changing moods of thought, and lay hold upon the eternal verity. While we are anathematising the Apollinarian heresy, or asserting the Double Procession of the Holy Ghost, men are asking whether Love and Law can be harmonised in the Divine administration, or whether the secret of a holy life is to be found in the Gospel of a free redemption, or whether the maintenance of Christian Theology leads to a true humanitarianism; with many another question prompted by the science and philosophy of our age. The dogmas of the ancient Creeds will hardly help us here; they keep us entangled amid questions and speculations which no longer engross the thoughts of men. The only solution of our present inquiries must be sought in the Living Word, open from age to age, with applications ever new and infinitely various to human needs; for God, who 'reveals Himself in many ways,' has a new and larger message for every generation to those who have eyes to discern and a heart to understand.

We, therefore, on the borders of the Twentieth Century, in very homage to the progressiveness of the Divine Self-revelation, decline to limit our

selves by the formulas of the Fourth Century, or of the Eighth, or of the Seventeenth; assured that we too shall hear the voice that spoke to our fathers, and that the Spirit of Truth is ready as of old to lead His people into all the Truth.

For Theology, like every other Science, is progressive, and will sooner or later break its way through all formulas by the irresistible tendency of human thought. Only let us carefully bear in mind what we mean by progressiveness, and how far Theology differs in this respect from all other sciences. In general, science is progressive in two main respects-first, by the discovery of new material-new facts or phenomena, in the regions with which it has to do; and secondly, by more accurate methods of classifying and dealing with the material obtained. These two processes indeed, run up into each other; for, the wider the range of the phenomena observed, the larger will be the generalisations and the more complete the induction. But when we come to Theology, we have all the facts with which we have to deal already contained in the Scriptures of Truth. To these nothing can be added; we may indeed understand these materials better, arrange them

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more symmetrically, argue from them more correctly; but the materials themselves are all given. Theological science, then, is progressive only in the second sense above indicated. Some would

deny even this. Has not, they say, the Faith

been once for all delivered to the saints ? Is not Truth eternally the same? How can we advance beyond the thoughts of God as expressed to us in His own Word? We may answer-as it seems to me conclusively-that the question is not concerning the thoughts of God themselves, but concerning the thoughts of men in regard to them. Truth is essentially the same; but our apprehension of the truth admits of development and enlargement, as our point of view is changed and the proportion of things better discerned. The Faith once for all delivered to the saints was not delivered in a series of propositions ranged in scientific array, but successively, from age to age; by the disclosure of facts, the enunciation of principles, revelations concerning human life and the Divine dealings with mankind, in which we who study them may find ever new and deeper meanings, as we compare them one with another and place them under the cross-lights of human

experience, of science and philosophy. Every advance of thought brings some new help to their comprehension; and Theology becomes enriched with the spoils of the whole world of thought.

But the best proof that Theology is progressive is, that it has actually progressed. There never has been a halting-place at which the Church could rightly affirm: Hitherto we have attained -no further attainment is possible.' I know that the Churches have been saying this from time immemorial; but in spite of their protests 'the thoughts of men have widened with the process of the suns.' The mystery of Atonement was not the same to Calvin as it had been to the Gregories : why should we say that Calvin has settled it for ourselves and for all time? So with the great themes of Christian Apologetics. What was vindicated in the days of our forefathers was the Divine Government by Rewards and Punishments to be awarded in the Future Life. And this no doubt is still part of our conception; but I think that the greater stress is now laid upon the reality of Divine Sympathy with man. A State of Probation' was the old phrase, and this also contains a deep meaning; but deeper still is the view

of life as a Divine Education by the infinite forces of love.

In everything, indeed, which concerns men's thoughts of God, there is room for that larger knowledge which ever goes in hand with deeper reverence. The very first word of the Bible means more to us than it could have meant to our forefathers by whom the wonders of Creation were so largely unexplored; and our ever-growing knowledge of human history and experience gives new emphasis of application to Christ's own phrase, 'your Father which is in Heaven.'

And if I might venture to specify one direction in which the Christian thought of our day seems to be advancing to a new and higher truth than is expressed in any of the Creeds, I would instance the doctrine of the Incarnate and Risen Christ. The ancient Churches, in their developed' Apostles' Creed,' laid the great stress upon His Manifestation to mankind; the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Fathers, in language coloured by Alexandrian philosophy, strove to set forth His Eternal Being, and His relation to the Father. In both, the central truth of Theology was recognised and dis