v. 6, 1, 'whom the apostle calls "spiritual" because they have the

Spirit, not because they have been robbed of the flesh and become bare spirit.' It is the recognition of this principle that makes most of the language of the Fathers on fasting so healthy and sensible. The end of fasting is not to destroy the flesh, but to free the spirit.

[279] See especially Mozley's _Lectures on the Old Testament_, x.: 'The end the test of progressive revelation.'

[280] Greg. Naz. _Orat._ xxxi. 25. Many of the greatest of the ancient Christian writers depreciate the sacrificial law as a mere concession, made to avoid worse things, when the incident of the calf shewed that the first legislation of the Ten Commandments was too spiritual: so Jerome _in Isai._ 1, 12, _In Jer._ vii. 21. Cf. Justin, _Trypho_ 19. Chrys. _adv. Jud._ iv. 6. Epiphan. _Haer._ lxvi. 71. _Constt. ap._ i. 6; vi. 20. This method of interpretation is perhaps derived from the Epistle of Barnabas, 2-4.

[281] Chrys. _in Matth. Homil._ xvii. 5-6 (slightly abbreviated). Cf. _Libell. Faustin. et Marcellin._ in _Bibl. Vet. Patrum._ tom. v. 657 d.

[282] _On the Holy Spirit_, xiv. 33 (Lewis' trans.).

[283] Aug. _de Trin._ i. 10, 21. This principle alone gives a basis for the doctrine of 'imputation' so far as it is true. God deals with us, e.g. in absolution, by anticipation of what is to come about in us, in Christ.

[284] Thom. Aq. _Summa Theol._ pars sec. sec. Qu. 1. Art. ix.

[285] The above paragraph is a summary of expressions constantly met with in the Fathers. It is S. Ambrose who protests against the idea that the priest can be spoken of as having power over the Divine Things which he ministers, see _De Spiritu Sancto_, praef. 18, lib. i. 11, 118: 'nostra sunt servitia sed tua sacramenta. Neque enim humanae opis est divina conferre.' S. Augustine, among others, draws the distinction between gifts from the Spirit and the gift of Himself. _Ep._ cxciv.: 'aliter adiuvat nondum inhabitans, aliter inhabitans: nam nondum inhabitans adiuvat ut sint fideles, inhabitans adiuvat iam fideles.' Didymus, _de Spiritu Sancto_ 15, calls attention to the distinction in the New Testament between πνεῦμα (without the article) i.e. 'a spiritual gift,' and τὸ πνεῦμα, i.e. the Spirit Himself: cf. Westcott on S. John vii. 39.

[286] Greg. Naz. _Orat._ xxxi. 8.

[287] See Athan. _Epp. ad Serapion._ i. 17. Cyril Hieros. _Cat._ xvi. 24. Iren. v. 13, 2. Basil, _de Spiritu Sancto_, iii. 5.

[288] The _Dict. of Chr. Biog._, Art. HOLY GHOST (by Dr. Swete), has an admirable summary of the theology of the subject.

[289] See Godet on S. John xv. 26, 27.

[290] Athan. _Epp. ad Serap._ i. 19. S. John xiv. 16, 18, 23.

[291] Plato's human trinity is made up of reason, spirit [θυμός], and desire: S. Augustine's of memory (i.e. personal identity), reason, and will; or mind, knowledge, and love. Nothing has been said in the text of Patristic and more recent attempts to express the function of the Holy Spirit in the inner relations of the Trinity. Some of the Fathers speak of the Holy Spirit as completing the circle of the Divine Life, or as 'the return of God upon Himself,' 'the bond of the Father and the Son.' This eternal function would interpret His temporal mission to bring all creatures back into union with God. Not very differently S. Augustine speaks of Him as the Love of the Father and the Son: 'Vides Trinitatem si caritatem vides. Ecce tria sunt; amans et quod amatur et amor.' And this Love is itself personal and coordinate: 'commune aliquid est Patris et Filii; at ipsa communio consubstantialis et coaeterna.' But in such speculation they allow themselves with much reserve and expression of unwillingness.

In fact it is easy to see that an eternally living God, knowing and loving, must be a God Whose Being involves eternal relationships. Knowledge involves a relation of subject and object: to make love possible there must be a lover and a loved. It is more difficult to see how a perfect relationship must be threefold; but there are true lines of thought which lead up to this, such, for instance, as make us see first in the family, the type of complete life. Love which is only a relation of two, is selfish or unsatisfied: it demands an object and a product of mutual love. See especially Richard of S. Victor, _de Trin._ Pars i. lib. iii. cc. 14, 15: 'Communio amoris non potest esse omnino minus quam in tribus personis. Nihil autem (ut dictum est) gloriosius, nihil magnificentius, quam quicquid habes utile et dulce _in commune deducere_: ... hujusmodi dulcedinis delicias solus non possidet qui in exhibita sibi dilectione socium _et condilectum_ non habet; quamdiu _condilectum_ non habet, praecipui gaudii communione caret.' See also Sartorius, _Doctrine of Divine Love_ (Clark's Foreign Theol. Libr.), p. 16.

[292] _Microcosmus_, B. ix. C. iv. (E. T. vol. ii. p. 660.)

[293] See especially Gal. i. 8, 9.

[294] Heb. ii. 3.

[295] See further on the fatal results of separating the Spirit's work in Scripture, from His work in the Church, Coleridge, _Remains_ iii. 93, iv. 118; or quoted by Hare, _Mission of the Comforter_, Note H. vol. ii. pp. 468, 474.

[296] This distinction was drawn by Bishop Clifford, _Fortnightly Review_, Jan. 1887, p. 145.

[297] Cf. the quotation in Eusebius, _H. E._ v. 28.

[298] Athan. _de Incarn._ 12. Cf. Ewald's preface to his _History of Israel_.

[299] See Gratry, _Henri Perreyve_, pp. 162, 163.

[300] Delitzsch, _O.T. History of Redemption_, p. 106. Cf. Prof. Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 108.

[301] See Epiphan. _Haer._ xlviii. 4. Westcott, _Introd. to the Study of the Gospels_, App. B, sect. ii. 4, sect. iv. 4. Mason, _Faith of the Gospel_, p. 255.

[302] See Professor Driver's admirable article on 'the cosmogony of Genesis.' _Expositor_, Jan. 1886.

[303] Professor Cheyne, speaking of such narratives of Scriptures as the record of Elijah, protests against the supposition that they are 'true to fact.' 'True to fact! Who goes to the artist for hard dry facts? Why even the historians of antiquity thought it no part of their duty to give the mere prose of life. How much less can the unconscious artists of the imaginative East have described their heroes with relentless photographic accuracy!' (_The Hallowing of Criticism_, p. 5.) But it seems to me that such a passage, by treating the recorders of the Old Testament as 'artists,' ignores their obvious intention to lay stress on what God has actually done, the deliverances He has actually wrought. They, at least, like the Greek historical 'artist' of the defeat of Persia, would have laid great stress on the facts having happened.

[304] Church, _Discipline of the Christian Character_, p. 57. This work seems to me the best existing answer to the question, in what does the inspiration of the Old Testament consist.

[305] Cf. pp. 161-167. In view of criticisms it may be explained that in the account of the prophet given above only that view of his inspiration is taken into consideration which appeals first to the enquirer (cf. the words in the next paragraph 'in this general sense at least'). When once this primary assurance of inspiration is gained the evidence of detailed prophecies will be found cogent. As we compare the anticipations of the Messiah or of the 'Righteous Servant' in such passages as Ps. xxii., Is. liii., vii. 14, or ix. 6, 7, with their fulfilment in Jesus Christ, we recognise a special action of the Holy Ghost, marking even in details the continuity of His method. Cf. p. 167 referred to above.

[306] See for instance Micah v. 2-6. On the subject of the limitations of prophetic foresight, as on the whole subject of prophecy, let me refer to Dr. Ed. Riehm, _Messianic Prophecy_ (Clark's trans.) pp. 79, 86 ff., 114, 157-162.

[307] Acts i. 8. S. John xiv. 25, 26; xvi. 12, 13.

[308] S. John xix. 35; xxi. 24. 1 S. John i. 1-3.

[309] See Prof. Sanday's _What the first Christians thought about Christ_. (Oxford House Papers: Rivington.)

[310] 2 Tim. iii. 16.

[311] Mr. Horton's book on _Inspiration and the Bible_ is almost naively lacking in this quality of impartial regard to inspired books.

[312] Prof. Robertson Smith, _Prophets of Israel_, p. 6.

[313] Cf. Prof. Robertson Smith, _The Old Testament in the Jewish Church_, Lect. vii. p. 207: 'Another point in which criticism removes a serious difficulty is the interpretation of the imprecatory psalms.'

[314] See _Nineteenth Century_, Feb. 1884, p. 189.

[315] 'When from time to time,' says S. Bernard to his monks, 'anything that was hidden or obscure in the Scriptures has come out into the light to any one of you, at once the voice of exultation and thankfulness for the nourishment of spiritual food that has been received, must rise as from a banquet to delight the ears of God.'

[316] See the Annual Address (1889) delivered at the Victoria Institute by Prof. Sayce, on the cuneiform tablets of Tel el-amarna, pp. 4, 14 f.: 'We learn that in the fifteenth century before our era--a century before the Exodus--active literary intercourse was going on throughout the civilized world of Western Asia, between Babylonia and Egypt and the smaller states of Palestine.... This intercourse was carried on by means of the Babylonian language and the complicated Babylonian script. How educated the old world was, we are but just beginning to learn. But we have already learnt enough to discover how important a bearing it has on the criticism of the Old Testament.'

[317] See Driver, _Crit. notes on Sunday-School lessons_ (Scribner: New York).

[318] Ex. xx. xxii-xxiii. xxxiii.

[319] The Books of Kings seem to be compiled from the point of view of the Deuteronomist.

[320] Origen, _c. Cels._ vii. 4.

[321] E.g. chs. vii. ix. The Roman Church admits that it is, to use Newman's phrase, 'a prosopopeia'; 'our Bibles say, "it is written in the person of Solomon" and "it is uncertain who was the writer,"' l.c. p. 197. It is important to bear in mind that the Western Church in general has, since S. Augustine's day, admitted into the canon a book the literary method of which is thus confessedly dramatic. Newman makes this the ground for saying that the same may be true of Ecclesiastes.

[322] On the evidence of O.T. miracles I may refer to Mr. Samuel Cox's Essay: _Miracles, an Argument and a Challenge_. (Kegan Paul, 1884.)

[323] Of course the distinction must be maintained in the case of the book of Daniel between a 'pious fraud' which cannot be inspired, and an idealizing personification which, as a normal type of literature, can. Further study will probably solve the special difficulty which on the critical hypothesis attaches to the book of Daniel from this point of view: see Stanton, _Jewish and Christian Messiah_, p. 109, note 1.

[324] This is certainly true of the Church as a whole. For the most that can be said in the same sense of the Roman Church, see Newman in the article above cited.

[325] _De Principiis_, iv. 15, 16, 17. His point is that incidents which could not have occurred in fact, or at least did not occur, are inserted in the narrative of the Old and New Testaments, that their very historical impossibility or improbability may drive us to the consideration of their spiritual significance. 'The attentive reader may notice ... innumerable other passages, like these, so that he will be convinced that in the histories that are literally recorded, circumstances are inserted that did not occur.' Cf. Bigg, _Christian Platonists_, pp. 137-8.

[326] Cf. Jerome, _ad Nepotian. ep._ lii. 2.

[327] S. Matt. xii. 40.

[328] S. Matt. xxiv. 37-39.

[329] S. Matt. xxii. 41-46.

[330] See especially S. Mark x. 17-18 (and parallel passages), where our Lord's question, if converted into a positive proposition, suggests a repudiation of personal goodness. Cf. also the question in S. John x. 34-36 where, though the argument is _a fortiori_, still the true character of our Lord's sonship is hardly suggested.

[331] This limitation of knowledge must not be confused with fallibility or liability to human delusion, because it was doubtless guarded by the Divine purpose which led Jesus Christ to take it upon Himself.

[332] Of course He gave prophetic indications of the coming judgment, but on the analogy of inspired prophecy. He did not reveal 'times and seasons,' and declared that it was not within the scope of His mission to do so. See esp. S. Mark xiii. 32. He exhibits supernatural insight into men's characters and lives. But He never exhibits the omniscience of bare Godhead in the realm of natural knowledge; such as would be required to anticipate the results of modern science or criticism. This 'self-emptying' of God in the Incarnation is, we must always remember, no failure of power, but a continuous act of Self-sacrifice: cf. 2 Cor. viii. 9 and Phil. ii. 7. Indeed God 'declares His almighty power most chiefly' in this condescension, whereby He 'beggared Himself' of Divine prerogatives, to put Himself in our place.

IX.

_THE CHURCH._

WALTER LOCK.

Christianity claims to be at once a life, a truth, and a worship; and, on all these accounts, it needs must find expression in a church. For, in the first place, the life of an individual remains dwarfed and stunted as long as it is lived in isolation; it is in its origin the outcome of other lives; it is at every moment of its existence dependent upon others; it reaches perfection only when it arrives at a conscious sense of its own deficiencies and limitations, and, therefore, of its dependence, and through such a sense realizes with thankfulness its true relation to the rest of life around it. Again, the knowledge of truth comes to the individual first through the mediation of others, of his parents and teachers; as he grows, and his own intellect works more freely, yet its results only gain consistency, security, width, when tested by the results of other workers; and directly we wish to propagate these results, they must be embodied in the lives of others, in societies, in organizations. Without these, ideas remain in the air, abstract, intangible, appealing perhaps to the philosophic few, but high above the reach of the many, the simple. 'All human society is the receptacle, nursery, and dwelling-place of ideas, shaped and limited according to the nature of the society--ideas which live and act on it and in it; which are preserved, passed on, and transmitted from one portion of it to another, from one generation to another; which would be merely abstractions or individual opinions if they were not endowed with the common life which their reception in a society gives them[333].'

These two principles are, obviously, not confined to religious questions. They apply to morality, to society, to politics. They are assumed in all ethical and political treatises. The need of co-operation for common life underlies the whole structure of the Republic of Plato; it is implied in Aristotle's definition of man as a social animal, and in his close association of Ethics with Politics: it has created the family, the tribe, the state; each fresh assertion of the principle, each breaking down of the barriers which separate family from family, tribe from tribe, nation from nation, has been a step forward in civilization. The strength of co-operation for the propagation of ideas is seen in the persistence with which certain nations retain hold on political theories or peculiar features of character; it is seen in the recurring formation of philosophic schools or religious sects or guilds, as soon as any new truth, intellectual or religious, has been discovered, or any moral quality, such as temperance or purity, has needed to be emphasized. The most individualistic of Christian sects have found themselves forced to be ecclesiastical, to define their creeds and to perfect their organization, as soon as they have begun to be missionary.

These principles are as wide as society; but religion takes them up and applies them on the highest level. Religion is, almost universally, the link which binds man to man, no less than that which binds man to a Power above him. So in the Christian Church--if we may anticipate, for a moment, our special application of the principle--the new-born child is taken at once and incorporated into a body of believers; from the first it draws its life from God through the body; it is taught that throughout life it must keep in touch with the body; it must be in a right relation to the other members; it must draw life from them; it must contribute life to them. And, further, this body has existed always and exists still as the home of certain _ideas_, ideas about God and about human life, which were revealed in Jesus Christ, and which it has to attest in its teaching and embody in its life. It is to be a body of visible persons, themselves the light of the world, expressing so that others can see the manifold wisdom of God, winning others to belief in the unity of God, by the sight of their own one-ness. The first principle might be expressed in the words of Festus to Paracelsus, when the latter had claimed to be God's special instrument in the world;

Were I elect like you, I would encircle me with love, and raise A rampart of my fellows: it should seem Impossible for me to fail, so watched By gentle friends who made their cause my own They should ward off fate's envy:--the great gift, Extravagant when claimed by me alone, Being so a gift to them as well as me[334]:

the second principle by lines applied originally to the Incarnation, but which we may legitimately transfer to the Church, which continues the work of the Incarnation,

And so the Word had breath, and wrought With human hands the Creed of Creeds In loveliness of perfect deeds, Store strong than all poetic thought[335].

But, further, religion adds a third application of its own to this principle of co-operation: for a church grows also out of the necessities of worship. The ritual needed for the offering of sacrifice almost necessitates of itself a number of persons for its performance. No doubt, an individual can worship God in private, but so his worship tends to be self-centred and narrow: for the full expression of his religious relation to others, for expiating a wrong done by him to his neighbours or to the whole community, for expressing gratitude for mercies which have come to him through others, there must be the common meeting: and the community as a whole has its great victories for which to thank God, its national dangers for which to pray, its national sins for which to offer expiation; and hence, common religious acts have been the universal accompaniment of national life, and have in their turn reacted upon it.

The idea of a Church, then, as conceived in its most general form, and without especial reference to the Christian Church, is this, that it widens life by deepening the sense of brotherhood; that it teaches, strengthens, and propagates ideas by enshrining truth in living witnesses, by checking the results of isolated thinkers by contact with other thinkers, and by securing permanency for the ideas; and that it expands and deepens worship by eliminating all that is selfish and narrow, and giving expression to common aims and feelings.

We pass from such _à priori_ ideas to the evidence of the Bible. There we find that these principles were embodied first in Judaism. There the whole nation was the Church. The Jew entered into the religious privileges of his life, not by any conscious act of his own, but by being born of Jewish parents; he retained his true life by remaining in contact with his nation. The union of the different members of the nation with each other is so intimate that the whole nation is spoken of as a personal unit. It is called 'God's Son, His 'first-born Son,' 'Jehovah's servant.' The ideal of prophecy is essentially that of a restored nation rejoicing in the rule of national righteousness. Again, the nation was chosen out specially to bear witness to truth, truth about the nature of God, the Almighty, the Eternal, the Holy; truth embodied in the facts of history, and deepened in the revelations of prophecy; truths which the fathers teach their children, 'that they should not hide them from the children of the generations to come[336].' In the striking phrase of S. Athanasius, the law and the prophets were 'a sacred school of the knowledge of God and of spiritual life for the whole world[337].' Their worship, too, was essentially social and national. From the first it centred round great national events, the fortunes of the harvest, or the crises of national history: the individual was purified from sin that he might be worthy to take part in the national service; the events of the nation's history were celebrated in religious hymns; the capital of the nation became the one and only recognised centre for the highest worship.

But Judaism adds to these principles a further principle of its own. It claims that such privileges as were granted to it, were not granted to it for its own sake, but that it might be a source of blessing to all nations: it assumes that they are on a lower religious level than itself; that instead of each nation progressing equally along the line of religious life, truth, and worship, other nations have fallen backward and the Jew has been chosen out for a special privilege. It is the principle that God works by 'limitation,' by apparent 'exclusiveness,' by that which is in its essence 'sacerdotalism'; the principle that God does not give His gifts equally to all, but specially to a few, that they may use them for the good of the whole. This principle seems at first sight to offend some modern abstract ideas of justice and equality; but the moment we examine the facts of life, we find it prevailing universally. Each nation has its peculiar gift: the Greek makes his parallel claim to be specially gifted with the love of knowledge and the power of artistic expression; the Roman with the power of rule and the belief in law. Or, again, within a single nation, it is the artist who enables us to see the beauty of a face or a landscape which had escaped us before:

Art was given for that, God uses us to help each other so, Lending our minds out.

It is the poet who interprets our inner nature or the magic of the external world, and becomes

A priest to us all Of the wonder and bloom of the world, Which we see with his eyes and are glad:

he sings

Till the world is wrought To sympathy with hopes and fears _it heeded not_[338].

And this principle does not stop short of religious influences Conscience is itself a witness to it, as it implies that all parts of our nature are not sufficient guides to themselves, but that God has gifted one special faculty with power to control the rest. 'Men of character,' it has been said, 'are the conscience of the society to which they belong.' In the Jewish nation itself, the prophets were the circle of Jehovah's friends; they knew His secrets, they kept alive the ideal of the nation. 'What the soul is in the body, that are Christians in the world' was the parallel claim of an early apologist[339]. Analogies crowd in, then, on every side, to shew how rational is this claim on the part of Judaism.

Revelation only accepts this fact, and adds to it the assertion that it is no accident but a part of the Divine Purpose. It is the result of God's election. The Jewish nation, and subsequently the Christian Church, is not only a blessing to the rest of the world, but it is conscious that it is a blessing. This truth has been revealed to it partly to keep it ever mindful of its sense of dependence upon the Giver of all good gifts, partly to give it tenacity and courage to cling to a gift which it knows to be of inestimable value for all mankind. 'The election was simply a method of procedure adopted by God in His wisdom by which He designed to fit the few for blessing the many, one for blessing all[340].'

It must be from considerations such as these that we approach the foundation of the Christian Church and the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ on which it rests. We approach it with the expectation that we shall find these principles embodied in it, for Christianity sprang directly out of Judaism, and so would naturally inherit its principles: and to go deeper still, the very essence of the Incarnation lies in the consecration of human life and human means. He who before had been acting invisibly upon the world as the Word, implanting life and light in man, now entered visibly into human flesh. All tendencies which made for the fulness of life and truth before His coming, all that tended to enlighten, elevate, combine men, had been His unknown working: now they are known to be His. The Infinite appears in finite form; the spiritual takes the material in which to express itself; human media are consecrated to deeper ends, and charged with a fuller meaning than before: so that, in Hooker's words, 'We cannot now conceive how God should, without man, exercise Divine power or receive the glory of Divine praise[341].' 'What you do now even after the flesh, that is spiritual' is the bold paradox of S. Ignatius; and he adds the reason, 'for you do all in Christ Jesus[342].' Thus--

In this twofold sphere, the twofold man Holds firmly to the natural, to reach The spiritual beyond it.... The whole temporal show related royally And built up to eterne significance Through the open arms of God[343].

The Incarnation, then, takes up all the three principles of which we have spoken: but, from the very finality which it claims for itself, it puts a mark of finality upon each of them, and so, in this respect, marks off the application of them in the Christian Church from all other applications of the same principles. The principle of co-operation for spiritual life is taken up; the Jewish nation is expanded into an universal brotherhood; this includes all men, without any distinction of race; it includes the quick and the dead; it aims at the highest spiritual perfection. It is final in this sense, that nothing can be wider in extent or deeper in aim; but it is final also in the sense that the life _has been_ manifested. Christians do not combine to work up to some unsuspected ideal: they combine to draw out and express in their common life the perfection that was in Christ. The principle of association for the propagation of ideas is taken up, but they are truths about God and His relation to human nature: they are truths which have been revealed, which have been once for all delivered to the saints. Finally, the principle of association for worship is taken up; the worship is made as wide as humanity; it is to be as spiritual as God; but it, too, rests on final facts, on the facts of creation and redemption: it centres round the one complete sacrifice for sin.

Let us consider each of these points more in detail.

1. The Church is an organization for the purpose of spiritual life; an universal brotherhood knit together to build up each of its members into holiness; 'the only great school of virtue existing.' But if this is so, if it is universal, is the principle of 'limitation,' of 'exclusiveness,' gone? Certainly not. It is there, and it is most instructive to notice how it arises[344]. Christ chose a small body of disciples to be in close contact with Himself, to share His work, and to receive His deeper teaching. This will not surprise us after the analogies of the prophets, the poets, the artists of the world. The saints too may be few, and God may lend their spirits out for the good of others. But, moreover, in the first formation of the Church we are able to watch the process of limitation, as historically worked out; and we see that it arises not from any narrowness, any grudging of His blessings, on the part of Christ, but from the narrowness, the limitations in man. Man is 'straitened' not in God, not in Christ, but in his own affections. God willed all men to be saved: Christ went about doing good and calling all to a change of heart, to a share in the kingdom of Heaven: but such a call made demands upon His hearers; it required that they should give up old prejudices about the Messianic kingdom, that they should be willing to leave father and mother and houses and lands for the truth's sake, that they should lay aside all the things that defile a man, that they should aim at being perfect, that they should not only hear but understand the word, that they should trust Him even when His sayings were hard. And these demands produced the limitations. The Pharisees preferred the glory of men to the glory which came from God; the masses in Galilee cared only for the bread that perisheth; many of the disciples turned back; and so He could not commit Himself unto them, because He knew what was in man. Not to them, not to any chance person, but to the Twelve, to those who had stood these tests, to those who had, in spite of all perplexity, seen in Him the Son of the Living God, to them He could commit Himself, they could share His secrets; they could be taught clearly the certainty and the meaning of His coming death, for they had begun to learn what self-sacrifice meant; they could do His work and organize His Church; they could bind and loose in His Name; they could represent Him when He was gone. These are the elect; they who had the will to listen to the call[345]; they who were 'magnanimous to correspond with heaven'; to them He gave at Pentecost the full conscious gift of the Holy Spirit, and so at last formed them into the Church, the Church which was to continue His work, which was to convey His grace, which was to go into the whole world, holding this life as a treasure for the sake of the whole world, praying and giving thanks for all men, because the unity of God and the unity of the mediation of Christ inspires them with hope that all may be one in Him[346].

The day of Pentecost was thus the birthday of the Church. Before there were followers of the Lord; now there was the Church: and this as the result of a new act, for which all that preceded had been but preparation: now the Church was born in becoming the possessor of a common corporate life. The Spirit was given to the whole body of Christians together: it was not given to an individual here and there in such a way that such Spirit-bearing individuals could then come together and form a Church. It was given corporately, so that they who received the Spirit realized at once a unity which preceded any individual action of their own. So the Church has gone forth offering its message freely to all; in Christ Jesus there is neither Jew nor Gentile; the message is given openly, 'without any veil,' to all; all are accepted who will submit themselves to Baptism, i.e. all who recognise the element of evil and of weakness in their own life, who are willing to die to it and receive fresh life and strength from the Risen Lord, and to submit their life to His discipline. That is the Church as presented to us in the New Testament. Metaphor after metaphor is lavished upon it by our Lord and by S. Paul in order to make clear the conception of it. He is the Vine, His disciples are the branches; they draw all their life from Him: apart from Him they can do nothing; if in union with Him, they bear fruit. The Church is a household, a scene of active work, of 'skilled and trained activity': each member with his own work, some as mere members of the household, others as rulers set over the household to give them meat in due season, each with talents to be used faithfully for the Master. It is a family, in which 'all ye are brethren,' laying obligations of love between brother and brother, calling out self-sacrifice for the good of others, deepening in each the sense of the value of the lives of others. It is the Body of Christ, that which grows stronger and stronger, that which draws its life from the Head and must hold to Him, that in which Christian is linked to Christian in sympathy and complete interdependence, that without which the Head would be incomplete, the necessary organ for completing Christ's work on earth, that which the Spirit takes as its channel for manifesting to the world the very 'life of God.' It is God's Temple; visible, made up of parts, which are fitted in to one another in symmetry; beautiful with a spiritual beauty; for there a living God is present; there He speaks to His own; there they offer to Him a rational service[347]. It is the Bride of Christ, the dearest object of Christ's love, which gives herself to Him for His service, which for His sake keeps herself pure in life and doctrine; which receives from Him all the treasures of His love, so that as He had received the fulness of God, 'the aggregate of the Divine attributes, virtues, and energies' from the Father, the Church receives all this from Him and manifests it forth to the world of men and of angels.

But this picture, it will be urged, is only a prophecy of the future; the evidence of S. Paul's Epistles will also shew us a very different scene in real life, a body with tendencies to divisions, to selfishness, to sin. This is quite true, but the ideal is never thought of as something different from the real; the ideal is not simply in heaven nor the real simply on earth; the real is the ideal, though not yet completely developed; the ideal is the actual basis of the real as much as the goal to which the real is tending. The members of the Church have been consecrated; they are holy; they are 'unleavened'; they have put on Christ; they have by their self-committal to Him received a righteousness which they can work out into perfection. Again, they _are_ brothers; they have been made children of God by adoption: as they have realized the sense of sonship, they realize also the closeness of the tie between themselves and the other sons, their common sympathies, hopes and aims. True, they are not yet perfect either in holiness or in love: the very purpose of the Church is to make them perfect. It takes the individual at his birth, it incorporates him into its own life, it watches over him from beginning to end, it feeds him with spiritual food, it disciplines him by spiritual laws, it blesses him at all the chief moments of life, it takes him away from his own isolation, trains him in social aims and social duties by social sacraments, finally, gives him back to God with its benediction.

Such a conception of the Church as a nursery, a school, a home, implies of necessity that it should be visible, and that it should be one. It is a visible body, because it has in some sense to represent the Incarnate Lord. In the Incarnation spirit took material form and expressed itself thereby; in the risen Lord--and it is the risen Lord who gives the Spirit to the Church--there was still a spiritual body. This is not to deny the invisible reality of spiritual unity which underlies the external visible unity. It is only to say that completeness means both. In the language of S. Ignatius, as Christ Jesus was at once material and spiritual, so, the unity of the Church should be at once material and spiritual[348].

The idea of an invisible Church to express the body of true believers, who alone are the Church, to whatever community they belong, so that the visible Church becomes an unimportant thing, is an idea entirely at variance with Scripture and all pre-reformation teaching. The phrase is first found in almost contemporary writings of Luther and of Zwingli; it is akin to the teaching of Hus and of Wiclif; and, no doubt, there are thoughts and phrases in earlier writers that are more or less akin to it. From the first there was obviously a distinction between the true and untrue Christian, between the spiritual and the fleshly, between the vessels to honour and the vessels to dishonour, and the first of these classes, those who persevere to the end, whom man cannot know and God only knows, those who, if thought of in the light of God's eternal purposes, are the predestined, these were treated and spoken of as 'the Church properly so called,' 'the true body of Christ.' Christians 'who do the will of the Father will belong to the first Church, the spiritual Church founded before the sun and moon.' Those who have lived in perfect righteousness according to the Gospel 'will rest in the holy hill of God, in the highest Church, in which are gathered the philosophers of God[349].'

Again, the Church on earth is regarded as 'a copy of the Church in heaven in which God's will is done': but in each case there is no contrast between the visible and the invisible Church. The invisible Church is in these cases either the ideal of the visible; or that part of the visible organized Church which has remained true to its aims. So too with regard to those who are not conscious believers; the possibility of their salvation, in a qualified way, is heartily recognised, but the confusion is not made of calling them members of the Church.

The fatal danger is when the belief in the invisible Church is used to discredit the visible Church and the importance of belonging to it. It is scarcely too much to say, that all stress laid upon the invisible Church tends to lower the demands of holiness and brotherhood. It is a visible Church, and such a Church as can attract outsiders, which calls out the fruits of faith into active energy; it is a visible Church such as can combine Christians in active work, which tests brotherhood, which rubs away idiosyncrasy, which destroys vanity and jealousy, which restrains personal ambition, which trains in the power of common work, which, as our own powers fail, or are proved inadequate, for some task on which our heart had been set, still fills us with hope that God will work through others that which it is clear He will not work through us. It is a visible Church alone which is 'the home of the lonely.' Encompassed as we are now from our birth by Christian friends and associations, we tend to forget how much we depend on the spiritual help and sympathy of others. The greatness of our blessings blinds us to their presence, and we seem to stand in our own strength while we are leaning upon others. The relation of the soul to God is a tender thing; personal religion, which seems so strong, while in a Christian atmosphere, tends to grow weak, to totter, to fall, as we stand alone in some distant country, amid low moral standards and heathen faiths. Such solitude does indeed often, in those who are strong, deepen, in a marvellous way, the invisible communion with God and the ties that knit us with the absent; but the result is often fatal to the weak. It throws both strong and weak alike into closer sympathy with those who share a common faith. It is a visible Church which supplies this sympathy, which gives the assurance that each soul, as it is drawn to God, shall not stand alone; but that it shall find around it strengthening hands and sympathetic hearts, which shall train it till, as in the quiet confidence of a home, it shall blossom into the full Christian life.

The principle of the unity of the Church is very similar. That, again, is primarily and essentially a spiritual unity. The ultimate source is, according to the Lord's own teaching, the unity of the Godhead: 'that they may be one, even as we are one.' The effect of the outpouring of the Spirit is to make the multitude of them that believed 'of one heart and one soul.' Baptism becomes the source of unity, 'In one Spirit were we all baptized into one body:' the 'one bread' becomes the security of union. 'We who are many are one bread, one body, for we all partake of the one bread.' More fully still is the unity drawn out in the Epistle to the Ephesians. 'There is one body and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all.' The unity starts with being spiritual; it is the power of the One God drawing men together by His action upon their spirits; uniting them in the service of one Lord who has redeemed them, but it issues in 'one body.' Nothing can be stronger than the assertion of such unity. But in what does this unity lie, and what is to be the safeguard of it? No one answer is possible to this question. Clearly, one part of the answer is, a unity of spiritual aim, 'one hope of your calling:' another answer is, a common basis of belief, common trust in the same Lord, 'one faith;' a further answer is, common social sacraments, 'one baptism,' 'one bread.' All these lie on the face of these passages of S. Paul. Are we to add to them 'a common government,' 'an apostolical succession?' Was this of the essence or a late addition, a result of subsequent confederation intended to guarantee the permanence of dogma? No doubt, the circumstances of subsequent history moulded the exact form of the ministry, and emphasized the importance of external organization under particular circumstances; but this is no less true of the other points of unity; the unity of spiritual life was worked out in one way in the times of public discipline and penance, in another way when these fell into disuse: the unity of faith was brought into prominence in the times of the formulating of the Creeds. So the unity of external organization was emphasized when it was threatened by the Gnostic, Novatian, and Donatist controversies. But the germ of it is there from the first, and it was no later addition. The spiritual unity derived from the Lord is imparted through Sacraments; but this at once links the inward life and spiritual unity with some form of external organization. And so the writer of the Epistle to the Ephesians after his great description of Christian unity, goes on at once to speak of the ministry. The apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers, these are special gifts of the ascended Lord to the Church; and they are given for the very purpose of securing unity, 'for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ, till we all attain unto the unity of the faith.' No less significantly, when S. Paul is applying to the Church the metaphor of the body and its members in order to emphasize the unity of the whole, does he rank apostles, prophets, teachers, as the most important members of the body[350].

The history of the early Church, so far as it can be traced, points the same way. The Lord appointed His body of twelve: He gave them the power to bind and to loose, the power to exercise discipline over offending members of the Church. At first, the Christian Church is a purely Jewish body; it continues in the Apostles' fellowship as well as doctrine; they distribute its alms; they punish unworthy members; they arrange its differences; they appoint subordinate officers; they ratify their actions, and sanction the admission of Samaritans and proselytes to the Church; but the various members throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, are embraced in the single conception of one Church[351]. Then under the guidance of Paul and Barnabas, the Gentiles are brought in and formed into churches; the danger to unity becomes acute. According to the Acts of the Apostles, it is surmounted by reference to the Church at Jerusalem; the Apostles and Elders there decide the question, and the Gentile Churches are thus kept in communion with it. S. Paul's letters, with all the difficulty there is of reconciling every detail with the historian's account, present us with essentially the same picture. In dealing with his own Churches, he claims absolute right, as apostle, to hand on and lay down traditions, to punish, to forgive, to govern: he leaves some class of ministers in every Church under his guidance; each Church is to administer discipline over unworthy members. But the Churches cannot act independently: the Church at Corinth is not to act as though it were the fountain head of Christianity, or the only Gentile Church; it is to remember the customs in other Churches. Further than this, above 'all the Churches,' appears already as one body 'the Church,' in which God has set apostles[352]; within it there are separate spheres of work, Paul and Barnabas are to go to the Gentiles, the leading Jewish apostles to the Jews; S. Paul will not intrude beyond the province assigned to him; he makes his Gentile Churches to contribute to the needs of the Jewish Church, and realize the debt which they owe to them. Any divisions in a local Church cannot be tolerated, as being inconsistent with the unity of Christ, with His cross, and with the significance of baptism. Peter stands condemned when he wishes to separate himself and so causes division between Jew and Gentile.

The importance attached to external organization is surely implied in all of this, and the circumstances of the second century forced out into clearness what was so implied. Gnosticism, Montanism, Novatianism all tended to found new bodies, which claimed to be the true Church. How was the individual Christian to test their claims? It was in the face of this question that Church writers, notably S. Cyprian and S. Irenaeus, emphasized the importance of historical continuity in the Church as secured by the apostolical succession of the episcopate. The unity of the Church came primarily, they urged, from God, from heaven, from the Father; it was secured by the foundation of the Church upon the Apostles; the bishops have succeeded to the Apostles and so become the guardians of the unity of the Church. As soon then as we find the Christian episcopate universally organized, we find it treated as an institution received from the Apostles and as carrying with it the principle of historic continuity. So it has remained ever since, side by side with the other safeguards of unity, the sacraments and the common faith. The Roman Church has added to it what seemed a further safeguard of unity, the test of communion with itself; but this was a later claim, a claim which was persistently resented, and which was urged with disastrous results. The Reformed Churches of the Continent, in their protest against that additional test, have rejected the whole principle of historic continuity; they have remained satisfied with the bond of a common faith and of common sacraments: but the result can scarcely be said to be as yet a securer unity. Even an Unitarian historian recognises heartily that the characteristic of the Church in England is this continuity. 'There is no point,' urges Mr. Beard[353], 'at which it can be said, here the old Church ends, here the new begins.... The retention of the Episcopate by the English Reformers at once helped to preserve this continuity and marked it in the distinctest way.... It is an obvious historical fact that Parker was the successor of Augustine, just as clearly as Lanfranc and Becket.'

This, then, is what the Church claims to be as the home of grace, the channel of spiritual life. It claims to be a body of living persons who have given themselves up to the call of Christ to carry on His work in the world; a body which was organized by Himself thus far that the Apostles were put in sole authority over it; a body which received the Spirit to dwell within it at Pentecost; a body which propagated itself by spiritual birth; a body in which the ministerial power was handed on by the Apostles to their successors, which has remained so organized till the present day, and has moved on through the world, sometimes allied with, sometimes in separation from the State, always independent of it; a body which lays on each of its members the duty of holiness, and the obligation of love, and trains them in both.

But two objections arise here, which must be dealt with shortly. It is urged first, this is an unworthy limitation: we ought to love all men; to treat all men as brothers; why limit this love, this feeling of brotherhood to the baptized, to the Church? True, we ought to love and honour all men, to do good to all men. The love of the Christian, like the love of Christ, knows no limits; but the limitations are in man himself. All human nature is not lovable: all men are not love-worthy. Love must, at least, mean a different thing; it must weaken its connotation if applied to all men; there may be pity, there may be faith, there may be a prophetic anticipating love for the sinner and the criminal, as we recall their origin and forecast the possibilities of their future; but love in the highest sense, love that delights in and admires its object, love that is sure of a response, the sense of brotherhood which knows that it can trust a brother--these are not possible with the wanton, the selfish, the hypocrite. Though man has social instincts which draw him into co-operation with others; he has also tendencies to selfishness and impurity which work against the spirit of brotherhood and make it impossible. Not till we have some security that the man's real self is on the side of unselfishness, can we trust him; and baptism with its gifts of grace, baptism with its death to the selfish nature, baptism with its profession of allegiance to the leadership of Christ, this, at least, gives us some security. Even Comte, with his longing for brotherhood, tells us that in forming our conception of humanity we must not take in all men, but those only who are really assimilable, in virtue of a real co-operation towards the common existence, and Mr. Cotter Morison would eliminate and suppress those who have no altruistic affection. We limit, then, only so far as seems necessary to gain reality; we train men in the narrower circle of brotherhood, that they may become enthusiasts for it, and go forth as missionaries to raise others to their own level. As for those who lie outside Christianity, the Church, like our Lord Himself in the parable of the sheep and the goats, like S. Paul in his anticipation of the judgment day, recognises all the good there is in them; like Justin Martyr and many of the early Fathers, it traces in them the work of the Divine Word; and yet none the less did these writers claim and does the Church still claim for itself the conscious gift of spiritual life, in a sense higher than anything that lies outside itself.

But many, who would follow thus far, would draw another line, and would include within the Church all the baptized, whether professing churchmen or not. Once more, so far as we draw any distinction within the limits of the baptized, it is for the sake of reality. We recognise that every atom of their faith is genuine, that so far as they have one Lord, one faith, one baptism, they are true members of the Church; that so far as they have banded themselves together into a society, they have something akin to the reality of the Church, and gain some of its social blessings. But then it is they who have banded themselves together into a society: and that means they have done it at their own risk. We rest upon the validity of our sacraments, because they were founded by the Lord Himself, because they have His special promises, because they have been handed down in regular and valid channels to us. Have they equal security that their sacraments are valid? Again, we must hold that schism means something of evil: that it causes weakness: that it thus prevents the full work of brotherhood, of knitting Christian with Christian in common worship: that so it prevents the complete witness of the Church in the world; that in so far as such Christians are schismatic, they are untrue and harmful members of the Church. The full complete claim of the Church is that it is a body visibly meeting together in a common life, and forming by historical continuity a part of the actual body founded by our Lord Himself. It would be unreal to apply this conception of a complete historic brotherhood to those who have separated themselves from the Church's worship, and whose boast is that they were founded by Wesley, or Luther, or Calvin. A Church so founded is not historically founded by Christ. It may have been founded to carry on the work of Christ, it may have been founded in imitation of Him, and with the sincerest loyalty to His person, but it cannot be said to have been founded by Him. Even if circumstances have justified it, it is at any rate not the ideal; and whatever confessions the historic Church may have to make of its own shortcomings, it still must witness to the ideal of a visible unity and historical continuity. Amid the divisions of Christendom, and in face of her own shortcomings, the Church of England does not claim to be the full complete representation of the Church of Christ. She is only one national expression of the Catholic Church: she feels that 'it is safer for us to widen the pale of the kingdom of God, than to deny the fruits of the Spirit[354];' she has ever on her lips the prayer, 'Remember not, Lord, our offences, nor the offences of our forefathers, neither take vengeance of our sins,' and yet she must make her claim boldly and fearlessly to have retained the true ideal of the Church; to be loyal to the essential principle that her life comes historically from Christ and not from man.

II. But the Church is the school of truth as well as the school of virtue. Its ministers form a priesthood of truth as well as a priesthood of sacrifice. Its priests' lips have 'to keep knowledge.' Christianity is, as the School of Alexandria loved to represent it, a Divine philosophy, and the Church its school.

This conception of the Church starts from our Lord's own words. His Apostles are to be as scribes instructed unto the kingdom of Heaven; they are to have the scribes' power to decide what is and what is not binding in the kingdom; the Spirit is to lead them into all truth; they are to make disciples of all the nations, 'teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I commanded you.' The function of the Church then with regard to truth is primarily to bear witness to that which has been revealed. It does not primarily reveal, it tells of the truths which have been embodied in the historic life of Jesus Christ or explained in His teaching. 'One is its teacher; One is its master, even the Christ.' It holds a 'faith once delivered to the saints.' Hence, from the first, there grew up some quasi-authoritative formula, in which we can see the germ of the later Creeds, which each Christian Missionary would teach to his converts. S. Paul himself received from others and handed on to the Corinthians, as his first message to them, some such half-stereotyped Creed, narrating the central facts of the Death and Resurrection of the Lord; his teaching was as a mould which shaped the lives of the converts as they were poured, like so much molten metal, into it. It was authoritative, not even an angel from heaven could preach another gospel. As time went on and false teaching spread, this side of the Church's work is emphasized more and more. The Church is to be the pillar and ground-work of the truth. Timothy and Titus are to hold fast the deposit, to prevent false teaching, to secure wholesomeness of doctrine no less than sobriety of life.

The contests of the next centuries bring out this idea of witness into clearer prominence, and the Episcopate, as it had been the guarantee of unity, becomes now the guarantee of truth. Thus, S. Ignatius is face to face with Docetic and Gnostic teaching; with him the bishops are 'in the mind of Jesus Christ;' they are to be treated 'as the Lord;' to avoid heresy, it is necessary to avoid 'separation from the God of Jesus Christ, from the Bishop and the ordinances of the Apostles;' the one bishop is ranked with the one Eucharist, the one flesh of Jesus Christ, the one cup, the one altar, as the source of unity; submission to the Bishop and the Presbyters is a means towards holiness, towards spiritual strength and spiritual joy[355]. These are incidental expressions in letters written at a moment of spiritual excitement: but the same appeal reappears in calmer controversial treatises. S. Irenaeus argues against Gnosticism on exactly the same grounds. Truth is essentially a thing _received_; it was received by the Apostles from Christ. He was the truth Himself; He revealed it to His Apostles; they embodied it in their writings and handed it on to the Bishops and Presbyters who succeeded them; hence the test of truth is to be sought in Holy Scripture and in the teaching of those Churches which were founded directly by the Apostles[356]. With equal strength Tertullian urges that the truth was received by the churches from the Apostles, by the Apostles from Christ, by Christ from God; it is therefore independent of individuals; it must be sought for in Holy Scripture, but as the canon of that is not fixed, and its interpretation is at times doubtful, it must be supplemented by the evidence of the apostolic Churches; and he challenges the heretics to produce the origin of their churches and shew that the series of bishops runs back to some Apostle or apostolic man[357].

The Church is thus primarily a witness: the strength of its authority lies in the many sides from which the witness comes; but the exigencies of controversy, and indeed of thought even apart from controversy, rendered necessary another function in respect to truth. The Church was compelled to formulate, to express its witness in relation to the intellectual difficulties of the time. Christianity is indeed essentially a matter not of the intellect, but of the will, a personal relation of trust in a personal God. Its first instinct is, as the first instinct of friendship would be, to resent intellectual analysis and dogmatic definition. But as the need of telling others about a friend, or defending him against slander, would compel us to analyse his qualities and define his attractiveness; so it was with the Church's relation to the Lord. It bore witness to the impression which His life had made upon His followers that He was Divine; it bore witness to the facts of the life that attested it and to His own statements. But the claim was denied; it needed justifying; it needed to be shewn to be consistent with other truths, such as the unity of God, and the reality of His own human nature, and so definition was forced upon the Church. The germ of such definitions is found in the New Testament; the deeper Christological teaching of the Epistles to the Ephesians and to the Colossians, and of the prologue of S. John are instances of such intellectual analysis and formulation, and were evidently written in the face of controversy. The technical decisions of the great councils of the fourth and fifth centuries and their expression in the Nicene and 'Athanasian' Creeds are the outcome of the same tendency. Yet even in them, the Church acts, in a sense, as a witness; the Scriptures are appealed to as the ultimate authority; the Creed is the summary of its chief doctrines: the one aim is to secure and express the truth witnessed to by churches throughout the world, to eliminate novelty and caprice; the new definitions are accepted, because they alone are felt to express the instinct of the Church's worship. By this time the canon of Holy Scripture was fixed. It becomes thenceforth an undying fountain of life from which the water of pure doctrine can be drawn. Tradition and development can always be checked by that.

In the truths then which the Church teaches we may distinguish two classes. First, there are the central truths to which it bears absolute witness; such as the Fatherhood of God, the Person and work of Jesus Christ, the Redemption of all mankind, the origin and purpose of human life. These it teaches authoritatively. Its conduct is exactly analogous to that of a parent teaching the moral law to his children; teaching the commandments authoritatively at first, till the child can be educated to understand the reason of them. So the Church says to her children, or to those who are seeking after truth 'there is an absolute truth in religion as well as in morality: we have tested it; generations of the saints have found it true. It is a truth independent of individual teachers; independent of the shifting moods of opinion at any particular period; and you must accept it on our authority first. Further, these are truths which affect life, therefore they cannot be apprehended merely by the intellect. You must commit yourself to them; act upon them; there is a time when the seeker after truth sees where it lies; then it must cease to be an open question. "You must seek till you find, but when you have once found truth, you must commit yourself to it[358]." You must believe that you may understand; but it is _that_ you may understand.' The dogma is authoritatively taught, that the individual may be kept safe from mere individual caprice and fancifulness, but also that he himself may come to a rational understanding of his belief. No doubt the truth is so wide that to the end of our lives we shall still feel the need of guidance and of teaching. 'As long as we live,' said Calvin, 'our weakness will not allow us to be discharged from school.' Like S. Ignatius on his way to martyrdom, the Christian may feel at his dying day, 'Now I begin to be a disciple;' but the aim of the Church is to make each member have a rational hold upon his faith. When we are young we accept a doctrine because the Church teaches it to us; when we are grown up, we love the Church because it taught us the doctrine. 'The Churchman never surrenders his individual responsibility. But he may and must surrender some portion at least of his independence, and he benefits greatly by the surrender[359].' 'Submission to the authority of the Church is the merging of our mere individualism in the whole historic life of the great Christian brotherhood; it is making ourselves at one with the one religion in its most permanent and least merely local form. It is surrendering our individuality only to empty it of its narrowness[360].'

Secondly, there are other truths, which are rather deductions from these central points or statements of them in accordance with the needs of the age; such as the mode of the relation of the Divine and human natures in Christ, of free-will to predestination, or the method of the Atonement, or the nature of the Inspiration of Holy Scripture. If, in any case, a point of this kind has consciously come before the whole Church and been reasoned out and been decided upon, such a decision raises it into the higher class of truths, which are taught authoritatively; but if this is not so, the matter remains an open question. It remains a question for the theologians; it is not imposed on individual Christians; though it may at any time become ripe for decision. The very fixity of the great central doctrines allows the Church to give a remarkable freedom to individual opinion on all other points. Practically, how much wider is the summary of the rule of faith as given in Irenaeus (III. 4), or Tertullian (_Praescr._ 13), or Origen (_De Principiis_), or in the Apostles' or Nicene Creed, than the tests of orthodoxy that would be imposed in a modern religious, or scientific circle! S. Vincent of Lerins is the great champion of antiquity as the test of truth; yet he who lays it down that 'to declare any new truth to Catholic Christians over and above that which they have received never was allowed, nowhere is allowed, and never will be allowed,' also insists on the duty of development, of growth, within the true lines of the central truths. 'Is there,' he assumes an objector to urge, 'to be no growth within the Church? Nay, let there be growth to the greatest extent; who would be so grudging to man, such an enemy to God, as to attempt to prevent it; but yet let it be such that it be growth, not change of the faith.... As time goes on, it is right that the old truths should be elaborated, polished, filed down; it is wrong that they should be changed, maimed or mutilated. They should be made clear, have light thrown on them, be marked off from each other; but they must not lose their fulness, their entirety, their essential character[361]. So it has happened in the course of the Christian history; doctrines like that of the Atonement have been restated afresh to meet the needs of the age. So it is happening still; doctrines like that of the method of creation or of the limits of inspiration are still before the Church. The Church is slow to decide, to formulate: it stands aside, it reiterates its central truths, it says that whatever claims to be discovered must ultimately fit in with the central truths; creation must remain God's work; the Bible must remain God's revelation of Himself; but for a time it is content to wait, loyal to fact from whatever side it comes; confident alike in the many-sidedness and in the unity of truth. While he accepts and while he searches, the Churchman can enjoy alike the inquiry of truth which is the love-making or wooing of it, the knowledge of truth which is the presence of it, and the belief of truth which is the enjoying of it, and all these together, says Lord Bacon, are the sovereign good of human nature[362].

Thus far we have in this part considered the Church's function with regard to truth from the point of view of those whom it has to teach. Its function is no less important from the point of view of the truth itself. As spiritual life is a tender plant that needs care and training; so spiritual truth is a precious gem, that may easily be lost and therefore needs careful guarding. 'The gem requires a casket, the casket a keeper.' Truth is indeed great and will prevail, but not apart from the action of men: not unless there are those who believe in it, take pains about it and propagate it. This is the case even with scientific truths; _à fortiori_ therefore, with moral and religious truths which affect life and need to be translated into life before they can be really understood. The comparative study of religions is shewing us more and more how much of deep spiritual truth there is in heathen religions, but it is shewing us equally how little power this truth had to hold its own, how it was overlaid, crushed out, stifled. The truth of the unity of God underlies much of the polytheism of India, Greece, and Rome; but it is only the philosopher and the scholar that can find it there. It is only in the Jewish Church, the nation which stood alone from other nations as a witness to the truth, that it retained its hold as a permanent force. The Fatherhood of God is implied in the very names and titles of most of the chief heathen gods; but what a difference in its meaning and force since the time of Jesus Christ! It is not only that He expanded and deepened its meaning, so that it implied the fatherhood of all men alike, and a communication of a spiritual nature to all; it is also, and much more, that He committed the truth as a sacred deposit to a Church, each member of which aimed at shewing himself as the son of a perfect Father, and which witnessed to the universal Fatherhood by the fact of an universal brotherhood.

The very truths of natural religion, which heathenism tended to degrade, found a safe home within the Church; the knowledge of the Creator, His eternal power and Godhead, which the nations had known but lost, because they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful, has been kept alive in the Eucharistic services of the Church, repeating through the ages its praise of the Creator: 'We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we worship Thee, we give thanks to Thee, for Thy great glory, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.'

III. We pass naturally to the third point: the Church is the home of worship. It is the Temple of the Lord. As a teaching body, it had carried on and spiritualized the work of the Jewish Synagogue: it also took up and spiritualized the conceptions of prayer and praise and sacrifice which clustered round the Jewish Temple. The Body of Christ was to take the place of the Temple when the Jews destroyed it[363]. And here, as in all other respects, the body is the organ and representative of the risen Lord. He, when on earth, had been a priest in the deepest sense of the word: He, as the representative of the Father, had mediated the Father's blessings to man: He, as one with man, had become a merciful and faithful high-priest for man; He had offered His whole life to God for the service of man; He had by the offering of His pure will made purification of sins: He lives still, a priest for ever, pleading, interceding for mankind.

And so the Church, His body, carries on this priestly work on earth. 'Sacerdotalism, priestliness, is the prime element of her being[364].' She is the source of blessing to mankind; she pleads and intercedes and gives herself for all mankind. Christians, as a body, are 'a royal priesthood.' Christ made them 'priests unto His God and Father,' they can 'enter in into the holy place,' like priests, 'with hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and bodies washed with pure water.' They are 'the genuine high-priestly race of God:' 'every righteous man ranks as a priest:' 'to the whole Church is a priesthood given[365].' This priesthood is exercised throughout life, as each Christian gives his life to God's service, and the whole Church devotes itself for the good of the whole world. But it finds its expression in worship, for worship is the Godward aspect of life. It expresses, it emphasizes, it helps to make permanent the feelings that mould life. It is the recognition that our life comes from God: that it has been redeemed by God; it is the quiet joyous resting upon the facts of His love; it is the conscious spiritual offering of our life to God; it is the adoration of His majesty. This worship the Church leads and organizes. 'In the Church and in Christ Jesus' is to be given 'the glory to God unto all generations for ever and ever.' In the Apocalypse, it is pictured as praising God alike for His work in Creation and in Redemption. In the Eucharist the Church shews forth the Lord's Death till He come[366]. Hence this act of Eucharistic worship, above all others, has become the centre of unity. In it the Church has offered its best to God: all the more external gifts of art, such as architecture, painting, and music, have been consecrated in worship: but deeper still, in it each Christian has taken up his own life, his body and soul, and offered it as a holy, lively, and reasonable sacrifice unto God, a service in spirit and in truth: and deeper still, he recognises that his life does not stand alone; through the common ties of humanity in Christ he is linked on by a strange solidarity with all mankind; his life depends on theirs and theirs on his, and so he offers it not for himself only but for all; in the power of Christ he intercedes for all mankind: and deeper still, he feels in the presence of the Holiness of God how unworthy his own offering and his own prayers are, and he pleads, he recalls before the Father, as the source of his own hope and his own power of self-sacrifice, the one complete offering made for all mankind.

So the Church performs its universal priesthood[367]; so it leads a worship, bright, joyous, amidst all the trials and perplexities of the world, for it tells of suffering vanquished; simple in its essence, so that poor as well as rich can rally round it; yet deep and profound in its mysteries, so that the most intellectual cannot fathom it. It is an universal priesthood, for it needs the consecration of every life: and yet this function too of the Church naturally has its organs, whose task it is to make its offerings and to stand before it as the types of self-consecration. The Church has from the first special persons who perform its liturgy, its public ministering to the Lord[368]. It is in connection with worship, and the meetings of the Church that S. Paul emphasizes the need of unity and subordination, and dwells upon God's special setting of Apostles, Prophets and Teachers in the Church[369]. The Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians may be open to difficult questions of interpretation in its language about the ministry, but this at least is clear that order and subordination are treated as the necessary outcome of love, which is of the essence of the Church; that this order and subordination is specially needed in all details of worship; that it had been so in Judaism, and must be so, _à fortiori_, in the Christian Church; that as Christ came from God, so the Apostles from Christ, and their successors from them; and therefore it must be wrong to throw off subordination to those who were so appointed and who have blamelessly offered the gifts[370]. 'The Church,' said S. Augustine, 'from the time of the Apostles, through most undoubted succession of the bishops, perseveres till the present moment, and offers to God in the Body of Christ the sacrifice of praise[371].' As the teaching function of the whole Church does not militate against the special order of teachers, so the priestly function of the whole does not militate against a special order of priests. We cannot speak of those who are ordained as 'going into the Church'--and it is hard to estimate the harm done by that fatal phrase--for that implies that the laity are not of the Church, but we can call them priests in a special sense; for they give themselves up in a deeper way to the service of God; they are specially trained and purified for His service; they are put as representatives of the whole Church in a way in which no other is, able to know and to sympathize with its wants, its joys, its failings; able therefore to intercede for it with God and to bring His blessings to it. As the Church stands in relation to the world, so they stand to the Church; they fill up that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in their flesh for His body's sake which is the Church, whereof they are made ministers; they convey spiritual gifts and benediction to the Church.

To complete the conception of the Church, it would be necessary to add the thought of the Church expectant and triumphant, the presence of the blessed dead. For they too strengthen and complete each aspect of the Church's work. The great cloud of witnesses, the heroes of faith, who watch their brethren on earth, they, by their example, aid the spiritual life and strengthen us to lay aside every weight and the sin that doth so easily beset us: their virtues reflect parts of the manifold glory of the Son of Man. With their heirs _noblesse oblige_; each Christian born of such ancestry is able to be like the Athenian Lycurgus, independent of the world, bold and outspoken, because of his noble birth[372]. The record of their writings strengthens the witness to the faith once delivered to the saints, and binds us to loyalty to that which has stood the test of ages. They, 'the general assembly and church of the firstborn enrolled in heaven,' themselves, we believe, worship God with a purer worship than ours; the thought of their presence in worship, as we join with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven, lifts our hearts to a wider, more spiritual adoration.

But for our present purpose it is with the Church militant we have to deal: the Church on earth, the visible organ of the risen Lord, the organ of redemption, of revelation, of worship; the chief instrument designed by the Lord for the establishment of the kingdom of Heaven upon earth. That is our ideal of it. But what of the reality? of the historical facts? Has not the Church crushed out individual life and freedom? has it not thrown its shield over laxity? has it not repressed zeal and so driven piety into nonconformity? has it not tried to check scientific truth and condemned a Galileo? has it not made worship a matter of form and reduced it to externalism? So its opponents ask, and its defenders admit that there is much of truth in these charges. They admit that it has looked very different from its ideal. 'It has looked like an obscure and unpopular sect; it has looked like a wonderful human institution vying with the greatest in age and power; it has looked like a great usurpation; it has looked like an overgrown and worn-out system; it has been obscured by the outward accidents of splendour or disaster; it has been enriched, it has been plundered; at one time throned above emperors, at another under the heel of the vilest; it has been dishonoured by the crimes of its governors, by truckling to the world, by the idolatry of power, by greed and selfishness, by their unbelief in their own mission, by the deep stain of profligacy, by the deep stain of blood[373].' The Church has, indeed, many confessions to make, of its failure to be true to its ideal. But there are several considerations which must be borne in mind when we pass judgment upon it.

In the first place, it was committed to human hands, 'the treasure is in earthen vessels;' and while it gains thus in reality, in human sympathy, in touching the facts of everyday life, it is exposed to all the risks of imperfection, mistake, perversion. But further, as S. Augustine said, we still can say, 'Non adhuc regnat hoc regnum.' The Church has never had free play; it has never been in a position to carry out its ideal. At first, a persecuted sect, it had not the power; then, when it became established and gained the power, there burst into it an influx of half-Christianized converts who lowered its moral level or misunderstood its doctrines; then, with the break up of the Roman Empire, it had to tame and civilize the new races of Europe; and finally, the divisions of the Reformation have weakened its witness in the world. But, more important still, the very greatness of the ideal has caused the difficulty of its realization, and has exposed itself to caricature and to one-sidedness. The richer, the more many-sided, the more complete an ideal is, the less possible is it for any one generation to express it completely, the more likely is it that one side of truth will be pressed to the exclusion of some, if not of all the rest.

This may be tested in each of the points which we have considered. The Church is an organization for spiritual life, for holiness. It makes the bold claim to be the society of saints; but at once there arises the conflict between the ideal and the actual state of men. Press the ideal, and you will narrow the Church to those who are externally leading good lives or who are conscious of conversion to Christ. This was the line taken by the Novatians, by the Donatists, by the Puritans, by the Baptists, and the Church was thereby narrowed. On the other hand, dwell only on the actual state, the weakness, the failures of human nature, and you acquiesce in a low level of morality. The Church aims at being true to both; it will not exclude any from its embrace who are willing to submit to its laws; it takes children and trains them; it takes the imperfect and disciplines them; it rejects none, save such as rejoice in their iniquity and deliberately refuse to submit to discipline.

But again, this suggests another class of difficulties, all those which are associated with the relation of the individual to the society, difficulties which are parallel to the difficulties in politics, which are not yet solved there, and which are always needing readjustment. Here again it is possible to overpress either side: the claims of the society may be urged to the detriment of the individual, the central organization may crush out national life and give no scope for individual development, and so there arises the imperial absolutism of the mediaeval Church. On the other hand, it is equally possible to exaggerate the claims of individualism, of independence, of freedom, and the result is division and disaster to the whole society; the individual is only anxious to save his own soul, and religion is claimed to be only a thing between a man and his God; common Church life becomes impossible, and the witness of the Church to the world, and thereby its power for missionary work, becomes weakened. As before, the Church ideal strives to combine both sides of the truth. It values, it insists on, the rights of each individual soul; its mission is to convey the Spirit to it, that is to say, to waken it up to a consciousness of its own individual relation to God, its own personal responsibility in God's sight; it does bid each individual save his own soul. But it keeps also before him the claims of the society; it says to him that in saving his soul he must lose it in service for others; when his soul is saved, it must be used for active service with others in joint work. It does say that the society is more important for the world than any one individual member of it, and that each individual gets real strength when he speaks and acts not for himself but as representing the society behind him. It is possible to think of the Church as an organization existing for the spiritual good of the individual; but it is possible also, and it is a deeper view, to think of the individual as existing for the good of the Church, like a singer training himself not to display his own voice but to strengthen the general effect of the whole choir. That is the ideal of the Church, a body which quickens the individual into full conscious life, that the individual may devote his life to the service of the whole. Its life is like that of a great moving flight of birds, each with its own life, yet swaying and rising and turning as by a common impulse,

Their jubilant activity evolves Hundreds of curves and circlets, to and fro, Upwards and downwards; progress intricate Yet unperplexed, as if one spirit swayed Their indefatigable flight[374].

The Church, again, is the teacher of truth; but in the acquisition of truth there are always two elements. There are the fixed facts of life, with which theory deals, and the accumulation of past thought upon the facts; there is also the creative spirit which plays upon these, which re-adapts, combines, discovers. The teacher of any science has to convey to his pupil the accumulated theories of the past and to quicken in him fresh power of thinking: he speaks first with authority, though of course with assurance that his authority is rational, and that the pupil will understand it ultimately. The teacher of morality, the parent, teaches even more strongly with authority, though he too trusts that the child will ultimately accept the law on rational grounds. The pupil needs at once a receptive and a critical faculty. The absence or exaggeration of either is equally fatal. Here again the Church ideal tries to combine both sides and to insist upon the real unity of all truth, and this makes its task so difficult. At times the whole stress has been laid on the permanent elements in the faith, and the result has been, as often in the Oriental Church, a tendency to intellectual stagnation: at other times the present speaking voice of the Church has been emphasized, and any theory has been hastily adopted as absolutely true, without due consideration of its relation to other truths. At times authority has been over-emphasized, and the acceptance of dogma has seemed to be made the equivalent of a living trust in a personal God: at others the duty of individual search after truth, of individual conviction has been pressed; the traditions of the past have been ignored; nothing has been of value except that which has commended itself to the individual reason, and the result has been confusion, uncertainty, the denial of the greatness and the mystery and the width of truth, and too often a moral and spiritual paralysis. Meanwhile the Church has tried to hold to both sides: it has insisted on the ultimate unity of all knowledge: starting from the axiom that One is our teacher, even Christ, and believing that all truth comes from His inspiration as the Word of God, it has refused to acquiesce in intellectual contradiction; it has ever held, with King Lear, 'that "ay" and "no" too is no good divinity.' The truths of philosophy and religion must be one: the truths of science and religion must be one[375]. In the desire to see this, the Church has been hasty, it has rejected scientific truth, because it did not fall in with its interpretation of the Bible. It has made its mistakes, but it has done so out of a noble principle. It would be easy to gain consistency by sacrificing either side; it is hard to combine the two: and this is what the Church has tried to do: it has upheld the belief of the ultimate synthesis of all knowledge. In exactly the same way, the sects have often gained force, popularity, effectiveness for the moment by the emphasis laid on some one truth; the Church has gained strength, solidity, permanence, by its witness to the whole body of truth.

The same tendency may be shortly illustrated with regard to the function of worship. That too is a complex act; in that there should be the free conscious act of the individual, worshipping in spirit and in truth a God whom he knows as a personal God; but clearly this is not all; the whole society must express its corporate life in corporate worship. Its influence is something over and above the influence of its individual members, and that influence must be exercised on the side of God; it must be recognised as coming from God; it must be solemnly consecrated to God's service. The society has a right then to call upon its individual members to join in this corporate action. On the one hand lies the danger of the overpressure of the society, where the service of the individual is unwilling or apathetic: on the other hand the danger of individualism and sectarianism, in which the whole conception of public worship is lowered and the individual is never trained in religious matters to feel the kindling power of a common enthusiasm, to be lifted above himself in the wave of a common joy. The Church has aimed at combining both; by the insistance on confession and absolution it has tried to train the individual to a sense of personal penitence and personal gratitude: but these have only prepared him to share in the common worship of the society.

But the Church has had to do even more than this. Not only has it aimed at keeping in due proportion the conflicting elements in life, in truth, and in worship; it has also had to keep alive the three sides at once, and to keep them in their true relation to each other. To be at one and the same time the home of life and truth and worship, this belongs to its ideal and this adds new difficulties. Sometimes one element has preponderated, sometimes another: but its aim is always to preserve the three. It has historically preserved the synthesis of the three more than any other Christian body. It has moved through the ages doing its work, however imperfectly. It has kept historic continuity with the past: it has disciplined life and raised the standard of morality and united the nations of the world. It has been a witness to a spiritual world, to the fact that men have interests above material things, and that these deeper spiritual interests can combine them with the strongest links. It has gone out as a _Catholic_ Church, knowing that it contains in its message truths that can win their way to every nation; and therefore it has never ceased to be a _Missionary_ Church, as it needs that each nation should draw out into prominence some aspect of its truth, and reveal in life some side of its virtue. It has enshrined, protected, witnessed to the truth; both as an 'authoritative republication of natural religion,' keeping alive the knowledge of God, and of His moral government of the world[376], and as a revelation of redemption. It has drawn up the canon of Holy Scripture and formulated its Creeds: it still witnesses to the unity of knowledge: it has held up before the world an ideal of worship, at once social and individual. Its truths have indeed spread beyond itself, so that men find them now in bodies opposed to it; and therefore are perplexed and do not know where their allegiance is really due. It has indeed been itself often untrue to its mission; but ever and again it has re-asserted itself with a strange recuperative power, for, as the fountain of its life, there is ever the power of the Holy Spirit, sent by the risen Lord; to check temporary failures or accretions of teachings, there has been the perpetual re-appeal to Holy Scripture and the Creeds; to control idiosyncrasies of worship, there has been the permanent element of its Liturgies. Its very failures have come from its inherent greatness; they are the proof of great capacities, the omen of a greater future. Like S. Paul, it holds on its way 'by glory and dishonour, by evil report and good report, as deceiving and yet true, as unknown and yet well-known; as dying and behold it lives; as chastened and not killed; as sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor and yet making many rich; as having nothing and yet possessing all things.'

Does the world need the witness of the Church's life less now than in past ages? Less? nay, for many reasons more. The widening opportunities of intercourse are opening up new nations, whose existence had only been suspected before; they are bringing the various parts of human kind into a closer touch with each other. The problems of civilization are more complex; and the more complicated a piece of machinery is, the more difficult it is to keep it in order; so small a defect may throw the whole out of gear. The wider our knowledge of humanity, the greater need of a Catholic Church, which shall raise its voice above the din of conquest and the bustle of commerce, and insist that all races shall be treated with justice and tenderness as made of one blood; which shall welcome all men freely into its own brotherhood, and conveying to them the gifts of the Spirit, shall help them to shew forth in their lives fresh beauties of the richly-variegated wisdom of God. The growth of our huge towns, 'where numbers overwhelm humanity,' and the accumulation of wealth bring the danger nearer home: amidst social upheavings and the striving of class with class, there is need of a Church to rise above rich and poor alike, which shall embrace both; which shall teach both a real visible brotherhood amid all external inequalities; which shall teach the poor the dignity of labour wrought for the good of the whole society, and teach the rich the duty and the blessing of the consecration of their wealth. With the wider use of machinery and the restless rush of money-getting, it is important that there should be the appeal of the Church that no man or woman shall be degraded into being a mere machine; because each is a living soul, capable of personal responsibility, capable of a pure life, capable of a knowledge of God.

Amid the increasing specialization of studies, amid all the new discoveries of science and historical criticism, with all the perplexities that arise as to the interpretation and inspiration of the Bible, now, if ever, there is need of a Church, which conscious of its own spiritual life, knowing that its spiritual truths have stood the test of centuries, has patience and courage to face all these new facts and see their bearing and take their measure; which all the while shall go on teaching to its children with an absolute but rational authority the central facts of the spiritual life, and shall never doubt the ultimate unity of all truth.

Amid the uncertainties of individualism, the fantastic services of those who tend to reduce worship to a mere matter of emotion, amid the sorrows and perplexities of modern life, the world needs the witness of a rational and corporate worship, which recognises the deepest sufferings of human nature enshrined in its very heart, yet recognises also the way in which suffering when accepted freely, is blessed of God; which worships at once a crucified and a risen Lord. Over against the divisions of race and continent the Church raises still its witness to the possibility of an universal brotherhood: over against despair and dispersion it speaks of faith and the unity of knowledge: over against pessimism it lifts up a perpetual Eucharist.

[333] The Dean of S. Paul's on _The Christian Church_. Oxford House Papers, No. xvii. where this truth is excellently worked out and applied to the Church.

[334] Browning, _Paracelsus_, ii. p. 30, ed. 1888.

[335] Tennyson, _In Memoriam_, xxxvi.

[336] Ps. lxxviii. 3, 4.

[337] _De Inc._ 12.

[338] Browning, _Fra Lippo Lippi_: M. Arnold, _The Youth of Nature_: Shelley, _The Skylark_.

[339] _Ep. ad Diogn._ vi.

[340] Bruce, _The Chief End of Revelation_, p. 116.

[341] _Eccl. Pol._ v. 54. Cf. Iren. _adv. Haer._ iii. 20: 'Gloria enim hominis Deus; operationis vero Dei et omnis sapientiae Ejus et virtutis receptaculum homo.'

[342] Ign. _ad Eph._ viii. ἃ δὲ καὶ κατὰ σάρκα πράσσετε, ταῡτα πνευματικά ἐστιν ἐν Ἰησοῦ γὰρ Χριστῷ πάντα πράσσετε.

[343] _Aurora Leigh_, vii. p. 302.

[344] Cp. H. S. Holland, _Creed and Character_, Sermons III-VIII.

[345] Πάντων τοίνυν ἀνθρώπων κεκληένων, οἱ ὑπακοῦσαι βουληθέντες, κλητοὶ ὠνομάσθησαν, Clem. Alex. _Strom._ I. xviii. 89.

[346] Cp. 1 Tim. ii. 1-6.

[347] For the whole of this last paragraph cf. H. S. Holland, _On behalf of Belief_, Sermons VI and VII.

[348] S. Ignatius, _ad Eph._ vii. εἷς ἰατρός ἐστι, σαρκικὸς καὶ πνευματικὸς, as compared with _ad Magn._ xiii. ἵνα ἕνωσις ᾐ σαρκική τε καὶ πνευματική.

[349] Pseudo-Clem. Rom. _Ep._ ii. 14; Clem. Alex. _Str._ vi. 14; iv. 8. For these and other illustrations cf. Seeberg, _Der Begriff der christlichen Kirche_ (Erlangen, 1885), cap. i; and Gore, _Church and the Ministry_, ed. i. pp. 19, 28, 136.

[350] 1 Cor. xii. 28.

[351] Cp. Acts ix. 31 ἡ ἐκκλησία καθ᾽ ὅλης τῆς Ἰουδαίας καὶ Γαλιλαίας καὶ Σαμαρείας.

[352] 1 Cor. xii. 28, xv. 9; Gal. i. 13; Phil. iii. 6; Eph. i. 22, iii. 10, 21; Col. i. 18, 24; 1 Tim. iii. 15.

[353] _Hibbert Lectures_, 1883, p. 311.

[354] Bp. Forbes, _Explanation of the Nicene Creed_, p. 290.

[355] _ad Eph._ ii. iii. vi. xx; _ad Trall._ vii. xiii; _ad Phil._ iv. vii; _ad Smyrn._ viii. ix.

[356] Irenaeus, _adv. Haer._, cp. esp. I. 10, II. 9, III. 1, 2, 3, 5, 12, 24.

[357] _Praescript. adv. Haereticos_; cp. esp. 3, 6, 15-21.

[358] Tertullian. _Praescr._ 9: 'Quaerendum est donec invenias, et credendum ubi inveneris.'

[359] Hawkins' _Sermons on the Church_, p. 77.

[360] Rev. C. Gore, _Roman Catholic Claims_, p. 51.

[361] _Commonitorium_ ix. and xxiii.

[362] Bacon, Essay on _Truth_.

[363] S. John ii. 19-21.

[364] From a striking and bold article by Prof. Milligan, in the _Expositor_, March, 1889.

[365] 1 S. Peter ii. 9; Rev. i. 6; Heb. x. 19. Justin Martyr, _Dialog. c. Tryph._ 116; Irenaeus iv. 8; Origen, _Hom. vi. in Lev._ 5. For other instances, cp. Seeberg, _ubi sopra_, or Gore, _Church and the Ministry_, pp. 87-90.

[366] Eph. iii. 21 (R.V.); Rev. iv. 11, v. 11-14; 1 Cor. xi. 26.

[367] Cf. the striking account of the true Christian sacrifice in S. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, x. 6: 'Profecto efficitur ut tota ipsa redempta civitas, hoc est congregatio societasque sanctorum universale sacrificium offeratur Deo per sacerdotem magnum, qui etiam se ipsum obtulit in passione pro nobis, ut tanti capitis corpus essemus.... Hoc est sacrificium Christianorum, _multi unum corpus in Christo_. Quod etiam sacramento altaris fidelibus noto frequentat ecclesia, ut ei demonstretur, quod in ea re, quam offert, ipsa offeratur.'

[368] Acts xiii. 1.

[369] 1 Cor. xi-xiv.; cp. 1 Tim. ii.

[370] Clem, _ad Cor._ 1. esp. 40-45.

[371] _Contra Adv. Leg. et Proph._ xx. 39.

[372] Παῤῥησιαστὴς διὰ τὴν εὐγένειαν, Plutarch. _Vitae x Orat._ 7.

[373] The Dean of S. Paul's, _Advent Sermons_, p. 73.

[374] Wordsworth, _The Recluse_.

[375] Cp. Socrates iii. 16 Τὸ γὰρ καλὸν, ἔνθα ἂν ᾖ, ἴδιον τῆς ἀληθείας ἐστίν. S. Aug. _de doctr. Chr._ ii. 18: 'quisquis bonus verusque Christianus est, Domini sui esse intellegat ubique invenerit veritatem.'

[376] Butler's _Analogy_, Pt. ii. ch. 1.

X.

_SACRAMENTS._

FRANCIS PAGET.

It is the characteristic distinction of some men's work that they are resolute to take into just account all the elements and conditions of the matter with which they deal. They will not purchase simplicity at the expense of facts; they will not, by any act of arbitrary exclusion or unreal abstraction, give up even the most distant hope of some real attainment for the sake of securing a present appearance of completeness. They recognise and insist upon all the complexity of that at which they look; they may see many traits in it to which they can assign no definite place or meaning, but they will not ignore or disparage these; they will not forget them, even though for a while they may have to defer the closer study of them; they will dutifully bear them in mind, and carry them along through all their work; they will let them tell with full weight in qualifying, deferring, or precluding the formation of any theory about that of which these traits, trivial or important, explained or unexplained, are a genuine part. It is difficult to find a name for this rare and distinctive excellence. But it is that which more than any other quality gives permanence and fruitfulness to work: for even the fragmentary and loosely ordered outcome of such thought is wont to prove germinant and quickening as time goes on. Patience, honesty, reverence, and unselfishness, are virtues which appear congenial with such a character of mind; and the high, undaunted faith which is the secret of its strength and the assurance of its great reward has been told by Mr. Browning in _A Grammarian's Funeral_:--

Was it not great? did not he throw on God (He loves the burthen)-- God's task to make the heavenly period Perfect the earthen[377]?

It will be the chief aim of this essay to shew that in the embodiment and presentation of Christianity by the Church of Christ there may be seen an excellence analogous, at least, to this distinctive characteristic of the work that all approve as best and truest upon earth; that in contrast with many religious systems, attaining a high degree of moral beauty and spiritual fervour, the historic Church meets human life in full front; that it has been taught and enabled, in its ministry of Sacraments, to deal with the entirety of man's nature, not slighting, or excluding, or despairing of any true part of his being. But it is necessary at the outset to define, in general and provisional terms, the nature and the principle of that element in the Church's faith and life which is here under consideration, and in which especially this amplitude and catholicity of dealing with human nature is to be sought. By the Sacramental system, then, is meant the regular use of sensible objects, agents, and acts as being the means or instruments of Divine energies, 'the vehicles of saving and sanctifying power[378].' The underlying belief, the basal and characteristic principle of this system, may be thus stated. As the inmost being of man rises to the realization of its true life, to the knowledge and apprehension of God and of itself, in the act of faith, and as He whose Spirit quickened it for that act, greets its venture with fresh gifts of light and strength, it is His will that these gifts should be conveyed by means or organs taken from this world, and addressed to human senses. His Holy Spirit bears into the faithful soul the communication of its risen Lord's renewing manhood; and for the conveyance of that unseen gift He takes things and acts that can be seen, and words that can be heard; His way is viewless as the wind; but He comes and works by means of which the senses are aware; and His hidden energy accepts a visible order and outward implements for the achievement of its purpose.

The limits of this essay preclude the discussion of the larger questions which beset the terms of these definitions. Previous essays have dealt with those truths which are necessarily involved in any declaration of belief about the Christian Sacraments. The Being of God, the Incarnation of the Eternal Word, the Atonement, the Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, the Person and Mission of the Holy Ghost, these are indeed implied in the Sacramental system of the Church, not simply as component and essential parts of the same building, nor as mere logical data, but rather as the activities of the bodily life are pre-supposed in the exertion of the body's strength. But these cannot here be spoken of: it is from preceding pages of this book that thoughts and convictions must be gathered, without which much that is here said will seem either unsubstantial, or merely technical. It must be owned that the severance of any subject from its context entails not only incompleteness, but also a certain disproportion and obscurity in its treatment; since the lines of thought which run out into the context are lines down which light comes, light that is lost if they are closed. Indeed anything like a full presentation or a formal defence of a detached part of Christian teaching and practice seems intrinsically very difficult, and within the limits of an essay impossible. There are, however, two questions which must be asked concerning each several part of the whole structure, and in regard to which something may here be said. The first is: Does this part match with its surroundings in Christianity; is it a harmonious and congenial element in the whole order, in the great body of doctrine to which it claims to belong? The second is: Does it match with the surroundings on which it claims to act, with its environment in human life; is it apt for the purpose to which it is addressed and the conditions among which it comes? It is here proposed, as has been said, to consider in regard to the Sacramental system the second especially of these two questions: but its consideration will involve some thoughts which may perhaps be a sufficient answer to the first. And thus something may also be gained beyond the range of the present inquiry; for it seems fair to hold that any part of Christian teaching in regard to which both these questions can be answered in the affirmative, has a strong tendency at all events to commend the claim of the whole scheme with which it is inwoven and essentially continuous. For the perfection of inner coherence in a structure whose main lines, at least, were projected in the world under circumstances which preclude the thought of scientific or artificial elaboration, and the perfection of adaptation, not to the wishes and tastes of men, nor to the arrangements of society, but to the deepest, fullest, surest truth of humanity; these are characteristics which we should expect to find in a revelation from God to man, and be surprised to find elsewhere.

I. Probably there come to most men who have got beyond the happy confidence of youth, and the unhappy confidence of self-satisfaction, times at which they seem to themselves to be living in a somewhat perplexed and dimly lighted world, with tasks for which their strength is insufficient, among problems which they cannot solve. And Christianity is held out to them, or has been received by them, as a way of life under these circumstances, as a method and a means of living rightly; a system which does not indeed take all the perplexity out of the world, or all the difficulties out of their course, but which will give them light and strength enough to keep in the right track, to use their time well, to take their proper place, and do their proper work, and so to move towards the realization of all the many parts and possibilities of their nature; a goal which may seem to grow both larger and more distant the more one thinks about it. Christianity professes to be that Divine word, which was faintly surmised of old[379], and in due time was sent forth to bear men wisely and surely through this world. Plainly one of the first and fairest questions which may be asked in regard to it is, whether it shews a perfect understanding of the nature with which it claims to deal, and the life which it claims to guide.

Now when we set ourselves to think what we are for whom a possible and satisfactory way of life is sought, what that nature is, whose right principles and conditions of development are to be determined, one of the first things which we discern is an apparently invincible complexity. The life we have to order is a twofold life, it moves through a twofold course of experience: the facts, the activities in which we are conscious of it, are of two kinds; and men ordinarily distinguish them as bodily and spiritual. Some such distinction is recognised and understood by the simplest of us: it is imbedded beyond possibility of expulsion in all language: stubbornly and successfully it resists all efforts to abolish it. We know for ourselves that either of the two groups of facts may stand out in clearer light, in keener consciousness, at certain times: we may even for a while, a little while, lose sight of either of them and seem to be wholly occupied with the other: but presently the neglected facts will re-assert their rights: neither the one group nor the other may long be set aside without risk of the Nemesis which avenges slighted truths:--the Nemesis of disproportion and disease. We may confuse our sense of the distinction; we may shift or blur or bend whatever line had seemed to mark it: we may insist on the qualifying phenomena which forbid us to think of any barrier as impenetrable; but we cannot so exalt or push forward either realm as utterly to extrude, absorb, or annihilate the other: we cannot, with consistency or sanity, live as though our life were merely spiritual or merely bodily. It is as impossible steadily to regard the spirit as a mere function or product of the body, as it is to treat the body with entire indifference, as a casually adjacent fragment of the external world. But further, as the distinction of the two elements in our being seems insuperable, so does their union seem essential to the integrity of our life. Any abstraction of one element, as though it could detach itself from the other and live on its own resources, is felt to be unreal and destructive of our proper nature. So it has been finely said, 'Materialism itself has here done valuable service in correcting the exaggeration of a one-sided spiritualism. It is common, but erroneous, to speak of man's body as being related to his spirit only as is the casket to the jewel which it contains. But, as a matter of fact, the personal spirit of man strikes its roots far and deep into the encompassing frame of sense, with which, from the first moment of its existence, it has been so intimately associated.... The spirit can indeed exist independently of the body, but this independent existence is not its emancipation from a prison-house of matter and sense; it is a temporary and abnormal divorce from the companion whose presence is needed to complete its life[380].' If we try to imagine our life in abstraction from the body we can only think of it as incomplete and isolated; as impoverished, deficient, and expectant. And certainly in our present state, in the interval between what we call birth and death, the severance of the two elements is inconceivable: they are knit together in incessant and indissoluble communion. In no activity, no experience of either, can the other be utterly discarded: 'for each action and reaction passing between them is a fibre of that which forms their mutual bond[381].' Even into those energies of which men speak as purely spiritual, the bodily life will find its way, will send its help or hindrance: sickness, hunger, weariness, and desire: these are but some of its messengers to the spirit, messengers who will not always be denied. And in every conscious action of the bodily life the presence of the spirit is to be discerned. The merely animal fulfilment of merely animal demands, devoid of moral quality, is only possible within that dark tract of instinct which lies below the range of our consciousness. When once desire is consciously directed to its object, (wherever the desire has originated and whatever be the nature of the object,) a moral quality appears, a moral issue is determined: and the act of the body becomes an event in the life of the spirit[382]. The blind life of brute creatures is as far out of our reach as is the pure energy of angels: we can never let the body simply go its own way; for in the essential complexity of our being, another sense is ever waiting upon the conscious exercise of those five senses that we share with lower animals:--the sense of duty and of sin.

Thus complex are we,--we who crave more light and strength, who want to find the conditions of our health and growth, who lift up our eyes unto the hills from whence cometh our help. It would be interesting to consider from how many different points of view the complexity has been recognised, resented, slandered, or ignored; and how steadily it has held its own. It may need some exercise of faith (that is to say, of reasonable patience amidst half-lights and fragments) to keep the truth before one, and to allow it its just bearing upon thought and conduct, without exaggeration, or self-deception, or one-sidedness; but there is neither health of body nor peace of mind in trifling with it.

To us, then, being thus complex, Christianity presents a plan, a principle, a rule of life. And that primary and inevitable question which has been already indicated may therefore take this definite form:--Does the scheme proposed to us acknowledge this our complexity? does it provide for us in the entirety of our nature, with all that we feel to be essential to our completeness? or must a part of our being be huddled out of sight as we enter the precinct of the Church?

II. (1) Certainly the whole history and character of the Christian Revelation would encourage us to hope that its bearing upon life would be as broad as the whole of human nature; and that no true part of our being would be excluded from its light, refused its welcome, or driven from its feast. When we consider how Christianity came into the world, it would seem strange and disappointing if its hold on human life were partial and not inclusive: if, for instance, the body found no place prepared, no help or hope provided for it. This was excellently said by Alexander Knox: 'The gospel commenced in an accommodation to man's animal exigencies which was as admirable as it was gracious; and which the hosts of heaven contemplated with delight and wonder. The Incarnation of the co-eternal Son, through which S. John was enabled to declare what he and his fellow Apostles "had seen with their eyes, what they had looked upon, and their hands had handled, of the Word of Life," was in the first instance, so to consult human nature in its animal and sensitive capacity, as to give the strongest pledge that a dispensation thus introduced would, in every subordinate provision, manifest the same spirit and operate on the same principle. For could it be thought that the first wonderful accommodation of Godhead to the sensitive apprehensions of man should be wholly temporary? and that though that mystery of godliness was ever to be regarded as the vital source of all spiritual benefits and blessings, no continuance of this wise and gracious condescension should be manifested in the means, whereby its results were to be perpetuated, and made effectual[383]?' It would be possible to follow this mode of thought to a remoter point, and to mark in the revealed relation of the Eternal Word to the whole creation a sure ground for believing that whensoever, in the fulness of time, God should be pleased to bring the world, through its highest type, into union with Himself, the access to that union would be as wide as the fulness of the nature in which He made man at the beginning: that the attractive and uplifting bands of love would hold and draw to Him every true element of that nature. But it is enough for our present purpose to look steadily at the Advent and the Life of Christ: to see how carefully and tenderly every fragment of the form He takes is disentangled from the deforming evil which He could not take: how perfect are the lineaments of the humanity He wears, how freely and clearly all that is characteristic of our nature is displayed in His most holy life; where 'the hiding of His power,' the restraining of the beams of Deity[384] leaves room for the disclosure in Him of whatever weakness and limitation properly belongs to us. Surely it would be strange if the grace and truth which came among us thus, proved partial or restricted in their later dealing with our manhood: if any tract of our life were unvisited by their light and blessing: if anything which He took were slighted in His kingdom, forgotten in His ministry, precluded from His worship. The Incarnation was indeed in itself a great earnest of the recognition which would be accorded in the Christian life to the whole of our complex nature. But there are, more particularly, two points in the coming and work of our Lord which seem peculiarly intended to foreshow some abiding elevation of the material and visible to share the honour of the spiritual element in our life. They are so familiar to us that it may not be easy to do full justice to their significance.

(2) For it does seem deeply significant that when the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, He took up the lines of a history replete with forecasts of the consecration of material things: He met the truest aspirations of a people trained to unhesitating exultation in a visible worship, encouraged by manifold experience to look for the blessings of Divine goodness through sensible means, accustomed and commanded to seek for God's especial presence in an appointed place and amidst sights on which their eyes would rest with thankful confidence. That Church and nation 'of whom as concerning the flesh Christ came,' must have seemed indeed irrevocably and essentially committed to the principle that when man is brought near to God it is with the entirety of his manhood: that God is to be glorified alike in the body and in the spirit: and that His mercy really is over all His works. Doubtless barriers were to be broken down, when the time of prophecy and training passed on into the freedom of realization: limitations were to be taken away, distinctions abrogated by Him in Whom is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free, neither male nor female: but religion would surely have grown in reality _narrower_ and not wider, if the body had been dismissed from its duty and gladness in the light of God's countenance, if the spirit alone had been bidden to draw near, to worship, to taste and see how gracious the Lord is. Through all the amplitude of the Christian dispensation, there would have been a sense of loss, of impoverishment, of expectation encouraged and unsatisfied, had this been so; for in the preparatory system of Judaism, whatever had been lacking, still the whole nature of man had felt the Hand of God and heard His Voice. It would have seemed strange if with the wider extension of God's light to all the world there had been a narrowing of its range in the life of each several man[385].

(3) And then, again, it is to be marked that our Lord Himself by repeated acts sustained and emphasized this acceptance of the visible as the organ or vehicle of the Divine. His blessing was given by the visible laying on of hands, and His miracles were wrought not by the bare silent energy of His Almighty will, not even in many cases by the mere utterance of His word, but through the employment of acts or objects, impressive to the bodily element in man, and declaring the consecration of the material for the work of God. Alike in the blessings bestowed and in the manner of their bestowal men must have felt that there was with Him no disparagement of the body, no forgetfulness of its need, no lack of care for its welfare, its honour, or its hope. Perhaps it may even be that had we watched the scene in the Galilean town as the sun was setting, and in the cool of the evening they that had any sick with divers diseases brought them unto Him; as He moved about among those wasted, suffering forms, and on one after another laid His hands and healed them; it may even be that what would have struck us first of all would have been the bringing in of a better hope for the bodily life of man and the replenishing of a familiar act, a common gesture, with a grace and power that it had but vaguely hinted at before.

We have, then, (1) in the Incarnation of the Son of God, (2) in the essential character of the history ordered as an especial preparation for His coming, and (3) in certain conspicuous features of His ministry on earth, a strong encouragement to expect that in the life thus brought into the world, in the way thus opened out, there would be evinced a large-hearted care for the whole nature of men: that no unreal abstraction would be demanded, and no part of humanity be disinherited: that in the choice of its means, in the scope of its beneficence, and in the delineation of its aim, Christianity would deal with us as we are, and prove that God has not made us thus for nought. An endeavour will be made to shew how this great hope is greeted in the Sacramental system, and uplifted and led on towards the end of all true hope. But it seems necessary first to adduce the grounds for saying that that system has been from the beginning an integral part of Christianity.

III. When we turn to look at the presentation of the Sacramental principle in the Gospels, our first impression may be that the place it holds there is less than that which is given to it in the teaching and practice of the Church: that it is by a disproportionate growth that the doctrine of Sacraments has gained so much space and so great prominence in Catholic theology. But the impression certainly ought not to be lasting. For it is due to our forgetfulness of the conditions under which Christianity came into the world: the characteristics and habits of religious thought with which it had to deal. We can draw no reasonable inference from the brevity or length with which a truth is enunciated in the Gospels until we have inquired what were the previous convictions of those to whom our Lord spoke: what preparation had in that particular regard been made for His teaching. We ought to look for some difference in the manner of revelation corresponding to the difference of need when a wholly new principle of thought has to be borne into unready minds, and when a fresh direction has to be given to an expectation already alert and confident, a new light to be thrown on the true worth and meaning of an existing belief about God's ways towards men. Amplitude and iteration would indeed have been necessary for any teaching which was to dislodge the Sacramental principle out of the minds of those among whom our Lord came--to preclude them from seeking the mercy of God through visible means. But if the Divine purpose was not to destroy but to fulfil; not to discredit as mere misapprehensions the convictions men had received, but to raise and purify them by disclosing the response which God had prepared for them: to disengage them from that which had been partial, preparatory, transient, and to fasten them on their true satisfaction: then we might reverently expect that the method of this teaching would probably be such as in the New Testament is shewn to us in regard to the doctrine of Sacraments.

(1) For, in the first place, we find abundant and pervading signs that the general principle is taken up into Christianity and earned on as a characteristic note of its plan and work. The regular communication of its prerogative and characteristic gift through outward means: the embodiment of grace in ordinances: the designation of visible agents, acts, and substances, to be the instruments and vehicles of Divine virtue:--this principle is so intimately and essentially woven into the texture of Christianity that it cannot be got out without destroying the whole fabric. As our Saviour gradually sets forth the outlines of His design for the redemption of the world, at point after point the Sacramental principle is affirmed, and material instruments are designated for the achievement of His work. 'He proclaims Himself the Founder of a world-wide and imperishable Society,' 'the Kingdom of Heaven' or 'the Kingdom of God[386];' and while the claims and energies of this kingdom penetrate the hidden depths of life, so that it is indeed 'a moral empire,' and 'a realm of souls,' yet none the less is it openly to take its place in human history. It is not an unsubstantial haze of vague spirituality, precarious and indistinct, hovering or said to hover half way between earth and sky, with no precise attachment to either. At once, it is the kingdom of Heaven, and it is to have all the apparel of a visible society: it touches this earth with a definite and inclusive hold; it ennobles material conditions by a frank acceptance. As in the Incarnation, so also in the preparation of the Church to be the ever-present witness to Christ, the guardian of His truth, and the home of His people, the principle was sustained that, in the redemption of the world, God would be pleased to take the instruments of His work out of that world which He was renewing: that the quickening Spirit would not repel or destroy the material order, but would assume, pervade, and use it.

(2) And, in the second place, the particular expressions of the general principle thus reaffirmed were authoritatively appointed: the approved anticipation of men was left in no uncertainty as to its response and sanction; men were told plainly what were the outward and visible signs which God had chosen in this world to be the means whereby His inward and spiritual grace should be received. It is difficult indeed to imagine any way in which more weight and incisiveness could have been given to the appointment of the two great Sacraments than in the way which Christ was pleased to use:--any way in which Baptism and the Eucharist could have been more firmly and impressively designated as the vital and distinctive acts of the Christian Church. We can hardly wonder at their pre-eminence in Christian thought and life when we remember how they were fastened upon the consciousness of the Church. Their antecedents lay in that long mysterious course of history which Almighty God had led on through the strange discipline of the changeful centuries to the coming of Christ. And then, there had been in Christ's teaching certain utterances which seemed to have a peculiar character: which were plainly of essential importance, concerning things necessary for all His disciples, bearing on the primary conditions of their life: and yet utterances which were left unexplained, however men might be troubled, offended, overstrained, discouraged by them: left as though their explanation was impossible, until the occurrence of events which could not be forestalled[387]. But such utterances, if they could not be understood, could still less be forgotten: they lived in the memory, they haunted the imagination, they sustained expectancy: they were as a prophetic conviction in the mind, strong, deep, fragmentary, and unsatisfied. Who can measure the consilient force with which, in moments of intensest thought and feeling, moments when all the besetting conditions seemed quick with some imminent disclosure, the Divine commands, meeting, illuminating, establishing those former utterances, would be riveted upon the hearts of men and clenched for ever into the faith and practice of the Church, with a dominance never to be forgotten or infringed, as a very primal law of life? In the unique, controlling awe of His impending agony and crucifixion:--in the heralded majesty of His appearance to the disciples upon the mountain where He had appointed them, and with the proclamation of the absolute authority given to Him in heaven and in earth: so did our Lord enact the ordinances to which His earlier words had pointed, and in which at length their meaning was made clear: so did He institute His two great Sacraments: so did He disentangle the Sacramental principle from all that had been temporary, accidental, disciplinary, accommodated, in its past embodiment, and determine what should be the form of its two main expressions, for all ages and for all men in His Church 'until His coming again,' 'even unto the end of the world.'

It may be in place here briefly to suggest a few thoughts with regard to that which was secured by this authoritative designation of the outward sign in each great Sacrament, beyond all that could have been attained by the general enunciation of the Sacramental principle.

Much might be said--and much more, doubtless, be still left unsaid--about the especial fitness of the very elements thus chosen from the material world to be the vehicles of saving grace:--for the water and the bread and wine are called to their place in the Divine work with deep and far-reaching associations already belonging to them. Again, the very simplicity and commonness of the elements taken into God's nearest service may have been a part of the reason why they were appointed: for in no other way could the minds of men have been more surely and permanently hindered from many of the mistakes to which in the past they had been prone: in no other way could the Sacramental principle have been more perfectly disengaged from the misconceptions which had confused its purity: in no other way could men have been more plainly taught that in no expense of this world's goods, in no labour of their own hands, in no virtue of the material elements, but only in the sustained energy of His will, who took and penetrated and employed them, lay the efficacy of the Sacrament. The very plainness of the element hallowed in the Sacrament was to urge up men's thoughts from it to Him. But, above all, the decisive appointment of particular signs and acts may seem to have been necessary in order that the Sacraments might take their places as acts emanating from, upheld by, and characteristic of the Church's corporate life, and not merely concerned with the spiritual welfare of the individual. So S. Paul appeals to Baptism and to the Eucharist as both effecting and involving the communion of saints[388]. By Sacraments men are to be taken out of the narrowness and isolation of their own lives, out of all engrossing preoccupation with their own state, into the ample air, the generous gladness, the unselfish hope of the City of God: they are to escape from all daily pettiness, all morbid self-interest, all preposterous conviction of their own importance, into a fellowship which spans all ages and all lands. By Baptism and the Eucharist the communion of saints is extended and sustained: they are the distinctive acts of the Body of Christ: and as such He designated their essential form, to abide unaltered through all that changed around them. And even those who stand aloof from them and from the faith on which they rest, may feel the unmatched greatness of an act that has held its place in human life through all the revolutions of more than 1800 years: an act that in its essential characteristics is to-day what it was when imperial Rome was venerated as eternal: an act that is every day renewed, with some measure, at least, of the same faith and hope and love, in every land where Christ is owned.

(3) The Sacramental principle had been most plainly adopted by our Lord: the spiritual forces with which He would renew the face of the earth were to be exerted through material instruments: and He Himself had secured the principle from uncertainty or vagueness or individualism in its expression by appointing, with the utmost weight and penetration of His authority, the definite form of two great ordinances, which were to begin and to advance the supernatural life of His members, to extend the range of His Church, and to maintain its unity. In the acts and letters of His apostles we see how His teaching and bidding had been understood: how promptly and decisively His Church declared its life, its work, its mission, to be Sacramental. The meaning and emphasis of His commandment appear in the obedience of those to whom it was given: in the first words of authoritative counsel uttered by an apostle: in the first act of the Spirit-bearing Body: and thenceforward in the characteristic habits of the Christian life[389].

From the first the prominence of Sacraments and Sacramental rites is constant. In the teaching of later ages their prominence may have been relatively greater, in contrast with the poverty of faith and life in those who insisted on their power while they forgot their meaning; but absolutely it would be hard to devise a higher place for them than that which they hold in S. Paul's Epistles. To be living a life received, nourished, and characterised by Baptism and by the Eucharist--this is the distinctive note of a Christian--thus does he differ from other men. The Sacrament by which he became a member of Christ's body must determine throughout the two distinctive qualities of his inner life: its severance from all forms of worldliness, all dependence on natural advantages, or natural strength, all confidence in the satisfaction of external rules; and its unfailing newness, as issuing from Him who, being raised from the dead, dieth no more, and as carrying through all its activities the air and light of heaven[390]. And the Sacrament which continually renews in him the presence of his Lord, meeting with unstinted wealth the demands of work and growth, assuring and advancing the dominance of the new manhood in him: this in like manner must determine the sustained simplicity of his bearing towards those who with him are members of the one Body, quickened and informed by the one Life[391]. That men may receive eternal life through Jesus Christ: this is the end of all labours in His name: to this all else is tributary and conducive: and there is no hesitation as to the visible means by which God will effect this end in all those who have 'faith to be healed.' And in this sense it may perhaps be said that in Christianity even doctrine holds not indeed a subordinate but (that which involves nothing but dignity) a subservient place; since it is the strength and glory of Christian doctrine that it essentially 'leads on to something higher--to the sacramental participation in the atoning sacrifice of Christ[392].'

IV. Thus then there appears at the beginning the dominance of that note which has sounded on through all succeeding ages; thus may we trace from the first days the dispensation of Divine energy through agents and acts and efficacious symbols gathered out of this visible world. It remains to be shewn with what reason it can be alleged that herein the Church evinces its recognition of the complexity of human nature, and guards the truth, that in the entirety of his being man has to do with God, the Creator, Redeemer, Sanctifier of his soul and body. Along three lines of thought this may in some degree appear; and if the evidence that can be indicated is recognised as in any measure real, it would be unphilosophic to set it aside because it may be fragmentary and inconclusive: since fragments are all that in such a matter we are likely as yet to see.

(1) First, then, there is a profound far-reaching import in the bare fact that material and visible means are thus hallowed to effect the work of God, to bear His unseen grace. For it must not be thought that in this Sacramental union of the visible and the invisible we have only an interesting parallel to the twofold nature of man, a neat and curious symmetry, a striking bit of symbolism or accommodation. Nor is the deepest significance of the Sacramental principle brought out when it is said quite truly that 'it has pleased God to bind His invisible operations to outward and visible methods,' 'lest that which is thus invisible should for that reason be disbelieved or counterfeited or in any of the various ways in which human incredulity or human enthusiasm might do it wrong, abused to the injury of man[393].' We may see in this aspect of the system that it has indeed secondary advantages of the highest worth; but its surpassing glory is in its primary and essential character, as the regular employment of visible means for the achievement of Divine mysteries. For thus our whole estimate of this world is affected. Its simplest objects have their kindred, as it were, in the court, in the very presence chamber of the Most High; and actions such as we see in it day after day have been advanced to a supreme distinction.

And so through Sacramental elements and acts Christianity maintains its strong inclusive hold upon the whole of life. The consecration of material elements to be the vehicles of Divine grace keeps up on earth that vindication and defence of the material against the insults of sham spiritualism which was achieved for ever by the Incarnation and Ascension of Jesus Christ. We seem to see the material world rising from height to height; pierced, indeed, and, as it were, surprised at every stage by strange hints of a destiny beyond all likelihood; yet only gradually laying aside the inertness of its lower forms, gradually seeming to yield itself, not merely to the external fashioning of spirit, but also to its inner and transforming occupation: till in humanity it comes within sight of that which God has been preparing for it, even the reception of His own image and likeness. And yet this is but the beginning: and though sin delays the end, and holds back the crown of all, it is but for a time; in due season there is made known that absolutely highest honour to which God has been leading on the work of His hands, even that in its highest type it should be taken into God; that the Eternal Word should be made man, and from a human mother receive our nature, so that a material body should be His body; His in birth, and growth, and death; His in all its relations with the visible world; His for suffering, for weariness, for tears, for hunger; His upon the cross and in the tomb; His to rise with; and, at length, His at the right hand of God. Thus was the visible received up into glory; thus was the forecast of spiritual capacity in the material perfectly realized; and by the body of the ascended Saviour, an entrance for the whole being of man into the realm of spirit is assured. 'There is a spiritual body[394]:' no part of the material order can be quite untouched by the light that issues from those astounding words, and from the triumph they record. And that truth, that triumph, that possibility of unhindered inter-penetration between the spiritual and the material is pre-eminently attested upon earth by the two great Sacraments of the Christian Church. In those mysteries where water is sanctified to the washing away of sin, and where material substances are made spiritual food, there is a continual witness of the victory that has been won, a real earnest of that which shall hereafter be achieved, a vivid declaration that the barrier between the spiritual and the material is not absolute or eternal.

Nor is this deep truth without practical and far-reaching consequences in human life. For immediately it thus appears that the unreal spirituality which consists in a barren and boastful disparagement of ritual observance or of outward acts[395], of earthly relationships or of secular life, of natural feelings or of bodily health, clashes with Christian teaching as sharply as it does with human nature and with common sense. And then, in perfect accordance with this principle, the spiritual energy of the Church is sacramentally conveyed for the hallowing of stage after stage in the due order of a human life, as body, soul, and spirit are advanced towards the end for which they were created. Not only in the initial act whereby all are bidden to enter into the kingdom of God, and, at the dawn of consciousness, the onset of evil is forestalled by the cleansing and regenerating work of God the Holy Ghost--not only in the ever-needed, ever-ready mystery of glory whereby, amidst the stains and sorrows of the world, all may again and again be 'filled with the very essence of restoration and of life[396];' but at other moments too, when the soul of man rises up towards God in the divinely-quickened venture of faith, the strength of the Most High is perfected in human weakness, and in Sacramental acts the things that are not seen enter into the history of the things that are seen. It is most unfortunate that the associations of controversy should hinder men from frankly and thankfully recognising the wide range of Sacramental action in Christian life. The dispute as to the number of the Sacraments is indeed 'a question of a name[397];' and it ought to have been acknowledged all along that the name was being used with different and shifting meanings. That men knew that it did not designate an essentially distinct class of exactly equivalent units is shewn on all sides; S. Thomas Aquinas seems to doubt, at least, whether there are not more than seven Sacraments, divides the seven into groups with very important notes of difference, and decides that the Eucharist is 'Sacramentorum omnium potissimum[398]:' Calvin was not unwilling that the laying on of hands should be called a Sacrament, though he would not reckon it 'inter ordinaria Sacramenta[399];' the Council of Trent has an anathema for anyone who says that the seven Sacraments are so equal that none is more worthy than another[400]: Richard Baxter distinguishes between 'three sorts of Sacraments;' in the second sense of the name, in which it is taken to mean 'any solemn _Investiture_ of a person by ministerial delivery, in a state of Church-privileges, or some special gospel-mercy,' he grants 'that there are five Sacraments--Baptism, Confirmation, Absolution, the Lord's Supper and Ordination;' and elsewhere he declares that 'they that peremptorily say without distinguishing that there are but two Sacraments in all, do but harden them (the Papists) by the unwarrantable narrowing of the word[401].' There is indeed no reason why anyone should hesitate to mark the Love of God meeting in Sacramental ordinances the need of man at point after point in the course of his probation. Differences in the manner of appointment or in the range of application may involve no difference at all in the reality of the power exercised and the grace conveyed. And so we may see the Spirit-bearing Church, with whole-hearted recognition of all the elements and wants of human life, proffering to men through visible means the manifold gifts of grace needed for their progress and welfare in the way until they reach the Country. As temptation grows more complex and severe, and the soul begins to realize the warfare that it has to wage, the Personal indwelling of the Holy Ghost, vouchsafed by the laying on of hands, completes the preparation of Christ's soldier: as the desolating sense of failure threatens to unnerve the will and to take such hold upon the soul that it is not able to look up, the authoritative message of forgiveness brings again the strength of purity and the light of hope, and recalls the scattered forces of the inner life to expel the encroaching evil and to regain whatever had been lost. For special vocations there are special means of grace; by ordination God vouchsafes to guilty men the glory of the priesthood: and in Christian marriage He confers the grace that hallows human love to be the brightness and the safeguard of an earthly home, and the earnest of the home in Heaven. And thus in the manifold employment of the Sacramental principle there again appears that characteristic excellence of Christianity which is secured in the very nature of Sacraments: namely, its recognition of the whole problem with which it claims to deal. It speaks to us as we are: there is no true need of which it will not take account: it will lead us without loss to the realization of our entire being.

(2) Secondly, Sacraments are a constant witness against our readiness to forget, to ignore, or to explain away the claim of Christianity to penetrate the bodily life, and to affect the body itself, replenishing it here with powers which are strange to it, lifting it out of the reach or mastery of passions which falsely boast that they are congenial with it, leading it on towards its everlasting rest, beyond all weakness and dishonour, in the glory of God. This claim, with the deeply mysterious but wholly reasonable hope which it engenders, has been set forth by Hooker, with his unfaltering strength of thought and words: 'Doth any man doubt that even from the flesh of Christ our very bodies do receive that life which shall make them glorious at the latter day, and for which they are already accounted parts of His blessed body? Our corruptible bodies could never live the life they shall live, were it not that here they are joined with His body, which is incorruptible, and that His is in ours as a cause of immortality, a cause by removing, through the death and merit of His own flesh, that which hindered the life of ours. Christ is therefore, both as God and as man, that true Vine whereof we both spiritually and corporally are branches. The mixture of His bodily substance with ours is a thing which the ancient Fathers disclaim. Yet the mixture of His flesh with ours they speak of, to signify what our very bodies through mystical conjunction receive from that vital efficacy which we know to be in His: and from bodily mixtures they borrow divers similitudes rather to declare the truth, than the manner of coherence between His sacred and the sanctified bodies of saints[402].' The body, as well as the spirit, is accessible to the Divine life: there are avenues by which the energy of Christ's perfect and glorified manhood can penetrate, inform, affect, transfigure our whole being, bodily and spiritual. His prevalence in the life of the body and the change He works in it, may be very gradual, discerned in incoherent fragments, interrupted by surprising disappointments, hampered by limitations which it would be unlike Him now to overbear: but the change is real. The body is not left inert and brutish and uncheered, while the spirit is being carried on from strength to strength, with growing light and freedom and majesty: it also rises at its Saviour's touch, and finds from Him the earnest of its liberation and advancement.

The work of grace upon the bodily nature of man may indeed be a matter of which we ought not to think save very humbly and tentatively: it is easy and perilous to overstate or to mis-read the evidence: but there is peril also in ignoring it. The language of our Blessed Lord; the clear conviction of His apostles; the intrepid quietude of His martyrs; the patience of the saints; their splendid and unrivalled endurance in His service; the change that may be marked in the looks and voices and instinctive acts of some who seem to be most nearly His:--here is such guidance for thought and hope as we ought not to dismiss because we cannot make up a theory about it. There are real facts--though they may be fragmentary, and require very careful handling--to warrant us in praying that our sinful bodies may be made clean by His body, as well as that our souls may be washed by His most precious blood.

It is this truth, with the higher aspirations, the more venturous hopes and efforts which it suggests, that the Sacramental system of the Church keeps in its due prominence. It is at all events not incongruous to think that the spiritual grace which is conveyed by visible means may pass through our spiritual nature to tell upon that which is visible. He who comes spiritually under a visible form may well be believed to work spiritually upon a visible nature. It is not, of course, to be thought for a moment that our bodies can at all after their own manner receive that Food which is wholly spiritual: nor that the visible element in a Sacrament gives to our bodies any hold upon the invisible grace, any power to appropriate to themselves by their own proper energies that which is incorporeal and supra-sensuous. 'Only the soul or spirit of man can take in and feed upon a spiritual nutriment[403]:' it is only (so far as our thoughts can go) through the avenue, by the medium of the faithful soul that the spiritual force of the Sacrament can penetrate to the body. But the fact that the spiritual virtue comes to us under a form of which our bodily senses take cognizance is at least a pledge that the body is not forgotten in the work of sanctification. And it is something more than this:--it is an assurance of that invasion and penetration of the material by the spiritual which is the very ground of all our hope for the redemption of the body. There is in the very nature of a Sacrament the forecast of some such hope as this:--that He who said of the material bread 'This is My Body,' may, in His own time, through changes which we cannot imagine, take to Himself and lift into the transfiguring realm of spirit our material bodies as well as our souls; seizing, disclosing, perfecting capacities which under their present conditions we hardly suspect in them. And, perhaps, yet more than this may be said: for there would seem to be warrant for trusting that, in spite of all hindrance and delay, His word of power even now goes forth towards this work, and in the holy Eucharist has its efficacy throughout our whole nature. It is the thought to which Hooker points in words of endless import: 'there ensueth a kind of transubstantiation in us, a true change both of soul and body, an alteration from death to life;' words which rest on those of S. Irenaeus: 'As bread from the earth receiving the invocation of God is no longer common bread but the Eucharist, consisting of two things, an earthly and a heavenly; so our bodies also receiving the Eucharist are no longer corruptible, having the hope of the Resurrection[404].' Alike in us and in the Sacrament the powers of the world to come invade the present, and already move towards the victory which shall be hereafter.

(3) And thus, in the third place, the ministry of Sacraments is a perpetual prophecy of the glory that shall be revealed in us; the glory that shall pervade and transfigure our whole being. 'Till He come;' 'until His coming again;' that note of expectancy, of looking towards the east and watching for the return of a great light, discloses a deep truth about the Christian Sacraments. They sanction and confirm, as ever-present witnesses of a Divine assent, certain thoughts which will not let men rest in any low contentment with the things of time--with the approval, the success, the gratification, or the systems of this world. They declare with a perpetual insistence the mysteriousness of our present being: they have a certain fellowship with those strange flashes and pulsations we have felt of a life which seems astray and alien here, which yet somehow suggests the thought that could we commit ourselves wholly to its guidance, could we be replenished with its power, we should not walk in darkness, but rather, even in this world, be as the children of light:--and so they take the side of faith and patience against the attractions of completeness and security and achievement and repose. For they offer to guide into the way of peace, to welcome into an ordered, hallowed, course of loving service and of steady growth, those passing thrills of an intenser life, which if they be forgotten, denied, misunderstood, or surrendered to the abuse of wilfulness and vanity, may so subtly and terribly be unto us an occasion of falling.

It is given sometimes to a poet to sink a shaft, as it were, into the very depths of the inner life: to penetrate its secret treasuries, and to return, Prometheus-like, with a gift of fire and of light to men. The venturesome words that record such a moment of penetration and insight never lose their power: they seem to have caught something of the everlasting freshness of that world of which they speak: and one man after another may find in them, at some time of need or gladness or awakening, the utterance of thoughts which else he might have been too shy or too faint-hearted to acknowledge even to himself. There is such a splendid venture of courage for the truth's sake in those lines of Wordsworth which surely no familiarity can deprive of their claim to reverence and gratitude; the lines in which he tells his thankfulness,

For those obstinate questionings Of sense and outward things, Fallings from us, vanishings; Blank misgivings of a creature Moving about in worlds not realized, High instincts before which our mortal nature Did tremble like a guilty thing surprized: .... Those first affections, Those shadowy recollections, Which, be they what they may, Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, Are yet a master-light of all our seeing; Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make Our noisy years seem moments in the being Of the eternal Silence.

It may be doubted, whether any life is left wholly unvisited by some misgiving, some dim, faltering instinct, some pulse of hope or sorrow, which is akin to that which these words disclose; and the moments of such visitation are the supreme opportunities of a human soul, the crises of its tragedy. Then the things that belong to its peace are being proffered to it; then the Sibyl stands before it with the treasures of unimagined wisdom. We rise, and we live and grow and see by the right understanding and employment of such moments; by the fresh acts of self-committal which they render possible: and in all the infinite pathos of this world there is no misery comparable with this--that they should cease to trouble us. Whatever a man may believe or disbelieve, he will do well to trust these moments when they come: and, perhaps, if he has grace to know and use them, he may be nearer to the kingdom of God than he at all suspects. But Christianity does not leave such 'shoots of everlastingness' wholly unexplained or unprovided for.

They are in truth the fountain light of all our seeing, for they are the disclosure, the assertion, the stepping forward of His presence who alone sustains our life, our thought, our love. And, being this, they are therefore also the tokens, the emerging witness of a work that has begun in us, a life that is astir, a process of change that may be carried forward to an issue which, even faintly surmised, might make all other desire die away in us.

That we should be perfectly set free from sin; that God should so dwell in us and pervade our whole being that no part should lag behind the other; that whatsoever weakness or reluctance or coarseness may have clung about the body here should utterly pass away, being driven back by the victorious onset of the Spirit of God, claiming us wholly, body, soul, and spirit for His own; that whatsoever pure and true delight has here engaged us should be found, faultless and unwearied, in that energy which shall be at once our work and our rest for ever;--this is how Christianity represents to us the end of our development: and if indeed the powers which are to achieve so vast a change are already setting about their work in us, it is not strange that we should be disturbed now and then with some suspicion of it. We may understand alike the severity of external discipline, and the sharp disturbance and upheaval of anything like complacency, in a nature that is being here led on towards so splendid and inconceivable a transfiguration.

But Christianity does not merely declare to us the origin and meaning of these strange invasions of our ordinary life; these emergings, as it were, of that which is behind our normal activity, when the light, the strength, the love in which alone we live seems to push aside the curtain on which the background of our daily life is painted, and to appear unveiled among the things of time. He who telleth the number of the stars and calleth them all by their names, He who sendeth the springs into the valleys, and sweetly and mightily ordereth all things; He would not have these moments of intenser life, of keener consciousness, of quicker and more excellent growth, to be precarious and unaccountable, to be abrupt and arbitrary as the rush of the meteor which is gone before the eye has clearly seen it, or could use its light. They come from Him; they are the moments in which He makes His power to be known; in which His hand is felt, and His voice pervades the soul; the moments when His presence advances, as it were, and bends over us, and we know that it is He, Himself. And must we merely wait in blank and idle helplessness for that which we so greatly need; for that which is our only source of strength and growth? Must we wait, flagging and fruitless, with just a vague hope that the quickening presence may chance to visit us again, lighting on us with arbitrary beneficence, as the insect lights upon the plant, that it may bring forth fruit in due season? Must we wonder through days and months, yes, and through years perhaps of dim and desolate bewilderment, whether it was a real presence that came to us; with nothing but the fading memory of an individual and unconfirmed impression to sustain our hope, to keep the door against the gathering forces of doubt and worldliness and despair? Must we find our way as best we can, by guidance given long ago, imperfectly realized even then, and more and more hazily remembered, more drearily inadequate as time goes on, and the path grows rougher and less clear? Is the greatest effort to be demanded of us just when our strength is least and our light lowest[405]? Surely it is not His way to be thus arbitrary in compassion, thus desultory and precarious in shewing mercy. Surely He would not have us stray and faint and suffer thus. No, His compassions fail not; and, with the orderliness of a father's love, He has made us sure of all we need; and the historic Church and the triumphs of His saints declare that He is true. He has, with the certainty of His own unchanging word, promised that the unseen gift, which is the power of saintliness in sinful man, shall be given to all faithful, humble souls by ordered means through appointed acts. We need not vaguely hope that we may somehow receive His grace; for He has told us where and how we are to find it, and what are the conditions of its unhindered entrance into our souls. We need not be always going back to wonder whether our sins have been forgiven, or laboriously stirring up the glow of a past conviction; for there is a ministry which He has empowered to convey to us that cleansing glory which is ever ready to transfigure penitence into peace and thanksgiving. We need not live an utterly unequal life, stumbling to and fro between our ideal and our caricature[406]; for He has prepared for us a way which leads from strength to strength; and we know where He is ready to meet us and to replenish us with life and light. There is a glory that shall be revealed in us; and here on earth we may so draw near and take it to ourselves that its quiet incoming tide may more and more pervade our being; with radiance ever steadier and more transforming; till, in this world and beyond it, He has made a perfect work: till we are wholly ruled and gladdened by His presence, and wholly wrought into His image. For not by vague waves of feeling or by moments of experience which admit no certain measure, no unvarying test, no objective verification, but by an actual change, a cleansing and renewal of our manhood, a transformation which we can mark in human lives and human faces, or trace in that strange trait of saintliness which Christianity has wrought into the rough fabric of human history, may the reality of Sacramental grace be known on earth; known clearly enough, at all events, to make us hopeful about its perfect work in those who shall hereafter be presented faultless in body, soul and spirit before the throne of God.

[377] In _Rabbi Ben Ezra_ the true measure of such work's beneficence is shewn:--

Not on the vulgar mass Called 'work,' must sentence pass, Things done, that took the eye and had the price; O'er which, from level stand, The low world laid its hand, Found straightway to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all the world's coarse thumb And finger failed to plumb, So passed in making up the main account; All instincts immature, All purposes unsure, That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man's amount.

[378] Cf. A. Knox, _Remains_, ii. 138.

[379] Cf. Plato, _Phaedo_, 85 C, D.

[380] H. P. Liddon, _Some Elements of Religion_, pp. 116, 117. Cf. the wonderful venture towards a conception of the disembodied soul and of its manner of life, in the _Dream of Gerontius_: and also in _Battle and After_, by R. St. John Tyrwhitt, p. 7.

[381] Lotze, _Microcosmus_, Bk. III. c. i. § 2.

[382] Cf. T. H. Green, _Prolegomena to Ethics_, Bk. II. ch. ii. §§ 125, 126.

[383] A. Knox, _Remains_, vol. ii. pp. 228, 229. The writer of this essay desires to acknowledge with gratitude the help he has found in the remarkable treatise here referred to.

[384] Cf. Hooker, V. liv. 6.

[385] Cf. A. Knox, ii. 210.

[386] H. P. Liddon, _Bampton Lectures_, pp. 101-105.

[387] Cf. S. John iii. 3-13; vi. 51-67.

[388] 1 Cor. x. 17; Gal. iii. 27, 28; Eph. iv. 5.

[389] Acts ii. 38, 41, 42.

[390] Cf. Rom. vi. 3, 4; Gal. iii. 27, 28; Col. ii. 12, 20-23.

[391] Cf. 1 Cor. x. 17, xii. 25, 26.

[392] W. Shirley, _The Church in the Apostolic Age_, p. 103.

[393] Moberly's _Bampton Lectures_, pp. 29, 30.

[394] 1 Cor. xv. 44.

[395] Cf. Professor Milligan, _The Resurrection of Our Lord_, Lect. vi. Pt. i. § c.

[396] Bright's _Ancient Collects_, p. 152.

[397] C. Gore, _Roman Catholic Claims_, p. 170.

[398] S. Th. iii. Qu. LXV. Art. 1, 4, 3.

[399] Calv. _Inst._ IV. xiv. 20.

[400] Conc. Trident. Sess. VII. Can. iii.

[401] Richard Baxter, _Confirmation and Restauration_ pp. 88, 89; _Ecclesiastical Cases of Conscience_, Qu. 99. Cf. J. S. Pollock, _Richard Baxter on the Sacraments_, § 58.

[402] Hooker V. lvi. 9: cf. E. B. Pusey, _University Sermons_, p. 11, 'This is (if we may reverently so speak) the order of the mystery of the Incarnation, that the Eternal Word so took our flesh into Himself, as to impart to it His own inherent life; so then we partaking of it, that life is transmitted on to us also, and not to our souls only, but our bodies also, since we become flesh of His flesh, and bone of His bone, and He who is wholly life, is imparted to us wholly. The Life which He is, spreads around, first giving its own vitality to that sinless flesh which He united indissolubly with Himself, and in it encircling and vivifying our whole nature, and then, through that bread which is His flesh, finding an entrance to us individually, penetrating us, soul and body and spirit, and irradiating and transforming us into His own light and life.'

[403] J. B. Mozley, _Lectures and other Theological Papers_, p. 204.

[404] Hooker V. lxvii. 11; S. Irenaeus iv. 18.

[405] Cf. A. Knox, ii. 234-6.

[406] Cf. Martensen, _Christian Dogmatics_, p. 182.

XI.

_CHRISTIANITY AND POLITICS._

W. J. H. CAMPION.

The aim of this essay is to investigate some of the relations of Christianity to human society, and to point out some of the main lines of influence which the Christian Church brings to bear on the organized centres of social life.

We are met at the outset by two widely-differing conceptions of the mode and direction in which Christianity acts as a regenerating influence on the life of mankind. On the one side, Christianity is identified with civilization, and the function of the Church is regarded as simply the gathering up, from age to age, of the higher aspirations of mankind: her call is to enter into, to sympathize with, and to perpetuate whatever is pure, noble, and of good report, in laws and institutions, in art, music, and poetry, in industry and commerce, as well as in the moral and religious usages and beliefs, of mankind. Christianity is thus not a higher order, standing over against and correcting a lower, but is itself the product or rather the natural outgrowth of the progressive moral consciousness of mankind. The value of this mode of thought is in emphasizing the sacredness of secular interests and duties, and in its protest against dividing the field of conscience, and assigning to the one part a greater sanctity than to the other. 'As our salvation depends as certainly upon our behaviour in things relating to civil life, as in things relating to the service of God, it follows that they are both equally matters of conscience and salvation[407].' Its weakness lies in its not sufficiently recognising one decisive fact of human nature, the fact of sin. No one, as it seems to us, looking at human nature, in himself or others, with clear, open, unprejudiced eyes, can doubt the existence of sin, its corrupting influence on the whole nature, and yet its fundamental unnaturalness. But if states and societies are as the individuals who compose them, then any theory of society must rest on a theory of man; and the theory of man is imperfect unless it recognises the fact of sin.

On the other hand, the recoil from secularism, or the overwhelming sense of the power and destructiveness of sin in the lives of men and of societies, leads others to draw sharp the distinction between things sacred and things secular. The order of things, it is said, of which the Incarnation is the starting-point, is admittedly higher than that secular order which existed before it, and which even now surrounds it as darkness encompasses light. Let us put on one side political life, local and national interests, all that sphere of mixed social relations, which is so imperfect, so full of fierce passions, of strife, envy, and ambition, so productive of distractions and entanglements. Let us concentrate our own thoughts on sin, and devote our own lives to its remedy. Let us at least keep our own hands clean, and use for our own discipline that narrower sphere which is sufficient. No doubt individuals will find their vocation in some such attitude as this: and for some it may be wise to abstain from political and social interests, in order thus to strengthen their influence in other directions. But we are not now considering the call of individual Christians, but the attitude of the Christian Church as a whole: and it would be easy to accumulate references to shew that the leading minds of Christendom have declined to recognise, except in cases of special vocation, as the duty of Christians, the abdication of responsibility for the problems, the entanglements, the more or less secular issues of the ordinary social life of mankind. Christianity, in the words of a modern writer, has both to deliver humanity from its limitations, and to bring it to a true knowledge of itself[408].

These two conceptions of the relation of the Christian society to the issues and interests of the life amid which it moves, correspond to two aspects of the Incarnation, which the deepest Christian thought holds in solution. On the one side, the human life of the Word of God may be regarded as a fulfilment, the restoration of an order, marred, indeed, and broken, but never completely lost, the binding together of all truth, all goodness, all beauty, into one perfect life; on the other, it is a reversal, the beginning of a new order, the undoing of a great wrong which has eaten deep into human nature, the lifting up of mankind out of the helpless slavery of sin into the freedom of righteousness. These two aspects of the Incarnation are not contradictory but complementary. However difficult it may be for us to find their unity in thought, they had their unity in a life.

In the same way, the problem with which Christianity has to deal in its relations to human society has two sides. It cannot hold itself aloof from the great currents and movements of that ever-flowing and ebbing human life, in which it shares, which it has to redeem, to purify, and to quicken. 'In the great sea of human society, part of it, yet distinguishable from it, is the stream of the existence of the Church[409].' And yet it has to maintain, as a debt it owes to future generations as well as the present, the purity of its own moral standard, the independence of its own deepest life.

To spiritualize life without ceasing to be spiritual, to maintain a high morality while at the same time inter-penetrating a non-Christian or very imperfectly Christianized society with its own moral habits and manners, is a task which presupposes great cohesion and tenacity on the part of the Christian Church. And it is for that reason that in speaking of the Church we shall have mainly in view that solid, highly articulated, permanent core of Christendom[410], which, however broken into fragments, and weakened by its own divisions, maintains a clearly-marked type, on the side of doctrine in its creeds and sacred writings, on the side of worship in its sacraments and traditional liturgies, on the side of organization in its ministry, as well as holding the life of Christ its standard of perfect living. Those Christian bodies which float, more or less closely knit together, around the central core of the Church, have often rendered great services in advancing on special points the standard of social and personal morality, and they are more flexible, and able rapidly to throw themselves into new crusades; but it may well be doubted if their work could have been done at all without the more rigid and stable body behind them, with its slow movements, but greater Catholicity of aim and sympathy; and certainly it would in the long run have been better done, if, like the great monastic bodies, they had remained as distinct organizations within the Church.

What, then, is the attitude of the Church towards human society, and especially towards human society as gathered up and concentrated in States? What duties does it recognise towards nations, towards human society as a whole?

I. There is a certain order of debated questions, on which it cannot be said that the Christian Church is pledged to one side or the other--she leaves them open. Individual Christians take one side or the other. The Christian society recognises that the differences are due to diversities of temperament and national character, and to the varying conditions under which human societies live, and therefore that they may be best left to human experience to solve.

In this class of questions would come the problem debated since the time of Herodotus, but to which no general answer is really possible, What is the best form of government? On this problem the Church is, so to speak, frankly opportunist. Here we may quote the view of S. Augustine, as stated in the _De Civitate Dei_[411]: 'The Heavenly City, in its wanderings on earth, summons its citizens from among all nations ... being itself indifferent to whatever differences there may be in the customs, laws, and institutions by which earthly peace is sought after or preserved, not rescinding or destroying any of them, but rather keeping and following after them as different means adopted by different races for obtaining the one common end of earthly peace, provided only they are no obstacle to the religion by which men are taught the worship of the one supreme and true God.' In the same spirit, in his dialogue _De libero Arbitrio_[412], he dwells on the mutable character of human law. That law is temporal, which, 'though just, may yet be justly changed from time to time,' i.e. as the conditions change. Thus, a Democracy is best adapted to a grave and temperate people, public-spirited and willing to make sacrifices for the common good; while it is better for a more corrupt, more easily flattered people, greedy of private gain, to be under an Aristocracy or a Monarchy. Or if we wish for a more modern statement of the traditional view of the Christian Church, we shall find it in an encyclical letter[413] of Leo XIII: 'The right of sovereignty in itself is not necessarily united with any particular form of government: it can rightly assume, now one form, now another, provided only that each of these forms does in very deed secure useful results and the common good.' It will be noticed that two qualifications are introduced, the one by S. Augustine, the other by Pope Leo, limiting their acceptance of all forms of government. It is possible for Christian citizens to take an active part in every _de facto_ government which (1) does not hinder the free and peaceable practice of the Christian religion, and (2) whose real aim is the common good, and which does, in fact, work for the advantage of its subjects. Not all governments, even in the nineteenth century, satisfy these tests.

In the same way, there have been the widest differences between Christian thinkers on the most important questions, in which autocratic and democratic leanings shew themselves, such, for instance, as that of the origin of sovereignty, i.e. of that rule of man over man, which is the foundation of civil society. The view indicated, though not worked out by S. Augustine[414], that the rule of man over man had its origin in the Fall, and was therefore part of the secondary, not the primary condition of mankind, is used by Gregory VII as a weapon of assault on the temporal power, by Bossuet as a safe ground on which to rest the duty of obedience to an absolute Monarchy. The other side is taken by S. Thomas Aquinas. He finds the origin of temporal rule in the social nature of man, accepting and making his own the Aristotelian account of man as by nature a being fitted for a common life. Thus, in a state of innocence, there would have been no slavery indeed, but government, with its recognition of the differences in ability and knowledge among men, and of the consequent duty incumbent on the wise and experienced of using their faculties for the common good. Political rule would thus be, not a consequence of sin, but a result of man's inherently social nature.

Differences such as these among those who equally start from fundamentally Christian presuppositions can only be taken to shew that we are wrong in supposing that the Christian Church is bound up with either of the two great political leanings which have appeared in civil communities in all ages of the world, and which have their ground in human nature itself. 'In every country of civilized man, acknowledging the rights of property, and by means of determined boundaries and common laws, united into one people or nation, the two antagonist powers or opposite interests of the State ... are those of permanence and of progression[415].' The Church recognises these diverse powers or interests as natural, and therefore accepts the fact of their existence, without identifying herself with either of them.

II. But it would surely be a mistake to suppose that because the Church is neutral on certain questions of Politics, that therefore she has no direct teaching to give on the vital questions which arise with regard to the organized common life of mankind. In the rebound from the minimizing views of the function of the State, which were associated in England with the Ricardian School of Economics and the philosophic Radicalism of J. S. Mill, men are ready to go all lengths in exalting the position of the State as the moral guide of social life. The tendency is to assign the whole sphere of public morals to the State, and 'private' morals to the individual, acting, if he pleases, under the guidance of one or other of the Christian bodies. However much we may welcome the freer recognition of corporate responsibility, and the nobler conception of the State as having a moral end; yet we cannot help perceiving that certain limitations are, as by a self-acting law, imposed on its moral influence.

(1) The State has been called the 'armed conscience of the community[416].' Looked at on the moral side, as a guide of the conscience of individuals, its arms are its defect. But that defect is not remediable: it is inevitable. For the State has to deal with various grades of character, responding to a vast complexity of motives, which may be roughly classified under three heads, those of duty, self-interest, fear of punishment. To some 'you ought' is a sufficient appeal, to others 'you had better,' while to a third class the only effective appeal is 'you must.' Now the State in order to perform its most elementary business, that of securing the conditions of an ordered and civilized life, has to deal first of all with those who are only susceptible of the lowest motive, the dread of punishment. And in dealing with them, it must of necessity use coercive force[417]. But the force-associations which thus grow up around all State-action weaken and enervate its appeal to the higher motives, those of duty and rational self-interest. The very suspicion of compulsion taints the act done from duty.

Again, there can be little doubt of the vast influence exercised on morals by human law and institutions. It is well known to those who are at all acquainted with the life of the poor in large towns, that in many cases conscience is mainly informed by positive law. But all that human law can do is to secure a minimum of morality[418]. No doubt it is true that indirectly positive law can do something more than this, because good citizens will abstain from all actions which, in however remote a degree, are likely to bring them into collision with the law. But in the main it is true to say that what law can secure is the observance on pain of punishment of a minimum moral standard, which itself shifts with the public opinion of society, rising as it rises, falling as it falls.

Certainly the State is sacred: it is 'of God': it is no necessary evil: but a noble organ of good living. But yet there are these natural limitations to the effective exercise of its functions, as a moral guide. Firstly, it has to use force, and, therefore, its appeal to the higher motive is weakened. Secondly, it can only secure a minimum of morality, shifting with the general morality of the community.

Now it is exactly at these points that the Church steps in to supplement the moral action of the State, not as one part supplements another part of a single whole, but rather as a higher supplements a lower order.

It is in its appeal to the higher motives that the State is weak: it is in its appeal to the higher motives that the Church is strong. If there have been times when the Church has allowed herself to claim or to assume temporal power, or without assuming it, to be so closely implicated with the secular authority that Church and State appeared to men as one body interested in and maintaining the existing order, if she has used the weapons of persecution, or handed men over to the secular arm, then has she so far weakened and loosened her own hold on the higher motives which move men to action. She may have become apparently more powerful, but it has always been at the cost, perhaps unperceived at the time, of some sacrifice of her own spirituality, and of the loftiness of that moral appeal in which her true strength lies. 'There is something in the very spirit of the Christian Church which revolts from the application of coercive force[419].'

And so, alongside of the moral minima of the secular law, the Christian Church maintains moral maxima, moral ideals, or rather a moral ideal, 'Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect[420].' 'Till we all come unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ[421].' It is not that the law is undervalued, or condemned, but that Christians are urged to bring their conduct under principles which will carry them far beyond the mere obedience to law. It is sufficient to quote from the Sermon on the Mount, 'Blessed are the meek.... Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.... I say unto you, that ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloke also[422].'

The law and institutions of a people rest upon and give expression to a group of moral principles and ideals: they are not the only realization of those principles and ideals, but one; art and literature would be others; further, they realize them mainly on the negative side, in the mode of prohibition. As that group of principles and ideals changes, they change, sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. At first sight it seems as if there was no essential difference in this respect between the laws and institutions of a nation, and the manners and institutions of the Christian Church, except that the one gives a more positive and constructive expression to the moral standard of the time than the other. But there is this difference, that the Christian Church has its moral standard in the past, in the life of the Son of Man; it too recognises change, as age succeeds age, but the new duties are regarded not as new, but as newly brought forth out of an already existing treasure, as the completer manifestation under new conditions of the meaning of the life of Christ. On the threshold of Christian morality there lies that by which all its subsequent stages may be tested, and which is the measure of advance or retrogression. It is this permanent element, preceding the element of change and of development, in Christian morality, which gives it its authority as against the moral product of one nation or one age.

It is exactly this authority which has enabled the Church to appeal with such force to duty as precedent to right, and to love as higher than justice. We can best illustrate this steady appeal to higher motives by tracing the steps by which Christian teachers have brought out, one by one, the different aspects of the relations of governors and governed looked at in the light of Christian anthropology and Christian sociology. The first principles governing the attitude of individual Christians towards the various organizations of human society are laid down in the words of Christ, 'Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, and unto God the things that are God's[423].' The command, taken in connection with its context, involves two principles, first, the recognition of the claims of civil society, and, secondly, their limitation by a higher order of claims, where they come into conflict with the first. The passage in the Epistle to the Romans[424], in which S. Paul deals with the duties of Christians towards 'the powers that be,' is a commentary on his Master's teaching. It shews the connection of the first of these principles with the second, by tracing it back to its ground in the will of God. It brings it into relation to love, the central motive of the Christian character. Briefly summarized, the stages of S. Paul's argument are as follows: (1) he shews that all power is of Divine origin: 'there is no power but of God.' Thus those who wield secular power are ministers of God. (2) The administration of earthly rewards and punishments by the secular power makes for good, and for this reason God uses it in His governance of the world. Therefore temporal authority is to be obeyed 'not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake,' i.e. not merely to avoid earthly punishment, but as a duty. (3) This duty may be regarded as one application of the general maxim of justice, 'Render to all their dues.' But (4) all these scattered dues are to a Christian summed up under one vast debt, always in process of payment, but never completely paid. 'Owe no man anything, but to love one another.' 'Love is the fulfilling of the law.' These passages of the New Testament put in the clearest light the duty of obedience to civil authority. They lay down its theological ground in the derivation of all power from God; and its moral ground by shewing that such obedience is one form of justice, and justice itself one aspect of love. They thus give to the commands of those wielding authority in human society the firmest sanctions. If on the one side Christianity seems to set up conscience, as the guardian of the things of God, against positive law, it gives on the other a Divine sanction and consecration to the whole order of things connected with the State by shewing its ministerial relation to, its defined place and function in, God's ordering of the world.

This was the side of our Lord's saying which needed enforcing on the Christians of S. Paul's time. The civil authority was the Roman Empire with its overwhelming force and its almost entire externality to Christianity. The danger, then, was the spirit of passionate revolt against the secular power. Men who were filled with the new wine of the Spirit, who were turning the world upside down, found it hard to submit to the decrees of an alien power, wielded by heathen: they pleaded their Christian liberty; they could not understand that such a power was 'ordained of God.' The early Christian Fathers found it sufficient, even when the Roman Empire was gradually becoming Christian, to bring home to consciences the teaching of S. Paul. There was no need then to emphasize in words the other side of our Lord's saying. There was little danger of undue subservience to the civil power being regarded with anything but disapproval: the danger was of men not giving it the obedience which was its due. 'We honour the Emperor,' says Tertullian[425], 'so far as we may, and so far as honour is due to him, as the first after God ... as one who has only God for his superior.' 'If the Emperor demands tribute,' says Ambrose[426], 'we do not refuse it: the lands of the Church pay tribute; if the Emperor wishes for our lands, he has the power to take them--none of us will resist him ... we render to Caesar what is Caesar's.' S. Augustine, with his Stoical leaning and his Roman sense of order, was little inclined to encourage men to resist, in any case, established powers. 'What matters it under whose rule a man lives who is to die, provided only his rulers do not force him to do impious and unjust things[427]?' Only in one passage of S. Chrysostom[428], among the writers of the first four centuries, is a gloss given to S. Paul's words, 'There is no power but of God,' which distinguishes the delegation of power in general from God, and the delegation of power by God to any particular ruler, and so suggests the possibility of a _de facto_ ruler to whom obedience was not due.

But this attitude of the early Christian teachers was a very different thing from that attitude of the English Caroline divines, which gave so fatal a bent to the teaching of the English Church of the seventeenth century in the sphere which lies on the borderland of Theology and Politics. What the early Fathers taught their Christian followers was that it was their duty to obey in secular matters the powers lawfully set over them. What the English divines taught was the Divine right of princes and the subjects' duty of non-resistance. In the great battle which was being fought out in England between arbitrary power and freedom, they threw the whole weight of the English Church on the side of the former. It was a fatal error as a matter of policy, for it was the losing side. But, what is hardly sufficiently realized, it was most untrue to the tradition of the Church, and of the Church in England.

It was contrary to the tradition of the Church. For after the rise of Christianity to the high places of the world, followed by the break-up of the Roman Empire, and the formation of the mediaeval States, weakly knit together by personal ties, and with uncertain claims on the allegiance of their subjects, two new aspects of the relations of governors and governed had been brought out in Christian teaching. First, stress was laid on the duty of those holding power. Emperors and kings, magistrates and officers, who were Christians, had a claim for guidance and instruction in the exercise of their various functions. The claim was met by shewing them that, whatever the earthly source of authority may be, all just power is of God, and therefore must be regarded, not as a privilege, nor as a personal right, but as a _trust_ to be undertaken for the good of others, and as a ministry for God and man. Thus a government which has for its aim anything else than the common good is, properly speaking, not a government at all. Whether its form is monarchical or not, it is simply a tyranny[429]. Secondly, the Middle Age theologians supplemented S. Paul's teaching by shewing the possible right of resistance to an unlawful government, or to one that failed to perform its duties. Such right of resistance might arise in two cases: (1) that of unjust acquisition of power, (2) that of its unjust use. Unjust acquisition might take place in two ways: (_a_) when an unworthy person acquired power, but by legitimate means: in this case it was the duty of subjects to submit, because the form of power came from God; (_b_) when power was acquired by force or fraud: in this case, subjects had the right to depose the ruler, if they had the power, supposing, however, that the illegitimate assumption of power had not been legitimated by subsequent consent. Unjust use might also take place in two ways: (_a_) when the ruler commanded something contrary to virtue, in which case it was a duty to disobey; or (_b_) when he went outside his rights, in which case subjects were not bound to obey, but it was not necessarily their duty to disobey. And so cases might arise in which it was lawful to enfranchise oneself, even from a legitimate power. 'Some who have received power from God, yet if they abuse it, deserve to have it taken from them. Both the one and the other come of God[430].'

Nor was the political teaching of the Caroline divines in agreement with the tradition of the Church in England. It is not necessary to go back to the great Archbishops who led, in earlier days, the struggle for English freedom. It is sufficient to recur to the teaching of the greatest of English post-Reformation theologians, at once soaked through and through with the spirit of Catholic antiquity, and in complete agreement with the English Reformation settlement. Richard Hooker had no sympathy with that doctrine of Divine right which his mediaeval masters looked upon as a quasi-heretical doctrine[431]. He found the first origin of government in the consent of the governed, and he anticipates Hobbes and Locke in his account of the 'first original conveyance, when power was derived from the whole into one[432].' Further, he points out that the king's power is strictly limited (except in the case of conquest or of special appointment by God), not only by the original compact, but also by after-agreement made with the king's consent or silent allowance[433]. And men are not bound in conscience to obey such usurpers 'as in the exercise of their power do more than they have been authorized to do[434].' But on the other hand, he maintains strongly, as against those who thought that human laws could in no sort touch the conscience, the duty of civil obedience in agreement with the law of God, and the sacredness, the 'Divine institution,' of duly-constituted authority, whether 'God Himself doth deliver, or men by light of nature find out the kind thereof.'

Thus, the main points which have been brought out by Christian teaching as to the relation of Christian citizens to the civil authority are: (1) first and foremost, the duty of obedience for conscience' sake, a duty which stands on the same level, and is invested with the same sanctions as the most sacred claims; (2) the duty, in case of the civil authority issuing commands contrary to virtue or religion, of disobedience on the same grounds as those which lead to obedience in the former case; (3) the duty of those wielding authority to use it for the common good, and so as not to hinder, if they cannot promote, the Christian religion; (4) the right, which may be said in certain extreme cases to rise almost to a duty, of resistance to the arbitrary or unconstitutional extension of authority to cases outside its province.

The same emphasis on higher motives is characteristic of Christian treatment of the questions connected with property. Christianity is certainly not pledged to uphold any particular form of property as such. Whether property had better be held by individuals, or by small groups, as in the case of the primitive Teutonic villages, or of the modern Russian or Indian village communities, or again by the State, as is the proposal of Socialists, is a matter for experience and common sense to decide. But where Christian ethics steps in is, firstly, to shew that property is secondary not primary, a means and not an end. Thus, in so far as Socialism looks to the moral regeneration of society by a merely mechanical alteration of the distribution of the products of industry or of the mode of holding property, it has to be reminded that a change of heart and will is the only true starting-point of moral improvement. On the other hand, it cannot be too often asserted that the accumulation of riches is not in itself a good at all. Neither riches nor poverty make men better in themselves. Their effect on character depends on the use made of them, though no doubt the responsibility of those who have property is greater, because they have one instrument the more for the purposes of life. And so, secondly, Christianity urges that _if_ there is private property, its true character as a trust shall be recognised, its rights respected and its attendant duties performed. These truths it keeps steadily before men's eyes by the perpetual object-lesson of the life of the early Church of Jerusalem, in which those who had property sold it, and brought the proceeds and laid them at the Apostles' feet, and distribution was made unto every man according to his needs[435], an object-lesson enforced and renewed by the example of the monastic communities, with their vow of voluntary poverty, and their common purse. So strongly did the early Fathers insist on the duty, almost the debt, of the rich to the poor, that isolated passages may be quoted which read like a condemnation of all private property[436], but this was not their real drift. The obligation which they urged was the obligation of charity.

(2) So far we have considered the way in which Christianity has strengthened and defined on the side of duty, which itself is one form of charity or love, the motives which make men good citizens, good property-holders, and so has supplemented the moral forces of the State, by raising the common standard of opinion and conviction on which ultimately all possibility of State-action rests. But the word charity is used not only in the wider, but also in a narrower sense, of one special form of love, the love of the strong who stoops to help the weak.

It is admitted on all hands that charity in this sense has been a mark of the Christian type of character, but the uniqueness of Christian charity has probably been exaggerated. The better Stoics recognised the active service of mankind, and especially of the poor and miserable, as part of the ideal of a perfect life. Their severity was crossed by pity. As Seneca puts it in one pregnant phrase, they held that 'wherever a man is, there is room for doing good[437].' And so Stoicism had, its alimentationes, or homes for orphan children, its distributions of grain, its provisions for the sick and for strangers[438]. Christianity and Stoicism, it may seem, were walking along the same road; but the difference was this, 'what pagan charity was doing tardily, and as it were with the painful calculation of old age, the Church was doing, almost without thinking about it, in the plenary masterfulness of youth, because it was her very being thus to do[439].' She did it with all the ease and grace of perfect naturalness, not as valuing charity without love, for 'if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing[440],' but because love forthwith blossomed forth into charity. 'And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch. And in these days came prophets from Jerusalem unto Antioch. And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world.... Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judæa[441].'

And so it became the recognised and traditional duty of the Church to maintain the cause of the weak against the strong, of the poor against the rich, of the oppressed against the oppressors. The Bishops of the fourth and fifth centuries exercised 'a kind of religious tribunate[442].' In the Middle Ages, the Church urged on those in public and private stations the duties of charity, pity, humanity. The author of the latter part of the _De Regimine Principum_[443] ascribed to S. Thomas Aquinas lays down as one of the chief duties of a king, the care of the weak and the succour of the miserable. Nor did the Church in England in pre-Reformation times fail in her duty in this respect. She pleaded for the manumission or at least the humane usage of the serfs. She undertook through her monasteries the relief of the poor. Her prohibition of usury, however mistaken it may seem to us, was a real protection to debtors against one of the worst forms of tyranny, that of the unscrupulous creditor. Since the Reformation her record has not been so clean. The shock of the Reformation left her weak. The traditional sanctions of her authority were shaken. In the long struggle of the seventeenth century her close association with the Stuart cause left her powerless to touch the stronger half of the nation. She was not independent enough to act as arbiter, and in committing herself without reserve to opposition to the national claim for freedom she was untrue to her earlier and better traditions. At the same time allowance must be made for the licence, the disorder, and the recklessness with which the claims of liberty were associated, and for the identification of the popular party with views of religion, which, whatever else may be said for them, are not those of the Church. The leading churchmen believed that its triumph meant the disappearance of that historical Church, which they rightly regarded as the only effective safeguard of English Christianity. After the Restoration the Church was stronger, and the increase of strength shews itself on the one side in greater independence of the Crown, and on the other in the outburst of numerous religious and charitable societies and foundations. Queen Anne's Bounty is an instance of the charity, if it be not rather the justice, of one distinguished daughter of the Church. The 'Religious Societies' which in a quiet and unassuming way were a great influence in social life, had among their objects the visiting and relief of the poor, the apprenticing of the young, the maintenance of poor scholars at the University. Charity schools were established throughout the country: hospitals and parochial libraries founded, while societies like the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, and the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge date back to the last years of the seventeenth and the first of the eighteenth centuries[444]. Then as the Georgian period begins, all this vigorous life seems for a long period to die down, or only to find vent in the great Wesleyan movement which, beginning within the Church, passes out beyond it, and ultimately becomes stereotyped in more or less pronounced separation from her communion. It was the policy of the ruling Whig oligarchy to keep down the Church, and they succeeded--to the grave loss of English morality. If in some degree the Church in England at the present time is speaking with firmer accent on questions of personal and class morality, and giving more effective witness against the luxury and neglect of their work-people, which are the besetting sins of the great English manufacturing classes, it is due partly to the revival in England of the true idea of the Church as a great spiritual society, and partly to the fact that English statesmen, from sheer inability owing to the conditions of political life to do otherwise, have left her more free to manage her own business and to develop her mission to the English people in accordance with the laws and aspirations of her own inner life.

It is especially necessary in a great industrial society such as that of modern England that the Christian law of self-sacrifice, which crosses and modifies the purely competitive tendency leading each individual to seek his own interest and that of his family, should be strongly and effectively presented. No doubt it is true that the increased knowledge of the structure and laws of social life which we possess, have made charity more difficult than in the Middle Ages: they have not made it less necessary, or a less essential feature of the Christian character. And so, in a democratic age, the protection of the weak and the oppressed will take a different colour. Whether supreme control is in the hands of one or many, it may be used tyrannically. And the most effective exercise of the tribunate of the Church will lie in guarding the rights of conscience and the great national interest of religion against hasty and unfair pressure. And this brings us to our next point.

(3) The drift of the argument has been to shew the incompleteness and inevitable limitations of the State, considered as a moral guide of the social life of mankind. But that incompleteness rises to its maximum, those limitations press most closely when we pass from morality to religion. If it is the highest duty of the State to maintain true and vital religion[445], it is a duty which of itself it is altogether incompetent to perform. If the experience of the Middle Ages shewed conclusively that the subordination of the State to the Church did not tend either to good government, or to the maintenance, pure and undefiled, of the Christian religion, the experience of English post-Reformation history has as conclusively shewn that the subordination of the Church to the State leads on the one hand to the secularization of the Church, and on the other to a grave danger to national life, through the loss of a spiritual authority strong enough, as well as vigilant and independent enough, to reprove social sins and to call to account large and influential classes. The conditions under which the Tudor idea of a Christian commonwealth was possible have passed away, and there seem to remain two possible conclusions from the premises.

The first is that it is expedient in the interests of both that Church and State should be separate from one another, as e.g. in America, and left free to develop, each on its own lines, their respective missions in the national service--'a free Church in a free State.' The current of opinion in England in favour of disestablishment, undoubtedly a strong, though probably not at the present time an increasing one, is fed from many smaller streams. There are Agnostics who believe that religion is the enemy of progress, and that Christianity especially shackles free thought, and hinders the advance of social reformation, and to whom therefore it seems a clear duty to undermine by every means open to them the hold of Christianity on the centres of social and intellectual life, on schools and universities, families and states. They favour disestablishment as one means to this end. Two principal causes seem to move those who are primarily statesmen in the direction of disestablishment. One is the conception of the State as the great controlling and guiding organization of human life[446], supreme over all partial societies and voluntary associations formed to guard parts or sides of life, and the attempt to mould national life by this guiding idea and its logical consequences. This attempt is encouraged by the extreme simplicity of the English Constitution in its actual working, and by the legally unlimited power of Parliament[447]. The other is their practical experience that in view of the divided condition of English Christianity, the most stubborn and intractable difficulties in legislation arise from, or are aggravated by, religious differences. They suppose that these would be lessened if the State took the position of impartial arbiter between rival denominations. Among Nonconformists there are no doubt some who, looking at the Church as the natural rival of their own society, think to weaken her by disestablishment, but there are also many who believe that disestablishment would be a gain to English religion, and that the life of the Church would be more real, more pure, more governed by the highest motives, if she were freed from all direct connection with the State. Lastly, there is no doubt that the idea of the return to the looser relations between Church and State which prevailed in the earliest Christian centuries, has a great attraction for a considerable body of churchmen. They would perhaps have been willing enough to accept the royal supremacy under a religious sovereign in thorough harmony with the beliefs and modes of working of the Church, but the revolution by which the House of Commons has risen to supreme power in England, has given it, not in the theory, but in the actual working of the constitution, the ultimate control over matters ecclesiastical as well as civil, and they hold that by stifling the free utterance of the voice of the Church the House of Commons is doing an injury to religion compared to which disestablishment would be a lesser evil.

On the other hand, if we look beyond our own country, we have the opinion of the venerable Dr. Döllinger, reported by Dr. Liddon, that the disestablishment of the Church in England would be an injury to the cause of religion throughout Europe. And so weighty an opinion may well make us carefully scrutinize those difficulties and tendencies which make for disestablishment. It is no doubt true that from one point of view the _idea_ of the Church as a great spiritual society seems to require her entire freedom to control her own development, and therefore the absence of all formal connection with the State. But there is nothing more deeply illogical and irrational, in any sense of logic in which it is near to life and therefore true, than the attempt to solve a great problem, spiritual, moral, political, social, by neglecting all its factors but one, even if it be the most important one. Nor does it follow that, because we recognise that in a certain condition of things, more harm than good will be done by a particular application of a truth which we accept, therefore we have ceased to hold that truth. It only shews that our ideal is complex.

And so from another point of view the most perfect ordering of things would seem to be one in which Church and State were two parts of one whole, recognising one another's functions and limits, and mutually supporting one another. Thus religion would be put in its true place as at once the foundation and the coping stone of national life. And the State with all its administration would be given a distinctly Christian character. The difficulty in England is to maintain this point of view in connection with the increasingly non-religious (not necessarily anti-religious) colouring of the State, and of the fierce struggles of party government which destroy the reverence which might otherwise attach to the State and its organs. As the State has become increasingly lay, its moral weight has sunk, its hold on consciences become less. But the truth remains that religion is an element in the highest national life. 'A national Church alone can consecrate the whole life of a people[448].' And a national Church can only mean an established Church, and a Church which either has great inherited wealth of its own, or is supported in part by national funds. 'Of all parts of this subject,' says Mr. Gladstone[449], 'probably none have been so thoroughly wrought out as the insufficiency of the voluntary principle.' It is insufficient (i.e. for maintaining national religion), first, because after a certain level of moral deterioration has been reached by individuals or masses of people, the demand for religion is least where the want is greatest; and secondly, because in consequence of the structure of social life there are always large classes of the community who, while just provided with the bare necessaries of life, have not sufficient means to enable them to sustain the expense of the organs of the higher life in any form. We recognise this in the case of education; we can hardly refuse to recognise it in the case of religion.

For these reasons we are thrown back on the second possible conclusion from the data, viz. that it is desirable that there should be some definite and permanent connection between Church and State, but not such connection as will either subordinate the State to the Church or the Church to the State. And such a result would seem to be best attainable by some such system of relations as that between the Established Church and the State in Scotland, or the Roman Catholic Church and the State in France. Thus in Scotland, on the critical point of jurisdiction, the position is this. The Church Courts are final: there is no appeal to a Civil Court except on the ground of excess of jurisdiction. And the judgment of the Church Courts, so far as it involves civil consequences, may be enforced by application to the Civil Courts[450]. In France we have to distinguish the relations of Church and State as constitutionally defined from those relations in their actual working. No constitutional relations, however admirable, can work when the State constantly encroaches, and where its whole attitude is one of hostility to the Church. In theory, however, the position in France is, except on one point, much the same as in Scotland. There is a complete system of ecclesiastical jurisdiction in the Roman Catholic Church based on the Canon Law and administered by the bishops acting as judges. From their decisions there is no appeal to the Civil Courts except on the ground of abuse (appel d'abus). On the other hand, the Ecclesiastical Courts have no coercive jurisdiction, nor are their sentences carried out by the Civil Courts[451]. They bind, therefore, only _in foro conscientiae_ and this is found sufficient. There is one point worthy of special notice in the French system, that while the relations of the State to the Roman Catholic (once the Gallican) Church are regulated by a special Concordat, two leading Protestant bodies, the French Reformed Church, and the Church of the Augsburg Confession, as well as the Jewish body, are also endowed. Alongside of a system by which the Church is established there is a concurrent endowment of other Christian and even non-Christian denominations.

In Scotland the relations of Church and State rest on the Act of Union, in France on the Concordat made by Napoleon with the Pope in 1801. In England there is no definite formulated agreement; and any such agreement would be entirely contrary to the English genius. But in a deeper sense, there is a contract, which is the product of 1200 years of history, of which the terms vary from generation to generation, and which is commended by each age to the forbearance and the statesmanship of its successors. The terms of that contract are in the main fixed by the State. In any case, whether the Church remains established or not, the State has ultimate power over her temporal possessions, as over all temporal possessions held within its territory. But, if the Church is to remain connected with the State, perpetual difficulties must arise, unless means are found to leave the Church free, in matters as well of doctrine as of ritual, both to legislate through her own organs, and to exercise an independent spiritual jurisdiction. It is for the interest of the State that the Church should be allowed to make her service for the English nation as fruitful, as powerful, and as little a hindrance to her own spirituality as possible.

III. Lastly we may consider the way in which the Church, quite irrespective of any direct connection with the State, as a natural consequence of its position as a spiritual society and of its teaching as to fundamental moral and spiritual truths, acts as a purifying and elevating agent on the general social life of mankind, on all its manifestations and organs.

If man is 'metaphysical _nolens volens_,' it is equally true that he is metapolitical, to use Martensen's happy word, _nolens volens_. And metapolitic means 'that which precedes the political as its presupposition, that which lies outside and beyond it as its aim and object, and by which the political element is to be pervaded as by its soul, its intellectually vivifying principle[452].' Every statesman, every real leader of men, has consciously or unconsciously, such a metapolitic; he holds, that is, certain views as to man's place in the world, as to the meaning and possibility of progress, as to the aims as distinct from the machinery of government, as to the relations of nations to one another and to humanity, which determine his general attitude towards all kinds of questions with which he has to deal. It is clear, for instance, that the groups of ideas which govern the fatalist, the pessimist, and the humanitarian, are widely different.

Now the Church is the home and dwelling-place of certain great regulative ideas as to man's destiny and function, and his relation to God and other men, the treasure-house to which they were committed, or the soil in which they germinated. These ideas, if accepted and acted on, or so far as accepted and acted on, must transform and remodel, not only the inward life, but also the whole outward life in all its spheres. Thus S. Paul deduces from the Christian conception of man, the duties of husbands, wives, fathers, children, masters, servants, subjects, rich persons, old men, old women, young men, young women. And so, now rapidly, now slowly, according to the vigour and purity at successive periods of the Christian society, now thrown inwards by periods of persecution or by the rising tide of evil, now borne outwards in periods of rapid expansion and missionary enterprise, now brought to bear on new conditions of life and new social groupings, now traced back to their source, and tested by the life and words of the Word of God, the Christian ideas of man, and of his relation to God radiate through the life of mankind, at once sustaining and correcting its aspirations, and its ideals of righteousness.

The root ideas of this Christian anthropology rest on the Christian conception of God as one yet threefold. Thus on the one side, Christianity attaches to the individual personality a supreme and infinite value as the inmost nature of one made in the image of God, redeemed by the self-sacrifice of Christ, and indwelt by the Spirit of God. And thus it develops the sense of separate personal responsibility. It is on this basis that what is true in humanitarianism rests. Behind all class and social differences lies the human personality in virtue of which all men are equal[453]. But on the other side it frankly recognises man's inherently social nature. It is not good for man to be alone. And family, State, and the Church on earth are training places for a perfected common life in the City of God.

The effect of this conception of man and his destiny is to place the State and its associations in their true position as not ultimate but secondary, as means and not ends. Alongside of the earthly kingdom, with its wealth, its honours, its ambitions, its wide and far-reaching influence, it sets another kingdom, the City of God, with its own standards, its own principles, its own glory, its own blessedness, as the end of mankind, the goal of history. 'The nations shall walk amidst the light thereof, and the kings of the earth do bring their glory into it[454].' And, in so doing, it judges and corrects the splendour of earthly States.

In thus contrasting the earthly State with the City of God, Christianity is no doubt exposed to the old accusation, that it makes men bad citizens. And the old answer is still true, 'let those who think that the doctrine of Jesus Christ cannot contribute to the happiness of the State, give us soldiers and officers such as it bids them to be, subjects and citizens as faithful as Jesus Christ commands, husbands, wives, fathers, mothers, children, masters, servants, kings, judges, living according to the laws of religion, men as punctual in their payment of taxes, as pure in their handling of public funds as are the true Christians: they will be soon forced to admit that the maxims of the Gospel when practised cannot but give a State great happiness and great prosperity[455].' It is not too much but too little Christianity which destroys States; for passion and wilfulness are the great disintegrating forces of the world, and everything which strengthens individuals to resist them, so far strengthens the bonds of social union. But the service which Christianity renders to States goes far beyond this negative result. If the true meaning of progress be moral, and not material, there can be no greater contribution to the well-being of society than that of maintaining the Christian type of character with its humility, its purity, its sincerity, and again its strong and beneficent activity.

In the present discussion the State has been put first and the Church second. In order of time the State is first. And what has been attempted has been to shew how starting with the State and its institutions, the higher order which was initiated by the historical Incarnation (though not without preparatory and imperfect anticipations in earlier and especially in Jewish history), comes in to mould, to purify, and to supplement. But these words only express partial aspects of the whole process by which a higher order acts on a lower. It interpenetrates far more deeply than can be expressed in any classification of the modes of its operation. The Christian religion has been acting on the group of States which we call Christendom from the first days when stable organizations formed themselves after the entrance of the new life of the Germanic races into the remains of the dying Roman Empire. It has been the strongest of all the influences that have moulded them throughout their history. It has pierced and penetrated the life of individuals, the life of families, the life of guilds, as well as the laws and institutions, the writings and works of art in which they have embodied their thoughts and hopes. They are in a sense its children. It is impossible to regard them as S. Augustine regarded pagan Rome. But deep and penetrating as has been her influence and manifold her consequent implications with the existing national and social life of mankind, the Church is essentially Catholic, and only incidentally national. It is their Catholic character so far as it remains, at least their Catholic ideal, which gives to the different fragments of the Church their strength and power. The 'Church of England' is a peculiarly misleading term. The Church of Christ in England is, as Coleridge pointed out, the safer and truer phrase. And this fundamental Catholicism, this correspondence not to one or another nation, but to humanity, rests on the appeal to deeper and more permanent needs than those on which the State rests. It is thus that the true type of the Church is rather in the family than in the State, because the family is the primitive unit of organized social life. Not in the order of time, but in the order of reason, the Church is prior to the State, for man is at once inherently social and inherently religious. And therefore it is only in the Church that he can be all that it is his true nature to be.

[407] Law, _Third letter to the Bishop of Bangor_, second edition, 1762, p. 66.

[408] Martensen, _Christian Ethics_, special part, second division, Eng. Transl. p. 98.

[409] Church, Oxford House Papers, No. xvii, _The Christian Church_, p. 10.

[410] Holland, _Creed and Character_, first edition, 1887, p. 156.

[411] xix. 17.

[412] i. 6.

[413] _Immortale Dei._

[414] Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, xix. 14, 15.

[415] S. T. Coleridge, _Church and State_, edited by H. N. Coleridge, 1839, P. 24.

[416] A. C. Bradley, 'Aristotle's Conception of the State,' in _Hellenica_, 1880, p. 243.

[417] 'Metu coercet,' Aug. _De lib. Arb._ i. 15.

[418] Compare Aug. _De lib. Arb._ i. 5.

[419] Art. on 'Future Retribution,' _Church Quarterly_, July, 1888.

[420] S. Matt. v. 48.

[421] Eph. iv. 13.

[422] S. Matt. v. 5, 11, 39, 40.

[423] S. Matt. xxii. 21.

[424] Rom. xiii. 1-10. Compare S. Peter's teaching in 1 S. Pet. ii. 13-17.

[425] _Ad Scap._ II.

[426] _Oratio in Auxentium de basilicis tradendis._

[427] Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, v. 17, but cp. _De bono Conj._ 16, for a recognition of the possibility of the unjust use of legitimate power.

[428] _Hom._ xxiii. on _Rom._ xiii. 1.

[429] Tyrannicide was defended by some of the more extreme opponents of the temporal power, like John of Salisbury, the secretary of Thomas Becket (_Policraticus_ VIII. 17, 'Tyrannus pravitatis imago; plerumque etiam occidendus'). But it was condemned by the sounder judgment of Aquinas (_De Reg. Princ._ I. 6, 'Hoc apostolicae doctrinae non congruit').

[430] Thomas Aquinas, _Comm. Sent._ XLIV. q. 2 a. 2; q. 1 a. 2. In _Comm. Pol._ v. 1 § 2 he goes so far as to make Insurrection in certain cases a duty.

[431] Janet, _Histoire de la Science politique_, third edition, 1887, vol. i. p. 330.

[432] Hooker, _Eccl. Pol._ VIII. ii. 5, 9. Cp. I. x. 4.

[433] _Eccl. Pol._ VIII. ii. 11.

[434] _Eccl. Pol._ VIII. App. No. I. (ed. Keble.) Cp. I. x. 8.

[435] Acts iv. 34, 35.

[436] Especially in S. Ambrose; the passages are collected in Dubief, _Essai sur les idées politiques de S. Augustin_, 1859, ch. vi. S. Augustine himself opposed the obligatory Communism, advocated by Pelagianism; cp. _Ep._ 157 (Ed. Bened.) to Hilary, quoted by Dubief.

[437] Sen. _De vita beata_, 24.

[438] Uhlhorn, _Christian Charity in the Ancient Church_, Eng. Transl. 1883, Bk. I. ch. i. pp. 18-21, 41, 42.

[439] Pater, _Marius the Epicurean_, Vol. II. ch. xxii. p. 127.

[440] 1 Cor. xiii. 3 (R.V.).

[441] Acts xi. 26-29; cp. also Acts iv. 34, 35, quoted above.

[442] Dubief, p. 11.

[443] II. 15.

[444] Overton, _Life in the English Church_, 1660-1714, Ch. v.

[445] Hooker, _Eccl. Pol._ VIII. i. 4. In all commonwealths, things spiritual ought above temporal to be provided for. And of things spiritual, the chiefest is religion. Cp. V. i. 2.

[446] We have already shewn reasons for thinking that though no doubt the State has _a_ great co-ordinating and regulative function in regard to human life, it is not fitted for the part of _the_ moral guide of mankind.

[447] Dicey, _Law of the Constitution_, second edition, 1886, lecture ii. p. 36, 'The principle of Parliamentary sovereignty means neither more nor less than this, namely, that Parliament thus defined has, under the English Constitution, the right to make or unmake any law whatever; and, further, that no person or body is recognised by the law of England as having a right to override or set aside the legislation of Parliament.'

[448] Westcott, _Social Aspects of Christianity_, ch. v. p. 76.

[449] _The State in its relations with the Church_, p. 41.

[450] _Report of the Ecclesiastical Courts Commission_, Vol. II. p. 601. Answers to questions,--Scotland, Established Church.

'No appeal lies to a Civil Court in matters of discipline or on the ground of excess of punishment. But if under the form of discipline the Church Courts were to inflict Church censures (involving civil consequences) on a minister for _e.g._ obeying the law of the land, a question ... might be brought before the Civil Court on the ground of excess of jurisdiction. It is believed that in no case would the Civil Court entertain an appeal from a judgement of an Ecclesiastical Court on a question of doctrine, or enter on an examination of the soundness of such a judgement before enforcing its civil consequences.

'Any questions which have arisen on points of ritual ... have hitherto been decided exclusively by the Church Courts.' (A qualifying sentence follows as to possible extreme cases justifying, on the failure to obtain redress from the General Assembly, an appeal to the Civil Court.)

[451] _Report of Eccl. Courts Commission_, Vol. II. p. 605. Answers to questions,--France.

'The State remains _lay_, and does not interpose, except when the acts of the clergy are offences at Common Law, or when there is a _cas d'abus_ in which either the public order or individual interests are injured. In which case the Council of State is summoned at the instance of the Government, or on the complaint of the citizens, to repress abuses and annul the _acts of abuse_ (actes d'abus) on the part of the clergy.

'To recapitulate, the minister, as citizen, has to submit to the Common Law; as priest, he belongs entirely to the jurisdiction of the Church, with which the State _does not interfere_, and with which it has not to interfere, for it is solely in the domain of conscience.'

[452] Martensen, _Christian Ethics_, special part, second division, English Translation, p. 100.

[453] Cp. Aug. _De Civ. Dei_, v. 24, of Christian Emperors, 'we think them happy if they remember themselves to be _men_.'

[454] Rev. xxi. 24 (R.V.).

[455] Aug. _Ep. ad Marcellinum_, 138, 15.

XII.

_CHRISTIAN ETHICS._

ROBERT OTTLEY.

The study of early Church History suggests the conclusion that the Christian religion was recognised as a rule, or fashion of life, before it was discovered to be a philosophy and a creed. To be complete, therefore, any account of Christianity must include the presentation of it as a Divine 'way of life'--a coherent system of practical ethics, marked by characteristic conceptions of freedom, duty, the moral standard, the highest end of life, and the conditions of human perfection. Such is the task we are about to attempt. To the necessary limitations of a sketch in outline, the reader may ascribe a general avoidance of controversial, and a preference for positive, statements; as also the fact that some large and interesting branches of the subject are dismissed with no more than a passing allusion.

It may be admitted, at the outset, that non-religious ethical speculation has in a measure paved the way for a re-statement of the Christian theory, by its inquiries into the source and nature--the rational basis and binding force--of moral obligation. For it may be maintained that in Christianity, rightly understood, is to be found an adequate answer to the question which all schools of thought agree in regarding as fundamental--the question '_Why_ must I do right?'

On the other hand, the Christian Church claims to meet the plain needs of average human nature by her answer to the question, '_How_ am I to do right?' She claims to have at command practical means of solving a problem which is admittedly abandoned as hopeless by the ethics of naturalism. If Jesus Christ gave profound extension to the ideas of duty and obligation, He was also the first who pointed humanity to the unfailing source of moral power. In this respect Christianity presents a favourable contrast to other systems, the tendency of which is to be so concerned with the Ideal as to underrate the importance and pressure of the Actual. Christianity claims to be in contact with facts; such facts as sin, moral impotence, perverted will, the tyranny of habit. And while she is large-hearted and eagle-spirited in her scope--dealing with all possible relationships in which a human being may stand, whether to God above him, his fellow-men about him, or the sum of physical life below him; the Church is none the less definite and practical in method and aim; witness the importance she attaches to the individual character, the recreation of which is at least a step towards a regeneration of society.

The chief point of distinction, however, between Christian and non-Christian ethics is to be found in a difference of view as to the relation existing between morality and religion. A system which so closely connects the idea of Good with the doctrine of God, must needs at every point present conduct as inseparably related to truth, and character to creed. It has been noticed indeed that Pliny's letter to Trajan--the earliest record we possess of the impression produced on an intelligent Pagan by the new religion--testifies to the intimate connection of morals with dogma and worship. What the Christian consciousness accepted as truth for the intellect, it embraced also as law for the will. Whether then we have regard to the practical purpose, or the wide outlook of the Christian system, we shall feel the difficulty of giving even a fair outline of so vast a subject in so limited a space. If the idea of Good corresponds in any sense to the conception of God, that idea must have an infinite depth of significance, and range of application. If the recreation of human nature be a practicable aim, no department of anthropology or psychology can be without its interest for ethics. It must suffice to indicate, rather than unfold, the points which seem to be of primary importance.

Christian Morals are based on dogmatic postulates. The foundation of our science is laid, not merely in the study of man's nature, his functions and capacities, but in revealed truths as to the nature and character of God, His creative purpose, His requirement of His creatures. We believe that Christ came to liberate human thought from systems of morality having their centre or source in man[456].

Man is not God, but hath God's end to serve; A Master to obey, a course to take, Somewhat to cast off, somewhat to become.... How could man have progression otherwise?

The postulates may conveniently be distributed under three main heads: the doctrine of God, of Man, of Christ.

For the purpose of ethics, two simple truths as to the Being of God require attention.

God is an Infinite, but _Personal_ Being; existing from eternity in the completeness of His own blessedness, yet willing to become the centre of a realm of personalities. To this end He called into existence a world of personal beings, in a sense independent of Himself, but destined, in communion and intercourse with Himself, to find and fulfil the law of their creaturely perfection. To these free and rational beings, Almighty God deigns to stand in self-imposed relations.

Again, God is an _Ethical_ Being: He is essentially Holy and Loving.

He is Holy; and appoints that for the entire realm of personality, as for Himself, holiness should be the absolute law. He alone can communicate to His creatures the idea of holiness; of a supreme, eternal, ethical Good. The Good exists only in Him; is the essential expression of His Nature, the reflected light of His Personality. The idea of ethical Good is not therefore due to a natural process by which the accumulated social traditions of our race are invested with the name, and sanction, of moral Law. The idea is communicated, derived from the living Source of Good freely acting on the faculties of intelligent creatures who are capable of receiving such communications 'in divers parts and in divers manners[457].'

The apprehension of moral Law thus appears to correspond with a progressive apprehension of God. Along with the idea of the unity and absoluteness of God, heathendom lost the sense of an absolute moral Law[458]; and conversely, in proportion as the Divine Nature manifests Itself more fully to human intelligence, the idea of moral Good gains expansion and depth.

God is also Love: a truth which as it helps our thought to a more profound and consistent view of His mysterious Being, so implies that God must needs will His rational creature to be what He Himself is, 'holy and blameless before Him[459];' to engage itself in activities resembling His own; to be free with His Freedom; enlightened by His Light[460]. Nor can we think that Divine Love is content with a bare revelation of moral _requirement_. We believe that what God requires, He is ready and able to impart; He will empower man to render what His righteousness exacts. Finally, if His purpose for man be interrupted or thwarted, He will 'devise means' for its final and victorious fulfilment. He, the Author of Creation, will in due time provide for a recreation, not less potent and complete in its effects than the evil power which has invaded and marred the first creation[461]. For we can form no idea of Love other than that of an active, energizing principle by which a personal Being reveals Himself; a Being tenacious of His purpose, multiform in His expedients, supremely patient in His beneficent activity. The God presupposed in Christian Ethics is One who displays holiness combined with power, love controlled by wisdom: in a word, He is the God of redemptive history. Thus morality finds its starting-point in theology[462].

The Christian account of _Man_ next engages attention. We confine ourselves to an inquiry into three points: what is man's essential nature, his ideal destiny, his present condition?

We have already observed that in Christian Ethics man is not the central object of study. The moral universe tends towards a more comprehensive end than the perfection of humanity. Nevertheless Christianity is specially marked by a particular conception of man. Regarding him as a being destined for union with, capable of likeness to God, she offers an account of man's failure to fulfil his true destiny, and witnesses to a Divine remedy for his present condition. The familiar contrast between humanity as it might become, and as it is, gives significance to the peculiarly Christian doctrine of sin. It is the dignity of the sufferer that makes the mischief so ruinous; it is the greatness of the issue at stake that makes a Divine movement towards man for his recovery at once credible, and worthy of God[463].

First, then, we presuppose a certain view of man's nature. Christianity lays stress on the principle of _personality_, with its determining elements, will and self-consciousness. It is for psychology to accurately define personality. For ethics it is simply an ultimate, all-important fact. It is that element in man which makes him morally akin to God, and capable of holding communion with Him; that which places him in conscious relation to Law; gives him a representative character as God's vice-gerent on earth, and conveys the right to dominion over physical nature. If religion consists in personal relations between man and God, religious ethics must be concerned with the right culture and development of personality.

But in virtue of his creaturely position, man's personality cannot be an end to itself[464]. The tendency of Greek thought was to regard man as a self-centred being; to look for the springs of moral action, and the power of progress, within human nature itself. Thus Aristotle's ideal is the self-development of the individual under the guidance of reason, and in accordance with the law of his being. The question is, what is this law, and what the ground of its obligation? Personality, we answer, marked man from the first as a being destined for communion with, and free imitation of God[465]. Personality enables man to be receptive of a message and a call from God. It confers on each possessor of it an absolute dignity and worth. _Personality_--here is our crucial fact; enabling us to take a just measure of man, and of our duty towards him. One of the deepest truths brought to light by the Gospel was the value of the personal life, of the single soul, in God's sight. Man is great, not merely because he thinks, and can recognise moral relationships and obligations; but chiefly because he was created for union with God; and was destined to find blessedness and perfection in Him alone. Christianity therefore rates highly the worth of the individual; and her task is to develop each human personality--to bring each into contact with the Personality of God[466].

For, secondly, man has an ideal destiny[467]--life in union with God, a destiny which, as it cannot be realized under present conditions of existence, postulates the further truth of personal immortality[468]. Man is capable of progressive assimilation to God of ever deeper spiritual affinity to Him[469]. Such must be the ideal end of a being of whom it is revealed that he was made 'in the image of God.'

But the thought of the 'Divine image' leads us a step further. Whatever be the precise import of the expression, it at least implies that the Good, which is the essence of the _Divine_, is also a vital element in the perfection of _Human_ nature. It remains to indicate the way in which man is capable of recognising Good as the law of his being, and embodying it in a character. Christianity, as a moral system, offers an account of _conscience_ and of _freedom_.

The Scriptural doctrine of conscience represents it as the faculty which places man in conscious relation to moral Law, as the expression of the Divine nature and requirement. In a brief sketch it is enough to lay stress on two points.

1. Conscience appears to be an original and constant principle in human nature. To assign to it a merely empirical origin--to derive it from social evolution, from the circumstances, prevalent beliefs, traditional customs of a human community, is inadequate, inasmuch as no such supposed origin will satisfactorily account for the authoritativeness, the spontaneity, the 'categorical imperative' of conscience[470]. Further, the functions attributed to this faculty in Scripture, e.g. 'judging,' 'accusing,' 'witnessing,' 'legislating'--all convey the idea that man stands in relation to moral Law as something outside and independent of himself, yet laying an unconditional claim on his will. In the Christian system the existence of conscience in some form is regarded as a primary and universal fact. Its permanent character is everywhere the same; its function, that of persistently witnessing to man that he stands in necessary relation to ethical Good.

2. The language of the Bible throughout implies that conscience in its earliest stage is an imperfect organ, capable like other faculties of being cultivated and developed. Our Lord's reference to the inward 'eye' (S. Matt. vi. 22) suggests a fruitful analogy in studying the growth of conscience. In its germ, conscience is like an untrained sense, exercising itself on variable object-matter, and hence not uniform in the quality of its dictates. It is enough to point out that this fact is amply recognised by New Testament writers. S. Paul speaks more than once of progress in knowledge and perception as a feature of the Christian mind, and the faculty of discerning the Good is said to grow by exercising itself on concrete material[471]. So again, the moral faculty is impaired by unfaithfulness to its direction; the moral chaos in which the heathen world was finally plunged resulted from such unfaithfulness on a wide scale. The Gentiles knew God, but did not act on their knowledge. They 'became darkened;' they lost the power of moral perception[472].

To enlarge on this subject forms no part of our present plan. It is fair, however, to cordially acknowledge that Christian thought is indebted to psychological research for deeper and more accurate conceptions of the moral faculty; and the possibility of large variation both in the dictates of conscience, and the certainty of its guidance, may be freely admitted. And yet it has been justly observed that the question of the origin of this faculty is not one with which ethics are primarily concerned. That inquiry is wholly distinct from the question of its capacities and functions _when in a developed state_[473]. The unconditional claim of conscience--this is the constant factor which meets us amid all variations of standard and condition. It is enough that conscience is that organ of the soul by which it apprehends moral truth, and is laid under obligation to fulfil it. A Christian is content to describe it as God's voice; or, in a poet's words,

God's most intimate presence in the soul And His most perfect image in the world.

For Conscience, while making an absolute claim on man's will, appeals to him as a being endowed with a power of choice: and thus we pass to the subject of _freedom_. What is freedom, in the Christian sense? In the New Testament freedom is connected with truth. 'The truth,' it is said, 'shall make you free.' If man stands in a real relation to the Good, his true freedom can only mean freedom to correspond with, and fulfil the law of his nature[474]. The formal power of choice with which man is born--a power which in fact is seen to be extremely limited[475]--is only the rudimentary stage of freedom. Will is as yet subject to numberless restrictions, such that they seem utterly to preclude an unfettered choice. It is limited, for example, by the influence of heredity to an extent which often appears to determine unconditionally the choice between different courses of action. 'Determinism' has at least liberated our thinking from the crude idea of freedom as man's power 'to do as he likes.' True liberty can only mean freedom from false dependence, emancipation of the will from the undue pressure of external forces, or inherited tendencies. The condition of 'perfect freedom' is that in which man yields an unforced accord to the Good--his correspondence with it as the law of life. And as his formal power of choice becomes by habit more and more determined towards a fixed adherence to the Good, he begins to taste the 'glorious liberty' of a right relation to God and His Law. He becomes free with the liberty which is 'freedom not to sin,' he finds himself 'under the sole rule of God most free[476].'

Lastly, Christianity as a moral system is distinguished by her view of man's present condition. His upward development has been interrupted. In theological language he is a 'fallen' being, and the path of ethical progress is a way of _recovery_[477]. Man's capacity of corresponding with the ideal, of free self-conformity to it, though not destroyed, is at least seriously impaired. His spiritual capacities are not what they were once in a fair way to be; they are weakened and depraved, and man's advance towards a free power of self-determination is in fact hindered by a radical defect of will--in Christian language by the principle of Sin. The Bible gives an account of sin, its first cause, its consequences in human history. Christian Ethics make allowance for this factor; systems which overlook it or minimize it inevitably lose contact with the actual problem to be solved, with life as it is. Their tendency at best is to treat moral, as on a level with physical, evil: as an obstruction, a hindrance, but not a vital defect inherent in human nature. Not such is the Christian view of sin. For sin conditions the work of the Incarnate Son Himself. Not only does Christ set Himself to re-erect the true standard of character. He devotes Himself also to dealing with the actual ravages of moral evil. He teaches its intrinsic nature, its source in the will, the inviolable law of its retribution; He reveals the destructive potency of its effects; He labours as the Good Physician to remove its temporal penalties; He provides, in His atoning Sacrifice of Himself, the one and only countervailing remedy[478].

Such postulates respecting the Nature of God and of Man find their complement and point of contact in the Catholic doctrine of the Incarnation. As to the Person of Christ, it is enough to premise that the Christian system of ethics is intelligible only on the basis of a complete recognition of all that our Lord claimed to be. He came to reveal among men the nature, the ways, the will of the All-Holy; to present the true pattern of human goodness; to be the perfect representative of man before God[479]. He is the Revealer of God, as being Himself in the fullest sense One with God; He is the pattern of humanity, in virtue of His sinless manhood; the representative, through His organic union with our race. His Resurrection and Ascension together are the condition of His recreative action as a quickening Spirit on the entire nature of man. In a word His Person, His work, His character form the central point of ethical inquiry and contemplation[480]. To arrive at the true _differentiae_ of Christian morals we need to study more profoundly the character and purpose of Jesus Christ.

I. _Christ's Revelation of the Highest Good._

To the Christian moralist the entire universe presents itself in the light of a revealed purpose as capable of receiving a spiritual impress, and as moving towards an ethical consummation. For although man is the crown of the physical creation, he cannot be independent of it in his advance towards the proper perfection of his being. The destiny of nature is bound up with that of humanity, in so far as nature tends towards some form of ethical consciousness, presents the material conditions of moral action, is capable of being appropriated or modified by moral forces--will and personality. Thus an inquiry into the Highest Good for man gives to ethics a natural point of contact with metaphysics[481].

Christ Himself points our thought to this ideal region by presenting to us as the Highest Good, as the ultimate object of moral effort, _the kingdom of God_[482]. A precise definition of this expression may be left to a formal treatise; but a certain complexity in the idea may be briefly elucidated.

In the first instance the kingdom of God is spoken of by our Lord as a Good to be appropriated by _man_, through conscious and disciplined moral effort. In this sense the kingdom is already 'within' men[483], though not in its mature, or perfected stage. It is an actual state, spiritual and moral; an inward process or movement; a present possession. The attainment of this state involves 'Blessedness'--a word the true meaning of which is open to misconception. 'Blessedness' is not 'a mere future existence of imaginary beatitude[484];' not a bare independence of natural necessities; nor is it identical with, though it may include, 'happiness.' The instinct in human nature to which Christ appealed is more fundamental than the desire of 'happiness.' The word employed by Him to convey His meaning had by ancient usage been connected with supposed conditions and modes of the Divine existence. 'Blessedness' in fact consists in a living relation to God, in a progressive likeness to Him; in its final stage it is nothing less than the possession of God. God is the Highest Good[485].

The kingdom of God is also to be conceived as the goal of the entire movement of the universe: but while nature tends blindly towards some ideal end, the history of mankind is the record of a Divinely-directed movement carried on through free human agency[486]. For an ethical world two factors are required; physical nature, the sphere of force and necessity; rational personality, conscious of freedom and of the claim of authority. The goal of the universe is therefore a kingdom in which each element, physical nature and personality, finds its appropriate sphere, the one subordinate, the other dominant. We discern a prophecy of this result in Bacon's great conception of a 'regnum hominis' attainable by intelligent obedience to nature. The Bible is full of a greater thought. It foresees a kingdom of intelligent beings whose law is the service of God; a state in which the inner harmony of man's restored nature will be reflected in a worthy outward environment. This ideal kingdom, however, has its preparatory stage on earth. Though the present condition of it only faintly foreshadows the promised glory of the future, it has nevertheless been in fact set up among men, 'not in word, but in power.' For the main factor that makes such a kingdom ideally possible, already operates--namely, creaturely life realizing its true dependence on God, human will and human character responding to the will and purpose of God[487].

Such is the kingdom for which we look, and its Centre and Head is the living Christ[488]. He is the type after which the new personality is to be fashioned. He who unveils this world of spiritual beings and powers, is Himself the source of its movement, the centre of its attraction, the surety of its final triumph.

There cannot but result from this hope a particular view of the present world. It is characteristic of the Christian spirit frankly to recognise the natural world in its due subordination to personality, in its subserviency to ethical ends. An absolute idealism is not less alien to this standpoint than a crude materialism. The Christian is not blind to the tokens of interdependence between the worlds of matter and spirit; the fact indeed of such relation gives peculiar colour to the Christian regard for nature. Nature is precious as the sphere in which a Divine Life is manifested, as the object of Divine Love[489]. And yet, in the light of revelation, the universe cannot be contemplated without mingled emotions. The Christian knows something of the pain, and of the satisfaction which in their unchastened form we call Pessimism and Optimism. For there must be sorrow in the recollection of the causal link that unites physical to moral evil. Though pain has value as the condition of nobler phases of life, and heightened spirituality of character, it is nevertheless an evil producing in a healthy nature something more than a transient disturbance. Pain is the sensible, even if remote, outcome of moral perversity, of misdirected desire. It pervades impartially the physical universe, but seems in manifold instances to point beyond itself to its source in human sin.

And yet there is a Christian optimism--a thankful joy even amid present conditions. There is the joy of at least a rudimentary realization of the chief Good; the joy of setting a seal, as it were, to the truth of God[490]. The 'powers of the world to come' are already within reach; they can be set in motion, felt, tested, enjoyed. There is a known end of creation by the light of which all forms and products of human enterprize can be judged. Thus even the growth and organized strength of evil does not dismay the Christian; for he knows that the advance of the kingdom is certain, whatever be the hindrances opposed to it, and that God's invincible will controls and overrules all that seems most lawless, and hostile to His purpose. 'The city of God,' says S. Augustine, 'is a pilgrim sojourning by faith among evil men, abiding patiently the day when righteousness shall turn to judgment, and victory bring peace.' In his assurance that 'all things work together for good to them that love God,' that the end is certain, and human fears are blind, the Christian can be free from illusions or extravagant hopes, yet not cast down, 'sorrowful, yet alway rejoicing,' 'perplexed, but not in despair[491].'

II. _Christ's Revelation of the Moral Law, its authority, sanctions, and content._

On the place and meaning of freedom in Christian Ethics we have already touched. Our formal freedom is the ground of moral responsibility--that element in us to which Law makes its authoritative appeal. From the thought of freedom in relation to a moral universe we pass naturally to that of Law.

And first, it is convenient to inquire what is the _revealed basis of obligation_ in general?

The most conspicuous feature of the Sermon on the Mount--that first great outline of Christian morality--is its authoritative tone. We instinctively turn to it in searching for a fundamental principle of obligation, a ground of authority for Law. Nor are we disappointed, for our question is met by the consideration that this great discourse is primarily a revelation of the personal God in His holy relation to mankind. It is with this personal relationship that the claim of moral Good on man's will is seen to be uniformly connected. The Good in fact presents itself to man in the shape of a _personal appeal_: 'Be ye holy, for I am holy.' Morality appears as God's exhortation to man to embrace and fulfil the true law of his nature. 'Be ye perfect,' it is said, 'even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect[492].' The Good is thus at once the explicit declaration of the Divine will, and the condition of human perfection. Already the coldness of abstract Law begins to disappear. Law is seen to be not an abstraction merely, but inseparably connected with the living Personality behind it. It is the self-revelation of a loving Being, appealing to the object of His Love, and seeking its highest welfare. Obligation is transformed, and is seen to be the tie of vital relationship between persons[493].

Further, it must be borne in mind that Christ's teaching as to obligation was accompanied by the promise of a supernatural gift--the gift of a new capacity to fulfil the Law. The Good had hitherto been known, howsoever imperfectly, as requirement. Ethical progress before Christ's coming could only tend to deepen this knowledge. We know indeed what was the object of that long providential discipline of humanity which culminated in the Incarnation: how it ended by driving man to look and long for a condition of things which should no longer be marked by hopeless severance of the actual from the obligatory. With the advent of the Redeemer, a new joy dawned on the world--the possibility of goodness.

We learn then that the ground of obligation is God's will for the perfection of His creatures--His desire that they should be like Himself[494]. The sense of obligation is indeed never absent from the consciousness of Christ Himself. 'We must work,' He says, 'the works of Him that sent Me while it is day.' 'My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to finish His work[495]:'--in which utterances we discern the principle we need. Only when duty presents itself in the form of personal appeal, only when obedience is kindled and enriched by feeling, can law become a bond, not of constraint, but of love.

It follows that obligation, thus founded on personal relationship to God, is absolute and independent of variation in the specific demands of Law. Human goodness will consist in correspondence to the will of God, and the degree of clearness with which a man apprehends that will is the measure of his obligation. This principle seems to preclude any idea of 'supererogatory works,' and tends to neutralise for the individual conscience the distinction between 'commands' and 'counsels of perfection,' the spirit in which Law is ideally fulfilled being that of sonship, eager, loyal, and generous[496].

The universal obligation of moral Law is by Christ connected for practical purposes with a system of _sanctions_. As to the Christian doctrine of rewards and punishments it is only necessary to observe, that any ethical system which has regard to the condition of man _as he is_, finds itself constrained, for disciplinary ends, to lay a certain stress on this point. Further, it should be noticed that the nature of these sanctions is seldom clearly understood. They occupy a place in Christ's teaching, because it is His wont to deal with human nature as He finds it: He points, however, not so much to a future state, as to a present spiritual sphere in which conduct is indissolubly linked to consequence, and there operate 'the searching laws of a spiritual kingdom[497].' The sanctions with which Christ enforces His doctrine may thus be regarded as pointing to a reign of Law in the spiritual realm which He reveals to mankind. He seems indeed to recognise the occasional need of appeals to fear, as likely to rouse the conscience and will. He sets before us the prospect of spiritual judgments acting, at least partially, in the sphere of the present life. His more frequent appeal, however, is to what may be called the enlightened self-interest of men. Their true life, He tells them, is to be found or acquired in a consecration, a sacrifice of the natural life to the claims and calls of the Divine kingdom[498]. Such sacrifice, such co-operation with God, is its own ineffable reward.

What then, it may be asked, are the _motives_, the inducements to action, appealed to by Christianity? how far are imperfect motives recognised? and in view of the fact that no mere sense of relation to Law is in general likely to move the human will, where does the Gospel find its 'moral dynamic'--its highest motive?

We have seen that Christianity in a peculiar degree combines the presentation of duty with an appeal to feeling. In the same way by connecting obligation to obey God with a revelation of His Love, Jesus Christ solves the most difficult problem of ethics. The highest motive is _Love to God_, kindled not only by the contemplation of His Perfections, but also by a passionate sense of what He has wrought in order to make possible the fulfilment of His Law. 'We love Him,' says S. John, 'because He first loved us.' We do not, however, expect the motive of actions to be in all cases identical, or uniformly praiseworthy. A practical system must recognise very different stages of maturity in character; and the possibility of imperfect or mixed motives is frankly allowed by Christian thinkers, and seems to be sanctioned by our Lord Himself[499]. It may be said on the whole that while the Gospel ever appeals to man's desire for his own good, it adapts itself and condescends to widely varying forms and degrees of that desire, by way of educating it to greater disinterestedness and purity[500]. We may fittingly speak of 'a hierarchy of motives,' and can view with equanimity those attacks on Christianity which represent it as a thinly-disguised appeal to selfishness. For the reward promised to man is one which will only appeal to him in so far as he has parted with his old self, and has made the Divine purpose his own. The reward is joy--the 'joy of the Lord;' the joy of a worthy cause embraced and advanced; of a task achieved, of labour crowned by nobler and wider service. Such joy could only be an inspiring motive to self-forgetful love, which finds the fulfilment of every aspiration, the satisfaction of every desire in God and in His work[501].

Christian duty, the content of the Law, demands somewhat larger treatment. It has been suggested that the conception of morality as a Divine code, as 'the positive law of a theocratic community,' which seems characteristic of early Christian writings on morals--is a legacy from Judaism[502]. Be this as it may--the _distinctive_ feature of Christianity is that henceforth the Law is not contemplated apart from the Personality of God. The Law is 'holy, just, and good,' because it reflects His character. Obedience to it is acknowledged to be the indispensable condition of true union between God and His creatures. For Jesus Christ teaches us to discern in the Law the self-unveiling of a Being whose holiness and love it reflects, as well as His purpose for man.

The revealed Law is comprised in the Decalogue. It seems needless to vindicate at length the paramount place which this fundamental code occupies in Christian thought[503]. Suffice it to say that in broad outline it defines the conditions of a right relation to God, and to all that He has made. And the Law is 'spiritual[504].' Though for educative purposes primarily concerned with action, it makes reference to inward disposition, and thereby anticipates the main characteristic of Christian goodness. It also recalls the great landmarks of God's redemptive action; it sets forth His gracious acts, partly as an incentive to gratitude, partly as a ground of obligation.

In our Lord's teaching we find two truths implied: (1) The absolute priority and permanence of the Decalogue in relation to all other precepts of the Jewish Law. (2) Its essential unity viewed as a Law of love. This latter aspect is anticipated in the book of Deuteronomy, and is explicitly set forth by our Lord. There are, He tells us, two commandments: the first and greatest, love to God; the second 'like unto it,' love to man, with the limitation annexed, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'

Thus guided by precedent, a Christian, in examining the Law's _content_, may take the Decalogue as a natural basis of division. It may be shortly analysed as embracing a comprehensive outline of man's duty towards (i) God, (ii) his fellow-men, and implicitly towards himself and non-personal creatures.

First stand duties towards God, resulting directly from the personal contact assumed to be possible between God and man. The all-embracing command which involves the fulfilling of the Law is contained in the words, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind[505].' In this 'great commandment' we find the widest point of divergence from Pagan ethics. Man's true centre is God. His perfection is to be sought in creaturely subjection and free conformity to the Divine purpose[506]. The general sphere of God-ward duty is defined in the first four commandments, which are seen to give moral sanction, not only to the outward expression, but to the actual substance of belief; the distinctive duties enjoined therein have been summarily described as faith, reverence, service[507]. The fourth precept lays down the principle that man is bound to honour God by consecrating a definite portion of time to His worship, and by providing space for the due recreation of that human nature which by creative right is God's, and is destined for union with Him.

The duty of love to our fellow-men follows upon that of love to God. Every man's personality gives him absolute and equal worth in God's sight, and therefore lays us under obligation towards him. Heathen moralists confined the sphere of obligation to a few simple relationships, e.g. family-life, friendship, civic duty. But the revealed law of love to man embraces _every_ relationship. 'Every man is neighbour to every man[508].' It is clear that any adequate outline of this precept involves the whole treatment of social duty. Men have their _rights_, i.e. lay us under obligation, both individually and collectively. The individual has his 'duty' to fulfil to the family, the association, the class, the city, the state, the Church which claims him. The immense field of our possible duties towards society, and towards each individual, so far as he comes in contact with us, may be regarded as embraced in the second table of the Decalogue. Thus the fifth commandment lends important sanction not only to the parental claim, but also to the authority of fundamental moral communities--the family, the state, the Church. The following precepts regulate the security of life and personality, of marriage and sexual distinctions, of property, honour, and good name. The tenth commandment anticipates that 'inwardness' which constitutes the special feature of Christian morality. 'It is the commandment,' says an ethical writer, 'which perhaps beyond any of the rest was likely to deepen in the hearts of devout and thoughtful men in the old Jewish times, that sense of their inability to do the will of God, and to fulfil the Divine idea of what human life ought to be, which is indispensable to the surrender of the soul to God[509].'

But according to the Christian theory there are duties to _self_, which seem to follow from the relation in which man stands to God, and form the true measure of his regard for others: 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' There is a right self-love, a right care of the personality as being itself an object of God's Love, and so included in the category of things ethically good. What the Christian ought to love, however, is not the old natural self, but the 'new man,' the true image of himself which has absolute worth[510]. A moral complexion is thus given to all that concerns the personal life--the care of health, the culture of faculties, the occasions of self-assertion. Every moment of conscious existence, and every movement of will,--all in fact, that relates to the personality--is brought within the domain of Law. Christianity 'claims to rule the whole man, and leave no part of his life out of the range of its regulating and transforming influence[511].' For in every situation, transaction, or display of feeling, will is required to declare itself: moral activity takes place. Duties to self, as loved by God, are thus implied in the 'great commandment.' For God therein requires of man a consecration of the entire _self_, an inward self-devotion, a reasonable, heartfelt service: He asks for love. From this point of view, sin--the false claim to independence--is simply wrong self-love.

Some would even class all shapes of sin as falling under two main forms of self-assertion, arrogance and sensuality. And S. Augustine suggests a profound view of the development of the true, as compared with the false society, when he says: 'The two cities owe their being to two forms of love; the earthly, to self-love; the heavenly, to the love of God[512].'

It remains to extend the principle of love to the non-personal sphere with which man is in contact. We have seen that absolute worth belongs only to personality. But man's relation to the creatures below him in the scale of development, implies a field of duties of which ethics must take cognizance. The non-personal part of nature is ordained for subjugation by man. It is included in his dominion: _terram dedit filiis hominum_. Yet even in the Mosaic Law we find respect enjoined for certain distinctions of nature, which are not to be overridden or confounded. The physical order, like the moral, was to be regarded as sacred[513]. Duties, then, of this kind exist: and they are apparently comprehended in the fourth commandment, which expresses God's creative claim on typical orders of living creatures, ordaining that 'cattle' are to share the benefit of the Sabbath rest. The sixth and eighth commandments again imply the sanctity of physical life, and of personal property. And if we pass behind the decalogue, we find animals included in a sense within God's original and irreversible covenant[514]. The control therefore of human will over nature, animate and inanimate, though comparatively absolute, is yet subject to the restrictions which love suggests. For the natural world also displays the omnipresent control, and watchful providence of a Being 'Whose mercy is over all His works.' Physical life in this sphere may be treated as a means; but it must also be dealt with 'in harmony with the creative Thought[515].'

In quitting the subject of duty, we do well to mark the infinite extension given to the idea by the treatment of it in connection with the doctrine of an Infinite and Holy God. Our Lord, illustrating His exposition of the ancient Law by a few significant examples, not only opened to His hearers the possibility of a spiritual, transcendent morality, but also laid down a far-reaching principle of obligation. The self-unveiling of the Infinite Being evidently makes an infinite claim on the will and affection of intelligent creatures.

With this extension of morality we might compare a somewhat parallel feature in the aesthetic sphere.

Into the arts also, notably into architecture and music, the Christian spirit introduced the element of mystery, and found expression in them for the idea of infinity--an idea so alien to the Greek genius, which had ever contemplated beauty, and therefore ethical Good, as something essentially limited, measurable, symmetrical, exact[516]. Such a thought might suggest a line of abstract discussion; but practical needs remind us that the true range of obligation is best interpreted to us by a living ideal. As the writer of _Ecce Homo_ remarks, 'The law which Christ gave was not only illustrated, but infinitely enlarged, by His deeds. For every deed was itself a precedent to be followed, and therefore to discuss the _legislation_ of Christ is to discuss His character; for it may be justly said that _Christ Himself is the Christian Law_[517].'

The transition from the discussion of moral Law to that of Christian character seems at this point natural and simple.

III. _Christ the Pattern of Character._

The stress which in Christian Ethics is laid upon personality scarcely requires further illustration. The principle of personality underlies our fundamental assumption that man is capable of free communion with, and imitation of, God. We believe that the union between God and man was consummated in and through a Person. Further, the spirit in which fulfilment of the Law is possible--the spirit of filial love--can only exist in personal relations. It corresponds with this general prominence of personality that Christianity presents the ideal standard of human character in a Person.

In passing may be noted the fact that this principle to some extent emerges in ancient systems. Aristotle's definition of virtue naturally occurs to us as admitting the function of an 'expert' (ὁ φρόνιμος, ὁ σπουδαῖος), in the right estimation of moral action. The Stoic again seeks or invents a trustworthy standard in his ideal conception of the 'wise man.' It seems possible that modern non-Christian ethics will ultimately substitute for the cultivated sense of mankind some form of personal ideal[518]. For 'the Law attains its lovable form, its beauty, only when it becomes personal[519];' and it might be said with truth that no idea can be formed of virtues in the harmony of their combination, until they are seen embodied in a person. Just as theology has in the study of Divine truth concentrated her gaze on the Person of Jesus Christ as a _revelation of God_; so ethics, in the effort to formulate the law of moral perfection, must study the same Divine Person as a _type of character_.

It is necessary therefore at the outset to recall some salient features of the great Example.

The character of Jesus Christ has been a subject of study to thinkers of every period in Christian history, and of infinitely varied qualifications for the task. Some have in the supposed interest of morality been tempted to lay disproportionate stress on the fact of our Lord's manhood. They ask how Christ can be an example to humanity, unless he be a Man like other men[520]? From a Christian standpoint, however, it is clear that the efficacy of that Example depends on Christ's being a Man _unlike_ other men--unlike them in His relation to the Divine requirement, unlike them in His power of contact with the entire race. Thus we find ourselves in correspondence with dogmatic truth. The mystery of atonement necessitates a sinless Victim; the Christian conception of human life requires a sinless Example. The perfect pattern of mankind must in one material respect be as far as possible isolated and removed from the race He came to redeem: for sinlessness is a part of the Divine thought concerning human nature.

If again we take into account the scope and significance of His redemptive work, it is vain to compare Christ with 'other great men.' He came not merely as the Example, but as the Redeemer and Saviour of humanity. Were He merely the Example, His departure would have left mankind in even deeper anguish and helplessness than before His coming. Man would have seen the Light, and felt its attraction, only to find himself powerless to follow.

And thus, because Christ is a Man unlike all other men, we need in contemplating His character the caution that 'the Divine Reality is apart from, and even greater than what the greatest have thought of it and said of it[521].' The ideal conception of character presented either in Pagan thought, or even in the volume of Messianic prophecy, has been indefinitely enriched, and illuminated by the LIFE which had before been only dimly foreshadowed, or at the best darkly understood.

Now it may be said, with no violation of the proportion of truth, that the most important part of the Gospel revelation concerned man's true relation to God. In the forefront of Christ's teaching is set the doctrine of the Divine Fatherhood. He impressed this truth on men not more by His express utterances, than by the example of His own habitual attitude towards God. It may be justly allowed that our Lord taught, and displayed among men 'a new type of goodness, the filial and dependent.' In Him we see the activity of 'a perfectly filial will[522].'

It will be useful to expand this suggestive thought somewhat more fully.

First, then, we see in Christ the perfect example of _filial dependence_ on God[523]. This dependence is not mere passivity of will--such as the record of the Temptation exhibits; not simply a confiding trust in the providence and sustaining power of God. We rather see in Christ's spirit of dependence a motive which impels Him to fearless, unfettered activity, and supports Him under the keenest stress of trial and suffering. He speaks and acts ever as One who, in each situation, is aware of the controlling hand of infinite Wisdom and Love. He has that entire security in the certainty of Divine guidance, to which no emergency comes as a surprise, no call for action brings disturbance. He knows that 'the works' which tax His human faculties, and weary His bodily frame, are such as the Father 'has given Him to perfect.' A filial trustfulness is thus the secret at once of His energy and His repose; His promptness in action and His calmness in awaiting the suitable moment for it; His unbroken heavenly-mindedness and His self-spending devotion in ministry and works of love. It makes possible the majestic serenity which never deserts Him during the scenes of His Passion. 'I am not alone,' He says, 'because the Father is with Me[524].'

In such a spirit of dependence may be recognised the true law of creaturely life; and there is nothing in that spirit which degrades or impairs the true dignity of human nature. Nay, there is something in this dependence of a filial heart which seems to chasten and exalt the character, while it quickens the intelligence of man. For in fulfilling his own true law, and responding to the will of his Maker, man finds himself admitted to the secret of the universe; he is in harmony with the purpose that underlies and guides its entire movement. So also, we venture to say, it is with the Ideal Man. 'Everywhere He sees the Divine unity of thought which permeates, embraces, and binds all things together, the spiritual and the material, the visible and the invisible, the earthly and the heavenly, in one vast economy[525].' To Him the promise seems fulfilled, 'Thou shalt be in league with the stones of the field, and the beasts of the field shall be at peace with thee.' To Him the world of humanity, and the world of physical nature disclose their inner law; He knows what is in them; He intuitively reads their secret; He can trace beneath the apparent discords of the universe the outlines of a broken, but recoverable, harmony. And thus the attitude of filial dependence on God is found to be the condition of a right relation to all that He has made; it opens the way to a true understanding of God's ways, and of that living principle of Love which binds all things in one--binds them indeed

by gold chains about the feet of God.

Next, we may contemplate Christ's character as the type of _filial obedience_[526],--of a complete harmony between human will and the law of holiness. In Christ the ideal of free will is realized[527]. We are not now concerned with the vast issues of that sinless obedience. It is enough to study it as embodying a principle of purely human perfection, enjoined indeed repeatedly in the Old Testament as the one condition of covenantal union with God, but once only in history adequately fulfilled in a human life. Obedience, based on absolute trust in the character and purpose of God; an 'obedience of faith,' yet in its essence the obedience not of a servant, but of a son; an obedience that refuses nothing, shrinks from nothing, questions nothing that presents itself as Divine requirement: such is seen to be the law of Christ's Life, the law to Him of action and of endurance, the rule of prayer, the principle of sacrifice, the motive of service, the well-spring of thanksgiving and joy. If the entire completeness of this obedience becomes One who wears 'the form of a servant;' the willingness of it marks the glad service of a Son. And because the fulfilment by Jesus of the Father's will is spontaneous, free, whole-hearted, sacrificial, it wins acceptance as the offering of One 'well-pleasing' and 'beloved.' Perfected by submission to suffering and death, the obedience of Jesus is stamped with the token of Divine satisfaction by His rising from the dead.

And finally, Christ is the perfect pattern of _filial love_. He taught the human heart that the All-Holy God can be the object of its highest affection, its purest passion, its deepest joy. In Christ we see the filial character consummated; in Him we find the union of serene repose with consuming zeal, unwavering loyalty, and sympathetic self-devotion to the Father's work; in other words we find creaturely perfection, combined with the spirit of sonship. In many and mysterious ways indeed, does this filial love of the true Son display itself: in a hunger and thirst after righteousness; in a patience which can bide the time, and endure the chastisements, of God; in an overflowing tenderness towards all God-created beings because they are His and in their measure bear witness of Him; in a faith which 'hopeth all things' and labours to make all things perfect. Such is the spirit of the Son: and we 'learn of Him' the loftiness of the height to which a filial love of God may raise human character, the tenacious strength it may impart to human will, the peace it may shed on a human heart. Love is 'the bond of perfectness,' and to wear the image of the Son is to be conformed through Love to the likeness of the Father Himself[528].

The example of virtue is thus seen in a character, of which some aspects have been just considered: and we may pause at this point, in order to form some conclusion as to the factors of virtuous action judged from the Christian standpoint.

To have moral worth, an action must be the outcome of an entire bent, or disposition of the agent. Good fruit is to be expected only from a good tree[529]. In the virtuous act the agent's personality is engaged _as a whole_; his whole nature is directed towards a single object. This inward unity is perhaps what we really mean by 'simplicity.' In such action, the human being most nearly approaches the concentrated and harmonious energy of the Divine Life[530]. The person acts as an undivided whole, each part of his nature is for the time directed aright.

But we are here reminded that man's nature is disordered: it can produce nothing truly good, except in so far as it is restored to harmony by Divine power. God, says Thomas Aquinas, calls us to a supernatural end, which by his natural powers man could not attain. God Himself must therefore impart the supernatural principle necessary to aid man in responding to the call[531]. No act, in short, can be strictly called 'good' which is dissociated from the direct action of God: for 'there is none good but One, that is God:'

O work thy works in God; He can rejoice in nought Save only in Himself, and what Himself has wrought[532].

We conclude that in a good action there is a true harmony of the different elements in personality--intelligence, affection, will; and further that such harmony presupposes the action of supernatural power on man's nature. It agrees with this that Christian moralists give to the chief principles of virtuous action the name of 'theological virtues,' and regard them as supernaturally imparted.

A good action, then, implies right _intelligence_. There must be an exercise of faith, which is a principle of knowledge--a correspondence between human faculties and an unseen object. Faith accepts the good as the proper element of man's perfection; takes God at His word, and aims at pleasing Him. 'Without faith it is impossible to please Him[533].' Next, _will_ asserts itself. Will is directed towards an end desirable and attainable by effort: and thus is inspired by Hope. A study of Christ's example suggests that the highest object of hope for man is the perfection of his nature through the means appointed by God[534]. We see in Christ something of the desire, and the joy of moral achievement. When He said that 'the _workman_ is worthy of his reward,' He pointed to the possibility of a true, unselfish pleasure in good work as such: of that thirst for perfection and self-dissatisfaction which distinguishes the true artist from common men.

Lastly, there remains that which is the dominant factor in Christian goodness. Love. There is an element of _passion_ in Christlike holiness, which differentiates it from philosophic conceptions of virtue as a tranquil, balanced state[535]. Love gives worth to the fulfilment of duty; embraces, in union with God, the Divine aim of creation; and manifests itself in spontaneity and inventive activity, transforming the fulfilment of obligation into an occasion of joyous and delightful service. Our Lord represents this 'ardent, passionate, devoted state' of heart as the real root of virtue. Without it the most punctilious obedience is nothing; for not to love is not to live[536].

Having thus indicated the place of intelligence, will, and affection in virtuous activity, we are free to study the Christian character, and perhaps ascertain its permanent features--those elements in it which have survived the test of such wide variety of historical conditions. We have to inquire what is common to the types of Christian life which different ages, states of civilization, and forms of nationality have produced? For character is that which is capable of development in varied situations, of free and spontaneous self-adaptation to every change of environment. Circumstance proves its quality, offers it a field of exercise, and ministers to its growth.

Our task is rather to sketch a _character_ than to classify _virtues_. 'The earliest Christians,' says the writer of _Ecce Homo_, 'felt a natural repugnance to describe the goodness at which they aimed by the name of Virtue.' Within limits indeed such a classification is possible: and a principle of division may be applied even to a thing so mysterious, so subtle in its shapes and gradations, so fruitful in surprises, as character. We may, for instance, take as a basis the principle of personality, and consider the Christian personality in its threefold relationship: to God, to itself, to its neighbour, and in contact with the hindrances, moral and physical, presented by its environment[537].

I. The Christian personality in relation to God.

The distinctive feature of Christian character consists in consciousness of that filial relation to God which Grace restores; of the spiritual bond that exists between the human soul and 'Him who is invisible.' Hence the goodness at which the Christian aims is that which will bear the searching light of the Divine eye. 'He chose us out of the world,' says S. Paul, 'that we might be holy and blameless _before Him_.' Thus in its essence Christian character is based on a peculiar sense of relationship to God; there underlies it a constant desire of union with God, a temper of loyalty, a spirit of thankful dependence, a feeling of nearness to the Divine presence. Were it true, as has been said, that 'the Divine service' had '_become_ human service[538],' Christian character as a distinct type would have ceased to be.

From this attitude of mind and will two results follow: first, singleness of aim,--the 'single eye.' The sense of personal relation to God gives directness, truthfulness, simplicity to speech, action, and thought. So far as he is true to his profession a Christian is independent of the current opinions of his age, or community, seeking only to live 'in all good conscience' towards God. The conviction of an unseen Presence guides his actions; an unseen Witness penetrates his thought; an unseen Master holds him accountable. Indeed, S. Paul seems to regard holy living as consisting simply in the endeavour to 'please God[539].'

And a second characteristic of the Christian is his view of life in the world, of nature, of humanity itself. He observes, judges, estimates all things from the standpoint of the spiritual mind. He aims at bringing his own thoughts and desires into harmony with the Divine will and purpose. He looks out on the world, with its complex social order, its fascinating interest, its appealing needs, as a sphere in which for a while he is called to move, and to labour. Into the varied tasks and interests of life he can throw himself with large-hearted sympathy, and with the greater fervour because the time is short, and the need of self-forgetful activity urgent. 'Once a real Christian,' writes Lacordaire, 'the world did not vanish before my eyes; it rather assumed nobler proportions as I myself did. I began to see therein a noble sufferer needing help. I could imagine nothing comparable to the happiness of ministering to it under the eye of God, with the help of the Cross, and the Gospel of Christ[540].'

But the world is not the Christian's 'abiding city.' He walks in it, and passes through it in pilgrim fashion, with heart detached from it and all that it can give. He cannot commit himself to the world, nor identify himself with it. He has the internal freedom of a heart that has found its true centre; he is able to estimate visible things at their real worth, and

To stand in freedom loosened from this world[541].

Thus to have the 'mind of Christ' is to judge of life and the things of time with His judgment, to see with His eyes, to be inspired by His _Wisdom_. So we find ourselves in natural contact with the division of character by 'cardinal virtues.' 'Prudence' or 'Wisdom' is the outcome of a right relation to God. God only, S. Augustine says, is to be loved; this world, and all sensible things, are to be used. Prudence is love discerning between the things which bring it nearer to God, and those which hinder it from approaching Him[542].

II. In relation to humanity, and creaturely life in general, the Christian finds scope for 'active morality[543],' for ministering love. The life of union with God inspires and prompts the life of service to mankind. The infinitely varied relationships of life constitute so many forms of moral obligation. Christian _Justice_ means nothing less than rendering to _all_ their due. The desire to imitate God is at once the motive and the rule of Christian activity[544]. And this desire finds expression in two distinctively Christian graces: the spirit of _forgiveness_ and the spirit of _compassion_.

The inculcation of forgiveness is 'the most striking innovation' in the ethics of the Gospel[545]. Greek thought on the subject presents a remarkable contrast. Aristotle is inclined to regard forgiveness as a form of weakness, but allied to virtue in so far as it involves resistance to passion. The ground of Christian forgiveness is very different. The duty of it follows partly of course from a consideration of the common human nature which the offender shares with the injured; partly also from a dispassionate view of the injury inflicted. In exercising forgiveness we suppress that false self-love or partiality which magnifies a private injury. The Christian loves himself _not more_ than he loves his neighbour. He can put himself in the offender's place, and consider what is for his highest good. He will not allow the sense of injury to interfere with, or override the exercise of good-will even towards enemies. Certainly, the sense of his own moral frailty, and of his indebtedness to Divine mercy, will restrain the Christian from vindictiveness or harshness in regard to the faults of others; while the fact of the equality of men in relation to their common Father, invests even the anti-social sinner with the dignity of brotherhood[546]. But forgiving love is no mere expression of self-distrust. It is fired by something of the generous hopefulness, the quickness to detect latent capacities of nobleness even in the worst, which is the glory of the Divine forgiveness. It 'rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth;' 'believeth all things, hopeth all things.' The Greek indeed had his idea of forbearance; to him it meant something less than strict justice; it was a virtue difficult to place or estimate. Logically, it was scarcely to be praised. At the best it would never have implied the habitual duty of active forgiveness.

Not less distinctive of the Christian character is _compassion_[547], and the active beneficence which results from it. Humanity, by Jesus Christ, was transformed: it was 'changed (to adopt a celebrated phrase) from a restraint to a motive.' Compassion may display itself in readiness both to relieve the physical needs of another, and to edify his character. To love one's fellow-man as one's self implies willingness to benefit him in body and estate by every means; but it is also incompatible with unconcern or apathy as to his spiritual and moral welfare. Love is communicative, and will not withhold its best treasure. Hence compassion prompts missionary activity, and zeal for moral and social reforms. Nor has 'humanity' ceased to be a restraint by becoming a motive. Christian justice contains the principle of '_innocentia_' as well as of '_benevolentia_.' 'Love worketh no ill to his neighbour;' it can inflict no wrong, it can withhold no good; 'therefore love is the fulfilling of the Law[548].'

Active morality has many departments. Duty to the 'powers that be'--the order of society, human law, the state, the Church: all this, into which the science of politics inquires, forms part of the obligation involved in love to man. How comprehensive is the reply of an early Apologist to the charge of disloyalty, 'we behave towards Emperors exactly as we do towards our neighbours. To wish, or to do, or to think evil is equally forbidden to us in any case[549].' 'Thou,' cries S. Augustine, apostrophizing the Church,--'Thou bringest within the bond of mutual love every relationship of kindred, every alliance of affinity; Thou unitest citizen to citizen, nation to nation, man to man, not only in society, but in fraternity. Thou teachest kings to seek the welfare of their peoples, and peoples to be subject to kings.... Thou shewest how to all love is due, and injury to none[550]!'

III. In the life of active beneficence, self-sacrifice is no 'occasional heroism,' but an 'habitual mood[551].' And yet from the very nature of Christian love it follows that there is a right self-regard, a zeal for God's kingdom in the soul, a desire for the highest welfare of the personality as an object of worth in itself, and destined to find its perfection in God.

Love to self becomes _Temperance_, that is, the spirit of purifying discipline. Thus, a mark of Christian character is the passion for holiness: i.e. the desire to combine inward purity of thought, desire, and motive, with the external fulfilment of duty.

This process of self-purification is both mental and moral. It includes the culture of imagination not less than the control of appetite; 'sobriety' not less in judgment and reflection than in the indulgence of desire; humility in self-estimate, not less than restraint of passion[552]. The dominant feature of Christian character in this connection is a peculiar self-severity, a deep sense of the ideal as something not yet attained, a strict fidelity to known truth and the claim of moral law, sensitiveness to moral evil, and watchfulness against even its distant approach; in a word, disciplined rule in the affections, intellect, and will. For as the Hellenist sage says of Wisdom, 'The very true beginning of Her is the desire of discipline, and the beginning of discipline is love[553].' Temperance includes that reverent care of the body which receives so high a sanction in the New Testament; indeed, respect for the sanctity of the body may be viewed as reverence for the presence of God Himself, and for the place of His abode[554].

IV. Finally, in relation to the hindrances which Virtue encounters--the stress of circumstance, the pressure of misfortune, persecution, loss, temptation, and the like--Love displays itself as _Fortitude_, and finds both a passive and active sphere of exercise.

As a passive virtue fortitude is the 'world-resisting' element in character. The hostility of the world to virtue is only one form of its hostility to God[555]. Fortitude is thus essentially the same in all stages of social development. When the world-principle was embodied in a concrete form, and became in the imperial power of Borne a definite force hostile to the Church[556], fortitude displayed itself for the most part as patience under persecution (S. Augustine in his treatment of this virtue naturally contemplates it under this aspect); but the precise form of influence to be resisted will obviously vary from age to age, while the element of _resistance_ in Christian character remains constant.

The name of 'fortitude,' however, must not be restricted to passive endurance, prominent as this virtue is in Christ's teaching. Fortitude embraces spheres of action, and will display itself on occasion as _resentment_. Righteous anger has its source in the temper exactly opposed to Stoic apathy respecting sin--that 'loveless view' of mankind which said 'Trouble not thyself; thy neighbour sins, but he sins for himself[557].' There can be no true love of good without a just abhorrence of evil. Hence it sometimes occurs that love takes the form of indignation and holy zeal--when directed, for example, against oppression, cruelty, ingratitude, deceit, selfishness. Such resentment is a natural and generous emotion, born of sympathy with God Himself. Comparing with the Christian conception of resentment Aristotle's discussion of anger, we find that Christian teachers lay stress on the _social end_ of resentment. What the good Christian resents is not a personal hurt, but injury and wrong-doing viewed as injurious to his neighbour or the community; such resentment is distinguished by purity of motive; in certain circumstances it is not unwilling to inflict pain.

_Moral courage_, again, is the form which fortitude assumes under other circumstances, too numerous to be specified. Generally it is displayed on occasions when the Christian is bearing witness to the cause of truth or righteousness before men. No Christian can rid himself of his share in the function of _witness_, committed to His followers by Christ. And fortitude, or manliness, is the virtue of a witness--of the solitary champion of a good cause confronting opposition in any of its forms. The name 'athlete,' which we find applied to martyrs in early times, may remind us that the task which beyond others must needs test a man's power to endure, and to stand alone, is that of witnessing stedfastly for righteousness and truth. Yet the call to bear witness comes in ways unexpected, and difficult to define or classify: it may, for example, be a man's difficult duty to withstand not opponents, but adherents and friends; to hold his own not against 'the sneers and opposition of the bad, but the opinion and authority of the good[558].' With this passing remark we quit the subject.

In the above sketch of Christian character we have confined ourselves to some salient features. We have said nothing of the gracious union it presents of delicacy with strength, of communicativeness with reserve, of energy with restfulness, of passion with tenderness. It is difficult to delineate character without giving a look of formality to what is essentially a mysterious, albeit well-marked, product. In Christian goodness we see the handiwork of the Spirit of God, and where He is, there is liberty.

It is indeed objected that this type of character is too rare, too exalted for the majority of mankind. It is said that a standard of perfection is set before them which it is hopeless to think of attaining; that men are disheartened; that Christian teachers 'ask for the impossible,' and undermine belief in the possibility of virtue. It is further suggested that the rarity of the type proves that the saint 'is born, not made;' and that radical change of character and disposition is impossible[559].

The last point may be noticed in another connection. At present we may suggest, in reply to these reflections, one consideration. The objector forgets that Christianity does not merely present a moral standard to men; it provides them with an entire system of moral education. The Church recognises different degrees of maturity and attainment in her children. It is no part of her method, though possibly an accident of a particular age or set of conditions, that she sets strong meat before babes, and appeals to children as if they were grown men. That very 'individual treatment' of characters on which the writer of the _Service of Man_ insists, is a fundamental principle of the Christian system[560].

IV. _Christ the Source of the Recreation of Character._

The subject which we now approach is, taken as a whole, peculiar to Christian Ethics. For it will be admitted that Christianity alone offers a solution of the practical problem, how is the ideal of virtue to be translated into life and practice? 'It is the essential weakness,' says a living writer, 'of all mere systems of morality, and of most, if not all, other religions, that they confine themselves to pointing out what the facts of life ought to be, and make no provision whatever for dealing with facts as they are.... It is their main defect, not that they conflict with Christianity, but that they fail to touch the problem with which it most directly deals[561].' Of course, in advancing this claim for Christianity, we imply that it is something vastly greater than a system of morals. It is a Divine way of salvation, that is, of deliverance from sin, as well as from its effects; the process by which the ideal becomes actual in life and character is also, as we have seen, a process of restoration. Christianity, in fact, professes to be a Divinely-provided remedy for disorder and disease; strictly speaking, therefore, a treatise on ethics must investigate the pathology of sin, regarded as the violation of moral order, and the fatal misdirection of desire. This aspect of the Gospel has been too much disregarded, even by Christian thinkers[562]. It follows, however, from the Scriptural account of man that he has lost something which can only be supernaturally restored: and it is the practical task of ethics to point out the means of renewal, which Divine Wisdom has provided.

The mysterious facts which lie at the root of the recreative process must be briefly noticed. Christian holiness is the reproduction in the individual of the life of the Incarnate Son of God. That this might be possible, there took place that series of events which S. John describes as the glorification of Jesus Christ. The life, perfectly well-pleasing to God, and therefore the supreme standard of holiness, passes through the stage of death. The Sacrifice on Calvary removes the barrier raised between the Creator and His creatures by sin. The Resurrection is, on the one hand, the seal of God's acceptance stamped upon His Son's atoning work; on the other, marks the final stage in that process by which Christ's human nature is 'perfected[563].' For by the Resurrection that Nature is spiritualized, is released from earthly limitations, and becomes available as a recreative force. The Ascension is the condition of Christ's manifestation as 'a quickening Spirit,' as the 'power of God.' By sacramental channels He communicates to our entire nature His life-giving humanity, as the means of our recreation after the image of God. Thus the life of the Incarnate is extended in the life of the redeemed, and by a natural and orderly growth, the character of Christ is reproduced in His members through the continuous operation of the Spirit, whose office it is to 'take of the things of Christ and shew them unto' men. He who is outwardly our example thus becomes an inward principle of life.

We now are in a position to estimate the extent to which Christian morality depends on dogmatic truths. Apart from Jesus Christ there can be no true life. The secret of holiness lies in _a permanent relation to a living Christ_. He, by His life and death, 'became unto us Wisdom, Righteousness, Sanctification, Redemption[564].' The example was not upheld in vain; for Christ placed within our reach the spiritual forces by which alone the pattern can be reproduced in human life. 'Sanctification' means the progressive appropriation by man of the life of the Son of God; the formation in him, by successive stages, of the very image of Christ. The objective aspect of Sanctification is clearly presented in the Old Testament; holiness there implies consecration, and is thought of chiefly as an objective work of God. In the New Testament, the idea of holiness passes from the sphere of worship to that of morality. But the Old Testament conception is not lost; it is expanded. Holiness, according to the Christian view, results not from the efforts of man, but from the outflow and operation of a Divine Life. Holiness is spoken of as 'the righteousness of God,' as a 'free gift' imparted to man; and in the first instance requires receptivity rather than activity on the part of the human soul.

The ethical significance of baptism is thus intelligible. By baptism the individual is brought into vital contact with the Source of the new life, and enters the sphere within which radiate the spiritual forces that flow from the glorified humanity of Christ; the germ of _a new personality_ is imparted; the kingdom of God is entered. But in this new birth the work is only begun; for the 'Grace of God that bringeth salvation' has an abiding home among men. It is misleading to speak of Grace as 'an unknown factor.' Still more so to assert that 'Theology has always been celebrating the power of Grace to the depreciation of Ethics[565].' Grace has its fixed channels and methods, its orderly movement and outflow, its certain conditions, its appointed places and seasons, its definite, though mysterious, laws of operation[566]. Grace is, so to speak, stored and dispensed within the mediatorial kingdom which Christ founded in His Church. From an ethical standpoint the Church of God is before all else _a school of character_[567], the Divinely-appointed sphere in which, normally, the recreation of personality proceeds, in which men are sanctified by being kept in living union and contact with Jesus Christ Himself.

To enumerate the several 'means of grace' committed to the stewardship of the Church is the task of theology, as also to explain the conditions of fruitfully using them. On one point only it may be worth while to make a few remarks.

To Christianity, as we have seen, each individual personality is an end in itself. Each has a right to moral education; each was called into being that it might embody a particular thought of God, that it might fulfil good works prepared specially for _it_, and correspond with its own separate ideal[568]. Hence, true to the spirit of Him who was a Physician of the sick, Christianity offers her Divine remedies to the worst and most hardened natures. She believes in her power to renew and transfigure them, to achieve in them a moral miracle. Nobler natures, again, she endeavours to train up to the full stature of Christ-like character, sanctifying, consecrating, and elevating the innate capacities of each. Her healing mission extends to all men. She knows nothing of the aristocratic temper of ancient ethics, which would confine the very possibility of a moral life to the few. She rejoices in the infinite variety of typical forms which character may assume. A Christian poet has said--

There is not on the earth a soul so base But may obtain a place, In covenanted grace; So that his feeble prayer of faith obtains Some loosening of his chains And earnests of the great release, which rise From gift to gift, and reach at length the eternal prize.

All may save self;--but minds that heavenward tower Aim at a wider power, Gifts on the world to shower. And this is not at once; by fastings gained And trials well sustained; By pureness, righteous deeds, and toils of love, Abidance in the truth, and zeal for God above[569].

Now this idea of individual perfection, so characteristic of Christianity, is in the New Testament not dissociated from the idea of a society, family, or household of God, in which alone the _full_ development of Christian character can be achieved. Corporate life, with its network of relationships, its mutual services, its common worship, its visible pledges of brotherhood--this is God's great instrument in the edification of character. So far, indeed, as the body is divided or weakened, the pressure it exerts on the individual is hindered, and the free play of its forces diminished[570].

In the Church, then, we have the true school of character, the true 'home of individuality,' and sphere of spiritual edification. The normal course of spiritual growth is one of widely varied experiences: it passes through the stage of repentance with its appropriate works; it is schooled by the chastening discipline of common life[571]; it is marked by progressive power of submission to the leadings of grace. This would suggest an interesting line of study, and one suitable for ethical treatment, but must not now detain us. It is advisable, however, in this connection not to overlook the subject of Christian _ascetics_: a word which has often excited unjust suspicion and contempt, and thereby been robbed of the noble associations which rightfully belong to it.

The name 'ascetics' is suitably applied to those Divinely-sanctioned exercises which, by precept and example, Christ commended as aids to holiness--Prayer, Almsgiving, and Fasting. Reflection, indeed, shews that these ordinances occupy a conspicuous place in the Gospel, because they have a natural connection with the three principal spheres of Christian duty,--duty towards God, towards man, towards self. They are ways in which devotion to God, love to man, discipline of self, find each an appropriate expression. Reason and experience alike suggest that the Christian character, with its harmonious beauty and delicate strength, can only be the product of continuous spiritual discipline, wise restraint, and regulated effort. A feature, therefore, of Christ's practical teaching is His provision for what is, to average human nature, at least a moral necessity. Presenting Himself as the supreme example of the freedom which can control and use circumstances for a spiritual end, He lays down the threefold rule of Christian ascetics, to guide the wills and affections of those whom He calls to follow His steps.

The end of discipline is, of course, freedom: that is, the perfect dominion of the Spirit in man. Aiming at this liberty the Christian looks on the threefold ordinance of prayer, almsgiving, and fasting as a help to his development; it is to him no mere arbitrary direction imposed by authority, no vexatious restraint on lawful pleasure; but an efficacious aid to Christ-like holiness commended by the practice, and proved by the experience, of holy men in every age, and expressly enjoined by our Lord Himself[572].

It may surprise us somewhat to find _Prayer_ included among ascetic exercises. For prayer is the ordinary activity of the human spirit in relation to God: man's natural expression of self-dedication: his effort to embrace God's Will as his choice, God's Law as his rule, God's Perfection as his pattern. Yet because prayer implies regularity, discipline, persevering effort; because it has its different parts, its proper occasions, and methods; because it is the exercise of a distinct faculty; in short, because it is an arduous work, it finds a place among exercises which seem at first sight to be of a more formal character.

This will appear more clearly on consideration of the different parts of prayer. Thus prayer is in part to be viewed as humble acknowledgment of an ideal unattained, and consequent renewal of desire in that direction. As containing, therefore, an element of self-purification, of striving after deeper self-knowledge, prayer includes the practice of self-examination and confession of sin. Regarded, again, as an exercise of affection and intellect, prayer takes the form of _contemplation_, and communion with God, as the supreme object of reverence and love. Thus it is evident that prayer is a real exercise, well fitted to be an education, of the soul, and arduous because it implies an intense activity of the entire personality. Even the body has its share in this exercise. It is the appointed instrument of man's spiritual self-oblation; and prayer is the acknowledgment not only that God is the 'Father of spirits,' but that the body also 'is for the Lord[573].'

_Almsgiving_ is placed by Christ among known and admitted forms of devotion. Viewed simply as an action, it is an obvious outlet of Christian love to man[574]. But almsgiving has another aspect, on which early writers insist with some fullness. It is a means of grace, a purifying element in the spiritual life of the agent. It is not often, perhaps, that this side of the duty is adequately taught. The danger of 'charity' becoming reckless or ill-directed is real, and may cause Christian teachers to be reticent on the subject. Yet this aspect of the truth must not be suppressed. And after all, almsgiving seems to be specially mentioned by our Lord as a type of all works of mercy[575]. Love, in its effort to imitate God, need not be less discriminating than communicative. The Fatherly providence of God is in fact the Christian's inspiration and his model: and we interpret the scope of our Lord's commandment by study of _His_ life who 'for our sakes, though rich, became poor,' and 'went about doing good,' and who taught us in one pregnant sentence the mysterious efficacy of almsgiving[576]. It need not be added that true Christian charity is ever controlled by a due sense of the dignity of human nature, and of the moral bond that unites giver and receiver.

Each of the three exercises under consideration is conditioned and aided by the other two. There is a specially close connection, however, between prayer and _fasting_. As a means of self-discipline, fasting has been strangely neglected. Some regard it as a burdensome restraint on the will; others as 'unsuited to a spiritual religion;' others as unduly interfering with Christian liberty. Chiefly, perhaps, the neglect of fasting is due to inexperience of its value as a condition of spiritual power, and forgetfulness of the place assigned to it in the teaching of our Lord and of the early Church. It is thus right to insist, first, on its claim to be a Divine ordinance[577]. There can be nothing superfluous or incongruous in a practice which Christ is so careful to regulate, and which He commends by His own example. But the practice of fasting justifies itself as a point of simple wisdom in the care of the personal life. Christian holiness requires, as we have seen, an inward unity of the personality, in which no one element has undue predominance. Bodily instincts and passions, the powers of thought and imagination, the bias of temperament--all have to be brought into subjection to the controlling will. And the result is a character exhibiting a due balance of different elements: a chastened spirit of dependence, spiritualized affections, subdued thoughts, sober judgment, a purified heart, a sensitive conscience, a just fear of unbridled appetite, a true simplicity. Such is Christ-like holiness; and one great condition of its attainment is fasting, chiefly in its literal sense of regular abstinence from food[578], though its forms may be as varied as are the avenues of sense-impressions. The motive of fasting may not be always the same: sometimes it is the expression of penitential sorrow for sin, or of the passion for inward purity; sometimes it is used as a special aid to prayer; sometimes, again, it is the sign of wearisome conflict with the lower nature; in any case it should be an exercise of love. Thus we regard fasting, not as mere soulless, joyless abstinence; but as a needful condition of purity, energy, vigour of will, clearness of moral insight, and capacity to impart spiritual gifts to our fellow-men. 'Wise souls,' says S. Leo, 'mortify their bodies and crucify their senses; and therein set before themselves God's will, loving themselves the more, in proportion as for the love of God they love not themselves[579].'

Our apology for touching on topics so homely might well be that the practical aim of ethics gives such points importance. There can be no excuse needed, however, in days of wide-spread luxury, and of much needlessly imperfect Christianity, for recalling and re-asserting the necessity of the discipline, as well as of the moral precepts, of the Sermon on the Mount.

V. _Christ's teaching as to the Consummation of God's Kingdom._

An outline of Christian Ethics would be incomplete without some reference to those eschatological truths which occupy so large a place in theology, and have so direct a bearing on morals. We have already touched on them in connection with the Christian doctrine of the Chief Good. It remains to consider them in relation to the perfection of man's nature.

The word 'perfection' reminds us that there is a goal of the moral process exhibited in history. The visible order of the universe and the history of mankind are verging towards a consummation, a catastrophe, which relatively to us must be regarded as an end.

It is no part of our task to discuss the intermediate stage through which the kingdom of God is destined to pass: that stage in which there is to be a supreme manifestation of moral evil, a culmination of those tendencies and an outburst of those forces which already seem to threaten not the framework merely, but the foundations of society. The decay of Christian Churches, the profound corruption of social life, the tyranny of materialistic lawlessness--these seem to be plainly foretold in Scripture, and with a purpose: that of shielding men from a moral despair which might paralyse their efforts, or undermine their patience, as they witness the beginnings of these 'birth-pangs[580]' of a new order. The Christian will ever guard against such a temper of alienation, or self-isolation, from the world, as will lead him to depreciate the national, political, or civil movements of his time. For civilization is appointed to reach, through whatever convulsions, an ethical consummation, the prospect of which must inspire strength to labour, and patience to endure.

The last stage of the kingdom of God is one of glory, to be exhibited in the perfection of the moral community. It is for this that creation waits: to this, as the goal of history, that inspired prophecy points. Two revealed truths are intended to guide our conception of this prospect.

In the first place, the kingdom of God is to be finally _manifested_ in its true character[581]: an event which must involve momentous consequences for the physical creation. Scripture sometimes speaks as if beneath the outer semblance of visible nature there lay concealed an inner glory, destined, when the semblance passes, to shine forth in full radiance and splendour[582]. The truth is thus symbolically conveyed that since man is the crown and lord of the physical universe, his final emancipation will carry with it a corresponding change in his outward environment. But this consummation, no less than the progressive movement of mankind towards it, is due to the deliberate working and intervention in history of God Himself. Naturalism points to a precarious prospect of human happiness in the future, as contingent upon 'a perfect adjustment of society[583].' Christianity does not look to any improvement in material conditions, nor to any social process, as likely to bring about an ideal state of humanity. Neither the physical universe, nor man himself, can attain to the goal of their development, or to the perfection of their nature, apart from God[584].

Again, the kingdom of God is to be purified through _judgment_. The exact nature of this judgment it is impossible for thought to anticipate. But the teaching of revelation is at least so explicit as to discredit any conception of the judgment which would confine its operation to this present scene, or restrict its meaning to any merely natural process. The judgment is, in fact, appointed for a definite hour, and is prefigured in definite historical catastrophes. It will be parallel to, but transcending, those manifestations of Divine power in history which mankind has already experienced. And the effect of this final intervention will be to put an end to that mixed condition of human things which it is our tendency to accept and assume as inevitable and perpetual. Out of God's kingdom will be gathered 'all things that offend;' and the collective mass of humanity will be, with whatever gradations in the stage of perfection attained by each individual, a 'congregation of saints[585].' The principle of Good will so achieve its final triumph.

When we further inquire, as we are impelled to do, what will be the extent of this final triumph, we are met by the fact of our own ignorance, and of Christ's reserve. His simple, severe statements seem intended to discourage fruitless speculation. We are thrown back in this as in other perplexities, on our unfailing assurance of God's character, and on the faint analogies furnished by the present order of things.

The Gospel speaks of a righteous dominion, the sphere of which is to be without limit. We read of a gathering into the kingdom of all that is in true harmony with its purpose. We find warrant for the belief in an intermediate state in which imperfect character may be developed, ignorance enlightened, sin chastened, desire purified. And yet we are assured that the consequences of action and choice abide, and are eternal in their issue; and we know that impenitence must finally, and under awful conditions, separate the soul from God. But we have not enough for a coherent system. All that we can affirm is that the victory of Good seems to demand the preservation of all that has not wilfully set itself in antagonism to Divine Love, Holiness, and Power. We cannot think that helpless ignorance, or inevitable poverty of character will finally sever a human soul from God. Analogy suggests that there will be scope in a future dispensation for the healing ministries, and inventive service of Love. So again, Scripture does not expressly teach that the lost will for ever be in a state of defiance and rebellion. Even in the awful state of final severance from the Divine presence there is room for assent, order, acceptance of penalty; and so far, _evil_, in the sense of the will antagonistic to God's righteous Law--may have ceased to exist. Truth will have prevailed; and all orders of intelligent creatures will render it homage. The final issue will be seen, and the justice confessed, of all those 'ways' of God which are 'unsearchable and past finding out.' In a word, there will be a complete manifestation of supreme Holiness and Love: of Him, whose 'mercy is over all His works,' and who will continue to stand in direct relation to every soul that He has made, revealing Himself to each either as loving Father or as righteous Judge[586].

It must however be added that what is called 'Universalism' finds no support either in the solemn statements of Jesus Christ, or in the analogy of nature. Man's very power of choice implies the possibility of a sinful state admitting neither of repentance nor of remedy; not of repentance--for character, growing by separate acts of choice, may become fixed and hardened in its persistent refusal of the good; not of remedy--for, as even the Greek moralist, with all his belief in the moulding power of law, confesses, there is a degree of moral perversion 'incurable'--that namely which ensues when sin has finally destroyed the faculties to which moral appeal is possible--desire, fear, hope, affection, the sense of shame.

With the end of history corresponds that of the individual man. The ultimate perfection of human character is not only regarded as possible in Scripture--but is suggested by analogy[587]: and of the conditions of perfected human nature, we are enabled to form some idea partly by our knowledge of angelic beings, partly by a study of our Lord's Humanity in its risen state[588].