,,some ,,christian ,,convictions ,,other ,,books ,,by ,,the ,,same ,,author ,,the ,,creed ,,of ,,jesus ,,and ,,other ,,sermons ,,social ,,aspects ,,of ,,the ,,cross ,,hymns ,,of ,,the ,,kingdom ,,of ,,god ,,edited ,,by ,h4,s4 ,,coffin ,,and ,a4,w4 ,,vernon ,the ,same for ,use in ,baptist ,churches ,,rev4 ,,charles ,w4 ,,gilkey1 ,co-editor ,,in ,a ,,day ,,of ,,social ,,rebuilding 7,second printing7 ,,university ,,sermons 7,second printing7 ,,the ,,ten ,,commandments ,,with ,a ,,christian ,,application ,,to ,,present ,,conditions ,some ,christian ,convictions ,a ,,practical ,,restatement ,,in ,,terms ,,of ,,present-,,day ,,thinking ,,by ,,henry ,,sloane ,,coffin ,,minister ,,in ,,the ,,madison ,,avenue ,,presbyterian ,,church ,,and ,,associate ,,professor ,,in ,,the ,,union ,,theological ,,seminary1 ,,new ,,york ,,city ,non enim omnis qui cogitat credit sed cogitat omnis qui credit1 et credendo sogitat et cogitando credit4--,,augustine ,,copyright1 #aiae ,,by ,,yale ,,university ,,press ,first published1 #aiae ,second printing1 #aiae ,third printing1 #aiaf ,fourth printing1 #aibj ,,to ,d4,p4,c4 ,,sociae ,,rei ,,humanae ,,atque ,,divinae ,,preface ,bishop ,burnet1 in his ,history of ,his ,own ,time1 writes of ,sir ,harry ,vane1 that he belonged to the sect called ',seekers1' as being satisfied with no form of opinion yet extant1 but waiting for future discoveries4 ,the sect of ,sir ,harry ,vane is extraordinarily numerous in our day2 and at various times ,i have been asked to address groups of its adherents1 both among college students and among thoughtful persons outside university circles1 upon the fundamental beliefs of ,christianity4 ,some of my listeners had been trained in the ,church1 but had thrown off their allegiance to it2 others had been reared in ,judaism or in agnosticism2 others considered themselves honorary members of various religious communions--interested and sympathetic1 but uncommitted and irresponsible2 more were would-be ,christians somewhat restive intellectually under the usual statements of ,christian truths4 ,it was for minds of this type that the following lectures were prepared4 ,they are not an attempt at a systematic exposition of ,christian doctrine1 but an effort to restate a few essential ,christian convictions in terms that are intelligible and persuasive to persons who have felt the force of the various intellectual movements of recent years4 ,they do not pretend to make any contribution to scholarship2 they aim at the less difficult1 but perhaps scarcely less necessary middleman's task of bringing the results of the study of scholars to men and women who 7to borrow a phrase of ,augustine's7 believe in thinking and wish to think in believing4 ,they may be criticised by those who1 satisfied with the more traditional ways of stating the historic ,christian faith1 will dislike their discrimination between some elements in that faith as more1 and others as less1 certain4 ,i would reply that they are intentionally but a partial presentation of the ,gospel for a particular purpose2 and further ,i find my position entirely covered by the words of ,richard ,baxter in his ,reliquiae3 ,among ,truths certain in themselves1 all are not equally certain unto me2 and even of the ,mysteries of the ,gospel1 ,i must needs say with ,mr4 ,richard ,hooker1 that whatever men pretend1 the subjective ,certainty cannot go beyond the objective ,evidence3 for it is caused thereby as the print on the ,wax is caused by that on the ,seal4 ,i am not so foolish as to pretend my certainty to be greater than it is1 merely because it is a dishonour to be less certain4 ,they that will begin all their ,certainty with that of the ,truth of the ,scripture1 as the ,principium ,cognoscendi1 may meet me at the same end2 but they must give me leave to undertake to prove to a ,heathen or ,infidel1 the ,being of ,god and the necessity of ,holiness1 even while he yet denieth the ,truth of ,scripture1 and in order to his believing it to be true4 ,in preparing the lectures for publication ,i have allowed the spoken style in which they were written to remain2 several of the chapters1 however1 have been somewhat enlarged4 ,i am indebted to two of my colleagues1 ,professor ,james ,e4 ,frame and ,professor ,a4,c4 ,mc,giffert1 for valuable suggestions in two of the chapters1 and especially to my friend1 the ,rev4 ,w4 ,russell ,bowie1 ,d4,d41 of ,st4 ,paul's ,church1 ,richmond1 ,va41 who kindly read over the manuscript4 ,,contents ,introduction--,some ,movements of ,thought in the ,nineteenth ,century ,which ,have ,affected ,christian ,beliefs #a ,chapter #a4 ,religion #bc ,chapter #b4 ,the ,bible #di ,chapter #c4 ,jesus ,christ #gh ,chapter #d4 ,god #aah ,chapter #e4 ,the ,cross #adj ,chapter #f4 ,the ,new ,life--,individual and ,social #afj ,chapter #g4 ,the ,church #aha ,chapter #h4 ,the ,christian ,life ,everlasting #bje ,,some ,,christian ,,convictions ,,introduction ,,some ,,movements ,,of ,,thought ,,in ,,the ,,nineteenth ,,century ,,which ,,have ,,affected ,,christian ,,beliefs ,when ,king ,solomon's ,temple was a-building1 we are told that the stone was made ready at the quarry1 and there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool of iron heard in the house4 ,the structures of intellectual beliefs which ,christians have reared in the various centuries to house their religious faith have been built1 for the most part1 out of materials they found already prepared by other movements of the human mind4 ,it has been so in our own day1 and a brief glance at some of the quarries and the blocks they have yielded may help us to understand the construction of the forms of ,christian convictions as they appear in many minds4 ,some of the quarries named have been worked for more than a century2 but they were rich to begin with1 and they have not yet been exhausted4 ,some will not seem distinctive veins of rock1 but new openings into the old bed4 ,many blocks in their present form cannot be certainly assigned to a specific quarry2 they no longer bear an identifying mark4 ,nor can we hope to mention more than a very few of the principal sources whence the materials have been taken4 ,the plan of the temple and the arrangement of the stones are the work of the ,spirit of the ,christian ,faith1 which always erects a dwelling of its own out of the thought of each age4 ,romanticism has been one rich source of material4 ,this literary movement that swept over ,germany1 ,britain1 ,france and ,scandinavia at the opening of the ,nineteenth ,century1 itself influenced to some degree by the religious revival of the ,german ,pietists and the ,english ,evangelicals1 was a release of the emotions1 and gave a completer expression to all the elements in human nature4 ,it brought a new feeling towards nature as alive with a spiritual ,presence-- ,something far more deeply interfused ,whose dwelling is the light of setting suns1 ,and the round ocean1 and the living air1 ,and the blue sky1 and in the mind of man3 ,a motion and a spirit1 that impels ,all thinking things1 all objects of all thought1 ,and rolls through all things4 ,it baptized men into a new sense of wonder2 everything became for them miraculous1 instinct with ,god4 ,it quickened the imagination1 and sent writers1 like ,sir ,walter ,scott1 to make the past live again on the pages of historical novels4 ,sights and sounds became symbols of an inner ,reality3 nature was to ,emerson an everlasting hint2 and to ,carlyle1 who never tires of repeating that the ,highest cannot be spoken in words1 all visible things were emblems1 the universe and man symbols of the ineffable ,god4 ,to the output of this quarry we may attribute the following elements in the structure of our present ,christian thought3 7#a7 ,that religion is something more and deeper than belief and conduct1 that it is an experience of man's whole nature1 and consists largely in feelings and intuitions which we can but imperfectly rationalize and express4 ,george ,eliot's ,adam ,bede is a typical instance of this movement1 when he says3 ,i look at it as if the doctrines was like finding names for your feelings4 7#b7 ,that ,god is immanent in ,his world1 so that ,he works as truly from within as from above4 ,he is not external to nature and man1 but penetrates and inspires them4 ,while an earlier theology thought of ,him as breaking into the course of nature at rare intervals in miracles1 to us ,he is active in everything that occurs2 and the feeding of the five thousand with five loaves and two fishes1 while it may be more startling1 is not more divine than the process of feeding them with bread and fish produced and caught in the usual way4 ,men used to speak of ,deity and humanity as two distinct and different things that were joined in ,jesus ,christ2 no man is to us without the inspiration of the ,almighty1 and ,christ is not so much ,god and man1 as ,god in man4 7#c7 ,that the ,divine is represented to us by symbols that speak to more parts of our nature than to the intellect alone4 ,horace ,bushnell entitled an essay that still repays careful reading1 ,the ,gospel a ,gift to the ,imagination4 ,one of our chief complaints with the historic creeds and confessions is that they have turned the poetry 7in which religious experience most naturally expresses itself7 into prose1 rhetoric into logic1 and have lost much of its content in the process4 ,jesus is to the mind with a sense for the ,divine the great symbol or sacrament of the ,invisible ,god2 but to treat ,his divinity as a formula of logic1 and attempt to demonstrate it1 as one might a proposition in geometry1 is to lose that which divinity is to those who have experienced contact with the living ,god through ,jesus4 ,a second quarry1 which ,christianity itself did much to open1 and from which later it brought supplies to rebuild its own temple of thought1 is ,humanitarianism4 ,beginning in the ,eighteenth ,century with its struggle for the rights of man1 this movement has gone on to our own day1 setting free the slaves1 reforming our prisons1 protesting against war and cruelty1 protecting women and children from economic exploitation1 and devoting itself to all that renders human beings healthier and happier4 ,it found itself at odds with current theological opinions at a number of points4 ,preachers of religion were emphasizing the total depravity of man2 and humanitarians brought to the fore the humanity of ,jesus1 and bade them see the possibilities of every man in ,christ4 ,they were teaching the endless torment of the impenitent wicked in hell2 and with its new conceptions of the proper treatment of criminals by human justice1 it inveighed against so barbarous a view of ,god4 ,they proclaimed an interpretation of ,calvary that made ,christ's death the expiation of man's sin and the reconciliation of an offended ,deity2 in ,mc,leod ,campbell in ,scotland and ,horace ,bushnell in ,new ,england1 the ,atonement was restated1 in forms that did not revolt men's consciences1 as the vicarious penitence of the one sensitive ,conscience which creates a new moral world1 or as the unveiling of the suffering heart of ,god1 who bears ,his children's sins1 as ,jesus bore ,his brethren's transgressions on the cross4 ,they were insisting that the ,bible was throughout the ,word of ,god1 and that the commands to slaughter ,israel's enemies attributed to ,him1 and the prayers for vengeance uttered by vindictive psalmists1 were true revelations of ,his mind2 and ,humanitarianism refused to worship in the heavens a character less good than it was trying to produce in men on earth4 ,these men of sensitive conscience did for our generation what the ,greek philosophers of the ,fifth ,century ,b4,c4 did for theirs--they made the thought of ,god moral3 ,god is never in any way unrighteous--,he is perfect righteousness2 and he of us who is the most righteous is most like ,him 7,plato1 ,theaet4 #agf;c74 ,from this movement of thought our chief gains have been3 7#a7 ,a view of ,god as good as the best of men2 and that means a ,god as good as ,jesus of ,nazareth4 ,older theologians talked much of ,god's decrees2 we speak oftener of ,his character4 7#b7 ,the emphasis upon the humanity of ,jesus and of our ability and duty to become like ,him4 ,spurred by ,romanticism's interest in imaginatively reconstructing history1 many ,lives of ,christ have been written2 and it is no exaggeration to say that ,jesus is far better known and understood at present than ,he has been since the days of the evangelists4 ,a third quarry is the ,physical ,sciences4 ,as its blocks were taken out most ,christians were convinced that they could never be employed for the temple of faith4 ,they seemed fitted to express the creed of materialism1 not of the ,spirit4 ,science was interested in finding the beginnings of things2 its greatest book during the century bore the title1 ,the ,origin of ,species2 and the lowly forms in which religion and human life itself appeared at their start seemed to degrade them4 ,law was found dominant everywhere2 and this was felt to do away with the possibility of prayer and miracle1 even of a personal ,god4 ,its investigations into nature exposed a world of plunder and prey1 where1 as ,mill put it1 all the things for which men are hanged or imprisoned are everyday performances4 ,the scientific view of the world differed totally from that which was in the minds of devout people1 and with that which was in the minds of the writers of the ,bible4 ,a large part of the last century witnessed a constant warfare between theologians and naturalists1 with many attempted reconciliations4 ,today thinking people see that the battle was due to mistakes on both sides2 that there is a scientific and a religious approach to ,truth2 and that strife ensues only when either attempts to block the other's path4 ,charles ,darwin wisely said1 ,i do not attack ,moses1 and ,i think ,moses can take care of himself4 ,both physicists and theologians were wrong when they thought of nature as something fixed1 so that it is possible to state what is natural and what supernatural2 nature is plastic1 responding all the while to new stimuli1 and the title of a recent book1 ,creative ,evolution1 indicates a changed scientific and philosophical attitude towards the world4 ,from this scientific movement we shall find in our present ,christian convictions1 with much else1 these items3 7#a7 ,the conception of the unity of all life4 ,when ,goethe in a flash of insight saw the structure of the entire tree in a single leaf1 and of the complete skeleton of the animal in the skull of a sheep1 he gave the mind of man a new assurance of the unity that pervades the whole creation4 ,and when scientific men asserted the universality of law1 they made it forever impossible for us to divide life into separate districts--the secular and the sacred1 the natural and the supernatural4 ,principles discovered in man's spirit in its responses to truth1 to love1 to companionship1 to justice1 hold good of his response to ,god4 ,there is a law of the spirit of life in ,christ ,jesus2 and it must be ascertained and worked with4 ,but laws are recognized as our labels for the discoveries we have made of ,god's usual methods of working1 and they do not stand between us and ,him1 barring our personal fellowship with ,him in prayer1 nor between ,him and ,his world1 excluding ,his new and completer entrances into the world's life4 7#b7 ,the thought of development or evolution as the process by which religious ideas and institutions1 like all other forms of life1 live and grow in a changing world4 7#c7 ,the abandonment of the attempt to prove ,god's existence and attributes from what can be seen in ,his world4 ,we cannot expect to find in the conclusion more than the premises contain1 and nature as it now is can never yield a personal and moral1 much less a ,christian1 ,god4 ,and not from nature up to nature's ,god1 ,but down from nature's ,god look nature through4 7#d7 ,a readjustment of our view of the ,bible1 which frankly recognizes that its scientific ideas are those of the ages in which its various writers lived1 and cannot be authoritative for us today4 7#e7 ,a larger view of ,god1 commensurate with the older1 bigger1 more complex and more orderly world the physical sciences have brought to light4 ,a fourth source of materials1 which is but another vein of this scientific quarry1 is the historical and literary investigation of the ,bible4 ,this has not been so recently opened as is commonly supposed1 but has been worked at intervals throughout the history of the ,church1 and notably at the ,protestant ,reformation4 ,luther carefully reexamined the books of the ,bible1 and declared that it was a matter of indifference to him whether ,moses was the author of the ,pentateuch1 pronounced the ,books of the ,chronicles less accurate historically than the ,books of the ,kings1 considered the present form of the books of ,isaiah1 ,jeremiah and ,hosea probably due to later hands1 and distinguished in the ,new ,testament chief books from those of less moment4 ,calvin1 too1 discussed the authorship of some of the books1 and suggested ,barnabas as the writer of the ,epistle to the ,hebrews4 ,but the ,nineteenth ,century witnessed a very thorough application to the ,scriptures of the same methods of historical and literary criticism to which all ancient documents were subjected4 ,the result was the discovery of the composite character of many books1 the rearrangement of the ,biblical literature in the probable order of its writing1 and the use of the documents as historical sources1 not so much for the periods they profess to describe1 as for those in and for which they were written4 ,we can assign the following elements in our contemporary ,christian thought to these scholarly investigations3 7#a7 ,the conception of revelation as progressive--a mode of thought that falls in with the idea of development or evolution4 7#b7 ,the distinction between the ,bible as literature1 with the history1 science1 ethics and theology of its age1 and the religious experience of which it is the record1 and in which we find the ,self-disclosure of ,god4 7#c7 ,an historical rather than a speculative ,christ4 ,we do not begin 7however we may end7 with a ,figure in the heavens1 the eternal ,son of ,god1 but with ,jesus of ,nazareth4 ,this method of approaching ,him reinforces the emphasis on ,his manhood which came from ,humanitarianism4 ,christianity1 like the fabled giant1 ,antaeus1 has always drawn fresh strength for its battles from touching its feet to the ground in the ,jesus of historic fact4 ,it was so when ,francis of ,assisi recovered ,his figure in the ,thirteenth ,century1 and when ,luther rediscovered ,him in the ,sixteenth4 ,there can be little doubt but that fresh spiritual forces are to be liberated1 indeed are already at work1 from this new contact with the ,jesus of history4 ,still another opening in the scientific quarry is ,psychology4 ,the last century saw great advances in the investigation of the mind of man1 which revolutionized educational methods1 gave new tools to novelists and historians1 and threw new light on every aspect of the human spirit4 ,psychologists turned their attention to religion1 and have done much to chart out the movements of man's nature in his response to his highest inspirations4 ,they have altered methods of ,biblical education in our ,sunday ,schools1 have shown us helpful and harmful ways of presenting religious appeals1 and have given us scientific standards to test the value of the materials employed in public worship4 ,we may ascribe the following elements in our ,christian thought to them3 7#a7 ,the normal character of the religious experience4 ,faith had been regarded as the product of deception or as an aberration of the human spirit2 it now is established as a natural element in a fully developed personality4 ,a psychological literary critic1 ,sainte ,beuve1 writes3 ,you may not cease to be a skeptic after reading ,pascal2 but you must cease to treat believers with contempt4 ,william ,james has given us a great quantity of ,varieties of ,religious ,experience1 and he deals with all of them respectfully4 7#b7 ,the part played by the ,will in religious experience4 ,man wills to live1 and in his struggle to conserve his life and the things that are dearer to him than life1 he feels the need of assistance higher than any he can find in his world4 ,he wills to believe1 and discovers an answer to his faith in the ,unseen4 ,this is a reaffirmation of the definition1 faith is the giving substance to things hoped for1 a test of things not seen4 ,and the student of religious psychology has now vastly more material on which to work1 because the last century opened up still another quarry for investigation in ,comparative ,religion4 ,an ,eighteenth ,century writer usually divided all religions into true and false2 today we are more likely to classify them as more and less developed4 ,investigators find in the varied faiths of mankind many striking resemblances in custom1 worship and belief4 ,it is not possible to draw sharp lines and declare that within one faith alone all is light1 and within the rest all is darkness4 ,everything that grows out of man's experience of the ,unseen is interesting1 and no thought or practice that has seemed to satisfy the spiritual craving of any human being is without significance4 ,our own faith is often clarified by comparing it with that of some supposedly unrelated religion4 ,many a usage and conviction in ethnic cults supplies a suggestive parallel to something in our ,bible4 ,the development of theology or of ritual in some other religion throws light on similar developments in ,christianity4 ,the widespread sense of the ,superhuman confirms our assurance of the reality of ,god4 ,to the philosopher1 wrote ,max ,mueller1 the existence of ,god may seem to rest on a syllogism2 in the eyes of the historian it rests on the whole evolution of human thought4 ,under varied names1 and with very differing success in their relations with the ,unseen1 men have had fellowship with the one living ,god4 ,it was this unity of religion amid many religions that the ,vedic seers were striving to express when they wrote1 ,men call ,him ,indra1 ,mitra1 ,varuna1 ,agni2 sages name variously ,him who is but ,one4 ,this study of comparative religion has gained for us3 7#a7 ,a much clearer apprehension of what is distinctive in ,christianity1 and a much more intelligent understanding of the completeness of its answer to religious needs which were partially met by other faiths4 7#b7 ,a new attitude towards the missionary problem1 so that ,christians go not to destroy but to fulfil1 to recognize that in the existing religious experience of any people1 however crude1 ,god has already made some disclosure of ,himself1 that in the leaders and sages of their faith ,he has written a sort of ,old ,testament to which the ,christian ,gospel is to be added1 that men may come to their full selves as children of ,god in ,jesus ,christ4 ,a final quarry1 which promises to yield1 perhaps1 more that is of value to faith than any of those named1 is the ,social ,movement4 ,in the closing years of the ,eighteenth ,century social relations were looked on as voluntary and somewhat questionable productions of individuals1 which had not existed in the original state of nature where all men were supposed to have been free and equal4 ,the closing years of the ,nineteenth ,century found men thinking of society as an organism1 and talking of social evolution4 ,this conception of society altered men's theories of economics1 of history1 of government4 ,nor did these newer theories remain in the classrooms of universities or the meetings of scientists2 they became the platforms of great political parties1 like the ,socialists in ,germany and ,france1 and the ,labor ,party in ,britain4 ,men are thinking1 and what is more feeling1 today1 in social terms2 they are revising legislation1 producing plays and novels1 and organizing countless associations in the interest of social advance4 ,we are still too much in the thick of the movement to estimate its results1 and we can but tentatively appraise its contributions to our ,christian thought4 7#a7 ,it has given men a new interest in religion4 ,the intricacies of social problems predispose men to value an invisible ,ally1 and such prepossession is1 as ,herbert ,spencer said1 nine-points of belief4 ,the social character of the ,christian religion1 with its ,father-,god and its ideals of the ,kingdom1 gives it a peculiar charm to those whose hearts have been touched with a passion for social righteousness4 ,a recent historian of the thought of the last century1 after reviewing its scientific and philosophic tendencies1 makes the remark that an increasing number of thinkers of our age expect the next step in the solution of the great problems of life to be taken by practical religion4 7#b7 ,it has made us realize that religion is essentially social4 ,men's souls are born of the social religious consciousness2 are nourished by contact with the society of believers1 in fellowship with whom they grow a larger soul1 and find their destiny in a social religious purpose--the ,kingdom of ,god4 7#c7 ,it has taught us that religious susceptibility is intimately connected with social status4 ,spiritual movements have always found some relatively unimpressionable classes4 ,in primitive ,christian times not many well-educated1 not many influential1 not many nobly born were called2 and in our own age the two least responsive strata in society are the topmost and the bottom-most--those so well off that they often feel no pressure of social obligation1 and those without the sense of social responsibility because they have nothing4 ,it is the interest of spiritual religion to do away with both these strata1 placing social burdens on the former and imposing social privileges on the latter1 for responsibility proves to be the chief sacrament of religion4 7#d7 ,it has brought the ,church to a new place of prominence in ,christian thought4 ,men realize their indebtedness for their own spiritual life to the collective religious experience of the past1 represented in the ,church2 their need of its fellowship for their growth in faith and usefulness2 and the necessity of organized religious effort1 if society is to be leavened with the ,spirit of ,christ4 ,church membership becomes a duty for every socially minded ,christian4 ,and the social purpose renders ,church unity a pressing task for the existing ,christian communions4 ,john ,bunyan's pilgrim could make his progress from the ,city of ,destruction to the ,new ,jerusalem with a few like-minded companions2 but a ,christian whose aim is the transformation of the ,city of ,destruction into the ,city of ,god needs the cooeperation of every fellow believer4 ,denominational exclusiveness becomes intolerable to the ,christian who finds a whole world's redemption laid on his conscience4 7#e7 ,it demands a social reinterpretation of many of the ,church's doctrines1 a reinterpretation which gives them richer meaning4 ,the vicarious atonement of ,jesus ,christ1 for example1 becomes intelligible and kindling to those who have a social conscience and know something of bearing the guilt of others2 and the ,new ,testament teaching of the ,holy ,spirit is much more real and clear to those who have felt the social spirit of our day lifting them out of themselves into the life of the community1 quickening their consciences and sympathies1 and giving them a sense of brotherhood with men and women very unlike themselves4 ,vinet wrote a generation ago1 ,l',esprit ,saint c'est ,dieu social4 ,we have by no means exhausted the list of quarries from which stones1 and stones already prepared for our purpose1 can be and are taken for the edifice of our ,christian convictions4 ,the life of men with ,christ in ,god preserves its continuity through the ages2 it has to interpret itself to every generation in new forms of thought4 ,under old monarchies it was the custom on the accession of a sovereign to call in the coins of his predecessor and remint them with the new king's effigy4 ,the silver and the gold remain1 but the impress on them is different4 ,the reminting of our ,christian convictions is a somewhat similar process3 the precious ore of the religious experience continues1 but it bears the stamp of the current ruling ideas in men's view of the world4 ,but lifeless metal1 however valuable1 cannot offer a parallel to the vital experiences of the human spirit4 ,the remolding of the forms of its convictions does more than conserve the same quantity of experience2 a more commodious temple of thought enables the ,spirit of faith to expand the souls of men within4 ,in theology by altering boundaries we often gain territory4 ,we not only make the map of our soul's life with ,god clearer to ourselves1 so that we live within its confines more intelligently2 we actually increase the size of the map1 and possess a larger life with ,god4 ,,chapter ,i ,,religion ,religion is experience4 ,it is the response of man's nature to his highest inspirations4 ,it is his intercourse with ,being above himself and his world4 ,religion is normal experience4 ,its enemies call it an indelible superstition1 and its friends assert that man is born believing4 ,that a few persons1 here and there1 appear to lack the sense for the ,invisible no more argues against its naturalness than that occasionally a man is found to be colorblind or without an ear for music4 ,mr4 ,lecky has written1 ,that religious instincts are as truly part of our natures as are our appetites and our nerves is a fact which all history establishes1 and which forms one of the strongest proofs of the reality of that unseen world to which the soul of man continually tends4 ,some have sought to discredit religion as a surviving childishness4 ,a baby is dependent upon its parents2 and babyish spirits1 they say1 never outgrow this sense of dependence1 but transfer that on which they rely from the seen to the unseen4 ,while1 however1 other childish things1 like ghosts and fairies1 can be put away1 man seems to be incurably religious1 and the most completely devout natures1 although childlike in their attitude towards ,god1 give no impression of immaturity4 ,when one compares ,jesus of ,nazareth with the leaders in ,state and ,church in the ,jerusalem of ,his day1 ,he seems the adult and they the children4 ,and further1 those who attempt to destroy religion as an irrational survival address themselves to the task of a ,sisyphus4 ,although apparently successful today1 their work will have to be done over again tomorrow4 ,on no other battlefield is it necessary so many times to slay the slain4 ,again and again religion has been pronounced obsolete1 but passing through the midst of its detractors it serenely goes its way4 ,when men laboriously erect its sepulchre1 faith1 ,like a child from the womb1 like a ghost from the tomb1 ,will arise and unbuild it again4 ,its indestructible vitality is evidence that it is an inherent element in human nature1 that the unbeliever is a subnormal man4 ,religion is an affair of the whole personality4 ,some have emphasized the part feeling plays in it4 ,pascal describes faith as ,god felt by the heart1 and ,schleiermacher finds the essence of religion in the sense of utter dependence4 ,many of us recognize ourselves as most consciously religious in that serene and blessed mood ,in which the affections gently lead us on4 ,our highest inspirations commonly come to us in a wistful yearning to be like the ,most ,high1 in a sense of reconciliation with ,him1 in a glowing enthusiasm for ,his cause1 in the calm assurance of ,his guidance and protection1 in the enlargement of our natures as they become aware of ,his indwelling4 ,we feel that we are greater than we know4 ,others give prominence to the role of the intellect4 ,god is the most reasonable explanation of the facts of life4 ,religious truths and men's minds harmonize as though they had been made for each other4 ,the thought of ,deity gives them perfect mental satisfaction4 ,dante tells us3 ,the life of my heart1 that of my inward self1 was wont to be a sweet thought which went many times to the feet of ,god1 that is to say in thought ,i contemplated the kingdom of the ,blessed4 ,and a present-day ,english thinker1 ,mr4 ,f4,h4 ,bradley1 writes3 ,all of us1 ,i presume1 more or less are led beyond the region of ordinary facts4 ,some in one way and some in another1 we seem to touch and have communion with what is beyond the visible world4 ,in various manners we find something higher which both supports and humbles1 both chastens and transports us4 ,and1 with various persons1 the intellectual effort to understand the universe is a principal way of their experiencing the ,deity4 ,still others lay the chief stress upon the will4 ,man wills to live2 but in a universe like ours where he is pitted against overwhelming forces1 he is driven to seek allies1 and in his quest for them he wills to believe in a ,god as good as the best in himself and better4 ,faith is an adventure2 ,clement of ,alexandria called it an enterprise of noble daring to take our way to ,god4 ,we trust that the ,supreme ,power in the world is akin to the highest within us1 to the highest we discover anywhere1 and will be our confederate in enabling us to achieve that highest4 ,kant found religion through response to the imperative voice of conscience1 in the recognition of our duties as divine commands4 ,pasteur1 in the address which he delivered on taking his seat in the ,academie ,francaise1 declared3 ,blessed is he who carries within himself a ,god1 an ideal1 and who obeys it2 ideal of art1 ideal of science1 ideal of the gospel virtues1 therein lie the springs of great thoughts and great actions2 they all reflect light from the ,infinite4 ,but while all these views are correct in their affirmations1 it is perilous to exalt one element in religious experience lest we slight others of equal moment4 ,there is danger in being fractionally religious4 ,no man really finds ,god until he seeks ,him with his whole nature4 ,some persons are sentimentally believers and mentally skeptics2 they stand at the door of the sanctuary with their hearts in and their heads out4 ,writing as an old man1 ,coleridge said of his youth1 ,my head was with ,spinoza1 though my whole heart remained with ,paul and ,john4 ,an unreasoning faith is sure to end in folly2 it is a mind all fire without fuel4 ,a true religious experience1 like a coral island1 requires both warmth and light in which to rise4 ,an unintelligent belief is in constant danger of being shattered4 ,hardy1 in sketching the character of ,alec ,d',uberville1 explains the eclipse of his faith by saying1 ,reason had had nothing to do with his conversion1 and the drop of logic that ,tess had let fall into the sea of his enthusiasm served to chill its effervescence to stagnation4 ,others1 at the opposite extreme1 are merely convinced without being converted4 ,they are appealed to by the idea of ,god1 rather than led into actual fellowship of life with ,him4 ,a striking instance is the historian1 ,edward ,gibbon1 who1 at the age of sixteen1 unaided by the arguments of a priest and without the aesthetic enticements of the ,mass1 was brought by his reading to embrace ,roman ,catholicism1 and had himself baptized by a ,jesuit father in ,june1 #agec4 ,by ,christmas of #aged he had as thoughtfully read himself out of all sympathy with ,rome4 ,he was undoubtedly sincere throughout1 but his belief and subsequent unbelief were purely matters of judgment4 ,the bases of our faith lie deeper than our intelligence4 ,we reach ,god by a passionate compulsion4 ,we seek ,him with our reason only because we have already been found of ,him in our intuitions4 ,still others use their brains busily in their religion1 but confine them within carefully restricted limits4 ,outside these their faith is an unreasoning assumption4 ,their mental activity spends itself on the details of doctrine1 while they never try to make clear to themselves the foundations of their faith4 ,they have keen eyes for theological niceties1 but wear orthodox blinders that shut out all disturbing facts4 ,cardinal ,newman1 for example1 declared that dogma was the essential ingredient of his faith1 and that religion as a mere sentiment is a dream and a mockery4 ,but he was so afraid of the all-corroding1 all-dissolving skepticism of the intellect in religious inquiries that he placed the safeguard of faith in a right state of heart1 and refused to trust his mind to think its way through to ,god4 ,martineau justly complained that his certainties are on the surface1 and his uncertainties below4 ,we are only safe as believers when1 besides keeping the heart clean1 we press bold to the tether's end ,allotted to this life's intelligence4 ,those1 again1 who insist that in religion the willingness is all1 forget that it seems no more in our power to believe than it is to love4 ,we apparently fall into the one as we do into the other2 we do not choose to believe1 we cannot help believing4 ,and unless a man's mind is satisfied with the reasonableness of faith1 he cannot make believe4 ,romanes1 who certainly wished for fellowship with the ,christian ,god as ardently as any man1 confessed3 ,even the simplest act of will in regard to religion--that of prayer--has not been performed by me for at least a quarter of a century1 simply because it has seemed so impossible to pray1 as it were1 hypothetically1 that much as ,i have always desired to be able to pray1 ,i cannot will the attempt4 ,christianity has ever laid stress upon its intellectual appeal4 ,by the manifestation of the truth its missionaries have1 from ,paul's day1 tried to commend themselves4 ,we do not hear of ,evidence ,societies among non-,christian faiths4 ,when the ,emperor ,julian attempted to restore the ancient paganism1 he did not argue for its superior credibility1 but contented himself with abusing the creed of ,christians and extolling the beauty of the rituals of the religion it had supplanted4 ,but the propaganda of the gospel of ,jesus is invariably one of persuasion1 convincing and confirming men's minds with its truth4 ,it would be as false1 however1 to neglect the part a man's willingness has in his faith4 ,to believe in the ,christian ,god demands a severe moral effort4 ,it can never be an easy thing to rely on love as the ultimate wisdom and power in the universe4 ,the will to believe1 if not everything1 is all but everything1 in predisposing us to listen to the arguments of the faith and in rendering us inflammable to its kindling emotions4 ,but no man can be truly religious who is not in communion with ,god with as much as in him is4 ,somebody has finely said that it does not take much of a man to be a ,christian1 but it takes all there is of him4 ,an early ,african ,christian1 ,arnobius1 tells us that we must cling to ,god with all our senses1 so to speak4 ,and ,thomas ,carlyle gave us a picture of the ideal believer when he wrote of his father that he was religious with the consent of his whole faculties4 ,it is faith's ability to engross a man's entire self1 going down to the very roots of his being1 that renders it indestructible4 ,it can say of those who seek to undermine it1 as ,hamlet said of his enemies3 ,it shall go hard1 ,but ,i will delve one yard below their mines4 ,as an experience1 ,god is a discovery which each must make for himself4 ,religion comes to us as an inheritance2 and at the outset we can no more distinguish the voice of ,god from the voices of men we respect1 than the boy ,samuel could distinguish the voice of ,jehovah from that of ,eli4 ,but we gradually learn to possess our possession1 to respond to our own highest inspirations1 whether or not they inspire others4 ,pascal well says3 ,it is the consent of yourself to yourself and the unchanging voice of your own reason that ought to make you believe4 ,so far only as we repeat for ourselves the discoveries of earlier explorers of ,him who is invisible have we any religion of our own4 ,and this personal experience is the ground of our certainty2 as we have heard1 so have we seen in the city of our ,god4 ,religious experience1 and even ,christian experience1 appears in a great variety of forms2 and there is always a danger lest those who are personally familiar with one type should fail to acknowledge others as genuine4 ,the mystics are apt to disparage the rationalists2 hard-headed1 conscientious saints look askance at seers of visions2 and those whose new life has broken forth with the energy and volume of a geyser hardly recognize the same life when it develops like a spring-born stream from a small trickle1 increased by many tributaries1 into a stately river4 ,the value of an experience is to be judged not by its form1 but by its results4 ,fortunately for ,christianity the ,new ,testament contains a variety of types4 ,with the first disciples the light dawns gradually2 on ,st4 ,paul it bursts in a flash brighter than noonday4 ,the emotional heights and depths of the seer on ,patmos contrast with the steady level disclosed in the practical temperament of the writer of the ,epistle of ,james4 ,but underneath the diversity there is an essential unity of experience3 all conform to that which ,luther 7as ,harnack summarizes his position7 considered the essence of ,christian faith--unwavering trust of the heart in ,god who has given ,himself to us in ,christ as our ,father4 ,religious experience has been defined as man's response to ,god2 it often appears rather his search for ,him4 ,but that is characteristic only of the beginning of the experience4 ,the experienced know better than to place the emphasis on their initiative in establishing intercourse with the ,divine4 ,we love1 because ,he first loved us1 they say4 ,the ,apostle1 who speaks of his readers as those who have come to know ,god1 stops and corrects himself1 or rather to be known of ,god4 ,believers discover that ,god was long beforehand with them4 ,their very search is but an answer to ,his seeking2 in their every movement towards ,him1 they are aware of ,his drawing4 ,the verse which begins1 ,my soul followeth hard after ,thee1 continues ,thy right hand upholdeth me4 ,religious experience1 like all other1 is limited by a man's capacity for it2 and some men seem to have very scant capacity for ,god4 ,it is not easy to establish a point of contact between a ,falstaff or a ,becky ,sharp and the ,father of ,jesus ,christ4 ,there is no community of interest or kinship of spirit4 ,faith is assurance of things hoped for2 and where there is no craving for ,god1 ,he is likely to remain incredible4 ,prepossession has almost everything to do with the commencement of belief4 ,it is only when circumstances force a man to feel that a ,god would be desirable that he will risk himself to yield to his highest inspirations1 and give ,god the chance to disclose ,himself to him4 ,it is a case of nothing venture1 nothing have4 ,faith is always a going out whither we know not1 but in each venture we accumulate experience and gradually come to know ,whom we have believed4 ,without the initial eagerness for ,god which opens the door and sends us out we remain debarred from ever knowing4 ,as the ,theologia ,germanica puts it1 ,we are speaking of a certain ,truth which it is possible to know by experience1 but which ye must believe in before ye know4 ,the capacity for religious experience can be cultivated4 ,faith1 like an ear for music or taste in literature1 is a developable instinct4 ,it grows by contagious contact with fellow believers2 as the sight of lovers feedeth those in love1 the man of faith is nourished by fellowship with the believing ,church4 ,it is increased by familiarity with fuller and richer experiences of ,god2 continuous study of the ,bible leads men into its varied and profound communion with the ,most ,high4 ,it is enlarged by private and social worship2 prayer and hymn and message were born in vital experiences1 and they reproduce the experience4 ,browning1 in characteristic verse1 describes the effect of the service upon the worshippers in ,zion ,chapel ,meeting3 ,these people have really felt1 no doubt1 ,a something1 the motion they style the ,call of them2 ,and this is their method of bringing about1 ,by a mechanism of words and tones1 7,so many texts in so many groans7 ,a sort of reviving and reproducing1 ,more or less perfectly 7who can tell871 ,the mood itself1 which strengthens by using4 ,an unexpressed faith dies of suffocation1 while utterance intensifies experience and leads to fresh expression2 religion1 like ,shelley's ,skylark1 singing still doth soar1 and soaring ever singeth4 ,above all1 the instinct for the ,unseen is developed by exercise2 obedience to our heavenly visions sharpens the eyes of the heart4 ,charles ,lamb pictures his sister and himself with a taste for religion rather than a strong religious habit4 ,such people exclude themselves from the power and peace1 the limitless enrichment1 of conscious friendship with the living ,god4 ,indeed it is not conceivable that a man can have really tasted fellowship with the ,most ,high without acquiring an appetite for more of ,him4 ,the same psalmist who speaks of his soul as satisfied in ,god1 at once goes on1 ,my soul followeth hard after ,thee4 ,he who does not become a confirmed seeker for ,god is not likely ever to have truly found ,him4 ,there is something essentially irreligious in the attitude portrayed in the biography of ,horace ,walpole1 who1 when ,queen ,caroline tried to induce him to read ,butler's ,analogy1 told her that his religion was fixed1 and that he had no desire either to change or to improve it4 ,a believer's heart is fixed2 his soul is stayed on ,god2 but his experience is constantly expanding4 ,constancy is perhaps an inaccurate word to employ of man's intercourse with the ,invisible4 ,even in the most stedfast and unwavering this intercourse is characterized by tidal movements of devoutest awe ,sinking anon to farthest ebb of doubt4 ,and in the world's life there are ages of faith and ages of criticism4 ,both assurance and questioning appear to be necessary4 ,professor ,royce asserts that a study of history shows that if there is anything that human thought and cultivation have to be deeply thankful for1 it is an occasional1 but truly great and fearless age of doubt4 ,and in individuals it is only by facing obstinate questionings that faith is freed from folly and attains reasonableness4 ,nor can religious experience1 however boldly it claims to know1 fail to admit that its knowledge is but in part4 ,our knowledge of ,god1 like the knowledge we have of each other1 is the insight born of familiarity2 but no man entirely knows his brother4 ,and as for the ,lord of heaven and earth1 how small a whisper do we hear of ,him6 ,some minds are constitutionally ill-adapted for fellowship with ,him because they lack what ,keats calls negative capability--that is1 when a man is capable of being in uncertainties1 mysteries1 doubts1 without any irritable reaching after fact and reason4 ,coleridge1 for instance1 would let go a fine isolated verisimilitude1 caught from the ,penetralium of mystery1 from being incapable of remaining content with half-knowledge4 ,we have to trust ,god with ,his secrets1 as well as try to penetrate them as far as our minds will carry us4 ,we have to accustom ourselves to look uncomplainingly at darkness1 while we walk obediently in the light4 ,they see not clearliest who see all things clear4 ,but to many it seems all darkness1 and the light is but a phantom of the credulous4 ,how do we know that we know1 that the inference we draw from our experience is correct1 that we are in touch with a living ,god who is to any extent what we fancy ,him to be8 ,our experience consists of emotions1 impulses1 aspirations1 compunctions1 resolves2 we infer that we are in communion with ,another--the ,christian ,god2 but may not this explanation of our experience be mistaken8 ,religious experience is self-evidencing to the religious4 ,god is as real to the believer as beauty to the lover of nature on a ,june morning1 or to the artistic eye in the presence of a canvas by a great master4 ,men are no more argued into faith than into an appreciation of lovely sights and sounds2 they are immediately and overwhelmingly aware of the ,invisible4 ,the rest may reason1 and welcome2 'tis we musicians know4 ,faith does not require authority2 it confers it4 ,to those who face the ,sistine ,madonna1 in the room in the ,dresden ,gallery where it hangs in solitary eminence1 it is not the testimony of tradition1 nor of the thousands of its living admirers throughout the world1 that renders it beautiful2 it makes its own irresistible impression4 ,there are similar moments for the soul when some word1 or character1 or event1 or suggestion within ourselves1 bows us in admiration before the incomparably ,fair1 in shame before the unapproachably ,holy1 in acceptance before the indisputably ,true1 in adoration before the supremely ,loving--moments when belief overmasters doubt1 and we know that we know4 ,at such times the sense of personal intercourse is so vivid that the believer cannot question that he stands face to face with the living ,god4 ,such moments1 however1 are not abiding2 and in the reaction that follows them the mind will question whether it has not been the victim of illusion4 ,john ,bunyan owns3 ,though ,god has visited my soul with never so blessed a discovery of ,himself1 yet afterwards ,i have been in my spirit so filled with darkness1 that ,i could not so much as once conceive what that ,god and that comfort was with which ,i had been refreshed4 ,many a ,christian today knows the inspiration and calm and reinforcement of religion1 only to find himself wondering whether these may not come from an idea in his own head1 and not from a personal ,god4 ,may we not be in a subjective prison from whose walls words and prayers rebound without outer effect8 ,how far may we trust our experience as validating the inferences we draw from it8 ,the ,christian thought of ,god is after all no more than an hypothesis propounded to account for the ,christian life4 ,may not our experiences be accounted for in some other way8 ,we must distinguish between the adequacy of our thought of ,god and the fact that there is a ,god more or less like our thought of ,him4 ,our experience can never guarantee the entire correctness of our concept of ,deity2 a child experiences parental love without knowing accurately who its parents are--their characters1 position1 abilities1 etc4 ,but the child's experience of loving care convinces the child that he possesses living parents4 ,is it likely that1 were ,god a mere fancy1 a fancy which we should promptly discard if we knew it as such1 our experience could be what it is8 ,an explanation of an experience1 which would destroy that experience1 is scarcely to be received as an explanation4 ,religion is incomparably valuable1 and to account for it as self-hypnosis would end it for us as a piece of folly4 ,can life's highest values be so dealt with8 ,moreover1 we cannot settle down comfortably in unbelief2 just when we feel most sure that there is no ,god1 something unsettles us1 and gives us an uncanny feeling that after all ,he is1 and is seeking us4 ,we find ourselves responding1 and once more we are strengthened1 encouraged1 uplifted4 ,can a mere imagination compass such results8 ,how shall we test the validity of the inference we draw from our experience8 ,one test is the satisfaction that it gives to all elements in our complex personality4 ,one part of us may be deceived1 but that which contents the entire man is not likely to be unreal4 ,arthur ,hallam declared that he liked ,christianity because it fits into all the folds of one's nature4 ,further1 this satisfaction is not temporary but persistent4 ,in childhood1 in youth1 in middle age1 at the gates of death1 in countless experiences1 the ,god we infer from our spirit's reactions to ,him meets and answers our changing needs4 ,matthew ,arnold writes3 ,jesus ,christ and ,his precepts are found to hit the moral experience of mankind2 to hit it in the critical points2 to hit it lastingly2 and1 when doubts are thrown upon their really hitting it1 then to come out stronger than ever4 ,unless we are to distrust ourselves altogether1 that which appeals to our minds as reasonable1 to our hearts as lovable1 to our consciences as commanding1 and to our souls as adorable1 can hardly be such stuff as dreams are made on4 ,nor are we looking at ourselves alone4 ,we are confirmed by the completer experiences of the generations who have preceded us4 ,they looked unto ,him and were radiant4 ,those thousands of beautiful and holy faces in each century1 lit with their loving and aflame with ,god1 can scarcely have been gazing on light kindled solely by their own imaginations4 ,and all their minds transfigured so together1 ,more witnesseth than fancy's images1 ,and grows to something of great constancy4 ,religion has written its witness into the world's history1 and we can appeal to an eloquent past4 ,look at the generations of old1 and see3 ,who did ever put his trust in the ,lord1 and was ashamed8 ,or who did abide in ,his fear1 and was forsaken8 ,or who did call upon ,him1 and ,he despised him8 ,and its witness comes from today as certainly1 and more widely1 than from any believing yesterday4 ,ten thousand times ten thousand1 and thousands of thousands1 out of every kindred and tongue and nation1 throughout the world1 testify what the ,god and ,father of ,jesus ,christ means to them4 ,are we all self-deceived8 ,nor are we limited to the experiences of those who at best impress us as partially religious4 ,for the final confirmation of our faith we look to the ideal ,believer1 who not only has an ampler religious experience than any other1 but also possesses more power to create faith1 and to take us farther into the ,unseen2 we look unto ,jesus1 the ,author and ,perfecter of faith4 ,his life and death1 ,his character and influence1 remain the world's most priceless possession4 ,was the faith which produced them1 the faith which inspired ,him1 an hallucination8 ,there is contained in that life more proof that ,god is1 than in all other approach of ,god to man1 or of man to ,god4 ,the other test of the correctness of our inference drawn from our religious experience is its practical value1 the way in which it works in life4 ,he that willeth to do ,his will shall know4 ,coleridge bursts out indignantly3 ',evidences of ,christianity'6 ,i am weary of the word4 ,make a man feel the want of it2 rouse him1 if you can1 to the self-knowledge of the need of it2 and you may safely trust it to its own evidence4 ,religion approaches men saying1 ,o taste and see that the ,lord is good4 ,he cannot be good unless ,he is4 ,a fancied ,deity1 an invention however beautiful of men's brain1 supposed to be a living ,being1 cannot be a blessing1 but1 like every other falsehood1 a curse4 ,if our religion is a stained glass window we color to hide the void beyond1 then in the name of things as they are1 whether they have a ,god or not1 let us smash the deceiving glass1 and face the darkness or the daylight outside4 ,religion is nothing unless it is true1 and its workableness is the test of its truth4 ,behind the accepted hypotheses of science lie countless experiments2 and anyone who questions an hypothesis is simply bidden repeat the experiment and convince himself4 ,behind the fundamental conviction of ,christians are generations of believers who have tried it and proved it4 ,the ,god and ,father of ,jesus is a tested hypothesis2 and he who questions must experiment1 and let ,god convince him4 ,to commit one's self to ,god in ,christ and be redeemed from most real sins--turned from selfishness to love1 from slavery to freedom2 to trust ,him in most real difficulties and perplexities1 and find one's self empowered and enlightened2--is to discover that faith works1 and works gloriously4 ,a man's idea of ,god may be1 and cannot but be1 inadequate2 but it corresponds not to nothing existent1 but to ,someone most alive4 ,that which comes to us through the idea is witness of the ,reality behind it4 ,nor are we confined to the witness of our personal discoveries4 ,there is a social attestation of the workableness of faith4 ,the surest way of establishing the worth of our religious experience is to share it with another2 the strongest confirmation of the objective existence of ,him with whom we have to do is to lead another to see ,him4 ,the most effective defender of the faith is the missionary4 ,it requires1 as ,david ,livingstone said1 perpetual propagation to attest its genuineness4 ,not they who sit and study and discuss it1 however cleverly and learnedly1 discover its truth2 but they who spend and are spent in attempting to bring a whole world to know the redeeming love of ,one who is1 and who rewards with indubitable sonship with ,himself those who prove wholeheartedly loyal4 ,for our final assurance we appeal confidently to the future4 ,the glory of the ,lord will only be fully revealed when all flesh see it together4 ,but with personal certainty1 based on our own experience1 corroborated by the testimony of all the saints1 we both wait hopefully and work tirelessly for the day when our ,god through ,christ shall be all in all4 ,,chapter ,,ii ,,the ,,bible ,in terms of the definition of religion given in the last chapter1 we may describe the ,bible as the record of the progressive religious experience of ,israel culminating in ,jesus ,christ1 a record selected by the experience of the ,jewish and ,christian ,church1 and approving itself to ,christian experience today as the ,self-revelation of the living ,god4 ,the ,bible is a literary record4 ,it is not so much a book as a library1 containing a great variety of literary forms--legends1 laws1 maxims1 hymns1 sermons1 visions1 biographies1 letters1 etc4 ,judged solely as literature its writings have never been equalled in their kind1 much less surpassed4 ,goethe declared1 ,let the world progress as much as it likes1 let all branches of human research develop to their utmost1 nothing will take the place of the ,bible--that foundation of all culture and all education4 ,happily for the ,english-speaking world the translation into our tongue1 standardized in the ,king ,james' ,bible1 is a universally acknowledged classic2 and scarcely a man of letters has failed to bear witness to its charm and power4 ,while most translations lose something of the beauty and meaning of the original1 there are some parts of the ,english ,bible which1 as literature and as religion1 excel the ,hebrew or ,greek they attempt to render4 ,the ,bible is a record of religious experience4 ,it has but one central figure from ,genesis to ,revelation--,god4 ,but ,god is primarily in the experience1 only secondarily in the record4 ,all thought succeeds in grasping but a fraction of consciousness2 thought is well symbolized in ,rodin's statue1 where out of a huge block of rough stone a small finely chiselled head emerges4 ,with all their skill we cannot credit the men of faith who are behind the ,bible pages with making clear to themselves but a small part of ,god's ,self-disclosure to them4 ,and when they came to wreak thought upon expression1 so clear and well-trained a mind as ,paul's cannot adequately utter what he feels and thinks4 ,his sentences strain and sometimes break2 he ends with such expressions as the love of ,christ which passeth knowledge1 and ,god's unspeakable gift4 ,the divine revelation which is in the experience has been at times identified with the thought that interprets it1 or even with the words which attempt to describe it4 ,faith in the thing grows faith in the report2 and fantastic doctrines of the verbal inerrancy of the ,bible have been held by numbers of earnest ,christians4 ,certain recent scholars1 acknowledging that no version of the ,bible now existing is free from error1 have put forward the theory that the original manuscripts of these books1 as they came from their authors' hands1 were so completely controlled by ,god as to be without mistake4 ,since no man can ever hope to have access to these autographs1 and would not be sure that he had them in his hands if he actually found them1 this theory amounts to saying with the nursery rhyme3 ,oats1 peas1 beans1 and barley grows1 ,where you1 nor ,i1 nor nobody knows4 ,we have not only to collate the manuscripts we possess and try to reconstruct the likeliest text1 but when we know what the authors probably wrote1 we must press back of their language and ideas to the religious experience they attempt to express4 ,as writers the ,biblical authors do not claim a special divine assistance4 ,luke1 in his preface to his gospel1 merely asserts that he has taken the pains of a careful historian1 and ,paul and his various amanuenses did their best with a language in which they were not literary experts4 ,the ,bible reader often has the impression that its authors' religious experience1 like ,milton's sculptured lion1 half appears pawing to get free his hinder parts4 ,or1 to change the metaphor1 now one portion of their communion with ,god is brought to view and now another1 as one might stand before a sea that was illuminated from moment to moment by flashes of lightning4 ,the ,bible is the record of an historic religious experience--that of ,israel which led up to the consciousness of ,god in ,jesus and ,his followers4 ,the investigation of the sources of ,hebrew religion has shown that many of its beliefs came from the common heritage of the ,semitic peoples2 and there are numerous points of similarity between ,israel's faith and that of other races4 ,this ought not to surprise us1 since its ,god is the ,god of all men4 ,but the more resemblances we detect1 the greater the difference appears4 ,the same legend in ,babylonia and in ,israel has such unlike spiritual content2 the identical rite among the ,hebrews and among their neighbors developed such different religious meaning4 ,this particular stream of religious life has a unity and a character of its own4 ,its record brings into the succeeding centuries1 and still produces in our world1 a distinctive relationship with ,god4 ,the ,bible is a record of progressive religious experience4 ,as every poet with a new message has to create his own public1 so it would seem that ,god had slowly to evolve men who would respond to ,his ever higher inspirations4 ,when scholars arrange for us the ,biblical material in its historical order1 the advance becomes much more apparent4 ,its ,god grows from a tribal deity to the ,god of the whole world2 from a localized divinity dwelling on ,sinai or at ,jerusalem1 as the ,greeks placed their gods on ,olympus1 into the ,spirit who fills heaven and earth2 from a man of war and a tribal lawgiver into the ,god whose nature is love4 ,by experience1 said ,roger ,ascham1 we find out a short way by a long wandering1 and it took at least ten centuries to pass from the ,god of ,moses to the ,father of ,jesus ,christ4 ,obviously we must interpret1 and at times correct1 the less developed by the more perfect consciousness of ,god4 ,the ,scriptures1 like the land in which their scenes are laid1 are a land of hills and valleys1 of lofty peaks of spiritual elevation and of dark ravines of human passion and doubt and cruelty2 and to view it as a level plain of religious equality is to make serious mistakes4 ,ecclesiastes is by no means on the same level with ,isaiah1 nor ,proverbs with the ,sermon on the ,mount4 ,doctrines and principles that are drawn from texts chosen at random from all parts of the ,bible are sure to be unworthy statements of the highest fellowship with ,god4 ,nor does mere chronological rearrangement of the material do justice to the progress2 there was loss as well as gain4 ,all mountain roads on their way to the summit go down as well as up2 and their advance must be judged not from their elevation at any particular point1 but from their successful approach towards their destination4 ,the experiences of ,israel reach their apex in the faith of ,jesus and of ,his immediate followers2 and they find their explanation and unity in ,him4 ,in form the ,jewish ,bible1 unlike the ,christian1 has no climax2 it stops1 ours ends4 ,christians judge the progress in the religious experience of ,israel by its approximation to the faith and purpose of ,jesus4 ,the ,bible is a selected record of religious experience4 ,old ,testament historians often refer to other books which have not been preserved2 and there were letters of ,st4 ,paul which were allowed to perish1 and gospels1 other than our four1 which failed to gain a place in the ,canon4 ,a discriminating instinct was at work1 judging between writings and writings4 ,we know little of the details of the process by which it compiled the ,old ,testament4 ,the ,jewish ,church spoke of its ,scriptures as the ,law1 the ,prophets1 and the ,writings2 and it is probable that in this order it made collections of those books which it found expressed and reproduced its faith4 ,in the time of ,jesus the ,old ,testament1 as we know it1 was practically complete1 although there still lingered some discussion whether ,esther1 ,ecclesiastes and the ,song of ,songs were sacred books4 ,we should like to know far more than students have yet discovered of the reasons which ,jewish scholars gave for admitting some and rejecting other writings2 but1 whatever their alleged reasons1 the books underwent a struggle for recognition1 and the fittest1 according to the judgment of the corporate religious experience of the devout1 survived4 ,the first ,christians found the ,jewish ,bible in use as containing the oracles of ,god2 and as it had been their ,lord's ,bible it became theirs4 ,no one of the first generation of ,christians thought of adding other ,scriptures4 ,in that age the ,coming of the ,messiah and ,his ,kingdom in power were daily expected1 and there seemed no need of writing anything for succeeding times4 ,paul's letters were penned to meet current needs in the churches1 and were naturally kept1 reread and passed from church to church4 ,as the years went by and disciples were added who had never known the ,lord in the days of ,his flesh1 a demand arose for collections of ,his sayings4 ,then gospels were written1 and the ,new ,testament literature came into existence1 although no one yet thought of these writings as ,holy ,scripture4 ,three factors1 however1 combined to give these books an authoritative position4 ,in the ,church services reading was a part of worship4 ,what should be read8 ,a letter of an apostle1 a selection of ,jesus' sayings1 a memoir of ,his life1 an account of the earliest days of the ,church4 ,certain books became favorites because they were most helpful in creating and stimulating ,christian faith and life2 and they won their own position of respect and authority4 ,some books by reason of their authorship--,paul or ,peter1 for instance--or because they contained the life and teaching of ,jesus1 naturally held a place of reverence4 ,this eventually led to the ascription to well-known names of books that were found helpful which had in fact been written by others4 ,for example1 the ,epistle to the ,hebrews was ultimately credited to ,paul1 and the ,second ,epistle of ,peter to the ,apostle ,peter4 ,and1 again1 controversies arose in which it was all important to agree what were the sources to which appeal should be made4 ,the first collection of ,christian writings1 of which we know1 consisting of ten letters of ,paul and an abridged version of the ,gospel according to ,luke1 was put forth by ,marcion in the ,second ,century to defend his interpretation of ,christianity--an interpretation which the majority of ,christians did not accept4 ,it was inevitable that a fuller collection of writings should be made to refute those whose faith appeared incomplete or incorrect4 ,in the last quarter of the ,second ,century we find established the conception of the ,bible as consisting of two parts--the ,old and the ,new ,covenant4 ,this meant that the ,christian writings so acknowledged would be given at least the same authority as was then accorded to the ,jewish ,bible4 ,early in the ,fourth ,century the historian1 ,eusebius1 tells us how the ,new ,testament stood in his day4 ,he divides the books into three classes--those acknowledged1 those disputed1 and those rejected4 ,in the second division he places the epistles of ,james and ,jude1 the ,second ,epistle of ,peter and the ,second and ,third of ,john2 in the first all our other books1 but he says of the ,revelation of ,john1 that some think that it should be put in the third division2 in the third he names a number of books which are of interest to us as showing what some churches regarded as worthy of a place in the ,new ,testament1 and used as they did our familiar gospels and epistles4 ,by the end of that century1 under the influence of ,athanasius and the ,church in ,rome1 the ,new ,testament as it now stands became almost everywhere recognized4 ,the reason given for the acceptance or rejection of a book was its apostolic authorship4 ,only books that could claim to have been written by an apostle or an apostolic man were considered authoritative4 ,we now know that not all the books could meet this requirement2 but the ,church's real reason was its own discriminating spiritual experience which approved some books and refused others4 ,canon ,sanday sums up the selective process by saying3 ,in the fixing of the ,canon1 as in the fixing of doctrine1 the decisive influence proceeded from the bishops and theologians of the period #cbe-dej4 ,but behind them was the practice of the greater churches2 and behind that again was not only the lead of a few distinguished individuals1 but the instinctive judgment of the main body of the faithful4 ,it was really this instinct that told in the end more than any process of quasi-scientific criticism4 ,and it was well that it should be so1 because the methods of criticism are apt to be1 and certainly would have been when the ,canon was formed1 both faulty and inadequate1 whereas instinct brings into play the religious sense as a whole4 ,even this is not infallible2 and it cannot be claimed that the ,canon of the ,christian ,sacred ,books is infallible4 ,but experience has shown that the mistakes1 so far as there have been mistakes1 are unimportant2 and in practice even these are rectified by the natural gravitation of the mind of man to that which it finds most nourishing and most elevating4 ,in their attitude towards the ,canon all ,christians agree that the books deemed authoritative must record the historic revelation which culminated in ,jesus and the founding of the ,christian ,church4 ,a ,roman ,catholic may derive more religious stimulus from the ,spiritual ,exercises of ,ignatius ,loyola than from the ,book of ,lamentations1 and a ,protestant from ,bunyan's ,pilgrim's ,progress than from the ,second ,epistle of ,john2 but neither would think of inserting these books in the ,canon4 ,he who finds as much religious inspiration in some modern poet or essayist as in a book of the ,bible1 may be correctly reporting his own experience2 but he is confusing the purpose of the ,bible if he suggests the substitution of these later prophets for those of ancient ,israel4 ,the ,bible is the spiritually selected record of a particular ,self-disclosure of ,god in a national history which reached its religious goal in ,jesus ,christ4 ,romanists and ,protestants differ as to how many books constitute the ,canon1 the former including the so-called ,apocrypha--books in the ,greek translation but not in the original ,hebrew ,bible4 ,and they differ more fundamentally in the principle underlying the selection of the books4 ,the ,roman ,catholic holds that it is the ,church which officially has made the ,bible1 while the ,protestant insists that the books possess spiritual qualities of their own which gave them their place in the authoritative volume1 a place which the ,church merely recognized4 ,luther1 in his celebrated dispute with ,dr4 ,eck1 asserted3 ,the ,church cannot give more authority or force to a book than it has in itself4 ,a ,council cannot make that be ,scripture which in its own nature is not ,scripture4 ,the ,council of ,trent1 answering the ,reformers1 in #aedf1 issued an official decree defining what is ,scripture3 ,the holy1 ecumenical and general ,synod of ,trent1 legitimately convened in the ,holy ,ghost 444receives and venerates with an equal piety and reverence all the books as well of the ,old as of the ,new ,testament 444together with the traditions pertaining both to faith and to morals1 as proceeding from the mouth of ,christ1 or dictated by the ,holy ,spirit1 and preserved in the ,church ,catholic by continuous succession4 ,then follows a catalogue of the books1 and an anathema on all who shall not receive them as they are contained in the old vulgate ,latin version4 ,over against this the ,protestant takes the position that the books of the ,scripture came to be recognized as authoritative exactly as ,shakespeare1 ,milton and ,wordsworth have been accorded their place in ,english literature4 ,it was the inherent merit of ,hamlet and ,paradise ,lost and the ,ode on the ,intimations of ,immortality that led to their acknowledgment4 ,no official body has made ,shakespeare a classic2 his works have won their own place4 ,no company of men of letters officially organized keeps him in his eminent position2 his plays keep themselves4 ,the books of the ,bible have gained their positions because they could not be barred from them2 they possess power to recanonize themselves4 ,some are much less valuable than others1 and it is1 perhaps1 a debatable question whether one or two of the apocryphal books--,first ,maccabees1 or ,ecclesiasticus1 for instance--are not as spiritually useful as the ,song of ,solomon or ,esther2 but of the chief books we may confidentially affirm that1 if one of them were dug up for the first time today1 it would gradually win a commanding place in ,christian thought4 ,and it is a similar social experience of the ,church--,jewish and ,christian--which has recognized their worth4 ,the modernist ,tyrrell has written3 ,it cannot be denied that in the life of that formless ,church1 which underlies the hierarchic organization1 ,god's ,spirit exercises a silent but sovereign criticism1 that ,his resistlessly effectual judgment is made known1 not in the precise language of definition and decree1 but in the slow manifestation of practical results2 in the survival of what has proved itself life-giving2 in the decay and oblivion of all whose value was but relative and temporary4 ,in a sense each ,protestant ,christian is entitled to make up a ,bible of his own out of the books which record the historical discoveries of ,god4 ,he is not bound by the opinions of others1 however many and venerable2 and unless a book commends itself to his own spiritual judgment1 he is under no obligation to receive it as the word of ,god to him4 ,as a matter of fact every ,christian does make such a ,bible of his own2 the particular passages which grip him and reproduce their experiences in him1 they1 and they alone1 are his ,bible4 ,luther was quickened into life by the epistles of ,paul1 but spoke slightingly of ,james2 many socially active ,christians in our day live in the prophets and the first three gospels1 and almost ignore the rest of the ,bible4 ,but individual taste1 while it has preferred authors and favorite works1 does not think of denying to ,milton1 or ,wordsworth1 or ,shelley1 their place among ,english classics2 a social judgment has assigned them that4 ,a man who is not hopelessly conceited will regret his inability to appreciate a single one of the great authors1 and will try to enlarge his sympathies4 ,the ,christian will1 with entire naturalness1 be loyal to so much of the ,bible as finds him1 and humbly hope and endeavor to be led into ampler ranges of spiritual life1 that he may apprehend with all saints the breadth1 length1 depth and height of the historic ,self-revelation of ,god4 ,the ,bible is thus a standard of religious experience4 ,if there is any question as to what man's life with ,god ought to be1 it can be referred to the life recorded in these books4 ,but men have often made the ,bible much more2 confusing experience with its interpretation in some particular epoch1 they used the ,bible as a treasury of proof texts for doctrines1 or of laws for conduct1 or of specific provisos for ,church government and worship4 ,they forgot that the writers of the early chapters of ,genesis1 in describing their faith in ,god's relationship to ,his world and to man and to history1 had to express that faith in terms of the existing traditions concerning the creation1 the fall1 the deluge1 the patriarchs4 ,their faith in ,god is one thing2 the scientific and historic accuracy of the stories in which they utter it is quite another thing4 ,they did not distinguish between ,paul's life with ,god in ,christ1 and the philosophy he had learned in ,gamaliel's classroom1 or picked up in the thought of the ,roman world of his day4 ,paul's religious life is one thing1 his theology in which he tries to explain and state it is another thing4 ,they read the plans that were made for the organization of the first churches1 and hastily concluded that these were intended to govern churches in all ages4 ,the chief divisions of the ,church claim for their form of government--papal1 episcopal1 presbyterian1 congregational--a ,biblical authority4 ,the religious life of the early churches is one thing2 their faith and hope and love ought to abide in the ,church throughout all generations2 the method of their organization may have been admirable for their circumstances1 but there is no reason we should consider it binding upon us in the totally different circumstances of our day4 ,latterly social reformers have been attempting to show that the ,bible teaches some form of economic theory1 like socialism or communism4 ,it lays down fundamental principles of brotherhood1 of justice1 of peaceableness1 but the economic or political systems in which these shall be embodied1 we must discover for ourselves in each age4 ,it is the norm of our life with ,god2 but it is not a standard fixing our scientific views1 our theological opinions1 our ecclesiastical polity1 our economic or political theories4 ,it shows forth the spirit we should manifest towards ,god and towards one another as individuals1 and families1 and nations2 and where the ,spirit of the ,lord is1 there is liberty4 ,this brings us to the question of the authority of the ,bible4 ,there are two views of its authority2 one that it contains mysteries beyond our reason1 which are revealed to us1 and guaranteed to us as true1 either by marvellous signs such as miracles and fulfilled prophecies1 or by the infallible pronouncement of the official ,church2 the other is that the ,bible is the revelation of self-evidencing truth4 ,the test of a revelation is simply that it reveals4 ,the evidence of daylight lies in the fact that it enables us to see1 and as we live in the light we are more and more assured that we really do see4 ,advocates of the former position say3 ,if anything is in the ,bible1 it must not be questioned2 it must simply be accepted and obeyed4 ,advocates of the latter view say3 ,if it is in the ,bible1 it has been tried and found valuable by a great many people2 question it as searchingly as you can1 and try it for yourself1 and see whether it proves itself true or not4 ,these two views came into collision in the struggle for a larger faith which we call the ,reformation4 ,augustine had stated the position which became traditional when he wrote1 ,i would not believe in the ,gospel without the authority of the ,church4 ,but ,luther insisted on the contrary3 ,thou must not place thy decision on the ,pope1 or any other2 thou must thyself be so skilful that thou can'st say1 ',god says this1 not that4' ,thou must bring conscience into play1 that thou may'st boldly and defiantly say1 ',that is ,god's word2 on that will ,i risk body and life1 and a hundred thousand necks if ,i had them4' ,therefore no one shall turn me from the word which ,god teaches me1 and that must ,i know as certainly as that two and three make five1 that an ell is longer than a half4 ,that is certain1 and though all the world speak to the contrary1 still ,i know that it is not otherwise4 ,who decides me there8 ,no man1 but only the ,truth which is so perfectly certain that nobody can deny it4 ,and ,calvin took the same ground3 ,as to their question1 ,how are we to know that the ,scriptures came from ,god1 if we cannot refer to the decree of the ,church1 we might as well ask1 ,how are we to distinguish light from darkness1 white from black1 bitter from sweet4 ,the truth of the religious experiences recorded in the ,bible is self-evidencing to him who shares these experiences1 and to no one else4 ,the ,bible has1 in a sense1 to create or evoke the capacities by which it is appreciated and verified4 ,it is inspired only to those who are themselves willing to be controlled by similar inspirations2 it is the word of ,god only to those who have ears for ,god's voice4 ,there is a difference between the phrases3 ,it is certain1 and ,i am certain4 ,in other matters we appeal to the collective opinion of sane people2 but such knowledge does not suffice in religion4 ,our fellowship with ,god must be our own response to our highest inspirations4 ,the ,bible is authoritative for us only in so far as we can say3 ,i have entered into the friendship of the ,god1 whose earlier friendship with men it records1 and know ,him1 who speaks as personally to my conscience through its pages1 as ,he spake to its writers4 ,the ,spirit that ruled them1 the ,spirit of trust and service1 controls me4 ,this is ,john ,calvin's position4 ,it is acting a preposterous part1 he writes in his ,institutes1 to endeavor to produce sound faith in the ,scriptures by disputations4 ,religion appearing to profane men to consist wholly in opinion1 in order that they may not believe anything on foolish or slight grounds1 they wish and expect it to be proved that ,moses and the prophets spake by divine inspiration2 but as ,god alone is a sufficient witness of ,himself in ,his own word1 so also the word will never gain credit in the hearts of men1 till it is confirmed by the testimony of the ,spirit4 ,if1 then1 the authority of the ,bible depends upon the witness of the ,spirit within our own souls1 its authority has definite limits4 ,we can verify spiritually the truth of a religious experience by repeating that experience2 but we cannot verify spiritually the correctness of the report of some alleged event1 or the accuracy of some opinion4 ,we can bear witness to the truthfulness of the record of the consciousness of shame and separation from ,god in the story of the fall of ,adam and ,eve2 we must leave the question of the historicity of the narrative and the scientific view of the origin of the race in a single pair to the investigations of scholars4 ,our own knowledge of ,jesus ,christ as a living ,factor in our careers confirms the experience ,his disciples had of ,his continued intercourse with them subsequent to ,his crucifixion2 but the manner of ,his resurrection and the mode in which post mortem ,he communicated with them must be left to the untrammelled study of historical students4 ,the religious message of a miraculous happening1 like the story of ,jonah or of the raising of ,lazarus1 we can test and prove3 disobedience brings disaster1 repentance leads to restoration2 faith in ,christ gives ,him the chance to be to us the resurrection and the life4 ,the reported events must be tested by the judgments of historic probability which are applied to all similar narratives1 past or present4 ,the ,bible's authority is strictly religious2 it has to do solely with ,god and man's life with man in ,him2 and1 when read in the light of its culmination in ,christ1 it approves itself to the ,spirit of ,christ within ,christians as a correct record of their experiences of ,god1 and the mighty inspiration to such experiences4 ,surely it is no belittling limitation to say of this unique book that it is an authority only on ,god4 ,every fundamental question of life is answered1 every essential need of the soul is met1 when ,god is found1 and becomes our ,life1 our ,home4 ,and with such self-evidencing authority in the books of the ,bible1 it is a question of minor importance who were their authors and when they were written--the questions which the literary historical criticism undertakes to answer4 ,luther put the matter conclusively when he said in his vigorous fashion3 ,that which does not teach ,christ is not apostolic1 though ,peter or ,paul should have said it2 on the contrary that which preaches ,christ is apostolic1 even if it should come from ,judas1 ,annas1 ,pilate and ,herod4 ,some persons have been greatly troubled in the last generation by being told that scholars did not consider the conventionally received authorships of many of the books of the ,bible correct1 but thought that ,moses did not write the ,pentateuch1 or ,david the ,psalms1 or ,solomon the ,proverbs or ,ecclesiastes1 or ,isaiah and ,jeremiah more than parts of the books that bear their names1 or ,john and ,peter all the writings ascribed to them4 ,we are not to judge of writings by their authors1 but by their intrinsic value4 ,suppose ,shakespeare did not write more than a fraction of the plays associated with his name1 or that he wrote none of them at all2 the plays themselves remain as valuable as ever2 their interpretation of life in its tragedy and humor1 its heights and its depths1 is as true as it ever was4 ,whatever views of their composition or authorship may be reached by literary experts1 the ,scriptures possess exactly the same spiritual power they have always possessed4 ,the ,lord has been our dwelling-place in all generations1 whether ,moses or some other psalmist penned that line2 and ,jesus is the bread of life1 whether the apostle ,john or some other disciple whom ,jesus loved records that experience4 ,scholars may make the meaning of the ,scriptures much plainer by their searching studies2 and they must be encouraged to investigate as minutely and rigorously as they can4 ,to be fearful that the ,bible cannot stand the test of the keenest study1 is to lack faith in its divine vitality4 ,to found a ,bible ,defence ,league is as unbelieving as to inaugurate a society for the protection of the sun4 ,like the sun the ,bible defends itself by proving a light to the path of all who walk by it4 ,the only defence it needs is to be used2 and the only attack it dreads is to be left unread4 ,and in speaking of the authority of the ,bible we cannot forget that it is not for ,christians the supreme authority4 ,one is your ,master1 even ,christ4 ,we must be cautious in speaking of the ,bible1 as we commonly do1 as the word of ,god4 ,that title belongs to ,jesus4 ,the ,bible contains the word of ,god2 ,he is for us the ,word of ,god4 ,we dare not overlook ,his untrammelled attitude towards the ,scriptures of ,his people1 who let ,his own spiritual discernment determine whether a ,scripture was ,his ,father's living voice to ,him1 or only something said to men of old time1 and given temporarily for the hardness of hearts that could respond to no higher ideal4 ,as ,his followers1 we dare not use less freedom ourselves4 ,we test every ,scripture by the ,spirit of ,christ in us3 whatever is to us unchristlike in ,joshua or in ,paul1 in a psalmist or in the seer on ,patmos1 is not for us the word of our ,god3 whatever breathes the ,spirit of ,jesus from ,genesis to ,revelation is to us our ,father's ,self-revealing speech4 ,nor do we think that ,god ceased speaking when the ,canon of the ,bible was complete4 ,how could ,he1 if ,he be the living ,god8 ,truth1 said ,milton1 is compared in ,scripture to a streaming fountain2 if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression1 they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition4 ,the fountain of ,god's ,self-revealing still streams4 ,religious truth comes to us from all quarters--from events of today and contemporaneous prophets1 from living epistles at our side and the still small voice within2 but as a simple matter of fact1 its main flow is still through this book4 ,when we want ,god--want ,him for our guidance1 our encouragement1 our correction1 our comfort1 our inspiration--we find ,him in the record of these ancient experiences of ,his ,self-unveiling4 ,when near his death1 after years of agony on his bed1 when he himself had become a changed man1 ,heinrich ,heine wrote3 ,i attribute my enlightenment entirely and simply to the reading of a book4 ,of a book8 ,yes6 and it is an old homely book1 modest as nature--a book which has a look modest as the sun which warms us1 as the bread which nourishes us--a book as full of love and blessing as the old mother who reads in it with her trembling lips1 and this book is the ,book1 the ,bible4 ,with right is it named the ,holy ,scriptures4 ,he who has lost his ,god can find ,him again in this book2 and he who has never known ,him1 is here struck by the breath of the ,divine ,word4 ,,chapter ,,iii ,,jesus ,,christ ,three elements enter into every ,christian's conception of his ,lord--history1 experience and reflection4 ,jesus is to him a figure out of the past1 a force in the present1 and a fact in his view of the universe4 ,whether we be discussing the ,christ of ,paul1 or of the ,nicene theologians1 or of some thoughtful believer today1 we must allow for the memory of the ,man of ,nazareth handed down from those who knew ,him in the flesh1 the acquaintance with the ,lord of life resulting from personal loyalty to ,his will1 and the explanation of this ,lord reached by the mind1 as1 using the intellectual methods of its age1 it tries to set ,his figure in its mental world4 ,the ,jesus of the primitive ,church was ,one whom believers worshipped as the ,christ of ,god1 in whose person and mission they saw the fulfilment of ,israel's prophecy and the inauguration of a new religious era4 ,they represent their conception of ,him as corresponding to and created by ,his own consciousness of ,himself4 ,he was aware of a unique relationship to ,god--,he is ,his ,son1 the ,son4 ,and because of this divine sonship ,he is the ,messiah1 commissioned to usher in the ,kingdom of ,god1 and to bring forgiveness and eternal life to men4 ,this ,he does by becoming their ,teacher and their lowly ,servant1 laying down ,his life for them in suffering and death1 and rising and returning to them as their ,lord4 ,he appeals to them for faith in ,god1 for loyalty to ,himself as ,god's ,servant and ,son1 and for trust in ,his divine power to save them4 ,this conception of ,jesus is given us in documents which must be investigated and appraised as sources of historical knowledge4 ,the four gospels are our principal informants1 and no other writings in existence have been so often and so minutely examined4 ,among scholars at present it is a common hypothesis that ,mark's is the earliest narrative2 that this was combined with a ,collection of ,sayings 7compiled1 perhaps1 by ,matthew7 and other material in our first gospel1 and by another editor 7probably ,luke7 with the same or a similar ,collection of ,sayings and still other material in our third gospel4 ,later yet1 a fourth evangelist interpreted for the world of his day the ,jesus of the first three gospels in the light of his own and the ,church's spiritual experience4 ,the earlier sources1 as is usually and naturally the case with literary records of the past1 are considered historically more reliable than the later4 ,the words of ,jesus in the form in which they are given in the ,synoptists are more nearly as ,jesus spoke them1 than in the form in which they are recorded in ,john4 ,there is a tendency1 often found in kindred documents1 to make events more marvellous as the tradition is handed on4 ,in ,mark1 for instance1 the ,spirit descends upon ,jesus as a dove1 symbolizing the quietness with which the ,divine ,power possessed ,him2 in ,luke1 the symbol is materialized1 and the ,holy ,spirit descends in bodily form as a dove4 ,the writers interpret the narrative for their readers3 ,matthew takes ,jesus' ideal of the indissoluble marriage-tie1 as it is given in ,mark1 and allows1 in the practical application of the ideal1 divorce for adultery2 he adds to ,jesus' word about telling one's brother his fault between thee and him alone further advice as to what shall be done if the brother be obdurate1 ending with ,tell it unto the ,church4 ,john substitutes for the many sayings of ,jesus in the earlier gospels1 in which ,he appears to look forward to a speedy and sudden coming of ,his ,kingdom in power1 other sayings1 in which ,he promises to come again spiritually and dwell in ,his followers4 ,on the other hand1 in some particulars scholars think that the later writers had more accurate information1 and used it to correct misunderstandings conveyed by their predecessors2 the length of our ,lord's ministry1 the procedure followed at the trial1 the date of the crucifixion1 are by many supposed to be more exactly given in ,john than in the ,synoptists4 ,in general there is no reason for questioning the data in the later sources1 save as they seem to come from an interest of the ,church of their day1 unrelated with the ,jesus of the earlier records4 ,in such documents we must expect some events to be supported by more historic proof than others4 ,the evidence for ,jesus' resurrection 7to take a typical case71 is far weightier than that for ,his birth of a virgin-mother4 ,there is probably no scrap of primitive ,christian literature which does not assume the risen ,christ2 and the origin of the ,christian ,church1 and the character of its message and life1 cannot be explained apart from the ,easter faith in the ,lord's victory over death and presence with ,his people in power4 ,the virgin-birth rests on but two records 7possibly on only one71 neither of which belongs to the earlier strata of the tradition1 and which are with difficulty reconciled with the more frequently mentioned fact that ,jesus is the ,son of ,david 7an ancestry traced through ,joseph74 ,but in discussing the historicity of the narratives1 it is just to the evangelists to recall that their main purpose was not the writing of history as such1 but the presentation of material 7which undoubtedly they considered trustworthy historically7 designed to convey to their readers a correct religious estimate of ,jesus ,christ4 ,these are written that ye may believe that ,jesus is the ,christ1 the ,son of ,god2 and that believing ye may have life in ,his name4 ,they do not often take the trouble to tell us on what evidence they report an event or a saying2 they either did not know1 or they did not care to preserve1 the sequence of events1 so that it is impossible to make a harmony of the gospels in which the material is chronologically arranged4 ,but they spare themselves no pains to give the truth of the religious impression of ,jesus which they had received4 ,and when one compares all our documents1 it is significant that they do not give us discordant estimates of the religious worth of ,jesus4 ,the meaning for faith of the ,christ of ,john is not at variance with the meaning for faith of the ,christ of ,mark or of the ,christ of the supposed ,collection of ,sayings4 ,the ,church put the four gospels side by side in its ,canon1 and has continued to use them together for centuries1 because it has found in them a religiously harmonious portrait of its ,lord4 ,this is also true of the portraits of ,jesus to be found in the ,acts and the epistles4 ,the ,christ of the entire ,new ,testament makes upon us a consistent religious impression2 and the unity of ,his significance for faith is all the more noteworthy because of the different forms of thought in which the various writers picture ,him4 ,behind the primitive ,church stands an historic ,figure who so stamped the impress of ,his personality upon believing spirits1 that1 amid puzzling discrepancies of historical detail and much variety of theological interpretation1 a single religious image of ,him remains4 ,we1 whose aim is not primarily to reconstruct the figure of ,jesus for purposes of scientific history1 but to arrive at an intelligent conviction of ,his spiritual worth1 are entirely satisfied with a portrait which correctly represents the religious impression of the historic ,jesus4 ,two diametrically opposed classes of scholars have denied that in the ,christ of the gospels we possess such a trustworthy report4 ,a very few have held that the evangelists do not record an historic life at all1 but describe a ,saviour-,god who existed in the faith of the ,church of the ,first ,century4 ,the allusions1 however1 in the letters of ,paul alone to definite historical associations connected with ,jesus are sufficient to confute this view4 ,there undoubtedly was a ,jesus of ,nazareth4 ,moreover1 the divine redeemers of mythology1 of whom this theory makes so much1 are most unlike the ,jesus of the gospels in moral character and religious power2 and the old argument is still pertinent that it would have required a ,jesus to have imagined the ,jesus of the evangelists' story4 ,a much larger number of scholars1 determined beforehand by their philosophic views to reject all elements in the records which transcend usual human experience1 have for several generations sought to reconstruct the figure of ,jesus on an entirely naturalistic basis4 ,instead of the ,jesus of the gospels1 they give us1 as the actual ,man1 ,jesus the ,sage1 or the ,visionary1 or the ,prophet1 or the ,philanthropist1 who1 they think1 was subsequently deified by ,his followers4 ,such reconstructions handle the sources arbitrarily1 eliminating from even the earliest of them that which clashes with their preconceptions4 ,they fail to do justice to ,jesus' consciousness of ,himself1 of ,his unique relation to ,god1 of ,his all-important mission to men1 as the critically investigated documents disclose it4 ,historically1 they do not give us a ,figure sufficiently significant for faith to account for the ,christian ,church2 scientifically1 their portraits do not long prove satisfactory1 and are soon discarded on further investigation of the facts2 and religiously1 they do not appeal to ,christian believers as adequate to explain their own life in ,christ4 ,it is not surprising that these attempts have failed4 ,the historic ,jesus did not make the same impression upon everybody who met ,him2 men's judgments of ,him varied with their spiritual capacities1 and their spiritual capacities affected what ,he could do for them4 ,there is enough historicity in the narratives to convince sober historians1 whatever their faith or unfaith1 that ,jesus existed as a man among men1 and that ,he was conscious of a relationship to ,god and a significance for men which transcend anything in ordinary human experience4 ,it requires something more than sound historic judgment to see in ,jesus what ,he saw in ,himself1 or what ,peter saw in ,him when he called ,him the ,christ of ,god4 ,we can never prove to any man on the basis of historical research alone that the portrait of ,jesus in the gospels correctly represents the religious impression of the historic ,jesus4 ,when we deal with anything religious1 a subjective element enters and determines the conclusion1 exactly as the artistic spirit alone can appreciate that which has to do with art4 ,the gospels as appreciations appeal only to the similarly appreciative4 ,we can show that the earliest stratum of the gospel tradition1 according to the most rigorous methods of critical analysis1 gives us a ,jesus who possessed a meaning for ,his followers akin to the meaning the ,jesus of our four gospels possessed for the ,church of the ,first ,century1 and possesses for the ,church of our day4 ,only as ,jesus comes to have a supreme worth to any man can he believe that the estimate of their ,master in the minds of the first disciples can be the accurate impression of a real man4 ,when1 then1 we speak of the ,christ of history1 we mean not the figure of ,jesus as reproduced by scientific research apart from ,christian faith1 but the ,christ of the four gospels1 whose figure corresponds to the religious impression received from the historic ,jesus by ,his earliest followers4 ,lives of ,christ by historical students have their value when our main aim is historical information2 but the best of them is poor indeed compared with our gospels when we wish to attain the life of ,christ's followers4 ,the humblest reader of the ,new ,testament has the same chance with the most learned scholar of attaining a true knowledge of ,jesus for religious purposes2 and ,jesus remains1 as ,he would surely wish to remain1 a democratic figure accessible to all in the simply told narratives of the evangelists4 ,each age seems to have its own way of phrasing its religious needs2 and various elements in the picture of ,jesus have been prized by the succeeding ages as of special worth4 ,our generation finds itself religiously most interested in three outstanding features in the record of ,his life3 7#a7 ,his singular religious experience4 ,his first followers were impressed with ,his unique relation to ,god when they saw in ,him the awaited ,messiah4 ,the narratives represent ,him as invariably trusting1 loving1 obeying the ,most ,high as the ,father1 ,lord of heaven and earth4 ,his sayings lay special stress on ,god's tender personal interest in every child of ,his1 on ,his stern judgment of hypocrites1 on ,his ,self-sacrificing love1 and on ,his kindness to the unthankful and the evil4 ,while it is not easy for us with the limited materials at hand to discriminate clearly between the elements in ,jesus' thought of ,god which ,he shared with ,his contemporaries1 and those which were ,his own contribution1 so discerning a believer as ,paul1 reared in the most earnest circles of ,jewish thought1 could not name the ,god to whom he had been brought through ,jesus1 without mentioning ,jesus ,himself2 ,god was to him the ,god and ,father of our ,lord ,jesus ,christ4 ,the ,deity ,paul worshipped may be described as that loving ,response from the unseen which answered the trust of ,jesus2 or rather that personal ,approach to man from the unseen which produced ,jesus4 ,men who had not been atheists before they became ,christians are addressed by another writer as through ,jesus believers in ,god4 ,it is not enough to say that in ,jesus' experience ,god was ,father2 others before ,him1 both within and without ,israel1 had known the ,divine ,fatherhood4 ,it was the fatherliness in ,god which evoked and corresponded to ,jesus' sonship1 that formed ,his new and distinctive contribution4 ,a mutual relationship is expressed in the saying3 ,no one knoweth the ,son1 save the ,father2 neither doth any know the ,father1 save the ,son4 ,moving familiarly as a man among men1 ,jesus did not hesitate to offer them forgiveness1 health1 power1 life2 and to offer all these as ,his own possessions through ,his peculiar touch with the ,most ,high--,all things have been delivered unto ,me of ,my ,father4 ,in the words of the late ,professor ,g4,w4 ,knox1 ,jesus set forth communion with ,god as the most certain fact of man's experience1 and in simple reality made it accessible to everyone4 ,his consciousness of ,god was not something wholly new2 ,he was not a lonely mountain tarn unvisited by any stream1 but received into ,his soul the great river of a nation's spiritual life4 ,he was the heir of the faith of ,his people1 and regarded ,himself as completing that which a long line of predecessors had begun4 ,he did not find it necessary to invent new terms to express ,his thought2 but as ,he passed the old words through the alembic of ,his mind they came out with new meaning4 ,his originality consisted in ,his discriminating appropriation of ,his inheritance1 and in ,his using it so that it became alive with new power4 ,madame de ,stael said that ,rousseau invented nothing1 but set everything on fire4 ,jesus took the religion of ,israel1 and lived its life with ,god1 and after ,him it possessed a kindling flame it had never shown before4 ,the faith of a small people in a corner of the ,roman ,empire1 with a few thousands of proselytes here and there in the larger towns about the ,mediterranean1 became in a generation a force which entirely supplanted the ,jewish missionary movement and rapidly spread throughout the world4 7#b7 ,a singular character4 ,more striking than anything ,jesus said or did is what ,he was4 ,that which ,he worshipped in the ,god ,he trusted1 ,he ,himself embodied4 ,we can estimate ,his character best1 not by trying to inventory its virtues 7for a very similar list might be attributed to others of far less moral power7 but by feeling the effect ,he had on those who knew ,him4 ,they are constantly telling us how ,he amazed them1 awed them1 and bound them to ,himself4 ,their superlative tribute to ,him is that1 holding ,his own pure and exalted view of ,god1 they felt no incongruity in thinking of ,him as beside ,god on the throne4 ,it may have been their belief in ,his ,messiahship1 accredited by ,his resurrection and destining ,him to come with power and judge the world1 that led them to place ,him at the right hand of ,god2 but there was the place where ,he seemed to them to belong4 ,none have ever conceived ,god more highly than they who said1 ,god is love1 and these men set ,jesus side by side with ,god4 ,the evangelists do not attempt to describe what ,he was like2 they let us hear ,him and watch ,him1 as ,he lived in the memories of those who had been with ,him2 and ,he makes ,his own impression4 ,the crowning tribute is that we have no loftier adjective in our vocabulary than ,christlike4 7#c7 ,a singular victory--a victory over the world and sin and death4 ,jesus believed in and proclaimed a new order of things in the world--the ,kingdom of ,god--in which ,his ,father's will should be realized4 ,it was an order in which men should live in love with one another and with ,god1 in which justice1 kindness and faithfulness should prevail in all relationships1 and in which all ,god's children's needs should be supplied1 their maladies healed1 their wrongs righted1 their lives made full4 ,this ,kingdom was already in the earth in ,himself and in the new life ,he succeeded in creating in those who followed ,him4 ,it found itself opposed by physical forces that were injurious to humanity2 and these ,he met fearlessly1 sleeping in a storm so violent as to terrify ,his fisherman companions2 and1 what is more1 ,he commanded these forces for ,his ,father's purpose in a way that amazed ,his first followers and is still amazing to us4 ,the reports of ,his mighty works have to be carefully scrutinized by historical scholars1 and no doubt the historicity of some of them is much more fully attested than that of others2 but when every allowance is made for the ideas of a prescientific age in which miracles were relatively frequent1 and for the possible growth of the marvellous elements in the tradition1 enough remains to show that here was a ,personality whose power cannot be limited by our usual standards of human ability4 ,judged by past or present conceptions of what is natural1 ,his works were supernatural2 ,he ,himself regarded them as the breaking into the world through ,him of the new order that was to be4 ,he discouraged men's craving for the physically miraculous1 and thought little of the faith in ,him produced by its display2 but there can be no question of ,his extraordinary control of physical forces for the aims of ,his ,kingdom4 ,it was1 however1 in the moral conflict between the ,divine ,order and things as they were1 that ,he saw the decisive collision1 and faced it with heroic faith in ,his ,father's victory4 ,when the dominant authorities in ,church and ,state were about to crush ,him1 ,he looked forward undismayed1 and in the glowing pictures of fervent ,jewish men of hope ,he imaged the ,divine ,rule ,he proclaimed coming in power4 ,he was to ,his followers the ,conqueror of sin4 ,he went forth to wage war with evil in the world1 because ,he was conscious that ,he had first bound the strong man1 and could spoil his house4 ,in an autobiographical parable ,he seems to have told them something of ,his own battle with temptation and of ,his victory4 ,they found in ,him ,one who both shamed and transformed them2 they saw ,him forgiving and altering sinners2 and1 above all1 ,his cross1 from the earliest days when they began to ask themselves what it meant1 had for them redemptive force4 ,he was to them the ,victor of death4 ,however the historian may deal with the details of the narratives of the appearances of the risen ,jesus to ,his disciples1 he cannot fail to recognize the conviction of ,jesus' followers that their ,lord had returned to them and was alive with power4 ,we must remember that it was to faith alone that the risen ,jesus showed ,himself1 and that no one outside the circle of believers 7unless we except ,saul of ,tarsus7 saw ,him after ,his death4 ,historical research1 independent of ,christian faith1 may not be able positively to affirm the correctness of the ,easter faith of the disciples1 for the data lie1 in part at least1 outside the range of such research4 ,but the historian must leave the door open for faith2 and he may go further and point out that faith's explanation best fits the facts4 ,present faith finds itself prepared to receive the witness of the men of faith centuries ago4 ,the attempt to banish ,jesus from our world signally failed2 ,he was a more living and potent force in it after1 than before1 ,his death4 ,this singular religious experience1 character and victory we ascribe to the ,jesus of history through the tradition which preserves for us ,his religious impression upon ,his immediate followers4 ,there are some who lay little stress upon the events of the past2 like ,shelley's ,skylark1 they are scorners of the ground4 ,why1 they ask1 should we care what took place in ,palestine centuries ago8 ,the answer is that it is the roots which go down into historic fact which give the whole tree of ,christian faith its stability and vigor4 ,a tree gathers nourishment and grows by its leaves2 and ,christianity has undoubtedly taken into itself many enriching elements from the life about it in every age2 but a tree without roots is neither sturdy nor alive4 ,a ,christianity which disregards its origin in the ,jesus of genuine memory may label anything ,christian that it fancies1 and end by losing its own identity2 and a ,christianity which does not constantly keep learning of the ,jesus of the ,new ,testament1 and renewing its convictions1 ideals and purposes from ,him1 ceases to be vital4 ,we do not think of ,christianity as a fixed quantity or an unchanging essence1 but as a life2 and life is ever growing and changing4 ,but with all its growth and change it keeps true to type1 and the type is ,jesus ,christ4 ,the gospels1 which conserve the impress of that ,life upon men of faith1 are anchors in the actual amid windy storms of speculation4 ,we are not constructing a ,christ out of our spiritual experiences1 but letting ,him who gave life to these early followers1 through their memories of ,him1 recreate us into ,his and their fellowship with ,god and man4 ,their spiritual experiences are the sensitive plate which caught and kept for all time the image of the historic ,jesus2 but their experience is a memory1 and there must be a further experience in us upon which this memory throws and fixes ,his image before we know ,jesus ,christ for ourselves4 ,unless a man's soul is unimpressionable1 he cannot be faced with the ,christ of the ,new ,testament without being deeply affected4 ,we needs must love the highest when we see it1 and to millions throughout the earth ,jesus is their highest inspiration4 ,for them ,he ceases to belong to the past and becomes their most significant ,contemporary4 ,they do not look back to ,him2 they look up to ,him as their present ,comrade and ,lord2 and in loyalty to ,him they find themselves possessed of a new life4 ,in a previous chapter1 we used the phrase man's response to his highest inspirations as a description of religious experience2 and in responding to the appeal of ,jesus1 ,his followers pass into the characteristically ,christian experience of the ,divine--an experience which involves two main elements3 communion through ,jesus with ,god1 and communion with ,jesus in ,god4 ,communion through ,jesus with ,god4 ,his singular religious experience they find themselves sharing to some degree4 ,they repeat ,his discoveries in the unseen and corroborate them4 ,god1 the ,god and ,father of ,jesus ,christ1 becomes their ,god and ,father1 with whom they live in the trust and love and obedience of children4 ,and for them ,jesus' consciousness of ,god becomes authoritative4 ,it is not that they consider ,him in possession of secret sources of information inaccessible to them1 but that1 incomparably more expert1 ,he has penetrated farther and more surely into the unseen1 and they trustfully follow ,him4 ,he does not lord it over them as servants1 but leads them as ,his friends4 ,man1 says ,keats1 in a remark which illustrates ,jesus' method with ,his disciples1 ,man should not dispute or assert1 but whisper results to his neighbor4 ,he1 who of old did not strive nor cry aloud1 still so quietly gives those who obey ,him ,his attitude towards ,god1 that they scarcely realize how much they owe ,him4 ,only here and there a discerning follower1 like ,luther1 is aware how all-important is the contribution that comes through a conscious sharing of ,christ's revelation1 ,whosoever loses ,christ1 all faiths 7of the ,pope1 the ,jews1 the ,turks1 the common rabble7 become one faith4 ,and when once ,jesus is authoritative for a man1 ,he is the supreme religious authority4 ,a tolerant ,roman1 like ,alexander ,severus1 set statues of ,apollonius1 ,christ1 ,abraham1 ,orpheus1 and others of that sort1 in his lararium2 and many today are inclined to make a similar religious combination4 ,where ,christ is concerned1 there can be for ,his followers no other of that sort4 ,we cherish every discovery of the ,divine by any saint of any faith which does not conflict with the revelation of ,jesus2 but to those who have found ,him the ,way to the ,father1 ,his consciousness of ,god is decisive4 ,in the margin of his copy of ,bacon's ,essays1 ,william ,blake wrote opposite some statement of that worldly-wiseman1 ,this is certain3 if what ,bacon says is true1 what ,christ says is false4 ,a loyal ,christian must set every opinion he meets as clearly in the light of his ,lord's mind1 and choose accordingly his course in the seen and in the unseen4 ,when through ,jesus we are in fellowship with ,his ,god1 ,jesus ,himself becomes to us the revelation of ,god4 ,the ,deity to whom we are led through ,his faith discloses ,himself to us in ,jesus' character4 ,what we call ,divine1 as we worship it in ,one whom we picture in the heavens or indwelling within us1 we discover at our side in ,jesus2 and if we are impelled to speak of the ,deity of the ,father1 when we characterize our highest inspirations from the unseen1 we cannot do less than speak of the ,deity of the ,son1 through whom in the seen these same inspirations pass to us4 ,jesus ,himself awakens in us a religious response4 ,we instinctively adore ,him1 devote our all to ,him1 trust ,him with a confidence as complete as we repose in ,god4 ,we are either idolaters1 or ,jesus is the unveiling in a human life of the ,most ,high2 ,he is to us ,god manifest in the flesh4 ,and ,jesus is also the revelation of what man may become4 ,none ever had a sublimer faith in man than ,he who dared bid ,his followers be perfect as their ,father is perfect4 ,he did not close ,his eyes to men's glaring unlikeness to ,god2 ,he said to ,his auditors1 ye being evil2 ,he believed in the necessity of their complete transformation through repentance4 ,but when ,he asked them to follow ,him1 ,he set no limits to the distance they would be able to go4 ,he did not warn them that they must stop at the foot of ,calvary1 while ,he climbed to the top2 or that they could not go with ,him in ,his intimacy with the ,father4 ,some ,christians1 out of reverence for ,jesus1 think it necessary to draw a sharp line between ,him and ourselves1 and remind us that we cannot overpass it2 but ,he drew no such line4 ,he believed in the divine possibilities of divinely changed men4 ,as a matter of fact we find ourselves immeasurably beneath ,him1 and1 the more we long to be like ,him1 the greater the distance between us seems to become4 ,but ,he is as confident that ,he can conform us to ,his likeness1 as that ,he ,himself is at one with ,his ,father4 ,it is worth emphasizing that this ,personality in whom we find the revelation of ,god and the ideal of manhood is a figure in history4 ,when an apostle was speaking of the one ,mediator between ,god and men1 he laid stress on the fact that ,he was ,himself man4 ,when a distinction is drawn between the ,christ of experience and the ,christ of history1 we must not be confused4 ,the content of the name ,jesus was given once for all in the impression made by the ,man of ,nazareth1 ,one made in all points like ourselves4 ,we may understand ,him better than those who knew ,him in the flesh2 we may see the bearing of ,his life on many situations that were entirely beyond even ,his ken2 and so we may have a larger ,christ1 exactly as succeeding generations sometimes form truer estimates of men than contemporaries2 but all that is authentic in our larger ,christ was implicit in the ,man of ,galilee4 ,that to which we respond as to ,god is the historic ,jesus mirrored in ,his disciples' faith4 ,we agree with the eloquent words of ,tertullian3 ,we say1 and before all men we say1 and torn and bleeding under your tortures we cry out1 ',we worship ,god through ,christ4 ,count ,christ a man1 if you please2 by ,him and in ,him ,god would be known and adored4' ,and our assurance that we can become like ,jesus rests on the fact that this life has been already lived4 ,a mountain top1 however lofty1 we can hope to scale1 for it is part of the same earth on which we stand2 but a star1 however alluring1 we have no confidence of reaching4 ,jesus' worth as an example to us lies in our finding in ,him ideal manhood closed in real man4 ,in fellowship through ,jesus with ,god we discover that ,his victory is vicarious2 ,he conquered for ,himself and for us the world and sin and death4 ,he imparts ,his faith in the coming of the ,divine ,order in the world4 ,his followers share ,his fearless and masterful attitude towards physical forces2 when they appear opposed to ,god's purpose of love1 the ,christian is confident that they are not inherently antagonistic to it3 to them that love ,god all things work together for good4 ,what is called nature is not something fixed1 but plastic2 something which can be conformed to the will of the ,god and ,father of ,jesus4 ,a pestilential ,panama1 for instance1 is not natural1 but subnatural1 and must be brought up to its divine nature1 when it will serve the children of ,god4 ,the ,rule of ,god in nature1 like the ,kingdom in ,jesus' parables1 must both be awaited patiently--for it will require advances in men's consciences and knowledge to control physical forces in the interest of love--and striven for believingly4 ,and even when bitter circumstances seem1 whether only for the present or permanently1 inescapable1 when pain and disaster and death must be borne1 the ,christian accepts them as part of the loving and wise will of ,god1 as his ,lord acquiesced in ,his own suffering3 ,the cup which the ,father hath given ,me1 shall ,i not drink it8 ,and ,jesus confers ,his confidence in the alterability of the world of human relations4 ,christians believe in the superiority of moral over material forces1 in the wisdom and might of love4 ,a life like ,christ's is pronounced in every generation unpractical1 until under ,his inspiration some follower lives it2 and slowly1 as in ,his own case1 its success is acclaimed4 ,his principles1 as applied to an economic institution such as slavery1 or to the treatment of the criminal1 are counted visionary1 until1 constrained by ,his ,spirit1 men put them into practice1 and their results gradually speak for themselves4 ,his followers in every age have seemed fools to many1 if not to most1 of their judicious contemporaries2 but cheered by ,his confidence1 they venture on apparently hopeless undertakings1 and find that ,he has overcome the world4 ,jesus' victory over sin works in true disciples a similar conquest4 ,christians label any unchristlikeness sin1 and they vastly darken the world with a new sense of its evil1 and are themselves most painfully aware of their own sinfulness4 ,jesus' conscience has creative power1 and reproduces its sensitiveness in theirs2 they are born into a life of new sympathies and obligations and penitences4 ,by ,his faith1 and supremely by ,his cross1 ,he communicates to ,his followers the assurance of ,god's forgiveness which reestablishes their intercourse with ,him1 and releases ,his life in them2 and ,jesus lays them under a new and more potent compulsion to live no longer unto themselves1 but unto their brethren4 ,jesus' conquest of death is to ,his followers the vindication of ,his faith in ,god1 and ,god's attestation of ,him2 and with such a ,god ,lord of heaven and earth1 death has neither sting nor victory2 it cannot separate from ,god's love2 and it is itemized among a ,christian's assets4 ,the face of death has been transfigured4 ,aristides1 explaining the ,christian faith about the year #abe ,a4,d41 writes1 ,and if any righteous man among them passes from the world1 they rejoice and offer thanks to ,god2 and they escort his body as if he were setting out from one place to another near4 ,christians speak of their dead as in ,christ--under ,his all-sufficient control4 ,communion with ,jesus in ,god4 ,when the ,christian through ,jesus finds himself in fellowship with ,his ,god and ,father1 he does not leave ,jesus behind as ,one whose work is done4 ,he discovers that he can maintain this fellowship only as he constantly places himself in such contact with the historic ,figure that ,god can through ,him renew the experience4 ,it is by going back to ,jesus that we go up to the ,father2 or rather1 it is through the abiding memory of ,jesus in the world that ,god reaches down and lifts us to ,himself4 ,and at such times no ,christian thinks of ,jesus as a memory1 but as a living ,friend4 ,to ,him he addresses himself directly in prayer and praise1 which would be meaningless were there no present communication between ,jesus and ,his disciples4 ,we cannot say that we have an experience of communion with ,jesus which is distinguishable from our experience of communion with ,god2 we respond through ,jesus to ,god4 ,but if our ,god be the ,god of ,jesus1 we cannot think of ,jesus as anywhere in the universe out of fellowship with ,him4 ,his ,god would not be ,himself1 nor would ,jesus be ,himself1 were the fellowship between ,them interrupted2 and we cannot think of ourselves as in touch with the ,one1 without being at the same time in touch with the ,other4 ,it is an apparently inevitable inference from our ,christian experience1 when we attempt to rationalize it1 that our fellowship is with the ,father1 and with ,his ,son ,jesus ,christ4 ,in communion with ,god we are in a society which includes the ,father and all ,his true sons and daughters1 the living here and the living yonder1 for all live unto ,him4 ,they are ours in ,god2 and ,jesus supremely1 because ,he is the ,mediator of our life with ,god1 is ours in ,his and our ,father4 ,we have already passed over into the division of our subject which we called the ,christ of reflection4 ,all experience contains an intellectual element1 and we never experience facts apart from the ideas in which we represent them to ourselves4 ,but there is a further mental process when we attempt to combine what we think we have experienced in some relationship with all else that we know1 and reach a unified view of existence4 ,for example1 when ,paul took the gospel out of its local setting in ,palestine1 and carried it into the ,roman world1 he had to interpret the figure of ,jesus to set it in the minds of men who thought in terms very different from those of the fishermen of ,galilee or the scribes at ,jerusalem4 ,similarly ,john1 who wrote his gospel for ,gentile readers1 could not introduce ,jesus to them as the ,messiah1 and catch their interest2 he took an idea1 as common in the thought of that day as ,evolution is in our own--the ,logos or ,word1 in whom ,god expresses ,himself and through whom ,he acts upon the world--and used that as a point of contact with the minds of his readers4 ,we have to connect the ,christ of our experience with our thought of ,god and of the universe4 ,three chief questions suggest themselves to us3 ,how shall we picture ,jesus' present life8 ,how shall we account for ,his singular personality8 ,how shall we conceive the union in ,him of the ,divine and the human1 which we have discovered8 ,the first of these questions faced the disciples when ,jesus was no longer with them in the flesh4 ,when a cloud received ,him out of their sight1 it did not take ,him out of their fancy2 finding themselves still in communion with ,him1 they had to imagine ,his present existence with ,god and with them4 ,they used their current symbol for ,god--the ,most ,high enthroned above ,his world--and they pictured ,jesus as seated at the right hand of the throne of ,god4 ,or they took some vivid metaphor of personal friendship--a figure knocking at the door and entering to eat with them--and found that a fitting interpretation of their experience4 ,these were picturesque ways of saying that ,jesus shares ,god's life and ours4 ,while our current modes of representing the ,divine do not localize heaven1 the symbolic language of the ,bible has so entered into our literature1 that in worship and in devout thought we find the ,new ,testament metaphors most satisfactory to express our faith4 ,the second question was asked even during ,jesus' lifetime--,whence hath this ,man these things8 ,the ,new ,testament writers deal with the question of ,jesus' origin in a variety of ways4 ,the earliest of our present gospels opens its narrative with the descent of the ,spirit upon ,jesus as ,he answers ,john's summons to baptism4 ,it seems to explain ,his uniqueness by the extraordinary spiritual endowment bestowed upon ,him in manhood4 ,the first and third gospels contain besides this two other traditions3 they introduce ,jesus as the descendant of a line of devout progenitors1 going back in the one case to ,david and ,abraham1 and in the other still further through ,adam to ,god4 ,they bring forward ,his spiritual heredity as one factor to account for ,him4 ,side by side with this they place a narrative which records ,his birth1 not as the ,son of ,joseph through whom ,his ancestry is traced1 but of the ,holy ,spirit and a virgin-mother4 ,this gives prominence to the ,divine and human parentage which brought ,him into the world4 ,in ,paul and ,john and the ,epistle to the ,hebrews1 there is incarnate in ,jesus a preexistent heavenly ,being--the ,man from heaven1 the ,word who was from the beginning with ,god1 the ,son through whom ,he made the worlds4 ,they present us with a ,divine ,being made a man4 ,this last conception is not combined by any ,new ,testament writer with a virgin-birth4 ,when our ,new ,testament books were put together1 the ,church found all four statements in its ,canon1 and combined them 7although some of them are not easily combined7 in its account of ,jesus' origin4 ,historical scholars have difficulty in tracing any of these accounts but the first directly to ,jesus ,himself2 but they come from the earliest period of the ,church1 and they have satisfied many generations of thoughtful ,christians as explanations of the uniqueness of the ,person of their ,lord4 ,some of them do not seem to be as helpful to modern believers1 and are even said to render ,him less intelligible4 ,we must beware on the one hand of insisting too strongly that a believer in ,jesus ,christ shall hold a particular view of ,his origin2 the diversity in the ,new ,testament presentations of ,christ would not be there1 if all its writers considered all four of these statements necessary in every man's conception of his ,lord4 ,and on the other hand1 we must point out that it is a tribute to ,jesus' greatness that so many circumstances were appealed to to account for ,him1 and that all of them have spiritual value4 ,all four insist that ,jesus' origin is in ,god1 and that in ,jesus we find the ,divine in the human4 ,all four--a spiritual endowment1 a spiritual heredity1 a spiritual birth1 the incarnation of ,god in ,man--may well seem congruous with the ,jesus of our experience1 even if we are not intellectually satisfied with the particular modes in which these affirmations have been made in the past4 ,the question of ,jesus' origin is not of primary importance2 ,he ,himself judged nothing by its antecedents1 but by its results--,by their fruits ye shall know them4 ,no man1 today1 should be hindered from believing in ,christ1 because he does not find a particular statement in connection with ,his origin credible4 ,christ is here in our world1 however ,he entered it1 and can be tested for what ,he is4 ,to know ,him is not to know how ,he came to be1 but what ,he can do for us4 ,to know ,christ1 ,melancthon well said1 is to know ,his benefits4 ,the third question1 ,how are we to conceive of the union of ,deity and humanity in ,him8 is a problem which exercised the ,fourth1 ,fifth and ,sixth ,centuries of the ,christian ,church to the exclusion of almost all others4 ,the theologians of those times worked out 7and fought out7 the theory of the union of two natures in one ,person1 which remains the official statement of the ,church's interpretation of ,christ in ,greek1 ,roman and ,protestant creeds4 ,but the philosophy which dealt in natures and persons is no longer the mode of thought of educated people2 and while we may admire the mental skill of these earlier theologians1 and may recognize that an ,athanasius and his orthodox allies were contending for a vital element in ,christian experience1 their formulations do not satisfy our minds4 ,in the last century some divines advanced a modification of this ancient theory1 naming it the ,kenotic or ,self-emptying ,theory1 from the ,greek word used by ,st4 ,paul in the phrase1 ,he emptied ,himself4 ,the eternal ,son of ,god is represented as laying aside whatever attributes of ,deity--omnipresence1 omniscience1 omnipotence1 etc4--could not be manifested in an entirely human life4 ,the ,jesus of history reveals so much of ,god as man can contain1 but is ,himself more4 ,but we know of no personality which can lay aside memory1 knowledge1 etc4 ,the theory begins with a conception of ,deity apart from ,jesus1 and then proceeds to treat ,him as partially disclosing this ,deity in ,his human life2 but the ,christian has his experience of the ,divine through ,jesus1 and his reflection must start with ,deity as revealed in ,him4 ,still later in the century1 ,albrecht ,ritschl gave another interpretation of ,christ's ,person4 ,he began with the completely human ,figure of history1 and pointed out that it is through ,him we experience communion with ,god1 so that to ,his followers ,jesus is divine2 ,his humanity is the medium through which ,god reveals ,himself to us4 ,this affirmation of ,his ,deity is an estimate1 made by believers1 of ,jesus' worth to them2 they cannot prove it to any who are without a sense of ,christ's value as their ,saviour4 ,any further explanation of how the human and the ,divine are joined in ,jesus1 he deemed beyond the sphere of religious knowledge4 ,our modern thought of ,god as immanent in ,his world and in men enables us1 perhaps more easily than some of our predecessors1 to fit the figure of ,christ into our minds4 ,the discovery of the ,divine in the human does not surprise us4 ,we think of ,god as everywhere manifesting ,himself1 but ,his presence is limited by the medium in which it is recognized4 ,he reveals as much of ,himself through nature as nature can disclose2 as much through any man as he can contain2 as much through the complete ,man as ,he is capable of manifesting4 ,nor does this ,self-revelation of ,god in ,jesus do away for us with ,jesus' own attainment of ,his character4 ,immanent ,deity does not submerge the human personality4 ,jesus was no merely passive medium through which ,god worked1 but an active ,will who by constant cooeperation with the ,father was perfected4 ,if there was an emptying1 there was also a filling1 so that we see in ,him the fulness of ,god4 ,how ,he alone of all mankind came so to receive the ,self-giving ,father remains for us1 as for our predecessors1 the ultimate riddle1 a riddle akin to that which makes each of us indescribably himself4 ,and as for the origin of ,his unique ,person1 we have no better explanations to substitute for those of the ,first ,century2 the mystery of our ,lord's singular personality remains unsolved4 ,while our reflections almost necessarily end in guesses1 or in impenetrable obscurities1 our experience of ,christ's worth can advance to ever greater certainty4 ,we follow ,him1 and find ,him the ,way1 the ,truth and the ,life4 ,we trust ,him and prove ,his power to save unto the uttermost4 ,we come to feel that no phrase applied to ,him in the ,new ,testament is an exaggeration2 our own language1 like ,st4 ,paul's1 admits its inadequacy by calling ,him ,god's unspeakable gift4 ,we see the light of the knowledge of the glory of ,god in ,his face2 ,he is to us the ,light of life2 and we live and strive to make ,him the ,light of the world4 ,though we may never be able to reason out to our satisfaction how ,god and man unite in ,him1 we discover in ,him the ,god who redeems us and the ,man we aspire to be4 ,jesus is to us 7to borrow a saying of ,lancelot ,andrewes'7 ,god's as much as ,he can send2 ours as much as we can desire4 ,,chapter ,,iv ,,god ,the word ,god is often employed as though it had a fixed meaning4 ,his part in an event or ,his relation to a movement is discussed with the assumption that all who speak have in mind the same ,being4 ,god is the name a man gives to his highest inspiration1 and men vary greatly in that which inspires them4 ,one man's god is his belly1 another's his reputation1 a third's cleverness4 ,napoleon reintroduced the cult of the ,god of authority1 by establishing the ,concordat with ,rome1 because as he bluntly put it1 men require to be kept in order4 ,a number of socially minded thinkers1 of whom the best known is ,george ,eliot1 deified humanity and gave themselves to worship and serve it4 ,whatever thy heart clings to and relies on1 wrote ,luther1 that is properly thy ,god4 ,a ,christian is one who clings to ,him in whom ,jesus trusted1 one who responds to the highest inspirations of ,jesus of ,nazareth4 ,and a glance over ,church history leaves one feeling that few ,christians1 even among careful thinkers1 have had thoroughly ,christian ideas of ,god4 ,a principal fault has been the method used in arriving at the thought of ,god4 ,men began with what was termed ,natural ,religion4 ,they studied the universe and inferred the sort of ,deity who made and ruled it4 ,it was intricately and wisely designed2 its ,god must be omniscient4 ,it was vast2 ,he must be omnipotent4 ,it displayed the same orderliness everywhere2 ,he must be omnipresent4 ,in epochs when men emphasized the beneficence of nature--its beauty1 its usefulness1 its wisdom--they concluded that its ,creator was good4 ,in an epoch1 like the latter part of the ,nineteenth ,century1 they drew a very different conclusion4 ,charles ,darwin wrote1 ,what a book a ,devil's chaplain might write on the clumsy1 wasteful1 blundering1 low and horribly cruel works of nature4 ,christians never stopped with the view of ,god drawn from ,natural ,religion4 ,they made this their basis1 and then added to it the ,god of ,revealed ,religion1 contained in the ,bible4 ,they selected all the texts that spoke of ,god1 drawing them from ,leviticus and ,ecclesiastes as confidently as from the gospels and ,st4 ,paul1 and constructed a ,biblical doctrine of ,god1 which they added to the omnipotent1 omniscient1 omnipresent ,being of their inferences from ,nature4 ,the ,god and ,father of ,jesus was thus combined with various1 often much lower thoughts of ,deity in the ,bible1 and then further obscured by the ,deity of the current views of physical and human nature4 ,it is not surprising that few ,christians possessed a truly ,christian view of ,god4 ,loyalty to ,jesus compels us to begin with ,him4 ,if ,he is the ,way1 we are not justified in taking half a dozen other roads1 and using ,him as one path among many4 ,we ask ourselves what was the highest inspiration of ,jesus1 what was the ,being to whom ,he responded with ,his obedient trust and with whom ,he communed4 ,we are eager not to fashion an image of ,divinity for ourselves1 which is idolatry as truly when our minds grave it in thought as when our hands shape it in stone2 but to receive ,god's disclosure of ,himself with a whole-hearted response1 and interpret1 as faithfully as we can1 the impression ,he makes upon us4 ,god1 writes ,tyndal1 the martyr translator of our ,english ,new ,testament1 is not man's imagination1 but that only which ,he saith of ,himself4 ,our highest inspirations come to us from ,jesus1 and ,he is1 therefore1 ,god's ,self-unveiling to us1 ,god's ,frankness1 ,his ,word made flesh4 ,responding to ,god through ,jesus1 ,christians discover3 ,first1 that ,god is their ,christlike ,father1 and that ,he is love as ,jesus experienced ,his love and ,himself was love4 ,second1 that ,god is the ,lord of heaven and earth4 ,we do not know whether ,he is omniscient1 omnipotent1 omnipresent2 there is much that leads us to think that ,he is limited4 ,he can do no more than ,love can do with ,his children1 and ,love has its defeats1 and crosses1 and tragedies4 ,but trusting the ,christlike ,father we more and more discover that ,he is sufficiently in control over all things to accomplish through them ,his will4 ,he needs us to help ,him master nature1 and transform it into the servant of man1--to control disease1 to harness electricity1 to understand earthquakes2 and ,he needs us to help ,him conquer human nature and conform it to the likeness of ,his ,son4 ,god's complete lordship waits until ,his will is done in earth as it is in heaven2 but for the present we believe that ,he is wise and strong enough not to let nature or men defeat ,his purpose2 that ,he is controlling all things so that they work together for good unto them that love ,him4 ,and third1 that ,god is the indwelling ,spirit4 ,the ,christlike ,father ,lord1 whom we find outside ourselves through the faith and character of ,jesus1 becomes as we enter into fellowship with ,him1 a ,force within us4 ,he is the ,conscience of our consciences1 the ,wellspring of motives and impulses and sympathies4 ,we repeat1 today1 in some degree1 the experience of the first disciples at ,pentecost2 we recognize within ourselves the inspiring1 guiding and energizing ,spirit of love4 ,while we find ,god primarily through ,jesus1 ,he reveals ,himself to us in many other ways3 in the ,scriptures1 where the generations before us have garnered their experiences of ,him2 in living epistles in ,christian men and women1 and in some who do not call themselves by the ,christian name1 but whose lives disclose the ,spirit of ,god who was in ,jesus2 in non-,christian faiths1 where ,god has always given some glimpse of ,himself in answer to men's search4 ,christ is not for us confining but defining2 ,he gives us in ,himself the test to assay the ,divine4 ,nor do experiences which we label religious exhaust the list of our contacts with ,god4 ,our sense of duty1 whether we connect it with ,god or not1 brings us in touch with ,him4 ,many persons are unconsciously serving ,god through their obedience to conscience4 ,it was said of the ,french savant1 ,littre1 that he was a saint who did not believe in ,god4 ,he made the motto of his life1 ,to love1 to know1 to serve2 and no intelligent follower of ,him who said1 ,inasmuch as ye did it unto one of ,my brethren1 even these least1 ye did it unto ,me1 will fail to admit that in such a life there is a genuine1 though unrecognized communion with ,god4 ,in our own day when conscience is erecting new standards of responsibility1 rendering intolerable many things good people have put up with1 demonstrating the horror and hatefulness of war and forcing us to probe its causes and motives1 discontenting us with our industrial arrangements1 our business practices1 our social order1 ,god is giving us a larger and better ,ideal1 a fuller vision of ,himself4 ,we know what our ,christlike ,father is in ,jesus2 but we shall appreciate and understand ,him infinitely better as ,he becomes embodied in the principles and ideals that dominate every home1 and trade1 and nation4 ,again1 our perception of beauty affords us a glimpse of ,god4 ,the ,greeks embodied loveliness in their statues of the ,divine1 because through the satisfaction which came to them from such exquisite figures their souls were soothed and uplifted4 ,they have left on record how the calm and majestic expression of a face carved by a ,phidias quieted1 charmed1 strengthened them4 ,dion ,chrysostom says of the figure of the ,olympian ,zeus1 ,whosoever among mortal men is most utterly toil-worn in spirit1 having drunk the cup of many sorrows and calamities1 when he stands before this image1 methinks1 must utterly forget all the terrors and woes of this mortal life4 ,the ,greek ,christian fathers often tell us that the same sense of the infinitely ,fair1 which was roused in them by such sights1 recurred in a higher degree when their thoughts dwelt upon the life and character of ,jesus4 ,clement of ,alexandria says1 ,he is so lovely as to be alone loved by us1 whose hearts are set on the true beauty4 ,our aesthetic and our religious experiences often merge2 our response to beauty1 whether in nature1 or music1 or a painting1 becomes a response to ,god4 ,wordsworth says of a lovely landscape that had stamped its views upon his memory3 ,oft in lonely rooms1 and mid the din ,of towns and cities1 ,i have owed to them1 ,in hours of weariness1 sensations sweet1 ,felt in the blood1 and felt along the heart2 ,and passing even into my purer mind ,with tranquil restoration3--feelings too ,of unremembered pleasure2 such1 perhaps1 ,as have no slight or trivial influence ,on that best portion of a good man's life1 ,his little1 nameless1 unremembered acts ,of kindness and of love4 ,shelley1 while insistently denying or defying all the gods of accepted religion1 finds himself adoring that ,beauty ,which penetrates and clasps and fills the world1 ,scarce visible for extreme loveliness4 ,surely the ,god ,christians adore is in these experiences1 though men know it not4 ,st4 ,augustine believed that all that is beautiful comes from the highest ,beauty1 which is ,god4 ,they who begin with the cult of ,beauty may have a conception of the ,divine that has nothing to do with1 or is even opposed to1 the ,god and ,father of ,jesus2 but when ,his ,god is supreme1 inspirations from all things lovely may vastly supplement our thought of ,him4 ,music on earth much light upon heaven has thrown4 ,science1 too1 has its contribution to offer to our thought of ,him who is over all and through all and in all4 ,truth is one1 and scientific investigation and religious experience are two avenues that lead to the one ,reality faith names ,god4 ,science of itself can never lead us beyond visible and tangible facts2 but its array of facts may suggest to faith many things about the invisible ,father1 the ,lord of all4 ,present-day science with its emphasis upon continuity makes us think of a ,god who is no occasional visitor1 but everywhere and always active2 its conception of evolution brings home to us the patient and long-suffering labor of a ,father who worketh even until now2 its stress upon law reminds us that ,he is never capricious but reliable2 its practical mastery of forces1 like those which enable men to use the air or to navigate under the water1 recalls to us the old command to subdue the earth as sons of ,god1 and adds the new responsibility to use our control1 as the ,son of ,god always did1 in love's cause4 ,philosophy1 too1 which ,professor ,james has described as our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means1 helps us to make clear our idea of ,god4 ,a philosopher is just a thoughtful person who takes the discoveries that his religious1 moral1 aesthetic1 scientific experiences have brought home1 and tries to set in order all he knows of truth1 beauty1 right1 ,god4 ,in attempting to philosophize upon their discoveries of ,god1 ,christian thinkers have arrived at the doctrine of the ,trinity in ,unity4 ,it was1 first1 an attempt to hold fast to the great foundation truth of the ,old ,testament that ,god is ,one4 ,the world in which ,christianity found itself had a host of deities--a god for the sea and another for the wind1 a god of the hearth and a god of the empire1 and so on4 ,today it is only too easy to obey one motive in the home and another in one's business1 to follow one principle in private life and another in national life1 and to be polytheists again4 ,christian faith insists that there is one ,god1 the ,father1 of whom are all things and we unto ,him4 ,we adore ,one who is ,christlike love1 and we will serve no other4 ,we trust ,christlike love as the divine basis for a happy family life1 and also for successful commerce1 for statesmanlike international dealings1 for the effective treatment of every political and social question4 ,the inspirations that come to us from a glorious piece of music or from an heroic act of self-sacrifice1 from some new discovery or from a novel sensitiveness of conscience1 are all inspirations from the one ,god4 ,at every moment and in every situation we must keep the same fundamental attitude towards life--trustful1 hopeful1 serving--because in every experience1 bitter or sweet1 we are always in touch with the one ,lord of all1 our ,christlike ,father4 ,in this ,unity ,christians have spoken of a ,trinity4 ,paul summing up the blessing of ,god1 speaks of the grace of our ,lord ,jesus ,christ1 and the love of ,god1 and the communion of the ,holy ,spirit4 ,he says1 through ,jesus we have our access in one ,spirit unto the ,father4 ,he and his fellow believers had been redeemed from selfishness to love1 from slavery to freedom2 and they accounted for their new life by saying that1 through the grace of ,jesus1 they had come to experience the fatherly love of ,god1 and to find ,his ,spirit binding them in a brotherhood of service for one another and the world4 ,the ,new ,testament goes no further3 it states these experiences of ,jesus1 of ,god1 of the ,spirit2 but it does not tell us the exact relations of the ,three--how ,god is related to the ,spirit1 or ,jesus distinct and at the same time one with the ,father4 ,so acute a thinker as ,paul never seems to have worked this out4 ,at one time he compares ,god's relation to ,his ,spirit to man's relation to his spirit 7,who among men knoweth the things of a man1 save the spirit of the man which is in him8 even so the things of ,god none knoweth1 save the ,spirit of ,god72 and once he identifies the ,spirit with the glorified ,christ 7,the ,lord is the ,spirit74 ,but while ,paul and other ,new ,testament writers did not feel the need of thinking out what their threefold experience of ,god implied as to ,his ,being1 later ,christians did2 and using the terms of the current ,greek philosophy1 they elaborated the conception of three ,persons in one ,godhead4 ,we have no exact equivalent in ,english for the ,greek word which is translated person in this definition4 ,it is not the same as a person for that would give us three gods2 nor is it something impersonal1 a mode or aspect of ,god4 ,it is something in between a personality and a personification4 ,let us remember that this doctrine is not in the ,new ,testament1 but is an attempt to explain certain experiences that are ascribed in the ,new ,testament to ,jesus1 the ,father1 the ,holy ,spirit4 ,even the hardiest thinkers caution us that our knowledge of ,god is limited to a knowledge of ,his relations to us3 ,augustine says1 the workings of the ,trinity are inseparable1 and ,calvin1 commenting on a passage whose aim is shortly to sum up all that is lawful for men to know of ,god1 notes that it is a description1 not of what ,he is in ,himself1 but of what ,he is to us1 that our knowledge of ,him may stand rather in a lively perception1 than in a vain and airy speculation4 ,but let us also recall that in this doctrine generations of ,christians have conserved indispensable elements in their thought of ,god3--,his fatherhood1 ,his ,self-disclosure in ,christ1 ,his spiritual indwelling in the ,christian community4 ,wherever it has been cast aside1 something vitalizing to ,christian life has gone with it4 ,but at present it is not a doctrine of much practical help to many religious people2 and it often constitutes a hindrance to ,jews and ,mohammedans1 and to some born within the ,church in their endeavor to understand and have fellowship with the ,christian ,god4 ,we may adopt one of two attitudes towards it3 we may accept it blindly as a mystery on the authority of the long centuries of ,christian thought1 which have used it to express their faith in ,god--hardly a ,protestant or truly ,christian position which bids us ,prove all things2 hold fast that which is good2 or we may consider it reverently as the attempt of the ,christian ,church of the past to interpret its discovery of ,god as the ,father ,lord1 revealed in ,christ1 and active within us as the ,spirit of love2 and use it in so far as it makes our experience richer and clearer1 remembering that it is only a man-made attempt to interpret ,him who passeth understanding4 ,the important matter is not the orthodoxy of our doctrine1 but the richness of our personal experience of ,god4 ,dr4 ,samuel ,johnson said3 ,we all know what light is2 but it is not so easy to tell what it is4 ,christians know1 at least in part1 what ,god is2 but it is far from easy to state what ,he is2 and each age must revise and say in its own words what ,god means to it4 ,here is a statement in which generations of believers have summed up their intercourse with the ,divine4 ,have we entered into the fulness of their fellowship with ,god8 ,do we know ,him as our ,father8 ,this does not mean merely that we accept the idea of ,his kinship with our spirits and trust ,his kindly disposition towards us2 but that we let ,him establish a direct line of paternity with us and father our impulses1 our thoughts1 our ideals1 our resolves4 ,jesus' sonship was not a relation due to a past contact1 but to a present connection4 ,he kept taking ,his ,being1 so to speak1 again and again from ,god1 saying1 ,not as ,i will1 but as ,thou wilt4 ,his every wish and motive had its heredity in the ,father whom ,he trusted with childlike confidence1 and served with a grown son's intelligent and willing comradeship4 ,fatherhood meant to ,jesus authority and affection2 obedience and devotion on ,his part maintained and perfected ,his sonship4 ,further1 we cannot1 according to ,jesus1 be in sonship with this ,father save as we are in true brotherhood with all ,his children4 ,god is 7to employ a colloquial phrase7 wrapped up in ,his sons and daughters1 and only as we love and serve them1 are we loving and serving ,him4 ,in ,jesus' summary of the ,law ,he combined two apparently conflicting obligations1 when ,he said1 ,thou shalt love the ,lord thy ,god with all thy heart1 and thou shalt love thy neighbor4 ,if a man loves ,god with his all1 how can there be any remainder of love to devote to someone else8 ,what we do for any man--the least1 the last1 the lost1--we do for ,god4 ,we do not know ,him as ,father1 until we possess the obligating sense of our kinship with all mankind1 and say1 ,our ,father4 ,do we know ,god in the ,son8 ,there is a sense in which ,jesus is the ,first ,person in the ,christian ,trinity4 ,our approach to ,god begins with ,him4 ,in ,st4 ,paul's familiar benediction1 the grace of our ,lord ,jesus ,christ precedes the love of ,god4 ,we know ,god's love only as we experience the grace of ,jesus4 ,we cannot experience that grace except as we let ,jesus be ,lord4 ,absolute and entire self-commitment to ,him allows ,him to renew us after ,his own likeness and equip us for service in ,his cause4 ,he cannot transform a partially devoted life1 nor use a half-dedicated man4 ,those who yield ,him lordship1 treating ,him as ,god by giving ,him their adoring trust and complete obedience1 discover ,his ,godhood4 ,to them ,he proves ,himself1 by all that ,he accomplishes in and through them1 worthy of their fullest devotion and reverence4 ,he becomes to them ,god manifest in a human life4 ,while in the order of our experience ,jesus comes first1 as we follow ,him1 ,he makes ,himself always second4 ,he points us from ,himself to the ,father1 like ,himself and greater2 ,my ,father is greater than ,i4 ,there is a remoteness1 as well as a nearness1 in ,god2 it is ,his greaterness which gives worth to ,his likeness4 ,to use a philosophical phrase1 only the transcendent ,god can be truly immanent4 ,we prize ,immanuel--,god with us1 because through ,him we climb to ,god above us4 ,jesus is the ,way2 but no one wishes to remain forever en route2 he arrives2 and home is the ,father4 ,jesus is the image of the invisible ,god2 but the image on the retina of our eye is not something on which we dwell2 we see through it the person with whom we are face to face4 ,we know ,god our ,father in ,his ,son4 ,every aspect of ,jesus' character unveils for us an aspect of the character of the ,lord of heaven and earth4 ,every experience through which ,jesus passed in ,his life with men suggests to us an experience through which our ,father is passing with us ,his children4 ,the cross on ,calvary is a picture of the age-long and present sacrifice of our ,god as ,he suffers with and for us4 ,the open grave is for us the symbol of ,his unconquerable love1 stronger than the world and sin and death4 ,god's embodiment of ,himself in this ,son1 made in all points like ourselves1 attests the essential kinship between ,him and us--,god's humanity and our potential divinity4 ,do we know ,god in the ,spirit8 ,his incarnation in ,jesus evidences ,his incarnability1 and ,his eagerness to have ,his fulness dwell in every son who will receive ,him4 ,to know ,god in the ,spirit is so to follow ,jesus that we share ,his sonship with the ,father and have ,him abiding in us1 working through us ,his works1 manifesting ,himself in our mortal lives4 ,our ,father is the great public ,spirit of the universe1 the most responsible and responsive ,being in existence4 ,the needs of all are claims on ,his service1 their sins are burdens of guilt on ,his conscience1 their joys and woes enlist ,his sympathy4 ,he has ,his life in the lives of ,his children4 ,the ,spirit is ,god's ,life in men1 ,god living in them4 ,to possess ,his will to serve1 ,his sense of obligation1 ,his interest and compassion1 is to have the ,holy ,spirit dwelling and regnant in us4 ,it was so that the ,father's ,spirit possessed ,jesus and made ,his abode in ,him2 and the ,holy ,spirit is the ,spirit of the ,father and of the ,son in the ,christian community4 ,and what a difference it makes whether we feel that the responsibilities our consciences force us to assume1 the sympathies in which our hearts go out1 the interests we are impelled to take1 the resolves and longings and purposes within us1 are just our own1 or are ,god's inspirations6 ,if they are simply ours1 who knows what will come of them8 ,if they are ,his1 we can yield to them assured that it is ,god who worketh in us to will and to do of ,his good pleasure4 ,our faith in ,god as ,self-imparting by ,his ,spirit makes possible our confident expectation that ,he can and will incarnate ,himself socially in the whole family of ,his children1 as once ,he was incarnate in ,jesus4 ,christians who devote themselves to fashioning social relations after the mind of ,christ1 and inspiring their brethren with ,his faith and purpose1 are conscious that through them the ,spirit of ,god is entering more and more into ,his world1 revealing the ,father in the new community of love1 which is being born4 ,sir ,edward ,burne-,jones once wrote3 ,that was an awful word of ,ruskin's1 that artists paint ,god for the world4 ,there's a lump of greasy pigment at the end of ,michael ,angelo's hog-bristle brush1 and by the time it has been laid on the stucco1 there is something there1 that all men with eyes recognize as ,divine4 ,think what it means3 it is the power of bringing ,god into the world--making ,god manifest6 ,men and women who are molding homes and industries1 towns and nations1 so that they embody love1 and influencing for righteousness the least and lowest of the children of men1 are putting before a whole world's eyes the ,divine1 are helping build the habitation of ,god in the ,spirit4 ,through them ,god imparts ,himself to mankind4 ,god over all--the ,father to whom we look up with utter trust1 and from whom moment by moment we take our lives in obedient devotion2 ,god through all--through ,jesus supremely1 and through every child who opens his life to ,him with the willingness of ,jesus2 ,god in all--the directing1 empowering1 sanctifying ,spirit1 producing in us characters like ,christ's1 employing and equipping us for the work of ,his ,kingdom1 and revealing ,himself in a community more and more controlled by love3 this is our ,christian thought of the ,divine--one ,god and ,father of all1 who is over all and through all and in all4 ,,chapter ,v ,,the ,,cross ,the human life in which succeeding generations have found their picture of ,god ended in a bloody tragedy4 ,it was a catastrophe which all but wrecked the loyalty of ,jesus' little group of followers2 it was an event which proved a stumbling block in their endeavor to win their countrymen to their ,lord1 and which seemed folly to the great mass of outsiders in the ,roman world4 ,it was a most baffling circumstance for them to explain either to themselves or to others2 but1 as they lived on under the control of their ,lord's ,spirit1 this tragedy came gradually to be for them the most richly significant occurrence in ,his entire history2 and ever since the cross has been the distinctive symbol of the ,christian faith4 ,it had a variety of meanings for the men of the ,new ,testament2 and it has had many more for their followers in subsequent centuries4 ,we are not limited to viewing it through the eyes of others1 nor to interpreting it with their thoughts4 ,we are enriched as we try to share their experiences of its power and light2 but we must go to ,calvary for ourselves1 and look at the ,crucified with the eyes of our own hearts1 and ask ourselves of what that cross convinces us4 ,its first and most obvious disclosure is the unchristlikeness1 and that means for us the ungodlikeness1 of our world4 ,we study the chief actors in this event1 and conclude that had we known personally ,caiaphas1 ,annas and ,pilate1 and even ,herod and ,judas ,iscariot1 we should have found them very like men we meet every day1 very like ourselves1 with a great deal in them to interest1 admire and attract4 ,and behind them we scan a crowd of inconspicuous and unnamed persons whose collective feelings and opinions and consciences were quite as responsible for this occurrence1 as were the men whose names are linked with it2 and they impress us as surprisingly like the public of our own day4 ,it was by no means the lowest elements in the society of that age who took ,jesus to the cross2 they were among the most devout and conscientious and thoughtful people of their time4 ,nor was it the worst elements in them which impelled them to class ,him as an undesirable1 of whom their world ought to be rid2 their loyalties and convictions were involved in that judgment4 ,they acted in accord with what was considered the most enlightened and earnest public opinion4 ,we can think of no more high-minded person in ,jerusalem than young ,saul of ,tarsus1 the student of ,gamaliel2 and we know how cordially he approved the course the leaders of ,israel had taken in putting ,jesus out of the way4 ,the cross is the point where ,god and ,his children1 even the best of them1 clash4 ,at ,calvary we see the rocky coast-line of men's thoughts and feelings against which the incoming tide of ,god's mind and heart broke2 and we hear the moaning of the resisted waves4 ,the crucifixion is the exposure of the motives and impulses1 the aspirations and traditions1 of human society4 ,its ungodlikeness is made plain4 ,we get our definition of sin from ,calvary2 sin is any unlikeness to the ,spirit of ,christ1 revealed supremely in that act of self-sacrifice4 ,the lifeless form of the ,son of ,god on the tree is the striking evidence of the antagonism between the children of men and their ,father4 ,jesus completely represented ,him1 and this broken body on the gibbet was the inevitable result4 ,golgotha convinces us of the ruinous forces that live in and dominate our world2 it faces us with the suicidal elements in men's spirits that drive them to murder the ,christlike in themselves2 it tears the veil from each hostile thought and feeling that enacts this tragedy and exposes the ,god-murdering character of our sin4 ,sin is deicidal4 ,when that ,life of light is extinguished1 we find a world about us and within us so dark that its darkness can be felt4 ,the fateful reality of the battle between love and selfishness1 knowledge and ignorance1 between ,god and whatever thwarts ,his purpose1 is made plain to us in that pierced and blood-stained ,figure on the cross4 ,in the sense of being the victim of the ungodlike forces in human life1 ,jesus bore sin in ,his own body on the tree4 ,a second and equally clear disclosure is that of a marvellous conscience4 ,what takes ,jesus ,christ to that tragic death8 ,it is perfectly evident that ,he need not have come up to ,jerusalem and hazarded this issue2 ,he came of ,his own accord2 and we can think of dozens of reasons that might have induced ,him to remain in ,galilee1 going about quietly and accomplishing all manner of good4 ,why did ,he give up the opportunities of a life that was so incalculably serviceable1 and apparently court death8 ,jesus was always conscientious in what ,he did2 ,he felt ,himself bound to the lives about ,him by the firmest cords of obligation1 and whatever ,he attempted ,he deemed ,he owed men4 ,if there was a ,zacchaeus whose honesty and generosity had given way under the faulty system of revenue-collecting then in vogue1 ,jesus considered ,himself involved in his moral ruin and obliged to do what ,he could to restore him3 ,i must abide at thy house4 ,if there were sick folk1 their diseases were to ,him1 in part at least1 morally wrong1 devil-caused 7to use ,his ,first ,century way of explaining what we ascribe to inherited weakness or to blameworthy conditions72 and demoniacal control over lives in ,god's world was something for which ,he felt ,himself socially accountable3 ,ought not this woman1 whom ,satan hath bound1 to have been loosed8 ,if the ,church of ,his day was unable to reach large sections of the population with its appeal1 if it succeeded very imperfectly in making children of the ,most ,high out of those whom it did reach1 if with its narrowness and bigotry it made of its converts children of hell1 as ,jesus ,himself put it1 if it exaggerated trifles and laid too little stress on justice1 mercy and fidelity1 ,he1 as a member of that ,church1 was chargeable with its failures1 and must strive to put a new conscience into ,god's people3 ,i must preach the good tidings of the ,kingdom of ,god4 ,ibsen1 the dramatist1 wrote to his ,german translator1 ,ludwig ,passarge1 ,in every new poem or play ,i have aimed at my own spiritual emancipation and purification--for a man shares the responsibility and the guilt of the society to which he belongs4 ,jesus felt implicated in all that was not as it should be among the children of men1 and cleared ,himself from complicity with it by setting ,himself resolutely to change it4 ,he considered that the human brotherhood in its sinfulness exacted nothing less of ,him4 ,it is commonly taught that the ,lord's ,prayer is a form that was suggested by ,jesus to ,his disciples1 but that it could not have been a prayer which ,he ,himself used with them1 because of its plea for forgiveness4 ,it is true that it is introduced in our ,gospels as provided by the ,master for ,his followers1 ,when ye pray1 say4 ,but millions of ,christians instinctively associate it with ,jesus' own utterances to the ,father4 ,and may they not be correct8 ,forgive us our debts1 is a social confession of sin1 in which our ,lord may well have joined1 just as ,he underwent ,john's baptism of repentance1 though ,himself sinless1 in order to fulfil all righteousness4 ,he regarded ,himself as indebted2 ,his work1 ,his teaching1 ,his suffering1 ,his death1 were not to ,him a gift which ,he was at liberty to make or to withhold4 ,in the must so often on ,his lips we cannot miss the sense of social obligation4 ,he was 7to borrow suggestive lines of ,shelley's7 a nerve o'er which do creep ,the else unfelt oppressions of the earth4 ,they came home to ,his conscience1 and ,he could not shake them off4 ,they were so many claims on ,him2 ,he felt ,he owed the world a life1 and ,he was ready to pay the debt to the last drop of ,his blood4 ,the ,son of man must suffer and be killed4 ,to the end ,he cast about for some less awful way of meeting ,his obligations4 ,my ,father1 if it be possible1 let this cup pass away from ,me4 ,but when no other alternative seemed conscientiously possible to ,him1 ,he went to ,golgotha with a sense of moral satisfaction4 ,ought not the ,christ to have suffered these things8 ,without any disturbing consciousness of having personally added to the world's evil1 with no plea for pardon for ,his own sins on ,his lips but only for those of others1 ,his conscience was burdened with the injustice and disloyalties1 the brutalities and failures1 of the family of ,god1 in which ,he was a ,son1 and ,he bore ,his brothers' sins on ,his spirit1 and gave ,himself to the utmost to end them4 ,a third disclosure of the cross is the incomparable sympathy of the ,victim4 ,how shall we account for ,his recoil from the thought of dying1 for ,his shrinking from this death as from something which sickened ,him1 for the darkness and anguish of ,his soul in ,gethsemane at the prospect1 and for the abysmal sense of forsakenness on the cross8 ,his sensitiveness of heart made ,him feel the pain and shame of other men1 a pain and shame they were frequently too stolid and obtuse to feel4 ,he could not see able-bodied and willing workmen standing idle in the marketplace because no man had hired them1 without sharing their discouragement and bitterness1 nor prodigals making fools of themselves without feeling the disgrace of their unfilial folly4 ,his parables are so vivid because ,he has ,himself lived in the experiences of others4 ,cor cordium is the inscription placed upon ,shelley's grave2 and it is infinitely more appropriate for the ,man of ,nazareth4 ,in ,his sensitive sympathy we are aware of ,desperate tides of the whole great world's anguish ,forc'd through the channels of a single heart4 ,we cannot account for ,his recoil from the cross1 save as we remember ,his sense of kinship with those who were reddening their hands with the blood of the ,representative of their ,god4 ,if we have ever stood beside a devoted wife in the hour when her husband is disgraced1 or been in a home where sons and daughters are overwhelmed with a mother's shame1 we have some faint idea of how ,jesus felt the guilt of ,his relatives when they slew ,him4 ,he was the conscience of ,his less conscientious brethren3 the reproaches of them that reproached ,thee1 fell on ,me4 ,he realized1 as they did not1 the enormity of what they were doing4 ,the utter and hideous ungodlikeness of the world was expressed for ,him in those who would have none of ,him1 and cried3 ,away with ,him6 ,crucify1 crucify ,him4 ,his keenness of conscience and ,his acute sympathy brought to ,his lips the final cry1 ,my ,god1 ,my ,god1 why hast ,thou forsaken ,me8 ,the sinless ,sufferer on the cross1 in ,his oneness with ,his brethren1 felt their wrongdoing ,his own2 acknowledged in ,his forsakenness that ,god could have nothing to do with it1 for it was anti-,god2 confessed that it inevitably separated from ,him and ,he felt ,himself in such kinship and sympathy with sinning men that ,he was actually away from ,god4 ,that was hell1 said old ,rabbi ,duncan1 and ,he tasted it4 ,but our minds revolt4 ,we do not believe that ,god deserted ,his ,son2 on the contrary we are certain that ,he was never closer to ,him4 ,shall we question the correctness of ,jesus' personal experience1 and call ,him mistaken8 ,we seem compelled either to do violence to ,his authority in the life of the spirit with ,god1 or to our conviction of ,god's character4 ,perhaps there is another alternative4 ,a century ago the physicist1 ,thomas ,young1 discovered the principle of the interference of light4 ,under certain conditions light added to light produces darkness2 the light waves interfere with and neutralize each other4 ,is there not something analogous to this in the sphere of the spirit8 ,is not every new unveiling of ,god accompanied by unsettlements and seeming darkenings of the soul1 temporary obscurations of the ,divine ,face8 ,in all our advances in religious knowledge are we not liable to undergo ,fallings from us1 vanishings1 ,blank misgivings of the creature8 ,and may it not have been ,god's coming closer than ever to the ,son of ,his love1 or rather the ,son's coming closer to the ,father1 as ,he entirely shared and expressed ,god's own sympathy and conscience1 and was made perfect by the things which ,he suffered1 that wrought in ,his sinless soul the awful blackness of the feeling of abandonment8 ,in the sense of suffering sin's force1 of conscientiously accepting its burden1 of sensitively sympathizing with the guilty1 ,jesus bore sin in ,his own body on the tree4 ,and1 as we stand facing the ,crucified1 we cannot escape a sense of personal connection with that tragedy4 ,the solidarity of the human family in all its generations has been brought home to us in countless ways by modern teachers2 we are members one of another1 and as we scan the cross this is a family catastrophe in which the actors are our kinsmen1 and the blood of the ,victim stains us as sharers of our brothers' crime4 ,and1 further1 as we look into the motives of ,christ's murderers--devout ,pharisee and conservative ,sadducee1 ,roman politician and false friend1 bawling rabble and undiscriminating soldiery1 the host of indifferent or approving faces of the public behind them--they seem strangely familiar to us4 ,they have been1 they are still1 alive by turns in us4 ,the harmless spark of electricity that greets the touch of one's hand on a metal knob on a winter's day is one with the bolt of lightning that wrecks a giant oak4 ,the selfish impulse1 the narrow prejudice1 the ignorant suspicion1 the callous indifference1 the self-satisfied respectability1 which frequently dominate us and determine our decisions1 are one with that cruel combination of motives which drove the nails in the hands and feet of the ,son of ,god4 ,still further1 the suffering of ,jesus never seems to an acute conscience something that happened once1 but is over now4 ,the ,figure that hung and bled on the tree centuries ago becomes indissolubly joined in our thought with every life today that is the victim of similar misunderstanding and neglect1 injustice and brutality2 and1 while our sense of social responsibility charges us with complicity in all the wrong and woe of our brethren1 that haunting ,form on ,calvary hangs before our eyes1 and ,makes me feel it was my sin1 ,as though no other sin there were1 ,that was to ,him who bears the world ,a load that ,he could scarcely bear4 ,we may say to ourselves that this is fanciful1 that we were not the ,sanhedrin who condemned ,jesus1 nor the ,roman procurator who ordered ,his execution1 nor the scoffing soldiers who carried out his command2 but the conscience which the cross itself creates charges us with participation in the murder of the ,son of ,god4 ,that cross becomes an inescapable fact in our moral world1 an element in our outlook upon duty1 a factor tingeing life with tragic somberness4 ,it forces upon us the conviction that it is all too possible for us to reenact ,golgotha1 and by doing or failing to do1 directly or indirectly1 for one of the least of ,christ's brethren to crucify ,him afresh1 and put ,him to an open shame4 ,but if the cross seems to color life somberly1 it also gilds it with glory4 ,as we follow ,christ1 we discover more and more clearly that all which we possess of greatest worth has come to us1 and keeps coming to us1 through ,him4 ,what he endured centuries ago on that hill without the city wall is a wellspring of inspiration flowing up in the purest and finest motives in the life of today4 ,there is a direct line of ancestry from the best principles in the lives of nations1 and of men and women about us1 running back to ,calvary4 ,day after day we find ourselves and the whole world made different because of that tragic occurrence of the past1 shamed out of the motives that caused it1 and lifted into the life of the ,crucified4 ,a recent dramatist makes the centurion1 in the darkness at the foot of the cross1 say to ,mary3 ,i tell you1 woman1 this dead ,son of yours1 disfigured1 shamed1 spat upon1 has built a ,kingdom this day that can never die4 ,the living glory of ,him rules it4 ,the earth is ,his and ,he made it4 ,he and ,his brothers have been molding and making it through the long ages2 they are the only ones who ever really did possess it3 not the proud2 not the idle2 not the vaunting empires of the world4 ,something has happened up here on this hill today to shake all our kingdoms of blood and fear to the dust4 ,the earth is ,his1 the earth is theirs1 and they made it4 ,the meek1 the terrible meek1 the fierce agonizing meek1 are about to enter into their inheritance4 ,nor is this all of which that cross convinces us4 ,we find ourselves giving that crucified ,man our supreme adoration2 ,he is for us that which we cannot but worship4 ,instinctively and irresistibly we yield ,him our highest reverence1 trust and devotion4 ,as we think out what is involved in the impression ,he makes upon us1 we come to our conception of ,his deity2 and through ,him we discover ourselves in touch with the ,highest there is in the universe1 with the ,most ,high4 ,calvary becomes1 for those who look trustingly at the ,crucified1 a window through which we see into the life of the ,lord of heaven and earth4 ,jesus' sin-bearing is for us a revelation of the eternal sin-bearing of the ,god and ,father of us all4 ,behind the cross of wood outside the gate of ,jerusalem we catch sight of a vast1 age-enduring cross in the heart of the ,eternal1 forced on ,him generation after generation by ,his children's unlikeness to their ,father--forced1 but borne by ,him1 in conscientious devotion to them1 as willingly as ,jesus went to ,golgotha4 ,if at ,calvary we find the rocky coast-line of human thought and feeling opposing the inflow of ,god1 the incoming waters break into the silver spray of speech1 and their one word is ,love4 ,in this revelation of our ,father is the assurance of our forgiveness4 ,such a ,god is not one who may or may not be gracious1 as ,he wills2 it is ,his property always to have mercy4 ,he would not be just in ,his own eyes1 were ,he unmerciful2 ,he is just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness4 ,like ,his ,son1 ,he owes us ,himself2 and ,his forgiveness is freely ours in the measure that we are able to receive it1 that is1 in the measure in which we have forgiven others4 ,jesus at ,calvary proves ,himself both our ,substitute and our ,exemplar4 ,he who finds and opens a trail to a mountain-top encounters and removes obstacles1 which none of those who come after him need to meet2 he makes the path for them4 ,when the sinless ,jesus found ,himself socially involved with ,his brethren in the low valley of the world's sinfulness1 and looked off to the summit of ,his ,father's perfectness1 ,he felt a separation between the whole world and ,god2 and ,he gave ,himself to end it4 ,we shall never know the uncertainties that shrouded ,him and the temptations ,he faced1 from the experience in the wilderness at the outset to the anguish of ,his spirit in ,gethsemane and the consciousness of dereliction on the cross4 ,the if it be possible of ,his prayer suggests the alternative routes ,he sought to find1 before ,he resigned ,himself to opening the path by ,his blood4 ,since ,his death there is a new and living way for those who know ,him1 which stretches from the lowest point of their abasement to the very peak of ,god's holiness4 ,up that way they can pass by repentance and trust1 and down it the mercy of ,god hastens to meet and lead them4 ,they are forever delivered from the sense of exclusion from ,god2 the way lies open4 ,but he who knows a path must himself walk it1 if he would reach its goal2 and no one is profited by ,christ's sacrifice who does not give himself in a like sacrificial service2 only so does he ever reach fellowship with the ,father4 ,the cross convinces us that we must love one another in the family of ,god as our ,father in ,christ has loved us2 and it further pledges us ,god's gift of ,himself1 that is ,his ,holy ,spirit1 to fulfil this debt of love4 ,it speaks to us of ,one who offers nothing less than ,himself1 and nothing less will do1 to be the ,conscience of our consciences1 the ,heart of our hearts1 the ,life of our lives4 ,we are lifted by the cross into a great redemptive fellowship1 a society of redeemers--the redeeming ,father1 the redeeming ,son and a whole company inspired by the redeeming ,spirit4 ,we fill up on our part as individuals and as ,christian social groups--churches1 nations1 families--that which is lacking in the sufferings of ,christ for ,his ,kingdom's sake4 ,the more ,christian our human society becomes1 the more it will manifest the vicarious conscience of its ,lord1 and feel burdened with the guilt of every wrong-doer1 and bound to make its law-courts and prisons1 its public opinion and international policies and all its social contacts1 redemptive4 ,through every touch of life with life1 in trade1 in government1 in friendship1 in the family1 men will feel self-giving love akin to1 because fathered by1 the love of ,god commended to the world when ,christ died for sinners4 ,while in a sense men will become all of them redeemers one of another1 behind them all will ever lie the unique sacrifice of ,jesus4 ,the singularity of that sacrifice lies not in the act but in the ,actor3 ,he is the propitiation for our sins2 and not for ours only1 but also for the whole world4 ,every member of the redeemed society1 however much he may owe to the sacrificial service of his brethren1 will feel himself personally indebted to ,christ1 who loved him and gave ,himself up for him4 ,as the ,originator of the redemptive fellowship1 the ,creator of the new conscience1 the ,captain of our salvation who opened up the way through ,his death into the holiest of all1 we give to ,jesus and to no other the title1 ,the ,lamb of ,god who taketh away the sins of the world4 ,,chapter ,,vi ,,the ,,new ,,life--,,individual ,,and ,,social ,the health department of a modern city is charged with a double duty3 it has to care for cases of disease1 and it has to suggest and enforce laws to keep the city sanitary4 ,the former task--the treatment of sickness--is much more widely recognized as the proper function of the medical profession2 the latter--the prevention of the causes of illness--is a newer1 but a more far-reaching1 undertaking4 ,when ,pasteur was carrying on his investigations into the origins of certain diseases1 most of the leading physicians and surgeons made light of his work3 ,how should this chemist1 who cannot treat the simplest case of sickness nor perform the most trifling operation1 have anything to contribute to medical science8 ,but ,pasteur's discovery of the part played by bacilli not only altered profoundly the work of physicians and surgeons1 but opened up the larger task of preventive medicine4 ,the ,gospel of ,christ1 in its endeavor to make and keep men whole1 faces a similarly double labor4 ,it has its ministry of rescue and healing for sinning men and women2 it has its plan of spiritual health for society4 ,it comes to every man with its offer of rebirth into newness of life3 ,if any man be in ,christ1 he is a new creature4 ,it comes to society with its offer of a regenesis1 a paradise of love on earth4 ,the life of ,god enters our world by two paths--personally1 through individuals whom it recreates1 and by whom it remakes society2 socially1 through a new communal order which reshapes the men and women who live under it4 ,the ,new ,testament speaks of both entrances of the ,spirit of ,god into human life3 it pictures one born from above1 and the holy city coming down from ,god out of heaven4 ,the two processes supplement each other4 ,consecrated man and wife make their home ,christian2 a ,christian home renders the conversion of its children unnecessary2 they know themselves children of ,god as soon as they know themselves anything at all4 ,saved souls save society1 and a saved society saves souls4 ,religion must always be personal2 each must respond for himself to his highest inspirations4 ,a child may confuse the divine voice with that of its parents1 through whom the divine message comes2 but a day arrives when he learns that ,god speaks directly to him1 perhaps differently from the way in which his parents understand ,his voice1 and he must listen for himself alone4 ,a ,job may take at second-hand the conventional views of ,god current in his day1 and through them have some touch with the ,divine2 but this will seem mere hearsay when the stress of life compels him to fight his way past the opinions of his most devout friends to a personal vision of ,god4 ,religious experience is hardly worthy the name until one can say1 ,o ,god1 ,thou art my ,god4 ,there is no sphere of life in which a man is so conscious of his isolation as in his dealings with his ,highest4 ,the most serious decisions of his life--his apprehension of ,truth1 his obedience to ,right1 his response to ,love--he must settle for himself4 ,space is but narrow--east and west--,there is not room for two abreast4 ,each one of us shall give account of himself to ,god4 ,in our consciousness of sin1 in our penitence1 in our faith1 others may stimulate and inspire us1 may point the way saying1 ,behold the ,lamb of ,god1 may go with us in a common confession of guilt and a common aspiration towards the ,most ,high1 but we are hardly conscious of their fellowship2 it is the living ,god with whom we personally have to do4 ,points have we all of us within our souls ,where all stand single4 ,the ,gospel comes as a summons to men one by one4 ,christ knocks at each man's door1 offering the most complete personal friendship with him4 ,were there but a single child of ,god astray1 the ,good ,shepherd would adventure ,his life for him1 and there is joy in the presence of the angels over one sinner that repenteth4 ,the ,evangel has always been good news to sinning people who wished to be different4 ,in ,adam ,bede ,mrs4 ,poyser says of ,mr4 ,craig1 ,it was a pity he couldna' be hatched o'er again1 and hatched different4 ,the ,gospel claims to be the power of ,god which can make the worst and lowest of men--an ,iago or a ,caliban--into sons of the ,most ,high in the measure of the stature of the fulness of ,christ4 ,this has seemed incredible to most outsiders4 ,celsus in the ,second ,century1 in his attack on ,christianity1 wrote1 ,it must be clear to everybody1 ,i should think1 that those who are sinners by nature and training1 none could change1 not even by punishment--to say nothing of doing it by pity4 ,dickens' ,pecksniff always said of what was very bad that it was very natural4 ,but it has been the glory of the ,gospel that it could speak in the past tense of some at least of the sins of its adherents3 such were some of you4 ,individual regeneration will ever remain a large part of ,god's work through ,his ,church4 ,unless we can raise the dead in sin to life in ,christ1 we have lost the quickening ,spirit of ,god2 so long as the world lieth in wickedness1 every follower of ,jesus must go with ,him after men one by one1 to seek and to save that which was lost4 ,but a man's religious experience is vitally affected by social conditions4 ,moses' protest against the slavery of the ,israelites in ,egypt sprang from his feeling that it hindered their fellowship with ,god4 ,let ,my people go1 he felt ,god saying1 that they may serve ,me4 ,mencius1 the ,chinese sage1 wrote3 ,if the people have not a certain livelihood1 they will not have a fixed heart4 ,and if they have not a fixed heart1 there is nothing which they will not do in the way of self-abandonment4 ,an intelligent ruler will regulate the livelihood of the people1 so as to make sure that1 above1 they have sufficient wherewith to serve their parents1 and1 below1 sufficient wherewith to support their wives and children2 that in good years they shall always be abundantly satisfied1 and that in bad years they shall escape the danger of perishing4 ,after this he may urge them1 and they will proceed to what is good4 ,christian workers1 today1 know well how all but impossible it is to get a man to live as a ,christian1 until he is given at least the chance to earn a decent living4 ,but we have to be on our guard lest we overemphasize the force of circumstances either to foster or hamper a man's fellowship with ,god4 ,the life of ,jesus is the irrefutable argument that the ,lord's song may be sung in a strange land4 ,it is always possible to be a ,christian under the most unfavorable conditions1 provided the ,christian does not shirk the inevitable cross4 ,but the social order under which men live shapes their characters4 ,ibsen calls it the moral water supply1 and religion is intensely interested in the reservoirs whence men draw their ideals4 ,a glance over a few typical forms of social order will illustrate its influence on character3 ,perhaps the noblest society of antiquity was the ,greek city state4 ,it expected its citizens to be all of them warriors1 statesmen1 legislators1 judges4 ,it set a premium upon the virtues of courage1 self-control1 justice and public spirit4 ,it delivered its citizens from that greasy domesticity which ,byron loathed in the typical ,englishman of the ,georgian epoch1 and made them civic minded4 ,but its ideal was within the attainment of but a fraction of the population4 ,the slaves had no incentive to these virtues2 and it is estimated that in ,athens in the ,fourth ,century ,b4,c4 there were #djj1jjj slaves and #ajj1jjj citizens4 ,the many did the hard work1 debarred from the highest inspirations1 in order that the privileged few might have freedom to achieve their lofty ideals4 ,and outside the state1 or the ,greek world1 the rest of mankind were classed as barbarians1 to whom no ,greek ever thought of carrying his ideals4 ,nominally ,christian ,europe in the ,middle ,ages presented in the ,feudal ,system a different type of society4 ,a vast hierarchy in ,church and ,state1 with the pope and emperor at the top1 ran down through many gradations to the serf at the bottom4 ,it was an improvement on the little ,greek state in that it embraced many more in a single order and bound them together with common faith and standards4 ,it prized not the civic virtues1 but the militarist qualities of loyalty1 obedience1 honor1 chivalry4 ,its typical hero is the ,chevalier ,bayard1 the good knight without fear and without reproach4 ,but a career like his is manifestly possible only to a few4 ,the agricultural laborer chained to the soil1 and the trader--often the despised ,jew confined to the ,ghetto--had no part in the life of chivalry4 ,outside of ,christendom the ,saracen was to be converted or slain1 and he was far oftener slain than converted4 ,under the revival of classical ideals at the ,renaissance1 in the new emphasis upon individual rights born of the ,reformation1 in the rebellion of the ,puritan ,english and ,scotch against the divine right of kings and bishops to rule them against their conscience and will1 in the ,revolution of #aghi and the ,napoleonic wars1 the ,feudal ,system passed1 and the commercial order took its place4 ,its cherished virtues are initiative1 industry1 push1 thrift1 independence4 ,as its beau ideal it substitutes for the ,chevalier ,bayard the successful business man4 ,it sincerely tries to open its privileges to everyone2 and under favorable circumstances1 in ,revolutionary ,america for instance1 its ideals were accessible to practically every white inhabitant4 ,the ,comte de ,segur1 one of the young ,french officers who came to take part in our ,war of ,independence1 wrote3 ,an observer fresh from our magnificent cities1 and the airs of our young men of fashion--who has compared the luxury of our upper classes with the coarse dress of our peasants and the rags of our innumerable poor1--is surprised on reaching the ,united ,states1 by the entire absence of the extremes both of opulence and of misery4 ,all ,americans whom we met wore clothes of good material4 ,their free and frank and familiar address1 equally removed from uncouth discourtesy and from artificial politeness1 betokened men who were proud of their own rights and respected those of others4 ,but under other conditions its ethical incentives are often without appeal to the man who lacks capital1 or to the man with so large an assured income that he desires no more4 ,it can do little for the dregs or the froth of society--those so oppressed that they cannot rise to its social responsibilities1 and those so lightened that they do not feel them4 ,it looks upon the so-called backward peoples as markets where it can secure raw materials needed for its factories--its rubber1 ivory1 jute1--or engage cheap labor1 and as a profitable dumping-ground for its surplus products4 ,it has done much for the less developed sections of the race by its missionaries1 educators and physicians2 but all their efforts have been almost offset by the evils of exploiting traders or grasping government agents1 and the exported vices of civilization4 ,christianity has a social order of its own--the ,kingdom of ,god4 ,it is not an economic system1 nor a plan of government1 but a religious ideal--society organized under the love of ,god revealed in ,christ4 ,this ideal it holds up in contrast with the existing social order in any age as a protest1 a program and a promise4 ,the ,kingdom protests against any features in prevailing conditions that do not disclose ,christlike love4 ,it scans the industrial world of today1 and finds three fundamental evils in it3 competition as a motive1 arraying man against man1 group against group1 nation against nation1 in unbrotherly strife2 gain-seeking as the stimulus to effort1 inducing men to invest capital1 or to labor1 primarily for the sake of the returns to themselves2 and selfish ownership as the reward of success1 letting men feel that they can do as they please with their own4 ,certain callings1 upon which the ,christian ,spirit has exerted a stronger influence1 have already been raised above the level of the commercial world4 ,it is not good form professionally for physicians1 or ministers1 or college professors to compete with each other and seek to draw away patients1 parishioners or pupils2 to exercise their callings mainly for the sake of financial gains2 nor to regard as their own their skill1 or inspiration1 or learning4 ,but as yet the butcher1 the baker1 the grocer1 the banker1 the manufacturer1 the promoter1 are not supposed to be on this plane4 ,they are urged to compete1 even to the extent of putting their rivals out of business1 in defiance of an old ,jewish maxim1 ,he that taketh away his neighbor's living slayeth him1 and in face of the ,lord's ,prayer in which we ask not for my daily cake1 but for our daily bread4 ,they are expected to consider profits1 dividends1 wages1 as the chief end in their callings2 and if out of their gains they devote a portion to public uses1 that is charity on their part4 ,a few individuals are undoubtedly superior to the ideal set before them1 and are as truly dedicated servants of the community as any physician or minister of the gospel1 but they are a small minority2 and the false ideal ruins characters1 and renders the commercial world a battlefield1 instead of a household of co-working children of ,god4 ,it scans international relations1 and finds patriotism still a pagan virtue4 ,mr4 ,lecky calls it in relation to foreigners a spirit of constant and jealous self-assertion4 ,when a tariff is under discussion1 high1 low or no duties are advocated as beneficial for the industries of one's own country1 regardless of the welfare of those of other lands4 ,the scramble for colonies with their advantages to trade1 the imperialistic spirit that seizes possessions without respect to the wishes of their inhabitants1 the endeavor to secure in other countries special concessions or large business orders at an extraordinary profit1 are all sanctified under the name of patriotism4 ,the peace of the world is supposed to be maintained by keeping nations armed to the teeth1 so that rival powers will be afraid to fight1 and huge armies and navies are labelled insurance against war4 ,a sentence in a letter of ,erasmus has a singularly modern sound3 ,there is a project to have a congress of kings at ,cambrai1 to enter into mutual engagements to preserve peace with each other and through ,europe4 ,but certain persons1 who get nothing by peace and a great deal by war1 throw obstacles in the way4 ,the armament argument for peace has been given its reductio ad absurdum2 but it is by no means clear that the world-wide war will free the nations from the burdensome folly of keeping enormous armies and navies4 ,as ,christians we must protest without ceasing that international relations1 based on mutual fear and maintained by the use of brute force1 can never furnish the peace of ,christ4 ,it scans the system of justice in its treatment of the wrong-doer1 and declares that the crude attempt to fit the punishment to the crime1 and to protect society by deterrent penalties1 is not the justice of ,him who is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness4 ,divine justice is redemptive2 and society1 if it wishes to be ,christian1 must pay the heavy cost of making all its contacts with the imperfect transforming4 ,it scans the educational institutions of our land1 and sees many students viewing learning only with reference to its immediate commercial availability1 spurning all studies as unpractical which do not supply knowledge that can be coined into financial returns2 and it sees many others without intellectual interest1 prizing schools and colleges merely for their social pleasures1 lazily choosing courses which require a minimum of labor1 and disesteeming the great opportunities of culture and enrichment provided by the sacrificial studies and labors of the past4 ,it insists that a moral revival is needed for an intellectual renaissance4 ,all students must be baptized with a passion for social service1 before studies that enrich the mind and enlarge the character will be pursued with eager devotion4 ,the blight of irresponsibility is almost universal upon the students in the higher educational institutions of our country4 ,so the ,christian social order contrasts itself with every phase and aspect of our present life1 and exposes the impoverishing absence of the ,spirit of ,god4 ,its protest is reinforced by widespread social restlessness and the feeling that the existing state of things has gone into moral bankruptcy4 ,but the ,kingdom of ,god is no mere protest2 it is a program of social redemption4 ,some thinkers flatly deny that ,christianity can provide a constructive plan for society4 ,mr4 ,lowes ,dickinson makes his imaginary ,chinese official write of the social teachings of ,jesus3 ,enunciated centuries ago1 by a mild ,oriental enthusiast1 unlettered1 untravelled1 inexperienced1 they are remarkable not more for their tender and touching appeal to brotherly love1 than for their aversion or indifference to all other elements of human excellence4 ,the subject of ,augustus and ,tiberius lived and died unaware of the history and destinies of imperial ,rome2 the contemporary of ,virgil and of ,livy could not read the language in which they wrote4 ,provincial by birth1 mechanic by trade1 by temperament a poet and a mystic1 he enjoyed in the course of his brief life few opportunities1 and he evinced little inclination1 to become acquainted with the rudiments of the science whose end is the prosperity of the state4 ,the production and distribution of wealth1 the disposition of power1 the laws that regulate labor1 property1 trade1 these were matters as remote from his interests1 as they were beyond his comprehension4 ,never was man better equipped to inspire a religious sect2 never one worse to found and direct a commonwealth4 ,jesus' teaching concerning the ,kingdom of ,god is contained in a handful of parables and picturesque sayings4 ,it attempts no detailed account of a ,utopia2 it lays down no laws2 it offers the world a spirit1 which in every age must find a body of its own4 ,but this indefiniteness does not fit it the less1 but the better1 as the inspiration to social reconstruction4 ,it affords scope for variety and endless progress4 ,it can take up the social ideals of other ages and of other civilizations1 and incorporate whatever in them is congruous with the ,christian social order4 ,the ideals of ,greece and ,medieval ,europe and of our present commercialism1 and the ideals of ,china1 ,india and ,japan1 are not to be thrown aside as rubbish1 but reshaped and fulfilled by ,christlike love4 ,it does not stultify human development by establishing a rigid system2 but entrusts to thoughtful and conscientious children of ,god the duty of constantly readjusting social relations1 so that they are adequate expressions of their ,father's ,spirit4 ,in every age ,christians are compelled not only to voice their protest against the existing order1 but to point out precisely what the ,spirit of ,christ demands1 and try practically to embody it4 ,the fact that our directions are not explicit is proof that ,god deals with us not as little children but as sons and daughters1 not as servants but as friends4 ,we have to think out for ourselves the economic system1 the policies of government1 the disciplinary methods1 the educational ideals1 that will incarnate the ,spirit of our ,father4 ,the all-sufficient answer to the charge of the inadequacy of ,jesus as a guide to social welfare is the fact1 that only in so far as we are able to express ,his mind in our social relations1 do they satisfy us4 ,the advances made in our generation are conspicuous instances of progress not away from1 but up to ,him4 ,the crash of our present commercial order in industrial strife1 now scarcely heard in the greater confusion of a world at war1 gives us the chance to come forward with the principles of ,jesus1 and ask that they be given a trial in business enterprises that are based on cooeperation1 the joy of service as the incentive to toil1 responsible trusteeship of that which each controls for the benefit of all the rest2 in international relations where every nation comes not to be ministered unto but to minister1 and loves its neighbors as itself--to ask that we seriously try the social order of love4 ,john ,bright1 unveiling the statue to ,cobden in the ,bradford ,exchange1 said1 ,we tried to put ,holy ,writ into an act of ,parliament4 ,we want the mind of ,christ put into commerce1 laws1 pleasures and the whole of human life4 ,and we come forward with confidence1 because the ,kingdom we advocate is not merely a protest and a program1 but also a divine promise4 ,the ideal of the ,kingdom of heaven to which our consciences respond is for us a religious inspiration1 and has behind it a faithful ,god who would not deceitfully lure us to follow an illusive phantom4 ,according to ,his promise we look for new heavens and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness4 ,the city of our hope has not been designed by us1 but has been already thought out in ,god's mind and comes down out of heaven4 ,in our attack upon existing injustices and follies we raise again the believing watchword of the ,crusaders1 ,deus vult ,in our attempt to rear the order of love1 which cynics pronounce unpractical1 we fortify ourselves in the assurance that it is ,god's plan for ,his world1 and that we shall discover a preestablished harmony between the ,kingdom of heaven and the earth which we with ,him must conform to it4 ,we encourage ourselves by recalling that1 in the hearts of men everywhere and in the very fabric and structure of things1 we have countless confederates4 ,on one of ,motley's most glowing pages1 we are told how1 after the frightful siege and fall of ,haarlem1 and with ,alkmaar closely invested by the ,duke of ,alva1 when the cause of the ,netherlands seemed in direst straits1 ,diedrich ,sonoy1 the lieutenant governor of ,north ,holland1 wrote the ,prince of ,orange1 inquiring whether he had arranged some foreign alliance1 and received the reply3 ,you ask if ,i have entered into a firm treaty with any great king or potentate2 to which ,i answer1 that before ,i ever took up the cause of the oppressed ,christians in these provinces1 ,i had entered into a close alliance with the ,king of kings2 and ,i am firmly convinced that all who put their trust in ,him shall be saved by ,his almighty hand4 ,the ,god of armies will raise up armies for us to do battle with our enemies and ,his own4 ,and the opening of the dykes brought the very sea itself to the assistance of the brave contestants for truth and liberty4 ,the prayer on our lips1 ,thy ,kingdom come1 we believe to be of ,god's own inspiring4 ,the social order which we seek is ,his eternal purpose2 and it has sworn confederates in sun and moon and stars of light1 and in every human heart4 ,we wait patiently and we work confidently1 in the assurance that the ,god and ,father of ,jesus ,christ1 the ,lord of heaven and earth1 will not fail nor be discouraged1 until ,he has set ,his loving justice in the earth1 and ,his will is done among all the children of men1 as it was once done by ,his well-beloved ,son4 ,,chapter ,,vii ,,the ,,church ,no man's spiritual life starts with himself2 there is no ,melchizedek soul--without father or mother4 ,as our bodies are born of the bodies of others1 as our minds are formed from the mental heritage of the race1 our faith is the offspring of the faith of others2 and we owe a filial debt to the ,christian society from which we derive our life with ,god4 ,nor is any man's spiritual experience self-sustaining4 ,our mental vitality diminishes if we do not keep in touch with thinking people2 and brilliant men often lose their lustre for want of intellectual companionship4 ,iron sharpeneth iron2 so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend4 ,a ,christian's religious experience requires fellowship for its enrichment1 and no large soul was ever grown or maintained in isolation4 ,we are enlarged by sharing the wealthier spiritual life of the whole believing community4 ,nor can a religious man contribute his spiritual endowment to the world without joining with kindred souls in an organized effort4 ,edward ,rowland ,sill1 speaking of his spiritual isolation1 wrote to a friend3 ,for my part ,i long to 'fall in' with somebody4 ,this picket duty is monotonous4 ,i hanker after a shoulder on this side and the other4 ,the intellectual life of the community organizes itself in schools and colleges1 in newspapers and publishing-houses and campaigns of lectures4 ,a learned man may do something by himself for his children or his friends2 but he can do incomparably more for a larger public if he is associated with other learned men in a faculty1 assisted by the publications of the press1 and receives pupils already prepared by other teachers to appreciate his particular contribution4 ,an earnest believer can accomplish something by himself for the immediate circle of lives about him2 but he is immeasurably more influential when he invests his inspired personality in the ,church1 where he finds his efforts for the ,kingdom supplemented by the work of countless fellow toilers1 where the missionary enterprise bears the impetus of his consecration to thousands he can never see face to face1 and where a lasting institution carries on his life-work and conserves its results long after he has passed from earth4 ,the ,christian is dependent upon the ,church for his birth1 his growth1 his usefulness2 and this ,christian community1 or ,church1 like the intellectual community1 instinctively organizes itself to spread its life4 ,there is an unorganized ,church1 in the sense of the spiritual community1 which shares the life of ,christ with ,god and man1 as there is an unorganized intellectual community of more or less educated persons who possess the mental acquisitions of the race4 ,but this intellectual community would lose its vitality without its educational agencies2 and the spiritual community would all but die were it not for its institutions4 ,the spiritual community is the ,church2 it is organized in the churches4 ,as ,christians we look back to discover ,jesus' conception of the ,church4 ,we find it implicit in ,his life rather than explicit in ,his teaching4 ,he was born into the ,jewish ,church which in ,his day was organized with its ,temple and priesthood at ,jerusalem1 with its ,sanhedrin settling its law and doctrine1 with its synagogues with their worship and instruction in every town and a ministry of trained scribes1 and with a wider missionary undertaking that was spreading the ,jewish faith through the ,roman world4 ,it was a community with its sectarian divisions of ,sadducees1 ,pharisees and the like1 but unified by a common devotion to the one ,god of ,israel and ,his law4 ,jesus' personal faith was born of this ,church1 grew and kept vigorous by continuous contact with it1 and sought to work through its organization1 for ,he taught in the synagogues and the ,temple4 ,jesus does not seem to have been primarily interested either in the constitution1 or the worship1 or the doctrine of the ,jewish ,church4 ,he criticised the spirit of its leaders1 but did not discuss their official positions4 ,he must have felt that much of the ,temple ritual was obsolete1 and that many parts of the synagogue services were crude and dull1 but ,he entered into their worship that ,he might share with fellow believers ,his expression of trust in ,his and their ,god4 ,he did not invent a new theology1 but used the old terms to voice ,his fuller life with ,god4 ,he was primarily interested in the religious experience that lay back of government1 worship and creed2 and gave ,himself to develop it1 apparently trusting a vigorous life with ,god to find forms of its own4 ,so ,he never broke formally with the ,jewish ,church2 and even after it had crucified their ,master1 ,his disciples are found worshipping in its ,temple1 keeping its festivals1 and observing its law4 ,but within this ,church ,jesus had gathered a group about ,himself1 to whom ,he imparted ,his faith and purpose1 and into whom ,he breathed ,his ,spirit4 ,he taught them to think of themselves as salt and light to season and illumine the community about them4 ,as leaders1 ,he bade them become like ,himself servants of all4 ,one was their ,master1 they all were brethren4 ,soon they developed a corporate feeling that separated them from their fellow ,jews1 a corporate feeling ,jesus had to rebuke because of its exclusiveness3 ,master1 we saw one casting out demons in ,thy name2 and we forbade him because he followed not us4 ,but ,jesus said1 ,forbid him not1 for he that is not against us is for us4 ,on the eve of ,his death ,he kept a ,supper with them1 which pictured to them ,his sustaining fellowship with them and their comradeship with one another in ,him4 ,and ,he left them with the consciousness that they were to carry forward ,his work1 were possessed of ,his inspiring ,spirit and had ,his presence with them always4 ,not by ,jesus' prescribed plans1 but by ,his spiritual prompting the ,church came to be4 ,like some tall palm the noiseless fabric sprang4 ,it was not1 then1 organization1 or ritual1 or creed1 that made the ,christian ,church1 but oneness of purpose with ,christ4 ,in the picture of its earliest days we see it maintaining ,jesus' intercourse with ,god by prayer2 continuing to learn of ,him through those who had been closest to ,him2 breaking the bread of fellowship with ,him and one another2 expressing that fellowship in a mutually helpful community life2 and all of its members trying to bear witness to others of the supreme worth of ,jesus4 ,we get at what they think of themselves by the names they use3 they are disciples1 pupils of the ,divine ,teacher2 believers1 trusting ,his ,god2 brethren1 embodying ,his spirit toward each other2 saints1 men and women set apart to the one purpose of forwarding the ,kingdom2 of the ,way1 with a distinctive mode of life in the unseen and the seen1 following ,jesus1 the ,way4 ,they called themselves the ,ecclesia--the called out for ,god's service2 the ,household of ,faith--insiders in ,god's family1 sharers of ,his plans2 the ,temple of ,god--those in whose life with each other and the world ,god's ,spirit can be seen and felt2 the ,body of ,christ--the organism alive with ,his faith and hope and love1 through which ,he still works in the earth2 the ,israel of ,god1 the holy nation continuing the spiritual life and mission of ,god's people of old--no new ,church but the reformed and reborn ,church of ,god4 ,the main point for them was that in this new community the ,spirit of ,god was alive and at work1 producing in its members ,christlike characters and equipping them for ,christlike usefulness4 ,a body without life is a corpse2 and the ,church fairly throbbed with vitality4 ,it naturally organized itself for work1 but in organizing it was not conscious of conforming to some fixed plan already laid down1 but of allowing the ,spirit freely to lead from day to day4 ,christians found among themselves specially gifted men--apostles 7of whom there were many beside the ,twelve71 with talents for leadership and missionary enterprise--prophets1 teachers2 and they instinctively held these men highly in love for their works' sake4 ,one thinks of a figure like ,paul1 who claimed no human appointment or ordination1 but whose divine authority was recognized by those who owed their spiritual lives to him4 ,and beside this informal leadership of gifted individuals1 a more formal chosen leadership came into existence4 ,god's ,spirit used the materials at hand2 and ,christians in various parts of the ,roman world had been accustomed to different types of organization in their respective localities1 and these types suggested similar offices in the ,church4 ,some had been accustomed to the town government of a ,palestinian village by seven village elders2 and this may have suggested the ,seven chosen in ,jerusalem to care for the poor4 ,some were brought up with the ,oriental idea of succession through the next oldest brother1 and this may account for the position of eminence held by ,james1 the brother of the ,lord4 ,some in ,gentile cities had been members of artisan societies1 guilds with benefits in case of sickness or death1 not unlike lodges among ourselves2 and many hints1 and perhaps offices 7the overseer or bishop1 for instance7 were taken from them4 ,some had been familiar with the ,roman relationship of patron and client1 and when the little groups of converts were gathered together in a wealthier ,christian's house1 he would be given something of the position of the ,roman patronus4 ,still others had been trained in the synagogue1 either as ,jews or as proselytes1 and would naturally follow its organization in their ,christian synagogues4 ,there seems to have been variety of form1 and along with this variety a felt and expressed unity1 with freest intercommunion and hearty cooeperation for the evangelization of the world4 ,throughout there was democracy1 so that even a leader so conscious of divine authority as ,paul appeals to the rank and file1 ,i speak as to wise men2 judge ye what ,i say4 ,in worship1 the ,church from its early days had the two fixed rites of ,baptism and the ,lord's ,supper2 but beside them were most informal meetings for mutual inspiration4 ,what is it then1 brethren3 ,when ye come together1 each one hath a psalm1 hath a teaching1 hath a revelation1 hath a tongue1 hath an interpretation4 ,let all things be done unto edifying4 ,here was room for variety to suit the needs of many temperaments4 ,and in doctrine there is a similar freedom4 ,one can see in all the ,christian speakers and writers in the ,new ,testament an underlying unity in great convictions3--the ,god and ,father of ,jesus ,christ is their one ,god2 ,jesus is their one ,lord2 they are possessed and controlled by the one ,spirit of love2 they are confident in a victorious hope2 they draw inspiration from the historic facts of ,jesus' birth1 life1 death and resurrection4 ,but they interpret their inspirations in forms that fit in with their mental habits4 ,the fisherman ,peter does not think with the mind of the theologically trained ,paul1 nor does the unspeculative ,james phrase his beliefs in terms identical with those of the writer to the ,hebrews4 ,jesus left ,his ,spirit in a group of men2 that group gradually was forced out of the national ,jewish ,church1 and became the ,church of ,christ1 dominated by ,his living ,spirit and organizing itself for work1 worship and teaching1 out of the materials at hand among the peoples where it spread4 ,we have taken this brief retrospect over the origin of the ,church not because it is important for us to discover the precise forms the ,church took at the start and reproduce them4 ,it is nowhere hinted in the ,new ,testament that the leaders of these little communities are laying down methods to be followed for all time4 ,indeed1 they had no such thought1 for they expected ,jesus to return in their lifetime and set up ,his ,kingdom2 and they gave scant attention to forms of organization and doctrine that would last but a few years4 ,nor is it reasonable to suppose that forms which were suited to little groups of people meeting in somebody's house1 waiting for their ,lord's return1 will answer for great bodies of ,christians organizing themselves to ,christianize the world4 ,no institution can remain changeless in a changing world4 ,the one immutable factor in institutions1 writes ,professor ,pollard1 is their infinite mutability4 ,almost all the divisive factors in ,christendom are taken out of the past1 by those who claim that a certain polity or creed or practice is that authoritatively prescribed for all time1 by ,christ ,himself1 or by ,his ,spirit through ,his personally appointed apostles4 ,the chief question for the ,church to decide1 when it considers its organization1 is--,what must we carry on from the past1 and what can we profitably leave behind8 ,the ,church of ,christ has always been and is one undivided living organism1 composed of those who are so vitally joined to ,jesus ,christ that they share ,his life with ,god and men4 ,our bodies are continually changing in their constituent elements1 but remain the same bodies2 the spirit of life assimilates and builds into its living structure that which enters the body4 ,the ,church of ,christ in the world is constantly changing its components as the generations come and go2 each new generation is in some respects unlike its predecessor in thought1 in usage1 in feeling2 but the continuity of the ,spirit maintains the identity of the ,body of ,christ4 ,we must carry forward the ,spirit of ,christ1 and keep unbroken the apostolic succession of spiritual men and women1 all of whom are divinely appointed priests unto ,god4 ,we must realize that1 as members in the ,body of ,christ1 each of us must fulfil some function for the ,kingdom1 or we are not living members1 but paralyzed or atrophied4 ,there is a continuity of life in the ,church that cannot be interrupted2 we must inherit this life from the past1 and we must pass it on to those who come after us4 ,just as the first ,christians felt themselves the ,israel of ,god1 so today we are conscious of being the heirs of patriarchs and prophets1 apostles and martyrs1 churchmen and scholars and missionaries1 leaders of spiritual awakenings like ,francis of ,assisi1 ,luther and ,wesley1 theologians like ,clement1 ,augustine1 ,thomas ,aquinas1 ,john ,calvin and ,jonathan ,edwards1 and of countless humble and devoted believers who have been ruled by the ,spirit of the ,master4 ,they have bequeathed to us a solemn trust2 they have enriched us with a priceless heritage2 they have transmitted to us their life with ,christ in ,god4 ,the ,church comes to us saying3 ,i am like a stream that flows1 ,full of the cold springs that arose ,in morning lands1 in distant hills2 ,and down the plain my channel fills1 ,with melting of forgotten snows4 ,but the historic succession of ,christians through the centuries is not our sole connection with ,christ2 we not only look back to ,him1 we also look up and look in to ,him1 for ,he lives above and in us4 ,the ,church is not a widow1 but a bride2 and shares its ,lord's life in the world today4 ,the same ,spirit who lived and ruled in the ,church of the first days has been breathed on us1 through the long line of apostolic-spirited men and women who reach back to ,jesus1 and lives and rules in us4 ,we must keep the unity of the ,spirit with the believers of the past1 and with all who are ,spirit-led in the world today2 and we must remember that where the ,spirit of the ,lord is1 there is liberty4 ,we are not bound by the precedents of bygone centuries in our organization2 we are free to take from the past what is of worth to us1 and we are free to let the rest go4 ,is not the ,spirit of ,god as able to take materials at hand in our own age1 and to use them for the government1 the worship1 the creed1 the methods of the living ,church of ,christ8 ,we cannot1 of course1 be content with an unrealized unity of the ,church4 ,every little group of ,christians1 in the first age1 felt itself the embodiment in its locality of the whole ,church1 and it was at one in effort with followers of ,jesus everywhere4 ,it exercised hospitality towards every ,christian who came within its neighborhood1 welcoming him to its fellowship and expecting him to use his gifts in its communion4 ,we want the whole ,body of ,christ organized1 so that it is vividly conscious of its unity1 so that it does not waste its energy in maintaining needlessly separate churches1 so that followers of ,christ feel themselves welcome at every ,table of the ,lord1 and every gifted leader1 accredited in any part of the ,church1 is accepted as accredited in every other where he can be profitably used4 ,the practical problem in ,church reorganization is identical with that which confronts society in politics and in industry--how to secure efficient administration while safeguarding liberty1 how to combine the solidarity of the group with the full expression of its members' individualities4 ,to be effective the ,church must work as a compactly ordered whole4 ,individuals must surrender personal preferences in order that the ,church may have collective force4 ,teamwork often demands the suppression of individuality4 ,there will have to be sufficient authority lodged in those who exercise oversight to enable them to lead the ,christian forces and administer their resources4 ,but we dare not curtail the freedom of conscience1 or impede liberty of prophesying1 or turn flexibility of organization into rigidity1 lest we hamper the ,spirit1 who divideth to every man severally even as ,he will4 ,we do not want metallic beliefs and regimental devotions1 but the personal convictions of thinking sons and daughters of the living ,god1 the spontaneous and congenial fellowship of children with their ,father in heaven1 and methods sufficiently flexible to be adaptable to all needs4 ,we look for an organization of the ,church of ,christ that shall exclude no one who shares ,his ,spirit1 and that shall provide an outlet for every gift the ,spirit bestows1 that shall bind all followers of ,christ together in effort for the one purpose--the ,kingdom of ,god--enabling them to feel their corporate oneness1 and that shall give them liberty to think1 to worship1 to labor1 as they are led by the ,spirit of ,god4 ,meanwhile there are some immediate personal obligations which rest upon us4 ,we cannot be factors in the organized ,church of ,christ1 save as we are members of one of the existing churches4 ,a ,christian should enroll himself either in that communion in which he was born and to which he owes his spiritual vitality1 or else in that with which he finds he can work most helpfully4 ,a ,christian who is not a ,church member is like a citizen who is not a voter--he is shirking his responsibility4 ,we must free our minds from prejudice against those whose ways of stating their beliefs1 whose modes of worship1 whose methods of working1 differ from our own4 ,we are not to argue with them which of us is nearer the customs of the ,new ,testament2 that is not to the point4 ,wherever we see the ,spirit of ,christ1 there we are to recognize fellow churchmen in the one ,church of ,god4 ,we do not wish uniformity1 but variety in unity2 for only a ,church with a most varied ministry can bring the life of ,god to the endlessly diverse temperaments of men and women4 ,we are not seeking for the maximum common denominator1 and insisting that every communion shall give up all its distinctive doctrines1 ritual1 customs and activities4 ,we do not want any communion to be unclothed1 but clothed upon1 that what is partial may be swallowed up of fuller life4 ,dogmatists1 be they radicals or conservatives1 who insist on a particular interpretation of ,christianity1 ecclesiastics who arrogantly consider their orders superior to those of other servants of ,christ as spiritually gifted and as publicly accredited1 sectarians so satisfied with the life of their particular segment of the ,church that they do not covet a wider enriching fellowship1 and churchmen whose conception of the task of the ,church is so petty that they fail to feel the imperative necessity of articulating all its forces in one harmoniously functioning organization1 are the chief postponers of the effective unity of the ,body of ,christ4 ,we have to consider the particular communion to which we ourselves belong1 and ask whether there are any barriers in it that exclude from its membership or from its working force those who possess the ,spirit of ,christ1 and so are divinely called into the ,church and divinely endowed for service4 ,we must make our own communion as inclusive as we believe the ,church to be1 or we are not attempting to organize the ,church of ,christ1 but to create some exclusive club or sect of ,christians of a particular variety4 ,we must study sympathetically the ways of other communions1 and be prepared to borrow freely from them whatever approves itself as inspiring to ,christian character and work4 ,a ,presbyterian will often refuse to avail himself of the great historic prayers1 simply because he thinks he would be copying ,lutherans or ,episcopalians1 forgetting that he is heir of the whole inheritance of the ,church1 and that his own direct ecclesiastical forbears freely used a liturgy1 and even composed some of the most beautiful parts of the ,book of ,common ,prayer2 and an ,episcopalian will not cultivate the gift of expressing himself in prayer in words of his own because this is the practice of other communions4 ,as every communion employs in its hymnal the compositions of men and women who in life were members of almost every branch of the ,church of ,christ1 so each should as freely use methods of propaganda1 or worship1 or education1 that have been found valuable in any communion4 ,the more freely we borrow from one another1 the more highly we shall prize one another1 and the more completely we share the same life1 the more quickly will our corporate oneness be felt4 ,we must set our faces against allowing congregations to embrace but one social class1 or several easily combined social strata in the community4 ,in our ,american towns the ,protestant communions are separated more by social caste than by religious conviction4 ,people attend the church where they find their kind4 ,poor people do not feel themselves at home1 even spiritually1 among the well-to-do1 and the children of comfortable homes are not permitted to go to the same ,sunday ,school with the children of the tenements4 ,class lines are as apparent1 and almost as divisive1 in our churches as anywhere else4 ,the ,church of ,christ under such circumstances ceases to be a unifying factor in society2 its teaching of brotherhood becomes a mockery4 ,in every community there will be found some entirely unchurched social group2 and the churches themselves will be impoverished by the absence of the spiritual appreciations to be found most developed in persons of that stratum4 ,our denominational divisions tend to accentuate our social divisions4 ,church unity1 lessening the number of congregations in a locality1 would help to make the churches that remained more socially inclusive4 ,meanwhile the one class church1 in any but the very rare homogeneous community1 ought to realize that1 whatever ,christian service it may render1 it is all the while doing the cause of ,christ a great disservice1 and is in need of a radical reorganization and an equally radical spiritual renewal into its ,lord's wider sympathies4 ,personally we must rigidly examine ourselves and test our right to be considered members of the ,body of ,christ4 ,there are some ,new ,testament evidences of the ,spirit that we must still demand of ourselves4 ,one is loyal obedience to ,jesus3 ,no man can say1 ,jesus is ,lord1 but in the ,holy ,spirit4 ,a second is filial trust in ,god3 ,because ye are sons1 ,god sent forth the ,spirit of ,his ,son into our hearts1 crying1 ,abba1 ,father4 ,a third is self-devoting love akin to that shown on ,calvary3 ,the fruit of the ,spirit is love2 ,by this shall all men know that ye are ,my disciples1 if ye have love one to another4 ,and if the ,spirit is within us1 ,he is eager to work through us4 ,we may be quenching ,him by laziness1 by timidity1 by preoccupation4 ,we are of the ,body of ,christ only as we are members each in his part4 ,above all we must constantly remind ourselves of the ,church's adequacy in ,god for its work4 ,when we speak of the ,church we are apt to think first of its limitations2 when ,paul spoke of the ,church its divine resources were uppermost in his mind--the ,church which is ,his ,body1 the fulness of ,him that filleth all in all4 ,perhaps the ,church's greatest weakness is unbelief in its own divine sufficiency4 ,we confront the indifference1 the worldliness1 the wickedness of men2 we face an earth hideous with war and hateful with selfishness4 ,we think of the ,church's often absurdly needless divisions1 the backwardness of its thought1 the coldness of its devotion1 the inefficiency of many of its methods1 the want of consecration in a host of its members1 the imperfections and limitations of the best and most earnest of them2 and we do not really expect any marked advance2 we hardly anticipate that the ,church will hold its own4 ,would not our ,lord chide us1 ,o ye of little faith6 all power is given unto ,me in heaven and in earth1 go ye therefore and make disciples of all nations8 ,there are diversities of workings1 but the same ,god who worketh all in all4 ,the ,church exists to make the world the ,kingdom of ,god4 ,in the holy city of ,john's vision there is no temple1 for its whole life is radiant with the presence of ,god and of the ,lamb4 ,in the final order there will be no ,church1 for its task is finished when ,god is all in all4 ,meanwhile the ,church has no excuse for being except as it continually renders itself less and less necessary4 ,it has to lose itself in sacrificial service in order to save itself4 ,it must never ask itself1 ,will the community support me8 but ,can ,i inspire the community8 ,as it seeks to do ,god's will1 it can count on ,him for daily bread2 a more luxurious diet would not be wholesome for its spiritual life4 ,it exists only to spend and be spent in bringing the children of ,god everywhere one by one under the sway of ,his love and presenting them perfect in ,christ1 and in putting ,his ,spirit in control of homes1 industry1 amusements1 education1 government1 and the whole life of human society1 until we live in realms where the air we breathe is love4 ,,chapter ,,viii ,,the ,,christian ,,life ,,everlasting ,various factors combine to make it hard for men today to believe vividly in life beyond the grave4 ,our science has emphasized the closeness of the connection between our spiritual life and our bodies4 ,if there be an abnormal pressure upon some part of the brain1 we lose our minds2 an operation upon a man's skull may transform him from a criminal into a reputable member of society4 ,it is not easy for us to conceive how life can continue after the body dies4 ,diderot put the difficulty more than a century ago3 ,if you can believe in sight without eyes1 in hearing without ears1 in thinking without a head1 if you could love without a heart1 feel without senses1 exist when you are nowhere and be something without extension1 then we might indulge this hope of a future life4 ,our modern view of the universe no longer leaves us a localized heaven and hell1 and we have not the lively imaginations of those older generations to whom the unseen world was as real as the streets they walked and the houses in which they lived4 ,one goes into such a burying place as the ,campo ,santo at ,pisa1 or reads ,dante's ,divina ,comedia1 and the painters who adorned the walls with frescoes depicting the future abodes of the blessed and the damned1 and the poet who actually travelled in thought through ,hell and ,purgatory and ,paradise1 were as keenly aware of these places as of neighboring ,italian towns4 ,we lack a definite neighborhood in which to locate the lives that pass from our sight4 ,religious authority is based1 today1 upon experience1 and obviously experience can give no certain knowledge of things future4 ,we are disposed to treat all pictures of the life to come1 whether in the ,bible or out of it1 as the projections of men's hopes4 ,they are such stuff as dreams are made on4 ,and at present we are absorbingly interested in the advance of our world's life2 we dream of better cities here1 rather than of some golden city beyond our horizon2 we care far more intensely for lasting earth-wide peace that shall render impossible such awful orgies of death as this present war1 than for the peace of a land that lieth afar4 ,men think of the immortality of their influence1 rather than of what they themselves will be doing five hundred years hence1 and of the social order that shall prevail in the earth in the year #bjjj1 rather than of the social order of the celestial country4 ,immortality is not so much disbelieved1 as unthought of4 ,but death is always man's contemporary2 and no year goes by for any of us without regretted partings4 ,and if we stop to think of it1 we are all of us under sentence1 indefinitely reprieved1 if you will1 but with no more than an interval between ourselves and the tomb4 ,to every thoughtful person the question is forced home1 ,if a man die1 shall he live again8 ,what did ,jesus ,christ contribute towards answering our question8 ,he made everlasting life much more necessary to ,his followers than to the rest of men4 ,by bringing life to light and showing us how infinitely rich it is1 ,he kindled in us the passion for the second life1 and rendered immortality indispensable for ,christians4 ,christ enhances every man's worth in his own eyes4 ,we find that we mean so much to ,him and to ,his ,god and ,father1 that we come to mean infinitely more to ourselves4 ,if1 writes a modern essayist1 a man feels that his life is spent in expedients for killing time1 he finds it hard to suppose that he can go on forever trying to kill eternity4 ,it is when he thinks on the littleness that makes up his day1 on the poor trifles he cares for--his pipe1 his dinner1 his ease1 his gains1 his newspaper--that he feels so cramped and cribbed1 cabined and confined1 that he loses the power of conceiving anything vast or sublime--immortality among the rest4 ,when a man rises in his aims and looks at the weal of the universe1 and the harmony of the soul with ,god1 then we feel that extinction would be grievous4 ,and it is just this uplift into a new outlook that men find in ,jesus ,christ4 ,a ,second ,century ,christian1 writing to his friend1 ,diognetus1 characterizes ,christianity as this new interest which has entered into life4 ,we look upon each day with a fresh expectancy2 we view ourselves with a new reverence4 ,the waste wilderness within1 from which we despaired of producing anything1 must under ,christ's recreating touch become an ,eden1 where we feel ,pison and ,euphrates roll ,round the great garden of a kingly soul4 ,but is this emparadised life to be some day thrown aside8 ,g4,j4 ,romanes1 whose ,christian upbringing had instilled in him the distinctively ,christian appreciation of the value of his own life1 when his scientific opinions robbed him of the hope of immortality1 wrote3 ,although from henceforth the precept 'to work while it is day' will doubtless but gain an intensified force from the terribly intensified meaning of the words that 'the night cometh when no man can work1' yet when at times ,i think1 as think at times ,i must1 of the appalling contrast between the hallowed glory of that creed which once was mine1 and the lonely mystery of existence as ,i now find it1 at such times ,i shall ever feel it impossible to avoid the sharpest pang of which my instinct is susceptible4 ,and ,jesus increases the significance of people for each other4 ,he possessed and conveys the genius for appreciation4 ,he came that life might become more abundant1 and every human relation deeper1 tenderer1 richer4 ,it is to love that death is intolerable4 ,professor ,palmer of ,harvard1 a few years ago1 delivered a lecture upon ,intimations of ,immortality in the ,sonnets of ,shakespere1 in which he showed that1 when a man finds himself truly in love1 mortality becomes unthinkable to him4 ,and for ,christians love and friendship contain more than they do for other men4 ,christ takes us more completely out of ourselves and wraps us up in those to whom we feel ourselves bound4 ,he makes life touch life at more points1 life draw from life more copious inspirations1 life cling to life with more affectionate tenacity4 ,he roots and grounds us in love1 and that is to root us in the souls of other men2 then to tear them from us irrevocably--parents1 children1 husband1 wife1 lover1 beloved1 friend1--is to leave us of all men most pitiable4 ,love--the prisoned ,god in man-- ,shows his face glorious1 shakes his banner free1 ,cries like a captain for eternity4 ,again1 ,christ gives men an ideal for themselves which in their threescore years and ten1 more or less1 they cannot hope to achieve3 ,be ye perfect as your ,father4 ,jesus ,himself1 in whom we see the ,father1 is for us that which we feel we must be1 yet which we never are4 ,immortality becomes a necessity to any man who seriously sets himself to become like ,jesus4 ,our mistakes and follies1 the false starts we make1 the tasks we attempt for which we discover ourselves unfit1 the waste of time and energy we cannot repair1 the tangled snarls into which we wind ourselves and which require years to straighten out1 render this life absurd1 if it be final4 ,it cannot be more than a series of tentative beginnings1 and if there be no continuation1 the scheme of things is a gigantic blunder4 ,if ,jesus does no more than supply us with an ideal hopelessly beyond our attainment and inspire us irresistibly to set out on its quest1 ,he is no ,saviour but a ,tormentor4 ,the fiend that man harries ,is love of the best4 ,we are doomed to a few score years of tantalizing failure1 and victory is forever impossible for sheer want of time4 ,further1 ,jesus gives men a vision of a new social order--the ,kingdom of ,god--a vision so alluring that1 once seen1 they cannot but live for its accomplishment4 ,we are fascinated with the prospect of a world where hideous war is unthinkable2 where none waste and none want1 for brotherhood governs industry and commerce2 where nations are animated by a ministering patriotism2 and where every contact of life with life is redemptive4 ,but the more fervently we long for this golden age1 the more heartily and indignantly we protest against present stupidities and brutalities and injustices1 the more passionately we devote ourselves to realize the ,kingdom1 the more titanic this creation of a new order appears4 ,nothing we know can remain unaltered2 but the smallest improvement takes an unconscionably long while to execute4 ,haste means folly1 and we have to tell ourselves to go slowly4 ,things as they are have a fixity which demands moral dynamite to unsettle4 ,we ache with curiosity to see how our plans and purposes will work out2 we would give anything to be in at the finish4 ,but there is death4 ,we just begin1 and then--6 ,mr4 ,huxley1 a thorough ,christian so far as his social hope went1 though without a ,christian's faith1 wrote to ,john ,morley1 as age approached1 ,the great thing one has to wish for as time goes on is vigor as long as one lives1 and death as soon as vigor flags4 ,but the allusion to death set his mind on a painful train of thought1 and he continued3 ,it is a curious thing that ,i find my dislike to the thought of extinction increasing as ,i get older and nearer the goal4 ,it flashes across me at all sorts of times with a horror that in #aijj ,i shall probably know no more of what is going on than ,i did in #ahjj4 ,i had sooner be in hell a good deal--at any rate in one of the upper circles1 where the climate and company are not too trying4 ,i wonder if you are plagued in this way4 ,he was repeating the experience of the old ,greeks as it is expressed in ,pindar's ,fourth ,pythian3 ,now this1 they say1 is of all griefs the sorest1 that one knowing good should of necessity abide without lot therein4 ,it is glorious to hold up before ourselves the splendors of the age that is to be1 to dream of our cities made over in ideals1 of our land as a world-wide servant of righteousness and peace1 of a whole earth filled with truth and beauty and goodwill2 and glorious to give ourselves unremittingly to bring this consummation nearer4 ,but can we be content with no personal share in it8 ,are our lives merely fertilizer for generations yet unborn8 ,oh1 dreadful thought1 if all our sires and we ,are but foundations of a race to be1-- ,stones which one thrusts in earth1 and builds thereon ,a white delight1 a ,parian ,parthenon1 ,and thither1 long thereafter1 youth and maid ,seek with glad brows the alabaster shade1 ,and in processions' pomp together bent ,still interchange their sweet words innocent1-- ,not caring that those mighty columns rest ,each on the ruin of a human breast1-- ,that to the shrine the victor's chariot rolls ,across the anguish of ten thousand souls6 ,tennyson once said to ,professor ,tyndall that1 if he believed he were here simply to usher in something higher than himself in which he could have no personal part or lot1 he should feel that a liberty had been taken with him4 ,and when that something higher is the ,kingdom ,jesus proclaimed1 its devotees cannot forego their longing to share in its perfected life4 ,and1 above all1 ,jesus opens up for us an intimacy with ,god which is both unbearable and incredible without the hope of its continuation beyond the grave4 ,to enter with ,jesus into sonship with the ,father1 to share ,god's interests and sympathies and purposes1 to become the partner of ,his plans and labors1 and then to think of ,god as living on while we drop out of existence1 is the crowning misery1 or rather the supreme confusion4 ,jesus would have pointed to some heartbroken man or woman1 like ,jairus or the widow of ,nain or the sisters at ,bethany1 and said1 ,if ye then1 being evil1 know how to care so intensely for your kindred1 and would give your all to keep them with you forever1 how much more shall your heavenly ,father insist on having ,his own with ,him eternally8 ,at ,professor ,huxley's own request three lines from a poem by his wife are inscribed upon his tombstone3 ,be not afraid1 ye waiting hearts that weep2 ,for still ,he giveth ,his beloved sleep1 ,and if an endless sleep ,he wills1 so best4 ,but in such a sentence what possible meaning can be put into the expression ,his beloved8 ,can we conceive of ,god as really loving us1 taking us into ,his secrets1 using us in ,his purposes1 letting us spend and be spent in the fulfilment of ,his will1 and then putting us to an endless sleep8 ,if ,jesus leads us into the life with ,god which we ,christians know1 ,he renders immortality indispensable if ,god is to maintain ,his own ,self-respect4 ,others may do without everlasting life2 to some an endless sleep may seem welcome2 life has been to them such a mistake and a failure1 that they would gladly be quit of it forever2 but to followers of ,jesus its continuance is a passionate and logical longing4 ,ibsen puts into ,brindel's mouth the words3 ,i am going homewards4 ,i am homesick for the mighty ,void2 the dark night is best4 ,jesus acclimatizes man's spirit to a far different home1 and sets in his heart an altogether different eternity4 ,so insistent are the demands of our souls for the persistence of life with our ,god in ,christ1 that if we have only hoped in ,christ in this life1 we are of all men most pitiable4 ,already we have passed into ,jesus' second great contribution toward answering our question of the second life4 ,he assures us of it because of the character of the ,father we come to know through ,him4 ,jesus' faith in ,his own resurrection was based on ,his personal experience of ,god4 ,the words from a ,psalm1 which the early ,church applied to ,him1 sound like an utterance some disciple may have overheard ,him repeating3 ,thou wilt not leave ,my soul in the grave1 ,neither wilt ,thou suffer ,thy devoted ,one to see corruption4 ,thou madest known unto ,me the ways of life2 ,thou shalt make ,me full of gladness in ,thy presence4 ,love is stronger than death1 and for ,jesus ,god is love4 ,it was this which made ,him the ,god of the living4 ,jesus could not imagine ,him linking ,himself with men1 becoming the ,god of ,abraham1 of ,isaac1 of ,jacob1 and allowing them to become mere handfuls of dust in a ,hittite grave4 ,his love would hold them in union with ,him forever4 ,jesus abolished death1 and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel--through the good news concerning ,god4 ,when ,he succeeds in convincing us that the universe is our ,father's house1 it requires no further argument to assure us of its many mansions4 ,the unending fellowship with ,jesus' ,god of all ,his true children is an inevitable inference from what we know ,his and our ,god to be4 ,we do not base our confident anticipation of everlasting life merely upon some saying of ,jesus1 which we blindly accept because ,he said it1 nor even upon the report of ,his own resurrection from the grave2 these are too slight foundations for our assured expectation4 ,we rest it firmly upon what we know of ,his and our ,father4 ,immortality is not a mere guess nor a fervent wish2 we have solid and substantial experience of what ,god is from all that ,he has done for ,his children and for ourselves4 ,and experience worketh hope4 ,faith looks both backwards and forwards1 to what ,god has done and to what ,he consistently must do2 and all the while faith looks upwards1 and in ,his face reads a love that will not let us go4 ,the ,easter victory of ,jesus is the vindication of ,his own faith4 ,god1 as ,lord of heaven and earth1 is involved in our world's history2 ,he has been responsible for its outcome from the beginning4 ,if ,he let the truest ,son ,he ever had end ,his career in defeat and failure1 ,he is a faithless and untrustworthy ,god4 ,calvary was the supreme venture of faith2 ,jesus staked everything on the responsiveness of the universe to love1 in the trust that the ,god of the universe is love4 ,if ,christ hath not been raised1 your faith is vain4 ,but if the seeming triumph of wrong over right1 of ignorance over truth1 of selfishness over sacrifice1 which took place at ,golgotha be but the prelude to a vaster victory1 then the ,lord of earth has cleared ,himself1 and proved ,himself worthy of the confidence of ,his children4 ,and of the fact of that victory not only the first disciples are witnesses1 but every man and woman since in whose life ,christ has been and is a present force4 ,explain as we may the details of the resurrection narratives1 conceive as we please of the manner in which ,christ made ,himself known to ,his followers in ,his post-resurrection appearances long ago1 we know that ,he is no dead fact stranded on the shore of the oblivious years1 but a living force in our world today1 and that ,easter triumphs are reenacted wherever ,his ,spirit animates the lives of men4 ,history again and again has demonstrated that ,his labor has not been vain in ,god2 that the whole structure and fabric of things responds to trust and love2 that careers such as ,his cannot be holden of death1 but find an ally in the universe itself1 which sends them on through the years conquering and to conquer4 ,that demonstration in history confirms ,jesus' trust in ,god1 sets a public seal which the whole world can see to the correctness of ,his testimony to ,him whom ,he found in the unseen1 and in whose cause ,he laid down ,his life4 ,and ,jesus has made still another contribution to the answer of our question3 it is through ,him that we form our pictures of the life to which we look forward so certainly4 ,the ,new ,testament expectations center about ,jesus ,himself3 ,with ,me in paradise2 ,where ,i am1 there also shall my servant be2 ,i go to prepare a place for you2 ,so shall we ever be with the ,lord4 ,men who had experienced ,christ's hold upon them1 through all the divisive circumstances of life1 had no doubt of ,his continuing grasp upon them through death2 they spoke of the ,christian dead as the dead in ,christ--the dead under ,his transforming control4 ,not death nor life could separate them from ,his love4 ,since we see ,god1 the ,lord of heaven1 in ,jesus1 the only and all-satisfying knowledge we have of the future life is that it will accord with the will of the ,father of ,jesus ,christ4 ,of its details we can merely say1 ,eye hath not seen1 nor ear heard1 neither have entered into the heart of man1 the things which ,god hath prepared for them that love ,him4 ,but we know ,god in ,christ3 we are certain of many things that cannot be included in a life where ,his heart has its way2 the city of our hope has walls2 but it has also gates on all sides and several gates on every side1 and we are certain of its hospitability to all that accords with the mind of ,christ4 ,that which renders the life within the veil not all dark to us is the fact that the ,lamb is the light thereof4 ,there is a connection between it and our life today2 the one ,lord rules earth and heaven2 and ,him we know through ,jesus4 ,humbly acknowledging that we know but in part1 glad that the future has in store for us glorious surprises1 we are convinced that for us there waits a life in ,god1 in which ,his children shall attain their ,christlike selves in ,christlike fellowship one with another and with ,him1 their ,christlike ,father4 ,more than this who cares to know8 ,more than this1 for what can ,christians wish8 ,adhoesi testimoniis tuis1 ,domine4 ,psalm1 cxviii 7#aai73 #ca1 ,vulgate4 ,,printed ,,in ,,the ,,united ,,states ,,of ,,america