could ask for, if "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself" (2 Cor. v. 19). We can understand how St. Paul, from his knowledge of Christ after the flesh, should have been led to say, "Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven and things in earth, and things under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father."

CHAPTER VII

MODERN SENSITIVENESS ABOUT THE VIRGIN

BIRTH

It is to have been devoutly wished that the present controversy about the Virgin-birth had not arisen to disturb the peace of the Church. Many of those who feel keenly the modern difficulties would have preferred to allow objections to slumber, in the conviction that no serious issue was involved. There will always be a large number brought up from infancy within the Church, who will continue to think and to talk in the old way, however the critical questions regarding the fact may be determined. There are many subjects in the field of religion or theology where the mind, the intellectual faculties, remain willingly in suspense, and in such an attitude may lie prudence and the highest wisdom, even the possibility of the larger growth. There is much to be said in behalf of the Virgin-birth which should moderate or conciliate those who oppose it. The first man, who was of the earth earthy, came into the

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world, according to the faith of ancient peoples, in some supernatural way by a special divine creative act. The conception of man's descent after the modern evolutionary hypothesis will never quite destroy the beautiful vision, as it has been represented in art by Michael Angelo, of the first man in his first act after the creation, touching with his hand the hand of God. Poetry and art are intimately associated with religion. The primary religious question is, not whether a certain doctrine is true, for we may have no canons of determining truth; but, what does it mean, - a question we can always answer. If the appearance of the first man is more truly represented to the religious imagination, as proceeding forth from the Divine will, after special deliberation in the councils of heaven, much more must the second man, who is the Lord from heaven, have entered upon the scene of His task on earth in some still more special and supernatural way. Such is, and is likely to remain, the working of the religious instinct as it seeks to reproduce the actual fact, to cover with a delicate veil the material process, to see only the spiritual, that which transcends the earthly and transfigures it. It is the very nature of religion that it tends to cultivate good taste, as well as a right heart and right living. The dig

nity of the situation demands dignity in the recognition. "It was becoming" is a response that can justify belief. We can understand how, without controversy, Augustine should in summary fashion announce that the question was closed, in regard to the mother of our Lord. Out of respect to Christ, as he said, let there be no admission in her case of actual sin. Even Martin Luther, who had the clearest anticipation of the modern view of the Incarnation after ages which had groaned in ignorance of the full truth, even Luther could not escape from the environment of the religious imagination, where poetry and art, and refined religious sensibility, played about the person of Mary. The following exalted passage breathes the incense of the religious spirit:

"Behold thus did Christ take to Himself from us our birth and insert it into His birth, and give us His own, in order that by it, we may become pure and new, as though it were our own. Every Christian, therefore, may exult and boast in the birth of Christ,

1 Cf. a very interesting passage in Dorner, "Person of Christ," Div. ii, vol. ii, p. 91 (Eng. tr.), where the thought of Luther about Mary is given. But he also maintained, says Dorner, that Christ took upon Him our fallen nature. "The roots of the idea of a purification of Mary from original sin were thus cut away," etc.

just as though he himself had been physically born of Mary like Christ. Whoso doth not believe or doubteth this, is no Christian. This is the sense of Isaiah ix. 6: "Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given." Us, us, to us it is born, to us it is given. Therefore see thou that thy delight in the Gospels is derived not solely from the history itself; for it exists not long: but make thou His birth thine own; exchange with Christ, so that thou mayest get quit of thy birth and appropriate His. This takes place when thou believest. Then wilt thou of a certainty lie in the womb of the Virgin Mary and be her dear child."1

It is a generalization from our knowledge of history that all its greater epochs and moments of revelation are represented as ushered in by the miracle, or by an opening of the heavens which gives us a glimpse of a higher, more blessed world than that we see. At the creation the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted aloud for joy. When prophecy was born, there came first as its heralds the prophets who were greater in deed than in word: Elijah and Elisha, who moved in an atmosphere of the miraculous,

1 Dorner, op. cit., p. 105.