t £» c^s°« ME^o^ Rhho\ Academy. 2jZZ. ScA> \ f \ ip c>n BT 15 . S32 1885 Schaff, Philip, 1819-1893. Christ and Christianity qSN€RAL TftGClOQtCAL ill3KARy 14 Beacon Street Boston, Mass,, Q21G8 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library l https://archive.org/details/christchristianiOOscha . e 4 \ 1 CHRIST AND CHRISTIANITY studies o\ CITE IS TO LOG Y . CREEDS AND CONFESSIONS, PROTESTANTISM AND ROMANISM. REFORMATION PRINCIPLES SUNDAY OBSERVANCE. RELIGIOUS FREEDOM. AND CHRISTIAN UNION BY PHILIP SC'HAPF Of JUt 27 't&CGICH. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 1885 Copyright, 1885, BY PHILIP SCHAFF. ?/' / > , w\ f y '"0 f/ / 1 * J/ (I V V‘ ■ 1 (e °7 i /yT TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTORY. The Theology" of our Age and Country, . . 1-22 Definition of Theology, 1. — Departments of Theology : Exegetical Theology, 2. — Historical Theology, 3. — Systematic Theology, 4. — Practical Theology, 5. — Theology and the Ministry, 6. — The Study of Theology, 6. — Faith and Knowledge, 7. — Theological Character, 9. — Epochs of Theology, 10. — American Theology, 11. — The Volun¬ tary Principle, 13. — Combination of European and American Resources, 14. — Commingling of Denominations, 15. — Christian Union, 16. — Presbyterian Reunion, 19. — The Lhiion Theological Seminarv, 20. I. CHRISTOLOGICAL STUDIES. Christ his own best Witness, . 23-44 The Problem stated, 23. — False Explanations of Christianity, 25. — The Jesus of Imposture, 26. — The Jesus of Fiction, 27. — The Christ of History, 31. — Some traits of Christ’s Character, 32. — The external Appearance of Christ, 35. — The Christ of Prophecy, 37. — Christ and Christendom, 40. — Christ and the Human Heart, 42. Christ in Theology", . 45-123 Biblical Christology, 46. — The Ante-Nicene Christology, 50. — The Nicene Christology, 57. — The Chalcedonian Christology, 59. — The Post-Chalcedonian Christology, 62. — Analysis of the (Ecumenical Christology, 64.— Critical Estimate of the (Ecumenical Christology, 67. — The Orthodox Protestant Christology, 70. — The Scholastic Christology of the Lutheran Church, 72. — The Kenosis Controversy of the Seventeenth Century, 78. — The Reformed Christology, 79. — Comparison of the Lutheran and Reformed Christologies, 86. — Mod¬ ern Christ ologies, 94. — The Socinian Christology, 95. — The Unita- • i • ill )\lo^ 1Y CONTENTS. rian Christology, 97. — The Swedenborgian Christology, 89. — The Rationalistic Christology, 100. — The Pantheistic Christology, 101. — Schleiermacher’s Christology, 104. — Rotlie, 105. — Bushnell, 106. — The modern Ivenosis Theory, 107. — Criticism of the Kenosis Theory, 115. — Dorner, The Theory of Gradual Incarnation, 119. — Conclusion, 122. II. POLEMICAL AND IRENICAL STUDIES. Protestantism and Romanism, . 124-127 The Principles of the Reformation, . 128-134 Creeds and Confessions of Faith, .a . 135-152 The Bible and the Creed, 135. — The Confession of Peter, 136. — The (Ecumenical Creed, 137. — The Greek Creed, 139. — The Roman Creed, 140. — The Evangelical Creed, 142. — Lutheranism and Reform, 144. — Later Evangelical Creeds, 144. — The Problem of Reunion, 146. — Different kinds of Union, 146. — The Doctrinal Basis already existing, 148. The Consensus of the Reformed Confessions, . 153-183 Cranmer’s Proposal of a Reformed Consensus, 153. — The Reformed Confessions, 155. — The Harmony of the Reformed Confessions, 158. — Bibliology, 158. — Theology and Christology, 159. — Anthro¬ pology and Soteriology, 159. — Predestination, 161. — Ecclesiology, 163. — Sacramentology, 164. — Eschatology, 166. — The Theologi¬ cal Revolution, 166. — The Revival of Evangelical Theology, 167. — The Relation of Modern Evangelical Theology to the Reformed Confessions, 168. — Bibliology, 170. — The Theological Standpoint, 172. — Catholicity, 173. — Moderation of High Calvin¬ ism, 174. — The Problem of Predestination, 176. — Infant Salvation, 176. — Religious Liberty, 177. — The Reformed Consensus and the Presbyterian Council, 178. — Conclusion, 1S3. III. MORAL AND SOCIAL STUDIES. Slavery and the Bible, . 184-212 The Origin of Slavery, 184. — The Curse of Noah, 185. — Patri¬ archal Slavery, 189. — Slavery under the Mosaic Law, 192. — Greek and Roman Slavery, 197. — The New Testament and Slavery, 200. — Paul and Philemon, 211. — Conclusion, 212. Die Christliche Sonntagsfeier, 213-239 CONTENTS. V The Christian Sabbath, . 240-275 Origin and authority of the Christian Sabbath, 240. — The Anglo- American and the Continental Theory, 243. — Objections answered, 244. — Advantages of the Anglo-American Theory, 249. — History of Sunday Observance before the Reformation, 252 ; since the Reformation, 253 ; in England and Scotland, 255 ; in New Eng¬ land, 260. — The American Sabbath, 265. — Conclusion, 273. The Development oe Religious Freedom, . • . 276-291 Persecution inconsistent with Christianity, 276. — Persecution in the Middle Ages, 277 ; after the Reformation, 279. — Causes of Per¬ secution, 283. — Separation of Church and State, 284. — The Ameri¬ can Theory of Religious Freedom, 285. — Gradual Growth of Toleration and Freedom, 285. The Discord and Concord of Christendom, . 292-310 The Churches of Christendom, 292. — The Greek Church, 293. — The Latin Church, 294. — The Protestant Churches, 294. — Defects and sins of Churches, 295. — Persecution opposed to the spirit of Christianity, 296. — An act of humiliation, 297. — Denominational- ism not Sectarianism, 298. — Diversity in Unity, 298. — Denomina¬ tions necessary and useful, 299. — Liberty favorable to Christianity, 301. — Organic Union never realized nor promised, 301. — Good and evil in Denominationalism, 302. — Christian Pmion not to be created, 303. — Unity in Doctrine, 303. — Unity in Morals, 305. — Church Polity, 305. — Worship, 306. — Promotion of Christian Union, 307. — Hindrances of Christian Union, 307. — Christian Catholicity, 308. . - THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. [Inaugural Address, delivered Oet. 18, 1871, by the author as Professor of Apolo¬ getics, Symbolics, and Theol. Encyclopaedia in the Union Theol. Seminary, New York. He had entered the actual ser¬ vice of the Seminary two years before, as Professor of Hebrew.] Christian Theology is the science of the Christian religion, or the knowledge of God, of man, and of their mutual relation under its threefold aspect of original union, subsequent separa¬ tion bv sin, and reunion or reconciliation by Jesus Christ the God-Man and Saviour of mankind. It is the noblest of sciences. It surpasses other sciences in proportion as the Bible which is its text-book, excels other books, and as religion which is its object, towers above the secular concerns of man. It treats of the deepest problems which can challenge the attention of an immortal mind. The boundless wealth of God’s revelation, of God’s word, of God’s plan of salvation, the spiritual experience of God’s people in all ages, creation, sin and redemption, life, death and eternity, things past, things present and things to come, all that can purify, ennoble, adorn and perfect human character in this world, the mysteries of the world to come with its endless issues of bliss or woe, the origin, progress and triumph of Christ’s kingdom till the final consummation, when “ God shall be all in all”: — these are the sublime themes of theology, ever fresh and ever new, and carrying in themselves their own best reward. DEPARTMENTS OF THEOLOGY. Theology, like the kingdom of Christ itself, has .grown up from small beginnings to such magnitude that its thorough study, 2 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. exclusive of the necessary preparation by a general literary and classical training, demands now the best years in a man’s life. And the more we explore its sacred domain, the more we find out how little we know, and how imperfectly we comprehend. Superficial knowledge alone begets conceit, thorough knowledge makes humble. But even one drop from the ocean of divine wisdom is better than rivers of worldly pleasure. “Now we see in a mirror, darkly, but then face to face ; now I know in part, but then shall I know fully even as also I have been fully known.” The whole course of divinity is best divided into four depart¬ ments : Exegetical Theology, Historical Theology, Systematic Theology, and Practical Theology. EXEGETICAL THEOLOGY. Exegetical Theology, or Biblical Science, has for its object the study and exposition of the Book of books, the Book of God for all ages and for all mankind. It embraces, besides Exegesis proper : Sacred Philology ; Biblical Archaeology ; Textual Criticism ; Hermeneutics ; Critical Introduction to the Old and New Testaments; and Biblical Theology, in the modern technical sense, that is, a systematic, organic view of the Bible religion in its historical, doctrinal and ethical aspects. It covers all the branches of Biblical literature. Here is a vast field inviting new laborers from year to year, and extending with every new discovery of Bible Mss., and old monuments in Bible lands. Every progress in comparative phi¬ lology, Egyptology, Assyriology and other branches of ancient lore stimulates new zeal in biblical research. The Bible is now studied more extensively and more critically than ever before. Instead of losing its charm, like other books, it is growing richer and more interesting with every attempt to explore its mines of wisdom and comfort. Edition of the original text fol¬ lows edition ; exegetical helps are multiplying from year to year ; one commentary seems only to create a demand for another and THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. 3 better one; and thus the Church will continue preaching and expounding the same Word of life to ever-enlarging congrega¬ tions to the end of time. HISTORICAL THEOLOGY. Historical Theology, or Church History, traces the origin and progress of Christ’s kingdom, which is not of this world, but above the world, yet in the world, delivering it from the power of sin and error, and transforming it from within, slowly and surely, by the force of truth and holiness. Church History is a continuous illustration of the twin para¬ bles of the mustard seed which grows to a mighty tree, and the leaven which is to pervade the whole lump of humanity. It is the most important and most interesting part of general history. For the world at large is governed in the interest of Christianity. Secular history is but a John the Baptist pointing to Him who was before him, and decreasing, that Christ may increase. The noble language and literature of Greece, the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, the conquest of Alexander, the arms and laws of Rome, were tributary to the first coming of Christ, as much as the theocracy of the Jews. And so will all the movements, commotions and revolutions of modern history prepare the way for the final triumph of Christ’s kingdom over the whole earth. History is the epos of God, Church History the epos of Christ. All human factors and even the Satanic agencies are ruled and overruled by the Divine factor to the glory of God and the highest happiness of the race. Historical Theology is, next to the Bible, the richest book of life. It is inexhaustible in its lessons of wisdom. The Bible itself presents its doctrines and precepts mostly in actual facts, and in living examples, clothed in flesh and blood. Church history in the widest sense begins with the race in para¬ dise and accompanies it through the fall and the preparatory stages of redemption down to the advent of Christ. Then it becomes a history of Christianity. This embraces the whole 4 THE THEOLOGY OF OUE AGE AND COUNTRY. outward and inward life and experience of Christ’s Church from the beginning to the present time, the history of missions and persecutions, of doctrines and heresies, of government and dis¬ cipline, of worship and ceremonies, of charity and philanthropy, in short, all that is of abiding interest and that has contributed to produce the present state of Christian civilization. So vast and various is the field of ecclesiastical history, that one single branch alone — as the life of Christ, or the Apostolic Age, or the reformation of the sixteenth century — is sufficient to occupy years of earnest research. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY. Systematic or Speculative Theology reflects, in organic unity and completeness, the present consciousness, life and condition of Christendom, as the result of its past history. It compre¬ hends Apologetics, Dogmatics, Symbolics, Polemics, Ethics, and Statistics. Apologetics defends and vindicates Christianity, as the perfect religion of God for all mankind, against the attacks of infidelity whether Jewish or heathen or nominally Christian, whether they come from philosophy, or criticism, or natural science. It proceeds not from a sense of weakness, but of strength, and from the conviction that the Christian religion is truly what it claims to be, the absolute and final religion. But as this religion is attacked in every age, Apologetics must meet the foe and adapt its method and form to the demands and wants of the time. Its greatest use, however, is its effect upon the church itself rather than upon the assailants. For infidelity proceeds from the heart and will rather than from the brain, and is conquered by moral forces which are stronger than argument. Dogmatics is a scientific unfolding of the doctrinal system of Christianity from the Bible and Christian consciousness, and in harmony with true reason as enlightened by revelation. Biblical Dogmatics is confined to the teaching of the Scriptures; Church THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTKY. 5 Dogmatics, to the teaching of the symbolical books ; speculative Dogmatics, to the rational vindication of the doctrines of revela- tion ; but a full system of Dogmatics must embrace all these elements as a living whole. Polemics or Controversial Theology deals with the inner doctrinal differences of Christendom. It has of late assumed a more dignified, less sectarian and more catholic character, under the new name of Symbolics, which includes Irenics as well as Polemics. Symbolics is the science of symbols or creeds. It is comparative dogmatics. It discusses the doctrinal peculiarities of the different denominations as laid down in their authori¬ tative symbols or confessions ; calmly weighing the arguments, refuting the errors, and pointing out the way to harmony in the future. Christian Ethics is a scientific exhibition of Christian life as emanating from, and aiming to imitate, the sinless perfection of the life of Christ. It is related to Moral Philosophy as revela¬ tion is to reason, or as the written law to the conscience. Statistics is a description of the present social status of Christendom, in its various branches, Greek, Latin, and Pro¬ testant, with an account of their numerical strength, their polity, government and administration, forms of worship, living institu¬ tions and Christian activity. To Systematic Theology belongs also formal Encyclopaedia or an exhibition of theology as an organic whole, showing the relationship of the different parts, and their proper function and aim. PRACTICAL THEOLOGY. Practical Theology, with its various branches of Homiletics, Catechetics, Poimenics (commonly called Pastoral Theology), Liturgies, Hymnology, Church Music, Evangelistics, (Mission Work), and Ecclesiology or Theory of Church Polity and Disci¬ pline, looks to the future from the experience of the past. It con¬ nects the science of religion with its practice, the Professor’s chair with the Pastor’s pulpit, the Seminary with the congregation. 6 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. «* In this department, the mature results of Exegetical, His¬ torical, and Systematic Divinity, are made available for the edification of the Christian people, through the duties and cares of the gospel ministry. And this process will go on till the whole world is filled with the knowledge and love of Christ. THEOLOGY AND THE MINISTRY. From the nature and extent of theology we may form an estimate of the importance of the ministry for which it prepares. I pity the young man who thinks and talks of sacrifices he is making, and of honor he is conferring on the Church, by de¬ voting himself to the clerical profession. God has no need of our poor, feeble services. God rather bestows the highest honor upon us by accepting us as candidates for the stewardship of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven. What can be more honorable, more glorious, than the calling for which the eternal Son of God himself came in the flesh, and to which the purest and noblest of men, the teachers and benefactors of mankind, have devoted their lives ? There is, indeed, as the great Augustin says, “ nothing more wretched, mournful and damnable in the eyes of God than the ministry, if it be sought from impure motives, and administered in an impure spirit but there is also, he adds, “ nothing more blessed in the eyes of God, if the battle be fought in the manner enjoined by our Captain.” The demands upon the ministry are now higher than ever. Ministers ought to be the purest, the noblest, the most useful and charitable of men. They ought to be in the front rank of the civilization of the age, take the lead in all true progress, and maintain the supremacy of religion in the highest walks of learning and literature. THE STUDY OF THEOLOGY. The character of Theology suggests the proper spirit and best method of its study. THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. 7 As a science, Theology must be studied like every other science, with the application of all our cognitive faculties, and with all the enthusiasm for the pursuit of truth. Its vast treasures of knowledge from the Bible and the history of Christianity, in all its forms and phases, can only be appropriated by memory, and arranged by judgment ; its deep and intricate problems demand close and earnest thinking. It opens a field for the service of every mental power, and touches at all points on other branches of human learning and literature, as ancient and modern philology, geography, history, philosophy, geology, astronomy, music, poetry, and all the fine arts in their relation to worship. But as a sacred and spiritual science, based on a divine revelation and concerned with the eternal interests of man, theology should be studied spiritually as well as intellectually, devoutly as well as thoughtfully, on the knees as well as behind the desk. On its portals we read the inscriptions : Procul abeste profani. Sancta sancte tractanda. Oratio , meditatio , tentatio faciunt theologum . Only those who are pure in heart have the promise to see God. The impure will always walk in darkness, or worship idols. To make God simply an object of philosophical speculation, and logical analysis, is irreverent and profane, and leads to serious error. God is first and last an object of adoration and love. He is sought and found by meditation and prayer rather than by ratiocination. Hence the old adage : Bene orasse est bene studuisse. It has been said by Pascal, that while human things must be known before they can be admired and loved, divine things must be loved in order to be known. FAITH AND KNOWLEDGE. With equal propriety we must require faith as a condition of knowledge. The greatest theological genius of the nineteenth century (Schleiermacher) has adopted the motto of Anselm and Augustin : Fides prcecedit intellectum. How can we know God 8 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. unless we believe Him to exist ? And bow can we enter into the depths of His .character without boundless confidence and trust in his perfections? We must, then, first spiritually apprehend and appropriate the divine objects before we can intellectually comprehend and understand them. Faith is the pioneer in all great undertakings. Faith in ideas guided Plato in his lofty speculations ; faith in the existence of a new world led Columbus to the discovery of it ; faith produced the Re¬ formation and sustained its leaders in their trials ; without faith the art of printing and other modern inventions would be unknown. But as pistis precedes gnosis, so on the other hand pistis necessarily leads to gnosis. The same great divines who gave precedence to faith over knowledge, laid down the correspondent principle : Credo ut intelligam, I believe in order that I may understand. Faith is the most fruitful mother of knowledge. The philosophical principle of Cartesius, De omnibus dubi- tandum est, may apply to the functions of rigid historical criticism or legal investigation, but it is false of constructive science. Theology certainly is not born of the barren womb of scepticism or indifPerentism to truth, but out of the fruitful soil of faith in God, and love to God and man. In the plerophoria or full assurance of faith, the theologian may boldly climb the giddy heights and descend to the hidden depths of speculation and research, without a misgiving as to the result. Bible truth is fire-proof against the attacks of an infidel science and a philosophy falsely so-called. Our understanding of the Bible may be wrong and need rectification, from time to time, by the progress of knowledge or new discoveries ; but the Bible is no more responsible for the mistakes of translators and com¬ mentators than the book of nature is for the false and contradic¬ tory hypotheses of scientists. Faith and knowledge, revelation and reason, emanate from the same source, and must return to the same source ; they agree in principle and aim, as God agrees with himself, who gave them THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. 9 both, and claims them for his service. It is only a superficial taste of philosophy and science, according to Bacon, that may lead away from God, fully exhausted they lead back to Him. The more thoroughly we know any object, the more nearly we approach the truth ; and the nearer we come to the truth, the closer we come to God, who is the source and centre of all truth. THEOLOGICAL CHARACTER. The aim of the theological student should be to cultivate the heart as well as the head, to grow in grace as he grows in knowledge, and to make his attainments profitable to his fellow- men. The blending of intellectual and moral strength, of pro¬ found learning and devoted piety, constitute a theological char¬ acter. Such a theologian is a power and a blessing to his generation. Such were the best among the fathers, the chief schoolmen and mystics, the reformers, and the leading divines of the Protestant churches, who, though dead, still speak words of life, and stimu¬ late to noble thoughts and deeds. It is well for the student to keep constantly before his eyes those truly great and good men who shine as burning lights on the pages of the Greek, Latin and Evangelical Churches from primitive times down to our own day. It is still better to aspire after the apostolic masters, from whom an Athanasius and Augustin, a Chrysostom and Jerome, an Anselm and Bernard, a Luther and Calvin, have derived their inspiration. Look at St. Paul, who was at once the deep¬ est thinker, the noblest character and the most successful mis¬ sionary. Remember St. John, the evangelist and seer, who wTas first and emphatically called the “ theologian/’ who studied at the bosom of the Theos-Logos , and saw deeper and with purer heart than mortal ever did before or since ; as the mediaeval hym- nist so inimitably expresses it : “ Volat avis sine meta, Quo nec rates nee propheta Evolavit altius. 10 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. Tam implenda guam impleta , Numquam vidit tot secreta, Puna, homo purius But best and most of all, let us ever look to Christ, the great Captain of our salvation, the Revealer of God, the Wisest of the wise, the Purest of the pure, the Holiest of the holy. Con¬ formity to His spotless image, imitation of His perfect example in His mission of love and good will towards mankind, should be the highest aim and ambition of the theological student. A Christ-like theology and ministry is the first and last necessity to the Church and to the world. EPOCHS OF THEOLOGY. Every age and nation must produce its own theology, for its peculiar wants and use. We have no right to live on the inheritance of the past ; we must make it our own, and enrich it by the fruits of our exertions. The ancient Greek Church is the mother of oecumenical or¬ thodoxy ; she elaborated the fundamental dogmas of the Trinity and the Person of Christ, as laid down in the Apostles’ and the Nicene creeds. The Latin Church devoted her strength to the problems of anthropology, and her noblest offspring is the Augustinian theo¬ logy, with its profound views and experiences of sin and grace. The Schoolmen of the middle ages formularized, analyzed and systematized the doctrines of the Fathers, and showed the harmony of revelation and reason ; while the Mystics of the same period insisted on a theology of the heart and inward spiritual experience. With the Reformation was born evangelical theology, from the fresh fountain of the Scriptures, and in heroic conflict with the errors of Romanism. Since that time soteriology and the subjective side of Christianity in its bearing upon the character and comfort of the individual believer have received more atten¬ tion than ever before. Kliefoth thinks that ecclesiology and THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. H eschatology will come next and last ; but the burning questions just now are, Christology in its historical aspects, and Bibliology in its relation to modern criticism and science. In our age, Germany is the most fertile field for the cultiva¬ tion of scientific and critical theology, and is making invaluable additions to the stores of Biblical literature and Church history. In conflict with modern Rationalism there has grown up a new type of evangelical theology, more critical, liberal and compre¬ hensive than the older forms of orthodoxy which preceded the era of scepticism. There is no doubt that even Rationalism, bad and destructive as it was in its immediate effects, did and still does good service in investigating the natural and human aspects of the Bible ; but instead of overthrowing, as was the intention, the belief in its supernatural and divine character, it has only supplemented this belief and furnished a broader foundation for it. For the written word of God, like Christ, the personal Word, is theanthropic in origin, nature and aim, and can only be fully understood and appreciated under this two-fold charac¬ ter. The mystery of revelation is God manifest in flesh, and the mystery of Christian life is a heavenly treasure in an earthen vessel. AMERICAN THEOLOGY. The time has now fully come for America to produce her own distinctive theology, not indeed in selfish and conceited isolation, but in organic union with the Catholic theology of evangelical Christendom throughout the world. F irmly rooted and grounded in the Scriptures, and in the wisdom and experience of eighteen Christian centuries, American theology should mark a new era in the progressive development of the Church — a development, not of the divine truth itself, which is perfect and unchangeable, but of the human apprehension and application of the truth as it is in Christ and his gospel. For all legitimate and normal progress in theology and religion is simply a growth in Christ , “in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and know¬ ledge,” in whom the whole fulness of the Godhead, and the 12 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. whole fulness of manhood, without sin, dwell in perfect harmony forever. American theology, in its first phase, belongs to the Reformed type and is connected with Calvinism through the medium of English Puritanism. It was born in a powerful revival of re¬ ligion toward the middle of the last centurv. It mav be dated from the profound and devout speculations of the pure and ven¬ erable Jonathan Edwards and his successors, who manfully grap¬ pled with problems of Christian metaphysics, but moved within the narrow limits of a severe and provincial Calvinism. Since then, the immense growth of our country, and the recent importation of the vast treasures of European learning, have greatly expanded our horizon, opened new avenues of thought and research, and stimulated the native zeal to original contributions in Biblical and historical literature. We mav sav that all the intellectual and moral forces necessary for a new chapter in the history of sacred letters, are already at work or fast maturing among us. Our age is not, strictly speaking, a theological age. Theology is no more the all-absorbing and all-controlling science, as it was from the fourth down to the seventeenth century. Mathematics, and the natural sciences, the mechanical and useful arts, trade and politics, have grown to vast dimensions, and invite genius and talent into new channels. The morbid passion for sudden wealth and power, for extravagance and vain show, is a fertile breeder of dishonesty and corruption, and a serious check upon those ideal tendencies and pursuits which, after all, constitute the true nobility and abiding glory of man. But, on the other hand, our age and country are remarkable for energy, enterprise, liberality and zeal in the cause of general education, and afford unusual facilities for the exchange and spread of ideas and literary productions. We have, indeed, no such venerable and well-appointed insti¬ tutions as the great universities of Europe with their scores of distinguished scholars, complete libraries, antiquarian and artis¬ tic collections — the growth of many centuries. Most of our THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. 13 teachers, moreover, are too much distracted by extraneous cares and practical duties incident upon the youth of our institutions, while the university professors of Europe can devote that single and undivided attention to their scholastic calling which is neces¬ sary to the highest efficiency in any department. Yet we enjoy, on the other hand, certain advantages even over good old Europe for the cultivation of sacred learning in harmony with the highest religious and moral interests of the race. O O THE VOLUNTARY PRINCIPLE. In the first place, our peaceful separation of Church and State, by throwing Christianity upon the voluntary principle of self- support and self-government, tends to develop a degree of in¬ dividual interest and liberality for the promotion of religious and theological objects, far greater than exists in those countries where the people are accustomed to look to government for sup¬ port. Considering the youth of our country, it is astonishing how much has been done already without aid from government and princes. Theological seminaries have been multiplied all over the land, and many a plain layman has immortalized him¬ self by more than princely donations, which will perpetuate his influence for good to the end of time. A noble rivalry exists among different denominations to excel each other in zeal for the training of an able and efficient ministry, which shall make this magnificent country — the richest inheritance ever given to a nation — Immanuel’s land for all time to come. Our voluntary system, moreover, discourages the study for the ministry from any other than the proper motives of love to Christ and to immortal souls, and keeps from its ranks the large number of those who, in state-churches, pursue theology, like an ordinary profession, for a mere living, and thus degrade and paralyze the sacred ministry. Professors and ministers, who dis¬ believe the very truths which they are appointed to teach and to preach, and who labor to destroy the Church which they ought to build up, could fortunately not maintain themselves in our 14 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. country. Such men find here more congenial occupation in the fields of secular science, politics, and commerce. This state of things ought to secure to us a theology more pure, more scriptural, more free from error and more in sym¬ pathy with the religious life of the people, than in countries where professors and ministers are officers of the State as well as of the Church, and are elected for theoretical qualifications, with little or no reference to the soundness of their views, and the motives of their hearts. COMBINATION OF EUROPEAN AND AMERICAN RESOURCES. Another great advantage is our ready access to the literary treasures of all nations, with a willingness to learn from all. Continental divines rarely know and notice English or American works ; they are better acquainted with the remotest past in the east, than with that living Christianity which lies wTest of their horizon. English divines, with honorable exceptions, are in¬ sular, self-sufficient, and much controlled by the spirit of caste which separates “ Churchmen ” from “ Dissenters ” and “ Dis¬ senters” from “ Churchmen.” Our cosmopolitan composition as a nation, to which also in % this sense may be applied the motto E pluribus unum , tends to beget a more catholic and liberal spirit and disposition. Every book of note which appears in Great Britain, wffiether it pro¬ ceed from the Church of England, or the Church of Scotland, or any of the Dissenting bodies, is imported or reproduced in this country. The great German divines of the century are be¬ coming almost as familiar to us as they are to their countrymen ; their most valuable works are translated and have even a larger circulation in the United States than in the land of their birth. Scores of American ’ students are annually flocking to German universities, and return wrell-stored with the latest advances of Continental learning. The blending of strong English common sense and reverence for holy writ with German learning and perseverance, infused THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. 15 with the freshness and vigor of American life, ought to produce a higher order of theology than either England or Germany alone can give us. Ours is the fault if, with such advantages, we do not improve upon the past and the present. We must retain all that is good in the theology and religion of the Anglo- Saxon race, which, I verily believe, is more deeply imbued with the spirit and power of Christianity than any other people ; but on this solid foundation we may build a majestic temple unto the Lord, with precious stones from all the nations of Europe, and every age of Christian civilization. COMMINGLING OF DENOMINATIONS. Finally, we have among us nearly all the historic types of Christianity in living representation, on a basis of equality be¬ fore the law, and with unrestrained liberty of action. The national churches, which in Europe are separated by geograph¬ ical and political boundaries, and the difference of language, are here brought into direct contact and social intercommunion. In the same town we find the various churches of the Continental and British Reformation, with all the life, vigor and progressive spirit which characterize the genius of Protestantism, as well as the Roman Catholic with her ancient traditions, compact organ¬ ization, mysterious worship and extravagant claims. Only the Eastern or Greek Church, the oldest of all, has as yet scarcely a name in this young western country, but the noble achievements of her palmy days continue to live among us. This coexistence and social commingling of the different phases of Christianity, each representing a peculiar set of ideas and a corresponding mission, must facilitate a thorough acquaint¬ ance, remove many prejudices, and foster a spirit of large-hearted Christian liberality and charity. It is said that distance lends enchantment to the view, while familiarity breeds contempt. But the best persons and things improve upon acquaintance. In our land, if anywhere on God’s earth, is a field for actual¬ izing the idea of Christian union, which shall gather into 16 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. one the best elements from all ages and branches of Christ’s kingdom. CHRISTIAN UNION. Union among Christians is becoming more and more an impera¬ tive necessity if they are to conquer in the great conflict with in¬ fidelity and anti-Christ. “ United we stand, divided we fall,” is an old and well-tried maxim. “ Divide and conquer,” has always been the policy of a successful enemy. “ When bad men combine,” said one of the wisest of British statesmen, “ the good must associate, else they will fall one by one an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible strug¬ gle.” This is as true of religion as of politics. But union is not to besought merely as a means to an end and for the temporary purpose of gaining a victory over a foe. It is to be sought for its own sake, and as a lasting good ; it is an es¬ sential attribute and will be the crowning glory and joy of the church. Christian union cannot be enforced, or artificially manufac¬ tured. It must grow spontaneously from the soil of Christian freedom. It must proceed from the mighty Spirit of God, which is a spirit of communion. It must rest on the vital union of in¬ dividual believers with Christ. The closer Christians are united to Christ, their living head, the closer they will be united to each other. Union is no monotonous uniformity, but implies variety and full development of all the various types of Christian doctrine and discipline as far as they are founded on constitutional differ¬ ences, made and intended by God himself, and as far as they are supplementary rather than contradictory. True union is essen¬ tially inward and spiritual. It does not require an external amalgamation of existing organizations into one, but may exist with their perfect independence in their own spheres of labor. It is as far removed from indifference to denominational distinc¬ tions, as from sectarian bigotry and exclusiveness. It is quite consistent with loyalty to that particular branch of Christ’s king- THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. 17 clom with which we are severally connected by birth, regener- ation, or providential call. Every one must labor in that part of the vineyard where Providence puts him, and where he can do most good. The Church of God on earth is a vast spiritual temple with many stories, and each story has many apartments ; to be in this house at all, we must occupy a particular room, which we are bound to keep in order and adorn with the flowers of Christian graces. But nothing should hinder us to live on the best terms of courtesy and friendship with our neighbors and brethren who occupy different apartments in the same temple of God, who love and worship the same Christ, who pray and labor as earnestly as we for the glorv of our common Master and the salvation of souls, and with whom we expect to spend an endless eternity in the many mansions of heaven. Why should we not bless those whom God blesses, why not rejoice in the pros¬ perity of their works, though they bear a different name and pursue a different method ? Let Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Congregationalists, Luthe¬ rans, Methodists, Baptists, Dutch and German Reformed, and all ether Christians, of whatever name, be true to their standards of faith and practice, honestly fulfill their own mission, and do as much good as they can in their own wav — there is abundant room of usefulness for them all in this ever-expand¬ ing field of labor — only let them disown and abhor the selfish, narrow and uncharitable spirit of sectarian exclusiveness ; let them subordinate their denominational peculiarities to the gen¬ eral interests of Christ’s kingdom • let them cheerfully and thank- fully recognize Christ’s image in all its reflections, rejoice in the conversion of every soul, no matter by whose instrumentality it is brought about, and lend a helping hand to every effort to spread the glorv of Him who died for all and livetli evermore. Let our motto be : Christianus sum : Christiani nihil a me alienum puto. Let us act on the evangelical catholic maxim : In necessariis unitcis , in dubiis Ubertas , in omnibus caritas. 2 18 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. \ There are, indeed, differences which can never be reconciled ; of two contradictory propositions one must be false and resisted to the end. .Between truth and error, between God and Belial, between Christ and Anti-Christ there can be no compromise. Here is room for manly warfare, for Christian polemics — even for martyrdom. But there are other differences which involve no contradiction * and represent only the various aspects of one and the same truth. Such were the differences among the Apostles. Paul and James and Peter and John differed widely in their temper, their mental constitution, and their mode of viewing and stating the truths of the Gospel ; and yet they were one in Christ, and their varia¬ tions help to swell the harmony of inspired teaching. So most of the differences which divide the various creeds of Christendom, point to a higher unity and admit of an ultimate reconciliation in a more comprehensive conception of Christianity in its totality and completeness. We must remember that divine truth is too vast and too comprehensive for one mind or even for one de¬ nomination to apprehend and set forth in all its fulness. We must remember that there is an important distinction be¬ tween theological and religious differences. The deeper we penetrate into the intricate mysteries of theology, the more liberal and charitable we ought to become towards those who view the same truths in a different light. Such liberality is perfectly compatible with strong, positive convictions and an uncompro¬ mising attitude towards real error. It is the noble mission of a truly evangelical catholic theology to study the lineaments of Christ’s sinless physiognomy in all his disciples, to acknowledge the merits of his humblest follow¬ ers, to collect the fragments of truth from every age and de¬ nomination, to unite them into a living and beautiful whole, and thus to prepare the reign of peace, when Christians of every name shall see eye to eye, and beat heart to heart, and gather in common adoration around Him who is the divine solution of all human problems, the harmony of all discords, the Alpha and Omega of theology. THE THEOLOGY OF OUE AGE AND COUNTRY. 19 PRESBYTERIAN REUNION. The recent reunion of the Old and New School branches of the Presbyterian Church of the United States is one of the most remarkable and hopeful events in American Church history.1 It furnishes a practical evidence of the possibility not only of Chris¬ tian but even of ecclesiastical and organic union, and a refutation of the slander that Protestantism tends only to division and dis¬ solution. This reunion was no compromise between truth and error ; it involved no sacrifice of principle or honor ; it was not the work of human policy or design ; it cannot be traced to any individual agency ; it was evidently brought about by the Holy Spirit of God, who seized the minds and hearts of ministers and laymen, made them forget the bitterness of a thirty years’ theo¬ logical war, and melted them together in true Christian harmony. The meeting in Philadelphia which inaugurated the movement, and the one in Pittsburg which brought it to a happy consum¬ mation, breathed a truly pentecostal spirit, and commanded the admiration of Christians of all denominations. Presbyterianism, thus consolidated, far from becoming more sectarian, is all the more catholic and liberal towards sister churches. The success of this reunion justifies the hope of simi¬ lar movements among kindred branches of the Protestant family. It is time for all unnecessary and useless divisions to pass away. Let the larger bodies which have a historic mission to fulfill, and can work better in separate organizations, remain distinct, but let them at least publicly recognize each other and cultivate a spirit of Christian friendship and love. We do not even despair of an ultimate union of evangelical Protestantism with evangelical Catholicism, although they are [x The union was completed by a joint meeting of the two General Assemblies in Nov., 1869, at Pittsburg, Pa. The last separate meetings of the Old and New School Assemblies were held in New York in May of the same year. See the Memorial volume on Presbyterian Reunion , New York 1870 (568 pages), and Dr. Hatfield’s article on Presbyterian Church U. S. in the third volume of SchatTHerzog’s Encycl.'] 20 THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. now further apart than ever ; but this must be preceded by a universal humiliation and repentance, and by a destruction of Popery, which claims to be infallible and therefore irreformable, and holds the Catholic truths in bondage, making void “ the word of God by the traditions of men.” Then, but not till then, may be realized the dream of a Johannean Church of love that shall exclude all defects of the Petrine Church of authority and the Pauline Church of freedom, and melt the excellences of both into a higher unity. Out of the fiercest struggle comes the greatest victory, and out of the loudest discord the fullest har¬ mony. May God speed the universal pentecost and agape of his one Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. Gentlemen of the Board of Directors : I have given you an imperfect sketch of the nature and aim of theology, as demanded by the age and country in which we live. In the spirit of this address I expect, with the help of God, to labor in the professorship to which your confidence has called me. The branches of instruction assigned me are supplementary to other departments, which have grown to such dimensions as to require additional force for thorough cultivation. They embrace Apologetics , Symbolics and Polemics , Introduction to the Holy Scriptures , and Theological Encyclopaedia , in connection with Methodology and Bibliography } Some of these branches are new in our Seminaries, but will no doubt soon become essen¬ tial in all, as they have been long since in the older institutions of Europe. My knowledge of the Union Seminary dates from the day of my arrival in America, twenty-seven years ago, when I became personally acquainted with the late Dr. Robinson — then the only [x The writer was afterwards transferred to the professorship of “ Sacred Literature” (especially the New Testament), but continues to teach Symbolics and Encyclopsedia (Propedeutics) in connection with Greek exegesis.] THE THEOLOGY OF OUR AGE AND COUNTRY. 21 American scholar of European reputation. Coming from the University of Berlin, in obedience to a call from the German Reformed Church in America, and being furnished with mes¬ sages of friendship from Ritter and Yeander, whom he esteemed as the greatest and best men he had ever seen, I was most cor¬ dially welcomed by Dr. Robinson and his cultivated wife to the land of my adoption, and from that time to the day of his death, I enjoyed his friendship.1 Dr. Robinson — the first critical explorer of the Holy Land, which is fitly called “ the fifth Gospel,” shaped the scholastic character and mission of the Union Seminary by his teaching and valuable contributions to Biblical Literature. His colleague, the venerable Dr. Skinner, one of the purest, humblest, and holiest men I ever knew, who has but recently been taken from us in unbroken vigor of body and mind at the rare age of four-score years, impressed upon the Seminary the stamp of his own cleep- toned piety and spirituality. Their memories will ever be sacredly cherished in the Churches of America. Of the living, I will only say that I consider it an honor and a privilege to labor as a colleague with such Christian gentlemen and scholars as the Directors and Professors of the Union Sem¬ inary. I like the name of the institution ; it indicates the j>eaceful spirit and aim of its founders at a time when the odium theo~ logioum was raging through the land and rending the Church. It anticipated, as it effectively helped to bring about, the liap>py reunion of the two branches of Presbyterianism ; and it may prove a prophecy of other and larger union movements in the churches of Christ. The past history of the Seminary, its evan¬ gelical and catholic spirit, its metropolitan position and advan¬ tages, point to a great and noble future. You have it in your power to make it at once, and without dispute, the first school I I gave my estimate of Dr. Robinson several years ago, in a biographical article in Herzog’s Theol. Encyclopedia, vol. xx. pp. 577-581 [revised German ed., vol. xiii. pp. 13-16, abridged in SchafF-Herzog, vol. iii.] 22 THE THEOLOGY OF OUE AGE AND COUNTRY. of sacred learning on this Western Continent, whither “the course of empire takes its way,” and to extend its usefulness through all Christian and heathen lands. “ Art is long ; time is short.” Let us redeem our time, which is more precious than gold and silver. May we all be found faithful to our trust, and win the crown, to lay it at the feet of Him who alone, by his grace, can “ work in us both to will and to work, for his good pleasure.” CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. AN APOLOGETIC ESSAY. •‘Thou seemest human and divine, The highest, holiest manhood Thou.” Eighteen hundred years ago there lived, among a despised nation and in a remote country, a man by the name of Jesus, a carpenter’s son, who had no political power, no social position, no secular learning or art, no wealth, no shelter to call his own, and who after a very brief public career was crucified in his youth by his own countrymen as an impostor and a blasphemer. Yet this humble Rabbi, by the force of his doctrine and example, without shedding a drop of blood, save his own, has silently accomplished the greatest moral revolution on record, founded the mightiest spiritual empire, and is now recognized and adored by the civilized nations of the globe as the Son of God and the Saviour of mankind. This fact is astounding, and stands out alone, unapproached and unapproachable in its glory. It overtowers all other historic events, and throws the achievements of heroes, sages, poets, scholars and statesmen of ancient and modern times far into the shade. This fact is undisputed, and admitted even by sceptics and infidels. To deny it would be as unreasonable as to deny the sun in heaven, or the existence of man on earth. Let us hear but a few voices of men of acknowledged genius and culture, who widely dissent from the humble faith of Christians, yet testify to the unsurpassed and unsurpassable greatness of Jesus. Goethe, who characterized himself as a decided non-Christian,1 1 In a letter to Lavater, 1782: ‘‘ Ich bin kein Unchrist, kein Widerchrist, dock ein decidirter Nichtchrist.” He meant that he was an impartial or indifferent outsider. 23 24 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. and as a “child of the world between two prophets/’1 expressed the conviction, in one of his last utterances that the human mind, no matter how much it may advance in intellectual culture and in the extent and depth of the knowledge of nature, will never transcend the height and moral culture of Christianity, as it shines and glows in the canonical Gospels.2 Napoleon the Great, after he had subdued and lost again the half of Europe, said, among other striking things : “ I search in vain in history to find one equal to J esus Christ ; anything which can approach the gospel. Neither history, nor humanity, nor the ages, nor nature offer me anything with which I am able to compare it or explain it.” Strauss, the keenest antagonist of the gospel history, is constrained to admit, that “Jesus represents within the sphere of religion the culmination point, beyond which posterity can never go, yea, which it can not even equal . . . that he remains the highest model of religion within the reach of our thought; and that no perfect piety is possible without his presence in the heart.” Renan, the brilliant and eloquent historian of the “ Origins of Christianity,” concludes his “Life of Jesus” with this tribute to his hero: “Whatever may be the surprises of the future, Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship will grow young without ceasing ; his legend will call forth tears without end ; his sufferings will melt the noblest hearts ; all ages will proclaim that among the sons of men there is none born greater than Jesus.” Mr. Lecky, the able and impartial historian of “ Rationalism,” and of “European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne,” in speaking in the latter work 1 ‘‘Prophete reckts, Prophete links , Das Weltkind in der Mitten .” The prophet on the right side was Lavater, and the (pseudo-) prophet on the left, Basedow. 2 Gesprdche mit Eckermann , Vol. Ill, p. 373: 11 Mag die geistige Cultur nur burner fortschreiten , mogen die Naturwissenschaften in burner breiterer Ausdehnung und Tiefe wachsen, und der menschliche Geist sich erweitern wie er will: uber die Hoheit und sittliche Cultur des Christenthums, wie es in den Evangelien schimmert und leuchtet, wird er nicht hinaus kommen.” CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. 25 on the person of the Founder of Christianity, makes this striking and truthful statement : cc The simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and to soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations of moralists.” 1 This deepest and broadest fact in the history of the race which surrounds us like an ocean from every direction, calls for an explanation. The explanation must be reasonable. The cause assigned must correspond with the effect produced. Such an explanation we find in the history of Christ and his testimony concerning himself, as recorded by the Evangelists, and believed by Christians of all creeds. THE FALSE EXPLANATIONS OF CHRISTIANITY. The gospel history must either be true, or false. If false, it must be, in its essential, supernatural features, either a wilful lie , or an innocent fiction; in other words, the product of imposture, or of delusion. In both cases the responsibility may be fastened either on Christ Himself, or on the Apostles and Evangelists. Consequently we may conceive of four infidel constructions of the life of Christ which exhaust the range of logical possibility. Thev have all been tried from the days of Celsus to .those of Renan ; and the resources of talent, learning, ingenuity and skill are well nigh exhausted in the attempt to disprove the truth and to prove the falsehood, of the story of Jesus of Nazareth. No new phase of infidelity can be expected which is not of necessity a repetition or modification of one of the four exploded theories. But unbelief, like belief, will go on in the Church militant to the end of time, and every new assault upon the old fortress will be repulsed by the defenders, and, in its defeat, furnish a fresh proof of the truth of Christ’s prophecy, that the 1 For these and many similar testimonies, I beg leave to refer to my book on the “ Person of Christ,” twelfth edition revised and enlarged, publ. by the Am. Tract Society, and Scribner’s Sons, in New York, 1S82. 26 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. gates of Hades shall never prevail against his Church. A brief examination of the infidel theories must suffice for our purpose. THE JESUS OF IMPOSTURE. The imposture may be traced either directly to Christ, or to his disciples. I. The oldest enemies of Christ, the Pharisees and Sadducees of his day, followed by a few obscure infidels of later times, charged Christ himself with being an impostor and a blas¬ phemer, who made his credulous disciples believe that he was the Son of God and the Saviour of mankind, while he knew himself to be a mere man. In This case we must pronounce him a consummate hypocrite, who falls under the condemnation of his own terrible rebuke of hypocrisy. And yet it is now universally acknowledged, even by infidels themselves, that he preached the purest code of morals and lived the purest life, crowned with the noblest death. How then can one and the same character be at once the very best and the very worst ? The contradiction is as monstrous as that white is black and black is white. How could he play the hypocrite in view of poverty, persecution and cruci¬ fixion, as his certain and only reward in this life? How could he keep up the play without even for a moment falling out of his role and showing his true colors ? How could such a wicked scheme find universal acceptance and produce greater and better results than any which human wisdom and goodness before or since has been able to achieve, or even to conceive ? These questions are unanswerable. The hypothesis is logically so untenable and morally so revolting, that its mere statement is its condemnation. No scholar has seriously endeavored to carry it out. II. Others fasten the fraud upon the first disciples of Christ, and represent them as the cunning intriguers and successful deceivers, who manufactured the story of the resurrection and persuaded the world into it at the sacrifice of their very lives. CHRIST IIIS OWN BEST WITNESS. 27 But the first and last impression which the Gospels irresistibly make upon every fair-minded reader is that of the artless simplicity and honesty of the writers. We may contest their learning, critical sagacity, worldly wisdom, and even their common sense, but it is impossible to deny their good faith ; it shines forth from every line, it is even strengthened by the many discrepancies in minor details, it was sealed with their whole life, and in the case of Peter and Paul, who testify to all the essential facts, with their own martyrdom. Goethe, as good a judge of literary productions as ever lived, deliberately said: “I consider the Gospels as thoroughly genuine ( durchaus dcht ), for there is reflected in them a majesty and sublimity which emanated from the person of Christ, and which is as truly divine as anything ever seen on earth.” We can conceive of no motive which might have induced these simple-hearted Galileans to engage in such a dangerous in¬ trigue before all the world. And how could they keep the secret of the conspiracy ? And what must we think of the in¬ telligence of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans of that age, that they could be duped by a handful of illiterate fishermen ? Was Saul of Tarsus the man to be so easily fooled into a life of martyrdom by a cunning lie of the very men whom he once so bitterly per¬ secuted ? Such questions present insuperable difficulties which no learning or ingenuity has been or ever will be able to solve. The hypothesis of wilful deception in either of its two possible forms is an insult to the dignity of human nature itself, which instinctively shrinks from it. Unable to maintain this ground, infidelity has of late confined itself to the conjecture of innocent fiction. THE JESUS OF FICTION. Here again the delusion may be traced either to Christ him¬ self, or to his disciples. I. The first alternative assumes that Jesus was an enthusiast who deceived himself, a noble dreamer who imagined that he 28 CHKIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. was the Son of God and the promised Messiah, and died a victim to this delusion. But the Jesus of the Gospels shows not the faintest trace of fanaticism, or self-delusion. On the contrary, he discouraged and opposed all the prevailing carnal ideas and hopes of the Messiah, as a supposed political reformer and emancipator. He was calm, self-possessed, uniformly consistent, free from all pas¬ sion and undue excitement, never desponding, ever confident of success even in the darkest hour of trial and persecution. To every perplexing question he quickly returned the wisest answer; he never erred in his judgment of men or things; from the be- ginniug to the close of his public life, before friend and foe, be¬ fore magistrate and people, in disputing with Pharisees and Sadducees, in addressing his disciples or the multitude, while standing before Pontius Pilate and Caiaphas, or suspended on the cross, he shows an unclouded intellect and complete mastery of appetite and passion, — in short all the qualities the very oppo¬ site to those which characterize persons laboring under self-de¬ lusion or any mental disease. II. But may not his disciples have been self-deceived and unduly carried away by the exemplary life and death, the words and deeds of their Master, so as to work up their imagina¬ tion to the honest belief that he was really the promised Messiah of the Old Testament and a .supernatural Being that came down from heaven ? In other words, the gospel history is put on a par with heathen myths (by Strauss), or Christian legends (by Penan), and thus turned into a poem or fiction of an excited imagination, on the basis of a small capital of actual fact. This is the least discreditable of all false theories, because it leaves room for a high estimate of the moral character of Christ and his apostles. Christ must have been a very extraordinary person to account at all for the extraordinary impression he made, and the Apostles may escape with the complimentary censure of an excess of pious imagination and’ admiration. CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. 29 But the Evangelists are singularly free from imaginative coloring. They are the most objective and sober of all historians ; they abstain from every intrusion of their own feelings and re¬ flections, even when they record the most exciting scenes, the bitterest persecution and the deepest sufferings of their Master. Their individuality is lost in the events which are supposed to speak best for themselves without note or comment. How different in this respect from the Apocryphal Gospels, which abound in the crude inventions of a morbid imagination. We are moreover at a loss to conceive that the Apostles and Evan¬ gelists, gifted, as they were, with as clear eyes and as sound com¬ mon sense as other observers, could make such a radical mistake as is here supposed. How could so many deceive themselves at the same time and in the same way ? Is it at all likely that five hundred persons, to whom the risen Christ is said to have appeared at the same time, should dream the same dream ? And all this not in a period of childlike simplicity and ignorance, but in a period of high culture and sceptical criticism, in a land and among a people where the story of Jesus was everywhere known, and surrounded by bitter hostility eager to dispel and expose the delusion. How could the keen, sharp and persecuting Paul be so thoroughly converted to an empty fiction ? How incredible that some illiterate fishermen should have invented a far higher o and more perfect life and character than the poets, philosophers and historians of Greece and Pome. The poet in this case, as Rousseau, himself an unbeliever, well said, must have been greater than the hero. It takes more than a Jesus (i. e. a greater than the greatest, which is an impossibility) to invent a Jesus. And how could an imaginary resurrection which took place only in the visionary faith of the disciples, or, as Renan says, “ in the passion of a hallucinated woman,” lay the foundation of such a rock-like institution as the Christian Church ? Just here the mythical and legendary hypothesis breaks down completely, and is driven to the only alternative of truth, or fraud. Innocent fiction will not do in the case of the resurrec- 30 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. tion of Christ, or even the resurrection of Lazarus, of which Spinoza remarked that, if he could believe it, he would embrace the whole Christian system, because, as the greatest of Christ’s miracles, it involves the less. In this case Henan, unable to find a better solution, departs from his own theory, and is not ashamed to resort to the wretched hypothesis of a fraud, contrived by Lazarus and his two sisters, and weakly connived at by Jesus himself in the vain hope of producing a revolution in his favor among the unbelieving Jews. And such a Jesus who could willingly play the charlatan, and thus outrage the principle of ordinary honesty, Henan would make us believe nevertheless to have been the greatest and purest of men who ever walked on earth, and who will never be surpassed in time to come ! Credat Judoeus Appella. The false theories then are perfect failures as far as an ex¬ planation of the great fact of Christ is concerned. They put a severer tax on our credulity than orthodoxy itself. Instead of solving or diminishing difficulties, they increase them, and sub¬ stitute a moral monstrosity in the place of a supernatural mira¬ cle. They are calculated to shake the faith in mau as well as in God. They contradict each other, and one has in turn refuted the other. After completing its course, infidelity in its latest phase, when brought to the test of the resurrection miracle, is forced to resort to its first and most disreputable form, and thus to fall under its own sentence of condemnation, which it pro¬ nounced upon the exploded scheme of fraud. And, indeed, this is the only alternative : the gospel history is either true, or it is a shameless, wicked fraud in which Christ himself was the chief actor. The shrewd, cunning Pharisees and Sadducees who watched his movements with the vigilance of intense jealousy and hatred, felt this ; they heard his amazing speeches with their own ears ; they witnessed his miracles with their own eyes ; how gladly would they have denied them and resorted to the mythical or legendary fiction-theory of modern times ; but being unable to contradict the testimony of their CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. 31 senses and the common observation of the people, they derived his miracles from Beelzebub, and crucified Christ as an impostor. But the resurrection and the triumph of Christianity on the ruins of the Jewish theocracy was the triumphant answer to this wicked calumny. Let us add the testimony of an able and liberal Unitarian who, after a careful critical examination of the records of Christ’s history, comes to this irresistible conclusion : “ Wonder¬ ful is the character of Jesus. And hardly less wonderful is the manner in which it is portrayed in the Gospels, undesignedly, bv brief, sketchy narratives of a variety of incidents, strung together with only the slightest regard to their right order and connection, and yet yielding a result of unequalled moral beauty and of a world-saving power, — a result, self-consistent, all-con¬ sistent, and spontaneous, because, let me reiterate, the incidents narrated are truer 1 Verily, the history of Jesus, his words and miracles, his cru¬ cifixion and resurrection, witnessed by the rulers and the people, friend and foe, Herod and Pilate, Jews and Romans, related by his disciples, with unmistakable simplicity and honesty, pro¬ claimed from Jerusalem to Rome, believed by contemporaries of every grade of culture, sealed by the blood of martyrs, producing the mightiest results, felt and demonstrated in its power from day to day wherever his name is known, is the best authenticated history in the vrorld. THE CHRIST OF HISTORY. The more we examine the Christ of the Gospels, the more vre find that he carries in himself his own best evidence, like the sun which proves its existence and power by shining on the firmament to all but the blind. “ I am one,” he says, “ that beareth witness of mvself.” Much as the Evangelists differ in minor details and in their stand-point and aim, they nevertheless present only the various 1 Jesus, by W- IT. Furness, Philadelphia, 1870, p. 223. 32 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. aspects of the one and the same Christ. Matthew, writing for Jewish readers, sets him forth as the new Lawgiver and King of Israel in whom all the prophecies are fulfilled ; Mark paints him, in fresh, rapid sketches, for the world-conquering Romans, as the mighty Son of God and worker of miracles of power ; Luke, the physician and Hellenist, describes him to Greek readers as the Healer of diseases, the Friend of sinners, the Saviour of the lost, the sympathizing and ideal Son of M^n ; John who wrote last and wrote for Christians of all nations and ages, gives us the Gospel of the incarnate Logos, the only Be¬ gotten of the Father, who became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. But these are not contradictory, but com¬ plementary pictures of one and the same person. The essential identity of the Christ of the Synoptists is univer¬ sally conceded. As to the identity of the Synoptic and the Joliannean Christ, it has indeed been disputed by a small class of modern critics ; but the Church at large has never doubted it, and the common reader of the Gospels can perceive no differ¬ ence affecting in the least degree the character and authority of Christ. Certainly in all the features of his moral character and the object of his mission, as well as in the principal events of his earthly life there is the most perfect agreement among the canonical Gospels. He is in all of them the same original, con¬ sistent, unselfish, sinless and perfect being from the beginning to the close of his public life. SOME TRAITS OF CHRIST’S CHARACTER. His character is original beyond all other men who have a just claim to originality. History furnishes no parallel to Jesus of Nazareth. The fertile imagination of poets has never con¬ ceived a character like his. No system of moral philosophy among the ancient Greeks and Romans set up such a standard of purity and perfection as Christ not only taught but practiced. All the other great teachers fell confessedly behind their own standard of virtue ; Christ "was more than his doctrine ; his doc- CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. trine is but a reflection of his life. His character cannot be ex¬ plained from any resources of his age ; neither the orthodoxy of the Pharisees, nor the liberalism of the Sadducees, nor the mys¬ ticism of the Esssenees could produce it ; on the contrary he stands in antagonism to all. He came out from God and taught the world as one who owed nothing to the world, its schools, its libraries, its wise and good men. Though living in the world and for the world, he was not of the world, but far above it as the heaven is above the earth. Christ’s character is uniformly consistent. There is no man, however wise and good, who is not more or less inconsistent, who does not occasionally fall below his own standard, yield to the pressure of circumstances, allow himself to be carried away by passion or excitement, betray his native weakness, falter in the path of virtue. But Christ is the same in doctrine and conduct from the beginning to the end, before friend and foe, in private and public life, in action and suffering. He had never to retract a word, never to regret a deed, never to ask the pardon of God or man. His calmness and serenity were never disturbed ; he never felt unhappy or desponding, and, at the close of his minis¬ try, he could say to his heavenly Father in the presence of his intimate friends and disciples : “ I glorified Thee on the earth, having finished the work which Thou hast given me to do.” Christ’s character is absolutely unselfish. Love to God and man is the virtue of virtues, the fulfillment of the law, the bond of perfection, and the source of all true happiness. Selfishness, its very opposite, is the most radical and most universal of sins and failings. Our natural instincts prompt us to think first and last of ourselves ; while our Christian instincts direct our atten¬ tion to the good of our neighbor. We may despise the maxim of the famous statesman that “ every body has his price.” There were noble men and women in all ages and lands who sacrificed themselves for the good of others. But it is only too true that outside of Christianity there is little disinterested benevolence 3 34 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. in the world. Even the best of men are more or less influenced in their good deeds by love of money or power or honor and glory. With the ancient Greeks and Romans pride and ambition were acknowledged to be the ruling passions and strongest mo¬ tives of action. But in the life of Christ as told in the gospel story, there is not a trace of selfishness in any form, and his bitter¬ est foes could not charge him with love of gain or any earthly good. He grew up, lived and died in poverty. His public life was one continued series of acts of benevolence and mercy. His miracles had for their aim, to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to give sight to the blind, to expel evil spirits, to comfort the broken-hearted, to lead to repentance, faith, and a better life. He went about doing good to the bodies and souls of men, anl his example has ever acted and acts at this day all over the Christian world as an inspiration of the noblest, purest and most useful deeds of charity. Ask the philanthropists and benefac¬ tors of the race in every age, ask the missionaries of the cross from St. Paul down to our time, ask the sisters of mercy, the founders of orphan homes, hospitals, houses of refuge, the eman¬ cipators of slaves, the reformers of prisons, the promoters of temperance, of peace and good will among men, ask them the question, who prompted them to their deeds of self-sacrificing devotion to their suffering fellow-men, and they will respond with one voice, It is Jesus of Xazareth who died on the cross to save sinners from temporal and eternal ruin. To sum up all, Christ’s character is sinless and jierfect. This is an amazing fact, and nothing less than a moral miracle in the midst of a sinful world. Every human being is involved in the fall of the race. Those who are the humblest and know them¬ selves best, are most ready to feel and to admit their own imper¬ fections. I need only name Abraham, Moses, David, St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John, who tower so high above ordinary men by the profound conviction of their sinfulness and guilt be¬ fore God no less than by their genius, piety and influence in the history of religion. Even the noblest among the heathen, CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. as Sakya-Muni, Socrates, Plato, Seneca, Epictetus, Plutarch, and Marcus Aurelius, prove the same fact. But Jesus forms one absolute exception to a universal rale. Endowed with the keenest moral sensibilities and tenderest sym¬ pathies, moving in a corrupt age of this wicked world, and tempted as we, yea more than we are, by unbelief, ingratitude, malignity, denial and treason, he yet maintained a spotless in¬ nocence to the last. Pie never harmed a human being, never failed in word or deed, never fell out of harmony with his Heavenly Father. He was ever true to his mission of mercy, and lived solely for the glory of God and the good of mankind. He united, in even symmetry, the opposite graces of dignity and humility, strength and gentleness, severity and kindness, energy and resignation, active and passive obedience even to the death on the cross, and furnished an exemplar of perfect humanity for universal imitation. If this was the character of Jesus — and who will deny it? — we must in the name of consistency and common sense accept his testimony concerning his person and work and admit the truth of his stupendous claims, which from any other mouth would be universally condemned as wicked blasphemy, but which from his lips sound with all the force of self-evident truth. If he was the wisest and holiest of men, he must truly be what he pro¬ fesses to be, the Son of God, the promised Messiah, the Saviour of the world. THE EXTERNAL APPEARANCE OF CHRIST. It is a remarkable fact that the Evangelists, while they give us such a full and harmonious exhibition of the character of Jesus in his own words and deeds, make no allusion to his physical appearance. They observe absolute silence about his countenance, his stature, the color of his hair and eye, his dress, his daily habits. Not even the beloved John who leaned on his Master’s bosom and beheld u his glory ” face to face, has a single hint on this subject. In this respect our instincts of natural 36 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. affection have been wisely overruled, that all superstitious wor¬ ship of pictures may be cut up by the root. Me should not cling to the Christ in the flesh, but to the Christ in the spirit and in glory. The prophetic descriptions of the Old Testament which were understood to refer to Christ, gave rise to two opposite theories, since they represent him on the one hand, as “ a root out of dry ground, having no form nor comeliness,” and, on the other hand, as “ fairer than the children of men ” and “ altogether lovely.” They are not irreconcilable if we distinguish between the state of humiliation and the state of exaltation, and again, in the state of humiliation, between sensuous and spiritual beauty of appear¬ ance. The ante-Yicene church under persecution, and the post- Yicene church in power differed here as they did in their out¬ ward condition. Justin Martyr and Tertullian were certaiulv wrong when they imagined Jesus to have been homely. But their view was not generally entertained even in their age ; for the pictures in the Roman catacombs represent him, allegorically, as a handsome shepherd carrying a lamb on his shoulders or in his arms. Jesus in the days of his flesh had probably nothin^ extraordinary or imposing in his personal appearance that would strike the superficial observer, and in his dress and mode of daily life he no doubt conformed to the habits of his countrymen, as well as in his language and even in the peculiarities of the dialect of Galilee. Hence the woman of Samaria at once recognized him as a Jew. Yet we can hardlv think of him as a Jew. Me cannot associate him with the lineaments of any particular nationality. He is the universal man for universal imitation. He had not the phys¬ iognomy of a sinner. The spiritual beauty, purity and peace of his sinless soul in unbroken harmony with God must have shone through the thin veil of the flesh and flashed from his eve. This accounts for the overawing impression of his majesty on the pro¬ fane traffickers in the temple-court, and on the band of soldiers in Gethsemane. On the Mount of transfiguration he anticipated CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. the lustre of his future glory, when his “face did shine as the sun, and his garments became white as the light.'' J o o With such hints Christian art was left to its own conceptions of ideal beauty in delineating the human face divine of the Saviour of mankind. The greatest painters and sculptors have not succeeded in satisfying their own aspirations. The subject is inexhaustible. THE CHRIST OF PROPHECY. Though descended from heaven, Christ stands firmly on earth, as the universal man, “ most human, and yet most divine." He is intertwined with all the fortunes of the race, and casts his lustre back through the long ages of the past to the very begin¬ ning of the race, and forward to all ages of the future. It is an undeniable fact that at the time of Christ the Jewish nation was filled with Hessian ic expectations which, though car¬ nally misunderstood and perverted, had their roots in the Scrip¬ tures of the Old Testament and bear testimony to them. A long series of prophecies and types runs in unbroken line from the fall of man to the advent of Christ, and looks steadily towards a final redemption not only of the chosen people but of the whole human family. Though varied in form and admitting of a growing fulfillment, thev are vet one and consistent in spirit and aim. and were wonderfully confirmed at last bv actual fulfill- • •/ ment. The proto-gospel of the serpent-bruiser, the promises given to Xoah, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to David and his royal house, the symbol of the brazen serpent in the wilderness for the healing of the people, the daily sacrifices, and the preg¬ nant symbolism of the tabernacle and the temple, the prediction of a future great prophet and lawgiver, the meek and lowly King of Zion, his sufferings for the sins of the people, and his exaltation and everlasting reign, apply, in their highest and deepest sense, to Jesus of Nazareth , and to no other person in history. Isaiah, the prince and evangelist among the prophets, unrolls a picture of the Messiah so complete that none but those 38 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. blinded by dogmatic prejudice can fail to find here the lineaments of our Saviour with his atoning death and glorious triumph. And finally to make certainty doubly certain, immediately before Christ, appeared his great forerunner (whose historical existence no one denies), as the personal embodiment of the Old Covenant, leading his own pupils to Jesus as the Lamb of God, and then disappearing like the dawn of the morning in the glory of the risen sun. Christ knew and confessed himself to be the promised Messiah of whom Moses wrote and the prophets ; he claimed all the prerogatives and exercised all the functions of the Messiah ; he read himself on every page of the book of God. And, truly, he is the light and the life of the Old Testament ; without him it is a sealed book to this dav, in him it is revealed. The wonderful harmony between the Christ of prophecy and the Christ of history has at all times justly been regarded as one of the strongest proofs of his divine character and mission, and has led to the conversion of many thinking and inquiring minds from Justin Martyr down to the present day. It is impossible to resolve this harmony into accident or to trace it to human divination and sagacity. It is the exclusive privilege of the divine mind to foreknow the distant future and to read the end from the beginning. But the Christ of prophecy and type is not confined to the Jewish religion ; he may be traced, in a modified form, even in the providential currents of the heathen world before his advent on earth. He is the desire of all nations. The civilization and literature of Greece, the military and political power of Rome prepared the way for his coming as well as the theocracy of the Jews. The noblest mission of the Greek language was to be¬ come the silver basket for the golden apple of the gospel. The chief aim of Alexander’s conquests and the consolidation of nations under the Roman rule was to break down the partition walls between nations, and to prepare them for a universal re¬ ligion. The Greek fathers justly recognized in the scattered CHEIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. 39 truths of the ancient poets and philosophers sparks of the light from the Logos before his incarnation. Plato almost prophesied Christ when he described “ the righteous man as one who, with¬ out doing any injustice, yet has the appearance of the greatest injustice, and proves his own justice by perseverance against all calumny unto death;” and when he predicted that, if such a righteous man should ever appear on earth, “ he would be scourged, tortured, bound, deprived of his sight, and, after having suffered all possible injury, nailed to a post.” Even amidst the blundering svmbols, allegories and fictions of heathen mythology, the Avatars and Grand Llamas of Brahminism J Ot/' / and Buddhism, the divine incarnations and the human deifica¬ tions of ancient Greece and Pome, we may see caricatures and carnal anticipations of the great mystery of godliness : “ God manifest in the flesh.” They express the irrepressible longing of the human mind and heart after union with the divine, the groping in the dark after the unknown God who be¬ came known in Christ. The prodigal son of idolatry, after wasting his substance in riotous living, remembered his Father’s house and prepared to return to him in penitence and faith, when the Father met him more than half way and received him to his loving heart. Tertullian speaks with reference to the nobler heathen of the testimonies animee naturaliter Christianoe , of the testimonies of the soul which is constituted and predes¬ tinated for Christianity, and which, left to its truest and noblest instincts, turns to the one true God, as the flower to the sun, as the needle to the magnet. Thus Christ sums up the whole meaning of ancient history, fulfilling the unconscious as well as the conscious prophecies and types of the past, the preparatory revelations of God and the aspirations of the human heart. In the widest sense it is true that he came not to destroy but to fulfil. This is beautifully expressed by the German poet Lenau : “ Die Sehnsucht die zum Himmel lauschte Nach dem Er loser je und je; 40 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. Die aus Prophetenherzen rauschte In das verlassne Erdenweh ; Die Sehnsucht, die so lange Page Each Gotte hier auf Erden ging , M/s Thrane , Lied, Gebet und Klage: Sie ward Maria und empfing.” CHRIST AND CHRISTENDOM. As Christ stands at the end of the ancient world, so he stands also at the beginning of the new. He is at once the ripest fruit of history before, and the fertile seed of history after, his coming. He is the turning-point in the biography of our race, the glory of the past and the hope of the future. Christ and Christianity are inseparable ; the achievements of Christianity are the achieve¬ ments of Christ, its founder and ever present head ; and if Chris¬ tianity cannot perish, it is because Christ lives, the same yester¬ day, to-day, and forever. For eighteen centuries the Christian church has stood firm and unshaken, assailed indeed by winds and storms from all directions, yet ever growing stronger and spreading wider : a per¬ petual testimony to Christ, feeding on his words, living of his life, singing his praise in every zone, commemorating his life- giving death in every communion service, and celebrating his resurrection on every returning Lord’s day. Christianity has taken the lead in all the great movements of modern history : it has regenerated the tottering Roman empire, civilized the North¬ ern barbarians, produced the Reformation of the sixteenth cen¬ tury, abolished cruel laws, mitigated the horrors of war, re¬ strained violence and oppression, infused a spirit of justice and Humanity into governments and society, advocated the rights of the poor and suffering, stimulated moral reform and progress, founded literary and benevolent institutions without number, and is the chief author and promoter of all that is good and praiseworthy and enduring in our modern society. Human nature is indeed still as depraved as ever, stained with the same vices, vexed with the same cares, saddened with the CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. 41 same sorrows as in times of old ; but, taking even the lowest utilitarian view, we may say with Benjamin Franklin, in his wise letter to Tom Paine, “ Man is bad enough with religion, he would be far worse without it ; therefore do not unchain the tiger.” Whatever is bad and deplorable exists in spite of Chris¬ tianity, whatever is pure and holy and tends to promote virtue, happiness and peace, is due chiefly to the direct or indirect in¬ fluence of Christ and his gospel. And whatever hopes we may and must entertain for the future progress and amelioration of the race, they depend upon him who alone can bring about by his good and holy Spirit that millennium of peace when ‘ Earth is changed to Heaven, and Heaven to earth, One kingdom, joy and union without end.’’ Yet in the midst of abounding corruptions, Christ continually acts and reacts, and fulfills his mission of peace and good will to mankind. Who can measure the restraining, ennobling, cheer¬ ing, sanctifying impulses which are from day to day and from hour to hour proceeding from the example of Christ, as preached from the pulpit, taught in the school, read in the Bible, and illustrated in the lives of his followers ? Much as Christians are divided on points of doctrine, polity and ceremonies, they are united in devotion and love to their heavenly Master, derive the same holy motives from him, and endeavor, however feebly, to attain the same standard of perfection set up by him. This unity of Christendom is strikingly illustrated in the vast treasure-house of hymnology whose power for good cannot be easily over-estimated. As I said in another place : “ The hymns of Jesus are the Holy of holies in the temple of sacred poetry. From this sanctuary every doubt is banished, here the passions of sense, pride and unholy ambition give way to the tears of penitence, the joys of faith, the emotions of love, the aspirations of hope, the anticipations of heaven ; here the dissensions of rival churches and theological schools are hushed into silence ; here the hymnists of ancient, mediaeval, and modern times, from every 42 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. section of Christendom, — profound divines, stately bishops, humble monks, faithful pastors, devout laymen, holy women — unite with one voice in the common adoration of a common Saviour. He is the theme of all ages, tongues and creeds, the di vine harmony of all human discords, the solution of all dark problems of life. What an argument this for the great mystery of God manifest in flesh, and for the communion of saints. Where is the human being however great and good that could open such a stream of grateful song, ever widening and deepen¬ ing from geueration to generation to the ends of the earth ?rl CHRIST AND THE HUMAN HEART. The experience of the Christian church for these eighteen hundred years is repeated day by day in every human soul which is seriously concerned about the question of personal salvation. We are placed by Divine Providence in a world of sin and death ; we are made in God’s image, endowed with the noblest faculties, destined to be the prophets, priests, and kings of nature, filled with unsatisfied longings and aspirations after truth, holiness, and peace ; yet bound to this earth, ever drawn away from our own ideals by sensual passions, selfish desires, and surrounded by temptations from within and without. We who are born to the freedom of the sons of God, are slaves of sin ; we who are destined for immortality and glory, must suffer and die ; descended from heaven, we end in the tomb, and return to dust. Who solves this mysterious problem of life ? Who breaks the chains of darkness ? Who removes the load of guilt ? Who delivers us from the degrading slavery of sin ? Who secures peace to our troubled conscience ? Who gives us strength against temptation, and enables us to realize our noble vocation ? Who inspires our soul with love to God and man ? Who, in the midst of abounding corruption and depravity, upholds our faith in man, as the image of God and special object of his care ? Who 1 Preface to “ Christ in Song,” New York, 1868 ; London, 1869. CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. 43 keeps up our hope and courage when earthly prospects vanish, the dearest friends depart, and the future looks dismal and threaten¬ ing? Who dispels the terrors of the tomb and bids us hail death as a messenger that summons us to a higher and better world where all the problems of earth are solved in the light and bliss of heaven ? To all these questions, which may be hushed for a while by the follies of passion, the intoxication of pleasure, the eager pur¬ suit of wealth or knowledge, but which sooner or later irresistibly press themselves upon the attention of every serious mind, there is but one answer ; “ Lord, where shall we go but to thee ? Thou alone hast words of eternal life, and we know and believe that thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Apostles and evangelists, martyrs and confessors, fathers and reformers, profound scholars, and ignorant slaves, mighty rulers and humble subjects, experienced men and innocent children — all, all point, in this great and all-absorbing question of salvation, not to Moses, not to Socrates, not to Mohammed, not to philosophy, art, or science, but to Christ, as the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He and he alone has a balm for every wound, a relief for every sorrow, a solution for every doubt, pardon for every sin, strength for every trial, victory for every conflict. He and he alone can satisfy the infinite desires of our immortal soul. Out of Christ life is an impenetrable mystery ; in him it is gloriously solved. Out of him there is nothing but scepticism, nihilism, and despair ; in him there is certainty and peace in this world, and life everlasting in the world to come. Our hearts are made for Christ, and “ they are without rest until they rest in Christ.” This was one of the deepest thoughts of St. Augustin, and the same sentiment has found poetic expression in the finest Christian ode produced in America, in opposition to modern unbelief.1 1 tl Our Master,” by Whittier. 44 CHRIST HIS OWN BEST WITNESS. “ In joy of universal peace, or sense Of sorrow over sin, Christ is his own best evidence, His witness is within. No fable old, nor mythic lore, Nor dream of bards and seers, No dead fact stranded on the shore Of the oblivious years, — But warm, sweet, tender, even yet A present help is He ; And faith has still its Olivet, And love its Galilee. The healing of his seamless dress Is by our beds of pain ; We touch Him in life's throng and press, And we are whole again. Through Him the first fond prayers are said Our lips of childhood frame. The last low whispers of our dead Are burdened with His name. O Lord and Master of us all ! Whate’er our name or sign, We own Thy sway, we hear Thy call, We test our lives by Thine. Apart from Thee all gain is loss, All labor vainly done ; The solemn shadow of Thy cross Is better than the sun. Alone, O love ineffable ! Thy saving name is given : To turn aside from Thee is hell, To walk with Thee is heaven. Our Friend, Our Brother, and our Lord, What may Thy service be ? Nor name, nor form, nor ritual word, But simply following Thee. The heart must ring the Christmas bells, Thy inward altars raise, Its faith and hope Thy canticles, And its obedience praise.’’ CUEIST IN THEOLOGY. Chbist is the centre of the moral universe, the Holy of holies in history. Christ in the Gospels, Christ in the Church, Christ in the pulpit, Christ in the school, Christ in theology, Christ in poetry, Christ in art, Christ in the soul, Christ in holy lives of men and women devoted to the welfare of the race, — wherever we meet him, he appears as the purest, loveliest, highest object of contemplation, and commands above all human beings our affection and veneration. He is nearest to us, and yet high above us, at once our friend and brother, and our Lord and Saviour. AVe propose to give a popular summary of the history of Christ in the thoughts and creeds of Christendom.1 AVe approach the task with the conviction that Christ is far higher and deeper and broader than all Christologies. No single mind, no church or sect has ever exhausted the fulness of his divine-human personality. Every age must grapple anew with “the great mystery of godliness,” and make it alive and fruitful for its own intellectual and spiritual benefit. ‘‘Our little systems have tlieir day; They have their day and cease to be : They are but broken lights of Thee, And Thou, O Lord, art more than they. 1 For further statements, criticisms, proofs, and literature, the author refers to the doctrinal sections in his Church History (revised ed. 1882 sqq , vols. I., II. and III.), to his article Chrwtology in the “Rel. Encycloptedia,” vol. I. 451-467, and especially to the well-known masterly work of his beloved teacher and friend Dr. Dorner, Entwicklu^gsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi (2nd ed. Berlin 1851, 1853, 2 vols.), which was translated into English by W. L. Alexander and D. W. Simon (Edinb. 1864, in 5 vols.). 45 46 CHRIST IX THEOLOGY. “ Let knowledge grow from more to more But more of reverence in us dwell ; That mind and soul according well, May make one music as before.” BIBLICAL CHRISTOLOGY. Christ ology, or the doctrine of Christ’s Person, is based upon the life and testimony of Christ, as represented, historically, in the Gospels, and as reflected, doctrinally and experimentally, in the Acts and Epistles. It treats of the mystery of the in¬ carnation and embraces three distinct and yet inseparable points: the humanity of our Lord, his divinity, and their relation to each other in his one person. His divine-human personality forms the basis of his work, which is the redemption, reconci¬ liation, and re- union of men with God. It is the central fact and truth of Christianity. It was the one article of St. Peter’s creed, and it forms the chief part of the Apostles’ Creed. The leading evangelical divines of Europe aud America are coming to agree more and more in this estimate of its importance ; and the ever-increasing number of Lives of Christ strengthens the Christocentric character of modern tlieo- logy. ATt care must be taken not to emphasize the incarnation at the expense of the doctrines of the atonement by Christ’s death, and the regeneration by the Holy Spirit. The biblical Cliristology begins with the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament, which is the preparation for the A"ew. Christ is the heart of the Scripture, and the key to its spiritual understanding. All revelations of God look to him as the final revelation. The promise of the Messiah runs like a golden chain through the whole Old Testament. The history of redemp¬ tion begins immediately after the fall. Before their expulsion from Paradise our first parents received as an anchor of hope the protevangelium of the woman’s seed that should crush the serpent’s head and destroy the power of sin. The Messianic promise binds together the primitive, the patriarchal, the Mosaic, the prophetic, the exilian, and the post-exilian periods. CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. 47 The whole history of Israel, its deliverance from the land of bondage, the Mosaic legislation and worship, the daily sacrifices, the festivals and sacred rites, the representative persons and events, typically foreshadow the Redeemer and the redemption. The later prophets, especially Isaiah, draw that mysterious person of the future in such lineaments as apply to Jesus of Nazareth, and to no other. The New Testament, as Augustin said, is concealed in the Old, the Old Testament is revealed in the New. At last the law and the prophecy culminate in John the Baptist and his witness to Jesus as the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. The New Testament Christology may be summed up, with Dr. Dorner, in the sentence : “ In Christ has appeared the per¬ fect revelation of God, and at the same time the perfection of humanity.” He unites in his person the nearest approach which God can make to man, and the nearest approach which man can make to God. All the Evangelists and Apostles agree in representing Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah, as the Lord and Master, and as the only Saviour of the race from sin and death. They teach unanimously that he combines in one harmonious personality the twofold character of a unique Divine Sonship and a unique sinless Manhood, and that by this very constitution he is qualified to be the only Mediator between God and man. Their faith and doctrine are rooted and grounded in their personal experience which was to them more certain than their own existence. Simon Peter spoke in the name of all when he- confessed: “Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life. And we have believed and know that thou art the Holv One of God.” J All the essential elements of the apostolic Christology are clearly contained in Christ’s own testimony concerning himself, and are confirmed by his life and work. Jesus exhibits himself constantly under the twofold aspect of the Son of Man and the Son of God, in a sense that applies to no other being. He strongly asserts his humanity, and calls 48 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. himself (about eighty times in the Gospels) the Son of Man; not a son of man, among other descendants of Adam, but the Son of Man emphatically; as the representative of the whole race; as the second Adam, descended from heaven ; as the ideal, the perfect, the absolute man, the head of a new race, the King of Jews and Gentiles, the model man for universal imitation. Mliile putting himself on a par with us as man, he claims at the same time as the Son of Man, superiority over all, and free¬ dom from sin. He thus stands solitary and alone as the one and only spotless human being in the midst of a fallen race, as an oasis of living water and fresh verdure, surrounded by a barren desert of sand and stone. He never fell out of harmony with God and with himself : he alone needed no repentance, no conver¬ sion, no regeneration, no pardon. This sinlessness of Christ is the great moral miracle of history which underlies all his mi¬ raculous works, and explains them as natural manifestations of his person. On the other hand Jesus as emphatically asserts his divinity, and calls himself not simply a son of God among other children of God by adoption, but the Son of God above all others, in a peculiar sense ; the Son by nature ; the Son from eternity; the Son who alone knows the Father, who reveals the Father to 11s, who calls him, not “our” Father (as we are directed to pray), but “my” Father. He is, as his favorite disciple calls him, “ the only-begotten Son” (or u God only-begotten,”1 according to some of the oldest manuscripts). The Xicene divines ex¬ press this by the phrase “ eternally begotten of the essence 2 of the Father.” He is thus represented to us by himself and his disciples as a divine-human being, truly God and truly man in one person ; and his words and acts and sufferings have a corresponding effect. Hence he calmly puts forth astounding claims, which in the mouth of every other man, no matter how wise and how good, would sound like blasphemy or madness, but which 2 0 vela. 1 M ovoyevfje Qs6g (for 6 [xovoyevrjt; vlog). CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. 49 from his lips appear as natural as the rays of light emanating from the sun. He declares again and again that he was sent from God, to teach this world what he did not learn from any school or any book, but directly from the Father. He invites all men to come to him that they may find rest and peace. He calls himself the Light of the world, and the Way, the Truth, and the Life. He claims and exercises the power to forgive sins, and to raise the dead. He says, “ I am the Resurrection and the Life/’ and promises eternal life to every one that believes in him. Even in the moment of his deepest humiliation, he proclaimed himself the King of truth, and the Rider and Judge of man¬ kind. His kingdom is to be co-extensive with the race, and everlasting as eternity itself. And with this consciousness he sent forth his disciples to preach the gospel of salvation to every creature, forewarning them of persecution and martyrdom, and promising no reward in this life, but pledging them his pre¬ sence to the end of the world, and a crown of glory in heaven. He co-ordinates himself in the baptismal formula with the eternal Father and the eternal Spirit, and allows himself to be worshipped by the sceptical Thomas as his “Lord” and his “ God.” This central truth of Christ’s divine-human person and work is set forth in the New Testament writings, not as a logi¬ cally-formulated dogma, but as a living fact and glorious truth, as an object of faith, a source of comfort, and a stimulus to a holy life, in humble imitation of his perfect example. This is sufficient for all practical purposes. The simple narra¬ tive of the Gospels has been, is now, and always will be far more powerful for the general benefit of mankind than all the systems of dogmatic theology and moral philosophy. But the mind of the Church must meditate, reflect, reason, philosophize and theologize. It must endeavor to grasp, com¬ prehend, and define the truth, and to vindicate and guard it against error. The New Testament itself furnishes ever new impulse and food for knowledge. The fruitful germs of a 50 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. Christology we find already in Peter, Paul, and John, and their teaching must ever guide all sound Cliristological speculation. THE ANTE-NICENE CHRISTOLOGY. From A. D. 100 to the Council of Xiccea A. D. 325. The ecclesiastical development of this fundamental dogma started from Peter’s confession of the Messiahship of Jesus, and from John’s doctrine of the incarnate Logos. It was stimulated by two opposite heresies which agitated the church during the second century, but were overruled for the advancement of deeper knowledge of the truth. These are Ebionism and Gnosticism ; the one essentially Jewish, the other essentially heathen ; the one affirming the humanity of Christ to the exclusion of his divinity, the other running; into the opposite error by resolving his humanity into a delusive show or empty phantom ; both agreeing in the denial of the in¬ carnation, or the real and abiding union of the divine and human in the person of our Lord. Besides, there arose in the second and third centuries two forms of Unitarianism or 31onarchianism, that is Antitrinita- rianism. (1) The Rationalistic or Dynamic Unitarianism — repre¬ sented by the Alogians, Theodotus, Artemon, and Paul of Samosata — either denied the divinity of Christ altogether, or resolved it into a mere power,1 although they generally ad¬ mitted his supernatural generation by the Holy Spirit. (2) The Patripassian and Sabellian Unitarianism main¬ tained the divinity of Christ, but merged it into the essence of the Father, and so denied the independent, pre-existent person¬ ality of Christ. So Praxeas, Noetus, Callistus (Pope Calixtus I.), Beryllus of Bostra, and Sabellius. The last was the most subtle and profound of these Unitarians, and taught a trinity of mode and of revelation, but not a trinity of persons. 1 A vva/uQ. CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. 51 In antagonism with these errors the Church maintained the full divinity of Christ (versus Ebionism and rationalistic Monar- chianism), his full humanity (versus Gnosticism and Manichaeism), and his independent or distinct personality ( versus Patripassian- ism and Sabellianism). The dogma was developed in close connection with the dogma of the Trinity, which resulted, by logical necessity, from the deity of Christ, and the deity of the Holy Spirit on the basis of the fundamental truth of Mono¬ theism. For if there is but one God, and yet a divine Son and a divine Spirit as well as a divine Father, there must be a trinity of divine persons as well as a unity of divine essence. The ante-Xicene Christology passed through many obstruc¬ tions, loose statements, uncertain conjectures and speculations ; but the instinct and main current of the Church was steadily towards the Xicene and Chalcedonian creed-statements, espe¬ cially if we look to the worship and devotional life as well as to theological literature. Christ was the object of worship, prayer, and praise (which implies his deity) from the very beginning, as we must infer from several passages of the Xew Testament, from the heathen testimony of Pliny the Younger concerning the singing of hymns to Christ as God, from the “ Gloria in Excel- sis,” which was the daily morning hymn of the Eastern Church as early as the second century, from the “ Tersanctus,” from the Hvmn of Clement of Alexandria to the divine Logos, from Eu- sebius and many other testimonies. Christ was believed to be divine, and adored as divine, before he was clearly taught to be divine. Faith preceded theology. Many a martyr in those days of persecution died for his faith in the divinity of our Lord, with very imperfect knowledge of this doctrine. It is unfair to make the Church responsible for the speculative crudities, the experimental and tentative statements, of some ante-Xicene fathers, who believed more than they could clearly express in words. In the first efforts of the human mind to grapple with so great a mystery, we must expect many mistakes and inaccu¬ racies. The ante-Xicene rules of faith as we find them in i 52 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. the writings of Irenseus, Origen, Tertullian, Cyprian, etc., are essentially agreed among themselves and with the Apostles* Creed, so called, as it appears, first in the fourth century, espe¬ cially at home and Aquileia. They all confess the divine-human character of Christ as the chief object of the Christian faith, but in the form of facts, and in simple, popular style, not in the form of doctrinal or logical statement. The Xicene Creed is much more explicit and dogmatic in consequence of the pre¬ ceding contest with heresv ; but the substance of the faith is the same in the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds. The Apostolic Fathers so called who lived at the close of the first and the beginning of the second century, give us only plain, practical assertions, and reminiscences of apostolic preaching for the purposes of edification. Clement of Rome (in the newly discovered portion of his Epistle to the. Corinthians) says that “ God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are the faith and the hope of the elect.** This is the first clear post-apostolic statement of the Trinity which implies, like the baptismal formula and the Apostolic benediction, the recognition of the divinity of Christ. Ignatius of Antioch does not hesitate to call Christ “ God ** without qualification. Polycarp of Smyrna calls him “ the eternal Son of God,’* and associates him in his last prayer with the Father, and the Holy Spirit. The theological speculation on the person of Christ began with Justin Martyr, and was carried on by Clement of Alexan¬ dria and Origen, in the East ; by Irenaeus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian, in the West. Justin Martyr (d. 166) takes up the Johannean Logos idea, which proved a very fruitful germ of theological specula¬ tion. It was prepared by the Old Testament personification of the word and wisdom of God, assumed an idealistic shape in Philo of Alexandria, and reached a realistic completion in St. John. Following the suggestion of the double meaning of the Greek Logos (ratio and oratio , reason and word), Justin dis¬ tinguishes in the Logos two elements, the immanent and the CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. 53 transitive ; the revelation of God ad intra , and the revelation ad extra . He teaches the procession of the Logos from the free will (not the essence) of God by generation, without division or diminution of the divine substance. This begotten Lottos he conceives as a hypostatical being, a person distinct from the Father, and subordinate to him. He represents God, the Son, and the prophetic Spirit, as joint objects of Christian worship.1 Peculiar is his doctrine of the seminal Logos,2 or the Word disseminated among men, i. e., Christ before the in¬ carnation, who scattered elements of truth and virtue among the heathen philosophers and poets, although they did not know it. He held the liberal view that all who lived according to the light of the Logos were unconscious Christians. A similar view was taught by Zwingli in the time of the Reformation. Clement of Alexandria (d. 220) sees in the Logos the ultimate principle of all existence (without beginning, and time¬ less), the revealer of the Father, the sum of all intelligence and wisdom, the personal truth, the author of the world, the source of light and life, the educator of the race, who at last became man to make us partakers of his divine nature. Like some other ante-Xicene fathers (Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Ori- gen), he conceived the outward appearance of Christ’s humanity in the state of humiliation to have been without form or comeliness (Isa. 53: 2,3); but he made a distinction between two kinds of beauty, — the outward beauty of the flesh, which soon fades away ; and the moral beauty of the soul, which is permanent, and shone even through the servant-form of our Lord. Origen (d. 254) felt the whole weight of the Christological problem, but obscured it by foreign speculations, ^fnd prepared the wav both for the Arian heresy and the Athanasian ortho- doxy, though more fully for the latter. On the one hand he closelv approaches the Xicene Homoousian by bringing the Son into union with the essence of the Father, and ascribing to him 2 Ao/of OTrep/uartudg. 1 'ZefiofJiEda nal TTpooKvvoi'fj.EV, Apol. I. 6. 54 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. the attribute of eternity. He is, properly, the author of the Nicene doctrine of eternal generation of the Son from the essence of the Father (though he usually represents the generation as an act of the will of the Father). But on the other hand he teaches subordinationism by calling the Son simply God,1 and a second God,2 but not the God.3 In his views on the humanity of Christ, he approached the semi-Gnostic docetism, and ascribed to the glorified body of Christ ubiquity (in which he was followed by Gregory of Nvssa) . His enemies charged him with teaching a double Christ (answering to the lower Jesus, and the higher Soter of the Gnostics), and a merely temporary validity of the body of the Redeemer. As to the relation of the two natures in Christ, he was the first to use the term “ God-man,” 4 and to apply the favorite illustration of fire heating and penetrating the iron, without altering its character. The Western Church was not so fruitful in speculation, but, upon the whole, sounder and more self-consistent. The keynote was struck by Irex^eus (d. 202), who, though of Eastern origin, spent his active life in the south of France. He carries special weight as a pupil of Polycarp of Smyrna, and through him a grand-pupil of St. John, the inspired master. He likewise uses the terms “ Logos” and “Son of God” interchange¬ ably, and concedes the distinction, made also by the Valen- tinians, between the inward and the uttered word, in reference to man, but contests the application of it to God, who is above all antitheses, absolutely simple and unchangeable, and in whom before and after, thinking and speaking, coincide. He repudi¬ ates also speculative or a priori attempts to explain the deriva¬ tion of the Son from the Father. This he holds to be an incomprehensible mystery. He is content to define the actual distinction between Father and Son by saying that the former is God revealing himself ; the latter, God revealed. The one is the ground of revelation ; the other is the actual, appearing 1 0£of . 2 A svrepog Qsog. 3 ‘0 0£O£, or 4 Qedv&puKor. CHEIST IN THEOLOGY. 55 revelation itself. Hence lie calls the Father “ the invisible of the Son;” and the Son “the visible of the Father.” He dis¬ criminates most rigidly the conceptions of generation and of crea¬ tion. The Son, though begotten of the Father, is still, like him, distinguished from the created world as increate, — without be- ginning, and eternal ; all plainly showing that Irenaeus is much nearer the Yicene dogma of the essential identity of the Son with the Father than Justin Martyr and the Alexandrians. If, as he does in several passages, he still subordinates the Son to the Father, he is certainly inconsistent, and that for want of an accurate distinction between the eternal Logos and the incar¬ nate Christ. Expressions like “My Father is greater than I,” which apply only to the Christ of history, in the state of hu¬ miliation, he refers also, like Justin and Origen, to the eternal Logos. On the other hand he Is charged with leaning in the opposite direction, — towards the Sabellian and Patripassian views, — but unjustly. Apart from his frequent want of precision in expression, he steers in general, with sure biblical and churchly tact, equally clear of both extremes, and asserts alike the essen¬ tial unity and the eternal personal distinction of the Father and the Son. The incarnation of the Logos he ably discusses, view¬ ing it both as a restoration and redemption from sin and death, and as the completion of the revelation of God and the creation of man. In the latter view, as finisher, Christ is the perfect Son of Man, in whom the likeness of man to God (the similitude* Dei), regarded as moral duty, in distinction from the image of God ( imago Dei), as an essential property, becomes for the first time fully real. According to this, the incarnation would be grounded in the original plan of God for the education of man¬ kind, and independent of the fall. It would have taken place even without the fall, though in some other form. Yet Irensens does not expressly teach this. Speculation on abstract possibili¬ ties was foreign to his realistic cast of mind. He vindicates at length the true and full humanity of Christ against the docetism of the Gnostic schools. Christ must be man, like us, in body, 56 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. soul, and spirit, though without sin, if he would redeem us from sin, and make us perfect. He is the second Adam, the absolute, universal man, the prototype and summing up1 of the whole race. Connected with this is the beautiful idea of Irenseus (repeated by Hippolytus), that Christ made the circuit of all the stages of human life to redeem them all. To carry this out he extended the life of Jesus to fifty years, and supported it by a mistaken inference from the loose conjecture of the Jews (John 8 : 57), and by an appeal to tradition. He also teaches a close union of the divinity and humanity in Christ, in which the for¬ mer is the active principle, and the seat of personality, the latter the passive and receptive principle. Tertullian of North Africa (about 220) taught a trinity of subordination. He bluntly calls the Father the whole divine substance, and the Son a part of it, illustrating their relation by the figures of the fountain and the stream, the sun and the beam. He would not have two suns, he says; but he might call Christ “ God/’ as Paul does in Pom. 9 : 5. The sunbeam, too, in itself considered, may be called sun, but not the sun a beam. Sun and beam are two distinct things ( species ) in one essence (substantia), as God and the Word, as the Father and the Son. But we should not take figurative language too strictly, and must remember that Tertullian was especially in¬ terested to distinguish the Son from the Father, in opposition to the Patripassian Praxeas. In other respects he did the Church Christology material service. He propounds a threefold hypo- statical existence of the Son (filiatio) : (1) The pre-existent, eternal immanence of the Son in the Father, they being as inseparable as reason and word in man, who was created in the image of God, and hence in a measure reflects his being ; (2) The coming-forth of the Son with the Father for the purpose of the creation ; (3) The manifestation of the Son in the world by the incarnation. He advocates the entire, yet sinless humanity of Christ, against both the docetistic Gnostics and the Patripas- 1 ’A vaKeda?.a!u(Jic, recapitulatio. CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. 57 sians. He accuses the former of making Christ, who is all truth, a half lie, and by the denial of his flesh, resolving all his work in the flesh into an empty show. He urges against the latter that God the Father is incapable of suffering and change. Hippolytus of Rome (d. 236) was likewise a subordinationist in his doctrine of the trinity. Cyprian (d. 258) of Carthage, a pupil of Tertullian, marks no progress in this or any other doctrine, except that of the Catholic unity and the episcopate. Fie was not so much a theologian as an ecclesiastic, and typical high-churchman. Dionysius, Bishop of Rome (d. 269), a Greek by birth, came nearest the Xicene view. He maintained distinctly, in his con¬ troversy with Dionysius of Alexandria, the unity of essence, and the threefold personal distinction of Father, Son, and Spirit, in opposition to Sabellianism, tritheism, and subordinationism. He showed that instinct of orthodoxvand that art of anathematizing heresy which were already familiar to the popes. His view is embodied in a fragment preserved by Athanasius. THE NICENE CH HISTOLOGY. From A. D. 325 to A. D. 3S1. The Xieene Christologv is the result of the struggle with Arianism and Semi- Arianism, which agitated the Eastern Church for more than half a century from A. D. 318 to 381. The Arian heresy denied the strict deity of Christ (his co- equality with the Father), and taught that he is a subordinate divinity, different in essence from God,1 pre-existing before the world, yet not eternal,2 that he is himself a creature of the will of God out of nothing ; 3 that he created this present world and became incarnate for our salvation. Arianism disappoints the expectations of reason and faith alike : by teaching the incarnation of a pre-existent Logos, it encounters the chief objection to the orthodox Christologv ; and by lowering this pre-existent Christ to the rank of a erea- 1 FrepoovcLoq. 2 Ilv 7 Tore ore ova rjv. 3 Krio/ua £$■ ova ovtcjv. 58 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. tare, it robs him of that divinity which alone can be a proper object of faith and worship. It starts with a zeal for the unity and the unchangeableness of God ; and yet ends in dyotheism, the doctrine of an uncreated God, and a created God. It is (as Xeander calls it) “a prosy intellectualism.” It runs rampant at last into deism and sheer humanitarianism. Its doctrine of freedom contains the germ of Pelagianism. Semi-Arianism occupied an untenable middle ground between the Arian hetero-ousia , or difference of essence, and the orthodox homo-ousia , or equality of essence; and substitutes for both the elastic term homoi-ousia , or similarity of essence, which might be contracted into an Arian, or stretched into an orthodox sense, according to the spirit and tendency of the men who held it. In opposition to these heresies, the orthodox church firmly maintained and defended, with superior ability, rigor, and per¬ severance, the doctrine of the eternal deity of Christ or the essential oneness of the Son with the Father. It was briefly expressed by the word homo-ousia , or equality of essence. This doctrine was regarded in the Xicene age as the very corner-stone of the Christian religion, the articulus stantis vel cadentis eccle- sioe. Its chief champion was the heroic Athanasius, bishop of Alexandria (d. 373), who devoted his whole life to this doctrine, never wavering, though standing at one time, “ unus versus rnundum .,” and suffering twenty years of exile. Hence he is justly called “the Great,” and “the father of orthodoxy.” Xext to him, his friends, the three Cappadocian bishops, — Basil, Gre¬ gory of Xazianzus, and Gregory of Xyssa, — were the ablest defenders of the Xicene faith, during the ascendancy of Ari¬ an ism. The orthodox doctrine triumphed in the first oecumenical council, convened by Constantine the Great, at Xicsea, A. d. 325, and, after a new and longer struggle, it was re-asserted in the second oecumenical council, convened by Theodosius the Great, at Constantinople, a. d. 381. It is briefly and tersely CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. 59 laid down in the chief article of the Nicseno-Constantinopolitan Creed, which has stood ever since like an immovable rock (“We believe) ... in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds (God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things were made; who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.’’ Yicsea has long; since lost its glory and is now a miserable Turkish village. But the Xicene Creed still rings throughout O o c orthodox Christendom and is incorporated in the most solemn acts of worship. “ The faith of the Trinitv lies, Shrined forever and ever in those grand old words and wise; A gem in a beautiful setting ; still at matin-time, The service of Holy Communion rings the ancient chime; Wherever in marvellous minster, or village churches small, Men to the Man that is God, out of their misery call ; Swelled by the rapture of choirs, or borne on the poor man’s word, Still the glorious Nicene confession unaltered is heard ; Most like the song that the angels are singing around the throne, With their Holy ! holy ! holv ! to the great Three in One.” THE CHALCEDONIAN CHRISTO LOGY. This finds its normal expression in the Chaleedonian statement of 451. It was the answer of the orthodox Church to the heresies which related to the proper constitution of Christ’s theanthropic person, or the relation between the divine and human nature. These heresies are chiefly three : viz., 1. Apolliyarianism, a partial denial of the humanity, as Arianism is of the deity, of Christ. Apollinaris the Younger, bishop of Laodicea in Syria (d. 390), on the basis of the Pla¬ tonic trichotomy, ascribed to Christ a human body1 and animal soul,2 but not a human spirit or reason.3 He put the divine Logos in the place of the rational soul, and thus substituted a flesh-bearing God 4 for a real Godman,5 — a mixed middle being 1 lupa. 2 *i’XV a-Aoyoc. 3 loycnr/, vov c, rrvevpa . 4 9eof capKooopoq. 5 Qsavdpu-og. 60 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. for a divine-human person. From this error it follows, either that the rational soul of man was not redeemed, or that it needed no redemption. When John says that the Logos became “ flesh,' 77 and when Paul says that Christ appeared “ in the like¬ ness of the flesh of sin/7 we are to understand bv “ flesh 77 1 not simply the body,2 but the whole nature of man, body, soul, and spirit. Christ became like us in all things, sin only excepted. 2. Nestorianism (from Nestorius, Patriarch of Constanti¬ nople, d. in exile 440) admitted the full deity and the full humanity of Christ, but put them into loose mechanical con¬ junction, or affinity 3 rather than a vital and personal union;4 and hence it objected to the popular orthodox term “ mother of God,”5 as applied to the Virgin Mary, while willing to call her “ mother of Christ 77 6 or “ mother of our Lord 77 (Luke 1 : 43). 3. Eutychianism (from Eutyches, presbyter at Constanti¬ nople, d. after 451) is the very opposite of Nestorianism, and sacrificed the distinction of the two natures in Christ to the unity of the person, to such an extent as to make the incarnation an absorption of the human nature by the divine, or a deification of human nature, even of the body: hence the Euty cliians thought it proper to use the phrases “God is born,77 “God suf¬ fered,77 77 God was crucified,7’ “God died.77 The third and fourth oecumenical councils (at Ephesus and Chalcedon) settled the question of the precise relation of the two natures in Christ’s person, as the first and second (325 and 381) had decided the doctrine of his divinity. The decree of the Council of Ephesus, a. d. 431, under the lead of the violent Cyril of Alexandria, was merely negative, a condemnation of the error of Nestor ins, and leaned a little towards the opposite error of Eutyches. This error triumphed temporarily in the justly so-called “Pobber Synod,77 likewise held at Ephesus, in 449, under the dictatorship of Dioscurus of Alexandria, who inherited all the bad, and none of the good, qualities of his 1 Sapf. 2 Zcjjua. 3 Zwacpeia. * °~Evocu£. 5 Qeot6ko£, Dei-para. 6 XpiGTor6\o<;. CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. 61 predecessor, Cyril. But Dyophysitism re-acted ; and Dioscurus and Eutyches were condemned a few years afterwards by the Council of Clialcedon, A. i>. 451, at which bishop Leo I. of Rome by correspondence exerted a commanding influence. This council gave a clear and full statement of the orthodox Christology as follows : % “Following the holy Fathers, we all with one consent teach men to confess one and the same Son, onr Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead and also perfect in manhood ; truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and body ; consubstantial (co-equal) with the Father accord¬ ing to the Godhead, and consubstantial with us according to the Man¬ hood; in all things like unto us, without sin ; begotten before all ages of the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, accord¬ ing to the Manhood ; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-Begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, in confusedly, unchangeably, indivi- sibly, inseparably ; the distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather the property of each nature being pre¬ served, and concurring in one Person and one Subsistence, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same Son, and only begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets from the begin¬ ning [have declared] concerning him, and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy Fathers has handed down to us” The same doctrine is set forth in a more condensed form in the second part of the Symbolum Quicunque , or the (falsely so-called) Athanasian Creed, which probably originated in Gaul during the seventh or eighth century. “Furthermore it is necessary to everlasting salvation: that he also believe rightly [faithfully] the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, for the right Faith is, that he believe and confess: that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man ; God, of the Substance [Essence] of the Father; begotten before the worlds: and Man, of the Substance [Essence] of his Mother, born in the world. Perfect God and perfect Man ; of a rational soul and human flesh subsisting • equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead ; and inferior to the Father as touching his Manhood. Who although he is God and Man ; yet he is not two, but one Christ. One ; not by conversion of the Godhead into 62 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. flesh, but by assumption of the Manhood into God. One altogether ; not by confusion of Substance [Essence], but by unity of Person. For as the rational soul and flesh is one Man ; so God and Man is ’one Christ. Who suffered for our salvation ; desended into Hades, rose again the third day from the dead. He ascended into heaven ; He sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From thence He shall come to judge the living and the dead. At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies, and shall give account for their own works.” THE POST-CHALCEDOXIAN CHRISTOLOGY. The Chalcedonian decision did not stop the controversy, but called for a supplementary statement concerning the two wills of Christ, corresponding to the two natures. Eutychianism revived in the form of Monophysitism,1 or the doctrine that Christ had but. one composite nature.2 It makes the humanity of Christ a mere accident of the immu¬ table divine substance. The liturgical shibboleth of the Mo- nophysites was “ God crucified,” which they introduced into the Trisagion3 : hence they are also called Theopaschites .4 The tedious Monop hysite controversies convulsed the Eastern Church for more than a hundred years, weakened its power, and facilitated the conquest of Mohammedanism. The fifth oecumenical council, held at Constantinople, 553, made a partial concession to the Monophysites, but did not reconcile them. They separated, like their antipodes, the Nes- torians, from the orthodox Greek Church, and continue to this day under various names and organizations, — the Jacobites in Syria, the Copts in Egypt, the Abyssinians, and, the most im¬ portant of them, the Armenians. Closely connected with Monophysitism was Moxothelet- ism,5 or the doctrine that Christ has but one will, as he has but one person. The orthodox maintained that will is an attribute 1 From fiovrj QvGig, one nature. - M/a < pvoig Gvvdtrog, or pia QvGig fiir-r/. 3'A yiog 6 Qe6c, ayrog vGxvpog, aycog addvarog , 6 GTavpudelg 6C r/udg , klepcov fjpdg. 4 QeoiraGxi~ai‘ 6 From [idvov and dtTirjpa. CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. 63 of nature, rather than of person, and consequently that Christ had two wills corresponding to the two natures, — a human will and a divine will, — both working in harmony. The Mono- theletic controversy lasted from 633 to 680. The Emperor Heraclius proposed a compromise formula, — one divine human energy;1 but it was opposed in the West. The sixth oecumenical council, held in Constantinople, 689 (also called the Third Constantinopolitan Council, or the Cone. Trullanum I.), condemned the Monotheletic heresy, and repeated the Chalcedonian Creed of one Christ in two natures, with the following supplement concerning the two wills : — “And we likewise preach two natural wills'1 in him [Jesus Christ], and two natural operations 3 undivided, inconvertible, inseparable, unmixed,4 according to the doctrine of the holy fathers; and the two natural wills are far from being contrary (as the impious heretics assert), but his human will follows the divine will, and is not resisting or reluctant, but rather subject to his divine and omnipotent will. For it was proper that the will of the flesh should be moved, but be subjected to the divine will, according to the wise Athanasius.” The same council condemned Pope Honorius as a Monotheletic heretic, and his successors confirmed it. This undeniable fact figured conspicuously in the Vatican Council (1870) as an un¬ answerable argument against papal infallibility, and was pressed by bishop Hefele and other learned members of the council, although they afterwards submitted to an infallible modern pope and council versus infallible old popes and councils. Mo- notheletism continued among the Maronites on Mount Lebanon (who, however, afterwards submitted to the Roman Church), as well as among the Monophysites, who are all Monothelites. With the sixth oecumenical council closes the development of the ancient Catholic Christology. The Adoption controversy, which arose in Spain and France toward the close of the eighth century, turned upon the question whether Christ as man was the Son of God by nature (naturaliter) , or simply by adoption 1 M/a OeavfipiK// hepyeta. 2 Avn (pvcuKai ; deltjoeu; tjtoi JeA rjpara. 3 A vo (pwtKag kvepydag. 4 ’ Afiiaipinor, arpeTrrcjc, a/uepicTug, aovyxvrtog. 64 CHRIST IN THEOLOGY. ( nuncupative ). The Adoptionists maintained the latter, and shifted the whole idea of sonship from the person (to whom it belongs) to the nature. Their theory was a modification of the Nestorian error, and was condemned in a synod at Frankfort- on-the-Main 794; but it did not result in a positive addition to the creed statements. The scholastic theology of the middle ages made no real pro¬ gress in Christology, and confined itself to a dialectical analysis and defence of the Chaleedonian dogma, with a one-sided refer¬ ence to the divine nature of Christ. John of Damascus in the East, and Thomas Aquinas in the West, were the ablest expo¬ nents of the Chaleedonian dogma. The mediaeval Church while exalting over the glorious divinity of our Lord, almost forgot his real humanity (except his passion), and substituted for it virtually the worship of the Virgin Mary, who seemed to appeal more tenderly and effectively to all the human sensibilities and sympathies of the heart than the exalted Saviour. ANALYSIS OF THE (ECUMENICAL CHRISTOLOGY. The following are the leading ideas of the Chaleedonian or o o oecumenical Christology, as taught in common by the doctrinal standards of the Greek, Latin, and Evangelical Protestant Churches : — 1. A true incarnation of the Logos, i. e ., the second person in the Godhead.1 This is an actual assumption of the whole human nature — body, soul, and spirit — into an abiding union with the divine personality of the eternal Logos, so that they constitute, from the moment of the supernatural conception, one undivided life forever. The incarnation is neither a conversion or transmutation of God into man, nor a conversion of man into God, and consequent absorption of the one, nor a confusion2 of the two. On the other hand, it is not a mere indwelling3 1 'EvavdpuTTjGic 9 eov, evaapnucig tov A oynv, incarnatio Verbi. 2 Kpacig } cbyxvoig, 3 ’Evo'u