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\ft*- the founding of a; College in- thif Colony'*

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From the Library of
Rev. Henry H. Washburn
1913

THE UNIVERSAL ELEMENTS
OF THE
CHRISTIAN RELIGION

The Cole Lectures for igo$
delivered before Vanderbilt University
The Universal Elements
of the Christian Religion

An attempt to interpret contem
porary religious conditions

By
CHARLES CUTHBERT HALL, DD., LL. D.
President of the Union Theological Seminary, New York

New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh

From the Library
OF THE
Rev. Henry H. Washburn

Copyright, 1905, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY

n

5~V

f

New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street

THE COLE LECTURES
THE late Colonel E. W. Cole of Nashville, Ten
nessee, donated to Vanderbilt University the sum
of five thousand dollars, afterwards increased by
his widow to ten thousand ; the design and conditions
of which gift are stated as follows :
*' The object of this fund is to establish a foundation
for a perpetual Lectureship in connection with the Bib
lical Department of the University, to be restricted in its
scope to a defense and advocacy of the Christian re
ligion. The lectures shall be delivered at such inter
vals, from time to time, as shall be deemed best by the
Board of Trust ; and the particular theme and lecturer
shall be determined by nomination of the Theological
Faculty and confirmation Of the College of Bishops of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Said lecturer
shall always be reduced to writing in full, and the man
uscript of the same shall be the property of the Univer
sity, to be published or disposed of by the Board of
Trust at its discretion, the net proceeds arising there
from to be added to the foundation fund, or olherwise
used for the benefit of the Biblical Department."

To the Reverend
The Bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church
South
with admiration
for their character
their experience and
their far-reaching labours
in
the Kingdom of God
these Lectures
are
dedicated

Nonne vos dicitis, quod adhuc
quatuor menses sunt, et messis
venit ? Ecce dico vobis : Levate
oculos vestros, et videte regiones,
quia albcz sunt jam ad messem.
Jesu Christi Evangelium secundem Joannem.

O Almighty God, who hast built
Thy Church upon the foundation
of the Apostles and Prophets,
Jesus Christ Himself being the
chief corner-stone : Grant us so
to be joined together in unity
of spirit by their doctrine, that
we may be made an holy temple
acceptable unto Thee; through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
Ancient Collect.

Contents

Preface

The Bearing of Sectarian Move
ments Upon the Christianiza-
tion of the World .
The Recovery of the Apostolic
Theology ....

The Saviour of the World .
The Constructive Office of Bib
lical Criticism .
The Larger Church of Christ

13

The Church and the Christian-
ization of the World . .21

57
101151
205257

11

Preface
THE following Lectures represent an
attempt to interpret contemporary
religious conditions. Our Lord is
reported, in the Third Gospel, as saying:
" When ye see a cloud rising in the west,
straightway ye say, There cometh a
shower; and so it cometh to pass. And
when ye see a south wind blowing, ye say,
There will be a scorching heat; and it
cometh to pass. Ye know how to interpret
the face of the earth and the heaven ; but
how is it that ye know not how to interpret
this time?" The effort to understand one's
own time is commended by Christ. It also
commends itself to the reason and the con
science. To live is a privilege and an
opportunity, measured by the sincerity of
one's desire to know the will of God and
to lend oneself to the advancement of His
Kingdom. It may be that each age has
*3

14 preface
seemed wonderful and significant to some
who have lived in it. But, without doubt,
the present age challenges the interest of all
thoughtful minds. Great changes are taking
place ; suggesting others, still greater, to
follow. It is difficult to realize that any one
can be unconscious of the fundamental
reconstructions that are looming up on
the horizon of possibility in many lines of
religious thinking. Outwardly the institu
tional status quo continues, as between the
sects of Protestantism ; as between the
Protestant, Roman and Greek communions ;
as between Christianity and non-Christian
faiths ; as between West and East. The
unobservant, trusting to institutional ap
pearances, may immerse themselves in local
affairs and persuade themselves that all
things continue as they were from the be
ginning. Meanwhile, to those who obey our
Lord's command, "Levate oculos vestros,
et videte regiones," the whole face of Chris
tendom and of the world seems as a vast
harvest-field of ripening grain, swaying and
bowing like the fluent billows of the sea,

preface 15
beneath the breathing of the viewless Wind
of God. Many elements of an order re
garded for generations as unchangeable are
in process of change. Many sectarian issues,
long thought to be vital, cease to interest the
public mind, which is absorbed in larger
questions. Influences, emanating from Prot
estant convictions of religious liberty of con
science, are reacting upon the Roman com
munion, which gives forth signs of impend
ing reconstructions. Light has been thrown
on Oriental thought, and the East moves
inquiringly towards Christ. The Bible,
emerging from the strenuous controversies
of sixty years, assumes a new authority over
human thinking; an authority more power
ful because of the spirit rather than of
the letter. The Divine Spirit is moving
mightily. Searchings of heart are every
where. A glorious vision of God has
swept like sunlight across the field of
thought. The influence of religion upon
university life is unprecedented. Universities
of the West are entering the field of world-
Chris tianization and projecting themselves

1 6 PREFACE
into regions of the Nearer and Farther East
The Christian students of the world have
placed themselves upon a basis that dis
cards racial and sectarian distinctions and
have undertaken to propagate the undiffer
entiated essence of the Christian religion.
Christianity, rooted in the East, approaches
at many points the stage of self-determining
development, and is producing leaders
competent to form institutions and literature
of an Oriental Church of Jesus Christ.
Such are some of the phenomena of the
present time. That they are coordinated
parts of God's redemptive plan for the
world none can doubt who believes that
every purpose of Christ's Incarnation shall
be fulfilled. But the study of contemporary
conditions is a work of much difficulty. The
observer stands in the midst of his objects of
study. Perspective is not readily obtained.
The significance of relationships may be
misapprehended. Qualities of personal
temperament, cherished personal associa
tions, unconscious prejudice may preoccupy
the mind and disturb the equipoise of judg-

PREFACE 17
ment. One may be tempted to read into
the present time an interpretation unduly
affected by one's preferences and hopes.
My consciousness of these, and other,
limitations presses upon me as I make
public these Lectures. I have tried to dis
cover the deeper tendency of the religious
thinking of our time, wherein the critical
movement, the modern view of the Bible,
the declining interest in sectarianism, the
increased cosmopolitanism and the larger
conceptions of world-Christianization are
powerful elements. It is true that I speak
from the point of view of one holding the
Pauline and Johannine view of the Person
and Work of our Blessed Lord. But I
trust that my interpretation of modern
conditions, especially as set forth in the
Lecture on " The Recovery of the Apostolic
Theology " represents much more than a
fond wish. It is the expression of my
deepest conviction concerning the actual
meaning and outcome of the present
momentous situation. That the current
disposition to minimize the metaphysical

1 8 PREFACE
aspects of the New Testament, and to reduce
the Christian basis to the narratives of the
Synoptists points to a permanent evacuation
of the major apostolic positions, seems to me
wholly incredible ; the theory of a school,
unsupported by the consensus of Chris
tian thinking. On the other hand, I believe
that the larger movement of thought, both
in Protestantism and in the Roman com
munion, returns like a tide "too full for
sound or foam " to the apostolic faith in a
Mediator whose nature can be neither
fathomed nor limited ; in whose immortal
fullness lie untold possibilities, for the recon
struction of the Church on larger lines than
any yet projected, and for the reconciliation
of the world to God. It is not improbable
that, in the course of these Lectures, I have
at times yielded to the enthusiasm and
buoyancy of hope, notwithstanding every
effort to maintain a temper of judicial self-
restraint. I may, also, by reason of igno
rance, have represented inadequately the
opinions of others. For such errors, the
fruits of no perverse intention, I ask the

PREFACE 19
charity of my readers. My attitude towards
sectarian institutions is one of reverent ap
preciation, although I cannot regard them,
as, in their present form, an adequate ex
pression of the genius of the Church of our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
I wish, in conclusion, to express my ap
preciation of the earnestness, devotion and
breadth of view that mark Vanderbilt
University, the Bishops of the Methodist
Episcopal Church, South, and the Southern
circles of Christian culture. To have dwelt
among such associations for a time, is to
have experienced an enrichment of life. As
one who has been in the East hears, ever
more, " the East a' calling," so, to have been
admitted to the fellowship of the beautiful,
gracious, sensitive, intellectual, religious
South is to have heard a voice that must
echo in one's remembrance to the end.
Charles Cuthbert Hall.
Synton, Westport Point, Massachusetts,
August, 190J.

LECTURE I
THE CHURCH AND THE CHRIS-
TIANIZATION OF THE WORLD

LECTURE I
THE CHURCH AND THE CHRIS-
TIANIZATION OF THE WORLD
THE ultimate standard by which to
measure the efforts of the Church
for the Christianization of the world
is the untrammelled cosmopolitanism of the
mind of Christ. For Him there were no
race prejudices, no party lines, no sectarian
limits, no favoured nation. There was noth
ing between His love and the world. His
heart beat for the world — and, on Calvary,
broke for the world. His knowledge of
Himself in world relations was the essence of
simplicity. " I am the Light of the world." 1
" I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw
all men unto Myself."2 The Lord Jesus
Christ, in His Incarnate ministry, was the
Divine Man without a country. "Foxes
have holes," He said, " and birds of the air
have nests, but the Son of Man hath not
1 John 8:12. s John 12 : 32.
23

24 THE CHURCH AND THE
where to lay His head." x It is true that He
came of the house and lineage of David;
that in childhood and youth He abode with
His parents and was subject unto them ; that
from the cross He looked upon His mother,
acknowledged the filial bond, arranged for
her protection. In this He honoured ties of
country, blood-relationship, personal love.
But in His knowledge of Himself as Son of
Man and Son of God, He rose above kindred
and country to embrace the world. " Who
is My mother? and who are My brethren?"
He asks ; and answers, " Whosoever shall do
the will of My Father which is in heaven, the
same is My brother and sister and mother." 2
To measure up to the cosmopolitanism of
the mind of Christ, to take His simple view
of duty to the world, is the challenge that has
faced the Church from the beginning. And
from the beginning she has faltered before
that challenge ; not because it is too difficult,
but because it is too simple. Always the
Church has been proposing to have some
thing done, other and more difficult than the
1 Luke 9:58. » Matt. 1 2 : 48-50.

CHRISTIANIZATION of the world 25
thing which Christ would have to be done.
Shortly before the Ascension He drew aside
the apostolic group, then the nucleus of the
Church, to give it parting counsel. Perceiv-
• ing that some plan of action was about to be
announced, they thought of one of the most
difficult and delicate things that could be
done, a thing that would involve a political
revolution : " Lord, dost Thou at this time
restore the kingdom to Israel?" What
grave gentleness of rebuke — what revelation
of a simpler and larger plan, in His reply :
"It is not for you to know times or seasons,
which the Father hath set within His own
authority. But ye shall receive power, when
the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall
be My witnesses unto . . . the uttermost
part of the earth." 1 What contrast between
their thought and His : theirs the thought of
a coup d'Ziat in Palestine, a local clash in a
corner of the Roman Empire — His the
thought of sending His messengers of peace,
in the power of the Spirit, unto the uttermost
part of the earth — to Christianize the world 1
» Acts 1 : 6-8.

26 THE CHURCH AND THE
Even after Pentecost, with its anointing for
world-wide service, other misconceptions
within the Church partly nullified for her the
cosmopolitanism of Jesus Christ. Chief of
these, perhaps, was provincialism. Peter,
called to Christianize some Gentiles, falters,
under an impression that outside of Israel
can be no moral basis on which to work.
To his thinking the Gentile world was the
outer darkness ; corrupt, abominable, unre
lieved by any spiritual gleam. But in Cor
nelius he finds a heathen by name, who is a
disciple and a saint in fact ; and Peter's con
fession is as manly in its frankness as it is in
teresting in its suggestion of many a modern
surprise over a similar discovery : "I per
ceive that God is no respecter of persons, but
in every nation he that feareth Him and
worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him." '
In contrast with this early provincialism in
the Christian group, how superb is the cos
mopolitanism of St. Paul in his ultimatum to
the Jews, spoken in the synagogue at
Antioch : "It was necessary that the Word
1 Acts 10 : 34, 35.

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 27
of God should first be spoken to you.
Seeing ye thrust it from you, and judge
yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we
turn to the Gentiles. For so hath the Lord
commanded us saying : I have set thee for a
light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be
for salvation unto the uttermost part of the
earth."1 In every age the cosmopolitanism of Jesus
Christ has appealed to individual Christian
souls, by reason of its simplicity and its di
rectness. In every age it has been answered
by the enthusiasm of some who broke out of
the ranks of sectarian order and over the
barriers of race antipathy to recognize in
the non-Christian world fellow seekers after
truth, who, though ignorant of western the
ology, might not be far from the Kingdom
of God. In our time Christian Endeavour
and Christian Association world-movements
have been marked responses to the cosmo
politanism of Christ, gathering their impulse
and drawing their authority from the sim
plicity and immediateness of the relation of
» Acts 13 : 46.

28 THE CHURCH AND THE
the Son of God to all the sons of men. But
the Church in its corporate life, as the or
ganized group appointed to Christianize the
world, has found serious difficulties in carry
ing out the task entrusted to it. As He out
lined that task it seemed simple. As we
have interpreted it, it has become complex.
Recall His outline of the duty entrusted to
the Church : " All authority hath been given
unto Me in heaven and on earth. Go ye,
therefore, and make disciples of all the
nations, baptizing them into the Name of the
Father, and of the Son and of the Holy
Ghost; teaching them to observe all things
whatsoever I commanded you ; and lo, I am
with you alway, even unto the end of the
world." * Wonderful in their absoluteness are
these instructions as one reflects upon them !
Christ assumes entire responsibility for the
work appointed : " All authority hath been
given unto Me in heaven and on earth."
It is not for us to question the adequacy of
the mission committed to the Church, to add
to it in any way, to establish tests that He
Matt. 28 : 18-20.

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 29
has not authorized, to lay down conditions
that He has not sanctioned, to put up bars
where He allows an open entrance. The au
thority is His, not ours.
Wonderful are these instructions for clear
ness, as conveying to us what the Christian-
ization of the world means in the thought of
Christ. It means to make disciples for Him
of all the nations — not disciples of the Church,
converts to certain schools of theological
opinion : but, in all the nations, to win dis
ciples for Christ, to draw men to Him, as,
on earth, He drew men to Himself ; so to set
Him forth, in all the world, that the irresist
ible attraction of His Personality shall lay
hold of all kindred spirits and gather them
around Him. It means to give this gather
ing band of disciples, so cosmopolitan in
character, a sacramental bond for purposes
of mutual self-realization and companionship,
whereby they shall know that they are one
in their common Head: "baptizing them
into the Name of the Father, and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost." It means to teach
this gathering band of disciples how to trans-

30 THE CHURCH AND THE
late into the terms of life and conduct the
very mind and word of Him whose glorious
Person, as the manifested God, has drawn
them to Himself: "Teaching them to ob
serve (to practice, to incarnate in thought
and in life) all things, whatsoever I com
manded you." This is, to Christianize the
world. Wonderful are these instructions for as
surance of sympathetic cooperation on His
part. We are not left to fulfill this task
alone, with the chance of failing by reason of
our limitations : " Lo I am with you alway,
even unto the end of the world." Christ
Himself, by His vitalizing Spirit present in
the Church, would direct the Christianization
of the world.
So, the Saviour, born, according to the
flesh, of an Oriental stock, commits the
work begun by Himself to a group of Ori
ental apostles, chosen and ordained in Pales
tine, the crossroads of the world, set mid
way between East and West. For a little
they falter, unable to grasp the cosmic sim
plicity of His instructions, doubting if He

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 3 1
really means to treat all men alike, ignoring
race distinctions. Then, when the Original
Band is augmented by the unfettered soul
of Paul, who, though as one born out of due
time, yet springs by sheer greatness to the
real primacy in the Apostolate, the Chris
tianization of the world begins, westward and
eastward. In the blended light of history
and legend we see those first great Chris-
tianizers speeding apart — St. Paul to Italy ;
St. Thomas, so it may be, to the Malabar
Coast of India. For a season the Christian
izing energy of the Apostolic Age persisted ;
at length forces quickened within the Church
absorbed its attention ; events pressing from
without hid the primitive world-vision. Con
troversies, theological, metaphysical, eccle
siastical, developed the institutional interests
of western Christendom, interests henceforth
to seem of more importance to the Church
than the simple personal ministry of recon
ciliation that had occupied the mind of
Christ. Greek Christianity and Latin Christianity
divided and stood arrayed, the one against

32 THE CHURCH AND THE
the other. The power of Mohammedanism
arose, the most enormous of the influences
opposing the Christianization of the world.
It stood between Europe and the Orient, clos
ing the natural lines of intercommunication,
absorbing the land of Christ's Nativity and
Sacrifice, menacing the West, inundating the
East. Christianity, primarily Oriental in
form, perished in the home of apostles and
survived in Europe under conventionalized
and altered modes, as far from the primitive
type as the West is from the East. With
the Revival of Learning came exploration,
cartography, the rediscovering of India and
the Far East, together with a Jesuit revival
of world-Christianization which, however
pure in motive, saw fit to carry with it the
Inquisition and the sword, and was repudi
ated with violence. The Protestant Refor
mation brought to northern Europe no im
pulse to take up the long deferred world-plan
of Christ. Its immediate effects were fierce
conflicts of the schools and sects at home;
an invasion by armed commercialism of the
non-Christian world abroad. At length the

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 33
rise of Pietism in Germany and the spirit
ual quickening that attended the Wesleyan
movement and its cognates in England and
America brought again, from the dead waste
of dogmatism and ceremonialism, scattering
efforts to obey Christ's will, and to enter into
Christ's world- vision. Frowned on by the
Church, disallowed by the State, suspected
at home, injured and affronted by their Chris
tian countrymen abroad, an illumined and
impassioned group within the hardened and
despiritualized Church began the modern
work of world-Christianization. Glorious
souls engaged in it. They had seen a
vision ; the vision of the world-relationships
of Jesus Christ. Stung by the splendour of
that vision they recoiled from the provin
cialism of a self-centred Church. They de
manded and they obtained the coveted ordi
nation : " Depart, for I will send thee far
hence to the Gentiles." * Thus was sown the
seed of modern missions from the churches
of the West to the lands and races of the
East. It was sown in weakness, it has been
> Acts 22: 21.

34 THE CHURCH AND THE
raised in power. It was sown in dishonour,
it has been raised in glory.
When we consider the drawbacks and dis
advantages continually encountered, the re
sults of Western missionary undertakings in
the East seal them with the marks of the Lord
Jesus. If we believe in Him, we must believe
in these works as wrought through His Spirit
and fostered by His care. The workers have
shared the ordinary limitations and exhibited
the ordinary frailties of human nature. They
have wrought no miracles after the manner
of apostles. Often they have advanced to
their work under relative ignorance of condi
tions awaiting them. As a result of this
ignorance, doubtless they have laboured under
misapprehension, adding thereby to difficul
ties intrinsically great. Yet, to one who goes
through the East with a mind discharged of
prejudice and with the eyes of the under
standing open to the world-vision of Christ, it
is evident that a work already is done which,
measured against the short time of its accom
plishment, and the stumbling-blocks in its
way, suggests the immediate cooperation and

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 35
blessing of God. Too much cannot be said
of this wonderful work — which is done and
which stands ; foundations laid carefully
and securely by those who knew well what
they were doing and why they did it ; influ
ences set in motion and destined to go on,
affecting more and more deeply the ideals
and the customs of Oriental society ; workers,
called, cultured, chastened ; many of them
statesmen in the Kingdom of God. The
translation of Holy Scripture into the vernac
ulars of the East ; the introduction of schools,
colleges and hospitals permeated with the
Spirit of Christ ; the daily object lesson of
life in Christian homes ; the living examples
of Christian womanhood ; the fidelity and
tenderness of pastoral ministrations — these
and other features of work already accom
plished crown with glorious result the modern
effort of the West to evangelize the East.
As we meditate upon this effort its reason
ableness appears in certain distinct relations.
It has contributed to the East a body of
truth, an ideal of life, a type of experience.
It has contributed a body of truth : the East

36 THE CHURCH AND THE
is flooded with copies of the Holy Scriptures ;
all nations and peoples and kindreds may
read the Word of Inspiration in the tongues
wherein they were born. It has disclosed an
ideal of life, — the Christian — as a form of per
sonality, essentially different from the Bud
dhist, the Mohammedan, the Hindu, the Con-
fucianist. It has communicated a type of
experience — the inward experience of the
Christian life, with its hope, its conception of
righteousness, its moral interpretation of sin,
its joy in the Saviour, its peace with God, its
loving self-sacrifice. With this experience it
has inoculated the thinking of the East.
These are net results of the West in the East
as an evangelizing power.
Yet it is impossible to be satisfied with
them or to feel that the mere maintenance of
these influences by Europeans in the East is
synonymous with the Christianization of the
world. And for this reason. The missionary
work of the Western Church in the Orient,
must be, in the nature of the case, at first a
reproduction of herself in the lands whither
she goes on her Christian errand. Churches

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 37
carry their messages abroad in the terms and
under the forms which they themselves un
derstand, believe and practise. This is natu
ral, and, for economic and practical reasons, it
may be necessary. The primary work of
missions in the East could not, doubtless,
have been done otherwise than as it has been
done. A church must work through its ex
isting agencies, and if those agencies be sec
tarian, the sectarian differentiations must
reflect themselves in the mission establish
ments. The inevitable immediate result is
the appearance in the Orient of sectarian
lines that have no necessary relation to the
East ; that commemorate only the local his
tory of the West ; that are separable in
thought and in fact from the essence of Chris
tianity ; that had no existence in the day
when Christ, filled with the cosmic vision,
sent forth apostles to gather disciples for
Himself and to baptize them into His Name.
It is evident that the presentation in the
East of certain specialized and sectarian
forms of Christianity held by sections of the
West, and the Christianization of the world,

38 THE CHURCH AND THE
as Christ construed it, are distinct proposi
tions of unequal authority and scope. Yet
they are not in conflict with each other. The
first — sectarian missions — stands towards the
second, — world-Christianization — as John the
Baptist stood towards Christ. John entered
upon his ministry to prepare in the desert of
Israel a highway for Christ. In discharging
this duty he made no attempt to conceal his
personal convictions regarding life. By
choice and training John was an ascetic ; and,
while fulfilling his mission, he practised his
asceticism openly; a leathern girdle about
his loins, and his meat locusts and wild
honey. But he did not seek to commit
Christ to his asceticism and Christ was not,
in fact, committed to it. " The Son of Man
came eating and drinking." * John's function
was to prepare the public mind for Christ, to
direct the public mind to Christ and then to
let Christ mould the public mind as He
would. When John had said "Behold the
Lamb of God " 2 so distinctly that men under
stood and saw and followed Christ, John's
'Matt. II : 19. sJohn I: 29.

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 39
work had fulfilled itself. Henceforth he said :
" He must increase, I must decrease." 1
Such is the relation of denominational
missions to the Christianization of the world.
They are the forerunners of Christ and only
that. They do not renounce their personal
convictions in theology and churchmanship ;
they speak in the terms, and work through
the forms, which tradition or choice have
made severally their own. But their function
in the East rests not in the terms of a theol
ogy which may be meaningless for Eastern
minds, nor in forms of worship which may or
may not satisfy the Oriental sense of devo
tion — their function is to clear through the
jungle a highway for the Prince of Peace ; to
point bewildered seekers to the Lamb of
God ; to win disciples to the Heavenly
Master ; to bind them to Him in the sacra
mental bond ; to teach them to understand
and love His words — and then to let Christ
evolve His own disciples throughout the
East and build up His own Church in the
Orient, in doctrine and worship, as He will.
' John 3 : 30.

40 THE CHURCH AND THE
For a moment this may seem to be a revo
lutionary position, the effect of which, should
it prevail, would mean confusion in the East
and a relapse into superstition. But reflec
tion will show that what is advocated is that
which for every Anglo-Saxon is most pre
cious : liberty of mind and conscience in doc
trine and worship. There was a time (never
let it be forgotten) when England and Scot
land, the lands of our forefathers, were igno
rant of Christ ; when our ancestors were mem
bers of the non-Christianized world. The
charming chronicles of Montalembert tell us
of those Monks of the West who came with
the message to us — uttering it in the terms
of their own theology and representing it
under the forms of their own Roman worship
— and earlier than they may have been those
Culdee evangelists who brought Greek litur
gies and Greek theologies through France to
Ireland, and through Ireland into the fast
nesses of the Scottish highlands. For us,
through our forefathers, these were the men
who said " Behold the Lamb of God." These
were the men who planted in our Aryan life

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 41
a faith that came to the world through
Semitic channels and in the garb of Oriental
personality. We felt not bound to accept
their theology, or to practice their liturgy.
Receiving the essence through them — and
through them attaining Christian self- con
sciousness, we reserved our freedom touching
all beside. Christ, by His Spirit, has formed
us — giving us the knowledge and experience
of Himself. In Him is our only unity, for in
theology and churchmanship we have fol
lowed many paths, in the exercise of personal
liberty. The time has come — or, if it be not here is
not far distant, when the East, in its most
advanced nations and communities is begin
ning to attain Christian self-consciousness,
through the lives of many leading members
of these races who now represent the second
and third generations of Christians. I have
met in the East native Christians as ma
ture and balanced in the spiritual life as
any whom I have known in the West, and I
have met many persons of high intelligence,
outside of Christianity, familiar with Christian

42 THE CHURCH AND THE
thought. This fact introduces a new era in
the Christianization of the world — and opens
new questions for consideration by the
churches of the West. Hitherto the single
end has been primary evangelization — the
introduction to Eastern nations of the ele
mentary Christian ideas. In the less ad
vanced nations and communities this must
for a long time continue to be the urgent
work. And for all such work sectarian mis
sions are available, and Western theologies
and polities offer no hindrance to effective
service. But we must face the fact that the East,
from whom Christ so long has been veiled,
now begins to see Him, and, seeing Him,
begins to claim her right to be developed in
Christian self-consciousness and Christian
self-expression, without theological or eccle
siastical dictation from the West. This fact
appears in relative degrees of distinctness in
the various communities of the East; pre
eminently in Japan, the most advanced and
most open-minded of them all. The most
open-minded and statesmanlike of our mis-

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 43
sionaries perceive the fact, welcome it, and
anticipate its results. These are the words
of Dr. Pettie of Okayama : " The present is
a period of change and recasting. Just what
form our mission work will assume in days
to come it were rash to prophesy, but that
great changes are about taking place and
that we have reached an end of what may be
termed the first full period of foreign mission
ary service for Japan is, in varying degrees, the
conviction of a large number of our mission
circle. Foreign help will be needed and wel
comed for many years to come. The per
sonal service of strong character, resolute
conviction, and loving ministration will still
find a place here as elsewhere, but the old-
time idea of foreign missionary service, with
extra-territorial jurisdiction, accountability to
foreign boards and the insistance on foreign
methods of thought and activity will prove
less and less acceptable and profitable."
There is reason to believe that this view is
not at present entertained by all missionaries
abroad nor by all missionary organizations at
home. There are those, at home and abroad,

44 THE CHURCH AND THE
whose only conception of the Christianization
of the world implies the organizing of the
religious life of the East upon western plat
forms of theology and within western lines of
polity ; whose only outlook for the future is
to keep the East as a child under religious
and ecclesiastical tutors and governors sent
out from England and America, which are
assumed to be the territorial seat of authority
in religion. For a short time to come, in the
most mature religious communities of the
East, and for a longer period in regions less
mature, this policy of western control may
continue and may be tolerated. But its in
definite continuance is not a matter of choice
with the missionary organizations of the
West. The inherent vitality of the Chris
tianized element in Oriental life will assert
itself and will determine for itself its theology,
its worship and its mode of government;
even as, in time past in the West, when the
exotic plant of Christianity, introduced from
the East, had rooted itself in the life and
acclimated itself to the mental atmosphere of
Teutonic and Anglo-Saxon races, it brought

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 45
forth its appropriate fruitage of dogmatic
and liturgical institutions. The time draws
near when the West no longer may dictate
terms of conformity to the religious thinking
of Japan and India. The gradual super
session of missions by indigenous Christianity
in the chief centres of thought will occur.
The future of missions in countries that have
attained religious self-consciousness must
more and more take on the aspects of a
cooperating, rather than controlling, force.
And if, in centres of power, this modification
of policy is resisted, the East increasingly
will withdraw herself from mission organi
zations and pursue independently her course
of religious self-development. Instead of
resenting this we should rejoice in it, and do
all in our power to foster it as the verification
of Oriental religious experience, and the seal
of God upon the labours of our missionaries.
Does not a wise father rejoice, if he sees his
son, to whom he imparted the primary
counsels of life, attaining self-knowledge and
self-dependence and the courage of the
initiative ? Would he wish to keep that boy

46 THE CHURCH AND THE
always a mere reflector of his own thought ?
Does he not rejoice to see the boy thinking
for himself and living his way into his own
life ? And shall we not rejoice if, one by one,
communities of the East shall attain Christian
self-consciousness and meet their own ques
tions in their own way? Does it not prove
that the seed planted was a living seed and
not the mere husk of foreign dogma and
foreign sectarianism? I believe that the
larger East, with its enormous expanse and
population, never shall be Christianized
through the immediate agency of western
denominational missions. Out of the in
fluences thus set in motion, out of the ground
thus prepared, must spring leaders in the
native community, bound to it by the tie of
ancestral connection and able to speak to it
as no western voice, nor even the wisest and
the tenderest, ever has spoken, or ever can
speak. These thoughts are but part of a system of
thinking that affects every question connected
with our religion at home as well as abroad.
Whatever legitimately works for the mini-

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 47
mizing of sectarianism, works for a clearer
conception of the common essence of Chris
tian truth, and the common centre of Chris
tian life — Jesus Christ and Him crucified.
Solicitude to make much of sectarian dis
tinctions often springs from a sincere dread
that' unless these distinctions be emphasized
the truth may suffer by impairment. But if
the signs of the present time at home and
abroad may be trusted, less and less shall
there be of this solicitude. We shall come to
see that wherever the common essence con
sciously is shared, the individualistic inter
pretations of that essence subordinate them
selves into mere psychological conveniences,
good for those who use them respectively,
but without universal validity or universal
authority. Hence the value and meaning of
institutions where the essence is viewed apart
from any and all sectarian interpretations,
where equal hospitality is given to all sec
tarian interpretations and to all modes of
ecclesiastical procedure. In proportion as
every such institution has wisdom and in
fluence it becomes a point of departure,

48 THE CHURCH AND THE
whence, as from an inn at the mountain's
base, a path strikes upward through the
jungles of the foothills, to the broad, clear
reaches of the upper levels, where one sees,
as in the unity of a landscape, the world-rela
tions of truth as it is in Jesus Christ.
It is from this higher point of view that I
have attempted to speak of that which must
be an object of holy hope and desire to every
true Christian — the Christianization of the
world. I have sought to show that that
phrase implies something other and more sim
ple than the competition of Western sects to
reproduce themselves in the East. It implies
something that carries the mind far beyond that
desirable advance in missionary polity known
as interdenominational comity, which means
to substitute for competition the partitioning
of the East into denominational spheres of
influence, after the example of the powers of
Europe in China and in Africa. This is not the
Christianization of the world. This is the oc
cupation of the East by the religious organi
zations of the West as a preliminary and
temporary measure. The words of our

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 49
theme challenge us to measure up to the
cosmopolitanism of Christ, for whom there
were no sects, no ecclesiastical polities, no
dogmatic systems — only a world to be
brought to Him, and He, the Living Truth,
to be brought to that world : a world groan
ing and travailing, wandering and groping,
searching, and, in a million idol temples,
praying for the knowledge of God. " I am
the Light of the world. He that hath seen
Me hath seen the Father. He that followeth
Me shall not walk in darkness but shall have
the light of life. ... Ye, My Church,
shall be My witnesses unto the uttermost part
of the earth." l
If we are prepared to take this position,
then the Christianization of the Orient, which
would complete the Christianization of the
world, becomes a thought that kindles with
brilliant and prophetic suggestions. It sug
gests the consummation of the hopes and
yearnings of the non-Christian faiths through
the absolute revelation of God in Christ Jesus.
It suggests the development of an Oriental
1 Cf. John 8: 12; John 14 : 9 ; Acts 1 : 8.

50 THE CHURCH AND THE
type of Christianity wherein the common
essence shall localize itself in terms of
thought and modes of practice adapted to the
Eastern conception of life. It suggests a
more complete and full orbed interpretation
of Christianity for the world, when the East
shall supplement and fulfill the West by con
tributing truth seen from her point of view ;
mediated through her experience.
When one stands in the heart of the vener
able East ; feels the atmosphere charged with
religious impulse ; reads on the faces of the
people marks of the unsatisfied soul ; con
siders the monumental expressions of the re
ligious idea in grand and enduring architec
tural forms, then the suggestion that all this
means nothing — that it bears no witness to
the Divine in man seeking and finding a
partial and inadequate self-fulfillment — that it
is but to be stamped out and exterminated
before Christianity can rise upon its ruins —
becomes an unthinkable suggestion. I look
with reverence upon the hopes and yearnings
of non-Christian faiths, believing them to
contain flickering and broken lights of God,

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 51
which shall be purged and purified and con
summated through the absolute self-revela
tion of the Father in Christ Incarnate. With
him whose provincialism was chastened by
the vision let down from heaven I believe
that God is no respecter of persons,1 that in
every nation he that feareth Him and work-
eth righteousness is acceptable to Him ; and
that in the company of His saints are many
who have been cleansed in the Blood of
Christ's Cross and prepared for the vision of
Christ's face by grace that led them in a way
that they knew not, through the shadows of
an ethnic faith. The Christianization of the
world suggests, then, the conservation of all
that is true in the non-Christian faiths and
its purgation, reconstruction and consumma
tion in the fullness that is in Christ Jesus.
The Christianization of the world suggests
also the development of an Oriental type of
Christianity, wherein the common essence
shall localize itself in terms of thought and
modes of practice adapted to the Eastern con
ception of life. The evolutionary changes of
1 Cf. Acts 10 : 34, 35.

52 THE CHURCH AND THE
theological opinion in the West, taking place
at intervals through the last four hundred
years, and the lack of ecclesiastical agree
ment, must admonish us against supposing
that we can, or that we should, impose upon
the East our variable theological tests or our
complicated ecclesiastical requirements. The
preliminary introduction of the Christian
essence we could indeed accomplish under
our sectarian forms ; but the living seed,
once rooted and germinated, we must com
mit to the culture of the Spirit. The East
must evolve her own theological standards
as the West has done, assimilating those of
the West if she will, but not having them
laid upon her by authority. And nothing is
more certain than that the common essence
of Christianity lends itself to expression in
the terms of the East. Our Lord Himself
was an Oriental, and no imagination can
picture Him, without violence to the sense of
truth, except in the garb and manner of the
East. Christianity would have overspread
the East ere now had it not been forced upon
the East in unwelcome identification with

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 53
the manners and customs and temperaments
and dogmas and military governments of an
alien and inexplicable West.
Finally, the Christianization of the world
suggests a more complete and full-orbed in
terpretation of Christianity for the world,
when the East shall supplement and fulfill
the West by contributing truth seen from
her point of view ; mediated through her ex
perience. Much could I say of the possibili
ties opened by this thought, but all that I
would say at this point may be indicated in
words that I uttered two years ago in the im
perial city of Tokyo, and which I had spoken
many times previously in the presence of
thousands of Hindu, Mohammedan and Bud
dhist university-students in every quarter of
India, from Madras to the Panjab. I rejoice
to repeat the words once more in this Chris
tian audience of the West.
"When I permit myself to contemplate the
blessing that would come to the Western
World if the great, religious East were to
become the teacher and the interpreter of
the religion of Jesus Christ, my heart burns

54 THE CHURCH AND THE
within me. Again and again, in the course
of these Lectures, I have reiterated my con
viction that the Christianity of the West has
been in many ways an inadequate and im
perfect illustration of the uncorrupted essence
of the faith of Christ. It is not to us that
the East should look for an example of what
the power of Christ can effect in the redeem
ing and sanctifying of nations. All that the
West has of moral strength and social purity
and spiritual power it owes to Jesus Christ.
But evil is mingled with its good and dark
ness with its light. Not to us, but to Him,
shall the far-seeing eyes of the East look,
when the educated circles of the Orient are
prepared seriously to consider the relation of
Christianity to the future of the world. Not
from us, but from Him, and from His Holy
Scriptures of truth, shall the deep spiritual
insight of the East receive the revelation that
shall be incorporated with her own traditions
and assimilated into her own institutions.
" In the day when the vigour of the West
and the insight of the East shall be joined
by a true union of hearts for the interpreta-

CHRISTIANIZATION OF THE WORLD 55
tion and practice of the faith of Jesus Christ,
then, and not till then, shall the Unspeakable
Gift of God, be understood, appreciated and
expressed on earth." 1
1 Christian Belief Interpreted by Christian Experience ;
Barrow's Lectures, pp. 246, 247, Chicago and London, 1905.

LECTURE II
THE BEARING OF SECTARIAN
MOVEMENTS UPON THE CHRIS-
' TIANIZATION OF THE WORLD

LECTURE II
THE BEARING OF SECTARIAN
MOVEMENTS UPON THE CHRIS
TIANIZATION OF THE WORLD
TO the observer of world-movements
in the light of contemporary relig
ion, aspects of extraordinary interest
appear in the present ecclesiastical situation.
Certain of these aspects are the following:
alleged decline in the number of suitable
candidates for the ministry ; growing repug
nance, on the part of ministers and laymen,
to old forms of denominational subscription ;
criticism of the Church for inefficiency and
lack of vision ; movements of life and love
developing outside of the Church. The im
portance of these phenomena cannot be de
nied. They challenge attention and invite
explanation. It is possible to consider them
judicially ; without hostility and also without
favour. Apparently the Protestant Church
in this country, at the present time, is unable
59

60 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
to attract to her ministry an adequate supply
of men of the highest order. Some are com
ing ; more, in certain quarters, are being at
tracted than came ten years ago. But, con
sidering the number of men of unusual
promise now being educated in American
universities and colleges, the proportion of
those undertaking the Christian ministry is
sub-normal. Apparently, also, in the circle
of the educated laity and of the ministry, is
spreading a feeling of repugnance towards
historic forms of denominational subscription ;
this feeling frequently coincides with piety
and usefulness and with desire to preserve
the integrity of the Apostolic deposit. Criti
cism of the Church increases ; from within
more than from without. Her foes are of her
own household. They accuse the Church of
blindness in the presence of opportunity ; of
slowness of heart to discern the signs of the
times ; of sins of the letter against the spirit ;
of sterile conformity to obsolete conditions.
Meantime, movements of life and love abound,
non-ecclesiastical ; extra-ecclesiastical ; move
ments that ask no permission to be, that offer

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 6l
homage to no authority but Christ, that in
terest many who once worked for and within
the Church. It is one thing to observe these
phenomena. It is another to interpret them
with precision. Some, pronouncing upon
these phenomena, without having regard to
their evolutionary bearing, affirm that the de
cline in the number of suitable candidates for
the ministry means the passing of the minis
try from its ancient seat of authority in moral
and religious development ; that the lay and
ministerial repugnance to denominational
subscription means the passing of the credal
function in favour of a non-theological relig
ion of the Spirit; that the dissatisfaction
within the Church means the passing of the
ecclesiastical idea as an outworn and out
grown conception, which, henceforth, must
give place to spontaneous forces of righteous
ness, disburdened of clerical tradition.
To those who look below the surface, and
consider the evolutionary elements active
from the beginning in the Christian religion,
these disturbing aspects of the present time
do not portend the decay of the ministry, the

62 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
dissolution of the rule of faith, the superan
nuation of the Church. They point rather to
an imperative and as yet dimly appre
hended need of large readjustments in relig
ious and ecclesiastical thinking; readjust
ments which, if they be made generally and
generously, will bring an apostolic zest into
modern Christianity, and reclothe the Church
with the strength and love of the first days.
It is the function of the present Lectures to
deal somewhat with these readjustments ;
discerning their nature, estimating their
power. This estimate is undertaken in a
spirit absolved from all radical bias and
revolutionary tendency ; a spirit of humility,
of reverence for the Church as an historic
entity born in the mind of Christ, sealed with
the Blood of His Sacrifice, endued with gifts
of ministry, fortified by the communion of the
Holy Ghost.
For those who revere and love the Church
it is profitable to remember that its history is
the history of a series of reinterpretations of
an idea which in its absolute perfection ex
isted only in the thought and purpose of

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 63
Christ. Christ's conception of the Church
was the perfect conception. Every success
ive reinterpretation of His idea has been,
under the necessity of the case, more or less
limited and imperfect by reason of man's in
firmity and lack of vision. And because the
reinterpretations of the idea have been more
or less imperfect they have been more or less
transitory, more or less local, more or less
tending to spend their force and give place
to other reinterpretations larger, more ade
quate, more commensurate with the idea in
the mind of the Founder.
One does not forget that modern criticism
has raised the question whether there was in
the mind of our Lord the intention to found
a church. It has been contended that Christ
wrought for individuals, that He related
Himself to men as separate persons ; that
He placed Himself at the head of no organi
zation ; that the Church emerged from the
age subsequent to Christ, and from other
conditions, the most prominent of which was
His absence. Much may be said in support
of this contention. The ministry of our Lord

64 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
was signally a ministry to persons. He saw
and proclaimed the value of personal life.
" What shall a man be profited if he shall gain
the whole world and forfeit his life ? Or what
shall a man give in exchange for his life ? " '
The blind, the demoniac, the poor, the per
plexed, the inquiring, the child, even the
dead meant much to Him, and upon each He
gave forth the fullness of His power, wisdom
and love. His Sacrifice upon the Cross,
while by His own statement a giving of His
life for the life of the world, was instantly ap
prehended by Christian experience as per
sonal in its significance. That greatest of
churchmen, St. Paul, with his passion for or
ganization, sees the personal bearing of the
Lord's Death and says : " The Son of God
who loved me and gave Himself up for me."2
Nor can anything be more evident than that
the mind and word of the Lord Jesus sug
gest nothing of the subsequent develop
ments of the Church along certain prominent
lines. One looks in vain to Christ for the
foreshadowing of Catholic supremacy with its
1 Matt. 16 : 26. s Gal. 2 : 20.

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 65
temporal power and its sacerdotal authority.
Equally in vain does one look to Christ for
the justification of sectarian rivalries and per
secutions. In these things He had no inter
est ; they were foreign to His spirit ; they
entered not into His world-view. We must
fear that numberless acts of the Church merit
only rebuke and condemnation from Him in
whose name, as the Founder of the Church,
those acts were done.
Yet He was the Founder of the Church.
The idea of the Christian Church and of its
function in the world was born in the soul
of the Son of God. When Israel, the Mes
sianic nation, failed to rise at His bidding, He
entered upon His ministry in the power of
the Eternal Spirit with one magnificent end
in view, to accomplish the Father's will on
earth as it is in heaven: to bring in the
Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God
was to be the kingdom of heaven on earth ;
the reconstruction of the world according to
the eternal purpose of the Father ; the trans
formation of human life in its motives, prac
tices, and relationships ; the overthrow of in-

66 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
iquity ; the defeat of untruth ; the curing of
abuses ; the recovery of sight to the blind, the
opening of the prison doors of ignorance,
fear, sin, shame ; the ethical and social eman
cipation of the entire family of man. As the
Messiah of prophecy He came, in the fullness
of time, to Israel the chosen servant-nation
of Jehovah. With the word of the kingdom
on His lips, with the fire of Messianic expec
tation in His heart, He summoned the Mes
sianic nation to its world-service for the
Kingdom of God's sake, and His summons
fell unheeded to the ground. " He came unto
His own and they that were His own received
Him not. But as many as received Him, to
them gave He the right to become children of
God, even to them that believe on His name,
which were born not of blood (kinship in the
blood of Israel was not necessary for this new
sonship) nor of the will of the flesh, nor of
the will of man, but of God."1 There was
the nucleus of the Christian Church. It was
made up of as many as received Him, of as
many as discerned in Him the Christ, the
John 1 : 11-13.

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 67
Anointed One, the Messiah, the Saviour of
the world. The nation as a nation answered
not His call. So, out from the nation He
gathered a group of kindred spirits, unified
by their common discernment of His Mes-
siahship ; and on the fact of their common
discernment of His Messiahship, as on a
rock, He built His Church, the instrument by
which, as the ages advance He is achieving
the purpose of His Advent, the redemption of
the world from its long alienation, to the
righteousness, the peace, the joy of the King
dom of God. To that Church He gave no
organization at first. He gave what was
better than organization ; He gave Himself.
He admitted that group into the confidence
of His soul ; He imparted to it His ideals ;
He infused it with His spirit ; He introduced
it into the fellowship of His sufferings ; at
last in the supreme act of obedience to the
will of the Father, obedience unto death,
even the death of the Cross, He "purchased"
the Church (to use the words of one after
wards admitted to the Apostolic nucleus),
He identified it with Himself and with the

68 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
ideals of the Kingdom of God, He made it
His own, " with His own precious Blood." 1
So long as the daily companionship with
the adorable Master continued, there was
little corporate self-consciousness in the
apostolic nucleus. Its members realized
themselves chiefly not as parts of a Church
having life and entity in itself, but as dis
ciples and friends of Christ. The first dis
tinct intimations of an organic relationship
among themselves, to continue and per
petuate itself when the central Presence was
withdrawn, came in the memorable hours
preceding the arrest and trial of the Master.
Not until after the Resurrection were those
intimations fully understood. The last words
before the Ascension were definite. Tenta
tively they had asked if the Messianic nation
was, even now, at the eleventh hour, to be
accepted as the instrument whereby the King
dom of God shall be brought in upon earth :
" Wilt Thou at this time restore again the
kingdom to Israel ? " Gravely He turns the
question aside : " It is not for you to know,"
1 Cf. Acts 20 : 28.

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 69
and plainly imposes on His Church the
Messianic mission forfeited by Israel : " Ye
shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem
(the citadel of Judaism) and in all Judaea and
Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the
earth." 1 " I send forth the promise of My
Father upon you."2 Knit together by the
solemnity of their present situation, con
firmed in the sense of corporate life and
function by the unparalleled spiritual ex
perience of the day of Pentecost, the apos
tolic nucleus attained self-realization as the
Church of the Christos, the Anointed One,
the Messiah ; as the chosen witness of the
Risen Lord ; as the evangelist of the king
dom of God unto all the nations.
Life, within that organized circle, began
in simplicity. To outward appearance the
Church of the Anointed One was but an un
assuming sect of mystics hidden beneath the
imposing structure of Jewish ecclesiasticism.
Seriousness and the vital fear of God brooded
on every soul; love, born of common ex
periences and hopes, brought unwonted unity.
» Cf. Acts 1 : 6, 7, 8. 9 Luke 24 : 29.

70 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
"All that believed were together and had all
things common."1 "And, day by day, con
tinuing steadfastly with one accord in the
temple and breaking bread at home, they
did take their food with gladness and single
ness of heart, praising God, and having
favour with all the people." 2
It was not long before the expansive
principle within the Church of Christ as
serted itself. The hidden sect emerged.
The differentia of Christianity began to ap
pear. The new order proceeded to extricate
itself from the old. One memorandum of
splendid brevity interprets the situation : " The
word of God increased ; and the number of the
disciples multiplied in Jerusalem exceedingly ;
and a great company of the priests were obe
dient to the faith." 3 The necessity for organ
ization demonstrated itself to the apostles
even before St. Paul, the great churchman, laid
his hand upon the helm ; it commended itself
to the whole multitude of believers as rational
and in accord with the mind of Christ. The
appointment of the deacons, the distribution
1 Acts 2 : 44. ¦' Acts 2 : 46, 47. 3 Acts 6 : 7.

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 7 1
of functions, that neither the preaching of the
word nor the ordering of affairs should be
neglected, was the first attempt at reinterpre-
tation of the idea of the Church as it lay in
the mind of Him who, as preacher, " spake
as never man spake " ; l as minister of affairs,
" went about doing good." 2
When the statesmanlike genius of St. Paul
was consecrated and placed at Christ's dis
posal, another reinterpretation of the idea of
the Church transpired. It occurred as the
necessary correlate of St. Paul's world- view.
St. Paul, by birth and training a Hebrew of
the Hebrews, a Pharisee, a liturgist, a zealot,
was by temperament and outlook a citizen of
the world. Never was he disloyal to his own
nation. His heart's desire and prayer to
God for Israel was that they might be saved.3
Nevertheless the precincts of the temple were
too strait for him. The tithing of mint and
anise and cumin were matters of no more
weight to him than to his Master. The cos
mopolitan spirit speaks in his words at
1 Cf. John 7 : 47. 2 Cf. Acts 10 : 38.
» Ct. Acts 10 : I.

72 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
Antioch : " Lo ! we turn to the Gentiles I " '
It was cosmopolitanism refined by the
Messianic tenderness of the Lord Jesus.
The travail and groaning of creation smote
upon Paul's soul ; the sorrow, disorder, wick
edness of the world afflicted him as with the
fellowship of Christ's sufferings ; the sal
vation of men became his passion ; he would
become all things to all men, if by any means
he might save some. He received his call
ing and ordination in terms that exactly cor
responded with his temperament. " He is a
chosen vessel unto Me ; " (so is it said in the
vision of Ananias,) " To bear My name be
fore the Gentiles and kings and the children
of Israel."2 Never was leader more evi
dently chosen for a task in view. No longer
was the Church to hide like an esoteric sect
in the shadow of the temple. " Fair as the
moon, clear as the sun, terrible as an army
with banners," it was to advance into the
world as the herald of the Kingdom of God.
St. Paul was its providential leader ; the most
cosmopolitan of churchmen. His policy of
¦Acts 13:46. a Acts 9: 15.

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 73
administration, wrought out in the com
munion of the Spirit, related itself in majestic
simplicity to the work to be done. That
work was the Christianization of the world.
In the mind of St. Paul this work might best
be done through an undivided Church for
ever expanding its sphere of influence, and
always continuing under the direction and
oversight of a central authority. " One
Lord ; one faith ; one baptism." 1 Not as one
claiming papal jurisdiction, but as one ac
cepting a God-given burden he undertook
the care of all the Churches. Absolutely
without the secular ambitions and imperial
istic hauteur of the popes, a penitent to the
last, judging himself to be the chief of sinners,
nevertheless in his sense of vocation to lead
and govern an undivided Church he esteemed
himself a very vicar of Christ, speaking the
wisdom of God in a mystery. To him, fore
casting the Church's future, there were two
evils to be guarded against : the evil of sec
tarian movements, the evil of theological
Variation from a rule of faith. Sectarian
»Cf. Eph. 4:5.

74 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
movements seemed to him wounds inflicted
on the body of Christ. He pleaded against
them : " I beseech you, brethren, through the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all
speak the same thing and that there be no
divisions among you ; but that ye be per
fected together in the same mind and in the
same judgment. For it hath been signified
unto me concerning you, my brethren, that
there are contentions among you. Now this
I mean that each one of you saith, I am of
Paul ; and I of Apollos ; and I of Cephas ; and
I of Christ. Is Christ divided ? Was Paul
crucified for you ? Or were ye baptized in
the name of Paul ? " 1 He felt that sectarian
movements were incompatible with the ideal
of a Church as he conceived it. He spoke of
himself as a wise masterbuilder 2 who, by the
grace of God given unto him had laid a
foundation on which others were to build.
To introduce sectarian elements into the
Church was to introduce material as alien
and as base as wood, hay or stubble into the
holy structure, a course which must not only
1 I Cor. 1 : 10-13. s I Cor. 3 : 10.

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 75
mar its homogeneous beauty, but eventuate
in the destruction of the temple of God.
Not less grievous, in his judgment, was
the evil of theological variation from a rule
of faith. He esteemed himself the depositary
of a God-given message. " I make known
to you, as touching the gospel which was
preached by me, that it is not after man.
For neither did I receive it from man, nor
was I taught it, but it came to me through
revelation of Jesus Christ." 1
With such a view of the source of his own
authority, it is no surprise to hear his pas
sionate protest against theological variation :
" I marvel that ye are so quickly removing
from Him that called you in the grace of
Christ unto a different gospel; which is not
another gospel ; only there are some that
trouble you and would pervert the gospel of
Christ. But though we, or an angel from
heaven, should preach unto you any gospel
other than that which we preached unto you,
let him be anathema." a
The historical significance of these convic-
iGal. 1: 11. "Gal. I: 6-8

76 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
tions of the great churchman, Paul, is very
striking. They appear to contain the germs
of the Catholic movement. They represent
ecclesiastical and theological uniformity as
the necessary qualification of the Church of
Christ, in view of her appointment as cus
todian of the faith and witness to the Resur
rection of the Son of God. For an unpreju
diced mind it is not difficult to admit the
reasonableness of the claim that apostolic
sanction rests on the Catholic conception of
the Church. Strictly homogeneous in polity ;
organized and administered from a central
seat of power; professing and teaching a
system of doctrine determined by authority,
the imprimatur of the' apostolate might, not
without reason, when the brief period of the
undivided Church ended, be claimed by those
who ruled respectively as the vicegerents of
God, from Rome, in the interest of ecclesi
astical catholicity, from Constantinople, in
the interest of the catholicity of theological
belief. The sense of historic justice should prevent
the most ardent Protestant from denying the

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 77
connection between the Catholic movement
and certain ideals of the Apostolic Age,
especially the opposition to sectarianism and
to theological individualism. The Catholic
reinterpretation of the idea of the Church,
though it presents aspects of secular ambi
tion and of magisterial severity that seem
alien to the mind of Christ, does represent in
certain particulars the expansion and con
tinuance of Pauline convictions enshrined in
these majestic symbols of uniformity : " One
Lord, one Faith, one Baptism." " One Body
in Christ." J Nor should our love of the liberty
of Protestantism make us blind to the place
and function of Catholicism in the providen
tial order of the evolution of Christianity.
Humanly speaking there was no other way
by which to safeguard the interests at stake
during the ages of ignorance. The central
ization of power under a monarchical epis
copate, the military precision of organization,
the enforcement of theological uniformity by
external authority were bound, it may be, to
generate abuses and to foster harmful beliefs;
' Cf. Eph. 4:5; Rom. 12:5.

78 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
yet, with the evil good was mixed, with the
chaff the seed of faith, until the fullness of
the time came when the Christian truth, origi
nally intended for popular use, could be re
committed to the hands of the people. As
we look back on that momentous recommit
ment of truth to its rightful possessors, which
we are accustomed to call the Protestant
Reformation, we see the inevitableness of
sectarian movements. Ecclesiastical and
theological variations became a psycho
logical necessity under the intellectual con
ditions that produced the Reformation. It
was not the sin of schism, the vice of sec
tarianism, that developed with the unlocking
of the imprisoned intellectuality of Europe ;
it was the next great reinterpretation of the
Divine idea of a living Church, worked out
amidst conditions of mental self-realization.
During the ages of ignorance the mind of
Europe slumbered. Submission to authority
in matters of theological belief was normal,
and doubtless salutary. It was better to
have beliefs defined and imposed by the
educated few than to entrust the apostolic

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 79
deposit to chaotic illiteracy. But the found
ing of universities, the multiplying of books
and their readers, the stirrings of the scien
tific spirit, brought nearer with each sunrise
the hour when men must think their way out
upon the long meridians of the Christian
data, and, so thinking, must differ and sepa
rate, borne hither and thither by the breath
ings of the One Spirit, the Wind of God
blowing where it lists, unfettered and inscru
table in its coming and its going. As the
Protestant reinterpretation of the Church
developed, the sectarian distinctions became
more pronounced ; they took on organized
life ; they developed histories and literatures
of their own ; they arrayed themselves against
each other. Naturally, to those esteeming
Catholicity to be the final note of a true
Church, whether it were the Greek Catholicity
of dogmatic orthodoxy or the Roman Cath
olicity of governmental control, the sectarian
differentia of Protestantism were equivalent
to apostasy. It was impossible, and to-day
it is impossible, for minds inheriting a certain
temperament and tradition to conceive of

80 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
the widening of faith, of the flexibility of
modes of its expression, of discrimination
between the inward essence of a religious
fact and the outward terms of its official
definition, as matters consistent with the
tenure of the truth, much less as matters to
be desired. Newman, in his Apologia de
clares (p. 49): "From the age of fifteen,
dogma has been the fundamental principle
of my religion ; I know no other religion ; I
cannot enter into the idea of any other sort
of religion ; religion, as a mere sentiment, is
a dream and a mockery." From his point
of view dogma stood for the interpretation of
truth by authority, as final. To minds so
constituted, the liberty and variety of relig
ious thinking within the Protestant com
munion, and, much more, the sectarian oppo
sitions, present a stupefying contrast to the
serene current of authorized belief flowing
from a central fountain. Such minds are
not found only in Catholic and Anglo-Cath-
olic circles ; they appear also in the dissent
ing sects and are burdened by what seems
to them the unmitigated evil of sectarianism.

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WOULD 8 1
Apparently what they desire is uniformity
upon the basis of their own sect — which
simply means a new Catholicism. Not in
frequently one hears, from sectarian pulpits,
the deprecation of sectarianism as wholly
deplorable if not wholly sinful, together with
the advocacy of a union of believers under
what is found, ultimately, to be the banner
of a single party.
We have reached a point in the evolution
of Christianity where we can realize the benefi
cence of sectarian movements as well as
their limitations. Looking backward to the
Reformation, and considering it as the intel
lectual rebirth of religious thinking, one points
readily to five results of Protestant independ
ency which, as correctives of Catholic weak
nesses and perils, more than counterbalance
all the regrettable elements of sectarianism.
The liberalization of religious thinking ; the
distribution of authority; the counteraction
of erroneous accent ; the humanizing of Chris
tianity ; the indirect testimony to the uni
versal are blessings that we owe to the
divisive forces at work in Protestantism;

82 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
forces which by the Catholic are grouped
under the name of apostasy, and by many a
Protestant deplored as the rending of the
body of Christ. The liberalization of relig
ious thinking is a practical synonym for the
survival of Christian experience. Fidelity to
truth as one sees it is the first law of this sur
vival. When the Catholic movement under
took to define the data of Christian truth and
to delimit the frontiers of Christian belief it
undertook that which, apparently easy at
first, and apparently permanent for a time,
was bound at length to challenge the intel
lectual ethics of mankind. It is easy to con
struct the form of a dogma to be published
by authority. It is curiously interesting to
note upon what small, incidental action of
individuals may depend the form of a dogma ;
upon the presence or absence of some per
son ; upon the numerical chances of a vote ;
upon the current phraseology of the day.
The dogma once framed and promulgated,
time, which makes the angles of architecture
glorious and venerable with masses of ivy,
invests the statement, framed, it may be, by

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 83
the chances of a vote, with an atmosphere of
positiveness or finality, which, so long as in
tellectual conditions remain passive, presents
the appearance of absolute truth. But time,
which glorifies architecture, also undermines
it. For time is a force made up of changes,
searching changes of atmosphere ; rains that
eat into crevices, winds that blow the dust of
disintegration away, frosts that heave block
from block. And time brings intellectual
rebirth, as spring after winter; intellectual
vision, as day after night ; intellectual self-
assertion, as manhood after infancy ; and a
Christian experience that is estopped by
authority from expressing religious truth in
the terms of intellectual reality is doomed to
ethical decline. The characteristic interpre
tations of truth in the great Protestant sects,
Presbyterian, Methodist, Independent, are, in
their diversity, guarantees of the strong sur
vival of Christian experience. "By these
things men live, and in all these things is the
life of my spirit." ]
The distribution of authority is one of the
>Isa. 38: 16.

84 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
blessings of sectarianism. The ancient
dream of a Catholic Church is the dream of
a centralized authority, radiating its powers
of control upon the whole world. It is an
impressive conception. The institutional
grandeur of the Roman Church witnesses to
the impressiveness of the idea ; the ethics of
mediaeval popes and the declining influence
of the modern papacy over the intellectual
life of the world witnesses to the fictitious
nature of the idea of a central seat of human
authority in matters of religion. One only
ever trod this earth who could say: "All
power is given unto Me" x — and that One was
meek and lowly in heart, coming not to be
ministered unto but to minister and to give
His life a ransom for many. The Protestant
rejections of centralized authority in religion
were prophecies of the spirit of democracy,
which, in all life, grows with the growth of
intellectual self-realization. As the mind of
the race expands it outgrows, in religion, in
civil government, in arts and letters certain
impressions concerning the Divine rights of
lMatt. 28; 1 8.

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 85
kings, temporal or spiritual, which belong
essentially to ages of submissive ignorance.
This does not imply that respect for author
ity is inconsistent with intellectual liberty ;
but rather the reverse : the conception of
authority, of its nature, its seat, its adequate
representatives, its proper functions, advances
to a higher plane, eliminates fictitious ele
ments, minimizes the formal and the object
ive, to magnify that which is of the nature
of intellectual and moral reality ; by denying
centralized authority, it advances to a higher
and holier Catholicity.
The counteraction of erroneous accent is
another of the blessings of sectarianism. It
is common to hear deprecations, sorrowful or
scornful, of the lack of theological consensus
in Protestantism. Such opinions overlook
the fact that this lack of consensus represents
the salvation of religious thinking from dis
astrous specialization. Whatever merits
may attach to the Catholic conception of a
churchly rule of faith, are balanced by the
inability of such a rule to do justice to the
whole truth of a world-wide religion. In our

86 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
larger thinking concerning the Church of
Christ as an institution for the Christianiza
tion of the world, Catholicism itself shrinks
to the proportions of a sect, that properly ac
centuates such things as, to it, appear of pri
mary value, but overlooks or denies other
things, which, to minds differently consti
tuted, are the major interests of Christianity.
It is well for us to discriminate between the
differentia of the Christian sects, and the
common essence of the Christian religion.
Dimly we are realizing the presence of a
common essence; slowly that inestimable
common essence is disclosing its universality
before our eyes ; wonderingly we are awak
ing to the potency of that common essence
for the Christianization of the world. It is
well for us to reflect that, but for the persist
ence of diversity in the sectarian emphasis
on aspects of truth, that common essence
which is to be the light of the world might
have remained buried under the abnormal
deposit of ecclesiastical specialization.
The humanizing of Christianity is one of
the blessings of sectarianism. " Handle Me

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 87
and see," said Christ, "that it is I Myself."1
As the Sabbath was made for man and not
man for the Sabbath, so truth was given for
man to handle, to study, to assimilate, to re
incarnate under the forms of his own life and
thinking. It is truth, reincarnated and reap
pearing in the varying forms of human ex
perience, in the varying accents of human
thinking that is the real extension of the In
carnation of the Son of God; — this, rather
than the institutional authority of a Church
defining truth in certain terms and imposing
those terms upon the acceptance of the indi
vidual. And, apart from the sadness of that
human infirmity whereby we tend to malign
and to oppose what is not to our mind, it is
most wholesome that men shall differ, each
thereby being true to himself before God,
and, after the manner of his own possibilities
and necessities, so receiving Christ. It is
sad that Thomas Arnold and John Henry
Newman, both fellows of Oriel, supposed
they had little in common in their religious
experience, and spake harshly one of the
1 Luke 24 : 39.

88 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
other ; yet doubtless it was needful for the
humanity of each that each should be true
to truth as he saw it ; doubtless it was well
for England that each should accent that
which, but for the other, might have been
overlooked ; doubtless they are friends now,
seeing eye to eye in the common room of a
Greater University.
The indirect testimony to the universal is
another blessing of sectarianism. If it had
been possible for one set of men to legislate
the form and content of religious thinking in
a manner permanently adequate for all Chris
tian experience, our conception of the vast-
ness of the revelation of God in Christ would
shrink. But this never has been possible.
The successive theological reinterpretations
have borne witness to the sincerity, and often
to the insight, of those that framed them.
For those who used them they have appeared
to have a relative sufficiency. As present
ments of Christian thought, and interpreta
tions of revealed truth, they have been hon
oured of God and serviceable to man. But
their noblest quality has been, not their rela-

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 89
tive adequacy, but their absolute inadequacy ;
not their direct witness to certain aspects
impressing the minds of those who framed
them, but their indirect witness, through their
insufficiency for other minds, to the immen
sity of the scope of the manifestation to the
world, of God in Christ. Had Europe slept
in ignorance beneath the limited view of God
and His universe that prevailed in the age of
Hildebrand, and was not materially enlarged
by the Council of Trent, one might conclude
that Christianity is but an ethnic faith. But,
with the rebirth of learning and the emanci
pation of thought, came the rolling back of
clouds, the uncovering of landscapes, the
multitudinous self-fulfillments of God ; and the
students of truth awoke ; and every one had
a doctrine, a tongue, a revelation, an inter
pretation ;x and lo! the wideness of God's
mercy was as the wideness of the sea — and
the love of God was broader than the meas
ure of man's mind.
It is with deep feeling that I make these
observations upon the blessings that have
1 Cf. 1 Cor. 14 : 26.

90 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
come to the Church, and indirectiy to the
world, through the differentia of Protestant
ism. In the light of them one sees the
broader justification of what has been called
the Nonconformist conscience, the irrepressi
ble force of dissent, the psychological impos
sibility of the surrender of intellectual inde
pendence, the eagerness and heat of sectarian
championships. These things came not from
beneath ; they were not born of the spirit of
perversity ; they were not wanton disturb
ances of the peace of Christ's Church. They
were means, in the hand of the Spirit,
whereby larger life came to the body of
Christ, whereby truth was vitalized in the
thinking of individuals, and responsibility was
recommitted to the believers.
If it be true that we have reached a
point in the evolution of Christianity where
the beneficence of sectarian movements can
be apprehended, it is not less true that we
are beginning to apprehend in our time the
limitations inherent in those movements as
means for the Christianization of the world.
As one thinks of them in relation to the mind

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 9 1
of Christ an impression is left that they are
but partial fulfillments of that for which He
stands ; that they are deficient as exponents
of a world-religion. The inestimable services
rendered by them, as avenues through which
the liberty of Protestants escaped from
mediaeval authority, do not guarantee their
adequacy in view of new intellectual and re
ligious conditions apparently at hand. As
they themselves were born in the travail of a
great age of religious emancipation, so it
may be that they shall give place to some yet
more magnificent reinterpretation of the ideal
of Christ, born in the travail of the momentous
time that lies before us. This is not inher
ently impossible, nor is the possibility in any
sense one from which the lover of Christ, of
the truth and of the world should turn away.
Usage, tradition, local association, tempera
ment endear our inheritances to us, and our
denominational inheritances are to many in
expressibly dear. Yet he who thinks on
world problems with a mind exempt from
prejudice feels involuntarily the limitations
that beset the sectarian differentia of Protes-

92 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
tantism, as vehicles for the embodiment of
truth, that knows neither Jew nor Gentile,
Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but is the
common evangel of God to the common life
of the race. One reflects how many of these
sectarian differentia owe their origin to the
factitious power of remote individuals operat
ing at crucial moments in a distant past;
how the atmosphere of authority has gath
ered about them with distance; how the
inertia of denominational opinion may have
been transmitted through generations, while
the occasion for the survival of that opinion
may have passed away ; how the rivalry of
sects may exhaust the dynamic of original
convictions and persist only by the aid of
hereditary tendency.
As the result of such reflections, there ap
pears before the mind the possibility that
sectarian movements may be but a transi
tional aspect, an evolutionary phase of Chris
tianity, not a fixed, necessary, final condition.
It is at first startling to admit the hypothesis
that these systems of post-Reformation think
ing may not be final forms of Christianity ;

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 93
that, having wrought magnificently for the
vindication of Protestant liberty, they may
have their day and pass away, giving place
to a greater reinterpretation. Yet the
strangeness of the thought does not impair
its reasonableness. These sectarian systems
are relatively modern and relatively local ;
they have no special warrant of Christ to
sustain them ; many of them sprang from
episodes in European history involving no
necessary world-relation, conferring no
special world-credential. Our Western ge
nius for organization, our sectarian nomencla
ture, our responsiveness to ancestral custom
have engaged energy, pride, love on behalf
of these systems. But it may be that we
have read into them an undue importance
and have imputed to them an unauthorized
permanence. It may be that the unsatisfac
tory conditions besetting the churches at
many points to-day are prophetic of the pass
ing of our sects and the reincarnation of the
Church of the Living God in forms of fresh
adaptation to fresh and incalculable oppor
tunity. Who can doubt God's power to

94 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
sweep away our sects and reorganize accord
ing to some larger norm of life His Holy
Church I Who can question that such a re
organization, while it might displace precious
associations and disturb settled practices,
might also remove grave hindrances and for
midable embarrassments. The impasse exist
ing in England by reason of Nonconformist
resistance of parliamentary legislation in the
interest of Anglican education ; the present
arrest of development in the religious life of
Scotland by reason of technicalities in a trust
deed given sixty years ago, suggest the pos
sibility that the age of fallowness and disin
tegration has come to institutions that have
served their time and are ready to vanish
away. Assuredly the ongoing of the Spirit
and the Truth is not to be holden by parlia
mentary decisions. God may have in His
plan not the disestablishment of the Church
of England only, but that larger disestablish
ment of the whole sectarian principle which
implies reorganization on simpler lines of
service, faith and love.
With the greatest reverence I put these

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 95
thoughts into words ; they spring from no
revolutionary instinct, nor from any unseemly
resistance of the disabilities of the present.
They spring from observation of facts and
from reflection upon their import. The facts
of our time, bearing upon this question, are
very striking, whatever may be their real sig
nificance. If we eliminate professional sec
tarian agitators and examine the thinking of
the laity and of the rank and file of the
clergy, polemical sectarianism must be de
scribed as a waning interest, an expiring fire.
He who gives his energies to fanning this
fire commonly is spoken of in terms of regret,
as one misguided in his effort. The swords
that have not yet become ploughshares for
the field of truth, the spears that are not
yet bent into pruning-hooks of social helpful
ness are esteemed by many regrettable sur
vivals of a yesterday of ecclesiastical militar
ism. In circles of culture there is coming a
truer sense of proportion touching the legiti
mate functions of the Church of Jesus Christ,
in view of the charge committed to her by
her Head ; in view of the demand upon her

96 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
from the larger interests of the Kingdom of
God ; in view of the modified and momentous
condition of the world. Under the influence
of this truer sense of proportion vast numbers
of men and women are conscious of deepen
ing impatience in the presence of secondary
barriers. Undeveloped conceptions of unity
are in the air, moving freely as on the wings
of eagles, unconsciously or indifferently ig
noring formal lines of division beneath.
Meantime the advancing philosophy of re
ligion, the enriching discoveries of history
and archeology, the pressure of social prob
lems, the new cosmopolitanism, and, above
all, the constructive results of Biblical criti
cism are bringing together many of the best
minds and of the most consecrated souls
upon a platform of Christian belief and effort
incompatible with aggressive sectarianism,
and independent of denominational subdi
vision. It would be vain to estimate the ex
tent of this nucleus of unorganized sentiment
within the Church of the present day ; vain to
make a calculation of the number of those
for whom the denominational aspects of the

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 97
Church are already dim, as the outlines of a
receding coast, and on the horizon line of
whose hope is rising the image of a more
glorious and more homogeneous Church, not
having spot or wrinkle or any such thing ; a
Church of the living God, the pillar and
ground of the truth, built upon the founda
tion of the apostles and prophets, Jesus
Christ Himself being the chief Corner-stone.
The tenor of this sentiment is not revolution
ary but evolutionary ; not destructive but
constructive ; not the pulling down of noble
walls of conviction, and the upheaval of deep
foundations of belief, laid by holy hands of
Protestantism ; but the carrying up of that
building of God to heights more royal, on
lines more simple, that the glory of the latter
house may crown the former. As we cannot
estimate the extent of this unorganized senti
ment which we believe to be enormous, in
favour of a more homogeneous and simpler
Christianity, neither can we forecast the
form and manner of its development. The
present situation is perplexing, indetermi
nate, unsatisfying. Sectarianism as such

98 BEARING OF SECTARIAN MOVEMENTS
may be a waning interest, but on the other
hand the scientific theology of the present
day is by no means adequate or final, as a
substitute for scholastic theology. It sets its
accent too exclusively on Jesus the teacher,
on Jesus the idealist, not sufficiently on
Christ the Saviour, the Lamb slain from the
foundation of the world. The contributions
of the scientific theology are of value inesti
mable, but as yet their scope is too narrow,
their depth too unequal. We wait for more
— and that more must come from the field of
apostolic Christology. The larger proportion
of unorganized sentiment yearning for a re
interpretation of the Church on non-sectarian
lines can crystallize around one axis only —
the Cross of the Redeemer. Give that and
all else is given. Give that, and all are one,
in Him. This crystallizing of unorganized
sentiment into a reinterpretation of the
Church on non-sectarian lines would be, not
a new ecclesiastical unity — not a new dog
matic unity — that were but to impose a new
Catholicism, to revive the dream of an ex
ternal seat of human authority, to give the

UPON CHRISTIANIZATION OF WORLD 99
stone of death for the bread of life. The next
great reinterpretation of the Church must be
through the centralizing power of the Eternal
Truth lifted up and drawing all men unto it
self, with the vitalizing power of the Eternal
Spirit giving liberty unto every man.
Through such a Church the Christianiza
tion of the world becomes possible, if not
immediate. The witness of such a Church
would be an irresistible witness. The effect
of such a Church would be the advent and
fruition of the Kingdom of God.

LECTURE III
THE RECOVERY OF THE
APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY

LECTURE III
THE RECOVERY OF THE
APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY
THE last lecture closed with allusion
to a nucleus of unorganized senti
ment now existing in the Church,
for which the denominational aspects of
Christianity, as such, are a waning interest ;
and in which the growing hope exists of a
more homogeneous Church, yet to be : a
reinterpretation on non-sectarian lines. An
extended consideration of this sentiment is
necessary, at the present stage of the argu
ment. The existence of this sentiment is a matter
of fact, supported by various and interesting
forms of evidence. The tone of preaching is
changing. Fainter and less frequent is the
note of polemical bitterness. Smaller grow
the areas within which survives the zeal to do
God service by vilifying from Christian
pulpits the beliefs and practices of others. In
103

104 THE RECOVERY
the broad currents of public thought, the
educated pulpit is one of the sure indicators of
religious tendency, and it is becoming more
and more rare to hear an intelligent ambas
sador for Christ attempt to commend the ex
cellence of his own sect by attacking the
faults of another. By common consent the
homiletical consciousness of the age concerns
itself primarily with matters of effort and faith
involving essential and general, rather than
specialized and local, aspects of Christianity.
That this changed tone of preaching indicates,
in all cases, a diminishing estimate of the im
portance of sectarianism may not be a safe
inference ; yet, without doubt, it shows that
other interests are taking its place. The
nature of those other interests we may con
sider, later. They are products of the re
ligious thinking of sixty years, in England
and America. They represent advances in
theism, in historical and practical theology, in
social ethics, which leave, relatively meaning
less, denominational issues that were sharp
and vital at the beginning of the nineteenth
century.

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 105
The tone of lay thinking is changing. It is
reflecting the influence exercised over their
generation by a few men who have spoken
with the authority of scholars and the devout-
ness of true believers, and whose books have
been widely read. These were men who as
sumed, without debate, that the mind of the
age is ready for larger questions than those
involved in sectarianism and who received
instant response from the educated lay-con
sciousness. It is not claimed that this re
sponse is unanimous. Large sections of
the laity have not assimilated the essential
results of devout theological reconstructions.
Some have opposed them without discrimina
tion, as defections from the rule of faith.
Others, content with formal orthodoxy, have
parried the incisive advances of thought with
the shield of sectarian conservatism. But the
educated laity has shown even greater in
clination than the ministry towards the sim
plifying of theology ; and greater readiness to
exchange sectarian rivalry for practical
catholicity. With something like intuitional
accuracy, strong laymen of all Churches are

106 THE RECOVERY
in advance of the clergy in separating the
wheat of essential Christianity from the chaff
of ecclesiasticism. It may be questioned
whether sectarian agitation can long survive
the disapproval of an intelligent, disinterested
laity. Mention should be made, also, of the
buoyancy and effectiveness of extra-ecclesias
tical religious movements, during the last
half-century. While historical research and
philosophical reconstruction have been redis
tributing the data of Christian belief, accom
plishing, apparently without design, the
scientific effacement of many sectarian dis
tinctions, a spirit of Christlike love and
sagacity has worked to the same end, in the
interest of practical helpfulness and vital re
ligion. Unauthorized by any ecclesiastical
tribunal, yet abounding in apostolic energy,
successive movements of high social signifi
cance have illustrated the eternal presence in
the Christian religion of those sympathetic
forces that made our Lord Jesus Christ a
Friend and a Brother rather than a Church
man. The impressive development of Chris-

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 107
tian Associations for men and for women is
an example of this. This movement has
been in no sense hostile to the Church nor im
patient of its denominational subdivisions.
But, with singular simplicity, it has planted
itself on that in Christian experience which is
universal ; reinterpreting that universal in
terms that disarm antagonism and win the
confidence even of non-Christian nations.
The latest of these extra-ecclesiastical move
ments is the Religious Education Association.
Whatever its future may be, the interesting
history of its beginning shows that an age has
come when men having at heart the welfare
of the world cannot be separated by denom
inational barriers.
These are examples of evidence, easily ob
tainable, showing the existence of a large
nucleus of unorganized sentiment favouring
a more homogeneous interpretation of the
Church. The prevailing temper of this sen
timent is no less interesting. It is, distinctly,
a non-revolutionary temper, not lending itself
to radicalism ; bringing no railing accusation
against the intricate and troublous history of

108 THE RECOVERY
sectarianism. On the contrary, it reveres the
denominational tradition, as a witness to the
intellectual and moral virility of the Refor
mation. It appreciates the inestimable value
of the greater sectarian movements, as con
stituents of Protestant liberty. It attributes
to them (as was shown in the last Lecture) the
liberalization of religious thinking; the dis
tribution of authority ; the counteraction of
erroneous accent ; the humanizing of Chris
tianity ; and a vast burden of indirect testi
mony to the universality of the religion of
Christ. This sentiment, as embodied in its
most adequate representatives, has no thought
of disturbing convictions consecrated alike
by time and by temperament, nor of remov
ing institutions made sacred by history and
experience and adapted to carry on conve
niently the business of the Church. The tem
per of this sentiment is reverent towards the
past, and evolutionary rather than revolution
ary towards the future. It recognizes in each
historic reinterpretation of the Church,
Catholic and Protestant, a sincere expression
of contemporary necessity. The Church

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 109
shaped itself to the intellectual and moral
actuality of life in each succeeding period.
It was at all times a religious expression of
contemporary human consciousness. When
men thought little and tremblingly, the
Church was autocratic, imperial, a controller
of reason and lord of conscience. When men
thought vigorously and independently, the
Church became deliberative, heterogeneous,
comprehensive, educational ; liberty of con
science was exalted above uniformity ; the
right of private judgment above submission.
Thus the deep foundations of Protestantism
were laid in strength of conviction, by hands
inured to war, as ready to draw the sword as
to open the Bible. For these sacred founda
tions the new sentiment spreading in the
Church entertains proper reverence. It
dreams not of dislodging them, but of build
ing upon them a nobler structure, carrying
up the walls of the Church to more royal
heights on simpler lines. It sees nothing es
sentially final in the present development of
the Church on the lines of sectarian division
evolved in post-Reformation controversies.

IIO THE RECOVERY
It is conscious of a relative lack of adequacy
and efficiency in the present Protestant status
quo. The keenness of denominational issues
having abated, public interest in the churches
themselves gives signs of weakness. There
is also a relative lack of cooperation between
the various parts of the Christian body ; most
evident in towns where several sectarian
churches survive by a process of languid
competition, and a whole community pays
tribute to the past by losing the inspiration
of common worship and united effort. The
imagination can easily conceive a more apos
tolic and more adequate interpretation of the
august conception of the Church as Christ's
Body on earth, than that presented at many
local points by the Protestant status quo.
And it is quite within the range of possibility
that there shall be a complete reinterpreta
tion in the future, even as there has been in
the past. The inertia of habit makes it diffi
cult for us to realize that such a reinterpreta
tion may be at hand ; even one that shall re-
combine on new and simpler lines the relig
ious life of tens of thousands of towns and

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY III
villages throughout the areas of Protestant
ism, and do away with old distinctions in the
interest of new energy, reinvigorated wor
ship, wiser use of resources. It is the peren
nial tendency of the human mind to regard
familiar conditions as permanent, and to put
away the thought of fundamental reconstruc
tions of life. " I shall never be moved " is
one of the most thoroughly human of all de
lusions. The Papacy, at its princely height
of power, conceived itself seated in the
throne of eternal dominion ; the authoritative
and final interpretation of the Church. Yet
science, philosophy, democracy, and the si
lent breathing of the free Spirit of God have
drawn out from Papal control the dominant
religious forces of the world and have opened
a vista of religious development in which the
recovery of the mediaeval conception of au
thority grows ever more impossible. We
and our fathers have lived in the denomina
tional atmosphere; it has permeated our
forms of thought ; it has preempted our out
look ; by the laws of association and analogy
it gives promise of continuance ; yet in our

112 THE RECOVERY
time many thousands of our most conse
crated clergy and laity involuntarily think of
sectarianism as a waning interpretation of the
great Churchly conception, and consolidate
their efforts on lines that traverse all sectarian
boundaries and embrace all who name the
name of Christ. Whether we approve or
disapprove this sentiment is not the question.
The sentiment exists ; each year is making it
more prominent. The vision of some larger
unity as yet unrealized is characteristic of our
time. It haunts our thinking. I have much
sympathy with those who resist and resent
this idea; who desire that all things shall
continue as they have been. Use, familiarity,
fond associations endear existing institutions,
and our affections prompt us to impute to
them permanence. Meanwhile intellectual
and religious conditions may be changing in
ways of which others are becoming conscious
although we remain in fond unconsciousness ;
ways which day by day are making large re
adjustments inevitable because of the increas
ing number to whom the present is unsatis
factory. The purpose of this Lecture is to

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 113
deal with this sentiment in favour of a more
homogeneous Church, considering the nature
of the sentiment, its reasonableness, its con
tent, its value. I propose to speak not as an
advocate of the sentiment, but as a student
of its phenomena so far as these can be esti
mated from a close study of unformulated
contemporary data. What is it that is
wanted? What is it that is hoped for by
the noblest souls that profess to be dissatis
fied with the Protestant status quo ? I shall
try to put this desire and hope into words.
It is important, for the purposes of our
discussion, correctly to estimate the nature of
the sentiment under consideration, discrimi
nating between it and certain more or less
familiar theories of improving the ecclesias
tical situation. It should therefore be pointed
out that this longing for a more homogene
ous Church is not a desire for some new form
of ecclesiastical uniformity; for a Church
homogeneous in structure and under central
authority. So to reorganize Protestantism
would be, in effect, to create a new Roman
Catholicism. This is a psychological impos-

114 THE RECOVERY
sibility. We are farther away from it than
ever before. There are individualizing tend
encies at work, in the intellectual world, in
the social world, in the world of religious
experience, which place beyond the bounds
of possibility a general revival of the Roman
ideal. I refer to that ideal with respect. It
has elements of majesty and efficiency ; but
it would be as easy to arrest the stars in their
courses as to bring the enormous bodies of
educated Nonconformity into submission be
neath a central ecclesiastical authority. Nor
do I think the Anglican substitute for Roman
Catholic uniformity more likely to prevail.
I have reference to the sincere but unavail
able proposal of the Anglican Communion
to outline a basis so broad and simple that
all Protestant Christendom can stand together
upon it. The proposal of the Lambeth Con
ference was to establish a fourfold basis of
organic union : The Holy Scriptures ; The
Two Sacraments ; The Catholic Creeds ; The
Historic Episcopate. It was a noble pro
posal, broadly interpreted by irenic and
statesmanlike prelates. The immediate and

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 115
most obvious limitation upon its effective
ness was the fourth member of the quadri
lateral: the Historic Episcopate. The in
tervening years have developed intellectual
conditions that might create other grounds
of dissent. But deeper than all concrete
dissent from the specifications of the Lambeth
Conference is the fundamental state of mind
produced by the individualizing tendencies
of modern culture and modern activity. To
multitudes of strong men in the ministry and
in the laity the necessity for structural and
institutional unity in the Church is growing
less and less apparent; while, on the other
hand, the naturalness and flexibility of struc
tural variation is becoming more and more
consistent with modern conditions of intel
lectual life and modern types of spiritual
fellowship and growth.
It is possibly a fair characterization of the
present state of religious feeling, to say that
while, on the one hand, the maintenance of
acute sectarian issues is a waning interest,
on the other hand, zeal for ecclesiastical
unity, on a basis of voluntary structural uni-

Il6 THE RECOVERY
formity, is also decreasing. The interpreta
tion of this situation, so different from the
common aspects of the past, may be as fol
lows : The whole matter of churchly authority
means less than it used to mean to the cul
tured clerical mind, and very much less to the
cultured lay mind. It savours of unreality.
The real thought of the age is grappling
with problems far more vital and engrossed
in work far broader. To go back to the old
conception of Catholic authority as a primary
interest, or to engage the efforts of the
strongest and most cosmopolitan minds in a
movement for ecclesiastical uniformity would
be to force the hand many degrees back
wards on the dial of time. The old issues
cannot be revived. The old sense of the
importance and reality of churchly authority
cannot be recovered. The Christian con
sciousness perceives new doors opening in
God's world ; new light breaking. Once more
sounds through the earth the Awful Voice
that spake to the son of Amoz : " Whom shall
I send? And who will go for us?"1 When
> Is. 6 : 8.

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 1 17
that Voice speaks, the prophetic soul turns
to the future, not to the past.
It should also be pointed out that the sen
timent under consideration, representing dis
satisfaction with the Protestant status quo, and
desire for some more homogeneous and sim
ple interpretation of the Church does not have
in view the creation of some new standard of
theological orthodoxy to which the various
sects shall agree to bind themselves. How
ever attractive to the imagination is the pic
ture of theological uniformity, as contrasted
with the varying sectarian symbols, the rea
son perceives the illusion that invests the idea
of a common confessional standard for Prot
estantism. The attempt to create such a
standard would be, in principle, an attempt
to revive, amidst the unique intellectual con
ditions of modern life, the ancient ideal of the
Eastern Church. Catholicity, according to
that ideal, was, not institutional uniformity of
government, but philosophical uniformity of
thought. Therefore the Eastern Church as
sumed the title : The Holy Orthodox Church,
and, by that title, intimated her hope to bring

Il8 THE RECOVERY
the thoughts of men into captivity to one con
fessional standard, promulgated by authority.
Possibly we are farther away from that norm
of Catholicity than any age since the Council
of Nicaea. Not only is no such common con
fessional standard available, but no general
desire for it appears. The spirit of the rising
generation does not promise a growing inter
est in some elaborate and comprehensive
Confession of Faith, which shall cover the
whole field of theology and make a platform
on which all believers can unite. There are
deep reasons for this absence of desire for
confessional uniformity ; reasons that are not
commonly cited by those who vaguely lament
the decline of interest in the earlier concep
tions of orthodoxy. Many who attempt to
analyze this phenomenon of declining inter
est in orthodoxy, a phenomenon particularly
marked in circles of culture, detect only the
secondary causes and overlook primary con
siderations that greatly modify the situation.
Our estimate of that situation is affected by
our own training and point of view. Those
who have been thoroughly trained under a

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 119
sectarian standard and who have done their
work and their thinking chiefly within sec
tarian boundaries, see only decadence and
danger in the wide-spreading indifference to
orthodoxy as such. They attribute it to the
following causes, which are described as char
acteristic of the present age : impatience of
theological restraint ; growth of rationalism ;
substitution of vague religious sentiment for
definite belief. Undoubtedly these reasons
for the decline of interest in orthodoxy on the
part of many earnest and educated people
apply to a certain measure, perhaps a rela
tively large measure, of modern thinking.
Impatience of theological restraint exists and
has been stimulated by sincere but futile ef
forts on the part of some, to bring judicial
coercion to bear upon the intellectual proc
esses of others. The growth of rationalism
is a vague term ; it means for some a grow
ing appreciation of the right and duty of
thinking, but doubtless also it has produced
in many a reaction against the type of faith
that vacates its intellectual birthright under
submission to authority. The substitution of

120 THE RECOVERY
vague religious sentiment for definite belief
is undoubtedly one of our inheritances from
Wordsworth and Coleridge, from the new
knowledge of Oriental thought, from the later
psychology ; and one would not undertake
to deny that upon many sensitive and intel
lectual souls it has brought down a veil of
obscurantism, hiding the profounder mean
ings of the Incarnation and Sacrifice of the
Son of God. But, while the foregoing rea
sons do, in part, explain the modern decline
of interest in orthodoxy, there are other rea
sons, of deep seriousness and sacredness,
which more adequately explain the attitude
of a great number of pure and devout minds
that are finding less and less satisfaction in
the sectarian confessions of faith, and that do
not look, with hope or with desire, for the
formulation of some new and comprehensive
standard that shall determine the orthodoxy
of the future. Briefly stated, these deeper
reasons include the following : It is becoming
more and more apparent to many who have
pondered the breadth of God's Word, the
depth and variousness of Christian experience,

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 121
and the profound phenomena of the religious
life of the race, that no one standard of belief,
drawn up by official authority, can be suffi
ciently comprehensive to satisfy the growing
company of those who truly hold the funda
mental truths of the Christian religion. The
Christian religion is greater than any possible
official interpretation of it. It is also becom
ing evident to such minds that the whole con
ception of orthodoxy, as meaning conformity
to a standard drawn up by authority and offi
cially adopted as the touchstone of belief, no
longer satisfies the most spiritual minds who
desire only to know and to utter the truth, as
that truth is revealed in Holy Scripture and
certified inwardly to the believer through the
witness of Christian experience, which is the
direct and immediate channel of the Holy
Spirit's testimony. There is a growing feel
ing that the technical idea of orthodoxy, as
signifying conformity to an external authority
rather than inward conviction of vital truth,
has tempted men to preach what seemed to
be expedient from the point of view of exter
nal order and ecclesiastical discipline, rather

122 THE RECOVERY
than to preach, in the irresistible power of the
Spirit, truth certified to the reason, the con
science and the affections, in the common ex
perience of the spiritual children of God.
Sixty years ago, Whately, one of the major
prophets of the nineteenth century, lifted up
his voice against the sin of preaching what
seems to be expedient from the point of
view of orthodoxy. In his essay " On the
Love of Truth " (an essay that ought to be
engraven on the heart of any man going out
into the ministry to-day), he points out that
this is the sin which most easily besets those
who are engaged in the instruction of others.
The subtle penalty of the sin is that the con
sciousness of insincerity gradually wears
away, and the usage of preaching makes easy
the repetition of ideas full of unreality. " He
who does not begin by preaching what he
believes, will end by believing what he
preaches." His habit of discriminating the
true from the false will decay. He will lose
the power of distinguishing what conclusions
are true. From such a ministry the mantle
of power is withdrawn. Even if truth be

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 1 23
preached, the self-evidencing glory of orig
inal conviction has departed from the preacher.
From henceforth the Divine energy which
pierces the souls of men as with a two-edged
sword no longer emanates from him. He
remains orthodox, yet powerless. It may be
that orthodoxy and truth are identical. Many
times they are identical. But there is an in
creasing number, in and out of Christian pul
pits, who believe that the first interest must
be truth ; to hold things and to preach things
not because they are declared true, but be
cause they are true.
There remains one other reason to be
cited in explanation of the declining in
terest in confessional orthodoxy which is
a phenomenon of contemporary religious
thinking. To many who, by the modern
processes of Biblical study have arrived at
new and larger appreciation of Holy Scrip
ture, it appears that the sectarian confessions,
however excellent in themselves, stand be
tween the mind of the believer and that all-
sufficient and Divine provision which God
has made in His Holy Revelation of Truth.

124 THE RECOVERY
As a more adequate knowledge of the Bible
is reached, the sectarian confession appears
to become unnecessary. In many instances
it seems to offer a narrower and more shal
low foundation for faith than that eternal and
sufficient foundation that is laid already in
the Living Word and the Written Word of
God. A study of the great sectarian con
fessions, from this point of view, and even of
the so-called Catholic creeds — the Nicene
Creed and the Apostles' Creed — shows their
inadequacy ; an inadequacy growing out of
the fact that generally these official deliver
ances came into existence to controvert cer
tain contemporaneous errors. They were
not, and by their framers were not intended
to be — comprehensive instruments. They
dealt with matters then in dispute, but left
out other fields of truth which, not being un
der discussion at the time, were silently taken
for granted. In illustration of this one may
point to the inadequacy of the Westminster
Confession of 1643 in its deliverances on the
Person of Christ and on the Christianization
of the world. The religious consciousness

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 1 25
of later Presbyterianism has demanded and
obtained partial recompense for these omis
sions. In like manner the Apostles' Creed,
venerable and beautiful as it is, embodying
many of the most precious associations and
immortal convictions of the Church of Christ,
furnishes little that satisfies a Christian of the
apostolic type, touching the Divinity of our
Blessed Lord, or His Most Holy and Avail
ing Atonement. The deepest spiritual life of
to-day retains the Catholic creeds with joy
as expressions of devotion and as holy in
heritances ; but not as tests of belief. It feels
the need of going behind these partial state
ments to find the satisfaction of its religious
needs in the Divine fullness of Scriptural
Revelation. I have now attempted to differentiate the
sentiment in favour of a more homogeneous
and simple interpretation of the Church from
those expressions of a similar desire which
have projected, as the means of its fulfill
ment, on the one hand, organic institutional
uniformity under central ecclesiastical au
thority ; on the other hand, confessional uni-

126 THE RECOVERY
formity, under one comprehensive standard of
orthodoxy. If this differentiation has been
successful we are brought, by a process of
elimination, to ask: What, then, does this
sentiment in favour of a homogeneous
Church, desire ? Can we interpret this yearn
ing for some greater and better embodiment
of the life of the Christian society, which
fills many true and worshipful hearts that
are dissatisfied with the Protestant status quo ?
As one who has encountered this sentiment
in many parts of the world and in many
centres of noble influence, let me attempt to
give an account of its nature : It appears to
be a growing conviction that in the religion
of our Lord Jesus Christ there are certain
universal and permanent elements, which
constitute the essence of the religion. I
shall not describe this essence as the irreduci
ble minimum, lest I be supposed to teach
that its content is small and meagre. On the
contrary its content is majestic and opulent.
The fullness of the Godhead is in it; the
depths of the riches of Divine grace are in
it ; the unspeakable gift of God is in it ; the

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 1 27
treasures of wisdom and knowledge are in it ;
the depth and height and breadth and length
of the love of God are in it. The growing ap
preciation of the Biblical content, the broad
ening scope of Christian experience are dis
closing the vast proportions of these universal
and permanent elements that constitute the
essence of the Christian religion. It is be
coming more apparent to the most earnest
religious thinking of our time that these
characteristic data of our religion are the
common possession of all who hold the
Christian faith and the common opportunity
of all people under heaven ; that this essence
abides in every age ; that the sectarian differ
entia of Protestantism have not broken the
unity and sufficiency of this essence ; and that
believers everywhere, who, by birth and
training represent different sects, are awak
ing to a sense of their common inheritance
and are being drawn together through their
voluntary assimilation of the common belief.
Joined with this sense of the common essence
is the growing conviction that the Spirit is
leading on towards a reinterpretation of the

128 THE RECOVERY
idea of the Church, in which a new life and
power and a new capacity for the Christian
ization of the world shall develope through
out the Church ; interest in the sectarian
differentia being superseded by vitalized
conceptions of the fundamental and common
truths. It will be observed that the senti
ment which I am analyzing is altogether
different from impatience of theological re
straint, or growth of rationalism, or substitu
tion of vague religious sentiment for definite
belief. So far from this, it is a sentiment in
the highest degree spiritual ; in the highest
degree favourable to what may be described
as a renaissance, a new birth, of faith ; the re
covery of a faith in the essentials of Chris
tianity that shall be clothed with springlike
vivacity and beauty.
The nature of this sentiment having
been exhibited, we may now proceed to
determine its reasonableness. Pious senti
ment is not always reasonable. Its inten
sity may make it irrational. " Stung by the
splendour of a sudden thought," it may
ignore practical conditions and tendencies

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 129
that place the object of desire beyond the
bounds of probability. But the present wide
spread yearning for a more simple reinter
pretation of the idea of the Church is sup
ported by considerations that appeal to reason.
The reasonableness of this sentiment appears
in three particulars : its philosophical proba
bility ; its concurrence with the analogy of
truth ; its harmony with the ideal of Jesus
Christ. The growing Christian consciousness
of a common essence and deposit of truth is
philosophically normal, in view of the growth
of culture and the advancement of friendly
intercourse between representative members
of Christian sects. Segregation and igno
rance beget and protect prejudice. They lend
themselves to the exaggeration of differences
and the propagation of strifes. Race hatreds
and caste barriers are promoted by them ;
sectarian animosities are perpetuated. With
the enrichment of culture and the enlarging
horizon of thought come humanistic inter
course, unconscious growth of fraternalism ;
unifying of sentiment ; coordination of ex
perience. The process is involuntary : as cul-

130 THE RECOVERY
ture grows people cannot be kept apart by
imaginary barriers; they attain substantial
oneness without plan or intention ; they awake,
from dreams of prejudice, to see eye to eye
beneath the impartial light of reality. Such
must be the history of religious thought, as a
true historical perspective and a normal inter
change of experience dissolves the shadowy
prejudices of a few hundred years, and sets
above all segregating illusions the vision of
the Eternal Majesty of Christ. Not alone in
its philosophical probability does the reason
ableness of the present sentiment appear.
One must observe also its concurrence with
the analogy of truth. In the history of
human thought fundamental truth is seen to
be self-evidencing. The monumental prop
ositions that involve the physical or moral
life of the race emerge into certitude and
rise, like pyramids upon the desert; imper
ishable facts towering above the levels of
local incident. Monotheism ; monogamy ;
equality of rights in a democratic state are
truths that depend on the voice of no man
nor school; they rise in self-evidencing

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 131
authority to command the homage of the
moral reason, as among the things that can
not be shaken. So the substantial content of
the Christian revelation vindicates itself in
the Christian consciousness, as time advances.
Its authority is not that of council or sect.
It is a self-evidencing authority that abides —
the same yesterday, to-day and forever.
The caravans cross the desert, encamp be
neath the shadow of the pyramids, pass on
their way : the pyramids stand, neither im
patient for their coming nor vexed by their
going. The sectarian movements of Chris
tian thought pass and repass before the un
troubled majesty of apostolic truth ; the
schools debate and divide ; the currents of
opinion meet in controversy ; the toil of the
scholar continues. Meanwhile the things
that cannot be shaken abide in the eternal
calm, and men look up to them with clearer
eyes and love them with a deepening love
that casts out fear and lifts above partisan
ship and strife.
The reasonableness of the present senti
ment appears in one other particular: Its

132 THE RECOVERY
harmony with the ideal of Jesus Christ. In
the untroubled majesty of the Christian reve
lation, the central feature is the Person of
Christ as presented in the Fourth Gospel.
The portraitures of the Synoptists are full of
the enchanting realism of humanity. In
them Jesus of Nazareth walks before us as
our Brother-Man ; in the corn-fields ; in the
fishing-boat ; at the feast ; by the sick-bed ;
in the garden ; on the Cross — He is every
where transfused with the reality of man
hood. But in the Fourth Gospel we have
the prescient Christ of God ; the Christ of
Christian experience ; the Christ that has
made Christianity what it is at its best.
Around the Fourth Gospel pass and repass
continually the several phases of critical
opinion, but the Christ of the Fourth Gospel,
who is also the Christ of the Epistles, towers
in His Divine Majesty above all critical opin
ion whatsoever ; self-revealing ; self-evidenc
ing. His ideal for His Church is strikingly
suggestive of the wide-spread sentiment that
is turning from the denominational status
quo of Protestantism towards some greater

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 1 33
and simpler interpretation of the spirit of the
Christian society. The prescient Christ evi
dently hoped and expected His followers
ultimately to concur among themselves and
to become one in Himself. For this concur
rence He prayed. It is impossible to believe
His prayer to have been in vain. Its fulfill
ment in time is certain. If we understood
the signs of our age better, and were less
embarrassed by precedent and prejudice in
interpreting them, we might not find it diffi
cult to comprehend the new spiritual and
intellectual movements of the last sixty years
and to account for the present situation in
the sectarian churches. It is, at least, rea
sonable to admit the possibility that a great
movement towards the Christly conception
of a simplified Church is near at hand, even
at our doors.
I come now to the most vital part of my
subject, namely: The Content of the Com
mon Essence. I have attempted to show
that the present sentiment in favour of a
homogeneous Church arises not from the
desire for institutional or confessional uni-

I34 THE RECOVERY
formity, but from a new appreciation of the
universal and permanent elements of the
Christian religion as constituting a common
essence. This vivid realization of the com
mon essence causes many to grow impatient
of the complicated Protestant status quo, with
its elaborate sectarian organizations, its costly
duplications of effort, and its very moderate
percentage of success in influencing the life
of Christianized communities and in accom
plishing the Christianization of the world.
The theory of the Church, as at present con
stituted, seems to many ponderous, relatively
unfruitful, and, in fact, not properly correlated
to the present general appreciation of the
common essence of the Christian religion.
The question is forcing itself more and more
upon thinking Christians : Is the Church be
ing held back by her own institutions? Have
intelligent and vital Christians outgrown the
machinery of Protestantism? Are they in
need of a simplified interpretation of the
Church? Can the Protestant status quo be
satisfactory to Christ, as representing that
glorious Church, without spot, or wrinkle or

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 1 35
any such thing, in which and through which
He can work freely ?
Assuming a reinterpretation of the idea of
the Church, in which the sectarianism of the
present shall be merged in the interest of
the fundamental and universal elements of
the Christian religion, momentous importance
attaches to the question : What are those
fundamental and universal elements ? Where
are we to look for them ? This is the ques
tion which, perhaps more than any other,
has been forcing itself upon the present age,
in view of the change of sentiment regarding
sectarian subscription. If we are moving
towards a common essence, what is that com
mon essence? Eminent students of Chris
tianity in various parts of the world are
engaged in answering this question. To the
prevailing tone of recent attempts to define
the essence of Christianity I wish to draw at
tention. The trend of contemporary opinion
is very largely in one direction : namely, to
define the essence of Christianity as consist
ing merely of the teachings and example of
Jesus, as recorded in the first three Gospels

136 THE RECOVERY
in distinction from that view of the Person of
Christ as the Eternal Word, manifesting the
Father, and the Work of Christ as the suffer
ing and triumphing Saviour of the world, as
set forth in the Fourth Gospel and in the
Apostolic Epistles.
This trend of contemporary opinion ap
pears to have been determined largely by
the following considerations :
First, The resistance of scholastic theology
awakened by modern advances and recon
structions in philosophy.
Secondly, The resistance of apostolic
theology through identifying it with the
ponderous scholastic systems built upon it.
This has involved very largely the rejection
of the teachings of St. Paul regarding the
Person and Work of Christ, as teachings
which were produced by Greek and Jewish
influences tending to obscure the pristine
simplicity of Jesus of Nazareth and His
ethics. Thirdly, The growth of the historical
method of Biblical study ; whereby the accent
becomes more and more concentrated on

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 137
the narrative of the first three Gospels,
including the teachings and the idealistic
example of Jesus as constituting the essence
of the Christian religion.
Concerning each of these elements of con
temporary opinion there is a serious,
thoughtful word to be said.
The modern resistance of scholastic
theology can cause no surprise to an un
prejudiced mind. The scholastic theology in
certain particulars is disqualified for present
use by the fact that its philosophical point
of view is measurably out of relation with
the canons of modern thinking. Some of
its fundamental conceptions have been so
largely abandoned by later reconstruc-
tionists that to the younger generation they
are almost unintelligible. This implies no
religious change, but rather an intellectual
change. The human mind, if it be normally
active, is ever advancing and reconstructing
its philosophical positions. The new wine
cannot adapt itself to the old wine skins. If
the terms and formulae of scholastic theology
be enforced without discrimination on dis-

138 THE RECOVERY
ciples of newer schools of philosophy the
risks involved are serious : there may occur
the rejection of truth, or, if the temper be
passive, a not less grave calamity, the
profession of belief without reality of con
viction. But, while resistance of certain
aspects of theological scholasticism is, in
principle, reasonable and, in practice, in
evitable, it by no means follows that the
present tendency to indiscriminate rejection
of the older theologies is a judicious method
of dealing with the situation, or one that
promises any advantage not balanced by
corresponding loss. Alert thinkers of our
time are advising complete separation of
Christian theology from the problems of
ontology, and are undertaking to reduce
it to a practical discipline regulated by
the religious and social ideals of Jesus of
Nazareth. Before committing ourselves to
the attractive simplicity of this theory of
reconstruction it is well to reflect upon
two things : The scholastic theology al
though it may be unsatisfactory to us, by
reason of our intellectual environment, un-

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 1 39
doubtedly enshrined truth which evolved
the vital and characteristic experiences of the
Christian religion, and developed a type
of intense piety, and an attitude of moral
obedience not produced in equal measure
by the reduced modern interpretation of
the essence of Christianity. It is perilously
easy for the modern indiscriminate resist
ance of scholastic theology to swing to the
extreme of an anti-theological scholasticism,
which, priding itself on historical accuracy,
may yet fail more conspicuously than the
theologians of the seventeenth century to
represent the essence of the Christian
religion and to furnish material for a
genuine Christian experience. If, in the at
tempt to shake off the influence of Neo-
platonism, the fundamental doctrines of
Biblical Christianity are to be discarded,
the last state of religion shall be worse than
the first.
The modern search for the essence of
Christianity — a search most necessary in
itself — has developed a secondary, and
momentous, resultant of the indiscriminate

140 THE RECOVERY
resistance of scholastic theology. It is the
resistance of the apostolic theology, espe
cially the theology of St. Paul. The effects
of this are already appearing in the im
poverished religious values of the sermons
produced by the younger generation of
preachers; and the deplorable decline of
spiritual life and knowledge in many
churches. Results open to observation
show that the movement to simplify the
Christian essence by discarding the theology
of St. Paul easily carries the teaching of the
Christian pulpit to a position where, for
those who submit to that teaching, the
characteristic experiences of the Christian
life become practically impossible. The
Christian sense of sin ; Christian penitence
at the foot of the Cross ; Christian faith
in an Atoning Saviour ; Christian peace
with God though the Mediation of Jesus
Christ — these and other experiences, which
were the very life of apostles and of
apostolic souls, fade from the view of the
ministry, have no meaning for the younger
generation. After twenty centuries of power

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 141
they are minimized in the life of the
Church ; which, governed for the time being
by the radicalism of its teachers, substitutes
for the real essence of the Christian religion,
essentially spiritual and metaphysical, a
practical obedience to the ethical teachings
of Jesus. This, however necessary in itself,
by no means represents the fullness and
distinctiveness of the Revelation of God in
Christ. A remark must also be made concerning
the present tendency to set the whole accent
of Biblical study upon the historical, as
contrasted with the metaphysical, view of
Christ. The admirable zeal manifested in
the study of the life of Christ is in a meas
ure offset by the tendency to separate the
example and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth
from the Christ crucified and risen, the
Christ of the apostolic consciousness and
of the consecutive Christian experience of
the world. With such significant dis
crimination are we now being pointed to
the historical Christ as distinguished from
the metaphysical and theological Christ,

142 THE RECOVERY
that, for the time being, the historical
method is in danger of becoming unhis-
torical, and the teacher who seeks to repre
sent the Jesus of history may easily mis
represent and conceal the Redeemer of the
world. It is not at all extraordinary that these
temporary faults of proportion should occur
at the present stage in the evolution of re
ligious thinking. A very great reaction to
wards the historical and the actual was called
for in the premises, to offset the deadening
unreality of theological systems that were
excessively metaphysical and speculative.
In every great reaction there is the probabil
ity of over-accentuation. Our obligations to
the reactionary elements in modern religious
thinking are very large. Through the vig
orous agency of these reactionary elements
a demonstration has been made of those
particulars wherein the scholastic theology
was unsatisfactory, deficient, unreal. Through
the same reactionary elements the Apostolic
Age has been illuminated with reality ; the
philosophical influences bearing upon it have

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 143
been plainly shown (not always, it must be
added, in a manner wholly free from preju
dice). Especially are we indebted to the
modern historical reaction for the recovery of
the human verisimilitude of Jesus. He, who
had become but a theological name in the
scholastic systems, who had been buried and
hidden in the sepulchre of orthodoxy, has
had a glorious resurrection into the world of
reality. Once again He walks among His
brethren in the lovely and desirable incidents
of daily life ; His voice is heard ; the touch
of His hand is felt ; the perfection of His
conduct is realized. It is impossible to over
estimate the advantages accruing from this
extrication of the historic Jesus from the
mist-veils of theological impersonality. But,
at this moment, we are experiencing the in
cidental disadvantage of beneficent reaction.
As, formerly, the metaphysical forced aside
the historical and developed the excesses of
speculative orthodoxy, so, now, the historical,
focussing its light upon the narrative, throws
into shadow the Christ of the apostolic con
sciousness, the mysteries of His Person, the

144 THE RECOVERY
majesty of His Work, the metaphysic of
Christian experience, and leaves us only
Jesus of Nazareth, His life-purpose, example,
and words. This, we are told, is the essence
of Christianity ; this, and this only, must be
the organizing principle of that new reinter
pretation of the idea of the Church for which
many, dissatisfied with the Protestant status
quo, are anxiously looking. But, so far from
the general consciousness of the devout
Church accepting this reactionary dictum, the
unsatisfactoriness of the present teaching,
which leaves us only Jesus of Nazareth, is
becoming more apparent from day to day.
It is not a large enough teaching to take the
place of the majestic conceptions of the
scholastic theology, much less to be substi
tuted for the theological outlook of St. Paul.
We may dissent from many things urged by
the divines of the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, nevertheless they saw things on a
grand scale. The Christianity they taught
was one that could fill the horizon of an intel
lectual age and could inspire the awe-stricken
devotion of souls like Milton, and Zinzendorf,

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 145
and Doddridge and Toplady and the Wes-
leys. The historical reaction from metaphys
ical conceptions of Christ leaves us indeed
an admirable practical discipline, but it cuts
the wings of the soul and reduces the scale
and measure of its thinking. It cannot meet
the craving of the human spirit, which knows
but too well those hours when the metaphys
ical is the only outlet to the pent-up sense of
infinity. It cannot produce the type of char
acter which has been the glory of every
Christian age, character steeped in meta
physical conceptions of God in Christ, of
Christ in the soul of man, of man absolved
by the sacrificial love, transfigured by the re
generating grace of the Incarnate God. It
cannot grapple with the problems of the
Christianization of the world, in lands where
the historical counts for little, and where he
only has power who bears the message of
life in the terms of its philosophical equiva
lents. The over-accentuation of the historical is
but a step towards a larger readjustment.
Everywhere are signs of a richer, more com-

146 THE RECOVERY
prehensive thought-movement. We may
call it a movement for the recovery of the
apostolic theology. There are two points
of view from which to regard this movement
towards a recovery of the essence of the
Christian religion. It may be regarded as
an escape from the burdensome and complex
elements of scholastic theology, to the evan
gelical simplicity and tenderness that are in
Christ. Or it may be looked upon as an
advance from the present limited view of
Jesus as a mere teacher and a mere personal
and social ideal, to that apostolic view, which,
in every age, has conditioned Christian ex
perience : the view of Christ as the Image of
the invisible God and the Author of an eter
nal salvation.
Upon this ground it is possible for the next
great reinterpretation of the idea of the Church
to be made. It is not the invention of a new
standard of orthodoxy. It is the recovery of
the earliest ground of faith. It is not the
new cry "Back to Christ," in the sense of
casting aside the apostolic Christology. It
is a return to Christ in the spirit of that

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 147
beloved disciple, who, beholding the glory
of the Crucified and Risen One, fell at His
feet in the adoration of faith, and heard the
voice that pronounced the eternal charter of
Christian faith and Christian experience : "I
am the Living One : and I was dead, and
behold I am alive forevermore, Amen ; and
have the keys of hell and of death."
The Christology of the apostles has within
it, like Him of whom it testifies, " the power
of an endless life." In our weakness and love
of controversy, we may for a time confuse
that Christology, may overlay it with our
own scholasticisms and may turn from it in
a weariness for which we ourselves are re
sponsible. But we turn from it only to turn
back to it. We lose the meaning of the
apostolic Christology for a season, only to
find it again, glorified an hundredfold in
honour and vitality. The apostles, like their
Master, may be despised and rejected of men
for a time ; but, like Him, they rise again,
leading captivity captive, giving gifts unto
men. The effort to set the apostolic the
ology aside only results in an inevitable and

148 THE RECOVERY
impressive demonstration of its necessary re
lation to Christianity. In his splendid essay
" On Some of the Difficulties in the Writings
of the Apostle Paul," Richard Whately em
bodies a thought with which I may fitly close
this lecture on The Recovery of the Apostolic
Theology: "Next, after an able and full and
interesting vindication and explanation of
Paul's writings, the sort of work whose ap
pearance ought most to be hailed, is a plau
sible attack on them. Paul's labours can never
be effectually frustrated except by being kept
out of sight. Whatever brings him into
notice will, ultimately, bring him into tri
umph. All the malignity and the sophistries
of his adversaries will not only assail him in
vain, but will lead in the end to the perfecting
of his glory and the extension of his gospel.
They may scourge him uncondemned, like
the Roman magistrate at Philippi ; they may
inflict on him the lashes of calumnious cen
sure ; — but they cannot silence him ; they
may thrust him, as it were, into a dungeon,
and fetter him with their strained interpreta
tions ; but his voice will be raised even at

OF THE APOSTOLIC THEOLOGY 149
the midnight of unchristian darkness, and
will be heard effectually ; his prison doors
will burst open as with an earthquake, and
the fetters will fall from his hands ; and even
strangers to gospel truth will fall down at
the feet of him, even Paul, to make that
momentous inquiry, ' What must I do to be
saved?'"

LECTURE IV
THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD

LECTURE IV
THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
IN this course of Lectures, I am attempt
ing to present an argument in favour of
a reinterpretation of the idea of the
Church upon more simple and homogeneous
lines, to the end that the Church may more
effectively accomplish the work entrusted to
her by Jesus Christ. The basis for such a
reinterpretation I conceive to be the univer
sal elements of the Christian religion. That
the perspective of this argument may appear,
it is necessary to review, with some care, our
path of thought.
In the first Lecture we considered what the
work is that Christ had entrusted to His
Church. It is the Christianization of the
world. This means something more great
and more simple than the endeavour of West
ern sects to reproduce themselves in the East.
It means more than interdenominational
comity, which is in itself a desirable substi-
i53

154 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
tute for missionary competition. It means
more than the partitioning of the East into
denominational spheres of influence, after the
example of the powers of Europe in China
and Africa. This is not the Christianization
of the world, but rather the occupation of the
East by religious organizations of the West,
as a temporary measure, preliminary to the
Christianization of the world. To Christian
ize the world is a proposition that challenges
us to measure up to the cosmopolitanism of
Jesus Christ, for whom there were no sects,
no ecclesiastical polities, no dogmatic sys
tems. Christ recognized only a world to be
brought to Himself ; and Himself, the Living
Truth, to be given to that world, which is
groaning and travailing; wandering and
groping; searching and, in a million idol-
temples, praying for the knowledge of God.
Of Himself He said : " I am the Light of the
world." To His Church He said : " Ye shall
be My witnesses, unto the uttermost part of
the earth." When we venture to adopt the
point of view of Christ we perceive that the
Christianization of the East, which is the pres-

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 1 55
ent task of the Church, is something far more
profound than the substitution of one creed
or one set of religious practices for another ;
something far more delicate than the obliter
ation of heathen ideas and the transcription
in their place of a Western theological sys
tem. It means the lifting up of the bruised
reed of the Oriental spirit, bowed beneath the
overlay of centuries of pessimism and despair.
It means the breathing upon the smoking
flax of Oriental hope, smouldering in the
heavy atmosphere of pantheism. It means
the interpretation and consummation of the
yearnings of non-Christian faiths through the
absolute Revelation of God in the Person of
Jesus Christ. It means the ultimate develop
ment of an Oriental type of Christianity,
wherein the universal elements of the Chris
tian religion shall localize themselves in terms
of thought and modes of practice adapted to
the Eastern conception of life. It means, in
the last analysis, a more complete and full-
orbed interpretation of Christianity for the
world, when the East, conquered by the suf
fering and reigning Saviour, shall supplement

156 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
and fulfill the West by contributing aspects
of Christian truth as seen from the Eastern
point of view and mediated through Eastern
religious experience.
Having before us this definition of the
Christianization of the world, as the work en
trusted to the Church by Jesus Christ, we
proceeded, in the second Lecture, to inquire
into the bearing upon this great object of
attainment, of those sectarian movements
which, born of forces liberated by the Refor
mation, have for centuries formed the recog
nized and, apparently, necessary, condition
of the Protestant status quo. Assuming, at
the outset, that the idea of the Church existed
perfectly in the mind of Christ only, and that
its history since His Ascension has been a
series of reinterpretations of the idea, more
or less limited by human infirmity, we con
sidered that remarkable outburst of sectarian
movements which occurred at and after the
Reformation. It was a reinterpretation of
the idea of the Church on lines of diversity
and individualism perfectly in correspondence
with the intellectual activity and democratic

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 157
self-realization that were produced by the re
vival of learning, and that made the revolt
from Catholic authority inevitable. It is im
possible to overestimate the advantage ac
cruing to vital Christianity from those sectarian
movements. Narrow as was the basis on
which some of them stood ; secondary or fan
ciful as were the contentions supposed to jus
tify the existence of some of them ; darkened
and stained as were their annals by bigotry,
zeal without knowledge, and cruelty, they
achieved the moral and intellectual salvation
of the West. Greater than their defects were
their excellences and sublimities. Sincerity,
conviction, the vision of God in Christ, sanc
tified them. They produced the successors
of prophets and apostles, who counted not
their lives dear unto themselves ; of whom
the world was not worthy. It is impossible to
conceive any other instrument by which the
Christian consciousness could have been
emancipated from medievalism, and rein
stated in the glorious liberty of sonship. By
the liberalization of religious thinking, by the
distribution of authority, by the counteraction

158 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
of erroneous accent on particular beliefs, by
the humanizing of Christianity and its res
toration to the hands of the common people,
and by indirect testimony to the universal
scope of the Christian essence, the post-Refor
mation sectarian movements dispersed a slug
gish atmosphere that had gathered about the
Church, turned again the captivity of the
spiritual Zion, accelerated the coming of the
Kingdom of God.
But, with the passage of time, new condi
tions emerge, new questions arise. Those
forms of activity, most beneficent in the period
immediately following the rupture with Cath
olic authority, may not be competent to deal
with the situation created by the critical move
ment, the philosophical reconstruction, the
new psychology, the new conception of mis
sionary policy. Cromwellian equipment and
Cromwellian tactics were ample at Marston
Moor, but would be inadequate at Mukden.
It is profoundly difficult to realize the provi
sional nature of familiar institutions; more
especially institutions with which our lives
have become incorporated by inheritance.

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 1 59
Nothing is more perplexing than to bring
home to ourselves the law of transition :
Our little systems have their day,
They have their day, and cease to be ;
They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they.
Nevertheless, the limitations and practical
inadequacy of sectarian movements and the
unsatisfactoriness of the Protestant status
quo are being felt more and more seriously
by many intelligent Christians, who are
longing for a simple reinterpretation of the
idea of the Church, answering to the
simplified conception of vital Christianity.
To many of these minds, such a reinterpreta
tion seems not impossible, perhaps not
improbable. Many feel that such a rein
terpretation is necessary, and that until
it comes the life of the Church cannot be
sufficiently stimulated and unified, suffi
ciently liberated from secondary considera
tions, to enable it to complete the sacred
task delivered to it by the Lord : the Chris
tianization of the world.
In the third Lecture I undertook to ex-

160 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
amine the nature and content of this
wide-spread and relatively unorganized
longing for a more satisfactory state of
the Church : What is it that is wanted
and hoped for? Negatively we found that
it is not a desire for some new form of
ecclesiastical uniformity ; or for the creation
of a new standard of orthodoxy. In dis
tinction from these institutional and official
methods of reorganization the present
sentiment moves away from institutional-
ism and considers life and truth mediated
through experience to be the basis of a
simplified Church. It perceives that the
common reason and faith of the Christian
society recognize certain universal and
permanent elements as constituting the
essence of Christianity, and that these
elements, the objects of common recognition,
are the natural basis, and possibly the
sufficient basis, for that more homogeneous,
simple and spiritual Church which shall
effect the Christianization of the world.
With this thought gaining control of many
minds that once were interested in maintain-

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD l6l
ing denominational distinctions and now
are wholly indifferent thereto, it becomes
apparent that great importance attaches to
the content of the alleged essence of the
Christian religion. I pointed out that this
question is at the front of religious thinking
and that the prevailing answer of contem
porary scholarship defines the essence of
Christianity as consisting of the teachings
and example of Jesus as recorded in the
first three Gospels, rather than that view
of the Person of Christ as the Image of
the invisible God, and the Work of Christ
as the suffering and triumphing Saviour of
the world, which is set forth in the Fourth
Gospel and the Apostolic Epistles. I ac
knowledged our great debt to scientific
scholarship for exhibiting the inadequacy
of certain features of the scholastic theology,
for calling attention to the philosophical
influences that touched the lives of the
apostles and were reflected in their teach
ings ; and for restoring to us the price
less verisimilitude of the historic Jesus of
Nazareth. But, with all gratitude for these

162 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
great gains, I expressed with earnestness my
conviction that these considerations, how
ever valuable, are inadequate as the basis
for a reinterpretation of the idea of the
Church that can satisfy the religious con
sciousness of the present time. It is not a
large enough teaching. It does not meet
the measure of the soul's horizon nor
answer its unbidden yearning for such
direct communion with Christ, in the
sanctuary of the metaphysical consciousness
as, apparently, was the very life of St. Paul
and his contemporaries. It does not tend
to produce that characteristic type of per
sonality, which, historically, connotes the
Christian who is living in Christ's presence
and is fortified by the grace which is Christ's
perpetual gift. It cannot grapple with the
problem of the Christianization of the world
which is, essentially a problem of metaphys
ical experience rather than of historical
knowledge, and one that involves principles
of thought and action that are cosmopolitan
and comprehensive rather than local and
factional, that sets the temperament of a

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 163
race above the dictum of a school. Beneath
the conspicuous modern tendency to define
the irreducible minimum of Christian truth
as the Christ of the Synoptists and the
ethical code of Jesus, there runs a deeper
tide of tendency which represents the pro
gress of contemporary thought that has
neither been satisfied with the Protestant
status quo nor willing to cast in its lot with
a radicalism which, in abjuring the scholastic
theology declares also its independence of
apostolic Christianity. That profounder
thought movement, which has not yet been
fully formulated, which has not yet had
time to show how the critical movement
makes for a richer faith, I have described as
the recovery of the apostolic theology. It
is, on the one hand, an escape from the
burdensome and complex elements of the
scholastic theology to the evangelical
tenderness and simplicity that are in Christ.
It is, on the other hand, an advance from
the present limited view of many scientific
theologians, wherein Jesus is a mere teacher
and a mere personal and social ideal, to.

164 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
that apostolic view, which, in every age,
has conditioned Christian experience, of
Christ as the Image of the invisible God,
the Author of an eternal salvation. We
have now reviewed our path of thought up
to the present stage of the argument. By
this review we place in right perspective
the theme and purpose of this Lecture. The
central figure in the field of apostolic the
ology is the Figure of Christ crucified and
risen, the Saviour of the World. Our present
inquiry is conducted with a view to ascer
tain to what extent that central thought — •
the Saviour of the World — offers a basis for
those who are yearning for a fresh rein
terpretation of the idea of the Church on
grander and simpler lines. Does it carry
with it the promise, not to say the reasonable
assurance, that upon this basis the Church
may at last fulfill the task committed to her
by her Head ; having recovered in its original
power and simplicity that vision of Christ
which, as a matter of plain, historic fact,
was the foundation of the Church and the
making of Christianity? Shall the Church,

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 165
by recovering in apostolic distinctness that
radiant vision, recover also the homogeneous
dignity, the power, faith, love and evangel
ical success that were the glory of the first
days? The dynamic of the Apostolic Church was
its Christology: not merely its faith in
Christ but its faith concerning Christ. The
buoyancy and success of apostolic effort
sprang not chiefly from an historical rem
iniscence of the life and words of Jesus
but from a fixed interpretation of His Per
son, which was nothing if not metaphysical.
Christ was, in the apostolic consciousness,
an Only Begotten from a Father, existent be
fore all worlds, incarnated in the fullness
of time, His Incarnation culminating in His
Atoning Death, His Resurrection, His Ascen
sion and Enthronement as the Saviour of the
World. From every point of view it is
evident that the Apostolic Age owed its
extraordinary religious effectiveness to its
Christology. The enthralling glory of
Christ seemed to swallow up the individ
uality of His first ambassadors. The pas-

1 66 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
sion of Orientalism glows in St. Paul's
self-absorption in the metaphysical Christ.
"For me to live is Christ" ' — "I live, yet
not I, but Christ liveth in me." 2 To be one
with Him in His Incarnation ; to be merged
in its consummations of death and life —
crucified with Him, risen with Him — this
was the personal ambition of the most
illustrious and most successful of His
ministers. Love and fiery devotion could
go no farther. It adds not a little to the
gravity and perplexity of our present
situation that so much excellent modern
thinking is devoted to the effort to re
cover the apostolic zeal for Christ while
rejecting the cause which produced it —
namely, the apostolic Christology. Never
perhaps since the age of St. Paul was there
more unanimity in ascribing a central posi
tion to Christ. The name of Christ is on
every lip. Interest in His words, His
deeds, His historical environment, His
social philosophy, His practical ethics is
unprecedented. None can be found to dis-
1 Phil. 1 : 21. «Gal. 2: 20.

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 167
pute His supremacy as an example. Far
beyond the limits of the Christian society,
His admirers and friends throng. Hindu
ism respects Him ; Mohammedanism and
Judaism claim Him as their own. One is
thankful for every step in the progressive
recovery of the verisimilitude of Jesus.
Such was the beauty of His conduct, such
the purity of His character, such the
emancipation of His mind from prejudice,
He needs but to be known, to be loved
by the universal heart. Nevertheless one
cannot but ask: What shall be the out
come of a theological reconstruction that
would separate Jesus from the apostolic
Christology; minimizing what the apostles
magnified, namely His metaphysical Son-
ship in the Godhead, His Atoning Sacrifice
on the Cross, His Resurrection and Enthrone
ment, and undertaking to supply dynamic
for the Christianization of the world from the
sparsely reported annals of a three years'
ministry, which, upon His own showing,
was but the limited and sorrowing prelude
to His larger work as the crucified and risen

168 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
Saviour of the World. It is, perhaps, too
soon to pronounce upon the outcome of
a theological reconstruction founded solely
on the biographical data of the Son of Mary,
but it is not too soon to point out its com
plete divergence from the apostolic point of
view and its necessary tendency to produce
a type of religious experience from which
some of the primary elements of the Chris
tian consciousness are, in the nature of the
case, excluded.
When we have affirmed that the dynamic
of the Apostolic Church was its Christology,
its faith concerning Christ, we have but
opened the way for a more thorough inquiry
into the source of that power which, ob
viously, issued from the Pauline conception
of the Saviour of the world. I have sought
earnestly to find the secret of the power of
that idea, as it became the burden of the
first preachers and the inspiration of those
who came under their preaching. Evidently
there was extraordinary power in the idea
of Christ as the Saviour of the World. The
name of Christ was no fetich on the lips

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 169
of the apostles, nor was it but a spur to the
imagination, as suggesting memories of a
beautiful and efficient career. It carried
with it an appeal to reason and to con
science, and that appeal inhered not in the
fact of the Incarnation merely, but, specif
ically, the Incarnation extending itself and
consummating itself in the Sacrifice. "We
preach," he said, "Christ crucified, to the
Jews a stumbling-block and the Greeks
foolishness, but to them that believe, Christ
the wisdom of God and the power of God
unto salvation." J
I am sure that the secret spring of that
vast dynamic — the Saviour of the World —
was the Resurrection of Christ as the con
summation of His Incarnate Sacrifice, rather
than distinctively and separately the Act of
Death. I do not forget the utterances of
St. Paul that disclose his self-absorption in
the mystery of Calvary. " I determined to
know nothing among you, save Jesus Christ
and Him crucified."2 "God forbid that I
should glory, save in the Cross of our Lord
> 1 Cor. 1 : 23, 24. 3 1 Cor. 2 : 2.

170 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified
unto me and I unto the world." 1 "lam
crucified with Christ."2 The meaning of
these and other like expressions is too ob
vious to be disputed. St. Paul's crown
ing interest in the fact of Christ lay, not
in the annals of the three years, but in the
Event upon which those years converged
and in which the supreme utterance of
eternal justice and holy love was made.
Yet in these utterances touching the Death
of Christ we do not reach the final fact in
St. Paul's religious consciousness. Back of
them lies one fact yet more primal, on which
his estimate of the Death rests ; from which
it receives force and buoyancy and moral
significance. That ultimate fact is the
Resurrection : the Dead of whom he speaks
is already and eternally the Living One.
But for this the meaning of the Death were
gone. It is most striking to observe how,
in his Corinthian deliverance on resurrection
from the dead, his mind pours itself into the
channel of hypothesis, and pourtrays the
•Gal. 6:14. « Gal. 2:20.

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 171
desolation that enfolds the Incarnation, the
Cross and Christianity alike, "if Christ be
not risen." As if to exhaust the category of
negation he traces the fivefold catastrophe
of an incarnation consummated in a death
uncrowned by resurrection : The vanity
of preaching : "If Christ be not risen our
preaching is vain"; The emptiness of be
lief: "If Christ be not risen your faith is
also vain " ; The falsehood of testimony :
" If Christ be not risen we are found false
witnesses of God " ; The failure of redemp
tion : " If Christ be not risen ye are yet in
your sins" ; The collapse of hope : "If Christ
be not risen, then they also that are fallen
asleep in Christ are perished." J
As one reflects on these characteristic
notes of the apostolic ministry, wherein the
Death and Resurrection of the Lord Jesus
were magnified, one realizes the wide di
vergence from the primary grounds of Chris
tian witness-bearing represented by the
modem effort to detach essential Christianity
from the Fourth Gospel and the Pauline
Cf. 1 Cor. 15 : 14-20.

172 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
Epistles and to confine it within the synop
tical narratives. The purpose of this effort is
frankly avowed. It is to disburden what is
described as the essence of Christianity of
the philosophical impedimenta contained in
the apostolic interpretations of the Christian
religion. It is to hold strictly to the lines of
the narrative and to resist the overlay of
metaphysical implications heaped upon the
simple story of the Synoptists by those, who,
coming afterwards, built a theology upon
what was, and was meant to be, only a beau
tiful Life that went about doing good. As
this movement for a simplified Christianity
gains ground, it increasingly accentuates the
ethical values of the life and teachings of our
Lord, and grows increasingly silent concern
ing the significance of His Death and His
Resurrection. In other words it minimizes
what the apostles magnified, and magnifies
as the chief message of the Incarnation what
they, apparently, regarded as preliminary to
the chief message, which was the message of
the Cross and of the Risen Life. It is a very
striking fact that a strongly defined tendency

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 173
of contemporary thought is to make little of
the Resurrection of Christ — so little that one
is often left in doubt as to whether the Rising
from the Dead is accepted literally or is re
garded as a figure of speech. It is pointed
out that the witnesses of the Resurrection
were few and their testimony was meagre.
It is urged : Why complicate the simple in
fluence of the words and example of Jesus
by introducing the difficult and contradictory
thought of His Resurrection from the grave,
His coming back into a life that He had left
by the ordinary exit, death ? As a problem
in religious thinking, this modern tendency,
(an indirect result of the historical movement,)
to diverge from the position on which the
apostles stood, is most interesting. It should
be studied attentively, and wholly without
the resentment ordinarily meted out to devi
ations from orthodoxy. A fundamental
question is involved in it : a question that
must be dealt with in the light of the theo
logical history of the last three hundred
years : the question of the relation of the
Atonement to the Incarnation. I would that

174 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
there were time to take up the bearings of
this question upon the course of modern re
ligious thought; to show how the present
tendency to remain silent concerning the
Atonement and the Resurrection, and to
speak only of the Life and the teachings, is a
reaction, slowly gathering volume through
the last sixty years, from a scholastic the
ology that sought to account for the Atone
ment in academic considerations exterior to
the fact instead of interpreting the death of
Christ in the light of the Divine fact of the
Incarnation. No one, perhaps, in all these
years of theological unrest, has more dis
cerningly analyzed the situation, than did
that Scottish saint and prophet, John Mc-
Leod Campbell, who, being far in advance
of his day, was misunderstood and rejected
by his brethren as a heretic, but of whom
Tulloch nobly said, " Never was Christian
minister more divinely called. He was born
to preach the Gospel, and to counsel and
guide others in the Divine life. He had the
true apostolical succession, if ever man had,
and, what he had, he retained. The same

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 175
divine unction lay upon all his words, and
followed him wherever he went. It is im
possible to conceive a ministry more divinely
consecrated and sustained, and yet more in
the face of all church theory. He was as
plainly 'called to be a minister of Jesus
Christ through the will of God' as any
apostle ever was, and his divine calling re
mained independent of any ecclesiastical
sanction, and even grew richer in his isola
tion. The fact is beyond question, whatever
our theories may make of it."1 McLeod
Campbell, in the introduction to his book:
" The Nature of the Atonement, and its Re
lation to Remission of Sins and Eternal
Life " 2 says, with a perspicuity and grasp on
the situation that appear little less than in
spired, when one reflects that the words were
written in the time of Coleridge : " The
faith of the Atonement presupposes the faith
of the Incarnation. It may be also said his
torically that the faith of the Incarnation has
1 Movements of Religious Thought (New York, Scribners,
1886), p. 146.
? Sixth Edition, London, J §8§, p, xvi.

176 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
usually had conjoined with it the faith of the
Atonement. The great question which has
divided men as to these fundamental doc
trines has been the relation in which they
stand to each other — which was to be re
garded as primary, which secondary? — was
an atonement the great necessity in reference
to man's salvation, out of which the neces
sity for the Incarnation arose, because a Di
vine Saviour alone could make an adequate
Atonement for sin ? — or, is the Incarnation to
be regarded as the primary and highest fact
in God's relation to man, in the light of
which God's interest in man and purpose for
man can alone be truly seen? — and is the
Atonement to be contemplated as taking
place in order to the fulfillment of the Divine
purpose for man which the Atonement re
veals ? I feel it impossible in any measure
to realize what I believe, in believing in the
Incarnation, without giving a preference to
the latter view ; and accordingly my attempt
to understand and illustrate the nature of the
Atonement has been made in the way of
taking the subject to the light of the Incar-

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 1 77
nation. Assuming the Incarnation, I have
sought to realize the Divine mind in Christ
as perfect Sonship towards God and perfect
Brotherhood towards men, and, doing so,
the Incarnation has appeared, developing it
self naturally and necessarily as the Atone
ment." Two other utterances of McLeod
Campbell I must quote as bearing upon our
present discussion : " If the Atonement," he
says, " is rightly conceived of as a develop
ment of the Incarnation, the relation of the
Atonement to the Incarnation is indissoluble ;
and, in a clear apprehension of the Incarna
tion must be felt to be so." 1 Then, as if an
ticipating the present theological situation
he adds : " Yet I cannot forget that there
are earnest and deep-thinking minds in
whose case the faith of the Incarnation and
their acceptance of it as the fundamental
grace of God to man, to the light of which
all that concerns God's relation to man is to
be taken, has issued, not in the recognition
of the Atonement as a development of the
Incarnation, but on the contrary, in regard-
1 Op. cit., p. xviii.

178 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
ing the Atonement as, in the light of the In
carnation, alike uncalled for and inconceiv
able."1 Words more expressive of the
present situation could not be spoken. The
present tendency is to reconstruct theology
around a conception of the Incarnate Jesus
which satisfies all the ethical requirements
without introducing the metaphysic of
Atonement, and which, thereby, relieves one
of all obligation to attach importance to the
Resurrection of Christ. This is precisely the
state of thought that McLeod Campbell an
ticipated and of which he prophesied. It is
easily accounted for. It is a reaction, and,
one must add, a wholesome reaction, from
scholastic persistence in developing theories
of the Atonement dependent on academic
considerations exterior to the fact. But it
must never be forgotten that such a recon
struction is a complete divergence from
apostolic Christianity, and from every his
toric precedent that has determined the
course of Christian experience. It is a new
Gospel, fashioned on other lines than those
1 Op. cit., p. xviii.

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 1 79
that gave power to the ministry of the suc
cessors of Christ. The extent of this di
vergence McLeod Campbell foresaw, and
estimated with prophetic insight the elimina
tions necessitated by a faith in the Incarna
tion that combines with a rejection of the
Atonement and indifference to the Resurrec
tion. "What is left out of Christianity is
just that part of revealed truth in which the
love of God is connected with the need of
man as a sinner ; all, in a word, which gives
the Gospel a remedial character, representing
the Son of God as having come 'to seek
and to save that which was lost' — repre
senting man as having destroyed himself,
while revealing the hope that remained for
him in God. Redemption only reveals the
deep love of the Father of our spirits [re
demption expressed in the terms of the
Divine Sacrifice, which is the necessary con
summation of the Divine Incarnation] . But
to trace redemption to its ultimate root in
the Divine fatherliness, and to regard that
fatherliness as leaving no room for the need
of redemption, are altogether opposite appre-

180 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
hensions of the grace of God."1 It is safe to
predict that a divergence so complete from
the fundamental positions of Christianity
cannot effect a permanent readjustment of
religious thinking. Brilliant and sincere
though it may be, and, for the time being,
attractive as a substitute for ponderous
scholasticism, it must soon disclose the rela
tive poverty of its content as compared with
the magnificent fullness of the apostolic the
ology ; and the relative inability of its insist
ent appeal to history, to quench the unfath
omable thirst of the soul for knowledge of
the " deep things of God." The present cur
tailment of the field of theological thinking
and the present disparagement of the meta
physical Scriptures are an episode in the
history of religious thinking; contributing
to the vitality, but not deflecting the current,
of Christian belief. Already the counter re
action appears towards a more reverent
worship of the Crucified Redeemer, a more
profound apprehension of the power of His
Resurrection. The sincerity of historical
1 McLeod Campbell, op. cit, p. xxi.

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD l8l
criticism is bringing out the fact that Chris
tianity is built on the Resurrection of the
Crucified. The simple influence of the
words and example of Jesus, enshrined in
memory and appealing to the imagination, is
not the actual dynamic that gave force and
victory to those who went forth at the begin
ning, Christianizing the world. It was the
glowing Gospel of Christ Risen. "What
ever may have happened at the grave," says
Harnack, x " one thing is certain : this grave
is the birthplace of the indestructible belief
that death is vanquished, that there is life
eternal. Wherever there is a strong faith in
the infinite value of the soul, wherever the
sufferings of the present are measured
against a future of glory, this feeling of life
is bound up with the conviction that Jesus
Christ has passed through death, that God
has awakened and raised Him to life and
glory. It is not by any speculative ideas of
philosophy, but by the vision of Jesus' Life
and Death, and by the feeling of His imper
ishable union with God, that mankind, so far
1 What is Christianity ? Eng. trans., p. 162.

1 82 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
as it believes in these things, has attained to
that certainty of eternal life it was meant to
know and which it dimly discerns; eternal
life in time and beyond time."
But, when this conclusion is reached, con
cerning the original dynamic of Christianity,
the field of inquiry is but fairly open for
those who, by the recovery of apostolic the
ology, hope to witness, in the next great re
interpretation of the idea of the Church, a
restoration of the spiritual power of the First
Days, and a corresponding advance towards
the Christianization of the world. Funda
mental questions arise. Why did the Resur
rection of the Crucified give Him power to
transform the personal and social ideals of
men? Whence came the converting and
sanctifying power of that Gospel of the
Resurrection, which, from the moment of its
first promulgation, was a unique force for the
redemption and transformation of character?
Evidently that power did not reside in the
miracle of the Resurrection, as such. The
eye-witnesses, few in number and altogether
without prestige, alleged certain physical

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 183
facts in connection with the rising of Christ
from the dead. The broken seal, the un-
socketed stone, the deserted tomb, the angel
presence, the apparition of the Risen One in
the garden — those were the external phe
nomena of the great Return to life. Taken
by themselves, as items of testimony to an
astounding fact, they might create astonish
ment in some, incredulity in others. They
possessed no moral significance, reacting
upon character. Mere reiteration of marvels
could not produce a religion of the Spirit.
It was in the moral significance of the Resur
rection of the Crucified that we find the
secret of immortal power that clothed the
preaching of the apostles. It was in the
moral message of a risen Christ to the indi
vidual soul and to society — a Christ who had
tasted death for every man and had vindi
cated by Resurrection His claim to the alle
giance of every man — that we find the clue
to those marvellous transformations of per
sonal and social ideals that marked the first
efforts to Christianize society. The theology
of the apostles, however it may have reflected

184 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
philosophical influences, Grecian or Jewish
(and what teachers of any age can fail to
reflect contemporary philosophical influ
ences?) was essentially the interpretation,
under the guidance of the Spirit, of the
moral message of the Risen Christ. The
evident intention of their preaching was, not
to excite the imagination with physical de
tails of the Uprising from the tomb, but to
arrest the conscience and transfuse the reason
with considerations that spring from the fact
that the Crucified has vanquished death.
The moral significance of the Resurrection
flooded like sunlight the ministry of the
Apostolic Church. The immensity of the
subject towered above small questions of de
tail and conferred upon the earliest Christian
preaching elemental grandeur and dignity.
Those who heard the apostles felt them
selves to be in the presence of men, each of
whom had seen the vision of the face of God
And by the vision splendid
Was on his way attended.
The sterile formulae of orthodoxy had no
place in that impassioned preaching of life

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 185
and immortality. The fellowship of the Re
deemer's sufferings, and the power of His
Resurrection exalted and humbled these
splendid apologists of the gospel of grace ;
who, despising earthly rewards, and sorrow
ing with Christly sorrow over the evils of
humanity, were made all things to all men,
that they might win disciples for Him who
had been lifted upon Calvary. The moral
significance of the Resurrection, as it became
the burden of their preaching, extended God-
ward and manward, illuminating the mystery
of the Incarnation ; exhibiting the majesty of
human life. By the Resurrection was certi
fied the Divinity of the Son of God, the
validity of His claim (concerning the fact of
which no apostle ever doubted) to meta
physical union with Deity, the reality and
effectiveness of His Sacrifice for sin. By the
Resurrection assurance of personal immor
tality was given to men, and the present life
was lifted above the vicissitudes of a perish
able body and invested with infinite meaning
and eternal value.
It will be seen, by these reflections upon

1 86 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
the ministry of the apostles, that the dynamic
of Christianity was found originally in the
Person of Christ and not originally in the
eloquence of His sayings and the beneficence
of His actions. The sayings and the actions
took on their great significance because of
what He was in Himself, as the " effulgence
of the Father's glory, the express image of
His substance." Well did Whately say,
" Christ came not so much to make a revela
tion of truth by His own words, as to be a
Revelation of Truth in His own Person."
As the great moral messages of the Resur
rection were brought to men's hearts and
consciences by apostles clothed in the au
thority not of a carnal commandment but of
original and inherent truth, instantaneous
transformations of personal and social ideals
occurred in those who experienced the im
pact of these tremendous messages. The
Pentecostal sermon of Peter, ringing with
the note of Resurrection and bringing home
the awful facts of Divine Sacrifice for human
sin and the reality of personal immortality,
produced that searching of heart and that

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 187
profound resuscitation of conscience which
are reproduced to-day by those in whom
have survived the faith, the insight, the sim
plicity, the self-devotion of the apostolate.
Nor was the effect of the apostolic preaching
to foster an individualistic interest in per
sonal salvation as in contrast with the large
social outlook and the deep social solicitude
of Jesus. It has been claimed by the apolo
gists of the new movement which sets the
historic Jesus in contrast with the theology
of the apostles, that the tendency of the latter
is to develope a self-centred religious experi
ence culminating in mechanical evangelical
ism, whereas the spirit of the former was to
educate a social conscience subordinating
self to the larger interests of the kingdom of
God. In the light of apostolic history it
would appear that this attempted discrimi
nation is academic. Nothing is more strik
ing than the reconstruction of social ideals
and the correction of erroneous individualism
that occurred as the moral messages of the
Resurrection struck the conscience of those
who came under the ministrations of the

1 88 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
apostles. In the Fourth chapter of the Acts
of the Apostles is a typical example of this :
The narrator points out that upon a certain
community the Gospel of Christ Risen was
brought to bear in full force. " With great
power gave the apostles witness to the
Resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great
grace was upon them all." He then re
counts the effects issuing from these presen
tations. There occurred the concentration of
men's minds upon the highest truth. Their
thoughts were no longer scattered amidst
secondary issues, but converged upon the
facts corroborating and consummating the
Incarnation of the Son of God : " The multi
tude of them that believed were of one heart
and of one mind." There came with this
concentration of interest upon the central
fact of Christianity the correction of false in
dividualism by the birth of a new sense of
social responsibility. The vision of brother
hood arose, with its correspondence of inter
ests and its community of effort : " Neither
said any that aught of the things which he
possessed was his own, but they had all

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 1 89
things common." And with this birth of the
spirit of brotherhood and this new sense of
social responsibility came the quickening of
desire to use life's resources in the noblest
way, placing them at His disposal who had
surrendered all things for them, that they
through His Death might live unto God.
" As many as had lands or houses sold them,
and brought the prices of the things that
were sold, and laid them down at the apostles'
feet." Such were the social effects of the
apostolic witness to the Resurrection ; such
the clarifying of vision, the broadening of
social interests, the regeneration of conduct,
as men came under the power of a theology
that was not heavy with scholasticism, nor
technical with sectarianism, but vital with the
experience of those " who did eat and drink
with Him after He rose from the dead," and
who declared " that which they had seen and
heard and which their hands had handled, of
the Word of Life." What does the Church
need more, at the present time, than the
dynamic of the apostolic age to certify the
Divinity of the Son of God ; to bring back

190 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
the assurance of personal immortality ; to
invest the present life with new meaning and
eternal value, so that men shall no longer
live unto themselves in a complacent assur
ance of salvation, but, drawn into the fellow
ship of His sufferings and exalted throughout
the whole range of their thinking by the
power of His Resurrection, shall henceforth
live unto Him who died for them and rose
again. So to live means to live for others ;
to live for the Christianization of the world.
Such was the meaning of apostolic Chris
tology in that First Age, before ecclesiasticism
and scholasticism had arisen to confuse and
divert the minds of men. Its spirit and its
power were determined not by any council of
apostles, formulating a system of theology,
but by the living Christ Himself, organizing
His Church, giving it its commission and its
message. He had emerged from the agony
and humiliation of His Sacrifice ; — He had
fully manifested the Father, by tracing the
redemption consummated on Calvary to its
ultimate root in the fatherliness of God ; —
He had condemned sin by the offering up of

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 191
His own flesh publicly; and now, casting
away the fetters of death He had arisen and
taken unto Himself His most glorious title —
the Saviour of the World. Finally, He had
issued to His representatives the Gospel of
the Resurrection, for the Christianizing of
the world.
Through the slow and painful evolution of
His Church the work appointed by Himself
has been going on. Many hindrances, per
sonal and institutional, have stood in its way.
Ignorance, shortsightedness, shallowness, sel
fishness, apathy, rivalry, moral defeat are
among the personal hindrances that, in one
age and another, in one locality and another,
have obstructed, postponed, nullified the
plan of Christ. Nor have the institutional
hindrances been less formidable. While one
realizes that the Church could not have had
external continuity without her institutions,
nor intellectual self-realization without her
schools of theology and her dogmatic sys
tems, it is impossible to study dispassionately
the history of ecclesiasticism and scholasti
cism without perceiving how these vast em-

192 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
bodiments of human authority and specula
tion have clogged the buoyancy, confused
the simplicity, delayed the accomplishment
of the chief end of the Church of Christ — the
Christianization of the world.
Yet we must not look narrowly, and with
the mind of pessimism on this mysteriously
slow and halting evolution of the Christian
Church. We must take the largest, broadest
view — the only view worthy of those who
worship a living Christ. We must believe
that these successive reinterpretations of the
idea of the Church, with all their disad
vantages, have been necessary ; and that
they have brought discipline and enrichment,
without which the vast work yet to be done
were not possible. Especially may we hope
that the present wide-spread longing in the
hearts of men for a simpler and more homo
geneous Church means that we are on the
verge of recovering that apostolic sense of
Christ Crucified and Christ Risen, which can
give adequate meaning to that mighty con
ception, The Saviour of the World. It is
recorded that our Lord, after His interview

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 1 93
with the woman of Samaria, tarried some
what in the community where she dwelt, and
came in contact with many of the people,
who, having first been interested in Him on
the report of the woman, finally declared :
" Now we believe, not for thy speaking, for
we have heard for ourselves and know that
this is indeed the Saviour of the World." It
may be that, as the outcome of the various
modern movements towards a new apprecia
tion of Jesus, there is at hand a rediscovery
of the one coordinating principle, a new ap
prehension of Jesus Christ as Saviour of the
World, which is to be, for the twentieth cen
tury, the equivalent of the apostolic spirit
and of the apostolic point of view. One can
not believe that the wide-spread sense of need
of a fresh and simpler reinterpretation of the
Church is either restlessness or radicalism.
Rather is it an unformulated conviction, ris
ing everywhere like the tide, that neither
ecclesiasticism nor scholasticism contains the
vital force needed for the Christianization of
the world ; and that a recovery of the apos
tolic power for witnessing to the Resurrec-

194 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
tion of the Crucified shall alone bring back
into modern life those three fundamental
convictions : The Love of God manifested
on the Cross of Christ for salvation from sin ;
the fact of personal immortality attested in
the Resurrection of the Crucified ; the moral
significance of each individual life in the
light of its own eternity.
As I study the deepest religious thinking
of our time, together with the ebb and flow
of contemporary movements for social bet
terment, I see much that suggests the unpre
meditated convergence of many lines of tend
ency upon Jesus Christ as the Saviour of
the World. I shall briefly indicate some of
these lines, in closing the present Lecture.
The scientific study of religion is one of
the most fruitful disciplines of modern schol
arship. Religion has been frankly recog
nized as a universal phenomenon of human
life, and an impartial comparison of its
modes of expression as a necessary condi
tion of knowledge of the race. It is inter
esting to recall the distrust with which the
study of comparative religion was regarded

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 1 95
in conservative Christian circles. It was
feared that serious interest in the investiga
tion of non-Christian faiths, long denounced
by the authority of prejudice as wholly
worthless and vile, might impair the suprem
acy of the Christian religion, and derogate
from its prerogative to be an evangel for all
nations. It was contended that to treat re
spectfully the religious conceptions of the Far
East was to pay tribute to Satan and to rob
Christ of His crown. These ominous pre
dictions have not been fulfilled. The study
of the philosophy and history of religion,
while it has dissolved many prejudices, cor
rected many misrepresentations and brought
to light many admirable facts touching the
religious life of races beyond the confines
of Christianity, has most clearly shown the
point at which the great non-Christian faiths
stop short of power for the thoroughgoing
transformation of character, which is salva
tion. They contain no central personality
morally adequate to deal with the conscience,
with the heart, with the will. They have no
World-Saviour to offer. They are without

196 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
the vitality that can give life to the soul dead
in trespasses and sins. The more attentively
we study them, estimating their fitness to
minister to the religious needs of man, the
more obvious becomes their moral inade
quacy. They have their heroes and their
saints, their prophets and their sages, but
they have no one to take the place of Jesus
Christ, the Saviour of the World. They have
no equivalent for His power to recreate the
fundamental instincts and motives of the
soul, to purge and reorganize the affections,
to endue with the power of the Spirit. The
older religions are weakening because of
moral inadequacy, and in their weakness are
becoming corrupt ; they are trying to arrest
that process of corruption by assimilating
the salt of the ethics of Jesus; while He,
standing more conspicuously than ever, be
fore the eyes of the whole race, the Desire
of all nations, the Transformer of social ideals,
the Regenerator of motives, the Absolver
from sin, is extending His influence and
multiplying His triumphs as the Saviour of
the World. I believe that this extension of

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 197
the influence of Jesus Christ as a Saviour is,
in these momentous times, advancing more
rapidly than our most sanguine estimates of
progress. Much of that extension of influ
ence is, as yet, wholly secret. The suprem
acy of Christ is far wider than the formal
acknowledgment of that supremacy.
I observe also, as another of the lines of
convergence, the reactions occurring in our
time from movements tending to set Christ
aside and to substitute some other force to
take His place. Many such movements,
more or less sharply defined, diversify the
life of this alert and individualistic age. In
dividual minds, or groups of minds, impa
tient of ecclesiastical restriction and theolog
ical dogmatism, feeling that the old methods
lag behind the newer thinking, break away
into original expedients for reclaiming so
ciety and satisfying the higher instincts.
The Social Settlement and the Institutional
Church sprang from impatience of the life-
lessness and inefficiency of ecclesiastical
routine. They broke from devitalized meth
ods into naturalness, simplicity, practical

198 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
helpfulness. Being in their nature reaction
ary, they went, in many instances, to extreme
positions, in the effort to substitute for the
ancient way of the Church,' new incentives to
the growth of character. As their methods
are tested by popular response, it is transpir
ing as the result of experience that social
activity cannot fill the place of Christ ; that
we may do without the stereotyped methods
of ecclesiasticism, but we cannot dispense
with the Presence, the example, the teaching,
and the redemption of Him whose joy was
to immerse Himself in human life, bearing
its griefs, carrying its sorrows, lifting it to
God. Another very striking phenomenon of our
time is an inclination, diffused through edu
cated circles, to substitute a pantheistic,
nature-worship for the ancient way of the
Church ; a non-religious ethics freed from
old pious restrictions upon conduct ; a satis
faction in culture absolved from the limita
tions of traditional belief. With this is joined
enthusiasm for social reform, and humanita
rian charity which boasts its separateness

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 1 99
from the sounding brass of orthodoxy, the
tinkling cymbal of ritualism. Viewing this
culture-movement from the outside, and su
perficially, it presents aspects answering to
one's own training and temperament. To
those who follow with unquestioning obe
dience the ecclesiastical routine, this break
ing away into nature worship seems crude
impiety and godlessness ; to some who obey
the church form, yet with weariness and dis
content, this casting off of religious obligation
seems a comfortable paganism that escapes
a galling yoke of prescribed obedience. In
many instances it is neither the one nor the
other : neither godlessness nor comfortable
paganism. Beneath its surface calm, one
who has insight may read many a tragedy
of spiritual experience : protest against un
sympathetic dogmatism, resentment of sec
tarian narrowness, exhausted patience under
preaching that lacked vision of the eternal
essence of truth, revolt against formalism,
blind wandering into nature-worship, and,
beneath all, unconquerable thirst for the
living God, the cry of the soul for pardon

26o THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
and peace : " O Lamb of God that takest
away the sins of the world, have mercy upon
me ! " Withdrawal from unsatisfying ordi
nances, and unexpressive formulas, is not
always worldliness. He who searches the
heart beholds such as are seeking a simpler
way to Himself, a religious life disburdened
of unreality, an approach to Christ like his
who leaned upon the Saviour's breast. The
Church that most reverently and simply ex
alts the Saviour of the World, even were it by
the silent sign of the crucifix, shall be the
Church to which the currents of this reaction
from unreality shall turn. The time draws
near when the demand for an uplifted Christ
— uplifted with the passionate devotion of an
apostolic age — shall compel a reconsider
ation of the Protestant status quo — to meet
the hunger of those who would recover the
Roman veneration for the Redeemer without
submitting to the Roman conception of au
thority. In the presence of these religious phenom
ena of our time it is inspiring to recall the
onward movements of thought which, with-

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 201
out collusion or premeditation, through vari
ous channels seem converging to a point
where the supremacy of the Saviour of the
World shall be shown as at once the aspira
tion of faith and the verdict of science. Scien
tific theology is putting its maturest conclu
sions into a Christology which takes on in
creasingly the colour and tone of apostolic
thought. The revelation of God in Christ
has received the scientific connotation : the
Christiikeness of God. God is as Christ
is. He that hath seen Christ hath seen the
Father. He is then the Saviour of the World
in this as in all beside, that He is giving the
world the adequate vision of God ; He is
saving the world from distorted, erroneous,
misleading views of duty ; He is saving the
world by shedding abroad in it the true light
concerning Him with whom we have to do.
The latest deliverances of scientific theology
are but corroborations and amplifications of
that magnificent statement : " God, having of
old time spoken unto the fathers in the proph
ets hath at the end of these days spoken unto
us in His Son ; whom He appointed heir of

202 THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD
all things, the effulgence of His glory and
the very image of His substance." x
Another onward movement of our time is
the growing sense of the world-wide signifi
cance of the Incarnation. The momentary
reaction from this, produced by the extreme
pressure of the historical school to accentuate
the synoptical narratives, (an effort which
cannot be too highly spoken of save where it
attempts to discredit the metaphysic of the
Fourth Gospel) — this momentary reaction
already subsides; and the Incarnation of
the Son of God is being seen in the light of
the later anthropology and psychology ; dis
closing the profound unities that underlie
humanity. It is being seen in the light of
the world-wide self-consciousness of Jesus
Christ. He saw Himself in world-relations ;
His flesh was, to Him, the bread which He
would give for the light of the world. His
Death was, to Him, an exaltation above all
the local incidents of kinship and country
and brief years of ministry, into a Saviour-
hood for the race, reaching beyond all
> Heb. i : 1-3.

THE SAVIOUR OF THE WORLD 203
boundaries, overpassing all lines of cleav
age, gathering together in one the whole
human family, as the object of His Sacrifice
and of His all-comprehending love: "I, if I
be lifted up from the earth will draw all men
unto Myself." In these latter days, as East
and West are meeting, not in the struggles of
war alone, but, far more, in the peaceful and
interested interchange of thought, the vast-
ness of the Incarnation is being attested in
the extraordinary facility with which minds
of every racial type, of every diversity of an
cestral custom and belief find it possible to
apprehend the spirit and purpose of Jesus
Christ. Christ is no more a stranger in any
land. He has His disciples everywhere ; and,
in them all, developes the one type of experi
ence, the one vision of perfection, the one
habit of communion with the invisible
Saviour. It is the witness of humanity to
the Incarnation. It is the answer of a
race made in God's image, to its Maker
and its Saviour.

LECTURE V
THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM

LECTURE V
THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM
IT has been pointed out, repeatedly, in the
foregoing pages, that, these Lectures may
be regarded as an attempt to interpret
contemporary conditions in the field of relig
ious thinking, and to present an argument
for a more clear and simple apprehension of
the universal elements of the Christian re
ligion, in order that the Church may more
effectively accomplish the work entrusted
to her by Jesus Christ, namely, the Chris
tianization of the world.
The critical movement, in its present and
prospective effects upon religious thinking, is
one of the most momentous elements of the
situation. To ignore it is fatal to any at
tempt to interpret contemporary conditions ;
for the Christian point of view, especially the
Protestant point of view, involves the recog-
207

208 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
nition of the critical movement. To attack
it, on the ground of the radicalism of
some of its advocates, is to mislead the pub
lic mind and to misrepresent as hostile to
Biblical religion, its most powerful human aid.
Concerning few subjects does more general
misapprehension exist. No task is more
welcome, and none more appropriate, to the
ardent advocate of apostolic theology, than
to exhibit the constructive office of Biblical
criticism, particularly in its bearing upon a
more clear and simple apprehension of the
universal elements of the Christian religion.
The first and simplest step is to show the re
lation of the theme of the present Lecture to
the general subject under consideration. It
is obvious that the Bible is our main source
of information touching the elements of the
Christian religion. The claim of Biblical
criticism is the claim of a right and a duty to
obtain direct access to the Bible, for the pur
pose of gaining first-hand knowledge of our
holy religion. The word "criticism," as a
description of this claim, is an unfortunate
and misleading word, because of the second-

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 209
ary associations that have gathered about it.
As used in popular speech, particularly in the
verbal form, "to criticise," it suggests un
pleasantly the inclination to find fault, to
raise objections, to point out blemishes.
But, as used in its scientific sense, in connec
tion with the study of Holy Scripture, " criti
cism " means something quite different from
fault-finding; something which appears in
the structure of the word itself : namely, the
exercise of the power of judgment in the pur
suit of truth. The claim of Biblical criticism
is the claim of a right, which is also a duty,
of direct access to the Bible, and of private
judgment in the study and interpretation of
the Bible, with a view to immediate, and in
creasingly accurate, knowledge of its con
tents. Its ultimate end is to disperse mis
conceptions, and to exhibit truth ; by proc
esses involving the highest and most
conscientious use of the means of scholar
ship, in a spirit of intellectual freedom not
restrained by ecclesiastical authority, and
with reverence suitable in those who are deal
ing with the materials of a Divine revelation.

2IO THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
It seeks to advance beyond all partisan and
sectarian accentuations of specific parts of the
Biblical content, and, without controversy, to
set forth the universal elements of that world-
religion, which, evolved through preparatory
stages of Jewish monotheism, attained com
pleteness in the Incarnation of the Son of
God, in His Life, Death and Resurrection,
and in the apostolic consciousness through
which His Person and Work were interpreted
in the terms of Christian experience.
It is important to observe what considera
tions are involved in the claim of criticism
that direct access to the Bible is both a right
and a duty. Biblical criticism stands for the
unrestricted privilege of investigation into
whatsoever, from any point of view, concerns
our religion, and its documentary and his
torical sources. Its thesis is : " There is
nothing covered that shall not be revealed,
nor hid that shall not be made known." It
summons to its aid all the resources of the
intellect, all the treasures of human knowl
edge ; it claims right of way over every track
of science, into every storehouse of facts. It

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 211
believes that investigation, so far from being
incompatible with reverence, may be an act
of worship ; that the toil of the scholar may
be as sacred as the ministration of the priest.
Biblical criticism represents the effort of
the investigator to come personally near to
truth and to receive those self-evidencing im
pressions which are recorded by truth when
brought directly to bear upon the seeker after
it. It involves the sacred duty of receiving the
impact of the Biblical content immediately
upon the field of personal consciousness, that
the reason, the conscience, the will may bear
their witness, as divinely implanted organs
of discernment, answering to the divinely
given Revelation.
Biblical criticism implies the obligation to
permit nothing to stand between the inquir
ing spirit of man and the Word of God. It
cannot recognize churchly authority if that
authority, as in the earlier Roman mode, un
dertakes to check investigation and to impose
compulsory interpretation. It cannot be
satisfied to adopt confessional declarations
about the Bible and its content as substitutes

212 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
for personal acquaintance with the sources
and personal assurance of their teaching.
Every barrier raised before Holy Scripture
must give way ; and one must stand un
fettered and unembarrassed in the presence
of the oracles of God, assured that whatso
ever is of the truth shall attest itself as the
revelation of God ; and whatsoever is of man,
beset with human infirmity and error, shall
not, by any possibility, impair, vitiate, dis
credit or becloud the eternal and indefectible
truth. The elements here enumerated, as defining
the claim of Biblical criticism, represent the
most fundamental and most precious princi
ple of the liberty of Protestants, which is,
right of access to the sources of truth and of
private judgment in its interpretation. This
was what Luther and the reformers contended
for, as against the demand of the Church to
have the custody of the truth, to retain the
prescriptive right to announce by authority
the interpretation of the truth, for the guid
ance of the common mind, and to set the
interpretation issued by the Church, between

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 213
the Bible and the people. The reformers
successfully vindicated their principle ; but,
as time passed on, a new authority grew up
in Protestantism, standing between the Bible
and the people ; namely, the authoritative
interpretations of Scripture contained in the
denominational catechisms and confessions ;
together with the unofficial, yet not less bind
ing, consensus of current opinion about the
Bible, its structure, its verbal inspiration, the
coequal authority and value of all its parts.
Of these deliverances and opinions I speak
with the greatest possible reverence. They
were genuine ; noble ; necessary. They rep
resented the state of knowledge and belief at
various stages in the evolution of Protestant
ism. But, in the nature of the case, these
deliverances and these opinions could not be
final. As knowledge grows, as the ever-
present Spirit of God works in the minds of
men, all official deliverances and all popular
opinions concerning Scripture call for review
and restatement ; not necessarily as requiring
correction, and not, assuredly, as casting dis
credit on those who promulgated them, but

214 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
that belief and the expression of it may con
tinuously retain reality, as actual interpreta
tions of eternal truth. It is the most cher
ished treasure of Protestantism that we are
not bound by decrees of councils, but walk
in the liberty of the Spirit in the holy garden
of the truth. It is the most hallowed incentive
to the Christianization of others that we our
selves have received fresh, immediate visions
of the essence of our religion, so that with
the Samaritans we can say, " Now we believe,
for we have heard Him ourselves and know
that this is indeed the Saviour of the World."
Therefore, in the nature of the case, we must
always be going back to the sources of our
religion ; always be studying those sources
in the light of new knowledge ; always be
receiving, in our own consciousness, fresh as
surance of the inspiration, the authority, the
sanctity of the Biblical revelation. And our
guarantee that this liberty of movement, this
advance in knowledge and restatement of
opinion, shall not lead to individualism and
loss of the common truth, must be the abiding
Spirit of God, whose function it is to protect,

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 215
as well as to illumine, the sources of faith.
Apparentiy there are but two logical methods
of procedure : to allow, and to rejoice in, this
free access to the Bible and this liberty of in
terpretation, regarding the standards of the
Church as ever open for amendment and
restatement ; or, on the other hand, to place
between the individual mind and the Bible
the authority of a church as the official
interpreter of Scripture, with power to bind
the reason and conscience of the individual.
The religious history of the last sixty years
is full of impressive illustrations of the play
of these two ideas ; none more impressive
than that presented by the earlier and later
Oriel schools at Oxford. From the former
spoke the voices of Thomas Arnold, . Henry
Hart Milman, Richard Whately, contending
that the authority and the glory of Scripture
are not in the inerrancy of the letter but in
the self-evidencing divinity of the content,
mediated by the Holy Spirit to the under
standing and the affections of believers ; re
quiring not the external sanction of the
Church. From the later Oriel school came

2l6 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
the impassioned answers of Hurrell Froude,
Edward Bouverie Pusey, John Henry New
man and their brilliant associates, reprobating
the principle of Protestant liberty in the use
of Scripture and invoking the Church as the
divinely appointed interpreter of the sacred
oracles. Newman alone, of the later school,
was consistent. As he had begun by op
posing the liberty of Biblical criticism claimed
by the earlier Oriel school, and as he insisted
on putting his trust in the authority of eccle
siastical antiquity rather than in the self-
evidencing authority of the living truth, he
followed, with noble sincerity, the logic of his
own convictions, yielding submission to the
most venerable Representative of authority
and surrendering his right of private judg
ment to the Holy Mother Church. It is by a
study of the points of view of Thomas Ar
nold and John Henry Newman that one
may gain insight into the fundamental ques
tion at issue. The life-principle of Protest
antism is involved in the claim of Biblical
criticism. If the claim of Biblical criticism has now

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 217
been sufficiently defined, as the right and duty
of the exercise of judgment in the pursuit
of truth, we may proceed to examine the
foundations of criticism. On what founda
tions rests this claim, which, to many, seems
the most sacred of all claims, taking prece
dence of all other considerations in the field
of intelligent and productive religious think
ing ? The foundations are partly intellectual
and philosophical ; partly moral and religious.
The intellectual and philosophical founda
tions underlying the sacred duty of Biblical
criticism are identical with the ultimate con
clusions of Protestant thought touching the
sanctity of the human reason, the unity of
the field of knowledge, the nature of au
thority. It is an inherent part of the Protestant
spirit to reverence the reason, with its powers
of investigation, discernment, analysis, esti
mation of values, judicial determination. It
appears to be evidently the gift of God — one
might say, the reflection of God in ourselves.
It is the image and superscription of the
Creator impressed upon the creature ; a holy

218 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
power, the basis of communion with God.
The Spirit of God is the Spirit of wisdom and
counsel and understanding. The spirit of
man is the candle of the Lord, a lesser light
emerging from the Eternal Light, being of the
same substance, partaking of the same quali
ties. The Spirit of God works through the
spirit of man, nourishing the powers of dis
cernment, illuminating the understanding,
guiding the judgment. Even so said Christ :
" When the Spirit of Truth is come, He shall
guide you into all the truth." 1 This is the true
mysticism of Christianity, as distinguished
from all mysticism that has moved away from
rational lines, into the regions of ecstasy.
Christian mysticism is the direct contact of
the rational man with the mind of God ; the
consecration of reason by its Eternal Author ;
the Divine guidance of thought. Hence the
relation of reason to faith, in the mind of true
Protestantism. Reason is not a substitute
for faith nor a foe to faith. Faith is not blind
obedience to external authority. Faith is the
highest exercise of intelligence, the sublimest
'John 16: 13.

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 219
development of reason ; faith is the function
of judgment carried up to the highest power ;
it is the " will to believe." The Bible is the
noblest and most legitimate object on which
this holy power may exercise itself. It is its
normal field and province. Devout criticism,
the exercise of judgment in the pursuit of
truth, is an act as spiritual as prayer.
The unity of the field of knowledge offers
another consideration on which the claim of
Biblical criticism rests. The Bible is not to
be considered as a field of thought marked
off from other thought by impassible barriers ;
it is not a sanctuary covered, like Israel's
tabernacle, with veils of separation that se
clude it from the common paths of men, and
render it inaccessible to ordinary approaches.
He who reveals Himself in the Bible is the
same that has revealed, and is revealing, Him
self in every other department of knowledge.
There can be no contradictions in that vast
self-revelation. The Bible needs no protec
tion against science. Its content needs no
adventitious support as from a theory of
verbal inerrancy. The fallibility of the docu-

220 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
ments affects in no wise their self-evidencing
authority as a channel of the self-disclosure
of Him who speaks also in the universe of
physical nature, in the sanctuary of the human
spirit, in the solemn movement of the evolu
tionary order, and, supremely, in the Person
of the Incarnate Son. Well said one mem
ber of that prophetic circle of the early Oriel
school : " As we must not dare to withhold
or disguise revealed religious truth, so
we must dread the progress of no other
truth. We must not imitate [those] who
imprisoned Galileo ; and step forward, Bible
in hand, to check the inquiries of the geolo
gist, the astronomer, or the political-econo
mist, from an apprehension that the cause of
religion can be endangered by them. Any
theory, on whatever subject, that is really
sound, can never be inimical to a religion
founded on truth ; and any that is unsound
may be refuted by arguments drawn from ob
servation and experiment, without calling in
the aid of revelation. . . . The part of a
lover of truth is to follow her at all seeming
hazards, after the example of Him who came

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 221
into the world that He might bear witness to
the truth." *
Biblical criticism rests also on certain ulti
mate convictions concerning the nature of the
criteria, credentials and seat of authority that
are in accord with the genius of the Protes
tant ideal. Beyond doubt it is true that the
aposties of intellectual liberty have not
always been safe guides. In the name of
those valid principles, "the freedom of the
Spirit" and "liberty of prophesying," ex
tremists have subverted truth, confused the
mind of the average, and committed specu
lative absurdities. Nevertheless the princi
ples, of which they were the momentary and
inadequate representatives, abide forever,
and in every age reassert themselves spon
taneously in the Christian consciousness.
Great blessings have come through the or
ganized authority of the Church, blessings
apparently unattainable in other ways. The
occupation of territory, the continued main
tenance of works, the moral impressiveness
i Whately, " Essay on The Love of Truth," 6th Edition,
p.34sq.

222 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
of venerable institutions, the correction of
disorders, the diffusion of knowledge are
fruits of organized authority. Nor is it less
certain that faith, vital and ample, has been
protected and advanced by the regulative
action of ecclesiastical authority. Neverthe
less the paradox of history stands ; it is also
true, and, at some periods, conspicuously
true that the progress of religion has been
arrested and the knowledge of the Bible re
stricted, not to say perverted, by the interpo
sition between the minds of men and the
gracious Word of God, of systems of author
ity that were self-assertive rather than di
vinely appointed, contradictory rather than
homogeneous. The fundamental interest of
Biblical criticism is truth. The fundamental
interest of ecclesiastical authority is the
maintenance of the status quo. Therefore it
is of the very essence of the critical principle
to challenge every authority, whether of the
organized Church, or of tradition, or of pop
ular opinion standing as the interpreter or
custodian of Biblical truth, requiring every
such authority to show cause why we may

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 223
not commit ourselves directly to the Word
itself and to the Spirit who breathes and
shines therein. True criticism believes in
the value of ecclesiastical authority for the
promotion of order and the doing of work,
but not as an intermediary between the
sources of truth and those who, in the
freedom of the Spirit, would seek them for
themselves and reveal them to others.
The moral and religious foundations un
derlying the sacred duty of Biblical criticism
are not less interesting than those more
distinctively intellectual and philosophical.
They involve our conceptions of the morality
of truth ; of the obligation to seek it for our
selves ; of the sanctifying effect of truth thus
sought and found ; and of the immediateness
of God, in cooperation with one entirely
committed to the sway of truth.
The morality of truth is an inherent prop
erty. Truth is fact. It is the thing that is.
In the sources of a religion that comes from a
Holy God, there can be nothing but fact.
Fiction, error, delusion can be no part of the
Christian religion. To arrive at truth is to

224 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
be emancipated from these. " Ye shall know
the truth," is our Lord's promise, " and the
truth shall make you free." x The most ven
erable, most cherished error, if, by the ad
vance of knowledge, it be proved to be error,
is to be cast away with relief and gladness as
an alien thing, having no part in that with
which, by tradition or by current opinion, it
has been associated. God is light and in
Him is no darkness at all. This is the mo
rality of truth. Hence we need no interven
ing authority between us and the Bible ; for
that which is not true ought not to be sus
tained by authority of the Church, and that
which is true needs not to be so sustained,
but is self-demonstrating and self-sustain
ing. The obligation to seek truth for ourselves
is a part of the moral incentive of Biblical
criticism. The attitude of the student, con
secrating his rational powers to the study of
the thoughts of God, is an appropriate atti
tude. If God has been pleased to reveal
Himself through holy oracles, it is the duty
1 John 8 : 32.

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 225
of every mind, according to its gifts, to
"read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest"
the Divine message. " Speak, Lord, for
Thy servant heareth," represents the attitude
of devout scholarship no less than the mind
of childlike faith. To substitute for the per
sonal authority of conviction the impersonal
authority of the churchly declaration is to
imperil the reality of faith as well as to
diminish its joy. Moreover the history of
declaratory authority is not a self-consistent
history. The passion of controversy, the
dimness of ignorance, the overshadowing of
local environments, the masterful diplomacy
of leadership, the chances of numbers have
had much to do with the theological deliver
ances of churches. The safeguarding of our
own integrity as believers requires us to go
back of all confessional statements and, by
direct access to the sources of truth, to frame
for ourselves a reason for the hope that is
in us.
The sanctifying effect of truth thus sought
and found constitutes another moral founda
tion of criticism. In the First Epistle of

226 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
Peter1 occurs a splendid reference to the
ethical effect of finding out truth for oneself,
consciously holding it, fervently obeying it :
" Ye have purified your souls in obeying the
truth." Intellectual sincerity is a tonic ad
ministered to the moral system, a purgation
of the soul. So long as religious conceptions
are held or preached with a view to main
taining orthodoxy, the anxiety to receive
official sanction may gradually undermine
intellectual and moral sincerity, and must
surely destroy the vivacity and courage that
are brought to the soul by its commitment to
truth that has been investigated at first hand
and certified by direct experience. It is
truth so gained and so assimilated that has
power not merely to stimulate the intellect
but also to regulate the conscience and to
control the will.
The immediateness of God, in cooperation
with one entirely committed to the sway of
truth, is, perhaps, the deepest foundation of
devout criticism. Belief in the Holy Spirit,
whom Christ called the " Spirit of Truth,"
1 1 Peter 1 : 22.

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 227
lies at the root of true criticism. He is the
Sanctifier and Certifier of the understanding.
He abides in the Word, permeating it with
eternal vitality, defending it from the corro
sion of untruth. He abides also in the mind
of the reverent and fearless student of the
Word, making demonstration of its integrity,
convincing of its authority, bringing the
assurance of faith. Undisturbed by marks
of fallibility in the documents, devout criti
cism advances in the communion of the Holy
Spirit, who, safeguarding, glorifying, open
ing the oracles, uses the agencies of scholar
ship to dispel error, correct misunderstanding,
vindicate and exhibit the indefectible sub
stance of revelation.
Thus far, in this Lecture, I have considered
our subject in the abstract, dwelling upon the
claim of devout Biblical criticism and the
foundations supporting that claim. I would
now speak of the spirit and outcome of some
of the critical movements of our time. We
cannot understand the significance of the
time in which we are living, if we refuse to
take note of the presence of these great

228 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
movements of critical thought ; which, while
unlike one another in many respects, are alike
in this : they represent the claim of thought
ful men to possess the right of direct access
to the Bible, and private judgment in its in
terpretation. We know that wise and good
people differ as to the good or evil effects of
these movements. Some noble souls resist
them with all the energy of conscience, re
garding them as tending to impair the
authority of Holy Scripture. Others, per
haps not less noble and sincere, rejoice in
them, as bringing a more glorious authority
to Scripture, an authority not derived from
ecclesiastical deliverances, but inherent and
self-evidencing. Few thoughtful persons will
be found who ignore these movements as
unimportant. To those who study them in the light of
the whole evolution of religious thinking in
the nineteenth century, they appear to be in
the highest sense symptomatic and signifi
cant. They are, especially in England and
America, a part of a great body of unorgan
ized sentiment, to be found in every denom-

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 229
ination, in every university, in every seat of
scholarly learning. An impression prevails
that we have arrived at the threshold of a
new age, wherein the former ruling of secta
rian opinion by the objective authority of
confessional standards no longer satisfies the
demand of many devout minds for a basis of
faith and union. There is no hostility to
standards as such, as convenient vehicles for
the local expression of religious sentiment, but
there is a deep sense of their inadequacy to
meet the new conditions of thought. A new
consensus of opinion and desire is develop
ing, not antagonizing the sectarian status quo
but rising above it, reaching out beyond it,
drawing together in a larger brotherhood of
the Spirit those for whom the future with its
problems seems more vital and pressing than
the conservation of the sectarian differentia.
The common object of interest for this widen
ing brotherhood of the Spirit is the Bible, and
its relation to the new science, the new phi
losophy, the new social ideals. There is no
special desire to obliterate sectarian lines, or
to disturb the historical divisions of Protes-

230 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
tant Christendom which afford an admirable
basis for the distribution of effort ; but there
is a very deep conviction that the Christian
consciousness must be relieved of artificial
restriction in religious thinking and that old
theological contentions may rightfully be
forgotten in the face of enormous oppor
tunities to adjust the new intellectual con
ditions to the eternal and unchangeable
Revelation of God in Christ. Such is the
deeper meaning of the critical movements of
our time. All of them, the most radical and
the most reverent alike, represent stirrings
and questionings in many hearts that are
looking (some, it may be, vaguely and un
consciously), for that next great reinterpreta
tion of the idea of the Church, wherein the
Bible, seen and investigated and understood
in the light of the latest advance of knowl
edge and the ripest development of Christian
experience, shall display to the reason and
conscience of the twentieth century the uni
versal elements of the Christian religion.
This profound sentiment has not been cre
ated suddenly. It is no fanciful product of

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 23 1
restless modernity. It has been gathering
volume and depth and self-realization for a
hundred years. If I were asked to mention
the one name in the annals of English
thought most nearly associated with the
initial stage of this movement, I would with
out hesitation name that poet, prophet,
mystic and leader of creative religious think
ing, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In his "Aids
to Reflection," and, still more completely, in
his " Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit,"
Coleridge put into words the latent yearning
of many English hearts for a system of relig
ious thinking, founded more completely upon
truth and less dependent on external author
ity. It seemed to him that a certain un
reality was clinging like a mist around the
denominational systems ; that they were
gradually becoming barriers to the advanc
ing knowledge of the truth ; that they were
undertaking to bind the reason and con
science to fixed moments of the past, and to
give an unqualified absoluteness to certain
provisional and imperfect interpretations of
Christianity, as against the eternal progress-

232 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
iveness of Divine Self-revelation, and the
boundless capacity of the human mind to
assimilate new aspects of that self-revelation.
Coleridge dreaded the arrest of develop
ment which threatens Christian thought
when ecclesiastical orthodoxy is elevated
above truth. His position is substantially
stated in his twenty-fifth aphorism in the
"Aids to Reflection." "He, who begins by
loving Christianity better than truth, will
proceed by loving his own sect or church
better than Christianity, and end in loving
himself better than all." The book itself is a
wonderful prophecy of the yearning for real
ity that breathes through the strongest relig
ious thinking of to-day. Tulloch's charac
terization is just : 1 " It is a book which none
but a thinker on Divine things will ever like.
It is such a book as all such thinkers have
prized. To many it has given a new force of
religious insight, while, for its time, beyond
all doubt, it created a real epoch in Christian
thought. It had life in it; and the living
1 Movements of Religious Thought in the Nineteenth Cen
tury, p. 9.

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 233
seed, scattered and desultory as it was,
brought forth fruit in many minds."
The same words might be used of that
other and later work of Coleridge : " The
Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit." It con
sisted of seven letters to a friend, on the in
spiration of the Scriptures. The manuscript
was left by Mr. Coleridge, unpublished, at
his death. In it, as his kinsman, Henry
Nelson Coleridge, pointed out, one finds a
summary of his views on Biblical criticism,
and an affectionate, pious and wise attempt
to place the study of the Written Word on its
only sure foundation — a deep sense of God's
holiness and truth, and a consequent rever
ence for that light — the image of Himself —
which He has kindled in every one of His
rational creatures. The key-note of the vol
ume was the supremacy of the Bible as a
divinely inspired literature ; and the certainty
that the real credential of that divine inspira
tion is not verbal inerrancy, nor the official
declarations of any church, but the tremen
dous utterance from within it, of the voice of
the Spirit of God. He saw that it was a

234 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
Book above all other books, "in which deep
answers unto deep, and our inmost thoughts
and most hidden griefs find not merely re
sponse but guidance and assuagement." " In
the Bible," he says, " there is more that finds
me than I have experienced in all other books
put together ; the words of the Bible find me
at greater depths of my being ; and what
ever finds me brings with it an ¦ irresistible
evidence of its having proceeded from the
Holy Spirit." J In sentiments like these one
finds the clue to that gathering volume of
feeling and conviction which has organized
itself into the several schools of Biblical
criticism. It is to be feared that many who
have viewed these movements with hostility
have not fully taken into account the moral
and religious urgency by which they have
been impelled. Biblical criticism has been
regarded often as a non-religious move
ment of scholarship ; coldly scientific ; without
reverence ; intolerant ; self-complacent. With
out doubt the spirit of some of its representa
tives has justified these animadversions. It
1 Letter II, p. 296, Ed. London, 1904, Geo. Bell and Co.

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 235
was inevitable that, in the spread of such a
movement, in its fascination for scholars as
opening new fields of investigation, in its
temptations for men of radical temper to
break away from all restraints of traditional
opinion and to indulge in the wildest flights
of individualism, much should appear that
was regrettable from every point of view, and
that was horrifying and shocking to those ac
customed to regard the Bible with reverence,
as the very Word of God. I do not for a
moment attempt to conceal or to divert at
tention from such Biblical criticism as has
appeared to be lacking in seriousness, or
needlessly radical, or wantonly destructive.
I do not attempt to conceal the pain and
regret that I have felt by reason of the rude
and careless handling of Holy Scripture by
some whose lack of reverence was conspicu
ous, and whose indifference to the historic
proprieties, and to the sensibilities of Chris
tian believers was all but gross. But I re
gard such infelicities as a part of that neces
sary evil which attends the advance of good.
It was inevitable that there should spring up

236 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
representatives of the shallowness and in
congruity that attend the handling of great
subjects by those who have forgotten their
greatness. But such criticism can have no
effect to the detriment of Holy Scripture. It
vanishes with the immediate influence of its
authors, as the smaller waves slip back into
the sea, from the calm brow of the impreg
nable rock. The real movement of Biblical
criticism is marked by an intense moral obli
gation, religious reverence and desire for the
supremacy of Divine Revelation that impart
to its leaders the seriousness of prophets, the
awe of priests. It is a movement that per
petuates the spirit of Coleridge, that is in
spired with a passionate devotion like his,
that counts all things but loss for the excel
lency of the knowledge of the Divine Word,
the source and casket of the universal ele
ments of the Christian religion. It is a move
ment built upon the philosophical and relig
ious foundations that we have been consider
ing in the earlier part of this Lecture. It is a
movement that represents the vital principle
of Protestantism ; the right and duty of

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 237
Christians to gain direct access to the
Bible, and to bring to bear upon it all the
resources of the intellect and of the spirit.
It is a movement that has grown up in the
hearts of devout men simultaneously with
their desire for a more simple and homogene
ous interpretation of the Church and of the
religion of Jesus Christ. It is a constructive
movement. It may have been its duty to
oppose or to remove conceptions that had
accumulated between the Bible and those
who longed to feel the reality of its revela
tion ; but, for the Bible itself, the movement
of devout criticism is in the highest sense
constructive. Like every movement mediated
through fallible men, its methods of pro
cedure and its modes of expression may oft-
times have lacked that thoughtful tenderness
for the brethren that clothed the teachings of
Christ; and, in the ardour of a great pur
pose, many things may have been said and
done incompatible with the ideal of love ; but
the healing hand of time, and the magnanimity
that is born in them that are led by the Spirit
of God, have brought many alleviations and

238 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
have obliterated many misapprehensions.
The state of knowledge regarding the con
tent of Scripture was never before so rich ;
the interest in Bible-study never before so
great ; the conception of revelation never be
fore so intelligent ; the sense of Biblical au
thority never before so profound. To-day
the Bible is a Book of life and reality to
which educated minds and inquiring spirits
turn with an interest not awakened equally
by any other object of knowledge. It is
difficult to realize the enormous changes that
have taken place in the ' point of view from
which this Book of books is regarded. The
former apprehension that the authority of
the Bible must be impaired if its verbal
inerrancy were impugned has passed away
from large sections of the church. The fear
that the dignity of the sacred volume must
suffer, if received opinions touching dates
and authorship were revised, no longer op
presses many hearts once sorely troubled.
It has become evident that the foundations
of Biblical authority lie far beneath the his
torical and literary structure of the docu-

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 239
ments ; and that the revision of historical
and literary opinion, far from unsettling
faith in revelation, tends to purge that faith
of fear and doubt, and to advance it into
the region of certitude. The mind is dis
abused of the harrowing thought that the va
lidity of an eternal revelation rests on the pre
carious basis of immunity from verbal imper
fection. It perceives that the commanding
witness of the truth resides in its divine mes
sage to the moral reason, to the conscience,
and to the mysterious longings of the inner
soul. That this altered view might, in the
fullness of time, come to be the attitude of
Protestants towards Holy Scripture, has been
for a hundred years the prayer of prophetic
souls. They have seen that anything less
than this is incapable of effecting that vital-
ization of religious thinking and that apos
tolical enthusiasm for the universal elements
of the Christian religion which must precede
a marked advance towards the Christianiza
tion of the world. Yet the change had to
come slowly, under the superintendence of
the Divine Spirit, and according to the benef-

240 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
icent laws of growth. Much remains to be
accomplished, but vast advances have been
made. It is interesting to recall the words of
one of the most saintly of Scotchmen ; one
whose life was spent in pondering the deep
things of God, and who cherished beyond all
earthly ambitions the desire that Christ
should be glorified. Fifty years have passed
since Thomas Erskine of Linlathen wrote
thus to Bishop Colenso : 1 "I agree with you
on the meaning and purpose of authority in
all true teaching. I am sure that so long
as we believe anything that is of the nature
of a principle merely on outward authority,
be it the authority either of God or man,
without discerning for ourselves its own
truth, we are not really believing it. We
may be believing the veracity and the wis
dom of our informer, but we are not believ
ing in the truth of the thing he made known
to us, until we discern that truth. If I am
to be saved or spiritually healed by a truth, I
must have my spirit brought into contact
1 Letters of Thomas Erskine, pp. 397-8, 4th Ed., Edinburgh,
1884.

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 241
with the quality and character and reality of
that truth, so as to be affected by it in ac
cordance with its proper nature — and any
faith which is not fitted to do this is not that
which I need. The value of the Bible, ac
cording to my reason and conscience, con
sists in what it contains — in the truth which
I find in it — not in the manner in which it
was composed." It was in 1858 that Pro
fessor Lorimer transmitted to Mr. Erskine,
for his opinion, some sheets of a volume on
the " Inspiration of the Scriptures," by Dr. John
Muir, who endowed the Sanskrit Chair in
the University of Edinburgh. The reply
of Mr. Erskine is the word of a prophet,
gazing far into the future. "It seems to
me," he says, 1 " most important to under
stand the place which the Scriptures really
occupy, that so we may make the use of
them which they were intended to serve,
and be delivered from any superstitious feel
ings about them. This is specially needed
here in Scotland, where a belief in the Bible
is often substituted for faith in God, and a
1 Letters, etc., pp. 400, 401.

242 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
man is considered religious, not because he
walks with God in his spirit, but because he
acknowledges and maintains the verbal in
spiration of the sacred canon. I have seen
people brought up in this way who would
have felt their whole faith in spiritual things
annihilated by the discovery of any contra
diction or inaccuracy in the Gospel history.
A faith of this kind, which rests on igno
rance and is dispelled by knowledge, is cer
tainly not the kind of faith which we should
desire either for ourselves or others. I agree
also with the author of these sheets, that it is
desirable that laymen should take up the
study of the Scriptures, as they may be ex
pected to be less fettered by prejudice than
those who have been brought up within the
limits of articles and confessions of faith."
Then, as if foreseeing the infelicity and
tactlessness of a certain type of criticism, he
adds : "I feel all this, but there is another
principle which is perhaps liable to be for
gotten amidst such thoughts, and it is this,
that no man can successfully study spiritual
truth except in a spirit of reverence. I be-

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 243
lieve that ninety-nine out of a hundred of
the religious people of Scotland believe in
the verbal inspiration of the Bible, and
would have their faith shaken to pieces
by the facts which your friend adduces in
those sheets. I should like to see them dis
abused, but I should like this to be done in a
way that would transfer their faith from the
letter to the spirit, and not destroy their faith
altogether." In a subsequent letter to Pro
fessor Lorimer,1 Mr. Erskine makes some
additional observations, which are so full of
a spirit most needed now, that I cannot for
bear to quote them. "The character of God
as a teaching Father who eternally desires
and seeks the holiness of His reasonable
creatures seems to me the great revelation
of the Bible, and the true meaning of
Christianity. I am prepared to hear any
criticisms on the Book, they do not trouble
me in the least. I have found a medicine
which heals me ; I have found an omnipotent
Friend — a Friend who is the eternal enemy
and will be the eternal conqueror, of all
1 Op. cit., pp. 404, 405.

244 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
evil, and who will neither spare Himself
nor us any suffering which may be neces
sary to this result. This is the pearl of great
price, which when a man has found he needs
not that any other should tell him its value, he
knows it and feels it ; he does not need any
evidence that this revelation of the character
of God is a true revelation ; he knows it
must be true, or his own existence, his own
consciousness, is a lie. If any textual emen
dations or any improved translation could
bring this truth into clearer light, I should
welcome them with my whole heart. Even
without this unspeakable advantage I wel
come them; but I have often been disap
pointed by finding that men who were zeal
ous for the critical processes were compara
tively cold to this, without which these proc
esses are mere matters of philology. Now
if I were to attempt a crusade it would be
for this truth, and not for the philology, be
cause I should like to concentrate the
thoughts and hearts of men upon it."
I have made these extended citations from
Erskine both because they show the normal

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 245
attitude of an intensely evangelical mind to
the vitalizing function of devout Biblical
criticism, and because they prepare the way
for the final effort of this Lecture : namely,
to summarize certain of the constructive re
sults of the critical movement.
In the nature of the case, the results of an
intellectual movement are progressive, and
can never, at any point, be tabulated as final.
Life means change of aspect, change of rela
tionship, change of function. Consequently
no result of the critical movement can be al
leged as closed beyond the possibility of
being reopened. This, far from invalidating
the movement, imparts to it a sublime analogy
to that ever expanding revelation of truth
which is the basis of critical investigation.
Nevertheless, in the century of English and
American thought that has passed since
Coleridge, with a prophet's hand, wrote the
" Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit," we have
advanced far enough to begin to sum up
some of the substantial gains to vital Chris
tianity, accruing from this profound effort to
attain reality in connection with knowledge,

246 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
external and internal, of the sacred Scrip
tures. The removal of the idea that the Bible is a
Book protected by the Church from scholarly
investigation is one of the substantial gains of
the critical movement. The ages of relative
ignorance, preceding the revival of learning,
were, in the nature of the case, menaced by
strong tendencies to superstition and to the
growth of erroneous popular opinion. The
immature and unsettled civilization of Europe
fostered traditions of paganism, which, upon
the fertile breeding-ground of illiteracy,
might choke the word, like tares overwhelm
ing wheat. There appeared, therefore, to be
a certain august propriety in the assumption,
by the Church, of a protectorate over the
Bible ; withholding it from the masses, who,
in blindness, might wrest the Word unto their
own destruction. The Church, a holy and
wise Mother, considering the frailty and dull
ness of the common mind, exercised judicious
discrimination in entrusting the Bible to un
trained persons ; and, in all cases, deemed it
her bounden duty to affirm by authority and

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 247
to regulate by decisions of council the mean
ing and use of that which was written. Al
though, in the view of a later age, the
Church before the Reformation was not
exempt from the inroads of superstition in
her interpretation of Scripture, there can be
no question of the beneficence of Catholicism,
as an autocratic director of the thoughts of
those incapable of thinking for themselves.
But, with the new intellectual conditions that
sprang into being with the revival of learning
and the growth of universities in Europe, the
fitness of the old order diminished. The pro
tection of the Bible from the mad vagaries of
illiteracy was just and honouring to the
sacred deposit committed to the Church.
The protection of the Bible from scholarly
investigation, was, on the other hand, the
gravest of mistakes, the most hazardous ad
venture of zeal without knowledge. For,
with the growth of scientific principles, and
the enthusiastic application of them to all
other departments of the knowable world, a
policy, whether Catholic or Protestant, of
segregating the Scriptures within the veil of

248 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
mysterious sanctity could not but produce
lamentable results. Intellectual scepticism
looked with distrust on documents sheltered
by the pallium of churchly protection from
the recognized procedure of criticism ; and
turned indifferently from the moral and re
ligious message of a Book whose historical
foundation was untested and unproven. A
religion of the Spirit was despised as un
worthy of men of candour, because it seemed
to hide itself from the open field of attested
knowledge, behind the shadowy refuges of
untrustworthy tradition and pious opinion.
It should be pointed out, however, that the
conservative instinct to suspect the motive
of critical scholarship, and to impute to it
hostility to the Bible, was neither ignoble nor
unreasonable. The Bible is the most precious
treasure in the possession of Protestantism.
It is the ample equivalent of all that was sur
rendered by the Reformers on its behalf. It
conditions faith and worship and conduct.
It is the lamp, the bread, the guide of the
believers. It is wrought into the fibre of
civilization and enshrined in the inmost

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 249
sanctuary of experience. Well might the
advances of scholarship, and the curious eye
of investigation be met with distrust, alarm,
resistance. Conservative hostility towards
Biblical criticism has animated some of the
noblest souls of this and other times, and was,
for them, a sentiment not of ignorance nor of
reprehensible prejudice, but of reverence
and devotion. They sought to guard from
profanation the shrine of God's self-revela
tion ; to preserve unwasted the precious
heritage of His people. But, as time passes,
God reveals a more excellent way. Not by
the resistance of scholarship, but by invoking
its services is the authority of truth disclosed.
Not by protecting the letter, but by exalting
the spirit of revelation is the message of the
Word of God invested with a power that none
can gainsay or withstand. The future author
ity of that message is to be something of which
the world dreams not. Greater triumphs await
the Bible than even the greatest of the past.
Another substantial gain of criticism is the
recovery of human reality for the great per
sonages of Biblical history. It is character-

250 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
istic of an age addicted to legend and in
different to history to envelope its leaders
in an atmosphere of pious mystery; to set
them apart from the plane of common life,
esteeming its incentives and its experiences
too commonplace to satisfy the hero-wor
shipper. The deification of men in the
ever-multiplying castes of popular Hindu
ism ; the beatification of individuals in the
Christian Church are analogous to the kind
of reverence which elevated the personages
of Biblical history to a plane apart from
ordinary life. If the Bible was in every word
and syllable the immediate utterance of the
Spirit, the figures on the field of Divine
narrative were also unique. They could not
be men of like passions with ourselves. It
is interesting to recall the disfavour visited
upon Dean Milman's " History of the Jews,"
because he, following Ewald, invested patri
archs and prophets with the literal nature
and idiosyncrasies of men, and brought
them forth from the gloaming of mysticism
into the light of common day. No words
can overstate the blessing that has come

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 25 1
from this recovery of realism for the person
ages of Holy Scripture. Were the interests
of historical scholarship alone considered, the
gain would be great. But far beyond this
extend the moral and religious effects of
critical realism. Once again we have a Bible
that is a chronicle of lives. Its personages,
being dead, yet speak to us with the appeal
ing voice of actual human experience. We
can understand them ; can feel with them
and for them. They become interpreters of
our own lives and of the lives of others.
They illuminate the deeply travelled passages
of evil and good, sin and righteousness, sor
row and joy, the service of self and the
service of God.
The life of our Blessed Lord has become real
in corresponding measure. He has ceased to
be but a sacred institution of theology ; He
has become our Master and our Brother, whose
hand touches us, whose voice talks with us
by the way, whose gentle figure, wrapped in
the bournoose of an Oriental, walks by our
side in this our earthly pilgrimage. With
ever-deepening apprehension of their truth

252 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
the Bible students of to-day apply to them
selves the words : "Whatsoever things were
written aforetime, were written for our learn
ing, that we, through patience and comfort
of the Scriptures might have hope."
The recognition of Revelation as progress
ive is another substantial gain of criticism.
So long as a standard of Biblical interpreta
tion was maintained by authority whereby
coequal religious insight was attributed to
all parts of canonical Scripture, the inscru
table nature and perplexing contradictions
of certain portions discouraged thoughtful
readers. But, with the development of Bib
lical science came the study of religion, in
cluding the study of early Judaism in the
light of its historical antecedents, combined
with increased certainty on many points
modifying the traditional view of the relig
ious institutions of Israel. Prophets and
psalmists were located in their actual envi
ronments ; the centuries immediately pre
ceding the Advent of our Lord were investi
gated; the current conceptions reflected in
the discourses of our Lord and in the

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 253
writings of His apostles were analyzed ; and,
as a resultant from this research, a light
brighter than the sun has poured upon the
august fact of Divine self-revelation, showing
it to be in its nature and action progressive,
evolutionary, cumulative, emerging in the
midst of the shadows of paganism, progress
ing as through the fitful and illusive stages
of the dawn, broadening and deepening the
current of its outpouring, growing brighter
and brighter unto the perfect day ; rising at
length in full-orbed splendour at the Advent,
and giving promise, through the infinite
possibilities of the dispensation of the Spirit,
of things yet to be that "eye hath not seen,
nor ear heard, neither have entered into the
heart of man."
Concurrently with this clearing concep
tion of the progressive nature of Divine rev
elation, has come a profounder sense of the
nature and evidence of inspiration. It may
be true that scientific criticism has accom
plished what Thomas Erskine predicted half
a century ago : faith in the verbal inerrancy
of Holy Scripture, as the credential of inspira-

254 THE CONSTRUCTIVE OFFICE
tion is a belief that " must be shaken to
pieces by the facts adduced." But, as
Thomas Erskine saw, in his intense devotion
to the Word of God, the nature and evidence
of inspiration are more profound and more
vast than any question of words : they inhere
in the revelation itself, as a disclosure of the
living God ; they demonstrate themselves,
not to the literary judgment of the scholar
chiefly, but primarily, to the original and
intuitive perceptions of the soul ; so that a
man " does not need any evidence that this
revelation of the character of God is a true
revelation ; he knows it must be true, or his
own existence, his own consciousness, is a lie."
Finally: the crowning gain of the critical
movement is the enrichment of our concep
tion of the Person of Christ. Historical criti
cism has brought to pass what may almost be
described as a Second Advent of the Incar
nate Lord. He has been given back to us ;
He has come again to them that are His
own ; bringing with Him, into the field of
full, immediate, vital realization all the im
measurable glory of word and deed, of teach-

OF BIBLICAL CRITICISM 255
ing and example, of personality and influence
that were given to the world in the Palestin
ian Advent. Overwhelmed for the time being
by the abundance of the historical revelation,
enthralled by the majestic sweetness that
sits enthroned upon the brow of the incarnate
Jesus, the religious thinking of our time has not
yet fully coordinated the Jesus of the Synop
tists with the Christ of St. Paul and St. John
— has not yet fully identified (if I may use the
noble suggestion of Forrest) "the Christ of
history " with " the Christ of experience." But
this identification, this coordination, is coming
and coming rapidly into the front of religious
thinking. It is to be the glory of the next
great reinterpretation of the Church ; the key
to the Christianization of the world. The
triumphant Jesus, crowned with many
crowns, is even now, and in the terms of
our strongest and richest thinking, progress
ively revealing Himself to the consciousness
of a faith that blends learning with reverence.
To the twentieth century as to the first He
shall be "Alpha and Omega, the Beginning
and the Ending, the First and the Last."

LECTURE VI
THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST

LECTURE VI
THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
IN this Lecture we reach the consumma
tion of our purpose, described at the out
set as " an attempt to interpret contem
porary religious conditions." We must look
back on the path leading hither. We have
seen that Christ has invested the Church
with the duty of Christianizing the world ; a
duty which, with varying measures of insight
and earnestness, the Church has undertaken
to discharge. We have assumed that the
Divine ideal of the Church, as the agent of
this great mission to humanity, was present,
in perfect form, in the mind of Christ only ;
and that the history of the Church, since the
Ascension of Christ, has been a series of re
interpretations of that ideal, more or less
limited in scope and adequacy, yet tending
to increase in breadth, with the evolution of
Christian knowledge and experience. We
259

26o THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
have noted, as a characteristic of the present
time, a widely spread, unorganized desire
for a fresh reinterpretation of the ideal of the
Church ; representing in some form an im
provement upon the existing Protestant
status quo. This desire is not for an institu
tional union under one central authority, nor
for a confessional union, under one authorized
symbol of belief, but, apparently, for a com
mon advance of all branches of the Church
towards greater simplicity in holding and
propagating the essential message of the
Gospel. We have found that, at the heart of
this sentiment, is a growing appreciation of
the essence of Christianity, as contained not
merely in the historical presentations of the
Synoptists, whereby the humanity of Jesus is
certified, but equally in the substance of the
apostolic Christology, which exalts Jesus
Christ, crucified and risen, the Saviour of
the World. We have observed, finally, that
this wide-spread appreciation of the universal
elements of the Christian religion, as distin
guished from local and sectarian accentua
tions of selected doctrines, has developed

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 26 1
simultaneously with the critical movement
and, apparently, in connection with it. The
fundamental Protestant principle of the right
and duty of direct access to Holy Scripture,
upon which the critical movement rests, has
recovered its supremacy, with the result that
the authority of sectarian confessional state
ments has undergone important modifica
tions. Biblical theology is proving to be an
irenic messenger to our time, gathering
around the central unities of the faith those
who once were parted by the barriers of
dogmatic ecclesiasticism. Churchly author
ity is powerless to arrest the unifying in
fluence of Biblical theology. Those whom
God has joined together in the vision of com
mon truth, the tradition of the sect cannot put
asunder. Nor can those who have been
joined in the vision of common truth ever
again lapse contentedly into former beliefs
touching the finality of sectarian distinctions.
They have seen the splendid outlines of a
greater Church, and, forevermore, must move
towards it, in heart and mind. Like the seer
of the Apocalypse, they have seen the " Holy

262 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
City coming down out of heaven from God,
having the glory of God most precious."
Henceforth they must live in the spirit of
that larger interpretation of the Churchly
ideal and must labour for its accomplishment
on earth. It is not that they have discarded
any heritage of the past, but that they are
bound, by the calling of God, to reach forth
to those things that are before. It is the pur
pose of this Lecture to examine this concep
tion of the larger Church of Christ, which,
for many, represents the next reinterpretation
of the ideal. Sixty years have passed since the
Reverend W. G. Ward, a fellow of Balliol
College, Oxford, published a book bearing
the significant title : " The Ideal of a Chris
tian Church, Considered in Comparison
with Existing Practice." Himself a clergy
man of the Church of England, Ward's
" Ideal " was, substantially, identical with that
of Rome. It is interesting to recall the rep
robation of Ward's position by Mr. Glad
stone. But one remembers Ward's book and
the essay of his distinguished critic, chiefly
as landmarks wherefrom to measure the dis-

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 263
tance traversed in sixty years of progressive
religious thinking. The fundamental posi
tions, of both author and critic, suggest
little that relates itself to the present state of
Biblical knowledge, the modern conception
of authority and the new outlook upon the
world in the light of the science of compara
tive religion. Nevertheless, Ward's title :
" The Ideal of a Christian Church, Considered
in Comparison with Existing Practice," is serv
iceable, as suggesting how the Church is ever
being saved and regenerated through the in
fluence of ideals that rise far above existing
practice and open to the eye of faith new
vistas of possibility.
As a preparation for our view of a larger
Church of Christ, it is appropriate to reflect
upon certain indirect results of the critical
movement, to some of which more or less
extended reference already has been made.
Increasing sense of brotherhood in the
truth is one of the notes of the present time.
It is that which takes the place of the
sectarian spirit. The sectarian spirit is either
aggressive or segregative. In its aggressive

264 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
form it assails the theological position of
others and seeks to make converts to its
own. It compasses sea and land to make
one proselyte. In its segregative form, the
sectarian spirit ensconces itself within the
stronghold of orthodoxy, zealous to main
tain an unimpaired body of doctrine ; its
interest is with its own affairs ; it is indiffer
ent to the problems of criticism, or looks out
upon them with disfavour as evidences of
popular unrest which rashly reopens ques
tions closed by authority. This spirit, once
generally held to be a normal expression of
religious earnestness, has now given place
in many quarters to one in every respect its
opposite. The sense of brotherhood in the
truth is a state of mind neither aggressive
for proselytism nor segregative for self-
protection. It is full of activity and effort,
but there is nothing in its activity analogous
to the zeal of the sectary to bring others
into line with his opinions. The activity is
wholly on behalf of truth : it represents the
spirit of Isaiah's phrase, "valiant for the
truth upon earth." It considers the truth

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 265
to be that which is good, and worthy and
necessary; the only thing that can satisfy
man and save the world. The truth is no
man's private possession nor is it established
by the authority of any man or party. To
bring others under its influence is not
proselytism. Furthermore, the truth is to
be followed as a leader, whithersoever it
goeth. It is not bound by man's attempts
to define it and to enforce those definitions
as absolute. It advances, going before the
docile mind, a pillar of cloud by day and
of fire by night. Brotherhood in the truth
is a relationship devoid of self-interest and
uninfluenced by party ends. It is frank,
guileless, sincere; it knows nothing of
rivalry; it is not vexed when temperamen
tal tendencies lead to variation in modes
of expression. It is a comprehensive,
generous fellowship, in the spirit more
than in the letter. Back of it lies the
conviction that God, who ordained these
temperamental variations, must intend, by
means of them, to effect a broader revelation
of the truth.

266 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
The growth of a larger conception of the
missionary function is another note of the
present time. It is closely connected with
the sense of brotherhood in the truth. As
that represents the reversal of the sectarian
spirit in matters of belief, so this repre
sents the reversal of the sectarian aim
in missions. More or less intentionally,
Protestant evangelization has been iden
tical with sectarian propagation. No other
method of procedure suggested itself to the
earlier organizers of missions to the East.
None other now appears, to large bodies of
Christians, to be capable of producing prac
tical results. Christianity, being regarded
as synonymous with a specific denomina
tional expression of it, the function of the
Christianizer in the East becomes inseparable
from that of the denominationalist at home.
He becomes also the denominationalist
in the East. Whether these specialized in
terpretations of a universal religion can
wisely be pressed as having authority over
the Eastern consciousness, or whether it be
the way of the Spirit to gather the sheep of

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 267
the East into folds of the West, are questions
that scarcely occurred to the earlier promot
ers of missions ; that scarcely occur now
to those for whom churchmanship and
cherished symbols of orthodoxy are coequal
with the essence of religion. The rea
sonableness of such an attitude is obvious.
Generations of sectarian heredity create a
state of settled conviction predetermining
methods of procedure. The denominational
ist in the East is a purely logical expression
of his intellectual antecedents. Nor can
too much praise be given to many de
nominational missionaries for the modera
tion, breadth and insight with which they
have done, or are doing, their work. Yet,
as a sense of brotherhood in the truth gently
supplants the aggressive or segregative
energies of sectarianism it supplies a new
point of view, and opens new questions, the
reconstructive effect of which on missionary
policy will be suggested to the mind by the
later portions of this Lecture.
An enlarged conception of the meaning
and value of the world is another note of

268 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
modern religious thinking. It stands in
contrast with the mediaeval spirit, which, in
effect, was a reaction from Greek and Ro
man estimates of life. To both Greek and
Roman the world was a prize to be grasped
after. The Grecian love of the world was
expressed in terms of aestheticism : Beauty
of form ; colour and warmth of personality ;
grace of motion ; glorious energies of the
body ; the rhapsody of sensuous existence ;
poetry ; dialectic ; philosophy ; oratory.
The Roman love of the world uttered
itself in the terms of authority. The ad
vance of civilization, casting up highways
in the desert, striking through the wilder
ness the radii of aqueduct and military road ;
imperial colonizations ; the majesty of con
quest ; fundamental principles of law and
jurisprudence. To Greek and Roman, each
according to the temper and tradition
of his race, appeared the splendour and
value of the present world. Upon the
spirit of mediaeval Christianity, rising on
the ruins of pagan empires, fell a reaction
that reversed all world values. To the Ro-

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 269
man's haughty joy in power, and the Greek's
sensuous and sunny idolatry of life suc
ceeded a sinister ecclesiasticism that affected
to view the world with the frown of reproba
tion. It lay under the wrath and curse of
God. The fires of judgment were already
kindled. The day of wrath was at hand.
Sinners against light, together with the un
named myriads of heathendom, were to be
swallowed up, as in the pit of hell. Salva
tion lay in separation from the world and its
accursed works ; in the purifying of the
soul by acts of discipline ; in the vow
that built one in, as behind ramparts of
stone, from fellowship with the ungodly
multitude. To say that this mediaeval con
tempt of the world measurably projected
itself into the reformed theology and affected
both the line of its activity and the colour
of its thinking is to say only the truth. The
English evangelicals of the eighteenth
century were the reproduction in Protestant
ism of mediaeval zeal to attain personal
salvation by trampling on an evil world,
already blasted with the curse of God, and

270 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
ripening for the harvest of retribution.
How enormous and how blessed is the
advance of modern thinking from this view
of the world ! The protest against pagan
materialism that was involved in the
mediaeval attitude of mind has not been
revoked. Now as then it is recognized
that the prince of this world hath nothing
in Christ ; that the lust of the flesh, the
lust of the eye and the pride of life are
enemies that war against the soul, and
that whosoever will live godly in Christ
Jesus must crucify the flesh with the affec
tions and lusts. But the old contemptus
mundi has given place to a sentiment more
in keeping with the spirit of Him who so
loved the world that He gave His only be
gotten Son. A deep reverence for the
world as the object of God's love and sorrow,
and the scene of His perpetual Presence
suffuses modern religious thinking, impart
ing to it a tone of sacrificial tenderness. All
human life is invested with immediate im
portance and value. Nothing is common
or unclean. Salvation by self-seclusion be-

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 27 1
comes a secondary interest. Salvation by
self-immersion in the life of the world has
become the chief incentive of the Christian :
" non ministrari sed ministrare."
An advance in realizing the immanence of
God and the universal activity of His Spirit
is another mark of the existing religious
situation. To suppose that the sense of God's
immanence is peculiar to this time would be
erroneous. It has been present in chosen
souls from the beginning. Six hundred years
ago the far-visioned Tauler quotes with joy
the ancient word of Augustine : " Whatever
is true, by whomsoever it is spoken, pro
ceeds from the Spirit of God." The same
conception was with the Cambridge Platon-
ists, and with Fenelon and with all who have
assimilated the fundamental principle of true
mysticism : God's immediate and unre
stricted access to the spirits of His children.
But the significance of God's immanence
has appeared to this generation as to none of
its predecessors. The critical study of the
sources of Oriental religions, the wider ac
quaintance with holy aspirations and experi-

272 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
ences occurring beyond the zone of Christian
influence, have not only added to our knowl
edge of man but have deepened our knowl
edge of God. That the activity of His Spirit
is more mysteriously diffused than an earlier
age supposed ; that the relations of human
souls with God transcend the limits set by
theological opinion ; that the plan of God for
the religious development of the world
stretches out beyond our narrow churchman-
ship, as the immensity of the sea stretches
out beyond the moles and jetties of our
harbour-ways — these are among the momen
tous implications attaching to the immanence
of God in the light of the scientific study of
religion. When we group these foregoing thoughts
— all of them indirect results of the critical
movement : increasing sense of brotherhood
in the truth ; enlarged conception of the
missionary function ; a diviner estimate of
the meaning and value of the world, and a
broader understanding of the immanence of
God and the universal activity of His Spirit
— we realize that, under the law of propor-

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 273
tion and adjustment we are prepared to en
tertain an ideal of the Christian Church con
structed on lines larger and broader than any
that have determined the Churchly ideals of
the past. There is nothing radical or revo
lutionary in the anticipation of such an ideal
as the measure of the Church that is to be.
The ideal arrives on the field of conscious
ness in the fullness of time as the next mem
ber in a normal sequence, suggested not by
the heated imagination of optimists but by
the logic of history and by the prophetic in
timations that appear, at home and abroad,
in the unique religious situation of the world.
There is nothing new or strange in the
thought of a larger Church of Christ. The
law of the past is the law of an ever enlarg
ing conception of what the Church is de
signed to stand for. The past has witnessed
the outgrowing of one ideal after another, as
intellectual and moral conditions have
changed ; the putting away of that which
had become inadequate ; the taking on of
that which, to an ever advancing race, seemed
more commensurate with its development.

274 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
Nothing is more impressive than to reflect
upon this phenomenon. With the progress
of the centuries one churchly ideal after an
other has been outgrown and unconsciously
has yielded up its supremacy ; to be, hence
forth, an incident in a movement of thought
yet broader in scope and more spiritual.
Instinctively one recalls four venerable names,
each one of which rises like a pillar of wit
ness on the plain of history, commemorating
a churchly ideal that, to its adherents,
seemed final ; yet beyond which, to some
conception more majestic and more spiritual,
religious thinking has projected itself, im
pelled by the Spirit of truth. Jerusalem —
Constantinople — Rome — Geneva ! How
magnificent are the associations of these
names with the higher life of the race !
What suggestions they present to the student
of religion ! What witness they bear to the
power of religion in the development of the
world !
Jerusalem! No name, it may be, in the
entire nomenclature of the world, holds in
itself more abundantly the quintessence of

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 275
religious passion ; not Rome, with its august
tradition, not Benares, with its overpowering
realism of devotion. Upon Jerusalem rested
the immediate benediction of God. Towards
Jerusalem went forth a sacred energy of love
that lives unspent, after twenty centuries of
absence, in many of the house of Israel ;
and dims the eye with tears, at mention of
the beloved name. Not in the literature of
devotion is there a passage more splendid
than the immortal yearning of the exile :
" If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right
hand forget her cunning; let my tongue
cleave to the roof of my mouth if I prefer
not Jerusalem above my chief joy." Jerusa
lem stands for the Jewish churchly ideal ; the
ideal of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and their
successors ; the ideal that lived like an Apoca
lypse before the imagination of the prophets ;
that neither idolatrous lapses, nor dispersion,
nor exile could utterly abolish and destroy. It
was the conception of a segregated nation,
sifted out, set apart, nurtured and protected.
The favourite of Jehovah ; the sole possessor
of the truth ; the apple of His eye, the name

276 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
engraven on His heart, — well might the
churchly ideal that focussed at Jerusalem
cause the hearts of its adherents to thrill
with holy satisfaction. The words of the
Deuteronomist 1 do justice to that ideal :
"Thou art an holy people unto the Lord
thy God: the Lord thy God hath chosen
thee to be a special people unto Himself,
above all people that are upon the face
of the earth." The attitude towards the
world, encouraged by such a churchly ideal,
was characteristic. From his secure position
in "the mountain of the Lord's house" the
Jew looked out upon the nations and despised
them. Their thoughts, their deeds, their
prayers, their gods were altogether vanity.
As Christianity arose out of Judaism, the in
herited tendency to segregation clung to it.
A great cosmopolitan, like St. Paul, could
break loose from the tendency, could turn to
the Gentiles ; could recognize, in Greek and
Roman, the offspring of God. But for men
of less independence and more subservience
to tradition it was not easy to grasp the idea
1 Deut. 7 : 6.

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 277
that God had unto the Gentiles granted re
pentance unto life. Many beside Peter
needed the admonition "What God hath
cleansed, make not thou common." x Cen
turies have passed, yet from time to time
there are local reversions to the Jewish ideal,
as the ardour of sectarianism utters itself in
ecclesiastical claims which imply exclusive
prerogatives of ministry, or monopoly of re
vealed truth.
Less impassioned yet not less impressive
are the associations that invest the name
Constantinople as a way-mark in the evolu-
tionof churchly ideals. The Greek concep
tion of Catholicity (as was pointed out in an
earlier lecture) magnified the eternal unities
of thought above the temporalities of visible
empire. The Holy Orthodox Church became
the designation of Eastern Christianity. The
canons of metaphysic were, to the Christian
thinkers of Asia Minor, what the furnishings
of the Most Holy Place were to Israel, sacred
essentials of faith and worship. The glory
of the Church was commensurate with its
1 Acts 10 : 15.

278 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
homogeneity in the manner and method of
formulating truth. Doctrine, approved and
issued by authority, became absolute, in form
as well as in substance. Whosoever should
think otherwise was accursed. As a govern
mental conception in the field of religion, the
regulation of thought by authority, was, in it
self, magnificent. It simplified by an imperial
method the problems of theology, forbidding
men to think otherwise than in conformity
to approved standards. It stood before the
impulse that, in every age sets, like the tide,
towards higher grounds of knowledge, and
said : Thus far shalt thou go and no farther.
It pursued methods for the repression of
heresy and the extirpation of heretics, hold
ing it of supreme importance to purge the
Church of irregular proclivities. Even more
obviously than the Jewish instinct of segre
gation has the Greek conception of intellec
tual authority maintained its place through
out the evolution of the Christian Church.
It passed over into Protestantism with power,
and became one of the most prominent
characteristics of the sectarian status quo.

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 279
Its relative reasonableness, and its great
service to the cause of truth must be recog
nized by unprejudiced minds. The self-real
ization of the Church, collectively, and in its
parts, has been attained largely through
official deliverances, representing the mind
of the majority. The guidance of the unin-
structed average, who, in matters of Bib
lical interpretation and theological belief are
strikingly dependent, has come about through
catechetical definition, supplied by authority.
The limitations in the system appear when
the guardians of orthodoxy undertake to re
press thought and to punish thinkers. Acts
of discipline, and executions of judgments
are at all times possible ; but the whole his
tory of dissent and independency witnesses
to the inalienable liberty of the intellect and
the ineradicable right of private judgment ;
whereby the field of religious opinion forever
broadens, and the truth-seeker, being blocked
at one path, turns to another; constrained
by conscience, and by the Spirit of God, to
endure as seeing Him who is invisible.
Outwardly and visibly, not Jerusalem and

280 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
not Constantinople represents an ideal of the
Church so august as that which is associated
with the name, Rome ! Born within a city,
than which only Delhi in India is more rich
in memorials of imperial leadership ; erected
on lines suggested by the superb ambition
of deified emperors, the papal conception of
the Church appeals, as none other yet has
appealed, to the imagination of the Western
Hemisphere. From a central seat of empire
to the ends of the habitable world, radiates
an infallible and unquestioned dictatorship.
A man, chosen by the votes of a college of
cardinals, assumes the functions of a vicar
of Christ on earth and exercises the terrific
prerogatives of a viceroy of God. Having
the keys of the kingdom of heaven, with
power to bind and to loose, this central in
carnation of authority is represented by an
innumerable priesthood, appearing in every
land, speaking every language, assimilating
the peculiarities of every environment, yet
surrendering under no circumstances the dis
tinctive marks of ecclesiastical identity. In
this priesthood inheres sacramental grace,

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 28 1
and disciplinary power. It is competent to
explore the hidden chambers of the soul,
and to receive confidences that one may
breathe only into the ear of God. It has
power to inflict penalty for sin, and to pro
nounce absolution from guilt. It is its duty
to determine the action of conscience, to
impose the boundaries of belief, to regulate
devotion, to work the perpetual miracle of
the altar. It meets the soul at its birth into
the world, and determines its character by
baptismal mysteries. It attends it amid the
shadows of death and dismisses it into eter
nity with holy anointings. It projects its
authority beyond the grave and alleviates
the trial of the intermediate state. It claims
affiliation with powers of the unseen world,
with glorified saints, and with the Mother of
God, whose intercessory ministrations are
given at its request. It stands between Holy
Scripture and the frailty of human wisdom;
expounding the oracles of God, determining,
with indefectible certitude, the nature and
content of truth. Such, in effect, is the
venerable Roman ideal, realized in forms of

282 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
magnificence, in institutions of adamantine
stability, in organizations of marvellous intri
cacy and efficiency ; in statesmanlike leader
ship. The sublimity of these several conceptions
of the Church of Christ is unquestionable.
Whether we consider the solemn separatism
of the Jewish ideal, as that of a people pur
chased by the Most High for His own pos
session, and set on the holy hill of consecra
tion, above the apostasy of the world ; or the
intellectual sovereignty of the Greek ideal,
as the custodian of truth, waiting ever as a
watchman to guard the shrine of revelation
and to repel the curious advances of an
unsanctified reason ; or the imperial absolu
tism of the Latin ideal, wielding the sceptre
of infallibility, we find ourselves in the pres
ence of that which appeals to our sense of
grandeur and dignity. It is easy to account
for the enormous part played by religion in
the affairs of the Western world when we
remember the sublimity of its chief historical
interpretations. Yet great as they were, and
as they are (for the spirit of each of these

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 283
interpretations of the churchly ideal is con
tinuously represented in the evolution of
Christianity), the world has outgrown them.
Great as they are, they are not great enough
to meet that ideal of a Christian Church that
comes with the growth of true democracy,
which is the fruit of intellectual light and
liberty. Not Jerusalem, nor Constantinople,
nor Rome, with all their pomp, represents an
ideal so stately in its simplicity, so broad in
scope, so spiritual in its tone as that which is
summoned to the mind by the name, Geneva !
The ideal of Protestantism was born with the
v v rebirth of scholarship in Europe. It devel
oped in the bracing atmosphere of intel
lectual activity and ethical virility. It grew
up in minds not intimidated by the threaten-
ings of hereditary power and the intolerant
absolutism of vested rights. It represented
courage of conviction, spirituality of mind,
obedience to conscience, human brotherhood,
direct experience of the grace of God. It
felt that the freedom of the sons of God, with
all its untrained simplicity and liability to
error, was more precious than the most

284 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
ancient ceremonial joined with subservience
to questionable authority. The churchly ideal
of Protestantism stands for the liberty of the
Spirit ; the individual rights of believers ; the
freedom of faith and worship, according to
the dictates of conscience ; the priesthood of
Christ alone ; diversity in unity as the normal
life of the Church ; the many sects with their
rights of divergence ; the one brotherhood of
the common truth.
It is indeed a great ideal, in its fidelity to
nature, its appeal to intellectual life, its moral
authority, its wealth of religious develop
ment. The order of nature inclines towards
differentiation ; " one star differeth from an
other star." The principle of natural selec
tion enters into the fundamental processes of
life ; enriching it, and extending its scope.
The hidden tendencies that result in the origin
of species are among the most characteristic
phenomena of nature. Thus she works ;
maintaining within all her larger unities dif
ferences that represent the flexibility of organic
life, and the versatility of the guiding Mind
that finds expression in the manifoldness of

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 285
the universe. The ideal of Protestantism
presents an analogy in the realm of the Spirit
to the law of natural selection in the physical
world. And because of the unity of nature
in all realms, the truth of the analogy appears
in the enormous enrichment of the religious
life of the West by means of the flexibility
and versatility of Protestantism. Beyond
doubt there were great values conserved by
the massive homogeneity of the Roman
Church. Nevertheless the reversion to natu
ral selection in religion was inevitable. Had
not the crisis occurred that aroused the spirit
of Luther, the reversion must sooner or later
have come to pass, for the wind that bloweth
where it listeth cannot be bound by the
edicts of human authority.
In its appeal to the intellectual life the
genius of Protestantism has great power.
The argument of Cardinal Newman in the
Grammar of Assent may accomplish the in
tellectual self-surrender of individuals, but
such instances must remain sporadic and ex
ceptional. Liberty of the mind is normal;
and, whereas servitude to absolute authority, if

286 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
long continued, may beget a kind of hereditary
passivity, sometimes mistaken for content
ment, the instinct of mental life recovers con-
sciousnesss at the touch of knowledge, and
struggles for emancipation. The strength of
Protestantism as a churchly ideal lies, in
part, in its relative recognition of the instinct
of intellectual liberty. Where it has done
justice to this instinct it has prospered.
Where it has withheld justice it has brought on
revolutions within itself, the outcome of which
has been on. the side of liberty. Nor do these
successive victories of liberty lead to disin
tegration. They lead but to a larger inter
pretation and a more spiritual apprehension
of fundamental principles. "Where the
Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 1
The moral authority of Protestantism in the
lives of individuals is closely connected with
its appeal to the intellect. As that appeal
rests upon truth itself rather than upon the
action of a Church promulgating and defin
ing truth, so the ethical sanction of truth as
truth is the controlling principle in thought
1 2 Cor. 3 : 17.

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 287
and conduct. There is, for the true Protes
tant, no external custodian of the conscience,
no spiritual director acting in the name of a
Church. Like Moses in Horeb, called into
the cloud-capped presence-chamber of Jeho
vah to receive from His hand the oracles of
righteousness, the moral authority of Protes
tantism is, for one who rightly apprehends it,
the unmediated contact of mind and con
science with truth as truth. There is no priest
to say : This is right, that is wrong. There
is no Church empowered to pronounce ab
solution or to decree measures of penance.
There is but the Spirit of truth, dealing im
mediately with the moral nature. That torch
lights the path of conduct and divides good
from evil. That sword pierces to the dividing
of joints and marrow, dissecting and dis
cerning the thoughts and intents of the heart.
As a result of these and other characteris
tics the Protestant churchly ideal provides for
a great wealth of religious development.
Many types of experience appear among the
manifold influences of Protestant institutions ;
many forms of worship evolve through the

288 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
free action of diverse temperaments ; many
intellectual variations occur in the apprehen
sion of truth. These, in earlier stages, pro
duced bitter rivalries and contentions, which,
under the ripening influence of time and the
growth of a broader world view, are passing
away. The true glory of Protestantism ap
pears in varieties of religious development,
finding modes of self-respecting expression
consistent with the law of Christian love and
the duty of Christian cooperation at home
and abroad.
There is reason to think that at no period
since the Reformation has the churchly
ideal of Protestantism been more nearly
realized than at present. In its naturalness
and flexibility, in its evident sympathy with
intellectual progress, in its sincere effort for
righteousness and in the beauty of many of
its variant types it is justifying the hope and
fulfilling the prophecy of great servants of
God who entertained this ideal in an age
when its adherents were a persecuted mi
nority, accounted in the seats of power as the
offscouring of the earth.

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 289
Yet a greater ideal than this is dawning
on many minds, forbidding them to rest
contentedly in the status quo of Protestant
ism. Like the vision of a city of God com
ing down out of heaven is the thought
of a larger Church of Christ than Jeru
salem, or Constantinople, or Rome, or
Geneva knew. With all its flexibility and
comprehensiveness, with its provision for the
free action of various temperaments and its
toleration of various points of view, there
rested on Protestantism at the beginning,
and has rested ever since, one characteristic
limitation. It was, and is, the instinctive
tendency to feel that the fullness of the
Church of Christ is already potentially rep
resented in the theologies, institutions and
orders of Western Christianity and that the
future promises only the expansion of Western
institutions until they cover the whole earth.
The Christianization of the world has meant,
both to the Protestant Church and to the Ro
man Church, increasing control of the Eastern
religious consciousness by Western influence,
until the Orient shall have assimilated the

290 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
Western interpretations of Christianity, and
shall have become Christianized by becom
ing Westernized in the realm of religious
thinking. From this point of view the ideal
of the Church stands for expansion by
colonization and conquest, until Western
Christianity with her Oriental dependencies
becomes a world wide spiritual empire on
which the sun never sets. To trace the
growth of this conception to its sources, and
to give an account of the influences that have
contributed to it would involve a much more
extensive historical review than is possible in
this Lecture. I regret that I cannot do more
than name some of the influences that have
developed in the European mind a disposi
tion to monopolize the right of interpreting
and disseminating a religion that was con
veyed to Europe by an Oriental after it had
been planted in Asia Minor. I conceive that
these influences began to operate very early
in the history of Latin Christianity, and that
one of them was the reaction away from the
East that followed the division of the Church.
The cleavage was deep ; it involved more

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 29 1
than theological disunion, it struck through
art and letters and philosophy ; it threw
the nearer East into shadow and drove back
into infinite remoteness the vaguely known
pagan world that lay beyond Constantinople ;
it seemed to leave to the Latin Church sole
possession of the apostolic inheritance ; an
assumption strikingly illustrated in the six
teenth century, when Pope Alexander VI, in
order to settle amicably the rival claims of
Spanish and Portuguese discoverers, gravely
divided the world (then supposed to be flat)
into two parts, lying east and west of a line
drawn through the South Atlantic ; assigning
one-half of the earth to each of the claimants.1
I conceive another of these influences to
have been the rise of Mohammedanism and
the interposition of its extraordinary strength,
as a wall of adamant, between Europe and
India. It blocked the immemorial highways
of commerce that had led, since before the
dawn of history, to peaceful and profitable
interchanges across the Indian Ocean by
1 See Sir William Hunter's " History of British India," Vol.
I, Chapter 3.

292 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
way of the Red Sea, or through the Persian
Gulf and over the desert to Damascus, or out
through the Afghan passes, by way of the
Caspian, to the Levant and Venice. One by
one these pathways were blocked by the
inflexible power of Islam, which itself became
a menace to the peace of Europe. The
ardour of the Crusades was more than re
ligious devotion to the tomb of Christ. It
was an opportunity for Latin Christianity
and Latin civilization to vent their scorn and
hatred of the Oriental world and all its
works. Still another influence helping to
foster in Europe the spirit of Western sepa
ratism was the powerful infusion of Teutonic,
Norse and Saxon elements into Latin civili
zation. These strains had in them no ap
preciable suggestion of the East. They
were, in effect, anti-Oriental. They repre
sented other traditions, other mythologies,
other world-views : the bold realism, the
hardihood, the practical resource to which
the meditative East was both incompre
hensible and contemptible. In this they
differed from the Celtic element in European

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 293
civilization, which ever has retained vestiges
of a birthright in the nearer East, vestiges
that may be traced in gentle and spiritual
traits of French and Irish character, as well
as in the tender beauty of the Gallican liturgy
reflecting the semi-Oriental influence of Basil
and Chrysostom.
With the revival of letters and the growth
of commercial institutions in England and
the Netherlands came a new birth of in
terest in the forgotten East. The voyages
of Drake and Frobisher were not vague
plunges into the unknown. They were
parts of a consistent policy to discover
new trade routes to the Spice Archipelago
and the fabulous treasuries of the Orient.
With the discovery of those routes, and, with
them, the discovery of the unexploited com
mercial possibilities of the East, the old re
ligious antipathy was amalgamated with the
rancour of avarice, forming that singular
blend of distrust and contempt which, until
recently, has been the habitual attitude of the
Anglo-Saxon mind towards the alien East.
When, late in the eighteenth century,

294 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
the spirit of missions awoke in England, it is
only necessary to recall the abhorrence ex
pressed towards it by many in and out of the
Church to perceive how far had advanced
the alienation of the West from the East.
Clearly Christianity had come to be reckoned
as an indigenous possession of the West, in
which the alien could claim no part. Such
being the received opinion, it was inevitable
that, when the evangelical consciousness of
Europe and America at length realized and
undertook the duty of world-Christianization,
the underlying presupposition was that Euro
pean and American Christianity, as expressed
in the accepted formulas of the sects and ex
hibited in their institutions of worship and
discipline, must be the final message to the
world. In that spirit it was carried to the
East ; nor could it, in the nature of the case,
have been carried in any other spirit than
that. The hope that animated its bearers
was, if not a purely denominational hope,
one that looked only for the propagation of
the same type of Christianity as that which
was preached and received in London and

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 295
New York. The evidence of this is seen in
the prevailing methods of missionary policy
in the East directed by boards of overseers
in Europe and America. That eminently
rational policy has been to proceed abroad
upon lines tested and approved at home.
Hence we find every form of ecclesiastical
polity known to Occidentals reproduced east
of Aden, and the superscription of every
party that has arisen in the Church at home
inscribed on the several groups of converts
collected abroad. Again I say, it could not
have been otherwise, and the glorious har
vests already garnered show that this policy
of missions, based on the Protestant status
quo, has been used of God as a channel of
ecumenical grace.
But while this policy is still in its strength,
administered from the highest motives, and
corroborated by large results, a flood of new
suggestion is breaking upon us in these latter
days. The glory of a more splendid inter
pretation of the ideal of the Church of Christ
is lighting up the field of thought. Not yet
has the full-orbed definition of that vision

296 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
risen into view. No man may yet venture
to describe that larger Church of Christ as if
it were already accomplished. But the East
ern sky is full of light, and one feels that the
sunrise may be near. Since the twentieth
century opened, the making of world-history
has proceeded with unusual rapidity. Events
of the first magnitude have occurred, or are
in process, the outcome of which may be a
readjustment of traditional relations and the
establishment of a modus vivendi between
Asia and Europe not recognized, by the
pioneers of Western missionary operations
in the East, as within the bounds of possi
bility. For the first time in the history of modern
civilization an Eastern nation has checked
Occidental aggression, repelling the advance
of a power superior in resources, entrenched
amid European alliances and venerating the
Christian religion. An exhibition, unparal
leled in history, has occurred, of the moral
greatness attainable by a nation without the
help of Christianity. Out of a religious an
cestry traditionally described by Western

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRlsT 297
opinion as " the base and black ancestry of
heathenism " has emerged a type of manhood
which by magnanimity, self-restraint, ethical
intelligence and equity has exalted the ideals
of the human race. The incredulity of Jew
ish separatism once asked : Can any good
thing come out of Nazareth ? It would be
according to the tradition of Western sepa
ratism if one should ask : Can any good
thing come out of Buddhism and Shinto?
Nevertheless the facts are spread before the
world ; it is for us to prepare an hypothesis
large enough to contain them. Can any na
tion foster and display such traits of character
without some access to the Eternal Fountain
of Good, and some inspiration from the heart
of God ? As these and many other surpris
ing manifestations of the soul of the East
appear, new trains of thought are suggested ;
stirring the mind with prophetic intimations,
disturbing the serenity of old opinions;
dismissing unenlightened prejudices. We
are awaking to the thought that there are ten
times as many Orientals as Occidentals, and
that their relation to the kingdom of God, to

298 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
say nothing of the kingdoms of this world,
may no longer be determined wholly by the
thinking and action of the West. In many
minds the doubt rises whether, in our con
ventional theory of the Christianization of
the world, we have not been governed too
much by Anglo-Saxon pride, in planning how
this is to be done ; as if, assuredly and only,
by us and by the action of Westernizing
forces upon Oriental consciousness. In view
of fundamental readjustments of world inter
ests now in process, considerations that once
would have been dismissed as idle fancies,
command attention. Never was it more
rational than now to live with an open mind,
touching the future development of the world.
Never was it more wise to recognize, as the
great unknown quantity in the present situ
ation, God's unlimited power to bring about
results in ways that, by an earlier age, could
not have been anticipated. As the familiar
world-programme of orthodoxy is superseded
by the breaking in of unprecedented events
and the appearance of new forces, one seems
to hear, like solemn music, above the world,

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 299
the master-word of prophecy : " For My
thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are
your ways My ways. For as the heavens
are higher than the earth so are My ways
higher than your ways and My thoughts
than your thoughts." To those for whom the
Protestant status quo is final, and whose con
fidence in the world-wide sufficiency of West
ern interpretations of Christianity leads them
to ignore the individuality of the Oriental
mind and its indefeasible needs and rights,
there is no beauty in the vision of that larger
Church of Christ which I am considering in
this Lecture. It suggests rather vague ex
pansions beneath which is no warrant of truth ;
unauthorized reproductions of the Church be
yond the confines of normal jurisdiction. It
is far from my purpose to debate with those
committed to this view. It has behind it an
impressive tradition. But there are many
minds from which has departed the power
to remain satisfied with that view, and to
which the present state of the world
suggests the most awakening possibilities.
To those no longer influenced by the prevail-

3oo THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
ing alienation of West from East there is a
peculiar joy in witnessing the increasing
self-expression of the Orient. It seems to
prophesy of the unexhausted resources of
God in His world ; of the immense reserves
at His command to be liberated ultimately
for the uses of His kingdom. As one con
siders the present unfoldings of intellectual
and moral strength in the Far East and re
members also the long and patient labours of
Western Christians in Eastern lands, planting
the seed of truth and interpreting the rela
tion of truth to righteousness, there spreads
like the rays before sunrise a new glory of
hope over the problem of world-Christianiza
tion. Possibly God has a greater way in
mind, whereby to Christianize the world,
than we of the West have ever dreamed of ;
a way that shall recognize the age-long
religious yearnings of the East as we have
never recognized them. It may be His plan
to restrict the West to its own place, making
it the correlate instead of the controller of
the East. It may be His purpose, through
the indigenous Christianity of the East, to

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 301
build up that larger Church of Christ
wherein, by the growth of an Eastern
interpretation of the common revelation
and an Eastern evolution of Christian
experience, there shall be accomplished
a supplementing and enriching of the
religious life of the world through the
mutual interaction of Eastern and Western
Christianity in ways that not Jerusalem, nor
Constantinople, nor Rome, nor Geneva
could, by itself, accomplish. " God is His
own interpreter and He will make it plain."
As we begin to realize how complacently
and confidently we have assumed that the
world can only be Christianized by adopting
our theologies and our sectarian forms,
solemn questions suggest themselves :
Who ever gave credentials of universality
to Western clerical orders, or to Western
ecclesiastical institutions, or to Western
denominational confessions ? Has God ever
pledged Himself to complete the Chris
tianizing of the world through these means ?
Has God ever limited Himself to the Anglo-
Saxon interpretations of the Christian faith,

302 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
and set aside as unusable those extraordi
nary gifts of religious discernment that are
peculiar to the temperament of the East?
Has God ever disowned those mighty
religious aspirations that fill the old ethnic
faiths, surviving in pathetic vestiges of their
former majesty amidst the modern degenera
tions of those faiths? Is He not, by the
might of His Spirit, able to subdue and
purge and transform and recreate those
gifts and those aspirations, dedicating them
to the knowledge and worship of the Son
of God? St. Paul, amidst the decay of
Israel, could cry, " Hath God cast away His
people? God forbid — God hath not cast
away His people which He foreknew I " '
One who has moved with a reverent mind
through the religious life of the East, who
has seen the tragedy of its enormous
spiritual possibility submerged beneath its
enormous moral deficiency, may also cry:
Nay I God hath not cast away the suffering,
sensitive soul of the East, nor left Himself
without a witness in the Oriental conscious-
1 Romans II : I, 2.

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 303
ness. Great are the burdens weighing down
the soul of the East ; blinding and suffocat
ing are the webs of illusion and fatalism
bound upon it; enthralling is the pride of
tradition alienating it from the name Chris
tian ; dark is the shadow of ethical obscurity
enveloping it. But within it remains a latent
potency for divine communion and divine
interpretation that needs but to be stirred
and to be organized by the Spirit of God in
the circles of culture to arrest degeneration
and to dedicate the superb fabric of the
Oriental sense of religion to the worship and
service of Jesus Christ. Twenty centuries
have passed since the message of an
Oriental was heard in Ephesus of the
Lesser Asia : crying, " Awake thou that
sleepest and arise from the dead and
Christ shall give thee light." Nearer with
every sunrise comes the age when brilliant
leaders of Oriental thought, themselves
illumined by the Light of the World con
veyed back to the East by faithful disciples
from the West, shall bear the same message
through the student circles of the Greater

304 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
Asia : " Awake thou that sleepest and arise
from the dead, and Christ shall give thee
light." So shall the Christianization of the
East be undertaken by Orientals. So shall the
religious thinking of the East be directed by
Orientals. So shall there come to pass an
Eastern Church of Jesus Christ offering Him
more precious gifts, yet not less char
acteristic, than the gold and frankincense
and myrrh of the Persian Magi. So shall
there be at last that larger Church, that Holy
Church throughout all the world, that
correspondence and communion of world
elements around the common altar of a
Semitic faith ; fulfilling the prophecy of the
Saviour : " I say unto you that many shall
come from the East and West and shall sit
down with Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob in
the kingdom of heaven." 1
Meanwhile, it is we of the West who must
gain breadth and discipline and vision that
we may deal with this whole matter worthily
and adequately.
Three things the Christianity of the West
'Matt. 8: II.

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 305
needs, if it would be ready, in the day of the
Lord, to meet and greet the next great
interpretation of the churchly ideal. It
needs the chastening of the Anglo-Saxon
spirit ; it needs to realize the democracy of
nations ; it needs to learn respect for
Oriental national aims, and religious aspira
tions. The Anglo-Saxon spirit is rich in qualities
that make for efficiency, it is capable of
splendid exhibitions of physical and moral
courage ; it is also capable of presumption
and provincialism. It is a haughty race-
spirit, aggressive, given to threatening, in
clined to war, satisfied with itself, prone to
intolerance. The institutions of homogene
ous peoples are impregnated with the national
spirit, and, in some degree, exhibit it. Insti
tutions of religion are no exception. The
Christianity of a person, a household, a
church or a nation tends to reflect the na
tional spirit, alike in its strength and in its
weakness. There are many ancestral quali
ties of Anglo-Saxonism that adorn the doc
trine of God and commend it to the non-

306 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
Christian world. Even some of its severer
qualities have won the confidence and love
of Orientals. Indians revered the inflexible
manliness of Lord John Lawrence. But the
besetting sin of Anglo-Saxonism in the East
is arrogance that disdains what it conquers,
and wounds when it essays to help. The
unconscious reflection of that race-spirit in
some religious efforts of the West in the
East has hardened hearts that might be won
and widened chasms that might be bridged
by substituting for the authority of Church-
manship and the irritating assumption of
racial superiority, the perfect chivalry and
cosmopolitanism of Him who was meek and
lowly in heart. The democracy of nations is
a truth that the West is slow of heart to be
lieve. In the soul of the West lives the
dream of a divine vocation of empire. It is
a Roman inheritance. Through the inspira
tion of that dream great results of good and
evil have followed. The development of the
resources of the world has been hastened.
The spread of knowledge has been advanced.
The conception of international relationships

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 307
has been evolved. But respect for Oriental
national aims and religious aspirations has
had small place in Western thinking. The
momentous condition of the world at this
time indicates an approaching change. None
may safely prophesy the nature of that
change, but, if we believe in the present
activity of the Spirit of God, we may look
for great readjustments in Western thinking,
for the chastening of inadmissible ambitions,
and for the growing influence of Christ in
the East. Christ and Christianity belong
naturally to the East. Friction with the
West has arrested the progress of a religion
that lends itself to all that is most brilliant in
Oriental discernment and precious to Oriental
sentiment. The readjustment of world re
lationships upon a basis of equity would
be followed by the advance of Christianity
among educated Asiatics, and the growth of
an Eastern Church of Christ.
When we of the West broaden our con
ception of the Incarnation of the Son of God
sufficiently to view it in its world-wide sig
nificance, with eyes purged of racial preju-

308 THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST
dice and hearts from which all arrogance is
put away, then shall we be prepared for the
larger Church of Christ in which East and
West are coequal and reciprocal. We shall
realize the majesty, the cosmic greatness,
the consolation and the joy of that larger
Church. We shall see that that, and that
alone, is an ideal of the Christian Church
that measures up to the cosmopolitanism of
Jesus Christ ; that meets the greatness of
His Incarnation and His Sacrifice, that satis
fies the travail of His soul, that crowns Him
with many crowns. That larger Church of
Christ, in her irenic completeness, shall as
similate with the ideals of a regenerated
Orientalism whatsoever is of the truth in the
essence of all Western ideals — of England
and America ; of Germany and France and
Switzerland; of Rome, of Constantinople,
even of Jerusalem. It shall be upon earth
the prophecy of the eternal consummation :
" I beheld, and lo ! a great multitude which
no man could number, of all nations and
kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood
before the throne and before the Lamb.

THE LARGER CHURCH OF CHRIST 309
These are they which came out of great
tribulation, and have washed their robes,
and made them white in the Blood of the
Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne,
and He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell
among them. They shall hunger no more,
neither thirst any more ; neither shall the
sun light on them, nor any heat. For the
Lamb which is in the midst of the throne
shall feed them, and shall lead them unto
living fountains of waters ; and God shall
wipe away all tears from their eyes."

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