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Old Faiths in New Light

NEWMAN SMYTH
AUTHOR OF "THE REHGIOUS FEEDING"

"The Holy^ Spirit of Education." Wisdomt i : 5.

SECOND EDITION

NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
743-745 BROADWAY

COPTRIGHT, 1879, BY
OHABLBS SCEIBNKR'S SONS

Trow's
Psintinc and Bookbinding Company
201-213 Fast i-zth Street
NEW YORK

So tlje iUcmorg

AN HONORED FATHER AND A REVERED MOTHER,
WHO LEFT ME, AS THEIR HERITAGE,
THE OLD FAITHS
WHICH THEY NOW BEHOLD IN THE NEW LIGHT OF A BETTER WORLD,
THIS VOLUME,
THE .RESULT OF THE ENDEAVOR TO KEEP THE BIRTHRIGHT OF A CHRISTIAN
CHILDHOOD THROUGH THE DOUBTS AND -QUESTIONINGS
OF AFTER YEARS,
IS DEDICATED
IN GRATEFUL REMEMBRANCE.

PREFACE.

John Ruskin has said that for the words,
good and bad, we might almost substitute the
words, makers and destroyers. While writ
ing this book, I have seen workmen tearing
down portions of the walls of a church whose
beauty had vanished, like a dream, in the
flames of an hour ; but they tore down only
so far as was necessary, in order to find firm
points from which to build up again the
crumbling arches. I have had thus, in a daily
figure, before me the true object of any de
structive criticism of old faiths. We are jus
tified in pulling down as we cherish the pur
pose of building up. If to any my work shall
seem at points to unsettle traditional beliefs
which have become sacred in their eyes, I
would ask them to read on, and wait to see
whether, upon the old foundations, a better
home for our religious faiths is not to be built
up by the Christian scholarship of to-day.
"I do not, as a rule, find what I want in/

VI PREFACE.
the books where I naturally seek it ; " so a
friend writes to me, whose words I may per
haps be permitted to quote, as one sign among
others of the failure of many cultivated and
sincere minds to find what their faith craves
in the standard treatises or stereotyped meth
ods of religious thought. Modern research
has gathered many truths which the people
need for a living; faith, but which lie scattered
through numerous articles in reviews, or are
hidden in philosophical phraseology, or remain
inaccessible to most readers in voluminous
German books. It has been my aim to meet
what I believe to be a growing need of intelli
gent people, by gathering materials of faith
which have been quarried by many specialists
in their own departments of biblical study or
scientific research, but which, to a large extent,
have been left by them in a disconnected and
fragmentary state ; and by endeavoring to put
these results of recent scholarship together,
according to one leading idea, in a modern
construction of old faiths. The science by
which the works of the specialists are to be
arranged in one order and harmony, is a
science which needs now-a-days to be ad
vanced and honored. Building firmly, on the

PREFACE. vil
one hand, upon the facts of nature and history,
and, on the other, upon the moral and reli
gious experience of the soul, its high office
and endeavor is to spring from either side the
arch which shall at last bring together the
material and the spiritual, the natural and the
supernatural, in one continuous and rounded
whole of knowledge. The accomplishment of
that task — the ultimate philosophy — seems in
deed beyond the power of human reason, but
we may at least pursue it as an ideal. My /
object, then, has been to make more popularly
known results already gained in this direction
by the labors of the learned, as well as to offer
some contribution to this growing science of
the sciences. I would read the old faiths,
which I still believe, in the light of modern
thought to which I cannot be blind. I would
help others, if possible, walk still in the old
ways which prophets and apostles have trod,
but in the light of to-day.
The modern idea which seems to reopen old
questions of faith, and the spirit in which re
newed religious inquiries should be prosecuted,
form the subject of the opening chapter. I
have then dwelt in succession upon certain
prominent points around which, as it seems to

Vlll PREFACE.
me, the Christian evidences need now-a-days to
be worked up anew. The endeavor to single
out these leading points, and to pursue a
straightforward line of argument between
them, has compelled me to give only a passing
glance at many subjects which are deserving
of thorough exploration, and to cross, often
rapidly, over much debatable ground. While
not -wishing to burden my pages with the de
tails of scientific investigations, or the minutiae
of critical discussions, I have occasionally,
however, given references, in foot-notes, to
authorities for statements which might seem
to require further support than my plan would
allow me to bring forward ; and, so far as I
am aware, I have indicated my obligations to
writers whose suggestions I have found grown
into my own thought. I am sensible, however,
of more indebtedness than I can easily ac
knowledge by passing references, in theology,
to the broad, but genuine, Protestantism of
Prof. Dorner ; in biblical history, to the always
inspiring, but not always safe, leadership of
Ewald ; and, in metaphysics, to the profound
spiritual thought of that master- of physical
science as well as of ideas, the sceptical be
liever, Lotze.

TABLE OF CONTENTS.

CHAPTER

ij-

THE IDEA OP DEVELOPMENT, AND THE NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT
OLD FAITHS.
Separation between modern scholarship and the popular be
lief. — Prevalence of undefined unbelief. — Need of popu
larizing the results of the best Christian scholarship.
— Evolution a revolutionary call to modern thought.
— Old faiths in the light of the idea of development.—
Supreme importance of these questions, and the temper
of mind to be observed in their discussion. — The three
epochs of modern thought. — The age of theological re
construction. — The service of destructive criticism 
The need of resetting our faiths  13-32
CHAPTEE II.
THE HISTORICAL GBOWTH OF THE BIBLE.
The historical development of revelation.. — The nature of
inspiration a secondary question. — Periods of the growth
of the Bible  Its materials. — The forces in its develop
ment. — The law of heredity, and the development of
religion in Israel. — Signs of anti-historic evolution. — The
higher law of selection in the canon. — The progress of
revelation and its unity of design. — The broader view of
revelation and its advantage  33-61
1*

X CONTENTS.
CHAPTER III.
THE COURSE OF MORAL EDUCATION AND PEOGEEBS OF REVE
LATION.
The educational method of God. — Three views of history. —
The science of social statistics. — The idealistic philo
sophy of history. — The theology of history. — Revelation
a progressive moral education of mankind. — The true
moral test of a course of revelation. — The educational
method of God in the Bible. — Its truths are forces of
progress. — Moral leadership of the Scriptures. — Progress
of doctrine. — Object-lessons. — Educational intent of the
law. — Illustrated by the use of vows, the preparatory
law of the Sabbath, the advance in the names for God. —
Success of the divine method of education. — Its results.
— The family. — The end of human sacrifices. — Abra
ham's offering an historical object-lesson, and its effect.
— The abolition of slavery. — Growth of the hope of im
mortality. — Difficulties surmounted by this view of reve
lation. — Revelation its own final test. — The silence of
Scripture. — The moral limitations of revelation. — Evi
dence in the course of revelation of a supernatural evo
lution.  63-127
CHAPTER IV.
TTIE ADVANCE OF KNOWLEDGE AND THE SCIENTIFIC TEN
DENCY OF THE BIBLE.
The same educational method in the scientific teaching of
the Bible. — Elementary scientific virtues of the Bible. —
Freedom from nature-myths. — Contrast between the
Mosaic Genesis and its environment. — The biblical con
ception of law. — Optical accuracy of the Bible. — Genesis
a first lesson. — Its object and point of view. — Its real
service to science. — The alphabet of science in revela
tion. — The spiritual origin of material things. — Creation
not magic. — The impossibility of being a materialist. —

CONTENTS. XI
Matter, life, and mind from God. — The biblical teaching
of the development of the creation. — The element of
time left indefinite. — The scientific tendency of revela
tion the main question. — Summary.. — The Mosaic Gene
sis a providential elementary lesson in nature. — Moses'
genius for teaching. — Additional evidence of a superna
tural course of history  128-184
CHAPTER V.
THE CULMINATION IN THE CHRIST : I. THE UNIQUENESS OF
JESUS.
Jesus the surprise of history. — Failure to account for his ap
pearance by the laws of heredity. — Jesus not a Jew, nor
a Gentile, nor the child of two races. — His teaching not
eclecticism, nor a revival of an older prophetic spirit.
— "Uniqueness of Jesus shown in his doctrine, his moral
ideal, his method and plan, and in the absence of certain
common human traits. — The unique power of Jesus. —
Peculiar moral quality of his miracles. — His power in
history. — The new society. — Originality of Jesus' self-
consciousness. — Originality of the idea of the Lord's
Supper. — These characteristics independent of questions
concerning the origin of the Gospels. — Conflict of the
conclusion thus gained with the law of continuity. — The
deeper question. .  185-231
CHAPTER VI.
THE CULMINATION IN THE CHRIST : II. THE NATURALNESS OF
CHRIST.
The naturalness of the life of Christ as a whole. — Corre
spondence between being and influence. — The argument
from prophecy.. — The place of Christ in the divine order
of history. — The ascent of life. — The law of individuali
zation. — Christ the end of the creation. — The moral in
terpretation of the creation. — The human need of the

xii CONTENTS.
Messiah and its prophecy. — The moral necessity of the
incarnation. — Its form determined by sin. — -The incar
nation a process. — The ideal truth of the incarnation. 232-288
CHAPTER VIL
THE UNFINISHED WORLD AND ITS COMPLETION.
Confirmation of foregoing reasonings by the signs of the fu
ture course of nature. — The unfinished world.— The un
seen universe. — Evidence of another order of existence
from the temporal origin of the world; the apparent
waste of nature ; the probable end of the present, visi
ble creation; the spiritual significance of life, and the
nature of mind. — Facts and theories. — Probabilities of
science and teachings of revelation compared. — Relation
of the two spheres of the one creation. — -Influences of
the unseen. — The final conservation and completion of
the natural. — Where is heaven ? — Removal of difficul
ties  289-348
CHAPTER VIII.
THE PROCESS OF RESURRECTION AND THE END.
The resurrection of Jesus a fact and a revelation to the dis
ciples. — Circumstantial evidences of the fact. — Jesus'
resurrection a special object-lesson illustrating a general
law. — Its nature and process. — The apostolic doctrine
and its corruption. — Extreme materialistic and idealistic
conceptions. — Elements of the biblical doctrine of the
resurrection — The continuity of the life of the individ
ual. — Naturalness of the resurrection — Its place in the
constitution of the creation. — Contrast with Herbert
Spencer's view of the end of evolution. — The supernat
ural evolution. — Dualism and unity of the creation. —
Conclusion  349-391

OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.

CHAPTER I.

QUESTIONS ABOUT OLD FAITHS.
It is an open secret that there has been of
late an increasing separation between many
views of the Bible and religion gained by
eminent Christian scholars, and opinions gen
erally held to be the truth in the religious
communions with which they still retain fel
lowship. Even thoroughly evangelical divines
are sometimes made painfully aware of the
distance to which they have been carried by the
course of their studies, or have unconsciously
drifted, with the current of modern thought,
from religious positions still firmly maintained
by many among their people, or their ecclesi
astical associates, with whom, nevertheless, in
spirit and aim, they are agreed. As a result
of this alienation between much of the best
scholarship and much of the best life of the

1 4 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
Christian world, there is often to be found, on
the one side, a half -concealed mistrust of the
freer methods of modern biblical criticism, or
a flurried opposition to the claims of science ;
while, on the other hand, there is sometimes
manifested an over-confident and rude display
of a little knowledge of the new learning ; but
more often a cautious reticence is observed on
the part of sober-minded scholars, who are
slow to disturb by their own questionings, or
by their improved methods of faith, the long-
settled beliefs of the people. They wisely pre
fer to hide many questions in their hearts,
rather than to proclaim their doubts upon the
housetops. In Cicero's treatise concerning the
nature of the gods, Cotta, an orator and magis
trate, is represented as saying that it would
be allowable in a private conference to hold
views which it would be difficult to advocate
before a public assembly.* Some of our too
eager disputants of received opinions might
learn a useful lesson from the hesitancy of the
Eoman magistrate to shake the foundations of
the popular faith. But the doubts of the phi
losophers could not always remain hidden,
and when the soothsayers could hardly re
frain from laughing in each other's faces, as
they consulted the omens, there was little

* De Nat. Deorum, i. 22.

FAITH AND SCHOLARSHIP. I 5
hope left for the popular religion of the Bo-
mans. In the nature of modern society, what
is whispered in secret must soon be published
abroad. Learning is no longer a cloistered
virtue ; and any wide or continued separation
between the best thought and the received
opinions of the Christian world would be full
of hazard to religion. The mere suspicion
that the advanced scholarship and " the old
faiths are to-day at variance, is itself a fruitful
cause of popular indifference and unbelief.
Indeed, the Christian faith suffers more from
a certain vague mistrust, or undefined unbe
lief, among the people, than it does from
any one positive and definite form of infi
delity. This indefinite mistrust, moreover,
arises partly from knowledge, and partly from
ignorance. It emanates from the knowledge
that there has been of late much destructive
criticism of the old theologies, and from igno
rance of the methods and the results of the
best Christian scholarship. As a little warmth
of the rising sun may call up the very mists
which are to be dissipated by its more power
ful shining, so this vague and chilling popu
lar unbelief is to be dispelled, not by with
holding knowledge, but by shedding abroad
all possible light. Whatever may be known
concerning the origin and comparative place
of our sacred Scriptures; whatever changes in

1 6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the methods of studying the Bible, or the the
ology of the Bible, have commended them
selves to the judgment of the best-informed
minds ; and whatever new views of old faiths
have been opened by the advances of science,
must be brought forward cautiously, yet freely,
in the teaching of any church that is to retain
its hold upon the people. The history of
doctrine shows that one work which is .re
quired, every generation or two, of Christian
thought, is to rearrange its faiths in new
lights ; and many signs indicate a present and
growing need of some resetting of the so-called
Christian evidences. This work, also, needs to
be popularized, as science nowadays is popu
larized. Our age comes speaking new tongues,
which our fathers knew not of. We, who
have inherited their faiths as our birthright,
have tried, also, to learn these strange tongues,
and we find to our joy that we can still proph
esy in them ; that in some of the very words
which at first we feared were without God,
and without hope in the world, we begin to
discover the best words the human reason has
ever found in which to declare the ways of
the Spirit.
The one word, which more than all others
has been a revolutionary call to modern
thought, is the word Evolution. The term
covers many opinions which, though united in

THE IDEA OF DEVELOPMENT. 17
a common opposition to former views of the
creation, are far from being at one among
themselves. It is the watchword of the most
gross materialist, and also the guiding princi
ple of others who are led by its clew through
the mazes of visible phenomena out to the
jxorders of the_unseen, and into the presence
of the living Grod. The laws and forces, the
nature and extent, of evolution are still under
discussion; and the most ardent believers in
it differ widely among themselves. The late
Mr. Lewes, for instance, was of the opinion
that Mr. Darwin has mistaken the effect for
the cause in his famous doctrine of Natural
Selection ; * and, in opposition to the Darwin
ian theory of descent from one far-off ances
tor, he insisted upon the necessity of suppos
ing innumerable starting-points to explain the
vast variety of organisms. f And it was after
Prof. Huxley had informed us that evolution
is demonstrated knowledge, J and after Haeckel
had said that " to demand proofs in favor of
the theory of descent ... is to give evidence
of a lack of knowledge and understanding," §
that Prof. Virchow, himself an evolutionist,
not destitute of either, declared: "We cannot

* The Physical Basis of Mind, p. 121.
f Ibid., pp. 125-126.
__> % See American Addresses.
8 Munich Address.

1 8 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
teach, we cannot designate as a revelation of
science, the doctrine that man descends from
the ape or from any other animal." *
But questionable, or incapable of proof, as
may be particular scientific theories of descent,
and whatever may be the final form of the
philosophy of evolution, — it is already_evident
that all our modes of reasoning__and our most
settled faiths are to-day brought to j udgment
before the idea of development It is not al
together a new idea, but it is an idea invested
with new power. It admits of different defi
nitions, but in some form it claims to preside
over all scientific thought. It bids us beware of
regarding existing things as though they were
struck into being by successive blows of creative
power. It maintains that, so far as things can
be observed and events followed, they are con
tinuous, and form one order. It directs us to
trace everywhere processes of unfolding and
growth. It declares that the world is the
fruit of ages, and not the manufacture of a
day. It accepts nothing as ready-macle, but
searches for the modes of production by which
all things have come to pass. Whether these
great processes of formation be. regarded as
" a mechanical evolution," as Haeckel holds
them to be — blind forces building better than

The Liberty of Soience in the Modern State.

THE IDEA OF DEVELOPMENT. 1 9
they knew — or whether they be conceived as
the course or method of creative wisdom, in
telligently pursued from the beginning, it is
beyond question that the idea of development,
in some form of it, is the dominant idea of
modern thought. To the test o,f that preva
lent and powerful idea we are required to sub
mit our most sacred spiritual and religious
faiths. The Bible, Christianity, the hope of
immortality, we shall bring under the light of
this modern principle. I need hardly add- that
a theistic conception of evolution is the only
one to which, in the last appeal, I feel bound
to carry the argument for our old faiths.*
The complete execution of the author's plan
would involve a comprehensive treatise on
Christianity and development — an entire re
working, in view of modern ideas of develop
ment, of the department of apologetics. In
this volume so great a task — almost too great
for any one mind to hope to accomplish — is
not attempted ; but, as already indicated, I
shall endeavor to examine certain connected
and strategic points along the line of defence

* Having, in a former work (The Religious Feeling, New York,
1877), examined how our idea of God remains undissolved by the
evolutionary philosophy, I take the liberty of referring to that
work for any theistic assumptions of this. Incidentally, however,
these will receive further justification, and the author's idea of
development be further defined, in the course of the present dis
cussion.

20 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of the Christian faith. Before addressing
ourselves, however, directly to the work pro
posed, something should be said concerning
the temper of mind in which an essay like this
should be both written and read. ;
The themes with which we shall be occu
pied must ever be of supreme concern to any
who can appreciate the motives which led
Bishop Butler to write, in a letter to a friend,
before he left school, that he intended to make
truth the business of his life. It is said that
Jacobi, the faith-philosopher, as he was called,
while still a student at the university, upon
reading for the first time Kant's treatise on
the proofs of the existence of God, was seized
with a violent palpitation of the heart, so in
tense was his interest in the renewed discus
sion of man's oldest and greatest faith. True
or false, these faiths are the supreme concern
of our lives. It is above all things our busi
ness here to think of them, and to work them
out in our lives. For those who are indiffer
ent to the value of truth ; for any persons like
the traveller in that shrine of art, the Tribune
of the Uffizi Gallery at Florence, who, after a
moment's glance at the great paintings and
statues, was overheard to express the desire to
go and visit the king's stables, such themes
may be t<5o high and sacred ; — a passing glance
at the visions of prophets and seers, a mo-

DEMAGOGISM IN SCIENCE. 21
ment's thought upon the greatest truths with
which a human mind may be concerned, are
all that can be expected of those who can be
contented with visiting the .king's stables ;
who are pleased with the mere trappings and
externals of this royal realm through which
our souls are travelling, while they might lin
ger in the palace itself and rejoice in behold
ing the wonderful treasures of the kingdom
of Truth.
Among those who are interested in such
discussions, there is sometimes cherished a
.temper of mind, which, wherever found, is
wholly alien to the spirit in which inquiries
like these should be conducted. It may aptly,
and not too harshly, be characterized as the
temper of the religious, or the scientific, dema
gogue. For it is unfortunately true that there J
may be veritable demagogues in the republic
of letters as well as in the State ; and, as in
politics, so in religion, they are to be found
in the ranks of all parties, and their spirit is
peculiar to no creed or sect. Liberalism and
orthodoxism alike produce them. Popular in
fidelity, too,- has its arrant demagogues- — lec
turers who carry on a notorious business of
atheism on a small capital of philosophic or
scientific thought, and usually borrowed capital
besides. Thus a man of fluent wit will go up
and down through the Bible, or ecclesiastical

22 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
history, very much as a political stump-speakei
will look through the Congressional records,
or our national history, for the points of his
partisan speech. He will begin with Genesis
and find " mistakes of Moses " in abundance.
He will expatiate upon the absurdities of the
story of the ark. He will pause in dramatic
horror before the cruel wars of the Jews. He
will single out an imprecatory psalm or two ;
and when he comes to the New Testament,
he will find in it discrepancies and misstate
ments enough to prove that all the Apos
tles were little better than literary thieves
and robbers. Then he will run up and down
through the Christian ages, beholding every
rack and thumbscrew, but regardless of the
many martyrs ; putting his finger upon the
dark stains, but not noticing the illuminated
pages of ecclesiastical history ; complaining
of the gloom of the scholastic theology, but
blind to the growing light. He will have at
his tongue's end second-hand and unverified
quotations from the Calvinists, and he will de
scant knowingly upon the "Conflict of Reli*
gion and Science," though, like Dr. Draper in
his book, it never occurs to him to spoil his
declamation by giving an exact definition of
either — and so on to the end of the chapter.
Now all this is pure and simple demagogism,
— the more wicked and mischievous, the more

DEMAGOGISM IN THEOLOGY. 23
sacred and momentous the themes Avhich it
degrades. But the demagogism of popular infidelity
{certainly does not justify, and cannot be put
| down by, the manifestation of a similar spirit
:on the part of the accredited defenders of the
faith. The theological demagogue is unfortu
nately a historical and not altogether anti
quated character. He passes through the Bible
and history in the same blind, partisan way.
He fits the Bible to his notion of what it
should be. He casts his drag-net over the
Scriptures, to gather — it matters not from what
part — proof-texts for his favorite dogma. If
a religious itinerant, he provides himself with
no scrip or staff, save a Bagster's Bible and a
Concordance ; and upon these, and the enlight
enment of the Holy Ghost, he relies for the
removal of all difficulties. Not knowing what
he does, nor always of what spirit he is, he
teaches the instructed, and often turns the
Concordance itself into the worst enemy of a
sound biblical theology. Or, if the theologi
cal demagogue be not a mere wandering ex-
horter, but a man of some training, or even
one wearing some official title as a valiant de
fender of the faith, he will still be inclined to
look upon all biblical learning which does not
make for his traditional opinions, as essentially
rationalistic and unsound ; he will have a con-

24 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
fident answer for every doubt, a definite knowl
edge of truths lying beyond experience on the
very borders of revelation, and a ready method
of harmonizing all discrepancies. He rarely,
if ever, will arise in the morning, like Dr.
Arnold, with the feeling that anything per
taining to his creed can be an open question ;
and if Christian thinkers to whom nature,
also, is a revelation, and its laws as sacred as
the commandments of Sinai, and to whom all
history is holy ground, refuse to accept his
favorite interpretation of 'God's Word, or his
theory of its mechanical infallibility, he stands
ready to read them out of the party which in
his sincere, perhaps, but narrow, zeal he mis-
| takes for the Orthodox Church. But nowhere,
surely, is this spirit so hurtful as in the con
sideration of those august themes of which
Jesus spake in parables, and before which the
wisest are as little children. Not with such
help are the threatening forms of unbelief to
belaid! A faith that leans jipon its own pre-
indices cannot stand long in the days when
aXHjrings are shaken.'; There is on-ly one state
of mind which in such investigations is truly
and profoundly reverent and religious, and
that is, the desire to find the facts as they are.
Whoever is afraid1 . of_ science cloes not believe
in God ! Though the truths which the several
sciences have discovered in the various fields

THE THIRD EPOCH. 25
of inquiry are, with difficulty, brought together
and harmonized ; though the facts of nature,
history, and consciousness, lie before our rea
son often unconnected and broken, like those
fragments of Assyrian records which have
been thrown together in the British Museum ;
we should, nevertheless, regard every one of
them as of value, and as having its own place
and worth in the record of God's creative pur
pose which, some day, we may hope not
merely to decipher by syllables and to know
in part, but to comprehend in its length and
its breadth, and to read as one grand, con
nected story.
Another caution should be observed in the
discussion of these topics, and particularly in
the consideration of those questions which be
long partly to natural science and partly to
moral and religious philosophy. It should not
be forgotten that we have entered, or at least
our most scientific science and most believing
faith are now entering upon, what may be de
scribed as a third epoch of modern thought.
For the great question between religion and]
science, like other important movements of
human thought and life, seems destined to
pass through three distinctive stages or epochs.
First there came the age of violent attack
upon the Bible from the scientific side, and
defence as violent This controversy was in-
2

26

OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.

evitable. It resembled the age of agitation on
the question of slavery, or of intemperance.
A great many things were written and said — ¦
in the order of history had to be written and
said — which we do not care to read or remem
ber now. We can profitably forget many
books and articles in which writers whose
eyes were opening to the truthfulness of the
Creator down to the last atom and least fossil
of the world, attacked the received biblical ac
count of a creation in six literal days ; and we
can profitably commit also to the limbo of for
gotten things the many sermons and treatises
in which good men whose eyes though not
yet open to the new light of science, were not
closed to the old glory of revelation, waxed
valiant in their mistaken controversy with the
prophets and priests of the God of nature.
Following this age of agitation and inevit
able controversy, was the second epoch, marked
by ingenious attempts at the reconciliation of
religion and science. It resembled the age of
compromise in our political history. Minds of
great ability have been engaged in this -work.
Their writings are characterized by mutual
concessions and a general air of candor.
Theologians revise their interpretations of
Scripture, and are fertile in theories of the
harmony between Genesis and geology. Scien
tists on their part, their liberty of investiga-

THE THIRD EPOCH. 2f
tion being granted, grow somewhat less ven
turesome on religious grounds. Many emi
nent scientific men, at the present day, find
for their own views satisfactory terms of truce
with theology and the Bible, and even Prof.
Huxley, when on Lhe scientific war-path in
this country, preferred to attack the Miltonic
rather than the Mosaic hypothesis of a crea
tion.* The third epoch presses hard after the
second. It is the age in which the question is
hardly asked, Can religion and science be rec
onciled ? but rather its question is, How are
we to use the help of both — the light of sci
ence, and of the spirit — in a rational interpre
tation of the universe ? It is, in short, the age
of critical review and of judicial reconstruc
tion. There are not wanting signs that we are
already entering into this better era. At least
there are leading minds, profoundly reverent
of truth, in both camps, who entertain this
better spirit, and who represent this more ad
vanced movement. The popular mind, possi-

* To this age of attempted reconciliations and compromises
belong many works still worth reading ; like the writings of Hugh
Miller, and Prof. Dana, and Prof. Hitchcock, and those papers of
Agassiz which touch upon the questions of development and
typical forms ; and. on the part of the theologians, the essay, in
"Aids to Faith," of Dr. McCaul; the "Six Days of Creation,"
by Tayler Lewis ; the essay of Rorison, in " Replies to Essays and
Reviews," and other articles of similar tenor.

28 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
bly, may be now in the thick of the contro
versy : religion and science still seem to be at
war in the workshops, on lyceum platforms,
and in the columns of the " Popular Science
Monthly : " but there are not wanting on both
sides leaders who realize that there is and can
be no Avarfare between religion and science.
It is simply an indication of human ignorance
and error whenever the two are brought into
collision. And it is a noticeable sign of this
more catholic spirit of discussion — of this new
and better era — that nowadays theologians
are the first to rebuke theologians for any
manifestations of an unscientific spirit, while
there are scientists quick to condemn scientists
for any over-confident triumph over man's re
ligious faiths ; that our schools of theological
training are endowing chairs of instruction in
the relations of science to religion ; that clergy
men are the ready purchasers of the latest
scientific literature; and that, on the other
hand, an eminent scientist like Prof. Tait re
plies to Mr. Froude's needless alarms. Even
that stalwart positivist, Prof. Tyndall, seems
ready to consider terms of truce with religion ;
Virchow is constrained to administer a needed
jshftstisement to Haeckel; and our own Prof.
.Grayjcan preface a book of sympathetic criti-
cism-'on Darwin with a confession of substan
tial faith in the Nicene Creed. Eminent au-

THE COMPENSATIONS OF CRITICISM. 29
thorities, it is true, may still be cited both for
a science that removes all basis for belief in
the spiritual and the supersensible, and also
for a science which finds the only possible
ground of explanation for the natural order of
things in a spiritual omnipresence. If Her
bert Spencer's "Physiological Metaphysics,"
as Pres. Porter has justly described it, repre
sents the tendency of thought in the former
direction, Hermann Lotze stands in eminent
authority as the representative of the opposite
tendency. But truth, as Lord Bacon long ago
observed, is the daughter of time not of au
thority. It is well if we are emerging from
the age of storm and bitterness into the season
of calm, and broader vision. There is a classic_
story that a fire once ran over the Pyreneari
mountains, destroying all the vineyards of the
inhabitants. But, as the villagers mourned
for their vines, they discovered that the fire,
which had destroyed their grapes, had opened
by its heat deep fissures in the rocks, through
which gleamed rich veins of silver. I believe
that the terribly destructive criticism of our
day is to leave us richer than it found us. It
may burn up many of our traditions, but it
will disclose to us deeper and precious truths.
Even the rationalistic critics of Germany, who
have labored so hard to destroy the historical
credibility of our Gospels, have left us greatly

3° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
indebted to their work for our understanding
of the Bible and religion. There was once an
island, so runs a fable, as old as the times of
Plato, in which it was reported there was
buried much fine gold. Many came and up
turned the stones, and, though they never
found the gold for which they looked, yet
their searching after it prepared a barren soil
for the reception of the seeds which the winds
and the birds brought, and at last the hidden
treasure appeared in olive-boughs and clusters
of grapes. In the history of human thought
the Grecian fable has often been repeated.
Wherever we see the investigators at work,
even though they search sacred soil and under
mine settled opinions, Ave may rest assured
that the Spirit of Truth has its own ends to
accomplish. The results Avhich the workman
Avould find may prove Avorthless, but their la
bors shall not be Avholly lost. Other men shall
enter in and partake of fruits of Avhich they
neArer thought. So the evangelical scholarship
of to-day is reaping, and is destined still more
richly to reap, the reAvards of the labors of
the rationalistic critics of Germany. Though
the Tiibingen school have not succeeded in find
ing the explanation of Christianity for which
they sought, they have succeeded in making a
great historical field fruitful. Historical faith
is to-day greatly indebted to historical scepti-

THE GROWING LIGHT. 3 1
cism. The better era already partly come, and I
in part still to come, is the heir of the spoils j
of all these sciences. I
Such considerations should remind us of one
more needed caution in discussing these large
subjects. They belong confessedly in part to
the future. We stand only in the dawn of the"]
coming day of the reconciliation of the sciences,
and of mental peace, — that millennium of minds
for Avhich all sincere thinkers pray. Much
even of our most positive and lusty science is
still only in its infancy. Many theories which
now belong to the scientific imagination may
yet be brought within the limits of definite
knowledge. Much also still remains doubtful
concerning the results already won. We must
be cautious not to mistake scientific specula
tions for certain revelations. We are to re
view old faiths in lights which are themselves,
sometimes, shifting ; before sciences which are
still, at many points, open and growing. We
must of necessity therefore advance, at times,
views which we regard simply as tentative, or
which can be determined as yet only in their
outlines and broader proportions. The details
requisite to fill up some views, and to give to
our conceptions that distinctness and vividness
which make evident their agreement with the
truth of things, are not always to be had from
the 'assured results of present science. But,

32 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
notwithstanding these confusions and limita
tions of our knowledge, it is already time
that we should begin to reset our_iyaeologj_,
and to determine the question, which eATery gen-
' eration must ask for itself, whether what we
have learned and do knoAV, confirms, or not,
\ what we have believed. With this purpose,
and in recognition of the demands made upon
any theological Avriter by Avhat I have called
the third and croAvning era of modern thought,
the following pages should be both Avritten
and read.

CHAPTER II.
THE HISTORICAL GROWTH OF THE BIBLE.
We are to bring, then, our inherited faiths
for judgment before the idea of development,
which, as we have just acknowledged, is a
regnant principle of modern thought. We
submit, first, to the neAV criticism our belief in
the Bible. Will that be dissolved, or come
forth purified, if avc search it thoroughly by
this scientific method of inquiry into the origin
and growth of existing things, — a method
Avhich seems to be the powerful solvent of old
beliefs ? How Avas the Bible formed ? Does it
bear Avitness to, and is it the result of, a great
historical process of revelation ? It Avill be
noticed that Ave do uot bring to the front in
this inquiry any question touching the nature
or extent of inspiration, We do not regard
the question of inspiration as the real hinge
upon Avhich modern controversy over the Bible
turns. We do not meet the scepticism of the
hour simply by proceeding to gather evidences
from the Scriptures in faA^or of their inspira
tion. The doubt is larger and broader than
2*

34 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
that customary circle of reasoning. It ques
tions the historical fact of revelation ; and the
first and chief inquiry for us, therefore, con
cerns the historical fact and progress of revela
tion ; the second and subordinate question re
lates to the manner or Avays in which men may
have been trained, or inspired, to receive and
to become the bearers of a revelation. Hence
an affirmative and very positive ansAver may
be given to the former question, Have we a
series or order of events and teaching which
constitute a revelation from God ? Avhile
doubt or hesitancy may be felt in ansAvering
the other question, Hoav Avas the Word of
God made knoAvn, or AAdiat Avas the precise
nature and degree of inspiration ? " Every
' how,' " long ago said Aristotle, " rests upon a
' that ; ' " and Ave may have Arery different con
ceptions of the manner of a revelation which,
neArertheless, Ave may be agreed in accepting
as a fact.
Indeed, to require assent to a particular
theory of inspiration may put in jeopardy be
lief in the ATery fact of revelation which that
theory is intended to secure. We dAvell
upon this obvious, but too often overlooked,
distinction because it is of great importance
for us to remember that the real, decisive point
in the modern attack and defence of the Bible
is a question of the historical fact of revela-

INSPIRATION AND REVELATION. 35
tion; and that question can be determined
only by a large and many-sided view of the
forces and processes which have made human
history and the Bible. Ewald, in one of his
suggestive passages.* reminds us that God
stands alike over against all man's powers and
capacities, though at times drawing nearer to
one side of us than to another ; and, therefore,
man must turn his spirit, with all its powers
and capacities, perfectly unto God in order not
to be estranged from him. Thus, Avhen Ave
consider the manifoldness of God's relations to
us, and the variety of our possible impressions
of the Being who besets us behind and before
and on every side, we should expect that a
revelation from God would be a Divine mani
festation " at sundry times, and in divers man
ners ; " f we should expect to find it as a great
diversified fact and manifold influence in hu
man history, pressing in upon man from dif
ferent sides of his complex being ; moulding
society, shaping events, forming history; not
merely confirming itself at times by special
signs and wonders, but permanently embody
ing itself in ordinances and institutions ; and,
if one may so speak, naturalizing its super
natural powers in the forces and laAvs of a

* Lehre der Bible von Gott , vol. ii., p. 101.
f Heb. i. 1.

3 6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
theocracy, or a church. The Bible, certainly,
was never dropped ready-made from heaven.
Max Mtiller, indeed, goes so far as to de
clare that a revelation ready made and given
to men, like a language formed in heaven,
Avould have been a foreign religion that men
could not understand.""' Neither is the Bible
a collection of sacred oracles. Prof. Beyschlag
may overstate the frequency of this misuse of
the Bible among theologians, but he hardly
exaggerates the evil results of treating the
Bible as a mere collection of oracular texts
when he says : " So long as the majority of
theologians treat the Word of God as a book
of oracles, so long Avill it appear as a book of
fables to the majority of the educated laity."
It is equally certain that the Bible is not,
either in its contents or form, a systematic
text-book of divinity. On the contrary, if Ave
wish to abstract a system of theology from the
Bible, Ave fall into hopeless contradictions if
Ave begin by regarding it as a text-book of
divinity. It is rather a book of life ; and we
must discover its meanings as Ave Avould study
the mysteries of nature, or interpret the change
ful drama of life. Jesus regarded the truth
of revelation as a Avord to be done. (John
iii. 21.) Revelation is pre-eminently truth

* Contemporary Review, Nov., 1878, p. 709.

which has been done in history. The Bible,
certainly, presents a spectacle of the contests
of embodied truths with falsehoods clothed in
human forms ; a spectacle in which we behold
right and Avrong coming and going in a proph
et's mantle, or the armor of a king ; where we
see truth succeeding, and error dying, in the
issues of human lives, and the rise and fall of
kingdoms. The great doctrines of the Bible
are vividly revealed through its characters,
and their work, and in the progress of the whole
history. In this book for all peoples and ages,
the most abstract and impalpable truths seem
taken, as it were, from the very air, from dis
tant realms of the spirit, and clothed with
flesh and blood; they are revealed walking
with men, dAvelling in their homes, made con
crete and visible in the person of patriarch,
prophet, or apostle; and they are summed
up and declared, in the vernacular of every
man's heart, in the Word made flesh.
If, then, we have any revelation from God
at all, we have it at the heart of a great his
torical development ; and if we are to find the
evidence of it anywhere, we must seek for it
as the cause and vital force of historical move
ments and events Avhich otherwise would never
haAre arisen, or, at least, would not have as
sumed their special shape and significance.
Revelation is in deed as well as in word, " in its

38 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
core historical" — a "Thus did the Lord" as
well as a " Thus said the Lord." * We are to
mark the footprints of a higher Power along
the ways in which he has led his people.
Revelation was an inspired course of history.
The prophetic word accompanying the dealings
of God with his people, the written Scripture,
is only one element, and sometimes the least
important part, of the broad historical process
of revelation. In this larger and more satisfac
tory vieAV of revelation, to which fortunately
modern biblical criticism has compelled us to
advance, two distinct conceptions of the Bible
and the religion of the Bible are involved.
It will be necessary for -us to linger with the
first of these only long enough to enable us to
secure a firm foothold from Avhich we may
spring to the second and higher conclusion
which many of our best guides in these matters
have already safely reached.
The first and lower truth, then, is the
evident fact that our Bible is a historical
growth — that is to say, it is a book, or litera
ture rather, Avhich grew up out of the life of
a people ; which in its growth Avas intimately
connected Avith, and dependent upon, the de
velopment of that national life; and AArhich
consequently bears -in its Arery structure the

See Fisher, Beginnings of Christianity, Ch. i.

THE MATERIALS OF THE BIBLE. 39
marks of the times amid the ideas and exigen
cies of which it grew to be at last the world's
Bible. The evidences of this historical forma
tion of the Bible lie upon its very surface,
and they are confirmed by the more critical
study of its contents. Very much as the
wood-cutter can judge, from the successive
layers of wood laid bare by his axe, how
many seasons the tree has been growing ; so a
close scrutiny of the Bible shows unmistakable
signs of the different ages and conditions of
its growth. The very first book in the Bible,
for example, the book of Genesis, discloses to
the critical eye the marks of a composite
structure — of different layers, if I may so
speak, in its formation. It evidently has
passed through several periods of growth, and
Avas not the pure creation of Moses' mind
evoked in a day. In the " Chaldean Account
of Genesis," Prof. Smith, the successful Assy
rian scholar Avhose early death is a positive
loss to human knowledge, has deciphered
fragments of a tradition of the creation Avhich
seems to have floated down from beyond the
beginnings of history, and Avith some Aversions
of Avhich Abraham, in his childhood, may have
been familiar, and which in some Hebrew
song Moses may ha\-e been taught from his
mother's lips. In our book of Genesis, it is
now generally admitted, two streams of nar-

4° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
rative, at least, may be distinguished ; and
some Hebraists think they discern indications
of still other sources of the history, which
were combined in one account by the final
editor of the Avhole. Without adopting to
the full extent the often too ingenious opinions
of these critics, we do not leave firm ground
Avhen Ave say that, however God may have
inspired Moses, he probably did give to the
writer of the book of Genesis earlier narra
tives, and considerable historical material for
the composition of that book in its present
form. The results of biblical criticism do
not warrant us in representing God as the
hard taskmaster that some of our mechanical
theories of inspiration- — umvittingly, perhaps —
cause him to appear to be ; for he never set
sacred historian or prophet at Avork to make
bricks without straw. The historical materi
als, and all the necessary conditions, we may
be confident, Avere present AA'henever the work
men were called by the Lord to do his Avork.
In general, it may be said, that three sour
ces and three great currents of Hebrew life
are to be discovered in the Old Testament — ¦
the prophetic teaching, the priestly lore, and
the reflective Avisdoin of the wise among
the people;* and these three influences are

* Smith : Art. Bible, Encyclopedia Brit.

THE MATERIALS OF THE BIBLE. 4 1
sometimes blended, and indistinguishable ; at
others, separate and distinct ; and, sometimes,
while flowing side by side, in the same narra
tive, they retain each its oavii peculiar color
ing. Some Hebraists go much farther than
this in their analysis of the component parts
of the Pentateuch, but it is enough for our
purpose, and safer, to keep here well within
the limits of the facts generally admitted by
those biblical scholars whose opinions are of
weight. Striking evidences of the groAvth of
the Bible, of the prolonged historical process
through Avhich the Word of God came to man,
might easily be gathered from the Avritings of
the prophets. Even in their visions, and
most glowing inspirations, the prophets are
not independent of the past. The history of
the chosen people appears reclothed in the
drapery of their visions ; and the experience
of former days is echoed, again and again, in
their speech of coming blessings or retribu
tions. Every successive book of the Old Tes
tament represents more inspired thought,
more religious experience, more Divine in
fluences, than were granted directly to the
prophet who wrote it as his OAvn personal gift.
We have, in short, in the Old Testament,
the growing life, the maturing thought, the
ripened fruit, of the Hebrew mind, and the
Hebrew history. Accordingly the Old Testa-

4 2 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
ment shows throughout the stamp of the
genius of the people out of whose history it
grew. Its structure reveals peculiarities of
the Semitic genius. What the architecture
of the Temple at Jerusalem Avas to the ar
chitecture of the Acropolis at Athens, that
the style of the Hebrew Bible is to the litera
ture of the Aryan world. The literature of
Greece is not more thoroughly Grecian ; the
literature of the age of Elizabeth is not more
genuinely English ; than, the Old Testament is
thoroughly and genuinely the literature of the
peculiar people, bearing upon it the unmistak
able stamp of the Semitic genius. Under this
broad seal of the national genius of the He
brew race, there appears often the mark and
superscription of individual minds in these
Scriptures. Whatever may have been the
nature of the inspiration of the prophets, Ave
haA'e no evidence of the miraculous conversion
of any mind into a different order of genius
by the spirit of the Lord. Ezra, the priestly
scribe, who collected and edited the book of
the law, might have been made a better and
more accurate scribe by the grace of God ; but
he Avas never born a poet, and Ave cannot, with
out violence, conceive of him as so inspired as
to have been the author of those vivid de
scriptions of scenery, those little side-pictures
of human life, those fine touches of feeling in

IMMEDIATE OBJECTS OF THE SCRIPTURES. 43
view of natural objects, which abound in
some of the Psalms of the royal shepherd, or
in the imagery of the later prophets. How
ever, then, the Spirit of God may have used
for his higher purposes the minds of men,
we can be assured that he did not overpower
their natural habits of expression, or hold
individual genius, as one might catch a song
bird, passive and palpitating, in the grasp of
his Almighty hand.
While endeavoring to fix in our minds a
true historical conception of revelation, one
other fact should not be forgotten. The ob
ject for which each Scripture was Avritten, was
first an immediate and local one. The law
giver Avas sent with the tables of the com
mandments in his hands to Israel, and the
prophets were the preachers of righteousness
in their day and generation. The successive
sparks of Divine illumination were struck, all
of them, out of the necessities of the times.
The different Scriptures had first, an imme
diate, national, or even local, Avork to do, be
fore they had, or could have, a remote, univer
sal work for all nations and times. If we are
not to do despite, therefore, to the Spirit's chosen
historical method of revelation, we must read
every Scripture in its OAvn light, and interpret
it in view of its own surroundings, and in its
place in the gradual development of the Bible.

44 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
The historical process of revelation must be
brought to the forefront, if we would see jus
tice done to-day to the Bible.
We have uoav cleared the ground for the
second and more important Avork before u>.
Granting that the Bible is a historical growth,
and that it shows on every page the signs of
the national life in connection with Avhich it
was developed, how are we to explain its
growth, or to conceive of its cleA'eloprnent?
What Avas its origin and course ? of what forces
was it the product, or, if you please, the eATo-
lution ! Renan seeks for the sources of this
Avonderful literature, in the naturally mono
theistic temperament of the Semitic people.
But the great rationalistic authority, Keunen,
taking his stand for the survey of the history
of Israel amid the prophetic literature of
the eighth century b.c, seeks, by means of
" Israel's peculiar fortunes," to account for the
rise of the pure worship of Jehovah, from
the originally polytheistic religion of a rude
people, once living in Goshen, whose tribal
God Avas Jahveh. So the critics who seek
for some purely natural explanation of the al
together peculiar religious history of Israel
"fall out among themselves by the Avay. The
negative criticism of the Bible, as it is called,
because it begins its inquiry Avith a denial of
anything supernatural, has displayed great

THE FORCES IN THIS DEVELOPMENT. 45
skill in detecting any cross purposes in the
biblical narratives Avhich may be construed as
historical signs pointing in the direction of a
naturalistic development of the Hebrew wor
ship ; but the plain, broad landmarks of the
course of revelation from Moses to Christ, the
generality of men cannot so easily pass by."'
But can we who have felt ourselves con
strained to go a certain length with the ra
tionalistic critics, stop short of their extreme
conclusions ? If we go with them one mile, will
' they not compel us to go Avith them tAvain ? Is it
not safer, it will be asked, not to yield an inch
to this clestructiA^e German criticism — to stand
firmly in the old ways ? But Ave cannot, Avithout
covering our own eyes, and deafening our OAvn
ears, refuse to confess that Ave have received
from modern biblical scholarship some neAV
light, and that voices which Ave may not mistrust

* Kuenen' s " Course of Israel's Religious Development," seems
to me to be decidedly top-heavy ; — the overgrowth of prophecy in
the eighth century B.C., is too great for the historical stem which
he supposes in the ninth and tenth centuries, and for the root
which he would place beneath it all in the Mosaic age. I should
think a critical reply of great force, to Kuenen, and the rational
istic interpreters, might be made by taking simply those parts
of the Old Testament which they admit to be of historical worth,
and by showing, on their own ground, how these Scriptures have
more in them, and require more before them, than the theories
of those writers allow. Besides this, are the evidences of the gen
uineness and worth of historical writings ; and the positions of
scholars like Delitzsch and Keil show, at least, that the negative
criticism cannob claim undisputed possession of that field.

46 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
call us to advance to some fresh vieAvs of the
providence of God in revelation. The facts,
which up to a certain point all look one Avay,
have led us to follow the modern biblical
criticism so far, at least, as to acknowledge the
historical development of the Bible. But we
find no road further in the direction pursued
by the most advanced negative criticism. We
hesitate to take our direction from our imagi
nation, and to plunge into the thicket. We look
around, sceptical of our own impressions, and
sceptical of our neAV and over-confident guides,
and Ave notice signs still discoverable in this
ancient history, and still to be read broadly
marked upon this literature, which, if Ave fol-
Ioav them carefully and Avithout a predetermi
nation to take the short cut of some fa\Torite
philosophy, may possibly lead us out to a clear
and safe conclusion. We Avho entertain no
invincible prejudice against evidences of God's
special action in human affairs (though that
Divine action may seem at times to our partial
knowledge of the universe to work contrary
to nature, or miraculously) are ready to see the
signs of natural forces and conditions Avhich
others point out in the course of the- religion
of Israel — to go the first mile with the critics ;
but we are prevented by many signs, which
Ave also observe, of God's special method in
training Israel and forming a Bible for the

THE FORCES IN THIS DEVELOPMENT. 47
world, from going a second mile Avith the ra
tionalists, and losing oursefves in their maze
of uncertainties and conjectures. We cannot
stand still, indeed, with the' older supernatu-
ralists to whom the laAvs and courses of nature
are as though they were not ; but neither can
Ave run to the extreme of that philosophy in
Avhose view spiritual powers count- for nothing
in this world. Believing in both God and
nature, we have in these studies of the Bible,
and the religion of the Bible, to keep, if possi
ble, open eyes for all the facts. And we haA-e,
at this point, to deal with this question of fact :
Could the Semitic genius of itself, in its act
ual historical environment, have produced the
Avorld's Bible \ Or are this history and this
literature, which is its fruit, in a peculiar man
ner a- sacred history and. a sacred fruit? Can
we account for Israel, and his Scriptures,
without some special activity of God ? When
we have admitted all that Ave must admit con
cerning the natural forces at work in the
gradual formation of the Bible ; when we
have learned all that can be knoAvn of the soil,
the climate, the seasons, the whole conceivable
effect of natural forces in producing and shap
ing the Hebrew life and literature ; then, are
we prepared to say that these causes are suf
ficient to explain this historical growth of
which we ought to give" some reasonable ac-

4§ OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
count ? or must Ave admit that the light of
Heaven, as AArell as the chemistry of the earth,
had something to do Avith the groAvth of this
tree of life Avhose leaves are for the healing of
the nations ? Our final ansAver to this great
question between naturalism and faith in a
Divine revelation, can be reached only as the
result of several convergent lines of reasoning.
Whatever it may be, it should not be the con
clusion, as it too often is made to be, of some
single course of inquiry, or special study ; but
it should be the conclusion of all our reason
ings — a wisdom Avhich is the sum of the whole
matter.* In entering upon this broad inquiry concern
ing the supernatural development of Reve
lation Ave begin Avith certain significant facts
which the progress of our questioning thus far
has brought close at hand. One circumstance,
which at once arrests our atteution, is the sin
gular fact that Israel by some means gained
an exalted religion, Avhile those tribes to Avhich
it was nearest of kin remained on the loAvest
leA^els of idolatrous corruption. But this con
trast between Israel and his brethren, remark
able in itself, appears the more significant

* So Henry Rogers, in his " Superhuman Origin of the Bible,"
supports, by a great variety of considerations, this thesis : " That
the Bible is not such a book as man would have made, if he
could ; or could have made, if he would."

THE RESISTANCE OF ISRAEL. 49
when we detect in Israel the same disposition
to evil which ran riot in the idolatries of kin
dred and surrounding tribes. We find it dif
ficult upon any known law of heredity to con
ceive of the pure worship of the prophets as.
the outgrowth of " the natural religious geni
ality of Israel," when we remember that the
Israelites were naturally a stiff-necked people,
and that their religion seems to have gained
its authority over them only by a prolonged
struggle against their nature. Here is an
evolution not in accordance with the natural
tendency to variation, and contrary to the
immediate historical environment. The de
velopment of the Bible, and the religion of the
Bible, makes head seemingly against the nat
ural gravitation of the Israelitish history. A
people are pressed forward who are always
turning back. A religion is lifted up into the
light when the external forces tend to carry it
down into the darkness. The prophets, whom
Kuenen himself admits as trustworthy witness
es, give unequivocal testimony to this prolonged
resistance of Israel against the stream which,
nevertheless, carried it along as by a resistless
power. The children of Israel" are not willing
pupils under this higher education. Isaiah
represents their God as saying, "Thou hast
made me to serve with thy sins, thou hast
wearied me with thine iniquities." (Isaiah
3

5° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
xiiii. 24; Jer. ii. 10, seq.) This opposition of
the nature of Israel to a religion supposed to be
derived from its nature presents a strange
anomaly. We find a dualism between the
heart of the people and the formative princi
ple of their religion, Avhich suggests the in
fluence of a higher PoAver. Oehler seizes
upon the divine significance of this fact when
he says : " The whole Old Testament remains a
sealed book, if one shuts himself against the
perception of hoAy the overcoming the natural
being of the people of Israel is the goal of
the whole divine education, and therefore the
entire leading of the people moves in a dual
ism." *
The historical groAvth of the Bible presents
to our notice another peculiar fact which Ave
should consider at this point. We have to
render a reasonable account of the formation
of the canon of the Scripture. What,. Ave ask,
was the principle or laAv of selection in the
formation of the canon ? Israel was evidently ]
a selected race — the chosen people. Its career '
from generation to generation thrusts upon
our notice, at a thousand points, the signs of j
its selection. The Avorking of the same pow
er or laAv of selection, by Avhich Israel Avas
chosen, appears also in the formation of the

Theologie des A. T., i., s. 21.

THE GROWTH OF THE CANON. 51
Bible. It is a selection from the literature of
Israel, which betrays some principle or method
of selection. That principle governs also the
formation of the New Testament as well as
the Old. The canon apparently formed itself.
By virtue of some peculiar selective principle
of its own, the Bible grew into its present ca
nonical form. We cannot trace the determi
nation of the Scriptures of the Old and New
Testaments back to the will of any one man, or
the decree of any body of men. It will
hardly be argued that Nehemiah, or the syna
gogue, or the authority of any great scribe,
fixed the bounds of the Old Testament ; and
Ezra's work in gathering together the books
of the law could not have been an arbitrary
selection of a portion of the existing HebreAV
literature. The work of the scribe followed
the indications of some principle of selection
contained in the sacred writings themselves
which were delivered to him. Still less was
the New Testament canon formed by the will
of man. The Church did not create it by the
decree of any council, though afterward the
Church by its councils recognized the fact that
a certain body of writings had groAvn into
canonical authority. The canon of Scripture
cannot be made to rest upon the Church ; for
the Bible and the Church were both the simul
taneous outgrowths of something which AAras

52 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
in the world before them both — they were the
twin-fruits of a life which was before them
both. EAvald has put, as a running caption
over one of the chapters of his last work, the
words : " The sacredness of the Bible is
neither arbitrarily willed nor arbitrarily to be
determined." * The Avill of man did not fix
the canon of Scripture, and it is not to be de
termined by the will of man. It is not, it
never was, the creation of any human act.
But neither can we refer to any miracle for
its origin. We certainly have no supplemen
tary revelation to determine the metes and
bounds of revelation. Nothing, moreover, is
gained by saying the canon of Scripture was
formed by the general consent of men, for that
is an explanation AArhich is no explanation; it
is simply another form of stating the same fact
that Ave have a body of writings Avhich are uni
versally recognized as authoritati\re Scripture,
that is, as canonical. The general consent, or
uniform tradition, by which the Scriptures are
accepted, is itself the effect AA'hose cause Ave
wish to know. What power has formed, and
bound together in one cluster, and preseiwed,
these fruits of the life of Israel, and suffered
others to fall to the ground ? What is the
law of survival here ? What is the real f orma-

* Lehre der Bible von Gott, i. 3, 8.

THE GROWTH OF THE CANON. 53
tive principle of the biblical canon ? The per
son who can recognize no influence of God
anywhere in the world, or in his OAvn heart,
must of course seek to explain the formation
of the Bible on some principle of merely natu
ral selection. He can allow nothing but the
ordinary forces and laws of the human mind
to have been at work in the production of this
unique historical phenomenon — the Bible of the
world — however he may endeavor to help him
self by emphasizing the peculiar circumstances
or conditions of earlier ages. The person, on
the other hand, to whom a sIoav historical pro
cess without miraculous signs can afford little
proof of the work of God, will seek to find in
the inspired act of some prophet or apostle,
or, if that is not to be thought of, at least
in some divinely imparted authority of the
Church, a special, supernatural basis for the
present canon of the Scripture. But to the
mind that has learned to recognize the divine
action in the whole movement of human his
tory, this seemingly natural selection of the
Bible — this growth of the Bible, as it Avere of
itself, Avithout observation — may be a very im
pressive sign that it was God's work ; that its
development to its perfect and final form was
after a divine method and power. And this
conviction is deepened by the fact that- this
quiet, unobserved, most natural process of

54 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
selecting the Bible from all surrounding litera
ture shows, if we mark closely its progress,
and survey the Avhole result of it, unmistak
able indications of intelligence and design.
The ve'ry naturalness and ease, if one may so
speak, of the manner in Avhich the Bible Avas
formed, evinces the work of a Power Avhich.
had perfect ma= tery over the springs of human
history. It is difficult to explain the progress,
order, and unity of purpose in the Bible, unless
we take into the account something more than
individual genius, national temperament, or
peculiar historical conditions. There seems to
be some power behind all these, co-ordinating
them, arranging and guiding them, for the
production of this organic whole of the Scrip
tures. There seems to be here the manifesta
tion of some one directing and unifying vital
force. There are peculiar and distinctive fea
tures of the Bible Avhich cannot be pressed
Avithout violence into a merely naturalistic
conception of its growth. One is the progress
of reATelation, or the orderly development of
doctrine, Avhich, now that the canon is com
pleted, can be seen to run through it from be
ginning to end. This altogether peculiar and
wonderful feature of the Bible appears at a
glance when Ave bring it into contrast with
other literatures. Our English literature, for
example, is the product of English history,

THE PROGRESS OF DOCTRINE. 55
and it reflects, in each successive age, the life
of the English people. But, gather in one vol
ume, and in historical order, the best poetry
and prose of England, and, though we should
have a truthful representation of the changes
of the national life, and the development of
the national genius, from the first spring-time
of Chaucer, nevertheless, we should not have
in a collection of that kind any appearance of
a definitely ordered and patiently folloAved
progress of doctrine, of one deep plan and plot
running through it all. The collection would
be an anthology, not one organic Avhole. It
might illustrate the development of the English
mind, but it would not be itself one progres
sive manifestation of truth. Or, we may con
trast in this respect the Bible with the Vedas.
They, too, Avere products of one national
genius. They likewise appeared at different
times, and are the Avork of many generations
of poets. They constitute also a religious or
sacred literature. But, of orderly develop^
ment, of a progressive self-manifestation of one
deity, there is not in them any trace. vOn the
contrary they run into confusions. We are
not led by them out into the clear ; we do not
gain, when the last poet has seen his vision,
any one exalted conception from which we can
survey the whole course of their revelations.
They lead up to no height from which all be-

5 6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
comes clear. The sacred literature of the
East reminds us rather of an Indian jungle.
It is luxuriant — it abounds in tropical fruits —
but it is a pathless confusion. We look into
our Bible, and it is a highway of the Lord.
The Vedas present a shifting play of lights
and shadows; sometimes the light seems to
grow brighter, but the day never comes. We
are left still to dream. In the revelations of
the Bible the promise grows in the darkness
until the shining of the perfect day. Or, to
take one other example, and that, too, from
the same historic soil upon Avhich the Bible
grew, compare it with the Talmud. There is
not in the latter anything like the organic
unity of the former. It is a collection of Avise
sayings, not a groAvth of truth ; a tedious com
mentary, not an advancing revelation; many
books of many scribes, not one book of one
mind. We have, then, in the progress of doc
trine in the Bible a most striking peculiarity
of it, Avhich Ave cannot quietly overlook. Here
is an order or evolution of truth AArhich requires
as its sufficient cause some one poAver or laAv
of revelation. What Avas that guiding princi
ple, that co-ordinating poAver of the Bible ?
Such questions press significantly for an an
swer when Ave observe the evidences of a
higher design in the completed Bible. Like
nature itself, amid all its diversities, the Bible

THE UNITY OF DESIGN. S7
is one continuous whole, and one grand design.
But that design Avas not in the minds of the
successive workmen. They knew not the per
fect whole into which their lives and work,
as we noAV can see, are fitted. Prophets and
apostles, called by the Lord to speak to
their own age, little knew Avhat a Bible they
were making for mankind. That work was
beyond their ken ; that design was larger than
the knowledge of the very men who were
providentially called to execute it Our Bible
in its completeness and its unity might be a
vast surprise to Moses or Isaiah ; and Paul,
and the last of the disciples, St. John, hardly
could have stood far enough aAvay from their
own work to see how perfectly it completed
the Avhole. This great design of the religion
of Israel is an ultimate fact to be accounted
for— a design which was ages in execution;,
which was carried on by men separated by
hundreds of years ; which began in a word of
promise, and ended in a fact of redemption in
the fulness of time.
The following chapters will lead us to con
sider more definitely these remarkable features
of Revelation as one great, progressive, histori
cal Avork. But the lavv of selection in all this
marvellous development of the Bible seems at
first sight to be a higher law. The Bible and
the religion of the Bible, we should infer from
3*

58 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
this general preliminary survey of their his
torical growth, are the evolution of higher than
earthly forces. Those, at least, who haAre eyes
to see the presence of God in history, will
need nothing more than these significant facts
to commend to their reason Bunsen's descrip
tion of the Bible as " a book full of thousands of
years ; full of apparent contradictions, as nature
and man, and the history of our race ; but
ahvays young and in itself one through the
unity of the spirit out of which it proceeded,
even as the creation is itself one, Avith all its
oppositions, yes, even through all its opposi
tions."* We reach beneath the surface, and
touch the real cause of these remarkable phe
nomena Avhich the historical groAvth of the
Bible presents to us, Avhen we lay hold of the
fact of a Divine course or process of human
education and redemption. Its laAv and prog
ress and unity lie in the one purpose of a self-
revealing God. Here, through transactions,
institutions, customs, laAvs ; in short, through
the Avhole manifold deATelopment of a Divinely
selected national life, as Avell as through the
sacred literature Avhich flows out of that life,
or carries it on, Ave find the special presence and
power of the self-revealing God of history.
But, not to anticipate too much our conclu-

- * Gott in der Geschichte, i. p. 94.

THE BROADER VIEW. 59
ston, it will at least be acknowledged that we
have already gained one vantage-ground in the
course of our questioning. If we should be
compelled to lose faith in revelation, we must
reject it on broader and better grounds than
those familiar to the common infidel. We
must be robbed of faith in the divineness of
the whole history of Israel, before our Bibles
can cease to be sacred to us. He who has
once gained this broader view of the Bible as
the development of a course of history itself
guided and inspired by Jehovah, will not be
disconcerted " by the confused noise of the
critics. His faith in the Word of God lies
deeper than any difficulties or flaws upon the
surface of the Bible. He will not be dis
turbed by seeing any theory of its mechanical
formation, or school-book infallibility, broken
to fragments under the repeated blows of
modern investigation ; — the water of life will
flow from the rock which the scholar strikes
with his rod. He can wait, without fear, for
a candid and thorough study of these sacred
writings to determine, if possible, what parts
are genuine, and what narratives, if any, are
unhistorical. His belief in the Word of God
from generation to generation does not depend
upon the minor incidents of the biblical
stories ; it would not be destroyed or weak
ened, even though human traditions could be

60 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
shown to have overgrown some parts of the
sacred history — as the ivy, creeping up the
wall of the church, does not loosen its ancient
stones. He can listen with incurious compla
cency Avhile small disputants discuss vehe
mently the story of the ark, or Jonah's strange
adventure ; and he can look on with an in
different smile while learned magicians attempt
to dissolve the accounts of Samson's famous
exploits into a sun myth ; — for is not Samson,
they ask, a proper name derived from a He
brew word signifying the sun ? and in what
is the strength of the sun but in its beams ?
and is not Delilah a Hebrew word for the
night, who receives the sun into her lap and
shears him of his beams ? and, presto ! the
change is wrought, and the Samson of the
Bible, Avith all his human nature and mighty
deeds, is transformed, to- the credulous satisfac
tion of the new masters of critical legerdemain,
into a primitive myth of the sun ! But he
Avho has once gained the broader view and
larger faith, is above the din of, the critic's
hammers, and he is not to be troubled hence
forth by the small dust of biblical criticism.
If he ever loses faith in God's Word, it must
be for reasons that shall blot the glory of
God from the heavens, and make the light
which is within man darkness. The person
Avho throws in our faces what we have just

THE BROADER VIEW. 6 1
characterized as the small dust of biblical criti
cism, and asks us, what has become of the
Word of God ? resembles the man who should
toss a spadeful of sand, scraped from the sur
face of the rock, into the air, and ask, as we
rub our eyes, what has become of the Avorld ?
It is still beneath us as of old, though our eyes
may be too full of dust to see where we stand.
After all the work of the critics, the Bible still
remains,xthe great, sublime, enduring work of
the Eternal who loves righteousness and hates
iniquity. If only, however, we are allowed to
plant our feet quietly on the everlasting rock,
and are not compelled by a mistaken zeal to
keep every grain of sand — to hold fast to
any traditions of men which may have accu
mulated upon the surface of revelation, and
which, possibly, the rising winds of controversy '
may blow away !

CHAPTER III.
THE COURSE OF MORAL EDUCATION AND PROG
RESS OF REVELATION.
In pursuing this broader inquiry, in- which
revelation is sought for through great histori
cal processes, and in which our Bible is regarded
as a growth slowly matured under the influence
of both natural and supernatural forces and
laws, we have next to ask how the Bible stands
in relation to the educational method and work
of God in human history. Let us first, how
ever, make clear this view of history Avith
Avhich Ave intend to bring the Bible into com
parison. This is all the more necessary since
there have been almost as many philosophies of
history as there have been philosophers. But
their conceptions of many hues, and almost end
less combinations, may be reduced to three pri
mary colors ; and to distinguish between these
Avill be sufficient for our present purpose. Ac
cording to the first of these views nothing is to
be seen in history but the operation of physical
laws ; and the philosophy of history is reduced
to a science of social statistics. Buckle, with

THE POSITIVE SCIENCE OF HISTORY. 6

J

his impatience of metaphysics, and his fondness
for statistics, Avas the readable and superficial
advocate of this so-called positive science of
history. But Herbert Spencer is its profound
student and great master. The new science of
" Sociology " seems to be an application of
arithmetic to history. It treats motives, and
beliefs, and volitions, as though they were so
many quantities, the laws of whose combina
tions, in working out the problems of human
society, our philosopher is to discover, if he
can. All goes very well with our statis
ticians and social arithmeticians, with- their
" tables " and " multiplication of effects," and
" differentiations " and " integrations," until it
occurs to us to ask the inconvenient questions,
" What do these formulas represent ? What are
these numbers Avorth \ What do the unknoAvn
quantities, the symbols of their equations,
mean ? " and then Ave must be put off with the
answer, " Oh, science simply has to do with the
succession and combinations of things, and has
nothing more than algebra to say about what
things stand for, or are worth." But as men
and women — -feeling, thinking, living, dying —
Ave do have a great deal of concern with the
meaning of things ; and in our own personal
consciousness Ave have a sense of being and of
moral worth Avhich, to the generality of men,
will always be more intelligible and important

64 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
than the formal principles of Mr. Spencer's
complete philosophical multiplication-table. In
short, this positive science of history seems to
• us to gain the whole Avorld and to lose its own
soul, and so to profit us little. It seizes the
form, and misses the spirit of history. It
observes the uniformity of the Avaves, and the
regularity in their rise and fall ; but it does not
measure the tides, and their higher laAv. It
may be an accurate science of the relation and
succession of social phenomena ; but it is not a
philosophy of history, for it holds no plummet
by which to fathom the deeper currents, and
has no means of determining the destiny toAvard
which the life of man is swept on.
The opposite extreme of the purely idealis
tic philosophy of history we may dismiss Avith
a few words. Since Kant, idealism has had
free course in 'Germany, and been glorified.
Hegel expanded idealism to the utmost limits
of the power of language to contain thought ;
and, since his death, it has exploded into we
know not how many rarefied philosophies,
each of which is claimed by its possessor to
be the very idea of the master. Since the
general breaking up of Hegelianism in Ger
many, it Avould be a work of supererogation
for us to venture to condense it into any one
intelligible English phrase, or to burden our
pages with an extended notice of the great

THE IDEAL PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY. 65
truths, and greater assumptions, which have
marked the modern attempt to make the his
tory of man turn itself into a process of
thought, and behave like a proper Hegelian.
We may gladly avail ourselves, however, of
the evidence in behalf of the truth that there
is reason in all things, and that Spirit is every
where present and active, which is presented
by the persistent vitality of idealism in mod
ern philosophy ; though we may refuse to en
tangle our understandings in the mazes of this
infinite speculation. The German idealism
has been a worthy Avitness of the Spirit against
a short-sighted materialism ; but, in turn, it has
become a blind leader of the blind when it
has presumed to find its Avay through nature
and history by the inner light of its oavii
thought. If Hegelianism manifests something
of the faith which can never be confounded
when it regards " history as the development
of Spirit in time, as Nature is the develop
ment of the Idea in space ; " * it has, also,
been put to shame by its forgetfulness that
the thoughts of the Eternal Spirit are not as
our thoughts, nor his ways as our Avays. If
idealism has seized upon the truth, too often
neglected in Christian theology, that God has
been, and now is, in the world, manifesting his

Hegel: Phil, of Hist. (Bohn's Trans.), p. 75.

66 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
glory, and reconciling it unto himself ; it has
too often lost the other truth; that he is also
God over all blessed forever. This absolute
idealism ought, it has been said,* to be able
to reveal the future ; but it has not been able
eA^en to interpret the past Avith historical truth
fulness by its logic. Hegel's " Philosophy of
History" contains far more Hegelian philos
ophy than human history. If the Avorld is " a
crystallized syllogism," unfortunately for our
philosophers it has not crystallized always ac
cording to their laAvs of thinking. f Judaism
is said to have been a dark riddle Avhich tor
mented Hegel all his life,J and his disciples
* Bowen : Modern Phil. , p. 362.
f For the unhistorical distinctions of Hegel with reference to
the ancient religions, see Oehler, The. d. A. Test., i. s. 57.
For his failure to apprehend the idea of Christianity, see Domer*
History of Doctrine of Person of Christ. Absurd instances of the
application of Idealism to natural science abound in Hegel's wri
tings ; as for example, the following : — ''Caustic potash makes
carbonic acid out of the air, in order to become mild." Natur-
Ph'losophie, § 332. ''AVarmth is the self-restoration of mat
ter in its formlessness, Its fluidity, the triumph of its homoge
neity, etc.," Ency., § 303. " There is a darkness existing for
itself, and a light existing for itself, and by mediation of trans
parency in its . . . unity is the appearance of color." Ibid.,
p. 280. Hegel calls "the Newtonic theory, that white light con
sists of the union of seven colors, "a barbarism over which one
cannot express himself too strongly, . as though," he says,
' ' a pure stream of water could oiiginate from seven kinds of
earth." Ibid., p. 285. The immanent dialectic of light passing
back and forth, through the colors of the rainbow, in and out
of its opposite, darkness, is prodigious ! But let these few ex
amples of idealistic science suffice for many.
% Rosenkranz: Biog. Hegel's, s. 40.

THE THEOLOGY OF HISTORY. 67
of the Tubingen school have mistaken a mi
rage for the reality of primitive Christianity.
They point to an airy inversion of the sub
stantial facts Avith Avhich a sober criticism is
acquainted. With this passing notice of 'these two ex
treme conceptions of history, the positive and
the idealistic, we hasten to the statement of
the third view with which our reasoning in
regard to Revelation is concerned, and which
we may describe as the conception of a provi
dential development of history.* Its law of
progress is a divine purpose, and its goal is
the greatest possible moral good. Its devel
opment is not that of an abstract Idea, or a
World-spirit, or the blind working of imper
sonal laws ; but man is taken up in the pur
pose of a higher Being,, and human history,
with all its lights and shadows, Avith all its
eddies and retrogressions, is the progress of a
divine purpose, Avhose end is the greatest pos
sible good. This A^ieAV recognizes a power in
human affairs that " makes for righteousness,"
and makes for it likewise with apj)arent fore
thought, and intelligently.
This conception may be thought out in
 «
* That development does not exclude providence, but is a com
plex adjustment of forces which requires purpose, M. Janet has
maintained conclusively in his recent book on "Final Causes,"
against a prevalent unphilosophical tendency to dismiss super
ciliously the old argument from design.

68 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
several different ways, but it implies belief in
a moral order in history, and in One whose
orderings are eATeryAvhere to be sought for and
followed. It is, in its best statement, that
Christian philosophy of history as the coming
of the kingdom of God to Avhich, alike from
the abstractions of thought and the necessities
of daily life, the hearts of men are abvays re
turning. It is, in short, a theology of history
as Avell as a philosophy of history.
Lessing first threw into modern theology
the fruitful idea that revelation itself may be
conceived of as a divine educatiou of the race.
Lessing's conception, when taken up by theol
ogy, and set in the light of a clearer faith than
Lessing found in the Orthodoxism of his day,
gives us a view of history Avhich seems to be
both simple and comprehensive, both true to
the facts and to the spirit which is in man.
The Christian philosophy of history as the
carrying on and out of a great divine work of
human education and redemption unites in its
comprehension the statistics and the ideas ;
the necessary laws of human development, and
the freedom of the spirit ; the order of nature
and the operation of supersensible powers.
There is no need, hoAvever, for* us to pause in
order to array at this point arguments and
facts in support of this conception of the moral
ordering of history, as the evidences of it will

THE MORAL TEST OF REVELATION. 69
be involved in our whole reasoning — the light
of it plays in and out through all our thinking ;
and if our subsequent positions be admitted,
the correctness of the moral and theistic begin
nings of our argument will need no other proof.
We proceed, then, to examine our Bible
further under this conception of the moral de
velopment of human history, and the Divine
education of man. If a revelation really comes
from the moral Orderer of the world, it must
floAV with his purpose. It must be a part
of his order, it must carry out his method
and work. The supreme moral test of the
Bible therefore, is, Does it flow with and in
crease this diviner current of history ? Did it,
as it first welled up and began to flow in Israel,
does it now, in the fulness of its poAver, run
into and sweep on with the deepening right
eousness, the enlarging truth of history ? We
have, in short, to do with a question of the
whole moral tendency and educational work of
the Bible.
In putting the Bible to this moral test no
artifices of interpretation, or trifling with the
moral sentiments should be tolerated. Man's
conscience and its education through centuries
of history are the work of God, or nothing is.
Man's moral sentiments, and their groAvth,
come from the Father of lights, or all is dark
ness. If the light which is within us be dark-

70 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
ness, no revelation would be of any aAxail to.
us. When Jesus said, Every one that is of
the truth heareth my voice, he declared unequi
vocally that the sense of moral truth within
man is the final test of revelation. But, admit
ting this, how does the matter stand between
the Scriptures of Israel, and the conscience of
to-day ?
The case seems, certainly, to stand very
poorly for the Bible, if the Bible is to be de
fended as an infallible treatise of morals and
divinity, of equal inspiration and authority
throughout, finished and accurate in every
sentence and part. There are passages of
Scripture which an enlightened Christian con
science is far beyond. There are rules Avhich
it would be bondage for us to observe. A
man who should attempt to regulate his social
life by the laws of Moses Avould be sent to the
penitentiary. A person Avho should adopt, as
the professed creed of his life, the wisdom of
Solomon, might knock in vain for admission
at the doors of an Evangelical church. But
the Bible is not the Koran, and we are not
called upon to tear'revelation from its histori
cal surroundings,, and to treat it as a creation
of God independent of all the other Avorks of
God from age to age. As the sun and the
solar system are supposed to have come forth
together out of the original nebula^ — the same

THE MORAL TEST OF REVELATION. 71
primal force evolving both simultaneously and
harmoniously, the consolidation of the earth
proceeding as the cloud-light of space was
condensed into the orb of day, all things in
the creation keeping perfect time in the great
march onward, so that, at length, when a world
ready for the life of man was gained, there
rose above it, in its clear sky, a sun to rule the
day, — so was it with the progress of revelation
and history. They were developed together,
and in harmony, and by the same Divine Prov
idence. The advance of the one keeps time
with the progress of the other. The light
brightens as the world is prepared for its
shining. The sun of to-day might not ha\-e
done for the atmosphere of the carboniferous
age. Our light would have been out of season
in patriarchal times. The sun was once hardly
distinguished from the earth, and it. wrapt the
whole orbit of our planet in its strange, dif
fused light before ever the two were divided,
and the sun rose clear above the earth's horizon
as the one dazzling orb. Revelation and human
life seem, in the dim dawn of history, to have
been strangely blended, and it is hard to sepa
rate the awakening human soul from the
Divine manifestation in which man first came
to himself, and which threw ever around the
childhood of humanity a strange glamour, and
to us unnatural light : not until centuries had

72 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
passed did the growing revelation clear itself of
the earthly, and, in the fulness of time, con
centrating its beams in one perfect manifesta
tion of God, become henceforth, in the firma
ment of the world's faith, the true Light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the
world. The case, then, stands very differently with
our Bible the moment we place before our
minds this conception of the intelligent co
ordination and simultaneous deA^elopment of
the world's Bible, and the Avorld's history, the
final result of which is a finished revelation
and a Christian era. Before we can bring any
part or precept of the Bible under the condem
nation of conscience, Ave shall have to settle
this larger question — whether there has been a
course of human education and progress of
doctrine in the Bible Avisely arranged and pa
tiently carried out ; whether, indeed, our Bible
bears witness to a special education of man
according to a good purpose by the Spirit of
God. We shall notice, first, some general indica
tions of this educational character of revela
tion, and then call attention to some particular
illustrations and confirmations of it.
First, the general formative truths of the
Old Testament Avere progressive forces in early
history. They were necessary to progress, and

REVELATION A PROGRESSIVE FORCE. 73
they pressed man on. Revelation forbade man
to look back, by its threatenings, and led man
on, going before him as the angel of the Lord,
with its promise. The Old Testament repeat
edly threw into human affairs just those,
truths which man needed to make him move
on — to keep him from falling hopelessly back.
Consider, for example, the moral effect in
early ages of that account of the creation pre
served, and evidently arranged in a form con
venient to be committed to memory, in the first
chapter of the book of Genesis. Whatever
may be its present scientific value — and we
shall seek to estimate further on its Avorth as a
contribution to scientific progress — no student
of the history of nations can entertain any
doubt of its moral value, its inestimable ser
vice, that is, to the moral progress of mankind.
We could more easily, indeed, compute hoAV
much a pure spring Avelling up at the source
of a brook that widens into a river, has done
for meadow, and grass, and flowers, and over
hanging trees, for thousands of years, than
estimate the influence of that purest of all
ancient traditions of the creation, as it has
entered into the lives and revived the con
sciences of men ; as it has purified countries of
idolatries, and swept aAvay superstitions ; as it
has flowed on and on with the increasing truth
of history, and kept fresh and fruitful, from

74 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
generation to generation, faith in the One God
and the common parentage of man. A
primitive and pure Hebrew tradition of the
creation was probably one of the impulses of
the first great religious reformation in the
patriarchal age. The truth Avitnessed by it
Avas enough to make Abraham a reformer.
With some spiritual song of the creation in his
heart he could not join in the idolatries of his
neighbors, and he seeks another country. The
Chaldean Genesis, which has been partially
deciphered from the broken tablets of the
royal library at Nineveh, though corresponding
in some interesting particulars Avith the bibli
cal narrative, lacked precisely this moral
worth, and reformatory power. These tradi
tions of the creation never became poAvers of
a groAving religious history. They are like
stagnant pools of water, themselves choked
with corruptions — not flowing fountains of
life. They did not stir and cleanse the moral
stagnation of Babylon. The vital poAver of
truth to create a purer and growing life is the
characteristic virtue of the Arery first words
of inspiration. A thoughtful man, Avith the
biblical truth of the Creator Avorking as a
moral force in his soul, became the father of a
nation Avhose end is not yet. It is not an un
reasonable, but a very probable, conjecture that
the children of Israel, during their bondage in

REVELATION A PROGRESSIVE FORCE. /5
Egypt, preserved their ancestral tradition of
the creation, and had in it a bond of religious
faith, never wholly broken, to keep them as
one people for the time of their exodus. The
truth with which our Bible begins may have
been one of the truths which prepared Moses,
during his exile with the priest of Midian, to
come forth as the deliverer and lawgiver of
his people ; the grand faith that God made
the heavens and the earth becoming thus a
second time a source and impulse of a great
religious and national movement. But how
shall we trace through the history of Israel
the inestimable influence of that primeval
revelation ? On and on through the Hebrew
life and literature those pure truths of the
creation flow, and mingle with the deepest and
best currents of the national life and thought ;
and if we, to-day, would follow the lifegiving
stream of Divine influence backward and up
ward through history to its earliest sources, we
shall pass beyond the broad and fruitful teach
ings of Christianity, beyond the grand reaches
of prophecy, up through the stern command
ments of the law, to this first clear spring and
earliest fountain of revelation — In the begin
ning God created the heaven and the earth.
Thus it may be shown that other leading
ideas, or great formative truths, of the Old
Testament, move on always in accordance with

7 6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the moral order, along the deeper moral grooves
of history. The moral tendency of the Bible,
in general, works together Avith the moral
gravitation of things, for righteousness and
against iniquity.
Secondly, these Scriptures, one after an
other, seem to have been thrown into the
course of the moral education of the world
when they Avere needed. They came not too
soon or too late. When the age needed the
lesson, the schoolmaster stood before it, sent
from God to teach it. Revelation in this
manner led step by step, and age after age, the
moral progress of man. The Bible kept ever
just ahead of the times, and so Avas fitted to
bear the part of moral leadership in history.
At no one time was its Avord of prophecy too
far advanced for the people to follow it, if
they would; at all times its message pressed
events on toward the better day. The mes
sengers of revelation were of the people, lim
ited by their conditions, and bound under the
burdens of their own generation ; each was
called to wrestle with the questions of his oAvn
times. But truths from God, stirring in the
heart of their age, broke forth in their inspired
speech, and visions of the glory of the Lord
made them leaders and reformers. This con
tinuous and unmistakable moral leadership of
the Bible, so singularly perpetuated from

MORAL LEADERSHIP OF THE BIBLE. 77
prophet to prophet, and running, like one in
spiration, through many generations, is itself
a sign of God's Avork, and an indication that
we are following here the course of a revela
tion. Observe hoAV orderly and progressive
this moral leadership of history by the God of
the Bihle is. We seem to be following along
this history a sagacious and indomitable work
of moral engineering, — over mountains and
across valleys, to use again the vivid prophetic
description of its progress, there is made
straight a highway for the Lord. Fix in mind
the great epochs — the Reformation of the patri
archal age, the Exodus, the Monarchy, the
Exile, the Return, the Interval — and around
these periods gather in their order the literary
products of the life of Israel — prophecy, and
history, and proverb, and psalm, — and the
moral purpose and progress, the providential
design and leadership through it all Avill be
come at once self-revealed and obvious, as the
meaning of some great picture, with its lights
and shades, and convergence of lines in one
perspective and toward one point of sight.
Read the Bible as our modern discoverers of
the mistakes of Moses read it, without taking
in its historical perspective; look upon the
biblical revelation as a plain surface without
depth and distance, — and you cannot possibly
gain a much truer conception of the divine

78 DLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
wisdom in it, than you could of the glory of
God in the heavens, if you should regard the
sky as a flat surface in which the stars are
fixed, forgetting the vast astronomical dis
tances, and the groupings of Avorlds, and the
harmony of all. The unhistorical interpreta
tion of Scripture is as childish as an unastro-
nomical view of the sky. We must endeavor
to see things as they are, not as they appear,
if we would discover the higher thought, the
divine law, in their arrangement. Follow,
then, through the Bible the continuous adjust
ment of the revelation of truth to the condi
tions of the life of Israel — and in this adapta
tion of the environment of revealed truth to
the struggle of the higher life in Israel, there
lie the evidences of a more than natural evolu
tion. The Bible, when interpreted Avith any
adequate historical sense, shows throughout
unbroken moral leadership. Its truths meet
the exigencies of its epochs, and lead on into
new eras, toward the one far-off Messianic
goal. Thus (for Ave can noAV only glance
down the course of development) Abraham
receives the Avord of the Lord Avhich enables
him to open the Avay of reform, and to become
the father of a monotheistic nation. Moses,
with the commandments of the Lord, leads a
chosen people one great step onAvard toAvard
the land of promise. Samuel receives the

MORAL LEADERSHIP OF THE BIBLE. 79
truth by whose power he leads the twelve
tribes out of political chaos. David leads the
kingdom to a throne established in righteous-
tness ; and the older prophets come with the
word of the Lord which kings must hear.
Isaiah, and the younger prophets, lead religion
through the deadly tangle of Canaanitish
idolatries, over the arid Avastes of formalism,
beyond the rocky fastnesses of Judaism, to
the living fountains of a spiritual worship,
and into the illimitable prospect of the Messi
anic glory. The nation, in order to learn its
truths by heart, is sent into exile, " goes into
retreat to do penance for its sins." It is
called back, sobered and purified from idola
try, to enter upon the Puritanism of the Jew
ish Church, which also must precede the vic
tory of faith, and its final Christian liberty.
Again revelation proves true to its mission,
and leads the history. In the later Hebrew
writings, which have found a place in our
Bibles, the truth of the individual, and his re
sponsibility, sounds forth. Jeremiah struck
this new note; it rings through Ezekiel; it
calls, like a trumpet, to courage and con
science, and the hope of immortality, in the
book of Daniel. There follows an age when
the voice of the prophet ceases. The drill of
the schoolmaster has its appointed time. The
hedge is built around the law. The heroic

So

OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.

warrior recovers the sacred rolls Avhich the
"Madman of Syria" had left unburned. The
scribe sits in Moses' seat. Already the soil
is prepared by the Roman ploughshares for
the seeds of a better faith. But the life of
the true religion must first, it would seem,
return into itself, become dry in the hard ker
nel of Judaism, be buried in the ground, and
die, before it can rise again in the new vigor
of Christianity, and bear the ripe fruit of the
Gospel for the Avorld. At last the greatest •
of the prophets points to One greater than
he, in Avhom all is fulfilled, and in his disci
ples the true Israel is sent at last as a " na
tion of teachers " through the Avorld.
Thus, moral leadership, kept up through a
succession of centuries, and toward a Messianic
goal, is the peculiar divinity of the Bible and
the religion of the Bible. Rightly to appreci
ate Avhat divine Power, standing as it Avere
behind history, ever pressed Israel on, and
often against its own stubborn Avill, to the
moral leadership of the world — Avhat higher
forces Avere ever at Avork in and through the
Bible, we need to leave our oavii position amid
the Avorked-out results of revelation, and Ave
should divest ourselves of our Christian asso
ciations, which are the results of the whole
educational Avork of God in history ; Ave must
enter into the moral ignorance, the supersti-

THE ANTI-HISTORIC POWER IN ISRAEL. 8 I
tions, the cruelties, the thick darkness and
sin, from out which revelation emerged ; we
must take our stand before the might of
evil, and hear the noise of the battle, and be
hold the powers of darkness rising up every-
Avhere against this great march forward.
Whence, then, Ave may well ask, came that
Spirit which wrestled with Israel and pre
vailed? What earthly science shall name this
unknown PoAver which conquers and reigns ?
Keen observers have noticed the existence of
what they call an anti-Darwinian conscience in
man. There is an invisible something in man
which often sets at defiance, and prevails 0A7er,
the inherited tendencies of human nature, and
which does not always give the battle to the
strong. Whence came, and of what manner
of spirit is, this anti-historic power in Israel
and the Bible ? Some inner principle of de
velopment struggles against the outward his
torical environment, and will not rest until it
prevails. What was it which selected Israel,
and in one narrow land, while all the sur
rounding country was sinking, lifted man up
in spite of himself ? which along the course of
one national history carried on a progressive
development of religious life and truth, while
other people, though taught by many wise
men and seers, and not without their truths,
still can show no one connected and progressive
4*

82 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
revelation like this ? At all events, here are
phenomena to be taken carefully into the ac
count in any fair estimate of the moral nature
of the Bible. But let us consider these gen
eral phenomena more in detail. Certain spe
cial characteristics which indicate one educa
tional plan, and which suggest the superintend
ence of one mind throughout the whole course,
remain to be noticed.
1. There is a plain progress of doctrine
in the Bible from without inward, from ex
ternal restraints to inward principles, from
laAv to love. The object-lesson is given
first, the truth of the spirit afterward. The
discipline of conduct precedes the renewal of
the heart. The sign and symbol prepare for
the essential and the real. God's method in
the Bible is like the mother's method with her
child. The best truths of the home are the
last learned. Those things Avhich are out
Avard, temporary, and of least Avorth, are the
first gifts and earliest lessons of the home. Its
higher spiritual blessings, its real wealth of
love, lying from the beginning in all the care of
the home, cannot be opened to the child until
after many days ; they are the memories of the
home Avhich men cherish by the graves of those
Avho bore them. God's method of revelation,
like the course of human education, begins, of
necessity, with outward regulations, and provi-

PROGRESSIVE METHOD OF REVELATION. 83
sions for the day ; it proceeds by the lessons of
tutors and governors, and ends with the free
dom and love of the new heart. This progres
sive method is to be observed in the manner
of revelation, or in the means employed by
God for the purpose of manifesting himself.
The earlier means of divine manifestation
were the appearances of angels, the voice, and
vision of the night, the Shekinah of the sanctu
ary, . and, in general, supernatural signs and
works. The conception of the presence and
power in Israel of the Holy Spirit grew up
slowly, and required times of trouble and ex
ile for its development.* Even the word " con
science," without Avhich we can hardly conceive
of any religion, and through which revelation
shines upon our hearts, is not to be met with
in the earlier books of the Bible. A trace of
it is to be found in Ecclesiastes,f but not un
til the deep religious experience of the apostle
Paul did it become a customary Scriptural ex
pression. Its use marks a late, developed,
Christian idea of individual responsibility, and
the indwelling laAV of the Spirit.
The educational work of the Mosaic ritual,
the plain pedagogical intent of the law, will
at once occur as an example of this method of
revelation. Working from within outward, its
* Compare Ewald-, Lehre d. Bible von Gott. , i. 293.
f Chap. x. 20 ; Ewald : Ibid., i. 35.

84 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
object and intent, as has often enough been
pointed out, was " to prepare and awaken the
inward spiritual life, the inner consciousness
of God."* It will be only necessary for us,
therefore, to call attention to some illustrations
of this work of the schoolmaster performed
by the law which are not so familiar, 01
Avhich need nowadays to be emphasized.
From this educational point of view we are
to judge rightly the vows enjoined or permitted
by the Old Testament. Vows mark a lower
and more external stage of religious progress,
and they were permitted by the. God of the
Bible as useful in the earlier periods of reli
gious growth. We feel that the great apostle
acted in a spirit of accommodation to an out
grown Jewish scruple Avhen he took upon him
self a voav in the temple. Vows disappear
Avith other " beggarly elements " of this world
from the later revelations of the Spirit. Re-'
ligious and moral voavs, as total abstinence
pledges, are pre-Christian morals. They may
still be necessary for persons who in their
moral development belong to the ages before
Christ, and who cannot be constrained by the
law of the spirit. They may still be useful,
at times, in view of the necessities of the
weaker brethren. But they possess no virtue

* Oehler; The. des A. T., i., s. 460.

PREPARA TOR Y LAW OF THE SABBA TH. 8 5
or sanctity in themselves ; as even in Deuter
onomy we read : "But if thou shalt forbear to
vow, it shall be no sin in thee " (Deut. xxiii.
j 22), and they have no proper place in the cove
nant of the Christian Church.
The same pedagogical intent of the law, in
leading men from the negative and outward
morality to the inward and positive virtue, is
very marked in the successive precepts concern
ing an institution Avhich, because it is often so
misunderstood, deserves, in this connection,
special notice. We cannot maintain the per
petual obligation of the Sabbath unless we
observe carefully the preparatory and educa
tional intent of the fourth commandment
The original commandment is mainly negative.
" Thou shalt not do any work." The first ob
ject of the commandment is to gain control of
the conduct, the work of the hands. It intro
duces a restraint rather than a privilege.
The privilege, however, lies at the core of the
restraint, waiting to be brought out. The
Sabbath precepts, and indeed the whole ritual
of the prophets, look forward to a more spir
itual worship, and the better consecration of
the seventh day ; and the Sabbath Avaits for
its Lord. His word — ¦" The Sabbath Avas made
for man " — finally makes the glorious Christian
privilege break loose from the restraints of the
law. The Jewish traditions had checked this

86 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
blossoming forth of the law. The precepts of
the synagogues, which had been formed be
tween the times of Ezra and Christ, were so
many attempts of mistaken zeal to bind up
and stay the development of the blessing in
tended for man in the Sabbath day ; and Christ
took them all away. So the Jewish Sabbath
passes naturally, and in accordance with the
divine law of the development of revelation,
into the Lord's day ; and the end is better
than the beginning. We may not, as Chris
tians, confine the sacred blessing and joy of
the Lord's day within the earlier and narrow
Sabbath of the commandment.' That would
be a Judaizing Avhich gendereth bondage. In
the joyous worship of the first Christians the
Sabbath idea began to be fulfilled. No
longer a day of burdensome restraint, and
more than a day of rest, the Sabbath, in the
Christian observance of the Lord's day, be
came indeed a day made for man, a day sacred
to the highest and best communion Avith God,
a blessing of the Spirit for mankind. The
older Sabbath, lingering for a season in Chris
tian usage beside the Lord's day, like a shadow
by the substance, at last, in the more per
fect day, disappeared, Avhile that Avhich, as
the apostle said, is more glorious, remains.
Not by returning, therefore, to the law of
ordinances, as we are sometimes ill-advisedly

PREPARA TOR Y LAW OF THE SABBA TH 8 7
urged to do, but rather by following up the
advancing purpose and process of revelation,
until it gives man a Sabbath in its full idea
and perfection, are we to justify, without arti
fice of interpretation, the present and perpet
ual obligation of the Christian Sabbath. The
divine principle of the development of revela
tion is our only and our sufficient reason for
the change to the first day of the week. The
divine sanctions of a finished revelation invest
the Christian Sabbath. Not to avail ourselves
of its blessing is worse than to break a com
mandment. It is to neglect the Christian
conclusion of the whole educational course
of the law, and to profane a perfect gift of
God to man.*
2. The educational progress, or pedagogical
intent of the Bible, may also be characterized
as an advance from the general to the specific;
from the indefinite to the more definite. The
lessons in coarse print come first; the fine
print is learned afterwards. The general
principle or rule is given first; the teaching
* The second commandment, also, has passed through a notable
change. Mozley (Ruling Ideas, Lecture III.) shows that the idea
natural to the Jewish mind in the times of Moses, of a judicial
visitation of the sins of the fathers upon the children, began to
be superseded by a different view as early even as the age of
Ezekiel, and in Christian theology has passed into the conception
of a law of natural providence. We have here another instance
of the principle of development of revelation, by which that
which is imperfect is gradually done away.

8S OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of subsequent experience brings out its more
spiritual meanings, or its more difficult appli
cations. The progress of the revelation of the
nature and perfection of the Godhead is a sig
nal illustration of this feature of the historical
course of revelation. This advance in the
self-manifestation of the God of Israel may
easily be traced in the succession of the names
for God which, occur in the Old Testament.
These names are, if one may so speak, the high-
Avater marks of successive revelations. They
mark the limits reached by great historic
movements and tides in Israel's enlarging
knoAvledge of God. The name of God is that
by which he is known, that by Avhich he makes
himself knoAvn in his relation to man, and
hence, Avhen Christians pray, often so thought
lessly, " For thy name's sake," they pray for
the sake of all that God in the past ages has
manifested himself to be, for the sake of the
whole revelation of God in Avhich they and
their fathers have believed. And the name of
God grew more definite, more positiATe, more
manifold Avith the advancing history.
Mr. MattheAv Arnold, in his "Literature
and Dogma," seems strangely to have over-
looked the significance of this growth of Israel
in the knoAvledge of God, which Ave can trace
through successive periods by means of the
names given to the Divine Being, at different

PROGRESS IN THE NAMES FOR GOD. 89
times, in the biblical history. His failure to
follow this clue to a right understanding of
the religion of the Bible, is an instructiA^e les
son of the need of something more than liter
ary criticism — of the need, also, of the historic
sense — in the study of the Bible.
We may sketch, in the following manner, the
rise and growth of the names of God in the
Old Testament.* There was one name in use
among the Semitic people before all others,
antedating the call of Abraham, and continu
ing, also, down the whole course of revelation.
It seems to furnish the distant and vague
background of revelation — like a receding and
infinite sky — -upon which, one after another,
many distinct names and special manifestations
of the divine glory are brought out, and into
whose depths they disappear again.
From this older and- undefined Semitic con
ception of God as the Lord (El, Eloah), we
are introduced into the course of revelation by
a name which became prevalent in the patriar
chal age, and which expresses a somewhat
more definite sense of Deity, " The Almighty "
(El Schaddai, Ex. vi. 3). This patriarchal
designation of the Almighty God is still,

* Compare Ewald : Lehre d. Bible von Gott. , ii. , pp. 327-348 ;
and Oehler: The. d. A. Test., i., p. 131 ff., and Articles, in loco,
in Herzog's Real Enc, for the detailed critical discussion of the
views summarized above.

9° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
however, quite general and. primitive; it in
troduces the conception of a power above
nature, and thus is an advance upon the deifi
cation of the vast power in nature ; but it is
not a word of distinct moral significance, and
it marks, therefore, as a name for God, the
beginning rather than the middle or the end of
revelation. The sense of dependence upon the
infinite Power which is above all finite exis
tence, is the beginning of the knowledge of
God. The book of Genesis lacks, howeA'-er,
the more specific and richer names for God
which can be learned, if at all, only from a
prolonged moral experience. With the deliA*-
erance of Israel, from Egypt, at the beginning
of its career as the chosen people, is given that
divine name which AAre might almost call
Israel's proper name of God — Jehovah; a
name by which was signified not only the un-
changeableness of the. God of the covenant,
but also the appearance, or coming forth, of
God in self-revelation. Jehovah is the self-
manifesting God, God in the course of self-
revelation, the historically appearing God.*
The exodus and the founding of the theocracy
give, also, the historical occasion for the reArela-
tion of God as the Holy One. The rise of
this divine name in Israel is of peculiar in-

* Oehler : Ibid., i., s. 144, 150-1.

PROGRESS IN THE NAMES FOR GOD. 9 1
terest. We do not find it in the book of
'Genesis. The antediluvians and the patriarchs
had not been overpowered by the awful holi
ness of Jehovah, as was the lawgiver upon the
mount. The very name, the Holy One of
Israel, marks a new epoch of the history. It
is taught through a marvellous experience of
the Lord who shone from the burning bush,
and who led the people through the sea in
whose mighty waters their pursuers sank as
lead. (Ex. xv. 10-11.) And through a pro
longed course of moral history, by calamities,
and judgments, and blessings, the full signifi
cance of that divine name, the God of Holi
ness, shall be disclosed to the prophets. After
the covenant was first broken there appear,
for the first time, the further designations of
God as the gracious, merciful, long-suffering
God — divine names to whose refuge ever since
the penitent have fled for a hiding-place from
their sin.
There is another name for the Lord, not oc
curring in the earlier Scriptures, which evi
dently has a history. The exiled king offers
his prayer for his return to the sanctuary in
the name of the Lord of hosts. (Ps. lxxxiv.
1, 8.) To the covenant name, Jehovah, he adds
in his appeal the words, Jehovah of Hosts.
The Pentateuch and the books of Joshua and
Judges lack this name which the Psalmist con-

9 2 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
fidently utters. It came into general use du
ring the times of Samuel and David, and is
associated with the early fortunes of the mon
archy. (1 Sam. i. 3, xvii. 45.) It is a tri
umphant, royal name for the God of Israel.
It Avas a name, then, which had been histori
cally given. Ewald thinks it first Avas heard -
on some great clay of battle, and was halloAved
in the song and jubilee of some signal victory.
What unforeseen deliverances, and help of in
visible allies, as the appearance OArer the battle
field of chariots of the Lord, and the heavenly
host, may be commemorated in that new name
of Israel's triumphant trust — Jehovah of
Hosts! It Avas a name full of meaning and
full of faith, because it Avas a historical name
— a name of great memories and triumphs, of
royal thanksgivings and national jubilee. It
became the favorite expression of the later
prophets when they Avould declare their in
vincible faith in the majesty of Jehovah, and
his sovereignty over all poAvers and dominions,
on earth and in heaven. They seal, as it were,
the words of their prophecy with this exalted
name, Jehovah of Hosts.
But these successive names for God, which
were historically given and are full of historic
meaning, all pass away before the rising of
the Name in Avhich the whole historical reve
lation was fulfilled. While the Mohammedan

FRUITS OF REVELA TION— THE FAMILY. 93
exults because the Koran gives him a " hundred
names of God which he can Aveave in one
wreath of prayer," the Christian rejoices that
he can make known his request to the Father
in the One Name, by Avhich God ha's manifested
his very nature, and finished the revelation of
his glory, for in him dwelleth all the fulness
of the Godhead bodily.* (Col. ii. 9.)
The didactic purpose of revelation, and the
progressive work of the Bible in the moral
education of mankind, may be further illus
trated and confirmed by certain results which
have been accomplished by it. The fruits
which remain show the success of this divine
policy of revelation. By this wisely-arranged
and patiently pursued biblical course of human
education, man has been taught certain great
moral lessons, and taught them so effectually
that he will never forget them. The lesson
of the worth of the family is a case in point.
In the blessing of the Christian home we have
one of the worked-out results, one of the

* Ewald : Lehre von Gott., ii. , s. 333, distinguishes five names
for God, corresponding with the five great periods of the history
of Israel. God is the " Almighty " of the patriarchs ; " Jehovah "
of the covenant ; the "God of hosts " of the monarchy, the ' ' Holy
One" of the Deuteronomist and later prophetic age; "Our
Lord" of Judaism — and Christianity brings no new name, but
fulfils all. Though we may hesitate to mark with such definite-
ness the changes in the prevalent names for God in Israel, we
can hardly fail to see in their succession an evidence of one
gradually developing revelation of the true God.

94 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
thoroughly-taught lessons of a progressive rev
elation. If it required ages to school man in
that truth, nevertheless, when the divine in
struction Avas over, the lesson never needed to
be taught again. The manner and progress
of this teaching were as follows. The Old
Testament begins in an age of the world
wholly destitute of any just conception of the
individual and his rights, and sets up, as a first
lesson, or example, the Hebrew family — Abra
ham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca. Judged
by our standard, these were by no means
model families. They Avere, however, good
examples for their own times. ¦ In the Hebrew
family, imperfect and even polygamous as it
was, one great blessing for the household Avas
secured — the Hebrew love for a family-name
and inheritance. Revelation is content first to
teach a truth which the Hebrew mind can
comprehend, and which Israel does thoroughly
learn. Revelation lays hold first of a great
natural instinct, and hallows it. The God of
the Bible singles out the family-line as the
means of conveyance of his promised blessing.
Already, by this first lesson, the HebreAV family,
in the patriarchal age, gains a sanctity which
it possessed nowhere else in the East. Then,
the germ of a better family-life being thus
given, the laws of Moses close around it, and
protect it. The teaching of the prophets

FR UITS OF RE VELA TION— THE FAMIL Y. 95
purify and hallow it. But the law of divorce,
given on account of the hardness of men's
hearts, has not yet dropped away. The com
mandment is not yet perfect. At last a
daughter of the house of David brings to
womanhood the blessing of the Highest. In
the teaching of Christ the scaffolding of the
law, once needed, is taken away ; the tempo
rary expedients are cleared off ; the imperfect
is made complete ; and, at last, grounded in
the essential morality of the law, and built up
and cemented by the experience and historic
sentiments of a race, arises the institution of
the Christian family. Look to the end, toward
Avhich the law of Moses was a great step for
ward for his day. God did not make the
family, as he did not create the world, in a
week. It was a slow but successful process,
by which, under his guiding hand, so divine a
creation was formed and perfected. The God
of the Bible only began the lesson of the true
nature and law of the family with Abraham ;
he continued it and improved it with Moses ;
he taught its inviolable sanctity in the peni
tential Psalms of David. It was a hard lesson
to make a corrupt, passionate world learn by
heart. But when the Bible is finished, behold !
this divine institution is also finished. When
the Bible is done, the family is secured for
ever. The family is itself a word of God — a

9 6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
word spoken in part by the prophets, but at
last perfectly- declared by the Son of Man,
whose words shall never pass away — a final
and authoritative word of the Eternal ; and
the gates of the Hell of our nineteenth century
infamy of free love shall not prevail against
it! In connection with this course of revelation
by means of Avhich the Christian home was
secured, two other results of the development
of the Bible should be taken into consideration
— the abolition of human sacrifice, and the
abolition of slavery. Both of these customs
were fatal foes of the family, and the same
wise and patient course of divine dealing
which established the institution of the family,
swept away, likewise, these enemies of its
peace. The trial of Abraham's faith, AATith its
far-reaching consequences, introduces to us the
biblical method of checking, and in time re
moving, the very source of that evil which
made many a land in antiquity run red with
the blood of sacrifices.
Herbert Spencer, and other statistical phi
losophers, are accustomed to regard the offer
ing of Isaac as only one among many illustra
tions of a cruel superstition prevalent through
out the whole low level of a primitive culture.
But that Avhich distinguishes this transaction
from all other ancient sacrifices, that which is

ABRAHAM'S LESSON AND ITS FRUIT. 97
altogether peculiar and influential in the trial
of Abraham's faith, is quietly overlooked in
the rapid generalizations of these Avriters. Its
place and work in the development of a pure
religious faith are the chief questions to be de
termined ; and, when we have clearly grasped
that, we shall find ourselves free from the
moral embarrassment in which even Christian
readers of the Bible have sometimes left this
narrative. A common method of justifying
the morality of the divine command to Abra
ham asserts the absolute right of the Creator
over life, and the obligation of obedience to a
divine injunction as the supreme duty of man.*
But this apology for Abraham's action rests
upon the untenable assumption that morality
is based upon the will of God, and not upon
the essential character of God ; and it ignores
the consideration urged by Canon Mozley that
no miracle could be to us an evidence of a
divine command, if it required a contradiction
of our standard of morality ; and one of the
facts of the narrative to be explained is, how
Abraham — moral reformer as he Avas — could
conscientiously have believed that he was
called by the Lord to offer up his only son.
The reproach cast upon the morality of the
Old Testament by unbelievers in its inspiration

So Rogers : Superhuman Origin of the Bible, Appendix.

j

98 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
is partly justified by the arbitrary justifica
tions of its imperfect or incomplete examples
and precepts, still too prevalent among be
lievers in its divine authority. Dean Stanley,
with his usual genial historic sense, hints at
the simple and true explanation of the difficul
ties which the conscience of to-day may raise
concerning the offering of Isaac AAThen he
says, * " There are few, if any, which will not
vanish away before the simple pathos, and
lofty spirit of the narrative itself, provided
that we take it, as in fairness it must be taken,
as a whole ; its close not parted from its com
mencement, nor its commencement from its
close — the subordinate parts of the transaction
not raised above its essential primary inten
tion." Dr. Mozley leads his readers on the
light ground, when he estimates the whole
morality of the Old Testament dispensation by
the moral standard of its OAvn times, and by
the intention or design of it, Avhich appears
Avhen the end of the dispensation is reached.
In his discussion, however, of the divine
morality in the command given to Abraham
to offer up Isaac, the historical effect of that
divine policy needs to be brought more promi
nently to the foreground. The simple and
satisfactory explanation of this vexed passage

* Lectures on the Jewish Church, First Series, p. 54.

ABRAHAM'S LESSON AND ITS FRUIT. 99
of Scripture seems to us to be as follows : — A
progressive revelation has a twofold object, a
remote and a present work. Everything in it
must be ordered in view of the ulterior de
sign, and in accordance also with the con
ditions of society at each particular step of its
course. Divine accommodation to a lower
level of human ideas, or imperfect condition
of man's knowledge of good and evil, is per
fectly moral, in so far as it tends to overcome
the imperfect and to help on the development
of conscience to that which is perfect ; in so
far, that is, as it is the accommodation of the
teacher to the pupil in carrying out, and solely
for the sake of carrying out, the design of the
Avhole course of instruction. Any accommo
dation to error or imperfection which gives the
error new vitality, or makes the imperfection
last longer, would not be a justifiable act on
the part of the teacher, but rather a partici
pation in the fault of the pupil. Here, then,
was Abraham with a new truth of God grow
ing in his mind, and ready to take his stand
as a moral reformer in a corrupt world ; with
the promise of a future in which all nations
of the earth should be blessed, glowing before
him ; yet with the memories, and instincts, and
habits of the people, and the land, from which
he was called to go forth, still dimming his
moral vision, confusing his ideas, and binding

IOO OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
him, the heir of the future, to the past. He
needed to be taught, in the most impressive
manner possible, the elementary lessons of the
new faith Avhich, eventually, Avas to bless mari-
kind. He needed a special providential
schooling adapted to his mental and moral
state and capacity ; a divine teaching which
should take him up Avhere his previous educa
tion had left him, and send him on beyond his
age. He needed, in this special manner, to
be taught of God, not only for himself, but
also for the sake of the promised race. The
whole design of revelation made necessary
some effectual teaching and trial of Abra
ham's faith. Noav, in judging fairly the meth
od of God in trying Abraham's faith for his
OAvn ulterior purposes of good, Ave have to do
with the actual historical influence, and result,
of the method providentially chosen. What
was the effect of the command to offer up
Isaac on the superstitions Avhich made idola
trous lands abound in human sacrifices ?
What, as matter of fact and history, did the
divine teacher accomplish by his Avay of in
structing Abraham ? Surround yourself with
the actual historical conditions of Abraham's
time. It is no easy task to lift a man, to
raise a race, out of the ideas and customs of
their age. Yet Abraham must be lifted
above his age, and Israel is called to be a

ABRAHAM'S LESSON AND ITS FRUIT. IOI
peculiar people. But how ? The difficulty is
increased by the fact that many of the Avorst
idolatries and superstitions, which a progres
sive revelation must utterly destroy, have
truths at the root of them — and a divine wis
dom of reform cannot move, like human
fanaticism, with the besom of destruction in
its hand. In that most cruel heathen rite of
human sacrifice there is a truth- providentially
to be cared for, as Avell as a fearful evil to be
abolished. There is a pure truth at the heart
of sacrifice. Now, suppose that, as the moral
teacher of an uninstructed age, in which the
very truths needed for all human progress
were overgroAvn with deadly superstitions,
you Avished to disentangle the true from the
false; suppose that, as the instructor of the
man chosen to be the reformer of that age,
you wished to separate the true from the
false in the doctrine of sacrifice. Suppose,
moreover, you wished to prevent the fearful
abuse, and to show the right use, of sacrifice,
in a manner Avhich should never be misunder
stood or forgotten. Suppose you Avished to
teach the right idea of the offering acceptable
unto God, in a manner so vivid and effectual,
that the race whose moral education you had
in hand, should ever afterward count it a sin
to offer human sacrifice ; and suppose, besides
this, you wished to make your teaching, also,

102 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
a trial of faith, which should develop and
confirm the very spirit which you knew to be
essential to the whole subsequent advancement
of your pupil ; and that you had, moreover, a
still ulterior design Avhose meaning could be
come known only when the whole course of
instruction should be completed, and all sug
gestions and types of the earlier discipline be
read in the light of their perfect fulfilment.
Now, can you imagine a better way to teach
that lesson, a more effectual way of accom
plishing those beneficent intentions, than that
pursued by the divine wisdom in teaching
Abraham, and fitting him to be the father of
a chosen people ? The lesson began Avith the
truth at the heart of sacrifice. It continued
by testing and confirming Abraham's faith in
that truth, Avhich it Avas most necessary Israel
should preserve as his race grew up out of
idolatry. The divine lesson ended by casting
out completely and effectually the erroneous
heathen ideas of sacrifice in Avhich Abraham
had groAvn up. God seems, at first, to acquiesce
in the prevailing low theology of sacrifice ; — the
hard commandment comes according to the
ideas of the age ; and Abraham, not deterred
.by anything in the spirit of his times, obeys.
Though it Avas a seeming contradiction to
God's previous word of promise to him, and a
fearful trial to his new-found faith, still he has

ABRAHAM'S LESSON AND ITS FRUIT. 103
not as yet a conscience advanced enough to
make him doubt the divine command, and,
though it all seems very strange, he believes
and obeys. Thus the first truth, the truth
needed for the whole future glory of Israel, is
secured. God sanctions, by his commandment,
the truth at the heart of sacrifice, that all that
we haA^e is his, and with entire faith in his
goodness should be devoted to him. Man can
take not a single step forward until he learns
by heart this first truth of self-surrender.
Abraham, under the hard commandment, learns
it, and is counted the father of the faith
ful. But he prepares ignorantly to follow
that truth. Then the divine word comes
which prevents the fearful abuse of the truth
which Avas sanctioned by the morality of his
age. The divine interposition — not a moment
too soon, not a moment too late — frees the
truth of sacrifice from a fatal error, and sends
the Hebrew race a great step onward toward
the Gospel of mercy. The Avhole transaction,
in short, is a divine object-lesson, adapted to
the times in which it was given, and successful
in its results. It is noticeable, in confirmation
of this didactic view, or pedagogical interpre
tation of this scene, that in the Hebrew text
the name of God in the first commandment to
Abraham is the more general name for the
Deity — the unrevealed God of the creation, —

104 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
Avhile it is Jehovah, the self-revealing God,
who speaks the word which prevents the shed
ding of blood ; and the meaning of that sadly
mistranslated Avord, God tempted Abraham,
is, God tried Abraham, or, as Ave might say,
God taught Abraham a lesson. Now mark the
subsequent historical effect of that lesson so
painfully taught the father of the faithful.
Abraham never needed, himself, to be taught a
second time that God does not wish the offer
ing of blood. No Hebrew parent, reading that
story in after years, and teaching it to his
children, Avould ever think of pleasing the
God of Abraham by offering to him his first- ,
born son ; it became an abomination in Israel
to cause children to pass through the fire of
Moloch, and the later prophets knew that God
loves mercy rather than sacrifice. Though
the influence of surrounding idolatries may on
rare occasions have led Israel into the tragic
sin of offering human sacrifices, the Hebrew
law and custom, and the whole providential
leading of the people from Abraham's day on,
were against it; and they Avho would sit in
judgment upon this diAnne procedure should
not be suffered to ignore the decisive fact that
the God of Abraham is the God whose course
of moral education succeeded in destrojdng the
fatal errors, and saving the vital truth, of sac
rifice ; and that ^the beginning of this great,

FRUITS OF REVELATION— FREEDOM. 105
beneficent, providential instruction in the true
meaning of sacrifice Avas the Anvicl historical
object-lesson Avhich God taught Abraham of
old, and which Israel has not forgotten to this
day. Having dwelt at some length upon the
method of divine education illustrated by
God's dealing with Abraham, Ave may dismiss,
with few words, the course taken by revelation
in abolishing finally that other foe of domestic
purity, and the welfare of society, — human
slavery. The fact that arguments in defence
of slavery used to be drawn from the Bible,
shows the need of popular instruction Avith re
gard to the development of revelation, and the
guiding spirit of the Bible. We may not stand
holding fast to the letter, Avhile the Avhole cur
rent of revelation sweeps on. Revelation in
the end has succeeded in developing the idea
of the individual and his rights, which was
wanting in an early day, and which could be
firmly secured only by a patient work of God
in human history. That idea never would
have been developed and made a fundamental
truth of modern society, had it not been for
the Bible, and the progressive revelation of the
Bible. The fountain-head of this now universal
truth is in the original Hebrew account of the
creation. Man came to a knowledge of him
self as an individual possessed of certain in-
5*

106 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
alienable rights, when God became to his
thought a perfect and glorious Person, with
whom he was created to live in a holy commu
nion. The idea of the human soul, and its
sacredness before God, springing out of the
very fact of the creation, was deepened and
increased with the enlarging revelation of
God's glory in Israel. Human slavery was
not suddenly abolished by any commandment
from Sinai. But revelation threw the truths
into history, and let them grow there, which
made the abolition of slavery all over the
world only a question of time. Rightly
viewed, and fairly judged, the successive posi
tions and Avhole historic influence of the Bible
Avith regard to slavery are a signal illustration
of the large and Avise and successful policy of
revelation in the work of man's moral educa
tion and social reform. A too early prohibi
tion might have been a dead law. A living,
growing principle of opposition to evil is what
the world needs. A long course of constitu
tional treatment is requisite for the cure of
humanity from sin — a patient history of re
demption — not heroic surgery, not the fanati
cism of a wild justice. In Moses's day the age
of the individual Avas not yet fully come. The
ages of the patriarchal family, of the tribe, of
the kingdom, of the nation, are first in order
before the age of fully-developed and well ad-

FRUITS OF REVELATION—FREEDOM. I07
justed individual rights. Revelation constantly
presses forward the truth of individual right,
and presses it on as far, and as fast, as man is
fitted to receiA'e and to keep it. The germ of
the truth which shall overthrow at last every
form of human bondage is contained in the in
spired teaching of man's creation — all men
have one origin, all men breathe the breath
of the living God. The rite of circumcision,
marking, as it does, the exemption of the chil
dren of Abraham from the hard necessity of
being offered in sacrifice to appease God, was
subsequently extended to the servants of the
household, so that the patriarchal law threw
the protection of its sacred covenant not only
over the humblest and poorest child of Abra
ham, but also over those who had been pur
chased from a strange land.* The law, which
rested on these fundamental truths of Genesis,
proceeded to ordain regulations which should
prevent the absolute power of masters ; f
which protected female slaves, especially, from
gross cruelty ; \ and which should make possi
ble a day of emancipation. And over the
humane regulations of the law was thrown the
force of a sentiment which should still farther

* Gen. xvii. 13-13.
} Ex. xxi. 20.
% Deut. xxi. 10 seq.

108 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
mollify the condition of slaves in Israel — a
sentiment of humanity ever kept alive in Israel
by the memory that once their fathers had
been strangers in the land of bondage. The
precepts of the apostles with regard to ser
vants are the Christian continuation of the
truths and emotions which, from the beginning,
along the whole course of revelation, had been
quietly yet effectually at Avork against all
cruelty, oppression, and bondage, and which
have reached at last their most successful issue
in the freedom of all Christian lands. We
must judge the tree by the fruit ; and freedom
is the fruit of that revelation Avhich Avas
planted, a growing truth, in the soul of Abra
ham of old. Historically, the abolition of
slavery is due to the Bible, and the religion of
.the Bible. The progress of truth in the his
torical course of revelation was all in that
direction; and the influence of the finished
Bible, of the whole Bible, has been, through
out modern history, a felt poAver on the side
of the weak and the oppressed > and in defence
of liberty of conscience and the divine sacred-
ness of every human soul. Men must hide the
Bible from the people, if they would steal noAV
the liberties of man.
One other illustration of the progress of
revelation according to the Avise methods of
the schoolmaster, Ave will select from the many

GROWTH OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. IO9
that might be adduced, because Ave Avish to
group together examples enough, around our
central idea of a divine development of the
Bible, to make it definite and clear ; and be
cause it is in itself a truth often discussed and
of much interest. The question has been
raised whether the truth of personal immor
tality is taught in the Old Testament. Here,
also, besides the letter of Scripture, the docu
mentary revelation which remains, let us mark
the flow of the current upon which the relig
ion of Israel was borne on. Personal immortal
ity was evidently not the first w.ord of life
taught to man by the Divine Educator. On
the contrary, the earliest promise is the vague
expectation of some blessing to come to man
kind in the dim future. One searches in vain
throughout the earlier books of the Bible for
any pronounced teaching with regard to per
sonal immortality. It is a truth held, as it
were, in reserve by the God of the Bible.
One finds, however, laid in the first courses of
revelation, a broad fundamental truth, which
shall afterward be used as the substantial
basis upon which the higher hope may rise.
The permanence of human society, the worth
of natural affections, and especially the sa-
credness of the parental relation, are the
lower truths which are first providentially se
cured, and which form the firm foundation for

I IO OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
faith in the higher relationships of a divine
society, — for that belief in the fatherhood, of
God, and the sonship of man, without which
there can be no real, abiding faith in immor
tality in our hearts. The lower, but most
necessary, hope is first born in Israel. The
expectation of a perpetual name in Israel is
the germinant hope of immortality in the
earlier ages. It Avas Abraham's all absorbing
desire. This primitive hope of a family-name
and inheritance became afterward enriched,
and one might almost say, spiritualized, by its
blending Avith the Messianic hoj)e of Israel.
The Messianic age was to the devout Hebrew
in the prophetic times almost Avhat Heaven is
to us. And it is noticeable that the day Avhen
the Sadducees, flourished most, with their denial
of the resurrection, Avas the A-ery day when
the Messianic hope AAras Aveil nigh giA-en up in
the despairing cry of the priests : "We have
no king but Caesar." The Avhole develop
ment of the doctrine of immortality through
the Bible follows the divine law so clearly
apprehended by an apostle, Avho lived far
enough down in the history of Israel to have
a philosophy of that history : " Howbeit, that
was not first which is spiritual, but that which
is natural, and afterward that Avhich is spirit
ual." Through the family, and the hope of the
preservation of a name in one's descendants,

GROWTH OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 1 1 1
Avas formed an. outward, natural sheath for
the finer spiritual belief in immortality. We
can observe with some distinctness the gradual
unfolding of this better hope. It appears in
some of the Psalms. The Hebrew poetry
early felt the stirrings of the instinct of immor
tality ; — the shock of calamity strikes out, as it
were, sparks of that divine light which ever
lies latent in the soul of man. These mo
ments of poetic illumination, however, were
too evanescent, — butforegleams of the coming
revelation. The loftiest minds glow with the
dawn, but the common mind in lowly life
seems hardly to have been illumined by it.
The continual disappointment of their history,
and the vision of the judgments impending
upon Israel, drove the later prophets to more
spiritual interpretations of God's great provi
dential purposes, and hence they gained more
elevated conceptions of the future kingdom of
God, in which the dead shall live again, and
righteousness receive its fitting rewards. The
truth involved in the teaching of the Penta
teuch, that after death the soul has still some
relation to the living God, is developed more
clearly and consciously by the prophets ; but
still the thought of the overcoming of death
for the individual is wrapt up in the more
general conception of the final triumph, and
everlasting inheritance, of the sacred commu-

I 12 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
nity, the true Israel.* It is the chosen people
who shall be ransomed from the power of the
grave. Ephraini shall be redeemed from death.
But within this hope for the chosen race is
quietly enfolded, and growing all the time, the
hope of personal immortality. One great im
pulse to the further development of this truth
was provided by the experience Avhich pressed
ever more severely upon the minds of men,
that justice is not always meted out in this
world, that the wicked often prosper to the
last day of their lives, and that the righteous
do not receive here the full rewards of their
labors. This old riddle of human experience
cannot be solved unless Ave bring to it the
key of this truth that the just shall live again.
The righteous who have died, OA^erborne by
the judgments which fell upon Israel, — shall
not they have part in the final triumph of the
true Israel ? So in the twenty-sixth chapter
of Isaiah, the prophet struggles with this ques
tion, until he breaks out at last into the trium
phal strain: "Thy dead men shall live, to
gether Avith my dead body shall they arise.
AAvake and sing, ye that dwell in the dust ! "
This is the only possible solution of the prob
lem of life ; and it is the conclusion toward
which the history of Israel, with its increas-

* Ps. cii. 24-28; Hosea xiii. 14. See Oehler, opus cit., ii. 240.

GROWTH OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. I 1 3
ing burden of suffering and death, presses on
to Christ.
In the storms of the Maccabsean age, the
belief in immortality rose more brightly than
ever before.* The prophet Daniel, whose
Avords, if not written in that age, were certainly
for that age, holds up before the first martyrs
of that beginning of persecutions the hope of
shining as the stars forever and ever.
We find, then, the belief that there is exis
tence after death involved in the fundamental
religious conceptions of Israel, f But the truth
of personal immortality is a truth struggling
upward, a growing truth of the Old Dispen
sation ; it is hardly a fully -formed hope, or
ripened doctrine. It is in the Old Testament,
but in it germinantly and potentially ; it is the
hope of the prophets in their highest moments
of inspiration, but Christ must bring life and
immortality to light before it can shine, a
steady and transfiguring light of life, for the
world. It seems surprising that a truth so vital to
religion, in our view, as the hope of immortal
ity, should have been left in the background of
the primeval revelation; and some Christian
writers, therefore, can hardly credit the indica
tions that the doctrine of the reAvards of the

* Ewald : v. 306.
f For further proof see Prof. Mead, The Soul, Chap. vii.

114 OLD FAITHS IN . NEW LIGHT.
future life, so essential to their conception of
true religion, was not made one of the promi
nent, working truths of the Old Dispensation.
In this, as in some other doctrines, they seek by
forced interpretations to exti'act from the seed
elements of truth which the God of the harvest
left to appear in the fruit of revelation. They
can hardly be restrained from reading the
Gospel in Genesis, and finding the grace and
truth which came by Christ in the law of
Moses. All such overanxious and impatient
interpreters need to be reminded again and
again o'f Bishop Butler's sober reasoning
concerning "our incapacity of judging what
Avere to be expected in a revelation ; " and our
ignorance as to " whether the scheme Avould
be revealed at once, or unfolded gradually."*
But, though we are not competent judges be
forehand of Avhat course reATelation ought to
take (as some theories of inspiration dictate
the terms of revelation), after the revelation
has followed a particular method of develop
ment, we may discover some very probable
reasons for its procedure. We can readily
conceive some A^ery good reasons Avhy this
truth of personal immortality should not have
been pressed to the front in the Mosaic age.
It Avas a hope overgroAvn with the ritual of

* Analogy, P. II. Chap. iii.

GROWTH OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY. 1 15
Egypt, and it was imperatively necessary for
the Avhole future development of religion in
Israel that the chosen people should be cut
loose from every vestige of Egyptian supersti
tion. Had Moses inscribed the word " Im
mortality " upon the ark of the covenant, the
people very probably might have- remembered
" Osiris," rather th.m have feared Jehovah.
The first duty of the hour was to separate
from this world " a holy people," and con
sequently any truth associated Avith idolatry
it may have been necessary to leave alone for
a season. Besides, an earthly society was first
to be raised up and secured as the firm his
torical basis for all subsequent revelation; and.
in order that the forces necessary to the con
solidation of a peculiar people might have free
play, it may have been necessary to keep at
first other-world motives in reserve. Nor
should it be forgotten that other spiritual
truths of religion are first in order before the
hope of personal existence after death can
spontaneously blossom forth. The sense of
the living God, of personal communion with
him, and of fulness of life only in the presence
and faA^or of God, must be gained before a
Avorthy and exalting hope of immortality can
spring up. Almost in proportion as the psalm
ists of Israel attain this sense of living with
God, do they rise to the joy of the hope of

Il6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
living forever. (Ps. xvi., Ixxiii. 23 seq.) And,
at last, immortality is brought to light only
through One Avho shows disciples the Father,
and leaA^es them in the communion of the
Spirit. The Bible, beginning with the funda
mental truths of spiritual religion, ends in an
apocalypse. • We, certainly, who behold the
glory of the finished temple, have no reason to
complain of the Providence that has left some
darkly-lighted passages, and chilling shadows,
in the crypt.
These illustrations of the progress of doc
trine in the Bible, in conformity with the re
quirements of a divine method of human edu
cation, are doubtless sufficient to give us a
broader idea of Avhat reATelation is, than is
commonly entertained.* The Bible is a living
book. There is movement and life in it.
Ideas grow in it. Truths blossom out, and
come to their maturity in it. The purpose of
love ripens, and bears at last its perfect fruit,
in this sacred history. The Bible is not a

* I have passed over several illustrations of this educational
advance of revelation, hand in hand with the history, which
might be easily gathered, ns. e.g. , the development of the doc
trine of angels, and of the Satanic power ; and, also the growth
of th« idea or habit of prayer, and the new light gained for the
whole conception of spiritual religion by the prophets of the
exile. The educational office an! work of the types of the Old
Dispensation, ought not to be forgotten in this connection ; but
their proper consideration would require more space than can be
allotted here to an illustration of our general principle.

THE PROCESS OF REVELATION. II?
mere repository of the words of God, a recep
tacle of doctrines, like an apothecary's shop
stored with the essences and abstractions of
the products of nature, all labelled and- ready
for use, according to some favorite prescrip
tion. The Bible is not an abstract of useful
doctrines to be administered by rule; it is
rather, like nature, full of mystery, and full
of life. We can follow, as it were, the whole
course of the seasons through it — the spring
time, the early days of promise, the time of
sowing, and * the times of waiting ; the days
when the groAvth seems checked, Avhen the
tares an enemy hath soAvn multiply ; the dark
days and the stormy, the hours of hurricane
and desolation, as Avell as the days of blossom
ing and song ; — and through all its changes,
through the long succession of its ages, are to
be discovered the steady advance and Avorking
out of one purpose, and the sure coming of
the harvest. And, like the growth of nature,
this progressiA^e course of revelation, the grad
ual unfolding of its seed-truths, and the final
and glorious fulfillment of its promise, ai-e
phenomena which imply the operation of
higher laws, and greater forces, than the acts
or the thoughts of the laborers who ploughed
in hope, and scattered the seed, and looked
forward, with prophetic expectation, to the
harvest at the end of time.

Il8 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
The view which we have gained of the
process of revelation lifts us at once out of
many other moral difficulties which are often
popularly urged against the authority of reve
lation, and which sometimes vex the hearts of
believers. We. need hardly follow them here
farther into their details. The faults of the
Old Testament are, as Herder said, the faults
of the pupil, not of the teacher. They are
the necessary incidents of a course of moral
education; they are the unavoidable limita
tions of a partial and progressive revelation.
If God chooses to enter upon a historic course
of revelation, then that revelation must be
accommodated to the necessities, and limited
by the capacities, mental and moral, of each
successive age. Other-wise, revelation Avould
be a wild, destructive power — a flood sweep
ing everything away, and not the river of life.
We cannot suppose that the Almighty can
pour the Mississippi River into the banks of a
mountain-brook. He can begin, however, Avith
the springs and the brooks, and make in time
the broad Mississippi River. We cannot ex
pect God to pour the full Christian era into
the limited moral experience of the patri
archal age. He may begin, however, with
the first welling up of truth in far-off times,
to prepare for the Christian era. He will not,
by a too early flood, wash aAA^ay the very pos-

THE PROCESS OF REVELATION. H9
sibility of an enlarging revelation. . His stream
keeps within its banks ; his revelation never
breaks through the appointed limits of a great
historical influence. But this patience of the
divine Teacher with mau's slowly maturing
capacity for instruction, this self-restraint of
revelation, is itself the- sign of a higher wis
dom. It would have been like us to have hur
ried an Elijah on into a John the Baptist; to
havre spoiled Moses by making him into a
Paul ; we should have had no place or patience
for the conservative life and the partial truth
of an apostle like James, between Judaism and
a full-grown Christianity. But with the Divine
Instructor a thousand years are as one day.
His unit of time is not the short axis of a re
volving world, and his good providence puts
no blessing in peril by unseemly haste. These
very limitations, imperfections, and moral de
ficiencies of particular stages of revelation, so
often alleged against the Bible, are among the
signs which cannot be counterfeited of God's
handwriting in it. The same powers of de
velopment, the same law of evolution, seem to
have been followed, alike, in nature and in the
Bible. The Koran is like a world made all at
once, in the six literal days of some theolo
gians. The Bible resembles a world that has
'been long in growing, and which may well be
pronounced good when it is done.

I 20 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
In general, then, it may be remarked of
many moral difficulties accompanying a pro
gressive i'evelation, which our limits Avill not
permit us to consider more specifically, that
an earnest, true, moral purpose must use, at
one stage of history, at some points in its
progress, a certain roughness of procedure, a
severity, at least, of judgment, which would
neither be necessary nor allowable at another
time, or in a more advanced era. Into the
great mass of human ignorance and idolatry,
God causes, in the call of Abraham, the sharp
edge of his good purpose to enter ; hard blows
must be dealt to drive that thickening wedge
in ; and providence is too divinely in earnest,
in its work of driving that wedge of Hebrew
history into the tough resistance of mankind,
to spare, when needed, strong, sharp, decisive
strokes. Many vigorous proAndences were
necessary and right in the divine order of his
tory, as Avere the blows of the pioneer's axe
and the smoke of his fires, Avhen the forests
were to be cleared and the wilderness made
habitable. Moses and the judges, and the
prophets, even, were God's chosen pioneers;
and theirs was the rough, hard work of his
tory. How much suffering and hardship does
not nature relentlessly compel in the pioneer
age ! The necessities of the times determine
the rights and the truths which must be made

MORAL DIFFICULTIES IN EARLY AGES. 1 2 1
paramount and commanding. Thus, the right
of the individual to life is an undeniable prin
ciple of morality ; but, at times, the right of
a race to its redemption may be more sacred'. '
The rights of every individual Ammonite and
Canaanite, slain by the children of Israel in
execution of a . divine mission, a just God
cannot in the final judgment despise; but the
right of the Avorld to the coming of the king
dom of righteousness and peace may, at any
particular crisis of history, outweigh all con
sideration of individuals in the scale of a just
providence. Moreover, it should not be for
gotten that the individual, who for the moment
may be sacrificed for the good of the whole,
has himself an immortality, in which the A^ery
good for which he was destroyed may return
upon him in blessing. The stern, temporal
measures sanctioned in the earlier stages of the
Bible cannot be fairly judged except in the
light of immortality thrown upon all the ine
qualities of human life by the finished Bible.
Indeed, the very conception of a divine educa
tion of the race requires for its completion the
thought of a future in which the final bless
ing shall be imparted to all who have passed
away before its coming. All who at any stage
of the process contributed to the result, or
who have been, under temporal exigencies,
severely used by the course of Providence,
6

122 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
have their recompense in the final issue.
Hence, we are never envious of the future, of
coming days of greater good, because the
future, too, as well as the past, is for all who
fulfil aright their present part. The end of
the world- age is for all the generations of
man.* Thus the revelator sees the kings of the
earth bringing the honor and glory of the
nations into the gate of the celestial city.
The end of time is the blessing of that Messi
anic kingdom of which all the ages are the
heirs. One would need, therefore, a view
comprehensive both of the past and its exigen
cies, and the future and the final good, before
one Avould be qualified to sit in judgment
upon the public justice of Jehovah. The fact
of history which does lie within our compre
hension, is the fact that through it, and especi
ally by means of the chosen people, a great
moral purpose of human redemption has been
pushed steadily forward, and Avith the stern
mercy, at times, of nature's own laws of de-
Arelopment. We have thus far taken no notice of the

* See Lotze : Mikrokosmus, iii., pp. 50-53. The difference be
tween this philosophy of history as a real working out of good — ¦
a process of human education whose fruits shall be at last for all
generations — and the emptiness of the Hegelian thought-process,
or any purely idealistic conception, is at onco apparent.

FINAL MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. I 23
significant fact that it is to the Bible itself we
owe our own power of judging the Bible. The
hard places in the Old Testament are revealed
by the increasing light of the Bible itself.
The Bible is its own commentary and correc
tive. When that Avhich is perfect is come,
that which is in part of itself falls away from
the divine law. This very fact that we are
able to judge the imperfections of the Old Dis
pensation by a more advanced standard, shoAVS
how effectually through all those ages of
patient education the Spirit of Truth has pur
sued its work. The conclusive logic of facts
shows that the divine policy, of revelation has
been successful. The real morality of tae
Bible is its final morality, the morality in the
intention of the Lawgiver from the beginning.*
The divineness of the whole process is evident
from the very fact that it has taken place.
Other nations "ended as they began;" no
other ancient system of law and religion had in
itself a principle of development, a construc
tive force, the power of passing on to perfection.
In its very evolution we have a sign of the
supernatural life in the religion of Israel.
There is the continuity of a divine purpose
here. One other remarkable feature of the Bible

* See Mozley's fine lecture on " The End the Test of a Pro
gressive Revelation."

124 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
throughout, which indicates the continuous
purpose and Avisdom of a Divine Teacher in
it, remains to be more distinctly noticed. Our
view of the educational Avorth, and the peda
gogical purport of Scripture, Avould be incom
plete, did we not at least point out this char
acteristic in passing. We refer to the limits
of the extent of revelation. The silence of
Scripture is often one of the most superhuman
characteristics of it. Not only, as we have
shown, was the Bible, in the process of its for
mation from age to age, adapted to the recep
tive capacity of those to whom the word of
God came — the commandment, as Augustine
finely said, being in accordance Avith the heart
of him to whom it was given — but also the
Bible as a whole, in AAThat it reveals and in
what it does not reveal, is adjusted to the
limits of the powers, and the moral necessities,
of mankind. The light of revelation seems
adapted to the eye of the human understand
ing in a manner so remarkable as to indicate
a higher Avisdom as the author of both.
False prophets never know Avhere to stop.
Mahomet and Swedenborg know too much.
But something seems to have laid a restraint
upon prophets and apostles, and to have
sobered them even in the midst of supernal
revelations. There is a more than human
wisdom in the silence of the Bible. It is

THE MORAL LIMITS OF REVELATION. 1 25
divine as the silence of nature. Of the being
and purposes of God, of the unseen world and
its retributions, enough is revealed to us for
the motives and duties of the present life ; but
little or nothing to gratify curiosity. There
is enough of both Heaven and Hell revealed
for all practical purposes now, but nothing for
merely imaginative or speculative uses. Reve
lation is limited by the moral ends of a system of
education and trial; and in that adaptation of
it appears again the thoughtful provision of
the schoolmaster. Everything here seems to
be fitted up to make this world a scene of dis
cipline and moral education for us. Life is a
school, we say, and from it only the suicide
can play truant. A genuine message, then,
from the author of nature might be expected
to conform to the disciplinary or pedagogical
purport of the present system of things. Pre
cisely such a revelation Ave find the Bible as a
whole to be. It is fitted wisely to the purpose
of forming character. It is a revelation clear
enough to -render faith possible, and obscure
enough to leave unbelief possible. It affords
thus a trial or test of character. It searches
the heart. Too bright as well as too dark a
revelation might defeat the very end of revel
ation. It would bring the educational and
probationary period of life to a close ; it
would bring on the day of judgment. The

126 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
very difficulties and limitations of revelation
are adapted, also, to the conditions of moral
growth. It requires, and it repays, toil. It
tasks, and tries, and puzzles, and strengthens
faith. It is like man to make everything
regular, easy, and plain ; but that is -not like
the God of nature, of history, or of the Bible.
A revelation in which the Avay never could be
missed ; a revelation made level and smooth to
our feet, would be like the work of man, but not
like the builder of the mountains. Were there
no Alps for men to climb ; no ocean depths be
neath the plummet's reach ; no stars still unre
solved; no Scylla and Charybdis waiting to
catch up the unskilful voyager; no burdens
of toil and sorrow laid upon our manhood ; if
this life were only the play of children, and
all the days were sunshine : then, indeed,
might we expect to find a Bible Avithout diffi
culties ; a Gospel without parables ; a king
dom of truth AAathout tasks for the athlete,
and without rewards for the victor. But the
God of nature, of history, and of the Bible,
surely does not intend to people his heaA^en
with a race of moral imbeciles. " To him that
overcometh," is the promise — seven times re
peated — of the crown of life.
Our Avhole discussion, then, of the morality
of the Bible, is summed up in the conclusion
that the development of the Bible- has fol-

SUPERNATURAL DEVELOPMENT. I 27
lowed a beneficent moral purpose. We have
given reasons for the belief, that in its growth,
its historical influence, its unfolding of truth,
and its limitations, the Bible follows the moral
order of the God of history ; flows with his
purpose, and works out his design of redemp
tion. The whole moral development of reve
lation, often against nature, across the grain
of Israel, and in spite of all opposing forces,
is to us an evidence of a higher than a merely
natural revelation ; it bears Avitness of a su
pernatural course of history.

CHAPTER IV.
THE GROWTH OF KNOWLEDGE AND SCIENTIFIC
TENDENCY OF THE BIBLE.
But does not our conclusion leap too lightly
over the scientific difficulties which have been
heaped up against the Bible ? Hoav could a
God of truth, it is asked, inspire a revelation
which did not give the world a proper science
of the creation, or, at least, Avhich taught a
very imperfect scientific conception of things %
Moses should have had Herbert Spencer at
his elbow, to have been an infallible guide to
the laws of the creation ; and the prophets
would have been improved by a scientific
course in connection Avith their theological
schooling. If God's object had been to
give, ready made, an infallible book contain
ing, without error, all truth Avhich man can
know; Moses and the prophets, certainly,
needed an enlightenment Avhich they never
received; and their inspiration has failed to
give us a perfect and systematic epitome of
the universe in our Bibles. We do' not care
to argue, however, concerning an imaginary

SCIENTIFIC TENDENCY OF THE BIBLE. 1 29
Bible. Our concern is to discover Avhat God
has done. The same broad, historical method
of studying revelation Avhich we applied in
the last chapter to its moral contents and in
tention, we have now to apply to the scien
tific teaching and tendency of the Bible. Did
the course of revelation, as we can trace it
through the Bible, lend its impulse to, and
help on, man's progress in knowledge, as it
plainly has his growth in virtue ? Does the
Bible form, thus, on its scientific side, as well
as its moral, a Avell-fitted part of the whole
plan of a benevolent God for the education
and redemption of the world ? We have to
do Avith a greater question than the interpre
tation or meaning of any single passage of
Scripture. We are seeking for the main cur°
rent of the stream, and its real direction ; and
Ave are not much concerned with the momen
tary whirls or eddies. We have to deter
mine, in their relation to the growth of man
in knowledge, the real tendency and the final
outcome of reA^elation. We must Aveigh care
fully the influence of successive Scriptures
upon the science of their OAvn times, as Avell
a? estimate fairly the proper relation of the
finished Bible to subsequent scientific prog
ress, and the position of the Avhole revelation
toward the result of modern investigations.
But to put the question in this Avay — the fair
6*

13° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
and reverent way of stating it — lifts us at
once out of much controversial literature, and
opens a larger and more fruitful field of in
quiry than religious and scientific controver
sialists usually enter.
We must bear in mind the caution already
given (p. 31), as we attempt this inquiry.
While it is true that our interpretations of
Scripture may be traditional, it is also true
that much science is still only presumptive
knowledge. Some theories advanced by com
petent scientists remind us of the dotted lines
on our maps, AArhere it is expected railroads
Avill soon be laid, or existing lines will be pro
longed. Time may see them completed ; and
it may see them built with important devia
tions from the projected course.
Our larger question Avith regard to the Bible
and science inA^olves two distinct inquiries ;
first, What are the historical facts as to the
scientific teachings and tendencies of the
Bible? and, secondly, Hoav do these facts
agree Avith God's method of human education,
and the progress of man in knoAvledge up to
the present conclusions of modern science ? It
will be convenient for us, hoAvever, and Avill
prevent needless repetition, to blend these ques
tions someAvhat in the course of our reasoning,
and to bring them both out together in our
conclusion.

FREEDOM FROM NATURE-MYTHS. 13 I
We notice, at the outset, one general char
acteristic of the. biblical revelation, which has
not had justice done it by many who re
ject, at first sight, the Mosaic account of the
creation. The fact is that the Bible had in
the beginning, and preserved throughout its
whole development, one great scientific virtue.
The biblical view of nature is singularly free
from the mythological and superstitious con
ceptions of nature prevalent in antiquity. It
is kept, in this respect, from one . fatal defect of
other early religious literature. It possesses,
from the start, a virtue which made it capable
of growth. The multitudinous personifications
of other primitive religious traditions, and
sacred hymns, are not to be found in the book
of Genesis. Here is a variation from the pre
vailing type of religious tradition ; here is a
specific mark upon our Bible, at its earliest
appearance, which we are at a loss to explain
when we consider the historical environment
amid which it sprang up. We have here a
literary phenomenon certainly as remarkable,
not to say miraculous, as would have been the
appearance of man walking erect among the
creeping things of the Mesozoic period. The
contrast between the Chaldean Genesis, and our
Genesis, is as marked as the difference between
the " Miltonic conception," and Prof. Huxley's
" American Addresses." The one could not

Ij2 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
have been the natural parent of the other.
Prof. Smith's " Chaldean Genesis " is sufficient
to represent the historical environment of the
biblical tradition. It enables us to reproduce
the historical conditions, in the midst of which
the patriarchal interpretation of nature, pre
served in our Bible, was born and grew up.
But while these Assyrian tablets lend valuable
historical confirmation, at some points, to the
Scriptural tradition, and cast a useful cross-
light over the Book of Genesis ; and while
they bear traces of their oavu descent from
some purer and more ancient source ; still, in
a scientific point of view, they are as remote
from the simplicity of the biblical conception
of nature, as the science of our day is beyond
the discussions in natural history Avhich Plu
tarch used to carry on with his friends.
But, if Abraham did not bring this pure
song of the Creation from the mythology of
Ur of the Chaldees, may not Moses have
found it in the Avisdom of the Egyptians?
But here, also, the contrasts go deeper than
the resemblances. The study of Egyptology
indeed, seems to be an inquiry in Avhich the
best scholars may find their judgments con
fused, and widely varying estimates of inter
vals of time, as Avell as of the nature of great
dynasties, are entertained ; as travellers often
find their sense of distance deceptive in the

peculiar air, and across the dry sands, of the
Egyptian deserts. Enough, however, has
been measured, with some degree of historical
accuracy, by Egyptologists, to enable us to
judge how great Avas the divergence of the
monotheism of the Pentateuch, not only from
the popular idolatry of the Egyptians, but also
from the shadowy belief in the unity of the
Godhead, which lay in the wisdom of the
priests behind the polytheistic worship of the
people. Ewald is of the opinion that the
Egyptian culture must ultimately have re
pelled rather than attracted Moses.* Even
the rationalistic Kuenen decidedly rejects the
possibility of an Egyptian origin for the Javeh-
ism of Moses, f
The striking contrast between Moses and

* History of Israel, ii., pp. 55, 56.
¦f Religion of Israel, vol. i., pp. 276-78. " His one God stood
outside of nature, as its creator and Lord ; not so the deity of
the Egyptian priests, etc." Brugsch-Bei (Geschichte Aegyptens,
a. 25) inclines to the opinion that Moses' doctrines were formed
after the models of Egyptian wise men ; but, per contra, he also
states (Ibid., pp. 551-52), that the influence of the Semitic- Asiatic
hostages and captives made itself ever more predominant in the
conception of God, custom, and speech, of Egypt. " The young
Egyptian world, overshadowed by the traditions of centuries of a
long-vanished past, found, to its taste, the fresh living power of
the Semitic spirit, to which another far more attractive idea of
the world gave a direction forward." Compare, also, R. Stuart-
Poole, Contemporary Review, March, 1879, p. 757 : "The docu
ments on both sides, do not, however, warrant the supposition
that Hebrew monotheism had its origin in this esoteric Egyptian
conception. "

134 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the magicians of Pharaoh, as portrayed in
the Book of Exodus, we must admit to be a
true historical picture of the opposition be
tween two religions. We have then, in the
biblical account of the creation, a tradition
maintaining itself, and its own purity, against
its immediate historical surroundings. What
ever may have been its source, in its continu
ous contrast Avith the nature-worship and my
thologies through which it floAved, it is singu
larly, pure and refreshing. Its scientific virtue,
in comparison with the literature of its own
age, deserves prominent mention in any fair
judgment of the relation of the Bible to science.
One illustration of this scientific freedom of
the earliest Scriptures from the superstitious
conceptions of the powers of nature, univers
ally prevalent iu primitive ages, may be drawn
from its teaching with regard to the atmos
phere, and atmospheric phenomena. Princi
pal Dawson, who has noticed this peculiarity
of our Genesis, justly remarks that " the
greatest gods of all the ancient nations are
weather gods, rulers of the atmospheric hea
vens ; " * and Max Muller has made us fam
iliar Avith the ancient habit of using the
more striking phenomena of the sky to sym
bolize the religious sentiments of the Aryan

: Origin of the World, p. 171.

FREEDOM FROM NATURE-MYTHS. 1 35
race. ^ The disposition to deify the elemental
forces is to be traced through all the " wild
grown religions." But this thoroughly un
scientific and superstitious tendency of the
Gentile religions was resisted by the course of
revelation from the beginning; and the my
thologies of the air never became a permanent
part of the Scriptures of Israel. The Bible
never became hopelessly involved in this course
of superstition ; never in its poetry, even, be
came entangled in that glittering mythology
in whose attractive, but fatal, meshes the relig
ious spirit, and the poetic genius, of antiquity
Avere caught and bound. The very names for
God, which one after another became fixed in*
Israel, and Avhich mark the rising tides of its
deep religious experience, are not the names for
objects in nature, like the many names for the
Deity in the Egyptian worship, or the endless
personifications of the Vedas. To the Hebrew
poets and prophets, even the Avinds of heaven
are sent forth by Jehovah to do his will ; and
they see everywhere, and in all the changing
elements, the presence and law of One living
and supreme PoAver. As revelation is free,
throughout its course in Israel, from the nat
ural tendency of man to personify and deify
external objects, and elemental forces, so, also,
no traces can be found in the Hebrew Scrip
tures of that later scientific superstition signi-

136 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
fied by the very word " Nature," under which
we group all second causes, and which we
sometimes use as though it were not a mere
name, or symbol, but a real existence, or cause.
We are not raising, at this point, the question
as to the presence of historical legends in the
Old Testament; but we insist that the com
parative and Avell-preserved purity of the
Bible from the mythological view of nature is
a primary scientific virtue, and that revela
tion furnished in this respect one of the first
conditions of scientific education.* If Ave may
suppose the existence of a Divine. Instructor
Avhose intention it was in the course of time to
open to the knowledge of man the secrets of
the earth, and to educate the world at length
into a thorough conception of the order of

* The account of the serpent (Gen. iii.) may be cited as myth
ological, and we do not forget that the negative critics find oc
casionally other signs of the growth of nature-myths in the Old
Testarffent. AVe are not careful, however, to examine these al
leged mythical passages at length, inasmuch as, even if we should
yield far more than we believe a sober criticism can allow, our
argument above would still hold good. The singular comparative
freedom from mythology (not to say absolute freedom) is a most
original characteristic of the Bible. Tayler Lewis's Six Days of
Creation, Chaps. 23 and 24, argues forcibly the difference be
tween the Mosaic Cosmogony and all mythical accounts of the
creation — and the considerations he presents are not yet out of
date. So Herder said, " How does this picture of creation so sin
gularly distinguish itself above all the fables and traditions of
Upper Asia ? By connection, simplicity, and truth. ... I
thank the philosopher, therefore, for this bold amputation of
monstrous ancient fables." (Gesch. der Menschheit, x., Chap. 6.)

FREED OM FR OM NA TURE-MYTHS. T 3 7
nature ; then Ave may say that he gave one of
the first conditions of that knowledge, and
provided one of the necessary preparations for
that future education, by freeing the mind of
man from subjection to the poAvers of nature,
and setting the human soul above the world,
as itself made in the divine image, and, in
short, by first drilling patiently the human
reason and heart into those pure monotheistic
conceptions which distinguish the religion of
the Bible. The cruel bondage of this world
over the heart of man must be broken, before
science can possess, undisturbed, its proper
field. The world must be disenchanted by a
higher faith before the age of science can dawn.
And exactly this necessary work for the com
ing of the era of knowledge was begun by
Moses and the prophets. Indeed the laAV-giver,
the prophets, the poets, of Israel, stood in days
of idolatry nearer the fountains of a pure
science, and in their descriptions of natural
phenomena observed far better what Prof. Tyn
dall calls the laws of the scientific imagination,
than did the wise men of Egypt Avith their in
cantations, or Homer and Virgil with their
stories of the gods, or even Dante and Milton
with their classic mythology, or the whole
brood of the frivolous court-poets and free
thinkers hatched out in the artificial heats of
the eighteenth century.

138 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
But the objection already may have occurred,
as we press the scientific value of the prelimi
nary work accomplished for human education
by revelation, — " Did not the prophets of old
believe in miracles, in the possibility of the
sun standing still, in all manner of supernatu
ral appearances ? " Whether miracles have,
or have not, their appointed place and day of
poAver in the natural order and course of
things, we need not at this point discuss ; for
it is enough for our present argument merely
to affirm that, whatever may have been the
Hebrew view of possible interpositions by the
hand of the Lord, they admitted no power in
nature save the One Divine Will, and regarded
the creation as the orderly Avork of the divine
hand; so that their admission of the super
natural did not, at least in their view of things,
destroy, but, on the contrary, tended to fix
and to confirm their belief in one all pervad
ing law, and one all-comprehensive order and
kingdom of the Lord God Almighty ; and
that faith kept their interpretations of nature
and history comparatively free from confus
ing and debasing superstitions. The fact that
revelation caused in any way the idea of law
and order and unity in the creation to rise as
a majestic conception before men in an early
mythological age, is the scientific merit of the
Scriptures to be observed and emphasized. It

THE IDEA OF LAW IN NATURE. 139
certainly helped man to a better knowledge
of nature. So far from hindering, it advanced
the scientific. education of the world. In Je
rusalem itself appeared the first wise man of
antiquity, of whom we have any knowledge,
who made a descriptive catalogue of natural
history ; and his religion, ,and religious train
ing, were no obstacle, but rather an impulse
to him, in his scientific labor. The fear of the
Lord, exorcising the world of its many gods,
Avas to the wise man the beginning of his
knowledge of natural history. It is true that
in modern history the scientific age has been
long in coming. But it was not the rod of
Moses, or the staff of the prophet, that held
it back. Nay, Moses and the prophets them
selves must wait in modern history for the
day of their true understanding and right use.
The middle ages had their own providential
calling and work. Much barbaric ore was to
be broken up and fused, by the poAver of the
Roman Church, before the modern nation and
the age of freedom could emerge. Only, we
cannot charge the long delay to the account
of Moses. If the providential necessities of
the middle ages had permitted the open habit
of mind toward nature cherished by the proph
ets, and their consuming zeal against every
form of superstition, to come to their rights in
Rome, modern science might have been several

14° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
hundred years older than it is. Moses might,
indeed, have been wroth against a pagan and
superstitious art. Elijah might have called
clown fire from heaven upon a corrupt Pope ;
but neither Hebrew lawgiver, nor prophet,
would have forbidden Galileo to search the
heavens which declare God's glory, or have
bound the commandments of the Lord as fet
ters around the advancing feet of that knowl
edge Avhich, in the latter days, they expected
should be increased Avh,en many should run to
and fro.*
This view of the real tendency of the Bible
toward an enlarging knowledge, and in favor
of a groAving science, is confirmed" by another
general characteristic of the Scriptures which
has not usually had justice done it by Avriters
upon the Avarfare of science and religion. We
find that the inspired writers possessed, in a
surprising degree, a second essential scientific
habit of mind — that of accurate observation of
natural phenomena. The absence of supersti
tious fear gave them calmness and repose of
mind in the midst of great natural phenomena.
Their belief in the One God saved them from
fear in vieAV of the more terrible aspects of
nature. They did not tremble before a host
of nature-gods, and so they could become good

Daniel, xii. 4.

OPTICAL ACCURACY OF THE BIBLE. I4I
observers. This primary scientific virtue of
optical accuracy distinguishes the Old Testa
ment from all other literature contemporane
ous with it. The Oriental mind is not natu
rally exact; it abounds in extravagance of
metaphor, and luxuriates in dreams. But,
where in the Bible can a fanciful line of poetic
description be found? Job, in his loftiest
imagery, indulges in no extravagant characteri
zation of nature. The laws of the scientific
imagination are obeyed in these inspired Scrip
tures. One marked and frequently recurring
feature of HebreAV poetry, as Principal Daw
son has observed, is its sobriety and optical
accuracy.-* The present Professor of Poetry
at Oxford asserts only what a comparison of
the early religious writings of mankind would
abundantly prove, when he says ; " The accu
racy of the Bible descriptions of these things
is quite unexampled in other literature." f In
this respect there has been an immense amount
of hasty injustice done to the Bible. We
have been too ready to take it for granted that
the descriptive language of the Bible was
accommodated to the erroneous conceptions
of natural objects common in classical speech.
" Will it be believed," says Principal Dawson, %
* Origin of the World, p. 59, seq.
f Shairp : Poetic Interpretation of Nature, p. 140.
t Ibid., p. 62.

I42 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
" that, with the exception of the poetical
phrase, ' windows of heaven,' and the common
forms of speech relating to sunrise and sunset,
these instances of accommodation have no
foundation whatever in the language of Scrip
ture." It is said that among modern poets
William Wordsworth has made not a single
mistake in the description of natural objects.
When we reflect how far astray from nature
literature is apt to wander ; hoAV far from the
simple truth of things poetry often has de
parted ; the accuracy and natural realism of the
Old Testament descriptions present a marked
literary phenomenon; and some cause of it
must be sought in the peculiar training of the
chosen people. Here, also, amid the maze of
idolatrous myths, we may find a thread by
Avhich Ave may be led to the truth of a self-
revealing God in Israel, Avhose inspiration
made the Hebrew poets truthful to a rare
degree when they looked upon his works.
These more general reflections concerning
the scientific influence and worth of the Bible,
as estimated from an educational point of
view, may enable us to approach, in a truer
spirit, that particular passage of Scripture
Avhich, it is claimed, has been dethroned by
modern science — the first chapter of -Genesis.
We have to view that chapter in the same his
torical light, and to inquire what was its fit-

GENESIS A FIRST LESSON. 143
ness for the work given it by the Divine
Teacher to do, and how successfully has it ac
complished that work. Was it by its nature
and scope, its position and limitations, a true
opening lesson, a wise first step in a course of
revelation and education intended to be con
tinued from age to age ? It will readily be
granted that in the opening chapter the key
note is struck of the whole biblical philoso
phy of nature. The elementary truths of the
creation taught in it lie at the basis of the
whole biblical interpretation of nature. If
the poetry of the sacred Scripture is free from
nature-myths, and the vision of the prophets
undisturbed by the apparition of gods in the
successive phenomena of nature, and if, conse
quently, the natural history of the Bible is re-
markablv truthful and accurate, A\~hen con-
trasted with the allegorical representations of
other contemporaneous literature — -like the
uncouth forms, half animal and half human,
the eagle-headed and scorpion-men, and other
monstrosities of the Assyrian tablets.;: — then,
the source of this singular scientific virtue of
our Scriptures is to be traced back to that
primeval theology of the creation which has
been perpetuated in the first chapter of Gene
sis. The whole marvellously truthful, simple,
and pure poetry of nature in the Bible flows
from that ancient fountain, and is the continu-

144 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
ation of that primitive conception of things.
That much controverted chapter, therefore,
should be studied in connection Avith the sub
sequent literature of which it is the source, and
which is the best commentary upon it.
Our first task in any fair examination of the
scientific worth and tendency of this primeval
Scripture should be to determine Avhat was its
immediate object, and the point of view which
the nature of the lesson to be taught led the
writer to take. The first thing always to be
done in criticising any Avork is to gain the
author's point of view. A mind destitute of
imaginative sympathy is not fitted to be a critic.
The whole Avork to be reviewed may lie in
confusion before us, if we cannot stand, in
judging it, where its maker stood AArhen he
looked upon it and pronounced it good. For
instance, to take the first example Avhich occurs
to me from recent literature, John Ruskin
counts it among the good deeds of his life that
he has done justice to the pine. But from the
point of view of the botanist, or the nursery
man, what has Ruskin done for the pine ? He
has not classified it, or made any useful sug
gestions as to the proper way to transplant it,
and make it grow in a nursery. The traveller,
however, Avho has ever seeu the Alpine pines,
massed in dense regiments along the skirts of
some mountain, and throwing a line of hardy

OBJECT OF THE FIRST LESSON. 145
skirmishers up some seemingly inaccessible
height, Avill understand how Ruskin has done
justice to the pines. Words that have no
place in a botanical lecture may be read with
delight along woodland paths, or- among the ,
hills. "Everything, then, in understanding a
sacred Scripture, depends upon our sympathy
with the author's aim, and our capacity to
look upon his vision again as he beheld it,
with the same background, in the same sur
roundings, under the same light.
Reading, with this object in view, the first
chapter of Genesis, and recalling the litera
ture which sprang from it, we shall hardly be at
a loss to discover its leading idea and intention.
We detect at a glance, upon the surface of the
narrative, signs of a mnemonic purpose.* It
was evidently arranged on purpose to be re
membered. The form of the narrative, and
the succession of days, are adapted to this
purpose. It was a first lesson made easy for
the memory. It might readily be transmitted
and preserved from father to son. How im
portant, and determinative of its form, this
necessity of suiting early teaching to the con
venience of the memory must have been, we
hardly realize in these days of books and
printing-presses. A more elaborate descrip-

* See Rorison : Replies to Essays and Reviews.
7

I46 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
tion of the creation, a more detailed and
strictly scientific classification of the succes
sive epochs, and the appearance of the differ
ent species in the earth's history, might have
proved a too burdensome tradition ; might
easily have been broken into fragments in the
process of transmission; might have defeated
the very object for Avhich a primitive age
needed to preserve from father to son a
simple, grand song of the creation. What
the times did demand of the divine Teacher,
was not a complete text-book of God's mani
fold works, but a good religious primer — a
primer of the creation so clear and certain,
and easy to be remembered, fhat a chosen
people growing up in the midst of supersti
tions and idolatries, might understand it, and
teach it to their children, and by its unmis
takable meaning be saA^ed from the confused
and debasing ideas of the Creator and his
works, into Avhich men all around them Avere
falling. Now no other people had. such a re
ligious and scientific primer as this. Indeed,
it Avould be hardly possible for any scientific
teacher at the present day to invent a more
suitable form for introducing a child into
some knoAvledge of the successive epochs of
the formation of our Avorld, than that .actually
hit upon in this ancient instruction — the very
simple method of dividing the Avhole process

OBJECT OF THE FIRST LESSON. 147
into the great days of the creative week.
With the child's advancing intelligence and
capacity, this scheme of instruction, this nomi
nal scale of the creation, would not havTe to be
thrown aside, but only enlarged, and the de
tails of the whole process taught. Compare
this sacred primer of the creation with the
traditions in the midst of Avhich it was giAren
and handed down, and it certainly is a very
striking literary phenomenon. If we are not
ready to adopt the old explanation of it that
its author was inspired, we must, at least, ad
mit that he had a Avonderful genius for teach
ing. He was centuries in advance of his age.
But the stern laws of heredity permit no
genius to be born a century too soon. Even
Shakespeare was unmistakably an Englishman
of the sixteenth century. What, then, was
the far-seeing Power, and whose was the in
spiring Spirit, that gave to the childhood of
the Hebrew nation this simple, pure, endur
ing story of the creation ? — a lesson in the
origin and growth of things so far in advance
of its times, so comprehensive and true to
man's growing knowledge, that not until a
few years ago did men ever think of putting
it aside, and that it remains, eATen to this day,
an influence and power in the world's latest
literature ?
But, more specifically, besides this apparent

I48 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
mnemonic purpose, the point of view occupied
by the biblical account of the creation is dis
tinctively religious. The primary object is to
impress upon minds sadly in need of knowl
edge of the one God, a true, religious ATieAv of
nature. So far as a natural history of the
creation is called for by that paramount ob
ject, it is given; but the immediate and dis
tinctive purpose is to bring out, and to bring
out in an effective popular Avay, certain relig
ious truths which are involved in the very
make of things. The history of the rise and
growth of worlds, of the great days, and the
orderly succession of life upon the earth, is
here followed by a religious eye, from a relig
ious motive, and with a religious end in vieAV.
This is evident not only from the relation of
this first lesson concerning God in nature to
other teachings of the Scriptures Avhich con
tinue it, but also from the general purport of
its contents, as well as from some particular
points seized upon by the prophet's eye, and
made prominent in his narrative. Thus we
notice this significant fact that, in the descrip
tion of the creation of animals, special men
tion is made of one only, and that one no
more noticeable than many others from a natu
ralist's stand-point. " And God created great
Avhales." The great whale of our Aversion may
refer to any amphibious monster, and it is

OBJECT OF THE FIRST LESSON. H9
very probable the mention of it would have
carried the mind of an Israelite, in Moses' day,
back to the animal worship, and particularly
the worship of the sacred crocodile, prevalent
in Egypt ;* and so, by one stroke, the inspired
seer sweeps away the whole idolatry of ani
mal life, Avith which the Israelites had become
familiar in the land of bondage. It may have
been exceedingly important for him, as a re
ligious man, to single out the creation of the
sacred crocodile, though a naturalist, with a
purely scientific object, might have given a
different classification of living creatures.
The paramount religious motive in the Mosaic
account of the creation appears, also, in the
emphasis laid upon the statement that the
great lights were made for signs, and for
seasons, and for clays, and for years, f Many
who have not stopped to gain Moses' point of
view, have stumbled at this statement. To
no one Avriting of the formation of the solar
system from a purely astronomical motive,
would it occur that the sun and the moon
Avere made simply for earthly uses. But for
five verses, in this brief account, the ministry
of the great lights is made prominent by a
teacher Avho knew Iioav the Chaldeans studied

* See Speaker's Commentary, in loco. Also Dawson: Origin
of World, p. 215.
f Compare, also, Jer. xxxi. 35 ; Ps. civ. 19.

15° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the aspect of the stars, and hoAV easily the
heavenly luminaries might take the place of
the glory of the Invisible God in the wonder
ing eyes of men ; and who meant, therefore,
by this emphatic and repeated mention of the
creation of the sun, and the moon, and the
stars, and their earthly uses, to do away at
once and forever, among his people, Avith that
ancient and most natural form of idolatry,
and to keep Israel true to the worship of the
one Creator, avIio said, " Let there be light,
and there was light." Judged, then, histori
cally, or in ATiew of the requirements of the
times upon a religious teacher, all falls into
order and becomes plain in this first great les
son given at the beginning of Israel's school
ing into a true religious view of nature.
In consideration of this evident religious
purport of the natural history of the Bible, it
has often been said, but too loosely said, that
it is not the office of a revelation to teach
science ; that we have no reason to expect the
several Scriptures to be in advance of the
scientific attainments of their clay, and that
the religious infallibility of the Bible is cpiite
consistent Avith a multitude- of sins against the
truth of nature. These statements, hoAvever,
need closer definition. We can conceive a
progressive reATelation from the God of Truth
to be free, at any one point of its course, from

RELA TION OF REVELA TION TO SCIENCE. I 5 l
the obligation of teaching science far in ad
vance of the knoAvledge of men living at that
particular time ; but there is one scientific ob
ligation which would seem to be incumbent
upon revelation at every period of its develop
ment, and that is, the obligation of helping on
the advance of the human mind in knowledge
by its whole tenor and spirit ; and this obliga
tion involves a Avise precaution and method in
the accommodation of its teachings to human
ignorance from time to time, so that the per
missible and necessary adaptations of revela
tion to an early age may not become fixed as
barriervs in the way of progress in a later age.
Providence cannot be expected to outrun its
own work, and to violate its own benign law,
which makes knowledge always the reAvard of
labor; but, on the other hand, we should
expect a providential revelation so to frame
the first lessons of human childhood that the
world, when come to age, Avould not have to
unlearn them. While it was enough for Adam,
or man, to begin by giving their names to
things, if man was from the beginning under
divine instruction, that first lesson and school
ing in natural history should not stand in the
way of subsequent science. We should expect,
then, in a primitive revelation, imparted pri
marily for a religious purpose, that it would
not teach a false scientific alphabet of things,

I52 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
and that its reflex influence, at least, all along
Avould be helpful to growth in knowledge.
We should expect to find in it the principle
of its own correction; and its whole influence,
if it came from the God of nature, would help
on, rather than stand against, a groAving knowl
edge of the mysteries of the creation. If it
would be absurd to require the teacher of a
child to explain the higher mathematics to a
mind incapable of comprehending a simple
algebraic equation, it should be required of
the teacher of the elements that he should not
introduce error into the multiplication table ;
that his instructions on any subject, and at
any point of the course, though incomplete,
and accommodated to the pupil's intelligence,
should be so far truthful and stimulative as
to set the child's mind moving on in the right
direction. The moral, and spiritual, and natu
ral, alphabet of things, first given by revela
tion, must be a truthful and helpful alphabet,
though the Avhole language and literature of
God's wonderful thought may belong largely
to a higher course of education than this earth
can possibly afford even to the Avisest and
'the most advanced. Providence, in Moses'
clay, could have done little more Avith our
physics and astronomy than a mother Avith
her child in her lap, just beginning to talk,
could find use for an " Unabridged Diction-

SCIENTIFIC ALPHABET. OF THE BIBLE. 153
ary," Avith its definitions. When the good
Providence Avhich held humanity with all its
hopes in its hand, began to teach the rudi
ments of that Divine wisdom Avhich shall be
the study of man forever, — that thoughtful and
far-seeing ProAridence was content to teach the
simple alphabet of nature first, and to put
into one short chapter, Avhich a child can com
mit to memory, the first truths of the creation,
Avhose manifold Avisdom the human mind is to
contemplate through all generations, and to
begin, perhaps, to comprehend after it shall
have fully come to age in eternity.
The Avhole vexed question, then, of the sci
entific truthfulness of the Bible seems to us
to reduce itself to simple inquiries like these :
Is the scientific alphabet of the Bible good?
Do the Scriptures teach the few first principles
of nature so well that man has not been com
pelled to unlearn them in order to acquire the
language of nature? Did the- word of God,
as it was spoken from age to age, Avork for
man's enlarging knowledge of things ? If so,
the Bible fits admirably into the process of
revelation, and is wisely adapted to the whole
broad plan of the divine education of man.
If, however, in any particular accent of its ru
dimentary scientific speech, the Bible fails of
this test, and should give a false sound, there
we may be sure we should hear the stammer-

154 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
ing voice of the pupil, and not the word of the
Divine Teacher. But if, in the confusion of
tongues, in the idolatrous ignorance of the
nations, to one people was given the alphabet
by which the heavens and earth are to be
read; if a few leading words of the knowl
edge which in the latter days shall run to and
fro over the earth were correctly spelled out ;
and if this elementary scientific training pre
vented this chosen people from corrupting the
very first principles of any true knowledge of
nature, and running into fetichism, and super
stitions ; then Ave have something in this pe
culiarity of it Avhich at once arrests attention,
and commands our admiration ; and in propor
tion as Ave are unable to explain the rise and
power of this remarkable Anrtue of the Bible
from the conceivable conditions of the Avorld's
childhood, we haA^e in it an indication of the
working of a higher than human wisdom.
And this is Avhat we claim Ave do have in the
science of the Bible. This is the great phe
nomenon Avhich did appear in history in the
Mosaic account of the creation. Such is the
work for man's better knoAvledge of nature,
the elementary and most necessary Avork for
a true and ever enlarging science, Avhich has
been accomplished by the natural philosophy
of the Bible. We do not deny that good
men may often have taken divine accommo-

THE ALPHA OF TRUE SCIENCE. 155
dations to the weakness and ignorance of a
past age, and thrown them as shackles around
the advancing morality and knowledge of
their own times. We do not deny that the
Bible may be so abused as to be made an en
emy of progress. But our concern at present
is with the real scientific worth and tendency
of the Bible, not with the work of the Roman
Catholic Church, or with the untenable posi
tions which an over-anxious Protestant apolo
getics from time to time may have assumed.
We are content to affirm that the following
elementary truths, which belong to the alpha
bet of nature, and are essential to all proper
scientific speech, are to be found in our Scrip
tures ; and the fact that they were put there,
has proved a great help to man's growing un
derstanding of nature.
The opening verse of the Bible gives the
Alpha, the true first letter, of any real science
of things. It declares, with no uncertain
sound, the spiritual origin of all material phe
nomena: "In the beginning God created the
heaven and the earth." Have we been com
pelled, by any advance of positive knowledge,
to give up that teaching? What has our
latest science to say to that Alpha of the bib
lical alphabet of nature? Herbert Spencer
says there is an unknown Power, but that
there never Avas a beginning of things ; for

I56 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
" evolution negatives the supjwsition of a first
organism."* Prof. Tyndall is confident that
life never stirs Avithin the glass cases of his
experiments, in the Royal Academy, unless
there is some life already there to stir; but,
as a man of science, he does not pretend to
say what was in the beginning. Haeckel, how
ever, almost knoAvs what was in the beginning,
and is willing to teach all that he knoAvs in the
schools. In the beginning Avas an atom of
homogeneous matter ; and it stirred, and became
different from itself; and it multiplied ; and, be
hold, the earth, and its beauty, and its fruits, and
man ! The atom begins at last to think of spirit,
and to dream of God ! and thought, and con
science, and loA^e, and God — the world and all
things therein, the heavens and all their hosts —
come forth in succession from this one homoge
neous beginning, this all-comprehensive proto
plasm ; very much it seems to us wondering and
unsophisticated spectators, as Ave have seen all
imaginable things emerge from under the cover
of a magician's sleeve ! We forget, hoAvever ;
the magician is banished by this science; — but
is not his magic after all only transferred to
nature itself? Do not extremes meet here \
Haeckel, with his monistic theory, and the old
supernaturalist, Avith his creation out of noth-

Biology, Appendix.

CREATION NOT MAGIC. 157
ing ? Do not both unconsciously give a magi
cal theory of nature ? the only difference, after
all, being that the one puts the magic outside,
and the other puts it inside the creative pro
cess ? The story is told of the singular feat
of a Japanese magician, who " took a flower
pot, filled it with earth, put a seed in it,
placed it on the table, and commenced fanning
it. Soon the earth was broken, the plant ap
peared, and in a few minutes grew before the
spectator's eyes into a bush, budded, blos
somed, and the performer picked off the blos
soms ; and gave them to the spectators." So
the supernaturalists, as our evolutionist of
Haeckel's school might tell us, would have us
believe the Avorld Avas brought forth in a clay
by a Being who conjured it into existence.
Science has, banished the thought of a divine
Magician. We are glad that it has ; only we
do not see what is gained, if the magic is
taken from the magician and left in his pot.
We have, on any hypothesis, the miracle of
the creation, the great wonder of the world.
If Ave attempt, with such scientific imagina
tion as we can command, to realize Haeckel's
visions of the past, and see just Iioav the world
greAV, we confess we cannot help Avondering
what strange magic is concealed in the p:>t.
We turn with relief to the simpler statement —
which yields indeed no explanation, but which

I58 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT. ¦
suggests no wand raised over the creation, or
no occult art of transformation hidden within
it, but Avhich does leave reason resting at
least on the idea of a sufficient cause — "In
the beginning God created the heaven and the-
earth." What do Ave know, if anything, con
cerning the first cause, or necessary beginning,
of material things ? Do we know anything by
which we may convict Moses' elementary les
son of falsehood ? We have, in many respects,
a far better knowledge of the secrets of the
dim past than Moses, or the prophets, eATer
dreamed of possessing. We have opened the
long-sealed records of the earth, and followed,
step by step, its history through cycles upon
cycles of ages before ever the mountains Avere
brought forth ; and traced, as we suppose, the
slow growth of the present earth, teeming with
life and fruitful civilizations, back to its be
ginning in a mass of nebulous light, thrown by
some unknown Power into the midst of space.
We have searched for the last principle of
matter, until human ingenuity has attained a
skill in measuring the infinitely small, the re
sults of which human imagination utterly fails
to follow. Science has pursued the molecules
by its measurements until they haATe left,
in Avhich to conceal themselves, a space no
larger than the five-hundred-millionth of an
inch ; a rise in temperature of the eighty-eight

THE SPIRITUAL GROUND OF EXISTENCE. 159
hundredth of a degree centigrade has been de-
tected ; and, more amazing still ! the presence
of the hundred and eighty-millionth part
of a grain of soda has been revealed by the
spectroscope ! And not content with this,
Ave have sought to penetrate into the secret
dwelling-place of thought, until, in a bit of
brain-tissue Avhich one might hold on the
point of a needle, there havTe been disclosed
Avonderful groupings of cells, and lines of
communicating fibres, which rival, in their
adaptations and perfectness, the order and
rhythm of the heavens. But the deeper into
the secrets of nature we pierce, the farther
back toward the beginning of the creation we
penetrate, the nearer are we brought to the
old mystery of a reality beyond all knowl
edge, before whose presence and power our
imaginations must drop their last images of
things, and reason must give place to faith.
We feel our dependence upon the Infinite God
around us. Faith is the sense of the pressure
upon our being of the Infinite Being in whom
Ave live. It is the beginning and end of rea
son. Science, searching for the origin of
things, cannot find it in things themselves, and
is compelled, after all its encleaA^ors, to give the
creation over to reason and conscience for its
final interpretation. It knows nothing by
which it can gainsay their assertion that on

160 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the other side of the atoms is God. Beyond
the last conceivable subdivision of matter, be
neath the last imaginable centre of force, is
the One substance — the continuous, indivisi
ble, omnipotent, spiritual ground of existence,
the living God.
That we are not indulging in the mere as
sertions of the metaphysicians (though we
cannot, if Ave would, silence the daily asser
tion by the spirit within us of its oavu na
ture) ; but that our latest science is incapable
of detecting any false sound in the Mosaic
speech of the Creator ; it Avould not be diffi
cult to prove from the often unconscious testi
mony of the most pronounced materialists. A
short, and not unfair, method Avith the mate
rialistic denial of spirit and God, Avould be
to show the impossibility of becoming a
materialist from the liv'esof.the materialists
themselves ; the impossibility of material
ism from the writings of its believers; the
impossibility of living, thinking, and Avriting
at all, Avithout confessing more than material
ism means to confess. If physiological mate
rialists should claim, in mitigation of their fre-
quent unintended lapses into spiritual modes
of expression, that the metaphysicians have so
thoroughly saturated human language Avith
their conceptions that the difficulty of avoid
ing them is not the fault, but the misfortune,

IMPOSSIBLE TO BE A MATERIALIST. l6l
of the new science; then, they are refuted
again by their own principles. For, accord
ing to their own physiological laws, the meta
physicians have not made the brain dream of
spirit and entity, but the brain has made the
metaphysicians spin their endless discussions
of supersensible things ; and if the brain has
dreamed a great historical dream of a spiritu
al life, and if matter still persists in thinking
the philosopher's idle thoughts, and the physi
cal oiganism compels language itself to enter
into the service of the metaphysicians; then,
surely, they are not to be blamed by the phy
siologists for following nature out to her spir
itual conclusions.
Dr. Maudsley ought not to berate the meta
physicians so soundly for what, upon his oavii
shoAving, is a'^purely physiological process.
Let the brain, AArhose cells have Avorked to
gether to produce the language of the soul, do
its work over again, and to better purpose;
let the brain, in its nineteenth century evolu
tion, create, if it can, a language in Avhich Dr.
Maudsley can Avrite a book on " Physiology of
the Mind," in Avhich the very words which he
binds together in his sentences shall not, by
their inherent meanings and inherited force,
transmit more spiritual significance than he
Avishes to let into his conclusions ; — a language
Avhich shall not at every turn, Avhether Ave will

1 62 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
or no, send our thoughts off, far and Avide, in
contemplation of things unseen, things not
dreamed of in the materialist's philosophy.
Until materialists can make language work
steadily in the traces of their logic, we cannot
help being borne by their own words farther
and wider than they would have us go. So im
possible, indeed, is it for a thinker to be a
materialist, even when fully determined to be
one, that Dr. Maudsley — in a passage intended
to be a conclusive illustration of the assumed
fact that reasoning may be an organic pro
cess, a piece of mechanical brain-work; that
a man, in short, might be as good a reasoning
machine without as with consciousness — is
obliged, in the very sentence in which he
makes this assumption, to bring in the suppo
sition of another instrument (besides the rea
soning-machine) more delicate than the micro
scope, or the galvanoscope, as the means of
" reading off the results of his cerebral opera
tions from Avithout."* He is obliged, that is,
in order to conceive of man as a reasoning-ma
chine, to fall back upon the subsidiary hy
pothesis of a " reading-machine ; " though the
brain be the agent, and does all the Avork,
there must be, also, a reader, or Avitness, of its
operations ; though there is no such entity as

* Physiology of Mind, p. 26.

IMPOSSIBLE TO BE A MATERIALIST. 1 63
a thinking mind — and Dr. Maudsley is indig-
¦ nant at the absurd metaphysics Avhich is still
enamored by that old delusion — nevertheless,
our determined materialist cannot get through
Avith his own physiological reasoning without
calling in the aid of something to witness his
performance. We claim Dr. Maudsley as a
metaphysician in spite of himself ! Indeed,
mere physical thinking is an impossibility of
thought. Metaphysics, driven out of one win
dow, flies back through another. Drop meta
physics from your substantive, and it insinu
ates itself into the adjective ; expel it from
the subject of a sentence, and it lies coiled up
in the verb. Metaphysics even our mental
physiologists find to be a ghost which will
not -down at their bidding. No man, while
breathing the breath of life, has succeeded in
being a materialist. To accomplish that feat
he must first think in a vacuum — that is, stop
thinking. Not only do we find that would-be material
ists cannot deny extra-physical facts,, with
out at the same time implying their exist
ence; but also, it is true, that to deny the
spiritual origin of matter is in no way neces
sary to positive science, and the great body of
scientific men are not fairly chargeable with
materialistic extraA^agance. Thought, though
baffled at many points, hard pressed and con-

164 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
fused, ignorant of its own origin and destiny,
is nevertheless not going to commit suicide in
our day. The " Microcosm " of Lotze represents
a modern spiritual philosophy Avhich is on the
flood, and Avhich may yet pour its refreshing
poAver over the English positivism. For the
explanation of the A7ery mechanism of things ;
for the possibility of their actions and reac
tions; for the origin and continuance of the
very order of nature ; Lotze is led to fall back
upon the reality of a living spiritual Being
and Omnipresence. The ultimate fact of the
universe is not an atom, or a group of atoms,
but that Unseen Presence by whom all things
consist. The first and the last fact of human
experience, is Intelligence and Will. Matter,
pressed to the utmost, declares itself to be
Force. Force, pressed to the utmost, declares
itself to be Thought and Will. And Thought
and Will, pressed to the utmost, declare that
they are the breath of the Spirit of God. The
Alpha and the Omega of human experience is
Spirit. Our science, Avhen it has held up the
world to the most searching scrutiny, must
drop it back again into the hand of the Al
mighty, from whence it came. Reason, fol
lowing motion from star to star, and into the
infinite past, cannot escape the necessity of
looking beyond the bounds of the visible
universe for the First Cause, which it always

MATTER, LIFE, AND MIND FROM GOD. 1 65
seeks, but never finds, within the limits of the
seen. We can bring nothing, then, from the
whole domain of knowledge to contradict the
Mosaic vision of the spiritual origin of all
created things". The prophet of old, so far as
we can know, made no mistake in the first
letter of his alphabet of nature. It enters into
our latest and best speech of the creation.
We cannot think Avithout it. At the end of
all our science, at the summit of all our phi
losophy, vve stand to-day where, in the dim
antiquity of an almost prehistoric age, one
stood in the spirit of the Lord, and said:
" In the beginning God created the heaven and
the earth."
Secondly, the opening chapter of the
Bible refers three existing phenomena direct
ly to a spiritual cause. It selects three points
in the creation as special points of divine ac
tivity. Other links in the chain of existence
may be dependent upon these points, but these
three are held up by the hand of God. These
direct acts, or constant modes of divine activ
ity, are, according to the Scriptural account of
the origin of things, that divine act by which
matter exists; that divine act by which life
comes forth from the earth ; and that divine
act by which a human soul thinks and wor
ships. The creation of the heaven and the
earth (the matter of the universe endued

1 66 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
with force) ; the springing up of life on the
earth ; and the birth of the soul of man, are
the results of divine interpositions or words.
God calls them forth — from Avhat, or hoAAr, the
Scripture does not presume to say.* The dis
tinction between these initial acts, or more
immediate points of divine efficiency, in the
creation, and other intermediate stages of the
creative process, is indicated in the Mosaic
Genesis ; but it is not defined, or explained, in
the biblical philosophy of nature. The Bible
does not take sides on the disputed question
of the nature of vital force. It would be but
the repetition of an old and mischievous error
of over-zealous theologians, should Ave impute
to Moses the intentional teaching of a specific
vital force in his account of the supersensible
origin of life. The one does not necessarily
involve the other. One mistake Moses cer
tainly did not make ; he did not seek to deter
mine, as spiritual truths, questions Avhich are
matters of scientific investigation. A posi-
tivist in theology, he Avas not a dogmatist in
physics. LeaAdng the modern question con
cerning vital force untouched, the Mosaic ac
count does commit itself, hoAvever, unhesita
tingly to the assertion of the spiritual origin
of matter, life, and soul. Other parts of the
* Notice the use of the strongest word for '• ' to create "in
verses 1, 21, and 27.

MATTER, LIFE, AND MIND FROM GOD. 1 67
creation may follow of themselves, when these
are once given ; but these three, at least, come
from Avithout, are phenomena of supersensible
origination ; they are acts, or modes, of divine
efficiency. The account of the creation in the
book of Genesis, and the whole subsequent
natural theology of the Bible, agree in regard
ing these three phenomena, at least, as made
from something which does not appear. The
Bible looks Avithout nature for their origin
and cause. -
The pure monotheistic faith of the Hebrew
prophets, indeed, is never careful to distin
guish between first and second causes ; and not
only the elemental forces, but human actions
are often referred directly to the will of the
Lord. Life especially is always attributed to
God — He is its author, and source. In the
biblical doctrine we may say that these thr-ee
form the ancient and sacred " trinity of the
creation" — matter, life* and soul ; they are
the related and coexistent, but underived dis
tinctions in the creation ; each existing in and
for the others ; neither complete without the
others ; partaking of the same Divine creative
principle, but each having its own distinction
of being. We do not mean that this trinity
of the creation lies as a doctrine fully formu
lated anywhere in the Bible ; but that the
biblical philosophy of nature can be legiti-

IOo OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
mately reduced to this expression of it, and
that in the Mosaic Genesis these three great,
distinct, yet related, acts of the Creator are
indicated. Moses is fairly responsible for this
much of scientific teaching, that matter, life,
and soul, are of extra-physical origination;
that they come from Avithout the present cre
ation and are of God. Was he Avrong in this
elementary teaching ? Are these letters of the
biblical scientific alphabet to be superseded ?
Experience brings us daily before the mystery
of this sacred trinity of the creation ; but can
scientific scrutiny either remove the mystery, or
resolve this trinity of existence into any pri
mal unity ? Can we find anywhere within
the bounds of the physical universe the cause,
can Ave OA^ertake anywhere in the endless
transformations of energy the original force,
from Avhich these ever-present distinctions of
being have proceeded? In order to avoid
repetition, I reserve for a subsequent chapter
— Avhere in connection with the inquiry into the
existence of an Unseen Universe these ques
tions must be considered — the further justifica
tion of this primary lesson of the Bible in a
scientific conception of nature. The biblical
premises for a philosophy of nature have not
yet, at least, been proved false or defective.
Matter, in its present form, is not eternal ; and
life is, if anything is, a constant mode of the

THE GROWTH OF CREATION. 1 69
divine energy ; and mind, on the lowest admis
sible hypothesis, is the supersensible side of
matter — whatever Mr. Lewes may mean by
that. Reduce matter, life, and mind, to the
simplest possible scientific terms, and they still
remain the unknown quantities of the equation
by whose laws reason is to solve the problem
of the universe; they are the original terms,
given in the very statement of the problem,
and their meaning and value are to be sought
elsewhere than in the course of the equation
itself. So Moses thought when he repre
sented them as given by God. Science cannot
forbid us from seeking for their real signifi
cance outside its own processes ; and reason,
-and conscience, and our own spiritual sense,
urge us to write before each one of these three
original terms of the creation, what Moses of
old wrote — God.
Thirdly, the Mosaic account ^suggests one
other primary scientific truth. It reveals the
fact of a continuous creative process ; it im
plies a law of development in the creation.
This world, according to the Bible, was not
finished in a day ; it was not thrown into
existence ready made, and fitted up with all
the modern improvements. It was a progres
sive work. These are the generations, or
growths, of the heavens and the earth when
they Avere created (Gen. ii. 4). Herbert

17° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
Spencer may have been misled by chance pas
sages from the theologians, but he does not
read his Bible to good purpose, when he
satirizes the belief in a special creation as " a
carpenter-like theory." Moses, in his vision,
saw no Almighty hand building up the stories
of the creation ; he heard no sound of ham
mer, or confused noise of the Avorkmen ; — the
spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the
deep ; chaos took form and comeliness ; — and
before his inspired vision the solar system
grew through a succession of days to its
present order and beauty ; and at last, when
all things were ready, man came forth out of
the dust. There is absolutely no warrant in
Scripture for us to regard the world as an ex
temporized manufacture ; on the contrary, the
Bible lays from the beginning firm hold of a
scientific principle, not grasped by other
primitive traditions of the origin of things,
viz., that there was an orderly process of cre
ation, a continuous development of a creative
purpose or laAv, some of the main steps and
advances of which it sketches with graphic
power. It gave details enough of this unfold
ing, creative purpose, to fix an orderly concep
tion of it in the mind and memory of a primi
tive age. This distinguishing, and, for an
unscientific age, singular virtue of the Mosaic
Genesis ought to win for it the admiration,

MOSES1 GENIUS FOR TEACHING. I71
instead of the ungrateful and hasty rejection,
of scientific lecturers. How happened it that
amid the grotesque myths which were the
current beliefs of antiquity, this one clear,
authoritative assertion of creation by law
sprang up and maintained itself in Israel ?
How happened it that the doctrine of an
ascending order of life was put into the reli
gious primer of Israel ? How did it come to
pass that a Jewish patriarch and lawgiver
knew, to some extent, the fact of the orderly
development, the " increasing differentiation,"
the progress from type to type, and to ever
higher forms, of the creation ? and that, too,
centuries before the accumulated results of
the laws of heredity in the brain of a Her
bert Spencer had recorded themselves, through
his physiological organization, and for the
wonder of a late age,, in his " First Princi
ples ? " If not more than a century or two
' ago some genius had grasped clearly the idea
of evolution, and, in order to accommodate it
to an unscientific ecclesiastical generation, and
to plant it so that it might grow in the mind
of his contemporaries, had hit upon the expe
dient of using a week, with its mornings and
evenings, as the scale of time by which to set
forth his speculations, and had filled up
those days with tolerable geological accuracy,
— that genius would have been more than a

T-72 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
Lucretius to our modern science — he would be
Aenerated by Tyndall and Huxley as a thinkei
of the first magnitude ! But some Jewish
prophet Avas in some Avay enabled to do that
in a remote antiquity ! Were the first chapter
of Genesis some neAvly-discoATered remnant of
Arabic literature, or a hieroglyphic just de
ciphered from some Egyptian monument, it
would be hailed as a remarkable anticipation
of some of the chief results of modern science ;
and, even though it might be shown to be the
writing of some priest, Dr. Draper would have
exulted in it as a scientific trophy, and have
found some Avay to show that religion sup
pressed it. Really, Moses ought to haAre a
seat of honor in the scientific pantheon ! How
happened it that this wonderful Mosaic con
ception of a growing world, an unfolding cre
ative work, burst upon the mind of man at
that early day, long before the knowledge of
the Copernican system, long before man's ac
quaintance with fossil records, centuries even
before the earth had been mapped, or meas
ures of time or space, greater than a few
leagues of an inland sea or a few generations
of men, had become familiar ? When the
human mind, awaking Avith the whole world
to question, was confused by a thousand nur
sery stories, and still wondered and dreamed
like a child ; what simpler, more impressive,

METHOD OF THE MOSAIC TEACHING. 173
and more easily -rem erubered scale and method
for teaching the truths of a process of cre
ation, and an orderly progress of it, could
have been devised ? Did it not occur in a
book held to be sacred, would not Moses'
creative week be regarded as a wonderful
stroke of genius ? Is not the wisdom of a
Divine Teacher displayed in the method of the
lesson ?
But we may be interrupted with the ques
tion, Did not the method of the Mosaic teach
ing involve falsehood ? has it not served to
fix for centuries an erroneous idea of the ori
gin of the world ? It certainly has not kept
a single erroneous idea in place after science
was ready to become an authoritative teacher
of the truth ; and the " nominal scale " em
ployed by revelation, as Herder aptly desig
nates it, involved in itself no untruth, Avhile
it proA^ed useful in fixing first truths necessary
to the very beginnings of right knowledge.
No science ever could have grown out of a
Chaldean cosmology. As knowledge grows,
the biblical philosophy of nature does not,
when lightly interpreted, stand in the way of
scientific truth. Indeed, from the educational
point of vieAV which we have all along taken,
and which seems to us to be the proper histori
cal point of view, the controversy which has
been so hotly urged as to whether the clays of

174 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
Genesis are literal days, or designations of
vast seons of time, becomes a matter of very
little importance. For the length of time oc
cupied in the course of the creation was not
the subject of this first lesson concerning the
creation by God, and according to law. In
either case, whether the word day is to be
taken literally or largely, the divisions of
time, the mornings and evenings, are only the
scheme, so to speak, of the lesson — the method
of the teaching. In neither case is the desig
nation of time the end, or contents, of the in
struction, but the means, or best available
method, of the higher truths to be imparted.
Definite information as to the lapse of time
since the beginnings of the present system of
things was not given, or so much as attempted,
in the primary lesson of a true religious science.
Here, also, we have another illustration of the
patience of the Divine Teacher, of the self-re
straint of revelation. One of the most difficult
things for a child to do is to gain any idea of
past duration. The Mosaic Genesis, Avith great
sobriety, abstained from the imaginary con
ceptions of past duration which were at
tempted in other primitive traditions of the
creation. Other cosmogonies, like that of the
Hindoos, with their repeated circles of con
jectural numbers, and their fabulous ages of
imaginary gods, resemble the child's often

THE MOSAIC SCALE OF TIME. 175
absurd efforts to form some idea of the days
before he was born. There are no incongru
ous guesses at time in our Genesis.* It is left
indeterminate by a revelation intent on im
pressing upon the growing mind of man the
first simple, essential truths of a religious view
of the creation. Any adequate conception of
past duration must be gained, if at all, by the
practised scientific imagination. It is the wis
dom of God not to teach a lesson which would
only confuse and throw into foolish concep
tions the imagination of man in his childhood.
It is left for us, in our matured knowledge, to
determine, if we can, how long the Mosaic
days must haAre been. But Ave should not ex
pect a divine Revelation to work a miracle in
order to anticipate science, and to cram the
brain of Adam with the knowledge of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica. The difficulty which
our most brilliant scientific lecturers incur in
the effort to make their immense generaliza
tions popular, might teach us caution, lest we

* Contrast, with the sobriety and abstinence from guesswork of
Genesis, the following scientific opinion of the much-lauded Lucre
tius: — " But, as I am of opmion, the whole of the world is of
modern date, and recent in its origin ; and had its beginning but
a short time ago. From which cause, also, some arts are but
now being refined, and are even at present on the increase ; many
improvements are in this age added to ships," &c. (B. v. 330).
How happened Moses, with grand simplicity, to avoid all such
labored scientific blundering ?

176 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
captiously require impossibilities of a primi
tive revelation.
It will not be necessary for us, therefore,
from our educational point of view, to examine,
at length, the reasons for or against the literal
translation of the word day, in the Book of
Genesis. It is sufficient to observe that the
writer himself uses it with different significa
tions, as a flexible word,, in different places.*
Why should Ave contend for, or regard as of
any special significance, a word which the
writer evidently regarded as of so little im
portance that he neither defines it, nor attaches
to it any one constant meaning — a word, in
fact, which he employs as a natural help, a
flexible and convenient means, for imparting
the higher truths Avith which he is concerned ?
If the word has since been fixed in theology,
and made to bear the burden of a false science,
that Avas not the mistake of Moses, but a limi
tation put upon revelation by the ignorance
and perverseness of the human mind.
It is noticeable that the modern theological
abuse of the Mosaic word day — so admirably
chosen for its purpose — does not occur
throughout the Bible itself. Revelation, that
is, does not misinterpret itself, or use, so as to
perpetuate false notions, its oavu accommoda-

Compare verses 5, 8, and 14, and these with Genesis ii. 4.

THE TIME-ELEMENT IN GENESIS. 177
tions to man's limited intelligence. Those
passages of Scripture which are the later com
mentaries and expansions of this primeval
Hebrew " Song of the Creation," contain no
sign or trace of any six-day theory of the
making of the world. On the contrary, the
question as to the time-element involved in
the creation was a question kept in the back
ground of revelation ; * it does not come to
the front among the truths of God's power,
law, and omnipresent efficiency, which occupy
the foreground of revelation. It is a scientific
question reserved for a scientific age, and we
are still very much at sea with regard to it.
The only important reference in the Bible to
the days of the creative week occurs in the
retrospective sanction of the commandment
to keep the Sabbath holy ; and there the
reference is to the seven-fold division of time,
and to the finished work at the end of the
creative week, and not to the length of the
day. But, while the time-element is nowhere
made prominent in the Bible, we do find,
growing and bearing fruit in the Hebrew
literature, the grand primitiA^e conceptions of
the Divine power, and law, the Divine wisdom

* We may say, however, with Tayler Lewis, that in some pas
sages of the Old Testament "' there evidently is a laboring to set
forth the immensely prolonged antiquities of the proceeding."

178 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
and order, manifest in God's many wonderful
works.* Thus far, then, we have found nothing in
the great leading truths of revelation, or in
the manner in which they were taught, and the
providential order of their development, which
brings us into conflict with established science.
We find, rather, the alphabet of a true reli
gious science, and the elements of a growing
and helpful philosophy of nature. We find
anticipations and hints of the coming wisdom,
and a great impulse to a reverent but unsuper-
stitious study of the manifold works of the
Creator. Since we have, in the Mosaic Gene
sis, a rapid and most suggestive sketch, for
our religious use, of these few great outlines
of God's creative work, Ave are not careful to
answer concerning any mere question of de
tail. The fact that to some prophet of old
such a panorama of the past was opened, the
first principles of things disclosed, the order
of the heavens and the great outlines of the
vast drama of life revealed, is the fact which
arrests our attention, and which compels the
confession that the Spirit of God, and not the
grovelling spirit of the age, inspired this
grand prophetic vision of the creation. The

* A remarkable illustration of this appears in the one hun
dred and thirty -ninth Psalm, verses 13 to 18,

A PROPHECY OF THE PAST. 179
historical wonder to us is, not that the prophet
did not see the succession of life with a natu
ralist's eye, but that days followed days at
all in his vision ; not that he did not fill in
with minute exactness the cletails of the pic
ture, but that he beheld so much as the out
lines of God's ways in the creation, which we
are not yet able to follow far with scientific
precision. No more should be required of
what is aptly called this prophecy of the past,
than we are accustomed to demand of a proph
ecy of the future. We have no more good
reason to suppose that Moses, or an older seer,
saw or, knew the particulars of his vision of
the past so that he might have fixed each de
tail with a precise word, than we have to sup
pose that Isaiah, or Daniel, not only foresaw
a general course and certain divinely ordained
conclusions of history, but also knew the
successive actors, the battles, the specific
groupings of events, and the times and the
seasons for each successive coming of the Son
of man in history. They, at least, who re
gard the literalistic interpretations of the Sec
ond- Adventists as a confusion of the tongues
of prophecy, ought not to apply their crass
methods of exegesis to the sublime Mosaic
prophecy of the past. The outlines of God's
ways in the past or future, the leading truths
and commanding principles of the Divine

l8o OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
government, determine the scope and limits
of revelation, whether of the beginning or the
end of things. Providence makes no prema
ture waste of its gifts of knowledge. It was
necessary for Israel to know — it was neces
sary for the mission of Israel in the world
that it should know — that in the beginning
God was the Creator ; that He is the author
of life, and the Father of man's spirit ; ,that
His work was a work of order, and the exe
cution of a divine plan ; but it was not
necessary for Israel to know the secrets of the
depths of the earth, in order that it might be
thoroughly furnished for its providential mis
sion. The Creator has left many revelations
of his glory latent in the nature of things
until man shall need them, and then Provi
dence brings them forth. Some are coming
forth — coming like new words of the Eternal
—in these latter days.
We are not anxious, then, from our educa
tional vieAV of the scientific side and tendency
of the Bible, to enter into a particular com
parison of the Mosaic account and the last
geological table. They Avho are curious to
learn the latest discrepancies and coincidences
between geology and Genesis, can find the
subject treated in detail in Principal Dawson's
recent book on the " Origin of the World."
Some of the coincidences which are to be

GEOLOGY AND GENESIS. lol
found between the two, such as the Mosaic ac
count of the existence of light before the
creation of the sun, the comparatively late
appearance of mammals on the earth, and the
indication that the great geological periods
were completed and the Avorld given over to
the operation of existing causes on the fourth
day, would seem to be important confirmations
of the truthfulness of the Mosaic account
Our chief hesitation, however, in resting the
argument for revelation upon these anticipa
tions of science in Genesis, is the reflection
that neither Moses, nor our present science,
may in these respects be infallible ; and we
have much still to learn concerning the order
of the creation. These coincidences are in
deed remarkable, and confirmatory of revela
tion ; but neither the special agreements nor
disagreements of the two records are to us
the final and commanding considerations.
The former are not necessary to, and the lat
ter need not be inconsistent with, the educa
tional work and progress of a revelation. In
deed, a caution is taught us here by the un
concern of the revel ator himself with regard
to the grouping of the particular parts of his
vision ; for he is not careful to follow in two
connected verses his own arrangement of facts
— in the twenty-fifth verse he does not copy
the arrangement of animals just given in the

102 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
twenty-fourth verse. Surely we have no right
to demand even of an inspired writer an ex
actness which he does not profess to give ; nor
are we to test a revelation by truths Avith
which it is not concerned.
Let us gather up, then, the separate threads
of our reasoning in one conclusion. The bibli
cal account of the creation meets the necessi
ties of the elementary instruction of a race
chosen from idolatrous surroundings to become
the bearer of a divine Gospel to mankind.
The teaching of the Bible, on its scientific side,
is so free from superstition, so correct in its un
derstanding of the alphabet of nature, so re
tentive in its grasp of the elementary truths of
the creation — its spiritual origin, its unity,
continuity, and divine order — that, altogether,
it presents a unique literary phenomenon, — one
which must have a cause, but Avhose cause
does not appear in the conditions of the times,
or the historical environment of the Bible.
-The simplest explanation of this literary won
der of antiquity (if upon other philosophical
grounds we are not prevented from giving it)
is, that some special divine providence was at
the source of this marvellous life in Israel ;
that, in some manner provided for in his oavh
laws, the God of history gave to the children
of Adam these greatly needed rudimentary
lessons ; himself, in some of his many open

SUMMARY. 183
Avays of suggestion to the soul of man,
taught the human reason these elementary
truths of the creation. Instead, therefore, of
assuming an apologetical or dogmatic attitude
toward the science of the Bible, as though it
were something for believers to stand up for
against the apparent truths of nature, or else
to drop quietly out of sight, Ave would advance
the scientific tendency of the Bible, and its
educational work, as a unique literary fact,
which affords a strong presumption that the
Bible was a special object of care on the part
of the Divine Instructor. We see here signi
ficant evidence, when all things are fairly con
sidered, that with one chosen race, selected for
a special divine training for the ultimate bless
ing of the whole Avorld, there was present
from the beginning a higher than human wis
dom, schooling it, bearing Avith it, educating
it with divine forethought in those truths
which man needed to learn by heart before he
could be fitted to pass on to the toils, and re
sponsibilities, and knowledge, of the ages to
come. We may feel some of us personally toward
the first chapter of Genesis, in particular, very
much as one might feel toward an old friend
whom for a time he had come to suspect, and
to wish out of sight, and from whom he grew
all the more estranged by the indiscreet claims

184 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of others in his behalf ; but whom at length
he has learned to know better, and to take at
his real worth, and has found after, repeated
trial to be a friend indeed. Cleared of false
interpretations, relieved of the suspicions cast
upon its truthfulness by imprudent defenders,
knoAvn in its genuine worth, and prized for its
really exceptional virtues and grand character,
the Mosaic Genesis is found to have been all
the while the firm, steadfast friend both of
science and religion.
The moral progress of the religion of the
Bible which we considered in the preceding
chapter, and the scientific tendency of the
Bible which we. ha\re just been estimating,
taken together, indicate a great historical pro
cess of revelation. There seems to be a his
torical development of something Avhich is not
given by history itself. Within the natural,
there are signs of a supernatural evolution. A
divine life is in the world, working through
history, and in a special and altogether unique
manner in Israel, for far-off ends. We have
seen, thus far, the signs of its workings ; we
have still to behold this divine power in its
perfect historical manifestation, and to folloAV
this supernatural evolution to its last and
highest consummation.

CHAPTER V.
THE CULMINATION IN THE CHRIST : I. THE
UNIQUENESS OF JESUS.
The great surprise of human history was
the coming of Jesus Christ. The uniqueness
of his person is an ultimate fact of Christian
ity. Whoever would deny the presence of the
divine power in human history must first re
duce the character of Jesus of Nazareth to the
level of the possibilities of common human na
ture. He is himself the greatest of his miracles.
If by close historical scrutiny, or critical ques
tioning, we fail to resolve the miraculous char
acter of Jesus — the ultimate fact of Christian
ity — -into the common, knoAvn elements of our
human nature ; if the laAvs of heredity prove
insufficient to explain his generation; then,
the further question will at once arise whether
.there may not be other than natural elements
present in human history, which come to their
perfect flower in Jesus of Nazareth ; whether
we may not find in the laws and the forces of
a supernatural evolution the sufficient expla
nation of his miraculous person. If the ap-

1 86 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
pearance of Jesus is not natural in comparison
with other lives; if the Christ of the Gospel
seems to be a miraculous fact contrary to hu
man experience ; then, before we throw aside
the historical evidences which centre in the
uniqueness of his person, and flow from the
originality of his life, we are at least bound
to inquire whether there may not be a broader
view of human history, and a deeper science
of the creation, in which we may find revTealed
an unsuspected and larger naturalness in this
greatest miracle of the ages — the personality
of Jesus Christ.
We have, then, at this point of our applica
tion of the neAV idea of evolution to old faiths,
to take into consideration, first, the unique
ness of Jesus, and then the perfect naturalness
of the Christ as the fulfilment of the whole
development of the creation.
The originality of Jesus appears the very
moment Ave bring the narratives of the New
Testament into juxtaposition with the known
¦lines of preAaous history. There is an appar
ent break between the two. The former can
not, Avithout historical violence, be bent into a
mere continuation of the lines of the latter.
A-fresh start is made in Christianity, under a
new impulse, in a changed direction. The
portraiture of Jesus, as drawn by the Evan
gelists, does not seem to be that of a Jewish

JESUS' APPEARANCE A SURPRISE. 1 87
face, or a Gentile countenance; nor does it
seem to combine the peculiar features of both
in its own striking originality. A mere glance
at the delineation in the Gospels awakens this
feeling of surprise before Jesus of Nazareth.
If, amid the ancestral pictures which hang upon
the walls of some old English nianor-house,
and which betray the same noble lineage
through many generations — the features of
some far-off ancestor reappearing, perhaps, in
the last portrait hung among those of the dead
— Ave should notice a face unlike all before it,
having eyes of southern fire, or beauty of an-
- other clime ; we should at once conclude that
the strange countenance represented some other
line of descent ; that its presence there coufd
not be explained by the laws of heredity,
working through the English blood ; and that
an altogether new element, at that point, had
come into the family line. But in the world's
gallery of illustrious persons, we find intro
duced, in the portraiture of the Evangelists, a
countenance never seen before on earth. It is
neither a Jewish nor a Gentile face ; it resem
bles none before it ; it is like itself alone.
From Avhence did it come into the human
family ?
Looking at it with the closest scrutiny, we
are unable to remove the first impression of
strangeness which the portraiture of Jesus in

I 88 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the Gospels makes upon us. We cannot by
any known law of heredity explain its origin
as a possible JeAvish face. There were ele
ments in the life of Jesus Avhich Avere not of
Jewish origin. Even Strauss felt obliged to
look beyond Judea for the explanation of the
life of Jesus.* The laws of descent fail ut
terly to account for the coming of Jesus as a
mere Hebrew child. He Avas unlike his mo
ther and his brethren — so unlike them that
his brethren did not understand him, and his
mother wist not Avhat he Avould do. Though
he grew to manhood in a quiet Israelitish
home, no man ever thinks of calling him a
child of Abraham. Though living all his life
among his father's people, he never became a
HebreAV of the HebreAvs. Though inheriting
the traditions of Israel, the Son of David Avas
known as the Son of man. Though never
walking beyond the mountains of his native
country, he lived a life Avhich belongs to the
whole world. The contrast between Jesus'
character, and the fixed Jewish type, appears
at once when we view beside it the greatest of
the prophets Avho came just before him, or the
chief of the apostles Avho followed after him.
We cannot mistake the manner, the garb, the
voice, of the Israelite in the Baptist. He is

* Leben Jesus furs deutsche Volk, s. 206. 167.

JESUS NOT A HEBREW OF THE HEBREWS. 1 89
a figure stern and wild, a prophet from the
dim past, who stands Avith foot advanced upon
the very threshold of the new Dispensation —
his strange garment half hidden in the dark
ness of the night, but his face catching the
glow, and his eager hand pointing to the light
within, AA'here the Bridegroom rejoices with
his friends. It was not permitted him to
cross the threshold of the new ; but the con
trast between that unmistakable Jewish form,
standing with his disciples just Avithout, and
Jesus sitting at meat with his disciples within,
the kingdom of God, marks the great diver
gence between the most advanced Hebrew
character, and the new humanity of the Son
of man. In this freedom from distinctively
Jewish characteristics, Jesus surpasses even the
apostle whose Hebrew habits had become most
thoroughly revolutionized. St. Paul, long after
he had become accustomed to speak of himself
as a new man, to whom all things had become
rte*w, still shows incidental signs of his Hebrew
descent. The Israelite appears, every now and
then, in the Christian. Had he not told us,
we might have known from the peculiarities
of his language and manner in his pleas for
the freedom of the Christian man, that once
Paul had been a Pharisee. The great Apostle
of liberty is as unmistakably a Hebrew of the
Hebrews, as Luther was a German of the Ger-

19° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
mans. But such inborn marks of nationality,
which manifest themselves unconsciously in
St. Paul, never attract our attention in the
Son of man ; and that, too, although our por
traiture of him Avas drawn by rude Jewish
hands. Even while Jesus keeps the passover
of his people, he is more than an Israelite.
Even when he observes the most distinctive
Jewish customs, he keeps the law not as a
Pharisee ; and while he uses the Aramaic dia
lect of his people, he speaks not as the scribes.
If the laws of heredity have uubroken sway,
Jesus was not a mere Hebrew child. If nat
ural evolution be established science, Judaism
does not explain the birth at Bethlehem of
the Son of man. The Christian type is a neAV
phenomenon in Jerusalem. We must look be
yond its immediate historical environment, be-
jrond Judea, for its origin.
We are equally at a loss if Ave seek to de
rive the originality of Jesus from the influence
of the Gentiles. We do not even know that
Jesus, during his quiet growth in wisdom,
eA^er came under the influence of Gentile
modes of thought. The Avhole outlying world
did not contain a philosophy, or a religion, of
Avhich we can say his doctrine Avas the natural
heir. The leaven of the Gentiles in Judaism
was not the leaven of Christianity. Jesus'
doctrine of the kingdom of God had no spirit-

JESUS AND HELLENISM. I9I
ual father in antiquity either in India or
Greece. But if the Son of man was neither Jew nor
Gentile, may we not suppose that his original
ity may have been ihe natural product of
some peculiar blending, or exceptional union,
of the better elements of both ? Here again
the historical facts prevent the explanation of
the person of Jesus as the natural child of two
races. We can still trace in history and phi
losophy the line where the two civilizations, the
East and the West, and the two minds, Plato
and Moses, met ; but that line which marked
the meeting of two great historical currents,
flowing from the opposite quarters of the
world, does not denote the course followed by
the new and mightier wave. Christianity is
a rising movement which crosses all existing
currents of thought, coinciding with none ex
cept at few points, and pursuing with gather
ing force its own original impulse. The
apocryphal books of Ecclesiasticus, and the
Wisdom of Solomon, mark the first influence of
Hellenic culture upon Hebrew faith. In their
form, at least, we may, with Dean Stanley,*
regard these writings as " connecting links "
between the earlier Hebrew literature and the
later Christian epistles ; and in this first meet-

* Jewish Church, iii. 296.

I92 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
ing of Hellenism with Judaism we may recog
nize with Ewald,* "a premonition of John,
and .... a preparation for Paul, like a warm
rustle of spring, ere its time is fully come."
But we know Avith historical certainty that the
natural offspring of the union of Grecian phi
losophy and Hebrew wisdom Avas not Chris
tianity, but Alexandrian Judaism. Its OAvn
child was not the Apostle to the Gentiles, but
Philo, the Jew. The first logical outcome of
these two great historical tendencies Avas the
allegorical wisdom of the Alexandrian JeAV —
not the mind that Avas in Jesus of Nazareth. f
What the last possible combinations of the
ideas and tendencies of the two worlds were,
became manifest toward the close of the first
Christian century in the many-colored philos
ophies of the Gnostics. The attempt to patch
together the beliefs of the Jews and the ideas
of the Gentiles resulted in a philosopher's
cloak of many colors ; the doctrine of Jesus,
like the garment Avhich the soldiers divided,
Avas woven Avithout seam throughout
We are reasoning from the observed forces
and laAvs of human nature. Take the known

* History of Israel, v. 484.
\ For an exhaustive discussion of the radical antithesis be
tween Philo and the Christian idea, see Dorner, History of the
Doctrine of the Person of Christ, i., pp. 19, ff. The points of
opposition are more popularly defined in Pressense's Life of
Christ, pp. 77 ff.

THE NEW SPIRIT. 1 93
tendencies of Judaism, and the known ideas of
the Gentile world, and combine them in every
imaginable manner, and Christianity in its
unity of design, and transcendent beauty, will
never come out in your historical kaleidoscope.
Many incongruous philosophies, many bright,
grotesque fancies, did result, when time shook
these variegated materials up together in the
Roman Empire ; but the Gospel which Jesus
began to preach in the villages of Galilee
neArer arose from the dissolving of the old
Hebrew faiths, together with Gentile super
stitions, in the great crucible of the world's
unbelief. Grant, even, that in the age which the his
torian may recognize as the fulness of time
materials for a new nation and a higher re
ligion had been brought together from thou
sands of years ; and that these elements
gathered from the four quarters of the known
world, were waiting in the great alembic of
the Roman Empire to be recombined in some
new form of* society, and purer faith; — whence
shall come the electric flash, the heavenly
spark, that shall precipitate from these con
fused and turbid times the new era, and occa
sion the crystallization of a purer worship and
a perfect form of society ? History may ex
plain everything in Christianity, except the
Spirit of Christ. If it can number the ele-
9

194 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
ments of this world which Avere met in Judea,
it has still to account for the force which or
ganized them in the Church. The new Life
is beyond the analysis of historical chemistry.
The creative Spirit that was in Christ is the
super-historical and divine principle of Chris
tianity. As a last possible naturalistic explanation
of the appearance of the Son of man in Judea,
it might be suggested that the spirit of the
older prophecy Avas raised from the dead in
Jesus to newness of life; that Christianity
struck its roots down deep through the tradi
tions of Judaism into the living fountains of
Israel's earlier and better faith. We are far
from denying the relationship between the
spirit of Christ and the spirit of prophecy ;
Ave shall return to this again in our account of
his appearing. But the spirit of prophecy
affords no explanation of the historical Jesus.
The laws of heredity forbid the supposition
of a leap, even of spiritual genius, entirely out
of the conditions of its own age1, across cen
turies, into alien and vanished modes of
thought. The Book of Isaiah does not yield
a sufficient cause for the actual Messianic life
of Jesus. He Avas not another Elias, nor is
Christianity to be conceived of as a return *to
the great prophetic age of Israel ; — as the Prot
estant Reformation was a return to a more

THE NEW SPIRIT. 1 95
primitive Christianity, and as Luther had the
work of the great Apostle before him for an
example. Jesus brings in his own Gospel the
truth which unites, and makes alive, in one
personal reality, the broken conceptions, the
scattered members, of the prophetic image of
the Messiah. His life was not a copy of any
Messianic portrait. It was the original in com
parison with which all the portraits of the
coming Messiah drawn by the prophet's hands
look like copies, themselves imperfect, and
not alike, and marked by discordant features.
In the Divine original alone all incongruities
of the copies are harmonized. That, says the
Evangelist, who bad beheld his glory, was the
Prue, that is, the genuine, the original Light
which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world.
It may be said, indeed, that Jesus possessed
the exalted spiritual genius to see and to sat
isfy the deepest want of his age, and of all
ages. But even a happy phrase is not of itself
sufficient to solve a great historical problem ;
and our problem is, whence came, and of what
manner of spirit was, this unexampled re:
ligious genius of Jesus ? It is true that the
scholasticism of the rabbis did not meet the
wants of the people ; and the uprisals of the
zealots had only plunged into deeper despair
the national expectation. It is true that in

I96 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the gathering gloom, here and there, the old
Messianic hope seemed to be rekindled. But
our question, which cannot be put aside by a
form of words, is, how did it come to pass
that a religious enthusiast had the " spiritual
genius " to rise above all ancestral limitations ;
to see that the only way to save the life of his
nation was to lose it ; to teach a salvation of the
Jews so novel in its conception, and so alien to
the tradition of the law, as to unite both the
learned and the aristocratic parties at Jerusa
lem in a common hatred against him ; and to
seek to attain the hope of that sanation by
methods so unworldly as to cause the patriotic
zealots to forsake his standard, and to lead the
priests and people in their disappointed rage
to fill the court of the Roman governor Avith
the despairing cry, "We have no king but
Caesar," " Crucify him, crucify him ! " *
But let us bring these first and general im-
pressions of the superhuman originality of
Jesus to more searching proof.
The poAver and life of Jesus Avere neither
Jewish, nor Grecian, nor a combination of the
diverse elements thrown together by the Ro-

* As Pressense has observed, the " Fourth book of Esdras shows
. . . the chasm which separates the ideal of Jesus Christ from
that of the Jews of his time. The book of Enoch represents the
popular conception in its designation of the Messianic reign as the
era of the sword."

THE MORAL TEACHING OF JESUS. 1 97
man state ; but they were above and beyond
the knoAvn tendencies and forces of human
nature in the following striking particulars :
1. We begin with that aspect of Jesus' min
istry in which he was most like others — his
moral teaching. In the broad historical retro
spect, now clearing up before the new science
of comparative religion, it is certainly a pleas
ure for one who believes in the omnipresence
of the Spirit of Truth, and in the religious
nature of man, to discover that the large,
catholic prophecy of the last of the Hebrew
prophets * was not wholly a vision of distant
futurity ; that, even while he heralded the
coming in Judea of the "messenger of the
Lord," " from the rising to the setting of the
sun," the " incense in every place " was ascend
ing, and many " pure offerings " Avere brought
to the adorable name which all religions strive
to express, and which the chief of Apostles
confessed that he knew only in part.
But, among those chosen of God from every
nation, Jesus is the Teacher sent from God.
His inimitable moral originality appears to
the best advantage when compared with those
very fore-gleams and reflections of his teach
ing which bear the closest resemblance to it.
Print in parallel columns the choice sayings of
* Mai. i. 11.

198 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
those who have served God in every nation, and
the words of Jesus, — and, as Ave read, the very
similarity reveals the difference. A spirit not
of this world ; a light from afar ; a subtle
quality, not easily defined, but felt as the
very life of Jesus' moral teaching, lead us in
stinctively to recognize in him One who spake
as never man spake. The precepts alike of
the ra"bbis and the philosophers, Avhen taken
up in Jesus' teaching, receive a different set
ting, and a more heavenly light is in them. A
diamond in a dark or dimly-lighted room is
not the same thing as a diamond in the track
of a sunbeam. We see in the Gospels the
purest morality of the Gentiles taken out of
darkness and uncertainty, and held up in the
light of a new revelation. Jesus' teaching is
man's moral truth with a ray of heaven play
ing through it.
A recent Avriter * has gathered the results
of nearly ten years' study of the Talmud into
a collection of those rabbinical sayings which
have any analogy to the Gospels. The Ser
mon on the Mount, Avhen read thus, in the
midst of the rabbinical lore, seems like the
new Avine when put into the old bottles. The
best morality of the rabbins smacks of a

* Wunsche : Neue Beitrage ziir Erlauterungen der Evangelium
aus Talmud.

THE MORAL TEACHING OF JESUS. 1 99
prudential virtue ; it is not better than the
wisdom of Solomon ; but the Sermon on the
Mount imparts to morality the essence of
'spiritual truth. A greater than Solomon is
here. The Talmudic literature yields but a
distant and indistinct echo of the blessing
pronounced upon the pure in heart ; and if we
seek for any approach in the traditions of the
scribes to the simple yet deep ethical truth of
Jesus, " Whosoever will save his life shall lose
it," we can find nothing better than Hillel's
clever warning against the ambition of the
pharisee overleaping itself, " Whoso spreads
out his calling shall lose it." The negative
precept of the Grecian sage, and of the most
human of the rabbis, Jesus makes the golden
rule of the world.* While the scribes were
repeating the saying of Hillel, " No unedu
cated man easily avoids sin ; no man of the
people can be pious ; " the common people
heard gladly One who made publicans and
sinners his disciples and friends.
If we compare, not merely single precepts,
but the moral doctrine of Jesus as a whole
with the ethics of the Gentiles, we observe
that, while separate threads may be easily
matched, and particular sayings may corre-

* Stanley's Jewish Church, iii., p. 507. Dean Stanley hears,
amid the trivial casuistry of Hillel, " faint accents of a generous
and universal theology."

200 OLD FAITHS IN NEW. LIGHT.
spond, still the general pattern of his teaching
is unlike any other ; the design is original ;
and the Avhole fabric is taken out of uncertain
and confusing lights, and held up in the sun
shine. The one-sided intellectualism of the
Greek ethics; the inability of the Pagan
morals to rise above the barriers of natural
condition and race to a true spiritual concep
tion of man's birthright, unity, and destiny ;
the essentially political conception of the
brotherhood of man, Avhen the instinct of hu
manity did lead to the Stoic idea of the one
universal state ; the want of the idea of a
kingdom of God, or power to realize any spir
itual conception of man in society ; these, and
other limitations like these, mark the radical
and world-wide difference between the best
moral teaching of antiquity, and the new,
transforming doctrine Avhich Jesus began to
preach in one of the obscurest provinces of the
Roman Empire.*
Greece had perfected a crystalline language
to contain the new truth ; the philosophers
brought much beaten oil ; but Jesus by the
power of His spirit converted the oil into
light. And, above all, the absolute peculiarity of

* See Neander's thorough discussion of " The Relation of the
Hellenic to Christian Ethics,"— Wissenshaftliche Abhandlungen.

THE MORAL IDEAL OF THE GOSPELS. 201
Jesus as a teacher was the manner in which
he made the knowledge of truth the means to
something beyond itself, and never the end of
his teaching. Truth Avith him is not an end ;
it is the way to life. Truth is like the light
which shines, not that it may be seen, but that
in it we may see the realities of the world.
The philosophers Avere content to show the
truth ; Jesus, through the truth, shows the
Father. Hence everything in his Gospel is
intensely personal and real. He is himself, in
his oneness Avith the Father, the doctrine.
Trust in his Person, not belief in a dogma, is
the condition of discipleship. In his Gospel
nature answers to nature, and God is at one
with man. Jesus leaves his disciples in the
communion of the Spirit ; and this divine real
ism of his teaching (if one may put into a sin
gle word this marvellous characteristic of it)
made a vital impression upon the hearts of
the disciples, Avhich they never lost, for hence
forth Avith them " to know the truth " was to
have " eternal life."
2. The moral ideal of the Gospels was pecu
liarly Jesus' own. The good man of Jesus'
parables was not the good man of the world's
admiration. His ideal was different even from
the ideal righteous man of the prophets, for,
according to his own saying, the least in the
kingdom of heaven was greater than the great-
9*

202 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
est of the prophets. The central and formative
principles of Jesus' ideal of goodness were not
those upon which any type of character had
ever been created before. Not merely higher
degrees of virtue, but, in some respects, a new
kind of goodness sprang up in the path of
Christianity.* Humility, with Jesus, is the
loAvly source of the virtues. The two con
nected Avords, repent and believe, marked the
two polar duties upon which the new Chris
tian type of character Avas to be formed ; but
the centre of the Avhole is love. Love is the
central and formative virtue of Christian
ethics and theology, — not the Platonic idea of
justice, nor the magnanimity of Aristotle, nor
the self-abnegation of Buddha. Love is the
divine centre of the moral ideal of Jesus, and
around that living heart of goodness the vir
tues grow in their order and perfectness. It j
is an evident historical fact, that Jesus intro-i
duced a neAV creative principle of character..'
Distinct and clearly outlined as the Christian
character has been, and is, in comparison Avith
all other types of goodness, JeAvish or Gentile,
ancient or modern; so unique and divinely
original Avas the first creative thought of it in
the mind of Jesus of Nazareth. What science

* See Matheson : Article, " Originality of the Character of
Jesus Christ," Contemporary Review, November, 1878.

THE METHOD OF JESUS. 203
shall declare the generation of that creative
thought of Jesus ?
3. The constructive method of Jesus was
comparatively new. It is one of the redeem
ing merits of Matthew Arnold's "Literature
and Dogma," that it brings out clearly this
new and distinctive method — " the secret of
Jesus." He begins his work within the heart.
The later prophets had been taught something
of this natural method of righteousness, but
in Jesus the new method of the heart comes
to perfection. It is that perfect method
of righteousness which substitutes good for
evil in the heart. Religion, with Jesus, not only
sweeps the house, but it opens the windows
and lets the sunshine in. It peoples the soul
with new purposes. It makes its chambers
echo with new and innocent joys. It brings
in new affections. The coming of religion to
the soul is like opening a deserted house, and
filling it with the laughter of children's voices.
This, at least, was Jesus' own method, how
ever men, in later ages, may have lost his sim
ple art of winning souls. The fact that his
own Church has. too often forgotten his secret,
and that his own prophets never fully attained
to it, shows, how divinely original Jesus' per
fect method with his disciples really was.
But how, we ask, could one in whom, on the
supposition of a merely natural evolution,

204 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
were accumulated, by the inevitable laws of
heredity, the traditional methods of genera
tions of scribes, and the marked peculiarities of
the Jewish race, have fallen all at once, easily,
to the utter astonishment of his contemporaries,
into the new method of Jesus ? It had not
been treasured up in the customs of his peo
ple, nor could it have been learned in the
schools. Even his chosen disciples were slow
of heart to understand it. It was Jesus' own
method ; it came to him spontaneously, as the
flowering of a plant. It was the natural blos
soming of his own life, — what science shall
tell how it grew ?
4. The plan of Jesus was original. Its ob
ject was the establishment of a kingdom of
which no one in the world but Jesus had
dreamed. The first step in its execution was
the refusal of the usual modes of winning sue-
cess. Judas Avas soon disappointed and pro
voked by the utter strangeness of the Master's
manner of gaining a kingdom. Jesus, from the
first, marked out for himself a way of life
Avhich Avas sure to cross, again and again, the
paths trodden by all other men. He folloAved
out his singular plan of life by rejecting the
favor of the chief among the people, and turn
ing from the temptation of the kingdoms of
this world, and choosing for his helpers and
friends men without poAver, wealth, or influ-

THE PLAN OF JESUS 205
ence, Avho possessed nothing but the desire to
learn of him, and the Avillingness to receive the
training of his spirit. He finished his novel
plan of life by giving himself up to death, when
one single word of denial of his mission would
have set him free. So. anomalous, so contrary
to all maxims of common-sense, was the plan
of Jesus, that some recent Avriters have en
deavored to regard him as a religious enthusi
ast, a good nfan deceived by his own dreams,
and allured by some wild illusion to a life
which a soberer judgment might have foreseen
would surely end in disappointment, rejection
by the world, and death ; and that too, al
though Ave are told by those who were best
acquainted Avith him that he knew what was
in man, and though, from beginning to end, his
life, through all its eventful scenes, seems to
move on full of purpose, and Avith thoughtful
anticipation, to its tragic close. His was a plan
which looked calmly forward to the end of
time. Everything in Jesus' words has this far
look forward. His plan of life involved his
death, and the coming of another dispensation.
Rationalism can escape from the impression of
divine originality left by the plan of Jesus
only by making the mind of Jesus a chimera,
a psychological impossibility.
5. The life of Jesus as portrayed in the
Gospels was unique in the absence from it of

206 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
traits common to other liA^es. There are cer
tain negative characteristics of the teaching of
Jesus, as contained in the New Testament,
which, on the supposition of a merely natural
evolution of Christian doctrine, are, to say the
least, very curious. It remains for naturalism
to explain how certain peculiarities and limi
tations of the prophetic teaching quietly dis
appear from the perfect law of the NeAv Tes
tament ; and also how it happened that there
are no traces of certain prevalent Aryan con
ceptions to be found in Gospels which natural
ism would account for as the product of an
age in which Aryan and Semitic ideas met in
new combinations. How happened it that
Jesus' doctrine of sin, for example, escaped
the taint of. asceticism, and of that conception
of evil, then not unknoAvn Avithin as well as
Avithout Palestine, which regarded matter as
the abode of corruption ? * The negative vir
tues of Christian doctrine are a peculiar excel
lence of the teaching of Jesus, Avith regard to
which much more might be said. It is, to say
the least, singular, if Christianity Avere the nat
ural product of the age in which it sprang up,
that it escaped so much evil and error AA'hich
were in the very soil, and in the air, of the land
where the Gospel Avas first preached.

Tulloch : Ch. Doct. of Sin, p. 109.

THE SINLESSNESS OF JESUS. 207
I might notice here, also, the absence of any
appearance of eclecticism in the character of
Jesus. Had the Gospel been originally, as
some modern critics labor to make it, a mere
patchwork of sentiments of the philosophers,
and notions of the sects, put together by
many hands, after the general Roman idea of a
world-empire ; it would have shown upon its
very surface the seams and the stitches, the
signs and unmistakable marks of its fabrica
tion from materials so diversified ; it would
never have deceived the world as the simple
Gospel. Whatever Jesus of Nazareth may
have been, he certainly was not a religious
eclectic. But I turn from these minor, yet significant,
negative considerations, to view that charac
teristic of Jesus' life Avhich, by common con
sent, is one of the most superhuman peculiari
ties of it — his sinlessness. The marks of pas
sion, of weakness, of pride, of the love of
popularity, and the consequent lack of moral
courage, of a thousand infirmities of the flesh,
some of which we notice in all other men, are
certainly not obvious, or any where forced upon
our recognition, in the life and conversation
which is mirrored in the four Gospels. On.
the contrary, Jesus Avas not only followed and
loved, but, by those who knew him best, he
was worshipped before he died.

208 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
The apotheosis of this man took place in his
lifetime, and not as an empty imperial honor,
but as a real adoration of the glory beheld in
him by a disciple who leaned upon his bosom,
and among the friends who were acquainted
with his whole manner of life. For him no
friend ever apologized ; and no enemy con
vinced him of sin. Modern infidelity must be
pushed to extremities before it will venture to
turn and cast any reproach upon the name
which still, in the reverence of the Christian
world, is above every name, full of an ideal
light. But how shall the lawTs of natural de
scent declare the generation of a seemingly
sinless character? Let any one read some
careful scientific statement of the laws of
heredity, and then read Ullmann's classic book
on " The Sinlessness of Jesus ; " or, better still,
read the Evangelists' simple portrayal of his
daily life ; and either he must deny undeniable
science, or overcome the weight of historical
evidence, or else seek for some other than phys
ical cause, some deeper than natural necessity,
for the coming to this earth of the sinless Son
of man.
6. It is the unique life in its power. What
ever may be our belief concerning miracles,
enough of the Gospels, on the most unfavor
able view of their authenticity, must be ad
mitted to be historical, to show that we have

THE POWER OF JESUS. 2O0,
to do here with a life full to overflowing wdth
peculiar and wonderful power. Even if we
should discredit the narratives, and be dis
posed to regard them as myths or legends,
nevertheless their peculiarities as myths would
point to a Being at the source of them wholly
without parallel or example in the catalogue
of great legendary heroes. The kind of won
derful works related, the circumstances and
conditions, the objects and moral aim, of the
miracles which Jesus is said to have per
formed, constitute a group of events' which,
even on the mythical hypothesis itself, distin
guish the Gospels sharply and broadly from
all other mythologies. The peculiar moral
quality, the unearthly virtue, of the miracles
of Jesus at once arrest attention, and stamp
them with a signature all their oavu. More
over, another singular characteristic of these
narratives is the self-restraint and perfect
poise of the miracle- worker amid his wonder
ful works. No word or hint of excitement or
surprise on the part of Jesus at his own
mighty works has come down to us, although
the narratives are often so detailed and graphic
as to reproduce his very gestures and tones.
Jesus never was seen standing for a moment in
surprise before his own miracles. They seem
to be perfectly natural to him. He does them
apparently as easily and as naturally as we

2IO OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
perform our everyday acts of interference
with the general laws of nature. The disci
ples, upon their first exercise of the Master's
power, came running back in excitement, re
joicing that the spirits were made subject unto
them. Jesus does not share their astonish
ment, but calms and hallows their thoughts by
reminding them of a better reason for their
joy. He never seems to have mistaken his
power ; to have attempted more than he could
perform ; or to have been astonished at his
OAvn success, when all men marvelled at him.
It is remarkable, also, that one Avho could do
so much as Jesus is reported to have done,
should not have done more mighty works.
The self-restraint of Jesus in the exercise of
his superior power is one of the signs of the
divineness of his power. He never performs
a miracle for mere effect ; never uses his sig
nal poAver for display ; never abuses it to
strike terror into his enemies, or even to save
himself ; always holds it under the control of
his higher spiritual purpose, and makes mirac
ulous power serve heavenly love. This moral
control of marvellous poAver, preserved through
out the ministry of Jesus, is an indication of
the divine originality of his life of great signi
ficance. But, irrespective of the miracle-working of
Jesus, his power is altogether an unparalleled

THE POWER OF JESUS. 211
fact in history. A new era dates from his
birth. His coming, as Dr. Sears has well said,*
was " a new influx of power." Jesus seems to
concentrate in his oavu person the great con
structive forces of religion. Prophecy, before
him, had been more than a destructive energy.
It had begun to build. Prophecy. in Greece was
only " a voice, a song : " in Israel it was an
architect and builder. f It founded a nation ;
built a state ; made straight over mountains,
and across valleys, a highway for the Lord.
These creative forces of religion in Israel cul
minate, and are endowed with new and marvel
lous poAver, in the ministry of Jesus. His
spirit is the great constructive principle and
power of modern history. It was his wonder
ful Avork to create in the Roman Empire a new
faith, a new hope, and a new joy. The belief
in immortality became through him in Judea,
what it never had been at Athens or Rome, a
liATing, Avorking faith, which transformed this
earth, and transfigured death. The greatness
of this change, and the marvel of the power
Avhich wrought it, may be appreciated at a
glance by the traveller who walks through that
corridor in the Vatican, where, upon one wall
have been placed pagan burial tablets and in-

* The Fourth Gospel.
f Mozley : Ruling Ideas, pp. 17, 18.

2 12 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
scriptions, with symbols of the pursuits in
which the departed delighted before death
quenched life's torch, and words of fond rec
ollection of earthly scenes scarce broken by
any anticipations of joy among the shades be
low ; and where, upon the opposite wall, have
been placed inscriptions taken from the Cata
combs, with their benedictions of peace and
their emblems of hope, the ascending bird Avith
the olive bough, or the ship sailing into the
sky. This unexampled poAver of Jesus was crea
tive, likewise, of a new humanity. It poured
its fresh, reneAving streams through all the
channels of social life. Modern societ}-, as Avell
as modern history, dates from the advent" of
Christ. We ought to glance, at least, in this
connection, at the contrast betAveen the moral
decrepitude of the pagan world, and the
Christian restoration of society. Ecclesiasti
cal Avriters have sometimes been accused of in
dulging in a too sweeping condemnation of the
popular morality of the pagan world ; and
there is certainly a brighter side of life in the
later Roman Empire, which Mr. Lecky and
other Avriters, Avho are disposed to keep as
much as possible on the sunny side of the
street in their Avalks through Rome, will not
suffer us to overlook. But the pages of Taci
tus grow dark with the increasing gloom of a

THE OLD SOCIETY. 21 3
history of crimes, and St. Paul's condemna
tion of Roman morals finds its confirmation in
more than one revelation of the buried life of
Pompeii. " Could Ave have seen depicted the
inner life of that brilliant period," so Prof.
Jowett* thinks, " we should have turned away
from the sight Avith loathing and detestation."
Undoubtedly there were better elements in
the midst of the groAving corruption, and, in
that age of easy divorces, inscriptions on some
burial tablets still tell the pleasant story of
life-long faithfulness and affection. But the
sentiments of the philosophers, and examples
of individual virtue, were powerless to per
vade a fermenting and decaying society with
the leaven of a new spirit. While the rabbis
of Jerusalem were uttering fine praises of hu
mility, the Pharisees were making broad their
phylacteries. While Hillel's voice still Avas
heard in the temple, reminding the prudent
disciple to take his seat one or two places be
low the position belonging to him, the scribes
were jostling one another in their eagerness to
seek the uppermost seat's in the synagogue.
While the philosophers at Rome were dis
coursing loftily of virtue, vice was groAving
too common to be talked of as a scandal, f

* Ep. of St. Paul, p. 77.
f Mommsen, iv. 618.

214 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
While the rhetoricians were preaching morals,
slavery was heaping up its iniquities, and la
bor sinking into disgrace. While the Roman
law was giving woman greater rights, the
family was losing its sanctity, and marriage
becoming a commercial contract. While the
poets were still singing of fidelity and love,
divorces from marriages, which had been con
tracted without the bonds of religion, Avere
matters of daily occurrence; and men im
mersed in sensuality, and overwhelmed by ex
travagance, could hardly be induced to take
wives even by the bounties decreed to husbands
by Augustus. While sentiments of humanity
were cultivated in literature, even Cato did
not scruple to sell his old and worthless ser
vants ; not infrequent exhibitions of cruelty
gave occasion for Juvenal's satirical picture of
the mistress who, in a fit of hot temper, cruci
fied her slave ; * and the popular brutality
was gratified by the bloody spectacles of the
Coliseum. We do not forget, in this rapid
survey, the temporary revival of the better
elements of Roman faith and virtue in the age
of the Antonines — that Indian summer of the
Empire's fading glory. But neither the new
Platonism of Alexandria, nor the later Stoi
cism of the Roman metropolis, could prevent
* Sat. vi.

THE NEW SOCIETY. 215
the decline of the world. " It was an old
world," says Mommsen, as he closes his history,
"and even the richly gifted patriotism of
Caesar could not make it young again." * It
was the peculiar power of the despised Naza-
rene to call forth, by a mighty voice, a new
civilization from the grave of the old. It may
be said that philosophy rolled away the stone ;
but to restore life was the miracle wrought by
Christianity. This originality of Jesus' power was sig
nally exhibited in the rise and rapid growth of
the Church. He created a new kind of society
— in this world, as Jesus himself said, but not
of it. What science of natural forces shall ex
plain the advent, in the midst of its historical
environment, of this neAV type of humanity ?
The Church, as a great and surprising histor
ical result, requires as its cause a person of
most original power. The rise of Christianity
presents a problem in history which resem
bles the problem of motion in astronomy. If
the motion of nebulae and worlds be once
granted, then our physical science may find
some possible solution for the succeeding phe
nomena of the solar system ; but the difficulty
is to account for that first impulse of the neb
ulous mass, for the originating motion of the

* Hist., iv. 738.

2 10 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
order of the spheres. Once admit an original
divine impulse, a neAV formative, constructive
power sent from without into human history,
in the person of Jesus Christ, and then the
spread and growth of Christianity becomes an
intelligible historical study ; but it is difficult
to find in history a natural cause for a su
pernatural movement, a material source for
a spiritual life. This original, new creative
power of Jesus of Nazareth is itself a miracle
continued through history, and at work before
our eyes to-day; and though one after another
of his many mighty works be explained away,
this historical miracle still remains to show
forth his glory.
7. Another altogether unique characteristic
of the person of Jesus was his self -consciousness.
An apostle has expressed in a single phrase a
peculiarity of Jesus' self -consciousness Avhich
distinguished him from all other men : " In him
was Yea." (2 Cor. i. 19.) The absence of self-
contradiction and questioning, the continuity
and wholeness of Jesus' oavii self-conscious life,
are marvellous in our eyes ; for Ave are daily
contradicting and questioning our own hearts ;
we find different kinds of men bound together
in us from our birth — spirits of light and of
darkness, of doubt and of faith, of evil and
good ; angels of God, and demons of the flesh,
struggling within us through life for the

THE SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS OF JESUS. 21 7
mastery. But Jesus never seems to have been
an enigma, a question, to himself, as we are
often half -solved riddles of existence to our
selves. He knew whence he came. He knew
whither he should go. This calm, assured
self-knowledge of Jesus, as it was preserved in
his conversations with his friends, and through
all the hurrying scenes of his life, was some
thing never witnessed before or since in man ;
something that seems more like God the more
we think of it and realize it. As he never
stood in surprise before his own miracles, so
he does not seem to have gazed in wonder into
his own soul. The most wonderful thing in
the world to every man is himself. All the
mysteries of the creation meet in our own con
sciousness of self. But while men marvelled
at him, and most strange things were happen
ing in Jerusalem, this Man possessed himself
in perfect* faith, in calm, serene self-knowl
edge ; even from boyhood living his wonder
ful life as naturally, as spontaneously, as sim
ply, as a child in his Father's house. This un
broken and undoubting " Yea " of Jesus'
self-consciousness manifests itself throughout
his teaching. His doctrine is never a question
and a weary doubt ; it is an uninterrupted
affirmation. The manner or kind of his posi-
tiveness in teaching is peculiar. It is not the
assurance of education, or habit, or ignorance :
10

2l8 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
it is not the dogmatism of the scribe. His
authority puzzled the scribes, for it came not
from Moses' seat, nor from a prophet's vision ;
but it Avas the authority of his own kingly
soul. His manifestations of himself are his
revelations of God. The singular positiveness
of Jesus makes a powerful impression upon us
when we consider the nature and the extent of
the questionings which he answers Avith an un
wavering " Yea." In order to appreciate the
wonderful range of his answers, and this dis
tinctive positiveness of his teaching, pass
quickly from one to the other of the A^erities
which he points out to bis disciples. Is there
another than this earthly existence for us mor
tals ? Yes : I am the resurrection and the life.
Are there other spheres of being ? Yes : In
my Father's house are many mansions. But
can man know the Father ? Yes : If ye had
known me, ye should have known 'my Father
also ; and from henceforth ye knoAV him and
have seen him. Is God thoughtful of his
creatures ? Yes : Your Father knoweth Avhat
things ye have need of. Does the great Crea
tor care for me ? Yes : The very hairs of your
head are all numbered. Is prayer a power
Avith God ? Yes : Ask and ye shall receive.
Will justice ever be clone — justice noAvmocked,
and trodden under foot of men ? Yes : Many
that are first shall be last, and the last shall

THE SELF- CONSCIOUSNESS OF JESUS. 2IQ
be first. Is conscience, then, a true prophet
as it proclaims law and predicts future retri
butions ? Yes : He shall reward every man
according to his works. But can we be for
given for our sins ? Yes : Son, thy sins be for
given thee. But can we, though forgiven,
ever lose the memory of our shame, and rejoice
unrebuked among the sinless ? Yes : I will
see you again, and your heart shall rejoice,
and your joy no man taketh from you. So
Jesus dwelt daily among the great verities of
God's kingdom, and his teaching is throughout
a constant affirmation, a most positive Gospel
of glad tidings. It was in Judea, it has been
for eighteen centuries, it is to-day, the great
affirmation of the human soul, and of all that
the human heart can hold dear. Whence did
man born of woman derive this wonderful
consciousness of truth ? What science of
natural descent can declare its generation?
And, besides this, there are expressions which
fell from the lips of Jesus, of a still higher
self-consciousness, a certain divine sense and
knowledge of oneness with the Father, which
transcend our experience of ourselves, and
leave us wondering what manner of man he
was. 8. One more mark of the divine originality
of Jesus our rapid summary would be singu
larly incomplete should we leave unmen-

2 20 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
tioned, viz. : his position toward the sin of the
world. Sin finds in him a new and diviner
law of judgment. He stands, indeed, on the
common Hebrew ground in his teaching with
regard to sin ; but he rises in his doctrine far
above Moses and the prophets ; and in his
presence we feel that we are in a changed
and clearer moral atmosphere. He has more
than a prophet's divination of the evil nature
of man. He feels Avith a peculiar sensitive
ness the presence of sin in the thoughts of
those whose conduct fulfils the laAv. His
superior knowledge of the evil hidden in the
heart of man, his instantaneous detection and
unerring judgment of the wrong concealed be
hind the masks and Avithin the customs of
men, and of the evil dispositions lying at the
root of many questionings even of his own dis
ciples, are a frequent surprise to us, as we
read the narratives of his conversation Avith
men. No man ever saw or felt Avhat sin is,
as this man saw and felt it. Though dwell
ing among us, he seems to have looked doAA'n
into the depths of the human heart as from
some higher sphere, and he knew what was in
man. When our eyes are near the level of
the sea, Ave can hardly look beneath the glim
mer of the surface ; but, from some higher
point, Ave can discern the sunken rocks and
tangled sea-weed amid the broken ledges : so,

JESUS' PERSONAL RELAIION TO SIN. 221
as from some higher plane, Jesus looked down,
and saw, beneath the smooth surface of men's
lives, the hidden purposes, the wild tangle of
desires, the hard, selfish thoughts of human
hearts. But we are lingering with the more out
ward peculiarities of Jesus' relation to the sin
of the world. The resemblances between him
and all others diminish, the contrast deepens,
the further we penetrate into the significance
of Jesus' redemptiA^e work. The altogether
unique and original personal position which
Jesus assumes toward sin is the distinctive
doctrine of his Gospel. It is evident that,
from his baptism to his cross, Jesus regards
himself as holding in the Father's plan of the
world a peculiar place, and as having a work
to do, in regard to the sin of the world, which
separates his life from all others. The Son of
man, he says, has power on earth to forgive
sins. The mere fact that he exercised that
power, and as by some divine right inherent
in his own person, separates him, in his own
self-consciousness, from all the prophets and
priests who were before him. Not merely to
teach that sin is in its nature forgivable, but
actually to forgive it as by a divine right of
forgiveness dwelling in him, — that was the
new, startling word which aroused the syna
gogue against him. In the charge of bias-

222 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
phemy, which was brought against the Son of
man who forgave sins, we have a genuine
historical sign of the absolute originality in
Jerusalem of the life of Christ. We need not,
for our immediate purpose, enter farther into
the nature or meaning of Jesus' personal rela
tion to man's sin. We may call attention,
however, to the fact that, for our knowledge of
the peculiar significance which Jesus attaches
to his life and death for sinners, Ave are not
dependent entirely upon his words, or the re
ports of his words in the Gospels, but upon a
great undisputed historical fact, Avhich was
and is, itself, a neAv and distinctive Christian
institution — the Lord's Supper. Looking at
the last supper simply as an historical event,
regarding it merely in its relation to preceding
JeAvish rites, as Avell as in its place in subse
quent Christian history, Ave certainly are sur
prised by it, as an occurrence Avithout prece
dent and Avithout parallel. It followed the
Paschal supper; but can we conceive of a
John the Baptist, or even of an Isaiah, the
prophet of the Man of Sorrows, as having in
stituted it ? The very idea of the last Supper
was Jesus' own. He only could hav^e super
seded the Passover by making himself the sacri
fice. We need no evidence of the correctness of
the narration of the evangelists here. No dis
ciple could haATe dreamed of the action which

ORIGINALITY OF THE LAST SUPPER. 223
Jesus performed when he took the cup, and
blessed it, as the new testament in his blood.
The account of the Lord's Supper could only
have originated from the actual occurrence of
it. But Avhence came Jesus' own idea of it ?
What science that does not admit the inspi
ration of the Spirit shall account for its sug
gestion? Consider the amazing significance
of this unheard-of action — that a human
being, like ourselves, calmly, quietly, with
prayer to God, while pronouncing a farewell
blessing upon his friends, in the very presence
of death, where usually the masks which may
have been worn for a lifetime are suffered to
fall off, and all deception ceases, should, never
theless, have made himself the passover of his
people, both the mediator and the mediation
of the sin of the world ! Surely this action
of Jesus is contrary to human experience — a
miracle not to be believed, according to Hume's
famous argument — yet Jesus did it ; and we
know that he did it, for we have the sacra
ment of the Lord's death observed by the
Church in memory of him unto this day. The
Church and its sacrament are the faithful wit
nesses, through all the intervening centuries,
of the divine originality of Jesus Christ.
We have given above a rapid survey of
those characteristics of the Christ of the
evangelists which distinguish him from all

224 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
others, and leave us wondering and worship
ping before a being altogether unique, original,
and superhuman. These supernatural ele
ments in the life of Jesus are so inwoven with
the commonest incidents as well as the greater
events of the Gospel; they appear and reap
pear in so many scenes of the sacred story ;
they are elements so constant and so natural
in the narratives of the evangelists, as to pre
clude the idea of any intentional invention or
artificial production of them. The impression
made by Jesus upon his age — the impression
of a divinely original being Avhich we receive
from merely reading the Gospels — is not
broken, and cannot be clone away Avith, by
any questions or doubts raised by the critical
school concerning the time Avhen our present
Gospels were Avritten. Whenever and Avher-
ever our Gospels received their present, final
form, the real historical fact to be accounted
for is the great original of their wonderful
portraiture. Human imagination never liter
ally creates — its pictures are new combina
tions of existing objects; but here Ave have a
portraiture of a character and a life which, jf
Ave look at it simply as an ideal picture, Ave
are at a loss to explain as a happy combina
tion, a marvellous union by genius, of any
knoAvn features, or virtues, ever seen before on
earth. The portraiture of the Christ of the

THE HISTORICAL CHRIST. 225
Gospels is a work beyond the power of the
philosophers, certainly then beyond the imagi
nation of fishermen of Galilee. We know that
they could not have originated it, as Ave
know that Peter could not have chiselled out
of the marble the beauty of the Apollo Belvi-
dere, or Paul have painted that wonder of art,
the Sistine Madonna. We know it, that is,
not merely by reason of critical inquiries into
historical records, but by the simple applica
tion to the Gospels of the common laws of the
human imagination. The original of the
evangelists' portraiture of Jesus would remain
the great wonder of humanity, even though
it could be proved, as it never has been proved,
that our Gospels are copies of copies. Our
conclusion depends upon the historical neces
sity of believing in the Person whose appear
ance was the creative cause of the NeAV Testa
ment literature, and the Christian tradition,
and the rise of .the Church ; it does not depend
upon any question as to the authenticity or in
spiration of some particular Christian writing.
We have reason, indeed, to thank the rational
istic critics that, as one result of their micro
scopical study of the beginnings of Christi
anity, it is becoming more difficult for us to
conceive of the spontaneous generation of the
Church from the historical conditions of the
first century ; and we are gaining, on the
10*

2 26 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
other hand, a clearer apprehension of the
divine and ineffable impression produced by
Jesus of Nazareth upon those who beheld his
glory. The miraculous conception of the
image of his character in the mind of some
unlearned Galilean of the first century, or some
unknown writer of the second century, Avould
be a greater tax upon our credulity than any
of the mighty works recorded in John's Gos
pel. The image of God which the Church of
the second century possessed in the Christ of
its worship, would be itself the greatest of
wonders, if the first century had not witnessed
the miracle of his very person. Rationalism
must excuse faith from rushing into belief in
psychological miracles, Avrought in the highest
realms of the spirit, and supported by no his
torical evidence, in order to avoid belief in
miracles, Avrought in the lower realms of
nature, which are confirmed by much histori
cal evidence. Christianity, in short, in all
that is Avonderful, unique, powerful, and crea
tive in it, leads directly back to the historical
Christ. And the character of Jesus Christ
rises before us from the midst of history in
solitary and unapproachable grandeur.
In the northern part of Maine there is a
mountain Avhich springs from the midst of the
forest, unapproached by lesser heights, lifting
its solitary peak into the clouds. Floating

THE HISTORICAL CHRIST. 227
down the stream which flows by it, between
the overhanging banks, suddenly, at some
turn of the river's course, I have seen Mount
Katahdin, standing out from the interminable
forests, its grand lines sharply defined, its \
single, sublime peak rising alone into the sky.
Often that mountain vision seems repeated,
as I am brought before the character of Christ.
Above the interminable levels of common hu
man nature, across the intervening distances of
history, an image of solitary majesty stands
out before the mind ; and the view of that
sublime character, rising from the midst of
our low, monotonous human attainments,
clearly outlined against the soul's horizon, in
its wonderful elevation, is an inspiration and
a joy, awakening the whole moral enthusiasm
of our being !
But no sooner have we reached this conclu
sion, which has been fairly gained upon its
own evidence, that Jesus was a person of di
vine originality, than we find ourselves vio
lently thrown back upon our reasonings by
the force of another conviction equally posi
tive and powerful. Science can admit the ap
pearance of nothing original in the world. If,
putting entirely out of mind for the moment
our preceding reasonings, we start again from
our observation of the course of nature, we
shall find no exceptions to the uniformity of

2 28 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
nature. We see nothing rise above the hori
zon of our own experience, which has not had
elsewhere its setting. We know that there is
nothing new under the sun. All things that
appear to us, seem to come to pass in the regu
lar operation of natural laws. We know of
nothing which is separate from all other things,
nothing absolutely unique in the world. The
solitary peak has its foundations deep in the
common earth. Genius rises from the people.
There is nothing so singular, so exalted, or so
separate, that we are not to seek for its origin
and its cause in the general system of nature.
Every thread of life is inextricably looped with
a thousand other threads ; nature never breaks
her web, and no science can find the beginning
nor the ending of so much as a single thread
of her ceaseless spinning. The force of this
scientific conviction we Avould neither avoid
nor abate. We accept the law of continuity
as a laAv of things which it is infidelity to truth
to deny. We belieA^e in the uniformity of na
ture as we would in a Avorcl of God. What,
then, are Ave to do ? Here are two conclusions,
each fairly reached, each standing impreg
nable upon its OAvn ground ; yet they stand
facing each other; Ave cannot pass from the
one to the other ; they rise, separate and op
posite, and equally commanding. What are
Ave to do? Possibly there may be deeper

CHRIST AND THE LAW OF CONTINUITY. 229
ground where we may find, at the bottom of
things, a way from the one to the other of
these confronting truths. But we are not to
seek for the harmony of science and religion
by levelling either to the plane of the other.
Two conclusions, both positive and substan
tial, are brought over against each other. On
the one hand is the person of Christ — the ulti
mate moral fact of history — whose origin can
not be derived from the past by any of the
known laAvs of heredity — a sublime historical
phenomenon, unexampled and unexplained — a
mystery of being and of influence, whose spell
has been upon all the passing generations — a
name, above all others, which grows not less,
but more adorable, as the ages come and go.
On the other hand is the unbroken order of
the creation, and the \&w, older than history
and more ancient than the stars, Avhich binds
all things that come and go into one continu
ous whole. What then ? Give up either con
clusion on its OAvn ground, Ave cannot. To sac
rifice one truth to another truth is never rea
sonable. Scepticism may look about and see
oppositions, and raise questions, and create
doubts ; but it is the very essence of infidelity
to give up truth ; and, whether the truth sacri
ficed be a truth of nature or of the spirit, of
science or of religion, it is ahvays infidelity to
give up any truth to any other truth. There

23° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
may be believing as well as atheistic infidels, [
if the essence of infidelity be -the giving up of
truth, even though as an offering to some
other truth. Faith is often refusal to surren
der truth to truths — the holding fast all feel
ings, or perceptions, of truth — and waiting.
When, therefore, a moral phenomenon and a
physical law are made to confront one another
— as the divine originality of Jesus stands
over against the uniformity of nature — is not
he Avho should bid us deny either for the sake
of the other the real unbeliever ? We refuse
to abandon the scientific principle of con
tinuity in reading the life of Christ ; Ave also
decline to give up the witness of history and
the testimony of the human soul to the super
natural person of Christ at the command of
the principle of continuity. We knoAV that
contradictories cannot be true. It would be
infidelity, again, to truth to hold that the same
thing can be true, in religion and false in phi
losophy. But we knoAV that we do not al
ways know what are opposites in the nature of
things. And Ave Avould Avait until eternity,
believing in apparent opposites, rather than
deny, for the sake of mental peace, one appar
ent truth. But need Ave do either? May
we not in this instance find, truth enough al
ready known, to indicate that there is no real
contradiction between nature and Jesus Christ?

THE LARGER QUESTION. 23 I
May not the opposition of convictions in our
minds result simply from the narrowness of -our
view of both truths ? Is there any larger
view in Avhich these two great conclusions —
the oneness of nature, and the divine original
ity of Jesus Christ — shall both appear to be
parts and results of one and the same compre
hensive and far-reaching design? May we
not have in the person and life of Christ the
very culmination, the highest union, of two-
great processes of God's activity, of two evo
lutions, which have been Avorking from the
beginning towards one far-off and glorious
consummation ? I believe that there are di
vine processes, great supernatural laws and
forces of the natural economy of things —
traces and results of which are to be found in
the visible worlds and in human history —
which culminate and are manifestly fulfilled
in the person and work of the Christ ; and in
relation to which his supernatural being may
be seen to be most truly and profoundly natu
ral—the end of the creation, and the consum
mation of history, prepared from the founda
tion of the world.

CHAPTER VI.
THE CULMINATION IN THE CHRIST.  II. THE
NATURALNESS OF CHRIST.
One evidence of this deeper naturalness of
the incarnation, of this higher harmony of the
life of the Christ Avith the whole system of
things, comes to us directly from our consider
ation of those characteristics of Jesus by
which his uniqueness is made obvious.
Though without parallel, his life is in perfect
accordance throughout with itself, All its
characteristics seem natural when grouped
together, and looked at, each in its relations
to the others. Though Ave have never seen
one like Jesus, yet Jesus always seems like
himself. Any one marvellous word or deed,
related by the evangelists of the Son of man,
does not appear strange if we read of it in con
nection Avith all the other alleged facts of his
life. Or, in other words, if all the circum
stances related of Jesus be admitted, they
form together an orderly and consistent
whole. Though Jesus is the great miracle of
history, he is a self-consistent miracle.

THE HARMONY OF JESUS' LIFE. 233
The importance of this consideration can
hardly be overstated. It has great evidential
force, and is significant both of the genuineness
of the life of Jesus, and also of his place in
the larger nature of things. It shows his life
to be a true life, and a life, however Avoncler-
ful, not out of the divine order. We need,
therefore, to look closely at this unity of
Jesus' life and its significance.
The fact that the particulars of any narra
tive, although A7cry strange in themselves,
form together a perfectly consistent and
straightforward story, gives credibility to the
whole account, and reflects back the probabil
ity of the Avhole upon each incident of the
story. This is a strictly legal principle of
evidence. A witness, Ave Avill suppose, begins
with an improbable statement. He adds an
other and another singular incident. We
shake our heads in incredulity, but we begin
to notice a method in his madness. His very
improbabilities begin to combine themselves
into one growing probability of truth. If any
one incident happened as he narrates, it is
.possible that the whole event, or series of
events, occurred. The unity of all, and the
consistency of the whole story, furnish strong
presumptive evidence, at least, of its truth,
which can be set aside only by positive evi
dence, or stronger probabilities, to the con-

234 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
trary. The fact, therefore, that the several
scenes in the life of Jesus fall into order and
make one continuous, beautiful whole, if all
the reports of the evangelists be substantially
true, is certainly a striking evidence of the
truthfulness of the evangelists' strange story.
Taken as a Avhole, it looks natural.
It is a strictly scientific principle of judg
ment Avhich we are using. If, for instance, we
should discover a single fossil bone which looks
as though it might belong to the anatomy of
some bird, yet is so large, or curiously shaped,
as to make it impossible for us to refer it to
any bird we have ever seen or heard of, we
might say : " This could not have been what
Ave supposed at first ; it must be something
else." But if, one after another, several
strangely formed bones should be found, and
if, when put together, it Avere discovered that
their very peculiarities match, and that they
form the skeleton of a bird, complete in it
self, though unlike that of any bird known to
us ; then Ave should be obliged to admit that
the fossil remains, taken as a Avhole, prove
that the strange bird once really existed ; and
if we had no place for it in our science of oiv
ganic forms, we should simply have to revise
our science and make room for it. The com
pleteness of the Avhole, that is to say, enables
us rightly to interpret the parts, and to view

THE HARMONY OF JESUS' LIFE. 235
as a natural series, or connected system,
peculiarities which might otherwise seem con
trary to experience and unaccountable.
Similarly the confirmation of the parts,
given by the Avhole of the ' Gospel, ought to
have recognized scientific value. What looks
unnatural by itself' becomes a natural part of
the entire order of events or system of truths.
The several supernatural occurrences, related
in the Gospels, form one natural order, if re
garded as successive manifestations of one
divine process of revelation. Thus we begin
with a strange story of the nativity. It would
be incredible if it were followed by an ordi
nary life. We could not believe it if the
song of the angels had announced the birth
of a man who should prove to be only like
one of us. But we read on, and find that the
life, scene after scene, year after year, corre
sponds to the strange story of the birth, and
the end confirms the beginning of the Gospel
of the Son of God. A marvellous effect equals
a marvellous cause. As we pursue the narra
tive, we find upon almost every page the report
of some wonderful work. We might be
utterly incredulous, did we not notice, as we
proceed, that they all seem to be manifesta
tions of one and the same power, and the
agreement and correspondences of the works
would indicate some one efficient principle

236 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
common to them all. We read on, and are
amazed by the words to the women, " He is
risen." But in our surprise, Avhile the testi
mony of different Avitnesses is brought to us
confirmino- the marvellous fact of the resur-
i'ection, Ave i'emember that his very birth was
miraculous, and his daily life a groAving won
der. And, again, miracle ansAvers miracle, and
all seems to be the continuous manifestation
of a more than human presence. These many
testimonies to his resurrection AArould be con
trary to experience, and seem incredible, if
related of one of our friends whom we had
just buried; but are they contrary to the ex
perience the world had already had of Jesus ?
Are they contrary to human experience of the
Christ ? He who appeared to the disciples,
risen from the dead, is One whom they had
already followed, Avondering, in the Avay ; One
whose life Avith them in Judea and Galilee
had been full of surprises ; whom they had
already found to be not as other men are.
The resurrection was not contrary to their
experience of Jesus. We read on to the end,
and the Gospel concludes Avith the strange
story of the ascension from Mt. Olivet. Of
any other a close of life like that might seem
incredible. But the Avhole preceding narra
tive makes it a natural scene at the close of
Jesus' life. We expect a wonderful sunset at

THE HARMONY OF JESUS' LIFE. 237
the end of a rare day in June. Read the de
scription of the ascension, after reading the
whole Gospel before it, and it ceases to seem
surprising that Jesus should have vanished in
a cloud of glory from the eyes of his disciples. i
His miraculous conception, and his ascension
into heaven, seem the fitting and natural be
ginning and ending of the unearthly life that
lay between. The deep, wonderful harmony
between Jesus' person and his life, between
his character and his works, is to us the al
most irresistible proof of the genuineness of
both. We are asked to believe in no discon
nected miracles ; we may trace the unbroken
continuity of a divine life with man. We
are bidden to put our faith in no momentary
and evanescent gleams of something mysteri
ous and unearthly ; we are called upon to fol
low humbly and. reverently One who from the
first scenes of his boyhood moved upon a plane
above us all — a daily wonder to his friends —
in thought and life, as Avell as word and deed,
the continuous miracle of his age ; and all the
events in his exalted life require each the
others ; and though, when taken singly, they
are seemingly incredible, together they form
one consistent whole, itself not inconceivable
as one divine process of self-revelation.
Besides this naturalness of Jesus' life as a
whole, and the agreement of its parts among

238 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
themselves, there is perfect correspondence
between being and influence in the life Avhich
the evangelists portray, and in the continu
ation of its power in Christianity. The. in
fluence of Jesus is most natural, if his person
is what it was represented to have been ; and
his person is natural Avhen viewed as the
cause of the effect which, it is alleged, was
produced by his dwelling among men. The
law of cause and effect is not broken, the har
mony of being and influence is not inter
rupted, if all the alleged facts be granted.
This, also, is a significant appearance of the
Christ of the Gospels ; for the law, which is
'fulfilled in his life, of the direct relation or
correspondence between being and influence,
is one of the universal laAvs. It would be
hard to conceive of a miraculous Anolation of
it, for it is a law of nature Avhich contains in
itself, also, a moral truth. What anything
does is determined, and ought to be deter
mined, by what it is. " Of such as they
have " all things give unto us ; the solid earth
of its graATity ; the air of its breath of life ;
flowers of their fragrance ; birds of their song-
fulness ; the moon of her silvery light ; the
sun of the gladsome day. The Avhole science
of physics and of chemical equivalents rests
upon the primal laAv, that Avhat any molecule
of matter does is in direct ratio to what it is.

BEING AND INFLUENCE. 239
//The work done never exceeds the measure of
[force represented by the quantities of nature's
(constant equation. Nothing gives what it has
not first received. There is always absolute
truthfulness in the charity of nature. So,
also, in human society, men give of what they
have in themselves ; their influence is the ex
ponent of what they are. What goes forth
from them of good or evil, of hurtful in
fluence or of healing virtue, is the expression,
the moral equivalent, of what they are and
have in themselves ; of the goodness, or the
sin, which is formed in their own hearts.
In the long run this law of personal influ
ence proves itself to be true. Our doing is
measured by our being. This, also, is one of
the fundamental principles of the philosophy
of history, that being and giving, what men
and states and civilizations are, and what they
do, form a direct historical ratio, and each is
the explanation of the other. We simply
apply this universal law of influence to the
life of Christ, when we seek for the adequate
explanation of what he has done, and is doing,
in the world, in the mystery of his own per
son ; and, conversely, in the ineffable glory of
his person, see the wonder of his influence in
human history made plain. Each is the nat
ural correlate of the other. We apply this
principle to his miracles. Was he who

240 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
wrought these miracles himself such a person
that they seem natural works for him to do ?
The surprise, then, of his works disappears be
fore the greater surprise of his person. If
he, himself, has a supernatural consciousness,
then, by the established and universal law of
influence, his miracles folloAAr as a matter of
course. The ultimate reason, to thoughtful
minds, for belief in the miracles of Christ,
must be faith in the higher nature of Christ's
person. GivTen either as historically prob
able, and the other is conceivable. Either
makes the other natural. The miracles, as re
lated in the GosjDels, are simply a part of
Christ's self-revelation, in consistency Avith
the Avhole, and with each other, showing
throughout the same power and moral quality,
and in perfect keeping with all other parts
of his self-revelation, manifesting his glory.
If the life of Jesus Avas the evolution in
nature, in human nature, of a higher power,
the development of an incarnate divine life,
it is, from beginning to end, in entire harmony
with itself — one continuous and orderly reve
lation. We may apply the same general law of in
fluence to the teaching of Jesus. He spake as
neA^er man spake, because he was as never man
was. The originality of Christ's doctrine has
its counterpart in the uniqueness of his self-

BEING AND INFLUENCE. 24 1
consciousness. One peculiarity of Jesus' au
thority, to which we have already alluded,
finds in this manner its only explanation.
There seems to be a difference in kind between
the inspiration of Jesus and the inspiration of ,
the prophets. Jesus was inspired from within
— not from a God without himself. The Del
phic priest must go and consult the oracle for
the response; the Hebrew seer must bind
around him the Urim and the Thummim ;
the later prophets declare the words of the
Lord which came to them : a voice calls
them ; a sign is shown them ; a scene of
strange import appears as a vision of the
spirit ; 'they wait, and look, and listen, and
then go forth to the people, or enter the king's
palace, with some message with which they are
sent from the Eternal ; — but Christ does not
seem to go without himself, beyond his own
self-consciousness, for his revelations. He
knows the Father. He declares what the
Father makes known to the Son. As he
comes to the knowledge of himself, he comes
to his knowledge of the Father. His own
thoughts are God's thoughts. His revelation ,
of God is the manifestation of his own glory.
His word from the Lord is given to him
through his own life, and in showing himself
he declares unto his disciples the Father.
This is altogether exceptional and marvellous :
11

242 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
both the inspiration and the trutlj of Jesus are
unlike anything ever Avitnessecl before in
Judea, and contrary to human experience ;
but they correspond. The teaching and the
person of Jesus, as the evangelists represent
each, are at one, and each is the witness of the
genuineness of the other. So all the other
peculiarities of the teaching of Jesus, at which
Ave have glanced, are in accordance with the
image of the divine human person, of Avhich
the disciples were the AA-itnesses.*
The same correspondence between being and
influence in Christ, it should be noticed, is
illustrated and confirmed by the historical
work of Jesus, or, what Ave may justly call, the
continuation of the life of Christ in Christi
anity. " Lo, I am with you ahAray even unto
the end of the world," Avas his word to his dis
ciples as he ATanished from them; and what
the evangelists say that he is, and what he
has been doing through Christian history, cor
respond. But Ave shall recur to this corre
spondence between the Christ of the Gospels as
a cause, and Christianity as an effect, in an
other connection. At this point Ave desire to

* The same law of the direct ratio between being and influ
ence should be applied to the Christian doctrine of the atonement ;
what Christ did for us upon the cross is determined by what he
was when dying upon the cross : but to enter upon this sugges
tive subject would carry us too far from our immediate purpose.

THE HIGHER LAW OF JESUS' LIFE. 243
dwell upon the special significance of this
agreement among themselves of the several
parts and successive events of Christ's life ;
of this thorough harmony between the work
and the being of Jesus ; of the naturalness of
his supernatural life when viewed as one
whole, complete in itself. Such appearances
indicate that this strange life was not out of
order, or without law — an anomaly of nature —
a causeless and incredible miracle in the regu
lar course of human experience. The very
orderliness, symmetry, and perfectness of this
life might lead us to suspect that it may have
been lived in fulfilment of diviner things in
nature than Ave have dreamed of in our phi
losophy. There is a method in the miracle.
There is a spiritual design worked out in the
course of this divinely human life. It is a life
that manifestly follows its own higher laAv of
development. It is throughout the orderly
unfolding, the natural growth, of a supernat
ural principle and a superhuman soul. Its
several moments, epochs, and manifestations,
inexplicable by our self-knowledge, and con
trary to our experience of ourselves, seem to
be the successive stages of some diviner un
folding than we know, and the whole develop
ment follows its own hidden and spiritual law.
The life of Jesus, in a word, unnatural and in
conceivable on any other hypothesis, becomes

244 V OLD FAITHS IN NEW- LIGHT.
natural and conceivable the moment we regard
it as the development of an incarnation.
The question, then, at once springs up : Are
there any signs elseAvhere in the Avorld of a-
great supernatural movement, a higher evolu-.
tion, whose natural culmination may be the
divine human life of the Christ? Original
and unaccountable as were his coming and his
appearance, in the order of nature, — is there a
larger, deeper, higher, diviner order of nature
and history in the midst of which Jesus has
his own proper place and dominion ? From
the consideration of the naturalness of the life
of Christ, when vieAved as one continuous pro
cess of divine revelation, we are led further
to ask hoAV that unique jjerson stands in rela
tion to the divine processes in history which
had already, before his coming, been working
out providential designs? As the fulfilment
of a divine life in the world, as the culmina
tion of a divine energy in human history, may
not this wonder of the ages, this miracle of hu
manity, become again to us a most profoundly
natural phenomenon— a manifestation of God
in harmony Avith the deepest truth, and high
est law, and largest design of the creation —
verily foreordained, as the Scriptures say, be
fore the foundation of the world ? We be
lieve the uniqueness of the Chiist to be but
the half truth of history ; the naturalness of

THE FULFILMENT OF HISTORY. 245
the incarnation is the whole truth of the crea
tion. In attempting to enlarge our horizon, and
to rise to this broader philosophy of history,
we have then, first, to regard Jesus Christ as
the end of a special historical development,
the power and law of which were from above.
As such, Christ is the natural conclusion of a
supernatural process, the signs and evidences
of which we have traced, in preceding chap
ters, in the history of Israel — in the historical
growth of the Bible and the religion of the
Bible. Judaism of itself did not produce, as
its natural flower, the beauty of the Gospel;
Judaism by its own forces could not develop
into Christianity, or account for the Christ
standing among men. He is unique. But
he appeared as the end of a supernatural evo
lution, which we can follow as a great, special
providential preparation through the history
of Israel. Jesus is the realized Christ of the
Old Dispensation. Without the coming of
the Messiah, the divine light, glimmering and
growing through the Old Dispensation,-would
be as unnatural and inexplicable as a dawn
that should purple the mountain -tops, and,
while all the meadows and valleys lay hushed
in expectancy, ready to break forth into song,
should go out in darkness, and end in no day.
The early Christian fathers, as they reasoned

246 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
with the philosophers, or laid their apologies
for Christianity at the feet of emperors, placed
great stress upon the fulfilment of prophecy
in the coming of Christ. The argument from
prophecy was a favorite argument of those
early writers who had awakened from the
broken dreams and disappointed Ansions of
the pagan philosophies into the clear light of
the new Christian hope. Justin Mart}-r found
in Christianity the true philosophy, in which
the Avords of divine Avdsdom, the seeds of the
Logos, scattered among the gentile religions
were comprehended and fulfilled. The Word,
he believed, was in the world before Christ
came in the flesh : " the Word of whom every
race of men were partakers ; and those Avho
lived reasonably,"* he. said, " are Christians,
even though they have been*- thought atheists,
as, among the Greeks, Socrates and Heraclitus,"
and men like them ; " and Justin Martyr, ac
cordingly, commends his Christian faith alike
to Jews and Gentiles as the consummation of
all philosophy and the fulfilment of direct tes
timonies of the Hebrew prophets. Similarly a
genial, classical student and historian of the
last century finds in the New Testament the
key to all his studies of the past. In the year
1782, M^ueller Avrote these Avords in a letter to

* With reason, or " with the Word." First Apology, 46.

7 HE FULFILMENT OF HISTORY. 247
a friend : " I have been reading the ancients,
Avithout excepting a single one, in the order
fof time in which they lived. I know not why,
1 it occurred to me, tAVO months ago, to take a
look into the New Testament, before my
studies had advanced to the times in which it
was Avritten. I had not read it any more for
many years, and before I took it in my hand I
was prejudiced against it. How shall I ex
press to you Avhat I found therein ? The light
Avhich blinded Paul on the way to Damascus
Avas for him not more Avonderful, not more
surprising, than was for me what I suddenly
discovered there, — the fulfilment of all
hopes, the highest perfection of philosophy,
the explanation of revolutions, the key to all
apparent contradictions of the physical and
moral world, life and immortality. I have
read no book over it, but hitherto there has
always failed me something in my studies of
the early times, and first since I knew our
Lord, all is clear before my eyes ; with him
there is nothing which I cannot explain." *
Matthew Arnold f regards the argument from
supernatural predictions as a line of evidence
which gives way at all points. But Mr. Ar
nold's literary methods touch only upon the
surface of the great prophetic stream and
* Luthardt, Fundamental Truths. Note, 17, Lect. iii.
f Literature and Dogma, p. 114.

248 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
tendency of history. Criticism may readily
enough convict Justin Martyr and the early
Apologists of laying undue weight upon par
ticular predictions of the prophets ; but the
argument from prophecy goes deeper than the
text of Scripture ; and the preparatory signifi
cance of all. pre-Christian history, Avhich made
so profound an impression upon Mueller, is its
inner and abiding sense. Single texts of the
Hebrew Scriptures, and definite predictions of
the pro]3hets, may still, according to a critical
scholarship, be more important, and less easily
dissolved into general moral platitudes, than
Mr. Arnold Avould allow;* but the question
of a divine life in history, specially revealed
through Israel, and finally incarnate in the
Word, is not a mere question of proof-texts
and interpretations of particular Scriptures.
In the argument from prophecy Ave have to do
with a forest, not Avith a single bough or a
basket of leaves ; Avith the Avhole trend of a
coast, not with single headlands or inlets of
the sea ; with a zone of constellations, not
with scattered stars. We have to do with
the whole tenor of Scripture, Avith the pro-
* The critical discussion of particular prophetic predictions
would carry us beyond our bounds ; wo cannot, however, dismiss
with Mr. Arnold's gracious wave of the hand several prophecies
which seem to have been remarkably fulfilled. AVe are not always
satisfied with the rationalists' short method with prophecy ; viz.;
the bringing the writer down to the times of which he writes.
11*

THE ARGUMENT FROM PROPHECY. 249
longed course of centuries of history ; with
the multitudinous testimonies of the human
soul in many generations; Avith the arrange
ments and combinations of many events in
one continuous and resplendent revelation of
the glory of the Lord. Not only, as Justin
Martyr, with a more catholic sense of Christ
in history than is sometimes manifested among
ourselves, thought, Avas the Word with all who
lived reasonably, but, also, Israel Avas itself a
prophet, a messenger sent to prepare the way
of the Lord. The history is itself strangely
prophetic. Mr. Arnold lays doAvn as the first
law of reasonableness in our judgments that
we should be acquainted AATith the best that
has been thought and said; but nothing to
better purpose has been said concerning pro
phecy than Herder's word that the " whole Old
Testament with the nature of its religion is to
be regarded as one great prophecy ; " or than
Dorner's comment upon Herder's saying, that
" thereby Avhatever is lost in untenable verbal
predictions is richly renewed ; " that with " a
prophecy of -words " we have " a prophecy of
reality." * Through the perspective of bibli
cal history Ave look down a real line of pro
phecy. The angel in the Apocalypse had a
broader and better understanding than Mr.

* Geschichte d. prot. Theologie, s. 861.

2 5° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
Arnold of the argument from prophecy when
he said : " The testimony of Jesus is the spirit
of prophecy."
In this larger view of prophecy two leading
lines of evidence, two great courses of histor
ical development, can be traced to their point
of meeting in the Christ. The one is the
progress of the educational purpose of the
God of the Bible. There is a growing reve
lation of truth, the signs of Avhich all point to
the coming of the great Teacher with his final
doctrine. In a preceding chapter we have
marked the signs of a great process of divine
education of man going on through the un
folding history of Israel. If our reasoning
has not been all in the air ; if we have been
dealing with divine ideas that passed into in
stitutions, laws, customs, types ; if we have
been following, in one Avord, a real historical
revelation, — then Ave ought to view the life and
doctrine of Christ in its relation to this vast
educational and reformatory work of God in
Israel ; and, beheld in that relation, he who
spake as never man spake comes, nevertheless,
not as a sudden Avonder of history, but as the
fulfilment of the whole truth of God im
planted and groAving through the past. All
that has been said of the educational methods
and design of God in the Old Testament is in
keeping Avith the manner in Avhich Christ

THE FINISHED COURSE OF EDUCATION. 25 I

«

comes not to destroy, but to fulfil, the law and
the prophets. His voice startled the syna
gogue, and his word destroyed the temple ;
but the wisdom of God, which had been
struggling through all the errors of the dark,
clouded past, was made perfect in his Gospel.
Scribes and rabbis, as we hav^e seen, could not
have deduced his new truth from their Scrip
tures or their traditions ; but when Christ
brought it from heaven it was found to be the
perfect expression of all that the Holy Spirit
of education for generations had been trying
to say. Christ's Avorcl, Avhen once it is spoken
on earth, is the divine word which completes
the broken words of the prophets, and fulfils
the Scriptures. That which was partial in the
divine teaching heretofore, disappears. The
defects of the preparatory stages are removed ;
human misunderstandings of the earlier les
sons are corrected when the end is reached,
and the mystery of the ages is revealed.
When the revelation of God is fully come,
old truths, but dimly seen, or half revealed, or
strangely confused, in the twilight of an
earlier hour, are seen in the distinctness of the
day. As many objects of a landscape appear
as shadowy forms in the first glimmer of the
dawn, the distant and the near being alike
indistinguishable — far-off and lofty objects
starting suddenly like spectres out of the

252 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
mists just before us; but when the sun is
risen all things assume their true proportions,
the horizon recedes into the distance, and all
confusion of vision ceases : so the truths of
God's kingdom and its A^ast prospects lay
half revealed and half concealed before the
prophets of old ; the present and the future
often seemed to them alike close at hand ; far-
off events were dispensations impending over
their own times ; dim visions of distant ages
rose unexpectedly before them, near at hand,
out of the great Avonder and aAve in which
they Avalked ; — but Jesus' coming brought out
into clear certainty the kingdom of God and
its verities ; and his disciples, the children of
the light and of the clay, AArent on their Avay
rejoicing in the revelation of the mystery of
the ages. The Gospel from above fulfilled
and dismissed the preparatory truth and
teaching, and ushered in the new dispensation
of the Spirit. VieAved, then, as the culmina
tion and end of a great supernatural course
of human education — of a course of divine
historical object-lessons, of truths embodied in
events, and enforced through the providential
guidance of a chosen people — the life of Jesus,
separate though it is from all other lives,
and his doctrine, in all its originality, seem no
more to be an isolated and incredible phe
nomenon ; but the mission of the Teacher sent

THE COMPLETED COURSE OF HISTORY. 253
from God has its appointed place and neces
sity in the very plan of the God of history.
But here, also, we must rise above the de
fects of a merely intellectual conception of
history and reATelation. Life is more than a
process of thought, history is richer than a
development of the Hegelian idea ; revelation
is a larger and diviner gift than the inculca
tion of a system of truth. It is, as we have
seen, a manifestation of God in deed as wejl
as in Avord ; an impartation to man through a
continuous giving, from generation to gener
ation, of God's own Spirit and love ; it is the
life of God in man, and with man, and for man.
And in this largest and divinest sense the his
tory of Israel is as a whole a prophecy of the
incarnation. Christ came as the most perfect
possible impartation and revelation in human
form of the very life of God with the Avorld*
and in the Avorld ; and all that God had been
graciously doing and becoming in history, as
well as teaching and saying, reaches its perfect
result, bears its final fruit, in the Son of man.
He Avas the life, says the beloved disciple, and
the life was the light of the world. Jesus
Christ was a divine fact, in the eyes of the
disciples, before Christianity became a doc
trine of their understandings. Christianity
was a divine fact, full of life and power, be
fore it was a creed of the Church. And for

2 54 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
this final divine fact of revelation all the
preceding events and dispensations were fitted
up and arranged. This is the other aspect of
the argument from prophecy to which we re
ferred. The providential arrangement of the
historical scenes for the coming at last of the
Son of man, is the great supernatural fact of
history, which rationalism can never quite
explain away. Though we may regard event
af^ter event, and life after life, as merely nat
ural occurrences, yet, after all that should be
admitted, another more marvellous fact re
mains, and one more difficult of explanation.
We have to give a reason for the order of the
facts, for the perspective of the history. The
combination of events, their adaptations and
progress, and the deep design running through
them all, and making all tend towards one far-
off end, one divine result, — hoAV shall they Avho
have no eyes for the working of spiritual
powers, and for the presence of God in his
tory, account for these things ? As one enter
ing some mansion might readily understand
for what purpose its several chambers and
connected apartments had been provided and
fitted up, but Avould Avonder Avhat was about
to take place, should he observe that the
whole house Avas put in order apparently for
some great event — all its rooms being lighted
and in waiting — and his wonder would at

THE COMPLETED COURSE OF HISTORY. 255
once cease, and all become clear, should he
hear the sound of music from the hall, and
the bridegroom's voice among his friends : so
we pass from scene to scene through this great
history, and all things seem prepared and
waiting for some coming event, and we under-
stand at once the meaning of it all Avhen we
¦ hear that at last the bridegroom is come, and
all things are now ready for the marriage sup
per of the Lamb.
The design of the whole is the real proph
ecy of Israel's career. The particular letters
of this message may belong to the ordinary
alphabet, but they are arranged in an intelli
gible order, for an extraordinary communica
tion. The arrangement is the ultimate super
natural fact. It is not enough for criticism
to tell us that particular predictions are mean
ingless. We are not anxious to dispute about
the letters or the types. The history, as God
has put its letters together, spells the ador
able name of the Messiah. Christ, therefore,
in his divine originality, is, nevertheless, as
the Word made flesh, not a sudden appearance
— a causeless miracle of history; for in this
view he is seen to be the real unity of the Old
and the New Testaments. The New Testa
ment is not evolved from the Old, yet it can
not be separated from it ; for both proceed
from the same divine life which has been with

256 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
man in all his history of ignorance and sin,
and which is the true light which lighteth
every man that cometh into the world.
As the Son of man seems no more a stranger,
but the expected heir, when we look up the
perspective of Hebrew history, and behold
him as the fulfilment of its whole prophecy ;
so also, Avhen Ave look back through the his
tory of his. Church, the incarnation seems to be
the necessary beginning, the natural cause, of
the continuous life Avhich has been in the
Avorld since he came. Take the divineness
from that life, and whole series of events are
thrown into confusion, and men and Avomen,
in every generation since, are made to live in
a manner unaccountable and most absurd.
Take that one hour at Bethlehem out of hu
man history, and eighteen centuries of hours
are left but partially explained. The scepti
cism Avhich cannot see the divine in Jesus
Christ, becomes blind to the human in Peter,
and John, and Paul. In order to look upon
Jesus as altogether like one of us, it is
compelled to view the disciples in unnatural
lights. In order to escape from the difficul
ties of supposing miracles in the realm of
nature, it invents miracles in the realm of
mind and morals. In order to avoid belief in
special manifestations of the supernatural in
nature, for which we can render a reason, and

THE BEGINNING OF A NEW HISTORY. 257
which we may bring under a more general
laAAr, it introduces anomalies of human con
duct, for which we can give no good reason,
and which we cannot bring under any known
law of experience. When faith in the super
natural in Christianity is thrown aAvay, the
key is lost Avhich can unlock the meaning of
the Acts and- the Epistles of the apostles, and
open passage after passage of Christian his
tory. Here, also, the combinations of the
forces of Christianity, the grouping of events,
the arrangements of the historic stage, indi
cate a higher ordering and a divine power.
Though the five .causes which Gibbon has as
signed as the reasons for the spread of Chris
tianity may be intelligible on natural grounds,
nevertheless, as John Henry Newman* has
strikingly shown, the coincidence of these
causes is left by Gibbon unexplained ; — but
this coincidence of causes, and this combina
tion of forces, the result of which is a continu
ous, growing Christianity, constitute a resid
ual providential part of modern history —
they are the undeniable and living witness of
Christianity to Christ.
We have gained, then, thus far a viejv of the
naturalness of the person and life of Christ,
when considered as a whole, complete in itself,

* Grammar of Assent, p. 445.

258 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
and also when contemplated in its appointed
place in the midst of a divine order of human
history. But our horizon enlarges as we pro
ceed. Human history is only a brief span of
time ; the existence of our race is only for one
day of God's thousands of years ; and the pro
cess by which the worlds are made embraces
vaster cycles of ages. When we endeavor to
place ourselves in imagination nearer the begin
ning, and to gaze down those vast vistas of
time, through those great creative processes, on
to the advent of man, and the coming of the
Son of man, — how then does the Christ appear ?
unexpected, unheralded, a causeless wonder, or
as the appointed heir and natural head over
all ? The apostle who more than any other
possessed a Christian philosophy of history, in
several passages,* represents the Christ of his
faith as the head of the creation. He seemed
to see the Avhole creation summed up and per
fected in the second man, the Lord from
heaven. The time had not then come for that
germinant truth of the Pauline Epistles to'
obtain in the thought of the Christian world
its full development. It is but beginning to
obtain Jit in the theology of to-day. The
great apostle lacked the scientific knowledge
of the world's whole prophetic past which

Ep. i. 10, 22 ; Col. i. 15-20; 1st Cor. xv. 25-28, 45-47.

THE HEAD OF THE CREATION. 259
might have enabled him to carry out in a
grand apostrophe his OAvn inspired idea of the
natural headship of Christ. Subsequent theol
ogy has labored to grasp the natural relation
ship of Christ to the human race as an essen
tial element in the Christian doctrine of sin
and redemption. We believe that Paul's great
truth is not yet exhausted, and that a scientif
ic age will eventually leave it still farther ad
vanced, and possessed of commanding author
ity over reverent minds. Already Paul's idea
of Christ has begun to triumph in the midst
of the spoils of our sciences. It was not many
years ago that Hugh Miller advanced Paul's
truth to still larger honor as he read from
nature's own indelible records a mute proph
ecy of the coming of the perfect man. The
lower dynasties, whose records the geologist
reads in the tables of stone, give place to the
higher, and never return. The dynasty of the
future, which shall not pass aAvay, for beyond
it progress cannot go, is to be the kingdom of
God himself in the form of man. " We find
the point of elevation never to be exceeded
meetly coincident with the final period, never
to be terminated — the infinite in height har
moniously associated with the eternal in dura
tion. Creation and Creator meet at one point,
and in one person. The long ascending line
from dead matter to man has been a progress

260 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
Godwards, not an asymptotical progress, but
destined from the beginning to furnish a point
of union ; and occupying that point as true God
and true man — as Creator and created — Ave
recognize the adorable monarch of all the
future." * But the authority of Hugh Miller is
already outgrown ; does the advance of science
since his clay compel us to leave his interpreta
tions of the " geologic prophecies " with the
discarded biblical expositions of the theolo
gians Avho mistrusted him ? or does it enable us
to say with clearer confidence that the ways of
the Creator through the creation slowly yet
surely converge towards, and only can find
their destined meeting-point and end in, some
form so perfect and complete as to be the
crown of all God's Avorks, and the express
image of his person? In one word, are we
warranted iu believing that the creation can
stop short of the Christ I Can the creative
process stop short, and return upon itself, Avhen
the human race is reached, and man's day on
earth shall be finished ? or does the manifest
destiny of the creation point to something still
human, but diviner ?
The question just stated is partly a question
of fact. But it is also more than a question
of fact; it is a question of interpi etation.

Testimony of the Rocks, p. 178.

THE ASCENT OF LIFE. 26 1
Natural science must determine the facts ; — de
termine them as her oAvn legitimate work, and
without interference. We have no right to
disturb by so much as a heart-beat the scien
tific investigation of the facts of nature. Feel
ing has no business in the laboratory. Clear,
precise, careful perception is the first- duty of
natural science. But Avhen the facts are once
seen and determined, their interpretation is
another matter. Other, and higher, powers
must enter upon this work. Natural science
must pass her facts over \o moral science for
the final interpretation of them. Scientific
perceptions are to be taken up into metaphysi
cal and moral conclusions. They cannot be
rationally co-ordinated, and really understood,
until they are. And it is possible that a
strictly scientific determination of the laAv of
evolution may just miss the truth, and fail of
the real secret at nature's heart, because it re
fuses to call in the aid of the spirit that is in
man, in order to divine the interpretation of
its visions.
Our first concern, then, must be to go to our
natural sciences for any facts which may bear
upon our inquiry. Two results of modern sci
ence claim at once our attention as of possible
spiritual significance. The one is the ascent
of life. The mode or laws of that ascent
may still be matters of scientific questioning ;

262 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
for, notwithstanding the positiveness of the
pronounced evolutionists, there are still Avriters
whose scientific attainments we cannot ques
tion, who are not yet satisfied as to the mode
and manner of evolution. Whether the ascent
of types has been a gradual rise, without leaps
or breaks, or any gaps in the evidence ;
whether it should be represented by an in
clined plane, or by a succession of steps;
whether catastrophic upheavals, and the in
troduction of new forces, or forms, at marked
epochs, into the creation, should be admitted
on strictly scientific grounds, — we are neither
concerned nor qualified to determine. We
cannot find these questions determined for us,
or put beyond all doubt, by those who do seem
qualified to judge. At least the teachers
differ among themselves. Perhaps a far
broader and more patient induction of facts
may be still necessary before man can Avrite,
Avhat an inspired prophet did not attempt to
write, a thorough and perfectly correct nat
ural history of the creation. It is possible
that there may be more " incident forces " to-
be taken into the account than appear in
Herbert Spencer's diagrams. The last word
of science is not yet spoken. But certain re
sults, however, may be regarded as established ;
and the gradual ascent of life is an observed
fact. Whatever the manner or the law of

SELECTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 263
it, the fact of it is beyond question. Whatever
may be the ultimate form of our evolutionary
philosophy, the fact is that this world is one
great development. Alike in the physical
constitution of the globe, and in the forms of
life which have appeared upon it, each age
has surpassed the preceding, and prepared the
way for the better age to follow.
The other result of modern science, which
is significant in this inquiry, is the fact that
the development of the creation has all along
been a process of differentiation and individ
ualization, a process the tendency of which
throughout has been to evoke ever more
highly organized specific and individual forms.
Indeed,' according to the evolutionists, some
favored individual of one species constitutes
the variation which is the beginning of a new
species. The line of progress is through
chosen individuals. All things conspire to
gether to produce the highest, best, most
richly endowed individual form, and that
brings in the new species. If this law, there
fore, is to continue, the goal of the creation
must be not merely some supreme type in
which all the energies of the creation exhaust
their power, but rather in the most specialized
and perfectly organized specimen, or individ
ual realization of that last highest type. Our
scientists have grasped firmly this great law

264 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of differentiation and individualization which
runs through the creation, and determines the
succession of life upon the earth ; but possibly
they may not have fathomed the deeper moral
significance of this first principle of things, or
divined the Christian fulfilment of their oavh
leading truth. Herbert Spencer, aa4io has
made the laAv of differentiation a guiding
principle of his thinking, asks of the theolo
gians if it is not just possible that there
should be a higher form of life than that of
which we can gain a conception from our OAAm
personality.* We follow the struggle of ex
istence upwards from dim nebulous begin
nings to substantial Avorlds, and animate
forms, and sensibility, and the dawn of con
sciousness, and the rich personal life of man ;
and we, too, ask, if the process shall stop
there? if the ascent of life shall end in the
broad level of humanity, or reac'h one crown
ing point ? Is it not " just possible " that
there may be a higher and diviner realization
of nature and humanity than our personal
consciousness ? Have AAre reached in the type
of the human soul the last possible goal ? Is
there still to come the One in AArhom the whole
prophetic ascent of life, through ever more
favored individual forms, shall be fulfilled —

* First Principles, p. 109.

SELECTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL. 265
the second man, the Lord from heaven ?
Clearly it would be in accordance with the
whole analogy of the previous ascent and dif
ferentiation of nature, if, after the common
plane of humanity has been gained, the pro- ,
cess of selection should still continue ; if we
should find evidence within the historic period
of the natural selection of an Abraham and
his descendants; if a thousand forces should
combine to call forth a peculiar people ; if
upon that highly favored stem should appear
at last humanity's consummate flower ! It
wTould be in accordance with the whole course
of nature, and a working on to still higher
issues of its organic law of differentiation, if
the coming of man should be followed in the
fulness of time by the advent of the Son
of man, who should introduce a new reigii
upon the earth, a kingdom of God in which
all should be fulfilled. We take the "just
possible " of Mr. Spencer's question as a
scientific permission to look up through na
ture's evolution to a still diviner issue than a
human soul; and we do but follow nature's
innate prophecy when we seek for our Lord.
Viewed through the perspective which our
evolutionary science has opened, the glorious
form of the Son of man is not unnatural, not
a miracle ; no more without preparation and
heralding than the coming of any higher type
12

266

OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.

in the great ascent of life, or than the advent
of man. If the momentum of life makes the
birth of man possible, so that a being pos
sessed of sufficient intelligence, in some earlier
geological age, might have confidently pre
dicted man's coming at some future time : so
equally the momentum of the creative purpose
makes possible the introduction of a reign be
yond the kingdom of man, so that before
Christ came in the flesh a superior intelligence
might have read from the succession of life
on the earth, and the advance of human his
tory, a prophecy of the day of the Messiah.
The apostle may have gained the widest gen
eralization, and the last philosophy of the
creation, Avhen, in a great moment of inspira
tion, he saAV first the natural order, and after-
Avarcl the spiritual; and learned that the first
man is of the earth, earthy, but the second
man is the Lord from heaven. It is just pos
sible — to use again Mr. Spencer's permission
— that in a personality Avhich is human, yet
mqre than human (as man sums up in himself
all the life in the earth before him, yet is him
self more than all beneath him), the goal of
the whole creation may have been attained,
and that through him Avho is appointed heir
of all things a new kingdom Avhich shall
supersede all the kingdoms of this world has
been already ushered in.

MORAL INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 267
If it be objected that it is impossible for us
to conceive of a divinely human personality,
we may fall back again upon Mr. Spencer's
assertion, and apply to the Messiah, in whom
Ave believe, the words which he uses of his
imagined superhuman personality. " It is
true," Mr. Spencer says,* " that Ave are totally
unable to conceive any such higher mode of
being. But this is not a reason for question
ing its existence ; it is rather the reverse."
But we have already passed to a question
of the interpretation of the appearance and
laws of nature. And no Scripture, whether
written on the rocks or on parchment, is of
any private interpretation. The specialist is
never the best interpreter. A more general
culture, a broader discipline, the habit of ex
ercising many powers of our complex being,
are indispensable to the art of interpretation.
Our scientific specialists are in danger of giv
ing us only the private interpretation. Some
thing besides scientific training is indispensa
ble to the broad and larger interpretation of
the Scripture of nature. After the evolution
ist has discovered a law or course of nature,
by the very limitations of his special studies,
and the acquired habits necessary to his work,
he may be incapacitated from acting the part

* First Principles, p. 109.

268 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of an interpreter of nature's truth, and of
discerning the relation of what he has dis
covered to spiritual phenomena and the moral
order of human history. We ought to read
the facts of physical science in the light of
moral science, in order to obtain a philosophy
which shall be more than a private interpre
tation of nature, and life, and destiny.
It remains for us, therefore; to interpret
this law of ascent and individualization of life
in connection with moral and spiritual expe
rience ; to ask whether the prophecy of na
ture, and the prophecy of the human soul,
combine in one growing Messianic hope.
Positive science cannot stop us on the thresh
old of a moral interpretation of its phenom
ena by any denial of the possibility of an
influx of spiritual or diAane influences into the
heart of natural processes. To claim that
evolution necessarily excludes any impulse
from without, or the permeation of nature
with spiritual force, is to beg beforehand the
very question of fact at issue, and to shut out
of the world, upon the testimony of the
senses, forces wThich, were they operating ever
so powerfully before our eyes, we should not
be able to see ; and of whose presence, or ab
sence, in any phenomena, therefore, the
senses are not competent Avitnesses. Science,
thus, would exclude religion by irrelevant tes

MORAL INTERPRETATION OF NATURE. 269
timony. The final question is, in general, not
whether the creation appears to be a contin
uous natural evolution, but whether, as moral
and rational beings, possessed of our own un
seen life in self-consciousness, we must not
give to that which appears a higher and di
viner significance ? The immediate creative
or preservative activity of a personal God
would not make any change in the appearance
of things. They Avould seem to the senses to
come of themselves, though a God called them
into being. If the Creator should make a new
world before our eyes, we should see only
Avhat the astronomer sees when a new star
shines into his telescope. Though the Al
mighty stretches forth his hand, the finger of
God is never visible save to the spirit of the
prophet. Our special question at present,
then, is, whether when we attempt as moral,
spiritual beings to interpret natural evolution,
to realize its invisible moral side, to divine
the real purpose at the heart of things, we are
not led on to the hope of some high spiritual
fulfilment of the whole course of nature;
and whether the coming of the divine life,
in the form of man, is not the goal and
end of the creation prepared for from the
foundation of the world ? To answer this
question, we must bring to this apparent evo
lution of life and struggle of nature upwards

270 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
towards the most individualized and perfect
form, reasonings and divinations which Ave
draw from other sources than those of nat
ural science. We must go and consult the
oracles of our own hearts ; Ave must read na
ture in the spirit's light. Our moral intuitions,
our religious feeling, have a legitimate place,
and work of their own to do, in our final phi
losophy of the creation.
The true moral interpretation of the course
of nature is indicated, first, by the testimony
of the human soul to the need of a Messiah.
We do not fall back in this assertion simply
upon the familiar argument of man's need of
a mediator, which may be drawn from the
universality of religious sacrifices. We ap
peal, also, to the general desire of mankind
for some embodied ideal, some realized ex
ample of Avhat is truly adorable and divine.
Seneca acknowledges the need of a moral
ideal, a pattern by Avhich conduct may be
shaped.* It is a singular and significant
moral fact that people in general do make for
themselves some Christ. Something takes the
place to them of Christ, and they find their
life in it. They cannot live without imagin
ing something which, however v^aguely or im
perfectly, shall be a substitute in their expe-

Fisher, Beginnings of Ch. , p. 174.

NEED OF A MESSIAH. 27 1
rience for faith in the Christ of our Gospels.
These objects of veneration and devotion,
which are made to answer in the thoughts the
* place of the Messiah, vary with different tem
peraments and degrees of culture — from the
rude idol of the untaught savage up to the re
finements of herowvorship, or the surrender of
self to some worshipful idea. It is not wholly
a pious fraud that has raised the saints into
objects of worship. The human soul in many
an hour of its truest, deepest life must have
some altar of devotion. The Christ-Avant of
the soul has led many to bow down before
pictures of saintly beauty. The Christ Avho
knows the heart may find himself ignorant-
ly worshipped where the Protestant, passing
among the devotees prostrate in cathedral chap
els, and gazing coldly at the pictures over the
altars, may see only superstition. A deep
Messianic desire lies, also, at the bottom of
hero-worship. Even in these modern days of
cold intellectualism, it is said that incense has
been offered to the bust of Goethe, and the
apotheosis of some master of philosophy or
poetry in the conversation of his disciples is
hardly an unknown phenomenon. Others
still, Avho call no man master, have made for
themselves a religion of some inspiring idea,
and found their substitute for the Christ of
history in that ennobling ideal. Their idea

2/2 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
may have assumed to them almost visible form
and shape, and they have loved it with an
almost personal devotion, and folloAved it Avith
a sacred enthusiasm. Liberty has been to
not a few noble souls as the very glory of the
Lord, and they have sealed their faith in it
Avith their blood. To others, more calmly in
tellectual, the Christ-need has assumed a more
shadowy form, and the vague conception of
humanity has become the object of their wor
ship. The future of humanity represents to
their minds the promise of the Messiah. They,
too, follow a vision, undefined and changing
as the cloudlancl of a Avestern sky, but a
vision of light, the evening glory of human
ity's long clay of storm and darkness. Their
ideal of humanity is also an emanation of
the soul's deep need of the Christ. A Avant
inherent in the nature of man is disclosed by
these habits of semi-AVorship so often to be ob
served among many who profess no faith ; a
necessity inwrought into the very constitu
tion of the human soul is revealed by these
Messiahs of the imaginations of men — these
Christs of the - thoughts of the heart, which
are of yesterday, or to-day, but not the same
forever. What do they really mean ? What does this
inwrought and ineradicable Christ-necessity
of the human soul prophecy ? The fact that

MEANING OF CONSTITUTIONAL WANTS. 273
the most thoughtful, best, and noblest souls
must have a Christ of some sort ; the fact
that men have been ahvays saying, " Lo, here
is Christ, lo, there," — shows that we need for
the inspiration of our lives a diviner form
than we have seen, and indicates that the
Christ-want is a constitutional Avant of the
soul of man. But- are not our constitutional
wants prophetic ? They carry in them, if the
whole analogy of nature be not false, the
prophecy of their own satisfaction. The want,
if constitutional, is itself pledge of its fulfil
ment to come. So far as Ave may reason from
analogy, the deep, universal Christ-want in
human nature is an intimation that the com
ing of Christ is provided for in the nature of
things. For the constitutional wants of every
creature in the ascent of life up to man have
been met in the conditions of their existence.
Up to man there is a well-balanced law of,
demand and supply, of need and satisfaction,
in the struggle of life and the conditions of
existence. Constitutional wants, up to' the
needs of man's spiritual nature, have been
provided for and met in the constitution of
the world. Capacity and environment corre
spond. Where the geologist finds imbedded in
the rock the fossil bones of a fish, the veracity
of nature warrants him in saying that there,
some time, the waters must have flowed ; for
12*

2 74 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the make of the fish required stream or lake.
The make of a bird requires free air, and not
until the heavy vapors of the carboniferous
age began to be dispelled, did the birds ap
pear Avith Avings to beat the breezes above the
tree-tops. The make of a mammal requires
solid earth upon which it may find footing.
And the mammalia came into existence upon
an earth condensed from the infinite spaces
for their dwelling-place. Nature is true up
to the heart of man ; — shall nature become
suddenly a false prophet there ? That would
be, indeed, a dreadful breach of the principle
of continuity — a loss of the divine veracity in
nature which Avould put all our faculties to
confusion. No creature that exists requires
for the deA^elopment of its life aught that it
does not haA^e, save man alone. Does the .
floAver need a voice, or the bird desire a book ?
No creature that is made, save man alone,
seeks for Avhat it cannot find provided for it
in the Arery conditions of its existence. Want
and environment meet, and ever adjust them-*
selves to the perfect equilibrium of the econo
my of nature. The Avhole analogy, then, of
created being supports the prophetic interpre
tation of man's constitutional, spiritual wants.
They are signs of that for which we are made,
and Avhich, when our Avings are grown, Ave
shall haAre. They are intimations to us of

MEANING OF THE CHRIST-WANT. 275
the purpose of the faithful Creator. " Thou
openest thine hand," so long ago the Psalmist
of Israel sang, " and satisfiest the desire of
every living thing." All analogy gives us
reason to expect that this Scripture will prove
true of man's highest needs. Is it scientific to
regard man alone, in his spiritual nature and
hope of immortality, as an exception to this
continuous laAv of the development and satis
faction of life? In proportion, therefore, as
the Christ -want of the human soul can be
shown to be a simple human Avant, a universal
need, underlying the heresies as well as cher
ished at the heart of the faith of the Church ;
coloring the dreams of the gentile religions
as well as glowing in the visions of the proph
ets ; in proportion as the words of the disciples,
" All men seek for thee," can be proved to
express the desire of the nations — in that pro
portion the Christ-necessity, or the constitu
tional Messianic need of mankind, becomes
the prophecy and pledge of its OAvn ultimate
satisfaction. We may legitimately and confi
dently bring, then, the light of this inner
moral and spiritual prophecy of Christ to help
us interpret those signs and processes of
nature and history Avhich seem to point on
and upwards to the coming of a higher Pres
ence, and the reign in the last of the creative
ages of the perfect man. Seen in this light,

2/6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the advent of Christ is, at least, not unnatural,
not an unexpected miracle ; on the contrary,
Christ's coming is natural, as the rising of the
sun to one Avatching for the morning.
But a profounder and more satisfying Anew
of the naturalness of the incarnation may be
gained. The human heart, with all its pas
sions and its impurities, is still the truest
mirror in which we can behold the Invisible
God. It is related of Thomas Erskine, of
Linlathen,* that once meeting a shepherd in a
lonely path in the Highlands, he greeted him
with the question, " Do you knoAV the Father ? "
and AA'ithout Avaiting for the reply, he passed
on his Avay. Years afterwards he met the
same shepherd among those same hills, Avho
recognized him, and gave him the answer at
last, as he passed, "I know the Father now."
That knowledge he had found in the experi
ence of a human life. It comes to us, if it
comes at all, through those years of learning
and of waiting, in which our human hearts are
both humbled and exalted, both made empty
and enriched. That knowledge is the knowl
edge in which all moral experiences sum up
their Avisdom of life, and it cannot be taught,
for it is a revelation coming through the life
of man, through all his affections, needs, trials,

Dean Stanley, History of the Church of Scotland, p. 184.

MORAL NECESSITY OF INCARNATION. 277
satisfactions; — a knowledge of the heart
which cannot be taken away. Thus the Bible
sums up its revelations of the Father in one
intensely human word, God is love. The most
womanly mother, brooding over the child
sleeping in her arms, may give us a truer idea
of what God in his good providence is, than
Ave might gain from all the abstractions of our
philosophy. If, then, in our reasonings con
cerning the possibilities of the creation, Ave
start from any word less thoroughly and per
fectly human than the biblical word for God
— Love — Ave shall surely fail to understand the
nature and course of things. If Ave begin by
conceiving of God as the Supreme Law, or
the Absolute Reason, or the Almighty Will,
we shall not understand nature's truest speech
of God's glory, and we shall throw all the
prophetic voices of history into confusion ; for
Ave shall begin by refusing the simple key
Avhich God gives every child to his wonderful
works, and by neglecting the one all-harmoniz
ing word of revelation — God is love. In
thinking, therefore, of the ways of God which
meet in the incarnation, our all-illumining
conception must be derived from the purest
human experience of love. Whatever seems
natural, or to be expected in that light, we
are justified in regarding as in accordance with
the law of laws, and in unison with the very

278 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
heart of the nature of things. Now, human
love — that charity which is the bond of per
fectness — has in it three essential elements;
there are three primary colors in love's perfect
light ; and these three are, the giving of self,
or benevolence ; the putting self in another's
place, sympathy, or the vicariousness of love ;
and the assertion of the worth of the gift — ¦
of the self -which is given — self-respect, or the
righteousness of love. Under the conceptions
of vicariousness and the assertion of its own
Avorth involved in perfect love, the Christian
doctrines of atonement and redemption need to
be regarded ; and Avhen considered from any
lower point of vieAV, as that of law or govern- 1
ment, the sacrificial work of Christ is hardly I
lifted out of difficulties and shadoAvs into a pure t
moral light. But at present we have to do
directly with the doctrine of the incarnation ;
and that is seen in its truest light when it is
regarded as the final and complete work of
the first element, or energy, of God's love —
the giving of self to the utmost. The unself
ish giving of self to the utmost belongs to the
very essence of lo\re, and it is the divine neces
sity, therefore, of the incarnation. The self-
imparting energy of love is the first cause of
the creation. The divine love must create, be
cause to give of its own being and life is
of the Arery nature of love. The creation is

MORAL NECESSITY OF INCARNATION. 279
throughout, from beginning to end. a giving of
self, a self-imparting act, of God. It is not
an emanation of divinitv, for it is a moral
work — an unselfish giving of God, not a mere
outgoing, or exercise, or play, of the divine
Thought or Will. It is a self-impartation of
God, by which he really gives of his own life,
places something over against himself with
which he enters into relations ; it is a self-limit
ing act of God. We have, then, as the nature
of things, as the principle of all principles in
the creation, the diAane law of self-giving, of
self-imparting love. But if this be the first
principle, the. ultimate law of the Avhole crea
tion, where shall its work stop ? At what
point shall the divine energy of self-imparting
love be satisfied, and return into itself ? When
shall its last possible work be done ? its final
word spoken ? What is the highest, fullest,
conceivable self-impartation of the Infinite
God? Surely not an atom, or a star! Not
an angel, or a human soul ! Nature, herself,
strives for something beyond our mortality.
The answer of the Bible, the answer of his
tory, is, The incarnate Lord ! The Word made
flesh is the utmost gift of God in the creation.
The second Man, the Lord from heaven, is the
last conceivable, perfect, and final self-imparta
tion of God ; and if the divine creative process,
ever advancing to more perfect A\rorks, should

280 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
stop before He came who is God's own image,
Immanuel, God Avith us, — then the creative
love of God would seem to fall short of - its
own purpose from the beginning, and fail of
its own divinity. The necessity of love which
began the Avork would not be satisfied to leave
it unfinished and uncrowned. The creation
Avithout its supreme end, the creation Avithout/
the Christ, Avould it not be a disappointment
to God himself, for God is love ? <r
If we bring iioav this most human anju most
Christian conception of the laAv of l&ve to the
interpretation of scientific facts., arid historical
events, all becomes plain. WV b.ehold revealed
the mystery of the ages";' the first stepping
forth of a material universe from the unseen — •
God's thought placed* without himself, God's
idea given a life of its own from Gocl ; — then
the development of that creation according to
the divine ideas implanted in it; the forma
tion of a habitable world ; the ascent of life ;
the typical forms reaching their perfection in
the coining of man ; the impartation, Avhen-
ever the creation was ready for it, not only of
existence from.God, but also of the gift of rea
son and spirit, God's own image ; the marvel
lous union of these higher gifts with the lower
in man ; and then — God still imparting his
own spirit and life so far and so fast as the soil
of nature was prepared for its reception — the

MORAL NECESSITY OF INCARNATION. 28 1
selection of a special race, a divine training of
his people ; and, at last, the crowning gift, in
which all others were made complete, and
love finished its perfect work, the Incarnation.
In his wonderful fulness of divine life, and in
his uniome oneness with the Father, the Christ
stands among men as the head of the creation ;
and his reign is the coming of the eternal
kingdom of God. From lower and less human
points of view, the God-man may seem con
trary to all experience and his miraculous life
a thing incredible ; but not from the highest
conception of God as love. All is changed in
that light. Bring to Paul's truth — Christ the
head over all — John's light of the spirit — God
so loved the world, — and everything unnatural
or incredible disappears from the person of
Jesus Christ. " God so loved the world that
he gave his only begotten Son ; " — if we are
able to rise to the height of this biblical con
ception of the incarnation, we shall at once
find ourselves clear of shadows which seem
impenetrable from lower and less worthy
ideas of the creation ; and if the truth re- '
fleeted in those words of the evangelist has
risen upon us, Christ's presence and mission on
earth will seem no more unnatural than the sun
shine in the valleys does when the sun is in the
sky above. Christ is on earth the most perfect
possible manifestation of what God is in heaven

202 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
Our reasonings concerning the naturalness
of the fact of the incarnation when considered
as the goal and manifest destiny of the cre
ation, in the light of the highest moral concep
tions we can form of the divine nature, are
not invalidated by any difficulties Ave may
have in conceiving of the mode of the incarna
tion. The place of Jesus in nature and history
is one thing ; the manner of his unique union
with the Father, or the metaphysics of the
divine-human consciousness, is another thing.
The one may be a fact which we can know ;
while the other may transcend reason. Our
view, however, of the naturalness of the incar
nation, in the larger, divine order of things,
may be freed from needless difficulty by con
siderations like the following. If it be said
that a unique person, such as Ave are obliged
to confess that Jesus was, is seemingly contrary
to our own exj3erience of the possibilities of
human nature, Ave should remember that the
very distinction of human nature is its capa
city for God. The essential characteristic,
and the innermost power of human nature, are
its capacity to receive the divine likeness, and
its ability to enter into communion with God.
Man is by nature the son of God. We know
not, therefore, to Avhat largeness and j)erfec-
tion this human capacity for God may have
been brought in One in whom our nature at-

THE PROCESS OF INCARNATION. 283
tains its utmost development, and is bound in
final and indissoluble union Avith the Godhead.
. We fall back not entirely upon our ignorance,
but upon our partial knowledge of man's inner
relationship with the Father, and creation for
a divine life, when we find refuge from ques
tions we cannot answer concerning the incar
nate Son of God in the old Lutheran saying,
that the finite is capable of the infinite.
Morally and spiritually, in its innermost prin
ciple and life, human nature is more capable
of the infinite than we may imagine in our
physical philosophies. And one other reflec
tion may come to our aid here — not indeed to
enable us to understand the metaphysics of a
divinely-human consciousness — but to prevent
us from investing the personality of Jesus
with needless mysteries. Our whole reason
ing has made us familiar Avith the idea of pro
cesses of revelation, and the self-manifestation
of God in nature and history. The incarnation
is relieved of some difficulties in our concep
tion of it, if we regard it in the same manner
as a process — a groAving union of God and man
— begun indeed at the nativity, but finished,
carried to its last possible height, in the glori
fied humanity of the ascended Lord. The
mediation of a human life, as Avell as birth,
would seem necessary to the perfect and final
union of the two natures in one person. Thus

284 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
ample room is left for the growth of the child
Jesus, and for his humanity to be made per
fect ; while the incarnation, Avhich Avas real at
the beginning, and continued through his life
as fast and so far as the human nature de
veloped, is finally made complete and glorious
in him who sat down at the right hand of the
Majesty on High. So we can see in Jesus,
amid his temptations and sore trials, our elder
brother, while he becomes more and more
divine to those Avho follow him to the cross ;
and, at last, after he had risen, just before his
ascension, the very doubter can say : " My
Lord and my God ! "
We do not disguise from ourselves, more
over, the fact that our view of the naturalness
of the person of Christ, in the creation's larger
meanings and deepest purpose, leads us to
wards the further conclusion that the incarna
tion is not the consequence entirely of the fall
of man. The idea of an incarnation, irrespec
tive of sin, as the natural or predetermined
end of all God's ways in the creation, seems to
go but little, if any, beyond the Pauline doc
trine of Christ as .the first-born of every crea
ture, for Avhom all things Avere created. It
seems to be only a philosophic statement of
the evangelist's truth, " Without him Avas not
anything made that Avas made." The Avhole
creation is first for Christ, Avho is then for the

INCARNATION THE END OF CREATION. 285
whole AA'orld. Had there been no human his
tory of sin, so, Ave may suppose, God's love
Mroulcl still have finished its perfect work, and
given of itself to the utmost, in One in whom
the creation itself is taken up to the very
bosom of God ; only then his advent Avould
not have been in humiliation and shame, but
in glory and honor. A gleam of light, at least,
is thus thrown over the dark abysmal question,
why did God create at all, if creating made
possible a world of sin ? For evil is only the
incident of creation ; it is the passing mote in
the sunshine, while the light is abiding. Sin
is but for the day of human history, Avhile the
Son, the perfection of God's glory, is the
necessary, the -eternal will of the Father. And
redemption is, thus, not an afterthought of the
Creator, but a possible work of God's love pre
pared for in the very nature of things ; the
Lamb is slain from the foundation of the
world. The incarnation has absolute worth
in itself, and is for God's own sake as well as
for our sakes. It is not, in this view, an acci
dental truth of history, but a necessary truth
of the divine love.*

* This conception of the necessity of an incarnation for the
completion of the creative purpose (the form of it being histori
cally determined by sin and the necessities of redemption) is an
idea which seems always to have been hovering in the atmosphere
of Christian doctrine, though it has never been distinctly recog
nized by the creeds of the Church. For the history of this idea

286

OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.

The incarnation, we hold, therefore, may
seem to us a thing incredible only from the
narroAvness of our horizon of thought, and
from our failure to see this central and cul
minating fact in its place in the divine order
and development of the creation, in its real
connection with the thoughts and purposes of
the Eternal. They Avhose own spiritual expe
riences have given them other than physical
views, and lifted them above the horizons of
the mere understanding ; they Avhose lives
have opened boundless meanings in the words,
" God so loved the Avorld," — will pass Avith
out sense of strangeness to those other words,
part and substance, as they are, of the same
divine truth, " that he gave his only begotten
Son." Our most speculative theology, it is
true, can only skirt the shores, and sound the
shalloAvs, and measure the inlets, of that reve
lation of infinite fulness, God is love. But
even the little Avhich our human hearts can
teach us of Avhat love is, and its infinite possi
bilities, and its great constraining law of self-
impartation, may cause a thousand perplex
ities of the understanding to vanish before the

see Dorner, History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, pas
sim ; also, Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation, ii, pp.
339-401. This conception has been again brought into promi
nence in recent German theology. See especially Dorner : opus
cit., II. Div., iii., p. 236 ff.

THE DIVINE CONSUMMATION 287
divine mystery of the incarnation. Love's
revelation of the nature of God makes the
voices of the angels, heralding the advent of
the Messiah, sound as Avelcome and as natural
to the listening spirit of man, as do the songs
of the birds at early dawn when at last the
summer is come.
Let us gather up, then, the threads of our
reasonings thus far in one conclusion. We
have found in the Bible, and the religion of
the Bible, a great divine process of revelation.
We have marked by many signs, and followed
to ever larger results of good, a supernat
ural development of history, a more than nat
ural evolution. We have seen in the midst
of the days the great wonder of history. No
natural science can declare the generation of
Jesus Christ. But the principles of scientific
thought permit us to believe in no uncaused
miracle. If Jesus be the Christ, his coming
must be the fulfilment of a supernatural
order, the consummation of a divine course
of creation, the goal of all development We
find that there are facts and laws of nature,
as well as groupings of events in history, of
which Jesus Christ is the centre and harmony.
These growing Christian probabilities of na
ture and history become moral certainties
when Ave interpret them in the light of the
spirit, and behold them to be ideally true.

288 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
That which in the last and fullest sense of the
word is natural, is not simply true to the
facts — true, as we say, to the life — but also
true to the idea of things. This ideal truth
of the creation we seek for through our own
constitutional wants, and moral intuitions, and
in the revelations which our human hearts re
flect of the nature of God. Whatever is seen
to be in harmony with love is natural, is true
to the idea, true to the heart of the nature of
things. It may be supernatural, but nothing
in unison with love can be unlike God, can
be really, that is, unnatural. And in this
ideal, yet most real, view, the Gospel of Jesus
Christ seems to us as natural as it is for love
to be love, and for God to be God.

CHAPTER VII.
THE UNFINISHED WORLD, AND ITS COMPLETION.
He who fulfilled the past came preaching
the Gospel of the kingdom of God. His ad
vent ushered in a still higher reign than the
age of man. Our review of old faiths in the
light of the idea of development will not be
complete, therefore, until we read the signs in
nature of the ages to come, and look forward
through the whole perspective of revelation to
the last things of the creation. And if we
shall find reasons for believing that the future
course of the world shall carry on to perfec
tion the development of the creation which we
have observed up to the coming of the age of
Christ, and that there is a continuous supernat
ural evolution of the natural whose issue is the
kingdom of heaven, — then these probabilities
of the final completion of the cosmos will con
firm our preceding reasonings ; our argument
will be cumulative in its force ; the unity of
our view, and the continuity of our vision,
will assure us that we have followed correctly
13

29° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
the outlines of God's thought, and have not
mistaken the ultimate design of things.
The first broad sign upon the A7ery face of
things of something still to come, is the mani
fest incompleteness of the present world.
We live broken lives in an unfinished world.
Our earth in some respects, it is true, is
already completed. Nature in some directions
seems to have come to an end of her progress.
As a Avorld fit for the abode of human life the
earth is finished and pronounced good. The
ages which consolidated the crust of the earth ;
laid up \rast beds of coal; fixed the bounds of
the sea; determined an equable temperature;
produced fruit-bearing trees ; made the earth
ready for the grass and the floAvers ; and
cleared the air of heavy A^apors for the breath
of life, and the songs of the birds ; — those crea
tive ages finished their work of preparation
Avhen man at last awoke in an earthly Para
dise. The Avorld as a stage for the great
drama of human life, its comedy and tragedy,
is done. The human body, likewise, seems to
mark the end of one long course of nature.
The goal of a slow, toilsome physical ascent is
reached in its perfection. Nature has made,
so far as we can see, the best use of her best
materials in the organization of the human
body. In this direction the creative process
has come to a pause ; the earthly elements, in

THE UNFINISHED WORLD. 29 1
their combinations within the human brain,
seem to have been brought to their last con
ceivable refinement of organization. For six
thousand years — for we know not how many
ages past — nature has been able with all her
chemistry to show nothing higher, nothing
more marvellous, than the human brain. It is
not probable that nature can bring protoplasm
up any higher than the sentient organism of
-man. Another step would be a step beyond
existing nature. Some gate, now closed, must
be opened before organization can be carried
farther than the present physical life of man.
Moreover, the arrangements of human soci
ety seem in some respects to be completed.
The natural basis of friendship and love is
finished. We cannot conceive, at least, of any
better, or higher natural basis of spiritual
affections than the relationships of the family.
Any attempt to advance beyond the institu
tion of the family, as the ground of all social
organization and life, is a reform against
nature, which falls back into chaos.
But while the world in these and other re
spects is obviously done, there are still many
signs around us that this is an unfinished
world. The evidences are daily pressed home
to our hearts of the incompleteness of the
present visible order of existence. This Avorld,
and human life in this world, seem complete

292 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
only as the chrysalis is complete ; this present
world-age is perfect only as the preparatory
form of a higher existence, into which it is to
pass. Thus the human body, in which a
thousand types rise to completion, is only a
temporary acme, as it were, of nature — too
highly organized to last longer than a mo
ment. The type, indeed, is more permanent,
but its realizations in individual forms are
transient. Nature breaks into life, but the.
wave no sooner rises than it falls ; our- bodies
are but the passing waves of nature's fulness
of life, mere forms that come and go in end-
Jess succession. And these passing forms of
embodiment are by no means flexible to all
the necessities of the spirit which is in man.
Though the best that nature can do appar
ently with existing materials, the body is not
all that the soul requires for the full exercise
of its own groAving powers. Each sense seems
to have been developed just far enough to
make us wish it were better ; to suggest to us
the possibility of more glorious revelations
if we were possessed of some finer sense, or
some higher organ of perception. The limita
tions of that most marvellous mechanism, the
brain ; the frequent friction of the flesh and
the spirit ; the bondage of pain, — all show the
incompleteness of the present physical basis
of mind. Even the very perfection of the

THE UNFINISHED WORLD. 293
body, when considered as the end of nature's
organization of existing elements, and com
pared with the possibilities of the life of the
soul, compels us to cherish the hope that
the process of God's creative work is not
ended, its promise and potency not exhaust
ed in the present visible system of things
and our mortality, but that death and the
resurrection need to be added for its com
pletion. Still other facts indicate the incompleteness
of our present moral and mental faculties. The
ideal of a human soul is risen with Christ, and
waits for us in a higher kingdom. Our souls
are as yet only begun. The foundations of
moral being are laid in intelligence and will ;
the altar is raised in the sanctities of con
science ; there seems also to be in the inmost
soul a holy of holies, where no image can be
found, no representation or definite conception
of the Godhead, but where God is felt to be
present, and the divine Shekinah is revealed.
Nevertheless, though the human soul is the
very temple of God, it is still an unfinished
temple ; — what mean these broken purposes,
shafts uncrowned as yet with perfect capital ?
whither spring these airy instincts to heights
unrealized? to what spaciousness of reason
and loftiness of imagination shall this living
temple not be carried before ever the design

294 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of its Divine Architect shall be finished in the
perfection of a soul ?
The social economy of this present world,
also, manifests its own incompleteness. So
ciety, human society, is only begun. It is at
present but in part. That which is perfect
has not yet come. Its best forms are typical
of better, in which they shall pass in fulfilment
aAvay. Jesus interpreted our human affec
tions, and the ties of nature, as types and
prophecies of a higher order of existence, the
perfect society, in which they shall be ful
filled ; for he answered the Sadducee's question
by the assertion that in heaven " they neither
marry nor are given in marriage " — that which
is preparatory and natural falls of itself aAvay ;
" but they are as the angels of God in
heaven" — that which is perfect, and the con
servation of all that natural affection strove
to attain, shall be the heavenly state. The
lower and former order of society, so he seems
to teach, shall not return ; but its real worth
shall be conserved, its treasure preserved, in
the higher order of the kingdom of heaven.
Natural ties are as the sheath in Avhich the
grain ripens; and though the sheath be cast
away, the grain shall be gathered into the
heavenly garners.
If, now, we look more closely at these evi
dences of an unfinished world and our hope

THE UNSEEN COMPLETION. 295
of its completion, it. will be well to confine
our search to two main questions, or leading
lines of examination. These two determina
tive questions it remains for us, therefore, to
follow out so far as we possibly can, by the
aid of whatever scientific probabilities we may
gather, and in the light of revelation. They
may be stated as follows :' Are there evidences,
growing rather than diminishing with the
advance of knowledge, that this present visi
ble system of nature is not the only order, or
final form of the creation? and, secondly, Are
there evidences, gaining or losing in force with
the advance of science, that our present em
bodiment is not our final mode of existence,
but that it is to be made perfect in some pro
cess of resurrection ?
The preceding chapters, so far as they have
shown reasons for belief in a supernatural
order of creation and history culminating in
Christ, contain an answer to the first of these
questions. But we have to bring forward, at
this point, cumulative proofs, and evidences
from other quarters, which we have not yet
taken sufficiently into the account.
The authors of the " Unseen Universe " — a
suggestive book, which shows, at least, how
the scientific imagination may look as easily
up into the heavens as down into the dust —
quote a remarkable passage from Dr. Young's

296 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
" Natural Philosophy," in which he expresses
this opinion: "Nor is there anything in the
unprejudiced study of physical philosophy
that can induce us to doubt the existence of
immaterial substance ; on the contrary, we
see analogies that lead us almost directly to
such an opinion." " We know not," he adds,
" but that thousands of spiritual worlds may
exist unseen forever by human eyes ; nor have
we any reason to suppose that even the pres
ence of matter in a given spot necessarily ex
cludes these existences from it." There may
be worlds "pervading each other, unseen and
unknown, in the same space ; and others again
to which space may not be a necessary mode
of existence." Modern science has verified
Dr. Young's suggestion of the wave-theory of
light; is it verifying his suggestion, also, of
an unseen universe ? The inquiry leads along
hazardous heights. It tempts to fascinating,
but dangerous speculations. Along the very
horizons of knowledge clouds may easily be
mistaken for realities. But, without venturing
too far, we may possibly find footing in positive
facts, where Ave may look up and gain larger
views of this . universe and its destinies than
the materialist has dreamed of in his philoso
phy. Let us be cautious, however, at the very
start. We should not gain much for the hope

THE UNSEEN COMPLETION. 297
of immortality by admitting simply the possi
bility of AATorlds Avithin Avorlds of similar con
stituent elements, of more ethereal matter of
the same atomic constitution. Nothing under
the laws of ordinary matter, however ethereal,
can be of itself immortal, or a permanent
organization. Matter is a flowing stream ;
only its wave-forms remain. A spirit, if
materialized of any matter of which our senses
can take cognizance, would be liable to
changes of temperature and dissolution ; and
would not necessarily be freed from the ills of
mortality. It would not be unclothed of mor
tality. To prove a more ethereal sphere of
existence, but still like this material world in
its physical constitution, would not prove the
existence of a world Avhere death may not in
vade. Death reigns so far as we can see.
Any matter of molecular constitution is sub
ject to dissolution. But Dr. Young's sugges
tion may be put in a different Avay. It is con
ceivable that there may be a sphere of life, an
order of existence, still material as distinct
from the purely spiritual, and yet possessed
of some specific property which distinguishes
it from the matter of atomic constitution, of
which our senses alone can take cognizance ;
there may be supersensible, yet not purely im
material existences. Certain phenomena of
the visible universe suggest the supposition of
13*

298 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
an unseen universe related to the present, yet
of a different kind or order, out of which
came the things which appear, and into Avhich
they shall be dissolved, enriching it as they
pass into it — the new heavens and the neAv
earth of revelation. Certain phenomena, I
say, suggest and lend probability to the sup
position that there is a larger, better half of
the universe than as yet appears ; they do not,
however, demonstrate its existence, for physi
cal science never can prove the supersensible.
One species or type of existence, if taken by
itself, does not furnish the positive proof that
another species has existed before it, or that a
higher type is to come after it ; although the
embryology, the growth, and the peculiarities
of a particular species when matured, may
suggest to the scientific eye the previous exist
ence of lower forms of life, and be a prophecy,
also, of higher types to follow. We know
that this is true with regard to the typical
forms up to man, for we now haA^e the record
of the succession of species open before us.
But if we should take any type by itself, and
reason from it alone, Ave should not have a
positive science, but only rational conjecture
and hope of what must have gone before, and
might come after it. Similarly Ave have made
known to us in this material universe only one
general form or type of what may be a vast

SPIRITUAL ENERGY IN FAITH. 299
eArolution, and we cannot prove absolutely
from a single form of ci'eation — the only one
known to us — what was before it, or what
new and higher orders of existence may have
dominion after this world-age shall be over,
We may find, however, in its structure and de
velopment, reasons enough for a rational be
lief and expectation of something still human
but diviner, to come. We possess, moreover
in our own spiritual consciousness an energy.
as positive as any material force, by means of
which the natural probabilities of things may
be converted into living, working faiths.
Faith, indeed, is the act which brings to the
suggestions of nature, and the probabilities of
the understanding, the affirmative power of
the spirit within man. Faith is the spirit
within us, saying, " It is," to the reason's inti
mations of immortality. Faith is thus a
rational act ; yet, at the same time, it is more
than reasoning, for it is the act of the soul
affirming itself ; it is the positive exercise of
our inner spiritual energy in the conversion of
the suggestions of the senses, or the probabili
ties of the understanding, into the beliefs by
which we live and die. But this spiritual
energy may differ in different persons ; this
self -affirmative force of the soul may vary
widely with opposite temperaments ; it may
have been developed or repressed by lifelong

3°° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
habits, or education. Soul-energy may be left
latent for years, or it may be developed by
exercise. We can bring forward, therefore,
the arguments for our belief; but something
besides reasoning is necessary to produce
faith. Our reasonings as to the unseen uni
verse may be cumulative in their force ; but
faith in immortality and heaven requires of
every soul the exercise upon the arguments, in
view of the evidences, of its own spiritual
energy and power.
With these preliminary cautions we address
ourselves to the present state of the evidence
for belief in some supersensible order of ex
istence, or the unseen universe.*
1. It becomes more probable, as our knowl
edge of physics deepens, that the present
visible universe had its origin from a dif
ferent order of things. Science has pressed
nature to yield the secret of matter until the
last hiding-place of the molecule is no larger
than the one-five-hundred-millionth of an
inch. And theory goes closer still to the ulti
mate nature of matter. There are some ob
served peculiarities of the conduct of the in
finitesimal atoms from which the scientific

* In some of the reasonings which follow I would acknowledge
again my indebtedness to Profs. Stewart and Tait, though their
conception of the ' ' Unseen Universe " seems to me to need
some modification.

TEMPORAL ORIGIN OF THE WORLD. 3°l
imagination proceeds to form a theory of their
nature and origin. These infinitesimals of
which the worlds are made were compared
by Sir John Herschel to manufactured arti
cles on account of their uniformity. The
fact, that is, that certain things exist in great
numbers, and all in1 equal quantities, or in
exact and constant ratios, would indicate that
they were manufactured ; as the regularity in
size of the pins in a paper, for example, shoAvs
that they have been made. Prof. Maxwell,
following out Herschel's reasoning, concludes
that " the formation of the molecule is, there
fore, an event not belonging to the order of
nature in which we live." * The very atoms,
then, so we are assured by high scientific
authority, come from beyond the limits of
what Ave call nature, and have their origin in
some other and older element. At this point
theory takes up the facts, and suggests a pos
sible conception of that other,- more ancient
state from which the present constitution of
the world was received. Sir Wm. Thomson,
availing himself of Helmholtz's researches into
the nature of a perfect fluid, supposes that
each atom is a vortex-ring. It is a ring formed
by motion in some pre-existing perfect fluid.
This ingenious theory accounts for much,

* See Article Atom, Enc. Brit.

3°2 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
and is perhaps contradicted by nothing. But
our. concern with it now is simply this, that
the latest and most plausible scientific specula
tion as to the ultimate constitution of matter,
and the nature of the law of gravitation, only
confirms the impression which common people
find left upon the very face of things, that the
world is made ; that the creation, at least in
the form in which we now have it, has not
existed always, but has come forth from some
thing different from itself ; that this terres
trial system, therefore, is but a part, the pres
ent, visible part of the whole work of God.
One conclusion towards which physical science
in its quest for the origin of things, in its re
searches into the ultimate constitution of mat
ter, is borne with increasing probability, ac
cording to Profs. Stewart and Tait, is this :
" The visible universe cannot comprehend the
whole works of God. . . . Perhaps, indeed,
it forms only an infinitesimal portion of that
stupendous Avhole which is alone entitled to
be called the universe." *
2. Another suggestion of an unseen uni
verse different from the present material
system, yet not without some relation to it,
arises from the apparent waste in the present
economy of things. We do not refer simply

* Unseen Universe, p. 66, 1st Edition,

APPARENT WASTE OF NATURE. 303
to the apparent waste of moral and spiritual
forces, from which we reason instinctively to
the existence of some higher realm of being,
in which the earthly loss is made heavenly
gain ; but also we refer to the difficulty which
scientific men meet in thinking out their lead
ing principle of the conservation of energy,
to avoid which some of them are inclined
to open a speculation concerning the existence
of another medium, or mode, of existence, dif
ferent from ordinary matter, yet sustaining
some relation to this material system. We
shall consider presently whether chemical
changes are sufficient to account for all the
energy Avhich disappears at death. Life, at
least, is not a reversible process, and we have
no mechanical equivalent for it — -it goes out,
but into what does it go ? But, besides that,
there are other losses of energy to be made
good. The waste of the forces of the solar
system nonplusses our science of the conser
vation- of energy, unless it calls to its aid an
hypothesis which, to say the least, introduces
the conception of something very different
from the kind of matter which manifests itself
to the senses. " That the great machine for
the dissipation of energy," remarks Principal
Dawson, * " in which we exist and which we

* Origin of the World, p. 11.

304 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
call the universe, must have a correlative and
complement in the unseen, is a conclusion now
forced upon physicists by the necessities of
the doctrine of the conservation of force. In
short, it seems that, unless we admit this con
clusion, we cannot believe in the possible exist
ence of the material universe itself, and must
sink into nihilism." The sun is daily squander
ing his resources of light and heat in space,
and at his present prodigal rate will even
tually become a bankrupt. What becomes of
all but a tithe of this waste of his substance
we do not know. It is supposed, also, that
the ethereal something absorbs a certain por
tion of the starlight. But to what further
uses, through that mysterious ethereal me
dium, are the absorbed radiant energies of the
sidereal system put ? Science forbids us to
suppose that they can be lost ; not a solitary
wandering sunbeam can be lost out of exist
ence in empty space. The ether conserves,
or something transfers, and puts to some fur
ther use, everything apparently wasted by our
slowly dissolving system of Avorlds. All will
be born again in some future evolution. It is
not surprising, therefore, that trained and
eminent scientists are constrained to hazard
the conjecture that the ether — that unknown
yet everywhere present something — may be
the connecting link, the vibrating medium, be-

APPARENT WASTE OF NATURE. 305
tAveen our present system and some other as
yet unrevealed mode or order *of existence.*
If, however, with Clerk-Maxwell, we are dis
posed to regard their suggestion of possible
remoter uses of the ethereal medium as " far
transcending the limits of physical specula
tion," we have, at any rate, in the very exist
ence of the ether an intimation to the senses
of the possibility of other forms of material
existence than the kind of matter with which
we are conversant. If physical science is
compelled to admit the presence of matter
which is not molecular ; if Avhat Maxwell calls
the largest body we know is unlike anything
we know, homogeneous, continuous, inconceiv-
able,f surely natural science is estopped
from gainsaying any suggestions, or intima
tions, which may come to us from any quarter,
of super-physical modes or spheres of exist
ence. But, not to insist further upon these scientif
ic speculations, we take up another applica
tion of the principle of the conservation of
energy which seems legitimately and neces
sarily to lead us out again to the conception
of a larger outlying universe in which the
things that are seen have their existence. The
scientific basis of this conclusion is thus sue-

* Unseen Universe, p. 158.
\ See Article Atom, Enc. Brit.

30:> OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
cinctly stated by Prof. Le Conte : * " Evi
dently, therefore, in the universe, taken as a
whole, evolution of one part must be at
the expense of some other part. The evolu
tion or development of the whole cosmos — of
the whole universe of matter — as a unit, by
forces within itself, according to the doctrine
of the conservation of force, is inconceivable.
If there be any such evolution at all compara
ble with any known form of evolution, it can
only take place by a constant increase of the
whole sum of energy, i. <?., by a constant influx
of divine energy, for the same quantity of
matter in a higher condition must embody a
greater amount of energy." So far, then, as
we have reason for believing that evolution is
not an everlasting see-saAv ; so far as we are
Avarranted in cherishing faith in a law of prog
ress working out ever larger good, we are
compelled scientifically to suppose the influx
of higher energies into this material part of
the cosmos. If there is going on a really pro
gressive development of the creation; if the
last state of nature is to be better than her
first — then Ave must suppose that influences
above nature, the powers of the world to come,
do work within nature, and are hastening the
coming of the day Avhen former things shall

* Int. Scien. Series, Cons, of Energy, p. 199.

PROGRESS OF THE WHOLE. 307
pass away, and that which remains shall be
more glorious. But this higher energy, Avhich
is bearing nature on to diviner issues, we may
either conceive of as the direct action of the
Spirit of God upon this material system, or
we may suppose, also, that spiritual and divine
forces work down upon the natural through
some subtler medium, through the orderly pro
cesses and laws of some spiritual realm, which
was created in such relations to this present
visible world, as to permit action and reaction
between the two. Prof. Tait says that the ul
timate structure of matter should be consid
ered " as a cage ; " it is open as wicker-work ;
the molecule is not a close corporation.
This material system in the midst of a larger
spiritual universe may be conceived of as like
a veil floating in the air, taking the motions of
its currents, revealing in the very wavings of
its folds the breath of the breeze upon it ; yet
not a film of it broken, its texture nowhere
torn, by the invisible element all the while
playing in and out among its many threads.
But, whatever may be the mode of the influx
of energies from without, our present point is,
that scientifically we must suppose something
without and above nature, if we believe in a
really progressive evolution, and expect that
the end of God's ways in the creation shall be
more glorious than the beginning.

3°8 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
3. Additional evidence in favor of the view
that the visible worlds constitute only a part
of the whole universe is derived from the
probable destiny of the present material sys
tem. It is now the prophecy of science that
the creation, in its present form, is not ever
lasting. La Place's famous demonstration of
the stability of the solar system, even if free
from mathematical errors, ignores entirely the
physical instability of the sun and the planets.
Slowly, yet surely, our system is losing its
energy ; it has passed its spring-time of
growth ; it is fully formed ; its natural force
is abating; the end, so Herbert Spencer says,
is universal death.* Heat, which has been
called the great communist, is expected at last
to reduce all things to a dead and motionless
uniformity. In available energy, at least, our
physicists are quite at one in supposing the
present universe shall come to an end. The
indestructibility of the matter of our system
cannot be proved, and if we suppose that the
pre-existing fluid, from Avhich Sir Wm. Thonv
son derives the atoms, is not in every respect a
perfect fluid, then the very atoms must at last
vanish away. The universe, it is predicted, f
" shall bury its dead out of sight." This whole

* First Principles, p. 473.
| Unseen Universe, p. 119.

END OF THE VISIBLE CREATION. 309
system of Avorlds has been conceived of as
like a ring of smoke,* or a Avreath of cloud,
which one moment is developed out of the
viewless air, and another moment disappears
again into the invisible element from which it
came. As the atmosphere holds the clouds
which come and go, so the larger universe con
tains the finite and passing worlds ; the things
which are unseen are before and after the
things Avhich are seen, for they are eternal.
This world-age, the present creation, is as a
vapor that passeth away.
We approach another still more mysterious
indication of a realm of supersensible force,
related to this present system, yet not identical
with it. I refer to the phenomena of life. In
considering (so far as our argument requires)
this greatly vexed and still undetermined
question, with regard to which scientific
authorities are by no means agreed, we need,
at the outset, to distinguish carefully things
that differ, and throughout to discriminate
between the results of scientific observation,
and the affirmations of 'our reason when we
take up those results in our whole thinking.
We begin, then, with the generally admitted
facts. These are (1) certain peculiar phenomena

* Unseen Universe, 118.

310 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of vitality. Minute particles of apparently
structureless matter move, we know not why,
and reproduce themselves, we cannot tell how ;
mysteriously transform, nutritive matter into
new combinations, build up the most diversi
fied structures, and show, in short, the great
marvel of growth. The peculiar phenomena
manifest in living cells and their products,
constitute a specific science. (2) The correla
tion of vital energy with other forces is ad
mitted on all hands. The most pronounced
believer in vital force does not deny that life
is bound up with physical and chemical forces.
It enters with its energy, according to his be
lief, to do special work in the established sys
tem of things. We can detect, and can admit,
no break between the chemistry and the vital
ity of a living cell. (3) The analogy of the
physical sciences might lead us to suppose that
life, also, is a force to be placed in the same
order or category as light, or electricity, or
any chemical force.
But (4) it is generally admitted that no ex
periments have enabled us positively to put
all vital phenomena into this general category
of physical or chemical phenomena. Chemical
combinations of a high degree of complexity
form the material which manifests vitality;
and physical changes are observed to take
place in the formation of. living cells. But

SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 311
the chemical synthesis for life certainly has
not been discovered. Mr. Lewes replies to
Dr. Beal's assertion of vital force, that it is
not scientific to base a positive conclusion
upon our ignorance, and that the special syn
thesis of the inorganic elements in the living
cell may yet be discovered. That we must
grant, Mr. Lewes, is possible ; but we certainly
have as yet no physical explanation of the
mystery of life, and (5) the advance of science
renders it less, rather than more, probable that
we ever can find one. Some scientists antici
pate, it is true, the final resolution of life into
its chemical equiATalents, but science, with -all
its subtle researches, is still no nearer the se
cret of life than is the child who wonders what
made the flower grow which he holds in his
hand. There are certain residual phenomena
of life which defy analysis, elude the micro
scope, and are utterly beyond our chemistry.
We cannot so arrange the inorganic elements,
under any known conditions, that life shall
spring up, and manifest its peculiar energy,
according to laws capable of demonstration ;
as, for example, we may set existing forces at
work in producing crystals. The origin of
life is beyond all science ; as Lotze, who, has
argued with great acumen against the suppo
sition of a special vital force, admits: " Only
its preservation," he says, " do we believe is

3 1 2 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
committed to the connection of the course of
nature without the interposition of new pow
ers." * Continued and determined assaults
have not succeeded in breaking down the law
that life always comes from life. We are com
pelled, then, to look away from this earth for
the origin of it ; for the elements of Avhich
this world is formed were once in conditions
which precluded the existence of any germs
of life like that with which the earth now
teems. Unless, therefore, Ave suppose that in
some distant age the earth possessed powers
of germination unlike any observable under
the present system of nature (and this suppo
sition itself assumes the extra-physical, if not
the supernatural), we are obliged to seek else
where for the source of life. Accordingly,
very much as theologians have sometimes
attempted to account for the origin of evil by
pushing the difficulty back into some pre-ex
isting world, so scientists have suggested that
some primordial germ of life may have been
wafted from other worlds to the fruitful soil
of this earth. But this gratuitous supposition
only transfers the problem of life to other
Avorlds ; it brings us no nearer the solution of
its mystery. Whence came that primordial
germ? Nothing from all known causes can

Mikrokosmus, i. , s. S3.

SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 313
rise up and say, "I am the father of life!"
Follow that germ back from planet to planet,
away from star to star, and still each orb in
turn must answer, " I am but as the common
earth ; I hold not the secret of life ! " Trace
life to the outmost limits of this material sys
tem, down to the last centre of the least living
cell, and still we find it to be without father,
or mother, or beginning of days.
Equally impossible is it for us to folloAV life
through the changes which occur at death.
The end, as the beginning, of life passes knowl
edge. The changes in the body which mani
fest themselves to our senses are physical
changes which result from death. " What is
it that is gone," asks Prof. Le Conte,* "and
whither is it gone ? There is something here
which science cannot yet understand." The
process of life is not a reversible one ; we can
not, that is, transfer its energy backwards and
forwards, as we can heat or electricity, from
one form of force to another. In this respect
there is something in life which takes it out
of any known correlation of forces.
What conclusion, then, are we warranted in
drawing from the distinctive facts of vital
phenomena? We infer, Dr. Beale and the
vitalists would say, a special vital force as

* Conservation of Energy, p. 201.
14

314 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
their cause. But we should gain little, if
anything, for a spiritual philosophy by that
inference, and we transcend the limits of posi
tive science, at least, when Ave draw it. For,
if there is a special vital force, it must either
be a supersensible or extra-physical force — in
which case it cannot be a matter of scientific
determination — or else it must be a peculiar,
as yet undiscovered, physical force, in Avhich
case it would prove nothing for the believer
in spirit. So far as it can be observed, life is
a physical process, and belongs to the present
world. Spiritualists have no reason or right
to dispute biologists Avho treat vital phe
nomena as they do all other phenomena,
which can come within the field of their
science, as belonging to the present world, as
facts of the present system of nature. Spirit
ual philosophy has really no more to do Avith
the question as to a special vital force, or
Avith the physical definition of life, than it has
to do Avith the properties of magnetism, or
any other force capable of demonstrating it
self to the senses.
What, then, is the real, undeniable, spirit
ual significance of life ? We find the evidence
of something supersensible in life, not Avheh we
look merely at vital movements through the
microscope, but when Ave view the mystery of
life in the world without us, through our own

SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 3 I 5
consciousness of life, and seek for a rational
interpretation of its phenomena. The final
judgment as to what life means, is to be deter
mined in a higher court than that of biological
science.* There are residual facts, and ad
mitted peculiarities of life, which biology can
not explain, Avhich would remain after any
supposable chemical analysis of vitality, which,
in the light of our own spiritual consciousness,
are suggestive of something more than the
eye can see in them, and which render belief
in the origin of life from Avithout and above
nature a rational faith. And this evidence
for the unseen, or the spiritual significance of
life, remains much the same, whether we look
upon life broadly, as it is manifest to the un
taught eye in nature, or whether we pursue it
into the living centre of a microscopical cell.

* The phenomena of life belong to physical science ; the
question as to the cause of life, or the interpretation of the phe
nomena of life, is a problem of metaphysics. Thus it is notice
able that our biologists, while agreeing substantially as to the
phenomena of life, cannot unite in' any definition of life. Is not
the reason simply this, that the definition of life involves ideas
of nature, and cause, and end, or a philosophy of life — -which
they would exclude from the science of biology ? That science
can only describe vital phenomena and their correlations ; but to
define life — to say what it is and means — is to go beyond physics,
and to seek for a metaphysical conception of it. " It is impossi
ble to adequately define life without taking into our definition
the idea of ' an end ' in the orderly changes which it presents," —
a just criticism on attempted definitions of life by Mivart, Con.
Rev., 1879, p. 707.

3l6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
There is no argument which a spiritual philos
ophy may draw legitimately from the great
wonderful fact of life on earth, which may not
be as well drawn wherever science may be com
pelled to close the microscope, and give up her
search for its ultimate chemical correlations.
For it is not merely the so-called vital phe
nomena themselves Avhich determine the spirit
ual inference from the existence of life, but
rather that which Ave do not see in the move
ments of living matter — that which is more
than physical in them — their predetermined
collocation, their intelligent combination, the
manner in which physical machinery is worked
for the special designs of life. The nature
and combinations of the forces employed,
science may determine if she can ; the direc
tion of the forces is our problem. Common
forces, if you please, are here combined and
worked for uncommon ends. Elemental poAvers,
if you will call them so, are here bound under
a special law which determines the descent of
life. Physical energies — if such they prove —
are here grasped by some higher law, which
compels them to fashion out of ordinary mate
rials extraordinary products — each product,
too, according to its own type or design. There
must be something without the machine which
so arranges its shuttles, and orders its mo
tions, as to produce out of similar materials

SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 31 7
the most variegated designs, each perfect after
its kind. In this intelligent co-ordination, in
this unity of operations according to one and
the self-same spirit, lies the real mystery of
life and its extra-physical significance.* Reve
lation does not close the microscope at any
fraction of the, inch, and say, " That last visi
ble movement of a dot of matter is the action
of aii extra-physical force ! " But Moses
made no mistake when he taught that God
was the author of life ; for all the researches
of science do not yield any material explana
tion of it, and leave uncontradicted our
rational and spiritual understanding of its
origin, meaning, and destiny. Biology makes
more and more probable the inability of the
senses to deny the evidence of the spirit Avith
in man ; but the final interpretation of nature
must ahvays come from within our oAvn self-
consciousness. To the brain of a dog, nature
nowhere could be suggestive of spiritual
reality. If dogs reason at all, they must of
* In an address before the British Association, which I have
read since the above was in type, Professor Allman argues that
"life is a property of protoplasm," and that there must be " much
complexity " hidden deep within the molecular constitution of
protoplasm; "while in all this," he says, "there must bean
adaptiveness to purpose as great as any claimed for the most com
plicated organism." So, in the view taken above, the hidden
molecular constitution of .the matter of life is regarded as a
proper problem of science; but the "adaptiveness to purpose"
is unmistakable evidence of some spiritual energy in life.

3l8 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
necessity be positivists. For they have in
their own sense of existence no higher princi
ple of interpretation, and therefore dogs, if
reasoning machines, as some think, must
always be positivists — never idealists. But
man brings in his own spirit an ideal light to
nature ; and our own self -consciousness fur
nishes the key which unlocks the diviner mean
ings of creation. So then, Ave conclude, that
life is another evidence to human reason of a
higher order or realm of supersensible force.
Life is the constant mode of some extra-phy
sical law, one established method of divine
energy. We have in life the supersensible in
correlation with the sensible. " Life " — so
sa}^ the authors of the " Unseen Universe " —
" is a peculiarity of structure extending to the
unseen." And, if Ave may trust the analogy
of nature, this directing energy in life from
beyond visible nature, this influence sent from
God to call matter for a season to nobler uses,
shall not be lost Avith the falling away of the
present conditions of its activity, but shall
enter into other correlations than Avith the
matter of this earth, and shall be conserved in
other forms of existence. As it came from
beyond the visible creation (Avhether directly
from the hand of God, or mediately through
some series of higher causes, it is immaterial
to our argument to determine), so it passes

SIGNIFICANCE OF LIFE. 319
into, and shall be manifested in, realms of be
ing Avhich shall remain when present things
shall haAre passed away.
To prevent our meaning from being mis
understood, and our reasoning turned against
itself, as though Ave had proved too much, I
add /the remark that the necessary conserva
tion of life in a world to come does not of
itself prove the continued individual existence
after death of any living creature; for other
conditions may be requisite for the develop
ment of personal immortality — conditions of
rational and moral consciousness which would
seem to have been reached not lower down in
the scale of animate existence than the soul of
man. But our argument from life goes to
this extent, that life is a fact of extra-physical
significance, and that it leads reason out again
to the borders of a realm of spiritual forces,
and to possibilities of being Avhich transcend
our present experience. Not otherwise, or by
supposing less than this, can we render to our
selves any rational interpretation of the origin,
conservation, and outcome, of life.
We reach by still another line of reasoning
the same conclusion when we follow out the
most probable theories concerning the nature
of the soul. ' If Ave knew what life and soul
really are, Ave might almost know what the
essential nature of God himself is. But our

320 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
proximate knoAvledge of life and mind, the
further inward Ave are able to pursue it, leaves
reason nearer God. Already the effort to
search through nature, and in the hidden reces
ses of the brain for the cause of life and mind,
has hurried modern science out of the jun
gle of gross materialism. There are few scien
tific leaders at the present day who would not
resent the imputation of holding what is com
monly understood as materialism. Reckless
Avriters, in the first excitement of a new science,
aimed to transfix the mind itself, from Avhose
movements the metaphysicians and theolo
gians draw their divinations, as it is said a
famous Jewish archer shot at the bird from
which the soothsayers were drawing their
auguries. But it Avas idle for Vogt, or
Biichner, to dream of reaching Avith such
shafts the empyrean of Thought, and of bring
ing genius clown to the dust. Science has no
physical principle by means of which it can
transfix spirit. We may regard, then, as vir
tually out of the field the reckless material
ism which reduces all the higher mental phe
nomena to a mass of quivering brains. But
AAmatProf. Bain characterizes as "a guarded or
qualified materialism " * has taken its place.
The present- fashion in many, quarters is to

Mind and Body, p. 140.

NATURE OF MIND. 32 1
rule out all metaphysical ideas, and to substi
tute everywhere in scientific thinking physical
formulas for the spiritual entities of the phi
losophers. Great pains have been taken in
the invention and perfecting of a suitable
physical symbol for the mind. A formula
which neither affirms nor denies its immaterial
essence, but by Avhich it may be represented
as a physical quantity in the, scientific equa
tion of things, has lately been elaborated.
Prof. Bain, accordingly, writes of "one sub
stance with two sets of properties, two sides,
the physical and the mental — a double-faced
unity."* Mr. Lewes f represents these two
aspects of life as like the convex and concave
sides of one identical curve — though he fails
to inform us what is curved, or Avhat substance
possesses these contrasted properties. This
new positive philosophy of mind escapes the
chaige of grossly confounding mental and
physical processes, and conveniently faces
both ways ; but Lotze justly characterizes it
as a fruitless hypothesis, for it explains noth
ing — not even, as we may add, itself. When
we think it logically out, it leaves us no better
off than we were before. For either these
opposite properties, the mental and the physi-

* Mind and Body, p. 196.
f Physical Basis, p. 377.
14*

322 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
cal, must be properties the one of the other — -
the mind a function of the brain, or the brain
of the mind — which would be the old material
ism, or idealism, over again ; or else these
properties must inhere in some third some
thing, which would isiuich us again into meta
physics; or else we must try2 and coficezve of
nothing with two sides to it — a feat which
might task the power even of a Hegelian. In
fact, this scientific formula for the soul only
substitutes one metaphysical idea for another.
Our present purpose, however, is not to show
the insufficiency of this " guarded material
ism," but rather to avail ourselves of Avhatever
new light mental physiology may be able to
throAV across the old problem of the nature of
the soul.* Possibly from these modern
studies of mind and brain a modified imma-
terialism may be produced, Avhich we may set
over against the qualified materialism of Mr.
Bain as " the growing opinion."
The one great result, which the physiologists
assure us their experiments have giATen them
every reason to believe, is the fact of an un
broken material succession coinciding with all

* For a searching exposure of the manifold insufficiency of
any materialistic, or semi-materialistic explanation of mind, and
its failure in particular to explain the unity of consciousness, the
act of comparison, and the method of memory, I would refer to
. Lotze's Microcosm, Vol. i., Books 2 and 3.

NATURE OF MIND. 323
our mental operations-* Molecular changes
in the cells of the brain uniformly accompany
modifications of consciousness. The mental
and the physical are correlated in and through
the brain.
It cannot be shown, indeed, that vibrations
of the cells of the brain and conscious per
ceptions, excitations of the centres of sensation
and reactions of will, are coincident in point of
time ; on the contrary, the experiments of
physiologists have proved that there is a meas
urable interval of time between the moment
when an impression made upon a nerve of
sense, as the ear or eye, reaches the brain, and
the moment Avhen the mind reacts upon it,
through attention and AvilLf The two pro
cesses, therefore, the mental and the physical,
though related, cannot be proved to be iden
tical. Neither can it be shown that they are
coextensive, or that the one is the quantitative
equivalent of the whole of the other. On the
contrary, Prof . Ferrier asserts that " the physio
logical activity of the brain is not, however,
* Bain.: Mind and Body. Ferrier : Functions of the Brain, p.
255 seq.
f Wundt— Grundziige der phys. Psychologie, pp. 730 ff.— gives
the results of series of experiments to determine this " psycho-
•physical" interval. It is estimated by Helmholtz (Ulrici: Gott
u. die Natur, i. s. 279) as from one-tenth to one-twentieth of a
second. It varies, however, under different conditions of ex
pectancy, and may be reduced to zero by anticipation, as is the
case of attention to a regularly recurring sound.

324 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
altogether coextensive with its psychological
functions."* The completeness of conscious
ness, and the power to carry on all mental op
erations, according to the same authoi'ity, are
not destroyed by the loss of one hemisphere of
the brain. Neither can it be shown that men
tal phenomena are in any way necessary to
the continuity of nerve-circuits, or neural pro
cesses. The physiological action, that is,
might pass through a complete round, along
the nerve-circuits, Avithout the necessary, rise
of consciousness. " Consciousness," says Prof.
Ferrier, f " is not necessarily a concomitant of
reflex action." It is not necessary to any
nerve-current, for the completion of its own
proper action. The law of the conservation
of physical energy does not require anywhere
in the nervous organization the intervention of
mind. Thought is not needed in order to com
plete any physical circuit. The origin of
mind is not demanded in a continuous, physi
cal evolution, — an important consideration
which the materialists overlook. J

* Functions of the Brain, p. 257.
f Ibid., p. 17.
% Mr. Lewes labored against the weight of the received theo
ries of reflex action in his effort to show that the lower nerve-
centres possess sensibility ; still more difficult would it be to
prove that consciousness is a necessary product of the nervous
organism, or a factor essential to neural processes. But so long
us consciousness is only an incidental result of physiological pro
cesses, so long as sensibility and neurility, consciousness, and

MODIFIED IMMATERIALISM. 325
While enough, therefore, remains on strictly
physiological grounds to shoAV the impossi
bility of identifying mental operations Avith
nerve-processes, the correlation and continuity
of the tAvo is, nevertheless, a demonstrated
fact. Physiology knows nothing of the force
which plays along the nerve-arcs, nor of the
mode in which excitements of nerve-centres
and thoughts are related ; but it does know
that the material circuit is unbroken, and that
the two processes are correlated according to
some invariable laAv. How, then, Ave ask,
should this fact lead us to qualify our imma
terial ism? We may derive, from a suggestion
of the German physiologist, Wundt, a useful
hint in this direction. We need to find a
conception of the soul Avhich shall leave room
for any possible results of physiological re
searches, while it shall remain true to the im
material consciousness of man. Wundt, in the
passage to which I refer,* admits the clear
testimony of consciousness that the soul is a
unity which materialism utterly fails to under-

complex nerve-activity, cannot be shown to be necessarily related
and convertible, in one continuous, physical process, it is idle to
talk of the "fiction of mind." Since the above was written I
have noticed the significant admission, in an article by Prof. Tyn
dall on "Virchow and Evolution, " that "the physical processes
are complete in themselves, and would go on just as they do, if
consciousness were not at all implicated."
* Grundziige, p. 862.

3 26 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
stand, and the knowledge of which, he says,
stands firmer than the certainty of the outer
world. But he raises the inquiry Avhether
the unity of the conscious self necessarily im
plies that the soul is a simple substance, as is
usually supposed; and he presumes rather
that the soul is " the ordered unity of many
elements." Now, however that may be, at
least we would say, one of the very elementary
powers of which the soul consists may be its
capacity of embodiment. One of the rudi
mentary necessities of mind may be a certain
organization of matter, which is reached first
in the human brain. The physical life may
be one element essential to the existence, or
the completion, of a soul. It may be the very
nature of a created soul to strike its root doAvn
deep into matter, and to take up material
forces into its own life, Avhile it rises itself
into a higher element, and derives its trans
forming power from the breath of the Spirit
of God, and has its ultimate being above the
earth. We need simply to enlarge, or to mod
ify, our conception of soul so as to take into
the idea of it its physical root, as well as • its
immaterial life and its spiritual flower. In
deed, it is not true that we are ever conscious
of soul and body, but of soul in body, and
body in relation to soul. In the nature of
things, so far as our consciousness can disclose

MODIFIED IMMATERIALISM. 327
it, mind is made elementarily for matter, and
matter is made ultimately for mind. Soul is
made to come into full conscious existence as
embodied. And so, on the other hand, matter
Avas made with a long look forward towards
mind; and the material creation reaches its
final development only when at last, through
the human brain, it vibrates in perfect response
to mind. Organic life all the way up is a
growing prophecy of soul.* The believer at
least in the creative Spirit of God is the very
last person who needs to deny that there is a
natural and necessary relation between matter
and a created soul. He may hold to the differ
ence in kind between things spiritual and
things material, Avhich we experience all
around our consciousness, Avithout supposing
any real breach of continuity in the groAvth
and adaptations of that great Avhole of crea
tion of which mind and matter, body and soul,
are alike original and divine parts. The
embodied soul appears to him as the natural,
predetermined unity of two great processes
of evolution — the material and the spiritual —
both of which come from the living God.
The conscious soul is the mirror of all the
world before it, and the reflection gleams in

* See Kothe, The. Ethik, vol. 1, pp. 303 ff., for a speculative,
but suggestive, development of this subject.

328 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
it of a higher world beyond. The besouled
body is the goal of one world-age, as the em
bodied soul may be the beginning of the
poAver of the world to cpme. And, if Ave. be
gin Avith this fundamental assumption that
the soul in its very make, or elementary nature,
needs some body for its own birth into con
scious existence, and that body needs some
soul for its own highest organization'; then
we are already, at the start, beyond the old
dualism of Descartes and Leibnitz, and we
need not suppose any miraculous assistance
or mechanical harmony, like that of two clocks
regulated to keep time together, in order to
maintain our belief in the union of an imma
terial spirit and a mortal body. There is, in
deed, a pre-established harmony between the
two ; but it is not the harmony of a miracle,
or of a mechanical adjustment, but of two
natures and growths from the ^ame spiritual
and divine source.
We shall shoAV in another chapter hoAV
these qualifications of immaterialism affect.
the belief in immortality. If, however, Ave
press our questionings beyond the mere fact
of the natural and necessary relation of mind
and body, and seek to gain some definite con
ception of the mode of their adaptation, Ave
can only hope, at best, to form some notion
which may be useful simply as a tentative

THEORIES OF THE SOUL. 329
theory or scientific imagination. Now that
the older and once favorite hypothesis that
some one point or atom in the brain is the seat
of the soul, has been exploded by recent phys
iology, tAVO suppositions have been proj>osed
in its stead. The one is put forward by
Lotze, who supposes that the mind is so made
as to affect, and be affected by, a particular
kind of organized matter ; and, wherever that
matter for mind exists (Avhether all in one
place, or at intervals), there the soul is and
acts. This matter for mind Lotze, however,
thinks is confined Avithin certain limits in the
brain. The fact of the relation and inter
action between the two he regards as no more,
and no less, mysterious and inexplicable, than
the fact of the action between any two parti
cles of matter, or betAveen two AArheels. No
action or relation, he holds, can be understood
without the belief in the one spiritual ground
of the universe, the One in Avhom all things
have their being.
The other view, which rises perhaps to the
dignity of a scientific imagination of the soul,
is that propounded by Prof. Ulrici, starting
from the maxim, " No force without stuff."
Ulrici works out with ingenious plausibility
the. supposition of a spiritual body, or soul-
substance. The soul is a continuous, non-
atomic body, or fluid, Avhich has its own cen-

33° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
tre of energy, and is circumscribed by the ner
vous organism of the body. We are not anx
ious to adopt, or to defend, either of these
ideas of the nature of the soul in its relation
to the body ; Ave mention them simply to show
how any speculations, which do not beg the
whole question of mind, and Avhich possess
the slightest degree of plausibility, carry
thought out into the realm of supersensible
realities. Having thus brought before us modern
ideas and tendencies with regard to the nature
of the soul, we are now prepared to see how
the only tenable conclusions from these dis
cussions lend additional confirmation to our
belief in the unseen universe. Whether we
refuse to be led one step beyond the pure and
uncompromising immaterialism of Descartes,
" I think, therefore I am ; " or whether we
seek to qualify and modify our spiritualism
by the use of physiological methods ; we are
conducted, upon any theory or imagination
Avhich does not confound all distinctions, far
beyond the confines of sensible nature, and
are compelled to believe that as besouled
bodies we are not only born into this material
sphere where death reigns, but also have our
birthright in a different kingdom, and larger
domain of life, to whose order of forces and
laws we are now in our higher nature sub-

THE UNSEEN WORLD OF THE BIBLE. 331
jected, and which we know in part The
phenomena of mind, and the phenomena of
life, open avenues out into dim and distant
vistas of existence. As Avithin the limits of
our senses we discover element suffused upon
element, and life rising out of life, so our own
spiritual nature and thoughts are the evi
dences of things unseen, the intimations to us
of possibilities of being beyond Avhat now ap
pears, — as an apostle believed that our world
is surrounded by realms rising above realms
of principalities, and powers, and thrones, and
dominions. These suggestions and probabilities of nature
are cumulative in their force. We may be
mistaken in particular facts or reasonings from
nature ; but Ave can hardly be mistaken in the
impression of the whole. Many signs in the
make of things conspire to point us to some
thing beyond the limits of the present world.
Nature seems, according to all appearances, to
be but'a part of one stupendous whole. And
this first impression of nature upon us, we say,
is not contradicted, but rather confirmed, by
all our subsequent knowledge of the present
visible system of the creation.
If we turn now from nature to the Bible,
we shall . find that the conception which has
been groAving upon us of an unseen universe
of a different constitution from the present

332 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
world — celestial, not terrestrial — yet in some
way connected Avith this present world, and in
its final form the glorified consummation of
all God's creative processes, is the express
truth of revelation. This conception, which
we have seen to be not contrary to the course
of nature, or unscientific, is held up before us
by revelation, yet it is not fixed for us in any
one definite picture or determinate idea ; the
Bible leaves us as it Avere gazing into a glow
ing sky at the close of the long day of this
world's history, but if Ave attempt to fix in the
eye its changing hues, or to make a picture of
it, the vision passes from us. While pictorial
representations of heaven are usually unscrip-
tural and hurtful, there are, however, certain
general conceptions contained in the Bible
with regard to the final completion of our un
finished world, and broken lives, Avhich AAre
may happily compare Avith the suggestions of
nature already noticed. Rejecting, Avithout
further discussion, extreme materialistic, and
purely idealistic views of the future state, as
these are thrown out by the course of the gener
al historical tendency of biblical interpretation,
we deri\re from revelation the following par
ticulars : 1. There is, according to the Bible,
a realm or order of existence which existed
before and shall remain after the things that
are seen. At the beginning of this present

AN OLDER ORDER OF EXISTENCE. 333
Avorld-age there was another, older order of ex
istence than our system of suns and stars.*
Many scriptures haA-e familiarized us Avith the
idea that the present material system shall
finally be dissolved. As a richly jewelled robe
this starry space shall be folded up and it shall
be changed. Besides direct assertions of impend
ing dissolution, and the vivid metaphors of uni-
A-ersal change to be found in the New Testament,
it is expressly said that sev-eral elements which
enter into the very structure of the world, and
are necessary to its continuance, shall pass
away. " There was no more sea." Looking
out from Patmos' lonely cliff, St. John saw
before him the boundless sea — the sepulchre of
fleets — the oblivion of the pride of kings — the
devouring sea — from the clays of old the rest
less, ever-hungry sea; and the sea, spreading
its waste of changing waters around the whole
horizon of the revelator, became to him the
one great emblem of mutability, the image of
this passing world-age ; and he saw " a new
heaven and a neAv earth, and there was no
more sea ;" the whole changing world is passed
away. St. John saw also the stars rising from
the changeful sea, and sinking into its insatia
ble depths ; the stars of heaven, as they rose

* Gen. i. contains no account of the creation of the angels ;
compare Job xxxviii. 7 ; also Heb. xi. 3.

334 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
and fell, marking succession and time ; and in
the spirit the revelator saw above the sea, and
from beyond the stars, another vision of exceed
ing glory ; for he saAV an angel standing upon
the sea, and upon the earth, who " lifted up
his hand to heaven, and SAvare by Him that
liAreth forever and ever, who created heaven
and the things that therein are, and the earth
and the things that therein are, and the sea
and the things that are therein, that there
should be time no longer." Time itself shall
pass away Avith the restless sea, and the rising
and the setting of the stars, marking the change
of night and day; and eternity shall take the
place of the succession of events in time.
What the order of eternity, into which our
world-age shall be dissolved, is like, Ave cannot
tell ; we gain, perhaps, the only possible sug
gestion of it, not when Ave add years to years
interminably, but when we lose all sense of
time in thinking; Avhen events lie in memory
or imagination like a picture before us — trans
lated, as it vfere, out of time — and in one
mental vision Ave see them as a continuous
whole.* Inconceivable as the eternity around

* In the discussions of eternal life and death it is too often for
gotten that the word eternal is the unknown quantity of revela
tion, transcending present experience, and not to be represented
by heaps of ages, or to be defined as endless. It is the timeless
state.

THE WORLD OF REALITY. 335
time may seem, the Bible teaches that there is
another order of existence Avhich is not tem
poral, and into Avhich the heavens and the
earth and all things therein shall pass aAvay.
2. Another clear teaching of revelation is
that this unseen world is not a shadowy or
unsubstantial existence. On the contrary, in
comparison Avith its reality, the visible world
is the shadow ; and in comparison Avith its ac
tivities this present life is as a sleep and a
dream. The New Testament revelation of the
other world brings to the front the conception
of fulness of life. When the heroes were
slain upon the plains of Troy, Homer says
their souls were dispatched to the shades, but
thej^ themselves were left a prey to dogs and
birds. Christianity has reversed the language
of the ancient bard, and one of its poets sings :
"I looked behind to find my past,
And lo, it had gone before."
Achilles regards the life of the merest drudge
on earth as better than the best of the unsub
stantial glories of Elysium. The Christian
hero is willing to live, but he desires to depart
to be with Christ, which is far better. Though
the Bible represents the realm of the invisible,
into which the dying awake, as not material
in the same manner as the visible heavens and
this earth are material — as of a celestial and

336 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
not terrestrial structure — it is too plain to
need proof that the Bible holds out the hope
of an existence Avhich shall not be wholly im
material, or Avithout some form of embodi
ment. 3. This other world has some connection,
or correlations, with this present world. This
unseen realm of existence is as the other hemi
sphere of the whole universe, Avhich is the one
creation of the living God. At some points
its laws are made continuous with present
physical laws, and in some ways the powers of
the world to come act, and are acted upon by
the forces of the present world. The Bible
reveals the existence of a vital relationship
between our life here and in the unseen king
dom of God. And, according to the Scrip
tures, the two parts of the universe, the higher
and the lower realms, are " at sundry times and
in divers manners " made to touch each other.
There have been historical actions and re
actions, so the Bible teaches^ between the two.
Christ, in his sinless humanity, was conscious
of the meeting in his OAvn person of both
worlds — the natural and the supernatural —
and his life was the harmony of two lives — ¦
the earthly and the heavenly.* The miracles
of the Bible may be regarded in this light as

* John iii. 13.

INFLUENCE FROM THE UNSEEN. 337
the descent of the higher energy which sets
the lower forces quivering in unwonted ways ;
and the higher vv%rks upon the lower at points
where the two are made capable of contact
and influence,, so that energy may be trans
mitted from above for the working out of op
erations beyond nature, and yet the lower re
main unshattered. A miracle is not a sudden
blow struck in the face of nature, but a use of
nature, according to its inherent capacities of
service, by higher poAvers. At some point
the elastic net-work of material forces yields,
without breaking, to pressure from the ele
ment without in which it has its being ; and
we who dwell within the sphere of nature,
and can therefore see only the side which is
moved, or pressed in, call it a miracle ; — its own
laws of contraction or expansion we knoAV
could not produce that special motion ; but
the miraculous in nature was not . miraculous
to Jesus, who knew that there are two sides,
the one ansAvering to the other, a visible and
an invisible half, of the one great whole of
God's universe. A miracle would be an im
possibility only in a cast-iron universe ; but we
know that this material system is not a hard,
dead, brazen sphere, but instinct with life, and
vibrating to a thousand influences ; and forces
which we can hardly name, still less, follow
and understand, play in and out among its
15

33& OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
threads. For aught Ave knoAV an ultimate law
of matter may be the power to receive the im
pression of a spiritual fore! ; and the first
principle of motion may be the impulse of a
divine will. The Bible has no trouble with
miracles, for prophets and apostles believe in
both spheres, and their natural correlation —
the celestial and the terrestrial; Perhaps all
we need do to escape from scientific scru
ples with regard to the possibility of the
miraculous, is simply to enlarge our conception
of nature until it shall include the Avhole of
things. A miracle, then, would be no breach
of the law of continuity. It might be defined
as the natural conservation of a supernatural
force, and that in accordance with the whole
nature of things. To one taking into his phi
losophy both elements, both spheres of force,
a miracle ceases to be miraculous, and Avould
seem no more incredible than Avould be the
shaking of a tree-top in a breath of air from
the sky, though the tree never could shake it
self, and no hand is seen, stretched out from
below, upon the bough. The breath of the
spirit of God may bend and sway nature in
manifold ways without uprooting it, or de
stroying its fibre and life. But if we do not
believe in the powrers of the air, of course we
must deny, for scientific reasons, the testimony
of our senses, and say, not a leaf has stirred,

INFLUENCE FROM THE UNSEEN. 339
the tree-tOp was not shaken, — whenever we
cannot see the hand reaching up from below.
But besides special impulses from without,
or miracles, the biblical doctrine of providence
implies, also, that there are regular and estab
lished means of communication between the
two hemispheres of the one universe. God
has provided regular lines for the passing to
and fro of influences from both kingdoms.
The spirit has not been imprisoned in matter,
as a woman with her child, according to the
old legend, was walled in by the masons of
Magdeburg, who built up around her the
walls of the city. Our souls, on the contrary,
have air and life from the great unseen world
without. The net- work of material forces,
amid which our free-wills move, is made ca
pable of conducting to us magnetic influences
from the Avill of him who holds us, and the
whole system of things, in his Almighty hand.
The very system and order of nature render
it the perfect instrument, responsive to his
slightest touch. Were there not a natural
order, no special providences would be conceiv
able. Providence is the intentional and intel
ligible use of a system of nature according to
its capacities and powers. Hence the Bible,
while nowhere denying second causes, often
passes by them, and forgets the system in the
presence of the power that uses it for his good

34° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
purposes ; as we hardly think of the instrument
under the skilled player's hand, but give our
selves up to the enjoyment of his music. Pro
phets and apostles forget the keys, as they
listen to the harmonies of providence. " What
hath God wrought," is 'the exclamation of the
Bible. So prayer is a regular or estab
lished mode of action between the tAvo spheres
according to the nature of the Avhole system
of things. Prayer, in the biblical conception
of it, is a power, a supernatural power, which
escapes out of this material complex of causes,
enters a higher sphere, reaches the throne
upon which all things wait, returns through
higher ministries to set in motion, or to direct,
natural causes which else would have re
mained untouched. Yet nowhere on its as
cent, or its descent, in going or returning,
does prayer escape from the order and beyond
the limits of the laws, which form the whole
creation, and together work the perfect wall
of God. The biblical doctrine of prayer is
simply the reArelation of one established mode
of action between earth and heaven ; and our
conception of nature, and doctrine of the con
servation of force, ought to be large enough
to include both halves of the universe, and to
comprehend the continuous course of an effec
tive prayer.
4. One other and culminating point of the

COMPLETION OF THE CREATION. 34 1
biblical revelation needs now to be stated.
The whole process of creation shall reach its
end, not in the perfection of either sphere
alone — the earthly or the heavenly — but in
the consummation of both in a more glorious
state which shall remain. The end shall not
be the new heavens, or the new earth, but the
new heavens and the new earth. The con
summation, in other words, shall be the result
of the passing of both the heavenly and the
earthly into a final reality in which the whole
creation shall receive its glorious consumma
tion. In the end all forces shall be conserved,
and all things shall be fulfilled. Thus, the nar
rative of the transfiguration leads us to think of
the" dead as still looking forward to a kingdom
which is to come ; and another Scripture de
scribes the angels as gazing into the mystery
of redemption which is yet to be revealed;
and Jesus himself is said henceforth to be ex
pecting until he shall deliver his kingdom to
the Father, that when the end comes God may
be all in all. One passage from the Apostle
Paul brings out in definite teaching the bibli
cal hope of the final glorification of the crea
tion. (Rom. viii. 21.) This whole visible crea
tion, which has been made subject to vanity,
that is, to frailty and transitoriness, and
which, in its struggle of existence, groaneth
and travaileth in pain together until now,

342 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
aAvaits with earnest expectation its more glo
rious destiny, and it also shall pass into the
liberty of the children of God. This world
shall come to its fruition in the next. The
perfection of the lower shall be a part of the
perfection of the higher. Heaven shall be
richer because the earth has been, and the
earthly shall enter into the final glory of the
heavenly. So the whole creation shall be
finished. This material part of it shall be
changed, but not lost. He by whom all
things consist shall come in the last great day
not to destroy, but to fulfil. All visible
things, therefore, are types and symbols of
the better things which shall be. Nature is
one great metaphor of the Avorld to come.
Heaven and earth slfall pass away, but flowers
and fields, broad landscapes and the firma
ment of stars, the poetry of nature, shall not
utterly vanish and be lost when the earth
shall melt Avith fervent heat, and the heavens
shall be rolled up as a scroll ; for the material
shall itself be glorified in the new creation,
and the age-long process of creatiAre wisdom
and power, begun in the depths of the divine
counsels, and continued in the growing win
der of God's manifold works, shall bear at
last its perfect fruit in the kingdom which
the Son shall deliver up to the Father when
the end shall come and God shall be all in all.

WHERE IS HEAVEN t 343
The biblical teaching of the final comple
tion of all things just stated includes the doc
trine of the resurrection; and our review of
the divine processes of self-impai'tation and
self-revelation will not, therefore, be complete
until we shall have brought into the light of
the all-illumining idea of development the
scriptural doctrine, also, of the resurrection.
We delay, however, for a moment to point
out one useful result, AArhich we have already
gained at this point in the ascent of our argu
ment. We have reached a position above one
of the most chilling of those perplexities
Avhich are apt to rise in our minds, and to en-
A^elop in darkness our hope of immortality.
A real difficulty to be overcome by our in
stinctive faith in immortality lies in the im
possibility of finding any place within the
bounds of space Avhere we may suppose the
scenes of the future life to be located. As an
increasing knowledge of geography drove the
Elys'ian fields, and the happy islands of the
blessed, farther and farther away, until, when
the globe had been circumnavigated, no place
was left for the myths of the ancients ; so
modern astronomy seems to have banished the
Christian's heaven from the skies, until at last
no imaginable place for the resplendent city
of the revelator seems to be left within the
bounds of space. We still tell the child,

344 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
" Heaven is up in the sky." But the sky no
where gives to our astronomy the faintest sug
gestion of a place for heaven. Swedenborg
visited in the spirit certain planets known to
the astronomy of his day, and had little diffi
culty in finding orbs- upon which to domesti
cate his angelic acquaintances ; but we now
know enough of the constitution of those
worlds to say that any life upon them like
ours, or having any physical correspondence
to our bodies, would be hardly endurable, and
at all events must be transitory and corrupti
ble. We discover, as we look away from this
earth, what ? An atmosphere extending for a
few miles, and, by means of minute particles
of common matter suspended in it, spreading
over us the Avorld's apparent ceiling of blue ;
then gradually growing colder, and losing its
density, until the last filaments and fringes of
it fly out into a medium still more ethereal.
Along the pulsations of that ethereal some
thing — what it is Ave know not — Ave look still
farther and farther away, until, hanging sus
pended in space by forces Avhose nature we
can only vaguely guess, some three hundred
and sixty-one millions of miles from the earth,
there appears another world, a mass of molten
fluid, which is so hot as to emit a dull glow
from its surface. Within the vast orbit of
Jupiter it is difficult to imagine a place such

WHERE IS HEAVEN t 345
as we hope for when we say to the child,
" Heaven is up there ! " Gases and heat, and
molten fluid ; but no paradise of green fields,
and living waters, do we discover any signs
of, from the sun to the planet which Sweden
borg could people with beings having corre
spondences to ourselves. Give then imagina
tion wings ! We have messengers hastening
to us from the farthest stars ; but they bring
no message of the heavenly city descending
from God. We cannot with the ancients take
refuge in our ignorance, nor hide the heaven
of our hope in the mysteries of space. For
we have learned the alphabet of these messen
gers from the stars. We can question them,
and they all tell the same old story of the
earth. The language of the heavens, which
our science hears, declares the same perishable
dust which we tread under foot. There is
iron, and sodium, and heated hydrogen, and
other earthly elements, to be found among the
stars — nothing else. This visible universe is
made throughout of the same perishable stuff ;
it is of one piece, and is growing old. There
is no place for heaven in the skies ! But
faith, beset by the difficulties of our growing
scientific knowledge of the physical structure
of the sidereal system, may again take refuge
in our ignorance, and ask : Hoav do you know
that some orb, though formed of common
15*

346 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
earthly elements, may not be fitted up and
adorned by the hand of Omnipotence for the
final abode of beatified spirits? But from
this refuge in ignorance, advancing knowledge
again drives faith. We know there is not a
star at rest, not a sun that is not burning out,
not a world that is not passing away. Change
and dissolution are written on the face of the
heavens, as Avell as on this earth. And Ave
cannot conceive of an undying body composed
of corruptible matter. The biblical concep
tion of immortality is not the conception of a
perpetual transference of life from one form
of embodiment to another within a perishable
ci'eation. The doctrine of the endless trans
migration of the energy of a soul is neither
pleasing nor probable. We agree with the
authors of the "Unseen Universe,"* so far as to
dismiss the idea of a superior order of beings,
connected with the present physical universe,
as untenable. We give up immortality upon
the present physical basis of life.
But Avhat then I HaAre Ave given up the
scriptural revelation of heaven ? On the con
trary, we have simply been looking for it in a
wrong direction. As the microscope cannot
find the secret of life, so the telescope cannot
discover the land of the living. We have
* Page 151.

A DIFFICULTY REMOVED. 347
been searching for immortality in the wrong
half of the universe, and Avith the wrong
powers. We need to knock at doors which
are closed to the approach of the senses, but
which open to the thoughts of the spirit. We
need to locate heaven without this material
system which waxes old and shall perish. We
must trust our intimations that the creation is
more than appears, and that there is a larger
realm of existence than the land in which we
dwell. We must look for heaven — not any
where under the stars — but in the other invisi
ble hemisphere of the universe. It is not a
pai't of the present visible creation, and shall
not pass away with the dissolving worlds.
Heaven with its abiding life is in the Unseen,
out of which the worlds appeared, and into
which all their glory shall depart. Heaven
is the end of all the Creator's ways. It is, in
its final and enduring perfection, the conclu
sion of the whole creation. " It doth not yet
appear what we shall be." Thus Ave reach a
point where faith may look into the future
and wait in hope, undisturbed by any news
science may bring from the stars, and un
troubled by any difficulties in understanding
where the living who are gone from us, are
abiding. So the Bible reveals a celestial
glory, which is more than the terrestrial, of a
different order, and into whose higher realms

34§ OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of being, unrealized as yet, we and all things
temporal are hastening. And so our latest
physical speculations, call them flights of the
scientific imagination if you please, sent out
to search over the depths for the everlasting
hills, bring back upon their wings the perfume
of far-off lands, and some fresh signs of the
rest that shall remain after the flood of the
years shall have passed away.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE PEOCESS OF THE RESURRECTION, AND THE
END.

We have to complete our review of old
faiths in the new light of the scientific truth
of development, by bringing under this mod
ern method of thought that belief in the re
surrection which lies at the foundation of his
torical Christianity, but with regard to which
many believers at the present time have neither
definite nor satisfactory ideas, and which, in
the form in which it is popularly held, is
often ridiculed by unbelievers as the reduction
to the absurd of Christian faith.
The resurrection of Jesus was to the disci
ples both a fact and a revelation. The fact
may not have been wholly a surprise to them ;
but the revelation was unexpected. They
were not unfamiliar with the belief that the
dead might be brought back to life by the
power of God. As they remembered Jesus'
miracles, and thought of his mystic Avords con
cerning the Sou of man, they may have hoped
that he would come forth on the third day
from the grave, and return to his accustomed

35° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
life, to walk with them again the familiar
paths, and to tarry in the home at Bethany as
the benignant friend of old. But they AArere
amazed and affrighted at his appearance.
Mary did not touch him ; Thomas did not put
his finger into the print of the nails; the be
loved disciple leaned no more upon his bosom ;
a strange awe fell over theni as he appeared
in their midst when the doors were shut, and
then vanished from their sight. Jesus did
not rise, as they tell us Lazarus came forth —
the manner of his appearance was a wonder
and mystery to them. Jesus' resurrection, in
short, was a revelation to the disciples of pos
sibilities of spiritual life, which they had lit
tle dreamed of before.
The neAv revelation Avhich took the disciples
by surprise, we may not, however, forget, had
a firm, historical basis in a new fact of their
experience. We cannot cut the Gospels loqse
from their historical basis, and hope to retain
long the ideal beauty and truth of Christian
ity. We cannot keep fresh long a flower
broken from its stem ; Ave must have the root
implanted in the earth before we can have the
fragrance in the air. Christianity, broken off
from its historical growth, and uptorn from
its firm basis in the historical facts of the
Gospels, would be in our hands little better
than a cut flower — it would soon fade and be

THE FACT OF THE RESURRECTION. 351
thrown, away for another. All that is ideal,
beautiful, and refreshing in Christianity rests
upon historical grounds, and is secured in the
ineradicable truth of a divinely human history.
Its preparatory law and morality were, as we
have seen, worked out through the history of
a chosen people. Its Gospel came through a
Divine life with man. Its Christ was not
first a dogma, but a fact. Its supreme faith
is trust, not first in a truth, but in a Person —
a real, yet ideal Person. Its transforming
hope was gained, not by reasoning, but by
the sight of an open tomb, and the appear
ance of the risen Friend.
Of the direct historical evidences of the fact
of the resurrection little that is new remains
to be said. The progress of critical inquiry,
we may remark in passing, renders it apparent
with increasing clearness that any attempt to
destroy the historical genuineness of the New
Testament narratives, and at the same time
not to make the disciples spurious men, and to
cast a dark shadow of reproach upon the sin
cerity of Jesus himself, is impossible. Enough
of the New Testament writings, on the most
unfavorable, credible hypothesis, must be ad
mitted to have been started on their course of
deceiving the world — if deception it be — before
the beginning of the second century, to compel
us to hold apostolic men responsible for the

35 2 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
impression they have made upon the world.
Critical ingenuity can hardly invent a Avay of
avoiding the facts of the New Testament nar
ratives without sooner or later running squarely
against the moral character of the apostles.
They had no business, so late in the day as
the first century, to deceive themselves with
an " execrable superstition," as the Roman his
torian calls Christianity; and still less to im
pose at the risk of their lives, and by the loss
of all things, an immense practical deception
upon mankind. If they have imposed upon
us old wives' fables for facts, then Judas Is-
cariot really deserves the gratitude of the
world, and the eleven Avere the real traitors to
all that is sacred in humanity. It may be
said that the Apostle Paul lived in a credulous
age, but he had ample opportunity and time
to investigate the facts reported among the
disciples whom he persecuted; and all the
prejudices of his education, and his own per
sonal reputation Avere at stake, and would haA^e
compelled him, if he were a true man, to sift
the evidence thoroughly, and to prevent a
great religious fraud upon humanity. There
is no reason or excuse for his becoming a victim
to a deception. We gain nothing by trans
planting the miraculous from the working of
Jesus to the minds and the habits of the
apostles. In its proper place the miraculous

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 353
may be natural; but it is utterly unnatural
and incredible Avhen transferred to the conduct
of common, sensible men like the disciples.
Thus scepticism of historical Christianity has
upon its hands a double difficulty. It must
first prove that the disciples acted unnaturally,
and then it must disprove their moral sense,
Avhich belies the alleged untruthfulness of
their conduct.
But, not to delay longer with the direct his
torical evidences, upon which so much has re
cently been written, Ave would notice the large
amount of indirect historical testimony, of cu
mulative, circumstantial evidence, which can
not easily be set aside. Something happened
in Judea which has changed the Avorld.
Something happened on the morning of the
third day which has made it a new AArorld for
mankind. Something took place which
changed this earth, and the whole aspect of
life and death, to the eyes of the disciples.
Somethiug occurred which turned mourning
into joy, despair into courage, darkness into
day. All things were become neAv to them ; —
over hillside and valley, along the way to Em-
maus, over the beach of Galilee, and the slopes
of Olivet, a new, unearthly light was shed,
and the earth lay before them transfigured
with a new hope, and the brightest spots in it
were those where but yesterday the deepest

354 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
shadoAvs rested — its places of burial. Some
thing happened upon the morning of the third
day Avhich changed the most sacred associ
ations of a large company of men, and the re
ligious habits Avhich had grown Avith their
growth from childhood.
A wonderful revolution Avas wrought in the
transference of the sanctity of their Sabbath
to the Lord's day. The Christian Sunday is
still the great circumstantial proof of the res
urrection upon the first day of the week.
What teaching could change our day of wor
ship, a clay hallowed from childhood, and made
sacred by the traditions of our fathers ? Yet
something happened in Judea on that first day
of the week Avhich naturally, spontaneously,
Avithout conflict, and Avithout discussion, so read
ily that hardly a trace remains of the process
by which it was accomplished, did change the
whole religious habit and the most sacred as
sociations of Jews exceedingly tenacious of the
old traditions. There is nothing accidental in
history — the light which put the glory of the
Sabbath into the shade was the glory of the
risen Lord.
Something happened then and there which
has changed this world to all succeeding gen
erations. Something wonderful and re-crea
tive in its poAver took place upon that Easter
morning, the enduring results of which are

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCES. 355

\

Christian homes and morals, Christian society
and culture, Christian laws and liberties.
When one stands by the ocean, and watches
the great Avaves charging against the rocks, he
knows that somewhere far out at sea the winds
must have descended, and swept over the
depths, though not a breath of air may be
astir in the tree-top overhanging the cliff. So
in human history every mighty movement
Avhich breaks upon our shores must ha\re had
a cause, far away perhaps, whose effects we
see. If, Avhile we are watching the Avaves, a
log-book should be Avashecl ashore, and Ave
•should read from it an account of the descent
of a mighty wind upon the face of the deep,
then Ave should know for a certainty, though
it might be calm within our horizon, that there
had been a storm at sea. Floated down upon
this mighty tide of Christian history, we find
the records written by men who lived when
the power of God swept over human society,
and stirred it to its depths — this is the direct
evidence, — and we have, also, the movements
of thought and life still breaking upon our
shores — we have the great tide, and the waves
themselves — as the present evidence of the de
scent of a higher power somewhere in human
history. Deny the records ; say they were
thrown into the history as a hoax ; but you
are met by the advancing wave, and that is no

35° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
deception ! Deny the Gospels ; but the history
itself confronts us ; is its own evidence ; tells
its OAvn story of something supernatural, of
the moving upon the hopeless waste of the
Spirit of God. Something happened over
eighteen centuries ago in Judea, on the morn
ing of the third clay, which has changed
the whole current and flow of history ; — men's
lives, their homes, the rights of children, the
lot of slaves, the position of woman, the whole
order of society, all things human are taken
up into, and swept along by, a new, resistless
movement, Avhich still bears upon the crest of
its advancing wave the hope of the world's
future. Doubt, however, of the fact of Jesus' resur
rection does not usually spring in the first
instance from the discovery of defects in the
historical evidence, direct or circumstantial,
but from the fact that it lies beyond our experi
ence, and from the difficulty of conceiA7ing of
it. We turn then to the revelation of the na
ture of the resurrection made by the appear
ances of Jesus to the disciples. Our final ques-
T tion shapes itself accordingly, after this man
ner : — Is the Christian doctrine of the resur
rection, as that doctrine was revealed and il-
"lustrated in the resurrection of Jesus, in ac
cordance, or not, with all that we have already
observed and can know of the processes by

JESUS' RESURRECTION A REVELATION 357
which God is working out the purposes of
creative love, and, therefore, in the truest and
broadest sense, most natural and credible ?
First, then, we have to folloAV the resurrec
tion of Jesus as it took place before the disci- ,
pies. He lay until the morning of the third
day in the sepulchre, long enough to give the
body over to the ordinary course of nature.
But God did not suffer his Holy One to see
corruption. Miraculously and, as we believe,
for our sakes, the process of the resurrection
with Jesus was shortened, or rendered excep
tional in its mode, and made to take place
partly in a visible manner before the disci
ples. The stone was rolled away, and Jesus
rises, but no more as a mortal belonging still
wholly to this world. He has not come back
to life, like Lazarus, to be borne some day a
second time to his burial. Already when he
leaves the tomb he belongs partly to the other
world, to the Unseen Universe. He appears
first to Mary. She thought him to be the
gardener — his appearance was at the first
glance like that of a mortal man ; — the next
moment, as is to be inferred from the best in
terpretation of Jesus' answer,* she sees some
thing unearthly in his appearance, and takes
him to be a spirit. Jesus, having just left the

* See Meyer Com. , in loco.

35& OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
sepulchre, begins already to be transformed.
He is of this world still, yet not wholly of
this world. There is something about him as
he appears and disappears which impresses
the disciples with a new sense of his super
human nature. He is the same Jesus, yet not
the same. The semblance of something differ
ent, something more celestial and divine,
shines from his face, and at times they take
him to be a spirit. He appeal's on several oc
casions Avhile the marvellous transformation is
taking place. One who doubted, sees the
marks of the nails ; but something prevents
him from reaching forth his hand and touch
ing his side. Jesus moves, as it would seem,
along the borders of two worlds, now becom
ing visible, now vanishing from sight, partly
under the laAvs still of the lower kingdom,
partly possessing already the liberty of the
higher life. There are indications, also, or
hints, that, as the time of his final disappear
ance into the Unseen drew near, he belonged
less and less to the earthly, and more and
more was transformed into the glory of the
celestial. Thus, upon one of his first appear
ances he asked, " Have ye here any meat ? "
and he ate with the eleven ; but later he gave
to the disciples bread, and the fish Avhich he
took from the fire of coals ; but it is not said
that he partook of them himself. And when

JESUS' RESURRECTION A REVELATION. 359
the disciples, through the morning mists, saw
One standing on the beach of the sea of Gali
lee, it was not first Peter's eagle eye, but
John's intuition of love which assured them,
" It is the Lord." Was it more difficult for
the disciples to recognize the man Jesus, the
old time Friend, in his successive appearances ?
In a still later manifestation of himself on the
mountain which he had appointed in Galilee,
we read, " They worshiped him ; but some
doubted." Already was He so far exalted, so
distant from the touch of the disciples, of ap
pearance so spiritual, and transcendent, that
some could doubt, while others Avorshiped ? *
Very significant in this respect are the brief
narratives of the Ascension, in which after
forty days his resurrection was completed.
He leads the disciples out to Bethany; — the
narrative relates no simple human word or
friendly incident such as at other times had
made the way to Bethany sacred to the mem
ory of the man Jesus ; — He speaks now of the
great things of his kingdom, and his Gospel
for the whole world. Jesus is now a superior
Being, almost supersensible, a heavenly Pres-

* Meyer (Com. in loco) supposes as the reason for the doubt
"an alteration in his bodily appearance," " a mysterious change
of his whole appearance, a middle condition between the bodily
nature as it was before, and the glorification which took place at
the moment of the ascension. "

3^0 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
ence for the last time visible to mortal sense ;
and, "It came to pass while he blessed them"
— speaking not now Avords of human sympathy
as before the crucifixion, but as a Divine
Friend, with a more than human accent, bless
ing them — " he was parted from them and car
ried up into heaven ! " The transformation is
over. The resurrection is finished in the as
cension. The dust is committed to dust ; the
perishable is laid aside ; the flesh Avhich in him
saw no corruption, but which cannot enter into
the kingdom of heaven, is given up to the ele
ments of nature — the last particle of earth-
liness left to this world's gravitation — as he
ascends, vanishing forever from sight as the
glory of the celestial is given him ; — and the
disciples return to their homes knowing that
he who had left the tomb and appeared to
them as the same Jesus, yet changed, is now
parted from them, and, like a cloud vanishing
in the evening light, he had been received from
their sight.
The resurrection of Jesus, then, was the
divinely appointed process by which his holy
life changed the terrestrial for the celestial,
and, in an exceptional manner, without un
dergoing the process of corruption, passed
from the seen to the Unseen. It was a new
revelation of the possibilities of spiritual and
glorified embodiment. And the miraculous

JESUS' RESURRECTION A REVELATION. 36 1
element of it was not so much the fact that he
rose from the dead (for that we hold to be a
part of the appointed order of nature), but
.the manner in which his resurrection was ac
complished, and made a representation to man
of the great divine law of the resurrection.
It was a miraculous representation, a divine
illustration, a picturing before the eyes of dis
ciples, of the general resurrection. It was an
illustration Avhich no man could invent, but
which it has pleased God to give, of the end
of mortality, and the final transformation into
the spiritual body. Nothing else adequately
illustrates the resurrection but this great his
torical object-lesson, as it were, and foreshad
owing of it, which the disciples beheld who
found the tomb einpty and 'saw Jesus appear
and disappear, and at last ascend into hea\ren.
As nothing else, the transformation of Jesus
from this material body into the spiritual, his
passage through the grave, and partly within
sight of the disciples, into the glory that ex-
celleth, brings life and immortality to light.
For, observe further how the i'evelation of the
resurrection, made through Jesus' appearance
and final parting from the disciples, entered
into the apostolic doctrine, and became the
hope which has been cherished ever since in
the heart of the Church.
Without burdening our pages with critical
16

362 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
discussions of particular texts, we may speeify
the following elementary truths, or essential
parts, of the doctrine of the resurrection, which
the apostles gained from their experience of
the risen Lord.
In the great resurrection chapter, the Apos
tle to the Corinthians has made the discovery
that the resurrection is not unnatural, but in
accordance with_ the very intention of the
creation. It is a moment, or part, of that
grand order, and comprehensive piocess, by
which the earthly order shall pass into the
heavenly, and the whole creation be redeemed
from the bondage of corruption. There are
two orders, the natural and the spiritual ; they
are not unrelated ; there is a divinely appointed
succession, or progress, from the one to the
other ; and death and the resurrection have
their place and purpose in the Avhole divine
economy whose end is eternal life. The chosen
metaphor for the marvellous change and per
fection of the earthly is the growth of the seed
into the green blade and the full-groAvn ear.
It is important not to lose this primary
truth of the scriptural doctrine that the resur
rection is according to law. It is prepared
for in the very make of the creation, in the
whole order of things. No green blade from
the buried seed, no ripened grain in the ear, is
more natural.

THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE. 363
Two elements of this most natural process of
resurrection are brought out into light, and up
on these two elementary truths the whole em
phasis of the apostolic doctrine is made to rest.
1. The first truth is that our present em
bodiment has some real relation to, some pre
paratory significance for, our future embodi
ment. The one is the first step in a process of
embodiment which shall be completed in the
other. The future life shall conserve and
carry out the present life, not only mentally
and spiritually, but also physically, or as an
embodied life. The spiritual body shall be the
end of God's way through nature to a glorified
creation. The present body, therefore, has
value in this preparative dispensation of nature.
It is not to be despised. It has worth in God's
plan, and exists now for the sake of the higher
order, for the glory of the celestial which
shall be. Its lifelong history, its birth, its
groAvth, its training, its sufferings, its death,
all are not causeless, nor out of the divine order ;
but they have, as everything earthly has, a
preparatory and prophetic worth ; and they
are now for the perfect life which shall be,
when the whole creation shall be redeemed.
This truth of the physical conservation of life
in the world to come, and the organic relation
of the body which now is to the body Avhich
shall be, is plainly taught in the apostolic Ian-

364 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
guage concerning the resurrection. The reve
lation of Jesus' resurrection was to the disciples
the pledge of full, rounded, complete personal
existence after death. The next life is, in
every thread of it, continuous with this ; and
the Avhole life passes on into the glory of the
celestial. 2. The other truth concerning the resurrec
tion body, which the Sadducees never under
stood, but which the apostle who preached
Jesus and the resurrection has learned as a
first truth of his hope, is this ; the body
which shall be is not fashioned of matter of
the same kind as these earthly bodies. It is
not to be Avoven of perishable stuff. It is not
of the earth earthy. Flesh and blood, Paul
says expressly, cannot inherit the kingdom of
God. The Lord who left the tomb entered
heaven in the glory of the celestial body. We
shall be changed. There is a real connection,
or some correlation, between the present and
the future embodiment, but not identity of
substance. The life, the principle of life, the
individuality of it, shall remain unbroken ; but
the matter of life, as the physiologists say,
shall be changed. We commit dust to dust.
The earthliness in Avhich the seed is buried
does not appear in the flower. The glory of
the terrestrial is one, the glory of the celestial
is another. There is in the soul the necessity

THE APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE. 3^5
for embodiment The Creator has linked its
life with the elements of his creation. We
shall be clothed upon, says the apostle ; Ave
shall not be found naked! The soul, in the
final redemption of the creation, shall assimilate
for its form and beauty the matter of the un
seen universe ; and possibly, wTe may already
hav7e connected with this mortality the rudi
ments, the forming principle or germ, of this
future embodiment. Certain passages of the
Scriptures seem to indicate that the conditions
for the full development of the spiritual body
shall be given only when the whole visible
economy shall pass in fulfilment away ; that
the saints Avait in blissful expectancy, until the
consummation of this world-age, for the highest
possible perfection of heavenly life ; that the
harvest is the end of the world. But here we
look into the distant horizons of revelation,
and the light is too diffused along the far
horizon for distinct vision. The two points
already indicated are, hoAvever, brought within
our reach by the representation of the resur
rection made by the risen and ascended Lord ;
and, as we have seen, they were firmly grasped
in the apostolic doctrine. Upon these two
points, therefore — the connection and the differ
ence of substance between the present and the
future embodiment — our whole statement of
the doctrine should be made to depend. If

366 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
between these two fixed points, which are
lifted up into the light by revelation, we
stretch all our theories ; if around them all our
imaginations of the* future life gather, we shall
not find the substance of the hope of the resur
rection floating off into the empty air, nor, on
the other hand, shall we see the doctrine low
ered and dragged amid the grossest conceptions,
until torn to shreds upon the hard edges of
scientific facts. A life in all essential energies
continuous with the present, yet transformed,,
and passing into a higher order, — that is the
essence of the hope for which the biblical doc
trine of the resurrection of the dead still
stands as the faith of the Church of the risen
Lord. This mysterious cord of life, whose
beginnings reach beyond our sight until it is
bound to the throne of the living God ; this
marvellously braided cord of life, plaited of
many threads — matter, mind, spirit, fibres of
nerve, and lines of sensation too subtle to be
unraveled, being all bound up together in it —
a life here often strangely knotted and tangled ;
— this Avonderf ully woven life of ours shall not
be broken by death in a single strand of it ; it
shall run on and on, an unbroken life, upheld
by the will of the Eternal. Death cannot
break it, but it shall change it. It shall draw
from it all perishable dross. While the life
remains the same, some elements of which its

CORRUPTION OF THE DOCTRINE. 367
strands are woven shall be changed ;: — instead
of the silver cord shall be the thread of gold ;
for the corruptible shall be the incorruptible ;
'and there 'shall be no more entanglement and
imperfection, no more strain upon any strand
of it ; the flesh shall not chafe against the
spirit, nor the spirit against the flesh, — but
there shall be at last the one perfectly accord
ed, incorruptible, and beautiful life.
Is it necessary for any one at this late day
to spend time in clearing the simplicity of the
biblical doctrine of the resurrection of the
dead from the cumbersome additions of the
traditional teaching of the resurrection of the
flesh ? In this doctrine, as in others, the work
of restoration has been for some time going
on even under the most cautious orthodox
hands : — after tearing away the elaborate re
constructions and " improvements " of later
styles of theological architecture, after remov
ing the colors laid upon colors with which
clumsy hands have sought to retouch and to
preserve the divine original, we are beginning
to see come forth again the simple naturalness
and the inimitable beauty of the Gospel of
Jesus and his disciples. In an article, how
ever, in Smith's Bible Dictionary — upon whose
authority our clergy and intelligent laity
justly lean as a Avork well up to the demands
of sober modern scholarship — we notice, to

368 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
our surprise, that the simple essentials of the
apostolic doctrine of the resurrection are still
burdened Avith reasonings concerning the pos
sibilities of the resurrection of these same
bodies, which remind one of the ingenious
speculations of Athenagoras of old, who with
equal subtlety endeavored to show how mor
tal flesh can be preserved for immortal uses.
It should teach us caution in our approach to
this glorious mystery of revelation, that our
familiar traditional phrases, "resurrection of
the body," " resurrection of the flesh," are not
the biblical expressions, "the resurrection of
the dead," or "the resurrection from the dead."
The heavenly light entered an atmosphere
heavy with earthly emanations, and in the
lingering Judaism of the earty Church many
a truth was broken and refracted. So it hap
pened with the pure hope of the second com
ing, or presence, of Christ ; and the revelation
of the last things, in the same gross atmos
phere, could hardly escape distortion and cor
ruption. The Avonder is that the light of the
Gospel shone so brightly and so clearly as it
did over the troubled horizon of the second
century, down through an age when all the
winds of agitation seemed to be let loose, and
mists and clouds and currents from every quar
ter of the known world seemed to meet and
gather. It is not surprising, therefore, that

CORRUPTION OF THE DOCTRINE. 369
an expression which never fell from the tongue
of the inspired preacher of the resurrection
should have trembled upon the lips of early
confessors and martyrs, and have become a
part of one of the most ancient creeds of the
church.* The needless burdeniug of the apostolic
teaching Avith the conception of the literal
resurrection of the flesh Avas not left without
opposition in the early Church. Origen called
it the foolishness of beggarly minds, f In
seeking, howe\rer, to avoid the unapostolic
blunder of preaching the literal resurrection
of the flesh, Origen and the Alexandrian
school hardly escaped the opposite danger of
an allegorizing and idealistic interpretation.
The materialistic ATiew of the resurrection
became the prevalent scholastic view, and
still lingers, as Ave have just observed — really
cast out, but not yet laid— in modern theology.
Our science leaves us no tenable support for
it. Any proper physiological conception of
the human body precludes it. For the matter

* The phrase aapicns avi-o-rao-iv occurs in what is now thought to
be the original of the " Old Roman Creed," and to have been in
use at Rome prior to A. D. 140. The necessity of meeting de
cisively the Gnostic Docetism and contempt of the body may have
been the occasion for the substitution of this phrase for the New
Testament forms ; one extreme in theology thus giving birth to
another. \ Op. II. 532-36. 16*

37° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of life is always changing. The form only is
identical, not the flesh. Lotze's apt compari
son of the body to a ripple around some hid
den stone in a stream is physiologically true.
We see day after day the same ripple on the
stream, the same wave-form, produced by the
same cause, but the drops of the water are
always changing ; — matter is in perpetual
flux ; the stream of existence is ever flowing
by ; our bodies are but momentary forms,
never the same, two successive seasons, and
destined soon to pass away. Nor does the
Ixypothesis of some single, indestructible, mate
rial germ of the immaterial body escape the
scientific reduction to the absurd. Descartes
thought he had found the material centre of
the soul. But modern physiology has dissi
pated the dream of some central atom through
Avhich mind is united to matter, and which
may be supposed to remain after death, and
the dissolution of the body, as the indestructi
ble germ, the earthly nucleus, of the spiritual
body. The more thoroughly the conArolutions
of the brain are explored, the more obvious
does it become that there is no physical centre
of soul-life ; no one spot to Avhich all lines and
fibres of its marvelous network of nerves con
verge. The brain, physiologically examined,
has not proved to be like the Hebrew Temple,
provided Avith an inner chamber, a mysterious

UNTENABLE CONCEPTIONS. 371
holy place, for the dwelling-place of the un
seen spirit that is in man. Matter, so far as
we can have any knowledge of it, noAvhere, at no
one point, at no single moment of its perpetual
motion, becomes the inalienable personal prop
erty of man. Like the woman mentioned in
the Bible who had had seven husbands, so, it
has been said, the same matter may belong in
succession to several lives, for they all had it ;
and, like the Sadducees, we greatly err if we
do not know Jesus' own Scripture that in the
resurrection we shall be as the angels of God.
The power of God, which in the larger course
of- nature may have already provided for the
new heaven and the new earth, and the change
of this mortality into the glory of the celes
tial, does not need for our future embodiment,
to work a miracle against the constitution of
this lower half, and temporary order, of nature.
We need to have no atom laid aside and held
fast for our use in the higher sphere ; — let
nature flow on in us and through us, from
generation to generation, until this world-age
shall be over. Why should God lock up in
the perishable earth a single particle of dust
for our immortal inheritance? It is enough
that he has so connected the mortal and the
immortal, and created the two kinds of exis
tence in such organic relationship, that the
natural is the preparation for the spiritual,'

37 2 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
that the image of the heavenly which we shall
bear is the fulfilment of the earthy which we
shall lay aside ; that in some natural way,
according, that is, to the whole nature of
things, though beyond our knowledge — for
we know now only in part, only the half of
the nature of things — the body which shall be,
shall conserve and glorify the forces, and in
dividuality, and form, of the body which now
is. The person shall rise from the dead.
We should notice in passing that this view
is to be distinguished from the Swedenborgian
conception of the loosening and escape, at
death, of the spiritual body. The spiritual
beings of Swedenborg's philosophy still belong
to this present visible universe ; the spiritual
body, in the Swedenborgian conception of it,
is only a finer efflorescence of matter, and
heaven corresponds to earth. The biblical
revelation seems to us, on the contrary, to
prophesy a great advance to a higher order,
and to inspire the hope of a final transforma
tion of nature, and a change into a new type
or mode of existence, whose advent shall com
plete the Avhole evolution of love's creative
and self -imparting purpose. The earthly and
the mortal are the heralds and emblems, but
not the correspondences, of that which is to
be revealed ; and, like the apostle of old, we
know not Avhatwe shall be. Our resurrection

THE RESURRECTION A DEVELOPMENT. 373
shall not be, as we read the signs of it, simply
a setting free from the bonds of the flesh of a
finer spiritualized form, which belongs still to
the present economy of nature ; but it shall
be, so far as we are able to throw OATer our
conception the lines of a definition, the assimi
lation by the living energy or soul of these
bodies (by that nature-side of us which makes
some embodiment of the spirit a necessity of
the creature) of the material of the unseen
universe. The resurrection, to speak of it
after the latest scientific fashion of speech,
may be the continuation after death of that
process of differentiation and integration
which we observe going on up to the death of
man. It may be, that is, a further differentia
tion, or separation of the organic principle, the"
soul-life, from gross corruptible matter ; and
also a further and final integration, the forma
tion of a new and higher mode of existence,
the gathering, around the vitalizing principle,
of the materials of a more spiritual body from
the heavenly places.
We do not say that that process may not
even now be going on. We do not deny that
the spiritual body may be embryonic, or rudi
mentary, in the physical basis of this present
life. , We do not say when the process of its
formation shall be completed. We do not
know. Revelation does not yield distinct out-

374 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
lines along these horizons. We look, and
wonder, and wait. We may only say that
certain Scriptures seem to imply that the ter
mination of the whole present course of na
ture, and the beginning of the new course,
shall be necessary, before all the conditions for
this full, final, and perfect spiritual embodi
ment shall be furnished. The end of this
world-age may be an object of joyous antici
pation to all the saints who are with the Lord,
expecting ; and the end of the world may add
something to the blessedness of all the gener
ations who have left it. It was but forty days
between Jesus' resurrection and its comple
tion in his ascension. But he was the first-
fruits of the resurrection. The period of
transformation, the interval of happy expect
ancy may, in our case, extend from the day of
our death to the hour when the last trump
shall sound, and there shall be a general res
urrection, — the final embodiment of all souls
according to the deeds done in the body— the
ascension of all the redeemed into the glory of
the spiritual hea\Tens and the joy of their Lord.
We have given, thus, what seem to us to be
the essential truths for which the scriptural
doctrine of the resurrection stands ; truths
Avhich Avere miraculously represented in the
appearance of Jesus after death, and his
final parting from his disciples. We have dis-

NATURALNESS OF THE RESURRECTION. 375
tinguished this view from fanciful specula
tions concerning a present spiritual body, and
indicated that it is not inconsistent with those
passages of Scripture which seem to teach a
general resurrection at the end of the world,
at the harvest of this Avhole course of nature.
It remains for us now to turn again to our
scientific questionings, and to ask whether
under the light of the idea of development
this simple biblical doctrine of the resurrec
tion can be put to confusion.
We hold that there is no analogy of nature
against it ; but that, on the contrary, it is a
conceivable and fitting termination of the
whole course of nature, and a possible and
worthy end of the whole . struggle and ascent
of life ; that it is the natural fulfilment of the
moral purpose which runs through the present
evolution of nature, and the normal and only
perfect conclusion of creative love. Our
future and final embodiment is not the manu
facture of a moment ; for God works, as we
have seen, through age-long processes, and the
final and glorious embodiment, likewise, we
expect as the consummation of a great course
of nature, and as the final result of this world-
age. What that resurrection body shall be,
must be made known to us now, if at all,
through revelation ; but, while science can
never demonstrate the unseen and the eternal,

37 '6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
there is nothing in our positive science which
need prevent us from listening on this subject
to the hope of revelation, or from carrying
. out in a belief in the resurrection our moral
interpretation of the course of nature. On
the contrary, the biblical teaching affords with
regard to the future life the simplest, most con
nected, and intelligible reading of many phe
nomena of this present life which are hiero
glyphics to the science of the senses. Revela
tion indicates future correlations and conser
vations of existing forces, Avhich Ave now knoAV
in part, but Avhich Ave are not yet able to com
prehend in a perfect science of life. The bib
lical doctrine of the future state is the logical
conclusion of tendencies and laws whose oper
ation within the limits of this present life is
a matter of positive knowledge.
As we have already seen, it is not unscientific
to assume that matter in its make and form is,
only a passing mode or transient stage of a
process of evolution which is older than all
visible worlds, and Avhich has in it the prom
ise and the potency of new and still more
glorious creations. It is not unscientific to
suppose that the law of continuity obtains not
only within the limits of the present system
of things, but also beyond them ; that what
we call nature is but a half truth, a part of
the thought of the Eternal ; and that when

NATURALNESS OF THE RESURRECTION. 377
infinite Love shall have finished its perfect
work nothing shall be wasted, and that which
remains shall be more glorious than that Avhich
passes away.
From what we have learned and suspected
also, of the natural relation of soul and body,
the prospect of immortality through a higher
embodiment Avould seem to be but the continu
ation of a course of nature already begun.
We have regarded the Avonder of the human
brain as the end of one course of evolution in
the gain of the first possible physical basis for
a created soul. We have every reason to be
lieve that it marks the first step, the beginning,
of self-conscious, thoughtful life; we ha\Te
no reason to imagine that the first step is the
last, the beginning the end of spiritual exis
tence. Rather the progress of nature up to
the human brain leaves us no reason to limit
the process of organization of matter for mind
at the point of sight. The brain may be only
the embyronic condition of the matter of
mind. Indeed, in the present union of mind
and body the process already has gone beyond
our sight, and no microscope can shoAV us
where the matter upon Avhich mind rests first
begins. The physical basis of our present life
of thought defies analysis — no science can lay
it bare. But if mind, a spiritual force, can in
any way enter into living relation with matter

37% OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
so gross and palpable as a convolution of
nerve cells, much more might it enter into
possession and enjoyment of matter of a still
finer sublimation, and of a more ethereal con
stitution. If even in the dull brain there can
be laid up the materials of an organic mem
ory, much more in a spiritual body might
mind make itself master of all things. We
cannot be stopped short in this inference by
the assumption which Mr. Lewes says biology
makes, that there is one matter eAreryAvhere the
same ; * for, as Ave haATe already noticed, phy
sical science is compelled to admit the exis
tence of at least one kind of ethereal matter
of a different constitution from ordinary mat
ter. We are not obliged to adopt the conjec
ture that the ether is not a mere medium, but
a medium plus the invisible order of things ; f
nor need Ave entertain the kindred supposition
of Isaac Taylor,;}; that " there is about us a
fluid, the counterpart of the ether," with
Avhich mind may be amalgamated. We need
cherish no imagination whatsoever of the
nature of spiritual body ; Ave need simply
admit the perfectly scientific possibility of a
higher and better organization of some kind
of matter for mind, as the future physical v

* Physical Basis, p. 4.
¦f Unseen Universe, p. 198.
% Physical Theory, p. 219.

NATURALNESS OF THE RESURRECTION. 379
basfs of immortal life. We reason, then, from
the way the Creator has taken up to the brain
of man, to the Avay he Avill take beyond this
present mortal body. The same divnne opera
tion Avhich in the human body has fashioned
a material organism for the free play of con
scious thought, can work that process of organ
ization out to perfection. The very momen
tum of life must cany it through death. As
Ave knoAV that a train which comes within our
vieAV, and the next moment swiftly passes out
of our sight, must be hurried on by its own
motion, and, though disappearing, does not come
to a sudden stop ; so we reason from the mo
mentum of present thought and purpose to a
future existence, and believe that the life goes
still farther on in the world beyond our sight.
It is contraiy to experience to suppose a sud
den stop at death. It is not the way of the
Creator up to man to bring his growing work
to an end in one fearful crash and destruction.
Therefore Ave say, as he is a faithful Creator,
as the whole course of creation thus far is not
one stupendous lie, death does not end all.
We shall put off this mortality to be clothed
upon with immortality. First the natural,
afterwards that Avhich is spiritual.
These special probabilities of immortality
through the resurrection of the dead, gain
additional strength and consistency when we

38° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
take them up and weave them together, Avith
all our previous reasonings, into the whole
woof and substance of our Christian thinking.
The Christian evidences are so complementary,
and mutually confirmatory, that we cannot do
them justice by treating them as though they
Avere detached threads. We have to pursue
continuous divine processes ; Ave have to inter
pret a development of nature, a course of his
tory, a progressive revelation, an increasing
purpose running through all towards one "far
off, divine event." He who can follow Avith
the spiritual understanding the paths of a
Diviner Presence than eye hath seen along the
ways of nature and through history, will find
that he is ever " stepping westward," and Avith
a glowing sky to lead him on. History, the
echo of humanity's low voice, Avill give him
hopeful greeting, — "A sound
Of something without place or bound," —
and, as he gazes into the vistas of light beyond
light of futurity, he will feel as the poet, look
ing into the evening sky, while walking in the
highlands, felt :
" The echo of the voice inwrought,
A human sweetness with the thought
Of travelling through the world that lay
Before me in my endless way."

THE END OF EVOLUTION. 38 1
We cannot refrain from drawing the con
trast between the vision of life in worlds to
come which inspired the great apostle who
preached the hope of the resurrection at
Athens, and the outlook into the dim, uncer
tain future permitted to the great philosopher
who in our times has built again the altar to
the Unknown God. "Evolution," says Mr.
Herbert Spencer, " has an impassable limit." *
"A universe of extinct suns round Avhich cir
cle planets devoid of life," is the " proximate '
end of the processes everywhere going on." f
" Universal death " is the end which the evo
lutionist must contemplate as the last state of
a worn-out creation. " Universal death " is
the inevitable close of evolution, and that fatal
end "may continue indefinitely." But the
evolutionist recoils from his own conclusion,
and flies for refuge to the mystery of the Un
known. The end may be only proximate, the
tragic death of nature only another birth. That
the law which has developed from nebulous |
beginnings and primordial worlds these starry ,
constellations, and habitable worlds, and life's
rich and infinite variety, should prove after all J
to be only a law of death — death playing at
life — that it should build only to destroy, andj
find the goal of all its mighty working only (
* First Prin., p. 440.
f Ibid., p. 472.

382 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
in reducing all its works to chaos and night —
this seems even to the sternest of evolutionists
almost too great a tax upon the faith of the
human heart. He admits that the evolution
Avhich his thought has followed to universal
death may be only relative, — as we suppose
that visible nature is itself only part of the
whole stupendous process of creative poAver.
He admits that things seem to point to another
future, and that, "on carrying the argument
still further, we are led to infer a subsequent
Universal Life." * This "possible hypothesis "
of the great philosopher of the UnknoAvn we
may at least claim as a scientific permission
for preaching the hope of the great apostle of
the revealed mystery of the ages. Herbert
Spencer, having by most laborious toil gained
the summit of this nineteenth century Avisdom,
looks about him to see a rayless horizon and
the approach of universal night. Yet beyond
that horizon may lie, he thinks, the possibility
of another dawn. The Christian revelator,
likewise, sees the night coming, but also the
day. The possibility of science is his sure
hope of that which lies beyond time, and
which transcends knowledge. He, too, sees
the cloud and the darkness ; but he has a
larger vision of the spirit, and is assured that

Ibid., p. 483.

NA TURAL E VOL UTION A HALF- TR UTH. 383
the cloud is of the moment, and the sunshine
is eternal. " There shall be no night there."
Death, he believes, is a moment and part of
the larger process of life, and the passing away
of the earth and the heavens — the tragic end
of the creation in universal death, which our
very science must foretell — is but a moment
and part, likewise, of that divine work and
order through which the natural shall bring
in the spiritual, the glory of the terrestrial be
transformed into the glory of the celestial, and
perfect love, having given of itself to the
uttermost, shall reach at length the end of all
its ways from the beginning in that great city,
the holy city, descending out of heaven from
God, having the glory of God.
It remains for us now to gather up in one
general conclusion the separate lines of our
reasoning. We began by accepting loyally
the results of scientific research into the pres
ent constitution of things. We trust our
senses, and the logic of the senses, just so far
as the human understanding can work out a
positive science. We admit that the course
of visible nature can be best summed up in
some general law of evolution. We do not
question, and have no moral interest in ques
tioning, a physical evolution, and a mechanism
coextensive with the bounds of nature, so far
as by such conceptions the sum total of our

384 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
scientific knowledge can be at present expressed
to the best advantage. But ours is by birth
right the duty, also, of subjecting Adsible nature
to the interpretation of the spirit, and of read
ing the formulas of things in the light of our
own moral ideas. The science whose source
is within us, can never yield to any sciences
Avhose sources are in the world without us.
Perfect knowledge must be the harmony of
both. Our objection to evolution is not that
it may not be true : but that, if provred true, it
is only a half-truth. We dare not put a part
for the Avhole ; we refuse to measure the pos
sibilities of the universe by the diameter of
the little circle of our knowledge. Besides
the curve of the earth Avhich Ave can measure,
there is the immeasurable sweep of the sky
above us. A philosophy Avorthy of the name
must admit both sciences — the science of the
natural, and the science of the spiritual which
transcends nature, — or its conclusions will be
only half-truths. Physical evolution finds its
complement only in a higher truth. The one
thought of the Creator is expressed in two
parts of speech, a noun and a verb ; matter
and mind,' body and soul, nature and the su
pernatural, are the tAvo parts, the noun and
the verb, of the one create Avord. But the
prevalent evolutionary philosophy is a grammar
simply of the noun to the neglect of the verb.

THE SUPERNATURAL EVOLUTION. 385
It is a science only of one part of the creative
speech; it goes off exultingly with the sub
stantive, and leaves metaphysics to learn, if it
can, Avhat is i'eally affii'med of it. It takes
nature as the only part of the divine speech
Avorth knowing, and separates it from all the
affirmations of our consciousness. But we
cannot so easily and so arbitrarily construe
the Creator's thought. It may be difficult to
see how in some points the noun and the verb
agree ; how together they make one intelligi
ble meaning ; but no difficulty in our earthly
grammar can warrant us in giving up one iota
of the sentence set before us for our study ;
and if we should, it would be easier to sacri
fice matter to spirit, than spirit to matter.
But we hold fast to both noun and verb ; to
the great generic substantive Avithout us — the I
world that is made, and which stands for some-'
thing ; and also to that which is affirmed with-
in us — thought, will, love.
Wherever mechanism can be found, even
within the domain of life, we are ready to re
ceive the proofs of it* But mechanism ex
plains nothing, not even its oavii motion. We
have given in the preceding chapters evidences

* The burden of proof is really on the Bide of materialism.
Consciousness holds everything to be like itself, until it is proved
to be different. Everything is spiritual until shown to be mate
rial. 17

3&6 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
of the presence and working of something
which is without the mechanism of things,
and whose energy cannot be reduced to any
physical equiA^alents. We noticed the histori
cal growth of a revelation, which it is difficult
to account for as a spontaneous generation of
nature. We traced the processes of the mani
festation of a divine life with man. We have
seen in the development of a progressive reve
lation the evolution of a power greater than
natural forces, and working out its benign
results according to a higher law. The nat
ural evolution of the Semitic stock does not
contain the Avhole development of the history
of Israel. We then beheld, standing among
men, one Avhose generation no natural science
can declare, whose Person is a wonder, and
whose life is a miracle, if this world and the
powers of this world are all of the universe ;
but whose adv-ent is hardly a surprise, and
Avhose work is a unity, if we ArieAV it in rela
tion to a divine order, and as the culmination
of a supernatural evolution of nature. We
beheld in that consummation of the creation
the beginning of a neAv reign higher than the
dynasty of man, the ushering in of a new
kingdom of a constitution beyond the earth
ly which it shall supersede, even the kingdom
of heaven. We have listened to the proph
ecies of the final glory of that kingdom, and

THE SUPERNATURAL EVOLUTION. 387
find in them the worthy end and consumma
tion of the whole divine process, or supernat
ural evolution, of the creation — of nature, life,
and human history. So far as we can read
from the face of this present world the story
of its OAvn past, and the probabilities of its
future, Ave learn that it has not always been,
and that it cannot last forever. We discover
in the present visible nature the signs that it
is but a part and moment of a diviner whole.
The seen cannot be, as we havTe repeatedly
said, the demonstration of the Unseen ; but
the more we learn of nature, the more confi
dence we may have in the spirit's affirmations
of faith. We have seen that this world is
unfinished, and this apparent or visible nature
incomplete — its evolution a contradiction and
destruction of itself — unless we believe that
it is continuous with a supernatural realm,
and a preparation for that which is perfect, |
which is to come.
This conclusion - will at once be subjected
by many to the reproach of dualism, and it
will be said that evolution excludes the suppo
sition of a -twofold development of the creation.
But, as matter of fact, we find a twofoldness
in experience which we may hide from our
selves for the moment under some mask of
words, but which Ave cannot obliterate so long |
as we are thinking men. We do not make,

3^8 OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
I we simply recognize, the dualism which exists
in the constitution of nature. There are two
kinds of force, tAvo lines of laAv, two orders of
development, two processes of evolution, —
body and mind, nature and spirit, eai'th and
heaven. We secure only a fictitious unity
when we ignore either kind of being, or seek
to reduce either to the terms of the other.
The desire to reduce the universe to a unit, is
the ignis fatuus of much positive science.
It lures rash scientific speculation into ex
tremes of folly. Haeckel's boastful monism,
for example, or claim that he has reduced all
things in heaven and earth to one kind of pro
toplasmic matter, involves the double absur
dity of asking the human mind to commit
suicide, and also of attempting to bring nature
into subjection by beating the very breath of
life out of it. Science, then, would have to
perform the office of undertaker to a dead
world. Nature, however, is not a mere col
lection of specimens preserved for our dissec
tion ; and philosophy still has a higher task to
fulfil than to keep the doors of a museum-
world. There is an " inner life of things,"
and a unity of the spirit in the creation. We
have folloAved, in our discussion, the course of
a twofold development, and found in nature
and history repeated and manifold signs of a
double evolution — a supernatural as well as

DUALISM AND UNITY OF THE CREATION. 389
natural law, and order, and growth ; — but the
two are one in their origin, their aim, and their
end. The supernatural evolution, whose signs
and evidences we cannot deny, is not a work
of spiritual power against nature ; rather we
have conceived of it throughout as a connatural
evolution — a development with nature, and
through nature, of something which is more
than nature; the result or goal of which is a
new nature, the second nature, the glorified
creation, the new heaven, and new earth of the
Scriptures. The unity is real, the dualism
which we observe apparent. The dualism ex
ists in time, and to our finite intelligence; the
unity is in eternity, and to the mind of the
Omniscient. A monistic theory is conceivable
only when we bring in the idea of the living
God as the everywhere present Spirit, and eter
nal unity of the creation. The oneness of all
things amid infinite diversity is a truth of the
Spirit. All the sciences seek for this unity,
but religion alone finds it. When Comte pro
posed as the end of positive science the reduc
tion of all phenomena to one law, he really
brought back again the banished age of the
ology. The one comprehensive formula for
all existing things is — God. By Him all
things consist. The unity of the creation is a
truth of the Godhead. The science of the
senses may knock in vain for this truth to be

39° OLD FAITHS IN NEW LIGHT.
opened to it, but the poet finds it revealed
wherever he looks. It is not a lesson of biol
ogy, but a truth of life disclosed to the living
soul. He who possesses what Wordsworth
called " the first great gift, a vital soul," who
has " the feeling intellect, reason in her most
exalted mood," becomes the true seer, the in
terpreter of the thought of God hidden in
nature's heart. The divine secret of existence
which the logic of Mr. Mill could not break
open, which the science of the Royal Acad
emy cannot torture to confess itself in its
laboratory, is the truth pervading all things,
Avhich the feeling intellect of Wordsworth
discerned, and the sense and the mystery of it
made him the great poet of nature's spiritual
aspects and prophetic moods. To the poet's
vital soul nature wore an expression of divin
ity on her very face.
' ' The unfettered clouds and region of the heavens ;
Tumult and peace, the darkness and the light ;
Were all the workings of one mind, the features
Of the same face, blossoms upon one tree ;
Characters of the great Apocalypse,
The types and symbols of Eternity,
Of firat, and last, and midst, and without end."
We need never hesitate, therefore, to bring
old faiths into new light. Our spiritual life
can suffer and grow pale only if we shut it
out from the increasing light, and leave it to
grow in the darkness. The clear shining of

CONCLUSION. 391
knowledge may dissipate a thousand fancies
which we have mistaken for realities ; but it
shall bring to faith health, and vigor, and re
newed life. While many run to and fro, and
knowledge is increased, Christianity cannot be
preserved as a cloistered virtue, or a scholas
tic art*; but out in the breezy world, under
the open sky, rejoicing in the light, its
strength shall not be abated, nor its eye grow
dim. Reverently and humbly, but nothing
doubting, the Christian apologist of to-day
may follow wherever neAv paths of knowledge
seem opening to our approach ; and though
he goes down into the depths, or wanders
through realms of strange shadows, and end
less confusions, nevertheless, after he has trav
ersed all the spheres into which thought can
find entrance, if he remains true to the spirit
sent for his guidance, his better self,— like
Dante following Beatrice from world to
world — he shall find himself at last by the
gates of Paradise, walking in a cloud of light,
full of all melodious voices.

THE END.

THE RELIGIOUS FEELING.
By Rev. NEWMAN SMYTH.

One Volume, 12mo, cloth, $1.25.
In this volume Mr. Smjth has it for his object to formulate the relig
ious feeling, as a capacity of the human mind, and to vindicate its claims
to authority, He sets before nimself at the outset the task of convicting
Sceptical philosophy out of its own mouth. The work is thoroughly logical,
and displays a familiarity with the most recent German thought which is
rarely to be found. 
CRITICAL NOTICES.
41 The argument in its clearness, force and illustrations, has never, to our knowledge,
been better stated. Mr. Smyth has brought to his work a clear, analytical mind, an
extensive knowledge of German philosophical thought, and an intellectual famijjarity
with the later English schools. He does his own thinking, and writes with perspicuity
and vigor." — The Advance.
"We welcome this volume as a valuable contribution to that type of thought in the
vindication of theism, which is specially demanded at the present time. The discussion
throughout evinces much reading and vigorous thought, and is conducted with marked
candor and ability." — N~eiu Rnglattder,
** The argument contained in these pages is eminently satisfactory. It is one of the
best answers to Darwin and his followers we have ever met with." — The Churchman.

Orthodox Theology of To-Day.
By Rev. NEWMAN SMYTH, D.D.
One Volume, 12mo, - $1.25.
The object of this little volume is to answer certain objections which
have been urged against evangelical teaching, and it is sent forth "for
the purpose of helping among men the removal of some common diffi
culties in the way of the coming of a better day of faith."
CRITICAL NOTICES.
"That pleasing vigor of thought and that frequent rare beauty cf language . . .
are ( on.spicious excellencies of these sermons, with most of whose utterances we can have
strong sympathy." — The Congregationolist.
"His latest book, The Orthodox 'J'/ieplosy o/To Day. has all the good qualities so
abundantlv manifested in his volumes The Religious Feeling and Old Faiths in New
Light. But it is a stronger and broader book than either." — N. Y. Christian
Advocate. " He puts things differently from the professed conservators of Orthodoxy, and he has
much sympathy with honest doubters: but he keeps his reader under the powerful in
fluence of Evangelical conceptions of God, Christ, redemption and retribution. No man
can learn from his pages to think lightly of sin, or to make little of religious truth." —
Phila, Sunday Sc/iool Times. ^ 
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The Theory of Preaching,
OR
LECTURES ON HOMILETICS.
By Professor AUSTIN PHELPS, £>.D.

One volume, 8vo, ----- $2.50
This work, now offered to the public, is the growth of
more than thirty years' practical experience in teaching.
While primarily designed for professional readers, it will be
found to contain much that will be of interest to thoughtful
laymen. The writings of a master of style of broad and
catholic mind are always fascinating ; in the present case the
wealth of appropriate and pointed illustration renders this
doubly the case. CRITIC \ Jj NOTICES.
"In the range of "Protestant homiletieal literature, we venture to affiim that its equal
cannot be found for a conscientious, scholarly, and exhaustive treatment of the theory
and practice of preaching. * * * To the treatment of his subject Dr. Phelps brings
su;h qualifications as very few men now living possess. His is one of those delicate and
sensitive natures which are instinctively critical, and yet full of what Matthew Arnold
liappily calls sweet reasonableness. * * * To this characteristic graciousness of
nature Dr. Phelps adds a style which is preeminently adapted to his special work. It is
nervous, epigrammatic, and racy." — The Examiner and Chronicle.
" It is a wise, spirited, practical and devout treatise upon a topic of the utmost con
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but not redundant, rich in the fruits of experience, yet thoroughly timely and current,
and it easily takes the very first rank among volumes of its class.— The Congrega-
tionalist. "The layman will find it delightful reading, and ministers of all denominations and
of all degrees of experience will rejoice in it as a veritable mine of wisdom." — Neiv York
Christian Advocate.
"The volume is to be commended to young men as a superb example of the art in
which it aims to instruct them." — The Independent.
"The reading of it is a mental tonic. The preacher cannot but feel often his heart
burning within him under its influence. We could wish it might be in the hands of every
theological student and of every pastor," — The Watchman.
"Thirty-one years of experience as a professor of homlletics in a leading American
Theological Seminary by a man of genius, learning and power, are condensed into this
valuable volume."— Christian Intelligencer.
" Our professional readers will make a great mistake if they suppose this volume is
simply a heavy, monotonous discussion, chiefly adnpted to the class-room. It is a
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Gates Into tPsalm-Country

BY

Rev. MARVIN R. VINCENT, D.D.

One Volume, 12mo, ------ $1.50.
CRITICAL NOTICES.
" The book may be cordially recommended to the perusal of young
men especially, who will find in it the soundest views of life and the most
elevated religious conceptions, enforced with equal kindness, eloquence,
and power." — New York Tribune.
"As meditations upon that portion of Scripture designed for popular
rather than critical reading, they are delightful. The thought is warm and
earnest, and, like the Psalms themselves, these studies suggested by theiw
deal with the common experiences of life." — The Churchman.
" In the execution of his design, Dr. Vincent has shown rare skill and
ability. The work seems to us to be a model of its kind — scholarly, thought
ful, enriched but not encumbered by the results of the best learning, devout
and cheerful in spirit, practical, sensible, and like the Psalms themselves,
full of Christ and the GospeL The style is singularly clear, racy, and
incisive." — New York Evangelist.
" They are rich in spiritual counsel, graceful in style, happy in thought
and illustration. The book is meant for the average Bible-reader, rather
than for the scholar, and any devout Christian loving the Bible, will find in
it an abundance of interesting and suggestive thought. "—Boston Watchman.
" The treatment is deeply spiritual, the tone affectionate and earnest,
and the style clear, direct, and often picturesque ; and we are sure that
many a Christian will find in the volume both instruction and solace, and
varying helps for varying times of need." — Boston Congregationalist.
"They who thoughtfully read these pages find themselves not only
illumined and refreshed by the immediate subject, but stimulated to make
the Psalter fruitful under their own meditative study. "
— New York Christian Intelligencer.
" Like the different parts of a beautiful garden, or the successive
strains of sweet music, these discourses charm the soul and fill it with
rupturous emotions. They are at the same time most helpful in the way
of right living."— Lutheran Quarterly.
"Christians of every name will find strength and comfort in these
essays, which are as sweet as they are simple, and as solid as they are
unpretentious."— The Living Church.

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Old Faiths in New Light
BY
NEWMAN SMYTH,
Author of tl The Religious Feeling^

One Volume, 12mo, cloth, - $l.BO.

This work aims to meet a growing need by gathering materials oi
faith which have been quarried by many specialists in their own depart
ments of Biblical study and scientific research, and by endeavoring to
put these results of recent scholarship together according to one leading
idea in a modern construction of old faith. Mr. Smyth's book is remark
able no less for its learning and wide acquaintance with prevailing modes
of thought, than for its fairness and judicial spirit.

CRITICAL NOTICES.

" The author is logical and therefore clear. He also is master of a. singularly
attractive literary style. Few writers, whose books come under our eye, succeed in
treating metaphysical and philosophical themes in a manner at once so forcible and so
interesting. We speak strongly about this book, because we think it exceptionally
valuable. It is just such a book as ought to be in the hands of all intelligent men and
women who have received an education sufficient to enable them to read intelligently
about such subjects as are discussed herein, and the number of such persons is very
much larger than some people think." — Congregationalist.
" We have before had occasion to notice the force and elegance of this writer, and
his new book shows scholarship even more advanced. * * * When we say, with
some knowledge of how much is undertaken by the sa>ing, that there is probably no book
of moderate compass which combines m greater degree clearness of style with profundity
of subject and of reasoning, we fulfil simple duty to an author whose success is all the
more marked and gratifying from the multitude of kindred attempts with which we have
been flooded from all sorts of pens." — Presbyterian.
"The book impresses us as clear, cogent and helpful, as vigorous in style as it is
honest in purpose, and calculated to render valuable service in showing that religion and
science are not antagonists but allies, and that both lead up toward the one God. We
fancy that a good many readers of this volume will entertain toward the author a feeling
of sincere personal gratitude." — Boston Journal.
" On the whole, we do not know of a book which may better be commended to
thoughtful persons whose minds have been unsettled by objections of modern thought.
It will be found a wholesome work for every minister in the land to read."
— Examiner and Chronicle.
14 It is a longtime since we have met with an abler or fresher theological treatise
than Old Faiths in New Light, by Newman Smyth, an author who in his work on
"The Religious Feeling" has already shown ability as an expounder of Christian
doctrine." —Independent.

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