral motive of self-respect has
thus been incalculably enhanced, if not superseded,.
by the spiritual motive of reverence for Christ.
It may still be replied, perhaps, that to give these
presumptions the validity demanded for them, we
ought to be able to point to some definite indications
in human nature that we are in connection with such a
Being as we have been surmising. Granted that the
supposition harmonizes with our experience and our
wants, still, how can it be more than a supposition,
unless we have actual experience of such a Person ?
It may be that some distant planet would account for
certain aberrations of our orbit, but how can we confi
dently act on the theory of its existence unless we can
point to it in our firmament, and observe its actual
movements ? There are records, indeed, of which the
Psalms are the most conspicuous, which proclaim that
men who have converted this supposition into a faith .
have experienced the strongest evidence of its reality ;
and a comparison of the presumption with the un
doubted facts of human experience thus recorded
should alone, perhaps, be sufficient to induce earnest
minds to make, at least, practical trial of so ennobling
a belief. But it must be acknowledged "that there is
1 Cor. vi. 15.

48 RIGHTEO USNESS [lect.
force in the objection; and we may find some
preliminary answer to it by a reference to the second
division of this subject, as explained in the last
Lecture. What we have hitherto been considering is how
Right and Wrong are to be determined. But there is
a further question— namely, what is the meaning of
the idea of Right and Wrong, and of the obligation
under which we feel ourselves to pursue the right and
avoid the wrong ? As I have already said,, we may
easily be mistaken in our judgment of what is right
In a particular case, and may still act, and be bound
to act, on our erroneous judgment. It is necessary,
however, to observe very carefully what it is we have
to explain. It is not the mere fact that certain
impressions are more permanent, or more in accord
ance with our nature than others ; but that those
impressions act on us in such an entirely different way
from all others. It is the distinction between duty
and desire. A variety of attempts have of late been
made to explain the Moral Sense. One of the latest
of them is that the greater permanence of social
instincts inflicts upon us, sooner or later, a sense of
dissatisfaction when we have allowed them to be over
powered by transitory individual instincts.1 But this
sense of dissatisfaction would, on the hypothesis itself,
be simply one of disappointment ; the sense of pain
would ultimately predominate over pleasure, and we.
1 Mr. Darwin on the " Descent of Man," vol. i. ch. 3.

m.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 49
should feel that it would have been more desirable for
, us to act differently. That, however, is certainly not
the feeling which provokes remorse at a bad action,
or approval of a good one. Such a principle may
help to explain how we judge that certain things are
right and certain things are wrong ; but it does not
explain why,\vhen we think them right, we feel it not
merely desirable but obligatory to do them. More
over, there are cases in which men persuade themselves
that what they have done wrong will neither directly
nor indirectly injure others, and in which they never
theless suffer all the blame of an accusing conscience.
The latter objection applies to the theory which would
explain the growth of this sentiment by the influence
of the community on the individual. That influence
would cause social sentiments ; but how could it create
that keen sense of violated obligation which often
weighs upon sensitive minds in cases where no recog
nized social law has been broken ?
The difficulty, it may be observed, is not even fully
explained by that distinction between the relative au
thority of Conscience and the other faculties of the
soul for which we are indebted to the greatest of
English Moralists. Conscience, we are shown, asserts
not merely the strength, but the right to rule ; it is
not merely an instinct, but an authoritative one. This
observation states the fact, but it does not appear to
offer an explanation of it. What is the meaning and
origin of this sense of obligation, this recognition of
E

50 RIGHTEOUSNESS [lect.
authority ? Here, again, we can hardly do wrong in
commencing with obvious and simple instances of
obligation, and concluding from them by analogy to
the nature of the higher. Is not the first idea of
obligation aroused by a sense that we have been false
to some person towards whom we owe certam conduct ?
A child's earliest idea of having done wrong is aroused
by the sense of having displeased his father or mother.
The feeling is quite distinct from the mere sense of
having injured another ; for the injury may be entirely
unintentional. It is the sense of not having recognized
and fulfilled the relation in which we were placed.
This becomes the more apparent if, as I think, we
may further observe in this sense of wrong something
quite distinct from an apprehension that we are liable
to punishment. Doubtless that apprehension arises ;
but it is remarkable that people often take refuge from
the sense of violated obligation in welcoming the
punishment which they feel must ensue upon it. It
is a positive consolation to them to say that they are
ready to take the consequences, and they feel a kind
of pride in their submission to them. The real re
morse arises when it is felt, as it is sure to be, that
the wrong is not measured by the consequences to
the wrong-doer, when the sense awakens that, for
our own temporary gratification, we have injured some
one to whom we were bound, that we have been un
faithful to some trust, or ungrateful for some kindness.
We stand in certain relations to others ; they have

III.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 51
claims on us, and we have disappointed them. We
are sensible that we have separated ourselves from
them ; we cannot look them in the face, and we are
alone. This sense of shame, and of not having acted
worthily towards our fellows, is superior, at least in
the best minds, to the mere sense of fear.
Now why, as in the former case, should we not carry
this feeling somewhat higher, and judge by analogy of
its meaning in the one instance from its meaning in
the other ? Here, also, we may employ that argument
a fortiori which I have applied to the question already
discussed in this Lecture. Nothing is more certain
than that the sense of a bad conscience is deepened,
•made more acute and penetrating, in proportion to the
nearness of the personal obligation which we have
violated. There are some sins, as has been already
observed, which by the mere moralist might be re
garded as almost, if not quite, against ourselves alone ;
they are against the truth and the higher instincts of
our nature. But under the light of Christianity these
sins become as much a matter for poignant repentance
as any others ; and the reason is that in this fuller
light they are felt to involve the violation of that per
sonal spiritual relationship of which I am speaking.
Without, however, assuming the force of this instance,
it will, I should think, be admitted that in the ordinary
course it is the sense of wrong done to others which
is the bitterest drop in the cup of remorse. More-
•over, as we have seen, this arises in cases where no

52

RIGHTEOUSNESS [lect„

permanent harm is believed to be done to the per
sons wronged. They may have been superior to
our power to injure them. It may be merely a love
unrequited or kindness abused. Now may it not be.
asked, as before, whether analogy will allow us to-
suppose that this keenest of all the purifying fires of
repentance is withheld from the soul in those sacred
relations in which, in its solitude, it communes with
what is within ? How much of the profoundest part *
of life is passed in that solitude, I need only appeal to-
poets to explain. The pathetic tones of the fifty-first.
Psalm are echoed by poets like Byron in strains which
only differ in the less complete character of the con
sciousness they express. They, like Manfred, even
where their sin has been against one of their fellows,.
still feel, above all things, alone with some power which
inflicts on them, still more bitterly, a remorse akin to
that of which they are sensible in the presence of the.
wronged spirit they have called up. Now, is it not
perfectly natural — perfectly in harmony, that is, with
the facts of every-day experience I have been de
scribing — to suppose that, as the experiences of re
morse are alike in all cases, so are its causes, and
that the deep dissatisfaction we are considering arises-
from a consciousness, never very far from any one, of
a spiritual Person to whom he owes obligations and
whom he has wronged ? It is one of the first rules of
philosophizing, that we ought not to admit new causes
when old ones suffice ; and if a feeling similar to that

m.] A PERSONAL RELATION. 53
which is caused by a violated engagement to a father,
a wife, a husband, or a friend, arises in the soul when
contemplating its sins, whether private or social, it is
but reasonable we should accept a similar explana
tion. In a word, the sense of having violated visible ob
ligations is not sufficient to account for the facts of
iremorse. Pictures of human nature, like Macbeth or
Manfred, reveal a further dissatisfaction. We have
wronged others, but we have also wronged some power
which bound us not to wrong them. It will appear
hereafter that while such an apprehension quickens
-intensely the sensitiveness of conscience to acts of
self-injury, it offers at the same time a new prospect
of regeneration. All I am now urging is that the
analogy of right and wrong, and of the feelings roused
by a violation of duty- in the cases which are con
fessedly within our observation, should be allowed to
carry weight in those which are alleged to be beyond
it. Which is more like human nature — to suppose,
like the great philosopher1 who has done such service
to the cause of independent morality, that duty con
sists in the recognition of a " naked law " which can
only be expressed in a highly philosophical phrase
ology, or to suppose, with the authors of the Scrip
tures, that it consists in a more or less conscious
relation to a Being who has similar relations towards
ais with those of other persons ? That consciousness
1 Kant.

54 RIGHTEOUSNESS, ETC. [lect;
has, indeed, been very unequally quickened in different
ages and races ; and except under the light of revela
tion it amounts only to what is described by St. Paul,
when he speaks of men " as feeling after God if haply
they might find Him." The revelation of right and
wrong is described in the Scriptures as not less gradu
ally developed than the rest of human knowledge. But
in proportion to the awakening of conscious personal
relations with a spiritual Being has been ever the
keenness of remorse, the bitterness of repentance, and
the fervour of amendment. If the principle which
arouses the deepest moral feelings can be considered
to have the strongest moral claim on our belief, the-
doctrine of a Personal God will ever rest on the firm,
support of the conscience.

iv.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 55

LECTURE IV.
THE DIVINE PERSONALITY.
Isaiah lv. 8, 9.
" For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your
ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher
than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts."
THE point to which I endeavoured to conduct
this argument in the last Lecture was the pre
sumption, afforded by analogy, that our invisible and
eternal, no less than our visible and temporal, relations
have reference to persons and not merely to things.
It appeared that the definitions of Morality, alike in
their most perfect form and in the character of their
imperfections, all point to the impossibility of defining
righteousness or virtue by any rule, and to the fact
that the health of the soul consists in a right attitude
towards persons. The sense of obligation to an un
seen power, compared with the similar sense of obli
gation to our fellow-men, was observed to point in the
same direction. The result is that the soul must be
considered as part of a great system of Personalities.

56 THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. [LECT.
You cannot decide upon its healthiness by examin
ing it separately, as you might with an inanimate
thing, or even with the inanimate part of man himself.
Just as the condition of a planet does not merely
consist in its internal constitution, but also in its
obeying a common attraction with other planetary
bodies and in its revolving round the sun, so the
health or salvation of any person must depend upon
his due co-ordination with other persons, and pro
bably upon their common subordination to some
central sun of the personal world. If this be the case,
we find the language of Scripture at once the most
simple and the most philosophical. The most exact
statement of morality is the saying, " Thou shalt love
thy neighbour as thyself ; " and similarly we have
reason to presume that the most exact statement of
our higher spiritual relations will be, " Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God."
Now, such being the presumption, we are met by
the fact of the existence of a nation and of a book
in which the whole of life, here and hereafter, was
viewed under this aspect. To the Roman the domi
nant influence in life may have been law, to the Greek
it may have been beauty, but to the Jews it was the
will and the love of an unseen Person. The first
characteristic of the Scriptures is that they bring
before the mind, in every page, the sense of a personal
Being towards whom the writers stand in more
intimate relationship than to any one or anything

IV.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 57
¦else. The veil seems to be drawn aside which hangs
•over the invisible world, and we see disclosed behind
At the vision of a mysterious Spirit, in whom we live
and move, towards whom our best affections are due,
and on whom we absolutely depend in body and soul.
The question which arises for our consideration in
this Lecture is whether the disclosure thus made to
us by the vision of Hebrew and Christian seers
answers those demands of which we have been speak
ing, and offers a worthy response to the dictates of
our moral nature.
It seems, however, necessary at the present time to
meet a preliminary objection which may be raised to
this statement of the case. It is gravely, and even
¦earnestly, maintained by a writer of considerable influ
ence,1 that this idea of a personal God is in no way in
volved in the essential meaning of the Jewish Scrip
tures. But a short time ago such a statement would
have beendeemed, at least in England, a mere paradox,
and it is in reality little else ; but it is important as
the extreme form of a tendency everywhere observ
able, even in religious thought, to suspect any strong
and vivid conception of the Divine Personality, to
treat the Divine nature as something so unapproach
able as to be beyond our sympathies, and consequently
to concentrate religion almost wholly on our relations
one to another. Infinite mockery is thrown over the
mere notion of our knowing enough of God's nature
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold, especially in " Literature and Dogma. ' •

THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. [lect„
to apply the term " personal " to Him, and we are
told such language is the mere imagery of the Hebrew
writers. The statement that " The Lord our God is,
one Lord," is said to be merely a "deeply-moved
way " of recommending seriousness ; and trust in God
is interpreted to mean trust in the law of conduct.
The language of the Bible must have become
strangely obscured for such an explanation of it to
have received any acceptance. How do the Hebrew
Scriptures open ? Is it by the revelation of a law of
life or conduct ? Not at all. Their first words are,
" In the beginning God created the heaven and the
earth;" and they proceed to speak of the voice, the
will, and the design of God. To appreciate the prac
tical significance of this language we are not concerned
with the cosmogony of the book of Genesis. The
main effect of that first chapter upon the mind is, as
wasdoubtless intended, to afford us a view of God,
rather than to afford us a view of nature. It is one of
the most frequent modes of argument in the Scrip
tures to appeal to the facts of nature for the purpose
of giving us a conception of the vast personality which
lies behind them. The most memorable instance is
that passage in the book of Job, in which, when the
patriarch and his advisers are perplexing themselves
to explain the Divine dispensations, the Lord answers
Job out of the whirlwind, and says, " Gird up now thy
loins like a man, for I will demand of thee, and
answer thou me. Where wast thou when I laid the

iv.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. <&„
foundations of the earth ? Declare, if thou hast under
standing." The whole passage which follows might
be regarded as a poetical application of the first
chapter of the first book of Moses ; and the founda
tions of Jewish belief were thus laid, not in mere
considerations of human conduct, but in those revela
tions of supreme power and wisdom which the con
templation of nature impressed, perhaps, even more
on the early thoughts of men than on our own. Is it
a mere law or arr influence which is depicted in the
book of Job as creating and swaying at will every
creature in heaven and earth ? Or, to take another
example, consider the 104th Psalm. What is the
effect of its opening verses ? " Bless the Lord, O my
soul. O Lord my God, Thou art very great ; Thou
art clothed with honour and majesty. Who coverest
Thyself with light as with a garment : who stretchest
out the heavens like a curtain : who layeth the beams
of His chambers in the waters : who maketh the
clouds His chariot : who walketh upon the wings of
the wind : who maketh His angels spirits, His minis
ters a flaming fire." Is it not obvious that the purpose
of the poet in such passages is to reveal a personality ?
The writer is not, like ordinary poets, making use of
personal imagery for the purpose of describing nature ;
he is using the facts of nature for the purpose of de
scribing a Person. These Psalms of nature alone
would suffice to vindicate the central idea of the
Hebrew prophets ; but when we come to those in,

,-6o THE DIVINE PERSONALITY, [lect.
•which they are dealing with the inner world of the
human heart, the Personality revealed becomes clear
and intense beyond, it might have been thought, the
possibility of mistake. It may be possible, by varying
the translation, to explain " delight in the Lord " to be
" delight in the Eternal," and this again to be simply
a " deeply-moved way " of expressing the happiness
we all feel to spring from " conduct." How any culti
vated, not to speak of any religious mind, can bring
itself to pare down the vivid language of the Psalms
to such common-places, is another question. But how
can the process be possibly applied to such a Psalm
as that which immediately precedes the one just
quoted — the 103rd ? " The Lord is merciful and gra
cious, slow to anger and plenteous in mercy. He will
not always chide : neither will He keep His anger for
ever  Like as a father pitieth his children, so the
Lord pitieth them that fear Him. For He knoweth
our frame, He remembereth that we are dust." How
ever much imagery there may be in such language, it
is positively meaningless, alike for its author and
for ourselves, unless it be considered as consciously
addressed to a Person.
It does not seem necessary to answer very carefully
those other current objections to which I referred
against our thus speaking of the God of the universe
as a Person. Undoubtedly we are ignorant of what
personality means ; we have not sounded what the
;poet calls "the abysmal depths" of even our own

iv.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 6 if
personality. But does that circumstance leave us in?
any practical doubt as to the existence of such a cha
racteristic in us, or as to the fact that we are distin
guished by it from all inanimate and from other
animate things ? We could not advance a single step
in science, unless we could assign things to certain
classes long before we are able adequately to define
them. We know it would be absurd to ascribe to a
law or a force the pity of a Father, the tender thought-
fulness of a merciful Saviour, the forgiveness of a
Judge. The Scripture writers, it is quite true, do not
trouble themselves with our metaphysical distinctions.
But they had a far keener perception than we have of
the primary facts of life, and they conceived of God as
at least as much a personal Being as we are ourselves.
There are movements of our souls which can be called
out towards persons and persons only — emotions, af
fections, and acts of trust — and these movements of
the soul the Jews felt they could indulge to the full
towards God, and be sure of a suitable response. The
question of immediate practical importance is, not
what God's nature is, but how we may feel towards.
Him, and how we may suppose Him to feel towards
us. The simple and perfectly intelligible answer given
to these questions by the Jews was, that they could.
feel towards God in a manner similar to that in which
they felt towards other beings whom they considered
persons, and that He felt similarly towards them. The
philosophical explanation of the term, or of the reality,

62 THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. [lect.
may be far to seek ; but, as with many other things
equally unexplained, we need have no difficulty in
our general application of the principle.
But there are other objectors who fully acknowledge
that the characteristic idea of the Scriptures is that of
a personal God, towards whom we may have personal
feelings, but who maintain that the conceptions of
His character put forward, more particularly in the
Old Testament, are unworthy and contradictory.
The Jews, it is said, did conceive of God as a Person,
but they imagined Him a Person far too like them
selves — like themselves, angry, jealous, repentant,
fierce. Now, I am not concerned to defend every
expression respecting God which may be used by
every Old Testament hero. Their words are recorded
historically, not dogmatically ; and they may in cer
tain cases have thought unworthily, no less than
acted unworthily, of Him. But without descending
to special defences, I would observe that the objection,
as a whole, arises from a misconception of the spirit
of such expressions.
Recollect, for a moment, what we have already seen
respecting the manner in which the facts of nature
are employed to reveal the character of God. The
author of the book of Job, or the' Psalmist, accumulates
everything that there is in nature of magnificent,
powerful, beautiful, or subtle, and treats them all as
the mere shadows of still loftier Divine lineaments.
The Psalmist disposes them as the garments which

TV.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 63
dimly reveal, while they nevertheless shroud, His form.
But all that there is grand in natural realities is thus
regarded as having its counterpart in God Himself;
and we have to gather them all into one view, as in
the 104th Psalm, in order to gain the least conception
of His majesty. There is scarcely any one who does
not acknowledge the grandeur of the conception thus
developed, or who does not do homage, like Job,
to this revelation of One who " can do everything."
But now let it be considered why this process of
regarding all the excellences of nature as shadows of
the Divine perfections should stop short with inani
mate nature, and should not be continued into the
realm of human nature ? Fallen and imperfect as we
may be, are we alone, of all God's creatures, the beings
in whom no reflection of His attributes is to be seen ?
Marred as the human heart and the human soul may
be, are their emotions and impulses less noble than the
brute force of the leviathan ? Or is the human reason
less worthy than the physical light to be regarded as
the garment with which the Lord covers Himself?
The authors of the Scriptures entertained too great a
reverence for human nature to permit it to be thus
excluded from the noble office of declaring the glory of
the Lord and showing His handiwork. It is true
they might, at one moment, feel their insignificance
when considering the heavens, the work of His fingers,
the moon and the stars, which He had ordained ; but
another moment's reflection recalled them to the sense

64 THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. [LECT..
that the law of the Lord was not less perfect, which
converted and restored the soul. Accordingly, just as
the 104th Psalm ascribes to God all the glory of which
the light and the firmament, the clouds and the wind,
are the embodiments, so the Scriptures in general
treat the nobler passions, capacities, and emotions of
the human soul as shadows of the perfections of the
Divine nature. Anger, jealousy, repentance, indigna
tion, may indeed all be corrupt and mean passions ;.
but they may also be not less noble displays of the
human heart than the storm or the earthquake are of
the powers of nature. If, then, as is generally felt,
there is no false imagery in such language as " The
God of glory thundereth, the Lord is upon many
waters," why should we fail to acknowledge a similar
propriety in images which clothe Him for the moment
in the garb of human emotiorts, and invest Him with
the lightnings and thunders of the soul ? Neither
language is strictly true ; each is as near an approxi
mation to the truth as we can obtain ; and it is by a
combination of all such images, in bold indifference
to apparent contradictions, that the comprehensive
and sublime conception of God in the Scriptures is
created. One of the most distinguished, for instance, of these
only too rational objectors has collected from various
parts of Scripture passages which ascribe to God con
trary qualities and dispositions ¦} and he draws the
1 Mr. Greg, in the "Creed of Christendom," vol. i. p. 105.

iv.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 65
prosaic conclusion that the Theism oi the Jews was
impure and progressive. In one place God declares
that He will dwell in the sanctuary ; in another place
it is said, " The heaven and the heaven of heavens
cannot contain Thee : how much less this house that
I have builded ! " In one place He speaks of holding
communion with His servants ; in another He is
described as hidden and incapable of being seen. At
one time He is entreated to repent of evil against His
people ; at another time it is declared that He is not
a man that He should repent. At one time He de
mands burnt-offerings ; at another He declares that
He desires not sacrifice. But is it difficult to perceive .
that these daring contradictions are the very safeguard
against that impure and anthropomorphic Theism of
which the inspired writers are accused ? The real
anthropomorphism consists in setting up an ideal
which is consistent according to a human standard.
There is, for instance, no anthropomorphism greater
than that of some men of science, who can only con
ceive of God as standing in the same relation to nature
as that in which they stand themselves — unable, that
is, to act, except in submission to its ordinary laws.
But the Scriptures take everything that is grand and
beautiful, in the world without and in the world with
in, in the firmament or in the heart, and fuse them
together into one glorious image of God. Attempt
to ascribe them all to a human being, and they will
be mutually destructive ; but in God the realities of
F

66 THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. [LECT
which they are the reflections may subsist in one
essential harmony. It is precisely because the Scrip
tures are not really anthropomorphic that they venture
on such bold flights of apparent anthropomorphism.
They illustrate the Divine nature in the only way in
which it can be illustrated — by human analogies ;
and then immediately add, in the words of the text,
" For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the
heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways
higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your
thoughts." It seemed desirable to diverge a little from the
regular course of argument to consider these objections,
because upon the reality and legitimacy of the scrip
tural conception of a Personal God depends the
possibility of considering aright any of the distinct
doctrines of Christianity ; and when, as in the present
day, such views as I have been describing prevail
respecting that conception, it is impossible without
disputing them to advance a single step beyond the
most elementary presumptions. The doctrine of the
Atonement, for instance, as we shall see hereafter, is
indefensible except in the language of personal rela
tions ; and the perversions by which it has been dis
credited have arisen from the fact that, even among
Christians themselves, the simple and direct language
of Scripture has been explained away into impersonal
metaphors.

IV.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 67
These objections, however, have done us the service
of bringing before our view some of the elements of
the scriptural idea of God. Let us now endeavour to
collect them, and consider whether they do not
correspond to the highest cravings and dictates of the
soul. It is not necessary here to indulge our own
imaginations of what would be the effect of such a
belief. We have it before us in utterances of the
human heart, which are as genuine records of experi
ence as can be found in any other literature. The
Psalms and the Prophets, for instance, are not didactic
treatises ; they reveal to us the souls of the writers :
and what do we see in them ? We observe, in the
first place, that the double conception of a God who
unites in Himself all the majesty of nature and all the
humanity of man aroused in their minds a faith which
delivered them from all fear, and made them feel that
they possessed a superiority to all natural and spiritual
enemies, only to be measured by the superiority of
their Lord Himself. It should be particularly observed
that it appears to be the combination of the two ideas
of loftiness and condescension, of supreme power and
of tenderness, to which this characteristic spirit of
religious courage is due. The two are combined in
the beautiful exhortation, "But now thus saith the
Lord that created thee, O Jacob, and He that formed
thee, O Israel, Fear not : for I have redeemed thee,
I have called thee by thy name ; thou art mine. When
thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee ;

68

THE DIVINE PERSONALITY, [lect.

and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee :
when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be
burned ; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee."
Other religions, indeed— or one, at least— has invested
its votaries with a spirit of unflinching courage. But
it has at the same time instilled into them a fatalism
which has been an obstacle to their waging that
incessant war with circumstances which is essential to
continued progress. So long as God is contemplated
simply as the great and Almighty Creator, the soul
feels' that it has nothing to do but to submit to His
inscrutable decrees, and bow at an infinite distance
to what may appear His will. But once interpret the
character of God by human as well as by natural
excellences — once admit the justice of those descrip
tions of God as pitying and redeeming His people,.
holding them by the hand and helping them, con
descending to their individual needs as a father with
his children — and then all that power and overwhelm
ing majesty, which otherwise would crush the soul,,
become to it a constant spring of hope, energy, and
resource. We are justly proud, in these days, of the courage
and calmness with which men face the mysteries and
the powers of nature. Probably complete fearlessness
in the investigation of truth is one of the most re
markable characteristics of our time ; and it may well
be believed that much of the very scepticism against
which I am now arguing arises, not from the prevalence

av.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 69
¦of less willingness to believe, but from a habit of
looking difficulties more boldly in the face. To a
great extent it is a scepticism of faith and not of
distrust, and we may therefore contemplate it with
the less alarm. But shall we think it a mere accident
that the great impulse given, three centuries ago, to
this career of free thought and free speech coincided
with a religious revolution brought about by perhaps
the most fearless of all uninspired theologians ? Deep
in the heart of Germany, I would fain believe, lies
even now the faith awakened by that master-spirit ;
and it is because he revived in the world the great
lesson of faith in God that men do not shrink from
the most unrestrained inquiries into Divine things.
At all events, this is the faith which combines in
individuals the utmost energy with the profoundest
submission, the proudest courage with the deepest
humility, and which renders possible a kind of self-
reliance utterly destitute of self-assertion.
But it is when we pass to the effect of this belief in
a Personal God upon the more spiritual excellences
of the soul, that its correspondence to our needs
becomes most apparent. It is here that the personal
relations come chiefly into play. What is the reason,
let me ask, for the extraordinary popularity of poems
and great works of fiction, except that, by placing us
in connection, though an imaginary one, with personal
passions and feelings, the impulses of our own nature
are called out, and our hearts are made to live and

7°

THE DIVINE PERSONALITY, [lect.

breathe ? Here again the truth has been expressed
by that great Greek philosopher I have more than
once had to quote, who says the use of tragedy is to
purify the heart by the passions of fear and pity. If
you wish to develop a human soul, you must, in
some way, rouse its feelings towards another soul ;
and you cannot produce any real regenerating effect
on the heart except by means of the great affections,
such as love, indignation, anger, and scorn. The
human heart is a noble and complicated instrument,
of which the music can only be evoked by the touch
of a responsive heart. Now let us ask whether any
heart, however near, however good, however true,
among ourselves, is capable of arousing all that depth
of spiritual and moral emotion with which we know
that our hearts must be stirred, if their full music is
to be elicited. There are, indeed, some instances in
which two hearts may seem all in all, and sufficient
for each other. But rare, if even conceivable, are the
cases in which one or other of even the simpler chords
in the soul does not remain imperfectly awakened ;
rarer still, alas ! are the instances in which some
failing, however deeply lamented, has not marred the
response of perfect sympathy. At all events, what
ever might have been, yet, taking us as we are, how
many souls are there — is there one ? — which could or
would lay bare to any human being the whole of its
sins, weaknesses, and needs ? Or, on the other hand,
can we, among our fellows, conceive of a soul so perfect

iv.] THE DIVINE PERSONALITY. 71
and so sympathetic as to be able to pour upon the heart
of another the full and adequate stream of consolation
or of rebuke ? In one word, is it conceivable that any
imperfect human being could respond adequately to
the full revelation of the sins, the passions, the cravings
of the heart ?
To put the case in the language of Scripture, we
have a heart, a soul, a mind, and a strength, and it is
our instinct to develop that heart, soul, mind, and
strength to their utmost, to bring them all into full
play, to sound their heights and depths, their breadth
and length. How is that satisfaction attainable ? Is
the nature of any one of us, thus considered, capable
of being satisfied by even the most exquisite sympathy
of another like ourselves ? Even if there were no
other imperfection, what is to be the consolation when
bereavement leaves one of two united souls to seek
its support elsewhere ? Can you acquiesce in the
supposition that it is nothing to the Creator that
beings endowed with this intense personal conscious
ness should have the deepest and most permanent
energies of their souls wasted and disappointed ?
If not, do we not find at least an offer of a solution
for these enigmas in the proclamation of a Personal
Being whom we may love with all the heart, with all
the soul, witn all the mind, and with all the strength ?
That is the revelation conveyed in the Psalms. There
you have the whole permanent diapason of the human
soul aroused by the revelation of a Being towards

72 THE DIVINE PERSONALITY, [lect.
whom affection and sympathy, shame and regard,
love for the right and hatred of the wrong, repentance
and hope, joy and sorrow, fear and courage, all those
passions and emotions which transcend the bounds of
the present life, may have their full and complete
development. His mighty nature, His wrath, His
indignation, His pity, His love— that is to say, the
qualities in Him which to us have the same relation
as those qualities in human beings — bring their
supreme influence to bear upon our souls, and purify
them with an overwhelming energy. Add to this the
record of the Gospels, in which this Divine Being is
exhibited in permanent union, and consequently in
sensible sympathy — in a communion which was "seen
and heard and handled," — with the soul and the body
of man, and there then stands before us, complete and
accessible, an all-satisfying object for the personal
devotion of our souls. If the record of the Psalms
and the lives of the saints be real, this revelation has
been abundantly verified by those who have trusted it.
In this relationship to a Divine Person their love has
been intensified, their righteousness strengthened, their
courage heightened, their intellect exalted. They
have reflected the lineaments of their Divine Com
panion and Friend ; and it is on the witness of this
supreme moral influence, not on any mere metaphy
sical inference, that we rest our firm faith in the
doctrine of a Personal God.

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. 73

LECTURE V.
THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM.
Romans i. 18.
•" For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all un
godliness and unrighteousness of men. ' '
IN resuming these Lectures,1 permit me to remind
you of the course we have pursued. It is not
without advantage, indeed, to be thus compelled from
time to time to review the ground over which we have
passed ; for the force of any presumptions which may
be derived from man's moral nature must depend, in
great measure, upon their combination ; and it is,
moreover, essential in such an argument as the present
to assume, in its later stages, the right of using lan
guage which, at the outset, was treated as needing
vindication. I have endeavoured, then, to show that the elemen
tary cravings of the soul point to some other than the
present world as the goal of our life, and therefore as
affording the standard of our actions ; while all
-analogy would lead us to conclude that our moral
1 After an interval of three weeks.

74 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect.
relations to that world must be personal relations, as
they are in the visible world. As in the visible world
oUr duties, our energies, and our happiness depend not
on mere circumstances, or even rules and laws, but on
the attitude of our hearts and souls towards indi
viduals, and upon their attitude towards us, still more
must this be the case in those deeper and more per
manent relationships in which the soul seeks its ulti
mate rest. Christians, accordingly, recognize the satis
faction of their instincts in the revelation of a Personal
God, towards whom all the emotions of their souls
may have free play, and whom, in the language of the
Scriptures, they may love with all their heart, soul,
mind, and strength. The purpose of the last Lecture
was to vindicate this conception of God from some
objections which have been recently raised against it,
particularly on the ground of its being a mere meta
physical notion, unsupported by verifiable facts, and
conveying no intelligible meaning. We saw that,
without entering into any metaphysics, the Scriptures
simply regard as a reflection of the Divine nature
everything that is great and good in creation ; and
just as they view the mighty realities of the physical
world as voices which bespeak God's presence, or as
garments enshrouding His majesty, so they consider
the personality and all the emotions of man as still
more noble revelations of one aspect of His nature.
What He is in Himself we know not, and the Scrip
tures are a continual protest against the anthropo-

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. 75
morphism of which they are accused. But it is by no
means so inconceivable what He may be to us ; and
the questions : — '' He that planted the ear, shall He
not hear ? or He that made the eye, shall He not see ? "
may be still more forcibly applied to the spiritual
parts of our nature. He that created love, shall He
not love ? or He that rendered indignation against
evil one of the noblest qualities of the soul, shall there
be nothing in His relation towards us which corre
sponds to it ? The possibility of further pursuing the
present argument depends upon the validity of this
presumption being admitted. In proceeding to discuss
some of the more essential Christian doctrines, it will
be necessary to speak continually of the wrath, the
love, the mercy, and the justice of God. I protest at
the outset, and may have to protest more than once,
that I am making no assumption as to the nature of
personality in ourselves — still less in God. I am
simply assuming, on the ground of a presumption
already vindicated, that the Divine nature in its rela
tions towards us must, so to speak, assume the form of
those human emotions. Were I not speaking as an
apologist, it would be more correct to say that our
love and wrath are images of the spiritual realities of
the Divine nature.
It will be seen, however, that, so far, the points we
have been considering are, as it were, the separate ele
ments of the problem with which the theologian, or
the philosopher, has to deal. We have been inquiring

-76 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect.
what are the constituent parts of the spiritual world,
¦whether they are personal or impersonal, and so on.
But the far more important question remains, What is
the state, as a matter of fact, in which these parts or
elements are found existing in human nature ? The
ideas of Right and Wrong and the standard of right
may indicate for us what we ought to do ; the vision
of our relationship to God may reveal to us the possi
bilities of our nature ; but a religion which deals prac
tically with human beings will take into account what
is their actual condition ; it will address itself, not
to what men ought to do and feel, but to their real
feelings and acts ; and its crucial test will be the
manner in which it meets the main facts of life. This
is, perhaps, an observation of which the full signifi
cance may not at first be apparent ; but it is the es
sential weakness of all mere systems of morality, and
of most, if not of all other religions, that they confine
themselves to pointing out what the facts of life ought
to be, and make no provision whatever for dealing
with facts as they are. Some physician has said that
the essence of the rules of medicine may be summed
up in the advice, " to keep weH." It was a pointed
application of the familiar maxim that " Prevention is
better than cure." But what would be thought of the
physician who, when brought into an hospital, had
nothing but this to say to the patients whom he would
see stretched before him in the various miseries and
dangers of disease ? It is in the latter case, not in the

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. 77-
former, that you have an adequate illustration of the
moral philosopher, however excellent, and of the
merely moral interpreter of the Scriptures. They can
bid us preserve our moral health ; they can define for
us in some measure in what it consists. But they da
not ask what is the actual state of our souls and what
are their consequent needs. I would not for a moment
disparage their teaching for its own purposes. It is their
main defect, not that they conflict with Christianity,.
but that they fail to touch the problem with which it
most directly deals.
That problem is the actual state of human nature
from a moral point of view. Judging by individual
conscience, or by general experience, can it be disputed
that this condition is one of universal frailty, failure,
and regret ? It is not necessary to go to the theolo
gian, it is more than sufficient to appeal to poets and
historians as witnesses to this sad reality. In a great
city like this, are there not crimes enough to sadden
the heart of any observer who can but take patent facts
into account ? Are we not continually reminded that
the Church and a number of subsidiary institutions are,.
in large districts, stemming slowly and with difficulty
the tide of degradation, or struggling to overcome the
fatal lethargy of indifference to high moral aims ? But
apart from these more flagrant instances of corruption
or imperfection, how many of us are there who, when
our consciences are fully aroused, are not painfully
sensible of the lamentable failure of our own spiritual

78 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect-
life ? None would admit the fact more fully than those
who are the best examples of human excellence. It
is those who have struggled the most earnestly, and
have succeeded the best, who are the most sensible of
their comparative failure. In saying this I am not
bringing a charge, or denying the validity of many
excuses which men offer for themselves, or which are
offered for them by others. I am only observing the
fact of universal failure to reach the moral standard we
all admit. To account for it is one thing, to recognize
it is another. The higher the standard proposed, the
more admirable the moral teaching considered by
itself, the more conspicuous is this general and indi
vidual falling short.
As we read, in fact, some of those moralizing inter
preters of the Scriptures, to whom I have more than
once referred, a feeling must be continually suggested
little short of despair. Take, for instance, the passage
I quoted once before from a recent attack on the re
ceived interpretation of Christ's teaching. "In Christ's
grand and simple creed," this author says, " expressed
in His plainest words, eternal life was the assured
inheritance of those who loved God with all their
hearts, who loved their neighbours as themselves, and
who walked purely, humbly, and beneficently while on
earth."1 Undoubtedly it was. " This do," He said
on one occasion, "and thou shalt live." But it is well
*Mr. Greg, Introduction to the third edition of the "Creed
of Christendom," p. xciii.

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. 79
for us that this was not the whole of His creed. Is it
not wonderful that the writer's heart did not fail him
as he was announcing this perfection as the means of
salvation ? Did salvation depend upon our having,
while on earth, loved God with all our hearts and our
neighbours as ourselves, how many of us could dare
to hope for it ? The very person to whom Christ
uttered the words, "This do, and thou shalt live,"
proceeded to "justify" himself by inquiring who was
his neighbour, and was immediately compelled, by the
parable of the Good Samaritan, to confess his failure
in the comprehension, not to speak of the fulfilment,
of the second commandment of the law. So again
another writer proclaims his discovery " of the method
and secret and sweet reasonableness of Jesus," the
method being " inwardness," and the secret " renuncia
tion ; " 1 and he propounds as the essence of the Gospel
that, if we will adopt these methods, we shall attain
righteousness. But of what avail is it to tell a sick
man that if he will walk he will recover his health ?
His inability to walk is of the essence of his disease.
Similarly, of what avail is it to tell men with their
natures already warped and corrupted, " betrayed too
•early and beguiled too long," that all will be well with
them if they will but practise the excellences of a per
fectly innocent soul ? I ask whether the most urgent
necessity of life is not left out of account in such teach
ing ? The Gospels, we are told, to quote once more,
Mr/Matthew Arnold in " Literature and Dogma," chap. vii.

80 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect.
" read in an understanding spirit .... contain little
about which men can differ, little from which they can
dissent. He is our father, we are all brethren ; . . . .
this needs no Priest to teach it — no authority to in
dorse it. The rest is Speculation — intensely interest
ing, indeed, but of no practical necessity."1 "The
rest," thus dismissed as of no practical necessity, re
lates to the errors, the sins, the grief, the repentance of
frail and struggling souls.
In the teaching of Christ and His apostles there
was a method which an ordinary preacher must despair
of approaching, by which they succeeded, except in
the case of an especially hard-hearted class, in eliciting
from men and women a frank confession of their sense
of sin, and inducing in consequence an eager resort to
the means offered them for deliverance from it. Yet
it is only by some such appeal that the foundation
for any further development of Christian truth can be
laid. The point is not demonstrable by argument ; it
is simply a matter of observation and experience. The
axioms of geometry, it has been said, are such as no
sane man can deny, while those of morality are such
as no good man will deny ; and it may be added that
the postulates of religion are such as no man who
knows either the facts of life or his own heart dare
deny. Perhaps, when we think some charge is being
brought against us from the pulpit, as though its only
1 Mr. Greg, " Creed of Christendom," third edition,, vol. ii.
P- i9S-

v.] THE PR A C TICAL PROBLEM. 81
object were to condemn us, it is natural to feel an
impulse to repel the accusation. But let us conceive
Christ standing before us, not in the attitude of a
Judge, but of a Saviour, and asking us to reveal to
Him the secrets of our souls, in order that He might
deliver us from our evils — and which of us, who is not
altogether hardened, would not respond in the tones of
the penitential Psalm, " I acknowledge my transgres
sions, and my sin is ever before me " ? Once dismiss the
notion that the Reformed Churches were enunciating
a theory when they laid such stress on the doctrine of
Original Sin, regard that doctrine simply as describing
a fact, and can you doubt the substantial truth of its
description of human nature ? Who can deny as a
matter of fact the existence of such a thing as " Original
or Birth sin " ?1 Do we not observe a fault and corrup
tion in the nature of every man, born by natural birth,
from the first moment of dawning reason ? What
child is there who does not betray a natural inclination
towards what is practically, even when not con
sciously, evil, perpetually resisting other inclinations
to good ? Is there not a tendency rooted in us —
whether you call it "thewisdom," or "the sensuality," or
"the affection," or "the desire, of the flesh" — which is
not subject to the law of God ? If this is theological
language, it is none the less language which describes
every-day realities ; and it is with these realities that
1 Article IX.
G

82 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect.
what is considered the technical language of theology
is concerned. Divines, it must be admitted, have been too apt to
mould such facts into the shape of their own imper
fect theories, and then to argue from the theories
instead of from the facts ; and, as a consequence,
sooner or later, the theories have been found to be
partial and unreal, and an air of unreality has been
cast on all the language which seemed to imply them.
While, however, I admit this, I cannot refrain in
passing from saying that, with all their defects, there
is something greater, something more true even to
facts, in the spirit which has constructed schemes like
that of Calvinism, than in such speculations as I have
to-day been referring to, or in the whole school of
moral Deism. At all events, these divines did not
shut their eyes to the stupendous and distressing facts
of human evil in the individual and in the race. They
were not content with barely pointing out what men
ought to do ; and the condition of human nature, as
it actually existed, offered too terrible a problem for
them to shut their eyes to it. It was to relieve their
minds of a great burden that they constructed theories
to account for it, and sought to elicit from the Scrip
tures an elaborate system of Divine Economy. They
could not but fail ; and the reaction has been, in some
respects, most mischievous. Yet so long as such
theories, however imperfect, or even injurious, do take
into account the evil of individuals and of the world,

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. 83
while philosophers or sceptics disregard it, so long
will the theories possess, for the mass of men, a far
superior attraction. Their authors were often wise
and brave men who tried to look realities in the face,
and to account for them ; and though their schemes
may have passed away, they have each contributed
some point of view which assists us in gaining a full
conception of the truth. But much as I respect such
efforts, I am not called on to maintain the adequacy
of any of them ; and I must protest against that
shallow criticism, which, first of all, is content to
acquaint itself with their popular exaggerations, and
then treats those exaggerations as Christian theology.
The Christian Church has been feeling its way, from
the commencement, into the full light of the revela
tion with which it has been entrusted. It has often
advanced by means of splendid errors, and still more
often through mental and spiritual agonies ; and the
task of true criticism would be to develop the truth of
which those errors were the partial reflection, and of
which those agonies were the birth-pangs.
Considerations of this nature will apply throughout
these last four Lectures. It will be equally essential
to vindicate ordinary theological terms from the
narrow conceptions which popular theories have from
time to time attributed to them, and at the same time
to illustrate their profound correspondence with the
realities of life. Take, for instance, in connection
with the subject we are treating this afternoon, the

84 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect,
word " Salvation." The phrase " Scheme of Salvation "
has become peculiarly obnoxious, and the very ideal
itself has become to many minds artificial. Men
whose objections are entitled to respect continually
speak as if theologians understood by it the deliver
ance of the soul from some mysterious, if not arbitrary,
fate. The subject assumes in their thoughts a distant
and unreal character; and those schemes, of which there
have been, indeed, but too many, throw their artifi
cial appearance over the whole conception. But start
from the language of the Scriptures, and import the
meaning thus obtained into the language of the
Church, and the idea of Salvation becomes only too
real and momentous. "Thou shalt call His name
Jesus," it is said, " for He shall save His people from
their sins." Bearing in mind those facts of life of .
which I have spoken, what expression can come more
home to the hearts and necessities of mankind ?
Doubtless, in its ultimate signification, the term Salva
tion is fulfilled by giving it a future meaning. It
looks forward to that solemn hereafter when our souls,
disembarrassed of all other interests, shall stand face
to face with their eternal doom. But if we wish to
know what that doom implies, we must interpret the
future by its commencement in the present. To be
saved is primarily to be delivered from those sins
which have been our continual burden. They are
not merely a weight on our conscience, they are a
perpetual clog on our spiritual energies, and their

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. 85
memory is an intolerable remorse to us. The very
question of life is whether we can be saved from them.
In other words, can the health of our souls be re
stored, so that we can breathe and live in a spiritual
atmosphere, and feel in harmony with its Divine
realities ? A question of infinite perplexity to a far
greater number of souls than the external compla
cency of social manners might lead us to imagine !
In the business of life it may, for many a long period,
be put aside, but in some moment or other the thought
returns of what the soul might have been, of what
were its visions of everything noble, pure, and lovely ;
and the weaknesses of which we have become the
victims — the sins which, even if they have not become
habits, have left their traces in marred sympathies and
enfeebled energies, make us doubt whether we can
ever be saved from ourselves. A melancholy acqui
escence in imperfection steals, it is to be feared, over
the souls of the majority of men and women when,
after the excitement of life is over, they begin to
realize the defeats of their spiritual struggle. They
take refuge in vague hopes of some future deliverance ;
and it is, after all, their readiness to grasp at any
consolation which lends vitality to the artificial
schemes just spoken of. To those who are conscious
of the inveterate and ingrained disease of their spirits,
it is difficult to realise the possibility of perfect
renovation ; and Christianity itself, in one sense,
aggravates the difficulty by the urgency with which it

86 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect.
insists on the fatal effect of a lingering vice in the
soul, and on the necessity of perfection as that which
Gan alone confer peace and happiness.
I have been hitherto speaking in the ordinary lan
guage of observation and of philosophy ; but to give
these considerations their full force, let us now turn
upon them the light of those views of the spiritual
world which I recalled at the commencement of this
Lecture. We have to interpret the soul's general sense
of imperfection by this further consideration — that it
will have to deal directly and face to face with a Per
sonal Being of infinite and uncompromising holiness,
truth, and justice. Conscience has been but the pre
monitory utterance of that Divine voice which will then
penetrate in its deepest tones to the recesses of the
soul ; the feelings of shame have been but the fore
shadowing of the utter self-abasement which a frail
spirit must feel under the piercing glance of that Divine
eye. Again I would urge that we must not shrink
from employing these analogies. Can it be supposed
for a moment that the direct introduction of the soul
to those great spiritual Personalities can fail to arouse
in it all the emotions of shame, fear, and self-abhorrence
which it feels even in the presence of its fellows ? We
have to imagine all those emotions a thousandfold in
tensified — a Divine light searching the inmost corners
of the will and laying bare not merely presumptuous
sins but secret faults, convicting and condemning
desires as well as acts, thoughts as well as words, and

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. 87
bringing every movement and impulse of our nature
before the judgment seat. This is the first step in the
revelation of Christianity.
It was a revelation of this kind, and spoken with
this purpose, which Christ delivered at the outset of
His ministry in the Sermon on the Mount. That
Sermon is, no doubt, a proclamation of morality ; but
it is strange that any one can read it in this sense,
and not feel it at the same time the most terrible pro
clamation of judgment ever uttered. Let us conceive
ourselves listening to that voice, speaking with autho
rity, " Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou
shalt not kill ; but I say unto you that whosoever
shall be angry with his brother without cause shall be
in danger of the judgment." " Ye have heard that it
was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit
adultery ; but I say unto you that whosoever looketh
on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery
with her already in his heart." " Till heaven and earth
pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from
the law till all be fulfilled." Let us realize the pene
tration and inexorable severity of this voice, and which
of us can contemplate unmoved its final and judicial
revelation to our consciences ?
Such is the meaning of the statement from which
St. Paul starts in his exposition of the gospel with
which he had been entrusted — that " the wrath of God
is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and
unrighteousness of men." This is a revelation which

88 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect.
does not depend merely on external guarantees; it
justifies itself. Those who heard the Sermon on the
Mount felt that our Saviour spoke with authority ;
and when the Apostles proclaim this judgment already
working in our souls, and hereafter to be fully enforced,
our consciences bear witness that they are revealing
realities. Just as a companion with quicker sight
than ourselves will explain to us the meaning of some
form approaching in the distance, and though we could
not ourselves have discerned it, we recognize at once
the correctness of the explanation ; so, when the
Scriptures interpret to us the warnings of conscience,
we instinctively recognize the truth of the interpreta
tion. If the faculties of the soul are not impenetrably
dulled, it cannot but feel itself, in presence of such a
revelation, surrounded by a " consuming fire " which
must burn up everything base and false. Let a man
interpret by these considerations, by these present facts
of his conscience, the language of the Scriptures and
of the Church with respect to Salvation, and he will
be very far from thinking it either artificial or un
worthy. Objectors have deprecated the encourage
ment of a mere anxiety for personal safety. But who
will deprecate the anxiety to attain such a relation
towards spiritual realities that the purifying fires of
Divine wrath, though they may rage, shall have none
but a healing influence ? How can a man fail, if he
have any high aims at all, to struggle perpetually for
salvation from the evils he feels, and from the conse-

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. 89
¦quences which, both for himself and for others, he
justly dreads ?
In short, the facts we have been considering embody
the most marked characteristic of human life. In its
external aspects that life is undoubtedly much the same
as all other life. Let us, if possible, conceive an ob
server whose vision should be closed to the human
conscience, to whom the intellect and the passions
alone should be open ; and though some phenomena
might perplex him, he might naturally conclude, on
the whole, in favour of that scientific view of life which
regards it as a mere struggle, in which the fittest sur
vive and thus continually augment the acquisitions of
their race. The progress of the whole advances with
little reference to the individual. It is possible — only
too possible — for a man to gain* the whole world and
lose his own soul ; possible, at all events, for him to
contribute immeasurably to the welfare of his fellow-
creatures in some important department of their ex
istence — in war, for instance, or law, or science — and
yet to remain himself with a disorganized soul, a prey
to some vice, or the victim of some weakness. The
work of his intellect, the labour of his hands, may re
main as the heritage of his kind ; and it may matter
little for their future welfare on earth what was his
personal state. But what a world, my brethren, lies
behind this visible manifestation of intellect and force !
It is shrouded from our view, but we cannot conceive
of it adequately without recognizing it as infinitely

90 THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect..
greater in extent and in interest than even the great-
drama of history and the political and social life of
mankind. All the souls that have ever lived have had
their personal relations to that unseen Being who has
been the light, not only of Christians, but of every
man that has come into the world. Everything else
has passed away from them, as it must one day pass
from us, except the result of those relations. The
secret book which records them is not a mere detail of
isolated and private feelings ; but the influences of one
soul upon another, the temptations we have caused to
our fellows, our faithfulness or unfaithfulness to them,.
have been working out, in a labyrinth only to be dis
entangled by an omniscient eye, our several positions
in view of that final judgment. It is this which, as is
commonly said, levels* all distinctions in the presence of
death ; because there remains to every soul alike the
supreme and eternal question of its relations to right
and wrong, to the law of God, and to God Himself,
This is that other world for the sake of which saints
have often wisely fled from the present, having en
tangled themselves too deeply with its allurements. It
has, indeed, been a part of their punishment that they
have been obliged to do so. It is the natural province
of the conscience to help us to use this world aright,.
and to develop all its capacities ; and, in point of fact,.
such an observer as I have imagined would be wrong;
in supposing that the mere struggle of life, without
that continued elevation which the sense of duty

v.] THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. gr
affords, would produce the result which he admires.
But circumstances do arise in which it seems necessary
that the solitude of death should be anticipated, and
in which the soul is compelled to retire in order to-
commune alone with its Judge and its Saviour.
Now it is characteristic of the Bible and of Christi
anity that they deal primarily and immediately with
this inner world. The charge has been raised against
them that they do not concern themselves sufficiently
with the visible course of human affairs, and there is
a certain apparent foundation for it. What they are
chiefly concerned with is that half of life which, after j
all, is even here the larger half, and which is the only
eternal part of it — that which concerns our relations'
to Him in whom our conscience lives and moves and
has its being. It is, therefore, a misconception of their
scope to represent them, as has been lately done,1 as
dealing mainly with conduct — regarding conduct, that
is, as equivalent to the regulation of our actions. They
are undoubtedly concerned with it ; but their action
upon it is in the main indirect. By revealing the
spiritual world, or the Kingdom of Heaven, they
awaken the sensibility of the soul to those spiritual
principles, such as truth and love, upon which the sub
ordinate laws of conduct depend, and in which, as St.
Paul says, they are fulfilled. If, for instance, they
seem to neglect, as has been alleged, such a virtue as
'By Mr. Matthew Arnold, in "Literature and Dogma,"'
fourth edition, pp. 14 — 18.

92

THE PRACTICAL PROBLEM. [lect.

patriotism, it is because they ascend to a higher region
than that of the statesman, and are content to say that
if a man be true — not to himself, but — to his God, he
" cannot then be false to any man." But they would
fail to touch the deepest thoughts and wants of men,
if they did not deal still more with those consequences
of conduct which remain fixed in the heart and the
conscience — if they did not speak of a remedy for sin
as well as of a correction of error. It is the revelation
of " the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of
the world " — of the world past, present, and future —
which, in spite of a thousand difficulties, has retained its
hold on the hearts of sinning men and women. Else
where you may find rules of conduct more or less
satisfactory, but nowhere else will you find the wounds
of the soul probed with such utter severity, while at
the same time an adequate remedy for them is pro
vided. It remains to consider the nature of that
remedy, in its cause and in its operation. Its cause
will be considered in the next Lecture, on the Doc
trine of the Atonement, and its operation in the two
last Lectures of the course, on the Doctrines of Justi
fication and Sanctification.

vi.] ATONEMENT. , 93

LECTURE VI.
THE PRINCIPLE OF ATONEMENT.
i John ii. i, 2.
" My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin-
not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ the righteous : and He is the propitiation for our
sins." IN the last Lecture I dwelt on the nature of the
problem which has to be considered by any re
ligion or philosophy which addresses itself to the real
facts of life. That problem, it appeared, was not
merely the laying-down of rules for right action, but
the provision of a remedy for the vast mass of moral
evil, which, as a matter of fact, prevails in the world.
It is not enough to show what ought to be done.
That, in all the essentials of morality, we know well
enough. The great problem is how to deal with the
fact that men so lamentably fail to do it. If, indeed,
men had no permanent conscience, their failure might
be regarded as the mere inperfection of individuals
incident to the process of development. The imper
fection of a plant or an animal involves no such

94 THE PRINCIPLE [lect.
permanent consequences to the creature itself; and,
perplexing as the problem of animal suffering may be,
we can at least see that the struggles of individuals are
working out the elevation of the race, while we know
not how far there exists in the lower creatures that
self-consciousness, that power of realizing their own
condition, which constitutes the essential grievance,
so to speak, both of pain and of imperfection. But,
at all events, it is the aggravation of the problem by
the permanent consciousness and conscience of man,
which practically creates for us this overwhelming
difficulty. A soul aroused, in bitter remorse, to a
sense of what it might have been and what it ought
to have done, conscious that it exists in a state which
is inconsistent with its abiding relations to spiritual
realities — this is the spectacle with which the physician
of human nature has to deal. It is a spectacle of
which the distress becomes insupportable, when we
realize, as we so seldom do, the vast mass of darkened
consciences and marred souls which the world con
tains ; and it may at least be urged as an incontestable
merit in Christianity, that it recognizes that dark
shadow in life, and offers to enlighten it.
In considering, accordingly, in the present Lecture,
how the Christian doctrine of the Atonement har
monizes with the demands of human experience, I
will ask, at the outset, whether there be not an enor
mous presumption in its favour in the mere fact that
its foundation is laid in deliberate acts of supreme

vi.] OF ATONEMENT. 95
suffering and sorrow ? Christ claims to be the repre
sentative, the head and the Lord of all mankind.
Does He not establish at least one supreme ground
for such a claim, when He commences by experi
encing all the physical and moral agonies of the race,
when He takes upon Himself the burden of their sins
and sufferings, and, in the language of the Scriptures,
"tastes death " and all the accessories of death ? "It
became Him " — such is the bold language of the in
spired writer — it was worthy of the Divine Father,
and worthy therefore of the Divine Son, that He who
claimed to be the Captain of our Salvation should be
made " perfect through sufferings." There is nothing
for which I have been more anxious in the course of
these Lectures than to assure both myself and my
hearers that, while developing the correspondence of
Christian truths with human wants, I am at the same
time simply following the order in which those truths
are set forth in the Scriptures. Of this the point now
before us is eminently illustrative. The portion of the
Scriptures in which the doctrine of the Atonement is
most fully elucidated is the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and it is from the commencement of that Epistle that
the words I have just quoted are taken. At the outset
of the argument to establish the priesthood of Christ
and the perfection of the offering He made, the writer
appeals to the fact that Jesus has identified Himself
with His brethren in all the weakness of their mortal
condition. " He is not ashamed to call them brethren " ;

96 THE PRINCIPLE [lect,
and, "forasmuch as they are partakers of flesh and
blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same ;
that through death He might destroy him that had
the power of death. . . . In all things it behoved Him
to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be
a merciful and faithful High Priest in things pertaining
to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the
people. For in that He Himself hath suffered being
tempted, He is able to succour them that are tempted."
We may venture, indeed, to go still further, when
we remember that the author of the Epistle has been
describing the Person of whom he thus speaks as the
brightness of the Father's glory, and the express image
of His person ; and we may be allowed to ask whether
a revelation of God which represents Him as Himself
entering into and sharing the sorrows, and even in some
sense the sins of the beings whom He has created,
does not meet one of the profoundest difficulties in
volved in the belief of such a Being. It is not, at all
events, a Christian who need shrink from admitting
that it would be very hard to entertain trust and love
towards a Person who, while Himself abiding "in the
imperturbed serenity of Divine existence, had created
human beings to struggle alone as best they might
with the laws He had established, and to suffer to all
eternity the consequences of the imperfection which
His will had once for all imposed upon their nature-
I am very far from saying that all difficulty of this
kind is removed by the Christian hypothesis. It is

vi.] OF ATONEMENT. 97
not probable that, while the subordinate problems of
life and science present such innumerable perplexities,
the ultimate problem of all should offer no mystery.
But it may at least be said that, in proclaiming a God
who takes upon Himself the sins and sorrows of His
creatures in deeper measure than any of them have
themselves experienced, we obviate some of the most
urgent objections which can be raised by the human
conscience. There is an insuperable mystery in the
very idea of a suffering or of an incarnate God ; but
so far as the conscience and the heart are concerned,
the conflict between the evil of life and the goodness
of God receives an inexpressible alleviation when we
are bidden to recognize one exhibition of that goodness
in the acceptance by God Himself of the consequences
of our evil. We behold God, as it were, entering into
the experience of the creature whom He has made ;
and, from the moral point of view, His character be
comes in harmony with the world of moral beings. It
is invariably kept out of sight by the opponents of
Christianity, and should be incessantly remembered
by its apologists, that it is God Himself who is revealed
as taking upon Himself the sins of the world.1
But from this general consideration let us pass to
the particular developments of the doctrine under dis
cussion. The questions raised by the adversaries of
our Faith concern the necessity of any Atonement at
all, and, even if this necessity be admitted, the possi-
1 Compare Athanasius, " De Incarnatione Verbi," 10.
H

98 THE PRINCIPLE [lect.
bility of anything in the nature of a vicarious Atone
ment. As to the former question, we have to start
from the supposition of our possessing free-will and re
sponsibility. If it could be shown that our acts were the
mere product of circumstances, if we could refer our
sins to the inevitable development of hereditary or
social influences, the idea of offering an atonement to
God for them would become unmeaning. Sin, in that
case, would cease to be a violation of law in any other
sense than that already referred to, in which the im
perfection of an organism indicates that the develop
ment of the race to which it belongs is still in progress ;
and punishment would similarly be nothing more than
the inevitable consequence of imperfection. Now it is
obvious that sin and punishment have to a certain
extent this character. The sentiment to which I re
ferred in the first of these Lectures — that free-will is
not so free as it is sometimes represented — is very true,
and we need continually to bear it in mind in pre
suming to form any judgment of the sins and the
relative merits of our fellows. There can be no greater
injustice than to measure their personal responsibility
by the heinousness, considered in reference to society,
of the crimes they may commit. But when this argu
ment is pressed so far as to obscure the sense of any
personal responsibility to God, it is clear that it proves
too much. It would be equally valid to disprove our
responsibility to one another, and our obligation to
make reparation and atonement for injurious conduct.

vi.] OF ATONEMENT. 99
We must here, in fact, revert to a class of considera
tions on which we have already, in great measure,
based our presumptions in favour of the Christian in
terpretation of morality. When we have done wrong
to others, do we not universally feel responsible for
it — so far, at least, as they are concerned ? and do we
not feel bound to make an adequate reparation ? If
there were no such thing as free-will, a feeling of this
nature would have no foundation, and in fact could
scarcely be conceived. We might view with the
utmost distress the consequences of our weaknesses,
-and might labour to repair them. But when the
conscience is thoroughly aroused, our feeling towards
those whom we have wronged is utterly different
from this. It involves a sense that we are personally
guilty — that we have done what we ought not to have
done, what we were under no compulsion to do, and
what nothing can excuse us for doing. Towards
them, at least, we cannot avoid feeling and acting as
though we had possessed free-will and had abused it.
Now it would seem that if this feeling be valid at all,
it must be valid throughout our spiritual relationships,
and it becomes extremely difficult to exclude it from
the highest relationship of all. All the mystery of
the case must be fully admitted. It is not Christians
alone who are unable to reconcile the appearances of
freedom with the necessities of law. But we are
dealing with the facts of conscience, and we cannot
approach the ultimate problems of religion and philo-

ioo THE PRINCIPLE [LECT,
sophy with any safety without strictly adhering to the
evidence thus afforded us. The imperious conscious
ness, then, that we are personally responsible to our
fellow-men furnishes one of those facts from which
there can be no appeal, and compels us to admit
a sense of responsibility throughout our whole nature..
It indicates, indeed, a strange revolution in human
thought that it should be necessary to begin from this
consideration. The first impulse of men, under the
dictates of nature, has almost always been to acknow
ledge a responsibility to a Divine Power, and to offer
some expiation for the offences they have committed.
The sacrifices of the Jews are but a more elaborate
illustration of the universal practice of mankind ; and
if the general prevalence of an instinct can be re
garded as any proof of the belief it implies, there are
few cases in which experience supplies a stronger
argument than is afforded in favour of the necessity
of an atonement by the practice of expiatory sacri
fices. I do not dwell upon it, because I am not
developing an argument from history, but from the
facts of daily experience. But I would ask, in pass
ing, whether it be not far more natural to explain this
practice, with all its abuses, by the supposition that
it indicates an imperfect apprehension of a reality,
than by treating it as the mere dream of a timorous
imagination ? If a sense of relationship to God was
always working in men's consciences, and if they felt
dimly that they had not been true to Him, any more

vi.] OF ATONEMENT. 101
than to their fellows, their struggles to find some
expiation were inevitable. This sense has been lately
¦overborne by that great revolution of thought which,
for a time, has obscured the idea of personality under
the veil of a vast combination of laws. But we may
fall back on the personal relation of man to man, and
we shall there find a perpetual witness to the fact of
our responsibility, to our free-will for the purposes of
that responsibility, and to the need of Atonement
which such responsibility implies.
I need not urge that, if this consideration be ad
mitted at all, the sense of violated duty which it
involves becomes insupportably intensified when the
person whom we recognize ourselves as having injured
and grieved is one who stands towards us in the rela
tion of divine fatherhood, and whose voice, in whispers
of love and mercy, has been perpetually speaking to
us in our consciences. Our present concern, however,
is not with the full development of the Christian
consciousness, but with the justification of its primary
conceptions ; and I must pass to other aspects of the
doctrine. Admitting, it may be said, the truth and
reality of this sense of responsibility to God, and the
need of making atonement, how, it is asked, can that
be made by another ? What is the value of anything
in the nature of reparation which is not made by the
person who has committed the offence ? In answer
to this, it must be in the first place observed, that the
Christian doctrine of the Atonement is so far from

102 THE PRINCIPLE [lect,
excluding reparation by the offender, and in a certain
sense atonement by him, that it regards such atone
ment as essential to the moral conditions requisite for
his restoration to a state of spiritual health. Certain
schemes, no doubt, have put forward the conception
of a punishment so purely vicarious as to have justly
shocked the consciences of thoughtful men. But such
schemes will not be found by impartial inquirers to-
be sustained by the language of Scripture. Atone
ment offered by Christ has been described under a
variety of images, and it has been the temptation of
divines to take one or other of these and erect it into
a full account of the matter. St. Paul compares the
Atonement at one time to the payment of a ransom,,
and at another time to the payment of a debt. The
effects to us are the same, in many respects, as if the
work accomplished had been of the nature of either of
these two cases ; but the very fact of the variety of
the illustrations is a proof that in neither of them is
an adequate explanation of the reality to be found.
There are two points essential to the doctrine,
whether enunciated by St. Paul or St. John or the
author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which, if kept
in view, will be found to protect the truth from any of
the unworthy conceptions just referred to. The first
is that the justice which requires to be satisfied in the
matter does not concern the relationship of things, but
that of persons. When I have violated some intimate
relationship, I may describe myself, in a metaphor, as

vi.] OF ATONEMENT. 103
having incurred a debt ; but, in point of fact, the
wrong done is one of feeling and of personal regard,
and can only be fully repaired by personal acts of right
feeling. This consideration at once dissipates all such
base conceptions of the Atonement as that it con
sisted in the mere endurance of pain ; as though the
question had been one of a bare exchange of equiva
lents. Another point which necessarily follows from
the former, is that the value of the personal acts of
the Saviour is never contemplated apart from the
production of similar acts and feelings on our own
part. " If we walk in the light, as He is in the light,
we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of
Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin." " If
we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us ; but if we confess our sins, He
is faithful and just to- forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness." In even more
urgent language, St. Paul insists that the whole virtue
of our acceptance in Christ consists in our sharing His
death, and in our entering with Him into all that
mortification of our corrupt nature, and that resurrec
tion to a new life, of which our Baptism is the pledge.
" Know ye not that so many of us as were baptized
into Jesus Christ were baptized into His death ?
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into
death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead
by the glory of the Father, even so we also should
walk in newness of life." It is to the Apostle incon-

104 THE PRINCIPLE [lect.
ceivable, and a contradiction in terms, that men
should claim freedom from the consequences of sin
by Christ's death without possessing union with His
Spirit. It is here that those fundamental doctrines in
Christianity, which render it possible for us to con
ceive of Christ as united with all Christians, and as
bestowing His Spirit and His nature on them, become
essentially involved in the idea of the Atonement. It
is assumed that, by His Divine nature, He can bring
us into deeper union with Himself than with any
other influence or person, and can thus infuse into us
His own Spirit and make us partakers in His own
disposition. Let us dismiss, then, as unworthy of serious notice,
such objections as that, punishment being the result
of sin, its ordinary and logical consequences must needs
be borne by the sinner. When, indeed, objectors go
on to say, as they do, that it cannot be borne by any
other than the sinner, they contradict, as has often
been pointed out. one of the most obvious facts of
life. The effects of sin are continually borne, often in
a very severe degree, by the innocent ; and it will be
shown presently that it is not unreasonable to speak
of such effects, even when thus borne, as a penalty.
But it is no part of the Christian doctrine that the
Christian does not bear the punishment of his sin.
That its total consequences, as they would ensue if no
Divine hand interposed, are averted, is, indeed, the
blessing promised by the doctrine. But the sinner is

•vi.] OF ATONEMENT. 105
•expressly called on to bear, in what the. Apostle .
describes as a death to his old nature — as a kind of f
life-long mortification — results of his evil which often
amount to a very bitter penalty. He is delivered
from it at last ; but not without a repentance, an
anguish of spirit, and a painful struggle, which is
proportionate to his fall. I must repeat what I said
in the last Lecture, that Christianity is not to be
made responsible for popular exaggerations of arti
ficial systems. On one point of fact important to this
argument, a verdict may be safely challenged. There
is a deeper sense of repentance for evil, a more
profound self-abasement, in those books of the New
Testament from which the doctrine of the Atonement
has been derived than in any other human writings.
The proclamation that Christ made Atonement for us
intensified infinitely, if it did not practically create, the
repentance for which it has been alleged to be a
substitute. In fact, the force of the argument for the necessity
of an Atonement can only be realized in proportion
as this personal repentance is developed. Men may
argue, so to speak, in cold blood that such remorse
and amendment as I have been speaking of are an
adequate atonement for their faults. But let their
consciences be fully touched, and the whole springs of
their nature aroused, and they are sure to feel over
whelmed with a sense of the miserable disproportion
which exists between the evils they have done, the

io6 THE PRINCIPLE [lect,
wrongs they have inflicted, and the reparation they
have made or can make. Some, alas ! of the com
monest sins are of a nature for which no effectual
reparation can be made by the offender. A thief may
restore the money he has stolen ; but who is to re
place the innocence, the purity, the peace of mind,
which, even in mere recklessness if in nothing worse,.,
a man may have marred in others ? Looking back
upon mischievous words and suggestions and deeds,.
who can estimate the illimitable stretch of those ever-
expanding spheres of evil influence which he has set
on foot ? Is it not to be feared that all of us would
tremble if we could catch a glance of the evil, in its-
ultimate development, for which in its germination we
are responsible, and that we should need no Divine
message to assure us that we could never make atone
ment for it ? Look, moreover, at that vast mass of
iniquity to which I have more than once referred, and
ask what mere human repentance can be an adequate
acknowledgment of its vileness ? It is by the con
sciences of men, and not by the schemes of divines,.
that the demand for an Atoning Sacrifice has been*
created. But after disposing of these misconceptions, we
return to the question which often creates the greatest.
difficulty. How, it is said, is it possible for a vicarious
satisfaction to be offered for us ? How can another in
any degree fulfil that work of repentance for which
we are ourselves incompetent? Let us, however,.

vi.] OF ATONEMENT. 107
consider whether it would not be more true to nature
to invert the inquiry, and to ask how satisfaction can
ever be rendered for evil except by the intervention of
others ? The Scriptures assume one fact with refer
ence to human nature which it is a peculiar danger
of modern speculation to overlook. The tendency of
our civilization has been to individualize life. Men
are contemplated as standing alone, and as inde
pendent persons. In legal phrase, the hypothesis of
" status " has given place to that of " contract." But
among the legal fictions which are sometimes de
nounced in reference to this subject, there can hardly
be a more flagrant fiction than this. There is not one
important element in their lives in respect to which
men stand alone. In all their acts they are insepar
ably bound up together ; their characters, their excel
lences and vices are the result of mutual actions
incessantly accumulated. The case is inconceivable
in which one man alone is responsible for the condition,
whether of vice or virtue, in which he exists. His
parents, his family, his friends have all co-operated to
make him what he is. He has, indeed, his own
responsibility ; but they too have a responsibility for
him, and if we would estimate the responsibility of
each aright, we must view them as parts of a whole.
In practical life we are compelled to act on this
principle. We treat countries and similar commu
nities as being jointly responsible for the acts of
the individuals composing them ; and similarly we

108 THE PRINCIPLE [lect.
-constantly accept reparation from the whole body for
the wrong done by one member of it. Such con
ventions may, indeed, all be imperfect ; but their
validity is derived from the fact that they are im
perfect applications of a reality. The arrangement is
not artificial ; but it is felt that all have their share, to
some extent, in the act of the individual, and that
they must therefore hold themselves responsible for
him. He, in his turn, may be regarded as representing
them, and may be called upon to act and suffer on
their behalf, in pursuance of the consequences of their
collective character and conduct.
Now extend this principle to the whole human
race, and you have the foundation of the idea under
which Christ is treated as the Head of mankind, and
under which His merits are attributed to us. The
first step, as we have seen, in His atoning work is
that He makes Himself' one with us — partaker' of
our flesh and blood. So far as that is the case,
He shares with all of us the consequences of our
evil, while we share His spirit and His excellences.
It cannot be otherwise. If in a family there are good
and bad members, it is impossible, in proportion to
the intimacy of their union, to separate the one from
the other ; the bad are sheltered by the merits of the
good, and, on the other hand, the good suffer for the
bad. If the ordinary course of life thus requires that
the human race should be viewed as a whole, the
language of the Scriptures, and even much of the

vi.] OF ATONEMENT. 109-
language which at first may startle us in Christian
divines, becomes natural. Would it be possible for
a perfectly good man, if a member of a wicked family,
to avoid feeling, with intense grief and bitterness,
their sin and evil, and labouring to make reparation
in every possible way for the harm they had done,,
while endeavouring, with equal devotion, to win them
back by example and influence ? Conceive this, and
then further consider whether it would not be in strict
conformity with the dictates of natural justice for a
third person, whom that family had wronged, to accept
the grief and the efforts at repentance of such a man
as a kind of atonement, and to be disposed to forgive,
if possible, the whole family for his sake. All would,
indeed, be fruitless unless the mediating person were
able ultimately to win back his fellows to repentance
and to justice ; but the possibility of this is, as we
have seen, what Christianity supposes.
The case as thus stated corresponds, perhaps, more
closely to the language of the Scriptures than any
other illustration. It is the fact of Christ personally
acting and having acted for us and among us which
is described as constituting the operative virtue of
His Atonement. " If any man sin we have an advo
cate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous ; and
He is the propitiation for our sins." The Apostle
does not merely say He makes propitiation for our
sins, but that He Himself, in His perfect nature, is
the propitiation. Our whole family must henceforth

no THE PRINCIPLE [lect.
be contemplated as inseparably bound up with Him ;
and He refuses, in the Divine self-sacrifice of His will,
to let us be judged or regarded apart from Himself.
In this sense what is more natural than to say that
He fulfils the law for us, and that He bears our sins ?
Not, as has been abundantly said, that we escape
from fulfiling the law ourselves ; but that it is His
complete obedience which, in the sight of One who
views us as a whole body, constitutes the justification
of our nature, and that He expresses on our behalf,
and as the earnest of feelings He will awaken within
us, a due repentance for our sins. The virtue of the
cross is not its mere suffering, but the fact that, by
means of it, Christ tasted to the very dregs the evil of
man, and uttered towards God the deep grief and
sorrow which such evil demands.1 In one word,
transfer the whole question from the region of laws to
that of persons, conceive those storms which in the
Divine nature correspond to wrath and judgment,
mercy and love in human beings evoked, as they
must be, towards the human race, by the spectacle of
its evil, conceive Christ standing like Moses of old,
and praying " Forgive now this people — but if not,
blot me, I pray Thee, out of the book which Thou
hast written," and we have a conception of personal
relations which is at least perfectly consistent with the
justest impulses of the heart.
' It is, I hope, almost superfluous to mention that I am deeply
indebted in the course of this argument to the work of the late
Dr. McLeod Campbell upon the " Atonement."

vi.] OF ATONEMENT. in
It may be well to add, without intruding too far
upon peculiarly sacred ground, that this spiritual
aspect of Christ's sacrifice must ever be borne in mind
in interpreting the solemn language in which the
sacred writers speak of the shedding of His blood,
and of its atoning efficacy. The supreme value of
His Atonement depends upon His spiritual and
voluntary sacrifice of Himself on our behalf to the
will of God ; and in order that this sacrifice might be
perfected, it was carried out even to the shedding of
His blood and the offering of His body. The Captain
of our Salvation, we read, had to be made perfect
through sufferings. " The blood," it is said, " is the
life," and the life of the soul, no less than of the body,
was drawn forth in the sufferings of the Cross. The
last mortal agony was needed in order to put that
holy soul to its final proof, to evoke from its inmost
depths its sorrow and its love, and to inspire with full
meaning that final utterance of the whole life, and
will, and mind of Christ, " Father, into Thy hands I
commend my spirit." The blood of Christ, willingly
and patiently yielded, was the sign and seal, to heaven
and earth, that this commendation of the spirit was
finished and perfect. It offered to God a complete
propitiation, and at the same time it imposed upon
man the strongest and most affecting of all obligations
towards the Son of God. This, as is observed by
ancient interpreters, is one reason why the blood of
Christ is said to cleanse us from all sin, original or
actual. It has this effect " not merely in the sense of

112 PRINCIPLE OF ATONEMENT, [lect.
removing the guilt of our former sins, but also because
it purges the will from sinful affections, causing a true-
conversion of heart, a love of righteousness and work
of virtue." 1 It purges the conscience from dead works
to serve the living God, to whom that complete sur
render of soul and body was made.
But it must be sufficient in a controversial argu
ment to have thus indicated, with reverent reserve, the
intense moral and spiritual force enshrined in the
inner recesses of Christian faith on this subject. We
commenced by considering Christ in His suffering as
representing God to us. We have concluded by re
garding Him as representing us to God ; and thus,
by His mediation, God and man are bound together
in one bond of mutual sympathy and confidence. He
does and He feels, in the first place, all that it becomes
us to do and to feel, and in the second place He-
infuses into us the power of growing like Him. As
evil spreads from person to person, so does good ; and
the Divine and human personality of Christ renders
possible an union and a communion with Him which
impart a new hope and a new life to the human
race. But the mode in which that union is effected
must be the subject of the next two Lectures.
1 Estius, "Com. in Ep. i Joan." c. I, v. 7.

vii.] MEANING OF JUSTIFICATION. 113

LECTURE VII.
THE MEANING OF JUSTIFICATION.
Romans v. i.
" Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ."
IT would seem evident that a religion which, like
Christianity, offers the means of redemption for
the whole nature of man, must enter into definite
statements respecting the manner in which that re
demption operates. It must make distinctions, it
must observe the various actions, relations, and de
mands of man's spiritual being, and it must exhibit
its application to them in detail. But however ob
vious such an observation may be, the neglect of it
seems at the root of many of the presumptive objec
tions raised against Christian theology. The very
language of such theology provokes in many minds a
kind of uneasiness. They appear to resent being
troubled with what they are inclined to call mere
metaphysical distinctions, and it may be desirable to
meet this difficulty in entering on the discussion of
such terms as Justification and Sanctification.
Now it does undoubtedly require some concentration
I

n4 THE MEANING [lect.
of thought and some sustained reflection to ap
prehend Christian truths. I am, indeed, far from
saying that a man cannot receive the benefits of
Christianity without mental ability and intellectual
training. The case is in some measure parallel with
that of our physical nature. A man may be perfectly
healthy, his body may respond to all the life-giving
influences of air, of light, of food, and yet, like a child,
he may be perfectly ignorant of the structure of his
body, or of its physiological relations. But if the laws
which govern his health are to be known, still more
if means are to be found of relieving him from disease,
it is necessary to develop a most elaborate science ;
and for the purposes of the general health of the
community we are beginning to realize the necessity
of the wide diffusion of a sound knowledge of the
main elements and relations of our physical nature.
Similarly, in religion, the Christian theologian will be
the last to deny the truth of the sentiment, which has
now become so popular, that a very simple faith is
sufficient for salvation. It is sufficient in a similar
sense to that in which very simple rules of life are
sufficient for health. Happy indeed, in one way, are
those who have no need to go further. Multitudes of
simple souls have passed a pure and tranquil spiritual
existence, breathing an untroubled atmosphere of faith
in God and love to Christ, and quickened by that
faith and love to a perpetual growth in the graces of
the Christian character. These are, as it were, the

iv.] OF JUSTIFICATION. nS
pastoral lives of the spiritual sphere, unshadowed by
the clouds of doubt, and but lightly ruffled by the
storms of temptation. But the health of the soul — or,
in other words, salvation — is not, as a rule, thus easily
preserved ; and when once lost, it needs a science at
least as profound as that of the body to guide us to
its restoration. It might be asked, indeed, whether
this craving for simplicity in religion be not very
similar to the fancy of the poets for the charms of a
simple and pastoral existence. Taking life as a whole
we find ourselves destined for a rougher and less
placid career ; and after all, what soul of any worth
would exchange for an unconscious serenity the
struggle of battle and the experience of life ?
If, in short, we regard the constitution of the soul
as not less complex and delicate than that of the
body, we cannot dream of rejecting, as either unin
teresting or unimportant, the detailed development of
its laws and its relations. It is not worthy of intelli
gent beings, with a heart and a conscience, to live in
any respect an unconscious spiritual life. If we could
be content to neglect that life entirely, and to fall
back on the mere development of our physical and
intellectual powers, the reluctance to entertain such
considerations as theology involves would be intelli
gible. But if, as the practical experience of mankind
indicates, our deepest interests lie in the relations of
our souls to the spiritual world, the reluctance in
question is equally unreasonable and faint-hearted.

116 THE MEANING [lect.
Is it, in fact, conceivable that questions which relate
to the very dividing asunder of the soul and body,
which deal with the secret thoughts and intents of the
heart and with the springs of the conscience, should
be capable of discussion without careful and even
laborious discrimination of terms and facts ? It is the
office of a Lecturer in this science, as in all others, to
render its results plain and comprehensible ; but, like
other sciences, it has its laws and its terminology, and
none can understand it but those who will have the
patience to learn what these mean.
If, then, I were lecturing on Natural Science, I
should be compelled to use such terms as Gravitation,
Conservation of Force, Oxidation, and the like ; and
it would be felt that the acquisition of the truth
depended on understanding them. They are simply
brief designations of facts, and they serve to guide us
to the results of recorded experience. It is from this
point of view that we should consider such theological
terms as Justification and Sanctification. They also
are terms which guide us to the results of recorded
experience. Justification, for instance, might be re
garded as holding towards the spiritual life a similar
position to that which Gravitation occupies towards
natural life. It is a theological abstraction, in the
sense in which Gravitation is a scientific abstraction.
It is doubtless sufficient for many ordinary purposes
to know that bodies fall to the earth ; but that is no
reason for disregarding the more exact and scientific

vii.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 117
statement that " every portion of matter attracts every
other portion, and the attraction between them is pro
portional to the product of their masses divided by
the square of their distance." Similarly, it may be
enough for many purposes to say that men are saved
by faith and truth ; but this is no reason for neg
lecting the more complete revelation that "we are
accounted righteous before God, only for the merit
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ by Faith,
and not for our own works or deservings." Both
in natural and in religious matters the simple state
ments have hitherto sufficed, more or less, for the
great majority of men ; but it is no less reasonable in
the one case than in the other that the advancement
of mankind should depend upon our fuller compre
hension of the truth. By means of the law of Gravi
tation, we have multiplied our physical powers and
transformed our natural life ; and not less certainly
by the development of Christian truths have we
quickened our spiritual conscience, and transformed
the moral and spiritual character both of individuals
and of communities. In proportion as men have
realized the truths of the Gospel and have acted on
them, have they developed a new world of spiritual
excellences ; and if we would share the experiences
of the holiest members of our race, we must appreciate
the revelation which illuminated their spirits.
The previous Lectures of this course ought to have
supplied us with the necessary materials for appre-

n8 THE MEANING [lect.
hending the doctrines now in question. It may not
be superfluous to observe, in the first place, that the
two theological terms it remains to discuss have per
fectly distinct and definite significations. A far too
careless employment of them among religious writers
and preachers offers some excuse for that inability to
recognize the meaning of Christian doctrines which,
as I observed in the first Lecture, characterizes much
of the sceptical writing of the day. The words Sal
vation, Jnistification, and Sanctification, have been used
without any adequate discrimination, until a, vague
confusion has obscured the whole subject. I trust,
however, that those who have followed me thus far
will find no difficulty in perceiving to what very dis
tinct realities in the spiritual life they refer. Salva
tion, let me repeat, is not to be confined to some
mysterious future deliverance from doom ; it means
the restoration of the soul — a restoration to be com
menced here and completed hereafter — to its true
relations and its perfect health. It is beyond all
question diseased ; and we need no revelation to tell
us that, at all events with vast numbers of men and
women, the disease is incurable by any natural pro
cess, and tends, with an increasing acceleration, to
issue in the moral dissolution of the whole being.
Conscience duly awakened has, indeed, borne testi
mony to the presence of this corruption even in men
of the highest aims and efforts. The problem which
Christianity oners to solve is to remedy this fatal

vn.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 119
disorganization, and in Justification and Salvation we
consider two successive processes in the application of
this remedy.
We have seen, then, the light which the Gospel
throws on the conditions of our spiritual existence,
and the harmony which it introduces into our percep
tions of the other world. We observed that the whole
health of the soul consists in the soundness of its
personal relations. You cannot isolate a man, as you
may a plant or an animal, and judge of his condition
by independent tests. You have to consider in what
relation he stands with other persons ; and Chrisr
tianity reveals an extension of this personal relation
towards God. Whatever may be the meaning of the
Divine Personality, we have, at all events, personal
relations towards it ; and if so, it can only be by rec
tifying these that the salvation of our nature can be
procured. We have further seen that since, in our
relations with our fellow-men, we cannot escape the
sense of guilt and responsibility, a similar sense must
needs weigh upon the soul in its deeper spiritual
relationship ; and that we may recognize here the full
interpretation of that remorse which burdens the soul
in its solitude. Contemplating mankind also as one
family, bound together by a common evil, and a com
mon responsibility, we saw that if the favour and love
of a righteous Being were to rest upon them without
restriction, it was essential that some Atonement
should be made for their sins, and that a source of

120 THE MEANING [lect..
perfect holiness should be established to counteract
the prevalent evil. That Christ should have taken
upon Himself our nature and borne our sins must, to
put the case no higher, necessarily confer new powers
and higher dignity upon mankind ; and if He refuses
to be separated from us, if we have in Him an Advo
cate with the Father, who is the propitiation for our
sins, we may be sure we cannot be excluded from that
Divine fellowship. What reasons we have for believ
ing that Jesus Christ was such a person as this, and
that He stands in this relation to God and to us, it
has not, indeed, been within the scope of my present
subject to inquire, and that question must be reserved
to a future occasion.1 What I have been endeavour
ing to show is that these suppositions answer certain
imperious demands of our consciousness, and are in
no way inconsistent with the dictates of our con
science. We have now to advance a step further, and
consider the manner in which the redeeming influence
operates. Now the first requisite on these suppositions must
be to restore or to raise the soul to conscious com
munion with God. The ultimate aim is that we
should love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul,
mind, and strength, and our. neighbour as ourselves.
The attainment of that end would be our complete
Sanctification, and the manner in which this is fully
wrought out in us will be the subject of my next and
1 See the second course of these Lectures.

Vii.] OF JUSTIFICATION. i2r
last Lecture. But there must needs be a first step in
this restoration, a preliminary deliverance from the
state of ignorance or alienation in which the soul has
been existing ; and it is this first step, this original
act of reconciliation, which the Church, following St.
Paul, designates by the term Justification. The
primary meaning of the term will serve to connect it,
from another point of view, with our previous inquiries,
and to show how deep a necessity of human nature it
touches. It implies acquittal from guilt. Even so
far as that involves what is called a forensic meaning,
it is very far from being the mere image it has some
times been considered ; and no one will be disposed
to disparage its significance in this respect who bears in
mind how natural and how real a thing it seems to us
to speak of our final judgment. The Divine judgment-
seat, both here and hereafter, is a terrible reality. It
is ever present to the mind of St. Paul ; and he starts
from it in announcing to the Romans the Justification
offered by his Gospel. If, under the sanction of other
apostolic language, I endeavour to exhibit the more
personal meaning which the word involves, it is only
as more in accordance with the general course of this
argument. I would, indeed, nowhere be understood
as limiting the meaning of Christian doctrine to the
interpretation which it bears from the particular point
of view under our consideration. But apart from any
such judicial sense, the word may be considered as
appealing to that personal and private sense of guilt

122 THE MEANING [lect.
which we have been contemplating as one of the great
burdens of the soul. Poets have asked more than
once, how we should bear the revelation if our hearts
were suddenly laid bare to all our fellows, and have
depicted the keen and overpowering distress we should
feel in the sense of shame and of unworthiness to
claim friendship with them. Need we even have re
course to this supposition ? Who has not felt, at least
at times, a sense of inconsistency between the regard
in which others may hold him, and the reality of
which he is conscious within himself ? Who has not
sometimes felt that a perfect confession might sepa
rate him from hearts which repose in his own, or on
which he himself would fain repose ? It is not merely
that our nature, or that theirs, is injured ; there is
something which keeps us apart and mars all con
fidence. " If we walk in the light as He is in the
light," says St. John, " we have fellowship one
with another." Lack of fellowship is the insepar
able consequence of any darkness in our thoughts
or deeds.
Now to recognize, from our present point of view,
the reasonableness of the theological idea of Justifica
tion, we have only to extend this analogy, as in
former instances, to our relation towards God. We
have to conceive ourselves brought into full conscious
relationship with a Being to whom every evil thought,
word, and deed of our lives lie open, and whose eye
penetrates to the very depths of our conscience. What
is the natural result of such a revelation ? Is it to

vii.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 123
establish a feeling of fellowship between the soul and
its God ? Experience has sufficiently supplied the
answer. The attitude of the human conscience to
wards God is expressed in every natural religion as
one of fear, and that fear is inseparably blended with
a confused sense of guilt. Wherever the idea of a
superior being is realized, it arouses a dim apprehen
sion of failure in some duty required by him — an
apprehension distorted in proportion to the distortion
of the prevalent morality, but deriving its force and its
inextinguishable vitality from the germs of the moral
sense. The consciousness of contact with a Divine
Spirit awakens, in however low a degree, a feeling of
imperfection ; and a feeling of imperfection is insepar
ably associated with a conviction of some degree or
other of responsibility. " Enter not into judgment
with thy servant " is the utterance at once of the
highest and of the lowest religious consciousness. I
need not, indeed, appeal only to natural religions.
The experience of a large part of Christendom is
unhappily of the same character. It has been the
essential influence of Christianity to deepen men's
sense of sin and evil. Christ declared that He would
send a Spirit who should convince the world of sin ;
and He has certainly established an influence of that
character, which has been working on the conscience
of Christians ever since, and which cannot be eradi
cated. One consequence is that a Christian people
are liable, under an imperfect apprehension of the
Gosoel. to become even more cowardly and super-

124 THE MEANING [lect,
stitious than others ; and Christianity itself has too
often been perverted into a mere satisfaction of such
superstitions. If, however, on calm reflection, or in.
some moments of sudden revelation, we realize the
full meaning of our whole soul lying open before the
Divine eye, there can be few but must involuntarily
utter the cry, " Depart from me, for I am a sinful
man, O Lord." So long as this sense of guilt and
fear remain, peace with God and love towards Him
is impossible, and our free communion with Him is
fatally obstructed. It is not that we shrink from the
punishments He may see necessary for us. With Him,
as with our fellows, what we most crave for is the
assurance of the oblivion of our sin, and of our com
plete admission to His favour.
In other words, there is an essential distinction, even
in our private relation towards God, between guilt and
punishment ; and though the consciousness of guilt
is the bitterest of all punishments, the discipline of
punishment may exist apart from a sense of guilt. If
we be capable of such relationship to God as we have
been supposing, the remission of guilt, and the know
ledge of that remission, must be the first and deepest
needs of the soul. With that, every punishment is
bearable ; without that, every blessing becomes in
tolerable. Hell has been described as "punishment
with guilt remaining " : —
"The mind is its own place, and in itself
Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven."

vii.] OF JUSTIFICATION. $25
As though a man with a keen sense of his personal
relationship to God, and who does not believe himself
forgiven, might be in hell in heaven ; and such a man,
if he does believe himself forgiven, might be in heaven
in hell. What theology invites us to do in this matter
is, not to imagine " forensic fictions," but to raise our
conceptions of our own capacities, and to seek our
ultimate perfection and happiness in fellowship with a
perfect Being, and in indulging the profoundest emo
tions of our souls towards Him. Realize, for a mo
ment, all that it would involve for sinful beings like
ourselves to live in complete light, and at the same
time in complete confidence, with our fellow-creatures ;
and it will then be apparent how vast a blessing is in
volved in the supposition of our being able to claim
perfect confidence towards God. St. Paul's original
motive may have been a craving for righteousness ; but
for that very reason, believing, as he did, that he was
in personal relation with a righteous God, peace
with that God became the most imperious necessity of
his nature. He had formerly sought satisfaction in
conformity with a righteous law, but in proportion as
the conception of a righteous God laid hold of his
conscience, he could be satisfied with nothing less than
peace with Him. His ideal of the Christian life is
therefore in substance identical with that of St. John :
" Beloved, if our hearts condemn us not, then have we
confidence towards God ; and whatsoever we ask we
receive of Him, because we keep His commandments,

126 THE MEANING [LECT.
and do those' things that are pleasing in His sight."
But who can say of himself that his heart condemns
him not ?
Now consider how this difficulty is met among our
selves when it happens to arise. If a violated relation
between two persons is to be re-established, must it not
necessarily be by an act of forgiveness, which, in its
result, would have the effect of imputing to the offend
ing person a character he does not deserve ? When the
prodigal son exclaimed, " I am not worthy to be called
thy son," was he not speaking the literal truth ? When,
again, his father treated him as if he were worthy, was
he not, strictly speaking, imputing to him what he did
not deserve ? If you treat the relation of man to God.
as that of a mere creature to his Creator, if you regard
the soul as a mere subject for the operation of certain
laws, the language of Scripture respecting Imputation
and accounting righteous may become unreal. But if,
as I have shown in former Lectures, the primary aspect
of God's relations to us may be considered as that of a
Person to persons, if we may assume, so to speak, that
a play of personal feeling may be as justly attributed
to Him as we may attribute to Him the reflections of
other excellences in His creatures, then we at once
introduce between Him and ourselves the element of
moral acceptance, or that of the imputation of moral
characteristics. This, moreover, becomes, not the accidental, but the
essential element of the relationship. Consider, for
instance, more in detail, the illustration just quoted

vii.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 127
from our Lord's own teaching. The physical relation
between father and son constitutes the least part of
their mutual relations. The son's enjoyment of the
benefits his father can bestow upon him must, if they
are to act as responsible beings, depend in a great de
gree on his moral attitude towards his father. It is per
fectly possible for a son so to act that his father, though
still feeling towards him as a father, is compelled to-
treat him as if he were not his son. Now in such a
case, suppose the father to send a message to his son,
who had left his house, to the following effect : —
Although you have acted unworthily of yourself and
of me, my love towards you is unchanged, and I
entreat you to return to my protection. I will for
give you the past, and say not one word about it. I
will treat you in all respects as my son. I will im
pute to you the full character of a true son of mine ;
and though I fear you may not be able at once to
shake off your inveterate bad habits and false ways
of thought, I will not allow your failures to alter my
manner of regarding you. Would any one feel thatthis
language was unnatural ? l Would not the son feel that
this imputation on his father's part of a character he
had not deserved constituted the very essence and
sweetness of his father's goodness ? If such a message
aroused once more in his heart the true feelings of filial
affection, would he not feel that so long as his father's
love were assured him, he could cheerfully bear all
1 Compare Newman's " Lectures on Justification," Lect. iii.
p. 74, ed. 1840.

128 THE MEANING [lect.
things and endure all things which might be thought
necessary for him ? This is but the story of the
Prodigal Son, with the simple addition of the father
sending after his son, as God does after His wandering
children in the Gospel. What constitutes the chief
blessedness of the son's return to the father's house ?
Not certainly that the fatted calf was killed, that the
best robe was put on him, not even that he had a new
career before him, and an opportunity of shaking off
his bad habits. In proportion to the depth of per
sonal affection still subsisting between father and son,
it would be the sweetest element in that reception
that the father ran to meet him, fell on his neck, and
kissed him, that the son felt he was completely for
given, that the past was forgotten, that a character
was imputed to him which he had not deserved, and
that, prodigal though he had been, he could neverthe
less live in his father's house as his father's son.
That moral imputation would constitute the first, the
deepest, the most essential element in his future life.
Similarly, a man who is awake to the personal rela
tion of his soul with a personal God must feel that
the question of God's perfect forgiveness and accept
ance of him is the most imperious question of his life ;
and a man who is sensible of his own inveterate sin
fulness must feel that such forgiveness and acceptance
involves an inputation of a character he does not de
serve. It is this forgiveness and acceptance, with the
imputation they involve, which constitute Justification,

VII.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 129
in that personal rather than judicial sense in which
we are now considering it.
But it may be said that such an imputation, even
thus understood, is inconceivable, unless the person
who exercises this forgiveness has the assurance that
he whom he pardons and accepts has really repented,
and is in a right disposition of mind for the future.
That is unquestionable ; and it is this consideration
which introduces us to the further element in the
statement of this doctrine, that it is on condition of
faith in Jesus Christ that we are thus accounted right-
- eous by God. I need not dwell long upon the term
Faith. Though there have been many disputes about
it, its ordinary meaning is, I believe, sufficiently clear,
and we need only take it as it is commonly under
stood. No one supposes it to mean mere belief. It
. involves the idea of trust in a person ; and the better,
the more powerful and more benevolent the person,
the more absolute will be the faith. Faith in Jesus
Christ, therefore, will imply that we yield to the claim
which He asserts in His Gospel, and by His Church,
to be our Lord and our Saviour, that we surrender
ourselves to His hands, to obey Him, to follow Him,
to be as He was, and to be dealt with by Him ac
cording to His will. Now bearing in mind what has
tbeen said respecting the character of the health of
our souls, is it not evident that, supposing Christ to
be what we proclaim Him, we are, by such an act of
. faith, taking the one step which is necessary to bring
K

i3o THE MEANING [lect,
us into a true and sound condition ? He accepts us.
as a part of Himself, He undertakes to answer for us,.
and becomes our representative ; and, on the other
hand, He moulds us continually after His own cha
racter and excellences. A man thus attached, or
united, to Christ cannot be regarded by God as exist
ing only in his own sinful individuality. It is not
merely the power and the good-will, but the spirit
and very nature of Christ under which he becomes
sheltered. There may be discerned in him, thence
forth, all the possibilities of a Christ-like nature. The
Apostle's language elsewhere alone describes the case ;
such a man is a new creature, old things have passed
away ; behold ! all things are become new. That
spirit of grief and repentance for evil which Christ
displayed in his behalf becomes, in an increasing
degree, his own ; and the Atonement, in its spirit as-
well as in its independent action, becomes the means
of reconciling the man to God, as well as God to the
man. The act of faith places the man in a new rela
tion ; and that relation involves a complete transfor
mation in his nature and capacities. He is like a
branch grafted into a vine, which thenceforth partakes
of the life of the vine itself.
Now it is evident, as in former instances, how much
all this assumes respecting the nature and the power
of Christ ; but admit the possibility of such a per
sonal relation between Christ and the soul, and then I
ask whether the doctrine of Justification, with its

vii.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 131
imputation to the sinner of a new character and his
reception into a new position, does not become in per
fect harmony with a just view of the relations which
persons may hold towards each other. Does it not
supply, indeed, a necessity which is inherent in any
bare doctrine of forgiveness ? It has been sometimes
asked why God cannot forgive unconditionally, and
without this requirement of faith ? The answer de
pends on what you mean by forgiveness. It does not
always, between man and man, imply a re-acceptance
of the offender to his old position in your heart and
your confidence. You may, in one sense, forgive a
man an injury he has done you ; but can you, without
condition, receive him again into the position in which
he inflicted it? Certainly not, unless you have a
guarantee, not merely of his repentance, but of his
repentance being of such a character that he is not
likely to commit such an injury again. Now Justi
fication is not bare forgiveness, but forgiveness and
re-acceptance combined. Before this can be fully
granted, some guarantee of the future is essential ;
and it is just this assurance which is afforded by that
requirement of faith in Jesus Christ, which is attached
by St. Paul to Justification. Let it only be made
. clear that a man is placed in his true relation, under a
regenerating influence, and he may then be accepted
or justified without hesitation.
It will be seen, then, that it can only be due to an
utter misconception of this doctrine if it appears to

112 THE MEANING [lect.
any mind to impose an arbitrary condition of salvation.
What it requires is that the soul should recognize the
truth. If Christ be the Guide and Saviour of men —
the one Person through whose personality our own
can be purified — it becomes almost a truism that there
is no salvation save through faith in Him. Neither
here, nor hereafter, can that be possible. By some
means or other, the soul must be reconciled with truth,
if it is to be made true ; and it must be made true,
if it is to be saved. A distinguished man of science
not long ago spoke of Justification by Verification.
All we ask, as theologians, by such a doctrine as this,
is that men should verify by their consciences the
moral claims of Christ, and then render Him the trust
which is His due. Faith, as the great theologians of
the Reformation were never weary of insisting, is not
a mere belief respecting Christ — still less, as it has
been perversely misrepresented, a belief respecting
one's own condition. It is the response of the heart
to the words of Christ ; and from the life and spirit
inherent in those words it derives its whole value and
vitality. Hence, too, they insisted that Justification
must be not only by faith, but by faith alone ; because
everything is involved in submission to that truth and
life, and every subsequent righteous action can be
but a consequence of its efficacy, and not an addition
to it.
But the greatest of all misconceptions of the doc
trine is that which represents it as disparaging the

vii.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 133
value and necessity of moral amendment, of repen
tance, and of chastisement. On the contrary, it
simply declares the indispensable means of amend
ment, the primary and most essential element in
repentance, and the only condition under which chas
tisement can be morally beneficial. If, indeed, the
moral aspect of God's nature be left out of view, if
Justification be confused with Salvation, and if it be
regarded, as perhaps it too often has been, as simply
implying deliverance from some future doom, the sus
picions in question would be warranted. But if Justi
fication be simply regarded, as it was by St. Paul and
by the great Reformers, as the establishment of con
fidence and fellowship between the soul and a God of
all righteousness, it must then be regarded as bringing
to bear upon the soul the whole moral influence of the
Divine will and energy. What, in a word, is the pro
clamation of the doctrine ? Is it that a man may
escape the punishment of his sin when he pleases ?
On the contrary, that is the very falsehood against
which it was a protest. What it proclaims is that a
pure and just God offers His pardon, His purity, His
justice, His truth, to every soul that will accept them
from Him, and that will unite itself to Jesus Christ in
His faith, His sorrow for sin, and His patient sub
mission to its penalties. It declares that this God, in
the love He bears to every such soul, will purge it
from its iniquity, its injustice, its impurity, by any
discipline that may be necessary. The soul that

134 THE MEANING [lect.
desires this blessing can have it for the asking ; but
they are not antinomian souls that ask it.
You are well aware what an immense moral influ
ence this doctrine exerted over the mind of Europe
when it was revived at the Reformation ; and there
is no historical fact which affords a more striking
testimony to the vast power inherent in theological
truths. Many influences, doubtless, were co-operating
in the same direction ; but it was not till Luther had
spoken, and had set free the consciences of priests
and people, that those influences could produce their
full effect. If I have at all succeeded in explain
ing the meaning of the doctrine, it will not seem
wonderful that it should have had such an influence.
Its very object, as we have seen, is to remove from
the soul every fear, to banish those shadows of guilt
which render it timorous in action and in thought,
and to restore it to perfect confidence in a just and
an almighty God. This is the Protestantism which,
in the mouth of Luther, gave a new life to the world.
The proclamation of the Reformer was that " it is the
design of God to have dauntless, calm, and generous
sons, in all eternity and perfection, who fear absolutely
nothing, but by confidence in His grace triumph over
and despise all things, and treat punishments and
deaths as sport. The rest He hates as cowards, who
are confounded by the fear of everything, even by the
sound of a rustling leaf."1 Unhappily this was too
1 "Deus autem proposuit habere filios impavidos, securos,

VII.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 135
soon transformed into a rigid statement of impersonal
transactions ; and in that form it deserves much of the
severe criticism it has recently received.1 But that is
not the form in which the principle was proclaimed at
the Reformation, and in which it is embodied in the
formularies of the Church of England ; and it is a
matter of some patience that men who ought to be
capable of appreciating the magnificent utterances of
that new birthday of Christianity should be content
to seek the living among the dead in the controversial
statements of a smaller age. If they would go back
to those utterances, they would find that, in its essen
tial and vital form, the doctrine was the republication
of the two cardinal truths of Christianity — that the
human soul is summoned to direct relationship with
a Personal God of all righteousness and of all power ;
and that this relationship may be accepted, or claimed,
in perfect confidence, peace, and fearlessness, on the
sole condition of absolute submission to the will and
the spirit of Jesus Christ. If that be not an ennobling,
generosos, sternaliter et perfecte, qui prorsus nihil timeant, sed
per gratia suae fiduciam omnia triumphent atque contemnant,
pcenasque etmortes pro ludibrio habeant ; ceteros ignavos odit,
qui omnium timore confunduntur, etiam a sonitu folii volan-
tis." (Luther, " Resolutiones Disputationum." Concluswxix.)
An endeavour was made three or four years ago, in a contribu
tion I furnished to " Present Day Papers," to exhibit the form in
which this doctrine arose in Luther's mind ; and I have ventured
in this Lecture to use some expressions from that paper.
1 Especially at the hand of Mr. Matthew Arnold in " St. Paul
and Protestantism."

136 THE MEANING • [lect.;
purifying, and elevating doctrine, none such has ever
been proclaimed.
Luther accordingly called this doctrine the article
of a standing or a falling Church. We may do well
to reflect whether, in a country which has once been
illuminated by the light of Christianity, it be not also
the article of a standing or a falling civilization. In'
such a country the conception of a righteous and
almighty God will not easily be eradicated ; and in
that conception there are elements which, if they be
not counterbalanced, are apt to render it the most
terrible of all ideas to the human mind. Unless, in
conjunction with a Divine Judge, a Divine Redeemer
be also upheld in His due office, unless God be repre
sented as the giver, no less than as the exactor, of
righteousness, the way is open for all the devices of
priestcraft and all the inventions of superstition.
Those fears and apprehensions from an unseen world
are not to be conjured away by declaring they are
mere phantoms, and that the material world is all
with which we are concerned. But they may be
mastered, as they have been mastered before, by belief
in a Saviour who has triumphed over them, and who,
if we obey Him, will deliver us from them. There
can be little doubt that the course of history and of
human thought since the Reformation has been
marked by a peculiar freedom and courage, and that.
the " dauntless, calm, and generous " spirit, of which
Luther spoke, has in fact been promoted by the

VII.] OF JUSTIFICATION. 137-
proclamation of his great doctrine. Even where it
has not been explicitly recognized, its influence has
been felt in a stronger confidence in God and God's
laws, and in a readiness to pursue the truth at all
hazards of error and of its inevitable punishment,
secure that all was well with us in His hands. Of the
two, God is certainly less dishonoured by an undue
confidence than by an unworthy fear. But a con
fidence basedon a false foundation, or on an imperfect
foundation, is with a large proportion of men liable
at any moment to be overthrown. Living trust in a
justifying and saving God is the only permanent and
universal security for manly courage, for womanly
confidence, or for love of truth. But that trust alone
is sure which rests on a definite faith ; and faith can .
only endure all its possible trials when it is quickened
by the life, the death, and the resurrection of Christ.
If the Clergy are anywhere suspected as the enemies
of freedom, they must have utterly perverted their
message. They are charged with a Gospel from God
of deliverance from all fear, of peace to all consciences,
of salvation from every evil, by converting every evil
into good. In this great doctrine of Justification by
Faith in Christ, they hold the charter of the freedom
of the world ; in this sense, at all events, the power
to Bind and Loose has been conferred upon the
Church ; and in proportion as she preaches this truth
aright will her mission be recognized and her power
acknowledged;

33* THE METHOD [lect.

LECTURE VIII.
THE METHOD OF SANCTIFICATION.
Romans viii. 22-23.
* ' For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth
in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves
also which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the
redemption of our body.''
MY task in this last Lecture of the present course
would be comparatively easy, if I could con
fine myself to developing the natural results of the
principles I have hitherto been vindicating. I am to
speak of the second great element in the Christian
doctrine of the practical life of the soul — that, namely,
which is embodied in the theological term " Sancti
fication." If, in accordance with the truths already
vindicated, we may assume that our deepest life con
sists in our relations with a spiritual world ; that that
world is a world of persons ; that the highest of all
such relations is with a personal God, in whom every
movement of righteousness, truth, and beauty, of which
we are conscious, finds its origin and its perfection ;
if, in order to render it even conceivable that such a

•viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 139
Being should be in harmonious relation with moral
natures so evil as our own, it be necessary to introduce ,
the mediation of some holy Person with whom we
may be personally united ; if the first step in the re
generation of our spirits must consist in entering,
through union with such a mediator, into a life of
confidence and of freedom of conscience towards God
—if, in a word, we may thus recognize at once the
necessity and the possibility of fellowship with the
Father and with His Son Jesus Christ as the ultimate
aim and the sole completion of our lives — what re
mains but to crave, with equal yearning and hope,
from His Divine influence, for that holiness, that
Sanctification, which alone is compatible with such a
communion ? " If we say that we have fellowship
with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not
the truth ; but if we walk in the light as He is in the
light, we have fellowship one with another, and the
blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all
sin." Such is the introduction to the comprehensive
epistle of St. John ; and no one starting from Chris
tian premises can fail to echo the simple words which
follow, " My little children, these things write I unto
you that ye sin not." Moreover, this Divine fellow
ship, if it creates the necessity for such holiness, must
be at the same time its only adequate source, and
only in communion with the Spirit of the Father and
the Son can we look for an influence equal to the
miracle of re-creating us in Their image.

140 THE METHOD [lect-
Such is the inevitable course of Christian thought,,
as it is embodied in the simplest symbols of our faith.
The creed begins with Creation ; it leads us through
the mystery and the agony of Redemption, but it
culminates in the confession of a Holy Spirit, who
sanctifies all the people of God. It may be, as is-
implied in some recent speculations to which I referred
at the outset of these Lectures, and as I have already
admitted, that this final aim of the Christian revela
tion has been obscured ; that men have spoken of
Salvation without duly remembering that it means
deliverance, not merely from punishment, but from
sin ; and that the life which the Creed ends by pro
claiming has been too often interpreted as a mere
future existence of imaginary beatitude, rather than
as the actual life, both present and future, of spiritual
peace and holiness. But the Scriptures and the Creeds -
have always provided the means of rectifying any
such distortion of the true proportions of our Faith y
and the deliverance both of the soul from its iniquity
and of the body from its corruption, by union with
Christ, has been the hope in which the Christian
Church has lived. So far from our theological pre
mises obscuring such an aim, they on the contrary
bring it into vivid prominence ; and on the basis of
the presumptions hitherto vindicated, we differ from
the moralists, not in rendering righteousness- an im
perative pursuit of the soul, but in offering to render
it a practicable pursuit. But though it is within the

-viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 141
purpose of these Lectures thus to point out the inter
nal coherence of Christian doctrine, and the manner
•in which its primary assumptions lead necessarily to
-its practical conclusions, it has been my constant
object to consider each truth as far as possible by
itself, and to exhibit its harmony with the indisput
able facts and necessities of human nature. Leaving,
therefore, the mere logical deduction from Christian
premises, we have to consider whether the main prin
ciples of the doctrine of Sanctification correspond
with the general facts of human nature. That doc
trine, briefly explained, is this — that holiness is created
and developed in us by the influence of a personal
Spirit on our souls : that this Spirit operates not
merely upon individuals directly, but through the
agency of the Christian Church ; and that its ultimate
work is the complete renovation both of our souls and
of our bodies. This is what is implied in the confession
that we believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy Catholic
Church, the Communion of Saints, the Forgiveness of
Sins, the Resurrection of the Body, and the Life Ever
lasting. Now this is, in part, a statement of the method of
human development ; and it encounters, no doubt,
some prejudice at the outset, so far as certain scien
tific theories of physical development have taken pos
session of men's minds. It is alleged that the various
forms of natural life may be explained, without as
suming the constant influence of any designing and

142

THE METHOD [lect.

controlling intelligence, by the natural action of circum
stances on certain organisms. Animals, for instance,.
in the struggle for life, find certain qualities or organic
developments serviceable ; and the individuals in
whom these developments are most strongly marked
survive and reproduce their peculiarities. How far
this hypothesis corresponds to the facts of natural
history it would be beyond my scope to inquire. But
a decided attempt is made to extend the same hypo
thesis to human life, and to explain by the operation
of a similar mutual struggle the whole growth of
human morality and civilization. Human nature, ac
cording to this view, is not moulded from within, but
from without ; and the very idea of a permanent cen
tral influence directing and controlling its development
becomes inadmissible.
Now I would first observe that this is another of
those instances, already noticed in these Lectures, in
which the conditions of mere physical life are entirely
distinct from those of human life. We have seen, for
example, how the personal character of human re
lationships distinguishes them from all others ; and
this consideration will be found to be of force in re
spect to the present subject. But it would seem
equally apparent that we should disregard one of the
most prominent characteristics of the course of human
thought and feeling by attempting to explain it on
the principle of natural development. It is an essen
tial part of such a theory that a given result should

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 143;
be produced by the action either of present circum
stances or of inherited tendencies. It is by this
gradual accumulation of present influences that the
successive development of plants and animals must
be determined. In human development, however,
whether Christian or Pagan, there is an element en
tirely distinct from this. It is the direct influence of
one spirit upon another by means which are compara
tively independent of external circumstances. Take,
for example, the case of Mahommedanism or Buddh
ism. It may be that the circumstances of national
or social existence predispose men to accept such re
ligions. But this is clearly far from being the whole
of the matter. In addition to this, the ideas and im
pulses of Mahommed and Buddha themselves are
living and generative forces in the minds of their
adherents. At this moment those ideas and impulses
are powerful instruments in gathering new followers
and in animating the existing votaries of such faiths.
There is enshrined in the Koran the spirit of one of
the greatest masters of the human heart, and in India
that spirit is at this moment a power which acts from
within outwardly, which is continually modifying cir
cumstances, and moulding the intellectual and moral
growth of generation after generation. It would seem
obviously contrary to such facts to urge that it is the
mere force either of present or of inherited circum
stances which has made particular nations Mahom-
medan or which keeps them so. The immediate.

i44 THE METHOD [lect.
cause, at all events, has been the action of a personal
influence which arose long ago in Arabia, and which
has ever since been acting upon human spirits directly
Lby the force of an inherent vitality.
In a still higher degree is this apparent in the case
of Christianity. Whatever may be urged with respect
to the preparation of society in the time of the Roman
Empire for such a religion, the supposition that the
society itself gave birth to it could only be maintained
by disregarding the immense moral innovation which
the Gospel introduced. The contrast between the
two principles of human development we are now
considering is forcibly stated by St. Paul at the com
mencement of the twelfth chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans, and is illustrated by the exhortations which
follow. " Be not," he says, " conformed to this world ;
but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind ; "
and he proceeds to describe the transfiguration of
the whole of human life under the force of the spiritual
influence of which, in the previous part of the Epistle,
he had been explaining the character. It will be ob
served how comprehensively he surveys the whole range
of human action and conduct. He starts from the
consideration of men as constituting many members
in one body, and he proceeds to direct them in their
various offices. He passes in review the private and
public duties to which they might be called — minister
ing, teaching, exhorting, giving, ruling and obeying ;
.he depicts the spirit of the Christian in business and

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 145
in rest, in joy and in sorrow, in hope and in tribula
tion, towards friends and towards enemies, in peace
and in wrath ; and he lays down the Christian prin
ciples of civil government and civil obedience. It is a
picture of life in its length and breadth, and even in
all its lights and shadows, transfigured, as the landscape
by the sun, under the renovating influence of those
spiritual rays of love which illuminated and warmed
the Apostle's soul. " The night," he concludes, " is
far spent, the day is at hand ; " and we can only ap
preciate the justice of the image by endeavouring to
realize the moral condition of the age on which this
new day was dawning. The New Testament is of
necessity regarded by us to a great extent as detached
from its original 'surroundings. Its revelation claims
an eternal character, and it is destined to find a con
genial home in every country and in every age. But
for our present purpose it is most instructive to con
template it as embedded, so to speak, in its original
associations, and to imagine ourselves reading it, or
rather listening to its authors, amidst the life of the
Roman Empire and of Pagan civilization. The con
trast between the surrounding night and the emerging
dawn gives a novel force to the vivid imagery of the
Apostle. Conceive, for instance, this portion of the
Epistle to the Romans coming upon us for the first
time amidst the Annals of Tacitus, as a description of
the teaching of a Jew who arrived in Rome under the
reign of Nero. This is only to suppose what would
L

146 THE METHOD [lect,
have been the case if the annalist had been able to-
record for us a complete review of the circumstances
and movements of his age. But what an inconceivable
contrast would be apparent ! Thus viewed, the rise of
the day-star of Christian love and light would pro
bably impress us as being at least as marvellous in
character as the physical miracles of the Gospels. It
was nothing less than a moral miracle — the sudden
appearance, amidst a corrupted society, of men " be
holding as in a glass the glory of the Lord," and
transfigured into the same image in all their thoughts
and words.
Now the Apostle, in the words I have just quoted,
expresses exactly the nature of the two principles of
development exhibited in this contrast. " Be not," he
says, " conformed to this world," or this age. There
could hardly be an apter description of the process of
civilization by the pressure of circumstances. But the
very essence of the Apostle's mind was to renounce
conformity with his age and his circumstances, and to
reveal in himself and in others an entirely new form
and conception of life. The Christian life as exhibited
by him burst into existence and into full perfection in
Christ and in His disciples. St. Paul's explanation of
it alone answers to the historical reality. They had
been " transfigured by the renewing of their minds."
Such is the vital method of human progress. A new
internal influence arises in the soul, like a hidden
spring bursting from a rock, or like fire descending

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 147
from heaven. Instead of the mind of a man being
developed by the form and fashion of his age, he re
ceives within himself the source of a new life, and
becomes the originating germ of a transformed age.
From within and not from without, from the mind
and not from the world, by the birth of what is new
and not by the growth of what is old, the whole
aspect of human nature is transfigured. This concep
tion lies at the root of the teaching of the Apostle.
Baptism, with its associated images of new birth and
of resurrection, embodies the cardinal Christian idea.
The words, " Except a man be born again he cannot
see the kingdom of God," are the most pregnant
statement of the main principle of the Gospel.
The subsequent history of Christianity is in no less
remarkable a degree the history of the modification of
the external by the internal. The words and deeds of
Jesus of Nazareth become a perennial source of life,
modifying, by direct as well as by indirect influence,
the whole current of men's thoughts and lives, and
transforming their civilization. It is the words of
Christ which seize on the heart of an Augustine and
render him in his turn the dominant power in a great
period of European thought. The great saints and
masters of our Christian civilization have cherished
and have enforced principles of domestic and of social
life entirely independent of the circumstances in which
they lived. The Christian idea of marriage, for in
stance, lives in the New Testament. Its spirit is there,

i48 THE METHOD [lect.
as that of a living force fashioning in men's minds a
model to be imitated and a law to be obeyed. For
eighteen centuries it has been continually modifying
the circumstances, the passions, the interests, the social
tendencies of mankind. The idea of man's relation
to a Personal God lives similarly in those Scriptures,
and has had a not less potent influence. Time after
time in history — in the history of our own country —
have the ideas of Prophets and Apostles burst upon
men's minds from those ancient pages, and have
evoked movements which have overturned thrones
and re-organized national life. They are seeds which
need, no doubt, a favourable soil in which to grow ; but
which have in them a fertilizing power of perennial
vitality. There is a spirit in them which quickeneth,
in comparison with which the flesh profiteth nothing.
The material is dead and formless until this spiritual
influence moves within, and calls it into life and order.
In a word, circumstances are an unquestionable element
in human development ; but its most characteristic
and important factor is the influence of personal and
spiritual agencies in controlling circumstances.
So far, then, as the Christian doctrine of the Spirit
supposes a central spiritual influence as the operative
power in the growth of the soul, it is in harmony with
the facts of human experience. The Apostle accord
ingly draws a close parallel between the operation of
evil and the operation of good in this respect. " As
by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,
so by the obedience of one shall many be made

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 149
righteous." Whether or not the story of the fall to
which the Apostle refers is to be taken as an histo
rical narrative, the principle it embodies is equally a
fact of human nature. The sin of one man, who is
the father, or the leader, or the teacher, will multiply
itself indefinitely, by the force both of example and of
inheritance, among those who become subject to his
influence. St. Paul represents this evil influence as
encountered by one of precisely the same character
in the revelation of a Person who shall be a central
source of righteousness, truth, and - spiritual health ;
" that as sin hath reigned unto death, even so might
grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by
Jesus Christ our Lord."
Now the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit pro
vides for the extension of this central and personal
influence to each individual soul in every age. It
rests, not upon deductions from particular texts, but
upon the whole burden of the last discourses of our
Lord as recorded in the Gospel of St. John. It
would be out of place, for the immediate purposes
of this argument, to consider the objections which
have been raised to the authenticity of those dis
courses. They have, in fact, generated the Christian
doctrine ; and the question is whether that doctrine
corresponds with the legitimate demands of human
nature. It is at the same time a point of extreme
interest, even with reference to the collateral contro
versy of the authenticity of St. John's Gospel, to ob
serve the intimate correspondence between the strong

'So

THE METHOD [lect.

human interest with which those discourses are replete
and the doctrine which has grown out of them ; and
a brief consideration of them from this point of view
will throw a strong light upon the point more espe
cially under our notice. Our Lord is contemplating
His speedy departure from His disciples, and He
concentrates in these final words the guidance and
consolation on which they would have to rest when
He was gone. There is something inexpressibly
touching in the tender concern which breathes in
almost every word at the thought of the distress and
perplexity they were about to feel. He begins with
the exhortation, " Let not your heart be troubled,"
and He ends with the words, " These things I have
spoken unto you that in me ye might have peace.
In the world ye shall have tribulation, but be of good
cheer, I have overcome the world." More than once
He exhorts them, " Let not your heart be troubled,
neither let it be afraid." He knew better than they
did themselves how entirely they had been dependent
on Him, how utterly incapable they would be at first
of maintaining their faith and their loyalty without
Him ; and even at the close of His gracious assurances
He is forced to utter the exclamation, " Do ye now
believe ? Behold, the hour cometh, yea, is now come,
that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and
shall leave me alone."
Our Lord recognized, in short, the fact that it had
been His personal influence to which all the allegiance

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION.

151

of His disciples had been hitherto rendered. He had
lived with them day by day, ever at hand to enlighten
their ignorance, to sustain their faith, to correct their
errors. They had been able to appeal to Him in all
the perplexities of their thoughts and the confusions
of their hearts, and they had learned that He was a
guide who could lead them safely through every
labyrinth. It was this they were about to lose, and
accordingly His encouragements are immediately
directed to meet this want. He assures them that
His place would be taken in that very personal rela
tionship in which, at first, He would be so grievously
missed. " I will pray the Father, and He shall give
you another Comforter, that He may abide with you
for ever." He obviously implies a Comforter like the
¦One who was about to leave them — another such as
Himself for all purposes of consolation and of guidance.
Nay, the new Comforter would be equivalent to Him
self: " I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to
you." Again, " These things have I spoken unto you,
being yet present with you ; but the Comforter, which
is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my
name, He shall teach you all things, and bring all
things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you."
It is when we thus compare the assurances of our
Lord with the circumstances under which, and the
purposes for which, they were given, that we discern
.the full practical significance of the Christian belief

152 THE METHOD [lect.
in the Personality of the Holy Spirit. The habits of
thought in the present day and its chief intellectual
movements incline many minds to contemplate the-
Holy Spirit in the character of some divine influence
or impersonal power. But without at present entering
into the strictly dogmatic aspect of the doctrine, thus.
much, at least, is apparent from the language just
quoted, considered in connection with the occasion on
which it was used. The promised Comforter was to
be as much a. Person as Christ Himself, and was to-
exercise over the disciples precisely the influence
which Christ had Himself exerted while He was with
them. This was to be the very source of the peace
He left with them. They were to lose His visible
companionship, but they were to gain a companion
even more intimately present with them. How in
tensely personal His own influence had been need not
be insisted on. It is one of the most marked charac
teristics of His ministry that, instead of consisting
chiefly in the declaration of general laws or rules of
conduct, it is adapted to every shade of thought and
feeling in the characters with whom He has to deal.
He constantly has in view the secret thoughts and
inward dispositions of the individuals whom He is
addressing, and touches the particular weakness of
their souls. It was all this of which the disciples
were about to be deprived ; and it was this they were
assured would be bestowed upon them in the gift of
the Spirit.

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 153
Now if the previous argument of these Lectures has
been valid, it will be seen how deep and essential a
need of human nature is met by such a revelation.
If, as I have endeavoured to show, the human soul
breathes, as it were, in an atmosphere of personal
relations ; if laws, to be thoroughly efficient, need to
be applied, interpreted, modified with the delicate
variations which only personal feeling and apprehen
sion can afford ; if, in short, the fellowship of Christ
with His disciples illustrates the sole conditions under
which the perfect training and development of the
soul is possible, it is evident that the mission of a
Holy Spirit, whose personal influences, when faithfully
followed, guide us into all truth, supplies the necessary
supplement to all moral teaching and discipline. We
have only to consider the infinite boon it was to the
Apostles to live in the society of One who, like our
Lord, exerted this influence upon them, in order to
appreciate the intense force and reality which the
doctrine has possessed for the Christian conscience.
They were subject in His presence to the sure and
delicate touch of one who had a Divine knowledge of
all the movements of their souls, and whose every
word and look brought them into contact with a
Divine life. This is the blessing which, in an even
more penetrating form, and in a manner which
touches the secrets of our souls, if possible, more pro
foundly, is offered to the world in the revelation of the
Holy Spirit. No soul, we are assured, need be desti-

1S4 THE METHOD [LECT.
tute of a Divine companionship ; none need resort to
a human authority for infallible guidance. The guid
ance, indeed, is addressed to the conscience rather
than to the intellect ; and it is consequently enjoyed
only so far as the conscience is true to its Divine
monitor. In proportion, however, as this moral and
spiritual authority is consulted and obeyed, do the per
plexities both of thought and of practice disappear.
But the summary of Christian doctrine proceeds to
indicate another point in which this personal character
of the spiritual life is recognized and satisfied by the
Gospel. The immediate sequel to the acknowledg
ment of the Holy Spirit is a belief in the Holy Catho
lic Church and in the Communion of Saints. In other
words, even the inward spiritual influence of a Divine
Person is not independent of that constitution of
human nature which renders it impossible that man
should live alone. Our personal life can only be fully
developed in an environment of personal relations ;
and the order of our moral universe depends not
merely on the central attraction of a spiritual sun, but
upon the mutual attractions and pressures of its
numerous constituent bodies. The true life of Chris
tians is not that of individual and separate Saints, but
that of a society of Saints. Bound to their common
Head and to each other by means of sacraments,
worship, and discipline, their life is that of one entire
organism, and the vitality of each member is inti
mately dependent upon the closeness of his fellowship

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 155
with the rest. The law of the Church's existence is
that laid down by Christ, " Where two or three are
gathered together in my name, there," in a special
manner, " am I in the midst of them." It was in the
days when this communion of saints was most con
spicuous, and when the discipline involved in it was
most efficient, that the life of the Church was more
vigorous than at any subsequent period. The secret,
probably, of the success of many sectarian movements
has lain in their partial resuscitation of this mutual
influence at times when it had been neglected by the
Church at large ; and it has been the weakness of all
philosophical and moral systems that they have failed
to provide for this indispensable necessity of human
nature. But I must pass to the last point in which the Creed
exhibits the method of Christian Sanctification — " The
Forgiveness of Sins, the Resurrection of the Body, and
the Life Everlasting." It is here, perhaps, that the
ultimate, if not the innermost, essence of Christian
doctrine is reached. Sanctification and Resurrection,
as has of late been justly observed by an author whose
objections I have had to controvert,1 are, in apostolic
language, almost synonymous terms ; and it is only
to the negative side of the interpretation which this
author has placed on such language that exception
must be taken. I must invite those who have been
good enough to follow me thus far to turn at this
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold, in " St. Paul and Protestantism."

156 THE METHOD [lect.
point to the comprehensive exposition of Christian
doctrine which is contained in the Epistle to the
Romans. In the course of these Lectures I have for
the most part followed the order of the Apostle's
argument, and the value of the discussion will depend.
on whether I have succeeded in elucidating that order
and illustrating its correspondence with facts. The
writer just referred to is of opinion that St. Paul did
not understand what were really the leading thoughts-
and principles of his own mind, and, as though pos
sessing an intelligence superior to that of the Apostle,
he has offered to re-arrange the Epistle to the Romans
in the order of the real importance of its truths. That,
however, is not the way in which great writers are
ordinarily interpreted ; and if we wish to understand
the Gospel which St. Paul preached, we must be able to
place ourselves in harmony with his language and with
his method of development. Now it will be perceived
that, in the course of thought pursued in the previous
Lectures, we have reached the close of the fifth chap
ter, in which the Apostle proclaims the universality of
the grace and forgiveness of God. He then, in the
three following chapters, proceeds to develop the con
sequences of this grace and forgiveness in the com
plete deliverance of both our souls and bodies from
the dominion of corruption. Of that series of chapters
Death and Resurrection are, as has been truly ob
served, the key-notes. " Christ," says the Apostle,.
"being raised from the dead dieth no more; death

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 157
hath no more dominion over Him. For in that He
died, He died unto sin once : but in that He liveth,
He liveth unto God. Likewise reckon ye also your
selves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God
through Jesus Christ our Lord."
Now it is perfectly true that it is impossible to in
terpret such words as these of mere physical life and
death, but, on the other hand, it requires no less a
strain to suppose that physical life and death are not
included in their meaning ; and it is impossible, conse
quently, to regard them as mere figures of speech. If
St. Paul declares that " the spirit is life because of
righteousness," he immediately adds that " if the Spirit
of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in
you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall
also quicken your mortal bodies by His Spirit that
dwelleth in you." The Apostle describes in these
chapters, with intense power, the bitter sense he felt
of a tendency, which of his own strength he could not
resist, to spiritual, moral, mental, and physical corrup
tion. In the Resurrection he saw a pledge that this
tendency could be stayed and overcome ; and he as
sures us, from his own experience, that the Christian
who has been baptized into Jesus Christ, and who lives
by faith in Him, is already in possession, at least in the
inner man, of this power of revivification. He could
not, indeed, anticipate the law of God's operation in
finally revealing that changed, that glorious and in
corruptible existence reserved for the whole man in

158 THE METHOD [lect.
body and soul. But we have the firstfruits of the
Spirit in the purification of our affections and desires.
It is a purification which cannot be complete so long
as the old man remains. But in heart, and soul, and
spirit, we may already experience the life of the new
man, who, after God, is created in righteousness and
true holiness. Here, accordingly, the strong yearnings
of the Apostle for a new life and for holier powers are
for the present mainly directed ; and he concentrates
the energy of his spirit upon the realization of this life
and peace in the soul. " Therefore we are buried with
Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was
raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father,.
even so we also should walk in newness of life."
In a word, the doctrine of Sanctification, as- taught
by the Apostle, appears to imply that our whole
nature, in body and in soul, is liable to a kind of
dissolution, and that our deliverance can only be
effected by a process of restoration similar to that
which we associate with the idea of the resurrection
of the body. An attempt, however, as I have said, has
been made to interpret him as referring merely, in
strong figures of speech, to the renovation of our
desires by the force of sympathy with Christ. Now,
so far as concerns the mere reference of his language
to the desires of the soul, it is not for a minister of
our Church, especially at this season,1 to raise any
1 The Boyle Lectures are, under present arrangements,
preached in the season following Easter Day.

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 159
objection to such an interpretation. The Collect for
Easter Day expressly adopts it in principle. " Al
mighty God," it says, " who through Thy only-begot
ten Son Jesus Christ hast overcome death and opened
unto us the gate of everlasting life, we humbly beseech
Thee that, as by Thy special grace preventing us
Thou dost put into our minds good desires, so by
Thy continual help we may bring the same to good
effect.'' I would only ask those who for this reason
are disposed to eliminate from the essence of the
Apostle's teaching the apparent literal meaning of his
words, to consider a little more carefully all that is
involved in such a word as " desire."
Need, then, any of us look beyond our own hearts
to discern what a world of weal or woe, of order or
disorder, of internal peace or internal war, is covered
by that simple word ? Have not desires of one kind
or another been the very elements of our life ? Are
they not, at this moment, the elements upon the due
regulation of which our own happiness, and the hap
piness of all connected with us, depends ? Looking
back on life, does it not seem like a long war of
desires ? Noble impulses and high aspirations have
at one time incited us to all that was lovely and of
good report. At another time, or even simultane
ously, the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes,
and the pride of life have diverted us from those high
aims. There are none but have been more or less thus
led astray ; none in whom the war of the desires has

i6o THE METHOD [lect.
been a continual victory for one side alone. To pur
sue the image, who is not conscious that there have
been killed and wounded in this lifelong struggle ? In
some unhappy cases the evil desires seem all but to
exterminate the good ; in some most blessed instances
the good have so nearly exterminated the evil, that
nothing but a desultory warfare remains. But to
many of us the issue is a sadly chequered one. Many
a good desire, if not killed, has been maimed and
marred. The better side holds its own, but we know
we are not the men we might have been, and not even
the men we desired to be. To how many a life, and
to how much of individual lives, does not the famous
saying apply that, next to a defeat, there is nothing so
sad as a victory ? We have won the day, it may be,
in our conflict with Apollyon ; but what a wreck, for
all that, has he made of many a fine impulse and
bright hope ; and how melancholy often is that hu-
jnility, scarcely to be distinguished from humiliation,
with which the chastened spirit of many a truly re
pentant soul awaits the forgiveness of a merciful God !
How many there are who,
" Day by day and year by year,
Survey the past with deepening fear,
Yet hourly, with more hopeful ear,
To the dim future turn, the absolving voice abide."1
All this world of conflict, of passions struggling
with principles, of impulses and faculties marred or
1 Keble, " Lyra Innocentium."

vm.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 161
made, is covered by that prayer that, as God by His
special grace preventing us, puts into our minds good
desires, so by His continual help we may bring the
same to good effect. It is the whole length and
breadth, and depth and height, of human life which
is involved in that simple phrase.
Consider further, in reference to the Apostle's ap
plication of the truth of the Resurrection to these
desires of the soul of man, that the idea of resurrec
tion, whether applied to the soul or to the body, is
obviously a very different thing from the mere idea of
immortality. The latter is by no means a character
istically Christian idea. On the contrary, the conviction
of immortality in some form or other, seems, with rare
exceptions, part of the birthright of humanity. Nor,
again, is the belief in future rewards and punishments
peculiar to our own religion. On the contrary, it is,
in one form or another, the dominant motive in the
principal religions of the world. But it is something
far greater which is involved in the Christian idea of
the Resurrection. It is one thing to suppose that the
soul lives on after death, whether to be re-united to
the body or not, and another thing, altogether, to sup
pose that it is to be re-organized, revivified, and re
generated. Mere immortality might imply no more
than our continuing to live as we were here, carrying
with us to all eternity the characters into which we
had moulded ourselves, the imperfections, the ill-regu
lated desires, of which many of us must to the last be
M

162 THE METHOD [lect.
conscious. Alas ! not a few persons die in true Chris
tian faith and practice who, if they continued hereafter
as they were in this world, would live but a maimed
immortality. It is, however, more than mere immor
tality, it is life and in corruption,1 which Christ brought
to light by His victory. His Resurrection is the as
surance that we shall not merely exist hereafter, but
that we shall be endued with a newness of life. Of
the soul, no less than of the body, is it in measure true
that '' it is sown in corruption, it is raised in incorrup-
tion ; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory ; it
is sown in weakness, it is raised in power."
In this, indeed, even more than in the resurrection
of the body, consist the wonder and the mystery of
the doctrine. It is, perhaps, comparatively conceivable
that a vital spark which has been clothed with flesh
and blood once should be clothed with flesh and
blood again. But there is something which might
well seem indestructible in the fibres of which the
soul is composed. There are impressions, habits, ten
dencies of heart and mind, from which it might appear
almost impossible that we should be emancipated. It
cannot, surely, be in scientific days, when the perma
nence of impressions on the body is so keenly appre
ciated, and when it is also recognized in a higher
degree than ever how closely the soul and the body are
united, that this difficulty can be made light of, or
that we can be supposed to overcome the effects of
1 fwV Kal atpBapalav, — 2 Tim. i io.

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 163
past sin by the mere ameliorating influence of sym
pathy or example. He who knows the struggle
against some besetting sin, and is conscious of the scar
and stain which even victory leaves, will understand
the blessing of the declaration that, when Christ shall
appear, we shall be like Him ; and that as we have
been planted together in the likeness of His death, we
shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection — in
the likeness of that glorious form which supplanted
His marred visage and tortured frame. But such is
the meaning of the Apostle ; this is the blessing which
He promises to the sons of God.
It is indeed impossible, on the basis of mere mor
ality, to break the stern law of continuity. Leave
men to the operation of their natural powers, and it
is inconceivable how desires and impulses once marred
and mutilated can ever acquire that life, that com
pleteness, that purity, "for which they were designed.
The doctrine, accordingly, has been actually pro
pounded, and with perfect consistency, by a writer
who stands on this basis, that sin cannot be forgiven ; 1
an awful proclamation, to be explained, we may well
believe, on the supposition that the soul that utters it
has been spared, by a life of comparative innocence,
from knowing the misery, not merely of guilt, but of
the sense of irreparable self-injury. But it is a form
of despair to which the soul is often tempted, when,
after some great lapse, it remembers from whence it
Mr. Greg, in "The Creed of Christendom," vol. ii. p. 222.

164 THE METHOD [LECT.
fell, and is sensible once more of the good desires it
has failed so lamentably to bring to good effect. The
evil does seem irreparable ; and even though we may
stop short of complete self-abandonment, it seems to
us impossible that we can recover the full vigour of
our spiritual faculties. Which, then, is the truest to-
human nature — moral writers who discourse to you ¦
without anxiety on the possibility of recovering your
selves by sympathy with an example ; or an Apostle
who cries out in the agony of his own struggle, " Who-
shall deliver me from the body of this death ? " and
who points to nothing less than a miracle similar to-
that of Christ's physical resurrection for his own final
deliverance, and for ours ? It is this, in the Apostle's
mind, which is the final blessing of the Gospel he
proclaimed. " They that are in the flesh cannot please
God ; " they cannot attain that holiness, that fulfil
ment of their good desires, which alone can answer
God's high aim for them. " But ye are not in the
flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God
dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of
Christ, he is none of His. And if Christ be in you,
the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life
because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him
that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, He
that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in
you." By a mysterious process, though not, perhaps,
more essentially mysterious than some processes of

viii.] OF SANCTIFICATION. 165
our natural life, the old man must die, and the new
man will be renewed after the image of Him that
created Him. " So when this corruptible shall have
put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put
on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the
saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in
victory." In conclusion, there is perhaps nothing which in
moments of religious doubt and perplexity is more
fitted, so to speak, to rally our thoughts, than to com
pare the intense sympathy with the ordinary strug
gling life of humanity which breathes in every page of
the New Testament with the placidity with which
that life is reviewed and interpreted by most of those
who would provide us with a profounder philosophy.
In the last page, for instance, of the last book of this
kind which has been published among us,1. 1 find the
writer congratulating himself that by abandoning a
Supernatural Revelation "we exchange a Jewish
anthropomorphic Divinity for an omnipresent God,
from whose serene reign of Law disorder and anarchy
are absolutely excluded." What was the world, one
wonders, which the writer had in mind in penning this
description ? Was it that world of storm and passion,
1 "Supernatural Religion," ist Edition, 1874, vol. ii. p. 492.
The author has in subsequent editions suppressed this admira
tion of the serenity of the world ; but his original statement is
a memorable illustration of the point of view from which the
problem of religion is often approached in such speculations.

1 66 OF SANCTIFICATION. [lect. viii,
of moral and mental disorganization, amidst which we
labour, and to which each of us, alas ! contributes
some element of disorder and anarchy ? An Apostle
speaks to our hearts with very different force when he
declares in the text, " We know that the whole crea
tion groaneth and travaileth in pain together until
now ; and not only they, but ourselves also, which
have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves
groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to
wit, the redemption of our body." Had St. Paul left
no other utterance than this, he would have established
an inalienable claim on the hearts of mankind ; and
it is alone enough to show how deeply the great
doctrines of Christian theology touch the life and the
necessities of our race.
With this attempt to illustrate the practical signi
ficance of the Christian doctrine of Sanctification, my
duty for this year is ended ; and it only remains for
me to ask pardon from God and indulgence from my
hearers for the imperfection with which it has been
accomplished.

BOYLE LECTURES

SECOND COURSE

1875.

LECTURE I.
THE PROVINCE OF FAITH.
Romans i. 17.
" For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to
faith : as it is written, The just shall live by faith."
IN commencing the second course of these Lectures
let me recall the point of view from which they
are written. Unbelief at the present day appears to
be distinguished from that of most previous periods,
and particularly from that of the last century, by one
marked characteristic. That characteristic is that it
heartily recognizes the obligation of morality ; and
that it hesitates to accept the Christian Revelation,
not in consequence of any reluctance to follow, on the
whole, its moral guidance, but simply on the ground
of the demand which it makes on our faith. This
change in the position is, as I observed last year, only
to be appreciated by reference to the greatest apolo
gists of the last century, who seem quite as much
concerned to defend the cause of Virtue as that of

170 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect.
Religion. Now taking men in general, and not speak
ing individually, it can hardly be doubted by a Christian
mind that the cause of Virtue is involved in that of
Religion ; and that if the Christian Faith were gener
ally abandoned, the source and support of the highest
morality would be lost. It would at least be perilous
to underrate the gravity of a lapse from that high
spiritual ground which the Christian Church has at
tained. But, nevertheless, if, as we believe, Christian
faith is the culmination of the long and toilsome
ascent, imposed upon mankind, of the " strong moun
tains " of the Divine righteousness, it is a matter for
infinite thankfulness and hope that the most dan
gerous relapses at the present moment are, so to
speak, no further than to the last ridge or pla
teau below the summit. While we are struggling, as
we believe, to the highest peak, our companions, who
for the time are holding back, are not beyond the
reach of our voices, and we have not parted fellowship.
Righteousness, for ourselves and for others, is our
common aim and pursuit. To the Christian, indeed,
this pursuit is ultimately merged in a still higher one
—that of a divine and eternal love. But whatever
that final blessing, righteousness is its essential con
dition ; and to a great extent, therefore, the contest
of the apologist with the modern sceptic concerns the
means rather than the end. St. Paul, in the words
which precede the text, declares that he is not ashamed
of the Gospel of Christ, " for it is the power of God

i.] THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. 171
unto salvation to every one that believeth ; " and-. for
tius reason, that " therein is the righteousness of God
revealed." If that be so — if the Christian Faith be
really a power unto salvation by virtue of its revela
tion of righteousness — the main difficulties in the way
of its acceptance are overcome, and we may assume
that, with most of those to whom a defence of Chris
tianity .need in these days be addressed, there is an
end of the question. At all events, if the truths of
that Gospel which St. Paul proclaimed are found to
reveal the deep foundations of morality, to complete
its structure, and to answer the profoundest cravings
of those w ho hunger and thirst after righteousness, we
obtain a presumptive evidence which in the present
day ought to carry a most powerful weight.
If, to those who are acquainted with the writings of
the leaders of thought among us, any confirmation of
this view of the case were needed, it might be supplied
by a remarkable appeal addressed to the public and
its teachers in a periodical of last month by the heir
of a distinguished name.1 It is a kind of despairing
cry for light and help, amidst what is described as the
" maddening and disheartening uncertainty, '.'t which
now weighs upon the minds of numbers who have lost
their hold on Christian faith. We are told that " they
would do the right thing, many of them, if they could
be sure what the right thing is ; they would devote
1 The Earl of Pembroke, in " The Contemporary Review,""
April, 1875.

172 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect.
their lives to doing good to others, if they could be
sure that they were doing good. But they cannot,
and so drift on unsatisfactorily enough, without any
consistent principle or fixed purpose in living." " It
is the curse," the writer adds, " and it is to be feared,
the growing curse, of our so-called enlightened age.
An age which might be bitterly described as one in
which every one acknowledged the obligations of duty,
but in which no one was certain what duty consisted
in." A mole robust or less scrupulous temperament
might, indeed, overcome these uncertainties by active
work ; but, in various degrees, this ingenuous con
fession is, it may be feared, only too true a description
of a very prevalent disposition in the present day — a
disposition not unlike that which, at the time when
Christianity was first proclaimed, was sapping the
energies of the Roman world. To such a temper of
mind, a Gospel which can be described in these words
of St, Paul at least offers, as it offered then, the very
remedy which is needed ; and if modern writers reject
it, the rejection should be with melancholy and with
hesitation, and not, as in more than one conspicuous
-instance, with an easy confidence or an inopportune
raillery and humour.
In accordance with this view, I endeavoured in the
Lectures of last year to show how profoundly some of
the cardinal doctrines of the Christian Faith — in par
ticular, those which relate to the character of sin and
the need and means of redemption — meet the neces-

i.] THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. 173
sides of our craving for righteousness, and answer the
demands of the heart. The foundation of the argu
ment was laid in a discussion of the essential character
of human righteousness, as consisting in a relationship
between persons. It was observed that moral right
eousness does not consist, like physical soundness, in
a mere condition of the individual organism, but in
the right relation of the individual towards other
individuals, of the person towards other persons ; so
that, in a word, it is love which includes righteousness,
rather than righteousness which includes love. I shall
have occasion further to illustrate this principle, which
appears to offer a key to many of the difficulties of
the day ; but it would be evading the main problem
to overlook the fact that, whether or not such a prin
ciple be true in respect to Morality, the very possibility
of its application to Theology is disputed. The tree
of Christian life is struck at its very root, by throwing
doubt over the reality and possibility of our personal
relations with a personal God, and by charging Chris
tian Theology with mere metaphysical and baseless
speculations. Some explanation was, indeed, offered
last year of Christian belief on this subject ; but the
denial is so strenuously reiterated, and so confidently
advanced, it appears to be in so large a measure the
source of the prevalent doubt, that it demands a
closer consideration.
The complete definition of Christian righteousness
is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and

174 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. .[LECT.
-Strength, and our neighbours as ourselves ; that is, it
implies the existence of a spiritual Being towards
whom we may entertain feelings similar to those we
entertain towards each other, only vastly intensified ;
and the main problem of religion is to attain to the
knowledge of this Being and to communion with
Him. The address, accordingly, of St. Paul to the
Athenians Would, with a slight variation, be almost as
appropriate among ourselves at the present hour. If
he came at this day, and observed the most prominent
of the writings now referred to, he might say, as he
said then, that he beheld a homage offered to " The
Unknown God." To many a recent speculation no
more appropriate motto could be prefixed than the
old inscription on the Athenian altar. Again would
the Apostle have reason to exclaim, " Whom therefore
ye reverence in ignorance, Him declare I unto you ;"
and the modern apologist must needs attempt to
follow his example. It may be well to observe, indeed,
that while it is perfectly true, as one of the most
popular of the writers in question has observed,1 that
the desire for righteousness is the dominant impulse
in St. Paul's mind, it is a complete mistake to repre
sent it as the sole operative principle of his teaching.
He, in fact, no less than St. John, recognizes the final
supremacy of love ; but whatever his goal, it is from
principles of theology, from God and our relations to
God, that he starts. Adapting himself, indeed, with
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold, in " St. Paul and Protestantism."

i.] THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. 175
his inspired skill, to 'the various dispositions of the
people whom he addressed, he dwells with special
force upon the righteousness revealed in the Gospel
when he writes to the Romans, by whom law, justice,
and righteousness were held in special honour. But
even to the Romans, while promising, at the outset,
a satisfaction of their love of righteousness, he com
mences his argument, as we shall have further occa
sion to observe, by a statement respecting the relation
of man to God ; and on the memorable occasion when
he is confronted by the life and thought of Greece, his
address is founded on the proclamation of the Divine
nature and will.
I purpose, then, while supplementing in some other
respects the course of last year, to consider particularly
the ground and the nature of this elementary principle
of our Religion, and as far" as possible to do so histo
rically, and with reference not to mere speculative
possibilities, but to the actual facts of religious life
and faith. The only safe method of judging of what
can be is to endeavour to understand what his been ;
and the Scriptures, without being treated a$ authori
ties, may and must be regarded as records of facts of
human experience and consciousness. The whole
inquiry, indeed, so far as one prominent objector is
concerned,1 might be reduced to the question of what
those records really mean, and whether they can be
taken in their full natural sense, or must be reduced
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold.

176 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect.
to a more purely moral mould. Is it the case that
their Theology, no less than their Morality, is justified
by the Nature of Man ? Such will be the main pur
pose of our inquiry this year.
But there is one difficulty which it may be as well
to face at the outset. We find ourselves met by a
preliminary claim which, if admitted, would place our
inquiries in an entirely erroneous light and would
subject us to an unfair disadvantage. The claim is
often made almost unconsciously, and as a natural
result of the main course of modern thought. That
course is a scientific one ; and accordingly we seem
expected to offer a scientific justification of our creed.
The very foundation of that cry of almost despairing
uncertainty which I have quoted is that no solutions
of our moral difficulties seem attainable such as those
on which we act in other matters. The growth of
knowledge has, in an extraordinary degree, made men
sensible of the " enigmas of life," while at the same
time it creates a very rigid conception of the sort of
answer which ought to be given to them. The develop
ment of experimental science has deeply influenced
the mental habits of the d ay ; and the truths of Religion
are expected to be submitted to tests similar to those
of Physics or Chemistry. We are loudly told that we
must be prepared to verify our assertions, and to verify
them by plain, experimental proofs, such as that fire
burns us if we touch it.1 This demand, indeed, as we
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold, " Literature and Dogma," ch. x. p..
320, 4th ed.

I.] THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. 177
shall subsequently have occasion to observe, can be
met in a greater degree than the objector supposes.
But still, when we are asked to verify, in this sense,
the allegation that there exists and rules a Being
whom we may, for some practical purposes, describe
as a great personal First Cause, and as the moral and
intelligent Governor of the universe, it is no doubt
true that we can make no such simple answer as if we
were asked to verify the fact that fire burns ; and if
we cannot verify this preliminary assumption, we are
told our whole creed is baseless. That of which we
cannot thus ascertain the scientific certainty, may, it
is said, be a harmless hypothesis ; but it must not be
treated as affording any serious basis for life and
action. The posthumous Essays of one of the most
distinguished of recent English philosophers1 afford a
melancholy illustration of this principle, carried to an
extreme. At the close of an Essay in which the
existence of God and our own immortality are reduced,
on grounds of rational evidence, to mere possibilities,
the writer makes the pathetic inquiry, whether, in
accordance with his own principles, he may be per
mitted some slight solace of hope. He asks himself
"whether the indulgence of hope, in a region of
imagination merely, . . is irrational, and ought to be
discarded, as a departure from the rational principle
of regulating our feelings, as well as opinions, strictly
by evidence." He defends this last resource of human
' Mr. J. S. Mill.
N

178 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect,
aspirations; and for doing so he has been severely
taken to task by some of his more rigid or less sen
sitive followers.
Now, the Christian preacher or apologist must
repudiate at once this view of life, and must refuse to
be judged by any such scientific standard. He will
not treat scientific reasoning with the least disrespect,.
and he may be capable of fully appreciating it within
its own province ; but that province is not moral
action, and still less spiritual devotion. The words of
my text embody the opposite principle, in its most
explicit form ; and St. Paul, at the outset of his
argument, has concentrated in them the essence of
his subsequent teaching. The modern philosopher
might not inappropriately express his principle by
saying that righteousness is revealed " from science to-
science." That is to say, he would regard it as based
on facts scientifically established, and advancing as
science advances. But St. Paul's idea is that righteous
ness is revealed from faith to faith ; that is to say, it
begins by acts of faith, it advances by acts of faith,
and, in this life, its highest attainment consists in
further and larger acts of faith. Let these words be
considered apart from any references to special con
troversies with which they may have become en
tangled, and they may be found, I think, to reveal to
us the essential principle of moral and spiritual action.
I would not be thought to limit their meaning to the
particular application I am now making of them ; and

L] THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. 179
indeed, if these Lectures have any value, they will
suggest still further and further depths of meaning in
the words. But taking them in their first and simplest
significance, let us see whether they do not correspond
to the facts of life and history better than that prin
ciple of scientific righteousness just described.
Look at the course of the world's history, and con
sider how, as a matter of fact, the advances of the
human race in righteousness have been gained. I put
aside for the present the theological aspect of Faith,
as involving the principle which it is the ultimate
object of the argument to establish ; but take Faith in
its simplest meaning, as trust in another, and observe
whether it has not been the uniform instrument of
moral education. That which history reveals is the
appearance of a succession of men possessing higher
conceptions of righteousness than their fellows, and
either by example, or precept, or law, or all combined,
inducing others to trust and follow them. Be it
Moses or Socrates, Buddha or Confucius, these men
have not made experiments in Morality, and demon
strated scientifically to their nation, or their followers,
the righteousness of this or that course of action.
They have felt ; they have trusted ; they have hoped ;
they have acted : the souls of other men have been
inspired by their influence, or overawed by their
authority, and, willingly or reluctantly, have followed
their guidance. This view of the matter becomes the
more remarkable, if we consider what immense steps

180 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect.
in advance have been taken by some of these re
formers of our race. Buddha, for example, propounds
principles of morality of which the loftiness is amazing ;
and he must have been as much above the conceptions
of the mass of the people of his country and time as
the Himalayas are above the plains of India. He
gathers adherents, not because his assurances can be
verified and the value of his exhortations tested. His
followers are for ever below him, and neither do, nor
can, put to the test his highest and most characteristic
counsels. But they have faith in him, and by that
faith they are lifted above themselves, beyond the
region of their experience, and are by this personal
trust elevated to a higher level of life.
The best, however, and most- conspicuous of all
examples, even when considered merely from a natural
point of view, is afforded by the history of the Chris
tian Church, and by the creation of Christian Morality.
That Morality, whatever previous approaches to it
had been made, started in its completeness full born
from the words of Christ and from the teaching of
the Apostles. We have before us, in the Greek and
Roman writers, and in the pages of the New Testa
ment itself, an account of the moral state of the Pagan
world ; and we know that Christianity effected a
revolution in some of the primary conditions and rela
tions of life. Undoubtedly the growing weight of
experience, in attestation of the excellence of Chris
tian lives, acquired year by year an accumulating

I.] THE PROVINCE OP FAITH. 182
force. But was it by men and women who waited for
that experience that the victory was gained ? No :
the experience was created by men who were not
careful to ask for verification ; who heard, who loved,
who trusted ; and who followed, not the precepts
which they could verify, but those which the leaders
and teachers to whom they attached themselves im
posed. The most characteristic feature of the early
Christian Church is the earnestness and warmth with
which men attached themselves to personal guides,
and accepted personal assurances, in matters which
involved the utter overthrow of their previous hopes
and their ordinary lives. It is for this reason, among
others, that the history of the Church is essentially
the history of a Society, growing, like other societies,
by the attraction of mutual trust and fellowship — not
that of a Scientific School, receiving the more or less
qualified intellectual assent of its adherents.
It would seem, in fact, that if this were not the
dominant law in human nature, the very experience
and verification which the objection demands would
remain impossible, even in respect to the most im
portant principles of practical morality. If the ques
tion concerns the health of my body, I can try a
remedy and abide by the result ; because the action
of the remedy in no way depends upon me. It is
ordinarily no matter whether I try it with utter dis
trust, or with credulous faith ; if it has any definite
action at all, it will produce the result without any

182 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect.
reference to my feeling or my will. But a moral remedy,
or the acquirement of a new moral habit, requires, as
the very condition of its operation, the assent and
consent of the heart, the co-operation of the will, the
sympathy of the feelings. I cannot love experi
mentally, be truthful on hypothesis, chaste provision
ally, or unselfish with a careful observation of the
consequences. The very notions are self-contradictory.
My whole will and heart must be engaged in the
effort, and I must resist all temptation to look back
or hesitate. Now doubtless there are souls whose
pure and true intuitions discern, even at a distance,
the blessedness of these righteous dispositions of
heart ; but the Epistles of the New Testament are
alone sufficient to show that, with Christians in
general, this influence could not be relied on. St.
Paul, for example — to mention only one conspicuous
instance — regenerated among his converts the mar
riage relation ; but it is abundantly evident that he
does so by virtue of his authority, and that it is by
means of that authority, in the final resort, that the
new relation is organized and maintained. Moreover,
it should be remembered that the effects of moral
habits and social customs are infinitely more subtle
and distant than those of physical conditions. It is
in moral, far more than in physical diseases, that the
sins of the fathers are visited on the children ; and
history is the record of vicious national habits or
tendencies working themselves out to their fatal re-

I.] THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. 183
suits in the course of long generations. Where would
have been the progress of our race, if men had waited
to verify the comparative effects of polygamy or
monogamy, instead of adopting the latter in faith, on
the authority of the first Christian teachers, and in
that faith resolutely turning their backs upon every
thing inconsistent with the Christian standard of
purity ? It is one thing to speak of verifying the
effects of righteousness in general, and a very different
thing to verify it in particulars ; but it is on the re
form of moral habits in particulars that the moral
salvation of men and of communities depends.
From this point of view Faith may, in fact, be
regarded as the form which is assumed in practice
by the principle of probability as a guide to action.
That principle has, indeed, been very unduly dispa
raged of late in consequence of a neglect to observe
that peculiar characteristic of moral action which has
just been pointed out. It is made an objection to the
great argument of Bishop Butler that it reduces us to
rest on " mere probabilities,"1 and it is urged that this
is a very insufficient basis for such momentous deci
sions as religion and morality demand. In actual
life, however, the most momentous decisions have
frequently to be made on grounds of this doubtful
character. A statesman may feel the greatest un
certainty respecting the policy he ought to adopt in a
great crisis ; he may hesitate months before deciding ;
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold, " Literature and Dogma," pp. 320-21.

1 84 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect,
but when the decision has been made, he will, if he be
a wise man, devote his whole energies and all the
power he wields to carry it into effect. In a matter,
indeed, in which no immediate moral issue is in
volved, it may be admitted that a wise man would
often abstain as long as possible from acting on a low
degree of probability ; and that when he does act, he
would do so with great caution and reserve. But a
moral decision can rarely be thus evaded ; and when
made it involves, as a rule, an absolute and unreserved
adoption of the course of action which is chosen.
The conduct of a friend or of a child often renders it
imperative for a man to interpose and to act ; and he
may find it a most difficult matter, needing the anxious
consultation of friends, to decide what course it is
his duty to take. But he must decide, and decide
promptly ; and having decided, he must do what he
considers his duty without hesitation. For the pur
poses of our moral responsibility, whether in great
matters or in small, Butler's statement is impregnable
that " to us probability is the very guide of life."
But it is none the less very true that the mass
of men are most imperfectly capable of estimating
the balance of evidence on so profound a subject as
the truth of a new religion, or even the claim of a
new code of morality. If there were no other obstacle,.
it is enough that they have no time for it. They
cannot put aside the business of life to prosecute a
scientific inquiry into comparative religion. Now it

i.] THE PROVINCE OP FAITH. 185,.
is this difficulty which is met by that tendency of
human nature, which the Scriptures treat as its ulti
mate law, that in matters of spiritual and moral action
men should attach themselves to those who seem to
them their natural leaders, and should trust and follow
them with a heartiness and devotion proportionate to
the love, the faith, and the hope they arouse. It is
this which kindles the real fire of life that runs from
soul to soul, and which elevates generation after gene
ration towards the level of its best men. The strong,
the truthful, the clear-sighted, the pure, arouse the
trust of the weak, the faith of the uncertain, the hopes
of the defiled, and thus induce them to believe before
they see, and to act on grounds of the sureness of
which they could never have satisfied themselves. If
we look historically at the cause which first induced
men to become Christians, and which converted the
Roman world, we find that it was in the form of this
imperious personal attraction that the principle of
probability operated, and acquired its motive power.
That which is often adduced as a taunt against the
early Christians is perfectly true as a matter of fact ;
they did not act on the rational principle advocated
by the philosopher just referred to — that of regu
lating our feelings, as well as our opinions, strictly by
evidence — understanding by evidence, as is clearly
implied, judicial and intellectual evidence. But the
feelings have their own evidence, and their own laws
of action; and the Christians acted on those dictates

486 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect.
of the heart which impelled them, as they impel all
men in proportion to the healthiness of their moral
and spiritual condition, to recognize those who are
wiser and better than themselves, and to follow their
guidance in the obscurities and uncertainties of moral
action. Faith, hope, and love are not mere theological
virtues ; they are the three cardinal functions, so to
speak, of man's nature regarded as a whole ; and it is
in their operation that the principles of human de
velopment and of moral and spiritual salvation are to
be discerned.
It will be seen, therefore, that when we are asked to
•submit our faith, as the first condition of its acceptance,
to " plain, experimental " verification, we are, in fact,
asked to abandon the process by which the chief
moral and spiritual advances of mankind have been
-gained. No person who has any interest in this argu
ment would deny that the operation of the Christian
Church has elevated both the standard and the
practice of morality more than any influence yet seen.
"The analogous, though imperfect, operation of faith in
other religions may, in varying degrees, be similarly
justified- But with respect to our own religion,
the blessings conferred by it upon the world are
indisputable ; and I would ask whether it is reason
able to suppose that the action of human beings,
for centuries, on so vast and beneficial a scale,
can have been — I do not say erroneous in particulars
— but that it can have been due to an entirely false

I.] THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. 187
and mischievous process ? That which we are called
on to do by this demand, and which we must
decline doing, is nothing less than to reject the
intuitions of the noblest members of our race as a
warrant for our moral and spiritual convictions. The
example of Columbus has, with justice, been often
quoted as an illustration of faith ; and even now what
we are called on to do is, no doubt, in great measure,
to sail over mysterious seas in search of the eternal
shores, under the guidance of Captains of our Salva
tion, who appeal, in the first instance, less to our
power of verification than to our love and our trust.
Life, in fact, is not a laboratory of social experiments,
•but a field of action and of conflict ; and the men who
win the day, both for themselves and for their fellows,
are those who, amidst all the din and confusion of the
struggle, know their leaders and follow them.
Such is the course of life in matters of morality ;
and the first axiom of the Christian apologist must
be that an analogous course should be followed in
Theology. His efforts will be directed to the vindica
tion of the moral authority, rather than of the scientific
truth, of revelation. That truth, indeed, can only be
scientifically established, like all other truth, by ex
perience ; and experience can in this matter only be
afforded by an obedience which rests upon faith.
According to the saying of Augustine, we must be
lieve in order that we may understand, and faith must
precede sight. The object, in short, of such a course

1 88 THE PROVINCE OF FAITH. [lect,
of Lectures as the present must be to exhibit the
moral claim upon our consciences possessed by the
primary assumptions of the Gospel, by the inspired
writers who have enforced them, and, above all, by the
Lord Jesus Christ. Any one who believes that in the
Gospel lies the true key to " the mystery hid from
ages and generations," must acknowledge, at the out
set of such an argument, that there are difficulties,.
mysteries — contradictions, if you will — which nothing
but the meditation and the spiritual experience of many
generations can suffice to explain. It will be enough if
he himself feels, and can make it felt, that amidst all
these struggles and confusions the voice of Christ and
of His Apostles is heard speaking with a moral au
thority which commands our faith and love, and which
inspires in us an enduring hope of ultimate illumina
tion and deliverance. His invitation to those per
plexed souls of whom he has spoken will be that they
should make a moral instead of a merely intellectual
decision, and should cast in their lot with that noble
army of Saints who — amidst all their ignorance, all
their sin, and all their doubts — have recognized in the
Lord Jesus Christ, and in His Gospel, the true rest for
their souls and the sure guide of their life.

n.] A PERSONAL GOD. 189

LECTURE II.
WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE TO A
PERSONAL GOD.
Psalm cxxxix. 1.
"¦ O Lord, Thou hast searched me, and known me."
IN the first Lecture of this course, I entered a
preliminary protest against that demand for the
scientific verification of the principles of our religion
which is now so often pressed upon us. I endeavoured
to show that the law of the life of religion and of
righteousness is that which is announced by St. Paul,
when he says that, in the Gospel, " the righteousness
of God is revealed from faith to faith." In other
words, the moral and religious growth of mankind
has arisen, and, by the nature of the case, must arise,
from their trust and love, from their instinctive impulse
to follow the guidance of the best and wisest of their
fellows, and thus, so to speak, to be continually reach
ing out beyond their own experience to higher truths

1 90 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
and nobler lives. Faith, indeed, in its highest accepta
tion, is directed towards a Monitor and Guide far
higher, and more worthy of trust, than any saint or
prophet. But this is the point to be established ; and,
without assuming it, the general principle of human
action in moral and religious matters is sufficiently
evident. If moral and religious truths are ever to
receive a verification, we must act on them in faith
before they are verified.
But, in making this protest, it is by no means im
plied that no experimental evidence can be afforded in
justification of our faith. On the contrary, we may be
sure that, unless the foundations of faith were laid
deep in human experience, they would be unable to
bear any lofty superstructure. It is most reasonable
to believe that Prophets and Apostles have seen more,
felt more, and understood more, than ourselves ; but
it would be most unreasonable to trust them, if their
primary principles had no response in our consciences,
and were not justified by our experience, so far as that
reaches. It would be most unreasonable to ^assume
that a man's most intimate friend cannot know more
of him than I do ; but I should justly distrust his
friend's report, if it did not agree with what I knew of
him, so far as my opportunities extended. Religious
faith is thus a matter of combined experience and
trust ; and with this qualification we can heartily
respond to the demand that we should offer some
verifiable evidence of our first principles. We refuse

II.] TO A PERSONAL GOD. 191
to restrict our creed to that which can be scientifically
established ; but we ought to be able, and we are
confident we are able, to base its claims on the evi
dence of the human Conscience and Reason.
Let us approach, then, from this point of view the
question now raised : whether we have sufficient
grounds of evidence and experience for the first postu
late of religion — that of the existence of a Personal
God. Certainly, if it be true, it is a truth so moment
ous, and of such intimate concern to us, that we can
not but crave for some plain, direct, and experimental
assurance of it. In respect to a belief of such supreme
import, there is, no doubt, great justice in the objections
of late so vigorously urged against our trusting to
metaphysical arguments and mere logical deductions.
Human reason, however cultivated, is a perilous in
strument to be solely relied on in regions beyond our
direct experience; and it needs at least to be per
petually tested by plain facts. At all events, it would
be vain to rely upon mere abstract proof in appealing
to men in general. If religion were only the concern
of philosophers, or if simple men could be asked to
surrender themselves, in such a matter, to the guidance
of philosophers, a belief in a Personal God might,
perhaps, be rested on such arguments as those which
have been elaborated to prove the existence of a First
Cause. But looking at human nature in history and
in life, those arguments appear rather of the nature
of valuable auxiliaries for the defence of a position once

192 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
gained, than forces capable of gaining it. As has been
urged with perfect truth by one of the principal ob
jectors now in view,1 it was not by means of any such
logical speculations that the people of Israel acquired
those firm and vivid religious conceptions which have
been a revelation to the rest of the world. If this
belief is to be a practical one, and is to lay hold of
men in general as the starting-point of their religious
thought, it must appeal to some nearer, simpler, and
more moving evidence.
Important, moreover; as these arguments are for the
intellectual justification of the Christian position, there
is another consideration which renders them less valu
able for the practical purpose of these Lectures. They
may demonstrate the existence of a personal First
Cause ; but, if we are to consider the correspondence
of the Gospel with the Moral Nature of Man, what we
are chiefly concerned with is the character of that
Divine Person. We want evidence, not merely that
there is such a Being, but that we are directly con
cerned with Him in the moral and spiritual part of
our nature. It is this which, we are so confidently
told, is beyond our power of verification. We can
satisfy ourselves, by observation and personal experi
ence, that there is an eternal power in the world,
external to ourselves, which maintains righteousness ;
but that this power is personal, and that its value to
us depends in any degree on the fact of its personality,
1 Mr. Matthew Arnold, in "Literature and Dogma; "passim.

II. ] TO A PERSONAL GOD. 193
these are said to be gratuitous assumptions.1 Similarly,
the distinguished philosopher to whose posthumous
Essays I referred last Sunday, dismisses as compara
tively unimportant the argument for the belief in God to
be derived from Conscience ; and treating the argument
from Design as that which alone possesses a scientific
value, concludes that the belief is no more than an
admissible hope, which possesses, consequently, no
essential moral significance.2 We ought then, I admit,
if this belief is to be a reality, to adduce some cogent
moral evidence for it ; and this evidence we shall,
I think, readily find if we follow the guidance of the
Scriptures. If the true character and justification of
belief in God is to be discovered anywhere, it must be
there. Let us ask then, as a matter of fact, what was
the motive which gave this belief so overwhelming a
power over the Hebrew mind ?
In answer to this question, we find admitted, or
rather asserted, by objectors that which, if duly con
sidered, is sufficient for our purpose. It is urged with
truth that the people of Israel were distinguished from
other nations by the intensity with which they appre
hended' the supremacy of righteousness. It was given
to them to discern, in the whole course of human life,
the steadfast, unchanging, invincible operation of a
righteous power. Now as this conviction was, as a
matter of fact, associated with an equally vivid per-
' " Literature and Dogma," ch. x.
2 Mr. Mill's Essay on " Theism."

194 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect,
ception of the Divine personality, it is reasonable to
surmise that the two conceptions may be indissolubly
connected ; and that connection will be rendered
apparent, if we consider more carefully what was the
nature of the righteous influence which the Israelites
thus discerned.
We may observe, then, that it is wholly inadequate
to represent this influence as a mere law, or power,
which asserted the supremacy of righteousness in
matters of human conduct. It was something nearer,
something much more practical, something much more
verifiable than that. The experience of mankind in
such a matter is, indeed, a somewhat vague and
distant kind of evidence to appeal to. As the Scrip
tures themselves witness, it is an experience which
has often perplexed, rather than re-assured, those who
have relied upon it. Even prophets, animated by the
deepest faith, have nevertheless been so baffled and
disturbed by the general course of things around them,.
as to exclaim that " the law is slacked, and judgment
doth never go forth." To the rule, as stated above,
life presents, and has always presented, such great
and distressing exceptions, that the scientific verifica
tion which is claimed for it might well be disputed.
The book of Job, which is the record of the earliest
and most natural experience on this subject, is practi
cally a confession that the relation between the claims
of righteousness and the actual facts of life presents
insoluble mysteries, and that if a righteous man, like

ii.] TO A PERSONAL GOD. 195
Job, is to retain his faith, it can only be under a
conviction of his utter ignorance. Moreover, this is
another instance of an argument which, however
powerful it may become with the support of the
increasing experience of mankind, is far too much of a
generalization to have been the source of faith in
simpler times, and to simpler hearts. The Jewish
conviction of righteousness comes much more closely
home. That which impressed them was not merely a
law, or stream of tendency, which asserted righteous
ness in human conduct ; it was an influence which
asserted the claims of righteousness, and its supremacy,
in each individual. They felt not merely, nor perhaps
so much, that righteousness was the greatest authority
and power in the world, as that it was the greatest
authority and power in the heart of every one of them.
That sense of Right and Wrong, which we are taking
as the starting-point of our considerations, had a pro
found and vivid reality for them in their innermost
consciences ; and they felt that some power beyond
themselves was perpetually working within them to
support the Right and to defeat the Wrong. That is
a verifiable conception, indeed. It is a fact of Con
science which every man may verify for himself ; and
if this justifies and demands belief in a Personal God,
it is an evidence which comes home to every heart.
But to appreciate its bearings, consider the vivid
expression of it which is afforded in the Psalm from
which the text^ is taken. " O Lord," says David,

1 96 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
"Thou hast searched me and known me. Thou
knowest my downsitting, and mine uprising ; Thou
understandest my thought afar off. Thou compassest
my path and my lying down, and art acquainted with
all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue,
but, lo ! 0 Lord, Thou knowest it altogether. Thou
hast beset me behind and before, and laid Thine hand
upon me." Now, in what particular way does the man
feel himself thus beset ? What is the faculty in his
nature which apprehends this wonderful presence so
vividly ? The last verses of the Psalm- reveal it :
" Search me, O God, and know my heart ; try me, and
know my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked
way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
The writer is not speaking of any mere intellectual
apprehension of a spiritual presence ; he is not merely
describing the ubiquity and omniscience of the Divine
nature. That of which he has an almost distressing
consciousness — that which awes his weakness, though
it finally fascinates his trust — is the sense of a
presence which is searching his heart, trying his
thoughts, and seeing whether there be any wicked way
in him. It is a process, as the word implies, as keen
in its operation as the searching fire of a refiner.
" The fining pot is for silver, and the furnace for gold,
but the Lord- trieth the hearts." It is from this, wit
ness and judgment of right and wrong within him that
the man knows he cannot escape. " Whither shall I
go from Thy spirit ? or whither shall I flee from Thy

II.] TO A PERSONAL GOD. 197
presence ? If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there ;
if I make my bed in hell, behold, Thou aft there. If I
take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter
most parts of the sea, even there shall Thy hand lead
me, and Thy right hand shall hold me. If I say,
Surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night
shall be light about me. Yea, the darkness hideth not
from Thee ; but the night shineth as the day : the
darkness and the light are both alike to Thee." What
remains for him, but to surrender himself to this per
sistent, ever-present power, to obey it, and unite him
self with it ? " Do not I hate them, O Lord, that hate
Thee ? and am not I grieved with those that rise up
against Thee ? I hate them with perfect hatred ; I
count them mine enemies. Search me, O God, and
know my heart ; try me, and know my thoughts : and
see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in
the way everlasting."
I appeal to the Psalm, not as a dogmatic authority,
but as a record of the experience of the human heart
and conscience ; and I ask whether every heart among
us does not, at one time or another, feel the profound
truth of the description ? Conscience may for a time
be dulled and deadened ; but is it not on the whole the
one presence which you cannot get rid of ? Does it
not beset you in your path and in your bed, abroad
or at home, by night or by day ? If you count its
suggestions, are they not more in number than the
sand ? If you forget it in your sleep, when you awake

198 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
is it not still with you ? And what is the operation of
its voice ? Is it content with proclaiming to you the
general supremacy of a righteous law ? Does it not, on
the contrary, search your heart and try your thoughts,
and see if there be any wicked way in you ? Does it
not, with a mysterious justice, deal with your personal
character, your private, individual, and peculiar re
sponsibilities, making allowance for your weaknesses,
condemning you in proportion to the wilfulness of
your sin, but above all things meeting you at every
turn and in every instant of your lives with the par
ticular warning and guidance you need ?
On the answer which may be made to these ques
tions depends the force of the considerations now
suggested. But this Psalm is sufficient to show the
intense vividness with which this operation of Con
science was apprehended by the Jew ; and let us now
ask further whether he was not justified in the in
stinctive interpretation which he put upon it ? He felt,
indeed, in the first place, that this authority was not
himself. It was an influence independent of him,
stronger than he was ; controlling him, and enforcing
its dictates upon him. So far he commands the
approval of our modern objector. But, in addition to
this, he felt that an influence which acted upon him
individually and personally must be individual and
personal itself. Probably he had no speculative ideas
as to what Personality meant. But he knew that his
Conscience dealt with him in a way to which there was

n.] TO A PERSONAL GOD. 199
nothing analogous, except the way in which living
persons dealt with him. It praised and it blamed ; it
was not like a law, acting without reference to his
special peculiarities, but it adapted its operation with
infinite variety to all the varying shades of right and
wrong, of error or of weakness, within him. In a word,
it was just as personal as he was. As heart answers
to heart, and the face of man to man, so did that
power which was felt in his Conscience correspond to
his own nature.
Such appears, as a matter of fact, to be the connec
tion in the Psalms between the two ideas of the
Personality and the Righteousness of God ; and it
is here that we may lay the firm basis of that verify
ing experience for which we are asked. It is far too
easily assumed, in most of the objections to which I
am referring, that the only evidences for the existence
of a Personal God are Physical, Metaphysical, or
Supernatural. The strongest of all, and those which
appeal to every soul, are the Moral. This sense of
Right and Wrong, with the searching and abiding
responsibility which it entails, is probably a far more
distinctive and essential human attribute than any
•other. In all the exercises of the intellect there is a cer
tain impersonality ; in some of its highest exercises, the
more complete the impersonal character of the opera
tion the greater its excellence. But in the sense of
Right and Wrong, the personality, or the distinct
existence of the individual, is the primary element of

200 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
Conscience. Much has been written on the famous
argument, Cogito, ergo sum — " I think, and therefore I
exist " ; and again, " As I have a clear idea of God,
therefore He exists " ; and it is an argument which at
least deserved more respect than to be treated, as it has
lately been, as either unmeaning or a truism.1 There
is nothing unintelligible in the argument that in the
act of thinking I exercise an individualizing action on
the things around me, and am, as it were, a separate
centre of life and action. It seems, however, a far
stronger argument to say, " I have a sense of Right
and Wrong, and therefore I am an individual, personal
being." Whatever foreshadowings of this sense may
be discerned, as is sometimes alleged, in the higher
animals, there is at least one thing of which there is
no trace among them : and that is, a feeling of con
tinuous responsibility for the whole of life and for its
successive actions. But each man feels that all his
acts constitute an abiding element of his personal and
individual being, and that he has a living and abiding
responsibility for them. Similarly, it is far more
forcible, at least for practical purposes, to argue from
the moral than from the intellectual idea of God ; and
instead of saying, " I have the idea of God, and there
must be an object to correspond to it," to say, " I feel
within my soul at every moment a righteous voice
dealing with me individually; and I conclude that I
am in contact with a righteous Person." Appeal to-
* " God and the Bible," by Mr. Matthew Arnold, ch. ii.

ii.] TO A PERSONAL GOD. 201
this sense in men, and you are touching the keenest
and most vital of their experiences ; you are veri
fying your message by the most indestructible and
unalterable part of their consciousness. Here, too, it
may be observed, lies an irrefragable proof of the unity
of God, if His existence be once admitted. Contem
plate Him primarily in Nature, and the absurdity is not
perhaps so evident, on the face of it, of supposing the
existence of co-ordinate deities with distinct spheres
of action. But contemplate Him as revealed in that
moral law which, in a continually increasing degree,
asserts its one unique supremacy over every human
conscience, and we then hear reiterated, with an ever
growing unanimity, " Hear, O Israel : the Lord our
God is one Lord." It must be one Being, and only
one, who speaks in the same tones to millions of
separate hearts, who searches and tries them all by a
similar test, and who guides them all, from whatever
wanderings, in one direction.
Consider, in fact, whether the case may not be put
even more simply and strongly. May we not say that
a power which, in individuals and in the world at
large, " makes for righteousness," must be a righteous
power ; and a righteous power, or a power which acts
righteously, must in some sense or other be a Person
who exercises towards us acts of will, love, and reason ?
If a man admits the sense of Right and Wrong, and
tbe existence of righteous government, but denies that
this involves the personality of the governing force,.

202 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
all we have to ask of him is to observe with more
thoroughness the operation of this righteous influence ;
and when an objector insists that the personification
"by the Jews of " an eternal power which makes for
righteousness" was a mere instance of the anthropo
morphic tendency of mankind, we have again only to
ask him to observe more closely the operation of that
power as described by the Jews themselves. He is
quite right as far as he goes ; but he does not go far
enough. The people of Israel had a still more deep
and penetrating apprehension of that righteous influ
ence than even he claims for them. Assume that the
only or the main action of that influence is in en
forcing the practical supremacy of righteousness in
human conduct, and it may be possible to regard it as
. a law, or " stream of tendency." But once recognize
it as a power dealing with your own soul, in the
'depths of your conscience, and dealing similarly with
every individual soul ; and then, if I mistake not, it
becomes impossible to regard it as impersonal.
A law, by its very nature, takes no account of indi
viduals. It inflicts itself upon them, and passes by,
.and takes no note of consequences to them. But a
power which is striving to make me, in my person
ality, righteous, must adjust its action to my sins, my
infirmities, and my necessities, and must, in a word,
.act righteously towards me.
Take, for instance, another expression of the manner
in which Israel apprehended the action of this eternal

ii.] TO A PERSONAL GOD. 203
power. " Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee,
O Lord : Lord, hear my voice ; let Thine ears be
attentive to the voice of my supplications. If Thou,
Lord, shouldest mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall
stand ? But there is forgiveness with Thee, that Thou
mayest be feared." Is not this language, like that of
the Psalm previously quoted, a simple transcript of
the moral consciousness when keenly aroused ? While
the voice of that consciousness convicts us of sin, does
it not also speak both of the need and of the possibility
of forgiveness ? But what forgiveness can there be in
a law? The natural method by which a person is
recovered from his evil, and is made righteous, is by
the combined operation on his soul of condemnation
and of forgiveness, of censure and of encouragement,
such as are more or less imperfectly administered by
his fellows. If he is to be made perfectly righteous,
if his repentance and his regeneration are to be com
plete, these influences must be brought to bear on
him in perfection. The right and the wrong of the
soul must be confronted with that righteous action
which is their test, and their controlling influence ;
and this righteous action requires a Spiritual and
Righteous Person.
In short, we might, perhaps, venture to describe
Conscience as that sixth sense by which God is ap
prehended. How we are to speak of Him, or regard
Him intellectually, is another matter ; and I hope to
.show, in the sequel, how this moral apprehension of

204 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE. [lect.
Him connects itself with other beliefs respecting Him.
But it is to this that we may most safely appeal when
we are asked for some experimental proof that there
exists a Divine and Spiritual Person, who lives and
acts with righteousness and with reason. It is not
indeed a demonstrative proof. It does not establish
the fact once and for all, beyond the possibility of
dispute. But perhaps it is something better than that ;
it is a witness which addresses itself to each individual
soul, and which appeals to it with the force of a per
sonal and of a moral obligation.

jii.J A MORAL CREATOR. 205

LECTURE III.
WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE TO A MORAL
CREATOR.
Psalm cxxxix. 14.
' ' I willpraise Thee ; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made :
marvellous are Thy works ; and that my soul knoweth right
•well." IN the previous Lecture I endeavoured to point out
what was the experience in human nature to which
bur belief in a personal God appeals. It becomes us
to recognize, in the fullest manner, the justice of the
, demand made upon us, that we should not be content
with adducing logical arguments or probabilities in
defence of this belief, but that we should feel for our
selves; and -show to others, that the necessity lies deep
in the commonest and most essential feelings of our
nature; The claim of Christianity, and not of Christi
anity alone, but of the prophets before the appearance
of Christ, is not merely that we should believe in the
existence of God, but that we should love Him, and
love, Him with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength —
love Him, that is, as we can only love the most

206 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect,
personal, the most wise, the most holy, of all beings.
The demand is addressed not only to the intelligent
and the acute, but to the simplest heart, and the most
unlearned soul. " Hear, O heavens," says the prophet,.
" and give ear, O earth ; for the Lord hath spoken, I
have nourished and brought up children, and they
have rebelled against me. The ox knoweth his owner,
and the ass his master's crib : but Israel doth not
know, my people doth not consider." Similarly,
St. Paul declares that " the invisible things of Him
from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being
understood by the things that are made, even His
eternal power and Godhead ; so that they are without
excuse." If this language is to be justified — if, as it
implies, a belief in a Personal God, and a love of Him,
is the true instinct of every soul — its basis must be
sought in the commonest and most imperious of
human experiences. Looking to faith in a Personal
God as an historical fact, we do not find it arising out
of a process of ratiocination. It springs up in the
hearts of comparatively uncultivated people ; and it
spreads by a contagion of feeling rather than by a con
secution of argument. That it should be defensible
on logical and metaphysical grounds is, indeed, es
sential to its validity ; but for our present purpose we
are not so much concerned with that aspect of the
subject. We are simply endeavouring to trace, in
history and in experience, the actual grounds of the
belief, and to estimate their practical force.

ill.] TO A MORAL CREATOR. 207-
We have observed, then, in the hundred and thirty-
ninth Psalm — regarded not as an authority, but as the
record of experience — an appeal to the Conscience
rather than to the Intellect. If we wish to estimate
the force of this appeal, we must ask ourselves whether
the picture be not true of a power which not only
maintains righteousness in the world at large, and
punishes evil, but which besets us individually in the-
depths of our conscience, which compasses our path
and our lying down, and is acquainted with all our
ways. This power does not correspond in character
with- a law which inflicts itself on us, and which we
must either obey or endure. It deals with us as
persons, and adapts itself, in its judgments and in its
encouragements, to our individual personalities, with
all their variations of guilt and weakness, of wilfulness
or ignorance. It answers, in short, to our own person
ality ; and it is personal, at all events, in its relations
to us. Dealing with us righteously, it cannot be
deemed other than a righteous influence ; and an in
fluence acting righteously upon our personal wills
cannot be deemed otherwise than as, in relation to us,
a personal and righteous will. We should observe
that this inference is something more than the logical
deduction, forcible as it is, that the law implies a law
giver, that the " categorical imperative " of the con
science implies some one who has a right to command.
It is more than an inference ; it amounts, in each
individual, to an immediate consciousness of a moral

.208 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
will acting upon his will ; and its verification lies, not
in the clearness with which it can be demonstrated,
but in the force with which it is felt. Such, as the
Psalmist declares, was the nature of that Power which
the people of Israel discerned to be exercising judg
ment and righteousness in the earth — a power which
is, indeed, " not ourselves," but which is the nearest
thing to ourselves in the world, the most intimate and
the most personal of the guests of our souls.
Such seem to be the experiences on which the belief
in a righteous and personal God may be made to rest
in every human soul, as they were those on which it
rested in the Psalmist. But if we would justify the
full conception of the Scriptures and of the Gospel, we
must go much further ; and the next step appears
again to be indicated by the Psalm under our consi
deration. We have to rise, in the first instance, to the
conception of this personal and righteous being as
our Creator, and we have to seek for the individual
experience which justifies the magnificent conceptions
in the Scriptures of the power, wisdom, and love of
God. The voice in the conscience, it might be said,
speaks of the presence of a righteous Person ; but how
does it enable us to identify Him with that omni
potent and omnipresent Being whose operations we
believe we discern in nature ? Again, I apprehend,
the practical answer lies in the conscience ; and is
furnished by the most simple and imperative of infer
ences. It will be observed that in this Psalm, in

ill.] TO A MORAL CREATOR. 209
addition to the keen sense we have noticed of a
righteous Power besetting the conscience, there is a
not less vivid apprehension of the cognizance, by the
same Power, of the whole frame of the man in body
and soul. It is not merely that God understands his
thoughts afar off; but he exclaims: "Thou hast
possessed my reins ; Thou hast covered me in my
mother's womb. I will praise Thee, for I am fear
fully and wonderfully made: marvellous are Thy
works ; and that my soul knoweth right well. My
substance was not hid from Thee, when I was made
in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of
the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet
being unperfect ; and in Thy book all my members
were written, which in continuance were fashioned,
when as yet there was none of them." The writer
seems, so to speak, to pass to and fro between these
two conceptions. " How precious," he continues, " are
Thy thoughts unto me, O God ! how great is the sum
of them ! " A God who searches him and knows his
heart, who tries him and knows his thoughts, cannot,
in his mind, be separated from a God who possessed
his reins and covered him in his mother's womb.
Now I would ask whether the course of thought
thus expressed be not, both to individuals and on
a large scale, natural and inevitable. The Psalmist is
conscious that in every particular action, no matter
how small, there is a voice which tells him what he
ought to do, and what he ought not to do ; or what
P

210 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect,
he ought to have done, and what he ought not to have
done. He does not merely discern, by experience
and reflection, that such and such a course of conduct
would have been more satisfactory to himself and
others. But he is beset behind and before ; there is
not a word in his. tongue — or rather, before there is a
word in his tongue, this Power knows it altogether.
It checks him before action, and in action, and after
action ; it searches him and knows his heart, and is
capable, not merely of rewarding and punishing him,
but of leading him in the way everlasting. How can
he avoid the conclusion that a Power which asserts
this authority over him in body and soul, and in every
part of his nature, is the very Power by which that
nature was constituted, and its parts and their general
functions established ? The body and its several parts,.
the mind and its numberless faculties, can be used in
a variety of ways. I need not ask by what right a
particular authority within me commands that each
faculty should be used in a certain way and in no
other ; it is a much more pertinent question to ask by
what means, by what capacity, it asserts this com
mand ? Go, like the Psalmist, to the very recesses of
your bodily constitution ; view it in its elements, in its
germs, in its primary members ; and then consider
that every man who attains to consciousness and con
science has a sense that, though these members may
be used in so many ways, they ought only to be used
in one. It cannot be replied — at least, not by the

hi.] TO A MORAL CREATOR. 211
objectors whom we now have in view — that no such
distinct and permanent consciousness exists. To say
so would be to abandon the whole ground on which
we are standing — that of a sense of right and wrong.
That this sense, indeed, can be perverted is obvious in
every-day life ; and if it can be perverted at all, no
limits can well be placed to the possible extent of the
perversion. But to acknowledge the existence of a
sense of right and wrong is to acknowledge that on
the whole, and as the general result of their constitu
tion, men have a natural apprehension that some
things, in particular, are right, and some things, in
particular, are wrong. Whether that apprehension
be perfect or imperfect, partial or full, how can it be
dictated or imposed on me, except by the power
which rendered particular things conformable to my
nature, and particular things not conformable ?
To appreciate, moreover, the bearing of this consi
deration, it must be remembered that many actions
which Conscience commands or forbids are com
manded or forbidden with direct reference to their
moral, as distinguished from their natural, aspect.
Physically speaking, the members of the body might
appear to be capable of a variety of uses, but morally
speaking they are adapted only for one ;*and that one,
when duly tested, proves also to be the best for their
physical perfection. There may, indeed, be cases in
which the moral perfection and the physical do not
coincide, and in which a man is compelled to dwarf the

212 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
lower part of his nature in obedience to the moral.
In that case, it may be urged, the consideration of the
general good of the race comes into play ; and the
general experience dictates the conduct in question.
But there seem many cases to which this explanation
would not apply ; and these seem, moreover, the most
characteristic of all. When Christian morality was
created, as I observed in the first Lecture, the sense
Of obligation, in numberless instances, preceded ex
perience of the result. Conscience, responding to
Revelation, dictated obedience to a law which is now
acknowledged to be the best guide of life. Can any
conviction be conceived adequate either to create or to
sustain this sense of obligation, but that of the Psalmist,
"My reins are Thine "? " Thou," that is, "hadst both
the power and the right to create me for certain pur
poses and for certain capacities ; and I am bound to
fulfil those purposes and to carry out those capacities,
because they are those for which my nature was
curiously wrought and made in secret. I will praise
Thee," and obey Thee, " fori am fearfully and wonder
fully made. Marvellous are Thy works ; and that my
soul knoweth right well." The soul knows right well
that the power which asserts this right to command it,
which besets it behind and before, with this antecedent
and subsequent claim, must be a power in whose book,
in whose deliberate wisdom, all its members were
written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as
yet there were none of them.

m.] TO A MORAL CREATOR. 213
It is the most simple and direct aspect of this con
sideration which seems revealed in the Psalm ; and it is
upon its strength, thus viewed, that, as I have said, our
appeal to the convictions of men in general must rely.
But the consideration appears to gain force when it is
viewed more generally, as involving a considerable
extension of the usual argument from design. That
argument is acknowledged in the posthumous Essays
of Mr. Mill to be one of a really scientific character ;
and though he scrutinizes it with jealousy, he admits
that it affords a large balance of probability in favour
of creation by intelligence.1 This admission is based,
however, upon a survey of the argument from a purely
physical point of view. But accepting, for the purpose
of this discussion, the mode in which it is presented, I
would observe that it acquires an immensely enhanced
force when moral considerations are taken into ac
count. Mr. Mill takes the case of the eye. The parts of
which the eye is composed, and the arrangement of
those parts, have this very remarkable character — that
they all conduce to enable the animal to see. " These
things being as they are, the animal sees ; if any one
of them were different from what it is, the animal, for
the most part, would not see, or would not see equally
well." It must be supposed, therefore, that the pur
pose of enabling the animal to see was the final cause
of the structure of the eye ; and that structure, conse
quently, must have proceeded from an intelligent will.
1 Essay on " Theism."

214 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
The plea which is at present advanced to meet the
force of this argument is that which attributes the
growth of all physical organizations, however com
plicated, to the gradual operation, through countless
ages, of the law of the survival of the fittest ; so that
in the struggle for life, out of an infinite number of
successive adaptations, the most beneficial on the
whole survived. Now, there are great difficulties, as
Mr. Mill admits, in accepting this explanation of such
an elaborate structure as the eye, even from a merely
physical point of view ; but regard the body and some
of its most vital functions from a moral point of view,
and the difficulty will become infinitely greater.
I mean to observe that the structure of the human
frame is not merely calculated to produce certain
physical results, such as sight. It is also calculated
to produce, and does in fact produce, certain moral
results, of the highest beauty and delicacy. The
most beautiful, the most elevating, the most sacred of
all human feelings spring from the relations of mar
riage and fatherhood, and are inseparably bound up
with the physical constitution of human nature. No
antagonist with whom it would be worth while to
dispute regards the obligations of those relationships
as having a merely natural and physical bearing.
They touch the soul in its innermost recesses. They
call out, for weal or woe, its truth, its honour, its
patience, its gentleness, its purity — in a word, its love.
In proportion as they have been faithfully observed,

an.] TO A MORAL CREATOR. 215
have they revealed, to generation after generation,
new heavens and a new earth of noble and inspiring
emotions, and have suggested the most sublime of all
the conceptions under which the Supreme Being can
be imagined. It is not merely the material welfare
of states which is dependent on these laws of morality ;
it is not merely any general social results whatever.
It is the grace of your homes, the purity of your hearts,
the refinement of your love ; it is all the poetry and
sublimity of your lives, which is at stake in them.
The constitution of the human frame, therefore, in
such a matter, for instance, as the relation of the
sexes, has not merely, like the structure of the eye, a
physical end ; but it has a moral end. It is directly
adapted to produce the highest spiritual excellences ;
and it is not fully developed or properly used except
in relation to them. Now if the production of a
structure with reference to a physical end be an argu
ment of its having proceeded from an intelligent will,
how much more is the adaptation of a structure to a
moral end an argument of its proceeding from a
moral will ? History and experience appear to show,
in an increasing degree, that the highest perfection of
man's physical nature is only possible on the whole,
and in the course of generations, in harmony with the
development of his moral nature ; and in proportion
as this becomes apparent, the evidence of moral design
becomes overwhelming. So far, at all events, as human
nature goes, we discern a pregnant significance in the

216 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect,
verse, " The Lord is righteous in all His ways^- and.
holy in all His works." In other words, He has a
righteous object and a holy aim in all the ways and
works of that fearful and wonderful structure of our
frame. This moral view of the argument from design
would seem not merely to strengthen, but to compre
hend, the other. For a moral purpose is, in its nature,
inseparable from an intelligent purpose, as righteous
ness is inseparable from reason ; and if the human
body and the human race bear witness to their adap
tation to a moral purpose by a moral will, it becomes
superfluous to argue that they are adapted to an
intelligent purpose by an intelligent will.
In fact, any doctrine which assumes the develop
ment of nature by the mere operation of physical and
material struggles, can only carry any appearance of
truth by the exclusion of the moral character and
capacities of man from the field of contemplation — an
exclusion very natural in an age when the mind has
been intensely absorbed in the contemplation of
physical nature. Bring the moral nature of man —
using the word " moral " in its most comprehensive
signification — into the field of view, and observe what
the assumption supposes. It is not merely that a cer
tain physical perfection was elaborated, in the course
of ages, by the struggle for life ; but that a struggle
for a purely physical life elaborated a constitution of
man, adapted not merely to the perfection of physical
existence, but to the perfection of an existence of

in.] TO A MORAL CREATOR. 217
whiclfthe highest excellence may often consist in an
absolute disregard for everything physical and tem
poral. The greater, moveover, the amount of truth.
allowed to be present in this theory, considered as a
summary of a certain class of observations of natural
facts, the more weighty does the consideration now
suggested become. Such theories, whether true or
not in their full extent, rest undoubtedly upon one of
the most remarkable revelations which Science has
yet afforded — I mean, the close and intimate associa
tion of the whole of nature with the condition of
every part and member of its organization. Whether
it be the doctrine of the Conservation of Force, or the
principle of Continuity, or the theory of Natural
Selection, all combine in recognizing one fact — that
all the various parts of nature — all its elements, all its
forces, and the whole of its history — co-operate in the
constitution of each particular part. St. Paul's image
applied to the human frame affords an exact descrip
tion of this relation : — " The body is not one member, .
but many. If the foot shall say, Because I am not
the hand, I am not of the body ; is it therefore not of
the body ? . . . God hath set the members every one
of them in the body, as it hath pleased Him ; ... but
now are they many members, yet but one body. And
the eye cannot say unto the hand,T have no need of
thee ; nor again the head to the feet, I have no need
of you. Nay, much more those members of the body,,
which seem to be more feeble, are necessary; and.

218 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
those members of the body, which we think to be less
honourable, upon these we bestow more abundant
honour ; and our uncomely parts have more abundant
comeliness. For . . . God hath tempered the body
together, having given more abundant honour to that
part which lacked. That there should be no schism in
the body ; but . . . whether one member suffer, all the
members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured,
all the members rejoice with it."
" That there should be no schism in the body : "
could there be a more forcible expression of that in
tense sense of continuity and conservation which has
of late absorbed the contemplation of the observers of
nature ? For the defence of the Christian faith, and
for the purposes of this argument, no truth could be
of greater value. It is only necessary — and on the
very hypothesis itself it is essential — that moral con
siderations should also be brought into the field of
•observation. You tell me that every chemical element,
however insignificant, that every star, however distant,
that every stage of geological development, however
remote, that every fossil, however buried in the depths
of the earth, that every force, however slight and im
perceptible, have all been co-operating — and for what?
For what final and ultimate cause it is neither necessary
nor possible to consider. But at all events, among
other things, for this : that your Conscience might be
what it is now ; that you might have that sense of
Right and Wrong ; that you might have that idea of

in.] TO A MORAL CREATOR. 219
a life, a virtue, and a beauty eternal in the heavens ;
that your little child might have that gentleness and
trustfulness, that your wife or your husband might
have that devotion, that faith, hope, and love towards
you, which are to you eternal and imperishable posses
sions ; that men might develop self-sacrificing bravery
and truth, and women a self-abandoning patience and
an unearthly purity — nay, it was for the production of
the Sermon on the Mount, and of the character, viewed
merely as a human character, of Christ. As a matter
of fact, on the mere basis of this scientific observa
tion, the Apostle's conclusion from the image I have
quoted is in a certain sense literally true— true not
merely of individual Christians, but of that whole
concatenation of forces of which the universe is com
posed : " Now ye are the body of Christ, and members
in particular."
Now, is it not incredible — far more incredible than
that which may seem at first sight the most abstruse
-speculation of theology — that the most exquisite and
most delicate, the most moral of spiritual characters, a
character which finds its apotheosis in death, and its
life in the invisible, should thus have all nature co
operating towards its realization, and yet that no
moral or spiritual will should have been the agent in
that infinite and endless co-ordination of cause and
effect ? If righteousness and holiness exist at all,
they exist as essential constituents of the universe ;
and they extort from us the exclamation already

220 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE. [lect.
quoted : — " The Lord is righteous in all His ways,
and holy in all His works."
It is this which, in its bearing on the individual
conscience, the Psalmist reveals ; and the considera
tion appears a direct answer to the demand, which I
commenced by admitting, that we should show some
urgent and intimate dictate of our nature, as the foun
dation of that intense belief in a Personal God, Who,
whatever He be in Himself, is to us reason and love,
which our Religion prescribes. This is the spirit in
which the Psalmist, and every human soul whose
conscience is quickened by such words, is carried from
his sense of the presence of God in his conscience to-
a conviction that the same moral power, the same
reasonable will, is also the Author of every element of
his body and of his existence. In one way, perhaps,
the inference is even more forcible to the individual
conscience than to the general reason ; for it is to the
individual soul that Conscience dictates its commands.
But whether in regard to the general reason of men
or to the individual, it is of the essence of Conscience
that it claims, with respect to every action and every
element of the human frame, to be both a final cause
and a final moral cause.

IV.] A MORAL GOVERNOR.

LECTURE IV.
WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE TO A
MORAL GOVERNOR.
Psalm cxxxix. 8-10.
" If I ascend up into heaven, Thou art there : If I make my
toed in hell, behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even
there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold
me." IN our endeavour to trace in the Conscience, and in
the personal experience of "individuals, the roots
of our faith in a God of infinite power, wisdom, and
goodness, we have now advanced two considerable
steps beyond our first and simplest sense of Right
and Wrong. We have seen that this sense, when
allowed to speak with its full imperative and personal
force, arouses in us, as it aroused in the Psalmist, a
-conviction of our being in contact with a personal and
righteous Will. This conviction necessarily involves,
as it involved in the writer of the hundred and thirty-
ninth Psalm, the further belief that an authority
which has this claim upon our obedience in every

222 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
particular of our conduct, in all our thoughts and
acts, must at the same time be the author and
source of our whole constitution ; that the righteous
eyes which now penetrate, whether through darkness
or through light, to the very depths of our souls,
must also have seen our "substance, yet being im
perfect," and that in their book must all our members
have been written. If it be the imperative and para
mount law of our nature to obey our Conscience,
and to make moral perfection, or spiritual excellence,
our ultimate aim, we cannot but conclude that our
whole nature, and the whole order of things in which
we are placed, is in the hands of a moral power ; and
that, as we are fearfully and wonderfully made for
righteous and reasonable ends, it must be by a
righteous and reasonable Will that we are made.
The Conscience of man must never be omitted from
our view of the design of man ; and it is only when
we contemplate the adjustment of his whole nature to
the purposes of the loftiest moral development that
the argument from design acquires its full strength.
So far, therefore, our belief in a personal God who
exerts reason and love is not a mere logical deduction
from abstract premises ; it is the imperative dictate
of the Conscience. We are led to it, not merely by
reason, but by practical reason — by the reason, that
is, on which the whole conduct of our life is based.
But another step is necessary before we fully
identify this God of the Conscience and of Human

iv.] TO A MORAL GOVERNOR. 223
Nature with the God of the Scriptures and of the
Creeds, — the step, namely, which enables us to con
template Him as that Almighty Being by whose
direct will the whole creation, and every particular
occurrence in it, is governed and guided. That which
is implied in the Scriptures, and in the language of
Christian devotion, is something much more than a
conviction that we ourselves, and the whole world,
have been created by a moral and intelligent Will.
It implies further, that that Will is ever and every
where directly operative ; so that in every particular
of our lives we are dealing, not merely with an order '
such as Science reveals, but with an order controlled
for moral purposes. The Psalmist cannot contem
plate any part or appearance of nature except as the
immediate act of God. Alike in great things and in
small, in the vast operations of nature and in its
minutest adjustments, an individual agency is dis
cerned. On the one hand, it is the God of glory who
thundereth ; it is the Lord who is upon many waters.
On the other hand, He satisfies the desire of every
living thing. He has not merely laid the foundations
of the earth, that it should not be moved for ever ; but
He feeds the young ravens which call upon Him.
It is an unworthy and injurious representation of
this idea, to describe it as that of a "magnified man."
The grandeur and infinity of the vision raise it above
any mere anthropomorphism. If there should appear
at first to be only a difference of degree, yet the

-224 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
degrees are so innumerable, and the difference so
infinite, as to constitute an absolute diversity in kind.
A Being so Almighty that "in His hands are the
deep places of the earth, and the strength of the hills
is His also," and at the same time condescending to
the slightest and most secret feelings of the human
heart, is elevated infinitely above every conception of
humanity. " Great is our Lord, and of great power ;
His understanding is infinite : the Lord lifteth up the
meek ; He casteth the wicked down to the ground."
But the conception is undoubtedly, so to speak, even
more than human in the intensity and vividness with
which personal agency is apprehended, alike in every
detail and in the whole order of the universe. With
out doing violence to the language, whether of the
Psalms, of the Prophets, or of our Lord, we cannot
escape from the presence, in every natural pheno
menon, as well as in the recesses of our own hearts, of
a personal eye and hand and will. " If I ascend into
heaven, Thou art there. If I make my bed in hell,
behold, Thou art there. If I take the wings of the
morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,
even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right
hand shall hold me."
It is obvious that this conviction offers the strongest
possible contrast to that impersonal view of Nature
which Science has rendered familiar to us in the
present day. There we see nothing but a complicated
-mechanism of laws, the operation of which appears to

iv.] TO A MORAL GOVERNOR. 225
be independent of any individual agency, and to
have, in fact, no reference to any individual needs.
Accordingly, in proportion as the scientific view is
exclusively contemplated, it inexorably represses those
aspirations of personal trust towards an ever-present
person, which are the most essential element in the
Christian life. It is not merely miracles which are
thus excluded ; but, as is clearly and boldly avowed,
prayer — so far, at least, as it appeals for personal aid
— becomes not less inadmissible. It becomes impos
sible to utter the deep conviction of the Psalmist :
" The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon Him,
to all that call upon Him in truth. He will fulfil the
desire of them that fear Him ; He also will hear their
cry, and will save them."
It will be observed that we do not escape from the
deadening influence of this purely scientific view by
the mere admission of the existence of a First Cause.
The First Cause, if He be only the first, cannot enter
into the daily life and thought of the soul in the
manner in which the God of the Psalms enters into it.
He may be admitted as a scientific hypothesis ; and
yet Science may pursue its course, and continue its
analysis, in comparative disregard of Him. That
which religious life demands is a cause which is not
merelythe first, but at the same time the last — which
is " Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end ;
which is, and which was, and which is to come, the
Almighty." It is perilous to attempt any compromise
Q

226 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
whatever on this point. On the first advance of
Science there was a disposition on the part of the
advocates of Christian principles to allow of the direct
agency of God being, so to speak, pushed only a little
further back ; to permit just one and another secondary
cause to be interposed between ourselves and Him.
But the course of Science has shown the imprac-
ticableness of any such mode of defence, even if it
were not essentially erroneous. For Science has been
truly described as " a philosophy which never rests ;
whose law is progress : a point which yesterday was
invisible is its goal to-day, and will be its starting-post
to-morrow." Step by step it extends its domain over
every region of Nature, and step by step does it
dislodge the theologian who attempts to satisfy it by
a mere division of territory. What we have before us
in the Scriptures and in Science are two distinct and
separate claims to the whole domain of Nature. If
they are antagonistic claims, one or other must be
completely suppressed. But it will, I hope, appear,
upon consideration, that they are not thus anta
gonistic ; but that they are simply distinct apprehen
sions of the same reality from different points of view ;
and that the one is as justifiable and necessary as the
other. For this purpose, let us consider, in the first place,
what is the experience upon which the Psalmist and
the prophets base their intense conviction of a per
sonal agency in Nature. Here, again, the root of their

iv.] TO A MORAL GOVERNOR. 227
convictions is to be discerned in the Conscience, and
in the demands of Right and Wrong. The appre
hension of a Power which establishes Righteousness
as the law of life involves also the conviction that it is
able to enforce that law, and to render it finally and
everywhere supreme. The conviction, indeed, is one
offaith and not of demonstration ; and the Scriptures,
no less than life, are full of instances in which this
faith is tried by the bitterest experience. Even pro
phets, as I have before observed, are at times driven
to the cry that " the law is slacked, and that judg
ment doth never go forth." But the deepest instincts
and necessities of Conscience forbid the toleration of
any such impulse of despair. If Right were not
essentially and ultimately Might, I do not say — God
forbid — that it would not still claim the supreme
allegiance of the soul ; but life would be a bitter
mockery and an inexplicable cruelty. Not merely
to be under an imperative law to pursue that which
cannot be realized, but to be bound to the fruitless
pursuit by every noble and lovely influence — to be
condemned in moral and spiritual realities to the
torments of a Tantalus — this is a conception of human
life against which the whole soul rebels. Accordingly,
a God of all Righteousness must of necessity be re
garded as a God of all Power ; and it is invariably with
this moral aspect that the power of God is contem
plated in the Psalms. Transitions which, except from
this point of view, might seem abrupt, constantly

228 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
connect descriptions of God in nature with His right
eousness and judgment. Thus, the hundred and
fourth Psalm is mainly devoted to the celebration of
the grandeur and infinity of God as displayed in the
world of Nature. He is revealed as clothed with
honour and majesty, covering Himself with light as
with a garment, and stretching out the heavens like a
curtain. " 0 Lord ! " the Psalmist exclaims, " how
wonderful are Thy works ! — the earth is full of Thy
riches ; " but after being wrapped and absorbed in
this meditation, he concludes with a sudden outburst
of moral indignation : " Let the sinners be consumed
out of the earth, and let the wicked be no more.
Bless thou the Lord, O my soul." Magnificent as are
all these powers of the Creator, they are directed to
this ultimate purpose — that sin and wickedness
should be consumed out of the earth. That " cate
gorical imperative '' of the Conscience, on which the
German philosopher insisted, is imperative in demand
ing not only a God, but an Almighty God.
But a precisely similar conviction compels the Con
science to demand an equal supremacy of moral agency
in all the details of life. If righteousness be thepara-
mount law, it must be regarded as everywhere, no less
than finally, operative. If, whether I ascend into
heaven, the voice of Conscience is there ; if, though
I make my bed in hell, it is there also ; and though I
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there that
mysterious voice pursues me : if, that is, under all

iv.] TO A MORAL GOVERNOR. 229
circumstances and in all positions I am under moral
obligations, I must suppose, as a mere matter of justice,
that the power which makes the demand upon me is
present to adjust the circumstances to my moral ca
pacities or deserts. A world in which everything is
regulated by purely physical circumstances, and in
which moral intervention can have no place, may
possibly be consistent with the final infliction of justice,
considered as an external rule ; but it is certainly
inconsistent with any just treatment of individuals, as
such. Even if compatible with the moral education
of the race, it is not compatible with the moral educa^
tion of each individual soul ; and this, as we have seen,
is an essential element in that voice of the Conscience
to which the Psalms respond. Is it, or is it not, in
accordance with the dictates of justice, that the Lord
should uphold all that fall and raise up all those that
are bowed down ? The physical law is that the
stronger should crush the weaker, and that there
should be no place for repentance. Regarding men
as personal beings, can such a rule be equitably
applied to them in moral and spiritual concerns?
" God," says the Apostle, " is just, who will not suffer
you to be tempted above that ye are able, but will,
with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that ye
may be able to bear it." In other words, God would
not be just, unless, in the case of those who are honestly
struggling with temptation, He interposed sufficiently
to compensate for the inequality of their several trials.

230 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
That, in short, which is vividly present in the con
sciousness of the Scripture writers, is the distinction
between justice in dealing with acts and justice in
dealing with persons. Justice in dealing with acts
may mainly consist in the enactment and enforcement
of unbending laws ; but no father who has to deal with
children could be considered as treating them justly,
if, in his treatment of all of them, he were rigidly to
enforce precisely the same rules. The law of fatherly
and personal government is that of the Psalmist :
" Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord
pitieth them that fear Him. He will not always chide,
neither will He keep His anger for ever. He hath
not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us
according to our iniquities."
There is, therefore, a grave fallacy in an assumption
which, in the present day, is so frequently advanced by
such writers as I am considering as to be evidently
regarded by them in the nature of an axiom — the
assumption, namely, that there is something unworthy
of a perfect Being in supposing that He interferes to
modify the natural operation of circumstances, and
that the highest conception of God is that of a Being
governing the world by invariable laws. Certainly,
if it be assumed that the world is a machine, of which
we are nothing but parts, there is something unworthy
of a perfect Designer in the idea of His having per
petually to interpose to check its action. But if we
include persons, with a sense of right and wrong — a.

iv.] TO A MORAL GOVERNOR. 231
claim, therefore, to righteous treatment, a claim to pity,
mercy, and aid from the Father of their spirits — it be
comes utterly unworthy of such a Father and Creator
that He should not interpose for mpral purposes.
The spectacle of a world of moral beings governed by
invariable laws would only afford a stupendous in
stance of the truth of the maxim, " Summum jus,
summa injuria" Just as you have to modify human
law by human equity, so is it essential to the idea of
justice between God and man that Divine law should
be modified by Divine equity. The fallacy of the
principle thus asserted lies in the assumption that all
exercise of power which is not according to strict rule
is arbitrary. On the contrary, the highest kind of
justice is that which proceeds from the free moral
determination of a just person, adapting itself to all
the varying shades of personal needs, merits, and
demerits. A God, in fact, governing human beings
by invariable natural laws would be a God who ex
erted once for all one gigantic act of arbitrariness, and
who mercilessly left all the personal beings whom He
had created to bear the consequences. The invari-
ableness which is the great attribute of God consists
in the eternal permanence of His righteousness and
truth— or, to quote the highest form of expression, of
His love. The Psalmist thus binds together indis
solubly His righteousness and His mercy. "Men
shall abundantly utter the memory of Thy great good
ness, and shall sing of Thy righteousness. The Lord

232 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
is gracious and full of compassion ; slow to anger, and
of great mercy." Such is the ideal of a just God
which has ever commended itself to the hearts of true
Israelites. Next to a conviction that right is might,
and that a Righteous God must be an Almighty God,
comes the conviction that the same Righteous Being,
by virtue of His righteousness, must be ever present
to every soul, alike in heaven, in hell, or in the utter
most parts of the sea, able to act upon it, at every
moment, with variations adapted to its moral needs
and claims.
This being the demand of the Conscience, the
question remains whether the scientific revelation of
uniform sequence be incompatible with it. If the two
conceptions cover the same ground and deal with the
same subject-matter, there is undoubtedly an absolute
incompatibility between them. The assumption that
they do thus coincide is too frequently made on both
sides, and, so far as it is admitted, occasions a real anta
gonism. Theologians were formerly wont to suppose
that moral and final causes occupied the whole realm
of Nature ; and now, in their turn, men of Science are
apt to suppose that physical causes have an equal
extent of operation. But, in the first place, it would
probably be admitted on all hands to be an assump
tion of great rashness, that because we trace a regular
order in the manifestation of natural functions, that
order expresses the whole reality and truth of their
action. A cone cut by a plane produces four different

iv.J TO A MORAL GOVERNOR. 233
kinds of surfaces, according to the angle at which the
plane crosses it. Each of those surfaces — as, for
instance, the circle and the ellipse — has its definite
laws of construction, and is perfectly complete in itself.
Now suppose a being inside the cone, whose field of
vision was entirely confined to a circular section. If
he argued as we are sometimes apt to do in scientific
matters, he would regard the whole region of his exist
ence as circular in its construction ; while another
being, with his vision confined to another plane, would
regard it as elliptic. We have no right to assume that
the human senses are in any other position than that
of one of these imaginary beings — confined, namely,
to a particular plane of observation ; and although all
their observations on that plane may exhibit a com
plete regularity, it does not follow that the appearances
observed may not have an entirely distinct relation
ship. In other words, Science may be simply cutting
across the totality of things at a particular angle ; and
it may well be that at whatever angle they were cut
across, they would equally exhibit a regular construc
tion and a constant sequence. But that sequence
may be simply a sequence to certain faculties, and
the facts of which it is only one aspect may be deter
mined by entirely independent causes.
In fact, in these scientific objections to the moral
action of the Divine will in determining the events
of Nature, there seems to be a continual confusion
¦between the order in which phenomena occur and

234 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect..
the phenomena themselves. It is connected with the
old dispute whether antecedents and consequents are
equivalent to causes and effects. It depends upon
my will which of two possible occurrences shall ensue ;
but whichever ensues, the order of Nature is equally
obeyed, and a sequence is equally apparent to the
scientific observer. It is probably, therefore, an en
tirely inaccurate mode of expression to speak of
miracles, and still more of ordinary interpositions of
Divine Providence, as interferences with the order of
Nature. They are an interference with what would
otherwise be the course of Nature by the introduction
of an unusual cause ; but an order is neither sus
pended nor interrupted because it is prevented by the
appearance of a new agency from producing its ordi
nary results. Moreover, all objections of this class
seem to assume that the physical order of Nature is
finite, and that its manifestations are confined, so to
speak, within the limits of a definite beginning and
end. If, on the contrary, as Science herself would
seem to bear witness, the order be infinite, any partial
disturbance may find its counterbalancing adjustment.
Nature may be like the ocean, which, after any storm,
always finds its own level.
In the Book of Wisdom there is a beautiful simile
in illustration of miracles, derived from music. " For,"
says the author, " the elements were changed in them
selves by a kind of harmony — like as in a psaltery
notes change the name of a tune, and yet are always

IV.] TO A MORAL GOVERNOR. 235.
sounds ; " as though a miracle might be conceived
as a change of tune, or an alteration of a key. The
ordinary moral action of the Divine will might, per
haps, receive a similar illustration. Suppose your
selves for the first time listening to a perfect com
position in music, played by an invisible musician,
and with nothing open to your observation but the
tones you hear, and the movements of the strings
which you perceive. You would find it possible, after
due observation, to determine that the sounds were
combined according to regular laws ; and though you.
might not penetrate to the essential law of the melody,,
you would yet perceive that there was such a law, and
that it determined the course of the successive notes.
But who is not sensible that, in addition to the strict
law of musical harmony or melody, there are possible
in music an infinite variety of shades of personal in
fluence, which depend entirely on the will and feeling
of the musician, and which have a more subtle influ
ence than can be referred to any but the most intimate
and delicate feelings of our nature ? The harmony of
Nature, regular as it is, is surely capable of being
similarly supplemented in its action by the subtle
touch of a Divine hand, often only perceptible to those
who have spiritual ears to hear, and a pure heart to
feel. There seems nothing inconceivable in the sup
position of the physical order of nature remaining
unchanged, and yet being perpetually varied in its in
cidence on that moral part, at least, of our constitution^.

236 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE [lect.
to which physical tests and physical observations do
not reach.
But, to take a still stronger case, consider the human
body. If we observe certain portions of it in action,
we shall find them presenting a regular sequence of
phenomena, depending on the circulation of the blood,
just as much as other natural bodies. If you suppose
a scientific being confined in his view to a particular
organ or function, he might regard it as nothing but
a system of sequences. He would not see, and he
might deny, if it were suggested to him, that the
movements he observed could be modified, and were
modified, by the action of the will and intelligence of
the man or woman of whom they were a part. The
human body is claimed, and necessarily claimed, as
subject to the same physical laws as those which
govern other bodies ; but this does not hinder, as a
matter of fact, but that the human will and reason are
present, by their influence, in every part, and modify
the action of each. If the analogy be extended to the
universe, you have some resemblance to the conception
which, apprehended from a moral point of view, is
revealed in the Psalms. Nature, if the expression
may be for a moment allowed, is like a part of the
Divine organism, and the laws and sequences we
observe are but the appearances to our senses of that
which is really the personal act and will of the
Creator. The scientific objection, in fact, proves too much. It

iv.] TO A MORAL GOVERNOR. 237"
claims to apply to every part of nature and of human
nature the principle of Conservation — an extension of
the primary law that action and re-action are equal
and opposite. Every physical action by a human being
must have had, as the extreme form of this supposi
tion declares, a physical antecedent, and must have a
physical consequent ; and these are necessary parts
of one vast system. I am not concerned to dispute the
assertion. But it is nowise inconsistent with the con
ception of the Divine agency in question. One of two
alternatives must be accepted : either the human will
is a force external to the order of nature, and inter
poses in it without disturbing the harmony of natural
action ; or it is in itself, in its physical aspect, a part
of that order. In the farmer case, there is no reason
why a Divine will should not similarly interfere with
out any disturbance of harmony ; in the latter case, it
is quite certain that the human will remains, for the
practical purposes of Conscience, as much a moral
agency as ever. Explain it as you like, analyze it
physically as you please, the Conscience of man retains
its moral character, and must retain it by its very
nature. No good man of science would wish it to be
otherwise. But if the physical order of nature is thus
compatible with human moral agency, why not with
Divine ?
In short, whatever may be the value or interest of
these illustrations, on a matter where all illustrations
can be only approximative, I do not know that they

338 WITNESS OF CONSCIENCE. [lect.
are necessary for the argument- In claiming the exist
ence and action of a Personal God, I am only claiming
a personality for Him and His agency similar to that
-of which I am conscious myself. If my personal will
and deliberate reason are not incompatible with the
order of Nature, why should His be ? In this, as in all
-other points of this argument, we need only throw
ourselves back upon our personal experience. What
ever Science may demonstrate respecting the fixity of
natural laws, human nature will love and hate, will
praise and blame — will exert, in a word, personal acts ;
and consequently, the further Science pushes its con
quests over the phenomena of human life, the more
evident must it become that that life has an entirely
distinct aspect from that which is purely scientific.
This conclusion must be extended to Nature at large ;
and the moral aspect of the world which the Scriptures
disclose must be admitted as distinct from, and cor
relative with, the scientific.

v.] MORAL WITNESS TO CHRIST

239

LECTURE V.
THE MORAL WITNESS TO JESUS
CHRIST.
i John i. 3.
" That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you,
that ye also may have fellowship with us : and truly our fellow
ship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ."
THE preceding Lectures have, I hope, illustrated
the manner in which our belief in a personal God
of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness, is founded
upon the simplest and most imperious dictates of the
Conscience ; and so far as this has been successfully
done, we are now in a position to pass to another
division of the subject, and to consider the grounds of
our specific faith, as Christians, in the divinity of the
Lord Jesus, and in the revelations made by Him and by
His prophets and apostles. Everything, it is obvious,
turns upon the validity of those primary considerations.
Unless men have some real knowledge of God, ante
cedent both to the Christian and to the Jewish Reve
lation, they cannot have adequate ground for accepting
either of those Revelations, because they can have no

240 THE MORAL WITNESS [lect.
touchstone by which to try them. The experience
which is interpreted for us in the hundred and thirty-
ninth Psalm is accordingly treated by St. Paul as
essentially that of all mankind ; and he says it is " be
cause they did not like to retain in their knowledge "
a God who thus searched and tried their hearts with a
judgment according to truth that they were given over
to a reprobate mind. Whether addressing Athenians
or Romans, St. Paul bases his appeal upon the know
ledge of God whichjjis already attainable by his hearers,
if not already possessed by them, and he claims cre
dence for his revelation as consistent with that know
ledge, and as its necessary complement. In this, as
in all other subjects, we can only advance from the
known to the unknown. As it is only from simple
acts of reason that we can advance to the more com
plex, so it is from the simple acts of faith, which are
prompted by the elementary instincts of conscience,
that we must advance to those lofty heights of faith
which reach their culmination in the Christian creed.
It is in this spirit that we must proceed to consider
the question, whether the belief of Christians that
Jesus Christ is God rested originally, and may rest
still, on any such broad, experimental grounds as those
we have adduced for faith in God Himself. Here
again, unless we can discern such grounds, Christianity
must be a speculation and a philosophy, rather than
a living force. The original Apostles themselves, and
the poor to whom in so large an extent they appealed,

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 241
were not learned people, capable of logical analysis
and of scientific demonstration. Similarly the great
mass of men at the present day cannot be effectually
reached, unless we can address to them some appeal
which has a legitimate claim upon their simplest and
most common instincts. A vital religion, like a vital
morality, must appeal to men and women rather than
to philosophers, and must strike its roots in ordinary
experience. Now, it must be admitted that, especially
to those who view it from the outside, the Christian
creed does seem to make an immense demand — a de
mand to which nothing but a supreme conviction can
justify us in surrendering ourselves, as we are called
upon to do, with all our hearts and all our souls. To
recognize a person appearing in human form as God,
to render to Him the homage, the obedience, and the
trust, which are due to God alone, are acts of faith
which must needs appear momentous in proportion
to the purity and the force with which the idea of
God is realized in our mind and conscience.
In order fairly to appreciate the actual and historic
reality of this belief, we must place ourselves, in
imagination, in the position of a Jew like St. Paul, at
the time when the divinity of Christ was first pro
claimed. To the Greek, perhaps, there was only too
little theoretic difficulty in the proclamation. The
Cross of Christ, indeed, was to him a stumbling-block.
But the mere idea of God appearing in the likeness of
men was in harmony with all his traditions. His
R

242 THE MORAL WITNESS [LECT.
difficulty was, as I have said, too small ; because he
had so utterly inadequate an idea of God. His gods,
no doubt, might be fitly described as "magnified
men ;" and it was a comparatively small descent that
they should appear in the likeness of men. The
heresies which the Church had to encounter during
the first three centuries may, indeed, be instructively
regarded less as declensions from the truth than as
approximations to it, and as successive stages in the
elevation of the Pagan mind towards an adequate
conception of God. Arianism was the last step in the
process ; and its defeat was the final emancipation of
Christian thought from Greek and Pagan conceptions
of the Godhead. We cannot well realize in the
present day this fatal facility of apotheosis in Greek
and Roman thought ; but we may understand, in some
measure, the opposite difficulty, as it would have at
first presented itself to St. Paul, and as it still presents
itself to Jews, and probably to Mahometans. The
whole drift and burden of the Jewish religion had
been, as we have observed, to render more lofty, more
spiritual, more transcendent, their conception of God.
In proportion to the greatness of a Jew, did he enter
into the words, "For my thoughts are not your
thoughts ; neither are your ways my ways, saith the
Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts." Suddenly — it may
be at a distance from Judaea, and without any due

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 243
description of the attendant circumstances — he hears
that one of his own race is advancing a claim to be
one in nature and will with that awful and mysterious
Being whose very name he shrank from pronouncing.
That this man was reported to spring from a despised
district, or even that he had at last been crucified as a
malefactor, would scarcely heighten to his mind the
inconceivable and awful presumption, that any one,
being man, should make himself God. It is not sur-
'prising — it is most natural, and in perfect harmony
with the deep religious sincerity of St. Paul's subse
quent character — that his first impulse should have
been one of intense indignation and fury against what
would appear to him an intolerable blasphemy. Had
he not, indeed, like the majority of the Jews of his
day, been " slow of heart to believe all that the pro
phets had spoken," this difficulty would have been
obviated. But, as a matter of fact, his eyes were
closed to the profounder spiritual meaning of the
prophetic intimations. He felt or acted " ignorantly,
in unbelief ;" and it must be regarded as a gracious
condescension to such ignorance that nothing less
than the miraculous appearance of the Saviour Him
self should have been vouchsafed, in order to overcome
this intense prejudice in the intensest of Jews.
But St. Paul does but offer a peculiarly forcible
illustration of the difficulty which had, as a rule, to be
overcome by the Jews in accepting the claims of our
Lord. To us also, as to them, so long as we remain

244 THE MORAL WITNESS [lect.
outside the circle of influences to which I am about to
refer, a similar difficulty has its pardonable, and even
laudable, side. It is well, at all events, that we should
,realize the immeasurable import of the confession that
Jesus Christ is God ; and should ask ourselves most
seriously upon what convictions so momentous a
belief either was originally based, or can be based
now. Simple and familiar as are the opening words
of the Epistle from which the text is taken, there is
something inexpressibly astonishing in their statement.
" That which was from the beginning, which we have
heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we
have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the
word of life ; (for the life was manifested, and we have
seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that
eternal life, which was with the Father, and was mani
fested unto us ;) that which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellow
ship with us : and truly our ' fellowship is with the
Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ." How could
St. John, a Jew of the Jews no less than St. Paul,
venture on the statement of his calm and mature
belief that his eyes had seen, and his hands had
handled, that eternal life which was with the Father ?
It is only by realizing the magnitude of the realm of
thought thus traversed that we can appreciate the in
tensity of the conviction which could alone sustain the
soul in such a flight.
With this view, let us pursue the course we have

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 245
hitherto adopted, and consider what, as matter of fact,
was the process of Christian conviction. Now it will, I
think,appear that,however dependent on miracles,how-
ever indissolubly bound up with the great historic fact
of the Resurrection, the life and soul of that convic
tion are everywhere essentially moral — using the word
moral in that large acceptation which I have claimed
for it in these Lectures. In proportion as the belief is
genuine, it is the dictate, not merely of the intellect, but
of the heart, and it addresses its main, appeal to the
Conscience. Consider, for instance, the wonderful asser
tion in the text : " That which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you." What had St. John seen and
heard, which he thus identified with the eternal word of
life ? He proceeds to explain, repeating his expression :
"This, then, is the message which we have heard of
Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in
Him is no darkness at all If we say that we have
fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and
do not the truth ; but if we walk in the light, as He is
in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and
the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from
all sin." The Apostle is evidently giving the very
essence of that revelation which had compelled him
to render to his Master the homage and love due to
God ; and this essence is a moral one : it is that God
is light, and that in Him is no darkness at all.
Those words, in their natural simplicity, suggest
with intense vividness the vision which overpowered

246 THE MORAL WITNESS [lect.
the soul of the Apostle. He felt himself, in that
sacred Presence, in an atmosphere of pure and un-
dimmed light. No veil of secrecy, no shadow of evil,
no momentary gloom, affected for an instant the ra
diation of that moral and spiritual sun, which gleamed
upon him without variableness or shadow of turning.
He had ascended a mount of transfiguration, above all
the clouds and mists which here darken the intercourse
of soul with soul, of conscience with conscience ; and
in spirit he ever discerned his Lord with the fashion
of His countenance altered and His raiment white and
glistering. He was like some inhabitant of a narrow
valley, suddenly placed on a mountain peak, so lofty
that it was perpetually illumined by the undimmed
rays of the sun. He was brought under a moral and
spiritual illumination which penetrated to the recesses
of his being, and refused to endure in him the least
shadow of darkness. Compare this language with
that of the Gospel, and its intense moral significance
will in both places be the more apparent. " In Him
was life, and the life was the light of men. He was
the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world. He dwelt among us, and we beheld
His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the
Father, full of grace and truth." That, be it observed,
is the idea, in the mind of St. John, of the Only Be
gotten of the Father — One who is " full of grace and
truth." Grace and truth, moral and spiritual life and
light — these in their essence were the qualities which
commanded his adoration.

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 247
This, it will be seen, was not a matter of speculative
argument, nor of arbitrary revelation. It was a matter
of plain experience, which could fitly be described as
having been "seen, and heard, and handled." This
glory of grace and truth had been as vividly perceived
by St. John as the sun at unclouded noon. It had
dawned on him in daily intercourse, when leaning on
his Master's breast, watching His eyes, listening to
His words, attending His footsteps. It had shone
upon him in every act and word of ordinary life, as
well as not unfrequently in gleams of splendour which
revealed a miraculous power in full harmony with this
grace and truth, and able to subdue to itself whatever,
either in nature or in man, was inconsistent with them.
It is, alas ! scarcely possible for us adequately to
realize the immeasurable and over-powering glory of
this revelation ; but we may form some estimate of it
by the effect which has been produced by means of
those four reflections of it which have been preserved
to us in the Gospels. Those outlines — for they can
not, however admirable, be more — of the Lord's life
and character have sufficed to command the homage,
not merely of the Church, but of the world ; and their
reflected rays have, in every age and in every country,
acted like the sunlight of the moral sphere, awakening
in the soul of man a new life and beauty. Conceive all
that influence infinitely multiplied, and brought to
bear upon pure and true souls, and you may then
form some distant conception of the supreme influence

,248 THE MORAL WITNESS [lect.
which led them, through love, to the profoundest
adoration which can be offered by the human heart.
Imperfect, moreover, as may have been in some re
spects their apprehension of their prophets, their moral
sensibility was, doubtless, intensely enhanced by the
long spiritual training of their race ; and they would
discern, even if half unconsciously, how the profound
est and noblest visions of their Scriptures were being
realized before their eyes. Miraculous grace and
truth, combined with miraculous power — this it was
which sufficed to convince a Jew that the very Lord
of life was incarnate before him.
But to illustrate the matter further, let us apply to
it the considerations we have been reviewing in the
preceding Lectures. We have there seen that the
natural interpretation of the voice of Conscience
within us is to regard it as the voice of God. Search
ing and knowing us, understanding our thoughts afar
off and the words of our tongues before they are
spoken ; pursuing us in darkness and in light, in
heaven or in hell ; and ever in the same imperative
tones, commanding the right and rebuking the wrong
— what can it be but the utterance of a righteous per
sonal Being, by whom we, and the world of which we
are an essential part, have been fearfully and wonder
fully made ? Whatever the force of this conviction, it
may now be pressed a step further. Conceive this
voice not merely within you, but without you ; con
ceive it speaking to you in human tones, penetrating

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 249
you with human eyes, awing you by human acts,
present with you, not merely in the recesses of your
souls, but as a living human companion — in one word,
conceive yourselves in the presence of a Conscience
Incarnate, and then try to realize the awful homage
which would be extorted from your souls ! Such, in
instance after instance recorded in the Gospels, was
the effect of our Saviour's words, and looks, and deeds,
upon the men and women around Him. With Na
thanael, or the Samaritan woman, or Nicodemus, or
the Apostles, He touches the secret springs of their
thoughts, and they are instantly overcome, like Jacob
when wrestling with the angel. Whatever, in short,
the Divine claim of a Conscience within us, such is
the natural claim of a Conscience personally incarnate
before us ; and those who felt themselves to be in the
presence of a Man who, in every word and act, re
vealed Himself as their Judge yielded allegiance to
Him just in proportion as they yielded allegiance to
their secret Conscience. This was the first step : but
when they further found that this Being, in whom
their very Conscience seemed made flesh, also pos
sessed that power which, as we have seen, is inseparable
from the God of Conscience ; when they saw Him
commanding at His will all the elements of nature,
but always commanding them (if I may use the word)
conscientiously — never, that is, without a moral pur
pose, nor beyond the moral necessities of the occasion
— it was at this perfect display of power, wisdom, and

250 THE MORAL WITNESS [lect.
goodness combined, that they recognized the Ruler
alike of their own spirits and of the world, and ac
claimed Him, with the Apostle, their Lord and their
God. Let me now observe that it is this great practical
conviction, and not, as has been recklessly alleged,1 any
"poor stuff" of metaphysics, which is involved in the
language of the first chapter of St. John's Gospel.
Among the misfortunes inseparable from translation,
none, perhaps, is more to be lamented than the loss
we have unavoidably incurred by having to render
Logos, in that chapter, by the term Word. It was,
perhaps, the best translation that could be made —
especially after the Western Church had for centuries
used the translation Verbum ; but the effect is certainly
to obscure very grievously, to the general mind, the
natural and human signification which the language of
the Apostle involves. He is, indeed, revealing mysteries
of the Divine Nature ; but he is doing so only so far
as they come home to human nature, and are insepar
ably bound up with the experience of our own souls.
The word Logos implied, to a Greek ear, not merely
the speech of man, but the reason which animated it.
It is explained by one of the early Greek fathers, in
connection with this language of the Apostle, as em
bodying at once the highest rational and moral prin
ciples—the practical as well as the scientific reason of
man. In short, if we translate it " The Word," we
1 By Mr. Mill, in his Essay on Theism, p. 254.

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 251
have to bear in mind that it means the Word of
Conscience and Reason ; and consequently, when I
spoke just now of Conscience Incarnate I was but
translating one aspect of St. John's expression, "The
Word was made flesh." When he says that " In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God," whatever further
meaning his language may carry, he is at all events
expressing, in its simplest form, the truth we have
been contemplating in the course of this argument —
that a moral purpose runs through all creation, and
that the Conscience of man, his sense of truth, and
of right and wrong, are an essential part and a final
cause of the whole design. " All things were made
through this Word of Conscience and Reason ; and
without it was not anything made that was made."
" The Lord," that is, " is righteous in all His ways, and
holy in all His works ; " and without this righteousness
and truth, and except in subordination to it, no part of
the universe was made.
We must consider, therefore, the Conscience of man
as being the reflection of the Divine reason and
righteousness. " In Him was life, and the life was
the light of men ; " or, as the same truth is expressed
in other terms by St. Paul, " In Him were all things
created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
whether they be thrones, or dominions, or princi
palities, or powers : all things were created by Him,
and for Him.; and He, is before all things, and by

252 THE MORAL WITNESS [lect.
Him all things consist." This is the mystery of
which St. Paul said that, from the beginning of the
world, it had been hid in God, who created all things
by Jesus Christ. Thus St. John and St. Paul are not
describing a mere theogony of metaphysical mysteries
beyond our ken. They are explaining, justifying,
deepening, and finally establishing, that profound con
viction of the human soul that, as was once said from
the point of view of a mere man of the world, " Morality
is in the nature of things." Accordingly the Apostle
justifies his own belief in the Godhead of Christ, and
claims a similar belief from others, on the ground that
the Light which had illumined his existence, in his
Master's Person, was the Light which lighteth every
man that cometh into the world. This revelation of
the Evangelist is the only adequate fulfilment of that
vision, which we have hitherto traced in the hundred
and thirty-ninth Psalm, of a God of Conscience, who
is also the Creator of the whole frame of man and of
nature. Thus only could the Apostle speak, with the
intense conviction expressed in the text, of having seen,
and heard, and handled the Word of life. To speak
of having seen, and heard, and handled Eternal Life
in its mysterious creative or absolute nature might,
indeed, have been the wild speculation of a Gnostic.
But St. John, even in these supreme and lofty flights
of his eagle's wing, keeps close to the Moral Sense of
man, and appeals to the witness of his reason and his
conscience. It is remarkable that a similar mode of

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 253
appeal, and similarly broad human sympathies, are
apparent in the great Christian fathers, so long as
Greek influence remained dominant, and wherever
this word Logos touched that chain of human con
sciousness on which I have been dwelling. I need
only quote some memorable expressions of Justin
Martyr, written about the middle of the second
century : " Whosoever have lived conformably to
reason andj the ,Word are Christians, though deemed
atheists and worshippers of no divinity, as among
the Greeks were Socrates, Heraclitus, and the like.
...Whatever things were rightly said among all
men are the property of us Christians ; . . for all such
writers were able to see realities darkly, through the
seed of the implanted word which was in them."1 We
have not, alas ! to wait for modern times before
this evangelical, human, and reasonable principle
became obscured ; but no one who bears this truth in
mind will be much disturbed by objections which
treat the first, chapter of St. John's Gospel as a piece
of Alexandrian metaphysics.
Such, in its essence, then, appears to be the nature
of that conviction which established in the minds even
of Jews, like St. Paul and St. John, the belief that
Christ was nothing less than the incarnate Wisdom,
Truth, and Righteousness of God. It will be under
stood that I am not attempting to limit the particular
methods by which, in varying individual cases, the
"Justin Martyr, "Apologies," i. 46; ii. 13.

254 THE MORAL WITNESS [lect.
conviction might be reached, or to assign the exact
relations of miraculous and moral considerations in
Christian evidences. On that subject it is enough, for
the present, to observe that the two must of necessity
be taken together; that power without goodness is
not Divine ; and that supreme goodness without power
is imperfect. It was a combination of the two in one
and the same Person which created, and which alone
can explain, such a conviction as that which possessed
the soul of St. John. Perhaps one of the strongest
incidental evidences of the truth of the miracles re
corded in the Gospel is that, notwithstanding the im
mense difficulties which I described at the outset, St.
John and St. Paul should have reached the conviction
which, beyond all historical doubt, they did possess
respecting the person of Christ. But that which con
vinced them i§ expressed in one brief phrase of St.
Paul — that Christ was " declared to be the Son of God
with power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the
resurrection from the dead." His sufficient witness is
the spirit of holiness combined with power.
But that which, perhaps, is chiefly necessary, if we
would fully appreciate such considerations, is to realize
more clearly than we are wont the supreme grandeur
and the overwhelming force which moral influences
and revelations exert over souls familiar with their
contemplation. " Two things," said the German phi
losopher, " fill the mind with ever new and increasing
admiration and awe : the starry heavens above, and

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 255
the moral law within."1 The observation is a profound
one ; but it had been anticipated many thousands of
years before by the author of the nineteenth Psalm,
who, by one of those rapid transitions which constitute
so great an element in the force of the Scriptures, de
scribes the law of God in the heart as not less mar
vellous than the law of God in the firmament. " The
heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament
showeth his handiwork.". .. ."The law of the Lord
is perfect, converting the soul." If you are impressed,
in the present day, with the grandeur and magnificence
of the visible universe, conceive those pure souls
among whom our Lord lived not less awed, over
powered, and overwhelmed, by the vision of the moral
universe, the firmament of the soul, which He revealed
to them. " The pure in heart," He said, " shall see
God ; " and it is to this faculty of spiritual vision that
the Gospel and our Saviour Himself address their
main appeal. From hence it arises that, both in the
Gospels and in the Epistles, the sum and substance of
Christian faith and Christian life is expressed as con
sisting in belief in the Person of Jesus Christ Himself,
as Man and as God. It was felt that no man could
say that Jesus was the Lord but by the Holy Ghost.
The full meaning of that . acknowledgment was then
more vividly appreciated than in days like the present,
when it is apt to be the result rather of a tradition
than of a direct conviction ; and it was recognized as
1 Kant, " Critique of the Practical Reason : " Conclusion.

256 THE MORAL WITNESS [lect.
a moral act of the highest significance, pregnant with
vital consequences to the whole moral being. When
St. Paul, for instance, sums up the whole of his mes
sage in the words, " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
and thou shalt be saved," he is not merely inviting the
acceptance of a dogmatic revelation ; he is also calling
from his hearer for the surrender of his conscience and
heart to a Person whose influence had a moral claim
over them, arid would perpetually regenerate them.
The essence pf the Gospel in this respect cannot be
altered ; and as these Lectures, though apologetic, are
delivered in a Christian church, it may not be out of
place to observe that the depth of our own Christian
faith mainly depends on the degree in which our
acknowledgment of the Lord Jesus Christ as God is
rooted in the moral convictions of our hearts and souls.
Our faith is vital so far as, in the first place, we realize
the absolute identity of God with righteousness and
truth ; and, in the second place, so far as we discern in
the Person of Jesus Christ the perfect embodiment of
that moral and spiritual goodness. To enter into the
character of Christ is to enter into the character of
God ; and to identify the two is to know what God is,
and to have communion with Him. This is the
spirit in which the Apostle declares that " Whosoever
shall confess that Jesus is the Son of God, God
dwelleth in him and he in God." From hence follow,
by necessary sequence, all the other influences of the
Gospel, and that mysterious communion and fellow-

v.] TO JESUS CHRIST. 257
ship by which, in our whole nature, we are united to
Christ. " If a man love me," says our Saviour, " he
will keep my words ; and my Father will love him,
and we will come unto him, and make our abode with
him." Just in proportion as we love Him shall we
keep His commandments, and the depth of our love
must needs be proportioned to the depth of our appre
ciation of His " grace and truth." " This," accordingly,
says Christ Himself, " is life eternal " — in this con
sists the moral and spiritual vitality of the soul —
" that they might know Thee, the only true God, and
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent."

258 GENERAL EVIDENCE [lect.

LECTURE VI.
GENERAL EVIDENCE OF REVELATION.
Hebrews i. i, 2.
" God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in
time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last
days spoken unto us by His Son."
I ENDEAVOURED last Sunday to explain and
to justify that momentous act of faith by which
our Lord Jesus Christ was recognized by His Apostles
and disciples as the Only Begotten of the Father, the
eternal Word of Life and Truth, made flesh and
dwelling among them. If that explanation be valid,
it is sufficient to sustain, in principle, the whole
Christian edifice. The authority, of course, of the
teaching of Christ, when this character is once as
signed to Him, stretches both forwards and back
wards ; and it becomes our main task to apprehend
and unfold His words. For the general purpose of
Christian life and instruction, we may treat this con
sideration as independent and self-sufficing. The

vi.] OF REVELATION. 259
collateral and historical arguments which co-operate in
establishing the divinity of our Lord are, indeed,
essential to a comprehension of the Divine Revelation
as a whole. But Christ would not be the Son of Man,
He would not appeal to men in all countries and in all
times, unless His claims were adequately asserted by
His own personality and His own words, previous to
their corroboration by other facts of revelation and
history. St. John, in his first Epistle, and in the
opening of his Gospel, appeals, as we saw, to broad
facts of human experience, human reason, and human
conscience — not to that which could be established by
a chain of argument, however valid, but to that which
he had heard, which he had seen with his eyes, which
he had looked upon, and his hands had handled, of
the Word of life. In this, as in the other great points
we have been discussing, the Gospel rests not on any
recondite considerations, but on the moral constitution
and the broad moral instincts of man. We are con
cerned, however, at present not merely to deduce from
this general truth the verity of religion in other par
ticulars, but to consider those particulars indepen
dently, and to show that they have a like conformity
with reason, and a similar claim on our belief.
The Apostle in the text specifies the general claim
of what has recently been called " supernatural reli
gion." It is not merely that God has spoken to us by
His Son ; but that the same God, at sundry times and
in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers

260 GENERA L . E VID ENCE [lect.
by the prophets. The Church puts forward a con
tinuous series of revelations as having been made by
God to men from the earliest times — from the days of
Noah and Abraham to the times of Christ and His
Apostles ; and a question is very fairly asked respect
ing these, similar to that which we considered last
Sunday with respect to Christ Himself. On what
principle could the persons who are said to have
received these revelations rely on their being revela
tions from God ? It does not seem sufficient, however
true in certain senses it may be, to say that the
Divine interposition which conveyed the revelation
created, at the same time, a miraculous conviction of
its origin. To rest satisfied with such a plea is
to escape the necessity of rendering any reason for
our faith whatever, and indeed to admit that any such
reason is unattainable. This is not, at all events, the
method of the Scriptures. They treat the acceptance
of such revelations by those to whom they were vouch
safed as moral acts, as righteous exertions of faith, as
winning the approval due only to reasonable and
conscientious conduct. "Abraham," we are told,
" believed God, and it was counted unto him for
righteousness "—it was a display of the righteousness
of faith — " and he was called the friend of God."
Similarly, in the great chapter which follows the text,
all the patriarchs and prophets are described, not as
persons removed by a miraculous interposition from
the possibility of doubting the successive revelations

VI.] OF REVELATION. 261
on which they relied, but as men of like passions with
ourselves, who clung to those revelations by faith, in
spite of the strongest temptations to the contrary —
choosing, like Moses, rather to suffer affliction than to
enjoy the pleasures of sin, or, like Noah, condemning
a world which refused a similar obedience, and thus
becoming heirs of the righteousness which is by faith.
It follows that these revelations, in each case, appealed
to a moral principle and had a moral basis- Let us
endeavour to apprehend the nature of this appeal.
But with a view to thus vindicating these successive
revelations on independent grounds, it should, in the
first place, be borne in mind that the principles in
volved in our acceptance of Christ, and of which that
acceptance is the highest application, relate to the
whole field of Revelation, and are sufficient to render
it both possible and probable. Those principles con
sist in the declarations of St. John that the Word of
reason and of righteousness, of moral and intellectual
truth, was in the beginning with God, and that without
it was not anything made that was made. These state
ments, so majestic in their simplicity, are, as we have
seen, the final echo of that voice of the human Con
science which, in the elementary religious conscious
ness of the hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm, testifies
to the whole frame of man being constructed with a
moral purpose, and which imperatively dictates a faith
that the whole world, of which he forms a part, is
similarly moulded with reference to moral and spiritual

262 GENERAL EVIDENCE [lect.
aims. The moral universe is superior, after all, to the
physical : marvellous as are the heavens, the work of
the Divine fingers, the moon and the stars which the
Creator has ordained, still more marvellous, to those
who can appreciate other measures than that of size,
is the soul which reflects them, which penetrates into
their laws, and which discerns their unity with the
physical, and consequently with the moral, constitu
tion of man. The words of St. John are a republica
tion of the primary revelation of the Scriptures : " God
said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness,
and let them have dominion over all the earth."
These, certainly, are not the days in which that
sublime vision should be disparaged. If you seek a
comprehensive description of the task which Science
in this day claims to fulfil, you have it, as you have it
in no other philosophy and no other religion, in these
simple words : " Be fruitful and multiply, and re
plenish the earth and subdue it, and have dominion ; "
and the founder of modern philosophy discerned the
Divine wisdom of this description when he gave, as
the second title of his " Novum Orgaaum " — " Con
cerning the Interpretation of Nature and the Dominion
of Man." But if this describes the work of Science,
the words of St. John are no less the noblest expres
sion of its essential principle : " In the beginning was
Reason, and without Reason was not anything made
that was made." The belief, in other words, which
sustains every philosopher in his labours is that there

vi.] OF REVELATION. 263
is nothing in Nature which does not correspond to the
faculty of reason with which we are endowed. St.
John in this declaration lays down the very charter of
scientific thought ; and it is a fact which should arouse
attention, that such thought has not permanently
flourished except where the unity of God with reason
and conscience has been thus proclaimed. In Maho-
medanism, for instance, it is the will, and not the
wisdom, of God which is the dominant thought ; and
consequently men feel themselves the subjects of an
inscrutable fate, and not sufficiently in harmony with
Nature to pursue her secrets through all her labyrinths.
St. John, however, further requires us to include in the
reason we thus attribute to the Divine constitution of
Nature moral as well as intellectual principles ; and
to open our eyes, not merely to the rational order of
the physical world, but to its moral and spiritual order.
In Religion, accordingly, no less than in Science, we
start with the principle that man is made in the image
of God ; that his mind, in other words, is adapted to
the reflection of the spiritual and eternal, no less than
of the material and temporary, constitution of things.
From this point of view we have a great advantage
in approaching the subject of this Lecture, since Re
velation is at once relieved of that almost unnatural
character which seems often associated with the idea
of what is supernatural. It appears as only the
clearer manifestation to men of the spiritual order of
which they form a part, and to which their whole

264 GENERAL EVIDENCE [lect.
constitution is adapted. Revelation becomes probable,
not because the truths it makes known to us are so
distant, but because they are so near ; not because we
are compelled to base our belief on bare authority,
but because it is in such complete congruity with our
conscience and our reason. The realities we seek
after and feel for are not far from any one of us ; and
the moment a corner of the mysterious veil which
shrouds them is lifted, we feel ourselves, riot in a
strange and unknown land, but in [one [of which we
have dreamed long before. This is the essential cha
racteristic of religious truth. The heart and mind of
man and the will and wisdom of God are always in
intimate, though obscure, communion ; and nothing,
consequently, is so natural as that a revelation, when
made by God, should be at once recognized by man.
The protest of Bishop Butler against the false use of
the word nature is still too frequently neglected ; and
it has sometimes been even represented as a testimony
to the Divine origin of Christianity that it gained its
victories in opposition to human nature. Whereas,
on the contrary, it is its comformity with human
nature, in the highest sense of the word, which gives
it its most irresistible claim, and [constitutes the irre
fragable proof of its divinity. That the martyrs, for
instance, in the primitive Church should suffer every
torment, rather than be false to the Lord and Master
whom they loved, was far more natural, infinitely
more in conformity with the deepest impulses of the

vi.] OF REVELATION. 265
heart, than that they should return to the vice and the
selfishness from which they had been freed. In the
same way, the visions vouchsafed to us of Divine
realities have a native attraction for the soul in pro
portion to the clearness of its spiritual sight, and they
assert over it the claims which St. John describes
as irresistible in our Lord's own Person — those of
reason, of grace, and of truth.
But while these considerations justify the idea of
Revelation considered as the unveiling of spiritual
truths, there is a further aspect of the question, which
requires more specific elucidation. The revelations
recorded in the Bible are not merely, like the Ten
Commandments, moral truths, or, like the doctrine of
the Trinity, spiritual truths ; they are often statements
of fact, which may, indeed, in the course of experience,
prove to be essentially in harmony with the order of
life, but to which, in the first instance, no direct moral
test can well be applied. The most conspicuous case
is that of those promises to Abraham, on trust in
which his whole life is described as having been based.
St. Paul treats him, on the ground of his faith in
those promises, as the father of all them that believe ;
" Who," he says, " against hope, believed in hope, that
he might become the father of many nations, accord
ing to that which was spoken, So shall thy seed be.
. . . He staggered not at the promise of God through
unbelief ; but was strong in faith, giving glory to God ;
and being fully persuaded that, what He had promised,

266 GENERAL EVIDENCE lect.
He was able also to perform. And therefore it was
imputed to him for righteousness." Now, adds the
Apostle, " It was not written for his sake alone that it
was imputed to him, but for us also, to whom it shall
be imputed, if we believe on Him who raised up Jesus
our Lord from the dead." It would be impossible to
express more clearly the conviction, in the mind of
St. Paul, of the identity in principle of Christian faith
with the faith of Abraham in the promise vouchsafed
to him. But how, it has been asked, could this faith
in a prediction respecting the future bear that moral
character of righteousness which attaches to faith in
the Person of Christ ? Assume that, whether by vision
or by voice, whether " in a dream, a vision of the night,
when deep sleep falleth upon men," or in some calmer
but more mysterious communications by day, these
assurances of facts beyond all expectation were im
pressed upon the patriarch's mind — how was he to
identify their origin with the word of a Being to whom
his faith and trust were due ?
Even admitting, that is, in accordance with the con
siderations adduced in the last Lecture, that a life
which, in human form like our Lord's, was seen and
heard and handled might be identified with the eternal
life and light of the conscience, still what could warrant,
either in the case of Abraham, or of Moses, or of the
Prophets who succeeded him, their claiming for the
words with which they were inspired, and for the
visions by which they foresaw the future, the authority

vi.] OF REVELATION. 267
of God Himself? They did so, it is clear, without
hesitation, and without systematic reasoning, by a sort
of instinctive conviction. St. Paul himself affords the
latest and the most unquestionable historical instance.
We have it on his express and reiterated assurance
that, after his conversion by the miraculous appearance
of our Saviour, visions and spiritual intimations were
vouchsafed to him, guiding him in the course he should
take in several exigencies of his life, and revealing to
him, not merely moral truths, but mysterious facts of
the Divine Dispensation respecting the Person and
office of our Lord. By what means, it is asked, could
such witness be in any case authenticated ?
The answer to this question appears suggested by
the very comparison we are seeking to explain, drawn
by St. Paul between the faith of Abraham and that of
Christians in their Lord ; and its validity depends on
the force of that appeal to the Conscience, as the
primary revelation of God, on which I have so urgently
insisted. David, we have seen, believed in God, be
cause his Conscience bore continual witness to him
that he was in contact with a righteous Will. St.
John believed that Christ was God, because he dis
cerned in Him righteousness, truth, and power in
carnate. Now consider whether a precisely similar
association of thought be not a justification of the
patriarchal and prophetic visions. If these visions and
inspirations had been experienced as mere physical,
or even intellectual, influences, they might, indeed,

268 GENERAL EVIDENCE [LECT.
have been credited ; they might have been regarded,
especially if justified by evidence, as the result of a
mysterious faculty of foresight or intuition in certain
men ; but it would seem that no such sense of obliga
tion would arise as that which, in the minds of the
prophets, is attached to faith. Even if accompanied
by miracles, they would rather, it would seem, be
subjects for the critical than for the moral faculty.
Power, of whatever kind or degree, if it be only power,
may convince the reason, but does not appeal directly
to the heart. But suppose that all these visions, and
any miraculous manifestations with which they were
accompanied, were invariably and indissolubly asso
ciated with moral influences. Suppose that they were
but incidents, though inseparable incidents, in a life
long course of moral education. Consider them, that
is, as inseparably blended, in each instance, and on the
whole, with intimations which spoke to the Conscience,
which aroused and deepened the perceptions of right
and wrong ; let them, in a word, be invariably united
in a maris experience with the voice of Conscience,
and we may then understand that the obligation of
obedience to Conscience itself is reflected upon them.
According to the old fable of dreams being true or
false as they came through the gate of horn or that
of ivory, so let us suppose that, in the experience of
the patriarchs and prophets, their visions all came
through the gate of Conscience, and not merely through
that of imagination. Visions of the latter class might

VI.] OF REVELATION. 269
be the subjects only of criticism or curiosity ; to
visions of the latter class their moral allegiance, or
their faith, was due.
Now it will be observed that this is invariably the
case, and is the distinct mark of the revelations re
corded in the Bible, from the first to the last. The
revelation assigned to Noah commences with the
words, " Come thou and all thy house into the ark,
for thee have I seen righteous before me in this gene
ration ; " and it has reference to a great moral judg
ment. Noah is accordingly viewed by the Apostolic
writer, not simply as a man endued with a special
vision of the future, but as a preacher of righteousness,
as thus condemning the world, and as becoming the
heir of the righteousness which is by faith. It is the
inheritor of this tradition of righteousness whom the
Lord called out of his country, and from his kindred,
and from his father's house ; and the revelation is
again addressed to the same moral sense : " The Lord
appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the
Almighty God ; walk before me, and be thou perfect ;
and I will- make my covenant between me and thee."
The question, in fact, why a revelation should be
vouchsafed to the patriarch, is expressly asked and
answered : " Shall I hide from Abraham that thing
which I do ? Seeing that Abraham shall surely be
come a great and mighty nation, and all the nations
of the earth shall be blessed in him ; for I know him,
that he will command his children and his household

270 GENERAL EVIDENCE [lect.
after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to
do justice and judgment." Similarly, when the cove
nant is renewed to Isaac, it is " because that Abraham
obeyed my voice, and kept my charge, my command
ments, my statutes, and my laws." St. Paul describes
the vision which converted him as marked by a similar
appeal : " I said, Who art Thou, Lord ? And He said,
I am Jesus whom thou persecutest . . . for I have ap
peared unto thee for this purpose, to make thee a
minister and a witness of these things which thou hast
seen . . . delivering thee from the people, and from the
Gentiles, unto whom now I send thee, to open their
eyes, and to turn them from darkness to light, and from
the power of Satan unto God, that they may receive
forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which
are sanctified by faith that is in me." The vision
which stops the Apostle in his full career as a zealot
for the righteousness which is by the law is a vision
which reveals to him the source of a deeper and a
better righteousness. It is not, in one Word, a mere
revelation, but a righteous revelation, which, both in
his case and in that of all the great seers who had
preceded him, commanded his trust and his obedience.
In some instances the revelation thus granted is
authenticated by means of a miracle ; but in others
the demand for such authentication is rebuked, and
the appeal is that of our Lord : " If I say the truth,
why do ye not believe me ? " It will be observed,
accordingly, that these appeals are uniformly made

vi.] OF REVELATION.

271

not merely to deep feelings, but to deep obligations —
not to that which is peculiar to one man, but to that
which, by its very nature, is common to every man.
The prophet or seer to whom the appeal was ad
dressed or the vision vouchsafed felt that he could not
reject either without being false to the permanent
dictates of his conscience, and in proportion as the
people were prepared to yield to his moral appeal did
they accept the authority of his prophetic vision.
This moral aspect of the revelations of the Scrip
tures is, moreover, enhanced when they are viewed in
their historical succession. The appeal is based, time
after time, upon larger and more eternal moral prin
ciples. The range of the morality successively ex
pands till it embraces the relations of the whole
human race. It begins with an individual man :
"Walk thou before me, and be thou perfect." It then
extends to the family ; and God becomes regarded as
the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Under Moses
it extends to the nation ; and his revelation concen
trates its appeal to the conscience in the Ten Com
mandments, which are the statutes, not merely of
individuals, but of a people. From that time, the
revelations of the prophets, and all their predictions,
are bound up, not only with the morality of the indi
vidual and of the family, but with the moral education
of the nation as a whole, and with its discharge of
the spiritual and moral functions entrusted to it. But
whether personal, or social, or national, every revelation

272 GENERAL EVIDENCE [LECT.
comes through the same gate of Conscience and of
moral obligation ; and the authority which speaks
within every man's soul demands submission and trust.
In proportion as we can appreciate the vividness with
which moral influences were apprehended by the
Jewish prophets, in proportion as we can realize the
intensity with which they apprehended the fact of
righteousness being the final object of their whole
history, shall we see the force with which the Divine
origin was authenticated of revelations which led them
on from point to point in the development of this
righteous purpose. At length, with St. Stephen and
St. Paul, their conviction that the life and work of
Christ explained and fulfilled the whole course of their
history became to them, as Jews, the final evidence
of the truth of His claims ; and when St. Stephen is
called upon to defend his faith, he at once appeals to
what I may venture to call this cumulative historic
argument. He recounts the successive revelations
made to his nation ; he shows that they had a moral
aim, and pointed before to the coming of " the Just
One ; " and he describes the uniform cause of their
partial rejection in the words, " Ye do always resist
the Holy Ghost : as your fathers did, so do ye." This
first Christian apology had, indeed, peculiar force as
addressed to the Jews. But the force and weight of
the evidence for Revelation has similarly accumulated
age by age ; until now its appeal is to the fact that it
answers the moral demands, not merely of one man,

vi.] OF REVELATION. 273
or of one nation, but of mankind as a whole. There
is not a single doctrine of the Gospel which has not a
direct bearing on the Conscience of man as man,
no matter what his nation or his circumstances.
Christianity goes, indeed, beyond what the Conscience
could itself apprehend ; because, like all previous reve
lations, it deals not merely with truths, but with facts.
The successive revelations of which we have been
speaking have each gone just a step beyond that
which could be actually verified, leading men, as it
were, point by point, under the guidance which their
Conscience afforded them. The revelation, in other
words, spoke so truly to their Conscience, up to the
point where vision failed and faith began, that they
were compelled to yield it a conscientious allegiance,
and to be led by it beyond the limits of their expe
rience. It is for this reason that the demand for faith is a
moral appeal, and applies to every man to whom it
comes a moral test. Abraham believed God, and He
counted it to him for righteousness, because, had he
not believed God, he would have been untrue to the
deepest convictions of his conscience. The Gospel
makes a similar appeal in the present day. Far be it
from me, indeed, to say that every man who rejects it
is false to his conscience ! The appeal may have
reached him in a perverted form, and with its best
evidence obscured by traditional misconceptions. But
speaking generally, and on principle, Christianity, and
T

274 EVIDENCE OF REVELATION. [LECT.
all the previous revelations of the Bible, have claimed
faith because, so far as they can be tested, they are
authenticated by Conscience, and because, in the
points on which they go beyond our experience, they
have a moral purpose, and, so to speak, a moral limi
tation. We ask for faith, but not for a blind faith.
We claim submission to authority, but to an authority
which is, in the first instance, the voice of God within
us ; and to other authority, so far as it can successfully
appeal for its primary authentication to that supreme
guide.

VII.] DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY.

275

LECTURE VII.
THE DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY A
MORAL REVELATION.
2 Corinthians xiii. 14.
" The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all. Amen. ' '
\ X 7E have now considered the moral basis on
» » which we rest our faith in the elementary
truths of Revelation in general, and of the Christian
Revelation in particular. We have seen that the
belief in a personal God is founded upon the experi
ence and the imperative dictates of our Conscience ;
that our Lord Jesus Christ makes a similar appeal,
and claims our allegiance as Conscience Incarnate,
" full of grace and truth ; " and that all previous reve
lations have a moral claim on our belief by virtue of
their appeal to the same faculty. Prophets and Apos
tles, like our Lord Himself, ask us, indeed, to believe
that which we can neither see nor verify ; but it is
because, up to the point where sight fails, they are in
harmony, not merely with our deepest feelings, but

276 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [lect.
with our feelings of obligation ; because they appeal
to a manifestation of righteousness and power indis
solubly combined ; and because the further revelations
on the faith of which they ask us to live are marked
by a righteous purpose, and may be said to have a
moral limitation. The Christian creed, as has been
seen, is no mere collection of mysteries inaccessible to
human experience, but is an interpretation of that
experience, appealing, in its main principles, to the
only faculty which asserts over us an imperious
authority. There remains, however, one cardinal doctrine to
which this consideration has not yet been shown to
apply, and which, perhaps, at the present day is apt
to be regarded as peculiarly remote from such prac
tical experience. I mean the doctrine of the Trinity.
That doctrine is generally represented, by those whose
objections we are now considering, as a purely meta
physical speculation on a subject utterly beyond our
ken ; and even among Christians themselves con
siderable difficulty is sometimes felt in acknowledging
the paramount importance which the Church attri
butes to the recognition of this verity. It is not exactly
the mystery of the doctrine from which this difficulty
seems to arise ; it is not simply that men are unwilling
to believe what they cannot understand ; it is that
they feel there ought to be some practical ground for
their belief, and a broad moral reality in it. They
fail to see how the acknowledgment of three Persons

VH.] A MORAL REVELATION.

277

in one God affects their daily duties and their moral
life ; and it is to be feared that too often the doctrine
receives rather the assent, than the conscientious
adhesion, even of believers.
Now it is at least evident that this state of feeling
is out of harmony with the spirit and genius of the
early Christians. Without assuming the authenticity
of particular texts — against most of which, however,
none but theoretical objections can be urged — it is
unquestionable, as a matter of history, that from the
earliest period an acknowledgment of three Persons
in one God was the essential condition of admission
into the Christian Church. From the date of the
first records to the present moment, Christians have
been baptized in the Name of the Father, of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost. The declaration of faith
implied in the acknowledgment of that Name has
been, regarded as the sum and the substance of
the truth to which their allegiance was rendered ;
and every other doctrine has been, as a matter of fact,
centred round it. It would seem equally unquestion
able that nothing but an elaborate process of explana
tion can obscure the fact that the same truth lies at the
root of apostolic thought. The manner in which the
Apostles continually assume it is even more significant
than the definite statements which might be adduced
from them. It springs to their lips, as in the text, in
their most earnest utterances, in the benedictions and
salutations of their letters ; and it seems to determine

278 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [lect.
almost unconsciously the mould of their thoughts.
They do not state with formal precision that the Lord
Jesus Christ is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and
yet that They are not three Gods but one God ; but
it is their habitual and natural language to speak of
the Lord Jesus Christ and of the Holy Spirit in the
same terms, and in the same associations, as those in
which they speak of God, while at the same time
exhibiting their perfect adherence to the cardinal truth
of their Jewish faith — that the Lord their God is one
Lord. You do not meet distinct and prominent
statements of the doctrine of the Trinity, for the same
reason that you do not see the roots of a tree or
the foundations of a house ; but it may none the less
be discerned that the whole mind and heart of the
Apostles are baptized into the name and the life of
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. " There are
diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit ; and there are
differences of administrations, but the same Lord.
And there are diversities of operations, but it is the
same God which worketh all in all." Similarly, the
confessions of the martyrs and the writings of the
early fathers reveal the constant presence of the truth
to their minds with at least as much clearness as the
most express teaching. In subsequent history, special
applications of the truth, in such doctrines as those of
the Atonement and of Justification, have been most
prominent in Christian thought ; while the doctrine of
the Trinity has fallen back, as it were, rather into the

vn.] A MORAL REVELATION. 279
place of a scientific assumption on which practical
truths are based. But in the first age of the Church it
was the revelation of the Trinity itself, of the mutual
relations of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and of their
gracious relations to man, which inspired Christian
thought. In those days, at all events, the doctrine was
the greatest of all practical truths ; and here again, if
we would fully enter into the spirit of our religion, we
must endeavour to apprehend the spirit of its first
teachers and believers.
Now to realize this practical and moral aspect of the
doctrine, it becomes necessary to lay further stress on
a consideration which the nature of this argument had,
until the last Lecture, thrown somewhat into the back
ground : I mean, the historical character of Chris
tian faith. It has been pointed out in that Lecture
how each successive Revelation recorded in the Scrip
tures was, as it were, imbedded in the life of the
Prophet to whom it was vouchsafed, and in the
circumstances of the age in which it was delivered, and
that its authority was in no slight degree dependent
upon the manner in which its historic coherence
appealed to the Conscience. But the moment we pass
to the specific truths of Christianity, this consideration
obviously becomes of paramount importance, for they
are united with the greatest of all lives and with the
most momentous of historic events. They are, above
all things, indissolubly bound up, not merely with the
teaching, but with the Person and the life of Christ.

280 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [lect.
The first and cardinal act of Christian faith is that
which has been already vindicated — the recognition of
Jesus as God Incarnate, and as the Lord to whom, in
soul and body, we must for ever surrender ourselves.
But that step having been taken, the life of Christ
becomes the most essential element in our own lives.
That which He was, that which He did, that which
He is, become the very law and mould of our exis
tence. When our Saviour says, " Abide in me, and
I in you ; as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself,
except it abide in the vine, so no more can ye,
except ye abide in me,," His words must, of neces
sity, be applied to the whole of His relations
towards us, and especially to those of which we have
direct historical cognizance.- He is, indeed, in per
manent relation with us by means of His Spirit ;
but our only means of knowing this are those acts
and words which, during His life on earth, were seen
and heard and handled. Our Conscience tells us that
we are in relation with a personal God ; but that this
God is related to us also as man, is a matter not
of direct experience — however the soul may dimly feel
after the truth — but of historical fact. As our Lord
said, "He that hath seen me hath seen the Father,"
so it is only in the actual life of Christ that He is
Himself to be seen.
The Christian, therefore, is not merely a person who
believes in Jesus Christ as his unseen Lord and future
judge ; but he is one who lives in the light of that

VII.] A MORAL REVELATION. 281
illumination which radiates from the life of Christ on
earth. He cannot any longer, even if he would, rest
on the independent dictates of his conscience, or even
on the precepts of his Lord. The life of Christ is a
revelation in itself, which must needs determine, con
trol, and animate his own life and all his thoughts.
To a certain extent, indeed, this is the case with all
men, whether Christians or not. It is not only un
christian, it is unreasonable and scientifically imprac
ticable, to deal with the problems of the nature of man
and of God without reference to the life of Christ.
That life has become a fact in human experience.
Whether or not you accept the Christian interpreta
tion of it, interpreted it must be. You cannot put it
aside, and live and act as* if it had no bearings on
you. The Gospels alone, independently of the agency
of the Christian Church, bring that life, in an ever-
increasing degree, to bear upon the thoughts and the
conscience of mankind ; and the world cannot evade
the questions which it arouses, or the claims which it
asserts. It may reject them, but it cannot avoid
dealing with them. To the Christian, however, such
considerations have a supreme and overwhelming
force. It is his characteristic quality to abide in his
Master — to live, to think, to act in conformity with
the life, the thoughts, the acts of that Master.
Bearing this in mind, we may express in very brief
words the moral basis of the doctrine of the Trinity.
It is the interpretation of the life of Christ. It is a

282 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [LECT.
revealed doctrine, not merely in the sense of its being
a communication to us of a truth which we could not
ourselves have discovered, but in the sense of its being
a doctrine which arises entirely out of certain facts of
human history and experience. For such reasons as
we have already explained, we believe that the Lord
Jesus Christ was Himself God. But He also spoke of
God being His Father, and He lived in an intense
personal relationship with God. These two facts we
find ourselves equally compelled to accept ; and they
reveal to us at once a plurality of Persons in one
God. Let it be particularly observed, in the light of
our previous considerations, on what this conclusion
is based. The objections urged and felt against the
doctrine of the Trinity are connected with an impres
sion that it is an intellectual speculation, resting on
metaphysical arguments. Whereas, on the contrary,
it rests on a simple recognition of two facts ; both of
which arise out of historic experience interpreted by
the human Conscience, and still appeal to that ex
perience and that Conscience for their support. It is
precisely because we prefer facts to metaphysics, that
we are impelled to accept the doctrine of the Trinity.
Did we trust simply to logical deductions, we might
withhold assent from the doctrine in spite of those
lofty philosophic speculations which, from the days of
Plato, have been thought by the few minds which
could follow them to point to it. But it is because
we think our Conscience a safer guide than our in-

vn.] A MORAL REVELATION. 283
tellect, it is because we distrust our power of reason
ing in a matter so infinitely above us, and because we
deem it safer to accept, even where we cannot under
stand, convictions which our moral sense forces upon
us — it is for these practical, simple, and moral reasons
that we believe in a plurality of Divine Persons, yet
in One God.
Regarding the question, indeed, from a merely argu
mentative point of view, there is something almost
extravagantly unreasonable in the assumption often
made, especially by the most prominent — and I must
add, the most flippant — of recent assailants of this
belief, that it is a pure intellectual figment. Argue
against it and reject it, if you please. It is a doctrine
of the most momentous character, not to be accepted
upon any but the most weighty grounds ; and every
conscientious objection to it deserves the most serious
answer. But let it equally be recognized that our
faith in it is founded on the deepest convictions of the
Conscience. We can only believe that Christ is God
by the absolute submission of our conscience to His
claims ; and it is therefore essentially our conscience,
rather than our understanding, which dictates our ac
ceptance of the baptismal confession of the Father
and the Son. Overthrow the primary Christian con
viction that the Christ of the Gospels is the God of
the Psalms, and the doctrine of the Trinity passes, at
all events, into the regions of metaphysical speculation.
But what the objector has, in the first instance, to deal

284 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [LECT.
with is that conviction of the Conscience, and not any
speculations which have been founded upon it. Accord
ingly, the doctrine of the Trinity is found to start into
life, not out of any school of philosophy, but out of the
Christian Church. This observation is independent of
the question how far philosophical speculations may
have provided its verbal expression. It is historically
certain that, so long as it remained in philosophical
hands, it was a speculation and no more. But long
before Christianity was recognized as a philosophy,
before it had attracted into its service the genius of
Alexandrian thought, before Athanasius, before Ori
gen, before Clement of Alexandria, in the first Chris
tian apologists and the earliest Christian martyrs, the
truth of the Trinity is found to be a living and
operative belief. It is thus historically traceable to
the facts of Christian consciousness — not, as I have
before explained, to the consciousness of each Chris
tian considered individually, but to the conscience of
Christians applying itself to the life of Christ.
What else, in fact, could explain such language as
that of the text and of the other apostolic teaching to
which I have referred ? To appreciate those expres
sions it must be remembered, as has been observed in
a previous Lecture, that those who use it were Hebrews
of the Hebrews, men to whose instincts — the tradi
tional instincts of a long history — the very name of
God was exceptionally awful, scarcely to be uttered
incapable of association with that of any human or

vii.] A MORAL REVELATION. 285
created being. It is these men — not philosophers but
earnest Jews — who are found blending together in
their customary salutations the name of God, the
Father of all, with that of Jesus Christ His Son, and
of the Holy Ghost ; imploring simultaneously and
equally the gifts and the blessings of the Three, and
declaring that " to us there is but one God the Father,
of whom are all things, and we in Him, and one Lord
Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we by Him."
There is nothing but the facts of the life of Christ to
explain this astonishing revolution of thought. But
look at those facts in the light that has been suggested,
and the development becomes natural and intelligible.
The profound conviction of those vivid consciences,
that Christ was God, revealed a new aspect of the
Divine nature. It was contrary to every principle of
their minds to admit that a mere man, however holy,
could be in essential union with God ; and when they
were forced to acknowledge the Divinity of Christ,
they were forced, at the same time, to acknowledge
that the Godhead contained within it mysteries of
personal relationship which could not by mere thought
or meditation have been conceived.
It is further to be observed that this relationship,
thus revealed as an historical fact, between the Father
and the Son is not only based on a moral conviction,
but has the most intimate moral bearing on Christian
life. It possesses that bearing by virtue of its moral
value in the life of Christ Himself. The characteristic

286 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [lect.
of His life, whichever Evangelist we follow, is an abso
lute devotion to the will of the Father. The Lord's
own prayer — " Our Father which art in heaven,
hallowed be thy Name, thy kingdom come, thy will
be done" — embodies the spirit of that life from its
commencement to its close. The opening temptation,
in its three forms, is conquered by submission to the
will and word of God ; and the victory is won in the
last agony of temptation in the words, " Not my will,
but thine be done." The Gospel of St. John does but
interpret for us more fully the spirit which is thus
dominant in the other three. " I thank thee, Father,
Lord of heaven and earth," He exclaims in St.
Matthew, "that thou hast hid these things from the
wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes :
even so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy sight.
All things are delivered unto me of my Father ; and
no man knoweth the Son but the Father, neither
knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to
whomsoever the Son will reveal him." "Verily,
verily, I say unto you," He exclaims in St. John, " the
Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the
Father do ; for what things soever he doeth, these
also doeth the Son likewise :" or again, " He that hath
seen me hath seen the Father ; and how sayest thou
then, Show us the Father ? Believest thou not that I
am in the Father, and the Father in me ? The words
that I speak unto you I speak not of myself, but the
Father that dwelleth in me, He doeth the works."

TO.] A MORAL REVELATION. 287
It would be impracticable, within the limits imposed
on the present argument, to make the least pretence
of developing the significance of these utterances.
But this may at least be said, and it is sufficient
for our immediate purpose. They reveal a relation
between the Father and the Son of the deepest moral
import, and pregnant with the profoundest moral in
fluences on the human heart. Let us reflect for a
moment, by the light of other human experiences, on
what they imply. Such words are not to be interpreted
by their mere logical force ; and the weight of the
testimony in the Gospels to the doctrine of the Trinity
has been, it is to be feared, grievously weakened by
the stress which has been sometimes laid on verbal
deductions. It is the thought and the sentiment" which
reveal the reality behind them. There was, as we
see in the narrative, something which to the Jews
of our Lord's day was inexpressibly presumptuous in
the familiar and intimate relationship implied in such
expressions. That a man should be speaking — to take
only St. Matthew's account — " of all things being re
vealed unto him by the Father," appeared to them
intolerable ; and there is still something in it infinitely
above the reach of unassisted human belief, when once
an adequate conception is attained of the inscrutable
infinity of God. If men degrade the idea of God, as
the Greeks did, and as the heathen still do, they may
find no difficulty in believing in communion between
Godandman; though theconception of that communion

288 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [LECT.
itself becomes at the same time degraded. But let
the idea of God be raised and sublimed as it is by the
Mahomedan ; and then the idea of complete union,
and of intimate familiar communion, between the will
of God and the will of man becomes almost inconceiv
able. A supernatural revelation may be conceived ; but
language which, like that of our Lord, implies essential
and continual harmony between the will of God and
the will of a Son of Man touches an infinitely higher
strain. Such words cannot be treated as figures of
speech. There is a seriousness, a simplicity, and an
authority about them which compel us to take them
in their fullest and most direct meaning.
To appreciate that meaning further, consider, in the
first instance, what has been their effect on the con
sciousness of Christians. Has there not been deve
loped in Christian saints, instead of a mere submission
to the will of God, as to that of a higher Power, a
deep, calm, and ennobling conviction that that will is
at one with the most human, the most obligatory,
impulses of their souls, and that they could not merely
submit to it, but could love it, and unite their own
wills with it in the intimacy of the deepest human
communion ? How profoundly that conviction has
influenced the whole life of Christian nations, what
fearlessness, what patience, what gradual -destruction
of superstition, what faith in nature, what science, as
well as what morality it has stimulated, history will
perhaps some day recognize more fully than it has

VTI.] A MORAL REVELATION. 289
yet done. But, at all events, it is a noble moral con
ception : and on what does it rest ? On what but
this evangelical and apostolical conviction that we can
claim fellowship with One who, as the Son of God,
could enter into the will of God, could reflect it, love
it, and unite Himself with it, not as a mere creature,
but with the filial devotion, the reasonable and moral
submission of a Son ? This is the conviction in which
an Apostle exclaims that " Ye have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear ; but ye have received
the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that
we are the children of God ; and if children, then heirs ;
heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ." It is only
so far as we are united to Christ by His Spirit that we
can share, in our degree, in this spirit of adopted
sonship. But the essential moral unity between the
will of Christ and the will of God implies an essential
equality of nature ; and it is thus that the doctrine of
the unity of the substance of the Father and of the
Son has a moral foundation far stronger and more
profound than its philosophical justification.
If the reality of the doctrine of the Trinity on moral
grounds be thus discerned with respect to the Son of
God, it will be felt that no difficulty in principle can
remain with respect to the Third Person in this
Trinity — the Holy Spirit. It will be sufficient to
indicate briefly how on this point also the doctrine,
while resting primarily on the authority of Christ,
U

290 DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [lect.
at the same time appeals directly to the evidence
of history and of conscience. As before, we have
again to consider the Christian Conscience in its
application to the historical facts of Christianity ;
but in this case, while starting from the life of Christ,
we advance a step beyond it. That life revealed to
us, on the one hand, a Divine Father with whom our
Lord lived in filial, and at the same time equal, com
munion. But our Lord spoke also of a Spirit, pro
ceeding from the Father, whom, after His departure,
He would send to His disciples, who would guide
them into all truth, who would teach them all things,
and bring all things to their remembrance, whatsoever
He had said unto them, and who would take His
place in His personal relations towards them. ' It is a
matter of historical fact — for testimony to which we
again appeal, not to speculation, but to the conscience
— that this promise was fulfilled. We are so familiar
with the Epistles, that the miracle of inspiration and
illumination which is contained in them loses some
of its wonder and its greatness to us. But we have
before us, in the Gospels, the evidence of favourable
witnesses as to what the Apostles were before our
Lord's ascension, and up to the very moment of it ;
and the Epistles tell us what they were after it. We
know also what the life, the philosophy, and the
moral elevation of the loftiest spirits was in the world
at large in their day ; and if we compare the spiritual
and moral elevation of the Epistles with that which

Vii.] A MORAL REVELATION.

291

was previously discernible either in Gentiles or in Jews,
we are able to judge whether the promise was fulfilled
that a new Divine influence should descend upon the
Church and inspire a new moral and spiritual life. In
a discussion of the Method of Sanctification in the pre
vious course of Lectures, the characteristics of this new
moral creation have been exhibited with more detail ;
while it has also been shown how profoundly the truth
of the personality of the Holy Spirit answers to the ex
perience of the Apostles and to the necessities of the
Christian life. It is enough here to point out that it
is to the witness thus borne by the Epistles and by
the experience of the Christian Church to the per
sonal operation of the Spirit of God, that we appeal
for confirmation of our Lord's assurances respecting
the mission of the Holy Spirit, the Third Person in
the Trinity. The influence is an historical fact, rely
ing for its recognition upon the testimony of the con
science, and it is interpreted to us by the previous
declarations of our Lord, and by the statements of
the Apostles.
Thus interpreted, the doctrine appeals for confirma
tion to other convictions of the human conscience,
which have been powerful enough to be the source of
the most elaborate theosophic systems — systems which
did, in fact, contend with Christianity at its outset
for empire over the soul. It touches that conviction,
everywhere revealed in those struggles after God
which are embodied in other religions, of the immense

292

DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY [lect.

distance and separation between man as a creature
and God as a Creator ; and of the enormous difficulty
of supposing that man, merely as man, can attain
that communion with God, that unity with His will,
that harmony with His wisdom, that love of Him in
His whole nature, for which, nevertheless, our souls
crave. The revelation of the Holy Spirit declares
that, as God has revealed His grace and truth in the
Person of His Son, in an embodiment which unites
Him with us, so He does not leave us as indepen
dent creatures to approach Him ; but He Himself, in
the person of the Holy Spirit, lays His hand upon
our hearts, draws us to Himself, andfmoulds us into
conformity with His will and His wisdom. " Like
wise," says the Apostle, " the Spirit also helpeth our in
firmities ; for we know not what we should pray for
as we ought ; but the Spirit itself maketh intercession
for us, with groanings which cannot be uttered." In
a word, whether the mysterious truth be morally or
philosophically considered, God alone can be worthy
of the society and communion of God ; and conse
quently, if our communion with the Father is to be
anything but a mere figure of speech, God Himself
within us must present us to God without us ; and we
must, in language which the Apostle permits us to
use, be rendered by God the Spirit fellow-heirs with
God the Son, and thus be associated with the very
communion of the Godhead itself.
One cannot speak upon this subject without im-

Vii.] A MORAL REVELATION. 293
ploring forgiveness from that awful, yet gracious
Trinity, alike for what is said and for what is unsaid ;
but the purpose of these considerations has been
answered if they have shown, however unworthily,
that whatever the difficulty connected with the doc
trine of the Trinity, the ground on which it claims our
faith is a moral rather than an intellectual one. Ac
cordingly, it is to be observed that all the terms in
which the doctrine is revealed in the Scriptures are
moral, and not philosophical. The sacred writers do
not speak of the Unity in Trinity, or of three Persons
in one Substance ; but they speak of the Father, of
the Son, and of the Holy Spirit — of the Son being
one with the Father, and of the Spirit proceeding from
the Father, and being sent by the Son. Some great
divines have regretted the necessity, if such it was, for
investing these moral terms with the garb of abstract
expressions. But the fact that the doctrine has a
philosophical aspect cannot alter its essential signifi
cance ; and it is by its moral and spiritual character
that it must be estimated- It is not as theosophic
speculation — it is as the interpretation of a Divine and
human life, of the most momentous facts of human
history, and of the deepest convictions of the human
Conscience, that we confess that " The Father is
God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is
god ; and yet they are not three gods, but
one God."

294 THE TRAVAIL OF [lect.

LECTURE VIII.
THE TRAVAIL OF THE CREATION.
Romans viii. 19.
" For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the
manifestation of the sons of God."
OUR reflections in the course of these Lectures
have, I hope, conducted us to a conclusion in
harmony with the principle from which we started.
That principle was the sense of Right and Wrong — a
sense of which we observed the supremacy to be ad
mitted by all with whom, in the present day, it is
necessary to discuss the claims of the Christian Re
ligion. We have been asking, throughout these Dis
courses, what is the meaning of that sense, or con
science ; and we have been considering whether the
truths of the Gospel do not afford its only adequate
interpretation. The main result of such inquiries has
been, so far as the argument may be relied on, to
enhance our appreciation of that supremacy, and to
show that it necessarily involves the introduction
of moral and personal relations into the whole range

VIH.] THE CREATION. 295
of our experience, both here and hereafter, in the
physical no less than the spiritual universe. We have
seen with what singular force the most characteristic
speculations of modern science tend to this result.
Whether their particular hypotheses be right or wrong,
they bear witness to the manner in which all nature
co-operates in the development of Man, and, conse
quently, in the development of Morality. Within the
sphere of our observation, the Conscience is the
highest and finest achievement of that fearful and
wonderful mechanism of which we are a part. Human
civilization is a vast and complicated phenomenon ;
but just as three laws of motion and a few axioms of
geometry suffice to explain the movements of the
whole celestial universe, so do a few laws of morality
control the order and development of the human race.
Human civilization, moreover, tends more and more
to become the predominant part of Nature. The
" minister and interpreter of Nature," man is for that
reason her lord : he develops her riches ; he modifies
her products ; he transforms her very aspect ; and
thus, on the observance by a race, or a nation, of a
short code of moral commandments may depend im
measurable consequences both to the animal and to
the vegetable world. Man, in a word, is the lord of
Nature, and Conscience is the lord of Man ; and con
sequently the chief power which is at work in that
vast manifestation of wealth and dominion, to which
the most distant kings of the earth now pay their

296 THE TRAVAIL OF [lect.
homage in this city, is that moral force which alone
maintains men in their due relations to each other
and to the great realities amidst which they have their
being. Even in physical nature, the most potent
forces, as we are daily learning, are those which are
apparently the most insignificant, and which are the
least open to a superficial observation. The gigantic
forces of the ocean or of the winds are themselves de
pendent upon the most minute molecular agencies, or
the most subtle electrical attractions ; and similarly,
it is not the physical power of modern machinery, but
that still, small voice of the Conscience, by the aid of
which the constructors of this machinery are organized,
which is the real master of all the mechanical and
muscular, and even rational, force it embodies.
But the force of these considerations became
infinitely enhanced when we proceeded to consider
Conscience as the faculty which brings us into direct
and conscious communion with a righteous and reason
able Being, who is the Maker and Preserver of all
things, both visible and invisible. The extent as well
as the depth of this revelation must be regarded, if its
force is to be appreciated. It is not merely that
Conscience reveals to us a righteous God, with whom
we ourselves have to do ; it reveals to us a God whose
righteousness and reasonableness, or, in the language
of St. John, whose Logos is the law of creation. A
righteous God must be Almighty by virtue of His
righteousness ; for a Right which could not assert its

Viii.] THE CREATION. 297
Might would be a mockery. It is consequently one
of those utterances of Revelation which are scarcely
discernible from the utterances of an enlightened con
science, that " in the beginning was the Logos, and the
Logos was with God, and the Logos was God ; " that
" all things were made through him, and without him
was not any thing made that was made."
It follows, however, that so far as a man, by means
of his Conscience, is in union and harmony with a
righteous and reasonable, and therefore personal God,
who is the Maker of Heaven and Earth, so far is he
also in union and harmony with nature and with the
whole constitution of the universe. The true inter
pretation of the voice of Conscience, the habitual
recognition of a personal God, the acceptance of His
righteousness, and, above all, faith in that Being who,
as Conscience and Reason Incarnate, claims to be
regarded as the Son of God — these moral acts become,
not mere incidents in religious consciousness, not mere
conditions of spiritual life here or hereafter, but cir
cumstances which determine how far we are in a
true relation to the world, whether physical, moral, or
spiritual, in which we are placed. Accordingly, the
revelation of Christ is to St. Paul not merely a revela
tion of the Saviour of mankind, but, as including this,
it is a revelation of the moral centre of the whole
creation. Import, as we are required to do, moral
considerations into the whole of the Apostle's language,
interpret him as we have been interpreting St. John,

298 THE TRAVAIL OF [lect.
and we discern the momentous moral force of his re
iterated declarations of that mystery of the Divine will,
" that in the dispensation of the fulness of times, He
might gather together in one all things in Christ, both
which are in heaven and which are on earth, even in
Him : in whom we also have obtained an inheritance."
Such, for instance, is the mighty grasp with which the
Apostle welds together the whole spiritual, moral, and
physical universe, when he thanks the Father, " Who
hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath
translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son ; in
whom we have redemption through his blood, even
the forgiveness of sins ; who is the image of the in
visible God, the firstborn of every creature ; for by
Him were all things created, that are in heaven and
that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be
thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers ; all
things were created by Him and for Him : and He is
before all things, and by Him all things consist."
These expressions, as I have said on other occasions,
are no dreams of a speculative philosophy ; they are
the utterances of a deep moral conviction that
Righteousness is the law of the universe, and that
Christ, as the Lord of Righteousness, is also the Lord
of all. The import of these grand and comprehensive
statements is, however, necessarily reflected in the
most elementary action of the Conscience, in its
primary consciousness of Right and Wrong, and of its
relation to a personal God. That which is involved in

viii.] THE CREATION. zgc,
this sense of obligation is nothing less than the whole
' relation of man to God on the one side, and to Nature
on the other — and consequently, since man is an
essential part of Nature, the very order and harmony
of Nature itself. Men who are not true to the dictates
of their Conscience are like planets which break away
from their sun, and they involve a similar anarchy in
the whole constitution of the system of which they
form a part.
Now I would ask you to-day, as I hope a not
unfitting close to these discussions, to turn the light of
this moral revelation upon that dark problem of im
perfection, of pain, and of death which Nature forces
on us, and which, in age after age, has equally dis
tressed the simple and baffled the wise. The problem
has recently been stated with singular force in the
posthumous essays of Mr. Mill ; but it is as old as the
book of Job : it has been the starting-point of philoso
phies and the foundation of religions. There is,
indeed, a strange and instructive contrast between the
complacency with which the order of Nature is some
times dwelt upon by her modern worshippers, and the
strains of distress and indignation which are wrung by
her disorder from a philosopher like Mr. Mill, or which
a poet like Pope struggles to appease. "All," we are
told, " which people are accustomed to deprecate as
' disorder,' and its consequences, is precisely the coun
terpart of Nature's ways. Anarchy and the reign of
terror are overmatched in injustice, ruin, and death, by

300 IHE TRAVAIL OF [Lect.
a hurricane and a pestilence."1 Pope expresses a
similar sentiment in the lines,
" If plagues or earthquakes break not Heaven's design,
Why then a Borgia or a Catiline ?"
We need not go to the Scriptures to learn that, to
the apprehension of men, in proportion to the keenness
of their appreciation of reasonable moral order, some
thing like a curse appears to weigh upon creation ; and
that not merely man, but all sentient nature, seems
groaning and travailing under an unequally distributed
burden of pain and death. A Revelation which failed
to face this mystery, and to throw some light on its
relation to the righteousness of God, would fall very
far short of the claims of Christianity, and would leave
untouched one of the greatest perplexities of the
human spirit. The Scriptures accordingly deal with
the problem alike in their earliest and in their final
revelations ; and, though they deliberately leave us still
in the presence of a mystery, they transfer the mystery
from the world at large to our own spirits, and to the
very constitution of morality itself.
Let us recur to what has just been said respecting
the supremacy of the Conscience, not merely over
individuals, in their individual capacities, but as the
ultimate law of the universe. Bear in mind that man
is an essential part of nature, and that conscience is
the most essential part of man, and then consider
what must needs be, and what ought to be, the result
1 Mr. Mill's " Essay on Nature," p. 31.

viii.] THE CREATION. 301
of the disobedience of man to the dictates of his Con
science. Such disobedience becomes the destruction
of the keystone of the arch. By the very supposition,
it involves nothing less than a break between God
and Nature ; it interrupts the communion of the
Creator with the creation, by dividing Him from that
reasonable and moral creature, through whom He
Himself designed to display His moral dominion over
all other creatures. From this point of view we may
say, in all soberness, that when the first act of dis
obedience was committed, when faith in God first
failed, the heavens fell. Such is the truth which, too
often presented in a hard and arbitrary form, is en
shrined in the Scriptural doctrine or allegory of the
Curse following the Fall. However that doctrine may
have been travestied, and whatever excuse there may
consequently be for the repulsion which it sometimes
arouses, it must appear, from our present point of
view, the deepest homage ever paid to the supremacy
of Conscience and of Morality. It proclaims the moral
order of the world to be supreme over the physical to
such an extent, that its violation entails the inevitable
anarchy of the whole.
It will be observed that the weight of this consi
deration is uniformly ignored in such attacks on the
injustice of Nature as that of Mr. Mill, or in such
Imperfect defences of it as that of Pope. The injustice
of which they speak is, indeed, often only that which
appears to them to be injustice in each particular

302 THE TRAVAIL OF [lect.
case ; and even these particular cases are judged with
sole reference to the present life. Nature is treated
as something external to man, and its essential con
nection with his moral constitution is disregarded.
But the cardinal error of such arguments is that they
treat the apparent order of nature as the real one ;
and that, leaving out of account the possibility of its
disorganization by moral causes, or by the human
will, they attack it or defend it as displaying, in its
present state, the will of its Creator. In order to meet
such objections, and to understand the teaching of
the Scriptures, it is necessary to shift the whole aspect
of things to a point of view which modern thought
and discovery have rendered unfamiliar to us. We
must even go further than regarding morality as a
part of nature — we must look upon it, as we have been
describing it, as the crown or keystone of nature. The
view taken of life in the Bible, and the view taken of
it by science and philosophy, are, indeed, we must
recognize, entirely distinct. The scientific conception,
more or less clearly developed, is that we live in a
physical universe, of which the moral world forms a
part ; the Hebrew and Christian conception is that we
live in a moral universe, of which the physical world
forms a part.
I have quoted, on a former occasion, the famous
saying of Kant, that two things filled him with amaze
ment : the starry heavens above him, and the law of
conscience within him. But to the Jew, and to a

viii.] THE CREATION. 303
Christian Apostle like St. Paul, the conscience within
him held the very place of the starry heavens above.
There was a firmament ever present to his moral and
spiritual eye, which far transcended in vastness and in
influence the visible vault of heaven. His vision
pierced that physical vault to discern, encompassing
it, the Lord of heaven and earth — a Lord who was
righteous in all His ways and holy in all His works,
and whose Righteousness and Holiness utterly over
whelmed, in the potency of their influence, even the
mightiest and most vivid of the forces of nature.
" The earth," they exclaimed, " shall tremble at the
look of Him " — not at His mere look of power, but at
His look of righteousness : " if He do but touch the
hills " — touch them with His righteous sceptre — " they
shall smoke." Prophets and Apostles dwelt con
sciously in a world which had no need of the sun,
neither of the moon, to shine in it ; for the glory of
God did lighten it, and His righteousness was the light
thereof. Once thus transpose the whole mental atti
tude to that of the moral sphere, and the manner in
which the Scriptures subordinate physical to moral
evil appears equally natural and moral. The mystery
is, as I have said, transferred from the world without
to the soul within ; and a double problem is reduced
to a single one. To the mere philosopher — unless,
indeed, he be a materialist — there are two distinct
problems : that of physical imperfection without, and
of moral evil within. To St. Paul, on the other hand,

304 THE TRAVAIL OF [lect.
regarding the whole universe as centred in Christ and
in Righteousness, the sole problem is that of moral
evil — the depravation of the human Conscience and
Will. That, indeed, remains an unsolved and insoluble
mystery ; and it is no reasonable objection to a doc
trine that it fails to explain the origin of moral evil.
But we can at least discern that the absence of
physical evil, in the presence of moral evil, would be
inconsistent with a constitution of things which makes
morality paramount. As long as the wills of moral
beings, who are the most essential part of nature, are
imperfect, so long must nature be imperfect ; and
there is no remedy for its imperfection, but in the
creation, or re-creation, of harmony between the will
of Man and the will of God. Accordingly, St. Paul
declares that " the earnest expectation of the creature
waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God."
Possibly, these words may be applied to remove a
difficulty which might be raised as to the existence of
pain and death before the appearance of man on the
earth. The Scriptures reveal to us other moral
and spiritual beings, with whose moral corruption
on the principles we have been considering, physical
imperfection may be not less connected than with
our own. But, however this may be, the expression
in the text would almost seem to imply that the crea
tion could not but be imperfect, could not display a
perfect order, until the sons of God should be mani
fested — until, that is, in the mysterious working of the

viii.] THE CREATION. 305
Divine wisdom, a church of Saints, conformed to the
image of the Son of God, should be gathered together
and. revealed, who, through faithful hearts and right
eous wills, should establish harmony between heaven
and earth.
Such, then, are the principles upon which the Gospel
deals with this great problem ; and it will be seen
that, so far from their being out of harmony with a
moral view of things, their difficulty lies, not in their
throwing too little stress on morality, but on their
laying so much stress upon it. Let us pass on, how
ever, to consider the manner in which the principles
of the Gospel, in this respect, are illustrated and con
firmed by its facts. Now it will at once be observed
that the miracles recorded in the Gospels are in strict
harmony with this view of the relation between the
physical and moral spheres. The only instance in
which complete power over physical evil is displayed
is in the life of One whose will was so entirely right
eous, that He could say, " I and my Father are one."
The moment a perfectly holy Person appeared, then,
but not till then, was complete control over the curses
of humanity exhibited.
The miracles have sometimes been used too exclu
sively as testimonies to a supernatural mission ; but
their value, even in this respect, is immensely en
hanced when they are further regarded as the unique
testimony of experience to the moral fact, that the
highest Might has never been seen on the earth apart
x

306 THE TRAVAIL OF [LECT.
from Right, and that unlimited mastery over the
whole forces of evil has only been exercised by per
fect holiness. Miracles are, indeed, revelations of
power ; but the power is that of a Righteous Will.
The force of this consideration, moreover, is strength
ened, when it is borne in mind how constantly the
exhibition of the power was rendered dependent, not
merely on the righteous volition of the Saviour, but
on the righteous condition of those for whose benefit
it was exercised. The faith which was exacted of
those who appealed for help was, as we have seen in
a previous Lecture, essentially a moral act, carrying
with it a recognition by the Conscience of the claims
of Christ as the Lord of the soul, and therefore as the
Lord of nature. It was when men and women were
thus placed by their faith in a true relation to Christ,
and consequently in a true relation to God, that His
righteous will could operate without obstruction upon
them and for them, and that the true order, which
moral corruption and spiritual faithlessness had in
terrupted, could be restored. A kindred co-operation,
it may well be believed, has united, and will ever
unite, the prevalence of Christianity with the power of
perpetual advance in the sciences which aim at the
relief of maris estate ; and it is only by the agency of
those sound moral, as well as intellectual, habits which
the Gospel fosters that the secrets of nature can be
successfully penetrated. By a profound moral con
nection, the very Science which repudiates the miracles

viii.] THE CREATION. 307
of Christ has its root in them, and, could it possibly
be separated from their influence, would wither and
decay. But there is one fact of the Gospel which has done
more to furnish a practical solution of this problem
for the conscience of man than any other, and which
brings its message of comfort to millions who could
never follow the profound reasoning of the Apostle.
That fact is the suffering of Christ. It is a fact which
has thrown a new and intense illumination over the
long agony of the human race. It has established for
ever the music of that awful minor harmony, in which
the bitterest pain is blended with the deepest peace
and joy. In all nations indeed, and at all times, the
way in which men have met death, and women have
met suffering, has been a testimony to the conviction
that pain, when endured for a moral purpose, may be
transformed from a curse into a blessing, and may
elevate the nature on which it seems to inflict a
wound. But this conviction has been established as
one of the supreme laws of human nature by the cross
of Christ. Here, again, as I showed in the last Lec
ture with respect to our Lord's relation to His Father,
His relation to suffering must for ever be borne in
mind as an historical fact in human experience. That
which, in reference to this subject, the story of the
cross reveals is that the most perfect of human souls,
the soul most in ' love with righteousness, the most
perfectly in harmony with the Divine will, embraced

308 THE TRAVAIL OF [lect.
the deepest agony as essential to its own perfection,
and as the only means of fully displaying the glory
of the Son in whom the Father was well pleased.
From thenceforth men might not know the mystery
of pain and suffering ; but this they did know, as an
unquestionable historical fact to which their deepest
moral convictions bore testimony — that the highest
moral and spiritual excellence the world had seen was
indissolubly connected with the deepest suffering. Let
it not be supposed that the fact of those sufferings
being borne for us interfered with their actual and
natural effect on the Saviour's own soul. On the con
trary, it was the very reality of His experience which
rendered Him our representative. " By the grace of
God," says the Apostle, " He should taste death for
every man." " For it became Him, for whom are all
things, and by whom are all things, in bringing many
sons unto glory, to make the Captain of their salvation
perfect through sufferings. For both He that sancti-
fieth and they who are sanctified are all of one ; for
which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren."
Those sufferings were, indeed, more conspicuously
than all others, the result of sin — the last injustice of
human nature and nature combined. But, the sin ex
isting as the curse of that nature in which Christ took
part, the sufferings are none the less the means of re
vealing His perfection, and in that sense of refining,
with the last fire of purification, the exquisite beauty
of His soul. From thenceforth, when aspiring, with

viii.] THE CREATION. 309
the Apostle, to be heirs of God and joint-heirs with
Christ, men and women have been constrained to add,
" If so be that we suffer with Him, that we may also
be glorified together." Well might the Apostle speak
of all things being gathered together in Christ ! for
they could only be gathered together in One, in whom
not only the joy, but the travail of the world, had
been concentrated in an intense agony and a joyful
resurrection. It is in view of that supreme revelation
of the capacities of the soul that the Apostle exclaims,
and that Christians have exclaimed after him, " I
reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be
revealed in us." " We know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now :
and not only they, but ourselves also, which have the
firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within
ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemp
tion of our body." The travail of our souls and bodies
is but a part of the travail of the whole creation, and
it is one with the travail of the soul of Christ ; and if
He, with His perfect insight into holiness and justice,
His perfect innocence, and His bitter agony, yet, "for
the joy that was set before Him endured the cross," shall
we deem it too much to conclude, with St. Paul, not
merely that we hope, but that " we know that all things
work together for good to them that love God ? "
Such is the answer offered by the Gospel to this
" enigma of life." It is not, indeed, a clear, dogmatic

310 THE TRAVAIL OF [lect.
solution ; and in that respect it is in conformity with
the whole spirit of Christianity. It is an appeal to
faith, based on moral convictions ; and what it asks of
us is not to submit, on mere miraculous authority, to
an incomprehensible revelation, but to trust and fol
low a living Person, who has Himself experienced the
mysteries and sounded the depths amidst which He
asks us to have faith in Him. Mystery on this subject,
as on all subjects connected with the moral constitu
tion of man and of the world, you cannot escape. The
question is whether, to sustain you amidst such mys
teries, you will await the tardy support of the specu
lations of Science, or accept at once that of the con
victions of Morality. It is not difficult to construct
such indictments against the order of nature as those
to which I have to-day referred, and the scientific or
philosophical answer to them has not yet been
returned. But while your intellect is thus baffled and
perplexed, and equally baffled and perplexed from
whichever side you approach the problem, a Person
appears who appeals to your heart and conscience with
all the force of truth and righteousness and all the
light of love, and who implores you, in the tones of a
fellow-man and in the accents of a fellow-sufferer, to
have faith in Him, and to believe, as He did, that, in'
spite of all appearances, God is for us, no matter what
may be against us. Such assurances come from One
who has tasted, not only death, but every moral and
physical agony ; who has been victorious over them

viii.] THE CREATION. 311
all, and who appeals alike to His voluntary suffering
and to His victory as the ground for our trust. Upon
this, accordingly, the Apostle falls back as he con
cludes, in the Epistle I have chiefly followed, his review
of the great outlines of Christian faith. " Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ ? " He is not
merely addressing the feelings, but appealing to sober
facts. That love is still to us, as it was to him, the
most potent moral force in human history. It is an
eternal spiritual reality; and the ultimate question in
volved in such doubts as I have been discussing is
whether you prefer to trust that love, or to follow the
comparatively feeble experience of others and the ten
tative speculations of the intellect. May God grant
that in these Lectures, now concluded, in spite of the
imperfections for which I here entreat His pardon,
something may have been done to enable us the
better to join, with a similarly sober conviction, in
the declaration of the struggling but believing Apostle :
— " I AM PERSUADED, that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor
any other creature, shall be able to separate us from
the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

HAZELL, WATSON, AND VINEY,
PRINTERS,
LONDON AND AYLESBURY.