The Law of Faith

The Law of Faith

By the

Rev. William Bright, D.D,

Canon of Christ Church, Oxford
Regius Professor of Ecclesiastical History

London
Wells Gardner, Barton & Co.

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First Edition, April 1898.
Second Edition, Feb. 1899.

117393

CONTENTS

No. ' "' Page

I. Is Christianity a Law? ... ... ... ... i

2.' Lrface ... ... ... ... ... ... 12

3. The Need of a Realizing Faith ... ... ... 21

4. Christianity a Doctrinal Religion ... ... 31

5. The Spiritual Conflict ... ... ... ... 40

6. Superficial Religiousness ... ... ... 50

7. A Ministry to the Unresponsive ... ... ... 59

8. Conversion ... ... ... ... ... 70

9. The Perfecting of Imperfection ... ... ... Si

10. The Danger of Relapse... ... ... ... 91

11. Comfort of the Scriptures ... ... ... 101

12. The Christ of Christmas Divine ... ... ... ui

13. The Character of the Blessed Virgin Mary ... 122

14. Privileges turned into Occasions of Sin ... ... 131

15. Responsibility for Opportunities ... ... ... 141

16. Christ not Received ... ... ... ... 150

17. Christ's Last Discourse ... ... ... ... 160

18. The Efficacy of Christ's Death ... ...... 170

19. Eternal Life ... ... ... ... ... 183

20. Belief and Action ... ... ... ... 194

21. Prayer... ... ... ... ... ... 205

22. The Ascension, and the Principle of Mystery ... 217

23. The Spirit of Power ... ... ... ... 226

24. True .and False Spirituality ... ... ... 234

vi Contents

No. Page

25. The Transfiguration ... ... ... ... 244

26. Strength through Obedience ... ... ... 254

27. Victory through Purity ... ... ... ... 264

28. Love to God ... ... ... ... ... 274

29. The Safeguard of Love ... ... ... ... 286

30. The Christian Corporate Life ... ... ... 296

31. The Thirteenth Centenary of the Coming of St.

Augustine ... ... ... ... ... 309

32. Addresses to Ordinands: I. Ordination in Unquiet

Times ... ... ... ... ... 319

33. II. Some Tendencies in Modern Clerical Life ... 330

The Law of Faith

i

Is Christianity a Law

Rom. iii, 27 (R. V.) : "Where then is the glory-
ing? It is excluded. By what manner of law? of
works ? Nay, but by a law of faith."

Is Christianity in any sense a Jaw? It was
sometimes described in the edicts of early
Christian emperors as the " sacred " or the
"most venerable law :" and such a use of the
term would be natural to the Roman official
mind, which was wont to regard a religion as a
system of prescribed acts or observances. But
Christian theologians have also spoken of " the
sacraments of the new law," as distinguished
from the rites of the law of Moses ; and one
ancient commentator 1 takes occasion from the
words of the prophet, " Out of Sion shall come
forth a law," to remark that "this Evangelical
law, having started from Jerusalem as from a
fountain, has run through the whole world,

1 Theodoret on Mic. iv. 2.

2 The Law of Faith

bringing its waters to those who approach it
with faith." Some will be apt to pronounce at
once that this language is self-contradictory,
that it involves a gross confusion of thought.
The "Law," they will say, is diametrically
opposed to the Gospel, opposed to the principle
of faith in a Saviour, opposed to the very idea
of grace, that is, of unmerited Divine favour and
bounty. This is true in one sense : is it true
absolutely ? Let us look to the teaching of the
Apostle who has enlarged on this very subject
in two great epistles, called forth in large
measure by the attitude of Judaizing Christians :
there is much to be learned from the diversity
of language with which he treats of law from
standpoints which are, indeed, distinct, but
which will be found by no. means incompatible.
No doubt, then, St. Paul does emphatically
deny that obedience to the law, either in the
form of Mosaic moral precepts, or as a general
principle, that is, to moral law as such, can be a
ground for justification, or in other words, can
enable men to claim the entire approval of God.
If they could be thus "justified," they would
thereby be in a position to challenge acquittal
before His judgment seat, to say to Him, " We
have done all that Thou requirest," and to
demand wages as due to work : on that ground,
in St. Paul's phrase, they would have a " glory-
ing," whereas for sinners any such glorying,
or confidence, is out of the question. It is
impossible to be too thoroughgoing in the
assertion of this negative proposition, funda-

Is Christianity a Law 3

mental, as we may call it in St. Paul's concep-
tion of Christianity, that " by works of law shall
no flesh be justified in God's sight," 1 that from
such works, to give the force of his phrase
more literally, no man can derive a right to be
accounted righteous. There must be no mistake
made, no loophole left for mistake, on a point
thus cardinal. And St. Paul gives two reasons
for his assertion : .first, "through law comes full
knowledge 2 of sin," a distinct recognition of its
character as transgression. It is precisely the
principle of law, forbidding men to do this
or that, which brings out and forms their con-
sciousness of the evil that is in them, and thus
tends to condemn them in their own eyes : how
then can it tend to their acquittal in God's
sight ? Thus St. Paul says that he would not
have properly "understood sin but through
law," and that "sin became exceeding sinful
through the commandment." 3 But there is a
second reason, a yet worse effect of law con-
sidered as a system of external commands.
The will is provoked by its prohibitions into
resistance : its imperative language, unaccom-
panied by any appeal to the heart, is felt to be
exasperating : just because it says, " Thou shalt
not," the "natural man" answers defiantly,
" But I will." " We strive," said a heathen poet,
" after what is forbidden ; " even a child will try
how far it can safely go in disobedience to a

1 Rom. iii. 20.

2 'Emyvwo-is. Cf. Rom. i. 28 ; x. 2 ; Phil. i. 9, etc.

3 Rom. vii. 7, 13.

4 The Law of Faith

parent, for the mere pleasure of asserting in-
dependence ; and thus St. Paul says, with his
terrible clearness of insight, that the passions
which lead to sins, thus stimulated, "work " in us,
with the result of " producing fruit unto " moral
" death : " 1 sin " takes occasion," finds a starting-
point, 2 for fresh developments through the very
command which vetoes it ; and, as the Apostle
says in the chapter associated with the most
pathetic moments of English Christian life, finds
its main " power," by a woful paradox, in " the
law." 3 Thus it is that "the law worketh wrath," 4
that "the letter killeth :" 5 for the letter, in St.
Paul's way of speaking, means moral law simply
as commanding or prohibiting, standing, as it
were, outside us instead of entering into us, and
bearing down repressively on our will. Its
aspect is necessarily austere, its tone is neces-
sarily menacing: " Leave this and that undone,
or take the consequences : " there is no per-
suasiveness in this magisterial address, but rather
what Archbishop Trench has called an " irritat-
ing power," 6 the result of which is actually to in-
crease the quantity and the intensity of sin.

Such was the experience which led St. Paul
to say, "For my part, it was by means of law
that I died to law, in order that I might live

1 Rom. vii. 5.

2 See Gifford on Rom. vii. 8, in "Speaker's Com-
mentary."

3 i Cor. xv. 56. 4 Rom. iv. 15. 5 2 Cor. iii. 6.

6 Trench, " St. Augustine as an Interpreter of Scripture,"
p. 127.

Is Christianity a Law 5

unto God." 1 He had "found that the very
commandment which tended" properly "unto
life," which virtually promised life to those
who obeyed it, was practically "unto death"; 2
and thus he saw clearly that acceptance with
God was not attainable on the ground of legal
obedience : that ground did not exist, for him-
self or for others; all were "under sin," 3 and
deliverance from "its guilt and power" must
be found elsewhere, by that self-committal to
Christ, as "set forth to be a means of pro-
pitiation by His blood," 4 which he calls com-
prehensively faith, a faith living and "operating
through love."

And it is that one word " love " which lights
up for us the other side of St. Paul's teaching
about law. Love, he says, is a fulfilling of law. 5
He is thinking immediately of love to one's
neighbour : but the saying is just as applicable
to love for God. But, one may ask, " Are we
then thrown back on that necessity of fulfilling
the moral law which St. Paul had seemed so
expressly to abrogate ? " Well, does he not say
as expressly as any one could say it, that he is
" not annulling law " by the principle of faith,
but is rather setting it up, " establishing " it, in
its higher, broader, deeper, and more inclusive
sense, as a manifestation of the mind and will
of the Supreme Moral Being? Take law in its
narrower sense, as merely so much of " Thou

1 Gal. ii. 19. 2 Rom. vii. 10.

Rom. iii. 9. 4 Rom. iii. 25.

5 Rom. xiii. 10. 6 Rom. iii. 31.

6 The Law of Faith

shalt" and "Thou shalt not," as simply manda-
tory and, as it were, external, and it will, doubt-
less, as man's nature goes, prove " weak through
the flesh," 1 and have the effect of multiplying
sins. But take it with the element of an appeal
to man's better nature, to his conscience as
witnessing for God, to his religious affections as
capable of responding to the voice of a Father
by some return of trust and love, by some
intelligent sympathy with the Divine intentions
and some perception of the beauty of the Divine
holiness, and then we find ourselves in a different
atmosphere : we see that God's moral law is
" holy, just, good, spiritual ; " 2 it makes not for
death, but for life : it is a " law of faith," there
is now no sort of incongruity in that significant
Apostolic combination, it is " Christ's law," 8 it
is " the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus,"
an expression and presentation of the Spirit
which giveth life, and by "walking in accord-
ance to which those who are in Christ Jesus',"
whose lives are encompassed and animated by
His presence, can "fulfil the righteous claim of
the law." 4

But here a word of caution may be needed.
Such language is not to be pressed as if it
involved such a perfection of righteousness as
could constitute a ground of justification. That
idea would, in a sense, "rebuild" what St. Paul
had destroyed. 5 Merit, properly speaking, is

1 Rom. viii. 3. 2 Rom. vii. 12, 14.

3 Gal. vi. 2. 4 Rom. viii. 2-4.

5 Gal. ii. 1 8.

Is Christianity a Law 7

unattainable for the most advanced Christian ;
he must, as St. Anselm puts it, " offer Christ's
merits in place of any of his own." 1 Nor is it
satisfactory to say that a Christian's goodness
or righteousness, though imperfect as belonging
to himself, is perfect as proceeding from the
Spirit whose grace works in him. 2 What is in
question is the use which he makes of grace,
the extent to which he " corresponds with it" :
and even full correspondence in one instance
would not make a perfect obedience, when set
against instances of failure or of fall. In short,
the fulfilment of which St. Paul speaks in that
exultant opening of the eighth chapter to the
Romans must be taken in a sense less than
absolute ; and it is well to remember that " there
is no greater non-natural interpretation than
the forced and rigid avoidance of qualified inter-
pretation," 8 when the context and the general
thought of the writer suggest the qualification,
to be understood : and this is certainly the case
in the passage before us, where St. Paul goes
on to speak of the persons in question, as in
a condition opposite to that of " enmity against

1 St. Anselm's " Admonition to the Dying."

2 Newman, " Serm." v. 157. The mistake involved in such
language arises out of the erroneous preconception that
justification must somehow depend upon a righteousness
consisting in a progressive course of Christian obedience,
whereas it depends on " faith " as involving self-surrender,
as inseparable from love, as containing the potency of future
obedience, while resting its hope of Divine acquittal on the
Passion and Mediation of Christ alone.

8 Mozley, "Lectures," etc., p. 196.

8 The Law of Faith

God," as ordering their lives " in accordance
with the spirit," and not with " the flesh" in the
general sense of the lower element in human
nature.

Thus, whereas in one sense St, Paul con-
demns those who lay stress on law as connected
with justification, in another he enshrines the idea
of law within the very sanctuary of Gospel truth.
To law, as purely restrictive, obedience may be
paid out of fear, but with an element of grudging
or reluctance, which excludes "real confidence,
true and childlike obedience," 1 and is apt to con-
strue requirements as strictly as a penal statute.
But when law is written on the heart, when it
is felt to represent the Divine character, then
it is "spiritual" indeed, and tends to "life," for
in shaping conduct by it men consciously draw
near to that Holy One whom they know to be
altogether lovable; they know "the thoughts
that He thinks concerning them," and therefore
they can read His commands not with a cold
and narrow literalism, but with a loyal eager-
ness to drink in their whole spirit ; so that here
St. Paul meets St. James on the platform of
law, deepened and expanded, transfigured and
endeared, a " royal and perfect law of liberty." 2

But it is essential to remember that the
obligatory character which is essential to law is
retained while law itself is spiritualized. In
fact, we could not do without it. Law has been
defined as "a rule and measure of moral

1 Cf. Dollinger, "First Age of the Church," E. T., p. 180.

2 James i. 25 } ii, 8.

Is Christianity a Law 9

actions, so that actions become right through
conformity to it : " l not, of course, an arbitrary
rule, but one which could not be other than it
is, because it expresses the righteousness of its
Author. And some such " rule or measure " is
necessary for moral creatures : a life unregulated
is as such a life abnormal. Shakespeare makes
one of his wise characters ascribe existing evils
to the neglect of "proportion, season, form,"
in a word, of "order." 2 Wordsworth, in one
of his noblest poems, contemplates the possibility
that those "who ask not if the eye of Duty is
upon them may fail through confidence mis-
placed," and addresses her as a "stern lawgiver
that yet wears the Godhead's most benignant
grace," and through whom "the most ancient
heavens are fresh and strong : " 8 and Hooker
speaks of angels as living in the "perfection of
obedience unto that law which the Highest,
whose face they behold, hath imposed upon
them." 4 Service does not cease to be service
when it becomes a perfect freedom. St. Paul uses
a strong word to express it when he says, " We
were discharged from the law by dying to that
by which we were (formerly) held fast " to what
result? That we should be freed from all service?
No " that we should serve in newness of spirit,
and not in oldness of letter : " 5 and St. John
introduces into his picture of future blessedness
the prediction that God's servants " shall serve

1 Suarez. 3 " Troilus and Cressida," i. 3.
s " Ode to Duty." * " Eccl. Pol.," i. 4. i.

6 Rom. vii. 6 (SovXcvew),

io The Law of Faith

Him" while they see His face, and while they
reign for ever and ever. 1 To be " under law "
in this sense is part of our creaturely depend-
ence, therefore of our creaturely happiness :
and those who dislike to acknowledge it as
such, who "call God Father, not King," forget
that if He is a Father, He must have "His
honour," 2 and that if He is God, He must be
King; there can be no "Divine Fatherhood"
without sovereignty, no absolute righteousness
without the majesty of a Judge. Language
which evades the fact of law in practical religion
will deprive religion of awe, and therein of
reality and efficacy : and no amount of dis-
claimers of Antinomianism, as "of course" fatal
to Christian morality, will shut out the Antino-
mian principle from habits of thought which
deny that the moral law, in its complete and
Christian form, is literally binding on the
Christian conscience.

There is significance, and there is helpful-
ness, in the words which, in our liturgy, precede
and follow the recitation of the Decalogue. We
begin by asking Him to whom all hearts are
open for that inspiration of His Spirit which can
"cleanse the thoughts of our hearts," and enable
us "perfectly to love Him:" and we end by
developing the repeated petition that the Lord
would incline our hearts to keep this or that law
into a prayer for the fulfilment of Jeremiah's
prediction as to the New Covenant " Write
all these Thy laws in our hearts!"

1 Rev. xxii. 4, 5. 2 Mai. i. 6.

Is Christianity a Law n

Well for us if we can make this prayer, in
the whole breadth of its scope, our own. Well
for us if, while we do so, we strive with definite
purpose, in all the details of daily conduct, to
" establish the law of faith and of the Spirit,"
and never dream that we can dispense with
the obligation of " rendering to God a service
which shall please Him with that reverence"
which is inseparable from worship, that "godly
fear " l which is the companion of godly love.

1 Heb. xii. 26. Compare the Litany; "A heart to love
and dread Thee " (Christ). See below, p. 93.

B

II

Grace

2 Cor. xii. 9 (R. V.) : " My grace is sufficient for
thee, for My power is made perfect in weakness."

IF there is one feature of the petitions in the
Prayer-book which is peculiarly distinctive and
characteristic, it is the frequent iteration of the
little word "grace," or of phrases which, taken
in connexion with that word, are at once under-
stood to embody its meaning. Over and over
again, in the daily offices, the litany, the office
of Holy Communion, in occasional offices, in the
Ordinal, in the collects for Sundays and Holy
days, the prayer goes up, " Lord, give us Thy
grace " grace for this or that purpose ; grace,
for instance, "to cast away the works of
darkness and to put on the armour of light ; "
grace in the form of "help" or "assistance," or
of "strength" or "power"; grace to "amend our
lives"; grace to "receive thankfully the inestim-
able " gift of a Redeemer, and to endeavour to
walk in the steps of His holy life ; grace to
"withstand temptation"; grace to "use God's
manifold gifts to His honour ; " grace " to follow

12

Grace 13

His saints in all virtuous and godly living ; " yet
again, " increase of grace," or a due " measure "
of grace for the attainment of God's promises ;
and all these "graces" as flowing from the
Holy Spirit, even as the sevenfold blessing
besought and conferred in Confirmation is
associated with the "strengthening" presence
of the Comforter. No doubt this careful insist-
ence on the necessity and reality of grace is due
to the vast influence of the theology of St.
Augustine on the mind of Western Christendom ;
for the idea is much less familiar to the thought
and the worship of Eastern Churches. Now
the question, what does grace mean ? of course
refers us to its sense in the New Testament.
The word originally means favour or goodwill,
kindliness of feeling, a benevolent state of mind ;
but such a quality in man ought not, as St. James
reminds us with an incisiveness which is almost
humorous, to expend itself in saying, " Go in
peace, be ye warmed and filled : " l and St. Paul
illustrates this duty of passing from mere feeling
into action which costs something, by applying
this word grace or favour to a fund in aid of
the distressed Christians in Palestine. 2 The
brotherly goodwill of those who, at his bidding,
contributed even out of their " deep poverty "
for the relief of foreign brethren worse off than
themselves, thus took a concrete form; and
the generous spontaneity of such a contribution
might further remind us of that well-known use
of the same term which emphasizes the freeness
1 James ii. 16. 2 2 Cor. viii. 4 ff.

14 The Law of Faith

of Christian salvation 1 as an infinite bounty
which man cannot claim as a debt.

But grace, in the special sense which
Christian theology has derived from Pauline
teaching, has been excellently defined as
"God's love in action," or otherwise as a "gift '
of spiritual strength." Man's kindliness too
often evaporates in feeling, or in a few sym-
pathetic words. With God to will is to act,
and so His goodwill must needs energize. in
bounty : even as in our text, when St. Paul
besought Christ that a harassing bodily ailment
might pass from him, the answer came, "My
grace is sufficient for thee, for My power is
made perfect in weakness." "Most gladly, there-
fore," the Apostle continues, " will I rather glory
in my weaknesses, that the power of Christ
may rest" or literally, "may spread itself like
a tent upon " or over me. Here, then, grace
comes in the form of an increase of strength : and
in other contexts . of the same Epistle, we find
grace spoken of as a form of succour, 2 or as an
" abundant " supply productive of an abundance
of energy in "every good work." 3 In .the
former of these two passages, just before
quoting from Isaiah, "In the day of salvation
did I succour tnee," the Apostle entreats the
Corinthian Christians " not to receive the grace
of God in vain." Here grace is something
definitely given and received : it can be
received either profitably or "in vain"; but in
either case it is a positive gift, not merely

1 Eph. ii. 8, etc. 2 z Cor. vi. i, 2. 3 2 Cor. ix. 8.

Grace 15

inoperative favour, that is, not such goodwill
as does not go forth into action. It is more
intimate and penetrating than any outward
appeal, any exhortation or instruction, or even
than the impressiveness of Christ's supreme
example: attempts were made at one time to
reduce it to this kind of assistance, but it was
easy to show l that such a conception was quite
inadequate, that it wholly failed to do justice
to the Pauline use of the word, or to other
passages of Scripture which affirmed our
dependence on God's help for all right action.
It has been compared to a force, or, as St. Paul
says, it is a "power working within us :" 2 but
whatever terms we use to describe it, we must
constantly bear in mind that it is essentially a
presence of a personal Holy Spirit, drawing
near to man, and if welcomed, producing good-
ness in man.

Let us see how it works. Let us suppose
a soul to be cold towards things sacred, languid
and inert in regard to religious duties, in short,
to be drifting away into indifference or aliena-
tion. Grace may be sent to arouse it, to stir
up the will and enkindle the affections into
accordance with the mind and purpose of God.
This movement takes place ; the spell of torpor
is at least for the moment broken ; the soul
receives a new inspiration ; a sense of its own
value, of its own capacities, of its own responsi-
bilities, revives ; and at the same time a fresh
infusion of strength enables it; to answer the

1 St. Aug., " de Grat. Chr.," 45, etc. 2 Eph. iii. 20.

i6 The Law of Faith

call thus made upon it, to say, " Speak, Lord,
here I am." 1 This is the operation of grace
as "prevenient," as "putting into the mind
good desires," in the language of our Easter
collect. The soul gets a new start, which it
may respond to by the new vigour which grace
offers, but which it may, on the other hand,
ignore and neglect to profit by. Only too easy
is it to turn on the other side and go to sleep
again, and thereby to " receive grace in vain "
by not accepting it; or even to resent the
Divine visit as disturbing and intrusive, and
thwart the Divine intention by perversity. But
let the will rather allow itself to be rectified ;
let the heart be softened by that pleading and
winning tenderness which " draws us with cords
of a man, with bands of love ; " 2 let the whole
being cry out, " Yes, my God, I will give myself
to Thee ; take possession of me, make some-
thing of me : " and then grace will sustain the
impulse imparted, will follow up its prevenient
action with that " continual help which can bring
to good effect " the purposes called forth by its
first appeal. In this sense, as St. Paul ex-
presses it in a brief sentence which well-nigh
gathers up his whole doctrine on the subject,
" it is God that worketh in us both the willing
and the doing, for His good pleasure," 3 that is,

1 "Grace is a gift altering and raising the powers by
which man chooses and wills and acts," etc. Church,
"Cath. and Univ. Serm.," p. 170. Cp. Paget, "Faculties
and Difficulties," etc., p. 193. See below, p. 73.

2 Hosea xi. 4. 3 Phil. ii. 13.

Grace 17

in order to the full accomplishment of His
benignant and fatherly goodwill.

Is grace simply a result of the Incarnation ?
We may surely apply the name of grace, in a
sense less plenary but real, to the working of the
Holy Spirit on the nobler souls of heathendom,
and yet more on those true Israelites who could
pray that hearts might be " prepared " for, or
" inclined " to, the service of the God of their
fathers, 1 or in the fervent words of Psalmists,
" Create in me a clean heart," " unite my heart,"
that is, give it singleness of aim, "to fear Thy
name " or " to love Thee." But when the Word
became flesh and dwelt among us, He came as
"full of grace," and "out of His fulness," says
the fourth Evangelist, " did all we receive, and
grace for grace," the right use of one grace being
rewarded with more grace and yet more. 2 In
the sacred humanity of Jesus grace dwelt with-
out measure, as the Godhead dwelt in Him
bodily. Theologians have applied the term to
those special endowments which His human
nature received by its union with His Divine per-
sonality : 3 but grace, in its more ordinary sense
of a restorative and purifying influence, could
not be needed by Him as Man, for in Him was
no sin, nor even the possibility of actual rebellion ;
but it was stored up in His manhood, to be
thence diffused to all who should be incorporated
into Him.

1 i Chron. xxix. 18 ; i Kings viii. 58.

2 Cf. Bp. Westcott on St. John i. 16.
8 Cf. Hooker, E. P.," v. 54.

i8 The Law of Faith

Diffused and how ? Principally through
those sacramental " means whereby," as we
were taught in childhood, " we receive " that
grace of which they are outward symbols. A
sacrament, combining the visible with the in-
visible, is thus far in keeping with the Incarna-
tion itself, and is therefore a fitting organ for
conveying the benefits of that transcendent
mystery ; let us rather say, for bringing home to
us the living personal touch of the Incarnate
Himself, on whom all Christian souls depend as
on "a quickening spirit," a fountain of cleans-
ing and renewal. Where the Incarnation is
really believed, sacramental efficacy should be
no hard saying ; where sacraments are duly
appreciated, belief in the Incarnation is never
lost.

But although these divinely provided ordi-
nances are the principal, and, in a signal sense,
the covenanted channels of grace, it comes to
us, by God's mercy, through a multitude of
subordinate occasions, which, if needfully "re-
deemed " or secured, will gradually form an
atmosphere of spiritual healthiness, amid which
we can imbibe grace, as we need it, at every
turn of our life's journey.

Are there any limitations to this beneficent
activity of grace ? For one thing, we may be
quite sure that not a single soul is excluded
from it by any supposed arbitrary decree, in-
dependently of its own disposition or conduct.
In the noble words of an old Western Council,
"We believe, according to the Catholic faith,

Grace 19

that all the baptized, having received grace
through baptism, are able, by the help of
Christ, to fulfil the conditions of salvation." 1
Christian grace is not only accessible to all
Christians, it is urged on their acceptance by
the importunities of Divine love : the distinction
once drawn between sufficient grace and grace
as effective is unreal and sophistical ; grace that
suffices, on God's part, is never lacking, but it
rests with us, by opening our souls to it, and
consistently living up to it, to make it effective.
Yet there are limitations which it concerns us
much to take account of. As we have seen,
it is not irresistible. Again, it does not act
mechanically; it will not "crown us without our
stir;" it requires in us the formation of those
habits which tend to preserve it. Thirdly, it
will not destroy the sinful bias or evil tendency
which even in the baptized survives as a deposit
of the Fall, although counteracted by the im-
planted principle of good. Lastly, and this is
"a most grave consideration," we can presume
upon grace, can neglect to keep our lamps full
of oil, can quench the fire which the Spirit of
grace has kindled, and pass out at last into the
darkness of obduracy. For those who are
living in grace, the humility which means
vigilance is most 'needful.

The practical conclusion of the matter is

surely this : Let us believe that we do very

seriously need grace, that it is to be had for the

asking, nay, that to ask for it sincerely is a

1 Second Council of Orange.

20 The Law of Faith

sign of having it already in part, and that our
business is to seek for it continually, and to
cherish it by a constant warfare with sin, even
as it is most assuredly impaired and diminished
by each compliance with the promptings of evil.
Let no day pass over us without prayer for
more grace to Him who, as St. James tells us,
is ever ready to " give more." The pith of many
collects may be condensed into the last words
of a simple and deeply pathetic hymn, intended
for use after Communion :

"Multiply our graces,

Chiefly love and fear;
And, dear Lord, the chiefest,
Grace to persevere." 1

1 The readers of Pascal's "Second Letter" are amused
by the exposure of the Dominicans' disingenuous admission
of " sufficient grace " as given to all. More striking is the
success of " Augustinian " traditions in making " efficacious "
a mere synonym for " determinative."

Ill

The Need of a Realizing Faith
St. John xii. 21 : "Sir, we would see Jesus."

THERE is a singular and pathetic interest in
the request made by these " Greeks," who, like
Cornelius in after-days, had become proselytes
or converts to the faith and worship of the God
of Israel. They were, we may be sure, men of
a very different type of character from that
which, as our Lord says in the severest chapter
of the Gospels, was too often exhibited by prose-
lytes of the Pharisees. 1 These men were not
"children of hell," but "sons of peace": they
had escaped from the moral defilement and
religious darkness of Paganism ; they had, it has
been vividly said, "groped their way to the
porch of Judaism just as the first streaks of the"
great " Light were falling within upon its altar." *
They must have heard of, perhaps they had
even witnessed, the recent Triumphal Entry.
This Jesus the Prophet, this King of Israel
coming in the name of the Lord, might He

1 St. Matt, xxiii. 15.

2 Edersheim, " Life and Times of Jesus," ii. 390.

21

22 The Law of Faith

not teach them something more? would He
not be likely to do them some good ? What if
they could get a word or two with Him ? They
apply to one of His disciples, who has a Greek
name : "Sir," they say courteously, and with a
touching simplicity, "we wish to see Jesus."
Philip (as a remark of his was ere long to show,) 1
is less intimate with the Master than some who
belong to an interior circle : he goes to Andrew,
who, as this fourth Gospel has already told
us, had preceded his own brother, Simon Peter,
in personal knowledge of Him whom, in his
hearing, the Baptist had called "the Lamb
of God," whom he himself undoubtingly de-
scribed as " the Messiah." 2 He goes with Philip
to ascertain the pleasure of their Lord ; they
report the wish of the " Greeks." And here we
may note a little token of genuineness in the
narrative. An inventor of a Life of Jesus would
have been sure to tell his readers how the intro-
duction was actually made, what Jesus said to
the Greeks, and how He impressed them. The
Evangelist leaves us to infer this, and occupies
himself simply with the significant warning
contained in words which the Lord shortly
uttered, to the effect that He must needs pass
to His "glory" through a very dark entrance,
and that His servants also must follow Him in
that path ; that death to this present life was
the condition of "living," in the true and
" fruitful " sense of the term, 3 We may infer, I

1 St. John xiv. 8. 2 St. John i. 41.

8 St. John xii. 23 ff.

The Need of a Realizing Faith 23

say, that these sayings were meant specially for
the " Greeks " : and it has often been observed 1
that, in so far as they retained their old national
ideals, their first experience of the new Teacher
must have brought with it that kind of shock
which men feel when confronted, for the first
time, with the austerer side of things, that the
Greek view of life, as precious for its oppor-
tunities of self-development, and desirable in so
far as it met the craving for beauty, freedom,
strength, and joyous exuberant activity, 2 would
be sternly corrected by the announcement, or
even by the intimation, that the "way of light",
was a "way of the cross," and that discipleship
meant some form or other of self-sacrifice.

But leaving this point on one side, let us see
what we can learn from the request itself, rather
than from the implicit answer. " Sir, we would
see Jesus." Is the wish, thus put into form,
one with which we can sympathize? Do we
know anything .of the state of mind out of
which it would naturally emerge? And if so,
can we see how it may be gratified, how belief
may expand into something like spiritual vision ?
One cannot, surely, be mistaken in thinking
that some among us, church-goers, and per-

-, 1 Kg. Bp. Ellicott, "Huls. Lect," p. 317.

2 " To the Greek, the blessed life was a correspondence
with environment, a balanced answer to the claims of bright
surroundings. It was a worship of the beautiful. . . As
a people, the Greeks strove to make life desirable by trust-
ing to their perception of what was artistic." Pullan,
" Lectures on Religion," p. 4. .

24 The Law of Faith

haps periodical communicants, would fain
"see" the Lord Jesus, in this sense, as hitherto
they have not seen Him. A person may say
to himself, " I have heard and read, times with-
out number, of the deep 'peace,' or even the
'joy,' that comes with really 'believing.' 1
The letters of the apostles, the writings of
typical Christians in all ages, the memoirs of
pure and beautiful souls of our own race, and
within our own time, all testify to a certain
effect on thought and affection and conduct,
and on the general estimate of life, produced by
devotion to Jesus as Master and Saviour.
Evidence abundantly shows that * the image or
idea of Him/ somehow or other imprinted on
the minds of His subjects individually, 2 has
made life, to them, unspeakably ' worth living ' ;
it has given a new zest to all worthy pursuits
and activities ; it has lighted up the moral and
spiritual world ; it has brought God truly near ;
it has kindled a spiritual ' enthusiasm of
humanity ' ; it has been a motive force for well-
doing, 3 a principle of resistance to temptation,
a support and consolation in trouble, a staff to
lean upon in the valley of the shadow of death.
Even one who deems Christianity a mere up-
growth of pious fancies must admit that what
he calls its tender illusions have, as a matter of
fact, done all this for thousands of thousands

1 Rom. xv. 13.

2 Newman, "Grammar of Assent," p. 451.

3 Cp. Shairp's " Studies in Poetry and Philosophy," p.
374 ff-

The Need of a Realizing Faith 25

of men and women of like feelings with him-
self. Faith has, in this sense, overcome the
world, 1 for them. Yes, I see all this ; and yet,"
the person whom we are supposing confesses,
" yet somehow I cannot get hold of it, assimi-
late it, as a promise. I do not question any
point of the Christian creed ; my difficulty does
not lie in contending with sceptical doubts, but
in realizing what I accept, what, in the sense
of credence, I believe. To me there is such a
gap between the central Figure of the Gospels,
with the ideal of life that He embodies, and
that His disciples, in all the ages, have em-
braced with such glad fervour, and this every-
day life of mine, with its very different interests,
so vividly present, so richly attractive, so
absorbing as to crowd the whole scene. That
Figure has fallen, for me, into the background :

1 Comes faint and far Thy voice

From vales of Galilee:
Thy vision fades in ancient shades:
How should we follow Thee?' 2

How can I regain this freshness and vigour of
faith ? I wish, I really do wish, to appropriate
the experience which has made some lives, that
I well know of, so clean and so radiant, so con-
sistent and so happy ; but how but how?" . . .
Perhaps he consults some elder Christian who
seems to have got the secret, to whom the
"vision" is "open," and prefers the piteous

1 i John v. 4.

2 Palgrave, " Amenophis and other Poems," p. 24.

26 The Law of Faith

wistful entreaty, " Sir, I would see Jesus, can
you help me, can you bring me to speech of
Him? What shall I do ? Only tell me."

The petition was not in vain, by no means
in vain, on that Tuesday in the first Holy.
Week. Will it, think you, be in vain now,
after all these Christian ages? Not while
Christ sits at the right hand of the Father, and
holds all authority in heaven and in earth. 1

(a) But first let the answer exclude a wrong .
method, which some, in their inexperience, have
adopted, with mere disappointment for result.
A person who was competent to advise on such
a subject (and we must all have known, at
least, one or two such advisers) would begin
by saying, "There is one thing which you
must not do. Do not attempt to work yourself
up into what you think a state of warm de-
votional feeling. Artificial emotion is shallow
and powerless, because it zV artificial, and there-
fore forced. Even when emotion springs up
spontaneously, it is not to be relied upon : it
rises and sinks, conies and goes : if you do not
instantly act upon it, it leaves you colder and
weaker than it found you. 2 No, to ' get up '
feeling is distinctly not the right way for attain-
ing a sight of Jesus."

(b\ But next, and positively, there is a primary
indispensable condition. He who would " see "

1 St. Matt, xxviii. 18.

2 See Newman, " Serm.," i. 116, 185 ff. And his "Letters,"
ii. 308 : "The more she indulges her feelings now, the greater
reverse perhaps is in store."

The Need of a Realizing Faith 27

the Lord must examine himself very definitely :
" Am I cherishing any sin? Am I playing any
tricks with my conscience? Is there in some
dark corner of my soul, hidden away, often,
perhaps, out of my own sight, something which
will have the effect that Achan's carefullysecreted
spoils from Jericho were found to have had on
the whole cause of Israel ? " l If there is, out it
must come : there must be no attempt to com-
promise about it ; there is no room within the
house of the spirit for Jesus and " the accursed
thing " that ought never to have been harboured.
Can we, after thus scrutinizing ourselves, (let
us say " we," for surely in one way or other this
concerns all of us), can we say honestly, " I
desire to be quite true to Jesus Christ ; to have
the single eye which makes the whole being
luminous, 2 to keep no terms with any sin, and
especially with that one, whatever it may be,
which most easily besets, 8 most seriously impedes
me " ? Happy are those who . can say this :
He will help them to say it with more and more
of what the Apostle calls godly sincerity.* The
ground is largely cleared ; the next steps onward
are quite visible : let us briefly define them.

A Philip of our day, or an Andrew, might say
to him who would fain see Jesus, " Suppose
you take up the Gospels again, and study them
with the express purpose of ' realizing ' Christ

1 Josh. vii. 21, 2 St. Matt. vi. 22.

3 Heb. xii. i. "What are we placed here for, except to
overcome the besetting sin, whatever it be in oUr own case? "
Newman's "Letters," i. 260. * 2 Cor. i. 12.

28 The Law of Faith

in them. The Christ, the Jesus, the Emmanuel
of the Evangelists is not He, is not His
character, as there evidently set forth, the most
persuasive of all evidences for Christianity ? "
Look at it again, that character of which it has
been said, that in it " the qualities which attract
reverence, and the qualities which attract love,
are combined and interfused in their perfection."
" What other notion than this," the .same writer
went on to ask, " can philosophy form of
Divinity manifest on earth ? " Contemplate
again this august and pathetic Figure ; give it
time to impress you, to tell upon your mind and
heart : it will " form and deepen in you an
image of Him" 1 which will abide, if you treat
it fairly : the Christ of Peter and John, of Philip
and Andrew, of the penitent woman and the
penitent robber, will be for you also a living
Christ. As Thomas, after all his doubting,
could hail his Master as Lord and God, so you
will be able to say, " I had heard of Thee by
the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth
Thee 2 in the records of that all-holy human life,
through which there shone out the moral
'glory of the Only-begotten of the Father.' 3
' Lord, to whom else should I go ? ' " 4

And then He will show Himself yet further
in the faithful use of the means of grace, which
are so many ordained " points of contact " 5 with
Himself as the Life-giver. If we would see

1 Mozley, " Essays," ii. 128. 2 Job xlii. 5.

8 St. John i. 14. , 4 St. John vi. 68.

5 Liddon, "Advent Serm.," i. 241.

The Need of a Realizing Faith 29

Him most clearly and most profitably, we must
remember how, on the first Easter-day, " He
was known by two disciples in the breaking of
the bread." 1 The right reception of Gospel
ordinances is a spiritual Epiphany of Him in
whom the Gospel is gathered up: in the
greatest of sacraments, above all, He brings
us actually into contact with His Incarnation;
we appropriate it, with its effects ; we take it
home, and live, so to speak, in its atmosphere.

And so, in the power of Sacramental grace,
we shall set ourselves once more to the daily
work of our calling, as the appointed area of a
continuous service, to be fulfilled "as to the
Lord," and "in Christ." Let us offer up to
Him, to Him as personally present with us,
as personally interested in us, each day, and
all its occupations, yes, and all its relaxations
as it begins, and beg Him to let us some-
how "see" Him throughout it. Let us say
to Him, "My Lord, I give Thee my heart: 2
cleanse me, rectify me, take possession of me :
I put myself into Thy hands : let Thy grace
work freely on me. . ." Is He likely, think
you, to refuse that request ? Could He possibly
refuse it, and be Jesus? We Christians know
better. His covenant He will not break, nor
alter the thing that is gone out of His lips :
He has said that if we try to obey Him, He will
reckon it as love, and that to those who love
Him He will manifest Himself. 3 He is not

1 St. Luke xxiv. 35.
2 Prov. xxiii. 26. 8 St. John xiv. 21.

30 The Law of Faith

merely a Sunday Christ, but a week-day Christ :
"the trivial round, the common task," the home-
routine, the kindly social pleasure, are they not
familiar to Him who once learned a trade and
worked in a shop, who went about in fisher-
men's boats, who sat at table as a guest, and
who, on His heavenly throne, remembers
Bethlehem, Nazareth, Cana, Capernaum, as
He remembers Gethsemane and Calvary ? Let
us trust Him with the hallowing of our ordinary
"secular" interests; let us try to shape each
day's life so as best to please Him. " Would
our Lord like me to say this or to read that ?
Would He sanction this train of thought or of
fancy ? When I go with that companion, could
I imagine His drawing near and walking beside
us ? " l This habitual " looking up to Jesus," 2
this repeated reference to His will and pleasure
does it seem to us likely to be oppressive,
restrictive, burdensome? Let us only try it,
and judge for ourselves : it will turn out to be
a source of peace and comfort indescribable.
At the end of a day so spent, yet more, at the
close of a week so spent, if not without some
failures, yet with a permanent loyal and loving .
purpose, the Christian soul will ,be able to
enter into what Apostles once said to him who
had not been with them when Jesus came
"We have seen the Lord; we cannot be
mistaken ; it was verily He Himself."

1 St. Luke xxiv. 15. 2 Heb. xii. 2.

IV

Christianity a Doctrinal Religion
Eph. iv. 5: "One faith."

WHAT is the place and purpose of doctrine
in the Christian scheme of thought and of
life? The question is momentous in itself,
and of late years has been growing in urgency.
Long ago, a member of the Theological
Professoriate in Oxford University, one, I
may add, of whom it could truly be said that
he "being made perfect in a short time,
fulfilled a long time," observed that "in a
thousand ways a state of opinion had grown
up which was singularly unfavourable to the
reception of doctrinal or theological truth,"
that "undefined ideas were gravitating- to-
wards the belief that there was such a thing
possible as undogmatic Christianity." 1 What
Dr. Shirley said then may be said now with
greater emphasis and on fuller evidence : on
all sides, in addresses, in popular periodicals,
"religion" is set in opposition to "theology";
doctrinal formularies, or even creeds, are dis-

1 Professor W. W. Shirley, "Elijah and other Sermons."

32 The Law of Faith

paraged under the invidious name of " dogma."
A free use of such nicknames has a singular
power of fostering and perpetuating a prejudice.
" Obsolete, over-technical, formal, cramping,
arid, unspiritual," all these epithets are dis-
charged like pellets at doctrine as stated or
formulated : and we know how, in discussions
about education, it is assumed that to teach
children any definite articles of belief is " to case
up young minds in a plaster of sectarian dog-
matism, with the purpose of keeping them
under sacerdotal sway."

Now, of course, it is to be granted that the
word dogma has for many persons a needlessly
harsh and repellent sound : it seems to suggest
an imperious demand that this or that pro-
position shall be accepted, under penalties
represented, at any rate, as tremendous ; and
it is quite true that in the New Testament it
is not applied to doctrines, but to decrees or
requirements. It is not less certain that
ecclesiastics or theologians have often " dog-
matized" to a mischievous excess, have gone
far beyond their "guiding," have erected mere
opinions into articles of faith, have propounded
as truth what was not only dubious but untrue.
But the proverb about use being not annulled
by abuse is pertinent in this as in other cases :
and the question, so far as we need now
concern ourselves with it, is primarily a
question of principle. Is dogma, in the sense
of the affirmation of doctrine some amount
of doctrine, doctrine of some kind or other,

Christianity a Doctrinal Religion 33

a necessary and therefore a permanent element
in the religion of Jesus Christ our Lord ?

And yet it is strange that such a question
should have to be asked, when once the belief
in God is assumed to start with. In the words
of the eloquent Primate of All Ireland : " Dogma
is the general statement of a positive religious
truth in the language of Holy Scripture, or in
language duly authorized as equivalent to it.
To say that religion has no dogma is to say
that nothing is really known about it : he who
pronounces the word ' God ' puts himself out of
court for denouncing dogma, for the word con-
veys the dogma of dogmas." l Or in the words
of Cardinal Newman, which all serious theists
ought to accept : " The word ' God ' is a
theology in itself." 2 So that, if we believe in
God as a living Being with what we call per-
sonality and character, our belief must be able
to express itself, and the form of its expression
must be capable of being taught and learned.
And if we advance from mere theism to a belief
which, for theists, must be antecedently probable,
that such a God can reveal Himself in ways
which, for want of a more exact term, we call
supernatural, then we see how inevitable it was
that the Hebrew religion should take its stand
on a great article of faith, which Israelites to
this very day are taught to recite at the most
solemn moments of earthly life: "The Lord
our God is one Lord." The religion, then, of

1 Archbishop Alexander, " Primary Convictions," p. 196.

2 " Discourses on University Education," p. 45, ed. i.

34 *Tke Law of Faith

the Old Testament, was distinctly dogmatic :
and our Divine Teacher, who came not to
destroy, but to fulful the Law and the Prophets,
assumed having no need to publish or justify
this same principle as characteristic of the gospel
of His new kingdom. Will it be said that His
great sermon, as we read it in the first Gospel,
the sermon, as we call it, "on the Mount," is
" purely ethical," and keeps utterly clear of
" theological metaphysics " ? One might wonder
whether those who so describe it have ever
fairly read it through. They " seem," in the
words of a great Congregationalist writer, " never
to have read, or to have wholly forgotten, a
large part of that very sermon for whose ethical
teaching they express so much enthusiasm. . . .
Who is it that in that sermon places His own
authority side by side with the authority of
God ? " l A doctrinal proposition is needed
to explain the tone which Jesus takes in the
well-known contexts here referred to. We want
to know who He personally is, and by what
right He adopts this language of unmeasured
self-assertion? Again, it would be altogether
arbitrary to rest on this one discourse, and ignore,
for instanc'e, the form of Christian baptism which
the same Gospel represents the Risen Lord as
prescribing for His Church's use throughout the
future : and if we treat the fourth Gospel as
trustworthy in its account of His interior teach-
ing, we know that He expressly pointed onward

1 Dale, " Christian Doctrine," p. 165. So ib., p. no : " In
discovering His authority we discover that He is divine."

Christianity a Doctrinal Religion 35

to a communication of further truth by the out-
pouring of the Holy Spirit; and in that light we
read the Apostolic Epistles, which not only
presuppose, throughout, theological revelations
as to the person of Christ, the redemption or
mediatorial work, the energy of grace, the efficacy
of ordinances, the conditions of union with Him
and of access through Him to the Father, but
occasionally give summaries of truths to be
believed, expansions, as it were, of " Thou art
the Son of the living God," and anticipations of
" I believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only
begotten Son of the Father," and so on. If we
think of it, we shall see that it was impossible
for Apostles to write as they did without suggest-
ing the question, " Who is this Father, this Son
of God, this Holy Spirit ? why is Jesus Christ
called ' our great God ' and ' the Lord of glory ' ?
why are we to take Him for our Lord? what is
meant by His title of Saviour? what is the
effect, so often insisted on, of His death, or how
did His coming in flesh involve the manifestation
of a Word who was from the beginning j* " It
was impossible for them, it is equally impossible
for us, to evade the cardinal inquiry, " Whom
say ye that I am?" In fact, if men attempt
to detach "the original Christianity" from its
" envelope " of theology or dogma, the task
before them is that of reconstructing the New
Testament. And those who, as it has been
tersely expressed, are trying now to substitute
for Christian doctrine "a sweetened and en-
lightened vagueness," and assume that it does

36 The Law of Faith

not really matter which view we take of Christ's
intrinsic personality, have already parted with
the conceptions involved in a Christianity which
can overcome the world, and abandoned the
standing ground of St. Paul or of St. John, as
well as that of St. Athanasius. Dogma, in
forms which bring out and do not misrepresent
or pervert the meaning of Scripture, protects
and consolidates belief : for it is the language by
which Christianity asserts that it is not a mere
"influence," but has an "unyielding kernel," a
"sturdy foundation" in "the personality of the
Lord Jesus, with its paramount claims." 1

But is this all that must be said as to the
necessity of doctrine? We are told that our
creed must be "moralized," must prove its
connexion with the needs and capacities of man-
kind. By all means : it is ready to face that
test. We do not accept it by an act of such
"' reason " as is non-moral or unspiritual, but by
the " reason " of a personality which knows itself
to be both rational, moral, and spiritual. 2 Hence
it is that we recognize in justifying faith an
activity of the whole person, as thinking, willing,
and loving. And here comes in the reply to
those who imagine that they are pleading in the
interest of Christian morality, when they reduce
Christian doctrine to a minimum; that when
relieved of the " hard crust " of " dogmatic accre-
tions," it will enter on a new career of healthful
influence. But this is a most superficial view.

1 H. S. Holland, "Pleas and Claims for Christ," p. 135.

2 Moberly, " Reason and Religion," p. 37.

Christianity a Doctrinal Religion 37

"The whole system of Christian ethics is an
inseparable part of Christian theology." l Is this
saying paradoxical or over-bold ? It will not
seem so if we look at'" Christian ethics " as they
appear in the teaching of Christ and His Apostles.
In our text He implicitly says that we shall be
" sanctified" when we are "in" the atmosphere
of that truth which is embodied in His Person:
and so St. Paul assures the Ephesian clergy that'
the "word" of Divine "grace is able to build
them up " in character, " and to give them their
inheritance among all those who have been
sanctified," 2 even as elsewhere he accounts for
the activity of "unreasonable and evil men " by
quietly observing that "all men have not the
faith." 3 We all know how systematically he uses
doctrine as the basis of practical exhortation : for
instance, how he enforces purity by the assertion
of a Divine indwelling which hallows the very
bodies of Christians. And look at the one idea
of grace ; observe the conditions and the instru-
mentalities of grace : see how grace witnesses for
responsibility, yet holds out the strengthening
hand of hope ; how it keeps the soul both active

1 The Duke of Argyll, " The Philosophy of Belief," p. 384.
Cf. Dale, "Fellowship with Christ," p. 158, that in the
Christian "doctrine of God," that is, "of the Trinity, is
implicated the Christian doctrine of man, which determines
the Christian theory of morals and the Christian theory of
society." Cf. also Gladstone, "Gleanings," etc., ii. 32.

2 Acts xx. 32. The "word" is clearly something that can
be stated and mentally apprehended, while it is also full of
moral efficacy.

8 2 Thess. iii. 2.

38 The Law of Faith

and humble, free alike from presumption and from
apathy ; how its appointed sacramental channels,
by their own inherent incapacity, refer us to the
Power that operates through them, and by their
independence of our changes of feeling assist in
setting our feet upon the rock. Take Christian
doctrine on its own terms : look at it not as
caricatured or perverted, but as it is in itself;
and you will see how rich it is in motives which
lift the soul upwards, which brace its resolves
for moral effort, and call forth a thankful and
affectionate response to the vast revelation of
the Divine charity as centred in a Christ who
is God and man.

So it is that the obligations of belief and
obedience, contracted in baptism, interlace and
combine. So it is that in our daily offices the
recitation of the baptismal creed is wisely pre-
fixed to a series of prayers ; and that the most
solemn part of the Eucharistic service is in-
troduced by that fuller creed which, with the
exception of three words, is common to all the
historical Churches. Let us not separate what
God has joined, but rather try to realize the
correspondence of this aspect of Christian truth
with this or that other, and the help which
each and all can give in the endeavour to live as
Christ would have us. It would indeed be a
condemnation to have lips fluent with orthodoxy,
and a heart cold and a conscience asleep ! May
He who is the Truth, and who therefore can
make us free, give us grace to assimilate the
ennobling and purifying influences of doctrines

Christianity a Doctrinal Religion 39

that reflect some radiance of His glory, and
enable us so to vitalize our belief that we may
have cause through all eternity to thank Him
for such an organ of His gracious self-manifest-
ation as " the one faith which was once delivered
to the saints." 1

1 It can hardly be necessary to refer, on this subject, to
Dr. Moberly's essay on "The Incarnation as the Basis of
Dogma," in "Lux Munch'," pp. 217-272. In p. 200 he
notices the popular objection to Christian theology as a
veneered Hellenism, which is also dealt with, from a some-
what different point of view, by Dr. Bigg in his volume on
" Neoplatonism," p. 143. See also L. Pullan, "Lectures on
Theology," p. 251 : "Christian dogma rose rather from the
relation of Christians to Judaism than from their relation
to Hellenism." When Jews, being Monotheists, became
Christians, " they were taught to give worship and blessing
to Jesus Christ. What was to be done if they inquired, as
they were bound to do, whether Jesus were God, or whether
there were, after all, two gods ? " etc.

V
The Spiritual Conflict

. Eph. vi. ii : "Put on the whole armour of
God, that ye may be able to stand against the
wiles of the devil."

IT is a story told of the great Bishop Wilber-
force, that being one day suddenly and flippantly
asked by a fellow-traveller in a train which was
the nearest way to heaven, he answered instantly
and decisively, " Take the first turn to the
right, and then keep straight on." The ready
wit of the reply is even less admirable than its
comprehensiveness : it is the Christian morality
compressed into a few downright homely words.
But then comes the pinch of the practical
difficulty : it is felt, by sad experience, to be
hard to "turn to the right," and harder yet,
after turning, to " keep straight on." There
are so " many adversaries " l to be confronted
when we have passed through the " open door " ;
so many inducements, first not to burden our-
selves with the strain of a great resolution, and
then, if we have risen to the effort, if we have

1 i Cor. xvi. 9.
40

The Spiritual Conflict 41

" committed ourselves," so to speak, by breaking
off from this or that form of wrong-doing, not
to persevere in the arduous uphill course.
Heathen moralists knew at least this, that it
was "difficult to be good": the old heathen
allegory represented the hero of the race as
standing at a " parting of the ways," and bidden
to choose between austere exacting Virtue, and
Vice with its brilliant seductive charm. Men
who honestly desired to live worthily of their
manhood, to make their higher self, in fact as
well as by right, predominant over the lower,
were conscious of a weakness that often seemed
real incapacity; and Christianity, which has in-
tensified both good and evil, at once requires a
righteousness that shall exceed the non-Christian
type, and places in a new and awful light at
once the fascination and the deadliness .of sin.
And some Christians, in despondent mood,
may half unconsciously formulate the question,
" Why does the Supreme Moral Being demand
so much of us, and not make it easier, to meet
His demand?" and then, perhaps, with that
dismal facility of self-excusing which veils an
unwillingness to respond to the Voice within
them, they go on, " I cannot stand against the
tendencies which sweep me along a path which
moralists call ' downward ' ; and who put those
tendencies into me ? who made me what I am,
prone to this or to that form of self-indulgence ?
You tell me, God ; well then, God is a hard
master : He expects more than is fair ; His
ways are not equal." Perhaps they add, " I

42 The Law of Faith

was told that Christ was the Saviour and Friend
of men ; why does not He, then, make right
living easier ? " And what is the virtual con-
clusion? "I will even disregard these unbear-
able prohibitions : they may suit other natures,
but not mine : I will live my own life, will let
myself go."

Ah, whither, O unhappy soul, rushing on into
rebellion through want of sympathy with God,
as when the first human sinners fell away after
questioning His goodwill! For those of us
who have not reached that fatal extremity, the
true course clearly is to look at the Gospel fairly
and all round. Our Lord does, indeed, bid us
" strive hard," as men in a bodily contest, " to
enter in by the strait gate," l that narrow entrance
which leaves no space for a single cherished
lust as part of our baggage. He commands
His very Apostles to "watch and pray at every
season," 2 and "what He says to them He says
to all : " 3 He cannot help saying it, because the
requirement arises out of their moral probation.
And probation must needs appear more serious
and momentous in the light of the Gospel of
Christian salvation. For eternal life, as won
for us by Christ, is a blessing so unspeakably
precious, that the conditions of attaining it must
necessarily be exacting. This is why Christians
have to be tested by temptations so manifold ;
and it is precisely the Christian revelation
which gives them a more distinct sense of

1 St. Luke xiii. 25. 2 St. Luke xxi. 35.

3 St. Mark xiii. 37.

The Spiritual Conflict 43

spiritual clanger, of the need of spiritual effort.
For it is Christ who warns us of the possibility
of a hopeless perdition : " the Fount of love
reveals the sinner's hell :" * and in regard to our
present position, He lifts up a corner of the
curtain that had hung over the vast invisible
world ; He points to an Adversary who succeeds
in " snatching away " the good seed when sown
in souls that do not care for it; His own
immediate visible presence is not allowed to
ward off the invasion of that " evil one " from a
heart that had already, in purpose, betrayed
Him. And the Apostle who was "called" by
Christ Himself as enthroned in heaven is just
as emphatic as the Master on these mysteriously
terrible conditions of the Christian conflict. In
the passage to which our text belongs, he tells
the Ephesians that " their wrestling " involves
more serious issues than may appear at first
sight. Their enemies are not, except outwardly,
and as it were instrumentally, simply human,
" flesh and blood." Men, indeed, can be fierce
and relentless, possessed with a passionate
hostility to a faith which condemns their idols ;
but they are to be thought of as possessed
(in a peculiar sense) by something more
dreadful, more powerful, more malicious, the
secret influence of apostate "princedoms and
powers that dominate the world by keeping it
in darkness, of wicked spirits that are as yet
permitted to roam abroad in this upper air."
These, he says, these are your true formidable

1 "Lyra Apostolica," p. 103.

D

44 The Law of Faith

enemies : it is against their onset that you need
" the whole armour of God."

That there are personal evil spirits under a
leader of their own, the original "slanderer"
of God, the " friend " or foe of man, is undoubt-
edly part of the Christian account of things.
We cannot disclaim it, nor explain it away as
a mere Eastern figure of speech, intended to
express forcibly the fact that moral evil exists
and is strong for mischief. If our Lord had
meant merely to affirm that general fact, He
need not, and He would not, have used such
varied forms of assertion as to the existence
of a "Satan," of a "devil," of a "prince of
this world." 1 And what is the difficulty of
taking His words in their natural sense? If
we believe that human goodness is not the
highest goodness that lives and acts in God's
creation, that above our world there are angels
that have never sinned nor forfeited the " sight
of the face of the Father," it should not be
hard to believe that below our world too there
is an extreme in the other direction, a wicked-
ness all the more intense because it is purely
spiritual, not associated with bodily appetites,
simply and altogether a self-perversion of will,
hating goodness as such, defiant of God even
while, as St. James intimates, the rebel crea-
ture "trembles" in the consciousness of His
irresistible supremacy. And we may surely
understand this a little better when we think
of the worst forms of human sin, of. the
1 See especially St. John viii. 44.

The Spiritual Conflict 45

"devilish temper" 1 that hates purity, hates
simplicity, hates even love, deliberately sets
itself to corrupt others, to ruin their fair
promise, to deprive God of their loyalty. This
temper is an indication, for us who believe in
Christ, of some thing really diabolical below.
Yet again, it has been pointedly said, "There
are strange impulses, horrid thoughts, reducible
to no mental law, evil thoughts, which no
stretch of the imagination can set down to the
corrupt passions, which cannot be traced to
disease or human depravity which witness to
contact with him who came and sowed tares
among the wheat." 2 And yet, while the exist-
ence and energy of fallen spirits is affirmed
repeatedly in the Gospels, and while one Apostle,
for instance, describes their chief as "seeking
whom " among men " he may devour," 3 we are
not encouraged to imagine in detail under what
conditions, and with what methods, they attack
us. Assuredly they are not omnipresent nor
omniscient ; they cannot read our hearts ; their
power, at the utmost, is strictly limited; for
they are not the rivals, but the defeated rebels,
of the Most High. Satan is called "the
Tempter," apparently because he and his fellows
have some unexplained power of forming a
sort of pestilent moral atmosphere, into which
men venture, and thereby contract moral

i H.S. Holland, "God's City," p. 194 ff.
^ 2 Cf. Archd. Hutchings, "The Mystery of the Tempta-
tion," p. 79 ff.
3 i Peter v. 8.

4.6 The Law of Faith

disease. They have been walking on dangerous
ground; their love to God catches a chill, their
passions are inflamed into a fever. Or, to
adopt St. Paul's imagery, they have gone need-
lessly into the enemy's country, and arrows
tipped with fire are, of course, discharged
against them. What are these "fiery darts"?
We know too much, perhaps, about them ; that
is, about strange sudden uprisings within us of
evil memories that go far back into the past,
but are potent for mischief in the future ; or a
train of ideas which we know to be dangerous
flashes rapidly into our minds, we know not
how. 1 Supposing we have not in any way
invited them, we are, so far, clear of responsi-
bility ; but are we pleased with their visit ? Do
we welcome them, or in any sense entertain
them, turn them this way and that, consider
their attractions, admit their influence? If so,
the stage of "thought" has led on to the stage
of " pleasure " ; and then, in many cases, it is
but a step onward to that "consent" which
morally forms and constitutes sin. But what
if we are honestly pained at their coming?
What if we wish to drive them away? In that
case our part is clear, our resources ready and
aniple. Instead of parleying with the intruders,
let us recognize them as, in Shakespeare's
frequent and significant phrase, 2 " suggestions "
fraught with temptation, and therefore to be

1 Card. Manning, "Sermons on Sin," p. 179.

2 "All's WelV etc. iii. 5; "Love's Labour's Lost," i. i;
"Tempest,"-i. i, etc.

The Spiritual Conflict 47

instantly repelled. We shall not take a second
look at them ; we shall not lose a moment in
holding up against them the broad thick shield
which, as St. Paul reminds us, will enable us
"to quench their fire," the shield of a genuine
living faith. The words illustrate most vividly
the 'true character of faith ; a mere credence, or
a mere affiance, would not have the requisite
power : the faith which is effectual at such a
crisis must be an act of the whole soul, accepting
Christ as Teacher, relying on Christ as Saviour,
but also committing itself, devoting itself with
an unreserved loyalty, in mind, in affections,
in will, to Christ as Lord. That is, indeed, a
shield of adequate strength. How does Christ
interpret the use of it ? As a renewal of
allegiance, as a claim of protection, as an appeal
to promises never falsified, to the covenant
which God will never break, having sworn
once by His holiness that He will not fail
David. " Lord, I give myself to Thee : Lord,
I choose Thee and Thy service ; I renounce
every form of self-will : I believe in Thee, I love
Thee, I will be absolutely Thine." Can such
an act of faith be ineffective ? Will Christ
ignore it, and not give the succour which it asks
in His adorable name? One might as well
raise the question whether He could cease
to be Himself. No, verily ; if He has shown
us depths of moral peril which before His
Incarnation were unsuspected by the best of
His Father's servants, He has more than
compensated the shock of that discovery by

The Law of Faith

unfolding what St. Paul repeatedly calls the
"riches" and the "exuberance" of Gospel
grace.

In that last word is gathered up all our
confidence. Grace is the power of the Holy
Spirit, applying to our souls the virtue of the
Holy Incarnation in the form of help against
sin, of power to advance in Christian virtue.
And it is to be had for the asking : we have
our Lord's own word for that. If we ask,
we shall have. Let us ask, as trusting to
obtain. Whenever we are tempted to think
the conflict over-hard, let us look up into the
face of the Captain of our salvation, who has
promised His own blessedness to those that
"overcome." For, most assuredly, the quick-
ening of our perception of spiritual danger, and
the deepened sense of our responsibility as
Christians, are met by a corresponding assurance
of help so mighty, so abundant, so exactly
appropriate to our several needs as could never
have been conceived of except as the outflow
of a Divine Incarnation. The mighty inspira-
tions which so often break the chains of sinful
habit, the wealth of animating motive which
comes through adhesion to a personal Redeemer,
the experienced results of a faithful use of
Sacraments, all these combine to assure us
that the Word made flesh is Himself on our
side, that He will indeed fight our battle in us,
that all the powers of the heavenly world are
mysteriously engaged in the same great warfare
which, ever since our baptism, has had a claim

t

The Spiritual Conflict 49

on our individual services. We have to put
on, let us rather say, to keep on, for in a
sense we have already assumed, the whole of
that armour which God provides and conse-
crates. We have to resolve, again and again
if necessary, that we will never "ungird our
loins," and never accept defeat ; that if we fall,
we will do our best to rise again, so that the
enemy shall not rejoice over us : and then we
may humbly hope that at last, when the
arduous contest is ended, our Lord may be able
to own us as His soldiers who have not quitted
their post : " You did withstand in the evil
day, you 'did all' you could, and now, as
sharers in My triumph, you stand before Me,
beside Me, for ever." 1

1 On the personal agency of evil spirits see Trench, "The
Subjection of the Creature to Vanity," p. 50; Liddon,
"Passiontide Sermons," pp. 90-95; Gladstone, "Studies
subsidiary to Butler's Works," p. 213.

VI
Superficial Religiousness

St. Luke viii. 13 : " Those on the rock are they
which, when they have heard, receive the word
with joy : and these have no root, which for a while
believe, and in time of temptation fall away."

THERE is a sort of religious optimism which
would fain hear " smooth things," and only
smooth things, as to the conditions of the contest
between good and evil in this world. The best
corrective of this tendency to self-illusion will
be found in passages of the Gospels which
remind us that our Lord came to bear witness
unto the truth, and therefore not to attenuate
or gloss over those darker facts of our spiritual
history, and those more sombre aspects of
religion, which the "natural" man, or, as St.
Paul's phrase would be better rendered, the un-
spiritual man, 1 is only too glad to avoid looking
at, as persons with sensitive nerves instinctively
turn away from a gloomy or "distressing"
picture, with a sort of wish that it could be
curtained off from view. But as nature has

1 See Bishop Ellicott on i Cor, ii. 14.
5

Superficial Religiousness 51

terrible facts for which she provides no curtain,
facts which she insists on holding up straight
before us, even so does religion refuse to accom-
modate our delicate susceptibilities by sparing
us the contemplation of truths which inspire
dread. St. Augustine, in one of his inevitable
controversies, had to point out to assailants of
the Old Testament that the Gospel also had a
very severe side ; l and we in our day shall be
none the worse for being reminded, as a great
modern preacher expressed it, 2 that " the Gospel
revelation spoke as sternly as did the Law,
when truth required outspokenness." Instances
of this feature in our Lord's own teaching will
be found not only in the terrible chapter of the
Eight Woes, but even here and there in the
pages of that Evangelist who pictures Him as
the compassionate Healer of all the wounds
and woes of humanity. It is St. Luke who
records the sentence passed in parabolic form
on enemies who " would not have Jesus to reign
over them," that is, who persist with open-
eyed obduracy in refusing His offers, in whose
case He is " set for" such a " fall " as precludes
a "rising-up."

But the parable before us, which appears in
all the first three Gospels, might be called yet
more elaborately disheartening, in that it sets
before us three specimens of the failure of God's
word among human souls, as against one of
success. In three instances, our Lord, who is

1 "C. Advers. Legis et Proph." i. c. 16.

2 Uddon, "Univ. Serm." ii. 271.

52 The Law of Faith

symbolized as a sower of good seed, represents
His own work as thwarted by various causes,
all connected with certain conditions in the
ground or soil of the human heart. We are
disposed to ask, Why is this permitted ? Why
does Divine goodness united with Divine power
endure a defeat which at once derogates from
its majesty and brings its beneficent purpose to
nought ? This, however, is the old question,
ever new in its painful and often most baneful
urgency : Why is evil not only physical evil,
but, what is much worse, the gravest moral
evil allowed to exist, to work and spread and
rage and conquer, before the throne of a God
who hates it ? All that we can say comes to
this, that its presence and activity are conditions
of that moral probation the supposition of which,
as one has said who was mercifully brought out
of unbelief into faith, can alone enable us " to
give any meaning to the world, that is, any
raison d'etre of human existence." l And before
we look into any details of the parable, we must
combine it as a whole with all those Scripture
teachings which remind us that probation and
responsibility presuppose a real though limited
freedom, which in turn excludes quite definitively
the notion that any individual soul is fated to
be like this ground or like that. There can be
no such a fatality, even in the form of an
interior necessity pre-determining a man's con-
duct, under the sovereignty of Him who says
to each soul, as it runs its course under His
1 G. J. Romanes, "Thoughts on Religion," p. 142.

Superficial Religiousness 53

inspection, " I have set before thee life and
good, and death and evil, therefore choose life ; "
and who, if He did not say this, could never
make that other announcement, " I will judge
you every one after his ways." 1 And again,
this same parable, and that of the tares which
immediately follows it, belong to a series of
eight, 2 five of which dwell on the various ways
in which " the word of the Kingdom " does
really succeed and do its work : so that by these
the balance of our thoughts, which the story of
the sower's three failures might have disturbed,
can be redressed, and hope can recover the
foothold that a first impression might have
shaken.

Much might be said of the symbolism of the
hard pathway and of the ground thick-set with
thorns. Here is a soul that is simply callous to
all spiritual impressions, that hears as if it heard
not ; there, a soul which does indeed receive
the word, but not " with pure affection," which
allows it to be overgrown and stifled by " worldly
anxiety, by the deceitfulness of riches, by pleasures
and the entrance of desires about other things,"
a comprehensive phrase in which St. Mark
sums up much. But let us now confine our-
selves to the case which comes between these
two, in which the seed falls on " rocky places,"
which have but a thin coating of poor soil with-

1 Deut. xxx. 15, 19 j Ezek. xxxiii. 20.

2 That is, including the parable of the seed growing
secretly in St. Mark iv. 26. The parable of the draw-net
is analogous to that of the tares.

54 The Law of Faith

out either " depth " or " moisture." Here the
seed can indeed spring up rapidly, "immedi-
ately," just because the ground is so shallow.
In the words of the best of English commenta-
tors on the Parables, 1 " while the rock below
hinders it from striking deeply downward, it "
energizes "the more luxuriantly in the stalk."
To a careless eye the upgrowth may look
promising ; but what follows ? The sun rises,
with that hot wind of a Syrian morning which
St. James describes as " withering up the
grass " ; it scorches the premature blade : there
is no strength beneath to resist such a trial of
vitality ; because it has no moisture, as St. Luke
says, because it has no root, as St. Matthew,
and St. Mark state the case more expressly,
it withers away, it is dead.

Our Lord Himself supplies the comment
which, according to two evangelists, the dis-
ciples asked for after listening to the parable.
The rocky ground, He says, is a picture of
one who "as soon as he has heard the word,
immediately receives it with joy ; but hath not
root in himself, and so perseveres only for a
while; then, when tribulation or persecution
ariseth because of the word, he immediately
stumbles," or, in St. Luke's downright phrase,
he "falls away." Now what is the character
here indicated ? It is that of one whose re-
ligiousness is sentimental, and therefore super-
ficial. He is far from unimpressionable ; on the
contrary, he receives from his contact with
1 Trench on Parables, p. 71.

Superficial Religiousness 55

Christianity an impression that is real as far as
it goes, but does not go nearly far enough,
and therefore proves to be short-lived. He is
attracted by much in Christian religion that to
imaginations less quick and tempers less genial
might have but little " comeliness "; its beauty,
its sublimity, its gloriousness, appeal to him with
a force that seems to tell on his whole being.
How comprehensive it is, he says, how harmoni-
ous, how sympathetic,

" How worthy God, how suitable to man ; "

what views it opens of the meaning and worth
of life, of human capacity, of Divine Fatherhood ;
what a light it sheds on history ; what a glory
beams around its saints ; what an impulse it
gives to the charity that issues in self-sacrifice !
He feels all this ; he is more than interested, he
is stimulated, or even enkindled ; a moving
sermon or a majestic service can make his eyes
fill and set his heart in a glow ; he is well
pleased with himself for being so religiously
appreciative ; he says, " Lord, I will follow Thee
whithersoever Thou goest." It looks well, it
seems hopeful ; but has the soil moisture, and
has it root ? Is all this lively, emotional warmth
more reliable for serious effects than the aesthetic
delight which one man will take in a fine poem,
and another in a fine picture ? Is it not a mere
reproduction, under modern conditions, of the
satisfaction with which some of Ezekiel's fellow-
exiles listened to his words as if to a beautiful
piece, of music, without the slightest intention of

56 The Law of Faith

doing what he told them ; l or with which even
Antipas used to "hear" the Baptist "gladly,"
because he could respect the goodness which he
could not brace himself up to imitate ? As a
wise expositor has said, " Quick sensibility and
gladness is not always the best sign, where the
strength diffuses itself on things outward, and is
spent in them." 2 And this sensibility is all
that the character represented by the rocky
ground has to fall back upon when the stress of
trial comes in earnest ; and then, when adher-
ence to Christ begins to cost something, the
sentimental Christian,* who

"lets his feelings run
In soft luxurious flow,
Shrinks when hard service must be done,
And faints at every woe." 3

He has not bargained for this ; he stops short,
as one .who finds a barrier across his path ; he
" turns back and walks no more with Jesus."
In the old times of heathen persecution, too
many a convert thus proved himself like-minded
with Demas ; in the first age of our English
Church history, a local outbreak of pestilence
was apt to scare the raw proselytes back to the
idols which in baptism they had abjured ; * and
even now a very "much less severe test, applied
to persons of this type of character, will expose
the shallowness of their religious life. The cold
look, the bitter sneer, the spiteful misconstruction

1 Ezek. xxxiii. 30. 2 Bengel on St. Matt. xiii. 20.
8 "Lyra Apostolica," p. 85. 4 Bede, iii. 30; iv. 27.

Superficial Religiousness 57

of motive, these may be as the scorching wind
that blasts the unstable plant. And the result is
heart-sickening disappointment to elder friends
or pastors, who had thought " that young man "
so earnest and so hopeful, and had so gladly
assumed that he had the root of the matter in
him. Unhappily this was just what he had not.
It is, then, of urgent importance that we
should be, as the Apostle says, " rooted and
grounded in love," or, as he elsewhere puts it
yet more pointedly and profoundly, " rooted in
Christ." l He means, Take care that your
religion is not a thing of sentiment, but of
principle consolidated into action. The idea is
practically the same which our Lord has clothed
in other imagery ; the house of our moral and
spiritual life must not be built on sand, but on
rock, if it is to stand the rising flood and the
stormy gale. And the rock is Christ ; and the
root is loyalty to Christ. Two things may be
mentioned as points to aim at. Let us cherish
a sense of the claims of Christian duty. Persons
would not be so easily content with superficial
pietism if they felt themselves to be living under
a law, although it be a " law of the Spirit." We
must not attempt to live as if we were our own
masters, for we are " under law to Christ." He
is not merely an Elder Brother and our sympa-
thizing Intercessor; He is our King, our absolute
Sovereign Lord. We owe Him the lowliest
homage, the most unreserved, unquestioning
obedience. He commands us to do this and
1 Eph. iii. 17; Col. ii. 6.

58 The Law of Faith

avoid that ; He gives us access to all the help
that we can need for the fulfilment of our baptis-
mal obligations ; and He judges us, He cannot
but judge us, according to our opportunities, as
He will finally judge us at the close of our life-
long trial. And again, let us keep watch against
unreal professions, unreal estimates of our own
degree of attainment, unreal satisfaction as to
our own facility of good feeling, our own con-
tentment with the consciousness of good desires
or the formation of good resolutions. What is
it which fosters this complex self-deceit ? What
but a wilful ignorance of our own infirmity ?
What but the "folly" of him who "trusts his
own heart " ? 1 If we would be " men in under-
standing," we must put away the childishness of
relying on emotion, instead of using it forthwith
as a stimulus for the next piece of duty ; 2
for this is its appointed function to sweeten
obedience, and to make temptation less attract-
ive. So let us use, without abusing, whatever
enjoyment of holy things is granted us ; and
then, by calling out our affections in the service
of Him who is altogether lovable, it will tend
to consolidate love as a principle of conduct, as
a root which may fructify with that " patience "
which perseveres through every trial, until it has
won the " approval " of the Judge. 3

1 Prov. xxviii. 26. 2 Newman, "Serm." i. 118.

3 See Gifford on Rom. v. 4 (" Speaker's Comm.").

VII
A Ministry to the Unresponsive

Ezek. ii. 3, 4: "And He said unto me, Son of
man, I send thee to the children of Israel, to a
rebellious nation, that hath rebelled against Me. . .
I do send thee unto them : and thou shalt say unto
them, Thus saith the Lord God."

THE eighteenth Sunday after Trinity is one
of three on which the Church puts, as it were,
into our hands some characteristic pages in
Ezekiel's roll of prophecy. It is confessedly,
in parts, a difficult book ; we are told that the
Jewish rabbis forbade their scholars under
thirty years of age to read either the opening
or the concluding portions : they might lose
their way, it was thought, in trying to make
out the import of that complex and mystic
imagery. But the occasional dimness, not to
say darkness, is relieved by vivid bursts of
light so clear " that it is dreadful," which can
pierce through thickest folds of self-delusion,
and show an honest soul what it has not
realized as to its own condition before its
Judge. In a word, there is no prophet whose

59 E

60 The Law of Faith

practical teaching is more luminous and em-
phatic, more capable of making good its claim
over heart and conscience, than is that of him
who lived and preached among the exiles
beside the river Chebar.

The story of his ministry is rich in personal
interest. All the prophets had to be, in some
sense, confessors : they prefigured the Christ in
their own experience as enduring the contradic-
tion of sinners, 1 if not by dying, as one or two,
perhaps, did actually die, for their witness to
the truth, yet by suffering what might often be
harder to bear than a speedy death. Ezekiel
was not, indeed, openly cursed by his fellow-
countrymen, not thrust into a dungeon full of
mire, not saved, just in time, from starvation
by a foreigner's kindly interference. This was
Jeremiah's portion: 2 his was different, but it
was often very bitter. He needed, we may be
sure, all the support which could be derived
from a constant remembrance of the glorious
vision, terminating in " the appearance of a Man
above on the throne " of sapphire, which his
eyes were opened to see when he was called to
his great office. 3 He was then addressed by
the title "Son of man," as if to indicate a
certain special relation between him and the
fellow-men to whom he was 'sent, a relation
shadowing forth that unique headship of our
race which was to belong to its Incarnate
Redeemer. And as that Redeemer was in His

1 Heb. xii. 3. 2 Jer. xv. 10 ; xxxviii. 6-10.

3 Ezek. i. 4-26.

A Ministry to the Unresponsive 61

day to be grieved at men's hardness of heart,
and even to cry out, "How long shall I suffer
you ? " l so was Ezekiel warned not to look for
an easy ministry, but to speak God's word to a
rebellious house, to the impudent and the stiff-
hearted, whether they would hear, or whether
(as was but too likely) they would forbear. 2
The men around him, his fellow-exiles, were
not so bad, not so obstinately given up to sin,
as some who lived at home in Jerusalem, and
whose various enormities were pictured for him
in a vision that takes up the eighth chapter of
his book. Still, they would be largely unre-
sponsive, unimpressed, or even hostile, and to
live with them would be like dwelling among
scorpions ; 3 the warnings of judgment which he
would have to utter, as when a sentinel blows
a trumpet, 4 would often be unheeded; the
prophet would be isolated, suspected, ignored ;
he would need exceptional firmness to stand up
against dogged opposition ; his forehead must
be as an adamant harder than flint; 5 at last,
when tried by the sorest of family sorrows, he
would be bidden to refrain from mourning over
his dead wife, if haply at such a cost he could
prepare the dull hard minds of these unworthy
Israelites for a wide-spread misery too deep for
the relief of tears.

In various ways, he lets us see the profound
truth of that tremendous explanation of the

1 St. Mark iii. 5 ; ix. 19. 2 Ezek. ii. 4, 5, 7.

8 Ezek-.ii. 6. 4 Ezek. iii. 17-21 ; xxxiii. 2-9.

5 Ezek. iii. 9. Ezek. xxiv. 16-24.

62 The Law of Faith

disappointments and failures which were to
trouble his ministry, as in modern forms they
still test the faith and depress the spirit of many
a bearer of Christ's message. This is what
makes Ezekiel's book so living a book for
ministers of the Gospel. "We may preach
and preach," said a great bishop once to his
ordinands, "and our words will seem to fall
upon a stone, and not upon a man's heart." 1
Under any such trials of patience and hopeful-
ness, Ezekiel's experience will prove helpful.
How awful is the reason assigned for a callous-
ness which afflicts him ! They "will not hearken
unto thee, for they will not hearken unto Me." 2
As our Lord said long afterwards, "If the
world hate you, ye know that it hath hated Me
before it hated you." 3 The servant could not
expect to be welcomed, when the Lord had
been in effect rejected. The exiles' hearts
were not right with God ; therefore, of course,
they could not appreciate God's envoy. What
they said, as he reports it, exhibits human
perversity in some very advanced forms, which
are by no means obsolete ; it is only too easy
to translate their objections into language
which is anything but dead.
' Let us look at them, and listen to them, for
a few moments.

Hear some of them complain that the fathers
have .eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth
are set on edge. "We are punished because

1 Bishop Wilberforce of Oxford, in 1848.
2 Ezek. iii. 7. 3 St. Johnxv. 18.

A Ministry to the Unresponsive 63

our fathers sinned ; is that fair ? Can the way
of the Lord be called straight? 1 It is not
straight, but twisted, contorted, and our sense
of justice is shocked : " as many now-a-days
declare that the inequalities of human condi-
tion, or other natural facts which "cannot be
smoothed over or explained away," have made
them incapable of believing that the world is
governed by a righteous Providence. Or there
are those who openly say, "We will be as the
heathen : " 2 it is the cry of that wild impatience
which would fain get rid of the responsibilities
avowedly involved in the profession of religion.
Or if the mood is not so distinctly rebellious, it
is that of a sullen despair which masks itself
under an apparent acknowledgment of sin :
"Our hope is lost, we are cut off, we pine
away in our transgressions, how then should
we live?" 8 The gloom, we see, is faithless,
even if it does not reach the point of revolt.
Again, there are others who reject, as we might
say, on the grounds of "common sense and
common experience," the supernatural character
of prophecy; "every vision faileth" 4 predic-
tions are disproved, or, to quote a modern
dictum, " miracles do not happen ; " Ezekiel
is, in effect, bluntly told that "facto are against
him." Or even, say others, " if there is some-
thing in his prophecies, the vision is of times
far off : " 5 things will last our time, we need not

1 Ezek. xviii. 2, 25 ; xxxiii. 17. 2 Ezek. xx. 32.

8 Ezek. xxxvii. n ', xxxiii. 10. 4 Ezek. xii. 22.

5 Ezek. xii. 27.

64 The Law of Faith

disturb ourselves, as a comfortable selfishness
has often persuaded itself before some great
"day of the Son of man," for instance, in the
years that ushered in the French Revolution,
Or others have their own prophets, much better
worth hearing than Ezekiel, who tell them
what is pleasant to think of, with no austere
requirements, no rigid prohibitions, no croak-
ing " bodements " of a dismal intolerable future ;
the result of which is, that "the hands of the
wicked are strengthened to go on in their evil
way " by " visions of a peace that is no peace." 1
Or the style and contents of Ezekiel's preaching
are cavilled at : the misgivings which it secretly
awakens are silenced by critical remarks on its
obscurity: "They say of me, Doth he not
speak parables? " 2 Practical men, they assume,
may well dispense with attending to a voice,
that cannot put plain meaning into plain words.
Or there are others, probably among the
younger sort, who at first sight seem more
promising : they listen to the prophet with real
enjoyment, as they might to one who can sing
pleasantly and " play well " : only it is a merely
esthetic pleasure, a gratification of the sense
of beauty for its own sake, with no moral move-
ment of the will : " they hear thy words, but
they do them not." 3 And have we not known
that persons can flock to a harvest festival, or a
"bright service" full of hymns, and be none
the better for it, precisely for that same reason ?

1 Ezek. xiii. 16, 22. 2 Ezek. xx. 49.

8 See p. 55.

A Ministry to the Unresponsive 65

Or, lastly, there are men grave and "highly
respectable," who come with all appearance of
seriousness to sit before Ezekiel as pupils, and
inquire, through him, of the Lord ; but he is
bidden to repel them as self-deceivers who have
set up, and retain, " their idols in their hearts " :
favourite sins with them prove stumbling-blocks
to bar all progress upward ; therefore on them
shall come the doom of being "answered ac-
cording to their idols." 1 With them, as
froward, the All-seeing will, in the Psalmist's
terribly bold phrase, "show Himself froward" ;
they will incur that penalty which Scripture
describes as a blinding of their eyes and a hard-
ening of their heart, and which essentially
consists in their being left to themselves with-
out the light which they do not sincerely seek
for, left, in fact, to take their own way, and see
what will come of it. . This line of Biblical
language has caused difficulties which cannot
be passed over ; the more so, because one
passage in which it is found 2 is of all passages
in the Old Testament the one most frequently
cited in the New ; and St. John, with a startling
distinctness, attributes the "blinding" and
"hardening" to the Lord. But the explana-
tion must be found in that law of ethical life
whereby persistency in self-will, the process,
as Shakespeare, in an awfully vivid passage, calls
it, of " growing hard in viciousness," 8 does in-
evitably produce moral insensibility. All serious

1 Ezek. xiv. 1-3. 2 Isa. vi. 10.

3 "Antony and Cleopatra," iii. n.

66 The Law of Faith

moralists, whatever be their theological stand-
point, will admit this to be a fact ; and all who
believe in a God will see in it a revelation of
His character, so that when it works, He is in
fact allowing it to take its course. And it is
the method of Scripture writers to impress the
fact on men's minds with a concrete vividness
by representing such action on God's part as a
literal penal infliction. There, anyhow, stands
the fact, and we have to reckon with it. Let
us also fear, and be on our guard lest, for lack
of the single-eyed purpose which our Lord
insists upon in His great sermon, we too should
be left in the great darkness which waits like a
shadow on hardness of heart.

Ezekiel's ministry was, as we thus see,
pre-eminently a ministry of penetration into
character. Its leading feature is a close, severe,
persistent dealing with conscience ; he has been
truly called "the prophet of personal responsi-
bility." 1 Earlier writers in the Old Testament
had not brought out what their times were not
ripe for, the relation of the human personality,
of each human being by himself, to a personal
and moral God. He removes the veil which
had formerly obscured the individual's single
and separate importance in the sight of Him
who can say, "All souls are Mine." 2 He
shows that if, to some extent, heredity involves

very real disadvantage, if children suffer because
i

1 Dean Church, " Discipline of the Christian Character,"
p. 70.

2 Ezek. xviii. 4. Mozley, "Ruling Ideas," etc., p. 120.

A Ministry to the Unresponsive 67

parents or ancestors have sinned, yet in the last
resort no one soul will be spiritually rejected
from the mercies and blessings of the Divine
covenant simply on account of the sins of other
persons, which he has not personally shared in
or made his own, So does Ezekiel prepare
the way for that Saviour who, while He built
up His Church as a spiritual home for all
believers, conferred a new dignity, sacredness,
preciousness, on each individual soul for whom
He died.

Here then, surely, is one of the lessons
the chief lesson, we may say, in practical
importance which Ezekiel has to teach us
Christians and Church-people to-day. What a
thought it is, the interest that the Most High
God takes in each one of us singly,

"as if beside
Nor man nor angel lived in heaven or earth!"

That fact has a twofold bearing : it imposes on
us the obligation of walking in the fear of the
Lord, of standing in awe and striving not to
sin, of recognizing that the revelation of a true
God, as culminating in the Incarnation of a
Son of God who gave -Himself up for us all,
must needs have a stern side. Ezekiel's teach-
ing on this point should be regarded as a pro-
phetic forecast of some sayings of our Lord
and of St. Paul. But the other aspect of our
personal relation to God is that in which the
Gospel mainly presents Him that which was
illuminated by the Cross, and summarized in

68 The Law of Faith

St. John's assertion that He is Love. And
there are hardly any passages in the Old
Testament which contain such preludes of this
"music of the Gospel" as the appeal which
concludes our Prophet's eighteenth chapter.
Let us turn to it again, let us keep it in our
hearts ; the spirit of Christ Himself is in the
words. " Cast away from you," it says to us,
" all your transgressions ; why will ye die, O
house of Israel ? for I have no pleasure " (else-
where it is, " As I live, saith the Lord God, I
have no pleasure) in the death of him that
dieth : wherefore turn yourselves and live ye."

" Turn yourselves ? " we may ask. ' Is this
the Christian doctrine of conversion ? Are we
not taught to depend on a converting grace? Is
not our helplessness in default of grace a com-
monplace of theologians and preachers ? Well,
is not that truth indicated by the Psalmist's
language about "the law of the Lord," or the
Lord Himself, as "restoring the soul," or by
Elijah's prayer on Carmel, " Hear me, that this
people may know that Thou hast turned their
heart back again," and yet more touchingly,
perhaps, by the prayer which Jeremiah puts into
Ephraim's mouth, " Turn thou me, and I shall
be turned " ? When, in the light of such words,
we read Ezekiel's exhortation, we understand
that when a penitent turns himself to God, he
is in fact responding to a movement from God,
and using a power which that movement has
supplied. So it is that two elements concur
in the process of conversion : a Saul replies

A Ministry to the Unresponsive 69

duteously to the remonstance, "Why per-
secutest thou Me?" an Augustine, having
" taken up and read " the Pauline summary of
a Christian's moral obligations, surrenders his
will absolutely to the practical requirements of
the creed which his mind had become ready to
accept. 1 We, all of us, may hear, if we do not
wilfully shut our ears, the voice which would
draw us to the Christ of Apostles and all saints ;
if we listen, we shall receive strength to obey.
"If any man hear My voice, and open the
door, I will come in unto Him." So said the
Lord Jesus ; and can we not trust Him?

1 Cf. St. Aug., "Confess.," viii. i, 2, 12, 18-29. He had
been praying for strength " now, this very hour," to break
decisively with "the flesh," when he heard a voice saying,
" Tolle, tege," took it for a sign, and opened the codex of
St. Paul at Rom. xiii. 13, 14. "I had no wish," he says,
" and no need, to read further."

VIII
Conversion

Ps. li. 13 (R. V.): "Then will I teach trans-
gressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted
unto Thee."

WHO is it that here promises to himself the
successful discharge of a ministry at once so
momentous and so arduous? It is, as we all
know, a sinner among sinners, profoundly
conscious of a tremendous fall, which has
immersed his soul in guilt. His prayer begins
with a cry for mercy ; it is the " Miserere," as we
commonly reckon it, although two other psalms
in the Latin version begin with the same grief-
laden word. This psalmist, whoever he was,
lives on in his own pathetic strain as a chief of
penitents ; his very heart cries for the pardon
which -alone can blot out iniquities ; but he
wants more than forgiveness he longs to be
inwardly rectified and cleansed. He deserves
to be exiled from the presence of the Holy One,
but he hopes to be spared so total a forfeiture
even to recover the joy of spiritual health, to
be again invigorated with the purpose of willing

70

Conversion 71

service. And then he looks forward to using
aright the opportunities which, either officially
or personally, may be his in the near future : he
will teach those who have gone aside, out of
God's ways, how to return into them and walk
in them, and sinners shall thus by his agency
be converted, or shall return, to God. Perhaps
it may occur to some of us that it would better
befit him to sit apart in humble^silence than to
ascend the chair of the teacher or grasp the
staff of the guide. And yet he feels, we take it
for granted, that his own dismal experience
might very really assist him in dealing with
others who, like himself, have fallen, but have
not as yet, like himself, been restored. The
fact of sin as a standing enormity in God's
universe, as the main cause of human debase-
ment and wretchedness, this dire fact glares
at him, haunts him persistently like a horror,
and makes him eager to do something, and that
speedily, for the recovery of those whose life it
has poisoned, and whom, perchance, he might
persuade to see it as it is in the light of God's
countenance, if only he might be employed as
an instrument of their conversion.

Conversion the word is part of our stock of
religious terms ; but what is the mental picture
that it calls up ? What is the idea which under-
lies our use of it ? The idea of human wayward-
ness of our proneness to go wrong when we
should and could go right. Scripture, especi-
ally the older Scripture, represents the course
of duty for God's servants as a path marked

72 The Law of Faith

out by Him, in which they must walk without
diverging to the right hand or to the left : a
path of the just, a path of peace, a highway of
holiness, in which wayfaring men shall not err,
even the way of God's commandments, in which
men shall sing joyously to His glory, and shall
hear behind them a voice saying audibly enough,
"This," and no other, "is M^way." 1 In one
verse of a signally beautiful psalm, " Good and
righteous is the Lord ; therefore will He instruct
sinners in the way," 2 we seem to find one
source of that significant mode of speaking by
which, as we read in the Acts, 3 the Hebrew
Christians compendiously described their new
religion as " the way," or "the way of the Lord,"
as the plan of life which most fully verified the
Old Testament language, and which was con-
centrated in Him who was Himself "the Way,"
because He was "the Truth and the Life."
Yes, but human nature had received in its
infancy a fatal bias towards evil, a twist or warp
which made it " strive after the forbidden," a
" law of sin in the flesh," a lust of disobedience,
because prohibition gave a zest to the thing
prohibited : and it had to learn by its own
experience of husks and swine-troughs, of things
which seemed sweet and which tasted bitter,
how hard are the ways of transgression, 4 how

1 Isa. xxx. 21 ; xxvi. 7; xxxv. 8; Prov. iii. 17; iv. 18;
Ps. cxxxviii. 5.

2 Ps. xxv. 8.

3 Acts ix. 2 ; xviii. 25, 26 ; xix. 33 ; xxii. 4; xxiv. 22.

4 Prov. xiii. 15. Cf. jer. ii. 19.

Conversion 73

miserable the results of perversity. And then as
prophets, each in his place, are raised up to plead
with a people "rebellious and stiff-hearted,"
we hear that voice whose very tenderness is
awful, " Return, ye backsliding children, and I
will heal your backslidings :" " Turn yourselves
and live ye :" if the wicked will but turn " from
all his sins, he shall surely live, because he
considereth and turneth away from all his trans-
gressions :" " Turn ye even to Me with all your
heart ; turn unto the Lord your God, for He is
gracious and merciful." l But more than this :
these older books have language which antici-
pates the Pauline doctrine, technically called
that of " prevenient " 2 or originative grace of
grace as being beforehand with us, as addressing
itself to chilled, torpid affections, as "stirring up
the will " to choose aright, bestowing also a new
capacity for such a choice, but not forcing the
soul to use it a point of the utmost importance,
of which St. Augustine most unfortunately lost
hold. For we see this shadowed forth in the
deeply pathetic words, " I drew them with cords
of a man, with bands of love," 3 that is, by
attraction and not by compulsion ; and again,
with regard to the same imagery of turning

1 Jer. iii. 22 ; Ezek. xviii. 27, 28, 32 ; Joel ii. 12, 13.

2 St. Augustine built much on the Latin version of our
Ps. lix. 10, " Misericordia ejus prseveniet me;" see his " De
Natura et Gratia," 35. But Professor Driver informs me
that this and the LXX. rendering, irpotyddoet pe, are not correct,
and that the verb really means, "come in front of," so as
to " meet." So Bishop Perowne, in loc.

8 See above, p. 16. Cp. St. John vi. 44.

74 The Law of Faith

round, Jeremiah represents Ephraim, that is, the
ten tribes, as saying, "Turn Thou me, and I shall
be turned, for Thou art the Lord my God ; " l
and yet again, in the great contest between
Elijah and the crowd of Baal-priests on Mount
Carmel, the prophet resorts to prayer for a
special Divine operation, for a miracle, as we
might say, of converting grace: "Hear me,
that this people may know that Thou art the
Lord God, and that Thou hast turned their
heart back again." 2 ,

; When the heart responds to that gracious
touch when the soul answers with a resolution
born of contrition, " Yes, Lord, I will return,"
when it thus uses the originative grace, and so
makes itself competent to receive the further
grace which will develop resolution into sus-
tained endeavour, conversion has taken place.
And when it has taken place, or, to use the
terse words of Charles Kingsley, "as soon as
man turns round, and instead of doing wrong,
tries to do right, he need be under no manner
of fear or terror any more : he is taken back
into his Father's house as freely and graciously
as the prodigal son was ; whatsoever dark score
there was against him in God's books is wiped
out there and then, and he starts clear, a new
man with a fresh chance of life," 3 for God does
not forgive by halves.

None of us will dare to say, " This doctrine
of conversion does not concern me." Are we

1 Jer. xxxi. 18. 2 i Kings xviii. 37.

3 "The Good News of God," p. 121.

Conversion 75

not in the habit of confessing to the Searcher
of all hearts that "we have erred and strayed
from HJS ways"? and is not this implicitly a
prayer that He will enable us to return to Him ?
It has indeed been imagined that those who
believe in baptismal regeneration must needs
be indifferent to the importance of conversion.
But this is an absolute mistake, which can be
traced to the antecedent misconception as to
the sense which the Church puts on "regenera-
tion." It implies the infusion of a new principle
of spiritual life : but this is not identical with
the development of that principle, any more
than birth is identical with healthy maturity.
Any one who intelligently asserts that baptism
has the effect which the Prayer-book ascribes
to it, will say with equal confidence, that when
baptismal grace has been subsequently neglected,
and baptismal obligations have been ignored or
set at nought, the mischief has to be undone by
repentance, which is conversion : and such con-
version is not only not inconsistent with, but
actually presupposes, that condition of sonship
which was conferred through the initiatory
sacrament. It has been well said in an admir-
able treatise on the Thirty-nine Articles, that
the relation between regeneration and con-
version may be illustrated by the parable of
the prodigal, who, as St. Chrysostom has it,
"represents to us those who have fallen into
sin after their baptismal cleansing." The writer
to whom I refer expands this thought : "it was
just because the prodigal was" still "a son that

76 The Law of Faith

he could venture to arise and go to his father,
and say, Father," while in the same breath he
owned himself unworthy of filial privileges :
and "so also just because a person is a child
of God in virtue of his baptism, he can venture
to arise, and, confessing his sin, yet call God
by the name of Father." 1

But there is another mistake, which has too
often most seriously disturbed the proportions
of truth, and eventually put error in the place
of truth, with results which have been but too
justly called "destructive." 2 Persons forget,
to begin with, that human characters are widely
different; that men are not, after all, in their
intrinsic natures or temperaments uniform, but,
on the contrary, multiform ; that their tendencies,
capacities, and needs are indefinitely various ;
and that the Divine Physician adapts His
treatment of souls to the special condition of
each, according to that " manifold wisdom "
which discriminates each from the rest while
providing impartially for all. This is over-
looked in a hasty love of simplification. And
so the process of conversion, which in fact
admits of very great differences in its occasions
and methods, is often restricted to some one
isolated event in a man's spiritual history ; and
if he has not consciously undergone, at some
particular time and place, and with a clear
consciousness, a sudden transitional movement
from darkness to light, he is supposed not to

1 Gibson "On the Articles," ii. 633.
2 Sadler, "The Second Adam," etc., p. 173.

Conversion 77

have been "converted" at all. 1 If he has
undergone it, then all is right with him : up to
a certain hour he was "dead," and then he
became "alive," or, as it is also yet more boldly
expressed, he became a "saved soul." For
two reasons, apparently, it suits people to take
this view. First, they like to concentrate their
thought on critical moments, just as they admire
strong effects or breadth of colouring in a
picture. 1 1 is easier for them to apprehend " con-
version " as a single tangible fact of which they
can feel sensibly cognisant. But that is not
all : well if it were ! For this way of looking
at the matter becomes acceptable as gratifying
a very unhealthy instinct, by diminishing the
sense of responsibility. In the words of one
who spoke from a wide experience, " we can
scarcely have any idea of the extent of false
.teaching connected with conversion, such a
preaching of it as leads the unconverted to
suppose that they have as yet nothing to do

1 See Newman's "Letters," i. 122. He says of himself,
" He had not been converted in that special way which " the
evangelical system " laid down as imperative, but so plainly
against rule as to make it very doubtful in the eyes of
normal evangelicals whether he had really been converted
at all." Perhaps the following lines, written by Crabbe in
1 8 10, will be thought to contain some exaggeration; yet
they describe what since his time has characterized Re-
vivalism. He makes a Calvinistic Methodist ask

11 Can grace be gradual ? can conversion grow ?
The work is done by instantaneous call,
Converts at once are made, or not at all," etc.

"The Borough," Letter 4.

78 The Law of Faith

with God, and so that it is not their fault if
they are now alienated from God, inasmuch as
they can do nothing to forward . . . their
repentance." 1 Or, as this terrible error has
been put into popular forms, they are en-
couraged to say, " When God wants me He
will come for me." Of course no one will deny
that there have been great cases of apparently
sudden conversion : and yet even in these there
have doubtless been antecedents at workout of
sight, by which the ground was being prepared
in a true though mysterious order. We gather
from our Lord's own words to Saul on the road
to Damascus, that the persecuting zealot had
felt certain "goadings" of compunction, and
was striving to get rid of them by a vehement
resolve : and St. Augustine, looking back over
the years that preceded his final self-surrender
beneath the fig-tree in the Milanese garden,
compresses much experience into a few words,
"Thou didst deal with me in wonderful ways "
Egisti mecum miris modish And something
like this would probably have been acknow-
ledged, on reflection, by those whose conversion
might to human eyes appear most abrupt. 3

The question, " Are you converted ? " is
sometimes put in a blunt, offhand fashion which
implies neither considerateness nor reverence.
In the words of a saintly Scottish bishop, 4 the

1 Sadler, loc. cit.

2 " Confess.," v. 13.

8 E.g. Colonel Gardiner or St. Hubert.

4 The late Bishop Forbes of Brechin. St. Bernard says

Conversion 79

question should run in an altered form, " Are
you being converted ? " and should be addressed
in the first instance to ourselves. Let us so
use it, and by means of it break down that
fence of a fictitious personality which we are apt
to construct out of what is really accidental to
us, 1 our official position, our intellectual abilities,
the good opinion of others, the affection of our
friends ; let us get behind all these, and see
how the real self stands in the sight of God.
Am I trying to be right with Him ? Do I
honestly desire to know the truth about myself,
instead of " laying to my soul the flattering
unction" of kindly estimates, which imply a
knowledge comparatively superficial ? Instead
of making a new version of the Pharisee's
thanksgiving, let us say with bowed, head,
" That which I know not, teach Thou me : be
merciful to me, sinner that I am : help me to
turn right round from all that is evil or that leads
into evil, to break with sin as such, to be frank,
confiding, and thoroughgoing in my intercourse
with Thee, to hide myself no more as ' among
trees of a garden,' to make a clean breast and
a clean sweep in regard to every lurking form
of rebellious self-will." Can such a prayer, sent
upward in the all-prevailing name of the Lord
Jesus, by any possibility fail of a gracious hear-
that conversion "non una die perficitur: utinam vel in
omni vita . . . valeat consummari ! . . . Convertatur ad
Dominum amor tuus . . . convertatur etiam ad ipsum timor
tuns . . ." "In Cap. Jejun." serm. ii. 2, 3.
1 I owe this phrase to a sermon of Canon Eyton's.

8o The Law of Faith

ing? Surely we know God better than to
wrong Him by such a doubt ; surely we can trust
His word, who said, "Whatsoever ye shall ask
in My name, that will I do : if ye shall ask any-
thing in My name, I will do it." 1 And so, in
express reliance on these promises, let us use
more frequently, and with fuller sincerity as we
enter more into its purport, the prayer which on
Ash Wednesday the Church adapts for us from
one of the most moving of prophetic contexts :
"Turn Thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we
be turned." 2

1 St. John xiv. 13, 14.

2 See Pusey, "Lenten Sermons," p. 69: "Half-conversion,
unconversion." Also G. J. Romanes, "Thoughts on Re-
ligion," p. 163; and the Dake of Argyll, "The Philosophy
of Belief," p. 379. The latter writer observes that this
" transformation of personal character is represented as a
process continuous and needing our own co-operation," ete.

IX
The Perfecting of Imperfection

Ps. cxxxviii. 8 : " The Lord will perfect that which
concerneth me."

IT has been said by one of those teachers whom
the English Church has lost in recent years,
by one who entered with pre-eminent sympathy
into the religious spirit of the Psalter as a main
element in her worship, that therein lies the
" evidence of a faculty in the human soul for
knowing its Maker and its God, in some such
way as we know " the personalities around us ;
that we can effectively know God as we
effectively know each other. 1 Certainly the
Psalmists speak to God as to One whom they
do thus know ; they recognize in Him the
perfection of character ; without any sense of
effort, in a tone the farthest removed from
formalism, they pour out their hearts before
Him, they appeal to His infinite loving-kind-
ness, they confide in Him as to the difficulties
or perplexities suggested by His government of
the world. It is the attitude of thoughtful a-nd

1 Church, "The Gifts of Civilization," etc., p. 439.

81

82 The Law of Faith

dutiful sons in the presence of a perfect Father,
absolutely trusted and gratefully loved. So it
is in the Psalm before us ; the poet is conscious
of weakness, but believes that prayer will bring
him interior strength ; he has to walk in the
midst of trouble, but he is sure that his God
will refresh or revive him ; wrathful enemies
may encircle him, but there is a Divine right
hand stretched out. The ways of the Lord are
a subject for heartfelt rejoicing : He has magni-
fied " His word above all his name," or, as we
might put it, the certainty or fulfilment of
His promises is the most impressive form of
His self-manifestation. And then in the last
verse, " The Lord will perfect that which
concerneth me : yea, Thy mercy, O Lord,
endureth for ever ; forsake not Thou the work
of Thine own hands." It is not that he thinks
he might be forsaken ; the prayer is but a
sample of that tender "irony" which adopts
the language of anxiety in order to enhance the
pleasure of assurance. 1 " He to forsake the
work of His hands ! Not He, indeed ! How
could He, when He can be so fully trusted to
perfect, complete, fill up, what concerns me,
what affects my deepest interest ? "

It is a personal reliance on a God who
personally cares for the speaker. The words
have a ring of faith, like that great word of the
Apostle, " I know Him whom I have believed." 2
One may also be reminded of that consciousness
of "two and two only luminously self-evident
1 Mozley's "Essays/' ii. 2i<p. 2 2 Tim. i. 12,

The Perfecting of Imperfection 83

beings, myself and my Creator," which accom-
panied Cardinal Newman throughout his life. 1
It was a one-sided feeling, like many other
intense feelings ; it wanted correction and
balance ; but still there is a truth in it. In a
sense, we are severally alone with God. " The
Lord, the ever-faithful God of the Covenant, He
is here on one hand ; I myself confront Him on
the other. What concerns me does really
concern Him : such is His immense con-
descension, He allows, He commands me to
call Him my own God. What concerns my
truest life, my very self, is at present far from
perfection ; it is very much ' in the rough,' or
even 'all to bits,' as one might say, and yet I
know that He is beholding it from His throne : 2
He has His own plan and purpose about it ; He
wills to bestow on it, somehow and some time,
the completeness which at present is sorely
wanting."

Many years ago, an English poetess wrote,
" And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed
around our incompleteness." 3 Yes, it is incom-
pleteness all around : an aspect of that vanity,
or emptiness, or failure, to which, as St. Paul
says, the creation has been made subject, 4 but
which is conditioned by a splendid and massive

1 Newman, " Apologia," p. 59. Cp. " Sermons," i. 20 :
" To every one of us there are but two beings in the world,
himself and God."

2 Ps. cxiii. 5, 6.

8 Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
4 Rom. viii. 20.

The Law of Faith

hope of future deliverance from bondage. If
the whole creation groans as in travail, the
groans of humanity are the deepest. Human
life, looked at in itself, is a thing of " shreds and
patches," of uneven fragments, which seem
incapable of being pieced together ; in every
part a lack of coherence, an urgent need for the
strong and gentle touch of a finishing and
consolidating Hand.

Look, for instance, at the bewildering
problems of human existence, as seen apart from
faith in a real God. Wordsworth, in one of his
greatest poems, spoke of

"The heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world." 1

And since he wrote, many have become yet
more painfully and even angrily sensitive to its
darker shadows, its complex knots, its paths
resembling the windings of a maze. They
complain that they have lost their way, or they
doubt whether there is any way to be found.
What does it all mean ? If a Providence is at
work, why is its face so often veiled ? If a
good God reigns, why does He allow Himself
to be so strangely thwarted ? Must we acquiesce
in the dreary obscuration of those beliefs and
hopes that once made life, even under hard
conditions, more than bearable? Was that a
"soothing dream," which the dry light of
rigorous fact has banished from those whom
it has relentlessly and finally awakened ?

1 "Tintern Abbey."

The Perfecting of Imperfection 85

Pessimism has, no doubt, become somewhat of
a fashion : it sounds fine to say that you see
through illusions, that you will do without them,
and take the hard world as it is : but there are
not a few who seriously think that they are
driven by facts to this grim "philosophy of
despair." And even within the area of the
faith, where God is acknowledged as knowable
and as known, Christians are disturbed by
questions which cannot be answered, by con-
troversies which no explanations, no efforts
after mutual understanding, seem capable of
abating or Bringing to a clear issue. They feel,
yes, we feel that our knowledge, if real and
trustworthy, as far as it goes, is but, as St. Paul
says, partial; 1 "now we see through a glass,
obscurely." But can we go on with the next
words ? Well for us, if we can be sure that the
Lord will at last, if we are but patient and loyal,
perfect that which thus concerns us, that we
shall see face to face, when the shadows flee
away in the light of the Infinite Vision.

Again, it concerns us still more to have full
scope for the activities and*> affections of our
moral nature ; for therein is our truer life. 2
Many pass through this world with no oppor-
tunity of developing what is in them. They
are cut off at the outset of life, just when they
seemed full of richest promise ; or they are
restricted/ even to old age, within a petty and
obscure field of action ; or, in the sadly ex-

1 i Cor. xiii. 12.
2 See Newman, "Serm.," v. 315 ff.

86 The Law of Faith

pressive phrase, they are "laid by" for years
with illness ; or some haunting infirmity is to
them as a thorn in the flesh ; or their homes
are unhomelike, or made desolate by some
bereavement which turns everything black and
wintry ; or their minds are warped and poisoned
by a sense of unkindness or injustice : these
are but samples of what have been called
" shipwrecked lives," the " failures " of personal
history. We look at them with awe and pity,
but we can bring them little or no help; we
ask what God meant them to be, and why He
allows them to be what they are ; and we might
well be "made to stumble" at phenomena so
distressing, if we had not faith to believe that
the Eternal Lover of souls may be reserving
what thus concerns His poor creatures for a
future perfecting that shall vindicate His love,
He may, perhaps, even in this world provide
them with unthought-of opportunities of service,
may open to them fresh springs of interest or
affection, raise up new friends to brighten the
close of life, sustain their wearied souls with
the food of helpful sympathy. And if not
here, well, there is the Hereafter, when the
"eyes shall not be dim, and the ears shall
hearken," and there shall be compensation for
the disappointments, the limitations, the in-
capacities, of our present condition, which, after
all, may have their advantage if they foster in
us the great virtue of hope, if they remind us
that nothing but. God can fill the soul. "Thou
shalt show me the path of life, in Thy presence

The Perfecting of Imperfection 87

is the fulness of joy : " if we are Christians, we
know that this span of existence is but the first
chapter of a long story, the opening scene of
a great drama : if much remains unfinished at
death,

"Our times are in His hand
Who saith, A whole I planned," 1

and who best knows how to gather up the
fragments, and fashion the isolated parts into
completeness and unity.

But even this is not all : this touches not the
inmost heart of the case. What concerns us
most of all is to be all right with God, to be
lifted up out of the slough of moral evil, to
have the will entirely conformed to what He
wills for us. Look back over past years :
we may have started fairly well in the path
of Christian living ; but we over-rated our own
strength, and under-rated the dreadful energy
of sudden temptation, when seconded by the
treachery of our own hearts. Those who do
so are apt to fall, by degrees slow at first,
faster and faster afterwards; and how easy
then to accommodate one's standard to the
level to which one's practice has sunk ! People
admit sin into the house of their being ; they
ask it to sit down while they talk to it ; they
are fascinated, captured, too willingly enslaved ;
and then ? why, then they want to make them-
selves comfortable after a lapse of which at first
they were ashamed ; and it becomes natural to

1 Browning, "Rabbi Ben Ezra."

The Law of Faith

think the Christian type of conduct too romantic
to be practical, and to acquiesce in the decent
worldliness, the amiable self-pleasing, or even
the more or less refined sensuality, which to
so many around them seems a thing of course,
which has become to themselves too pleasant
and familiar to be surrendered. " Yes," a man
will say, " I once thought Christianity workable ;
but I have found, and you will find, that for
men in the world, for young men among young
men, for men of business, for men immersed in
secular activities, it won't do. You had better
abandon your ideal : it may be beautiful, it may
suit some exceptional natures, but we, you and
I, and others like us, must take a different line,
and hope that somehow all will be right, even
if we have left religion to the clergy who are
professionally bound to it, to the imaginative
and emotional," perhaps they even add, "to
the weak creatures who value it as a solace or
a prop. For our part, we have outgrown it."
So, in very truth, by act and influence, if not
in express terms, men give up the idea of
serving Christ. "Ah, but," you say, "others
may do so, but not I." Yet, assuredly, every
sin which we indulge, which we do not cast
out when we know that we have harboured
it, brings us a -step nearer to this practical
apostasy. We may come to it sooner than we
think : our safety lies in avoiding whatever
would impair our sense of sin. Or do we say
that past sins are so present in memory, that
they exert a sway over us even after we have

The Perfecting of Imperfection

renounced them, and that therefore we despond
as to the possibility of shaking off their yoke ?
This also is, to many, a trouble that may
become an occasion of falling. "What is the
use of trying to do better ? I try and try again,
and I am always failing and falling back : evil
recollections, associations of thought with by-
gone evil, overthrow me when I set myself
forward ; I lose ground at every step, I shall
never make anything of religion." Then comes
the fatal conclusion, " I must even give up
the attempt and the hope, and live the life that
for me is natural." Let souls that are listening
to that voice, and perhaps thinking it hard that
the way of Christian progress should be
difficult, remember whence they have fallen,
but also remember that they may yet be
strengthened to arise. The Lord will even
yet, if they give themselves into His hands,
perfect that which so intimately concerns them,
will carry on, and carry out, the good work
which He began in their souls, 1 and which was
interrupted by their own carelessness or per-
versity. Yes, let us all join in the petition that
He will thus take us again in hand ; we all
require it, each in his own way : to adopt a
word which St. Paul was. fond of, 2 we need to
be readjusted, reorganized, put into form and
order, to have defects supplied, and gaps
filled up. Let us pray, in the words of the
Epistle to the Hebrews, 3 words which are in
fact the Biblical model of a collect, that the

1 Phil. i. 6. 2 Karapn'fw. 3 Heb. xiii. 20.

90 The Law of Faith

God of peace, who brought again from the
dead our Lord Jesus, will make us perfect in
every good work, to do His will with a whole-
hearted fidelity which shall grow onwards and
upwards to its full consummation, through the
power of that Sovereign Goodness which became
for man incarnate in man's Redeemer.

X
The Danger of Relapse

St. Matt. xii. 45 (R. V.) : "The last state of that
man becometh worse than the first"

MORE than sixty years have elapsed since the
appearance of the first volume of a truly
unique series of parochial sermons by the
greatest preacher, in point of insight, whom
Oxford ever saw. 1 It has been said of his
sermons that they "entered into all our feelings,
ideas, and modes of viewing things " with an
astonishing intimacy of apprehension, with a
pathetic intensity of sympathy ; that " he laid
his finger gently, yet powerfully, on some inner
place in the hearer's heart, and told him things
about himself which he had never known till
then." 2 He thus enabled these hearers, if at
all responsive, to see which way they were
going, what were their own special temptations

1 " With so precise and delicate an insight into the subtle
and intricate web of human motives." R. H. Hutton,
"Card. Newman," p. 108.

2 Mozley and Shairp, quoted by Church, "The Oxford
Movement," pp. 122, 124, ed. i j and see Church, " Occas.
Papers," ii. 445 ft

91 G

92 The Law of Faith

or weaknesses, their causes of failure and their
fashions of self-deceit. And one thing stands
out quite prominently in those earliest of
Newman's sermons, his extreme anxiety lest
Christianity should be, in a bad sense, "con-
formed to the age," should undergo, as it were,
an attenuating recension. "The Religion of
the Day," so termed in the title of one of
these discourses 1 was a thing which, in his
view, as it has been pointedly said, wanted
"some iron" infused into it: 2 smooth, refined, re-
spectable, easy-going, it "halved the Gospel" ; 3
it "dropped one whole side of" the teaching of
Christ ; it dispensed with holy fear, with " zeal
for God's honour," with dread and "hatred of
sin " ; it took up only those elements of
Christianity which were " like a lovely song," 4
which could stimulate the feelings, could meet
the craving for beauty, could satisfy the standard
of good taste. It was not merely that mysterious
truths were explained away, and doctrines re-
solved into transient forms of opinion ; it was
that, besides this, the ethical requirements of
the law of the Spirit of life were softened clown
into something less strict, less unearthly, less
far-reaching. The world had seemed to say,
" We will take such parts of Christianity as suit

1 Newman's "Paroch. Serm.," vol. i. no. 24. The text is
Heb. xii. 28, 29. Preached Aug. 26, 1832.

2 Shairp, " Aspects of Poetry," p. 450.

3 Newman in "Lyra Apostolica," p. 142. Cf. "Serm.," ii.
288. Hutton describes this as " the mere religion of civiliza-
tion." "Card. Newman," p. in.

4 Ezek. xxxiii. 32.

The Danger of Relapse 93

us, or else we will not take it at all." It was
. so then, he thought : is it not so in some sense
now ? Surely human nature has not altered :
the natural man, in the Apostle's phrase, the
man in whom the " spirit" is dormant, is always
trying to make his own terms with his God.

And yet there are passages in the Gospels
which insist that we shall take Him on His own
terms, and face the awful as well as the more
attractive aspects of the message which comes
from Him who is King as truly as He is Father,
with an

"Infinite mercy, but, I wis,
As infinite a justice too]" 1

and who, even as Father, is an object of awe
as well as of love. Jesus, our Lord, our Brother,
Saviour, and High Priest, has a severe side to
His teaching. 2 Pleadings for our trust and our
affection, entreaties that we will come to Him
and take His easy yoke upon us, are combined
with warnings the most austere, and commands
the most exacting. It is so, eminently, in our
text : He is picturing the condition of a human
soul whose moral history can be summarized in
relapses, whose latter end is worse than the
beginning. 3 Ah ! must it not have cost Him
something to utter this tremendous parable, in

1 Browning.

2 "It is strange that any one can be blind to the sternness
of Jesus Christ." Church, " Discipline of Christian Charac-
ter," p. 90. On the place of Fear in Christianity see Dale's
"Lectures on Preaching," p. 212.

3 Cp. 2 Peter ii. 20.

94 The Law of Faith

which the imagery is drawn from the weird
influence which evil powers were then allowed ,
to exercise over the will and consciousness of
some deeply afflicted men, not necessarily
"sinners above" the rest? The evil spirit, He
says, has been cast out, but returns, finds his
former abode in the man's soul standing open
to receive him, takes with him seven other
spirits more wicked than himself, and they
enter in and dwell there ; and the last state of
that man becomes worse than the first. And
behind this imagery, and glaring hideously
through it, is the phenomenon of relapse after
repentance ; a soul that seems to have turned
from evil to good, to have climbed up well out
of the horrible pit and miry clay, and secured
its footing on the rock, is seen to slip back-
wards, to be " again entangled," as St. Peter puts
it, in the old pollutions, to rivet anew around
itself the chains which had seemed to be smitten
asunder. It is this woful possibility of drawing
back unto perdition which recurs to the thought
of the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews ;
even while he dwells with such adoring thank-
fulness on the sympathy of our all-merciful
High Priest, he reiterates his admonitions on
the point of falling away. 1

Relapse we know how this one word pierces
with deadly chill the hearts of watchers by a
sick-bed. "If he should have a relapse ; "
"you must take all possible pains to guard
against relapse;" or, "It is a relapse, and I
1 Heb. x. 39; iii. 12; vi. 6; with iv. 15.

The Danger of Relapse 95

dare not encourage you now to expect recovery."
Which things, belonging to the physical order,
may be allegorized l in reference to the moral
and spiritual. Cases on cases occur in the
experience of parents, of friends, of pastors.
Here, let us say, is a young soul which had
gone very wrong, and then took a turn for the
better ; which seemed, perhaps, to recall the
home-coming of him who had known what it
was to feed on husks, and had resolved to
return to his father ; and " when he was yet a
great way off" (how often have those few
words helped us!) "his father saw him, and ran,
and fell on his neck, and bade the servants
bring forth the best robe and kill the fatted calf,
because he had been dead, and was alive again,
he had been lost, and was found." Ah! but
that is not the whole of the story in the cases
we are thinking of. Suppose that this same
parable, which, as it stands, has done more than
any other to win back wanderers, had had a
mournful second part. The pardoned younger
son, after a while, begins to look back to the
unhallowed independence which had ended in
degradation and starvation. He wearies of the
quiet monotony of his home ; its pure comforts
seem to him vapid ; his father's wistful, watch-
ful tenderness, with its silent claim on his
grateful affection and loyalty, is felt as a
restraint, and he hates restraint, even in such
a form ; he hankers after the old excitements of
riotous living ; he breaks away, he hurries off,

1 Gal. iv. 24.

96 The Law of Faith

along the unforgotten road, to the country all
too far off: perhaps a second famine pinches
him, but he is too proud to say a second time,
" I will arise." No, he hardens his heart, he
stifles compunction, he "accepts," as he calls
it, "his fate": he dies in the callousness of
despair. It is all the worse for such a one that
he ever went back to his father, with the
trembling entreaty of an outcast for some place,
below a son's, yet within the shelter of home.
His last state is worse incomparably than the
first.

Yes, this catastrophe of relapse is repeatedly
allowed to close in aggravated misery the drama
of many a career once rich in promise, because
God will not force free-will. Is it possible that
the life-scenes of any one of us may yet have
a fifth act so unspeakably tragical ? Well, but
how to guard against it? First, surely, by
making our repentance, by God's grace, as true
and solid as possible. It must not be merely
saying, "Well, I am sorry, and I will try not
to do so again." We must try to turn quite
round, with a resolution in which mind and
heart and will shall all conjointly energize, to
turn away unreservedly from evil, and also to
turn positively towards good. The enemy was
able to reinstate himself in what he had come
to regard as "his house" because after his
temporary expulsion it was, in St. Matthew's
phrase, left empty, "at leisure," not preoccupied
by worthier inmates. You have got rid, sup-
pose, of some bad habit : the effort was hard,

The Danger of Relapse 97

but at last it was successful ; that sort of
temptation does seem to have been mastered.
But if repose is thus far granted, remember
what befell him who was found sitting under
the oak, or him who was warming himself at
the fire. The conscience becomes more or less
drowsy : the will, wearied with recent strain,
sinks back into a comfortable torpor ; but what
is that sound outside the house, of claimants
that are finding an entry, that sound that soon
echoes through the house from within? . . .
Let us be forearmed against such a crisis. Let
us fill the vacant space, once crowded by evil
habits, with honest endeavours to pray better,
to "guard the first springs of thought and
will " l in the early morning, to use the highest
means of grace more faithfully, to govern the
tongue and to employ it for good, to lift up
the heart, two or three times a day at least,
to the Fountain of purity, perseverance, and
salvation. If we will only do this, the house
will not stand empty, and therefore "garnished"
for the reception of old usurpers. And let us
not even recall in thought the old occasions
of falling. Persons fancy, too often, that they
can look back on past evils without risk, as so
many facts of bygone 'experience. They forget
that temptations can sham death. They read
again, perhaps, words which once had a baleful
power over them ; they even adventure them-
selves again within the atmosphere that they
once found so infectious. " Curious," they say,

1 Ken.

The Law of Faith

"this change in me; I have got through all
that ; it is just something to remember, to be
added to the stores of one's experience : it
awakens in me now no sympathy, I could even
wonder that I ever cared about it : the fire is
quite safely raked out. . . ."* All at once there
is a rush, a sweep as of dark wings, a blast as
of poisonous breath ; the allurements which
they were so calmly analyzing start up with
stronger fascination than ever, carry them off
their feet, shake their will to its very centre ;
then comes a fall, heavier than the former. . . .
And what if then a voice whispers, "It is done
now, you can't undo it : it is of no use now
to struggle against your natural self, and try
to assimilate what, for you, will always be
conventional : better be real at any rate, live
your own life, and ( chance ' what may ensue " ?
How persuasive, too often, is that fatal exhorta-
tion ! The fallen man does not start up and
return to the feet of his Redeemer, claiming
the promise, " Him that cometh to Me I will
in no wise cast out," and clinging to Him for
present and future protection; but "adds sin
to sin," "does evil with both hands earnestly,"
immerses himself more deeply in the mire by
way of crushing more absolutely the "little
grain of conscience " that is left. . . . And the

1 There is wonderful knowledge of human nature in
those stanzas of Shakespeare's " Lucrece," in which Tarquin
"despises" his passion as "still-slaughtered," elaborately
argues against it, and then suddenly determines for it :

" My will is strong, past reason's weak removing."

The Danger of Relapse 99-

last state of that man must needs be worse than
the first. Or, if he does yet again repent, the
fact of such a relapse as he has known will
increase tenfold the difficulty of retracing his
steps : 1 and if he is saved, it will indeed be
"so as by fire."

To sum up : let us beware of what seem
small relapses, for in them is the seed of greater
ones. To "despise small things," we know,
is " to fall by little and little." In the Christian
year which is all but ended, what ground have
we lost, and not yet properly recovered ? Let
Advent find us at least endeavouring to recover
it. Let us take as a proverb for the ensuing
year a homely but most suggestive saying,
clearly based on the parable of the evil spirit
who was driven out and who re-entered
"The devil goes away when he finds the door
shut," and let us loyally use the grace which
alone can enable us to bar the door fast against
his return, and to fill the house with the pre-
sence of its rightful Owner. The secret of our
difficulty will be found, if we look, in a certain
coldness or torpor of the will. So long as there
is in us any distaste for an entire union of will
with God's will, so long as the prayer for grace
is rather a compliance with a felt obligation
than the genuine cry of a heart that knows its
own "plague," there cannot, of course, be any

1 " If you will not turn to God now with a warm heart,
you will hereafter be obliged to do so if you do so at all
with a cold heart; which is much harder." Newman,
"Serm.,"i. in.

ioo The Law of Faith

true upward movement. But a great step will
be taken if we can wish to wish for such a
movement ; if we can throw ourselves by one
sincere appeal for help on Him from whom
come all holy desires ; if we can say, as really
meaning it, " Stir up our wills, O Lord." 1

1 Perhaps no words in the Lord's Prayer make such a
demand on single-mindedness as " Lead us not into tempta-
tion " ; it is only too possible to say them with half a heart.
As to the difficulty that has been often felt, that what they
deprecate is a thing not to be supposed possible, the Greek
shows that the next words must be reckoned as part of the
same petition. God is asked not to do one thing, but on
the contrary to do the opposite : thus, to be led or intro-
duced into temptation would be to be not " delivered from
the evil one " (as R. V. rightly translates), but left without
the protection of grace (cp. i Cor. x. 13). As to the form
here given to the idea of not being thus " left," etc., see
above, p. 66.

XI
Comfort of the Scriptures

Rom. xv. 4 (R. V.): "That through patience,
and through comfort of the Scriptures, we might
have hope."

THE Epistle for the Second Sunday in Advent
begins with a remarkable illustration of the
Apostle's depth and amplitude as a teacher. It
is his way, when he is urging some particular
part of Christian conduct, to emphasize its
importance by using it in illustration of some
far-reaching principle. For instance, when he
has been exhorting Corinthian Christians to
avoid all entertainments which are distinctly as-
sociated with idolatrous observances, he clenches
the matter by considerations drawn from the
august realities of Sacramental communion, and
from its bearing on the spiritual life of the
Church. So here, he has been urging a certain
class of Christians, who deemed themselves
" strong " in mind, men of broad views and free
from prejudice, to bear with the " infirmity " or
petty scrupulosity of minds which they evidently
despised as narrow and feeble. We are not to

101

102 The Law of Faith

please ourselves, but to seek the good of our
neighbours, what will help to build them up in
Christian attainment : "for even Christ pleased
not Himself," a hint of that supreme example
of self-sacrifice on which he dwells with such
force and vividness in a passage which we read
on Palm Sunday. Christ pleased not Himself :
no, on Him were concentrated the insults of
those whose sins were, in truth, insults to
His Father. " I am warranted," St. Paul says
in effect, "in thus adopting the language of
a Psalm ; for it belongs to a book, or collec-
tion of books, which was written with a view to
our instruction." That is, he vindicates against
an imperfect estimate the function and dignity
of the Old Testament Scriptures. Elsewhere
he does this with special reference to their
historical elements ; " those things that befell
our fathers were written down for our admoni-
tion." 1 Here he takes a broader view; the
older Scriptures, for him, form an organized
whole, as pervaded by a Divine purpose which
gives them a true unity ; in degrees very
various, they contribute to the great process
of preparing the way for the coming Re-
deemer, who has come, as we know, in the
Person of Christ. Whatever this or that
individual writer may have intended, his writing
was more or less over-ruled : and in the true
spirit of a devout Hebrew, in the spirit, let us
rather say, of St. Peter when he tells us that
no prophecy ever came by the will of man, 2
1 i Cor. x. ii. 2 2 Pet. i. 21.

Comfort of the Scriptures 103

St. Paul neglects the purpose of the human
instrument in order to magnify that of the
ultimate Inspirer. And he fixes on one special
end which the Old Testament was divinely
ordained to serve: "that we through patience,
and through the comfort derived from the
Scriptures, might have hope." Patience and
comfort, he adds, are God's own gift ; and He
is also the God of hope, who can make our
belief in Him a fountain of joy and peace, so
that we may have an overflow, an abundance
of hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
In this same epistle he had spoken already
of patience, as testing the pure gold of Christian
character, and thereby supplying fresh stores of
a hope that cannot disappoint or put to shame. 1
But here patience is linked with the comfort
derived from Scripture. What is comfort?
We sometimes treat the word as if it were
merely equivalent to consolation the soothing-
influence which can wipe away tears or relieve
despondency. In the touching words of Keble's
poem on St. Barnabas, " the truest wisdom and
noblest art," amid a world that is like a sick-
room,

"Is his who skills of comfort best,
Whom by the softest step and gentlest tone
Enfeebled spirits own."

But that is not by any means its primary idea.
The spirit of comfort is not so much that of a
nurse as of an elder and braver comrade ; the

1 See above, p. 58.

104 The Law of Faith

word in English is a strong word akin to forti-
tude, and the .Greek original has a heartening,
encouraging tone about it the tone of a voice
that calls to us like that of a friend, cheers us
on, animates and invigorates, as when the angel
in Daniel's vision bids him not to fear, but to
be strong. 1 We call the Holy Spirit our Com-
forter ; and although that is not an accurate
rendering of the original word, which really
means One who can be called to our side as a
supporter, it does fairly represent, if we read it
aright, the strengthening office of that Divine
Friend beside us, whose* presence at once
commands and enables us to be strong and of
a good courage. Comfort involves the renewal
of energy, the recovery of lost or impaired
force : it sets us again on our feet, it sends us
back to our work with a fresh impulse : the
very reason for which we are "spoken to com-
fortably " is that we may rise up and go forth
to meet the Lord, when He comes to us in
all the might and love of the Ruler and the
Shepherd. 2

Do not these old Jewish books, as many
would call them, minister in this sense to
comfort? Let us take an instance or two. It
was a true comfort to a troubled psalmist, 3 whose
faith in God's goodness, in the stability of God's
promises, was quivering under protracted trial, to
correct his own infirmity by " remembering the
years of the right hand of the Most High," the

1 Dan. x. 19. 2 Isa. xl. 2, 9-11.

3 Ps. Ixxvii. 10.

Comfort of the Scriptures 105

"wonders wrought for His people in old time."
And the story of Jeremiah's ministry illustrates
the strength which can be made perfect in
human weakness. A prophet of sensitive dis-
position, who shrinks from the task that his call
sets before him, is filled with a supernatural
courage, an immovable persistency which does
not change his nature but controls it; to his
own surprise, he is able to stand up "like a
defenced city and a brazen wall," in resistance
to whole masses of irreligious 'public opinion. 1
Once more, it was a stay and support to pro-
phets 2 when the terror of Chaldean invasion
was darkening the immediate future, or when
the restored people had sunk into selfish apathy
and perverse disregard of sacred obligations, to
think of that " Holy One," their life-sustaining
Rock, as the same "from everlasting," to re-
member and proclaim that if "the sons of Jacob
were not consumed, it was because the Lord,
the God of their forefathers, changed not."
Israel, it has been said, was " a nation of
hope " : 3 those who were truest to its ideal
were most earnest in looking for its consolation
most sure that the vision would, in its ap-
pointed time, speak and not lie, " would be
embodied in the long-expected Christ.

And if this was so while prophets and
righteous men were not made perfect because
our time was not yet come, 4 how much fuller

1 Jer. i. 1 8. 2 Hab. i. 12 ; Mai. iii. 6.

3 Luthardt, "Fundamental Truths," etc., p. 219.

4 Heb. xi. 40.

io6 The Law of Faith

of comfort, and richer in examples of ghostly
strength, are the Scriptures of the New Testa-
ment ! Think of our Lord's question on the
first Easter Sunday afternoon : " Was it not
incumbent on the Christ to enter into His
glory through suffering and death ? " l And
think of the change produced by the power of
His Resurrection, on Apostles who had forsaken
Him and fled, but within seven weeks from
that first Easter were raised up from the pros-
tration of despair to the boldness of heroic
confessorship. 2 Think of John, whose surname
was Mark, once turning back from the com-
panionship even of a kinsman, when real
danger stared him in the face, but afterwards
found serviceable to Paul by faithful attendance
in his prison ; 3 of Timothy, naturally anxious
and despondent, but profiting by his interest
in the Spirit that was "not of fearfulness," and
"made strong in the grace that was in Christ
Jesus;" 4 of all the weak hands uplifted, and
palsied knees firm-set, by the assurance that
"chastening would in time yield peaceable fruit
of righteousness" in those that had benefited
by its discipline. 5 "Comfort from the Scrip-

1 St. Luke xxiv. 26.

2 "I admit an allegorical resurrection which proves the
real ; to wit, a resurrection of Christ's disciples from weak-
ness to resolution, from fear to courage, from despair to
hope; of which, for aught I can see, no rational account
can be given but the sensible evidence that our Lord was
truly, really, and literally risen from the dead." Berkeley's
"Alciphron," vi. 31. 3 2 Tim. iv. n.

* 2 Tim. ii. i. 5 Heb. xii. u. 12.

Comfort of the Scriptures 107

turesl" Let us take only two passages and
combine them in memory. " In the world,"
says our Lord, "you will have tribulation, but
be of good cheer, I have overcome the world;" 1
and St. Paul, after fully recognizing the darker
facts of this life, the troubles under which
believers have to groan, while waiting with
patience for the object of their hope, first
reminds them that "to those who love God,
all things work together for good," and then
bursts forth into that exultant affirmation that
"neither death nor life, nothing present or to
come," nothing in the whole range 'of creation,
"will be able to separate us from the love of
God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." 2 We
can thus appreciate the exhortation addressed
to St. Chrysostom in his persecutions by a
sympathizing brother-bishop : " Be of good
comfort, because the Scripture lessons which
we read to the people assure us that almost
all the saints have been tested by affliction, as
the condition of their attaining the reward that
is won by patience." 3 And what is the
principle, the general idea, to which we may
refer these topics of Scripture "comfort"?
Surely it is the fact to use a great writer's
phrase that "the stay of the human soul" is
" the thought of" a living God. We are made
to lean on a strength divine and eternal. " Our
hearts require something more permanent and
uniform than man can be. ... Life passes, riches

1 St. John xvi. 33. 2 Rom. viii. 18-39.

3 Innocent I.', ap. Sozomen, viii. 26.

H

io8 The Law of Faith

fly away, popularity is fickle, the senses decay,
friends die. One alone is constant ; One alone
can be all things to us ; One alone can form
and possess us." l In the prophet's compre-
hensive words, " Thou wilt keep him in perfect
peace whose mind is stayed on Thee, the Rock
of ages." 2

This is the comfort which can really carry
us through life. Not merely consolation in
distress, but a spring of active and positive
encouragement, which can enable us to "go
on from strength to strength, to mount up
with wings like eagles." It thus exactly
corresponds with the true account of hope as
one of the great Christian virtues. For hope
has been worthily called "the energy and effort
of faith," a "real act of the will" and moral
nature ; a refusal "to be cowed and depressed
by evil : " 3 unlike the mere buoyant exuberance
of spirits which belongs to a sanguine dis-
position, too light-hearted to feel difficulties or
understand perils, it is such a gathering up
of all the interior forces in deliberate reliance
on God as can elevate, fortify, and inspire.
We need it now, in days when some who pass
for philosophers, but have given up the true
"wisdom," preach a view of life which is hope-
less, and which, as it has been well said, can
only be met and over-matched by the repression
of atheism, whether professed or virtual. The
question of hope for man is ultimately the

1 Newman, "Serm.," v. 313, 317, 326. 2 Isa. xxvi. 3.
3 Church, "Advent Sermons," p. 95.

Comfort of the Scriptures 109

question of a God for man, 1 and indeed of
man himself, as a moral and spiritual being. 2
All that this word comfort truly embraces is
thus knit up with the faith in a Divine Restorer
of humanity : it is man's interest that we are
seeking to promote, when we plead for Christ
as his rightful Leader and Lord.

Certainly life can be very hard : nay, it is
often, for many souls bought like ours with
the precious Blood, a scene of reiterated trouble
and pain. We, on whom " the ends of the ages
are come," are more alive to its miseries and
perplexities than were our fathers, whose out-
look was narrower, and whose sensibilities were
less keen. Yet in these days, as well as in
theirs, God reigns, and Christ intercedes, and
the Holy Spirit of counsel and might is ready
to prove Himself the Supporter. And Advent
should freshen up our hope, for it is a season
of joy as well as of awe. Let us prepare for
the Birthday festival of oilr King by learning,
and inwardly digesting, or, as we might say,
assimilating, some of those Scripture passages
which we have found or known to be specially
full of "comfort": such psalms, for instance, as
the twenty-seventh, the thirty-fourth, the eighty-
fifth ; such chapters as the fortieth or fifty-fifth
of Isaiah, the thirty-first of Jeremiah, the
eighteenth of Ezekiel, the fourteenth of Hosea;

1 See Flint, " Anti-Theistic Theories," p. 294 ff. He
contends that "if the present life be all, if there be no
God," pessimism is reasonable.

2 " On n'est pas homme sans Dieu " (Napoleon ?).

no The Law of Faith

or the fifteenth chapter of St. Luke, or the
fourteenth and seventeenth of St. John's Gospel,
or some uplifting strains of the Epistles, 1 or the
symbolical descriptions of Heaven in the Re-
velation. Such words may prove to be just
what we want for the work that has to be done
before the night cometh ; and while we think
over them, and try to use their teaching for
our learning, let us pray that the holy joy of
Christmas, if we are allowed again to take part
in it, may be our strength 2 for the rest of our
life's journey.

1 E.g. Rom. viii. 18-39; I Cor. i. 3-11; Phil. iv. 4-13;
Heb. xii. 1-13; i Pet. i. 3-21; i John ii. 12 iii. 3.

2 Neh. viii. 10,

XII
The Christ of Christmas Divine

St. John i. i, 14, part (R. V.) : "The Word was
God. . . And the Word became flesh."

SOME of us may be acquainted with a
Christmas-day sermon, preached as far back as
1 863 by one who, although still comparatively
young, was already exhibiting, in good measure,
that rich and kindling eloquence, that luminous
doctrinal exactness, that intense perception of
spiritual realities, that absorbing devotion to
the name and the person of Christ, which was
ere long to place Henry Liddon so high in the
select company of preachers with "lips of
gold." 1 He drew out, on that occasion, with a
force and fulness which impressed his academi-
cal audience, the import of the sign that was
given to the shepherds. They were to "find a
babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a
manger ; " just an infant, tightly swathed after
the usual Eastern fashion so far, nothing out
of the way, an every-day sight ; but the distinc-
tive feature of it was to consist in the singular

1 Liddon, "Univ. Serm.," i. 189 ff.
in

ii2 The Law of Faith

roughness and discomfort of the surround-
ings : this babe was actually to have no other
shelter than a cattle-shed, no fitter cradle than
a manger ; and yet in Him they were to ac-
knowledge "a Saviour, even Christ the Lord."
The contrast between the poverty of what was
outward and the majesty of what was inward
was shown to be in keeping with the divine
order observable in the Christian revelation
and the Christian ordinances : the whole fabric
of Christianity was of a piece with the very
outset of its Author's earthly career. Always
the same combination of earthen vessels with
an exceeding richness of grace : always the
same tests of capacity for assimilating the
religion of the Incarnation, Have you faith
enough to transcend the bounds of sensible
experience? and have you a heart and will
which can recognize in Christ the true ideal of
humanity ?

And the preacher went on to dwell on the
peculiarly homelike aspect of our English
Christmas, as remarkably corresponding to this
sign of a babe with a mother. It is still, as he
said, with us the "most popular" of the great
Church festivals : it is bound up with a stereo-
typed exchange of good wishes, with annual
family gatherings, with festive meals and
general holiday-making : insomuch that one is
apt to speculate as to whether in all this there
is not as much of loss as of gain. It is un-
happily true beyond possibility of question, that
some loss, some drawback, is inevitable : the

The Christ .of Christmas Divine 113

secular adjuncts of the season so often crush in
upon its original and profoundly solemn sub-
stance : it is profaned, as often as it returns, by
a strange, one might say a heartless indifference
to its religious message on the part of many
who keep it, or rather pretend to keep it, while
they think as little of Christ as we do of Saxon
idols when we speak of "last Wednesday" or
"next Friday." And yet one would fain hope
that the gain, after all, outweighs the loss : for
religion, if she has but a fair chance, can make
her own profit of a time which England has
all along felt to be, in the words of her great
poet, "so hallowed and so gracious"; 1 which
appeals so persuasively to our oldest and
purest affections, which enters the household
with the blessing of peace on its lips, and recalls
to men of the world the days when they were
children, when their mothers first taught them
to speak in simple words to the Most High.
This "venerable mother-festival," as St. Chry-
sostom calls it, 2 is always peculiarly welcome,
exceptionally tender in voice and touch : the
names which nature itself has made sacred, of
mother and child and home, are musical at
Christmas as at hardly any other season
musical .with undertones deeper and sweeter
than those of this world, and potent to lead us
on from a sign familiar, or even commonplace,
to a thing signified so transcendent in dignity
and so inexhaustible in consolation, but at the

1 " Hamlet," i. i.

2 " De Beato Philogonio," 3.

ii4 The Law of Faith

same time so judicial to those who are not
morally in touch with it, as He is whose
manifestations must tend "to death" if not "to
life."

It is, we say, a household festival a solem-
nity of the Church which is also a benediction
for the hearth-stone. Suppose, then, the case
of one who comes back to his own home for a
Christmas visit, but does not bring back with
him the faith which he formerly carried away.
Amid the strife of tongues and the chaos of
doubts, he has lost his hold on historical and
doctrinal Christianity : but he persuades him-
self that he can retain something like a religion
in Theism as cleared of supernaturalism, and
of whatever else he has learned to consider as
under the ban of physical or of critical science.
He is not loth to call this residuum " Christian "
in a sense, as retaining that " broadly humani-
tarian" spirit, that lofty moral enthusiasm,
which he considers fairly attributable to the
Nazarene teacher and martyr : but beyond this
. he cannot go. Yet he is unwilling to pain his
nearest relatives by avowing his changed con-
victions, and thereby marring their simple
happiness : he will go to church with them as
he used to do. Once more, then, he stands
among believing worshippers ; and old Christmas
recollections revive as he looks at the ever-
greens and the altar-flowers, and listens to the
short lessons from Isaiah and St. Luke, which
Handel's genius has embedded in his memory.
"Yes," he owns to himself, "this antique faith,

The Christ of Christmas Divine 115

however impossible for modern thinkers, has a
certain abiding charm, not wholly due to the
associations of pious sentiment; this Gospel
legend, however one may account for it, has a
unique moral beauty : these dear kind folks are
clearly the happier, perhaps even the better, for
being able to believe it." The presupposition
that, for men like himself, the verdict against
its truth is final, begins to lose a little of its
power ; he thinks it would be interesting, when
he has leisure, to look into the Gospels again.
But meantime, the opening verses of the
Fourth Gospel as he hears them read from the
altar, and some other parts of the service, in-
cluding some of the hymns, are to him like
hard bits of rock interrupting a smooth pathway,
actual stones of "offence," inflicting a shock,
and causing repulsion: "quite foreign," he
thinks, "to the original, affectionate, though
credulous attachment to the idealized memory
of a noble and self-denying leader. Why
cannot Christians be content to admire their
Jesus for what is admirable in a good man,
instead of weighting his name with icy lumps
of dogma, congealed out of the fluid condition
of a simple and very natural hero-worship?"

The answer must be quite explicitly given,
even at the cost of temporarily checking the
return of a soul to the sanctuary of God. For
the plain truth is, that Christmas with a merely
human Christ for its central object would not,
for the Church, be Christmas at all. Are we told
that the theology of the Nicene Creed is at such

ii6 The Law of Faith

a moment incongruous and intrusive ? On the
contrary, it is precisely this theology which
makes the time so unlike any other. It has
been well said that although our rejoicing at
Christmas is child-like, its "foundation is an
awful and overpowering fact, the most wonder-
ful event in the course of God's dealings with
His creatures, the coming into the world, as the
Child of a Virgin Mother, but otherwise under
the common conditions of our humanity, of the
Everlasting and Almighty Son of God;" so
that, as " the history of Christian belief and life
never could have been what they have been if
He who was ' with us ' was not indeed our Lord
and our God," so "the Gospel which, as
announced by His Church from the first, has
made His Incarnation the centre and heart of
all teaching, worship, and obedience, must ever
refuse to compromise with any view of religion "
which assigns to it a place that is less than
" paramount and sovereign." l A middle course,
we may boldly say, is out of the question ; this
belief is either a pestilent idolatry, or it is that
by which Christianity has to live.

A well-known and much-loved hymn for the
great Birthday condenses the joy of the festival
into a few exultant words,

"Yea, Lord, we greet Thee,
Bom this happy morning;"

but the "greeting," and the gladness that

1 Church, "Cathedral and University Sermons," p. 43 ft. ;
"Pascal and other Sermons," p. 177.

The Christ of Christmas Divine 117

springs forth with it, derive their warmth and
intensity from the belief that He who is thus
welcomed is " Very God, begotten, not
created," the "Word of the Father appearing
in flesh," "the King of Angels" stooping to
a human nativity. 1 The "greeting," therefore,
must be worship : those who render it must
say, " Come let us adore Him." Other high
strains associated with Christmas services re-
present exactly the same idea. The hymn
which we know as "the Herald Angels" at
once awes and uplifts us by its dogmatic insist-
ence on our Saviour's proper Divinity ; a noble
version of a noble Latin original 2 enhances
" the unchangeable joy of Christmas " 3 by
dwelling on the identity of the Virgin-born
Redeemer with Him who is Alpha and Omega,
"of the Father's love begotten," the adorable
Lord of all creation ; and a graceful modern
carol not only represents the Bethlehem scene
as a present reality to faith, but connects the
doctrine that underlies it with the highest reach
of religious affection

"And love still turns where the Godhead burns,
Hid in flesh from fleshly sight."

It will, perhaps, be said that this is poetry,
and that poetry has a proverbial licence. But

1 The most popular English version of the "Adeste
Fideles" obscures the point of "Natum videte Regem
angelorum."

2 Prudentius, " Corde natus ex Parentis."

8 Miss Yonge, "The Heir of Redclyfle," i. 355.

ii8 The Law of Faith

poetry animated by religious belief, from the
Psalms downward, must have solid and definite
conviction for its centre ; it presupposes that
this or that is true. And when a worshipper
of Christ has put his thoughts ^and feelings
about Him into metrical form, he has still been
holding as firmly to a Credo as if he were
writing a dogmatic treatise. Here then the
question comes up : " Why should Christians,
either in prose or in verse, pour themselves
out, with a kind of sacred pride or high
triumphant rejoicing, about a theological pro-
position which presents undeniable difficulties
to the intellect, and has given occasions for
such ramifications of controversy, and such an
excess of minute definition? In a word, how
is the heart interested in such a dogma ? "

One reason may be given which should be
at least intelligible to those who regard the
Catholic doctrine of Christ's Divinity as an
extravagant instance of " deification." For us,
to hold it is not merely to tax or strain our
credence for the acceptance of a mystery as
such, or of a belief bound up with primitive
Christian traditions, as well as with ecclesiastical
authority in councils or the like. It is to get
hold of a final decisive assurance, that the
Infinite God does infinitely care for man. It
is after we have recited, in our Eucharistic
confession of faith, the epithets belonging to
Jesus as a Son of God in the fullest sense, God
begotten of God, and of one substance with
the Father, that we are so well able to say

The Christ of Christmas Divine 119

with thankfulness, "Who for us men and for
our salvation came down from heaven and was
incarnate." Look at Bethlehem in the light of
this belief, and think what a God the Father
of Christ must be. The Holiest, the Mightiest,
the Highest is for those who thus believe no
longer a God far off. He has really come near
to us, and continues to be near to us in the
person of One who, being uncreate, is what no
angel, not Michael himself, could be, the
"adequate image" and "interpreter of the
Father." The names of Jesus and Emmanuel
might in other cases only record the fact that
the Lord was willing to save His people, that
God was and would be with them : in this one
case, as belonging to a Divine Christ, they
expand from affirmations of such grounds of
confidence into titles by personal right His own.
Here then, speaking generally, is the true
meaning, the true value, of faith in a Saviour
who can be trusted absolutely and loved
supremely, because He Himself is God. As
Mr. Gladstone has said, the Incarnation is "the
reunion to God of a nature severed from God
by sin " a reunion through " the process of
imparting a new life, with its ordained equip-
ment of gifts and powers." 1 This is why the
belief in the Incarnation involves so very much
more than acquiescence in an orthodox formula.
In clinging to our Christ, we touch the springs
of a vast restorative force, and realize our
interest in the purifying and renovating influ-
1 " Gleanings," etc., viii. 90.

120 The Law of Faith

ences which could not be stored up for us in
any creature, but which form a treasure where-
of we may receive in One who is life-giving
because He is God the Word.

It would be easy to carry on this thought
so as to observe how Catholic Christianity
alleviates, though it cannot annul, the pressure
of terrible difficulties as to the prevalence of
pain and of sin : the " infinite pity " for the
"infinite pathos of human life" 1 is emphasized
by the sufferings and death of the Only-
begotten ; and the Father who sent His own
Son as a propitiation thereby provided a
stupendous remedy for the moral evil which
makes shipwreck of so many lives. Or we
might consider how strong is the motive power
for good effort, and how efficient the principle
of all upward moral movement, to be found in
One in whom " dwells bodily .the fulness of the
Godhead," and whose manhood can therefore
be a fountain of recreative virtue. WHen we
bend in spirit before the manger of the Holy
Nativity, and offer to the Son of Mary that
worship which discerns His intrinsic glory
through the veil of an inconceivable self-
abasement, it is surely most opportune to
renew our purposes of thankful and unreserved
self-consecration. Let us do so with single-
hearted resolution, with humble but well-assured
hope. For to be hopeful still, amid the recol-
lection of many past failures, and worse than
failures, is a main part of our Christmas duty :
1 "John Inglesant," p. 74.

The Christ of Christmas Divine 121

we wrong Him whom "we joyfully receive as
our Redeemer," 1 if we question His will to
bless, His power to save, as available for us,
even for us, when with penitent hearts we
come within the range of their operation.
There is no such <( because" in the English
language as that in the Proper Preface for
Christmas day and its octave : and we do but
repeat it in* substance, though varying it in
form, when we recognize in Jesus Christ as
" come in flesh " the fact that made it so
gloriously possible for His dearest disciple to
tell us that " God is love."

1 Collect for the First Communion of Christmas Day, in
the Liturgy of 1549.

XIII
The Character of the Blessed Virgin Mary

St. Luke i. 30 : " And the angel said unto her,
Fear not, Mary : for thou hast found favour with
God."

ON the twenty-fifth of March the Church
observes a signally welcome festival, which
yearly relieves with its warmth of colour the
grey and sombre atmosphere of Lent. Some
weeks may still have to pass before we can say,
" It is Easter ;" and yet on that day we seem
to catch the faint far-off music of Christmas
bells. For Lady-day, as we still popularly call
it, is in effect what it was formerly called in the
Church of France, 1 the day of "the announce-
ment of the Lord, and of His " original " Incar-
nation :".or, as we may put it, of that one true
Immaculate Conception which beseemed a
Second Adam who, being free from all human
capacity of sinfulness, should be competent to
" bear " and to " take away " human sin.

It is well, however, that in our Prayer-book
the title of the festival contains the name of

1 Brev. Paris., " In Annuntiatione et Incarnatione Domini."

122

Character of the Virgin Mary 123

"the Blessed Virgin Mary." That name,
indeed, is absent from the ancient collect, as it
is from that other not less ancient collect which
belongs to the day "commonly called" after
her ceremonial and, so to speak, formal Purifica-
tion. But on both occasions it is opportune to
think of her ; and we may do well to consider
whether we think of her as often as we might,
and learn what we ought to learn from the few
but instructive indications of her character. We
confess in the Creeds that our Lord was "born "
or was " incarnate," of the Virgin Mary ; or we
thank Him, in our glorious morning canticle,
because He "did not shrink 1 from "being so
born ; but we often seem reluctant, or afraid, to
go further : we banish her memory into the
background of our religious thought. Why
this apparent coldness, this want of interest,
this virtual contradiction of her own prophecy
that all generations should call her blessed?
The answer, of course, is obvious ; it is a reac-
tion which was sure to follow from that enormous
misuse of her name which has long been
dominant, and is ever becoming more daringly
"extreme," in "the unreformed Churches"; 2
and of which we may say, without overstate-
ment, that if there were no other corruptions of
belief or practice in her system, this one would
suffice to keep us apart from Rome. Let me
use the words of a distinguished Irish theologian :
"The most prevalent extravagance of Roman

1 This, of course, is the sense of " Non horruisti," etc.

2 See Church, "Occas. Papers," i. 352 ff.; ii. 424 ff.

124 The Law of Faith

teaching at the present day is an exaggeration
of the honour due to the Blessed Virgin." 1
But then, on this showing, some honour is due
to her : some " reverent regard," says Bishop
Pearson, in view of her " singular privilege," z
and surely also in view of that grace which is
better for souls than any dignity, 3 and which had
begun to work in her before she was told that she
should be " overshadowed by the power of the
Highest." 4 After all, she was, and she is, what
our first English service-book called her, the
"Mother of Jesus Christ our Lord and God,"
the human instrument through whom the Eternal
Word, in His own Divine and changeless per-
sonality, "became flesh," that is, "became
Man." Can we suppose that, because others
think of her overmuch, her Son's will is that
we should forget her ? He checked her, no
doubt, when she interfered, though ever so
gently, with the order of His own public
work : 5 perhaps we may think that He thereby
intimated that she was to have no public office
with regard to His Church in the future. But
surely He still remembers her motherly care of
His childhood, the "piercing of her soul " when
she stood with St. John beside His cross.
" Thou hast found favour with God," was the
testimony of the angel when he hailed her as
"high in the love of Heaven," if we may

1 Salmon, " Infallibility of the Church," p. 193.

2 Pearson " On the Creed," art. 9.

8 St. Luke x. 20. 4 St. Luke i. 35.

5 St. Matt. xii. 46-48 ; St. John ii. 4.

Character of the Virgin Mary 125

follow Milton 1 in his version of what our fathers
called " the Salutation " : and we may see reason
for it, if we combine what we know of her acts
and words.

For, first, the call thus addressed to her, in
one sense, " the greatest ever addressed to a
human creature," 2 was responded to with an
ideal dutifulness. " Behold, I am the Lord's
handmaid ; be it unto me according to thy
word." 8 She believes the call to be true, and
she places herself unreservedly in God's hands,
with a whole-hearted acceptance of whatever
trials it might involve. Here is faith in its
genuine form, the form which makes it "justify-
ing," faith as carried out in moral self-surrender.
But she could not have met the crisis of her
life in this spirit, if she had not already been
accustomed to walk with God. As capacities
and opportunities differ widely, so do vocations ;
and that which came to Mary was single in the
history of our race. But the temper in which
she met it should be ours, whenever we receive
one of those calls which may seem " ordinary,"
but which, as tokens of an appeal to us from
God, are tests of the soul's movement, towards
Him or/away from Him. If a man, on hearing
such a call to some fresh piece or field of work,

1 " Paradise Lost," xii. 380. Ke^a/Mro/new; connects itself
with exa/HTwo-o' in Eph. i. 6. The idea is, divine favour or
grace placing a soul in a state of acceptance (that favour, of
course, being not otiose, but operative in bounty). On grace,
see above, p. 14.

2 Church, " Human Life," etc., p. 172. 3 St. Luke i. 38.

126 The Law of Faith

does not cast about to find possible exemptions,
does not try that fatal plan of sailing away to
Tarshish, but simply says, " Here am I, the
Lord's servant," he is following, at whatever
distance, in the track of her who was "blessed"
because she " believed." l

Again, we may learn something from that
" Song of the Blessed Virgin " which has been
somewhat boldly called "the centre and heart
of our evening service." 2 It is worded exactly in
accordance with the transitional period to which
it is assigned, a period passing out of the Law,
and not quite entering on the Gospel. 3 Any
one can see that it is, to a considerable extent,
based on the ancient song of Hannah : 4 but
her phrases are intensified when Mary employs
them ; we feel sure that the Virgin's outlook
is wider, that she is musing on higher things.
The older poem speaks of a humbling of the
arrogant, an impoverishing of those that were
full, a strengthening of those that had stumbled,
a raising up of the poor to thrones of glory :
and we instinctively understand it of a triumph
of Israel over Philistines. But when Mary sings
of princes as cast down, of the proud or over-
weening as scattered abroad, of the rich as sent
away empty, of the humble and meek as exalted,
of the hungry as filled with good things, is she
merely assuring herself that her promised Son,

1 St. Luke i. 45.

2 Liddon, "The Magnificat," p. 5.

3 Mill on "Myth. Interpr. of Gospels," p. 119.

4 i Sam. ii. i ff.

Character of the Virgin Mary 127

as reigning over the house of Jacob, will enable
His people to shake off the yoke of Rome?
Rather, surely, she has her eye on certain
principles of the Divine moral administration.
The proud, the rich, the princes, are for her the
self-confident, whom a prophet had described as
the "stout-hearted that were far from righteous-
ness ; " l the humble and meek are those who
fear God, who lean on Him and hunger for His
blessings ; on whom, as she has just before
said, His mercy would rest from age to age. Is
the former type of character extinct? It lives
with an evil life in men who set religion aside
as, at best, superfluous, or who even resent the
very idea of dependence on One above them,
either for happiness or for guidance in conduct ;
who. pretend that "morality is better cared
for when theological motives are frankly dis-
carded," and that "social life is healthier when
no dream of a next world competes with present
interests." So it is, that if we read St. Mary's
Song as Christian faith and experience interpret
it, her words are filled with a richer significance
than at first they seemed to carry ; 2 their warn-
ing against a godless self-reliance, their promises
to humility, sense of need, obedient trustfulness,
remind us of him whom her Son converted by a
voice from the excellent glory ; she becomes

1 Isa. xlvi. 12

2 In the Magnificat we have "a woman teaching in
the Church for ever without usurpation of authority, but
with a saintly quietness," etc. Archbishop Alexander,
"Leading Ideas of the Gospels," p. 113.

ia8 The Law of Faith

for us a preacher of faith as responding to grace ;
her Magnificat anticipates the essential teaching
of St. Paul.

Once more, there are words of St. Luke
which illustrate the peculiar seriousness, the
solid thoughtfulness, of her serene collected
piety. She " carefully preserves," "pondering
in her heart," the wondrous report received
from the shepherds : and later, she similarly
" preserves " the saying of her Son about His
primary obligation to the business of His true
and heavenly Father. 1 She meditates, she con-
siders, she steeps her mind in the facts which
come before her ; she will not be content with
vague superficial impressions : she will not skim
over this or that point, as if a glance could
exhaust its meaning ; to use St. James's vivid
phrase, she will "stoop down to look well into
it," 2 will take pains, and take time, to master
it. The verb which in our versions is rendered
"ponder" has a more distinct and suggestive
import ; it means to compare one thing with
another. 3 The Virgin feels that aspects of truth
must not be isolated ; she must get hold of the
links which connect them, must clearly ascertain
their bearing on each other, until they stand out
in coherent wholeness. May we not say that
here she gives a fruitful hint to students of
Christian theology against that cursory im-
patience, or that self-willed selection of favour-
ite points, which means one-sidedness, and

1 St. Luke ii. 19, 51. 2 James i. 25.

3 2v/i/?aAAov(ra. Bengel ; "partes invicem considerans."

Character of the Virgin Mary 129

therefore means error? And further let us
observe how this mental habit secures her
against a peril which besets many when their
eyes have been opened to a transporting vision
of spiritual realities. Emotion naturally craves
for expression, and too often neglects that sober
reserve which would keep expression safe ;
ardent feeling lets itself go, runs to waste in
words which become unreal and idle ; l but she
who knew that great things had been done for
her puts reason to its right use in the sphere of
faith, and also tacitly condemns that fluent but
shallow religiousness which "talks too fast" 2
for what it has realized, and glides down
smoothly into the gulf of a profound self-deceit.
Loyal to a Divine call, thankfully de-
pendent on a Divine all-sufficiency, devoutly
studious of the purport of Divine revelations,
such was the Virgin Mother of Christ our
Lord. A certain woman once cried aloud to
Him, " Blessed is the womb that bare Thee ! " 3
He answered by a corrective "Yea rather:"
but was He then excluding His own parent
from the blessedness which belonged rather to
character than to privilege? Most needfully
did she hear the word of God, most consistently
did she keep it; and while we recognize the
august and transcendent position in which she
stands alone among the saints, let us seek for
grace to profit by an example which perhaps

1 Newman, " Sermons," v. 34 ff.

2 Church, " Pascal and other Sermons," p. 261.
8 St. Luke xi. 28.

130 The Law of Faith

we have heretofore too little regarded. Yet
there it was before us, individual and distinct,
in those few contexts of that tenderest of
Gospels, which doubtless owed so much to
information derived from her. 1 It meets us still,
with its presence of grave beauty ; it speaks to
us still, in its tones of gentle emphasis ; and
we may best summarize its teaching by giving
the fullest interpretation, at every turn of our
daily life, to a single utterance from those pure
lips, which her adopted son records for us in
the fourth Gospel, "Whatsoever He saith
unto you, do it." 2

1 See Bishop Goodwin, "Foundations of the Creed,"
p. 113 ; and Gore, "Dissertations," p. 18. It is difficult to
understand how any who believe in the Incarnation, the
Resurrection, and the Ascension, can stumble at the
Virginal Birth, which will moreover commend itself to all
who regard Christ as "the Second Adam." On the Syriac
text of St. Matt. i. 16-25, see Gore, ib. p. 192 ff.

2 St. John ii. 5. ,

XIV
Privileges turned into Occasions of Sin

2 Cor. ii. 15, 1 6 (R. V.) : "For we are a sweet
savour of Christ unto God, in them that are being
saved, and in them that are perishing : to the one
a savour from death unto death ; to the other a
savour from life unto life."

GEORGE HERBERT, in his "Country Parson,"
describes this epistle as "full of affections."
In it, he says, the Apostle "joys, and is sorry;
he grieves, and he glories." It is indeed an
intensely human document ; nature is there,
strong, vivid, in one sense passionate; and
grace is there, not suppressing nature, but
interfused with it. We look into the deep
heart of him who, as it was expressed in one
of the most pathetic of English sermons, " had
a thousand friends, and loved each as his own
soul ; " l it is a heart that can be sorely wounded,
but not enbittered, by narrowness and suspicion,
by ingratitude and even hostility, that utters
its pain by a wistful appeal for fairer and kinder
treatment. "Our mouth is open unto you, O

1 Newman, " Sermons on Subjects of the Day," p. 458.

132 The Law of Faith

Corinthians, our heart is enlarged ; it is not
in us that ye are straitened, but in your own
affections ; now, by way of return, I speak as
even to my children, be ye also enlarged;"
open your hearts to me. Withal, there is hot
indignation, sometimes venting itself in piercing
irony against " false apostles and deceitful
workers," who have been undermining his in-
fluence during his absence, or denying his claim
to be a true apostle, or even casting doubt on
his personal integrity. The contest between
St. Paul and the Judaizers may seem to us
obsolete, but his frequent references to it, in
this letter, help us to understand him all the
more intimately as a man of flesh and blood :
we are brought into veritable contact with
his wonderful and intense personality, which,
versatile and many-sided as it was, mobile and
susceptible beyond any other in the varied roll
of Scripture characters, had its central principle
of unity in devotion to the cause and work of
Christ.

So it is in the remarkable passage which
culminates in the text. The Apostle refers to
a recent journey from Ephesus to Troas, and
from Troas to Philippi. He had started in
considerable agitation of mind, after narrowly
escaping from an infuriated heathen mob. At
Troas he found " a door opened " for his
preaching: but he had hoped to "find Titus"
with news from Corinth, and Titus was not
there. Restless, as he says, with anxiety, he
travelled on to Philippi, and there, too, he had

Privileges made Occasions of Sin 133

to endure suspense ; at last he " was comforted
by the coming of Titus," who brought him
tidings which, on the whole, were rather hope-
ful than otherwise : if some of the Corinthians
were still unfriendly, and others had shown
no repentance for grave sin, there were those
who had spoken of him with earnest affection,
and whom his former letter had "made sorry
after a godly sort." " Thanks be to God," he
exclaims : his journeys as Christ's apostle had
involved not a little of cross-bearing, but he
looks back on them in quite another aspect;
his vivid imagination associates them with what
he had often heard of but never seen, the
grandest spectacle in the world of that, age, a
Roman general's triumph. ' ' That long victorious
pomp, winding down the Sacred Way and
through the Forum," 1 and up to the southern
height of the Capitol, is to him an image of
the assured success which sooner or later will
crown the Apostolic enterprise : he thinks of
the train of captives preceding the victor's
chariot, and rejoices to rank himself, converted
as he had been while a persecutor, among living
trophies of his Lord's miraculous grace ; he is
being " led in triumph " for so the word should
be rendered, in the atmosphere, so to say,
of Christ's presence : and then it occurs to
him that as on those great days in Rome the
temples beside which the procession passed
were all thrown open, and the incense from
their altars cast its fragrance far abroad, so
1 Macaulay, " Lays of Ancient Rome," p. 154.

134 The Law of Faith

whenever and wherever he proclaims the glory
of Christ, the sweet odour of that name which
is like " ointment poured forth " diffuses itself in
benediction on "those who are being saved." 1
And they inhale it : on them it acts like the
breath of health-giving air ; it is an odour so
the words ought to be read not u of" life, as
the Authorized Version has it, but "from" life,,
unto life ; that is, its operation advances from
a lower degree of spiritual life to a higher. It
finds some men "sons of peace," with a certain
amount of true spiritual vitality; and this it
works upon, expands, enriches, until "the
measure of fulness " is attained. The soul, re-
sponding to the sacred influence, goes on from
strength to strength, "from faith to faith," 2
reaching forth to things that are before it,
"supplying," in St. Peter's pregnant phrase, 3
this and that other spiritual attainment to be
" united with " what has already been acquired,
as patience with temperance, or love of the
brethren with godliness, a steady and health-
ful growth, a daily increase " in the grace and
knowledge of the Lord."

" But then," the Apostle seems to say, with
an awestruck consciousness of the darker side
of our moral history, " it is not so always. There
are those for whom this selfsame preaching of
Christ becomes somehow an occasion of deeper
" falling " than could have been encountered in
the path on which the great Light had not shone.

1 Cp. Acts ii. 47 ; i Cor. i. 18. 2 Rom. i. 17.

3 2 Pet. i. 5 ff.

Privileges made Occasions of Sin 135

These are " in the way of perishing " or of
" being lost," because the drift of their life runs
farther and farther off from God, instead of
nearer and nearer to Him. Somewhat later,
St. Paul explains their condition by referring it
to the influence of " the god of this world " in
" blinding their minds " by unbelief, so that the
Gospel is for them under a veil ; l but this is,
in truth, the consequence of antecedent moral
obliquity. There is in them already a principle
of ' ' death " ; and the Gospel message has the
effect of developing it, of making what was bad
worse, what was hard harder ; because, instead
of responding to the full-voiced appeal of Divine
love, they are predisposed against it, and recoil
from it impatiently or even angrily, with the
instinctive aversion which St. John describes
under the image of darkness hating the light. 2
They do not want such a visitor as Jesus : He
has no beauty that they should desire Him ; He
represents for them no ideal ; He would interfere
with them ; they cannot breathe freely in His
presence, and therefore they get out of His way.
So indifference too easily becomes enmity, and
callousness stiffens into obduracy ; and the awful
downward progress from spiritual death inchoate
to spiritual death consummate is all the more
surely accomplished by a continuous rejection of
the Word of Life as manifested for sanctification
and salvation. And then if it is carried out
instead of being arrested the doom must needs
be spoken : "He that is unrighteous or filthy,
1 2 Cor. iv. 3, 4. 2 St. John iii. 20.

136 The Law of Faith

let him be unrighteous or filthy still ; " 1 he must
be left to himself. This double-edged effect
of the Divine presence, itself traceable to the
mystery of creaturely freewill and the law of
moral probation, was intimated in parabolic
language by Simeon to the Virgin Mother,
when he held in his arms the Infant Christ.
He adopted the imagery in which Isaiah had
set it forth. " Let the Lord of hosts," said the
prophet, " be your fear, and let Him be your
dread. And He shall be for a sanctuary; but for
a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to
both the houses of Israel ; and many shall
stumble thereon, and fall, and be broken." 2
" This Child," said Simeon, " is set for the
falling and for the rising up of many in Israel ; "
to some He will be a veritable stone of support,
to others a stone over which they will stumble
to their own grievous harm and loss. This
latter consequence was also introduced by our
Lord, with significant abruptness, into a com-
ment on that text in the Psalms which described
a stone as first set aside by builders and then
exalted into a cornerstone : "He that falleth
on this stone shall sustain fracture, but on
whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as
dust," 3 -as we might say, will pulverize him,
words* which indicate an extremity beyond the
case of "stumbling." St. Paul even substitutes
the words, "a stone of stumbling and a rock of
offence " for "a cornerstone, elect, precious,"

1 Cf. Rev. xxii. n. 2 Isa. viii. 13-15.

8 St. Matt. xxi. 42-44.

Privileges made Occasions of Sin 137

when quoting the memorable text in the twenty-
eighth of Isaiah ; l and St. Peter brings together
all three texts, adding the remark that this
stumbling is the result of "disobedience" 2 or
spiritual indocility. Do we think it too hard a
doctrine that the best of all good things should
be capable of such fatal perversion ? Let us
remember that " wherever God visits, He
divides;" 3 His near approach cannot but be a
test of character, and, as such, it intensifies the
good or the evil in those who come into contact
with it. If we are not attracted by Christ's
presence, we shall sooner or later be repelled by
it ; and the previous condition of our souls and
bent of our wills will practically decide which
alternative is to be ours.

It is remarkable that as the first of the two
holydays in February reminds us of Simeon's
warning, so the second enforces it by the terrible
case of Judas. For him, a constant intercourse
with Jesus might have been a savour from life
unto life ; why did it become a savour from
death unto death ? Because, when he became
an apostle, he had in his heart an element of
moral decay and corruption. Covetousness was
probably checked for a while by the fervour of
early discipleship, but it was not striven against
nor expelled ; and as novelty wore off, it awoke
to fresh activity, and was even fed by that very
office of trust, the keeping of the common purse,
which ought to have called forth a grateful

1 Rom. ix. 33. 2 i Pet. ii. 6.

8 Ne\vman, " Discussions and Arguments," p. 1 14.

138 The Law of Faith

loyalty. And but for that " cunning bosom-sin,"
it might have been so. There was no fatality
for him, any more than for any of us ; the " place
whither he went," as St. Peter says with a
reserve which deepens the . horror, was that
which he had made so tragically "his own."

We who live in the midst of Christian privi-
leges have need to be on our guard lest we
become the worse for them. They are given
to make us all the better for such a gift. But
if our wills are set against the mind of the All-
holy, then, in despite of that will of His which
would fain gather us under its wings, our own
attitude of opposition will reverse the intended
working of His benefits. Unless we are careful
to correspond with His intentions, the peril in
question will increase as the area of grace around
us widens. There is one condition of life in
which it is peculiarly aggravated. Those who
look forward to Holy Orders, and also those
who are already ordained, have often been
warned of this rock ahead, and should habitually
look out for it themselves. There is a grim old
proverb which goes straight to the point : " Let
the devil into the church, and he will soon be
on the high altar ! " A great preacher of the
French Church in the eighteenth century, him-
self a pious and earnest bishop, was never weary
of reminding his clergy that the routine of sacred
occupations, unless it was salted by continuous
self-surrender, might confirm them in dryness
and insensibility. " Your functions," he says
once, " may themselves harden you ; " and again,

Privileges made Occasions of* Sin 139

" may become profanations "; if you allow your-
selves to become familiar with the holiest things
while you neglect to keep up your personal
relation to Him who speaks and acts through
them, then even the holiest of them all, even the
Eucharistic celebration itself, will but minister
to apathy and lethargy, and then to a weary
" disgust " with spiritual duties, and ultimately
he repeats the dreadful word again and again
to that " hardening " of which the natural
consummation is the hopeless end of a wicked
priest. 1

Do any of us think that the picture is over-
drawn, either for priests or for lay people who
have formed religious habits, who come regularly
to church and frequently to Communion ? Alas,
experience tells us otherwise. It has been truly
said, that " the creed which makes human nature
richer and larger makes men at the same time
capable of profounder sins ; " 2 and that Christi-
anity has made every vice, as well as every
virtue, a "deeper thing." 3 Even if we allow
the ritual forms of the Church to become not
" transparent media " of access to the living
Lord, but a sort of enclosure to protect us from
the awfulness of conscious intercourse with Him
when we prefer to keep aloof, their savour, so
to speak, will change its character and its work-
ing. Coldness towards God may be " death "
at an early stage ; but it may grow into positive

1 Massillon, " CEuvres," ii. 241, 292, 328, 367, 402.

2 "EcceHomo."

8 Gladstone, "Studies Subsidiary to Butler's Works," p. 80.

K

140 The Law of Faith

Dislike, which is " death " at a later ; and one
symptom of this process is that distaste for
prayer which attends on half-repentance. Men
have before now begun by avoiding Christ, and
have ended by being practically anti-Christian ;
or they have moodily thought of God as a hard
master, and in time, instead of becoming atheists,
have more or less assimilated that hostility to
His authority and sanctity which characterizes
the lost spirits that defy Him while they
" tremble," and hate Him while they " believe."
Let us not say, " / will never hate Thee in
any wise," but rather pray to be kept from
entering on a path that might end in that black-
ness of darkness. Against what temper, then,
shall we strive and watch, that the savour of
Christ may not become for us deadly ? Against
the temper which Apostles call unbelief ; against
whatever can de-spiritualize our minds ; against
all ''works of the flesh," in the comprehensive
Pauline use of that term ; against formalism,
against irreverence, against a vague, hazy, in-
effective conception of our Lord's person and
character, and of that truth which, He tells us,
is a principle of sanctification ; against that
spirit of false " independence " which may lead
us first to ignore His commands, and then to
cherish a grudge against Him for imposing them.
And let us be well assured that He who "ts"
Himself " Christianity/' desires Christianity to
be for us what it is for those who are really " in
the way of salvation a savour from life unto
life."

XV
Responsibility for Opportunities

St. Luke xix. 42 : " If thbu hadst known, even
thou, at least in this thy day, the things that belong
unto thy peace ; but now they are hid from thine
eyes."

WE necessarily associate these words, the
saddest that our Divine Lord ever spoke, with
what is called His triumphal Entry. We think
of the deep irony of such a contrast as is ex-
hibited between the exuberant popular welcome,
with its apparently thoroughgoing recognition
of His Kingship, and

"the secret load
With which His spirit waxeth faint."

It is one of the gains of the Revised Lectionary
that this passage is now read as a second lesson
on the evening of the Sunday before Easter.
That Sunday has never lost in England its tra-
ditional name, universal through East and
West; but until a comparatively recent date
there was nothing in its Anglican observance
to remind us of the procession across Mount

141

142 The Law of Faith

Olivet ; and even now the account of the event,
being taken not from St. John, but from one
of the first three Evangelists, contains no
mention of the " palms." In the ancient Sarum
rite, leaves and flowers at any rate, in default of
palm-branches, were carried in procession round
the church, while anthems hailed " the King of
Kings, the Salvation and true Peace of man-
kind, who came travelling in the greatness of
His strength ; " and that hymn rose up which
in its lovely English version has become so
familiar and dear to English congregations

"All glory, laud, and honour
To Thee, Redeemer, King."

So they sang, as if the day were purely festal ;
and yet with undertones recalling the ominous
question which priests and Pharisees had asked
even before the day of triumph " What do
we ? " and the fatal suggestion of Caiaphas as
to the expediency of "one man's death." And
then as the words were chanted, " Men of
falsehood have compassed me about," "Deliver
me, O God, from them that rise up against me,"
the voice of joy was suddenly hushed ; the
Passion, and only the Passion, filled the scene ;
the Mass for the day began with verses from
the Psalm, " My God, my God," and with the
collect which we still use in Holy Week up to
Good Friday.

Those who arranged that mediaeval service
were probably anxious to impress on Christian
worshippers the significant rapidity with which

Responsibility for Opportunities 143

"Crucify Him" followed on "Hosanna"; to
remind them also, perhaps, that of those very
disciples whose thankfulness "for the mighty
works which they had seen " broke forth into
irrepressible rejoicing, which the Lord Him-
self would defend against Pharisaic censorious-
ness, one was to betray Him, and one was to
deny Him, and all the others, save one, were to
forsake Him in their terror for their own safety.
Such a thought might be most opportune as
a .check to the emotional self-complacency
which would otherwise issue in self-deceit.

But the main lesson of the Entry is contained
in the text. Our Lord's tears, or rather sobs
for the original word implies no less must have
startled and disappointed the disciples who
walked beside Him ; and the sentence which
followed, and was left unfinished under the strain
of an incommunicable sorrow, would break in
upon the Hosannas as a funeral knell might
interrupt a wedding peal. Writers with an eye
for landscape have shown us a "ledge of rock,"
forming a turning-point on the mountain road,
from which the glory of the holy city would be
seen to culminate in the Temple as Herod had
rebuilt it, and as Josephus likened it to a
"snow-covered hill capped here and there with
gold ; " l and so, in a measure, they have helped

1 Bell. Jud. v. 5. 6 : "To strangers approaching from a
distance, it appeared like a mountain full of snow. . . On
the top it had golden spikes with sharp points." Milman
renders this "A mount of snow fretted with golden
pinnacles " (" Fall of Jerusalem ").

144 The Law of Faith

us to understand how Jesus, looking on His
Father's house, for which He had shown such
" zealous affection," and which must then have
presented to His companions an aspect of
inviolable majesty, would gaze at it while fore-
seeing its impending and inevitable doom. He
apostrophizes the city ; there is a strange pathos
in the abruptness which omits its name as the
words rush from His lips " If thou hadst
but known, in this day, even thou," as the
Revised Version has it, " the things that belong
unto peace," that is, what makes for thy true
interest ; " but now they are hidden from thine
eyes." Then comes a summary of the siege,
which in less than forty years was to end in so
direful a ruin ; and this is followed by words
which show how. absolutely accordant was this
predicted judgment with the moral laws of a
Divine administration into which no element
of arbitrariness can enter. "All this, simply
because thou knewest not the appointed time,
the critical moment, at which God was visiting,"
or more properly, " was inspecting thee " with
a final offer of mercy, which thou hast rejected
by not receiving Me as the Christ.

But there may be some risk in dwelling over-
long on the original purport of our Saviour's
lamentation. The setting of the picture is so
impressive, the occasion is so dramatic, nay, so
tragic, and lends itself so well to graphic word-
painting or poetical amplification, that we have
need to remind ourselves of our own relation to
its teaching. This "saying" of Christ repre-

Responsibility for Opportunities 145

sents a principle of manifold application, of
universal and perpetual validity the principle
of responsibility for opportunities of good. So
read in their whole breadth of meaning, the
words speak to a nation, to a Church, to a
clergy, to a parish, to a family, to an individual
soul, that have had their "occasions," and have
idly neglected to "buy them up," in the Apostle's
phrase, 1 to utilize and secure them at all costs,
and make the most of them while they are
present. St. Paul acknowledges that this re-
quires what he calls "wisdom," a practical
moral intelligence, which can look carefully all
around and appreciate "the signs of the time,"
the value of a particular combination of circum-
stances which constitutes a spiritual opportunity.
But then we know from our Lord Himself that
we must unite wisdom with simplicity ; and the
older Scriptures are pointedly severe on incon-
siderateness as merely a form of "folly." A
psalmist " thinks upon God's ways in the night-
season," and "calls his own ways to remem-
brance " ; a prophet exhorts a selfish and
negligent people to "consider their ways," 2 to
see whither they are going ; we cannot, indeed,
turn over many pages of the Bible without
seeing that they contain texts on which Butler's
penetrating words are an apposite comment,
" Neglects from inconsiderateness," or "want
of attention, not looking about us to see what
we have to do," may involve a "real immoral
depravity," and be " attended with consequences
* Eph. v. i6< ? flag, i. $.

146 The Law of Faith

as dreadful as any misbehaviour from the most
extravagant passion" could produce. 1 People
wreck their lives again and again because they
will not take the trouble to understand their
own interest, to listen to the voice "behind
them," when it says, "This is the way." Or,
to borrow a stern sentence of Carlyle's : "Of
each man nature asks daily in mild voice, but
with a terrible significance, Knowest thou the
meaning of this day what thou canst do to-
day, wisely attempt to do?" 2 But for the
abstraction " nature," let us substitute the living
God. It is this "visitation," this opportunity,
that we are so apt to ignore, because to consider
it duly, and therefore to secure it, requires an
effort, and might interfere with something that
in our childish waywardness we like better. It
is easy to see this experience " writ large " in
the history of great public bodies. One cannot
help thinking that if France in the eighteenth
century had. been ruled by other hands than
those of Louis XV. and his favourites, the
horrors which followed on the outbreak of the
Revolution might have been averted ; or one
regrets the utter failure of efforts made by great
Councils to reform the abuses of the Latin
Church in the century before the Reformation ;
or one speculates as to what might have been
the effect of fervour and sympathy on the part
of our own Church-authorities in places and
periods that witnessed the development of Dis-

1 " Analogy," part i. c. 2 ; part ii. c. 6.

2 "Past and Present," p. 6.

Responsibility for Opportunities 147

sent. The same line of thought might be pur-
sued in regard to privileged orders neglectful of
public duty : to schools of learning that reposed
lazily on their past ; to professions or other great
interests that selfishly resisted beneficial change;
to village districts where stubborn insensibility
made faithful pastors think, at the end of a long
ministry, that they had "spent their strength
for nought and in vain." But again, let us be
on our guard against an impersonal view of this
disheartening phenomenon ; instead of moraliz-
ing on the profligacy of rulers, the blindness of
aristocracies, the lukewarmness of priests, the
cultured indolence of scholars, the jealous
obstructiveness of corporations, or the dull in-
difference of rustics, let us turn the full light
of the Lord's words on our own selves severally
and singly. What am / doing ? Am I neglect-
ing a golden occasion ? Am I ignoring a time
of visitation, and forgetting that opportunities
are given to be used? Miserable indeed it is
to see how eager men are to look out for, and
seize, and appropriate some opportunity for
evil, so that, in Shakespeare's phrase, though it
is "so bad, such numbers seek for it," 1 and
treat what religion calls temptations as " oppor-
tunities/' as " natural openings " to indulgence
in what religion condemns ; 2 while men who
profess to respect her authority have to be
aroused as out of a heavy slumber, and exhorted
and entreated to take cognizance of what makes
for their peace while yet there is time, to open

1 " Lucrece," 876 ff.

? Mozley, "Sermons Parochial and Occasional," p. 17.

The Law of Faith

the door while the Lord still stands and knocks.
It is for want of the habit of waiting for Him,
and looking out for intimations of His presence,
that so many opportunities pass by and are
reckoned M$pereMnt t et ^mputant^tr. A crisis
in one's interior history conies on with but little
warning : we ought to have been watching for
it, preparing to use it ; but we were taking our
ease, under "the oak," or beside "the fire,"
anywhere but at our post of observation. If
Pilate had been faithful to such light as he had,
he would not have been so utterly unready, on
that awful Friday morning, to meet the decisive
momejit of his career. We are contentedly
absorbed in the trivial and the commonplace ;
we do not like to be disturbed ; all at once the
trial is upon us ; we have immediately to choose
our course, and we are not sufficiently awakened
in spirit to discern what is involved in the
alternative. We "do not see that it very much
matters " ; if a misgiving stirs within us, we
stifle it as overstrained and morbid. It may be
a question of yielding or not yielding .to some
pleasant social influence, which would draw us
persuasively into dangerous ground ; of drifting
into, or turning away from, a stream of circum-
stances which would bear us on to a moral
Niagara; or we get the chance of helping a
brother's soul, of saying a word in season to
some one younger than ourselves, and we are
shy and awkward about attempting it, and the
moment hurries by, and the word is not said,
and the young soul does not get the help which
ought to have been conveyed through our

Responsibility for Opportunities 149

instrumentality, and something goes down on
that subject in the books which will one day be
opened. This was a visitation fraught with
gracious possibilities, and we did not respond
to it ; others probably may come, for God is
unspeakably patient and " rich in mercy," but
that special one, most likely, never again. And
we can never reckon on a number of future
opportunities ; we know not whether we have
not exhausted the series provided for us; and
at any rate they will come to an end some day,
for they are points in our probation, and proba-
tion as such is finite. When we find out, too
late, that we have "missed our accepted hour,"
it. will be vain to plead, " I did not think about
it;" we shall be dumb when in turn we are
asked, " And why did you not think ? " Indeed
we shall have to think some time, and it will
be a dismal thought on a death-bed that we
have been deaf to so many calls, and have
wilfully lost so many opportunities. But still
we have one here before us, in the solemn
services of this week ; let us at least secure iti
if we have failed to "know" so many of its
predecessors, let us " put our face in the dust,"
and say to Him that wept for His own nation's
indifference to its own "peace," that we are
heartily sorry and ashamed of our repeated
neglects, that we can but appeal once again to
His immense love for the power of understand-
ing the warnings which He gives us, and of
rising up in good earnest to the obligations
which they involve.

XVI
Christ not Received

St. John v. 40 : " Ye will not come to Me, that
ye might have life."

THE pity of it! the pity, and the shame of
it, that words so full of a more than human
pathos should have been wrung from the lips of
this world's Redeemer, by the sheer impene-
trable hardness of souls which neither under-
stood their need of His help, nor the supreme
momentousness of their one opportunity ! "Ye
will not come to Me, that ye might have life ; "
or rather, " You have no wish to come to Me ; "
or again, " You do not choose to come to Me : "
even as He said, a year later, in the parable of
the pounds, " They sent envoys after Him,"
saying, " We do not choose that this man shall
be king over us." It is the voice of deliberate,
defiant resistance, expressing itself in absolute
terms, as if it had a sovereign right to refuse
and gainsay : "This is our answer to the claim
which He makes ; it suffices that such is our

will."

And St. John, speaking of the Jewish people

150

Christ not Received 151

as a whole, and summarizing their treatment of
" the true Light which lighteneth every man,"
but which offered itself, in the Person of the
Incarnate, first to the race in which He had
humanly been born, says, with that reserve and
simplicity that condenses, and just indicates,
intense feeling, "He came to His own land,"
or " to His own places, and His own people
received Him not." 1 And why not?

True, the answer to this question is partly
given beforehand in the records of Jewish
murmuring, provocation, persistent contumacy,
repeated 'falling back. Over and over again,
those who boasted of being " Israel," who hated
the children of Edom, and professed to abhor
the profaneness of Esau, did themselves despise
their sacred birthright; they were "rebellious
from the day that their great lawgiver knew
them ; " 2 they could not appreciate their own
high privileges : when God offered them of His
best, they had no taste for it : they preferred a
Saul, himself a representative of their carnal
faithlessness, to the King divine and invisible.
They drew from His servants, who could speak
in His name, the pathetic remonstrances which
issued from such a depth of love : " Oh, do not
this abominable thing that I hate ; " a " how shall
I give thee up, Ephraim ? " 4 " why will ye die,
O house of Israel?" 5

It was consistent, then, we may say, that the

1 St. John i. ii. 2 Deut. ix. 24.

3 Jer. xliv. 4. 4 Hos. xi. 8.

5 Ezek. xviii. 31,

152 The Law of Faith

Jews in our Lord's time should practically
"bear witness that they approved of the acts
of their fathers ; " 1 that they should reject Him
whom the Father "sent to bless them"; 2 that
they should, in St. Paul's stern phrase, " thrust
away the word of God from them, and judge
themselves unworthy of eternal life." 3

But, as we all know, there were special causes
to account for this tremendous act of spiritual
suicide. It is an old story. Independently of
that blank and sheer apostasy from the treasured
hope of the fathers, which led their chief priests
to say, "We have no king but Caesar," 4 the
people, as a whole, were looking, as we say, for
a purely temporal Christ, and were utterly dis-
gusted with One who in all points diverged
from that standard. "He our Messiah? He
the king who should reign and prosper, and
break in pieces the heathen, and exalt the horn
of the people of God ? Not He, indeed this
son of the carpenter, this Galilean, this leader
of fishermen yes, and this friend of publicans
and sinners, who violates the Sabbath, who
excuses His followers from fasting, who lets
mdral outcasts kiss His feet ! The rulers and
the Pharisees have seen through Him, and
pronounced Him an impostor, one who is
possessed by, or who is in league with, evil
spirits. He will not answer our challenge, or
stand the test, when we ask Him to show us a
sign from Heaven : how indeed could He obtain

1 St. Luke xi. 48. 2 Acts iii. 26.

3 Acts xiii. 46. 4 St. John xix. 1 5.

Christ not Received 153

such a guarantee of His mission from above,
when He has the blasphemous insolence to talk
of forgiving sins, and to call Himself God's
own Son ? "

Perhaps, when we feel piously indignant at
their stupid and criminal perverseness, we do
not allow enough for the shock which He had
given to their ideals. Natures like theirs,
intensely set on a. great political object, hunger-
ing and thirsting, not for righteousness, but for
national independence, looking this way and
that for some escape from the bondage to the
Gentile, would catch at the news of a move-
ment whose watchword was " the kingdom
of God." They would cry out in fierce joy,
"At last, then, at last, the hour is come, and
the man the man will be a sacred counterpart,
and more than a counterpart, of the heathen
Alexanders and Caesars : he will give us our
day of vengeance, will set up the throne of
David to receive tlie homage of humbled
Rome. Let us rally round his banner."

Some time passes, and more is heard of the
Son of Mary : "He does not seem, after all, to
answer our expectations ; in place of a battle-
.cry, he gives mere sermons ; he will not, he
says, interfere in secular questions ; he will not
even be an arbiter in a dispute about an
inheritance. He hides himself when eager
crowds seem ready to make him a King; he
certainly will not do; he cannot possibly be
the Christ ; we have wasted our hopes on him."

And then, disappointment turning savage,

154 The Law of Faith

they lend themselves to the deadly plot of their
Sadducean authorities, and terrorize even Pilate
by " requesting with loud voices" that the "agi-
tator " and the " misleader " may be crucified.

So St. Peter, in his great Pentecostal speech,
frankly laid the responsibility for Christ's death
on the men of Israel, as having used the
agency of " lawless " or Gentile " hands,"
although in a later address he admits "ignor-
ance" as to some extent an excuse for his
"brethren " and their rulers. Israel, as a
whole, did really reject Christ, did really kill
the Author of life ; His blood was really on
"all the people."

It is obvious to remark that the popular
conception of the Christ had become debased :
the political aspect, so to say, had absorbed
the moral and spiritual. 1 The Jewish readers
of Scripture had fastened on descriptions which
suited them, and passed over with a one-
sidedness which should not too much surprise
tts other language, which would have kept

1 Liddon, "Bampton Lectures," p. 94; De Pressense,
"Je'sus-Christ,"p. 101 ff.; Milman, "Hist, of Christianity,"
i. 81. So Row, "The Jesus of the Evangelists," p. 180 :
"The conceptions of the Messiah gradually grew more
temporal, carnal, and exclusive, until they terminated in a
Bar-Chochobas." "It has been remarked that even the
Apostles came to the Passover feast with swords under
their cloaks:" Preb. Harry Jones, "The Son of Man,"
p. 7. So in "Good Words" for 1890, p. 358: "Christ
gave men truth when they wanted temporal glory. They
wanted to be avenged on their enemies, and He gave them
scope for repentance. They sought a man after their own
heart, and He gave them GOD."

Christ not Received 155

the balance straight, and secured completeness
of view, but for which they had no liking.

There were such passages in the Psalms and
in the Prophets : as it has been well said, 1 the
chief point in the Psalmist's idea of a Divine
Kingdom is its " moral purpose," its " appeal to
wills, affections, consciences." The Prophetical
pictures had vividly set forth its essential quality
of righteousness, love, and purity ; the actual
sufferings of prophets had illustrated the deepest
and fullest import of that "bearing of griefs,"
that "wounding" for other "transgressions," that
"offering up of a righteous soul for sin," which
was to be the condition of future " exaltation "
and kingship for the perfect Servant of the
Most High ; by shutting their eyes to this,
and acting in self-produced blindness, they
made, we say, a flagrant and tragical mistake.

But

"our loathing were but lost
On dead men's crimes, and Jews'" perversities. 2

Are we so sure that, had we been in their place,
we should not have been partakers in their sin ?
What led them so far astray was no mere
peculiarity of their blood : it was something of
which (to apply a phrase of John Keble's)
" we ought to know a good deal ; " it can
work, under new forms, in the souls of modern
Englishmen, just as truly as in that infatuated

1 Dean Church, " Advent Sermons," p. 39 ff.

2 See " Christian Year," Seventeenth Sunday after Trinity.

156 The Law of Faith

multitude which surged and howled, as at

this season, before Pilate's palace-gate. For

even now, some of us who have had what the

Jews could not have, a training under Christian

influences, "do not choose to come to" Christ

as a personal Master, as one who can give

them spiritual life in its fulness. An eminent

theologian and practical teacher, who did not

belong to the English Church, but whose death

inflicted a grave loss on English Christianity,

repeatedly uses in one of his books a phrase

full of awful significance : " until Christ's

authority," he says, "is obeyed in the affairs

of earth, we are in active revolt against Him;

if a man does not believe in the Sermon on the

Mount, as containing the laws which must

govern his own life, he is in revolt against

Christ :" and "wherever there is revolt against

Christ, there is confusion, misery, and shame." 1

And this spirit of "revolt" may, in part, be

fostered by impatience of authority as such :

personal government, in things civil, is of the

past; the word "master" is out of keeping

with business relations, and even parents 2 too

often resign their household rule in the hope

of at least retaining a senior's influence.

Loyalty to an unseen Lord is, so far, harder

in an atmosphere charged with democratic

1 Dale, "Laws of Christ for Common Life," pp. 114,
215, 272.

2 "We have attempted to build up our homes without
the pillar of discipline, and the attempt is a complete
failure." " Good Words" for 1892, p. 287.

Christ not Received 157

ideas ; but, as the same writer has added, 1 this
unwillingness to obey recoils not merely from
the special claims of Christ ; it is God Him-
self whose rights are practically ignored : the
principle of self-will asserts itself against that
infinite sovereignty, to "serve" which, if men
would but know it, is their truest dignity and
" freedom."

And again, as with the Jews an earthly set
of aims and hopes intruded into the religious
area, and vulgarized their whole idea of the
coming Prince, so too, in our day, when, as
Mr. Gladstone has said, 2 "it is the great world-
power, within us and around us, which gives
to scepticism the chief part of its breadth
and its impetus," men are often tempted to
secularize the Gospel of the grace of God,
to minimize its mysterious or supernatural
elements, to strip away what they call its
dogmatic and sacramental "accretions," to sub-
stitute philanthropic effort in the interest of
"the toilers," excellent in its way, for dis-
tinctly religious work, to reduce the Church's
office to "an expression of the upward-looking
aspect of national life," to imagine that Christ
will be more easily accepted if exhibited as
a pattern of human sympathy, or even as a
patron of popular aspirations, and so to reverse
the predicted process by turning the kingdom
of God into a kingdom of this world.

But is this all? Would that it were all!

1 Dale, " Laws of Christ," etc., p. 282.

2 " Impregnable Rock of Holy Scripture," p. 288.

158 The Law of Faith

We may be orthodox Christians, regular church-
goers, communicants, observers of holy sea-
sons ; and yet, some wilfulness as to a favourite
sin, some worldliness obscuring our perception
of things invisible, may alienate us effectually
from Christ. We may acquire a fatal dexterity
in dispensing ourselves from one or other of
His laws, and thence go on to cherish a kind
of resentment against it, as too austere and
exacting, until we come very near the dire
extremity of "contempt for His word and
commandment." Or a secular leaven, with its
"vicious agitation," may corrupt our inner
sphere of aim and motive, until we accept un-
christian standards of action as alone practic-
able for us, dismiss the Gospel-ethics into the
region of poetic ideals, look down on piety
with a superciliousness soon hardening into
aversion, and plan out our lives as if God were
well out of the way. Do we say, God forbid ?
May He, indeed, forbid it! But let us make
it possible for Him to do so ; and with that
end in view, let us cultivate a tenderness of
conscience which may quicken our dread of
sin, and such a sense of our own need as
may carry us more quickly to the Incarnate
Source of grace. Let us be more than ever
on our guard against compromises between
religion and worldliness, which would make
us, in St. James's phrase, " men of two souls,"
double-minded, and therefore in our Lord's
eyes hypocrites. And let us turn with fresh
earnestness to the study of His life in the

Christ not Received 159

Gospels ; that by filling our minds with the
vision of its beauty, we may come to know
Him as the Lifegiver, and cling to Him as
Saviour, Lord, and God. Let us be well
assured that He does really desire us to come
to Him ; and let us beg Him to accept and
confirm the resolution which the thought of
His Cross may fitly prompt "We will have
this Jesus, God and Man, to reign over us,
through life and in eternity."

XVII
Christ's Last Discourse

St. John xvi. 33 : " These things I have spoken
unto you, that in Me ye might have peace. In
the world ye shall have tribulation : but be of good
cheer, I have overcome the world."

WHAT an evening was this in the spiritual
history of the world ! Every year, as its shadow
falls again over us, our coldness is rebuked by
its inexpressible pathos, our shallowness by its
immense significance for all who confess that
Jesus Christ is Lord. And we are of their
number. We confess Him, we trust Him, we
adore Him ; and yet, in the routine of a com-
fortable life, it costs us a real effort to assimilate
the full teaching of Maundy Thursday.

The night of the great Eucharistic Institution
the night of the New Commandment, of the
last Discourse, of the Intercessory Prayer, the
night of the mysterious Agony, the night of the
beginning of the Passion, is surely a night to
be much observed unto the Lord. Well, let us
try now to observe it : and what shall we think
of by way of concentrating our ideas ?

160

Christ's Last Discourse 161

Let us look at the great Discourse itself : it
may, perhaps, be opportune to gather up a few
of the main lessons contained in these chapters,
the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth chapters
of what was once called the "spiritual Gospel,"
which at this point, it has been well said,
admits us into the very " Holy of Holies " of
Christianity.

First, then, we may observe how true is the
remark which has been made, that this long
address of our Sovereign Teacher is "thickly
set with mysteries, as if with emeralds." The
hearers are lifted up into an atmosphere of
peace, but of peace which brings deep awe.

Amid a scene which to Jewish eyes, accus-
tomed to the Paschal observances, would seem
externally quite familiar, while the Apostles are
reclining beside a table on the couches with
which the "large upper room "had been duly
" furnished," the voice which spake as never
man spake begins to pour out the abundance
of a heart that, having loved its own that were
in the world, could not but long for their love,
could not but feel, if we may say so, some
relief that the solitary traitor had gone out into
the night, and that only those remained who,
if still lacking in spiritual intelligence, if soon
to give sad evidence of weakness, were yet in
intention loyal.

"When he was gone out, Jesus said"
what ? Something not simple and obvious, but
rather especially profound. He speaks of a
"glory" as attaching to Himself, the Son of

162 The Law of Faith

man, and in Him to God His Father. His
relation to the Father, which had never for a
moment ceased to exist under the veil of His
humanity, is now repeatedly and significantly
emphasized. " If ye had known Me, ye would
have known My Father also : from henceforth
ye know Him, and have seen Him. I am in the
Father, and the Father in Me. We the Father
and I will come unto him that keepeth My
word, and make our abode with Him. The
Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the
Father will send in My name, the Spirit of
truth which proceedeth from the Father, will
testify of Me. I came forth from the Father,
and am come into the world ; again, I leave the
world and go to the Father."

Sometimes, we know, the hearers interrupted
Him, as if He were speaking of things quite
above their reach, as if every utterance raised
some new difficulty. " Show us the Father ;
we know not whither Thou goest ; how is it
that Thou wilt manifest Thyself unto us, and
not unto the world?" A door, so to speak,
had been opened into that heaven which, in
truth, "lay all about" them : they were blinded
by the light which streamed in upon them,
blinded, that is, at first. By degrees they began
to see more clearly; like him who "saw men
as trees walking," they became accustomed
to the new and resplendent atmosphere : at the
end of His discourse they could say, " Lo, now
speakest Thou plainly, and we believe that
Thou earnest forth from God."

Christ's Last Discourse 163

But the point for us to consider and profit by
is, that when our Lord would give the deepest
moral instruction, the most effective spiritual
comfort, His words were inevitably theological :
He could not but speak of things pre-eminently
heavenly ; He could not but link His teaching
on their future work, and on the spirit in which
they were to meet its requirements, with tran-
scendent revelations as to the interior life, the
ineffable "coinherent" love and fellowship of the
Father, the Son, and the Spirit, the Holy and
undivided Trinity. In this, as in other instances,
He illustrates the moral and spiritual fruitfulness
of that creed which is imbedded in His Gospel,
and which is the expression of Himself as the
Truth.

But again, the discourse is one long utter-
ance, pathetic in its fervour and its energy, of
our Redeemer's intense love, yearning over
the souls which He has drawn to Himself.
Presently He will entreat the Father not indeed
to take them out of the world, but to keep them,
while within it, from being "of" it, from falling
under the power of the evil one. He is going
away from them : He is to be with them,
visibly, but a little while longer : whither He
goes, they cannot come as yet. And certainly
they will feel the wrench of such a parting:
that cannot be helped. Moreover, besides
their inevitable sorrow, they will have positive
"tribulation in the world," that is to say,
amid a mass of minds which the Holy Spirit
will convict of sin, because they believe not on

164 The Law of Faith

the rightful Lord of all men. "The world,"
in this sense, will hate them : no wonder, He
says, "it has hated Me before it hated you,
and I chose you" as to be taken out of the
range of its influence. Men will actually
persuade themselves that to kill the servants of
Jesus is to offer acceptable service to God.
This is the prospect before them : and He who
could be touched with the feeling of all human
infirmities is too true a comforter to understate
facts ; the very plainness of His warnings
brings out the perfection of His sympathy.
He would fain enclose them within a fortress of
strong consolation, built up out of the assurance
that His own love and care for them cannot
fail. Will they not believe in Him, as they
believe in God? Can they not take His word
for it, that it is expedient for them that He
should go away? He goes to prepare a place
for them : that very purpose of His implies
that He will come again and receive them unto
Himself, that where He is, they may be also.
But even before that final and perfect reunion
they will have in Him such peace as the world
can neither give nor take away ; yes, and this
peace will expand into true joy, a joy akin to
His own, because it is the joy of unselfish love.
And further yet, He promises to send them
another " Paraclete." What does this word
imply? "Comforter" is a rendering endeared
to many sacred recollections, and it expresses
one side of the Paraclete's office ; but if we
wish to translate correctly, we must employ

Christ's Last Discourse 165

such a term as Advocate, Supporter, or Patron.
The word is not active in form, but passive ; it
means one who is called in, called to a man's
side, in order to espouse and plead his cause, to
befriend and aid him. In the first Epistle of
St. John it is rendered literally : "We have an
Advocate with the Father ; " but the general
idea of the term, as used of the Holy Spirit, will
cover the whole ground of our Lord's previous
relation to His disciples ; and that was a relation
of support, always accessible and available ;
He had been, in a word, a perfect and all-
sufficing Patron. Now He was going away, and
the Holy Spirit would be given them as their
Patron. But here a caution may be necessary ;
as it has been tersely said, "the Holy Ghost
comes, that Christ may come in His coming, . .
He does not take the place of Christ in the
soul, but secures that place to Christ." 1 In
other words, the Spirit's presence is not given
us to make up for an absent Christ ; it is
rather to secure to the faithful an effective
spiritual presence of the Christ who, though
invisible, will be not less, but even more truly
with them; with whom they will have closer
and more endearing intercourse, by faith, than
sight or touch, in this world, could carry on.
Still more particularly, the Holy Spirit's office
in this respect is to unite us to our Lord's
life-giving humanity. 2 From the first He had
been in close relation to that humanity; through

1 Newman, " Sermons," vi. 126.

2 VVilberforce on "The Incarnation," p. 193 ff.

166 The Law of Faith

His "overshadowing" it had come into exist-
ence, and during the earthly ministry of the
Virgin-born Christ the Spirit was given to
Him, as man, "not by measure," but in pleni-
tude. It was, then, appropriate that after the
exaltation of Christ's humanity the Holy Spirit
should preside over all our contact with it as
members of His body spiritual. This agency
of the Holy Spirit, who will testify of Jesus
and convict the world of sin, will enable the
disciples of Jesus to fulfil, in their own sphere,
an illuminative ministry ; for, says our Lord,
"He will take of Mine, and show it unto you :
will teach you all things, and bring all things to
your remembrance, whatsoever I have said
unto you : He will guide you into all the
truth." It was said of old, pointedly and help-
fully, " The operations of the Holy Trinity are
inseparable ; " and so here we see how closely
the work of the Spirit interlaces with the work
of the Son ; what a mistake it would be to
fancy that the one operation followed on the
other ; how cheering and sustaining is the
conviction that we have at one and the same
time a complete interest in both, have our
access unto the Father through Christ, in one
Spirit, as the "vital element" of that access, 1
and are "builded together for a habitation of
God in the Lord " and also " in the Spirit."

And yet once more. Our Saviour's love for
us is developed and illustrated by the beautiful
allegory of the true Vine, the Vine, that is, in
1 Bp. Ellicott on Eph. ii. 18.

Christ's Last Discourse 167

which alone is fully realized the idea belonging
to that image. St. John, as we all know, does
not tell us of the institution of Sacraments ; but
the ideas which underlie them are precisely
those which give ^significance to the discourses
in two of his chapters, and which assuredly
may be " read between the lines " of the fifteenth.
"I am the Vine," said Jesus, "ye are the
branches." They must have thought, as they
listened, of the Cup which He had so recently
consecrated, and given to them as establishing
the New Covenant in His Blood. What con-
ception are we to form as to His relation to
those who are called branches belonging to, and
inhering in, Himself, the Vine-stock?

Is it not exactly the same which St. Paul sets
forth under the image of members of a body,
which, as he says, is supplied with all its needs,
and knit together, by dependence on its head,
and as having nourishment supplied from the
head ? l It is the doctrine of our Lord's life-
giving Headship : as Second Adam, He is the
fountain of a new and purified spiritual life : we
are to be mysteriously incorporated into Him,
not merely to look at Him from a distance, as a
pattern for moral imitation, but to be really
attached to Him by an act of His own grace, .
and then and thenceforward to draw from His
fulness the spiritual force, the grace correspond-
ing to, or following upon grace, 2 which we
need for the health of our souls. And surely it
is in the light of His own Holy Eucharist,
1 Eph. iv. 16; Col. ii. 19. 2 St. John i, 16.

168 The Law of Faith

it is after a faithful reception of the Sacrament of
spiritual and Divine incorporation, that we best
appreciate the truth of our position as branches
in Christ the living Vine. Do we not, in return-
ing from God's house after Holy Communion,
feel more than ever how hopeless it would be to
bear fruit, spiritually, apart from Christ? Are
we not then more sensible than ever of the
responsibility laid on us by so unspeakable a
gift, that we be not branches bearing no fruit,
fit only to be cast out and to be withered ? Does
not the whole mystery of the Christian life, as
"in Christ" and "from Christ," unfold itself
when, fresh from the partaking of the "holy
bread of eterna*! life and the cup of everlasting
salvation," we pray to be "fulfilled with heavenly
benediction," or give thanks for the food which
is to preserve us as "very members incorporate
in His mystical body" ?

We are now looking forward to the chief
Communion of the whole Christian year. Let
us remember that in the discourse which we
have been thinking of, there are six repeated
promises to prayer, contained in three pairs of
successive verses. 1 They are all to the same
effect, that whatsoever we ask of the Father
in the Son's name, He will give it, yes, the
Son Himself will do it for us. Our duty, then,
and our happiness, is to treat these promises as
absolutely trustworthy, and, relying on the word
that cannot fail, to ask in view of that highest
privilege, the good use of which alone can give
1 St. John xiv. 13, 14 ; xv. 7, n ; xvi. 23, 24.

Christ's Last Discourse 169

us a happy Easter. But what shall we ask?
Let us pray for a strong and vivid sense of
the supernatural realities of the Gospel ; for that
"faith in the Son of God," crucified and risen,
which "overcomes the world"; for power to
know something more of that " love of Christ
which passeth human knowledge," and for the
will to make a better return to it, by a thorough
and practical consecration of our own lives ;
and, lastly, for the grace which can sustain us in
vital union with Him our life-giving Head, so
that "our sinful bodies may be made clean by
His body, and our souls washed through His
most precious blood, and that we may evermore
dwell in Him, and He in us." 1

1 On the doctrine of Christ's Headship (as the Second
Adam) see Hooker, v. 56. 6-9; Wilberforce on "The
Incarnation," p. 199 ff. ; Dollinger, "First Age of the
Church," E. T. pp. 184, 188, 236. In Eph. iv. 15, 16, Col.
ii. 19, the "joints," or "junctures," and "ligaments" for
"supply" of nourishment, and for "compacting" of the
body (the Church), are not " the different members of the
body in their relation one to another" (Lightfoot on Col.
ii. 19), but the divinely provided "means" of that grace
which is life, and that fellowship which is unity.

XVIII
The Efficacy of Christ's Death

Romans v. 8 (R.V.) : " God commendeth His
own love toward us, in that, while we were yet
sinners, Christ died for us."

ST. PAUL is the most sympathetic, the most
self-adapting, of Christian teachers. He does
indeed "become all things to all men, that he
may by all means save some." He is ever
solicitous to carry his hearers or readers along
with him ; he builds on what they already know,
he appeals to whatever is true in their existing
beliefs ; if those beliefs are pagan, they still
include some germs of truth, and on these the
Apostle puts his finger. The simple folk at
Lystra are addressed as at least capable of being
thankful for rain and fruitful seasons ; a wistful
inscription on a Greek altar, a lofty half-line of
a Greek poet, are used to lead the cultured
Athenians to a more spiritual conception of "the
God who made the world." So, when he is deal-
ing with Christians, he can take up " trustworthy
sayings" current among them, can insert into
his own argument a fragment of a Christian

170

The Efficacy of Christ's Death 171

\ ' "

hymn, or of a Christian confession of faith, in
which the sacred facts which constitute what he
calls his "gospel" are tersely summarized. And
this is probably the case with some brief, pointed,
emphatic assertions which again and again in
his letters attribute a special efficacy to one
event, which then evidently, as now confessedly,
was the central point in the thought of Christians.
That event is the death of J esus Christ. ' ' Christ
died for us," says the Apostle : "our Lord Jesus
Christ who died for us ;" " the brother for whom
Christ died ; " " One died for all ; " "the Son of
God who gave Himself up for me." Thus far,
what His death achieved for us is not specified;
but one seems to see clearly that it was some-
thing great, and that no other death would have
been thus beneficial. But elsewhere St. Paul
goes a step further : " Christ died for our sins,"
"gave Himself for our sins," "was delivered
up for our offences." A similar saying appears
in St. Peter's first Epistle " Christ suffered for
us ; " " Christ suffered for sins once."

Now we know how much a very few words
may contain, what amplitude of meaning can
be found in two or three syllables by those who
understand the speaker or writer. It has been
said that as Scripture has been characterized by
" simplicity and depth," so, " as if from a feeling
that no words can be worthy of" the divine
things of which it treats, it often uses the
plainest language available : " the deeper the
thought, the plainer the word." l God is exalted

1 Newman, " Discussions and Arguments," p. 174.

M

172 The Law of Faith

above all praise, and also above all definition:
" Sums of Theology" will fall short when they
speak of Him ; and His children even find a
pleasure in the contrast between the simplicity
of the terras which they use, and the majesty of
the ideas which all terms can but just indicate.
We have got an idea, and we purposely put it
into a homely dress : we li'ke to think how vast
and august it is.; in its presence, we feel, all
words are practically alike. Children repeat
what we call the Apostles' Creed ; they do not
know what masses of doctrine are concentrated
in the one monosyllable "God,"^ what tremen-
dous facts are represented by that other mono-
syllable " Sins " ; and we know how far those
word's spread out beyond the reach of our own
comprehension. 1 So we can see how the first
Christians, when they said to each other, "Christ
died for us," or "for our sins," would realize the
bond of a common belief, which those formulas,
familiar to them as "household words," would
indicate and call into activity. And what was
that belief?

The New Testament, as a whole, is pervaded
by a certain idea "the infinite worth," to borrow
a phrase from Hooker, 2 of the Passion of the
Son of God in the human nature which for us
He had assumed. That idea was deep-set in the
mind of the Apostolic Church, although as yet
questions about its full significance had not
arisen: it was, however, set forth in the New

1 See "Christian Year," Catechism.

2 "Eccl. Pol," v. 52, 3.

The Efficacy of Christ's Death 173

Testament under distinct yet closely cohering
aspects, which thus illustrate that variety in
unity which pertains to " the multiform wisdom

Archbishop Trench, like others, has pointed
out "three grand circles of images, by aid of
which Scripture" enables us to "approach the
central truth from different quarters." 1 They
are Reconciliation, or peacemaking ; Propitia-
tion by sacrifice; Redemption, or deliverance
by a ransom.

The first of these gives us the old English
sense of "atonement," as Shakespeare frequently
uses it and the verb " atone " for setting at one
again parties previously opposed to each other. 2
St. Paul, it is true, speaks of men as "having
been reconciled to God through the death of
His Son," or urges them to accept such recon-
ciliation as having been effected "in Christ" by
God ; he does not expressly invert the order of
these terms, as if God had also to be reconciled
to man ; but in the context he implies that God
had had something against us, and that now, if
we are in Christ, He does not "reckon up to us
our trespasses," inasmuch as "He made One
who knew not sin to be sin on our behalf." 3
Secondly, St. John twice calls our Lord Himself

1 "On New Testament Synonyms," ii. 120.

2 Cf. "King Richard III.,"i. 3; "King Richard II.," i. i;
" Cymbeline," i. 5. Clarendon calls the pacification with
the Scots " this wonderful atonement." " Hist. Reb.," vol.
i. p. 194, ed. 1819. See Acts vii. 26.

8 Cf. 2 Cor. v. 18-21.

174 The Law of Faith

a "propitiation for sins," and St. Paul applies
to Him a term of similar significance, usually
translated in the same manner. 1 We are told
that He " gave Himself for us as a sacrifice ; "
that He " offered up Himself for all," so that
He was both" High Priest" and Victim; that
He "offered Himself, as without blemish, to
God ; " that He " offered one sacrifice for sins
as perpetually available " 2 by "the offering of
His body once for all ; " that He was " once
offered to bear the sins of many ;" that He
"bore our sins in His body on the tree ; " and
the latter phrase is akin to the expression
incorporated into our most solemn worship, the
" Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of
the world." And thirdly, the illustration from
ransoming is expressly adopted in Christ's own
assertion that "the Son of Man came to give
His life, a ransom in place of many ; " and
it passed on into Apostolic language, as where
St. Paul says, that "Christ Jesus gave Himself
a ransom in exchange for all ; " 3 and elsewhere
he identifies "our redemption" with "the for-

1 If IXaariipiov in Rom. iii. 28 is to be rendered "mercy-
seat " (as in LXX.), it will mean that in Christ, as a sacrifice,
is the sphere of propitiation, and this is emphasized by the
words "in His blood." See Gifford, in loc. ("Speaker's
Comm."), and Liddon "On Romans," p. 75.

2 The recurrence in Heb. x. 14 of dg TO SDJJ'EKES in con*
nexion with "one offering" favours this interpretation of
ver. 12, in spite of the consideration of rhythm, which
might join it to fKaQurfv.

3 The dvrl in St. Matt. xx. 28 is represented by a
in i Tim. ii. 6.

The Efficacy of Christ's Death 175

giveness of our sins ; " and in the same sense
the writer to the Hebrews speaks of His
"having obtained (for us) eternal redemption,"
and of His death as " having taken place for the
redemption of transgressions." This image
takes another form in that of purchase, which
is used in St. Paul's address at Miletus, and in
one of the Apocalyptic hymns, in which the
living creatures and the elders adore the Lamb
"as having been slain." And each one of the
three illustrations is connected with the efficacy
of Christ's blood. For instance, it is " through
the blood of His Cross that all things have
been reconciled to the Father, and that peace
has been made." Sacrificial language is used
by Christ Himself in significant connexion
with the institution of the Holy Eucharist :
" This is My body which is given for you, My
blood which is shed for many unto remission of
sins." It is in this relation that we read of His
blood as " cleansing or washing from sin," or as
the means of our " justification " or acquittal,
which is further explained by what immediately
follows, " we shall be saved from the wrath (of
God) through Him." 1 So again, redemption or
purchase is, as we have seen, repeatedly de-
scribed as effected by means of His blood. And
now, what are we to say of this manifold
language of Scripture ?

1 In Rom. v. 9, justification is a past event, salvation a
future ; but the two are closely related. In the next verse
the " life " of Christ, in which we hope to be " saved," is
His glorified mediatorial life in heaven.

176 The Law of Faith

First of all, let us see what we must not say
of it ; let us avoid using it as it was not meant
to be used. It is sad to think of the mistakes
which good and learned men have made by
pressing one or other of these illustrations
beyond all reasonable limit, as if any notions
attached to its ordinary use were equally
applicable to it when brought, so to speak,
into the service of the Christian sanctuary, and
employed to light up some one aspect of a vast
mysterious truth into which, we may believe,
"angels desire to look" with fuller and yet
fuller intelligence. For instance, certain Fathers
of the Church, 1 instead of remembering that in
the Old Testament God is said to " redeem "
His people when He " delivers " them by some
great display of power, 2 took hold of the idea
of redemption with a crude literalism that
produced abhorrent results : they imagined
that Christ's blood was an equivalent paid
over to the devil, in order to cancel his
claim of dominion over mankind. In later
times, men have. spoken as if they thought that
the Father had to be persuaded, by the Son
to lay aside a personal resentment against
sinners, in consideration of the Son's voluntary
sufferings and death; as if the Father's will
pointed simply to justice, and the Son's simply
to mercy, a notion contradictory to the doc-
trine of "one substance"; as if St. Paul had

1 Gregory Nazianzen, however, calls this notion "out-
rageous." Orat. xlv. 22.

2 E.g. Ps. xxv. 22 ; Isa. Ixiii. 9 ; Mic. vi. 4.

The Efficacy of Christ's Death 177

not said in the text, that in Christ's death God
was "recommending " to us His own love as a
thing to be welcomed and valued ; as if St.
John had not repeatedly encouraged us to
find the supreme proof of that love for us, or
for the world, in the fact that God " gave " or
"sent" His only-begotten Son. 1 Again, the
Scriptural insistence on Christ's blood has been
misused by neglecting to bring forward the
moral essence of His self-oblation, as the act
of a will in perfect union with the will of the
Godhead. 2 Or language borrowed from legal
proceedings or from commercial transactions
has been unreservedly taken over into the
theology of the Cross. Or the sense of justice
has been shocked by language which seemed
to represent the Crucified as an innocent man
arbitrarily substituted for all his guilty fellows. 3
Or lastly, the effect of the Passion in " cleans-
ing us from the guilt of sin " has been too much
separated from its dependent effect of cleansing
us from the " power " ; as if we merely needed
to be let off penalties, instead of needing also
to "be redeemed from all iniquity," and to have
our consciences "purged from dead works to
serve the living God."

It "goes without saying" that these per-

1 Hymns are sometimes faulty in this respect.

2 Cf. Heb. x. 5 ff., quoting Ps. xl. 6 ff.

3 The term " substitution " cannot be absolutely discarded
without impairing the idea of " vicariousness " ; but it needs
to be carefully explained so as to exclude " arbitrariness,"
and to safeguard Christ's representative office as "Second
Adam " and our incorporation into Him.

178 The Law of Faith

versions of the doctrine have been, and still
are, grave stumbling-blocks. They have given
occasion to indignant attacks on it, as morally
offensive, and injurious to the Divine character.
And, by a not unnatural recoil, men zealous
for the honour of God's justice and goodness,
and anxious to remove " difficulties " which keep
others aloof from Christ, have gone into the
opposite extreme by explaining away parts of
the Scripture teaching, and virtually "sur-
rendering truths which belong to" its "very
essence." 1 We hear, for instance, glosses put
on "the blood of Christ," as if it meant the
moral influence of His spotless life on earth ;
whereas the New Testament use of the phrase
points clearly to that great act of self-surrender
to death which consummated the whole course
of His obedience. 2 We find the term "vicari-
ous," in connexion with that death, put aside
or even rejected ; whereas if we are to interpret
Scripture without forcing or twisting it, we
must own that it regards Christ as having, in
some true sense, stood in our place, and done
on our behalf what we could not have done
for ourselves. Because it is necessary to dis-
claim any real separation of those Divine
"attributes," as for convenience we call them,

1 Bishop Ellicott, "Salutary Doctrine," p. 75.

2 For the purpose of atonement, the death must not, so
to speak, be merged in the life ; there is a sense in which
it stands by itself. See Liddon's "Life of Pusey," i. 407, for
an interesting conversation between Newman and W. J.
Irons, at Christ Church, in 1837 ; and Liddon's " Passiontide
Sermons," p. 40.

The Efficacy of Christ's Death 179

which, in fact, do but constitute One Perfection,
we are told that to speak of "the claims of
justice and mercy " as reconciled in the Passion
suggests a wholly incorrect idea. Because
Apostolic writers, addressing Jewish Christians,
naturally refer to the sacrifices of the Old Cove-
nant as finding their antitype in the death of
Jesus, these references are treated as mere
accommodations to a temporary condition of
thought, as not embodying any correspondent
truth to be held fast by the Church throughout
the ages. And a theory has become popular
which reduces the significance of Christ's death
to its power of impressive appeal ; as if, by so
dying, He was pleading not so much with
God on behalf of men as with men on behalf
of God ; so that, in very shame for their own
past, and in thankful response to His vast
self-devotion, they might be "moved to atone
for themselves by returning to that Father,
who through Him asked them, " Why will ye
die ? " On this hypothesis, it is, to say the
least, very difficult to account for or to justify
the language of Scripture writers when the
death of Christ is their theme ; its moral per-
suasiveness is occasionally recognized, 1 but they
are far enough from treating this effect of it
as primary, that place is filled by another idea.
Again, the theory cannot but destroy the
uniqueness of Christ's atoning work; for if
He was merely giving up His life in order to
touch hearts by a miracle of sympathy, He
1 2 Cor. v. 14, 20.

180 The Law of Faith

was but doing perfectly what other holy men,
inspired with the Divine pity for wandering
souls, might "dare" to do more or less im-
perfectly ; and strict consistency of thought
might come to see in Him no more than the
noblest of martyrs. Once more, those who
feel unable to ascribe what has been called an
"objective effect" to Christ's death are wont
to lay stress on the mysteriousness of the
Atonement ; but on this "impressionist" theory
there is no mystery about it, beyond what any
view of an operation on human wills might
fairly be said to involve.

In short, the phrases of Scripture on this
great subject are not thrown about at random ;
they are the covering of true ideas, which may
perhaps be best apprehended in connexion with
the illustrations above referred to. For there
is something on~ man's part he being what
he is which is a standing offence against the
eternal moral law ; and that something is sin.
And God cannot tolerate sin as such ; for this
law is not a mere invention of His will, it is
the expression of His character. His love for
man, therefore, is hindered in its outflow while
this offence exists, and simple repentance cannot
remove the obstacle. What can remove it?
Apparently, some Divine act which shall at
the same time vindicate the law. 1 Then take
the idea which underlies "propitiation"; clear
away from that term all gross, heathenish, or
demoralizing associations, and you leave the
1 Cf. Dale "On the Atonement," p. 391.

The Efficacy of Christ's Death 181

effect of an intervention on the part of One
who, having become truly yet sinlessly man, is
still immutably and effectively God therefore
competent, as no mere saint could be competent,
to represent the eternal righteousness, when
in the manhood which He has assumed, He
endures death as sin's original penalty, and
before dying, submits, for some awful moments,
to a sense of being "forsaken," as One on
whom the sins of the world were " laid." And
then the term "redemption" brings home to our
minds the moral glory of this true "sacrifice."
Think, it says, what a rescue has been effected
for you and. at what a cost !

It would be rash indeed, it would be worse,
to pretend that any such suggestions can
fully elucidate the atoning effect of the Passion.
It remains true that "the heavenly truth re-
vealed in it extends on each side of it into an
unknown world," 1 as in other mysteries of the
Gospel. We cannot say that it makes the
Divine justice, as therein exhibited, "perfectly
intelligible " : how should it ? Yet, as God
always works by some law, we may say that
the very " question, ' Why could not the effects
attributed to Christ's death have been secured
at less cost ? ' is itself a conclusive proof that
conformity to some laws deeply seated in the very
nature of things is the underlying difficulty"
in the matter. 2 And then we may, at least,
keep hold of the three points just mentioned :

1 "Tracts for the Times," No. 73, p. 12.

2 The Duke of Argyll, "Philosophy of Belief," p. 351.

182 The Law of Faith

sin, in its true character, so often under-
estimated by modern thought ; l the law of
eternal righteousness/ which, as far as we
can see, it befits the supreme Moral Ruler to
uphold ; and the Divine personality of Christ,
which could impart its own virtue to all that
He did or suffered as man, and qualify Him
at once to represent us as the Second Adam,
and to save us as God's co-essential Son. All
Christian experience bears witness to the power
of this faith in His Divinity as accounting for
the efficacy of His human death ; and a hearty
belief in it will be found richer in moral incentive
than any theory which slurs over the belief
itself, or neglects to take due account of its
consequences. The glorious hymn which con-
cludes with a recognition of the claims of "love
so amazing" has already appreciated their
immensity by confessing the Crucified One
as "God." 2

1 Gladstone, " Gleanings," viii. 114.

2 The objection, " Why could not God simply forgive sin
on repentance ? " implies that sin is merely a personal
affront to Him, instead of being a violation of His moral
law, a crude notion, and scarcely a " moral " one. On the
" mysteriousness " of sin, and therefore of forgiveness, see
Mozley, "Paroch. Serm.," p. 133.

XIX
Eternal Life

Ps. xvi. ii : "Thou wilt show me the path of
life : in Thy presence is fulness of joy : at Thy
right hand there are pleasures for evermore."

JOY is ranked by St. Paul as second among
the fruits of the Spirit. He means, of course,
what elsewhere he calls joy " in God," or " in the
Lord," or "of the Holy Ghost," or "in believ-
ing " ; such joy as can be linked with " faith " or
with "supplication" ; in a word, religious joy,
the sense of being " refreshed, enlivened, stimu-
lated, invigorated" 1 by a real belief in the
Gospel, and by the felt presence of Divine love
as brought home to us in Jesus Christ. The
Apostle evidently regards this kind of joy as
a primary quality in Christian character. He
would not admit that a man could be vitally a
Christian without it. He feels it " overflowing "
within him amid all his own "affliction"; he
delights to record of the Macedonian churches
that their experience in this matter was like
his, that " their joy overflowed when affliction

1 Newman, "Serm.,"vii. 180.
183

The Law of Faith

sorely tried them." l He exhorts Christians to
"rejoice in the Lord alway:" he cannot help
reiterating the exhortation- "again I say,
rejoice." And St. John is exactly of the same
mind : he writes his first Epistle in order to
promote this holy joy ; he tells a friend that he
has " no greater joy than to hear of his children
as walking in the truth ; " and doubtless he had
always in mind what he had heard his Lord
say on the eve of the Passion : " Your heart
shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from
you."

In short, the New Testament, by thus con-
secrating religious joy, has lifted it to a high
place both as a privilege and as a duty. And
the early Christians took this teaching to their
hearts. It has been well said, that one marked
characteristic of their life, as we see it sketched
or fully portrayed in primitive Church records,
"is the intense joy, hope, and enthusiasm by
which it is animated." Amid a "disappointed
world, in which suicide had come to be looked
upon as a natural and reasonable resource, the
humblest Christians and the most distinguished
alike display all the energy of hope, of love,
and of the complete satisfaction of their
hearts. , , . They have found true joys ; their
hearts are fixed on them." 2 Even persecution
itself, in all or any of its manifold forms, is
unable to " take away their joy : " in a very true
sense its effect is to enhance it, to make them

1 2 Cor. vii. 4; viii. 2.

2 Wace, " Bampton Lectures," p. 149.

Eternal Life 185

thank God on hearing the sentence of death,
as we might thank Him for some extraordinary
piece of happiness, such as the unexpected
restoration of a loved one from an illness
which had seemed to put hope out of the
question.

Yes, we should thank Him then ; our hearts
would be "enlarged," and we should begin to
understand some passages of the Psalter which
heretofore had seemed too rapturous to be
really intelligible : their exuberance of delight
in acts of worship, in the intercourse of the
psalmist's soul with his God, had been, to
speak honestly, somewhat of a puzzle ; we could
not appreciate, still less assimilate it. But the
ancient servants of God felt this joy not only,
nor chiefly, on occasions of personal deliverance,
but habitually, because He was what He was,
because they belonged to Him. And this abid-
ing satisfaction, this gladness constituting a
settled condition of mind, was enriched, ex-
panded, and confirmed when inherited by the
first believers, to whom the joy of the Lord was
doubly and trebly a strength, when they knew
that Lord as incarnate in their Saviour.

It is certain, it needs no proof, that the joy
which radiated from the Apostles to their con-
verts, and became traditional and indefeasible
in the primitive Church, took account of, and
was fed and sustained by, the present condition
of redeemed man, as able to live even his
ordinary human life " in the faith which rested
on the Son of God, who had loved him and had

186 The Law of Faith

given Himself for him." " I am a Christian,"
each believer would say ; and we know from
one pathetic and glorious record of martyrdom,
that to repeat those words in the midst of
torture was for a poor weak female slave a
resource which "gave refreshment and even
abated the sense of pain." 1 It was enough to
fill souls with "an awful rejoicing transport"
when they realized that "the appearance of
Divine goodness in human form " had opened
a new "possibility of becoming better." 2 But
the more that Christianity say rather, that
Christ had done for human nature in this
world, the fuller was the assurance that He
would do yet more for it hereafter. We rightly
say that eternal life begins even here, in the
transformation of characters by grace ; even
here, those who cling to Christ " have " that life
while they cling to Him ; but the very splendour
and amplitude of His present gifts make it all
the more impossible that He should not keep
in store something immeasurably more excellent.
That free quotation of a prophet's saying as to
what eye had not seen nor ear heard, which St.
Paul makes in his first letter to the Corinthians, 3
appears to refer directly to what we call " the
state of grace " ; but we all feel that it is far
more applicable to the yet unimaginable "state
of glory." And it is clear beyond need of proof,
that the spiritual joy of the earliest Christians

1 Blandina, in Euseb., v. i.

2 Church, "Gifts of Civilization," pp. 183-185.
8 i Cor. ii. 9.

Eternal Life 187

and their immediate successors took in both,
and, having begun in the consciousness of
redemption, and of incorporation into Christ,
was perfected in the expectation of beatitude,
that is, of life eternal as developed and secured
beyond all peril of forfeiture, in that heavenly
sanctuary where to be once admitted is to "go
out thence no more," l but to be for ever with
Christ. This, of course, would be pre-eminently
the case in the observance of the highest of
Christian festivals. Joy is the keynote of Easter
worship, but joy as passing beyond the thought
of present blessings to those which the Resur-
rection of Christ guarantees to His servants in
the future. The " Paschal joy," of which so
much is said in the old services for the day and
the season, has special regard to the fact that
when our Lord overcame death, He opened the
kingdom of heaven to all believers.

It is a great thing to be able to end the
recitation of the Creed, in either of its forms,
with belief in eternal life in this its fullest sense,
in the life of the world to come. Do we really
and solidly apprehend this article of the faith ?
Is our acceptance of it morally effective ? Do
we always get quite beyond the lines of a work-
ing theory, a speculation which we wish to
think well founded, a vague pleasure in dwelling
on hopes which we know to have sweetened
many pure lives and brightened many enviable
deaths? Do we not sometimes feel half-con-
strained to agree with the poor father in the

1 Rev. iii. 12.

N

The Law of Faith

story, who, when his dying daughter talks to him
of what she will enjoy in heaven, mutters sadly,
" I'm none so sure o' that ; but it's a comfort to
thee ? " 1 Why cannot we rejoice in the " hope
of eternal life," as " promised by God who can-
not lie " ? Why does not this promise make
our own present existence better worth having ?
No doubt there are difficulties for us, which
were much less felt by our fathers. There are
influences which act like a spell on various
minds in various circumstances, by way of
shaking this "great hope of humanity, which
reason built " 2 up to a certain point, and which
revelation, as centred in the Risen Christ, has
raised to a height so majestic, and invested
with attractions so endearing. For instance,
there are the terrible things of this life, its
crushing burdens, its sickening anxieties, its
irremediable pains, its appalling contrasts of
fortune and of opportunity. They excite in
some natures a sort of resentment against the
offer of a future heaven by way of compensation
for exclusion from earthly good. Men exclaim
passionately, " We will not be diverted from our
plans for amending this world by pictures of a
possible but unverifiable hereafter, which you
priests would dangle before the suffering masses
in order to keep them quiet and docile." Or
there are the rush and grind of life's never-
slackening business, absorbing all interest on
week-days, often also on Sundays, until a soul

1 Mrs. GaskelTs " North and South," p. 69.

2 Mozley, " Univ. Serm.," p. 69.

Eternal Life

for which Christ was born, and died, and rose
again, becomes all too like that crowded inn at
Bethlehem, and its idea of future happiness, if
not destroyed outright, is impoverished by being
de-spiritualized ; or people talk vaguely of " a
happy release," and "a better place," and of
"going to heaven," as if heaven were sure to
be secured by the mere process of dying as
if it would be heaven to souls that had lived
here without God. As Keble asks in a very
characteristic poem *

" What is the heaven we idly dream ?
The self-deceiver's dreary theme,"

made up of coarse material elements,

"Poor fragments all of this low earth,"

fragments that had never received the Re-
deemer's transforming benediction.

We need, then, to freshen up and to purify
our conceptions of the life of the world to come,
by conforming them to the standard of Scripture.
But here comes in a class of difficulties which
profess to arise out of Scripture language.
There are those who say in effect, " If I am
to believe both in heaven and in hell, I can
believe in neither." They misinterpret what
Scripture says about the awful condition of the
lost, because they do not see that it describes
no merely penal requital of past sin, but the
inevitable recognition of sin that has become
permanent. Eternal death, as it is sometimes

1 " Christian Year," Sixth Sunday after Epiphany.

190 The Law of Faith

called, is not caused by a mere act of Divine
legislation, like a statute made by despotic
power ; it is in strict truth the perpetuity of
the state of separation from God which the
sinner has freely chosen for himself in this
world, 1 and to which he obstinately adheres.
There can be no "perdition" where there is
not this obduracy. Or others carp at the
imagery in the Revelation : they say, " This
symbolism is not to my. taste: foundations of
jewels, gates of pearl, a street of pure gold,
do not at all come home to me or 'find' me;
and as for an eternity simply spent in singing
hymns, I confess that a never-ending choral
service is not my notion of man's supreme and
final good." Surely this cavil is somewhat pro-
saic, not to say stupid. The Apostle, writing
in the first instance for Easterns, heaps together
picture-words which would best shadow forth
to the Eastern mind the idea of an infinite
wealth of glory, an intense, continuous, trans-
porting consciousness of the "beatific sight"
of the Most Holy, which will raise worship to
its highest and brightest activity, and verify
that lofty definition of the end of man's exist-
ence, "to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for

ever."

But these things, we may feel, are at present
too high for us. Let us think of what we
can better realize : the description of heavenly
blessedness in the last two chapters of the
Apocalypse begins with the promise that God
1 See "Life of Pusey," iv. 351.

Eternal Life 191

will swallow up death in victory, and wipe away
every tear from the eyes of His redeemed as
if the cause of every single tear were dis-
tinctively present to Him : "and death shall be
no more, neither mourning, nor wailing, nor
pain any more," never again, never at all for
those who have really taken Him for their God.
Here indeed is what we can all understand ;
and from this assurance of an unspeakable relief
we can manage to rise a little higher: "a God
who will put an end to grief and pain, and
destroy the last enemy, what is there that
He cannot or will not do for the benefit of
those who are to dwell with Him eternally?"
Yes, eternally: and if the idea of a literally
interminable existence is utterly confounding,
or, when we do get a glimpse of it, subduing
and overawing, still it is just what was involved
in the world-old hope of immortality. Should
we really be content to have annihilation post-
poned for so many thousands of years or ages,
with the certainty that death awaited us at
their close ? No, we should deliberately desire
to be exempt from death altogether: and if
such exemption is at present too vast for our
imagination, we can wait until, in the higher
world of the future, our faculties are strengthened
to take it in.

Or again, personally, what will the saved
do in heaven ? what will be their employments
and interests ? And then comes in the promise,
His servants "shall do Him service," they will
always be serving Him ; somehow, knowledge

192 The Law of Faith

perfected into comprehension, affections centred
on their supreme Object, will unfold new powers,
and open new spheres of blissful activity. What
form such activity will take is a question which
it is idle to put, for doubtless we could not now
understand the answer. We may leave all that
in the hands of our Father ; and at the same
time may take a hint from the old story of the
monk who harassed himself about the question,
" What if weariness should enter there ? " and
who after a long trance passed away with one
only dread

"Lest an eternity should not suffice
To take the measure and the breadth and height
Of what there is reserved in Paradise,
Its ever-new delight." 1

Three things, perhaps, we may learn, with
very substantial comfort, from St. John's
picture of the Celestial City. The various
gems in the twelve foundations may represent
to us the diversities of natural disposition or
faculty which will live on in the redeemed, but
as cleared from all evil tendency. Each of
those who then see God will be beautiful with
the full development of the special excellence
which he was intended to display. The name
of " city " assures us that heaven will be a scene
of social or corporate happiness ; that all the
precious bonds which have drawn souls together
here will be renewed and made fast before the
Throne. And yet again, the vast size of the

1 Trench's "Poems," i. 22 ff.

Eternal Life 193

city encourages the inference drawn from earlier
passages about multitudes that no man could
number, the hope that those who walk in the
light of God will far outnumber those who must
be left to the "unrighteousness" or "filthiness"
which they have persistently preferred to His
purity, holiness, and love. 1 And lastly, a
fitting thought to conclude with, the central
Figure in the scene is the Person of the Crucified
on the throne : the city itself is His spouse,
and He Himself is its lamp.

Let us say to ourselves, " What am I doing
by way of fitting myself for this blessedness?
He still invites us to come near Him, and so to
live that at last we may enter in through those
gates into that city." Let us put ourselves by
a loyal self-committal into those holy and tender
hands which can keep our feet from stumbling
in our pilgrimage, and if we " still hold closely
to Him," can bring us at last into that sacred
Presence, wherein is the fulness of an imperish-
able joy.

1 Dr. Pusey wrote in 1880 that he " strongly hoped that
the great mass of mankind would be saved," but " could
have no belief on the subject." See " Life of Pusey," iv. 353.

XX

Belief and Action

St. James ii. 26 (R. V.): "For as the body apart
from the spirit is dead, even so faith apart from
works is dead."

IF we had now for the first time to select
epistles for the Sundays after Easter, we should
probably turn to those passages in which the
Apostolic writers become eloquent on the glory
of their Lord's resurrection, or set forth its
" power " as the restorative principle for human-
ity. And if we were now for the first time
made acquainted with that part of the Prayer-
book, if we could look at it, so to speak, with
fresh eyes, we should be likely enough to feel
some disappointment at the absence of that
inspiring subject from the series of liturgical
Epistles, which, however, is simply an English
form of the paragraphs read in the Western
Church through many centuries at the Sunday
Eucharists of the season. Can we guess at the
motive for such a selection ? It was probably
akin to the thought which imparted to the Easter-
day collect its gravely practical tone. We

194

Belief and Action 195

might have preferred some collect which would
" pour out the heart " in purely exultant thank-
fulness ; but it is safer for us, perhaps, to " take
with us words " which emphasize the responsi-
bility involved in the joy of " Easter triumph."
You must now, says the Church, be conscious
of good desires ; to be without them on such
a day would be to contradict your Christian
profession ; but remember that you owe them
originally to grace, and that you need its con-
tinual help to bring them to good effect that
is, to prevent them from leaving you colder than
they found you.

There is, then, a profitable significance in the
fact, that the Epistles for the fourth and fifth
Sundays after Easter are taken from the first
chapter of St. James. We know more about
this James than about his namesake the brother
of St. John, much more than about the son of
Alphaeus, if he is to be distinguished from that
Apostle ; we know, to begin with, that he was
called " the Lord's brother," although the exact
import of that phrase is a matter of question.
We cannot take it literally ; for, not to say that
the general sense of the Church has revolted
against the suggestion that the Lord's mother
had other children younger than Himself, the
fact that in His dying anguish He chose St.
John to be her son in His own stead must
surely tell " with fatal effect " l against the

1 Bishop Lightfoot's " Dissertations on the Apostolic Age,"
p. 24. See also his remarks, p. 23, on the " Helvidian "
inference from St. Matt. i. 25.

196 The Law of Faith

theory in question. Two other views have
prevailed respectively in Eastern and Western
Christendom : one, which has a good deal
of early tradition in its favour, regards the
" brethren " as sons of Joseph by a former wife ;
the other, which was popularized by the great
reputation of St. Jerome as a Biblical scholar,
supposes them to have been sons of the Virgin's
sister, and therefore first-cousins of the Lord.
This is not the occasion for going into the
details of a question which will probably never
be closed ; but, in view of the currency recently
given to the former theory by the high authority
of Bishop Lightfoot, it may be observed, first,
that it makes out the so-called brethren of
Jesus to have had no real blood-relationship to
Himself as " born of the Virgin " ; secondly,
that it leaves us wondering why, in providing
for Mary at the time of His own death, our
Lord should have ignored her four step-sons ;
thirdly, and this is a crucial point, that it has
to get over the mention of another Mary as
mother of James and Joses, and as an actual
witness of the Crucifixion. 1 The second theory
is not necessarily committed to the assertion

1 St. Matt. xxvi. 56 ; St. Mark xiv. 40, 47 ; xv. 6. Bishop
Lightfoot has his own way out of this difficulty ; he thinks
that the " James " here mentioned is some less distinguished
James, not " the bishop of Jerusalem, the Lord's brother,"
so that the " Mary " here mentioned is not the mother of
the latter (" Dissert, on Apostolic Age," p. 21). It will follow
that " James and Joses " in St. Mark vi. 3 (" Joseph " in
St. Matt. xiii. 55) are not the " James and Joses " of the
later texts. Surely this is a " violent " suggestion.

Belief and Action 197

that James, "the Lord's brother," or cousin,
was identical with the son of Alphseus ; but
the name of Clopas, the husband, as we may
reasonably suppose, of Mary the mother of
James, who, according to the natural construction
of a passage in St. John's Gospel, 1 was "sister"
of St. Mary, has been supposed to be another
form of the name which in two Apostolic
lists is yet further Grecized as Alphaeus ; and
this identification, if established, may not, as
has often been assumed, be inconsistent with
St. John's statement, that as late as the last
autumn of Christ's earthly life His " brethren "
did not believe in Him. 2 For St. John was
just the writer to give to that verb an almost
ideal fulness of import ; and he might only mean
that the " brethren " among whom James may
not for that purpose have been included came
short of such a faith as was absolute and thorough.
But whether this James was or was not one
of the Twelve, he certainly appears in the Acts
and in the Epistle to the Galatians as on a foot-
ing of equality with such eminent members of
the "glorious company" as Peter and John,
with whom he stands forth as a " pillar." The
high position which he specially held as the
resident chief pastor not in his own lifetime
called the " bishop " of the mother Church of

1 If St. John had meant to distinguish "his mother's
sister " from " Mary of Clopas," he "would naturally have
put " and " between them. Cp. St. John xxi. 2.

2 St. John vii. 5 ; and see Dean Scott on the Epistle of St.
James in "Speaker's Commentary." Cp. St. John ii. n.

The Law of Faith

Jerusalem accounts for the tone which he took
in the Council of " Apostles and elders " ; and
so far as we can trust an account of him given
by a Hebrew Christian writer of the second
century, 1 who, however, has mixed up with it
a good deal of legendary matter he retained
the respect of many religious Jews, who gave
him his distinguishing name of "the Just." But
naturally he incurred the enmity of the Sadducee
Jewish authorities, and closed his career by
martyrdom in A.D. 61 or 62.

When we look into the Epistle, we see that
even if he was not one of the Twelve, he had
been a very attentive hearer of Christ, and in
some true sense a " believing " disciple ; for he
reproduces much of the teaching of the Sermon
on the Mount, 2 and no other New Testament
writer has so fully assimilated the spirit of the
Parables. He has, in fact, something of the
poet's eye ; his sympathetic glance at this or
that outward scene enriches his ethical teaching
with illustrations at once various and vivid.
The surge of the sea under a gale, the ship
obeying the pilot's "impulse," the grass withering
when the hot wind touches it, the vapour rising
and dispersing, the wells of brackish or sweet
water, the farmers longing for rain, the labourers
complaining of wages held back all these
sights he has seen and stored up in his memory,

1 Hegesippus; Euseb., ii. 25. ..

2 Especially of St. Matt. v. ; see James i. 2 ; ii. 10, 13;
iii. 8, 1 8 ; iv. 8. Other passages will recall St. Matt. vi. 19 ;
vii. i, 1 6, 26.

Belief and Action 199

and makes them serve his purpose as a preacher
of Christian duty, of religion made real by deeds
following on words, What he cannot endure is
profession without practice, sentiment which
may be sincere at the moment, but is not con-
solidated by action, conviction real as far as it
goes, but not allowed to tell on character. The
man who listens and " straightway forgets," who
thereby " passes off a fallacy on himself," the
" empty " or shallow-minded man, whose " de-
votion is vain " or idle, is again and again the
object of his censure. And this will enable us
to follow his meaning in the remarkable context
which disparages mere belief when not com-
pleted by acts or deeds. The drift of opinion
among modern students has usually tended to
date the Epistle very early, so as to exclude all
conscious reference on its author's part to the
controversy as to the obligation of Jewish
observances on Gentile converts, and still more,
therefore, to the contention of St. Paul against
Judaizing Christians on the subject of justifica-
tion. And yet it is hard to suppose that this
context could have been written before any
question had arisen as to whether a man was to
be justified by faith or by works. For the
question, " Can faith save " a man who " says
he has faith, and has not works?" is plainly
asked at the outset ; and a very eminent Cam-
bridge scholar, in a posthumously published
volume, holds with good reason " that a misuse
or misunderstanding of St. Paul's teaching on
the part of others gave rise to St. James's

2oo The Law of Faith

carefully guarded language." 1 It is carefully
guarded, if we look into it ; and yet we can
hardly wonder that it has appeared at first sight
to contradict St. Paul. For here are the well- .
known Pauline terms, "faith," "works," and
" being justified " ; both Paul and James use
the verb "justify" in its proper sense of placing
a man in a state of acceptance, as opposed to a
state of condemnation ; but while Paul says that
justification takes place "by means of faith,
apart from works of law," James affirms that a
man obtains justification " from works, and not
from faith alone." The question therefore has
arisen how to " harmonize " these two sacred
writers ?

If we take account of St. James's characteristic
aim, as zealous above all things for moral con-
sistency and reality, we shall easily see that the
opposition is but verbal. The two saints were
clearly very different in their antecedents and
mental habits, and they were addressing very
different classes of readers ; but while they use
the same terms which we are wont to render
"faith and works," they are putting different
senses upon them. What is " faith " with St.
Paul ? An act of the whole interior being, of
the mind accepting Christ as true, the affections
responding to His love, the will bowing to His
sovereignty. What is he thinking" of when he
speaks of "works"? Not Christian acts in
which faith energizes, but acts, right enough it

1 Hort, " Judaistic Christianity," p. 148. See also Salmon,
"Introd. to N. T.," p. 582.

Belief and Action 201

may be in themselves, but done in a legalist
spirit, as if so many of them would strictly
entitle a man to claim God's favour as wages
due. Now turn to St. James. He does once
use " faith "for trust in Divine promises, 1 but in
the paragraph before us "faith" is pure intel-
lectual credence, first that " God is One," and
then, by way of superstructure on that basal
Hebrew belief, that " our Lord Jesus Christ "
is "the Lord of glory," a phrase, let us observe
in passing, by which St. Paul himself had set
forth the true Divinity of his Master. 2

It would appear that some Hebrew Chris-
tians had grievously misapprehended St. Paul's
teaching about faith. Perhaps they transferred
into their Christian life the Pharisaic temper
which "rested" in law as a formulary: 3 and
having formerly relied on their Jewish creed as
a creed, took a similarly stiff and unspiritual
estimate of what " belief in our Lord Jesus
Christ" should imply. " Faith," in their hands,
had shrivelled up into mere orthodoxy. St.
James tells them that even demons " believe "
in that sense, and that such belief is not nearly
sufficient for acceptance ; unless it has a moral
element which issues in and secures corre-
spondent action, it is simply "ineffective," nay,
it is "dead." Let action go with credence,
and then credence will be complete and living.
To say that God justifies or accepts us, as He
accepted Abraham, when, but only when, this

1 James i. 6. 2 i Cor. ii. 8.

3 Rom. ii. 17.

202 The Law of Faith

combination has taken place, is but to say that
His acceptance is dependent on moral con-
ditions : and how could it be otherwise with the
perfect Moral Being? " Works/' therefore, in
this sense, deeds congenially growing out of
right belief, are just the "exertion " (if we may
use a phrase of Bishop Butler's) l of that faith
which St. Paul treats as the justifying principle,
and which he describes as operating through
love.

The essential consistency of the two repre-
sentations will be best exhibited by a change
in the translation of the two critical words as
St. James uses them. When we read St.
Paul's letters to the Romans or Galatians, let us
still say "faith and works" ; when we read St.
James, let us say "belief and acts" or "deeds."
In his earliest extant letter, St. Paul speaks of
the "work of faith"; in one of his latest, he
insists that those who have believed in God must
" take care to be forward in good works " or
deeds ; 2 in the Epistle to the Romans itself he
even says that those who walk after the Spirit
fulfil "the righteous claim of the law," 8 and speaks
of a "law of the Spirit of life," and again, "a
law of faith." Most certainly he would be at one
with St. James in warning against self-deceit and
double-mindedness ; the second chapter to the
Romans is proof enough of that. And if it is
asked, Was there then no difference between
St. Paul's point of view and St. James's? the

1 "Analogy," part i. c. 5. 2 i Thess. i. 3 ; Tit. iii. 9.
3 Rom. viii. 4.

Belief and Action 203

answer seems to be that St. Paul writes rather
as a theologian, 1 St. James as a religious
moralist. It is true that a person is "justified,"
or restored to Divine favour, by faith including
penitence, love, and good purpose, that is, by
faith involving a full self-committal, before he
has had time for a series of good " deeds " ; but
St. James, as a preacher, naturally regards the
self-committal in the concrete.

We may perhaps be led to overlook another
side of St. James's teaching. He is, no doubt,
austere ; but he can also be very tender. He
says but little about doctrine as such, but he
loves to dwell on the gracious side of the
Gospel ; he points to the " lights " which reveal
their " Father, the Author of every good and
perfect gift"; who is most compassionate and
merciful, whose goodwill knows no change and
passes under no shadow, who answers the
prayer of faith, who gives grace to the humble,
who promises a crown of life to those whose
love for Him is true.

In our day, the notion of relying on orthodox
belief is quite out of favour : in popular thought
and speech, orthodoxy is almost a by-word.
But the temptation to rest in a superficial pietism
is all around us, and is perhaps more power-
ful than ever before. Religious emotion is
studiously excited, and the danger of simply
enjoying it, instead of using it as a stimulus for
duty, is forgotten : men speak with fervour of
the attractive and sympathetic aspect of Christi-
1 See Dale, "The Atonement," p. 185.

204 The Law of Faith

anity, as if religion had nothing to do for man
but to soothe and please him. 1 They forget that
it has other and sterner functions ; they take no
hint from our Lord's frequent repulse of a merely
sentimental adhesion ; they need such a moral
tonic as St. James's teaching would supply. If
we have become infected by the relaxing in-
fluences of the time, if our Christianity has thus
become limp and slack, if we have been hearers
and not doers, if pious feeling has not with us
been fixed into habit, we shall do well to con-
sider seriously what is to be learned from the
"righteous" kinsman, in this respect, certainly,
the accurate interpreter, of "Him that searcheth
the reins and hearts." 2

1 See Bishop Ellicott, " Comment, on Philippians," etc.)
p. 10.

2 Borner contends against the supposition that James's
Christianity was Ebionitic. (Introd. to his "Person of
Christ.") See also Gore, "Bamp. Lect." p. 254.

XXI
Prayer

Isaiah Ixv. 24: "It shall come to pass, that
before they call, I will answer ; and while they are
yet speaking, I will hear."

WHEN the compilers of our first English
Prayer-book took in hand the task of translat-
ing and adapting the collects of the old Latin
services, they came upon one of which the first
words, literally rendered, would run thus :
" Almighty everlasting God, who in the abun-
dance of Thy loving-kindness exceedest both
the deserts and the desires of thy supplicants."
This prayer they developed and enriched with
a felicity which must, one would think, have
been suggested by a recollection of the words
most truly "comfortable words" with which,
in the text, the prophet represents the Lord as
crowning a series of truly "precious promises."
And so it is that the collect in our English form
contains the words that have doubtless helped
so many to " draw near with confidence to the
throne" of a Father; "Who art always more

205

206 The Law of Faith

ready to hear than we to pray." Many an
Anglican worshipper must have been over-
whelmed, whenever he gave himself time to
think of it, by the astounding idea embodied in
this clause. The Most High God waiting, as
it were, until man has leisure and inclination to
approach Him ; bending down as if in hope of
catching the first sound of a human petition ;
assigning, as it seems, such disproportionate
value to the prayer that is marred by such
strangely unfilial slackness !

As an indication of Divine love, the saying
thus condensed or summarized might almost
constitute a trial of faith. Yet it does not
really go beyond what is implied in the
Psalmist's conception of a God "that heareth
prayer" of the soul's "access, everywhere
and every moment, to infinite compassion . . .
infinite all-sufficing goodness, to whom, as into
the heart of the tenderest of friends, it could
pour out its distresses, . . before whom .. . . it
could lay down the burden . of its care, and
commit its way. . . It is the idea of the un-
failing tenderness of God, His understanding
of every honest prayer." 1 These are words of
one whose estimate of the Psalter may well be
matched with Hooker's for beauty and insight,
and sympathy with the devout minds of a far-
back age. It is the pervading doctrine of the
Old Testament, confirmed and amplified in the
New, that prayer is a real act which has power
with God, and prevails.

1 Church, "Gifts of Civilization," etc.,, p. 425.

Prayer 207

Difficulties, as we all know, have been raised
as to its reality and efficacy. Those which
arise out of such a conception of natural law
as leaves no room for the sovereignty of God
may be set aside by Christians when not pro-
fessedly engaged in controversy with unbelief.
The idea of a personal and living God, a
Supreme Being with a moral character, and
the idea of prayer to such a God, will be found
to run together. No God, no prayer; but if
God, then prayer. Those who believe in God
may indeed be more or less embarrassed by
intellectual puzzles as to the hearing or answer-
ing of prayer, considered as a part of the Divine
administration ; but they know well that ques-
tions may be raised as to the being of God
Himself, to which they cannot give a complete
answer. In a sense, He is "a God that hideth
Himself," for we cannot "comprehend" His
nature: our knowledge of Him is true as far
as it goes, but it does not go anything like the
whole way, though far enough for us to live
by and worship by ; it does not, for it cannot,
penetrate beyond "economies" and illustrative
terms, and representations adapted to our in-
firmity ; it cannot take us behind the veil.
We acquiesce in this condition ; it does not
"take away our God." And we take it as a
matter of course that prayer is the act whereby
we realize our hold on Him ; we should all say
confidently that a God to whom we durst not
pray would not be really a God for us, but a
mere idol of the mind, in the famous words of

2o8 The Law of Faith

a great historian, 1 "a God of pantheists," of
whom one could "make nothing" for practical
purposes. As, then, these two ideas are not
only akin, but inseparable, speculative diffi-
culties about either may be similarly dealt with :
the mystery of prayer, whatever it is, forms
part of the mystery of God.

It may, however, be worth while to observe
one or two objections to the Christian doctrine
of prayer, which have been raised professedly
by Theists, who consider themselves to have a
" godly jealousy " for the dignity of the Infinite
and Eternal, although in fact it is the same sort
of jealousy which complains that the ideas of a
special supernatural revelation, of a particular
or discriminating providence, of an Incarnation
of Deity in an individual human life, of atone-
ment, of mediation, or the like, are in effect
prejudicial to a worthy conception of Divine
activity, that they "limit" the God whom
they attempt to bring so near.

One question, to be sure, is shallow enough.
"Why tell the All-knowing One your own
peculiar needs or wishes? Does He not know
them already? Does He not understand our
thoughts long before?" Of course He does,
and our Lord reminds us of the fact: "Your
Father knoweth what things ye have need of
before ye ask Him." Well, what is the in-
ference? Is it, "Therefore you waste your
time in laying before Him your requests"?
No, it is, " Therefore do not pray as the heathen

1 Niebuhr.

Prayer 209

do, using vain repetitions," as if their gods
were inattentive or ignorant ; but " after this
manner pray ye, Our Father, which art in
heaven." Of course there have been notions
and methods of prayer which were simply
barbaric and irrational; men have imagined
that by sheer importunity, by prolonged and
vehement iteration, they could extort the desired
benefit from powers with which no moral idea
could be associated. When Christians address
"their Father," they place themselves in a
proper moral relation to One who knows all
and can do all, who is Himself Love and
Righteousness, and so qualify themselves, as
far as is possible, for a profitable reception of
what He may think fit to bestow.

But then, it is said, with somewhat more of
plausibility, "Supposing that you pray not
merely by way of a pious exercise, in order to
bring your mind into a proper condition of
religious dutifulness, which would be some-
thing like moralizing yourself by a sham, but
in the hope of producing an effect upon God's
will, is there not a real profaneness in the
attempt to treat Him with whom is no variable-
ness like a man who can be swayed this way or
that by the urgency of this or that petitioner ? "
Again, the question involves a mistake. The
prayer of a child of God is self-restricted within
the lines of what he believes to be the will of
his Father; and its action, thus defined, is
supposed from the outset to be a means which
that will has provided for in order to the

210 The Law of Faith

attainment of certain results. Let us see how
this same objection is dealt with by the greatest
theologian of the Middle Ages, who is never
afraid of facing and analyzing the extremest
forms of such unbelief as was more rife in the
schools of that period than we are apt to
imagine. 1 " It is thought that it is not fitting
to pray ; for by prayer the mind of the person
prayed to is bent, so that he may do what is
asked of him ; but God's mind is inflexible and
unchangeable." The answer begins by setting
aside the opinion which denies providence, the
opinion which would be called Necessarianism,
and the opinion which treats providential
arrangement as variable, and it goes on to
represent prayer as an instrumentality to which
Providence has assigned a certain effect ; so
that "our aim in praying is not that we may
change God's arrangement, but that we may
procure that which He has thus willed to bring
to effect by means of prayer." 2 There is, there-
fore, in prayer, as made with "understanding,"
no offence against the principle of law as
characterizing the whole range of the Divine
government ; 3 rather do we expressly take our

1 Cf. Rashdall, " Universities of Europe in Middle Ages,"

i- 355-

2 S. Tho. Aquinas, Sum. aa 202, q. 83, a. 2.

3 This principle is distinctly set forth in Newman's first
University sermon, preached in 1826. He observes that
"the inspired writers" exclude the notion of "arbitrary
interference," and since they " imply that miracles are dis-
played not at random, but with a purpose, their declarations
in this respect entirely agree with the deductions which

Prayer 211

stand upon that principle, when we use prayer
as a spiritual agency, which works not capri-
ciously or irregularly, but according to the
" order " of the spiritual world.

And if "law" rules both in the physical
realm and in the moral, we shall see that it is
unreasonable to resort to the distinction between
prayer for spiritual objects and for temporal
as if the former were right and the latter wrong
beca^lse temporal things are governed by law.
That implies that spiritual things are not so
governed. If we may not pray for certain
temporal objects, because it is like "asking a
miracle," it would follow that we may not ask
God to bring a sinner to repentance. For in
either case we are asking Him to put forth His
will : in neither case are we asking for the sup-
pression of secondary causes, or the suspension
of a law, unless "law" is supposed to imply
that a " direct action of God's will " is impossible
which, for all true Theists, is an absurdity. 1
There is, indeed, one obvious limitation to be
kept in mind when praying for temporal objects,
which does not exist in regard to spiritual : we
must pray with a distinct salvo provided that

scientific observation has made concerning the general
operation of established laws."

1 See Jellett on the "Efficacy of Prayer," pp. 37-43,
54-57. No doubt the fourth petition in the Pater Noster
may mean for A a prayer that the ordinary conditions of
physical well-being may be preserved to him, and for B a
prayer that they may be granted to him. But A, if he
knows what he says, will be appealing not less than B to a
living Will, that has all conditions at its continuous disposal.

212 The Law of Faith

they would promote our spiritual interest,
which is immeasurably more important than
temporal good of any kind. If they would not,
then we say in effect, beforehand

"Grant us not the ill
We blindly ask."

No doubt we cannot, with our present
faculties, understand how God, in answer to
acceptable prayers poured forth from all parts
of the world by all His worshippers in all their
diversities of condition and circumstance, can
so use the resources of His sovereignty as to
provide for each according to what is best for
each, and so prove Himself in each case to be
the hearer and answerer of prayer. To us it
may seem that so vast a multiplicity of
"answers to prayer" would introduce confusion
into the Divine "order." But is not this just
a form of the difficulty which we have in
realizing the idea of a providence both particular
and universal of a God who grasps the whole
of His creation, and yet, in Cardinal Newman's
expressive phrase, "confronts everything He
has made, is present with His works, one by
one," 1 and makes each of his moral creatures

"as much His care as if beside
"Nor man nor angel lived in heaven or earth."

Our imagination simply breaks down before such

1 Newman, "Lectures on University Education," p. 92.
In his "Sermons," iii. 120, he shows how this "discrimina-
tive " action of God is illustrated in the Gospel history by
our Lord's treatment of individuals.

Prayer 213

a thought ; yet if we exclude it from our belief,
we are no longer at home in the first article of
the creed, Our choice as Theists lies, in short,
between such an idea of God and that of an
original Creator who started the universe on its
course, and now lets it go on like a machine
an idea which is surely dead and done with. 1
And we shall not be moved by the taunt, " Your
God is a magnified man " ; we shall know that
a Supreme Being who could not or would not
" attend to particulars " would as such be im-
perfect, even as a Mind without will or moral
purpose would, as such, be inferior to man
himself ^lnless man himself be a machine.

It is a relief to turn from questions of this sort
to the dignity of prayer as a religious act. An
old monastic saying, "To labour is to pray,"
has often of late years been very mischievously
misused, It was intended for the comfort of
monks when debarred from attending some
of the daily offices by the obligation of manual
labour or other work ; as if to say, "If you
cannot be with Jesus in the choir, He will
be with you in the field." But it has been
quoted by way of arguing that "honest work,
however secular," is really "as religious as
formal worship." The fallacy is obvious ; each
duty has its own degree and its own sphere.
But reverse the saying, and it is just as true
that to pray is to work. An eminent Christian
thinker, who had once undervalued prayer, came

1 It is hardly too much to say with Carlyle, that out of such
a deism "conies atheism." "Past and Present," p. 127.

214 The Law of Faith

to see at the close of life that "the act of praying
with the total concentration of the faculties
was the very highest energy of which the
human heart is capable." 1 It has been observed
with equal point and truth, that prayer "has a
certain astonishing power of setting every
faculty of the soul at work, that it calls out the
man ; " that it "is religion in action, and puts in
motion the three forces of the understanding,
the affections, and the will." z Or, in the words
of a great and venerable Englishman, who
throughout a long life of political interests has
never ceased to witness for the sovereign claims
of Christian faith, " the work of Divine worship
is one of the most arduous which the human
spirit can possibly set about ; " for its "first indis-
pensable condition is" the knowledge of oneself;
the second, "a frame of the affections adjusted
to this self-knowledge, and to the attributes and
the more nearly felt presence of the Being
before whom we stand ; and the third is the
sustained mental effort necessary to complete
the act, wherein every Christian is a priest." 8

Such estimates of the greatness and the
difficulty of this primary religious act may well
shame us who have too often taken it too easily ;
but it may also not improbably dispirit us.
Many people, at least, will be apt to say, "If
praying implies all this, I cannot attempt it ; I

1 Coleridge, " Table Talk," p. 85.

2 C. P. Eden, " Sermons at Oxford," p. 25 ; Liddon,
" Some Elements of Religion," p. 169 ff.

3 Gladstone, " Gleanings," vi. 1 30.

Prayer 215

can hardly find time for a few words of prayer
before I begin my daily business, and at night
I am often too tired even to go through the
Lord's Prayer ; and if ever I try to do more,
my thoughts wander beyond recovery, as they
do habitually when I go to church." You say
this, Christian soul, but do you wish that you
could say something more Christian-like? Think
of God, think of Christ, think of sin, think of
eternity ; such thoughts will surely form in you
that willing mind which God will accept and
help forward. Try, at least, to say the prayer
of all prayers with fixed mind and faithful
intention. Forget for a moment that it is so
familiar ; get hold of the force and purport of
each clause. Remember that to say prayers
is not always to pray ; that you are dealing
with a personal, living God, who knows and
regards you as a personal being capable of
seeing and enjoying Him ; that in praying you
are training yourself for that high end, and that
it is unspeakably worth while to take pains
about it. Accustom yourself to offer up short
prayers at some spare moments of a much
occupied day : " O my God, I put myself into
Thy hands ; " "I give Thee myself, body and
soul ; " " keep me out of sin ; " " give me grace
to please Thee." Such a habit, when formed,
will be no burden but a resource : it will help
you to "walk with God" ; it will tend to keep
temptation at a distance ; it will come in most
helpfully when illness makes any mental effort
impossible ; you may find the benefit of it in

2i6 The Law of Faith

your last hour. And clasp to your breast the
belief that God is watching over you and caring
for you, that you are worth much to Him, as
redeemed by His Son's own blood, that Jesus
has promised in text after text that no prayer
made in His name shall fail. And let us all be
sure of this that no one ever yet fell away from
God and his own happiness until he had given
up the habit of private prayer. 1

1- Nothing has been said here of Intercessory Prayer,
which is an eminent part of the exercise of the sacerdotiwn
laid. Readers of St, Paul know what importance he attached
to it. And see the lines beginning, "If thou shouldst
never see my face again," in Tennyson's "Passing of
Arthur."

XXII

The Ascension and the Principle of
Mystery

Hebrews iv. 14 (R. V.) : " Having then a great
High Priest, that is passed through the heavens, Jesus
the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession."

" GIVEN the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, His
Ascension follows." This has been said, and
surely with truth : a risen Christ, if we think
who and what Christ is, could not possibly
continue an inmate of this lower world. He
could not be as one of those whom, during His
earthly ministry, He had bidden to " arise" from
the sleep of death, to " come forth " alive out of
the tomb. For what was their condition in that
second span of life which an exercise of His
sovereign power had granted to them ? They
were but replaced on the ground which they
had formerly occupied, with its old familiar
limitations, its liabilities to trouble, sickness,
and sorrow, and its mortal destiny, all again
to be met. The girl of twelve, the widow's
son, and Lazarus, must all pass once more into
the valley of the shadow, but not return once

217

2i8 The Law of Faith

more to the light of this life. The sentence
was not cancelled ; its execution was only post-
poned ; the reprieve would hold good for so
many years, not longer. But as we sing exult-
ingly at Easter, " Christ being raised from the
dead dieth no more, death hath no more
dominion over Him : " 1 on the contrary, as Man,
He was to be a life-giving spirit. 2 Therefore
He could not tarry long, even under conditions
so strangely unlike the former, in a sphere of
existence which must needs obscure His glory.
It was "expedient," He had said, "that He
should go away to His Father;" 3 and we may
add that it was inevitable that He should resume
that display of His Divine co-equality for which
there was no room 4 within the precinct of a life
spent on earth in " the likeness of men." This
will account for the comparative infrequency
in St. Paul's epistles of an express mention of
the Ascension, while his whole teaching centres
in the affirmation that Christ had really risen, or
been raised up, from the dead. No doubt he
often alludes to the exaltation as following the
Passion, as in the context just referred to, or as
when he speaks of the Father as having "set
Christ at His" own "right hand in the heavenly
places;" 5 and indeed the " Session " presupposes

1 Rom. vi. 9. 2 i Cor. xv. 45. 8 St. John xvi. 7.

4 Phil. ii. 6, 7. In so far as He " assumed the form of a
servant," He did not insist on retaining TO elrai To-a ew, the
"being in equal conditions of glory with God," or, in a
"state" or in "circumstances" proper to such co-equality;
cf. Gifford, "The Incarnation," pp. 48, 55, 71.

5 Eph. i. 20.

The Ascension and Mystery 219

the "Ascension." Yet the Apostle does but
seldom assert in so many words that Christ
" ascended far above all heavens, that He might
fill all things," or that He was received up in
glory, 1 St. Peter says in one of his speeches,
that heaven "must needs receive" Christ Jesus;
and in his first epistle that Christ "went His
way into heaven, and is at the right hand of
God ; " 2 and the Epistle to the Hebrews contains
the words of our text, which really declare that
our "great High Priest passed through the
heavens." And why should apostles, or apostolic
men, say more to Christian readers for whom the
Resurrection was the veritable pivot of faith ?

But from another point of view, we feel that
the festival of the Ascension impresses upon us
a peculiar sense of mystery, and raises questions
which, at present, can receive no definite answer.
What do we mean by saying, "He ascended
into heaven"? Where is heaven? where is
that right hand of God, whither, we are told,
the Lord was removed on His departure from
this world ? Did He go beyond the solar system,
or beyond the remotest of all known stars ? And
again, to quote from a great Ascension-day
sermon, in which these questions are noticed, 8
there is really "no difference between 'down'
and 'up' as regards the sky;" and again, science
will tell us that she has swept with her glasses,
has scanned and mapped out, the whole ethereal

1 Eph. iv. 10 ; i Tim. Hi. 16.

2 Acts iii. 21 ; i Peter Hi. 22.

3 Newman, "Serm.," ii. 208.

p

220 The Law of Faith

region of which she has cognisance, and that it
contains no place for the abode of a Christ in
actual bodily exaltation. " Amid those ' spaces '
whose very vastness seemed ' terrible ' to Pascal
in one of his sombre moods, 1 where will you
seat your ' ascended Son of man ' ? " The pre-
sence of the difficulty has led others to give up,
in regard to this article of belief, all notions of
locality. They take refuge in vague terms,
which translate "heaven" into a "condition
of glory or blessedness " ; but this is a method
which might idealize the Incarnation itself
into a symbol ; and in regard to the point
before us, it does not meet the fact that Christ's
body, though spiritualized, is still really a body.
Shall we not do better to avoid alike the extreme
of an over-literal localization, and the extreme of
a professed "spirituality" which, after all, is not
of the Christian type ? Let us say, as Bishop
Butler would probably have taught us to say,
that the what and the where of the "heaven"
now in question is not within the reach of our
present " faculties." Probably no words other
than those of the sacred writers would bring us
nearer to a clear view of what the "Ascension"
actually implies. Here, as in some other cases,
we must be content with what were once called
" economies," adaptations of transcendent reali-
ties to our imperfect apprehension, "mirrors,"
as St. Paul puts it, through which we "see
things as unexplained." 2 Christianity supposes
all along the existence of a "supernatural"
1 "Pensees," i. 41. 2 Lit. "in enigma."

The Ascension and Mystery 221

world, which cannot be explored by the" re-
searches, or gauged by the calculations, which
belong to the world of sense ; and if Christ
were to enter that world in the truth of His
human existence, He must needs find His
."resting-place, His throne of sovereignty, the
perfecting of His glory, in another sphere of
being " than our own. 1

In a word, the Ascension represents to us the
principle of mystery in its relation to Christian
doctrine. What is a " mystery " ? St. Paul
mostly uses the word for what was once secret,
but is " revealed"; 2 yet knowledge in this sense
is, in St. Paul's own phrase, "partial" ; 3 and in
our ordinary use of the word, a mystery is a
truth partially known. We cannot look all
round it : on this side is light, on that side
shadow ; we see a line here . and a line there,
but they do not meet ; there are blank intervals
which we know not how to fill up, and therefore
" difficulties ' which must wait long for their
solution. Do we revolt against this limitation
of capacity? Is it like a fretting "thorn" to
our intellectual self-complacency ? Then we
are vainly quarrelling with the very conditions
under which we live. Mystery is around us
and within us ; a very eminent scientist, who
was always making war on Christian traditions,

1 Cf. Dean Paget, "Studies in Christian Character," p. 248.
The term-" supernatural," though wanting in verbal accuracy,
is intelligible as used for " supersensuous."

2 E. g. i Cor. ii. 7 j Eph. iii. 3 ; Col. i. z6 > 27.

8 As opposed to " complete." i Cor. xiii. 9, 10. .

222 The Law of Faith

said twenty years ago, that "the mysteries of
the Church were child's play compared with
the mysteries of nature ; " l if we look inward,
the relation of soul to body seems inscrutable,
while to say that we are mere material
automata is to suppress a whole side of our
consciousness ; and what of that sense of free
will which not all the experience of restraining
influences can eradicate from the general human
mind ? Or what of the mystery of pain, of
manifold mental suffering, of lives spoiled by
circumstances from the outset, of unequal op-
portunities, not only of physical comfort but
also of moral development, of bereavements
which even religious men call " mysterious
dispensations," 2 and of all that pessimists
have in mind when they talk of " the cruelty of
nature," which St. Paul preferred to think of as
the agony of the creation in its "travail"? 3
Here are "dreadful faces looking in on us,"
problems which try many persons' faith in God's
providential order. Yes, but then it is said,
" Christianity ought to have relieved us from
their weight ; instead of that, it has added new
difficulties of its own." Well, first, do you
mean that a revelation, so called, is worthless
unless it will answer all the questions you like
to ask it ? But a moral religion cannot promise
to satisfy our curiosity, or exempt us from the

1 Huxley, quoted by Gore, " Bamp. Lect," p. 246.

2 Does the phrase occur earlier than in " The Antiquary/' ?
(vol. ii. c. 13).

3 See " Life and Letters of G. J. Romanes," p. 299.

The Ascension and Mystery 223

exercise of trust or patience. And next, if
reference is made to the doctrine of the Trinity,
or of the Atonement, of mediatorial agency, of
the working of grace, or of the eternal perdition
of the obdurate, you must take care that you
are looking at them as they really are, and not
in some perverted form which does them
injustice ; viewed fairly, they might all be
shown to be in close connexion with our root-
ideas as to the character of God and the moral
nature of man, and with these as enriched
and filled out by coming into relation with the
personality and the teaching of Christ. If we
take Him for the central point, and try to see
all things in Him, the wonders of nature or of
grace will neither bewilder nor, so to say, irri-
tate ; they will overawe and subdue, but they
will also tranquillize and sustain. We shall
then see that while the Divine perfections must
needs pass the understanding of creatures so
feeble and faulty as we are, yet the greatness
of a God who is at once all-powerful and all-
righteous is in itself a resource, a support, a
most " strong tower " : our sense of dependence
becomes confidence in Him on whom we
depend, 1 and we "flee to" Him, as a Christian
poet says, because we feel that we " cannot flee
from Him anywhere." 2 So true is the momen-

1 It is surely quite untrue that "pure and simple
power," as such, "elicits love." Mozley, "Essays," ii. 219.
Only power united with goodness can do that. Irresistible
strength, in separation from moral character, might simply
"elicit" abhorrence, not less defiant because impotent.

2 Trench's "Poems," i. 273.

224 The Law of Faith

tous dictum, that "the thought of God is the
stay of the soul : " 1 and if it was so to psalmists
or prophets, to all the righteous men of the old
covenant, how much more so to those who are
' illuminated with the knowledge of His glory
as reflected in the face of Jesus Christ \" z

Thus the mysterious element in Christianity,
being inseparably linked to its moral and
spiritual elements, makes it all the more con-
gruous to human nature, and all the fitter to
represent the mind and the action of Him who
is at once the Eternal and the Most High. It
is thus invested with somewhat of His infinity ;
it transcends the formulas which indicate its
aspects, but cannot exhaust their meaning;
and so we instinctively feel that, as a religion,
it is above us, and in its presence our shallow-
ness and irreverence stand reproved. It has to
be taken seriously, studied with sympathetic
attention, allowed to impress us by degrees;
and it will approve itself all the more completely,
as we learn to think more worthily of God, and
of His Son, the holder of "all authority," as
His " interpreter." 3 Loyalty to Christ the
God-Man, an effective belief in His actual and
permanent Incarnation, will shed over any
" difficulties " that adhere to Christian teaching
some radiance from the excellent glory, which
may hearten us up to trust God and bide His
time. And here the Ascension comes in to

1 Newman, "Serm.," v. 313 ff.

2 2 Cor. iv, 6.

3 St. Matt, xxviii. 18 ; St. John i. 18.

The Ascension and Mystery 225

help us, reminding us that Christ, who for us
went through the profoundest self-humiliation,
is exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour ; l that
He lives on and reigns on through the ages ;
and that, as we believe Him to have " ascended
up where He was before," we have yet stronger
reason than Apostles had at Capernaum to be
sure that He " has the words of eternal life." 2
In the power of that assurance, which, we
may well say, is made doubly sure by the
gracious mystery of His Sacramental Presence,
let us resolve to "hold our confession " faster
than ever, by deriving from it the impulse that
can lift our lives right upwards, in ever-increas-
ing moral conformity to the mind and will of that
glorified Redeemer, whom we have as a High
Priest all the more " prevalent," 3 because He
is withdrawn behind the veil. For what is He
doing there for us? Is He simply "praying"?
No; "His glorified presence is" a perpetual
"presentation" of Himself, as One who was
dead and is living ; "He pleads by what He
is." 4 And it is pre-eminently in the Eucharistic
" counterpart" of this His heavenly ministration
that things below are lifted up into things above. 5

1 Acts v. 31. 2 St. John vi. 62, 68.

3 Pearson "On the Creed," i. 173.

4 Moberly, " Ministerial Priesthood," p. 246 ff.

5 This is the idea of the "Supplices te" in the Roman
liturgy, which corresponds to the Eastern " Invocation."

XXIII
The Spirit of Power

Acts i. 8 (R. V.) : "Ye shall receive power when
the Holy Ghost is come upon you."

WE do not appreciate the significance of this
saying of our Divine Lord, unless we remember
that it is part of an answer to a question which
ought not to have been put. That it is here
recorded as having been put, is among the
lesser illustrations of the authenticity of St.
Luke's second treatise. An inventor would not
have represented the Apostles, in these last
moments of their Master's stay on earth, as still
possessed by an unspiritual curiosity, still harp-
ing on the idea of a temporal kingdom of Israel
as the natural consummation of His Messiahship.
We have waited long for it, they seem to say ;
now that He has triumphed so gloriously over
death, the hour must surely have come. No,
He answers, "times and seasons" are "under
the Father's own authority " ; and without
reaffirming the spiritual character of His King-
ship, He implies that the information which
they wish for would do them no good, and that,

226

The Spirit of Power 227

in a word, it will not be given. But the refusal
of what is profitless is compensated by the
promise of a gift of infinite value. "This, which
you blindly desire, even after I have been so
long time with you, after all that followed on
the brief triumph of the day of Hosannas, you
shall not have : something else, which you
would have done better to ask for, you shall
receive when I send upon you the promised
Spirit from the Father."

And as we all have our portion in the presence
of that " other Paraclete," so we all have an
interest in the "power" which He was to bring.
Not, indeed, in every form of it ; as there are
diversities of gifts, so the " Spirit of power " and
"not of fearfulness," which St. Paul speaks of
as bestowed on himself and Timothy, 1 was a
ministerial endowment, designed for the equip-
ment of teachers who, as such, would have
peculiar trials of courage as a momentous
element of faithfulness in ministry. And the
primary import of our Lord's words in the text
relates evidently to "power" in this sense: yet
in so far as all members of the Church of Christ
are temples of the Spirit and spheres of His
activity, the promise, " Ye shall receive power,"
may be to clergy and laity alike at once an
inspiration and a ground of responsibility. The
interior strength that makes and sustains
character, the moral manhood which alone
can save a life from waste and collapse, the
"power" which can win "victory" over "the

J 2 Tim. i. 7.

228 The Law .of Faith

devil, the world, and the flesh," this is what all
Christians may have for the asking. Do we
care about obtaining it? Do our hearts respond
to the gracious announcement? Do our con-
sciences tell us, This is what you need ?

In the eighteenth century, and somewhat
later, Christianity was charged by unbelievers
with exaggerating the moral infirmities of
human nature, in order to keep it under pupil-
age. Men said in effect, "You clergy would
fain persuade us that we cannot walk along the
path of virtue without artificial supports which
you alone can supply. We see your motive :
you would fain 'put out the eyes of those whom
you can frighten into submissiveness. If they
did but know it, they can become what men
ought to be by simple self-respect and pur-
pose." In 1812 an English poet, remarkable
for keen and ruthless insight, described a
vehement enemy of priests as confident in the
moral sufficiency of his "reason and feelings" :

"Tempted by sins, let me their strength defy,
But have no second in a surplice by."

and sketched the programme of a clever youth
enthusiastic for virtue, who

"To all good would soar, would fly all sin,
By the pure prompting of the will within : "

but who lived to learn by experience

" How feebly honour guards the heart from crime." 1

1 Crabbe, " Tales," iii. and xi. On the Rousseauist hypo-
thesis of the goodness of man's original tendencies, cf.
Mozley, " Essays," ii. 238; Mallet, ''French Revol.," p. 37.

The Spirit of Power 229

It rriay be that a self-reliance of this sort has
been suggested to many in our day by the
undoubted moral seriousness of men who have
disowned the sanctions of religion. Yet while
their rectitude too often puts to shame the
pitiful slackness and inconsistency of believers,
it cannot be taken as proving that the average
man, with the ordinary temptations which are
often but little known to intellectualists, can
" keep straight " by the sheer force of unassisted
" good resolutions." And so a class of " worldly
philosophers and poets" has gone even beyond
St. Paul in emphasizing the radical corruption
of human nature ; 1 and Naturalism has mini-
mized the moral capacity of a race that super-
natural religion would first " convict of sin " and
then' make capable of sanctity.

For Scripture is true to both sides of the case.
It does not encourage man to think that he can
lift himself up " out of the horrible pit and the
miry clay ; " but it tells him of a Power that
can "set his feet upon the rock, and establish
his goings " for the future. It sobers him, yet
cheers him ; it refutes an ignorant self-con-
fidence, but it banishes a faithless despair. It
can afford to take full account of facts which
sadden, because it throws such light on facts
which comfort. It shows how the " infinite
pathos " of our destiny is met, as it only can be
met, by the " infinite pity " of Him who revealed
Himself as fatherlike, or even as motherlike, 2
ages before He sent His Son to lay bare our
1 Mozley, "Lectures," p. 152 ff. 2 Isa. xlix. 15.

230 The Law of Faith

moral wounds and to bind them up. It is
eminently characteristic of St, Paul, as a true
interpreter of the mind of that gracious Healer,
that the context in which he speaks of creation
as " subject to vanity " should brighten with the
prospect of coming deliverance, and close, as in
a strain of triumphant music, with the "per-
suasion " that nothing external to their own wills
should be "able to separate from the love of
God which is in Christ Jesus " those who
perseveringly desire to dwell in it and to have
it for their own.

The children of faith under the Old Covenant,
who were "not to be made perfect without us,"
did yet go through an experience of being
"made strong out of weakness," which was a
prelude to the promise made on Olivet, "Ye
shall receive power." Chosen leaders of Israel,
men greatly beloved of God, were commanded
to "be strong and of good courage " ; the great
all-sufficing assurance, " I am thy God," runs
on into " I will strengthen thee " ; l power to
do right, to become good, is to be had on the
condition of heart-loyalty ; given this, " the
weak 'shall' say, I am strong," "the lame shall
take the prey," more and more strength shall
be his "who hath no might," until he can
"mount up with eagle- wings, and run and not
be weary." 2 And Christ, by His own mouth,
or by those who were filled with His Spirit,
reaffirms, illuminates, completes all that on this

1 Isa. xli. 10.

2 Joel iii. 10 ; Isa. xxxiii. 23; xl. 29, 31.

The Spirit of Power 231

enkindling theme had been spoken before by
the prophets, He says more 'than they had
said about the sickness of humanity, but much
more than they could say about its cure. The
Gospel points back to a mysterious Fall as
accounting for the dreadful phenomenon of sin
as .pervading the race ; but it reveals another
fact which, as it has been most truly said, 1 is
"as little congenial to a superficial view of life
as is the doctrine of the Fall," the fact of grace
as a power of recovery of grace as originating
good by stimulating and reinforcing the will,
and as following up its primal activities by
" working with " the will when responsive, and
carrying it on into fuller union with the perfect
will of God. If we think steadily of this, we
begin to understand what may have seemed the
paradox of St. Augustine's prayer, "Give me
the power to do what Thou commandest, and
then command whatsoever Thou wilt." s Let us
hear the Apostle who knew so intimately what
man was when left to himself, and what he
could become when "the pressure of Christ's
hand " 8 was laid on him with power ; he speaks
of that power as " made perfect in his own
weakness," of himself as "strong" when most
conscious of being "weak," and of the Spirit as
pouring strength "into the inner man"; and
if we want to know what makes him dwell so
thankfully on this gift, let us read what he says

1 Dean Paget, "Faculties and Difficulties," etc., p. 191.

2 " Confess." x. 40.

8 "John Inglesant," p. 337.

232 The Law of Faith

in the seventh chapter to the Romans, as' to
his own experience of a sharp intense conflict
between "the law of the mind" and "the law
of sin .in the 'flesh; 1 ' Natural weakness is so
great, and the remedy provided is so effective;
this thought is with him always ; why is it so
seldom with us?

We have been "confirmed"; over us that
venerable prayer has been uttered "Strengthen
them, O Lord, with the Holy Ghost the Com-
forter " ; and among the seven gifts then asked
for, not one is more germane to the occasion
than that of might or ghostly strength. But
Confirmation, as it did not inaugurate in us the
indwelling presence of the Spirit, so it is far
from exhausting His bounties. In Keble's
poem on Confirmation, the "Spirit of might
and sweetness too " is invoked as a lifelong
Helper in age as well as in youth, "and oft as
sin and sorrow tire." The words, "Ye shall
receive power," hold good whenever we ask for
it. Yes, but some one will say, " I have asked-
for it again and again, have seemed to receive
it, have repeatedly lost it. My religion is still
a thing of moods ; I make resolutions on Sunday
morning, and what has become of them, say by
Tuesday night ? It is like irony to talk to me
of becoming strong against temptation, when I
am habitually unstable as water." O Christian;
soul, have you not at least a wish to be made,
strong? That is something to start with it
proves that you have in you the potency 'of true
moral and spiritual invigoration. Only pray

The Spirit of Power 233

that the smoking flax of good desire may be
fanned by the Spirit's breath, that the feeble
glow may brighten into a flame. And then
turn at once to some duty, the duty nearest at
hand, and try to do it as well as you can for
the Lord's sake. And never give in or give
up, whatever befalls you ; let no experience of
the force of temptation make you doubt the
power and will of Christ to carry you through,
if you cling to Him perseveringly.

The reason of despondency as to improve-
ment will be found to consist largely in our
very imperfect sense of what, if the phrase were
permissible, one might call the interest which
God takes in our highest well-being. If we
could realize this, the conviction would inspire
us with the hopes that are born of trust.

The week before Pentecost was of old called
a week of " expectation " ; let us remember
what strength was given to those who were
waiting in Jerusalem for the descent of the
Holy Spirit. Let us believe that the Gospel
is still what it was, "the power of God unto
salvation"; and let us specially beg of Him,
first, a truer sense of our intrinsic weakness,
and next, a fresh infusion of that Divine
force which is the characteristic blessing of
Whitsuntide.

XXIV
True and False Spirituality

Rom. viii. 6 : "To be spiritually minded is life
and peace."

WE are sometimes inclined to think that the
chief festivals might be trusted to preach their
own sermons ; or that, at any rate, but very few
words can be necessary by way of comment on
the teaching which their services would convey,
even although the preacher's voice were silent.
The services of Christmas and Easter have
indeed "a voice for those who understand";
but the significance of Ascension Day is, even
now, less fully appreciated by Church-goers
than befits their belief in a great article of
the Creed ; and although the "White Sunday"
is recognized as a great festival, it is apt to pass
over without leaving behind it any very distinct
impression. The presence and working of the
Holy Spirit as sent by Christ to abide in His
Church this is acknowledged to be its theme ;
and yet there are those who feel that the very
vastness of the subject is, in a sense, bewilder-
ing : they want points to fix upon, landmarks

234

True and False Spirituality 235

emerging from the midst of a golden haze.
Let them, then, take a single word, most inti-
mately associated with the season a word with
a great scope, and which, rightly apprehended
for much lies in that will suggest considera-
tions that were never more opportune than
now.

That word is the adjective "spiritual."
Think first of the immense difference which it
makes to our whole view of life, and therein to
our estimate of its possibilities and its duties,
whether our standpoint is that of those who
deny, or of those who affirm, that there is a
spiritual world which is superior to the material ;
that man is fundamentally a spiritual being,
with spiritual needs and spiritual faculties ; that
he has to do with spiritual facts, and is depen-
dent in all sense on a Supreme Spirit, with
whom he can hold spiritual communion. Are
these things so, or are they not ? Some thirty
years ago, observant Christian minds in
England were painfully conscious of the general
predominance of a mechanical view of life. 1 A
way of thinking which ignored spiritual realities
had in the earlier part of the century received
a check, but had "regained the ascendant"
through a combination of forces, one of which
was that rapid advance of physical science
which might seem to disprove God while it-
was simply "omitting" 2 Him. But a very

1 J. C. Shairp, " Studies in Poetry and Philosophy," pp.
xvii, 106, 236.

2 H. S. Holland, " Pleas and Claims for Christ," p. 24.

Q

236 The Law of Faith

acute thinker 1 foretold in 1867 that "the next
generation would see a reaction towards
spiritual belief;" and now men take heart to
affirm on the Christian side that " there are facts
of the soul and spirit" which are "as certain
and urgent as those of the body, and that any
attempt to explain humanity which ignores or
denies the former facts dooms itself to failure " 2
as leaving out the chief elements of its case.
And if so, then that which lies at the very root
of Whitsuntide thought has again made good
its claim to shape our practical convictions,
and thereby to govern and to characterize
our life.

But next, let us take our stand among those
to whom this principle is not only an admitted
truth, but something too clear to need discus-
sion. "Of course," persons say, "the soul is
more than the body, and spiritual interests out-
weigh material ; of course religion, and morality
too, for that matter, stand or fall with this
supremacy of the spiritual : to keep them
spiritual is the thing to aim at." But then here
comes in the necessity of distinguishing between
one kind of spirituality and another. There is
a morbid, unhealthy, unchristian counterfeit of
that true spirituality which has the blood of
New Testament religion in its veins. It has
been thought "spiritual" to refine away the
Gospel facts into beautiful ideas, of which it
has been well said that "they exert no con-

1 Dean Mansel.

2 E. F. Sampson, " Christ Church Sermons," p. xxxix.

True and False Spirituality 237

straining power upon us"; 1 or to protest
against compromising the " essential spirit " of
the teaching of Jesus by binding it up with a
"legendary supernaturalism " ; or to treat the
doctrine of His corporeal resurrection as
" carnal " ; or to interpret the liberty wherewith
He made us free as setting the enlightened
soul not only above "ordinances," but above
moral law in itself. This is enough to show
that very strange things have been said and
done in the name of spirituality ; but without
going so far outside the lines of ordinary
Christian opinion, we may easily see that within
those lines a grave misuse of the name is not
only possible but frequent.

English people are often simply dominated
by the pre-assumption that that which is "ex-
ternal " can have no function in the affairs of the
soul, and this although they are singularly
unapt to walk by faith, and to treat the unseen
world as a reality. They have often been ac-
customed to look at religion wholly, or all but
wholly, from the individualist point of view.
The notion of dependence on ordinances or in-
stitutions is uncongenial to them : they say that
they can allow nothing to " come between God
and their own souls " ; it does not occur to
them to ask whether God Himself may not
have ordained some such intermediate agency. 2
It seems as if although they could not con-

1 Trench, "Huls. Lect," p. 172.

2 See W. Law, " Letters to Bishop Hoadly," ed. Nash and
Gore, p. 90 ff., and, more especially, p. 116.

238 The Law of Faith

sciously put their feeling into such a form
they instinctively shrink from what would
make their religion too manifold, majestic, and,
so to speak, over-arching, instead of being just
such as they can personally keep in hand and
manage. Form and spirit, for them, are ideas
not only antithetical, but antagonistic ; and
although they believe that Christ has ordained,
for instance, the Sacrament of Communion, and
look for some real benefit from its devout recep-
tion, they somehow isolate it, in thought, from
His work and from His person; they do not
look through it to Himself, as if He were
personally employing it as His organ. And so,
for want of this simple clue, which serves alike
in regard to all the "means of grace," they
take it as a first principle that to attach any
primary religious importance to Church or Sacra-
ments or Ministry is to strangle the "spirit,"
and to put forms in the place of the Lord.

The answer to those who thus object to the
combination of the outward with the inward
goes back to the fountain-head of religion.
We believe in God, a God who is living and
"personal," and of whom the fourth Gospel
affirms that He "is Spirit." But, being Spirit,
He is at once Creator and Sustainer of the
whole physical universe; essentially distinct
from it, yet continuously present throughout it ;
in technical phrase, at once "transcendent"
and "immanent." His "adorable never-ceas-
ing energy 1 mixes itself up with all the history

1 Cf. Newman on " University Education," pp. 59, 93.

True and False Spirituality 239

of the creation," of human- society, of each
individual human life, so that " atoms and their
properties," and all forces at work in the whole
range of evolutionary process, all movements
of nature, all developments of thought, the
fortunes of all nations, the infinite complex
varieties of character, all are in His hand, who
is sovereign over matter as over spirit, and,
being Master in His own house, for

"A God not free,
No God is he,"

can dispose of it, and of all agencies within it,
as may best serve those moral ends which are
supreme in the order of His providential
administration.

Again, from the idea of such a God we pass
readily to the idea of a "revelation" j 1 and we
Christians believe such a revelation to have
been given through the Word who became
flesh. Yet there have been those who avow-
edly rejected the idea of an Incarnation as
degrading to the Divine Infinity. For mis-
belief, in one form or another, has often claimed
a monopoly of reverence; it has had its own
" will-worship " ; it has solemnly condemned the
" sensuousness " of the Church's idea of devo-
tion, has been supercilious over the " anthropo-
morphism " involved in her method of approach
to God, as exhibited not through a physical
but through a human medium, which was

1 Compare Ne^Yman, " University Sermons," p. 239, with
G. J. Romanes, "Thoughts on Religion," p. 165.

240 The Law of Faith

" substantiated in' the Incarnation "; l its instinct
has been to drive back the Divine idea into a
vague immensity, or to reduce it to an abstrac-
tion which "could not save." But for those
who accept the New Testament, it should be
enough that the Gospel which repeatedly
enforces the necessity of "spirit and truth" in
worship is the very Gospel to which we turn
for fullest presentation of the Incarnation in
both its aspects of Christ as perfect God and
perfect man.

And then, having got thus far, a believing
Christian should be prepared to recognize a
real affinity between that unique combination of
Godhead and Manhood with the relation be-
tween outward sign and inward grace in the
Sacraments. Let us not say that those who
reject the sacramental principle should in con-
sistency reject the Incarnation, but rather hope
that their belief in the latter may lead them on
to a worthier estimate of the former. And we
may say that a Gospel Christianity which was
not sacramental would resemble a pathway
broken off short. We are conscious of a
league of outward with inward in our own con-
stitution ; and we find it again exhibited in the
God- Man who came to redeem our whole
nature, and who during His ministry signifi-
cantly illustrated His miracles of healing by
some outward gesture or symbolical act : ' 2 and
we might well think it strange if this principle

1 Cf. Mozley, "Essays," ii. 112-118.

2 Dean Paget, in " Lux Mundi," p. 414 ff.

True and False Spirituality 241

were absent from the system which He consti-
tuted for the due "supply" and development
of His body mystical 1 through union with His
life-giving manhood. As it is, we can see why
these ordinances have been said to "extend"
the beneficial effects of the Incarnation : 2 they
make it a living fact for us ; they bring the
Incarnate Saviour into our midst; they are
"calculated to be the most permanent witnesses
of the true doctrine of spiritual grace " 3 as
stored up in Him ; so that our conceptions of
His power and His love are defined and
focussed, are kept fresh and ready for service,
by the faithful and devout use of an instrumen-
tality which secures to Him the glory of the
sole effectual Agent. Most especially is this
realized in that highest Sacrament which has
been called the " recapitulation " of the Christian
religion, in which we attain the point of closest
contact with Christ as "a quickening spirit"
for soul and body.

It will be said, "This is well enough in
theory, but practically Sacramentalism 'spells'
formalism." Sacramentalism, so to call it, can
doubtless be misapprehended and misused,
with the worst results. But it need not be so,
and it is men's own fault when it is so. In a
world where "noblest things find vilest using,"
the doctrines of grace and of faith, the reading

1 See p. 169.

2 This, of course, is the meaning of the lax phrase of Jeremy
Taylor, "an extension of the Incarnation."

3 Gladstone, " Church Principles," etc., p. 181.

242 The Law o( Faith

of the Bible or of devout books, theological
study, attendance on preaching, ministerial
functions, religious and philanthropic activities
all can be perverted from their due effect,
can be turned into occasions of falling. It is
a proverb that the corruption of a very good
thing is a very bad thing. Let us by all means
be on our guard against an insidious evil which
may act on belief and worship and "church-
liness" as a leaven of mischief, tainting, dis-
ordering, de-spiritualizing. It is possible to mis-
take the mere admiration of grandeur in an
ecclesiastical system, of solemnity or pathos in
a religious ceremonial, for effective belief in the
kingdom of God, and for the devotion which
He looks for and will approve. A sense of
beauty is not, of itself, true love for the place
where God's honour dwelleth : a taste for the
details of ritual may degenerate into a pedantic
technicalism, which involves narrowness and
promotes self-deceit. Zeal in the Church's
cause may for want of humility be hardened
into partisanship, with its accompaniments of
unscrupulousness as to means, and unfairness
to opponents. How then shall we keep forma-
lism at a distance ? First, by increasing our
sense of proportion among the various elements
of religious life, in which nothing will so help
us as the study of St. Paul. Next, by remem-
bering that Christianity is essentially a moral
religion, and avoiding whatever could diminish
our perception of the evil of sin. Thirdly, by
endeavouring to do all things in Christ, and to

True and False Spirituality 243

keep our daily conduct in relation to our use of
His ordinances. And lastly, by making it our
aim to "walk by the Spirit," as those should
who believe that His coming and presence
have made life quite other than it had been
without them, that eyes and ears have been
spiritually opened, and hearts enlarged, and
wills set right.

To sum up all in a few words : let Whitsun-
tide stimulate us to cultivate true Christian
spirituality, and then it will draw us nearer to
Him who could send down the Holy Spirit
because He Himself was glorified and en-
throned. 1

1 It has been objected that "even if the principle of
sacramental grace can be reconciled with spirituality, even
if the due reception of grace through sacramental media
can spiritualize our ordinary life, it can only do so at certain
intervals, whereas what we want is a continuous spiritual
influence." This objection would tell equally against all
recurring times of worship, all specific opportunities of
access to God. It is our fault if we insulate them, instead
of using them as focuses and centres. In regard to the
attempt to construct an "idealistic Christianity," see an
article in the "Contemporary Review" for December 1892.
It is "a backsliding into the errors that underlay certain
phases of Gnosticism. It looks very superfine, but it is very ,
unreal," etc. See also Holland, "On Behalf of Belief,"
p. 41 ff.

XXV
The Transfiguration

2 Peter i. 17, 18 (R. V.) : "For He received
from God the Father honour and glory, when there
came such a voice to Him from the excellent glory,
This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased :
and this voice we ourselves heard come out of
heaven, when we were with Him in the holy mount."

WHENEVER the 6th of August comes round,
one is apt to wonder why the Reformers in the
reign of Edward the Sixth suppressed the
festival of the Transfiguration. It was not,
indeed, a festival of great antiquity, but for
centuries it had been observed in England,
according to the most widely extended of English
ritual " Uses," by way of express and solemn
homage to the Divine majesty of our Lord, as
manifested in a Biblical event. Perhaps it may
have been thought that, as that event was not
associated with any particular gift or blessing,
the memorial of it might be dropped without
loss. If so, we may well think that the view was
superficial, and that the withdrawal of the day
from the list of English Church holydays has
thus far impoverished the Prayer-book. The

244

The Transfiguration 245

American Church has recently restored the
festival, and provided it with a newly-composed
Collect, an Epistle containing our text, and a
Gospel from St. Luke's account of the wonderful
scene on the mountain height, which has been
popularly but incorrectly identified with Tabor.
And surely the first three Evangelists intend
their readers to regard that scene as a prominent
landmark in the last year of our Lord's ministry.
They all prefix to it the first of three emphatic
warnings as to the approaching Passion and the
obligation of "cross-bearing" which it would
lay upon His servants : warnings followed by
a prediction of the Second Coming in glory,
a glory which, St. Luke takes care to indicate,
will be Christ's own as well as the Father's.
Each of the three writers contributes some
detail to the combined picture : the place, say
Matthew and Mark, is " far apart," out of reach
of common observation ; the Lord's immediate
purpose in this act of retirement is declared by
Luke to be " prayer." Matthew and Mark say
that He was " transformed," the word being
rendered, somewhat laxly, "transfigured," but
the sense being given by Luke, " the appearance
of His countenance became different." Matthew,
anticipating a phrase used in regard to the first
vision in Patmos, tells us that " His face did
shine as the sun," and adds that " His garments
were white as the light," that is, as Mark and
Luke say, "glistening," or "dazzling"; and
Mark adds, "so as no fuller on earth could
whiten them." The converse of Moses and

246 The Law of Faith

Elijah with the Lord turned, as Luke tells us,
on "His decease," His "going forth" from
the world of mortal life, "which He was about
to accomplish at Jerusalem." Mark and Luke
explain, in some sort, the proposal made by
Peter to construct three tents, in order to detain
the entrancing vision : " he did not know what
he said," or " he knew not what to say," or, " to
answer, for they were," or " they became, sore
afraid:" it was, indeed, "a glorious 1 thing
to be there," but still the sight was awful
with the awfulness which on similar occasions
had made Isaiah cry, "Woe is me," and had
bowed down Ezekiel to. the earth. But it is
Luke who significantly guarantees the reality of
the three Apostles' experience, by affirming that
they were fully awake when they saw His glory,
and the two men thcit stood with Him, whose
subsequent departure under the " overshadowing
cloud " renewed their sense of awe, which was
heightened by the " voice from the majestic
glory, This is My beloved Son, hear ye Him " ;
after which, as Matthew tells us, Jesus dispelled
their fear by His touch and His gracious
words.

This is the story : it will be observed that
St. John's silence about it is parallel to his
silence as to the institution of the Sacraments.
In the latter case, he gives us, as it were, the
interpretation of his predecessors' account ; and
so here it is to his Gospel that we look for
the idea underlying the fact of the Trans-

1 KaXov.

The Transfiguration 247

figuration, he supplies us with what they do
not give, with a full answer to the question
what the event which they record had to teach,
and why they have laid such stress upon it ; and
withal he thus enables us to set aside those
separationist theories which maintain that the
first three Gospels give us on the whole the
Jesus of history, abating, that is to say, some
legendary accretions, and that the fourth gives
us only the Jesus of spiritual imagination. For
here the first three commonly called the
Synoptists leave us asking for a comment on
their text ; we turn to the fourth Gospel, and
the comment stands out luminous as the sacred
face in the transfiguration-splendour.

For, first, the import of the scene was
certainly doctrinal, or, as it has been expressed,
" theological." l The Word, says St. John,
was with God /and was God, "yet that same
Word, Himself the true light which lightened!
every man, became flesh, and had His
tabernacle among us, and we beheld His
glory, a glory as of the Only-begotten from
the Father.". The phrase is large enough to
include such a visible manifestation as St. John
had seen on the holy mount, but its significance
certainly does not stop there. When the Son
of God stooped to become incarnate, He sub-
mitted Himself, as man, to the limitations in-
separable from humanity limitations affecting
both its mental and spiritual elements. He

1 Bishop Ellicott, "Huls. Lect. on Life of Our Lord,"
p. 227. Cp. Newman's "Sermons," iii. 265.

248 The Law of Faith

"disparaged" Himself 1 by thus becoming, as
man, inferior to the Father, while as God He
continued to be co-equal with the Father ; in
the new or human sphere of His existence,
which He really occupied without abandoning
the Divine, He leaned in prayer on His Father's
support, He referred Himself in all things to
His Father's will, He "learned obedience by
the things which He suffered," and through
which He was "made perfect." It was in-
compatible with the conditions of His truly
human life that He should continuously, in that
life, exhibit His Divine majesty ; as a rule, He
refrained from exhibiting it, and did but very
gradually, and with a tender consideration for
the weakness of spiritual perception even among
His most trusted disciples, lift up the veil and
show what His unique Sonship meant.

Now and again, sometimes by hints, some-
times by more distinct intimations, He trained
them carefully, and with a wonderful and august

e, in Phil. ii. 7, may have this sense, which is
equivalent to the A. V. rendering, as if to say, Instead of
insisting on an unqualified possession of His co-equality, He
willed to descend to a position of "inferiority to God" in
so far, and only in so far, as His human life was concerned.
The sense of the verb as here used will be further considered
below : but that vndpxwv may indicate a condition at once
pre-existent and persistent appears from Rom. iv. 19; i Cor.
xi. 7, xii. 22 ; 2 Cor. viii. 17, xii. 16 ; Gal. i. 14, ii. 14. And
the context, Phil. ii. 3, 4, shows that no actual surrender
of powers or attributes on the part of Christ is in the mind
of the Apostle: an unselfish person does not surrender
"what is his own" when he gives attention "also to what
belongs to others."

The Transfiguration 249

patience, for that full apprehension and recogni-
tion of His true relation to the Father which
could not be attained by unassisted " flesh and
blood," and which, indeed, did not take final
expression until he who had once doubted that
Jesus was risen exclaimed that Jesus was his
Lord and his God. And in the Transfiguration
He was vouchsafing to the chosen three such
a visible manifestation as might help them to
appreciate and piece together revelations internal
anid spiritual.

But then, again, this partial unfolding of His
"glory" had a prophetic, a predictive force.
Coming as it did so soon after He had inflicted
upon them the inevitable shock of learning that
He was " to suffer many things and be slain,"
a shock which had made even Peter slip back
from the ground which he had reached in his
confession at Csesarea Philippi, the Trans-
figuration was meajnt to sustain their faith and
hope under the tremendous trial which was " to
sift them as wheat," and under which they
might conceivably deny Him by despair. It
did not, as we know, prove successful with two
of them : that strange unretentiveness which
made the Apostles in general forget that He
was not only to die, but also to be raised again
on the third day, prevented Peter and James
from looking back in that hour of need to a
scene which might have been a treasure of strong
assurance. But may we not believe that it was
present to the mind of the beloved disciple when
he went with Jesus into the high priest's

250 The Law of Faith

courtyard, and when he stood with Mary beside
the Cross? And in the text we see Peter, at
the close of his apostolic career, referring to
what he had seen and heard on the holy mount,
as one of the proofs that in proclaiming Jesus
as the Christ he had not been following
cunningly devised fables. As one of the three
could appeal to what he had seen with his eyes
in regard to the Word of Life, so another could
say that he had been made an eye-witness of
his Lord's majesty ; nor can we doubt that he
clung to that recollection as to a foretaste of
that intercourse with the glorified Redeemer
which Christians might hope to share with
prophets of the older covenant amid a glory
that was never to pass away.

Once more, as all facts pertaining to the
person and work of Christ are meant to do us
good morally, so it is in a high degree with the
Transfiguration. For sometimes we too have
moments of clearer vision sudden strong
quickenings of the faculty of faith, so that
we realize vividly what at other times we
simply accept as true. It is part of our belief,
we utter it in creeds, we do not question it ;
only somehow we do not get , into vital contact
with it but sometimes we do. We seem then
" to catch a glimpse of a Form which we shall
hereafter see face to face." 1 Especially is this
the case not always, by any means, but some-
times at or after a good Communion. The
soul says, " It is the Lord "; the Eucharist brings
1 See the wonderful passage in Newman's "Sermons," v. 10.

The Transfiguration 251

home the Incarnation as a living reality ; we
breathe an atmosphere vital with Christ's pre-
sence ; a door opens, and the invisible world
flows in. We say, with St. Peter, "It is good
for us to be here." Yes, but, as he found in
his own case, we are not meant to stay on the
mountain ; the exceptional radiance must fade
into the light of common day. And here come
in two lessons one special, the other more
general. When our Lord, with His face and
garments in their everyday appearance, and His
three Apostles still astounded and awestruck,
descended into the plain, what did they find
there? A case of misery to be alleviated, a
poor father who had found the other disciples
unable to heal his suffering child, and who cried,
as one hoping against hope, "If Thou canst do
anything, have compassion on us and help us,"
the most pathetic sentence, perhaps, in St.
Mark's gospel. And is not this most practically
suggestive ? If the Lord begins to enrich our
souls with some peculiarly vivid conviction of
His nearness, His power to save to the utter-
most, His supernatural energetic love, a love
as of the Only-begotten, do not let us dissipate
the force of such a visitation by talking about it,
but rather remember how He bade the eye-
witnesses to keep close what they had seen and
heard. To indulge religious emotion for its own
sake is always perilous : "the impression grows
weaker" the more we dwell upon it without using
it as a "motive" for action. And action is pos-
sible wherever there is a brother in need of help.

R

252 The Law of Faith

If a Christian has in some special way realized
the character of God, and thereby in effect seen
the Divine glory shining in the face of Jesus
Christ, can he make a better use of the privilege
than by trying to do some kindness, to render
some opportune help, for Christ's sake, to one
of the vast multitude of sufferers for whom, as
for himself, Christ died ? Their condition is
often very adverse to faith. Pain may intensify
selfishness, poverty may stifle all thought of
another world, bereavement may embitter a
soul into revolt, evil influences potent from very
childhood may deaden the conscience and per-
vert the will ; but if love draws near, not in
word only, but in action, and with power fresh
from the presence of Christ, it may bring Him
with it as the Healer.

And in general, let us remember how St.
Paul uses the very word which in the first two
Gospels we render "transfigured." He is full
of the idea of "glory"; if the old dispensation
had for its time a glory, how much more the
new? "We all, with unveiled face "(that is,
without hindrance to vision), " beholding as in
a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being trans-
formed into the same image" that He wears
"from" one degree of "glory to" another, 1 by
a continual process of increasing conformity to
His mind and heart and will. Such a gazing on
Christ by the spiritual eyesight of faith is not,
and cannot be, "unfruitful." 2 Even in merely
human relations, to live with a person revered

1 2 Cor. iii. 18. 2 " Christian Year/' Ascension Day.

The Transfiguration 253

and loved is in some sort to assimilate his
characteristics ; and what has been said by a
great writer as an explanation of primitive
Christian goodness, that Christ had " imprinted
the image or idea of Himself on the minds of
His subjects individually," 1 may in a measure
become true even of us, if we frankly yield
ourselves to His Spirit, and beg that by "learn-
ing" Him in good earnest, we may put on that
new man 2 which has Him for its archetype and
its author. 8

1 Newman, " Grammar of Assent," p. 458.

2 Eph. iv. 20 ff.

8 The American collect for the Transfiguration is as
follows : " God, who on the mount didst reveal to chosen
witnesses Thine only begotten Son wonderfully transfigured,
in raiment white and glistening ; Mercifully grant that we,
being delivered from the disquietude of this world, may be
permitted to behold the King in His beauty, who with Thee,
Father, and Thee, Holy Ghost, liveth and reigneth one
God, world without end." The observance of the festival
on the day after the " nones " of August, that is, on the 6th of
August, is traceable in England to A.D. 805 : see a charter of
Cuthred, king of Kent, in Kemble's "Codex Diplom." i.
233. Bede does not mention it in his list of holydays.

XXVI
Strength through Obedience

Ps. ciii. 20 : " Bless the Lord, ye His angels,
that excel in strength, that do His commandments,
hearkening unto the voice of His word."

THIS verse comes naturally into our thoughts
on the festival of St. Michael and all Angels
a festival which in this year l overshadows, for
ritual purposes, the sixteenth Sunday after
Trinity, which concurs with it. Yet in the
Epistle for that Sunday there is a passage which
harmonizes remarkably with the Psalmist's
noble conception of the nature and character
of the angels of God. St. Paul appears as
interceding with God on behalf of those who
were to read his Epistle; 2 and what is the
first gift that he asks for them? That they
may be " strengthened with power through the
Spirit, in the inner man ; " the words implying
that this power is to flow "into" their inmost
being. Further on he exhorts them to "be
strong," literally, to "be made powerful, in
the Lord, and in the strength of His might."
1 1895. 2 Eph. iii. 14 ff.

254

Strength through- Obedience 255

Elsewhere he prays that the Colossians may be
"strengthened with all power according to the
might of His glory," that is, with the highest
attainable degree of spiritual force; as he
exhorts the Corinthians, in a few terse words
which are like ah echo from the Old Testament,
to "quit themselves like men and to grow
strong ; " l or he reminds one who represents
him in the government of a Church, that the
Spirit which God had given to them both was
a spirit " not of timorousness, but of power."
He, if any man, had a right to speak thus,
being pre-eminently a strong man ; no weakling
swayed by fitful impulses, "purposing according
to the flesh," saying first Yes and then No,
soon frightened, easily talked over, unable to
hold his own, with no backbone, as we say,
in his character. Some physical infirmity he
had, and freely acknowledged its distressing
and humiliating effects ; but he had learned
to glory in it as an occasion for the manifest-
ation of Christ's power as " made perfect in his
own weakness": he felt that he had strength
for all things in Him who was thus filling him
with power. 2 Moral and spiritual strength,
secured by moral and spiritual union with God
through Christ, is a thought habitual to St.
Paul, who here, as elsewhere, reproduces the

1 With ovfy)/fr<70, i Cor. xvi. 13, cp. Deut. xxxi. 6;
Joshua x. 25 ; Dan. x. 19, in LXX. The accompanying
verb in the Greek of the latter texts, la^yu, is not so emphatic
as St. Paul's KpuraiovffQe.

2 Combine 2 Cor. xii. 9 with Phil. iv. 13.

256 The Law of Faith

warnings of his Master as to the imperative
necessity of confessing Him before men at all
costs, and of mastering all fear in such a cause.
The firmness which His service will require
is only attainable through a faith which over-
comes, "as seeing the Invisible." It is by a
resolutely practical recognition of the supremacy
of the unseen and eternal that Christians are
to put on the whole armour of God ; but as
faith energizes through love, it is a loyal re-
sponse to the infinite love of Christ which is
the principle of power for His athletes, His
soldiers, His men.

But if Christianity does thus insist on strength,
why has it been repeatedly disparaged as a
religion fit only for weak and feminine natures,
or even as having a distinctly enervating effect
both on the intellect and on the will ? This is,
in fact, a very old story : the pagan Icelanders
of the tenth century had "a strong feeling that
the teaching of the White" or Fair "Christ
would weaken the arm of those who listened
to it;" 1 and in the first age- of English
Christianity two East-Saxon nobles, themselves
professedly Christian, actually murdered their
good king because, as they owned with savage
frankness, he was wont to "pardon offences as
soon as his pardon was craved." 2 But why
go back to the rough Middle Ages, to the
ferocious ideals which both resisted and tainted
Christianity in Northern Europe, to the Celtic

1 Maclear, " Conversion of the Northmen," p. 183.

2 Bede, iii. 22.

Strength through Obedience 257

blood-feuds handed on through generations?
This prejudice is almost as modern as it is
ancient : Italian vindictiveness has long been
proverbial ; and in certain English districts,
pride and stubbornness, and tenacious remem-
brance of injuries, were long cherished as proofs
of courage, and have not, perhaps, even yet
lost all their credit ; and elsewhere, and under
very different social conditions, young souls
entering upon adult life are told that if they
clog themselves with religious scruples and
restraints, they will never be free, and will
never be practically men; and the falsehood
thus dogmatically affirmed is accepted with
only too facile assent, with a credence as blind
as ever bowed to a superstition.

"But," it will be said, "the prejudice, as
you call it, is anyhow pretty general among
men of the world, who keep their eyes open,
and decline to be put into clerical leading-
strings ; there must be some foundation for
it." Well, it is partly due to the fact that
Christianity has from the first deliberately
canonized as virtues certain qualities which, in
the estimation of heathenism, were not only
scorned as weaknesses, but censured as flaws,
one might say,- as vices, such as gentleness,
forbearance, humility, the abnegation of self-
assertion and of self-will. "Not," as it has
been most truly said, 1 "that these were taught

1 A. S. Wilkins, "The Light of the World," p. 168. Of
the cognate charge, that Christian morality is negative or
passive, it has been said that " nearly half the New Testa-

258 The Law of Faith

to the exclusion of the robuster virtues ; to assert
this were to impart a tone of effeminacy into
Christian ethics utterly alien to it, and to do
grievous dishonour to the example of the King
of men. But on these, as on the long latent
elements of a perfect virtue, the greater stress
was naturally laid," and for a reason by no
means obsolete ; for these things not only were,
but are, repugnant to "the old Adam" within
us : and we may still meet with a particular con-
ception of strength which, however unchristian,
is in some men's eyes attractive. The strong
man,' they think, is one who elbows his way
to foremost positions, makes himself felt by
masterful resolve, gains his objects by sheer
dominance of nature, by " the power of a strong
will over a weak one ; " a coarse ideal this,
barbaric, lawless, immoral, but one which suits
the " untamed element in humanity." Others
will say, as if from a higher platform, "We
grant you that it is a poor type of excellence,
a vulgar and brutal conception of energy ; we
readily abandon it to your censure ; but there is
another kind of strength which is independent
of your religious presumptions, still more, of
your artificial creeds and your ecclesiastical
apparatus, but which even you must admit to
possess some ethical value. A man may have
his own standard of right and wrong, his own
intelligible rules of conduct, and may conform

ment" might be quoted in refutation. Shairp, "Studies in
Poetry and Philosophy," p. 387.

Strength through Obedience 259

to them with loyal consistency, while yet they
may be founded on a sense of what is due to
himself as a member of society, or simply as
a rational being. He may think the idea of a
personal God unprovable, and therefore may
leave it out of the question of conduct ; he can
be morally strong without it, and may fairly
claim that religious people should not do him
the injustice of supposing that his hold on
virtue must be precarious, because, being a
man of his own time, he cannot accept their
antiquated theology."

Something like this is said, and doubtless is
really meant ; what answer can be given from
the Christian point of view ?

Religion, assuredly, does not create morality,
but rather morality underlies religion, and gives
us the deepest reason that we have for believing
in a God who is real and living because He
has moral character. This reason does not
pretend to be scientific ; science can neither
prove God nor disprove Him ; in fact, a God
who could be thus proved would not be a God
for us ; but a moral argument of this sort may
have a suasion which science cannot exercise. 1
Religion, then, must have an ethical basis, but
it acts in its turn on the ethical idea. It takes
morality by the hand, leads it onward, fills in
its outlines, gives it colour, so to speak, and
emphasis, the animating force of loftier motives,

1 On the assumption, often implied rather than expressed,
that " no evidence which is not scientific has any value,"
see Mozley, " Univ. Serm.," p. 59.

260 The Law of Faith

the new inspiration that comes with a widened
outlook. If we could imagine a world like ours
going on without a moral ruler, what should we
see in it ? Surely, as Dr. Mozley has expressed
it, a morality impoverished and "stunted." 1 If
the faculty which realizes the unseen, and takes
hold of the sovereign " thought of God," is
anyhow "atrophied," morality surfers by the
weakening of its impulse and by the contraction
of its area. For instance, how can a conscience
unaware of the meaning of sin be as sensitive
to evil in itself, not to say in others, as one
which knows sin to be the worst enemy of its
peace? No, belief in God is required to perfect
the idea of duty, the conviction of the "ought"
in man ; without it the sense of moral freedom
and responsibility will be, at least, very seriously
impaired, and human passion will sweep out of
its course restraints which are but of the earth
and of time, as the hailstorm in the prophet's
vision breaks down the wall that was " daubed "
rather than built. In some quarters unbelief
seems often pessimistic ; it fixes its gaze on the
iron and clay of the " image," and hardly recog-
nizes the gold or the silver. But we Christians
have been taught, not indeed to idolize humanity,
but still to respect it, as retaining amid all its
"corruption" the dignity of a "creation in the
image of God." We believe that "life grows
cheap as faith, and the hope that is born of
faith, expire ; " 2 as they revive, they give us a

1 "Univ. Serm.,"p. 53.

2 Baldwin Brown, "The Higher Life," p. 49.

Strength through Obedience 261

new spring of upward movement ; they urge us
to think more worthily of our destiny, as they
stir us to respond to the ennobling purpose of
our Creator. It is thus that dependence on the
Highest, understood and accepted, lifts men
higher, and yet again higher; the first article
of faith, " I believe in God," bringing along
with it, as consistently it does, the idea of a
revelation and of a Christ, puts all facts of life
into their right places ; and obedience to such
a God, and loyalty to such a Christ, mean so
much more of strength to the soul which will
thus ascertain, by an experience too personal
to be disowned, that in the service of God, and
of man, as St. Paul would say, " in God," is the
only perfect freedom. For strength comes to
those who are where they were meant to be, at
their post and at their work ; not left to their
own guiding, but watched and ruled and cared
for by the Supreme ; they, and they only, under-
stand what for others is a paradox, " When I
am weak, then I am strong," because strong
in the service and the grace of the Father, the
Redeemer, the Sanctifier, the Three who are
One. The sum of all then is, that the question
whether moral strength has or has not any
dependence upon religion runs up, like so many
others, into the great original question, " Have
we a God?"

We answer, of course, that we have One,
and that as Christians we know more of Him
than prophets or psalmists knew of old ; but in
the magnificent psalm which contains our text,

262 The Law of Faith

which a good English bishop of Stuart times 1
repeated frequently on his death-bed, and which
perhaps more than any other foreshadows the
Christian vision of the Divine character, it is
after he has sung of the Lord as continuously
merciful to those that fear Him, and remember
His commandments to do them, that the poet
goes on to speak of the holy angels as com-
bining the excellence of strength with the
excellence of loyalty. Scripture, alike by distinct
statement and in imagery, represents that
highest order of God's servants as "great in
power," as reflecting in their very presence
somewhat of the awful majesty of the Most
High. And the text gives us this invaluable
suggestion, that if they are so august, it is
because they are so thoroughly dutiful ; and
our Lord has taught us to regard their obedience
as a pattern for our own " Thy will be done,
as in heaven, so in earth." And they who so
do that will in heaven are said to hearken to
the voice of their Lord, and to be strong and
glorious by obeying it.

Here then is the practical question for us :
Do we intend to hearken to that voice in our
consciences, to ask at each turn of life what the
Lord would have us to do ? In little things, as
they may seem, in details trivial" and common-
place, we may ask this question of Him to
whom nothing is great and nothing little, and
shall certainly not fail to get an answer ; and
when it . comes, let us promptly act upon it.
1 Bishop Sanderson.

Strength through Obedience 263

Every case of such obedience will be a case of
increase in moral ability ; for " they that " thus
"wait on the Lord shall renew their strength."
We shall feel that our past failures, our lapses,
our turnings back in the day of battle, our
attempts to avoid Nineveh by sailing to Tar-
shish, have been caused by our neglect of the
grace which would have been power. We
shall go back to our "mighty God" for re-
inforcement ; and then only, shall we be able to
take to ourselves the cheering words of an arch-
angel to one who had set his heart to chasten
himself before his God " Fear not, peace be
unto thee ; be strong, yea, be strong." 1

1 Dan. x. 19.

XXVII
Victory through Purity

Rev. vii. 13, 14: "And one of the elders
answered, saying unto me, What are these which
are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they ?
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he
said to me, These are they which came out of
great tribulation, and have washed their robes,
and made them white in the blood of the Lamb."

CHURCH people in general are accustomed to
regard the first of November as the typical fes-
tival of its class : great preachers and Christian
poets have set forth in vivid language its
signal claim on devout and thankful observ-
ance. " We mingle together," says one, " in
the brief remembrance of an hour, all the
choicest deeds, the holiest lives, the noblest
labours " (that is, of human beings like our-
selves) "which the sun ever saw;" 1 and
another, who looked at religious questions from
a very different standpoint, and whom we hardly
knew as a singer of Israel until he had been
taken from us, 2 helps us to think, on All Saints'

1 Newman, " Sermons," ii. 393.

2 The Rev. E. Hatch.

264

Victory through Purity 265

day, of the vast and splendid variety which
marks this collective work of God's grace on
human character :

" Saints of the early morn of Christ,

Saints of imperial Rome ;
Saints of the cloistered Middle Age,

Saints of the modern home ....
Saints who were wafted to the skies

In the torment-robe of flame ;
Saints who have graven on men's thoughts

A monumental name;"

saints also whom no calendar celebrates, whose
light shone merely in out-of-the-way corners,
whose influence shed its odour on " small
circles," whose work, in their own eyes, so often
seemed a failure ;

" Saints of the marts and busy streets,

Saints of the squalid lanes ;
Saints of the silent solitudes,
Of the prairies and the plains,"

or, as Keble has it in his poem for the festival, of
" many a hidden dell and rural nook." All who
under various conditions have been eminent
servants of Christ are as one in the power of
their examples, in the stimulus which their
memory gives to Christian effort, the effort of
that same living and working faith, which drew
them so close to the Lord who is " theirs and
ours." It is good for us to bear them thus in
mind ; it is cheering, as the poet goes on to
say with wrstful pathos, when " our faith is
waxing faint," when " the lamp of" our " love

266 The Law of Faith

burns low." It is inspiriting then to adopt the
lofty words which our sister Church in Scotland
has retained, with enrichments, from the first
English Prayer-book, and to " give God most
high praise and hearty thanks for the wonderful
grace and virtue declared in all His Saints,
who have been the choice vessels of His grace,
and the lights of the world in their several
generations." 1

Courage of heart, and steadiness of hope ;
we need them both, He knows, more deeply,
perhaps, at times than we should dare to con-
fess to each other. Autumn was once called by
a slowly dying authoress a " season of peculiar
and inexhaustible influence on the mind of taste
and tenderness : " 2 an influence which, on the
whole, is melancholy, responsive to the sad
music of the two words, " Passing away "; and
Keble 3 has accustomed us to find in it a symbol
of that mournful law of disappointment, as St.
Paul speaks, of vanity, 4 which makes its pre-
sence felt even within the area of the Spirit's
Pentecostal operation. Alas, we say, that evil
seems so often too strong for good ! What begins
well, say, in some young life, apparently rich
in spiritual promise, is so often, so tragically,
tainted, spoiled, and ruined : the parables of the
Tares and of the Sower are so repeatedly

1 Scottish Communion Office.

2 Jane Austen, "Persuasion," vol. i. c. 10.

3 " Christian Year," Twenty-first Sunday after Trinity. Cp.
"Lyra Apostolica," p. 171.

4 Rom. viii. 20.

Victory through Purity 267

verified by a painful experience, that we forget
how the good seed is really growing in secret,
how the sacred leaven, unseen, is really per-
vading and assimilating the mass. But if we
do forget this, All Saints' day comes in to bring
it home. In the noble words, so inspiring
because so grave and restrained, of Dean
Church, 1 we are reminded that " the visible
presence of Divine Goodness in real human
form," the form of One who was born of woman,
who worked for years in a carpenter's shop,
who went about with a few poor men, who died
a criminal's death, but who rose again and
ascended to His Father, that Presence " has
brought real inward goodness within reach, has
made this world really a place where righteous-
ness, and love, and purity should have a visible
seat and home." If we want one broad and
simple evidence for the truth of the Christian
religion, let us look for it in All Saints, and so
think of Christ more worthily.

But then, as Carlyle has said, " no man
becomes a saint in his sleep." 2 These holy men
and women, these highest types of Christian
character, these who were Christians beyond
the average, had kingdoms of darkness to
subdue, had to be "made strong" (literally,
to be empowered) "out of" or "from weak-
ness;" it cost them something to wax valiant in
fight, in the "good and noble contest of faith,"
and, in the deepest, most effective sense, to

1 "On Civilization," etc., p. 185.

2 "Past and Present," p. 46.

268 The Law of Faith

"turn to flight" whole "armies of the aliens." 1
And s.o in the Patmos vision, St. John beholds
the "multitude which no man could number,
gathered out of every nation, and from tribes,
and peoples, and tongues, standing before the
throne, and before the Lamb, arrayed in white
robes, and palms were in their hands ; " he
hears them ascribe "their salvation to their
God and to the Lamb ; " he is asked if he
knows who they are; he answers, "Sir, thou
knowest" And then he is told these two things
about them: "These have come out of the
great tribulation" (literally, "that tribulation
which is the great one"), and "They have
washed their robes, and made them white, in
the blood of the" slain and living " Lamb."

Here, then, is a condition of the saintly life :
some great tribulation, some form of trying
pressure ; the vision refers, not, like that in the
first part of the same chapter, to the saints of
the first age, but to a far larger company, whose
experience belongs severally to this or that
period of the whole life of the Church militant.
With none of them was saintliness a matter of
smooth gradual evolution ; they had their fight-
ings and their fears, their wounds, their checks,
yes, sometimes their falls ; but though they
ifell, they arose : 2 it was hard work, and success
seemed often uncertain ; and of this they had had
full warning. He in whom alone could Paul
himself do more than conquer 3 had pressed that

1 Heb. xi. 33, 34. 2 Mic. vii. 8.

3 Rom. viii. 37.

Victory through Purity 269

fact, with a gracious though stern insistence, on
the consciousness of those who wished to follow
Him ; and in His charges to the Seven Churches,
at the opening of this same mysterious book, the
variety with which His final rewards are in-
dicated contrasts significantly with the iteration
of one and the same condition in every case :
the tree of life, the hidden manna, the white
raiment, the morning star, the assured place in
the temple, the place on the very throne of
Him who overcame and is seated with the
Father, are all alike reserved for "him that
overcometh."

" By this conquer " was, in the famous story,
emblazoned on the luminous cross of an
Emperor's dream. " By this conquer " is
spiritually " writ large " on the Cross, as gazed
on, and as gloried in, by every soul that is
trying to be faithful, striving its best to respond
to grace, and not to grieve the Spirit of Christ.
Is this at all true of us? The Saints here
pictured, the foremost soldiers of the host,
appear with palms in their hands, a link with
the scene of their Lord's " triumphal entry."
But they, in their day and place, only did more
thoroughly what all who confess Christ are
pledged to do. Every one of us is bound, by
the very fact of baptism, to fight manfully,
under Christ's victorious banner, against sin,
the world, and the devil. Are we making any
true fight of it? Or are we placidly saying
that we need not excite ourselves, that this
" high-strung tone of the Church service " yes,

270 The Law of Faith

and of the Bible "is not quite applicable to
times like ours;" or, at least, that if others
have reason to be so spiritually strenuous, we
need not specially trouble ourselves, that
our circumstances immerse us in this world's
interests, that we cannot help it, but we hope
some day to have time to think of another ;
meantime, that we always treat religion
respectfully, and observe as many of its pre-
cepts as are in our business-life sufficiently
practicable? No, this is surely not language
for Christians ; at the All Saints' festival, we
must needs feel that it is not. We are capable
of something better. If we believe at all in
God, in Christ, in our own souls, in the world
unseen, and in the eternal future, let us deter-
mine to take the right side, and accept any
drawback, any difficulty, which Christian con-
sistency may bring upon us, as just a bit of
the tribulation through which we have to pass,
but as not worthy to be compared with the
pleasure of pleasing our Master.

And to take the right side, to act like faithful
Christians, involves, as we learn from the
"elder's" speech to the Apostle, the process
of washing the robes, and washing them in the
right way. As the All Saints' Gospel reminds
us, it is the pure in heart who shall see God;
as for those who will not become pure, how
could they expect to see Him ? how could
heaven itself be other than a hell to them ?
Purity, in its distinctive sense, is a virtue on
which Christianity, from the first, insisted with

Victory through Purity 271

an emphasis which must have astonished
heathen outsiders, a virtue which has a
peculiar power of keeping the character sound
and sweet, while the opposite vice is frightfully
apt to poison, and, as Burns mournfully affirmed,
to "petrify," the whole of the inward man.
But it should also be understood in the larger
sense of a conscious comprehensive effort to
subdue the flesh to the spirit, to bring all
lower and meaner desires into obedience to
the higher nature, considered as longing after
goodness, and laying itself open to the cleansing
and lifting influence of the Spirit of holy love
and holy fear. Such purity is what we must
aim at, if we would not make our lives, morally
and spiritually, mere instances of complete and
unmistakably wretched failure. And failure of
this sort is imprinted on so many lives :
"nature," as it calls itself, revolts so boldly
against grace, against the law of God, against
all restraint on its own impulses, especially
against the seventh commandment ; the claim
of its wilfulness is asserted in a theory, as if
some rightful freedom were involved in it.
People say, or think, if they say it not, "We
will be real, we will live the life that suits
us." 1 And that often means that master and

1 The fullest liberty of divorce, it has been recently said,
is demanded in America by persons who " are determined
at all costs to be happy, and to make not one effort, but as
many as circumstances may desire." " Contemp. Review,"
Sept. 1897. Marriage is thus degraded into a mere social
arrangement terminable on either side at will.

272 The Law of Faith

servant shall change places that the lower
self shall dominate the higher; and "the end
thereof" is this, that belief in man, as a moral
and spiritual being, is gradually eaten out, and
the carnal mind, at enmity with God, and
"rotting away" (in St. Paul's terrible phrase)
" according to the lusts of deceit," l acquiesces in
sheer animalism. Let us be sure that the cause
of human dignity is the cause of the spirit
versits the flesh ; we are degraded by all that
makes us the slaves of moral corruption. 2 Let
us seek to be kept out of that bondage ; let us
pray being sure that we shall not pray in
vain for a hearty sympathy with the purposes
of God, for a genuine wish to be made pure,
since to make ourselves pure is simply im-
possible : cleanness of thought, and mind, and
will, of speech and of act, comes only from
contact with the one Fountain opened for
uncleanness, the precious Blood that cleanseth
from all sin. Perhaps we may recollect a
beautiful anthem which, while embodying the
words of this context, reiterates significantly
the sphere of the washing of robes: "In the
blood in the blood the blood of the Lamb."
Let us have recourse to that same source of
purification; let us take the remembrance of
past sins straight up to the throne of our only
Saviour, and implore Him to repeat, in our
case, the touch which He laid on one who was
full of leprosy ; 3 let us resolve, in His strength,

1 Eph. iv. 22. 2 2 Pet. ii. 19.

3 St. Luke v. 12.

Victory through Purity 273

to watch more earnestly against all the tempta-
tions which have heretofore soiled the array of
the soul. To watch in that spirit is, so far, to
play the part of a good soldier of Jesus Christ ;
the more care we take for this supreme object,
the more shall we advance in His favour, the
stronger shall we become to resist His foe and
ours, and the whiter will our garments show in
the splendour of His face, we may dare to
say,- of His smile. And at last, if we can
but persevere, what will the trials of this
world look like, when we too shall have come
out of our tribulation, with all our spots and
stains effaced by the merits of His Passion,
and the renewing power of His Spirit ? How
infinitely worth while will it then appear to
have loyally striven for a few years of mortal
life, if at the end we take our place amid those
who have won the victory, and can walk in
white for ever with our own immaculate Lord ! *

1 Christians may well take a lesson from the noble
aspiration of Sophocles in " CEd. Tyr." 863 ff. :

"0 may the lot be mine for aye to keep
The purity that men revere
Through all my words and deeds, in duteous fear
Of laws that walk c on heaven's high steep.' "

XXVIII
Love to God

St. Mark xii. 24 : " Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul,
and with all thy mind ; and with all thy strength."

ONE of the most beautiful collects in the
Prayer-book is that in which we are taught to
pray, " Pour into our hearts such love towards
Thee, that we, loving Thee above all things,
may obtain Thy promises, which exceed all that
we can desire." Our translated collects not
seldom add new features to their originals, and
seldom omit any ; and we cannot but wonder
that, whereas this collect in its old Latin word-
ing asked for grace to love God "in all things
and above all things," 1 the latter clause was
left out in four editions of the Prayer-book,
and was only restored in the last revision at the
expense of the former. It was a loss to omit
either ; but it is matter of regret that, when a
good opportunity occurred in 1661, the full
wording was not replaced, but only one short-

1 " Ut te in omnibus et super omnia diligentes." See H.
A. Wilson, " Gelasian Sacramentary," p. 224.

274

Love to God 275

ened form substituted for another, apparently
because it seemed more intelligible. 1 For the
combination represented a great truth, and
gave, so to speak, a complete view. All things
that are lovable, more especially all persons
who are rightly objects of love, are, so far,
types of Him whom we are to love with heart
and soul and mind and strength, with the whole
energy of our being; we are to see Him in
them, and look through them to Him, and also
to appreciate the supremacy of His peculiar
claim on our affection, and to aim at loving
Him best.

Still, the collect as it stands may well be dear
to us : and when we have gone through a week
with it, we take up another which carries on
the same thought; we pray "the Author and
Giver of all good things to graft in our hearts
the love of His Name," that is, of Himself as
He is revealed to us, as a personal Being with
a character. We are so much accustomed to
think of Old Testament religion as mainly a
religion of awe, of distant reverence, of an
obedience hardly filial, that we forget how the
Psalter absolutely glows and burns with genuine
love for God's name, for God's commandments,
for God's testimonies, as we might say, for
whatever serves as a reminder of His presence,
yes, and for His own very Self. " I will
love Thee, Lord, my strength;" "I love
the Lord;" U O love the Lord, all ye His

1 In the " Black-letter Prayer-book " used by the revisers
" in " is scored out, and " above " substituted.

276 The Law of Faith

saints ; " " O ye that love the Lord, see that ye
hate the thing that is evil." Here is " affection
fastening itself, with the most natural freshness
and simplicity," on the manifestations of the
Divine mind, and through them and beyond
them on a Divine personality : an affection at
once "exulting" and "reverent," both "tender
and manly," and "intensely human" through-
out. 1 And if it was possible to those earlier
worshippers, if its absence would have been
impossible to the worthiest types of Hebrew
piety, how much more natural ought it to be
to those for whom it was written, that " God
commendeth His own love towards us" pre-
cisely "in this, that when we were yet sinners
Christ died for us ; " and that His claim on our
gratitude and devotion is so Unique and so
imperative, that if any Christian man, knowing
who He is and what He has done for us, loves
Him not, he will justly be "anathema" at the
Lord's second coming! It has been ex-
cellently said, 2 that "in addition to all the
characteristics of Hebrew monotheism" which
evoked in responsive souls a strong and genuine
"individual attachment" to the God of their
fathers, the God of so many deliverances and
forbearances, there exists in the doctrine of the
Incarnation and the Cross " a peculiar and
inexhaustible treasure for the affectionate feel-
ings/' The idea of the God-Man as the

1 Church, " Gifts of Civilization," etc-., p. 430. See the
whole of the exquisite context.

2 By Arthur Henry Hallam.

Love to God 277

Redeemer is the most powerful of all appeals
to the human heart, the leverage which alone
was wanted to move the moral world.

We say this, it has been said a thousand
times ; we read it approvingly in books ; we
think it both true and Beautiful ; but do we
analyze the idea with sufficient accuracy to
exclude mistakes as to what this love for God
and for Christ does in truth involve and
require ?

One mistake lies on the surface : let us
observe, first, what is not properly a constituent
of this great principle of regenerated character.
Devotional books of a foreign type, and still
more frequently, high-strung language in hymns
offered for congregational use, are apt to mis-
lead persons into a supposition that there can
be no real love for God without a peculiar
intensity of spiritual emotion ; and if they are
conscious that they do not feel such emotion,
they conclude that they are in no sense what-
ever fulfilling the first and great commandment.
In "revivalist" gatherings it is even thought
right to work up the feelings by methods which,
in the last resort, are physical rather than
spiritual, to extort, as it were, by loud impor-
tunity, and by the infection pervading an excited
crowd, professions that Christ has been accepted,
and that the soul has found peace. It is for-
gotten that such transports "come and go," 1
and that their presence is no test of that love
which God looks for ; that justification by a
1 See above, p. 26.

278 The Law of Faith

living faith does not mean justification by warm
feelings ; that religious emotion is a good
servant when kept well in hand and at its work,
but a bad master ; l that, to use the words of a
great parish priest, who had a specially keen
eye for religious unreality or unhealthiness,
"people lay so much stress on feelings, and
imagine that because they have susceptible
nerves they are on the road to heaven," whereas
11 the great thing is simply to be desirous to do
God's will ; " 2 and this desire is in fact a desire
to love Him, and is reckoned by Him as in-
cipient love, even although the soul should be
distressed by what it takes to be spiritual
dryness, but which may, by God's blessing on
faithful patience, be turned into "springs of

water." 3

A more serious difficulty has been made as
to whether love for God ought not to be wholly
independent of hope of His "rewards." Men
have assumed that if "pure," it must needs
be utterly regardless of "self-interest." The
term is ambiguous, and therefore requires
cross-questioning; what "self" are we think-
ing of, and what kind of "interest" is in
question ? Undoubtedly those promises of
which we say, in the very collect which asks
for power to love God above all things, that
they "exceed all that we can desire," have
nothing to do with objects which attract the

1 Liddon, " Easter Sermons," i. 265.

2 " Life and Letters of Dean Butler," p. 378.

8 Isa. xxxv. 7.

Love to God 279

lower nature, or, as St. Paul would say, the
"flesh." What they point to is a state of
mind and heart which issues in eternal life,
in what we comprehensively call salvation.
And salvation, as Christians believe, is man's
supreme good ; and for a man not to desire
and aim at his supreme good is to be false to
his own humanity. But to desire salvation in
its true and full sense is, first, to desire that
entire moral union with God which absolutely
excludes all "selfishness," and also to desire
that others, as many as possible, may share
with us in that beatitude; 1 and this twofold
desire is simply a condition of Christian good-
ness, the fulfilment of a necessary law of our
being, when elevated and transfigured into an
obligation created by our faith. Thus, in
Bishop Butler's words, 2 "the question whether

1 Cf. Dean Paget, " Studies in the Christian Character,"
p. xxxiv.

2 " Sermons," 13 and 14. Fe'nelon, in his " Instruction sur
le pur Amour," places the man who loves God because of
His perfection, and because He is " bdatifiant " for himself,
on a lower level than the man who would love God just as
much if he did not believe Him to be " be'atifiant." The
latter, he says, wishes for his own salvation purely because
God " veut qu'il la veuille ; " he is in no sense seeking his
own interest ; he loves himself only " comme un etranger, et
pour aimer ce que Dieu a fait " (" OEuvres," i. 305). Where
does the New Testament support these flights? Fenelon
evidently differs from Butler, who regards "reasonable self-
love" as actually a "part of the idea of virtue" ("Anal." i.
c. 5; cp. "Sermon" 12), whereas Fe'nelon seems to have
treated any regard to "interest" as more or less "mercenary"
(Jervis's " Hist. Ch. France," ii. 137). It is needless to say
which is the sounder view. On "altruistic" extravagances see

280 The Law of Faith

we ought to love God for His sake or for
our own" is "a mere mistake in language":
we must long for that " somewhat, which may
fill up all our capacities of happiness," and " in
which our souls may find rest ;" and that some-
what, that Some One, "may be to us all that
we want," so that no kind of good which would
promote our true happiness can be conceived
of as attainable outside Him ; and heaven itself
is not merely a gift of His, it is constituted by
His Presence.

But now let us ask what is required to con-
stitute true love for God as He shines forth
in Christ our Saviour? Three things may be
specified.

First, a due sense of His infinite perfection.
Moral excellence is moral beauty, and as
such, attracts and retains love. Even heathen
wisdom, in its transient glimpses of high truth,
could say that justice was "fairer than the
morning or evening star," that " to behold virtue
in its perfection would be itself the fulness
of joy." 1

Next, there will be thankfulness for the
goodness, kindness, "philanthropy" 2 of God,

Mozley, " Univ. Serm.," p. 74. The reference to " heaven "
and " a reward " in the beautiful hymn, " My God, I love
Thee," etc., which an average congregation can hardly use
without some risk of unreality, seems to favour the mistaken
notion that complete union with God, and personal beatitude,
are separable things, whereas they are one thing.

1 Arist, "Eth.," v. i. 15; Cic., "de Fin.," v. 24.

2 Tit. iii. 4.

Love to God 281

as exhibited towards ourselves ; that " love "
which culminated in the gift of which St. John
could say with that restrained energy which is
so peculiarly impressive, " Herein is love/ 1 and
" God so loved the world." It is, as Dr. Arnold
said, "hard to believe that our own single indi-
vidual soul is and ever has been the direct object
of the infinite love of the most high God ; yet
this we are warranted, nay, we are commanded
to believe ; and ... if this truth once takes
possession of our hearts, then are we redeemed
indeed." 1 Sometimes Christmas or Holy Week
brings home the thought to us : in other states
of mind we are in the first instance best helped
to grasp it by looking back into our personal
experience, and remembering how we have
been " dealt witli," 2 spared, watched over, com-
passed about, how even troubles have proved
themselves "grace-tokens." 3 If we will but
honestly open our minds to indications of God's
love, they will not be long in coming, they
will surround us, like the angelic chariots in
Dothan.

But once more, love for God requires, as we
have seen, a serious purpose of conformity to
His will. Our love for a parent, or for an
elder friend to whom we look up, is not
worth much unless it makes us endeavour to
please them. And this purpose may be grave
and calm, and incapable of expressing itself

1 " Christian Life, its Hopes, Fears, and Close," p. 329.

2 "Silas Marner,"p. 126.

8 Newman in " Lyra Apostolica," p. 26.

282 The Law of Faith

in the language of excitement, but may, all the
same, be essentially " fervour" ; as the Apostle
of love defines love for God to be " the keeping
of His commandments," which will not seem
"grievous" to a heart that is open towards
Him. Here is the point that the will should
be enlisted in His service, that no room should
be left in us for a graceless self-will which
would treat God as representing a rival interest,
construe His laws as strictly as a penal statute,
insist on reserving this point and marking off
that ground, and thereby forfeit the joy of a
frankly complete self-surrender. This is, in
fact, the Pharisaic or legalist idea of duty,
which St. Paul alludes to in his assertion that
" the letter killeth." So long as God is thought
of as a Forbidcler rather than a Father, so
long as His commands are read as simply
prohibitory, we cannot put our wills into the
task of obeying them, and love for them is
out of the question ; whereas it is just this
love which is the vitalizing power of " spiritual "
service.

And how is it, then, with us? If we are
to be honest with ourselves, do we not often
feel a sting of shame, and perhaps a cold fit
of despondency, when we hear that to love
God means this, and nothing short of it?
Why are we so cold and dull towards the God
in whom we say that we believe ? Three
reasons may be suggested.

First, there is the absorption in things visible
and secular, which is doubtless a special impedi-

Love to God 283

ment to spiritual aspiration amid the complex
demands of modern life, which make it harder
than ever to keep the thought of God in its
right place, as central and supreme. When
the mind and heart are full of schemes and
aims purely secular, it seems forced and un-
natural to bring in the thought of an eternal
world. Our instinct says, " That is not to the
present purpose ; " the fact being that the idea
of it strikes us as intrusive. The earthly lights
form such a dazzling circle, that in the midst
of them the heavenly light looks pale and
austere. It is anything but easy then to dis-
cover amid a throng of temporal interests the
royal presence of our spiritual King. It is love
alone which can then look out, as it were, from
the fishing-boat to a figure standing on the
familiar beach, and say at once, "It is the
Lord."

To this may be added a vague, indistinct,
ineffective mode of thinking about the person,
the life, the character, of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Persons assume that they know already as
much as they need know more, perhaps,
they say, than can strictly be verified as to
what He said and did, why He came, what
were His objects, what effect He produced
on men. They do not try to fill in the out-
lines of the sketch which their memory retains ;
they do not care to understand what the Gospel
account means, to gain a definite idea of Him,
to " learn " Him, in the pregnant phrase of the

Apostle, so that for them "the great Name"

T

284 the Law of Faith

may "no longer stand for an abstract symbol
of doctrine, but for a living Master, who can
'teach as well as save." 1

And thirdly, and this is the great antagonist
to love, they how often has it been we ?
are kept back from a vital approach to God
by a love of what St. John calls the world,
and, more precisely yet, by the fascination
of some besetting sin. That is our secret
"grievance" against His commandments: it
makes us wish Him to be other than He is ;
we come near to resenting His severity of moral
judgment; we dislike to be recalled from our
own way by "the remembrance of His holi-
ness"; and so we lose, by degrees, the very
capacity of loving Him. It is the perversion
of will that produces this deadening coldness ;
if we can only bring our wills within the great
circle of God's will, and ask to have no will
counter to His, it will be "as if the walls had
fallen down that shut us out from" Him. 2

If we wish, then, to love God, let us watch
against these three hindrances. And let us
bear in mind always, as we set our mind on
gaining love for Him, that love for our
brethren, which we commonly call charity, is
not only inseparable from it, but a very effectual
help towards the attainment of it. St. John's
well-known question implies as much ; and
Butler, at the end of his sermons on "the Love

1 Church, "The Oxford Movement," p. 168.
* "Scenes of Clerical Life," p. 285 ("Janet's Repent-
ance ").

Love to God 285

of our Neighbour," expressly prays, " Help us,
by cultivating within ourselves the love of our
neighbour, to improve in the love of Thee."
We can clearly see how, for we can all the
more vividly apprehend the Divine lovableness
when we think of the faithful human tenderness
which has brightened and sweetened our life,
and pointed back to the eternal fountain from
which it flows, so as repeatedly to make us ask,
"If this dear friend can love me so much,
what must God's love be?" Thus will the
lower love minister to the higher, and the
higher in turn add strength and purity to the
lower ; as St. Augustine says, " Blessed is he
who loveth Thee, and his friend in Thee ; for
he alone loses none that are dear to him, to
whom all are dear in Him that cannot be lost ; " l
or in the words of an English poet

"He who loves God all else above,

His own shall also clasp
In circles ampler far of love

Than weaker arms can grasp :
And farther down through space and time
His sympathies descend, and climb." 2

1 "Confessions," iv. 14. 2 Aubrey de Vere.

XXIX
The Safeguard of Love

Phil. i. 9 (R. V.) : "And this I pray, that your
love may abound yet more and more in know-
ledge and all discernment."

IT is a remark of Dr. Liddon's, that this is the
"brightest" of all the letters of St. Paul. 1 It
verifies that summary account of himself as
"alway rejoicing" which he had given five
years before to the Church of Corinth. Here
and there, indeed, a shadow intercepts his
mental sunshine : we seem to hear the out-
burst of weeping which accompanies his refer-
ence to the "many" professing Christians whose
audacious revolt against Christian morality had
rendered them "tke enemies of the cross of
Christ." But generally speaking, the Epistle
exhibits the natural buoyancy of his disposition
as exalted into the spiritual grace of "joy";
and it is interesting to see how applicable to
him is the estimate which a great writer has
made of the characteristic charm of tem-
perament in a saint who was his enthusiastic

1 "Advent Sermons," i. 283.
'286

The Safeguard of Love 287

admirer and sympathetic interpreter. Like St.
Chrysostom, the Apostle of the Gentile world
" colours everything about him with his own
sweet, cheerful, thankful temper, makes the
best of what is bad, blots out the trials of the
past, looks round at all things with a kindly
spirit," and thinks of his friends with an
" affectionateness " which is precious because it
is "discriminating." 1 He is writing in Rome,
under military custody; but he "puts the best
face" on all his surroundings; 2 his detention
has really tended to the progress of the gospel
by making it known throughout the Praetorian
quarters, and given him an opportunity of
winning subjects for Christ among the house-
hold servants of Nero. True, again, that his
persistent Judaizing antagonists are counter-
working him by their own partisan preaching
of Christianity ; but anyhow, in whatever spirit,
from whatever motive, the Name that is above
every name is being proclaimed, and in that
he rejoices, "yea, and will rejoice." Or, still
more directly, he takes pleasure in thanking
the Philippians for the contributions sent
through Epaphroditus, whose recovery from
serious illness he ascribes to a twofold mercy:
he assures them that now he "has all he wants
in full measure, evenjn abundance," and that,

1 Newman, "Historical Sketches," iii. 264, 286.

2 Part of the crypt of S. Maria in Via Lata (near the
south end of the Corso) is traditionally called St. Paul's
lodging ; and one of its columns has -the appropriate in-
scription, " Verbum Dei non est alligatum " (2 Tim. ii. 9).

288 The. Law of Faith

were it otherwise, he has learned, as they too
may learn, "the secret of being contented
either amid abundance or in need : " it is, he
intimates, the " strengthening " presence of
Christ which is a perpetual spring of cheerful
equanimity. And such equanimity, such a
brave readiness to take everything as some-
how a gift, to withstand the temptations which
haunt prosperity and adversity, to be neither
presumptuous amid "fulness" nor morose amid
" straitness," would naturally produce a corre-
sponding steadiness of mind. St. Paul is in
himself a complete proof that sensitive natures
can acquire balance, composure, self-control.
In him is fulfilled the promise that he who
relies on the "cornerstone" as a "sure founda-
tion shall not make haste," that is, he will not
be "soon shaken from his ordinary state of
mind," to use an expressive phrase in one of
the earliest Pauline letters ; 1 he will not, as we
should say, be upset and flurried by this or that
difficulty in a "scheme" which he knows to be
even yet "imperfectly comprehended"; he will
not talk of being " driven to reconsider his posi-
tion " because he cannot intellectually harmonize
one aspect of Christian doctrine with another ;
he will not cut the knot by treating a part as
if it were the whole. Nothing is easier, and
nothing more profitless, than to deal in clean-
cutting antitheses, which put, for instance,
religion in opposition to theology, or spirit to
form, or a "life" to a "creed"; which say in
1 Isa. xxviii. 16; 2 Thess. ii. 2.

The Safeguard of Love 289

effect, " Not a Church but a Saviour," or, from
other points of view, " Not Paul but Jesus,"
or, " If Christ is man, He is not God," or
reversely. All this means impatience, which
tries to look vigorous and decisive, but is really
weak, and has been the parent of all misbelief
and heresy. St. Paul is never more effective
as a teacher than when he presents to us a
combination of principles, each momentous, but
neither self-sufficing ; he does not pretend that
we can intellectually correlate them ; he simply
tells us to hold them both. So it is in this
Epistle : to " have the mind set on earthly
things" is treated as a mark of practical
apostasy ; and yet, in a passage which speedily
follows, the Apostle removes any ambiguity
which might attach to that phrase, and foster
the growth of a rigorist fanaticism. There
are hardly any words in all his writings more
exhilarating than those in which he bids the
Philippians "take full account of whatever
things are true, or venerable, or just, or pure,
or lovable, or of good report, if there be any
virtue, and if," consequently, "there be any
praise." As much as to say, The gospel of the
Crucified and Risen can open its arms to all
that is healthful in culture, or pure in literature,
or worthy in enterprise, or noble and elevating
in the whole range of human interests : enter
into all this, claim it for Christ, and you will
find that He has a blessing and a sanction for
every part of it ; you need not, as Christians,
hold aloof from it as belonging to " this present

290 The Law of Faith

evil world." ] Other instances might be given, 2
but it is more to our present purpose to dwell
on that remarkable context in which the
Apostle brings the heart, so to speak, into
relation 'with the mind and the conscience.
He is sure of the Philippians' affection for him
even as he " holds them in his heart "; he thinks,
no doubt, of Lydia and the other women in
the Jewish oratory. by the river-side, and of
the convert jailor who had washed his stripes
and set food before him : from " the first day "
of his intercourse with them, they have poured
out on him their most effective sympathy : he
cannot but regard them, so he afterwards says
in a fresh burst of tenderness, as " his beloved
and longed for, his joy and crown," and yet
again, "his beloved," Yes, they do love him
heartily that is well understood, as we feel
when we write to our closest friends ; but then
he wants their love to take a particular form.
Affectionateness like theirs is meant to do
something ; it must not spend itself in emotion
or expression ; it needs a safeguard which may
consolidate it into a power. What shall that
safeguard be ? We might expect him to say,
as St. John does say, 3 Let it be the means
by which your love may rise up to God ; but
here he is thinking not so much of Godward

1 Gal. ii. 4 ; a point of contact with the language of St.
John xv. 18; xvii. 14; i John ii. 15.

2 E. g. Phil. ii. 12, 13, where the divine and human sides of
the process of salvation are brought together, as in 2 Thess,
in. 3, 4. 8 i John iv. 12.

The Safeguard of Love 291

activity as of a certain effect on the mind and
the moral sense, Let your love flow on, he
says, as fully and strongly as may be, but in
a definite channel, not like a flood that will
sink into the soil. And the channel has two
lines. First, the line of such knowledge of
Divine truth as is accurate, penetrating, and
progressive. 1 Do we ask what this has to do
with affection? It has much to do with it.
In the case of persons, it is love which enables
us to know them more and more intimately ;
in the case of studies, it is our liking for them
which makes us advance in them. In both
cases, it is feeling which serves as the stimulus,
and which thereby is kept up as a living force.
Apply this to the study of Christian truth.
The greatest theologians, such as Athanasius
or Augustine, have been men set on fire with
love for God and for souls ; and this has been
the impelling and sustaining principle of their
theological work, Similarly in the considera-
tion of what are called Christian evidences, it
has been most truly observed, that the moral
and spiritual affections are as "instruments"
by which those evidences are appreciated ;
they themselves are "a kind of understanding"
or "intelligence"; 2 they are presupposed in

1 On 7rty''wffic, see Dean Paget, "The Spirit of Dis-
cipline," p. 112 ff. He observes that this term for "larger
and more thorough knowledge " occurs more frequently in
the later than in the earlier letters of St. Paul. In the
Pastoral Epistles it is four times associated with " truth."

2 Mozley, "Lectures," pp. 9, 291.

292 The Law of Faith

the appeal made either by morality or by
religion.

But the safeguard has another aspect as
well, There is a passage in the Epistle to the
Hebrews which of itself would show that the
writer was "of the school of St. Paul." 1 The
" milk " of rudimentary Christian teaching is said
to be fit for those who are " inexperienced " ; but
the "strong food" of more "complete" instruc-
tion belongs to persons religiously "full-grown,
who through habit have their perceptions
exercised to distinguish good from evil." z The
word " perception," used in the Epistle to the
Philippians, means that sure and delicate instinct
which enables a man to say decisively, " This
is right and that is wrong," and at once to
brush aside that web of "fatal imposture" 3
which makes good and evil change names, and
bewitches the moral sense with " Fair is foul
and foul is fair." No evidence of an inherited
corruption is more impressive than this ever-
recurring perversion of ethical language, which,
whether in the first years of Isaiah, or amid the
wild party-fights and the rhetorical schools of
Greece, or the cynical profligacies of the Roman
empire, or wherever in Christendom fashion or
interest has popularized a vice or cried down a
virtue, wherever the young or the easy-going
could be misled, or the hands of the wicked
could be strengthened by sophistry, has been

1 Newman, "Sermons," ii. 191.. 2 Heb. v. 12-14.
3 See South's sermon on "The Fatal Imposture and
Force of Words," in vol. i. p. 450 ff.

The Safeguard of Love 293

renewing the stress of the original temptation,
and "diffusing an atmosphere" of moral decay
and "death." 1 Against this enormous and
terribly vivacious evil the moral judgment or
"perception," or discernment, has to be fore-
armed ; and how ? Not by a list of minute
rules to be learnt by heart and referred to on
occasion, but by principles to be assimilated
and applied. No doubt there will be difficulties
in complex questions of conscience, and these
will create a certain sphere for the use of
casuistry. But that sphere has limits to be
somewhat jealously guarded. 2 For casuists and
their disciples are alike prone to substitute cut-
and-dried prescriptions, which save trouble, for
the personal exercise of moral perceptions, which
costs trouble, though it "pays" in the long run,
and with interest. And here we see how un-
Pauline, how anti- Pauline, is that system of
"direction" which the Jesuit theory of life and
conduct has imposed on devout minds in the
Roman Church. It suspects and dreads all
freedom ; it will never leave a soul to itself; it
precludes, as far as possible, all personal
judgment and choice ; 3 it aims at keeping the
man, or, more frequently, the woman, in a
condition of moral and religious childhood.
To say that this contradicts St. Paul is not

1 Isa. v. 20; Thucyd., iii. 82; Aristotle, "Rhet.," i. 9;
Tacitus, "Germ.," 19; Trench, "Study of Words," p. 48.

2 Church, "Essays and Reviews," p. 565; Strong,
" Bampton Lectures," p. 353.

3 " Church Quarterly Review," xviii. 137.

294 The Law of Faith

enough ; we know who asked the significant
question, " Why do ye not, even of your-
selves, judge what is right?" 1 It is not the
New Testament which bids Christians to con-
tinue "children in understanding": that fatal
stumbling-block has been set in the path by
men doubtless earnest for religion as they
understood it, but devoted to a warped and
one-sided form of moral training, which simply
prevented the development of character into
" the stature of the fulness of Christ."

And love, directed towards all truly love-
worthy objects, and above all to God in Christ,
is to assist, instead of arresting, that develop-
ment by means of a pure ideal and a standard
which represents true rectitude. The Philip-
pians, for instance, might say, "What a life is
that of Paul! what a life must His have been
whom Paul follows and represents, whom he
has taught us to love and to adore ! Can we
do better than to conform our thoughts about
conduct, our ways of judging and choosing, to
those which are embodied in such a character ? "
And thus their power of loving, the intensity of
their affection, would clear away all mists from
their faculty of discernment ; they would solve
all doubts by the one loyal question, "'What
wilt Thou have me to do ? "

Such is the double safeguard which, according

to St. Paul, will preserve love from dribbling

away into sentimentalism. If we feel aught

of that attraction which through all these

1 St. Luke xii. 57.

The Safeguard of Love 295

Christian ages has been exercised over re-
sponsive souls by Him who once for all was
lifted up, let us use it as a stimulus to learning
more and more of Him, and of the full import
of His teaching, and becoming more and more
perceptive, on each occasion that calls for a
practical choice, of the direction in which His
hand beckons, whom we shall have come to
regard as a "Conscience Incarnate." 1 Such
"waiting on the Lord" will not fail of its
promised result, 2 the renewal of strength for
work in which otherwise we might grow
"weary": and in all our studies of His sancti-
fying truth, and all our conclusions as to the
course which He would approve, we shall find
that love, thus put to practical uses, will
"abound" like the stream in the prophet's
vision, 8 that flowed from beneath the altar of
God, and rose higher and ever higher, bringing
life wherever it came. 4

1 Wace, " Christianity and Morality," p. 249.

2 Isa. xl. 31. 3 Ezek. xlvii. 1-9.

4 The sense of the words that follow the text is probably
best given by R. V., " so that ye may approve the things
that are excellent." Moral perception is to advance in
refinement and exactness until it can select, by testing, as
Bengel says, " in bonis optima."

XXX

The Christian Corporate Life
Phil. iii. 20 : " For our conversation is in heaven."

THE word " for " in this sentence connects it
with that characteristic expression of indignant
grief which had been called forth from St. Paul
by a combination, in too many cases, of
Christian profession with a very practical Anti-
nomianism. There were those who had misread
spiritual liberty as if it meant a " license to sin."
What they really worshipped, says the Apostle,
was their own sensual appetite ; they were not
ashamed of it, they rather gloried in it; their
minds were set on the things of earth, and could
take in nothing higher. This latter fact explains
their whole condition ; they could not aspire,
they could not entertain any worthier ideal ;
their " walk," the drift of their whole conduct,
must needs be downward. St. Paul then. draws
out the contrast between their habitual aim and
that of the consistent Christian. They are
earthly-minded, he says : you must not be as
they are, you must observe them in order to
avoid them ; for, as for us, but then comes

296

The Christian Corporate Life 297

the difficulty as to the right rendering of the
word which the Authorized Version represents
by " conversation " in the old English sense of
"conduct." Neither this translation, nor the
" citizenship " of the Revised Version, seems to
suit the terms of the sentence. A mode of
behaviour, or type of character, or a condition or
status involving' " civic" rights or duties, could
hardly be spoken of as actually "existent" in
this or that quarter. Something less abstract
is wanted : and " commonwealth " is probably
the right word, 1 suggesting as it does all the
corporate life, in a spiritual sense, which belongs
to the city or kingdom of God ; and this inter-
pretation is, at any rate, supported by the well-
known text in an earlier epistle, "The Jerusalem
that is above is free, which is our mother." 2

Before going further, let us observe a signifi-
cant feature of the "manner" of St. Paul. When
he is condemning a class of special sins, he does
not content himself with pointing to their
opposites in a class of special virtues : he does
just hint at his own way of life, or of " walking,"
as a pattern ; but having to emphasize the fact
that in the Gospel religion is inseparable from
morality, he lifts the question into a broader
atmosphere than that of personal well-doing ; he

1 Bishop Ellicott adopts this rendering. Eusebius, in the
preface to his fifth book, calls his history of the Church a
narrative irepl rov Ko0' i//xag, or Kara Qtbv, TroXtrev/mrog, where
Valesius, who takes the latter reading, renders or paraphrases,
" sacrae cujusdam ac divinse reipuUica"

2 Gal. iv. 26, R. V.

298 The Law of Faith

holds up a counter-attraction to base pleasures
in the majestic fact of a Christian membership in
that " one body" which, as he tells the Ephesians,
is animated by the "one Spirit," and is "the
fulness of Him that filleth all in all " ; and which,
as he here intimates, has the principle of its life
in the unseen heavenly world, where Christ
sitteth at the right hand of God. He would
fortify Christian men against the lures of vices
which look fair by turning upon them a light
which will "convict" them of being foul : they
will thus be shown up in their true colours, will,
as he says strikingly, become " light," be
luminous by means of that exposure : and the
light which he employs is that which beams
from the true Holy City. "You who think
yourselves alone amid temptations to a degrad-
ing sensuality, who feel at times that you must
yield and have done with it, lift up your eyes,
and see yourselves encircled by a vast array of
purifying and ennobling forces, which are, so to
speak, at the disposal of all the subjects of the
Kingdom of heaven, of all the members of the
body of Christ. It exists, that kingdom, that
sacred commonwealth, with the roots of its life
in the throne of the ascended Redeemer : you
belong to it, you have an interest in it ; let that
consciousness invigorate your resistance to
attractions which would bind you down to earth
when you ought to be looking heavenwards, as
having your portion in the city of the living
God."

" Our commonwealth is in the heavens."

The Christian Corporate Life 299

The words are intended to do much for us, to
exert a lifting, bracing, and morally quickening
influence. The more precious they are in this
respect, the more needful it is to guard them
against some misconstructions which at different
times and under various conditions have had a
very misleading effect.

They do not, then, mean that we are to take
no interest in any question of "secular " politics,
or to treat the whole area of civil government,
with all the social activities that are astir in it,
as common or unclean. This line has some-
times been adopted, as if nothing short of it could
secure the ascendency of the spiritual over the
temporal, the unseen over the seen. In a re-
markable sermon for St. Matthew's day, a great
preacher admitted that "selfishness might lead
a man to neglect public concerns in which he
was called to take his share," in " fulfilment of
trusts committed to him for the good of others,"
yet deprecated as a " delusion'" the talk about
political "rights." 1 There was a touch of morbid
feeling in this ; a "right" and a " trust " are not
antithetical terms : the conduct of St. Paul, on
more than one occasion, may show that it is
sometimes a duty to assert rights. Our Lord's
command to give Caesar his due carries the
principle of a diligent discharge of the obliga-
tions which civic rights involve. The Apostle is
bold to apply the term " God's ministers " to the
officers of a State whose function it is to uphold
justice and punish crime ; and as " godliness

1 Newman, " Sermons," ii. 352.

u

300 The Law of Faith

has promise of the life which now is," it is
intimately concerned with efforts to make that
life happier, to improve its conditions for the
struggling poor, to promote a reign of bene-
ficence and righteousness. The primitive
Christians were often denounced as bad subjects
of Rome, as indifferent or hostile to her interests :
and one of the austerest of their teachers met
the charge by saying that they made a point of
praying for the emperor, and freely held inter-
course with their pagan neighbours in shop and
market, farm and inn, and even served in the
army ; 1 only when idolatry was involved in this
or that act of social life did they, as a matter of
loyalty to their Master, stand aloof and accept
the consequences. If they could feel and act
thus towards an empire which owned the
duty of stamping out, as "illicit" in itself, the
exercise of their religion, patriotism and civic
fidelity should not be hard duties for Christians
of a nation whose noblest representative was
Alfred. For us may the day never come when
* the sons of the English Church shall forget that
they are sons of the English race, or cease to
identify themselves practically with the fortunes
of this august and ancient realm. Only at one
point must they draw a firm clear line : if ever
the spirit of "the world," in St. John's sense,
should attempt to absorb the spiritual order into
the secular, or to override in the State's name
the convictions of the instructed religious
conscience, then, and only then, would they be
1 Tertullian, "Apology," 30, 42.

The Christian Corporate Life 301

bound to fall back on the great Apostolic maxim,
" We must obey God rather than men."

Still less does the heavenly character of our
sacred religious commonwealth allow us to
ignore the spiritual importance of "external
and visible Church order." In other words,
we must not say, " Because the true city of God
'exists in heaven,' therefore the organization
of Christian society on earth, however necessary
for religious convenience, is machinery, so to
speak, and nothing more ; it has no direct
relation with the action of Christ on human
souls, and the only Church which has such
relation is an invisible one, made up of souls
individually united to Him by faith." 1 Now,
first, there is not a single passage in the New
Testament which describes the Church as " in-
visible." The phrase originated with foreign
Reformers, and was an exaggeration and dis-
tortion of the obvious fact, that in all ages there
have been members of the visible Church who
have been in it, but not morally or vitally of it,
whereas others have really entered into its spirit
and been true to its idea. But the latter have
not formed a Church by themselves ; and " it
is scarcely too much to say that all stress laid
upon the invisible Church," so called, " tends to
lower the demands of holiness and brotherhood,
because it is a visible Church, such as . can
attract outsiders, which calls out the fruits of
faith into active energy, supplies sympathy,"

1 See above, p. 237; and cf. Pullan, "Lectures on
Religion," p. 185 ff.

302 The Law of Faith

and therein that consciousness of brotherly co-
operation* which is strength. 1 " An invisible
Church," as Bishop Moberly once said, "would
be but a weak antagonist to so very visible
a world ; " 2 and such considerations illustrate
the unearthly wisdom which expressed itself
in that careful, gradual, methodical preparation
for the foundation of a visible Church which
occupied so large a part of our Lord's ministry.
"His message was never given except in an
organized form : " He deliberately enshrined
His truth in an orderly society, and made
His grace part of a corporate system. 3 The
phrase, "the kingdom of heaven," occurs some
thirty times in the first Gospel, without reckon-
ing such variant phrases as "the kingdom of
God" or of "the Son of Man," Our Lord's
Jewish hearers would undoubtedly understand
by it something like a visible body, something

1 See Dr. Lock in "Lux Mundi," p. 376.

2 Cp. Gladstone, "Church Principles," etc., p. 93: "The
promulgation of a religion hostile to the actual tendencies
of human nature, and to the powers of the world," would
"require that it should be embodied in a visible institution.
There the faith might dwell as in a house, there recover and
refresh itself, . . . there gather its energies," etc. On the
moral perils of individualism, cf. $., p. 118: "If I in-
dividualize my religion, if, in modern language, I place the
account only between God and my conscience, ... I
manifestly rid myself of a host of troublesome remem-
brances, whose admonitions I cannot disprove and will not
obey," etc.

3 H. S. Holland, "Creed and Character," p. 57 (cf. #.,
.pp. 87, 117); Gore, "The Mission of the Church," p. 8;
Stanton, "The Place of Authority," etc., p. 103.

The Christian Corporate Life 303

that had " consistency, government, continuity,
solidity, coherence/' 1 an institution, in short,
having definite form and solid structure. We
find that this kingdom is to contain bad as well
as good subjects, foolish virgins, slothful or
worthless servants, men who not only break
commandments, but teach others to. break them
too ; tares among wheat, bad fish in the same
net with the good, in a word, stones of
stumbling. The existence of cases of this kind
is among the mysteries of the kingdom, which
will rudely shock preconceived ideas. Again,
the kingdom is described as a household in
which some servants are set over others as
dispensers of food ; and custody of its keys is
promised to the Apostle whose readiness as a
spokesman makes him the fitting representative
of his colleagues. The impression derived from
these and similar passages in the Gospel records
of our Lord's life and teaching is not abated
by sayings in which the kingdom appears as a
sphere of moral and spiritual well-being, for the
poor in spirit, the childlike, the sufferers for
righteousness' sake. This language naturally
refers to the purpose or aim of the kingdom,
as realized in those whose characters are
leavened by its influences ; as we ourselves,
familiar with the idea of a visible Church, and
accustomed to take it for granted, naturally
speak of it as <c a home for the lonely," and a
school of faith and patience and love.

1 Holland, "God's City," p. 163. Cf. Gladstone, "Church
Principles," p. 100.

304 The Law of Faith

Is there, then, any warrant in Scripture for
the distinction which in these days is' often
drawn between "the kingdom" of God, or of
heaven, and "the Church"? There is this
distinction, certainly, that the visible Church,
as "militant here in earth," is but a part of
the kingdom, is but its visible representative,
just as it is the visible representative of the
whole of that " body mystical " which extends
so widely into the invisible world. But there
is no kingdom of heaven on earth which con-
trasts with the Church or house of God ; and
such an imagined contrast appears to be ex-
pressly excluded by the memorable words
which bind together the promise of " the keys
of the kingdom " with the announcement of the
intention of "building the Church."

It should be well-nigh needless to carry on
this thought into the records of Apostolical .
Christianity ; but we remember how the earliest
converts "adhered steadfastly to the teaching
and fellowship of the apostles," who thus formed
the nucleus around which the Church grew,
and in dependence on which it lived. And
if we ask what was the mind of that great
teacher of the Gentiles whom the Lord Him-
self afterwards invested with apostleship, who
contended so earnestly against Jewish legalism,
and in behalf of the liberty wherewith Christ
had made men free, we shall find that he
habitually contemplates the Church ,of the
living God, or the house of God, as a " body,"
and that his use of that figure is utterly in-

The Christian Corporate Life 305

capable of application to an "invisible" or
unascertainable number of individual souls that
could not, in any intelligible sense, be said to
possess a corporate unity. According to. all
the evidence before us, it is simply not true
that the earliest Christians were content to
live as so many units, each of whom had by
and for himself taken hold of Christ as Saviour,
and that they formed a Church in this sense,
independently of all outward organization, or
that they constructed such an organization just
as other men might combine for purposes of
study, or social intercourse, or political effort.
In the oft-quoted words of Archbishop Temple, 1
" throughout the teaching of the Apostles it is
the Church that comes first and the members of
it afterwards ; men were not brought to Christ "
one by one, "and then determined that they
would live in a community," or " decided that it
would be a great help to their religion that they
should join one another in worship. . . . On
the contrary, the Church takes its origin not in
the will of man, but in the will of the Lord
Jesus Christ. He sent forth His Apostles ; . . .
they were not organs of the congregation, they
were ministers of the Lord Himself. . . . They
came first, and the members came after-
wards. . . . Men are called in ; they do not
come in, and make the Church by coming ; they
are called in to that which already exists." In
a word, the visible Church is not a religious
club any more than the ministry is an executive
1 Sermon at the Consecration of Truro Cathedral.

306 The Law of Faith

committee, or the sacraments observances of
human invention. It is not devised by men,
but provided for them ; and the truth of its
Divine origination is what primarily accounts
for St. PauFs description of the whole kingdom,
of which it is a part, as existing in heaven, even
as elsewhere he says that God "made us to
sit with Christ in the heavenly places ; " while
it further involves the perpetual derivation of
the Church's life from above, that is, from
Christ as glorified. Strictly speaking, the
spiritual "commonwealth" is an empire, for He
is its sovereign, and all powers exercised within
it are His powers exercised through it.

Two responsibilities, then, lie on those who,
as baptized Christians, are members of the
visible Church. First, they are bound to
recognize its inherent spirituality, as part of a
Divine plan for the reunion of human souls with
God. Its forms must be valued for the spirit
of which they are the vehicles ; its ordinances,
in Dr. Pusey's expressive phrase, are to be
regarded as not substitutes for, but instruments
of, the living and ever-present Christ. We
ignore His intention, we do what in us lies to
defeat His purpose, 'when we think of the
episcopate, for instance, merely as a venerable
polity, an ancient and effective form of govern-
ment, instead of associating it with the "gift"
which, as St. Paul says, He bestowed after He
ascended on high, and seeing in it a historical
link to those on whom He breathed, and whom
He sent as He had been sent by the Father.

The Christian Corporate Life 307

Unless we thus connect our Church system
with the spiritual realities of grace, we are
still, in a sense, under the law; we have not
emerged from a virtually Judaical atmosphere. 1
And then the convictions which are sum-
marized in the Apostle's sentence must produce
in us a genuine desire and a systematized effort
to respond morally to God's purpose in the
institution of His kingdom. To talk much of
"the Church," to emphasize a "Church tone,"
to insist on "Church principles," and to stop
there, what a self-contradiction ! what a self-
condemnation ! Whenever we think of the
Church, or of our own position as her members,
let us ask ourselves why she exists for what
end she was created and is sustained ? Surely,
to diffuse spiritual life, to carry on the work of
Divine grace, to form and consolidate Christian
character, " till we all attain to the unity of the
faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to a full-grown man," or, as the Ordinal para-
phrases, to " that ripeness and perfectness of age
in Christ " in which right belief and right con-
duct shall be one. Our corporate religion is to
keep our personal religious life in good health
and effective working order. Here then comes
the question, "Is it doing so ? If not, why not ?
If to some extent, might it not do so yet more ?
Could not our church-going, for instance, impart

1 On the Roman tendency to lay a one-sided emphasis on
"unity of government," and the Roman assumption that
the visible Church as such must needs have a visible head
with absolute power, see Gore "on the Ephesians," pp.

308 The Law of Faith

more reality to our private prayers, our com-
munions deepen our sense of Christ's perpetual
nearness, our consciousness of belonging to a
commonwealth that is in heaven let in some-
what more of heavenly light into that daily life
where the world casts so broad a shadow ? " In
this way the chasm which so often yawns
between the seen and the unseen will diminish,
when we find their unifying principle in the
Incarnate. Let Him interpret for us the com-
plexities of a world in which creatures composed
of soul and body are met by claims temporal
and claims spiritual, that to eyes which just
look, and do not gaze, will too often appear
divergent ; let us learn to see them " in
Christ," and then each fact will fall into its
place, will be luminous in its due proportion,
as He will enable us to appraise it who, being
and continuing to be very God, became for us,
and still is, very man. Elements that seem
antagonistic are reconciled when He touches
them ; the interests of earth are not annulled
by being consecrated : the eternal world is
felt to flow into the temporal ; absorption in
secularity is excluded, yet no countenance is
given to a fanatical mysticism ; and He whose
ministry was marked by experiences so human
in their homeliness now "occupies the whole
sphere of human life, and permeates all its
developments," 1 in that, while reigning at the
right hand of God, He is for us "all things
and in all."

1 Lightfoot on Col. iii. 12.

XXXI

The Thirteenth Centenary of the Coming
of St Augustine

(Oxford Cathedral, June 27, 1897)

i Kings viii. 57, 58 (part): "The Lord our
God be with us, as He was with our fathers : let
Him not leave us, nor forsake us : that He may
incline our hearts unto Him."

IT is nearly thirty years since one whose words, if
any man's, meant thought, concluded a sermon,
the first of a remarkable series, by affirming
with solemn confidence, that "amid closing
histories and falling institutions," two things
would stand the shock which for so much else
would be sheer overthrow. "There will re-
main," he said, " the Christian Creed and the
Christian Church." 1 Since Dr. Mozley uttered
this sentence, prophecies of a very opposite kind
have become more voluble than ever. What
do we think of them ? Are we secretly over-
awed by them? This great religion of ours,
with its majesty and its tenderness, its pathos
and its awfulness, this "received," theological,
sacramental, " supernatural " Christianity, will

1 Mozley, "Univ. Serm.," p. 27.
309

310 The Law of Faith

the rain and flood and storm of philosophies
hostile, not merely to this or that point in it, but
to the very principle or preconception which
underlies it, involve it in the ruin of houses
built upon sand ? Our answer to this momentous
question depends on one that goes yet further
back : Do we really believe, with a moral and
spiritual "fulness of assurance," 1 that there is
a living God, who is absolutely "master in His
own house," who can speak . as a Supreme
Personality to men as persons, and in whose
eyes the moral order transcends the physical ?
And if we believe in such a God, do we know
Him as manifested in, as " interpreted " by, His
Son, His Word, incarnate for our salvation? 2
Is our Christian belief something more than a
"working theory," more even than an intellectual
conviction ? Is it an adhesion to Christ Himself,
as to One whom we have found to have words
of life eternal ? 3 If so, then our hope for Creed
and Church may be called a steadfast anchor. 4
No doubt j as St. Paul forewarns us, the
"hope" that has Christ for its object must have
" patience " for one of its elements ; 6 we must
expect that belief will continue to meet with diffi-
culties ; but through them we shall look up to
Him who is " the same yesterday, and to-day,
and even for ever." 6 And as with that faith in
a Divine Christ which secures to us the signifi :
cance of the central Figure of the Gospels, so

1 i Thess. i. 5 j Heb. x. 22. 2 St. John i. 18.
. 3 St. John vi. 68. 4 Heb. vi. 19.

5 i Thess. i. 3. Heb. xiii. 8.

The Coming of St. Augustine 311

with that organized society or kingdom to which
He has entrusted His grace and truth. The
Church may often seem to be in a bad way to
be failing, losing ground, losing heart, losing
spiritual energy, "letting go its first love," 1 or
drifting into a self-complacent lukewarmness ;
but still we shall know that it has a vitality in
which is the potency of a thousand recoveries,
and against which (the Lord Himself has said
it) the gates of the kingdom of death shall not.
prevail.

Such hopes, we say, have their foundation
deepest laid in that inward consciousness of
Christ's servants which is formed by a personal
experience of the presence, the love, and the
power of their Lord. They have heard Him
for themselves, and they know. 2 But they can
also fall back on many inspiring memories.
Israel, of old, was a nation sustained by one
mysterious hope. Yet the best Israelites had
their moments of " infirmity," when even He
whose name was "I Am" seemed to "hide
Himself" and "forget to be gracious"; and
then what a comfort for them to " remember the
years of the right hand of the Most High," to
dwell on what their fathers had told them of His
wonderful works in the far-off past ! 3 And so it
was easier to trust that He would be with them
as He was with their fathers. And should not
we, " the heirs of all the " Christian " ages," be
still more able so to look back as to look more

1 Rev. ii. 4. 2 St. John iv. 42,

3 Ps. xliv. i, 24; Ixxvii. 9, 10.

312 The Law of Faith

calmly and bravely forward ? Not, of course, by
dreaming that in this or that "golden age" the
ideal of the Church was made actual ; not by
closing our eyes to the darker side of its history,
to scandals, and saddening "surprises," and
records of corruption, of superstition, or of world-
liness, of divisions beginning in rifts and ending
in chasms. All this we must look at, because
facts cannot safely or honestly be ignored ; but
amid all that disappoints or that tries our faith
we see sure tokens of a Presence still " in the
boat," and therewith of that versatile persistent
activity of grace, which so often raises up the
man for the emergency, over-rules mistakes,
brings good out of evil, enlists unlikely agents
in its service, " transforms " the coarse lump by
the hidden "stir" of the holy leaven, 1 and bids
the dry bones stand up on their feet, instinct
with the breath of that Spirit who is the Life-
giver. 2

It is to one such work of grace, in which
all English Christians are specially interested,
that our attention is invited to-day. May we
not well thank God for having sent us, just
thirteen hundred years ago, the first preacher
of Christ to the English, the first bishop who
gathered around him an English Church
properly so called ? Far be it from us to forget
that older British Church, which had indeed
existed for at least four centuries before the
arrival of St. Augustine. But the onward sweep

1 H. S. Holland, "God's City," p. 153.

2 Ezek. xxxvii. 9, 10.

The Coming of St. Augustine 313

of English conquest had for the most part
driven its visible presence into the lands extend-
ing from the Solway into Cornwall : elsewhere
the invaders had overthrown Christian altars,
and set up the worship of those idols whose
names still harmlessly adhere to five days in
every English week. What could be done for
the conversion of these strong-willed Saxons and
Angles ? The native Christians partly could
not and, one must say it, partly would not
face that question ; the Prankish bishops, across
the Channel, with less excuse put it by. But
there was one man, living far off in the south of
Europe, who could not put it by; one man who,
amid all his well-nigh overpowering solicitudes,
had been haunted for years by the fair sad faces
of some poor Yorkshire boys in a Roman slave-
market : it was Gregory, the greatest and one
of the best of all the bishops of Rome, There
is hardly even in Rome a spot more full of
attraction for visitors from England than that
slope of the Ccelian Hill, where they can still
read on a tablet in the vestibule of a church that
" from this monastery came forth Augustine :"
where he and his companions, forty in number,
passed out with Gregory's blessing from the
quiet home of their conventual life, to under-
take, as his agents, the task of evangelizing
a race whose name had been proverbial for
ferocity. We can hardly wonder at their subse-
quent misgivings, or their cautiously slow pro-
gress through France; but their landing near
Ramsgate in the May of 597 was followed by

314 The Law of Faith

results which might seem to rebuke their fears.
Bede helps us to see them appearing before the
Kentish King Ethelbert with a silver cross and
a painting of the Saviour, and singing a solemn
litany : and a later Saxon writer may not be
far wrong when he professes to give the pith of
Augustine's sermon " He told how the gentle-
hearted Saviour had by His own suffering
redeemed this sinful earth." l Then we hear the
king answering gravely, and in a royal spirit of
fairness: he will not commit himself, but he
promises them, at any rate, what they need
for their support, and freedom of missionary
action. And when they descend by St. Martin's
hill into Canterbury, it is with a hymn used in
Gaul on the Rogation days, and singularly in
accordance with the sequence observed in our
own daily service : confession comes first, and
praise afterwards : " We beseech thee, O Lord,
in Thy mercy, let Thine anger be turned away,
for we have sinned : " and then, and not till
then, bursts forth the Paschal Alleluia. 2

What are we to say of our first Archbishop ?
It has for years been the fashion to disparage
him, and to minimize the importance of his
work. One need not be careful to answer
those who think to dispose of him by calling
him " the Monk ": but he is often too summarily
characterized as quite an inferior sort of person,
altogether deficient in tact and in insight, dicta-
torial, petty-minded, and also practically ineffi-

1 Cf. Haddan and Stubbs, " Councils," iii. 1 1.

2 Bede, i. 25.

The Coming of St. Augustine 315

cient. I venture to think that this estimate is
not only ungracious, but one-sided and wanting
in equity. He certainly did sometimes exhibit
the defects of monastic training, although in his
fruitless conference with Britons he could waive
" many " points of ceremonial observance. 1 He
is not by any means so grand or beautiful a
figure as St. Columba or St. Aidan ; and his
short episcopate saw but three bishoprics
founded, one of which soon fell in a pagan
reaction. But he did four things, at any rate,
which give him a place by himself among the
religious "makers " of England.

First, he began the long process which made
our people Christian. He opened the door, he
took some steps on the path, he set the eventful
example. It is a simple matter of dates. He
came some thirty-six years before the arrival of
the first of those saintly Irishmen who did so
much for English Christianity; 2 and in this sense
he may surely be called " our apostle," as Bede,
who knew the whole story, and is in fact the
authority about it, applies that title even to
Gregory as having sent him : 3 and an English
Church council, soon after Bede's death, de-
scribes Augustine as " the first to bring us the
knowledge of the faith." 4 .

Secondly, when, as now, 5 our thoughts are

1 Bede, ii. 2.

2 Fursey probably came into East Anglia two years before
Aidan came into Northumbria, /. e. in 633.

8 Bede, ii. i. 4 Council of Clovesho, can. 17.

6 At the "jubilee " of Queen Victoria's sixty years of reign.

316 The Law of* Faith

fixed on the long tradition of English Christian
kingship, let us remember that it was Augustine
who gave it the start ; that it was his teaching,
enforced, as we are expressly told, by a life
of single-hearted goodness, and already accepted
by " some " of the Canterbury townsfolk, which
first brought an English king to the feet of
Christ that king who also "learned" from
Augustine that he must use no coercion in
behalf of his newly-adopted creed. 1

Thirdly, Augustine did what he could to
associate the beginnings of English Church life
with European culture, and something like
systematic education, He knew how to value
the "many books" sent to him from Rome;
and it has recently been said with obvious
truth, that the school which was flourishing
at Canterbury some thirty years after his death,
and which grew, still later, into a famous college
of religious and secular learning, was "probably
due to " him as founder. 2

Lastly, he left behind him one institution
which, although for years its scope was limited,
became ere long the consolidating, centralizing,
and unifying principle of the English Church.
For he was the first Archbishop of Canterbury;
and the fact will be all the better appreciated
when we think of that large assembly of
Anglican prelates from all the ends of the
earth, which is about to meet around his throne. 8
We know, to be sure, that Roman voices ask

1 Bede, i. 26. 2 Plummer on Bede, iii. 18.

3 The " Lambeth Conference " of 1897.

The Coming of St. Augustine 317

" what portion " we can have in Augustine, who
disclaim the authority of the See by which he
was sent. They tell us that we lost all true
ecclesiastical continuity when we ceased to be
subject to that See ; and that therefore our
Church is not the old Church of England, and
our Primate's chair is not St. Augustine's own.
But this just begs the very question between
the Anglican and Roman Churches. Continuity,
of course, is not preserved by the mere posses-
sion of cathedrals and bishoprics, and is certainly
lost if a Church parts with what is essential to
its sacred constitution ; but our contention is that
the Papacy is not a part of the constitution of
Christ's kingdom, and therefore that a Church
which, after long experience of its yoke, shook
it off as not of His fashioning, may be spiritually
as well as legally " continuous," provided that
with the primitive order it retains the primitive
faith and means of grace.

It is in thankful remembrance of what we
owe to Augustine's ministry that we welcome
the opportunity of bearing some little part in
the efforts now made by the Dean and Chapter
of Canterbury for the "restoration," in a worthy
sense, of their magnificent primatial cathedral.
This humbler minster of ours has in its title a
special relation to " Christ Church, Canterbury,"
and therein, one may add, to the original Christ
Church, " the Lateran basilica of the Saviour,"
the proper diocesan cathedral of Rome. To
contribute something to the good work at Canter-
bury will not only help us to realize the unity of

318 The Law of Faith

our chief ecclesiastical province, but, far better,
will quicken our sense of the mercies which, in
597, began to be poured out on English souls.

In the words of a collect which was used
last Whitsun-eve in St. Paul's Cathedral, let us
praise that God "who, through the preaching
of His blessed servant Augustine, did first bring
the English race out of darkness and error into
the clear light and true knowledge of Himself
and of His Son." And while, as is very meet
and right, we thus thank Him, let us beg Him
still to be with us, as He was with our fathers ;
still, by the might of His grace, to incline our
hearts, minds, and wills, our whole being, to
His service ; and still to enable us to hold fast,
in thought and in life, the faith which Augustine
taught to his Kentish converts, and which con-
centrates itself on the Person of an adorable
Redeemer. 1

1 When Gregory says ("Epist." vi. 58, 59) that the "race
of Angles" had desired to become Christian before he
resolved to send Augustine, he must be referring to an
exaggerated rumour about the influence exercised in Kent
by Bishop Liudhard, Bertha's chaplain. Christian teaching,
when heard from Augustine's lips, was "new" to Ethelbert;
and Gregory blames Bertha for not having tried to convert
him. ("Episl."xi. 29.)

XXXII

Addresses to Ordinands

I. Ordination in Unquiet Times

TIMES in which the old order is changing are
always full-fraught with vivid interest for those
who have eyes to see. It is indeed wonderful,
or perhaps, if one thinks a little of the self-
blinding capacities of human nature, it is not so
wonderful, that the " discernment," the due
appreciation, of the " signs " of a critical moment
should be so rare a faculty among men who
move about in the world. What is seems often
to have a vested right to continue : it is so
natural, and so agreeable, to assume that "to-
morrow will be as this day, and much more
abundant;" to say in effect, "There are clouds
here and there, but they are sure to disperse,
and we shall have fine weather after all ; why
should we excite ourselves about dangers which
most probably will prove unsubstantial ? " And
so the Divine maxim is travestied and perverted :
because we are forbidden to be " solicitous about
the morrow," we dispense ourselves from the

3 T 9

320 The Law of Faith

duty of " redeeming the time," of buying up or
securing the brief and precious opportunity, of
understanding the day of our visitation. Bishop
Butler might seem to be commenting on such
texts when he enlarges, again and again, on
the real " immorality " which may be involved
in simple inattention, and on the miseries which
may result from it. 1 And this inattention is
all the more culpable as the forewarnings of
a crisis become more audible ; and if persisted
in, it approaches more and more nearly to that
fatal heedlessness which "knew not until the
flood came," and which, we are assured, will
be reproduced in the future " days of the Son
of Man."

The years that immediately preceded the
great English Civil War must have fully tested
the power of discernment in young men who
presented themselves for admission into the
Anglican ministry. Many, no doubt, put aside
misgivings, if misgivings they ever had, by
assuming that the King's government was as
strong as ever, and that the Primate who,
however, as we know, had even in 1626 foreseen
" a cloud threatening the Church of England "
would still be able to hold Puritanism in check.
But others could not so easily delude themselves ;
and special reference may be made to one who
lived to become a great personage, and under
royal and archiepiscopal urgency to superadd to
the headship of Christ Church the duties of the
bishopric of Oxford. The inscription on the
1 See above, p. 145.

Ordination in Unquiet Times 321

monument of Bishop Fell records significantly
that he sought for and received the diaconate
vacillante ecclesid, and the presbyterate penitus
eversd ; and his spiritual loyalty was evinced by
his association with two others like-minded in
keeping up the regular Sunday services for a
small congregation of Oxford churchmen when
nothing but the connivance of Puritan authorities
could have warded off the penalties of Puritan
law.

Is it germane to our purpose, you may ask,
to go back to an old story of the crash of
Episcopacy as administered by Laud, and of
kingship as represented in Charles I. ? Is the
English Church now " tottering " ? is its " over-
throw" within measurable distance? Is not
" disestablishment," to all appearance, less " in
the air " than a few years ago ? It may be
answered that a pessimistic view of English
Church prospects is not the only mistake to be
avoided ; that we have reason enough quite
apart from such apprehensions as " betray the
succours that reason offereth " to store our
memory with such examples of thoughtful stead-
fastness and calm faith, of what the Apostle
calls " self-control," under conditions of grave
character, which the history of our predecessors
can furnish.

For our conditions are grave ; the outlook is
in various directions threatening ; we see, if we
open our eyes, not a little that puts a facile
optimism to rebuke. To take only one or two
points in the foreground of the prospect ; it hag

322 The Law of Faith

become a commonplace to say that young men
who now take Holy Orders can no longer reckon
on quiet lives like those of the old-time clergy ;
they may see strange things before their ministry
is half ended. If they go into towns, they are
instantly confronted by perplexing social prob-
lems, and are like to be absorbed by an amount
of quasi-secular work which it would better
become laymen to take off their hands. If they
go into the country, they see that the Church
hardly "stands where it did" : 'the relation of
the rural labourer to the parson is not what it
was ; as it has been pointedly observed, his
" social and personal position," his " prescriptive
immemorial authority," his " official dignity as
recognized head of the parish, have been
lowered by recent legislation ; " the clerical
Arcadia has lost much of its antique charm. On
all sides the ascendency of " establishment " is
giving way ; the designation of the English
Church as "national," which some of her "de-
fenders " reiterate as if it represented the most
sacred and constraining of her claims in forget-
fulness, apparently, of the Erastian applications
to which it lends itself, must be acknowledged
by all who look at facts to require, at least,
very considerable deductions. In the field of
education the Church has to fight for every inch
of the ground ; parents, themselves Church
people by profession, exhibit sometimes a blank
indifference, and sometimes even a practical
aversion, to the inculcation of distinctive Church
doctrines in schools where their children are

Ordination in Unquiet Times 323

being educated ; they placidly acquiesce in
the " question-begging " description of those
doctrines as " sectarian " ; and the " unde-
nominational " idea of religious teaching, incom-
patible as it is with any serious belief in " a real
body of religious truth," l being an attempt,
as the late Dean Vaughan expressed it, to " form
a tertium quid or a decimum quid" out of the
various religious beliefs of different bodies,
and thereby to construct a new "residuary"
religion, does evidently commend itself to the
popular English mind. It suits the conditions
of the Board School system ; and many Non-
conformists, who are themselves " orthodox "
on the cardinal point of Trinitarian belief, have
deemed themselves logically bound by " the
compromise of 1870," as they understand it, to
resist the intrusion of Trinitarian teaching into
Board School " religious lessons," a contention
which too evidently had a deeper motive in
dislike of " dogma " and hatred of " sacerdotal-
ism." And here indeed we touch the very edge
of the chasm which parts the Anglican position
from the Nonconformist ; a profound antagon-
ism between two conceptions of Church, sacra-
ments, and ministry, and therefore of Christ's
own plan in the formation and administration of

1 Carnegie, "Some Principles of Religious Education,"
p. 79. He adds that if there is such a body of truth, form-
ing a whole, then " the principle of undenominationalism is
unscientific and unsound ; it becomes at once a logical
absurdity, and is bound, sooner or later, to prove itself a
practical absurdity as well," etc,

324 The Law of Faith

His kingdom. To say that we are separated
from Nonconformists on such matters as Church
polity or forms of worship is to ignore facts
which break in rudely 'on dreams of "home
reunion," and which no personal kindliness on
the part of individual Nonconformists, such as
we should be ever ready to welcome and to
reciprocate, can allow us to leave out of the
reckoning. Yet even here something may be
done by patient and considerate efforts to show
why we value the ordinances ; one great Non-
conformist theologian at any rate did frankly
acknowledge that High Churchmen " were con-
tending for the sacredness and efficacy of the
institutions by which they believed that the
eternal life of God was made the actual posses-
sion of mankind ; " 1 that they did, in fact, look
through these supposed media to Christ as the
one source of grace and salvation. Men who
can make this acknowledgment will be at one
with us, so to speak, on the major premiss,
although they will deny our minor ; and until
they can accept it the gap is not bridged ; there
is no use in pretending that we can cross it.

We can as little overlook the existence of
serious controversies within our own body :
at times they seem to touch on questions of

1 Dale, " Fellowship with Christ," p. 347. He had said
just before, " For them the sacraments, when duly ad-
ministered, are the appointed means by which the grace of
God first originates and then sustains the divine life in man.
It is this which in their judgment makes the sacramental and
sacerdotal controversy so critical, so awful," etc,

Ordination in Unquiet Times 325

primary moment, which go back to the root-
question, What think ye of Christ, of His
Person and of His authority? and the opti-
mistic language which we sometimes hear in
connexion with Church Congresses, as to the
" melting away " of internal divergencies of
opinion, requires to be soberly tested by facts.
But let us put this class of troubles aside for
the pres.ent : the gravest evil of all is un-
questionably the prevalent indifference to all
religion, either as incapable of being any
longer maintained in the face of science and
of criticism, or as actually "superfluous" for
the " main objects of life," l whether moral
or social. It is at least as true as some
twenty years back, that " the religion of Christ
as a whole, nay," even the pallid scheme of
theism, is assailed with a sweep and vehem-
ence of hostility greater probably than at any
former period." 2 P re-assumptions are made
and adopted which "omit God and the things
of God " from the sphere of what is knowable : 3
or an intensified sense of the mass of evil and
misery in the world gives bitter emphasis to
the most cardinal of all negations, and passionate
energy to an organized propaganda of unbelief.
And many others who could not enter into

1 See Carnegie, " Some Principles," etc., p. xviii.

2 Gladstone, "Gleanings," vi. 163. In 1896 he wrote,
"The one controversy which, according to my deep con-
viction, overshadows, and in the last resort absorbs, all
others is the controversy between faith and unbelief." Ib.
viii. 411.

8 H. S. Holland, "Pleas and Claims for Christ," p. 27.

326 The Law of Faith

speculative difficulties may take up stock ob-
jections, not seldom directed in fact against
the Calvinistic perversion of Christianity, but
their real ground for rejecting religion is that
they do not want it : their spiritual percep-
tions, especially the consciousness of sin, have
been dulled by disuse under the pressure of
secular interests ; in effect, they repeat the old
question, "What is the Almighty, that we
should serve Him?" They do not see what
religion would do for them, while they are
pretty sure that it would interfere with them;
therefore they live as if it were demonstrably
untrue.

Much more might be said on the things
which are against us. But this is fully enough
to remind you that your lot will be cast amid
troublous times. It is the Lord's will, and as
such you will accept it : you may seem to hear
Him asking whether you can "drink," in some
measure, of His "cup," and be ''baptized with
the baptism that He was baptized with ; " if so,
you will not give quite so curt and confident
an answer as did those two brothers who

"freely cast their lot
With David's royal Son;" 1

you will rather ay, " Lord, make me able." If
the circumstances are in many ways adverse,
yet, be sure of it, there are " effectual doors
open." It may be all the better for you that
you do not receive Holy Orders in days which,

1 " Lyra Apostolica," p. 31.

Ordination in Unquiet Times 327

by their mere quietness and sunshine, might
relax a clergyman's tone into a respectable
secularity, and make his ministrations first
languid and then heartless. What our fore-
fathers, in a "tepid age," called "the clerical
profession " cannot now be adopted by way of
a sound investment, as securing a comfortable
provision, and an easy task under the shelter
of indisputable privilege. In other times the
penetrating words of the Ordination Gospel
might easily fall on ears unready to take in
their full significance : if the idea of vocation
had not been duly grasped, it would be almost
a matter of course to put a commonplace gloss
on language inconveniently solemn. But it
will not be so with you ; the imagery of
girded loins, and burning lamps, and watchful
out-looking faces, will not speak to you in vain ;
it will but deepen impressions of long standing,
and quicken a true resolve to give yourselves
up utterly to Christ. For there is the heart
of the whole matter. "Ye see your calling,
brethren : " you are to be officers of His
kingdom, stewards of His household, pastors
of His flock, in the midst of this English
people. A serious task in any case, and now.
more serious than ever, when so many of them,
are prejudiced, or suspicious, or hostile ; when .
your claim will be repeatedly and peremptorily
challenged ; when your motives and beliefs will
be strangely misunderstood ; when the work
before you will seem so immense that no
strength can suffice to carry it through. Well,

328 The Law of Faith

but you have, at present, just one thing to do ;
to put yourselves absolutely into the hands of
your Master and King, the " Pastor of pastors"
and the " Priest of priests." You have taken
your part as -among His servants : whoever
else may doubt Him, or "walk no more with
Him," or think that His name has lost what-
ever beneficial power it once possessed, you
are ready to confess Him before men by
accepting the commission of His ministers.
You do not "stumble at the corner-stone"; you
believe that your moral and spiritual nature
bears witness to a living God, that a revelation
from such a God is antecedently probable, and
that it has been given in the Person of His
Son as Incarnate. You know that there are
difficulties in the pathway of faith, but you are
well assured that the difficulties of unbelief are
far more formidable, and you can trust Jesus
Christ. Begin your new life, then, at His feet.
Do not look too far forward, nor brood on
possibilities of failure in this or that part of
your work, and of the despondency that is apt
to wait on failure, and to cut the nerves of
hopeful effort. Give yourselves to Him who
asks now for your single-hearted self-presenta-
tion; rely on Him to lead you on, step after
step ; take each trouble or perplexity, or appar-
ent hindrance, as it comes, and say the Veni
Creator before dealing with it ; keep your own
memoranda alike of hindrances and of reliefs ;
and while you pray for guidance, for strength,
and for comfort, forget not to pray always for

Ordination in Unquiet Times 329

that clear intention and loyal devotion which
are the " fiery salt " l of acceptable service. He
who "believes," in this vital sense, will not
need to " make haste," as if the spirit which he
had received were a spirit of tremulous appre-
hension : he will know whose servant and
instrument he is, and whose arm can carry him
through fire or water ; for he will know, adore,
and serve the Eternal Christ.

1 St. Mark ix. 49.

NOTE. It may be thought inopportune to suggest caution
in the use of the familiar phrase " National Church." Yet
advantage is often taken of the claim thus implied to repre-
sent the Church as the nation's 'creature, to detach the rights
of Church membership from its spiritual obligations, and to
say in effect, " If you are the nation's Church, you must be
content to reflect, from time to time, the nation's general
religious belief: your doctrine must be flexible and, so to
speak, wifonnulated" See some weighty words in Dean
Church's "Letters," p. 186.

XXXIII

II. Some Tendencies in Modern Clerical

Life

IT was a great thing to be said, and to be
said with conspicuous truth of one who was
justly called the wisest Churchman of his time,
that "of all the elder race he was the one who
most intimately followed on with the new move-
ments and the fresh temper who felt what was
going forward, believed in its worth, took it
seriously, so that the younger men could come
to him with their vague and crude aspirations,"
and be " sure of a judgment that " would " view
their case from inside." l Assuredly the mere
laiidator temporis acti is, as such, prematurely
and wilfully senile ; he can " bring forth " no
more "fruit." Those who were young in a
comparatively quiet time, and who live on into
a period that is at least transitional, perhaps
even revolutionary; must school themselves not
to be impatient amid the stir that intrudes on

1 H. S. Holland, in " Life and Letters of Dean Church,"
p. 227.

33

Modern Clerical Life 331

their tranquillity, and the confusion that seems
to be making straight for chaos. If the stream
of life runs more rapidly and impetuously, still
the " voice of the Lord is upon many waters ; " l
if "the earth is moved exceedingly," or even
" turned upside down," it is because " the Lord
hath spoken this word ; " 2 the temper that
simply bans what is strange and distasteful, as
if it could not be the symbol of some new and
real want, is a temper not only less than hopeful
towards man, but less than dutiful towards God,
who, in the well-known words of the poet, may
be but "fulfilling Himself" in this "change of
the old order." 8 It must be ill for any of us
to encounter the piercing question, "How is it
that ye know not how to estimate this critical
time?" 4

And yet, as every age has its capacities and
its tasks, it will also have its limitations, and its
grave possibilities of failure. If we are not to
idolize the past, neither must we ignore draw-
backs in the present which create anxieties as
to the future. God has willed that this "time"
should be turbid and unrestful ; and such char-
acteristics have their own dangers, as real as
those of days which were calmer. Stagnation
was then the thing to be afraid of; now it is
"a wide breaking-in of waters" 5 that may
sweep away fair seed-plots of healthy spiritual
growth. Let us look for a brief space at one

1 Ps. xxix, 3. 2 Isa. xxiv. i, 3, 20.

3 Tennyson, " The Passing of Arthur."

4 St. Luke xii. 56. 5 Job xxx. 14.

y

332 The Law of Faith

or two of the tendencies of the age which
exist and operate -because it is what it is so
far as they affect the tone, the thought, the
conduct of the younger English clergy.

i. It is proverbially an age that insists on
" quick results " ; and this kind of eagerness is
curiously visible in the prevalent, or at least
the popular disposition to simplify Christian
doctrine. Every one knows that there are
parts of the Christian scheme which are hard
to adjust and correlate with each other. We
see lines going on and on, and still continuing
parallel ; we strain our eyes to discern a meet-
ing point, but if there is one it is shrouded in
mist. Each line represents an aspect of truth,
which, in Mozley's phrase, may be called " in-
distinct" and "incompletely revealed," except
(truly a large exception) for the purposes of
"practical religion." 1 Of two students or
thinkers, A will prefer this line, and B that ;
they will respectively be tempted to avert their
minds from the one which they find less interest-
ing ; and this for two reasons it saves trouble,
and it looks logical. A single idea seems so
lucid, so round, so sufficient ; it frets us to have
to balance and check it by another ; during
that process, which may be long and difficult,
our system lacks compactness, neatness, and
finish ; and then our impatience assumes the
garb of a zeal for argumentative consistency.
The great writer just quoted, in a graphic and

1 Mozley, "Augustinian Doctrine of Predestination,"
p. 29.

Modern Clerical Life 333

impressive context, goes through a list of the
great heresies, and says that the watchword of
each was, " Be logical "; 1 that this "logical-
ness " was purchased by the carrying out of one
idea to its supposed consequences, in sheer
disregard of another which ought to have been
co-ordinated with it. Here, truly, was the
"short cut" which proved to be the "long way
round " ; an appearance of straightforwardness
and "simplicity" with the reality of distortion
and one-sidedness, of what the " Lyra Apos-
tolica" calls a "halving" of Gospel truth.
Instances are as rife in modern Church history
as in ancient ; Lutheranism adopted, as its
artmtlus stantis aut cadentis Ecclesia^ a peculiar
interpretation of the Apostle's words about
justifying . faith, which virtually resolved it into
a mental self-assurance. Not a few English
Churchmen have dwelt on what they called
" the simple Gospel of a free salvation," as if
it comprised the entire religion of the New
Testament ; and perhaps we shall not misjudge
the average Englishman's aversion to what he
terms "sacerdotalism," if we suppose that to a
large extent it means a disposition to exclude
from his Christianity whatever might impair
his individual "independence," to keep it, so to
speak, in a convenient parcel which will go
easily into his own hands. But is not Roman
teaching just as full of injurious "simplifi-

1 Mozley on "Theory of Development," p. 42. The
passage has been called " classical." Powell, ? Principle of
the Incarnation," p. 14.

334 The Law of Faith

cations" ? It swells out the element of authority
until freedom is nowhere; 1 it reduces the
function of the laity the baptized, confirmed,
and communicant body of the Church to a
pure submissiveness which would perpetuate
spiritual childhood ; it concentrates all Church
power into mere devolution from a single Italian
prelate; and for the reasonable faith which
should give a hearing to divers witnesses, it
substitutes "the easier exercise of ignoring all
but one. " 2 Romanists frequently and members
of Protestant sects sometimes are pleased to
amuse themselves on the score of "Anglican
incoherence," as if our system were really a
mere hash of opposite principles, as if we were
always trying to walk on two roads at once.
They " laugh," perhaps, before they have
"won." Truth is, in a real sense, complex, as
life is ; 3 we must take account of it, not piece-
meal, but, as far as we can, wholly.; this will
give us trouble, will task our patience, will
often humble us by the experience of mistake;
the results may, in Bishop Butler's phrase, come
far short of intellectual " satisfaction " ; 4 but if
we are earnest in our resolve not to be hurried
not provoked to drop this or that piece of
truth because it gives us so much to carry if
we will bear with knots and tangles, and ques-
tions but partially soluble, and "that homely

1 Gladstone, "Gleanings," iii. 270.

2 Mahan's Works, iii. 71 (" The Exercise of Faith ").

3 See Dean Paget in ?' Lux Mundi," p. 405 ff.

4 "Analogy," part ii. c. 8.

Modern Clerical Life 335

kind of certainty " l which is, in effect, sufficient
under the inevitable condition of " not walking
by sight," we shall have our compensation in
a deepened perception of the majesty, the
vastness, the infinity of a religion that comes
down from "the Father of" all "the lights,"
and interprets for us the Incarnation of His
own co-essential Son.

2. Let us take one other point, itself not
less akin to the "time-spirit" in one of its most
attractive manifestations. All around us (to
revert to a former simile) are not only rushing
waters, but meeting waters as well. Communi-
cation, in all forms, has become easy : men are
saying, but not, as of old, in the way of hostile
challenge, " Come, let us look one another in
the face." 2 They come, they look, they speak,
they wish to be friends : it is a commonplace to
say that the age is longing for more unity ; and
then comes the question, " What of the barriers
which now divide us? " They seem, to many
minds, artificial, conventional, worse than need-
less ; there is an impulse to pull them down
and cast them away. " Let us shake hands all
around ; let us make concessions to the utmost ;
.let us sacrifice this or that idea, or practice, or
institution, in order to turn opponents into allies."
The temper which thus speaks is most winning,
most amiable and genial ; but its very richness
of luxuriant sympathy may need (though it
seems a hard saying) to be pruned, corrected,

1 Salmon, "Infallibility of the Church," p. 73.
2 2 Kings xiv. 8.

336 The Law of Faith

kept in order. One who understands this state
of things has said, " We are too sensitive, too
appreciative all round, to be effective." a Con-
cession, by all means, when no principle forbids :
but that is precisely the pinch of the matter.
Ecce quam bonwn yes, but the unity to which
"the Lord has promised His blessing" 2 is a
unity in truth. May one indicate, here and
there, some ground which in this respect " craves
wary walking " ?

It is pleaded, and reasonably pleaded, that
we must try to speak God's word not in terms
that have become archaic, but so as that the
men of our day shall understand ; 3 and that,
if advance in knowledge has shown that any
position is really untenable, we should, for
truth's sake, abandon it. But surely we must
take care to ascertain what has been thus dis-
proved and what has not ; whether this or
that ancient phrase or argument or interpretation
may not still live and be significant, if we
take pains to clear it of misconstruction. For
instance, the attempt to disarm some outside
critics by adopting, with more or less of re-
serve, a foreign Protestant theory of (so called)
" Kenosis," will be found more or less to.
imperil, first the doctrine of the Holy Incar-
nation, and finally the true idea of God. For
the Incarnation implies that our Lord continued
"perfect God" after He. had become "perfect

1 H. S. Holland, in "Good Will" for Nov. 1896.

2 Ps. cxxxiii. 4.

3 Pere Gratry, quoted in preface to " Lux Mundi."

Modern Clerical Life 337

man " ; that while accepting limitations in the
human sphere, He remained unlimited outside
it. But if He, being confessedly a Divine
person, did absolutely, and "as touching His
Godhead," resign during His earthly course
any of his Divine perfections, He had so much
less of Divine life and activity, and therefore
was so much less perfectly God. But first, if He
was not fully God, as well as fully man, when
He gave Himself up for us, it can no longer
be said that His divinity gave a transcendent
value to His human self-oblation ; and next,
there can be no more or less in real divinity, and
the notion that One who is really God can lay
aside this or that Divine attribute as a man puts
off part of his clothing offends against the vital
principle of the Divine simplicitas, according to
which what we call God's " attributes are not so
many qualities of His essence, but are all one
and the self-same He, as He is contemplated by
His creatures in various aspects and relations." 1

1 Newman, " Serm.," vi. 349 ; cp. S. Tho. Sum., i. q. 13,
a. 4, 5. Kenoticism may indeed be described as a solvent of
faith in more directions than one. It is astonishing, too, to
observe how, under its strange attractions, the accepted rules
of interpretation are neglected ; how much is built up on a
single phrase, the right rendering of which is matter of dis-
pute ; what consequences are deduced from the literal render-
ing, in disregard of the context. Is it, after all, so certain
that the literal rendering of the verb KCVO'U must be adopted
in Phil. ii. 7, when no one would adopt it in Rom. iv. 14 ;
i Cor. i. 17; ix. 15? In those texts it represents a dis-
paragement, in men's eyes, of a principle or of a reputation ;
why not here ? St. Paul is, in effect, arguing that Christ did

33&. The Law of Faith

Again, it is not difficult to forget, with regard
to Old Testament criticism, that below all
questions of date and authorship lies the
question, whether we are to approach the Jewish
Scriptures with a naturalistic presupposition or
not? Once more, in their commendable aversion
for a corrupt form of "sacerdotalism," their
brotherly eagerness to acknowledge a " repre-
sentative" character in the Christian ministry in
its relation to "the whole body of the Church,"
clergymen sometimes hastily infer that minis-
terial power is simply a delegation from that
body, as when a society appoints a committee
and invests it with certain functions : 1 and then
they naturally adopt on the authority, it must

not do A, but did do B, 'with the result C ; or, to put it
otherwise, that instead of doing A, He did C in consequence
of having done B. By not insisting on an unqualified
retention of Divine co-equality, but, on the contrary, be-
coming man among men, Christ willed to appear as
not thus co-equal : He made Himself inferior, or of no
account (the second of two alternative renderings given by
Liddell and Scott, sub v.) ; He accepted a lowering of His
dignity, such lowering being necessarily involved in His
"taking the form of a servant," etc. It is admitted that the
scope of "He humbled Himself" in ver. 8 is measured by
the logical requirement of His " becoming obedient up to
the point of death, and that the death of the cross." By
parity of reasoning, the phrase eavrbv eKevwcre must mean just
as much as is required by His assumption of manhood,
no less, but no more. See above, pp. 218, 248.

1 This is a complete non sequitur ; the eyes are an organ
provided/^ the human body, and as such "represent" it
in the exercise of its faculty of sight : see Moberly, " Minis-
terial Priesthood," p. 69 ff.

Modern Clerical Life 339

be owned, of a very eminent commentator that
interpretation of the Easter-night commission,
recorded in St. John's twentieth chapter, which
supposes it to be addressed to the " ten " not as
apostles, but as believers, and -so to the whole
Christian people. Of course this view cuts
right at the root of the idea of "apostolic
succession," and of all that is involved in that
idea; But looking at it exegetically, one seems
to see (i) that the words of this commission
belong not to that class of our Lord's sayings
which are "spoken even to all," but to that
other class which must be associated with His
prolonged special training of the twelve for
the work of apostleship ; * (2) that thus they
are in line with the words in His great inter-
cession, "As Thou didst send Me forth,
even so did I send them forth," and that they
similarly assign to the mission a truly awful
plenitude .of significance ; (3) that the view in
question is, to say the least, out of keeping with
so cardinal a text as that in which Christ
announces His intention to set over His house-
hold in general a permanent body of stewards ; 2
and (4) that it supposes the apostles, so
called, to have been on that most solemn
occasion reduced to the position of "lay"

1 Canon Holland has described this process with
characteristic wealth of illustration, in " Creed and Char-
acter," pp. 55-63. The sum f what he there says might be
found in F. D. Maurice's dictum " If we called the four
Gospels ' the Institution of a Christian ministry,' we might
not go very far wrong." " Kingdom of Christ," ii. 148.

2 St. Luke xii. 42. Cp. St. Matt. xxiv. 45.

340 The Law of Faith

believers, 1 all manner of spiritual authority
having been lodged in the collective apostolate
of the " whole body," from which, therefore, the
" apostles" would have to take out a new com-
mission for any ministerial work : whereas the
Acts and Epistles exhibit them as from the very
outset supreme in the Church, describe the
ministry as a Divine institution or "gift," and
never once even indirectly suggest the notion
that its powers were derived from the " body,"
a notion, in fact, which is disposed of by the
habitual language and action of St. Paul. 2

There is, we know, a not unpleasing sensation
of " large-heartedness " in conceding this or that
point by way of not appearing exclusive. But
after all, my brothers, we are trustees, and
not masters, of truth which has come to us as
revealed ; we are sacredly bound to be most
heedful that our language is, as far as it goes,
correspondent to that truth, and not to some-
thing else ; we have to speak God's words,
" whether men will hear or will forbear ; " and in
our ministry as " servants, not of men, but of
Christ," we have no commission to "please"

1 That other believers were present is clear from St. Luke
xxiv. 33. But this does not prove that they were included
in the commission: St. Luke describes the beatitudes as
addressed to the " disciples " in the hearing of many others
(vi. 17-20). St. John, we should observe, likes to speak of
apostles as " disciples."

2 i Cor. iv. 3; 2 Cor. v. 18; xii. 19; Gal. i. i, 10;
Eph. iv. ii. Was St. Paul more fully a minister "of
Christ" than St. Peter or St. John? The theory in question
implies this. See also i Tim. i. 18; Tit. ii. 15.

Modern Clerical Life 341

them, except as "seeking their profit, that they
may be saved." 1

Once again, this uncontrolled sympathy may
range abroad in the social area. A generous
passion of pity for the toiling and suffering
"masses" impels priests working among them
to become, as it were, politicians in their
interest, or even to hope too much from
schemes of social reconstruction. Most true it
is that care for temporal needs has often
brought success to spiritual work, while such
work has been hindered by conditions which
prevent life from being, in a worthy sense,
human. Yet still there is a temptation, amid
the enthusiasm of philanthropic effort, to forget
that the Church's primary duty is to souls, and
to put the secondary work too .far forward
because it raises no awkward questions about
doctrine, Church-going, or sacraments ; to say
to oneself in effect, "These men would not
accept Christ as He is known within the
Church, but we might 'economically' present
Him as a social or political Emancipator;
they do not care about a kingdom of heaven
as associated with Christian supernaturalism,
but we might offer it as a future ameliorated
state of natural or civil society." And is
there, then, no risk in such a venture? May
it not turn out to be a repetition, in modern
form, of the Jewish degradation of the Messiah-
ship ? Is it not rash to assume that a secular
ideal can, for the average man, be refined into
1 Gal. i. 10 ; i Cor. x. 33.

342 The Law of Faith

a spiritual ? that those who begin by patronizing
Jesus as the friend of "workers" will easily be
led upward to the worship of the Redeemer
and Lord of souls? Is not the English
mind, in all classes, only too prone to think
nature sufficient, and grace superfluous ? More-
over, one does occasionally see that the fervid
wish to be " in touch with the people " has a
questionable effect on some who make a great
point of using " Catholic " phrases while they
cast aside the self-restraint, perhaps even the
reverence, in expression, which ought to be
instinctive with "Catholics," and, not over
gracefully, affect lay fashions, as if in fear that
Demos may think them still too clerical for his
service. On the whole, we are in presence of
a possibility which bodes ill for the tone of
our younger High Churchmen, whose prede-
cessors were taught to beware of off-hand
speech on great subjects, and had a serious
dread of the danger inseparable from " strong
words," 1 and still more, of the terrible subtle
force of secularizing influences. It is a possi-
bility which forms a drawback to the advantages
which the cause of the Church has gained by
becoming (so far as it has become) popular.
We cannot ignore the "seamy side" of that
situation. Besides the point just now referred
to, there is a tendency to accept programmes of
Church-reform which draw their ideals and
aims from popular government, which practi-
cally aim at reconstituting the Kingdom of Christ
1 Church, " Pascal and other Sermons," p. 256.

Modern Clerical Life 343

on a democratic principle foreign to its original
character, according to which the authority of
its officers is derived from above and not from
below ; 1 and yet further, the profession of
absolute trust in "the heart of the people" is
scarcely compatible with a recognition of that
taint and twist and warp in human nature
which forbids us Christians to idealize it.

Considerations like these may sound chilling,
but they may prove sobering; and soberness
is imperatively needed, when prospects full of
hope seem to call for our active sympathy.
Let us hope, but let us remember that spme
disappointment is part of that law of " vanity "
to which even believers in Christ are sub-
jected ; let us keep our hopes within reason,
and seek, when we have to act, for the precious
gift of a right judgment ; let us be ever on the
watch against the temptation to " throw off, as
a shackle and a burden, the office of witness-
ing to" that "Divine truth" 2 which cannot be
revised to suit the changeable fancies of men.
There is not only point but solid comfort in the
terse irony of an eloquent Archbishop: "The
Church has not always failed in her mission
when she has failed to attract and conciliate : " 3
for even Christ Himself, in His earthly ministry,
was misunderstood, and, on the whole, rejected
even by His own "people," among whom and
for whom He laboured, and whose "voice" was

1 Gore, "The Ministry," pp. 71, 74, 271.

2 Mozley, " Paroch. Serm.," p. 94.

3 Magee, " The Gospel and the Age," p. 189.

344 The Law of Faith

finally heard clamouring for His death. Let
us always endeavour to. "love in truth," and to
" speak truth in love " ; and while our hearts
go forth to all the needs of our brethren, let
us aim at this one supreme success, to be
approved as "faithful" by the Lord who is
"theirs and ours."

NOTE. In a preceding reference to the "Kenotic" con-
troversy, several points were necessarily passed over : e. g.
as to 2 Cor. viii. 9, wherein did Christ " become poor " ?
Surely in that wherein we hope to be " made rich " through
His self-impoverishment; and that is the condition of
heavenly glory. To become man was, so far, to descend
from this glory ; but it involved no quasi-Apollinarian
"humanizing" of Divine attributes, no suspension of His
Divine consciousness, or of any Divine energy quoad His
Godhead. The co-existence of the "two natures" involved
mutual relations without any interfusion : see e. g. such texts
as St. John v. 36 with such as St. John ii. n. Even
now, in praying to Christ, we appeal at once to His Divine
love and to His human sympathy.

THE END

WELLS GARDNER, DARTON AND CO., PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS.

Vol. II. of the Library of Practical Christianity

' TESTIMONIES TO CHRIST.

By the Rev. C. J. BALL, M. A., chaplain to the Honourable
Society of Lincoln's Inn. Crown 8vo, cloth boards, 6s.

LONDON : WELLS GARDNER, DARTON & CO.,
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