In conclusion, let us say that the Reformation, with its convulsive throes, was an effort of the divine life in man to free itself from an intolerable ecclesiastical thraldom. In some respects, however, it was the birth of a new thraldom; an intellectual slavery being substituted for an ecclesiastical slavery. To-day, the noble work of the Reformation must be completed. The Church of Jesus must be organized on the principle of the Kingdom of God. Ridding itself of its Pharisaism, which throughout the ages has tithed the mint, anise, and cummin of ministry, belief, and lesser things, while neglecting the weightier matter of the Law-the Kingdom of God, the Church must awaken to the mind of Jesus. The Church must have a vision of the Master's purpose, must catch a glimpse of the bleeding heart of humanity. The Kingdom of God must become the salvation of the Church. Breaking the fetters of ecclesiasticism, intellectualism, and traditionalism, the Church must be free. Men must learn that when they think and act in the terms and in the spirit of ecclesiasticism, they are neither thinking nor acting in the terms or in the spirit of Christianity; that the true Church of Jesus cannot be identified with any nor with all ecclesiastical organizations; that it can only be identified with those in every ecclesiastical organization, who, possessing the mind and the spirit of Jesus, are striving to bring about the sovereignty of God, and that the "Church" can only be identified with the Kingdom of God when it is interpreted in this sense. When our Divinity Schools shall be instinct with the idea and with the spirit of the Kingdom, rather than with denominational shibboleths; when Sunday-School instruction is based upon the idea of the Kingdom, then will the Church go forth to conquer, a clearer ethical note will be sounded, and

of Jesus you find. Verily, to be ecclesiastically minded is death. It may be said with much truthfulness that the three chief foes of the Kingdom of God are human sin, human ignorance, and ecclesiasticism; and really the foes might be narrowed to two, for ecclesiasticism is but a department of human ignorance-ignorance of the Spirit, the Aim and Purpose of Jesus; an ignorance which has furnished the Church-conditions which now largely prevail. The blind have led the blind and, as usual, leader and led have fallen into the ditch. The day calls preeminently for the intellectual emancipation of the ministry primarily, then the emancipation and the salvation of the Church may follow.

a more Christian life lived.1

A portion of this Chapter appeared in an article entitled, "The Essential Meaning of 'Ekklesia," which was published in The Biblical World for March, 1905. It now appears here through the courtesy of the Editors of that Journal.

CHAPTER XIV

THE KINGDOM AND THE SUPERNATURAL

THE reader of the Gospels is soon aware that he dwells in the midst of the Miraculous. Jesus is constantly represented as possessing miraculous power, and indeed, according to the Gospel story, He manifested no surprise at his ability to perform miracles. That which appears extraordinary to us, appeared to him seemly and natural. The suspicion with which the modern man approaches this subject was utterly foreign to Him; for Jesus, the supernatural was, in fact, the natural. While attempts have been made to strip the Gospel of its supernatural element, they have never met with entire success;1 yet the suspicion lingers in many minds that the supernatural element in the Gospel is not really credible in view of the scientific knowledge of the present era, and where this element is readily accepted, there is often little understanding of its relationship to Jesus' idea. The writer believes in the credibility of the miraculous and that it bore close and intimate relationship to Jesus' idea. Before we proceed, however, to see how this could be, let us inquire what we mean by the word "miracle."

If we accept the etymological meaning, "the original idea in the word 'wonder' (Latin, 'miraculum,' English, 'miracle') seems to have been that of turning aside through a feeling

1

The words of the author of "Ecce Homo" are interesting in this connection: "Miracles play so important a part in Christ's scheme that any theory which would represent them as due entirely to the imagination of His followers or of a later age, destroys the credibility of the documents, not partially but wholly, and leaves Christ a person as mythical as Hercules" (p. 51). Speaking of the Gospel History, Harnack says: "Much that was formerly rejected has been reestablished on a close investigation, and in the light of comprehensive experience. Who in these days, for example, could make such short work of the miraculous cures in the Gospels as was the custom of scholars formerly?" ("Christianity and History," p. 63.)

of fear or awe (see Skeat's Etymological Dictionary). The savage, 'ignorant of the very rudiments of science, and trying to get at the meaning of life by what the senses seem to tell' (to quote Tylor, 'Anthropology,' p. 343) would often turn aside when he came face to face with something new, unexpected, or extraordinary." Even to-day the popular idea is that a miracle is an event which contravenes the laws of nature and causes wonder and astonishment. This interpretation, however, will not satisfy the requirement of the New Testament. There a miracle is much more than a wonder. The Greek word, teras, wonder or portent, is used always in conjunction with another word-semeion-a sign. Now a sign is always an indication of something; the distinct element of purpose is introduced. This is emphatically true of the New Testament conception of miracles. Bearing this in mind, "a miracle, then, may be described as an event manifesting purpose, occurring in the physical world, which cannot be accounted for by any of its known forces, and which, therefore, we ascribe to a spiritual cause. It is an interference with the ordinary action of the forces of nature on the part of the Author of Nature-an event brought about, not by any observed combination of physical forces, but by a direct Divine volition."

Now in view of Jesus' idea of God and Nature, these events and interferences, which are such stumbling-blocks to the modern consciousness, were eminently rational and sane. "Nature" did not mean to Him what it often means to the mind of to-day. It has been pointed out that this word is used commonly in three senses. In the Scientific sense, nature usually signifies the sumtotal of physical phenomena. It includes the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal kingdom; it is the material universe, the realm of physical law. Speaking generally, the second sense of the word may be called the Moral sense. Nature, then, includes not merely the physical but the moral realm. Man is dealt with as a moral agent, as well as an animal; nature embraces not only physical but moral phenomena. The third sense is the Religious sense. Nature stands for a totality, the sum of all things-the Universe and God. And in this sense, the relation of God to the Universe is not that of a God who, after the Deistic idea, having made all things, sits far-removed an absentee God, who simply lets things go-pursuing "an eternal pol

icy of non-intervention." Nor is the relation that of a God who, after the Pantheistic idea, is so intimately associated with his creation that he practically finds full and exhaustive expression in it-the creator being swallowed up in the creation. The Scylla of Deism-a cold, absentee, transcendent overlord -is not to be escaped by running into the Charybdis of Pantheism—a practical Atheism, with its impotent, impoverished, yet present Deity. Creation is rather the realm of a God, who is superior to it, yet immanent in it; it is the sphere of his present activity.1 In this view, nature includes not only the natural, but the supernatural as well. The supernatural, in fact, is lost in the natural, for Nature includes God.

2

This interpretation of "Nature" undoubtedly voices the idea of Jesus. He believed in a "God, the Father Almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth," whose presence was all-pervading. And not only was God present everywhere, but everywhere was He manifesting beneficent activity. Nature was the sphere of a present interest. "For of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things" (Rom. 11:36). The Man, indeed, whose love of nature finds expression in so much of His teaching in respect to both form and content, who loved the freshness of the open country, the beauty of the borders of the lake, and the stillness and solemnity of the mountain side, could not look but with impassioned interest upon the natural world. It spoke to His soul of the mystical and the eternal. "Nature was to Him the living garment in which the Eternal had robed His mysterious loveliness." Jesus, indeed, raised no disquieting questions. The abstract and philosophical reasoning of the ancient Greek and of the modern thinker about "Nature" was essentially foreign to the Hebrew. He saw God everywhere; God's Hand was in everything. "The Lord

'The Divine Immanence is, indeed, becoming more and more apparent with the progress of the scientific investigation of natural phenomena.

The words of the Psalmist represent Jesus' thought: "Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I fee from thy presence? If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell (hades), behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me" (139:7-10).