^ •5sji«'^ j^ tut ®to%t4-j,| J. PRINCETON, N. J. % k Presented by" Y^OSS \ CK^j^-^ V^AV^ BX 5937 .K57"R44T886 Kirkus, William, 1830-1907 Religion oy~ ^> KELIGIO:^ A EEYELATIOE" A'ND A RULE OF LIEE. BY REV. WILLIAM KIEKUS, M. A., LL. B., UNIVERSITY OF LONDON: Hector of the Church of S. Michael and All Angels, Baltimore, Md. NEW YORK : THOMAS WHITTAKEK, 2 AND 3 BIBLE HOUSK, 1886. COPYUTOHT, 1880, Uv WILLIAM KIIIKUS. Press and Bindery of Isaac Friedeiiuald, Baltimore. TO THE RIGHT REVEREND H. C. POTTER, D. D., LL. D., Assistant Bishop of new York. Eight Eeverend and Dear Sir: I am sure that nobody can imagine that, in these few dedicatory lines, I presume or desire to represent you as in the least degree responsible for any part of the contents of this little volume — not one sentence of which has been in any way submitted to you. But in venturing to offer to the public the first book that, in the United States, I have published, I am glad to avail myself of the opportunity of expressing not only my profound reverence for your high office, and my ever increasing admiration of your personal administration of it, but also my very grateful sense of a long series of kindnesses to myself. For, during more than twelve years, I have received from you the most valuable assist- ance, in all sorts of ways. When I was slowly feeling my way to an understanding of the religious life and ecclesiastical law and usages of my adopted country, I could have had no greater advantage than the example and precept of one so perfectly well informed as yourself, and occupying so honourable a position as that which you then so honourably filled. No education could have been better for me than that which I received Avhen I had the honour to be associated with you, as one of your assistant ministers, in Grace Church, New York. With the sincerest gratitude, and the most earnest hope and prayer that your life and energy may long be spared for the incalculably important work to which you have been called by Almighty God, I remain, Right Reverend and dear Sir, Yours most faithfully and affectionately, William Kirkus. CONTENTS Indi Revelation a Necessary Condition of Religion, The Revelation of God in Jesus Christ, Revelation in the Christian Church, . Revelation as an Authoritative Guidance of viDUAL Life, The Bible and the Gospel, .... Speculation and Obedience, .... Manly Strength, Absolution, The Judgment of God in the Epidemic of Violence and Fraud, The Effects of an Exclusive or Disproportionate Study of the Physical Sciences on Religious Belief, Self-Delusion, Supplementary Notes : I. Revelation, II. Remarks on Dr. Maudsley's "Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemings," PAGE 1 21 42 63 85 115 137 1G5 306 241 2G8 297 341 PREFACE, I offer these Sermons to the public with the most unfeigned diffidence. Two of them have been pub- lished separately before; the rest, with the Supple- mentary Notes, appear noAv for the first time. I feel especially afraid that in the Sermon on The Effect of an Exclusive or Disproportmiate Study of the Physical Sciefices, and in its Supplementary Note, I may be supposed to have gone much beyond my depth. But I think it will be observed, by any candid reader, that I have not presumed to deal with any scientific subject as scientific. At the same time we are continually meeting, in the current literature and conversation of the day, with all sorts of speculations, hypotheses, positive assertions, and even contemptuous "sneers," which, occurring in books written by " scientists," and expressed in quasi-scientific language, are supposed to possess the authority which rightly belongs to their authors as students and teachers of 2}hysical science ; though the speculations I refer to really belong to an altogether different region of thought and inquiry. Especially is this true of modern speculation as to the viu PREFACE. relation of the mind to the physical sti'iictures Avith Avhich its operations seem to be most closely connected. The range of possible knowledge is so enormous that it is necessary to divide it into separate portions, and to investigate them separately. Thus we may study separately the phenometia of mind ; or separately tJie 2)henomena of the nervous system; or the relations between the facts ascertaitied by the first set of studies and the facts ascertaitied by the second set of studies. The phenomena of " mind " consist of sensations, thoughts, processes of reasoning, emotions, will, the perception of the difference between right and wrong, the imperative of conscience. These can manifestly be investigated only by consciousness ; by the inspec- tion of what we really do or feel when we see, or hear, or admire a poem, or decide on a course of conduct, or reproach ourselves for a crime. All these phenomena are manifestly outside the sphere of physical science. Again, w^e may investigate the phenomena of the nervous system by means of anatomy and physiology. We discover the extreme complexity of the brain, the spinal cord, the sensory and motor nerves, and the like. We observe, for instance, that the eye is a structure consisting of certain lenses, muscles, nerves, so and so distributed. But these investigations and discoveries, separately and independently, Avould give us no notion whatever of the purposes the several structures were adapted to serve in relation to mind. PREFACE. IX We could not possibly know, by mere physical research alone, that the nerves of the eye had any more to do with vision than the nerves of the foot. But, again, being ourselves spiritual beings, we carry with us into all departments of investigation spiritual ideals, and we try to find out whether there is any ascertainable and persistefit relation between mental and material phenomena. We ascertain, to a very limited extent, that there is reason to believe that there is such a relation. For instance, we observe that vision, the sense of sight (which is a purely mental experience), is parallel or co-ordinate with a certain stimulation of the nerves of the eye. But even here, where our knowledge seems most complete, it is traversed by the fact that we see in our sleep, in dreams, quite as vividly as when we are awake ; and insane persons see what really does not exist, and also hear what is really not audible ; so that, in all these cases, the parallelism between mental acts and physical stimulation is altogether destroyed. And, apart from these facts — dreams, hallucinations, illusions, delusions — nobody has ever yet discovered any part of the nervous system which bears the same relation to love, or to logical faculty, or to resentment, or to positiveness and self-assertion, or to memory, which the eye bears to vision or the nerves of the ear to hearing. The utmost, then, that we have positively and certainly ascertained as to the relation of mental operations and certain parts of the nervous system, is X PREFACE. a gerieral j9ar•aZZeZ^s?7?, very often, however, deflected, stopped, traversed — and in no case whatever capable of being exjjlamecL So far as we know it at all, we know it as a mere fact. We cannot find out Jwio one set of nerves is parallel (so to speak) to vision, and another to hearing, and another to tasting. Hence, while the study of the material structure of our bodies yields abundant results, which can be methodically arranged, and which form the object- matter of anatomy and physiology ; and while the study of the operations of the mind is equally fruitful, furnishing the object-matter of psychology, and meta- physics, and ethics ; the study of the positive relations between these two sets of phenomena is so compara- tively barren that it leads to no definite science of any kind. The parallelisms really demonstrated are too few ; and especially they are, as I have just said, wholly inexplicable. Neither the physical can be aflQrmed to be the invariable antecedent of the mental change, nor the mental of the physical. If we can produce pain by irritating a nerve, we can also produce the complicated movements involved in articulate speech by a deter- mination of the will. When two phenomena are recip- rocally both cause and effect, their relation must clearly depend upon some indej^endent and higher cause. But the inscrutable mystery of the relations between the physical and the mental seems to have an irresist- ible fascination for some of our scientific leaders. The PREFACE. Xi drift and purpose of their observations and experiments seem to be actually to annihilate the relation by identify- ing the correlated phenomena, and by resolving all mental phenomena into physical. The effect of this would be — if accomplished — to abolish both ethics and theology; for the remorse of conscience and the belief in God would manifestly be as inevitable, both in quantity and quality, as the secretion of bile ; and what we now call wickedness or superstition would correspond precisely to some morbid action of the liver or kidneys. It may be very safely affirmed that these assumptions, mis- chievous as they most unquestionably are, will never permanently displace the irresistible testimony of con- sciousness. Our primary facts are mental experiences ; and if they are, or could be, invalidated, all knowledge must disappear. But it may fairly be questioned whether the attempt to reduce phenomena so diflferent and mutually exclusive as molecular motion and the emotion of love or the remorse of conscience, is not from the beginning, and quite apart from its conse- quences, doomed, on purely scientific grounds, to hope- less failure. The following passage from Mr. J. S. Mill's Logic (Book III., Chapter 14, §§1-2) is deserv- ing of the most careful study : Since we are continually discovering that uniformities, not previously known to be other than ultimate, are deriva- tive, and resolvable into more general laws ; since (in other words) we are continually discovering the explanation of some sequence which was previously known only as a XU PREFACE. fact, it becomes an interesting question whether there are any necessary limits to this philosophical operation, or whether it may proceed until all the uniform sequences in Nature are resolved into some one universal law. For this seems, at first sight, to be the ultimatum towards which the progress of induction, by the deductive method resting on a basis of observation and experiment, is tending. . . . It is therefore useful to remark that the ultimate laws of Nature cannot possibly be less numerous than the dis- tinguishable sensations or other feelings of our nature — those, I mean, which are distinguishable fi"om one another in quality, and not merely in quantity or degree. For example : since there is a phenomenon, sui generis, called colour, which our consciousness testifies to be not a par- ticular degree of some other phenomenon, as heat or odour or motion, but intrinsically unlike all others, it follows that there are ultimate laws of colour ; that, though the facts of colour may admit of explanation, they never can be explained from laws of heat or odour alone, or of motion alone, but that, however far the explanation may be car- ried, there will always remain in it a law of colour. I do not mean that it might not possibly be shown that some other phenomenon, some chemical or mechanical action, for example, invariably precedes, and is the cause of, every phenomenon of colour. But though this, if proved, would be an important extension of our knowledge of Nature, it would not explain how or why a motion, or a chemical action, can produce a sensation of colour ; and however diligent might be our scrutiny of the phenomena, what- ever number of hidden links we might detect in the chain of causation terminating in the colour, the last link would still be a law of colour, not a law of motion, nor of any other phenomenon whatever. Nobody denies the close general relation, in our present state of existence, between the body and the mind ; nor that some special relations between some PREFACE. parts of the body and some operations of the mind haye been sufficiently proved. But if a far larger number of these special relations should be hereafter discovered, that would not alter the fact that, at the end of ever so long a chain of antecedents, we come at last to mental phenomena which are sui generis; and that filial affection, for instance, is intrinsically differ- ent from molecular motion, and, though it may be invariably preceded, cannot be explained, by that motion. 3find has conducted the practical busniess . of the world from the beginning; a part of its all but infinite products is the whole extant literature of the human race; and we need be under no serious alarm that mankind will cease to reason, and determine, and love, and worship, because anatomists and physiologists have arrived at a completer knowledge of the structure and functions of the brain and nervous system. But it is in this obscure and comparatively barren region of the study of relations between the physical and the mental, that some of our modern scientists assume a degree of real knowledge enormously out of proportion to their scientific verifications. Thus Dr. Maudsley affirms, in a passage I have quoted elsewhere : «It is not anyhow, as some thoughtlessly conclude, imagination which starts the organic process^it is the organic process which is the condition of [= starts?] imacdnation." But this assertion can be justified only if Dr. Maudsley can prove that there is a definite XIV PREFACE. "organic process" invariably related to imagination. But this he cannot prove. On the contrary, self- contradictory though he may be, he describes imagina- tion, in this very passage, as being a sort of living thing, moving along definite tracks, bursting away from them, and forming new tracks by means of " nerve-cells lying around in all states of incomplete development." The whole passage is as purely anthropomorphic, though by no means as beautiful, as the Homeric Poems. If I have misunderstood Dr. Maudsley, I think the reason is that he has departed entirely in his recent book from scientific methods, and has so often contradicted himself that there really is no definite meaning in a great part of what he has written. Since writing Snp'plementary Note II., at the end of this volume, and the Sermon to which it refers, I have read the notice of Dr. Maudsley's book in the Saturday Revieio. Whatever may be thought of my own criti- cism, it will be generally admitted that the Avriters in the Saturday Revieio have a very well-deserved repu- tation for intellectual and critical acuteness. The following is an extract from the notice of Dr. Maudsley's book : And now to examine the book itself. It would of course be an ignoratio elencM to meet Dr. Maudsley by an a pnori proof of the existence of God. He avoids, as far as possible, the use of that name and does not want d priori proofs ; he distrusts and will have nothing of them. And we shall be first to confess that we cannot give him an a posteriori PREFACE. XV proof that he would be at all likely to admit. Indeed, the greatest fault that we should find with his book is that he himself has fallen into the great and universal error which may be best put in a syllogism : Whatsoever is not natural 13 not true ; The supernatural is not natural ; Therefore the supernatural is not true. Now, as it is the claim, made totidem Uteris, of the super- natural that it is not natural, we own that it might be a little surprising to find persons of Dr. Maudsley's intelli- gence triumphantly reiterating an argument with a major that requires to be proved and a minor which grants the adversary's position. But we are so accustomed to this that we really do not care to affect surprise on this point of the question. They all do it. The only ground on which both parties can meet in such a matter is clearly an examination of the arguments and method of the disputant for the time being. If Anselm and Descartes have not convinced Dr. Maudsley on the high metaphysical ground, we are not at all likely to do so. We can at least take Dr. Maudsley 's own arguments and method to pieces with instruments which Dr. Maudsley himself must necessarily allow. With numerous minor points we have no space to deal. It is indeed strange that any one should produce against omens the argument that ''the same event which was an omen of ill luck in one nation was an omen of good luck in another nation," for- getting that on the omen theory there is no reason why this should not be so. It is stranger that at this time of day an aporia should be based on the "one" or "two" angels at the Sepulchre. But we shall take wider ground ; and, in the first place, we shall confess our extreme sur- prise at finding that Dr. Maudsley, who is constantly pitchforking the supernatural out of his doors somehow or other, is perpetually building ladders for her to come back by the window. He condemns with well-justified and conclusive scorn ''the explanation of a concrete fact in what is no more than the abstract statement of the same XVI PREFACE. fact," and certainly there is no more hopeless and per- sistent fallacy. He is equally scornful of "mere general terms and abstractions," and certainly they are most deceptive. Yet, when we come to Dr. Maudsley's own explanations of phenomena, we are astonished to find that he is always paying himself with terms. Tlie supernatural is to him an abomination, yet his "Nature " is to us one of the most supernatural things that we ever met, and one of the most abstract. He is justly contemptuous of those who " explain the sleep-producing effects of opium by the soporific virtues of that drug." Yet we come across this remarkable sentence in him : " Imagination, which is a prolific faculty or function, always eager and pleased to exercise itself." A prolific faculty or function! always eager and pleased to exex'cise itself ! Surely Imagination is here a general term, an abstraction, and, what is more, a personalized abstraction of the most surprising character. Where this Imagination came from, who made her, what becomes of her, who told him anything about her, Dr. Maudsley can tell us no more than we can tell him about the Archangel Gabriel . Yet he speaks of her exactly as if she were the cat on his hearth. We may not, it seems, believe in the supernatural. But here is an abstract Imagination, which is not yours or mine, but the human race's, and which has the purely personal attributes of prolificness, eagerness, and pleasure. Again : "As long as the nisus of evolution lasts in Nature and works through man, we may continue to expect." May we? What, in Heaven's name — or, if that be tabooed, what, in the name of Aristotle — is a nisus ? Why does " Nature " struggle ? Natura nititur, answers Dr. Maudsley apparently, quia est in ilia virtus nititiva (or, if any one prefers the form, nixiva) \ and after this he sneers at the vertu soporifiqiie ! Here is another striking passage : It Is imagination which attracts the lover to his mistress, by gliding her modest charms with the glow o£ the liglit that never shone on sea or laud, and Ijeguiles him into marriage, as into the sure promise of an earthly paradise ; and he, notwithstanding that he is soon mightily disenchanted by experience, finds, in compensation, sober domestic PREFACE. xvii joys and does the proci'oaut and prosaic work of the world. It seduces the politician by alluring thoughts of fame and glory and of heneflts to his country, and inspires him to go througli his arduous and often ignoble labours ; what matters it that he discovers In no long time, if he is not a simple innocent, that tame Is sounding vanity and glory an idle phantasm, since he has meanwhile done zealous work which he would never have done had he been disillusioned at the outset ? It furnishes a plentiful supply of the preliminary hypotheses necessary in all branches of scientific research — those guesses at truth which great discoverers, like Kepler and Faraday, make in abundance in order to begin to look definitely for it, the erroneous ones, thrown aside as unfit after trial, being many times more numerous than those which verification proves to be well founded. It inspires the idealizations of the poet, by means of which he throws glamours of joy and beauty over the hard and dreary realities, and yields a glowing warmth to the aspirations of the heart which is denied to the cold light of reason. Lastly, attaining its most ambitious flights, it creates and peoples those unseen worlds to the joys of which so many nations in different times and places have looked forward for recompense and rest after the sufferings and labours of this life. This is extremely eloquent ; but again we ask, What is this description of Imagination but a statement in ab- stract terms of the fact that there are peculiarities of the human organization which Dr. Maudsley cannot in the least explain, and which he will not attribute to "the act of God " ? We have as much objection as any one can have to bandying that name in argument ; but really, if we have it translated into Nature and Nisus and Faculty and Function, and what not (Dr. Maudsley indulges in the astonishing remark that "the habit-formed structure will always feel the joy of function," which, if we were Comtists, we should take as one of the most delightfully crude expressions of the metaphysical era of thought) ; if, we say, we are asked to believe that the monosyllable is not to be used because it can be translated into all sorts of dissyllables and trisyllables and polysyllables, we decline. Hypotheses non sunt multiplicandce prceter necessitatem any more than entities ; and for our part we prefer the single and sufficient hypothesis of God. We cannot follow up this argument, which is of wide, perhaps of universal, application. The universe of " natu- ral " abstractions, each working piropter virtutem^ and not xviii PREFACE. caused by anything, which Dr. Maudsley prefers to the supernatural, or, speaking plainly, to belief in God, strikes us as a universe rather unreasonable to propose and sin- gularly unreasonable to accept. But we cannot deal with all its phases as examined by Dr. Maudsley. We must leave others to decide whether good and bad luck are such absurd suppositions as Dr. Maudsley will have them to be in one i^lace, and whether what he himself lays down in another, the "unconscious ingenuity with which certain natures, again incarnating the discordant doings and feel- ings of their forefathers, succeed in doing with the most apt inaptness the wrong thing at the wrong time," is not something much more absurd. Our author remarks some- where that " the devout Christian will resent the insulting impiety of a natural explanation." We do not know ; we are not at any rate un-Christian enough to arrogate to our- selves the title of devout Christians. But, if we are asked to believe in such a "■ Nature " as Dr. Maudsley's, we shall certainly resent the insulting explanation. The super- natural, at any rate, presents itself frankly as supernatural. It says, alike to intelligent vinbelievers like Dr. Maudsley, to believers who may or may not be intelligent, and to the unquestionably unintelligent persons of the psychical- research kind, "I am not natural, and you can neither prove nor disprove me by natural means." Nature (Dr. Maudsley's Nature) says, "You will please to believe in a nisus and a function and a faculty, and all the rest of it, which are, indeed, absolutely inexiDlicable, but which are natural, quite natural, you know." "What right," says Dr. Maudsley, " have we to believe Nature under any sort of obligation to do her work by means of complete minds only ? She may find an incomplete mind a more suitable instrument for a particular purpose." What attribute has the wildest supernaturalist ever given to the supernatural, or any synonym of it, which transcends the non-natural character of this " Nature " of Dr. Maudsley's i* Once, indeed, a glimmer, though only a glimmer, of the fatal paralogism which pervades his whole book strikes the author : PREFACE. Xix To the notorious objection that a direct communication from the Deity would be a violation of the laws of Nature, it Is no real answer that the divine locution might take place in conformity with a higher law than the known laws of Nature, and be a temporary discontinuity, not really a violation of them — a special supersession of their function for the occasion ; because a supernatural event occurring in Nature, la direct opposition to Its known order, would be the temporary abolition of the linown properties of things, and the utter confounding of human experience— of that same experience which alone is our authority for believing human testimony; not the mere Interruption or suspension of known law, but the negation of all law based upon the uniformity of experience within Its range. The very basis of natural knowledge would be swept away in that case ; belief could never have the certainty that it was in conformity with experience, nor an instant's confidence as to what would come to pass next ; it would be no matter thenceforth how many miracles, big or little, occurred, nor how often or how seldom they occurred : tlie universe would practically be a chaos, not a cosmos. If the law of gravitation can be suspended even for a second of time without the universe going to wreck, then It is clear that there is no law of gravitation at all. We need only ask any one to read this, to see the strange fallacy which it indicates, and to which Dr. Maudsley, like all impugners of the supernatural, placidly submits. Un- doubtedly an interference with the laws of Nature would be a violation of them, if it were done by a natural authority. But the whole contention of supernaturalists, the whole theory of religion, the whole definition of God, to put plain things in plain words, is that the authority is not natural, that it is not limited by any natural limita- tions of power, and that it can not only make what is not natural happen, but can prevent it from having any such effects as Dr. Maudsley describes. If he or any one else chooses to say that he does not believe in omnipotence, he is logically entitled to do so. But to object to omnipotence that if it existed it would be omnipotent, appears to humble logicians a very absurd and a very inexcusable petitio principii. To put the whole thing shortly, Dr. Maudsley, like every other reasoner of his class whose reasonings we have ever read, bases his arguments on one simple objec- tion, " You ascribe to God things that are not and could not be true of man." We have no care to deny it. XX PREFACE. If it should be objected that my criticism of Dr. Maudsley is too contemptuous, I can only reply that I do not see how else to deal with a most pretentious writer whose sentences are in scores of instances, which I have marked, mere unintelligible jargon ; and, above all, whose very object it is, not calmly to discuss the doctrines of religion with a due regard to their enormous practical importance— whether true or false — but to hold all religion up to the contempt of his readers, as a mass of puerile absurdities which are not deserving of serious argument. As to the rest of the Sermons in this volume, they must speak for themselves. Nobody can be better aware of their deficiencies than I am myself. Never- theless, it seems to me that we are in a condition of controversy and doubt and unbelief, in which each sliould do his best, however poor that may be, to re- assure the timid, and at least to testify to his own belief. Baltimore, September, 1880. EEVELATION A NECESSARY CONDITION OF RELIGION.* What advantage then hath the Jew ? or ichat is the profit of circumcision ? Much every way : first of alt, that they xvere intrusted with the oracles of God. — Romans iii. 1-2. I propose during the Sunday mornings of Advent to direct your attention to a subject of the most serious importance, which it is the intellectual fashion of our time habitually to ignore or contemptuously to set aside. I propose to nrge upon your attention, and, so far as I may be able, to demonstrate to you, the fact that ^ Almighty God has been graciously pleased to impart to men — m many parts and in many ways — a con- tinuous and harmonious series of Revelations : partly concerning Himself and His will ; partly concerning our OAvn nature and our relations to Himself and to each other; partly concerning our spiritual needs, our sins and frailties, and the provision He has made for our redemption and restoration to perfect com- munion with Himself; partly concerning events which were to happen in a far distant future; partly as to the spiritual significance of the ordinary processes of Nature and the course of history. And by revelation I do not mean a vague divine superintendence of our own intellectual operations; the gift to us of reason; the steady evolution of logic and the laws of thought ; * This and tlie next three Sermons were preached on the Stmday mornings of Advent, 1885. y 2 KEVELATION NECESSARY TO KELIGION, the faculty of observing Iticts and phenomena and drawing legitimate inferences from them. I mean by revelation a direct divine communication to human spirits by which they were put in possession of truths which they could not otherwise have known ; or received commandments which they were bound to obey, but which they could not otherwise have discovered. And I wish to help you to realize that these revelations are I a necessary condition of religion : that if Ave deny them or set them aside, we shall have, in place of a genuine religion, a mere series of personal feelings with no objective foundation, which will come and go as our circumstances change or with the changing moods of our minds. The season of Advent seems remarkably suitable for such reflections as these, because it is the very object of that Holy Season — coming at the very beginning of the Christian Year — to remind us that the whole course of our Christian life, whether as individuals or as a Church, assumes that God has C07ne to us : has come not vaguely and generally, but definitely and specially ; not indirectly by the ordinary operation of ovr own spirits, but directly by the operation of His Spirit upon ours. He comes to us, indeed, in ways innumerable, many of which we call natural — not because they do not imply a direct communion between Him and us, but because they are universal, common to all mankind. Thus He comes to us primarily in Conscience, which testifies to us irresistibly not only the existence of God, but also His righteousness. His supreme and absolute authority, and His certain judgment of us. And the testimony of conscience to God is, to say the very least, as perfect and irresistible KEVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. 6 as the testimony of our senses to the reality of an external world. For our sensations are not themselves the external world : they are states of our own minds, and they compel us to believe in something external which produces them, chiefly because ^//e^ are not under our oion control. Thus, for instance, it must one day have happened that, for the first time, we observed a piece of white paper lying on a table : we noticed its form, colour, position, smootlmess, hardness, weight; we experienced, in fact, a definite group or set of sen- sations. We had never seen a piece of white paper before, and inasmuch as one single group of sensations not associated as yet by contiguity or resemblance with any other group would awaken neither memory nor anticipation, we should have had no reason for expect- ing to see a piece of white paper again. But supposing by sheer accident Ave had passed fifty or sixty times near the same table, observed the same piece of white paper, and experienced therefrom the same definite group or set of sensations, how should we have explained this recurrence of feeling? Would the piece of white paper be in the least degree more real after we had seen it fifty times than it was when we saw it for the first time? If the belief in an external world be intuitive, we should have referred our sensations at once to the piece of white paper as an external object; but if it be acquired, the same result would have been arrived at, though by a slower process. We should have perceived that, though we might move away from the piece of paper, yet if we chose to be near it we were no longer masters of our own sensations. We should have found out that we were unable steadily to look at a thin, light, square piece of white paper, and 4 REVELATION NECESSAKY TO RELIGION. then experience the sensations of heaviness, and round- ness, and thickness, and blneness. We should have come to feel : ' This piece of paper is as real as I am, and is external to myself. I do not take it away with me ; it is not a group of sensations I can produce at will, whether the paper be present or absent; moreover, when it is present, it can compel me to experience a certain group of sensations, however much I may try not to experience them together. It is, therefore, not myself, it is not merely a group of my sensations, but a real, external object which is a cause of my sensations.' In a precisely similar manner does conscience reveal God to us ; force upon us the knowledge that He is, that He is righteous, and that He xvill judge us ; and Ave cannot escape this knowledge, nor by any effort or ingenuity divest ourselves of it. Conscience — I am quoting Cardinal Newman* — Conscience always involves the recognition of a living object, towards which it is directed. Inanimate things cannot stir our affections : these are correlative with persons. If, as is the case, we feel responsibility, are ashamed, are frightened, at trans- gressing the voice of conscience, this implies that there is one to whom we are responsible, before whom we are ashamed, whose claims upon us we fear. If, on doing wrong, we feel the sirae tearful, broken-hearted sorrow which overwhelms us on hurting a mother ; if, on doing right, we enjoy the same sunny serenity of mind, the same soothing, satisfactory delight which follows on our receiving praise from a father, we certainly have within us the image of some person to whom ova* love and veneration look, in whose smile we find our happiness, for whom we yearn, towards whom we direct our pleadings, in wliose anger we arc troubled and waste away. These feelings in us are such as *Gramni(ir of Assent, ])p. 109-110. (Fifth Edition, ]jO!idon, 1881.) REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. 5 require for their exciting cause an intelligent being ; we are not affectionate towards a stone, nor do we feel shame before a horse or a dog ; we have no remorse or compunction on breaking mere human law ; yet, so it is, conscience excites all these painful emotions, confusion, foreboding, self-condemnation ; and, on the other hand, it sheds upon us a deep peace, a sense of security, a resignation, and a hope, which there is no sensible, no earthly object to elicit. " The wicked flees when no one pursueth"; then why does he flee ? Whence his terror ? Who is it that lie sees in solitude, in darkness, in the hidden chambers of his heart ? If the cause of these emotions does not belong to this visible world, the object to which his perception is directed must be supernatural and divine ; and thus the phenomena of conscience, as a dictate, avail to impress tlie imagination with the picture of a Supreme Governor, a Judge, holy, just, power- ful, all-seeing, retributive, and is the creative principle of religion, as the moral sense is the principle of ethics. Thus God reveals Himself to ns primarily, absolutely aud irresistibly in conscience ; and, as I said a moment ago, of the knowledge thus forced upon us we can by no ingenuity or strenuous effort of will for a single moment divest ourselves. Many people, indeed, think that they have achieved this impossible feat ; but it is manifest to all but themselves that they have accom- plished no more than to change their mode of express- ing the truth which they still assume at every step of their reasoning, and in every judgment they form on their own conduct or the conduct of others. But, in addition to this primary and universal revelation of Himself in conscience, God has so inwoven Himself in the regularities and adaptations of Nature, in the structure of human society, and in the course of history, that the primary revelation receives incessant and innumerable verifications at every turn. Thus the stability of natural " law," the quiet routine of life, b REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. the tender ministrations of love, the recuperative and restorative processes which hasten to make good the waste and heal the diseases to which we may be ex- posed, the steady progress of nations " without a history," or of individuals " whose biography would not be worth writing," assure us that the God luliom we hioio already is immanent among us, never ceasing to protect and bless us, keeping in constant motion the vast machinery of life, and enabling us to move safely among its complicated and incalculable forces. And, on the other hand, when either the " draught of fishes " well-nigh breaks our nets, or when we are overtaken in a career of vice and folly and brought to cureless ruin; or, again, in the revolutions of empires, in a lieign of Terror, in the triumphs of a robust and patri- otic people, in the slow decay and final disappearance of nations enervated by prosperity and demoralized by luxury — we cannot help perceiving that the God wJio^n we hnoio already is no mere force, or law, or working hypotiiesis to account for the first beginning of the universe, but a Mighty Being who acts or interposes by virtue of that mysterious power of which we find the image in the human will. But coming into the most intimate contact with God in the solemn sanctuary of Conscience, knowing irresistibly His righteousness and His absolute rule over ourselves, anticipating with unalterable certitude His final judgment, finding innumerable and incessant verifications of our knowledge in every corner of Nature and experience, and in those countless adaptations which make Nature and life a whole — it is impossible that we should rest satisfied with so much knowledge and so little. Without further revelation our very REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. 7 wisdom would be a kind of foolishness, our liglit but little better than " darkness visible," our sense of duty and anticipation of judgment a dread despair. Knowing that God is, that He is righteous, that He will judge us, we cannot resist the belief, we cannot quench the hope, that he will give us some clearer — nay, some practically unmistakable — guidance in the conduct of our lives towards Himself. Nothing can possibly seem to us more natural, more probable, more all but certain — knowing so much of God already as we do — than that he should reveal His will and the truths necessary for our spiritual perfection, to chosen messengers ; that He should provide for the preserva- tion of these revelations in trustworthy records, or social and ecclesiastical institutions ; that sooner or later He should give us a perfect revelation in One who should be able fully to declare to us both Him and ourselves; that He should store up for us this perfect revelation in permanent institutions, and propagate it to all mankind by the ministry of the Church. Beginning with the universal knowledge of God in conscience, these revelations, and the preservation and proclamation of them, are not only not incredible : it is utterly incredible that we should be left without them. For religion, being the bond between God and our- selves, the recognition of our dependence upon Him and His supreme authority over us, must needs rest upon some genuine knowledge of lohat God is, and wliat He requii'es us to he and to do. It is not a series of personal feelings arising spontaneously ; it does not consist of hopes, or musings, or aspirations, or desires. It must rest upon a sure foundation of fact ; otherwise O REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. it is no better tlian the raptures or horrors of a dream, no more solid and real than the monntains and valleys and sunlit pinnacles and towers that we soinetiines fancy we can see in the clouds of the evening sky. Nor is it easy to conceive — unless the whole method of the divine procedure were, in the matter of religion, to be inverted — how a revelation should be given to us otherwise than by direct communication to compara- tively few individuals, and by being entrusted, for its safe-keeping, to a comparatively limited portion of man- kind. As the natural light of day is not a universal and uniform brilliance, coming we know not whence, but a light gathered up as it were into one focus, blazing forth from the sun, and reflected upon us, even when we cannot see the sun, from innumerable illuminated objects, so the light of divine truth was stored up in Israel, streams forth from Christ, and is reflected from the Church and from the Scriptures and from every enlightened soul. The divine love wliich gave us philosophy through the Greeks, the perfection of law and the art of governing through the Romans, bestowed on us the revelations of His will and of the truths necessary for our redemption from sin and our spiritual perfection through His chosen people, Israel. It is urged, indeed, by many that the ordinary faculties of the human mind, the inquisitiveness of the intellect, the pleasure of speculation, the fascination of religion as an object of investigation, are sufficient to account for those doctrines or theories or practical rules which lie at the foundation of " the religions of the world." But it is surely idle to search for a cause until our attention has been arrested by an effect. To torture our imasrinations for the invention of some KEVELATION NECESSARY To KELIGION. 9 possible force, and tlien to deduce from tliat hypo- thetical force a series of hypothetical results, is nothing hotter than a foolish waste of ingenuity. If we could find in every nation that has a recorded history a body of consistent, well-preserved, harmoniously developed moral and religious truth and precept, " shining more and more unto the perfect day," and then, as from the midday sun, irradiating the world ; if we could find this, and find also that it did not even claim to have been produced by any supernatural revelation, any special and direct communication from Almighty God — then, indeed, there would be a problem for solution. As it is, we must invent not only the solution, but the problem itself. For it is notorious that, except in the religion of Israel perfected by Christianity, no such body of truth is anywhere to be found, and that in Israel it is always referred to a supernatural revelation. " The Sacred Books of the East " are now, in admirable translations, within easy reach of anybody who cares to study them. They have been studied with the greatest enthusiasm and assiduity. "Elegant extracts'' from these venerable "Bibles" have been collected and pub- lished for the wonder and admiration of those strangely constituted minds which find a mysterious delight in persuading themselves that the blessings they enjoy are not really so precious as they were at first inclined to believe. But why are we at all surprised to find anything spiritual and sublime in these ancient documents? We are surprised because the "elegant extracts " are so " few and far between," just as we should be surprised to find a precious diamond in a heap of ashes. Who will seriously contend that these Sacred Books are really consistent and harmonious ? 10 REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. Who will deny that they are full of absurdities ? Who will affirm that they contain a progressive revelation, every valuable part of which has been preserved even in the additions by which the earlier portions have been, in a measure, superseded ? Is there any modern Buddhism which stands to the original Buddhism in the same relation in which the Sermon on the Mount stands to the Ten Commandments ? The fact is that, excluding Israel, the natural faculties of man have nowhere produced a consistent, well-preserved, harmo- niously progressive religion ; while in Israel the truths and precepts of religion have invariably been referred to a special and supernatural revelation. It is scarcely necessary to argue the jJOSsiMUty of a revelation on the divine side, " He that created the ear, shall He not hear? and He that made the eye, shall He not see ?" He that gave us tongues, shall He not speak ? Has the God who endowed us with faculties by means of which we can communicate with each other, tell our neighbor what he did not know before, and what he never could have known unless we had told him — has He so exhausted Himself in the act of creation that He has fewer faculties left than we possess ? And has He doomed Himself to be dumb forever in order that we may speak ? But the possibility of a revelation is often denied on the assumption that the supjmsed recipient of the revela- tion could not distinguish the communications from without from the suggestions or inquiries or guesses of his own mind. But it is surely obvious that this is not a new objection, but only another way of putting the objection which I have just been considering. To deny that God can make Himself heard, is exactly the same thing REVELATION NECESSARr TO RELIGION. 11 as to deny that God can speak. If He can make known His will to man, He can only do this on the suppo- sition that man is able to receive the communication. If He really does speak to any chosen recipient of His message, it will certainly be as easy for that person to distinguish God's voice from his own thoughts, as to distinguish the voice of his father from the voice of his mother. The inspired men of Israel, then, the recipients of divine revelations, had no doubt whatever of what had happened to them. We, who have never had their experience, may wonder at their confidence; just as people who do not know Greek may be perfectly satisfied that Greek literature is worthless. But it is safest to get our information from people who do know, rather than from those whose one qualification to instruct us is a confession of their own contemptuous ignorance. And, as the primary and universal revelation in con- science is verified by innumerable facts and experiences, so the revelations to the lawgivers, psalmists, prophets of Israel were verified both by individuals and by the nation. Many of the prophets were persecuted, re- jected, even put to death; but their message was verified all the same. Ahab hated Micaiah, shut him up in prison, fed him " with the bread of affliction and the water of affliction"; but it was absolutely impos- sible either to silence or disbelieve him. " Is there not here a prophet of the Lord lesides'' these court chap- lains? asks Jehoshaphat; and Micaiah must be brought forth. Moreover, we know the end of Ahab. Sophis- ticate as we may about the mode by which divine and irresistible truth has come to us, when it does come it "comes home" to us; and, when we try to resist 12 REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION, it, we know that we are resisting God. The prophets say, "Thussaith the Lord": our hearts and consciences respond, " No other conld so have spoken to ns." There may be false prophets, but we know the false ring of their voices. Hundreds of false prophets were against Micaiah in the days of Ahab; but nobody who really "wished to do the will of God " failed to " know of the doctrine." But it is not enough that a revelation should be given : it must also be jjrotectcd. If the revelation be gradual and continuous, the earlier portions must be assimilated before the later portions are bestowed. The early Church Fathers spoke of a "dispensation of paganism," of philosophy as a " schoolmaster to bring men to Christ." But whatever may have been the value of philosophy, and however genuine may have been the fragments of divine truth to be discovered in heathen religions, their spiritual power was dissi- pated for want of some protective envelope. The evolution of heathenism was always in the wrong direction — in the direction of corruption; and the speculations of philosophers were neither authoritative, nor in a form adapted for practical use. It is charac- teristic of the revelation which is at the foundation of the religion of Israel that it was stored partly in those written records which make up, taken all together, the Old Testament Scriptures ; and partly in national and ecclesiastical institutions, which were themselves in a large degree directly commanded by God, and a description of which forms also a large part of the same sacred writings. It is this fact which gives a supreme and authoritative value to the Bible to which no other literature can make the slightest pretension. REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. 13 I cannot better express this than in the words of one who combines in a highly exceptional degree Avith accurate learning the best qualities of a popular writer ; and who can by nobody be suspected of any undue bias in the direction of what is sometimes called Bibliolatry. The practical point, says Dr. Kobertson Smith,* in all controversy as to the distinctive character of the revela- tion of God to Israel regards the place of Scripture as the permanent rule of faith and the sufficient and unfailing guide in all our religious life. When we say that God dealt with Israel in the way of special revelation, and crowned His dealings by personally manifesting all His grace and truth in Christ Jesus the incarnate Word, we mean that the Bible contains within itself a perfect picture of God's gracious rela- tions with man, and that we have no need to go outside of the Bible history to learn anything of God and His saving will towards us— that the whole growth of the true religion up to its perfect fullness is set before us in the record of God's dealing with Israel, culminating in the manifestation of Jesus Christ. There can be no question that Jesus Christ Himself held tliis view; and we cannot depart from it without making Him an imperfect teacher and an imperfect Saviour. Yet history has not taught us that there is anything in true religion to add to the New Testament. We still stand in the nineteenth century where He stood in the first, or rather He statids as high above us as He did above His disciples, the perfect Master, the supreme Head of the fellowship of all true religion. It is a bold thing, therefore, to affirm that we have any need to seek a wider historical foundation for our faith than sutficcd Him whose disciples we are, and I apprehend that the apparent difficulty of the supposition that the whole course of revelation * The Frojjhets of Israel, etc., pp. 10-13 (Scribner's Edition, 1882). However reasonably we may hesitate to accept many of Dr. Smith's hypotheses, it is impossible to road liis Lectures without profit and a very keen enjoyment. 14 REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. transacted itself in the narrow circle of a single nation is not so great as it appears at first sight. For it is not necessary to suppose that God gave no true knowledge of Himself to seekers after truth among the Gentiles. The New Testament affirms, on the contrary, that the nations were never left without some manifestation of that which may be known of God (Rom. i. 19 ; Acts xvii. 27) ; and the thinkers of the early Church gave shape to this truth in the doctrine of the 'Aoyog aTrepfinTinog — the seed of the Divine Word scattered through all mankind. But, while all right thoughts of God in every nation come from God Himself, it is plain that a personal knowledge of God and His will — and without personal knowledge there can be no true religion — involves a personal dealing of God with men. Such personal dealing again necessarily implies a special dealing with chosen individuals. To say that God speaks to all men alike, and gives the same connnunication directly to all without the use of a revealing agency, reduces religion to mysticism. In point of fact it is not true in the case of any man that what he believes and knows of God hns come to him directly through the voice of nature and conscience. All true knowledge of God is verified by personal experience. There is a positive element in all religion, an element which we have learned from those who went before us. If what is so learned is true, we must ultimately come back to a point in history when it was new truth, acquired as all new truth is by some particular man or circle of men, who, as they did not learn it from their prede- cessors, must have got it by personal revelation from God Himself. To deny that Christianity can ultimately be traced back to such acts of revelation, taking place at a definite time in a definite circle, involves in the last resort a denial that there is any true religion at all, or that religion is anything more than a vague subjective feeling. If religion is more than this, the true knowledge of God and His saving will must in the first instance have grown up in a definite part of the earth, and in connection with the history of a limited section of mankind. For if revelation were not to be altogether futile, it was necessary that each new communication of God should Iniild on those which had gone liel'ore, and therefore that it should be made REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. 15 within that society which had already appropriated the sum of previous revelations. Some true knowledge of God might exist outside of this society, but at all events there must have been a society of men possessed of the whole series of divine teachings in a consecutive and adequate form. And under the conditions of ancient life this society could not be other than a nation, for there was then no free communication and interchange of ideas such as now exists between remote parts of the globe. Until the Greek and Roman empires broke up the old barriers of nation- ality, the intellectual and moral life of each ancient people moved in its own channel, receiving only slight contributions from the outside. There is nothing unreasonable, therefore, in the idea that the true religion was originally developed in national form within the people of Israel ; nay, this limitation corresponds to the historical conditions of the problem. Butthe written records of divine revelations through- out the whole history of Israel, and especially at the very beginning of that history, were exceedingly scanty, and were scarcely at all available directly for the whole body of the people. We find it excessively difficult — most of us find it absolutely impossible — to realize in any vivid way a condition of society in which there were no books and no readers; in which almost all instruction was oral, and memory took the place of printing. In such a state of society, though written records were of inestimable value and even absolutely necessary, they were at the same time, taken alone, wholly inadequate for the protection and dissemination of religious truth. That truth was preserved for general practical purposes in an altogether different way — viz.: by rites and ceremonies, by a religious cultus, by fasts and festivals, by sacrifices and a priest- hood. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt, the redeeming love of their God, His direct personal inter- vention for their salvation. His claim upon their 16 REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. obedience — all this nmy have been affirmed in written records; but the records were not within the reach of those who most needed to be reminded of these primary facts. The divine method of instructing the great body of the people can be best expressed in the words of the book Exodus. Not a parchment roll, but the Feast of the Passover, was " the Bible " of Israel : "And it shall come to pass, when your children shall say unto you, What mean ye by this service ? that ye shall say, It is tjie sacrifice of the Lord's passover, wlio passed over the houses of the children of Israel in Egypt, when He smote the Egyptians and delivered our houses." The Feast of the Passover was instituted not only as a religious service, in which each family or each individual Israelite should gratefully renew his covenant with Jehovah, and realize afresh the infinite and eternal love in whose shelter it was his inestimable privilege to abide, but also as a Record of Revelation, a permanent instruction as to historic facts and their moral and spiritual significance. And this mode of instruction will be always necessary, as I shall try to show you in a later sermon during this season of Advent. In modern times it is rendered necessary not by the scantiness, but by the abundance of literature ; by the deluge of printed matter which scarcely rises to the level of literature; and by the restless curiosity and illimitable speculation of the human mind. No religion has been preserved without a cultus, a ceremo- nial, a hierarchy, an organization, and to this law the Christian religion is most assuredly no exception. Of tliis law the Christian religion is the most conspicuous example. Even with the aid of printed books meji are slow REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. 17 learners; and in moral and spiritual truth they are also reluctant learners. They must have " line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." And the revelation of God to Israel was gradual, progressive, harmonious ; and, that it might be this, each lesson had to be well learned. Some learned the lesson sooner than others. They were, tlierefore, prepared for further instruction ; and, when the time was fully come, the further instruction was imparted. But the old did not cease to be true because it was imperfect: it was included and preserved in the complete revelation. Let us consider two examples of this at once conservative and progressive teaching: the practice and doctrine of sacrifice, and the effect of the sin of the fathers upon the condition and welfare of their children. Sacrifice is a part of tlie practical expression of all known religions. There have been earnest reformers who have been, for various reasons, shocked and dis- gusted by what seemed to them the waste of life and the pain of sentient creatures involved in sacrifice. These reformers have, in a very few instances, had a force of personal character which enabled them to persuade vast multitudes of people to discontinue sacrifice, and, for the same reasons, to abstain from animal food, and to walk warily over the very grass lest they should crush an insect. But when the personal force of these great teacliers was spent, sacrifice was resumed ; or some other form of self-immolation or offering was substi- tuted for sacrifice which was of essentially tlie same nature. TJiese highly exceptional cases — so far as they really are exceptional — may be left out of con- sideration. 18 REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. Of course it is easy enongh to ridicule sacrifice, as implying a very low theology — the belief that in form and in passions God is made in our own image. The Homeric gods feasting with " the blameless Ethio- pians," are very different from the God whom Isaiah or St. John saw in their visions. But, for my own part, I believe that the grossest superstitions are not only, for the most part, morally better, but even nearer to the absolute and literal truth concerning God than materialism and atheism. Supposing sacrifice were the outward expression of the belief that divine beings, superior to ourselves and having power over us, and some sort of rightful claim upon our obedience and service, were pleased with banquets, with the flesh of slain beasts and the fragrance of incense, this Avould be much nearer the truth than the belief that there is no God at all, or that God cares nothing for us — that He is equally indifterent to our homage and contempt. The first lesson for us to learn is the reality of God, that He requires our service, that He will call us to account for our sins. The religion of Israel not only did not originate sacrifices, but rather restrained them. They were not to be multiplied to suit the caprice of individuals: they were to be of a particular kind and quality, offered at particular times and places, by par- ticular individuals set apart for that office. But in Israel they meant this : We are wholly dependent upon God; we must respond to His grace by our love; we must prove the sincerity of our love by actual service ; Ave must confess our sins to Him, and gratefully adopt the means Avhich He provides for reconciliation to Himself and restored communion with His people. These were the lessons to be inwoven into the daily life, into the hearts and consciences of the people of REVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. 19 Israel. They had no books available. The lessons were object-lessons. As such, they were at once true and incomplete ; but because they were true they were to be learned ; also, because they were incomplete, they were to be learned, and thoroughly learned, as the indispensable preparation for fuller knowledge. When the lesson itself had been laid to heart and made a part of the moral and intellectual nature of the people, prophet after prophet came to show them its innermost meaning ; to warn them against mistaking the form for the substance ; to prepare them for that day when " Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us." Another example of the conservative development of the religion of Israel is to be found in the commentary of Ezekiel on a portion even of the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments were the very central revela- tion of human duty bestowed upon Israel. The text upon which Ezekiel commented was the familiar pas- sage in what we call the Second Commandment : " I, the Lord thy God, am a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate rae." These words were true in the days of Moses, and they are true now. Nobody can sin for himself alone. He is sure to involve in the calamity which he deserves, and which to him is a direct pimishment, everybody with whom he is at all intimately related. This is not a fact because it is declared in Scripture, but it is declared in Scripture because it is a fact of universal experience. And it was of the utmost possible importance that the Israelites should have this fact rooted in their memories: it was a fact, however foolishly they might explain it, and it was incalculably better to explain it foolishly than altogether to forget or neglect it. This 20 KEVELATION NECESSARY TO RELIGION. was better for them, and Avould be better for us and for all men. But in the time of Ezekiel men had begun to anticipate the modern scientific doctrine of "heredity" and "moral insanity." As many of our physicians and scientific instructors know nothing of theft, or drunkenness, or murder, but only of klepto- mania, or dipsomania, or homicidal mania ; as they investigate, not a man's conscience and habits, but his family history; so, in the days of Ezekiel, people were saying: 'It is not our fault that we are wicked and miserable : we inherit our vices and our distress : " the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children's teeth are set on edge." ' So it was necessary for the prophet to distinguish between suffering and punishment; and to remind God's people that each individual soul had its own priceless value in the eyes of Jehovah ; that God would deal with every man according to his own works ; that " the soul that sinneth it shall die." Thus throughout the history of Israel the chosen people received revelations through special messengers chosen of God ; these revelations were recorded in written Scriptures; they were embodied in national and ecclesiastical institutions, in a cultus, in rites and ceremonies, fasts and feasts, sacrifices and priests. AVhen they had been inwoven into the habits, the very nature, of the people, new revelations were given, at once conservative and pro- gressive. Hence the religion of Israel was never lost and was never stagnant. And even now it is true that Christ Himself came " not to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them " ; and that the Bible is " the statesman's manual " ; and the prophets of Israel are the prophets of the whole human race — for " unto them were entrusted the oracles of God." THE REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST.* God, having of old time spoken unto (he fathers in the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners, hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in a Son, tvhom He ajipointed heir of all things, through ivhom also He made the worlds .... the effulgence of His glory a?id the very image of His substwnce. — Hebrews i. 1-3. I was reminding you last Sunday morning that a direct revelation from God Himself to man is at the foundation of all true religion ; that religion does not consist of spontaneous desires, or curious speculations, or vivid emotions, or logically constructed theories, or modes of conduct suggested by prudence, but is based upon a reality and a truth, which we may deny, indeed, but which we cannot make other than they are. We are, of course, perfectly familiar with the fact that we did not invent otir oivn religion, whatever that religion may be : we were " born and bred "in it. We accepted and believed it long before we had either the power or the inclination to verify or examine it. We received it by tradition on authority, though we may liave for- gotten by whom it was handed on to us, and though their authority may have been no more or higher than that of parents or teachers or elders. It is conceivable that we might, in process of time and in favourable circumstances, have "thought out for ourselves" * Preached on the second Sunday in Advent, 1885. 22 KEVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHKIST. much of what we now accept without furtlier need of inquiry. But, as a matter of fact, our religion did not come to us in that way. It was revealed to us by other people, whencesoever they may have derived it. Nearly the whole of what we have done for ourselves is not discovery, but verification ; and the verification would neither have been attempted nor possible but for the primary instruction to which it is applied. The most that we can say is like what her fellovv-townspeople said to the woman of Samaria : " From that city many of the Samaritans believed on Jesus And many more believed because of His word : and they said to the woman, Now we believe, not because of thy speak- ing : for we have heard for ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Saviour of the world." Neverthe- less, but for her " speaking " they could never " have heard for themselves." But, sooner or later, we come to a point in the history of religious truth when this or that part of it appears /or the first tune.'* There has been no previous tradition ; the new truth produces a more or less violent revolution ; it is the starting-point of a new life, in individuals, in nations. There are some who can persuade themselves that this can be easily accounted for. They say, "The air was full of it"; was charged with electricity; and lo! a man taller than the rest appears, and the lightning flashes out. Or society has been long saturated with the truth; the solvent fluid has been slowly evaporating; and lo ! some otherwise insignificant person puts in, it may be, a mere finger and we have the crystals. But the weakness of this theory is that there is not a single *See the j^assage quoted from Dr. Robertson Smith on p. 13. REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 23 atom of evidence — in the really important and crucial instances — that the air was so charged or society so saturated. Were the tribes of Israel, debased by slavery in Egypt, saturated with the Mosaic law ; or, later, Avith the spiritual truths proclaimed by the prophets? How, then, does it happen that they were continually relapsing into idolatry, and that their noblest prophets were hated and persecuted and slain ? "0 Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! Thou that Oiliest the prophets, and stonest them that are sent unto thee I" Was Galilee or Jerusalem " saturated " with the truth which " crys- tallized " in Jesus of Nazareth ? Men " were aston- ished at His teaching " ; for a short time they admired ; then they doubted, hated, denied, and gave their final verdict in the cry, " Not this man, but liarabbas." In the inner circle of Christ's disciples His teaching was a bewildering mystery; outside that circle the " Christ " with which society was saturated crystallized in the AjMcryphal Gospels, and in heresies so grotesque that it is difficult not to refute but to understand them. The prophets themselves declared that they had received the new truths they proclaimed from God Himself. If that ivere so, they must certainly have known it. Nor is it any disproof of what they declared that we have received no direct revelations. At any rate, the only alternative is that the prophets were men of subtle intellect, of wide culture — I might almost add of a crazed enthusiasm. They were so possessed by the truth which they had discovered that they found doubt impossible ; and affirmed their own certitude nnder the disguise of a supernatural revelation. This hypothesis would begin to be credible if the prophets had been such men, if they had possessed that unshaken 24 REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. certitude as to their own ojnmons; but we know from the records which are the only source of our knowl- edge even of the existence of tliese prophets, that they were fixr other men. The Book of the Prophet Jeremiah alone is the conclusive disproof of all these ingenious theories. Take his own account of what we may con- sider his " call " to the work of a prophet (i. 4-10) : Now the word of the Lord came unto rae, saying, Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee, and before thou earnest forth out of tlie womb I sanctified thee ; I have appointed thee a prophet unto the nations. Then said I, Ah, Lord God ! behold, I cannot speak : for I am a cliild. But the Lord said ixnto me, Say not, I am a child ; for to whomsoever I shall send thee thou shalt go, and whatsoever I shall command thee thou shalt speak. Be not afraid because of them : for I am with thee to deliver thee, saith the Lord. Then the Lord put forth His hand and touched my mouth ; and the Lord said unto me, Behold, I have put My words in thy mouth : see, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to pluck up and to break down, and to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. And now let us hearhis own account of his prophetic work (viii. 18-ix. 2) : Oh that I could comfort myself against sorrow ! my heart is faint within me. Behold, the voice of the cry of the daughter of my people from a laTid that is very far off : Is not the Lord in Zion ? is not her King in her ? Why have they provoked me to anger with their graven images, and with strange vanities ? The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt : I am black ; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Ls there no balm in Gilead ? is there no physician tliere ? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered ? Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my KEVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 25 people ! Oh tliat I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men ; that I might leave my people, and go from them ! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. And again (xv. 10-18) : Woe is me, my mother, that thou hast borne me a man of strife and a man of contention to the whole earth ! I have not lent on usury, neither have men lent to me on usury ; yet every one of them doth curse me. The Lord said, Verily I will strengthen thee for good ; verily I will cause the enemy to make supplication unto thee in the time of evil and in the time of affliction. Can one break iron, even iron from the north, and brass? Tiiy substance and thy treasures will I give for a spoil without price, and that for all thy sins, even in all thy borders. And I will make them to pass with thine enemies into a land which thou knowest not : for a fire is kindled in Mine anger which shall burn upon you. Lord, thou knowest: remember me, and visit me, and avenge me of my persecutors ; take me not away in Thy long- suffering: know that for Thy sake I have suffered reproach. Thy words were found, and I did eat them ; and Thy words were unto me a joy and the rejoicing of mine heart : for I am called by Thy name, Lord God of hosts. I sat not in the assembly of them that make merry, nor rejoiced : I sat alone because of Thy hand ; for Thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which rcfusethto be healed ? wilt Thou indeed be unto me as a deceitful brook, as waters that fail ? And again (xvii. 12-18): A glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary. Lord, the hope of Israel, all that forsake Thee shall be ashamed ; they that depart from me shall be written in the earth, because they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living waters. Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed ; save me, and I shall be saved : for Thou art my praise. 26 REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHKIST. Boliold, they say unto me, Where is the word of tlie Lord? let it come now. As for me, I have not hastened from being a shepherd after Thee ; neither have I desired the woeful day ; Thou knowest : that whicli came out of my lips was before Thy face. Be not a terror unto me : Thou art my refuge in the day of evil. Let them be ashamed that persecute me, but let not me be ashamed ; let them be dismayed, but let not me be dis- mayed ; bring upon them the day of evil, and destroy them with double destruction. And once again (xx. 7-18) : OLord, Thou hast deceived me, and I was deceived : Thou art stronger than I, and hast prevailed : I am become a laughing- stock all the day, every one mockcth me. For as often as I speak 1 cry out ; I cry. Violence and spoil ; because the word of the Lord is made a reproach unto me, and a derision, all the day. And if I say, I will not make mention of Him, nor speak any more in His name, then there is in mine heart as it were a burning fire shut up in my bones, and 1 am weary with for- bearing, and 1 cannot contain. For I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side. Denounce, and we will denounce him, say all my familiar friends, they that watch for my halting ; peradventure he will be enticed, and we shall prevail against him, and we shall take our revenge on him. But the Lord is witli me as a mighty one and a terrible ; therefore my persecutors shall stumble, and they shall not prevail ; they shall be greatly ashamed, because they have not dealt wisely, even with an everlasting dishonour which shall never be forgotten. But, Lord of hosts, that triest the righteous, that seest the reins and the heart, let me see Thy vengeance on them ; for unto Thee have I revealed my cause. Sing unto the Lord, praise ye the Lord : for He hath delivered the soul of the needy from the hand of evil-doers. Cursed be the day wherein I was born : let not the day wherein my mother bare me be blessed. Cursed be the man who brought tidings to my father, saying, A man child is born unto thee ; making him very glad. And let that man be as the cities which the Ijord overthrew, and repented not : REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 27 and let him hear a cry in the morning, and sliouting at noon- tide ; becanse he slew me not from the womb; and so my mother shoukl have been my grave, and her womb always great. Wherefoi'e came I out of the womb to see labour and sori'ow, that my days should be consumed with shame ? Are these the words of a man whose doctrine was "in the air"; who simply gave eloquent expression to what everybody was already thinking? Are these the words of a subtle speculator, a mystic dreamer, a great moral discoverer? Is this a man fired with a pas- sionate enthusiasm for his own opinions, and deter- mined, with the intellectual heroism of which we have so many examples, at all cost to proclaim them? Most unmistakably, such questions answer tliemselves. Jeremiah at any rate believed that he was sent and instructed hy God. He feared and hoped, was bold and timid, believed and doubted, suffered excruciating agony, Avas distracted by the love of his people and his horror at their wickedness and his sure foresight of their doom; and he was kept steadily to his work, he was enabled to resist his enemies and to rise above the contradictions of his own heart and mind, only by the absolute certainty that God had sent him, and that he was speaking not the thoughts of his own heart, but the message of the Eternal. But it is included in the very idea of revelation that, while it coxwqs from God, it is given to men, and disseminated by men. In other Avords, it is limited by human receptivity, by the powers and faculties of human nature; nay more, by the powers and faculties of the particular person to whom, at any particular time and in any particular j)lace, it was supposed to be actually imparted. Not only was it impossible to reveal to S. .John everything that God Himself knows. 28 REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CflRIST. but it would have been impossible to reveal to Moses everything which was actually revealed to S. John. And it has sometimes been seriously argued that this fact renders any genuine and authoritative revelation wholly impossible. The object of a revelation is to give us accurate knowledge of the very truth concern- ing God and ourselves. But this, it is urged, is im- possible because of the limitation of the human faculties themselves, and much more impossible because of the special limitation of the faculties of any particular person. Every rational theology recognizes that God, in His very nature and in all His attributes, infinitely surpasses not only any one prophet, but the whole human race. No multiplication of the finite can produce the infinite ; and not only our actual, but any possible, knowledge must fall so far short of the truth concerning God that our most careful and reverent utterances can be little less (except, indeed, in intention) than an awful blasphemy. This is scarcely a caricature of the argument of Dean Mansel's celebrated Bampton Lectiwes. But surely it implies that we cannot Icnoio anything of any object unless we can know it wliolly ; and, unless we are to change the meaning of the commonest words of every language, so strange an assumption needs no more for its refutation than to be clearly statetl. The words equivalent to / hnoio are to be found in all languages, and they certainly have some meaning. They cannot possibly be equivalent to the words / do not knoiu. But what single object is there which we know wliolJy? If we are once out of our depth, we can be drowned as easily with three feet of water below our feet as if we were sinking into an unfathomable abyss. KEVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 29 And if we affirm tliat we can know notliing nnless we know it wholly, when are we not ont of our depth ? We need not begin with the mysteries of theology: let us take a common pebble^ lying by mere chance on a smooth pavement. All sorts of people may come into contact with this little pebble, and will say they " know " it ; and their words will convey a sufficiently definite and accurate meaning to those to whom they speak. A delicate lady will say, " This pebble hurt my foot." A mischievous schoolboy will rejoice in the pebble as a convenient missile for breaking the window of an unoffending neighbour. A lapidary will observe that it is capable of a high polish, and may be used for what people call "jewelry." A chemist will analyze it, and tell us of what elements it is composed, and how they are combined. A geologist will look at it, and it will reveal to him the history of countless millenniums : intense heat, enormous pressure, volcanic action, the grinding of icebergs, the washings of long- vanished seas. But if the little pebble itself could speak and tell its own history, what mere foolishness all our wisest " historical fictions " about it would seem ! But lioiu would they seem foolish ? They would seem foolish only if we had offered them as a complete and exhaustive account of the pebble. We do not so offer them ; and meanwhile it is true that the lady knew that the pebble hurt her foot ; the lapidary that he polished it ; the chemist that he analyzed it ; the geologist that he constructed its hypothetical and, in a degree, its certain history. If we do not suffi- ciently, and for all practical purposes, know a little round pebble, we know nothing whatever. But do we knoiv our fellow-creatures ? Do we know 30 REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. our next-door neighbour? Do we know our father and mother, our brothers and sisters ? Is there a single human being who woukl besitate to answer these questions with an emphatic yes? But do we know any one of these wliolly 1 If we cannot wlioUy know a mere pebble, how much less can we know a human being! We do not wholly know ourselves. For the most part we do not care for self-knowledge. But often, in the world's most crowded streets, But often, in the din of strife. There rises an unspeakable desire After tlie knowledge of our buried life ; A thirst to spend our fire and restless force In tracking out our true, original course ; A longing to inquire Into the mystery of this heart which beats So wild, so deep in us— to know Whence our thoughts come and where they go. And many a man in his own breast then delves. But deep enough, alas ! none ever mines. And we have been on many thousand lines, And we have shown, on each, spirit and power, But hardly have we, for one little hour. Been on our own line, have we been ourselves — Hardly had skill to utter one of all The nameless feelings that course through our breast, But they course on forever unexpress'd. And long we try in vain to speak and act Our hidden self, and wliat we say and do Is eloquent, is well — but 'tis not true ! And then we will no more be rack'd With inward striving, and demand Of all the thousand nothings of the hour Their stupefying power ; Ah, yes ; and they benumb us at our call ! Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn, From the soul's subterranean depth uj^borne. REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 31 As from an infinitely distant land, Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey A melancholy into all oui- day.* And if we scarcely know, and only fitfully try to know, our own selves, how much less do we wholly know our neighbour, our most intimate and dearest friend ! Am I, then, going beyond my depth when I say that my next-door neighbour is John Smith ; that he has fair hair and blue eyes ; that he is a physician ; that he is clever and benevolent; and when I affirm an indefinite number of other similar truths? Are not these truths at all, because they do not sound the depths of Smith's personality, and affirm more of him than he knows of himself? The revelation of God, then, may be true and of the utmost practical value, even though it does not, and never can, surpass the capacity of human nature to receive it. At the same time the ordinary instruments of divine revelation have been so imperfect, even at the best, that their very imperfection suggested the need and inspired the hope that, some time or otlier, God would provide a true and perfect prophet. The prophets of Israel were men of very limited knowledge, and entrusted severally with but a very small part of that truth which is necessary to human perfection. The institutions in which their revelations were en- shrined, and by means of which they were protected and disseminated, were rigid and unyielding. Exactly because they were so admirably adapted to preserve the old, they became more and more incapable of making- room for the new; at last they became exclusive and antagonistic. Moreover, the human frailty of prophets, * Matthew Arnold : Tlte Buried Life. 32 KEVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHKIST. mid priests, unci kings, seems often to contradict the very truth which tliey were called by God to proclaim and to administer. Moses "spake unadvisedly with his lips." Aaron made the golden calf. David found in his own life material only too ample for his peni- tential Psalms. Solomon "loved many strange Avomen, and when he was old his wives turned away his heart after other gods." Jonah did liis best to defeat the purpose of divine mercy which he was commissioned to execute. The very priests desecrated the temple and set at naught the law. It is indeed by the very revela- tions they received and recorded that their own conduct is condemned ; but their contemporaries were at least as familiar with their life as with their message, and were only too likely to corrupt the one by the impurity of the other. The object of revelation is twofold : to declare what God is, and what man ought to be. The first of these objects was far too great for the knowledge of the prophets of Israel, the second was far too great for their virtue. Nor did the long history of human thought and human life, whether witliin or beyond the limits of the chosen people, encourage the faintest reasonable hope that there would ever appear among men a prophet either wise enough or good enough to be the perfect medium of a perfect revelation. Tlierefore, God, having of old time sjwken unto the fathers in the proj^hets by divers ^mi ions and in divers 7nanners, hath at the end of these days sjMkemmto us in His Son .... the effulgence of Bis glory, and the very image of Jlis Substance. Any revelation of God to man must be brought within the limits of human nature and human capacity to receive it ; but within those limits it must be perfect if it is effectually to REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 33 make known to ns both what God is and what man ought to be. The Incarnation, considered merely as a revelation, satisfies both these conditions. Viewed, then, solely as a revelation, what does the Incarnation of the Son of God include ? It includes at least this: that, in order that we might know God, and our relations to Him, and all that can be necessary for our spiritual perfection, the Eternal Son Himself came to teach us ; to speak to us in our own language, by a perfect human life, by means of facts and analogies which are on the level of our own experience. Even the miracles of Christ were within human experience : people did actually eat of the multiplied loaves, were personally conscious that they had ceased to be blind, showed "themselves to the priest" after they were cleansed from leprosy, unwound the grave-clothes from a risen brother. And as a teacher our Lord at least claimed a perfect and personal knowledge of what He taught ; and also that to teach the truth was a large part of the work which He came from the Father to do. The comprehension of the mystery of the Incarnation — that is to say, the accurate knowledge of the ivlioh of it — including, as it does, the yet deeper mystery of the Holy Trinity, is very far beyond the reach of the human faculties. But that 2ia'rt of the perfect truth which it is practically necessary for us to know is within our reach : millions of human beings have actually known it and lived by it; and the fact that they could live by it, that it satisfied their wants, that it fitted in with everything else of which they had the most irresistible certainty, that it harmonized what otherwise would have been irreconcilable contradictions, that it made 34 EEVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. those who believed it morally and spiritually nobler, that it gave them more reverence for truth and a keener sense of responsibility, that it at once ennobled and humbled them — all this enabled, or even compelled, them to believe that Avhat they could not understand, what grew fainter and fainter as they strained their eager gaze towards the ever-receding horizon till it was lost in an intolerable brightness, was real and sub- stantial. But, as I said before, when once we are beyond our depth, it matters little how deep may be the abyss beneath us; and it is worth while to remember that the mystery of creation is as far beyond our perfect comprehension as the mystery of the Incarnation. Whenever Ave indulge in speculation without pro- tecting ourselves by the verification of facts and experi- ence, we almost invariably discover that we have proved, beyond possibility of doubt, the inconceivableness of something which the very next minute we find before our very eyes. A man crosses the street at some par- ticular time and place. The chances against the probability that he should have crossed exactly then and there are millions to one. We argue the matter out in our minds. We feel sure that he must have crossed, if at all, a little higher up or a few minutes sooner. But lo! there he is: not taking the nearest way, nor attending to his business with the utmost possible expedition, but simply baffling our calculations by an absurd wilfulness. If we argue simply from the "Idea" of God, we should conclude with irresistible certainty that He neither could nor would bring into existence a single crealure. For, indeed, why should He create ? He is already in perfect blessedness ; no increase can come to His infinite joy; He cannot REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 35 become wiser than He is so as to amend the conditions, if we may so speak, in which He is placed. Nay, there are no such conditions, and unless He shall have changed, ihey cannot become desirable. Before creation there exists nothingo?f/sic/e Himself which could change His purpose or constitute a motive to action ; and, being already perfect, any change tvithin Himself must be a change for the worse, which the very " Idea " of God excludes. Clearly enough, then, creation is impossible, a " contradiction in terms," excluded by the very " Idea" of God. So much for our speculation : then we bethink ourselves that we are speculating ; that we are not God ; that we have aciiiaUy been brought into existence; that the fact that we ourselves are speculating about the possibility of creation absolutely disproves the conclusion at which we have so logically arrived. Or we might approach the matter from another side — if it be another. How, we might ask, can the Almighty God limit in any way His power ? Being, in His very nature and essence, omnipotent, how can He become weak? If we could discover any other existing object which could put Him to a choice between two alternatives, and compel Him to accept either the one or the other, He would be no longer God. Can anything be more obvious, so long as we remain in the region of mere speculation ? But some- thing hurts our foot, and we pick up a little pebble. It is plainly enough hard, impenetrable : it will not suffer our foot to occupy the same space which itself occupies. If it were endowed with an irreverent reason, it might say even to the Almighty, "I compel You to choose between these alternatives; You must annihilate 36 REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. me, or I will hurt the foot of everybody who treads upon nie." So we are landed in the absnrdity of believing that every exercise of power is a positive proof that the poioer has no existence. Of course yon see that I am not attempting to prove the Incarnation of the Son of God ; neither am I attempting to prove the existence of myself, or of a pebble. If there be any fact of history of which we may be rationally certain, such a fact is the life, and death, and resurrection, the claims and teaching, of Jesus Christ. It is as idle to argue against the possi- bility of His having ever lived as to argue against the Gallic Wars of Ca?sar. To account for the words and works of Jesus on the hypothesis that He was a good man, like S. John or Buddha, is a kind of insult to the human understanding. Claiming what He did claim, He cannot have been a good man unless He were infinitely more. That in Him human nature came to " its perfect bloom," is a horticultural metaphor which may be safely regarded as too contemptible for grave argument. Every florist knows that " the perfect bloom " of to-day may be little better than the wild- flower of the very next season ; and we have not yet seen any improvement upon either the life or the teaching of Him who declared that He was the very Son of God. But what I want to urge upon you is, that the argument against the Incarnation founded upon the supposed fact that it would be a limiting of the Divine Nature, must remain forever irrelevant so long as there is a single pebble that can hurt your foot. There is nothing illimitable but nonentity. We cannot divest ourselves of the knowledge of God by juggling with such words as " infinite" and " absolute." REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CIIKIST. 37 Whether He is able and willing to create a world, is determined at once by the undeniable fact that here the world verily is. And if what we call the Divine Perfection renders it impossible for God to act, or even — for so far the argument would carry us — to be conscious of His own existence, then it folloAvs, not that we must regard Nature and our very selves as mere illusions, but that we must put a new meaning into the word " perfection." In truth, we must rescue the word from mere logical wrangling and recover for it its homely and obvious significance. And, similarly, when we consider the Incarnation merely as a revelation, that revelation, let it amount to what it will, is at the least an undeniable fact. Jesus Christ, both by word and deed, has, beyond all dispute, taught men something concerning God. And what He has taught us at once preserves and completes all pre- vious teaching. It appeals at once to the primary revelation in conscience, verifies that revelation, expands it, perfects it. Though so vastly higher and deeper, it is yet in such manifest harmony with the message of the prophets of Israel, and the institutions by which the truth they delivered was preserved, that it has been seriously argued that it is no more than their natural outgrowth. On the other hand, it is itself so unapproachable in fulness, and beauty, and applicability to all human conditions — so absolutely unblemished by any moral or spiritual infirmity or evil in the Teacher Himself — that the whole of it was never anticipated even by all previous teachers i)ut together; and has never been even improved, niucJj less superseded, by nearly twenty centuries of human progress. A natural outgrowth is part of a continuous 38 KEVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHKIST. process ; it may be in advance of the past, but it will be in the rear of the future. Nor will it be contended that there lias been any arrest of human progress in any other department of thought or work. This is, indeed, our loudest boast : " Westward — ho !" Ever onwards. The goal of to-day the starting-point of to- morrow. Always some fresh discovery, some new invention, till we are rendered almost incapable of wonder and beyond surprise. Vast accumulations of facts unsuspected for millenniums, and the scientific arrangement of these facts, and the deduction of their " laws." How, then, does it happen that no new and greater teacher has arisen, in this continuous process of natural evolution, not only to eclipse but even to dim the exceeding brightness of Jesus of Nazareth ? He still remains the Master. Theology is a mere com- mentary on His teaching ; and, invaluable though it be, it is so far from improving the text that its remote inferences and subtle dogmas have to be continually verified or corrected by the " simplicity that is in Christ." They who, rightly or wrongly, affirm that even the Church is corrupt, and that the doctrines of modern Christendom are unbelievable, offer no new revelation, no original speculations. Tiiey think they have almost proved their case by putting it into the shape of a sarcastic question: "Was Christ a Chris- tian'^" Offer what explanation we can or will, this great Teacher, who declares Himself the Son of God, is, on all hands, admitted to be to this day unap- proachable in His perfection as the Revealer of God and the Guide of human life. The explanation of the writer of the EimtJe to the Hebrews has at least this merit — that, if it be true, it does most assuredly REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. 39 explain. The Great Eevealer has no superior and no fellow, because " He is the effulgence of God's glory and the express image of His substance." If U be true! My dear brethren, in these sad days, when the air is heavy with the narcotic vapours of doubt; when clamorous denial well-nigh deafens us; when so much even of what seems to be intended for Christian teaching is made up of timid apologies and a minimizing theology ; when, instead of the Christ of history, we are asked to believe in an imaginary Christ, whose life is constructed out of ingenious selections from the Four Gospels accommodated to "modern thought " — it seems to me that it is one of our most obvious and peremptory duties, and also one of our highest privileges, to testify in plain words that cannot possibly admit of being misunderstood, what we do verily believe. I could not dare to judge others, but for my own part — remembering the controversies out of which it arose and which it was meant to settle — I cannot see that it would be possible for me to recite the Nicene Creed without believing that the words of tlie author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, are true, and that the Great Eevealer is in very fact "the effulgence of God's glory and the express image of His substance." I do verily believe that Jesus Christ was not a Son of God, but the " Only-begotten, begotten of Ilis Father before all worlds." I believe, not that He is "the perfect blossoming of humanity," but that He is " of one substance with the Father." I believe that He was not the product of a continuous process of natural evolution, but that by Him "all things were made"; and that He is the Creator and not the creature of human development. I believe that when we hear 40 REVELATION OF GOD IN JESUS CHRIST. Him we hear the Father, and that He speaks with authority, not only as Moses might have delivered with authority a message from Jehovah, but because He and the Father are One, and that " as the Father knows Him, even so knows He the Father." And, in these days, Ave must not be afraid even of egotism. There is a great fear among Christian people. They have been so often assured that their teachers do not really believe the Creeds, that they are half inclined sorrowfully to admit it. To those who are confused and bewildered even the mere confession of our own faith may be reassuring. A man may still believe in Jesus Christ, may believe that He is " God manifest in the flesh," though he is by no means unfamiliar with the literature of modern scepticism. He may believe all the more confidently because he is familiar with that literature. And if we do heartily believe what our Lord so con- tinually, and in so many ways, affirmed of Himself, then we can account for the fulness, the penetrating power, the easy familiarity with the subject — if we may reverently so speak — of His revelation. Others speak of God as they have heard ; each delivering his own precious but imperfect message, often scarcely himself perceiving its real significance. Christ speaks as One who was Himself " in the bosom of the Father," as One in whom the mysteries even of the Divine Nature were the mysteries of His own life. Others spe;ik of man as they may be inspired to deal with some particular case, some pressing emergency ; Christ speaks as One who "knew what was in man," because He Himself had made him. He could be the perfect "Light" because He was the "Life" of men. And the revelation in Christ has stood the test of innu- REVELATION OF GOD IN JKSUS CHRIST. 41 merable verifications. Every fresh trial has confirmed it. From every believer has come the grateful, humble, fervent confession: "I have heard Him myself; I have proved, in my inmost heart and experience, that He is ' the Way and the Truth and the Life ' ; 1 have, in plain fact, 'conic to the Father by Him.'' " REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Let a man so account of us as of ministers of Christ, ajid stewards of the mysteries of God. Here, moreover, it is required in stewards, that they be found faithful. — I Corinthians iv. 1-2. Every consideration which encourages ns to hope, or even compels ns to believe, that God will reveal to us His will for the guidance of our conduct, or will reveal to us otherwise undiscoverable truth for the satisfaction of our intellect, renders us in an equal degree impatient of delay, of the slow progress of those revelations which have actually been granted to us. We say to ourselves : " If revelation be necessary at all, why is it not given at once, in all its fulness; and why is it not given to everybody ? Why should not all the Lord's people be prophets ? Why should there be a 'chosen people'? Why should 'the fulness of the times ' come only after countless millions of human beings have passed beyond the reach of those blessings which had been so long deferred ? Either revelation must have been given at first, and then given fully, or our hope that it will be given at all can be nothing better than a dream." But, first of all, how do we know that those who died before the Incarnation have passed beyond the reach of the blessings which the Incarnation, regarded even merely as a revelation, lias brought to ourselves ? Do we seriously believe that death is annihilation ; or REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 43 that the departed, in some other world, are beyond the reach of the divine discipline, and instruction, and love ? It was no sin to be ignorant of what it was impossible to know. The smallest insect may be per- fect in its kind ; and those who have put their trust in God, and tried to serve and please Him, though they had no knowledge or even vague anticipation of what has been fully revealed to us, may have been men " after God's own heart." And if they live at all after that event in their lives which we call dying, why should they not have continued to receive, and perhaps in more favourable circumstances, precisely the same revelations which, "in many parts and in many ways," have been granted to those who, in this earthly life, came after them? Indeed, what Christian man or woman who died yesterday had availed himself of all the knowledge, or attained to all the perfection, of which his privileges had rendered him capable? There are millions of Christians who can neither read nor write ; millions whose worship is what we call super- stitious ; millions whose life on earth rendered them neither "fit for heaven" nor "fit for hell." Would it not be comfortiug to believe that the state of human beings after death may secure the instruction of the ignorant, the purification and strengthening of the frail and imperfect? And if they all "live in God," and are still in His holy keeping, why need we doubt that " what they knew not " when in this world "they shall know hereafter"; and that, in the higher school, God will " teach them " to more complete " profit " ? But, as to the slow progress of revelation, we must check and verify our speculations at every turn by observation and fact. The divine revelations have ieen 44 REVELATION IN THE CIIKISTIAN CHURCH. gradual and slow, whether we like it or not, whether Ave should have expected it or not. And I wish to remind you that you ought to have expected nothing else. To speculate upon what God might have done, or ought to have done, or must have done, is at once idle and irreverent; it assumes that we are wiser than God ; it is a matter wholly beyond our depth. But to ascertain, so far as it is needful for us to know it, what God actually has done is quite within our reach. Moreover, the study of the works o^ God, and of the method of His working, is in the highest degree inter- esting and instructive. And the result at which we arrive, from whatever point we start, and whatever lines we traverse, is precisely this : that, measured by our standards of time, almost everything that God has done has been done slowly. He has chosen to act at first, within our earthly sphere, by His creative power, producing the materials and forces with which we are all familiar ; but after that first creative act He has seen fit to proceed by long-continued evolution. This is affirmed at least symbolically, even if not with scientific accuracy, in the account of " the Creation " in the Book Genesis. We know the earth-^s it is now. It is precisely not what the morbid Hamlet had come to consider it: "I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, foregone all custom of exercises ; and, indeed, it goes so heavily with my disposition, that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory ; this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave o'erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire — why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a REVELATION IN THE CHKISTIAN OIIDRCH. 45 piece of work is man ! how noble in reason ! how in- finite in faculties ! in form and moving how express and admirable! in action how like an angel! in appre- hension how like a god ! the beanty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! And yet, to me, what is this quintessence of dust ? Man delights not me ; no, nor woman neither." The earth is rich with inexhaustible treasures. God seems to have lavished upon it, with a sort of divine prodigality, every kind of beauty and loveliness: the sublimity of mountains and ocean; the quiet loveliness of peaceful valleys and rippling streams; the song and plumage of birds; the bright colours, the delicate pencilling, the exquisite fragrance of flowers ; the abundance of life in laud and water, with man "the roof and crown of things," in the very "image of God." This is the world as we know it now. But is this the world as it came forth " from the hand of the Creator" ? We need not ask Science : we may ask the Book Genesis ; and we find that it was only by slow degrees — we know not, indeed, how slow — that this glorious world came to be what now it is. It was not, at first, so much as "a sterile promontory"; there was no " majestical roof fretted with golden fire "; likely enough what is now so solid was really " a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours." " The earth was waste and void: and darkness was upon the face of the deep." After we know not how vast an interval of time the awful darkness was penetrated by light. Then was constructed the " brave o'erhanging firmament" ; land appeared, and the waters were " gathered together " into seas ; sun, moon and stars shone forth on high, in their orderly movements measuring out " days and years" for a yet unpeopled earth; grass, and herbs. 46 REVELATION IN THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH. and trees adorn wliat once was "waste"; in slow grada- tions come all "kinds" of living creatnres; and only after a patient preparation, whose slowness baffles all the efforts of the most vivid imagination, " God created man in His own image." Nay, even the body of mayi was no sudden product of the divine power. " The Lord God formed man out of the dust of the ground." Previously existing elements were combined with infinite subtlety to form that marvellous habitation in which our spirits dwell. This is what the earliest Scriptures tell us, in their symbolical and mystic fashion, of the creation of the world. And what we see in the creation of the world we see in every part of the divine procedure ; in the progress to maturity of each individual, and in what we call the growth of civilization. Physiologists tell us that the newborn babe, even before its birth, has passed through almost every gradation of animal life; and has produced on an infinitesimal scale, and in the dark obscurity of its ante-natal existence, a minute copy of the evolution of the universe. And what can possibly be more utterly helpless than a newborn babe? A day old, nay, a year old, Caesar and Napoleon, Plato and Bacon, Shakspeare and Milton, were more absolutely dependent upon others, more incapable even of self- preservation, than the chick just hatched or the cater- pillar just emerged from a butterfly's egg. And the moral difficulties of this slow progress of the individual to maturity are at least as serious as the moral difficul- ties of a slowly progressive revelation. If all the world outside Israel was left without the guidance of a special revelation ; if the earliest Israelites had far less knowledge of God than the contemporaries of REVELATION IN THE CHEISTIAN CHURCH. 47 Isaiah; and if the consequence of this was that they fell into idolatry, or superstition, or vice— we may marvel, indeed, that this should be consistent with the infinite love and righteousness of God, but it is in the strictest accord Avith the analogy of Nature and history and individual experience. The healthy physical development of a child depends almost absolutely upon the skill and care of parents or nurses; but equally dependent, often, upon the most ignorant and vicious is the child's intellectual and moral development. Wh}/ are many of our criminals, whom Ave see for the first time in the felon's dock or in the cell of a penitentiary, precisely what and Avhere they are ? There may be deeper reasons; the mystery of a human life is far too complicated for any of us to solve; but o?ie reason is obvious and undeniable. They Avere brought up to be criminals ; they graduated in the schools and univer- sities of vice ; their fathers Avere thieves, their mothers Avere unchaste; they Avere acquainted from their infancy with every kind of fraud and brutal violence; the most familiar and most constantly repeated Avords of the vocabulary Avhich they Avere taught were oaths and curses. Why is a man a heathen, a " Jcav, Turk, infidel or heretic "■? Avhy is he a Roman Catholic, or a Unitarian, or a "particular Baptist," or a Mormonite? In the immense majority of cases, because he Avas so brought up. Why do we, Avithout hesitation, " promise and voAv three things in the name" of our god- children ? Because Ave knoAV that, if Ave only take pains to produce it, Ave can as safely guarantee for them a belief of the Creed and a Christian mode of living, as Ave can guarantee for them a belief in the multipli- cation table and a civilized mode of living. And even 48 KEVELATiON 11? THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. at the very best, with the most scrnpulons care, with the wisest training, with the noblest examples, a child must pass through all the gradations of human experi- ence. Only, if at all, through the innocence of ignor- ance; through the alarms, the bondage, the "curse" of the law ; can he pass into " the glorious liberty " of a child of God. As in our physical development we have been, at one time or another, almost every kind of inferior animal before we became man, so in our spiritual development we pass through the religion of Nature, we are " baptized into Moses," we are enlight- ened by the prophets, before we can come into the perfection of Christ. The progress of nations and of what we call " races " — though it is surely not irrelevant to ask lioio many human races there can possibly be — is even slower, and very much more apparently capricious, than the progress of individuals. The Hindoos, Greeks, Itomans, Germans, belong to the same " race " of which we our- selves are members ; we all speak what is fundamentally the same language. But nothing can be more irregular than the development of these various branches of the same stock. The characteristic of our Eastern kindred is a kind of apathy, an immovable adherence to custom and tradition, a dreamy mysticism. Their very heaven is scarcely distinguishable from annihilation. Their utmost blessedness is repose. The characteristic of West- ern civilization is what we call progress — a perpetual motion, an incurable restlessness, both of intellect and life. So terrible is this restlessness that our modern and Western "civilization" includes the negation of civilization ; on the side of practical life, anarchists and nihilists; on the side of speculation, pessimists. KEVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 49 atheists, agnostics. We see again and again, both in Europe and in America, reversions to barbarism, and to the worst kind of barbarism — barbarism equipped with the armour of civilization. It is idle to wonder how this can be, consistently with our ideas of the love and righteousness of God. In plain fact it is; and if it be inconsistent with our ideas, we must amend our theories. But seeing that these things are so, we might surely have expected that the progress of reve- lation would be slow ; and, at any rate, it is in exact accord with every part of the divine procedure with which we can possibly be acquainted. An instanta- neous and perfect revelation would have been little less than a reversal of the divine method in every other department of God's operations. But, on the side of man, it would have been impos- sible, unless the whole order of Nature had been actually reversed. Not even the Almighty, we may say with reverence, could teach the differential and integral calculus to a baby, without first performing a miracle upon the child, and giving him the strength and sub- tlety of an adult and well-trained intellect. "To be" and "not to be" is impossible even to thought. Mathematics, moreover, require only one particular set of faculties, and there have been many great mathe- maticians singularly deficient in historical, or poetic, or philosophical insight ; whereas etliics and religion demand the utmost effort and culture of the whole man. Hence, man and the course of his development being what they are, revelation must liave been gradual. And I have dwelt thus at length on this subject because I believe that the gradual progress of a divine revela- tion to mankind constitutes the chief difficulty which 50 REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. renders it hard for many thonghtful people to believe that it has ever been granted. I reminded you, in the sermons on the first two Sundays in Advent, that the revelation actually given to us was given through the lawgivers and prophets of Israel; was preserved in written records, and in social, political and ecclesiastical institutions ; was perfected in the Incarnation of tlie Son of God. But the time came when it was possible, and even necessary, that divine truth should be allowed to escape from merely national and local restraints. Greece had con- quered the world of thought. Rome had conquered the world of politics and action. One after another the nations of the earth had been subdued. Their religions had been either suppressed or sanctioned ; but it was plain that the legions which had overcome their armies had also vanquished their gods. Out of all these once independent peoples there had come that mighty empire which the New Testament writers call " the whole world." It was now necessary that reve- lation also should be at once universal and yet protected by institutions which should be not only definite and rigid, but at the same time adapted to "all sorts and conditions of men." The "world" of Eome required a universal religion and a Catholic Church. Thus the original promise to Abraham was truly fulfilled : " In thee and in thy Seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." God was revealed to us not only as the God of Israel, but as "our Father in heaven" — the Father not only of "publicans and sinners" among the Jews, but of schismatical and heretical Samaritans, of Eoman centurions, of those " other sheep " who did not belong to the Jewish fold. That great Apostle to REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 51 whom especially were intrusted the "keys of the Kingdom of Heaven," was compelled, almost against his will, to open the door and admit the whole Gentile world to the blessings of iiiith and salvation. Even to S. Paul this was the very mystery of God, that there were no longer any barriers or "middle walls of par- tition " between Israel and the outside world. They were all one in Christ. "In Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Greek, Barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all and in all." " I am debtor both to Greeks and Barbarians, both to the wise and to the foolish. So, as much as in me is, I am ready to preach the Gospel to you also that are in Eome." So, writing to the Colossians, he tells them of the great mystery that he had been commissioned to preach — namely, that Gentiles though they were, Christ was in them " the hope of glory " ; " whom," he goes on to say, in answer at once to Jews and Gnostics — "whom we proclaim admonishing every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus." * And as religion, with all its privileges, was now for all mankind, it was obvious that the Jewish regulations as to times and places of worship must be at once relaxed and finally superseded. Jerusalem might, indeed, though not without ever-increasing difficulty, be the one Holy Place for the inhabitants of Judaea and Galilee, but never for those whose home should *See the notes on this passage by Bishop Lightfoot : Colos- sians, pp. 235-37. The immense difficulty of realizing the universality of the Gospel — that it was intended for every man, and the whole of it for every man — may be partially understood by those who have carefully studied the discussions about ' ' work among the coloured people." 52 KEVELATION IN THE CHKISTIAN CHUKCH. be at Kome, or in Spain, or in the far-distant Britain. Similarly those minute regulations— many of which have in lapse of time become almost wholly unintelli- gible — as to clean and unclean meats and animals and the like ; regulations one of whose manifest objects was to keep the people of Israel separate from all others ; became positively mischievous when every Chris- tian man was to be, in his degree, the missionary of a universal religion to those whom Scribes and Pharisees would have deemed it a pollution to approach. Thus our Lord teaches the Samaritan woman that the hour was coming when no place could be honoured as " the place " where men were bound to worship God ; and we sometimes fail to notice that the bare fact that He taught anything to a woman of Samaria, much more that His teaching to her was far fuller than the truth He had yet declared even to His chosen disciples, was a marvellous anticipation of the universal religion. " The woman saith unto Him, Sir, I perceive that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this moun- tain ; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. Jesus saith unto her, Woman, believe Me, the hour cometh when neither in this mountain, nor in Jerusalem, shall ye worship the Father. Ye worship that which ye know not: we worship that which we know : for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for such doth the Father seek to be His worshippers. God is a Spirit : and they that worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth. The woman saith unto Him, I know that Messiah cometh (which is called Christ) : when He is come, He will declare REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 53 unto ns all things. Jesus saith unto her, I that speak unto thee am He." {Jolm iv. 19-26.) Similarly our Lord anticipates in His own emphatic teaching the later revelation to S. Peter, that God hath cleansed all things : "And He called to Him the multitude again, and said unto them, Hear Me, all of you, and understand : there is nothing from without the man that going into him can defile him : but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man. And when He was entered into the house from the multitude His disciples asked of Him the parable. And He saith unto them, Are ye so without understanding also ? Perceive ye not that whatsoever from without goeth into the man it cannot defile him, because it goeth not into his heart, but into his belly, and goeth out into the draught ? Tliis he said, making all meats clean.* And he said, That which proceedeth out of the man, that defileth the man. For from within, out of the heart of men, evil thoughts proceed, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, covet- in gs, wickednesses, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, railing, pride, foolishness : all these evil things proceed from within and defile the man." {Mark vii. 14-23.) * This rendering, of course, assumes the reading Kadapli^uv Tvdvra TO. fipuftara, for which the MS authority is overwhelming. See Tischendorf on this verse, Editio Octava Critica Major. But, even accepting the masculine participle, some, like Alford, still refer the " cleansing " not to Christ or to His teaching, but to the process of digestion. Alford says that the process here described is physically true : the impure part of the food is cast out, the pure assimilated. This explanation makes "un- clean food " mean simply, " indigestible food." But our Lord is contrasting what " goeth into the belly " with " what goeth ifito the heart." The rendering of the Revised Version seems required by every principle both of text, grammar and exegesis. 54 KEVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHUKCH. This indifference of what is merely outward was enforced upon S. Peter in a revelation which remark- ably illustrates the promise of Christ : " The Spirit shall guide you into all the truth, for He shall take of Mine and shew it unto you." And S. Paul insists upon the same truth even in what must have seemed to many so very serious a case as that of " meats offered to idols." There was no spiritual harm in such meat itself; nor in the fact that it had been offered to idols ; nor in the fact that he who purchased and ate it knew or strongly suspected that it had been so offered. But if the meat were eaten with the desire to participate in heathen licentiousness, or as an acknowledgment of the reality or power or authority of the idol, these desires or ieliefs would be what our Lord describes as "going into the heart." Eating meat offered to idols with such intentions or beliefs would, indeed, defile — not from any lack of a perfect process of digestion, but because the eating would be accompanied by evil thoughts which no possible process of physical digestion could in the least degree remove. When, then, "the fulness of the times" had come, and a Universal Eeligion had become possible, the protecting envelope of the old revelations was first stretched and then burst and destroyed. After the fall of Jerusalem it became physically impossible to obey the old law,. as we find it in the Old Testament Scriptures, which were accepted as of divine authority in the time of our Lord's personal ministry. No one could ofi'er sacrifice in the Temple when the Temple no longer existed; nor through the Aaronic priesthood when not a single descendant of Aaron could be cer- tainly identified. If the new revelation in Christ were REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 55 not the fulfilment of the old, then the old religion was forever and fatally arrested, and the mission of Israel had conspicuously failed. But when we speak of the religion of Christ as universal, we do not, of course, mean that it was at once, by a miraculous illumination, made known to every human being ; much less that it was accepted by all those to whom it was made known, and habitually used by all of them for the guidance of their lives. It was universal because it was adapted to all, needed by all, capable of redeeming and perfect- ing all. As a matter of plain history, nothing really valuable has yet been added to it ; nor does it contain anything which the world could afford to lose. But it was itself a part of the progressive and slowly-moving operations of the Almighty. As among the people of Israel the protection of institutions, of a cuUiis, of rites and ceremonies, of appointed ministers and instructors, was necessary to prevent the corruption and dissipa- tion of divine truth, so was a similar protection necessary for that new and perfect truth which was not to be made known to all mankind for many ages — which has not even yet been made known to more than a very small part of the whole human race. The new revelation had to be protected, like the old, partly by written records, which at a comparatively early period were produced, and which still remain for our learning and for the verification of all later teaching and "developments." But, as in the case of the old, the written records were, for immediate practical use, and for the enormous majority of those to whom the Gospel was preached, not less intrinsically valuable, but immeasurably less available than " the ministers of Christ" and "the mysteries of God." By living men 56 REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. and by permanent and visible institutions, the Gospel of Christ was both propagated and preserved. The Scriptures contained in the New Testament Canon are of such inestimable value that we can scarcely be surprised that they have sometimes been regarded with an affection that was almost irrationally jealous. They have done so much for us that many persons can with difficulty admit or even believe that they were not the sole agency both for the propagation and preservation of Christianity. They were also, in fact, far more available even for popular instruction than had been the earlier portions of the Sacred Books of the Hebrews ; they were far more widely studied and more carefully expounded. They appeared in a literary age, and very speedily produced a literature of their own. Neverthel ess, it is quite certain, as an historical fact, that they did not suffice, taken alone, either for the procla- mation or protection of the new and perfect revelation which was given to ns in the incarnation of the Eternal Word. We often forget that when we speak of "a literary age" we are thinking not only of a particular period of time, but of a particular nation or cluster of nations, or even of much narrower classes of human beings, who lived during that particular period. We ourselves are living in a literary age ; and so also are the natives of Tierra del Fuego, whom Mr. Darwin so graphically describes, and who came wander- ing about the Beagle in their pitiable filth and squalor. But we do not call these hideous and revolting cannibals literary simply because they are living in the nineteenth century. Nor should we call the negroes of the Southern States literary, nor Irish peasants, nor the ignorant multitudes Avhich swarm in REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, 57 the alleys and tenement-houses of our large cities. The Scriptures as Scriptures, that is to say as written documents which to be used must be read, are mani- festly of no immediate service whatever to those who cannot read. Yet the truths of the Gospel have been made known, and the precepts of the Gospel have been applied for the guidance of life, to countless myriads of human beings who could neither read nor write, both by the personal ministry of the Apostles, and by their successors, and by Christian missionaries in every age and country, and by parish priests and their assistants in our own day and in the very cities in which we are living. Everybody knows, of course, that churches had been founded and organized in all directions before a single book of our New Testament had, in its present form, been committed to writing. The Eternal Son of God, for the redemption of the world, left the bosom of the Father, " took upon Him our flesh and suffered death upon the Cross," was buried and rose again. His whole work had a direct relation to Almighty God, to the Divine Justice, to the majesty of God's law, and in its full meaning and mysterious necessity is far beyond the reach of the human faculties. But that work had also a direct relation to men ; and, on that side, it could produce its effect only by being known and kept in remem- brance and applied to the conduct of life. Enough is revealed to us of the relation of Christ's work to the Father to remove the horrible dread of our consciences, the haunting apprehension of hopeless alienation ; to assure us that, if we lose ourselves in Christ and come to God in Him, we shall certainly be accepted. But that part of His work which has a direct effect 58 REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. upon ourselves, which must be known in order to accomplish its purpose, is much more fully explained, because by its very nature it can come within our own experience, and is on the level of our intellectual and moral faculties. So7ne arrangement, then, had to be made for bringing this divine and blessed truth within the reach of all mankind ; and we may surely reverently assume that what Christ really did provide for this purpose was certainly far wiser and better than what He omitted to provide. And nobody will contend that our Lord commanded His Apostles first of all to 7urite a narrative of His life and teaching ; and then doctrinal treatises setting forth the primary inferences from that narrative ; and next to circulate these writings far and wide, and afterwards go about the world to explain them. That, most unquestionably, was 7iot His com- mission. It was this : " Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature ; he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved." And again : '' Ye shall receive power, when the Holy Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." He instituted Sacraments; "during forty days" He kept speaking to His Apostles con- cerning a "Kmgdom of God." And surely a Kingdom of God is something real, visible, organized ; with officers and laws ; and (being a Kingdom of God) with a ceremonial of worship. A kingdom in which everybody does what he likes is a con- tradiction in terms. A kingdom which has no ascer- tainable laws is a mere word to which no reality corres- ponds. And there were at least two signs of this King- dom of God instituted by Christ Himself, viz. Baptism REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 59 and the Holy Communion. Suppose somebody, after hearing S. Paul preach, had believed his message and confessed himself a disciple, and then had gone on to deliver himself in some such fashion as this: "Your teaching is profoundly spiritual, and I approve it; you state facts for which you furnish evidence that satisfies me ; I really wish to be identified with your work, and will help you as far as I can. But I can't go exactly so far as you do in what seem to me mere forms and cere- monies. I would rather not be baptized. I cannot see that any real good can come from the use, even the religious and symbolic use, of mere water. I am already a disciple by faith. And I don't care to be mixed up with your Church. Some of the members are very vulgar, some are not even good men. And you certainly yourself speak of the 'Communion of the Body of Christ' in a way that seems to me very likely to mislead thoughtless people. You must be aware that they may get the impression from your way of putting it that your simple little friendly supper has a kind of mystery about it ; that it corresponds somehow to a sacrifice in which the offerers and par- ticipants have communion with their Deity ; that the bread and wine have some kind of real and spiritual efficacy. I wish to be one of Christ's disciples, and I will be; but religion is of the heart, and so I will serve God in my own way, quietly and alone, and I doubt not He will receive and bless me. It is not the form I care for, but the substance." Now, if anybody had addressed S. Paul in this fashion, can we have the slightest atom of doubt how he would have been received ? People (if there could possibly have been such in those days) who, when they believed, refused 60 REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. to be baptized; who took jnst as miicli and just as little as they liked of the Apostles' " doctrine " ; who respectfully begged to be excused from the Apostles' " fellowship " ; who regarded " the breaking of bread " as tending dangerously to superstition; who said their "prayers" by themselves at their own homes — such people were most certainly not the material out of which the primitive Church was constructed. To attempt to construct any Church of such material, would be as wise as to attempt to build a cathedral by letting oxygen gas escape into the open air. We do not vividly realize this because we are, in these last days, so familiar with the exercise of self- will and independence in matters of religion ; with the great multitude and ever new creation of sects. We do faintly realize it sometimes in missionary work, both at home and abroad. And in fact the divisions of Christendom, though exceedingly injurious and always highly dangerous, are not as yet utterly fatal, because the Churcli, though with diminished power, does still exist and bear lier testimony to the world. But is it worth while to ask — even if by the mutual repulsion of gaseous atoms a Church could have been brought into existence — is it worth while to ask how, without a solid organization, an august hierarchy, a fixed creed, a solemn liturgy, the perpetual object- lessons (to say nothing of the divine grace) of Sacra- ments, the Church of Christ could have been preserved in the dissolution of the Koman Empire and the cre- ation of modern nations ? It may be irreverent to speculate upon what God could or could not have done for the protection of Christianity; what He actually did was to defend it by the organization and ecclesi- REVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 61 astical institutions of the Church, by the political genius of the Roman people, and by the supremacy of the Eoman See. It is hard, indeed, to find unmixed good in this world, either in Church or State. The strong power which saves may become a destructive despotism. But however thankful we may be for the Protestant Reformation, and however satisfied witli its results, we cannot reverse the facts of history ; and it is an indisputable fact of history that Christendom was saved by the See of Rome. The perfect revelation of divine truth in the Incar- nate AVord has, like all earlier revelations, to make its way slowly into the hearts and conduct of men. It must be woven into their lives ; it must determine their habits ; it must present itself even to their senses ; it must be so summarized that it can be learned by heart ; it must, as a "perfect law of liberty," be embodied in precepts ; it must meet men at every turning of their lives, giving them feasts and fasts ; it must have its appointed ministers, and solemn and, it may be, even gorgeous rites. Men are what they are, not what we should like them to be. They do not, all the world over, read books, carry on elaborate trains of argument, steer clear of the Scylla of irreverence and the Charybdis of superstition. They have not only their individual, but their national temperament. There are tens of thousands of simple people to whom a road- side crucifix would teach more theology than all the works of S. Augustine or Hooker. The altar and the Eucharist have done more to keep alive the belief in a real propitiatory Sacrifice on the Cross on Calvary, and a perpetual intercession on our behalf in heaven, than all the sermons that have ever been preaclied. That 62 KEVELATION IN THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. we need a higher life than we derive from our earthly parents, that God will give us this life, that He loves and cares for every one of us, and that His love is the cause and not the effect of ours, has been taught more effectually by the Sacrament of Baptism than by whole libraries of systematic divinity. And whenever religion, even the Christian religion, has been deprived of the shelter of institutions, a cultus, a hierarchy, creeds, Sacraments, ritual, it has been more or less dissipated. As a matter of plain fact, those who minimize Christian doctrine are more afraid of what they call " externals " than of all the arguments in the world. Therefore, at once for the propagation, the preserva- tion, the application to all varying human conditions, of the revelation of the Son of God, we have an organized Church, a Kingdom of Heaven ; " ministers of Christ," "stewards of God's mysteries," writing, ruling, teaching — bringing divine truth "home" to every child of man. The Church, because she is ever the same, can be ever variable; because she is "the pillar and ground of the truth," she can " be all things to all men." EEVELATION AS AN AUTHORITATIVE GUID- ANCE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE.* I am a stranger in the earth: hide not Tlty commandments from me. — Psalm cxix. 19. It may be well, in a few brief sentences, to recapitu- late the substance of what I have been trying to say to you during the first three Sundays in Advent. I explained to yon, as well as I was able, what I believe revelation to be. It is not the result of the ordinary processes of the human understanding in pursuit of truth. An industrious schoolboy, learning lesson after lesson, becomes at last a consummate mathematician or a classical scholar; but it would be an absurd abuse of language to affirm that his knowledge of mathe- matics or of Greek grammar and literature had come to him by revelation. Plato's Eepublic, Aristotle's Ethics, Paley's Moral Philosophy, J. S. Mill's Logic, are highly valuable contributions to human knowledge in very different ways and very different degrees ; but they are the result of patient inquiry, severe thought, knowledge of affairs, and the like. Eevelation is a direct communication from God to the spirit of a man, of truth which, then and there, he could not otherwise have known; and of rules of life which, then and there, he could not otherwise have discovered. That God is able to make such a communication to men is involved in His very nature and infinite perfection. * Preached on the fourth Sunday in AdA'ent, 1885. 64 REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. And when we remember that the highest even of the divine attributes is infinite love, we are compelled to admit not only the possibility of receiving, but the high reasonableness of expecting, such special revela- tions as may best promote that happiness and goodness which can only come to us by knowing and communing with God. And as a matter of fact these revelations have been received by chosen instruments of the Divine Will ; and they have " been written for our learning " to the end of time. They have been stored up in outward institutions, in forms of common worship, in significant rites. Since the Incarnation of the Son of God, the perfect Prophet, the Very Truth, they have been preserved and protected and propagated by the same method ; we find them in the simple and sublime narratives of the four Evangelists, in the Apostolic Epistles, in the Christian Church — with its Sacraments, its hierarchy, its liturgy and ritual, its common prayer and praise. This morning we will consider revelation as the divine provision for the authoritative and unerring guidance of our individual lives. What it is, and where it is, are questions of the utmost possible importance, and in the order of logic they must be answered first of all. But when we have arrived at that answer we are instantly confronted, not with a theory, but with a paramount obligation. The revealed will of God, when we have discovered it, must be the central fact in the conduct of our lives. What He affirms we must unhesitatingly believe. What He commands we must unhesitatingly do. The truth may be mysterious, the demands may be exacting ; but to faitli and obedience there is no possible moral alter- REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 65 native. This is, of course, involved in everything that I have been saying, but it deserves and demands a separate and careful consideration. The revelations granted to Israel through the prophets were intended for a nation ; the revelation in Jesus Christ was for a Church and for the Avhole human race. And undoubtedly a nation, a Church, a race, is much more than the individuals of which it is composed. It would be possible, by skilful analysis, to reduce a human body to its simplest chemical elements ; and the oxygen and hydrogen, the carbon and lime, and iron and phosphorus, and all the rest, might be set side by side in suitable vessels with both quantitative and qualitative exactness. 'But the contents of the row of jars or bottles would bear no resemblance to the living man from whose body they had been derived. The ele- ments, the constituents, are there; what is lacking is an organism — combination, mutual dependence, a definite purpose, a perfect adaptation. But though all the parts are not necessarily a whole, a whole cannot possibly exist without the parts. "Hear, Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord," was addressed to the whole people ; it was at once the foundation of their religion and of their national life. But it was also addressed to each individual Israelite. Indeed, society, whether civil or ecclesiastical, is ordained of God for the very purpose, it would seem, of securing individual perfec- tion — the perfection both of happiness and of goodness. It is a divine ordinance, not an artificial structure. We cannot choose whether or not we shall have parents ; members of some family we imist be. Nay, we must have been born within the territory and subject to the laws of some sovereign power. But society is not an 66 REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. end ill itself; nor is it possible even to conceive of a prosperous State in which every separate citizen should be miserable and degraded. On the other hand, a human being with hungry affections, with the faculty of speech, with unresting curiosity and an insatiable thirst for knowledge, can never attain the greatness either of joy or power of which his nature is capable, without communion with his kind. The revealed will of God, therefore, like the ordinary precepts of morality, assumes that domestic, social, civil, political life which, in truth, is not a work of art, but a law of nature. Still, it is one of the most conspicuous characteristics of the supernatural revelation of Avhich we have the record in the Sacred Scriptures, that it brings each one of us, sej)arately, face to face with God. " Thou God seest me." " How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God ?" " And God called again : Samuel, Samuel; and Samuel answered, Here am I." " What doest thou here, Elijah ?" " Hast thou found me, mine enemy ?" " So then every one of us must give account of himself to God." It is thus that the divine revelation meets us. We are members of a family ; citizens of a State ; scarcely distinguishable in a vast crowd : the din of the world drowns our voice, and renders the voices of those around us inarticulate. But there is 07ie Voice never inarticulate, one Eye never dim-sighted, one Power which we can never elude. The two ultimate facts for us, as a divine revelation forces itself upon our recognition, are these — God and ourselves. In fact, such a revelation answers, or anticipates, the prayer. " I am a stranger in the earth : hide not Thy commandments from mc." What an unfathomable depth of meaning there is in KEVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 67 these few words ! They are not a definition of dogma, they are a prayer. But (to take one side only of wliat they contain) they set before us the whole necessity, reasonableness, conditions, " philosophy," of revelation. " /am a stranger." Here we come to " the abysmal deeps of personality," and to that unfathomable mystery of a human spirit at once created and creative, dependent and free, a part of Nature and having dominion over it. " A stranger in the earthJ" Here is the arena of human conflict, the sphere of human duty, the tools and the materials of human work. " Hide not Thy command- ments from me." Here is the consciousness of God, the realization of His love, the deep conviction that we need His guidance, the unfaltering confidence that we shall not ask for it in vain. " Hide not Thy coiiwiand- ments from me." Here is the acknowledgment that what we need is not advice, but government; not a theory, but a law ; not the satisfaction of our curiosity, but the guidance of our lives ; not philosophy, but authority. What a solemn pathos is in these words : " I -am a stranger in the earth "! Alas ! one poor, forlorn soul in so bewildering a labyrinth! One scarcely knows on which side the danger is the greatest — whether on the side of beauty or deformity, law or disorder. " Love not the world," the Kosmos, the orderly arrangement of the universe, its ravishing beauty, its majestic sublimity, its unchanging monotony, its endless variety. But how can we help loving it? Did not the Eternal Himself, as He looked down upon it fresh from His creating hands, say of it, " It is very good" ? It is not, indeed, our home: we are conscious of a divine origin and a heavenly destiny. But it is the place of our sojourning, and so unutterably fair. 68 REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. Earth fills her lap with pleasures of her own ; Yearnings she hath in her own natural kind, And even with something of a mother's mind, And no unworthy aim, The homely nurse doth all she can To make her foster-child, her inmate Man, Forget the glories he hath known, And that imperial palace whence he came.* "The world" not only hides God from us, but the concealing veil is so beautifully painted we cannot bring ourselves to believe that there is anything more beautiful behind. What can we need more than all this wealth of beauty and life? Every bodily sense is satisfied. Our intellectual curiosity is delighted by ever-new surprises. Microscope and telescope are for- ever revealing to us new worlds. There is a stable order among whose interspaces we move with a deli- cious and exhilarating freedom. The wonders are inexhaustible; our hearts are too full for utterance; it is a bliss to be alone. The fragrance of the flowers, the songs of birds, " the washing of the eternal seas," the roar of the thunder, the howling of the storm ; the all but infinite variations, combinations, modulations, contrasts in the music of life— can there be anything better and more satisfying ? But soon we become weary of tlie loneliness of our rapture. There is something within us that refuses to be solitary ; and as we wander through the world we find that we are not alone. The v/orld is crowded with human inhabitants; we meet them, converse with them, love them, hate them ; are helped or thwarted by them. We find that we can mould their lives, and they ours. Winged words pass to and fro from each to * Wordsworth, REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 69 the other. New thoughts and desires arise in our hearts. We are fired with a noble ambition ; we are drugged into a degrading lethargy ; we are stimulated to a hero- ism of virtue ; we are allured into the deceitful pleasures of sin and shame. Yet amid the multitude of our fellows we are " strangers " still. We thoroughly know but the mere surface of each other's lives. And then we separate, never, perhaps, to meet again. In some quiet hour we recall our past years, and out of the mists of forgetfulness we see gazing wistfully upon us the faces of those with whom we were once familiar, but who are now far beyond our reach. Seas and oceans now divide us, or perhaps the dark, mysterious river of Death. We try to live over again in vivid memory "the days o' lang syne." What ghastly recollections haunt our souls ! Ah yes ! What face is that turned so wistfully towards us in the dim light ? Whose are those yearning, mournful, beseeching eyes ? They are the face and eyes of a friend of our eager, passionate, undisciplined youth. What merry days and nights we spent together ! what laughter and song ! what « wine and women " ! what " pleasant vices" ! Where is he now, and what has he come to be ? Alas ! it was through us that he is " lost to life and use and name and fame." And we can never undo the wrong. What can have possessed us to play so recklessly with any- thing so subtle, so complex, so exquisitely delicate as a human life? And we are forever clashing together, not knowing what we do. Fools that we are, we think ourselves wise enough to direct our own goings, and to determine with accuracy the resultant of the innumer- able forces, moving in every direction, which every moment we must encounter. TO REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. " She remembers no more the anguish for joy that a man is born into the workl." But were we really to be left to our own guidance, the anguish that the child was born would be far more intolerable than any anguish of travail. Even the heathen poet could thank God for the darkness in which He veils the future.* If there were no divine Pilot, how fiendish would be the cruelty of setting this little life adrift upon the mighty ocean of time and chance, with its strong currents, its hidden rocks, its terrific storms, its scarcely less fatal calms! The mother, with an in- stinctive faith that all will be well, folds her baby to her bosom, nourishes him with her own life, forgets that he is a mere " stranger" in a labyrinthine world. But alas ! what woes and perils await him! Who shall protect him from *' the terror by night," from " the arrow that fiieth by day," from *' the pestilence that walketh in darkness," from "the destruction that wasteth at noonday"? Who shall assure him that, passing safely through all the diseases of childhood, he shall have a " sound body " as the home and instrument of " a sound mind " ? Chiefly, who shall assure him of a sound mind ? How shall he be trained and educated? By his mother, so as to be saved tempta- tion and rough contact with those who might lead him astray? Alas! a woman cannot train a inan. She will mistake effeminacy for purity, innocence for virtue. No, he must go out into the world. At school he will meet rough, coarse boys who will soon initiate him into the mysteries of sin, and prepare him for graduation in the University of Vice. He may fare * Prudens futuri temporis exiLum Caliginosa nocte premit deus. — Horace, Od. III. 29. EEVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 71 worse still at college. And when he gets fairly into "the world" and begins real "life" for himself, the dangers will thicken on every hand. Do we not read the newspapers every day ? And what is their record of passing events ? Murder, suicide, adultery, embez- zlement, bribery, corruption, bankruptcy. True, these are crimes; they are held up to public execration. But they are made sensational ; they are so skilfully recorded that they become a kind of comic literature. The keen edge of moral reprobation is blunted, and "fools make a mock of sin." This is the "world" into which "the child is born." Well may each of us say : " I am a stranger in the earth " ! But now, as I have reminded you already, there is given to each one of us a primary revelation of God in conscience. We are aware of a Presence from which we can never escape, of a Judge to whom we are accountable. Life, therefore, at first sight, is more terrible than ever. In this labyrinth of the world we may indeed — nay, it seems as if we must — lose our way, but we shall be punished if we do. We get entangled in a web of temptations, but we are none the less responsible. We follow " the devices and desires of our own hearts," but we cannot be satisfied with our own wilful abuse of freedom: we are consumed with remorse. God is within us : He seems also to be everywhere. We hnoiu Him, but all Nature and all events suggest Him, and remind us of His immanence and rule. Whence comes the order of the universe, its infinite adaptations, its clear purpose? Why is it that sin is fast bound to sufiering ? We are ourselves continually forming resolves and plans and executing them. Our own loill makes us familiar with power. 72 REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. Our own conscience justifies the severe punishments which are continually inflicted upon evil-doers. When we reflect upon our own mental operations, our own clear distinction of right from wrong, we cannot help believing that truth and righteousness are at the foundation of the order of the universe. And this conviction is strengthened by discovering that thoughts similar to our own are continually arising in the minds of other men. Not only have even the most degraded and uncivilized some confident belief in a supreme power to which they must needs submit, but in pro- portion to the culture and intellectual development and widened experience of men has this confidence been strengthened and purified. The primary revela- tion in conscience is verified at every turn by innumer- able and ever-varying observations and experiments. In proportion as we rise towards the utmost dignity and power of which our nature is capable do we find God everywhere, immanent in the world which He created, and calling us to judgment for every one of our deeds and words and thoughts, for our neglects and omissions. Here, then, are loe, with all the mystery of a human personality ; endowed with reason, will and conscience ; in a world whose vastness and minuteness equally baffle us ; surrounded by sentient creatures, on which we can inflict and from which we can suffer pain; continually coming into contact with human beings like ourselves, whose wills defy anticipation, whom we can bless or curse, and who in their turn can ennoble or brutalize ourselves. So ignorant are we, that our best intentions are no guarantee that we shall do the thinsrs that we would. What we meant for a caress is REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 73 a stunning blow ; we intend to give pleasure, and we produce excruciating agony. It seems as if we can grow wise only on condition of endless experiments of folly ; as if Ave can grow good only on condition of endless experiments of evil. Alas ! this even is not the worst. We find in our- selves a mystery of iniquity. " There is a law in our members warring against the law of our minds and bringing us into subjection." It is the noblest dis- tinction of our human nature that, when we will, we can distinguish with unerring certainty good from evil, right from wrong. But we have an almost infinite power of self-deception. Our " heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." We "call evil good and good evil ; put darkness for light and light for darkness ; bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." We cannot explain it, but there seems to be something in us tainted, corrupt, fallen, all but utterly and hope- lessly ruined ; and our own consciousness and expe- rience are repeated in every human being we meet. We seem cursed with a horrible affinity for what we loathe and despise; we are irresistibly attracted by what is inwardly repulsive. We seem to shelter in our own mysterious nature every brute lust and passion : the subtlety of the serpent, the ferocity of the tiger, the sensuality which in the lower animals is a harmless and necessary instinct, but which in us is the most comprehensive of all degradations. We seem more foolish than the beasts that perish, for they know what they want and they pursue it, and we do not. We lavish the all but divine wealth of our affections upon worthless objects; with the utmost eagerness we pur- sue shadows; with incredible recklessness we fling 74 REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. away the permanent blessedness of life. Truly "we are strangers in the earth," and we ourselves are stranger than the inexplicable world. Nevertheless, in spite of the discords of our own nature and the intricacies of the world, become what we may, go where we will, we carry God within us, we find Him everywhere around us : making Himself known to us in the primary, irresistible, ineradicable revelation of conscience, verifying that primary revelation by the multitudinous experiences of life. We may "climb up" into the "heaven" of mystic communion, of high and noble resolves ; we may "go down" into the "hell" of corruption and folly and vice. But " if we climb up into heaven He is there ; if we go down to hell He is there also." Fly- ing on " the wings of the morning," Ave cannot get beyond Him ; in the densest darkness of our doubt, or even our despair. He abides unchanged and unchange- able. We may be " strangers," but He is everywhere at home ; and being at home, utterly knowing us and knowing the Avorld, if He will He most assuredly is able to guide us. And so there has ever ascended to the Eternal the cry, articulate or even inarticulate, with much or little comprehension of its full meaning^ the bleating of the lost sheep for the Shepherd, the cry of the lost child for his Father : — " We are strangers in the earth : hide 7iot Thy commandments fro^n us." But let us carefully consider what this prayer means. What is that perplexity which wrings it from our hearts ? Is it simply that we cannot understand the world — in the sense in which a chemist may be baffled in the analysis of a very complex substance of exceed- ingly unstable equilibrium ? Do we want a science of KEVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 75 Nature, an accurate psychology, a well-arranged cata- logue of successive phenomena? Is it, in a word, any form of knoiuledge which would satisfy us ? On the other hand, ignorance has its delights. It is the source of curiosity and wonder. The hunt seems often more satisfying than the game. If we were only contem- plative and intellectual beings, complete knowledge would be a kind of Nirvana, at once perfection and annihilation. Even as it is, the wealth of our knowledge sometimes embarrasses us : if we knew less we could do more. Much oftener our knowledge is the direct source of our misery and confusion: if we had known less we should have been less guilty. No doubt we want a map and chart of life ; but maps and charts are not merely pretty drawings, and nobody would ever construct them as mere works of art. They are for the traveller and the seaman, not for the connoisseur. They are for use, not merely for admiration. They are for people who desire, by the safest and nearest way, to reach a definite goal ; not for people rambling about the world in search of beauty, and careless where they land and how long they stay, if only they may gratify their aesthetic instincts. What we want, when in our deepest need we cry to God — that deepest need which always compels us to be sincere — is not information, but law ; not theories, but commandments. But here again we are confronted with the contradic- tions of our nature. The abundance of our revelations bewilders us ; we forget why we desired them. Having received the answer to our questions, we cannot realize that all further questioning must be superseded. We wanted a guide ; but when He comes to us we begin to require Him to satisfy us that He knows the way 76 REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. which our desperate ignorance compelled us to ask from Him, We will be both learners and teachers, feeble and omnipotent, "strangers" and at home. Freedom, we say, is our birthright; moreover, it is at the very core of our religion, which must be a "reasonable service," a "law of liberty." We must be won, not driven ; we must surrender our hearts and not our behaviour. And, indeed, liberty is a necessary condition of all religion and morals. Our wills are ours, we know not how ; Our wills are ours to make them Thine. But liberty is not an end in itself, nor does it teach us its own uses or limits. Nevertheless, those uses and limits it is by no means difficult to discover. " Give me the liberty," says John Milton, " to know, to utter and to argue freely above all liberties." " To know " — that is, to arrive at some positive and ultimate truth. "To utter" — that is, to impart what we have ascer- tained to be true to other people. " To argue " — that is, to clear our minds from the errors of first impressions. But when we really have come to know some particular truth, we have, so far as that particular truth is con- cerned, exhausted the uses of our liberty. There is nothing more, in that direction, to be done. Liberty to know is not the same thing as liberty to forget, or liberty to deny, or liberty to corrupt. After knowledge come feeling, purpose, resolve, action; but a truth once accur- ately known is itself unalterable. Further inquiry is sii perlluous ; and restless curiosity and corrosive criticism will only deprive us of the benefits of the knowledge of that truth which we have with difficulty discovered REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE, 77 or which may have been supernaturally imparted to us. In the sense that nobody can prevent us, we are free to deny the multiplication table, or that the three angles of a triangle are together equal to two right angles ; but he who should so use his liberty would be regarded not as a splendid and daring genius, but as a hopeless lunatic. And surely it would be equally foolish and irrational to obtain from God Himself minute direc- tions for the guidance of our lives, and forthwith to begin to criticise them and to correct them, and to set them aside. Of course it will be rightly objected that the law of God which He has been pleased to reveal to us, and the revelation of which has been preserved for us in the Sacred Scriptures and in the various institutions of the Church, is by no means so simple as the deduc- tions of geometry or algebra. When these are clearly understood by a sane mind, it is simply impossible even to doubt them. Especially the terms employed are strictly defined, and are always used in the same sense. If we would understand the relative com- plexity of mathematical and ethical science, we may compare the definitions of a circle, a triangle, a square, with the definitions of a man, virtue, wisdom, duty. Moreover, a continuous series of revelations, of which the later not only imply but partially supersede the earlier, can be understood only after patient and reverent investigation, and will ofier problems for our solution of the utmost complexity and delicacy. The restless curiosity of the human intellect, closely con- nected as it is with the exacting demands of the human conscience, is a most precious gift of God without which we might easily mistake a small part for the 78 KEVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. whole, and rest contented at once with imperfect knowledge and rudimentary or fragmentary virtue. The whole domain of truth is so vast that we should never have strength or courage even to attempt its conquest but for that insatiable longing, that eager, passionate desire which God has made a part of our nature. In addition to all that we have discovered, in addition to all that God has revealed, there are still boundless realms of truth from whose nearest frontiers we are separated by an almost illimitable distance. After every new attainment, after every largest victory, there is still the divine promise : The Holy Spirit of God " shall shew you things to cQme,^' Nevertheless, though progress be, in its very nature, a perpetual motion onwards, it also involves — in spite of the verbal paradox — innumerable intervals of rest. The swiftest runner must, at least for an instant, plant his foot firmly on some particular spot. Every lever must have its fulcrum, and though our ambition may be to " move the world," we must have a " where to stand." We shall never secure the whole if we allow each part to escape us as soon as we have made it our own. The whole series of divine revelations, in their variety and their unity, will aflFord ample scope for incessant inquiry ; but each truth, as soon as we have ascertained it, must be put to practical use, not to a new analysis. It is this that we so habitually forget. We are "strangers in the earth," and we cry for guidance, for authority, for " commandments." But when we have received them we treat them not as solutions of our diflBculty, but as new problems. We regard them not as a clue to the labyrinth of life, but as new windings. REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 79 When, therefore, I remind yon that a revelation is final, that it leaves ns no room for specnlation or correction, but must be followed at once by exact obedience, I by no means imply that you have exhaust- ively studied and perfectly understood the whole series of divine revelations. I am very far from asserting that they will not even introduce you to new mysteries, which will be at once the objects of your faith and the satisfaction and provocation of your intellects. But I would urge upon your consideration that as, piece by piece, you do comprehend or apprehend the meaning of these revelations, they must, for all practical pur- poses, be final and conclusive. If you ask Almighty God to teach you, you must be willing to learn : when He tells you what to do, there is no possible moral alternative but forthwith to do it. What, for instance, do we mean by religion? On the theoretical or dogmatic side it consists of certain trutlis and facts; on the practical side it consists of certain precepts, principles, laws, which are intended for the guidance of our lives in our relations to God ; and in our relations to each other so fiir as those rela- tions arise out of, or are dependent upon, our relations to God. And by the Christian religion we mean those truths which are revealed to us in Christ, and those practical directions which are contained or implied in what Christ has said and done, and in what He Him- self is. In the Sacred Scriptures of the New Testa- ment we have four narratives of the life of our Blessed Lord on earth, Avith the record of very much of His teaching: from the comparative simplicity of the Sermon on the Mount to the profound mysteries of His last discourses immediately before the Passion. 80 EEVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. The Four Gospels are the very central and essential part of the New Testament ; their truth is implied in every Epistle, and in those Apostolic labours a part of which are reported in the Acts of the AjMstles. If we reject the Four Gospels, we have rejected the Christian religion altogether. " They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him." And the Four Gospels, notwithstanding their natural and highly instructive variations, are perfectly harmonious. In each of them are set forth the perfect humanity and the divine glory of our Saviour Christ. They all record miracles as well as discourses. There is no reason for rejecting one of them which would not be conclusive for rejecting them all; there is no reason for rejecting any part of one which would not be equally conclusive for rejecting the whole of that one. There are in the existing manuscripts of the Four Gospels thousands of " various readings," the enormous majority of which are doctrinally insignificant; but what might be called the minimum text leaves the narrative of our Lord's life and teaching substantially unaltered. If, then, we accept these Gospels as his- torically veracious, we must regard our Blessed Lord as the Eternal Son of God, "made flesh" for the world's redemption, the absolute Master and infallible Teacher of every human spirit. From His judgment there is no possibility of appeal. His teaching is the perfect answer to the prayer, wrung from us by the hard necessities of our lives, "We are strangers in the earth : hide not Thy commandments from us." I want you carefully to consider, then, that it is not only profane but irrational to subject our Lord's teaching to further criticism. The Sacred Boohs of the East we REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 81 may criticise ; they are confessedly — at the very best, and in their very best parts — the records of the speculations, the needs, the longings of a remote antiquity; of men of exceptional intellectual power, of great reformers, or philanthropists, or theosophists, or mystics. But they have no autliority. To accept them as a divine rule of life would be utterly absurd — far too absurd for our eclectic theologians. But, when we come to the Four Gospels, Christ is everything or nothing ; the Son of God or a bad man ; the worker of miracles or an impostor ; above our highest homage or beneath our contempt. When we recognize Him as our Teacher and Lord, He declares to us mysteries far beyond our comprehension: He gives us laws and principles so exacting that not a thought, a word, a deed, can possibly escape them. But He leaves us no moral alternative but to believe and obey Him. To accept His Sermon on the Mount and reject His last discourses; to accept the parables and reject the miracles ; to accept Him as " the perfect blossoming of humanity " and reject Him as " God of God, Light of Light, Very God of Very God " — this is not a true development of Christian truth, it is mere stupidity. Apart from the fact that men are habitually illogical, it would be odious hypocrisy or detestable lying. The New Testament, then — and especially the Four Gospels— contains the record of a revelation, or series of revelations, which is intended, not to amuse us, nor instruct us, nor furnish material for speculation and criticism, but to command us, to rule us, to guide our lives in every particular. What is left for us to do after receiving this revelation is, not to criticise and amend and interpolate and expurgate, but to under- 82 REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. stand and apply. Only too large a part of onr modern preaching is the reductio ad absurdum of the very idea of revelation. It implies that in a general way, by ordinary processes, God has allowed ns to attain to truth ; but that this " truth " may, after all, very likely be false, and that liberty to disbelieve it is as essential to our religion as readiness to obey it. Surely a revelation of this kind would be only a bitter irony, only a round- about and cruel way of '^hiding" God's "command- ments f7'om us." The revelation of God in Christ — what has been revealed to us of the Person, and divine glory, and abso - lute Lordship of Christ — is the very centre of the Chris - tian religion. Take this away and there is really noth - ing specifically Christian left to us. "The Christ," as a competitor with "the Buddha" for the reverence of mankind, may be good or bad, wise or foolish, but He is not the Christ of the New Testament. He is not in any sense the Christ of history. He is a modern mosaic ; not a Creator, but a creature ; not even the creature of any one Divine Hand, but the resultant of innumerable unreasoning forces — where, whence, when, whither, no human ingenuity can divine. An artificial compound, produced by the skill or hopefulness of modern theo- logical chemistry, and of such excessively unstable equilibrium, can hardly be employed in building up a structure of permanent human life. But if whole sects, and prominent individual teachers, " play fast and loose " with the Person of our Lord — regarding Him as human when they want to modify His teaching, and as " divine" when they need Him to guarantee theirs — we need not wonder that they are much more at ease in dealing with the Church which is REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. 83 His body. If He be indeed the very Lord of men ; if He founded a Church on certain principles, with a definite organization, with a Creed, and ministers, and mysteries, then His Church has for her special needs His own power. Her laws are His laws. She admin- isters a divine authority, and, even in matters " indif- ferent " in themselves, must overrule individual caprice or idleness. And this is what nearly all of us habitu- ally forget. It is not necessary, here and now, to enter upon any elaborate argument to prove that the Church of which we are members is a part of the true Church of Christ. This we have already proved or at least assumed. Even if we are mistaken, obedience is the safest road to a better knowledge. If we be thoroughly sincere we may still be in error ; we may be " otherwise minded" than fuller light would justify. But what we do not yet know " God will reveal unto us," if only "we walk by the same rule" of devout submission which has led us thus far towards the goal. But what possible sense or reasonableness can there be in con- necting ourselves with the Christian Church and then acting as if we were wholly independent? There might be a grim and awful consistency in rejecting Christianity altogether ; or in determining to be alto- gether outside the Church. But if once we enter the Church we have no moral alternative but to take part in her worship, to receive her sacraments, to submit to her hierarchy, to carry out to the utmost her intentions. It is no longer for us an open question whether or not we shall keep Feasts and Fasts ; whether we shall " go to Church " on Sundays, and whenever else our honest business will allow. To minimize our Church duties is not indeed so dangerous, but is perhaps even more 84: REVELATION THE GUIDE OF INDIVIDUAL LIFE. irrational, because more inconsistent, than wholly to repudiate them. The provision which the Church has made, by the authority of Christ and under the guid- ance of the Holy Ghost, for our spiritual necessities, is a whole : of which the parts are in accurate and beau- tiful proportion. We are bound, therefore, without further option or alternative, not only to join in the common prayer and praise, but also " to hear sermons "; not only to hear sermons, but to partake, as often as we may be able, of the " Holy Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ." We are not only to " mortify," during Lent, all our " evil and corrupt affections," but to rejoice at Easter with that exceeding joy with which "the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord." We are not only on Sundays to accom- pany our Lord Himself through the scenes of His earthly ministry, but to thank Him on Saints' Days for the inestimable benefits which He has graciously bestowed upon us in His holy Apostles and martyred Saints, and in the mysterious and blessed ministrations of His holy Angels. Let us, then, remember, my dear brethren, that, wellnigh overwhelmed by the dangers and uncertainties of life, we cried to God, not for mere information and advice, but for law and authority. He has mercifully answered our prayer. Through the lawgivers and prophets of Israel, in the Incarnate Word, in the visible Church, He has given us " commandments." Let us see to it that promptly, always, and unfalteringly we perfectly obey them. THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. I thank God that I baptized none of you, save Crispus and Gains : lest any man should say that ye were baptized into my name. And I baptized also the hoibsehold of Stephanas : besides, I know not whether I baptized any other. For Christ sent me not to baptize, bxd to preach the Gospel : not in wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made void, — I Cobin- THUNS i. 14-17. The words which I have just read to you — as you cannot have failed to perceive — possess a double interest, a twofold value. They express, in the most emphatic terms, both positively and negatively, what S. Paul believed his work as an Apostle to be. It loas "to preach the Gospel," and it ivas not " to baptize." But, in addition to this, they throw a very bright light upon the nature of the Holy Scriptures : they reveal to us the mode in which the epistles were written ; they help us to understand that intellectual and spiritual power or aptitude, whether natural or supernatural, to which we commonly give the name of " inspiration." It is of course conceivable that S. Paul's letter to the Corinthians — which we may here regard as a type or specimen of all " Scripture given by inspiration of God " — might have been written at the literal dictation of the Almighty ; just as the Apostle himself dictated his letters to Tertius or some other amanuensis. In that case every sentence and word in the letter would have been literally " the word of God." He would have been directly responsible for the slip of memory 86 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. as to the number of Corinthians whom S. Paul had baptized, and for the assertion that certain counsels were not from "the Lord." Every departure from ordinary syntax or orthography would have been, if not an error — which the hypothesis would exclude — then a divine revelation of the true rules of grammar or of the structure of language. What seem now to be the expressions of S. Paul's own feelings of anxiety or alarm or affection, must have received a non-natural interpretation, as affirming not what S. Paul said he felt, but what Clod knew that he might have said that he felt. Indeed, the epistle would have been, as to many of its most characteristic passages, a divine work of fiction or of dramatic skill, like the book Wisdom, which is attributed to Solomon, or the various speeches in Thucydides or Livy. For, obviously, for the merely manual writing of any book whatever, no "inspiration" of the amanuensis would be necessary — nothing but a knowledge of the art of writing. He might be a good man or a bad, believing what he wrote or disbelieving it. His own feelings and character would be entirely irrelevant, and Avhat he wrote from dictation would bear no trace of his literary style. For the direct imitation of the style of the mnanuensis by the divine Author would have been so certain to deceive, while wholly unnecessary for the purpose of conveying the divine revelation, that we may safely regard it as an impossible hypothesis. Nay, if it were possible for the Almighty to dispense with the intellect, the character, the experience of His amanuensis, it would have been equally possible to dispense with his fingers. It would have been as easy to produce parchment by direct miracle, as to produce the skin of an animal ; and THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 87 intelligible marks, such as the letters of an alphabet arranged in the words of a known language, as the forms and colours of the petals of flowers and the wings of birds. But all such speculation is at once idle and unnecessary. God might have produced a Bible in either of the modes suggested above, but certainly it would not have been such a Bible as we actually possess. Moreover, in this First Ejjistle to the Oorinthians we have not only a very important part of the Sacred Scripture, but we can see it in tlie making. Here is S. Paul actually writing it, and in such a manner that we are able to understand not only the outside, but even the inside, of the process of its construction. The Apostle has received a letter from the Corinthian Church, just as a modern rector on a visit to Europe might receive a letter from the parishioners he had left behind; also, he had received a good deal of news about them, of a very mixed character, from certain persons to whom he refers as "them which are of the household of Chloe." So he sets himself to answer their letter, and also to give them counsel and warning arising out of the information he had received about them from the Chloe people. He does not write a treatise On the Unity of the Church, or On the Dress of Women, or On the Peril of Idolatry, or On Marriage, or On the Holy Eucharist. We have well-known treatises on all these subjects, in the writings of the Fathers and the Boohs of Homilies, and elsewhere. But nothing can be more unlike such treatises than S. Paul's Letter to the Corinthians. It is a real letter, to real people, answering a real letter, dealing with real circumstances, expressing real feelings. And it is full of S. Paul. His very style is as un- 88 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. mistalcable as the style of Shakespeare, or Macanlay, or Carlyle. But here we have the whole man — his moral earnestness, his almost womanly tenderness, his grasp of great principles, his skill and tact in their applica- tion to the minutest details of conduct, his lofty inde- pendence, his yearning for sympathy and love, his childlike simplicity and humility. Indeed, this letter is itself the source of by far the largest part of all that we know of the Apostle's character. If he did not write this epistle, we cannot be sure that he wrote anything at all, we cannot know for certain what manner of man he was. And, manifestly, whatever his " inspiration " may have been, it is perfectly certain that it in no degree superseded or overpowered his own individu- ality. Now, how does S. Paul set about his task of writing this letter ? Does he first of all claim to be inspired, scrupulously avoid even the bare appearance of over- sight or mistake, or " second thoughts " ? Does he repress all that is personal, so that the Holy Ghost alone may be heard ? On the very face of the epistle, it is plain that he does nothing of the kind. He goes right on, as we all do when we are in earnest, when we are writing to friends whom we love on subjects in which we are profoundly interested. If he makes a mistake he does not carefully erase it, he does not even completely correct it ; for what does it matter to the great purpose he has in his mind ? "I baptized none of you but Crispus and Gains." " Yes, I did " — " I baptized also the household of Stephanas; besides I know not" — "it may have been so, but I don't re- member " — " that I baptized any other." For, indeed, they were at most so few out of all the Corinthian con- THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 89 verts that nobody could possibly, on the ground that he had baptized them, accuse S. Paul of founding a party, or " baptizing into his own name." So far, again, is S. Paul from confining what he has to say to subjects of such absolute moral certainty that he can be confident that he is uttering the very truth and law of God — so far is he from this, that he goes out of his way to remind the Corinthians that he is giving them, in some cases, not commands, but counsels, not the law of God, but his own opinion. " To the married I give charge, yea, not I, but the Lord, that the wife depart not from her husband .... and that the husband leave not his wife." That is a broad, unmis- takable moral principle. It is the divine rule; it is involved in the very nature of marriage ; it is laid down in the express words of Christ Himself. But might there be no exceptions ? Is there nothing so inwardly contradictory of the marriage-union as virtually to annul it, and leave husband or wife free to leave the other? Was not so serious a difference as that between a believer and an unbeliever a sufficient excuse for separation ? As to this S. Paul would only give his own opinion: "To the rest say I, not the Lord."" And later on, speaking of the second marriage of a widow, he says : " She is happier if she abide as she is, after my judgment; and I think that I have also the spirit of God." But if this be so, if this letter be so full of S. Paul, so natural, so devoid of all claim in every particular to infallibility, wherein consists S. Paul's inspiration ? So far as inspiration is miraculous and unique, it is, of course, incapable of definition. For, so far, by the very nature of the case, there is nothing in ordinary 90 THE r.IBLE AND THE GOSPEL. experience with which it can be compared. It can at the most be defined only by enumerating its effects : as the gift or faculty by which he who possesses it is enabled to write such and such books, to deliver such and such messages. If then the First Ujnstle to the Corinthians be a product of inspiration — as most unquestionably it is — inspiration is not incompatible with a slip and imperfection of memory, with some uncertainty about the mind of the Spirit, and with the freest play of individual character. Thus we are really only concerned to know what inspiration can do, and not at all what its precise nature is ; nor even whether it is a supernatural gift — though we may well believe that it is — or equivalent in many respects to what we call genius. Anybody who could produce a letter like S. Paul's to the Corinthians is, ex vi termini, in- spired; for the only meaning of the word inspiration is, a faculty, or exaltation of faculties, natural or acquired or supernaturally bestotved, by which its pos- sessor is enahled to produce effects of a certain kind. And this, Ave may remark, is the only way in which we can define any ultimate fact. What do we mean by genius ? To answer this question we must ascertain and carefully examine what men have agreed to con- sider works of genius. We must notice what qualities they have in common ; and what qualities we find, when we compare them with other works, that they possess exclusively. And when we have, with sufficient care, completed this investigation, we shall still be unable to define what genius is in itself. But we shall have arrived at a practically sufficient definition or descrip- tion of it, as a quality or combination of qualities by which he who possesses it is enabled to produce luork of THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 91 a 'particular kind ; such, for instance, as a drama like Hamlet, or a musical composition like Beethoven's CJioral Sympliony. We should determine the genius of the man by examining his work ; not the merit of the work by assuming the genius of the man. Indeed this is the only way in which we can define either matter or spirit, either the external world or our own mind. The external world we believe to exist and to be external to ourselves, only by reason of an irresistible inference at once from the variations and the stability of our mental experiences. The external world is defined by its effects ; it is that which produces certain sensations and the like ; such as sight, hearing, the perception of hardness, heat, cold, pain, and so forth. Of what it is in itself we have no knowledge whatever, excepting that it is: and if it could be annihilated, and the same effects be produced upon our mental experiences by incessant miracles, it would not be necessary to change a single word in our vocabulary or a single principle or detail of the natural sciences. The whole of natural science may be described as a methodical statement of mental jjheoiomena in terms of matter. Similarly we have no knowledge whatever of the essential nature of fnind, though we are far nearer to a knowledge of mind than to a knowledge of matter. For the operations of mind we know directly. They are modes of what we mean by self ; whereas that these modes of self are produced by something external is a mere inference, though an inference universal and irresistible. The only possible definition of mind is founded upon what it does : mind is that which thinks, and feels, ami luills. Eemembering, then, these principles and limitations. 92 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. I shall not attempt to define inspiration otherwise than by its effects. Least of all shall I try to penetrate into the secrets of the supernatural, or to ascertain what the special experience of an inspired man was, in so far as it may have depended upon any miraculous opera- tion of the Almighty. Nevertheless, even on this side, and if we assume — as, for my own part, I believe — that the cause of inspiration was some special in- fluence exerted upon the spirit of a man by the Spirit of God Himself, we may get some little light upon the nature of inspiration — and, at any rate, it is the only light that we can get — by means of certain analogies of ordinary human experience. For we must remember that, whatever the power of the Almighty may be, the capacities of human nature are strictly limited. Whatever revelations He may think fit to make to a human being, or whatever operations He may think fit to perform upon the human mind, He can never possibly go beyond the receptive faculties of our nature itself. How, then, let us ask, do we influence one another ? Clearly enough we can do this partly by means of our bodies. That is to say, we can employ physical force, literal coercion, for the purpose of in- ducing a man to do or to leave undone whatever we may wish or not wish. Thus, for instance, if we want to pre- vent him from going to a certain place, we can lock him up ; 01', on the contrary, if we are strong enough, we can force him into a railroad car or into a steamship, and carry him whithersoever we will. There is, however, nothing spiritual in all this, and, accordingly, we never give to it the name of inspiration. If it had been the will of God that a prophet, captive in Babylon, should know what was going on at the same time in desecrated THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 93 Jerusalem, He might have miraculously carried him thither, and so enabled him to see it with his own eyes. But if this had happened, and the prophet had written in consequence ever so accurate a description of what he saw, nobody would call him, for that reason, an inspired man. But we are perfectly well aware that we can influence one another, and habitually do, by altogether different means. We can persuade one another by arguments addressed to the reason. A man comes to us, for instance, entirely convinced that a certain course of conduct is right, or wise, or likely to promote his happi- ness, and firmly resolved to adopt that course of con- duct. He tells us of this fixed resolve, and explains to us its reasons. But we talk with him ; we show him that he has been mistaken; that the course of conduct he proposes would not be wise, or right, or to his own interest ; we win him over to our way of thinking, and he goes away from us, after that interview, as firmly resolved to avoid that course of conduct as he had previously been to pursue it. Now, what have we really done to this man ? "We have really jmt ourselves into him; we have imparted to his mind those very results which actual experience had produced upon our own. We have not only induced him to alter his determination, but we have changed his belief, his opinions, his wishes ; we have so influenced him that, of his own accord, he entirely abandons what was his fixed resolve. We have taken possession of him, and thenceforward, in that particular part of his conduct, there will be as much of us in him as of himself. We have put our spirit into him. Why, therefore, may we not say, in a word, and in the strictest meaning of the word, that we have inspired him ? 94 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. Indeed, we can influence one another in this purely spiritual way to a far greater extent, and far more profoundly, than by producing any change in one another's opinions. Thus, for instance, we can induce people to love us ; we can reproduce in them our own tastes and preferences; our own ways of looking at things ; our own likings and aversions for persons. . If a man with any real character, with any powers of receptivity and assimilation, will carefully examine, at any given time, his inner life, he will find it exceed- ingly difficult to determine how much, or I might better say how little, even of his most marked characteristics can be truly said to be his own. Apart from the general influence of other minds upon his, through education, or books, or conversation, or business and family relationships and the like, it is next to certain that he will be aware that there are some two or three persons who, for good or for evil, have in an almost incalculable degree moulded his character. Now, what is all this, in the ordinary course of human experience, but the subtle power which every human spirit has of penetrating into any other human spirit, and clinging to it, and living in it, and reproducing itself in it in innumerable and indefinable ways ? Now, we must remember that it is of the very essence of religion that there is a similar correspondence be- tween the spirit of man and God. "Thei-e is a spirit in man," says the book Joi — not, be it observed, in exceptional men, such as Moses or Isaiah or S. John, but in man simply as a human being — "and the Spirit of the Almighty giveth him understanding." Similarly we pray every Sunday in church that " God would cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspira- THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 95 tion of His Holy Spirit." And again, that He would "grant to us His humble servants that, by His holy inspiration, we may think those things that are good and by His merciful guiding may perform the same." What is this but the archetype of that power of spirit over spirit, which we find in ourselves, and which is a very large part of what we mean when we say that we are in the image of God ? It would be strange indeed if God, who is a spirit, could influence the world and human beings only by methods which are not spiritual — by heat, or light, or electricity, or gravitation — but could bring Himself into no vital contact with our reason, or our affections, or our wills. But if He does come into this living fellowship with us, what better name can we possibly give to it than the very name inspiration, whether its effects be upon our intellects, or our feelings, or our conduct; whether it induces us to think good thoughts and lead pure lives; or to help a nation to the birth, like Moses ; or organize and counsel Christian Churches, like S. Paul ? For it is surely obvious that the effects of this kind of influence of spirit upon spirit may differ, and, in fact, are certain to differ, according to our natural capacities and our circumstances, and the work that we have to do. Thus the artificers who Avere engaged on the Tabernacle are spoken of in the book Exodus as "wise-hearted men," in whom "the Lord put wisdom, and understanding, to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary." They were not less really inspired than Moses himself; it would perhaps be incorrect to say that they were more largely inspired ; but in Moses God found, if we may so speak, larger material, a nobler instrument, capable of far 96 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPiiL. higher uses. Inspiration, therefore, did not turn Bezaleel and Aholiab into legislators, nor Moses into an artisan ; but it tended to perfect each according to his own capacities, and for the work for which he was naturally fitted. I say that it tended to do this ; for inspiration is not a mechanical force, exerted upon mere matter : it is a spiritual force, exerted upon free spirits, and therefore capable of being resisted. Thus " it came to pass, as soon as Moses came nigh unto the camp, that he saw the calf, and the dancing: and Moses' anger waxed hot, and he cast the tables out of his hands, and brake them beneath the mount." Surely we are not intended to suppose that the hot anger and the passionate action of Moses was the direct effect of a divine inspiration. And now let me return to S. Paul and his work as an Apostle, including not only oral instruction, but such written letters as still remain for our edification in the New Testament Canon. He was a man naturally great, and exceptionally responsive to divine influences ; as he was, indeed, to all spiritual influences. He lived habitually in communion with God, opening his heart to all the gracious and illuminating operations of the Divine Spirit — a man truly inspired. What is the effect of his inspiration ? by what signs do we note its reality and its power ? He meets with a slave called Onesimus, who by him is "begotten in his bonds." The slave belongs to Philemon. Philemon is a dear friend of S. Paul's, and under such spiritual obligation to him that the Apostle might almost have demanded that he should be allowed to retain Onesimus, that "in his master's behalf he might minister to him in the bonds of the Gospel." But S. Paul will not avail THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 97 himself of this obligation. He returns Onesimns to his master. He recognizes at once the sacredness of existing laws, and the universal liberty that is in Christ. He appeals to the heart of Philemon, to his generosity, to his Christian spirit ; and, indeed, this, with expressions of personal regard and friendly saluta- tions, is the whole substance of S. Paul's epistle to him. Here, then, are what we may call the ordinary effects of inspiration, of an inspiration which we all receive. S. Paul "by God's holy inspiration thinks those things that are good, and by God's merciful guiding performs the same." There is in the Epistle to Philemon no revelation of occult mysteries, not a word about Justification by Faith, or the Sacraments, or Church Polity. It is just such a letter as any really godly man might write on a similar occasion. But a man who was not godly, or who was less responsive to divine influences, might not have written at all ; or he might have claimed Onesimns as a sort of ecclesiastical due ; or he might have asked a reward before sending him back ; or he might have urged that slavery was so abolished — abolished by the law of Christ — that the legal rights of Philemon were extinguished. But S. Paul had higher, or at least larger, work to do than wi'iting even such letters as the Eimtle to Philemon. He had " to preach the Gospel," to found and organize churches, to set ministers over them, and sometimes superintendents over those ministers. He had to instruct the churches, reprove their misconduct, correct their errors, stimulate them to works of Christian charity. And if a man was to do this effectually, he must be raised above himself by habitual communion with the Divine Spirit. It might also be necessary 98 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. that be should receive — as, in fact, S. Paul did receive — direct revelations of truths which, otherwise, he could never have perceived; though spiritual truths, even when made known by miraciilous communication, can only be " spiritually discerned " ; and inspiration is not identical with revelation. What, then, do we find in S. Paul's greater epistles — such as the First to the Corinthians — to indicate that he really did live in this habitual communion with the Divine Spirit? We find great clearness of intellect and directness of insight. But this we find also, and possibly in a higher degree, in other writers, who are far from giving any indications that they were peculiarly responsive to divine influence. The peculiarity of S. Paul's intellectual power is in the fact that it is inseparable from a remarkable moral and spiritual elevation. It is so inseparable from these that it sometimes seems to be the direct effect of them. He looks at life, inward and outward, from the divine side; sees it as one might see it who had just come down from " talking with God face to face, as a man talks with his friend." He loves men, all men, with a love stronger than death, for he loves them and longs for them " in the bowels of Jesus Christ." His regard for God elevates him at once above personal vanity and ambition, and above the fear of man and respect of persons. He sees in every particular case an eternal principle, and therefore he sets forth these eternal principles as sufficient for all needs of practical guidance. He seeks to destroy party spirit, not by attempting to settle disputes or mediate between the claims of rival leaders, nor even by some kind of eclecticism, but by affirming the infinite worth of love. He (loos not coniont himself with ffiviuff minute diroc- THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 99 tions about rites and ceremonies — these he defers till " he shall come " — but he urges the necessity of decency and order. He would have men keep themselves pure by the recollection that they are the temples of the Holy Ghost. Nobody who reads them can fail to be impressed by these characteristics of S. Paul's epistles. And they are tlie more impressive because of the entire absence of all boast of special supernatural inspiration — because they are so full of S. Paul. If he had written treatises on the same subjects, they might have been even more perfect than his letters in style and logical arrangement ; but they would have lacked that jyersonal element which is au essential condition of inspiration. A book cannot be inspired, an argument cannot be inspired ; for spirit can only commune with spirit, the living God with the living man. And if we judge of the reality of inspiration from its effects in a man's life, or work, or writings, we sliall find no difficulty in understanding why the Sacred Scriptures have been set apart, above all others, as "given by inspiration of God." The Church — any Church — may give them authority as books to be accepted as conclusive evidence of doctrine or discipline in that Church; but this imparts to them only a technical and legal value. And a Canon of Scripture authorized by one Church may differ from the Canon authorized by another. The Roman Church adopts for ecclesiastical uses many of the Apocryphal Books of the Old Testament which we, for those uses, reject. But no Church can give real, intrinsic value to any book. Nor are the Sacred Books of the East or the Iliad of Homer less spiritually valuable simply for lack of recog- nition by an ^Ecumenical Council. The whole differ- 100 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. enco is in the matter and spirit of them. It is possible — though I by no means find it very easy — to select from the Koran, for instance, many passages sublime or beau- tiful, or spiritually ennobling. For the most part it is as dry and barren as the Arabian Desert. But in spite of " elegant extracts," who could say, for a moment, of the Koran, " This book is ' given by inspiration of God ' "? It does not uniformly regard life from the divine side. It does not produce the impression that it is the result of habitual communion with the Eternal. It is not raised above pride, and passion, and vulgar expediency, and local prejudices. It is not "a possession forever." It can never produce, or even tolerate, a " universal religion." And much less even can we discover these high qualities in the Sacred Books of the Buddhists ; for if we go to the very bottom, we shall find that Buddhism starts from what is equivalent to atheism, and ends in what is equivalent to annihilation. And if it be urged as an objection that, on this showing, we may find evidence of inspiration elsewhere than in the Canonical Scriptures, I would reply, first of all, " Would that all the Lord's people were prophets !" And again I would reply, " As in the common life of men ' the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-snfifering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meek- ness, temperance,' and wherever these are, in or out of the Church, within Christendom or outside of it, there is the jSpirit ; so we find the Spirit also wherever, in the literature of the world, 'sacred' or 'profane,' we find pure truth, ennobling principles, just moral judgments, divine standards of character and conduct. And wherever the Spirit of God influences the spirit of man, there is Insinration.'^ Nor is the objection of THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 101 whicli I am speaking of any j)radical importance. As a matter of fact the inspiration of the writers of the Holy Scriptures has proved itself by innumerable verifications of experience, in every age, in every land, in every class of society, in countless millions of human hearts and lives. And now I come to the second part of the passage which I read to you as the text — the part in which S. Paul tells us what his work as an Apostle ims not, and also luliat it was. And here we have a con- spicuous example of that enriched personality, that daring freedom, which cannot fail to be a result of a true inspiration. A man less inspired, less possessed by the very spirit of truth, would never have ventured to express himself with the audacity of S. Paul. He would have been afraid of being misunderstood ; per- haps he would have been more nobly afraid of mis- leading others. He would have had in his mind not only the precise truth he wanted to affirm, but also what, by a strange perversion of the meaning of S. Paul's words, is called " the analogy of the Faith."* It would probably never have occurred to him to say that Christ did not send him to baptize ; but if it had occurred to him, he would unquestionably have hesi- tated to say it. He would have reflected that Baptism was a Sacrament of Christ's own institution; and that *It may be worth while to add a note on this passage, Romans xii. 6. The grammatical structure is involved, but the Greek of verse 6 is : ''Exovreq 6e xapic^f^ara Kara, t^v x^piv ri)v fiodliaav 7/filv Sidipopa, eIte npoiprireiav Kara ttjv avaloyiav ryq nioTEug This is rendered, in the Revised Version, " according to the proportion of our faith." It is obvious that the ava^Myiav corresponds to EndarL) uc, 6 Oeo^ IfiipiaEv fiirpov nicTEu^, in verse 3. In that verse p-hpov ■k'icteu^ must surely 102 THE BII5LE AND THE GOSPEL. He really did send His Apostles to make discii)les of all nations, "baptizing them." And he would have been right — exactly for lack of inspiration. It needs no special inspiration to formulate Creeds or Articles of Religion ; what is needed for that work is logical acumen and adroitness, and above all a steady and comprehensive view of a whole body of facts and doc- trines, which seem at first sight mutually exclusive, be taken suhjeclively. But I add the comment of Alford, Meyer, and Dr. E. H. Gifford in "The Speaker's Commentary." Alford says: "According to the proporlion .... of faith. Bnt 2vhat faith ? Objective (fides quce creditnr), or subjective (fides qua creditur) ? The faith, ovoiir faith ? The comiiarison of fiiTfiof nicTEu^ above, and the whole context, determine it to be the latter : the measure of our faith : ' quisque se intra sortis sua? metas contineat, et revelationis suie modum teneat, ne unus sibi omnia scire vidcatur,' " etc., etc. Meyer says (English tran.slation i^ublished by T. and T. Clark, Edinburgh — Romans ii. 259) : " Conformably to the pro2iortion of their faith the prophets have to use their prophetic gift— i. e. (comp. verse 3), they are not to depart from the proportional measure which tlieir faith has, neither wishing to exceed it nor falling short of it, but are to guide themselves by it, and are therefore so to announce and interpret the received anuKuXvilii^ , as the peculiar position in respect of faith bestowed upon them, according to the strength, clearness, fervour, and other qualities of that faith suggests — so that the character and mode of their speaking is conformed to the rules and limits which are implied in the pro- portion of their individual degree of faith. In the contrary case they fall, in respect of contents and of form, into a mode of prophetic utterance either excessive and overstrained, or, on the other hand, insufficient and defective (not corresponding to the level of their faith)," etc., etc. And surely we all need to be warned not to exceed our belief in our teaching, nor to fall short of it. Dr. Gifford (in the Speaker^ s Commentary , Romans xii. 6), says: " S. Paid prescribes that tlie prophets should THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 103 and CUT! only be made to appear true or fit into a system after skilful adaptation and considerable pruning. As we contrast genius, which is creative, with criticism, which is analytic, so we may contrast the logical, grammatical, rhetorical skill which pro- duces a Creed, with the inspiration Avhich realizes and proclaims a Gospel. S. Paul is logical ; but his logic is on fire: it is the logic of enthusiasm, not of the schools. It takes much for granted. It sometimes leaps over an obvious premiss, or leaves unexpressed a conclusion which may be trusted to draw itself. So he said exactly what he meant about his Apostolic work, because being inspired he was daring. Clirist sent me not to lajdize, hut to preach the Gosjjel. How different the history of the Church would have been if only she had believed S. Paul ! how different her power would be if she believed him to-day ! Through long ages of darkness she acted as if tlie reverse of these words were true ; as if God had sent His ministers not to preach the Gospel, but to baptize. exercise their gift 'according to the proportion of their faith.' These words evidently refer to v. 3, and mean that the prophets should utter neither more nor less than the revelation received by their measure of faith, without exaggeration, display or self- seeking. ' The rule of faith,' ' general analogy of revealed truth,' and all similar renderings whicli make ' faWi, ' mean that which is to be believed, are unsuited to the context and otherwise untenable." For, indeed, when S. Paul wrote theUjnstle to the Romans, where was there a body of authorized dogma which would have been at once recognized as " the faith " — the faith as distinguished from heresy? Scarcely a more useful task could any of our younger clergy undertake, for their own im- provement, than a careful examination of every passage in which the word Triartr occurs. Take Bruder's Greek Concordance for the purpose. 104 THE HIBLK AND THE GOSPEL. Baptism was too simple to be understood by theoso- phists on the one hand, or half-civilized and super- stitions pagans on the other. An evil and adulterous generation wanted not a Sacrament, but a charm ; not " an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace," but that the grace itself should be outward and visible. They inverted the teaching of S. Peter, and paid more regard to the putting away of the filth of the flesh than to the interrogation of a good conscience toward God. The Gospel at the first was preached to individuals, to grown-up men and women ; and when they believed they were baptized. They were " grafted into the body of Christ's Church." Disappearing under the cleansing waters, they were buried with Christ ; rising out of them, they arose to newness of life. The old life was gone, they were neiu creatures. They had arisen and come to their Father ; and they were recognized as His children, and received the promise of their Father's Spirit, already given to them and never to be withdraAvn. Their baptism was the seal that marked them as God's ; and on the other hand it was their vow of allegiance and obedience as God's faithful soldiers and servants. Obviously enough, then, their baptism meant nothing at all without the Gospel, meant nothing at all to them but as they believed the Gospel. But what was true of them was true also, in its measure, of their children. Were those little ones, whose angels do always behold the face of the Heavenly Father, lying under some ancestral curse ? Were they to be treated as aliens and outcasts until they arrived at years of discretion ? Were they to be allowed to fall into sin, and then to be with difficulty converted ; or THE BIBI,E AND THE GOSPEL. 105 were they to be trained wp in the nurture and admoni- tion of the Lord because they were really His children ? Christian instinct — I might almost say parental instinct — answered these questions; and Infant Baptism proclaimed with unmistakable emphasis the all-embracing love of Him who, looking into every cradle, into every child's face, says, It is not the will of my Father who is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish. But when speculation had exhausted itself upon the nature of God and the person of Christ ; when it passed from east to west ; when it turned from theology to anthropology, and began to occupy itself with Free Will and Grace, the Fall and Original Sin, it was impos- sible that the doctrine of Baptism should maintain its primitive simplicity. What could the laver of regenera- tion, what could being horn of water, mean, if it had no reference to our first birth as descendants of the first Adam ; the Adam who had fallen and who had dragged ' the whole race along with him ? Infant Baptism, which had been the most emphatic symbol of the redemption of the luorld, of the whole human race, was now regarded as a conclusive evidence that the whole world was not redeemed ; that men had sinned in Adam before they were born ; and that Baptism. — and not the Incarnation — was absolutely necessary to redeem them from the curse, to give them a new nature, or to restore to them that which Adam had lost. " How can it be said truly," S. Augustine asks concerning little children — founding an argument for the absolute necessity of Baptism upon the words He that is not with Me is against Me — " how can it be said truly that they are against Christ, excepting on account ]06 THE BIULE AND THE GOSrET,. of sin ? For it cannot be on account of their body or their soul, both of which were created by God. But if it is on account of sin, what sin can it be, at that time of life, but original sin ? "* Thenceforward it became necessary, in order to understand the nature and effect of Baptism, to under- stand the nature of man before the Fall, and the effect of the Fall upon that nature. Here was a vast region of thought in which speculation might well run wild ; for no human being, except our first parents, has ever known what " unfallen " human nature was. Did it consist in perfect knowledge, or a holy will, or an indwelling spirit? Then, by the undisputed fact of Adam's transgression, it was just as possible to sin with these advantages as without them. If Adam could "fall" without "a corrupt nature," what could be the need of assuming a corrupt nature for the purpose of accounting for the repeated " falls " of his posterity ? And if the very nature of any creature has become not only changed, but inverted, how can it be the same creature any longer except in name ? But, at a later period and by a further development, the nature of man as he is was represented in a manner for which obser- vation and experience furnish no warrant. The Assembly's Catechism, to take a comparatively modern dogmatic formulary, describes man's present condition as one in which, through the "corruption of his nature," " he is utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite unto all that is spiritually good, and wholly inclined to all evil, and that continually : which is commonly called Original Sin, and from which do pro- ceed all actual transgressions." It may be very safely *De Peccatorum Mentis, etc., i. 28 (55). THE 15115 LE AND THE GOSl'EL. l07 asserted that no such monster as this ever existed ; and that if such a one were to come into existence, he would be absolutely irresponsible, because absolutely incapable of either sin or virtue. But when the nature or effects of Original Sin were declared to be such as these, and when the necessity of Baptism was grounded (as by S. Augustine) on the universality of Original Sin, Baptism became absolutely necessary even for producing that change or restoration of nature without which the Gospel would be wholly unintelligible, or even utterly repulsive. What was this but to invert the emphatic declaration of S. Paul, and to affirm that Christ sends His ministers not to preach the Gospel, but to baptize? The Gospel no longer preceded Baptism and gave to it its meaning, but Baptism preceded the Gospel; because without it the very meaning of the Gospel must remain hopelessly and forever unintelligible. But these perilous speculations did not lose their hold upon the minds of men because facts with which everybody was familiar through his own self-knowledge contradicted them. Not only had the Fall not produced the consequences which were attributed to it; but those evils, so far as they did exist, and whencesoever they may have come, were not removed by Baptism. Millions of baptized persons were neither turned away from sin nor won to righteousness. Their baptism produced no discoverable effect on their moral character or their intellectual powers. The proof of their baptism was not in their lives nor in their nature — for what could that be but human nature ? — not in these, but in the parish register. Well may we even now — more now than ever — repeat S. Paul's words, with the emphasis of S. Paul's 108 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. audacity — Christ sent me not to hcqMze, hut to preach, the Gospel. For Baptism without, or before, tlie Gospel is not only worthless, but may be made profoundly mischievous. Separated from the Gospel, treated as a necessary preliminary to the Gospel, as the instrument by which alone we can be made capable of under- standing the Gospel or of accepting it, it actually sepa- rates us from Christ. We may say of it what S. Paul said of the equally divine Institution of Circumcision : Behold, I, Paul, say unto you, that, if ye are baptized, Christ toill jjrojit you nothing. For in Christ Jesus neither ha^fiism availeth anything, nor being unbaptized, hut faith icorhing through love. But though no Church in Christendom has accepted, as " of faith," all the private opinions even of so pro- found a thinker, so illustrious a doctor, so holy a saint, as the great Augustine ; though we may believe that in his endeavour to explain what, in its very essence, is a f//sorder, incapable of explanation, he has gone far beyond our verifiable knowledge of facts, and even tried to soar above the limits of the faculties of human nature — it still remains true that for every human being there is one fact, and for every Christian there are two facts, Avholly beyond dispute. The first is the fact of original sin ;* the second is the universal neces- sity of Baptism, " where it may be had " — and in almost every part of Christendom it may be had with the utmost possible ease. Does anybody deny that every human being — save only the Son of Man— the Very Man— has fallen into *The IXth of our Articles of Religion is so exceedingly involved and obscure that anybody might subscribe it who is not prepared to deny that "concupiscence and lust liath of itself the nature of sin." THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 109 sin, into actual transgression ?* Men have been born in all sorts of places, in all stages of culture, surrounded by all sorts of circumstances. In all these cases there has been endless variety of individual opportunity ; in every case there has been deliberate transgression, not simply of the law of God, but of what each man, woman and child believed to be the law that he or she was bound to obey. There must be sometliing to account for this universal disorder. We cannot call it a necessity, for in the region of necessity there can be no such thing as sin. It is something wholly different from a mere limitation in our human faculties; for we cannot go beyond them, and they are themselves ordained of God. It is not necessarily involved in our circumstances, for these, at the worst, can only oifer us temptations and inducements to do wrong, and our remorse and shame testify that we might have con- quered if we had manfully fought. There is a something — universal, inexplicable, real — which is at the bottom of the universal rebelliousness of mankind. We know from our own experience, and from the history of the whole world, that if we would live as we ought to live, we must look beyond ourselves and trust ourselves to the boundless mercy and supernatural grace of God. And without attempting to explain the relation of Holy Baptism to the Fall; accepting it simply as a means of grace; a channel through which the redeem- ing power of God flows down upon us ; a Sacrament instituted by Christ Himself and placed at the very * " S. Augustine says that all have sinned ' except the Holy- Virgin Mary, concerning whom, for the honour of oiu- Lord, I wish no question to be raised at all, wlien we are treating of sin.' " — Newman, Duveloptneiii of Christum Doctrine, p. 146 (New Edition, London : Pickering & Co., 1881). 110 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. gate of the Divine Kingdom ; believing that he who conies to receive Baptism with reverence and faith, does really " wash away his sins " ; that no ordinance of Christ's appointment can be a mere barren sign to which no reality corresponds — we may surely affirm that he who refuses to be baptized is living in wilful disobedience to his true Lord, and recklessly depriving himself of sure and immeasurable blessings. But there is something else needed far more funda- mental ; something which shall explain Baptism, and t]ie Eucharist, and the Church, and public worship ; something which shall determine our innermost relation to Almighty God, and be the source of all righteousness — and that something is the Gospel. What really saves men is the love of God, the grace of God, the free forgiveness of God, a love measured by the Cross of Christ, a love stronger than death, and manifesting itself by an infinite self-sacrifice. This is the ultimate fact which accounts for every other fact in the work of redeeming men from the empty manner of living handed down from their fathers, and which itself admits of no other explanation than that God is love. We may ask why God gathers men into a divine family, into a Kingdom of Heaven ; why He gives us His Spirit ; why He sent His 8on to he the Saviour of the world; and the answer is. Because He loves us. If we ask why He loves us, there is no answer but that God is God. And the measure of the love of God for us is the Cross of Christ. How much does God love us ? So much : For scarcely for a 7'ighteous man will one die ; for peradventure for the good man some one loould even dare to die. But (rod commendcth His own love THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. Ill totvards us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. And it is the Cross itself, the love itself, the loving God Himself, who saves us ; not some expla- nation of the conditions or limitations of that love. Not in wisdom of words, lest the Gross of Christ should be made void; lest we should try to find comfort and life in a doctrine of Atonement, or in a philosophy of the plan of salvation, instead of in Him who makes us one with God, and who Himself redeems us from all iniquity. Note.— The following highly suggestive passage is from Dr. James Martiiieau's Types of Ethical Theory (i. pp. 17-19)— a work whose exceptional merits it would be quite superfluous to commend : ' ' The whole complexion of thought and language on ethical subjects alters on crossing the line from heathendom to Christendom ; and even where the Pagan philosopher draws more truly and more severely the outer boundaries of right and wrong, the Christian disciple will show a deeper apprehension of the inner quality and colouring of both. How it was that the new habits of self-knowledge ripened into no systematic ethics, it would be foreign to my purpose to discuss : I will mention but one disturbing cause, which, from its vast and protracted operation, is too remarkable to be overlooked. The Augustinian theology is founded upon a sense of sin so passionate and absolute as to plunge the conscience into unrelieved shadows. It pledges itself to find traces everywhere of the lost condition of humanity, in virtue of which there is no longer any freedom for good, and a hopeless taint is mingled with the very springs of our activity. This doctrine is evidently the utterance of a deep but despairing moral aspiration ; it estimates with such stern purity the demands of the divine holiness upon us, that only the first man, fresh with unspoiled powers, was capable of fiilfilling them ; and since he was false, the sole opportunity of voluntary holiness has been thrown away, and we must live in helpless knowledge of obligations which we cannot discharge. Uencc there has never been more than one solitaiy hour of real 112 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. probation for the human race : during that hour there was a positive trust coramitted to a capable will, and the young world was under genuine moral administration ; but, ever since, evil only has been possible to human volition, and good can pass no further than our dreams. It follows that, as the human game is already lost, we no longer live a probationary life, and can have no doctrine of applied ethics which shall have the slightest religious value : the moralities, considered as divine, are obsolete as Eden ; and human nature, as it is, can produce no voluntary acts that are not relatively neutral, because uniformly offensive, to the sentiment of God. Its restoration must proceed from sources extraneous to the will ; and unless snatched away in some fiery chariot of grace, it must gaze in vain upon the heaven that spreads its awful beauty above the earth. Thus a doctrine which begins with the highest proclamation of the divine moral law, ends with practically superseding it. The history of the universe opens with an act of probation and closes with one of retribution, but through every intervening moment is destitute of moral conditions ; and man, the central figure of the whole — though a stately actor at the first, and an infinite recipient or victim at the last — so falls through in the mean- while between the powers that tempt and those tliat save him, that as an ethical agent he sinks into nonentity, and becomes the mere prize contended for by the spirits of darkness and of light. In this system, the human personality, by the very intensity with which it burns at its own focus, consumes itself away; and the very attempt to idealize the severity and sanctity of divine law does but cancel it from the actual, and banish it to the beginning and end of time. The man of to-day is no free individuality at all, but the mere meeting-point of opposite forces foreign to his will— ruined by nature, rescued by God — with no range of power, therefore none of responsibility between. It is as if the Augustinian system took its doctrine of nature from Protagoras and Epicurus, and its doctrine of grace from Parraenides and Plato : in the one not reaching so high a level as that of moral obligation ; in the other overflyuig it with a dangerous transcendental wing ; and combining therefore, without any mediating term, the extreme tendencies of the pliysical and metaphysical schools." THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. 113 I think it may be well here to add an additional note also, to prevent misunderstanding of what I have said in this sermon about our " fallen nature." I do not see how it is possible for anybody, looking over the history of the world and recollecting liis own experience, to doubt the fact of original sin. At any rate, as I have said above, I have not the slightest doubt of it myself ; nor do I doubt, in the least, the enormous importance and the terrible consequences of the first sin, wherever, when- ever, or by whomsoever committed. Then, there, and by the first sinner, "sin entered into the world and death by sin." And remembering that human beings are not disconnected individuals, but constitute a race, I can perceive a profoundly true meaning in S. Paul's words, referring to the first sinner, even as they seem to be represented in the Vulgate translation, In quo omnes peccavenmt (Rom. v. 12). But what seems to me in the highest degree dangerous is to commit ourselves to some theoretical explanation of facts which we cannot help admitting, but which we also acknowledge to be in the highest degree mysterious. If I understand their meaning, many theologians have set themselves to solve this problem : How can we account for the fact that every human being whom we have ever known has fallen into sin? And they seem to me to have oifered this solution of the problem : Every such person has inherited from some ancestor some kind of corruption, or taint, or defect, or even some positive tendency towards sin. Un- questionably, all the instances of sinful persons that can be produced witliin our experience are cases of persons who have had sinful ancestors. The induction, therefore, would take some such form as this : The effect B — namely, actual sin — has been in an enormous number of instances preceded by the plicnomenou A — namely, a sinful ancestor. If this wore enough for a complete induction, we might safely conclude tliat A was the cause of B. But this is not enough for a com- plete induction. All these positive instances will be entirely overthrown if a single negative instance can be produced ; that is to say, if we can find a single instance of a sinful man who had no sinful ancestor ; and this is precisely what happens, not only in a particular instance, but in the crucial instance in the 7 114 THE BIBLE AND THE GOSPEL. history of the wholo human race. The very first man who was ever guilty of actual sin was precisely the man who neither had, nor could have had, any inherited corruption. Therefore in- herited corruption does not account for actual sin. I offer this argument not as a contribution to theology, but as a reason for hesitating to go far " beyond our tether" in an attempt to explain mysteries which we ourselves admit to be utterly inex- plicable. Even theologians would not be the worse for a careful study of Mill's Logic, Book III., Chapters viii. and ix. SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE.* Tlien Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple u'Jmn Jesus loved following ; tvhich also leaned on Ilis breast at supper, and said, Loi-d, which is he that betrayeth Thee 9 Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, Lord, and ivhat shall this man do ? Jesus saith unto him. If I ivill that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee 9 follotv thou Me.—S. John xxi, 20-23. " What is that to thee ?" Is it, then, really nothing to us, the weal or woe, the ruin or the salvation, of those whom we love ? Is it enough that our own souls are safe, and that " we can read 0211' title clear to mansions in the sky " ? Is the great achievement of religion an intenser selfishness, all the more incurable because it has received a Christian sanction ? To ask these questions is to answer them. They have been answered, moreover, both in word and deed, by all the Saints of God, and by Him who is " the Author and Finisher of our faith."! "Moses returned unto the Lord and said, Oh ! this people have sinned a great sin and have made them gods of gold. Yet now if Thou wilt forgive their sin — and if not, blot me, I pray Thee, out of Thy book which Thou hast written. "| "I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart," says S. Paul ; " for I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kins- * Preached before the Convocation of Baltimore, Md., May 24th, 1878. t Uebrews xii. 2. J Exodus xxxiii. 31-32. 116 SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. men according to the flesh."* " He that is greatest among you," said Jesus to His disciples — for even at the Last Supper " there was a strife among them which of them should be accounted the greatest" — "let him be as the younger ; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For .... I am among you as he that serveth." f " He saved others, Himself He cannot save." I But there is scarcely need to prove what nobody will soberly deny. Even if S. James's doctrine that " a man is justified by works and not by faith only " § has been too often grossly perverted, it still remains true that the works by which men have sought to make sure their own salvation have been for the most part works for the good of others. Crusades for the recovery of the Holy Land; the building and endow- ment of cathedrals and religious houses ; Confraternities and Sisterhoods devoted by life-long vows to the service of the sick and poor ; Masses for the suffering souls in Purgatory — these, and such as these, may seem to some of us, perhaps, the splendid follies or contemptible delusions of an obsolete superstition, as to others they have seemed the fading glories of a too rapidly departing faith. But they witness to all of us alike what every age has recognized as the very core and centre of Christian life — that " all our doings without charity are nothing worth," and that " he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law." || Was it not well, then, that S. Peter should manifest so loving an interest in " the disciple whom Jesus loved " ? " You have told me of my future ; what can I do for the help * Romans ix. 3-3. t S. Luke xxii. 24-37. X S. Mark xv. 31. § S. James ii. 34. || Romans xiii. 8. SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 117 and comfort of my fellow-disciple? If he also has to be ' guided by another and carried whither he would not,' cannot I protect or console him? Thou hast graciously forgiven me, and granted me this token of Thy grace that I may feed Thy sheep and lambs ; is there no service that I can specially render for one so Itiithful and so well beloved as the disciple who is following us ?" But this, unfortunately, was not the question which S. Peter really asked. It was not " What can I do for this man?" but "What shall this man do?" Nay, rather, it was a question more rash and intrusive still. It meant " What wilt Tliou do with this man ? What is to be his future life, what his end ?" And it is this question which our Lord so emphatically, though so gently, reproves : " If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? Follow thou Me." Our duties to our neighbours arise, indeed, out of the arrangements of God's providence ; but this is true not only of their form, but also, and equally, of their occasion and their time. Our duties yesterday, whether discharged or neglected, are now over. Our duties to-morrow are not yet come ; and sufficient for the day are its own evil, its own responsibilities, even its own good. Religion is, for the immense majority of mankind, through the whole of life — and for everybody in by far the greater part of his life — not speculative, but practical. And whereas the possible results of speculation are forever widening, as we read and think and argue, till at last we almost begin to doubt whether there is any answer to our questions, any solution of the riddle of life, any sure dogma, any discoverable truth, the alternatives of duty become narrower and narrower as the necessity 118 SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE, of action is pressed closer and closer upon us, till one single path at last is left open to us, and all our uncer- tainties and hesitations are silenced by " Follow thou Me." If only, my dear brethren, we could believe it ! But it must be obvious to every one of us that Chris- tian people are for the most part of a far different way of thinking. They are not sunk so low, indeed, as to repudiate obedience, but they prefer what they call " the right of private judgment." When an enlight- ened Christian man has duly examined the claims of all rival authorities ; when he has critically investi- gated the theology and ethics, the science and common sense, of all competing religions ; when, in a word, he has accomplished individually and separately what has never yet been accomplislied by the Avhole human race put together — then, and then only, we are assured he will be in a position to begin to determine the first of his lyractical religions duties. Then, without bias or prejudice, he can offer his first rational prayer; repeat for the first time a creed that he really means ; sing his first unimpassioned hymn ; adore a God whom he understands ; look forward, with a fearless and aweless eye, into a future that he has weighed and measured and analyzed. He will have constructed a religion of his own, liable indeed to reconstruction; provisional, modest, undogmatic ; held, therefore, loosely, with an "openness to conviction" that it may be mere moon- shine and absurdity — but fairly available for such very moderate practical application as belongs to that residuum of real religion which is left when you have removed, by precipitation or evaporation, everything in human life that anybody cares for. Is religion, forsooth, SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 119 to control education, or marriage, or divorce, or social decency, or the ethics of " the press," or politics ? Surely to admit this would be to roll back the wheels of Time. Religion is, therefore, nothing more than a working theory about the possible origin and the possible destiny of human beings— admitting, for the sake of argument, that the soul is not a mere function of the brain, and that a living God is the most plausible hypothesis to account for the phenomena of Nature. But the grand characteristic of the religion of " private judgment," the eclectic religion of modern liberalism, is this — it is our own creation ; it does not find lis, but we it. It has no authority over us, for we made it ourselves ; and when we dislike it, we can reform or repeal it. It is the exact contradictory of the religion described by Christ, and again and again in Holy Scripture. " Ye have not chosen Me," says our Lord to His disciples, " but I have chosen you and ordained you " — not to speculate and argue, but — " that ye should go and bring forth fruit."* A comparatively harmless illustration of the preva- lent tendency to prefer speculation to obedience, theory to practice, may be found in the renewed discussion of the future state of the great majority of those who die in sin. They are not, and nobody pretends that they are, what we call " fit for heaven " ; but must they for- ever and ever burn in hell ? One of the Canons of Westminster preached, a few months ago,t and pub- lished, a series of impassioned sermons on " Eter- nal Hope." These sermons have been discussed in short, half-conversational papers in the Confemjjorary Kevieio, in The North American Review, and else- *H. Jolmxv. 16, tl878. 120 SfECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. where. Even the daily press has done its best, in this emergency, to help us to constmct a heaven and a hell that shall do no violence to modern, and of course enlightened, public opinion. But putting aside — though, alas! only too suggestive — the grotesque absurdities of this popularized controversy, and admitting also the earnest piety and sensitive jealousy for the glory of God's mercy and truth which it has unquestionably manifested, it seems to me a very con- spicuous example of the so-oft-repeated question, " Lord, and what shall this man do ?" Our own Church, indeed, has committed us to no definition of the place or mode of future punishment. Modifying ancient, and indeed Catholic, usages so far as was perhaps required by local peculiarities or necessities, she has avoided any public services or ceremonies that might seem to justify the extrava- gances either of dogma or practice which find their formal expression in " the Romish doctrine concerning Purgatory," and in " Indulgences." But she neither denies the Communion of Saints nor limits the mercy of God. Our longings, hopes, anxieties concerning the unseen world and the intermediate state, she leaves to our private devotions. He who presumes to judge "those who are without"; he who determines what ignorance is or is not " invincible " ; he who affirms that spiritual suicide is impossible ; he who measures the power of " faith, even though so little as a grahi of mustard-seed," or the efficacy even of a dying cry, " God be merciful to me, a sinner !" — seems to me to overpass, with a cruel presumption, the boundaries of orthodoxy no less than of humility. Therefore, con- cerning any individual, to hope to the end ; to abstain SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 121 from judgment; to seek relief in prayer; to supersede speculation by "glorying in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ " ; nothing to extenuate and to set down naught in malice; above all, to trust utterly in the justice and mercy of God — this assuredly is at once our duty and our comfort. But our periodic fevers of speculation do not permit us to be content with this. We must needs have a perfect theory, an answer to every possible question, a reply to the inquiry, " Lord, and what shall this man do ?" " Is my father saved ? Am I to believe that myoion mother is in hell forever?" And we often hear such rash assertions as these : " If I am to believe that my mother is in hell, I must give up religion." Are, then, our relations to one another the cause, instead of the effects, of our relation to Almighty God ? and will it be enough to urge at the judgment-seat of Christ, as a suflficient atonement for a godless life, " My punishment will torment also the affectionate hearts of those who love me " ? Ah ! my brethren, has it not already broken the heart of Him who died on Calvary ? For the controversy of which I am now speaking is not practical, but speculative. If we could settle it, and answer every question which really does torment the hearts of a few earnest believers, how would our duties be altered one jot or one tittle ? About the real responsibilities of other people we know absolutely nothing ; with our own we are perfectly familiar. We know the terrific power of our own habits ; we know too well how often the " hot iron " sears our own con- science. We know how the devil leads us captive at hisAvill. We have experienced the bondage of iniquity. We know how habits, for evil as well as for goo^, 122 SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. harden into character, and become a new and an accursed nature. And are we, then, to defer moral strain and effort until God thinks fit to satisfy vs that the destiny of some antediluvian sinner is just ? Are we to pause in our resolute obedience until we are enabled to calculate to an infinitesimal fraction the profit and loss of sin ? You need no such calculation, my brother. As to the buried generations of the past, as to the millions of the heathen, as to the ignorant masses of the population of all great cities, as to our own kith and kin who are " behind the veil " — " what is that to thee ?" Yoic can render them no aid other- wise, it may be, than by humble prayer. Nor would their state be bettered if they could be placed in your hands instead of God's. " Folloiu thou Me." If you sin you will die. In this world, and in every other world, " the wages of sin is death." If you love other people, keep them, by precept and example, out of sin. And if you fail in this service of others, remember that you still have the same law to live by, the same judg- ment to await. But this speculation about the future state seems to me, as I have said, a comparatively harmless specula- tion — partly because the Church has left this whole subject very largely undefined ; and partly because no theory about the future state, outside the ordinary belief among Protestants, has yet found acceptance which does not include a severe punishment or an excruciating discipline for those who, having died in sin, are to be saved at last. Nay more, this contro- versy may render us the very important service of recalling us to that older doctrine of the intermediate state which Calvinism and Puritanism have done so SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 123 much to obliterate. But, unfortunately, there are on all sides of us not so much theories as habits of thought — not so much particular speculations as the love and approval of speculation itself as a peculiar privilege or right or even duty — which may well justify extreme alarm. The reckless demands of private judgment have been advancing, even in the Church, by gigantic strides, until we seem to be threatened almost with an epidemic delirium of conscience. " The popular view of private judgment," said the author of the Avell-known Lectures on the Prophetical Office of the Church, published forty years ago, " is as follows: that every Christian has the right of making up his mind for himself Avhat he is to believe, from personal and private study of the Scriptures, This, I suppose, is the fairest account to give of it, though sometimes private judgment is considered rather as the necessary duty than the privilege of the Christian, and a slur is cast on hereditary religion as worthless or absurd ; and much is said in praise of independence of mind, free inquiry, the resolution to judge for ourselves, and the enlightened and spiritual temper which these things are supposed to produce. But this notion is so very preposterous, there is something so very strange and wild in maintaining that every individual Christian, rich and poor, learned and unlearned, young and old, in order to have an intelligent faith, must have formally examined, deliberated and passed sentence upon the meaning of Scripture for himself, and that in the highest and most delicate and mysterious matters of faith, that I am unable either to discuss or even to impute such an oj)inion to another, in spite of the large and startling declarations which men make on 12i SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. the subject."* Alas ! during forty years there has been much moving forward, if not progress. The Sacred Scriptures are less and less read and studied ; but they are handled with an ever-increasing irrever- ence. Lads and lasses dance now on the solemn spaces which the saints of old did not venture to approach until they had put oflF the shoes from their feet, " because the ground was holy." The earlier Protest- ants, who were, not inexcusably, jealous of Church authority, were at least willing to abide by their own judgment of the judgment of Scripture. Their suc- cessors have far loftier souls. They claim the right to begin at the beginning — personally, were it only possi- ble, to inspect the manger in Bethlehem; to cross- examine the Blessed Virgin ; and to demand a repeti- tion, for every generation and for every individual, of the evidence which was vouchsafed to S. Thomas. " Am I to believe the Eesurrection," says one, "because S. Paul affirms it? I must be myself convinced." Even so. Everybody must be omnipresent and omniscient ; and we may begin to be religious when we have superseded the necessity for religion. Far other is the discipline by which God guides us in every other department of life. We begin life, and we begin every fresh stage in life, not with knowledge, but with faith, and "we add to our faith virtue." The experience of the past is stored up for our use in the customs, the laws, the morality, the institutions of the society into which we are born ; and these treasures are dispensed to us by parents and guardians, tutors and schoolmasters, and civil governors. To impart this store of accumulated wisdom to each new genera- * Newman's Via Media, I., 145 (1877). SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 125 tion is precisely what we mean by education. As we grow to maturity we can reflect upon what we have learned. We begin to understand why, as well as to perceive wliat. We can speculate, if we choose, upon the innermost nature and sure test of right and wrong ; on the conditions of permanent political greatness ; on domestic and social morality. But long before we arrive either at the ability or the inclination for these refined and ennobling inquiries, we have been disci- plined into obedience. The demands of the moral law have become for us the undisputed postulates of life. We may theorize on the origin of property, and the wisest distribution of wealth, but nobody proposes to repeal the commandment "Thou shalt not steal." Our judgment has been prejudiced incurably in favour of law and right. And all this is the result not of argument, but of authority and of obedience. More- over, it will scarcely be denied that upon this founda- tion of authority and obedience — preceding and for the most part wholly superseding individual speculation and inquiry — the stability of society rests. Yet against this divine arrangement for the educa- tion of each generation of the human race almost every one of the arguments might be urged which seem to many people so conclusive against Church authority. We insist upon obedience in the ordinary training and government of human beings long before we have pro- duced conviction in the intellect or secured the approval of conscience; and we do this though we are neither infallible ourselves, nor are the laws and customs which we enforce infallible. Sometimes the laws press unequally or too hardly; sometimes we misinterpret or misapply them. But nevertheless we 126 SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. still demand obedience and maintain our authority. And this is a true wisdom which is justified of all her children ; it is justified, even more emphatically, by those who have repudiated it. There is no surer sign of the approaching dissolution of a nation than the relaxation of educational discipline; the substitution of persuasion for authority, of liberty for order. Is it reasonable, then, to expect that in the Church, and in the spiritual education of the race, Almighty God will reverse that divine method of education which He has inwoven in human nature itself and in the very fabric of society ? Is faith, which everywhere else is necessary, the condition of all knowledge, the starting-point of all progress, the justification of all obedience — is this faith to become in religion an absurdity, the fruit of knowledge instead of its root, the goal instead of the starting-point? Is it an unmeasurable blessing that we are born into the world the heirs of a vast inheritance of law and morality, under the protection of those Avho are to put us into actual possession of these treasures, and train us to the use of them ? And can it be, at the same time, a misfortune that we are also born of Christian parents, and made heirs of the Kingdom of Heaven — a Church polity, a creed, a ritual, a liturgy; and that we are placed under the protection of those who will put us into the actual possession of these treasures and train us to the use of them f Is the institution of property to be beyond discussion, and the existence of God an open question? Is it the highest wisdom to prejudice, bias, fortify the mind in favour of law and order, so that it may be safe forever from plausible sophistries of rebellion and vice ? And is it mean and irrational to SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 127 prejudice, bias, fortify the mind in favour of the creed and the Church, so that it may be safe forever from plausible sophistries of heresy and schism and godless- ness? Do you ask for an infallible guide in religion before you will submit to be directed in your belief or worship? Where is your infallible guide in morals and legislation ? Do you object that your parish priest is no wiser or better than yourself or your neighbours? You may say the same of a justice of the peace. Is the Convention of the Diocese of Maryland a sort of " earthen vessel "? So is the Legislature of the State of Maryland. Are (Ecumenical Councils liable to err ? So, it has been whispered, is the Congress of the United States. It cannot be doubted that a process of disintegration is going on rapidly not only among the religious opinions of ordinary society, but even in the Church itself. In any uncertainty or dispute there seems less and less recognition of any authoritative standard. People seem determined in their conduct, in matters religious and ecclesiastical, by their own caprice or impulse. " They don't, for their part, prefer this or that ; it goes a little further or stops a little sooner than suits their taste. They admit that it may suit other people." As if the conduct of divine service, or the doctrine of the Holy Eacharist, or the observance of holy seasons, were intrinsically of no more importance than the changing fashions in millinery, and to be decided by the same appeal to whims and fancies ! Does even the silliest person propose that in case of a difference of opinion the Church should give way? If we don't like to keep Saints' Days, for instance, is it more reasonable that Saints' Days should be abolished or 128 SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. that we should mend our behaviour ? " But," you reply, "we don't want anything abolished; Ave act according to our own views, and leave other people to do the same." I will put this answer into a form more strictly accurate and honest. " The Church is a highly respectable religious society, to which we are, on the whole, proud to belong. It is far more orderly and conservative than the extreme Protestant sects. On the other hand it has no nonsense — none of the extremes of Kome. It suggests rather than commands. It leaves a broad margin for individual peculiarities and' preferences. And, at any rate, nobody in our Church pretends to be infallible. Besides, in case of dangerous innovations or disreputable slovenliness, we sooner or later get matters ' fixed ' in the General Con- vention. We have Bishops and Canons and Eubrics, and excellent customs and usages — but, after all, like all modern or modernized institutions, the Church is subject to the will of the people. We never shall come to that, of course, but if any controversy arose on the subject, our constitution is such that even the very doctrine of the Trinity could be modified or expunged to suit modern progress." This is the Church theory that is really the most popular, though even the most reckless would hesitate to carry it out in practice to its logical conclusions. Still it has power enough to paralyze the Church's work. From such a theory, and from the languor and laxity which are its eftects, neither Eome nor Sectarianism has anything to fear. Sectarianism has nothing to fear from it, for it is Sectarianism. Nor does Rome fear Sectarianism,whether within or without the Church. She fears only a Catholicism more ancient, more submissive, more SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 129 unadulterated than her own. But it must be sub- missive. The Church is not a debating society : it is a body, a kingdom. Its dogmas are not for discussion, but for use. Its Divine Lord is a Lord, and He does not propose to us that we shall examine His title over and over again, and keep Him waiting for His own throne till we have made convenient modifications in His royal prerogative. "He speaks with authority." " Follow thou Me." " If any man is willing* to do God's luill, he shall know of the doctrine." This was the claim of Christ at the very beginning, when He called Matthew from the receipt of custom and the sons of Zebedee from their nets. This was the claim of the Apostles, in His name, when they first preached the Gospel and gathered together congregations of believers, and ordained elders, and set in order what was necessary for decency and edification in the divine service. It may seem very natural or even praise- worthy to criticise the foundations of our religion, and criticism implies the right to reject what is found wanting. None the less for that did S. Paul write to the Gralatians : " If I or an angel from Heaven preach any other gospel, let him be accursed." The perfect organization of the Church, as of any human society, will curtail the liberties of some for the greater good of all. To escape the scandal of the Corinthian assemblies we must abolish their license. There will thus be less redundancy of life, but a deeper and steadier current. There will be less inventiveness and originality, but more repose and surer permanence. And as time goes by, as the Apostles one after another are called to their heavenly rest, we find a due pro- *S. John vii. 17. iav nq di/.rj to diTiT/fja avrov tzoleIv, etc. 130 SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. vision made for the continuance of their authority and work — and in fact the legacy of S. John is the per- fected Episcopacy.* Nay, even by the close of tlie second century, to quote the words of Canon Lightf oot,t "Episcopacy is so inseparably interwoven with all the traditions and beliefs of men like Irenseus and Tertul- lian, that they betray no knowledge of a time when it was not Their silence suggests a strong negative presumption that while every other point of doctrine or practice was eagerly canvassed, the form of Church government alone scarcely came under discus- sion."! As the government of the Church was con- solidated, so was its doctrine protected. The New Testament Canon was formed. The far larger mass of the oral teaching of the Apostles served the purpose of guiding the interpretation of their scanty writings. Their well-remembered practices came to be embodied in Canons and Liturgies and Sacred Offices. Bishop handed down to succeeding Bishop the revered and invaluable deposit — Synod to Synod — Council to Council. As heresies and schisms arose, they were met, one after another, by an appeal to what had always been believed and to what had always been done. Every new definition was a definition of old truth, and the Christian literature of the first four centuries con- tains a mass of evidence as to the creed and discipline and ritual of the Church from which there can be no appeal but by questioning the authority of the Apostles and the divine foundation of the Church itself. Into this grand inheritance, maintained substantially with- out change notwithstanding passing corruptions and *Lightfoot's E^jistle to the Philippians, 209-212 (2d edition), t Now Bishop. X Ibid., p. 225. SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 131 vigorous reforms, we are born. Our Bishops are such in Apostolic succession, in authority, in jurisdiction, as were S. Irenaeus and S. Cyprian and S. Augustine. Our Liturgy is in all essentials, and largely almost word for word, the very same as the earliest extant Liturgies of the Eastern Church. Our Creeds are those which have been recited almost exactly as they are recited now for more than fifteen hundred years. Our doctrines are the doctrines handed down by indis- putable tradition from the Apostles, proved by Holy Scripture, defined as occasion arose by Ecumenical Councils. The Church into which we have been baptized is fo? us, in these United States, that one Catholic and Apostolic Church in which every one of us professes to believe. Through her Christ teaches us and governs us. And in an age of almost universal skepticism and endless new experiments in religion and morals, amid the babble of controversy and the boastful pretensions of competing sects, it is with an authority higher than her own that she calls us away from further speculation to practical godliness. It is with a wisdom more than human that she warns us "to hold fast that we have, that no man take our crown" ; and not to set out on a path of doubt and discussion of which we are only certain that it will disturb our peace and cool our devotion and relax our energy. If it must be so, alas ! let others wrangle who do not pretend to have any fixed dogma or divine guidance or authorized government. Revolutions are ever easy for those who have nothing to lose. Let those ti-y to invent a religion who imagine themselves to be without one. Let those amuse themselves by constructing a Church polity who repudiate history and make light of 132 SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. the Apostles. " What is that to thee ? Follow thou Me." It may seem humiliating, indeed, deliberately to decline controversy ; it may seem even cowardly, as if we were distrustful of the result. But we should remember the immense range of universal discussion, and the extreme danger of committing ourselves to a conflict, not with some one individual who shall have fairly studied, so far as it is possible, the whole subject in dispute; but with any number of picked men, each of whom is a specialist, and has spent perhaps a life- time in equipping himself for the attack of some small corner of the vast territory the whole of which we undertake single-handed to defend. Thus we are to engage with a Huxley in biology ; though biology has only an accidental and not very important bearing on religion and morals, and though, in his own depart- ment, Mr. Huxley has probably not a superior in the world. Again, the great question at issue between ourselves and the Church of Eome is the supremacy of the See of S. Peter. The immense majority of good Churchmen have never read a single syllable on this subject — and certainly the same may be affirmed of the immense majority of Komanists. The literature of the question is a considerable library ; and an independent judgment upon it can be formed only by a minute ex- amination in the original languages of the whole of the Christian writings of at least the first four centuries. And even if this issue were decided in our favour, so far as it can be determined by the explicit testimony of antiquity. Dr. Newman meets us with his theory of development — a theory which, in his hands, includes the whole of modern Komanism, from the doctrine of the Trinity to the veneration of relics and the worship SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 133 of images, from the Canon of Scripture to the infalli- bility of the Pope. The Quaker thinks Ave have no right to express an opinion about the ecclesiastical eccentricities or peculiar doctrines of his sect till we are familiar with, at least, Barclay's Apology. How many of us have read it? Which of us has given an independent study to Mormonism, in Mormon books and in the usages and opinions of Mormon men and women ? There is a sect of " Christians who object to be otherwise designated." Which of us knows any- thing accurately about them ? It is highly edifying to consider what was the origin and beginning of the supposed supernatural inspirations and revelations of Emanuel Swedenborg. " One night in London, after he had dined heartily, a kind of mist spread before the eyes of Emanuel Swedenborg, and the floor of his room was covered with hideous reptiles, such as serpents, toads, and the like. ' I was astonished,' he says, 'having all my wits about me, and being per- fectly conscious. The darkness attained its height and then passed away. I now saw a man sitting in the corner of the chamber. As I had thought myself entirely alone, I was greatly frightened when he said to me, " Eat not so much." My sight again became dim, and when I recovered it I found myself alone in the room.' The following night the same thing occurred. * I was this time not at all alarmed. The man said, " I am God, the Lord, the Creatoi- and Redeemer of the world. I have chosen thee to unfold to men the spiritual sense of the Holy Scripture. I will Myself dictate to thee what thou shalt write." ' "* * Maudsley's Body and Mind and Psychological Essays (Appleton, N. Y.), 1876, pp. 185-186. 134: SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. Such being the foundation of the " Church of the New Jerusalem," are we to be considered irrational if we deem it a preposterous waste of time to examine the superstructure ? Do you decide to build your religion on controversy, to challenge all comers, to accept only what you have independently proved, and believe only what you have personally verified ? Be it so — but how long do you propose to live ? Are you sure that you can be released from every other occupation ? You must first make good your position against the material- ists and atheists and pantheists, and against all the separate forms of their Protean errors. You must decide the " divine legation " of Moses, and the Messiahship of Jesus. You must go through the details of the Arian heresy and the Donatist schism. You must decide upon the claims of the Papacy and the justifi- cation of the Keformers. Of these last you must do separate battle with Luther and Calvin, with Laud and the Puritans, with Wesley and Pusey. You must further investigate the conflicting pretensions of the different sorts of Presbyterians and Methodists, Quak- ers and Baptists. And while these are the main lines of the road along which you propose to travel militant, you will find innumerable bypaths at the end of every one of which is lurking a foe. And when you have fought your good fight with other people's opinions, and arrived at a truth which will really satisfy your intellect, you will then have to begin the real business of life — which is to fear God and to keep His Commandments. If this long research be included in theduty of every intelligent Christian, it is perfectly obvious that there lives not on the face of the whole SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. 135 earth one intelligent Christian who has even approxi- mately discharged his duty. A duty impossible is a contradiction even in terms ; and this were an impossi- ble duty. No, my dear brethren, we are called to no task so idle and at the same time so presumptuous, so mon- strously beyond our powers. It is by no means clear that any formal proof of our religion is generally needed — it only becomes necessary when our souls are sick. It is the dyspeptic that gets his food analyzed and con- sults his physician about the processes of digestion. Blessed, rather, is the man who has never need to ask whether his food is nutritious, and who " does not know that he has a system"!* But even if it should become necessary for us to prove our own belief, it is by no means necessary for us to disTproYe other people's mishelief. Our religion comes to us like a mother's love, like a father's protecting care. It is ready for us at our birth. It proves its power by being the guide of our spiritual energy. It brings God near to us, and us near to God. It expresses and deepens our piety. It orders our lives. It comforts us amid the troubles of life, in sickness, in bereavement, in the valley of the shadow of death. It needs no other proving; and if any one should feel it his duty — for what will con- science not require ? — to clisipro\e for us our religion, we should receive him with the feeling with which we should listen to the accusations of a candid friend who should endeavour to persuade us of a father's dishonour or of the unchastity of a mother. Granted that we take our religion on trust — that most of us accept it on the *Cf. Carlyle's "Characteristics" (Essays, III 329, et seqq. LiVjrary Edition). 13G SPECULATION AND OBEDIENCE. unexamined but continuous evidence of twenty cen- turies — what more does infidelity or heresy or scliism offer to us ? Not, assuredly, an independent judgment ; but that we shall exchange faith in the Church for faith (shall I say?) in Wesley or Swedenborg, in Mr. Huxley or Mr» Robert Ingersoll. But, assuredly, to avoid speculation is not the whole duty of man. Our Lord's question to S. Peter — " What is that to thee ?" — should be forever sounding in our ears. But far more important still is His command, " Follow thou Me." This must be the secret of our own life; it is the secret of the life of the Church. May God give us grace to set Him before men neither by our orthodoxy alone, nor by the simplicity of our acceptance of the truth, but by utter obedience and by " endeavouring ourselves to follow the blessed steps of Christ's most holy life"! "For the Kingdom of God is not in word, but in power ";...." not meat and drink, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." MANLY STRENGTH.* Noiv the days of David dreiv nigh that he should die ; and he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the ivay of all the earth: he thou strong therefore, and shoic thyself a man. — I. Kings ii, 1-2. Nothing is more common than for men to perceive and rebuke in others the vices and neglects which they fail to notice in themselves. Time glides so noiselessly away from them, and the changes produced by a single hour or day are so slight, that it is only at some critical period of their lives, when they are compelled to com- pare the present with a somewhat distant past of their history and experience, that they discover how much has come to them and how much has gone forever. When they revisit the scenes of their childhood ; when they read over again some book, once a favourite, now almost forgotten ; when they meet an old friend who has achieved some great commercial success, or reached a proud eminence in literature or scholarship ; Avhen they have to decide where their children shall be educated, or what shall be the trade or profession by which they shall seek to make their way in the world — at such times they are startled to find what vast changes have silently been wrought in them by the greatest of all innovators. Time. They get that rare and exceptional view of themselves which is their com- mon view of others — they see themselves after an absence. *This sermon was addressed especially to young men (London, 1863). 138 MANLY STRENGTH. It would be a strange life indeed that could be reviewed without thankfulness. They are very few, and must have been very unfortunate, who would ask for the doubtful privilege of living life over again. Yet, though we are increasingly diffident of ourselves, we think we can see the folly of others, and warn and help them. Moreover, we cannot avoid the regrets which, alas! are now unavailing. We see how a little more diligence and care would have made us as rich as our wealthiest friends ; how more patient and persever- ing study would have raised us also to literary eminence. And we mourn and fret that now we must die obscure, no grand victory won, either material or spiritual. Is there no path left to an immortality of fame ? — no road still open to commercial prosperity, to intellectual culture, to moral and spiritual greatness ? Must we, indeed, die and be forgotten because we have done nothing to deserve remembrance ? It is not religion only — it is our very human nature that longs for immortality. Our power of thought, our affections, shrink back from nothingness with the utmost horror. Every unsolved problem, every un- accomplished purpose, every dear and loving friend, demands that we should still live on ; our pleasures we would live to enjoy, our griefs and misfortunes we would live to master; we would live to serve our friends, we would live to wring even from our enemies the acknowledgment that we deserved better from them than hatred or scorn. Whatever crazy Sorrow saith, No life that breathes with human breath lias ever truly longed for death. MANLY 8TKENQTH. 139 'Tis life, whereof our nerves are scant — Oh, life, not death — for which we pant ; More life, and fuller, that we want.* Often this passionate longing for personal immor- tality spends itself in the endeavour to make our children all that we so ardently and so vainly wish that we ourselves could have been; and as the task becomes harder, and, above all, when it becomes impossible, we yearn to accomplish it with a very agony of desire. It is this which gives to the counsels of the dying their wondrous depth and power. It is this which strove for utterance when " the days of David drew nigh that he should die ; and he charged Solomon his son, saying, I go the way of all the earth : be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man." We feel that we have been tueah ; that our manhood has been dwarfed or distorted. We would have our children far nobler than ourselves, and yet our children, carrying on our work, and in a manner our very selves, into future generations. Yet, perhaps, the advice of David to his son, espe- cially when applied for our own guidance in these Christian ages, may seem poor and inadequate. Is this all, we may be inclined to ask, that a dying father has to say — " Be strong and manly "? It must, indeed, be acknowledged that there is nothing here specifically Christian; nothing that any one creed or sect can monopolize, either for evil or good. But is not this an advantage ? Is it not well that there are holy precepts that we may take without controversy even to " Jews, Turks, infidels, and heretics "? May not such precepts suggest a real brotherhood and become the occasion of * Tennyson : Tht Two Voices. 1-tO MANLY STKENGTH. ail actual fellowship ? And, in truth, what can the highest practical teaching of all religion be but this — "Show thyself a man^'i On either side of such counsel there are unfathomable depths of sin and folly. " Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." " Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." At the same time, we must remember what true human nature is. To live according to nature is virtue; yet, on the other hand, it may be urged that the state of nature is a state of war, and that he alone can be virtuous who lives above nature. The ambiguity vanishes when we adopt the word " man " instead of " human nature," Be a man ; partaking, indeed, of flesh and blood, yet none the less a spirit to whom " the inspiration of the Almighty giveth under- standing." We cannot rise higher than our manhood ; we need not and we ought not to sink below it. This would scarcely be denied even by those who sometimes seem to speak of human nature as if it were an accursed thing to be utterly abolished. They speak of a " new birth," a "new creature," a "new man," as if these expressions implied either that we are not human now, or that if we would please God we must cease to be so. In either case David's advice to Solomon must be com- pletely irrelevant, and quite incapable of being accom- modated to our own use. But in truth there is no theory of total depravity, and there is no theory of regeneration, which is not compelled to recognize the fact of human responsibility, and the possibility of virtue and vice. We may, therefore, boldly adopt the words of the text ; we may say to ourselves arjd to one another, " You are not so bad as to have utterly lost intellect and conscience, and the power of becoming MANLY STKENGTH. 141 better; you may be a wicked man and a foolish man, but yon are a man still. Cast away then yonr sin and folly, and live by that * inspiration of the Almighty which gives you understanding.' Remember, too, that that divine help is your birthright as a man ; the very glory that distinguishes you from the beasts that perish." And surely, without presuming upon any profound knowledge of the world, or of the age we live in, it is plain to the most superficial observer that we are in great need of the counsel, " Be thou strong." The age itself, perhaps, is strong ; armies, governments, the masses, the numerical majorities — these, perhaps, are strong, but the individual is weak. It has been well said that civilization, in spite of all that is good and beautiful in it, tends to destroy individuality, and all the variety and beauty which the freest possible development of individuality can alone secure. If it be so, civilization tends also to destroy itself. It must end, as hitherto it always has ended, in corruption and ruin. The minority has been, in every case, the salt of the earth. All progress, and every kind of refor- mation, have come from the few, not from the mass. Again and again has an Athanasius been against the world. If even Christianity itself can save society from decay, it will be because it takes every separate man, isolates him from his fellow-creatures, sets him alone before the judgment-seat of Almighty God, and bids him answer for his own thoughts, words and deeds. It declares, indeed, that we are members one of another, that humanity is one body; it preaches a brotherhood more comprehensive than any fraternity that the world has ever seen. But, at the same time, it declares that 142 MANLY STHENGTH. we are members in particular, and assures us that no shouts of the multitude, how loud soever, can make our softest whisper inaudible; and that we shall be judged not according to the public opinion or the fashions of our day, but according to our own works. Even in the interests then of that civilization which seems so incompatible with individual energy and force of character, we ought to lay to heart the counsel, "Be thou strong." But does civilization tend to make us feeble? It may, perhaps, be necessary to offer some few illustra- tions of what I have assumed to be a fact. It is plain, at any rate, that in everything requiring physical strength the individual is of less and less value. The strength of Homeric heroes would be useless on a modern battlefield, and nations no longer entrust the settlement of their quarrels to the fortunes of a duel. Goliath of Gath would only be a better mark for the bullet of a rifleman. It is not the strength of indi- viduals that is now needed, but the organization and discipline of vast masses — nay, the great battles of our own age are fought out as much by chemists and mathematicians as by the soldiers who slay and are slain. So also in the works of peace, in the productive labour of what Ave call the working-classes, individual strength counts almost for nothing. Wind and water and steam do now the work that heretofore could be performed only by human force and toil. Division of labour, skill, organization, combination — these are now needed, and not individual strength. At the same time, it would be most unfortunate that the physical perfection of the human race should degenerate. It is impossible to separate bodily vigour from vigour of MANLY STEENGTir. 143 spirit, however carefully and accurately we may dis- tinguish the two. And there is a peculiarly obvious connection between bodily strength and courage, even tliat kind which we call moral courage. When war becomes a matter of science and money, politics them- selves become etfeminate. The horror of bloodshed and the fear of pain overpower the horror of tyranny and the fear of national disgrace. Commerce would sacrifice even the honour of the fatherland for the sake of a new market ; " selling its birthright," as it were, " for a mess of pottage." And, in truth, that moral cowardice which simply yields to the majority, which dares have or utter no opinion of its own, which would rather perish with the many than be saved among the noble army of martyrs, may be more closely connected than we are in the habit of remembering with physical weakness. " Be thou strong," therefore ; take good heed that your body is so braced and exercised that you may not be the sport of sick fancies and nervous excitements. Seek to acquire and to preserve such vigour of nerve and muscle that every little rumour of danger shall not have power to scare you into silence and obscurity. Do not lose altogether the faculty of a noble and righteous anger ; and remember that there is a spirited element in human nature which is to be the ally of reason in subduing the flesh to its will. Inasmuch as the animal in a man is to be the instru- ment or slave of the spiritual, take care that the instrument be perfect, and the slave in such health and vigour that he may do the full measure of his work. The same individual weakness may be observed in the intellectual culture, the general education of our day. There was a time when education was monopo- 144 MANLY STRENGTH. lized by a very few. For the " lower classes " to wish to be taught was deemed an insufferable impertinence. What right had they to push themselves out of their J) roper station, and thrust themselves into the place of their betters ? Especially what would become of the privileged few if the unprivileged many were allowed to compete with them ? Still education in those old times was, of its kind, thorough. It was not first useful, and then, if a happy chance would have it so, human. It was first of all human, and therefore in every case useful. It was the education of the man, and not of the tradesman, the physician, the lawyer, or the divine. It did not seek to train a youth for some particular station in life, into which he might after all never enter, and out of which a thousand accidents might remove him ; its aim was to make a man of him, that so he might be fit for any station whatever. It had to do with genuine studies, not mere accomplishments, whether of the useful or of the orna- mental kind. No doubt it had its defects. It chose too often to sto}) at principles, not caring to deduce from them the precepts which would have connected them with ordinary life. It knew little, and therefore could impart little, of those physical sciences which fill so large a space in our most modern thought and teaching. Nay, there was a point of view from which it denied them to be sciences at all ; for they were con- cerned with ever-changing phenomena, not with sub- stance; with that which 5ee??w, not with that which is. Yet the learned were not unwilling to acknowledge that they had freely received in order that they might freely give ; and the unlearned began to demand that they might be made acquainted with the principles MANLY STRENGTH. 145 and not only the precepts by which life may be wisely guided. So in the end it has come to pass that there is education for everybody who chooses to take it. Unhappily, it is education of the useful kind rather than of the human. It trains men for some particular station in life, not for life itself. It can see no good in much which seemed in former days to be the only good. It used to be believed — and, for my part, I believe it still — that the science of language, for instance, can be learnt most accurately in the old classic languages ; that there we can most surely find the true philosophy of language, and discover the mystical relation between the Reason and the Word. But Boston and New York, Manchester and Birming- ham, carry on no correspondence in ancient Greek and Latin; and a man may learn quite easily to talk pretty nothings in Italian or French. The classics educate the man; modern languages, when they are studied for their utility rather than their literature, the merchant or the traveller. Even in the department of the physical sciences, which are unquestionably "use- ful," there is a tendency to popularize rather than thoroughly teach them. And though even a slight knowledge of those innumerable facts which observa- tion and experiment have accumulated and tested — and much more a knowledge of the best method of arranging and classifying them — is greatly to be pre- ferred to mere ignorance, yet the very multitude of facts and of the sciences which are based upon them may easily weaken, almost to uselessness, our mental forces by scattering them over too wide a region. The thorough study and accurate knowledge even of a single science will require and increase our strength ; ]46 MANLY STRENGTH. ■will need and will confirm those habits of accuracy which can never fail to be useful, because, in fact, they belong to the truly human discipline. But to learn results while we know nothing of the process by which they have been obtained, only encumbers the memory ; puffs us up with the mere conceit of knowledge, while we are without the reality; conceals from us the difference between the quantity and the quality of the facts which are employed as evidence and proof of scientific propositions ; and, in a word, leads us back again to that careless and fruitless induction from which it was the great aim of the philosopher whom physical science most delights to honour to set us free. When there is so much to be learned; when almost every year a new science or application of science delights or alarms us ; when science is becoming more and more plainly connected with our daily life and even our religious belief; when it seeks to determine now the antiquity and now the origin of the human race ; when it bids us approach through anatomy and physiology the theories and beliefs which we have hitherto arrived at only through scripture or history ; it becomes us to acquire, not mere adroitness and skill in concealing our ignorance or bringing into prominence what little show of knowledge we may have, but genuine intellectual strength, the power fairly to grapple with the diflBculties of at least some one department of truth, that so we may be safe both from the pride and the panics of that folly which is always weak, that weakness which is ahvays foolish. Surely in the midst of sophistry and pretension there is need of this counsel, *' Be thou strong^ Gain an inde- pendent knowledge of something, however slight — let MANLY STRENGTH. 147 there be something that you yourself have really verified, something that you have not taken wholly on trust; in understanding be a man. Guard yourself against the danger of being hurried away by every new theory, every plausible hypothesis. Learn at least how to choose your guides ; and remember that you will learn that only by being yourself a traveller and know- ing some road for yourself. The older culture, feeble with age, eclipsed by the splendour of its far more brilliant rivals, silenced by the clamour of noisy pre- tenders, derided as useless by a generation that cares more for fruit than for the tree on which it grows, seems to be calling us, as David called Solomon, to receive the counsels of a mature but departing wisdom — " I am going the way of all the earth : be thou strong therefore, and show thyself a man." Even our very amusements seem more and more to be growing feeble. It is well indeed that there should be amusements, and that they should be such in reality and not in name. It is well that they should afford relief from severe study, and be diversions in the sense of actually diverting the mind from what, Avith- out such relief, would too greatly strain and fatigue it. But the reason and the intellect of a man should scorn to find such diversion only in the gratification of the senses; and the changes in the use of words which even the last few years have witnessed, write only too truly the history of social degeneracy. The new meaning of the word sensation, for instance, may afford to some future Dean of Westminster some bitter paragraphs on the " morality in words." He will find in that new meaning the evidence that civilization in England and in most " progressive " nations, in the 148 MANLY STRENGTH. latter half of the nineteenth century, had arrived at that stage when men can scarcely live without feverish and hysterical excitement ; and when cowardice, and effeminacy, and affectation, change into cruelty and the keen enjoyment of danger to limb and life. The diversions and amusements of literature are now " sensation " stories. A music-hall can now scarcely ensure a crowded audience excepting by the grossest exaggerations of a folly that has no wit; or by some infatuated man or woman encountering the risk, by no means remote, of life-long torture or a horrible and sudden death. These amusements are surely beneath the dignity of human nature, and are scarcely to be preferred to Spanish bull-fights, or the contests of the old Roman gladiators. And it must be remembered that it is not the lower orders who are rising to these enjoyments, but the soberer and better-instructed who are sinking to them. From the pot-house to cheap theatres may be a social and intellectual elevation. In those of them,* indeed, which are largest and best con- ducted, it is impossible to deny that, with much danger and not a little evil, there are not wanting many elements of good. It is impossible to watch the eager, upturned faces of the vast assemblies which crowd these enormous edifices — four, five, even six thousand of them — without perceiving that for a few short hours at least they are contented and happy. They do not sit with the listless indifference of the used-up man of fashion ; nor, on the other hand, is it only the performance and the acting in which they are interested. They hiss from the stage, not the bad *This refers especially to some of the very large cheap theatres of London. MANLY STRENGTH. 149 actress, but the bad woman, the confidante who betrays her trust, the cheat and the deceiver. They applaud, not so much the man who can well represent the noblest emotions, and exhibit almost as in actual life heroic courage, but the man who happens to have these virtues to represent, however indifferently he may play his part. When the weak and delicate maiden is rescued from the grasp of some ferocious and cowardly assailant, her deliverance is greeted with a shout of enthusiasm which comes assuredly from no refinement of the critical faculty, but from real generosity of heart. Nor is the morality of the cheap theatres always inferior to the morality of some of the most popular operas. But from those sensation entertain- ments in which the middle classes seek some relief from the dull routine of their ordinary life, and too often also from the utter emptiness of their understand- ings, it seems impossible to bring away anything approaching to genuine cheerfulness, or the recollec- tion even of a laughter that Avas not too insincere to be better than "the crackling of thorns under a pot." Young men especially seem growing too feeble even heartily to play ; and they need to be reminded that it is only the strong man who can retain through life, in spite of all its burdens and disappointments, the joyous simplicity and playful gladness of a little child. But the feebleness of the age manifests itself most completely and most ominously in the tame submission of the individual to the tyranny of majorities. The formation of public opinion is one of those mysteries that it would seem impossible to solve. Action and reaction are here so rapid and so intricate, that it is almost impossible to determine what is cause and what 150 MANLY STRENGTH. is effect. Do the speeches, for instance, that are made at a public meeting create, or even to a great degree modify, the opinion of an audience ? Do they not, on the other hand, simply echo the opinion that has been already formed, and gain their enthusiasm from a sympathy already existing and strong ? A temper- ance meeting is made up of people the majority of whom are already pledged to total abstinence, and who are present not because they need convincing, but because they are convinced already. The orators of our great religious societies make their appeals not to enemies, but to friends. So also in political and even parochial affairs it seems impossible to discover how a public opinion is produced, and whether the platform and the press are its creatures or its creators. The modern press itself, that great bulwark of liberty, that new power which boasts to be stronger even than par- liaments or courts of justice — even this must pay the penalty of familiarity, and can be no hero to its valets. Tlie awful " we " is very often discovered to be a very meek and commonplace gentleman, quietly " doing," mainly with the aid of a pair of scissors, the noblest institutions and the silliest hobbies of the age. Every newspaper must flatter the existing public opinion, and not create a better ; or, at the highest, can only by slow degrees, and with the most anxious and sensitive pru- dence, modify the theories and calm the passions of men. Yet, though we know not whence it comes, though we often do know it to be extremely ignorant and dangerous, there is for every one of us a public opinion, a belief, or, at any rate, a make-believe of the majority, which it would be fatal to all our hopes of worldly success to disregard. At the same time, to MANLY STRENGTH. 151 regard it, to sacrifice anything to it better than a mere whim or caprice, is almost as dishonest as it is cowardly. Men, we are told, or, at any rate, clergy- men, may believe what they like, but they must not speak what tliey like. The articles and formularies to which they have subscribed declare not necessarily what is true, but what, at any rate, they are to affect to believe true, and by no means to contradict. The clergy, we are now taught, are not " a body of earnest men commissioned to improve the faith and practice of mankind, but only a hierarchy of functionaries." " If we are to have an establishment," says the leading journal of London,* " we must establish something ; somewhere the limit must be drawn of what opinions are or are not to receive tlie support of the State. Mere opinion is and, we trust, will always remain free in this country; but clergymen must teach nothing contrary to the engagements into which they have entered. A clergyman may doubt of things which the framers of the Articles assumed to be too self-evident to require to be stated. He may hold doctrines suscep- tible of inferences subversive of recognized opinions. He may get entangled in the meshes of modern criticism, and doubt the genuineness of whole passages of what are usually accepted as sacred writings. He may contend that the books of the Old or New Testa- ment are written by other persons than those whose names they bear, etc. But he must not teach or pub- lish anything at variance with the formularies which he is bound to believe." What hope can there be of a bold, strong, honest public opinion in religious matters, when the very guides and leaders of the * The Times. 152 MANLY STRENGTH. people are placed in a position than which it would be impossible for the cruelty and ingenuity of their worst enemies to devise one more contemptible ? Biblical criticism, carrying not a few of the clergy along with it, has come at last into collision with public opinion. Public opinion demands that the hierarchy shall not yield even an inch of sacred terri- tory, a single letter or dot of Holy Scripture, to the rationalist invader. This mighty and irresponsible tyrant, this stern, unreasoning will of the majority, must needs be propitiated ; and not a single " safe- guard of our holy religion," not a single oath or sub- scription, must be relaxed or removed until, at any rate, the many-headed monster has been lulled to sleep again. Then, when all educated laymen have wholly ceased to care what the clergy may utter on any religious subject whatever, they may perhaps receive from the universal scorn of mankind "the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely," Surely, in presence of the possibility of a fate so ignominious, it is well to listen to the counsel which David gave to Solomon, " Be thou strong, and show thyself a man." But the fetters by which the laws may bind the clergy of an established Church are not more real, they are only more conspicuous, than those fetters by which almost every section of the religious world is seeking to bind the free spirit. " Think as the majority thinks," religious bigotry says, " or go your way lonely and suspected ; remember that people care comparatively little about the truth ; they have made up their minds long ago what they mean to take for truth ; it is that, and nothing else whatever, that they wish to have taught." Around that august sham have MANLY STRENGTH. 153 gathered all manner of political establishments, vested interests, pecuniary profits, and windy reputations. In comparison with these, nay, even in comparison with the salary of a common beadle, what are the theories of solitary students, or the visions of holy seers, or the utterances of inspired prophets ? Every new truth, every new form of an old truth, every kind of reformation, introduces into that which needed to be reformed some sort of confusion. Why not let well alone ? When things are at rest, be careful not to move them ! You are sure to make some enemies — you are very likely not to make a single friend; and, moreover, if you will insist on annoying people with your novelties who are quite content with things as they are, you must do it at your peril. Who is not aware that in the face of the tyranny of the many, the individual is all but helpless and ex- ceedingly weak? And this weakness manifests itself by no means always in dishonesty, but far oftener in a withdrawing of the attention and thought from those subjects where difficulties abound. It is only too easy to forget theology or ethics in business or pleasure ; yet business and pleasure can never exhaust the powers of a human spirit or satisfy its longings. In spite of all our efforts to keep them away, the thoughts of God and duty will sometimes intrude; and even the things that are seen and temporal will sometimes sug- gest those better things that are not seen and eternal. At such times Aveakness gi'ows ashamed of itself and wretched ; and even cowardice begins to perceive that if it had not been dim-sighted, it would long ago have known that there is no terrible misery more utterly to be feared than that which tortures the man who has dared to be a coward. 154 MANLY STRENGTH. There is, at any rate, then, good cause why we should lay to heart this counsel that David gave his son, " Be thou strong, and show thyself a man." Viewed in the light that has been shining upon it more and more brightly through many centuries, how comprehensive has the meaning of the words " Show thyself a man " become ! For He has been born into the world who came forth wearing a crown of thorns, and of whom Pilate said, " Behold the man !" The old Jewish economy has passed away, and we know n.ow that it is better to be a child of God than a child of Abraham, better to be a man than a Jew. Feudal dis- tinctions have for the most part gone the way of all the earth ; aristocracy itself begins to acknowledge that it must deserve its high position, and he who has worth sees stretching fair before him the road to honour. Nay, even ecclesiastical exclusiveness has had to yield to the ever-growing reverence for humanity which is inseparable from Christ's religion, and the priest retains his authority only on condition that he shall have conijMssion on those thai are ignorant and out of the 2uay. Theology, politics, trade, science — these, or all of them put together, cannot exhaust the faculties or the resources of human nature ; and to be a perfect man is nobler and greater tlian to be any mere kind of 7nan whatever. Yet though we may have well learned this lesson, we very frequently forget it, and there still are wars and rivalries of classes which cannot but be equally fatal to victors and vanquished. If in the older nations of Europe the nobility could be persuaded to forget their relation to the commons; if they could be brought to believe that they might be more selfish or less just MANLY STRENGTH. 155 than their neighbours ; if they were to forget that it was for helping and not liindering the commonwealth that their ancestors had been ennobled, they would assuredly become more worthless, more utterly corrupt, than the very meanest of those whom they would have learned to despise. And if the commons could liing away all reverence for the illustrious dead, if they were to succeed in cutting off the present from the past, and could really persuade children that it was not of the smallest consequence who their fathers were, they would by the very same stroke cut off the future from the present, and destroy the sources of permanent national strength and glory. For the generation of men that should neither look before nor after would have sunk to the level of the beasts that perish. How often have demagogues, and political and social adven- turers, in these few last years, harangued the working classes upon the rights of labour and the tyranny of capital ! They have reminded them that by the sweat of their brows, not themselves only, but their employers have been gaining their bread. They have told them that they, sunk as they were too often in extreme pov- erty, were the source of all the wealth of the country. They have urged them to demand a far larger share of that wealth, to make their own terms with their masters, and to compel their fellow-labourers also to submit to the same conditions. " Be men !" these •perorating demagogues have exclaimed ; " let no greedy capitalist put his foot upon your necks, or wring from you those heaps of treasure which he displays so proudly to his own glorification and your disgrace." From this one-sided counsel, this mean interpretation of the needs and capacities of manhood, have come 156 MANLY STRENGTH. again and again, for the labourers, strikes and famine, and for the employers of labour, bankruptcy. The tree that bears such fruit can scarcely be a good tree. Be men, the most sober-minded counsellors would say to the working classes, and therefore be not the mere slaves of impulse and blind, ignorant passion. Don't imagine that the distribution of wealth is quite so simple a matter as the orators of trades-unions would have you suppose. Eecollect that for a rapid produc- tion (rapid enough to keep pace with the necessities of the labouring class) abstinence is as necessary as labour ; and that it is this abstinence which produces capital, and capital which keeps labourers and their families alive until their wages become due. Indeed, to go no further into these details, they are but illustrations of the fact that we are members one of another, and that one cannot become permanently and truly great by tlie mere littleness of another. Far rather is it true that in the greatness, even the commercial greatness, of one all the community are sharers. Happiness can come either to labourers or employers of labour not by any vain endeavour to promote the interests of a class, but by rising above class prejudices, by a thorough human culture, by discovering and obeying those laws to which the wisdom of God has subjected the production and distribution of wealth. No amount of passion, no noisy sophistry, no empty cant of manhood, will ever do the work that must be done before all sorts and conditions of men have the utmost possible enjoyment of the gifts of God. To take one more example of the need there is to show ourselves men, I may remind you of that prin- ciple of asceticism which has jirevailed through the MANLY STRENGTH. 157 whole history of the Christian Church, and also in vast regions outside Christendom. I say the principle, not the practice of asceticism. There have been, and easily may be again, times when the practice of asceti- cism is necessary. It may very safely be affirmed that the survival of the Christian religion is due to those heroic souls that cut themselves wholly off from the world when the world was a mere cesspool of filth and abomination that now we should be ashamed even to describe. But by the princijjle of asceticism I mean the theory that it is, in itself, apart from its moral and spiritual utility, a higher form of Christian life — nay, the only condition of spiritual perfection. In its grosser manifestations, civilization has driven this ascetic principle into holes and corners, and Prot- estantism especially has, to some extent — and often irrationally — repudiated it. S. Simeon no longer ad- dresses admiring crowds from the top of a tall pillar. S. Thomas himself would scarcely be to-day admitted into his own cathedral, if he were to present himself there as he is described by the brilliant but too preju- diced historian.* Professional mendicancy, however pious, finds small favour with the police magistrate, and voluntary and useless wretchedness is justly considered odious. Yet it may be feared that, just possibly, even in our modern fraternities and sisterhoods, we may have, unless we are exceedingly watchful, too much of the principle instead of the sacred utility of asceticism. Puritanism, too, on its practical side, is but another — and a far more uninviting and even revolting — form of the same principle ; and the religious world still seeks to honour God by despising or destroying or refusing to use * Fi'oude. 158 MANLY STRENGTH. the gifts and blessings which God bestows upon them. That mystic glory that once encircled like a halo the brows of the priesthood has, indeed, faded away. But ministers of religion are still expected to be much better than their neighbours are required to be ; and their superior goodness is to manifest itself largely by absti- nence from those enjoyments which are forbidden to none but themselves. Thus, the mere negative side of religion is put above the positive; those means which are useful only for securing the highest spiritual ends are exalted above the ends themselves. Self-denial is counted a higher virtue than fellowship with God, and to sacrifice is deemed better than to obey. For it is surely disobedience to fling back God's gifts to Him unused; to allow ourselves no rest from the heavy burdens of a weary life ; to shut our eyes to the beauties of Nature, and the triumphs of science and art ; to look with cold disdain upon the ordinary occupations of our neighbours, and to empty our own of that piety and divineness without which they must become desecrated and evil. " Show yourself then a man " ; do not bring to God in your own imperfectly-developed nature, and your own joyless experience, the halt, the maimed, and the blind for sacrifice. Do not presume to take up a cross which was never meant for you, nor think so boastfully of your own strength as to fancy that you can carry a far heavier burden than life itself Avill most surely lay upon you. Bring to God the mirth of childhood, the strength of youth, the firm purpose and wise counsels of mature life, the ripe experience and quiet serenity of old age. Honour God in the summer's sunshine, and not only in the bleak storms of winter. " Praise Him with the timbrel and MANLY STRENGTH. 159 dance, praise Him with all stringed instruments and organs." In sport and work, in solitude and society, " show yourself a man." Again, though departing somewhat further even than I have already done from the original meaning of the words of the text, I may remind you that it has become more than ever necessary that you should in some practical way show yourselves men, and not take it for granted that people will believe that a tree is good whether it happens to bear fruit or not. There have been times when the status gave dignity to the man— now the man must give dignity to his status. That you have had higher advantages than your neighbours, will not be accepted as a complete demon- stration that you have made a good use of them; moreover, education seems too often to be regarded by the lower portion of the middle class only as a neces- sary evil; while by the actually working class it is regarded more and more as a sure road to advancement, the way by which they may arrive both at wealth and a higher social position. By the one it is regarded as somewhat expensively ornamental, by the other as sternly and unbeautifully useful. If these different estimates of its worth should last long, the education of the two classes will change places, and those from whom most might fairly be expected will really possess least. In a similar manner, the education of women may quite easily become superior to the average educa- tion of men ; for women are claiming culture as a right long unjustly withheld from them; their enjoyment of it is a comparatively new and therefore most delicious experience. They seek for it with all the ardour of a fresh pursuit. A boy has generally so many more X60 MANLY STRENGTH. educational advantages than a girl, that he ought to be very far her superior; but if a boy be idle, and a girl industrious, the boy's higher advantages are thrown away. In short, the question that will be asked of you is not this : What have you had the opportunity of learning? — but this: What do you actually know? You will not be asked. What would you have been able now to do if you had made the use you ought to have made of all your advantages ? but you will be asked. What can you actually do ? A merchant must have his business done to-day. Law, medicine, the army and navy, and, we may surely also say, the Church, require actual ability of the proper kind, and not dim recollections of Avhat once was possible, and vain regrets that it is possible no longer. Show yourselves men, then, not by blowing your own trumpets on all occasions, nor by requiring those about you to take it for granted that you necessarily are what you ought to be ; but by stepping at once into the place where you are needed, and doing in a workmanlike way whatever work of hand or brain needs to be done. And what (may I venture to request you to ask yourselves ?) do you really know ? what can you thoroughly well do ? what single subject is there in which you feel perfectly at home ? Is even your daily business more to you than a routine of weary details ? Do you understand the js?-^!?^^^?^^ upon which its success depends? And when your day's work is over, when you have ceased for a while to be the shopkeeper, the clerk, the merchant, the lawyer — when, in a word, you have simply to come back to your own manhood — what do you find there? Have you no better way of spending your evenings than in utterly empty conversation and mere vanity? MANLY STRENGTH. 161 What kind of books can you read with thorough enjoyment? What region of Nature is there that you visit with the real pleasure of an intimate friend? What plants or animals do you care for? In what department of science or art do you feel yourself at home ? Poetry, history, philosophy— are these able to charm away your weariness, and to refresh your spirit, and through that your body also, for another day's toil? Alas! you know far too well in how terribly diflferent a manner it is possible and easy for young men to waste their leisure and throw away themselves. Of what remains, I can offer only suggestions and a bare outline. Man has the knoAvledge of right and wrong. I need not stop to inquire whence this knowl- edge comes. Were we to accept the very lowest hypothesis, we might be almost content to admit that it may have been suggested to him by experiences that even the brutes themselves are not entirely without ; by pleasure and pain, utility and mischief. Still, however suggested, it is of its own kind. Right is more than usefulness, even though usefulness may be its invariable sign. Even utilitarianism itself, in the hands of its latest and most accomplished expositor, Mr. J. S. Mill, acquires a beauty, and grandeur, and comprehensiveness which conceal what, in the judg- ment of many thinkers, must forever remain its in- curable defects. But, at any rate, to do right, how- ever we may find out what right is, is manly, and to do wrong is unmanly. We have a higher nature than the beasts, by which it is possible for us to do the things contained in God's law, and the unrighteous man is neglecting the noblest part of his true humanity. 162 MANLY STRENGTH. Again, we must show ourselves men by gentleness and charity, by sincere affection, by bearing one another's burdens, by forbearing and forgiving one another if any man have a quarrel against any. Love, with all its fitting manifestations, is not effeminate, nor is it any sign of manliness to be cold-hearted. That pernicious theory of the difference of the two sexes which would make women foolishly fond and men wisely cold, is surely going the way of all the earth ; for men and women alike are to follow as dear children that All-Avise God who is Love, the Maker, and Ruler, and Father of the spirits of all flesh. And last, though not least, it is the highest glory of man, it is his eternal life, to know the very God ; to obey Him, not by a blind instinct, but with the cheer- fulness of knowledge and sympathy. It is surely un- manly to admire all beauty but that which is the very fountain, the very model and archetype, of all beauty ; to rejoice in the order of the universe and find no pleasure in the contemplation of Him from whose wisdom and goodness all order comes ; to recognize the ties of kindred and the bonds of affection, and to have no eye to perceive that infinite, all-embracing Love of which earthly love is but the image and copy. And if religion itself is on the speculative side the highest philosophy, and on the practical side the perfection of virtue, the advice of David to his son may well proceed from manliness to piety — " Be thou strong, and show thyself a man ; and keep the charge of the Lord thy God, to walk in His ways, to keep His statutes, and His commandments, and His judgments, and His testi- monies." " The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." " God understandeth the way thereof, and MANLY STRENGTH. 163 He knoweth the place thereof: for He looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven ; to make the weight for the winds ; and He weigheth the waters by measure. When He made a decree for the rain, and a way for the lightning of the thunder, then He did see it and declare it ; He prepared it, yea, and searched it out. And unto 7nan He said, Behold the fear of the Lord, that is wisdom, and to depart from evil is understanding." It is unmanly to be without religion, to live godless lives ; but we must not forget that a false religion, or a dwarfed religion, may do more than all other things put together to destroy our manliness, and especially to make us cowards. The fear of hell, and the spirit of bondage instead of the spirit of adoption, have again and again broken every tie by which men are bound to one another. They have destroyed loyalty and patriotism ; they have divorced husbands and wives, they have set at variance parents and children, they have severed friends; they have hindered commerce and forbidden science, and stifled the utterance of honest thought ; they have made men afraid, even to examine that which without examination can neither be honoured nor admired. Men have been taught to lie for God, and to do evil that good might come. Even in our own day there are forms of religion which are the implacable foes of knowledge, criticism and prog- ress. " Show yourselves then men " in every depart- ment of your religious life. Do not be afraid if it should be necessary, to examine the foundations of your faith. Do not shrink from those inquiries the object of which is to find truth, however long and painful the search may be. Do not be afraid to confess what IGi MANLY STRENGTH. you really believe, or to deny what you disbelieve. Be sure that you have by no means yet reached that per- fect knowledge for which the human spirit longs, and with which God has promised to satisfy it. Every age has altered — at least by legitimate development — the creed of the age which went before it. There are no two men living who in every respect know alike, believe alike, and express themselves alike. Be sure that you must be indeed foolish if you do not know more than you did a year ago, or a quarter of a century ago ; and do not attempt to put the new wine of your enlarged experience into old bottles. Sects and parties, with their bitter clamour, may seek to frighten you from that path where the light shines more and more unto the perfect day. Even in this nineteenth century you may find men who think they would do God service by calling down fire from heaven upon all who differ from themselves. " Be thou therefore strong, and show thyself a man " — a man in virtue and godli- ness, in truth and courage and charity. But I must add one last word. The object of seek- ing is to find ; and, when we have found, the seeking is over. Surely the chief duty of man is not to be ever inquiring, but to discover, to believe, to act. The greatest proof of your strength will be to adhere to the right ; to resist the everlasting restlessness which characterizes our age ; " to stand," as S. Paul says, " and having done all, to stand." ABSOLUTION.* Jes'ihS therefore, said to them again. Peace be unto you : as the Father hath sent Me, even so send I you. And when He had said this He breathed on them, and saith unto them, Re- ceive ye the Holy Ohost : whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them : whosesoever sins ye retain, they are re- tained. — S. John xx. 21-23. t It is one of the very many advantages of a definite order in the conduct of the divine service — including a fixed and invariable series of Scripture-readings — that it compels both clergy and laity to give some careful consideration to those very passages of Holy Scripture which, for reasons good or bad, they might be inclined to overlook or to avoid. The reasons are too often exceedingly bad. They are intellectual idle- ness or cowardice, the dread of being compelled to come to some conclusion on questions which we Avish to keep " open," the fear of offending those whose kind * Preached on the first Sunday after Easter, 1883. This sermon, as printed, is less rhetorical and, I hope, more complete and careful than the sermon I preached — though substantially tlie same. t elwev ovv avrolg [6 Irjaovg'] -rraTiiv 'Elp^v?/ vjuiv • Kadiog (nriaTa'AKev jie 6 naTTjp, Kayu ire/iTTu v/iag. kuI tovto eIttgjv svecpva/jnev Kal Myst avToig Adfiere rcvEv/ia ayiov ' av rivuv axpjjre rdf dtj-apriag axptuvrat avTolg' av Tivuv KpaTTJre KeKpaTrjvrai.. The reading (K^euvrm is, I think, the true reading— but it is not absolutely certain. It may have arisen from a wish to adapt it to the perfect KEKpdrr/vrai. The reading d(f>ievTai gives an excellent meaning, and nothing of doctrinal importance is involved in the choice between the two. For MS. authority, see Tischendorf (Ed. viii-i Crit. Major). 166 ABSOLUTION. feeling and hearty co-operation we may believe to be essential not only to our comfort, but to our ministerial success. But the reasons are often very good. They are the fear of presuming to go beyond our authority, of seeming to close questions which really are " open, " of distressing good people with doubts and troubles which would never otherwise have occurred to them. We have no right to insist upon compelling other people to journey with us over the arid desert of our own mere inquiries, to say nothing of our uncertainties and misgivings. Practical religion is possible, thank God, for very ignorant people, and " invincible ignor- ance " is not a " mortal sin." It is a very rash and dangerous experiment to try to improve the religion of very ignorant people, unless we are absolutely certain that after we have destroyed the religion they have we can not only provide them with, but persuade them to accept, what is for them a better. But the passage I have just read to you cannot possibly be regarded with indifference. These words are the words of our Saviour Christ. That is their chief significance. But it is a matter of no small importance that they are included in our own Ordinal ; they were addressed to vie at that solemn moment when I was ordained a priest in Christ's Holy Church. It is surely worth asking whether they mean something or nothing ; and, if they mean something, what that something is. This is a question as important for you as for me. Have I, or have I not, authority to minister to you these divine consolations and awful warnings ? May I preach, not only to a promiscuous congregation, but to each of you 2}ersonaUy, that — on the assumption of your true contrition and all which that implies — ABSOLUTION. 167 you personally are forgiven ? Have I power to say to you — on certain conditions — your sins are " retained "; you are not sincere; and you must invert yourselves, begin life anew and on wholly different lines, or there is nothing for you but death f And here it may be well to relieve your minds of expectations or fears which the very text itself may have suggested to you. But what a condition we are in when the mere repetition of Christ's words almost frightens us ! You cannot hear them without inwardly asking, "Oh! tohat tiowf Is the preacher going to recommend ' auricular confession ' ; to tell us that unless we come and tell all our wretched history, our sins and remorse and shame, to him, God will never forgive us? Those words he has just read cannot mean that. If they do But they do not. Per- haps they mean nothing, or nothing important. Surely he will be prudent." I hope you are prepared to take it for granted of every clergyman that if he were con- vinced that any doctrine whatever were undoubtedly true, and of great practical importance, his only possible " prudence " would be to force it upon your acceptance by all the power which God may have given him. Your minister cannot possibly be "your servant for Jesus' sake" unless he "preaches Christ Jesus as Lord." Loyalty to Him is at the foundation of all loyalty to you. And, for my own part, if I came to believe the Tridentine doctrine of " the Sacrament of Penance," I might be betrayed by cowardice or self-interest, but I should have 7io moral alternative but to accept and proclaim it with all its consequences. But my object this morning is not to encourage in our own Church — nor in this parish, over Avliich alone 168 ABSOLUTION, I have any kind of jurisdiction — the practice of Auric- iilar Confession; but to expound, as far as I can, a passage of Scripture. I may say, however, that if I believed the Tridentine doctrine of " the Sacrament of Penance," I should still find very grave — indeed, in my judgment, fatal and insuperable — objections to the re- vival of a general practice of Auricular Confession in our own Church, under our present circumstances. Whatever else the Church of Eome may be, she is a standing example of what seems to me an almost super- human sagacity. It is not for nothing that she has been mistress of Christendom for so many centuries ; or that she has inherited the organizing and adminis- trative capacity of the Eoman Republic and the Eoman Empire. She has known, again and again, the bitter- ness of persecution. She has put her foot on the necks of the rulers of the world. She has not only survived, but conquered, Roman civilization. She has withstood and directed the inrush of barbarous hordes, and pre- sided at the birth, and controlled the education, of nascent, vigorous nations. She has passed through the throes of the Reformation, and deeply pondered the objections of Reformers to her doctrine, her ritual and her discipline. She has gathered her experience from all sorts and conditions of men, from all races, from all forms of government. If sometimes we almost hate her, we cannot help feeling that we are yet more sure that we love her. We have affinities with narrow sects, with wild liberalism and " unchartered freedom "; but, if we were compelled to choose between them, the home, the resting-place of our spirits, would be found, in the end, to be far more with her than with them. At any rate, she knows human nature, and she knows " the Sacrament of Penance." ABSOLUTION. 169 She knows that auricular confession, though she believes it to be " generally " necessary to salvation, is also encompassed by very serious dangers. There are dangers arising out of the possible inexperience of the confessor, or his want of method. There are moral and spiritual dangers arising out of the mutual relations of confessor and penitent — out of the sometimes awful suggestiveness of what one may say and the other be bound to hear. There are dangers of scandal, arising out of secrecy and close intimacy. Neither the Koman nor any other Church can command perfect instruments for the doing of her work ; but the Roman Church has taken the utmost possible precautions against every one of the dangers of which I have just spoken. I quote from the article on " The Sacrament of Penance " in the Catholic Dictionary,"^ a paragi-aph which very many * This dictionary, i^ublished by the Neiv York Catholic Ptib- Ueation Society, is so far authoritative that it may certainly be accepted by Protestants as approximately accurate as a standard of Roman doctrine. It is remarkably fair and learned. See also the following Rubrics from the Rituale Romanum (Ordo Ministrandi Sacramentum Poanitenti(B) : "In Ecclesia, non autem in privatis .-edibus, Confessiones [Sacerdos] audiat, nisi ex causa rationabili, quje cum inciderit, studeat tameu id decent! ac^a^e?i,^i loco prtestare. Habeat in Ecclesia sedem confessio- nalem, in qua sacras Confessiones excipiat, qufe sedes patenti, conspicuo, et apto Eeclesi;e loco posita, crate perforata inter poenitentem et Sacerdotem sit insfructa Sed caveat [Sacerdos], ne curiosis aut inutilibus interrogationibus quem- quam detineat, praasertim juniores utriusque sexus, vel alios de eo quod ignorant, imprudenter interrogans, ne scandalum patiantur, indeque peccare discant." Protestants often forget that when confession is compulsory, the priest is likely to be tempted far oftener by the weariness of routine than by the excitement of romance. 170 ABSOLUTION. of our very "high" Churchmen would do well to ponder. There is little in the laborious work of the confessional to satisfy curiosity, for the priest learns nothing except the num- ber and species of sins committed, and he is bound under the most sacred obligations to abstain from all unnecessary ques- tions, particularly from all such as might convey knowledge of sins previously unknown to the penitent. He has to decide according to the principles of an elaborate casuistry which he has studied for years, and in which he has been examined by his superiors, before he enters the confessional. There is little room for tyranny on his part, for the faithful know well that they may have recourse to any approved confessor. Here, as elsewhere, holy things may be profaned. But the Church deprives a priest of the power to absolve an accomplice, rigor- ously punishing any attempt to do so ; and were a priest so miserable as to abuse the confessional for bad ends, then the person to whom he had spoken wrongly could not be absolved, even by another priest, till he or she had communicated the name of the criminous clerk to the Bishop of the Diocese. Such cases are necessarily of very rare occurrence, for sin of this kind would involve almost inevitable ruin to the priest. Of all pastoral ministrations we firmly believe there is none which involves a more self-denying devotion to a monotonous duty, none where the good eifects are so plain and visible, and very few which are more seldom marred by human weakness and sin. Now, the insuperable and fatal objection to the revival of the practice of Auricular Confession, in our own Church and in existing circumstances, is this: that it is accompanied hjnot one of the absolutely necessary safe- guards provided by the Church of Rome. On no theory, except the extremest Low-Church theory, can a priest be justified, in ordinary cases, in hearing confessions and administering Sacramental absolution unless he has re- ceived, from a competent authority, jurisdiction for that ABSOLUTION. 171 purpose. Poiuer — inherent power — is given him by his ordination ; but the right to exercise that power in some particular place, and over some particular 2ieople, is not given him by ordination. The consensus of opinion, and of authoritative decisions, on this point is so com- plete that it would be idle to give separate references. The only person who can give a priest jurisdiction in this matter is, in our Church, his Bishop — the Ordi- nary of the diocese. Some of the priests Avho habitually hear confessions in our Church may indeed have received this authority, but I do not believe that very many of them have; and in many of our dioceses it is morally certain that they have not ; it is morally certain tliat they are acting in known opposition to the Bishop from whom all their powers are, at least on their own theory, derived. Nor have they been instructed in " casuistry " — that is to say, in a methodical and harmonious way of dealing with the innumerable cases of conscience which may come before them. Nor — I am inclined to say, above all — are they protected in hearing confessions by " the armour of light," by per- fect publicity. They know that their practice, rightly or wrongly, is regarded with suspicion. They dare not put up a " confessional " in their churches.* They hear confessions in vestries, or in their own houses. They are at the mercy of any lewd woman who may choose to "blackmail" them. They are, thus far, out of all harmony with Catholic usage and with common *In some very few churches where confessions have been very frequent, "confessionals" have been put up, and have been removed — I presume, in the absence of legal authority, by the persuasion — at any rate, by the influence of the Bishop of the Diocese. 172 ABSOLUTION. prudence. This — and not anything doctrinal, or in addition to anything doctrinal — is the objection which many consider insuperable to the revival in our own Church, and in existing circumstances, of the general practice of Auricular Confession. In reply it may be argued plausibly — and, to many minds, conclusively — that the Eeformation was exceed- ingly imperfect and inconsistent. Great changes Avere made without any careful consideration of the effects of those changes upon the general balance and proportion of what was intended to be left unaltered. The intention of Henry VIII. — so far as it was theological or ecclesiastical, and apart from his too manifest deter- mination to enrich himself and his new nobility by a wholesale confiscation of the property of the Church — was to put himself in the place of the Roman Pontiff. But he did not realize that the reverence of the English people for a very popular king was exceedingly different, botli in kind and in degree, from the reverence of English Churchmen for a Pope. He did not realize the impossibility of uniting these feelings into one, and centring them upon a single individual. He did not remember how much was involved in the fact that he himself was not even a priest, much less a patriarch ; and that the crown of England might descend upon a woman. He did not accurately estimate what was involved in the fact that, though he for the most part scrupulously adhered to legal forms, all the acts of his Bishops and convocations were rendered morally, canonically, religiously worthless by the coercion to which he habitually subjected them. He altered what he wished to have altered with the forced "consent" of those without whose consent the changes would ABSOLUTION. 173 have been impossible; he did not trouble himself about the effect of putting a new patch into an old garment, or new wine into old skins. He was suc- ceeded by EdAvard VI., or, more accurately, by a set of unprincipled statesmen who were, perhaps, the most worthless rulers that England had ever known. Then came the reaction. If Mary had not been infatuated by Philip and enslaved by Spain; if she had been under the guidance of such statesmen as Sir Thomas More, to whom her father had given a martyr's crown ; the Reformation would have been reversed, and a joyous nation would have gone back to their old religion, " received their Maker " at their old altars, and contrived to unite national liberty with Catholic Unity. Elizabeth had to govern a nation exasperated by national humiliation and domestic suffering and Spanish cruelty ; she had to deal with Protestantism in a rage ; she was also determined to assert her own Tudor individuality; and so the course of the Reformation was yet further deflected. In fact, it never had either a definite starting-point or a definite goal. In this religious and ecclesiastical chaos people lived "from hand to mouth." All kinds of "jurisdictions" might have lapsed or emerged. As a matter of fact, the general practice of Auricular Confession had been made optional, and had been largely discouraged. Later on — down to the accession of William III. — it had been becoming all but entirely extinct. It would have been scarcely worth while to invest men with a "jurisdiction" to which nobody would submit, or elaborately train them for a service which nobody would require. If our modern "confessors," it may be argued, have neither training nor "jurisdiction," ITtt ABSOLUTION. this is a mere accident. Circumstances now have changed. What nobody wanted fifty years ago, thousands of people want to-day. If we have no "jurisdiction," we have, at any rate, the " power " to give them what they want; and the very fact that no "jurisdiction " is asked or provided for, implies that the exercise of our " power " is left to our own discretion. But the very fact that "circumstances have changed" invalidates the conclusion which it is intended to prove. The very fact — if it be a fact — that thousands of people are crowding to the confessional, not under a legal, but under a moral compulsion, renders the old restrictions, for the old reasons, absolutely necessary. Even the youngest parish priest will be required sometimes to give advice, however limited his experience. A priest who has been in charge of a parish for thirty or forty years must have heard confessions — by whatever name he chooses to call them — liundreds of times over. But to sit in some one definite "tribunal" of divine justice without express authority; to pronounce sentence, whether of condemnation or acquittal, Avithout a definite procedure — that is to say without a thorough knowledge of " casuistry " — is simply absurd. If nobody wants to confess, there is no need either for jurisdiction or protection against danger and scandal; \i everyhody wants to confess, both these are absolutely indispensable. I have made these remarks not because I should be in the least degree afraid of recommending to you habitual auricular confession, if I thought it right; or of discouraging it, if I thought it undesirable; but because I think you ought to be reminded that what seems very simple to untrained minds is often, in the highest degree, complex and uncertain. Religious ABSOLUTION. 175 people, in our day, get into the habit of putting, especially to the clergy, test questions, to which they think they may reasonably expect a definite answer — "yes" or "no." They forget that there are many logical contraries which are not contradictories. They forget that the very terms of the question, which seem to them so unmistakable, are in reality entirely ambig- uous. They forget that what may be right for one man may be wrong for another ; what may be right in highly exceptional cases may be wrong as a general rule; what may be right with certain safeguards may be wrong, and even absurd and fatal, without them. They forget that, in theological and ecclesiastical arguments, strict justice, rigid impartiality, and Christian charity, are of even greater importance than the rules of the syllogism. And, after all, both our judgment and our conduct in relation — if I may express it in technical terms — to " the Sacrament of Penance," Avill depend upon the meaning we assign to those words of our Blessed Lord which I have taken for this morning's text. If we believe that, by His authority, a priest has some special power to remit our sins, we shall go to him for absolution ; and we shall leave Am to settle the question of his "jurisdiction" with his ecclesiastical superiors. If we think the "jurisdiction" as necessary as the power, Ave shall find some priest who has both. If we think that we are as well oif without a priest's absolution as with it, we shall unquestionably let him alone. It may be observed, to begin with, that our Lord's words were addressed neither to all the Apostles nor to the Apostles alone, S. Thomas was unquestionably absent. The little company, assembled in the room 176 ABSOLUTION. where " the doors were shut for fear of the Jews," proba- bly included some women, and almost certainly the dis- ciples from Emmaus. They are spoken of not as apostles, but as " disciples." It might seem, therefore, that the power to remit and retain sins, Avhatever that power may have been, was given not simply to the Apostles and their successors or delegates, but to tlie whole Clmrch, both men and women, represented in that little gathering. And this, on one side, is in entire accord with the penitential discipline of the Church for several cen- turies.* The early penitents confessed their sins to the whole congregation. They lay outside the church, grovelling in sackcloth and filth and squalor, weeping and wailing, beseeching all who entered to intercede for their forgiveness. It may be said, indeed, that the absolution they desired was the remission of ecclesi- astical censures, and restoration to the communion of the faithful — and especially permission to receive again the Holy Eucharist. But this must have involved a judicial, or g?<«s/-judicial, decision that they were also released from the sins which had caused their exclusion. That absolution is the gift of the Church is explicitly fiJfjrmed in the form of absolution in the Anglican Office for the Visitation of the Sick : " Our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath left power to His Church to absolve all sinners who truly repent and believe in Him, of His great mercy forgive thee thine oflFenses: and by His authority committed to me, I absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." *See the very learned article on " Penitence " in Smith's X)ic- tlonary of Christiitn Anlujuiiies, not forgetting, as far as possible, to consult the references. ABSOLUTION. 177 But, however this may have been,* the fact that the power of absolution was given to the Church is by no means exclusive or contradictory of the fact that it was to be exercised — and ought to be exercised — only by tJie autJiorized representatives of the Church, who are also, in a special sense, "the ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God," It is an invariable characteristic of a high organism that its various parts are adapted for special purposes and special services which no other parts of the organism can perform. There are, I believe, living beings of so simple and rudimentary a structure that they may be turned inside out without discomfort. They may be dimly sensitive to the varying intensity of light, but they have no eye. They may have vague and indefinable feelings, but they have no special organs of sensation. They assimi- late food, but they have no alimentary system, and are, so to speak, all stomach. These, however, are not the highest, but the lowest, in the scale of life. The moment, by special creative power or by long evolu- tion, a living creature becomes possessed of a true eye, it must see by means of its eye, and not otherwise. This is not a loss, but a gain ; and it does not cease to be true that the vision which the eye seems to be monopolizing is not for the eye itself, but for the living creature to which the eye belongs. And this is equally, or even more conspicuously, true of those highly complex organisms which we call society, the nation, the Church. It is beyond all question that * It seems plain that Christ was especially addressing the A])ostles when he said, " As the Father hath sent Me even so send I you." These words can scarcely have been addressed to the holy women, nor even to the disciples from Emmaus. 178 ABSOLUTION. Christ Himself appointed apostles, with special powers of teaching and administration. But if this had been otherwise, the very nature of a Church — or of any society of human beings — would have produced a " division of labour," rulers, teachers, " committees," presidents, analogous to those which Christ Himself appointed. It may be true that, in the sight of God, all Christian men and women are equal ; it is much more likely to be true that they are equivalent. Most certainly they are not identical. "Now ye are the body of Christ," says S. Paul,* "and severally members thereof. And God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, divers kinds of tongues. Are all apostles ? Are all prophets ? Are all teachers ? Are all workers of miracles? Have all gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret?" S. Paul leaves these questions unanswered, because they answer themselves. The very force of his argument is this — it is an appeal to everybody's experience. The quick-witted, factious Corinthians could not tolerate order ; they could barely tolerate decency. Women were to be as free in their behaviour as men; and not only in their dress to defy the ordinary rules of decorum, but even to "speak in the churclies." Each member of the Church wanted to be exactly what every other Avas. They interrupted each other in the Church assemblies. And S. Paul reminds them that this kind of behaviour was absurd. The Church was not a chaos : it was intended to be the realization of an ideal order. It was the truest and * I. Corinthians xii. 27-30. It is impossible to read this wliole chapter too often or too carefully. ABSOLUTION. 179 noblest body, even the Body of Christ, and, therefore, was the most perfectly organized of all bodies. And a perfect body includes a minute " differentiation " of its separate parts. The power of "remitting and retaining" sins, then, even though given to the whole Church as Christ's Body, as commissioned to preserve and propagate His revelation and to execute His will, must certainly be exercised — whether by His direct appointment (as I believe), or by His indirect appointment through in- evitable " evolution " — by special individuals set apart for that purpose. Moreover, speaking generally, it must be exercised by these only. For its exercise depends upon those gifts of the Spirit which, now as in the beginning, are given "to each one " for his special work ; and upon the authority both of Christ and of His Church, which authority is not entrusted promis- cuously to every man, woman and child in the Christian society. Those who believe that the power of "remit- ting and retaining sins," whatever that power may be, belongs to the whole Church, should be the very first to maintain that no private individual has the right to exercise it without an authorized delegation of that power by the Church itself, or by its recognized officers. In fact, we all admit this principle, and apply it in detail to practice, in every instance in which our judgment is not deflected by prejudice or fear. There are a few persons — an infinitesimal fraction of the whole mass of Christendom — who set the very principle at defiance. But we do not seriously argue with such people: we regard them witli wonder, and pity, and even amusement. Nobody would seriously argue with 180 ABSOLUTION. a man who seemed really to believe that he could see with his foot or walk with his eye. But the thing to be observed is that all people of this odd way of thinking do, and necessarily must, retire from the Church ; not from the Protestant Episcopal, or the Koman, or the Eastern Church, but from every existing or any possible Church. Their denial of this principle — viz. : that a body is made up of "members in particular" — is the annihilation of a Church, the repudiation of its very idea. They may retain certain parts of the Christian creed — which, however, being severed from the rest, are for the most part distorted or exaggerated into falsehood. They may be *' very well-meaning people." In spite of the enormous conceit and portentous egotism of assuming that they are infallibly right in respect of opinions and practices which the over- whelming majority of Christians regard as little short of insanity, and which were never heard of for at least seventeen hundred years, they may have a kind of misguided humility. But they cannot possibly consti- tute a Church, or a body, or a society. For all these terms connote rules, organization, officers, definite modes of conducting business, a clear purpose, and an ascertained belief. They are no more a Church than is an evening "reception." If in our dread of priest- craft, or with a far nobler jealousy for the honour of liim who alone can truly, originally, independently " forgive sins " — if, for these or any other reasons, we hesitate to admit that "remitting and retaining" sins, authorita- tively and officially, has been entrusted exclusively to one class of persons, we should remember that the same objection is equally valid not only against the ordination of preachers and rulers, but against the ABSOLUTION. 181 supposed rights and duties and capacities of tlie whole CMirch as a body. If Christ be the only Absolver — as, in the primary and highest sense, He undoubtedly is — He is also the only Teacher and the only Kuler. If it be a usurpation of His incommunicable authority that a single priest should absolve, it is an equal usurpation if a single doctor teaches; it is an equal usurpation if we put our stolen authority "in com- mission," and exercise it, not by one person, but by a committee, or a synod, or an OEcumenical Council. Whatever, then, the power of " remitting and retain- ing " sins may be, it is a power which may well be entrusted — which, either by the direct or indirect authority of Christ, actually was entrusted — to a special class of persons — viz.: the Apostles. And as the Church was to last forever, it was to be handed down by the Apostles to their successors or their delegates, or those who, by the authority of the Church, should be set apart for the exercise of that power. For this succession and delegation of authority was simply necessary, unless the Church itself were to die with the last of the Apostles. It seems to me, then, that the words of Christ, in the passage we are considering, were addressed to a little company of disciples representing the whole Church ; but especially, and to a certain important extent exclusively, to the Apostles, representing the appointed ministers of the Church to whom the necessary power and jurisdiction should be given through all time. " He breathed on them, and saith unto them. Receive ye the Holy Ghost." In this manner He imparted to them the inward, spiritual qualification for the exercise of the authority with 182 ABSOLUTION. which He was immediately about to invest them. Evidently, therefore, the "remitting" or "retaining" of sins would require some special spiritual discern- ment. And surely this implies that these powers, with the corresponding obligations, were not simply powers, delegated by the Church, of removing or retaining merely ecclesiastical censures and penalties. For this purpose a knowledge of the rules of penitential disci- pline, satisfactory evidence that an appointed penance had been duly performed, would be abundantly suffi- cient. Our Lord seems to bestow the Holy Spirit on His Apostles in order that they may be able to see beneath the surface, to unmask hypocrisy, to encourage a genuine but fearful repentance. And, by a parity of reasoning, we may perhaps fairly conclude that this particular gift was not the mere qualification for a public ministry or preaching of the Gospel, or for the administration of Baptism or the Holy Eucharist. Preaching, indeed, requires also a spiritual discernment, but not necessarily a " discernment of spirits." AVe may preach the Gospel generally without knowing to whom we are preaching it. It may be " the savour of death unto death." Our Gospel may be "hid." But, in deal- ing with separate individuals and their j)eculiar spiritual necessities, we must have some knowledge of them. The Apostles were to "preach the Gospel to every creature." But they would meet with separate indi- viduals, crushed with the intolerable burden of sin, or living easy lives of self-indulgence or vice, pre- suming upon a divine mercy which they vainly dreamed they might claim without repentance or faith or love. With these cases separately the Apostles would have to deal. " I now give to you," our Lord ABSOLUTION. 183 seems to say, "that Holy Ghost who Avill enable you, in every such case, to act wisely and truly. You shall have such clear insight, such entire harmony with the will and truth of God, that you may always act with entire confidence that your acts have the divine approval. All sorts of people will come to you ; but, endowed as I have endowed you, guided and governed by My Spirit, ^whosesoever sins ye forgive they are forgiven unto them ; luliosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.' " I shrink from what may be — but surely not in my intention — the profanity of paraphrasing our Lord's words, but it seems to me that they must include at least as much as I have tried to express in these few sentences. Now, it is certain that there does exist in the world, at this present moment, a Christian Church which claims to be— and historically is — the continuation of that very Church over which the Apostles presided. Its ministers are believed to be — and historically are — the successors of the Apostles and of those whom they delegated and ordained. At the ordination of those of them who are entrusted with the authority to " remit " or " retain " sins, the very words of our Lord — " Receive ye the Holy Ghost " — are addressed to them. Without that gift of the Holy Ghost they can have no spiritual qualifications to execute the powers and duties of the office to which they are appointed. If that gift of the Holy Ghost has been, since the death of S. John, suspended, tliere is no longer any autJiorized and com- petent ministry of the Church. The Church expired when S. John died, and the promises of Christ Himself are conspicuously falsified. Our Ordination Service is, on that hypothesis, a farce, a blasphemy, an absurdity. 184 ABSOLUTION. Is this so, or is it not ? Nobody can possibly pretend that the question is unimportant* And the question, Does a j^riest at his ordination "receive the Holy Ghost" for his special "office and work " ? is only a particular case of the very much wider question, Does anybody "receive the Holy Ghost" for any ^mrpose whatever? Does anybody receive the Holy Ghost in Baptism or in Confirmation, *0f course I am aware that in our own Ordinal — The Form aiid Manner of Ordering Priests — there is an alternative form of ordination introduced by the apparently inoffensive words "or this.'" This alternative, like one or two others in our Prayer Book, may mean everything or nothing. For instance, in another place, the "o?- this" may mean that the Nicene Creed is not really accepted as authoritative or necessary by our Church. In the Ordinal it may be mere chaff to catch very young birds, on the hypothesis that the alternative form means, in words adapted to unthinking and perverse minds, exactly ivhat is expressed more fully in the other form. I think, however, that it is intended to convey a different meaning. I interpret it thus: "Take thou [though I cannot give thee any reason to be sure of the aid of the Holy Ghost] authority to execute the office [though not to perform the special ' work '] of a priest And [though thou must not presume to sup- pose that ' whose sins , . . . retained,' yet] be thou," . . . .etc. I do not know that a single Bishop in our Church ever uses this alternative— and, I very confidently believe, utterly delusive — form ; and I know that very many of the Bishops do not. If any Bishop of our Church really does ordain a priest by that form, and with the meaning I have suggested for it, I believe that he does not intend to do what the Church, for many centuries, has intended to do in ordaining priests ; and I do not believe that liis ordination is valid. At any rate, I am glad to be perfectly certain that my own ordination was not by this alternative and ambiguous form. It may be very true that the shorter form may be in harmony with ancient precedents. But ABSOLUTION. 185 or at any time whatever ? We are constantly affirming, directly or indirectly, that people do receive the Holy Ghost* But, of course, this may be — and we are contin- ually being told, with sarcastic bitterness, that it is — mere verbiage, a sort of obsolete formula, even a con- scious and degrading hypocrisy. On the other hand, religion itself — any religion — assumes some direct com- munion between the Divine Spirit and the spirit of man. Is this true "in general," and false, or hopelessly doubt- ful, in every particular instance ? Is it true " in the abstract" (Avhatever that may precisely mean), and false "in the concrete"? Surely, even "priestcraft" would be much better than atheism ; and we ought to realize that if there be any intrinsic presumption, or absurdity, or impossibility, in saying at the ordination of a priest, "Receive thou the Holy Ghost," all p7-ayer is absurd, and religion is a dream. No doubt these words themselves are not a prayer; but they are much more significant than if they were. They have been preceded by many prayers : the public prayers of the whole congregation ; the solemn, silent prayers of each individual ; the Vejii, Creator Sjnritus j and then the Bishop assumes that these prayers have not been ejacula- it is one thing not to know, and another thing to reject, a par- ticular formula. There were thousands of orthodox Christians before the Council of Nica3a ; but it would surely be absurd to call a man "orthodox" who deliberately rejected the Nicene Creed to-day. As to the validity of an ordination by a Bishop not intending what is meant by " Receive thou the Holy Ghost," and " whose sins," etc., of course I leave it to learned canonists and casuists: I only express ray own private opinion, without for a moment pretending to belong to either of those classes. *See, for example, the Collect for Whitsunday, and tlie special prayer " to be said at the meetings of Convention." 186 ABSOLUTION. tions into the empty air : that they have been prompted by God Himself, and that He has solemnly pledged Himself to answer them. He assiimes that they are answered. He knows that no human being can adequately discharge the duties of the Christian min- istry without the real and continual help of the Holy Ghost. He therefore says, in effect : " We have asked, and God according to His most sure promise has given ; do not depend upon yourself; do not fear, much less despair, in all your trials and difficulties : the Holy Ghost is given to you ; ' receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest.' " If this be senseless, or presumptuous, or superstitious, then all private prayer, all the prayers of the Church, the ministry of the Cliurch, the Sacraments of the Church, the Church itself, seem scarcely better than a mischievous fraud. I cannot accept this alternative; and, apart from that awful dilemma, I believe that every priest at his ordi- nation does receive the needed divine help as really as did the Apostles when Christ " breathed on them, and said, Eeceive ye the Holy Ghost." Nor does this imply any infallibility on the part of every or any priest.* The conduct of a priest is a prod- uct of many factors, two of which are the guidance of the Holy Ghost and his own free will. It is only too possible that there should be, only too certain that there have been, wicked priests, who have set at naught the promptings of the Holy Ghost and followed "the * Protestants habitually forget that even the (supposed) infal- libility of the Pope does not belong to him personally, but officially. It is rigorously defined. It can only be exercised in a particular way and for a particular purpose ; and, as a matter of fact, is not exercised nearly so often (I believe) as once in a hundred years. ABSOLUTION. 187 devices and desires of their own hearts." But similar wilfulness and sin are to be found among all sorts and conditions of men ; and if they prove anything against that special divine assistance which is given to the priest for the discharge of his special duties, they prove with exactly equal force that no divine assist- ance is granted to anybody for any purpose whatever. In other words, they prove the complete uselessness of prayer, and the utter untrustworthiness or mendacity of every promise contained in Holy Scripture. But though the gift of the Holy Ghost by no means secures infallibility, it does produce, at least in every priest who heartily believes that he has received it, a spirit of profound humility, habitual caution, a deep sense of responsibility, conscientious study, unflinching courage, a steadiness of purpose and a well-balanced proportion and adjustment of efforts, which are far more valuable than mere tact. If in the discharge of the duties of the Christian ministry, whether on the " prophetical " or the " sacerdotal " side, we conspicu- ously fail, then — on the supposition that we were left entirely to our unaided judgment and efforts — we may feel personally humiliated. But, on the other hand, if we conspicuously succeed, we can scarcely avoid, and perhaps need not try to avoid, that proud elation which naturally attends the triumphant exercise of our intel- lectual and spiritual powers. As a matter of fact the noblest of Christian ministers, even in those religious bodies which attach no very special importance to ordination, and which even emphatically protest against the arrogance and the presumption (as they conceive) of the solemn assurance of the gift of the Holy Ghost in our own Ordinal — even these ministers habit- 188 ABSOLUTION. nally acknowledge the divine help, and acknowledge also their entire dependence upon it. And surely it seems idle to admit incidentally what, when expressed in plain terms, we deny. We cannot possibly express too plainly — and especially at our very entrance upon a sacred and most difficult work — both what we need and what we may most confidently expect to receive. He who has it fixed in his mind from the very first that in every one of his ministerial acts he must be guided to the utmost by the Spirit of God, will not "lord it over God's heritage " ; he will not work only for popularity, much less for " filthy lucre " ; he will not make a pompous display of his own personal and showy attainments ; he will not exhibit his cleverness by startling paradoxes which may unsettle the faith of God's little children ; he will not be idle and slovenly in his teaching and his preparation; he will "watch for souls as one who must give an account." When we seek our own glory; when we are tyrannical or negligent ; when we relax our efforts for the recovering of the lost sheep, and for the relief of souls over- whelmed by sin and shame, it is because we forget, not because we remember, that we have "received the Holy Ghost." In the words, then, that we are considering, our Blessed Lord bestows upon His Apostles — and, in them, upon all the ministers of the Cliurch who, "even unto the end of the world," should be entrusted- with the same or similar authority or obligations — the Holy Ghost, in order that they may possess that divine assistance which they may, indeed, wilfully dis- regard, but which, if they faithfully avail themselves of it, will render them "sufficient" for their arduous ABSOLUTION. 189 work. And then He adds — reminding them what would be the most difficult of their duties, and imply- ing that even for their discharge the Holy Ghost would " enable " them — " Whosesoever sins ye forgive, they are forgiven unto them ; and whosesoever sins ye retain, they are retained.'^ For, beyond all doubt — as every clergyman knows from his own constant experi- ence—by far the most difficult of the duties of the Christian minister is the duty of ministering separately to separate souls. It is comparatively, even positively, easy to minister to a whole congregation, because, in ministering to them, we are dealing only with general truths and general practical principles. And it is easy to arrive at absolute certitude about general truths and general principles. If nothing more were necessary for the conduct of life, no science of "casuistry" could have come into existence; and (to take an example from our Protestant casuists) the Ductor Duhitantiurn of Bishop Jeremy Taylor could never have been written. But there is really no such thing as life in general, or conduct in general. Each one of us has to confront at some particular moment some particular alternative of action. That children should obey their parents is a general principle of ethics; that children should obey their parents " in the Lord " is a general principle of religion and of the Christian religion. That " marriage is honourable in all " is a general truth both of religion and morals. But a young man, desiring to contract a perfectly honourable marriage, maybe confronted by the fact that, unless he represses and extinguishes that desire, he must leave his sick or aged parents lonely and miserable, and perhaps deprived of that pecuniary support which 190 ABSOLUTION. hitherto he has been able and willing to provide. Shall he marry or not? Would his marrying be right or wrong ? A young man may feel very confident of an inward "call" to the work of the ministry among distant savages ; he may feel reasonably sure of obtain- ing the confirmatory ecclesiastical sanction. But if he goes as a missionary to the cannibals at the other side of the world, he will break his mother's heart. Ought lie to go ? In some impulse of reckless passion or lust a young man has committed some grievous sin. It involves some other person besides himself. Either of these persons enters into new relations; becomes over- Avhelmed with remorse; finds perfect reparation and satisfaction utterly impossible ; cannot even attempt it without inflicting irreparable disgrace and misery upon wholly innocent people; is neverthess consumed by a longing to do something ; at least to acknowledge the past wrong. Is that person justified, for the sake of personal relief of conscience, in making such an acknowledgment ? Every clergyman who, especially in a city parish, has had " cure of souls " for twenty or thirty years, will be able, from his own personal knowl- edge, to fill in the details of such a case as this last in only too many ways. Now, these questions cannot be answered by repeating, scores of times over, some general principle. The questions arise out of an a])parent conflict of general principles. 1'hey are "cases of conscience." It may be affirmed that, any- how, each individual must settle them for himself. But, first, the man Avho tries to settle such questions for himself will generally find that his judgment is already hopelessly biased, on one side or the other, by an overmastering passion or a paralyzing dread. And, ABSOLUTION. 191 second, Almighty God, not in religion only, but in the whole course of nature and intercourse of society, has mercifully provided that we shall obtain help and relief through the mediation of others. Now, if the duties of a minister of Christ do not include dealing with such cases as these, it is hard to say what they do include. For these are the only cases of real difficulty. A priest may well say, " How can I deal with them ? " And the answer is, " Eeceive thou the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a priest." A minister of Christ, dealing with such cases in simple honesty and dependence upon divine assistance, free from all personal bias, full at once of justice and mercy, jealous for the righteousness of God and long- ing for the salvation of the sinner, is likely to decide at least as impartially and accurately as the individual personally concerned. At any rate, if such a case be presented to him, he is hound to decide. He does not simply offer advice or suggestions : he delivers &> judg- ment after hearing such evidence as is presented to him. The evidence may be incomplete, his own judgment may sometimes — though, in practice, very seldom — be mistaken. But this does not release him from his duty, nor impair the general utility of his ministrations. The Supreme Court of the United States is a true court, delivers valid judgments, is absolutely necessary to the just government of the nation, though some of its decisions may, at this very moment, be held to be mistaken by the very ablest lawyers in America, and would very possibly be reversed if the occasion pre- sented itself for a reconsideration and a more com- plete argument. Such cases, then, as I am considering will very fre- 192 ABSOLUTION. quently be brought to the consideration and decision of Christ's ministers — and they must be dealt with as they arise. On the other hand, the ministers of Christ may sometimes be bound to seek them out, or to deal with them when presented by other parties than those personally concerned. But it must be observed that the words of our Lord are not addressed to the " laity," but to the " clergy." They lay upon His ministers the duty of dealing with troubled con- sciences, but they do not — at least directly, and taken alone — require those whose consciences are not troubled, nor even those whose consciences are troubled, to avail themselves of that particular kind of assistance. Nor is tliere a word said about confession — much less about a minute confession of all mortal sins, however remotely they may be connected with the particular distress which burdens the soul. It is neither affirmed nor implied that there is no forgiveness of sins except such as is officially declared by the minister of Christ. The general commission to the Apostles was, " Go ye into all the world and iweacli the Gospel to every creature." It is chiefly when the preaching of the Gospel, on the side both of law and of promise, produces a torment of conscience which compels the sufferer to have recourse for his own personal relief to the minister of Christ, that the duty of dealing with his separate case arises; and for the discharge of that very difficult duty Christ Himself has promised the assistance of the Holy Ghost.* * Undoubtedly the Church of Rome maintains tlie " general " necessity — that is to say, the necessity in all ordinary cases — of "the Sacrament of Penance" for the forgiveness of post- baptismal sins. But even she does not affirm that there is no conceivable case in which forgiveness may be certainly received ABSOLUTION. 193 It might seem, indeed, that the Gospel is so plain that nobody can possibly misunderstand it. It would seem to be beyond dispute that God requires from without that "Sacrament." Thus the writer of the article on "The Sacrament of Penance" in the Catholic Dictionary " It is true that perfect soitow for sin which lias offended so good a God, at once and without the addition of any external rite blots out the stain and restores the peace and love of God in the soul. ' There is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit.' But this perfect sorrow involves in a well-instructed Catholic the intention of fulfilling Christ's precept and receiving the Sacrament of Penance when opportunity occurs. This implicit desire of confession and absolution may exist in many Protest- ants who reject the Catholic doctrine on this point. They desire the Sacrament of Penance in this sufficient sense, that they earnestly wish to fulfil Christ's law so far as they can learn what it is. In this sense the Sacrament is necessary for the salvation of those who have fallen into mortal sin after baptism. They must receive it actually or by desire, this desire being either explicit or implicit. This point is of capital importance for the apprehension of Catholic doctrine. We in no way deny that God is ready to forgive the sins of non-Catholics who are in good faith and who turn to Him with loving sorrow." And this is but an expansion of the authoritative statement of the Council of Trent — or at least seems to be perfectly con- sistent with it. See Canones et Decreta Cone. Trident., Sess. XIV, c. iv. : " Docet (Synodus) praeterea, etsi contritlonem hanc aliquando caritate perfectam esse contingat, hominemque Deo reconciliare, priusquam hoc Sacramentum actu suscipiatur, ipsam nihilominus reconciliationem ipsi contritioni sine sacra- menti voto, quod in ilia includitur, non esse adscribendam." The "quod in ilia includitur" is always to be understood. Undoubtedly every truly contrite sinner wishes to do God's will and submit to God's conditions, and his ignorance will not be imputed to him for sin. His tvish will include even what he does not know to be generally necessary. 194 ABSOLUTION. everybody who seeks forgiveness, repentance and faith and obedience, and a determination to avoid for the future both sin and the occasions of sin, and also "fruits meet for repentance." All this is as plain as words can make it. But we ought to know, from our own sad experience more even than from our observation of others, that "the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked." We may only too easily deceive ourselves; unfortunately, without deceiving ourselves, we may be deliberate hypocrites, wilfully deceiving others. Hence, also, arises the necessity of that remitting or retaining of sins which Christ entrusted to His Apostles and priests. Let us consider an actual example of the exercise of the power of " re- taining " sins entrusted to the Apostles of Christ. In the first flush of Christian enthusiasm the believers in Jerusalem " were together, and had all things com- mon ; and they sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all, according as any man had need."* Especially Barnabas, " having a field, sold it, and brought the money and laid it at the Apostles' feet."t Absurd, and ultimately disastrous, as this conduct was — for very shortly the Jerusalem Church was over- whelmed in the lowest depths of utter destitution, and had to be supported by the contributions of the whole Christian world — it was, as an expression of Christian charity and perfectly unselfish sincerity, singularly beautiful. But its whole value, such as it was, de- pended upon its perfect sincerity. Barnabas, however, of course without intending it, set what we may call a "fashion " of a peculiar kind of Christian generosity; and the generosity which is a "fashion" very easily *Acts ii. 44-45 ; iv. 32-35. ilbid. 36-37. ABSOLUTION. 195 becomes morally worthless, and lends itself readily to deceit, and is in all sorts of indirect ways demoralizing. We all know the story of Ananias and Sapphira. These nnhappy people must needs be "in the fashion." They also must "sell a possession," and gain the cor- responding applause and credit which all really good actions are sure to secure. But why not get credit for generosity as cheaply as possible ? Who could know how much they had received for the lands they sold ? So they brought to the Apostles "a part of the price." Meanwhile, they probably believed that they were genuine, and even peculiarly liberal. Christians, and that their sins were forgiven. So it was necessary that they should be completely and terribly undeceived. " Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost ? And Ananias hearing these Avords fell down and gave up the ghost." Surely this is a complete illustration of the meaning of Christ's words : " Whosesoever sins ye shall retain, they are retained." No doubt it may be urged that some of the incidents of this fearful case are represented as supernatural. But, in whatever way S. Peter obtained his information, and whatever special punishment Almighty God may have thought fit to inflict, S. Peter, without a moment's hesitation, passed judgment upon Ananias— declared that he was not forgiven, laid bare his hypocrisy, and delivered him over to the divine discipline. In a similar manner, S. Paul passes judg- ment on the gross offender in the Corinthian Church— a judgment concerning his sin ; and he " retains " that sin. But at a later period, when the Apostolic disci- pline had wrought its blessed work, S. Paul " forgives" this very same person, " in the Person of Christ." No 196 ABSOLUTION. doubt the Apostles possessed certain spiritual gifts "vvliich were peculiar to themselves; but if that gift of the Holy Ghost which qualifies the minister of Clirist to remit or retain sins was peculiar to the Apostles, then all Church discipline, since the death of the Apostles, is unjust and absurd. All just punishment must be the result of a knoioledge of the sin. In the enormous majority of cases the ministers of Christ remit or retain sins by the simple preaching of the Gospel — including, as it does, both the law and the promises of Christ. Where the Bible is read and the Gospel faithfully preached, scarcely anybody can be in any reasonable doubt whether or not his sins are for- given. A man who should come to a priest and say, " I stole fifty dollars last week, but I am not sorry ; I have the money now, but I do not intend to repay it ; will you remit my sin and grant me absolution ?" would be either a hopeless lunatic or an impudent ruffian. And, on the other hand, what troubled sinner can listen to the sweet consolations of Christ without peace and rest ? He knows that he hates and loathes his sin ; that he is inwardly determined, by God's help, utterly to forsake it ; that he is prepared to the utmost of his power to undo the wrong he has done. He believes God's promise, he puts his " whole trust and confidence in God's mercy " through Jesus Christ. What should prevent his entering into the perfect peace of an assured forgiveness ? In his case the general truths and principles of the Gospel are capable of easy and imme- diate application : he applies them and is at rest. But there are three classes of persons who know the inside of life as no others do— lawyers, physicians, and priests. They know how thin is the crust upon which ABSOLUTION. 197 multitudes of people, even " in good society," are walking, and beneath Avhich are the raging fires of bottomless perdition. They all know secrets which, if they were so incredibly and fiendishly base as to reveal them, might blast the most solid reputations and overwhelm multitudes of innocent people in hopeless ruin. They also know how tight and intricate are the knots by which those who have done wrong are bound — knots that no mere repentance, however sincere, can possibly untie. These unhappy evil-doers are the people to Avhom the Gospel, as ordinarily preached, brings no relief. They perfectly understand the general principles ; their difficulties are " cases of con- science" where principles conflict. Pardon must be preceded by penitence ; by satisfaction, so far as is pos- sible; by removing from the occasions of sin. But the peculiarity of their case is that they cannot make satisfaction except at the cost of innocent people ; and they cannot remove from the occasions of sin without revealing or suggesting secrets which would wreck the happiness of pure and blameless lives. Far short of these extreme cases are the cases of those who are just beginning to be entangled in the web of sin. They feel themselves inwardly disgraced and disqualified for Christian fellowship. They dare not come to the Holy Communion. They feel, " If the rector knew what I am he would never receive me ; if the other members of the church knew what I am they would shrink from con- tact with me. I must somehow make a clean breast of it." It may be said that the general preaching of the Gospel ought to be enough for them, and perhaps it really ought, but as a matter of fact it is not. And the question arises. Has the minister of Christ, the 198 ABSOLUTION. man who, at his ordination, was assured that he was endowed with the Holy Ghost for the very purpose of dealing with such cases as these, any help for him? If he has no help for him in the pulpit, has he no help for him at all? For my own part, I believe that this question answers itself. I think that such a person should have the opportunity of coming to his clergyman, of revealing to him whatever he chooses to reveal, and of obtaining a clear and judicial answer to this question, "Are my sins forgiven, or are they not? You preach a Gospel to mankind in genei'al : have you any Gospel /or me f It has not unfrequently been proposed, and some- times even in the serious form of deliberate resolutions in Diocesan or General Conventions, that the clergy should be peremptorily forbidden to receive any such confessions, and to administer to those who offer them the consolation of absolution. I am free to confess that, in my judgment, any such legislation would imply a direct and explicit contradiction of our Saviour's own commands, and would render it absolutely neces- sary for everybody who believes our Lord's words to renounce a ministry which had been so fatally attenuated. In fact, I know of no religious sect in which such legislation would be possible, or in which it could be executed. At any cost to ourselves, we Christian priests are bound to receive all who come to us, to hear whatever concerning iheir own sins and troubles they think fit to reveal to us, and to admin- ister to them such advice, or reproof, or comfort, as their case may require; in a word, also, depending upon the guidance of the Holy Ghost, to " remit " or "retain " their sins. ABSOLUTION. 199 But what is it that we do, or believe that we do, or intend to do, in granting or refusing absolution ? The penitent comes to us for this very reason — that he is distracted by " ifs " and " buts " and " perhapses." Are we to say to him (of course excluding the case of deliberate lying, which the pretended penitent would know rendered the whole matter abortive and sacri- legious), "//"you are not quite mistaken about your past conduct and your present feelings, jjerhajys I may venture to say that God will forgive your sins ; but I cannot be any more sure than you are yourself; and 7JerA«;js it will not be unsafe for you, in a case of doubt, to rely as much on the mercy as on the justice of Almighty God" ? I hope it is not irreverent to say that it seems to me scarcely necessary that we should " receive the Holy Ghost" to enable us to perform so excessively jejune a service. This would be indeed giving stones for bread and scorpions for fish. Our precise duty is to do that for a man which his personal bias, or his fear, or his intense desire, incapacitates him from doing for himself. We must, relying upon the aid of the Holy Ghost, upon the Gospel of Christ, upon the interpreta- tion of the Gospel contained in the Creeds and the Canons and Decrees of the Church — relying upon these, with prayer and love and justice, we must judge the man. We must say to him, in effect, " You come to me baffled and perplexed; you cannot be sure that you are not deceiving yourself; yoti have told me enough of your case to enable me to see it with impartial eyes. Acting as God's minister, I judge that, if you be not wilfully deceiving me, jou are really contrite, and 'I absolve you from all your sins, in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.'" 200 ABSOLUTION. Have we then usurped the authority of the Ahnighty ? Have we presumed, by our own authority, to remit sins which God retains, or retain sins which God remits? Everybody knows that no Church in Christendom, and no individual priest, ever makes pretensions so blas- phemous. But we have decided for a perplexed con- science what it was unable to decide for itself. We have actually hroiiglit to a terrified sinner that forgive- ness of God which he did not venture to claim for himself, and for want of which he was dying. We have actually opened the prison-door which God had unlocked ; M'e have taken the prisoner by the hand and led him out. We are only — is not that more than enough ? — " the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God." But we are His ministers and stewards ; and, in absolving a penitent sinner, we have done the work of the ministry and dispensed the divine mysteries. Note. — In this sermon I have spoken of the ministers of Christ as priests. I am very well aware that there are many clergymen who seem to think that there is some special advan- tage or merit in describing themselves simply as j^reshyters, and I am always very much puzzled to know, or even guess, where the advantage or merit is to be found. We wei-e all ordained to a particular office by means of a form which is called The Form and Manner of Ordering Priests. For my part 1 was never ' ' ordered ' ' a presbyter, unless that word is an exact synonym for the word priest. If it be, it would seem to me an affectation, or an extreme eccentricity, to call myself only a presbytsr ; i£ it be not, it would seem to me hypocrisy to have been " ordered a priest " at all with the belief that there cannot be a priest in the Christian Church. But it is said that a priest implies a sacrifice, and that there is no sacrifice in the Christian Church ; and therefore that there are in the Christian Church no priests ; and further — must I not add? — that our Ordinal is, ABSOLUTION. 201 at the very least, seriously misleading. But have not the priests of tlie Christian Church a sacrifice— or many sacrifices — to offer? I think sacrifices may be divided into three classes : 1. Those which are real, and independently and intrinsically sufficient. 2. Tliose which are real, but sufficient only as anticipatory or commemorative, or otherwise expressly connected with, some other and perfect sacrifice. 3. Those which are neither real nor independently sufficient, but called sacrifices by metaphor or analogy. A sacrifice is real when it consists of something offered to Almighty God wholly different from, and independent of, the moods of our own minds. Thus the Jewish sacrifices were real : they consisted of living animals slain and presented to God. The Eucharist, as a sacrifice, is real, because it consists of *' these Thy lioly gifts [the elements of the Eucharist] which we now offer unto Thee." Prayer and praise are not, as sacrifices, real, because they are only moods of our own minds or verbal expressions of those moods. A sacrifice is intriiLsically and independently sufficient when, in itself, it perfectly satisfies Almighty God. The only sacrifice of this kind is the sacrifice of Christ. This sacrifice is real, because it was the offering to God of Christ's Body ("a Body hast Thou prepared for me ") with all which that implies. But it is also unique in this respect — that the sacrifice is also (viewed from a different side) the pi'iest. The Jewish sacrifices were real, but not independently suffi- cient. To express the matter briefly, they were anticipatory of the sacrifice of Christ. The Eucharistic Sacrifice is real, but not independently suf- ficient. It is a commemoration of a sacrifice already cfimplete, as the Jewish sacrifices were anticipatory of the same sacrifice. Prayers and praises are called sacrifices by a metaphor or an analogy. If it be inconsistent with the sole perfection and sufficiency of Christ's sacrifice to regard the Eucliarist (on one side) as a sacrifice, it was equally inconsistent with that sole perfection to call the slain bullocks offered on Jewish altai'S sacrifices. 202 ABSOLUTION. The whole discussion on this matter is very largely a barren logomachy. Bnt the objections generally urged against regard- ing the Eucharist as in any sense a sacrifice imply, so far as they have any validity at all, not only the reality, but the imlepende'iU sufficiency, of the Jewish sacrifices. It may be well to note a few points upon which both the Roman Church and our own, and all schools and parties within our own, are agreed. The only sacrifice perfectly sufficient and satisfactory to God is the sacrifice of Christ. That sacrifice was not offered before the Incarnation and Crucifixion. It has never been repeated, and never will be. It is permanently efficacious ; and on its efficacy depends the value of all religious services, both heretofore among the Jews and now among Christians. Similarly as to Absolution. Nobody believes that any priest can "remit" or "retain" sins by his own authority. Nobody believes that a priest's absolution avails for the for- giveness of one who is not really contrite, nor that he can " retain " the sins of one who really is. It is perfectly notorious that we are all agreed on these points. The differences of opinion on these subjects that are still possible and actually exist are by no means unimportant, but they do not involve the slightest rtisparagement of the sacrifice of Christ, or any claim to possess the incommunicable powers and attributes of Almighty God, Whether the Eucharist can, in any proper sense, be called a sacrifice, is too wide a question to be discussed in a note. There is, however, not the slightest doubt that it is so called in the most ancient extant Liturgies, which manifestly imply a common source of much higher antiquity ; and also by those early Fathers who affirmed with unshaiien constancy the absolute completeness of the One Sacrifice of Christ "finished " on the Cross. It seems I'ather absurd to repudiate as a heresy a belief which was held by all those Fathers who are regarded as the chief witnesses of what orthodoxy is. Many long and elaborate expositions have been written of our Saviour's words, which are the text of this sermon, which throw far less light upon their meaning than the simple verses by J. H. (now Cardinal) Newman. They were written "off Cape S. Vincent, December 14, 1832." ABSOLUTION. ABSOLUTION. 203 Father, list a sinner's call ! Fain would I hide from man my fall — But I must speak, or faint — 1 cannot wear guilt's silent thrall ; Cleanse me, kind Saint ! " Sinner ne'er blunted yet sin's goad : Speed thee, my son, a safer road. And sue His pardoning smile Who walked woe's depths, bearing man's load Of guilt the while." Yet raise a mitigating hand, And minister some potion bland, Some present fever-stay ! Lest one for whom His work was plann'd Die from dismay. ' ' Look not to me— no grace is mine ; But I can lift the mercy-sign. This would'st thou ? Let it be ! Kneel down, and take the word divine, Absolvo te." On the subject considered in the note on p. 184, 1 am enabled, by the kind permission of the Rev. Hall Harrison, M. A., the biographer of Bishop Kerfoot, to add to this note the following Taluable letter from that Bishop to the Rev. W. R. Churton, of Cambridge, England. I need not say that the Bishop's opinion is deserving of far more consideration than any opinion of mine on this subject. I entirely believe that the meaning of the Ordination service as a ivJwle would complement— if it were admitted, or even not excluded— the insufficiency (as I conceive it) of the Alternative form of actual Ordination. But that fact only confirms, I think, my position that the deliberate omission of the words " Receive ye the Holy Ghost," and " Whosesoever sins," etc., stultifies the service as a whole. The words must be omitted, if at all, foi- soine reason. I can imagine no other 204 ABSOLUTION. reason than this : the person who omits those words does not believe them to be certainly true. Moreover, the actual laying on of hands, with the appropriate words, is surely of the very essence of Ordination ; and if the form of words used has been deliberately chosen for the very pur2]ose of omitting what is implied in certain prayers which, however suitable, are not of the very essence of Ordination, the inevitable inference is that when the Bishop comes to do the very thing for which the prayers have been a preparation, he carefully guards against being sup- posed to intend what the prayers, taken alone, might have been supposed to imply. I offer this opinion with great diffidence, but "with my present lights" it seems to me sound. I hope Protestantism has gained more than it has lost by degrading Orders from the dignity of a true Sacrament. "The essential matter and form of Ordination consists only in the imposition of the Bishop's hands, joined to the in\T)cation of the Holy Spirit." My objection to the alternative form in our own Ordinal is that it contains no " invocation of the Holy Spirit "; and that it was adopted for the very purpose of excluding that invocation. Here follows Bishop Kerfoot's letter : "August 6, 1874. " .... In the American Church, I believe that most of the bishops use the words ' Receive the Holy Ghost ' in ordaining a priest. 1 always do. But the alternative form is, we of course hold, equally efficient. The fact is, as you of course know, that in some services (I remember the fact so given in Maskell) no such one form, or act, or set of words was used ; but the ' Order ' given was defined by the whole service, and the Holy Ghost in- voked in more parts than that one part of the ordination. The form prescribed in the Church of England Prayer Book, and most rightly kept in our American Prayer Book, and among us generally used, is surely right ; but it is not essential ; nor is it the earliest form or mode. I prefer and always use it, but no principle is involved necessarily . • . the office given is defined all through the service. If any advocates of low views think they would gain by leaving out that special form, they are mis- taken. . . . ABSOLUTION. 205 "But I am clear that all acts of bishop or priest or deacon &VQ precatory. ' I baptize,' etc., 'Receive the Holy Ghost for the office and work of a bishop,' etc. — all are prayers of office ; prayers of sure efficacy, because put up by the officer commis- sioned so to invoke the gift of the Spirit. (Of course sacramental gifts may be hindered by the wilful sin of the person. ) None of us has, or can have, grace to give, nor can we command. The Holy Ghost is present, and He gives the grace in the sacra- ment and in the ordination. Putting it thus (and this seems to me a strong view, too), I' have found believing Evangelicals assent at once and cheerfully. I try to win them to realize and confess their own convictions. Most truly yours, J. B. Kebfoot." THE JUDGMENT OF GOD IN THE EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE AND FEAUD.* And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the Lord thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against you this day that ye shall surely perish. As the nations ichich the Lord destroyeth before your face, so shall ye perish ; because ye would not be obedient unto the voice of the Lord your God. — Deut. viii. 19-20. What fruit had ye then in those things ivhereof ye are now ashamed ? for the end of those tldngs is death. . , . The wages of sin is death. — Rom. vi. 21-23. I propose to speak to you this morning about a very serious epidemic, of which it is only too plain that very many of us are sick, and of which no small number have pitifully died. You will find no mention of this epidemic in any bills of mortality, or in the reports of any Bureau of Vital Statistics. It is not the Asiatic cholera, nor yellow fever, nor small-pox, nor diphtheria; it makes itself manifest by no eruption of pustules, no blotches on the skin, no exhausting nausea, or agony of colic, or racking torture of cramp. Would to God, one might almost say — would to God that it did! for then, perhaps, we might betake ourselves to some sort of doctoring before the fatal collapse. On the contrary, this epidemic is ushered in, not by the parching heat of fever, but only by a soothing and delicious rise of temperature; not by acute pain, but by a pleasing exaltation of sensibility. We think that we are better than we ever were; the world looks * Preached on the fourteenth Sunday after Trinity, 1884. THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 207 brighter to ns ; the gayeties and delights of society are more exhilarating ; we say to ourselves again and again in happy surprise : " Who could have believed that it was possible to get so much enjoyment out of life ?" We are lured on to our destruction, because the worse we get the better we think we are; and we scarcely realize that we are sick until the death-rattle is in our throats and the death-sweat upon our brows. The epidemic I am about to speak of is the epidemic of fraud and vice, of abject cowardice and brutal violence. And, to prevent misunderstanding, I may here say over again what I have said to you scores of times before : I do not believe the perfection of Chris- tian character requires, I do not even believe that Christian perfection admits of, a rigorous asceticism.* * Of course I put out of consideration highly exceptional indi- vidual temperaments, or conditions of society ; nor do I include under " rigorous asceticism " such abstinence or fasting as the Catholic Church requires from her members. Hermits and monks and nuns have had a great work to do, both for the Church and the world, and in innumerable instances they have nobly done it. Wake again, Teutonic Father-ages, Speak again, beloved primaeval creeds ; Flash ancestral spirit from your pages, Wake the greedy age to noble deeds. Tell us how of old our saintly mothers Schooled themselves by vigU, fast and prayer, Learnt to love as Jesus loved before them, While they bore the cross which poor men bear. Tell us how our stout, crusading fathers Fought and died for God, and not for gold ; Let their love, their faith, their boyish daring, Distance-mellowed, gild the days of old. 208 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. The world in which God has thought fit to place us is a very good and beautiful world ; and we are not only permitted, but we are hound, to make the very utmost tliat we possibly can make of all its innocent enjoy- ments. To be indifferent to the beauties of Nature, the ravishing delights of music, is to be blind and deaf to revelations of the beauty and harmony of God. Our Heavenly Father has promised to us that we shall not be tempted above what we are able to bear ; and, that He may keep one part of this gracious promise to us, He has furnished us with innumerable relaxations and recreations and refreshing delights. We are wicked and ungrateful when we fling these precious gifts away. No human spirit can bear the unrelieved pressure of business, the unremitting strain and in- cessant exactions of mere duty: in ways innumerable does God " give to His beloved sleep." Not only the yellow fields of waving corn, but the very weeds, are beautiful ; and the sublime majesty of the hills from which we dig coal and iron fills our souls with an un- utterable rapture of delight and awe. And when we turn to human society and the ordinary occupations of mankind, we still find nothing evil. Business is not only lawful, it is not only necessary, it is also, in its Tell us how the sexless workers, thronging, Angel-tended, round the convent door, Wrought to Christian faith and holy order Savage hearts alike and barren moor. Ye who built the churches where we worship, Ye who framed the laws by which we move. Fathers, long belied, and long forsaken. Oh ! forgive the children of your love ! (C. KiNGSLEY : The /Saint's Tragedy.) THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 209 very essence, morally and spiritually good. Without a metaphor and without exaggeration, it is among the means of grace. There is scarcely a virtue which it does not bring into exercise and render more healthful and robust. Moreover, in every progressive and pros- perous country it is, in spite of human folly and human sin, for the most part morally sound. So long as society is held together at all, it must needs be held together by truth and honesty. We may go forth, then, " to our work and to our labour until the evening " with a good courage and a good conscience. We are doing our duty, our duty to Almighty God, when we throw ourselves heart and soul into our daily occupations. To the faithful child of God there is nothing common or unclean ; nor need we in the least distress ourselves when our virtues, our diligence, and thrift, and integrity, and foresight, and versatility, bring their proper reward. He who possesses these qualities can scarcely fail in a country like this, of practi- cally unlimited extent and inexhaustible resources, to grow rich; he may, easily enough, become very rich; nor is he morally justified in setting any arti- ficial and wilful limits to his accumulations. No- body has a right to say, " I am rich enough " so long as it is honestly possible for him to become richer. We may depend upon it that God Himself will take care to keep us as poor as it is necessary that we should remain. Perhaps you may say — if anybody so fortunate is listening to me — " I have more wealth already than I know what to do with; it has got so deeply and firmly rooted that it seems to grow of itself, and every new success brings only a new responsibility 210 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. and a heavier burden." But surely, my friend, if you will look only twice at the matter, you will perceive in a moment that you are deluding yourself. If you do not know what to do with your wealth, there are thousands of people who can teach you. Are there, then, no poor people left in the world ? None who are hungry, or athirst, or naked, or sick, or in prison? Are there no young men whom, out of your super- abundance, you could start in life, and help in their first struggles towards an honest independence? Did you never hear of such a thing as founding or endow- ing hospitals, and universities, and public libraries? Would it be quite impossible for you, being so over- burdened with riches, to adorn your city with some enduring monument in honour of the illustrious dead ? Nay, to come down to a matter so ridiculously minute that it may well have escaped your attention, have you never happened to notice that, even in this very Baltimore, the steeples of two of your richest churches are yet, after many years, unfinished ? Might it not be worth your while to inquire whether there are any heathen yet to be converted ? and whether God may not have bestowed upon you wealth, and the power of getting more wealth, that, even in far-ofif lands, generations to come may mingle with their prayers and thanksgivings the name of a benefactor unknown except by his generous gifts? Believe me, when I hear a man, apparently in earnest, affirming that he cares nothing for wealth and wants no more of it, I can never help feeling sure that he knows very much less than he suspects of his own mind. I repeat, then, that Avhen I say a serious and danger- ous epidemic is upon us, I do not mean that everybody THE JUDGMENT OF GOD, 211 is sick and dying. Everybody is not sick and dying of cholera in Naples.* When we read that in a single day there have been in that city three hundred deaths, we know perfectly well that there are also some two hundred and ninety-nine thousand survivors. But does anybody for that reason regard the cholera in Naples as a danger to be trifled with ? And, similarly, the epidemic of which I speak, the epidemic of fraud and vice, of abject cowardice and brutal violence, is real and serious. Nothing can make it more real than it is ; but it is rendered far more serious by general indifference. Multitudes of people ignore it ; and yet many more regard this deadly sickness as merely sporadic or accidental, traceable to no ascertainable cause, and likely enough to die out of itself. It is impossible, indeed, for those who read the newspapers to doubt the facts ; but there are very many people who regard it as a kind of duty, or at least as a mark of refinement, to remain as ignorant as they possibly can of everything which is disagreeable or offensive. They are like the elegant triflers in Boccaccio's Decameron who, while the plague was raging around them, betook themselves to enchanted gardens of bliss, and passed their time in a round of gayeties and in telling one another stories of fashionable lust. But if you will not read the news- papers, I will take care for once that you shall hear something of what they contain. I will compel you, so far as it is in my power, to realize what is the moral condition of that society of which you form a part. I will try to show you how it has come to be what it most unquestionably is. I will do my best to force upon your convictions what are the only remedies of * Autumn of 1884. 212 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. which this most dangerous disease admits ; and I will try to make you feel, if only God will so far help me, that you yourselves must come down from your lofty eminence of selfish serenity, and with your own hands apply those remedies without which, most surely, every one of us must perish. God has no blessing whatever for people whose religion consists only in enjoying privileges without discharging duties; and nothing is more absolutely certain than that if you are satisfied to save your own souls while your neighbours are hurrying to destruction, your own souls will be lost. Where, then, shall I begin the evidence ? For my difficulty is not to find, but to select it. I might begin at the very top, and remind you how fraud has been rampant and triumphant in the high places of the government of this nation;* a fraud, and an impunity of fraud, which is the amazement and terror of the whole civilized world. I might remind you of gigantic and colossal dishonesty in almost every department of government and administration, left even without investigation until the disgust of an outraged people could be no longer disregarded. I might remind you of investigations more recklessly impudent and shamelessly dishonest than the very frauds themselves. I might remind you of prosecu- tions, undertaken by the highest legislative authority, the very object of which seemed to be to protect the criminal and to defeat justice; and how completely this object was accomplished. I might tell you the familiar story of bribery and corruption in almost *I assume that charges made by all the political parties and all their newspapers must have some real foundation. THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 213 every State of the Union, and in almost every city in every State. I might remind you of the repudiation, by what once were august and honoured legislatures, of their undisputed debts. I might name to you those names — the names of men once high in office and known over half the world — which by an almost uni- versal suffrage have been doomed to everlasting infamy ; doomed for crimes which would have sent any labour- ing man to the penitentiary for the rest of his life. But I will not begin on this high stratum: I will begin rather at the base of the social pyramid, and I will remind you of what is the present condition of what we call the working-classes.* Nobody, of course, can deny that there is among the working- classes a very serious amount of dissatisfaction and discontent; and although a large part of this discontent and dissatisfaction is merely silly and irrational, it is also what we all agree to call exceed- ingly natural. For, in fact — and this is what we generally mean by natural — we are ourselves all liable to dissatisfaction and discontent; and how many of us in church this morning, when we really come to think of it, even though we wear broadcloth, and have to keep up what is called an appearance, are, at the bottom, workingmen ? We also, like a coloured hod- carrier, earn our living by sweat of brow or brain. We also earn wages, though with a due regard to our own dignity we call them salaries or fees; and we also are often dissatisfied with our wages, or salaries, or fees. We are silly enough to think we deserve more than we get; and I say that this is silly, because it is *Only too many far more conclusive illustrations have been forced upon our attention during the last two years. 214 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. always foolish to complain of what it is in onr own power, at any moment of our lives, if not to remedy, at least to test. Are you dissatisfied, my friend, with your wages, or salary, or fees? And do you really think you are worth more than you get? Nothing can possibly be easier — though I warn you to try the experiment with extreme caution — nothing, I repeat, is easier than to find out if you are mistaken. Give up your present position, go out into the open labour market and offer your services to the highest bidder. The competition of employers for really competent Avorkmen, in all departments of work, is quite as severe as the competition of skilful workmen for employment. Do you hesitate? — as indeed you very justly may: then there is a lurking suspicion in your own bosom that you are not worth more, and your dissatisfaction is silly. By dissatisfaction, then, I mean the feeling that we are not getting as much as we ought to get in remuneration for our services ; by discontent I mean the detestable feeling which expresses itself in such terms as these : " My neighbour is ten times, or ten thousand times, as rich as I am, and I am as good as he is, or better ; why should he ride in a carriage while I must walk, and why should he have command of all the luxuries of life while I can scarcely secure its necessaries ?" And is it really possible that a sane man, except in moments of physical depression, when he is scarcely master of himself, can encourage or cherish such thoughts as these ? What harm is my rich neighbour doing to me ? Most likely, if I am a workingman, he is employing me and paying me wages; but, in any case, is he robbing me of a single cent, or does he deprive me of a single blessing ? Does not the sun shine as warmly THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 215 and brightly, and the moon with as serene a beauty, upon me as upon him ? Has he been able to monopo- lize the atmosphere, or to enclose the ocean within metes and bounds? Can he deprive me of the fra- grance of the flowers or the songs of birds ? Can he steal from me the love of wife and children, the respect of ray neighbours, the dear affection of friends, the testimony of a good conscience ? Let him be as rich as he will, and if it is for his true happiness let him grow richer and richer every day of his life ; he does no harm to me. If the dissatisfaction and discontent of the working- classes amounted to no more than this, it might safely be left to cure itself, or be cured by better education and a wider knowledge of the world. But it is very much more than this. If you will talk to any intelli- gent workingman of the discontented and dissatisfied sort, he will say to you something like this : " Of course we should like to be better off than we are, and we sometimes envy rich people; but, after all, we don't complain that they are rich ; what we do complain of is that many men and corporations have grown rich by what everybody acknowledges to be fraud, and when they are rich they can buy whatever they like. They can buy laws; they can buy charters; they can buy juries ; it is not now, perhaps, as bad as it used to be, but not long ago they could buy judges. AVhat would happen to me if I were out of work for three months ? I should have to starve, and, what is much worse, my wife and children would have to starve too. And if, while they were clamoring for bread, and clothes just enough to cover their nakedness, I were to steal a five-dollar bill, what would happen to me 216 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. then ? I should have to go to the penitentiary, and I don't pretend to deny that it would be right that I should go ; at any rate, it would be right enough for me to go if everybody else who did the same thing were sent to the penitentiary also. But if the man- ager, or cashier, or director of a bank, with a certain income of ten or twenty thousand a year, and his wife and children rolling in luxury — if lie were to steal, not five dollars, but five hundred thousand, not for the sake of keeping his wife and children from starvation, but for the sake of gambling in stocks, what would happen to himf Nothing whatever luould happen to him! Dozens of people would find themselves so mixed up with his frauds that it would be their interest to pay his thefts and hush the matter up. If he were arrested and tried he would buy the jury; if he were convicted and imprisoned he would buy the jailers; and in six months' time we should discover that with his ill-gotten gains he had crossed the ocean, and had settled down to spend the rest of his days in idle luxury on the sunny shores of the Mediterranean." Something like that is what our dissatisfied and dis- contented workingman would say; and the worst of it is that everybody in church this morning knows that it is only too frequently and too scandalously true. Hence it comes to pass that the dissatisfaction and discontent of the working-classes, being to no small extent justifiable, becomes venomous and very highly dangerous. They forget that even many exceptions do not disprove the rule. They believe, or half believe, that " all these things are against them " — society, wealth, capital — nay, the very laws and the administra- tors of the laws. What, then, is left them but to take THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 217 the law into their own hands ? Their condition not only needs improving, but by perfectly lawful and practicable methods might witliout difficulty be im- proved. If capital is too strong for them, they might, by judicious co-operation, themselves become capital- ists. If a single workman cannot contract with an employer on equal terms, workmen can combine, and can then afford, if not to dictate, at least to wait. But, goaded on by injustice as well as misfortune, and also misled by unprincipled demagogues, who at least can make an easy living out of their self-assumed leader- ship, they have no patience to wait ; and what is the result ? Not long ago — I think it was in Pennsylvania, but it matters nothing where — the workpeople in a glass manufactory struck for higher wages, as they had a perfect right to do. Their employers accepted the situation and proceeded to carry on their work with the help of other workmen ; as they also, and the other workmen so employed by them, had a perfect right to do. But the strikers were not satisfied to be free themselves : they were determined to rob their fellow- workmen of the means of earning an honest living. It mattered little to them how many common labourers there were, for they were all useless without a skilled foreman, and a skilled foreman had been secured. Him, therefore, they determined to disable. They attacked him in a hovel or cottage where, hearing of their purpose, he had taken refuge. They beat him nearly to death, and then with their cruel hands they tore his eyes out of their sockets ; and so, blind and wounded, they left him to perish. We may assume that there was a sheriff in the county, a Governor in 218 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. the state. And what did they do? There was a whole mob of strikers engaged actively in the outrage, every one of whom was an accomplice. So the authori- ties — if they can be called authorities — arrested two or three of the wrong men, and were, of course, obliged to release them. That is what they did — "only that and nothing more." And the unhappy victim, probably dead long since, unSer the protection of the American flag and in the very heart of American civilization, was left unhelped and unavenged. Probably at the present moment, certainly a few days ago, large districts in Ohio were in virtual insur- rection — that is to say, hundreds of men were setting the laws at defiance; and the "authorities" — for one knows not what else to call them, though authority they had none — were unable or unwilling to protect the lives and property of the peaceful citizens. The miners had struck for wages. They destroyed property, they committed many murders. The sheriff was so reasonably alarmed that he telegraphed for help to the Governor of the State. The Governor refused to help until, by more citizens being murdered and houses wrecked, the sheriff should have iwoved himself power- less. Meanwhile, leaving his " sword " behind him — that sword without which he was for all practical purposes good for nothing — that high official, the Governor of the State, betakes himself to the disturbed districts, and man to man addresses himself to the rioters. He begs and beseeches them to spare him the responsibility of being a Governor. He makes eloquent speeches. For are not murderers and robbers men and brethren, possessed also of the franchise, and able to swell a majority at any election? I know not what THE judgme:nt of gou. . 219 has come of it. But when rulers "bear the sword in vain," we surely know that whoever wants the sword will sooner or later snatch it out of the hand of the incapable magistrate. And, to pass from violence to fraud, who does not know how serious an item in the cost of all production is the price that must be paid, not for superior skill or steady labour, but as a heavy premium for insurance against sheer robbery? Who does not know that foremen have to be employed not only to tell the workmen what to do and how to do it, but to watch them, that they do not steal their master's time, or by reckless and dishonest negligence Avaste their master's materials ? But after all there is much to be said for the working- class. They are not very thoroughly educated ; they know very little of the world; their lot in life is very exacting and full of disappointments. Therefore I said, Surely these are poor ; they are foolish : for they know not the way of the Lord, nor the judgment of their God. 1 will get me unto the great men, and will speak unto them ; for they have hioton the way of the Lord, and the judgment of their God : but these have altogether broken the yoke, and burst the bonds* So it was in the days of the prophet Jeremiah, and so it is in our days. It is in the higher strata of business and society that we too often find the grossest, the most dangerous, and the most inexcusable corruption. You remember what I said to you about business — that it is lawful, necessary, laudable, and in the main honest. And what I said about business in general I repeat concerning every separate kind of genuine business, and concerning all the conditions that are essential to its success. But let * Jeremiah v. 4-5, 220 . THE JUDGMENT OF GOD, ns consider, for a moment, what genuine business is. It is always a series of exchanges — the exchange of commodities for commodities, of services for services, or of services for commodities. There is no real busi- ness where there is nothing to sell and nothing to buy. Again, a great part of the genuine business of a highly civilized country like ours consists of enormous enter- prises which can only be carried on by the joint con- tributions of a large number of capitalists. Each of the contributors has shares in the general stock ; and these shares, as everybody knows, are for many people the best and safest of investments. Moreover, these shares can most advantageously and safely be obtained by the agency of experienced and skilful brokers. Thus we have stock brokers and a stock exchange; and this business, again, being a genuine business, con- sisting in a real exchange of one real thing for another real thing of equivalent value, is lawful and necessary and laudable, and often highly and honestly lucrative. And once again, no business, on a large scale, can be carried on without speculation ; and it is Worth while to consider what we mean by speculation. We mean the habit of looking about us, looking as far ahead as our eyes can see ; taking care that we do not give more than is necessary for what we want to buy, or get less than we are honestly entitled to for what we want to sell. This, then, as a necessary condition of genuine business, is itself also lawful and necessary and laud- able. But everybody knows that there is a large amount of business carried on, both in this country and in Europe, which is not business at all. It does not consist in the exchange of one valuable service or commodity for an- THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 221 other. The sellers have really nothing to sell ; and if they had, the buyers do not want to buy. The memor- anda of their transactions are of course committed to writing; and in these documents one might find un- doubtedly such words as cotton or coffee or corn ; but neither party to the transaction will touch a grain of wheat or a bean of coffee or a flock of cotton. One will gain by the transaction and the other will lose. The one may gain a fortune and the other may be beggared; but, however little the winner gains or however much, he will have given no valuable consideration in return. The parties engaged in this kind of " business " might have expressed everything they wanted to say, with the necessary variation of time or rate or form, in the following neat formula — for the one : " I will bet you two to one that in sixty days corn will be so much a bushel " ; and for the other: " I take your bet." Now, can anybody fail to perceive that, by whatever name we may choose to call a transaction of this sort, it is pure and simple gambling ? For what is the essence of gambling ? It has indeed many adjuncts, all of them wicked and detestable; but what is it in itself in spite of all disguises and refinements? Gambling is a trans- action in which a man seeks to make money on a skilful computation of chances and without the exchange of any one valuable commodity for another. Now, we know, everybody knows, that transactions are carried on in this country and in all highly civilized countries, under the forms of business, which are exactly of this kind. In this kind of gambling thousands of millions of dollars are every year invested. Fortunes are won and lost as idle youths win cents or dollars at poker or at horse-races. And as chances within a very limited 222 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. space or time are wholly incalculable, every gambler is sorely tempted, and far beyond the power of human nature to resist, to load the dice —to lie and cheat, to invent false reports, to circulate dishonest and un- founded rumors, and so to make a fortune out of covet- ousness and credulity. Now, let ns clearly understand that no matter how large tiie fortune a man may accumulate by transactions of this kind, no matter what good use he may be supposed to make of his money, no matter what his name or position in society, he is purely and simply a gambler. His business, if we may so abuse the word, is in its very nature incurably dis- honest, and no tricks of sophistry can by any possibility clear it of fraud. And as we perceive that this is gambling by merely inspecting its nature, so we might guess that it was gambling by observing its effects. If a clerk in your store embezzles fifty dollars, what is your immediate and instinctive suspicion ? You will instantly suspect, and you will almost always be right in the suspicion, that he has lost money by gambling. And if the cashier of a bank embezzles fifty thousand dollars, what is our immediate and instinctive suspicion about him ? What are the first questions we ask ? Where do the detectives look for an explanation of his villainy, or for the stolen property some portion of which they may hope to recover? They always look to the stock exchange. They always try to find out through what broker he has been speculating. And they almost always discover that that was at the bottom of his mis- fortunes and the root of his crimes. And now, young men, let me address a few fatherly counsels separately to you. If you have acquired the THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 223 habit of betting, believe me it would have been far better for you if you had acquired the habit of taking slow poison. There is one end, and one end only, before you, from which nothing but a very miracle of divine grace can save you, and that end is infamy and a jail. When you are as old as I am and have seen as much of the world, your memory will be haunted forever by wan faces, haggard with misery and despair, gazing upon you through prison-bars. There will ring forever in your ears the wailing of heartbroken wives and beggared children — men and women and children whom gambling has brought to ruin. Never bet ; never, whether in jest or earnest, whether much or little; never, as you value your own prospects in life, your reputation, your peace of conscience, the tender affection of those whose happiness is bound up in yours ; never, as you love God or hope for Heaven. And when so large and important a part of the "business" of a country is not business at all, but a series of transactions of a kind which no possible adroitness can make honest, need we wonder that men pass so rapidly from the fraud which is respectable and condoned, to that vulgar thieving which, if only it be detected, is punished by a universal execration ? Every one of us remembers how but a few months ago the whole civilized world stood aghast at the colossal iniquities of a firm to which one of the most illustrious of our citizens had been persuaded to give the sanction of his name; but to which, unfortunately for those who trusted him, it was impossible for him to give the protection of any personal knowledge and superin- tendence. None of us can have forgotten how, week after week and almost day after day, bank after bank crashed down — not through the inevitable misfortunes 224 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. or incalculable niicertainties of a very complicated business, but through sheer dishonesty and vulgar thieving. And now, within the last few days and in exactly the same way, another bank has gone, the National Bank of New Jersey. Of course it is the old story. Directors of the utmost respectability have done everything that could possibly have been expected of them — except direct. They had rendered the re- quired reports and sworn the necessary oaths as to the bank's liabilities and assets, and the only thing that they had omitted to do was to ascertain by personal inspection that the assets did really exist. And so, one morning, they learn to their amazement and horror that the cashier of their bank is dead ; and now, at last, they begin for the first time thoroughly to dis- charge their obvious and most rudimentary duties. The strong-boxes are set before them for actual inspec- tion, and alas ! they find that the negotiable securities have vanished and that the boxes are made heavy by parcels of worthless brown paper. And then, to com- plete the tragedy, the manager of the bank, a man of hitherto unblemished reputation, by a ghastly suicide, follows the self-murdered cashier to an untimely and dishonoured grave. And this brings me to consider that epidemic of murder and suicide from which the country is suffering almost as severely as from the epidemic of fraud. We look back Avith horror and amazement on that bloody penal code of England by which, only a few genera- tions ago, any one of many scores of offenses might have brought a man to the gallows. We cannot under- stand how a brave and high-spirited people could have borne to live under a tyranny so intolerable. But after THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 225 all there is something to be said for even these sangui- nary laws. At the very least they icere laws. They had been lianded down as a part of the common law of the land from immemorial time, or they had been enacted in open Parliament. Moreover, they were administered in courts of justice according to definite rules of pro- cedure and a most stringent law of evidence. The meanest culprit accused of any of these offenses was tried by a jury of his peers ; and, if convicted, his sentence was executed by the appointed officers of the State. But the laws under which many of our fellow- citizens are living are independent alike of Congress and of courts. They are neither common law nor statute law. They are enacted for each separate occasion, not by the representatives of the people, but by the brutal passion of an individual; and they are executed by a private citizen or by a mob. What offense is there, in one part of this country or another, which is not a capital crime? Does a man "bite his thumb " at you ? — then, like any Montague or Capulet, you draw your rapier upon him or shoot him dead on the spot. Does the editor of a newspaper criticise the public action of a State or municipal officer ? does a young woman refuse the unwelcome addresses of a too- persistent suitor? does a lawyer obtain a judgment for his client against the defendant in the suit? — then for any one of these offenses the unhappy culprit, withont judge or jury, may be done to death. And do we flatter ourselves that these are only the brutal crimes of vulgar ruffians? Such crimes, indeed, are frequent enough, not only in this country, but in all other countries ; but I do not regard them as symptoms of the epidemic. The crimes I speak of were committed by 226 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. men moving in what is called good society — by editors of newspapers — by ex-judges of courts of law — by attorneys actually practising in those courts. They were committed, that is to say, by men whose very oflBce it was to be the guides and instructors of their fellow-citizens; who were the sworn representatives and administrators of the law of the land. And the criminals were not hooted into obscurity, or hanged up by their necks till they were dead, but they were welcomed back among their old associates, and not seldom with the shouts of applauding congratulations. Whole cities and whole districts condoned their crimes; and proclaimed to the world that, for them at least, law had given place to anarchy and chaos had come back again. And suicide, all the country over, among men and among women and in all classes of society, has become far more common than even murder. Men are sinking into an abject and contemptible cowardice. They seem unable to bear even the commonest calami- ties of life. An insult, a disappointment in love, the loss of a few hundreds or thousands of dollars, the death of a friend, the pain of a sickness, only a few days ago even the inconvenience of the heat — any one of these trifling troubles is sufficient, and the miserable poltroon seeks relief and rest in the dishonoured grave of a suicide. Such, then, is the epidemic ; and now I want us care- fully to consider what it means; what we ourselves have to do with it; from what infected port it comes; how we may guard ourselves against the infection ; and how, if possible, we may stamp it out. Of one thing, at any rate, we may be certain — namely, that it is an effect ; and inasmuch as it is so conspicuous and THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 227 even terrific a phenomenon, it is of the utmost possible importance tiiat we should ascertain its cause. And there is another way in wliich we may regard it. We are here this morning in a Christian church, and not one of us can pretend to regard the existence of God or His personal government of the world as an open question. We are absolutely certain that the uni- formity of nature is a clear manifestation of His will ; and that consequents follow antecedents because He will have it so. lience we may regard every phenome- non, and especially the great crises, as we call them, of human life and history, as a divine judgment. We observe, and meditate, and reason, and form opinions and rules of life; we behave ourselves in this way or that ; we acknowledge God, or we deny Him ; we are irreverent or devout ; we set before ourselves pleasure as the great end of life, or we recognize the infinite and eternal difference between right and wrong, and aim at an ideal perfection. We devote ourselves to money-making, or to science, or to art, or to benevo- lence, or to the direct service of Almighty God ; and something or other comes of it. If a whole nation devotes itself, almost exclusively, to some one particular course of conduct, founded upon the growing and, at last, widespread conviction of the truth of certain doctrines or theories, then what comes of that is a peculiar national character, accompanied by a corres- ponding happiness or misery, elevation or degradation, honour or infamy, honesty or fraud, selfish violence or reverence for law, manly and robust courage or imbe- cility and cowardice. When, then, we consider the actual condition of a nation, its character and its con- duct, with their corresponding effects, we may most 228 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. confidently affirm that, in this vast and complicated phenomenon, God is declaring to us His judgment in a voice as loud and penetrating as that which sounded forth from the fire and darkness of Sinai. He is saying to us : That is what / think, /, the Almighty God, about your ways of living, and your opinions, and your theories. I work by laws; I leave you, for the most part, to reward or punish yourselves. What- soever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Now behold the harvest, and remember that that is my judgment of the seed, and of the soil, and of your husbandry. This judgment of mine is not written in a book; it is open to no sort of disputing; it depends upon no minute criticism, within the reach only of the learned, about text or authorship or date. There it lies, before the face of every human being, man, woman and child, not only plain to see, but impossible to remain unseen. I have permitted you to work out your own problem, and this is your own solution of it. And now, once more I say to you, not simply out of the Bible, but out of the book of actual experience and undeniable fact : See, I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil ; and even yet, if you will be wise and consider your ways, it may be possible for you to choose life, that loth you and your seed may live. This is some part of what God seems to be saying to us in the demoralization of our country. We must never forget that our living comes out of our thinking, our conduct out of our belief. Sane men — and mere wickedness is no proof of insanity — do not allow themselves to drift along the stream of life; they row, they steer, they make for some definite landing-place; and this purpose and effort of theirs is THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 229 the practical expression and natural consequence of some opinion, conviction, belief. They are sure that at that iDarticular landing-place their business lies; and that rowing and steering are absolutely necessary, if in their boat they are to come thither. Now, we all perfectly well know what is the Christian theory of life. Christianity teaches us that it is absolutely necessary that, above all other things, and at any pos- sible or conceivable cost, we must submit ourselves to the holy will of God. If we do this we shall find in the very doing of it, and in all its consequences, the utmost blessedness of which human nature is capable. We must do this, moreover, because not only during this life, but also when this life is ended, God will hring every loork into judgment and every secret tiling. By a natural impulse of piety, and also that we may keep ever in our minds our absolute dependence upon God, and never for a moment forget that we must obey His will, and do our very utmost to ascertain what that will is, we shall approach Him continually in humble and reverent prayer ; Ave shall lose no oppor- tunity of receiving and imparting instruction as to His nature and His commandments; we shall make our religion a plain and palpable fact, visible and audible to the eyes and ears of all men ; we shall not perform in a corner those religious duties which are essential to the very life, not only of ourselves, but of society and all mankind. We shall unite ourselves with the people of God ; we shall build churches, and diligently, regularly and habitually worship in them; we shall do everything that we possibly can do to enforce upon our only too treacherous memories, and bring home to the conviction of all around us, that 230 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. religion is the one great fact, the one high privikge, the one all-embracing duty of man. This is the Christian theory of life by which all those nations that we call Christian nations have lived for centuries. Of course, men are inconsistent ; they are sometimes better, and very often immeasurably worse, than their beliefs or creeds. Nevertheless, their very inconsistencies, or at least the consequences which flow from them, will compel them to realize what their beliefs actually are. To act inconsistently with what we do not believe produces, directly, no effect upon us whatever. We are not happier, as we should be if we had risen above our creed; nor are we more miserable, as we should be if we had fallen con- sciously below it. Our inconsistency produces in us neither shame nor remorse, nor fear nor apprehension. Does, then, the inconsistent conduct of Christian men and women leave them in this condition of mere apathy and indifference? Every one of you knows absolutely from your own personal experience that it does not. Sin you may, and do; but you cannot sin without shame and remorse, and a sure foreboding of a divine judgment, and a massive and pervasive misery that destroys the whole peace of your life. So long as we retain our belief in the Christian theory of life, these consequences will never fail to flow from it; and there- fore the Christian theory of life, in spite of all our inconsistencies, will keep a firm hold upon us, will check and restrain us when we are tempted to do wrong — will, almost imperceptibly, refine and elevate our very ideal of living, and save us from that grovel- ing baseness which is content with a merely material happiness. When, then, we see with our own eyes THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 231 and know in our innermost lives the rigorous neces- sity which has hitherto bound together the Christian theory of life with the strongest incentives to virtue and the most effective restraints upon vice, we might well regard with the very liveliest and most terrified apprehension any systematic and skilfully-conducted attempt to destroy this Christian theory, and to sub- stitute in the place of it a theory not only different, but its absolute and irreconcilable contradictory. If the Christian theory of life has tended to virtue, has bestowed upon man a noble ideal, has enabled him to curb his most impetuous passions, has cultivated within him all that is sweetest and most gracious in temper and feeling, has given him so sublime a cour- age that he would never hesitate a moment, for the sake of the divine life within him, to sacrifice, if it must be so, even the life of the body, what, then, could possibly come of it if this theory should become utterly repudiated, if it should be treated persistently with arrogant contempt, if men should be induced to believe that it is an obsolete and mischievous delusion, if they could be persuaded that there is no God, no soul, no immortality, no judgment to come? What, I say, could possibly come of this but an epidemic of fraud and vice, of brutal violence and abject cowardice ? And now let me ask you what is the most popular literature of the day, that which is most powerfully affecting our living and our thinking— and especially our thinking? Nobody can by any possibility be in doubt as to the answer. It is the literature of science; and this literature now constitutes a vast library; it is read by thousands; it is talked about by tens of thousands; it is copied into magazines and 232 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. newspapers; it is the subject of universal conversa- tion; it is popularized in lectures; and in a very- diluted form it has filtered down through all the strata of society even to the very lowest. And, more than this — I had almost said most of all — it is the fertile mother of useful arts ; it has multiplied teu thousand- fold the material comforts and conveniences of life. On this side it not only seems to be, but it is, a brilliant success; it has more than fulfilled its most dazzling promises ; and so the world compares it scornfully with religion and with the higher philoso- phy. It is identified with success and progress ; it is supposed to deal, not with words, but with things; not with vague intuitions, but with demonstrable laws; not with another world, but with the very world we live in; not with philosophical theories, but with visible, audible, tangible, ponderable realities. But I propose nothing so ludicrously superfluous as a laboured eulogium of science, or of the literature of science. Much more to the purpose will it be to remind you that there is very much in this literature of science which neither is nor pretends to be scien- tific; and it is precisely this part of that literature with which I am immediately concerned. This unscientific teaching is merely parenthetical and irrelevant; it concerns itself, not with phenomena — which are the true and only sphere of the physical sciences — but with those ultimate questions which belong, not to physical science, but to philosophy. It matters nothing to science whether or not there may really he an ex- ternal world, so long as there seems to he one, and so long as the endless series of appearances are capable of being arranged in a definite order in time and space. THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 233 It matters nothing to science whether or not there may have been a primary canse of that matter and force which constitute the universe, so long as the universe itself exists, or seems to exist. It matters nothing whatever to science whether or not there may be, behind the gray matter of the brain and the nervous ganglia, and the various tissues of which our bodily organism is made up, a mysterious personality, a living being who can call himself "/," and who is conscious of ah unchanged identity in the midst of all the growth and decay of his bodily structure; this, I say, matters nothing whatever so long as the anatomist, physiolo- gist, or biologist can dissect the material structure, and ascertain its modes of growth and the functions of its several organs. When, then, our great leaders in science discuss these mysterious problems; Avheu they inquire about the existence of God, or the nature of the soul, or the freedom of the will, or the diflFerence between right and wrong, they are then entering upon speculations which are indeed profoundly interesting to all thoughtful people. But here, also, we must never forget that they are not upon their own ground ; their authority as skilful and wellnigh infallible inves- tigators of phenomena Avill here avail them absolutely nothing. The fact that they are "scientists" will rather beget the suspicion that they may be disquali- fied for the investigations of the metaphysician or the theologian. For the powers of the human mind, though indefinite, are very far from infinite; and intellectual operations, no less than those which are purely mechanical, can be performed successfully and on a large and thorough scale only by a division of labour. It is notorious that very few persons indeed 234 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. have attained to the highest eminence hotli in classics and mathematics ; and it is very far from being a priori certain that the man who has a natural preference for the study of the amcebus will also be in the highest degree qualified for the study of the human mind. I am not, therefore, concerned with what is purely scien- tific in the popular literature. I care nothing what- ever whether heat be or be not a mode of motion, and whether or not the various forces of the universe be inexplicably interchangeable. I am concerned only with those moral, theological, philosophical specula- tions which are inserted, as it were, parenthetically in our books of science; and I want especially to impress upon you the fact that it is sheer delusion to suppose that these speculations or theories derive the slightest possible importance from the mere fiict that they are propounded by distinguished men, whose authority belongs to a very different, and indeed widely dis- similar, department of observation and experiment. What, then, is the new theory of life which is to supersede the Christian, and which obtains a delusive authority from the fact that its chief apostles are the very men who, though by no means distinguished as theologians and metaphysicians, really are and deserve to be distinguished for attainments in a wholly differ- ent region of speculation? Christianity affirms that there is a God, and that we can and do know Him ; the new gospel affirms that we do not and cannot know that there is a God, or, if there be a God, know any- thing of His nature and attributes. Christianity affirms that each human being is a living person, capable of determining his own actions and responsible for them. The new gospel teaches us that our mental operations THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 235 — including love, hope, fear, reverence, will, and the like— are mere functions of the nervous system, depend- ing absolutely upon our physical structure, coming when it comes and going when it goes. The freedom of the will is mere illusion, and would be equally be- lieved by a tree or a stone if only they were possessed of consciousness. The ultimate analysis of right and wrong reduces them to a particular kind of pleasure and pain. Inasmuch as our intellectual and spiritual life is a mere function of the nervous system, which is disintegrated and decomposed at death, there can be no personal immortality and no future judgment. In a single sentence, inverting a far nobler revelation, our new evangelists have abolished life and brought death and mortality to light by science. I do not propose to argue the truth or untruth of these propositions, though I have not a single atom of doubt that they are palpably and demonstrably and even absurdly untrue. Their untruth is proved by a mere inspection — a careful and thorough inspection — of our own experience. One of the ultimate postulates of science, for instance, is the existence oi force. But what do we really know of force ? How could we arrive at the mere notion of force by the observation of phenomena ? What w.e see is change, not the causes of change. Nevertlieless we cannot help assuming that every change is brought about by what we call a cause, by some manifestation of force. Where do we get this notion ? We get it from the experience of that force which is within us — the force which we call our will. We are conscious of ourselves exerting power, and nothing can deprive us of that consciousness. The force of Nature is a mere personification; the 236 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. force of will is the ultimate reality. So again I am perfectly well aware that what is called Utilitarianism has been modified and refined until it has contradicted itself into nothing. The older and more consistent Utilitarians admitted that the only difference between one pleasure and another is a difference of quantity. Mr, J. S. Mill insists upon a difference of kind. But a difference of kind involves the old moral distinctions. I must be told that / ouglit to prefer one kind of pleasure to another — general to particular, permanent to transitory, intellectual to animal. But, as I said just now, I am not arguing the truth or untruth of these propositions. I only want to impress upon you that they are not only different from Christianity, but wholly contradictory and exclusive of it. If I believe these I must reject that — not in petty details, not giving up a miracle here and a dogma there, but I must reject it wholly, from bottom to top and all through. Not one single doctrine or fact will be left, and the whole superstructure of life which I have built upon the Christian theory must utterly vanish. Nor this only: it must be superseded by its exact opposite. And now let us test by these new principles the con- duct of the unhappy cashier ef the National Bank of New Jersey. What was to him the greatest happiness of life ? Let us assume that it was to accumulate a fortune. To promote in that way his highest happi- ness was but the new method of discharging his duty, and that duty he diligently dischai'ged. We may imagine a moralist like Mr. J. 8. Mill expostulating with him, urging upon him that the serenity of a good conscience, and the welfare of his neighbours, and the THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 237 permanence of society, and the stability of business, were higher objects than his own seltish enjoyment. But how superlatively easy would have been his reply ! He would have answered : " You are still in the dark- ness and bondage of the old superstition. I have forgotten what you mean by the serenity of a good conscience. I know of no authority by which I can be compelled to sacrifice my own happiness to the happiness of other people. Even in mere quantity I believe that I am increasing the sum of general happi- ness by making money, even though I have to lie and steal to do it. I know that it will make ?ne supremely happy, and it will not make supremely miserable those whom I must plunder. They are, many of them, what you call good men. They will regard their losses as a divine and merciful discipline. They will pray over them. They will put them to their credit in their account with another world. Each one of them will lose a comparatively very small sum — say a few hundreds or even thousands of dollars: I shall secure half a million. Go, my good friend, and preach to the people who have not thoroughly studied your own principles; I am proof against fanaticism." Or he might have taken another ground. He might have said : " Why do you expect me to suffer shame or remorse? You know perfectly well that I could not avoid what I did. My nature was born with me. I inherited this love of money, this indifierence to what you call honesty. Moreover, I could not possibli/ resist the strongest motive. Do you say I ought to have put myself under different influences or removed myself from irresistible temptation? You know you are talking nonsense. Hoio could I choose to do what / 238 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. entirely and passionatphj disliked? My desires are as truly necessary and inevitable as the actions which sprins^ ont of them." And when the dreadful end had come — when his life was wrecked and his happiness departed; when his frauds were detected and nothing lay before him but execration and the jail — then we may be sure he would know how to apply the soothing doctrines of his new religion. He had no God to fear or future judg- ment. Life Avas no longer worth living ; why, then, live on ? Why not blow out the candle, and pass away into the utter nothingness — without pain or memory, remorse or foreboding — of everlasting darkness? As- suredly this unhappy self-murderer was a model saint of the new religion and church of rational belief. You will not imagine for a moment, my dear friends, that I shall close this discourse without a direct appeal to your own consciences. I want you to ask yourselves what you are doing to stamp out this epidemic, to protect yourselves from its infection. Nay, rather, I beseech you to ask yourselves what you are doing to spread it and to make it more virulent and fatal. Believe me, the most vigorous seeds can only grow luxuriantly in a fertile and prepared soil ; and atheism and vice can only grow luxuriantly in a soil enriched by the dead leaves of a decaying piety. I have re- minded you what the Christian theory of life really is. Life must be based upon religion and everywhere governed by it. Religion is evrrything — everything of privilege and of duty — cverytlii> g for the individual and society. And because it is everything for society, and we are a part of society and cannot stand alone, therefore we must not only learn, but teach; not only THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. 289 believe, but testify. We must nnite ourselves with the people of God ; we must build churches and worship in them ; our religion must be a palpable and visible reality, not only a private devotion, a mystic, hidden rapture. I shall say nothing of your private godliness, of which God only and yourselves can judge. But of your jmhlic godliness, your testifying to the truth, your example to others — not in commercial integrity and domestic affection and personal culture, but in the direct and open recognition of Almighty God by com- mon prayer and praise, by diligence in receiving religious instruction and the public means of grace — of this everybody can judge, and everybody does judge. And what is it that the world sees and says? The very simplest and most rudimentary and easiest of our public religious duties is a regular attendance at the house of God. Churches are open every Sunday — nay, every day of the week — but in how many places scarcely anybody can be induced to enter them? Perhaps on Sunday morning a church may be full, especially if the music be good and the preaching not intolerable; but in the evening Christian men and Avomen are con- spicuously absent. The weather makes no difference to merchants and clerks, shopkeepers and school- teachers, theatres and drinking-saloons ; but for hun- dreds of professing Christians it is nearly always either too hot or too cold, too dusty or too damp, to go to church. And what does the world say of it all ? It says that we are miserable hypocrites ; that we do not believe Avhat we pretend to believe ; that our religion is a mere fashion, one of the proprieties of the set we belong to. The world says that our religion is not a delight, but a dismal necessity; not a willing service. 240 THE JUDGMENT OF GOD. but a hard bargain ; not a food, but a medicine ; not a rest, but a fatigue. Alas! it is only too possible that I am speaking to you in vain — that you will not heed me. You will hear my words, but you luiJl not do tliem. You will let the world go its own way for you, and the epidemic of fraud and violence spread, for you, unchecked. But at least I have done something to unburden my own conscience. And once again I say to you : See! I have set before you this day life and good, and death and evil; wherefore choose life, that both you and your seed may live. The ivages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord. THE EFFECTS OF AN EXCLUSIVE OR DIS- PROPORTIONATE STUDY OP THE PHY- SICAL SCIENCES ON RELIGIOUS BELIEF.* Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. — I. John ii. 15. t I propose, in this sermon, to make a special applica- tion of the words of S. John which, at first sight, may seem to many a little too remote. The word here translated world is one which has long since been naturalized in the English language; it is the word Kosmos. It stands, in modern thought, for all the phenomena of the universe regarded as a Avhole; capable of scientific arrangement by co-ordination or subordination ; as coexistent in space or successive in time ; as invariable antecedents or invariable conse- qnents; parts of an order and capable of being described metaphorically as subject to laws. This meaning of the word has not, indeed, been altogether stable. But in its latest usage it would exclude any- thing which cannot be regarded as a phenomenon and accounted for by an antecedent, even though such things might conceivably or really exist in the domain of Being. It takes the universe as already existing, with its matter and movement ; and it does not take into account any cause by which that universe may * This sermon was not preached. t M?) ayanare rbv Koafiov jiride to. kv Tip Koa/iij. tdv rig ayanq tov Kocffiov, o'vK kariv fj hyanrj tov TraTpbg ev avrip. 242 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. have been brought into existence, nor any possible future which may succeed when the existing order of Nature shall have come to an end. It does not deny God, but omits Him; nor can it easily find room, if at all, for the human will or the human conscience. Unspeakably beautiful and wonderful it may be; but it is " without father, without mother, without begin- ning of days or end of years." It is the object-matter not of theology, or metaphysics, or ethics, but of the physical sciences. Of such a Kosmos it seems to me emphatically true that "if any man,"' with an exclu- sive or disproportionate affection, "love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." But there may seem something of irreverence in using a passage of Scripture, as we might use a felici- tous quotation from Shakespeare, for the purpose of obtaining a perhaps fictitious sanction for our own speculations. When we are examining the words of an inspired Apostle, our first object should be to ascer- tain, if we can, their exact and primary meaning. That meaning, however, will not simply be a barren asser- tion, a proposition or series of propositions from which, when combined with other truths, no further inferences can be drawn.. But logical inferences are one thing, and mere artificial attachments are another. If, then, we are justified in affirming of the Kosmos of science what S. John affirms of the " world " which he really had in his mind, we must be able to show that there is a real analogy between the two, and that, by the very nature of the case, the love of the one will exclude the " love of the Father " as really, and in very much the same way, as the love of the other. In other words, the legitimate application of the text must be preceded PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 243 by a careful and accurate exegesis. In this way, too, we shall best satisfy the claims not only of reverence, but of logic. It seems, then, that S. John has in his mind those three real and distinct objects which are the necessary conditions of all genuine religion: God, who is the Object of religion ; the spirit of man, which is its subject; and the world, which is at once the sphere of its operations and the tools or implements by which it works. The first we know by conscience, the second by consciousness, the third by observation and experiment. Our primary knowledge of God is complemented by revelation; of ourselves by philosophy; of the world by scientific method. But the three remain ever dis- tinct; they are fundamental facts which cannot be resolved into simpler elements, or combined in a higher unity. In relation to God and man the world is, in itself, morally indifferent, being incapable alike of virtue or vice, right or wrong, order or disorder. It is what it was made. But it has been made so rich and beautiful, its arrangements are so stable and trust- worthy, its variety is so incalculable, that " God saw all that He had made, and God said it is very good." If we were not, as we know ourselves in simple fact to be, in a condition of moral ^id spiritual debasement, we should inhabit this glorious world with innocence, and joy, and ever-deepening gratitude, as God's " dear children." We should never separate it in our thoughts from His generous love ; as it would be the sphere, so it would be the perpetual incentive, of our happy and grateful service. But that union with God which is the highest bless- edness for man has been broken and disturbed ; nay, 244 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. SO serious is the alienation that it seems to us, too often, natural, nor wholly to be regretted. We rather hide from God than seek Him; and, with an awful presentiment that He has abandoned us as we have forsaken Him, we try to " do without Him." We say, "Is not our 'Garden of Eden' as delightful as ever, though God walks and talks with us no more? Nay, left to ourselves and untroubled by the fear of for- bidden fruit, may we not adapt it more completely to our purpose?" So we look at the world apart from God, as a property of our own which we may use without responsibility and without restraint. By an inevitable process of impiety we sooner or later substi- tute it for God. Then, haunted by sad memories or gloomy forebodings, we do all we can to exclude God from it. We deliberately set ourselves in defiance to His authority, and seek for happiness in reckless dis- obedience and in following " the devices and desires of our own hearts." Thus the very word " world " is a condensed history of human degradation. It stands first for that orderly and beautiful system of Nature and of human society which God created and ordained for our use and our enjoyment and our spiritual per- fecting. Then it stands for that Nature and society apart from God, then alienated from Him, then hostile to Him. And as hostility can exist only in persons, and not in the mere things by which they are sur- rounded, the "world" comes to mean that innumer- able multitude of human beings who love God no longer, and who order their lives with no regard to His commandments or His will. God, indeed, has not abandoned those who have forsaken Him. Age after age He has sent them His messages by lawgivers and PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 215 prophets: in "the fulness of the times" by His "well- beloved Son "; since His ascension by the Apostles of Christ, the "ministers and stewards of His mysteries," the " Holy Church throughout all the world." But how incalculably remote, even now, seems the time when " the kingdoms of this world shall have become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ"! And in the days of S. John how "little" must have seemed " the flock " which had been gathered out of the world into the divine Family, " the kingdom of heaven " ! With scarcely an exaggeration he could say: "We know that the whole world lieth in wickedness"; and he knew well how difficult it would be to protect the ransomed few from the terrible and subtle dangers by which they were surrounded ; from the fascination of external temptations, and the fickleness and treachery of their own hearts; "from the crafts and assaults of the devil." The " world," then, which S. John had in his mind was the great world of Eome, with the Emperor as its autocrat and the chief god of its religion. Remember- ing who and what the Emperors were — for is it not written in the pages of Tacitus and Suetonius ? — such a religion seems to us so monstrously absurd that, in defiance of the most conclusive evidence, Ave can scarcely believe that it ever existed. But not only were the Emperors gods themselves, but they were able to make other gods and command and secure their worship. The foulness of Roman vice, especially in high places, by its utter baseness baffles all description ; but 1 may tell a small part of the story of Antinous from the un- romantic and decorous prose of Smith's Dictionary: " On account of his extraordinary beauty he was taken 246 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF, by the Emperor Hadrian to be his page, and soon became the object of his extravagant affection, Hadrian took him with him on all his journeys. It was in the course of one of these that he was drowned in the Nile. It is uncertain whether his death w'as accidental, or whether he threw himself into the river, either from disgust at the life he led, or from a superstitious belief that by so doing he could avert some calamity from the Emperor The grief of the Emperor knew no bounds He enrolled Antinous amongst the gods, caused .temples to be erected to him in Egypt and Greece, and statues of him to be set up in almost every part of the world." Compared wath such an apotheosis, the worship of a common harlot might have boasted a kind of chaste propriety. But in the worship of the Emperors — dis- torted, indeed, and even suicidal though it was — there was yet one element of nobleness. It was the expression of the majesty of Rome, the sacredness of law, possibly also the " solidarity " of those various " nations and kindreds and peoples and tongues " which the imperial power had welded into one. But the numerous other religions, native and imported, which were tolerated by Roman law, seem to have been an unmitigated and incurable evil.* The worship of the Corinthian Aphrodite, for instance, was a mere consecrated * The religion of the Jews, as hnown to the Romans, was scarcely an exception. It was a kind of magic united with every sort of mendicancy and fraud. Cf. Juvenal, vi., 542-547 : Quum dedit ille locum, cophino focnoque relicto Arcanam ludtea tremen-? mendicat in aurem, Interpres legum Solymaruin et raag'na sacerdos Arboris ac summi Ada internuntia caeli ; Implet et ilia manum, sed parcius; fere minute Qualiacunque voles ludaei somnia vendunt. PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 247 harlotry; and almost every city was narcotized or in- toxicated by a not dissimilar poison. Well indeed might S. John say to his " little children " : Love not the luorld, nor the things that are in the world. If any man love the loorld, the love of the Father is not in him. Now, if this be a true exposition, however brief, of the words of S. John, I think that in applying them to the subject I have in hand I am moving on parallel lines, am justified by a strict analogy, am availing myself of logical inferences which are neither invalid nor too remote. For it seems to me that the progress of modern science — by which hereafter, in this sermon, I shall mean physical science, as distinguished from metaphysics, or philosophy, or theology — has corre- sponded almost exactly to the moral development or corruption of mankind. First of all, for the purpose of easier examination, science has investigated the Kosmos apart from God. And this manifestly, in itself, involves no impiety. The world is what it is, whoever made it, or however it came into existence ; and, in the most religious spirit, we may try to discover exactly what the environment is in which we are placed, in order that we may with due humility accom- modate ourselves to it, and make the best possible use of it. But even in this first stage the study of Nature (apart from God) must be highly dangerous, and may easily be fatal to religious belief and religious feeling, unless we combine with it in a sufficient degree other studies which do not omit God from our consideration ; and unless we carefully discharge the practical duties of religion. To devote all our best energies to the dis- covery of what the world is ivith God left out, is the most effective method of forgetting Him altogether, 248 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. and prepares ns, with the utmost ease, for the next stage in the progress of modern science. That next stage is the investigation of the world loith God excluded. Science set out upon lier path of discovery inevitably with the traditional belief that the phenomena of Nature were always beneficently superintended by a Divine Providence, and sometimes controlled by miraculous interposition. At first, there- fore, she was timid; not alone because she had to encounter a universal prejudice, but because she her- self had not wholly got rid of it. But she gained courage as she proceeded. Investigating those phe- nomena which are given to us by the senses, and arranged and classified by the intellect — which is her proper and chosen province — she was everywhere suc- cessful. God is not perceived by the senses, nor out of sensible materials can the intellect construct Him. But that ambition of the human spirit which science affects to deride can never be really eradicated. If it be checked or stopped on positive lines, it will move with restless energy on negative lines; if it may not prove that God is, it will insist on demonstrating that He is not. To science, properly so called — viz. : the methodi- cal investigation of phenomena ^jre^ew^eoJ hy the senses — Theism and Atheism are alike indifferent; you cannot affirm what does or does not exist in that very region from which you have deliberately retired, and which you have deliberately chosen to leave unexplored. But a man does not cease to be a man because he is a student of natural science. The thought of God will keep recurring to him ; and when it comes it has a kind of majesty, a loftiness of demand, which cannot at once be set aside. Nor can it be set aside at all, within PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND EELIGIOUS BELIEF. 249 the domain of science, by any positive disproof; the utmost that can be accomplished is to get rid of it by a long series of exclusions. The scientist,* were he ever so well inclined, cannot for the life of him discover how to get that God in again whom, or which, he deliberately and provisionally left out for the sake of an easier investigation of natural and sensible phenom- ena. Omitting the consideration of cause — which, I may here remark, is a purely metaphysical conception — he has been dealing solely Avith invariable antecedents; and he has in every case found as many of them as he wants. Take the case, for instance, of an abundant wheat- harvest. That is a palpable physical fact; the yield can be weighed and measured, and will be found so many bushels to the acre. What are the antecedents ? A well-selected locality, with reasonable certainty of suflBcient warmth and moisture; soil Avell tilled and richly manured ; sound wheat for seed ; the ordinary operations of sowing and ingathering. "Now, at what stage of this process," asks the triumphant or despair- ing scientist, as his mood may be, " am I to insert a beneficent Providence, the direct action of a merciful God ?" Or take the case of an ill-regulated family. They live in an ill-constructed house, and they care nothing for cleanliness or ventilation. They allow the very products of disease to poison the water they drink, or float freely in the air they breathe. These minute but living organisms — if that be a true hypothesis — take possession of their bodies, and grow there like wheat in a field, only with enormously greater rapidity and fecundity. The family is smitten down by disease * I know no substitute, short of a tedious circumlocution, for this detestable hybrid. 250 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. and most of them die. Where, again, in this process, are we to insert a righteous and avenging God ? And when the theologian or the metaphysician insists upon His recognition, the scientist becomes impatient and exasperated, and haughtily thrusts Him out; for if He were admitted He would be a new antecedent and must certainly alter the resultant of all the rest. And, inas- much as the very province of science is the phenomenal world and nothing else, he is precluded, as scientist, from the assumption that the place of God may be at the head of, and outside of, the whole series ; and, also, that the processes of Nature may have a moral pur- pose. For morality, right and wrong, are not within the scope of physics : they cannot be weighed and measured, or in any other way, by means of the intellect making use of the materials furnished by the senses, scientifically verified. Surely, even at this stage, it must be said of the scientist, as scientist, that " the love of the Father is not in him." The very conception of a "Father" has been obliterated, or is resented as an unnecessary and impertinent intrusion. And now I come to the third stage in the progress of modern science in relation to religious belief. At this stage those faculties of human beings which were set aside as useless for merely scientific investigation — viz., conscience and will — demand to be reinstated, or at least to be recognized, and if possible exjjlained. Nay, even the senses and the intellect insist upon being accounted for. The hungry vacuum left by the exclu- sion of God can no longer be allowed to remain unfilled. Science, therefore, must include its oivn insti'iiments among the phenomena to be investigated, and thus deprive itself of the very means by which its investiga- PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 251 tions can be carried on. It must fill up the clamorous vacuum by its own products. It becomes, therefore, anthropomorphic: it invests its own generalizations with personality ; it fills up the enormous gaps in its verified discoveries with bold hypotheses. This is the third and last stage of science, and also its Nemesis. For, under the disguise of science, it has reinstated— though in a mutilated, self-contradictory, and practi- cally worthless form— those very conceptions which it had passionately affirmed were based upon transparent and discreditable fallacies. The three stages, then, of the progress of science in relation to religious belief are these: The investigation of Nature, /n^;?!, with God left Old; second, with God excluded; third, with the place of God occupied hy anthroponiorpJiic persoyiifca- tions and unverifiable hypotheses. Of this last stage the recent work of Dr. Henry Maudsley, entitled Natural Causes and Supernatural Seemitigs, is, so far as my reading in that direction extends, the most con- spicuous and complete illustration. It is now a good many years since I read Mr. Tyndall's treatise on Heat as a Mode of Motion. I was not then, and I am not now, in the least able to criticise the wonderful series of observations and deductions by which he believes that he makes good his position. I have neither the scientific imagination to devise, nor the dexterity to perform, bis very delicate experiments. I should go to Mr. Tyndall, on such subjects, as a very humble learner to an undisputed master and authority. But in dealing with motion and heat he is dealing with facts which are revealed to us by the senses, and to those facts alone he applies, for their arrangement and interpretation, his acute and penetrating intellect. I 252 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND EELIGIOUS BELIEF. do not remember in his book any parenthetic excur- sions into the realm of theology or metaphysics. It left, therefore, on my mind the impression of a purely scientific treatise of the very highest excellence, and belonging to what I have called the first stage in the progress of science — the study of Nature with God left out. And, I may add, in such a discussion the intro- duction of theology would have been absurdly irrelevant. On the other hand, his famous Belfast Address leaves on my mind a very different impression. He explicitly repudiates Atheism ; but that brilliant address seems to me a conspicuous illustration of science in its second stage — the study of Nature toith God exchided. I derive, I think, the same impression from Mr. Huxley's Lay Sermon on The Physical Basis of Life. The effect upon religious feeling and belief of a disproportionate study of the physical sciences is, per- haps, even more disastrous upon those who study science as an amusement or fashion than upon pro- fessional scientists. For, though the former may be supposed to be less exclusive in their pursuit of science, and to have a larger number of moderating and neutralizing mental occupations, the fact is that they are generally incapable of serious and rigorous study of any kind whatever. They get their science at second or third hand, generally in a greatly diluted form. For want of the truly scientific temper their conclu- sions and assumptions are incalculably more rash than those of the truly competent and accomplished investi- gators of Nature. Moreover, the books they read, even though written by men of acknowledged scientific authority, are the books they have written in their capacity not so much of scientists as of men of letters. PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 253 Such books are the proper vehicles of mere (and acknowledged) hypotheses; of comparison between physical science and other branches of knowledge ; of tentative suggestions, and the like. But the un- practised and unscientific reader never observes these distinctions. He does not reflect that Tyndall, writing a treatise on Heat as a Mode of Motion (which the sci- entific amateur would probably have no patience to read), is a scientist with an admirably lucid style and faculty of description ; but that Tyndall, writing the Belfast Address, is a man of letters dealing with the history of science, with the opinions of Heraclitus and Plato and Aristotle and Epicurus and Lucretius ; and with philosophical theories, such as Materialism and Atheism — all which subjects, so treated, lie entirely outside of the domain which has been deliberately selected for the investigations of physical science, properly so called. Hence the amateur gets all the disadvantages and none of the advantages — such as a rigorous and almost ascetic mental training in at least one direction — which genuine scientific research may be trusted to secure. At any rate, whatever may be the cause, we find our- selves in a position closely resembling that— only far more serious — which Bishop Butler describes in his Advertisement to the Analogy. He knew, not from guess or mere assumption, but from personal experience, the attitude of society in his day towards the Christian religion. I am now quoting from Mr. Matthew Arnold's characteristic essay on Bishojj Butler and the Zeit-Geist (pp. 251-252, Macmillan's Edition of 1883): Society was full of discussions about religion, of objections to eternal punishment as inconsistent with the divine goodness, 254 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. and to a system of future rewards as subversive of a disinter- ested love of virtue. " The deistical writers," says Mr. Pattison, "formed the atmosphere which educated people breathed. The objections the Analogy meets are not new and unreasoned objec- tions, but such as had worn well, and had borne the rub of controversy, because they were genuine. It was in society, and not in his study, that Butler had learned the weight of the deistical arguments." And in a further sentence Mr. Pattison, in my opinion, has almost certainly put his finger on the very determining cause of the Analogy^s existence : "At the Queen's philosophical parties, where these topics (the deistical objections) were canvassed with earnestness and freedom, Butler must often have felt the impo- tence of reply in detail, and seen, as he says, 'how impossible it must be, in a cursory conversation, to unite all into one argument, and represent it as it ought to be.' ''' This connecting of the Analogy with the Queen's philosophical parties seems to me an idea inspired by true critical genius. The parties given by Queen Caroline — a clever and strong- minded woman — the recluse and grave Butler had, as her Clerk of the Closet, to attend regularly. Discussion was free at them, and there Butler no doubt heard in abundance the talk of what is well described as the " loose kind of deism which was the then tone of fashionable circles." The Analogy, with its peculiar strain and temper, is the result. "Caviling and objecting upon any subject is much easier than clearing up difficulties; and this last part will always be put upon the defenders of religion." Surely that must be a reminiscence of the " loose kind of deism " and of its maintainers ! With this in our minds let us hear Butler himself: "It is come, I know not how, to be taken for granted, by many persons, that Christianity [in our case Theism] is not so much as a subject of inquiry; but that it is now at length discovered to be fictitious. And accordingly they treat it as if, in the present age, this were an agreed point among all people of discern- PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 255 ment, and nothing remained but to set it np as a principal subject of mirth and ridicule, as it were by way of reprisals for its having so long interrupted the pleasures of the world." This is exactly where we are now, excepting — and how enormous is the exception ! — that it is not the Christian religion, but any religion, not the God of the Bible, but any conceivable God, which popular litera- ture and conversation, in certain strata, now regard as too entirely ridiculous to be even seriously argued. The clergy are supposed to be timid and sensitive, even hypersesthetic, so I will justify my own impres- sion by references to a book which some of my "scien- tific" friends assure me is "very strong," and some of my "orthodox" friends assure me — meaning the same thing — is "very dangerous": I mean Dr. Henry Maudsley's book entitled Natural Causes and Super- natural Seemings.* The very title of the book is a kind of cynical assumption that all believers in the supernatural — that is to say, in anything which is not first given to us by the senses — are misled by mere "seeming." Let it be remembered that the super- natural includes Almighty God, and all the special facts upon which the Christian religion is based. If it could be disjjroved, there is an end of all religious controversy; and a serious attempt at disjiroof might be tolerated, or even in a measure admired, as a rare instance of intellectual courage. Those who think that a belief in the supernatural has done far more harm than good to the human race, are justified in trying to relieve mankind from an intolerable burden. Those who think that it has done far more good than harm, and, * See Supplementary Note No. 2 at the eucl of this vohime. 256 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. in the case of its most conspicuous example, the Chris- tian religion, is doing more good now, might perhaps have been justified in letting it alone; though there may be a kind of quasi-virtue in sacrificing the well- being of humanity to scientific consistency. But the condition in which we now find ourselves is that we have to deal, not with sober argument, but with undisguised contempt. This is the way, for instance, in which Dr. Maudsley states what he calls " the argument " of his book referred to above : • How is it that mankind, in different ages and places, from their beginning until now, have had so many different notions concerning the supernatural, if there be a supernatural with which they can come into relations of knowledge and feeling ? How is it that they have had any notions at all concerning it, if there be no such accessible supernatural ? Those who believe confidently that there is not, or that in any case we cannot know anything about it, ought to show how it has come to pass that people everywhere, savage, barbarous, and cultured, have been impelled to construct it in the forms in which they have con- structed it ; a plain scientific obligation lies on them to explain the natural origin of human belief respecting that which is beyond the reach of human thought. And then he proceeds : It will not be amiss to inquire and examine how far the causes of beliefs in the supernatural, and of the sundry and diverse notions that have been entertained concerning it in different times and places, can be identified with causes which are habitu- ally working in human thought now, and which were more largely operative in its more primitive stages of development. These causes may be classed as follows : I. Causes which lie in the natural operations of the sound mind ; of which two principal divisions may properly be made — namely : PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 257 1. The natural defects and errors of human observation and reasoning. 2. The proliQc activity of the imagination, always eager and pleased to exercise itself. For it ought to be well considered in this relation that, while the exercise of observation and reasoning is slow, toilsome, and difficult, the exercise of imagination is quick, easy, and pleasant ; and how largely, therefore, the scanty supplies of the former are immediately supplemented by the lavish profusions of the latter. II. Causes which lie in the operations of the unsound mind, and which fall naturally under the two principal headings of — 1. Hallucinations and illusions. 2. Mania and delusions. III. Causes which lie in the adoption of ecstatic illumination or intuition as a special channel of supernatural knowledge. Now, it is perfectly obvious, from this statement, that Dr. Maudsley regards the belief in the supernatural as too absurd to deserve serious argument of any kind. He regards it as a curious phenomenon in the history of human development. He accounts for it, in all cases, by the assumption of "defects and errors of human observation and reasoning"; by an illicit use of the imagination ; by unsoundness or disease of the mind, indicated by hallucinations and maniacal delusions; by the voluntary production of abnormal excitement, such as ecstasy, trance, convulsions and the like. He lumps together all the absurdities and superstitions of savages, the supposed visions and revelations of Apostles and Saints, of Mohammed and Sweden borg, the miracles of our Lord, the supposed cures of medicine-men, the tricks of jugglers, omens, lucky and unlucky days, witches and witchcraft, as equal and parallel expres- sions of a belief in the supernatural. He says, in effect, " I can account for one after another of these by obvious physical or moral causes, chiefly disease and fraud ; it 258 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. is not necessary to go throngh the whole list of these absnrcl beliefs, for that would require almost as long a time as was required for their actual development and history. But the specimens I shall select will be enough to indicate a principle. And it may be worth while to assist Avell-meaning fanatics to anticipate, by a voluntary surrender, the inevitable hour when science will deprive them, whether they will or no, of the very last atom of their confidence in God and religion." To be sure, he omits the crucial instances of what all Christians believe to be supernatural — the life and teaching of our Blessed Lord and of S. Paul ; and this omission, though entirely fatal to his so-called "argu- ment " — for he cannot account for the work either of Christ or S. Paul by unsoundness of mind, or mania, or fraud — we may charitably explain as a survival, however sickly and atrophied, of natural piety. Now, in any case it is highly desirable, for clearness and accuracy of thought, and it is absolutely neces- sary, in consideration of the controversies in which we find ourselves engaged, that we should accurately determine what science really is ; that is to say, what is its true and chosen domain, what are its instru- ments, and what is its method. For science is the court, so to speak, before which we are so often brought, charged with serious crimes, and weighted with a well- deserved or ill-deserved very bad reputation. It is absolutely necessary for us, then, to be accurately informed as to the jurisdiction of this court and its modes of procedure. Now, the chosen do7nam of science is 2y^"^^iovicna cognizable by the senses. The instruinents of science are the senses and the intellect, and these only; for in an investigation of a sensible PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 259 phenomenon there is no question of right or wrong, and emotion is scientifically mere surplusage, and generally a very disturbing cause of deflection or friction. The method of science is observation, and that trained observation which we call experiment ; and the logical processes of induction and deduction, which are founded upon what are called the laws of thought, the modes in which the human mind has been found to proceed in the discovery of truth. If this be a true account of science — meaning, of course, physical science — it is obvious that any ques- tion of the supernatural is wholly outside its domain, incapable of being solved by its instruments, and wholly alien from its methods. Let us consider these two propositions: "The will is self-determining," and "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth." How can science affirm or deny either of these propositions? The will is not cognizable by the senses ; and any being who existed before the heavens and the earth, and what He did or omitted to do before the Creation, or at the moment and in the act of creation, lie wholly outside of the domain of science. To ask, then, for a scientific demonstration, properly so called, of the existence of God or of His attributes, is irrelevant and absurd. No doubt Christians believe in a God, that He created the world, that He sustains it, that "in Him we live and move and have our being," that without Him the vast and complicated machinery of Nature would crash into chaos or vanish into nothing. These beliefs may be abundantly justi- fied. But they have nothing to do, either way, with science, which never legitimately can go beyond sen- sible jihenomena as they are, whether to speculate how 260 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. they came into existence, or what would follow if they should cease to be. On the other hand, there are questions which do legitimately belong to science — both to its domain, its instruments and its method — even though they may, directly or indirectly, concern our religious feeling and belief. All such questions are really determinable by Science, and her answer is conclusive and without appeal. Consider the follow- ing propositions: "The world has not existed more than six thousand years"; "The earth is an immovable sphere, and the sun and other heavenly bodies revolve around it"; "Voluntary movements of the limbs can be performed without a brain "; " It is impossible that there should be inhabited antipodes." These propo- sitions might be found anywhere — in the Bible (I do not mean that they are found tliere) or in the ravings of a maniac; but ivherever found they are clearly within the province of science, and can be solved by its materials, its instruments, and its methods; and the solution of science is conclusive and without appeal. The real solution in the cases named above I believe to be this: The world is incalculably older than six thousand years ; the earth is not an immov- able sphere; the voluntary motion of an arm is impos- sible without a brain ; there do really exist inhabited antipodes. I believe these propositions have been conclusively proved, whatever their effect may be, direct or indirect, upon our religious feelings and beliefs ; and I believe also that that effect is nil. The depressing effect, therefore, of science upon religious belief and feeling is not due to science itself, properly so called, but partly to the intellectual arro- gance and haughty, extra-scientific assumptions of PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 261 scientists when they write or speak, not as scientists, but as metaphysicians or theologians, or men of letters — with a well-deserved but wholly iri-elevant reputation derived from their scientific attainments; and partly from our own pusillanimity and disregard of the ac- knowledged and chosen limitations of the domain of science — chosen not by theologians, but by scientists themselves. Our proper course is to deny " the jurisdic- tion of thecourt," What is the use of attempting to prove the existence of an object not cognizable by the senses, in a domain from which all such objects have been, for purposes of convenience and a fruitful "division of labour," most rigorously excluded ; and to prove it by the senses f^ We must habitually recognize the exceed- ingly limited extent of the domain of science compared with the whole domain of Being. And we must remind scientists and ourselves— who need the reminder far more seriously — that the very limitation of the domain of science is not rmZand actual, but only provisional and theoretical ; just as a physiologist, for the better study of the human eye, might divert his attention from the alimentary and reproductive organs, though they are still there, and are so organically related to the eye that any very serious disturbance in them would be the destruction of it. We should remind Science, moreover, that even within her own chosen and limited domain she could not stir a step — could not even choose and limit her province — without instruments and assump- tions of which she herself, as Science, can give no account whatever. These are, for instance, the senses, the intellect, the trustworthiness of consciousness, the veracity of memory, the validity of logical processes. Let us begin, then, with the senses, and with the 262 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. noblest of them all — the sense of sight. It may very safely be affirmed that Science, confining herself rigor- ously to her own domain — objects cognizable by the senses — can no more demonstrate the existence of the sense of sight than she can demonstrate the existence of God. It may be urged that we can prove the exist- ence of the sense of sight by using it; which seems like saying that we can demonstrate the existence of God by praying to Him. But Science is far too exact, dogmatic, and exacting to set about the using of any- thing — unless by absolute compulsion — the very exist- ence of which is still, for her, unproved and unprovable. It is this very folly with which she is forever taunting theologians and metaphysicians. Now, how can Science by any conceivable means prove the existence of the sense of sight? Do you say by examining an eye? But how can she examine an eye without seeing it ? If she could horroio for the purpose an eye loith a hiiman 7nind, so to speak, lehhul it, she certainly might exam- ine the visible phenomena of any number of other eyes. But an eye is not the sense of sight: it is only the organ of that sense, and does not contain it, or explain it, or suggest it. We may examine an eye from the outside, we may look at it more closely by means of an ophthalmoscope, we may take it out of the socket and dissect it. But, do what we will, we never get to the sense of sight itself. If there were anybody behind looking through it, he might perhaps understand that the eye is a singularly beautiful optical instrument; but what is the precise relation of the nerves of the eye to vision, and why the same purpose should not be answered by the nerves of the little toe, we know no more than an Indian savage; and there is not the PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 263 slightest reason to suppose that by physical investiga- tion we ever shall know. And exactly the same may be said — mutatis mutandis — of every other sense. Not one of them is itself cognizable by the senses. They must all be assumed by Science; and in accepting the use of them she acknowledges that her chosen domain of inquiry and investigation is very far from being con- terminous with the whole domain of Being. But, if this be true, how enormous are the conse- quences ! For here is one wJioIe region of mind excluded from the domain of physical science, and yet recog- nized as existing and real, and, in fact, standing in no need of scientific demonstration. Not only does it need no scientific demonstration itself, but its reality must be assumed in every process of scientific demonstration of anything else whatever. And if this be true of the senses, much more obviously true is it of the intellect — that purely mental faculty by which, receiving the reports of the senses, we arrange, abstract, generalize, mark relations of coexistence or succession. And, again, of our emotions — love, hate, terror, cheerfulness, and the like. And, again, of conscience. And, again, of that lordly will which chooses what course to pur- sue, and after firm resolves issues irresistible commands. But this is the ivhole of the human mind. If we do not know mind in itself, in its substance, we know it by its properties or operations. Mind is that which has sensations, thoughts, emotions, resolves, the sense of right and wrong. Not one of these properties or operations is cognizable by the senses. Not one of them, therefore, is within the domain of Science. This is manifest on what 1 may call simple inspection. It is proved collaterally by the action of Science herself when, 264- PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. stepping outside of her proper province, she undertakes to deal with purely mental problems. The very first thing she does, in carrying out that vain endeavour, is to remove the very problem itself and substitute another in its place. For siglit she substitutes the eye ; for intel- lect, the brain ; for the luill, sensory and motor nerves. Need we, then, be so very much alarmed when Science, with a voice a little too rudely loud and truculent, tries to frighten us by the assurance that she, after all her researches, knows nothing of God'^ The answer is obvious : " Who expects you to know anything about God when you manifestly know nothing about me f I might pursue the same line of argument in relation to the otherabsolutely necessary ass?«?i;:)^to«s of science — viz. : the trustworthiness of consciousness, and the veracity of memory, and the validity of logical processes. Without these assumptions not one single step can be taken in the direction of physical discovery — whether it be the discovery of the structure and habits of earth- worms, or the discovery of the next appearance of a particular comet. Now, these are jj'^^^^^^'^V tfuths, admitted as such by science; unless science is to be self-confessed a mere pretentious clieat. And " primary truths" — I am quoting a work which it is impossible to study too carefully, and which is one of the most valuable contributions to modern philosophy — viz.: Dr. W. G. Ward's Philosophy of Theism (i. 5-6)— "primary truthsconsistoftwoclasses — viz.: (1) primary premises, and (3) the validity of one or more inferring ])rocesses. We may add that the cognition of a primary truth as such is precisely what is called an ' intuition.' If these primary truths are guaranteed with certitude — but not otherwise — there is a stable foundation of PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 265 human knowledge in its entireness and totality. The inquiry, then, to be instituted is this : Firstly, what character I sties must be possessed by those trutlis which the thinker may legitimately accept as primary? And secondly, on lohat ground does he know that the prop- ositions are true which jMSsess those characteristics? Or, to express the same thing in [other] words, firstly, what is the rule of certitude ? and secondly, what is its motive f 1. Primary truths are those which the human intellect is necessitated by its constitution to accept with certitude, not as inferences from other truths, but on their own evidence ; this is the rule of certitude; 2. These truths are known to be truths, because a created gift called the light of reason is pos- sessed by the soul whereby every man, while exercising his cognitive faculties according to their intrinsic laws, is rendered infallibly certain that their avouchments correspond with objective truth ; this is the jnotive of certitude." I have neither space nor, unhappily, the ability to follow out the argument I have suggested in this sermon through all its ramifications. But in these dark and evil days, if we would strengthen our own faith and strengthen the faith, or prevent the apostasy, of others, we shall not, I think, much trouble ourselves with peddling arguments to prove the "scientific accuracy " of the book Genesis. We shall waste not an hour in trying to solve the difficulties of a piously- minded ship-carpenter who cannot understand the description of the structure or see the sea-going suffi- ciency of Noah's Ark. The question to-day is not, How long did the creation of the world occupy? nor, How far did the Deluge extend ? The question is this : 266 PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF, Is there a living God ? Is there a human spirit ? And if we wonld answer this question, I think we cannot do better than follow, at however humble a distance, the example of the illustrious author of The Analogy. He had to deal with gay and flippant sceptics, who, professing to believe in "Natural" Eeligion, rejected " Eevealed." For them, and such as they, his argument was and is conclusive, needing no change in its general principles, and next to none even in its minutest details. It may well be doubted whether any of those whom he met at the Queen's receptions were serious enough to read his book ; but it was written not for them only, but for all time. Our work, at least in form, is differ- ent from his. We have to deal with sceptics, often also idle and flippant, who reject both Natural and Eevealed Eeligion, but profess to "believe in" science; and to accept those primary truths upon which science rests, and without which science must be forever impotent. Our task, then, it seems to me, is to show, " whether men will hear or whether they will forbear," that those primary truths will lead us much further than science ; will compel us to accept religion and to believe in God. And when we believe in God, Butler will show us how inevitably we must accept His revelations. But alas! No danger can be more seri- ous than the habit of regarding religion as an open question, needing at this time of day to be elaborately argued. Our only safeguard will be to get away as often as possible from that narrow region in which noth- ing is to be found but objects cognizable by the senses. We shall know far more of the human mind and of the capabilities of genius by studying Hamlet, than by dissecting brains. Let us associate with the noble PHYSICAL SCIENCE AND RELIGIOUS BELIEF. 267 men of all times, and imitate their noble deeds. And, after all, dealing so largely as we must with " the world and the things that are in the world," I am sure that we shall find our best, and only complete, protec- tion in the practice of religion, in the word of God, in the Holy Sacraments, in the ever-repeated prayer of our earliest childhood, " Our Father which art in Heaven." SELF-DELUSION. But after certain days Felix came -with Drnsilla, his wife, which was a Jewess, and sent for Paul, and heard him con- cerning the faith in Christ Jesus. And as he reasoned of righteousness, and self-control, atid the judgment to come, Felix was terrified, and answered, Go thy way for this time ; and when I have a convenient season I will call thee unto me. He hoped withal that money would he given him of Paul : tvherefore also he sent for him the oftener, and communed with him. But when two years were fulfilled, Felix was succeeded by Porcius Festus: and desiring to gain favotir ivith the Jews, Felix left Paul in bonds. — Acts xxiv. 24-27. The narrative of which these words are a part, and which we have already read together in the Second Lesson for this morning's service,* is an example of that marvellous power of self-deception which is one of the commonest, not to say one of the universal, frailties of human nature. We observe it every day of our lives in everybody with whom we are in the least degree intimate. It takes the most various, and some- times the most grotesque, forms. It might not be considered surprising that a man should fail to per- ceive his most secret peculiarities or most venial sins. But we meet with people continually who are utterly blind to their most obvious absurdities. To take, for example, what may be regarded as a foible rather than a vice: — what is more common than to find a man notorious for his egotism not only wholly unconscious "■'■Preached on the ninth Sund.ay after Trinity, 1886. SELF-DELUSION. 269 of his own infirmity, but contemptnously sarcastic when he observes the same infirmity in another ? " My neighbour," he says, " can never talk about anybody but himself; he can never look at any subject but as it concerns his own interests; he has no sympathy with otlier people's troubles or successes ; he invaria- bly comes round, after a few complimentary sentences, or a brief interval of uninterested silence, to 'number one.' " And yet this very man is the derision of }iis neighbours for the very same ridiculous and offensive peculiarity. And what toe can see in everybody else, everybody else can see in us. We are all deluding our- selves — unconsciously and consciously— by simulation and dissimulation ; by pretending to be what we are not, and by pretending not to be what we are. And this self-delusion is not only a superficial varnish : it goes to the very bottom of our characters ; it easily be- comes transmuted into sheer hypocrisy; we not only disguise ourselves before men, but we " lie to the Holy Ghost." Therefore it is that Holy Scripture warns us, both by precept and example, against this most serious danger of self-delusion. " Who can tell," says the Psalmist, " how oft he ofiendeth ? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults." " Surely," says Elihu, in the book Job — misapplying, indeed, a perfectly true princi- ple — " surely it is meet to be said unto God, What I know not teach Thou me : if I have done iniquity I will do it no more." " He that trusteth in his own heart," says Solomon, " is a fool." " The heart," says one of the prophets, " is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." And again : " Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil, that put darkness 270 SELF-DELUSION. for light and light for darkness, bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!" And this same propensity to self- delusion is set before us not only in warnings and pre- cept, but in conspicuous and most instructive exam- ples. Three of these it may be profitable for us to consider somewhat more at length. The first is the example of Balaam, whose history we shall be reading in the First Lessons for this evening and next Sunday. Tlie second is the example of David. The third is the example of Felix. There are few narratives in the Old Testament more picturesque and dramatic than the history of Balaam.* * It may well seem that any commentary on this remarkable history must be superfluous after the sermons of Butler, Newman and Arnold, and after the graphic pages of Stanley in his History of the, Jewish Church. It would, however, be very rash for any clergyman to take for granted that any large proportion of his congregation have read any of these sermons, though they are of the utmost value, and Butler's has a rank which may be truly called classic. Newman's also is a perfect model, not only of exposition, but of spiritual insight {Paro- chial and Plain Sermons, II., pp. 18 et seqq., 1877). What is the irresistible fascination of Newman's Sermons ? Perhaps their perfect simplicity, the utter absence of anything distantly approaching affectation. "We preach not ourselves." His one object is always to bring home to the conscience the precise lesson of Almighty God. Nobody but a scholar could have written such sermons as his, but they are absolutely without pedantry or display of any kind. Again, how pregnant are many of Newman's almost parenthetic suggestions, which are at the same time so perfectly appropriate to the matter he has in hand ! Here is one in the very sermon about Balaam : " And here I would make a remark: that when a passage of Scripture, descriptive of God's dealings with men, is obscure or perplexing, it is as well to ask ourselves whether this may SELF-DELUSION. 271 How shall I describe him ? Soothsayer, worker of charms and spells, inspired prophet, recipient of reve- lations from the God of Israel — all these he was. "His home is beyond the Euphrates, amongst the not be owing to some insensibility, in ourselves or in our age, to certain peculiarities of the divine law or government therein involved" (p. 27). Stanley remarks on the history of Balaam, more sno (p. 210, Scribner's Edition, 1876) : " In his career is seen that recognition of dinne inspiration outside the chosen people which tlie narrowness of modern times has been so eager to deny, but which the Scriptures are always ready to acknowledge, and, by acknowledging, admit within the pile of the teachers of the Universal Church, the higher spirits of every age and of every nation." I have ventured to describe this as in Stanley's peculiar manner; by which I mean to imply generosity, keen appreciation of the value of truth, wherever found, and also a considerable admixture of speculative rash- ness. No doubt the Scriptures do acknowledge certain revela- tions outside the chosen people to be divine ; but they make that acknowledgment on a perfectly definite principle, and with what I may call a very guarded parsimony. The principle is this : any direct communication from God to man of what he could not otherwise have discovered is recognized as a divine revela- tion ; mere discoveries or speculations are not so regarded. Thus we might, on this principle, admit that the philosophy of Plato was a divine revelation, if he did not (apart from other objections) himself represent it as the result of his own careful inquiry and introspection : inquiry into the opinions of earlier thinkers, and careful scrutiny of the processes of his own intellect. But the revelation given to Balaam, and recognized in Scripture as divine, will enable us, better than whole pages of mere argument, to perceive the distinction between revela- tion inside and revelation outside the chosen people. Regarded w itself, it was one of a number of sporadic revelations ; not forming part of a connected wliole ; not preserved by any pro- tective envelope ; not embodied and propagated in any cultus , or laws, or social institutions. It was in itself, therefore, 272 SELF-DELUSIOl^. moniitains where the vast streams of Mesopotamia have their rise. But his fame is known across the Assyrian desert, tliroiigh the Arabian tribes, down to the very shores of the Dead Sea. He ranks as a warrior chief (by that combination of soldier and prophet .... seen in Moses himself) with the five kings of Midian. He is regarded throughout the whole of the East as a prophet whose blessing or whose curse was irresistible, the rival, the possible conqueror, of Moses."* As we read the graphic narrative in Numhers, we forget long distances and the slowness of travel. As compared with Balak, Balaam is as Jacob to Esau ; intellect highly ineifective ; it had no permanent effect even on Balaam ; it did no good whatever to Balak ; it died without issue ; it led to nothing. It was, indeed, a divine revelation, and of very great intrinsic value. It was a prophecy, a distinct foretelling, of a whole sei'ies of events which took place long afterwards. It included, especially as reported by the prophet Micah, the fundamental principle of all religion. But it is available for all mankind precisely for this reason : it was hxowghi within the methodical and continuous series of revelations granted to the chosen people ; it was recorded in their Sacred Books ; it had its place assigned to it in a whole system of truth. No doubt its recognition in Scripture as divine would include, by parity of reasoning, all other revelations of the same kind and similarly treated. If, for instance, by an impossible liypothesis, the really true portions of the Buddhist "Scriptures" had been imbedded in the Old Testament, fitted into their place in the series of revealed truths, and the like, they would have been "acknowledged"; only, as a matter of fact, they were not. On the other hand, the words " We are also His offspring " are accepted by S. Paul as true ; though it may certainly be more than doubted whether he would have accepted them as, in any peciiliar and authoritative sense, a divine revelation. It was a true saying of " one of your own poets." * Stanley. SELF-DELUSION. 273 against brute force; spirit against matter; insiglit against impulse. He knew perfectly well that his enormous reputation had no solid foundation ; he could not bless or curse at his own discretion ; his power was not over facts, much less over God, but only over the imaginations of men ; and that power it is scarcely possible to overestimate. Moreover, he has a kind of conscientiousness — nay, a high principle. He dare not promise more than he can perform. He must, at all cost, serve God ; but he will make the cost as little as possible. He has " obedience without love."* So, when the messengers of Balak come to call him, " with the rewards of divination in their hands," he will obey God if he must, and so far as he must, but not otherwise nor farther. He loves the rewards of divination, he fears the divine vengeance. But, to begin with, he is " a man of prayer" — not in a merely formal way, but in reality. And here we may note the first of his self-delusions : he deceived himself as to the very nature of prayer. Deceived himself for we all know what prayer is not : it is not the power to change the divine purpose, or make things other than they really are. Thus much it is on the very face of the narrative that Balaam knew. " This is the boldness," says S. John,t "which we have towards God, that, if we ask anything according to His will, He heareth us : and if we know that He heareth us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions which we have asked of Him." Prayer, then, is founded upon our knowledge of God and trust in Him ; it consists in putting ourselves into harmony with His will ; it is always answered, even wlien it seems to be denied; it * Newman. tl- John v. 14-15. 274 SELF-DELUSION. may be almost said to be most effective when it is most superfluous ; its power is subjective possibly more than objective; but it is objective also, because God has made acts of faith and actual requests the conditions of His blessings; as also, without faith and prayer, our own spiritual perfection would be impossible. Nothing, therefore (I may remark parenthetically), could have been more absurd than the proposal of a distinguished scientist to test the value of prayer by putting it to a work which, by its very nature, it is precluded from attempting. We all hnoio that it is not "according to God's will " that everybody should, in every case, be cured of a grievous sickness. We all hnoiv that to use prayer for the purpose of putting the Almighty on His trial — if we may so speak with reverence — is not prayer at all, but mere blasphemy. Balaam, then, chose, against his knowledge and better judgment, to regard prayer as a means of constraining God to change His mind. If He would not change His mind, Balaam must submit to the divine will ; but at least he could try the experiment, and he thought he had succeeded. At first, indeed, the answer of God was to Balaam's own mind perfectly unmistakable and conclusive: "Thou shalt not go with them; thou shalt not curse the people, for they are blessed." Surely there was nothing more to be said; he might not go, and if he did go he was powerless. " God is not a man, that He should lie, nor the son of man, that He should repent." But new messengers arrive, with new and larger promises, and Balaam prays once more. He perfectly knew God's will; his own promised rewards were nothing to the purpose; he had, in fact, made up his mind as to the path of duty. But still he would try SELF-DELUSION. 275 agaift. If God would give him leave to go, he might still combine " the rewards of unrighteousness " with the sufficient recognition of the Righteous One. "It is often said that second thoughts are best ; so they are in matters of judgment, but not in matters of con- science. In matters of duty first thoughts are com- monly best: they have more in them of the voice of God."* We all know the sequel. " God came unto Balaam at night and said unto him. If the men be come to call thee, rise up and go with them." But " God's anger was kindled " against Balaam " because he went," With what in men might be called disdain, the Almighty granted to him the opportunity of self- destruction, though still withstanding him for his own good.f " The angel of the Lord placed liimself in the way for an adversary against him." " The dumb ass, speaking with a man's voice, reproved the madness of the prophet." Yet when, having, as he supposed, wrung from the Almighty His permission to do wrong, he really came to Balak, he could only utter the divine message. He could find no enchantment against Jacob, no divination against Israel. Nay, he saw further and deeper into the future than any, so far as we know, of his contemporaries. He saw the sure triumph of * Newman. fThis terrible power of foolish prayer did not escape the notice even of the Roman satirist, who closes his tenth Satire with words that would not be misbecoming even in the moutli of a Christian (Juvenal, x. 346-366) : Nil ergo optabunt homines ? Si consilium vis, Permittes ipsis expendere nurainlbus quid Conveniac nobis rebusque sit utile nostris. Nam pro juoundis optissima quteque dabuat di, Carior est illis homo quam sibl. &c. 276 SELF-DELUSION. God's chosen people, " the star coming forth out of Jacob, the sceptre rising out of Israel." He saw the people around him utterly subdued. In a far more distant future he saw that "ships should come from the coast of Kittim, and they should afflict Asshur, and should afflict Eber, and he also should come to destruc- tion." Yet he chose deliberately to be on the losing side, and himself perished in battle against those whose victory he had so clearly foreseen. Here, then, was a man who was blessed in a very extraordinary degree with every one of those privileges which might naturally be expected, and are exactly adapted, to serve as a perfect protection and safe- guard against almost the possibility of self-delusion. He has special revelations from God ; he has that exaltation of intellectual and moral faculties, that keenness of insight, to which we give the name in- inspiration; he cultivates the habit of prayer; and he receives answers to his prayers so perfectly unmis- takable that they are represented in the history of his life as audible voices— which is very much more than any of ourselves are in the habit of receiving. And yet he contrived, almost to the very end of his life, to turn these very safeguards into the occasions of self- deception. Thus, for instance, the words of God, "If the men have come to call tliee, go with them," were just as audible to his outer or inner ear as the words " Thou shalt not go with them." When, on his very journey to Balak, he said to the Angel of the Lord, "If it displease thee I will get me back again," the reply was perfectly clear: " Go with the men, but only the word that I shall speak unto thee, that shalt thou speak." Those words which God gave to him he really SELF-DELUSION. 277 did speak ; and he no doubt persuaded himself that he was keeping the letter of the divine commandments, and that he had really persuaded God to sanction the road which seemed to lead most directly to his own private interests. Of course this self-deception could not last for- ever. Deception, on whomsoever practised, is an attempt to produce the belief that things are not what they really are. But they are what they really are, whatever our belief may be ; and when at last we are compelled to confront them, our delusions vanish — and nearly always too late — and we perish as Balaam perished. The example of David is, in some respects, even more instructive than that of Balaam. In forming an estimate of his character, and of the grievous sin which he com- mitted, we are nearly always misled by the very com- mon error of judging a man who lived at a time and in social conditions very remote from our own by the standards which we justly apply to our own conduct. David has long been the scoff of shallow sceptics who entirely, and even stupidly, forget that when judged by their own principles he is scarcely deserving of censure. It may, in fact, be plausibly argued that he was very much above the average of his own contemporaries in virtue and magnanimity. Why should he be expected to be so very much farther in advance of his own age and circumstances? We condemn the sin of David because we believe those divine revelations which shallow sceptics despise so heartily that they consider sober argument thrown away on such puerile super- stitions. If "God" be the mere creature of a natural inlirmity of the human intellect, or of the mythopffiic creativeness of the undisciplined imagination, what can 278 SELF-DELUSION. it matter whether David were, or were not, a man "after God's own heart"? It neither increases nor diminishes his guilt that he was on the whole approved by a nonentity. When he himself was brought to repentance, he was so overwhelmed with shame that his whole life seemed to him a mass of corruption. " Behold I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." This was a perfectly true view of life for a godly man to take; but for our flippant sceptics it would have been a preposterous, and even impossible, delusion. They would go, indeed, much further than David — who is here far too profoundly impressed with the fact of his sinfulness, all through his life, to be merely enunciating a dogma of "original sin " — but they would have gone in the opposite direction. They would have excused David from all responsibility. The scientific dogma of original sin differs from the Christian in being far more revolting to the conscience — which our modern science obliter- ates — and also wholly incurable.* *'* Mental pathologists would do well, then, to begin their treatises on insanity with a preliminary dissertation on mental malformities, tracing each leading variety back to its origin, and following the steps of its growth ; so might they throw light on the ways by which the various modes of defective observation and reasoning that spring from the biasing passions and tempers of human nature shut it out from thorough and veracious con- verse with facts, and grow from generation to generation into the structural outcomes of positive mental malformity. The brain is, as it were, essentially a consolidation of memories, and these consolidated embodiments of fallacies of thought and feel- ing might be described justly as the various spirits of error made flesh. And if that be their true origin and organic mean- ing, their functions will naturally furnish the most striking dis- plays of these errors, the organ giving out the kind of function SELF-DELUSION. 279 But let us consider David's action apart from the high standard of. pure religion which was revealed to Israel by Almighty God, and not least to David him- self. He was an Oriental monarch who had power of life and death over his subjects. Most unquestionably he was conspicuous, on the whole, for the righteous- ness and generosity of his rule. An Oriental harem produced no shock to the morality of David's age; and his self-restraint in this direction was far more remark- able than his self-indulgence. Probably no other monarch would have hesitated a moment to take Bathsheba to himself without any further explanation than that the king desired her. Moreover, there was war actually going on, and Uriah the Hittite was as liable to be sent to a post of peculiar danger as any one else. I repeat that David's conduct is condemned, not by the customs of his age and place, not by any law of " moral " evolution that fairly could be applied to him, but only by that profoundly spiritual and exact- ing religion which was the grand possession of Israel, and which is the scorn of modern sceptics, who hold up to contempt and abhorrence a man who, on their own principles, was deserving of the highest honour. which inspired its construction. A man could not think or do deceit habitually and naturally if his ancestors for years before him had not thought or done deceit, and in the end incorporated its spirit into the structure of his brain. If they have lived in mean spheres and comparatively simple social relations, where there was not much call for self-restraint, or need of delicacy of feeling, and he is launched into a larger human sphere, and into more complex and refined social relations, where self-restraint and respect for others are required, then the fundamental faults of his nature are brought into obtrusive exercise and conspicu- ous display." (Dr. Maudsley.) 280 SELF-DELUSION. But we, who believe the splendid series of divine revelations recorded in the Jewish and Christian Scriptures, have no excuse whatever for David's sin. We do not believe that he inherited lust and cruelty, and that he could do no otherwise than as his inherited cerebral or other structure compelled him. And re- garding him as an individual, gifted with a self- determining power of will, with a conscience, with an unusual spiritual insight, with special divine and supernatural revelations, we can only judge him as he judged himself, when he was enabled to see himself as he really was. And, so judging him, he is a conspicu- ous example of the power of self-delusion. For nearly a whole year he does not seem to have even realized that he was guilty of any special sin whatever. Nay more : he was evidently far too rigorous in his inter- pretation of all ordinary moral obligations. When the seer Nathan came to him with that pathetic parable, Avhich even as literature is unsurpassed for simplicity and patlios, he not only insists upon full restitution for the " little ewe lamb," but, with enormously ex- aggerated indignation, dooms the offender to death. The moment " Nathan said unto David, TJiou art the man," his self-delusion vanished. There was not a single excuse or explanation to be offered on the subject. "And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord." That was the exact truth. It is expressed more emphatically in the words of the Fifty-first Psalm : " Against Thee only have I sinned, and done that which is evil in Thy sight." For it was not evil in the sight of men in general, nor as judged by the morality of David's own life and station. The high spiritual judgment of David was no evolution out of the mass SELF-DELUSION. 281 of public opinion : it was then, and long afterwards, far in advance of any popular sentiment; it was the direct product of a divine and supernatural illumina- tion and revelation. And perhaps the immediate lesson for us, in this most instructive narrative, is that we should most carefully look for the instruments or occasions of our self-delusion in our highest gifts. If we be raised far above others — which in our own case, indeed, may very seldom happen — in spiritual discern- ment, we may fall very far below our own highest level before reaching the highest level of ordinary people. We shall be inclined to measure ourselves by their standard instead of oar own. We shall regard our judgments of duty and responsibility not as ordinary rules of life for ourselves — which they really are — but as " counsels of perfection." Everybody is morally bound to live at the highest moral level possible for himself, whatever may, or may not, be possible to other people. David was very far in advance of popu- lar moral sentiment; but he was not, and could not be, in advance of his oion moral sentiment. And here it may be well to remark upon the extreme unwisdom of applying abstract principles, even of morals, to concrete cases, without the utmost possible caution. We arrive at abstract principles by leaving out of consideration the individual peculiarities of any separate case to which they are to be ultimately applied. But the individual j^ecuUarities are of the very essence of the case upon which we are to pro- novince — if that lies within our province — a moral judgment. Take, for instance, the case of David. It seems easy enough to include it in some such syllogism as this : Murder and adultery are the worst 282 SELF-DELUSION. of crimes ; anybody guilty of the worst of crimes is capable of any smaller crimes ; therefore David (being guilty of murder and adultery) was capable of any other crime — in other words, was an utterly worthless reprobate. This conclusion is manifestly upset by the plain fact that David Avas not capable of stealing the " little ewe lamb." Indeed, all these abstract, general principles assume that human beings are logically consistent, both in thought and act; whereas everybody knows that they are as far as possible from logical consistency in any direction whatever. More- over, the very terms of this syllogism are open to ques- tion. Is it " murder " for the general of an army to send men to a post of peculiar danger ? Is it " adultery " to take, an additional wife in a state of society in which polygamy is recognized as lawful ? Is " murder " morally worse than gossiping away a man's reputa- tion ? Is " adultery," followed by steady conjugal fidelity, morally worse than the all but universal forni- cation which in our great cities is the despair of priests, and which is deliberately recommended, in the present condition of society, by not a few physicians ? Nay more, it is obvious that what seem, at first sight, exaggerations of criminality, may be really "extenua- ting circumstances." S. Peter denied our Lord "with oaths and curses." Who can doubt that the oaths and curses were a proof of the extreme difficulty of his sin ? He could not deny his Lord at all until he had put forth an effort which carried him /a?' heyond his inten- tion. He had to bring himself to oaths and cursing before he could deny at all ; and even then, when Jesus looked upon him, " he went out and wept bitterly." SELF-DELUSION. 283 The example of Felix is, in some respects, even more instructive than either of those I have already con- sidered. It is on a much lower and more vulgar level; and that, alas! is more nearly our own level. He does not care for the formal accuracy of his conduct, like Balaam, much less does he possess the inward piety of David. He has a certain general knowledge of truth and duty ; a personal interest in the right which some- times becomes dominant in his feelings, if not supreme; but he is perfectly determined to make the best of this world, and his self-deception is of such unstable equi- librium that it is forever on the verge of being trans- muted into sheer hypocrisy. When S. Paul, was brought before him he was Procurator of Judaea. Tacitus, in a single sentence which every commentator qiiotes, holds him up to infamy as one who, " indulging in every kind of brutality and lust, exercised the power of a king with the spirit of a slave."* He had been an Arcadian slave, and owed his elevation to the Procuratorship largely to the influence of Jonathan, one of the ex- high-priests of the house of Annas. This very Jonathan was, by the treachery of Felix, stabbed to death at one of the yearly feasts. The administration of the Procurator had not been without its merits : he had suppressed dangerous banditti, if he had also shared their spoils. The Jews, moreover, almost equally from their virtues and their vices, were very hard to rule. It was before this man, then, that S. Paul was sum- moned to plead his cause. He had been sent to him * Tacitus, Hist., v. 9 : " Antonius Felix, per omnem sajvitiara et libidinem, jus regium servili ingenio exercuit." 284 SELF-DELUSION. by Claudius Lysias, with a summary statement of the criminal charges brought against him ; and he was heard with promptness, according to Roman law; though, unhappily, the law appointed no time within which a definite sentence should be pronounced. It was easy enough for Felix to see that S. Paul's enemies had no case ; it was also, unfortunately, equally easy to see that S. Paul might be a very useful and even profitable prisoner. His comparatively long adminis- tration had made him exceptionally familiar with Jewish sects and parties : with Pharisees, Sadducees, Scribes, and the new " Way," the way of the Nazarenes, the disciples of Jesus Christ. S. Paul assumes that this expression would be familiar *to him : " This I confess unto thee, that after the Way which they call a sect, I serve the God of my fathers." S. Luke also speaks of him as " having more exact knowledge con- cerning the Way." So, after hearing S. Paul's accusers, he reserves his judgment; and, "after certain days, Felix came with Drusilla, his wife, which was a Jewess, and sent for Paul, and heard him concerning the faith in Christ Jesus." He seems, at this stage, to have had some real interest in the subject — probably the interest of mere curiosity, just possibly a deeper interest. But what, as S. Paul understood it, was " the faith in Christ Jesus " ? Assuredly no system of doctrines merely, however true ; no belief in the bare fact that one Jesus of Nazareth had lived and taught and wrought miracles and been crucified ; all this Felix knew already, nearly as well as S. Paul. But " faith in Christ Jesus," as S. Paul understood it, meant per- sonal loyalty and prompt obedience. It must, there- SELF-DELUSION. 285 fore, include, among its most rudimentary elements, "righteousness, and self-control, and the judgment to come."* And now we come to the manifest self- delusion of Felix. There are facts of the utmost con- ceivable importance which we admit to be real facts — expressed in words and propositions, we cannot help believing them — but we believe them in an otiose way, languidly, even — if that be not a contradiction in terms — negatively. We are not prepared to admit their contradictories. At the most they are to us mere notions, intellectual, not real; belonging to thought, not fact ; abstract, not concrete. Hence they have no effect upon our conduct ; or, at the most, they are a sort of far-off boundary, like the horizon — or perhaps like the peppercorn rent reserved in old deeds, so excessively small that it is absurd to trouble ourselves about it. It might involve the forfeiture of our estate ; but it is as sure as anything can be that it never will. While we hold truth in this inactive way, self-deception would be a superfluous exertion, and hypocrisy a ridiculous expenditure of useless energy. But, sooner or later, it happens to all of us that our slumbering beliefs awake — either of their own accord, or aroused by some disturbance from without. Then "righteousness, and self-control, and the judgment to come " cease to be abstractions. They clothe them- selves with flesh and blood ; they confront us not only as realities, but as the realities, the only real things which are of any serious importance. " Righteous- ness " becomes righteous acts ; the deeds demanded by our consciences which, then and there, we did or * diakeyoiMevov 61 aiiTov nepl dLnaioavvrjq nal iyKparE'uiQ kuI tov KfufiaToq TOV fieTikovToc: k. t. Ti, 28G SELF-DELUSION. refused to do. " Self-control " becomes, not a gentle- manly reticence, abstinence from coarse and vulgar language or violent action, but the resolute determina- tion of the will to abstain, even in secret, from what conscience forbids, and to brace ourselves for the high and heroic achievement of all possible goodness. " The judgment to come " is no longer a vague feeling that, in the long run, everybody will be the better or worse for his conduct in this world; but the vivid realization, as if to the very eyesight, of " the great white throne," and " the books" being opened, and oZ ourselves receiv- ing the due reward of our own deeds. When this happens to us, we cannot possibly be indifferent. The only possible alternative is a prompt obedience or a voluntary self-delusion — if even this last be possible. It may happen that we cannot deceive ourselves; and then the only alternative is prompt obedience or deliberate defiance. Now, this was precisely the crisis — the judgment of himself — which came to Felix Avhen he listened to S. Paul. " Eighteousness " — it became a real thing, not a mere intellectual abstraction. It compelled him to remember that he was a cowardly assassin, hiring the dagger that he dared not use himself It compelled him to remember his collusion with banditti, his hand in what Americans call "deals," and "rings," and "spoils." " Self-control " — how, then, did it happen, among other things, that " Drusilla, which was a JeAvess," was his wife? " The judgment to come" — doubtless he had heard of it as some remotely distant account that everybody would have to render for deeds that, after long millenniums, it might be hoped would be mainly forgotten, or lost altogether in the innnmer- SELF-DELUSION, 287 able multitude of other deeds by other men. But noto it was a real thing, seen as if by the very eye. And why should it be so far away ? Why should not the final judgment be preceded by any number of prelimi- nary judgments ? Why should he not be called to account — as, in fact, so soon he was — for his Procura- torship of Judgea, and be compelled to answer all the charges of those infuriated Jews who never forgot and never forgave? He felt that he had come to the very edge of a rugged abyss, and that the very ground on which he was standing was crumbling away under his feet. What, then, was the alternative? For an alter- native had surely come. He must either promptly obey, put himself right with "righteousness, self-con- trol, and the judgment to come," or deceive liimself. He chose to deceive himself. And scarcely anything is easier than self-delusion, especially as to the judgm.ent to come. Why, after all, should not all things continue as they are ? The danger is not greater in reality because we happen to have become aware of it. We can be a little more on our guard, but we need not all at once reverse our mode of living. Felix quite easily accommodated himself to his new experience. His terror soon passed off. He became able to regard his position as a subject rather of speculative than practical interest. So he sent for S. Paul often, " and communed with him." Nay, so far had his terror in the contemplation of "righteousness and self- control " subsided, that he deliberately carried on his religious inquiries as a means of securing bribes ; and when one of his days of "judgment to come " actually arrived, " desiring to gain favour with the Jews, he left Paul in bonds." This course of self-deception had 288 SELF-DELUSION. lasted for " two years " ; and during every day of those two long years he had been guilty of a new act of unrighteousness in needlessly and cruelly prolonging the imprisonment of a man whom he knew to be innocent. Such are some of the examples of self-delusion which we find in Holy Scripture ; and " they are written for our learning, that we should not" deceive ourselves *' as these also did." Some time or other — as, for in- stance, in listening to a sermon — there comes to every one of us a vivid realization of " righteousness, and self- control, and the judgment to come." We also are, like Felix, " terrified." We sit in judgment on ourselves, for a moment, with absolute impartiality, and we are self-condemned. We know that we must turn from our evil ways or die. It is not at all necessary that we should convict ourselves of what would be called some serious crime ; the peculiarity of the case is that we are compelled to perceive that every offense against God is of incalculable seriousness, and that our whole life is crowded with such offenses. We resolve that we will amend, and "live soberly, righteously and godly in this present world." Alas ! even in this resolve we are almost always tricking ourselves. So w^onderful are the complexity and subtilty of our mental operations, that in the very act of forming a resolution we are con- scious of an undercurrent of protest and indecision. It is obscurely present to our own consciousness at the very moment that we have a reserve of refusal and retractation. We have an undefined, but real, recollection of similar resolutions in the past, and of how adroitly we evaded them. We all know, from experi- SELF-DELUSION. 289 ence, how many trains of thought can pass through our minds at the same time. What seems easier than the fluency of a practised speaker ? Yet his fluency depends upon this very fact — that, while he is uttering the words which strike our ears almost at the instant of their utterance, his mind is dealing with words which are yet unspoken, and with the ideas they will express. He is not reme^nbering a speech which he has learned by heart, he is constructing one as he goes along ; and he is, perhaps, constructing it out of materials some of which are furnished to him by the very audience he is addressing. Their apparent apathy or the manifest keenness of their interest may quite change the plan of argument or the devices of rhetoric which he had really intended to use. A mere accident, a casual interruption, a burst of applause, a murmur of dissent, may be the occasion of an oratorical triumph. The processes of rapid thought, the incalculable celerity with which he produces an almost infinite number of new and unintended combinations, are a matter of the most common experience. Need we wonder, then, that in our new terror as we contemplate what our spiritual condition really is, we half comfort our- selves with the reflection that while we resolve upon amendment we can see a way of possible retreat ? And this, if it be so, accounts for the fact that our good resolutions are so very often powerless; that the least breath can waft them away; that, more likely than not, they will be forgotten before we have had an opportunity even to begin to execute them. Thus the Oflertory or the Anthem may divert our too unwilling attention ; or conversation on the way home from church ; or com- pany at dinner. And then, from Monday morning to 290 SELF-DELUSION. Saturday night, we find ourselves in the whirl of busi- ness, and our poor resolutions are pushed utterly aside. They have been worse than useless: they have helped to produce a character of irresolution which may only too easily become fixed and incurable. And if this be true even of our resolutions in rela- tion to the very essentials of religion and morals, we can easily see how yet more unstable may be our resolves as to what might be considered mere aids to devotion and " means of grace." It might seem incred- ible — but that we know what we are — that any human being should imagine that he is independent of aids to devotion, when devotion is so very hard both to pro- duce and to retain. The importance of the end deter- mines the importance of the means for its attainment; and also, in the enormous majority of instances, their practical necessity. On this ground alone, and apart from a divine command and a special sacramental grace, the Holy Eucharist might well be regarded, at least in our present circumstances, as absolutely neces- sary to salvation. For what is it that our religion nearly always lacks? It lacks vivid realization; in fact, it is scarcely religion at all, it is an imperfect theology. It consists of notions, intellectual concep- tions, abstractions, generalizations, doctrines of atone- ment, of justification by faith only, plans of salvation, authority of Holy Scripture, and the like. All these are, in varying degrees, mental representations of facts ; but they are not the facts themselves, and they are often very imperfect and distorted representations of facts. A man may carefully ponder "the doctrine of Atonement " as a mere logician ; granting certain facts as postulates, and then constructing his syllogisms as SELF-DELUSION. 291 if the facts were no more than the X and Y of logical symbols. But all this is nearly as remote from religion as chemistry or navigation. It is scarcely too much to say that a roadside crucifix contains more religious teaching than whole tons of " Evangelical " tracts. Now, what is one at least of the manifold blessings of the Holy Eucharist ? Clearly this : it removes us from theology to religion. It makes religious truth real. A doctrine of Atonement is a series of proposi- tions: a cross, an altar, the consecrated Elements, eating and drinking — these are in themselves perfectly positive, concrete, real ; and they at once carry our thoughts and affections to the crucified Redeemer, the Eternal and All-sufficient Sacrifice, the actual Presence of the Risen Lord, the personal participation of Him- self, our communion with God and with all God's people, living and departed. And feeling the exceeding poverty of our religious life, we resolve, again and again, that we will renew it at this fountain of immor- tality. We will come to God's altar, we will pros- trate ourselves before the Redeemer of our souls, we will partake of the divine food, we will strengthen our weak faith by " drawing out .... even the blood of His gored side ";.... in the wounds of the Redeemer we will "dip our tongues": we will there "satisfy our hunger and forever quench our thirst."* But alas I the " early celebration " is too early ; at midday our thoughts are so far astray that it seems almost a prof- anation for us, so preoccupied, to come to "that Holy Sacrament" — and our resolutions have evapo- rated. And, to give no further particular examples of self- ^' Hooker, Erel. Pol., v. 57, 18. 292 SELF-DELUSION. delusion and irresolnteness — which would be only too easy — I wonld remind you how Inrid a light our own sad experiences and our observations of others throw upon the future state — upon the probable future condition of those who die in deliberate and hardened rebellion against God, or wilful and habitual disregard of Him. There are very many persons who regard the Christian eschatology as so inexpressibly cruel that it seems to them, out of mere reverence for the divine perfections, utterly unbelievable. It may, ind.eed, be very safely affirmed that the doctrine by which their consciences are so seriously disturbed is not always, nor generally, the really Christian doctrine. The Catholic Church undoubtedly teaches that there is a hell — by no means accurately defining, however, as of faith, where and what " hell " is. But she distinctly teaches that " hell " is the portion of those only who have deliberately and per- sistently, and from the bottom of their hearts, repu- diated the divine authority and rejected the divine love. Nor will she venture to pass any judgment upon individuals, whose inmost hearts she cannot know, who may have at least " faith like a grain of mustard seed," and a loathing of sin the depth and intensity of which they do not themselves realize. She recognizes that there may be, and in innumerable cases actually is, an " invincible " and therefore pardonable ignorance. Moreover, she teaches us, with various degrees of detail, that there is an intermediate state, in which mere frailty and imperfection may be remedied, and the departed spirit be subjected to a divine and purifying discipline. By far the largest portion also of the Christian Church teaches authoritatively that, in this intermediate state, the departed spirit may be aided, as SELF-DELUSION. 293 on earth, by the intercessory prayers and lioly offices of those who survive. But the fact to which I wish to call your attention is this : that the Christian doctrine of the future state is immeasurably more liojieful than any doctrine de- rived from our personal experience and observation of others — any doctrine of retribution derived from "Natural Keligion." For this very self-delusion and pitiable irresoluteness of will of which I have been speaking, we see, in innumerable instances, becoming habitual. Then it hardens into character. Men are "tied and bound by the chains of their sins." They not only lose the disposition, but even the faculty, to judge themselves, and to turn from their evil way. Sin becomes a "second nature." Kepentance might, at any moment, avail them, were it only sincere; but they can " find no place for repentance, though they seek it carefully with tears." The Gospel of Christ offers to them a divine aid which they cannot discover in Natural Eeligion; but they find themselves more and more incapable not only of using, but even of desiring, it. If the experience and analogies of the present life are any safe guide for our conduct and our hopes, there are multitudes of human beings who are every day of their lives doing their utmost to commit themselves to incurable despair. Nay, there are multitudes who seem to have succeeded in this awful spiritual suicide, and who, in powerless horror, will affirm that they are already damned. The Sacred Scriptures, indeed, are of divine authority; and by their clear teaching of heaven and hell, death and judgment, we must needs be bound. But, even apart from Holy Scripture, our very nature, our conscience, 294: SELF-DELUSION. our habits, are forever preaching to us: "Seek ye the Lord tohile He may he found; call ye upon Him wliile He is neary The warning voice of the Divine Wisdom finds its echo in every heart: "Because I have called and ye have refused, I have stretched out My hand and no man regarded ; but ye have set at naught all My counsels, and would none of My reproof; / also toill laugh in the day of your calamity : I -will mock lohen your fear cometh." SUPPLEMENTAKY NOTES. I. REVELATION. II REMARKS ON DR. MAUDSLEY'S "NAT- URAL CAUSES AND SUPERNATURAL SEEMINGS." EEVELATION. A highly-valued friend, who has also done me the kindness of reading the proof-sheets of this Yolume, suggests that the first four sermons are, to say the least, very highly conservative ; and that I have left out of consideration, or, at any rate, out of explicit recognition, almost the whole body of modern specu- lations and conclusions on the subject of Eevelation. I value my friend's opinions very highly in themselves; but also because they indicate, in a warning way, which ought to help me to suppress any vain hopes, what is the very maximicni of appreciation and sympathy which this little book may expect. If I have not made myself plain to him, it is quite certain that there are very few persons to whom I sliall not seem obscure or inconclu- sive. It is not improbable that, after trying many roads and finding that they all end in a dismal swamp or dangerous quagmire, I may easily have become more "conservative" than I used to be. Anyhow, in these supplementary pages I will endeavour to make my meaning clearer by adding a few considerations for Avhich Sermons, even when condensed and revised for the press, seemed scarcely the fitting place. If we are to deal satisfactorily with such a subject as Revelation, we must ask such questions as these: What is the meaning of the term Eevelation ? Does any revelation, in the sense in which we define it, really exist ? How has it been preserved, and where is it now to be found ? What was its object ? What has been its effect ? 298 REVELATION. It is perfectly obvious that this inquiry — unless it is to be a mere logonnachy — can only be fruitfully carried on, in the way of argument, by persons who agree in certain primary assumptions. I think the smallest amount of assumption required for this purpose is the assumption of Theism — the belief of the existence of God. And by " God " I mean precisely what Butler means, what all Christian divines have meant, what — in his quietly ironical way — Mr. Matthew Arnold so persistently ridicules — viz., "An intelligent Author of Nature, with a will and a character." The ivord " God," indeed, is in these days employed by almost everybody ; but we are concerned not with the word, but with what the word stands for. Listen, for instance, to Mr. Matthew Arnold {S. Paul and Protestantism, p. 8) : Neither is it that the scientific sense in ns refuses to admit willingly and reverently the name of God, at a point in which the religious and the scientific sense may meet, as the least inadequate name for that universal order which the intellect feels after as a law, and the heart feels after as a benefit. ' ' We, too," might the men of science with truth say to the men of religion — " we, too, would gladly say Ood, if only the moment one says Ood, you would not pester one with your pretensions of knowing all about Him. ' ' That stream of tendency by which all things strive to fulfil the latv of their being, and which, inasmuch as our idea of real welfare resolves itself into this fulfihnent of the law of one's being, man rightly deems the fountain of all goodness, and calls by the worthiest and most solemn name he can, which is God, science also might willingly own for the fountain of all goodness, and call God. But, how- ever much more than this the heart may with propriety put into its language respecting God, this is as much as science can with strictness put there. This use of the name " God " seems to me a gross REVELATION. 299 and absurd abuse of language. If this " God " reveals anything, we must find a new meaning for the word " revelation," to correspond to the undiscoverable attributes of the hypothetical, purposeless and characterless revealer. Surely it might be more sensi- ble altogether to decline a controversy which must be based on this admission of total ignorance or blank negation. What is the real meaning of the words reveal and revelation, as used in ordinary English literature and the conversation of those educated English-speaking people who use their language with strict accuracy ? All facts or truths which are unknoion may be spoken of metaphorically — and our commonest words are, at bottom, nearly all metaphorical— as concealed by a veil or covering. To impart or to acquire the knowl- edge of facts heretofore unknown may be represented, metaphorically, as the removal of a veil or cover, whether the veil or cover be removed by ourselves or by somebody else. But these two modes of acquiring the knowledge of truth are essentially different from each other, and it is often of great importance to keep this difference prominently in sight. In order to do this it will be desirable, if possible, to denote them by different naynes ; which, connoting the common pro- cess of removing a cover or veil, will further connote whether the veil or cover be removed by the very person who obtains new knowledge, or by some other on his behalf. Now, two such words exist in the English language, and are in constant use, and they are used precisely for these different purposes. They both connote the removing of a veil or cover; they further connote (severally) that the veil is removed by 300 REVELATION. one's self, and that the veil is removed by another on one's behalf. These words are discover and reveal. Originally and etymologically these two words are exactly synonymons ; but under the pressure of en- larging thought and for the sake of greater accuracy of expression — and at the same time as an economy of language — perfectly synonymous wor.ds acquire in a very short time slightly different shades of meaning. One of two perfectly synonymous words is manifestly superfluous as a synonym; but it may be used, and in the growth of language always is used, to convey the common meaning of the two with a modification. Both the synonyms may be thus used; so that per- haps no word is left to convey the common meaning apart from a modification. Perhaps the word uncover might be adequate to convey the mere notion of the process both of obtaining and imparting new truth; but, as a matter of fact, it retains still only its literal meaning. To reveal, then, means to remove for somebody else's benefit the veil which conceals truth hitherto to him tm- knoivn ; and revelation means tlie removal by somebody else of the veil which 2oas concealing from any one the truth whicli that H7iveiling has made manifest to him. On the other hand, to discover means to remove by our own industry or effort, or even purposeless act, the cover- ing zvhich concealed certain t7'uths or facts ; and the substantive discovery has a corresponding connotation. Thus, e. g., we should say, or might correctly say, that Mr. Darwin discovered certain habits of earthworms, and that in his very entertaining volume he revealed the knowledge of those habits to his readers. But, after all, the real meaning of a word cannot be REVELATION. 301 ascertained by mere divination or guessing, or even by assuming that its history and present signification must necessarily have been determined by the general principles of what may be called the philosophy or science of language. The real question is : How, as a matter of fact, do recognized authorities actually employ the word ? Now, there are two works which, even as English classics, will certainly be accepted as authori- tative on such a question, if they contain any evidence at all on the matter — the Bible and "Shakespeare." And these works are, on other grounds, of such supreme excellence that it has been found worth while to construct a perfect Concordance of each of them by which they may quite easily be consulted. Let us, then, begin with Shakespeare. The word revelation does not occur in Shakespeare's plays, but its meaning will be, of course, determined by the meaning of the verb reveal. Here, then, are all the instances of the use of this word in Shakespeare; Reveal yourself to him. — Measure for Measure, v. 1. Lately we intended To keep in darkness what occasion now Eeveals before 'tis ripe. — Twelfth Night, v. 1. We will see them reveal themselves. — All's Well, iv. 3. Madam, I have a secret to reveal. — /. Henry IV., y. 3. Till the heavens reveal the damned. — Tit. Andron., iv. 1. Reveal how thou at sea did'st lose, etc. — Pericles, v. 3. No ; you will reveal it. — Hamlet, i. 5. She revealed herself. — /. Henry VI., i. 2. Hath revealed to us the truth. — II. Henry VI., ii. 3. I never. . . . revealed myself unto him. — Lear, v. 3. There is not the slightest ambiguity about the meaning of any one of these passages ; in every one of 302 REVELATION. them the word reveal means exactly what I have affirmed it means. In every case some person or some thing " removes a veil " for the benefit of somebody else. It was one of the mental peculiarities of the late Mr. Frederick D. Maurice that when he had discovered a particular truth, sometimes an exceedingly obvious truth, he invested it with an altogether fictitious and exaggerated importance, and with almost infinite in- genuity employed it as a clue for the unraveling of all manner of mysteries with which nobody else could see that it had any special relation. Thus, for instance, he was profoundly impressed with the fact — perfectly well known to every intelligent person who uses the English language — that the word reveal means (ety- mologically) to remove a veil ; and he seemed to think that this was a key to everything mysterious in the whole subject of revelation as a theological or religious problem. It seems almost incredible that so subtle a thinker — except perhaps by reason of his excessive subtlety — should have imagined either that he had made a new discovery as to the etymological meaning of the word reveal, or that that meaning would throw any clear light upon the real questions at issue in the Avhole discussion about revelation as a supposed fact or technical term of religion or theology. The real ques- tion at issue is, Wlio is the revealerf What did He revealf Where can we find His revelations or a trustworthy record of them ? Just at that time a series of Present- Day Papers was being issued, under the editorship of Bishop Ewing, and to this series Mr. Maurice con- tributed a paper entitled Use of the Word '■'■ Revelation" in the New Testament. Of that paper, the following most characteristic passage is the opening paragraph : REVELATION. 303 " In an advertisement prefixed to these tracts, Revelation is said to mean the giving of light, or the removal of a veil. That sense, however accordant with the obvious etymology of the word, has been said to be inconsistent with the reverence Avhich we owe to the Scriptures. Modern usage has determined that the name shall denote the lessons which we receive from the Bible, as contrasted with those which we receive from the natural world, or from our own conscience and reason. To depart from that usage is, it is said, to show that we do not care for the testimony of the Bible; that we wish to substitute for it some theories or conclusions of our own." It is a most curious psychological phe- nomenon that one so transparently honest as Mr. Maurice should have habitually and unconsciously, by the mere turn of a phrase or a question-begging epithet, misrepresented the opinions of those who differed from him. It was not affirmed, in this particular instance, or for the assigned reason, that he did "not care for the testimony of the Bible," but that his peculiar and one-sided way of explaining revelation implicitly denied that there is anything unique in that revelation which is recorded in the Sacred Scriptures. If that revelation has no qualities, whether of matter, or origin, or authority, by reason of which it is rightly and inevitably contrasted with the lessons which Ave receive from " the natural world," most unquestionably it is not what the immense majority of Christian people have always believed it to be. The truth contained in the Bible, like all other known truth, has become known to us by the removing of a veil. The question is, Was that unveiling a revelation or a discovery? This distinc- tion Mr. Maurice seems to have left altogether out of 304 REVELATION. consideration. If it were a revelation, who removed the veil 1 Was it God, or was it " the natural world " ? Mr. Maurice's long array of texts, and subtle exposition of them, really does not touch the questions at issue. On the other hand, it leaves the impression or creates the suspicion that he considered those questions as of secondary or no importance. Mr. Maurice's list of passages in the New Testament where reveal or revelation occurs may be accepted as exhaustive, though I have not compared it with Bruder's Greek Concordance ; at any rate it is abun- dantly sufficient. And every passage cited is an unambiguous example of that precise meaning which I have assigned to the words reveal and revelation as connoting a revealer; or, in other words, that the veil is removed by some other than the person to whom the pre- viously unknown truth or fact is manifested. Here are a few of them: " Thou hast revealed them unto babes " ; " he to whom the Son will reveal Him " ; " in the day when the Son of Man is revealed " ; " according to the revelation of the mystery " ; " God hath revealed them unto us by His Spirit" ; " I received the Gospel by the revelation of Jesus Christ" ; "by revelation He made known to me the mystery " ; " salvation ready to be revealed in the last time " ; " the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him." No doubt these words reveal and revelation have, like almost all others, secondary, tertiary, analogical, meta- phorical meanings or applications. Thus, for instance, revelation may mean either the process of removing the veil, or the result of that process — the act of imparting truth, or the truth imparted ; but it invariably, when employed by accurate writers or speakers, retains the REVELATION, 305 implication that one not ourselves is removing the veil for our benefit. Again, the revealer may be a real person, or some fact or abstraction personified. We discover in a drawer in a supposed miser's bureau a number of letters acknowledging with fervent thanks most generous gifts, and we say, " Those letters were a revelation to me." Here we do not mean to affirm that we set about trying to discover what the supposed miser's character really was. The knowledge of what it really was is regarded as brought to us from without, apart from our own effort, by certain letters. We per- sonify those letters ; we say they gave us a revelatioii. Without personification or metaphor, we might have expressed the same result by saying, " I discovered his true character by coming accidentally into possession of certain letters, and reading them." The process, then, by which we arrive at the posses- sion of hitherto unknown truth may be described meta- phorically as the removal of a veil; and the veil may be removed either by ourselves or by somebody else for us. In the first case we mahe a discovery ; in the second we receive a revelation. But it is obvious — still dealing only with the general question, and apart from religious or theological applications — that a revelation may be made to us in such a form as also to require a discovery — that is to say, not an independent discovery of the truth revealed (which would supersede the necessity of a revelation), but a disroveri/ of the revelation. Truth may be revealed to us by direct communication. This kind of revelation is perfectly familiar to us; we make and receive such revelations every day of our lives. On the other hand, it may be revealed by letter, or by books, or by directing us to sources of knowledge of which 306 KEVELATION. we should not otherwise have been aware. Tii\6 the case I have already instanced — Mr. Darwin's delight- ful book about Earthworms. Before we can really avail ourselves of his interesting discoveries we must get his book and read it. This will be a process of discovery: we find out where the book is, and what it contains. But we do not discover the peculiar habits of the earthworms ; Mr. Darwin discovered that ; he revealed his discoveries in a book ; and 2ve discover the revelation. In fact, it may be admitted that whenever we are removed from immediate personal contact with the revealer, discover}' will always be necessary to put us in possession of the benefits of the revelation. This by no means implies that a revelation is useless ; for even though it may be very difficult to discover the revelation, it might for us have been utterly and forever impossible to discover the truths revealed. But though a revelation almost always requires a supplementary discovery, it is by no means true, con- versely, that every discovery implies a previous revela- tion. This Avould involve both a contradiction in terms and a denial of the most obvious facts of every- day experience. For, as to the terms, how can it be possible to remove a veil or cover which has been removed already ? And as to facts, when we speak of people who have knowledge at first hand do Ave not mean exactly this — that they found it out for themselves, without direct assistance from other people? It seems to me in- credible that anybody should miss or neglect these distinctions, except under the blinding or deflecting influence of some supposed logical or theological ex- pediency. It is, by very many distinguished persons. REVELATION. 30 7 denied that there is in the Sacred Scriptures the record of any real revehitions from Almighty God. Many Christians become perplexed and alarmed by these bold denials, and they are willing to compromise. "How," they ask, " can you deny revelation in Scripture when we have revelations everywhere ? The very earthworm is a revelation." This seems to me like having a protective tariff which protects everything in exactly the same way and degree. 1^ everything is a revelation, it is safe to affirm that nothing is. For my own part I entirely disbelieve this. I do not believe that all human discovery is a discovery of revelations of facts, and not of facts themselves; nor do I believe that all facts, when they have been dis- covered, can be called revelations without a gross and needless and highly mischievous abuse of language. Take Mr. Darwin again, and our delightful earth- worms. AVhich is the correct statement of actual fact: " Somebody revealed to Mr. Darwin the habits of earthworms"; or this: "Mr. Darwin found them out for himself"? If anybody affirms that somebody re- vealed this to Mr. Darwin, who was the somebody? Certainly no human being, no previous discoverer; that, in fact, would only have removed the question a step backward. " Well," a religious person with a muddled intellect, or a mystical way of looking at things, might reply, " God revealed it to Darwin." Another may say, " Nature revealed it." How ? directly or in- directly? "Indirectly." How indirectly ? "By giving Darwin faculties adapted for discovering, and leaving in his way things to be discovered." So it would seem that throwing all sorts of things about in all directions, piling them on each other, hiding some of them under 308 REVELATION. heaps of rubbish, and giving a man the faculty of finding til em out if he happens to wish it, and is very skilful and persevering — this is exactly the same thing as giving a man such acmirate information about where and what these different scattered objects are as we have in Darwin's book about the habits of earth- worms. The only way to refute a theory of this kind is clearly to state it. And as the habits of earthworms were not revealed to Mr. Darwin, but discovered by him, so, when dis- covered, they did not themselves reveal anything further. To attribute the power of revealing to an earthworm is another example of the policy, in our modern theological controversies, of a protective tariff all round. First of all somebody suggests, as if it were a very valuable discovery, that revelation is removing a veil. But removing a veil requires a remover. In fact, all these terms, reveal, revelation, revealer; discover, discovery, discoverer — all imply intelligence. To say that a stone or an earthworm reveals anything is to build a metaphor upon a meta- phor. But tvhat veil does the earthworm remove, concealing what hitherto unknown truth or fact? Is it the hitherto unknown fact of its own existence or habits ? But the veil which covered that fact has already been removed hy Mr. Darwin, and the worm has nothing left to do but creep about and be looked at. There are many people now-a-days who seem unable or unwilling to acknowledge any special revelation given by Almighty God and recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, while yet they are deeply impressed with the conviction that such revelation is needed, and that such revelation has been somewhere given. In this REVELATION. 309 part of my exposition I have not reached the assump- tion which I consider necessary for a complete investi- gation — viz.: the assumption of Theism. But, as a mere theory, the special revehitions given to Israel and recorded in Scripture are far more in accord with our general experience of the phenomena of Nature and life than universal revelations, given everywhere in general and nowhere in particular. Why is it not enough that an earthworm should he an earthworm, and nothing more'^ Why must we insist that it shall be also a Doctor of Divinity, write a new Butler's Analogy adapted to modern thought, or play the mediator between Science and Theology, Eeason and Faith ? Indeed, this new theory of a revelation in everything, from a tadpole to the sublime discourses recorded in the Fourth Gospel, which is the most subtle and delusive form of the denial of any revela- tion, involves, in spite of the grain of truth which it contains, a complete stultification of the very idea of revelation even in its most rudimentary form. If everything in the universe is busily engaged in strip- ping itself naked, and in removing the veil or cover from everything else, how can it possibly happen that there is any cover left on1 We must, on this hypothesis, define revelation as a conceivable process of removing veils, if we had our place in a universe in which there were any veils to remove. I hope, then, that I have made clear not only what I suppose to be the meaning of the words reveal, dis- cover, and their correlatives, but what the real mean- ing of those words is, as determined by the use that is continually made of them in standard and classical literature, and in the conversation of educated people 310 REVELATION, who speak accurately. And now it is high time to take into oar consideration that assumption of Theism without which, of course, all discussion of religious matters must be entirely nugatory. But our previous investigations will still avail us ; for, however far our discussion of religious matters may lead us, we shall be greatly assisted by keeping clear in our minds the distinctions to which I have called attention, and which I have tried to make plain, in the preceding remarks. Indeed, it seems to me that whether we regard religion as a system of truths, or as rules for the guidance of life, the difference between Natural and Revealed Religion — to adopt Butler's language — is precisely this: the truths and rules of Natural Religion have been discovered, the truths of Revealed Religion have been made known to us by some other than ourselves. From the one set of truths and rules we have ourselves removed tlie veil ; from the otlier the veil has leen removed for tis by some Other. " Natural and Revealed " is, in fact, exactly equivalent to " dis- covered and revealed,'^ as above defined and illustrated; or, taking in the assumption of Theism, " discovered by man, and revealed by God." And here we must remember that what was originally revealed by God will need to be discovered as a revelation by those who are to be benefited by it; and what was discovered by one man, or set of men, will be a revelation (not directly from God, but from the discoverers') to all those who have been either unable or unwilling to make the discoveries for themselves. In what follows, in this section, it must be remem- bered, I am about to make use of the assumption of Theism : the assumption which, with his exquisite REVELATION. 311 irony, Mr. Matthew Arnold so pitilessly derides : the assumption of "an intelligent Author of Nature, with a character and a will." And this may be an assump- tion — that is to say, the admitted postulate or datum of an argument — even though it might be itself the result of discovery or revelation. But the question may be worth considering, as affecting even those who repudiate the assumption, Is it really nothing more ? Is it not, for instance, the result of discovery, of our own persistent endeavours to find out the veiled and concealed truth ? I think not. It seems to me that we could never have set out on the discovery of a God if we had not already been aware of His existence. No Columbus sets out to discover an "America" until he is inwardly certain that an "America" exists. Before we try to find God we must at least believe that He is. The idea of God, the inward conviction of His existence and that He is such or such a Being, must have been in our minds before it could have been possible for us to go in quest of further informa- tion. How, then, did we arrive at that primitive belief ? It seems to me that we arrived at it by revela- tion, and that the revelation of the existence of God, and of His righteousness, is given to every man in his very nature, and especially in his conscience. And here I may repeat what I said above, tliat a revelation — ariy revelation — e. g., from man to man — may be made in many ways. It may be made directly, by actual oral communication, face to face; or by letter; or by books; or by giving information of the place where the required unknown truth may be discovered; or by putting a person in circumstances, which otherwise he would have been neither able nor 312 REVELATION. perhaps willing to place himself in, where it will be absolutely impossible for him to avoid becoming aware of the truth which otherwise he could never have known. It is in some such way as this last, it seems to me, that God has revealed to every human being His existence, His righteousness, His supreme authority, His sure judgment. He has put every man in close contact with a conscience from which he can never, by any device, separate himself. He has made conscience a part of every man's nature. We have all observed that in the paper on which we Avrite there is often inwoven the name of the manufacturer. We cannot erase it. It is not written on the paper, it is woven into it: it is a part of the paper itself. In some such way God seems to have inwoven Himself in the life and consciousness of every human being; and hence it comes to pass that the most ignorant have some knowledge of God, and the most subtle and sceptical of mankind can never get rid of it. Force, order, law, righteousness, " a stream of tendency " — all these words or phrases are more or less inadequate synonyms for the name God. We assume Theism, then, because it is given to us by a primary and universal revelation ; and all that discovery can do is to find out, so far as human nature can, exactly what it means. Meanwhile it is the assumption on which our further discussion of revelation will be based. Setting out, then, from this primary assumption — whether we regard it as a divine revelation or as a mere logical datum — we start on our voyage of dis- covery to find out what sort of world the ''intelligent Author of Nature, with a character and a will," has actually constructed ; how we can make the best of it; REVELATION. 313 in what way we must live to secure His approval, or, at least, to avoid His puuisliment and curse. And here we are confronted, not with theories, but with facts. Human beings generally are not skilled logicians. The world, nevertheless, is full of religions, which have not been made, but have grown — we know not how. Men really did begin with the conviction of the positive reality of God, not as a hypothetical datum for argument, but as a living Being, more real, if possible, than His creaturgs and worshippers. They were very ignorant and confused. They often " di- vided the substance of God " — to use a convenient phrase of technical theology. They scarcely dared to contemplate the one ultimate Source of all that is. They personified His various attributes. They made to themselves "gods many and lords many." But almost 'everywhere we meet with some recognition of a primal Source of all life, some " Father of gods and men." We have Zeus, or destiny, or an un- fathomable abyss of life and power too awful to name, too dreadful to approach. If we want to know what the discoveries of Natural Eeligion are, we can find this out by examining the actual natural religions which have left their record in history, or poetry, or art, or superstition. And to help us in this investigation I can remember nothing better than the wonderful chapter (Chapter X.) by which Cardinal Newman concludes his Grammar of Assent. Of course, it may be truly urged that the discoveries contained in existing or extinct natural religions are, on the one hand, rough, unverified, unscientific ; and, on the other, tliat nearly all these religions have come into contact, at one time or other, with what Chris- 314: REVELATION. tians claim to be revelations properly so called — that is to say, revelations as above defined, and as distinct from discoveries. It may be well, therefore, to approach the subject from a somewhat diJSerent point of view. Given, then, as the primary assumption, an intelligent Author of Nature, we discover that Nature is a scheme or constitution ; that it includes ourselves, and there- fore involves moral government. And in these investi- gations I have yet to discover any better guide than Butler. To read over again the Analogy and the Sermons on Human Nature, after the dizzying and incredibly venturesome speculations of modern times, has a steadying and healthful influence, like several days' rest at home after a stormy ocean voyage not unac- companied by exhaustion and distress of intolerable seasickness. Let us, then, carefully consider the following passage from the Analogy (pp. 131-133, Oxford Edition) : Upon supposition that God exercises a moral government over the world, the analogy of His natural government sug- gests and makes it credible that His moral government mnst be a scheme quite beyond our comprehension ; and this affords a general answer to all objections against the justice and good- ness of it. It is most obvious, analogy renders it highly credible, that, upon supposition of a moral government, it must be a scheme — ^for the world, and the whole natural government of it, appears to be so — to be a scheme, system, or constitution whose parts correspond to each other, and to a whole, as really as any work of art, or as any particular model of a civil con- stitution and government. In this great scheme of the natural world, individuals have various peculiar relations to other individuals of their own species. And whole species are, we find, variously related to other species upon this earth. Nor do we know how much farther these kinds of relations may extend. And, as there is not any action or natural event which we are REVELATION. 315 acquainted with so single and unconnected as not to have a respect to some other actions and events, so possibly each of them, -when it has not an immediate, may yet have a remote, natural relation to other actions and events much beyond the compass of this present world. There seems, indeed, nothing from whence we can so much as make a conjecture whether all creatures, actions and events, throughout the whole of Nature, have relations to each other. But as it is obvious that all events have future unknown consequences, so if we trace any as far as we can go into what is connected with it, we shall find that if such event were not connected with somewhat farther in Nature unknown to us, somewhat both past and present, such event could not possibly have been at all. Nor can we give the whole account of any one thing whatever ; of all its causes, ends and necessary adjuncts — those adjuncts, I mean, without which it could not have been. By this most astonishing connection, these reciprocal correspondencies and mutual relations, everything which we see in the course of Nature is actually brought about. And things seemingly the most insignificant imaginable are perpetually observed to be necessary conditions to other things of the greatest importance, so that any one thing whatever may, for aught we know to the contrary, be a necessary condition to any other. The natural world, then, and natural government of it, being such an incom- prehensible scheme — so incomprehensible that a man must really, in the literal sense, know nothing at all who is not sensible of his ignorance in it — this immediately suggests, and strongly shews the credibility, that the moral world and government of it may be so too. Indeed, the natural and moral constitution and government of the world are so connected as to make up together but one scheme ; and it is highly probable that the first is formed and carried on merely in subserviency to the latter ; as the vegetable world is for the animal, and organized bodies for minds. But the thing intended here is, without inquiring how far the administration of the natural world is subordinate to that of the moral, only to observe the credibility that one should be analogous or similar to the other ; that there- fore every act of the divine justice and goodness may be sup- 316 REVELATION. posed to look much beyond itself and its immediate object ; may have some reference to other parts of God's moral adminis- tration, and to a general moral plan ; and that every circum- stance of this His moral government may be adjusted beforehand with a view to the whole of it. As we read this passage we may see how much truth there is in the concession or assertion which it is just now the fashion to make with so much rashness or generosity — that, so far from a special revelation being impossible or incredible, revelation is an everyday occurrence. Not in the poetic musings of " the melan- choly Jaques," but in sober prose, everything (we are told) is a revelation ; and old-fiishioned Christian apologists have been in error not because they affirmed too much, but because they affirmed too little. I think this is much more than a mistake in terminology. The fact is that the phenomena of Nature are not the removers of a veil : they are the very veil to be removed. Underneath them lies concealed the divine character and will. They do not tell their own secret; it is only by a violent metaphor that they can be supposed so much as to know that there is a secret to tell. It is only by the light of our human nature, as disclosed in consciousness, including conscience and will and intelligence, that we reach the discovery of a " course and constitution of Nature." It is the constitutive and regulative power of reason in ourselves which enables us to discover that there is a government in Nature; and to mistake the multitudinous phenomena by which we are surrounded for revelations, is exactly like mistaking the riddle itself for the solution of the riddle. On the other hand, they serve the purpose of hints or suggestions by which the solution of the KEVELATION. 317 riddle is made more and more easy. Tims the habits of earthworms, the fangs and venom of a rattlesnake, and such-like, though the knowledge of them is not necessary for the purpose, yet when we come to know them, do contribute to our firm belief, and even positive discovery, that there is a "course or constitution of Nature" as distinguished from isolated, disconnected phenomena. But when Agassiz says — I am indebted to a friend for the quotation, which I have not verified — or if he says, "A physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle," he is using language which, to me, is either unintelligible or absurd. Is a snail as " sacred " as " the Sermon on the Mount " ? Given, then, the assumption, whencesoever derived, of " an intelligent Author of Nature, with a character and a will"; our own nature, including senses, in- tellect, emotions, will, conscience ; and an innumerable multitude of phenomena of all kinds, and manifestly related to each other in all kinds of ways ; we arrive at the following discoveries : There is a course or con- stitution of Nature, " a scheme, system or constitution, whose parts correspond to each other, and to a whole " (Analogy, p. 131). We are under a government both natural and moral. We are "rewarded or punished respectively for all that behaviour here which we com- prehend under the words virtuous or vicious, morally good or evil. Our present life is a probation, a state of trial and of discipline The world is in a state of apostasy and wickedness, and consequently of ruin the sense both of our condition and duty being greatly corrupted amongst men" {A7udogi/,Y>-p. 10-11). There is a universal and ineradicable belief that "man- kind is appointed to live in a future state," and that 318 REVELATION. the consequences of our conduct here will extend to that future state. The Author of Nature is good, having so constituted us that obedience and virtue pro- mote our happiness. He is also righteous, inexorably punishing disobedience and vice. We are exposed to suffering by the misconduct of others, because we form part of a constitution or system, and are not simply isolated individuals. The consequences of wrong- doing cannot be removed by mere repentance, however sincere. The consequences of wrongdoing are very often and very seriously diminished, or wholly removed, by the aid of others; which aid often involves severe suffering on the part of those who seek to benefit the wrongdoer. These, I think, are the discoveries — and I think all the discoveries — of Natural Religion; and we find, on the side of practical Natural Religion, prayers and sacrifices and various rites and ceremonies founded on one or other of the above-named discoveries. None of these truths, however, are revelations, properly so called. They are found out by ourselves duly and carefully examining given facts by the aid of given faculties. It is, however, manifestly possible — on the primary assumption of " an intelligent Author of Nature" — that they might be both revelations and dis- coveries ; revealed to some, and discovered by others ; first discovered, and then in addition clearly revealed. But, as discoveries, the truths enumerated above seem to me to exhaust the doctrines of Natural Religion. Now, when we carefully consider these discoveries or doctrines of Natural Religion, we perceive at once these two facts: first, they differ very widely indeed from the discoveries and doctrines of natural science ; and second, they are pitifully inadequate for the moral and REVELATION. 319 spiritual guidance of human beings. In this last respect they are very good, so far as they, go, but they go a very little way. First, then, they differ very widely from the doctrines of natural science. So far as they include facts, they are scientifically verifiable. Thus, for instance, in certain circumstances, we demonstrably suffer pain or enjoy pleasure. But it is impossible to express the doctrines of Natural Religion without employing terms which are wholly alien to physical science; which to physical science are neither true nor false, or, to speak more accurately, convey no meaning whatever. Thus the terms government, scheme, constitution, moral, right, wrong, reward, punishment, are to physical science absolutely meaning- less. Physical science can, and does, conduct all its processes of discovery and arrangement without a single thought either of God or of conscience, and its conclusions would be as valid on the hypothesis of Atheism as on the hypothesis of the truth of the Christian religion. The discoveries of physical science are the raw material of natural theology. That is to say, natural theology deals with the discoveries of the physical sciences on a certain hypothesis, and for a certain purpose : on the hypothesis of "an intelligent Autlior of Nature, with a character and a will," and for the purpose of discovering what that character and will are, and how we can conform ourselves to the one and obey the other. If Physical Science could first borrow from 7netaphysics the conception of fo7'ce, and some others — which in fact she does — all her discov- eries might be made and arranged by means of the senses and the intellect; the discoveries of natural theology require, in addition to these, conscience and will. 320 REVELATION. But, secondly, even the most exhaustive statements of the doctrines of Natural Eeligion are pitiably in- adequate for the moral and spiritual guidance of mankind, to say nothing of comfort and hope and joyous confidence. We find ourselves in the presence of a divine Being whose power, at least in relation to our own, is infinite. He is, indeed, good and gracious ; but He is also inexorably just. If we do right we may be happy — though liable to suffering from the wrong- doing of others. If we do wrong, even ignorantly, we must certainly and acutely sufier. We are in the midst, are a part, of a scheme or constitution of things so vast and so complicated that it is immeasurably beyond our comprehension ; and the wrong that we do or that others do may, for what we know, extend over all space and last through all time. Remedial agencies, and the mediatory good offices of our fellow-men, somewhat mitigate our sufferings and our alarms. But we cannot escape the irresistible belief in a future life, where our condition will be determined by our life on earth. Emphatically "we are strangers on the earth"; and yet an accurate knowledge of this life is an indispensable preparation for the next. Can there possibly be anything in our relations to God at all corresponding to that aid which we receive from the mediation, or even "the vicarious sufferings," of our fellow-men in this earthly life ? Above all, is our confi- dent belief in a future life a mere baseless dream ? If not, what is the future life ? How shall we be judged ? how acquitted or how condemned? how, were such a thing only possible, pardoned or redeemed ? These are the questions which the discoveries of Natural Religion at once suggest and leave unanswered ; and REVELATION. ^wl therefore the prevailing tone of Natural Eeligion is an almost intolerable gloom, a paralyzing terror * At this point discovery is exlumsted ; if our fears are to be *See on this point, the first part [On Natural Religion) of the last (Xth) chapter of Newman's Orammar of Assent. Also see Sellar's Roman Poets of the Republic, Chapter XUL, on The Religious Attitude and Moral Teaching of Lucret^us. Religion, to Lucretius, is a hideous misery. The following passage everybody knows; I give it in Munro's admirable translation : " This is what I fear herein, lest haply you should fancy that you are entering on unholy grounds of reason and treading the path of sin; whereas on the contrary o ten and often that heinous religion has given birth to sinful and unholy deeds Thus in Aulis the chosen chieftains of the Danai, fore- most of men, foully polluted with Iphianassa's blood the altar of the Trivian maid. Soon as the fillet encircling her maiden tresses shed itseK in equal lengths adown each cheek, and soon as she saw her father standing sorrowful before the altars and beside him the ministering priests hiding the knife, and her countrymen at sight of her shedding tears, speechless in terror she dropped down on her knees and sank to the ground, ^or aught in such a moment could it avail the luckless girl that she had first bestowed the name of father on the king. For, lifted up in the hands of the men, she was carried shivering to the altars, not after due performance of the customary rites to be escorted by the clear-ringing bridal song, but in the very season of marriage, stainless maid raid the stain of blood, to fall a sad victim by the sacrificing stroke of a father, that thus a happy and prosperous departure might be granted to the fleet, bo great the evils to which religion could prompt !" But even if Lucretius had been able to deliver men from the dire supersti- tion which peopled the next world with horrors, he could not lighten its darkness nor fill up its cold and appalling vacuum. What an exquisite pathos is in these three lines !- lam jam non domus accipiet te Iffita, neque uxor Optima, nee dulces occurrent oscula nati Prseripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent. ^|j ; yes— and there is nothing after ! 322 REVELATION. allayed, our ignorance dispelled, the intricacies of our duty unraveled, it must be by that other mode of re- moving the veil from hidden truth — viz.: Revel ATioir. And as men have not only exhausted their powers of discovery, but also their powers of communicating what they have discovered to others, the only revelation that can possibly avail us must be a Revelation EEOM God. When we come to the question, Has a revelation from God been given to us to complement our own discoveries? — which discoveries are the matter or contents of Natural Religion — we must keep steadily in mind the difference, already explained, between a discovery and a revelation ; a discovery is our own work, a revelation is the work of another on our hehalf. Moreover, we must remem- ber that we come to the consideration of this question with the assumptions and discoveries of Natural Religion. Those who repudiate Natural Religion I leave for the present out of consideration. But though, by this very hypothesis, Natural Religion has quite exhausted its resources, it has left us with hopes and reasonable expectations which it was itself unable to satisfy. If God be good, for instance, it is not unreasonable to expect that He will not " hide His commandments from us." If He be righteous, it is not unreasonable to expect that He will enable us to do His will, to conform ourselves to His righteousness. As a matter of fact, a long series of lawgivers and prophets claim to have received revelations, not to have made discoveries, which are exactly adapted to secure for us those blessings of which we are so deeply in need. Now, surely, on the assumptions and discoveries of Natural Religion, this is not impossible. If God REVELATION. 323 could create us — which manifestly He has done, lor here we are — if He has left in our way the materials by means of which we could discover the truths of Natural Religion — and this is an admitted ftict — He certainly could supplement or complement these gracious opera- tions by distinctly telling us, by chosen messengers, what the real spiritual meaning is of the phenomena among which we are placed ; together with such further instruction as may sufficieyitly answer the questions and solve the difficulties with which Natural Religion is incompetent to deal. What we should expect, setting out from Natural Religion, would be a revelation of truths necessary to our salvation; some clear teaching about the future state ; rules for the guidance of our lives, accurate information of the way in which we may be delivered from the curse and bondage of sin, and brought into blessed communion with our Father in Heaven, and so also with our brethren upon earth. The human faculties themselves are abundantly suffi- cient for the discovery of the truths of natural science ; for this, therefore, no revelation is necessary, nor perhaps desirable. We need revelation when discovery is exhausted— and especially, not to say only, to answer the questions about the moral government of the world which Natural Religion is insufficient to solve. A revelation could not have consisted in the production of a new set of phenomena, to be discovered and applied, even if such phenomena had been produced — which they have not; nor in the mere exaltation of existing human faculties, of which, also, there is no evidence. It is claimed to have been a series of direct communications from God, to chosen messengers and representatives, of new and otherwise undiscoverable truths, necessary for 324 ■ REVELATION. onr complete guidance as moral and responsible beings, and for onr redemption from the sin and folly in which we find ourselves involved. To be available for all mankind, these communications must have been, and were, recorded in " books," and also embodied in the institutions and ritual of the Jewish and Christian Churches. In other words, the written record of the special revelations of God to man of truths necessary to his salvation is contained in the Sacred Scriptures, and in the Sacred Scriptures only. This is, I believe, the uniform teaching of the Catholic Church ; though sometimes the Sacred Scriptures are represented as leing what they do, in very fact, contain. Whether this account of the Sacred Scriptures is the uniform teaching of the Catholic Church, everywhere and always, or not, it is indisputably the teaching both of the Roman and Anglican Churches. The doctrine of the Anglican and American Church on the Holy Scriptures is defined in the sixth of the Articles of Religion : Holy Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation ; so that whatsoever is not read therein, nor may be proved thereby, is not to be required of any man that it should be believed as an article of the faith, or be thought requisite or necessary to salvation. In the name of the Holy Scripture we do undei-stand those canonical books of the Old and New Testament of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church All the books of the New Testament, as they are commonly received, we do receive, and account them canonical. There is a curious ambiguity in the wording of this article. It distinguishes "canonical" books from " Holy Scripture." For it is as certain as any histori- cal fact can be that several of " the books of the New REVELATION. 325 Testament, as they are commonly received," are not "books .... of whose authority was never any doubt in the Church." The doctrine of the Koman Church on the Holy Scriptures is defined by the Council of Trent (^Sessio IV. Decretum de Oanonicis Scripturis). This decree is supposed to differ very widely from our Sixth Article of Religion ; and Bishop Browne, in his Exjjo- sition of the Thirty-nine Articles, makes use of the Tridentiue Decree partly for the purpose of showing what our reformers intended to exclude or to deny. "This [Tridentine] decree," he says, "declares that ' the truth is contained in the written books and in the unwritten traditions, which, having been received by the Apostles, either from the mouth of Christ Himself, or from the dictates of the Holy Spirit, were handed down even to us' ; and that the Council 'receives and venerates Avith equal feeling of imtij and reverence all the books of the Old and New Testament, since one God was the Author of them both, and also the traditions, relating as well to faith as to morals, as having, either from the mouth of Christ Himself, or from the dicta- tion of the Holy Ghost, been preserved by continuous succession in the Catholic Church.' "* It seems to me » The following is the exact text of the Tridentine Decree: Sacrosancta cecumenica et general is Tridentina Synodus .... hoc sibi perpetuo ante oculos proponens, ut sublatis erroribus puritas ipsa evangelii in ecclesia conservetur, quod promissum ante per Prophetas in Scripturis Sanctis Dominus noster Jesus Christus Dei Filius proprio ore primum promulgavit, deinde per suos Apostolos tanquam fontem omnis et salutaris veritatis et raorum discipline omni creaturas prajdicari jussit ; perspieieusque hanc yeritatem et disciplinam contineri in libris scriptis et sine scripto traditionibus, qua? ipsius Christiore ab Apostolis accepta3, 326 REVELATION. that any traditions that could be identified as accuratehj corres]Jonding to the description given above could be most certainly "proved by " Holy Scripture to have the very same authority which belongs to Holy Scripture itself. Nor can it possibly be denied that our Church recognizes the very great importance of tradition, at least as a quasi-authoritative guide in the interpretation of the written Word.* It is extremely hazardous to attempt to determine what the i^itention of the com- pilers of our Church Formularies may have been. If by the intention of a number of persons is meant what each and all of them desired, neither less nor more, it may safely be affirmed that the compilers of our Church Formularies had no intention. For my own part, I accept the informal decision of the Bishops who repre- sented the Church of England at the Savoy Conference : " It was the wisdom of our reformers to draw up such a liturgy as neither Eomanist nor Protestant could justly except against." f It is implied in the very term revelation that it is something imparted to us in addition to what we could have discovered by the unaided exercise of our own aut ab ipsis Apostolis, Spiritu Sancto dictante, quasi per maniis traditae ad nos usque pervenerunt ; orthodoxoruin Patrum exempla secuta, omnes libros tarn veteris quam novi testamenti, quum utriusque unus Deus sit auetor, nee non traditiones ip- sas, turn ad fidem, turn ad mores pertinentes, tanquam vel ore tenus a Christo, vel a Spiritu Sancto dictatas, et continua suecessione in Ecclesia Catholica conservatas, pari pietatis aff ectu ac reverentia suseipit et veneratur. ' ' *See Newman, Via Iledia i., 288-289, and the passages therein referred to. Newman's criticisms of his own Anglican writings are in the highest degree instructive. t Cardwell's Conferences on the Book of Common Prayer, p. 388. REVELATION. 327 faculties, or by the exercise of those faculties aided only by that general divine support which is in fact necessary for their continued existence. Moreover, we must distinguish revelation from inspiration ; by which last term I understand some exaltation or purification of the human faculties, intellectual or moral, or both, by which the inspired is enabled (to express it briefly) to make the very most of such materials as are within Ms reach. Hence even inspiration, dealing only with the scheme and constitution of Nature, could never rise above Natural Theology. And this seems to. me to be what S. Clement of Alexandria means in certain passages which have been interpreted by Mr. Allen {The Continuity of Christian Thought, pp. 47-48) in a very different and almost opposite sense. Mr. Allen Because Deity indwelt in humanity, and the human reason partook by its very nature of that which was divine, Clement was forced to see in the highest products of the reason the fruit of divine revelation. He makes no distinction between Natural and Revealed Religion, between what man discovers and God reveals. All that is true and well said in Greek philosophy was as truly given by divine revelation as was the moral truth pro- claimed by Jewish legislators and prophets. The higher activi- ties of human thought and reflection are only the process by which the revelation of truth is conveyed to man, and inspira- tion is the God-given insight which enables men to read aright the truth which God reveals. In confirmation of his exposition of S. Clement's doc- trine he refers to Exhort, vi., Stromat. i. 5 and i. 10. The value of Mr. Allen's book would have been very greatly increased — possibly also, in some cases, diminished* — if *I by no means intend this for mere sarcasm. It may well happen that a mere reference may be very infelicitous, and even 328 REVELATION. references to his authorities had been very mnch more numerous. It is not always easy, partly for want of such references, to decide whether he is stating the opinion of another or simply expressing his own. But I am quite unable to discover anything m the jMSsages referred to in this particular case which in the least justifies Mr. Allen's comment. In these very passages S. Clement seems to refer the wisdom of the philoso- phers to their acquaintance, directly or indirectly, with the Hebrew Scriptures. Thus, for instance (Strom, i. 19), after quoting Plato, he immediately adds, "Does he not then seem to declare from the Hebrew Scripttires the righteous man's hope, through faith, after death ?" And at the very beginning of the same chapter, after quoting Acts xvii. 22-28, he proceeds: "Whence it is evident that the Apostle, by availing himself of poetical examples from the Phce- iiomena of Aratus, approves of what had been well spoken by the Greeks ; and intimates that, by the un- known God, God the Creator was in a roundabout way worshipped by the Greeks ; but that it was necessary by positive knoioledge to apprehend and learn Him by the Son." And at the end of the chapter, in the midst of sundry mystical interpretations of passages from the Proverbs, he says: "I do not think that Philosophy directly declares the Word, although in many instances Philosophy attempts and persuasively teaches us probable arguments." Moreover, the very first para- divert the attention from the true meaning of a writer who has in his mind a u'hole bodij of literature from which his opinions are really derived. This may explain Mr. Allen's general omission of references — which nevertheless is, I think, unfortu- nate, considering what sort of readers alone he is likely to secure. REVELATION. 329 graph of Chapter V. seems to be absolutely contra- dictory of Mr. Allen's statement that S. Clement " makes no distinction between Natural and Revealed Eeligion, between what man discovers and God reveals." "Accordingly," says S. Clement, "before the advent of the Lord, philosophy was necessary to the Greeks for righteousness. And now it becomes conducive to piety; being a kind of preparatory training to those ivlio attain to faith through demonstratio7i. ' For thy foot,' it is said, ' will not stumble, if thou refer what is good, whether belonging to the Greeks or to us, to Providence.' For God is the cause of all good things ; but of some priniarili/, as of the Old and New Testa- ment ; of others by consequence, as philosophy. Per- chance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily till the Lord should call the Greehs. For this was a schoolmaster to bring 'the Hellenic mind,' as the law the Hebrews, 'to Christ.' Philosophy, therefore, was a preparation, paving the way for him wlio is perfected hy Christ." What is this but saying that our own discoveries are not sufficient; and that no energy of philosophic thought can enable us to dispense with those positive and primary revelations which God has given in the Old and New Testaments— in the truth by Him made known to man, and in those Testaments recorded ? Nor need we fear that that divine assistance which God granted to every man in order that he might attain to Natural Religion will be withheld from any of us when we devote ourselves with seriousness and humility to the study of the Sacred Scriptures. It seems to me an almost incredible perversity of intellect which leads men to object that the special 330 EEVELATION. revelations of God to man have been stored np for ns in a hook and in a Ohurch ; inasmuch as this is the only conceivable way in which they could have been either preserved or propagated. A revelation to each man in the depths of his own being is mere mysticism, and as a matter of fact has certainly not been imparted. This vague mysticism seems to me the great defect — as it is a chief characteristic — of the teaching of Mr. F. D. Maurice; it renders a very large part of that teaching practically inoperative, and to a very large extent wholly unintelligible. That distinguished divine seems positively to resent and suspect clearness of statement. He regards both the Bible and the Church with the prof oundest reverence; but the moment you try to explain ivhat definite service they render to you, he at once assures you that you understand neither the one nor the other. Take, for instance, this most characteristic passage from a sermon preached at Lincoln's Inn Chapel on the first Sunday after the Epiphany ( What is Revelation f pp. 8-10. The Collect referred to is the Collect for the Epiphany. If any- body has ever discovered the ansiuer to the question which is the title of this book from the book itself, he must be possessed of superb nman ingenuity). This example is so certainly meant for us, and is so fearful, that there is need continually to press the truth which the Col- lect suggests. It is the God who manifested His only-begotten Son to the Gentiles who does only, who can only, manifest His Son to us. No book can do it, be it ever so divine ; no Church authority or tradition can do it, be it ever so venerable. We must know, not the book, not the tradition, but Him by faith. We must trust Him as we trust a father ; that is what the Divine Book tells us to do, that is what the Church tells us to do, and its authority and its traditions belie their own origin, REVELATION. 331 contradict themselves and become blasphemies, if they speak otherwise. If we believe in God habitually as a living Person, if we seek Him as a refuge from our own atheism, from our own idolatry, from that in us which is most utterly contraiy to Him — our self-will, our pride, our spite and malice — we shall know Him really, as one knows a friend, not by seeing Him with the eyes, not by getting reports of Him or traditions of Him from others, be those reports ever so trustworthy, be those traditions ever so reasonable and credible, but by experiencing His help, by finding out how much better He is than we are, and yet how well He understands what we are and cares for us. To exchange , for this practical faith , which rests upon God Himself and H is own manifestation of Himself in the Son of God and the Son of man, a belief in the Holy Book, is to disobey all the warnings of that Book, to show that we do not know what is in it, that we prize it as a name or a watchword, not for that which it teaches. To exchange for this practical faith a belief in the Church — a notion that the Church will tell us the right thing and will bring us to heaven — is to show that we do not know what it is to be members of a Church, or what a Church is good for ; that we do not prize it because it leads us to the Rock on which it stands, to the God who has called it out to be a witness of His revelation of Himself to mankind, of His redemption of man- kind, but because we suppose it is ours, and that it gives us some privilege and glory which other men want. This is to exalt ourselves and to deny God. There is a mystic, poetic beauty, a soft, mellowing haze, in this passage which we must all appreciate; but what, after all, does it mean ? Who has ever asked us to transfer our trust in God Himself to the Book which contains His message; or who has ever pre- tended that trust in a book is the same thing as trust in a person ? The question is not : Shall we believe in God, or believe the Book which contains the revelation of His character and will ? That is not the question, but this: Can we possibly do the one without the 332 KEVELATION. other? And the answer to this question is: Most un- questionably "we cannot. We cannot, being sane, believe in a person, trust him, reverence him, love him, without knowing something about him. You say you believe in God apart from, wholly independently of, the revelations contained in the Holy Scriptures. Well and good. But what do you know about Him ? And how did you acquire that knowledge? Clearly from those sources from which are derived the truths of Natural Religion ; for apart from Holy Scripture these are the 07ily sources of our knowledge ; and how' pitiably inadequate they are we have already seen. But you say : " No, indeed I I believe in God as re- vealed to us in Jesus Christ." Very good, I repeat ; but what do you know about Jesus Christ ? How do you know that such a Person ever lived ? Jesus Christ is not only " God of God," but God incarnate j " made flesh, and tabernacling among us." As such — that is to say, as Jesus Christ — He came into the world at a particular time and place — viz. : in Palestine, and about nineteen hundred years ago. His earthly life and ministry — which were His revelation of God to men — ended when " He ascended up where He was before." When He was visibly, audibly, tangibly in this world, multitudes of people saw Him, heard Him, touched Him; but we were not in the world then, and never can be in the world at that time and place. Every- thing, therefore, that we can know about that revela- tion of God which is given us in the Incarnation must be derived from trustworthy records ; and the only existing records are the Scriptures of the New Testa- ment. It is the doctrine of the whole Western Church, REVELATION. 333 including the Anglican and the American, that the Sacred Scriptures — siipplemented by tradition derived, hypothetically, from the very same sources, and there- fore possessed of the very same authority ; or partly inter^jreted by traditions regarded as historic evidence — " contain all things," /. e. all truths, " necessary to salvation." But it is not the doctrine of the Western Church that the Sacred Scriptures contain nothing else. This may, indeed, be aflRrmed, or directly in- volved, in the creeds, confessions or doctrinal formu- laries of some extreme Protestant sects ; but with these I am not concerned. Much less am I concerned with the vague and inaccurate opinions of wholly irrespon- sible individuals. And it is of the greatest importance to bear this constantly in mind. The object of revela- tion is to put us in possession of truths necessary to salvation — i. e., necessary to our redemption from sin and our spiritual perfection. But these revelations recorded in Scripture are inclosed in an historical setting ; and this history explains their occasion, and sometimes, indirectly, their meaning. But it is not " necessary to salvation " that there should not be even the minutest error in the mere history. Thus the divine government of Israel was a fact of history, in- cluding the disciplinary sojourn in Egypt; and it may certainly be regarded as " necessary to salvation " that we realize the fact of a divine government in general, and of the divine government of Israel in particular. But this truth is not at all affected by a difierence in the calculation of the exact number of years during which the Israelites were in Egypt. The reckoning of S. Stephen may diflFer, by a few years, from the reckoning in the Pentateucii; but that difference does not in the 331 REVELATION. least affect the spiritual significance of the whole narrative. Similarly, no moral or religious truth would be in the least imperiled if it should be discovered that the description of Goliath's armour was not minutely accurate ; the length of his spear or the weight of his shield are, religiously, a kind of surplus- age. That " God created the heavens and the earth" is a truth " necessary to salvation " ; but that He created them in a particular order or during a particu- lar time is not. Hence, when Mr. Huxley writes, in his delicious style, a complete demolition of Mr. Gladstone's scientific defense of the first chapter of Genesis, we may look on with perfect unconcern. Hundreds of similar examples might easily be given. But when we have exhausted our own ingenuity in inventing " difficulties " and " objections," or when we have been sufficiently tormented by the difficulties and objections urged by other people more ingenious than ourselves ; when we have spent long enough time in dealing with the Sacred Scriptures as if they were no more than a literary or scientific problem; we are at last confronted with these two questions, which con- cern us not as critics or logicians, but as human beings who " must give an account of ourselves before God": Do the Sacred Scriptures contain all truths necessary to salvation ? If they do, they tire sufficient. Do any other books or sets of books contain all truths necessary to salvation ? If not, the Scriptures are necessary.'* For my own part, I have not an atom of doubt that they are both necessary and sufficient. ■'■■ I suppose I must add, what everybody with a grain of sense would take for granted, necessary " where they may be had." As ive not only may, but most unquestionably do, possess them, they are — on the supposition — necessary for us. REVELATION. 335 The second question is the easier to answer, and I will consider it first. Is there any book or set of books except the Bible which contains " all trnths necessary to salvation" ? And in answering this ques- tion we must rigorously exclude all books dealing in any way with religion which are to a great extent them- selves derived from the Bible. In other words, we must exclude all the literature of modern Europe. We must even exclude — if it mattered, which it does not — the Koran, which is largely derived from the Jewish and Christian Scriptures or traditions. Even the works of professed sceptics are saturated with Chris- tianity. If that soaring eagle has been brought to the ground, it has unquestionably been by arrows winged by her own feathers. Hundreds of passages of Scrip- ture are cited as "anthropomorphic," "anthropo- pathic," involving a low morality or a rudimentary and false theology. This is not the place for a minute exegesis of such passages. They are nearly all examples of that progressive and gradual revelation of which I have spoken in the four Sermons to which this Supple- mentary Essay is a note. But what is the test by which they are judged and found wanting ? Most unquestionably o^Aer^or^iows of the very same Scrip- ttires from which they have been selected for condem- nation. Whence do we derive our clearest knowledge of the spiritual nature of God and His moral perfec- tions ? If we want to refute Moses we must quote S. John. But I am already anticipating the answer to the other question with which I shall be immediately confronted. What other books, then, if the Bible fail us, contain "all things necessary to salvation"; the truth concerning God ; the convincing proof of our own 336 REVELATION. sinfulness ; the assurance of pardon, if we repent and amend and put "our whole trust and confidence in God's mercy," and avail ourselves of the means of recovery which He has provided; the overpowering motives which shall conquer our selfishness, and set us forth on the high and heroic achievement of the spiritual perfec- tion of which our nature is capable ; the assurance of a brotherhood which shall enable us to "lay down our lives for the brethren " ; the " sure and certain hope of a resurrection to eternal life " ? Where else have we a Gospel for manhind — not for philosopliers and for elect souls, but for " barbarian, Scythian, bond and free " ? Can we find it in Plato's Republic, in the Homeric Poems, in the agnostic and utilitarian teachings of Con- fucius, in the "Sacred Books of the East"? All these have had " a fair field," and many of them much "favour." What would become of human society if any statesman should dare to propose, and any nation dare to consent, to make Plato's Rejmblic the basis of practical legislation — with its community of goods and women, and the immense majority of its citizens left to a hopeless and cheerless life of drudgery and contempt ? What would become of our salvation — not in any narrow, "evangelical" sense, but as meaning our spiritual perfection — if we seriously believed that the amours of Ares and Aphrodite, at which Homer tells us the gods shook with inextinguishable laughter, were the manifestations of a divine perfection which it is the perfection of man to imitate? What sort of spirit- ual refinement, what high ideals, what unearthly beauty of character and temper, has Confucius bestowed upon the Chinese ? What, at this very moment, are the religious and the social conditions of the inhabitants of India ? KEVELATION. 337 Discovery has been exhausted ; other adequate revelations there are none ; if tlie Bible be not sufficient we are left in hopeless misery, and in utter ignorance of the way of " eternal life." Of the sufficiency of the revelation which is con- tained in the Sacred Scriptures I have spoken already — I am only too conscious how imperfectly — in the four Sermons to which this Essay is a note. And I may remark that that sufficiency is not a doubtful inference, but a plain fact, which we know from wide observation, from the sure evidence of undisputed history, and from personal experience. Christianity has " turned the world upside down." The world, so far as it has been permeated and saturated with Chris- tianity, is a world altogether different from that of which we read in the Greek and Eoman historians, philosophers, poets, dramatists, satirists ; and that difference is the sufficiency of the divine revelations. It is not simply that the world has been made better, though that is true; but it has been made utterly ashamed of vices which were once not only universal, but unabashed. "It was before the once grave and pure-minded Senators of Eome — the greatness of whose State was founded on the sanctity of family relationships — that the Censor Metellus had declared in A. U. C. 602, without one dissentient murmur, that marriage could only be regarded as an intolerable neces- sity. Before that same Senate, at an earlier period, a leading Consular had not scrupled to assert that there was scarcely one among them all who had not ordered one or more of his own infant children to be exposed to death."* In what Christian city could a new Petro- * Farrar, Tkc Early Days of Christianity, Book 1., Chap. 1 ; 338 REVELATION. nius Arbiter find either the material or the effrontery for a new Satyrium f A poet whose own verses furnish all too conclusive evidence of the moral condition of the men of culture and refinement in his day — and of the ivomen — tells us that " ingenuas didicisse fldeliter artes Emollit mores, nee sinit esse feros."* But as a matter of fact the manners of the gentle- men, the philosophers, even the "ladies," of the Eoman Empire at the time of the first propagation of the Gospel, were not only morally loathsome, but savagely brutal. But why enlarge upon what everybody knows ? The power of Christianity, of the truths recorded in the Sacred Scriptures, is not an inference, it is a palpable fact that no one can deny. It has created a new world, it has made millions of human beings separately and individually "new creatures." And are we really to suspend our judgment about its inestimable preciousness, nay even to doubt its very truth, because S. Stephen did not add up correctly the years of the Egyptian bondage, or because we cannot understand an obscure passage in the Epistle of S. Jude ? Is it any disproof of the splendid military genius of Napoleon that he sometimes lost a battle, that many of his generals were far inferior to himself, that his manners were sometimes rough and his treatment of women and consult the terrific aulliorities by which he supports his statements. What a world of meaning is in these two lines!— Si mos antiquis placuisset matribus idem, Gens hominum vitio deperitura fuit. (Ovid. Amonim ii. 14 ) *Ovid, A>. ex. Fonfo, 3, 9, 47-48. REVELATION. 339 unrefined ? The answer to such carping criticism, if anybody were foolish enough seriously to offer it, is simple, intelligible, irresistible : it is the map of Europe as Napoleon found it, and the map of Europe as Napoleon left it. But whence came this new power into the world ? Are we to be seriously asked to believe that it was a stage in a process of natural evolution ? How can that be a stage in a process of natural evolution which violently arrests the process ? We know what evolu- tion was actually doing for the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, at that very time. The evolution was all downwards, a process of corruption. But I am arguing here only with those who admit the primary assump- tion of "an intelligent Author of Nature, with a character and a will." For the rest — those who re- pudiate that assumption — I may say, in the words of Newman: "I cannot convert men, when I ask for assumptions which they refuse to grant to me; and without assumptions no one can prove anything about anything." And, again, he says — after quoting Aris- totle and the Bible {Grammar of Assent, pp. 415- 416): Relying, then, on these authorities, human and divine, I have no scruple in beginning the review I shall take of Christianity by professing to consult for those only whose minds are properly prepared for it ; and by being prepared I mean those who are imbued with the religious opinions and sentiments which I have identified with Natural Religion. I do not address myself to those who, in moral evil and physical, see nothing more than imperfections of a parallel nature, who consider that the difference in gravity between the two is one of degree only, not of kind ; that moral evil is merely the offspring of physical, and that as we remove the latter so we inevitably remove the former ; 340 REVELATION. that there is a progress of the race which tends to the annihila- tion of moral evil ; that sin is a bugbear, not a reality ; that the Creator does not punish, except in the sense of correcting ; that vengeance in Him would of necessity be vindictiveness ; that all that we know of Him, be it much or little, is through the laws of Nature ; that miracles are impossible ; that prayer to Him is a superstition ; that the fear of Him is unmanly ; that sorrow for sin is slavish and abject ; that the only intelligible worship of Him is to act well our part in the world, and the only sensi- ble repentance to do better in future ; that if we do our duties in this life, we may take our chance for the next ; and that it is of no use perplexing our minds about the future state, for it is all a matter of guess. These opinions characterize a civilized age ; and if I say that I will not argue about Christianity witli men who hold them, I do so, not as claiming any right to be impatient or peremptory with any one, but because it is plainly absurd to attempt to prove a second proposition to those who do not admit the first. REMARKS ON DR. MAUDSLEY'S "NATURAL CAUSES AND SUPERNATURAL SEEMINGS." Dr. Maudsley's treatment of religion— lie does not deign to notice that the Christian religion differs essen- tially from witchcraft and omens and the like— is so arrogant and indecent, that I freely admit that it is more than possible that I am unfavorably prejudiced against his opinions in general. But I think I can, without bias, examine some of his theories which do not strictly belong either to science or religion ; and, of course, for that particular purpose it is not in the least necessary that I should be myself a scientist— which I am not. If a man says " Yes is no," I need not ask what the " yes " is, or what the " no " ; I know that the propo- sition is self-contradictory, whatever its terms may be. When Dr. Maudsley now and then condescends to come down from his high throne of scientific infallibility and discuss, for instance, such questions as belief— e^^w with ignorant people who never knew that belief was a molecular movement in the substance of the brain — I think anybody who is in the habit of carefully in- specting the operations of his own mind is competent to criticise him. Here, then, is his account of the purely intellectual act or process which we call belief (p. 17): It is with beliefs as it is with movements, the right belief, like the right movement, being that which has been acquired 342 DK. maudsley's "natural causes," etc. by the suitable adaptation to former like circumstances, and now fits with most exactness present circumstances ; true, therefore, if they are essentially like, untrue if they are unlike. To ask a person to believe otherwise than according to his uniform experi- ence, is like asking a skilful purposive movement which has been acquired with great pains, by special training, to adapt itself suddenly to the accomplishment of something quite differ- ent ; and to ask him not to apply old beliefs to the apprehension of new facts, is like asking a man not to use for the grasping of a new object the most fit movements which he is capable of, because they are not entirely fit. He must use the old motor apprehension or grasp until he has fitted himself with a new one, which he gains by gradual adaptation. So it is with beliefs: he cannot choose but make use of the old belief, though it does not fit exactly ; but in doing so he ought to take great care to see exactly wherein it does not fit, and proceed to modify it accordingly. Does it err by falling short of, or by being in excess of, the facts V And is it necessary to add to it or to take from it, or otherwise to modify it ? Here Dr. Maudsley asserts that belief is acquired like dexterous muscular movements. For instance, some- body tells me that John Smith has shot himself, and is dead. I go to his house, see his dead body, and hear tlie story of the circumstances of his death. Dr. Maudsley seems to affirm that, in such a case, I have to practise Mieving, like learning to play on the piano. John Smith's suicide is a new experience. I can only get hold of that experience by "making use of the old belief" that John Smith is still alive; and by pounding away at that belief, and by "fitting to it "the new experience, I shall gradually come to be sure that John Smith is not alive at all, but shot himself through the heart. But nothing can be more remote from personal experience— that is to say, what we are conscious of in DR. maudsley's "natural causes," etc. 343 the act of believing — than this theory of belief, and in such a matter personal experience is the ultimate and only test of the truth of the theory. Whately says, giving an example of a proposition, that " naturalists have observed that * animals having horns on the head are universally ruminant.'" Otherwise — "All horned animals are ruminant." I do not know whether this proposition is true or not; but, in either case, it will serve equally well as a proposition by which to test Dr. Maudsley's theory of belief — which is, that belief is acquired, like muscular dexterity, by repeated efforts. Before belief of Whately's proposition is so much as possible, the person who considers it must know the meaning of its terms, " horned" and " ruminant." He must know the effect of the predication — viz. : that every horned animal is to be found among the class of animals that ruminate. Whether this be true or not, he must decide either by personal observation, or by testimony, or by both. When he has ascertained its truth, he immediately and j9er/ec^Zy believes it. He does not acquire his belief by helieving over and over again, as a man acquires the muscular dexterity of playing on the piano by continual practice. Take another example (p. 33) : To every one a thing is neither more nor less than what he thinks it — in effect, a think ; and to think a new thing he must first use the old thought. How cau he do otherwise before new experience has enabled hira to organize a new think ? The old thing or think represents object ^j?«s subject. The thing, therefore, is no thing to hira until it is asselfed in a think, for until then it is object minus subject. And this is true also of all the properties and relations of the object. If he tells or foretells anything of it or of them, he must do it in terras of the language which he knows, obviously cannot do it in terms 344 DR. MAUDBLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. of a language which he has yet to learn. In applying, then, the old notion to a new fact, as he must necessarily apply some notion to it in order to observe it intelligently at all, he uses a notion which, not fitting the fact exactly, comes between him and it, in so far as it is unfit, and so hinders him from getting into exact and faithlul converse with it ; instead of being a completely fitting instrument to accomplish the adaptation, it is an interposing obstacle, to the extent of its uiisuitableness, which hinders his mind from moulding itself plastically to the fact. Now, after carefully pondering this remarkable passage, let ns call to mind that Dr. Maudsley is a scientist — i. e., he is a man whose professional business it is to investigate phenomena cognizable by the senses. If, therefore, he ever arrives at the knowledge of thought at all — which is not cognizable by the senses — it must be either by a primary, extra-scientific assumption, or by an irresistible inference from what he has observed of " things." Now, in the passage I have quoted above. Dr. Maudsley seems exactly to reverse this process. Instead of beginning with a thing — a really existing object — and getting an accurate knowledge of it through the senses, and so arriving at a clear thought about it, he begins with a thought. Nay more, he identifies the thought and the thing; so that, in fact, there is either no thing to investigate or no think to investigate it with, and knowledge is impossible. Again, on Dr. Maudsley's theory, knowledge is impossible for another reason. To think a new thing, he says, we must use an old thought. But there must have been a time when we — or if we inherit "thought" as a part of our "mental struc- ture," when our remotest ancestor — had no thought at all, and came unequipped by previous knowledge, DR. MAUDSI-Ey's "natural CAUSES,'' ETC. 345 with nothing but our senses and intellect, to the exami- nation of the first fact that presented itself for our inspection. Having no old thought, Dr. Maudsley assures us that it was impossible to think the new thing. Knowledge, therefore, was barred out at the very first stage, and, for the very same reason, at every subsequent stage. I am not at all sure that I perceive Dr. Maudsley's real meaning, and I doubt whether he perceived it himself. I have never met with the word asselfcd (so far as I can remember) in any English book, or heard it from any human lips, and have no notion what it is meant to stand for. But I will suppose myself " put in face of a new fact " which I desire to investigate, so as to get an accurate knowledge of what it really is ; which knowledge, when I have acquired it, may be regarded as a thought or a connected series of thoughts. There are already in my mind a great multitude of thoughts or series of thoughts similarly obtained; say, for example, the thought, notion, mental representation of a camel. And let me suppose that the new fact I am " put in face of" is a frog. Now, in order to ascertain how I am to obtain a clear knowledge of the frog, so as to be able to carry about with me in my mind a true conception or representation of it, I will paraphrase Dr. Maudsley's paragraph; using " frog " for the new fact, and " camel " (any other would do as well: snail, for instance, or toad) for "the old thought." "To every one a [frog] is neither more nor less than what he thinks it — in effect, a tJiinJc"; that is to say, a living animal is a mental process, "neither more nor less"; "and to think a [frog] he must first use [the camel]. How can he do otherwise before new experience has enabled him to organize a 346 DR. MAUDSLEY S " NATURAL CAUSES, ETC. new thmkf I have not the faintest notion of what is meant by " organizing a thinJc " ; but Dr. Maudsley fieenis to me to mean that you cannot get the accurate mental representation of anything until you have gone over it in your mind a great many times. But whai do you go over in your mind so often? Why, the very ^' think" that you cannot get at all until you have " organized " it. In other words, Dr. Maudsley seems to mean that you must create the " think " by not only having it, but frequently using it. This reminds me, as many other passages in this book do, of the stage- direction in the old German Miracle- Play : "Enter Adam and Eve, who cross the stage goi7ig to be created." But to proceed: " The old thing or think [the camel] represents object plus subject; the new thing [frog], therefore, is no thing to him until it is asselfed in a think, for until then it is object minus subject." Per- haps, after all, these wonderful words only mean that you cannot know a thing until you do know it, or see it until it comes within the range of vision. " In apply- ing, then, the old notion [camel] to a new fact [frog], as he must necessarily apply some notion [and camel is just as good as any other, such as hippopotamus or flea] to it in order to observe it intelligently at all, he uses a notion which, not fitting the fact exactly, .... hinders his mind from moulding itself plastically to the fact." Then why, in the name of science, does he apply " the old notion " at all ? Why can he not devote his attention to tJie frog and leave the camel in its native desert? But of this anon. Meanwhile, having insisted upon bringing his camel with him, "what, then, must he do ?" I am now quoting from the paragraph immediately following the one quoted above : " Putting DK. MADDSLEy's "natural CAUSES," ETC. M7 himself resolutely into close converse with the new experience [the frog], he must hold his notion [the camel] loosely, as of provisional use and susceptible of modification, or lay it clean aside, bringing other more serviceable notions to his assistance [such, perhaps, as snake, lizard, fish], in order to get a full and faithful impression of the facts [what facts ?] in that wherein they disagree from or contradict his prepossessions." . . . Now, I had always thought that this way of acquir- ing the knowledge of a fact or phenomenon — viz. : by interposing between the fact and our own minds a multitude of " notions" — was the very road at the head of which science had long ago put up a large sign- board with, in very big letters, the words " Dangerous: this road leads directly to a deep quagmire which it is almost impossible for anybody to cross." But, as Dr. Maudsley has taken the sign-board down, let us venture forward, camel and all — all the other possibly " service- able notions " — hoping to get safe over. Our little frog hops into sight, and we say, "Aha! that is a camel!" We take the little creature into our hands : it feels coldish, it has no hair, no hump, no long ears, no tail or hoofs. Our "old notion" does not "fit exactly." So we remember that it is "susceptible of modifica- tion "; and we find so much to modify that at last we have nothing more of the camel left than a tuft of hair enough to hang on by. But that, of course, is not the frog; so we reverse the process of subtraction and begin to add, one after another, the various parts and organs of the frog, our " new experience." We con- tinue this process until we have obtained the entire frog plus the tuft of hair. This still does not " fit exactly," so we throw the tuft of hair away, and we have all the frog with none of the camel. 348 DR. MAUDSLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. Now, the question is — and it is not a question lying within the special domain of the scientists, but one which anybody who has ever acquired knowledge is, by simple and careful introspection, as capable of answering as Dr. Maudsley — "Is this, or is it not, the process by which we do acquire the knowledge of a hitherto unknown fact or phenomenon ?" Most unde- niably it is not. When we see a frog for the first time, we do not warily catch him, put him in a jar, and then go to the nearest zoological gardens for a dozen or two of old "thinks" which may be "serviceable" to us in our investigation of the frog. We just watch the frog, see him hop about, notice what he eats, watch him swim across a pond. We catch him, examine him carefully. Perhaps, next, we cut him open and examine also his interior organs; we may use for this purpose a microscope, and so on. We never once thmk of a camel ; we get as close as we possibly can to the frog itself; and when we have got through our investiga- tion we have a notion, conception, mental representa- tion of the frog available for all future purposes. The frog has not ceased to be a thwg, but it has become also, for us, to use the grotesque language of Dr. Maudsley, " a think." Of course it is only too probable that I have mis- taken the meaning of the passage on wliich I have been commenting. If I have, it is not because I am not a scientist, for there is nothing in the passage which has anything to do with physical science; except, perhaps, the possibly implied assertion that Dr. Maudsley, as an anatomist, has discovered in the human brain, or elsewhere, a number of "organized thinks"; which perhaps he may have described, with DR. MAUDSLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. 349 the aid of diagrams, and with a minute account of their specific gravity, chemical composition, colour, and the like, in some scientific treatise of which I have never heard. But could anybody discover in the writings of Darwin, or Huxley, or Tyndall, a piece of English (excluding the word asself, which is not English) to match the obscurity of this extract? I will take one other example of Dr. Maudsley's obscurity combined with wholly unverified, and con- fidently affirmed, " scientific " hypotheses. I scarcely know which to select. I might take his account of Attention (pp. 61-67), or of Imagmation; the latter is peculiarly rich in suggestions. Consider the following passage (pp. 135-136) : At the risk of being thought fanciful, I may ventui*e to carry the physical comparison a step further. What is the equivalent on the physical side — for such equivalent there must be — what the nervous substratum of an act of imagination ? We learn from the physiologists that the nervous substratum of thought is, directly or indirectly, a nervous tract in connection with an ingoing sensory and an outgoing motor channel — what they call a reflex arc — in the cerebral plane. How can imagination have any place in such a process, which, though it may increase in strength, can never go outside its own track, never transcend experience? Perhaps it is, when imagination works, that there is a production of new nerve-junctions or nerve-tracks from the old stocks or tracks of thought, or, if not an actual production, the bringing into use, for the formation of junctions, of nerve- cells lying around in all states of incomplete development. These new elements will testify necessarily of the special quali- ties of their immediate parents, being rich in rare qualities and full of vigour and promise when these are well informed by good experience and sound training, but feeble and poor and futile when the basis of sound experience and thought is wantiiig ; and when they form apt organic unions or junctions between proper nerve-tracks, they lay the physical basis of fresh com- 350 DR. maudslet's "natural causes," etc. binations of ideas, bright flashes of new conceptions, prophetic anticipations of subsequent experience. It is not, anyhow, as some thoughtlessly conclude, imagination which starts the organic process : it is the organic process which is the condition of imagination. That currents pass along neighbouring tracks and run into adjacent nerve-terminals (where the nerve loses its isolating sheath and ends indistinguishably in the tissue) is certain ; it is not improbable, therefore, that when, accumu- lating there, they attain by intensification of qualities or near- ness of approach a certain attraction, they break through the impeding matter and rush together, making an organized path by coercing the elemental units into definite positions, temporary or permanent. Is it possible that this rhapsody can be seriously intended for a contribution to physical science f " Per- haps . . . when imagination works"! But we need no anatomist to tell us what imagination does when " it works." It produces Homeric Poems, Hamlet, and such like. Dr. Maudsley, however, professes to be investigating, not imagination, tut "the nervous sub- stratum of an act of imagination." Has he ever, as anatomist or physiologist, discovered that "nervous substratum"? can he distinguish it from other "nerv- ous tracts," or cells, or fibres ? But, be this as it may, how can a " nervous substratum of an act of imagina- tion" ^'produce" or "brifig into use" anything what- ever ? One might as well say that " a calcareous or ligneous substratum" produces a house; or "brings into u^e" masons and carpenters and mortar and nails. It seems there are lying about in the brain, " in all states of incomplete development," nerve-cells — like big stones in the bed of a shallow river — and imagina- tion (here adroitly substituted for its "nervous sub- stratum ") skips over the river by the help of these convenient stepping-stones, carrying with it ropes or DR. MAUDSLEy's "natural CAUSES," ETC. 351 building materials, and " makes an organized path by coercing the elemental units" — Avhat are "the ele- mental units"? — "into definite positions, temporary or permanent." And this is supposed to be more reasonable, and more capable of scientific verification, than the Christian religion ! It is, at any rate, a most conspicuous example of science in the anthropomor- phic, and purely hypothetical, stage. But the passage I had in my mind — these others, among many which I had marked, arrested my attention in looking for it — is the following (p. 37) : The perception of analogies and resemblances in Nature leads easily to generalizations, which are afterwards verified or not. If the generalization be not verified because of the contradic- tory or irreconcilable instance presenting itself, then this dis- sentient experience, if taken sincerely home and registered faith- fully in the mind, is organized there into a new organ or faculty, so to speak, and thereafter assimilates its likes. A new track of function is opened, to which associations or, as it were, junctions are formed in due course ; a rich addition being thus made to the cerebral plexus of the mental organization. I am again baffled, in my attempt to get at the real meaning of this passage, not only by its vagueness, but by a kind of poetic anthropomorphism which, however beautiful, does not easily submit itself either to scien- tific or logical restraints. It is perfectly obvious that if we could deal with or suflBciently describe everything in rerum natura only when taken separately, the words of a language would be very far more numerous than the sum of all existing things. We observe, however, that the things around us, though no two of them are exactly alike, may yet be divided into groups, on the ground of a general resemblance. We, therefore, by a process called ahstradion. withdraw or divert our attention 352 DR. MAUDSLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. from the minor differences which, for any given pur- pose — though, for other purposes, they may be essen- tial — we do not think it worth while to notice ; arranging in separate classes those things all of which possess certain properties or qualities. We invent a name which shall connote exactly those properties or qualities, and no others, and we give that name to each member of the class so characterized. This is, I believe, tlie process of generalization ; and the name arising out of this process is a general or commo?i name. Thus, for instance, we find an immense number of animals possessing the following characteristics: "An undivided hoof formed of the third toe and its enlarged horny nail, a single stomach, a mane on the neck, six incisor teeth in each jaw, seven molars on either side of both jaws, two small canine teeth in the upper jaw of the males (and sometimes in both jaws), no bands of blackish-brown, no black dorsal line, long hair on the tail, and warts on both pairs of limbs." We invent the name horse to connote these properties or character- istics, and to every animal possessing them we give that name. Now, what could be meant by " verifying " this generalization ? Clearly making such careful observations as should satisfy us that there does, or does not, really exist a number of animals with these characteristics. But this is not what I think Dr. Maudsley means by " verifying " ageneralization. What I think he does mean I will try to make plain by a concrete illustration. A very raw farm-hand comes and tells me that he has driven all the horses into a yard and shut them up. " Very well," I say ; " bring two of them out and have the carriage ready, and I will see what they are good for." He brings two out, DR. MAUDSLEY's "natural CAUSES," ETC. 353 and while he is trying to harness them I find that one of thein is a cow. This cow, then, woiikl correspond, I think, to Dr. Maudsley's " contradictory or irrecon- cilable instance," or " dissentient experience " ; and clearly it is of great importance that I should be so familiar with the difference between them as not to harness a cow to my carriage or send a horse to the datry-farm. But now we come to the anthropomorphic poetry — the Nemesis of Science. The " dissentient experience " — in the illustration given above, the mental represen- tation of a cow — is to be "taken sincerely home and registered faithfully in the mind." It is then " organ- ized into a new organ or faculty." But what is the use of the new organ or faculty, even if it should be produced, of which there is not the smallest atom of evidence ? Is it an organ or faculty by means of which I distinguish a cow from a horse ? But I possess that faculty already. It was by the very use of that faculty that I really did distinguish the particular cow that I "took sincerely home"; it was that very faculty which enabled me to " take it " there, " and register it faithfully in my mind." Nevertheless, it may be Avell to have two strings to my bow, though one might serve. Next, however, the new (duplicate) " organ," which apparently has organized itself, produces this effect: "A new track of function [v^^hat, precisely, is a "track of function"?] is opened, to which associations or, as it were, junctions are formed in due course ; a rich addition being thus made to the cerebral plexus of the mental organization." Does Dr. Maudsley really mean to be taken seriously, or is he trying to " fool " theologians " to the top of their bent"? 354 DK. MAUDSLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. He surely does not mean that the "mental organization" is different from and independent of the bodily organ- ization ; having a cerebrum and spinal cord, and perhaps kidneys and liver, of its own. He probably means "the cerebral plexus (plexuses?)" which are the " nervous substratum " of mental operations. So we may omit the " mental organization," and inquire into the evidence for the assertion that a particular kind of mental operation produces "a rich addition to the cerebral plexus." Now, both these terms, cerebral and plexus, have a perfectly definite meaning. It is hardly necessary to say anything about the meaning of the word cerebral ; but what is a 2^^^^usf I will give a definition and an example from a very well-known text-book. The Anatomist's Vade Mecnm, by Erasmus Wilson (Ninth Edition, 1873). Here is the definition : " A plexus is an intricate intercommu- nication between the funiculi of adjacent nerves " (p. 435). Here is an example, of which I quote enough to answer my very simple purpose : The brachial or axillary plexus of nerves is formed by com- munications between the anterior cords of the four lower cervical nerves and first dorsal. These nerves are alike in size, and their mode of disposition in the formation of the plexus as fol- lows : The fifth and sixth unite to form a common trunk ; the last cervical and first dorsal also unite to form a single trunk ; the seventh cervical nerve lies for some distance apart from the rest, and then divides into two branches, which join the other cords. At the point of junction the plexus consists of two cords, from which a third is given ofl;, and the three become placed, one to the inner side of the axillary artery, one behind, and one to its outer side. Lower down, each of the lateral cords gives off a branch which unites with its fellow in front of the artery, and surrounds the vessel, the trunk formed by the union of the two branches being the median nerve. The plexus is broad in DR. MAUDSLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. 355 the neck, narrows as it descends into the axilla, and again enlarges at its lower part, where it divides into its terminal branches. Whether or not there is in the cerebrum itself " an intricate intercommunication between the funiculi of adjacent nerves," I do not pretend to know. As Dr. Maudsley speaks of a "cerebral plexus," of course there is. But the point to which I wish to direct attention is this: that a plexus, whether cerebral, aortic, cervical, diaphragmatic, or any other, is visible, tangible, measurable, and can be dissected out. Any "rich addition" to it, to say nothing of new "tracts" and "connections," will be a "rich addition" to its size. If it were increased several million-fold it might be as big as a coil of rope. If any " rich addition," or even moderately poor " addition," were made to it, the anatomist would infallibly discover it; he would write about it to the Lancet or in the Transactions of some scientific Association ; he would dissect it out, and have it preserved in the Museum of the Eoyal College of Surgeons. Now, the mental operation which Dr. Maudsley says makes a " rich addition to the cerebral plexus" — viz.: carefully noting the slight differences which should prevent our including some object in a particular class — is an operation performed thousands of times over by every human being. In the compo- sition of a single Budget for the British Empire Mr. Gladstone performs this operation often enough, one might think, to absolutely fill his skull with " cerebral plexus," and kill himself, so to speak, by cerebral suffocation. And this amazing theory is only a par- ticular case of Dr. Maudsley's general theory of the relation of mind to its " nervous substratum." That 356 DR. MAUDSLEy's " KATURAL CAUSES," ETC. general theory, so far as I understand it, is this : that Ave begin life with a sufficient nervous substratum for our first mental operations ; that these mental opera- tions enlarge their old, or produce new, physical organs — with tracts, connections, and all the rest of it. Now, &, 2Jliysicfil organ must have some size ; if it be increased, its size, is increased ; if new organs be produced, they also must occupy some definite space. At the end of a long life, therefore, the *' nervous substratum " of mind must be many millions of times larger than it was to begin with ; Mr. Gladstone's must be to-day many millions of times greater than it was when first the bones of his skull had become consolidated. Now, what particle of evidence is there for this theory ? So far as my reading has extended, I have discovered not an atom. The fact that Mr. Gladstone's skull was not long ago burst open is a positive disproof And when, for the pur- pose of holding up the Christian religion to contempt, Dr. Maudsley oflers us these unverifiable hypotheses as " science," he sinks below the level of an old Eoman who affirmed that his good luck was caused by his happening to see a flight of birds in a particular region of the heavens. Absurd and demonstrably false as these theories seem to me to be, they are to be found in the works of nearly all the physiological-psychologists Avith which I am acquainted. The object of these writers is not to furnish an exact account of the anatomy and physi- ology of the brain and nervous system ; which they are abundantly qualified to do, which is obviously within the true limits of science, and in which they are far beyond any criticism of mine. But their object is to determine the physical conditions, or invariable physi- DR. maudsley's "natural causp:s," etc. 35T cal antecedents, accompaniments or consequents of mental operations. They so often speak of matter in terms of mind, and of mind in terms of matter, that it might be supposed they regard mind and matter as substantially identical. But, on the other hand, the very attempt to ascertain the relation between the two implies that they are substantially different. This is clearly admitted by Dr. Bain, who is indeed more a psychologist than a physiologist; and the distinction he draws between the two is precisely that with which we are all familiar. Mind we know — or at least the operations of mind — by direct consciousness, from which there is no appeal. Matter we know by observation, and especially by observing that its properties are wholly incommensurable with the properties or opera- tions of mind. He says {Mind and Body, in the Inter- national Scientific Series, pp. 124-125) : I repeat, what a piece of matter is, what an operation of mind is, we know equally well ; we see that they both agree and differ from other kinds of matter, and from other operations of mind. There is a much closer kindred between material facts among themselves, and between mental facts among themselves, than between material facts generally and mental facts gen- erally. Hence, we resolve all the facts of Nature ultimately into two kinds— matter and mind ; and we do not resolve these into anything higher. We come upon a wider contrast at this point than we had in any prior stage of our generalizing movement. The plants and the animals differ widely in their details ; both differ still more widely from inanimate matter. Yet they agree in all the principal features of material bodies, and are in total opposition to mind, which has neither the dis- tinctive features of either nor the common attributes of both. The inanimate and the animate are not so different as body and mind. Extension is but the first of a long series of properties all present in matter, all absent in mind. Inertia cannot 358 DR. MAUDSLEY's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. belong to a pleasure, a pain, an idea, as experienced in the consciousness ; it can belong only to the physical accompani- ments of mind — theovert actsoE volition, and the manifestations of feeling. Inertia is accompanied with gravity, a peculiarly material property. So colouk is a truly material property : it cannot attach to a feeling, properly so called, a pleasure or a pain. These three properties are the basis of matter ; to them are superadded form, motion, position, and a host of other properties expressed in terms of these— attractions and repul- sions, hardness, elasticity, cohesion, crystallization, heat, light, electricity, chemical properties, organized properties (in special kinds of matter) . But when physiologists attempt to explain the physical basis or substratum, or cause or effect of mental operations — such as remembering — they seem to me to fall into the very absurdities which I have pointed out above. Even Dr. Bain's theory in Body and Mind seems to me to imply them. The physical rationale of memory, so far as I can understand the terms in which it is expressed, seems to me to be approximately this: The mental act of remembering produces in the brain a nerve-track, which becomes more and more firm the oftener it is used; which accounts for the fact that what we have recalled to mind hundreds of times before, we can now recollect almost Avithout an effort. To quote Dr. Bain again (p. 91) : " As to the mechanism of retention : for every act of memory, every exercise of bodily aptitude, every habit, recollection, train of ideas, there is a specific grouping, or co-ordination, of sensations and move- ments by virtue of specific growths in the cell-junc- tions." Now, cells are real things. Dr. Bain gives diagrams of them. The brain of a boy eight years old cont.ains a certain definite number of these cells — DR. MAUDSLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. 359 neither more nor fewer. If for the purpose of mental " retention " a certain number of them are arranged in a particular order, there will be so many fewer left for other purposes. By degrees, as he learns his lessons, to say nothing of the recollections and reten- tions of his ordinary boy-life, it might well happen that nearly the whole substance of the brain is devoted to retention ; in which case it would seem inevitable that its other functions must be left unperformed. Now, we positively know that this does not happen. If, then, nerve-cells are required for mental retention, and are not taken away for that purpose from existing groups of cells required for other purposes, they must be actually produced anew in some way, and the number of cells increased in proportion to the amount of retentiveness. For, by the very hypothesis, the cells devoted to mental " retention " must remain in the track in which they have been arranged; otherwise the physical substratum of memory would be broken up, recollection would have no road on which to travel, and memory would be physically impossible. In old times we were required to learn by heart large quan- tities of Greek and Latin poetry. In the school in which I was myself educated I was required, like others in my class, to learn, and did learn by heart, all Horace's Odes, four books of the ^neid, four books of the Iliad, besides many selections from Cicero's Orations, and a good deal else. In order to do this I had to repeat each line to myself over and over again, thus constructing new nerve-tracks, cell-junctions, etc. At the same time I went on eating and drinking, playing cricket or chess, talking, getting into mischief and the like ; manifestly I had not detached, for the purpose of 360 DR. MAUDSLEy's " NATUKAL CAUSES," ETC. retention, any of the cells required for these other pur- poses. Out of 'what, then, were the complicated nerve- tracks constructed by which I was enabled to learn by heart so much of Virgil and Homer, and keep a large part of it in memory to this very minute? If new cells were produced — as each of them must have some size and weight and chemical composition — the brain must have been enormously enlarged; and as the nerves of special sensation (as of the eye) are easily traced by the anatomist, I do not see why he should not discover the nerves devoted to Homer and Virgil. I cannot help regarding this whole theory of " the niecJiam'sm of retention " as pure hypothesis, and a very improbable hypothesis. Also, a perfectly gratui- tous and unnecessary hypothesis ; for the very first act of memory is as perfect as the last ; and no nerve-track or system of cell-junctions can possibly have been pro- vided for that first act. Notwithstanding the length to which this note has already extended, it may be well to consider one more passage in Dr. Maudsley's book, which seems to me perhaps the most remarkable of all (pp. 318-319) : The individual brain is virtually the consolidated embodiment of a long series of memories ; wherefore everybody, in the main lines of his thoughts, feelings and conduct, really recalls the experiences of his forefathers. What a brain is "virtually," I do not know; what it is really, nobody knows better than Dr. Maudsley. He has probably dissected hundreds of brains, both healthy and diseased; and it may be very safely afifirmed — until he actually denies it — that, in no single dissection, has he ever come across a memory, much less a series of DR. MAUDSLEy's "natural CAUSES," ETC. 361 memories, or a "consolidated embodiment of a long series " of them. I do not know what these last woids mean. If they mean anything whatever— I really think they are absolute jargon, without either denota- tion or connotation — they seem to imply that memories can be solidified, like water into ice ; and that when reduced to the physical condition of a solid they become organized, and form a body. This seems to me sheer nonsense. But to proceed : Consciousness tells him, indeed, that he is a self-sufficing individual, with infinite potentialities of free-will ; it tells him also that the sun goes round the earth. Apart from the direct affirmations in this passage — " Consciousness tells him," etc. — there is the affirmation, in the form of a contemptuous reductio ad aisurdum, that the deliverances of consciousness are not trust- worthy, because one of them — viz. : " The sun goes round the earth" — has been undeniably demonstrated to be untrue. Now, all these assertions are not only false, but transparently and ludicrously false ; and the whole passage is a crucial demonstration of the total inca- pacity of Dr. Maudsley — either from a natural want of aptitude that way, or from a narrowness of mind acquired by the exclusive or disproportionate study of physical science — to examine and discuss even the very simplest and most rudimentary questions in meta- physics or psychology. And be it remembered that these questions — What is consciousness? What does it affirm ? Are its affirmations authoritative and unde- niable ? — are questions, not of physics, but of meta- physics, as to dealing with which, Dr. Maudsley's great knowledge and high authority as a scientist do not raise even the faintest presumption of competency. 362 DK. MAUDSLEY's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. They are, in truth, much further " out of his line " than practical shoemaking. Consciousness does, indeed, affirm that I am an individual ; that is to say, that I am myself and not another; and I can know this only by consciousness. For if somebody else must ^jrove it to me, he must still prove it to me j and before he can prove anything to 7ne, he must know not only that / a7n I, but that he is he ; which last truth can be given to him only by his consciousness ; and so on ad infinitum. But neither consciousness, nor any other faculty, affirms that I am " a self-sufficing individual." Again, consciousness assured me that I got out of bed this morning of my own accord, without any external com- pulsion or even solicitation ; in other words, that I had and exercised a power of self-determination or " free- will." But it told me nothing of the " potentialities " of free-will ; that is to say, its power of doing this or that at any indefinite time, or in any conceivable circumstances. Much less did it affirm that these potentialities were " infinite." Again, the words sun and earth have a definite connotation determined by astronomers. The sun is not a blaze of light, nor the earth a flat surface like a huge plate, bounded by a circular horizon. Consciousness does not affirm even the existence of a "sun," or an "earth," nor that "the sun goes round the earth," nor that either of the two could by any possibility get "round" the other. Is Dr. Maudsley simply "fooling" us? — having so mean an opinion of the intellectual abilities of Chris- tians as to suppose that by telling us about witches, and ghost stories, and mad people who think them- selves princes, and Mohammed's "epilepsy," he can eradicate out of our hearts and minds, to the last DK. MAUDSLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. 363 smallest fibre, our religious feelings and beliefs? Does he scornfully deem it beneath him, in dealing with such abysmal fools, to keep up even an appearance of accuracy ? Or does he really not Tcnoio the meaning of the very word consciousness as it is employed in psycJiology, or even in the conversation of careful speakers ? " Consciousness," says Sir W. Hamilton, "is the recognition of the mind or ego of its own acts (Jl' affections ; and in this " (Mr. J. S. Mill says " he observes truly ") "all philosophers are agreed." Again, he says : " Consciousness and immediate hioivledge are terms universally convertible." Mr. J. S. Mill says : "Immediate knowledge, again, he [Sir W. Hamilton] treats as universally convertible with intuitive knowl- edge ; and the terms are really convertible." On this whole subject Chapters VIII. and IX. of J. S. Mill's Examination of Sir William Hamiltoiv's Phi- losophy are perfect models both of exposition and of philosophical criticism; whether we accept all Mr. Mill's conclusions or not. To pass from Dr. Maudsley to Mr. Mill is like passing out of a dense London fog to the perfectly transparent clearness of a bright, frosty morning. Sir W. Hamilton, indeed, believes that we know by consciousness not only our sensations, but the external object to which we refer them ; for instance, not only the sensation of dazzling light, but the bril- liant object — so far as being a brilliant object — which (we believe) causes those sensations. This may be, and is, doubted or denied. But to know by consciousness the existence, at the moment of consciousness, of a brilliant object, is altogether different from knowing by consciousness that it "moves round the earth," or even that if moves at all. I have no space for a detailed 364 DR. MAUDSLEy's " NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. analysis of the mental process by which we arrive at the belief, true or false, that the sun goes round the earth. But even to believe that the sun we see in the west in the evening is the same sun which we saw in the morning, involves not only at least two distinct ^ioiQ^oi consciousness, but many acts of memory/, together with those quite innumerable processes by which we, so to speak, localize the sun at any given time, so as to be able to distinguish east from ivest, and also the space intervening between them. If this be merely conscious- ness, there is no knowledge which we obtain in any otlier way, and logical inferences are superfluous and impossible. Dr. Maudsley's further affirmation that conscious- ness asserts what is not true, may be disposed of in the words of Mr. J. S. Mill {Examination, etc., Chapter IX., at the beginning, pp. 159-160, Holt's American Edition) : "According to all philosophers, the evidence of consciousness, if only we can obtain it pure, is con- clusive. This is an obvious, but by no means an iden- tical, proposition. If consciousness be defined as intui- tive knowledge, it is indeed an identical proposition to say that if we intuitively know anything, we do know it and are sure of it. But the meaning lies in the implied assertion that we do know some things immediately or intuitively. That we must do so is evident, if we know anything; for what we know mediately depends for its evidence on our previous knowledge of something else; unless, therefore, we know something immediately, we could not know any- thing mediately, and consequently could not know anything at all The verdict, then, of conscious- ness, or, in other words, our immediate and intuitive DR. MAUDSLEy's '' NATURAL CAUSES," ETC. 365 conviction, is admitted, on all hands, to be a decision without appeal." The whole question of free-will, for instance, is at bottom a question of luhat consciousness affirms in the matter ; the clear evidence of consciousness, when obtained, being admitted, on both sides, to be entirely conclusive.