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we shall see what the Apostle means when he says that the foundation is Jesus Christ.

¶ Two rival views are claiming the allegiance of the present generation. The one finds the basis of Christianity in the teaching of a man, inspired as Moses was inspired and more inspired, Divine as Shakespeare was Divine and more Divine, but now dead in the sense in which Moses is dead and Shakespeare is dead. The other finds the basis of Christianity in the ever-living Person of God for men made Man. Such are the views which, in some form or other, confront each one of us, and between which, sooner or later, we must make our solemn choice.1

(1) In the first place, the religion of a Human Christ as it is represented, for example, in Renan's Life of Jesus or in Robert Elsmere, gives us as our leader, as the centre of our faith, as the object of our reverence, a human hero.

The last movement of Ruskin's mind had been away from evangelical faith; it had coincided with his growing admiration of the great worldly, irreligious painters; his religion had become "the religion of humanity," though "full of sacred colour and melancholy shade"; his teaching had been in such exhortations as may be based on intellectual scepticism. But while engaged on drawing Giotto's frescoes, "I discovered," he says, "the fallacy under which I had been tormented for sixteen years-the fallacy that Religious artists were weaker than Irreligious. I found that all Giotto's 'weaknesses' (so called) were merely absences of material science. He did not know, and could not, in his day, so much of perspective as Titian-so much of the laws of light and shade, or so much of technical composition. But I found he was in the make of him, and contents, a very much stronger and greater man than Titian; that the things I had fancied easy in his work, because they were so unpretending and simple, were nevertheless entirely inimitable; that the Religion in him, instead of weakening, had solemnized and developed every faculty of his heart and hand; and finally, that his work, in all the innocence of it, was yet a human achievement and possession, quite above everything that Titian had ever done." This "discovery" affected, first, Ruskin's estimate of painters; and at Florence, presently, he set himself to write of Giotto and his works in Florence, as twenty years before, with a more reserved admiration for the master, he had written of Giotto and his Works in Padua.2

(2) In the second place, this Religion of a Human Christ blots E. T. Cook, The Life of Ruskin, ii. 253.

1 F. Homes Dudden.

the resurrection out of the Gospel and gives us but a cross and a tomb. Let us read Robert Elsmere's speech to the working men of East London: "He laid him in a tomb which had been hewn out of a rock; and he rolled a stone against the door of the tomb.' The ashes of Jesus of Nazareth mingled with the earth of Palestine

Far hence he lies

In the lone Syrian town,

And on his grave, with shining eyes,
The Syrian stars look down.

"He stopped. The melancholy cadence of the verse died away. Then a gleam broke over the pale, exhausted face-a gleam of extraordinary sweetness. And in the days and weeks that followed, the devout and passionate fancy of a few mourning Galileans begat the exquisite fable of the Resurrection. How natural, and amid all its falseness how true, is that naïve and contradictory story! The rapidity with which it spread is a measure of many things. It is, above all, a measure of the greatness of Jesus, of the force with which he had drawn to himself the hearts and imaginations of men.'"

It may be true, as Mr. Nettleship has said, that "A Death in the Desert goes no single step in the direction of proving Christ's divinity as a dogma"; but the poem itself is void of all meaning, unless, in spite of its dramatic form, it can be regarded as setting forth the deepest conviction of the poet's own soul. Hence the verdict of the man who adds the final note is this:

If Christ, as thou affirmest, be of men

Mere man, the first and best but nothing more—
Account Him, for reward of what He was,

Now and for ever, wretchedest of all.1

(3) Thirdly, the Religion of a Human Christ offers to us a law and an example-nothing more; the religion of Christian faith offers us a Divine power.

Mr. Gladstone has eloquently sketched in a few words the power of the Christian church: "Christianity both produced a type of character wholly new to the Roman world and it fundamentally altered the laws and institutions, the tone, temper, and tradition of that world. For example, it changed profoundly the

J. Flow, Studies in Browning, 45.

relation of the poor to the rich, and the almost forgotten obligation of the rich to the poor. It abolished slavery, abolished human sacrifice, abolished gladiatorial shows, and a multitude of other horrors. It restored the position of woman in society. It prosecuted polygamy; and put down divorce, absolutely in the West, though not absolutely in the East. It made peace, instead of war, the normal and presumed relation between human societies. It exhibited life as a discipline, everywhere and in all its parts, and changed essentially the place and function of suffering in human experience. Accepting the ancient morality as far as it went, it not only enlarged but transfigured its teaching by the laws of humility and of forgiveness, and by a law of purity even more new and strange than these.”

(4) In the fourth place, this Religion of a Human Christ offers a temporal and local religion in place of one that is as eternal and as universal as its Divine Author. Let Robert Elsmere again explain his position: "If you wish, Catherine, I will wait -I will wait till you bid me speak; but I warn you there is something dead in me, something gone and broken. It can never live again except in forms which now it would only pain you more to think of. It is not that I think differently of this point or that point, but of life and religion altogether. I see God's purposes in quite other proportions, as it were. Christianity seems to me something small and local. Behind it, around it, including it, I see the great drama of the world, sweeping on, led by God, from change to change, from act to act. It is not that Christianity is false, but that it is only an imperfect human reflection of a part of truth."

¶ It is a perfectly unique and very striking fact, that the views of Christ do not proceed from the concretely defined horizon of any age or any historical sphere, not even from His own. Mark the distinction in this respect between Christ and Socrates.1

3. The Foundation is the Person of Christ-Christ Himself— This has been the teaching of the Church from the earliest day till now. In every age and in every land the Church has taught invariably that the one determining factor of the Christian religion is the Person of Jesus. That is the absolute, essential thing. The Christian religion is not a mere system of 1 R. Rothe, Still Hours, 213.

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doctrine. It is not a mere ethical code. It is not merely a redemptive social force. It is above all dependence on a Person. And therein lies its peculiarity and its novelty. A Church Father of the second century, being pressed with the question, "What new thing did the Lord bring by His coming?" replied, "Know that He brought all newness in bringing us Himself." The distinctive feature of the new religion is the Person of Jesus.

(1) It is Jesus Christ, and not doctrines about Jesus Christ. To say this is not to disparage the precious guidance of Scripture or Creeds or Councils. These Apostolic words, these later definitions, which furnish in our day the favourite topic for so much shallow declamation, are the voice of that Eternal Spirit by whom the whole Body is governed as well as sanctified. They guard and sustain in Christian thought the Divine Saviour's peerless honour; they forbid, in tones of merciful severity, false and degrading beliefs about Him. Yet He, our living Lord, is the foundation; and no one can altogether rest upon the formulæ which uphold and regulate our estimate of His Glory. We prize both Scripture and the Creeds for His sake, not Him for theirs; and to rest upon them, as distinct from Him whom they keep before us, would be like building a wall upon a measuring rule, instead of upon the block of granite, of which it has given us the noble dimensions.

I do not agree with the saying imputed to some one, that God gave man religion, but the devil invented theology as a counterfeit. For theology is not the natural or proper antithesis to religion; still less its opposite or antagonist. It occupies a different sphere; and though dealing with the same subjects in great measure, yet its aim is, or should be, different; and it works by means of different faculties. Religion aims at the production of faith, hope and charity, and all the proper fruits of those graces. It would teach us to trust in God, and love Him, and to obey that second commandment, which is like unto the first both in its scope and in its importance and comprehensiveness-"Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." It is that which brings the human soul consciously into relation with God, with an unseen world and a spiritual kingdom, and with a future state of retribution. Religion, therefore, is an appeal to faith and also to conscience, both of which it seeks to quicken and exercise; so that we may be godly towards God, and righteous towards our neighbour, performing all our duties from a principle of obliga

tion and reverence to the great Father who made and loves us all, and requires us to love, pity, and help one another, because of this our common origin and family relation. Religion also requires us to be sober or temperate-regulating the appetites of our bodies and the emotions and affections of our minds, so that we be not carried away by them beside or beyond the purposes for which they were implanted, but that they may further us in attaining perfection in this world, and at last eternal felicity.

Now, though theology deals in great part with the same subjects with which religion is concerned, it differs from it in several respects. Religion deals with those subjects in a practical way, chiefly with reference to conduct or life; and it appeals to all parts of our nature, to the affections and emotions as well as to the understanding. It works through hope and fear, and seeks to influence, to restrain, to stimulate, and to regulate-in short, to make us wise, holy, good, in all manner of conversation, that we may be "perfect in all the will of God." On the other hand, theology is wholly theoretical or speculative. Its object is to reconcile certain apparent contradictions or inconsistencies, not only between different parts, or passages, or expressions of Scripture, but between Scriptural statements or doctrines, and the phenomena of the physical and moral world. For it must deal not only with the Bible but with facts; regarding the facts of nature and providence, and of general history and experience, as being, no less than the histories, doctrines and teachings of Scripture, revelations or manifestations of the Maker and Governor of the world. These all, proceeding from the same Divine source, are and must be really consistent, however at first sight they may sometimes appear to conflict one with another. It is therefore the province of theology to point out the harmony which underlies seeming opposition and discordance in the Word or ways of God, so that we may discern a real and profound order where at first sight confusion or contradiction presents itself to our minds. Thus, in the natural world, the law of gravitation being demonstrated to be a law operating throughout the universe, it is available to explain and reconcile a multitude of facts or appearances which seemed, to minds not instructed in this law of gravitation, to be unrelated, or even opposed and contradictory, one to another.1

(2) Still more true is it that it is Jesus Christ, and not feelings about Him. Feelings are great aids to devotion; they are often special gifts of God, the play of His Blessed Spirit

1 Robert Lee.

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