did not lose sight of His perfect humanity. There was no mixing of the two natures together or modifying of the one by the other. Christ was God omniscient and omnipotent, but equally true was the other fact that Christ was man, with the limitations of humanity. To understand how Christ is both God and man may be beyond our capacity, but we ought not to let His divinity deprive us of the precious humanities of His life. Jesus was a child like other children. He grew in wisdom as He grew in stature, and as other children grow. He knew his sheep not because he was omniscient, but by the same faculty that the sheep knew Him. He could read men because he knew what was in man, not by the power of His divinity, but by the perfection of his humanity.1 Baptism was explained not as making us children of God, but as the public or formal declaration of our sonship. The Queen was heir to the throne before she became Queen, but the coronation was the act by which she was declared Queen. Christ died for us. He died for our sins. He laid down His life in defence of the sheep. He exposed Himself to their dangers, made His life one with theirs. He did not bear the wrath of God. The Father was not angry with the Son, but the Son came into collision with the world's evil and had to bear its punishment as it had to be borne by others. By becoming man He identified Himself with men, and as man He had to suffer. In this sense He bore the penalty of sin, the sin of others. The Bible is the Word of God, but it is also the Word of man. As the first it is perfect, as the second imperfect. The latter is from the nature of the case. Scientific correctness would have been an impediment to Revelation when it was given. A cosmogony in terms of absolute truth would have caused the authority of the book to be rejected. No one would have believed a writer who said that the earth went round the sun.

1 See Sermons on Jesus growing in Wisdom and on the Good Shepherd.

2 See Sermon on Caiaphas' view of Vicarious Sacrifice.

CHAPTER XIV

ESSAYS AND REVIEWS

TRACTARIANISM relied on Church authority. It did not maintain an infallible Church, but its tendency was in that direction. When the Reformers left the Church of Rome they took the Bible for their standard. Some say they took the Bible alone, others say the Bible as interpreted by Catholic antiquity. The advance of Bible criticism and other sciences demanded a revision of the position in which the Bible was regarded by both parties. This had been going on silently almost since the century began, but chiefly as the work of isolated scholars, who generally earned the reputation and shared the fate of heretics. By the publication of 'Essays and Reviews,' it was made manifest that not merely obscure heretics had accepted the results of Bible criticism, but men who either held or were likely to hold positions of influence in the Church and the Universities. The volume was the work of seven men who had no plan or agreement, but were independent of each other. The only thing they had in common was that they were to handle their subjects freely and without bias or prejudice.1

The first Essay was by Dr Frederick Temple, headmaster of Rugby. The subject was 'The Education of the Human Race.' The substance of the Essay was a sermon which had

'It was in reality the last of a set of volumes called Oxford Essays and Cambridge Essays. The publisher wished to close the series with representatives of the theology held by liberal

been preached at Oxford. That Christ came in the fulness of time, that is, at the stage of the world's existence in which the purpose of the Advent could be best served, seemed a harmless proposition. The heresy was discovered in the illustrations and was probably first suggested by its connection with the other essays. It may also have been remembered that Lessing wrote a treatise with the same title. In the education of the race the great nations of the old world were, so to speak, different classes. The lesson of the Jews was religious truth and purity of life. The Romans learned order and organisation, the Greeks science and art, while the Asiatics were disciplined by the turmoil of life to long for rest. The human race is compared to a colossal man which has a youth, a childhood, and a manhood. It was first taught by laws, then by examples, finally by principles. Christ came when the world was prepared to feel the power of His presence. Had He delayed till now it would have been hard for us to recognise His divinity, for the faculty of faith is turned inwards. The form of the Bible answers to this education, It does not consist of precise statements of facts. It is not an outer law but a history of religious life. Its office is not to override, but to evoke conscience. The immediate work of our day is the study of the Bible.

The second Essay was 'A Review of Bunsen's Biblical Researches,' by Dr Rowland Williams, Vicar of Broadchalk, Wilts. The writer made it the occasion of setting forth the conclusions to which German critics had come as to the Bible, its history and its interpretation. Bunsen's researches confirmed the more liberal criticism which traces Revelation historically within the sphere of nature and humanity. This brought Scripture within the sphere of nature, and denied or seemed to deny the supernatural. Hitherto Revelation was understood as something outside or above the sphere of nature. When the record of creation in Genesis was taken literally, creation was supposed to be supernatural, an interference of the Deity, but since the discoveries of geology the idea of interference has been vanishing. The age of criticism has come. It is applied to Gentile history and that of the Hebrews cannot escape. Here the second Essay unconsciously

Jew and Gentile history. It finds that the ancient religions appeal to the better side of our nature, and that their constituents are parts of the instrumentality of Revelation.

If Revelation falls within the sphere of history and nature we do not expect the Bible records to be infallible. To vindicate the unity of the human race, Bunsen asked twenty thousand years, the Bible only gives six. Jacob's descendants who came out of Egypt required a longer time for their increase to two millions than the Book of Genesis allows. The Exodus was a struggle carried on by human means, and the avenger who slew the first born may have been the Bedouin host. The passage through the Red Sea has more of poetry than history. The Bible is the expression of devout reason, and to be read with reason in freedom. Righteous men of old put their trust in a righteous God, who did not require offerings of blood. The fierce ritual of Syria taught Abraham to slay his son, but he found that God preferred mercy to sacrifice. He listened to the voice which speaks within.

Prophecy was not prognostication, but the preaching of righteousness. The predictions believed to be in the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New have but a shadowy fulfilment. Bishop Butler foresaw the possibility that every prophecy in the Old Testament might have its elucidation in contemporaneous history. Bishop Chandler is said to have thought twelve passages in the Old Testament directly Messianic. Others restricted this character to four. Paley ventures to quote only one. The deliverer from Bethlehem was to be a contemporary shield against the Assyrian. Kiss ye the son' in Psalm II would be better rendered 'worship purely.' 'Mighty God' applied to the child spoken of by Isaiah, might perhaps mean simply strong or mighty One. And the Virgin's child to be called Emmanuel was to be born in the reign of Ahaz. The 'man of sorrows' may have been Jeremiah or collective Israel. Some of what are called the prophecies of Daniel, relate to events which happened before or during the reign of Antiochus Epiphanes. The Bible is the written voice of the Congregation. The first Essayist said there was a moral conscience which the Bible

J

or witness within us. No external evidence can prove the truth of narratives inherently incredible or precepts evidently

wrong.

The third Essay was 'On the Study of the Evidences of Christianity.' The author was Baden Powell, Savilian Professor of Geometry. This Essay is hard to follow, and has been differently understood. The writer died immediately after its publication, so that he could not clear up any obscurities, nor defend himself from the reproaches that had been cast upon him. The scope of the Essay may be indicated by what Coleridge said about external evidence, which is called an accessory, and therefore liable to change with the changes of opinion and the advance of knowledge. Modern evidences did not exist before the fifteenth century. They were specially required by Protestants who wanted something definite and substantial. Our present logical arguments are the issue of the Deist controversy. Grotius and Paley appealed to miracles, but that kind of evidence is now partially neglected. Some make the test of Christianity to be the union of miracles and doctrine. False prophets may work miracles, and an angel from heaven may preach another gospel. The question of miracles is purely a question which relates to the physical, and in nature we can find no trace of interference. Creation is only another name for our ignorance of the mode of production. For miracles we must go beyond nature and beyond science. Any such phenomena in nature would only prove extraordinary natural effects. The conclusion is, that Christianity rests on faith, not argument, not on the wisdom of man but in the power of God. The old Deists had used this argument ironically, but there is every reason for believing that the writer of this Essay used it seriously. With him as with Coleridge, Christianity was its own evidence. Its truth cannot be demonstrated by propositions, but rests on the assurance of faith.

The fourth Essay was on 'The National Church.' Henry Bristow Wilson, Vicar of Great Staughton, Hunts, advocated a National Church wide enough to embrace all creeds. At a conference in Geneva of persons holding evangelical sentiments, a difference emerged as to whether the Church should