immediate and universal victory of good. Things may continue in the new order to represent a progress through conflict; but, even if we are justified in extending to another sphere the conditions of our earthly discipline, nothing need be lost of that which has been gained here, and the conflict will to this extent be continued under more favourable conditions.

In this way we can see how a belief in the moral government of GOD and in a future lifepartial and preliminary solutions of the problems of humanity—influence action, and give stability and a certain grandeur to the ideas by which modern society is ruled; but so far we obtain no light upon our connexion one with another, or upon the conflict between the elements of our own nature and the disorders without us and within us. For this we must look to revelation. And here the light which we need flows, and, as I believe, flows only from the fact of the Incarnation. If then we pass from the intuitional to the historical elements of religion, in order to realise the practical effect of belief upon conduct, it becomes evident that if we hold that the Son of GOD took man's nature upon Him, we recognise a new and ineffaceable relation between man and man. We are assured by that fact that what

The Incarnation and Atonement.

53

binds us together is stronger than all that tends to separate us: that there is in all men a potentiality of blessedness beyond our imagination: that the unity of the race is something more than an abstraction. Love comes to quicken hope.

And, still more than this, the same fact presents the disorders of life as intrusive and remediable, as being the violation of our nature and not belonging to its essence. The Incarnation exhibits to us the purpose of Creation consummated in a glory won through voluntary humiliation and suffering. This belief carries with it momentous consequences. It shews evil in its final character as sin, lawlessness, selfishness, so conquered for us that we can appropriate the fruits of the conquest. In the Passion and in the Resurrection we see the last issues of life, as it were, from man's side and from the side of GOD; and we welcome the assurance that human self-assertion is powerless before Divine love. Faith comes to crown life.

These simple illustrations will shew how our view of the solution of the problems of life in its broadest aspect must have a deep practical significance for each one who accepts any particular solution of them and so far as he accepts it.

54

Effect of personal belief.

But the effect of the solution does not stop with the man who has appropriated it. It extends through him to a wider circle. Personal belief alone can leaven society. Popular opinion depends for its vitality upon the intensity of individual opinion. And though an opinion which has once found acceptance commonly retains its form for a time when its real supports have been removed; yet, if it be so, the collapse when it comes, will be more startling and complete. The reflection needs to be laid to heart at the present time, because there is a growing inclination on the part of many influential teachers to represent the morality of Christianity as independent of the theology of Christianity. No judgment can be more at variance with the teaching of history. Our civilisation both in its gentleness and in its strength is due to the Christian faith and has been supported by Christian institutions. Whatever we owe to non-Christian sources comes to us through a Christian atmosphere and is steeped in Christian thought. The form must soon pass into corruption if the spirit be withdrawn. We may then be reasonably stirred to self-questioning when we observe everywhere a general vagueness in religious thought, an unconscious appropriation of results apart from their conditions. The necessity of analysing our convictions and of test

Further definition of the idea of GOD. 55

ing the application of them is forced upon us. Our Creed may be but a mere vesture cast over a dead figure and not an inspiring power: it may be only the ghost of a faith which we have killed.

This being so it may be worth while to carry the illustrations which I have taken one degree farther in definition. The same law which holds good of the effect of the ideas of GOD, and of a future life and of the Incarnation in their most general form, holds good also of the details of the view under which they are realised. Let the idea of GOD be extended so as to include not only the notion of a righteous government but also that of a present and personal relationship with man. We shall see at once that the aspect of the world will be changed. The conviction of the possibility of obtaining help in the arduous work of life will be added to the conviction of the paramount claims of virtue. Prayer will become a reality.

Substitute again the Christian doctrine of the Resurrection of the Body for the heathen guess of the Immortality of the Soul, and the effect upon life will be only limited by our power of realising the truth. The future will in a true

56

The Resurrection and Incarnation.

sense be made present. The conviction of continuity will be extended to all the elements of our being without being confined to any special organisation in which they are united. Actions and words will be guided and disciplined at every moment by a living consciousness of their inevitable endurance with us as parts of ourselves.

Or again if we pass from the general statement of the fact of the Incarnation to the more precise apprehension of the conditions under which it is presented to us, we shall see that each typical mode of expressing the truth must carry with it corollaries of far-reaching importance. It is not an indifferent detail of scholasticism whether we place the Lord's Personality in His human or in His Divine nature. Our view of the Atonement and our conception of our own relation to the Father will depend upon it. Nothing at first sight could appear more remote from practice than the question whether the Lord's human nature is individually personal or not. Yet more careful reflection shews that our true sense of our own relation to Him as our Head depends upon the fact that He is not one man among many men, but the One in whom all find their fragmentary being made capable of reconciliation in a higher Personality.