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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
Cornell University Library 
 BT771 .075 
 
 Faith of a modern Christian /bv James 
 
 olin 
 
 3 1924 029 318 312 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31 92402931 831 2 
 
THE FAITH OF 
 A MODERN CHRISTIAN 
 
Works by the same Author 
 
 THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST 6/- 
 
 THE VIRGIN BIRTH OF CHRIST 6/- 
 
 THE PROGRESS OF DOGMA 7/6 
 
 GOD'S IMAGE IN MAN 6/- 
 
 NEGLECTED FACTORS IN THE EARLY 
 HISTORY OF CHRISTIANITY 3/6 
 
 THE RITSCHLIAN THEOLOGY AND 
 THE EVANGELICAL FAITH 2/6 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH: ITS HISTORY 
 AND LITERATURE i/- net 
 
 LONDON: HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
THE FAITH OF 
 A MODERN CHRISTIAN 
 
 JAMES ORR, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF APOLOGETIC AND SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, 
 UNITED FREE CHURCH COLLEGE, GLASGOW 
 
 ' Hold fast that which thou hast ' 
 
 NEW YORK 
 HODDER AND STOUGHTON 
 
B,\n^<& 
 
 
 Printed In Ecuell, Watson X Viney, Ld., Lmdan OMd Ai/hsbury, England. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 r I IHIS series of brief papers on great 
 themes is, as every reader will see, 
 more of the nature of a personal testimony 
 to what is held to be of the essence of the 
 Christian faith than an attempt at a fully 
 reasoned statement of the grounds of that 
 faith. The papers are simple, direct, unpre- 
 tentious, and are addressed, not to scholars 
 and theologians, but to those who have 
 little time or taste for learned disquisition, 
 M'^ho yet are interested in the battle that is 
 going on in Church and ^^'o^ld about central 
 matters. To these an appeal is made by 
 a presentation, unencumbered by details, of 
 the broad facts on which the truths of 
 Christianity rest. The author's standpoint 
 is unambiguously that of a Cliristian be- 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 liever. The term " modern " applies to him 
 in the sense only that he hves in a modern 
 time, and can claim a fairly adequate ac- 
 quaintance with modern ideas. He is not 
 " modern " in the sense of the " modernists," 
 who grant no place for the supernatural 
 interposition of God for man's redemption 
 in human history. The position of these 
 would-be monopohsers of the name " mod- 
 ern " he repudiates and seeks to confute. 
 To him the fact that God was in Christ, 
 reconciUng the world to Himself, is the 
 pivot certainty of time. It does not follow 
 that because the papers are brief and simple, 
 there is not knowledge behind them. The 
 author has done his part in the production 
 of works in which many things here assumed 
 on grounds shortly stated are discussed in 
 fuller detail. To these works he would 
 refer for further elucidation of points that 
 seem difficult or doubtful. His hope is 
 that this little book may have a mission 
 where more learned treatises would fail. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 I 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Holy Sceiptuhes 3 
 
 II 
 
 The Problem of the Old Testament - . 21 
 
 III 
 
 The Gospels and Modern Criticism . . 39 
 
 IV 
 Miracles 61 
 
 V 
 
 The Incarnation 81 
 
 VI 
 
 The Teaching of Jesus . . . .101 
 
viii CONTENTS 
 
 VII 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Cross axo the Resurrection . .121 
 
 VIII 
 Jesus axd Paul . . . . . .141 
 
 IX 
 The Early Church ..... 163 
 
 X 
 
 Protestaxtism akd Roman Catholicism . 183 
 
 XI 
 
 Christianity and Modern Science . . 203 
 
 XII 
 
 The Present Outlook 221 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 
 
 T T is a fact to be weighed that many 
 religions besides the Jewish and 
 Christian have " sacred books " — " Holy 
 Scriptures," as they also would be disposed 
 to name them. It becomes, therefore, an 
 interesting question for Christians how and 
 why their sacred books should be put on 
 so exclusive a level, as inspired and authori- 
 tative, in comparison with others. The 
 claim is far from being one that is univer- 
 sally admitted. The Mohammedan, e.g., 
 would not allow that his Koran was inferior 
 in quality or authority to the Christian 
 Scriptures ; as little would the other peoples, 
 
4 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 
 
 Persians, Hindus, Buddhists, who possess 
 sacred writings. The question is a fair 
 one : Is the exaltation of the Bible by 
 Christians not due to a prejudice born of 
 ignorance ? Does the advance of critical 
 and historical knowledge — especially the 
 knowledge of other religions — not tend 
 wholly to discredit it ? 
 
 If the Christian still holds by his Scrip- 
 tures as the Word of God, in a sense true 
 of no other group of books in the world, 
 he is plainly called upon to produce good 
 reasons for so doing. In the opinion of 
 many in his own circles he cannot do this. 
 The Bible, he is told, must take its place 
 with other writings of human origin, liable 
 to all the drawbacks and flaws of purely 
 human compositions — must at least be de- 
 throned from any special eminence as origi- 
 nating in a peculiar revelation or inspiration 
 of God. For many years the study of the 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES - 5 
 
 Bible has been so overgrown by critical 
 theorising, that its real character and purport 
 are in danger of being lost sight of ; and it 
 is worth while trying to look at it in its 
 broad features and essential message, without 
 troubling oneself for the time with critical 
 details. 
 
 If the Bible is to hold its place as it has 
 hitherto done, apart from and above all 
 other sacred books, it can only be on such 
 grounds as the foUoAving : 
 
 1. That it embodies a supernatural revela- 
 tion which the others do not. 
 
 2. That it possesses, because of this, a 
 structure and purposefulness which the 
 others lack. 
 
 3. That it exhibits spiritual qualities and 
 powers which are traceable only to a direct 
 Divine inspiration. 
 
 It vnR scarcely be denied by any intelli- 
 gent reader of the Bible that, whether these 
 
6 THE HOBY SCRIPTURES 
 
 claims are admitted by ourselves or not, 
 they are the kind of claims which the Bible 
 makes for itself, and which Jesus and His 
 Apostles made for the older Scriptures in 
 their own day. The Bible, on the face of 
 it, professes to be the record of an historical 
 revelation of the most distinctly super- 
 natural character ; a " Thus saith the Lord " 
 pervades it from beginning to end ; it is 
 structural in character ; the Old Testament 
 fulfils itself in the New — "law and prophets" 
 in Jesus Christ ; and the presence and power 
 of the Spirit of God impart supernatural 
 qualities to its pages, even as a record. Let 
 only such passages as the following, which 
 need not be cited at length, be referred 
 to in illustration : Deut. iv. 1-8, 32-40 ; 
 XXX. 11-19 ; Joshua i. 7, 8 ; Psalm i. ; xix. 
 7-11 ; cxix. ; Jar. vii. 12-14, 25, 26 ; 
 Malachi iv, 4-6 ; Matt. v. 17, 18 ; xi. 9-15 ; 
 Luke xxiv. 44-49 ; Rom x. 1-4 ; 2 Tim. 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 7 
 
 iii. 15-17 ; Heb. i. 1 ; ii. 1-4 ; 1 Peter i. 
 10-12 ; 1 John v. 11-13 ; Rev. xxii. 18, 19. 
 It may now be asked whether these claims 
 can be truthfully gainsaid, and whether 
 they do not constitute a ground of dis- 
 tinction in kind between the Christian Bible 
 and aH Scriptures of other religions. 
 
 The first patent fact about the Christian's 
 Holy Scriptures is that they claim to embody 
 a special, supernatural revelation — the dis- 
 covery of a gracious purpose of God's love 
 for the redemption and blessing of mankind. 
 As just said, it cannot well be doubted that 
 this is what the Bible affirms to be true of 
 itself. God has not left the world without 
 personal revelation. He has made Him- 
 self known to man from the beginning. 
 When sin entered to separate the world 
 from God, and plunge it in moral and 
 
8 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 
 
 spiritual ruin, God did not leave it to its 
 destruction, but made its sinful condition 
 the basis for new and grander unfoldings of 
 His grace. Mercy was blended with judg- 
 ment, and stage by stage a great plan of 
 recovery from sin and its evils was unfolded, 
 which reached its culmination in the appear- 
 ance and work of His Son Jesus Christ — in 
 what we caU the " Gospel." This plan of 
 salvation is discovered with ever-growing 
 clearness in the Bible. What its nature is 
 subsequent inquiry may help to show, but 
 the reality of such a revelation is the ground- 
 fact of the Bible — the fact without which it 
 would not be a Bible at all. 
 
 It is granted that this supernatural re- 
 velation in the Bible is in many quarters in 
 these days denied — denied sometimes on 
 the ground of its impossibility, as if the im- 
 possibiUty were not aU the other way, that 
 a living, loving God should so tie His hands 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 9 
 
 in His own universe that He could not 
 approach His moral creatures for their help 
 as and how He desired ; and sometimes 
 by challenging its evidences. But what is 
 not granted is that there is any true lack of 
 evidence for those who approach the Bible 
 with real sense of need, and with eyes open 
 to behold its real character. The things 
 which the Bible records were not done in a 
 corner (Acts xxvi. 26), nor is the light of 
 its revelation so feeble, fluctuating, and 
 ambiguous, that it stands in need of elabo- 
 rate argument and attestation to make its 
 presence clear. The fact itself, writ large 
 across the whole face of Scripture, is so 
 outstanding, so manifest, so self-attesting, 
 that it comprises a world of evidences in 
 the very presentation of it ; and argument 
 can do Uttle more than vary the presenta- 
 tion, and invite the onlooker to see. 
 
 This, then, is the crucial point in the 
 
10 THE HOEY SCRIPTURES 
 
 right estimation of Holy Scripture. Has 
 God truly spoken to mankind in any higher 
 way than through His natural revelation of 
 Himself in creation, in conscience, and in 
 His ordinary providence ? Has He entered 
 in a really living, supernatural manner, in 
 word and deed, into human history, reveal- 
 ing and executing His purposes of grace to 
 our race ? The Bible affirms ; unbelief de- 
 nies. The proof lies in pointing to the 
 thing itself. Here also is the first and 
 plainest distinction between the Christian 
 Scriptures and pagan sacred books. O 
 a plain, historically developed revelation — 
 least of aU of a revelation of Divine grace 
 — these books know nothing. They do not 
 even make claim to it. Revelation of a 
 kind they may allege, but of such revela- 
 tion, embodying a Divine purpose, extending 
 through ages of preparation and fulfilment, 
 and capable of being brought to historical 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES ^1 
 
 tests, they have not even the pretence. 
 There is no product such as the Bible 
 presents to justify their claim. This will 
 be more evident when we advance to the 
 next position. 
 
 II 
 
 The second fact about the Holy Scriptures 
 is that, owing to their embodying of a 
 Divine revelation, they possess a structure 
 and purposefulness which all other sacred 
 books lack. This is a fact about the Bible 
 which has often been emphasised. It has 
 been spoken of as its " organic unity," as 
 its " teleology " (ruled by an end), as its 
 " prophetic " character. Other sacred books 
 are a jumble, a medley ; as Carlyle would 
 say, " incondite" masses. They are without 
 plan, purpose, arrangement ; without be- 
 ginning, middle, or end ; devoid of progress. 
 No one reaUy familiar with them will dispute 
 
12 THE HOEY SCRIPTURES 
 
 this description. The Bible (till at least 
 the critics have cut it up into fragments) 
 is, as any one can verify, the opposite of 
 aU this. It has a soul, a meaning, a unity, 
 a purpose, which binds its parts together, 
 and conducts, by intelligible steps, from one 
 stage to another. Genesis begins a story 
 which Exodus and the remaining books 
 of the Old Testament carry on ; germinal 
 prophecy is succeeded by more expanded 
 views, and finally by fulfilment. The 
 patriarchal stage gives place to the Mosaic ; 
 that to the prophetic ; the prophetic looks 
 forward to the Messiah and His Kingdom. 
 Jesus, when He comes, gathers up and 
 completes the whole ; in turn lays the 
 foundations of a spiritual kingdom which 
 shall endure for ever. 
 
 Thus it is that we have in Scripture a 
 revelation divine, historical, progressive ; 
 given, as the Epistle to the Hebrews says. 
 
THE HOBY SCRIPTURES 13 
 
 " by divers portions and in divers manners " : 
 (1) in the Old Testament, "unto the fathers 
 by the prophets " ; and (2) in the New 
 Testament, through the Son and His Spirit- 
 guided Apostles" (Heb. i. 1-3; ii. 1-4; of. 
 Eph. ii. 20 ; iii. 4, 5). Such a phenomenon 
 occurs in no other book on earth. It sets 
 the Bible in a place and rank wholly by 
 itself. Isolated gleams of truth and duty — 
 let their source in the Spirit of truth not 
 be questioned — can readily be discovered ; 
 but nothing of this broadening of the light — 
 and such light — more and more unto the 
 perfect day. The effect varies with the 
 cause, for no other sacred book has a 
 revelation to convey like that which stamps 
 its character of uniqueness and purposeful- 
 ness upon the Bible. 
 
 It was above hinted that the tendency 
 of much modern criticism has been to 
 obscure, if not to obUterate, this character 
 
14 THE HOEY SCRIPTURES 
 
 of unity and purposefulness in the Bible. 
 On this something may be said later. 
 Meanwhile it may be observed that the 
 element of purpose in the history is itself 
 the best safeguard against critical excesses. 
 This is a watermark in the narratives which 
 no violence can remove without destroying 
 the whole. As springing from the nature 
 of the revelation, it can, as little as the 
 latter, be explained by human imaginings 
 or inventions. Later writers could not 
 imagine it for themselves, then read it 
 back into the earlier story. It is too high 
 for them — this marvellous course of God's 
 ways with sinful man ; they could not attain 
 to it. Ere they could read it back, they 
 must get it for themselves ; and it is the 
 very facts which alone could give it to 
 them that are put in question. The con- 
 tent of the history is the guarantee for 
 its essential truth. 
 
THE HOEY SCRIPTURES 15 
 
 III 
 
 But now a third fact emerges. The 
 revelation gives its substance to Scripture. 
 The purpose in revelation gives its unity 
 to the book. But there is something more 
 in the conception of Holy Scripture — a 
 spiritual quality, force, illumination, in the 
 record itself, emanating, as it could only 
 do, from a special presence of the Holy 
 Spirit, equipping and qualifying the sacred 
 writers for the special task. It is this 
 which, in ordinary usage, is meant by in- 
 spiration ; and, apart from theorising, and 
 discussions as to bearings on externals, it 
 is as obtrusive and verifiable a fact as 
 any other in Holy Scripture. How could, 
 indeed, revelation be preserved in its purity 
 without a record 1 Or how could a record 
 adequate to its purpose be produced without 
 a divinely given insight into the revelation 
 to be recorded, and an impartation of 
 
16 THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 
 
 spiritual power to give just expression to 
 its meaning ? Thus even the record shines 
 in the hght of the Spirit ; is brought itself 
 within the scope of revelation. It is the 
 vehicle of revelation— the Word of God — 
 to us, as truly as was the spoken word of 
 prophet or apostle (e.g., Isa. i. 10 ; 1 Cor. 
 ii. 14 ; 1 Thess. ii, 13). 
 
 The human side of the record of Scrip- 
 ture, certainly, cannot be ignored. There 
 is not, nor could be, in Divine inspiration 
 any suppression of human genius, faculty, 
 or individuality. Limitations in the in- 
 strument condition receptivity for the 
 message. The treasure is in earthen 
 vessels (2 Cor. iv. 7). But the Divine 
 moulds the human to its ends, and in the 
 result God's strength is perfected in human 
 weakness (2 Cor. xii. 9). 
 
 The proof of inspiration can be sought 
 nowhere but in the record itself, and the 
 
THE HOLY SCRIPTURES 17 
 
 record again must be tested by its own 
 claims. Brought to its own tests, Holy 
 Scripture may confidently challenge the 
 strictest scrutiny of its claim to be what 
 Paul calls " God-inspired " (2 Tim. iii. 16). 
 " Have ye not read ? " was with Jesus, as 
 with His Apostles, the end of all con- 
 troversy (Matt. xix. 4). The marks by 
 which inspiration is tested are the same 
 in the Old Testament as in the New — 
 spiritual enUghtenment, sanctifying power, 
 guidance in God's ways, equipment for 
 holy service (Psa. i. ; xix. 7-11; cxix. ; 
 2 Tim. iii. 16, 17). That the Word of 
 God in Scripture possesses these powers — 
 is " hving and active, and sharper than 
 any two-edged sword " (Heb. iv. 12), makes 
 wise unto salvation, and equips for all 
 spiritual ends (2 Tim. iii. 15-17) — history 
 and experience amply attest. What pagan 
 scriptures possess a similar quality ? 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE OM) 
 TESTAMENT 
 
II 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD 
 TESTAMENT 
 
 "rnRUTH, like a torch, the more it's 
 shook, it shines." A shaking of 
 the Old Testament has been going on 
 vigorously through recent years, but the 
 sparks which fly in the process do not 
 always carry much illumination. It is 
 not the purpose here to discuss anew the 
 often-threshed-out questions of the critical 
 analysis and dating of the books of the 
 Old Testament. A more profitable task 
 will be to seek a solution of the funda- 
 mental Old Testament problem, viz., the 
 light in which it is to be regarded as a 
 
 21 
 
22 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 record of Divine revelation leading up to 
 Christ, along the lines of a believing study 
 of the Old Testament itself 
 
 On the general ci'itical question, it may 
 only be pointed out that what is known 
 as the " Higher Criticism " of the Old 
 Testament is far from being in the assured 
 condition which many would persuade 
 themselves that it is. Things have gone 
 so far in the critical schools in the disin- 
 tegration of the text, the rejection of age- 
 long tradition, and the rash propounding 
 of theories, that reaction in some degree 
 was inevitable. And reaction undoubtedly 
 there is. The prestige of the reigning 
 school of Wellhausen is giving way. 
 Archaeologists almost in a body are sever- 
 ing themselves from it. Individual ad- 
 herents are signifying their dissent from 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT, 23 
 
 it in important particulars. In Germany, 
 with the rise of the new " Babylonian " 
 school under Winckler, the placards are 
 changing. In Holland, Prof. B. D. Eerd- 
 mans, the pupil and successor of Kuenen, 
 long an adherent of the theory, noW form- 
 ally withdraws from the school of his 
 master, and subjects the whole documentary 
 hypothesis to a destructive criticism. The 
 theory based on the distinction of the 
 Divine names in Genesis, inaugurated by 
 Astrue in 1753, is allowed by an increas- 
 ing number of scholars to be no longer 
 tenable.^ 
 
 The Old Testament, indeed, with its 
 thirty-nine books of all kinds — history, law, 
 poetry, prophecy, wisdom literature — pre- 
 sents a vast field of study, in which in- 
 
 ' As examples, see the review of Eerdmans by Volz in 
 the German Theol. Literaturzeitung, 1908, p. 667, and the 
 note by Prof. Schlogl, of Vienna, in The Expository Times, 
 September 1909, p. 663. 
 
24 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 numerable questions arise that cannot be 
 settled without careful critical investiga- 
 tion. The book, nevertheless, as was sought 
 to be shown earlier, has a pervading unity 
 — a thread of Divine purpose which holds 
 its parts together, and relates them to one 
 another, and to the completed New Testa- 
 ment development. The problem of the 
 Old Testament is, at bottom, the discovery 
 of this clue, and its right application to 
 the elucidation of the history and religion. 
 Critical help is gladly welcomed, but it 
 cannot be permitted to subvert the essential 
 character of the revelation, or to turn 
 order into confusion by rejecting the 
 plainest indications of the book as to its 
 own origin and meaning. It is not always 
 sufficiently borne in mind that the Old 
 Testament has a witness to bear to itself, 
 affecting in numerous respects the right 
 understanding of its message. It should 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 25 
 
 be the student's business to attend primarily 
 to this witness, and, where possible, to 
 regulate his criticism by it. It may turn 
 out that this method, as it is the simplest, 
 is likewise the sanest, and the most satis- 
 fying, if the object is to set the Old 
 Testament in its proper light. 
 
 II 
 
 In what was said on Holy Scripture it 
 was seen ; (1) That the Old Testament 
 professes to be the record of a continuous, 
 supernatural, historical revelation to early 
 mankind and to Israel ; (2) That the pre- 
 sence of this revelation imparts to the 
 contents of the book a unique coherence 
 and unity — a structure ; and (3) That the 
 Ught and power of the revelation are 
 manifest in the record, and evince a work 
 of the Spirit in that also. The bearing of 
 these positions on the proper understanding 
 
26 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 of the Old Testament may now be more 
 specially illustrated. 
 
 The Old Testament claims, beyond 
 question, to be the record of a supernatural 
 Divine revelation. This is obvious on the 
 most cursory reading of its pages. If the 
 fact is denied, the whole attitude to the Old 
 Testament is altered. From being the 
 story of a Divine revelation, it becomes 
 the record of a human religious develop- 
 ment — remarkable, no doubt, but involving 
 no element of superhuman interposition. 
 All is explicable from the laws of the 
 development of the human spirit. It is 
 an " evolution " from small natural begin- 
 nings to nobler conceptions of God and 
 His ways, still not beyond the power of 
 man's own spirit to attain. Miracles — the 
 supernatural element generally — are elimi- 
 nated. This is the newer " historical " way 
 of interpreting the Old Testament, which 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 27 
 
 some assure us is the only intelligible way 
 for thinking men. 
 
 It is, however, not the Bible's own way. 
 The basis of the Biblical revelation is a 
 " Thus saith the Lord," not a " Thus thinks 
 man." God, on the Bible's showing, enters 
 actually, in speech and deed, into history, 
 and gives to man the knowledge of Him- 
 self and of His ways which is needed for 
 his enlightenment and progress. This 
 makes all the difference of a change from 
 natural evolution to supernatural revela- 
 tion. 
 
 The revelation in the Old Testament is 
 truly supernatural, is continuous, is his- 
 torical. The Revealer, from beginning to 
 end, is the one true God, the Maker of 
 heaven and earth, the Sole Ruler in pro- 
 vidence and grace. It is this God made 
 known to the fathers by His name El 
 Shaddai (Gen. xvii. 1), revealed to Moses 
 
28 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 by His name Jehovah (Exod. iii. 14, 15 ; 
 vi. 2, 3), who chose Abraham and his seed 
 to be the bearers and guardians of His 
 special revelation to the world, who formed 
 His covenarit with Israel at Sinai, and who 
 spake later by His Spirit in the prophets, 
 preparing the way, in the fulness of times, 
 for the fuller revelation in His Son (Gal. 
 iv. 4). The content of the revelation, as 
 before seen, is His purpose of grace to 
 mankind. 
 
 It is a different account which is given 
 on the development hypothesis. There a 
 beginning is made with polytheism — or 
 something even lower — not with mono- 
 theism. The early Israelites shared the 
 superstitions and low religious beliefs of 
 their neighbours. The Jehovah (Yahweh) 
 they worshipped was a storm-god of Sinai, 
 a being who had as, little reaUty as the 
 gods of Egypt or Canaan. The prophets 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 29 
 
 rose to higher conceptions, and introduced 
 the behef in one God, whom they identified 
 with this older Yahweh of the popular 
 belief. Of early revelation, covenants, pro- 
 mise, there can be no mention. 
 
 Unfortunately, this newer reading of the 
 history not only contradicts the Bibles own 
 account — destroying the reality and con- 
 tinuity of the revelation — but is in conflict 
 with the facts to be explained. Everywhere 
 in the Old Testament — in Genesis, in 
 Exodus, in later books— Jehovah appears 
 as the one true God, sole and supreme. It 
 is this one God who creates the world, 
 who creates man, who judges the world by 
 a flood, who rules in His providence in 
 Canaan, in Egypt, in the wilderness — every- 
 where, over all. It is the God of all the 
 earth who chooses Israel (Exod. xix. 5). 
 Increasingly, accordingly, there is observable 
 a tendency to give up this extreme part of 
 
30 THE PROBLEM OF THE OED TESTAMENT 
 
 the critical hypothesis, and to push the 
 knowledge of the one God back to early — 
 at least to Mosaic — times. Some would 
 derive it even from Babylonia. The Bible 
 derives it from God's own self-revelation, 
 when the knowledge of Himself was being 
 lost and obscured by growing heathenism 
 (Joshua xxiv. 14). Certain it is that the 
 prophets knew nothing of this first dis- 
 covery of the truth of the one God with 
 which they are credited. A recent critical 
 writer, B. Stade, admits this unreservedly. 
 In his Biblical Theology of the Old Testa- 
 ment he writes : " It is characteristic of 
 these prophets that they had no inkling 
 of how new and unheard-of their thoughts 
 were. They give them out as if they were 
 self-evident to their hearers, and had been 
 earher the recognised content of the rehgion 
 of Jehovah. They knew no other con- 
 ception than their own, which flowed to 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 31 
 
 them from divine revelation." ^ Most vk^ill 
 feel that probably the prophets knew their 
 own history as well as their critics do. 
 
 Ill 
 
 If the continuity of the Biblical revelation 
 is authenticated by impartial investigation, 
 the structwal unity which this imparts to 
 the Old Testament is no less clearly made 
 good. The history in the Old Testament 
 follows a natural, weU-defined course. The 
 earliest period shows the origin of sin, 
 the dawn of promise, the distribution of the 
 races of mankind, leading up to the call 
 of Abraham, for the preservation of the 
 truth, and the founding of a kingdom of 
 God upon earth. Patriarchal promise is 
 followed by historic fulfilment in the Mosaic 
 age, with laws and ordinances suited to the 
 ends in view. The monarchy inaugurates 
 
 ' Page 206. 
 
32 THE PROBLEM OF THE OtD TESTAMENT 
 
 a new era of prophecy and promise. The 
 hght of prophecy broadens and grows 
 brighter as the fortunes of the natural 
 Israel decline. Every finger points forward 
 to a new covenant, when redemption will 
 be complete, the Spirit will be given, and 
 God's glory will fill the earth under the 
 reign of the Messiah. 
 
 This structural unity of the ancient books 
 criticism again subverts by its bold analysis 
 and amazingly free recasting of the history 
 to suit its own presuppositions. The patri- 
 archal history it rejects altogether ; the 
 Mosaic it converts into legend. What is 
 at the beginning it puts at the end. The 
 books are of late date, and correspondingly 
 untrustworthy. The Levitical legislation, 
 in particular, is a work of the Exile. Old 
 usage may be embodied in parts of it, but 
 as a divinely given system of laws it never 
 was heard of before, and its characteristic 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 33 
 
 institutions are quite new. This is the 
 theory ; but once again the facts are proving 
 too strong for it. The analysis is being 
 questioned, the " documents " are doubted, 
 the scheme which puts the law later than 
 the prophets is being denounced as arbitrary. 
 All this, with important consequences for 
 the value of the histories, will soon be more 
 heard of than it is. 
 
 But even as the case stands, how glaringly 
 improbable is the new construction ! Nehe- 
 miah viii. gives the account of the intro- 
 duction of the Pentateuchal law through 
 Ezra, and nothing is plainer than that it 
 was no new law that Ezra brought in, but 
 a law understood and received by every one 
 as the genuine law of Moses. Could the 
 people be deceived ? Could priests and 
 scribes, who knew something of their past 
 history, and had their elaborate genealogies, 
 
 be deceived ? Is it conceivable that an 
 
 3 
 
34 THE PROBLEM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT 
 
 immense, complex code, imposing heavy 
 burdens in tithes, and a not less heavy 
 yoke of ritual, could be laid upon a whole 
 community, keenly divided in interests and 
 refractory in spirit, without a murmur of 
 dissent, or the least opposition to its adop- 
 tion and solemn ratification by covenant ? 
 The situation has only to be fairly faced 
 to see the impossibility of such a thing 
 being carried through. The laws were 
 evidently old, and there is no good reason 
 for doubting that in substance, if not in 
 large part in form, they go back to the 
 age from which they are declared to have 
 come. A similar argument might be applied 
 to the Deuteronomic law, which recapitu- 
 lates mainly the laws of the Book of the 
 Covenant in Exodus xx.-xxiii. The Bible's 
 own structure still approves itself as the 
 best. 
 
THE PROBEEM OF THE OED TESTAMENT 35 
 
 IV 
 
 It does not fare otherwise with the claim 
 to inspiration in these ancient Scriptures. 
 The element of inspiration in the Old 
 Testament is evinced by the very manner 
 in which the truths, the historic stages, the 
 prophetic ideals, the dominating purpose of 
 the revelation are preserved in its pages. 
 What can exceed in grandeur of religious 
 conception the account of the Creation in 
 Genesis i. ? It lays the basis for all that 
 is told afterwards of God's relation to His 
 world. Not less remarkably does the narra- 
 tive of the Fall — whatever differences may 
 arise as to its interpretation in detail — 
 furnish the ground for the whole picture 
 in the Bible of a world turned aside from 
 God, and lying under His displeasure 
 (Gen. vi. 5 ; Psa. xiv. ; Isa. i. 2). Cove- 
 nant and promise are penetrated with a 
 
36 THE PROBLEM OF THE OED TESTAMENT 
 
 prophetic spirit which events justify. What 
 magnificence and dramatic power are in 
 the story of the exodus and of God's lead- 
 ings of Israel ! The prophets — is not their 
 inspiration manifest ? The lofty strain of 
 prediction that exalts them hardly makes 
 it more manifest than the grandeur of their 
 direct addresses to their people. The whole 
 Old Testament moves forward as under a 
 resistless impulse to the New, and finds its 
 resting-place in it. The Psalms — no sole pro- 
 duct of the Exile — breathe the very essence 
 of the religion. Doubtless there are limi- 
 tations, defects, imperfections in the Old 
 Testament revelation which only the New 
 Testament could remove. This is to be 
 freely acknowledged. But the great fact of 
 an inspired Word stands clearly out to view 
 even in that ancient record. 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
Ill 
 
 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 /CRITICISM at every period inevitably 
 reverts to the Gospels, for it is in 
 them that the kernel of the whole Bible is 
 to be sought. If God has spoken anywhere 
 to man, it is in the person of His Son. 
 In Christ's life, Christ's words, Christ's 
 character, Christ's witness to the Father, we 
 have the essence and acme of the whole 
 Divine self-revelation. If, then, it is desired 
 to do away with this revelation — to chal- 
 lenge its foundations or world-wide signifi- 
 cance—it is the Gospels which must always 
 bear the final brunt of the assault. For 
 it is through the Gospels alone that we 
 
 39 
 
40 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 know Christ. If they can be trusted, they 
 leave us in no doubt as to who He is, what 
 He claimed, how He lived, what He said, 
 how He acted, and the sequel of His life 
 in death and resurrection. The picture is 
 no ambiguous one. Its main features are 
 patent to every reader. The figure of Jesus 
 in the Gospels is the corner-stone of the 
 Christian religion. What must first be 
 done, if the revelation is to be got rid of, 
 is to dislodge this stone. 
 
 It is therefore a fact of no ordinary 
 interest that, in our own age, as in earlier 
 periods, it is the Gospel history on which 
 criticism is again concentrating. The last 
 few decades, as has been seen, have wit- 
 nessed a keen struggle o\ev the Old Testa- 
 ment — a struggle by no means ended. But 
 in that struggle the smoke is clearing away, 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 41 
 
 and the issues are becoming more defined. 
 People are able to take sides, and one thing 
 helping them to take sides is just that the 
 stress of the conflict is again shifting from 
 the Old Testament to the New. The 
 Gospels have become once more the centre 
 of interest. The methods employed with 
 such destructi\'e success upon the Old 
 Testament are being applied with a bold- 
 ness that takes the breath away to the 
 records of the life of Christ. It would be 
 easy to mention names and books, but this 
 is not necessary. Here is the fact which 
 brings many to a pause. They are not 
 supremely concerned when it is the distant 
 figures and transactions of the Old Testa- 
 ment — Abraham, Moses, the law-giving — 
 that are brought into question. But they 
 wake to the gravity of the situation when 
 they find the most famihar facts and car- 
 dinal testimonies of the Gospels resolved 
 
42 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 by the same methods into cloudshapes of 
 legend. 
 
 History here repeats itself. Three- 
 quarters of a century ago an able and 
 determined assault was made upon the 
 Gospels, first by Strauss, in his Life of 
 Jesus, then by what is known as the 
 Tubingen school of criticism (under Baur).^ 
 The result of this assault was, in Strauss's 
 case, to resolve the whole content of the 
 Gospels into myth, and, in the hands of 
 Baur and his followers, to carry down most 
 of the literature of the New Testament to 
 the second century, and to discredit its 
 historical worth. Then came the reaction, 
 till, step by step, the Gospels and Epistles 
 were reinstated in their place of honour, 
 and the Tubingen school and its methods 
 were themselves discredited. It was thought 
 
 ' See the History of the Tubingen School in the author's 
 Bible Under Trial, oh. ii. 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 43 
 
 that the battle for the Gospels had been 
 finally won. A vain dream ! The attack 
 is one which must repeat itself so soon as 
 ever a new vantage gromid is thought to 
 be found. This has been furnished by the 
 rise of the new school of historical criticism, 
 with its sharpened methods of analysis and 
 disintegration. Tried first, as has been said, 
 on the Old Testament, these methods are 
 now brought to bear on the Gospels, and 
 the Jesus of faith disappears, to give place 
 to a peasant-prophet, fi"om whom all super- 
 natural attributes fall away. 
 
 II 
 
 For this is the next thing to be remarked, 
 that the principle of these successive attacks 
 upon the Gospels, however diverse their 
 outward form, is all through one and the 
 same. It is the old recurring question 
 of the-possibility ofia supernatural entrance 
 
44 THE GOSPEBS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 of God into human history. One must not 
 be deceived by the use of terms. The word 
 " revelation " may be used ; but it is a 
 revelation in nature and through natural 
 means only^ — not beyond it. The motto 
 of the new criticism is : " Nothing beyond 
 the natural order." This, it is obvious, 
 excludes the bulk of the contents of the 
 Gospels, and the most distinctive claims 
 made for Jesus, at a stroke. His miraculous 
 birth. His resurrection, the miracles of the 
 ministry between, His higher claims — even 
 the sinlessness of His Person — are swept 
 aside. The Jesus that is left is a merely 
 human being — " nothing more, nothing less." 
 The methods by which this result is reached 
 are called " historical " ; but there is nothing 
 genuinely historical about them. The end 
 is already postulated at the beginning, and 
 the criticism simply brings into play an 
 array of expedients to justify the foregone 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 45 
 
 conclusion. It is no longer the narrative 
 as given which is the main thing, but the 
 critic's hypothetical construction of the 
 genesis of the narrative from something 
 quite different, which occupies the fore- 
 ground. Texts are manipulated, disavowed, 
 explained away ; historical evidence is dissi- 
 pated or disregarded, as the exigencies of 
 hypothesis require. Pages might be filled 
 with illustration,' but it is more important 
 to indicate what is to be said in a positive 
 respect in reply to such egregious treatment 
 of the sacred records. 
 
 It is not overlooked that there is a 
 genuine criticism of the Gospels, reverent 
 in spirit, and following proper methods, 
 from which immense gains are surely reaped 
 for the better understanding of the Gospels. 
 
 ■ See again The Bible Under Trial, chs. vii. and viii., and 
 the author's works on The Virgin Birth and The Resurrection 
 of Jesus. 
 
46 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 Interesting problems arise with regard to 
 the relation of the first three Gospels to 
 each other (the Synoptical problems, as they 
 are called), to the sources from which these 
 Gospels drew their materials (oral or written ; 
 dependence of one on another), and to the 
 relation of all three to the Fourth Gospel, 
 so different in structure and style. Into 
 these questions, which lie within the sphere 
 of faith in the Gospels, it is not proposed 
 here to enter. The more weighty matter 
 is : How far do the Gospels — the first three 
 (Synoptics) and the Fourth Gospel — justify 
 the claim made on their behalf to be genuine 
 apostolic productions,^ and trustworthy re- 
 cords of the sayings and doings of Him 
 whom we call Master and Lord ? On this, 
 the central and essential issue, for the help 
 of faith, a few words may be said. 
 
 ' That is, works of Apostles aud of men of the apostolic 
 circles. 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 47 
 
 III 
 
 What is to be said on the historical 
 question can be briefly summarised. Pre- 
 judice apart, it would be difficult to con- 
 ceive a stronger case, on the ground of 
 historical tradition, than that for the genuine 
 and apostolic character of our four Gospels 
 — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. These 
 Gospels are at the head of the writings 
 which, as the historian Eusebius tells, were 
 never " controverted " in the Church. They 
 are undoubtedly the Gospels which, in 
 Justin Martyr's time, were, along with the 
 prophets, read Sunday by Sunday in the 
 assembhes of the Christians. A disciple of 
 Justin's, Tatian, made a " Harmony " of 
 the four, which has been recovered. The 
 Fathers in the end of the second century 
 used the Gospels as inspired productions, 
 the authority of which was beyond all 
 
48 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 question. They knew no other Gospels 
 to be put in the same rank as they. They 
 are found in all hsts of the canonical 
 writings. They appear in all versions into 
 other languages — Latin, Syriac, Egyptian, 
 etc. Moreover, there is a firm tradition 
 connecting the Gospels with their respective 
 authors. Reasonable doubt cannot rest on 
 the ascription of the Second Gospel to John 
 Mark of .Jerusalem, companion of both Paul 
 and Peter. Luke's authorship of the Third 
 Gospel and of the Acts has recently re- 
 ceived a splendid vindication from Professor 
 Harnack, of Berlin, at the cost of severance 
 from the school of criticism with which he 
 was before associated. That Matthew 
 stands behind the First Gospel seems a fair 
 result of criticism, though there is yet 
 dispute as to whether his relation to it, 
 in its present Greek form, is mediate or 
 immediate. This, at least, is certain, that 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM -49 
 
 the Greek Gospel was from the first, and 
 always, accepted in the Church as repre- 
 senting the genuine Gospel of Matthew. 
 In the words of Westcott : " All early 
 writers agree that Matthew wrote in Hebrew 
 [Aramaic]. . . . At the same time, all equally 
 agree in accepting the Gospel of Matthew 
 without noticing the existence of any doubt 
 as to its authenticity." ^ 
 
 It is not different with the apostohc 
 authorship of the Gospel of John, keenly 
 as that has been controverted. External 
 and internal evidence ahke point decisively 
 to the Gospel as the genuine work of the 
 beloved disciple. Dr. James Drummond 
 (Unitarian) does not exaggerate when he 
 says : " The external evidence is all on one 
 side."'' The trustworthiness of the Gospel 
 is touched on below. 
 
 ' Introduction to Gospels, pp. 223-4. 
 ' Fourth Gospel, p. 614. 
 
50 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 The conclusion to which this leads is 
 that, in accordance with the testimony of 
 tradition, the Gospels are genuine apostolic 
 documents. They fall within the apostolic 
 age, and are of apostoUc origin. While 
 not themselves Apostles, the writers (Mark 
 and Luke) still convey the apostolic testi- 
 mony given to the Church. Mark is 
 described as the " interpreter " of Peter. 
 Luke records that which has been delivered 
 by those " who from the beginning were 
 eye-witnesses and ministers of the word " 
 (i. 2). The basis of the Gospel is rock, 
 not sand. 
 
 It is not desired to argue from au- 
 thorities ; but in view of frequent assertions 
 as to the trend of criticism, two leading 
 names may be mentioned. Professor Har- 
 nack, of Berlin, will be admitted to be 
 the highest living authority on Early 
 Church history and literature. But Har- 
 
THE GOSPEES AND MODERN CRITICISM 51 
 
 nack declares that the whole tendency of 
 recent research has been to re-establish the 
 authority of tradition as respects the Xew 
 Testament books, and to show that "the 
 earhest literature of the Church is in its 
 principal points and in most of its details, 
 historically regarded, veracious and reli- 
 able." ^ In regard to Luke's authorship of 
 the Gospel and Acts he claims to prove 
 " that criticism has gone wi-ong, and that 
 tradition is right." - Who, again, is, out of 
 sight, the most learned scholar in New 
 Testament criticism ? AVithout doubt. 
 Professor Zahn, of Erlangen. But in 
 his magnum opus on this subject, a trans- 
 lation of which has just appeared, Zahn 
 confirms what has above been affirmed of 
 the age and apostolic character of the Four 
 Gospels. 
 
 ' Preface to Chronotogie. 
 ' Lucas der Artz, Preface. 
 
52 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 IV 
 
 The trustworthiness of the Gospels, which 
 is the main thing, is already largely es- 
 tablished when one has made good their 
 substantial apostolic origin. For years the 
 Apostles wrought and taught together in 
 Jerusalem. There, it may be assumed, 
 their testimony took a relatively fixed form 
 for catechetical purposes. In this form, 
 orally, or in written shape, it was com- 
 municated to the various Churches, and 
 finally found embodiment in the written 
 Gospels (Luke i. 1-4). Resting, as the 
 corroborative testimony of the first three 
 evangelists shows, on first-hand apostolic 
 witness, it has the highest guarantee of 
 truth. There was no time for the ex- 
 tensive growth of legend, and the presence 
 of elements contradicting the recognised 
 tradition would at once have been de- 
 tected and condemned. 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 53 
 
 To rest the trustworthiness of the Gos- 
 pel narratives merely on historical evidence, 
 however, is to put it on all too low a 
 ground. There is an evidence internal to 
 the matter itself which is even more 
 potent in producing conviction of its 
 truthfulness. Had no external evidence 
 existed — had the Gospels come into our 
 hands for the first time without any 
 knowledge of the circumstances of their 
 origin — we should still have been entitled, 
 nay, constrained, to receive them as 
 authentic. Who could have invented the 
 sayings ascribed to Jesus — His parables, 
 the Sermon on the Mount, the words of 
 inimitable freshness, beauty, originality, and 
 spiritual power which form the substance 
 of the record ? Mr. J. S. Mill was not a 
 man of deep spiritual insight, but he wrote 
 with truth : " It is no use to say that 
 Christ as exhibited in the Gospels is not 
 
54 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 historical, and that we know not how 
 much of what is admirable has been super- 
 added by the traditions of His followers. . . . 
 Who among His disciples or among their 
 proselytes was capable of inventing the 
 sayings ascribed to Jesus, or of imagining 
 the life and character revealed in the 
 Gospels ? " Not one. 
 
 This last sentence of Mr. Mill's touches 
 the supreme guarantee for the historicity 
 of the Gospels — the image of Jesus Him- 
 self which they enshrine. If that image- 
 so unique, perfect, original, divine — is not 
 historically real, how did it originate ? 
 Who conceived it, and reduced it to this 
 perfect historical form in word and act? 
 Is Christ a creation of His own Church, a 
 Church gathered out promiscuously from 
 Jews and Gentiles, with no historical tra- 
 dition to work on — a Church which even 
 yet, after nineteen centuries, is only dimly 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 55 
 
 rising to the adequate apprehension of the 
 Master's thoughts and ideals ! The sup- 
 position is absurd. But that image is con- 
 structed from the materials in the Gospels. 
 If they vanish, it vanishes also. The Christ- 
 figure in the Gospels is the sun-clear 
 demonstration of the truth of the narra- 
 tives. How simple, yet how sublime it all 
 is ! How reticent in detail, yet throwing 
 into grandest relief the central Personality ! 
 How free from ostentation, yet producing 
 the overwhelming impression of holiness 
 and greatness ! Not only is the record 
 true ; it could only be there as the product 
 of God-inspired minds ! 
 
 A marked contrast exists in scope and 
 style between the first three Gospels and 
 the Gospel of John. On this ground the 
 historicity of the Fourth Gospel is often 
 
56 THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 
 
 denied. Criticism here is becoming more 
 sober, and is recognising more freely the 
 essential oneness of the picture in the 
 Synoptics and in John (e.g., Bousset). The 
 contrasts, though real, may easily be ex- 
 aggerated, and admit of explanation on 
 simpler grounds. John's is the latest of 
 the Gospels, and presupposes the others 
 as well known. It does not, therefore, go 
 over the ground they had already covered. 
 It confines itself largely to matters drawn 
 from John's personal recollections, chiefly 
 the Judasan ministry, the visits of Christ 
 to Jerusalem, and His last private dis- 
 courses to His disciples. These are re- 
 produced as they had passed through the 
 crucible of much thought and reflection in 
 the evangelist's own mind, and an inter- 
 pretative element is blended with them, 
 which it is sometimes difficult to disengage 
 from Christ's bare words. It aims, too, at 
 
THE GOSPELS AND MODERN CRITICISM 57 
 
 a doctrinal result — the confirming of faith 
 in Jesus as the Divine Son of God (xx. 31). 
 Withal there need not be the slightest 
 hesitation in accepting the Gospel as a 
 veracious record of the thoughts, words, 
 and deeds of the Master, as John knew 
 and loved Him. It is, as saints in all ages 
 have felt, the truly " spiritual " Gospel, the 
 unveiling of the eternal Christ in the his- 
 torical Jesus. Nothing is wanting to the 
 humanity. The Jesus of John's Gospel is 
 born, suffers, dies ; thirsts and is weary ; 
 sorrows, sympathises, weeps ; experiences all 
 true human emotions. But He is none 
 the less everywhere manifest as the Word 
 made flesh (i. 14), the ultimate revelation 
 of the Father (i. 18 ; xiv. 9, 10), the God- 
 sent Saviour of the world (iv. 42). In 
 John the message of the whole Gospel 
 culminates. 
 
MIRACLES 
 
IV 
 
 MIRACLES 
 
 "TT will be apparent from what has been 
 said in the previous discussions that 
 much of the labour spent in seeking to 
 undermine faith in the Bible and in the 
 Gospel has its source in doubt or denial 
 of the reality of miracle. This is the 
 stumbling-block to many minds in accept- 
 ing the reality of a supernatural revelation. 
 There is a spirit abroad which every one 
 must recognise — a temper even more than 
 a reasoned conviction — which makes it seem 
 almost a necessity for those who would be 
 abreast of the times to challenge even so 
 much as the possibility of happenings in the 
 
 61 
 
62 MIRACLES 
 
 history of the world that imply a transcend- 
 ence of the customary order of nature. The 
 question is scarcely argued. It is thought 
 enough to say, with Matthew Arnold, per- 
 emptorily, "Miracles do not happen." 
 
 But, if miracles do not happen, it is 
 plain enough what becomes of the Bible 
 and its history. The Bible is the history 
 of a siipernatural revelation, or it is nothing. 
 It is the story of a supernatural economy, 
 in which the power of God, transcending 
 nature for the accomplishment of His great 
 ends, is continually manifested. The Gospel 
 itself, centring in Jesus Christ, is a super- 
 natural interposition of God in human 
 history for the ends of redemption. Purge 
 out everything of the nature of miracle 
 from the Bible, and the bottom is taken 
 from its whole message. Its credit is 
 destroyed. It is a crucial question, there- 
 fore, with which we are here faced. 
 
MIRACLES . 63 
 
 1 
 
 The causes of this disbelief in miracle 
 — the grounds on which it supports itself — 
 are of many kinds, and possess a plausibility 
 which readily attracts. Science is invoked 
 to disprove miracle, for is it not a first 
 principle of science that nature in its opera- 
 tions is uniform, and that the only causes 
 that can be admitted in explanation of 
 phenomena are causes within nature itself ? 
 Otherwise, it is pleaded, the scientific mind, 
 relying on nature's uniformity, would be 
 put to intellectual confusion. The march 
 of science has been the gradual expulsion 
 of belief in supernatural agencies in ex- 
 planation of events. Ghosts, witches, fairies, 
 superstitions about charms and spells, have 
 vanished with the advance of enlightenment, 
 like belief in the influence of the stars on 
 human destinies. Experience is brought in 
 
64 MIRACLES 
 
 to reinforce denial ; for who does not in- 
 stinctively distrust stories of miracles when 
 told now, and feel that any explanation in 
 mistake, or self-deception is preferable to 
 the admission of a really supernatural cause ? 
 No one almost would accept the report 
 of a miracle to-day. Why, then, accept 
 reports from the obscurity of far-distant 
 times ? Finally, criticism comes in to riddle 
 with its appliances faith in the trustworthi- 
 ness of the records of miracles. Narratives 
 are dissected ; age and authorship are 
 doubted ; the stories are dissipated into 
 legend. Ridicule is poured upon a talking 
 ass, the " whale " of Jonah, an axe-head 
 that swam. Is it wonderful that many feel 
 that to admit miracle in these enUghtened 
 days is really a mark of credulity ? 
 
 What is a miracle ? This will become 
 clearer in what follows. Scripture, from 
 its religious point of view, describes miracles 
 
MIRACLES 65 
 
 simply as "wonders," "powers" ("mighty 
 works "), " signs." Science would describe 
 miracle as an " interruption " or " violation " 
 of the established order of nature. It may 
 suffice here to define miracle as any deviation 
 from or transcendence of the order of nature, 
 due to the interposition of a supernatural 
 cause. 
 
 II 
 
 The possibility of miracle need hardly be 
 argued at length, for, if a hving, personal, 
 self-revjahng God is believed in at all. 
 He can assuredly act in new and trans- 
 cendent ways above, as weU as within, the 
 limits of what we caU nature. God is 
 Himself the Author of nature. Nature 
 is established by Him. It is He who has 
 imparted to it its powers, who is the secret 
 Agent in its workings, who sustains it 
 moment by moment in its existence, who has 
 
 5 
 
66 MIRACLES 
 
 prescribed to it its laws. How stupendous 
 an assertion, then, is it for any one to make, 
 that He has so bound Himself by the laws 
 of His own decreeing that He cannot, even 
 for the highest personal ends, act above 
 and beyond them ! No dogmatism can be 
 conceived more arrogant than this ! 
 
 When we look at man himself, do we 
 not find a reason for challenging this huge 
 assumption ? Man is in nature ; but, as 
 Bushnell cogently argues in his Natwe and 
 the Supernatural, man is also a power above 
 nature — a power that acts on nature, 
 changing, adapting, modifying it, in many 
 ways, for his intelligent ends? A stone 
 flung into the air rises, not in virtue of 
 mere nature, but because a spiritual cause 
 has interposed, giving a direction to nature's 
 forces they would not have taken of them- 
 selves. Man, too, is a self-revealing being 
 — can speak, plan, exchange his thoughts 
 
MIRACLES . 67 
 
 with others, give written expression to his 
 will. Is God less potent than man in His 
 own universe ? 
 
 Yes, it may be said, but does not this 
 give us the clue to the real nature of 
 miracle? May it not be that, just as in 
 the case of man, God, in His all-ruhng 
 providence, uses natural means to accom- 
 plish His spiritual ends ? Grant that God 
 reveals Himself, enters into personal rela- 
 tions with man, speaks — is it necessary for 
 this purpose that the natural order should 
 be broken through ? Man, after all, does 
 not break any law of nature. He cannot 
 create a single atom, or add a new particle 
 to the sum of nature's energy. He uses 
 the forces which nature provides for him. 
 May it not be so also with God ? May 
 nature not contain in itself aU the forces 
 required to produce the most stupendous 
 miraculous effects 1 Is it not simply our 
 
68 MIRACLES 
 
 knowledge of the breadth and exhaustless- 
 ness of nature which is at fault ? So many 
 at this hour, desiring to save the idea of 
 miracle, yet in keeping with the uniformity 
 of nature, hold. 
 
 Ill 
 
 The answer is that there is no objection 
 whatever, from the Bible point of view, 
 to the adoption of this idea of miracle, 
 provided only it is adequate. There is 
 nothing in the Biblical conception of miracle 
 which precludes the using of natural forces 
 so far as they will go. If, e.g., God em- 
 ploys a great wind to dry (or help to dry) 
 the channel of the Red Sea, this does not 
 make the fact less a true Divine interposition 
 for the salvation of the Israelites. The 
 point is, Is the explanation adequate? 
 
 On this two remarks may be made. 
 
 1. The explanation offered does not re- 
 
MIRACIiES 69 
 
 move the fundamental difficulty which those 
 who reject miracle feel. Miracle is explained 
 as providence ; but it is a kind of providence 
 which has all the original difficulty in it. 
 God still interposes by an act of His will 
 to order, produce, effect this particular 
 result, at this particular time, in this par- 
 ticular way, just as much as on the 
 hypothesis of an act of power above nature. 
 The Israelites, e.g., are saved at this par- 
 ticular juncture by God interposing on their 
 behalf in accordance with a promise and 
 command. So in all forms of miracle. 
 Will the sceptic admit this any more than 
 direct supranatural volition ? Will he admit 
 that God exercises this special and par- 
 ticular providence in the affairs of men ; 
 that He employs natural agencies to reveal 
 Himself, and manifest His power, in special, 
 exceptional ways, to men ? It is certain 
 he will not. 
 
70 MIRACLES 
 
 2. Suppose, however, that the sceptic 
 does not admit it, may the believer, at least, 
 not find a certain rehef in this thought of 
 natural agency in miracle ? This leads to 
 the second question : Can natural causes 
 explain all that is given in miracle ? Where 
 is the evidence that the power displayed 
 in giving instantaneous sight to the blind, 
 in healing the leper, in restoring life to the 
 dead, is power inherent in nature ? If some 
 miracles can be thus explained, can all ? 
 Think, e.g., of what is implied in such a 
 a miracle as the Incarnation. Here, as 
 Scripture presents it, the Son of God unites 
 Himself personally with humanity. Is there 
 nothing in this that transcends nature, or 
 is the Incarnation only the culmination 
 of a natural process ? Or take the raising 
 of the dead. Take, e.g., the case of Lazarus. 
 This is more even than the revivification 
 of a dead body — a result which we have 
 
MIRACLES 71 
 
 not the least reason to suppose that nature 
 can effect. It is the calling back of a spirit 
 — a soul — from the unseen world, and the 
 reuniting of it with the bodily tabernacle 
 it had left. Does this not transcend natural 
 causes ? So in Christ's resurrection — there 
 is the return from the abode of spirits to 
 a restored life in the body. In such cases 
 there is no getting away from a real Divine 
 interposition — a true creative act. The 
 creation of the world at first was a stupen- 
 dous act of omnipotence ; such miracles as 
 the Gospel records are, for the most part, 
 equally products of creative agency ; this 
 time, however, for redemptive, remedial, 
 ends. 
 
 IV 
 
 It will be seen from what has been 
 said that the crucial question in regard to 
 miracles is not as to the abstract possi- 
 
72 MIRACLES 
 
 bility of miracle, or the relation of miracle 
 to nature, but as to the fact of their 
 actual happening. It is the historical and 
 evidential question. Do the difficulties 
 attaching to the idea of miracle, or to its 
 proof, justify us in rejecting the miracles 
 pertaining to the Biblical revelation ? 
 
 On this point of the historical reality 
 of miracle in Scripture, three things may 
 properly be said : 
 
 1. It must be affirmed that miracle, in 
 the sense described, is worthy and necessary 
 in a great scheme of redemptive revela- 
 tion. The \vhole plan of Divine grace in 
 the Bible is supernatural in origin (God), 
 in discovery (revelation), in the gracious 
 means employed (incarnation, atonement, 
 exaltation of Christ), in the powers through 
 which it works in the hearts of men and 
 in the world (Holy Spirit). As a Divine 
 remedy for human sin, worthy of God 
 
MIRACLES 73 
 
 and adequate to the needs of man, it 
 necessitates the interposition of God in 
 human history in a supernatural way. 
 Without such a supernatural entrance of 
 God into history — a supernatural economy 
 transcending nature in its powers and 
 effects — the revelation could not have been 
 at all. Inherently, therefore, miracle is 
 credible, and is to be looked for, in con- 
 nection with such a scheme. 
 
 2. Miracle in Scripture is to be regarded, 
 not as an arbitrary, capricious, meaningless 
 infraction of the order of nature, but in 
 its connection -with this Divine scheme, 
 and in subordination to its ends. There 
 is a sparingness and reserve, a dignity, 
 ethical purpose, and reasonableness in the 
 miracles of Scripture— a congruity with 
 the teacher and his message — which puts 
 them in a totally diiFerent rank from 
 isolated prodigies. They occur generally 
 
74 MIRACLES 
 
 at great crises in the history of the king- 
 dom of God (the exodus, giving of the 
 law, conflict of EUjah with Baal, ministry 
 of Christ, etc.), stand in close connection 
 with the great personalities of revelation 
 (e.g., Moses, Samuel, Elijah, Christ), and 
 are wrought for worthy ends. The ex- 
 ceptions to this statement are few, and 
 cannot outweigh the cumulative impression 
 of the whole. 
 
 3. In judging of miracle it is a mistake 
 to begin with the more weakly attested, 
 or, as some may regard them, paltrier 
 and more grotesque miracles of Scripture, 
 instead of with the greatest and best attested 
 examples of supernatural interposition — 
 specially with the central miracle, Christ 
 Himself. It is the height of foolishness 
 to propose as a test of miracle, to begin 
 with, such instances as the axe-head of 
 Elisha, or the fish of Jonah. The supreme 
 
MIRACLES , 75 
 
 question — the one an answer to which will 
 be felt to illuminate the whole area of 
 revelation — is. What think ye of Christ ? 
 Christ Himself, in His Di\'ine Person, 
 claims, sinlessness. mission of salvation, 
 is the miracle of miracles, and the special 
 miracles recorded of Him are the natural 
 and congruous accompaniments of such a 
 Person and such a work, ^'irgin birth 
 and miraculous resurrection tit into an 
 economy of incarnation, atonement, and 
 exaltation to endless hfe in glory. This 
 will become more evident as we advance. 
 It is only to be noted now, that it is 
 here, with the central facts, not at the 
 circumference, that the testing of miracle 
 must begin. Accepting Christ as a miracu- 
 lous Person, the culmination of a miraculous 
 historical revelation, the special miracles 
 will, for the most part, fall into their 
 natural place in Scripture. 
 
76 MIRACLES 
 
 V 
 
 It is not pleaded for the miracles of 
 Scripture that, in respect of evidence, all 
 miracles stand 07i the same footing, or that 
 a proof of each miracle, taken by itself, 
 can be given that will stand scientific 
 tests. This is not a reason for disbelief, 
 but it is an admission that the grounds 
 of faith must be sought for in broader 
 considerations than the evidence for the 
 single miracle affords — in the connection, 
 e.g., with the revelation, the general credi- 
 bility of the record, the inherent probability 
 of the miracle, the fitness for the end in 
 view. On the other hand, it is to be 
 maintained that there are miracles not a 
 few for which the historical evidence is 
 pe7' se broad and strong — amply adequate 
 to support and justify faith — e.g., the 
 crossing of the Red Sea at the exodus, 
 
MIRACLES . 77 
 
 or, as the chief instance, the resurrection 
 of Christ. The remarks in a previous 
 paper on the strength of the apostolic 
 witness for the narratives in the Gospels 
 show on how secure a basis of certainty 
 these rest. 
 
 It follows that the miracles of Scripture, 
 taken in connection with the system of 
 which they form a part, stand by them- 
 selves, and are not touched — certainly are 
 not disproved — by the general objections 
 to miracle mentioned at the outset. By 
 the very contrast they exhibit to the base- 
 less tales of superstition they evince their 
 right to credit, and redeem the believer 
 in them from the charge of credulity. 
 
 The considerations adduced likewise 
 furnish help in answering the question 
 often put : Have miracles evidential value ? 
 Extremes have to be avoided here on both 
 sides. If some would rest the whole weight 
 
78 MIRACLES 
 
 of revelation on the evidence of miracles, 
 this is obviously an exaggeration. Miracles 
 are never mere evidences ; they are elements 
 in the revelation. Many, in their lack of 
 independent verification, are not fitted to 
 act as evidences ; they depend on the 
 revelation rather than it on them. In 
 every case the character of the revelation 
 enters into the proof of the miracle ; the 
 latter, therefore, cannot alone prove the 
 revelation. On the other hand, it is an 
 extreme to deny that miracles have no 
 share in the evidence for revelation, for 
 a truly divine work does go far to sustain 
 the authority of the messenger who works 
 it. Jesus appealed to His " works " as 
 evidences that the Father had sent Him. 
 The evidential power of miracle may be 
 overstated, but miracle has its rightful 
 place among the proofs of a supernatural 
 economy. 
 
THE INCARNATION 
 
THE INCAHNATION 
 
 rr^HE centre of Christianity is Christ ; 
 the conception we form of Christi- 
 anity, therefore, depends on the estimate 
 we form of Christ. " What think ye of 
 Christ?" (Matt. xxii. 42.) Who is He? 
 Jesus spoke of John the Baptist as a 
 prophet : " Yea, I say unto you, and much 
 more than a prophet" (Matt. xi. 9). But 
 John himself declared of Jesus : " He that 
 Cometh after me is mightier than I, whose 
 shoes I am not worthy to bear " (Matt. 
 iii. 11). And in the Fourth Gospel: "He 
 that cometh after me is become before 
 me ; for He was before me " (John i. 15). 
 
 81 6 
 
82 THE INCARNATION 
 
 I 
 
 Who, then, is this Greater One? The 
 new historical-critical school already referred 
 to will regard Jesus only as a peasant- 
 prophet of Galilee. His religious greatness 
 is not challenged. He is still the grandest, 
 the most inspired, the most wonderful, of 
 human teachers. " Never man spake like 
 this man" (.John viii. 46) on the things 
 of the soul. But He was only man — 
 erring, fallible in many respects, and a 
 guide to us only as His intuitions of 
 truth repeat themselves, and are verified 
 in our own experience. The world has 
 moved away from much in His message. 
 We must think and judge of things in 
 terms of that larger view of the world — 
 scientific and historical — which Christ did 
 not possess. 
 
 Christ's message, on this showing, is 
 
THE INCARNATION 83 
 
 distinguished from His Person. He is, 
 like Socrates, or Plato, or Confucius, the 
 medium in part of truths which abide the 
 same though His connection with them 
 should for ever cease. 
 
 Very different from this is the estimate 
 put on Jesus Christ in all ages by His 
 Church. The Te Deuvi sings: "Thou 
 art the everlasting Son of the Father." 
 The Nicene Creed reads : '• Who, for us 
 men and our salvation, came down from 
 heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy 
 Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made 
 man." Is this metaphysics ? It is also 
 the witness of the apostolic writings. 
 Reserving the clause about the Virgin 
 birth, it may be taken for granted as a 
 result of impartial exegesis that Paul, 
 John, the writer of the Epistle to the 
 Hebrews, the author of the Book of Reve- 
 lation, beheved in the pre-existence, the 
 
84 THE INCARNATION 
 
 Divine dignity, the voluntary humiliation, 
 the real entrance through human birth 
 into our humanity of the Son of God. 
 John scales the divinest heights in his 
 affirmation : "In the beginning was the 
 Word, and the Word was with God, and 
 the Word was God. . . . All things were 
 made by Him. . . . And the Word be- 
 came flesh, and dwelt among us " (John 
 i. 1, 3, 14). But Paul's note is not lower: 
 " Who, being in the form of God, counted 
 it not a prize to be on an equality with 
 God, but emptied Himself, taking the form 
 of a servant, being made in the likeness 
 of men" (Phil. ii. 6-8). Cf. the numerous 
 other statements with which the New Testa- 
 ment Epistles are inlaid, as Col. i. 15-17, 
 Heb. i. 1-3 ; ii. 14 ; 1 Peter i. 20 ; 1 John 
 i. 1-3 ; Rev. i. 17, 18. It is not man-made 
 Creeds only that are assailed when the 
 incarnation of the Son of God is denied. 
 
THE INCARNATION 85 
 
 but the faith and testimony of those 
 " Prophets and Apostles " on whose wit- 
 ness the Church from the first was built 
 (Eph. ii. 20 ; iii. 5). 
 
 II 
 
 But did the Apostles — did Paul and 
 John in particular — really represent the 
 mind of Christ Himself on this great 
 subject ? Does their picture correspond 
 with what we find in the simpler narratives 
 of the first three Gospels (the Synoptics) ? 
 This is the question most keenly agitated 
 to-day. It is referred to further after, but 
 meanwhile the general answer may be 
 anticipated. The doctrine of the Epistles 
 is the inevitable development of the history 
 in the Gospels, provided the totality of the 
 facts in the Gospels is accepted, and the 
 picture given there is not trimmed down 
 and dissipated by critical violence till its 
 
86 THE INCARNATION 
 
 most distinctive features disappear. The 
 apostolic doctrine, indeed, which could only 
 have come from such a life and claims as 
 are depicted in the Gospels, is itself the 
 best guarantee for the truth of the presen- 
 tation of the latter. For the Jesus of the 
 Synoptic Gospels is not a non-miraculous 
 being — one who does not transcend the 
 limits of humanity. Not in origin, for in 
 two of the Gospels (Matthew and Luke) 
 He is supernaturally born. Not in char- 
 acter, for He, alone of the sons of men, 
 is without sin. Not in claims, for these 
 are of the most exalted kind. " He shall 
 baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with 
 fire" (Matt. iii. 11; cf. John i. 33). 
 " All things have been delivered unto Me 
 of My Father " (Matt. xi. 27 ; in xxviii. 18 : 
 " All authority hath been given unto Me 
 in heaven and on earth "). He shall judge 
 the world (Matt. xxv. 31 ff.). Not in 
 
THE INCARNATION 87 
 
 works, for Divine powers continually show 
 themselves forth in Him in miracles of 
 mercy. Not in the end of His history, 
 for, if crucified, He rises again in Divine 
 might, and is exalted to the right hand of 
 God. Even the critical attitude to the 
 Gospels, as said before, is changing in this 
 connection. Bousset concedes that in the 
 oldest Gospel (Mark) the Christ we meet 
 with is the same miraculous Son of God 
 as is found in the Epistles. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It is on the faith of this apostolic 
 testimony about Jesus in the Gospels and 
 Epistles, in conjunction with the like per- 
 vading testimony to the divinity and 
 personal workings of the Holy Spirit, that 
 the Church proceeded in the early days in 
 constructing its doctrine of the Trinity. 
 A Divine Father, a Divine Son, a Divine 
 
88 THE INCARNATION 
 
 Spirit — these three are implied in the 
 whole work of the Christian redemption. 
 They are named as Principals in the work of 
 human salvation. Each is adored as Divine. 
 Yet the unity of the Godhead is held fast. 
 There are not, and cannot be, three Gods. 
 The distinction is one within the eternal 
 Divine nature. It is one name, yet threefold, 
 into which we are baptized (Matt, xxviii. 19). 
 Ineffable mystery, doubtless, yet surpassing 
 discovery of the inmost nature of God ! 
 
 It is carefully to be observed, however, 
 that it is not from the doctrine of the 
 Trinity, first assumed, that we ffescend to 
 the doctrine of the Incarnation, but con- 
 versely, from the fact of the Incarnation 
 (with the work of the Spirit) that we 
 ascend to the knowledge of God as triune. 
 It is Christ Himself in His historical mani- 
 festation with whom we begin. From 
 Him, in His self-revelation — in His life. 
 
THE INCARNATION 89 
 
 death, resurrection ; in His character, words 
 and works, we learn to know the Son of 
 the eternal God. It is thus that John, 
 sublimest of all expounders of the deity 
 of Christ, tells us He came to know the 
 Son. " We beheld His glory, glory as of 
 the only-begotten of the Father (John i. 
 14). " That which was from the beginning, 
 that which we have heard, that which we 
 have seen with our eyes, that which we 
 beheld, and our hands handled [note the 
 emphatic reiteration] concerning the Word 
 of life . . . that which we have seen and 
 heard declare we unto you also " (1 John 
 i. 1-3). Above all, the resurrection was 
 felt to put the seal on Christ's claims to 
 be the Son of God (Rom. i. 4). 
 
 IV 
 
 The faith in the incarnation has thus a 
 sound historical and Scriptural basis. 
 
90 THE INCARNATION 
 
 Nevertheless, as is well known, by much 
 of our modern thought this whole view of 
 God, and of the incarnation of the pre- 
 existent Son, is treated as so much 
 irrational metaphysics or positive myth- 
 ology ; and, by those who would retain 
 the name Christian, some other view of 
 Christ is sought which may be substituted 
 for it. Hence the recasting in various 
 forms of the doctrine of the Incarnation. 
 
 One view — that which really may be 
 called metaphysical — rests on an idealistic 
 view of the unity, or rather the identity, 
 of God and man. Humanity is divine in 
 essence, and Christ came to the conscious- 
 ness of this identity with God. The in- 
 carnation is really in mankind. God 
 realises Himself in His universe, and 
 supremely in man ; among men supremely 
 and typically in Jesus Christ. This is the 
 " incarnation " of the so-called " New 
 
THE INCARNATION 91 
 
 Theology." Orthodoxy, Mr. Campbell tells 
 us, "would restrict the description 'God 
 manifest in the flesh ' to Jesus alone ; the 
 New Theology would extend it in a lesser 
 degree to all humanity, and would main- 
 tain that in the end it will be as true of 
 every individual soul as ever it was of 
 Jesus." ^ 
 
 A modification of this view, which 
 identifies incarnation with "immanence," 
 is connected with the idea of evolution. 
 God is immanent in all things. In the 
 evolutionary process higher and ever higher 
 potencies of the Divine nature come to 
 light. God incarnates Himself in higher 
 and higher modes. The natural develop- 
 ment culminates in man, and humanity 
 again reaches its noblest manifestation in 
 Christ. In Christ, God finds an organ for 
 His fullest self-revelation. The Divine is 
 
 ' New Theology, p. 83 
 
92 THE INCARNATION 
 
 in Him identified with goodness, truth, and 
 love. This view is thought to bring the 
 Incarnation into hne with God's whole 
 revelation in nature and history. It is still, 
 however, a question of degree only between 
 Christ and other men. The real incarna- 
 tion is, first, in the universe, then in 
 humanity. Christ is but the topmost twig 
 of the tree. 
 
 The contrast between these modern 
 views and the Gospel incarnation is pro- 
 found. In all of them man is already God, 
 or grows to be God. It is but a discovery 
 of his real essence that is needed. The 
 incarnation these writers speak of is man 
 ascending to be God ; not God, in infinite 
 grace, condescending to become man. 
 There is no real transcending of the limits 
 of humanity. To say " God becomes man," 
 and explain it to mean " everything human 
 is Divine," or with the limitation, "all 
 
THE INCARNATION ,93 
 
 goodness is Divine," is simply to equate 
 God and man, and carries us no further 
 than man himself. The incarnation of the 
 Gospel means infinitely more. 
 
 It is not by proof-texts that this question 
 is to be settled, but by the whole genius of 
 the Christian religion — by the facts of the 
 Gospels, the meaning of Christ's self- 
 revelation, the connection with redemption, 
 the worship Christ receives. The test of a 
 doctrine is that it truly explains the facts. 
 It has been seen above how impossible it is 
 to put the facts even of the Synoptic 
 Gospels into a purely humanitarian frame. 
 " The Son of man," but not less " the Son 
 of God " ; Founder of the Kingdom of God, 
 and at the same time King and Lord over 
 it ; Baptizer with the Holy Ghost ; the 
 Holy One who is the Saviour of sinners 
 and Ransom for their sins ; the Judge of 
 mankind : who wiU say that such claims 
 
94 THE INCARNATIEN 
 
 accord with a rank lower than Divine ? 
 If John's Gospel be accepted, no doubt of 
 Christ's superhuman dignity, and of a real 
 incarnation, can remain. To judge fully 
 of Christ's claim. His resurrection and 
 exaltation have further to be taken into 
 account. 
 
 V 
 
 What, then, is involved in a true doctrine 
 of the Incarnation ? Surely, it must be 
 said, such truths as these : 
 
 1. Christ in the root of His Personality 
 is Divine, In Him dwelt the fulness of the 
 Godhead bodily (Col. ii. 9). His relation 
 to the Father is one that transcends time — 
 is pre-temporal, eternal (John i. 1 ; xvii. 5 ; 
 Phil. ii. 6; Col. i. 17, etc.). He "came 
 forth" from God. When even Matthew 
 quotes with regard to Him the Bethlehem 
 prophecy from Micah v. 2 (Matt. ii. 5, 6), 
 
THE INCARNATION 95 
 
 must there not be in the background 
 Micah's words: "Whose goings forth are 
 from of old, from everlasting " ? 
 
 2. By voluntary act the Son of God 
 " emptied " Himself — " became flesh " (John 
 i. 14) — took upon Him a true human 
 nature (Phil. ii. 7, 8; Heb. ii. 14, etc.). 
 John's contention against all Gnostic errors 
 is that Jesus, the Son of God, truly " came 
 in the flesh " (1 John, passim). This implies 
 limitation [kenosis), surrender, as respects 
 the earthly condition, of Divine glory and 
 prerogatives. It involves growth and 
 limitation in knowledge — " ignorance," as 
 Calvin freely admits, but not therefore 
 " error," not therefore " sin." Christ par- 
 took of our human infirmities and tempta- 
 tions, yet "without sin" (Heb. iv. 15). In 
 current controversy the distinction between 
 ignorance (cf. Mark xiii. 32) and error is 
 one to be carefully held fast. 
 
96 THE INCARNATION 
 
 3. In this superhuman Person, in conse- 
 quence, perfect humanity is united with full 
 divinity. The Divine is manifested in and 
 through the human, yet without impairing 
 the integrity of the latter. Humanity is 
 recipient of the Godhead, yet the Divine 
 in union w^ith the human loses none of 
 its essential attributes, nor, in a cosmical 
 relation, ceases to exercise them (John iii. 
 13; Col. i. 16, 17; Heb. i. 3). It is the 
 personal Son who becomes man. 
 
 4. The end of the Incarnation is redemp- 
 tion. For this cause He was manifested, to 
 take away sin, to effect reconcihation, to 
 destroy the works of the devil (Matt. xx. 
 28 ; John iii. 16 ; 2 Cor. v. 18, 21 ; Gal. iv. 
 4 ; Heb. ii. 14 ; 1 John iii. 5, etc.). 
 
 VI 
 
 A word may be said in closing on the 
 point which has in recent years been made 
 
THE INCARNATION 97 
 
 a special object of assault in connection 
 with the Incarnation — the birth of Jesus 
 from the Virgin. Our First and Third 
 Gospels testify that the method chosen by 
 God for accomplishing this supreme miracle 
 — for miracle it undoubtedly was — of bring- 
 ing His First-begotten into the world, was 
 birth from a pure virgin. " Conceived by 
 the Holy Ghost," our oldest creed says, 
 *' born of the \"irgin Mary." 'This is not 
 the place for a full examination of the 
 objections raised to the evangelical testi- 
 mony ; ^ it need only be said generally that 
 most of these lose their force when taken 
 in light of the full Gospel and apostolic 
 witness to Christ's Person. It is hardly 
 possible to point to an impugner of the 
 \^irgin-birth who holds in its fulness the 
 doctrine of the incarnation of the Divine 
 Word, while hardly a theologian who holds 
 
 ' See this exhibited in the writer's Virgin Birth of Christ. 
 
 7 
 
98 THE INCARNATION 
 
 this doctrine rejects the Vir<>in-birth. The 
 silences of Mnrk and Jolin — whose Gospels 
 have a different scope — or even of Paul, in 
 no way cast doubt upon the truthfulness of 
 narratives which do give, with every mark 
 of sobriety and responsibility, the story of 
 the Nativity. If miracle there was in 
 Christ's earthly origin — and how else ex- 
 plain His perfect sinlessness, not to say the 
 union of Godhead with humanity in His 
 Person ?— surely none can be conceived 
 more congruous with the end in view than 
 that which the Evangelists record. Un- 
 essential the conception by the Holy Ghost 
 and birth from the Virgin cannot be held 
 to be, till it is shown that natural generation 
 ever produced a sinless human being, or 
 that a new Creative Head could be given to 
 humanity without something altogether 
 exceptional — a creative act — in His origin. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
VI 
 
 THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 /^NE thing which the late Prof. G. J. 
 Romanes tells us specially impressed 
 him in his return from unbelief to faith was 
 that, in contrast with the words of other 
 great teachers, even such as Plato, the 
 words of Jesus do not become obsolete 
 with lapse of time — do not grow old. He 
 did not know of any part of Christ's teach- 
 ing which the subsequent growth of human 
 knowledge has had to discount.^ This is 
 what must be true if Jesus is indeed the 
 supreme and final revelation of the Father. 
 Such a revelation as His cannot rest on 
 
 ' Thoughts ore Religion, p. 167. 
 101 
 
102 THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 mere authority. It must shine in its own 
 light, and discover its Divine character by 
 its abiding truth and power. 
 
 I 
 
 To set the teaching of Jesus in its right 
 connection with His total revelation, it 
 ought to be remembered, first, that, all-im- 
 portant as the teaching is, it is not the whole 
 of the Revelation, or perhaps even the 
 most fundamental part of it. Behind the 
 word of Jesus stands ever the Person, and 
 the whole impression of God which the 
 Personality makes.' To this everything 
 about Christ — character, acts, works of 
 mercy, equally with words — contributes. 
 The miracles of Jesus, e.g., are as rich in 
 
 • " What [Christ] revealed cannot be exhibited in a catena 
 of quotations from His teaching. To quote His word only is 
 to leave out the larger half of the revelation which has come 
 to us through Him. He Himself is the truth, the light, as 
 well as the life of man, the very Word of God." — Dale's The 
 Atonement, chap. ii. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS 103 
 
 revelation as the parables. This is but to 
 say that Jesus was more than teacher — 
 more even than prophet. He did not come 
 merely as the bearer of a verbal message 
 from God to men, but was Himself the 
 embodied revelation — " the Word made 
 flesh " (John i. 14). He did not simply 
 utter truths, but was Himself " the Truth " 
 (John xiv. 6). His revelation was as unique 
 as His Person and mission were unique. 
 Hence he could say of Himself, as none 
 other could : " He that hath seen Me hath 
 seen the Father" (John xiv. 9 ; cf. i. 18). It 
 is this conscious personal relation to God 
 which gives His sayings the depth, meaning, 
 and authority which they possess. 
 
 A second consideration important to be 
 borne in mind in this connection, though 
 often forgotten, is that Christ's words are 
 not to be treated as isolated utterances, or 
 taken out of their context in previous 
 
104 THE TEACHING OP JESUS 
 
 revelation. One thing never to be lost sight 
 of is Christ's relation to the Old Testament. 
 These ancient Scriptures were, as already 
 seen, the Word of God to Jesus. He 
 constantly assumes their truth and the 
 reality of the revelation embodied in them. 
 His consciousness rooted itself in that older 
 revelation. He moved in the circle of its 
 conceptions about God, man, the world, sin 
 — everything. This is a thing to be kept 
 in mind even where it is not definitely ex- 
 pressed. There is much which we do not 
 find, or find only hinted at, in Christ's 
 teaching, simply for the reason that He 
 takes it for granted, and assumes that His 
 hearers knew it, and took it for granted as 
 well as Himself The plain fact furnishes a 
 clue to the solution of many things that 
 occasionally have caused difficulty. 
 
 There is, however, another side of Christ's 
 relation to the Old Testament in His teach- 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS ,105 
 
 ing which must not less be taken into 
 account. While Jesus in the fullest way 
 attached Himself to the Old Testament 
 revelation, He yet, as Goal and Fuljiller 
 of that revelation, placed Himself in the 
 most exalted relation to it (Matt. v. 17 1. 
 He took up, as Son of Man, a lordly, 
 discretionary attitude towards it, abrogating 
 its imperfect provisions, deepening, spiritual- 
 ising, expanding its precepts, lifting it up to 
 the level of His own higher dispensation. 
 Instances are seen in His broadening and 
 spirituahsing of the precepts of the law 
 in the Sermon on the JMount (Matt, v.), in 
 His teachings on the Sabbath (Matt. xii. 8), 
 on ceremonial purifications and distinctions 
 of meats (Matt. xv. 10-20; JVIark ^-ii. 19, 
 Revised Version), on divorce (JMatt. xix. 
 3-9). It foUows that, in Christ's teaching, 
 even what is taken from the Old becomes 
 transformed (cf, 1 John ii. 7, 8). Ideals are 
 
106 THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 changed. The commonest words take on 
 new meanings. There is, to borrow a phrase 
 from a philosopher of very different spirit 
 from Christ's (Nietzsche), a " transvaluation 
 of all values." Old things pass awayin Christ; 
 everything becomes new (cf. 2 Cor. v. 17). 
 
 II 
 
 Approaching the actual teaching in the 
 light of these considerations, we are struck 
 at once by the loftiness, the originality, 
 the universality of Christ's conceptions. 
 Petty, local, national limitations fall alto- 
 gether away ; we are in presence of the 
 abiding and eternal. No shallow, trivial 
 utterance of His can be pointed to in any 
 of the Gospels. Eschewing merely secular 
 controversies (Luke xii. 14), He deals 
 with deep, enduring principles — with those 
 master truths which furnish light and 
 guidance to each succeeding age. It is 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS 107 
 
 this, as has been remarked elsewhere, that 
 gives His words weight. " Each age as it 
 comes round finds them fruitful in appli- 
 cations to itself. Jesus commits Himself 
 to no one side in party politics ; to no 
 one denomination or party in the Church ; 
 to no one form of Church government or 
 action exclusively ; to no one mode of 
 social organisation ; to no one solution 
 of the question of capital and labour, of 
 rulers and subjects, of rich and poor. The 
 reason is that the solution of these questions 
 proper to one age or stage of society might 
 not be the solution proper to another, and 
 Christ is not the teacher of one age only 
 — else His words, like those of all other 
 teachers, would become obsolete — but the 
 teacher of all times and all ages. Hence 
 His words never grow old ; never are left 
 behind in the world's progress." ^ 
 
 ' The Bible under Trial, p. 251. 
 
108 THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 Reference was made above to Christ's 
 creation of a new scale of values. His 
 ideals and standards on most things — e.g., 
 on blessedness (the Beatitudes), on greatness 
 (Matt, xviii. 1-4 ; xx. 25-29), on wisdom 
 (Luke xii. 16-21), on wealth (Matt. vi. 
 19-21 ; xix. 23-26), on the chief good itself 
 (Matt. vi. 33)— are an all but complete 
 inversion of the standards customarily 
 accepted in the world. Whence this 
 change ? It arises simply from the new 
 centre of Christ's teaching — the new stand- 
 point which He occupies in looking at 
 everything. His teaching is ruled, as 
 Browning would put it, by the ideas of 
 God and the soul. This leads to a trans- 
 formation in the conception of values — 
 of the relative values of the material and 
 the spiritual, of the temporal and the 
 eternal, of the goods of the body and 
 the goods of the soul. The world's judg- 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS 109 
 
 merits on these things are turned upside 
 down. 
 
 As a concrete instance with present- 
 day bearings, take the question of wealth. 
 Christ preached no crusade against private 
 property, or the possession and enjoyment 
 of the fruits of one's own industry or diU- 
 gence. This was neither His mission nor 
 His desire. His real teaching on worldly 
 goods may be summed up in the following 
 principles, with their corollaries : 
 
 1. The true goods are the imperishable 
 goods of the soul. These are in every case, 
 and at all times, to be put first. This 
 because they are spiritual, incorruptible, 
 eternal (Matt. vi. 19-24). Nothing is to 
 be permitted to usurp their place, to wean 
 the heart away from them, to compare with 
 them in value (Matt. vi. 33 ; Luke x, 42). 
 
 2. The goods of the body — worldly pos- 
 sessions — are never to be held merely for 
 
no THE TEACHING OP JESUS 
 
 self, but under stewardship to God, and 
 as a means to the wider ends of love 
 in humanity. 
 
 From these principles are deduced at 
 once Christ's warnings: (1) Against the 
 hoarding of wealth, i.e. its accumulation 
 for its own sake, or for selfish ends (Matt, 
 vi. 19, 21; xix. 23, 24; Luke xii. 16-21). 
 (2) Against the selfish use of wealth (Luke 
 xiv. 12-14 ; xvi. 19-25). (3) Deepest of all, 
 against the hve of wealth, or covetousness 
 (Luke xii. 15 ; cf. Col. iii. 5 ; 1 Tim. iv. 10 ; 
 vi. 17). 
 
 Christ constructs no theory of society, 
 but a society modelled on His spirit would 
 embody these principles. What a trans- 
 formation it would involve ! 
 
 Ill 
 
 While Christ thus lays down principles 
 which affect earthly and social conditions, 
 
THE TEACHING OP JESUS 111 
 
 it is already evident that the chief parts 
 of His teaching relate to something higher. 
 What that something is is summed up in 
 the comprehensive expression " the Kingdom 
 of God." His Gospel is the Gospel of the 
 Kingdom. The righteousness He expounds 
 is the righteousness of the Kingdom. The 
 Kingdom is the suvimum bonum for man 
 (Matt. vi. 33). Before, however, analysing 
 the content of this rich idea, it is desirable 
 to glance at some of the great truths which 
 it presupposes. Here again the grandeur 
 and enduring character of Christ's teaching 
 will become manifest. 
 
 What are some of the great themes on 
 which Christ is found most frequently 
 speaking ? Are they not God, man, sin, 
 righteousness, salvation, the hereafter ? On 
 all these topics we see how Christ, on the 
 one hand, connects His teaching with what 
 had gone before in the Old Testament, and 
 
112 THE TEACHING OP JESUS 
 
 how, on the other, He carries it up to a 
 higher and more spiritual plane. 
 
 1. In Christ's doctrine of God, for in- 
 stance, there might seem little that is 
 absolutely new. Christ never thinks, any 
 more than the Old Testament does, of 
 proving God's existence. He takes God, 
 with all His weU-known attributes of 
 eternity, omnipresence, omnipotence, holi- 
 ness, etc., for granted, and does not reason 
 about them. Similarly, Jesus does not argue 
 about a Divine Providence, but assumes it, 
 and draws from it the lesson of trust in 
 the Heavenly Father (Matt. vi. 25 ff.). Yet 
 what an incalculable advance is involved 
 in this doctrine of a heavenly Father, in- 
 terpreted as it is by Christ's own conscious- 
 ness of Sonship 1 And what an extension 
 is given to the thoughts of God's love and 
 forgiving mercy ! 
 
 2. Or, take the doctrine of man. Here 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS 113 
 
 again Jesus accepts the Old Testament 
 view of the creation (Matt. xix. 4-6), 
 nature, and destination of man — a destina- 
 tion to a hfe of sonship, forfeited by sin, 
 restored only by redemption. But how 
 much more deeply does He penetrate to 
 the core of man's spiritual being, and assert 
 for him, as individual, an infinite value in 
 God's sight I Christ strikes down to that 
 which is universal in man ; looks at man 
 in his capacity for spiritual and immortal 
 hfe ; drops wholly out of view accidental 
 characteristics of rank, age, sex, nationality, 
 culture ; seizes only on the essentials in 
 man's nature. This is why His teaching 
 endures, why it is adapted to every race 
 and every stage of culture. 
 
 3. What, again, can be more penetrative 
 or spiritual than Christ's teaching on sinl 
 Sometimes the assertion is made that Jesus 
 has nothing to say on the origin of sin — 
 
114 THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 knows nothing of a fall. But sin certainly 
 was not to Jesus a natural, necessary, or 
 normal state for man. If He appeals to 
 the Genesis narrative of man's origin on 
 the subject of marriage (Matt. xix. 4, 5), 
 it is not likely He would ignore it on the 
 subject of the origin of sin (cf. John viii. 44). 
 It is sometimes said, again, that Jesus knows 
 nothing of hereditary evil — of original sin. 
 But does He not ? Is there not in His 
 declarations the constant implication of 
 imiversal sin ? Is there not, further, a 
 positive tracing back of sin to a foul foun- 
 tain in the heart ? " Out of the heart 
 proceed evil thoughts," etc. (Matt. xv. 19). 
 In John's Gospel regeneration is a first 
 article of His teaching (iii. 3-7). Here, 
 as before, Jesus relates Himself to, and 
 presupposes. Old Testament teaching in 
 such passages as Gen. viii. 24 ; Psalm li. 
 5, 10 ; Isa. i. 5, 6, etc. 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS 115 
 
 4. Christ teaches the freeness of salvation, 
 and connects this in well-known passages 
 with His own Person and redeeming death 
 (Matt. XX. 28; xxvi. 25-28; John iii. 14-16, 
 etc.). The subject is dealt with in another 
 connection. 
 
 5. Reverting for a moment to the secular 
 side of Christ's teaching, it should be ob- 
 served how, as in other things, Jesus takes 
 over the Old Testament idea of the world. 
 Jesus was no pessimist. He accepts the 
 world as God's world, God's creation (Matt. 
 vi. 26-30) ; as, therefore, in itself good, 
 though sin has so woefully defaced it. We 
 see in the parables how He recognises the 
 whole wealth of natural human relations ; the 
 fuU variety of human talents, occupations, 
 and interests. This is a thing forgotten by 
 those who urge that Christ has no eye for 
 the secular side of life. He sees it all, 
 but has an infinitely higher mission than 
 
116 THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 to occupy Himself with its finite aims. 
 
 His Gospel is the regulating principle of 
 
 the whole. 
 
 IV 
 
 It may now be seen in part what Jesus 
 
 means when He speaks of " the Kingdom 
 
 of God." That expression, on His lips, is 
 
 vast and many-sided in significance, but we 
 
 appear to get to the core of it when we 
 
 interpret it to mean simply the supremacy 
 
 of God in human hearts and human affairs, 
 
 and in every department oj these affairs. 
 
 The Kingdom of God begins within, in 
 
 the new life imparted to the soul by 
 
 Christ, but it is not intended to remain 
 
 within. It is to work itself out into every 
 
 department of human life, till the whole is 
 
 brought under the rule and direction of God. 
 
 " Thy Kingdom come," " Thy will be done 
 
 on earth, as it is in heaven " (Matt. vi. 10, 
 
 11). On the Divine side, the Kingdom is 
 
THE TEACHING OF JESUS 117 
 
 the sphere of God's fatherly and gracious 
 rule, and of the bestowal of all spiritual 
 blessings : as on man's side it is the sphere of 
 the realisation of the Divine righteousness. 
 
 This is the earthly aspect of the King- 
 dom, but there is the other — the eschatologi- 
 cal, or, as some would now name it, the 
 apocalyptic — on which, largely as it bulks 
 in Christ's teaching, only a word can here 
 be said. Jesus does not look for the per- 
 fection of His Kingdom on earth, but sees 
 its consummation in eternity, connecting 
 this with His own Parousia, with resurrec- 
 tion, and with judgment. It is becoming 
 customary to say that these are elements 
 derived from popular Jewish apocalyptic 
 beliefs — elements which enlightened Christi- 
 anity must drop oflF. It might be shown, 
 on the other hand, that they are elements 
 which spring from the depths of Christ's 
 own consciousness, and which cannot be 
 
118 THE TEACHING OF JESUS 
 
 ignored in any just view of His teaching. 
 The Jewish apocalypses could not have 
 produced them.* Jesus knew that He 
 would die and would rise again. He knew 
 Himself to be King and Lord of the King- 
 dom He had founded. He confidently 
 looked forward to a time of triumph and 
 visible manifestation of the Kingdom with 
 which He would be personally identified. 
 Of day and hour He would not speak 
 (Matt. xxiv. 36 ; Mark xiii. 32), though He 
 foretold that there would be nearer preludes 
 of that final event (Matt. xvi. 28 ; xxiv. 34). 
 However delayed by the slow course of 
 providence, or by the unfaithfulness of the 
 Church itself, that day will surely, in the 
 Father's good pleasure, come. It is for 
 those who trust their Lord's word to watch 
 and pray for it (Matt. xxiv. 45-51)." 
 
 ' Cf. G. A. Smith's Jerusalem II., pp. 640-41. 
 ' For fuller discussion of this subject in its diiferent aspects, 
 see the writer's Sidelights on Christian Doctrine, chap. x. 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
VII 
 
 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 rriHE earthly history of Jesus ends in the 
 sorrow, black as night, of the Cross. 
 To this succeeds the dawn, bright with 
 hope, of the Easter Resurrection. Cross and 
 Resurrection go together, in the apostohc 
 Gospel, as inseparable parts of human salva- 
 tion. " Who was delivered up for our tres- 
 passes, and was raised for our justification " 
 (Rom. iv. 25). Yet both, on different 
 grounds, are centres of challenge by the 
 modern spirit. 
 
 I 
 
 There is no disputing, naturally, the 
 fact of the crucifixion. As bare, historical 
 
 121 
 
122 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 occurrence, that stands unchallengeable by 
 the severest scepticism. To Jew and Greek, 
 from the first, Jesus was the object of 
 reviling and scorn as " the Crucified." It 
 is not the fact of the crucifixion, but its 
 significance — the meaning with which it is 
 clothed in the apostolic writings — which is 
 put in question. The sympathy and in- 
 dignation with which every right-thinking 
 mind must contemplate the Cross as the 
 instrument of a righteous man's martyrdom, 
 is far removed from the exultation in the 
 Cross as the means of a world's redemption 
 which animated the mind of a Paul (Gal. vi. 
 14). The Cross, in the modern rendering 
 of it, was the sacrifice of a holy life through 
 the sin of men : it was not a sacrifice taking 
 away the sin of the world in the eyes of 
 God. It was a natural climax to the 
 collision of good and evil in the life of 
 Jesus ; it was not, as faith came later 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 123 
 
 to regard it, a supreme act of atonement 
 for human transgression. 
 
 In the case of the resurrection, on the 
 other hand, it is not simply the significance, 
 but the fact itself, which is denied. The 
 event we call the resurrection, it is said, 
 never happened. The disciples doubtless 
 believed it did ; they even founded the 
 Christian Church on the preaching of this 
 belief. But they were mistaken. It did 
 not happen, for the reason that, as is 
 strenuously affirmed, it could not happen. 
 " There is no resurrection of the dead," so 
 the Corinthian sceptics long ago protested 
 (1 Cor. XV. 12). It would be a "miracle" 
 if Christ rose from the dead, and this, as 
 Hume said, is something that " has never 
 been observed in any age or country." It 
 must therefore be dismissed by intellectually 
 minded people as incredible. The disciples 
 only thought they had seen the Risen Christ. 
 
124 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 They had "visions," which later tradition 
 magnified into the stories of the resurrection 
 in the Gospels. But the body of Jesus 
 never left the tomb. It lay there, or 
 wherever else it had been put, and " saw 
 corruption." The spirit of Jesus may have 
 survived, may now live with God. That 
 depends on whether we have good reasons 
 for believing in immortality. But this has 
 nothing to do with the resurrection of the 
 body. 
 
 The general question of miracles has 
 already been dealt with ; it is not proposed 
 to go back upon it now. But it is de- 
 sirable that the two questions here raised 
 should be dispassionately considered. In 
 what light is the Cross of Jesus regarded 
 in the Gospels ? and what are the grounds 
 of belief in the historical fact of the 
 resurrection ? 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 125 
 
 II 
 
 On the first point — the meaning of the 
 Cross — it is often objected that the Epistles 
 of the New Testament concentrate attention 
 on the Cross and resurrection of Jesus, and 
 ignore His life and teaching, which are the 
 main things in the Gospels. This, it will 
 be seen by and by, is only partially true ; 
 meanwhile it is well to draw attention to 
 the fact that the Gospels also lay a supreme 
 emphasis on the death and resurrection.^ It 
 is seldom noticed how large a space, pro- 
 portionately, is given in the narratives to 
 the period after the open announcement 
 of Christ's death. One authority (Burkitt) 
 tells us that the Synoptic Gospels, alto- 
 gether, do not contain the record of the 
 events of more than forty separate days. 
 
 ' Dr. Dale rightly lays stress on this in chap. ii. of his 
 work on The Atonement. 
 
126 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 But of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark 
 fully one-third is devoted to the events 
 of the Passion Week and their sequel in 
 the resurrection ; Luke has several chapters ; 
 John gives half his Gospel to the same 
 period. The story of the Last Supper, of 
 Gethsemane, of the betrayal, the trial, the 
 crucifixion, the burial, is told in minute, 
 affecting detail. Even this is not the 
 whole. The open announcement of the 
 approaching death is not, indeed, made till 
 after Peter's great confession at Caesarea 
 Philippi (Matt, xvi. 21 ; xvii, 22-23 ; xx. 
 17-19, etc.). But it is obvious that in the 
 minds of the Evangelists the death is the 
 pivot of their whole narrative — the tragic 
 denouement to which everything is moving 
 from the first. And it is connected with 
 human salvation. Jesus is to " save His 
 people from their sins " (Matt. i. 21) ; is 
 the promised "Saviour" (Luke ii. 11, 30 — 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION , 127 
 
 with suffering, vv. 34, 35) ; " the Lamb 
 of God that taketh away the sin of the 
 world" (John i. 29). After the resurrec- 
 tion, remission of sins was to be preached 
 in His name (Luke xxiv. 46, 47). It is 
 not too much to say that the shadow of 
 the Cross hes over the Gospels from the 
 first page to the last. 
 
 There is no good reason to doubt that 
 the fact of suffering and death as the way 
 to His final victory was before the mind 
 of Jesus from His first entrance on His 
 ministry. In the baptism he was con- 
 secrated to His Messianic work. In the 
 temptation He definitely renounced worldly 
 ideals of the Messiahship, and chose a 
 road which could have only one ending. 
 Jesus, as His teaching shows, was under 
 no illusions as to what lay before Him. 
 The fate which overtook His faithful 
 follower, the Baptist, He Himself — the 
 
128 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 Greater One — could not hope to escape. 
 He knew the lot of prophets and messengers 
 of God in the past. He warns His dis- 
 ciples of coming inevitable persecutions, 
 and takes it for granted that they were 
 in this but suffering like their Master 
 (Matt. X. 16-25). The explicit intimation 
 of His death came later, but from the 
 beginning there were anticipations of the 
 end. The bridegroom would be taken 
 from them (Matt. ix. 15; cf. xx. 22, 23). 
 To Nicodemus, in John's Gospel, Jesus 
 unbosoms Himself yet more freely (John iii. 
 14, 15). 
 
 HI 
 
 There was no dubiety in the mind of 
 Jesus, then, as to the path of suffering 
 He had to tread, or as to the Cross that 
 stood at the end of it. Many things show 
 how deeply He thought and felt about 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION ^129 
 
 the cup of sorrow He had to drink, cf. 
 Mark x. 32 ; Luke ix. 31, 51 ; John xii. 27, 
 etc.). The question next arises, In what 
 hght did this tragic ending of His life 
 appear to Him ? Was it simply a cata- 
 strophe, a bitter ordeal that had to be 
 endured as the cost of His testimony, a 
 temporary triumph of sin over righteous- 
 ness ? Or was it connected in some deeper, 
 more intimate, diviner way with the ends 
 of His mission ? Do the Gospels help us 
 to give an intelligible answer to this 
 question ? 
 
 The Cross in Christ's consciousness evi- 
 dently could not be divorced from His 
 knowledge of Himself as " the Christ, the 
 Son of the living God " (Matt. xvi. 16, 17). 
 "Son of Man" and "Son of God," He 
 knew Himself as the Messiah, the Holy 
 One who was to come, the Saviour. The 
 
 attempt to rule out these elements from 
 
 9 
 
130 THE CROSS AND THE RESUREECTION 
 
 the consciousness of Jesus must always 
 fail. He knew Himself as the Sinless One, 
 who stood in unbroken rapport of mind 
 and will with the Father (Matt. xi. 27), 
 and always did the things that pleased 
 Him (John viii. 29). Death was naturally 
 to such an One a thing of horror, some- 
 thing to which, as Prince of Life and Life- 
 giver, He was under no need of submitting, 
 a contradiction of His whole nature and 
 destiny. Yet it lay before Him as a certain 
 result of His witness to the Father ; as 
 something to be voluntarily accepted in 
 obedience to the Father. How did He 
 regard it in this relation? 
 
 It is clear, to begin with, that, conscious 
 as he was of Sonship, Jesus accepted His 
 sufferings and death as His Fathers ordain- 
 ment and a divine necessity of His Messianic 
 vocation. The words in Luke : " Behov^ed 
 it not the Christ to suffer these things, and 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 131 
 
 to enter into His glory ? " (xxiv. 26), ex- 
 press the feeling throughout the Gospels 
 on this point. The Christ "must" suiFer 
 (Matt. xvi. 21 ; Luke xxiv. 7, 44). The 
 " must " lay partly in fulfilment of prophecy; 
 but this only as an indication of the will 
 of God, and of the necessity of the case. 
 It was the Father's will that was to be 
 done (Matt. xxvi. 39, etc.). It lay in the 
 path of the Lord's work as Messiah, as 
 Saviour, that He should die. 
 
 It is clear also that, while accepting His 
 death as an appointment of the Father, 
 Christ imported into it a deeper meaning 
 than simply a death encountered in the 
 service of righteousness. It was that, but 
 it was far more. The leading clue to 
 His consciousness here is no doubt that 
 wonderful picture of the Suffering Servant 
 in Isaiah liii. That description must have 
 stood out beyond all others in His constant 
 
132 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 study of the prophecies. It was with the 
 prophecy of the Servant of the Lord He 
 began His ministry in Nazareth (Luke iv. 
 17-21). Matthew saw the spirit of it 
 fulfilled in His taking the infirmities and 
 diseases of men upon Himself in a perfect 
 sympathy in His healing ministry (viii. 17). 
 He declared it to be fulfilled in Himself 
 on the night of the betrayal (Luke xxii. 37). 
 In it He found the idea of a suffering 
 which was vicarious and expiatory, and 
 brought salvation to transgressors (cf. 
 Isa. liii. 5, 6, 10, 11, 12). His death, there- 
 fore, was more than simple endurance at 
 the hands of wicked men. It had a saving 
 efficacy. This is already hinted at to 
 Nicodemus (John iii. 14-16). It is involved 
 in various connections in other sayings in 
 John (vi. 51 ; x. 15-18 ; xii. 24, 32, 33). 
 It is the key to such utterances as that 
 in Matthew and Mark: "Even as the 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION ^33 
 
 Son of Man came not to be ministered 
 unto, but to minister, and to give His 
 life a ransom for many " (Matt. xx. 28 ; 
 Mark ix. 45 — He " came " for this end) ; 
 and at the Last Supper, where He speaks 
 of His body as given and His blood as 
 shed for men, for the making of a " new 
 covenant" of salvation (Matt. xxvi. 26-28, 
 etc.). 
 
 Such language goes far beyond mere 
 martyrdom. How is it to be construed 1 
 We may gain a hint if we think (1) of 
 how Jesus identified Himself with men — 
 " Son of Man " ; (2) of His consciousness 
 of His calling to " save " men ; and (3) of 
 His view of suffering and death as some- 
 thing alien to the true destiny of man — 
 absolutely foreign to Himself— and an ex- 
 pression of God's judgment on the sin 
 of the world. To this experience, which 
 belongs to a world of sin, Christ, sinless 
 
134 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 Himself, submitted for the sake of others, 
 and in His love for men, and oneness of 
 heart and will with God, made true atone- 
 ment, such as He alone could make, for 
 the sin of a humanity that lay under doom, 
 and could not of itself remove the awful 
 burden. More will be said on this point 
 in speaking on the apostolic Gospel. Only 
 one thing here : the longing for atonement 
 lies deep in the heart of mankind. If 
 Christ was " Son of Man," He could not 
 but desire to make atonement ; the Gospel 
 of the Cross is the declaration that He 
 did it. 
 
 IV 
 
 It has already been noticed that Cross 
 and Resurrection go together in the Epistles. 
 The same is found when we consider their 
 relation in the Gospels. In the same breath 
 in which He foretold His approaching 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 135 
 
 sufferings and death, Jesus predicted His 
 rising again from the dead (Matt. xvi. 21 ; 
 xvii. 23; xx. 19, etc.). It could not be 
 otherwise. If Jesus was what He claimed 
 to be, death could not hold Him. If He 
 was truly Redeemer, He must rise again. 
 If His work of reconciliation was complete, 
 this must be shown by manifest victory 
 over death. If He died by voluntary act — 
 His work accomplished — by voluntary act 
 His life must be resumed (John x. 17, 18). 
 There can be no question, therefore, as 
 to the importance of the place of the 
 resurrection in the Christian Gospel. The 
 disproof of it, if such a thing w^ere con- 
 ceivable, would be the overthrow of Chris- 
 tianity itself (cf. 1 Cor. xv. 14, 17). Despite 
 apostolic belief, however, the resurrection is 
 challenged, and the evidence for it declared 
 to be of no account. Searching criticism 
 is appHed to the Gospel testimonies, and 
 
136 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 these are held to be so late in origin, so 
 legendary in character, so varying in detail, 
 that no reliance can be placed upon them. 
 A counter-explanation must be sought — in 
 self-deception, in mental hallucination, in 
 Oriental myths, perhaps in part in fraud 
 (Joseph of Arimathaea, or some other, hid 
 the body !). 
 
 The answer to all this, briefly, is — that 
 the witness to the resurrection is that 
 of the whole apostolic body and the whole 
 apostolic Church, and, in the circumstances, 
 these could not be mistaken in the grounds 
 of their belief. The Church began, within 
 a few weeks of the crucifixion, at Jeru- 
 salem, and there was not a doubt in a 
 single mind that the Lord had risen. They 
 knew well all the facts of the crucifixion 
 and the events of the Easter morning, and 
 bore steady and unshaken public testimony 
 to what they had seen and known. A list 
 
THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 137 
 
 of the chief appearances of Jesus to the 
 Apostles and to five hundred brethren at 
 once, the genuineness of which is beyond 
 all dispute, is given by Paul in 1 Cor. xv. 
 3-8 ; and this is supplemented by the more 
 detailed narration in the Gospels of the 
 early morning visit of the women to the 
 tomb, their finding of the grave empty, 
 and the message they received ; then of 
 the subsequent appearances to the disciples. 
 Not once or twice, but repeatedly, under 
 conditions that made hallucination impos- 
 sible, Jesus is recorded to have manifested 
 Himself bodily to His disciples, conversed 
 with them, eaten and drunk with them, 
 given them His commands. This is what 
 is testified, and the closest scrutiny of the 
 narratives fails to break down their witness 
 in its essential points.' 
 
 • For detailed examination of the evidence, see the author's 
 work. The Renurrection of Jesus. 
 
138 THE CROSS AND THE RESURRECTION 
 
 Is there no confirmation! The Apostles 
 beheved that they received such at Pente- 
 cost (Acts ii.), and the living Church since 
 has had hourly experience of the presence, 
 power, and working of a Holy Spirit which 
 attests tlie divine source from which it 
 comes. Christ in men, the hope of glory 
 (Col. i. 27), is a continuous witness to the 
 truth of Christ Risen and Exalted. 
 
JESUS AND PAUL 
 
VIII 
 
 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 "TT is one of the fashions of recent criti- 
 cism, though its beginnings go farther 
 back, to set Paul against Jesus, and repre- 
 sent the Apostle as, even more than the 
 Master, the real author of historical Chris- 
 tianity. Baur, in the last century, held 
 that it was Paul who set free the principle 
 of universality in the Gospel of Jesus ; but 
 Baur granted that the principle was there 
 from the first in the Person of Jesus, 
 though cramped and narrowed by the in- 
 fluence of the Jewish national idea of the 
 JNIessiah. This, which, in Baur's view, was 
 
 Paul's merit, is now held to be his blame, 
 
 ui 
 
142 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 and he is roundly charged with having 
 changed Christ's Gospel of simple trust 
 in a gracious Heavenly Father, and of a 
 coming Heavenly Kingdom, into something 
 totally different. 
 
 In support of this charge, the contrasts 
 between the simpler teaching of the Gospels 
 (John being left out) and the elaborated 
 theology of Paul, starting from, and laying 
 all but exclusive stress on, the death and 
 resurrection of Jesus, are dwelt upon and 
 strongly exaggerated. Paul, it is held, 
 knew, at least, cared, little for the earthly 
 life and teaching of Jesus ; his interest was 
 absorbed in the Heavenly Being who had 
 appeared to him on the road to Damascus, 
 and in the supposed meaning of His death 
 and resurrection for the salvation of the 
 world. In interpreting these facts Paul 
 
JESUS AND PAUL 143 
 
 drew on notions borrowed from his Rab- 
 binical training and Pharisaic experience, and 
 gave the events a quite new significance. 
 A theology of the Person of Christ (pre- 
 existence, incarnation), and of a work of 
 redemption, through endurance of death 
 as curse of the law, took the place of 
 the older, simpler conceptions. Professor 
 Schmiedel even thinks that it was Paul 
 who introduced the idea of Christ's sin- 
 lessness ! 
 
 So the Gospel of the simple, loving Man 
 of Galilee was changed and disfigured in 
 nearly all its features by the influence of 
 his so-called Apostle. The opponents were 
 right ; it was not they, but Paul, who 
 preached " another Gospel." In room of the 
 Kingdom of God now stood the Church — 
 the Kingdom being relegated to the future. 
 In room of the keeping of the law — the 
 doing the will of the Heavenly Father — 
 
144 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 now stood the abrogation of the law for 
 believers. In room of the inspiring example 
 of Jesus as He actually lived, and moved, 
 and taught among men, now stood a 
 machinery of redemption through the Cross, 
 with only the remotest allusions to Christ's 
 earthly life. Yet it is on the teaching of 
 Paul, we are reminded, almost exclusively, 
 that the theology of subsequent Chris- 
 tianity — especially Protestant theology— is 
 based. To get at the Christianity of Jesus, 
 Paul must be renounced. 
 
 II 
 
 It will be very evident that, if the fore- 
 going description is correct, Paul was an 
 even greater religious force than Jesus, for 
 Paul at least taught a universal Gospel of 
 grace and love for men, while Jesus did not. 
 Yet surely it is not difficult to see that, 
 while necessarily there must be a contrast 
 
JESUS AND PAUL 145 
 
 between Master and Apostle — between 
 
 Gospel and Epistle — the features of the 
 
 contrast are violently exaggerated. Gospel 
 
 and Epistle are not thus rudely to be torn 
 
 asunder. The Gospels, with their matchless 
 
 pictures of the historical Jesus, came from 
 
 the bosom of the apostolic community — 
 
 from circles charged with those very Pauline 
 
 ideas which are said to be opposed to their 
 
 representations. The Epistles, didactic and 
 
 hortatory in character, dealing largely with 
 
 practical questions which had arisen in the 
 
 Churches, are what we might expect them 
 
 to be, remembering that letters are not 
 
 biographies, and that, in the interval, Christ 
 
 had died, had risen again, had been exalted 
 
 to glory ; that the Spirit had been given, 
 
 and a Christian Church created. The 
 
 Christians in these communities, familiar 
 
 with the story of Christ's life, and instructed 
 
 in the meaning of His death and resurrec- 
 
 10 
 
146 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 tion by the Apostles, would have been the 
 most astonished people in the world to learn 
 that there was any antagonism between the 
 two things. Still more would Paul have 
 been amazed to be told that his Gospel was 
 in contradiction with the lessons of Christ's 
 life. Nobody then suspected such a thing ; 
 centuries of Christendom failed to find it 
 out ; only now has the cleverness of the 
 critics discovered it ! How many letters 
 of Christians one to another, it might be 
 asked, even at the present hour — how many 
 homilies, sermons, pastorals to Churches — 
 furnish details of Christ's doings and sayings, 
 and do not rather assume a knowledge of 
 these in their readers and hearers ? 
 
 It is foolish to talk, as some do, of Paul 
 as ignorant of the facts of Christ's earthly 
 history, because he does not recite them, 
 or make them the special basis of his gospel 
 of reconciliation. Alike from his personal 
 
JESUS AND PAUB 147 
 
 acquaintance with the heads of the Jerusalem 
 Church — he stayed with Peter for fourteen 
 days (Gal. i. 18) — from companions like 
 John, Mark, and Luke (the later evange- 
 hsts), and from the catechetical instruction 
 imparted to converts in every Church he 
 visited (cf Luke i. 1-4), he had the amplest 
 opportunities of knowing all that was to 
 be known about the history of Jesus ; and 
 it is impossible to doubt that he availed 
 himself to the full of such opportunities. 
 If the Epistles do not give incidents and 
 sayings, they at least, like Paul himself, 
 are saturated with Christ's spirit in a 
 manner which implies that the facts of 
 Christ's history were known, and that their 
 spirit had been imbibed ; while the constant 
 exhortations to like-mindedness to Christ, 
 and to obedience to His precepts — to 
 " imitation " of Christ — presume a similar 
 knowledge in his converts (Rom. xiii. 14 ; 
 
148 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 xiv. 14, 18 ; XV. 3 ; 1 Cor. xi. 1 ; vii. 10, 12 ; 
 Gal. vi. 2 ; Col. iii. 16 ; 1 Thess. i. 6, etc.). 
 The other Epistles, as little as Paul's, give 
 details of Christ's life. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It is not so strange as it at first appears 
 that Paul should throw the supreme emphasis 
 on the facts of Christ's death and resurrec- 
 tion, to the seeming (but only seeming) 
 neglect of the hfe that preceded ; for in 
 truth these w^ere the facts w^hich, in mag- 
 nitude and importance, once they had 
 happened, overshadowed all others in their 
 relation to salvation. Everything in this 
 dispute depends on what it is supposed that 
 Christ came into the world to do. On this, 
 as was seen before, the Gospels have their 
 own instructive word to offer. Jesus was 
 the Christ — the bringer-in of the Messianic 
 salvation. His life was a wondrous revela- 
 
JESUS AND PAUL U9 
 
 tion of the character and grace of God ; 
 but it was in His death and resurrection 
 that His work was brought to its all- 
 comprehending issue. A large part of the 
 Gospels is devoted to preparing for and 
 describing the tragedy of the death. The 
 momentum of the narrative — the absorbing 
 pressure of Christ's own mind — are towards 
 Calvary. " I have a baptism to be baptized 
 with," we hear Him saying, " and how am 
 I straitened till it be accomplished ? " (Luke 
 xii. 50 ; cf. Mark x. 32). But with the 
 death, as seen also, was always joined the 
 resurrection. In the Cross sin seemed to 
 triumph. In the resurrection was demon- 
 strated the perfect triumph of the Redeemer 
 over both sin and death ; the opening of 
 the gates of an endless life to His people ! 
 Why, then, the submission to suffering and 
 death at all ? Because, said Jesus, it had 
 to be so, if His mission as Saviour was to 
 
150 JESUS AND PAUE 
 
 be accomplished. The Son of Man must 
 die ; He came " to give His life a ransom 
 for many" (Matt. x. 28). 
 
 Is it not intelligible how, after this great 
 saving work had been completed, and Christ 
 had ascended to His glory in the heavens, 
 the centre of gravity, in the preaching oi 
 the Apostles should be shifted from the 
 life to the death and rising again ? Could 
 it, in the nature of things, have been other- 
 wise ? If it is in His death that Christ 
 has supremely reconciled us to God, must 
 not that fact now take the leading place 
 in all that is declared regarding Him ? 
 The life is not ignored — far from it. All 
 that was in Christ's life is gathered up in 
 concentrated form in the Cross ; without 
 the life, the Cross could not have been. 
 But the Cross is the decisive turning-point 
 for human salvation. Man's first need is 
 to be set right with God ; this is done at 
 
JESUS AND PAUL 151 
 
 the Cross. Then comes the obligation to 
 hoHness and service, and here the image 
 of Christ's earthly life reasserts its rights 
 as exhibiting the model to which we are 
 to be conformed. 
 
 As Avas to be expected, therefore, it is 
 not in Paul only, but in all the leading 
 apostolic writings — in the Epistles of Peter, 
 of John, to the Hebrews, the Book of 
 Revelation — that this insistence on the 
 redeeming death, and on the resurrection, 
 of Christ is to be observed. The early 
 discourses in Acts concentrate on these 
 facts, and on the remission of sins in the 
 name of the crucified and now exalted 
 Jesus (Acts ii. 22-38 ; iii. 13-26 ; iv. 8-12). 
 Paul himself declares that his preaching 
 was the common doctrine of the Churches. 
 " I delivered unto you first of all that 
 which also I received: that Christ died 
 for our sins according to the Scriptures ; 
 
152 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 and that He was buried ; and that He hath 
 been raised on the third day, according to 
 the Scriptures" (1 Cor. xv. 3, 4). Accord- 
 ingly, while Peter holds Christ up as an 
 example (1 Pet. ii. 21, still with special 
 reference to suffering), it is, throughout. 
 His death and resurrection to which pro- 
 minence is given. The Epistle to the 
 Hebrews is devoted to Christ's priesthood 
 and sacrifice. The songs of the redeemed 
 in the Apocalypse celebrate a blood-bought 
 salvation (Rev. v. 9 ; vii. 9-12). Paul is 
 therefore at one with the general apostohc 
 Gospel — a Gospel which has its ground in 
 the facts, not in speculations of the 
 Apostles' own minds. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was thus inevitable that, after the 
 death and resurrection of Jesus, a change 
 should take place in the presentation of 
 
JESUS AND PAUL 153 
 
 the truth of the Gospel ; but there are 
 otlier reasons which make the contrasts 
 that appear between the Gospels and 
 Epistles more clearly intelligible. The 
 fallacy which underlies most of the reason- 
 ing on this subject lies in ignoring the 
 necessary contrast in the positions of the 
 Apostle and His Lord. So long as Jesus 
 is looked on simply as one great teacher, 
 and Paul as another, on the same or like 
 planes of influence, the contrasts naturally 
 present a puzzle. But this is not the true 
 relation. Paul was sinner ; Jesus was 
 Saviour. Paul was disciple ; Jesus was 
 Lord. Paul was weak, struggling man ; 
 Jesus was Son of God. Paul spoke as the 
 ambassador of another ; Jesus spoke with 
 an authority of His own. Jesus achieved 
 redemption ; Paul by faith appropriated 
 it. These things involved the widest con- 
 trasts in attitude and speech. It is an 
 
154 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 obliteration of all the actualities of the 
 situation to put Paul and Jesus in the 
 same line. 
 
 Take only the one vital contrast — Christ's 
 sinlessness, and Paul's experience of sin 
 under the law. Jesus " knew no sin " 
 (2 Cor. V. 21). His life was one of un- 
 broken unity of will and disposition with 
 the Father. He knew Himself to be separ- 
 ate from sinners, and presented Himself as 
 the Saviour of sinners. With Paul, on 
 the other hand, sin was an ever-present ex- 
 perience (Rom. vii. 14-23). The law, in 
 revealing the spirituality of God's require- 
 ment, but intensified the power of sin 
 within him (vv. 12, 13). His striving 
 after righteousness was a failure. Not till 
 he found deliverance through the law of 
 the Spirit of life in Christ was sin overcome 
 (Rom. vii. 24, 25 ; viii. 1, 2). How could 
 a writer, speaking from such experience, do 
 
JESUS AND PAUL 155 
 
 other than magnify the grace which had 
 deUvered him from so wretched a condition 
 — first, from the law's condemnation ; next, 
 from the sin's power ! Paul's experience is 
 the key to his theology. It is the theology 
 of the sinner who is saved. Its standpoint 
 is necessarily in contrast with that of the 
 I^ord who delivers. 
 
 V 
 The charge that Paul's theology is derived 
 from Rabbinic notions alien to the teaching 
 of Jesus may be dismissed with slight 
 notice. A careful study of the facts refutes 
 it. Christ's doctrine of the law is not in 
 discord with Paul's. The ceremonial law 
 falls away in both, while the moral law has 
 its obligation expanded and strengthened. 
 Yet it is not through law, but through faith, 
 accepting God's forgiving grace, that any 
 sinner can be saved. Paul repels the charge 
 that his Gospel relaxes the obligations of 
 
156 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 the moral law (Rom. iii. 8). " Do we then 
 make the law of none effect through faith ? 
 God forbid ; nay, we establish the law " 
 (Rom. iii. 31). The very aim of redemp- 
 tion is that " the ordinance of the law 
 might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after 
 the flesh, but after the Spirit "(Rom. viii. 4). 
 The dignity, again, which Paul ascribes to 
 Jesus is not contrary to Christ's own teach- 
 ing ; it is, as was formerly shown, the 
 necessary interpretation of Christ's own 
 claims ; is taken for granted, besides, as the 
 doctrine of the whole apostolic Church. Is 
 it, then, the nomenclature of " justification " 
 by faith that is strange ? But new needs 
 call forth new terms ; and Paul is here 
 expounding a doctrine not in accordance 
 with, but in antithesis to, Pharisaic claims 
 to a righteousness through the law.^ That 
 
 ' A. Ritschl has justly said : " It would be a mistaken 
 purism were any one to prefer the less developed statements 
 
JESUS AND PAUL 157 
 
 pretension Paul strikes dead with effective 
 reasoning, and shows that only through 
 Christ's propitiatory work, and renewal by 
 the Spirit, can righteousness be attained. 
 Forgiveness is not a mere amnesty. It is a 
 boon coming to men on a righteous basis — 
 a " righteousness of God," grounded on 
 what Christ has done for mankind in His 
 death. 
 
 It is, then, possibly, the Cross itself, as 
 Paul gloried in it, which is the offence ; the 
 doctrine of " redemption through His blood, 
 the forgiveness of our trespasses, according 
 to the riches of His grace " (Eph. i. 7). 
 
 of Jesus to the forms of apostolic thought. Nay, more, we 
 are justified in not paring down the most developed forms of 
 the Pauline system, hut preserving them in theological usage, 
 for they serve to express most sharply the opposition between 
 Christianity and Judaism. ... By means of the Pauline 
 formulas the uniqueness of Christianity is marked off from 
 the Pharisaic falsification of the religion of the Old Testa- 
 ment, and thereby the Christian Church most surely pro- 
 tected against a recrudescence of the latter error." — Justif 
 and Rscon. iii., p. 3. (E. T.) 
 
158 JESUS AND PAUL 
 
 This declaration, however, as was also 
 shown, has its connection with Christ's own 
 words, and will everlastingly stand as part 
 of the original apostolic (not simply Pauline) 
 Gospel. Paul's doctrine is simply an eluci- 
 dation of this truth in its connection with 
 the economy of law, with universal sin, and 
 with the demands of righteousness springing 
 from the very nature of God. Sin and 
 guilt are realities, and cannot be simply con- 
 doned. Holiness must be magnified even 
 in sin's forgiveness. The unrighteousness 
 of the world must be met by a righteous- 
 ness in the new Head of the race — by 
 honour even to the punitive aspect of the 
 Divine righteousness in submitting to the 
 uttermost effect of sin in humanity, in a 
 death at the hands of sinners — a tribute to 
 the moral order in the world which only the 
 sinless Son of God could render (cf Rom. 
 iii. 20-31 ; v. 8-21). On this basis, that 
 
JESUS AND PAUE 159 
 
 " God was in Christ reconciling the world 
 unto Himself," the message goes forth : 
 " Be ye reconciled to God " (2 Cor. v. 19-21). 
 Dead to sin with Christ ; ahve to God 
 through the Spirit ; "in hope of eternal 
 life, which God, who cannot lie, promised 
 before times eternal " (Titus i. 2) — this 
 is Paul's Gospel for the world. 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 11 
 
IX 
 
 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 "TT is not as an institution, but as a 
 witness to the Christian faith, that 
 the Early Church is here to be considered. 
 It is manifestly impossible, however, alto- 
 gether to dissociate the one aspect from the 
 other. The question arises, first, as to 
 what the Church is, and what function 
 its Lord intended it to fulfil. 
 
 Did Jesus mean to found a Church, or 
 visible society of believers, in the world ; 
 and, if He did, what was His purpose in 
 
 163 
 
164 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 founding it ? By some it is contended that 
 Jesus did not contemplate any such separate 
 society of His disciples. He expected an 
 immediate end of the world, and aimed 
 only at individual conversions. This, how^- 
 ever, is at variance with the whole tenor 
 of the Gospels. Apart from direct mention 
 of a " Church " {ecclesia, Matt. xvi. 18 ; xviii. 
 17 — passages which the objectors would ex- 
 punge), it seems plain that Jesus did regard 
 it as part of His vocation to found a 
 "Kingdom" in this world (Matt. xiii. 
 parables of Sower, Tares, etc. ; John 
 xviii. 36, 37), anticipated its growth and 
 enlargement (Mark iv. 26-32), and the 
 gathering of men of all nations into it 
 (Matt. viii. 11 ; xxi. 43 ; John xii. 32), 
 predicted for it troubles and persecutions, 
 with mingling of good and evil, and 
 apostacies (Matt. x. 13 ; xxiv. 4-14, etc.) 
 — the dispensation to be ended by His 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 165 
 
 " Parousia," or return in glory (Matt. xxiv. 
 25, etc.). 
 
 In consonance with this conception, Jesus 
 is found choosing and training twelve 
 Apostles (Matt. x. 13 ; xi. 51-2, etc.), giving 
 them directions and rules for discipline 
 (Matt, xviii. 15-20), appointing sacraments 
 (Matt. xxvi. 26-29, etc., the Lord's Supper ; 
 xxviii. 19, Baptism : cf. 1 Cor. xi. 23 fF.), 
 promising the Spirit to His waiting disciples 
 (Luke xxiv. 49 ; John xv. 7-15 ; cf Acts 
 ii.), giving commission to evangehse the 
 world (Matt, xxviii. 19, 20 ; cf. xxiv. 14 ; 
 Mark xvi. 15), promising to be with His 
 people to the end (Matt, xviii. 20 ; xxviii. 
 20). He is a householder who will leave 
 stewards in charge in His absence (Matt. 
 xxiv. 42-51, etc.). How, indeed, could the 
 work of Christ be saved from losing itself 
 in the world except by some form of society 
 in which His adherents were bound together 
 
166 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 for fellowship, testimony, and labour for 
 His cause ? Christ's disciples are exhorted 
 to fidelity, to unity, to love, to mutual 
 helpfulness. How was this possible if there 
 was not some mode of public recognition ? 
 
 The function which the Church is to 
 discharge in the world is already imphed in 
 what has been said of Christ's object in 
 creating it. " Church " and " Kingdom " 
 are not precisely the same, for the " King- 
 dom," as seen before, is a name for God's 
 rule in all departments of human life (family, 
 society, business, state, etc.). But the 
 Church is still the one Society which visibly 
 represents God's Kingdom in the world, 
 and it exists for the ends of this Kingdom. 
 It is the association of the members of the 
 Kingdom in their directly religious capacity 
 for the purposes of fellowship, of worship, 
 of testimony, of edification, of the further- 
 ance of the Gospel at home and the 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 167 
 
 evangelisation of the world abroad. It is 
 by its fitness to accomplish these ends — by 
 the degree in which it manifests the spirit 
 of Christ, and exhibits Christ and His truth 
 faithfully to men, by its zeal and self- 
 sacrifice in promoting His cause — not by 
 barren orthodoxy of creed, or pompous 
 splendour of ritual in service — that it will 
 be judged at the last (Matt. vii. 21-23). 
 
 II 
 
 The Church, founded by Christ, and 
 launched into the world, after consecration 
 by the Spirit, through the preaching of the 
 life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, had a 
 wonderful history of suffering and success, 
 which it is not our business here to trace. 
 From the Jews, who as a people shut their 
 hearts against its message, it spread, at first 
 mainly through Paul's labours, among the 
 Gentiles, and by the close of the Apostolic 
 
168 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 Age had established itself in most of the 
 great centres of Greek and Roman civilisa- 
 tion. Persecutions, terrible in cruelty, had 
 overtaken it (cf. Rev. ii. 10-13 ; vii. 13, 14) ; 
 but this baptism of blood had only purified 
 its ranks and aided its increase. It is a 
 mistake to think of the early Christian con- 
 verts as drawn only from the lower strata 
 of society. The Catacombs at Rome, with 
 other notices, show that already members 
 of the noblest families, and not a few 
 possessed of wealth, were included in its 
 numbers. Pomponia Grscina, Flavins 
 Clemens, the consul, and his wife Domitilla, 
 Manius Acilius Glabrio, may be cited as 
 instances.^ A crypt of the Flavians shows, 
 as Harnack says, that " an entire branch of 
 the Flavian family had embraced the 
 Christian faith." ^ 
 
 ' See the writer's book, Neglected Factors in the Study of 
 the Early Progress of Christianity , pp. 113 fF. 
 ' lUd, p. 124. 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 169 
 
 It was indeed, a difficult situation in 
 which the Church found itself when hereft 
 of the teaching and guidance of Christ's 
 Apostles. The Church had spread widely, 
 and had struck its roots deeply into society. 
 But it was helpless and unprotected — a 
 flock of sheep in the midst of wolves (Matt. 
 X. 16 ; Acts X. 29). The voices of a Paul, 
 a Peter, a James, had long been silent ; the 
 Apostle John alone lingered on till near 
 the end of the first century. Its new 
 leaders — many of them, as Clement of 
 Rome, Ignatius of Antioch, the Martyr, 
 noble and devoted men — were far inferior 
 to the Apostles in gifts and spiritual power. 
 This is manifest in the great drop every one 
 can discern from the originality and strength 
 of the books of the New Testament to the 
 tamer level of the post-apostolic writings — 
 itself an evidence of the exceptional inspira- 
 tion and genuineness of the former. Heresies 
 
170 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 had developed, as the Epistles show (cf. 
 1 Cor. XV. 12; Col. ii. 8, 18; 1 Tim. i. 19, 20; 
 vi. 3, 4 ; 2 Tim. ii. 16-18 ; iii. 6-8 ; iv. 3, 4 ; 
 1 John ii. 18 ; iv. 1-3). Manifold corrup- 
 tions had found their way into the Churches 
 (2 Tim. iii. 1-5 ; 2 Pet. ii. ; Jude ; Rev. ii. 
 20, etc.). 
 
 It added to the difficulty that at this 
 stage the Church was destitute of most of 
 the aids it afterwards possessed for coping 
 with opposition and error. Its organisation 
 was as yet comparatively simple. There 
 was no formal creed, no recognised canon 
 of Scripture, no council to which appeal 
 could be made. In this condition it had to 
 encounter the brunt of fierce pagan perse- 
 cutions, and, what was even more formid- 
 able, the inrush of Gnostic heresy, which 
 threatened to sweep away the whole historic 
 faith in a flood of allegorisings and Oriental 
 speculations. " The crisis," says Dr. Hatch, 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 171 
 
 " was one the gravity of which it would be 
 difficult to overestimate. There have been 
 crises since in the history of Christianity, 
 but there is none which equals in its im- 
 portance this, upon the issue of which it 
 depended for all time, whether Christianity 
 should be regarded as a body of revealed 
 doctrine, or as the caput mortuum of a 
 hundred philosophies — whether the basis of 
 Christianity should be a definite and 
 definitely interpreted creed, or a chaos of 
 speculations." ^ 
 
 III 
 
 One of the most interesting things in 
 the study of early Christianity is to observe 
 how the Church met the difficulties which 
 thus gathered thickly around it. Assailed, 
 persecuted, defamed, one thing it had to 
 do was to create an Apology — defence ; and 
 
 ' Organisation of Early Christian Churches, p. 96. 
 
172 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 here learned men who had been drawn into 
 its ranks put skilful pens at its service in 
 refuting calumny and exposing the irration- 
 alities of paganism. A yet nobler apology 
 was written in the tears and blood of the 
 Christians themselves, and in the examples 
 of beautiful and holy lives they set before 
 the eyes of the heathen. The new spirit 
 of self-denying love which Christianity 
 breathed into the world awoke wonder from 
 its very strangeness in that ancient society. 
 It was, however, the great Gnostic con- 
 troversy, in which, as just said, everything 
 in Christianity was at stake, which specially 
 moved the Church to the tasks needful for 
 the securing of its position and the safety 
 of the truth. 
 
 It was no doubt the difficulties of the 
 Church's situation which largely aided the 
 development of the Monarchical Epis- 
 copacy, which, from the beginning of the 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 173 
 
 second century, we see replacing the older 
 organisation of " presbyters" and " deacons" 
 — the former name, as is now commonly 
 acknowledged, being in the New Testa- 
 ment used interchangeably with "bishops."^ 
 There was the call for a strong man at the 
 helm, that the forces of division might be 
 the more effectively checked. Even in the 
 time of Ignatius, however, the episcopacy was 
 still local and congregational. " The primi- 
 tive Christian bishop," Dr. Gore allows, 
 "was the pastor of a small flock in many 
 cases." ^ But the need had early been felt 
 of having the truths received from the 
 Apostles committed " to faithful men, who 
 should be able to teach others also " (2 Tim. 
 ii. 2). The Church at its core thus re- 
 mained sound, and substantial guarantees 
 
 ' The question of apostolic sanction for the change is left 
 untouched^ as aside from the purpose of these papers. 
 * Orders and Unity, p 134. 
 
174 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 were taken for the transmission of a sound 
 apostolic tradition. This gave rise in the 
 second century to the idea of a continuous, 
 historical episcopate, to which was en- 
 trusted, by divine ordinance, the guardian- 
 ship and handing down of the truth 
 (Irenaeus, TertuUian, etc.) — a function 
 which, in fact, the bishops of that age did 
 in the main honourably fulfil. 
 
 IV 
 
 It was still not on the bare word of any 
 episcopate, however honoured, that the 
 Church based its confidence in the Christian 
 facts and doctrines ; bishops and teachers 
 had themselves to furnish proof of the 
 soundness of their tradition. This they did 
 by appeal to the " Rule of Faith " — or form 
 of public confession — in use in the apostolic 
 Churches, and to the Apostolic Writings, 
 which now, under stress of circumstances, 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 175 
 
 began to be gathered into a sacred 
 " Canon." As yet, with the exception of 
 the Gospels, which Justin tells us were 
 read every Sunday in the assemblies of the 
 Christians,^ and perhaps certain of Paul's 
 Epistles, these writings had circulated in a 
 semi-private manner, or only locally. Now 
 they were brought together — with slight 
 differences in East and West (only 2 Peter 
 being wholly wanting) — as inspired produc- 
 tions, and were stamped as of equal authority 
 with the Old Testament.' Thus arose the 
 idea of a New Testament. The Fathers of 
 
 ' That these Gospek were the same as ours is attested by 
 Tatian's Diatessaron, now recovered. Tatian was a disciple 
 of Justin. 
 
 * Westcott says : " Of the New Testament, the four Gospels, 
 the Acts, thirteen Epistles of St. Paul (for the partial 
 omission of the Epistle to Philemon is obviously accidental), 
 1 Peter, 1 John were universally received in every Church, 
 without doubt or limitation, as part of the written rule of 
 Christian faith, equal in authority with the Old Scriptures 
 and ratified (as it seemed) by a tradition reaching back to 
 the days of their composition " {Bible in the Church, p. 133). 
 
176 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 the close of the second century used these 
 books as we do ourselves. 
 
 This first great service of the Early 
 Church in giving us a New Testament 
 Canon of Scripture has to be connected 
 with the other, in furnishing us with the 
 original form of what is now known as 
 the Apostles' Creed. This Creed had its 
 origin in the form of baptismal confession 
 in use at Rome, and, in substantial agree- 
 ment with the Roman, in aU the great 
 apostolic Churches, as abundantly attested 
 by the Fathers of the close of the second 
 and beginning of the third centuries. The 
 name given to it, the " Rule of Faith," 
 indicates the authority with which it had 
 come to be clothed. It testified to the 
 unity of belief in the Church, and was 
 appealed to as a check on the fantastic 
 allegorical interpretations of Scripture by 
 the Gnostics. At first a confession of the 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 177 
 
 • 
 
 individual, it became, through its employ- 
 ment, a public Creed of the Church — the 
 first of all Creeds. The old Roman form 
 of it goes back to before a.d. 140. It is 
 a simple statement, in undoctrinal language, 
 of the great facts and truths of the Christian 
 religion — specially those connected with the 
 birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ — and has held its place as a summary 
 of essential truths till the present hour. 
 
 This oldest of Creeds is of peculiar value 
 in its testimony to the cardinal facts of the 
 Virgin Birth and the Resurrection of Christ, 
 in these days so vigorously assailed. There 
 is no sect or party in the Early Church, 
 outside the Pharisaic Ebionites (to whom 
 Jesus was only a man distinguished for 
 his legal piety), and some of the Gnostics, 
 which did not accept the article of the Virgin 
 Birth. It was strenuously defended by all 
 
 Church writers. 
 
 12 
 
178 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 V 
 
 Mention need only, finally, be made of 
 the great services rendered by the numerous 
 writers of the Early Church to the develop- 
 ment of a sound Christian Theology. The 
 need of doctrinal statement became urgent 
 in defence of the truth against various 
 groups of errorists ; and thus formulas were 
 slowly developed, which passed later into 
 the recognised Creeds of the Church. The 
 writings of the sub-apostolic age (" Apos- 
 tolic Fathers ") are not marked by a strong 
 theological ^interest, but one cannot but be 
 struck by their uniformly high Christology. 
 The Apologists (Justin Martyr, etc.) give 
 prominence to the " Logos " or " Word " 
 of God, who became incarnate in Jesus. 
 Justin is particularly valuable in the light 
 he throws on early Christian observances 
 (Sunday, Christian worship, the Eucharist, 
 
THE EARLY CHURCH 179 
 
 etc.). In opposition to the Gnostics, all 
 the writers defend the true humanity of 
 Jesus, as well as His essential Godhead. 
 The third century was marked by the rise 
 of what are called the " Monarchian " 
 heresies, in opposition to the doctrine of 
 the Trinity. Jesus was either a "mere 
 man" (Artemonites, etc.), or it was the 
 Father Himself who became incarnate and 
 suffered in Jesus (Patripassianism), or the 
 Trinity in God was but successive " modes " 
 or " aspects " of the one undivided "Monas " 
 (Sabellianism). Against these errors the 
 early Catholic writers maintained a vigorous 
 polemic, with the result that by and by 
 they were discredited, and set aside as 
 contrary to the true faith of the Church. 
 Arianism raised its head in the beginning 
 of the fourth century, claiming that the 
 Son, while the highest of created beings, 
 and God's agent in the creation of the 
 
180 THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 world, was not truly of divine essence or 
 eternal. This met emphatic condemnation 
 at the Council of Nicasa in a.d. 325. These 
 theological gains of the Early Church abide, 
 and deserve the gratitude of the ages. 
 
PROTESTANTISM AND ROMAN 
 CATHOLICISM 
 
X 
 
 PROTESTANTISM AND ROMAN 
 CATHOLICISM 
 
 /CHRISTENDOM to-day presents a 
 strangely variegated aspect. There 
 never, indeed, has been a time when, within 
 the Church, diverse tendencies did not exist, 
 leading, in numerous historical instances, 
 to the rise of communions outside the main 
 body (Montanists, Donatists, Nestorians, 
 Monophysites, etc.). The great cleft prior 
 to the Reformation was that into the 
 Greek and Latin Churches — the former 
 rejecting the supremacy of the Pope. Pro- 
 testant Churches were grouped at first 
 mainly as " Lutheran " (German) and 
 
 183 
 
184 PROTESTANTISM AND 
 
 "Reformed" (Swiss), divided principally 
 on the doctrine of the Supper, on aspects 
 of the doctrine of Christ's Person, and on 
 predestination. Since then Protestantism 
 has developed into a multiplicity of sects 
 and denominations all but defying com- 
 putation. The Anglican Church, Pro- 
 testant in origin, is claimed by some as 
 a branch of the Catholic Church, distinct 
 from both Latin and Greek. Still, w^hen 
 the matter is looked into, the unity in 
 essential belief in Evangelical Churches is 
 found to be far greater than might be 
 inferred from the external divisions (witness 
 the hymn-books of the Churches) ; and for 
 practical purposes it will be sufficient to 
 glance at the two main forms in which 
 Christianity appears in the countries with 
 which we are familiar — Protestantism and 
 Roman Catholicism. 
 
ROMAN CATHOLICISM 185 
 
 I 
 
 A few words, first, in explanation of the 
 terms Protestant and Catholic. The word 
 " Protestant " took its origin fi-om the 
 celebrated " Protest " of the reforming 
 members of the Second Diet of Spires, 
 April 1529, when the attempt was made 
 to annul hberties conferred by a previous 
 Diet. Subsequently, on the Decree being 
 passed, the Protest was issued in a more 
 formal and expanded shape. Thenceforth 
 the term became the designation of all 
 friends of the Reformation, combining the 
 ideas of a protestation on behalf of Scriptural 
 truth, and a protest against the errors of 
 the Church of Rome. The keynote is 
 struck in words of the original declaration : 
 "For all who receive, or who shall here- 
 after receive, the Word of God." 
 
 The word " Catholic ' has a more compli- 
 
186 PROTESTANTISM AND 
 
 cated history. The attempt to oppose 
 this word to " Protestant," and to refuse 
 to Protestants a right to its use, is justly 
 to be resisted. The term is not found in 
 the earhest form of the Apostles' Creed, 
 which reads simply, " The Holy Church." ' 
 In its oldest use — in Ignatius, for example — 
 " Catholic " meant, as Harnack concedes, 
 simply " universal." " Where Christ is," 
 writes Ignatius, " there is the CathoUc 
 Church."^ This meaning was never lost. 
 "The Church of God is caUed Catholic," 
 says Cyril of Jerusalem (fourth century), in 
 an exposition of the Creed, "because she 
 extends through the whole world, from 
 the one end to the other." By the end 
 of the second century a more definite 
 usage had grown up. " Catholic " denoted 
 
 ' The Lutheran Church changes the word " Catholic '' in 
 the Creed to "Christian." 
 5 " To the Smyrneans," 8. 
 
ROIVIAN CATHOLICISM 187 
 
 then, in opposition to heresy and schism, 
 the Church which, resting on the " Rule 
 of Faith " (Apostles' Creed), had its unity 
 in a divinely ordained episcopate— the guar- 
 dian of the faith and seat of authority 
 in the Church. By C5'^prian's time, half 
 a century later (a.d. 250), it had added 
 to it the notion of the priesthood of the 
 clergy. Still later came the acknowledg- 
 ment of the Pope of Rome as the head 
 of the episcopal organisation. If these 
 later ideas imported into the term belong 
 to its essence, the right of Protestants to 
 its use must be, of course, surrendered. 
 Since, however, Protestants can go back 
 to a more fundamental meaning of the 
 word, which also was its original one in 
 Church usage, they are plainly not called 
 on to abandon it because afterwards it 
 became unscripturally narrowed down. 
 
188 PROTESTANTISM AND 
 
 II 
 
 The sixteenth-century Reformation may 
 be described briefly as a revolt in principle 
 from the whole idea of mediaeval Christianity ; 
 an attempt to get back to Scriptural 
 simplicity in doctrine and Church order. 
 It was a protest against the Papacy — 
 against its hierarchical system, with the 
 abuses, corruptions, and intolerable usurpa- 
 tions that had grown up in connection 
 with it ; against its monastic system, and 
 enforced celibacy of the clergy ; against 
 its doctrinal system — its adding of tradition 
 to Scripture, its doctrine of the Mass, its 
 obscuring and perverting of justification 
 by merging it in baptism, and connecting 
 it with works ; its doctrines of penance, 
 indulgences, purgatory, etc. These things, 
 with the papal claims generally, the Re- 
 formers swept entirely away, declaring 
 them to be neither Apostolical, Scriptural, 
 
ROMAN CATHOLICISM 183 
 
 nor Primitive, and upholding in their place 
 the supreme authority and sufficiency of 
 Holy Scripture, the universal priesthood of 
 believers, a non-priestly ministry, the lawful- 
 ness of the marriage of the clergy, justifica- 
 tion by faith alone, and good vsrorks as the 
 fruit of faith, not as a cause of salvation. 
 
 To judge how far the Reformers were 
 justified in this uncompromising rejection 
 of Roman claims and doctrines, it is neces- 
 sary to look a little more closely at the 
 nature and grounds of these claivis. 
 
 The Roman Church, as built upon the 
 rock of Christ's promise to St. Peter, " Thou 
 art Peter," etc. (Matt. xvi. 18), claims to 
 be one and unchanging, incapable of error 
 in doctrine, and in the person of its head, 
 the Pope of Rome, successor of St. Peter, 
 and Christ's vicegerent on earth, exercising 
 an unchallengeable supremacy in the 
 Church, and (were its rights conceded to 
 
190 PROTESTANTISM AND 
 
 it) over secular States as well. This, its 
 fundamental claim, rests on a series of 
 propositions of the boldest kind. Such 
 are — that St. Peter was invested by Christ 
 with a primacy among the Apostles and in 
 the Church ; that this primacy descended 
 to successors and continues ; that St. Peter 
 was the first Bishop of Rome ; that the 
 Roman bishops are his successors ; that 
 the succession of these bishops has remained 
 from the beginning unbroken and inviolate ; 
 that the Pope, in his official capacity, is 
 infallible ; that he possesses a temporal as 
 well as a spiritual supremacy. Claims these, 
 so vast in their scope as to be well-nigh 
 unthinkable ; so daring, when read in the 
 light of the forms they have assumed in 
 history, as almost to take one's breath away; 
 so presumptuous that, if not true, they 
 verge on the blasphemous 1 But are they 
 justified ? 
 
ROMAN CATHOLICISM 191 
 
 III 
 
 The claims in question, fortunately, admit 
 of being brought to the bar of Scripture 
 and of History, and here, it is plainest fact 
 to say, they break down utterly. Impartial 
 interpretation of Christ's promise to St. 
 Peter in no way upholds the theory of a 
 general rule of that Apostle over the whole 
 Church — a rule of which the apostolic 
 history and Epistles afford not the slightest 
 ghmpse. St. Peter, in his great confession, 
 speaks, not for himself, but for the whole 
 Apostolate. It is not the man, but the 
 confessing Apostle, to whom the word is 
 given, "Upon this rock I will build My 
 Church." The Church was built on the 
 confession and teaching of the Apostles — 
 all of them — "Jesus Christ Himself being 
 the chief comer-stone " (Ephes. ii. 20 ; cf. 
 1 Cor. iii. 11). 
 
 St. Peter, again, may have been at Rome 
 
192 PROTESTANTISM AND 
 
 in the very end of his life, and may have 
 suffered death there ; but that he was ever 
 " Bishop " of Rome, or in that capacity 
 exercised any general rule over the Church, 
 is unhist07'ical fiction. With this falls the 
 idea of a transmission of authority to 
 Roman bishops (Popes) in unbroken suc- 
 cession to the present day. The succession 
 itself is a fiction (anti-Popes, Papal 
 Schism). From its political position and 
 importance the Church at Rome gradually 
 rose to honour and pre-eminence ; but the 
 attempts of its bishops in early times to 
 dominate the Church were strenuously 
 resisted (e.g., by Iren^us and Cyprian). 
 The claim to infallibility is a late growth ; 
 became a " dogma " only in 1870.^ More 
 
 ' In the Romau Catholic controversies of the eighteenth 
 and nineteenth centuries in England it was again and again 
 declared that " it was not an article of Catholic faith . . . 
 that the Pope is infallible." Keenan's Catechism, up to its 
 24th edition, declared this to be " a Protestant invention." 
 
ROMAN CATHOLICISM 193 
 
 than one of the Popes was tainted with 
 heresy. Zephyrinus and Callistus (beginning 
 of third century) are accused by Hippolytus 
 at once of doctrinal heresy and of scandalous 
 laxity in discipline.^ Pope Honorius I. 
 was condemned and anathematised by the 
 Sixth Ecumenical Council (a.d. 680) for 
 holding the Monothelite heresy. Succeed- 
 ing Popes down to the eleventh century 
 endorsed this condemnation in an oath at 
 their accession. The claim to temporal 
 supremacy rests on equally fictitious founda- 
 tions (Donation of Constantine ; Forged 
 Isidorian Decretals). 
 
 The whole structure of papal arrogancy 
 thus falls at the slightest touch of historical 
 criticism. It is not otherwise with the 
 doctrinal development — with the changes, 
 e.g., which multiplied the two simple sacra- 
 ments of the New Testament into seven, 
 
 ' Refutation of all Heresies, Book IX. 
 
 13 
 
194 PROTESTANTISM AND 
 
 and gave them so magical a character ; 
 which transformed the bread and wine of 
 the Supper into the Hteral substance of the 
 body and blood of the Lord ; which con- 
 verted the ministry of the word of apostolic 
 times into a " sacrificing priesthood " ; which 
 made the Lord's table an " altar " on which 
 the sacrifice of Calvary was reoffered (the 
 Mass) ; which forbade marriage to priests 
 and monks ; which evolved the doctrines 
 of the perpetual virginity, then of the actual 
 sinlessness, then of the immaculate con- 
 ception of Mary ; which made her, with 
 saints and angels, an object of worship ; 
 which made justification an inward change 
 accomplished in baptism and completed in 
 good works ; which, when grace is lost, 
 elaborated a complicated scheme of penance 
 for its restoration, aided by indulgences 
 (application of superfluous merits of the 
 saints), and by purgatory (a place where 
 
ROMAN CATHOLICISM 195 
 
 the balance of temporal penalty is worked 
 off). Not one of these figments has a 
 foundation in the teaching of Christ and 
 His Apostles ; the history of each can be 
 exactly traced ; the centuries can be pointed 
 to when they were unknown, and when 
 their introduction was resisted by Catholic 
 writers. The Reformers had thus the 
 amplest justification for their overthrow of 
 the whole obnoxious system. 
 
 IV 
 
 The Reformation was not only a conflict 
 with a vast and powerful hierarchical organi- 
 sation accustomed to crush out resistance 
 to its will by relentless persecution — fire, 
 sword. Inquisition — and an overturning of 
 mountain-piles of error and superstition, 
 hoary with the sanction of ages ; it was a 
 struggle with an appalling moral corruption 
 in the Church which, though recognised as 
 
196 PROTESTANTISM AND 
 
 the crying scandal of the age, nothing 
 seemed able to stay. " Reform in head 
 and members " was the watchword of those 
 who wished for better things. The clamour 
 was loud for a Council to set things right. 
 When, later, a Council was got together 
 — that of Trent — reform was found to be 
 the last thing it cared to meddle with. 
 
 Meanwhile, other influences were slowly 
 but surely precipitating a change. The 
 " Revival of Learning " had come ; atten- 
 tion was being bestowed on the study of 
 the Scriptures in Hebrew and Greek ; dis- 
 covery was enlarging men's minds as to 
 the world around them and the heavens 
 above them ; printing had furnished a 
 means for the diffusion of knowledge. 
 " Renaissance," however, was not yet 
 " Reformation," nor would it ever of itself 
 have produced the moral and spiritual 
 revolution which came from the preaching 
 
ROMAN CATHOLICISM 197 
 
 of the truths of a reopened Bible and a 
 new-found Gospel. While Luther's name 
 will ever be the foremost in the history of 
 the Reformation, it should not be forgotten 
 that God's Spirit was moving, not in 
 Luther's heart only, but in many hearts in 
 other lands, and that the Reformation had 
 not one but several distinct origins. Le 
 Fevre, in France, and Zwingli, in Switzer- 
 land, had renounced the Papal errors, and 
 were preaching a comparatively pure Gospel, 
 before Luther's name was heard of 
 
 V 
 
 The two great facts which marked 
 the Reformation as a spiritual movement 
 were : 
 
 1 . The return to the Holy Scriptures as 
 the only authoritative standard of faith 
 and morals in the Church ; and 
 
 2. The preaching of the G-ospel of the 
 
198 PROTESTANTISM AND 
 
 free grace of God in salvation — the sole 
 Mediatorship of Christ, justification for 
 Christ's sake by faith alone, the free grace 
 of God's Spirit in the work of sanctifica- 
 tion. 
 
 The Reformers exalted the Scriptures. 
 It was not, as is sometimes said, that they 
 put an infallible Book in place of an in- 
 fallible Pope or Church, for the claim they 
 made for the Bible, as infallibly conveying 
 to men the Word of God, was no higher 
 than the claim the Bible made for itself, 
 or which Christ, the Apostles, and the Early 
 Church made for it. The Romanists had 
 no such basis for their doctrine of the 
 Church. 
 
 It was not, however, the Scriptures 
 simply as a Book, but the Gospel which 
 the Scriptures contained, which was relied 
 on as the true " power of God " in over- 
 throwing the strongholds of evil. Reformers 
 
ROMAN CATHOLICISM ,199 
 
 and Romanists alike felt that everything 
 centred here in the doctrine of justification 
 by faith. On this, the Council of Trent 
 declared, all the errors of Luther were 
 founded. In a statement submitting the 
 subject to the Council it was pointed out 
 how, as a consequence of his doctrine, 
 Luther " had denied the efficacy of the 
 Sacraments, the authority of Priests, Pur- 
 gatory, the Sacrifice of the Mass, and all 
 other remedies instituted for the pardon of 
 sin — and that, by opposing argument, it 
 was necessary for the establishment of the 
 body of the CathoUc doctrine to destroy 
 this heresy of justification by faith alone, 
 and to condemn the blasphemies of this 
 enemy of good works." This, of course, 
 was not quite the history of the movement ; 
 but the statement is absolutely correct in 
 its admission that Luther's doctrine meant 
 logically the annihilation of Rome's whole 
 
200 PROTESTANTISM— ROMAN CATHOLICISM 
 
 doctrinal and sacramental system. Hence 
 the importance which Luther rightly at- 
 tached to justification as the article of a 
 standing and falling Church. It is a reason 
 why we of later days also should attach 
 importance to it. So long as Protes- 
 tantism remains faithful to this doctrine, 
 its position is secure. When it weakens 
 it or departs from it, its power will depart 
 also. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AJSTD MODERN SCIENCE 
 
XI 
 
 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 
 
 rriHE idea prevails in many quarters that 
 the immense advances in the natural 
 sciences since inductive inquiry began have 
 led to an altered view of the world and 
 man, which takes the foundations from 
 Christian beliefs on these subjects, and 
 renders the whole Christian scheme of 
 things untenable. 
 
 1 
 
 Certainly nothing could be more amazing 
 than the progress made during the last few 
 centuries in man's knowledge of nature, 
 and mastery of its laws and forces. The 
 effect has been a revolution in the con- 
 ception of the universe which leaves nothing 
 
 203 
 
204 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 
 
 untouched. The idea of our globe as the 
 centre round which the heavens move has 
 vanished. In extension in space, as in 
 duration in time, the universe is seen to 
 be practically illimitable. The earth was 
 not created six thousand years ago, but has 
 a geological history going back perhaps fifty 
 or a hundred millions of years. Man, too, is 
 older by millenniums — some would say by 
 tens or hundreds of millenniums — than we 
 had been accustomed to believe. The ex- 
 cavations in Babylonia and Egypt reveal 
 an immensely remote antiquity of civilisa- 
 tion. Then there is the rise and universal 
 extension of the idea of " evolution." Does 
 not this overthrow the Bible account of 
 the origin of man ? A yet more fatal effect 
 of the progress of science is thought to be 
 the establishment of the idea of the reign 
 of universal law. With this, do not miracles 
 disappear ? 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 205 
 
 Admittedly the change is great, but we 
 are a long way still from the conclusion 
 that the foundations of Christianity are 
 overturned, or that there is any necessary 
 conflict between science and the facts and 
 doctrines of revelation. The question of 
 miracle was dealt with in a previous paper, 
 and it was there shown that no view of 
 the universe which grants its origin from, 
 and dependence on, a living Personal 
 God, can ever legitimately deny the 
 possibility of an economy of revelation, 
 connected with supernatural interpositions, 
 for higher ends than those which nature 
 can attain. The relation of Christianity to 
 the truths of science may now be looked 
 at more precisely. 
 
 II 
 
 It is desirable, first, to set the con- 
 sideration of the subject in its proper light 
 
206 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 
 
 by removal of misconceptions. These exist, 
 both on the side of defenders of the Bible, 
 and on the side of science. 
 
 The day is happily almost past when 
 men looked on the Bible as a sort of 
 anticipative text-book of natural science. 
 When Copernicus affirmed that the earth 
 was not the centre of the universe ; that it 
 was the earth that moved round the sun, 
 and not the sun that moved round the 
 earth, it was thought sufficient in order to 
 confute him to quote texts like Psalm 
 xix. 5, 6, where the sun is described as 
 performing his circuit in the heavens. 
 VN'^hen geology was proving that the earth 
 had a long and interesting history, the 
 stages of which were embodied in the 
 rocks, Genesis i. was relied on to show that 
 everything was made in six ordinary days 
 about six thousand years ago. The mis- 
 takes were perhaps natural ; they none the 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 207 
 
 less rested on an erroneous view of the 
 relation of Scripture to science, and did 
 harm to Christianity by seeking to bind it 
 up with positions that could not be main- 
 tained. This teaches a lesson of caution 
 in opposing the Bible to science. It is 
 now getting to be well understood, what 
 the wiser interpreters of Scripture have 
 always maintained, that the Bible was 
 not given to anticipate modern physical 
 discoveries, but uses plain, popular lan- 
 guage in speaking of natural phenomena, 
 describing things by their appearances — not 
 from a scientific standpoint — as we still do 
 in our almanacs when we speak of the 
 sun and moon " rising " and " setting." 
 Calvin, in the sixteenth century, put this 
 very clearly in his commentary on Genesis. 
 " He who would learn astronomy and other 
 recondite arts," he wrote, " let him go else- 
 where. . . . Moses wrote in a popular style 
 
208 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 
 
 things which, without instruction, all ordi- 
 nary persons endued with common sense 
 are able to understand. . . . He does not 
 call us up to heaven, he only proposes 
 things that lie open before our eyes." The 
 purpose of the Bible was different — to set 
 things in their right relation to God, the 
 first Cause of all ; to show what God is, 
 and what are His purposes and will for 
 man. In this, its proper sphere, there is 
 no conflict with science. 
 
 But science, too, has its lesson of caution 
 ■ and humility to learn. Everything is not 
 science which chooses to call itself science. 
 Rash theories have often been propounded 
 which further inquiry has discredited ; ex- 
 travagant claims have often been made which 
 have had afterwards to be retracted. The 
 progress of knowledge itself is continually 
 modifying or enlarging scientific concep- 
 tions, so that the knowledge of to-day is 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 209 
 
 by no means the measure of the science 
 of to-morrow. A quarter of a century 
 ago science was decidedly materialistic in 
 its bent. Even Prof. Huxley, who was 
 not, philosophically, a materialist, insisted 
 on interpreting mental facts in terms of 
 matter. He declared : " As surely as every 
 future grows out of past and present, so 
 will the physiology of the future extend 
 the realm of matter and law till it is co- 
 extensive with knowledge, with feeling, and 
 with action." ^ It can safely be said that 
 this phase is passing away, and is being 
 replaced by a more spiritual view of the 
 universe. Haeckel acknowledges in his 
 Riddle that most of his former stalwarts 
 (Virchow, Du Bois Reymond, Wundt, etc.) 
 subsequently deserted him. Darwinism at 
 first thought to get rid of " teleology "—of 
 design — in nature, but it will be found that 
 
 2 On the Physical Basis of Life. 
 
 14 
 
210 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 
 
 this is precisely one of the points where 
 the newer evolution breaks with the old. 
 Enormous periods have been postulated for 
 man's duration on the earth, but these are 
 being retrenched by more accurate observa- 
 tions of the time since the close of the 
 Glacial Age. If Oriental discovery has led 
 to surprising modification in older views of 
 the age of ancient civilisation, its service 
 has been not less conspicuous in the light 
 it has thrown on the high character of early 
 civilisations, and in the corroborations it has 
 furnished of statements in the early pages 
 of the Bible which had been long disputed. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In its older phases the controversy be- 
 tween the Bible and science had chiefly to 
 do with astronomy and geology. 
 
 There was the astronomical objection to 
 Christianity which Dr. Chalmers and others 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 211 
 
 ably combated. The extension of view 
 involved in the Copernican theory of the 
 heavens was thought by many to render 
 impossible the belief that the world — a 
 mere speck in infinity — should be the 
 special object of God's love and care; the 
 scene of an Incarnation and work of 
 redeeming grace such as the Christian 
 religion affirms. Few Christians to-day 
 feel much force in this objection. God's 
 love is not on the scale of quantitative 
 bigness. God is present in the atom and 
 the animacule as truly as in suns and 
 stars. He cares for the sparrow in its fall, 
 as well as presides over the fates of empires. 
 Man is not less the object of God's love 
 because he may not be the only object. 
 God had always in Christian belief been 
 held to be infiinite, with a universe of 
 intelligent spirits adoring and serving Him. 
 His love to man in redemption is not 
 
212 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 
 
 contradicted, but is infinitely enhanced by 
 every fresh demonstration of His majesty 
 and power. A further question, however, 
 is, Does science show that man's place in 
 the universe is less unique than the Bible 
 represents it to be ? The thought of the 
 universe in space is inconceivably enlarged ; 
 but are we brought any nearer to the proof 
 of hosts of inhabited worlds and planets ? 
 It is very doubtful. So far as scienti- 
 fic knowledge goes, our earth remains 
 the only spot in the material creation 
 in which intelligent and moral life has 
 emerged.^ 
 
 It is not otherwise with the difficulties 
 in regard to the geological revelations of 
 the age of the earth. However Genesis i. 
 is to be interpreted — whether, as seems 
 probable, its days are "asonic," great divi- 
 sions in the creative work (the first three 
 
 ' See Wallace's Man's Plate in the Universe. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE ^3 
 
 " days " precede the sun's measurement), 
 or belong simply to the representation of 
 the creation under the form of a divine 
 " week " of work — one cannot but see the 
 sublimity of its description of the origin 
 of all things in comparison with heathen 
 cosmogonies ; must recognise, too, under 
 divergencies of aim and form, the substantial 
 accord of the ideas embodied in it with 
 what reason and science unite to affirm. 
 How grand and important are these ideas ! 
 — the creation of all things by the one true 
 God, the gradual progress from lower to 
 higher, the order of the stages — the settling 
 of the earth, plant and water creations, 
 birds, appointment of sun and moon, mam- 
 mals, the culmination of the whole process 
 in man I Science gives precision to these 
 conceptions, but does not alter their essential 
 truth. 
 
214 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 
 
 IV 
 
 The scientific theory which, in recent 
 times, presents most appearance of conflict 
 with Christianity is Darwinian evolution. 
 Darwin's great achievement was in winning 
 for the theory of organic descent a general 
 scientific acceptance which it did not before 
 possess. Not only were the facts in support 
 of evolution more skilfully marshalled, but 
 a theory — that of *' natural selection " — was 
 propounded, which seemed to explain the 
 process.^ The consequences were far-reach- 
 ing. Through the operation of a few simple 
 laws, selecting and preserving variations 
 favourable to individuals and species, the 
 adaptations of which nature is full were 
 thought to be accounted for without the 
 interposition of mind or purpose. Man 
 came under the general rule, and was held 
 
 ' Darwin rested his special claim on his supposed discovery 
 of the " how " of the development. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 215 
 
 to be a slow development from simian 
 ancestors. It is not necessary to break with 
 the general doctrine of descent to recognise 
 the defects of the Darwinian presentation 
 of it. Darwinism and evolution are not 
 synonymous. A considerable revolt has 
 taken place in evolutionist circles from the 
 idea of " natural selection," slowly operating, 
 as the main factor in evolution. Confession 
 is frankly made that the main factors are 
 yet to seek, and must he within the organism, 
 not in external causes. The idea of fortuity 
 is being abandoned, and in one form or 
 another there is recognition of the fact that 
 nature works towards an end.^ The process, 
 too, is not always slow and gradual, but 
 is often rapid, the result of sudden change 
 (" mutation "). 
 
 • For the extent of these changes in evolutionary theory, 
 see Otto's Naturalism and Beligien, in the "Crown Theo- 
 logical Library." 
 
216 CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN SCIENCE 
 
 With such modifications, most of the 
 aspects of conflict of evolution with Theism, 
 and even with Christianity, are removed. 
 The one thing evolution cannot do is to 
 explain origins. The first origin of things ; 
 the origin of life and sentiency ; the origin 
 of rational intelligence — these remain for it 
 insoluble problems. It may be claimed 
 that, with our present knowledge, there 
 is nothing to hinder that man, ^svhatever 
 the part of evolution in his origin, may 
 have appeared on earth as a new tjrpe of 
 being, pure in nature, made in God's image, 
 destined for sonship to God, immortal in 
 destiny. This is what Christianity affirms, 
 and no science which knows its own 
 limits will contradict it. With the change 
 fi*om infinitesimaUy gradual evolution to 
 " mutation " theories, there is no need, even 
 for carrying man's origin back many millen- 
 niums beyond the usual computation. 
 
CHRISTIANITY AKD MODERN SCIENCE 217 
 
 In brief, it may be confidently claimed 
 that science does not in any serious way 
 collide with the presuppositions of the 
 Christian faith. In many ways it may and 
 does enlarge our notions ; it does not destroy 
 a single postulate of our religion. 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
XIl 
 
 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 TT is never easy to forecast a future. In 
 nature one can calculate with a 
 certainty almost unerring the movements 
 of the heavenly bodies, the date of an 
 ecUpse, the reappearance of a comet. The 
 uniformity of nature's laws enables us to 
 rely on sunrising and sunsetting, on ebb 
 and flow of tides, on the general procession 
 of the seasons. But even science can only 
 predict the future within limits, and in 
 many departments cannot certainly predict 
 beyond a few days or hours. " The wind 
 bloweth where it will, and thou hearest 
 the voice thereof, but knowest not whence 
 
 221 
 
222 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 it Cometh and whither it goeth" (John vi. 8). 
 Unforeseen influences may change seasons 
 in the future, as they have changed them 
 in the past. Arctic cold may prevail where 
 warmth now reigns ; the sun itself may one 
 day be extinguished. 
 
 I 
 
 In human life the conditions which de- 
 termine a future are still moo-e complicated 
 and difficult to unravel. Few who live in 
 a given age are able to estimate rightly the 
 forces which openly or secretly are working 
 to change the character of that age. Hence 
 the most diverse interpretations put upon 
 the same class of phenomena by different 
 observers. In minds of a serious type the 
 tendency is to take a dark view of the 
 course of events, and to contrast un- 
 favourably the present with the past. The 
 old Egyptian moralist, Ptah-hotep, who 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 223 
 
 wrote in the age of the Pyramids (about 3000 
 B.C.), appeals, as men do still, to the ancients, 
 and bemoans the degeneracy of the times. 
 Minds of a more optimistic temperament 
 see everywhere signs of advancement. The 
 eighteenth century was an age of superficial 
 optimisms, and they ended in the great 
 disillusionment of the French Revolution. 
 In contrast with the eighteenth, the nine- 
 teenth century developed its vast systems 
 of philosophical pessimism. Where religious 
 faith is parted with, the tendency in all 
 times is towards hopelessness. Goethe, 
 usually optimistic, gave it as his opinion 
 that men would become more clever and 
 acute, but not better, happier, stronger in 
 action, at least only in epochs.' Renan 
 said : " Candidly speaking, I fail to see 
 how, without the ancient dreams, the 
 foundations of a happy and noble life are 
 
 ' Eckermann's Conversations (E.T.); p. 346. 
 
224 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 to be relaid."^ Professor Huxley wrote 
 despondingly : "I know of no study which 
 is so unutterably saddening as that of the 
 evolution of humanity, as it is set forth 
 in the annals of history. . . . And the best 
 men of the best epochs are simply those 
 who make the fewest blunders and commit 
 the fewest sins." ^ Herbert Spencer, at one 
 stage, was confident of an " evanescence of 
 evil " ^ through evolution ; in his Auto- 
 biography he ends on a gloomier key. 
 
 At the present moment we have both 
 optimists and pessimists, but the tone that 
 prevails in sceptical circles is stiU, as always, 
 predominatingly pessimistic. There is much 
 talk of " disillusionments," of extinct en- 
 thusiasms, of the death of ideals. The 
 term "Jin de siicle " has been invented to 
 
 ' Preface to L'Avenir de la Science. 
 
 " " Agnosticism," Nineteenth Century, Feb. 1889. 
 
 ^ Social Statics, p. 79. 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 225 
 
 express the feeling. In truth, there is no 
 real ground for faith in progress, or hope 
 for the removal of the world's e\als, without 
 the belief in God and in a Gospel of re- 
 demption, such as many of our would-be 
 intellectual teachers are turning their backs 
 on. One of the most depressing books of 
 modern times is Max Nordau's volume on 
 Degeneration. After a series of realistically 
 drawn pictures of the phases of degeneracy 
 in our age, the author has a chapter called 
 "Prognosis," io which he almost despairs 
 of a remedy, but stays himself on the faith 
 that evolution has not yet exhausted itself, 
 and wiU ultimately eliminate the unfit ; or, 
 if civilisation prove too much for society, 
 the world can give it up ! 
 
 II 
 
 The Hebrew prophets are splendid ex- 
 amples of how faith in a God of righteous- 
 
 15 
 
226 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 ness, and in His living presence and work 
 in history, can lift men above the mists 
 of doubt and error that blot the very sun 
 in the heavens from their sight ! If God 
 is in His heaven, then all is surely well! 
 In no nation but the prophets' own was 
 the true God known. It was at a time 
 also when everything in the history of 
 their nation was against them, when God's 
 purposes seemed breaking down in failure, 
 when their land was overrun by the in- 
 vader, when, later, the Temple was in ruins 
 and the people in exile, that the voice of 
 the prophets was lifted in inextinguishable 
 confidence that God's promises would be 
 fulfilled, that His Kingdom would come, 
 and that the religion of Jehovah would 
 become . the religion of the whole earth 1 
 The Apostles, again, how impossible it 
 seemed on that day when Jesus hung upon 
 the Cross that His religion would ever 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 227 
 
 become the world-wide power it now un- 
 doubtedly is ! Yet the faith of Christ's 
 disciples never faltered from the day of 
 His resurrection, and does not falter yet 
 in spite of the obstacles that oppose them- 
 selves to the advancement of His re- 
 ligion. 
 
 To put the matter in a sentence, it is 
 not from human deductions of the probable 
 course of events in the future, but from 
 firm faith in God, and in the Gospel of 
 His Son, that assurance of the final victory 
 of the truth is to be gained. If God 
 reigns ; if He is holy, righteous, good ; if 
 His revealed will is that righteousness shall 
 prevail over sin ; if moral law can be relied 
 on to work out its issues as certainly as 
 natural law ; if there are Divine powers 
 in the world proceeding from the exalted 
 Christ, more potent than aU the forces 
 than can be arrayed against them — then 
 
228 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 but one result can follow, however long 
 and perplexed the road may be by which 
 the goal is reached. Times and seasons 
 the Father has kept in His own power 
 (Acts i. 7), but the event is sure. The 
 first thing is to be " stabhshed, strength- 
 ened, settled" (1 Pet. v. 10) in the faith 
 that is in Christ ; the cross-currents of 
 modern speculation and denial will then 
 no longer vex us. This is the true attitude 
 of the " modern " Christian, as it has been 
 that of the Christian in all past ages. 
 
 Ill 
 
 It is not the case, as unbelief would have 
 us think, that the currents of the age are 
 all flowing in one direction. God is shaking 
 all things in heaven and earth, but the 
 things that cannot be shaken "remain" 
 (Heb. xii. 26, 27). God remains, the Bible 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 229 
 
 remains, Christ remains, the sin and need 
 of the world remain, the Gospel as God's 
 provision for that need remains. It is the 
 purest of delusions to imagine that any 
 one of these things is going to be left 
 behind in the world's march of progress. 
 What has the world to substitute for them ? 
 We speak sometimes of a " modern view " 
 of the world, but there is in truth no one 
 " modem view " on which the thinkers who 
 use this language are agreed. Their creeds 
 are as hostile and mutually exclusive — they 
 are as much at war about them among 
 themselves — as it is possible to imagine. 
 The voices of the age are a Babel. Over 
 against their discord stands the one un- 
 changing testimony which Peter gave at 
 Cassarea Philippi when confronted with the 
 Babel of the voices of his age : " Thou 
 art the Christ, the Son of the hving God " 
 (Matt. xvi. 16). On that testimony, borne 
 
230 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 by believing men, Christ felt He had found 
 a rock on which to build a Church. The 
 Church will endure so long as it keeps to 
 this one foundation. 
 
 The currents of the time are not, as 
 alleged, all anti-Christian. There is a 
 powerful drift setting in towards the recog- 
 nition of a spiritual basis of the universe, 
 towards the acknowledgment of a personal, 
 an acting, a seK-revealing God. That can 
 only have its issue in the recognition of 
 Christ as the unique Revealer ; then as 
 God's own Son manifest in the flesh. The 
 stars may disappear for a time in the 
 heavens ; when the clouds clear away they 
 shine out again as of old. 
 
 IV 
 
 Much is heard in these days of a "re- 
 construction " of Christian doctrine. Not a 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 331 
 
 word is to be said against any attempt to 
 restate truth in the forms most adapted 
 to the intelligence and culture of the time. 
 Only one would wish to know what "re- 
 construction," in this connection, is taken 
 to cover, and how far, under this specious 
 term, abandonment of vital truth is not 
 contemplated. Is the " reconstruction," e.g., 
 to leave out miracle ? Is it to leave out 
 a real Incarnation, giving us as Redeemer 
 only an ideal man ? Is it to leave out the 
 Virgin Birth and the bodily Resurrection ? 
 Is it to leave out a " Fall," and substitute 
 for it the evolutionary doctrine of man as 
 a creature who is rising ? Is it to leave 
 out "Atonement" — the dying for sins, the 
 just for the unjust ? (1 Pet. iii. 18). Is it 
 to leave out a supernatural Regeneration ? 
 If this is so, it is a " reconstruction " with 
 which genuine Christianity can have nothing 
 to do. 
 
232 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 The present writer has been led to ponder 
 this subject from many sides, and would 
 only, in closing, bear his personal testimony 
 that he does not know a single one of the 
 great doctrines which Protestant Churches, 
 reverting to Scripture as a basis, have 
 generally accepted, which Christian faith is 
 called to part with in the future. There 
 is a unity in the faith which secures that, 
 even if lost sight of for a time, essential 
 doctrines will eventually reassert themselves. 
 The " Fall " is put in question by evolution ; 
 but unless sin is made a necessity, and 
 deprived of its heinousness before God, 
 which made redemption needful, its origin 
 must ever be sought in the voluntary de- 
 parture from rectitude of a creature who 
 had the power to live obediently. The 
 Trinity is called " metaphysical " ; but we 
 cannot be faithful to the revelation in the 
 Gospel if we fail to recognise in it a God 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 233 
 
 subsisting and revealed, in the words of 
 the baptismal confession, as Father, Son, 
 and Holy Spirit. The trend of the "New 
 Theology " is to humanitarianism in Christ- 
 ology ; but the Church, so long as it adheres 
 to the faith of the Apostles, will never, 
 we may be sure, depart from its testimony 
 to its Lord as perfect God and perfect 
 man — the Word made flesh. There are all 
 sorts of speculations on the Atonement, 
 but any " moral " theory which denies the 
 true vicarious death, and atoning, cleansing 
 power of the blood of Christ, will never 
 satisfy the conscience or faith of the general 
 Christian community or furnish an Evangel 
 to preach to the masses. "Justification" 
 is thought to be a " forensic " term, but it 
 can never be twisted to mean anything but 
 what it signifies in Paul— a setting right 
 with God through His own free act of 
 pardon and acceptance for Christ's sake. 
 
234 THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 
 
 There are eschatologies innumerable ; but 
 while the mysteries of the future are ac- 
 knowledged, we have no expectation of seeing 
 the Church commit herself to either uni- 
 versahsm or annihilation, or even make a 
 dogma of second probation. Let veUs he 
 where Scripture leaves them. 
 
 The ground for the confidence that these 
 truths wUl abide simply is that they are 
 there in the Bible, and that the world cannot 
 do without them. The teachers of our 
 new theologies are never under a greater 
 mistake than when they imagine that it is 
 the preaching of this old Gospel of the 
 grace of God — old, yet ever new — which 
 is alienating the modern world from the 
 Churches. It is not the preaching of this 
 Gospel which is emptying the churches, but 
 the want of it. No ; the counsel of God 
 stands, and the indispensableness of the 
 truths of the Evangel of the New Testament 
 
THE PRESENT OUTLOOK 235 
 
 will be felt the more strongly the longer 
 they are considered. 
 
 " Now unto the King Eternal, incorrup- 
 tible, invisible, the only God, be honour 
 and glory for ever and ever. Amen " 
 (1 Tim. i. 17). 
 
INDEX 
 
 Apologists, 171-2, 178 
 Arianism, 179-80 
 Astronomical objection, 206, 
 
 210-12 
 Atonement, of Christ, 129, 
 
 131 ff., 161-2, 231, 233 
 
 Baur, 42 
 Boosset, 56, 87 
 
 Campbell, R. J., 91 
 Canon of N.T., 47 ff., 174^6 
 Catholicism, Roman, the 
 term Catholic, 185-7 ; 
 papal claims, 188 ff. ; al- 
 leged primacy of St. Peter, 
 189 ff. ; papal infallibility, 
 192-3 ; doctrinal errors, 
 193 ff. ; sixteenth-century 
 revolt from, 188 ff., 195 ff. 
 Christ. See Jesus Christ 
 Church, founded by Christ, 
 
 1C3 ff. ; function of, 166-7 ; 
 relation to Kingdom, 166 ; 
 Early Church — successes 
 of, 167 ; trials and diffi- 
 culties of, 169 ff. ; services 
 of, 171 ff. 
 
 Creed, Apostles', 176, 187 ; 
 Nicene, 180 
 
 Criticism, of O.T., 22-3 
 28-31, 32-4; of Gospels, 
 40 ff. ; denial of miracle in, 
 26, 43 ff., 61-2, 82, 97, 
 123-4, 136, 177, 231 
 
 Cross, significance of, 122, 
 126 ff. ; Christ's anticipa- 
 tion of, 127-8 ; place in 
 Gospels, 125-7, 149 ; re- 
 lation to redemption, 129 
 ff., 149-50; apostolic doc- 
 trine of, 161 ff. 
 
 Dale, Dr., 102, 126 
 Darwinism. See Evolution 
 Deuteronomy, 34 
 
 237 
 
238 
 
 INDEX 
 
 EerdmanSj 23 
 
 Episcopacy, Monarchical, 
 
 172 ff. 
 Eschatology, 117, 234 
 Evolution, 20-t ; Darwinian 
 
 theory of, 209, 214-15; 
 
 limits of, 216 ; relation to 
 
 Christianity, 214-16, 231 
 
 Fall, the, 114, 232 
 
 Geology and Genesis, 212-13 
 Gnosticism, 170-1, 177 
 God, relation to nature and 
 miracle, 8, 9, 65 ff., 208; 
 in revelation, 7ff., 28 ff., 
 72 ff., 225 ff. ; Christ's 
 teaching on, 112 
 Goethe, 223 
 Gore, Dr., 173 
 Gospels, Modern Criticism 
 of, 40 ff. ; historical witness 
 for, 47 ff ; internal credi- 
 hility of, 63 ff. ; image of 
 Christ in, 64-5 ; critical 
 denial of miracle in, 43 
 ff. ; Fourth Gospel, 49, 
 56 ff. 
 
 Haeckel, 209 
 Harnack, 60 
 Huxley, 209, 224 
 
 Incarnation, attacks on, 82-3 ; 
 meaning of, 94 ff. ; proof 
 of, 93-4 ; metaphysical 
 view of, 90-1 ; evolutionary 
 view of, 91-2 
 
 Jesus Christ, modem views 
 of, 44, 82-3 ; picture in 
 Gospels, 54, 85 ff. ; in- 
 carnate, 81 ff., 94 ff. ; goal 
 of revelation, 105 ; virgin 
 hirth, 76, 83, 86, 97-8; 
 resurrection, 44, 71, 75, 
 77,89,94, 121 ff. ; Parousia, 
 117-18 ; Kenosis, 95 ; re- 
 lation to O.T., 104 ff. ; re- 
 lation to St. Paul, 141 ff. 
 See Teaching of Jesus 
 
 John, St., Gospel of, 49, 55 
 ff. ; last of Apostles, 169 
 
 Kingdom of God, Christ's 
 teaching on. 111, 160 ff. ; 
 relation to Church, 143, 
 166 
 
 Law and prophets, 32 ff. 
 Levitical code, 32-4 
 
 Man, Christ's teaching on, 
 113 ; evolution and, 204 
 
INDEX 
 
 239 
 
 Mill, J. S., 53-4 
 
 Miracle, disbelief in, 8, 10, 
 26, 43 fF. ; objections to, 
 63 ff. ; nature of, 56, 67 
 ff. ; possibility of, 65 ff. ; 
 evidence for, 9, 71 ff., 76 ; 
 evidential value of, 77-8 ; 
 in Christianity, 231 
 
 Nietzsche, 106 
 Nordau, Max, 225 
 
 Old Testament, essential 
 problem of, 21, 24 ; super- 
 natural revelation in, 26 
 ff. ; inspiration of, 35-6 ; 
 relation of Jesus to, 104 ff. 
 
 Organic unity of Scripture, 
 11 ff. ; ofO. T., 31 ff. 
 
 Paul, St., relation to Jesus, 
 141 ff. ; alleged couflict 
 with Gospels, 142 ff. ; ex- 
 aggeration of contrasts, 
 148 ff. ; Master and apostle, 
 152 ff. ; alleged Rabbinism 
 of, 143, 155 ff. 
 
 Pessimism, 222 ff. 
 
 Prophets, the, 30, 36, 225-6 
 Protestantism, meaning of 
 word, 183 ; revolt against 
 Papacy, 188 ff. ; principles 
 of, 197 ff. 
 
 Reformation, sixteenth cen- 
 tury, 188 ff. ; origins of, 
 197 ff. See Protestantism. 
 
 Renan, 223. 
 
 Resurrection, of Christ, 44, 
 75, 77, 89, 94, 121 ff., 123, 
 135-6 ; place in Christi- 
 anity, 135, 231 ; evidence 
 for, 136 ff. 
 
 Revelation, reality of super- 
 natural, 7, 8, 10; evidence 
 for, 9, 10 ; supremely in 
 Christ, 39 
 
 Romanes, G. J., 101 
 
 Sacred books, pagan, 3 ff 
 See Scriptures. 
 
 Science, alleged conflict with 
 Scripture, 203 ff. ; relation 
 of Bible to, 205 ff. ; astro- 
 nomical objection, 206, 210 
 ff. ; geological objections, 
 233 ff. ; evolution and 
 Christianity, 216, 232. 
 
240 
 
 ENDEX 
 
 Scriptures, Holy, compared 
 with other sacred hooka, 
 3, 4, 7, 10, 11, 17 ; super- 
 natural revelation in, 6, 
 7ff., 26ff. ; purpose of 
 grace in, 11 ff., 31 ff. ; 
 inspiration of, 15 S., 25, 
 35-6. 
 
 Sin, Christ's teaching on, 113 ; 
 the FaU, 114, 232. 
 
 Stade, on prophets, 30 
 
 Strauss, 42. 
 
 Teaching of Jesus, 101 ff. ; 
 loftiness and originality of, 
 106 ff. ; inversion of values 
 in, 106, 108 ff. ; on wealth, 
 109-10 ; on God, 112 ; on 
 man, 112-13 ; on sin, 113- 
 
 14 ; on salvation, 115, 
 
 126-7 ; on the world, 115 ; 
 
 on the Kingdom, 116-17; 
 
 on the future, 117-18. 
 Teleology in Scriptures, 11. 
 
 See Scriptures. 
 Trinity, 87 ff. 
 
 Virgin Birth, 75, 83, 86, 97-8 
 
 Wealth, Christ's teaching on, 
 
 109-10 
 Wellhausen, 22 
 Westcott, 49, 176 
 Winckler, 23 
 
 Zahn, 51 
 
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