Part 16 (2/2)

That this belief, where held at all, should be paraly, St Paul, as Mr Jowett remarks, makes even the essence of the Gospel to consist in it:--

”It appears remarkable, that St Paul should make the essence of the Gospel consist, not in the belief in Christ, or in taking up the cross of Christ, but in the hope of his coain Such, however, was the faith of the Thessalonian Church; such is the tone and spirit of the Epistle Neither in the Apostolic times, nor in our own, can we reduce all to the same type One aspect of the Gospel is more outward, another more inward; one seems to connect with the life of Christ, another with his death; one with his birth into the world, another with his co the ti the manner how, all these different ways may lead us within the veil The faith of modern times e to their individual character, to dwell on this truth or that, as more peculiarly appropriate to their nature The faith of the early Church was si in the same way on a particular truth, which the circuht before them”--Vol I p 46

Only it is not on ”a particular _truth_,” but on a particular _error_, that the ”pause” of faith was here made;--an error found or implied, as our author observes, ”in almost every book of the New Testament; in the discourses of our Lord himself, as well as in the Acts of the Apostles; in the Epistles of St Paul, no less than in the Book of the Revelation” Mr Jowett does not evade the difficulty In an admirable essay on this special subject, he frankly states the facts, traces their influence on the early Church, accepts the the limits which human conditions impose on Divine revelation, and shows fros, he leaves much truth to be drawn forth from time and experience

”It is a subject,” he says, ”froladly turn aside For it seems as if he were compelled to say at the outset, 'that St Paul was mistaken, and that in support of his mistake he could appeal to the words of Christ hi of those words, and yet they seehteen centuries, the world is as it was In the words which are attributed, in the Epistle of St Peter, to the unbelievers of that day, we ht truly say that, since the fathers have fallen asleep, all things res remain the same,' but the very belief itself (in the sense in which it was held by the first Christians) has been ready to vanish away”--Vol I p 96

It is the infirmity of human nature--an infirmity irremovable by inspiration--to translate eternal truth into forms of time, to throw color into the invisible till it can be seen, and look into any given infinity till finite shapes appear within it, and it is felt as infinite no more The soul tries, as it were, every apparent path, froe, froht, from perception of what God _is_ to vaticination of what he _does_; and abides alone with the Holy Presence, that will not tell His counsels, but is ever there himself From the world of Divine reality into that of transient phenoe found as yet; and only He, whose footsteps need no ground, can pass across We know somewhat on both sides; but the chasainst all invasion _Vision_ for faith; _prevision_ for science:--this seeifts by the Father of lights

And whoever overlooks this rule, and, inspired with discernment of what absolutely is, ventures to pronounce what relatively will be, eed The deepest spiritual insight is ineffectual to teach _past_ history; it is equally so to teach _future_ history The ht of this fact, and expect the sons of God to _predict_ for you, you confound inspiration with divination, and will pay the double penalty ofdisappointed at that which they have not

It is not always ht which they _are_, they do not _see_; and that which shapes itself before them, and becomes the _object_ of their s, deepened and sharpened, perhaps also misplaced, by the preternatural intensity By its very inwardness and closeness to the soul's centre, God's Spirit may express itself chiefly in the unconscious attitudes and manifestations of the mind; especially as it is these that often leave the most ineffaceable impressions of character upon others, andpower than any purposed teaching or more conscious authority The disappointment of an avowed prediction, or the error of an elaborated doctrine, no more affects the Divine inspiration at the heart of Christianity, than the miscalculations and failure of the Crusades disprove their Providential function in the historical education of mankind Mr Jowett takes up the question from another side, and sho the faith in a future life, though not directly _given_, necessarily disengaged itself in the end fro of Christ

”We naturally ask, why a future life, as distinct fro of the Gospel?--why, in other words, the faith of the first Christians did not exactly coincide with our own? There are many ways in which the answer to this question may be expressed The philosopher will say, that the difference in the e and our own rendered it i, that the veil of sense should be altogether reian will admit that Providence does not teach men that which they can teach themselves While there are lessons which it immediately communicates, there is much which it leaves to be drawn forth by tie faith; it may also correct it No one can doubt that the faith and practice of the early Church, respecting the adreatly altered by the fact that the Gentiles thedom of heaven suffered violence, and the violent took it by force' In likeof Christ was modified by the continuance of the world itself Coests that those ere in the first ecstasy of conversion, and those who after the lapse of years saw the world unchanged and the fabric of the Church on earth rising around the While to the one it seemed near and present, at anyway off, separated by time, and as it were by place, a world beyond the stars, yet, strangely enough, also having its dwelling in the heart of man, as it were the atmosphere in which he lived, the radually, did the cloud clear up, and the one mode of faith take the place of the other Apart fro up in a new and living way in the soul ofexperience, as the 'fathers one by one fell asleep,' as the hopes of the Jewish race declined, as ecstatic gifts ceased, as a regular hierarchy was established in the Church, the belief in the co inward, fro individual and universal,--fro Christian”--Vol I p 99

With the Apostle Paul, however, the ”co of Christ” occupies the place of our ”future life”; the _living_till then for the ”redeest space in the scene; the rising of the dead is the subsidiary fact, needful to the coift of life in Christ On this crisis, supposed to be so near, his eye was exclusively fixed whenever he spoke of the Christian's ”salvation”; and could he have been told that no such crisis would coenerations, the present order of the world would vindicate its stability, we cannot iine what shape his faith would have assuht of all these centuries, said that with the Eternal ”a thousand years are but as one day,” and still opposed to one another the a??? ??t?? and the a??? e????; or whether he would have found that the distinction was evanescent, and the kingdom of God was to be not sent hither, but to be created here; or how, in either case, he would have represented to himself the state of the innumerable dead These are questions which did not arise for hied with other proble reference to that never doubted crisis, and arising out of its manifold relations, yet so treated by hiive theious consciousness of men _Who_ were to be the subjects of that salvation? Hoere they _qualified_? By what act of God's, and what te?

What present _assurance_ had they of this approaching good? It is in dealing with these questions that St Paul darts froy into the deepest recesses of human experience, and fetches into expression spiritual truths that transcend their incidental occasion, and will remain valid while there is a soul in ht there is a certain antique _realiss alination With our sharp notions of personality, of the entire insulation of each mind as an individual entity, of the antithesis of inner self to the outer everything, we are quite out of St Paul's latitude, and shall be perpetually taking for figures and personification what had a literal earnestness for hients that for us are only Attributes,--the theatre of certain _real_ principles (_i e_ principles having existence independent of us), that carry out their tendencies and history aans or media of their activity Thus, _Sin_ is neither the ressor, nor the person of the tempter; but _both_ of these; and that not apart froether under the conception of a universal ele its objective focus in Satan and its subjective hteousness_ (Justification), is not exclusively huoodness substituted for genuine; but less ethical than the first, less forensic than the last, and ical than either; that element, we may say, in the essence of God which sets round of their harmonious relation Around these two contrasted principles, others, equally conceived as real eleroup themselves on either side With the foremini_, not simply joined by decree of God in time, but inseparable _in rerum natura_, co-ordinates by physical necessity; and _Flesh_, the material or medium that furnishes the endowments of sense, and instinct, and the natural will, and affords to Sin its seat and hold upon us; and _Law_, the discriood and evil, and, on entering into us, brings the slu evil into the conscious state, and so makes it sin relatively to us, and si to the force for producing it With the latter--Righteousness--are enjoined _Life_, the positive opposite of Death, and, like it, a function of the moral as well as the natural constitution, the i; and _Spirit_, the absolute essence of God, present as the vivifying source of whatever transcends nature,--a faint susceptibility, felt only to be over with the personality itself, in Christ and his disciples,--and a spontaneous flow of higher life seizing on converted ans of its charis out of ourselves to embrace unseen relations, to make conscious appropriation of the Spirit, and thus enter into union with Christ and God Even this reat principles of the Apostle's theology, is more than a mere private and personal act As coaze that connects thele threads pass out and beco other than the act (of obedience) which men were under bond to render, it is a new institute of God, and, relatively to them, reads itself off as _Grace_ As opposed to Law, in which there is a delivery of the Divine will _into_ _ by Divine love of an affection _out of_of that indeterminate character, subjective and objective at once, which the associated eleht is traceable in another form The Apostle exhibits the providential sche theentes_,--the earthy or natural, the heavenly or spiritual; and lays down all the predicates of each direct from the personal history of their respective heads, Adam and Christ Whatever is true of the founder is considered as known of the followers; the pheno spread thearded, not simply as a representative individual, while they are the represented individuals; but as a _type_ of being within which they are contained, and which in its history and vicissitudes carries them hither and thither Condemnation and redemption take place by _Kinds_, and fall on particular persons in virtue of their partaking of these kinds Settle the attributes of the species, as found in its archetype, and you knohat to say of individuals It is not difficult to understand this way of thinking so long as the Apostle applies it, as a naturalistthe focus of personality in sa??, with no adequate counterpoise of p?e?a, it is the seat of sin and death But it is less easy to follow the Apostle'swhen he similarly identifies Christians with Christ, and transfers, or rather extends, to thereat characteristics of his existence They are crucified to the world They are ”all _dead_”

with him; they are ”buried with him” in baptism; they are ”risen with him”; their ”life is hid with hi_ disciples, he is no less ”the first-fruits of them that sleep”; his resurrection is but the first pulsation of an act that next proceeds to theirs, and then co All this is y With Christ, and in Christ, took place a re-constitution of humanity Of the newthe proportions of sa?? and p?e?a, and having his essence and personality in the latter, so as to render sin an unrealized possibility and death a transitory accident The spirit in hi him from the dead, is no more limited to his individuality, than flesh and blood were the attributes of Adaing up into his kindred; it flows into them as they look up to him in faith, and are reborn to him; it repeats in them the fruits it produced in hi away of passion and pride,--the heavenly love that darts upon the hither the bleeding feet of conscience fail to cli and of tongues The consciousness of this new heart, set free with Divine affections, is immediate evidence of their union with Christ, of the Real Presence of his Spirit within them, of their substantive incorporation into his essence, and therefore of a restored harmony and even oneness with God To what extent the Apostle conceived that this transformation of nature, by partnershi+p in the properties of the heavenly Christ,disciple, it is not possible to say It as” that had already ”passed away,” he probably included s of the unconverted state; and conceived that the sa also the bodily organis it with antiseptic preparation for its final investiture with ie,” like the resurrection itself, is not regarded as an external enialstage of an internal developence frolement with ”flesh and blood” of that spiritual element which in Jesus ”could not be holden of death,” and which, dwelling in his disciples, already deadened and damped the vitality of the sa??, and would at last quicken the s?a with imperishable life Thus it is that ”Christ” is not to St Paul an historical individual, but a generic nature,--the archetype of a spiritual species, sharing his attributes and repeating his experience

Cleared as a stage for these contending principles, the universe witnesses their co-existence and antagonisreat drama has two main acts, and the cross of Christ divides the the force of evil to a pitch of frightful triuoal the last ene from Adam to Moses, both Flesh and Spirit were there; not yet, however, in conflict; but the latter sleeping as aits oay in the instinctive life of man The state was not one which, had the comparison been made, would have accorded with the Divine will It was therefore really, though unconsciously, a reign of Sin, as was proved by the presence of Sin's inseparable sign,--the generations _died_

The next scene was marked by the introduction of _Law_ The effects were, to bring into full consciousness the sin before unly sinful; to sethi and his fear, without any new spring of force; and actually tothe away of human society, and a confirmed moral incapacity of the widest sweep The spontaneous law of nature and the written law of Moses being equally set at naught by Gentile and by Jew, any proh, from human breach of the conditions This was thea new creation; the pro the vehicle of its accomplishment, and the link of connection between the old and the new

All the Messianic conditions were _fulfilled_,--the right tribe, the right faht personal marks and characteristics But they were also _transcended_ Along with the human infirmities and liabilities was present, in this archetype of a new race, the Spirit in such full measure as to constitute his proper self, or at least win that centre by complete victory over nature and temptation and surrender of all he had and was to a Divine Love As he had baffled and held off Sin, Death had so far no business with hi claims upon him Sinless in himself, he was of a sin-doomed type, the _likeness_ of sinful flesh (????a sa???? ?a?t?a?), and therefore liable to the incidents of such a race This was at least his property by nature At the same time, he was internally and essentially of the opposite type; the in to theIn the person of this double nature, the contest between the antagonists ain their due, it is the last triunizing in his suffering and mortal frame its own physical counterpart and shadow, strikes hith” and instru its course upon the guiltless, it overreached and spent itself; and the Law, lending itself to such an act, fell into self-contradiction, and disappeared in suicide He died, therefore, in virtue of as really foreign to him, as _representative_ of a Sin which was not his, but which yet involved him, as human, in sorrow and hteousness”

vindicated its power He came out of death, which _could not keep_ one so holy; and now, escaped from nationality, and placed aloft as the ideal of the new hu spirit penetrates the heart ofthem on the side of faith and love instead of will, kindles a divine fire that burns up the dead elements of the ”old man,” and wraps the ”heavenly places” and the earthly in a common blaze By spiritual affiliation with him, his disciples enter the essence of all holy and ih the incidence of sorrow and death in the wrong place, an objective power of ”righteousness” is set free, that reconciles mankind with God, and restores them to sanctity and life The past and the future of hu point between the the burden of the past, perished and fell away; the spiritual and divine principle, containing the geruishable life; and fro him only ”the first-born of many brethren”

Thus was the second act initiated, which also presented two successive scenes During the first, the Christ was still in heaven; and his Spirit on earth, having the coan or ”body,”

stood in presence still of the opposing powers In the world, it encroached upon the province of evil continually, and reclaimed a citadel here and there In the Church, if it infused as yet no _perfect_ grace, it left its ”earnest” everywhere;--ecstatic gifts and hts; hearts set free froentleness of Christ; the self-seeking will surrendered; the anxious conscience led to trust; the tangles of thought smoothed out by a wisdoht by faith, and hope, and charity Nevertheless, Satan disturbed the ??s??

still; and even the children of the Spirit were but prisoners yet, and felt the tent of nature but a poor abode They had yet to wait for their full adoption; when the tabernacle in which they groaned being dissolved, they should be invested with an unwasting fra and the reign of Christ At this culonism which in Adam was as yet unfelt from the ascendency of nature, was to die out and cease on the absolute triumph of the Spirit Physically, death was to disappear; the departed being finally reinstated in life, and the living ”clothed upon” with their new garment ere yet they were stripped of the old

Morally, the remnant of inner strife and teht leave unappeased, would pass away, aspiration be har power, and in conscious presence of the objects of deepest affection and reverence the sighs of separation would cease As soon as resistance was over, and there was nothing to subdue, the separate function of God's redeedoned to the Father”; ”the Son would be subject”; and ”the Trinity would cease”

Whether the Apostle's vision of trust was really of universal success, and included even those who should still be found astray at last, is a question difficult of direct detereneral scope of his doctrine Mr Jowett's judge, truly seizes, we think, the feeling of St Paul The author is co on the parallel drawn between Adaression sin entered into the world, and death by sin,” and has shown that they do _not_ teach any imputation of Adam's sin

”It is hardly necessary to ask the further question, what uilt which are not our own, and of which we are unconscious God can never see us other than we really are, or judge us without reference to all our circumstances and antecedents If we can hardly suppose that he would allow a fiction of mercy to be interposed between ourselves and hiine that he would interpose a fiction of vengeance If he requires holiness before he will save, much more, may we say in the Apostle's form of speech, will he require sin before he doo be in spiritconsciousness of sin of which the Apostle everywhere speaks, than the conception of sin as dead, unconscious evil, originating in the act of an individual man, in the world before the flood

”On the whole, then, we are led to infer that in the Augustinian interpretation of this passage, even if it agree with the letter of the text, too little regard has been paid to the extent to which St

Paul uses figurative language, and to the e in interpretations of the Old Testa the narrative of Genesis is slight, in co him to countenance a doctrine at variance with our first notions of the ure is dropped, and allowance is e, the question once ?' He is arguing, we see, ?at a????p??, and taking his stand on the received opinions of his tiine that his object is no other than to set the seal of his authority on these traditional beliefs? The whole analogy, not s of St Paul, but of the entire New Testament, would lead us to suppose that his object was not to reassert theh them, a new and nobler lesson The Jewish Rabbis would have spoken of the first and second Adam; but which of theure to all ory after the e and country, but yet with no uncertain or auous interpretation It means that 'God hath made of one blood all the nations of the earth'; that 'he hath concluded all under sin, that he may have mercy upon all'; that life answers to death, the times before to the times after the revelation of Jesus Christ It means that we are one in a common sinful nature, which, even if it be not derived from the sin of Adam, exists as really as if it were It race of God, in a measure here, more fully and perfectly in another world More than this it also e can express, but not the weak and beggarly elements of Rabbinical tradition We s which he 'destroyed' What it ical distinctions, but by putting off the oldon the newthe picture of time and the history of humanity that lay beneath St Paul's eye, the question naturally arises, What is its significance and value for us? Manifestly not those of an absolute guide through the labyrinthine depths of the Divine counsels ”We can scarcely i of St Paul, could he have foreseen that later ages would look not to the faith of Abrahahest authority on the doctrine of justification by faith; or, that they would have regarded the allegory of Hagar and Sarah, in the Galatians, as a difficulty to be resolved by the inspiration of the Apostle”[67] We cannot say of hireater than Paul, that inis on a level with the e” (I

97) The ultimate point towards which all the lines of his expectations converged, and all the history of the past appeared to gaze, we know to have had no existence where he placed it; and as the whole scheht seem to disappear as the fabric of a dream Yet it is not so; and the very fear i place for the permanent amid the evanescent in the Gospel