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LONDON, NEW VOKK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS AN OUTLINE OF CHRISTIAN ETHICAL THEORY BY R. L. OTTLEY CANON OF CHRIST CHURCH REGIUS PROFESSOR OF PASTORAL THEOLOGY AND HON. FELLOW OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON NEW YORK, BOMBAY, AND CALCUTTA 1909 All rights reserved jFesus Christ came into the world to do things which only He could do. He came to make men know things that were not certainly known : He came to make certain the serious care of God for man- kind, to make certain His moral character, to make certain immor- tality and judgment. Further, He came to ifttroduce ideas govern- ing thought and conduct, which He only could introduce, by what He was and what He did — ideas of the moral law deeper and more powerful than any in the world; the idea of sin, of pardon, of restoration J the reality of a new ideal, the Christian character. And more. He came to create a new tie and union among human souls, between them and God, between them and Himself as the Son of man, between themselves, one with another. R. W. Church. PREFACE This book contains the substance of lectures on ' The OutHnes of Christian Ethics ' addressed to candidates for the ministry (Chh. I. -XVI.), together with three supplementary chapters on various points of social morality. The subject is one which was frequently commended to our attention by a teacher whose name is inseparably associated with the Chair of Pastoral Theology at Oxford, — the present revered Bishop of Lincoln. But its compass is so large that I have found it advisable to touch only upon topics of primary importance, with the aim of exhibiting the point of view from which Christian thinkers of every period have approached ethical questions, and so illustrating the vital connection that subsists between the moral ideals of Christianity and its characteristic ideas. The limitations of such a method of treatment will be obvious enough ; some problems are mentioned only to be dismissed ; but I trust that what I have written may stimu- late interest in the study of a great subject, and vi PREFACE may serve in some measure to guide the thought and reading of those who are called to proclaim in a world of change the unchanging ' way of salvation.' R. L. O. Whitsuntide, igog. . CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY Chapter I. The Promise op Life PAGE Christianity not a doctrine but a life 4 Life, the characteristic gift of the Gospel .... 1 ... . 6 implies dependence 7 and fulness of relationships 9 manifests itself in character 10 in capacity for growth 12 in response to environment 13 Christ Himself the Life 15 Chapter II. Christian Ethics in relation to other Systems and to Present Needs I. Distinctive character of Christian Ethics 17 Its idea of duty zi of sin 22 of the chief moral problem 22 II. Christian Ethics in relation to present conditions .... 25 (i) the prevalent spirit of materialism ....... 26 (2) abnormal social conditions 29 (3) the recrudescence of individualism 31 The leading Christian ideas '. 35 PART I PRESUPPOSITIONS THEOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL Chapter IM. The Christian Doctrine of God The idea of good and the idea of God 39 The Old Testament doctrine of God 39 vni CONTENTS PAGE Chief points in the New Testament doctrine — The divine Personality 4i The divine Holiness 44 Significance of the statement God is love 47 Its consequences — (i) the idea of immortality 4° (2) the idea of redemption 49 Chapter IV. The Christian Doctrine of Human Nature Man's conscious relation to moral law 53 Importance of personality 55 Its chief attributes — I. The moral faculty or ' conscience ' 56 Nature of conscience •. ■ • • 57 Its functions and authority • 60 Moral obligation - 62 ' Works of supererogation ' and ' counsels of perfection ' . 65 II. The power of self-determination 67 Freedom (i) its formal sense 6g (2) its real sense in Christian Ethics .... 71 Law and liberty 73 Christ's appeal to the will 74 Note. Cicero oti the Law of Nature 75 Chapter V. The Need of Humanity Christ a Saviour from sin 76 I. Christian view of man's present condition 77 Idea of 'original sin'. 77 What the idea implies 80 II. The fact and meaning of sin 85 III. Redemption 88 (i) the divine work of Atonement 89 its meaning and scope 90 (2) appropriation of the Atonement by man .... 93 Repentance 93 The way of humility ' i 95 Chapter VI. The Theological Virtues Man's ideal destiny and essential need 97 The ' theological virtues ' 98 CONTENTS ix PAGE (i) Faith 99 Justification by faith loo (2) Hope loi (3) Love . 102 Mutual relation of the virtues 103 The life of union with God — how maintained 104 Chapter VII. The Christian View of the World The Highest Good no The Kingdom of God — its twofold aspect in I. Christian view of human life. Life implies character 117 and vocation . . iig II. Christian view of Nature 121 Nature a spiritual order 122^ III. Christian view of suffering 124 Its moral purpose 125 Pain in animals •■■'■ 127 The problem of moral evil 128 The Christian temper '3°>' PART II THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER Chapter VIII. The Pattern of Character Virtue and character 135 I. Christianity presents to men a personal pattern .... 137 II. Characteristics of the pattern — 1. Christ like men yet unlike them 139 2. The example of Christ — its universal import . . . 142 3. Its leading peculiarity 143 4. Its combination of contrasted types of excellence . 145 strength and gentleness . ; 145 repose and activity 146 power and restraint 147 love universal and individual 148 self-communicativeness and separateness . . . 149 The 'mind' of Christ 151 X CONTENTS Chapter IX. Primary Conditions necessary for the Development of Christian Character PAGE The growth of character i53 Its conditions — 1. Teachableness '54 2. Probation '57 Discipline of temptation IS^ 3. Moral decision 160 Conversion and its sequel 162 Chapter X. The Christian Character in its Self-manifestation Character and human relationships 164 Virtue and duty 165 I. Christian idea of character 167 II. The relationships of a moral being— 1. to God 168 Devotion to God 168 Singleness or purity of heart 170 The qaesUon oi moitve a.nd reward . . . . . . 171 2. to self — Meaning of virtuous self-love 176 Its aspects, negative and positive i77 3. to his neighbour 178 Characteristics of Christian love — (i.) idealism 180 (ii.) the spirit of forgiveness 181 (iii.) the spirit of sacrifice 183 (iv.) the spirit of service 183 4. to the 'world' 185 Fortitude — its two aspects : the passive virtue of ' world resistance ' . . . . 185 the active virtue of resentment 187 The cardinal virtues 189 Chapter XI. The Moral Dynamic Philosophic theories and moral facts 192 The condition of sanctification 194 The doctrine of grace 195 Difficulties — (i.) ' Grace restricted in its range ' 198 The freedom and universality of its action 199 CONTENTS xi PAGC (ii.) ' Grace hinders personal effort ' 202 The function of the will n 202 Note A. Some Modern Definitions of Grace 204 Note B. St. Bernard on the Action of Grace 205 Chapter XII. The Discipline of Character The Individual and the Society 206 I. The discipline of common life 210 Labour and industry 210 II. The discipline of Church-fellowship 213 Self-culture and self-development 214 Aids to holiness — prayer 217 fasting 222 almsgiving 226 III. Results aimed at by discipline 230 The fruit of Christian effort 231 Perfection 232 PART III DUTY AND THE MORAL LAW Chapter XIII. The Christian Law Law natural and revealed 238 The decalogue 239 The Gospel a ' new law ' — in what sense 241 The old and the new law contrasted 243 Actual content of the law 246 The ' Christian law ' 247 Chapter XIV. Christian Duty Duty personal and social 249 I. Duty towards God 250 'Expansion oi the first and great commandment . . . 251 II. Duty towards our fellow-men 259 Changes in economic theory 261 xli CONTENTS PAGE Specific social duties — (i) hopefulness 264 (2) justice 266 (3) service and stewardship 270 (4) civic duty 273 Chapter XV. Christian Duty {continued) Duties towards self and towards the non-personal creation . . 277 I. Self-regarding duties — (i) self-preservation 279 (2) a just self-estimate 284 (3) self-reverence 285 (4) Christian ownership, etc 290 II. Duty in the non-personal sphere 292 (i) humanity to animals 293 (2) ' wise passiveness ' 296 The Christian and Nature 296 PART IV CHRISTIAN IDEALS IN RELATION TO THE FAMILY, THE STATE AND THE CHURCH Chapter XVI. Christian Ideals in the Social Sphere A. Marriage and the Family The Gospel and the social groups and communities 301 I. The Christian idea of marriage .......... 302 The divine ideal . 306 The Gospel and family-life 307 II. Modern theories and movements 309 The State and the Church in relation to the family . . 311 III. Present dangers — Socialistic theories and marriage . . . 312 (i) The problem of divorce . . . . . . ... . 316 (2) Prohibited degrees 320 (3) Restriction of births . . 323 The family and the nation . . . ^ 325 CONTENTS Xlll PACE / Chapter XVII. Christian Ideals in the Social Sphere B. The Church and the §tate I. The Christian conception of the State . . . . . . . 327 The State and individual character • • 33i II. The moral functions of the State 331 III. The function of the Church in the modern State . . . . 335/ Characteristics of the Church's action — (i) the motive to which it appeals . 336 (2) its care for the poor 337 (3) its testimony to the mind of Christ 340 IV. Relations of the State to the Church 341 Disestablishment — its meaning and expediency . . . 343 Disendowment 347 The Church and social or moral reforms 351 Note. The Social Teaching of St. James's Epistle 352 Chapter XVIII. Special Problems : the Question OF Religious Conformity I. The significance of the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit 354 Moral problems — the method of their solution . . . . 355 Moral theology of the Roman Church 358 Probabilism 359 II. Modern knowledge and the obligations of the teacher . . 360 Effects of the expansion of knowledge 361 ' Interpretation ' of the Creed 363 position of the layman 364 of the clergy 365 Need of a sense of proportion 367 The Quicunque vult 368 Declaration as to Scripture in the Ordinal 370 Essential doctrines of the Faith 373 Limits of freedom 374 Need of modesty in teaching 377 Note. Dean Colet on Thomas Aquinas 379 CONCLUSION The aim of Christianity 381 The desire of power 382 St. Paul's use of the word ttnAon/iUirBai 383 xiv CONTENTS Three forms of power — 1. Concentration of energy 3°4 The need for quietness 386 2. Social service 3°7 The Christian message of good : 3°° The Christ of the Church 39° 3. The unification of personality 39° The sin of humanity 393 Conclusion 394 INDEX 1. Subjects 395 2. Greek words 400 INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER I THE PROMISE OF LIFE TO ;^apio'/ia Tov ©eoC ^(orj aiuvios iv XptaTo) 'Irjcrov. — Rom. vi. 23. ' It is the differentia of man to know life, to enter into its mean- ing, to perceive its truth, to appreciate its beauty or nobility, to be doer as well as enjoyer of its good. To know life is the condition of true living it.' — W. P. Du Bose. The relation of Christian doctrine to Christian life and conversation is comprehensively described in a passage written at a time when it was possible to summarise the experience of at least one gene- ration of believers. His divine power, says the author of the Second Epistle of Peter, hath granted unto us all things that pertain unto life and godli- ness, through the knowledge of him that called us by his own glory and virtue} The passage implies that Christianity is, in its essence, not a mere creed or philosophy, but a life — a life which depends upon the grace and power of God, and consists in spiritual fellowship or union with Him. It implies that man cannot rise to the height of his ideal calling apart from the action of a self-revealing Creator who by the manifestation of His own cha- racter ' calls ' man to holiness, and who Himself ' 2 Pet. i. 3. B 2 4 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS supplies the power needful for attaining to it. This is, in short, the doctrine of the New Testa- ment : that without the redemptive aid of God humanity cannot fulfil its ideal destiny. Man was made for communion with God, and in that com- munion his real ' life ' consists. Christianity, then, is a life ; and the life, as St. John tells us, was once for all manifested} The Incarnation, or manifestation of God in a human life, is the central fact of history ; it is the turning- point in man's conception of religion. It justified those dim anticipations of the possibility of a real and vital fellowship between the Deity and His creatures which underlay the rude and purely ex- ternal rites of primitive worship. It vindicated once for all that haunting sense of an essential affinity between the divine and the human nature which found expression in the earliest speculations of philo- sophers and in the visions of poets. For the In- carnation was at once a revelation of God and a revelation of Man. As a revelation of God, it crowned the progressive religion of the Hebrew race ; it met with a satisfying response the Gentile search after God. It manifested God as the supreme Good towards which nature aspires, the true centre round which creation revolves. Further, it revealed God as willing to enter into real and vital fellowship with man by sharing his mortal experience, drawing him with human hands and speaking to him in human tones. And this revelation of Deity was in itself the manifestation of essential goodness, of ' I St. John i. 2. THE PROMISE OF LIFE 5 which we can form no higher idea than that it is love — love imparting and sacrificing^ itself. On the other hand, regarded as a revelation of Man, the Incarnation marked an epoch in human thought. It threw a new and unsuspected light on the in- herent capacities of human nature, on its destiny and on the conditions of its perfection. In a character, a personality, were exhibited at once the possibilities of man and the hindrance to their realisation — namely, the mystery of sin ; victory over sin was seen once for all to be the law of human perfection. Christus, says Lactantius, viva praesensque lex. In Christ the true law of human nature is revealed ; He is Himself the new man. In place of the imaginary ideal of Greek philosophy — Aristotle's moral expert (6 crTrouSatos), Plato's philosopher - king, the Stoic 'wise man,' the detached and self-sufficing intellectualist of Neo- Platonism — Christianity sets forth the pattern of moral perfection in an actual human life. Thus in a unique sense the life was manifested in Jesus Christ : human life as it was divinely intended to be — enriched, ennobled, transfigured by an un- broken and abiding fellowship with God. The New Testament accordingly claims for the religion of Jesus Christ that it is a way, or rather the way, of life ; ^ and its Founder points to Himself as the way, the truth, and the life.'^ Being in its essence a life, our religion assigns a central place to Him who is the life. ^ Consider Acts ii. 28; ix. 2; xix. 9, 23 ; xxiv. 22. 2 St. John xiv. 6. ea 6 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS What, then, is the teaching of the New Testa- ment on the subject of life ? First, we learn that life is the characteristic gift of the Gospel. Man yearns instinctively for a larger, fuller life, and this life is realised through union with the incarnate Son. / came that they may have life, and may have it abundantly. God gave unto us eternal life, and this life is in his Son} According to the Christian conception of it, ' virtue ' displays itself in moral energy. Through the knowledge of God and through fellowship with Him, all the faculties of human nature are heightened and intensified ; individuality is strengthened and the whole personality enriched ; ^ the capacity for knowing, willing and loving is developed and satisfied to the uttermost. From this point of view Augustine's aphorism is profoundly true, Summum bonum est stimme esse ; ^ and salvation is seen to be ' nothing less than the preservation, restoration, or exaltation of life.'* In fact, the chief good for man, as the New Testament conceives it — that which alone corresponds to the creative idea of humanity — is life in fellowship with Deity : Vita hominis visio Dei J' ^ St. John X. lo; i St. John v. ii. ^ See Illingworth, Christian Character, p. 182 j and Walpole, Personality and Power. ' de vera relig. xviii. * Hort, Hulsean Lectures, The Way, the Truth, and the Life, p. lOI. ° Iran. iv. 20, 7 j cp. v. 27, 2 : Koivwvia Se ®€ov ^y] Kayo. ®£oV. ^ I Cor. iv. 20. 20 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS incomplete survey of the facts. The Christian char- acter, or, in other words, personality at its highest point of moral power and spiritual consciousness, is a phenomenon that challenges investigation and expla- nation. It is not in any strict sense scientific to limit ethical inquiry to the moral phenomena of average human life, and to exclude a survey of the heights attained by a St. John, a St. Paul, an Augustine, a Francis of Assisi, a Vincent de Paul. There is a ' psychology of the saints ' ^ which is unintelligible apart from adequate knowledge of the faith that has kindled and ennobled their souls. Nor is it sufficient to take account of instances of what has been called a special ' genius ' for goodness. To those who have eyes to see, there are facts of ordinary experience which ethical systems are apt to overlook, or, at least, inadequately explain : the fruit of the Spirit in human life ; the transfiguration of character ; heroisms of faith and self-sacrifice that take us, as it were, by surprise ; the sudden or gradual elevation of average character. In Christ (to use St. Paul's favourite phrase) human nature becomes a new creation^ exhibiting the action of forces which tran- scend those at work in humanity at large. That these forces are daily transforming individual lives and slowly contributing to the regeneration of society is a fact which is often ignored or denied, but which is familiar enough to those who are entrusted with ^ See Granger, The Soul of a Christian, p. 44. Mr. Granger defines a ' saint ' as ' one who displays in a special degree the excellences which characterise the Christian ideal ' (p. 20). * 2 Cor. V. 17. CHRISTIAN ETHICS 21 the spiritual oversight of their fellow-men.^ Conse- quently, Christian ethics differs from .other systems in the standpoint from which it approaches the data, and in the relative importance it assigns to the different problems of ethics. Thus (i) duty is regarded in its relation to God. The service of man is comprehended in duty to God. This was the principal lesson which the Hebrews learned from their great lawgiver. The worship of Jehovah was indissolubly and once for all connected with the life of social righteousness ; the fear of God was to be the motive and main- spring of moral action in all intercourse of man with his fellows. The same principle pervades the New Testament. Even the simplest obligations of life are sacred because they are fulfilled unto the Lord and not unto men ; ^ they are to be discharged heartily (Ik '|'i'X'»7s), with fidelity to an inward ideal of which the unseen Deity alone can take cog- nisance.^ Social duty, then, is rendered primarily to God ; but this principle does not exclude the pos- sibility of ' religious duties ' understood in the narrower sense of duties rendered to God, not as moral Governor of the universe, but as a Person standing in immediate relation to all personal ^ Cp. Liddon, Bampton Lectures, pp. 130 foil. - Col. iii. 23. ^ Like other characteristic elements of Christian morality, this principle emerges in pre-Christian thought. It is anticipated in the tenth commandment, and even in such a primitive code as that of the Twelve Tables : e.g. ' Ad Divos adeunto caste, pietatem adhibento : qui secus faxit Deus ipse vindex erit ' (Cic. de legg. ii. 8. See Cicero's comment in ii. 10, §§ 24, 25). 2 2 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS beings, and claiming their homage, devotion and love. (2) The mystery of sin largely determines the peculiar characteristics of Christian ethics. Sin is a fact or law of human life which refuses to be ignored or explained away ; it is an initial barrier to moral advance ; and the foremost of moral problems is the conquest of sin, recovery from its effects, and the restoration of human nature to its ideal integrity. The tendency of other systems is to overlook or minimise the fact of sin, to make light of what is a radical taint and defect which prevents or retards moral growth. The doctrine or fact of 'original sin,' with its consequences, will be considered later on. Meanwhile it is enough to remark that the Christian system which holds out to man such exalted hopes takes a very sober view of his actual condition. His destiny can only be fulfilled through sacrifice and renunciation, through a process of dying to the old or false self in order to win the new man- hood which is realised only in Christ. (3) It follows that Christian ethics is constrained to recognise and deal with a problem which philo- sophy is apt to set aside — the problem of the re-creation of character. Philosophical systems do not, as a rule, advance beyond the formulation of moral requirement ; they prescribe what ' ought ' ideally to be done or avoided. Christianity, on the other hand, is primarily concerned with the question, ' How am I to do right ? ' It regards human nature as standing in need of recovery and renewal. It points to aids and remedies by which character can CHRISTIAN ETHICS 23 be restored and transformed. It undertakes to make the bad good and the good better. It claims to be a power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth} In his short treatise On the grace of God, Cyprian urges this point with force and eloquence ; and he appeals to the common experience of his fellow-Christians when he describes the strange transformation wrought by the grace of God in himself and in multitudes whom their former moral impotence had driven to despair. To this testimony multitudes in every age have set to their seal, and all alike echo the cry of Cyprian, Dei est, inquam, Dei est omne quod possumus? Enough has been said to illustrate some chief peculiarities of the Christian moral system. It stands, as we have seen, in close and vital connec- tion with the revelation of God in Christ. With other systems — those, for instance, of ancient Greece — human nature itself is the standard. 'With the Greek,' it has been justly said, 'man is the measure. To stand well with one's self, to be true to one's own name, or standard, or ideal, is the end.' To Hebrew and Christian ethics ' God is the measure. To be right with God, . . . that is the end.'^ Thus the chief good, the ultimate end of rational action and moral striving, is for Christ- ianity a datum already revealed in the gospel of Christ. The chief good is the Kingdom of God ; and the history of mankind is no mere process of I Rom. i. 16. "- ad Donat. de gratia, 4, 5 ; cp. Just. M. apol i. 14. ' Du Bose, TAe Gospel in the Gospels, p, 104. 24 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS blind evolution, but a divine education lifting man gradually into conscious fellowship with his Creator, and training his capacity for recognising and making his own the underlying purpose of the universe. On the other hand, Christian ethics is based on the belief that the ideal of humanity has been once for all manifested in Jesus Christ. And in this connection we may claim that to Christian influ- ence is largely owing the profounder conception of personality which distinguishes modern as compared with ancient moral systems. The Christian thinker sees in personality not a fixed and unalterable quantity, but a living and growing thing, which finds its completion in a perfect and ideal personality — namely, that of Christ Himself. Man becomes his true self, or finds it, through the indwelling in him of the spirit of Another. He can only say, / live, when he is able to add, no longer I but Christ liveth in me} Modern psychology has elucidated and em- phasised St. Paul's distinction between a lower and a higher self Christian ethics lays stress on two stages or states of the psychological life ; it finds the real significance of man's moral history in the duality of impulses which contend for his allegiance ; the law of sin (the lower sensual impulse) and the law of the mind (the higher spiritual impulse) are at variance. Accordingly it is the task of personality to attain to inward unity and harmony. But to Cyprian's question. Qui possibilis est tanta conversio ? ^ Gal. ii. 20. See this subject exhaustively developed in Moberly, The Atonement and Personality, ch. ix. Cp. Inge, Personal Idealism and Mysticism, ch. iv. CHRISTIAN ETHICS 25 philosophy gives no satisfying response. The Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit and of the mystical indwelling of Christ in the believer has no real counterpart in other systems. II In this book the study of Christian ethics is approached from the standpoint of pastoral theology, which means the application of the revealed truths of religion to the actual and present needs of mankind ; or, in other words, theology ' in touch and sympathy with human life.' ^ And naturally enough the teaching of the Christian Church is, like other things, tested by its results and tendencies. Men ask, ' Does it make for righteousness, personal and civic ; for social amelio- ration ; for the heightening of efficiency ; for the elevation of life ? ' Accordingly a teacher of religion will be guided by experience to discern the truths which are most apt to build up character under the actual circumstances and conditions of his time. He will remember that ' salvation ' means not (what it is sometimes represented to be in popular theology) the process of getting men's souls to a place of safety after death, but a present deliverance from the sin which mars and wrecks human life in this world. Salvation means the recovery of life. To ' save a soul ' is to rescue manhood in its entirety from those evils— avarice, sloth, idleness, sensuality, frivolity, doubt, despair — which tend to waste and ' Wilson, Cambridge Lectures on Pastoral Theology, p. 8. 26 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS paralyse its energies.^ He who would fain help his fellow-men to rise to the full height of their capaci- ties will make it his foremost aim to be in close and continual contact with present facts — such facts as the prevalent misuse of life, perverted and false ideals, moral impotence. To a great extent these have their root in false theology — for instance, in unworthy notions of God as simply and uncon- ditionally ' benevolent ' ; in the supposition that a human being finds his perfection in independence ; in low views of Christ as exhibiting an impossible pattern of humanity, or as being a mere social reformer ; in practical neglect or disparagement of the sacraments ; in the widespread notion that the different factors in social organisation — trade, com- merce, political activity — lie outside the range and control of the Christian spirit. It is, then, germane to our purpose to notice some of the main perils that threaten the higher life of the modern world in which the work of Christ's Church has to be carried on. I. Few will deny that the danger which over- shadows every other is that of the gradual decay or weakening of the thought of God, with its inevitable consequence, that practical materialism which is (we are sometimes assured) ' the reigning creed of the day in the English-speaking races.' ^ ^ ' The Gospel of Christ is for the whole man. To develope all the physical, mental, and spiritual powers into the full stature of manhood is, or should be, the lowest ideal that the missionary sets before himself in his world-wide crusade for righteousness ' (Bp. Tucker, Eighteen Years in Uganda, vol. ii, p. 155). = W. S. Lilly, Right and Wrong, p. 12. CHRISTIAN ETHICS 27 This temper meets us in different forms. There is the coarse materialism of the industrial class ; the more dangerous, because more refined and subtle, materialism of the idle and wealthy. The extent to which this materialism prevails in any one class may no doubt be easily exaggerated ; but the testimony of those who know the working classes best is that their ' dull lives and dull policy ' are evident tokens of an ' eclipse of faith ' ; ^ while the struggles and sorrows of the helpless poor throw into startling relief the coarse prodigality, pitiless selfishness and practical atheism of unlimited and irresponsible wealth.^ The prevalence of low ideals is due partly, no doubt, to the decay of religion, which is vaguely supposed to be discredited by the discoveries of historical and physical science ; but probably much more to the inconsistencies of a professedly Christian society, and to the atrophy of the spiritual faculty induced by the absorbing pres- sure of the struggle for existence, or by the passion for comfort and pleasure. It seems, indeed, to be the fact that in all classes faith has been undermined rather 'by new wealth than by new knowledge.' Wealth has opened up new avenues for the self- seeking temper ; new possibilities of pleasurable excitement more or less refined. The experience of modern life has given new point to the warning '■ See Canon Barnett in Christianity and the Working Classes, ed. by Geo. Haw, p. 97. ^ When all allowance is made for exaggeration and one-sided- ness, the picture of modern social life in such books as The Metropolis (Upton Sinclair) and The Relentless City (E. F. Benson) is appalling. 28 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS of the apostle in regard to those 'difficult times' {Katpol xaXeiroi) in which men become lovers of them- selves, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God} The idolatry of wealth excludes the possibility of unselfish devotion to high ideals, zeal for social service, and that love of God which makes all things possible and all things perfect. Thus the primary need of the modern world is a revival or recovery of the Christian conception of God, and the foremost aim of the Christian teacher is 'to give vitality to the thought of God in the human mind ; to make His presence felt ; to make Him a reality, and the most powerful reality, to the soul.'^ For the prevalence of false ideals means false worship, or, in other words, a habit of mind which owns something else than God as the most powerful and most desirable of things, and so sinks into a worship of idols, absorbing, enslaving, degrading. And just as the thought of God — of His kingdom. His revealed purpose. His will for man — must, when duly realised, act as a restraining and inspiring force in human society, so the social consequences which have flowed from the practical perversion or denial of the Christian doctrine of God have led at least one representative of theoretic Socialism to cry, ' The idea of God must be destroyed : it is the keynote of a perverted system.' ^ To honest thinkers of this type, a community ^ 2 Tim. iii. i. ° W. E. Charming, Discourse on the Christian Ministry. " Karl Marx, ap. Peabody,y««« Chiist and the Social Question, p. 1 6. CHRISTIAN ETHICS 29 organised on a frankly secularistic basis appears preferable to one which in actual f%ct ignores the belief which it professes to cherish. For faith in God, if it means anything, implies belief in righteous- ness as the law of human activity in every sphere : belief in the worth and dignity of the individual soul ; belief in the sacredness of common life and in the superiority of spiritual to mechanical causes. It means the habitual endeavour to judge of all social movements and efforts in the light of God's revealed will and to get that will done, as in heaven, so on earth. In this faith is rooted all that gives to ethics a transcendental value ; all that makes human life other than a vain shadow.^ 2, Another chief hindrance to worthy moral life is presented by the abnormal social conditions to which modern civilisation has given rise. Salvation means deliverance from all things that mar or hinder the normal development of personality. The task of the Church, therefore, necessarily includes the endeavour to grapple with the material evils which destroy or thwart spiritual and moral growth ; such evils as flow from lack of house-room, the decay of home life, intemperance, dishonesty in trade, sweated industries, excessive labour, etc. At the root of most social problems lies some fault of personal character : greed, selfishness, luxury, unrestrained ^ In this connection the growing secularisation of Sunday is a grave symptom. Sunday is the one day of the week when there is a real opportunity of giving ' vitality to the thought of God.' If the Sunday goes, ' there is nothing which can ever take its place. This is the test stantis aut cadentis ecdesiae' (Prof. P. Gardner in Anglican Liberalism, p. 144). 30 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS passion, moral thoughtlessness ; they can be attacked directly only by the force of organised Christian opinion prompting and guiding legislation, indirectly by the building-up of individual character and by efforts to rescue individual lives from the pressure of perilous or unfavourable surroundings. Christi- anity aims at the moral transformation first of individuals, and afterwards, through individuals, of human society. But even this obvious view of the facts is challenged by the advocates of a false method — the method which assumes that in the improvement of social conditions State-agency can take the place of personal and collective moral effort and sacrifice. This is the fundamental fallacy of much popular Socialism : a naive belief in the possibility of social regeneration by external agencies — what Carlyle calls ' faith in mechanism.' Thus it is plainly asserted that ' the ethics and religion of modern Socialism look for regeneration from without, from material conditions and a higher social life.' ' The nobler life will result from generations of satisfied rather than repressed animal desires.' ^ ' Socialism,' writes another enthusiast,^ ' restores humanity to its highest level.' There is something tragic in this defiance of the teachings of experience, this con- fident denial of the truth on which religion rests — that man is, on the one hand, a spiritual being, who cannot find the ultimate satisfaction of his nature in any mere state of material well-being ; and, on the ^ E. Belfort Bax, Ethics of Socialism ^ pp. 19, 146. - Jaurfes. CHRISTIAN ETHICS 31 other, a morally disordered being for whom progress depends upon self-conquest and submission to moral discipline. Only to those whose estimate of human nature is low and shallow will Socialism of this crude type appear to be the panacea for social, that is, for moral, disease. The disorder is in the last analysis spiritual, and can be overcome only by the agency of spiritual forces. The true life, personal and social, in which salvation consists can be developed only from within : ' It takes a soul To move a body, — it takes a high-souled man To move the masses . . . and your Fouriers failed Because not poets enough to understand That life developes from within.' ' Every social question is ultimately a problem of character, and therefore of religion. It concerns primarily not what is lowest, but what is highest in human nature : ' Men who work can only work for men, And, not to work in vain, must comprehend Humanity and so work humanly. And raise men's bodies still by raising souls As God did first.' 2 3. There is a third characteristic feature of ' E. Browning, Aurora Leigh, viii. 430 foil. ^ Aurora Leigh, ix. 849 foil. Cp. L. T. Hobhouse, Democracy and Reaction, ch. iv. : ' It has been the misfortune of our time that attention has been diverted from this ethical, or if the expression be preferred spiritual, order in which the essentials of progress lie to the biological conditions which affect man only as the human animal.' 32 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS modern civilised life which stands in close con- nection with what has already been mentioned. In spite of the admittedly socialistic tendency of recent legislation, there is at the present time a dis- quieting recrudescence of individualism. ' This reveals itself,' writes Bishop Westcott, 'in social life by the pursuit of personal pleasure ; in com- mercial life by the admission of the principle of unlimited competition ; in our theories of life by the acceptance of material standards of prosperity and progress.'^ Theoretically., indeed, we have advanced beyond this point. The old political economy was based on the supposed analogy be- tween the cosmic process and the development of human society ; its characteristic doctrines were those of laissez /aire, self-assertion, unlimited competition, freedom from restriction both in the acquisition and in the employment of wealth.^ Recent economists have, as a rule, traversed this tendency. They have emphasised the limitation of personal rights by the claims of the com- munity. Their method of inquiry leads them to supersede abstract economic theories by a study of the actual conditions under which human beings live, work, and either acquire wealth or contribute to its accumulation. They regard all mercantile and industrial transactions as personal and moral, rather than exclusively 'economic' From this ^ Social Aspects of Christianity, p. 138. - Huxley, Evolution and Ethics (Romanes Lecture), p. 34. ' The fanatical individualism of our time attempts to apply the analogy of cosmic nature to society,' etc. CHRISTIAN ETHICS 33 point of view society is not a mob of competing units, but a community of persons Unked each to other by ties of brotherhood, and laying each other under mutual obligations. Economic problems, in fact, involve problems of personal character ; and conversely each individual needs the moral dis- cipline involved in membership of a community. Corporate life is the great agency for the training and testing of manhood. It is obvious that this conception of the mutual relations of men in the modern state corresponds to a deeper and more scientific conception of personality than that which underlay the older political economy. * At the present time, however, we seem to be confronted by a practical denial of the principles which have recently changed the tone and drift of economic speculation. Individualism, or, as it has been called, 'atomistic' selfishness, is threatening the best interests of civilisation. It tends in particular to undermine the security of such fundamental institutions as those of marriage and family life. It is apt to ignore all the moral questions involved in the acquisition, use, and dis- tribution of wealth. It resents the claim of the State to regulate the traditional ' rights ' of property. The personal interests of the individual are supposed to outweigh the claims of the community. There ' On this point see Inge, Personal Idealism and Mysticism, ch. iv. He points out that the conception of personality as a quantity, 'rigid,' 'impervious,' 'impenetrable' (ultimately due to Kant), 'destroys the basis on which Christian love is supported' (p. no). D 34 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS is, in fact, a widespread confusion of thought in regard to the meaning of 'liberty.' 'Freedom is popularly understood to mean an unrestrained licence to do what one pleases with one's own. And, as usual, confusion of thought leads ultimately to deterioration of motive and character. The sense of social responsibility fades away. The consistent individualist is content to use the toil and service of others without adequate return, and without any feeling for their needs and claims. Where this temper is prevalent, there are ominous signs of the revival of the characteristic vices of heathendom. The reckless pursuit of wealth or pleasure, for example, tends to foster that im- placable and pitiless temper, without natural affection, which was the mark of average pre- Christian society.^ It is no part of our plan to trace in further detail the practical consequences of the prevalent individualism. They meet us at every fresh attempt on the part of the State or of individuals to deal with crying social anomalies. Some person or class is usually interested in maintaining the status quo. It is enough for present purposes to have indicated the social conditions or the private prejudices which make a revival of Christian ethical teaching timely and expedient. For what has been pointed out in these pages amounts to this, that the spiritual basis of life has been shaken, namely, faith in a righteous God and in a divine purpose for humanity. And this weakening of moral conditions, ' Rom. i. 31 : do-uj/^erovs, dorTo^ow, dvcXejJ/toj'as. CHRISTIAN ETHICS 35 while of course it is due to prevalent unsettlement in the region of religious belief, is obviously most disastrous in its personal and social consequences. For the practical materialism of our day is, in part, the consequence of a narrow and unspiritual theory of life, derived from a misreading of the teachings of natural science ; in part, the outcome of a purely thoughtless spirit of self-assertion, fostered by the deadening pressure of a secure and comfortable civilisation. In direct antagonism to the customary maxims, or perverted ideals, which unduly control the social life of our time, stand the characteristic ideas of Christianity. These ideas have to be proclaimed afresh, openly and persistently, to each generation : the idea of life as a spiritual gift and a spiritual oppor- tunity ; the idea oi freedom as enfranchisement from all that hinders personality from the service of God and of mankind ; the idea of virtue as rightly directed desire ; and of ethical good as the ex- pression of a living will and mind. At the same time, each generation needs to be continually re- minded that Christianity is the religion of the better hope : ^ the religion that continually opens to man a fresh possibility of attaining, or at least approximating, to the ideal which his conscience accepts. The faith of Christ alone can touch with power the springs of character ; can cleanse what is defiled and renew what is decayed ; can strengthen ^ Heb. vii. 19. See Dr. A. B. Bruce on this passage (' the dogmatic centre of the Epistle '), The Ep. to the Hebrews (T. and T. Clark), p. 271. 2>e CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS weakness and kindle the fire of love ; can prove itself, in a word, to be indeed the power of God unto salvation} For Christ alone has met the fundamental need of struggling humanity — the need of power. ' Rom. i. 1 6. PART I PRESUPPOSITIONS THEOLOGICAL AND ANTHROPOLOGICAL CHAPTER III THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD avTi; arpCTTTos koj, acraXeuTos apx^ '""' Kprjn^ ^"f^Sj iTurrrJlxr] 0£oS. — Clem. Alexandrinus. In this and the following chapters we shall consider some theological presuppositions of the Christian ethical system. An absolute morality implies the existence of a divine will and personality behind it ; the idea of good cannot be dissociated from the idea of God. Accordingly we find that the development of ethical ideas among the Jews pro- ceeded pari passu with a progressive revelation of the divine nature. The traditional theophany at Sinai was the starting-point of a higher morality. The delivery of the law was a declaration (i) that the divine character is fundamentally and invariably righteous ; (2) that the divine requirement for man included social righteousness. The connection between religion and the moral life was thus pro- claimed to be essential and indissoluble. Through the prophets, who were the spiritual successors of Moses, a more profound disclosure of Jehovah's character was conveyed to Israel. The prophets particularly emphasised the union in God of holi- ness and loving-kindness. They proclaimed His 40 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS necessary hostility to moral evil, His absolute self- consistency, His steadfast tenacity of purpose, His power to vindicate His character by intervention in human history, His perpetual relationship as Creator, Judge, and King to the nations of the world. Strictly speaking, the doctrine of the prophets was not new; they were not the creators either of monotheism or of the higher moral standard which it implied ; the germ of their teaching was already present in the Mosaic theology and ethics. But the prophets did elucidate and emphasise what was obscure or merely implicit in the Sinaitic revelation. The God in whom they believed was at once the Holy One of Israel and the righteous Judge of the world. But the most deep-seated attri- bute of the divine character was loving-kindness, and herein lay Israel's one hope that its ideal voca- tion to be a righteous nation, a kingdom of priests, would ultimately be fulfilled. Herein, too, lay hope for the heathen world ; the Gentiles also would finally be brought to acknowledge, whether in grati- tude or in fear, the God of Israel, and would thus become subjects of His world-wide kingdom. To this teaching virtually nothing was added in later times except perhaps (i) a deeper consciousness of the personal relation subsisting between Jehovah and the individual soul — in other words, the idea of a particular providence and a particular judgment ; (2) a broader philosophy of history, which attempted to trace the unfolding of the divine purpose in the rise, progress and fall of empires and nations ; (3) a more comprehensive view of the divine THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD 41 ' wisdom ' as manifesting itself in nature, in revela- tion, and in the thoughts and invenJ:ions of men. The latest message, however, of Hebrew prophecy was the reiteration and expansion of the doctrine of Jehovah's loving-kindness. The book of Jonah crowns the ' universalism ' of earlier prophecy by proclaiming the creative pity of Jehovah as the hope and refuge not of one favoured nation but of mankind at large. This summary sketch of the Old Testament teaching may serve as an introduction to a brief survey of the Christian doctrine of God, regarded as the basis of an ethical system. The New Testament writers do not attempt to proclaim abstract doctrines; they invite men to enter into living fellowship with a Person who appeals primarily not to man's reason, but to his filial instincts. The fact that we are his offspring is the groundwork and basis of true conceptions of His nature.^ Through that which is highest in man we are enabled to discern something of the nature and character of God. The following, then, are the cardinal points in the Christian doctrine of God. The New Testament lays all possible stress on the fact of the divine personality. God is a personal being, and personality includes reason, love and will. In this point Christianity reinforces the doctrine implied in the anthropomorphic language of the Old Testament, which contains no trace of metaphysical or abstract conceptions of Deity : ^ Consider St. Paul's argument in Acts xvii. 29. 42 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS nothing that corresponds to the vague to 6uov of the Greeks. The Jehovah whom Israel feared and worshipped was a living Person possessed of will, purpose and character ; and anthropo- morphic language was the only possible mode of expressing in terms intelligible to the Hebrew mind the idea of God as a spiritual Being, possess- ing all the positive attributes of personality, only in a superhuman and transcendent degree.^ This truth of theology Is the connecting link between religion and ethics. Moral life consists in personal relationship to a personal God for whom morality implies a rational end towards which action is directed, an ideal which is the goal and the standard of conduct for all spiritual beings. The tendency of heathen thought was to describe God in terms neuter and abstract rather than personal and moral. ' To the Greek the one God was the last deduction of thought and its supreme object. The reason that reached Him defined Him ; He was interpreted in its terms, clothed in its attributes, but did not transcend its categories, i.e. He re- mained abstract, logical, impersonal.'^ The Arian controversy marked the re-appearance of a similar tendency in Christian thought, a tendency against which Athanasius vehemently protests.^ God is a ^ See an admirable passage in Rashdall, The Theory of Good and Evil, bk. iii. ch. i. § 5. ^ See Fairbaim, Christ in Modern Theology, p. 405. The writer is deprecating the tendency in metaphysics towards the ' de-ethicisation ' of Deity. ° See reff. in The Doctrine of the Incarnation, p. 359. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD 43 Father ; in other words, He stands in close personal relations to man who is made in His image ; He is not bare power, nor is He subject to any ' necessity ' other than that imposed by His own essential per- fectness. In short, while heathen ethics spoke of the ideal of morality and the goal of human effort in impersonal and neuter terms (to ayaOov, to koKov), Christ, in answer to a question ' concerning the good ' replies, eh o ayado's, implying that goodness in the ethical sense can only be an attribute of personality.^ In the God of Christian worship the moral ideal is alive, and reigns upon the throne of the universe.^ Personality, in fact, belongs to the spiritual order — to the sphere which includes the primary elaia of ethics : self-consciousness, will, freedom, love. God, according to Christ's teaching, is spirit? He is the centre of that realm or order of existence which at once includes and transcends the material order. And as the fact of the divine personality lies behind and inspires the persistent witness of the Church that the spiritual is the ultimate in- terpretation of the natural order ; so the apprehen- sion of this fact has been the secret of all progress in civilisation, the light of reason in its search after truth, the substance of that faith which has ^ St. Matt. xix. 17. ^ Cp, Dale, The Atonement, p. 372. 'His relation to the law is not a relation of subjection, but of identity. Hence He cannot he tempted of evil. In God the law is alive ; it reigns on His throne, sways His sceptre, is crowned with His glory.' " St. John iv. 34. 44 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS overcome the world.' It may be added that human personality is a mystery, the analysis of which has irresistibly suggested to Christian thought the existence of personal relationships within the Godhead. But this line of inquiry lies outside the scope of our present subject. It is enough to remind ourselves that the highest good, the infinitely worthy, towards which the human heart aspires, can subsist only in and for a personality perfect in freedom, goodness and power. In a word, God alone is the living, personal good."^ We may next ask, what is implied in the Christian doctrine of the divine holiness ? God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.] Here, again, we instinctively seek the guidance of history. In the Old Testament we find the word 'holiness' originally used in the sense of ' separateness ' from the creature, ' transcendence ' ; and it is only by gradual stages that the term acquires a distinctly ethical significance. There was evidently little or no clear distinction in early times between the notions of physical and moral evil. Things or persons were ' holy ' in so far as they were separated from common use and dedicated to sacred purposes. ' Cp. Illingworth, The Doctrine of the Trinity, p. 149. 'This sense of Divine personality, little understood, but profoundly felt, has been the dominant factor in the spiritual development of Christendom. It has affected ... the national histories no less than the individual lives of all those who have hitherto proved themselves the progressive races of the world.' = St. Mark x. 18. ' I St. John i. 5. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE OF GOD 45 In primitive religion the epithet ' holy,' as applied to Deity, may even have been redundant — a mere designation practically identical with the notion of being divine.^ The New Testament writers, with a far more profound sense of what is involved in holiness, practically endorse this view ; they identify goodness with God. The good exists only in Him. According to the striking phrase of an old Platonist writer, God is 'the fulness of good, or good the fulness of God.' ^ It follows from this that the idea of ethical good is not the mere result of the unassisted strivings of reason ; still less is it the product of the accumulated social traditions of mankind. The idea of good in its absolute sense is communicated to man in divers portions and in divers manners, in proportion to his capacity of comprehending and responding to it. ' The belief in God,' it has been said, ' is the logical presupposition of an "objective" or absolute morality.'^ Morality is the revelation of an ideal eternally existing in the divine mind. He hath showed thee, O m.an, what is good,^ in natural provi- dence, in prophecy, in human history, in conscience ; and this process of communication culminates in the indwelling presence of the divine Spirit, whose ^ See Kautzsch in Hastings' Diet, of the Bible, vol. v. p. 682 h. Cp. Dan. iv. 9, 18. ^ 6 ®£os [irX^p. to the Hebrews, p. 263. ii8 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS only to please Him/ The good man is he who is aware of God in all things and in every place,^ and the sin of hypocrisy which Christ so sternly de- nounces means the habit of ' acting ' which results from a want of harmony between act and disposi- tion ; or, more directly, from forgetfulness of God's presence. The ' hypocrites ' of the Gospel dis- charged certain religious duties as if men were the only witnesses and judges of what they did ; and the general tendency of Pharisaism was to multiply injunctions and prohibitions to the point of over- looking the condition of heart and will. The Gospel decisively redresses the balance by spiritualising religion. It lays chief stress on purity of intention ; on inward truth, sincerity and devotion. The moral aim it has in view is the ' unification ' of the per- sonality ; that simplicity for which Socrates prays in the Pkaedrus : ' Give me beauty in the inward soul, and may the outward and inward man be at one.' ^ ' Purity of heart ' means, in fact, the single- ness of a personality which finds the supreme satis- faction of its desires and the object of its service ' See I Thess. iv. i; Col. i. lo; comp. Rom. viii. 8; i Cor. vii. 32, etc. Contrast the use of apco-zcos, apia-Kaa. in Greek ethics (e.g. Arist. Eth. Nic. ii. 7. 13 ; iv. 6. i.) " Aug. de spir. et lift. Ixvi. : ' Deum ubique praesentem [cognoscit].' = Plato, Phaedr. 279, c. J. Smith, Select Discourses, p. 414 [Lond. 1660] quotes (from Clem. Alex.) a saying of Pythagoras, Zii (cat ToV avOpuiTTov ha yivta-6ai. Cp. also Dante, de monarch, i. 15 : 'In omni genera rerum illud est optimum quod est maxime unum. . . . Hinc videri potest quod peccare nihil est aliud quam progredi ab uno spreto ad multa ' — language which recalls Augus- tine's words in Conf. ii. 6. 13. CHRISTIAN VIEW OF THE WORLD 119 in God ; and to have moral worth an action must be the outcome of an entire bent or 'disposition of the agent, the good act springing from the good will which carries with it the entire personality. In other words, men act aright in so far as they resemble God, the simplest of all beings ; human nature fulfils its true law when it acts as an undivided whole, and directs itself towards a single end. Life, then, manifests itself chiefly in character. But further, as a gift of God bestowed in accordance with a far-reaching and all-including purpose of love, life for a Christian implies vocation. There are few expressions more characteristic of the New Testa- ment than KaX€.v, kXtjtoC, KeK\iq fiivoi. In Christ we are 'called to liberty,' 'called to be saints,' 'called to glory and virtue,' 'called into the grace of Christ.' The word ' called ' is, in fact, used absolutely, as implying rational providential purpose in the order of the world — purpose which men may discover and make their own if they will, or may ignore and refuse at their peril. And within the ' calling ' that is common to all there are special ' vocations,' corresponding to the various circumstances of par- ticular lives. In one aspect the fulfilment of voca- tion is the contribution which each individual makes to the accomplishment of the tasks of human civili- sation. From another point of view it is an indi- vidualising call to fellowship with God.^ He Himself assigns to each the task the fulfilment of which ' I Cor. vii. 24 : Ikoxtto^ iv a fKk-qdrj, iv tovtio jXiViTia irapa ®€w. On vocation see Rashdall, T/te Theory of Good and Evil, bk. ii. ch. 4 ; J. R. Illingworth, Univ. and Cathedral Sermons, no. 8. I20 CHRISTIAN IDEAS AND IDEALS forms his appropriate spiritual discipline ; and the duty of the individual Christian is to follow the guidance which God gives in the course of His ordinary providence. He has to consider his own aptitudes, capacities and special opportunities ; nor can he rightly ignore the peculiar needs and circum- stances of the age and country in which he lives/ And when once some special ' calling ' is finally adopted, the Christian spirit lends to even the smallest incidental duties, dignity and sacredness. To faith, ' nothing walks with aimless feet ' ; no incident of life falls outside the range of the spiritual purpose which governs the movement of the universe. It was the misery of the heathen before Christ's coming, that they walked in the vanity of their mind ; - indeed, the leading characteristic of the Gentile world was ' vanity ' — aimlessness ; misdirected or wasted energy ; the organisation of life apart from the recollection of God and of His will. No Christian life can consistently be ' vain ' in this sense ; for faith in God implies belief in a purpose embracing each individual life ; ^ in a function which each can best fulfil. And as this faith necessarily colours the Christian view of life, so it falls in with the essential social character of Christian morality. Each man's gift or endowment is a trust to be ' Cp. the advice of Ignatius to Polycarp {ep. ad Polyc), 2 and 3 : 6 Kaipos aTraiTtt a-e, k.t.X. tovs Kaipovs KaTajxavBavf rov virip Kcupov irpoo'SoKa. ~ Eph. iv. 17. ^ Notice in 2 Tim. i. 9 the close connection between kX^o-k and iSta ■irp66un