Part 17 (1/2)
Religion--revealed or unrevealed--is no production of the systes of constructive thought follow, not lead it Their function is not creative, but simply adaptive;--to find a settle for some new principle of divine life, or for some old principle in an altered scene; to ward off froenial elements, remove dead matter that chokes it, and surround it with conditions whence it anism around it and send deep roots into theof God to ressive search ofout,” and invisible as night, but necessarily by such tracks as the age has opened and another age e
The manifestation of supernatural realities to the human soul involves so reat qualification can we compare it with the known mental processes But e to conceive of it less by the analogy of scientific discovery, and more by that of artistic apprehension, h art, you give a Phidias or a Raffaelle _his subject_; he necessarily takes it from that which stirs the heart of his time, and has a solemnity for his own and you do not find fault that there is roup, or Mariolatry in the picture
Through the conceptions of one ti for all; and the representationbeen historical Nor is it that it only reflects honor on its author's nas froives a new expressiveness to life and nature, and leaves behind a self-luross darkness” before Hence it looks into the eyes, and finds the soul of one generation after another; and, ae of materials and the succession of schools, keeps alive the very sense by which alone ”materials” can be wielded and ”schools” exist With just the same result do the accidental and te a residuary spirit that takes up the life of all times, touches a consciousness else unreached, and breathes upon the face of things, till the s writ there with invisible ink come into clearness before the eye If it pleases God, instead of spreading at our feet the things to be seen, rather to quicken our vision till we see them where they are, it is revelation all the same, only deeper and more various; not an incident of position, but a power that can rate in place and time, and read the Providential perspective everywhere This profounder insight into divine relations it has been the especial office of St Paul to awaken; and none the less that the flashes by which he gives it are incidental, and do not proceed from the Rabbinic lamp which he holds up to his apocalyptic pictures Indeed, it is he, in great ions other than his own His thought is everywhere penetrated with an intense heat, leavened with lightning, that fuses theit, and runs off alive for other media to hold it The revelation to him of Christ in heaven set in action all the resources of his nature, and gave them a preternatural tension The sentiments which found satisfaction, the intimations which came into expression, in his form of doctrine, are now for ever _hue of rate into other forms, when their first embodiment will hold them no more And so much is the Apostle's later exposition of his hope divested of what is special to hies since it has struck upon the ear ofwith the very toll of the funeral bell; and though often indistinct to their mind, it has jarred with no falsehood on their heart, but sounded like an anthereat music and dim words It needed only time and events to transmute the doctrine into that of a future life For it included--in order to meet the case of those who had ”fallen asleep”--the conception of a path, through death before the time, ”to depart and be with Christ”; only that this was the minor provision, the by-path of the early few Reopened, however, as it alhen a disciple passed away, it becaative the opposite direction by leaving it untraced, in order that the upward track should become the _via sacra_ of human faith And can any one doubt what the justification by faith e of universal experience? It means that God wants more from us, and also less, than the anxious will can do; more, because he wants ourselves; less, because he does not want our niceties of work It hts we strive in vain to cliround, will but stand upon the earthly mountains after all; and it is the fiery chariot of love and trust that must bear us into heaven It means that there is an affectionateness in God that looks to e are, rather than e do, and more readily speaks to us of communion than of obedience
True, this is but another way of saying what our religion elsewhere more ethically expresses, that God requires our perfect service, and yet has forgiveness for what is ih it le heart, touches a spring less deep and strong It divides the integral and living fact, even in regard to God, by describing it as a demand of the whole, and then a subtraction of a part; and so exhibiting it rather as a dissolution of justice, than as truth and wholeness of love And the Pauline doctrine appeals with far more immediate power to human consciousness, especially to that third of mankind whom a fervid enthusiastic mind renders little accessible to the cold solerandeur of St Paul's teaching as to the universality of the Gospel, it is not led with the question of Jew and Gentile, than because the sentiment has become the common atmosphere of Christendom, and we feel not its freshness, because it blows not on us as a breeze, but _only_ as our breath of life Let Mr Jowett remove from us the spell of our indifference
”Let us turn aside for a e and country; a thought which the wisest of men had never before uttered, which even at the present hour we i the world, and shall do so until the whole is leavened, and the differences of races, of nations, of castes, of religions, of languages, are fully done away Nothing could seem a less natural or obvious lesson in the then state of the world; nothing could be more at variance with experience, or more difficult to carry out into practice Even to us it is hard to iine that the islander of the South Seas, the pariah of India, the African in his worst estate, is equally with ourselves God's creature But in the age of St Paul, how greatbarbarian and Scythian, bond and free,--all colors, fores,--alike and equal in the presence of God who in of the human race was veiled in a deeper mystery to the ancient world, and the lines which separated er; yet the 'love of Christ constraining' bound together in its cords those most separated by time or distance; those ere the types of the most extreme differences of which the huht of this brotherhood of all reat fahts and claiht of peace and co us because he had a favor unto us, but as infinitely just to all e, as the particular exceptions of his ht of comfort, but of perplexity Secondly, it links our fortunes with those of ives us the same support in reference to our eternal destiny, that we receive from each other in a narrow sphere in the concerns of daily life Thirdly, it relieves us from all anxiety about the condition of other norant of the Gospel, of those of a different for that God, who has thus far lifted up the veil, 'will justify the circuh faith, and the uncircumcision by faith'; the Jeho fulfils the law, and the Gentile who does by nature the things contained in the law”--Vol II p 126
What the doctrine of universality in the Divine govern,--is in our own ”the clear perception of the moral nature of God, and of his infinite truth and justice” This is one of the s, sad and wise, quietly dropped by our author in a series of disquisitions, that show, as, hoell he understands its scope Everywhere his care is to disengage Christianity froical conceptions fastened on it by a coarser age; and, having restored the purity of its e its horizon to the whole extent of ures natural to St Paul, the very changes of which show the can be ht than the doctrine of ”satisfaction,” which is hunted down, in every foric; that even the analogy of sacrifice ”rather shows us what the death of Christ was not, than what it was”; and that to draw us into union with Christ, to fix our eye on his pure self-renunciation as ”the greatest moral act ever done in this world,”
to keep us in a mood that harmonizes our trust in God with our distrust of ourselves, and to suggest more than it can explain of hope and peace to a reconciled world, are the real functions, as of his death, so of all the stages of his existence This pure type of faith ehts of the interpreter The rest and freedoularly evident in the fine essay on Natural Religion The author sets forth fro where he passes the boundary of the apostolic view, surveys and brings to its religious place the whole outlying realm of nature, history, and life, that was unknown to Scripture, but is fact to us The great Gentile religions, now discriminated and interpreted, and ascertained to follow certain laws of develophter as history passed on; the Natural Religion, which is the counterpart of these in Christian times, and holds its place by the side of revelation; and the ordinary state of character in ood but unspiritual persons, (state of ”nature” rather than of ”grace,”)--are reviewed and estimated with a breadth of observation and a delicacy of reflection singularly iious philosophy affords few nobler productions than this essay With how true a hand and bright a touch is the following picture drawn! We will but hang it up in our reader's iination, and leave him to commune with it alone
”It is impossible not to observe that innumerable persons,--may we not say the majority of mankind?--who have a belief in God and immortality, have nevertheless hardly any consciousness of the peculiar doctrines of the Gospel They seem to live aloof from them in the routine of business or of pleasure, 'the coht, and a rule of truth and honesty, yet insensible to what our Saviourhi one with Christ' They die without any great fear or lively hope; to the last more interested about the least concerns of this world than about the greatest of another They have never in their whole lives experienced the love of God, or the sense of sin, or the need of forgiveness Often they are remarkable for the purity of theirand disinterested attach of uprightness, or a peculiar sensitiveness to dishonor It would be a ion They join in its public acts; they are offended at profaneness or is of life, and do not rebel against its misfortunes Such men meet us at every turn
They are those e know and associate with; honest in their dealings, respectable in their lives, decent in their conversation The Scripture speaks to us of two classes, represented by the Church and the world, the wheat and the tares, the sheep and the goats, the friends and enemies of God We cannot say in which of the two divisions we should find a place for theht by which we look at it, may be a resemblance of ourselves no less than of other men
Others will includethem What shall we say to such a state, common as it is to both us and the is not the evil of the world, but the neutrality of the world, the indifference of the world, the inertness of the world There are multitudes of men and wos, to whom, except for the indirect influence of Christian institutions, the fact that Christ died on the cross for their sins has made no difference; and who have, nevertheless, the coht almost equally with true Christians You cannot say of theood; no, not one' The other tone of St Paul is more suitable: 'When the Gentiles that know not the law do by nature the things contained in the law, these not knowing the law are a law unto themselves' So of e commonly term the world, as opposed to those who make a profession of Christianity, we , 'When s are honest, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report, these, not being conscious of the grace of God, do by nature what can only be done by his grace' Why should we make them out worse than they are? We e fairly of the characters of religious nition of His personal relation to theround of hope rather than of fear,--of thankfulness, not of regret”--Vol II p 416
FOOTNOTES:
[58] Acts xviii 24; xix 7
[59] Acts vii 44-49
[60] Acts viii 1
[61] See especially the Notes on Paley's Horae Paulinae, Vol I pp
349, 252 We subjoin in this connection a just and striking remark of Mr Jowett's In inquiries of this sort, it is often supposed that, if the evidence of the genuineness of a single book of Scripture be weakened, or the credit of a single chapter shaken, a deep and irreparable injury is inflicted on Christian truth, and may afford a rest to the mind to consider that, if but one discourse of Christ, one Epistle of Paul, had come down to us, still e has rele play of Shakespeare the whole of English literature ht be restored Much le verses of Scripture the whole spirit of Christianity is contained Vol I p 352
[62] Was it in reference to this mere _family-title_ to a _spiritual_ authority that Paul says of the Jerusalem Apostles, ”Whatever they were, it maketh no matter to me; God accepteth _no man's person_”?
(Gal iii 6)
[63] Ap Euseb Hist Eccles II 23
[64] In proof of an essential unity of teaching, Mr Jowett quotes Paul as declaring that what they preached against hiospel, ”for there was not, could not, be another” (I
340) But far fro this conciliatory turn, which is out of character with the whole context, Gal i 6 affir _is_ (1) another gospel; and yet (2) _not_ another gospel, (not so good even as that,) but ospel
[65] Compare also Roe in which he renounces the ”knowing of Christ according to the flesh,” contains the doctrine (2 Cor v 10)
[66] With a curious inconsistency Mr Stanley fixes _at the Apostle's conversion_ the date after which he would no longer ”know Christ according to the flesh”; yet in the very next note declares, that this state of mind must be referred to a more recent period than the conversion
”ap? t?? ???, from _the time of my conversion_” It is to be presumed that this is also Mr Stanley's interpretation of the ??? ???et? of the next clause, which only repeats specifically of ”Christ” what has just been said universally