Dialogues on the Essays and Reviews, section b.

Christianity and the Education of the World.

J. N. Darby.

<09001E> file section b.

28 But to return to our history. God separates a people carefully from the world, and gives them a law when He has separated them. The world was never under tutors and governors at all. When God dealt with the world, He returned, and returned necessarily, to the principle of grace, on which alone, even if law existed, He could really deal with a sinner. The education of the world never began with law. The world never had any law. God did give a law to a carefully isolated people, and carefully isolated them by it; made, as it is expressed, a middle wall of partition, so that if a Jew associated himself with the world, he was a defiled and guilty Jew. No doubt in this law great principles of moral government lay (I may almost say) concealed; but this only proves still more the great truth. God must separate a people out of the world to deposit, in a system carefully excluding others, the perfect rule of creature estate; and to preserve the knowledge of one true God in a world given to idols in their will, and given up by Him to a reprobate mind to work all uncleanness with greediness (as every one who has studied the working of heathen idolatry knows they were, and indeed are; and the whole system to be a consecration of vice in its filthiest and most abhorrent shapes). Yet these efforts of God with Israel were fruitless, and the law given in vain. Israel first went after idols; and when that unclean spirit was gone out, their house was empty, swept, and garnished. They neglected the pearl which the blessed Lord drew out of the setting of the law, turned its outward ceremonies, which unregenerate flesh could perform, into their righteousness, and hardened themselves against grace and Him that brought it.

So true is it that the law was not given to the world to educate it, and the education of the world is not in God's thought, that Israel, in order to be taken as a people, is redeemed out of it. Till that redemption there is no dwelling of God with man — not in paradise, not with Abraham. When redemption is even figuratively presented, it is said (Ex. 29), "I have brought them out of the land of Egypt that I may dwell among them." Hence, as God's dwelling with man is never seen, so holiness is never spoken of till then. Because redemption is necessary to man's being near God, and that is (morally understood) holiness. The moment (Ex. 15) Israel is out of Egypt, holiness is spoken of. No doubt, all this was in an outward carnal way then; but the principle taught is all-important. Doubtless there were holy persons before; but here great principles are revealed.

29 W. Well, I must say that this effect is produced on my mind by the facts you have gone through: If we are to take the scripture account of facts — and what you have remarked is true that, save ignoring the flood, Dr. Temple's statements are based on scripture statements), but if we are to take them — not only is he mistaken as to the alleged facts, but (what is far more important) if the scripture view be true, his is totally false. It is not a question of details of ancient history which a rationalist might contest, but the whole principle on which God has dealt with man is the opposite of that on which Dr. Temple estimates what has taken place. It seems to me very shallow indeed. It shelters itself under references to scripture, which might seem to give credit to the statements with those who have not yet thrown off all respect for those wonderful records; but when examined, it has not a shadow of foundation. The Bible is false in its own teaching, or Dr. Temple's views are as unfounded as they are trifling and superficial. I am glad of this conversation: for, though I rejected the principles of the book as really infidel, and morally unsatisfactory, I had not an idea of the hollowness of its views, at least thus far. The utter want of honesty of the part which speaks of consenting and allowing had offended me, as contrary to all uprightness. I confess that turned me at once away from all confidence. I cannot conceive how a man could openly avow such principles. But I had not examined the reasonings.

H. Mark another thing, dear W. It is a point to me most striking in the character of this system. You may have the law for a schoolmaster, Christ and the primitive Church for an example, the Spirit to set you free and leave you to yourself to be guided by the Spirit within; you may have Greece to teach you taste, cultivation, and logic; Rome self-restraint, obedience, and patriotism; mediaeval popery to keep Clovis in order. But God revealing Himself, revealing Himself in love, so as to draw out the heart, to teach it goodness by its enjoying it, so as to link the heart with Himself, and raise it above carnal and worldly and selfish interests of this low and sin-ridden world — God producing the reflection of His own nature in the thankful and enlightened heart — God revealing Himself to man, so that he should taste and enjoy what He is — no, that must not be; the thought of being thus imitators of God as dear children — you must not seek it here. Everything but God, everything for man to think well of himself by, to be what Paul calls gain to him, that is, the nurture of self, but God — no: no revelation of Him must enter into the education of man.

30 W. It is true. This is immensely important. How often one reads books without seeing what is underneath the surface! But this is indeed grave; the whole moral education of man, without his being brought into heart-association with God by the elevating revelation of Him. I see it is anti-christian in principle, anti-divine. It lowers the whole of what is carrying on in man to what he is in flesh, and thus separates from God, instead of bringing to Him in living capacity to enjoy Him, and making man morally like Him. I have difficulty (do you know) in expressing what the effect is on my mind: for leaving God out makes all so false, that it is impossible to express anything then fully. A being who can exist truly only in relation to another can have no truth of his existence without introducing the other.

H. To be sure; and then if he be a sinner, introducing that other must be accompanied by that which reconciles the sinner to that nature according to its own holy and blessed qualities. This brings in redemption; and the education of the world is trifling, immoral nonsense. You must give up that which alone elevates man, his association with God, or associate him with Him according to what He is. The nature and character of God must be maintained, or it is not with Him I am associated. And I must have morally the qualities which judge of good and evil as He does to be really associated with Him. But I do judge the evil, and see the guilt. Now Christianity meets this, and gives me a full blessing, because it gives me life. "He that hath the Son hath life." 1 John 5:12 He is a life-giving Spirit. But then, besides that, it takes away all guilt from me. I can judge evil fully in my heart and conscience, because I know I shall never be judged for it — that Christ has by Himself purged my sins, and sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high. I affirm that, without these two principles, a new life, and the perfect purging of sins according to God's nature by redemption, no real moral elevation of man can take place; because he cannot be spiritually associated with God according to the perfection of God's nature. The communication of the divine nature, though absolutely necessary, does not suffice, because the communication of that nature makes one judge evil as God does, at any rate in principle. I see the selfishness and impurity that is in man's mind — that is now in mine; and, for that very reason, I see guilt and wretchedness in myself; I have the conscience of evil or guilt (not necessarily by crimes or vices, but by comparing my whole inward life with the loveliness of the divine nature) on my soul; my conscience must be purged for God, as a consciously responsible creature before Him, that my heart may be free before Him, that His holy nature, which must repel evil, and which is the very source of my delight, may be maintained even for my soul to enjoy.

31W. I see this very plainly — what God is must be morally maintained for my soul, if I am to enjoy Him. If it is, I must judge sin as He does (that is, if I am honest myself). It is a gain, in a certain sense, to have a bad conscience in this way.

H. Yes; but a terrible burden, because sin separates from God, though we see He is love. But the purging the conscience by a work done without us, and which is perfect in glorifying God, gives me an unhindered delight in Him, and, I may add, in the love which has done it. God has put this in the simplest way (blessed be His name!) for simple souls, but it is of the deepest moral necessary truth. You may have amiable men, but no God if you have not this. When reading a work of Maurice's (a person of whom I know nothing, and speak, of course, only of his works) —

W. You mean him who wrote a work on sacrifice, and essays. I should like to know what you think of him.

H. I speak only of his books, I repeat, for I know nothing of him. I should say he was an amiable man, with many elements of a fine nature, though with amazing confidence in himself — a trait which sometimes accompanies a fine benevolent nature, when it is not humbled in a christian way by the knowledge of itself and the supreme excellence of God and what we are our wretched, selfish, approbation-loving hearts. I should think, too, his books shew wants, perhaps divinely given wants, in the soul; but I should think the influences his soul had been under were half Socinian and half Quaker. But he has no knowledge at all of the effect of having a conscience before God. I said all along as I read (I forget which of his books), This man does not believe in guilt; and when I had got on a very considerable way in the book (two hundred or three hundred pages, I should think), I found, "guilt, that is, guile."* Now there you can get the key to his whole story. He may have judged some evil, but he has never had his conscience before God at all. Hence he can turn what that gives into a play on words, or a question of etymology; but what a tale that tells! Ah! what a difference it makes when a soul has to say to God.

{*I apprehend this is a mere blunder. Guile is the same as wile; and guilt, a Saxon word, fine or punishment (as now, in German, "vergelten").}

32 W. I see plainly now both what was attractive in his views and the mischievous tendency they had, the mischievous influence they exercised on my soul. In fact, it strikes at the responsibility of man, our relationship to God.

H. To be sure it does. Holiness is the quality of a nature which repels evil in its nature, and delights in what is good. Righteousness is founded really on the same principle, but brings in the authority of God, which judges of this and the responsibility of the creature. Now man will admit holiness, because that exalts man, makes him like God, excellent in himself — he has "no guile;" righteousness he does not, because this asserts God's authority — the creature's responsibility. It is making good God's authority against evil by judgment — our real relationship to God. This man will not submit to. He is willing to be free from guile: it exalts him in his own sight. But to be under guilt — no: that humbles him.

W. How subtle evil is!

H. Yes; but a personal conscience makes all simple. I do not discuss with a bad conscience; I can principles with my reason. With a bad conscience I want cleansing, and, because I have offended a loving Father and God, forgiveness too; and, thank God, I have it in Christ. There is no personal having to do with God without this. I may theorize, and honestly enjoy my ideas; but theorizing is not the knowledge of God. A truly upright soul, a divinely taught soul, has a moral need that the love of God, the favour which is its light and its joy, should be a righteous favour (as scripture speaks, Grace reigns through righteousness) — hence, that God should righteously not see sin upon it; it has need, therefore, that the conscience should be purged. And this it has through the truth, that the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses from all sin. Without it, God's love would be an unholy love — would not be God or love at all. We walk in the light, as God is in the light; and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all sin. Hence comes that bright and blessed testimony, though there in outward figures, "He hath not seen iniquity in Jacob, nor beheld perverseness in Israel."

33 W. I confess I see no moral perfection maintainable without this (for sin there is in the world), no true assurance of heart with God, no uprightness in man. And association with God, fellowship, is the one true and excellent blessing that belongs to us in this world, and the next.

H. Surely. But we will pursue our essay, though I have not, I believe, much more to say.

The principle of the essay is, each successive age incorporating into itself the substance of the preceding. The analogy is, the law, Christ, and the Spirit. But this wholly contradicts the principle. These are no incorporations of past growth or acquirements, but specific revelations of a full and absolute character in themselves — indeed, as to the last two, the actual coming of divine persons. Not only so, but the law was given when men had plunged into every loathsome wickedness, and had learnt to worship devils instead of God; so that God had given them up to a reprobate mind, even as to what became them as men. And it was given therefore to a people carefully separated out from the rest of the world. It was no progress; it was a revelation to a peculiar people. When Christ came, it was after this had been broken, and the people become a whited sepulchre. He likewise, though introducing universal principles, separates a people to Himself, and is entirely rejected by men. When the Holy Ghost comes, we know, on the Lord's own authority, that the world cannot receive Him, "because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him."

In a word, it was no progressive incorporation by one age of the acquirements of the last; but revelations given to a people separated to receive them. The first, because men had departed utterly from God; the second, because the depositories of the first had broken and falsified it, as they crucified Him who came. As to the third, it was manifested in power at the first; and instead of progress or development, there has been a corruption by the denial of the presence of the Spirit, and setting aside the word, which has made the annals of the Church the most painful history the world can shew (as has been insultingly said, the annals of hell); and if the degradation of heathenism was more open, it was not so morally abominable, nor clothed with the forms of christian grace. Sin among heathens was horrible to the last degree, and consecrated to deities who were only devils to help men's lusts; but there were no christian indulgences to allow or forgive it; no tax for what it was to be compounded at; no selling of grace and license for what was condemned. This was reserved for what is called the Church (and in the outward sense justly).

34 And remark here another point of vast importance in the present day when development is so much spoken of. What God reveals is revealed perfect in its place and for its purpose at first; and man declines from it. There is progress in the character of God's revelations, compared with one another; but in themselves, none. There cannot be progress in a revelation. It is itself. There may be in revelations. A revelation is given perfect. Man declines from it or corrupts it. That man should make progress in a revelation denies its nature. Now the things Dr. Temple speaks of were revelations — different in nature, but still revelations. And when I come to Christ, I find another immensely important truth — to talk of progress here is blasphemy. He is God manifest in flesh. He is perfection. Hence the apostle John tells us to abide in that which we have heard from the beginning.

And I find here too a principle of scripture, the ignorance and denial of which is the root of all these errors and modern reasonings. The scripture (I am not now to enquire whether its whole system be false) presents Christ as a second man, a new starting point of the human race, the last Adam. There is no progress of man in flesh spoken of: he is to put off the old man, or has done so, and put on the new, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. He is to reckon himself dead, he is crucified with Christ. He speaks of when we were in the flesh. That is, the blessed and admirable doctrine of scripture is the absolute moral judgment of man as man, a child of Adam in flesh, because sin is there; and, through the delight the new man has in God, he cannot bear this. He has crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts, and lives as alive to God in the last man. "I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless, I live: yet not I, but Christ liveth in me." Gal. 2:20

And the great ordinances of Christianity declare this as its nature. We are buried in baptism unto death, risen again, and we celebrate a Christ in the Lord's supper, not who has instructed us (though blessedly He has done so those who are quickened, and warned the dead) but died for us. Thus Christianity is founded on the total condemnation of the old man (only that Christ has died for it in grace, and thus as a sacrifice for sin condemned sin in the flesh), and the introduction of a new, but a new connected in the power of Christ's resurrection with that which is heavenly, where Christ now sits. The object of this new life is not here, though its display is. It is the true character of power in a creature to live in the circumstances it is in, from motives and a power which are not found in them, or else he is governed by them (that is, is weak). So with the Christian, with peace in his conscience through a dying Christ, he has a heavenly Christ before him, and, his motives being wholly out of this world, he has, through grace, power to live in it according to the character of the motives which govern him.

35 This is not the place to unfold all the exquisite internal beauty of this principle, wrought out for its perfecting in dependence on grace, in the midst of the conflicts in which we are in a world of evil, with a lower nature in itself prone to it; and the continual association with Christ, our glorified Head, the Man at God's right hand, in which it is made good, so as to grow up to Him who is the Head in all things. This would be to unfold the contents of all the epistles as the development of it in teaching, and the gospels as the exhibition of the perfection of it in Christ: but I have said enough to shew that the system of the New Testament is the setting aside of the old man, the flesh, the first Adam, because there is sin (and sin is become unbearable when the true light, Christ, is in the heart as life), and the possession, the substitution for that, of the new man, Christ our life, unfolded in a life which we live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved us, and gave Himself for us. Was He a point of progress in the development of human nature or Adam fallen life? or the perfect exhibition of a new thing — that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested to us, and became the source of it to others, while He has died for the guilt and sin which characterized the old?

W. I see it is indeed an immensely important principle. It strikes at the root of all this system. This builds up what scripture calls the old man, and develops it. You say, its principle in fallen man is sin and self, and that God has in Christ introduced a new life in Christ, and to others through Him; and as He has cleansed from sin, so He has given a heavenly object out of this world. But then do you mean that no one had this life till Christ came down to earth?

H. No, of course not. Life and incorruptibility were brought to light by the gospel; but this life did not begin to exist then. Christ, who is the Lord from heaven, is a life-giving Spirit — has not merely a living soul, though that He had of course; and He communicated this life to others, from Abel, I may well say and doubt it not, from Adam downwards. But then, for that very reason, though the great contrast, the enmity of man — of the carnal mind — against God was not brought out till the cross, when the perfection of God revealed in flesh was fully presented, those who partook of this life through grace were hated and rejected of the world, whose boasted progress is depicted to us by the new philosophy. "He that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit." They were moral contradictions: one loved God, judged self, and owned God's authority; the other sought self, and would none of God for that reason. Conscience there was and is in all; conscience judges good and evil: but a new life is good in a divine way. Hence you will find that, with all this modern school of rationalism, even in its most infidel forms, Christ will be recognized, provided He be a restorer of what the scripture denounces as flesh. They will use what appears christian language to many a simple mind. But the just condemnation of a sinner, the absolute condemnation of flesh, and a new life in Christ, and atonement for the sin of the old — all this will not be heard of; and into the antichristian system even Christians fall. It exalts man; and all the blessed light of God, the heavenly place into which Christ is entered, is lost.

36 W. But what do you say to the other elements of human progress, Egypt, Greece, Rome, and the like?

H. If you mean civilization, arts, and mental development, and cultivation, and more particularly science, I do not of course deny it; though I think there is a good deal of mistake as to it. Discoveries, by which the knowledge of nature or the power of man over it is advanced, are undoubtedly multiplied. We know more physical facts than our ancestors. Astronomy, geology, on the one hand, and railroads, telegraphs, chemistry, on the other hand, have enlarged, not the domain, but the appropriation of the domain, allotted to man. And with every increase of knowledge there is a reaction. There is more reality and less hypothesis on all these subjects; but I doubt the development of much more than materialism by it. That this is a progress I more than doubt. As regards taste and cultivation, or intellectual powers, I should think also progress more than doubtful. All now is at best imitation. Take Grecian architecture or Gothic styles (whose ideal conceptions are the opposite one of another), or even Italian, all attempted is imitative. In intellectual power, I suppose Grecian or Roman was as developed in itself as any now. Plato, Aristotle, or what was more profound than either, the British triads or Bardic philosophy,* present the expression of as powerful thought. And as to language, it is admitted that, as an instrument of thought, the Greek stands, of all commonly known languages, unrivalled. The powers of Sanscrit I am unacquainted with, and but little with the capacities of the daughter which most resembles it, they say, the Irish. In philosophy there is more truth in modern times, so far (not, as there has been progress, but) as revelation has exercised an influence on it, and no farther. So that I do not see great progress even in these earthly things. As to philosophy, all is necessarily false at all times, because it reasons upon the present state of man as a normal one, or else it becomes theology, and thereupon, as its necessary point of departure, upon his relationship to God, and what God is. Hence it is all necessarily false, both as to God, and as to man. It is in vain to say that you must not bring in religion into philosophy, because, unless religion be fable, it is the truth, so that it is only saying that you must not bring in truth. There, I believe, they have told the truth. That man is not fallen is a calumny against God. A God who made this world directly as it is would be a weak or a cruel God. But if man be fallen and in rebellion, and have to say to God in that state; if his whole moral condition be the acquired knowledge of good and evil, far from the source of good, then reasoning upon his relationships to God to prove what they are normally is to reason always against the truth. And that goes far deeper into the whole system than men are generally aware of. It affects every possible relationship of life. It is the reason there are magistrates, the origin of property, of labour, death, inheritances. I take the commonest, every-day, outward things on purpose. Philosophy, since it ceased to be cosmogony, is reasoning on morality, ignorant of the groundwork of the highest obligations, and of the whole state of things on which moral relationships are founded. Nothing can be right or set right, if the world has departed from God (because all its state is wrong — the central obligation is, which was the groundwork of all others, though those others be true) unless we bring in the restoring power of revealed goodness applied to that state, and this is Christianity. Hence it is a necessary consequence, that all philosophy is, and must be, false. There is evidence enough that evil exists. The man who will say that things are morally as they ought to be is a devil, and not a man, take heathens or Christendom. If they are not, there is no sense in not beginning with the truth of this slate and its remedy, if there be one. But this is religious truth.

37 {*But here the influence of Christianity is evident, as in Neoplatonism.}

38 W. But you have made a sweeping clearance of philosophy.

H. Truth always does. The mind may be interested in it as an exercise; my own has been, though I never pursued it far. Truth, as to its title at least, had too early possession of my mind. But you cannot deny that speculation, whose starting-point is false, can but plunge the mind farther in error the farther it goes. There is no ποῦ στῶ. It is far worse than the play of Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out. That to which all refers is wanting. If I leave out God, all is essentially false; and if I bring Him in and omit the groundwork of all present relationship with man as he really is (that is, a state of sin), all must be equally false. Sin is the groundwork of all God's dealings now.

W. Dear! How do you mean that? That is a strange statement, is it not?

H. Is not judgment in respect of sin?

W. Well, of course it is.

H. So much so that there could be none without it — hence in itself can only be condemnation. If God judges His own workmanship as it came out of His hands, He is judging Himself, not the work, or, if you please, in the work. But if it has departed wilfully into rebellion, judgment as such must be condemnation.

W. But if man had never fallen, would there not have been a judgment?

H. A judgment of what?

W. Well, I do not know.

H. Nor can you know. There was nothing to judge, speaking of human nature: all was then as God made it. If man has abandoned God and gone into sin, I repeat, judgment must be condemnation; and that is the ground Christianity goes upon. Christ comes to seek and to save the lost. And so every divinely taught soul: "Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord; for in thy sight shall no man living be justified." Ps. 143:2 But I pursue my theme a little. Is not the exercise of mercy in respect of sin?

W. Of course.

39 H. And law?

W. Why yes, law forbids it.

H. And grace?

W. Of course.

H. And salvation, and judgments, and patience, or vengeance — all is in respect of sin. Hence, the immensely deep moral development in the soul in its relationship with God. No angel would know God, or be in the kind of relationship in which a sinner brought to God is. All the highest attributes and qualities in Godhead are brought out — mercy, patience, goodness, condescension, love in its perfect exercise in the shape of grace, on one side, and restoring in righteousness on the other to perfect delight in itself, in a word, redemption. The intimacy which the working of grace, whether in the incarnation or in the soul of one in whom grace is, the estimate of good and evil, by the proximity of what is divine to evil as it is in us; yea, the communication of what is divine to one who, on the other side, is weakness, and yet wilfulness and self, the dependence of a creature who has both on continual grace, and yet the capacity of the enjoyment of the highest good — all this, which is not Christianity exactly, but its working in us, gives a display of divine wisdom, a purifying and elevating process, a knowledge of God in His highest nature, most intimate, and yet most adoring, which makes philosophy puny and dry beyond all belief, empty, utterly empty. Christianity is light and love come into darkness and selfishness, and in the human heart reaching all its springs, and destroying self, by shewing it and replacing it by God; and this, not by the flimsy spinnings of the human brain, but by a divine person; who, if divine desires are wrought in me, takes me out of myself by divine affections, instead of exalting self, by producing in it qualities to be admired, which being by self makes them bad and false. The Christian, quâ Christian, has divine qualities, but sees, and because he sees, only God.

W. Why, you are growing quite eloquent! But is it true?

H. There is nothing so eloquent as Christianity itself. Did you never remark, that Christianity makes the poorest mind eloquent? What is eloquence? Is it not elevated thoughts, clothed in what is perfectly adapted to the meanest capacity, and enjoyed because it lifts the poor heart, wearied with commonplace life and toil, out of itself? Now, this is what Christianity does, because it reveals a divine person, God Himself, who has adapted Himself to the lowest, yea, the vilest; who is holy enough (for He is perfect in it) to bring love into all the recesses of the human heart, because never defiled Himself, and awake, even by its sorrows and its miseries, the want of, and to the enjoyment of, the love that has visited it. It has set too, by a glorious redemption and atonement, the poor soul, that by love has learned to delight in light, at liberty to enjoy it, because it is spotless in it, and the adoring object of the love that has brought it there.

40 I look around. What can I see? Heathenism, men worshipping stocks and stones; Christendom, what would often disgrace a heathen; yet goodness and wisdom evidenced in the midst of it all. What can I think? All is confusion. The goodness and wisdom I see lead me in spite of me to God, and the thoughts of God confound me when I see all the evil; philosophy, poor philosophy, would justify evil to justify God. But when I see Christ, the riddle is gone. I see perfect good in the midst of the evil, occupied with it, and then suffering under it. My heart rests. I find one object that satisfies all its wants — rises above all its cravings. I have what is good in goodness itself. I see what is above evil which was pressing on me. My heart has got rest in good, and a good which is such in the midst of and above evil, and that is what I want; and I have got relief, because I have found in that One what is power over it.

But I go a little farther, and I get a great deal more. I follow this blessed One, from whom all have received good, and who has wrought it with unwearied patience, and I hear the shouts of a giddy multitude, and I trace the dark plans of jealous enemies — man who cannot bear good; I see high judges who cannot occupy themselves with what is despised in the world, and would quiet malice by letting it have its way, and goodness the victim of it. But a little thought leads me to see in a nearer view what man is — hatred against God and good. Oh! what a display! The truest friend denies, the nearest betrays, the weaker ones who are honest flee; priests, set to have compassion on ignorant failure, plead furiously against innocence; the judge washing his hands of condemned innocence; goodness absolutely alone, and the world — all men — enmity, universal enmity, against it. Perfect light has brought out the darkness; perfect love, jealous hatred. Self would have its way and not have God, and the cross closes the scene as far as man is concerned. The carnal mind is enmity against God.

But oh! here is what I want. Oh! where can I turn from myself? an I set up to be better than my neighbours? No, it is myself. The sight of a rejected Christ has discovered myself to myself, the deepest recesses of my heart are laid bare, and self, horrible self, is there. But not on the cross: there is none. And the infinite love of God rises and shines in its own perfection above it all. I can adore God in love, if I abhor myself. Man is met, risen above, set aside in his evil, absolute as it is in itself when searched out. The revelation of God in Christ has proved it in all its extent on the cross. That was hatred against love in God; but it was perfect love to those that were hating it, and love when and where they were such. It was the perfect hatred of man, and the perfect love of God doing for him that hated Him, what put away the hatred and blotted out the sin that expressed it. There is nothing like the cross. It is the meeting of the perfect sin of man with the perfect love of God — sin risen up to its highest point of evil and gone, put away, and lost in its own worst act. God is above man even in the height of his sin; not in allowing it, but in putting it away by Christ dying for it in love. The soldier's insulting spear, the witness if not the instrument of death, was answered by the blood and water which expiated and purified from the blow which brought it out. Sin was known, and, to have a true heart, it must be known, and God was known — known in light, and the upright heart wants that, but known in perfect love, before which we had no need to hide or screen the sin; no sin allowed, but no sin left on the conscience. All our intercourse with God founded on this — grace reigning through righteousness. Shall we turn to learn of Greeks and Romans after this?

41 W. God forbid. It is a wonderful scene. There is, in truth, nothing like it.

H. Nothing in heaven or earth, save He who was there for us. The glory we shall share with Him; but on the cross He was alone. He remains alone in its glory. Associated with Him there nothing can be, save as it is the expression of the nature which was revealed and glorified in it. That we find ever in God who is thus known. Eternal life is become thus association with God.

But, though reluctantly, I must turn again to our essay, to the effort to supplant the cross, for such it is, by the progress of corrupt human nature — the cross, which writes death on corrupt man, and brings in a new and divine man risen up out of that death, and a walk in newness of life. The system, however, we have discussed, as far as a brief conversation will allow; but there are two or three passages which it may be useful to notice, some of them shewing the animus of this and of all these essays, and of the whole school, and the miserable ground on which they stand.

42 As to mere intellectual progress in the sphere of knowledge, no one, of course, questions it. I may pass over Egypt, though boasted Greece was, as the Egyptian priests told Herodotus, a shallow copy turned into poetry of far deeper moral intuitions found in Egyptian mythology — deeper, because nearer the source of ancient truths. But as to Greece and Rome, no one denies that, as regards the upper orders, they exercise an influence over the minds of the present age in virtue of their education. Whether it be in all respects an advantage may be doubted. They are not what is highest in motive or thought, I judge; but so it is. That there is progress, I cannot exactly see in it, because we go back for models and influence. If Rome had been forgotten, and we were a fuller and riper development of what was gone by, I should understand progress. But this is not so. We try and get back to what they displayed. How that is progress, I do not understand. In progress I leave behind what preceded me. Copying Raphael (if I can) is not progress in painting beyond Raphael, though that copying exercise an influence over me. Then as to patriotism; it is human nature. Εἷς οἰωνὸς ἄριστος ἀμύνεσθαι περὶ πάτρης was before Rome was heard of. If we desire to learn how consummate selfishness, which broke through every honourable and generous feeling, and trampled on all the world, disguised itself under the name of patriotism, we may surely learn it in Rome; and how democracy or human will closed in servility, and tried to hide its pain when oppressed in letting loose the same will in vice, we may go to Rome. If Greece have given reason and taste, I can only repeat, this is not progress in us. If heartlessness and poetry for conscience, if vanity and talent are a model, Greece may shine pre-eminent. Cultivation I admit, as far as it can go on without morality. But immoral beauty, and such was the mind of Greece, which excludes the truly divine (for even Plato declared the impossibility of any direct connection between the supreme God and a creature, whence probably Justin Martyr did too), which has the creatures of imagination, not of spiritual need for gods, which does not look at another world — such beauty as this, admitting in the fullest way its very high development there, is a very doubtful subject of admiration, however it may call out certain faculties, which no one denies. A lively imagination connected with excessive vanity, and identified with immorality, is not a picture which attracts me. "What sort of morality the Gentiles would have handed down to us …," Dr. Temple tells us, "is clear." I do not know (though the destruction of mental purity is a great evil) whether, with the present attempt to exalt human nature, it might not be well that maturer minds, at any rate, should know the excessive, atrocious, disgusting immorality of all classical, and indeed all heathen iniquity, the universal depravity, besides what is discovered by mythological and historical research. It might be painful to such minds, and they abhorrent from it; but it would act as a warning and preventive against such views as those of the "Essays and Reviews." It has been said, and said truly, that no decent persons would allow on their tables n English what is learnt by all classically educated youths at school. I may be told they do not rest on it — be it so; but they become familiar with it in what they are taught to admire. Any one may see the picture of vaunted antiquity in Romans 1. That, Dr. Temple tells us, is what is to teach the world; aye, the christian world too. There is beauty, there is patriotism. What do I learn from this? That these passions of human nature and elements of his being are perfectly compatible with the most degraded possible state in which human nature can be found. Nothing could possibly exceed the degradation, by vices which eat out everything naturally noble even in nature, in which these Greeks and Romans lived. The beauty and the patriotism amused or absorbed them so that they should not find it out. Stifled conscience needed folly or pride.

43 W. But it is difficult to know what to do. Are we to leave young men uncultivated?

H. Difficulties there must be in a world in which sin has made deadly confusion. But there comes in the noble active principle of Christianity: "To him that overcometh;" Rev. 2, 3, "Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." John 16:33 Christianity gives motives, objects, energies, which deliver man, when under their influence, from slavery to the scene through which he is passing. He has a right to be a stranger and a pilgrim in it. His ear has heard the solemn warning (which elevates, yet sinks, with a sanctifying sorrow as to all around, in the depths of the heart): "Arise and depart: this is not your rest; it is polluted." Micah 2:10 And he takes up his cross, and sets out, solemnized, broken in spirit perhaps (it is good in such a world), but cheerfully, because he sees that Christ has gone before, and that the victory which overcomes the world is his faith. For "who is he that overcometh the world, but he that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" 1 John 5:5 He can be himself, Christ being his life, in a world of evil and confusion, not conformed or belonging to it; not formed by it in motive or principle of life (though naturally as to mere outward circumstances not uninfluenced by it), but acting in it according to his own; happy to have companions in the excellent of the earth, but a Leader and a Lord in Christ. By this he judges of everything. He has seen perfection in Christ, and he is led by it. Greece and Rome were all judged by that. The assimilating power is one only — Christ — God manifested in flesh; folly to the world, of course. But he knows he has believed; he has no doubt as to the excellency of the object and model, nor of its absoluteness and completeness. The Christian believes that Christ gave Himself for our sins to redeem from this present world. Let not man tell me that meant the heathen world. What world was Greece and Rome?

44 But I must lead you to notice some particulars which shew further the shallowness and superficiality of this school. "The conviction of the unity and spirituality of God was peculiar," we are told, "to the Jews among the pioneers of civilization." You see how they never get beyond this point: man (not the Godman) improving, exalting self. It is deplorable. But it is another point I must refer to now. "To every Jew, without exception, Monotheism was equally natural." This with purity "are the cardinal points of education. The idea of Monotheism out-tops all other ideas in dignity and worth. The spirituality of God involves in it the supremacy of conscience, the immortality of the soul, the final judgment of the human race."

W. You surely do not object to that.

H. Patience, good friend. In the main, though Monotheism be a poor word, I do not. But, you know, these good people have other elements of instruction. You know, too, that Babylon was a cup of prostitution (as idolatry is justly called in scripture) for all nations; that Babylon and Jerusalem stand as the two seats of the two systems of idolatry, and Monotheism. No doubt, however faithless the Jews were, it was faithlessness to a known truth; which truth was Monotheism, involving, as Dr. Temple assumes, the immortality of the soul.

W. Well, that is quite just; but what conclusions do you draw from that?

H. How was I surprised — no, I was not, from some acquaintance with these rationalist doctors, particularly superficial borrowers, as English rationalists are: I correct myself, I was not surprised — to find: "She [Asia] had been the instrument selected [!] to teach the Hebrews the immortality of the soul; for whatever may be said of the early nations on this subject, it is unquestionable [what rationalists say is always, you must understand, unquestionable], that in Babylon the Jews first attained the clearness and certainty in regard to it, which we find in the teaching of the Pharisees." It is clear, therefore, that Monotheism involves the knowledge of the immortality of the soul; for it was taught to those who held Monotheism by the most idolatrous Polytheists in the world. Is this philosophical or historical? It is unquestionable, of course.

45 W. Now, do not be bitter.

H. Contempt is not bitterness; yet, I admit, no human being should be despised. It is the glory of Christianity to make it impossible; but reasonings and pretensions to light and superiority of mind of this kind I may despise, and do.

See again the superficiality of such a statement as this: "The New Testament is almost entirely occupied with histories — the life of our Lord, and the life of the early Church;" and he refers to the Epistles. Now, that the New Testament does give us truth in living evidence of it, and works truth out in the actual living relationships of the soul with God, and is not dry systematic theology, I admit with all my heart; but it is exactly the use of this blessed character of scripture to deny the truth on which these relationships are founded, which shews the excessive superficialness of this remark. That all the Epistles were "the fruit of the current history" I admit fully. Very often mistakes and faults were their occasion; but what then? The doctrine is grace meeting need, not treatises for the competency of the human mind. But does that say that the revelation of grace to this need was not doctrine, and doctrine of the deepest and most wonderful character? Nothing but the incapacity of apprehension which cold-hearted rationalism produces could ever have such an idea for a moment. "That early Church;" we are told, "does not give us precepts, but an example" — fine words; but as stupid as they are false. They will have only man. The Church gives. God must not be brought in — must not even give. What a heartless system it is! Did God, by whatever instruments, give nothing to "that Church?" Were the epistles not given to it — not by it? Nothing, moreover, can be more false than the statement itself. There is not what Dr. Temple states, save in the smallest degree; and there is almost exclusively what he states there is not. No doubt in St. Paul, from his very nature, the letters disclose the man; but the epistles are entirely composed of doctrines and precepts: whoever doubts about it has only to read them. All this is theory, perfectly regardless of facts. They are all "letters for the time," and all "treatises for the future." When Dr. Temple says, "To these pages, accordingly, the church of our day turns for renewal of inspiration," though somewhat acquainted with the pretensions of rationalism, I confess I can hardly understand it, unless it be a very common-place fact put in a bombastic way, to exalt men now to a level with the apostles, make the epistles a mere aroused energy of man, reference to which may arouse energy in us. They "turn for renewal of inspiration." I ask you, what does that mean?

46 W. Well, I really do not know. I remember Balaam went to seek enchantments: perhaps it is that in a good sense.

H. I know of no such going to God for inspiration in scripture. There is enquiring of the Lord. That, in the modesty of scripture — and how lovely it is in everything! — I can understand; and that a man taught of God, reading scripture may be animated, his soul refreshed and filled with the truth and Spirit of God; but "turning for a renewal of inspiration" I must leave to the high-flown pretensions of modern despisers of revelation. I remember once speaking to the very chief of this system in a foreign country, one who has largely spread it among evangelical men. He denied inspiration as held in the common belief of the Church of God. I said to him, "You speak of avoiding the question of the inspiration of the Old Testament. That is a very easy way of avoiding the difficulties of your subject, you who deny inspiration in the vulgar use of the word; because the Lord and the apostles plainly declare the Old Testament to be inspired." "O yes," he said — declining to answer as to the Lord, as he had already given too much scandal by it — "no upright honest man can deny that the apostles treat the Old Testament as inspired and quote it as such, but they deceived themselves." He said this with an aplomb that was inconceivable. I only said, "Then it is a question as to your or the apostles' competency and authority as to Christianity. That is soon settled." And so I must say to Dr. Temple, if he turns to biographical scripture for a renewal of inspiration in himself. He must forgive me, if I still trust somewhat more to the old inspiration than to the renewal of it — more to the divinely-given teaching of those who were sent by the Lord and by the Holy Ghost, and fitted for this work, and separated to it, and who could say "He that is of God hears us;" and "if any man be spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things that I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord; and if any be ignorant, let him be ignorant." He who can go there for renewal of inspiration, and find only two lives there, must have a singular process of blinding himself.

47 Remark too the assiduous confounding what is divine and human. "The age of reflection begins … The spirit or conscience comes to full strength; and assumes the throne intended for it in the soul." Be it so, though the confusion of the spirit and the conscience is a mischievous one, as we may see. But mark what soon follows: "Now the education by no means ceases when the spirit thus begins to lead the soul." "The office of the spirit is, in fact, to guide us into truth, not to give truth." Note here the use of scriptural terms, so as to humanize and destroy their force: the spirit is first conscience; it is grown up at the age of reflection, and takes its seat on the throne; then it guides into truth. This in the scripture is said of the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, who was to be sent down from heaven, who was to shew them the things of Christ. Here the spirit, which was just now conscience, guides into truth, but gives no truth. That is, the Holy Ghost reveals nothing — shews nothing; the Comforter is only the conscience of man.

Further, note, there are no precepts to be found. The Holy Ghost is thus dropped into mere conscience, and no truth is given. But let us proceed in the description of this state of full age. "He is free, but freedom is not the opposite of obedience, but of restraint." "The law, in fact, which God makes the standard of our conduct, may have one or two forms. It may be an external law — a law which is in the hands of others, in the making, in the applying, in the enforcing of which we have no share — a law which governs from the outside, compelling our will to bow, even though our understanding be enlightened or not … Or, again, the law may be an internal law; a voice which speaks within the conscience, and carries the conscience along with it; a law which treats us, not as slaves, but as friends, allowing us to know what our Lord doeth; a law which bids us yield, not to blind fear or awe, but to the majesty of truth and justice; a law which is not imposed on us by another power, but by our own enlightened will." Remark here how all subjection to God, or authority of God, is wholly denied. But this all gets a distinct character, uniting the first and last quoted passages by words in a previous page describing this time of full age. "Thus the human race was left to itself, to be guided by the teaching of the spirit within."

48 Now I hold, as you know, that a Christian is not under law at all; he is dead to the law by the body of Christ. Rom. 7:4, Gal. 2:19. But it is one of the characteristics of modern rationalism, to take certain advances in truth, which the Church at large does not see, and to pervert them to evil. Here the conscience and spirit are identified; and the spirit gives no truth, but guides into it (that is, it is man's growing up into it); but there is no revealed truth. There is a life, an example, we are allowed "to know what our Lord doeth." The human race is left to itself, to be guided by the teaching of the spirit within, which is only conscience. But it is left to itself; no truth given, no precepts ever found in the word; and in addition to all this the authority of God wholly set aside. The law we have is this conscience or spirit within — is not a law imposed on us by another power, but by our own enlightened will: we bow to the majesty of truth and justice, to God never. He may neither give truth nor impose a command. God's word — His precepts, the Spirit giving any truth, the authority of God, obedience — is wholly denied.

Now the scheme of Christianity is the opposite of this. It teaches of a Comforter, the Holy Ghost, who is sent by Christ from the Father, whom the Father sends in Christ's name, who comes and convinces the world. He testifies of Christ, and the disciples also bear witness. He does not speak of Himself, but what He hears He speaks. He was to teach the disciples all things, to shew them things to come, to bring what Christ had said to their remembrance; and he who loved Him would keep His commandments. Now this Christianity of the apostle John, these words of Christ, every honest man must see, are contrary to and contradictory of Dr. Temple's statements. He may think that he knows Christianity and Christ's teaching better than John. His opinion of himself in that respect I cannot doubt; but that his is the opposite of apostolic teaching is most evident. I prefer apostolic accounts of Christianity. Dr. Temple may think his conscience, and his, of course, enlightened will, superior to the Holy Ghost which Christ promised. I confess I prefer Johannean Christianity, if we are so to call it — the commandments of Christ — the truth taught and given by the Holy Ghost, to the first essay which is to illustrate moral and religious truth. It may be prejudice; it may be stupidity; but the shining of these modern stars does not, to my spirit and conscience, eclipse the teaching, ay, the giving of truth, of the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven (for so the word of God speaks). Hear the apostle, who most clearly teaches, we are not under law as risen with Christ: "to them that are without law, as without law. Yet not without law to God, but rightly subject (ἔυυομος) to Christ." 1 Cor. 9:21 How carefully he shews that there is subjection to God. So John, "This is love, that we keep his commandments." 1 John 5:3 So Christ Himself, "I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in His love;" John 15:10 and in the highest of His free acts of grace, His offering Himself, He says, "but that the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has given me commandment, so I do." John 14:31 It is with us, as it was with Christ, the law of liberty; because the new man finds its delight both in what is commanded and in obedience itself, as Christ did: "I delight to do it; yea, thy law is within my heart." Ps. 40:8 But we are sanctified unto obedience, the obedience of Jesus Christ. It is not a law stopping, or attempting, for it did not do it in fact, to stop an evil nature, but the will of God, the motive of the new man, as of Christ. It is not yielding to the majesty of truth and justice, but to God. The doctrine of the essay is the casting off wholly God's authority, the principle of revolt and apostasy; denying the Master (δεσπότην την not χύριον) that bought us, the only Lord (δεσπότην) God. The heathen were partially a law to themselves when they were ἄθεοι atheists, in the world. This, with increased light, is what is recommended. It is a denial of redemption, of obedience, of God's authority; a denial of the Holy Ghost as giving any truth; it is merged in an enlightened will, our spirit or conscience. "That early church (i.e., the epistles) does not give us precepts even."

49 W. But he speaks of obedience.

H. He does, but it is "obedience to the rules of his own mind," not the child once obedient to a parent, now in direct subjection to God in love as Christ was, but the rules of his own mind — all he knows. Christ's delight was to keep His Father's commandments; the saint's delight is the same; the rationalist's to be left to himself, and have nothing to say to God. It is the dignified liberty of a grown man, competent to guide himself, instead of being a child.

"The church, in the fullest sense, is left to herself, to work out, by her natural faculties, the principles of her own action." Can anything more completely deny the presence of the Spirit, and the authority of the word, that is, of God in every way? What makes her the church in this case, I am sure I do not know. It is an epoch when men have learned beauty from Greece, patriotism from Rome, the immortality of the soul from Babylon through the Jews when departed from God, seen an example in Christ and that early Church, whatever it was, and then are left to themselves to follow their own enlightened will: that is all the Church means. How the apostles blundered about the whole matter, to think that they were sent by the Lord, and laid down their lives for — I am sure I do not know what! and were so bigoted, that they say "he that is of God heareth us, and he that is not of God heareth not us; hereby know we the Spirit of truth, and the spirit of error." 1 John 4:6 Why the Spirit does not give truth at all! What a pity Dr. Temple was not there to instruct them! I suppose men were not ripe for it in the apostles' days. And they were obliged to be thus bigoted, or did not know any better; and now in this advanced age we can profit by and appreciate the teaching of these men grown to full age. I wonder whether they think that they that are of God hear them; though I do not know why they do not leave men to the rules within instead of writing essays.

50 W. I do not exactly see, to say the truth, how these men call themselves Christians, and clergymen too.

H. Oh, you see they can consent to many things they think very inexpedient. And though they have said that the Articles are not superstitious or erroneous, yet some expressions may appear so. If they have acknowledged the same to be agreeable to the word of God, some distinctions may be founded on the word "acknowledge." They have allowed them, but "we allow many things we do not think wise or useful." "He does not maintain it, nor regard it as self-evident, nor originate it. Many better and wiser men than himself have acknowledged the same thing: why should he be obstinate? Besides, he is young and has plenty of time to consider it" (when he has signed it of course), "or he is old and continues to submit out of habit, and it would be too absurd, at his time of life, to be setting up as a church reformer."

W. But Dr. Temple does not say all this: it is not in his essay.

H. No; he only joins in publishing the volume, in the hope that it will be received as an attempt to illustrate the cause of religious and moral truth from a free handling, in a becoming spirit, of subjects peculiarly liable to suffer, etc.

51 But I have nothing to say to Dr. Temple. I know nothing of him but that he is master of Rugby. I have a book before me with these principles in it.

But there is a short episode in the progress of the world's education, which is somewhat curious. The progress of the patriotic Roman empire was such, that its utter decay gave occasion for the well-known swarms from the officina gentium to break in upon it. Now as they had neither Grecian cultivation, nor christian enlightened will, and their patriotism was rather rough-handed, what was to be done? Why the Church instinctively, not intentionally, gave up — for herself of course, it was very gracious — gave up her full-age Christianity, in which she had been fully left to herself and her own faculties, and took up law — the only means of taming these myriads that had escaped the general education of the race — gave up Christianity, and subjected herself (that is, the whole Church under its name) to the old principle of childhood — the law, to tame these barbarians. It was more than apostolic. Paul kept his liberty, but condescended to the weak; but the church (not "that early one," but the mediaeval one) gave up Christianity for herself (of course, any duty to God or the truth was out of the question; she followed her instinct, the rule of her own enlightened will), and "had recourse to the only means that would suit the case — a revival of Judaism."* I admit the fact: only there was a deliberate mixture of heathenism with it. How it was a progress, kind and instinctive as it was, it would be hard to tell. Paul had struggled hard against this kind of progress; he thought it a falling from grace. Christ became of no avail if people did it, he thought. However, there is nothing an enlightened will and the Spirit guiding into truth, without giving any, will not do. It was, in fact, neither more nor less than the old schoolmaster come back to bring some new scholars to Christ.

{*Remark how infidelity always excuses popery, and sides with it in these days.}

"Of course, this was not the conscious intention of the then rulers of the Church; they believed in their own ceremonies as much as any of the people at large." But this is somewhat obscure. Did they believe the legal system before they imposed it? If so, they had set up the schoolmaster before he was needed for Clovis and his Franks; and it was no instinct at all, but they had sunk back by their own evil instinct to law. If they were in the full light of the age of reflection and enlightened will, they must have known what they were about. This does not quite hang together. Did they get into it themselves by their instinct, or, knowing it was retrograding themselves, impose it on others as necessary, and themselves adopt the revival of Judaism? Here I am at a loss. However, "nothing short of a real system of discipline, accepted as divine by all alike, could have tamed the German and Celtish nature into the self-control needed for a truly spiritual religion." But then, if they accepted the schoolmaster, they were not under it before, and must have known the difference. How they accepted it as divine is very difficult to understand, since they had recourse to it as the only thing that would suit the case. It was a singular procedure. They believed it as much as the untamed Germans, accepted it as divine, and yet had recourse to it, because it suited the case of the latter. Their believing it divine, and giving up an enlightened will, was a self-sacrifice of an unexampled kind, rewarded with darkness that made them think it divine.

52 When are they thus to get the truly spiritual religion? I suppose that it is not modern Popery and the immaculate conception of the virgin Mary. We have had some thousand years already to tame the German and Celtish nature into the self-control needed for a truly spiritual religion. The Celts are under it still perhaps. Dr. Temple thinks the Germans have got the start of them. But then this instinctive act of the Church assumes in the same page quite a new character. The question arises, why the less disciplined race — Germans or Celts (though these last had been a good while under Roman discipline — of full age too, for they were in the empire that was attacked) — why, I say, they could not have learned spirituality from the more disciplined. You see they had the spirituality, and it was by this leap into the schoolmaster's hand out of instinct that they accepted the unspiritual, the Judaism, the divine, as much as the Germans. But why was the reverse not the case?" This may happen when the more disciplined is much the more vigorous of the two, but the exhausted state of the Roman empire had not such strength of life left within it. There was no alternative, but that all alike should be put under the law to learn the lesson of obedience."

The more disciplined, the Church, had then the spirituality to teach, but had recourse to a revival of Judaism as the only means which could suit the case. Still it was not the conscious intention of the Church. They believed in the divine character of what they had recourse to. And do you see the reason of this astonishing mystification of having recourse to a thing as the only means suited to this case, yet without any conscious intention, yet possessing the spirituality which would shew what it was? It was the state of exhaustion of the Roman empire, and that is progress. How charming is divine philosophy! They retrograde out of spirituality to Judaism, reculent pour mieux saufer, I suppose, to begin the progress over again. But alas! there is no good in meddling with low principles. They believed they were divine; they who were of the full reflective age had to be put themselves under the law to learn the lesson of obedience. Who put them, God knows; but why had they, the spiritual ones, to be put under law, when they had already learned obedience of a far higher kind, and were disciplined and had spirituality to teach, only that the others needed the law?

53 Ah, the truth will leak out in spite of theories; the professing Church, like man in all states, progresses backwards. What is perfect in its place is given of God first, and man corrupts it; so did Adam innocent, so did Noah, so did Israel under law, so did the priesthood, so did the royalty, so did the Church under grace. The whole of this statement is a wilful perversion of history: the progress of darkness and superstition, and the legal spirit, and of hierarchical and then monarchical power, is as notorious and well known as possible. The inroad of barbarians gave politic Rome the means of reducing it into a governmental system under Hildebrand. But the corruption itself had been growing from the time the mystery of iniquity began to work, and was ripened by degrees into the Papacy, which partially supplanted the empire by an influence of a new kind. But that the Church had to be put under law to learn the lesson of obedience, though thus laboriously obscured by inconsistent statement, is the admission that it had utterly fallen from its first estate. That going back to law was an advance towards spirituality, no true Christian will think a moment in presence of Paul's statements. The return to law was the corruption of Christianity, mingled, and avowedly mingled, with heathenism as it was. The rulers of the Church used this with a perfectly conscious intention, as the mission of Augustine to England proves, to bring them under their own hierarchical power. History shews, too, that, as to the first great inroad of barbarians, its whole history was different; the Goths were Arians; and the theory, confused as it is, has no historical ground at all.

54 W. Are you sure that you do not take a one-sided view as to a previous point? Is not Dr. Temple merely insisting upon the use of revelation as light rather than as a law, and while insisting on one point as that which he feels important, not denying the use of revelation, only urging the spirit in which it is to be used? A somewhat exclusive one-sided view is natural, when we are absorbed by one view of a subject important at the moment.

H. Your question is a very fair one. We all are liable to such excess in reasoning, if not very watchful. But my answer is very simple; and it shews that all this train of reasoning is a dead set at revelation; that is, an effort with unconscious intention, perhaps instinctive, as the only means which would suit the case. Dr. Temple says, "If they could appeal to a revelation from heaven, they would still be under law; for a revelation speaking from without, and not from within, is an external law and not a spirit." Is not this as plain as plain can be, that progress means emancipation from revelation? You see, too, what a spirit is. God, any expressed authority of God, or given truth, must be absolutely excluded; it is the childhood of law.

W. It is fatally plain. I had no idea it came to this. It is not even Deism.

H. It is remarkable, that a friend of mine once heard Mr. Powell (now no more, I believe) preach; and he said, "It is in vain they seek to escape mysteries. They must become Atheists, for the greatest mystery is the existence of God." What loss there is I need not say. The Lord says, that the Holy Ghost, the Comforter, which should come, should take the things that were His, and shew them to them; and all that the Father has is His, all the infinitude of the unseen heavenly, and, I may say, divine world, was to be revealed, and that in the intimacy of the relationship of the Father and the Son, so that we should have fellowship with them. And no man had gone up there, but He who descended thence. He could speak what He knew, and testify what He had seen — declare the Father as in His bosom. He and He only had seen the Father; but this is truth given by the Spirit (all of it, even what Christ said). All of it is lost by this system. Instead, we are to have the spirit or conscience assume the throne intended for him in the soul, and draw from the storehouse of youthful experience, and legislate upon the future, without appeal, except to himself — a law which is not imposed upon us by another power, but our own enlightened will. All that God can give of the heavenly blessedness of the Son, now a glorified man, is lost, for ever lost; and man is only to seek the development of what is within man.

55 W. It is, indeed, a loss — a strange progress! It is inconceivable to me how any who respect Christianity, can put their sons under the influence of such principles.

H. Alas! my friend, the greater part of the world, and particularly the upper classes, go with the stream; and if God, in chastisement, sees fit to let loose Satan's influence, they float with circumstances. The air — I use it only metaphorically — is darkened with the smoke of the pit. And this rejection of objective religion is as unphilosophical as it is unchristian; for all creatures must be formed by objects. God alone is self-sufficient. He can create objects in the display of His love; but He needs none outside Himself — a creature does. Man has no intrinsic resources within himself, whether fallen or unfallen; nor even angels. Take away God, what are they? Nothing or devils.

So man: if money is his object, he is avaricious, or covetous at any rate; if power, ambitious; if pleasure, a man of pleasure; and all other objects are judged of by the ruling one. In every case of a creature, what is objective is the source of the subjective state. In Christianity this is connected with a new nature, because the old will not have the divine object which characterizes and is the foundation of faith; but the principle remains unchanged. "We all, with open [unveiled] face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord." 2 Cor. 3:18 See what a magnificent picture we have in Stephen of this! — in a remarkable way, no doubt; but still exhibitory of it morally, as well as by a vision. The whole question between Christianity and Dr. Temple's system is brought to an issue. The progress of human nature, with the very elements he speaks of, and the contrasted result, is stated. "Ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye." Acts 7:51 There is the relationship between man and the Spirit. Next, "Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them which shewed before of the coming of the Just One, of whom ye have been now the betrayers and murderers." Acts 7:52 These were their ways with those who unfolded the law in a more spiritual manner, and with the great living witness of perfection Himself. Such was man — flesh in contrast with the law. Such was his state: he always resisted the Holy Ghost. Now note the contrast of the objective spiritual man. Stephen, "full of the Holy Ghost, looked up steadfastly into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God, and said, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God." Acts 7:56 And what was the effect, the subjective effect in one full of the Holy Ghost, of his objective perception of heavenly objects? In the midst of rage and violence, and while being actually stoned, in all calmness* he not merely bears, but kneels down, and says, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Acts 7:60 So Jesus: "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Luke 23:34 Then he said, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit;" as Jesus had said, "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." Luke 23:46 He beheld, with unveiled face, the glory of the Lord, and was changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord. 2 Cor. 3:18 But how full and complete a picture! — man always a resister of the Holy Ghost; under law, not keeping it; with prophets, persecuting; with the Just One, a murderer; with the witness of the Holy Ghost, gnashing his teeth and slaying in rage. Christianity, in contrast — a man full of the Holy Ghost, seeing Jesus the Son of man in heaven, changed into His image, and killed by man, falls asleep, Jesus receiving his spirit.

{*The same calmness marks his whole discourse. He recites the Jews' history, their own boast, so that they could have no word to say; yet it said all. They had rejected Moses the true deliverer, Joseph their sustainer and help, and the temple they had trusted in, God had rejected by the mouth of their prophets.}

56 Dr. Temple goes over this ground, rejects Christianity as an external revelation (that must be a law), takes up exactly the same elements as Stephen, and declares that man is progressively educated by them to do without that which Stephen enjoyed. Which am I to believe? Yet I have but coldly sketched the elements of thought. I must leave you to meditate over it, and appreciate the beauty and spiritual importance of it. It is a most enchanting picture, and the deepest moral principles are contained in it; but scripture is a wonderful book.

W. But, then, this was a vision.

H. No doubt; but what he saw is revealed and written for my faith to act on.

W. True; I see plainly that Christianity judges wholly that nature which Dr. T. educates for itself — I cannot say for God. This rejection of Christ in the world made evidently a turning-point in the world's history, as to the proof of what it really was; and this history of Stephen shews man resisting the testimony to Christ's heavenly glory, as they had killed Him when He was the witness of perfection and of God on earth.

57 H. Just so. There is a silent witness to the divinity of Jesus, and, while truly and really a man, a contrast between Him and all other men, which has profoundly interested me. When man is blessed, morally blessed, elevated, he must have an elevated, and, indeed, to be taken out of self, a divine object before him. Jesus was the object even of heaven, instead of having one. When Stephen is before us, heaven was open to him as it was to Jesus; but he sees the Son of man in the heavens, and that fixes his view, and lights up his regard with the glory he saw. Heaven is opened upon Jesus, and the angels are His servants; He sees it opened, and the Holy Ghost descends, witness that He is Son of God. But He is changed into no other image by it; He has no object to which to look up, but heaven looks down on Him, and the Father's voice declares, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased."

W. That is deeply interesting, and supremely beautiful. What a word, indeed, scripture is! I find often these traits, which, to the renewed soul, stamp the person of Jesus as divine, more powerful as witnessing who He was, than even positive texts.

H. They are; but that does not diminish the importance of the positive texts. We enjoy these revelations of His person, but the declaration that the Word was God (and many such like) is a declaration which has authority over my soul. I make God a liar, as John speaks, if I do not believe it; and so I can use it with others. God has declared it: he that believes not has made God a liar, because he has not believed the record which God has given concerning His Son. He that believes has the witness in himself. And all these traits which clothe, or rather reveal, the beloved person of Him who was humbled for us, are ineffably sweet; but the positive declaration is of all importance, too.

Note, in a passage I have alluded to, two other ways in which Jesus is presented, besides the actual declaration that He was God, and the Word made flesh. He gathers round Himself. If He were not God, this would be frightful — a subversion of all truth — a destructive impossibility: He would turn men away from God. He accepts this place. All that is attracted by what is good flows around Him, and finds there its perfect and all-satisfying centre. That is God. No one else could or ever did do this, except in sin or violence. The Church can say, Come and drink, I have the living water; so she has, but not, Come to me. That marks the spirit of apostasy. The stream (blessed be God!) flows there, but she is no fountain to which to go. This must be divine, or it is false. But mark, this is a new gathering by a divine revealed centre, not the educational progress of the race; it is the opposite, though blessed instruction for the whole race. The other way Jesus is revealed is in the words "Follow me." We have the same perfection, but now by and in Him as man there is a path revealed through this world of evil. It is one, only one, following Christ. There can be no way but a new divine one, yet necessarily a human one; there is no way for man, as man, in the world at all. When Adam was in paradise, he did not want a way; he had only, in blessed and unfeigned thankfulness, ignorant of evil, to enjoy good and to worship. When man has been cast out, and the world has grown up away from God — away in nature, in will, there can be no way in a rebellious world, in a sinful corrupt system, how to walk aright, as in and of the world, when its whole state is wrong. But if what is divine comes into it as man (what has motives not of it, nor of human nature, though truly man); if it gives a path in which the divine nature is displayed in grace and holiness in these circumstances, yet always itself manifesting what it is in them; now I have a way. I follow Him truly — in everything — a man; but a man displaying divine qualities in the ordinary circumstances of human life. He says "Follow me," but when He has said "Ye are not of the world, as I am not of the world," and goes into glory, sanctifies Himself even externally, in His ascension, from the human race, that we may be sanctified by the truth. How thoroughly opposite, to be sure, Christ's system in every detail is, to Dr. Temple's!

58 W. It is. But what you refer to gives a scope to Christianity, and a character which elevates, indeed attracts to an object — a divine object; yea, we may be allowed to say, attaches to it: but it shews that our ordinary Christianity is poor work indeed — I mean poor in principle. I am not comparing persons: take myself, the first.

H. It is. Yet there is more of it practically, where it could not be unfolded in terms, among the poor of the flock, than we may be aware of. Still I am sure, alas! you are right. But it is the beauty of Christianity, that, being objective, being truth, "the truth shall set you free," John 8:32 and a person, "the Son shall set you free," John 8:36 it works effectually in those who receive Christ, and requires no intellectual development to receive its power. Christ is received into the heart, and, dwelling there by faith, produces the effect in us. Yet it takes us out of ourselves, because it is objective; and we, filled with delight in an object, in what is perfect, are like Him, but so forget ourselves (and are filled by doing so), as He did in grace.

59 W. How skilful God is!

H. Yes; it is divine wisdom. Man would produce virtue by the love of virtue in himself; but then he thinks of himself, and all his virtue is rottenness. God gives us a human but divine object, and our affections are divine, because we love what is so (and morally we are what we love); but we love it in another, and are delivered from self. I would just add, that I believe that this adaptation of the character of walk to our entirely new position in Christ is what is meant by "created again in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God has afore prepared that we should walk in them." Eph. 2:10 Hence, we are the epistle of Christ, engraved in the fleshy tables of the heart by the Spirit of the living God.

W. This contrast with the Christianity of the scriptures is, I think, what strikes one most, because it is not merely particular errors or difficulties, but evidently the whole system and principle of relationship with God, of moral influences, and the formation of the soul in God's image (and I must add, though I do not see any reference to such a thing in Dr. T.'s system, for communion with God) is in question. The whole system is the opposite of the christian one. I must reject one, if I receive the other. They are more than contrary — they are contradictory.

H. Undoubtedly they are. The very starting-point is opposite. Christianity treats man as a fallen being, not merely as imperfect, but as departed from God, and needing a new nature and redemption. Christ meets Nicodemus at once on this ground.

The rationalist or infidel system takes in Christianity by the by, as it does Greece and Rome; but man, as he is, is to be educated.