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YALE UNIVERSITY
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DEPOSITED BY THE
LINONIAN AND BROTHERS LIBRARY

THE KINGDOM OF GOD
AN ESSAY IN THEOLOGY
THE BOHLEN LECTURES, 1897

BY
LAURENCE HENRY SCHWAB
Rector of St. Mary's Church, New York

" In matterswhich concern the actions of God, the most dutiful
way on our part is to search what God hath done, and with
meekness to admire that, rather than to dispute what he in con-
gruity of reason ought to do." — Richard Hooker.

NEW YORK
E. P. BUTTON AND COMPANY
31 West Twenty-third Street
1897

COPYRIGHT
E. P. DUTTON AND CO.
1897

Sil3

ft

Ube Tftnicfcerbocfcer press, Hew Borfc

THE JOHN BOHLEN LECTURESHIP.
John Bohlen, who died in Philadelphia on the
26th day of April, 1874, bequeathed to trustees a
fund of One Hundred Thousand Dollars, to be dis
tributed to religious and charitable objects in accord
ance with the well-known wishes of the testator.
By a deed of trust, executed June 2, 1875, the
trustees, under the will of Mr. Bohlen, transferred
and paid over to " The Rector, Church Wardens,
and Vestrymen of the Church of the Holy Trinity,
Philadelphia," in trust, a sum of money for certain
designated purposes, out of which fund the sum of
Ten Thousand Dollars was set apart for the endow
ment of The John Bohlen Lectureship, upon
the following terms and conditions :
" The money shall be invested in good, substantial,
and safe securities, and held in trust for a fund to be
called The John Bohlen Lectureship, and the income
shall be applied annually to the payment of a qualified
person, whether clergyman or layman, for the delivery
and publication of at least one hundred copies of two or
more lecture-sermons. These lectures shall be de
livered at such time and place, in the city of Philadel
phia, as the persons nominated to appoint the lecturer
shall from time to time determine, giving at least six
months' notice to the person appointed to deliver the

IV THE JOHN BOHLEN LECTURESHIP.
same, when the same may conveniently be done, and in
no case selecting the same person as lecturer a second
time within a period of five years. The payment shall
be made to said lecturer, after the lectures have been
printed and received by the trustees, of all the income
for the year derived from said fund, after defraying the
expense of printing the lectures and the other incidental
expenses attending the same.
" The subject of such lectures shall be such as is
within the terms set forth in the will of the Rev. John
Bampton, for the delivery of what are known as the
' Bampton Lectures,' at Oxford, or any other subject
distinctively connected with or relating to the Christian
Religion. " The lecturer shall be appointed annually in the
month of May, or as soon thereafter as can conven
iently be done, by the persons who for the time being
shall hold the offices of Bishop of the Protestant Epis
copal Church of the Diocese in which is the Church of
the Holy Trinity ; the Rector of said Church ; the Pro
fessor of Biblical Learning, the Professor of Systematic
Divinity, and the Professor of Ecclesiastical History, in
the Divinity School of the Protestant Episcopal Church
in Philadelphia.
" In case either of said offices are vacant, the others
may nominate the lecturer.''
Under this trust, the Rev. L. H. Schwab was
appointed to deliver the lectures for the year 1897.

TO MY WIFE

CONTENTS.
INTRODUCTION. page
"The kingdom of God "  j
Christ's nature and his work distinguished . t
Theoretical and religious judgments . ... 3-13
Theories of cognition and psychology . . 13-15
The question of a " proof" of Christianity . 16-18
CHAPTER I.
THE RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
The eternal life ... . . 19-24
Man's relation to God . 24-30
Sin .... ... 30-42
Forgiveness .... . 42-49
Forgiveness not indifference ...... 49-51
CHAPTER II.
THE ATONEMENT.
Forgiveness and justification ... . 52-54
Forgiveness, a synthetic judgment ..... 54
God forgives as Father ... . 55
The Church as the object of forgiveness 57-6o
Faith as the act of man  60-62
Forgiveness, the constitutive principle of Christianity . 62-64
Forgiveness through Christ ...... 65-85
Christ as a mere preacher of forgiveness . 66-70
Theories of the atonement . . . 70-85
The " imitation " of Christ  85-87
CHAPTER III.
THE ETERNAL LIFE.
Peculiarity of the Christian life — its scope . 88-92
The " eternal life" in the New Testament 92-96
"Optimism" ... . . 96
Christian mastery . . 97-100
Mysticism . . ... 100-103
Natural and revealed religion . . . 103
Christianity, the upholder of modern civilization 105-113
The Church's function — worship . . 113-119
The poets as Christian seers .... . 119-122
CHAPTER IV.
THE IDEA OF GOD.
The value-tests and the metaphysical idea of God . . 123-129
The moral argument ..... 129-136
Evil in its relation to the idea of God . . 136
Argument from beauty . . ... 137-140

Till CONTENTS. PAGE
Revelation. Dualism in the idea of God .... 140-143
Efforts to surmount the dualism ..... 143-148
God as arbitary will ...... . 148-150
Conditions for the solution of the problem of God . . 150-152
CHAPTER V.
THE IDEA OF GOD. (Continued).
Metaphysics and religion ....... 153-161
God as love and the kingdom of God as the object of God's
love ... . . ... 161-180
Freedom of the wilf  180-182
The necessity of the Christian idea of God . . . 182-186
Theory and practice. ....... 186-188
CHAPTER VI.
THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
The authenticity of the Gospels  189-194
The question of the supernatural ..... 194-202
The divinity of Christ — conditions for the solution of the
problem  202-210
The divinity of Christ : definition  211-219
CHAPTER VII.
THE ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF THE CHRISTIAN LIFE.
The dualism of the Christian life ..... 220-228
The final authority ....... 228-246
Biblical authority —
I. Methods of study .... 231-236
II. The results  236-239
ill. The bearings of these results . . 239-243
The supreme authority of God . . 243-246
The variableness of Christian ethics .... 246-249
CHAPTER VIII.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE.
The Christian ethics distinguished by positiveness. The
law of duty .... . . 250-256
The Church and the social question ..... 256-258
The Church and the State .... . 258-271
The State in its relation to the kingdom of
God .... . . 258-262
The Church in its relation to the State . 262
The Christian attitude .... 262-264
The State and the principle of proportional
responsibility ..... 264
Liberty and equality ..... 264-267
Where the responsibility lies . . . 267-269
The Church's opportunity .... 269-271
The kingdom of God and the kingdom of the pope . . 271-276

PREFACE.
This book owes its being to two causes : to the
invitation which I received to deliver the Bohlen
Lectures in the winter of 1897 (they appear here
somewhat amended and amplified); and to the in
spiration I have derived from Albrecht Ritschl's
great work on Justification and Reconciliation.
It would not be fair to make Ritschl responsible
for all that I have written. Considerable portions
are independent of Ritschl, in certain parts I have
ventured to disagree with him, and in the last two
chapters I have entered upon subjects which Ritschl
hardly touches. Nevertheless, the main trend of
thought and the method are Ritschlian.
I have not aimed at giving an exposition or a
criticism of Ritschl. If these pages have any
value, it comes from the mental appropriation of
certain great truths in the exigencies of a profession
which finds itself constantly confronted and chal
lenged by the mystery of human life. These things
are in the air, and I shall never forget my pleasure
when, many years ago, I found Ritschl made those
words of Christ the corner-stone of his system, which
had long stood out in my mind as perhaps the most
significant he uttered : " If any man will do his will,
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of Gpd,
or whether I speak of myself."

X PREFACE.
Ritschl's critics have been right in distinguishing
his attitude towards metaphysics as the crucial point
of his system, but have generally, I think, done him
something less than justice. I have become more and
more assured in the conviction that his position is
well taken. I have endeavoured to make that posi
tion clear, and I should like to hope that it might be
my privilege to convince some, to whom the prob
lems of theology are a matter of vital concern, that
there is something in Ritschl's contention which is
worth their thoughtful and sober consideration. The
system of one, concerning whom it could be said
" The joy of preaching the gospel entire and alone
has been awakened by no theologian of the past dec
ades to a greater degree than by Ritschl " (Nippold),
cannot be overlooked by the intelligent and ought to
be above the sarcasm with which its critics have
sometimes thought to refute it.
A friend, whose opinion I highly value, when I
undertook this work wrote to me about the subject :
" I do not doubt you will treat it not as a finality."
The words set me thinking. A claim to finality
would indicate arrant conceit in whoever made it,
arid yet we should never lose sight of the fact that
there is such a thing as finality in truth. All con
temporary thought is under the influence of the his
torical spirit, which is dominant in the intellectual
sphere ; and it is one of the serious faults of Ritschl's
writing that he fails clearly to distinguish between the
historical and the philosophical, or religious, ideal.

PREFACE. XI
The historical ideal is the complete and satisfactory
exposition of the genetic development of beliefs,
institutions, etc. It takes no account whatever of
the inherent truth. The philosophical and religious
ideal on the other hand is the pure fact, the absolute
truth. The two are wide apart, and the theologian
looks upon the historical as a means to the end ; he
will keep his eye fixed on the " finality," the abso
lute truth.
It is idle to suppose that we shall ever reach that
finality. I do not share that confidence in our men
tal powers which anticipates any close approach to
ultimate truth. Our best efforts are but a re-adjust
ment of the glasses. We see things in another light
from those who went before; and those who come
after us will again see differently, perhaps not more
truly, but differently, because they will be under
different influences. In one sphere only may we
look for any marked approximation to an ultimate
standard : the ethical.
But, whatever the prospect, there can be no doubt
that a healthy spiritual life demands that we exert
to the utmost such faculties as God has given us.
The task is an unending one. Just now there seems
to be a call for a forward movement in theology.
Most of our mental energy has for the past fifty
years or more been given to the correcting of mis
takes and prejudices. The critical faculty has had its
day. But now the problems of criticism are at least
so far solved as to have brought out in clear relief
certain principles, upon which it is possible to base a

Xll PREFACE.
forward movement. The work of the coming years
must be constructive. The task committed to us is
to build up. Here Ritschl's work is undoubtedly
epoch-making. To quote once more from the distin
guished historian of the modern Church — himself
not altogether a friendly critic: " For a vast num
ber, who in the age of Darwin had lost courage
for the task, he has once more confirmed their faith
in the mission, which theology again claims as her
own, to be a leader in the sphere of knowledge."
Theological science to-day calls for the best efforts
of those who believe in the power of religion, and the
call is not so much for brilliant intuitions, splendid
guesses at the truth, as for patient, careful, pains
taking, consecutive thought. There is no such thing
as " finality " on this earth. But none the less is
there imposed upon us the necessity of pressing tow
ard the goal —
" Our hearts wide open on the Godward side."

INTRODUCTION.
CHRIST began his mission by preaching the advent
of the Kingdom of God : " The time is fulfilled and
the kingdom of God is at hand." In other versions
it is " the kingdom of heaven." But this is probably
a modification of the original expression, dating from
a later time when the heavenly consummation of the
kingdom became the uppermost thought.
" The Kingdom of Christ " stands historically for
a different conception. This term dates from Puritan
times, when it was used to designate that ecclesiasti
cal organisation in which Puritanism found the out
ward expression of Christ's kingship.
Our interest is with the expression originally used
by Christ: the kingdom of God. Christ did not create
it, but found it as an essential element of the Jewish
religion, and he began his mission with the full con
sciousness of being the Messiah appointed to bring
in the fulfilment of that which had been foreshad
owed by law and prophet in the Old Testament.
Hence the kingdom of God is, as it were, the frame
work of Christ's mission. I shall endeavour to show
how the several elements fit into this framework.
Our interest is in what Christ did rather than in
what he was. It is worth while at the beginning of

2 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
our enquiry to call attention to the difference. One
view — it was especially the tendency of the early
Greek theology — -finds the significance of Christ in
that which he was, in his nature. The Incarnation
became the chief doctrine. Christ has sanctified
human nature. He became man that man might
become divine. It was a mystical-materialistic con
ception. God's nature joined itself to man's, took
upon itself humanity : this miraculous process
miraculously changed man's nature. The recon
ciliation between God and man meant a reconcilia
tion of nature apart from will. Ethical considera
tions were left out. The consequences of this
theory were equally materialistic. Religion came
to mean an elaborate system of mysteries, charms,
ceremonies, by which the fruition of heavenly things
was attained. The Church degenerated into a
mechanism for supplying these requisites of salva
tion. Christianity became paganised.
On the other hand, the interest in what Christ did
for man opens the door for the ethical. His signifi
cance to the world lay in the quality of his actions.
The reconciliation between God and man is the
reconciliation of the will, and the great spiritual
truths assume their place in the Christian system :
righteousness, the love of God in Christ, justification,
faith. To the reaction from the Greek theology
which St. Augustine inaugurated we owe it that
these have been recognised as essential elements of
Christian character. Our enquiry into the nature of
the kingdom of God must follow these lines.

INTRODUCTION. 3
" So soon," says Lowell, "as an earnest conviction
has cooled into a phrase, its work is over, and the
best that can be done with it is to bury it." Re
ligious truth was at first an earnest conviction. The
history of theology proves that it has been apt to
cool into a phrase. It then becomes a thing by itself,
apart from experience, which may be dealt with ac
cording to its own laws. Theology degenerates into
a mere fence of logic. This makes so many volumes
of theological literature such dreary, profitless, and
unconvincing reading. Mr. Gore, in the preface to his
Bampton Lectures, states the principle which alone
can guard us from the danger : " All right theory
emerges out of experience and is the analysis of ex
perience . . . the right method of philosophy is not
a priori, abstract, or external, but is based in each
department of enquiry upon a profound and sympa
thetic study of the facts." These words point in the
direction of a truth which is of essential importance
for our enquiry. Experience involves something
more than intellect, and whoever takes experience
for his guide cannot confine himself to mere logical
process. The assumption made in behalf of an
unprejudiced judgment, that the intellect is the only
arbiter of truth, is false, and the pretended disin
terestedness in matters of religion is an illusion.
The acquisition of knowledge is made by means
of mental judgments. These judgments are formed
by the mind working upon the sensations excited
in the consciousness. In the act of judging, the
mind appropriates or takes within itself its sensations.

1 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
This act of mental appropriation takes place in two
ways. In one case, the feelings which are a part of
the sensations are the determining factor; they in
dicate whether the particular sensations are helpful
and therefore acceptable, or the reverse. I judge by
the feelings. In the other case the feelings play no
such part ; the sensations serve to classify objects ac
cording to their origin, character, and connection with
other objects — as is done in all scientific reasoning.
The judgments by the feelings are what Ritschl
calls " value-judgments." Their operation will re
quire some further explanation.
It may be laid down as a general truth that in no
act of attentive reasoning is the intellect alone
operative. An act of the pure intellect cannot be
conceived except in dreams either waking or sleep
ing and possibly in the case of insane persons. The
intellect used in reasoning is at all times subject to
the will; the will is the determining, guiding factor
in all mental operations. But the will never acts
unless prompted by a motive, and this motive is in
the shape of a feeling. Feeling is also present as an
accompanying factor in every mental process. There
is therefore no act of the mind without will and
without feeling. For the proof of this state to
yourself any proposition. Twice two is four: so
far from the statement of this truth being a purely
intellectual act, it is accompanied both by will and
by feeling. For you would not say it, unless you
were prompted to say it ; therefore you will it.
With the statement also goes a certain feeling,

INTRODUCTION. 5
namely one of satisfaction, and this is the warrant
that it is true. We may observe the absence of
this feeling in the case of a false statement. Say
to yourself: twice two is five — a distinct feeling of
dissatisfaction accompanies that statement.
Feeling enters into every judgment which the
mind makes. But there is a great difference in the
various mental operations. In what we may call
theoretical knowledge, in all scientific reasoning, the
feelings are merely regulative : they fix the attention,
they give their approbation or disapprobation of the
result. They have no power in themselves to affect
the judgment. But there is a large class of mental
judgments in which the function of the feeling in
the act of judging is far more important, in which
the feeling has a great deal to do in determining the
judgment. This may be readily illustrated by the
moral judgments. It is wrong to kill. In so far as
this judgment is addressed to the intellect, it is put
in terms of the intellect. It is a proposition sub
mitted to your mind like any other proposition. But
in the act of mental appropriation by which that
statement becomes a subjective judgment, what is
the determining influence ? It is not intellectual, it
is moral. This is therefore a value-judgment proper,
in which the value of the moral feelings which go
with the mental process determine the acceptation
of the statement as truth. You believe the state
ment because you believe your feelings.
It is because of this peculiarity in the quality of
moral judgments that we differentiate moral truth

b THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
from theoretical truth. It is by an analogous pecu
liarity of our religious judgments that we also differ
entiate religious truth. The value-judgments hold
in religion as well as in morals. In religious judg
ments our feelings not only may, but must be given
decisive weight. It is a fundamental mistake, an
error which has caused the greatest confusion of
thought, to set up the law of theoretical knowledge
as the law of the human spirit in all its various func
tions. An unbiassed, unprejudiced, purely objective
and intellectual proof of Christianity has been chal
lenged by its enemies and eagerly sought by its
champions, with equal disregard of the truth that
the faith which prompts the one to defend religion
and the disbelief which moves the other to attack it
are not the result of logical methods of reasoning.
Therefore the efforts of the one to uphold and of the
other to destroy faith by such methods must prove
alike- disappointing.
The difference between the logical method of
dealing with religious truth and the one which is
here advocated can hardly be overestimated. I
have endeavoured to show the nature of moral judg
ments. Religious judgments also are influenced
by the moral feelings. But the value-judgments
which especially belong to the religious sphere are
different. Their exact nature will, I trust, be made
clear in the course of this enquiry. At this point
it will be proper merely to indicate the objects with
which the religious judgments have to do and to
point out the form of their operation.

INTRODUCTION. 7
The objects with which an enquirer into the
nature of the Christian religion will concern himself
are such as: God, Christ, the eternal life, heaven,
salvation, justification, the kingdom of God.
Theology defines them, seeks to determine the
modes of their operation and to harmonise them.
Theoretical enquiry pretends to have no personal
interest in these things and undertakes to define
and determine them according to their nature, inde
pendently of any value which they may have for
man. The theological enquirer cannot set aside
this value and his interest in it; to him this very
interest is a factor in determining and defining the
objects. He does not much care to know what God
may be in himself, but he wants to know what God
is for him. That which God is for man is the thing
upon which he fixes his attention. If I believe in
God, I believe in him, not because the metaphysician
has proved to me the existence of God, but because
I need God, because God means something for me.
This for me represents the contents of the value-
judgment which I form of God. The same is true
of other objects of theological interest.
It must be borne in mind that we are rarely con
scious of our mental operation in forming judgments,
but theological differentiates itself from theoretical
or metaphysical reasoning by being permeated by
the sense of value inherent in the things about
which it reasons. The difference goes to the found
ation of our views of religion.
The method which is here advocated finds its con-

8 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
formation in the words of Christ, St. John vii. 17:
If any man will do his will, he shall know of the
doctrine, whether it be of God or whether I speak of
myself." Christ here makes the exercise of the will
a factor in probing the truth of his doctrine. It will
be readily seen that the application of this principle
is incompatible with the prosecution of mere logical
or intellectual methods of enquiry into the nature of
Christianity.1 It follows from this that no judgment can properly
be pronounced upon Christianity from without.
Whoever would have a clear perception of what
Christianity is must have measured by his own ex
perience its spiritual value. The experience of this
value, the appreciation of what Christianity is for
man, one gets only as a Christian, as a follower of
Christ. To occupy any other position would be to
yield to the fatal illusion which under the name of
historical disinterestedness has distorted the religious
judgment. 1 " We see then as we feel —
And in your judgment, Sir, the mind's repose
On evidence is not to be ensured
By act of naked reason. Moral truth
Is no mechanic structure, built by rule :
And which, once built, retains a steadfast shape
And undisturbed proportions ; but a thing
Subject, you deem, to vital accidents ;
And, like the water-lily, lives and thrives,
Whose root is fixed in stable earth, whose head
Floats on the tossing waves." The Excursion, Book V.

INTRODUCTION. 9
There are objections to this method which we may
briefly glance at. It will be said that it makes sel
fishness the criterion of truth. The lack of a proper
discrimination in the use of this word has been the
cause of much mischief. Without some sort of
selfishness life would be absolutely impossible. If
to exalt the value of my individual personal life is
selfish, then Christianity is the most selfish religion ;
for Christ teaches the infinite worth of human life.
Selfishness, in the bad sense, consists in the opposi
tion of the individual to the common interests of
humanity. What may be called Christian selfish
ness is self-respect and a high valuation of my own
personality. So far from being opposed to the com
mon interests, it is inconceivable apart from a due
regard for the interests of others.
Some slight reflection will make clear the fruitless-
ness of the efforts which are made to reduce life to
what is conceived as pure unselfishness. When one
has divested himself of all " selfish " motives and
has supplanted the interest in self by the engrossing
interest in others' welfare, there remains as an in
eradicable element of the process the inner satisfac
tion with one's actions. This is the only conceivable
motive of the most unselfish conduct. So it is selfish
after all. Only the person tries to deceive himself
into believing that he has cast self aside. No wonder
that the result is commonly the most offensive form
of selfishness: spiritual self-righteousness.
Again, it will be objected that this method makes
religious judgment a mere subjective matter, subject

10 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
to the caprice and the • whims of the individual.
There is here some confusion of thought. What
mental process is there which is not " subjective " ?
How is any judgment of the individual conceivable
except as subjective, that is, as formed through the
processes of his own, not other's mind ? It may be
urged that the feelings and the will, upon which
this theory lays the emphasis, are more subject to
vagaries and aberrations than the intellect. But in
view of the existing diversities in matters of religion
which are mere differences of opinion, this can
hardly be maintained.
The true bearing of this objection on the ground
of subjectivity lies in another direction. The con
ception of belief has undergone a considerable
change in the Christian Church. In the early ages
it was the belief in certain life-saving truths. The
faith in the second coming of Christ, the trust in a
God of love, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ:
such were the beliefs that sustained the early Christ
ians in the battle with the world. But the nlaris
slowly gave way to the yvobois. The conclusions
drawn from the first articles of faith became more
and more elaborated, and a belief in these theologi
cal elaborations became a condition of membership
in the Christian Church. Ordinary minds were in
capable of independent judgment. Nevertheless
they gave their assent, and this they did by express
ing their belief in a creed. This meant for the vast
majority of people the substitution for the belief in
truth of a belief in a belief. The belief itself became

INTRODUCTION 11
the object of credence; and faith has ever since
been commonly judged as the act of assent to a
creed, the belief in a belief. Contrasted with this,
it is acknowledged that the theory here advocated
has a tendency to make religion " subjective," in
the sense of bringing the great Christian truths
directly home to the mind.'
Christianity cannot be appreciated in its true na
ture, unless it is understood that the sphere of the
spiritual lies above and beyond the natural, and that
it has its own laws which are different from the laws
of nature. The conflicts between science and religion
have been caused by the false assumption that the
laws which govern in that limited portion of the
universe, which we call the natural world, are valid
for the entire universe. Upon this assumption sci
ence has demanded of religion proofs for the validity
of its claims. Such proofs, let it be understood,
religion is unable to give and should not attempt to
give. For what would the attempt mean ? It
would imply the possibility of measuring Christian
ity by a standard belonging to another sphere whose
1 Ernest Renan had a. certain realisation of the truth of the posi
tion here taken. No person, he claims, can be a judge of Christian
ity who has not himself been a Christian. But, he adds, he must
have ceased to be a Christian to be an impartial judge. On the
score of disinterestedness such a position has no claim superior to the
one here taken. The person who has made up his mind that Christ
ianity is untrue is not more impartial than the believer. It is an
interesting study to discover the prejudice which clouded the vision
of so eminent a critic of Christianity as Renan. A glance at his pict
ure does it in his case. It explains the psychological puzzle of the
author of the Vie de Jesus and L' Abbesse de Jouarre.

12 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
laws are different from those of its own. As well
might the musician measure the value of musical
compositions with the yard-stick. Philosophy has
its proper sphere and the laws belonging to it. Sci
ence has its sphere, and the laws of that sphere are
absolutely binding to the scientific enquirer. But
the sphere and the laws of philosophy are not those
of religion, and the sphere and the laws of science
are not those of religion.
It is a common fault of theological reasoning that
it fails to grasp this distinction. When Christ
taught the transcendent value of the soul, the essen
tial difference between man and the world, he set
before man a new truth of the most far-reaching
character. Of that truth pagan philosophy had no
conception. But Christian theology would seem
to have been influenced more by Greek philosophy
in its attempt to explain the Cosmos than by the
new truth of Christ. It gave to pagan philosophy
a home in the Christian system and strove for the
knowledge of the conditions of all being after the
methods of the ancient wisdom. At the top of the
system thus constructed it added the truths of
Redemption. This incongruous mixture of pagan
cosmology and Christian soteriology was accepted
as Christian philosophy. But it was Christian only
in the sense of being dressed with a few Christian
truths ; it was not Christian in that it neglected the
fundamental distinction which Christianity made
between man and nature, between the Ethos and
the Cosmos, and the inevitable consequences which

INTRODUCTION. 18
this distinction entails upon our views of the
world. These conditions of theological investigation are
fundamental and affect the whole conception of
Christian truth. Just as with natural objects the
truth of our perceptions often depends upon the light
in which we see them, so in theology. It is of the first
importance that at the opening of a theological en
quiry one get into the proper light. If you have
succeeded in doing that, half the battle is won, the
rest will follow naturally. And this first condition is
satisfied by learning to appreciate the essential differ
ence between theoretical and religious knowledge.
There remains one more subject which I must
here treat of, which is also fundamental to our inves
tigation : the proper theory of cognition and of psy
chology. When we say we know a thing, what do
we mean ? Plato taught that a thing is composed
of a " substance " and the " accidents." This Pla
tonic " substance" was a delusion of the intellect. It
had its origin in that process of unification, by which
the mind combines the effects upon the various sense
organs produced by contact with an object.
Kant showed that the thing in itself is, in its
nature, unknowable ; all that we can know is phe
nomena. We know the thing itself only as the
cause of the phenomena by which it comes into con
tact with our faculties. This theory of cognition
forbids any further enquiry into the nature of the
thing itself. The application of this metaphysical

14 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
doctrine to theology is of the first importance.
Scarcely anything has been so productive of evil in
theological speculation as the Platonic doctrine of
universals. These universals were removed from
human observation, but not from human specula
tion. Accordingly fancy was free to play with them
at will. Any absurdity might be predicated of the
" substance," however contradictory to the known
laws of the accidents. The baneful influence of this
theory is manifest in its application to the doctrine
of God. Men were not satisfied to know God as
Christ revealed him. They sought to fathom the
reality underneath the divine manifestations, and
lost themselves in fruitless speculations.1
With the acceptance of the Kantian theory of
cognition we impose upon ourselves certain limita
tions of knowledge which it is highly necessary in a
theological investigation to bear in mind.
Theology demands not only a correct epistemology,
but also a correct psychology. Analogous to the dis
tinction between substance and accident is the theory
which ascribes to the soul a life behind its activities.
Back of the feeling, the will and the knowing, is the
soul itself. Not only is the will of man sanctified
and his mind inspired and his feelings transmuted
1 The application of the Platonic theory to the doctrine of the
Holy Communion is the most striking instance of its abuse. Theo
logical caprice has fairly run riot in dealing with the " substance "
and the " attributes " of Christ's body. Self-contradictory miracles,
which no sane mind could assert of anything real that had ever been
seen in the world, were accepted with perfect equanimity when
applied to that mysterious entity, a " substance."

INTRODUCTION. 15
by the influence of God, but behind these is the
union of the soul itself with the divine, and mani
festations of this union are sought outside of the
soul's ordinary activities.
But we cannot get to the soul behind its activities.
As soon as we know anything of the soul, it is the
soul as feeling, willing, or knowing. If God is
united to the soul, the only intelligible meaning that
can be attached to such a statement is that God has
sanctified the faculties of the soul, producing har
mony and peace where before was discord and un
rest. The soul receives no impression as passive.
Every impression received is met by a counter-
activity of the soul itself. The only way the soul
appropriates impressions is by having its own facul
ties stirred to activity. The pain which the soul
feels is conceived only as its own activity ; so with
all other sensations. Therefore the attitude of the
soul towards the grace of God is not simply recep
tive ; grace is not poured into the soul as water into
a vessel. Such a process is inconceivable. The
grace of God in the human soul becomes the activ
ity of the soul itself. Theology therefore has im
posed upon it the task of tracing the dealings of
God with man in the religious and ethical activities
of the soul. We know the soul only in one of its
functions, as feeling, willing, or knowing.1
1 Some psychologists, I believe, reduce the soul to a series of
" psychic processes." But they are not agreed. Until the matter is
settled, we will retain the old phraseology. If necessary, we shall
learn without much difficulty to say: "My psychic processes are
athirst for God, yea even for the living God."

16 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
I have said that to attempt to prove Christianity,
in the ordinary meaning of that word, is to attempt
the impossible. It is a Sisyphus labour upon which
the Christian mind has spent untold effort. The
facts of the Christian revelation may be fortified by
evidence ; certain considerations may be adduced, as
Bishop Butler has done, to make the Christian truth
appear in accord witn the system of the universe as
it is known to us. All this does not lift Christian
truth beyond the sphere of the probable. But the
faith which is not raised above the balancing of proba
bilities is not a Christian faith. Hence this sort of
effort has always been dissatisfying and discouraging
to earnest enquiring minds.1 To gain the strong
conviction which reaches the level of true Christian
faith another way must be taken. It must be by
a spiritual appropriation of Christianity, as Christ
1 That view of religion, which does not get beyond the " proba
bility " stage, where the great object is to make yourself " safe "
with God, rests upon a fundamental misconception. There is noth
ing more dreary than the picture of religion drawn by Arthur Hugh
Clough. That which should be a support becomes a burden :
" To spend uncounted years of pain,
Again, again and yet again,
In working out in heart and brain
The problem of our being here ;
To gather facts from far and near,
Upon the mind to hold them clear,
And, knowing more may yet appear,
Unto one's latest breath to fear
The premature result to draw —
Is this the object, end and law,
And purpose of our being here ? "

INTRODUCTION. 17
pointed out: " If any man will do his will, he shall
know of the doctrine whether it be of God or whether
I speak of myself." If any proof of Christianity is
possible, it can be only by showing that the highest
aspirations of man are satisfied by Christianity and
by that alone.
We are on one side of our nature bound to the
lower creation. The same biological laws hold sway
over us as over the brute, the same laws of growth
and of death, the same struggle for existence and
the same survival of the fittest. Turn your face in
that direction, study man in his lower nature, and
you recoil with horror as the picture reveals itself to
you of man's life on earth. Looked at from this
point of view, his history is little different from that
of the other animals : universal selfishness, universal
struggle. No wonder that men who have looked
only on that side of the picture have said in despair,
that as man shares his life with the brute, so he will
share the brute's fate. But that is not all, there is
another side. Whatever the ties are which bind
man to the earth, there is also an affinity with
heaven. If man is subject to the physical and
chemical and biological laws which govern the uni
verse, there are also other laws which reach down
into his life from a higher sphere. You must take
the whole of man, not one part of him. If you tell
me that the laws of biology interpret his physical
life, you must also find the laws which will interpret
to me his higher life. Tell me whence his aspira
tions. Tell me the meaning of that

18 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
" . . . Vexing, forward reaching sense,
Of some more noble permanence."
Explain to me the spiritual life of man. That view
of man which looks only to one side of his na
ture is miserably one-sided. The whole of man's
life is greater than the laws of his physical being.
There is in us an ineradicable sense that God could
never have made man with these aspirations for
something higher than this life affords, only in the
end to bring him to utter confusion. Christianity is
to us the warrant that these feelings are true; and
if there is any proof which one can give to another
of the Christian religion, it can only be the bringing
up of man to the meeting point of man with God in
Christ, the setting forth of Christianity as the one
and only satisfaction for the soul's truest, deepest
needs. It follows from this that theology has its task dis
tinctly defined. It is simply the analysis of the
common Christian faith. Guided by this principle,
I shall try to discover the outlines of that kingdom
of God which Christ founded.

CHAPTER I.
THE RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF THE
CHRISTIAN LIFE.
The most cursory examination of the New Testa
ment will make it evident that the revelation of truth
contained in it is not homogeneous. There are ele
ments in the teaching, both of Christ and of the
apostles, which are not reduced to unity. The
ethical teaching of Christ is patent on every page of
the gospels. But this ethical element does not ex
haust the significance of Christianity. Immediately
following the Sermon on the Mount with its clear
moral teaching, we find the story of the paralytic.
It contains no ethical element, but something which
has an entirely different bearing: the forgiveness of
sins. A little farther on Jesus teaches his disciples
to pray: " forgive us our trespasses."
Forgiveness is an element in the revelation of
Jesus clearly distinct from the ethical. It has refer
ence not so much to doing as to being; it has no
direct application to conduct, but to a state. Many
other words of Jesus have reference to a state in
man. When we hear him calling to men, " Come
unto me all ye who are weary and heavy laden,"
19

20 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
there is no question of right doing but of right be
ing. So, too, with the numerous references in the
Gospel of St. John to the " eternal life " : " This is
eternal life — says Jesus — that they might know thee
the only true God and Jesus Christ whom thou
hast sent " ; " I am come that they might have life. "
And again, when he prayed: " That they all may
be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee,
that they may be one in us." Or when in the last
discourse he promises peace and joy : ' ' Peace I leave
with you, my peace I give unto you," " These
things have I spoken unto you that my joy might
remain in you, and that your joy might be full."
Finally we have those expressions of our Lord assert
ing a purpose to his life and death, whose meaning a
mere ethical explanation is wholly inadequate to
exhaust: " The Son of man came to give his life a
ransom for many, " " This is my body which is given
for you."
When we turn from the gospels to the epistles,
we find this side of Christ's teaching fully repre
sented. With St. Paul it is the main interest of
Christianity. Something had freed him from the
bondage of his former life ; this something was not
a code of morals ; he felt himself redeemed from a
slavish obedience to a law into a state of liberty in
which he now glories. Christ now lives in him, he
is justified, he is reconciled: such expressions find
no explanation from mere ethical premises. Read
the end of the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans: " In all these things we are more than

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 21
conquerors through him that loved us. For I am
persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any
other creature, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord," or
the closing words of the third chapter of First
Corinthians: " All things are yours; whether Paul,
or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death,
or things present, or things to come ; all are yours ;
and ye are Christ's, and Christ is God's ": no one
can read such language and doubt that there entered
into the life of the great apostle as chief determining
factor something which cannot be summed up in a
moral code.
Turning to other writers of the New Testament
we find that St. Paul is by no means isolated in his
conception of the nature of Christianity. We meet
with such terms as " salvation " in the Epistle to
the Hebrews, " propitiation " in those of St. John,
and the frequent references to " overcoming" in
the Revelation — all of them pointing to an element
in the religion of Jesus which is something more
than ethical.
It is not necessary to present an exhaustive sum
mary of this factor in the New Testament teaching.
It is too evident to need this. Or it ought to be
too evident — too evident for the neglect with
which it is not infrequently passed over. When
Matthew Arnold tells us that " the object of re
ligion is conduct," that religion is " morality

22 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
touched by emotion," : one is at a loss to under
stand how he, Bible-critic as he was, could have
ignored all the religious element as distinct from
the ethical in the Old and in the New Testa
ment. To pretend to explain Christianity, while
neglecting and setting aside that religious factor
which was the strongest motive power in those
who have left the most lasting impress upon the
spiritual life of mankind, a St. Paul, a St. Augus
tine, a Luther; not even to attempt to account for
the influences which most powerfully swayed these
men: surely this is a strange historical criticism.3
How perfectly shallow a merely ethical conception
of religion is will become still more evident by
another consideration. We have a word in modern
language for which there is no equivalent in the
ancient tongues : that word is character. Character
is distinctly a Christian conception ; because Chris
tianity alone furnishes the elements for its formation.
The ancient world had very pronounced ethical
ideas, but no combination of ethical qualities makes
up character. You may conceive of a man as being
just, kind, liberal, upright, and add all the virtues
to the catalogue, and yet the sum of them all will
fail to reach the fulness of what is meant when you
speak of a man of character. The word is unex-
1 Literature and Dogma, chap. i.
2 Compare for a piece of historical criticism the following from
Literature and Dogma (p. 78, Macmillan's edition) : " Jesus Christ's
new and different way of putting things was the secret of his suc
ceeding where the prophets failed." One rubs his eyes and reads
again. But there it stands.

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 23
plained upon the atomistic theory ; it implies unity,
an unfolding of life from within ; it points to a centre
of the spiritual nature. The use of the word char
acter in popular language is a striking evidence of
the moulding of our forms of thought through the
influence of Christianity. The conception of a state
of being antecedent to conduct, of a something in
man from which conduct springs, a conception which
owes its origin entirely to Christianity, has become
so at home in popular thought as to be incorporated
in every day language.
We observe furthermore about this word character,
that there is a tendency to narrow its meaning, so
that it is often used as implying that which is praise
worthy. We speak of a man " of character," mean
ing thereby strong or good character ; or we say of
another, "he is a man of no character." In this
use of the word it comes very near in meaning to the
expression used by Christ, already referred to : " the
eternal life." We have been largely accustomed to
think of the eternal life as something of the future,
something different from this life, and yet Christ's
assertions are most pronounced to the effect that it
is of the present, a life for us to enter now : " This is
eternal life, that they might know thee, the only
true God " — " He that heareth my word, and be
lieveth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life —
is passed from death unto life " (St. John xvii. 3,
v. 24). The difference between the earthly life and
the eternal life is not one of quantity or duration,
but of quality.

21 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
The word life in its meaning ranges over a most
extensive scale. We apply to the worm crawling
on the ground and to the highest perfection of Christ
ian manhood equally the term life ; but how differ
ent is life from life ; how many the gradations from
the lowest form, the simplest structure, through the
life of instinct, of intelligence, of dawning con
science, of the perfected moral faculty, to that
life which has attained to the highest nobility of
character, to the full strength of independent fear
less manhood, such as we see it only in a few illus
trious examples. These gradations of life make us
understand something of the truth underlying the
expression " eternal life." In comparison with all
other life, it is the highest, most perfect conceivable.
Only when we have grasped the conception which
Christ embodied in the term " eternal life," are we
in a position to understand something of human life
on its God-ward side. The conception of religion
as a set of rules for conduct seems beautifully simple.
But is human life simple ? The more we know of
human nature, the more we stand in awe of its
mystery. The deeper the insight into that strangest
of earthly phenomena, the human heart, the more
do we learn to appreciate the fact that there is a
simplicity of shallowness.
There are two radically divergent views of life.1
The one looks upon the surface, the other pene
trates into the underlying realities. One man is
1 It is a pity we have no word for the German " Weltvorstellung."

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 25
fascinated by the mechanism of the world ; to under
stand its working is his absorbing object. To another
the things of sense lack abiding reality ; he feels for
the eternal u nderneath. The one man is satisfied with
secondary causes; to him, what he sees, the mani
fest connection between cause and effect, is sufficient.
The other is always straining for the first cause ; he
feels himself in the presence of a great mystery ; he
cannot rest till he has found a clue to the problem.
Fundamentally, the distinction between these two
divergent views of life is this: God and no God.
Not that the man who is a secularist in his interpre
tation of the world necessarily disbelieves in God ;
but if he does not bring his God to the explanation
of the world, if he does not see the world around
him in God's light, then he is practically without
God. The theoretical acknowledgment of an abso
lute being, or by whatever other name you may
choose to call it, is of no value. Either explain life
through God, or put God aside where Jupiter and
Osiris and the other deities of antiquity are.
Between the man to whom God is a practical ne
cessity, to whom the world without God is a phan
tom, and another to whom this world is a godless
world, although he may cap his materialistic phi
losophy with a conventional theoretical acknowledg
ment of a supreme being: between these two there
can be no greater difference. The God-view and the
godless view of life are diametrically opposed ; there
can be no harmony between them. The lines of this
issue cannot be obliterated. It is God or no God.

26 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
It is not my purpose to prove the religious view
of the world. I merely wish to point out the vast
difference between the two views. The religious
view of life assumes God as the necessary correlate
of human life. The secular view of life is the self-
centred, the Christian view, the God-centred life.
This will help to explain what Christ meant by
the " eternal life." In his conception of that life
God is the determining factor. He proves it in
himself. What is more noticeable about the life of
Jesus than his closeness to God : " No man knoweth
the Son but the Father ; neither knoweth any man
the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the
Son will reveal him ' ' (St. Matt. xi. 27)-^kMy meat
is to do the will of him that sent me " (St. John iv.
34). It is unnecessary to quote any more. No fact
is more patent. From childhood, when the con
sciousness of a higher relationship first dawned upon
his mind and he felt the impulse to "be about his
Father's business," to the cross, when the sense of
being forsaken by God marked the deepest suffering,
it is the same principle that shines through the years
of Christ's earthly life, that of the closest depend
ence upon and union with God. Here perhaps more
than anywhere else is seen the wretched inadequacy
of all mere secular criteria of life. It is simply im
possible to construe the life of Jesus without recog
nising the religious factor. You may say that his
sense of oneness with God was a delusion ; then this
delusion was the mainstay, the fundamental prin
ciple of his life.

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 27
It will be furthermore evident that the object of
Jesus was to extend that same life to his disciples.
Thus he declares : " I am come that they might have
life and that they might have it more abundantly "
(St. John x. 10). And that this life is the same as
his own, a life in God, he explains in his prayer:
" That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in
me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us."
Hence the importance which he attaches to his
own person, the invitations to come to him, to
learn of him, to believe in him, his setting forth
of himself as the way, the truth, and the life, the
resurrection, the bread of life.
Now we are in a position more clearly to define
that element in the New Testament which is distinct
from the ethical. It is the religious determination
of the Christian life. We use here the term religious
in the stricter sense as denoting a relationship to
God. The distinctively religious is what concerns
man's relation to God, the ethical has not the same
direct relationship to God. The ethical in man is
his self-determination. The gospels contain no ac
curate definitions. But there is enough in the words
of Christ and of the writers of the New Testament
epistles to differentiate the religious from the ethi
cal determination of the Christian life. We under
stand from the words of Christ that in his own case
it consisted in the completest union between himself
and God. For his followers we can conceive of this
life only as an approach to that perfect union. The
religious determination of the Christian life is near-

28 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
ness to God. This is figurative speech, and the
analogy is taken from relations of space; but per
haps we can in no better way give expression in
human imperfect language to the spiritual truth.
We may also conceive that relationship as one of
agreement of the will with God. The more we ap
proach to the realisation of the eternal life, by so
much we come nearer, to God, or so much more does
our will agree with that of God.
We have now found solid ground upon which to
base our argument in the consideration of the king
dom of God. We have differentiated the religious
from the ethical determination of the Christian life.
The understanding of what follows will depend upon
the clear appreciation of the distinction. In the
kingdom of God which Christ established we find
these two factors, the religious and the ethical. The
consideration of the relationship between the two
is reserved for a subsequent chapter. Here the dis
tinction between them is the essential point. We
insist upon this: antecedent to the ethical self-
determination of man is the determination of his
relationship to God. Before the doing there is a
being, and that being consists in the union with
God, or in the nearness to God. This is character
as we use the word in our modern language. This
is the eternal life as Christ used the expression. So
he himself says: " This is eternal life that they
might know thee the only true God and Jesus Christ
whom thou hast sent " (St. John xvii. 3).
In one firm or another the truth which is here

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 29
contended for has been the subject of ever-recurring
disagreement among Christians. But here and there
have risen men who have felt deeply that truth,
whose souls have been a-fire with the sense of
man's spiritual relationship to God, and wherever
they have appeared they have profoundly stirred the
hearts of their fellowmen. Such was St. Paul and
such was St. Augustine. " If God be for us, who
can be against us ? " said St. Paul. " Mihi adhaerere
deo bonum est " said St. Augustine. It was be
cause of the grasp which these men had upon the
religious determination of the Christian life that the
motive power of every subsequent movement for the
reformation of the Church is traced back to St.
Augustine and through him to St. Paul.
It is therefore essential that we hold strongly to
the determination of man's relationship to God
before 'his ethical conduct. That view of religion
which blurs the distinction between the ethical and
the religious, which approaches more or less to the
proposition I have cited, that " the object of re
ligion is conduct, "-has always had a strong fascina
tion, partly because of its supposed simplicity,
largely because of the desire for unification of the
two elements. It is instructive to notice the dog
matic decisions of the Council of Trent upon this
subject. The fathers of the Council were not so
blind to the distinctively religious factor as Mr. Mat
thew Arnold was, but their perplexity and consequent
vacillation in bringing the ethical and the religious
into proper relationship is very evident. This is

30 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
seen in the decree on Justification.1 The result is
that in the Roman Catholic doctrine there is a recog
nition of God's relation to man in so far only as
God's grace brings forth good works. The object
is simply good works or conduct; there is no dis
tinct recognition of a state of man in relation to
God, which we call character, antecedent to conduct.
The Christian life consists in good works. With us
the Christian life consists primarily in our relation
to God. By the neglect of this element there has
been lost out of sight one of the essential aspects of
Christian truth. The result may be read in the
history of civilisation since the Council of Trent.2
Christ came to bring eternal life. Not conduct is
the first object of Christianity, but life, that life
which consists in the communion with God.
We, in the nineteenth century, are apt to think
1 See Schaff's Creeds of Christendom.
2 The decadence of Roman Catholic nations is doubtless due to
the loss of virility and independence of character ; and this again is
due to the peculiar view of life favoured by the Church of Rome,
which is theoretically expressed in its dogmas. In this age of depre
ciation of doctrine, it is essential to bear this fact in mind. A recent
writer says : " And after all it has been justly said that the difference
between the Roman doctrine and the Lutheran doctrine of justifica
tion is only the difference between a quse and a qua. For my part I
care as little for the quae as for the qua" (Fulton, The Calcedonian
Decree). There are two conceptions of theology. One is that of a
science of accommodation to a burdensome yoke of dogma. The
truer conception is that of the science of those spiritual forces which
have operated upon Christian people and nations. It is this which
gives importance to Christian doctrine and which makes the study of
theology fascinating.

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 31
that we have discovered a universal solvent for all
historical problems. The master-key which seems
to unlock all mysteries is Evolution. It is not to
be denied that we have received from such men as
Darwin and Spencer a wonderful enlargement of the
meaning of that term, which has brought new light
into our conception of the world. But there is one
stubborn fact connected with man which will not
submit itself to the theory of evolution. Call that
fact by whatever name you will, you will never get-
rid of the peculiar character attached to it by the
old-fashioned name of Sin. From the elementary
star-dust, through the lower up to the higher animal
organisms, everything proceeds with the utmost
regularity under the law of development, until you
come to the creature man, who is endowed with the
mysterious power of free-will, and with that faculty
there comes sin. Sin enters into our subject be
cause it is a bar to the realisation of that state which
Christ described as man's destination, the eternal
life. It must be very clear to the most ordinary
observation, that man very generally fails of the
realisation of even an approach to the life which we
conceive as the ideal. The failure is too evident in
the unhappiness, in the lack of purpose, in the rest
lessness, in the discontent, not to speak of the more
obvious failures in pronounced selfishness and vi-
ciousness of life. We can all see that there is a dis
turbing element in life ; life has missed its purpose,
with many lamentably, with all to some degree.
The disturbing element is sin. It is therefore essen-

32 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
tial at this point that we examine the Christian
doctrine of sin.
The origin of sin is unessential to the Christian
faith. Of that we have no knowledge. Whatever
we may think of the story of the fall, it leaves the
great mystery untouched. Why did God permit
sin ? The mind strives in vain and to no purpose
to read this dark enigma. None who has a heart' to
feel the wickedness and the suffering in the world
but will at times be oppressed with the weight
of the mystery. But there are certain questions
which we so plainly see to be beyond the grasp of
human intelligence, that the wisest course for us is
to set our faces resolutely away from them. We
accept what we see, the fact that man has the power
to make choice against his highest interests and that
he is apparently governed by an inveterate propen
sity to make that evil choice. This power of choice
seems to be a necessary condition of man's educa
tion. We must, however, beware of admitting any
Manichaean dualistic theory. We cannot allow
the possibility of an evil power outside of God,
commensurate with his power. There is but one
God. The doctrine of sin has suffered from the meta
physical bias which has done so much harm in
vitiating theological thought. It has been treated
according to the realistic philosophy. St. Augus
tine stands as the exponent of an elaborate doctrine
of sin, in which he gathered up the elements which
seemed to him prerequisite to the Christian belief in

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 33
redemption. We cannot here enter into a partic
ular consideration of this theory or of the various
modifications of it which have been proposed since
the time of Augustine. It is sufficient if we recog
nise their common object and the fatal defects which
characterise them alike. The object was to make
all men partakers of sin and of its consequent ame
nability to punishment, by which the doom of death
came upon the human race, and thereby to make
redemption through Christ appear as necessary
and rational. It was an attempt to justify God by
means of a theory which in its nature was rational
istic. Men were not satisfied to take human nature
where Christ took it, with its sinfulness and its need
of a Redeemer. To establish a theory, St. Augus
tine forsook the Christian ground, repudiated the
only criterion which Christians can acknowledge in
religious things, and lost himself in a series of specu
lations whose forms were borrowed from an alien
philosophy. The result of these speculations was
then brought back into the sphere of religion, made
a doctrine and introduced to the Christian world as
an article of faith.
When we ask for the scriptural warrant of this
doctrine, we are referred to the writings of St. Paul,
especially to the fifth chapter of the Epistle to the
Romans. Now, we have the assertion by one of
the writers of the New Testament itself that in St.
Paul's epistles there are " some things hard to be
understood," and when we consider the injurious
effects of the doctrine of original sin in the Christian

34 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Church, we are tempted to believe that the writer
of Second Peter had this very fifth chapter of the
Romans in mind when he added: "which they
that are learned and unstable wrest, as they do also
the other Scriptures, unto their own destruction."
But, whatever be the meaning of St. Paul's specula
tion about sin and death, we at least have a right to
demand that a doctrine of such far-reaching conse
quence as that of original sin should be borne out by
the teaching of Christ himself. And yet, although
no one can deny to Christ the keenest appreciation
of sin and sinfulness, we search in vain through the
gospels for any theory as to the cause of universal
guilt. Christ simply recognises the sinfulness of
each individual who comes before him, and then
he dwells upon and seeks to impress upon men the
remedy for sin which he brings.
I believe I am not far wrong in saying that among
the theological errors that have caused Christianity
to be misunderstood and undervalued, the doctrine
of original sin stands in the foremost rank. Its
effects upon Christian thought and Christian life
have been most injurious. First, it materialises sin.
Sin becomes a something outside of ourselves and
of everything else ; it becomes a thing detached
from our inner life. We do not become conscious
of it in the affections of our heart, in the processes
of our mind ; it is a mysterious quantity which is
objective to us as anything else outside of us is, with
which we therefore deal according to the rules of
logical discourse. This materialisation and external-

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 35
isation of sin inevitably carries with it an impairment
of the sense of guilt. This is the most fatal conse
quence of the doctrine of original sin. It defeats
its own purpose. Invented to enhance the import
ance of sin, its tendency is to do away with the
personal sense of sinfulness. For the feeling which
the belief in original sin carries with it is something
far different from the sense of sinfulness to which
Christ appealed and which forms the condition of
redemption. When sin becomes a mysterious
something, which I am supposed to share with
Adam, which is handed down from generation to
generation, the sense of guilt is dulled and an aes
thetic aversion takes its place. Sin comes to be
looked upon as something ugly, revolting; it excites
our disgust. The feeling is similar to that caused by
a putrifying object or a festering sore. But aesthetic
aversion is a very different thing from the con
sciousness of sinfulness.
It is a necessary consequence of the doctrine of
original sin that it weakens responsibility ; no amount
of reasoning will ever make us feel responsible for
Adam's transgression. It also confounds the de
grees of sin. Sin conceived as belonging to the
race deserves death ; there are no degrees of punish
ment. What is the use of distinguishing degrees of
actual sin when I am held to have deserved the
extreme penalty for a sin with which I had nothing
to do ?
It is evident, however, that there is a valuable truth
to which the doctrine of original sin gives imperfect

36 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
expression. Ritschl expresses this truth by means
of the phrase: kingdom of sin. That term recog
nises the fact that sin exists, not as an isolated un
connected fact, but as a complexus of closely related
phenomena. It is patent that there are inherited
tendencies to sin. I say tendencies, and it is im
portant to mark the distinction. Sin becomes sin
only by the actual transgression of the individual
will, but there is no doubt that the tendency to
transgress may be handed down from father to son.
Then there is the propagation of sin by example,
the mysterious power by which sin begets sin.
These facts make it proper to speak of a law of sin,
the law by which, in the complexus of human phe
nomena, sin is connected with sin. This is the
element in the conception of original sin which is
founded in fact, but which is better expressed by
the term : kingdom of sin.
It is most essential that we clearly realise and
firmly grasp this truth : that sin belongs to the in
dividual will. There is no such thing as sin made
objective and dissociated from the inner life of the
soul. Sin is the peculiar quality of certain acts.
Sin no more exists by itself than colour or taste
exist by themselves. We speak of blueness, or of
bitterness, but no one supposes that these qualities
exist apart from the substances to which they be
long. So sin does not exist apart from the will or
the feeling. Bearing this truth in mind, we now
proceed to examine more closely into the nature of
sin.

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 37
Sin, in the Christian sense, must be understood
in relation to the divine will. The Christian as
sumption is that every human being stands in a
certain relation to the divine will. The power over
his life has been placed in his own hands, but it is
not a matter of indifference to God how he uses that
power. A large part of the acts of the individual
are indifferent, that is, they have no moral value.
They do not determine the quality of his life. But
so far as any act determines the value of my life, it
is not indifferent to the divine will. God has a pur
pose with every human being. That purpose is not
the same with all, as the parable of the talents
shows. Men are variously gifted, and correspond
ing to his endowments there is an ideal of every
man's life. We must suppose that to an omniscient,
righteous, loving God this ideal is always present,
that he is ever conscious of the purpose of each
man's life. Man stands before God, not only as he
is, but as he may be. This truth follows from the
conception of God as the New Testament gives it to
us. From it is deduced a much more comprehensive
estimate of sin than that which is commonly held.
If there is a divinely recognised purpose to each
life, then sin is the deflection from that purpose in
the man himself. I make the restriction contained
in the last words to guard against any ambiguity
from a possible deflection caused from without,
by sickness or the action of others, which of course
would not be sin. So far then as man by his
own action departs from that ideal of his life,

38 THE KINGDOM OF 'GOD.
which exists in the divine mind, it is sin. God has
marked out a certain path for man to travel. Man
follows his own inclination and forsakes the path ; in
so doing he commits sin. Sin is the crossing of the
divine purpose.
The most evident manifestations of sin are found
in the exercise of the will against the law of God.
Sin here is what we call the transgression of God's
law. It is a matter of the will. But if the above
definition is true, there is also sin of the feeling. It
is somewhat difficult to draw the line accurately be
tween will and feeling, but it is of the highest im
portance to recognise the fact that we sin in our
feelings as well as in our will.
In speaking of the feelings, I do not mean such
feelings as anger or covetousness, which Christ in
cluded under the positive prohibition, nor the
ephemeral feelings which come and go; but those
fundamental feelings, which go to form what we
call our habit of mind, which give quality and direc
tion to our character, which are often unconscious,
but which are always there as the substructure of
our conscious life: the persistent feelings which
make one man differ in disposition from another.
Man is a creature dependent upon God. Do
what he will, he cannot get away from that depend
ence. Now, the question is : What position will he
take towards this fact ? There is a twofold possi
bility ; he may acknowledge it or he may deny it.
If he ignores the alternative, as so many men seem
to do, it is equivalent to a denial. But the normal

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 39
position for man, that which agrees with God's pur
pose for him, is to acknowledge his dependence upon
God. This is the most essential point of difference
between men, the acceptance or the denial of de
pendence upon God. The difference is one of
temper, of disposition, of habit of mind. And this
temper or disposition or habit of mind is simply
that set of feelings, become habitual with us, by
which we determine our relation to God. Sin
therefore consists as well in aberration of feeling as
in aberration of will.
Let me rehearse the salient points of the argu
ment. We have asked, What is sin ? In answer
we say, Sin is defined as the departure of man, by
his own act, from the ideal of his life recognised by
God. This departure takes place, first, through acts
of the will by active transgressions of the divine
law. But we have also found that there may be a
departure from the normal life in feeling. This is
the religious, as distinguished from the ethical view
of sin. It explains to us the fundamental distinc
tion between the God-centred and the self-centred
life. The former is normal, the latter is sin.
It now remains to point out in what ways the con
sequences of sin make themselves felt. In three
ways : First, the active transgression manifests itself
in the sense of guilt, the accusing conscience. Sec
ondly, sin as wrong feeling makes itself felt in lack
of mental peace. The self-centred mind does not
come to rest. Contrast the serene calm of the Chris
tian mind with the unrest of the mind that has not

40 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
found God. Thirdly, it is manifest in joylessness.
Life's task cannot be done without joy. To the
heart alienated from God, life's work is drudgery.
Sin is the negative condition of Christianity.
With a deepened sense of sin goes a deeper appre
ciation of Christianity. A mistake has very com
monly been made which has hindered the full
Christian appreciation of sin. This consists in
measuring sin by the law. The dullness of con
science which the Church has at times rnanifested,
the slowness which she has often shown in recognis
ing a wrong,1 have been the consequence of that
perversion of truth which has made law the ultimate
standard. Sin cannot be measured' by the law, but
only by contrast with goodness. The Christian esti
mates sin by the standard of the ideal in Christ.
Therefore the Christian appreciation of sin is far in
advance of the Hebrew or the pagan.
There opens up before us here a subject of ex
treme interest in the peculiarity of the Christian
ideal of life. But I must reserve the consideration
of this subject to a future chapter, when I shall
speak of the ethical determination of the Christian
life. Here I can only point out how by virtue of
the infinitely higher ideal of Christianity the appre
ciation of sin is correspondingly enlarged and deep
ened. The higher Christian ideal is well illustrated
to us in our Communion service. There is first the
recitation of the Old Testament Commandments.
All but one of these are negative. They tell us what
1 Instance : Slavery and the present corruption in political life.

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 41
not to do. Then comes " What our Lord Jesus
Christ saith " ; and here we have, in contrast to the
negative, the positive commandment of love to God
and love to man. The ideal which Christ recog
nised, which we learn from his life and his teaching,
is the positive ideal.
This confirms what I said before of the purpose
of God with each life. Christ teaches us to recog
nise the positiveness of that purpose. How infinitely
keener and more delicate is the sense of his short
comings in the man who goes through life with his
eye steadily fixed upon an ideal, than his who
measures his actions by the dead precept of the law.
The law may give you an external, theoretical know
ledge of sin, but the subjective inner feeling of sin
with which goes the hatred of it, is only possible
when one has grasped the ideal of goodness as it
has been manifested in Christ.
We started to find the nature of that bar to the
state which Jesus called the eternal life, which is
the highest conceivable life, the life in communion
with God. This brought us to the Christian doc
trine of sin. Sin stands in the way of the realisa
tion of that higher life, by alienating man from God
and producing within him the feelings of guilt, un
rest, and joylessness. It is idle to ask whether sin is
a necessity of human nature, whether, theoretically
considered, we must not admit the possibility of a
sinless development. Whatever may be in theory,
practically there is and there can be no life without
sin. In the ninth of the Thirty-nine Articles, we

42 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
read that " Original sin . . . is the fault and cor
ruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is
engendered of the offspring of Adam, ' ' etc. I do not
know that any better account could be given of it
than by calling it a " corruption," if we beware of
giving a physical interpretation to this term. There
is no need of a more exact definition. Sin stands
for something radically out of joint in the world.
Kant spoke of an " Ur-bose. " What that is, no
one can tell. All we can say is that it is a necessity
laid upon human nature, which acts as a hinderance
to its normal development, to the attainment of
everlasting life.
We may now proceed to the next stage of our
argument. We have determined two points in life: sin, as
man's natural state; the eternal life, as his destined
end. What lies between sin and the eternal life ?
The answer is, Forgiveness. Sin is the obstacle
between man and God. It keeps man from God
and the eternal life. It must be overcome. Man
himself cannot overcome it. God overcomes it, by
forgiveness. This is a rough way of stating a very
important religious truth. Forgiveness occupies a
foremost place as an element of the Christian religion.
Christ very clearly recognised this. Instance the
story of the paralytic, the sinful woman, the woman
taken in adultery, the Lord's prayer: " forgive us
our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass
against us." The recognition of forgiveness in the

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 43
words and actions of Christ is too evident that we
should fail to recognise it as in his conception a nec
essary element of the Christian system. To this
subject therefore we must give our serious attention.
There is in religion an inveterate tendency to ex-
ternalisation. Subjective conditions and processes
are objectified ; they are divested of their ethical
character and estimated by quantitative measure
ment. This tendency is observed in the pagan
systems, and it accounts for the constantly recurring
superstition in the Christian Church. We found it
expressed in the commonly received conceptions of
sin. The external obligatio ad pcenam, the pun-
ishableness, is emphasised as the essential character
of sin. Sin and the punishment of sin have been
confounded. Corresponding to this external conception of
sin is the idea of forgiveness as the remission or
cancelling of punishment. The opinion of man
kind has from the beginning coupled moral wrong
doing and physical evil as cause and effect. Suf
fering is the punishment of sin, and is cancelled
by forgiveness. This is a fundamental idea of
primitive religion. Homer makes Phoebus send a
pestilence into the Greek army in revenge for the
insult Agamemnon had offered to the priest Chryses.1
Nemesis represents the popular belief in the neces
sary connection between physical punishment and
wrong-doing. This doctrine is prominent in the Old
Testament. We, however, in the light of the Christ-
1 Iliad. Book I.

44 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
ian revelation, are obliged considerably to modify
the traditional conceptions. Christ in several cases
emphatically denied that guilt was to be inferred
from the infliction of suffering. Instance the Gali
leans, whose blood Pilate had mingled with their
sacrifices, and "those eighteen upon whom the tower
of Siloam fell " (St. Luke xiii.). Very striking is the
case of the man born blind in St. John ix., where
the disciples represent the popular conception of
physical evil as the punishment of sin: " Master,
who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was
born blind ? " Jesus unequivocally sets himself
against the idea: " Neither hath this man sinned,
nor his parents."
Whatever be the organic connection between
sin and physical evil — this remains an open ques
tion — sin and evil do not necessarily go together
as cause and effect in the individual. ' And there
fore the forgiveness of sins cannot mean the can
celling or setting aside of the penalty upon sin in
the form of suffering. Christ made the distinction
very clear in the case of the paralytic: " Son, thy
sins be forgiven thee." And after the assurance of
forgiveness, the healing:." Arise, and take up thy
bed and go thy way into thine house."
But, it may be said, forgiveness cancels, not
present, but future punishment. This relegation to
a. future time is a convenient disposition of a diffi
cult subject, but it finds no indorsement from the
words of Christ. One of the striking peculiarities
of Christ's view is a blending of present and future,

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 45
according to which the characteristics of the life to
come are to be found in the life that is.
The association of forgiveness with punishment,
as commonly understood, is therefore a habit of mind
which must be considerably modified, if we are to
understand the function which forgiveness serves in
the Christian system. This will be the more clearly
apparent if we consider one event in the life of
Christ, into which forgiveness enters: the story
of the sinful woman with the alabaster box of oint
ment, in the seventh chapter of St. Luke's Gospel.
Jesus declared that her sins are forgiven her. What
was the meaning to that woman of Christ's for
giveness ? The Pharisee had wondered that he
allowed her to touch him, for she was a sinner. He
would have no intercourse with her; so far as he
was concerned, she was an outcast. But to Jesus
she was not an outcast. The heart of the sinning
woman had softened. She accepted the divine
pardon, and the Son of God received the penitent
sinner back into fellowship with goodness and with
God. The forgiveness of God was typified in the
action of Christ, when in contrast to the Pharisee,
who scorned her, he admitted her into human fel
lowship with himself.
We need but to realise the meaning of forgiveness
between man and man in order to understand this.
My fellow-man does me a wrong. With that wrong
something comes between him and me. Our normal
relation of trustful intercourse is marred. The
offence he has committed is henceforth a bar to our

46 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
intimacy. There is an opposition between us. It
may not be expressed, but it is felt. The pleasing
agreement of will with will, thought with thought,
has ceased. There is no longer the old easy, fa
miliar, confident exchange, of sentiment. In short,
there is a distance between us which had never been
before. But now the offence is forgiven ; the dis
tance is immediately closed up. It does not mean
that punishment is remitted ; there is no thought of
punishment. But it means the restoration of per
sonal intercourse between man and man ; it means
the banishment of distrust and suspicion, the re
sumption of the old intimate understanding. It
means that the barrier is removed, and I have taken
him once more into the fellowship of my heart. It
was this restoration of fellowship with Christ that to
the sinning woman constituted her pardon.
Just the same took place with the woman taken
in adultery. Although here Jesus does not speak
the word forgiveness, it is implied when he says:
" Neither do I condemn thee." This story shows
us the contrast between the human and the divine
way of dealing with men. On the one hand is the
law, representing the state with its even-handed
justice, demanding death for the adulteress. But
there is a greater power than that of the state, the
power of divine forgiveness. It did what human
justice could not do, it restored the woman to her
self and to society.
We found sin to consist in the departure from
God's purpose, either in will or in feeling. We

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 47
can now understand what the punishment for sin
really is. It is the feeling of alienation from God.
Man is cut off from the source of his life, he
becomes a castaway. Like the ship on the trackless
ocean whose mariners have been stricken with blind
ness, so is man without God. This alienation from
God is experienced in the form of those feelings
which accompany sin: guilt, unrest, joylessness.
Forgiveness brings man from alienation to commun
ion. It is the closing up of the breach between God
and man. God accepts man into fellowship with him
self. Man is placed once more in his normal position.
He becomes God-centred. No human language can
adequately convey the idea. The relation of spirit
to spirit is a mystery which we can but faintly in
dicate. And yet we understand what is meant.
The heart that finds itself restored to fellowship
with God is filled with new feelings. First, there
is the peace of conscience. The forgiveness of sins
does not mean that all remembrance, of sin is can
celled either in the divine or our own mind; but
the remembrance of the wrong done is robbed of its
sting ; it does not prevent the feeling of one-ness in
will with God in which the heart comes to rest.
There is eliminated the sense of opposition to the
will and purpose of God : man has a good conscience.
Then there is the peace of the mind. Says
Arthur Hugh Clough in " Dipsychus " :
" I am rebuked by a sense of the incomplete,
Of a completion over soon assumed,
Of adding up too soon."

48 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Many men have felt what the poet felt. A vague
feeling of unrest, " a sense of the incomplete," a
misgiving that the key to life is wanting, a certain
puzzled helplessness in facing life's problem. That
insatiable longing of the human mind for a unity of
principle in life is not satisfied without God. There
is only one point of view from which all the ele
ments of the great world-problem show themselves
to us in their true symmetry and proportions, and
that is with God. And there is only one way of
placing ourselves there, that is through the closing
of the chasm between man and God which sin has
made: by forgiveness.
Finally, there is the strength for life's work. Man
has a task to accomplish, a work to do. We have
seen that one effect of sin is a joylessness which
clogs all effort. Forgiveness does away with that.
No man does successful battle with life unless he is
keyed up to that feeling of joy where in the sense of
God's continual presence he faces his task with a
stout heart. " The fruit of the spirit" — says St.
Paul — " is love, joy," etc. (Gal. v. 22). It is the
privilege of the Christian that he has control of a
power before which the dark clouds that had low
ered over life's issues and made the event seem un
certain, which have brought despondency to many a
heart, are dispelled. To the Christian there can be
no such thing as despair. The issues of life he is
satisfied to leave in stronger hands; he can look
forward serenely to the morrow because he knows
that " all things are ours and we are Christ's and

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 49
Christ is God's " (i Cor. iii. 22); his is the privilege
which the popular saying describes: One man with
God on his side is a majority. This confidence, this
courage, this joy comes to him who has been brought
into the fellowship with God through forgiveness,
which heals the wounds that sin had made.
We have now found the meaning of forgiveness;
it is not the remission of punishment in the ordinary
sense. It is the bringing, back of man to God from
the state of alienation in which sin had placed him.
But here we meet with a difficulty. Is it not possi
ble that a man might have the same experience as
that which has been described as the result of for
giveness, by the reverse process, by the hardening
of the heart ?
We are puzzled when we find that the peace
which we connect with forgiveness is sometimes en
joyed by those who apparently are devoid of re
ligious feelings.1 There is a large class of people
who, without religion, seem to be happy, contented,
1 The following paragraphs were written under the impression
made by large masses of people in great cities. It is this mass of
apparently meaningless lives that presents the greatest difficulty to
the religious view of life. One cannot at times help feeling as Mat
thew Arnold did :
" What is the course of the life
Of mortal men on the earth ? —
Most men eddy about
Here and there — eat and drink,
Chatter and love and hate,
Gather and squander, are raised
Aloft, are hurled in the dust,

50 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
and peaceful. It seems as if their very stolidity and
indifference gave them what religion gives to the
Christian. Are we to say that this hardening of the
heart, this dulling of the faculties, is a sort of for
giveness ? It is this brutish apathy which, more
even than the wickedness of life, puzzles and per
plexes. But the question is answered for those upon whom
experience has forced it, by another experience — the
strongest external evidence, I believe, for Christian
ity which the execution of the pastoral office fur
nishes. In the midst of a hopeless dullness and
mediocrity of life, from the level plain of stolid in
difference, there suddenly flashes upon us a bright
example of Christian beauty of life, a life of refine
ment and acute sensibilities, of deep religious
experience and high moral tone.1 It is such lives as
these that show us the difference between confirmed
Striving blindly, achieving
Nothing : and then they die —
Perish : — and no one asks
Who or what they have been,
More than he asks what waves,
In the moonlit solitudes mild
Of the midmost ocean, have swelled,
Foamed for a moment, and gone." Rugby Chapel.
And yet one feels rebuked for admitting this view of life to the
mind. A truer chord is struck by that other voice that comes down
to us through the centuries : " One sparrow shall not fall on the
ground without your Father."
1 One is struck by a refinement of features not infrequently met in
such surroundings.

RELIGIOUS DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 51
indifference and Christian forgiveness. The fact
that such men and women have been enabled to rise
above their surroundings gives evidence of the pres
ence of a spiritual power in their lives, and makes us
understand that callousness is not forgiveness. It
may deaden the heart to the effects of sin, but it
leaves the sin itself, the satisfaction with the imper
fect life, the brutish complacency in the state of
alienation from God.
Forgiveness, bringing man to God, takes away
not only the guilt of sin but the sin itself. Not that
man becomes sinless; but sin no longer exercises
the determination of his life ; there is an opposition
to sin ; the better nature asserts itself against the in
fluences which tend to drag man below the level of
man's dignity. This is the secret which so often
invests homely lives with a nobility and grandeur,
where the peace of life is not the peace of the brute
who knows no wants but his appetite, but the peace
of manhood, alive to the sense of its worth and its
possibilities. This peace belongs to the life of com
munion with God.
Forgiveness is the process by which that life is
entered. It includes therefore two elements: the
knowledge of sin and the release from sin.

CHAPTER II.
THE ATONEMENT.
I HAVE used the word " forgiveness " to denote
the change that takes place when the sinner is
brought from a state of alienation to one of fellow
ship with God. It is so used by Christ. In the
New Testament, however, there are other words
which have the same or a cognate meaning. Fore
most among them is the word " justification." The
prominence which St. Paul gives to this conception
is well known. "Justified freely by his grace"
(Rom. iii. 24) : this was the corner-stone of that
grand ideal of the Christian life which has made St.
Paul the greatest human exponent of Christianity.
St. Paul had distinct and well-defined conceptions
of Christian truth. There are doubtless points at
which this conception seems to deflect from that of
Christ. But it is no less true that, clothed in a dif
ferent phraseology, we find largely the same funda
mental ideas. We have the idea of the eternal life
reproduced. St. Paul does not, it is true, follow
Christ in the use of the same words, but speaks out
of his own experience. Again, St. Paul's view of
the religious determination of that life is equally
pronounced. If ever there was a man whose life
52

THE ATONEMENT. 53
was determined by his relation to God, it was St.
Paul. Finally, what Christ calls " forgiveness," St.
Paul called " justification."
The two words stand for the same thing. This
has not been generally understood. Forgiveness is
supposed to denote a negative operation, justifica
tion a. positive. It is thought that forgiveness only
takes the sin away, but does not impart goodness,
that it therefore leaves the sinner in a neutral con
dition. From this he is translated to a condition of
positive value by the process of justification. The
fatal objection to this is that it makes forgiveness
unintelligible. A process by which the soul remains
neutral is inconceivable. As was pointed out in the
introduction, we cannot understand anything as
affecting the soul except as the effect is manifested
in the soul's activity. Forgiveness is unintelligible
unless it is evidenced by the active feeling of the
soul. It is therefore just as much a positive act as
justification. Forgiveness in the language of Christ
and justification in the language of St. Paul stand for
the process by which the Christian state is entered.
The attempt to differentiate these terms is an in
stance of how completely the living interests of faith
are lost out of sight when logic takes the place of
experience. Theologians were even unable to agree
as to the order of the two processes, which was to
be conceived as first and which as second. As soon
as we set aside logical niceties, the matter becomes
very simple : Man has not attained, he cannot attain,
to his ideal ; between him and that ideal there is a

54 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
barrier. God alone can help him. God does help
him. Whether we call it Forgiveness, or Justifica
tion, or Adoption, or Reconciliation : all these terms
denote one and the same process, the one act of
God by which man is brought from a state of aliena
tion to a state of fellowship. The last term, recon
ciliation, denotes a little more than the others,
namely that the process has been brought to com
pletion by man's acceptance of God's gift.
Forgiveness must be understood as an act of God.
Here is the point at which the Christian and the
naturalisitc conceptions show the most decided di
vergence. God is not a transcendent, unapproachable
being, but one who enters into direct relation with
man. This relation is the dominating principle of
man's life. Furthermore, it is not merely man who
places himself in relation to God, God takes a posi
tion towards man. The act by which God forgives
man is called by Ritschl an act of " synthetic judg- -
ment." The distinction is between this and an
analytic judgment." An analytic judgment is one
which is made upon the analysis of the object judged.
It is the expression of what actually is. Forgiveness
would be an analytic judgment, if it were simply
the acknowledgment by God of the state of man
such as he finds it. It would then be no more than
an expression of a fact. Man is righteous and God
by forgiveness declares him to be so. A synthetic
judgment comprehends an act of the will by which
the object is made to be that which by itself it is

THE ATONEMENT. 55
not. Man as forgiven by God is something different
from that which he was before. And this he is by
virtue of the act of God. He owes his new position
with whatever that implies to God. He is in the
new position through the active exertion of the will
of God. Here again, the best guide is the analogy
of human forgiveness — Christ placed both on one
level when he taught us to pray: " forgive us our
trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against
us." As with us, when we forgive, there is a posi
tive act of the will, so with God. Forgiveness can
not be reduced to the operation of a natural law. It
presupposes a personal divine will.
The idea of forgiveness has become involved in
the conception of a judicial process. The first stage
of this process is the "satisfaction" of God. After
this satisfaction of God's honour or justice has taken
place, he pronounces sentence of forgiveness.
This connection between God's forgiveness and his
justice owes its origin to the legal ideas which in the
Middle Ages obtained a predominant influence in
the formation of Christian doctrine. It is a part of
that system whose fundamental tenet is the inherent
antagonism between God's justice and his mercy.
God's anger was turned away by the act of Christ
doing satisfaction to the demands of justice. For
giveness is the sentence by which man is relieved
from the penalties of sin. The question is sup
pressed : What prompted the action of Christ ?
The theory really attributes to God an attempt at

56 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
self-deception, making him ascribe that to his jus
tice which had been brought about solely through
his mercy.
The consequences of this theory which makes for
giveness part of a judicial process will be developed
at another place. Here I wish to call attention to
one practical result. In the common mind all that
is pleasant and soothing and comforting in religion
is connected with Christ, while it contemplates the
Father as the stern avenger of wrong. To the ma
jority of Christians probably, God the first person in
the Trinity is the God of the Old Testament, or, I
should say, of a limited portion of the Old Testa
ment, a denial of the God of the New Testament,
while Christ has attracted to himself all the loving
features of the God he revealed.
Christ brings forgiveness into relation with God's
fatherhood. So in the Lord's Prayer, where the
petition for forgiveness is preceded by the invocation
of the Father: " Our Father who art in heaven."
So too we read: " Forgive . . . that your
Father also which is in heaven may forgive you
your trespasses " — " But if ye do not forgive,
neither will your Father which is in heaven forgive
your trespasses " (St. Mark xi. 25 /.).• In the par
able of the prodigal son it is the forgiving father by
whom Christ illustrates God's readiness to forgive
the penitent sinner. In the high-priestly prayer, in
which Christ speaks of his atoning work and of its
relation to God, the conception all through is that of
the Father. God forgives because he is our Father.

THE ATONEMENT. 57
In the gospels we find not infrequent expressions
of a certain separation which exists between the fol
lowers of Christ and others. The peculiar use of the
term " world " marks this separation. We read in
the high-priestly prayer: " I have manifested thy
name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the
world" — " They are not of the world even as I am
not of the world. ' ' This idea of separation is carried
over into the epistles. St. Paul says: " God hath
from the beginning chosen you to salvation " (2
Thess. ii. 13), St. Peter: " Ye are a chosen genera
tion, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar
people " (1 Pet. ii. 9). When we remember what
is so important to bear in mind, that Christ built
upon the Old Testament, that therefore the signifi
cance of what he did and taught must be learned
from the Old Testament, we shall easily find the
origin of this conception. It is pointed out by Christ
himself at the institution of the last supper: " This
is my blood of the covenant " (St. Mark xiv. 24).
These words refer to the covenant with Israel (Ex.
xxiv. 8). Jeremiah had prophesied a new covenant
which God was to make (ch. xxxi. 31). There can
be no doubt that Jesus at the institution of the Holy
Communion intended to designate himself as the
bringer of the new covenant. The old covenant
was ratified with the blood of beasts, the new cove
nant was to be ratified with his own blood. The
old covenant was for the forgiveness of sins, the
new covenant was a more effective agency for the
same purpose. The old covenant was between God

05 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
and — not the individual Israelites, but Israel as a
nation, a community. So, too, the new covenant is
between God and — not the individual, but the com
munion of believers, the followers of Jesus, the
Church of Christ, which is chosen out of the world.
As we are to understand Christ's intention by refer
ence to the Old Testament polity which to him was
the expression of the divine will, we must interpret
his purpose of a new covenant as the intended estab
lishment of a corporate body, a new Israel, which
was to become heir to the blessings promised to the
old Israel, but by them refused. Christ, thinking
as a Hebrew, could not have contemplated the in
dividual as primarily the object of his mission. He
could not have imagined the Church as a voluntary
association of individuals. Such a conception was
alien to the idea of a covenant. The covenant could
not be with the individual, it must be with the body.
Hence, underlying the idea of separation, in the
gospels and the epistles, is the opposition to the
world of the compact body of believers.
It is necessary to correct the natural bias of our
modern ideas, which is strongly individualistic, by
reference to the historic genesis of Christian concep
tions. We shall be able to express the result as it
affects our present conditions in a few words. As
seen from the divine point of view, the Church is
prior to the individual; it is not the individual be
lievers who by association form the Church, but it
is the Church which through the new life that it im
parts creates the believer. The meaning of the

THE ATONEMENT. 59
word as here used is that of the 19th Article: " A
congregation of faithful men, in the which the pure
word of God is preached," etc. This Church of
Christ, or fellowship of believers, is the new Israel
which takes the place of the old Israel. It is with
this body that the new covenant stands.
It is the Church, therefore, which is primarily the
object of the divine forgiveness, and the individual
attains that blessing through the Church. It is
essential to remember that the Church here does not
stand for any order or caste. But even with that
reservation, the proposition may seem to involve an
intermediary other than Christ between God and
man. Christ having once for all opened the way
from man to God, it is intolerable to conceive of any
thing being placed again between us and our creator.
But we must not fail to distinguish : it is here not a
question of the exercise of the Christian life, but of
the genesis of that life. The question is, How does
man come into communion with God? and the
answer, Through the Church. The Church, as the
object of forgiveness, is the sphere within which is
realised the blessing which God vouchsafes to man ;
and it is through the influence of the Church, through
training within the Church or through contact with
the Church's life, that the blessing is extended to
the individual. The Church is the means. It is
the organ of forgiveness, it is the body which is op
posed to the world as endowed with the power of
forgiveness. There is a sphere of life separated from other life,

60 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
which is characterised by its own special traditions,
by the exercise of certain functions, and by the com
mon aspiration and the partial attainment of a certian
ideal of life. This ideal is not a thing which may
be accurately described and communicated in human
language. It is something which exists and is per
petuated only in the lives of men. That body or
that sphere of common life, which is thus isolated
from the general life of the world, is the result of a
special relationship entered into by God for the good
of mankind. This is the covenant of forgiveness.
Forgiveness is the constitutive principle of Christ
ianity as forming the Church. The Church presents
that sphere of human society which is determined
by the principle of divine forgiveness. The corre
late of divine forgiveness is the Church, and the in
dividual so far as he comes within the sphere of the
Church. The individual does not make the Church ;
he always finds the Church present in human so
ciety ; and so far as he is touched by the peculiar
life of the Church, he becomes partaker of forgive
ness. It is an essential requisite of an ethical system
that the will of man be conceived as free. This is
the advantage of the foregoing theory, that it com
bines a due regard for God's sovereignty with the
preservation of human liberty.1
' If we conceive God's foreknowledge and foreordination to life to
apply, not to the individual, but to the body or fellowship of be
lievers, then the individual's freedom is conserved. God's immutable
purpose applies to the Church ; the individual is not predetermined.

THE ATONEMENT. 61
The question of the human will has been the most
prolific source of theological strife. The refinement
of speculative subtlety has drawn the nicest distinc
tions. The motive of such speculations was the de
sire of logical precision, which has done so much to
turn the minds of men from the true interests of the
faith, which has always employed a fruitless meta
physics as the instrument of its investigations, and
whose outcome has always been a materialisation of
Christianity. We can afford to set aside these subtle
ties as irrelevant to theology. It is sufficient to know
that man's action is simply the acceptance of the
divine pardon, the acknowledgement of dependence
on God. This is the first step of the Christian life.
The fault of the old theology was that owing to its
imperfect conception of God too much positive ac
tivity was attributed to man in the first act of faith.
It was man turning to God. We understand it to
be : God seeking man and man accepting God.
Man opens himself to God and God enters. The
human act is simply one of affirmation.
Here then we have the subjective side of forgive
ness. It is expressed in the word ' ' faith. ' ' Without
faith in man the act of God is incomplete. The
justification by which God declares his forgiveness
and by which the body of believers, the Church, is
drawn from a state of alienation into one of com
munion with him : that act is perfected in the in
dividual by faith and becomes Reconciliation.
This act of faith is not an act of the intellect. It
is not the mere credence given to certain statements

62 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
of religious truth. In all mental acts every faculty
of the mind is employed, and we classify them only
according to the prominence of one or the other
faculty. There is an intellectual element in faith
and an element of feeling; but the predominant
factor is the will.
We have to do here with the initial act of faith.
It must be carefully distinguished from the mature
act. Faith is a growth. We are now considering
the inception. We found that forgiveness was the
process instituted by God, by which through an act
of his will man is brought from sin to eternal life,
from alienation to communion. This is the object
ive act. The subjective correlate is faith, by which
man acknowledges his dependence upon the divine
will. I need not more than allude to the prominence
given to faith in the New Testament. When St.
Paul speaks of being " justified by faith," he means
that faith is the condition of justification ; justifica
tion properly is by God alone.
Contrasted with the view of forgiveness here
presented, is that which makes law the constitutive
principle of Christianity. Man's life is primarily
measured by the law. This is the original standard.
But man could not keep the law, and forgiveness
came in to help him out. At this point there is a
diversity of view. On the one hand is the doctrine
of man's total depravity. None of his works are
good. The law only condemns ; hence he is saved
by faith and forgiveness. On the other hand, it is

THE ATONEMENT. 63
held that so far as man keeps the law, he is accept
able to God ; forgiveness does away with the effect
of inevitable lapses. Law and forgiveness stand
side by side.1
With this shade of variation, the commonly ac
cepted view of forgiveness assigns to it a secondary,
accidental position in the Christian system. The
legal relation is first and essential. Forgiveness is
somehow adapted to this legal relation. There is
no clear differentiation of the distinctively religious
from the moral.
Against this view it is maintained, as the funda
mental distinction of Christianity, that the one
essential, permanent, all-controlling principle of the
Christian life is man's spiritual relation to God, of
which forgiveness is the expression.
There is a craving in human nature for unity. The
mind rests satisfied in the simplicity of one control
ling principle. The unity of the Christian life is
found in the principle of man's restored fellowship
with God, in Forgiveness. One very singular phe
nomenon connected with Christianity appeals to men
with increasing effectiveness in behalf of a gospel of
forgiveness : the growth of wickedness along with
the growth of goodness. It is prefigured in the
story of Christ's life, in the intensifying hatred of
the Pharisees and in the hardening of Judas's heart.
It is recognised by Christ, where he speaks of the
effect of his teaching: " That seeing they may see
and not perceive ; and hearing they may hear and
1 Compare the Homily " Of the Salvation of Mankind."

64 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
not understand ; lest at any time they should be
converted and their sins should be forgiven them "
(St. Mark iv. 12), and in those words: " Think not
that I am come to send peace on earth ; I am not
come to send peace but a sword " (St. Matt. x. 34),
and again in his forecast of the future in the dis
course upon the destruction of Jerusalem. It is
that fact which has been so puzzling and unaccount
able to many, that Christianity seems not only to in
crease goodness but to increase wickedness. With
all the good that Christianity has produced in the
world, we stand after eighteen hundred years aghast
at the wickedness of man.1 With all the light
of Christianity the dark side of life seems darker
than before. Whatever be the explanation — whether
the religion which is to restore to man the divine
likeness, must of necessity in bringing man to the
consciousness of himself and of his power give him
the power of evil as well as the power of good, and
so bring out all the evil possibilities of his nature
as well as the good ; or whether the apparent
intensification of sin is more a quickening of the
moral sense due to Christianity which makes that
appear sin which never was thought sin before— the
result is the same : it makes us feel the insufficiency
of any merely moral religion and brings home the
power of Christianity as the religion of Forgiveness.
1 This dark side of our Christian civilisation contrasted with heathen
virtue, and also its counterpart, the standard of goodness unattained
outside of Christianity, is strikingly portrayed by an intelligent Jap
anese in The Diary of a Japanese Convert.

THE ATONEMENT. 65
We are now about to take another step forward in
our argument. Let us review the salient points of
the result we have so far reached. We have es
tablished three essential positions. First, the
all-important interest of the Christian life is, not
conduct but a state; not what we do but what we
are — the eternal life. Second, there is an obstacle
which prevents man from attaining that life — sin,
which rightly understood is alienation from God,
either in will or feeling. Third, God does away
with this alienation and brings man into fellowship
with himself — forgiveness, which is accepted by
faith. This forgiveness proceeds from God as
Father; it is the constitutive principle of the Christ
ian life, and it belongs to the Church.
The next link in our argument will be that which
establishes the connection between Christ and for
giveness. So far we have recognised none. We
have left Christ out. Now the question is, What
has Christ to do with the religious determination of
the Christian life ? What is the function of Christ
in our life ?
Forgiveness, as the constitutive principle of Christ
ianity, is identified with the Church. Where the
Church is, there is forgiveness. This fact, in itself,
establishes a certain connection between Christ and
forgiveness. For Christ was the founder of the
Church, and therefore historically the author of for
giveness. We experience communion with God as
a privilege common to the fellowship of Christians;
to Christ therefore as the founder of that fellowship

66 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
we trace the forgiveness which brought us into that
communion. At the fountain-head of that stream
which from its small beginning has grown to be a
mighty river, fructifying man's life and clothing it
with all the adornments of civilisation, sweet man
ners, culture, unselfish devotion, heroic endeavour,
love of truth and of justice, high aspirations, stands
the figure of the Son of man. From him issues the
stream of the water of life. The Christian Church
with its essential principle of forgiveness marking
it off by a distinct line from the world, points ever
back to its Founder, to him who came and an
nounced that " The kingdom of God is at hand."
In this historic fact of the founding of the Church
by Christ we have the connection between him and
the principle of forgiveness. He brought it into
the world. So far there can be no possibility of
doubt. Men in this our day feel themselves brought
back from sin and reconciled to God and in that
reconcilation they experience a new life, because of
what Christ did and said eighteen hundred years
ago. But this places us before a great problem, one
which has exercised the powers of the keenest in
tellects : Did Christ only preach forgiveness? Was it
his office simply to declare it as God's messenger?
Or, did Christ by what he did effect forgiveness? did
he make forgiveness possible? There is this dividing
of the ways. There are these two alternatives. The
one conception of Christ is that of a prophet, the
greatest in a long line of prophets, but still essen-

THE ATONEMENT. 67
tially on a level with the ancient prophets. To the
belief in Christ as a prophet may be added the attri
bute of divinity, and yet the conception of his office
may remain unchanged ; he came to preach a higher
truth, to announce to man a God who forgives sins.
According to this theory it only needed one emin
ently endowed to bring the truth of forgiveness
home to man. Let it be clearly and forcibly pre
sented, as Christ presented it, and man will grasp
and cherish it. This is the favourite theory
of those who place a great deal of stress upon en
lightenment, whose panacea is education. As soon
as man knows right — so they reason — he will do
right. Christ therefore came to teach, to reveal the
truth. His function was to bring a new knowledge.
The fault of this theory is primarily that it under
values the ethical problem of humanity. Doubt
less, enlightenment can do much for humanity.
But it must be a broader and deeper enlightenment
than that which the mere infusion of knowledge im
plies. An English teacher has defined education to
be " the transmission of life, from the living, through
the living, to the living." ' Taking life in its fullest
meaning, no words could more accurately express
the law of Christ's work for man. Life is some
thing more than knowledge, it includes the spiritual
and the ethical ideal. As such, life can be derived
only from the source of all life, Christ. From him
it is transmitted, through the living, the Church.
Life touching life : this is the idea of Christian edu-
1 Thring, Theory and Practice of Teaching, p. 27.

68 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
cation. How meagre, how inadequate, compared
with this, is the idea that mere enlightenment,
ignoring all the richer part of life, its strong im
pulses and passions, its moral sense and aspirations,
ever had or ever will have the power to regenerate
humanity. No more disappointing delusion has
ever taken hold of man. The way back from wrong
to right, from the sense of guilt to peace of mind, is
a more difficult process than the champions of en
lightenment fancy, who in a light-hearted way re
solve the problem of human sin into the ignorance
of childhood which needs only instruction for the
human race to outgrow. Such a misconception
reveals a total misunderstanding of the nature of
those forces that operate most powerfully upon man.
If Christ had been only a prophet and had done
no more than preach the truth, he would certainly
have failed as every prophet before him failed. But
why did Christ not fail ? Why is the history of
mankind since Christ so vastly different from the
history of the centuries before the Christian era ?
Surely, for no other reason than that in Christ God
dealt with the great problem of humanity in a way
essentially new, that Christ was something more
than a prophet, that he brought to bear upon man's
life a motive far more effective than mere know
ledge. Secondly, the language of the New Testament is
inconsistent with the prophetical theory of Christ's
mission. There are the words of Christ at the insti
tution of the last supper. They might of them-

THE ATONEMENT. 69
selves be interpreted upon the assumption that he
was a mere preacher of forgiveness. But when
taken in connection with his intention of establish
ing a new covenant they must mean something more.
If Christ made a covenant between God and man,
he was more than a mere prophet. Furthermore,
this theory offers no explanation of Christ's ex
pressed estimation of himself and his mission. If
all Christ did was to declare forgiveness, what will
you make of such expressions as : " Come unto me,
" I am the good shepherd," " Abide in me," " I
am the vine," and many others of like nature ?
How, finally, according to this theory, shall we un
derstand those words: " The Son of man came to
give his life a ransom for many " ? Hardly less
urgent is the objection from the view which the
writers of the epistles held. I need not cite pas
sages to prove that St. Paul believed in Christ as
something more than a preacher of forgiveness. It
will readily be seen that to reduce gospels and
epistles to the level of this theory would amount
to such an emasculation of the New Testament as
to create as large a problem as had been disposed of.
This brings us to the third objection. To make
of Christ a mere prophet is an intolerable offence to
the Christian consciousness : and this, by making of
Christ himself an unessential element in the Christ
ian system. If Christ only declared God's forgive
ness, it is clear that there is a possible Christianity
without Christ. One might overleap Christ. When
forgiveness has been grasped Christ becomes unnec-

70 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
essary. He is a mere accident in the plan of salva
tion, Christianity may be conceived with Christ left
out. But the heart of Christendom has instinctively
clung to Christ as the essential element of Christian
ity. You cannot conceive of a Christianity without
Christ. Any theory which assigns to him a merely
accidental position in the Christian scheme has
against it the weight of the Christian consciousness
of all the ages.
We may therefore consider this conclusion estab
lished : Christ is an essential, permanent, necessary
factor in the plan of salvation. No theory that
ascribes to him a secondary position is true to the
facts. Christ is effectively instrumental in bringing
forgiveness to man. But here again we are placed
before a dilemma: how are we to understand that
necessity ? is it God's necessity or man's ? Was it
necessary that Christ should live and suffer because
God could not otherwise save man ? or because
man could not otherwise be saved ? We are thus
brought face to face with the various theories of the
atonement. It is not my purpose to give an exhaustive survey
of the history of this doctrine. There are a few
general types around which many variations are
grouped, and it will be sufficient to refer to the
principal ones of these types. In the Greek Church
theological thought was dominated by the idea of
the perfection or immortalisation of man through
Christ. So far as there was any recognition of
a redemption, it was conceived as having been

THE ATONEMENT. 71
effected by a ransom paid to Satan, namely the
ransom of Christ's life. Modifications of this theory
long retained their hold in the Christian Church.
Traces of it are possibly found in the homily on the
Salvation of mankind ; although it is not stated
directly to whom the ransom was paid.
The theory of the atonement which has taken the
strongest hold within the limits of orthodox Christ
ianity is that which bears the name of Anselm. It
is called from him because he was the first to gather
up the thoughts upon the atonement, which had
been floating about, and to combine them into a
system.1 Theological subtlety has been intensely
busy, has complicated the doctrine with extensive
ramifications, and has produced a bewildering variety
of modifications. But the central point, the one
essential element of this type, is the thought ex
pressed by the word Satisfaction. God could not
forgive man's sin unless his justice or his honour
were satisfied, and that satisfaction was made by
Christ. That satisfaction may be conceived as
having been rendered in several ways, as punish
ment or as the payment of a debt. Something must
be paid for, something must be made up to God ;
there must be a propitiation, a reconciling of some
thing in God, before he can forgive. God is not
1 To guard against misunderstanding, I will state that the criticism
which follows is directed against the Anselmic doctrine, as it is com
monly held and taught to-day. I have no acquaintance with the
writings of Anselm, and experience teaches us to guard against a
hasty identification of the views of the master with those of his sup
posed followers.

72 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
free of himself to forgive. The field of theology is
covered with the remains of systems which have
sought to make this assumption plausible. We
shall see that, as the theory is commonly under
stood, it leads to a fatal objection. At this point
it is worth while to stop to consider an interesting
fact, already referred to, concerning the antecedents
of this doctrine.
There had been in the Latin Church from the be
ginning a tendency to a legal view of religion. The
genius for the law which had characterised the
Roman State was received as an inheritance by the
Latin Church. To the converted barbarian nations
the Church was represented largely as a system of
legal enactments. The Gospel as a " glad news "
became obliterated, the sum of religion was what
man must do, what he must believe, what he must
pay. The tendency was to draw more and more
of Christianity within the scope of the law. Finally,
the great doctrines themselves yielded to this ten
dency, and came to be judicially interpreted. In
the course of time legal phrases and their correspond
ing conceptions had made themselves at home in
theological phraseology, such as Judge, Indictment,
Satisfaction, Penalty.
The use of terms in analogy is very insidious and
apt to be misleading. In the sphere of religion,
where we are dealing with spiritual things, we make
very large use of this form of speech ; all the greater
should be our care to see that the analogy is jus
tified. For after the term which we have borrowed

THE ATONEMENT. 73
from another sphere has been used for a sufficient
length of time, it comes to be considered as having
a native right in its new surroundings and we are
apt to forget that it is borrowed. So it has been
with the legal phrases used in religion. Their
origin has been lost sight of. The relation sug
gested by the Anselmic theory of the atonement
between God and man has been unreservedly ac
cepted. The fact seems to have been lost sight of,
that the use of legal terms and the conceptions of
legal processes in religion are merely the application
to the spiritual and heavenly of terms and forms bor
rowed from one circumscribed sphere of human life.
The world of thought in which the Christian mind
to-day largely moves is the world of law. One nar
row sphere of human interests is expanded so as to
bring under the sway of its ruling principles all the
fundamental conceptions affecting the eternal well-
being of man. This view makes the kingdom of
God a huge Roman empire. The question is,
whether this analogy is justified.
The third type of doctrine of the atonement is
that of Abelard. The fundamental conception un
derlying Abelard's theory is that of God's love.
Christ in his life and his death is the expression of
God's love. There was no reconciliation necessary
between the demands of justice and those of love.
Christ did not propitiate the wrath of God. What
ever God's justice is, it is subordinate to his love.
The manifestation of God's love in the life and
death of Christ was given in order to awaken man's

74 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
love of God. God might have forgiven sins with
out Christ, but Christ was necessary to induce man
to confide in God. Other elements are attached to
this theory : the recognition of Christ as the head
of humanity whose merits are imputed to man, and
the conception of Christ's continued intercession for
us in heaven. But the essential feature is the con
ception of the life and death of Christ as being the
expression of God's love for man to awaken his
love. Of these three theories, thus briefly outlined, we
may leave out of view the first. It belongs entirely
to the past. The other two, those named after
Anselm and Abelard, may be taken as the opposite
poles towards which all modifications of the doctrine
of the atonement tend to approximate. They
agree in making Christ an essential element in the
Christian system, but they differ in that the first
makes Christ necessary on God's account, the
second on account of man.
The first represents the most widely accepted
view. It is the view which is generally considered
as underlying all " personal religion." This implies
a keen sense of sin, the consciousness of God's wrath
resting upon me as a sinner, the impossibilty of my
appeasing that wrath, the joyful acceptance of the
assurance that Christ has borne my sins and saved
me from God's wrath. It is commonly supposed
impossible to bring the sense of forgiveness home
to the sinner unless he is assured that the punish
ment which he should bear, is borne by another,

THE ATONEMENT. 75
This means that the sinner will not believe in for
giveness unless he understands just how God for
gives. But the sinner who has so much theological
curiosity may ask further : If Christ induced an angry
God to forgive sins, who induced God to send
Christ ? In fact, the practical necessity of this view
is an unwarranted assumption. Christ has perhaps
been presented to the sinner most frequently with
this view of the meaning of his life and death ac
companying the presentation. But that does not
prove that there is not a power in Christ's life and
death to bring assurance of forgiveness without this
theory.1 On the other hand, there can be no doubt that
the doctrine of the atonement, according to this
theory, has been and is still a great stumbling-block.
If it were this in the sense in which, according to
St. Paul, the gospel was a stumbling-block to the
Jews, this would, be no objection. But it is a
stumbling-block, not so much to the worldly as to sin-
1 I have, since writing the above, again read Lyttleton's essay on
the Atonement in Lux Mundi. One is strongly impressed with the
noble tone of this as of the other writings in that volume. But I
was also impressed with the artificiality of the doctrine as there pre
sented. After all, the crux of the question lies in the assertion, strongly
insisted upon by Mr. Lyttleton, of the practical and spiritual necessity
of a propitiation. If the belief in the propitiatory value of the death
of Christ isan essential condition of ourreligiouslife.it is a " mystery,"
which we have to acknowledge, although we cannot explain it. I
cannot accept this view. Compare on the other hand William Law's
essay on the Atonement. Law was the author of the Serious Call to
a Devout and Holy Life, which strongly influenced John Wesley and
which made an epoch in the life of Doctor Johnson.

76 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
cere seekers for truth, to men who are longing for an
adequate satisfaction for their religious wants, but
do not find it in a doctrine which puts insuperable
difficulties in the path of honest thought.
What are these difficulties ? We have seen that
the essential point of this doctrine as commonly
held is the conception of a necessary satisfaction of
God's justice. The difficulty comes when you
pursue this thought to its consequences in the
nature of God. Here is the touchstone for all theo
logical theories: What effect have they upon our
conception of God ? Is God, under this theory,
thinkable or not ? The consideration of this point
is reserved for another chapter, when I shall speak
of the idea of God. I shall here only anticipate
the conclusion, that the Anselmic theory involves
the idea of God in a fatal contradiction. It sets
God against himself and makes it impossible to
think God. It is therefore opposed to our religious
interests, and, whatever its pedigree and prestige, it
must be rejected. It is not in the appeasing of an
angry God that we find the necessity under which
Christ became man, suffered and died.
The solution of the problem must be sought along
the lines marked out by Abelard. The life and death
of Christ were necessary on account of man. Here
we start with God's forgiveness as a fact. God has
pardoned man's sin, God is ready to receive man
back into communion with himself. But God does
not force man into communion. Man is free to ac
cept or refuse. Christ was necessary to induce man

THE ATONEMENT. 77
to turn to God and accept forgiveness. To bring
man to God, not God to man, was the " work"
which the Father had given him to finish (St. John
iv. 34). For this he instituted the new covenant
and sealed it with his blood " for the forgiveness of
sins." For this he gave his life a " ransom (price)
for many ' ' (St. Mark x. 45). He lived in perfect com- .
munion with the Father and to bring his disciples
to the same communion was his object: " Father, I
will that they also whom thou hast given me be
with me where I am " (St. John xvii. 24).
To a superficial way of thinking it is unintelligible
that to bring forgiveness home to man should cost
so much. Forgiveness seems so natural. But they
who reason thus forget that the very naturalness of
forgiveness is owing to the Christian surroundings in
which they have been brought up. They are like
people in a house, who feel how firm and solid the
house stands and wonder why the architect found it
necessary to build such strong foundations when it
stood so firm. It is difficult for us, brought up as
we are from infancy with Christian ways of looking
at things, surrounded on all sides by Christian in
fluences, to realise how great is the difference
Christianity has made in the world. The introduc
tion of the Christian religion was the raising of
mankind to a new level. And to the magnitude
of the effect corresponded the magnitude of the
cause. It requires something more than the knowledge of
the forces which operate on the surface of life to un-

78 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
derstand man's true position in the universe, to
see clearly the steps in the orderly progress of
humanity to higher levels of civilisation, and to
forecast the future destinies of the race: for this is
needed an adequate knowledge and appreciation of
ideal forces.
The gradual elevation of man presents to the
student of history the spectacle of a process im
measurably laborious. Step by step has the ad
vance been made, and every step forward has been
won by a long struggle. Whatever was true in the
earlier ages of the world, when man had not so far
distanced the rest of creation, when as yet he re
mained but half-conscious of himself, of our own
age we may confidently say, that no such forward
movement could take place unless there were a
mighty spiritual propelling motive. And when we
ask, What is this propelling motive ? we are led to
contemplate the ideal forces which are working in
men's lives, and these forces we find focused in one
point, the atoning work of Christ upon earth.
This may serve to mark the outlines of our prob
lem. We see in the Church of God many influences
at work; each of these may be considered apart,
separate, isolated from its connexions and ante
cedents. But a deeper insight will trace these in
fluences to the one central fundamental force, the
power of Christ's atoning work. " I, if I be lifted
up from the earth, will draw all men unto me " ; this
was Christ's prophecy. He told of the Spirit who
should come to take his place. The forces which

THE ATONEMENT. 79
work for Christ are spiritual forces, and whoever
has eyes to see can recognise, under the surface of
history, underlying the obvious phenomena of pro
gress, the working of these great spiritual forces.
But behind these spiritual forces, at the point from
which they all radiate, stands the figure of the his
toric Christ, the story of his life.
The Church carries out the work of Christ. The
power working for Christ in the Church is the power
of personal life, by its nobility and sweetness draw
ing men to the knowledge of Christ ; or the life of
the Church as a body, by its Christian activity or
through the highest expression of its life, in its wor
ship, continuing Christ's influence upon earth. It
is life touching life, "from the living, through the
living, to the living," and wherever through the
influence of living man there is kindled a higher
sense of human possibilities as they are manifested
in the life of the God-man, there Christ is active.
Christ works through the lives of living men. This
is the great truth of the Church. She represents
the sphere of forgiveness, the principle of the higher
life, because in her has always dwelt some of the
power of Christ. From generation to generation
she has passed on the power and the knowledge of
Christ. Oftentimes has tradition distorted the
features in the picture which she handed down; but
never so that some of the truth of Christ's life was
not carried with it and some of the power of Christ
was not present, either in the worship and the minis
trations of the Church or in the lives of those who

80 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
were Christ's. So Christ works in the present
through the spiritual powers in his Church. There
is no thought which gives such high dignity to
human life and lays upon us such weight of respon-
siblity as this.
But wherever there is the power of Christ in
human life it rests upon the historic Christ; and
therefore I said that the manifestations of the Spirit's
power centre in the life of Christ. That power is
like a stream. Men come to drink of it far down in
the valley; but the water issues from the ground
high up in the hills. All power comes ultimately
from the life of Christ. That life is God's mighty
argument with men. There is no magic influence
going out from Christ to save man. The power of
Christ is the power of his earthly life, to bring home
to man the sense of God's forgiveness. A man may
be roused to an appreciation of himself, of his needs
and his possibilities, by the influence of a life of
Christian devotion in some fellow-man. But the
impression will be fleeting unless he goes to the foun
tain-head of power : the life of Christ. God, as we
believe, has preserved for us the record of that life,
and it is through the knowledge which we may have
from the gospels of the inner life of Jesus that he
chiefly exerts his saving power. The wonderful
power of the story of Christ's life has always been
felt. Says Leopold Ranke : " Even from the worldly
point of view whence we consider it, we may safely
assert, that nothing more guileless or impressive,
more exalted or more holy, has ever been seen on

THE ATONEMENT. 81
earth than were his life, his whole conversation, and
his death. In his every word there breathes the pure
spirit of God. They are words, as St. Peter has ex
pressed it, of eternal life. The records of humanity
present nothing that can be compared, however re
motely, with the life of Jesus." These are the
words of the dispassionate historian.' This is the
impression which his keen, comprehensive mind
received from the life of Jesus. But it requires no
keenness of intellect to appreciate the beauty of
that life. The inner life of Jesus discloses itself in
some measure to all who seek to make it their own.
That means something more than a mere intellectual
appreciation of Christ's life. It implies the sympa
thetic spiritual appropriation of the Son of God.
The influence of that life, as it enters more and
more into the consciousness, will be twofold. First, —
it convinces of sin. Though the moral sense may
slumber in many, there is no man without it, and
there can be no way of rousing that moral sense
more effective than placing before the mind the
beauty of that one life and its sufferings in behalf
of man.
Christ brings sin home to man, and so he answers
one great need of humanity. Without the con
sciousness of sin there can be no forgiveness, no
peace. Those who live sunk in sin and brutishness,
whatever hope there is for them, it is not from the
law. The law may inspire fear, but will not bring
to God. Our trust is in the influence of Jesus, that
1 History of the Popes, Book I. chap. i. § I.

82 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
a knowledge of the one perfect life will stir the dor
mant aspirations for something better and awaken a
consciousness of their own wants.
And then Jesus brings home the assurance of for
giveness. At the other extreme from moral indif
ference is moral sensitiveness. Many are so keenly
alive to the greatness of sin that they can hardly
believe in a possible forgiveness. The more we
learn of life, the darker grows the picture. The
consciousness of human sin has weighed heavily
upon the heart of Christendom. But the very
weight of the sin makes the feeling of relief all the
greater which the gospel of forgiveness brings.
Just here we see the marvel of the atonement. It
is the meeting of the greatest sin with the greatest
love. What is the sin of our time to the sin done
against Jesus ? to the hatred and cruelty inflicted
upon him who gave his life for man? The antagon
ism of wickedness to goodness reached a climax in
the life of Jesus. And yet, in spite of it all, we
see in him an unbroken, unfaltering, trust in God's
purpose to carry to a successful issue the intent of
his mission and a steady perseverance in his work
of mercy. Christ might be stirred to burning in
dignation against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees,
the sight of Jerusalem might fill his soul with keen
disappointment, such as found expression in his
memorable lament; but neither the opposition of
his enemies nor the sense of present failure could
make him waver one instant in his faith, that his
life was to be for the healing of the nations, or turn

THE ATONE MEN' I'. 83
him aside from the loving service which made up his
life's work. It is only when we view this persistence
of Christ against the background of man's wicked
ness, as it arrayed itself against him, that we are
able to measure in any sense the significance of his
atoning work. Is there anything more sublime or
powerful than that calm assurance in the face of a
cruel death: " Peace I leave with you, my peace I
give unto you " ? Surely there could be no more
convincing proof of God's forgiving love to man
than the life of Christ.
This then is the twofold effect of Christ's atoning
work. It rouses the indifferent to a sense of sin,
and him who is tempted to despair of man it as
sures of the divine forgiveness. But here we may
be met with this question : Does not this, after all,
conceive of forgiveness as something apart from
Christ ? Does it not really make Christ unnecessary ?
Is it not possible, with this view, to have fellow
ship with God without Christ ? Theoretically, yes.
We may conceive of God as revealing himself to
man directly, so that he enters into fellowship with
him without the intervention of Christ. But with
the conditions such as they are, Christ is a necessity
to Christian faith. There may be, there doubtless
is, a faith in God without Christ ; but such faith is an
imperfect faith. It is a faith to which a man has no
right, because he cannot give account of it ; such a
faith is dangerous. They say a man may walk over
the most dangerous places asleep, but let him wake
up and he is lost. So it is with those men who have

84 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
faith without Christ. The faith which is without
the consciousness of the only valid ground of faith
is the faith of sleep. The danger is that some sharp
stroke of fortune or some before unheard-of diffi
culty will suddenly awaken the man, and then he is
lost. This is what we have got to come back to : Christ
is the only ground we have of believing in a merciful
God who forgives sin ; and we would not believe this
truth, which almost daily experience seems to belie,
if Christ had not brought it home to us in the most
convincing manner. And so we believe that God
has in his infinite wisdom appointed Christ as the
means whereby man is to be saved. We believe
that we are to learn to believe in God by believing
in Christ. We believe that God's forgiveness em
braces those who shall become followers of Christ,
his Church. We believe that the Church is the
divinely appointed means for bringing to man the
benefits of Christ. We believe therefore that God
wills that we should receive forgiveness by entering
into the fellowship of Christ's Church. These ap
pear to us elements of that device by which God in
his love seeks to save man. Farther than that we
cannot go. We dare not draw the limits of God's
mercy and say that if some man, neglecting the
divinely appointed means, the Church and Christ,
seeks God, God will refuse him. Enough, that we
know what the way is for us.
It is, however, important to point out that Christ
is the means to the end. Christ pointed away from

THE ATONEMENT. 85
himself to the Father. There is a certain type of
faith which does not get beyond Christ. In so far
as it fails to reach God through Christ, it fails of the
standard set by Christ. Especially is that form of
Christianity which rests in the contemplation of
Christ's sufferings a gross deviation from Christian
truth. Christ's sufferings bring home to us the
depth of human sin, but the brooding contempla
tion of his sufferings substitutes an aesthetic feeling
for faith and is a sensualisation of Christianity. We
believe in Christ because in him we find God.
The place here assigned to Christ in the Christian
system is irreconcilable with that modification of
Christian theory which is widely prevalent to-day,
especially among those who turn aside in impatience
from what seems to them an idle strife of tongues,
the wrangling about doctrine. They seek refuge in
the simplicity of that Christianity which sums up
the Christian truth in the one word : imitation of
Christ. It is a relief to cast off all subtleties and to
rest in one easily understood principle. One of the
latest exponents of modern Christianity tells us that
this, after all, is the great thing. " Jesus," says
Mr. Gordon, " is our supreme example. There is
in him a mighty, imitable, reproducible character.
The imitation of Christ is the task of humanity." :
We cannot but rejoice that different men may find
different points of attraction, in Christ. But the
deeper consciousness of Christendom refuses in the
1 George A. Gordon, The Christ of To-day, p. 67.

86 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
nineteenth century, as it always has refused, to con
tent itself with this apparent simplicity and to recog
nise therein the essential element of Christianity. A
little reflection will serve to show how inadequate
this expression is. Imitation is of the outward : you
can imitate a man's dress, his house, his voice, etc.
In this way imitation comes prominently into play
in childhood. The child learns its first lessons by
imitating the actions which it observes in older
people. But imitation in spiritual things is of very
limited application. We may occasionally correct
our judgment by reference to the example of Christ.
But how little adapted this principle is to become
the regulative principle of the Christian life, we will
understand when we try to conceive of a character
formed by imitation upon some other human char
acter. Conceive of a Cromwell or a Washington as
great because they imitated somebody. Attempts
at imitation, as is well known, make a person not
great or good, but ridiculous. There is that in the
conception of human character which is incompatible
with imitation. This is the secret of character which
finds its only explanation in man's relation to God.
If we honestly seek to make ourselves as Christ was
we shall not try to piece together a patchwork of
character after his model, but we shall strive to ap
propriate the fundamental principle of his life.
The idea of the imitation of Christ is furthermore
unfortunate, because it places us on a level with him.
To say that Christ is an " imitable, reproducible
character " may be from one point of view an inno-

THE ATONEMENT. 87
cent assertion. There are doubtless moments in
life when Christ appears as one of us, fighting the
same battle of life. But such language is wholly
misleading if it would point out what should be the
Christian's fundamentalattitude. Christ claimed to
be unique; his significance to the world is that he is
unique, inimitable, not reproducible. If it were
otherwise, Christianity would never have been what
it has been these eighteen centuries. To place
Christ on a level with humanity is altogether to
miss the personal and the historic significance of his
life. It is robbing Christianity of its religious char
acter, to make it a morality.
Christ stands out from all history as the one human
character in whom God made himself known to
man, that by him man might be brought, through
forgiveness, into fellowship with God.

CHAPTER III.
THE ETERNAL LIFE.
We have traced the various elements that enter
into the consideration of the Christian life as relig
iously determined. The object of Christianity is to
realise the eternal life. Sin is the barrier to the
enjoyment of that life. God's act of forgiveness is
necessary to do away with the effects of sin; this
act is therefore the constitutive principle of the
Christian life. Forgiveness is bound up with Christ ;
through him alone we are brought into fellowship
with God.
The subjective manifestation of forgiveness or
justification is faith. In its incipient stage that
faith is simply the acceptation of God's gift. But
it is a growing faith. There is a beginning of
the Christian life and a progress. What was at first
merely an act of spiritual affirmation becomes en
larged, deepened, enriched. Faith develops into
trust, it becomes more and more the dominating
principle of life, it matures into the conscious love
of God. With this growing faith there goes hand in
hand the ethical determination of life to make the
perfect Christian. But the religious is fundamental ;
it is the essential determination of the Christian life.

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 89
Before there can be any true ethical life the soul
must have found its true relation to God.
We will now consider somewhat more fully this
"eternal life" into which the Christian enters
through Christ. In that life we have come into a
living fellowship with God ; a new principle asserts
its power over us; an influence has been awakened;
we have passed into the spiritual life, in which there
is a communication of spiritual forces. We recog
nise in the eternal life a direct relationship to God,
a communion or communication between God and
man which is realised in prayer.1 This is the pecul
iarity of the God-centred life, that it looks away
from self to God. All is traced to God. God, not
ourselves, is the author of the new life, the principle
of growth within us: " It is God which worketh in
you both to will and to do of his good pleasure "
(Phil. ii. 13).
Here we stop to notice a striking contrast between
character as formed on worldly principles and Christ
ian character. The former is a finality, to the
Christian there can be no finality of character. The
1 Ritschl's treatment of the Christian's personal relation to God, and
of prayer, is obscure and unsatisfactory. One reads and re-reads pas
sages bearing upon this question without being able to get at the
exact meaning. He denies the possibility of an immediate, direct,
spiritual relationship; and yet one has a lurking suspicion that in a
way peculiarly his own he allows it. The same is true of one of
Ritschl's most eminent pupils, Herrmann, in his Verkehr des Christen
mit Gott. I thought I understood the meaning of the word "Ver
kehr," communion. But after a careful perusal of this volume I was
sure I did not understand it, at least in the sense in which the author
uses the word.

90 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
common estimation identifies strength of character
with persistency and unchangeableness. It is the
crystal, clear-cut, sharply defined, unyielding. Such
have been many who have powerfully influenced
their fellow-men, men of great force. Christian
character has nothing of the same crystalline im
mutability, and therefore it is by the undiscerning
mistaken for weakness. Because it is God-centred,
not self-centred, it is not so imposing; there is an
absence of the self-assertion and the show of confi
dence, which have always won the plaudits of the
multitude. But its strength is of a finer quality and
more enduring. It is the strength of an Athanasius,
who with God on his side is equal to the world.
Christian character, so far from being immutable, is
ever growing. With every increase of light it takes
to itself new strength and new beauty. So far from
fearing change, it fears to get beyond change. For
change means growth, increase, progress. The
thing the Christian dreads most is the possibility of
that rigidity coming over him, which the world
takes for strength, but which to him is weakness.
For he is not sufficient unto himself; his strength is
God's, he looks above for all he needs, and he hopes
it will come to him more and more.1
In the introductory chapter it was pointed out
that a true theory of psychology demands that we
trace every influence upon the soul in the active
1 It is interesting to trace in art the difference between the two types
of character. Compare a Venus of Milo with a Sistine Madonna,
or the illustrations of DuMaurier with the paintings of Fra Angelico.

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 91
feelings. We may not deal with the soul as if it
were a something behind those feelings in which it
manifests its activity. We cannot separate the active
functions of the soul, its will, feeling, and knowing,
from the soul itself, and treat the latter as a passive
quantity. We cannot say that the soul is " saved,"
forgiven," " justified," " brought to God," unless
that salvation, forgiveness, justification, or approach
to God expresses itself in the soul's activity by cer
tain feelings. Therefore we shall have to trace that
state of the Christian which Christ called the " eter
nal life " by its manifestations in the new feelings
awakened in the soul when it is brought to God.
What is the scope of the feelings which are thus
brought into activity ? The question has very great
significance. To put it somewhat differently, What
relationships in life are affected by religion ? What
life is it, or what part of life, that is determined by
religion ? Schleiermacher maintained that religion
consisted in the feeling of dependence upon God.
This view would confine the religious determination
of life to our relation to God. It is our feelings
towards God that religion regulates. But from the
words of Christ we seem to get a hint of a larger
conception : " In the world ye shall have tribulation :
but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world "
(St. John xvi. 33). By the word " world," which
he says he has overcome, Christ means that com
plexus of forces, partly physical partly personal, with
which every being comes more or less in contact,
which oppose themselves to the aims of the individ-

92 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
ual: sickness, death, disappointments, injustice, ill-
will of fellow-men, etc.
It is impossible to leave "the world," as so under
stood, out in the consideration of religion. It is
impossible to understand the dependence upon
God except as carrying with it the independence of
the world. Man's religious life must be considered
not only as a relation to God, but also as a relation
to the world. In these two relationships, in the
feelings which belong to them, we shall trace the
manifestation of the " eternal life." As far as man
enters into an eternal life, he must feel himself in a
new position, not only in regard to God, but also in
regard to the world. The faith in God 's providence
combines the feeling of dependence upon God with
that which should characterise the Christian's rela
tion to the world. It is the feeling that the God
whom we trust will so guard us that the world can
not hurt us. This is the faith in God as Christ
understood it.
It is a shortcoming of our modern theology that
it fails of a correct appreciation of this faith in God.
And yet it was an essential element in Christianity
to the first Christians ; for nothing is so marked as
the emphasis with which this faith, as expressive of
the superiority to the world, is stamped upon the
epistles of the New Testament. St. Paul speaks
of " the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us
free " (Gal. v. i). He can mean nothing but liberty
from the world, understood as the complexus of

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 93
forces which oppose themselves to man's pursuit of
his end. St. Paul points to a well-known experi
ence. The " natural man " is dependent upon the
powers of nature and the will of his fellow-men ; they
impress themselves upon him as superior, his will
cannot obtain the mastery. He is a slave. And
when St. Paul says that Christ has set him free, he
but experiences the fulfilment of the promise :
" Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make
you free " (St. John viii. 32). It is the paradox of
the Christian life, that without any change of out
ward relation there is a reversal of feeling, — a process
beyond explanation upon a naturalistic hypothesis,
yet there is none that experience teaches as so true.
The bonds are broken, the feeling of dependence
upon the world is changed into one of freedom.
What was before a hindrance to our free action be
comes an aid to the completer development of our
individuality. The expression of St. Paul just quoted receives its
commentary in those glorious words of his in the
eighth chapter of Romans: " If God be for us, who
can be against us ? . . . Who shall separate us
from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress,
or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword ? . . . In all these things we are more
than conquerors through him that loved us. For I
am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor
angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us

94 * THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our
Lord." And that same sense of superiority to the
world is in those other words, in the third chapter
of the First Corinthians: " Therefore let no man
glory in men. For all things are yours; whether
Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or
death, or things present, or things to come ; all are
yours; and ye are Christ's; and Christ is God's."
St. Paul speaks elsewhere of reigning through Christ :
" They which receive abundance of grace and of the
gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus
Christ." The expression here as elsewhere1 is the
Greek verb fiaaiXaveiv ; the idea is that of king
ship. The Christian is a king; the Christian faith
gives him dominion of the world. He now rules
those forces which before had ruled him. This, not
in the sense that they no longer affect him out
wardly, but that his inner life is untouched by them.
He is above them: " From henceforth let no man
trouble me ; for I bear in my body the marks of
the Lord Jesus." The disappointments the great
apostle had suffered in his efforts for Christ would
have embittered most men. He simply falls back
upon his own individuality as it is fixed in Christ.
Whatever others do does not trouble him ; in the
sacred sphere of his own personality he is above it all.
1 Rom. v. 17 : cmp. 1 Cor. iv. 8. How little the Pauline idea of
"reigning," of the superiority to the world, has been understood, is
curiously illustrated in one of our prayers. In the Collect for Peace
in the Morning Prayer, the sentence, " Whose service is perfect free
dom," is a modification of the original, which in the Sarum Breviary
reads, " cui servire regnare est."

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 95
The world-conquering character of the Christian
faith finds striking expression in the often-repeated
promises in the Revelation to those who " over
come," as, to take one verse out of many, in chapter
iii. 5: " He that overcometh, the same shall be
clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out
his name out of the book of life, but I will confess
his name before my Father and before his angels."
The same thought is echoed in the Epistles of St.
John (I. ch. v. 5): " Who is he that overcometh the
world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son
of God." The idea is identical with that expressed
by St. Paul under the name of Christian liberty.
We find it again in St. Peter's Epistle. Here it
appears as the joy, which is the expression of the
Christian's superiority to the world: " Rejoice, in
asmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings;
that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be
glad also with exceeding joy " (I. ch. iv. 13). The
same in St. James (ch. i. 9) : " Let the brother of low
degree rejoice in that he is exalted." In this
Epistle we meet again with the idea of Christian
liberty, when St. James speaks of " the perfect law
of liberty " (ch: i. 25).
But it is not so much in special expressions that
this mark of Christianity is to be sought for in the
New Testament, as in the general tone, in the
underlying feeling. For this sense of dependence
upon God and trust in divine providence exists
not always in a conscious mental act; faith is not
always present to the mind in the shape of a dis-

96 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
tinct proposition. We possess it mostly as a sort of
temper, a disposition of heart and mind, an under
lying ground-tone which gives quality to our spirit
ual life. It is this ground-tone, this underswell of
faith in God as against the world, that runs through
the epistles of the New Testament, and more than
anything else gives them their distinctive character.
This faith in God differentiates the Christian spirit
from what is commonly known as optimism. The
latter is a haphazard quality. Take two men, one
an optimist, the other a pessimist. They look at
things differently. Why ? Probably for one or
both of two reasons: for the personal experience
which has differently affected each, or for differences
of temper and disposition owing to physiological
causes. Optimism, as commonly understood, has
no other foundation than these two : it is either the
result of a fortunate experience, or it is owing to a
happy disposition or good circulation and digestion.
Christian optimism has nothing to do with these
things. It believes in the world because it believes
in God. It makes no difference what may happen ;
to the serene confidence of the Christian the ultimate
victory of the good is secure. Christian optimism
has a very wide outlook ; it is ready for many dis
appointments, it counts only upon ultimate triumph.
It has a very broad field; it cannot embrace less
than humanity ; it dare not bind itself to one nation
or race. No amount of Christian optimism would
have saved the Roman empire ; Christian optimism

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 97
cannot to-day rest secure in the belief that God will
save the American people, if they defy the eternal
laws of right and truth.
Christian faith is something different from stoical
resignation. The latter is passive ; it lets the waves
of adversity roll over it without opposition or mur
mur. The spirit of Christianity is an active spirit.
It is that feeling of superiority which is not content
to yield to the forces of the world, but cherishes an
active principle of opposition. It is not a numbing
of the powers and feelings of the individual, it is the
most pronounced assertion of the rights of individu
ality. It is the courage of the man, not the indiffer
ence of the brute. So far from being identical with
mere endurance, the Christian faith is full of joy.
It faces life's tasks with that elated feeling of mas
tership that comes alone with the conviction that a
power higher and stronger than ourselves is on our
side, that " all things work together for good to
them that love God." With that courage for the
struggle goes the mental peace. We found, when
we spoke of sin, that the state of separation from
God is characterised not only by an accusing con
science and the sense of guilt, but also by a mental
unrest and discontent. It is the feeling of help
lessness and bewilderment of the godless life.
Life without God is an enigma, a confused mass
of conflicting phenomena. It is for the want of
the key to life, which is in God alone, that the
lives of many seem like one prolonged labour of

98 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Sisyphus, a straining after a satisfaction which is
never attained.
What is more striking in the life of Jesus than its
perfect calm ? It is this which carries with it so im
pressively the suggestion of strength. When we
think of the feelings within his breast, how tumultu
ous at times they must have been; the indignation
at wrong-doing, the impatience with narrowness, the
shock to his patriotism, the pain at his countrymen's
ingratitude, the bitterness of failure, the wounding of
his tenderest sensibilities, the disappointments over
the weakness and slow comprehension of his disciples,
and finally the physical suffering — how wonderful is
not the even, unbroken calmness of his life ! Through
it all, perfect self-possession, a heart and mind at
peace, no trace of discord in the inner life, no be
wilderment or wonder at the strangeness of his lot,
no complaint, no impatience — just a calm, self-
collected, God-centred strength. We shall always
have to go back to the life of Jesus, not to find a
model to copy, but an ideal of Christian character,
which shows us what man may become.
It is this God-centred strength that forms the
chief element of Christian character. You may call
it by many different names, the liberty of the Christ
ian, independence, the dominion over the world, or
simply faith ; it is that quality which has translated
itself into our modern vocabulary in the use of the
word character. It is the same as that which Christ
calls the eternal life. It is the " life hid with
Christ in God," the outcome of that forgiveness

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 99
which brings man back from a state of alienation to
God, to the source and sustainer of his being, and
places him there in his true abiding-place, that on
that vantage-ground, at the centre and fountain-
head of all being, he may experience what else were
impossible, the value of his own soul and its superior
ity as against the world. And in this new position
the Christian enjoys assurance of salvation. He is
saved, in the present and for all coming time. '
In his essay on Carlyle's Cromwell, Mr. Mozley
has a fine description of the poetical type of the
hero. " A hero," he says, " is a person, who in
some special and marked way, shows, under a sur
face of outward activity and adventure, — that of the
military life especially, — a soul superior to and not
belonging to this world." The appellation is con
fined to the few who, either in ancient or in Christian
times, have been exhibited to us as possessing those
qualities under peculiar and distinguishing circum
stances. But Christianity has really made heroism
the common property of all. It is no longer the
distinguishing characteristic of a few who have
drawn the world's gaze upon themselves. Heroism
is of the very essence of Christianity, and it is im-
1 It is at this point that the practical difference between the Roman
and the Evangelical systems is especially apparent. One of the
chapters of the Decrees of the Council of Trent is directed " Contra
inanem hereticorum fiduciam," and closes with these words : " Cum
nullus scire valeat certitudine fidei, cui non potest subesse falsum, se
gratiam Dei esse consecutum." It has been well said, and the saying
admirably characterises the two ideals of religion, that the end of the
Roman system is to be safe, that of the Protestant to be sure.

100 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
possible to draw the line at any particular degree of
glamour and brilliancy which must surround the
man to make him a hero. There is no generic
difference between the heroism of a rock-chained
Prometheus and that of the poor seamstress in the
back alley working her fingers to the bone to sup
port an aged mother, uncomplaining, sustained in
her brave struggle by a Christian faith. Christian
heroism is simply superiority to the world exhibiting
itself under adverse circumstances.
Our popular religion is much at fault in leaving
out of consideration this relationship of Christianity
to the world. It has largely failed to comprehend
that this faith in God as against the world is the
true and proper goal of Christian aspiration, consti
tutes the Christian life. There has been always a
tendency to seek for a higher, more distinctive,
meaning in the Christian life. This trust in God's
providence was too simple, it became associated
with " natural religion," and its connexion with
Christianity was lost sight of. Something above
and beyond it, something peculiarly and essentially
Christian, was demanded.
Mysticism claims to be a higher type of Christian
ity. Not that there is not something mysterious
and mystical in that faith whose essential nature is
communion with God; but mysticism proper is
something beyond this. As a movement of the hu
man mind, it is represented by several most import
ant historical phases, and it stands for a distinct,
well-defined peculiarity of religious devotion. Mys-

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 101
ticism pretends to a more intimate union with God
than that which Christian faith ordinarily implies.
In the union with God the mystic endeavours to
anticipate the fruition of that blessedness which is
the state of the redeemed' in heaven. It is the
catching at something which is beyond the reach of
ordinary mortals. The rapture of the mystic is at
tained only in moments of ecstasy, as the result of
special efforts by which he is raised for the time
being above himself through intensity of contempla
tion, fixing the mind upon the divine being, where
the feeling of self is lost in the sense of God. The
act of mystical union with God implies an abstrac
tion from the world. The world is forgotten, the
relation of the man to the world is set aside. If
therefore we were to allow that this mystic ecstasy
is a legitimate form of devotion, we should have to
modify what has been said of the necessary relation
ship of the Christian to the world. We should have
to acknowledge that there is another higher ideal in
which the world is left behind, where the religious
life consummates itself in the one relation to God.
We should be obliged to distinguish between an
ordinary, everyday Christianity and the religion of
the " perfect." This is, as we well know, what is
done. The " religious life" is a higher life than
the average Christian life. Christians are divided
into two classes: those whose religion is confined
within the limits of sober, everyday, Christian ex
perience, and the perfect who alone come to the full
fruition of Christian blessedness.
The mystic's religion is abstraction from the

102 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
world ; Christ's religion is superiority to the world.
The two are fundamentally opposed. A religion in
which the human is absorbed into the divine and
the world is no more, in which a superlative excel
lence of Christian devotion is sought by means of a
transcendental rapture, is foreign to the spirit of the
New Testament. It is human, not divine, religion.
In the line which it necessarily draws between the
ordinary and the perfect it demonstrates its anti-
Christian character. The religion of Christ is the
world-religion, because it is the religion of all alike.
It does indeed count on growth and therefore there
are differences of faith. But the same end is access
ible to all. There is in the gospels no reservation
for the few. There is no esoteric and exoteric.
Christianity knows no privileged class. The history
of monasticism abundantly proves that there is a
peculiar fascination in the " religious " life ; but it is
the fascination of selfishness, its almost invariable
accompaniment is spiritual self-righteousness.
Furthermore, mysticism goes beyond Christ. In
that perfect mystical union with God, where the
soul is emancipated from time and space, and in an
ecstasy of spiritual devotion becomes incorporated
in the divine, there is no more Christ, no more posi
tive Christian belief. Christianity becomes a mere
stepping-stone to something higher ; when that
higher is attained, Christianity is done away with.
Whereas the true fellowship with God is realised
only through Christ. So far as we have any true
conception of God it is found only in Christ. Any

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 103
theory of religion which leaves Christ out steps be
yond the bounds of Christianity. Hence it is not
surprising to find a close relationship between mysti
cism and the pagan religions. Mysticism is not
Christian, but pagan. It is at home in the theoso-
phies of the East, not in the religion of Christ ; its
god is the metaphysical god of neo-Platonism, not
the God of the New Testament.'
Mysticism represents but one of many attempts
made at different times in the history of the Christ
ian Church to go beyond the gospel. Monasticism,
asceticism, pietism in all its forms, and the Anabap
tist extravagances follow the same tendency. They
are all alike in this, that they overlay the simplicity
of the gospel with elaborations of doctrine or prin
ciples. As efforts to grasp at a higher meaning, to realise
a deeper devotion in the Christian religion, such
phases of life and belief form an interesting chapter
in Church history. They owe their origin to the
very greatness of Christianity. The modern view of
1 A modified type of mysticism traces its origin to the discourses
of St. Bernard on the Song of Songs. The Christian's relation to
Christ is that of bride and bridegroom. Reverential love of Christ is
turned into the play of a morbid phantasy and degraded to a physical
passion. To this category belongs to-day the "marriage" of the
nun taking the veil to Christ, and the revolting cult of the Sacred
Heart. In the same direction lies the morbid contemplation of the
sufferings of Christ. " In the Latin Middle Ages the verbal profes
sion of the divinity of Christ is the price paid for the permission to
love him as a man, to imitate him as such, to draw him down to one's
own level, to play with him " (Ritschl, iii. 553).

104 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
life is Christian, it represents the conquest of the
world by Christianity. And this view of life has
become so thoroughly at home in the world that it
is only when we reflect upon it that we recognise
its Christian character. Christianity has created the
atmosphere of our modern life ; but because we have
never known any other, we are apt to lose sight of
the fact that it is a Christian atmosphere.
It is to this imperfect appreciation of the influence
of Christianity in the world that is due the tendency
to search for a higher meaning in the Christian re
ligion. The correlate of this tendency is the divi
sion which is commonly made between what is called
Natural Religion and Revealed Religion. Accord
ing to this division there are two layers of truth.
The lower comprises all that nature, conscience, and
the intellect teach; the upper layer is made up of
those truths which, being beyond the reach of human
faculties, Christ revealed. Among the truths of
natural religion is placed the belief in God's provi
dence. This is supposed to be the elementary truth
in the Christian religion. It requires no revelation
to teach it. We know it of ourselves. The distinct
ively Christian truths go far beyond it.
It is here more than anywhere else that we dis
cover the inadequacy of our modern religious
conceptions. That truth is made the first, the
elementary truth, the starting-point, which in reality
is the most difficult, which is the last Christian
truth, the outcome, the grand conclusion, the ulti
mate result, the crown of the Christian system.

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 105
We speak of the " modern world " as if it were
altogether a different world from that of bygone
ages. This difference is apt to be exaggerated.
And yet there is a truth in the distinction. Our
life is different from the life that went before us.
What we call " modern civilisation " is modern; the
enlightenment, the progress, which we boast of as
being a characteristic of these " modern " times, is
real. There is a line drawn between the past and
the present which is clearly defined. But there is
no shallowness so hopelessly shallow as that which
attempts to define modern civilisation in terms of
material and intellectual achievement. Not a few
are dazzled by this kind of success; they identify
the progress of our times with the discoveries and
inventions and with all those physical accomplish
ments which have added so much to our knowledge
and to the well-being of life.1 Such do not see that
these achievements are merely one manifestation,
and that not the most important, of" what consti
tutes the real progress of modern times.
The distinguishing character of modern civilisa
tion is its energy. We find this energy in the intensi
fication of activity along all the lines of human
1 Compare the display of modern intellectual achievement in Fiske's
Idea of God. The writer seems to hold that in some unexplained
way this intellectual progress has illuminated "the idea of God."
Tennyson is wiser in what he says of the " flower in the crannied
wall " : " . . if I could understand,
What you are, root and all, and all in all,
I should know what God and man is."

106 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
interest. This is true of all that concerns the
material welfare of man ; it is true also of the intel
lectual activities. It is furthermore true of certain
activities which are equally characteristic of modern
" progress," although in their effects they appear
rather as a return of the tide of advance. I mean
the intensification of political interest and the spread
of social agitation among the masses, with the deplor
able accompaniment of those evils which books like
Bryce's American Commonwealth or Lecky's Liberty
and Democracy bring home to us. Human faculties
are keyed to a higher pitch of vigour than ever be
fore: this is modern civilisation.
But is this all ? Far from it. He possesses a
very meagre knowledge of the true forces which
underlie the varying phenomena of human history
who fails to discern the motive cause of this in
creased energy. Underlying all the phenomena of
history are great spiritual forces. There has never
been a movement but it has been the result of a
spiritual force. It is this deeper view of history,
which underneath the material effect seeks for the
spiritual cause, that is so fascinating to the mind
when it has come to a realisation of the fact that all
we see on the surface of life is merely the manifesta
tion of the forces underneath. These forces are
manifold. Some are easily detected. Such are the
love of power, the lust of gold* They are great
forces, but there are forces which are greater than
these. These are strong in individuals; but to find
the motive power in those movements which com-

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 107
prise great masses in their scope, we have to famil
iarise ourselves with the great spiritual powers.
Underneath the intense energy of the human
faculties, underlying the exercise of interest in every
line of human progress, is that which alone makes
this energy and interest possible, a hopefulness, a
buoyancy, a confidence.' The more we realise how
the mystery of human life, its suffering and death,
has hung like a dark cloud over the race, the more
we wonder at this confidence and hopefulness. Is
it natural ? Here are the words of one of the wisest
who lived at the very time Christ came into the
world. This is what Pliny the Elder thought of life
and its prospects: " The vanity of man, and his in
satiable longing after existence, have led him also to
dream of a life after death. A being full of contra
dictions, he is the most wretched of creatures ; since
the other creatures have no wants transcending
the bounds of their nature. Man is full of desires
and wants, that reach to infinity, and can never be
satisfied. His nature is a lie, — uniting the greatest
poverty with the greatest pride. Among these so
great evils, the best thing God has bestowed on
1 It is the energy and the hopefulness of Christianity that struck
the intelligent author of the Diary of a Japanese Convert most forci
bly : " Why is it that heathens in general go into decay so soon, but
Christians in general know no decay whatever, but hope even in
death itself? . . . I attribute the progressiveness of Christendom
to its Christianity. .' . . Enormous yet though their sins are,
these people have the power to overcome them. They have yet no
sorrows which they think they cannot heal. Is not Christianity worth
having if but for this power alone ? " (p. 200.)

108 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
man, is the power to take his own life." * Here is
the true natural theology. With man growing more
and more conscious of himself, ever brooding upon
the insoluble enigma, his own life, what more natural
than that suicide should seem the only true end.
Had man given way to the despair of Pliny, it would
have been only what might have been expected.
Had man in that despair resolved to face his fate
bravely, had he steeled himself to bear the inevit
able, had he for all these centuries endured to live,
that, too, might have been natural, and we should
admire the power of resistance implanted in man.3
But that man, without hope, should develop the
intense activity which he displays to-day — this is
impossible. The train of reasoning, whose salient points I
have only briefly indicated, must lead to the con
clusion that what we call modern civilisation is pos
sible only by virtue of Christianity. Christianity
has created the atmospheie of hopefulness which
1 Pliny's Natural History, quoted from Neander's Church History,
Introduction. 2 This is the ideal of character represented in Shelley's Prometheus
Unbound: ' ' To suffer woes which hope thinks infinite ;
To forgive wrongs darker than death and night ;
To defy power which seems omnipotent ;
To love, and bear : to hope till hope creates
From its own wreck the thing it contemplates ;
Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent ;
This, like thy glory, Titan, is to be
Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free ;
This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory."

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 109
underlies the display of energy that characterises
our age. That hopefulness is simply trust in God.
Not that this trust exists as an active power in every
individual who is energetically active, but it does
exist in society at large ; it exists as a very positive
power in many who consciously believe in a guiding
providence. It exists in many more as an uncon
scious disposition. Take away this trust, and
modern civilisation would collapse in a day.1
It is because we see this confidence everywhere
around us, because we have been brought up in it
from our infancy, because we have never known
anything else, that we are apt to forget that it owes
its being to Christianity, that it would be utterly
impossible without Christianity, that in this very
1 The view here presented is of course diametrically opposed to
that which Mr. Spencer maintains with so much force. It is a com
mon infirmity, of two phenomena which are evidently related to one
another as cause and effect, to choose that which suits one's own
theory for cause and the other for effect, when the relation might
just as well be the reverse. In this case it is a very delicate question.
Taking religion and practice as two doubtless related phenomena,
which is cause and which is effect? Spencer maintains that practice
generates religion. " It was not the creed but the mode of life
which was influential — not the theory but the practice. This, indeed,
is the general reply to be made to the large claim put in for Christi
anity as the great civilizer, etc." (Principles of Sociology, iii. p. 477).
The drift of thought has, I think, been away from Mr. Spencer.
His mistake is that he does not recognise the religious forces, which
exist as unconscious an.d half-conscious feelings, habits of mind and
views of life, and as such are powerful motives of action among the
great masses of Christian people. If Christianity were simply the
conscious belief in Christian doctrines, it would play a very small
part indeed in the world's history.

110 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
hopefulness and confidence we find the effect of
Christ's work upon earth. And forgetting that, and
putting it down to the credit of so-called "-Natural
Religion," we worry ourselves to find out what
Christianity really is and we impose upon ourselves
an unnecessary yoke in the shape of an extraordin
ary exercise of devotion above simple faith.
An objection may be urged to the view, as here
stated, that Christianity makes the energy of modern
civilisation possible. First, it seems strange, upon
this hypothesis, that the faith in God, which we
have claimed as eminently the outcome of Christian
ity, should be nowhere so beautifully expressed as in
the Psalter, written long before Christ ; so that we
to-day still go to the Psalms for the highest embodi
ment of that faith. Secondly, it is not our age
alone that is characterised by an intense energy.
What shall we say of the age of Pericles ? Must
there not have been a hopefulness and buoyancy to
make possible the masterpieces of Greek art — and
that without Christianity ?
This is true. The early ages of the world did
possess hopefulness and confidence, and among the
Hebrews a pronounced and most beautiful faith in
God. It is not claimed that either of these could
not exist at any period without Christianity. But,
had there been no Christianity, there would have
come a time when these qualities would have ceased
to exist.
Something is due to the freshness of the world in
the earlier stages of human history. The life of the

THE ETERNAL LIFE. Ill
human race bears a certain analogy to the life of the
individual, in that there is an infancy and a maturity
of the race. The characteristic of maturity is self-
consciousness. I am aware that it is dangerous rashly
to assume a difference of our age from any preceding
age. Human nature is alike in all ages; and the
phenomena which we hold to be peculiar to our own,
a more familiar knowledge of past events often
teaches us, have been equally well known in other
periods. But we cannot escape this conclusion that
the modern world is different from the ancient in its
self-consciousness. The mind of man has tended
more and more to return upon itself. Not that they
did not study the workings of the mind. We re
member Plato. But they threw themselves unre
servedly into the objective external as we cannot.
We are held back by an overpowering sense of
personality. It is the difference between heedless
childhood and manhood which cannot get away from
itself, but is forever pursued by the insistent per
plexities of its own mind.
When Christ told his disciples to become like
little children, he recognised both the natural bent
of the child and the effort which it costs the man to
become as the child. The childhood of the human
race lacked the sense of independence which belongs
to maturity; it found no difficulty in believing a
God or many gods, although even then it required,
as we believe, a special inspiration to reveal to the
Hebrews the truth that God is a God to be trusted.
But our self-conscious age, in the sense of its matur-

112 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
ity and independence, finds it increasingly difficult
to return to the conditions of childhood. It no
longer believes as the child believes. The simple
child-faith of the Hebrew Psalmist could not
have lasted. There would inevitably have stolen
over the world the sense of hopeless perplexity and
a dark despair such as is portrayed in those words of
Pliny, had there not come into our life a something
which brings home to man with a coercive force far
beyond that of human voice the possibility of that
trustfulness of the child, which underlies and alone
makes possible our modern civilisation.
The thought which is here dwelt upon is, by a
logic which is precisely the reverse of the true, used
to make it appear that our time stands less in need
of religion than the past ages. Religion, it is said,
is a guide for the immature ; we have grown into
manhood ; we dismiss the guide. We have done
with it ; the world having gone so far with religion,
can now do without it. We can see how shallow
such talk is, how for the very fact that man has
passed out of the stage where he acted spontane
ously into the self-conscious stage, in which he
probes every motive of his action, he needs religion
more than ever to give him the hopefulness which
is necessary for life. What would be the result
should Christianity disappear from the face of the
earth ? Suppose that by some magic there should
suddenly come upon men the belief that Christianity
is a delusion. The mind is staggered in trying to
conceive the catastrophe that would follow the

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 113
total disappearance of faith. This is certain : what
we call civilisation would be no more.
We have been led into the foregoing train of
thought by the consideration of what constitutes
the essential character of the Christian life. It has
been maintained that the faith in God's providence,
which gives us security and dominion of the world,
is the principle of the eternal life into which we are
brought by entering into fellowship with God
through the forgiveness of our sins; that this faith
in God's providence constitutes the essential char
acter of the Christian life, that therefore nothing
beyond it need be sought. And we have tried to
show that historically it is this very faith which
makes Christianity the supporter of modern civi
lisation, that this faith is the distinguishing mark
of Christianity as a social religion.
In what has been said upon the latter theme it
seems to be taken for granted that there exists an
unconscious Christianity, a Christianity of those
who act from Christian motives, but have not the
Christian belief. And so much indeed we must
acknowledge. Here, however, it is largely a ques
tion of the proper use of terms. I do not know
that it would be a very fruitful discussion as to
whether those could properly be called Christians
who do not consciously believe in Christ. But it is
both an interesting and a profitable consideration,
that the hopeful outlook upon life which is the only
motive of energetic action, which produces growth

114 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
and improvement in society, is distinctively Christ
ian in its nature.
We can see clearly that there must be a nucleus
of conscious believers in Christ. This function be
longs to the Christian Church. It is the sphere of
those who enter into fellowship with God through
Christ. The Christian life in that fellowship is not
that poor, negative kind which consumes its energies
in trying to avoid sin and falls into the worst of all
sins. It is the positive aspiration after an ideal.
That ideal is nothing else but the perfect life, the
possibility of life which is beckoning every human
being, not the narrowness of a so-called " religious "
life, essentially selfish, reserved for a few. That ideal
is but one for all humanity; we are too weak ever
to reach it, but we are strong enough to aspire to it,
and it becomes to us a high motive. This is the
life which is filled out with the faithful work at life's
task as our God-imposed duty, in that state of life
unto which it has pleased God to call us ; the life
which is built upon an unfaltering faith in God's
providence ; which finds its highest expression in
prayer; which approves itself against the world by
the practice of patience and humility.
Let us rejoice if God finds his way into the human
soul by other means than by Christ. That does not
shake our belief that the Church is the divinely ap
pointed means, the sphere in which God has or
dained that man should enter into fellowship with
him. The Church then is the seat of the power
which Christianity has brought into the world ; the

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 115
life of its Christian fellowship is the living influence
of Christianity among men. God does not work by
magic charms ; but he does work by the lives of men.
And the life of the true Christian fellowship is the
life instinct with the life of Christ; it is the life of
fellowship with God based upon forgiveness. In
the Church's life is the motive power of Christian
ity. To it has been committed by God the future
of the world. It draws men into itself and by an
appeal which is more powerful than any other it
opens the way in their hearts for the entrance of
God. Is not this the truth of the Saviour's promise :
" Whosesoever sins ye forgive they are forgiven
them " ? This is the mystery of that strange power
above all other powers, the power of human life, so
strong in the individual, how much stronger in the
Church of Christ. How full of meaning, when we
understand this, is not the declaration of absolution
at the opening of our Morning Prayer, setting forth
as the first act of our worship the forgiveness of sins,
to bring which is the proper function of the Church.1
The Church is the purveyor of the divine blessing.
Its work is not done by magic processes ; that is a
perversion of Christianity. God's blessing is trans
mitted through the life of the Church, both the
individual life of its members and the life of the
whole body. There is a real life of the Church dis-
1 D was perhaps the worst fault of Puritanism that it lost sight of
the truo function of the Church. The body, ordained by Christ for
the execution of his mission, became a voluntary association of like-
minded people.

116 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
tinct from the life of its members. It makes itself
especially felt in the worship of the Church. The
worship of the Church is the act of the whole body,
not of the individual.
There are two ideas of worship. According to
one I go to Church for what I can get out of Church ;
in every act of the public function I stand as an in
dividual before God ; I pray for myself, I praise for
myself ; I listen to the Bible and to the preaching
for myself. This is the very negation of the Church's
function and the ignoring of the true idea of Christ
ian worship. This idea is nothing if not the ex
pression of fellowship. The worship is common
worship ; it is pervaded above all with the feeling of
sympathy and one common aim ; its essential char
acter is not petition or instruction, but praise.
Man's true worship of God is the praise of God.
The common worship is the highest act of the
Christian life. It is that act which is most instinct
with vitality and energy. We have all felt the
great power there is in common worship, when that
worship is genuine. There is no spiritual force
comparable to that of true united worship, voices
raised in harmony of tone and harmony of spirit in
the praise of God. It throws out an irresistible
spell. It is the most powerful means at the dis
posal of the Church for the spread of the kingdom
of God. There is a convincing force in common
worship, bringing home the truths of God's father
hood and man's brotherhood, which no logic can
hope to equal. Selfishness cannot stand against it.

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 117
When the Church is engaged in the act of true wor
ship, she is the Church of Christ indeed.
But, alas ! is this true worship the worship of the
Church which has inscribed upon her book of wor
ship " Common Prayer" ? Or must she acknow
ledge that she has not been faithful to her highest
function? Is it not time that we should set ourselves
in all seriousness to answer this question : What is
Christian worship ? Are we hopelessly blind to the
fact that the act of praise performed by a set of ap
pointed functionaries is in no sense of the word the
worship of the congregation? The performance of
the concert hall never can be the praise of the
Church. Before Almighty God there is no such
thing as vicarious worship. An abuse, which has
not its equal in the life of the Church, which will
more and more destroy the vital influence of the
Church in America, has been allowed to take
root and grow. Our congregations have almost
ceased to worship, and rest in the comfortable be
lief that they do their duty to God if they have
delegated that most essential function of the Christ
ian to a set of appointed singers. Even that most
solemn act of Christian worship, the profession of
our common faith, is turned into a show-perform
ance, at which the congregation takes the part of an
audience at the opera — a very satire upon our " com
mon prayer." !
1 There is no part of our Church life to-day which so cries out for
reform as the public worship. On the title-page of our prayer-book
stand the words, " Common Prayer." At the opening of our morn-

118 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
We have spent much of our time and energy in
trying to find out what was the original constitution
of the Church. Would it not be well if we now
turned our thoughts to the great living reality, the
Church in our own time, and endeavoured to under
stand what is its God-ordained use, what is the
power entrusted to it, how does that power manifest
itself, and what stands in the way of its operation ?
It is an inspiring thought that this organisation is
the instrument chosen of God for the redemption of
mankind, and there is a glorious field for the
Church's work. But that work will be adequately
done only when the selfishness of sectarian individ-
ing service is this appeal : " O come, let us sing unto the Lord : let
us heartily rejoice in the strength of our salvation. . . . O come,
let us worship and fall down. . . . O worship the Lord in the
beauty of holiness." What, measured by the standard of these ex
pressions, shall we say of the worship as it is generally performed in
our churches ? Either a set of hired singers performs an elaborate
musical programme for the entertainment of a very few musical people,
and the church is degraded to the level of a music hall ; or the con
gregation stands listlessly waiting for the end of a dreary chant in
which it takes not the slightest part. Let who will deceive himself
with the absurdity of a " worship of the heart " ; true worship has
well-nigh gone out of the Church, to the infinite loss of her vital
power. For — and I challenge anyone to deny this — the recital of
music by a choir is not Christian worship. The word " Common
Prayer " is becoming a misnomer. A more appropriate title for our
service book would be, " The Book of Prayers, together with a
libretto of the customary musical recitals." The apathy of the
Church in this matter, the almost entire neglect of the latent powers
of worship in our Book of Common Prayer, is in these days of
humanitarian enthusiasm a most extraordinary phenomenon. When
will the time come that we shall learn the difference between a
church and a concert hall ?

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 119
ualism, such as turns common worship into a parody,
gives way to a larger feeling of a common life and
common aspirations.
At no period has the Church failed in the per
formance, in some degree, of her divinely appointed
task, or else society would long ago have crumbled.
Yet it seems, as we look around us to-day, as if the
Christian Church had not yet awakened to the full
consciousness that her supreme mission, as the
Church militant, is to build up virile, brave, hope
ful character, and so doing to lay the foundations for
that society which shall ever advance towards the
consummation of the kingdom of God upon earth.
Let the Church to-day reflect that the splendid prac
tical work which she is doing will prove unsubstan
tial in proportion as she fails of the appointed
function of the Church : to show to the world what
it is to be forgiven, to live near God, to hold up to
the world the ideal of the eternal life. If to-day we
have to acknowledge a deflection from that ideal, I
believe the chief cause is in the degeneracy of our
worship. In concluding this part of our enquiry, let us turn
to the writings of those who are the true Christian
prophets and seers of our day, the great modern
poets: a Tennyson, a Browning, a Wordsworth.
What is the secret of that power which makes us so
often sit at their feet ? Is it not that they have
preached a message which, bringing in a larger hope
and a stronger faith, sustains us and gives us cour-

120 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
age ? And that message, whence did they get it ?
Can there be a. doubt ?
When at the close of the first book of the " Ex
cursion " we read how the wanderer's meditations
at the deserted cottage taught him,
" That what we feel of sorrow and despair
From ruin and from change, and all the grief
That passing shows of Being leave behind,
Appeared an idle dream, that could maintain
Nowhere, dominion o'er the enlightened spirit
Whose meditative sympathies repose
Upon the breast of Faith,"
we read in language as beautiful as any that English
literature contains the expression of a faith which
was drawn from Christ.
But Browning, too. Those inspiring lines :
' ' Therefore to whom turn I but to Thee, the ineffable Name,
Builder and maker, Thou, of houses not made with hands !
What, have fear of change from Thee who art ever the same ?
Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that Thy power expands ?
There shall never be one lost good ! What was, shall live as
before ;
The evil is null, is nought, is silence implying sound ;
What was good, shall be good, with, for evil, so much good more :
On the earth the broken arks ; in the heaven, a perfect round."
— they carry the message of faith, of courage, of
hopefulness. Could those words ever have been
penned without Christianity ? They go right to the
heart of the Christian religion. Whatever Brown
ing's intellectual belief was, he learned that lesson
from Christ.
" Doubt that Thy power can fill the heart that

THE ETERNAL LIFE. 121
Thy power expands ? " Contrast that with Pliny:
His nature is a lie, — uniting the greatest poverty
with the greatest pride."
Take even the poetry of an agnostic like Matthew
Arnold. With a music of its own, it often breathes
the spirit of the genuine seer. However little con
scious he was of it, that spirit came to him from no
other source than Christianity. Could " Rugby
Chapel " or " Self-Dependence " ever have been
written in an atmosphere of pure agnosticism ? '
We do not like to acknowledge it, but we turn
for comfort and strength far more to the poets than
we do to more professedly Christian writings. But
our instincts are true, because we recognise in their
message more than in many a volume of sermons
the ring of genuine Christian faith. And the reason
of this is that the poet, with that intuition which is
his gift, goes straight to the heart of Christianity,
and the simplicity of his message comes to us with
an irresistible appeal. The theologian often for the
1 How great is the debt which American Christianity owes to our
American poets : a Bryant, a Whittier, a Longfellow, a Lowell.
But where are the hands that shall grasp the torch from these giants
and pass the light of truth and hope to the coming generations ? I
was on the point of adding Emerson's name to the list. But, with all
his exquisite refinement of thought, is not the strong note of the
prophet quite wanting in him ? No wonder that his appreciation of
Christianity was small. Compare his lines in " Song of Nature " :
" One in a Judean manger,
And one by Avon stream,
One over against the mouths of Nile,
And one in the Academe,"

122 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
very trees sees not the forest ; he labours to set be
fore us a Christianity which is too often artificial,
which fails to satisfy the deep yearning of the heart
for the heavenly food.
But we are learning a truer theology. The old
forms of interpretation, which in their day were the
embodiment of new and valuable truth, are giving
way before a larger knowledge. A deeper insight
and a keener sympathy for the needs of man is
opening before our eyes larger vistas of truth.
In this Christian receptiveness we recognise the
vitality of the Christian religion. The truth " once
delivered to the saints " remains ever the same, an
absolute constant ideal. But the Christian's the
ology, his understanding and appreciation of that
truth, is ever growing and we trust will never cease
to grow.

CHAPTER IV.
THE IDEA OF GOD.
All theological systems consistently carried out
centre in the idea of God. Underlying every re
ligious problem we find in the last analysis this
question : How do we conceive of God ? The
theological enquirer, when he begins his investiga
tion, necessarily starts with some conception of God.
This will be at first more or less dim and undeter
mined. It is the result of various forces that have
acted upon him : training, observation of life, the
Bible. As he proceeds to define and. harmonise the
various elements, the idea of God becomes more and
more clarified, until finally the system comes to rest in
a representation of God that will satisfy all the ele
ments of the problem in his own mind. You know
that the water in the stream comes from high up in
the hills. Far down its course you judge from the
colour and the taste somewhat of the nature of the
soil from which it springs. But you are not satis
fied until you have traced it back to its source and
stand at last where it gushes out of the ground.
So, all the while we were studying the working of
those spiritual powers under whose influence we
stand, we were conscious that they proceeded from
123

124 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
a source high above us. Now we must trace the
stream to that source and press as near as possible
into the presence of the Fountain-head of all power.
It is the fault of a great deal of our theology
that it starts with those conceptions of God which
are supposed to be natural to man. It therefore
takes as the foundation of its idea, not the concep
tions of an enlightened Christian sense, but those
general notions common to all humanity. It seeks
its' knowledge of the Deity as far as possible from
Christianity, among the sages of ancient Greece or
in the intuitive notions of uncivilised tribes. Hence
those terms which are so much heard : the " infinite
being," the" absolute," the " great first cause."
The full conception of God is therefore made up of
two strata, the one pagan, the other Christian. The
one is a conglomerate of metaphysical conceptions,
the other is an appendix of Christian ideas.
This incongruous mixture of conceptions is due to
the hold which Greek philosophy had upon the great
minds of the Church almost from the beginning.
The early Greek theology was saturated with meta
physical elements which prevented the Christian
revelation from maintaining the constitutive import
ance that properly belongs to it in a consistent
Christian system. We learn to know God truly only
through the Christian revelation. Instead of start
ing with a general idea of God and rising from that
to the particular Christian conception, we begin and
end with the Christian God, we know no other God
than the God of Christ.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 125
It is at this point particularly that we apply the
principle which differentiates religious from theoreti
cal knowledge, as it was set forth in the introductory
chapter. The organ of religious knowledge is not
the pure intellect. We judge religious questions
not by a pure mental judgment, but by the value of
those feelings that accompany the mental act. We
cannot know God as he is in himself, but we can
know him for what he is to us, by the value which
he has for us. There is no such thing as a disinter
ested knowledge of God. This was the fatal mis
conception which the early theologians inherited
from the Greek philosophy. My ideas of God are
rightlv governed by the interests of my spiritual life,
by the need which I have of a God.
What is that need ? What purpose is the concep
tion of God intended to serve ? There must be a
practical reason why we believe in God, why we
cannot be without God. That reason will be the
touchstone of all our ideas about God, will govern
and regulate all our thought of God.
To the philosopher and the scientist it may be a
curious question, what he is to think of the origin
of this material world. If theology is prompted by
mere curiosity, it is not conscious of its true func
tion. Its interest is wholly different. It starts from
man's nature and finds that it is incomplete with
out God. The conditions of life demand a God. It
is a practical matter to the theologian. Man needs
God not to explain life — for the explanation of life is a
secondary interest to him — but to make life possible.

126 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Man needs God to make life possible for two rea
sons. First is the ethical reason. The terms ex
pressive of moral value, duty, responsibility, justice,
etc., have no meaning unless there is something
behind them. The idea of God must be such that
it renders these terms intelligible, it must give value
to ethical quantities. This is the first test of our
•idea of God. The second test is distinctively re
ligious. It concerns man's natural condition of
dependence. Man finds himself placed in a posi
tion of apparently hopeless contradiction. He is a
part of nature, subject like all other material things,
to the unchangeable laws of the universe. Looking
at himself from this point of view, he seems a mere
plaything in the hands of overwhelming forces,
utterly helpless. On the other hand, he cannot
escape the consciousness of a something within him
which raises him above the world. He has an in
born sense of the dignity of his human nature, a
conviction that his life represents a superior value.
There is within him a feeling of superiority, the
stamp of a preference which marks him as heir to a
destiny transcending nature. This contradiction
in the life of man is insoluble without God. We
need God to read the riddle of our life, to secure
our place in the world.
This is the twofold test which is to be the criterion
of all our thoughts about God. The God we are to
believe in must assure us that in the distinction we
make between right and wrong, as well as in the
value which we put upon our own life, we shall not

THE IDEA OF GOD. 127
in the end be brought to confusion. Whatever con
ception we form of God, it must perform for us this
double service. The question now is : Whence shall
we derive the knowledge of God which will satisfy
these two conditions ?
It was stated above that the great fault of the tra
ditional theology was that it derived its fundamental
conceptions of God from reason, or so-called natural
theology. The force of this criticism will be seen,
if we apply to the God of natural theology the tests
which have been set forth. We shall therefore pro
ceed to the examination of the various arguments
for the existence of God.
First are the three metaphysical arguments: the
cosmological, teleological, and ontological. The cos-
mological argument reasons from the conditioned to
the unconditioned. All that we know in the ma
terial word is conditioned. The conditioned postu
lates a series of conditions until the unconditioned
is reached. Therefore behind the conditioned uni
verse we must assume an unconditioned being —
God. The teleological argument reasons from
design to a designer. All parts of the world give
evidence of design. We are forced to assume an
almighty Designer — God. This argument is sup
posed to have lost its force by the discovery of the
principle of evolution. In fact, however, it needs
only to be remodelled and it retains whatever force
belonged to it. The ontological argument deals
with pure concepts of the mind. The conception
of the highest possible being which the mind is

128 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
capable of forming carries with it the existence of
that being. If he did not exist he would be want
ing in perfection. Therefore God exists.
These are the time-honoured arguments for the
existence of a supreme being. What sort of a God
do they set up ? Here is the point where grave
mistakes are made. Conclusions are anticipated to
which we have no right. A bare philosophical ab
straction is surreptitiously clothed with the attri
butes of the being whom we call God. Whereas all
we have gained is a vague notion of an " uncondi
tioned," an " absolute," a " self-existent being,"
an " original intelligence " — an utterly barren idea.
The metaphysical arguments are indeed nothing
more than an analysis of that concept of the mind
in which we represent God to ourselves. It is the
consciousness of a something behind phenomena.
All therefore that these terms do for us is to suggest
that there is somewhere an adequate solution for
this riddle of a world, the source of whose being and
the manner of whose existence are absolutely beyond
the reach of our mental powers. But that we know
without the subtlety of metaphysical reasoning.
Kant gave to the metaphysical conception of God
a more practical meaning. Our mental processes
postulate the idea of God as the " ideal of the pure
reason." The metaphysical God is the logical con
dition of all reasoning, the necessary assumption of
all thought. Our reason demands a God. That
does not prove the existence of God. But man is
obliged by the necessity of his mental faculties to

THE IDEA OF GOD. 129
conceive of a something behind reason which gives
reality to reason ; he must reason as if there were a
God. Let us now apply to the metaphysical conception
of God the tests which we have adopted as necessary
for our judgment upon any conception of God, its
ethical and spiritual value. Measured by this two
fold test, the metaphysical conception of God, either
in the traditional or the Kantian form, is worth
less. The metaphysical and the religious idea of
God are widely different. The metaphysical God
has no ethical value ; it affords no ground for moral
distinctions. Neither has it spiritual contents. The
very suggestion of a religious trust in such a logical
abstraction is preposterous. The metaphysical God
is not the sort of God we want. It is useless to us.
It is a God in whom the devils believe, although
they do not even tremble at him — a colourless ab
straction of the mind.
When we pass from the metaphysical to the moral
argument, we are carried a step further. This argu
ment starts from the existence of moral sentiments ;
they make it necessary to assume a fountain-head
of morality — God.
We are familiar with that view which makes the
moral law equally with everything else the result of
evolution. Doubtless we owe to the distinguished
scientists who have treated this theme, especially
Mr. Herbert Spencer, a great clarification of our
ideas about the contents of many of our moral con-

130 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
ceptions. We must allow that in their substance
many, if not all of these, are the results of exper
ience. This is true of parental responsibility for
children, the rights of property, the sanctity of life.
These sentiments have grown up as a result of the
exigencies of society, through a course of evolution
which has been proceeding for untold ages under the
impulse of the struggle for existence. And we have
not yet reached the goal of moral evolution. As we
go forward and adapt ourselves more completely to ,
the conditions of progress, we evolve new moral
sentiments. Christianity has produced many such,
and I shall have occasion later on to point out the
direction in which we may expect higher concep
tions of ethical obligation to be evolved in the future.
But that does not touch the core of the moral
question. Evolution cannot explain the cogency of
the moral imperative. I can understand how the
obligation to speak the truth developed as the result
of a long experience, proving that truth was neces
sary for the existence of society. But your argu
ment does not prove to me why the voice of
conscience commands me individually, me person
ally, me specifically, to speak nothing but the truth.
It is not infrequently assumed, with an extraordi
nary superficiality of observation, that the traditional
supernatural sanctions for moral conduct, while well
enough in their day, are no longer needed. They
have served their purpose, and, like the scaffolding
which held the stones of the arch while it was build
ing, now that it is finished, may be thrown away.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 131
The very reverse is true. The sanctions of an
ethical system are more needed to-day than ever.
I have said, in a preceding chapter, that we of our
day differ in nothing so much from the men of past
centuries as in our greater self-consciousness. In the
earlier ages men used to act without thinking. They
did not care much about laws and sanctions. Habit
governed. Once started, they moved unthinkingly
along the same track. It did not make much differ
ence to them whether there was any reason for acting
in one particular way rather than in another. They
were used to it; that was all. Not so now. We
stop and look back and ask, Are we on the right
track ? We want to have a reason for everything
that we do, and if no adequate reason can be given
we will stop doing that particular thing. So, among
other things, a reason is demanded for the cogency
of the moral law. It has been attempted to give
such. We may safely say that at this point the his
torical method completely breaks down. A little
reflection must convince the candid student how
utterly inadequate experience is to furnish sanctions
for right conduct. If I see a gold piece belonging
to another man and am absolutely certain that I can
take it without being detected, no amount of argu
mentation upon the naturalistic hypothesis will avail
to convince me that I ought not to take it. What
do I care for the good of society ? What are coming
generations to me ? I want my own good. Doing
right is something more than a habit, and there is a
reason other than the good of " society " or of

132 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
" humanity." Underlying the vast complexus of
human institutions, habits, and motives, which we
call modern civilisation, there is the sense of the
eternal validity of truth, apart from and beyond all
experience. If this did not exist, civilisation would
collapse in a day.1
In the Data of Ethics there is a curious passage
which shows that the author himself felt the need of
a higher sanction than that which mere experience
gives to good conduct. We read, at the end of
Chapter IX.: "The intuitions corresponding to
these (moral) sentiments, have, in virtue of their
origin, a general authority to be reverently recog
nised." In the use of language the object of
reverence is conceived as above us. Mr. Spencer
cannot quite get away from the idea that moral sanc
tions must, after all, come from a sphere above
experience. There is indeed something exquisitely self-contra
dictory in constructing a system of ethics, while
claiming that it is all " evolved." How much
deeper are the investigations into the springs of
morality made by Immanuel Kant ! He saw the
1 1 think there is a pretty general agreement that we have gone be
yond the position of Mr. Spencer. One cannot take up one of the
treatises written by men of his school, without being strongly im
pressed by two things : first, what a wonderful clue to the under
standing of the world this theory of evolution is ; secondly, how
utterly it breaks down when it is used as a key to the understanding of
man's spiritual and moral nature, to solve the highest problems of
humanity. There is an x whose mystery the keenest historical
analysis fails to touch

THE IDEA OF GOD. 133
impossibility of a morality without God. Says
Kant: " Such a ruler (God), together with life in
such a world, which we must consider as future,
reason compels us to admit, unless all moral laws are
to be considered as idle dreams, because, without
that supposition, the necessary consequences, which
the same reason connects with these laws, would
be absent." (Pure Reason, Midler's translation, p.
696). Kant's argument is based upon the assump
tion that ethical action is possible only through the
belief in the ultimate coincidence of happiness and
goodness. And this is impossible without God.
The ethical law in man makes it necessary to postu
late God. This does not establish the existence of
God. Only we must think God. Kant makes the
well-known distinction between practical and theo
retical necessity. Practically, you act as if there
were a God. Theoretically, you have no right to
say there is a God.
In the preface to his Types of Ethical Theory, Mr.
James Martineau illustrates by his own experience
the cogency of the ethical sentiments. He is speak
ing of the motives which induced him to abandon
the determinist position: " It was the irresistible
pleading of the moral consciousness which first drove
me to rebel against the limits of the merely scientific
conception. . . . The secret misgivings which
I had always felt at either discarding or perverting
the terms which constitute the vocabulary of char
acter, — ' responsibility,' ' guilt,' ' merit,' ' duty,' —
came to a head, and insisted upon speaking out and

134 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
being heard; and to their reiterated question, ' Is
there then no- ought to be other than what is ? ' I
found the negative answer of Diderot intolerable,
and all other answers impossible. " The force of the
moral argument is here most admirably expressed.
The irresistible pleading of the moral conscious
ness " is the stumbling-block to all naturalistic
theories of morality.
Kant maintained that God must be postulated to
make thought possible; but that does not establish
the existence of God. The same condition holds
for conduct. But here we must go a step further. It
makes no difference to the mental processes whether
there really is a God or not. The man who believes
in God and the man who does not, follow the same
rules of thought. Not so in action. It will ulti
mately make a very great difference in conduct
whether man believes in God or not. The practical
issues of life force us to a decision. We are driven
by the imperative demands of our situation to en
quire why right is right and wrong is wrong. " The
irresistible pleading of the moral consciousness"
brings home the question which must be answered :
Can we believe in an eternal God, the author and
source of moral distinctions ?
I ask myself, what is goodness, justice, truth ?
Are they mere convenient means to an end, and
that end not myself, but society, mankind ? If so,
then I cannot see why that man should not be ac
counted wisest who makes cunning the ruling prin
ciple of his life, the cunning which circumvents the

THE IDEA OF GOD. 135
arbitrary laws by which future generations are made
the chief beneficiaries of good actions, and grasps all
it can for itself. The moral sense revolts from such
a conclusion. We question whether Kant might not have gone
farther than he did. We are tempted to say that
the moral nature of man not only demands a God,
but proves a God. Kant, however, is right. We
have no complete proof. If we argued from the
moral sense to God and then accepted him be
cause he satisfies the moral sense, we should be
reasoning in a circle. We shall see that the Kan
tian argument leaves the completion of the proof to
religion. In themselves, both the metaphysical and the
moral argument are incomplete. But they are not
valueless. They reveal to us the need man has of a
God. The intellectual nature is incomprehensible
without God. The moral faculty is a delusion if
there is no God. And to these we can add a third.
The spiritual nature of man craves a God. The
Psalmist's cry: " My soul is athirst for God, yea,
even for the living God " voices the universal long
ing. It is the cry that goes up, wherever there
is a human heart quick with the sense of human
wants, ' ' From the spirits on earth that adore,
From the souls that entreat and implore,
In the fervour and passion of prayer ;
From the hearts that are broken with losses
And weary with dragging the crosses
Too heavy for mortals to bear."

136 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Look at humanity from the side of its accomplish
ments, taking human nature as we see it on the sur
face of life, and nothing is easier than to slide into
the cynic's vein : man is so ignoble, so deceitful, so
selfish. But penetrate beneath the surface, learn to
know man on the side of his aspirations, and you see
him tending up, groping, reaching out, grasping at
the higher, striving to know God,
" Like plants in mines which never saw the sun.
But dream of him, and guess where he may be,
And do their best to climb and get to him."
We shall now have to take up another train of
thought, which has not perhaps received the con
sideration it may claim. Natural theology is bound
to take account of a certain class of evidence in
nature, which seems to point in a direction different
from that in which we look for a solution of our
problem. I mean the evidence of history and
biology. It properly belongs to the teleological
argument. We conclude from universal adaptation
to an intelligent author. What shall we conclude
of God from the suffering in the world ? When the
individual suffers or sees others, apparently inno
cent, suffer, his faith in the goodness of God receives
a shock. What shall we say when a great catas
trophe sweeps away hundreds and thousands of the
innocent as well as the guilty ? Modern investiga
tion has vastly extended our knowledge of the laws
of life ; and when we come to understand that the
universal law of life is the survival of the fittest, and

THE IDEA OF GOD. 137
that in obedience to this law there is a never-ceasing
battle for life, that in this battle innocence and good
intentions are of no account ; when we see how the
great machinery of life is arranged with a single eye
to the welfare and the advance of the race and
there is not the least care of the individual ; when, in
the light of these cruel laws, we contemplate the
awful spectacle of human suffering and the terrible
prodigality and carelessness of life — the conclusion
seems forced upon us that the author of all this must
be a being devoid of moral quality and indifferent
to human welfare, that he can have no love for the
individual. It cannot be denied that these reflec
tions tell heavily. The God of nature is not the
God who rewards the good and punishes evildoers,
or one whom we can trust, upon whom we can de
pend to uphold us against the world.
" Natural Theology " is bound to take not only a
part but the whole of the teachings of nature, and
nature includes history and biology. The facts
which these studies furnish may well startle those
who have looked to natural theology as the under
pinning of Christianity. If nature is supposed to
have revealed God, we can hardly help recoiling from
the spirit we have raised. We need another God
who will save us from the God of nature.1
1 The idea of the education of the human race, to which appeal has
been so frequently made, is helpless to save us from the dilemma in
which the apparently remorseless cruelty of nature's God places us.
We are asked to derive comfort from the reflection that the tendency
of things is towards a millennial perfection of human nature and
society. Mankind is conceived as a sort of pyramid, the pinnacle of

138 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
There is one exception to this forbidding teaching
of nature; one word which she speaks gives us a
hope of something better. It is only a delicate
suggestion, but to those who are sensitive to the
subtle intimations which God gives of himself, it is
sufficient. This is the existence of beauty.
In studying the history of man upon earth, we
find that one law reigns supreme: the law of ad
aptation. Everything has its use, every faculty in
man serves its purpose in adding to his advantages
in the inexorable struggle for existence. At first it
was a question of physical powers ; the battle was to
the swift and the strong. Then there came a time
when intellectual pre-eminence began to tell, and
the powers of the mind have since been decisive
factors in the absorbing struggle. Every faculty
was given man for the one purpose. Even the high
est of them, the power of sympathy, takes its place
in the series of means with which man is furnished
for the purpose of raising himself. It represents the
law which steps in to take the place of the lower
law of the mere struggle for existence, when man
has reached an advanced stage of civilisation. Only
which represents the perfected society. But there is poor comfort in
the idea of a God who can condemn incalculable multitudes of
human beings to suffering and death just that they may be the step
ping-stones to the perfected happiness of a comparatively insignificant
number. True, history points unmistakably to the pyramidal idea
of human society. Religion rests upon the infinite value of each
individual composing the lower as well as the higher strata of the
pyramid. Here is the ultimate antithesis of the psychological and
the historical views. Will the mind of man ever solve it ?

THE IDEA OF GOD. 139
the sense of beauty has no function to perform in
the struggle for existence. It is an end in itself.
Upon the utilitarian theory we ask in vain for an
answer to the question : What is the purpose of the
appreciation of beauty which is implanted in man? '
Here, then, is something in ourselves which points
beyond this world, which has the mark of eternity.
We receive at last an intimation of what man was
made for. For this love of beauty in us is not left
unsatisfied. See how nature treats man here. She
has left his moral needs unfulfilled. Not so his
craving for the beautiful. She has moulded things
in heaven and things on earth in forms of beauty,
and has touched the sky and the sea and the land with
colours, in which his highest faculty finds satisfac
tion. In that satisfaction we recognise the promise
from God of immortality and another world. It is
something more than poetic rapture, it is the expres
sion of a deep truth, when Hawthorne exclaims:"
1 1 believe the sense of beauty is supposed to have served as a
factor in " natural selection." But this does not impair the truth of
what is said in the text. For while that use diminishes with advanc
ing civilisation, the sense of beauty increases.
The train of thought in the text serves to show the folly of the
exclusively altruistic view of life. It is often taken for granted that
activity for others is the highest possible exercise of the human facul
ties ; and one not infrequently hears expressions as if this was the
only life worth living. Whoever lives in that spirit is making but a
poor preparation for heaven, where surely there will be no more
work for others and where, if we have not done so here, we shall
have to learn to employ our faculties in a manner which will bring
its own immediate satisfaction.
2 Mosses From an Old Manse, " The Old Manse."

140 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
"Our Creator would never have made such lovely
days and have given us the deep hearts to enjoy
them, above and beyond all thought, unless we were
meant to be immortal. This sunshine is the golden
pledge thereof. It gleams through the gates of
paradise and shows us glimpses far inward." It is
the lesson which Wordsworth learned from nature, as
he tells us in his description of the Wanderer:
"  he had felt the power
Of Nature, and already was prepared
By his intense conceptions, to receive
Deeply the lesson deep of love which he
Whom Nature, by whatever means, has taught
To feel intensely, cannot but receive."
The existence of beauty in nature is a hint, an
intimation, of something beyond. Nature furnishes
no proof of God, and natural theology would be a
delusion but for the fact that it makes clear the sort
of God man needs. Its claim to furnish the founda
tion for the conception of what God is, of being a
factor in the Christian conception of God, is an un
warranted assumption. On the contrary, if we are
to find the God we want, it must be one with attri
butes the very opposite of those to which nature
chiefly gives evidence.
We turn therefore to the only other source of
possible knowledge : Revelation. From natural re
ligion we advance to revealed religion. We shall
first try to answer the question, What is the Chris
tian idea of God ? And we shall then measure this
idea by the two tests which we have adopted.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 141
The popular Christian conception of God is dual-
istic. Two attributes claim equal consideration.
On the one side is God's justice or righteousness.
It is that quality which is generally identified with
the first person of the Trinity. This attribute is
fundamental. It expresses what is central in the
being of God. Whatever we conceive of God's
dealings with his creatures must be corrected by the
criterion of his primary attribute of justice. On the
other side is God's love. This is generally associated
with Christ. It is an effort of which the theological
mind has not usually been capable, to carry back this
attribute of love into the being of the Father. The
dualism shows its weakness here at the start. What
ever may be held in strict theory — we shall presently
come to that — in practice, that is, in the theology of
everyday use and in the minds of most men, justice
is associated with the Father, love with the Son.
The biblical authority for the conception of God,
which makes justice his fundamental attribute, is
drawn mainly from the Old Testament. Ritschl
has attempted to show that the word " righteous
ness," so much used of God in the Old Testament,
denotes that characteristic according to which God
acts in strict conformity to his purpose of upholding
his covenant with Israel against all enemies, and is
therefore synonymous with love.' Although his
exegesis is frequently forced, and therefore is not
convincing, yet he has adduced sufficient proof to
oblige us to modify our ideas of the use of this term.
1 Vol. ii. chap. 14.

142 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
It is frequently used where justice would not be an
exact equivalent, but where it conveys nearly the
same conception as love or mercy. So in Psalm
xxxi. i: "In thee, O Lord, have I put my trust;
let me never be put to confusion : deliver me
in thy righteousness," and Psalm xxxvi. 10: " O
continue forth thy loving-kindness unto them that
know thee, and thy righteousness unto them that
are true of heart." Exegesis is not, however, the
decisive factor in the determination of the Christian
idea of God, and the Old Testament is not the
Christian's primary authority. We shall presently
see that a more exact definition of revelation is re
quired for the solution of the problem of God.
The idea of God and that which depends upon it,
the ethical order of the universe, as it is expressed in
the commonly accepted view, is founded upon the
analogy of the state. God represents the authority
of the state. We as his creatures are bound to
recognise and observe his laws; this is the condition
of eternal life. 'Representing the supreme power of
the state, God is bound not only to reward man for
his obedience, but also to punish him for his diso
bedience. This is the double retribution, by reward
and punishment. I have already pointed out the
danger of the use of analogy in matters of religion.
The likeness which has been thoughtlessly accepted,
between God and a human judge or lawgiver, has
so fixed the conception of God that it is exceed
ingly difificult to prove that this conception, resting
upon an imperfect analogy, is inadequate.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 143
It is this analogy which gives to the conception
the appearance of necessity. We have been so ac
customed to thinking of God under the forms of a
human state, as the supreme power in a human
commonwealth, that we have come to regard any
other way of conceiving him as impossible. The
analogy has melted into the thing itself. But there
is another analogy which Christ used far more fre
quently, that of fatherhood ; and if we can accustom
ourselves to follow his thoughts, abandoning Old
Testament and Greek precedents, we shall gain quite
a different conception of God.
God's justice stands for a certain limitation of his
power. He could not do that which love would
prompt him to do ; there is a bar to his own action.
This seems on the face of it to impose a restriction
upon God which is inconsistent with his omnipo
tence. To obviate this objection, it is said that
the justice which prevents God's free forgiveness is
a part of the nature of God himself; that the bar to
his free action springing from his own essential na
ture is not an inconsistency in our conception of
God. God's justice is therefore thought of as analo
gous to what in man we term honour or self-respect,
that quality which carries with it the sense of man's
own worth, the strength and persistence of his per
sonality. This fundamental quality, constituting
the essential personality of God, must be satisfied ;
God's love cannot act in disregard of it.
The first objection to this is that justice, as so

144 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
conceived, is inapplicable to God. The qualities of
personal honour and self-respect are unthinkable ex
cept as involving a certain relationship to other
beings. And the fundamental condition of this re
lationship is equality. Honour and self-respect
obtain only among equals. Therefore it is impossi
ble to apply them to the being who is supreme
above man.
Again, it is impossible to deduce the redemption
from God as an act of justice except by inadmissible
assumptions. Such is that not uncommon applica
tion of physical analogy. A certain rough, popular
theology treats God's love and justice as if they
were physical objects, two parts of God's nature,
lying side by side, between which it is easy to ar
range a barter. But when we conceive God's nature
by the only applicable analogy, that of human na
ture, we are forced to acknowledge the impossibility
of a theory which, when we cancel theological ter
giversation, simply amounts to this, that God pla
cated himself. God desired to save man from sin
and death : that desire proceeded from his love. But
his justice prevents him ; it demands to be satisfied
before the intention of love can be carried out.
There is no being outside of God who can satisfy it.
Therefore God's love, by sending Christ into the
world, satisfies God's justice. This can be stated in
words, as any other proposition; it can be believed,
as any other statement can be believed. But made
intelligible to the human mind, we must frankly
acknowledge it cannot be.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 145
In Professor Fisher's recent work on the History
of Christian Doctrine there is an interesting descrip
tion of an attempt by the late Horace Bushnell to
make this theory of the atonement intelligible. He
constructs a theory of propitiation by psychological
analysis:1 " It had struck him that in all cases of
heavy grievance, even though there is a placable
wish and intent, it is psychologically impossible to
quiet the resentful retributive impulse inherent in
one's own conscience, save by undertaking some
work involving loss and suffering in behalf of the
offender. Only by this means is the feeling of for
giveness realized in the heart of the party wronged
. . Accordingly God himself in Christ enters
upon a work of self-sacrifice and self-propitiation
he appeases his own justly indignant senti
ment. " This is certainly a very acute analysis. Its
validity, however, hangs upon one point, about
which there is serious question. The " resentful,
retributive impulse " which must be "propitiated "
is assumed to be " inherent in one's own con
science." But when we reflect how common it is
to assign a very mistaken value to one's own feel
ings, we are led to question whether this " resent
ful, retributive impulse " is not rather the expression
of a human sinful weakness. Should that be the
case, then if the man is able to overcome his natural
resentful inclination by " undertaking some work
involving loss and suffering in behalf of the offen-
1 This theory is known to me only through Professor Fisher's
book.

146 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
der," it is evidence that he has gained the victory in
a struggle between his better and his worse self.
But upon this supposition to argue a " resentful,
retributive impulse " in God would be to attribute
to him h-uman weakness. We are confirmed in our
belief that this is the more correct interpretation of
the human feelings by applying our test of God.
Can we put our trust in a God whom we believe to
be actuated by a " resentful, retributive impulse " ?
The heart and the mind find no rest in such a God.
No such psychological analysis can cover up the fatal
dualism of this conception of God.
From the impossibility of conceiving God's justice
and his love as existing side by side we are obliged
to take refuge in one of the two following positions:
Either justice, being the fundamental quality, is a
power above God, to which he is subject; it would
then be conceived as the mysterious Fate of Greek
mythology, exercising a controlling influence over
the Deity. Or else, God being thought of as the im
personation of justice, who for his own righteousness'
sake cannot waive any of the rigidity of his law, the
redemption must be understood as a change effected
in God's action through a motive from without. This
is done by Christ's " merit." Christ's service for man
makes it possible for God to pardon human sin.
Christ, as it were, wins pardon from God. But, as
man could not possibly by his own merit effect this
end, Christ must be more than man, he is divine.
The result is, — two Gods.
The first alternative, therefore, is a God above the

THE IDEA OF GOD. 147
God of revelation, the other is two equal Gods.
There seems to be no escape. It is worse than
useless to delude ourselves in order to maintain a
theory which has the stamp of orthodoxy and the
prestige of a high pedigree. The argumentation
which is resorted to to make this theory seem ra
tional offers mere plausibility for convincing proof.
We are concerned here with the most sacred interests
of religion. We stand upon the holiest of grounds.
Here to resort to self-deception argues surely a shal
lowness of feeling which is as unworthy of man as it
is irreverent to God. Let us remember that we are
seeking a theoretical basis for our practical needs.
We are reasoning backwards from the wants which
we feel to what we must understand as necessary if
those wants are to be satisfied. When a man, in
the stress of life's experience, throws his trust upon
the power to which he looks up as God, he does not
stop to enquire into the nature of that power. But
such is the craving of our intellectual nature, that in
moments of reflection we are impelled to bring our
theory into harmony with our practice. And we do
not feel that we completely satisfy our own wants un
til we have learned to think such a God as our minds,
as well as our hearts, can rest upon in confidence and
trust. It is perfectly possible, upon the traditional or
any other assumptions, to construct an idea of God
which shall be logical and entirely harmonious in
all its parts; but if it is simply the idea of a God and
not my God, it is of no value. I want to know how I
am to think of my God, the God who speaks to me,

148 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
with whom I enter into fellowship, who forgives my
sins, who is my strength and support. This is the
meaning of the tests we have recognised. They are
the practical criteria of thought ; they are to prevent
it from losing itself in profitless abstractions, looking
for a foreign God ; they are to keep it directed upon
the only God that has any interest for me, and that
is my God.
The mind in its search for such a God comes to
rest only in a definition which does violence to no
human feeling. This cannot be said of that God
whom we have to conceive of under two contradic
tory attributes. It has been shown that such dual
ism leads us to one of three positions : either a God
that is unthinkable because he combines things con
tradictory; or a supreme power above God; or two
equal Gods. None of these three conclusions can be
accepted, because it is simply impossible to exercise
that trust, which is the Christian's high privilege, in
a God whom we have to conceive under one of these
three forms.
Opposed to this representation of God, which
makes justice his fundamental quality, is the con
ception of him as mere arbitrary will. It was first
set forth in the thirteenth century by Duns Scotus
Erigena, was in later times taken up by the Socinians
and became current among them and the Arminians
in variously modified forms. God is mere will —
" dominium absolutum." We can assign no reason
why he should act in one way rather than in another.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 149
The laws of morality, such as we know them, are
founded upon his caprice; he might just as well
have reversed the value of right and wrong. Right
is right for no other reason than that God has so
willed it, and there is no reason why he should have
so willed. He might have created the world differ
ently. He is man's absolute master. We are his
slaves. He can do with us as he chooses. If he
deals with us according to a law, that is his choice.
He might have made any other conceivable law and
applied it to us. Why he placed us under the moral
law as we know it, we cannot tell. It was his arbi
trary will. In the fulness of his power he instituted
the ordinance by which our relation to him is deter
mined according to certain principles. God is not
obliged to punish sin, he may freely forgive. He
might have chosen some other way of redeeming
man than through Christ. Everything is accidental ;
nothing is but might have been otherwise.
It is evident that the controlling influence in the
formation of this conception was the desire to avoid
the stumbling-block of the other theory, the assump
tion of a dualism in God. But the Scotian doctrine
cannot be considered as marking an advance in the
ology. For, aside from the question how we can
conceive of a being who is nothing but undetermined
will, it is plain that a God whose essential character
istic is indifference falls behind the demands of the
ethical and spiritual nature and therefore fails to sat
isfy the tests we recognise. The mere caprice of a God
who is fundamentally indifferent to the distinctions of

150 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
right and wrong is an insufficient basis for the ethi
cal law. And how can we trust a God who has no
feeling for us, who may annihilate us just as well as
he may save us, and that for the same reason, namely
— no reason? The appropriate feeling toward such a
God would be the fear of the slave, not the confi
dence of the child.
The Scotian representation of God has to-day
more of a theoretical than a practical interest. It
stands aside from the great stream of theological
thought. But it was necessary to thus briefly allude
to it, in order to give completeness to our survey
and to show that within the traditional limits of the
ological thought both alternatives are impossible.
Two conditions seem to require fulfilment before
we can promise ourselves any adequate solution of
the problem of God. The first is a more distinct
recognition of the limits of human knowledge, the
other is a more complete and candid examination of
the data of revelation. These two conditions corre
spond to two branches of research in which there
has been the greatest advance in modern times.
The one department of philosophy in which we see
with greater clearness, is that which deals with the
nature of human faculties and their limits; while
biblical criticism has placed the Bible in a new light
and taught us to appreciate the meaning of revela
tion as never before.
We now understand that it is necessary to exercise
self-restraint in our efforts to know God. The theo-

THE IDEA OF GOD. 151
logical labours of past generations represent many
futile attempts to transcend the limits of the finite.
The terminology which was used, by its vagueness
deceived those who used it into thinking that they
had accomplished the impossible. So, when it was
laid down that God was "pure being," "the"GV,"or
" the absolute," or when God was defined as pure
will. These terms, if they conveyed any meaning to
the mind, conveyed it most indistinctly, but that very
indistinctness was thought to be a mark of the in
finite. The phantom, which was forever evading
human grasp, was pursued with unabated eagerness,
until at last it came to be recognised that there is a
line drawn beyond which the human mind cannot
go ; on the other side is the unknowable, that which
it is above our powers to comprehend. Life we may
know, we may conceive of a being who represents
life such as we know it in its fulness ; but the grounds
of this life, what it is in its essential nature : this is
a secret which shall not be revealed until we are
gifted with higher intelligence. And it avails noth
ing to invent terms and phrases which fail to explain,
but, in reality, merely serve to state the problem.
The other condition is a clearer appreciation of
the data of revelation. The one greatest effect of
concentrating the labour of the keenest intellects
upon the biblical problem, as has been done now for
many years, is this : it has brought out Christ as the
essential revelation of God. The Bible is no longer
placed above Christ as an oracle of equal authority
in all its parts, in any portion of which we may find

152 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
equally valid elements of revelation. We recognise
gradations in the Bible, and high above the book
stands the life of Christ as revealing God. We find
God in Christ. The story of his life, his deeds, his
consciousness as his words reveal it, his mission as
he himself conceived it and as it was received in the
religious consciousness of his immediate followers:
these are the data for our knowledge of God, and
not the stories of Hebrew Judges, or a passage in a
New Testament epistle of uncertain authorship.'
1 Heb. xii. 29.

CHAPTER V.
THE IDEA OF GOD (Continued).
Underlying the argumentation in this essay is
the principle of the essential difference between
metaphysical and religious thought. It comes es
pecially into play in our reasoning about the idea
of God ; and as it is of fundamental importance to our
purpose, I shall here pause in the argument in order
to examine with some care into the nature and
grounds of this principle and the limits of its applica
tion. The first point in this examination must be an
accurate definition of the terms used ; they are two :
first, Metaphysics; second, Religion. Metaphysics
is that science which investigates the grounds of all
being. The most ordinary observation soon learns to
know the lack of reality in those things which come
under our perception. There is no colour without
the eye, no sound without the ear, no feeling with
out the touch. Hence the word " phenomenon "
— that which appears ; and we ask what is the reality
underneath ? The human mind knows nothing but
phenomena. Matter, time, space; the forms of
mental judgment, causation, possibility, necessity:
all these are phenomena. Metaphysics asks, what is
the reality underlying these phenomena?
i53

154 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
In putting this question, metaphysics makes no
distinction. It knows no differences of value.
Spirit and matter are, in the eyes of the metaphysi
cian, perfectly equal. They are both, alike, manifes
tations of a something behind. It is that something
behind, which he is after. He is impartial ; every
thing that comes under his observation is subjected
to the same treatment. The one and only motive
which he obeys is an insatiable curiosity to know,
to penetrate as far as human intelligence can go.
It is at this point that we begin our differentiation
of religion from metaphysics. The view of the
world which presents itself to the eye of religion is
not homogeneous. The world presents to religion
an inveterate contradiction. That contradiction is
the starting-point of the religious view of the world.
It is the contradiction of matter and spirit, coming
to a point in the nature of man. To the theologian
this is the one fact of absorbing interest. I know
myself to be an insignificant particle in the vast
whole which we call Nature ; I am one small factor
in the grand comprehensive system of world-evolu
tion. But do I, therefore, resign myself to being
merely a part of a machine ? The very fact that I
am able to put the question carries with it a decided
negative. I am told that I am descended from the
lower animals, and that I am on a level with them.
But when I want to know myself, I ask the man
that I am, not the ape that I was. There is a voice
within tells me with an irresistibly coercive force of
argument that I and nature are not one, that there

THE IDEA OP GOD. 155
is in me something above nature. To vary a little
the fine phrase which I have quoted from Mr. James
Martineau, it is the irresistible pleading of personal
ity that makes us rebel against confounding the
" I "with nature.
This, then, is the fundamental difference between
religion and metaphysics. To the eye of the meta
physician nature is one. To the eye of the theo
logian nature is two: my nature and nature outside
of me.
From this initial distinction between the two we
now proceed to differentiate the purposes which
metaphysics and religion severally serve, and the
ends which they aim at. I have already spoken of
the motive which the metaphysician obeys: it is
curiosity, that peculiar characteristic stamped upon
the human mind, by which it is impelled to search
through the heights and in the depths for the
meaning of all things. The motive underlying re
ligion springs from that contradiction of which I
have spoken.
Religious beliefs have developed. The religious
instincts have remained essentially the same from
the beginning. Men have been led to religion by
the same religious needs. The historical method of
dealing with religion, which in other respects has
been so sadly abused, informs us as to the religious
instincts of the race. The religious want of man has
always been that of a power above himself to help him
against opposing forces, to furnish him the solution
of the great contradiction of his nature. What con-

156 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
ceptions have been held of that power, whether it
was thought of as a ghost, an angel, or a god, makes
no difference. The essential purpose which religious
observances of any kind served was to find protec
tion and aid against the powers of nature : disease,
enemies, the elements. In this respect man has not
changed. • Here we have a characteristic inherent in
human nature, the desire for help. As civilisation
has advanced, the ideas of the nature of the pro
tecting power and of the manner of its operation
have become refined. But essentially, what the
Christian seeks in his religion is the same as that
which the original savage sought : the aid of a power
above for the upholding of the claims of his person
ality as against the opposing forces of the world.
It is clear, therefore, that as the initial view of
religion differs from that of the metaphysician, so
the motive and the object differ. Religion is not
prompted by curiosity. The motive behind religious
observances and religious thought is as practical as
that of the drowning man who reaches out for the
plank to keep him above water. The object of re
ligion is not to penetrate into the reality of the
" thing in itself," but to make life worth living by
opening up a vista of confidence and hope, to give
the answer to the yearning of the heart which is so
much deeper than the desire for knowledge: " Oh
Lord, in thee have I trusted: let me never be con
founded." These considerations will go to explain why the
god of metaphysics, if the metaphysical abstraction

THE IDEA OF GOD. 157
can be called a god, falls so far short of the fulness
of the Christian idea of God. The god who is
merely the substratum of reality underlying phe
nomena is very far from the being whom we seek
that we may trust him. But the contrast which I
have here drawn between the metaphysical and the
religious must not be understood to imply that the
ology absolutely excludes the use of metaphysics.
It will, therefore, now be necessary to state with all
possible accuracy just what is claimed and what is
denied. We are always running up against this difficulty in
religion, that when a principle is enunciated, espe
cially if it is a new one, it is very apt to be taken
hold of and set up as exclusive of all other principles.
It is a popular tendency to judge by contraries.
A thing must be either absolutely right or absolutely
wrong. Our Saviour uttered certain rebukes against
the abuse of riches. Riches were, therefore, to be
condemned : hence asceticism. We find it hard to
persuade men of the principle of proportion which
Christ recognized. It is often not so much a ques
tion of what is absolutely right and what is abso
lutely wrong, as of what is first and what is second.
So it is with our mental operations. We use our mind
for the formation of different kinds of judgment.
In every judgment, however, all the three psychical
functions are operative: the intellect, the feeling,
and the will. The judgments do not differ by the
exclusion of any one of these functions; but they
are distinguished by the prominence of the one or

158 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
the other. In the theoretical judgments which are
applied to the scientific investigation of phenomena,
all three functions operate; but the intellectual is the
dominant function. In the religious judgment the
factor of feeling is the decisive one ; but that does
not imply that the intellectual is excluded.
This will help us to understand in how far religion
excludes metaphysics. The former is governed by
an intellectual interest in the grounds of all being.
This interest is not entirely excluded from religion,
but it is altogether subordinated to the practical
interests of life. The religious judgments may be
permeated by a metaphysical interest, but this in
terest is not the dominant factor. Religious
thought is distinguished by the fact that the ulti
mate motive is always a practical one. The de
cisive factor in theological reasoning is the nearer or
more remote value which the object has for the
personal life.
The latter distinction between a nearer and more
remote value leads us to a second qualification of the
general contrast between metaphysics and religion.
A religious judgment may be pursued to its conse
quences and become more and more metaphysical.
We shall see, in the course of our further argument
on the idea of God, that this idea is first reached by
a strictly religious judgment. We learn to know
first, not God in general, but our God, God so far as
he has meaning and value for the ends of our per
sonal life. But the idea of God being thus deter
mined, the inquisitive functions of the mind impel

THE IDEA OF GOD. 159
us to go further and to harmonise this idea with
other general notions. Our conception of God be
comes thus more and more detached from actual
experience. Nevertheless, the chain is not broken
which binds the conception of God to the practical
needs of life ; we are only tracing it backward. This
procedure, which begins with experience, with the
God for us, and goes back step by step towards a
knowledge of God in himself, is the reverse of that
process which begins as far as possible from our
personal needs in the barren abstraction of the In
finite or the Absolute, and upon that foundation
builds the distinctively personal attributes of God.
I believe it is the one contribution to theology
which more than any other will secure to Albrecht
Ritschl a unique place among Christian thinkers,
to have clearly defined the difference between meta
physical and religious thought. The consequences,
I cannot but think, are very far-reaching. It may
seem to some a mere academic distinction ; but such
forget that what is a distinct, tangible conception in
the minds of the thoughtful is, in the minds of the
great bulk of people, a habit of mind, a temper, a
disposition, a way of looking at things. And, by
the reverse process of reasoning, if any such habit
of mind, temper, disposition, and way of looking at
things in the common mind is held to be wrong and
dangerous, the only way to change it is by tracing it
to its logical antecedents and bringing convincing
proof of the inadequacy of the corresponding form
of thought as it is held by thinking minds.

160 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
There is a certain habit of mind and way of look
ing at religion widely current among the masses of
the people, which is endangering the interests of re
ligion. I appeal'to those who have had the practi
cal experience of the cure of souls. What is the
greatest difficulty you have had to deal with ? Is it
not the inveterate tendency to confound curiosity
with the religious instinct ? Religion is made
synonymous with the mere knowledge of super
natural things. Those who are excessively inquisi
tive about the time of Christ's second coming, the
nature of the resurrection body, the millennial king
dom and all the many questions concerning the
future life, will be utterly indifferent to the ethical
and spiritual interests of religion. But this is simply
the metaphysical curiosity of uninstructed minds.
A greater danger than this lies in the religious in
difference and agnosticism of the cultured classes.
Men of our generation are devoting an unparalleled
enthusiasm to the ethical interests of humanity; but
underneath this ethical enthusiasm there is, we can
not deny it, an indifference to, and a suspicion of, the
strictly religious, which as surely as all action must
proceed from conviction, will yield a disastrous har
vest in the coming generation. And why this in
difference, this suspicion ? Simply because educated
men are no longer interested in truths which have
been presented to them as intellectual verities;
simply because our theology has not shown the con
nection between the sacred truths of religion and the
practical necessities of everyday life.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 161
If we are ever to have a revival of true religion,
if men shall come again to view life in the light of
the revelation of Jesus, the first condition is that the
metaphysical canker be cut out of religion and the
spiritual interests of man be once more acknow
ledged in their supreme importance.
I have said that two things are necessary before
we can hope to solve the problem of God : the
recognition of the limitations imposed upon human
knowledge, and a better understanding of the reve
lation of God in Christ. Recalling to our minds
these necessary conditions, we now proceed to en
quire into the nature of the Christian idea of God.
At the opening of our Morning Prayer there is an
expression, significant from the position in which it
stands, which points to the true knowledge of God
in Christ. When, in the general confession, we have
confessed our sins, the priest stands up to " declare
and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the
Absolution and Remission of their sins," and he
does this in the name of "Almighty God, the Father
of our Lord Jesus Christ." The Church bids us
seek forgiveness of the God who is " the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ." With a true insight, the
Church recognises in the expression of God's rela
tion to Christ the revelation to the Christian of the
true nature of God. He is a God of love.
We distinguish several elements in Christ's revela
tion. There is first the bare fact of his having been
sent into the world. There was strongly impressed

162 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
upon Christ the sense of his mission ; hence his fre
quent references to being " sent " : " That the world
may know that thou hast sent mc." His followers
distinctly received him as sent from heaven for
the benefit of man: " This is a true saying and
worthy of all men to be received that Christ Jesus
came into the world to save sinners " (i Tim. i.
15); " We have seen and do testify that the Father
sent the Son to be the Saviour of the world " (1 John
iv. 14). Christ came as from God and was received
as the gift of God. And when those who thus re
ceived him reflected upon the nature of the God
who had sent Christ, there could be but one conclu
sion. This conclusion is distinctly expressed by St.
John (1, iv. 9): "In this was manifested the love
of God toward us, because that God sent his only-
begotten Son into the world, that we might live
through him." This is a clear statement of the im
pression which the mission of Christ makes in regard
to the nature of God. The God who sent his Son
into the world to save man is a God of love. The
simple fact of Christ's mission can be interpreted in
no other way. It could have proceeded but from
one motive: love. This is the primary revelation
of God which we have in Christ.
Then there is the teaching of Christ. Where are
the essential points of Christ's teaching to be found ?
In the appendix to some parables, in language which
is strongly figurative, which speaks of the fire that
is not quenched and the worm which dieth not ?
Or shall we turn to find the burden of Christ's teach-

THE IDEA OP GOD. 163
ing to such chapters as the fifteenth of St. Luke,
with its parables of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and
the prodigal son? and to the last chapters of St.
John's Gospel, the instructions to the disciples at
the last supper and the high-priestly prayer ? Surely
the candid student of Christ's words must admit
that if there was one truth above all others that
Christ sought to impress, it was a heavenly Father's
love. Finally, there are Christ's actions. These speak
with no uncertain sound. St. Peter sums up his
activity in these words: " He went about doing
good." It is only that dualistic conception which
separates love and justice, Christ and the Father,
that can fail to recognise in the beneficent activity
of Christ — an activity which had but one purpose,
that of bringing happiness to man — the revelation
of a God to whom the well-being of his children is
the supreme purpose, who, therefore, is a God of
love. If we take Christ in his earthly life as the revelation
of God, we cannot fail to acknowledge as the Chris
tian idea of God, a God whose nature is love.1
1 There is no sharper antithesis in theology than between that
doctrine which begins with God and goes on to Christ, and that
which begins with Christ and leads up to God the Father. The the
ology which begins with the Christian God as given (by reason or by
nature) has but an accidental place for Christ. The permanent and
necessary place of Christ in theology is as the revelation of God, the
means of knowing God : ' ' He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father." I may refer to Browning's " Epistle of Karshish " for a
most powerful and striking presentation of this significance of Christ.

164 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
But it will be maintained that there are other at
tributes which must be added before God's full
nature has been expressed ; that alongside of the
love there is something else; that there is, in short,
another side of God's nature. There is the holiness
of God, his righteousness, his justice, his anger; all
these are plainly stamped upon the Bible's revela
tion of God. And not only does the Old Testament
teach them, but the New Testament, though it does
not give to these attributes the same prominence,
yet does acknowledge their presence in God. Let
us, therefore, consider these qualities.
Holiness is the fundamental character of God in
the Old Testament. " I the Lord your God am
holy " (Lev. xix. 2) — these words express the
thought of an Hebrew. In the New Testament
this quality gives way to another and is almost lost
out of sight. Holiness is not like the other attri
butes of God, a single quality ; it is rather a com
prehensive characterisation. It filled out the
Hebrew's entire conception of Jehovah. Its prin
cipal notes are: first, unapproachableness. This
meaning carries with it the distinction of God from
man, his distance above the sphere of the human.
Secondly, it expresses God's aversion to impurity.
It is the contrary of sin. The holiness of God is
therefore understood as denoting the negation of
those imperfections which attach to the creature.
As such it is an essential element in our idea of God.
God is to us a holy God. But we must be careful
not to apply this character to God as he is prior to

THE IDEA OF GOD. 165
his relation to man. As forming a background to
the character of God, holiness has no meaning; for
it becomes intelligible only by its negation, sin, and
sin has no place in God's being. Therefore God's
holiness forms no opposition to his love. His holi
ness is known to us only in his love, not as a quality
apart from his love. God is not known to us as first
holy, then loving; but only as holy love. When we
say that God is love, we mean that there is nothing
behind his love, no other quality of which we be
come cognisant as antecedent to his love. We
must, it is true, conceive of God as omnipotent and
omniscient, but he is all-powerful and all-wise in his
love. So, also, he is holy ; but we learn to know him
as holy in his love.
In speaking of the atonement, I endeavoured to
show that the forgiveness of sins can rightly be re
ferred only to God as Father. It is the fault of the
popular theory that it starts from the necessity of a
satisfaction to God before man can be forgiven.
This leads inevitably to that dualism in our con
ception of God in which it is impossible for the
mind to rest. The simple representation of God,
as it is given to us in the revelation of Christ, does
away with the dualism. The necessity of the satis
faction which Christ wrought was in man. God did
not have to be reconciled. There is nothing in
God behind his holy love which stands in the way
of his free forgiveness.
We see then how the idea of God is the touch
stone of our theories of the atonement. A false

166 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
theory leads to a false conception of God. On the
other hand, the theory of the atonement which I
have endeavoured to set forth leads to a conception
of God which is at one in itself, in which the mind
finds rest.
There is but a shade of difference between the
attribute of holiness as applied to God, and those of
righteousness and justice. As the background of
his being, as the groundwork of his character, they
are alike inconceivable. The attribute of justice,
under another meaning, that of the equal treatment
of all, follows from his love. For it is evident that
God must treat all alike if he loves his creatures.
It remains to deal with the last objection that has
been mentioned. What about the wrath of God ?
God's wrath appears indelibly stamped upon the
Bible and seems necessary to an adequate concep
tion of the Deity. Just here, however, we are im
pressed with the great distance that separates the
Old Testament from the New. The former is full
of wrath and vengeance ; and if we had to consider
the Old Testament as God's supreme revelation to
man and were not obliged to allow for a very decided
anthropomorphic tendency, we should have to revise
very considerably the foregoing statements in regard
to the being of God. But we find that the wrath
of God is by no means wanting in the New Testa
ment and in the words of Christ. A brief examina
tion of these passages will be necessary.
Where the wrath of God is expressed in the gos
pels, it is directed against hardened sinners. So it

THE IDEA OP GOD. 167
is at the conclusion of the various eschatological
parables, as the parable of the feast: " Bind him
hand and foot, and take him away and cast him into
outer darkness ; there shall be weeping and gnash
ing of teeth " (St. Matt. xxii. 13). We have also,
as bearing upon this point, those scenes in which
Christ's indignation comes out, as in the desecration
of the temple and the denunciation of the Pharisees.
Taking these several instances into consideration, we
may draw this conclusion : there is a legitimate sense
in which wrath can be predicated of God. It may
mean, first, the final turning away of God from
those who are hopelessly hardened in sin, who have
taken the definitive resolve against the divine love.
This seems to be the meaning in the parables.
Then, there must be a place for God's wrath as
against all persistent sin. Here it is the reverse of
his love, the divine attitude as against sin. But here,
again, we must carefully guard against that dualism
which would conceive of God's wrath for his own
sake. Vengeance is a decidedly anthropomorphic
term applied to God. If we allow any idea of vin-
dictiveness, any notion that God inflicts suffering
for the sake of satisfying a supposed " righteous
ness " in himself, we set up a god above our God,
and make him unthinkable. So too with God's pun
ishment. We may conceive of physical evil or of
the distress of conscience as the punishment of sin,
but not as inflicted by God to gratify himself; rather
as a means of correcting and training his creatures.
So understood, punishment flows from God's love.

168 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
We may illustrate the limits within which we can
conceive of the wrath or the punishment of God by
the analogy which Christ most frequently used, that
of father. We generally account it a sign of weak
ness when a father loses his temper in punishing a
child. He then does it out of vindictiveness. But a
father rightly punishes out of love for the child, to
improve its character. So, too, a father, after he
has done all he could for his child, and the child per
sistently turns from him and perseveres in his evil
course and hardens himself to all loving appeals, may
give way to his indignation, may utter scathing re
buke, and in the end may turn from the child and
cut off all intercourse with him. He will be hence
forth a stranger. But is not this indignation and the
final sentence perfectly in accord with a father's
love ? Can we not imagine, even while the father's
indignation is kindling his tongue to the sharpest
rebuke, that his heart is wrung with anguish for the
waywardness of the loved child? and even when he
turns from him, after all effort has proved futile, it
is in deepest sorrow; and if the child should show at
any moment signs of repentance, would not the
father — as Christ described it in the parable — quickly
go to meet him ?
It is of the greatest importance for a systematic
method of theology, that we should never leave out
of view the divergence between our individual re
ligious reflexion and the form of theological specu
lation ' sub specie aeternitatis. ' " The distinction,
which this quotation from Ritschl makes, is between

THE IDEA OF GOD. 169
the feeling which comes to us naturally according to
the anthropomorphic way of thinking of God, and
the higher conceptions which we form, when we sub
ject our natural impressions to the control of reason
and try to harmonise our ideas. It is natural that
we should in a devotional attitude feel the " wrath "
of God, and natural that we should pray, as we do in
the Litany and elsewhere, to be delivered from his
wrath ; but in our reflective moments we correct and
give the proper interpretation to the anthropo
morphism contained in such forms.
We conclude, therefore, that the wrath of God,
properly understood, does not demand any other
conception of God than that of holy love. One im
portant practical corollary is to be drawn from this
conclusion. It applies to the use of fear in religion.
The appeal to the sense of fear in the unconverted
is based upon a different conception of God than
that above given. The latter allows no scope to
fear, as commonly understood, in the Christian re
ligion. The " fear of God " is a different thing
from the trembling before the vindictive, vengeful
being, who in the minds of many has stood in the
place of God. It is quite certain that the appeal to
fear, by placing before men such a God in place of
" the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," will not re
sult in that sense of religion which Christ sought to
awaken. If there is any scope for fear in Christian
ity, it is the fear which is excited in the wrongdoer
when his eyes are opened to see where his course is
leading him — the fear of becoming what he now

170 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
recognises as an awful possibility. This fear may
become a motive to a better life ; but such fear is
only awakened when one has experienced the love
of God.
It is a fault of our theology that it does not en
quire into the nature of God's love, and that the
term is supposed to carry with it nothing more than
the emotional sentiment which we are accustomed
to associate with affection. And yet the nature of
God's love yields to analysis. Here, again, the anal
ogy of human fatherhood holds. As a father's love
is something more than a mere effusion of sentiment,
so is God's; and a juster appreciation of the true
quality of God's love will throw a flood of light
upon the central doctrine of Christian theology.
First, then, we find that God's love involves the
singling out of the individual, the recognition of
each in the rights of his personality. To believe in
God's love means primarily to believe that I am not
lost in an indistinguishable mass of humanity, but
that God has singled me out, that God's eye is ever
upon me, that my individual life has, in his sight, its
own value. But it means more than this : it means
that God sees me not only as I am, but also as I
may be, not only the actuality, but also the possi
bility, and that he longs to make that possibility
real. He recognises the purpose and the ideal of
each man's life, and that purpose and ideal he has
taken up into his own thought and purpose. To
have learned to know myself the object of God's
love, to have . become conscious of the divine eye

THE IDEA OP GOD. 171
singling me out and resting upon me, and to have
awakened to the fact that God looks upon me not
only as I am, but also as I may be, that God is ever
comparing me with my ideal : what stronger motive
could ever come into the life of man than this ?
Could any representation of future judgment have
softened the heart of Zacchaeus as did the sudden
revelation flashed into his soul when Jesus singled
him out in the crowd, that even he, the outcast
among men, was an object of care and love to Jesus ?
How different the idea he must from that moment
have had of his own life, of his value before God.
This is the motive that Christianity brings into the
life of man : the appreciation of his own humanity.
It was well said by one of the writers of Lux Mundi,
that man to be saved must know not only that he
cannot save himself, but " how splendidly worth
saving he was."1 To know this; to , understand
that before the almighty Creator and Sustainer of
the world I stand in the dignity of my personality,
that he recognises the rights that belong to me as
one created in the likeness of himself, that God has
placed before me possibilities for infinite good ; to
have the eyes to see my own ideal as the divinely
appointed " might be " of my life: this is to know
the love of God, and this is Christ's motive to a
better life.
It may be said that this motive is too high for
hardened sinners, that they need a rougher treat
ment to rouse them to a sense of sin. Christ, when
1 " The Preparation in History for Christ,"

172 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
he found them desecrating the temple, did not talk
to those men about a beautiful ideal. He made a
scourge of cords and drove them out. True. But
was it fear that made those men go quietly trooping
out of the sacred precincts, driven by one man ?
Not fear, but shame. It was because Christ had
awakened in them a sense of the unworthiness of
their action, that they did what no mere fear would
have made them do. Shame is the sense of the in
congruity of our actions with that personal worth
which is ours as the objects of God's love. The
sense of shame comes often as the first step towards
a better life. The first suggestion rising in the mind
of what I ought to be, of what God wills me to be,
awakens the feeling of shame. I begin to look with
suspicion, then with dislike, finally with aversion
and horror, upon what I have done. I learn to
know that I have injured myself. A new feeling is
awakened — the respect of self. As I grow in know
ledge of my better self, I shrink more and more from
my former self. And so I learn to value myself as
God values me, and to know and aspire to the life
which God has appointed for me. And while this
feeling is being intensified, it becomes every day more
clear to me what the love of God means. So, all
through the process, from the beginning to the end,
it is the same divine love, first awakening the sense
of shame — not, perhaps, without a rough shaking —
and then quickening into life the dormant aspirations.
In the gospels we look in vain for any appeal to fear
that Christ made. Even the betrayal of Peter called

THE IDEA OF GOD. 173
from him only the rebuke of a glance; but that
glance was enough to bring an agony of shame into
Peter's heart, so that he went from Christ's presence
and wept bitterly.
As soon as the sinner turns to God, he feels the
divine love whose arms are ever open to receive him
back. All fear, that is incompatible with this love
of God, such as has been appealed to (more in the
past than in the present) as a religious motive, such
as to-day in the Roman Catholic Church forms the
basis of a huge ramified system of compromises with
an angry God : all such fear we, if we follow the teach
ings of Jesus, must rule out of the Christian system.
We conclude, therefore, in opposition to that
theory which makes righteousness the fundamental
attribute of God, and to that which represents him
as mere arbitrary will, that God is to be conceived
as love. You think of God as love or you do not
think of him at all. You think nothing in God be
fore his love. Holy love is the all-sufficient con
ception of God.
I have omitted one factor in the idea of God which
has played an important part in theological systems :
personality. I shall do no more than glance at it,
because I cannot bring myself to think that it is of
any practical importance. The denial of God's per
sonality, according to the well-known aphorism of
Spinoza " Omnis determinatio est negatio," is one
of those metaphysical subtleties which have done
much to confuse theological thought. Mr. John
Fiske in his Idea of God, says (p. 135) that " to

174 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
ascribe what we know as human personality to the
infinite Deity straightway lands us in a contradiction,
since personality without limits is inconceivable."
But inasmuch as the human mind is incapable of
conceiving anything without limits, as, in fact, the
nature of the infinite is utterly and entirely outside
of the sphere of possible human knowledge, it is
difficult to see what force there is in this objection.
Personality being the highest conception of spiritual
power which the human mind can form, the conclu
sion is irresistible that the mind would stultify itself
if it did not ascribe to the creator at least the per
fection of the creature. Mr. Fiske does attribute
" a quasi-psychical nature " to the Deity and this
would seem to be very much the nature under which
any thoughtful Christian conceives God.1
We have, therefore, nothing to add to our defini
tion : God is holy love. This is the only conception
of the Supreme Being in which the mind comes to
rest. But we must go one step further. Love is
inconceivable without an object, just as pure will
without an object of the will cannot be imagined.
If, therefore, God is love, there must be an object
of God's love. This object of God's love is the
kingdom of God.
1 It is doubtless true, as Mr. Spencer points out, that we cannot
imagine the Supreme Being as possessed with attributes proper to
humanity, such as consciousness, will, intelligence. But can we not,
and must we not, believe the perfection of the Deity to involve all the
highest attributes of humanity ? Otherwise we stultify ourselves with
this absurdity, that the universe, including man, proceeds from a
being who is in his nature lower than his works.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 175
Here we come upon that historic phenomenon
which we set out to investigate. We found that
Christ came to establish the kingdom of God. Cer
tain words of Christ led us to the recognition of a
religious determination of life within that kingdom.
We have followed the various steps of that process,
from sin to forgiveness, and through forgiveness to
the eternal life, and that brought us to consider
the idea of God, in which all true thought of the
Christian life must centre. And now we are brought
to this conclusion : that the true conception of God
as the God of love must recognise as the object of
his love that kingdom of God which Christ came to
earth to establish. This completes our idea of God.
The love of God for the kingdom of God means
that he takes up the end and purpose of that organi
sation of men into his own thought and purpose.
He makes its end and object his own. We think of
God as love because we think of him as setting be
fore himself as his object, end, and purpose, the
building up of the human race into the kingdom of
God. Here we get a glimpse of God's comprehen
sive plan. We see the kingdom of God in its incep
tion eighteen hundred years ago. Christ even then
comprehended its destination ; from the little seed
it was to grow into a great tree overshadowing the
earth. And looking back we can see how this desti
nation has been. in the process of realisation. It has
been a slow process, but the principle of expansion
has never staid its work. We know not by what
steps the future will advance towards a fuller realisa-

176 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
tion of that kingdom, but we do know that this
kingdom of God is the key to human history. The
destiny of the world is bound up with it. It has in
the very being of God the assurance of ultimate
triumph. For to us God becomes intelligible only
as we conceive his love to have taken the kingdom
of God up into his own purpose. In the light of
this great truth we can see how all tends to the
advancement of this kingdom of God. The material
world becomes a minister to the spiritual world ; the
creation below man serves the purposes of man, and
all the countless forms of matter adapted to the use
and gratification of man, exist for the kingdom of
God, as a means of its realisation.
But, one may ask, what of the time before there
was any kingdom of God, before there was any
world? It might be objected that the kingdom of
God, being temporal and still in the process of reali
sation and, therefore, contingent, is not fitted to be
the object of the divine love. If God in his essential
nature is love and we cannot conceive of love with
out an object, the object of God's love must be com
mensurate with his being, it must be eternal.
This question brings us to the borderland of the
unknowable. We stand as it were on the shore of
a vast ocean. We strain our eyes to catch a glimpse
of something beyond. We have some faint sugges
tions of a farther shore ; driftwood is cast upon our
strand ; the winds carry the fragrance of another
continent ; and such indications allow us to guess at
the nature of the strange land. So it is with our

THE IDEA OF GOD. 177
thoughts of "heaven and of God. As far as we need
a God as an object of trust we can know him ; but
when the mind pries further and seeks to know him
as he is, it can only reason, cautiously and timidly,
from the indications we have to what seem their
necessary conditions. We know God to be love, we
believe the object of his love to be his kingdom.
But the farther we proceed in our search into the
nature of God, the more slender grows the thread
which connects our speculations with the concrete
facts of experience.
Bearing in mind this caution we may say in answer
to the difficulty suggested, that for us the kingdom
of God is indeed an event in time ; it had a beginning
and will have a consummation in time. But as far as
we can understand what time is, we must conceive it*
as a subjective condition of our knowledge, some
thing inherent in us as finite creatures. And,
although God must stand in some relation to time,
yet there is a sense in which God stands above time.
Eternity," says Ritschl, " is the power of the
spirit over time." As such, we ourselves have a
certain experience of eternity. We must think of
God as free from the limitations of time. The con
ditions of time in the realisation of his kingdom do
not exist for him. The kingdom of God, in its full
consummation, is from eternity the object of the
divine contemplation; the perfect realisation of
that kingdom is an ever-present experience with
God. And, therefore, the kingdom of God is an
object commensurate to the love of God.

178 THE KINGDOM OP GOD.
Another reflection will perhaps serve to supple
ment this train of thought, or may be a substitute
for the conception of the eternal significance of the
kingdom of God for God. We have seen that
Christ is the type of that relationship into which
God entered with his followers, that is, with his
kingdom. The love of God for his kingdom is pre
figured by the love of God for Christ. If we con
ceive Christ, according to the doctrine of the Church,
as the second person of the Trinity, the love of God
for his kingdom finds its eternal type in the love of
the Father for the eternally begotten Son. Then
the kingdom of God and Christ are correlated con
ceptions. Then the life of the kingdom of God is a
part of the divine life thrown out from God, and for
reasons utterly beyond our ken subjected to the con
ditions of time and space and so entering into the
historic relationships familiar to us.
We are conscious of the weakness of our wings as
we try to soar above the sphere of experience into
the realm of pure realities. But the mind cannot
abnegate an imperious instinct to probe its own
conceptions to the very last consequences. Harm
is done when these speculations are raised to the
dignity of finality and receive the imprimatur of
Christian doctrine.
We come back to this: the Christian faith de
mands that we conceive God as one, and that unity
can only be love. We do not think God at all un
less we think him in relation to his kingdom as
seeking the realisation of that kingdom's end and

THE IDEA OF GOD. 179
object. The idea of God as a God of love for his
kingdom is such that the Christian mind can find
rest in it, as will be seen if we apply to it our ethi
cal and spiritual tests. First, this idea satisfies the
ethical demands of our nature. It avoids the diffi
culties of both the other theories ; it neither assumes
a necessity above God as the seat of the moral law,
nor does it make the moral law subject to the arbi
trary will of God. According to our theory, good
ness is inherent in the nature of God. For God and
the kingdom of God are inseparably connected.
God, in his self-determination, determines himself
with reference to the kingdom of God ; and as we
found the kingdom of God to be, either in itself or
in its type, the eternal object of God's love, it fol
lows that there never was a time when his will did
not realise itself for the good of this kingdom ; that
is, it works from eternity in the manner which we,
from our point of view, call the laws of goodness.
These laws, therefore, have their seat in God's
nature, in such manner that they neither stand
above God nor are the creatures of his caprice.
Thus the ethical demands of our nature are satisfied.
Our spiritual craving also receives satisfaction.
The God whom we think of only as a God of love
is one whom we can trust. The heart comes to
rest, we are satisfied with such a God. We do not
want to stand in dread of our God, and we need
not. The God of whom I think as the father in the
parable, or as the shepherd in the other story, allows
me to look up to him as a child to his father, as

180 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Christ did. This is the God who makes men brave,
the God who makes us feel that the world is of little
account with him on our side.
The essential difference between this and the
dualistic idea of God is that the latter assumes an
end and purpose for which God exists other than
the world. God lives for his own glory, his own
honour. Hence the fatal dualism. Our view iden
tifies the purpose of God and the purpose for which
the world exists. We have seen that God's love
means the taking up. of the final end of the kingdom
of God into his own thought and purpose. Hence,
the two coincide, are identical. The consummation
of human society according to the eternal laws of
right: this is the end and object of God's kingdom.
It is also God's own eternal purpose. And there
fore the progressive realisation of the kingdom of
God upon earth is a fuller and fuller revelation of
the nature of God.
This truth of the unity of purpose of God and
the world affords the final'solution of the problem
of the freedom of the will. Two seemingly contra
dictory truths are postulated by religion : man's
dependence upon God and the freedom of the will.
The idea of the freedom of the will has been
scouted as an absurdity.1 But we may still be
allowed to hold that there is a difference between
the acts of volition in man and those of the brute.
That every act of the will has behind it a motive,
1 Compare John Fiske, Cosmic Philosophy.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 181
goes without saying. The will obeys the strongest
motive; this motive exists in the shape of feeling.
But what determines the feeling ? This is the point
at which the enquiry into the freedom of the will
must begin.
The freedom of the will rests upon the power of
the reason, the ability to balance motives. The
brute obeys only the brute instinct. That is the
lowest motive. Above that of the brute instinct is
the stage of a calculating selfishness. Then there
is the stage where the motives are subservient
to family relationship. That is the first step on
the ladder of civilisation. Above that is the stage
where the motives of conduct are under tribal or
national influence. Patriotism is the mark of a
highly evolved ethical system. But it is not the
highest. In the highest stage the motives of action
are brought under subserviency to the end for which
man was created — the kingdom of God. It is only
when we recognise the motives which are correlated
to the kingdom of God as those which rightly gov
ern man's actions, that we understand what the
freedom of the will is. Only when man has raised
himself to the plane upon which his conduct is gov
erned by reason, or — which is the same thing — by
considerations of the ultimate end and purpose of his
life, is there freedom of choice. Every other set of
motives, that of the animal instincts, of calculating
selfishness, of family or national interests, involves a
certain amount of limitation, a certain bondage of
the will. The will must act in obedience to the

182 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
most comprehensive human motive, to be really free.
This is the motive corresponding to the laws of the
kingdom of God. The freedom of the will may
therefore be defined as the self-determination of man
according to the laws of the kingdom of God.
But, as we have seen, this same kingdom of God
is the object of God's love. The end of the king
dom of God is God's own eternal purpose. It is
God's object to effect the realisation of the kingdom
of God by the same laws in obedience to which man
experiences freedom. God's law is the sphere of
man's liberty. God's law is our " law of liberty."
I exercise freedom of will by the determination of
my conduct in accordance with the laws which repre
sent God's own purpose for me. Therefore, in
obeying God's law I am free, at the same time that
I feel my dependence upon God. The apparent
paradox is a fact of daily experience. The problem
is solved when we recognise the identity of purpose
between God and man.
We began this enquiry into the idea of God by
asking what nature had to teach us. We found
that, with the exception of one delicate hint which
beauty in nature gives, it brings before us rather a
God who is cruel and regardless of the well-being of
his creatures. We then examined the Christian idea
of God. We had to reject certain current ideas ; but
we found that the conception of the Supreme Being
which is revealed to us in the gospels satisfies those
tests by which we must judge, the demands of the

THE IDEA OP GOD. 183
ethical and of the spiritual nature. The moral
nature and the spiritual nature cry out for a God,
and the God revealed by Christ is the only God who
satisfies their longing. The knowledge of " the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ " comes to us in
answer to what the poet calls the
" Vexing, forward reaching sense
Of some more noble permanence."
Upon this foundation our belief in God stands
firm : it is the meeting of the human aspirations and
the revelation of Christ. The one is the answer to
the other, and in this answer to human needs lies
the strength of Christian conviction. But we should
altogether fail to grasp the true significance of this
Christian idea of God if we thought of it as one
which we are merely permitted to hold. A good
many people seem to think of religion very much as
if the Christian were a sort of spoiled child, who has
worried his parents into giving him a toy to play
with. We are ever fearful lest some new attack
upon religion may possibly rob us of our God. And
so we hardly dare bring it out into the light of day;
we cherish it in secret, lest it might catch the envi
ous eye of some bold champion of that terrible
bugbear of the modern Christian, " Science," and
provoke him to the attack.
A little reflection will show that the foregoing
train of thought carries with it not only the permis
sion but the necessity of the Christian idea of God.
Not only may we, as Christians, think of God as

184 THE KINGDOM OP GOD.
Christ thought of him ; but as thinking, reasoning
beings we are obliged to assume the Christian idea
of God. Consider: what takes place in every act
of reflective thought ? The astronomer makes his
brain the centre from which he sweeps through the
stellar universe; the chemist in his single person
places himself over against the whole material world
and it becomes the object of his analysis; the his
torian comprehends in his survey all life, past and
present. Underlying these operations of the mind
we are forced to recognise a fact of the utmost sig
nificance. This fact is the claim of superiority to
nature which the human spirit makes. By nature
is meant all that comes under the law of causation,
including the phenomena of human life. The acts of
conscious reflection which the astronomer, the chem
ist, the historian, and every other thinker performs
are the assertion of a uniqueness belonging to the
human spirit, of a right to set itself up against all
the world. They are the manifestation of a distin
guishing human faculty, the power to objectify the
world. Recognising this uniqueness of the human
spirit, we are obliged to take one of two alternatives.
Either we must confess that we have no explanation
of it. But the mind cannot rest in this agnosticism.
It must go forward, if it is true to itself. Or we
must acknowledge that the only adequate founda
tion for that claim of the individual human spirit is
the Christian God, who as a God of love is to me
the guarantee that the dignity which my personality
claims for itself is founded in eternal truth.

THE IDEA OF GOD. 185
On this ground, Ritschl criticises Strauss's well-
known figure of the huge world-machine, with its
iron teeth and hammers, to whose cruelty we are a
helpless prey. Strauss comforts himself with the
reflection that the machine has not only merciless
wheels, but also soothing oil : this is the power of
habit to alleviate suffering. Of this figure Ritschl
says : either we are parts of the machine ; then we
can form no conception of the whole and its work
ing; in that case we do not need any soothing oil,
if when we are worn out we are replaced by new
parts. Or else, men are distinguished from the
machine as intelligent onlookers, at the same time
that they are crushed by it: " Then, surely, it is no
alleviation and no comfort to be sprayed with rancid
oil ; that is, by the persuasion of the inevitable neces
sity of their own destruction to be deprived of the
consciousness of their own value which they drew
from the fact that, because they were able to examine
the machine and to have a knowledge of its con
struction, they were superior to it." The very
effort, therefore, which the materialist makes to
demonstrate that man is on the same plane with
nature refutes his proposition. He could not make
that effort did he not objectify nature. The very
fact that he sets himself up as a critic of the world
and of himself is possible only by the tacit assump
tion of a something in him which outranks the
material universe, to whose level he seeks to de
grade himself. The only adequate explanation,
and therefore the only sufficient foundation, for the

186 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
energetic self-determination of man by intellect and
will is the God whose love for his children secures
for them the full realisation of their destined place
in the future, to which they have a right, but to
which the weakness of their physical nature is a bar
in the present.
With this we bring our argument for the idea of
God to a conclusion. The conception of God which
it has been attempted to establish differs in some
important particulars from that which is officially
held and taught. It does not, however, differ from
the ideal which the pulpit of to-day very generally
teaches. We must acknowledge a divergence be
tween our practical teaching and our theoretical
standards. Our theories are still held within the
traditional bounds; the old formulas are still in
vogue ; we render them a formal homage, but that
respect being paid we proceed to contradict our
theory by our practice. A God who is primarily
justice and righteousness is still the formal assump
tion ; but we preach a God of love.
How much we have changed in this respect be
comes impressively evident from a glance at such
discourses as those of Jonathan Edwards. The
most conservative theologian of to-day would turn
with abhorrence from the kind of God depicted in
sermons as that on " The justice of God in the
damnation of sinners," or " Sinners in the hands of
an angry God." A foot-note to the latter states
that it was " attended with remarkable impressions

THE IDEA OF GOD. 187
on many of the hearers. ' ' We read the sermon and
we are astonished. It would never enter into the
mind of man to-day to make such an appeal in a
Christian pulpit. That sort of teaching has passed
away. The burden of Christian preaching to-day is
a God of love.1
The comparison with Jonathan Edwards suggests
another thought. Edwards, in his New England
rural parish, in a community which Lowell said he
believed was the most virtuous that ever existed,
preached a God of terror. We, in our large cities,
oppressed by a mass of wickedness such as Edwards
never dreamt of, try to bring men to a consciousness
of a God of love. Is it not because a deeper know
ledge of human sin has given us a profounder appre
ciation of that love which never tires in its search
for the sinner ?
Experience, that best teacher of theology, has
taught us to preach a God of love. The need of
1 Nowhere probably can the monstrous results of pure theological
intellectualism be seen so clearly as in Edwards. Compare such lan
guage as this : " The greater part of those who heretofore have lived
under the same means of grace, and are now dead, are undoubtedly
gone to hell." Also this : " All that preserves them every moment is
the mere arbitrary will, and uncovenanted, unobliged forbearance, of
an incensed God." (" Sinners in the hands of an angry God "). One has
to read such discourses as these to understand how our conceptions of
Christianity are altered. A study of mediaeval art is also instructive
in this respect. Take, for instance, Michael Angelo's Last Judgment.
The attitude of Christ, the terror expressed in all faces, the entire
absence of joy even among the redeemed, the exclusion of any sug
gestion of love ; all this corresponds with the wrath and fear which
the mind of the Middle Ages associated with the judgment. No
modern painter would so paint it.

188 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
human nature has turned us from a cold intellectual
ism and has opened in the working Church a greater
depth of insight to realise the balm she has to heal
bleeding wounds, the food to still spiritual hunger.
And she sets before men a God whom they can
trust. But while she is doing this she still holds to
the old theory which contradicts her present prac
tice. While she tells men from the pulpit that God
is a God of love, she teaches in her schools that God
is a God of wrath.1
This alienation between practical and theoretical
Christianity cannot but be disastrous in its conse
quences. A " practical Christianity " which has
not under it a foundation of reasoned conviction is
worth little more than any other groundless preju
dice. The embers may glow on for a while, but
they will soon die out.
It is not pretended that this presentation of the
Christian idea of God satisfactorily solves every
difficulty. But, founded as it is upon the revelation
of Christ, it produces harmony in our thoughts and
is fitted to form the groundwork of a strong con-
victon. 1 " There is a reconciliation needed for which all devout and rev
erent men yearn, and it is the reconciliation between dogma and
religion." — Ian Maclaren, The Cure of Souls, chap. v.

CHAPTER VI.
THE PERSON OF CHRIST.
WHEN Christian truth has been extricated from
the mass of alien material with which metaphysical
reasoning has encumbered it, it is found to be very
simple. The salient points are: forgiveness, the
eternal life, a God of love, the revelation of Christ.
These are vital truths, upon which rest the hope,
the comfort, the strength of religion. We have
been trying to understand the connection and the
harmony between them.
As we proceeded in our argument, we have been
aware of the fact that our reasoning has been based
upon an assumption which we have not verified,
that there is a great underlying question which we
have not answered. To that question we shall now
return. It is the question of the authenticity of the
gospels. I wish here to recall what was said in the Intro
duction, that no proof, as commonly , understood,
would be attempted. The task of the theologian
is to give an analysis of the Christian faith ; the con
viction of the truth must come from the answer
which the facts of Christianity render to the re
ligious needs of man. But it is necessary at this
189

190 THE KINGDOM OP GOD.
point to enquire whether the facts upon which
Christian truth is based are trustworthy. We cannot
neglect the historic basis of Christianity. Otherwise
it would hang in the air. If there were no sufficient
warrant for these vital truths in the facts of history,
we should have to say : it is a very beautiful picture
of the imagination, but it is a dream and nothing
more. We cannot eliminate the historic element
from Christianity. We must recognise the fact that
Christianity enters into our lives through the means
of certain actual facts of human experience.
The connecting link between our lives and the
Christian truth is the historic Christ. The know
ledge of Christ is a necessary factor in the Christian
life. God has appointed him as the means to sal
vation, not because forgiveness must be wrung from
an unwilling judge, but because man could not
otherwise be brought back to the Father. Christ's
influence upon man is twofold : first, he convinces
man of sin ; secondly, he brings forgiveness. This
influence proceeds from the record of Christ's life;
it touches us through the knowledge of that life as
portrayed in the gospels. Untold multitudes have
traced the principle of a new life in them to the
knowledge of the life of Jesus. This fact alone
raises a presumption in favour of the gospel records.
Seeing, as we do, that Christ has come as a new
leaven into the mass of humanity; understanding,
as we do, that the life of Christian nations, in all
its wonderful complexity, rests upon Christianity : —
having before our minds the effect which the life of

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 191
the one man, Jesus of Nazareth, has produced in the
world, we are strongly disposed to accept the account
of that life as true.
Nevertheless, should criticism succeed in proving
that such a man as Jesus never lived, or that the
record of his life is untrustworthy, we should be
forced to reconstruct our theories. We cannot en
tirely spiritualise faith. It is futile to pretend that
Christianity is quite independent of criticism. The
Christian faith does depend upon certain facts of our
knowledge. If there was no Christ, there can be no
Christianity. It will, therefore, be necessary to take
into consideration the grounds for believing in the
historic character of Christ, and in doing so we are
brought face to face with the immense labour which
this and preceding generations have spent upon the
problem. It is far beyond the scope of this essay to present
a history of modern criticism. It will be sufficient
to indicate the drift of research in this department
and to draw the limits of what we may look upon as
settled. There have been from the beginning critics of the
Christian system. But not until towards the close
of the last century did biblical criticism become more
than the sporadic attempts of individual scholars.
At that time it began to be a movement of the
general religious mind. Since then it has gone
through many phases. One theory after another
has been propounded, enthusiastically received, and
abandoned. So it was with the early rationalistic

192 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
attempts to eliminate the supernatural and pro
fessedly to vindicate the character of Jesus as a
great teacher. Then came the celebrated myth-
theory of Strauss, and to many judgment seemed
to have been pronounced upon Christianity. But
time and the closer examination of the records
proved this theory untenable, and it was succeeded
by another.
Aside from the main stream of theological de
velopment stood the Frenchman Renan, who dis
solved the story of Jesus into an oriental romance,
and by the exquisite charm of his language capti
vated many. But who believes in Renan to-day ?
Strauss and his myth-theory was succeeded by
the Tubingen school with its most illustrious repre
sentative, the keen Baur, who explained Catholic
Christianity as the compromise of two ' ' tendencies, ' '
the Gentile and Jewish. This is the last theory.
Baur's conception, elaborated by a host of able suc
cessors, for a long time fascinated Christian thinkers.
Its influence has not yet altogether died out. But
as a theory it has been given up. It has not stood
the test of criticism.1 The minute investigations
into the text and history of the gospels have moved
the dates of their composition so much higher up,
1 " The magnificent attempt of Baur to explain Catholicism as a
product of the opposition and the neutralisation of Jewish and Gen
tile Christianity (which Baur identifies with Paulinism) deals with
two factors, of which one had no significance whatever and the other
only an indirect significance for. the formation of the Catholic
Church." — Harnack, Dogmengeschichte , vol. i., page 277 (third edi
tion).

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 193
that the theory of a prolonged conflict between two
" tendencies " within the church antecedent to the
writing of our present gospels must be abandoned.
In its turn the " tendency " theory has given
place to another school. The day of " theories "
is past. The present generation of scholars is de
voting its energies to the critical investigation of the
biblical records. The Tubingen school has been
succeeded by the present " critical school."
It -is to the labours of those who are subjecting
the Christian documents to an impartial scrutiny
that we owe the reconstruction of the historic life
of Christ. Underlying such works as the two latest
lives of Christ, by Weiss and Beyschlag, there is a
mass of painstaking, minute, accurate scholarship,
which scans every word of the record with the ut
most care.1 It is this work which is teaching us to
know Jesus, not as the stereotype shadow of a man
existing in an impossible spectre-world, but as he
lived, thought, spoke, and acted. As a picture
painted by a great artist differs from the conven
tional outlines of an heraldic figure, so the life of
Christ as we know it now differs from the conven
tional conception of tradition. We have had to give
up many things and some things which perhaps were
dear to Christian hearts. Some points are still
undecided. But we may rest assured that the main
features of the unique picture drawn in our gospels
are true. All that we require for our faith is firm.
The historic Jesus has stood the test of the most
1 Compare such works as Weiss's Matthceus and Marcus.

194 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
searching criticism.1 We need have no fear lest we
have built our religion upon an unreality. The
scholars who have devoted their energies to an ex
amination of the biblical records claim our grati
tude. The battle has been fought ; the smoke has
not quite cleared away. But to-day the thoughtful
Christian stands firmer in his faith because the issue
has been faced.'
The question of the supernatural forms a separate
line of investigation in the historical reconstruction
of the life of Christ. It was the fault of the old
conception that it found the entire significance of
Christ's life in the miraculous. Jesus was nothing
more than the conventional figure of a man. The
one element in his life in which religious interest
centred was the supernatural. It is undeniable that
we have passed beyond that view. We are con
scious of a decided change in the direction of our
religious interest. That change, so far as the life of
Jesus is concerned, is the appreciation we have
learned to give to his character. We now see In his
life, not a tale of magic powers, but rather the ex-
' The Dutch school, which has gone so far as to deny the existence
of Jesus as an historic character, has failed to establish a claim to
attention on the part of serious and sober criticism.
Prof. Harnack, in the often-quoted passages of his Chronologic,
makes outspoken acknowledgment of the retrograde tendency of
criticism. 8 Theological bitterness and that weakness of faith which would
put a stop to investigation have unfortunately not yet received the
stigma of sin. which in the sight of God must attach to them.

THE PERSON OP CHRIST. • 195
hibition of a human sublimity which makes him
unique among men, of that beauty which wrung
from the unbeliever Renan the eloquent tribute
at the close of his Life of Jesus.' Our perspective
is altered. The human and spiritual claim equal
rights with the divine and supernatural.
On the other hand, there are those who are so
much impressed with the moral grandeur of Christ's
life, that they have pushed the miraculous aside as
unessential. At the one end of the scale we have
the materialisation of religion, where the ethical is
nothing, the miracle everything, and religion be
comes superstition. At the other end is the ex
treme spiritualisation of Christianity. Here the ten
dency is to abstract religion from physical conditions.
Exclusive devotion to the spiritual makes us over
look the sternness of the physical law, and the con
sciousness of the supernatural in Christianity becomes
eliminated. In weak minds this tendency runs into
a vague sentimentalism, a feeling with no particular
contents; such people simply " feel religious." In
strong minds it often goes with a pronounced faith
in a present God, a sustaining trust in Providence.
But this sort of spiritualised faith is dangerous.
Its fault is that it fails to realise the nature and ob
ject of Christianity, and therefore deceives itself with
1 " Mais quels que puissent etre les phenomenes inattendus de
l'avenir, Jesus ne sera pas surpasse. Son culte se rajeunira sans
cesse : sa legende provoquera des larmes sans fin ; ses souffrances
attendriront les meilleurs coeurs ; tous les siecles proclameront qu'en-
tre les fils des hommes, il n'en est pas ne de plus grand que Jesus.''
Closing sentence.

196 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
the pretension of being above the physical. We are,
as human beings, subject to physical limitations, and
it is on account of these very limitations that we
need a God. If it were not that I feel the stress of
that contradiction in my own being : the spirit with
its aspirations for the highest freedom walled up and
hemmed in by this " baffling and perverting carnal
mesh," — if it were not for that contradiction between
the spiritual and the physical in me, I should not
want a God. Therefore, to ignore the physical is
absurd. If I am ever to know again that being
whose body I have seen lowered into the earth, now
no more than a mass of dead matter like the stones
and the earth around it, then there must be some
where a very different world from this. There must
be laws of which we can form no conception ; there
is a secret now closely veiled, when it is revealed a
new light will come over the world. We may sup
press, but we cannot eradicate, the craving for the
supernatural. Why are men so afraid of that word ?
Science may have its own technical reasons for avoid
ing it; but for us it seems to express, just as it
always did, that something which is beyond our ken,
above the natural. The attempts to explain the
supernatural in terms of the natural seem very like
child's-play. It goes without saying that the super
natural is not contrary to the laws of God ; but it is
equally evident that no natural law has been discov
ered which will explain the rising from the dead.
We think, sometimes, that we have explained a thing
when we have shown that it is not something else ;

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 197
but we may only have corrected an error or put into
accurate language something that everybody knew
before. So it is in this case. The human mind has
accomplished much, so much, that at times we think
we can achieve the impossible ; but it is nevertheless
a fact, that the mystery of life is no nearer an ex
planation than it was in the days of Abraham.
It is this mystery of life which we long to pierce.
Is there any other than this material universe that
we know ? Is there nowhere a point of transition
from the spiritual to the natural ? Has the God to
whom we look up nowhere proved his power over
the physical ? This is the intellectual element in
that aspiration which is innate in human nature.
We find that Christianity offers an answer to these
questions. This answer is in the miraculous element
of our gospels.
Doubtless, we must be careful to give no more
than its due weight to the miraculous. Let us,
therefore, consider the supernatural elements of the
gospels. Christ's life is full of the supernatural. It
may be questioned whether some of the miracles of
Jesus do not receive an adequate and more satisfac
tory explanation on a natural hypothesis. The
question of motive must be given its weight. This
applies to such stories as that of the turning of water
into wine, and the feeding of the multitude. It is
no derogation to the gospel narrative to allow single
cases like these to remain open questions. Further
more, the minute examination and comparison of
the synoptic gospels reveals an enlarging tendency

198 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
in the later in comparison with the earlier version.
The story in several cases is amplified by the later
writer. This is true of the baptism of Jesus, where
the vision of the dove in the original account is made
into an actual physical occurrence in St. Luke.
Nevertheless, making all allowances for a tendency
to amplification and to supernatural explanation, it
is impossible to eradicate the miraculous from the
story of Jesus. Take as an instance the account of
the healing of the paralytic ( St. Mark, ii.). Either
to explain away the miracle, or to hold that the
story is a pure invention, or to disentangle the miracu
lous and reject it as a later addition: any of these
theories presents most serious psychological ob
stacles. And if the attempt is extended to all the
miraculous accounts in the gospels, these difficulties
become insuperable. The miracles remain as an in
tegral part of the gospel narrative.
I am by no means attempting to prove the
miracles. That is impossible, and the faith that
rests upon the miraculous in the story of Christ will
prove a failure. All we can show is that the evi
dence in favour of the miraculous is reasonable, and
that it is difficult to explain away. The reasons
which induce us to accept that evidence as sufficient
are religious, not historical. This applies to the
crown of all miracles : the resurrection. The his
toric evidence for the resurrection of Christ is of the
strongest. True, it is not convincing, for many
have refused to accept it. But it is quite sufficient
for the historic basis of supernatural religion, that

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 199
the story of the resurrection of Christ is supported
by evidence which the candid student must recog
nise as strong, that it is difficult to account for the
narrative upon any theory other than the truth of
the fact.
The case is somewhat different with that other
article of our creed : the Virgin-birth. The reveren
tial student is reluctant to turn the eye of criticism
upon this article of the faith; but it has become an
object of dispute, and it would be cowardice, for
which we could not answer to God, to turn away
from any serious question. First, then, it must be
frankly acknowledged that the virgin-birth stands
upon no such historic basis as the resurrection. It
is not necessary to enter into details. The candid
student must concede that, compared with the
strength of the evidence for the rising of Christ from
the dead, that for the virgin-birth is limited. The
fact that this belief was current in the very earliest
time, when those were living who might have con
tradicted it, and that it remained uncontradicted,
would be accepted as good evidence of an ordinary
occurrence. The magnitude of the fact to be
proved and a comparison with the testimony to the
truth of the other great miracle make us wish for
stronger evidence.
On the other hand, even those who are most
keenly aware of the historical difficulty would be
reluctant to part with this dogma. The Church
through all these ages has accepted it. It would
leave us with a sense of incompleteness, of inade-

200 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
quacy, if we had to give up our belief that the en
trance of Christianity into the world was without
some signal manifestation of God's power. This is
more true to-day than it ever was, because we under
stand the transcendent significance of Christianity
to the world as it was never understood before,
while at the same time Christianity is seen more
and more to be centred in Christ. We are, therefore,
intellectually predisposed to accept an account of the
beginning of Christianity which should break through
the ordinary chain of events.
While, therefore, we consider that we have suffi
cient grounds for accepting this article of faith, we
may not conceal from ourselves that the belief in
the virgin-birth rests upon a different basis from the
faith in the resurrection. The latter stands upon its
own strong evidence. We speak of " the gospel of
the resurrection," because it is the story of a risen
Christ which through all the ages has touched men's
hearts. The article of the virgin-birth on the other
hand is in the nature of a corollary to the faith.
We reason back to it from the accepted facts of
Christ's life. It is a conclusion of which the major
premise is the significance of the historic Christ, the
minor premise the story in the first chapters of St.
Luke. We, therefore, accept the definition which
the Church has in all ages acknowledged. But not
even the most uncompromising champion of " the
faith once delivered to the saints," in its literal in
terpretation, can fail to appreciate the difference
between the assent which we give to the article

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 201
" conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin
Mary," and the triumphant conviction with which
we profess: " The third day he rose again from the
dead." The question of the miraculous element in the
gospels has been obscured because the belief in
miracle has been held to be the substance of the
faith. Christian faith was made synonymous with
the belief in the supernatural. Christ made faith to
mean either trust in God or belief in himself, and
when he said " believe in me," " come to me," he
did not primarily imply belief in the supernatural
facts of his life ; and when he did include those facts,
as in the last chapters of St. John, he included them
only as an element of the faith, which was to be far
more than an intellectual belief in his divinity. The
substance of the Christian faith is the acceptation of
Christ as the revelation of God. It is only secon
darily, when we reflect upon the faith, that the
supernatural enters into it as an element.
The supernatural is not, then, the faith itself; but
it undoubtedly is an element in our faith. In the
trust which we bestow upon Christ and upon the
God whom he revealed, there is always present an
undercurrent of feeling which acknowledges his
power over the physical world, because Christ ex
erted that power on earth. The story of the resur
rection makes it easier for us to believe. So it has
always been. It was by a true instinct that the
apostles felt that first and foremost they must be
" witnesses of the resurrection." St. Paul gives ex-

202 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
pression to a genuine Christian experience, when he
says: " If in this life only we have hope in Christ,
we are of all men most miserable " (i Cor. xv. 19).
Therefore, the spirtual trust in Christ and the belief
in the supernatural have always gone together and
always will go together in inseparable union. In
the normal, healthy Christian faith there is an ele
ment of the supernatural.1
I have spoken, in another connection, of stages in
the growth of faith. We found that the Christian's
faith develops, and in the finished flower is some
thing far different from that which it was in the bud.
So it is with our belief in Christ. As we are first
brought under the influence of his life, our attitude
is that of the wanderer who has gone astray and has
found a guide ; he gives himself up to his guidance
without asking many questions. The first faith in
Christ is an unquestioning confidence. He who has
felt the sweetness and the majesty in the life of Jesus
gives up his heart to him ; he admits a new spiritual
influence into his life. He does not begin by asking
himself, Who was Jesus ? but by yielding himself to
the influence of Jesus. There is in this initial stage
no conscious assent to any doctrine of Christ. But
gradually the urgency of enquiring thought makes
itself felt. The intellectual is closely interwoven
1 "This conclusion (the supernatural power of Christ) belongs in
itself to the sphere of religious faith : but rarely has there been a
strong faith which has not drawn it." Harnack, Dogmengeschichte,
vol. i., p. 64, note (third edition).

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 203
with the spiritual. We cannot in the long run trust
where we do not in some measure understand. The
more we feel the moral significance of Christ, the
more urgent becomes the necessity of assigning to
him his place in the universe. Who, we are driven
to ask, was that person who has exerted this influ
ence upon the heart of man and the destinies of the
race ? Was he more than man ?
This question receives its answer as we learn to
understand more fully the inner life of Jesus. The
" life of Christ " has become a separate discipline
in theological study, and wonderful progress has
been made towards a real understanding of that life
commensurate with what we demand in the biog
raphy of any great character. A mere catalogue of
events in their probable sequence, with an inventory
of the words of Christ, is not sufficient. Even the
illumination of the text from geographical, historical
and ' archaeological sources does not touch the real
interest of the life of Jesus. We seek to know the
inner connection of events. We try to understand
the dramatic development of the life, from the enthu
siastic beginning, through the growing opposition,
to the climax at the feeding of the masses ; the in
creasing devotion to the disciples as the hostility of
the people increased ; and then the hurrying forward
to the catastrophe. We understand the words of
Christ no longer as oracles against a background
of eternity, but as discourses spoken to living men,
upon questions which were burning issues t9 Christ
himself. The Sermon on the Mount is not a Chris-

204 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
tian Magna Charta for all times, uttered by Christ
for the vast congregation of all generations supposed
to have been in his mind at the time ; its significance
to us lies in the fact that it is the document in which
is recorded the answer Jesus made to the most urgent
question which confronted him in the course of his
ministry — the question of his attitude towards the
law. This is one illustration of that deeper insight
which it is to-day sought to gain into the life of
Jesus. We try to understand Jesus in his relations
to the Pharisees, to his disciples, to the people ; so
also, his position in regard to the national aspira
tions ; and finally, we endeavour to trace his own
inner development, the life of the soul in its inner
workings. All these elements are a part of that vivid
sense of real development in the life of Christ which
makes his story so much more human on the one
hand, but which at the same time is giving us an in
creasing appreciation of that which is more than
human. For this is what that deeper study of the
life of Jesus leads us to. It is one thing to render
an homage to a being whom we conceive to have
lived a sort of spectral life somewhere midway be
tween humanity and divinity : that homage is not
much different from the worship given to idols. It is
a very different thing to render the heart's adoration
to one whom we have learned to appreciate as the
perfection of humanity, but whom for that very
reason we are forced to acknowledge as more than
man.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 205
I may here emphasise two principles as essential
requisites for the better understanding of the life
of Jesus. First, the radical point of difference be
tween our estimate of the life of Christ to-day and
that which it is superseding is this : Christ was wont
to be regarded only for what he achieved for man ;
we are learning to understand Christ primarily for
what he achieved for himself, and from the value of
his life for himself is deduced his value for others.
Our point of view is changed. Consider that re
markable and seemingly incomprehensible utterance
spoken by Christ to the man who addressed him,
" Good Master, what good thing shall I do that I
may have eternal life ? " Jesus answered: " Why
callest thou me good ? there is none good but one,
that is, God." (St. Matt. xix. 17.) We cannot
understand these words otherwise than as spoken
from the consciousness of the task which was com
mitted to him, which he must finish before he could
claim the final approval of God. It was his mission,
his work, of which Christ spoke elsewhere: " My
meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to
finish his work " (St. John, iv. 34), and when he had
accomplished it: "I have finished the work which
thou gavest me to do " (St. John, xvii. 4). Christ
had his life-work as other men have theirs. We
have come to speak much of Christ's " mission " or
his " vocation," and rightly. For such expressions
carry with them this meaning, that Christ, in re
ceiving the Messiahship, assumed a responsibility
for his own personal life. It was not that he was all

206 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
the time looking away from himself to others, but
that the solution of his own problem, the consistent
carrying out of the will of God in his own life, the
maintaining of himself in the position of the " Son
of God," was Christ's nearest object. And only so
far as he was faithful to the task committed to him,
only so far as he carried to a successful issue the
commission to which he was divinely ordained, only
so far as the problem of his own life was solved,
could the benefits of his work flow into the lives of
others. The self-determination of Jesus' life accord
ing to its own value : this is the point of view from
which we are learning to understand him. If Jesus
is the world's high-priest, his priesthood has its pri
mary significance for himself. He was high-priest
for himself in that he lived his life of communion
with God, and only through the satisfaction of the
demands of his own personal life could he lead others
into that same communion.
The second point is the correction of an error to
which is due a certain dualistic conception of Christ's
life. This is the dissociation of Christ's death from
his life. Theological subtlety has been busy in
drawing distinctions. The logical exigency of the
plan of salvation, conceived according to the analogy
of legal procedure, seemed to require the disintegra
tion of Christ's work into separate elements. While
we have quite generally dropped some of these dis
tinctions, — as the distinction between the passive
submission of Christ to satisfy the punitive demands
of the law, and his active obedience as the foundation

THE PERSON OP CHRIST. 207
of his vicarious merit in our behalf — the separation
is still made between his active life and the efficacy
of his sacrifice upon the cross. The language of St.
Paul no doubt gives colour to this distinction; we
recall such phrases as: " reconciled to God by the
death of his Son," and the frequent references to
the " cross of Christ " ; — it is also true that the belief
in the efficacy of Christ's death is enshrined in our
liturgy and hymns. But if this efficacy is to be
understood in the sense, which is popularly ac
cepted, of a separate efficacy, apart from the life, as
the efficacy of a material sacrifice isolated from the
moral acts of his life, to be interpreted according to
the principles of the Hebrew ritual; if the mere ex
tinction of life upon the cross, in close analogy with
the slaughter of animals at the sacrifice in the tem
ple, is the sacrifice to which we look as the founda
tion of our Christian hope ; if to this one act is to be
attributed the overwhelming significance that is
popularly given to it : we are impelled to ask, Why,
then, did not Christ give distinct expression to a
view of himself which on this theory is of such
transcendent importance ? It is not denied that
this view may be extracted from certain sayings of
Christ, such as: " I, when I am lifted up, will draw
all men unto me," "The Son of man came not to
be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
life a ransom for many," and " This is my blood of
the new testament, which is shed for many." But
this interpretation is not the natural explanation of
the words of Christ, it is rather read into them from

208 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
a preconceived theological opinion whose origin is
to be sought elsewhere.
Furthermore, we are led to ask ourselves another
question: Wherein consists the efficacy of Christ's
act ? Here we come to a parting of the ways. We
must mark distinctly the divergence of the two an
swers that may be given, a divergence which is too
often blurred over, to the great detriment of clear
theological thought. I refer to the distinction
already hinted at, between the sacrifice as a mere
physical act, the killing of the victim, and the sacri
fice as an act of moral submission to the will of God.
The first has its origin in materialistic conceptions
of the Deity, who is supposed to be gratified by the
blood flowing from the victim on the altar. Accord
ing to this theory, the willingness or unwillingness
of the victim is a matter of indifference. The value
of the sacrifice depends upon the value of the vic
tim ; a costly animal is a more efficacious sacrifice
than a poor one, a perfect than an imperfect one.
In the case of Christ's sacrifice it was the divinity
that gave to the act its value. This value was purely
material ; it was simply the stamp of a greater effi
cacy; as a gold coin is worth more than silver, so
the God-victim is worth more than a man-victim
would be. The conception of the death of Christ
under this theory moves altogether within physical
and materialistic limits. But, we are forced to ask,
what sort of a God is it who delights in the mere
extinction of life, the agonies of the death-struggle,
the flowing of the blood ? It is impossible, when

THE PERSON OF .CHRIST. 209
the true bearings of this theory are held before the
mind and when it is traced in its antecedents and to
its consequences, not to see how incompatible the idea
of a material sacrifice is with the Christian doctrine
of a spiritual God. Few, therefore, will be found
who hold this doctrine in its purity. There is gen
erally an underlying consciousness that the value of
Christ's sacrifice was determined by his submission.
According to the idea which St. Paul expresses, he
" humbled himself and became obedient unto death."
Here the moral quality in the act comes into play.
But we frequently fail to realise that with this
admission an altogether new and different face
is put upon the act of Christ. This theory is ex
clusive of the other. It is no longer the physical
act of Jesus which is pleasing to God, which formed
the " sacrifice " to which we refer the salvation of
man. How, then, can the sacrificial value of Christ's
obedience be confined to his death ? Where did
that value begin ? On the cross ? or with the crown
of thorns ? in the garden of Gethsemane ? Where,
in other words, shall we draw the line at which
Christ's moral submission begins to have the value
of sacrifice which before it had not ? Christ certainly
suffered before the cross and before Gethsemane;
and the suffering which he underwent throughout
the course of his ministry came to him through the
same cause as that upon the cross : namely, his obe
dience to the divine will. It is clear that we shall
involve ourselves in inextricable difficulties, if, hav-

210 THE KINGDOM OP GOD.
ing accepted the moral value of Christ's sufferings,
we endeavour to maintain the distinction between
the sufferings of his death and those of his life. It
is true that the sufferings and the obedience reached
their climax on the cross ; and this very simple con
sideration will explain those references in St. Paul's
writings in which he seems to ascribe exclusive
virtue to the death upon the cross, as well as the
liturgical expressions to the same effect. We still
speak of the cross of Christ as the great act of sacri
fice, and rightly. But it need not be implied in that
phrase that the death and its suffering had an efficacy
apart from the life ; we mean rather that in the death
upon the cross there is brought to the culminating
point, and we see in it an emblem of, that principle
which Christ embodied perfectly in his human life,
by which he became the Saviour of the world :
obedience to the will of God.
" My meat is to do the will of him that sent me
and to finish his work": those words are the full
expression of Christ's mission. His life is summed
up in the one word — obedience. What would have
been had the Jews accepted him, we cannot even
guess. As it was, that obedience demanded his
submission to the most cruel death at the hands of
those to whose service he had given himself. So
understood, Christ's life becomes unified under one
great principle, and we are freed from the barren
sophistical distinctions in which theology had be
come involved.
I have said that a growing faith is at a certain

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 211
point brought before the question : Was Christ more
than man ? The way to answer that question, we
found, was by a sympathetic study of the historic
life of Christ, for which I have pointed out certain
guiding principles. Now we come to formulate the
answer. The first step in this process is the recognition of
Christ as the revelation of God. There is this pe
culiarity about his life that it is always pointing
away from itself to God. Christ makes God known
to us. In his inner life we read the heart of the
Father. We recognise the significance of the state
ment: " God .... hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his son " (Heb. i. 2).
This leads us to the next step of the enquiry.
Christ being the revelation of God implies a certain
participation in divinity. How then shall we define
his personality ?
The question of the person of Christ was the burn
ing problem of the early Christian ages and was dis
puted in the ecumenical councils. The definitions
set forth by these councils do not help us much.
That of the two natures is simply a logical defini
tion. For the time when they were made such
definitions were doubtless sufficient; historically,
they are very important. They do not satisfy us,
because to say that two things go together, when we
cannot form any conception of the process, conveys
little meaning to us. You cannot deceive yourself
into believing that you have accomplished much
by putting the two natures together and calling

212 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
them one person, when you cannot define a human
nature, and have no conception what a divine nature
is. There is indeed great danger from the misinter
pretation of this article. It is the danger which the
treatment of spiritual subjects always carries with it :
that we should forget that after all we conceive of
spiritual things only by concrete analogies, and that
we imagine the two natures existing side by side as
material objects do.
The important truth conveyed by the definition
of Christ's person in Article II. is, that he was both
perfect Man and perfect God. But just here the
real problem begins. How shall we explain and
realise the co-existence of the two ? The docetic
doctrine, which made Christ's humanity a mere pre
tence, is supposed to have been ruled out by the
Chalcedonian formula; yet the popular conceptions
of our day are a close approach to docetism. Christ
is asserted to have been man, but there is an implied
understanding that he was not confined by the limi
tations of humanity. He was omniscient and om
nipotent, even if he did not use his powers, or but
rarely. But where, we may ask, if these divine
attributes are granted, does there remain any mark
of his humanity except the human body ? We can
hardly escape the conclusion that upon this theory
the humanity of Christ was something worse than a
fiction: a deception. The " communicatio idioma-
tum, " invented to explain the mystery, is useless: a
mere trick of words without any reality. The can
did student finds himself forced to make one con-

THE PERSON OP CHRIST. 213
cession after another: Christ was not gifted with
omniscience where the interests of his work were
not involved ; Christ did not necessarily have at his
disposal all human knowledge in all its branches;
he did not possess omnipotent power for every
conceivable purpose. But these concessions make
it evident that we can form no conception of Christ
with his divinity and his humanity both equally
active. A way out of the difficulty was supposed to have
been found in the doctrine of the Kenosis. The
divinity was in abeyance during the earthly life of
the Saviour. This doctrine is largely held to-day.
As a confession of ignorance concerning the meta
physical Godhead of Christ, it may be accepted.
As a full explanation of the Christological problem,
it is quite inadequate. It shares with the other
view, which it superseded, this vitiating fault : it re
gards the problem solely on its metaphysical side.
It sets itself to answer this question : granted a God
entering the human sphere, wherein can we trace the
divinity ? And the answer given is correct, so far
as it goes : it denies the possibility of a metaphysical
knowledge of the Godhead. But the doctrine of the
Kenosis, by asserting that the divinity is hidden, in
abeyance, remains a prisoner in the fatal meshes of
metaphysical reasoning. That conception of Christ
which simply asserts his metaphysical Godhead as
an article of cold, intellectual belief, which fails to
trace the meaning of that Godhead in the earthly
life and to appreciate the significance of it as a fact

214 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
of Christ's life for me, for my religious interests,
which does not make the divinity of Christ a present
fact of my own experience : this conception falls by
many degrees below the Christian level; it moves
within a sphere of thought which is proper, not to
Christian worship, but to heathen idolatry.
We again ask : granted a God entering human life,
wherein can we trace the divinity ? And the answer
is this: the marks of the divinity must be found in
the moral and the spiritual sphere. Renouncing all
attempt to exceed the powers of the human mind,
we may affirm that Christ, in his life upon earth,
perfectly revealed the being of God, so far as it is
possible to reveal God in human form. This state
ment is based upon the recognition of two facts:
first, that there is a sphere of truth which belongs
to the infinite, which is beyond the world of phe
nomena. The latter alone is known to us. We are
not gifted with faculties to penetrate into the eternal
reality behind. So far as we can conceive any being
from the world of eternal reality entering into man's
life, it can only be — for our knowledge — under laws
known to us. But, secondly, there is one sphere in
which man stands even now above time, in eternity :
that is, the moral and spiritual. It is given to us to
have some knowledge of the divine in the sphere of
God's moral and spiritual laws. Therefore, if we
would know the God in Christ, we must know him
in his moral and spiritual relations.
Just here, the study of the gospels has opened a
mine of infinite wealth. We can do no more than

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 215
glance at a few particulars, to see how the deeper
study of Christ's life has strengthened the belief in
him as the unique among men, as the perfect reve
lation of God in human life. Let us take the story
of the Christ-child in the temple. It throws the
only ray of light upon the maturing consciousness
of Jesus. He had been fascinated by the novel in
terests of the temple and new thoughts seemed to
take hold of him. His answer to his mother re
vealed that a turning-point had been reached in his
development: " Wist ye not that I must be about
my father's business ? " Here is a child of twelve
years who uses an expression which no human be
ing, before or since, has dared to use. God had
been a father to Israel, Christ taught his followers
to pray: " Our Father who art in heaven; " but no
individual has ever been aware of such a relationship
to God that he could look up and call him: " my
father." We can explain the expression on the
lips of the child in no other way than upon the as
sumption that there came at this time into his mind
the feeling of a relation to God, closer, more inti
mate, than that between God and any other human
being. And by this light we can understand in
some degree the growth of the child. The know
ledge of himself came to him slowly, with the devel
oping consciousness ; and it came to him, not as a
knowledge of superhuman endowment, nor as an
insight into the metaphysical relation between him
and God, but through the growing sense of being in
a special way the object of the divine love.

216 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
In the mature life of Christ we can trace his
divinity, not so much by the miracles, as in the
moral and spiritual grandeur with which he is in
vested. Sometimes, it shows itself in a startling
utterance, and then we are afforded one of those
precious glimpses into the workings of his conscious
ness. So, when he boldly challenges his opponents :
" Which of you convinceth me of sin ? " No cloud
of moral imperfection could dim the consciousness
of one, who, as sober and far removed from fanaticism
as Christ was, could make this unheard-of claim.
But it is more especially in his action, in the tenor
of his life, that we trace the God in Christ : in the
harmonious mingling of womanly tenderness with
manly courage, in that majesty which forced even
from the rude soldiers their involuntary tribute in
the garden of Gethsemane, in the compassion for
all pain and weakness, in the meekness of the suf
ferer. Above all, we trace it in one marvellous
manifestation. I have already spoken of it. It is
his mastership. We recognise it in the impression
we get from his life, that whatever his situation,
Christ was always superior to it. It is the unbroken
calmness of his life, testifying to an unconquerable
self-confidence. Contrast Christ's attitude towards
God and his attitude to men. Towards God, a con
stant expectation, a waiting upon the divine guid
ance, a hearkening for the voice by which to shape
his course : an attitude of utter and complete de
pendence. On the other hand, in his relations
towards men, with his intense sympathy for all

THE PERSON OF CHRIST. 217
things human and his readiness to accept men's
sympathy: a complete absence of dependence.
Where we anxiously watch the effect of our actions,
where success or failure so largely determines our
conduct, where we alternate between hopes and
fears, enthusiasm and despondency, we see in Christ
a serene elevation above the vicissitudes of his
career, a persistent maintenance of faith in his cause
undisturbed by opposition and apparent failure, a
persevering belief in human nature, an unconquer
able hope for the future and a steadfastness of pur
pose which is neither the doggedness of obstinacy
nor the blindness of enthusiasm. It is this which is
the wonder of Christ's life.
No painter has yet caught the spell of such a
scene as that of Christ before Pilate. When Chris
tian art, which in a Sistine Madonna came so near
the ideal of the womanly, shall succeed in setting
before us the true Christ in that scene ; then, in the
manly grasp of life, in the superiority to his situa
tion, which his features will display, it will teach us
to realise better than before the divinity of the Son
of Man. It is beyond our faculties to comprehend
how the infinite could be incarnate in the human ; but
it is not beyond our faculties to trace in the spiritual
and moral life of Christ the marks of divine character.
We must not fail to distinguish, as has here been
done, between the practical and metaphysical di
vinity of Christ. In what I have just now said I
have been treating of the practical divinity. It is
that belief in Christ which enters directly as a mo-

218 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
tive into our life. Christ is the perfect revelation
of God, and therefore is God to me. In his life, and
in it alone, I learn to know God. In Christ it has
pleased God to make himself known to man. It is
God manifest in the flesh," so far as God can be
manifest, when the eternal enters into the sphere of
the finite. This is the saving truth upon which the
soul feeds.
The human mind obeys an irresistible impulse in
enquiring into the metaphysical foundation. It
asks : what is the essential relation of Christ to the
Father ? What was the mode of his being before
he appeared in the flesh ? Here is the rightful
sphere of dogma. It goes beyond the historical con
ditions to the metaphysical foundation; it presents
the conditions of the practical ; it pursues the ante
cedents to the last conclusion.
The confounding of the practical and the meta
physical has been the fruitful source of misunder
standing. Dogma represents the metaphysical
foundation. It is necessary. Athanasius fought
the battle for the metaphysical divinity of Christ,
and the Church has held fast to his assertion of it.
But if the practical belief in Christ's revelation is
insufficient without the doctrine, it is equally true
that the doctrine without the vital conviction is
useless.1 Nothing is more shallow than a mere as-
1 Doctrine is the skeleton under the flesh and blood. The late
bishop of Massachusetts was persecuted and his memory is still being
persecuted, because, for gross eyes, he did not make the skeleton
sufficiently protrude from under the body of flesh and blood, as he
with his inimitable skill painted it.

THE PERSON OP CHRIST. 219
sertion of the divinity of Christ without any know
ledge of its meaning. It is the form of religion
without its power, and the form often covers the
grossest practical infidelity.
We may not forget that metaphysics is not re
ligion. When St. Thomas exclaimed to the risen
Christ: " My Lord and my God," his words ex
pressed a religious conviction. The statement of
the creed " God of God, Light of Light, very God
of very God " is the speculative conclusion from
the religious fact. It is not religion but theology.

CHAPTER VII.
THE ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF THE CHRISTIAN
LIFE.
THE kingdom of God comprehends two distinct
elements of human life, its religious and its ethical
determination. The religious is a separable ele
ment; the primary factor in Christian character is
the normal relation to God in Christ. We now pro
ceed to consider the ethical basis of the kingdom of
God. I shall attempt no systematic treatment, but
shall endeavour to indicate the lines which must be
followed in order to obtain a full appreciation of the
term " kingdom of God " as used by Christ.
We may complete the formal definition. The
kingdom of God is the sphere in which man ap
proaches God. But it is something more ; another
condition enters into it. That condition is the ethi
cal regulation of life, the organisation of human
society in accordance with the will of God. It em
braces the fulfilment of duty to self and to others.
The ideal of the one side of the Christian life is to be
right, the ideal of the other is to do right. In the one
it is a question of the state in which a man is, in the
other it is a question of man's conduct. The con
trast is the familiar one of faith and works. Faith is

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 221
the essential principle of the Christian life. But
when you have established yourself in Christian faith,
the question still is, What am I to do as a Christian ?
Christ gave abundant attention to this side of the
Christian life. He recognised the ancient law and
commanded us to love God and to love our neighbour.
He bade men be merciful, not to judge, be perfect,
not to swear, not to retaliate, not to take unneces
sary thought, to be wise, to be liberal, to honour
parents, to deny themselves, to be watchful, to be
faithful; he taught the sacredness of marriage and of
the family ; he held up to scorn the hypocrisy of the
Pharisees ; he taught a nicer discrimination of moral
value. In all this and much more, Jesus points out
the ethical basis of his kingdom. We may, therefore,
define the kingdom of God to be that new society
inaugurated by Jesus, whose fundamental principles
consist, first, in the re-establishment of man's normal
relation to God, secondly, in the organisation of
human relationships according to the laws of God.
Is that dualism definitive ? This is the question
that has puzzled the Christian mind ever since St.
Paul wrote that man is saved by faith, and St. James
that man is saved by works. The human mind
craves above all things unity. The case now before
us presents a peculiarly difficult problem, and the
great intellectual effort spent upon it has not dis
covered a satisfactory solution. We see an illus
tration of this effort at unification in our article " Of
Good Works" (No. XII), where it is asserted that
they " do spring out necessarily of a true and lively

222 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
faith ; insomuch that by them a lively Faith may be
as evidently known as a tree discerned by the fruit."
As far as this sentence is true it presents a barren
tautology. For faith is simply made to include the
motive to good works ; and then, of course, the good
works " necessarily" follow upon faith. But this
inclusive definition of faith is not one that can be
universally applied. So, too, the decree on justifi
cation of the Council of Trent presents an elaborate
attempt at reconciling faith and works; with the
result, however, of an aimless vacillation between
the two poles of Christian experience.
We may say, as Ritschl does, that the Christian
life is not like the circle, but like the ellipse, revolv
ing around two points ; but that does not explain it.
This is a physical analogy and another illustration of
the incompleteness of this sort of reasoning. The
stars which revolve in ellipses obey the laws of na
ture. The human will differs from the star in that
it has the choice of disobedience, and we want to
find the answer to this very question, Why should I
obey the laws of the ellipse rather than the simple
law of the one centre ? In like manner, when we say
that good works are both the signs and the organs
of faith, we express an important truth, namely, that
by good works we recognise the man's disposition,
and that the disposition is strengthened by the prac
tice of good works. We may also say that each is
practically necessary to the other. You cannot do
life's work without peace with God, and you cannot
live near God without doing your duty. But with

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OP CHRISTIAN LIFE. 223
all these explanations we have not established unity
of principle. We cannot imagine a finished Christian
character without either faith or good works. But
why does not the right relationship to God include
the right relationship to man ? Why can we not
sum up the whole Christian life in one compre
hensive principle ? That we cannot do this seems
to be the plain teaching of experience. Whatever
our faith is, however strong, however perfect our
trust in God, duty always faces us in the shape of a
resolution ; we have to make up our minds to do
what is right ; and when, as often is the case, this
making up our minds involves the overcoming of
a certain amount of repugnance in the shape of the
love of ease or shrinking from effort, so far from the
action flowing naturally out of the motive, as the
sound does upon the blow of the hammer, it requires
the bringing up of the forces of our moral nature,
with the implied expenditure of more or less moral
energy. Mr. Spencer maintains that the sense of duty or
moral obligation is transitory; with the advance of
civilisation a time will come when it will be en
tirely cast off, when man will have become so used
to doing the right thing that it will be impossible for
him to do anything else. If the dream is ever real
ised in the way Mr. Spencer imagines, then man
will have ceased to be man and will have become a
machine. The Christian also looks forward to the
state in which the sense of duty shall cease to be a
coercive power, but it will be under different con-

224 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
ditions and in another world. In this earthly sphere
it is hardly worth while to trouble ourselves much
with these speculations. If there should ever be a
prospect that a man should leave his bed on a cold
winter's night in response to a call of duty without
the necessity of a moral effort to overcome the
physical repugnance, then we shall be ready to give
serious attention to Mr. Spencer's prophecy. In
the meantime we shall have to deal with duty as
something which is often very disagreeable, and
which requires strong motives to make us do it. In
fact, we have a suspicion, as already stated, that we
shall have to be more careful about our motives in
the future than we ever were before.
We are forced to the conclusion, that the dualism
of the religious and the ethical determination of the
Christian life is insurmountable. Practically there
is no way out. We shall never get beyond the
effort. It is only the fanaticism of a pagan mystic
ism that can ever say : I have arrived at that perfec
tion of the Christian life, I have so united myself to
God, than sin is not for me. When a man gives up
watching himself, when he yields to the delusion
that no more effort is required of him, when his life
ceases to be a moral struggle, he has entered upon
the downward path.
But if the dualism cannot be reduced, it can be
explained. The explanation is in the fact of sin.
Sin is a radical disturbance in our relations, a lack of
harmony in our nature. " The spirit is willing, but
the flesh is weak." The dualism of principle in the

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 225
religious life is owing to the disharmony of our na
ture. But normal humanity is not a sinful humanity.
We can conceive of a life without the disturbing
element of sin. Such would be the normal life. In
this normal life there would be but one principle,
that of man's complete union with God. With the
disturbance of that normal relation through sin came
in the other principle, the ethical, the necessity of
law, of effort. Without sin, the performance of
duty would be natural ; or rather, there would be no
duty, no law. Life would be all towards God,
summed up in one principle : fellowship with God.
To that state we believe we shall come, but in an
other world. In this life we must be satisfied to get
on as well as we can under a necessary dualism. It
will always carry with it uncertainty and vacillation.
At this moment you will feel yourself in a state of
peaceful fellowship with God ; it is the joy of your
life. But presently that peace is disturbed by the
insistent question, Have I done all my duty ? To
harmonise the two is the Christian's great difficulty.
To find the right mean between the satisfaction of
stern duty and the enjoyment of the sense of security
in God is one of the perplexities of life. We can
never expect to arrive at a state of perfect harmony
in this life, because there will always be that jarring
between the ethical and the religious.
We can now see the element of truth in the con
tention which Mr. Spencer makes. The ethical is
transitory ; but it will pass away only under other
conditions of life; then it will be engulfed in the
15

226 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
complete union and fellowship with God. There
will be a time when goodness, justice, virtue, and
all other terms denoting ethical value, will have no
meaning, because their present significance is de
rived only from their opposite, which is sin. In that
world where the spiritual will be in complete mastery,
sin will be no more. We can see also how there is
even here an approach to that state. With the re
peated performance of duty, duty becomes easier.
The ethical law tends to be minimised, as man
grows into closer religious fellowship with God.
That it will ever disappear in this life, and that with
it duty and sin will be eliminated from the vocabu
lary of human nature, is a phantom of the scientific
brain. It is a far-reaching principle of human life that the
higher law tends to supplant the lower. Man is re
lieved from subjection to law, but only on condition
that he yields himself to the higher law. In savage
life the ruling principle is very much the same as in
the brute-world : ceaseless rivalry and competition.
The result is, only the fittest survive. As man ad
vances in civilisation he learns to substitute another
principle, that of co-operation ; the sense of human
solidarity, the feeling of human sympathy, has
largely overcome the old order of things in which
every man was for himself. The consequence is,
that the law of the survival of the fittest is to a con
siderable extent superseded. Men and women sur
vive, who for some shortcoming, physical or moral,
would not have survived under the old system.

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 227
The story of this vast complex life of ours is the
story of the delicate balance between the two laws,
the lower and the higher.1
Our penal methods illustrate how the higher re
lieves the lower law. A man has committed a crime.
The law says he must suffer. It cares nothing for
the man, only for the retaliation. In a rough way
the mere punishment of crime works for the purifi
cation of society by cutting the diseased parts out
of the body politic. But we have become aware
that there is another law, often more effective than
the law of retaliation : the law of human sympathy.
Men have been touched and reformed by the power
of sympathy where the mere force of punishment
has proved powerless.
This progress from the lower to the higher ex
plains the relation between the ethical and the re
ligious in the Christian life. The beginning is with
the ethical. The law was before Christ. Man must
first learn the difference between right and wrong.
But as he advances, he comes more and more under
the sway of another principle : his relation to God
tends to fill his life, and the ethical law grows less
1 This fact of the two laws running through our life is one of the
utmost importance, and if kept in view would clear up many misun
derstandings. Compare Gordon, The Christ of To-Day, p. 88 :
" Granted that the necessity for the ferocious egoism in animal exist
ence is an absolute mystery, the fact that it is a vanishing force, and
that from the first it is clearly under the ascendancy of another force,
the altruistic impulse of parenthood, pours a flood of light through
the whole wild process of nature." Even in the brute- world there is
this foreshadowing of the twofoldness of law governing life.

228 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
exacting, because it has become a part of his nature.
The end of the process will be in another world,
where the ethical will be no more, because it is ab
sorbed in the one permanent, constant principle of
human life: union with God. These considerations
satisfy the mind which craves for unity, by showing
that the present dualism, though necessary for the
time, is abnormal, due to man's abnormal condition,
and will eventually yield to a permanent unity of
principle. We found, in treating of the religious determina
tion of the Christian life, that Christ sets forth God
as the object of his revelation. It was his mission to
reveal God and to bring man to the fellowship with
God. Man's religious life centres in God. Where,
we now ask, does the ethical life centre ? What is
the Christian's ethical end and purpose ? What is
his final authority, his moral guide ? This question
is one of the most important man can ask himself.
Let us examine the records. Christ established
the kingdom of God. He must have had in mind
what was to be the final authority for the subjects of
that kingdom. Christ did not institute the king
dom as something new : it was as the fulfilment of the
old, as the bringing to its appointed completion of
all that the old covenant contained, as the culmina
tion of the ancient history, that the kingdom of God
came into the world. It was no revolution, but the
growing of the bud into the flower. Therefore Christ
recognised the revelation of the Old Testament and

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 229
the validity of the Old Testament law. If the in
terpretation which he gave was more spiritual and
free, yet he did not absolve his followers from obe
dience to the law. Therefore the question of the
obligation of the Jewish law in the Christian Church
became the first burning question. With the acces
sion of large numbers of Gentiles to the Christian
fold there could be but one answer to that question.
Those who believe in Providence cannot resist the
conclusion that St. Paul was especially raised up,
one of those rare characters who by the power of
their personal influence change the destinies of man
kind, in order that the Church in this supreme crisis
might be led into the path of universal religion.
To-day, the Church unanimously accepts the verdict
of St. Paul which cast off the trammels of Judaism.
We still ask ourselves, doubtfully, How do we recon
cile this with the very positive statements of Christ,
which seem to make the Jewish law binding ? But
we think we can see how Christ himself was prepar
ing the way for a larger conception of religion. His
spiritual view foreshadowed a time when the law
would lose its significance. He looked into a future
where men should no more worship God either in
Jerusalem or on Gerizim; he recognised a spiritual
worship of God above the worship of material sacri
fices. He spoke of the temple as transitory.
On the other hand, the very kingdom which he
announced presupposed a king. Accordingly, we
find it implied in some of Jesus' words, that the au
thority of a living king would be supreme among his

230 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
followers. To his disciples he says, " I am with
you alway, even unto the end of the world." And
when he made this promise he could not have
thought of his continued presence otherwise than as
their Master, their King.
We do well to dwell upon this claim to kingship
which Christ made, as showing what in his mind was
intended to be the final court of appeal, the last
authority, of the Christian. The time was to come
when this claim should be forgotten, neglected, put
aside, despoiled of its meaning, in favour of a theory
which, reverting to the Hebrew conception of a writ
ten law, has by the almost unanimous consent of
Christendom exercised a controlling authority : the
theory of biblical infallibility, which teaches that the
last authority for the Christian in the ethical and the
spiritual sphere is the written word.
We are thus brought face to face with this theory.
It is necessary that we should define our position
towards it, because it concerns us at this point to
know what is the final ethical authority in the king
dom of God. But aside from that, the discussion of
every theological question proceeds upon a certain
conception of the Bible, and whoever undertakes
such a discussion is bound to state the theory of the
Bible upon which he takes his stand. No full treat
ment can, of course, be entered into here. Results
only can be given, with a brief reference to the
methods by which these results are reached. I shall
deal only with the New Testament. There are in
teresting and important questions which concern the

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OK CHRISTIAN LIFE. 231
Old Testament, but the New Testament is the key
to the problem, and it is from New Testament
studies that we have gained the most decisive results.
I shall sum up what I have to say about the au
thority of the New Testament under three heads.
First, those methods will be set forth which alone
promise satisfactory results. Secondly, the conclu
sions will be drawn. Thirdly, certain bearings of
the traditional theory will be considered.
I. First, as to the proper methods by which the
question of biblical authority is to be studied. One
cannot help wondering, as volume after volume
appears, treating of the Bible, its authority, and
inspiration, from an a priori point of view, why it
seems so rarely to occur to anyone that the only
way to answer these questions is by a study of the
facts, by finding out what the Bible contains, and its
history, and then drawing the conclusions. This is
the method of procedure followed in all other
branches of investigation : conclusions are drawn
from an accurate knowledge of the facts. Not so
with the Bible. Inspiration is supposed to be some
thing which can be determined quite aside from the
thing which is inspired ; consequently a whole library
of literature exists upon what the Bible ought to be,
little regard being paid to what it is. This remarkable
attitude towards the Bible was noticed long ago by
Richard Hooker, who, at the end of the third Book
of the Ecclesiastical Polity, speaks as follows of those
who prove their point by arguing that God must
have taught certain things in the Bible : "... they

232 THE KINGDOM OF GOD
do as if one should demand a legacy by force and
virtue of some written testament, wherein there being
no such thing specified, he pleadeth that there it
must needs be, and bringeth arguments from the
love or goodwill which always the testator bore him ;
imagining, that these or the like proofs will convict
a testament to have that in it which other men can
nowhere by reading find." And then he lays down
this principle which every theologian, and especially
every Bible student, would do well to adopt as his
own: " In matters which concern the actions of
God, the most dutiful way on our part is to search
what God hath done, and with meekness to admire
that, rather than to dispute what he in congruity of
reason ought to do." The last words of this quota
tion describe what has been done with the Bible;
men have disputed "what in congruity of reason God
ought to do." Therefore it is that no satisfactory
conclusion has been reached. No conclusion ever
can be reached by means of the a priori method
employed. If those who feel the unrest of public
opinion upon this question hope ever to put an end
to it, and so to satisfy a universal desire for light, it
can only be done by breaking forever with the irra
tional method too often followed and devoting them
selves to a thorough investigation into the text of
the New Testament and the history of the canon.
For there are these two departments of investiga
tion, with which we are here concerned.1 (i) The
1 To these might be added a third : the discipline of comparative
religion. But this is more uncertain in its conclusions. At any rate,

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 233
study of the history of the canon has been most
fruitful of results. We are now in a position to
understand the several steps by which the New
Testament took its present shape and assumed its
authority. The one thing which here is significant
is the entire absence of any uniform principle in the
formation of the canon. A number of tendencies
co-operating produced the result. There was the
need of writings to supply the place of absent apos
tles. Then there was the authority inherent in the
words of Christ, the Xoyoi xvpiov, which from the
beginning stood on a level with the Old Testament.
Then there was the public reading after the custom
of the synagogue, which tended to give a certain
sanctity to the writings. There was also the stress
of the times, which made the defenders of the faith
against heretics look for some authority to which to
appeal. The result of these various forces is seen
in the gathering together of a certain number of
documents to meet the practical necessities of the
Churches. The various parts acquired authority in
various ways and finally were bound together in one
volume and became our New Testament.
Only a willful distortion of historical facts is able
to obliterate this lack of unity of principle. Why
the study of the text and of the history of the canon are abundantly
sufficient for the absolute certainty of the conclusions here set forth.
So inveterate is the prejudice upon this subject, that not until the
student has worked his way to a satisfactory solution by the road here
suggested will in most cases the question present itself in its full
clearness : What is the basis of this colossal doctrine of biblical
infallibility?

234 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
was St. Mark included in the canon ? or St. Luke ?
or the Acts ? or St. Jude ? or the Epistle to the
Hebrews ? Upon what principle were the writings
of Barnabas, Clement and Hermas excluded ? To
these questions even Origen in the third century
could find no answer but the authority of tradition.
And we are to-day obliged to acknowledge tradition
as practically the only principle which gives authority
to our New Testament. Nor was this principle alto
gether decisive, as the long disputes about the Anti-
legomena prove, and such facts as that an Epistle to
the Laodiceans was added to the Pauline epistles
in England in the ninth century or that the Pastor
of Hermas was used as late as the twelfth century.
No doubt the tradition of the Church, the almost
universal usage of Christendom for many ages, is an
authority to which we owe every respect. No doubt
we must reverently recognise the hand of God in
preserving these documents of the earliest Christian
ity through these many ages. But if God had willed
that these writings should be the absolutely infallible
record of his will, would he not have given us some
more convincing proof than appears from our present
knowledge of the way they came into being and were
incorporated in the canon ?
(2) The most important factor in the decision of
the question is the examination of the New Testa
ment itself. Here the gospels chiefly claim our
attention. The study of the gospels has been
prosecuted with a minuteness and a keenness of
analysis which probably has no parallel in the field

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 235
of literary criticism, with the result that the human
workmanship of these writings is laid bare and we
can see how they came into being.
Not only is it well understood that the gospels are
interdependent among themselves : the original
document underlying the synoptic account has been
deciphered with considerable certainty and printed
both in the Greek and in English.1 Variations from
this original gospel and of the gospels among them
selves, together with many curious phenomena, such
as the recurrence of the same words in different con
texts, are accounted for.
Very little idea, however, can be given of the
force of the argument, because it is cumulative. Its
cogency depends not upon a few, but upon hundreds
of observations, which altogether make the case so
clear that no candid mind can refuse to accept the
conclusions. We are here not dealing with something intangi
ble, a philosophical conception, an abstruse idea;
we have to do with a book, which has had an origin
and a history. All that is claimed is something of
the same conscientiousness and patience in the ex
amination of the words of this book that a Darwin
1 Prof. Bernhard Weiss, Das Marcusevangelium, etc., and Jolley,
The Synoptic Problem. It is not claimed that the theory represented
by these writers is in all parts correct or that the " original gospel,"
as it is given, is in every word identical with the original gospel.
The subject seemed to call for some reference in the text to the
methods of study, beyond a bald statement of the results. Of course,
I have given the briefest possible indications of these methods, along
the line of which I have studied for many years,

236 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
gave to the phenomena of life when he was tracing
the laws of nature. If Darwin had only reasoned
about what God ought to have done, he never would
have accomplished what he did, but with far more
reverence than many a Bible student shows he
sought to find out what God has done.
II. What are the results ? Attention has been
largely confined to the criticism of the Old Testa
ment. Here many problems remain unsolved and
the reconstruction of history, which has been so
startling, is not yet fully carried through. In the
New Testament, also, there are questions awaiting
definite answer. Probably, we shall never have cer
tainty upon many of these. But we must not allow
this fact to escape our notice : that the criticism of
the New Testament has established one result which
is incontestable. This result is one of the most im
portant acquisitions of human knowledge in modern
times. It is negative in form, but it is most posi
tive in the results that flow from it. It is the defi
nite destruction of the theory of infallibility.
When we speak of an infallible writing, we mean
that that writing has been preserved by divine influ
ence from error, either of any kind, or — as the limi
tation is now sometimes made — error in the religious
sphere ; that, therefore, we can use this writing as an
oracle, the direct voice of God. Infallibility, in
either sense, it is impossible to ascribe to the New
Testament. It cannot be too strongly insisted upon that this
is no longer an open question — except to prejudice

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 237
and ignorance. We consider mathematical truth to
be the most certain of all theoretical knowledge.
The proof for the conclusion here set forth is in
cogency equal to mathematical proof — for those
who will study, not the a priori possibility or pro
bability of any theory of inspiration, but the con
tents of our New Testament and the history of the
canon.1 It is a mercy, in which we cannot but discern the
guiding hand of God, that the Protestant Episcopal
Church is not committed to any statement of in
fallibility. It is another mercy, for which we are
devoutly thankful, that the Church has been led to
embody in her constitution the one expression which
most fitly, most fully, as no other word does, sums
up the meaning of the Bible for the Christian :
The word of God." It expresses precisely what
1 The lack of precision in the use of terms is a most fruitful source
of misunderstanding and confusion in theology. This is especially
true of the terms " infallibility " and " authority." They are often
used as synonymous, and he who denies the infallibility of the Bible
is supposed to deny its authority. And yet in ordinary language the
terms are not confused. We speak of the " authority'' of parents.
But the strictest advocate of parental authority would not claim
infallibility for parents. So, we may ascribe to the Bible a very
decided and high authority and yet disbelieve in its infallibility.
And if we thus discriminate between the terms we find that the ques
tion of fallibility or infallibility is the crux of the biblical problem.
When we have settled that, the question of the Bible is settled with
out any further words, and it will be unnecessary to enter into detail
in regard to the conclusions to be drawn from a denial of infallibility,
such as that we can be absolutely sure of no single word or sentence
that it was so uttered by Christ as we have it.

238 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
we believe of the Bible. To change the phrase, the
Bible is the word of God, into, the Bible contains
the word of God, is to change one of the most
striking and accurate definitions ever given into a
meaningless formula.
In interpreting the expression, we notice first that
it is the word, not the words ; this makes a vast
difference. Furthermore, we must let the Bible
itself interpret the expression. St. Paul uses it.
We read in I Thess. ii. 13: " For this cause also
thank we God without ceasing, because when ye re
ceived the word of God which ye heard of us, ye re
ceived it not as the word of men, but as it is in truth,
the word of God, which effectually worketh also in
you that believe. ' ' Here the contrast is between the
word of men and the word of God. There is not
the slightest indication, nor the remotest probability,
that St. Paul had in mind any infallibility as belong
ing to this " word of God." What did he have in
mind ? One great fact : Salvation in Christ, and
any word which would set before men that one fact
was the word of God. To him it was the message
of man's release from bondage into the liberty of
Christ. He did not have to enquire whether every
particular statement of that message was true.
Let us take an illustration : A garrison is sur
rounded and besieged. Many days they have held
out ; the utmost distress prevails. Suddenly a mes
senger appears: he has broken through the enemy's
lines. He brings news of relief. It means life from
death to that garrison. Do we suppose they will

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE 239
ask the messenger many inquisitive questions, and
if he cannot tell them the exact number of the re
lieving army, and where it came from, and the
names and appearance of the officers, and the nature
of their accoutrements, they will not believe his
message ? Will they concern themselves about
these trifling details when release from sure death
is at hand ? That was what Christianity was to St.
Paul, and the news of that release was the word of
God. And when we use St. Paul's expression to
designate what we understand the Bible to be, we
mean that it is the message of salvation from God
to mankind. We cannot think it strange that the
message comes to us in imperfect form, for the mes
sengers after all were men and fallible, but we none
the less accept their message as " the word of
God." III. So far the results. There remains something
to be said about the bearings of these results. One
cannot dwell long upon these reflections without be
ing forcibly struck with the greatness of the contrast
between St. Paul's use of the expression " word of
God " and what the expression came to mean in
later ages. The spirit of St. Paul went out of the
Church, and the " liberty wherewith Christ hath
made us free " was no longer understood and valued.
The " word of God " lost its meaning as the mes
sage of man's salvation, and it became " the words
of God." As such it stood for the sum of all the
sentences in the Bible. This carried with it the be
lief that God had sent to man, not the message of

240 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
redemption, but an oracle, in which all parts were
of equal value as coming direct from the divine
author. It was a radical departure from the view of
St. Paul, and such a departure as he would have
been the first to deplore. For it was a relapse into
the spirit of that narrow Judaism against which he
fought so persistently. It was the revival of the
law; it put law once more into the centraL place of
religion. The very essence of the new religion was
that it came as the fulfilment of the promise con
tained in the old. So Christ understood it, and
therefore he was always calling men to believe in
him. So St. Paul understood it ; to him the gospel
meant just one thing: Christ has lived and died to
save man, to bring him to God. The new interpre
tation of the " word of God " made the gospel
mean something entirely different. Instead of one
simple truth, it was a thousand things that men
were required to believe. The character of Christ
ianity was changed. Not Christ, but the Bible,
became the mediator between God and man. The
answer to the soul craving peace was not the mes
sage of one who lived and died for man, but an
atomistic law of infinitely diversified aspect. Law
and gospel have always been used as terms of mutu
ally exclusive antithesis, and the Christian gospel is
held to mark- a higher level of religion than the law;
therefore the altered conception of Christianity,
which is distinguished by the atomistic legal view of
the Bible, denotes a distinct retrogression to a lower
level of religion.

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 241
One feels the obligation to deal very conscien
tiously with an opinion which has held its ground so
persistently and to measure words carefully in judg
ing it. But whoever has made himself acquainted
with the facts in question, who realises what the
bearings of the traditional theory of Bible authority
are, who is in a position to measure the influence of
this theory upon religious life and character, can
hardly doubt that it represents one of the most seri
ous aberrations of Christianity that is to be met with
in the course of its history.
What has been said about the relapse from the
gospel to the law may be held to be an exaggeration.
It will be maintained that 'those who hold most
strongly to the infallibility of the Scriptures insist
no less strenuously upon the redemption by Christ.
This is true. But one of these truths must be funda
mental. They cannot, and they do not, exist side by
side; they are not held independently the one of the
other, as two equally important truths. As a matter
of fact, the belief in the Bible is the first. Here lies
the gravamen of the matter. Belief in the Bible is
fundamental; belief in Christ depends upon belief
in the Bible — not in the sense in which this is neces
sarily true of every belief in Christ, namely, that it
rests upon credence given to the New Testament as
historical documents, just as we believe any other
facts upon the evidence given. Belief in Christ,
according to this view, depends upon belief in the
infallibility of the Bible; we must first believe that
every word is true — so many oracles of God. There
in

242 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
fore belief in the Bible is the first article in this creed
— and this is a relapse into Judaism.
That this is a correct description of a good deal of
our popular Christianity is evident to those who have
given any attention .to the popular as distinguished
from the theological form of belief. The latter at
tempts to hold both the Bible and Christ at an equal
level ; in the popular religion the Bible is far above
Christ. The extent to which the cause of Christianity
is in the popular mind bound up with the very letter
of our English version comes to us occasionally with
a startling shock ; as for instance, at the late revision
of the Bible. A curious instance of the perseverance
of the doctrine of biblical infallibility is afforded by
one of the latest of modern " religions " — that of
Tolstoi. He has no pity for the essential doctrines
of Christianity ; he throws to the winds the belief in
Christ as we understand it ; but the traditional view
of the Bible is too strong even for this revolutionist
to break through, and all unconsciously he builds his
entire system upon it.
There is a remarkable parallel between the Jewish
Pharisaism and this phase of Christianity. Slavery
to the letter produced in both cases the same conse
quences: slavery to the past, the stiffening of re
ligion into inflexible rigour and the numbness of
conscience to present issues. Jesus found the bit
terest opposition not from outside, but from religion
itself; and if the spirit of Christ, which in these cen
turies has been active in emancipating man from one
and another form of servitude and so has led to a

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OP CHRISTIAN LIFE. 243
higher civilisation, has often met with the stoutest
opposition from those who stood as the representa
tives of his religion, it has been because Christianity
like Judaism had largely degenerated into bibliolatry.
It is not, therefore, in the interests of a so-called
" liberality " that we reject the treatment of the
Bible as an infallible oracle, but because, being
utterly baseless, that view is to-day the most fruit
ful cause of infidelity and one of the most serious
obstacles to the advancement of the kingdom of
God. We were led into this discussion, partly to state
and justify the foundation upon which the argument
has proceeded, but mainly to find an answer to the
question : What is the final authority in Christian
ethics ? We have found that the theory which
ascribes infallible authority to the Bible is untenable
and mischievous. This is a negative answer. We
must now proceed to find the positive answer to our
question, and for this purpose we turn to Christ.
There can be no doubt what he recognized as the
final authority: " My meat is to do the will of him
that sent me. ' ' The one deepest principle of his life
was obedience to the Father; he was ever listening
to the divine voice ; that was his guide. So, too, he
taught his disciples to look above for guidance. In
the last discourse his words were about the Holy
Ghost and about prayer: " Whatsoever ye shall ask
the Father in my name, he will give it you " (St.
John, xvi. 23). With such prophecies and promises
are intermingled other words which refer to himself:

244 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
" I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world " (St. Matt, xxviii. 20). And we must not
forget how often he recurs to the subject of prayer:
he taught his disciples to pray; he told them of
God's care for them ; he taught them to go to God
as to a father who could give only good things to
his sons; he instructed them to importune God in
prayer. In this teaching we recognise that truth which the
old theologies embodied in the doctrine of Christ
" in statu exaltationis. " It is the truth that Christ
ianity is not only a memory but a present fact ; that
the king still lives ; that there is an infallible author
ity — God in heaven — who is accessible, who has
promised to hear prayer and to be our guide. Is it
not right that the truth of the headship of Christ in
his Church should be brought out from the obscurity
into which it has fallen ? The kingdom of God is the
greatest fact of history ; every step of man towards a
higher, fuller realisation of his destiny is a step tow
ards the consummation of the kingdom of God; the
secular coincides with the religious ideal, and the hu
man race is seen to be moving forward in fulfilment of
the end that Christ foresaw and in obedience to the
laws which he set in operation. And the founder
and leader of that kingdom is not a dimly-seen figure
speaking to us from the distant past through the
medium of a book, but a present power, a guide,
who cannot and will not leave his work incomplete.
It must not be thought that this truth does away
with the Bible; very far from it. But it does make

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 245
the greatest difference whether we recognise Christ
first and the Bible because of Christ, or the reverse.
If Christ is first, then our faith does not depend upon
the exact truth of every word of the Scriptures; but
it may still be " a lamp unto our feet, and a light
unto our path." We reverence it, though it is to
us only a means to an end. We learn to believe that
God has designed the preservation of the book for
us and that it contains what is essentially a faithful
picture of the life of the Saviour. Therefore we use
it for our edification ; but we recognise no truth that
runs contrary to that other revelation of God in
heart and conscience. God's living voice is supreme.
We believe that God speaks to each individual. We
hear him, sometimes in the earthquake, sometimes
in the fire, but most often in the still small voice.
The Christian's last court of appeal is neither the
Bible, nor the pope, nor a supposed inner light, but
God in heaven.
A great deal is said against " private judgment."
It is maintained that the regulation of the Christian
life must not be left to private judgment. There is a
certain justice in the objection. The danger is that
our own caprice will be taken for God's will. This
delusion has led to many excesses in the history
of the Christian Church. But these excesses have
been owing, not to the use, but to a gross abuse of
private judgment. The mistake has been in con
fusing two things : God's will, and the manifestation
of that will in heart and conscience. The abuses of
individual caprice are impossible where the distinc-

246 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
tion is kept in view, where the man holds before
his mind God's will as separate from his own, and
humbly listens for the manifestation of that will.
Under another aspect, the objection to private
judgment is senseless. If man is not to use his
judgment, then there is no reason why he should
believe in Christianity any more than in Buddhism,
or Atheism, or anything else that another tells him
to believe in. To try to get away from private
judgment as the last appeal to the only faculty that
any human being ever had by which to rule his con
duct is a thoughtless absurdity.
The lust of infallibility is the common mark of
weak minds and has in our own generation led
many to listen to the siren-voice of the Church of
Rome. But those who understand God's intention
in regard to man, not that he should be coddled
into comfortable security, but that by the discipline
of a faith in the unseen and eternal he should grow
into approved, independent, virile character; who
recognise character, not safety against an angry
Deity, to be the end of religion, will find no allure
ment in a claim which pretends to share in the alone
infallible authority of Almighty God. Whoever
makes such a claim makes it not in the spirit of
Christ, but in the spirit of the world.
We therefore recognise God as the ultimate au
thority for our ethical life. We believe that God
speaks to us through our conscience, our reason, and
also through the Bible rationally used. And in this

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 247
fact, that the Christian's last authority is not a rigid
rule, but a living God, we have an explanation of
what otherwise would seem an anomaly in the
Christian religion : the variableness of its ethics.
What appears as a defect is in reality an evidence of
the divine character of the kingdom of God. As man
becomes more receptive and more capable of under
standing the truth, the Christian ideal becomes
higher. The truth in God remains the same ; only
man varies. To-day he has a deeper insight into the
truth than he had a thousand years ago ; therefore
the ethical standard is so much higher, the concep
tion of Christian character is so much fuller. New
light is ever pouring in upon man. God uses every
means to reveal truth to him : science, literature ;
even war, famine, pestilence; the genius of great
men, the institutions of the state and philanthropy,
the patient research of the scholar, the intuition of
poet and seer : all and every one of these forces tend
to make his moral sight clearer and to reveal to him
more of the eternal law of God.
We can see, as we look over the Christian cen
turies, how different ages mark different steps in
that fuller realisation of Christian truth. The first
age of the Church was the age of the martyrs, and
the resignation and willingness to suffer, virtues
which the circumstances of that time called forth,
have remained to this clay indelibly stamped upon
the Christian character.
It may, indeed, be questioned whether that par
ticular element of character which was produced in

248 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
the age of martyrs has not maintained too exclusive
prominence in our ideas of Christian manhood.
The conception of the Christian saint is still pre
eminently one who suffers. It is formed upon the
ideal of him who " was brought as a lamb to the
slaughter," who " when he was reviled, reviled
not again." The preponderating influence of the
martyr-type obscures other elements in the character
of Christ and effects a certain onesidedness of Christ
ian ideal. The sainthood of resignation is still held
in higher honour than the sainthood of action.
As we follow the history of the Christian Church
from the first beginnings we observe a continually en
larging Christian ideal. Its steps are marked by the
care of the sick and the poor, in which Christian
sympathy found its earliest expression ; by the intel
lectual enthusiasm of the Renaissance, which has left
an indelible mark upon the life of the Church ; by
the rise of the modern state, which bears perhaps the
strongest testimony of all to the influence of Christ
ian ideals; by the re-awakening of missionary en
thusiasm. In our time we are witnessing a change in the
accepted views of life slowly coming over Christen
dom, the effect of Christ's teaching of the value of
the individual. We see in the wonderful system of
modern philanthropy, in the devotion with which
men with no expectation of reward are giving their
best efforts for the welfare and happiness of their
fellowmen, signs that our ethical conceptions are
being enlarged. We recognise this in the most

ETHICAL DETERMINATION OF CHRISTIAN LIFE. 249
striking social phenomenon of our time, that great
movement extending to every Christian land, which
constitutes what we call "the social problem." We
cannot fail to note the connection between all the
various phases of this agitation, by whatever name
they call themselves, from Russian Nihilism to the
mildest form of Christian Socialism. And, what
ever we may think of it ; however we may deplore
the excesses to. which it has led ; however severely
we may condemn the blindness of those who are
looking to a revolution as the condition of a better
future, and the light-hearted manner in which igno
rance meddles with economic principles which
specialists have to work hard to master: still we
cannot fail to recognise that the secret spring of this
world-wide movement is the recognition of the truth
taught by Christ eighteen hundred years ago, of the
value of the human soul simply because it is human.
We .must take the evil with the good; every break
ing forth of the stream of human progress has its
eddying backward currents. The life of to-day with
its intense energy is just as much a product of Christ
ianity on its dark as on its bright side. And the
truth of the infinite value of the human soul, with
its corollary, the equality of all men before God,
may manifest itself in rough ways; but the incen
diarism of anarchy as well as the devotion of
philanthropy are signs that a new idea is taking
hold of Christendom. They are the birth-throes of
a larger conception of Christian character.

CHAPTER VIII.
THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE.
Expansion is the law of Christian ethics. This
expansion is more striking in our day than it ever
was. The " enthusiasm of humanity " has touched
Christianity with aspirations for a more Christlike
life, and is filling out the ideal of Christian manhood.
We are learning to know Christ better and there is
being formed a higher conception of the Christian.
It is at this point that we most clearly see the
connection between Christian doctrine and Christian
ethics. The doctrine of biblical infallibility, in itself
untrue and a denial of the authority of Christ, has
clouded the ideas of right and wrong. It has
judaised Christianity by setting law in the central
place of religion, and in so doing it has obscured
and perverted the very fundamental and essential
principle of Christian morality. It has blinded the
eyes of men to the highest distinction of Christ's
teaching. It has dwarfed and distorted the Christ
ian-ideal. It has changed that which came into, the
world as a command into a prohibition. It has put
the negative for the positive.
When Christianity shall at last have freed itself
from Jewish legalism, returned to Christ, and come
250

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 251
to a clearer appreciation of the liberty of the gospel,
then the negative conception of Christian ethics will
make way for a truer appreciation of the possibilities
of Christian character. The conception of Christian
duty has been largely of what we are not to do ; a
deeper insight will bring with it this insistent appeal
to the conscience : What as a Christian am I bound
to do? When the law holds the central place in re
ligion, religious duty exhausts itself in a struggle
against doing wrong. The very essence and high
prerogative of Christianity is that it leads us out of
that prison-house. Over against the prohibition
"thou shalt not" it sets the command : " Thou shalt
love God and thy neighbour." It lifts man out of
the brooding, morbid self-contemplation, where the
energies of the soul are bent upon watching against
sin, where the mind becomes entangled in hopeless
casuistry and the best part of the man, his aspira
tions, are stifled, into the purer atmosphere of
Christian duty, where the heart is filled and the evil
spirit does not find it empty, swept, and garnished,
where sin and wrong-doing are conquered by the
desire and the recognised duty of doing right.
When a man learns to put Christ above law, then
he understands that Christian ethics is a positive
command, that only by doing the will of God shall
he know whether the doctrine is true ; that he shall
be saved, not by standing still and looking on and
selfishly thinking only of keeping his hands clean,
but by taking up arms in the warfare of life, by de
livering good, honest blows for right and truth.

252 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
This is what we are coming to recognise, the new
light that Christianity is gaining in our own age:
the Christian ideal is a positive, aggressive ideal.
In place of the terror of the law, there is a new mo
tive : the sense of responsibility. I am here not for
myself, not even to save my own soul ; I dare not
live my life for my own selfish gratification, not
even if, like the anchorite of old, I spend my time
in the wilderness or in a cave fighting the devil — a
refined selfishness. I am placed here to do my part
of the world's work, to fulfill that duty which God
assigns to me in the working out of the kingdom of
God. This is the bond that is to unite men in the
brotherhood of one common purpose, this the end
set to the Christian aspiration. Christianity draws
men out ; it touches the spring which is the strongest
motive power in the human breast : the aspiration
of the soul for the high and pure, the desire for that
which is better, the longing for an ideal :
" We needs must love the highest when we see it."
Often and often that longing has been mis
directed. We recognise it in mediaeval monasticism,
in the enthusiasm of the crusades, and in modern
social movements. However misapplied, it is a deep-
seated desire for a something beyond and above.
It is this longing, this power of enthusiasm, this
aspiration, which Christ takes hold of, directs, and
guides into the fulfilment of God's will. Whoever
remains untouched by some breath of this aspiration,
whoever stays imprisoned in the spiritual thraldom

THE KINGDOM OP GOD AND THE STATE. 253
of the letter, and persists in groping about among
negative conceptions where sin always means some
wrong done, but never the good left undone: he
remains a stranger to the true spirit of Christianity.
The law of positive duty, of a personal responsi
bility for something to be done, is the essential
ethical principle of Christianity in distinction from
Judaism. And with this great principle there comes
its necessary corollary : the law of proportional re
sponsibility. In the parable of the talents, the les
son is not that all should bring the same amount,
but that each should do according to his ability, and
the man that brought but two talents received equal
praise with him who brought the five. Every man
is responsible in proportion to what he has received,
or as Christ expresses it, in words which this genera
tion would do well to heed and ponder: " Unto
whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much re
quired " (St. Luke, xii. 48).
Just here we have still most to learn. In that
blending of tones which should form the harmony
of the Christian character, this one note is still
missed. True, there are many who, gifted with
many talents, are striving to the best of their ability
that their last account may be a good one, recog
nising the superior responsibility which superior gifts
bring with them, and they are rightly esteemed as
the noblest exponents of Christianity. But that
principle of proportional responsibility has not yet
entered as an element into the common popular esti
mation of character. The most finished production

254 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
of eighteen hundred years of Christianity is the
Christian gentleman. The Christian gentleman must
be pure, courteous, high-minded, generous. But
the Christian gentleman is a very negative character.
The popular conception has not yet risen to the
height of the Christian ideal. The Christian gentle
man must do no wrong; but it is not demanded of
him that he should be aggressively good. There is
a note left out. The positive side of Christianity,
the sense of proportional responsibility, of a duty
which is so much greater because of the many gifts :
this is largely or wholly unrepresented in the highest
conception popularly formed of Christian character.
The Christian gentleman is what his name denotes,
a gentle creature ; that is a high virtue, but Christ
ianity demands something more virile, more ener
getic, more positive.
Here then we may expect a forward movement in
Christian ethical conception. What has been ac
complished by Christianity is truly wonderful. It
has substituted for the ancient ideal of manhood a
pattern which the Greek or Roman would have
laughed to scorn. But it will do much more. It
will fill out that ideal. The light of God which
never ceases to shine will enlarge men's conceptions.
Christianity will build up its own pattern into nobler
proportions. The Christian gentleman of the future
will be one who has within him the true spirit of
chivalry, the spirit which makes men strong to do
battle for right and justice. In the coming genera
tions no man will be able to lay claim to the proud

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 255
title of gentleman, who wastes his time either in
trivial amusements or respectable idleness; who,
whatever his courtesy or refinement, is a mere
drone in society ; who does not remember that what
he calls his own is God's, and only given him that
he should use it wisely for himself and his fellow-
men. No man will be accounted a gentleman who
does not do his part of the world's work, any more
than to-day a man is called a gentleman who would
strike a woman.
Human customs and institutions in an imperfect
way often embody Christian ideas. And herein
they illustrate both the unquenchable aspirations of
humanity, and man's weakness in realising these
aspirations. So we trace in one historic institution
a foreshadowing of that Christian sense of responsi
bility which is now beginning to affect the popular
estimation of character. When you have stripped
the idea of aristocracy of its adventitious elements,
the pride of birth, of power, position, wealth ; — what
remains as its kernel is the Christian idea of propor
tional responsibility. Aristocracy, so far as it has
real meaning and value, is an attempt at embodying
in actual fact the Christian principle that the more
a man has, so much the more he owes. Hence the
French saying: noblesse oblige.1 It is no foolish
dream — for it is already in process of realisation —
that Christianity in America, where we are freed
from the prescriptive conventional glamour of birth
or title, shall produce a purer aristocracy, whose only
1 Compare the Prince of Wales's motto : " Ich dien.''

256 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
title is that a man makes return in service according
to what God has given him ; whose distinction is the
consciousness that every blessing of God, good
parents, education, position, wealth, and Christian
privileges, adds just so much more to responsibility,
and where the sense of a duty owed becomes the in
spiring motive of life.
The two principles which I have here endeavoured
to emphasise as characterising that enlargement of
Christian ethical conceptions which is taking place —
a positive as distinguished from a negative morality,
and a responsibility proportioned to individual gifts
and advantages — will be found to have an immediate
application to the great problems which are at pres
ent agitating the civilised world. First of these is
the so-called " social question."
I have already spoken of the present universal
social agitation and unrest as a phenomenon which
has the closest connection with Christianity. It is
not surprising, therefore, that we find the Church
absorbed in the keenest interest for this movement
and a very widespread sympathy for its objects.
It is true that we have to deplore a frequent lack
of discrimination on the part of the Church and
especially the clergy, who are inclined to go beyond
the sphere which is properly theirs and trespass
upon a domain where they are not at home and
where their well-intentioned ignorance is often the
cause of great mischief. Economics and theology are
mutually exclusive departments of human knowl-

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 257
edge ; and when the representative of religion pro
nounces judgment upon such questions as wages,
the influence of trusts, etc., he is liable to expose
himself to the ridicule of the trained economist, who
has devoted years of exclusive study to these prob
lems and who has learned reverence for the laws
governing the social relations, which the theologian
is apt to overlook in light-hearted unconsciousness.
The socialistically-tinged Christianity of our day
is from one point of view a most encouraging sign.
As such it represents a timely revolt from what
Matthew Arnold called
1 ' The barren optimistic sophistries
Of comfortable moles."
It shows that the Church is still quick to respond to
the wants of the time, that it has a feeling for that
aspiration which is the legitimate moving power of
the universal social movement. For there can be
no doubt that the object of socialism is a noble one,
and one which closely coincides with the Christian
ideal, and that the present unrest does point to a
radical wrong in the relationship between men. But,
in the lack of perception of the true nature of the
wrong, by the want of discrimination in the use of
means to right the wrong, socialistic Christianity
threatens to become a grave danger, and to work
incalculable harm to the cause of the poor which it
has espoused.
What we see going on is, indeed, nothing less than
a recrudescence of the old conflict between religion

258 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
and science. Science showed that the sudden crea
tions and rapid transformations which religion, for
saking her proper sphere, had postulated were
impossible, that God works with the utmost slow
ness and deliberation by immutable laws towards
his end. A new science has shown the same de
liberation, the same immutability, in another sphere,
in the working of economic laws towards the eleva
tion of mankind. And again representatives of re
ligion rebel against that slowness and immutability.
But the new conflict will react much more harmfully
upon religion than the old.
It is, however, becoming increasingly evident that
the solution of the great social question must be
sought in the moral sphere and can only be reached
by improvement in character. Here is the Church's
opportunity. But she must stand on her own
ground and not meddle where she is an intruder.
Christianity has a message for the social wants of
our day, and if I might venture a prediction, I
should say that the key to the situation will be
found in the Christian principle of proportional re
sponsibility : " Unto whomsoever much is given, of
him shall be much required."
The other great problem with which the Church
stands in closest relations is that of the state.
We cannot but recognise the guiding hand of
Providence in that process by which the laws of
human partnership have been evolved from the
earliest time to the present : the tribe, the monarchy,

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 259
the empire, the modern State. The last in the line
of development, the state as we know it represents
a new principle in the social life. Arising out of
the break-up of the Roman Empire, the modern
state came on the scene when the leaven of Christ
ianity had permeated the masses and had given
reality to the ethical life. It is this ethical life,
possible only through Christianity, that in turn
made possible the modern state. And the state is
the great ethical problem of our day.
John Stuart Mill, in his essay on Liberty, charges
Christianity with a defect in failing to provide rules
for the Christian's duty to the state. The charge
witnesses to a misunderstanding of the true nature of
Christianity. For the very distinction of our religion
is that it provides no rules for individual cases — how
could Christ make rules for a condition of things
which was not then present, of which his disciples
could have no faintest conception ? — but that it
establishes the fundamental principle of ethics and
implants in men the moral imperative to make the
application of that principle to each new condition.
But there is a certain justice in the charge, if it is
taken as directed, not against the religion, but
against the representatives of the religion. For
perhaps the most serious ethical defect of our
modern Christianity is that it fails to realise its own
sponsorship for the state.
There have been at various times efforts to shape
the national life in accordance with the law of Christ.
But the mediaeval papacy and Puritanism, which

260 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
stand as the most noted representatives of these
efforts, embody a principle thoroughly different
from that which we to-day recognise as embodied
in the state. The highest conception to which
these systems attained was characterised by a cer
tain externality and forcefulness. The state in itself
was neither to the mediaeval Catholic nor to the
Puritan a divine creation. As an element of the
world, it was to be subdued to the law of Christ. It
stood over against the Church, and by receiving the
Church's yoke it was to be made the handmaid of
the Church.
The modern state stands upon a different footing.
It claims, as well as the Church, the distinction of
a divine ordination. It shares with the Church
something of the latter's prerogative ; it is in a sense
co-equal with the Church. There has been com
mitted to it, as to the Church, a share of the divine
work for man. It has a part in the mission to hu
manity. It is the sphere within which man exercises
those virtues which fit him for the future kingdom.
There is, therefore, a necessary organic relation
between the state and the kingdom of God, and we
shall now be in a position to define that relation.
The kingdom of God is God's ultimate end and
purpose for the human race. We cannot ascribe to
the state the same permanence. But, if we read the
lesson of history aright, it is God's will that his king
dom should in this our time embody itself in the
state. The ideal of the state as we now under
stand it, the democratic state, is on its ethical side

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AM) THE STATE. 261
identical with the ideal of the kingdom of God, as
confined to any particular area. The conditions re
quired for the kingdom are essential for the full
realisation of the state. Undoubtedly, the state and
with it patriotism are destined to pass away and give
place to a higher conception of corporate unity,
where all barriers shall disappear before the senti
ment of one common humanity. But we are pre
sumably very far from that end. At the present
time the state comprehends within itself the highest
ideal of the common ethical life of humanity. The
state is, as it were, a segment of the kingdom of
God as it exists in our time, in an imperfect condi
tion, in a state of growth.
No lower conception of the office and sphere of
the state will fit in with a Christian view of the
world. However imperfect the life of the state ap
pears now, we do not discover its true character in
its condition at any one moment of time, any more
than we»can understand the nature of the kingdom
of God from a view of it at any single moment of its
history. As with the kingdom, so with the state :
its essential principle is growth, aspiration, expan
sion. We believe that it is the divinely appointed
means, for the era in which we live, towards the
realisation of the kingdom of God.1 When the
means shall have served its purpose it will doubtless
be discarded. But that does not impair the reality
1 It was the merit of De Tocqueville to have clearly recognised
the religious foundation of American nationality. — See Democracy in
America.

262 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
of those large and high ideals for which the state at
present stands. It is an actuality for us and it is
for us to recognise its divine character.
We can now also understand the relation between
the Church and the state. They both work to
gether for the same appointed end : the consumma
tion of the kingdom of God. Each has its own
sphere; each contributes its own portion to the
common object. It is the special function of the
Church to lay the religious foundation ; religion, the
direct relation of man to God, is its particular sphere.
The state furthers the ethical life of the kingdom.
The ordering of the mutual relationships of men in
human society upon the basis of the divine law is the
function of the state. So we understand the Church
and the state to be fellow-workers in solving the
problem of humanity.
It is one of the shortcomings of our present-day
Christianity that it does not recognise this relation
ship between the kingdom of God and th% state.
The Church is wanting in the sense of responsibility
towards the state. The fatal delusion of an earthly
infallibility has imposed upon her a crystalline rigour
and robbed her of the adaptability which, recognising
the hand of Providence in the changes of the world,
brings forth " out of her treasure things new and
old " to meet these changes. God has cast human
society into new forms. In the richness of the
Christian treasure are the principles which are es
sential to the preservation of these forms. But the
Church rarely brings them forth.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 263
Christian people have been somewhat in the habit
of satisfying their public obligations by finding
fault. There is a certain useless indulgence in
tirades against the evils of the times. Lurid pic
tures are drawn of the degradation of our public life.
We have had such jeremiads ad nauseam. Is it not
time that Christian energy were directed to pointing
out those principles whose application to the exist
ing conditions shall promise relief ?
Our estimate of these conditions will vary accord
ing to the point of view from which we regard them.
The first question here refers to the object for which
the state exists. It is one of those comfortable
doctrines whose truth is tacitly assumed, the uncon
scious postulate of argument, that the state exists
for the well-being and comfort of the individual. It
is the power which regulates social life, to the end
of personal peace and satisfaction. Our considera
tions of the state in its relation to the kingdom of
God have prepared us to recognise another purpose.
The modern state exists for the production of char
acter. A battle-ground of character,, a field for the
exercise and building up of manly virtue : this is the
meaning of the state as understood from the Chris
tian point of view.
The Christian, therefore, faces the situation with a
sense of duty. He brings to the task something more
than inherited prejudices, time-worn sophistries,
and platitudes which pass for reasons. Its exigen
cies are to him a call, not for criticism or unavailing
lamentation, but for the discharge of a sacred duty

264 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
in the investigation and application of those princi
ples which are essential to the furtherance of the
national life.
This task is not a difficult one, when we have
recognised the distinguishing characteristic of Christ
ian morality. The state cannot exist upon the
negative principles of Hebrew ethics, but demands
that its citizens bring to it that sense of positive
duty which recognises a responsibility proportioned
to the individual's gifts. The Christian state finds
its ethical correlate in the Christian principle of pro
portional responsibility.
This principle puts a different face upon the situ
ation, and corrects some inveterate prejudices. It
is one of the axiomatic pre-conceptions, received
everywhere as current coin, that the ills of our pub
lic life are due to the inert mass of ignorant, low,
venal and vicious humanity, which hangs like a dead
weight upon our free institutions, and that universal
suffrage is the monumental failure of our day. But
once realise the bearing of the Christian principle of
a proportional responsibility, which exacts not the
same from all alike, but so much more as your gifts
are larger, and let it be understood that the state
exists largely for the elevation of that corrupt mass
of ignorance and viciousness : and the responsibility
will be seen to lie elsewhere.
For many centuries, perhaps as far back as the
knowledge of human affairs extends, liberty has
been the goal of human progress. Many battles
have been fought in the long warfare of advancing

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 265
civilisation in behalf of social and political freedom.
Liberty has been in all ages the watchword which
filled the human breast with enthusiasm and in
spired deeds of heroism. One barrier after another
has been overthrown which stood in the way of the
untrammelled expansion of personal and political
life. What still remains to be done ? What will be the
next issue about which the battle will be drawn ?
We ask that question and we look in vain for an
answer. With us Americans at least, the battle of
liberty has been fought to a finish. As far as we are
concerned, liberty is a dead issue. The equality of
man is an accomplished fact ; there is no more
tyranny, no oppression; there are no unnatural im
pediments, no impassible barriers. Freedom is
complete. The cry of liberty no longer appeals to
us, it stirs no more noble emotions.
Shall we, therefore, say that the battle of progress
and civilisation has been fought? that we can now
rest on our laurels ? By no means. We can see
gathering on the horizon the dark clouds of coming
storms. We seem to be hurrying onward towards
new crises which will be as eventful and as full of
difficulty as any which mark the past progress of the
human race. But whoever would face the new is
sues and solve the problems of the future, must put
aside the rusty weapons of the past and arm himself
anew for the fight.
The truth which in one generation is the seed-corn
of a great and beneficent revolution becomes in the

266 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
next a falsehood stopping the wheels of progress.
Equality was once the grandest of truths. But to-day
it has become a falsehood, which its blind votaries
place in the way of human advance. Men are not
equal: this is the truth upon whose recognition
hinges the further progress of civilisation. The man
who has a thousand is not the same as the man who
has a hundred ; the man who has gone through col
lege is not the same as he who has barely learned to
read and write; the man who has been brought up
with careful nurture is not the same as the man
whose father and mother were drunkards; and the
man who enjoys the inestimable privileges of Chris
tianity is not the same as the man who, for whatever
reason, is a stranger to them.
Our judgments of the present and our outlook into
the future will radically differ according as we recog
nise or do not recognise these differences and the
differences in responsibility that go with them.
I cannot see how there can be two opinions as to
what Chistianity teaches. It recognises the princi
ple of proportional responsibility. From the Christ
ian point of view there can be no doubt as to where
the responsibility for the political evils of the pres
ent lies. " Unto whomsoever much is given, of him
shall be much required." With the many splendid
exceptions which we delight to honour and which
promise a better future, we cannot conceal from our
selves that it is the selfishness of wealth, of educa
tion, of refinement, of Christianity, which to-day is
the greatest barrier to progress. Not until men

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 267
shall learn the Christian principle of property, that
it is held in stewardship for God, not until they learn
the Christian principle of responsibility, which re
quires for every advantage and blessing from God
a service to fellowmen, shall we realise any approach
to that higher and better social life in the state for
which God has destined us.
The saddest sight in our land to-day is not the
corruption of public officers or the ignorance of the
masses, but the selfishness of those who ought to
know better, but who prefer their private advantage
to the public good : the many thousands of the well
to do, of the educated, of professedly Christians, who
have never lifted one finger or spoken one word
for purity and honesty in public life. What Theo
dore Parker wrote when the dark cloud of slavery
hung over the nation is precisely true to-day: " If
our educated men had done their duty, we should
not now be in the ghastly condition we bewail." '
No prophet ever uttered truer words than those
spoken by George William Curtis in 1883: " While
good men sit at home, not knowing that there is
anything to be done, nor caring to know ; cultivating
a feeling that politics are tiresome and dirty, and
politicians vulgar bullies and bravoes ; half persuaded
that a republic is the contemptible rule of a mob,
and secretly longing for a splendid and vigorous
despotism— then remember it is not a government
mastered by ignorance, it is a goverment betrayed
by intelligence ; it is not the victory of the slums, it
1 Quoted by G. W. Curtis, lecture on " Political Infidelity."

268 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
is the surrender of the schools ; it is not that bad
men are brave, but that good men are infidels and
cowards." 1
" Good men are infidels:" it is a just charge against
the infidelity of our modern Christianity. For the
burden of responsibility lies upon the Church.
Why are these things possible in a Christian society ?
How is it that men still enjoy the reputation of be
ing good men and Christians who have never per
formed one duty to society ? Why, moreover, is it
that a man may sink the public welfare in subservi
ency to party, or condone dishonest practices in
public life, and yet hold his head high in a Christian
society ? We are constrained to answer : The
Church has not yet learned to appreciate her obliga
tion or her opportunity. The Church has the power
of affecting public opinion so as to bring scorn and
contempt upon the man who performs no duty to
the public or who allows selfishness to dictate his
course. It is upon the Christianity of the country
that in the last resort rests the responsibility for the
immoral condition of our public life. That Christ
ianity has not yet fully awakened either to the con-
1 Speech made before the New England Society on "Puritan
Principle and Puritan Pluck." It is impossible not to feel keenly
the destructive tendencies in modern society, how the laboriously
achieved progress of our modern civilisation is threatened by the
socialistic agitation. But it is equally impossible for the candid ob
server, admitting the justice of the position taken in the text, to
deny that this danger is but the nemesis for the neglect by Christian
ity and the Church of the Christian principle of a responsibility pro
portioned to the individual's gifts. God's justice often works out its.
ends in rough ways.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 269
sciousness of the true relation of the state to the
kingdom of God, or to the Christian principle of a
proportional responsibility, in which that relation
must find its practical realisation.
The Church of Christ to-day holds the key to
the situation. There are not wanting signs that
she is coming more fully to realise her mission. It
is becoming mq*; and more recognised that the
duty of the citizen to the state opens up to the
vigour and enthusiasm of the Church a sphere for
putting Christian principles into action, where every
effort tells towards the expansion of the kingdom of
God. It is not too much to hope that we are on the
threshold of a time when the ethical conceptions of
Christendom, whose gradual expansion in the past
makes the history of civilisation, will receive an en
largement. It will come slowly. And its realisa
tion will effect a change in civilised society which
will find a parallel only in that softening of manners
which made the gladiatorial shows impossible.
Never was given to the Church a grander oppor
tunity for serving God and man. A thoughtful
realisation of God's will for man, which shall make
her see the God-ordained mission of the state, and
a strength of purpose to perform her allotted func
tion: let her fulfill these conditions, and she will
rise to her splendid opportunity.
The task, we cannot conceal from ourselves, is a
great one : it is nothing less than the creation of a
new sense in the mass of humanity. It exists in a
few ; the sense of proportional responsibility is what

270 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
gives a touch of splendour to the noblest lives. Shall
we look upon these as the anomalies ? a kind of
freak of nature, which we cannot explain ? No. It
is the many, lacking that sense of responsibility, who
are the anomalies. The men who to-day live in the
fear of God, for the service of man, counting all
things God's, nothing theirs: these are the true ex
ponents of Christianity. It is idle-to dream that we
shall ever reach perfection. But it is the anomalous
self-contradictory state of our present-day Christian
ity, that men are walking about who perform no
duty to the state or fellowman, and yet who are
allowed to cherish the delusion that they are Christ
ians and civilised. This is simply the contradiction
of Christianity. To say that this is the state with
which we must rest satisfied, with a thankful acknowl
edgment of the few brilliant exceptions, but still
allowing them to be by right exceptions : this is to
have a very low opinion of the power of Christianity.
History, on the contrary, bears unmistakable
testimony to the tremendous influence of that
spiritual force which entered the world with Christ ;
and when we consider what Christianity has done
we shall be careful in drawing the line at what
Christianity can do. The first thought or sentiment
which Christianity infused into men was that of the
sacredness of human life. Any one who had lived
in the days of ancient Rome, when deformed children
were exposed and the lord was master of the slave's
life, could have had little conception of the change
that would come ; and if a prophet had then foretold

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 271
the stringency of our laws for the protection of hu
man life, if he had drawn a picture of a modern
hospital to an ancient Roman, he would have been
laughed at as a visionary, just as " practical " men
to-day laugh at the visionaries who believe in the
power of ideal forces.
Moreover, Christianity has a power of unfolding
itself. The light has constantly increased. Long
after that first lesson, the sacredness of life, had been
learned, there dawned upon the Christian conscious
ness that other truth — the infinite value of the human
soul, with the dignity which it gives to all life. And
if a fairy's wand could reproduce from the past of five
hundred years ago some English, German, or French
community, and put it down side by side with an
American community of to-day under similar circum
stances, the contrast would be almost as striking as
that between heathenism and Christianity.
When we consider what Christianity has done, we
shall not despair of what Christianity can do. We
shall believe that Christianity may yet change the
last vestige of savagery, the readiness to fight, into
the Christian virtue of readiness to serve. We shall
believe that the Church has it in her power so to
shape public sentiment that a man will be branded
as contemptible and made a social outcast, who does
not perform some service to his fellowmen in some
way commensurate to the gifts which God has be
stowed upon him.
We have been led to these reflections by a con-

272 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
sideration of the ethical determination of the Christ
ian life. We found that the only infallible authority
for the Christian is God. With the acknowledgment
of this truth the field is open for an indefinite ethical
expansion. The Christian life is made up of the
two elements — the religious and the ethical. Its
ideal is twofold : peace with God and obedience to
his will. No life is normal without either of these.
And if we understand the meaning of Christ aright,
it is the realisation of that twofold ideal of life under
his own leadership that is comprehended under the
idea of the kingdom of God.
It remains to set the kingdom of God in its true
historic light by showing its relation to one of the
greatest facts of modern history, itself also the em
bodiment of an idea. The kingdom of God finds its
historic antithesis in the kingdom of the pope. By
this is meant, that if the kingdom of God is the
realisation in human life of Christ's intention and
promises the elevation of humanity to the highest at
tainable heights, the modern papacy is that organisa
tion which in our day presents the greatest obstacle
to the advancement of that kingdom. I say ad
visedly, the modern papacy, because the papacy of
this century, as it has developed since that 24th day
of May, 1814, when Pius VII. returned to Rome, is
a very different thing from the papacy as it was
before. The papacy is not the Church of Rome, though it
has almost sucked the vitality out of that body.
The Church of Rome is a body comprising a vast

THE KINGDOM OP GOD AND THE STATE. 273
number of human souls, in which lives much beauti
ful piety and devotion, but where whatever there is
of true religion exists in spite of the iron hand of a
system which is doing its best to throttle all spiritual
life. The papacy is the child of the ancient Caesarism.
It is supposed by some to be a religious organisa
tion ; it is as truly mundane as the Caesarism whose
mantle it has assumed. It is a vast and wonderful
system with one head, whose essential governing
principle is the exploitation of the religious interests
of its followers for its own worldly benefit. The lust
of rule is the secret of the papacy, as it was the
principle of Roman imperialism.
One of the most singular phenomena of our mod
ern intellectual life is the almost total indifference of
accurate research to that great power, the papacy.1
There is no fact of heaven or earth that is not to-day
subjected to the closest scrutiny of the keenest
minds, be it of the physical constitution of the world
or of history. Every line of investigation in every
department of knowledge is followed with the most
intense interest. But here is one of the colossal
phenomena of history, a world-wide empire com
prising a vast multitude, every individual of whom
recognises above the secular authority of his particu
lar state the authority of the head of that empire ;
1 The attention given on our side to the papal bull on Anglican
orders is a mortifying sign of the degeneration of Protestantism.
Half the argument is yielded to the pope by taking him seriously. I
do not undervalue orders ; but Protestantism is untrue to itself if it
does not hold the Church of Christ at a higher value than these hair
splitting distinctions.

274 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
and in our own time his claim to divine attributes
has been allowed and accepted. And yet this great
fact excites little attention. Our modern investi
gator looks with contempt upon superstition. It
does not occur to him that superstition, as well as
any other fact, requires an explanation. Says Prof.
Harnack, referring to the decrees of the Vatican
Council : " Our century has accepted almost in
silence what could have been offered to the spirit
of no previous century, without rousing an armed
Europe to battle, both Catholics and Protestants." !
This singular attitude of the modern intellectual
world towards the papacy can, I think, be traced to
two causes. The first of these is that exclusive tend
ency of Protestantism, which, identifying religion
with intellectual problems, over these problems for
gets the needs of millions of human creatures, who
care nothing about intellectual questions, but who
have very decided religious wants. The second is the
strange blindness which prevails in the intellectual
world to the religious factor. It is a common
opinion that social man can be understood without
taking into consideration the chief motives which
govern the actions of the individual.
There is no more disastrous mistake than that
which is frequently made, which, in classifying the
forces that to-day are operative in society, places the
destructive forces of atheism, infidelity, materialism,
at the one extreme, and at the other the supposedly
conservative force of a superstitious religion, and
1 Dogmengeschichte, iii., p. 648.

THE KINGDOM OF GOD AND THE STATE. 275
which inclines to look upon that spirit which is
credulous of everything and yields to any authority
that calls itself religious as a fault leaning to virtue's
side. History teaches abundantly that superstition
and unbelief are close friends. They have more
than once become allies, as they did under a Fred
erick II. and under a Napoleon. Prof. Harnack,
speaking of modern France, shows how irreligion
and Jesuitism have clasped hands: "The Hugue
nots had been expelled, the Jansenists broken or
annihilated : the French people now belonged to
the Encyclopedists and Voltaire. It hated the
Jesuits; but because it is easy enough to drive out
the fear of God, but not the terror of God, this peo
ple belonged from that time to that very Church of
the Jesuits which it hated and derided.1
The kingdom of God and the kingdom of the
pope are antitheses, because the one, recognising the
wants innate in human nature, brings man to his
Creator; the other, recognising those same wants, by
them leads man to the usurped throne of a creature.
The end of the kingdom of God is God, the end of
the papacy is the pope. This distinction designates
the two poles of human character: that which looks
above the creature to the eternal and is fast anchored
in God, and that which does not rise above earth
and is anchored in the shifting sands of human
mutability. It is no mere accident, but an entirely natural
consequence of the essential nature of state and
1 Ibid. , iii., p. 639.

276 THE KINGDOM OF GOD.
Church, that the history of Europe in this century is
largely the history of an intense struggle between
the aspiring sense of nationality and the papacy,
and that even in America we have an uneasy feeling
of an approaching storm. By the conditions of its
being the Church of Rome is irreconcilably opposed
to the modern state. The democratic state is
founded upon the principles of the gospel, it is the
embodiment of the kingdom of God ; and the
papacy, which, by setting the pope in the place of
God, has repudiated the gospel, has instinctively
recognised in the spirit of nationality its enemy,
with whom there can be only a life and death
struggle. One may stand in Rome upon the Pincian Hill.
The eternal city at his feet is overshadowed by the
vast pile of St. Peters and the Vatican. Opposite,
at one of the highest points of the surrounding hills,
overlooking the city, is the heroic equestrian statue
of Garibaldi. Outlined against the sky it is a strik
ing feature of the landscape — and as suggestive as
it is striking. He stands there as having come to
conquer and rule over the city at his feet. In that
statue I seemed to see the spirit of nationality and
the kingdom of God come to conquer, not in Italy
only, but the world over, the kingdom of him who
has usurped the place of God. So, we believe, it is
written in the decrees of heaven.
THE END

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