LIBRA^RY Theological Se mi nary,. ^^^ JPRINCETON, N. J. BR 451 .H84 1865 Moorhouse, J. 1826-1915. Our Lord Jesus Christ, the subject of growth in wisdo ] ^■^^ f^.fC „«' '■ By the same Autlior. SOME MODERN DIFFICULTIES RESPECTING THE FACTS OF NATURE AND REVELATION, CONSIDERED IN FOUR SERMONS PREACHED iSefovc tl)e ^ttibfrsit|i of Cambridge, IN LENT, i86r. Fcap. 8vo. cloth, Price 2S. 6d. Macmillan and Co., London. HULSEAN LECTURES, 1866, THREE SERMONS. OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST THE SUBJECT OF GROWTH IN WISDOM. FOUR SERMONS {BEING THE IIULSEAN LECTUUES FOR 1865) preacj^etJ before tje ^nibersitg of Cambn'bgt: TO WHICH ARE ADDED THREE SEEMONS, PEEACHED BEFOEE THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBEIDGE IN FEBEUAEY 1864. THE REY. J. MOORHOUSE, M.A. ST JOHN'S COLLEGE. HonUon anti CTambrttiQe: MACMILLAN AND CO. 1866. Camftritrge : FEINTED BY C. J. CLAY, M.A AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. PBIITCJBTOIT THEOLOGICAL PREFACE, The object of these Lectures is stated with sufficient plainness in the Table of Contents ; but it may perhaps be necessary to prefix a word of explanation with reference to the publication of the Three Sermons which will be found at the end of this volume. They were preached before the University of Cambridge in February, 1864, and are published here, partly at the request of friends who heard them, and partly because it seemed to the author, that they might be found to elucidate many difficulties, which, in the Lectures, could not be investiirated vi PREFACE, with that degree of care and fulness which was desirable. The Author has been induced to seek for them a greater publicity, in the humble hope, that with all their defects, they, may be made to contribute, in some small degree, to the resolution of those intri- cate, but deeply interesting questions which are now absorbing the attention of Christ's Church. 8, Southampton Steeet, FiTZROY SqUxIBK. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. BEARING OF PRESENT CONTROVERSIES ON THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION. PAGE St Matthew XXVIII. i8, 19. Jesus came and spake xmto them, saying, All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore and teach all nations i LECTURE n. HOW FAR THE HYPOTHESIS OF A REAL LIMITATION IN OUR saviour's HUMAN KNOWLEDGE IS CONSIS- TENT WITH THE DOCTRINE OF HIS DIVINITY. EOMANS IX. 5. Of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever 3^ viii CONTENTS. LECTUEE III. THE SCRIPTURAL EVIDENCE OP OUR SAVIOUr's SINLESSNESS. PAOB St John VIII. 46. Which of you convinceth me of sin ? . . . , 65 LECTURE ly. WHAT KIND AND DEGREE OF HUMAN IGNORANCE WERE LEFT POSSIBLE TO OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST BY THE FACT OF HIS HUMAN SINLESSNESS. St John VIII. 46. Which of you convinceth me of sin ? And if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me ? 100 SERMON I. THE TEACHING OF THE SPIRIT ORDINARY AND EXTRAORDINARY. I Corinthians II. 13, 14. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy G-host teacheth ; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are fooUshness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned . . . .139 CONTENTS, ix SERMON II. THE NATURE OF PROPHECY, AND OF PROPHETIC INSPIRATION. PAGE 2 Peter I, 21. Prophecy came not in old time by the will of man : but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost 163 SERMON III. THE LAND AND THE PEOPLE. WAS THE CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE DETERMINED BY THE NATURE OP THE LAND, OR WAS THE LAND CHOSEN WITH REFERENCE TO THE DIVINELY-IMPARTED CHARACTER OF THE PEOPLE? Genesis XIII. 14, 15. And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, and southward, and east- ward, and westward : for all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever . , . 1 1 LECTURE I. St Matthew xxviii. 18, 19. Jesus came and spahe unto them, saying, All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations. The present Bishop of London has remarked^ — « and the truth of the observation is becoming daily more apparent — that "the objections of infidelity are much more connected now than in former times, with a minute critical examination of the Sacred Books/' and that therefore " it is on the field of criti- cism that it must be met and overthrown." But the field of historical criticism is now so vast in extent, and the objects comprised within it are increasing so rapidly in number, and in the difficulty of the problems which they suggest for solution, that to examine, or even to survey and describe adequately any considerable portion of it, would require far more time and space than can be allowed for these 1 Dangers and Safeguards. 2 GENERAL STATEMENT OF SUBJECT. [Lect. lectures. To repeat well-known evidences would be useless, to exhibit fairly those which might naturally be looked for, impossible, even if desirable. There is however an intermediate, and I trust, under pre- sent circumstances, a not altogether unwarrantable course, which may perhaps be usefully adopted. It may be possible to point out clearly the ultimate issues involved in present controversies, and to indi- cate their precise bearing upon the doctrine of the Incarnation, upon that, viz. which is by common con- sent the central doctrine in the system of revealed truth. This course of investigation, by disclosing at once the degree to which the prevalent scepticism endangers the dearest possessions of our faith, and the nature of the alternatives which it offers for the loss of these, may perhaps lead some to more careful and solemn investigation of the points at issue — to greater deliberation in judgment, and greater mo- desty of statement. Investigation is indeed inevitable — nay, most desirable — the only thing to be deprecated is, that it should be superficial and irreverent. Now, if it can be shown on the one hand, how far the possible results of a free critical enquiry into the authorship and composition of the sacred Scriptures are con- sistent with a recognition of our Lord's Divine na- ture and atoning work, and on the other, what is the nature of those conclusions to which we must I] GENERAL STATEMENT OF SUBJECT. 3 be driven through disbelief of those great truths — men may at least be able to see what they risk, and where they risk it, — in the course of those historical enquiries w^hich are becoming daily more necessary. I have no desire that such an enquiry should deter any man from the most thorough and rio-id examination of the claims of Holy Scripture. The Scriptures are not to be considered true, because it would be dangerous to reject them. Let every thincy be sacrificed to truth. If truth requires us to give up all belief in a heavenly Father and a livinor Saviour, to resign all hope of a higher life, or of a glorious immortality, even let these foundations of our earthly and eternal happiness be subverted, rather than that we should either consciously or un- consciously acquiesce in a lie! Only let us know what we are doing-. In the course of our investio^a- tions let us be distinctly conscious of their inevitable issues. Let us not advance carelessly along the road of sceptical criticism, admitting easily unproved assertions, or smiling thoughtlessly at insidious sug- gestions, under the fond impression either that little is at stake, or that the substance of the faith may be made more acceptable and secure by destroying its historical embodiment. Do not suppose that the dan- ger here suggested is merely chimerical. Looking back to the writings of those German theologians who preceded Strauss, and who expressed so much 1—2 4 GENERAL STATEMENT OF SUBJECT. [Lect. horror at the destructive character of his criticism Quinet exclaims^ : "In the midst of this ever-in- creasing demolition, there is one thing, at which I cannot cease to wonder, it is the tranquillity of all those men who seem not at all to understand what they are doing, and who, each day effacing some part of the Bible, are not a whit the less at ease regard- ing the future fate of their belief." They had been lulled into this false security, partly because they had never seriously striven to realize the end to which they were unconsciously advancing, and partly because the philosophical system whose spell was upon them concealed its real nature beneath spe- cious professions. "To convert Germany to doubt," says the writer just quoted ^ "a system was wanted which concealing scepticism under faith, using much circumlocution to reach its object, dwelling on ima- gination, on poetry, on spirituality, should trans- figure what it threw into the shade, build up what it destroyed, affirm in words, what in effect it de- nied." We have seen the result of this scepticism in Germany, and surely it can be no more unphilo- sophical to examine the worth of rationalistic than of revolutionary principles, in the light of their con- sequences. 1 Review of Strauss's Life of Jeaus in Revue des deux Mondez, Beard's Trans, p. 8, 2 Ibid. p. 5. I.] GENERAL STATEMENT OF SUBJECT. 5 Let it be remembered too, that the fundamental canons of sceptical criticism are furnished for the most part, by the conclusions of some system of phi- losophy. Thus Strauss acknowledges that " from the very first his Life of Jesus has stood in an intimate relation with the philosophy of Hegel \" It was at the dictation of this philosophy that he asserted a miracle to be an impossibility^ declaring " even the conception of such a possibility is so far out of the question that I must lose my senses before I could receive anything of the kind ^" Renan again, though he would fain deny the accusation,' yet shows most distinctly by his line of argument that he is com- pelled to a similar conclusion by the exigencies of a materialistic philosophy. It is this hypothesis of the impossibility of a miracle which dictates the cri- tical canon common to Strauss and Renan — "that a supernatural account cannot be admitted as such " — and though these critics may differ as to the mean- ing of such an account — the Hegelian asserting that it betokens the activity of a mythical imagination, the materialist, that ''it always implies credulity or imposture V — they are entirely agreed in the conclu- sion that "it is to be considered as not historical V ^ Strauss, Hegel, and their Opinions, Beard, p. 21. 2 Life of Jesus, Vol. i. p. 64. ^ Beard, p. 23. * Kenan's Life of Jesus, p. 30. ^ Strauss's Life of Jesus, Vol. i. p. 88. 6 GENERAL STATEMENT OF SUBJECT. [Lect. Those only who have studied the Life of Jesus by these two eminent critics, with the view of discover- ing the extent to which this conclusion has deter- mined the form and substance of those works, those only know the utterly disjointed and fragmentary condition to which they would be reduced, by the omission everywhere of what was confessedly or in- ferentially deduced from it! If then the substance of sceptical criticism so largely depends upon one assumption, and that in turn is necessitated by cer- tain philosophical theories, then without denying the necessity for meeting critics on their own chosen field, it would seem to be the simplest, as it is cer- tainly the nlost satisfactory answer to that criticism, to prove these theories to be untenable. And, if only philosophical theories can be reduced to a com- prehensible form, if only they can once be made tangible to the common sense of mankind, this is not so difficult a task as might be supposed. For as Lewes ^ well says of the transcendental doctrine of Bishop Berkeley, the common sense of mankind must in all such questions be the ultimate arbiter. The only difficulty which men felt and feel is to understand the subject in dispute. State to them clearly, for instance, that they are to decide on the question, whether our sensations are caused by an external matter, which though unlike them, forms 1 Biographical Histoi'y of Philosophy, p. 477. I.] GENERAL STATEMENT OF SUBJECT. 7 their stimulus and occasion, or by the direct opera- tion of the Divine Will, acting directly and uni- formly on our mind without the intervention of any external substance, and the answer is not for a moment doubtful. The former assumption is seen (at least after due reflection) to be more consonant with our irresistible belief, and therefore must be finally accepted. If we can state as clearly the alternative proposed by the two great schemes of modern philosophy, the answer should not be less certain and conclusive. It will, however, contribute greatly not only to the force, but also to the clearness with which such a question can be put, if we are able to indicate the precise relation which exists between the existing platform of sceptical opinion, and the end towards which that opinion is constantly impelled by the prevailing tendency of more advanced and related speculation. For in general the progress of thought is effected under the influence of two co-operating forces ; first, the inward desire of attaining complete logical consistency; and, secondly, the external in- fluence of the spirit of the age. Thus, if a man have discovered as he imagines that Holy Scripture is untrustworthy, he will pro- bably be led to hold, as a necessary logical conse- quence, that the highest revelation which has been made to man, is that which is found within the 8 PRESENT POSITION OF RATIONALISTS. [Lect. limits of the individual consciousness. And, having reached this point in the progress of thought, he may logically go on to become either a Deist or a Pantheist ; to hold either that there exists an Almighty Spiritual Being who created and governs all things, or that the only power which operates in earth and heaven is that blind impersonal force which throbs everywhere beneath the veil of ap- pearances. But now, while he is hesitating at the junction of the ways, he will be seized upon by another in- fluence — viz. the spirit of the age, that general all- pervading tendency of thought, which borrows its direction, and takes its form from the favourite spe- culations of the time; speculations which are no sooner breathed upon the air than they are caught and disseminated by a thousand agencies in a thou- sand varying forms of expression or insinuation, thus pressing from every side with a secret, unseen, but almost irresistible power upon all who have nothing better to oppose to them than their own individual impressions. Now, if we can fix the general form of existing rationalistic belief we shall have ascertained the position and temptation of the modern thinker; while at the same time if we can delineate the features of those two great philo- sophical theories, which have been systematically developed out of the general belief by the most I.] PRESENT POSITION OF RATIONALISTS. 9 advanced and powerful of rationalistic speculators, we shall have determined the tendency of the spirit of the age. The most general, and at present most popular form of rationalistic belief, has been thus stated with great accuracy and fairness by Mr Lecky. The "central conception" of rationalism, he remarks \ "is the elevation of conscience into a position of su- preme authority as the religious organ, a verifying faculty discriminating between truth and error. It regards Christianity as designed to preside over the moral develoj)ment of mankind, as a conception, which is to become more and more sublimated and spiritualized as the human mind passes into new phases, and is able to bear the splendour of a more unclouded light. Religion it believes to be no ex- ception to the general law of progress, but rather the highest form of its manifestation, and its earlier systems but the necessary steps of an imperfect development. In its eyes the moral element of Christianity is as the sun in the heaven, and dog- matic systems are as the clouds, that intercept and temper the exceeding brightness of its ray." Divesting the author's description of its meta- phoric dress, it sets forth the faith of the popular rationalism as follows. First, religion in general is a product of the human soul, a form of our moral 1 Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe, Vol. I. p. i8i. 10 PRESENT POSITION OF RATIONALISTS. [Lect. development, and thus not a book, but the moral consciousness is the supreme standard of religious truth. Secondly, that particular development of re- ligion called Christianity is the highest form of moral truth which has been hitherto evolved from the human consciousness. Still, as first conceived by Christ, this truth was presented in an imperfect and rudimentary shape, its fundamental principles undeveloped, and their nature seriously obscured by connexion with a number of supernatural narratives and extraneous dogmatic instructions. Remembering these facts, it thus becomes the duty of a rational Christian to select from the sa- cred Books those moral truths which may appear most excellent to his advanced and developed con- sciousness, setting aside the rest as no longer use- ful to him, though doubtless venerable for their age, and possibly once of service to a ruder genera- tion. The consequences of such a free handling of the New Testament, though of course in rela- tion to the spiritual life unhappy to the last de- gree, are yet often in a moral and speculative point of view less deplorable than might have been antici- pated. In modern sceptical publications we are never horrified by the shameless ribaldry of such writers as Paine and Voltaire, seldom even pained by the puerile profanity of such materialists as Paulus. Ra- tionalistic Chiistians (as they call themselves) ad- I.] PRESENT POSITION OF RATIONALISTS. 11 mire with one consent the purity of Christian ethics, the beauty of the Redeemer's character. Nothing they think can be more admirable than those essen- tially Christian conceptions, "equality, fraternity, the suppression of war, the elevation of the poor, the love of truth, and the diffusion of liberty." Nothing can be more lovely, more tender, more sublimely simple than the white blamelessness of the perfect life; that life before whose purity and majesty they could almost bow down and w^orship. A religious system, which thus like that of ancient Rome gathers into one vast pantheon all the gods which the world has dreaded or adored, must ever be grateful to the tolerant and yet self-reliant temper of philosophers ; and thus there can be little ground for astonishment, when we see so many philosophic or scientific intel- lects hastening to consecrate their speculations and discoveries by claiming for them a place in the gor- geous creature-temple of rationalism. For what can be more elastic than a faith wdthout dogmas, what more charitable than a religion without worship, what more sublime than a development of divine knowledge, continually widening in its stream, and accelerating in its flow; what more comprehensive than a creed embracing every possible opinion w^ithin its ample domain, and including within the sweep of its boundless horizon the speculations of the remotest age ! 12 PRESENT POSITION OF RATIONALISTS. [Lect. But putting aside the truth of this creed, as a question not at present before us, what, let us ask, is its use, its sufficiency? It is easy to secure con- sent if we ask little enough, and if the sublimity of a creed is to be measured by the number of its ad- herents, then it would hardly be difficult to con- struct a creed of such perfect generality, that all but a very few must agree to adopt it. But what is the use of a set of words which explain nothing ? What is the value of a combination of articulate sounds which only do not provoke contradiction 1 Is it the great object of investigation to discover what nobody will contradict? to form a creed of the future by excluding from that of the Church of Christ all but the emptiest truisms ? Surely our object should be to rise to the conception of a truth as fruitful as it is comprehensive, which shall not only please, but mould and direct the future ! And have we such a truth in the popular creed of rationalism ? It tells us, indeed, that we are to select the type of our morality from the records of our Redeemer's life ; but it adds, that our conscience must be the judge of what is best. Have we, then, no reliable divine di- rection in this matter ? Must it always be possible for men to deny the Saviour's honesty with Kenan, or His greatness, with Francis Newman, or, virtually, at least. His actual existence, with Strauss ? Or, again, what is defined wlien we are simply told I.] PRESENT POSITION OF RATIONALISTS. 13 that religion is an evolution of the moral conscious- ness, and that our knowledge of the Divine Being will increase with the progress of ages? What is defined, when Bishop Colenso tells us \ that he be- lieves God called the world out of nothing, and made man in His own image — that former generations recognised His loving presence, Hebrew prophets telling us of His righteousness and goodness, His self-existence and Almighty Power; Roman philoso- phers^ celebrating His beneficent wisdom as the one Ruler and Lawgiver of mankind; while even Indian mystics and Sikh Gooroos recognsie His unity, om- nipresence, loving providence, and essential truth ! What is defined by all this, when the Bishop adds, that he believes it, not because it is sanctioned and explained in a supernatural revelation, but because he sees it with the eye of his spirit, as distinctly as he beholds the sun in the heavens ! If these great truths are to be taken out of connexion with all which in the Bible gave them definiteness of meaning, and held simply as abstrac- tions, which commend themselves irresistibly to our acceptance, it will be necessary for the Bishop to add some explanation of them. For what can be more indefinite than those words, ''man," "world," "God," which are used so easily and familiarly by the critic? They are the very words about whose * Pentateuch, VoL ii. p. 380. * VoL l. conclusioo. 14 PRESENT POSITION OF RATIONALISTS. [Lect. meanings rival philosophical disputants have been contending since the beginning of time. Bishop Colenso is but at the beginning of his task. Can he then see his way as clearly through these philoso- phical difficulties, as through those merely critical ones which have brought him face to face with them ? Who shall be declared to be correct in his inter- pretation of these names of being, the idealist or materialist, Hegel or Comte, Strauss or Renan ? It is comparatively easy to fight with the words of an ancient document, but how will the critic deal with those awful, ultimate facts, of which that ancient document has been so long thought to contain the authoritative explanation? and which now, without that interpretation start up from the arid desert of his arithmetical speculations a crueller and more inscrutable sphinx, propounding again the awful alter- native that we read her riddle or die ! The position of such critics (and it is the position of the great majority of sceptical minds in England) is thus seen to be essentially transitional. Nothing is defined, nothing decided. They stand hovering uncertainly at the junction of two ways, without better guidance than the light of their own under- standing. One of those ways they must ultimately take, it is little matter which: for though apparently divergent at first, they ultimately meet in the abyss of a common pantheism. I.] END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. 15 Let us then shortly endeavour to indicate the initial direction of these roads, and the nature of their common termination. I said that there were only two roads; and it must be evident to any one acquainted with the progress of modern thought, that in the effort to explain independently the mysteries of existence, we must accept the guidance either (^f Hegel or Comte, we must choose between absolute idealism and materialistic pantheism ! Hegel assumes what Bishop Berkeley undoubt- edly proved, that in consciousness we perceive not objects but only impressions. But the German phi- losopher goes further, and points out, in opposition to Fichte, that we can no more know mind than matter. For when we make our soul the object of contemplation, what is it which we see ? — some un- known substratum called mind ? or only mental phenomena, ideal forms, states of the consciousness ? Manifestly only the latter, which alone therefore we can know 1 We cannot know either the subject or object; but only those impressions, those ideas, wliich ap- pear to imply the existence of a subject and object, and which in fact express the relations between the two. What then shall we conclude? This, it would seem, that Ave cannot know existences, but only phenomena, the effects viz. which those existences 1 6 END OF RA TIONA LIST 10 SPECULA TION. [Lect. produce upon us — the appearances under which they exhibit themselves. No, says Hegel ; our know- ledge is the measure of existence, nothing exists beyond what we know. But since we only know ideas, relations, are we then to conclude, it may well be asked, that we live in a universe which con- sists only of relations? Is God a relation? is na- ture? is the human soul? Even so, Hegel replies; ideas are the only realities ; it is appearances which are the dream! But if relations exist, without things to be related, it is natural to ask how they came into existence. In his answer to this ques- tion, wild and incomprehensible as it may sound, Hegel discloses the method of that philosophy which he confidently pronounces the ultimate achievement of human thought. Every idea he teaches comes into real manifestation by positing its own contra- diction, and then returns into the fulness of its positive existence by negativing its own negation, by absorbing its opposite \ It may perhaps be felt that when a man has so completely enveloped and lost himself in the clouds of abstraction, it is best not to follow him into such a region. Alas! we must do so. If we would understand the substance 1 Chalybaus, HistoHcal Develojnnent of Speculative Philosophy from Kant to Hegel, Chap. xv. Beard, Strauss, Hegel, and their Opinions, p. 2. For a striking application of this theory to Theology, see Domer, Person of Christ, Div. ii. Vol. ill. pp. 145 — 155. I.] END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. 17 and inspiration of rationalistic German criticism, if we would obtain a conviction of the lioUowness and unreality of its high-sounding professions, we must at least try to understand what it otfers to us in place of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. And let us remember that this is the last possible phase of idealism. It rejects the . theological idealism of Berkeley, the subjective idealism of Fichte, and the objective idealism of Schelling, in order to establish itself. If then we may assume, as the basis and substratum of our impressions, neither the imme- diate action of the Divine will, nor the human mind, nor the Absolute itself, there remains nothing but either to assume, with Comte, that we cannot discover their substratum, or with Hegel, that they need none; that they are themselves the only ex- istences, subject and object being no more than the forms and conditions of their manifestation. If we reject Hegelianism, there is only another alternative! And if we be not driven to adopt that alternative by the inherent absurdity of al)solute idealism, I think we shall be compelled to do so by a glance at its consequences. In the first place, in spite of Hegel's protest, its conception of God is simply Pantheistic. His o^\ti words are^: "The recognition of God as a spirit implies that He does not remain as a fixed immu- 1 Strauss's Life of Jesus, iii. p. 4-23. 2 18 END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. [Lect. table Infinite encompassing the finite, but enters into it, produces the finite, nature, and the human mind, merely as a limited manifestation of Himself, from which He eternally returns into unity.... The true and real existence of spirit therefore is neither in God by Himself, nor in man by himself, but in the God-man; neither in, the Infinite alone, nor in the finite alone, but in the interchange of imparta- tion and withdrawal between the two." This is a good specimen of the application of Hegel's theory of the genesis of ideas. According to him the idea of God is the real existence. This idea however before its manifestation exists only potentially. It gains reality by taking the form of its contradiction — the finite (including nature and the human mind). While however it continues in the form of the finite it is only becoming, and it attains full and positive existence only when it has negatived its negation, when it has reabsorbed the finite into itself This may not be materialistic Pantheism, but it is a Pan- theism equally hopeless, and further removed from fact. The materialist says. All things are material, and all things are God. Hegel declares. All things are ideal, and all things are God : equally Pantheistic, he only differs from Comte in the supposed nature of the '^air We may infer at once from the character of this conclusion that it renders individual immortality 1] END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. 19 impossible. For since the finite is only a link, per- petually vanishing and reappearing in the endless process by which the Absolute realizes itself, it fol- lows that the independent existence of the human species would be the independent existence of the rational portion of the time-long negation, while the permanence of individuals would be nothing better than the immortality of an inconsiderable fragment of that universal negation, through which, at a given moment, the Absolute is passing into complete and real existence. We can thus under- stand the exclamation of Strauss ^ that "a life be- yond the grave is the last enemy which speculative criticism has to oppose, and if possible to vanquish." It is not difficult either, from this point of view, to comprehend the fanatical destructiveness of many of the new Hegelians. If the idea completes itself through negativing its own negation, we can easily understand that in proportion as a man's character appears to approach the ideal, the disciples of the new philosophy will be eager to complete the ideal by denying that concrete finite life which is its ne- gation. Thus Strauss' ravings about a humanity which is the " God-man," and which " dies, rises, and ascends to heaven," assume an appearance of meaning, and thus Bruno Bauer's naive claim to constructiveness becomes quite natural, even when 1 Glaubenslehre, ir. p. 739. 2—2 20 END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. [Lect. advanced in such words as these ^: "Let it be re- membered that the truly positive can become appa- rent only when the negation is serious and general... I hope to prove that the most destructive criticism is the only thing to show the creative power of Jesus and His principles." What kind of criticism was to be expected from men holding such principles as these, and openly professing that they entered on the task of histo- rical and critical examination only for the purpose of illustrating and establishing them? If the course of temporal events be merely the uniform and orderly realization of the idea, then miracles, pro- phecy, all alleged interferences of the supernatural, are impossible; and the Scriptures which contain accounts of these are unhistorical; indeed, no better than premature and imperfect attempts to disen- gage the idea from its temporal concealment. As such they must be discredited, in order to make way for the more perfect explanation. To effect this object, not only are all miraculous stories to be sum- marily rejected, but in other parts of the books which contain them contradictions are to be looked for, and when found or suspected, to be exagge- rated and multiplied, till the whole is shown to be valueless, except as a dim symbol of the revelations of Hegelianism, a symbol so dim — a horn-book of 1 A. T. Saintes's History of German Rationalism, p. 304. I.] END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. 21 the spiritual school so old and so obsolete — that it can only be neglected or cast aside. If it contradicts the philosophical Koran it is false, if it agrees with it, useless ! A very cogent argument truly, so long as we believe the Koran, but of small service if we have found this to be obscure and incredible. But if we refuse to- believe the philosophy of Hegel, we must embrace the only altera itive which is left to us. It appears that by means of our in- tellectual faculties we can only discover and appre* hend phenomena, impressions, ideas; and if the realities of existence lie beneath these, then we can never intellectually discover those realities. And what in this case are we to do ? to sit still in the apathy of baffled despair, or to seek information from One who knows and can teach us more than we could discover? There can be no doubt about what we actually shall do, for the knowledge of reality is wdiat man ever craves, yea, and pursues until he can think no more. But there is another school of philosophy, which accepting the fact of our inevitable limitation, counsels us to be content therewith. The inde- pendent existence of ideas, it exclaims with con- tempt, is a dream ; there is more than we know, but since we cannot discover what it is by our unaided efforts, let us be content with our ignorance, and refuse to think about it at all ! This is no exagge- 22 END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. [Lect. ration. Comte severely rebukes atheists^ as "the most illogical of theologians," not because they deny the existence of God, but because they think about God at all, because they do not " put aside all such problems as inaccessible." This shows clearly that there is an abyss of unbelief lower than speculative atheism. For to an atheist the supposition that there is a God distinct from nature, is at least suffi- ciently possible to require to be opposed; whereas Comte has so entirely dropped the consideration of the subject, that he can say, apparently without even a feeling of defiance, " the heavens declare no other glory than that of Hipparchus, of Kepler, of New- ton, and of all those who have aided in establishing their laws"." No wonder he can add while contem- plating this glory of the philosophers, that " modern science permits us easily to conceive a happier arrangement." But for its horrible blasphemy the grotesqueness of this mad egotism might even pro- voke a smile. It is due to the English exponent of Comte to say, that he has repudiated the audacious blasphemy of his teacher by declaring that " what- ever be the litanies most suitable to his mind, under some form or other, man cannot help worshipping, when under this canopy of the cathedral of immen- sity. And the least man, gazing upward at the stars, will in the depths of his reverent soul echo the 1 Comte's Philosophy, Lewes, p. 25. ^ JUd^ p, 88. I.] END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. 23 Psalmist's burst, 'The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament showeth His handiwork \"' Comte too, strange as it may sound, pronounces religion to be necessary to man, and that moreover "to fulfil its true function religion must first sub- ordinate our existence to an external and irresistible power ^." To determine the nature of this power is the office of the intellect in religion, — the expression of that determination is the creed of the future. Since then religion is the key-stone of the social arch, and since there can be no religion without God, how does Comte define the nature of that "external irresistible power" which in the darkness of the theological *and metaphysical periods was conceived of under the form of a fetiche, a spirit, or an abstraction. " Humanity," answers Comte, " is the God of the future. It must be conceived of as having an existence apart from, though dependent on, the individual cells of which his organism is composed. This collective life is the Etre Supreme, the only one we can know, therefore the only one we can worship." One scarcely knows whether to wonder most at the meanness or obscurity of this conception. The creed of the future was to deliver us from abstractions; and what but an abstraction is a humanity apart from human beings? what but a figment of the imagination is a vast social organism 1 p. 92. 2 p^ 340^ 24 END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. [Lect. united by a positive bond, as real and palpable as that which knits into an organic unity the cells of a human body? Try to rej^resent to yourself the general aspect and character of this '' positive" con- ception; try to gather and condense into the definite features of a living independent being the vast smoke-cloud which this modern investigator has re- leased from its time-long imprisonment. As the gloomy canopy rolls back, concentrates, solidifies, and takes bodily form, what is it which we see towering above us in the crystal sky ? Not any sin- gle human hero, nor any existing collection of human beings^ for it is the whole.; an existence not only wide in extent as the world, but long in its succes- sion as human time! And yet on the other hand it can be no mere abstraction ; for, according to Comte's definition, it is an external irresistible power, something positive, which depends not on our con- ceptions, but imposes itself on our reverence, whe- ther we will or no. Besides, according to Comte, it is only the species which lives, the individual dies, and therefore the races of the past are no more than a bygone dream; they can no more form part of the actual humanity than its vanished cells form any part of the real body. The present indeed may have inherited the thoughts of the past, but it is that present only which embodies them as a posi- tive external power. What then, after all, is this I] END OF rxATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. 25 miserable God? It surely cannot be the many- headed multitude, the vast concourse of the existing human family, the illimitable mob of good and bad, of wise and ignorant, of men in all conceivable stages of development — theological, metaphysical, and positive — the million worshippers of fetiche, the thousand fanatics of abstraction, mingled in one indiscriminate company, with the little knot of en- lightened sages! Will the great hierarch of the ultimate religion — will M. Comte himself fall down and worship before the multitudes whose theological ignorance it was his office to enlighten? This were to stultify himself, and to give the lie to his own philosophy: this Vv^ere to consecrate the right of free discussion, the permanence of individual equality, and the divine right of the sovereignty of peoples — dogmas agpinst which Comte protests with all his strength as the fatal obstacle to all social order, as condemning (to use his own words) "all superiors to an arbitrary dependence on the multitude of in- feriors." Who, as he threads his way through this weary round of contradictions, would not exclaim with the illustrious Niebuhr^: ''As for that Christianity, which 1 Neander's TAfe of Christ, p. xx. For a faithful representation of some of the results of the so-called Positive Philosophy, see Kalisch, Genesis, p. 36 : "It cannot be surprising that such premises led to the most monstrous conclusions ; that a school has been formed 26 END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. [Lect. is sucli according to the fashion of the modern phi- losophers and pantheists, without a personal God, without immortaUty, without an individuality of man, without historical faith — it may be a very ingenious and subtle philosophy, but it is no Chris- whicli not only renewed the system of the heathen Epicureans, but carried it out in its most revolting consequences ; that it is most clamorously asserted that the world was formed through itself by atoms, or " monads," working upon each other by the aid of chance ; that man is a developed animal ; his thoughts are the product of oxi- dised coal and phosphorescent fat ; his will depends on the swelling of the fibres, and the contact of the different substances of the brain ; and his sentiments are the movements of the electric currents in the nerves ; that the notions of God, soul, virtue, conscience, immor- tality, and the hke, are illusory products of the changes of matter in the brain ; crime and murder are the consequences of a deception, and of the dislocation of a brain-fibre ; — so that malefactors must be sent to hospitals and asylums, and not to prisons and workhouses ; the judge is to be entirely superseded by the physician ; theft and calumny and fraud do not come before the tribunal of morahty, but are to be cured by physic and medicines ; and even murder is no atrocious crime, but an unhappy mistake, which it would be absurd and cruel to visit with punishment. In such perversion of notions we must tremble for the safety of society. The very essence and nature of man are denied ; and his consciousness itself is declared a phantom and a dream ! The happiness of man, and the order of the universe, are crushed in one vast and fearful ruin. Every sym- pathetic feeling is a weakness, and all enthusiasm is infatuation ; hope and faith are the off'spring of credulous indolence ; and soon, alas ! love will follow into the same awful abyss !" In view of such doctrines as these, is it not time to rebuke that audacious and im- pious spirit which dares to resolve all things into a dreary and pur- poseless conflict of material forces, guided by the fortuitous caprices of accident, or constrained by the iron bond of an inexorable and unconscious fate ? I.] END OF RATIONALISTIC SPECULATION. 27 tianity at all. Again and again have I said, that I know not what to do with a metaphysical God, and that I will have no other but the God of the Bible who is heart to heart." What is the light of the knowledge of that God, as seen in the face of Jesus Christ, it will be one object of my subsequent dis- courses to display; but meantime, and always, it is of the utmost importance to remember that we have surveyed the last possible efforts of unassisted human intellect to solve the problem of existence. By means of the intellect we can only discover and apprehend phenomena, and therefore if we lose the God of the Bible, who speaks to us heart to heart through the blessed* story of Redemption, we must either hold with Hegel, that nothing exists except ideas, or with Comte, that we can never know what exists, and must be content with our ignorance. This is the end of philosophy — this is the goal to which the spirit of the age is urging us! When the deceitful haze of great swelling words is cleared away, this is what we see before us : not a constant and endless progression towards the fullest and most transcendent knowledge of the Deity, but an abrupt and final halt at the brink of a precipice — at the brink of a dark and bridgeless abyss, void and deso- late, with no living spirit in its depths, and no bow of hope in its sky. Never was the alternative so clearly and sharply defined as in our own day; never 28 THE CHURCH'S PRESENT AND FUTURE. [Lect. was the opposition to Christ so direct and fearless. We can discern more and more plainly the fated forms of the Apocalyptic vision, the beast-like lawless force, and the lamb-like godless wisdom of the great apostasy; and we can hear more and more distinctly their loud defiant challenge to the King of kings. For good or evil it is plainly the crisis of the Church's fortunes, the beginning of the last battle of the age-long war. The forces of Christ and antichrist are drawn up within sight of each other; the hostile camip-fires blaze on every emi- nence of art and science, of literature and politics. The end cannot be far off, and of the nature of that end, the Christian, knowing as he does the character of the issue and of the combatants, cannot be for a moment doubtful. He cannot believe that God made the world, that God has been guiding it through the course of all the ages, only to bring it at length to the chaos of darkness and despair; and moreover he sees the awful symbols of the Apoca- lypse blazing over the future of wickedness, like the letters of fire on the walls of the fated king! But his strong confidence is in the words of the Lord his Redeemer! Above the din and discord of the battle he hears ever the claim, the bidding, the promise, of his King. The claim, ''AH power is given to me in heaven and in earth." Others may have usurped the Lord's I.] THE CUURCirS PRESENT AND FUTURE. 29 right, in appearance and for a season, in this or the other province of creation; but yet in the counsels of His Father, through all the boundless field of Divine activity, far as the heavens stretch infinite away, beyond the reach of sight or soul, beyond the illimitable bounds where thought itself grows faint and dizzy with its flight, the Lord is King: not only power, but "all" power, is given to Him! Again, behind this glittering show of sense and time there is an inner world, an eternal mode of being which sense cannot recognize, which space cannot measure — the spiritual world, the inner sanctuary of crea- tion, the holy of holies, where glows behind the co- vering veil of time the essential glory of God. And there too, in that inner sphere, throned above angels and archangels, and all of inconceivably august amongst the endless order of those spiritual throngs, those morning stars of the eternal firmament, the Lord is King: not only povv^er, but all power, is given to Him. This is our Master's rightful claim, and on it He bases His command; go ye therefore, and give it effect. Go forth into all the earth, and without fear or afterthought, without measuring forces or calcu- lating results, attack at once every enemy of your Lord. Do this, not because you are equal to the battle, but because there moves before you, behind you, and around you, the unseen Almighty presence 30 TEE CHURCirS PRESENT AND FUTURE. [Lect. I. ot the glorified Son of God ; because this goes before you like a consuming fire^ because it shall dwell within you as a resistless energy; because it shall envelope and encircle you with a wall of impene- trable flame, like that flashing sword which kept the gate of Paradise, or like those chariots and horses of fire which blazed on the hills of Dothan round about Elisha! This is the Lord's promise to His struggling Church, militant here below; yea, this is the power by which He has made it possible for her hitherto, and so far as we see it done, to obey His command and justify his declaratiou. And this promise, this power is for each of us, to inspire us with holy courage, with uncompro- mising faithfulness, with long-suffering patience, and love. And it shall continue ours, yea, it shall continue the possession of Christ's earthly bride, through all the weary conflict, even to the end. For according to His promise He is with us ''always," on every day, and in every way, even till the w^orld ends; through all the time which is yet to be, so long as the earth has still its days and nights, until His own great day. And then, when the end has come, and time has passed into eternity, the Lord will no longer need to promise, " Lo, I am with you," for then we shall be with Him, " seeing Him as He is, and knowing even as also we are known." LECTURE 11. EOMANS IX. 5. Of whom as concerning tlie flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever. Last Sunday, with the view of pointing out how solemn were the issues of present controversies, I endeavoured to indicate to you the present position and inevitable end of what has been called rational Christianity. Incidentally, however, we were enabled to see how vainly philosophy had laboured to solve the problem of existence, and more especially to conceive the true nature of the union which subsists between God and man. Rejecting as unphiloso- phical that frigid Deism which sets the Infinite over against the finite as something distinct and foreign to it, Hegel and Comte are alike compelled to take refuge in Pantheism, and thus to contradict our fundamental conviction, that we possess a per- sonality, which as it is distinct and real in the pre- 32 THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION [Lect. sent, is also destined to permanence after the change which we call death. The alternative \vhich thus seems to be presented is this, that if we attempt to solve the problem of existence by the light of reason alone, we are either driven to premise an untenable hypothesis w^ith respect to the nature of God, or to embrace an impossible conclusion as to the nature and destiny of man. In this difficulty we are met by the declaration of Revelation, that God is neither to be banished from creation nor confused with it; that while the distinctions of personality in the Divine essence permit us to conceive of an eternal ac- tivity in the Godhead apart from creation, to conceive, in other words, a mode of existence in God which is loftier and more divine than the mere physical pro- cession of the world-spirit; on the other hand, the spectacle of God coming into manifestation through the Incarnation, and of all which led to and resulted from it, affects us irresistibly with the impression that this gi'eat God w^ho is exalted so high above all blessing and praise, is at the same time the Father of our Spirits, in whom we live and move and have our being, yea, and without whom not even a spar- row falls to the ground. And thus if we had no other object than to build up for ourselves a temple of truth in which we might live and worship, in the outer darkness of this night of unbelief, we should feel it necessary to realize as distinctly as possible II.] AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 33 the positive contents of this revelation. But there is also another reason for such a course, and a reason which is furnished by the peculiar circumstances of our own days. Moved thereto by such objections as I noticed last Sunday, devout men are asking themselves more carefully than hitherto what is the meaning of the word Inspiration ; in what sense and to what extent did the Spirit of God illuminate the minds of those chosen men who spoke or recorded the words of Holy Scripture. This, it is true, is a question which has often been asked in the course of the Christian centuries, but, partly owing to the restrictions on free speech, and partly to the unde- veloped condition of critical and historical science, it was never put with such clearness and importu- nity, and never considered so fully and freely as now. It has thus happened, as was indeed inevit- able, that there is a greater apparent divergence of opinion on this subject than ever before, and (as perhaps was also inevitable) that, in challenging or supporting the claims of a theory of mechanical inspiration, appeal has been made to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. Such an appeal must of course ultimately force us back upon the considera- tion of the doctrine of the Lord's Person, and com- plaints have already been heard that, while much attention has been bestowed upon such books as the Essays and Reviews from the historical or critical 3 34 THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION [Lect, point of view, of theological criticism^ *' there has been hardly any at all." Such criticism however must evidently raise at once such questions as these, " Is the hypothesis of a limitation in our Saviour's human knowledge con- sistent with the doctrine of Hi^ Divinity?" If this question should be answered in the affirmative, Is such an hypothesis further consistent with the doc- trine of His human sinlessness? And again, should both these positions be affirmed, Can we point out the spiritual direction in which such limitation is to be expected? I shall endeavour to answer these questions in my remaining lectures. It is too late to object to such an investigation, that to introduce questions as to the Lord's Person into a passing controversy is to bring the ark of God into the camp. It has been already brought thither, and by no unhallowed hands; for if on the one side Bishop Thirlwall^ insists that " a gTeat part of the events related in the Old Testament (our Lord's general sanction of it notwithstanding) has no more apparent connection with our religion than those of Greek and Roman history," another eminent prelate recently asserted from this place ^ that "to cast dis- credit upon these books, or upon any portion of ^ Charge of the Bishop of St DavicVs, 1863, p. 98. 2 Ibid. p. 123. * Foundation Truths, Bishop Perry, p. 15. II.] AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 35 them, would be to impute either ignorance or false- hood to the Redeemer." And again, yet more de- cisively, " We ca.nnot but regard Christianity as answerable with its life... for the veracity of the statements and the soundness of the moral doctrine contained in it." Now, whatever we may think as to the possibility of reconciling such statements, it is clear that they do bring the ark of our faith into the field of battle; and that all which in these cir- cumstances it remains for us to do is to defend it there. There are some however who are disposed to take quite another view of this proceeding; who think that, in the investigations to which the oppo- sitions of unbelief have driven her, the Church is permanently advancing to another camping ground, and that since she has struck her tents, and is ac- tually moving onward, it is necessary that the ark of God should go before to find out for her the next appointed resting-place on her pilgrimage to truth. Thus, wdth a noble confidence, Dorner exclaims, in the preface to his great work 0)i the Person of Christ^, "It is well for both, in the great conflict between the mighty powers of Christianity and rea- son, when the struggle is ever more and more con- centrated on the point where all is ultimately to be won or lost. This is well for Christianity, not ^ Dorner, On the Person of Christ, Vol. i. p. vii. 3—2 36 THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION [Lect. because, driven from so many positions, otherwise esteemed essential, she, as it were, has to call forth her very te.st forces for the protection of the Person of her Chief; but rather because this Person alone, as the central point of the whole, is able to deter- mine the positions which may and must be main- tained." It is well too for philosophy; "it is salu- tary for her to know from what position the Christian theology cannot depart before she extends the hand to her. Otherwise it is only an untrue, precipitate reconciliation that can be effected — a reconciliation which will soon be dissolved again, and which tends but to hinder the ultimate agreement." It may seem to many that this is to take too hopeful a view of the future, that the contradictions of our time are so direct, the divergencies of opinion so wide, that to look for the restoration of anything like concurrence of belief is to hope against the fiat of experience. But glance backward for a moment at the violent contests of those stormy centuries through which the Church has advanced to a fuller realization of the contents of the Word of God ; and as you watch the ebb and flow of the age-long con- flict, its crises of apparently hopeless anarchy and disorganization, its sudden turns of fortune, and ibove all its constant witness that there is One within the veil who is wont to come out of His place when the Church's affairs are most entangled II.] AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 37 and disastrous, and you will be disposed, I think, to agree with the remark with which Dorner finishes his general review of it, that "at no time has a problem been proposed to Christianity which she has not, though amid the conflict of the sharpest antagonisms, been able to solved" The objection may indeed be suggested, that, thouo^h this statement mio^ht be true of ruder and less cultivated times, it by no means follows that Christianity will be able to resolve the difficulties of an age like ours. But let it be remembered that it is not the real knowledge of this age — its knowledge viz. of the connection of phenomena — which will ulti- mately stand over against Christianity. A man may have enriched himself with all the spoils of mo- dern science, and yet never feel for a moment (except as he is made so to feel by false and unscriptural representations) that there is a shadow of opposition between his reason and his faith. That which op- poses Christianity is the barren and unscientific ontology which we reviewed last week, which pre- tends to know the unknowable, and to measure the Infinite with a finite line. And of such "gnosis" I will venture to say, that any one who will carefully and patiently compare it with that Gnosticism which (growing out of the ancient philosophies) confronted Christianity in the first two Christian centuries, will ^ Dorner, Vol. I. p. 75. 38 THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION [Lect. be astonished in how many points the two systems agree, not only in their essential principles, but even in their outward form. Strauss but repeats the blasphemy of Carpocrates, when he places Jesus ^ " in the Chapel of Alexander Severus by the side of Or- pheus and Homer where He ought not to dis- dain the company of Alexander and Caesar, of Ra- phael and Mozart;" for the earlier heretic declared that Christ was no more than a religious genius, erecting a statue to Him^ ''along with Pythagoras, Plato, and Aristotle." Again, in a vision described in the Gnostic gospel of Eve^ we have a clear enuncia- tion, in words which might have been uttered by Fichte, of that principle (viz. the identity of subject and object) out of which all German idealism has been developed. What wonder then that not only Baur but Renan should consider Ebionism the ori- ginal form of Christianity, and seek its gospel in the Pseudo-Clementine homilies ! "Who can remark the closeness of this analogy, and not take courage from the fact, that Gnosticism, so far from ultimately injuring Christianity, did but bring into the Church to be discriminated, and in part appropriated, whatever had been strong and great in the culture of the later Jewish and heathen 1 Beard, Strauss, Hegel, d;c. p. 46. 2 Dorner, Vol. I. p. 186. 3 Dorner, Yol. I, p. 248. II.] AND MODERN PIIILOSOPEY. 39 world, forcing thus upon the conviction of all, that this which could thus regally judge and discriminate, was itself the absolute religion which might be judged of none. In our time there is again a great movement of the deep waters of rational speculation, and again men are bearing into the bosom of the Christian Church all the spoils of thought and discovery, to lay them over against the revealed truth of God. It is a searching trial, and the question is again asked, by some in arrogant, by others in doubtful, even in sorrowful tones. Is this the absolute religion after all ? Now let us learn from the past not to be im- patient. These systems of truth must be suffered to lie side by side till men have well contemplated them, till they have examined them on every side, and are satisfied as to their relative claims. And, if we may judge from the past, this process will not be completed in a year nor even in an age. Neither will its result be such as the impatient are prone to expect, for, if the experience of the past is to be repeated, Christianity, while rejecting much, will also not fail to absorb something from the modern cultus which challenges it. Let it be recognized, moreover, that such periodic comparisons are rendered inevitable by the claim of Christianity to be the absolute religion. It was this claim which made a death-wrestle with the ancient 40 THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCARNATION [Lect. philosophy inevitable, and which again, at the great birth-time of the European intellect, provoked that mystical and scholastic speculation which prepared for the decisive advance of the Reformation. This fact is scarcely less manifest in the history of the latter period than in that of the former. In opening their eyes to the true character of the ancient super- stition, men naturally became dissatisfied with what they thought to be Christianity. The Church was infallible, if she might be believed, and yet she told them things, as to the means of obtaining and dis- pensing the Divine favour, which in the light of awakened conscience were plainly incredible. In these circumstances the mind must try if it could not find for itself some better way. And thus again, in the sceptical mockeries of Abelard, the ecstatic contemplation of Ruysbroek, and the pantheistic mys- ticism of Master Eckart\ we catch the faithful echoes of the ancient Gnosticism, the familiar tokens that, by exhausting efforts to break down the rock- barriers of the finite, the mind is again convincing itself of its own speculative impotence. Still all this effort had its use. For while men were seeking earnestly for a better forgiveness than could be pur- chased by the price of an indulgence, for a more real communion with God than could be effected through ^ Ullmann's Reformers before the Reformation, Vol. ii. Part I. Chap. II. and iii. II.] AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 41 the manipulation of a rosary, yea, and were disco- vering that with all their efforts they could not find what they sought, the Reformers were driven on, by the urgent impulsion of the universal need, to a more living acquaintance with the Word of Life, and were thence enabled to convince the world once more, that if not Romanism, yet at least Christianity was the absolute religion. The human mind has again in our time made a vast advance in the acquisition of secular knowledge. Within the experience of little more than a single generation, sciences have been created of which our forefathers knew not even the name. In the slow building of continents, in the flash of the electric current, in the secret processes of animal and vege- table life, our contemporaries have discovered modes of the Divine activity which former ages had never suspected. And, in the intoxication of these large and sudden acquisitions, it is perhaps scarcely to be wondered that we discern at times something of the self-complacency of the parvenu. Still it must be confessed that science has some ground of complaint, for in the confident joyousness of its prosperity it has found itself confronted, if not by an infallible Church, at least apparently by an infallible Book, which, according to the assertions of the many who understood it least, was to be regarded as an authoritative exposition not only of spiritual 42 THE DOCTRINE OF TEE INCARNATION [Lect. but also of physical truth. As before, this was felt to be impossible, and too many, in the rashness and bitterness of disappointed pride, determined to seek the higher truth for themselves. Again the old pro- cesses, the familiar mockeries, mysticism, pantheism ; and again the sense of cruel limitation, the hope- lessness, the bitterness of baffled enthusiasm. It is the world bringing its culture into the Church again, to be again vanquished and blessed, to have its arro- gance rebuked, its truth consecrated ; yea, and by the grace of God its faith re-established in the abso- lute religion and the glorified God-Man. I am per- suaded, my brethren, that the problem proposed to us is of far less intrinsic difficulty than some of those which have already met with their solution. All which we need as defenders of the faith, but yet this is much, is the spirit of truth, of patience, and of love ; the spirit Avhich can look for the truth of God even in the accusations of an enemy, which can wait in perplexity till Christ shall make the light to spring out of darkness, which can meekly bear to be de- feated, and only find fresh strength in the sense of its own weakness; which will not withhold its little liofht from the common stock, because its feeble glimmer may expose the light-bearer to scorn ; which will say nothing but the truth for any bribe which the world can offer, which can be prevented from telling all the truth by no punishment which the II.] AND MODERN PHILOSOPHY. 43 world can threaten, and, best of all, which can trust Christ above wisdom and learning and self, seeking that light from the .gift of the Light essential, which it cannot find in the schools nor in the busy con- course of men ! Having thus indicated what I believe to be the probable issue of such investigations as those which the progress of the age is compelling us to under- take, let me now proceed more closely to that par- ticular branch of it which is our more special sub- ject for to-day, and which I have already indicated thus : " How far is the hypothesis of the limitation of our Saviour's human nature (and especially therein of His knowledge) consistent with the doc- trine of His Divinity?" This question will of course prescribe the form of our investigation; for we have to determine not whether the doctrine of the Tri- nity is agreeable to Scripture, but rather, assuming, this position to be affirmed, how far we have defi- nite ideas about the Divine nature and Personality of Jesus; for (because we cannot tell what possibi- lities may be admitted by that which is unknown) only so far can the Church doctrine about our Sa- viour's divinity interfere with the supposition of His human limitation. We are taught then by the Church to affirm, 1st, that Jesus Christ is very God; 2ndly, that Jesus Christ is very man; and 3rdly, that He is not two, 44 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [Lect. but one Christ. Now it is at once objected to these statements that the two former, taken together, con- tradict the third. That since in two rational natures there must needs be two distinct wills, and two distinct understandings, and since, moreover, as Schleiermacher insists ^ the will and understanding constitute the personality, it follows that the as- sumption of two natures implies two personalities. This conclusion, urges Schleiermacher, seems to be inevitable, unless indeed we suppose, as would ap- pear to be probable, that the Infinite will overpowers and, so to speak, extinguishes the other. But then it is difficult to understand how the absolute qui- escence of the human will and intelligence are not tantamount to their withdrawal; while at the same time it is impossible to admit the only other appa- rent solution of the difficulty, viz. that the Divine and human wills in Jesus had a common object^, " for that would constitute a moral union of distinct personalities, not a metaphysical unity of person," Now the Church answers these and all similar objections by pointing out that they are simply built (as objections so commonly are) upon an am- biguity in the meaning of a word; upon the suppo- sition, namely, that she means by the word Person- ality, as used in reference to the Incarnation of our 1 Strauss's Life of Jesus, Vol. iii. p. 411. 2 Westminster Eeview, October, 1864, p. 470, &c. II.] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 45 Lord, what is ordinarily meant by it in its appli- cation to men. In the latter case, the word person is generally defined as representing " a free intelli- gent being, possessing a single centre of self-deter- mination, and conscious of its own identity under every variety of external circumstances." If the Church means this by the word " Person," undoubt- edly the objections which have been noticed are valid, and moreover unanswerable. But she does not. When speaking of the Personality of Jesus Christ, the Church means "the synthesis of two distinct natures; that in which the Divine and hu- man natures of the Redeemer find the real ground of their union." If now it be objected that this definition does not agree with the former, the Church replies that she never intended that it should, that in laying it down she intended to describe some- thing very different from an ordinary human per- sonality, and therefore that it is a mere w^aste of ingenuity to prove those things inconsistent which she designedly made so. But why constitute such an ambiguity, it may be asked, — why use a well-known word in an unusual meaning ? From the necessity of the case ; because the fact to be described is unique and incomprehen- sible, and because, therefore, (since all words are used in the first place to describe something within the range of human experience,) it wouid have been 46 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [L^cT. impossible to select any word which would not have borne an ambiguous meaning. Well, it may be re- plied, if you have removed the formal difficulty, you have only done so by suggesting a substantial, and therefore a far more formidable one. If we have been mistaken in your meaning, What is it that you now mean by the synthesis of two distinct natures? What is that mvsterious j^round in which these find their connexion? This, in other words, is a demand that we shall bring within the reach of the finite mind, by means of some comprehensi- ble illustration, that which by its very nature is beyond our comprehension. And what if we do not, — if we cannot? Will the objector thence con- clude that what he cannot be made to understand does not therefore exist? Only can he do so by assuming the utterly ridiculous position that his knowledge is the measure of existence. That, in short, which alone could justify the rejection of the doctrine of the Incarnation on account of the form of its statement, would be the demonstration that that statement affirmed an impossibility. But how can you prove that to be impossible which you do not understand? It were easy to suggest inexplicable difficulties in reference to the statement that we were made by God, or that "in Him we live and move and have our being." For who can under- stand how human freedom and responsibility are II.] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 47 consistent with the truth that God gave to each his fundamental tendencies and instincts, and more- over that He appointed all the external circum- stances imder which those tendencies should be de- veloped ? How far, for instance, is the child of a thief responsible for his evil tendencies, when he w^as born with all the wild passions of his parents, and breathed moreover the poisoned air of vice and temptation from the hour of his birth to that of his death? How was he responsible? in what conceiv- able sense could he be said " to live, and move, and have his being in God"? And yet in some sense he had, for to exclude the Infinite even from one cor- ner of creation is to impose on Him limitation and deny His infinity : in some sense too the wretched chi!d of vice was responsible, for to take away from him all will is to make him less than human. We cannot comprehend these things, but are we there- fore, with the selfish impatience of an overweening conceit, to deny their existence? In that case, what is there in all the earth and all the heavens which we must not deny? Suppose we admit the most materialistic theory of life, do we then understand life? Lewes acknowledges^ that if we admit the positivist theory that "life is an evolution, not a creation, and is thus essentially connected with the great life of the universe, that even then no thinking 1 Comte, p. 1 60. 48 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [Lect. man will imagine that anything is explained by this. The great mystery of life and being remains as in- accessible as ever." In fact, all we do by the adop- tion of this theory is to alter our conception of the mode in which successive species came into exist- ence. Instead of conceiving that the long line of physical, chemical, and vital metamorphoses, exists in the form of a cable which gi-ew by the addition of new threads at definite intervals, we have to con- ceive that the growth was effected insensibly by the gradual development of those threads which existed at the beginning; but what the vast coil of creation is, or how it was developed, this is, and must ever continue to be, beyond the reach of our unassisted vision. We cannot understand life; nay, on the same disinterested testimony^, we cannot even understand our own perceptions. "No amount of ingenuity," says Lewes, "will make an impression transmitted along a nerve, either by mechanical vibrations, or by fluids of the most mysterious qua- lity, into a perception (viz. a recognition, or taking hold by the mind of the meaning of the impression), which remains at once the essential fact and eternal mystery." What then shall we believe, if we reject all which we cannot understand? We must needs end in an abject nihilism which denies that there ^ Comte's Philosophy, p. ■215. II.] THE PERSON OF C Hill ST. 49 is either God, or world, or man, object or subject, universe or self! But in truth, if we may believe another class of objectors, the idea of the God-man is by no means so incomprehensible as Socinians have declared, for it is held by the followers of Hegel^ that ''the human mind unknowingly and instinctively framed by anticipation the dogmas of the fall, original sin, the Trinity and the God-man, as a sort of popular expression of the Hegelian doctrines." If then the doctrine of the Incarnation is at present so incon- ceivable, how is it that at one time it appeared so natural? A celebrated author has maintained that the errors of Romanism have their origin in human nature; what would have been thought, if he had argued thence, not that those doctrines were the product of corrupt tendencies, or the perversion of normal tendencies of the human mind, but that they were so utterly mysterious and incomprehensible as to be out of the sphere as well of human interest as of human knowledge? The latter class of ob- jectors might be fairly left to answer the former I But however this may be, it will now I trust be perfectly apparent that while confessing that great is that " mystery of godliness," of which the basis is "God manifest in the flesh," the Church can no more justly be charged with credulity for believing ^ Beard's Strauss, Herjel, ^c. p. 30. 4 50 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [Lect. it than she can fairly be charged with inconsistency for endeavouring to represent that mystery by the word which seemed to her most adequately to sug- gest and illustrate it. And this last remark may suggest to us the actual history of the adoption of the Church's ter- minology. It is true that such phrases as " Person," " Son of God," and "Eternal Filiation/' at least in their technical signification, were originally proposed by theologians during the great controversies of the first five centuries. But they are not to be looked upon as having only the authority of those who first suggested them, for these words came into existence after the manner of proverbs. Out of many proverbial sayings which are set afloat, some are seized upon by the general community as pecu- liarly true or valuable, and so by their very perma- nence carry the authority of public approval. Now in the earliest ages the Church held the deposit of revealed truth only as an undeveloped totality. The truth had indeed really moulded the Christian heart, and produced the general tone of Christian feeling, but it had not yet been placed as a definite object before the understanding. As soon however as it was stated by any rash speculator in an erroneous form, the Church felt at once that this was not the truth which she held in her heart, and, as a counter- active,, she sought eagerly for a more exact descrip- II.] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 51 tion of it. The great theologians of the earlier ages did their best, under the guidance of the Spirit, to supply that want; and whenever they were enabled to utter the Church's conviction on any controverted point in a form which commended itself as suffi- cient to wdiat Dorner has beautifully called^ "the faith-conscience" of the community, that form was at once felt to be the one which they had been so long vainly seeking, and thus the very form to be passed on, with the stamp of the Church's approval, as a permanent possession for future ages. Thus when in the midst of the Patripassian controversy Tertullian decisively adopted the title "Son of God" instead of "LogosV' the Church felt at once that he had expressed the distinction which it wished to make, not merely between God and his reason, which might be only a distinction between substance and attribute, but between Person and Person, be- tween Father and Son. Thenceforward therefore the phrase was technically adopted. The most de- cisive proof however that this w^as the method of terminological genesis is furnished in the introduc- tion by Origen of the phrase "Eternal Filiation." The Church had long sought in vain for a positive statement of its faith which should not less exclude the frigid Deism of the Judaizing gnosis on the one hand, than the unworthy Pantheism of the Gentile 1 Vol. I. p. 46. 2 Dorner, Vol. ii. p. 79. 4—2 52 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [Lect. gnosis on the otliei", and it felt at once that in this phrase of Origen, which represented God's highest activity as taking place within the sphere of His own Being, it mig-ht shut out for ever that immoral Pantheism which seemed necessarily to arise from placing God's activity over against the creation alone ; while at the same time it excluded that cold and narrow-hearted Deism which banished God from an impure world into a dark and awful solitude. That this was the real ground upon which this phrase was adopted is manifest from this, that while its author's^ "doctrine of the eternity of creation and much else found no recognition, that of the eternal generation of the Son, on the contrary, at- tained through its own weight the position of a corner-stone in the doctrinal edifice of the Church,... and became even a standard for the judgment of other parts of Origen' s system which did not seem to harmonize with it." I think that it is wellnigh impossible in these days to exaggerate the importance of the fact just suggested, for it teaches us to see in those appa- rently cold and repulsive formulae of the creeds the warm living utterance of the Christian heart; it teaches us that if, instead of turning away from these dogmas disdainfully, as though they were mere antiquated abstractions, we would be at the pains 1 Dorner, Vol. IT. p. 114. II.] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 53 to enquire into their history and adoption, we should find ourselves placed in contact with the warmest emotions of a struggling faith; yea, and brought into the full view of the Christian solutions of those very difficulties which harass our own! It is continually urged, if the Church does not fully understand the mysterious ground of the two natures in her Incarnate Lord, why does she speak about it, give it a name, and make it an object of thought and specidation ? Why is it not enough to say simply that Christ is God and Man, and that, though we know not how this may be, we are con- tent to believe the mystery because it is revealed to us in the Bible, and because it meets and satisfies the deepest wants of our heart ? Why do we depart from the richer and simpler and more spiritual lan- guage of Holy Scripture, thus losing the emotional appeal of our representations, while we weary our- selves to express the inexpressible with dialectical formality and precision? It would doubtless be suf- ficient to answer with Dr Mill, — Because we have been compelled to do so by the uj)growth of error and heresy. For^, "whatever might be the happi- ness, doubtless in itself a great one, of being able to dwell on the exalted mysteries of the Gospel without the deadening feeling suggested by a consciousness of opposed opinions, however great might be its 1 MiU's Sermons on the Temptation of our Lord. 54 THE CATHOLIQ DOCTRINE OF [Lect. advantage in the less constrained and technical cast of language, the freedom from the necessity even of appearing, as in these sad times, to be setting one truth of religion as it were in opposition to another, that happiness and advantage can never be ours." For not only have definite heresies arisen on the subject of the Incarnation in ages long since past, but those errors are continually reappearing in our own, and* "nothing can be more delusive than the imagination that through ignoring the matter by indifference, and equilibrium of mind between the Catholic proposition on this truth and its opposite, we are imitating the happy primitive believers who preceded the agitation of the question." It were a sufficient answer to the general objection against dogma, to urge thus its unwelcome necessity. But, as I have hinted, I would go further than this, and remark with gratitude that in losing the serenity of an undisturbed but undeveloped intuition of the faith, the Church has gained as well as lost. She is actually nearer to the comprehension of the truth, and therefore actually further removed from the danger of those abnormal spiritual developments which arise from its misapprehension, than was the Church of the primitive but post- Apostolic age. What the heretics put forth in formal propositions, were just those thoughts which would arise sponta- ^ Mill's Sermons on the Temptation of our Lord. II ] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 55 neously in the human mind in virtue of its instinc- tive desire to reduce every object of thought to a form which should be comprehensible. Thus if the errors had never been published, it is certain that they would have been thought, and that the more extensively, as the Church extended her conquests over heathen races, to which such errors had been long habitual. Was it then no advantage to take these possible and therefore inevitable errors one after another, and definitely exclude them ? Are we not coming nearer to the truth, as we successively eliminate every conception which can conflict with it ? Do we not place the mind in a more favourable position for attaining the goal of truth, when, by successively stopping up every bye-path of error into which it might stray, we leave it on that road which will lead it at least in the right direction, and con- duct it as far towards the end as it may be possible for it to advance ? And is not this, moreover, when deeply considered, as advantageous in a spiritual as in an intellectual point of view. If it be undeniable that our emotions faithfully respond to the appeal of the object presented to them, and if this law holds good nowhere so universally as in the sphere of reli- gion, and in connection with representations of the nature of God ; if therefore for our spiritual health it is as necessary for us to set up no false spiritual idol before the eyes of our soul, as it was for the 56 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [Lect. Israelites in a ruder age to present no graven image to their bodily sight, are we no better spiritually for the casting down of those intellectual idols which it is natural to us to make ? Take as an illustration the successive steps through which the Church has approximated to the understanding of her Lord's humanity. Two errors were possible, and therefore two became actual, on the nature of the Lord's hu- manity. It might be denied altogether as by the Docetse, or confounded with the Divinity as by Arius and Apollinaris. The former error is so far removed from the circle of modern thought that it may be suf- ficient to have stated it, but the latter (especially in the form which it assumed among the Apollinarians) resembles so strikingly one into which good men are tempted to fall in these days, that it may not be unprofitable to describe it more particularly. Apol- linaris (a man equally distinguished for wisdom and piety, devoted to the Church, and a personal friend of Athanasius), in his zeal against the Arians, and his desire to give distiactness and comprehensibility to the orthodox faith, was led to assert that the Eternal Word at His Incarnation took nothing but the flesh of humanity, — its body, and animal soul, — while His Divine Nature supplied the place of a rational spirit. The temptation to this error lies upon the very surface ; its adoption would dispel so many obscurities. For Apollinaris there could be no II.] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 57 difficult question about human frailty and human limitation. Bodily weakness indeed was left, and bodily suffering, but every one of our Lord's spiritual and intellectual acts was attributed not to his human spirit, either in whole or in part (for human spirit He had none), but directly to the Immanent Deity. This made all very intelligible, no doubt, and would have been as valuable as it was definite, if it had been the object of investigation to frame an intelli- gible theory, and not to explain a transcendent fact. But where was the use of it, if it did not correspond to the reality, if Scripture asserted, and the human heart required, a Saviour who was very man as well as very God, a Saviour who could redeem the human soul as well as the human body? And is it useless in the present day to call atten- tion to this mistake of a good man, when so many are shrinking back from the thought of our Saviour's real limitation in knowledge and His real growth in wisdom, because they find it difficult to entertain these thoughts by the side of His Omniscience ? Is it not well to remind such, yea, to remind ourselves, that this reluctance arises from the rationalistic tend- ency to reject what we cannot understand, that it proves we are not catholic at heart, and have not as yet brought down every high imagination to the obedience of Christ ? When the Church insisted, in opposition to 58 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [Lect. Apollinaris, that we must hold the reality and com- pleteness of our Saviour's humanity, of course the question was stirred, — How can this be thought, in consistency with the doctrine of the Unity of His Person? Illustrations and explanations have been offered in reply to the question from that day to this, and, as I have intimated before, it is not well to un- derrate the value of these ; for as each was found in- adequate it brought the Church at least a step nearer towards the truth. Beginning with such physical analogies as that of glowing iron, used by Theodoret\ we see that these are inadequate because they merely represent a union of things of the same nature ; and though this source of obscurity is removed in the figure of the union of soul and body, yet the diffi- culty still remains that while in this latter illustra- tion we have represented only a union of natures which are both the subjects of development, in our Lord's Person there is the union of a human nature which is the subject of progressive development, with a Divine nature which is not. We might per- haps construct an illustration which should be closer. Thus, if a light be placed within the enclosure of a semi-transparent globe, the amount of illumination will depend not only on the brilliance of the light within, but also on the density of the medium through which its rays must struggle. And if we 1 Nitsch, Sijstem, p. 257. II.] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 59 can now conceive that the semi-opaqiie enclosure becomes an organic circle, which as it developes throws off film after film of its opaquer husk, growing all the while more transparent by its successive at- tenuations, we shall have a rude and, though un- worthy, not very inadequate representation of the form in which the expanding and refining humanity of the Child Jesus grew ever more translucent of the glory of Immanent Godhead. This however is only an illustration of the outer form, not of the inner mystery. It represents the effect, the continually briffhtenina- manifestation of an element which con- tinues invariable, but it does not exhibit the cause, viz. that the development of the outward organ is made possible through its organic connexion with the Inner Light. Perhaps the illustration which is most adequate and suggestive is that which is fur- nished by the creaturely and redemptive union be- tween the ordinary human nature and the Divine. By nature we live and move and have our being in God. But through sin this union has been impaired, and it is the great end of salvation not only to restore but to complete it through the vital union of the soul with Christ. Thus, in a certain sense, sal- vation is a OeoTTOLTjai^;, for, as St Peter says, we are "made partakers of the Divine Nature;" we are made " to drink into one Spirit ;" so that the living Chris- tian can say with St Paul, not in a mere figure of 60 ■ THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [Lect. speecli, but out of his own consciousness of the blessed and inexplicable fact, " I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." It is true that in us there can never be, as in Christ, the union of two whole and perfect natures, but still it remains certain that even now, and in us, the whole and perfect nature of man is really made to partake in Christ of the nature of God ; yea, and a day is coming when, without a shadow of Panthe- istic confusion, God, according to the grand declara- tion of St Paul, shall be all things in all. I pass over the recent attempts of Dorner and other Lutheran divines to conceive the manner in which it is abstractedly possible for the two natures to co-exist in a single person, not because I think those attempts fruitless, but because I have not space to make them intelligible \ The utmost however that can be done by any kind of illustration is to point out the true direction of thought; its object, that Christ is very God and at the same time very man, must ever remain a mystery. The Church does not profess to understand it, she believes it because it is revealed and because her very life is involved in its certainty. We must believe in our Lord's real humanity, that as concerning the flesh He came of the tribe of 1 See Sermon IV, and Dorner, Person of Christ, Div. II. Vol. iii. pp. ■248 — 260. II.] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 61 Judah, for if the Omniscience and Omnipotence of His Divine nature exclude the ignorance and weak- ness of His human nature, then this latter was never really limited, was never a reality at all, but only, as the Docetse held, a mere shadow or apparition; then too the Scriptural representations of His growth in wisdom, and of His being made perfect through suf- fering, are merely delusive suggestions, fraudulently invented to bring the Redeemer nearer to our heart, and to persuade us, contrary to the fact, that we have an High Priest who can be really touched by the feeling of our infirmities. Again, it is not less necessary to believe the Sa- viour's real Divinity, that "He is over all, God blessed for ever." For His own assertion of His Di- vine character, as understood by His enemies the Jews, and interpreted by His servants the Apostles, is so clear and unmistakeable, that it leaves possible only one alternative, either that our Lord was more than man or less than holy. And this conclusion does not merely rest on isolated passages, about the meaning of which a captious criticism might dispute, but on the whole spirit and language of the New Testament. Deny our Lord's Divinity, and the grand proclamation of the Gospel becomes meaningless. For, how can we say that the giving up of His only- begotten Son was the most affecting token of our Divine Father's love, if that Son were no more than 62 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE OF [Lect. a creature ? Who would ever dream of saying, who would ever suspect the Bible of saying, that "God so loved the world that He gave His beloved son Paul, or Elijah, or Moses" ? Who, on the contrary, would not feel that such an assertion was either blasphem- ous or meaningless? that it either brought a mere creature into a familiar nearness to God which was intolerable, or that it was a figure of speech which, under the circumstances of our sin and misery, was trifling and therefore heartless? It is painful, and some may think not very pro- fitable, to have thus to subject to a frigid examina- tion the awful mysteries of our faith. This might be true if it were less generally believed that the dog- mas of the Christian faith are as useless as unintelli- gible. It is because, on the other hand, we believe that the ethics of Christianity are unpractical apart from the spiritual facts which are described in its dogmas, that we are so earnest in the defence of these latter. For what is it to be practical ? Is it to talk about what we should do, or to do it ? to de- scribe what is right, or to enable people to perform it ? The law of liberty may do the former, but stand- ing alone it is no more than a dead abstract expres- sion indicating the form into which the soul's life ought to be fashioned. But the power, the living force which is to make each spirit of man a realised and embodied law, this is to come to us through II.] THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 63 those supernatural facts which are described only in the dogmas of our faith. As mere forms of expres- sion, indeed, doctrines are not less dead and power- less than the laws with which we have compared them. But still, as there must be laws to describe the form of that life which the Spirit empowers us to live, so must there be doctrines to describe the supernatural means through which we become par- takers of that power. We cling to the dogma then, not as a cabbalistic form of words, as a mystic incan- tation, but as the description of those supernatural facts of which the basis and origin is the Incarna- tion of the Son of God, and without which we could neither work nor live. But, my brethren, let us take care, while for this reason we prize the doctrines of our faith, that we sink not down into mere admirers of them. There is many a man who is none the better, but rather the worse, for the continual repeti- tion of party watchwords. It may be true in a cer- tain sense, for instance (by no means however in that which is generally intended), that ''the Bible is the religion of Protestants," or that "justification by faith is the doctrine of a standing or a falling Church;" but the only value of such truths (so far as they are true) is derived not merely from seeing them, or saying them, but from using them. Study then the Bible as the means of enlightening your own natural darkness, and seek justification for the pardon and 64 THE CATHOLIC DOCTRINE, «£r. [Lect. TI. assurance of your own guilty soul. Thank God that He has put life within your reach, but also stretch out the hand of faith to take that life ; also, be not satisfied with a glow of thankfulness, or a gush of admiration, but give yourself no rest till that life is yours, yea, till you know this, till you see it proved to yourself and others in the inward renewing of your will and the transformation of your outward conduct. Look within day by day for more patience in afflic- tion, more calmness in danger, more strength in temptation, more equanimity in bereavement, more love in provocation, more hope in the prospect of death. Look without also, for a life which represents more fully the regeneration within, which presents fewer stumbling-blocks to the weak, fewer occasions to the enemy, more numerous signs of the powder of Christ's grace, more signal monuments of the tri- umph of God's love. Then indeed may you rest in peace and triumph in hope, yea, and say humbly, yet confidently, with the Apostle of the Gentiles, " The righteousness of the law is fulfilled in us, which walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit." LECTURE III. St JOHN YIII. 46. Which of you convinceth me of sin 2 Nothing can more conclusively prove that the ob- jections of many modern critics of the New Testa- ment arise rather from the exigencies of their own theories than from objective difficulties in the record, than the fact that men of the highest ability and most advanced culture discover contradictory facts in the same phenomena. Thus it has appeared to thinkers and scholars as eminent as Hase and De Wette^ that it was the object of Jesus in His earlier life to found a political theocracy, and that only later in His career, when "the essential unworthi- ness" of this attempt had been revealed to Him by the opposition of the people, " did there arise in the soul of Jesus, and that too not without spiritual conflict,... the idea of a spiritual kingdom of God." Thus " it was in virtue of His inward progi'ess that ^ See Ullmann's Sinlessness of Jesus, p. 151. ee CONTRADICTORY VIEWS OF [Lect. Jesus was transformed from a Jewish Messiali into the Kedeemer of the world." The philosophical theory of these writers required that there should be tokens of development in the life of Jesus; that as in the race, so in the individual, the idea should not too su(^denly, and as it were miraculously, realize itself And thus the more distinctly they recog- nized that Jesus was an historic individual, the more strenuously did they feel themselves com- pelled to insist that He was the subject of develop- ment. But now again, in our time, the Gospels have been criticised from a different point of view by an author not less able and learned than those already mentioned. The author to whom I am referring, M. Renan, begins by asserting, as a necessary con- sequence of his materialistic philosophy, the impos- sibility of a miracle. This position must be main- tained at all hazards; and the Gospel history must by some means be made to appear consistent with its maintenance. But, unfortunately for the critic, this result is becoming daily more difficult of attain- ment; for as the most modern theory of legends recognizes more of historical reality in the life of Jesus than the earlier theory of myths, it is com- pelled by tliat very admission to attack the charac- ter which it would fain exalt. Thus Strauss might consistently assume that the account of the raising III.] THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. et of Lazarus was but the last of a series of premo- nitory myths, formed out of earlier scriptural tradi- tions and predictions, with a view of illustrating the resurrection of Jesus, and of giving an air of pro- bability to that future magnificent exercise of His power when, according to Christian anticipations, He should raise the universal dead. And so long as it was possible to acquiesce in this assumption, while St John's account of the raising of Laza- rus might perhaps indicate the vigour of the early Christian imagination, or the overpowering impres- sion which the moral greatness of Jesus had pro- duced upon it, it could nevertheless suggest no ac- cusation against the character of the Master Him- self. When however the abandonment in many quarters of the Hegelian philosophy had made the general theory of Strauss less acceptable, and when, moreover, men like Renan had discovered in the scenes and people of the Holy Land that "fifth Gospel" which threw back so much unexpected light, on the writings of the Evangelists, it was no longer possible to accept such an explanation of the miracle at Bethany. The brother of Martha and Mary must actually have been buried and raised again, as St John relates. And in that case, from the nature of the circumstances with which the great event was surrounded, it would be necessary to admit either that a miracle was possible, and that therefore Kenan's 5—2 68 CONTRADICTORY VIEWS OF [Lect. criticism hung upon a rope of sand; or, on the other hand, that Jesus connived at an imposi- tion. One who, like Eenan, had felt such enthusias- tic admiration for the mighty Prophet of Galilee, might well have shrunk back from so blighting a suofofestion. And, indeed, there are evidences, from the hesitating and regretful and apologetic maimer with which he endeavours to establish this fatal al- ternative, how unwelcome was its imagined necessity. But what escape was there? Either Jesus must have Avinked at deception, or the materialistic phi- losophy must be false. And so again, with that fanatical attachment to a theory which had driven on Strauss upon his destructive path, Renan com- pels himself to describe that awful scene which he imagines beside the grave of Lazarus. But if such conclusions as this are to be rendered possible, or even tolerable, it is evident that the critic must be prepared to show in general that the Evangelists exhibit in their sketch of the character of Jesus, not gradual and laborious improvement, as De Wette imagined, but its very opposite, gra- dual and most painful deterioration. But surely the same account cannot depict both; surely men of so great learning and capacity cannot see in the same words at once an assertion and its denial, an affirmation and its contradiction? Or if they do, and if by a singular coincidence they find in the III.] THE CHARACTER OF JESUS. 69 Scripture the very same contradiction which had previously existed in their own philosophy, must we not suspect that, consciously or unconsciously, they are not so much seeking the natural meaning of the sacred records as that meaning which will most nearly coincide with the general direction of their private opinions. This conviction, which is forced upon the mind of a candid observer, will of course direct him, should he occupy the position of an apologist, in choosing his line of defence and attack. Since objections are found to so large an extent to have a merely subjective ground, he will of course endeavour to ascertain in what direction the general current of philosophical opinion is flow- ing ; assured that this also will be the course of sceptical criticism. Now no one can fail to see, as indeed Mr Lecky has pointed out, that in the gi'eat struggle between idealism and materialism, the vic- tory, for the present at least, inclines towards the latter. It is a very significant circumstance, which like a straw on the stream shows the course of its current, that in the last popular edition of his life of Jesus, Strauss has abandoned much of his for- mer grounds Instead of the myth proper, which was an unconscious production of many minds, co- operating to clothe a prevailing idea in a real dress, the author now very frequently sees the conscious * See Westminster Review, Oct. 1865. 70 DEFINITION OF SINLESSNESS, [Lect. fabrication of an individual, a fabrication which, though it could scarcely claim to be called even a legend, Strauss still dignifies with the older appel- lation, because it has at least been accepted, if not invented, by the popular mind. Touching these inevitable changes he remarks, " True, I have been refuted, but only as one who owes a thousand pounds is refuted, when it is shewn that he owes only a hundred." There is undoubtedly more of what is real in the character of Christ than I at first sup- posed, he would say, but therefore and to that de- gree less of what is pure. Such statements as this are not only made in our days, in unexpected quar- ters, but with less of apparent reluctance, \vith a fainter apparent consciousness that they amount to profanity. And hence too the profanity becomes more daring, so that we have heard Francis New- man declare that, of Jesus and Paul, Paul was the greater, without apparently a suspicion that he was blaspheming the Holy One of God. In these circumstances we cannot assume, but must attempt to prove, the sinlessness of Jesus, leaving for consideration in another lecture how far and in what direction the limitation of our Lord's knowledge may be consistent therewith. As the necessary foundation of any attempt to exhibit our Saviour's sinlessness, it will of course be necessary to explain what we mean by the word IIL] DEFINITION OF SINLESSNESS. 71 sinlessness. At the same time it will be the less necessary to devote much attention to this point, as there is a singular coincidence of opinion upon it, both among the disciples and the critics of the GosiDcl. Professor Goldwin Smith remarks ^ "What- ever mystery may shroud the ultimate source of Our moral being, thus much seems tolerably certain, that the seat of the moral principle in our nature is indicated and covered by the quality to which, ac- cording to the intensity of its manifestation, we give various names, ranging from benevolence to self- sacrifice. There is, I apprehend, no special virtue which is not capable of being resolved into this." In conformity with this opinion, and referring to what he very correctly calls the "passive half" of man's duty, Thomas Carlyle exclaims^, "It is only with renunciation that life, properly speaking, can be said to begin,... thankfully bear then what yet remains (of afflictions), thou hadst need of them, the self in thee needed to be annihilated." Again, it is the doctrine of Comte' that "in every complex existence the general harmony de- pends on the preponderance of some chief impulse, to which all others must be subordinate. This pre- ^ Some supposed Consequcyices of the Doctrine of Historical Pro- gress, p. lO. 2 Sartor Resartus, p. 117. 3 Philosophy of Comte, Lewis, p. 221. 72 DEFINITION OF SINLESSNESS. [Lect. ponderating influence must either be egotistic or altruistic." Now it is certain that " every individual man or animal, accustomed to live for self alone, is condemned to a miserable alternation of ignoble torpor or feverish activity ;.. .to live for others is thus the natural conclusion of all positive morality/' As thus the love of others, of God first, and of our fellow-creatures in God, is the positive ground and principle of all virtue; so Dr Julius Miiller has shewn^ that the exclusive love of self is the posi- tive ground of all sinfulness. Pride is perhaps the most naked form in which this principle exhibits itself, for pride is nothing else than self-sufficiency, that most entire and circular contentment with self which acknowledges no obligation, and as yet seeks for no acquisition. The invasion of another's rights is a yet further development of selfishness; and in this phase it appears as ambition and covet- ousness, while not unfrequently, when its aggressions are opposed, it developes still further into the form of hatred — a form in which it may invade not only another's rights, but even his personality. It is in this latter form of aggression that unbridled selfish- ness seems to find its greatest delight; for thus it may gain not only what is material but also what is spiritual as the prey of its cruel and unhallowed desires. It is this which lends its excitement to 1 Miiller's Christian Doctrine of Sin, Vol. I. Chap. iii. Sec. 2. III.] DEFINITION OF SINLESSNESS. 73 the pursuit, its horrible delight to the triumph of the seducer, that he has been able to invade the sanctuary of another's personality, to murder a soul, and for the pleasing of a momentary lust to subdue and lay in ruins the very image of God 1 Falsehood again is the timidity of selfishness, as hatred is its daring; and thus one might go through the Vv^hole catalogue of iniquities, shewing still that their central principle and moving impulse is selfishness; that sin is not only '?i07z-order, but disorder; not merely the negative pole of good, the darker side or exaggeration of good, but positive opposition to this ; the beginning life from a wrong centre; the abuse of the gift of personality by an effort like that of Satan, like that of Adam, to make it independent of God. It may be asked here, how can this conclusion agree with the feeling that to a certain extent self- love is felt to be right? The answer to this ques- tion depends upon the distinction between what is natural and what is moral. We preserve ourselves by a natural instinct, and ^o long as we act solely under the impulse of this instinct we do not think of the end at all. But while the inferior animals are driven along unconsciously by the overmastering force of their natural impulses, it is the special cha- racteristic of man that by means of his will he can hold these blind instinctive forces under restraint. 74 DEFINITION OF SINLESSNESS. [Lect. and determine their action according to the deci- sions of his conscience. As soon then as by means of this faculty we make self-preservation the object of moral contemplation, and begin to think "why ought I to preserve myself? what ought to be my object in exercising this care?" then the answer must be either that I may gratify myself, or give myself to God. And thus, as soon as self-preservation transcends the sphere of natural necessity and be- comes an object of moral thought and action, it fur- nishes the occasion either for selfishness or love, and will thus exhibit to us these two divergent impulses as the fundamental principles of good and evil. To one who has firmly and completely grasped this thought it may appear almost needless to pro- ceed further with our investigation. For the cha- racter of Christ exhibits so complete a picture of self-renunciation in obedience to the call of love, that as Ave trace it through all its stages, from that first Kevcocn<; through which He took upon Him the form of a servant, along the way of perfect obedi- ence in which it was His meat to do the will of Him that sent Him, even to the end of unparal- leled self-sacrificing love, we are alike unable to detect anything selfish in what was done, and to conceive anything wanting which was left undone. It was the perfect realization of the highest conceiv- able ideal of self-sacrificing love, of that which we III.] TESTIMONY OF JESUS. 75 have found to be the essential principle of goodness, the absolute negation of evil. Now, if our general acquaintance with the pic- ture of Christ's character produces in us irresistibly the conviction that it is the perfect, and therefore the final type of goodness, we may be sure that the affirmation of faults in detail, (such as those ima- gined by Francis Newman,) arises, as Professor Smith has conclusively shewn, from a superficial consider- ation of the subject. Nevertheless, as objections of this kind are still alleged, it may be well to sketch for you some of the positive aspects of this perfect character, in order to make our general conception of it at once firmer in its outlines and fuller in its contents. Our attention is first claimed by the testimony of Jesus to Himself, which is specially important, not only as expressing the fullest knowledge of His inner life, but also as having a special bearing upon His claims to be sinless. The words of our text (which must be considered more particularly here- after in another connexion) are yet entitled to a foremost place among those in which our Saviour asserts generally His own moral perfection. In the context He accuses the Pharisees of rejecting His word because of their guilty aversion to the truth; because they are "of then father the devil," and, like him, love falsehood and evil. At once to prove 76 TESTIMONY OF JESUS, [Lect. and illustrate this statement, the Lord continues, " which of you convinceth me of sin V I walk in the mid-day glare of public criticism; I pour out the very secrets of my soul before you on the deep- est and most sacred subjects; you not only see what I do, but even know what I think; and now, out of the fulness of your knowledge of me, '^ which of you convinceth me of sin?" If no one, if my life must be admitted to be stainless, my words to be irre- proachable, then from the organic connexion be- tween the right and the true, from the perfect affi- nity of the pure soul for what is morally authentic, I must not less certainly say what is true, than do what is right. And, " if I say the truth, why do ye not believe me?' Because you have no affinity for the truth, because your souls are impure, and love that which is like themselves. Now, whatever we may think of the assumption upon which this argument is built, viz. that perfect holiness implies perfect intuition of the morally true, there can be no doubt at least that Jesus made it, and as little that He offered His own life as its illustration, thereby affirming that He was so stain- lessly holy that He had a perfect and unfailing affi- nity for truth, a perfect and unfailing aversion to error. This belief of Jesus concerning His own character is set forth continually, and in the plain- est terms, in those of His words which are reported III.] TESTIMONY OF JESUS. 77 in the New Testament. But such arguments as that in the text are much more explicit than any merely general assertion, for they not only make a state- ment, but fix also the limits of its meaning, thereby assuring us that we have not mistaken it. Jesus then most assuredly testified, concerning Himself that He was sinlessly perfect; that He exhibited as complete a reflection as a stainless humanity could display of the glory of the Divine Majesty. And now what weight shall we allow to this tes- timony? First of all, we cannot resist the conviction that, at least with reference to His own purity or sinful- ness, the Lord must have known Himself; for this is a matter on which not only ordinary, but even evil men are judges. But it may be seen by the merest glance at the Gospels that the moral discri- mination and advancement of Jesus were at least far above the ordinary standard of human attain- ment. His wonderful analysis of character in the parables, or in the Sermon on the Mount, and. not less the keenness and precision of His discrimina- tion between the gfood and evil in the hearts and lives of those who addressed Him, must convince us at once that He whose vision was so keen, whose thousfhts about God and man svere so noble and clear, could not have failed to discern that in Him- self which even evil men are able to discover. But 78 TESTIMONY OF JESUS. [Lect. if indeed there had been undiscovered and unac- knowledged evil in the heart of Jesus, this would argue in Him a moral nature exceptionally inert and unsensitive. For in those who are sinful no- thing more surely betokens great purity and saint- liness of character than the humble confession of sin and demerit in the sight of God. But in the whole course of His history Jesus never once exhi- bits this consciousness, never once makes the re- motest allusion to it, not even in prayer, not even at the most solemn moments of His life, when bending in agony or hanging in torture in the pre- sence of the Infinite Holiness. Yea, so far is He, even before God, from humbling Himself on account of sin, that in the darkest hour of His sorrowful life, in that hour when the world's sin seemed nearest to His Spirit, and the love and comfort of His Father seemed farthest away, the cry that arises from the Cross, as it would cleave its way tlirough the earthly gloom to the lost brightness of heaven, is a last, and perhaps the vei^ strongest, protest of His innocence; "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Why is it that I have the sense of separation without t^e consciousness of sin? In the view of ^uch expressions as these we shall be obliged to conclude either that our Lord was sinless, or that He was worse and more defective III.] TESTIMONY OF APOSTLES. 79 than those of His sinful people to whom the Holy Spirit has shewn the necessity for confession and humility. And between these alternatives we surely cannot hesitate for a moment. For it is Christ's life which empowers the saints, which stimulates them, which rebukes and humbles them. If then He who was not only better than all men, but the source of life to all, if He felt no consciousness of sin even when bending in prayer where the full white light of the Divine Holiness beat down upon His Spirit without interception or diminution, then assuredly He was what He felt Himself to be, " holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners." And thus it is already made evident from our Saviour's own testir^iony, and without the complete vindica- tion which that testimony receives from His blame- less life, that alone among the sons of Adam He was without sin. But this testimony does not stand alone. It is sustained and supplemented by that of the Apostles. Let us now then shortly enquire, what is the character of that testimony? what do the Apostles say about their Master? what is the general aspect of the picture which they have dra^vn for us of His Person, character, and life ? First, and most generally, it leaves upon us the impression of transcendent greatness. This is allowed on every hand, by enemies and friends, by doubters 80 TESTIMONY OF APOSTLES. [Lect. and believers alike. Whatever opinions may be held in general about our Lord's origin and absolute sinlessness, it is admitted with but few and obscure exceptions that in the sphere of morality and reli- gion He was unapproachably great. And this His greatness is of a very peculiar character. For we could not say of our Lord that He was great in any special department of human thought and activity — as a warrior, a statesman, a poet, an artist, or even as a priest or teacher. He was greater than a worker, or prophet, or priest. He was great as a Man ; as a Being to whom all these functions and offices are possible; and His greatness has this aspect of universality, just be- cause it was achieved in the highest sphere of our being, in connexion with those moral and spiritual faculties which give their character and direction to all others. Thus He was not a moral and religious man among other things. No; but so pre-eminently holy and spiritual in every movement of His nature that His moral greatness subordinated everything to itself; never permitting any of those accidents of life which separate man from man to mark His Spirit with their peculiarity. He was born, He grew and was developed " at the confluence of three races ^, the Jewish, the Greek, and the Eoman, each of which had strong national peculiarities of its 1 Goldwin Smith, p. 17. III.] TESTIMONY OF APOSTLES. 81 own; and yet (surely by the greatest miracle that was ever imagined, unless His nature be unique) He has escaped the least tinge of nationality." And not only did the good, or at least the harmless, in- fluences of His own age fail to affect His character or colour His life, — even its vices and exaggera- tions provoked in Him no undue reaction. There is no trace of Antinomian laxity in His rebuke of the formal and bigoted Pharisees; no unpatriotic coldness in His condemnation of the worldly fana- ticism of Jewish nationality. He is neither borne away on the current of popular feeling, nor stirred by opposition to resist its legitimate flow; while firmly repressing the political ambition even of His disciples, He preaches the Gospel first to the Jews, and weeps over the approaching desolation of Jeru- salem. Again, it is owing to the extent of its sphere of operation that the Lord's piety never appears ob- trusive. No one would have said of Him that He was superhumanly pious. Much more probably would this have been said or felt of the formal and ascetic Pharisees, who just because the Divine life in them was not abundant and deep-seated, were obliged to be continually seeking it as a something without them, and putting what they possessed of it forward that it might be seen. Now in the life of our blessed Lord we never see His piety separated 6 82 TESTIMONY OF APOSTLES. [Lect. in this manner from His activity, or connected with that ostentatious mortification, and those frequent and painful wresthngs in prayer which, in point of fact, reveal quite as much a man's spiritual poverty as his spiritual earnestness. On the contrary, the Divine Life in Him is the fire which burns ever with brio^ht and continuous flame on the consecrated altar of His heart, glowing in every emotion, shining through every word and deed; and, in short, per- vading and illuminating His whole Being and ac- tivity. We feel sure that the Lord Jesus could never have had to change His face or His tone when He began to talk of eternal things; that whether He were in a fishing-boat or a feasting- chamber, in the house or by the way, resting wea- rily by the well of Sychar or teaching the multi- tudes from the mountain-pulpit of Gennesaret, He would always find it easy, nay, inevitable, to speak at once of the things of His Father. And there could -be no plainer proof than this of the fulness of His Divine Life. It was never to seek, because it knew no lack; it was never inactive, because there was no moment when its flame burnt low; it left no part of life uninfluenced, because the great throb of its intensive energy distributed the life-giving stream to the utmost extremities of its extensive development. And thus the Lord Jesus is great, not so much III.] TESTIMONY OF APOSTLES. 88 like the great heroes of secular history, on account of the splendour of His deeds, as because of the grandeur of His character — a grandeur and a glory which needed no aurora of brilUant achievements to make them visible to men's eyes, but which out of their own luminous depths shone without effort through the darkness of the word's common-place; not like the brilliance of the electric star which dazzles a narrow circle of beholders for a Httle space, but like the genial brightness of the imperial sun which shines without pause or effort and pours its glory over every land! This intrinsic spiritual greatness, which needed no mighty works for its external display, is evi- denced by nothing more strikingly than by the Redeemer's unvarying serenity and repose. His public life was one which made continual and severe demands both on His intellectual and emotional nature ; and yet, in all the most trying cidses of temptation and suffering, He maintains this won- derful self-possession and tranquillity undisturbed. There are indeed variations of feeling, alternations of joy and sorrow, flitting across His Spirit, like the shadows of clouds across a sunny landscape; but still these are no more than natural variations, the ordinary response of a strong and equal mind to the stimulus of sympathy or suffering, of success or adversity. But we never feel that even in its 6—2 8i TESTIMONY OF APOSTLES. [Lect. most excited moments the Spirit of Jesus is thrown off the balance; that it wastes its energy in un- meaning vehemence or unworthy complaint ; that it forgets, even for an instant, its Divine purpose and Divine dignity in passionate exclamations or enrap- tured self-forgetfulness. He was without those sud- den and ecstatic disturbances which mark the access of spiritual influence in the earlier prophets, because there was none of the earthliness in His nature which makes such contrasts possible. He had never been so far immersed in natural darkness as to be dazzled by celestial light; but while moving in a world of sense and sin, among those who felt like outcasts from the celestial city, He breathed the spiritual air as His natural element, and lived in the presence of God as His recognized home, un- conquerably mighty in His spiritual energy, im- moveably stedfast in His unassailable holiness. And yet, while the Lord is seen to be thus calm and immoveable in His conscious power and impec- cability, on the other hand His calmness has none of the stillness of torpidity, of the repose of stony indifference. He was as tender as strong, as hum- ble as majestic. He cared for the meanest and guiltiest; He called to Him the weary and heavy- laden, the sinner and the publican; His whole life was one great act of pitying self-sacrifice; the com- plete and harmonious development of an utterly IH.] TESTIMONY OF APOSTLES. 85 unselfish nature, unapproachably lofty when circum- stances demand it, and as unapproachably tender when these are changed; courageous in danger "with that courage which is most clear of animal impetuosity," and tender in distress with that ten- derness which is freest from hysterical self-indulg- ence; so perfect a type and realization of Divine love that " the mental eye, though strained to aching, cannot discern whether that on which it gazes be most the object of reverence or affection;" the richest union of all various greatness, the deepest harmony of all possible good, the perfect co-ordina- tion of majesty and lowliness, the summit of human greatness bowed ever in deepest humility before God, the absolute negation of selfishness, the perfect realization of love! It would seem thus, that, apart from the Lord's own testimony, we have sufficient evidence of His sin- lessness in the witness of His Apostles, unless indeed we can suppose that a number of poor and simple men, if earnest and veracious, still ordinary and unimaginative, were able, by putting together their confused perceptions of the ideal, to produce a cha- racter of higher unity, harmony, and nobility, than had been conceived by all the great masters of thought and discourse ; or unless in fine we make the more monstrous supposition of Strauss, that the unity of Christ's character has been derived (to use 86 IDEAL OF M. REN AN, [LeA. the words of Quinet) " from the most confused mix- ture that history has ever allowed to appear; a chaos of Hebrews, Greeks, Syrians, Eg3rptians, Ro- mans; of the grammarians of Alexandria, scribes of Jerusalem, Essenes, Sadducees, and Jewish monks. Shall we assert that this vaojue multitude, for^ettinsr the differences of origin, of creeds and institutions, is suddenly blended into one spirit to invent the same ideal, to create from nothing, and render pal- pable to all the human race the character which best contrasts with all the past (which alone fur- nishes its type and standard to all the future)? At least it will be confessed that this is the strangest ^liracle that has ever been heard of, and that the water changed into wine Avas as nothing in com- parison!" It has been thought however by Renan that it may be possible to take a middle course, and, with- out either admitting the possibility just stated, or what seems at first sight its only alternative, that Jesus was actually sinless, to maintain that an inde- pendent student of the Gospels can readily detect in the character of our Saviour signs of deterioration in the course of its development. It is asserted that the best days of our Lord's life were manifestly His early days, that then, avail- ing Himself of the intense Messianic excitement in Galilee, and addressing a specially susceptible popu- III.] IDEAL OF M. RENAN'. sf lation, His exquisite natural sweetness, lowliness, and spirituality exerted an irresistible influence on all around Him. But much depended even then on what He had learnt from the past and what He found in the j^resent. From the past He had appro- priated all which was excellent in the teaching of the Rabbis; in the present He found in Galilee a population simple, good and happy, free at once from the severe and gloomy bigotry of Jerusalem, and prepared by a life of simple out-door labour, and by contact with a nature rich, sweet and beau- tiful, to drink in with avidity and delight the pure and tender inspirations of the Master in their earliest bloom. Docile as children, these simple people lived already in the kingdom of God, and "an old word, Paradise, summed up the general dream," — that of a delightful garden, where the charming life which was led here below would be continued for ever. This was the earlier life ; but M. Renan imagines that as the days went by and the Master was with- drawn from these enthusiastic disciples, when He came into collision with a hard dogmatic ritualism in Jerusalem, and felt for the first time the full diffi- culty of establishing His ideal kingdom among the rulers of the people, then it is conceived that His character deteriorated ; — the gentleness, simplicity, gaiety and truthfulness of His earlier days deepening into the gloom and fierceness and compromise of 88 IDEAL OF M. RENAN. [Lect. unforeseen disappointment. We are plainly told that then "He was no longer free/' but "carried away by the fearful progress of enthusiasm;" that ''His natural gentleness seemed to have abandoned Him;" that "He was sometimes harsh and capricious;" that " His idea of the kingdom of God became disturbed and exaggerated;" that, in short, "contact with men degraded Him to their level" — He could even connive at length at such an imposition as the imaginary resurrection of Lazarus. Now the prima facie answer to this charge is furnished, not by the sentimental caricature of M. Renan, but by the truer picture of Christ's life and character which I have endeavoured to present to you. Would not such an act, for instance, as that last mentioned be in such a character a more tre- mendous moral miracle than the imagination ever conceived? Here is a character which we have found to be a perfect development of the absolute principle of goodness, and yet it can be so meanly selfish as to seek its own glory by abetting a known falsehood ; so impious as to seek a momentary ap- plause through conscious blasphemy against God. Jesus, it is said, knows that the scene at Bethany is got up for effect, and yet He can cry by the grave, in the hearing of the people, " Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard me; and I knew that Thou hearest me always." My brethren, there is not an III.] IDEAL OF M. REN AN. 89 honest man amongst us that would not shrink back with horror from such blasphemy, and yet it has seemed possible to M. Renan that the Truth Him- self should be guilty of it ! Such a supposition could only have appeared tolerable for a moment by the side of that essentially weak, false, and non- moral, if not immoral, representation of Christ's early days which I have just reproduced, and which I do not hesitate to say has neither foundation nor even excuse in the New Testament. There was no such Galilee as is represented, no such reflex of the beautiful nature in beautiful souls, no such general docility and enthusiasm. There might, it is true, be less spiritual hardness than at Jerusalem, but on the other hand there was abun- dance of sordid materialism and fierce fanaticism. Jesus had to tell the multitudes plainly that they sought Him, '' not because they saw the miracles, but only because they did eat of the loaves and were filled." When IJe insisted upon a more spiritual communion, not only the multitudes, but also " many of His disciples went back, and walked no more with Him," so that He even found it necessary to ask the Twelve themselves, " Will ye also go away T It was at Nazareth, where our Lord was brought up, that "they rose up, and thrust Him out of the city, and led Him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city was built, that they might cast Him down headlong." 00 IDEAL OF M. RE NAN. [Lect. It was of His natis^e district that He said, " A pro- phet is not without honour save in his own country, and in his own house." It was of Capernaum, Cho- razin, and Bethsaida, towns of Gahlee, that Pie made the mournful declaration that Tyre and Sidon would have repented at preaching which they had disre- garded. In short, it is apparent on every page of the Evangelical history, that the jDicture of M. Eenan is simply a creation of his own fancy — a weak, senti- mental, romantic dream, which, though not without occasional beauty, both of form and substance, corre- sponds to nothing but the French materialism of the 19 th century. M. Kenan's account of our Lord's earlier teaching will be found not less fanciful and baseless than that of His Divine character. This author conceives that it was mainly derived from those beautiful moral sayings, then current, which were afterwards enshrined in the pages of the Talmud. Now no one would wish to assert that everything which our Saviour said was original. On the contrary, if He were in- deed the Light of men, then our little systems are no better than broken lights of His transcendent glory, each reflecting something of its brightness, but each concealing more than it reflects beneath the veil of mere human representation. The law of Moses was such a light, and not less the mighty ])xo- clamations of the Prophets. The sayings of Rabbis III.] IDEAL OF M. REN AN. 91 were yet dimmer reflections, exhibiting only here and there a gleam of spiritual light, struggling pain- fully through encompassing mists and darkness. As well say that the sun borrowed his rays from the reflection in lake or river, as that the Lord Jesus was formed by the Rabbis. For as it has been finely remarked, the characteristic of His teaching is that " there is no shadow in it." His soul was so pure. His spiritual intuition so direct, that He appropri- ated naturally all which was pure and true wherever He found it, rejecting as naturally all which was evil and false. This is the great Avonder — not merely that He said beautiful and true things, but that all He said was beautiful and true, that nothing which He said was false or evil; that His perfect nature gathered up all spiritual truths from every quarter, and reducing them into an organic unity, binding them together by a single rational bond, so lent them creative force and impetus, power of con- viction, energy of life ! It is mere trifling to com- pare the single utterances of such a Teacher with the gleams in darkness of Rabbis and philosophers ; the things are different in kind ; as different as the direct illumination of the sun from its scattered earthly reflections. Nor is M. Renan's account of the latter part of our Lord's life and teaching more successful than that of the former. 92 IDEAL OF M. REN AN. [Idiich formed the rich plain of Esdraelon ; while before him were those bleak roll- ing hills of Ephraim and Judah, which, stretching across the whole country, sank down precipitously at the very feet of the prophet into the opposite gorge of the Jordan. This is what he saw. It was not a fair and smiling, but rather a stern and gloomy pro- spect — only interesting and inviting by contrast with the desert. By contrast with the desert, — but not with the place where he stood, for he stood above the plains of Moab, on the summit of Pisgah, look- ing backward and u]Dward on the rich pastures of Gilead, and the waving forests of Bashan, on a coun- try which, travellers tell us, " as far surpasses Western Palestine as Devonshire surpasses Cornwall." It is not III.] THE LIFE AND TUE LAND. 107 the exchange from a desert to a paradise which the prophet sees, but one from plenty to scarceness, from richness to ruggedness. But if the prospect were so different from that which is generally imagined, wdiy is the sight of it conceded as a last and crown- ing favour to the prophet's anxious desire ? Would not the reality disappoint him ? — ^Avould he think this knot of barren mountains the sufficient reward of all his people's toils, the fitting goal of all their wander- ings ? That would depend upon what he desired and expected to find ; most disappointing if he hoped to gain for his people a carnal paradise — but not neces- sarily so — if he had in view their spiritual safety and development. We must judge of a country by the needs of its people. The low barren islets of the Venetian lagoons seemed hardly fit for fishing-huts to common eyes ; but to the sufferers fleeing from their burning homes in fertile Italy, they would appear an earthly paradise, for they promised refuge to the fugitive, and freedom to the slave ; they promised that which the Arab sought in the desert, and the Cymri in the mountains — the blessings of freedom, and the sanc- tities of home. And can we suppose that the great prophet sought something for his people less worthy and less spiritual than this, when he led them forth from the midst of a mighty and idolatrous nation? He did not seek rich and fertile plains, for he would find none greener than those of Goshen ; but a place 198 THE LIFE AND THE LAND. [Serm. wliere the tribes of Israel might erect and defend the sanctuary of Jehovah; a place where, under the protection of God, they might grow to be great and pious and free. But how difficult to find such a place ; for think of the intricacy of the problem to be solved. Given — a people which is to influence all the world, and yet to be kept pure within and safe without — to find a position in which to plant it. To be kept pure within they must be kept alike from the temptations to luxury and slavery, the two great causes of oriental decay. To be kept safe with- out, they must grow gi^eat and strong, either by wealth and numbers, or by the vigour of a free and pious people, whose strength and courage were sup- plemented by natural walls and bulwarks. Should they wander in the desert ? The desert made man free, but left him wild and shifting as its sands. Should they spread their tents on the great river- plains of Egypt or Assyria? These made indeed strong and wealthy states, but they destroyed the piety of the individual. Should they then seek the shelter of inaccessible mountains? But how then could they perform the great end of their calling, to be God's witnesses to the world ? There was but one place where all the necessary conditions seemed to be fulfilled, viz. in that fortress of the mountains which was set in the midst of the world's highway, on the desert-brido'e between the homes of its III.] THE LIFE AND THE LAND. 199 mightiest peojDlcs, across which all the world's pil- grims and traders must pass, but where a brave and pious people might hold their own against the most powerful. Moses rejoiced in the view from Pisgah, because he saw thence the solution of this w^ondrous problem — saw it in those fortress-rocks of Ephraim and Judah, guarded on every side by the sea and the desert, the river and the mountains. A comparison like this between the spiritual end contemplated in Israel's calling, and the physical chara,cteristics of the country which was selected as its home, cannot fail to convince us of the striking- adaptation of the place to the people ; and thus it becomes evident, either that the people w-ere jiro- duced by the place, or that the place, as our text assures us, was divinely selected for the people. Mr Buckle would tell us that the land formed the na- tion, and that the discovery of all these adaptations is but the sign of it ; that, in short, they are wdiat on his theory Ave should expect to find, in examining the history of so remarkable a people. I do not wish to disguise the fact that it is very difficult, by the light of reason alone, to solve so in- tricate a problem as that which I have just suggested. Errors may generally be described as of tw^o kinds. Viz. those which contradict the truth, and those which only fall short of it. Of these, errors which are of the first kind, are by far the more easy to ex25ose 200 THE LIFE AND THE LAND. [Serji. and remove, since they may generally be shown to contradict some axiom of thought, or authoritative oracle of conscience. But errors of the latter kind it is very difficult indeed to exhibit in their true cha- racter ; for they assume what to a great extent w^e admit, and are often so far true, that it almost seems arbitrary and unreasonable to admit so much, and then not admit all. We allow, for instance, in the case under consideration, that the land of Israel had a most important influence in calling forth, preserv- ing, and developing the life of the chosen people, and moreover that that influence was exerted ac- cording to a fixed and determinate law. We admit all this, but we deny that the physical peculiarities of Palestine were alone sufficient, to cause the race which inhabited it, to differ so remarkably as it did from all other peoples of mankind. The nature of the question in controversy is sometimes misapprehended, and therefore it may be well perhaps to state it distinctly. There are some wdio, holding with Mr Buckle that the human race is originally the same everjrwhere, and can only be afiected by visible and material influences, not only assert that the law of its orrowth is organic, but that the observation of the conditions of climate, soil, situation, and the like, wall furnish a sufficient basis for the discovery of that law. Others again, holding the same fundamental theory, viz. that since the III.] TEE LIFE AND THE LAND. 201 organic power of the human plant is originally the same in all cases, it will grow in a particular direc- tion, or with a special degree of strength according to its material conditions, — ^yet deny that the obser- vation of those conditions alone, will suffice to deter- mine the law of growth. There is a law, these would say, but we cannot discover its formula — there is a fixed orbit of historic revolution, but we cannot de- termine its curve. The organic unit of humanity is too complex, it involves spontaneous forces of too mighty and mysterious a nature. Mr Froude lately quoted a very striking expression of Kant to this effect. " Two things amaze me," said the Konigsberg seer, ''the infinite space thick sown with stars ; and — the sense of right and wrong." It requires little reflection to discern his meaning. He was astounded equally at the vast expanse of life, and at the enorm- ous elevation of the highest form of its development ; at the fecundity of the Creative Power as seen in the great whole, and at the richness of that power as displayed in the noblest part ; at the endless multi- plication of units, and the intricate complication of a single unit ; at the infinity in the world of sense, and at that in the world of soul. The one seemed like the wide-spreading light-aether, which vibrates beyond the immeasurable bounds where telescopic vision becomes dim; the other is like that fabled fire-column, under the form of which Sceva revealed 202 THE LIFE AND THE LAND. [Seem. liis divinity to the contending gods ; and of which South ey tells us : — Downward its depth to sound, Veeshnoo a thousand years explored The fathomless profound, And yet no base he found: Upward to reach its head Ten myriad years the aspiring Bramah soar'd. And still as up he fled Above him still — the Immeasurable spread. Whatever a man's theory of the origin of the moral nature may be, if he will acknowledge that it is incomprehensible, not to be measured by the petty line of sense and time, we can accord to him at least the merit of modesty and though tfnlness ; but yet to a believer in revelation there must ever appear a fatal and fundamental defect, in any system which does not place the seat of the moral power in an immortal spirit, or which holds that it can be pro- perly developed without the efficient operation of the Spirit of God. Besides, holding that the moral nature is stimulated and assisted by favouring worldly circumstances, we must confess, if we believe the Bible, that there is a Divine Spirit who made that nature like His own, spiritual; who appointed all external circumstances to form the occasion of its activity ; and who perpetually directs the heart, and adapts its circumstances, as may be agreeable to His holy will. It seems, indeed, as if the discipline of Israel had been specially designed to show the possi- III.] THE LIFE AND TUE LAND. 203 bility of that Divine influence in history, which so many modern theorists deny. For what are its facts? those great facts, I mean, which every one must admit, or deny to the IsraeKtes any history at all ? Do the records of the nation show, that by any possibility the land of its possession could have origi- nated its life ? It had its origin, we are told, in the heart of a pilgrim from Assyria : it grew in the heart of another, who first left Palestine for the cradle of his race, and then, returning to the promised land for a little time, finally went down into Egypt to die. It was continued, we read, in this latter country among a nation of slaves, who were treated as aliens, and kept in the most cruel and debasing servitude ; it was strengthened in a long, weary march through the barren wilderness of Sinai ; and, finally, having been perfected in its verbal form, and established in its spiritual substance, it found its resting-place on the hills of the promised inheritance. But if the faith of the sons of Israel did not grow in Palestine, was it not indigenous in some other of the countries of their sojourning? We know that it was not. Abraham fled from the temptation to idolatry in Assyria ; and Israel was brought out Avith a mighty arm from the dominion of the senseless idolatry of Egypt, to destroy the most licentious and abomin- able idolatry the world had ever kno\vn in Canaan. And the people's life was formed and nourished, 204 THE LIFE AND TEE LAND. [Seku. while continually moving out of the atmosphere of one of these indigenous idolatries into that of an- other, or while held down under one of the worst of them, in a painful and degrading bondage. If, then, the life of Israel grew up in the hearts of that people, not in consequence of, but in spite of, their external circumstances, whence shall we say that it came ? Our physical historians will not hear of inherent superiorities of race, and much less of such superiorities as survive in spite of external circum- stances, and thus we are driven to the admission, that the life of Israel neither grew up from the depths of its own nature, nor sprang forth from the ground, but that it came from God ; that it was first breathed by Him as a living spark into the heart of one man, where it lived and burned, in spite of external and debasing influences ; and whence (so strong was it) it passed as a lamp of light and flame into the hearts of his descendants, until, in God's own time, it was kindled as a beacon of life for all the world in the Pharos of Palestine. If, thus, the ordinary facts of the Jewish history compel us to admit that the religious life of that people was given by God, and not produced by the action of external physical agencies, then those re- markable signs of adaptation in the land of promise which we have observed, will be recognized as so many tokens that the home of the covenant people III.] LIFE AND PILGRIMAGE. 205 was selected by God. And, again, the fact that this particular country was set apart, in the Divine coun- sels, as the scene of the covenant history, will explain to us the reasonable ground for many of the sujDer- natural facts of that history. For if a Divine life had been given to the Patriarchs, and God had de- signed that it should be developed and exhibited in a particular land, what could be more necessary, than that the pilgrims of salvation should be made acquainted with the goal, towards which their steps and desires should be directed? Admit once the Divine purpose in the choice of the land, and then the revelation of that jDurpose to Abraham becomes not only probable, but necessary ; not only agreeable to the ordinary events of his life, but illustrative and explanatory of their meaning and purpose. And, if I am not mistaken, the somewhat wider consideration of this subject will show, that so far from spiritual life being the product of certain fixed physical conditions, it is then most safe and most flourishing in this world, when to a great extent it is independent of such conditions ; when, viz. it is en- joyed and cultivated in poverty and pilgrimage. For the whole history of the church of God, is nothing less nor more than the story of a pilgrim- age. Even the most permanent and organized state of the early church was but a stage in her pilgrim journey to heaven, a land of Beulah, where she could 206 LIFE AND PILGRIMAGE. [Seem. rest for a time, and gather strength, before entering on the more exhausting and more perilous trials of the way that had yet to be traversed. And it was only possible to abide there even for a time, because the v/icked w^ere excluded. Bunyan's instinct was undoubtedly right. There is no safe resting-place for the pilgrim by the way, except in those Delect- able Mountains, where only the shepherds can get access to the sheep. This consideration suggests the reason why the earlier dispensation presents ever a character of only temporary completeness. Its con- dition approached '' more nearly to that of heaven" than the outward condition of any subsequent age could do. Wickedness, it is true, was not absolutely shut out from its borders, for the chosen people had the leaven of iniquity among themselves ; but Gentile wickedness was, triumphant wickedness was. Sin might exist in Israel, but so long as this con- tinued the household of God, sin must at least be subordinate. And hence the little need in those early days for a doctrine of immortality ; for many of the essential conditions of the futm-e were already present in Israel. God was there ; their King was in the midst of them ; His presence was manifested, His Avord w^as spoken, His will was known. His power was exerted, Plis authority was outwardly acknowledged, and His majesty universally adored. It was an earthly foretaste of heaven, under the III.] LIFE AND PILGRIMAGE. 207 sensible conditions of time ; and since the outward surroundings of a man are only accidents of his ex- istence, it is of comparatively little consequence whether he is environed by the glory of heaven or the beauty of earth, so long as he consciously dwells with God. If, indeed, his soul be not holy, if sin be still within and around him, he will need, even on the Delectable Mountains, (and he will not fail to catch there) glimpses of that Celestial City, into which no sin can come ; but it will only be when he again staggers forward into the labours and dangers of active pilgrimage, that he Avill require to be conti- nually reminded of the end of his journey, and the sweetness of his rest. And what was the preaching of the Gospel, but the descent of the Church from the Delectable Mountains into a pilgrimage in the world ? She was thus coming back again in a certain ' sense to the condition of the pilgrim fathers, to wander in the earth from Assyria to Egypt, with no foot of land to call her own. She was descending into the babble and blasphemy of Vanity Fair, not to make the best of both worlds for herself, but to make the world better as she went through it, and to point it to that rest beyond the flood to which she herself was hastening. Wlien we have once got a firm grasp of the Church's office and condition in these later ages, these times of the end, how natural those peculiar *208 LIFE AND PILGRIMAGE. [Seem. phenomena of Christianity appear to us which have given so much offence to the world. If the Church be on pilgrimage, how necessary is it that she should be pointed more frequently and distinctly to the end of her journey ; how necessary, that to nerve her for the glorious defeat of martyi'dom, she should be continu- ally reminded of the victory and coming of her Lord. Abraham kept aloof from the world, that he might be able to found a holy family which should become the household of God ; but the Christian church, in this transcending alike the ideal of allegorists and the example of patriarchs, has gone on a pilgrimage that she may gain the world for her Lord ; that she may carry ail men with her on the way to the city of her rest. And since her portion of the Church's journey is thus the most perilous, so must her light and b'trength be the greatest. She must ever be looking, through the hea^vy clouds of battle and tribulation, for the light of the New Jerusalem ; ever be seek- ing for strength in her deadly weakness, from her regnant and glorified King. Just because she is in the world she must not be of it ; because her feet tread the burning sands of the wilderness, her gaze must ever be onward and upward to the beacon- light of heaven. This is why it is so natural to us, why it was so habitual with the sacred writers, to represent the Christian's present life by the figures of the patri- III.] LIFE AND PILGRIMAGE. 2u9 archal time, reserving those of the Church's more pei- manent condition, to express the joy and glory of his future home. We are going to the Zion of God, to the heavenly Jerusalem ; but now we are strangeis and pilgrims here, we seek a better countr}^, that is an heavenly, a city which hath foundations, whose Maker and Builder is God. And this is just the state into which the patriarchs were called. The Lord said unto Abraham, " Get thee from thy coun- try," not to be a king, or a prophet, or a priest, but to be a pilgrim, in a land where he might have "none inheritance therein, not so much as to set his foot on." It is this peculiarity in his life which gives to the record of it, that wonderful power of spiritual representation which we find there. It was not only inwardly like the Christian's spiritual life, but out- wardly also. Its external incidents were a visible parable of its internal meaning — a living form into which the stream of the inner life naturally and con- sistently ran ; a sacred language in which the pious souls of all ages have vividly and, so to speak, un- consciously expressed themselves. Sitting loose to the things of time, without home, or house, or land, the wandering patriarch was a living type of the earth-bound soul ; in the world, but not of it; sojourn- ing, but not abiding ; dwelling thankfully in its tents for a space, but looking further, beyond the deserts, and beyond the years for its 230ssession and its rest. U 210 USES OF SOLITUDE. [Seum. And do not the most earnest and real men feel even now, that, if they would cultivate the life of the Spirit, they must in like manner go on spiritual pil- grimage ; that they must, as much as possible, sit loose to the world, even to be able to do it good? The monks might be wrong in fleeing from common life altogether, for it was their duty to seek God, not in the literal, but in the spiritual wilderness — to seek the heavenly gate, not in the solitude of a cell, but in the toil and conflict of the great highway of life. But after all, their instinct was at bottom a true one, that in such a world as they saw it would be madness to seek a home. And if it be owned that they had too much soli- tude, it must surely be confessed that we have too little. The vast forms of material wealth and god- less science throw their dark shadows across our path, even before we 'have emerged from the natural pilgrimage and seclusion of earth. Our children have no time for brooding and pondering over the mysteries of the world and of life ; no time for that deep questioning which so often takes a young man down to the heart of things, and makes him dissatis- fied with the shallow shows of the world. And thus we have become to a very great extent a generation of clever men, of men who know just the superficial facts of life, and are content to take all for granted which we see. We need more quiet, more reflection, III.] USES OF SOLITUDE. 211 more of the blessed solitude of pilgrimage, that we may snatch back the fading vision of eternity, and hearken for that still small voice of our Heavenly Father, which we have lost in the tumults and dis- tractions of the world. Sin is the veil which hides the glory of our Father's presence ; let us then seek some quiet scene where we may draw nearer to heaven, and, coming to Him who has washed away our sins in His own most precious blood, pray that He may deliver us alike from their guilt and power ; that in the dusk and darkness of this perishing world He may lift away the veil of our spiritual blindness, and make us partakers of the peace and purity of His own blameless life, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God ;" they shall see Him now in Alp and lake, as His time-robe glows and palpitates with all the glories of that jewelled city of the captive's vision ; they shall see Him now in the beauty of those earthly temples where His sheki- nah yet hovers over the mercy-seat, where His glory is miiTored without a stain of earthly dimness in the face of Jesus Christ ; and when the time-vision has passed, they shall see Him in that home above which our Heavenly Bridegroom is preparing, where He is revealed in the fulness of eternal beauty without a cloud between. 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