Chapter II. Human Freedom.

Chapter II. Human Freedom.I have spoken in the foregoing chapter of certain characteristics of our Lord's ways of dealing with men. In considering these ways we find ourselves, at almost every turn, face to face with the great enigmas of life which underlie all Theology. Questions about Divine government and human freedom will, I see, force themselves upon us.It would keep this book more close to its purpose, if I could proceed at once with the examination of what our Lord says and does, and leave all these difficulties on one side, taking it for granted that all my readers had arrived at their own views about them; or if I were to refer them to works in which they are formally discussed.But I trust my readers will forgive me, if I suppose that it may be with them as with those I have been used to teach—that is to say, that they will be attracted by these perplexities, and that they will be impatient at being told that just what they want to ask lies outside my province. Many too, I know, would never turn to any of the[pg 029]learned works on these matters, of which I might give them the names.I have resolved, therefore, to deal with these matters once for all, in as familiar a way as I can. I cannot, of course, give my readers solutions of these questions; I can only tell them how I manage to do without a solution myself, and put before them the view of these matters which I hold till I can get a better, so that they may more readily enter into my views of Christ's Laws of action, and understand what I write.The characteristics of our Lord's ways which particularly bring us in contact with these mysteries, and which therefore concern us most now, are (1) His care to keep alive in His hearers their sense of being free and responsible agents; (2) His tolerance of the existence of evil in the world.These questions of free will and the existence of evil have been for ages the battle-ground of divines, and they come before us every day.“Why did not God make every one good?”is a question which occurs to every intelligent child. He runs to his first teachers with it, and finding himself put off with an answer that is no answer—for a child is quick in detecting this—he gets his first notion that there are matters which even grown-up people know nothing about.So, that I may not serve my readers in this way, I give them all I have myself. I can no more tell them“How”or“Why”God brought about the[pg 030]present state of things, than I can solve the great mystery which is at the bottom of all mysteries:“How, or Why, God and the world ever existed at all?”But I think I can shew that free agency in men, and the existence of evil, and also a reserve in the revelation of God's ways—a question I shall have to deal with next—are consistent with our situation in this world; supposing that the mental and spiritual development of God's creatures is the proximate end and aim of the Spiritual Order. Some hypothesis we must make as to a purpose in the world, if we regard it as the work of amind; and this is the purpose which most seems to fall in with what I observe.Our Lord speaks of Divine action as“The mystery of the kingdom of God.”6He directs the thoughts of His disciples to these ways by telling them, not what they are, but to what they arelike. We shall never, while on earth, perfectly know these ways, but Christ thinks it well for His disciples to strive after this knowledge, and to look for lessons in all they see to help them towards it.Not only does Christ give us what I have calledseed-thoughtson these matters, but He puts us in possession of a unique method for leading men towards the truth about them. He takes an incident of familiar life, and uses it to set forth spiritual verities. So when we must discourse of these hard matters our safest course is to follow[pg 031]our Lord's way. No doubt, He meant to shew ushowto teach, as well as to tell uswhatto teach; so if we begin with a sort of allegory or parable, we cannot be far wrong in point ofform, however feeble and faulty the execution may be. I believe that the relation of a parent to his household affords likeness enough to that of the Father to His world, to be used as the ground of a parable on God's Will and Human Freedom.Let us suppose that the father of a family, a man of strong will, and steadfastly abhorring evil, should conceive the project of forcibly shutting it out from his home. We will suppose the household planted in a spot remote from human intercourse, in some self-supplying island or dale among the hills; and, as I do not mean to touch on physical evil, let us suppose that no external calamity comes nigh the dwelling. Here, let us suppose, the children grow up, uncontaminated by ill, knowing no temptation, reared in love and kindness, treated wisely and with such even justice that envy and jealousy find no room to enter.The parent proposes to himself to do away with all temptation, all chance of individual aberration, and to cast his children's character in a perfect mould. He would have them merge themselves in him as much as possible, repeating his thoughts and accepting his views without questioning them, or supposing they could be questioned. All society, all books, but what he approves,[pg 032]are banished from that house, so that no whisper of evil, no pernicious notions can possibly intrude. Evil is by him regarded as a pestilent weed, which only exists, owing to some oversight in the making of the world, for which he is at a loss to account. It is at once to be eradicated whenever it is espied.Let us suppose that all goes well in our imagined household—that the children love their father and believe implicitly in him; that they are so happy in their home and home pursuits that they do not look beyond; and that the healthy labour, which their common wants necessitate, gives room for all their energies. Hence, there is no repining at their narrow sphere, no longing for more strenuous activity or more varied life. Each does his daily work, and returns to pleasant rest and a happy home, and no more asks himself whether he is happy than he asks whether the valves of his heart are opening and closing as they should. The father, then, looks around him, and sees his ideal accomplished. He has a family of which no member does anything but what he approves, or has a thought but what he shares with him: not one of them sets up an opinion different from what he holds. It never occurs to them to doubt the wisdom of any injunction. Life presents to them no moral difficulties, because, as soon as any question occurs to them, they run with it to their father, and on receiving his reply put aside the[pg 033]matter, as being decided and disposed of for good and all.We might suppose the parent would look around with unalloyed satisfaction. But a moment comes when he finds something wanting. He is not so thoroughly satisfied as he had expected to be with the ideal which he has worked out. Some misgiving obtrudes itself. He asks himself—Is this condition, this merging of my children's wills in mine, what is best for them or what is best for me? Is not this goodness of theirs too negative? Is it not rather the absence of evil than the presence of good?Further he asks, am notIsubstantiallyalone? Is not mine the only independent mind in the place, of which all the rest are mere reflections? Am I not intensifying my loneliness and all the moral disadvantages that attach to it, by thus rendering all who surround me merely portions of myself? For my children are not separate persons, but bits ofme. Are not whole provinces of moral activity shut out from me, by the very fact of my having everything my own way? Are there not virtues which require opposition to call them out? Is it not good to have to ask ourselves whether we are dealing fairly with opponents? Is it not good to forgive wrongs? Is it not good to reach out a helping hand, and lift one who has stumbled, back into his self-respect? I engage in no struggles. In my world there are no misdoings[pg 034]to forgive and no misdoers to restore. Have I not closed against myself whole worlds of moral action and of moral life?Then, as to my children,“Have I not been wrong in supposing that they mustbegood because they have neverdonewrong? They have been so kept from the suggestion of evil that they could hardly help going right. But could they resist temptation if it came? They have never been braced by a struggle with it, nor marked the ill fruits of evil. They take it on trust from me that evil brings sorrow; but it usually comes in disguise and declares itself harmless, and how should they recognise it if it came?”So, question after question suggests itself, all destructive of his satisfaction.“Can it be,”he says at last,“that I have brought up these children so as to be fit for no world but that which I have carefully constructed for them? I used to delight in their goodness; but since I have suspected it to be mainly instinctive—an innocence that is the outcome of ignorance—my satisfaction in it is half gone.”At length, he is harassed with the idea that he may have given up his life to a mistake, that what he has done has cramped his own mental and moral expansion, and that the excellence of his blameless family is only fair-weather goodness after all. He casts about to think why it is that they have“neither savour nor salt,”and concludes“What they want ispersonality—and how should they have[pg 035]got it, living in a household where I have taken care to be all in all?”Then his thoughts run uponevil, which he has been at such pains to shut out, closing against it every cranny and chink.“God,”he may say,“has let evil into His world—was I right in keeping it forcibly out of mine? May not the resisting and assuaging of evil give occasion for good to grow up, and feel its own strength? Are there not many kinds of goodness, brought out in this way, which we could no more have without evil than we could have light in a picture without shade? If there is no room for my children to go wrong, what moral significance,”he asks,“is there in saying that they go right?”So he is disheartened with his project, and gives it up. He abandons his isolated way of life, and gives his children freedom. He encourages them to act and judge for themselves. Henceforth they can choose their own books, their own friends their own pursuits, and go forth into life, outside their charmed circle.Of course this involves the giving up of his absolute power; this is inherent in the nature of things. A man cannot be an autocrat and have free people about him. If he would have intercourse with free intelligences, in order to get the advantages to his own cultivation and expansion of character which spring from such intercourse; this must be purchased by abdicating some of his[pg 036]powers, or putting them in abeyance. So the parent forbears using his power, in order that his children may learn to be free, and that he may hold communion with free, loving hearts, and engage in discussion with unfettered minds.Soon, he finds that he has to encounter opposition. The children are free to go wrong, and wrong some of them will go: evil appears in that household where it was not known. The father sorrows over this, but when he reviews his condition he finds that he has a countervailing comfort; the good that is left about him is now real good. It is the good of persons who have known and resisted evil. Besides this, there is more life and greater vigour of character in his family, than there was before. They no longer sit with folded hands always waiting for direction; they have the air of persons who see a purpose before them; and they move along their way“with the certain step of man.”So he concludes that it is better that all should engage in the struggle with evil, even though some should fail, than that they should move along paths ready shaped out for them, shewing a merely mechanical goodness.A great change has come over his life in another respect, he is now no longeralone. Other wills come into contact, sometimes into collision, with his will; a host of qualities, which had been folded up and laid by for years, come again into use. He is no longer among echoes of himself, but there[pg 037]are real voices in his new world. His views may still prevail, but it must be, not merely because they arehis, but because they stand on solid ground. He may still lead in action; but it must be because he has the leader's strength, because he will venture when others waver, and decide when others doubt.Here we must leave him, and say a word or two before making the obvious application of the parable: We must not press the application too closely or draw conclusions from the mere machinery of the parable: it must not, of course, be supposed that I conceive God to have dealt with man as the father does with his children; that is to say, to have kept him at first in tutelage, and then found it desirable to enfranchise him. The sole object of the story is to familiarise the reader with the need of freedom in moral growth. It shews that for education to be carried out, thewillmust be free to act. When we have brought this home to his mind, we shall be the better able“to justify the ways of God to man”in some important particulars.The parable is designed to apply to the condition of men on earth on the supposition, that their education—in the largest sense of the word—is the main work held in view: all depends on the hypothesis that man is placed on earth to develop his powers. The need of freedom for members of the imagined family depends on their being in a[pg 038]state of growth. The parable would not apply to spiritual beings, if we could conceive such, whose qualities and character were unalterable.Perfectedbeings have done with growth and struggle, and have attained to the highest condition, viz. existence in unison with God. But forimperfectbeings, struggling on to their goal, freedom is required and the opposition of evil is indispensable, in order that the moral thews and sinews may harden.Whenever we come upon an objection to the ways of God's ordering of the world, which is put in the form of a question, such as“Why was not the world made in this way or that?”we shall find it a good plan, to follow out the line indicated in the complaint, and see what would have come about, supposing that Godhadmade the world in the way which is suggested.From the imaginary case here put, we see to what the common child's question leads us—the question“Why did not God make all people good and keep them so?”—If people had been“made good and kept good,”that is to say if they had been constructed by God so as always to act as His will prompted, then they would not in the proper sense of the word have been people at all; they would have been mechanisms worked by God, and so they could not have been“good”in the sense in which we use the word of a man, but only in that in which we apply it to a watch. There[pg 039]could be no moral life without freedom; there could be no growth of character without temptations and difficulties to overcome; no heroism, no self-denial, no sympathising tenderness, no forgiving love, without suffering or wrongdoing to call them forth.Moreover if not only people on earth, but all created intelligences had, in like manner, been constrained to respond to every motion of the Divine will, God would have been the one spiritual being in the world and would therefore have been absolutelyalone.Let us now suppose, and the supposition falls in with what our conscience and the Bible tell us, that in God all goodness dwells. This goodness cannot lie stored away as in a treasure-house, so as to be merely an object of contemplation, it must be active and in operation. This is essential to our idea of goodness, and it agrees with the view of God which Christ presents to us, which is that of a being everoperating.“My Father worketh hitherto,”says our Lord,“and I work.”For good to unfold, and advance toward perfection in its manifold ways, an arena is wanted. The world we know of affords the arena required; in this, God has been working from the first One kind of His work we can conceive to be the suggesting thoughts to men; but if it be so, He leaves the will free either to entertain or to reject the suggestions, as we might those of a friend.[pg 040]That we may not lose ourselves in the immensity of God and eternity, we will withdraw our gaze from the rest of the Universe, and fix it on this planet of ours, when organic life first began to appear upon it. The spiritual and material world might, before this, have been going on, each apart, through countless ages; but a moment came when the spiritual and the material were wondrously blended, and life began upon the earth. Different orders of being succeeded each other, and fresh forces came into play. We may suppose that God sympathised with all His creation, and that the qualities that appeared in it reflected something in Himself. God may have rejoiced in seeing the animal creation happy. The animals were in a degree free, but they were not self-conscious; they did not know that they were happy, or that they were loved, and God may have required for the full unfolding of His infinite capacity for sympathy and love, to be in relation with beings who could know Him and love Him, and know that they loved Him.Mr Erskine of Linlathen, in his excellent book on the Spiritual Order, says“Is there not a comfort in the doctrine of the eternal Sonship, as a deliverance from the thought of a God, whose very nature is Love, dwelling in absolute solitude from all eternity without an object of love?”We may extend this observation to other qualities besides love, from the exercise of which, a being who is[pg 041]alone in the world is necessarily debarred. Is it not likely that a God of mercy, truth and justice would frame a world of beings, in His dealing with whom all these qualities should find scope and exercise? Without self-conscious beings having free wills, how could this be done?Close by the side of this question of free will, lies that of the existence of moral evil, in a world made by a being who, by the hypothesis, is perfectly good. When we supposed the world to be formed for the evolution of moral goodness, we, perhaps without knowing it, introduced the idea of moral evil, implied in that of goodness; for actual good is evolved in resisting evil and repairing the mischief it has done; indeed many forms of it can no more exist without evil as an antagonist, than a wheel can turn without the friction of the road.Now, as I have said, if men be left free, they must have liberty to go wrong. For if they had been originally made so perfect that theycouldnot go wrong, this would only mean that they were like watches very excellently fabricated; they could only move in one particular way, viz. the way in which they had been designed to move by God. Inasmuch as such beings would not be persons, we could not feel gratitude or anger towards them, nor influence them in any way. If men were like this, there could be little or no growth, little or no action of man on man. If, to take another supposition, man had been so made that it would be[pg 042]possible for him to go wrong, but that he had been sedulously kept out of temptation and placed in an abode where innocence reigned undisturbed; then we come to a case very like that sketched in the foregoing parable.There is a third case possible. God might make men capable of going wrong, but might watch over them and protect them, whether they craved His help or not, whenever temptation approached. This constant supernatural interference would soon have destroyed all self-helpfulness; men would never have formed habits of avoiding or resisting temptation.“God,”the man would say,“will not let me sin—I may go as near to danger as I like, and need take no care of myself, because I am sure of God's protection.”We know that a child does not learn to take care of himself, so long as he feels that it is the nurse's business to see that no harm happens to him. We come then to this result. God requires free self-conscious beings, for the full exercise of the moral goodness in Himself and for its development and manifestation in the world.But He cannot give others freedom, and at the same time provide that they should act only in the way that He approves: because this in itself would be a contradiction, and a contradiction not even Divine power can effect. Hence these free, intelligent beings must be at liberty to go wrong, and God must, in exchange for having free wills about him, forego part of His absolute prerogative:[pg 043]and so He must allow evil a place in the world because this is involved in the“liberty to go wrong”just spoken of.This brings us to the mystery of the“origin of evil.”I shall not lay myself open to the charge made against divines,“That they no sooner declare a subject to be a mystery than they set to work to explain it.”I can see that if man is to be left free, evil must needs come, and that without evil in the world none of the more masculine virtues can be brought to the birth—that is to say, I see that evil, being in the world, serves to discharge a function—but I do not pretend to say how it came. I do not maintain that it came, solely, from man's misuse of his freedom.From what we see in the world arises a fancy that every thing must have its opposite, that light presupposes darkness, and pleasure pain, and so good may presuppose evil; but this fancy is not substantial enough to build upon. Our Lord's words on the occasions when He deals with evil, are, to my judgment, most easily reconciled with one another, and with the circumstances which call them forth, by supposing Him to recognise a personal spiritual influence, presenting evil thoughts to the minds of men; the man remaining free to choose whether he will entertain these suggestions or not.I return to my immediate subject—the function that evil performs in the existing moral world. We[pg 044]read in the Book of Genesis that the earth was to bring forth“thorns and thistles,”and that man was“to eat bread in the sweat of his brow.”7This is the result of a change worked, we are told,“for man's sake.”It was indeed for man'ssake—though in a different sense—that this was so. He would have remained a very poor creature if the earth had produced just what he wanted, without any labour of his. This illustrates the function of evil in the ordering of the world. Man's qualities, moral and physical, are developed by it. It subserves the progress of the human race.We should have less heroism, without cruelty and oppression from without; and could have no self-restraint, without temptation from within. Piety and love indeed, when they had once come into being, might exist without evil; we may believe that they satisfy the souls of the saints in heaven; but among men they commonly owe their birth to a feeling of shelter against evil, and to a sense of pardoned wrong.Another office which evil performs is this. The contention with it helps to bring out the difference between man and man. If any members of the family of my parable had possessed the germs of a strong character, they could hardly have brought fruit to perfection: the conditions of their innocent life tended to uniformity. But as soon as temptations came, latent differences would forthwith[pg 045]appear; the strong would grow stronger and the bad worse. Now there is need of strong men for human progress. They form the steps in the stairway by which the race mounts. If life were smooth and easy, men would, as it were, advance in line, and the stronger men would not so surely come in front of the rest. It is in times of trouble that men are most apt to recognise worth and capacity, and make much of them. So that the trials and difficulties of human life which come of evil, have this good effect among others, they help to pick out the men who are fitted to be the leaders of human movements and of human thought.It may have struck us as strange that Christ does not deal directly with these perplexing questions which trouble so many minds. We shall see, later on, that His not doing so is quite consistent with the uniform“tenour of His way.”But though our Lord does not lay down dogmas on these points, yet His own actions and expressions would, of course, accord with what He knew: if, then, when we hit upon some view of this“riddle of the painful earth,”which commends itself to our minds, we find that it clashes with what our Lord does or says, then we may throw it aside at once: and, on the other hand, if we arrive at a way of looking at the matter which seems to harmonise with what falls from Him; then, we may hope, not indeed that we have found a solution of the riddle, but that our hypothesis will not mislead us, so[pg 046]long as we own it to be an hypothesis, and nothing more.We may be supposed then to have arrived at this position. We assume the existence of a mighty Divine being, in whom all goodness dwells. We suppose that this world is an arena in which a struggle is to be carried on between good and evil by the agency of free intelligent beings; that by means of this struggle the better natures will be strengthened and developed, and come more and more into action; we suppose also that God whispers counsel and comfort on the side of good. Further than this we need not now go.As regards the presence of evil in the world, there are several sayings of our Lord which might be noted. I must confine myself to one or two of the most important.First let us consider the following passage from St John's Gospel:8“And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”Here the disciples take it for granted, that the blindness was a punishment for sin, either on the part of the man or his parents. It is our Lord's practice—and[pg 047]a practice so uniform that we may call it a Law of proceeding—not to enter into controversy about wide-spread mistaken views on merelyspeculativesubjects: He usually gives a hint, and leaves it to work in the hearer's mind.Our Lord's answer in this case means,not, of course, that the man and his parents had never committed sin, but that the blindness was not the result of that sin; and He passes rapidly on to state His view of one purpose answered by this infliction.In His few words of answer our Lord lets fall one of those hints,seed thoughts, as I have called them, which lie so thickly in the Gospels.Our Lord tells us, that the works of God were to be made manifest by this man's infirmity. A light is thrown by these words on one of the“uses of adversity.”Suffering gives room for moral goodness to come into play. The world is full of instances easy enough to note. Does not a sick child in a family educate all around it to tenderness and self-denial? What more touching lesson in patience can be given than the sight of the little sufferer, grieved at nothing so much as the trouble it causes, making the most of every alleviation, grateful beyond measure for every look or word of love. Rough brothers learn forbearance and gentleness; and to all the household it becomes natural to think of something else before, or at least beside, themselves. Wordsworth tells us of[pg 048]a half-witted boy whose helplessness and simplicity fostered a spirit of kindliness in all the poor of the village, and taught them to respect affliction.Again in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we are taught how there is“a soul of goodness in things evil.”The wickedness of the prodigal is made a means of revealing to him and to all the bystanders the Divine beauty and efficacy of forgiving love.We will now9turn to the history of the cure of the Dæmoniac in the country of the Gadarenes. I take the history in what seems to me the plain literal sense, and I must suppose that our Lord recognised some real evil existence, which had possessed itself of the man, and which, by its presence in him, had unhinged his whole mental or nervous organisation. This existence is separable from him, but it requires, it would seem, some body to inhabit and to work upon. The dæmon begs not to be suppressed or annihilated, and our Lord grants his petition and lets him go among the swine. He saves theman—what other evils this dæmon may work in the world, so that he lets men go, is no concern of His. The Son of Man is concerned only with lives and souls—not with property in any way.The point for us to note is this: Our Lord does notannihilateevil. He does not regard it as an outlawed intruder who had eluded God's notice,[pg 049]and who, as soon as he is discovered, is to be expelled from the universe at once. His Father has suffered evil to be, and He, Christ, follows in His Father's ways: evil may still do its work, only not on men. This evil influence, we must observe, is something external to the man; it would seem to belong to an order of existences, engaged in working ill as their congenial business; whispering bad counsel, something in the way that God's Spirit whispers good, only, of course, not in such deep authoritative tones; and, in these cases of possession, it masters the whole being of the sufferer.Whythis was allowed to be, is of course a mystery, but yet it is hardly a greater mystery than why evil in its other forms should be allowed to exist, and without evil in some shape, as we have seen, this earth would be a very imperfect exercise-ground for mankind.To represent this case to our minds, let us imagine some malignant“germ”that has caused a plague amongst men, and which in time takes a slightly different form, so that it is no longer adapted to human beings, but finds its prey in cattle instead. Then the plague among men is exchanged for a murrain among cattle, which, as a matter of fact, has been known to happen: this answers to the allowing the dæmon to go to the swine. Evil is not forcibly exterminated, but it is transferred from man to the lower animals.So our Lord is gentle even with the powers of[pg 050]evil. They had their function, or they would not have been there, and they were not to be crushed out of existence before the time.If it be, as I have argued, that evil had a function in the world, then we can see why it could not be removed by auniversaldecree. But asingleact of relief might be admissible in order to testify to the presence of an exceptional power; this would not engender in people the habit of helplessly throwing themselves upon God. For instance, Christ cures the son of the centurion merely by speaking the word, but if He had abolished all fevers by one decree, this would have been to disorganise the existing order in the universe. A King going on a royal progress relieves the misery that comes in his way; his own kindliness, his royal dignity, and the need of impressing on the people that their King delights in doing good, and can do it, require him so to do. But a regal donation for the relief of all distress in the kingdom would turn it into a nation of paupers. So our Lord bestows His bounty on those who fall in His way.He who asks, Why did not Christ suppress evil? may naturally ask also, Why did not Christ sweep away all human error as to the relations of God with man? And why did He not so vouch for the authenticity of His communication that any doubt about it should be impossible? Now we believe, that God has revealed Himself to man,[pg 051]and yet has left men in some degree free as to what they will think about Him, and as fully at liberty to examine the credentials of those who have claimed to be His messengers, and to judge of their authenticity, as they would be in a purely human matter.We find, as a matter of fact, that men who have accepted Christ's revelation are not fettered in mind by it; but are most often enterprising, energetic and bold searchers after truth. I believe that it would have been unfavourable to the preservation of this vigour of mind and to the temper which should“try all things and hold fast those which are good,”if the full and absolute revelation which some demand had been delivered to mankind, and all the problems which beset human life had thereby been settled once for all. To the questions“Why we are told what we are told?”“Why we are not told more?”and“Why doubt and ambiguities are not all cleared away?”—we cannot hope to giveanswers, but we may find ways of looking at them which shall help in some degree“To justify the ways of God to man.”It will be best to discuss this subject in a separate Chapter.[pg 052]Chapter III. Of Revelation.If I took the word Revelation in its widest sense I should not attempt to treat of it here, for it would comprise nothing less than God's education of the human race. We talk of Natural Religion and Revealed Religion, but all Religion has in it an element of revelation from God. If God had not provided man with a mind's eye suited to see Him by, and also something that shadowed Him forth which that eye could behold, we could have no religion at all. Of the processes by which belief has come about in men not the least notable is this. Men have recognised in some new tidings what they seemed to have been looking for, without being aware of it. Some new teacher has become the spokesman of thoughts which were lying in them in a state too vague for utterance. Thus“thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”10Now it is God who has planted these thoughts in men, and He brings about the occasions which reveal them.[pg 053]There are for man two worlds, that which is without him and that which is within. Some races from temperament or circumstances have been most taken up with the former, with the workings of nature and with active social life; while others have looked within rather than without;—their minds have found most congenial play in the contemplation of their own natures, and in brooding over the mystery of how they came to be what they were. Corresponding to these two leading diversities of the human mind, there are two modes by which men are brought to recognise a great spiritual agency in the world.The man of Aryan race, the type of the first variety, caught sight of an infinite force underlying all the workings of nature, and so conceived Deities, with a personal will like his own, animating the physical world. For the people of the Semitic race on the other hand, the surpassing wonder was their own selves—their minds turned to contemplating their own nature. In so doing they noted this; they found something within them which caused them to be happy when they acted in one way—when they had done a kindness for example—and made them unhappy when they had behaved differently. This was so, even when no one knew of the act, and when they looked to no consequences from it. They called such actions right and wrong; but they asked, Where can this notion of right and wrong come from? This conscience[pg 054]too which witnessed of it—which strove with them just as a friend might, and seemed to be something outside them—Where did that come from? They were led by this to conceive a spiritual personal Being in the world who had left some trace of himself in men's hearts, and kept up some communion with them through this voice of conscience. Thus men of different stamps of mind were led along different roads, to the notion of something Divine in the world; and we may say that God revealed himself to man in these two ways. Now for knowledge to be sure and solid two elements must go to the making of it. One from outside the learner, and the other supplied by him. This outside element is in physical science provided by observed fact, and what answers to it in theology is authoritative revelation. Men can never feel fully assured about what is wholly spun out of their own brains, and has no external sign or testimony to lend it support.Revelation, in the sense in which I have to do with it just now, means an authoritative communication from the Almighty, vouched by some outward sign, or manifestation. It is with this outward sign, and with the difficulties attending the ways of bringing it about, that I am now chiefly concerned.For the present we will suppose that among the elements of human knowledge aretruths revealed by God. How is this element of absolutely certain knowledge to be made to fit in with that which is[pg 055]only matter of opinion or provisionally true? Here we come on the great problem of Revelation. How can the infinite be brought into the same account with the finite? We know that if we give one term in an algebraical expression an infinite value, all the rest go for nothing; so likewise do probable judgments vanish in the face of absolute authority. But if Revelation is deliveredin such a modethat its declarations admit of no question whatever, then its statements possessabsolute certainty. Compared with such certainty all our judgments would be doubtful and dim, like candles in the presence of electric light. Would not this sharp contrast discourage man from using his own powers? But is it not by regarding this world as an exercise ground for these same powers that we come most near to understanding it? Is it consistent with God's ways, such as we make them out to be, that after giving us faculties which would find their amplest field in the consideration of spiritual problems he should preclude the investigation of them by solving them all Himself.Again the truth delivered in any Divine Revelation of the problems of the Universe would come into contact with views based on supposed facts drawn from History or Geology, or with truths discovered by the human mind, and difficulties would occur all along the line of demarcation between what was infallible and what was not. For instance, if the history of one nation were[pg 056]absolutely revealed, much of that of the nations contiguous would be revealed too; more particularly the results of the wars between them: and if isolated facts belonging to science, such as those relating to the formation of our globe, were communicated on Divine Authority, then systems of Natural Philosophy, starting from these facts as axioms, might claim, upon religious grounds, acceptance for every one of their conclusions. If an independent system essayed to rear its head, it would be crushed by coming into collision with some statement that brooked no question. Such scientific investigation as would be possible could only proceed by deduction from truths authoritatively delivered. Observation and induction, which have led up to the knowledge of nature we now possess, would find no place. Man would be discouraged from using his own endeavours to understand the problems of the universe, and instead of so doing, he would only pray the Almighty to tell him all he wanted to know.These ill effects do not follow in the case of Christ's religion for two reasons. First, because Christ does not reveal what man could find out for himself; and therefore this revelation does not come, so to say, into competition with human investigations. Secondly, because the genuineness of the revelation is not vouched for by evidence which isoverwhelmingand which finally settles the question; but is only supported by just enough[pg 057]external testimony to command attentive consideration and respect. The evidence that the Sign is of God is not so cogent that there is no escape from it. If it were so, it would silence all discussion about the fact of Revelation having been given, in the way in question, and would narrow the area for the exercise of religious thought.Reason may agree to bow to Revelation as being God's declaration; but she has a right to satisfy herself that itisGod's declaration, and she will call in learning and rules of criticism to help her in determining the question. Even when Reason has satisfied herself as to the credentials of this Revelation, there comes another question which gives play for human intelligence. It is asked“What does this Revelation mean?”Language is the outcome of the human mind, and all statements made in language, this Revelation among the rest, must be subject to the laws of the human understanding.We see then, that both as to its credentials and its meaning Revelation must always be open to question; and that a man is as much bound to exercise his judgment upon these points as upon the other problems of life. This would seem a very natural state of things, yet it causes dismay to some persons when they first begin to look into these matters for themselves. They had expected, moreover, to find such a balance of evidence on their own side, that no one except from wilfulness and perversity could decide the other way. Examination[pg 058]shews that, regarding the question as one of historical evidence, and putting all prepossessions apart, the two sides are more nearly in a state of equipoise than they had been supposed to be; and it is remarkable that this kind of equipoise has been maintained, as far as we can make out by history, from the time of the Apostles till now. Arguments and testimony have, from time to time, appeared on one side, and have been answered from the other; and now and then some discovery has been made turning the balance on this side or that; but soon some new idea has been started which has put another complexion on the matter. So that positive evidence has never been so complete and decisive on either side as to prevent a man's habits or the bent of his mind from swaying his verdict.When young men first look into these matters for themselves, having heretofore taken certain notions on trust, they are apt to be aghast at the unsettlement, and at the call on them to use their own judgments and make up their minds. Unhappily they have often been led to suppose that to hold a particular set of opinions,merely as opinions, without any effect being produced in their character thereby, gives them a claim to some degree of favour in the eyes of the Almighty: while to question these opinions, or to enquire too closely into the grounds on which they rest, is dangerous, and calculated to bring them into disfavour with Him. I cannot stop to combat this notion now.[pg 059]But whatever the reason may be, the fact is certain, that when persons begin to investigate for themselves the bases of their belief, they find that many statements which they had regarded as true beyond all question are found to stand on less sure ground than they had thought; and since they fancy that if the authority of any word of the Bible is shaken they will soon have no standing ground left, they become much disturbed.Then it is that we hear the outcry:“Why cannot all be made clear? Or, if we cannot be told every thing, why, at any rate, is not that which wearetold put so plainly, that there can only be one way of looking at it? Why were not things so written that one who runs may read? Why are we not given quite positive assurance of the truth of what is revealed? Why have we not a Sign in Heaven as the Jews demanded, or, what would suit our times better, an incontestable demonstration of the truth of Christianity?”“Why, in short,”to use the words of the objectors of the last century,“If God desired to make a Revelation to man, did He not write it in the skies?”To none of these“Whys”can we supply its proper“Because.”We cannot give the reasons of a man's conduct unless we can enter into his mind; and as we cannot enter into God's mind, we cannot give His reasons for having made the ways of the universe such as we find them. But though we cannot give the enquirer what he[pg 060]asks, we can do something to help him all the same.We may be able to shew him that it is better for him only“to know in part;”and we may also be able to explain to him that a certain fringe of shadow must needs encompass those portions of truth which are revealed; for if they had clear-cut edges and hard outlines, when we had to fit them together, like pieces in a dissected map of knowledge, we should meet with all those difficulties about a line of demarcation between truth absolute and beliefs of opinion of which I spoke just now. The service of all Revelation is to supply our craving after infinity; and if our demand to have this infinity presented to us in a finite form—for that is really what we are clamouring for—could be approximately gratified, then we should find that, though a certain portion of the infinite field lying outside human knowledge had been enclosed and added on to our intellectual possessions, still we were as far as ever from having what we wanted: this new possession would have becomefinite, and what we wanted was theinfinite. We should have got a new science in exchange for our old religion, but the craving after infinitude would still remain. The very definiteness introduced into these matters we should find destructive of their fascination for us.To take one point at a time, I will begin with a side of the question which fits on to the subject of the last chapter. These cries after certitude[pg 061]are, in fact, petitions to be relieved of free will and responsibility in deciding religious matters for ourselves. What the complaints come to is this: Why am not I and every one else compelled to believe certain truths about God's dealings with manwhether we like to do so or not?The point of the matter lies in these last words. If we had no part of our own to perform in accepting this belief, if it were no more a matter of our own choice and feeling whether or not we admitted the revealed truths, than whether we admitted some indisputable fact in history or some proposition in science; then this belief would not be religion for us at all, it would be a branch of science and nothing more. It would have no more moral significance than a proposition in Euclid. To admit that a certain system may be built up from premises that are undoubted, is merely a matter of intellect. One man may have a head to follow the steps and another not, but conscience has no part in the matter.It was distinctive of the Son of Man that His Gospel was to be preached to the poor; and a system which addressed only minds capable of clear reasoning, could not be suited to all mankind; in fact, it would necessarily set up a Hierarchy of intellectual culture. So our Lord did not speak to the understandings but to the hearts of His hearers. He dealt with His disciples on the supposition, that there was in them a germ[pg 062]which would respond to the quickening influences of His teaching, and grow into a capacity for eternal life. Just as the dormant seed germinates when warmth and moisture reach it, so would what was dormant in their hearts burst into life and growth, when the required vivifying influence was brought to bear. Our spiritual life is made to depend not only on what is delivered to us, but on our recognising the truth we want, and seizing on it as what we are craving after: so that we say,“I have always felt that there was something I was in want of; now I know what it is, and I have it here.”The Jews, who would not believe, wanted to be shewn a Sign from Heaven. They said,“Give us a proof which is beyond contradiction, and we will believe,”which comes to saying: If we cannot help believing, believe we will. But they did not mean the same thing by the word“believe”as our Lord did. Our Lord did not call on His disciples to accept notionsaboutHim, but to believeinHim, to trust Him as a child does his parent, or a soldier his commander. What the Jews meant was, that they would give credence to a particular kind of evidence, as to the fact of His being their Messiah.The demand for additional proof is dealt with by our Lord in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. The drift of a parable is usually pointed out in the concluding words; and the verse“If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe[pg 063]though one rose from the dead,”11spoken of the rich man's brethren, is, I believe, the key to one intent of this parable.12The state of mind here pointed at is a common one enough. It is that of the man who is rather uneasy at his own want of belief; but thinks the blame should be laid, not on any defect in himself, but on the want of proper proofs and external light. He thinks that his difficulty comes from the scanty evidence offered him; he has no idea that what he really wants is a better moral eyesight to see it by. So he begs for a little bit more of proof. If he could only be satisfied, he says, on this point and that, he would believe. But what would his belief be worth? Our Lord's answer goes to this:—No amount of external testimony can supply what you want, because the defect is within you. If a mandidcome to you from the dead, you might be terrified into acquiescence in everything he told you—you would probably be stupefied into the most abject submission—but instead of being elevated into trust in God, you would, very likely, be so cowed and paralysed, as to be incapable of any feeling of a noble or spiritual kind.In the present day people do not ask for Signs from Heaven, or that men should rise from the dead—but the same spirit shews itself in the same[pg 064]way. The corresponding demand is,“Give us an undeniable philosophical proof of the truth of Christianity.”“Shew us this,”say men,“and we will believe.”Accept the demonstration of course they must, if it be irrefragable; just as they must accept the truth that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; but such acceptance is a mental act of a wholly different order from adopting a religious belief—from feeling for instance that“Christ is with us to the end of the world.”Much confusion has arisen from this difference not being properly marked.From what I said at first, as to the nature of a revelation it appears that there are two elements in it, one within us and one without us. We must have“ears to hear”when God speaks—a faculty that discerns His voice—and also we must have some outward sign cognisable by human senses, or by such judgments based on experience as we form about historical evidence. I have just shewn that the first requisite is essential for any religious belief, and that it is a quality different from the logical understanding. But when we come to the attestation of the Sign which vouches the revelation, then the understanding assumes its ordinary jurisdiction. We are to judge by the common rules of evidence as to the authenticity of this Sign and the genuineness of our information. Reason and instructed judgment are to be used in these matters as in all others, and external evidence is allowed[pg 065]its weight by our Lord. When the Baptist sends his disciples to enquire, our Lord works cures before them, and bids them report what theysaw.A man wants some testimony to which he may turn, which is independent of himself. There are times when the surest believers mistrust themselves and their intuitions and ask,“How am I to know that this persuasion of mine is not a creature of my own brain, due to my temperament and mental conformation.”“How can I call on other men to accept it?”Men are not left, unaided, to the distress of this kind of doubt. The Apostles were allowed to witness the Transfiguration and the presence of Jesus risen from the dead that doubt might not overcome them in moments of physical weakness or distress of mind. They could always turn to these recollections and say“We know the glory of God; for we have seen it.”We are not to expect that the Sign which attests a Revelation shall be guaranteed by a standing miracle; because such a standing miracle would be out of harmony with all God's ways as revealed in the Universe. For a standing miracle means that God is always, in one particular direction, visibly displaying the power elsewhere concealed. If such a miracle existed there would be one set of facts in the world not of a piece with the rest. If instead of working the world as He does by self-acting machinery, God were to reserve one department for His personal management, He might as[pg 066]well interpose in all, and direct all the movements in the world; in which case, as I said in the last chapter, the world would cease to have any independent existence, and would become merely a portion of the Divine existence.So when it is demanded“That a revelation should be written in the skies”we may ask, How would you have God's autograph attested? The Jews, it will be said, had the visible Shechinah, the light between the Cherubim; but if this light existed now, there would be no proof of its being Divine: it would only be another phenomenon, and science would take cognisance of it. If we had an oracle declaring future events, all human enterprise would perish—for enterprise rests on hope and fear. The Delphic oracles would have paralysed action, if they had been unerring, unambiguous, and easy of access. A series of prophecies, it may be thought, fulfilled from time to time, would serve to authenticate revelation: and this aid is, indeed, admissible in attestation of the Sign we speak of; but it must be subject to the same condition which must attach to all external testimony: it must not be too clear or too strong. Men must always be able to reject it, if they like: either by ascribing the coincidences to chance, by declaring that the prophecy brought about its own fulfilment, or by some similar argument. If we had a series of prophecies all of which, up to the present time, had been fulfilled with due regularity, so that no one[pg 067]could doubt but that the rest would punctually come to pass, human action would be very much paralysed.The miracles of our Lord's life serve us for our“Signs;”and our assurance that they occurred is to be based both on the external evidence, which in this case is the testimony to the authenticity of the record, and on the internal probability, which comes out of the conformity of the miracles with the Laws of Christ's action and the declared purpose of His coming. The miracles could always be referred to Beelzebub in old days, and they can always be disbelieved or explained away now.Since the external evidence is not conclusive on this side or on that, the judgment formed must depend partly on the degree in which the Scriptures establish their own authority; and this degree depends on the mind and heart which the investigator brings to his work. One critic will see nothing but difficulties. Another will say, Our histories are photographs, imperfect no doubt, but what they show must have been there when they were taken: we see the main figures under different aspects, but we know them for the same. Some will feel as much convinced, from the character of thought and expression, that certain sayings came from our Lord, as a connoisseur in art might be that a certain picture came from the easel of a great master whose works had been the study of his life: he knows the touch.[pg 068]Christ's great Revelation was not given in a book, not in a history or a treatise, but in a Life and Death. He shewed the world a Man who knew not Self, and He also shewed it the Force that came from God. Men will realize this Revelation in different ways in different ages; part may come to light at one time, part at another. Sayings which have long lain hardly noticed are one day found to be keys to unlock a treasure, and give insight beyond what we dreamt of. But besides this Revelation, personal to individuals, broad Truths are conveyed which we should not otherwise possess.Some of the leading Truths are these. That Jesus came from the Father. That the Father loved men who believed in Him, and owned them as sons, and sent into their hearts13a filial spirit which should enable them to lay hold more firmly of this Revelation. Christ tells them that He came to manifest God to the world,14and that, whether they chose to believe it or not, the kingdom of God was drawn nigh to them.15He tells them that to know God is eternal life,16and that they who are counted worthy will attain a resurrection to such a life.17Above all he tells them—and this is the very charter of the Christian Church, without which her Doctrines would be only a set of notions, destitute[pg 069]of real vital power—“Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”18There is no clashing with human knowledge here, nothing that can tie the hands of the enquirer. The advance in spiritual knowledge is not brought about, simply by the communication of a new truth from without, which had never been dreamt of before: men feel rather as if they were reminded of something they must once have known. There appears, if I may so say, a tenderness of God in dealing with man, a carefulness so to reveal himself as not to obliterate a man's own personality, but to leave him to feel that any resolution he has reached is his own, arrived at, no doubt, by listening to God's prompting; without such prompting superseding the action of his proper self. No two men represent God to themselves quite in the same way: He was not the same for Peter that He was for John.I believe that a revelation of God is needed for the education of what is highest in man, and for bringing him to the highest point he can reach; and that God has been always revealing Himself in one way or another. But the revelation of every age must be suited to the character of that age. Man must be educated up to it, or he cannot receive it. Our Lord tells his disciples“I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now.”19Later generations are taught in this same way. The events related in the Acts, and the labours[pg 070]which came upon the Apostles fitted them by degrees for fresh revelations. If our Lord had declared to St Peter when he first joined him in Galilee that the Gentiles should have as full a share in Him and in the Kingdom as he would have; might not he too have turned away? Or if, as is likely, he had been personally drawn to Christ too powerfully to quit Him, yet such a sudden shock to all his notions might have closed his mind spasmodically against new ideas? For when a man recoils from a view which unsettles him and turns him giddy, he clutches at his supports with iron grip. Many have been made bigots in this way. Our Lord is careful to avoid for the disciples all turmoil of mind; the new seed must be left undisturbed that it may take firm root; so that for our Lord to have disordered all St Peter's convictions by a premature disclosure, would have been contrary to His ways of acting.An age must be ripe for the truth, and the truth must be ripe for the age for the last to profit by the first. If the theory of gravitation had appeared ten centuries ago, it would have passed unregarded away, for then, nobody thought the outer world worth scrutiny. On the other hand the neo-Platonic philosophy which once moved masses of men has now become so many words. How then is Christ's revelation to last for all time? It is enabled to do so, because there islifein it andgrowthalong with life; because Christ does[pg 071]not deliver propositions about God which men are passively to receive once for all, but his sayings fall upon the human heart, and are quickened there, some in one generation and some in another: each generation seizes on its proper nutriment, and brings out of His sayings the special lesson it requires.St Paul, to recur to the quotation which is, in fact, the burden of this chapter, speaking of the effect produced by the preaching of the word on the hearers says—“The secrets of his heart are made manifest.”20Christ's words reveal for a man the secrets of his own heart to himself. They interpret to him his own confused and dreamy thoughts. This was what drew men so mightily to Him. It was not so much the novelty of what He told them that attracted them, as that they recognised in His teaching old familiar puzzles, which had come and gone through their minds, times without number, only in such shadowy guise that they could not fix and scrutinize them. Christ spake and then men said“This is what has been always troubling us.”Here is what we have always been wanting to say, and could not put into plain words—and now these floating impressions of ours are found not to have come by chance but to belong to truths set in our[pg 072]being. God has“sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying Abba, Father.”21But He would not have done so if we had not had the capacity for being sons, to begin with.We shall see too, when we think of it, that a revelation to men can only come by man, or in a voice or words like those of a man. Man's understanding is fashioned in a certain way; his language is the creature of his understanding; ideas could not be conveyed to him unless they were clothed in language which he could understand; Revelation therefore must express itself in terms of human notions because they alone can be made intelligible in human speech. If God speaks, He must speak after the fashion of men, or His words will be an unknown tongue.To take an illustration: If a man, owing to something abnormal in his vision, became aware of a new colour, something which had nothing to do with red or yellow or blue; he could not communicate his new sensation because he could find no pigment which would in any degree represent it, and he could not describe it in words, by likeness to anything in the world. So God can only reveal to man about spiritual existence what man can conceive, that is to say only that to which he finds something analogous in his own being; for all must be put into that form with which man's understanding can deal; and the[pg 073]only spiritual creature he can conceive isman; the only ideas he can conceive are human ideas; his mind must work on the lines along which men's minds move; the only creature with whom he can sympathise, and whom he can believe to sympathise with him isman, and so—since there can be no real teaching without mutual understanding—bymanhe must be taught. Christ's revelation meets this need. It was as the Son of Man that Christ declared Himself, and in this character He conveyed to men the germs of all the spiritual enlightenment they can receive. Does not this throw light on the words,“No one knoweth who the Father is save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him,”22and again,“No man cometh to the Father but by me?”23[pg 074]

Chapter II. Human Freedom.I have spoken in the foregoing chapter of certain characteristics of our Lord's ways of dealing with men. In considering these ways we find ourselves, at almost every turn, face to face with the great enigmas of life which underlie all Theology. Questions about Divine government and human freedom will, I see, force themselves upon us.It would keep this book more close to its purpose, if I could proceed at once with the examination of what our Lord says and does, and leave all these difficulties on one side, taking it for granted that all my readers had arrived at their own views about them; or if I were to refer them to works in which they are formally discussed.But I trust my readers will forgive me, if I suppose that it may be with them as with those I have been used to teach—that is to say, that they will be attracted by these perplexities, and that they will be impatient at being told that just what they want to ask lies outside my province. Many too, I know, would never turn to any of the[pg 029]learned works on these matters, of which I might give them the names.I have resolved, therefore, to deal with these matters once for all, in as familiar a way as I can. I cannot, of course, give my readers solutions of these questions; I can only tell them how I manage to do without a solution myself, and put before them the view of these matters which I hold till I can get a better, so that they may more readily enter into my views of Christ's Laws of action, and understand what I write.The characteristics of our Lord's ways which particularly bring us in contact with these mysteries, and which therefore concern us most now, are (1) His care to keep alive in His hearers their sense of being free and responsible agents; (2) His tolerance of the existence of evil in the world.These questions of free will and the existence of evil have been for ages the battle-ground of divines, and they come before us every day.“Why did not God make every one good?”is a question which occurs to every intelligent child. He runs to his first teachers with it, and finding himself put off with an answer that is no answer—for a child is quick in detecting this—he gets his first notion that there are matters which even grown-up people know nothing about.So, that I may not serve my readers in this way, I give them all I have myself. I can no more tell them“How”or“Why”God brought about the[pg 030]present state of things, than I can solve the great mystery which is at the bottom of all mysteries:“How, or Why, God and the world ever existed at all?”But I think I can shew that free agency in men, and the existence of evil, and also a reserve in the revelation of God's ways—a question I shall have to deal with next—are consistent with our situation in this world; supposing that the mental and spiritual development of God's creatures is the proximate end and aim of the Spiritual Order. Some hypothesis we must make as to a purpose in the world, if we regard it as the work of amind; and this is the purpose which most seems to fall in with what I observe.Our Lord speaks of Divine action as“The mystery of the kingdom of God.”6He directs the thoughts of His disciples to these ways by telling them, not what they are, but to what they arelike. We shall never, while on earth, perfectly know these ways, but Christ thinks it well for His disciples to strive after this knowledge, and to look for lessons in all they see to help them towards it.Not only does Christ give us what I have calledseed-thoughtson these matters, but He puts us in possession of a unique method for leading men towards the truth about them. He takes an incident of familiar life, and uses it to set forth spiritual verities. So when we must discourse of these hard matters our safest course is to follow[pg 031]our Lord's way. No doubt, He meant to shew ushowto teach, as well as to tell uswhatto teach; so if we begin with a sort of allegory or parable, we cannot be far wrong in point ofform, however feeble and faulty the execution may be. I believe that the relation of a parent to his household affords likeness enough to that of the Father to His world, to be used as the ground of a parable on God's Will and Human Freedom.Let us suppose that the father of a family, a man of strong will, and steadfastly abhorring evil, should conceive the project of forcibly shutting it out from his home. We will suppose the household planted in a spot remote from human intercourse, in some self-supplying island or dale among the hills; and, as I do not mean to touch on physical evil, let us suppose that no external calamity comes nigh the dwelling. Here, let us suppose, the children grow up, uncontaminated by ill, knowing no temptation, reared in love and kindness, treated wisely and with such even justice that envy and jealousy find no room to enter.The parent proposes to himself to do away with all temptation, all chance of individual aberration, and to cast his children's character in a perfect mould. He would have them merge themselves in him as much as possible, repeating his thoughts and accepting his views without questioning them, or supposing they could be questioned. All society, all books, but what he approves,[pg 032]are banished from that house, so that no whisper of evil, no pernicious notions can possibly intrude. Evil is by him regarded as a pestilent weed, which only exists, owing to some oversight in the making of the world, for which he is at a loss to account. It is at once to be eradicated whenever it is espied.Let us suppose that all goes well in our imagined household—that the children love their father and believe implicitly in him; that they are so happy in their home and home pursuits that they do not look beyond; and that the healthy labour, which their common wants necessitate, gives room for all their energies. Hence, there is no repining at their narrow sphere, no longing for more strenuous activity or more varied life. Each does his daily work, and returns to pleasant rest and a happy home, and no more asks himself whether he is happy than he asks whether the valves of his heart are opening and closing as they should. The father, then, looks around him, and sees his ideal accomplished. He has a family of which no member does anything but what he approves, or has a thought but what he shares with him: not one of them sets up an opinion different from what he holds. It never occurs to them to doubt the wisdom of any injunction. Life presents to them no moral difficulties, because, as soon as any question occurs to them, they run with it to their father, and on receiving his reply put aside the[pg 033]matter, as being decided and disposed of for good and all.We might suppose the parent would look around with unalloyed satisfaction. But a moment comes when he finds something wanting. He is not so thoroughly satisfied as he had expected to be with the ideal which he has worked out. Some misgiving obtrudes itself. He asks himself—Is this condition, this merging of my children's wills in mine, what is best for them or what is best for me? Is not this goodness of theirs too negative? Is it not rather the absence of evil than the presence of good?Further he asks, am notIsubstantiallyalone? Is not mine the only independent mind in the place, of which all the rest are mere reflections? Am I not intensifying my loneliness and all the moral disadvantages that attach to it, by thus rendering all who surround me merely portions of myself? For my children are not separate persons, but bits ofme. Are not whole provinces of moral activity shut out from me, by the very fact of my having everything my own way? Are there not virtues which require opposition to call them out? Is it not good to have to ask ourselves whether we are dealing fairly with opponents? Is it not good to forgive wrongs? Is it not good to reach out a helping hand, and lift one who has stumbled, back into his self-respect? I engage in no struggles. In my world there are no misdoings[pg 034]to forgive and no misdoers to restore. Have I not closed against myself whole worlds of moral action and of moral life?Then, as to my children,“Have I not been wrong in supposing that they mustbegood because they have neverdonewrong? They have been so kept from the suggestion of evil that they could hardly help going right. But could they resist temptation if it came? They have never been braced by a struggle with it, nor marked the ill fruits of evil. They take it on trust from me that evil brings sorrow; but it usually comes in disguise and declares itself harmless, and how should they recognise it if it came?”So, question after question suggests itself, all destructive of his satisfaction.“Can it be,”he says at last,“that I have brought up these children so as to be fit for no world but that which I have carefully constructed for them? I used to delight in their goodness; but since I have suspected it to be mainly instinctive—an innocence that is the outcome of ignorance—my satisfaction in it is half gone.”At length, he is harassed with the idea that he may have given up his life to a mistake, that what he has done has cramped his own mental and moral expansion, and that the excellence of his blameless family is only fair-weather goodness after all. He casts about to think why it is that they have“neither savour nor salt,”and concludes“What they want ispersonality—and how should they have[pg 035]got it, living in a household where I have taken care to be all in all?”Then his thoughts run uponevil, which he has been at such pains to shut out, closing against it every cranny and chink.“God,”he may say,“has let evil into His world—was I right in keeping it forcibly out of mine? May not the resisting and assuaging of evil give occasion for good to grow up, and feel its own strength? Are there not many kinds of goodness, brought out in this way, which we could no more have without evil than we could have light in a picture without shade? If there is no room for my children to go wrong, what moral significance,”he asks,“is there in saying that they go right?”So he is disheartened with his project, and gives it up. He abandons his isolated way of life, and gives his children freedom. He encourages them to act and judge for themselves. Henceforth they can choose their own books, their own friends their own pursuits, and go forth into life, outside their charmed circle.Of course this involves the giving up of his absolute power; this is inherent in the nature of things. A man cannot be an autocrat and have free people about him. If he would have intercourse with free intelligences, in order to get the advantages to his own cultivation and expansion of character which spring from such intercourse; this must be purchased by abdicating some of his[pg 036]powers, or putting them in abeyance. So the parent forbears using his power, in order that his children may learn to be free, and that he may hold communion with free, loving hearts, and engage in discussion with unfettered minds.Soon, he finds that he has to encounter opposition. The children are free to go wrong, and wrong some of them will go: evil appears in that household where it was not known. The father sorrows over this, but when he reviews his condition he finds that he has a countervailing comfort; the good that is left about him is now real good. It is the good of persons who have known and resisted evil. Besides this, there is more life and greater vigour of character in his family, than there was before. They no longer sit with folded hands always waiting for direction; they have the air of persons who see a purpose before them; and they move along their way“with the certain step of man.”So he concludes that it is better that all should engage in the struggle with evil, even though some should fail, than that they should move along paths ready shaped out for them, shewing a merely mechanical goodness.A great change has come over his life in another respect, he is now no longeralone. Other wills come into contact, sometimes into collision, with his will; a host of qualities, which had been folded up and laid by for years, come again into use. He is no longer among echoes of himself, but there[pg 037]are real voices in his new world. His views may still prevail, but it must be, not merely because they arehis, but because they stand on solid ground. He may still lead in action; but it must be because he has the leader's strength, because he will venture when others waver, and decide when others doubt.Here we must leave him, and say a word or two before making the obvious application of the parable: We must not press the application too closely or draw conclusions from the mere machinery of the parable: it must not, of course, be supposed that I conceive God to have dealt with man as the father does with his children; that is to say, to have kept him at first in tutelage, and then found it desirable to enfranchise him. The sole object of the story is to familiarise the reader with the need of freedom in moral growth. It shews that for education to be carried out, thewillmust be free to act. When we have brought this home to his mind, we shall be the better able“to justify the ways of God to man”in some important particulars.The parable is designed to apply to the condition of men on earth on the supposition, that their education—in the largest sense of the word—is the main work held in view: all depends on the hypothesis that man is placed on earth to develop his powers. The need of freedom for members of the imagined family depends on their being in a[pg 038]state of growth. The parable would not apply to spiritual beings, if we could conceive such, whose qualities and character were unalterable.Perfectedbeings have done with growth and struggle, and have attained to the highest condition, viz. existence in unison with God. But forimperfectbeings, struggling on to their goal, freedom is required and the opposition of evil is indispensable, in order that the moral thews and sinews may harden.Whenever we come upon an objection to the ways of God's ordering of the world, which is put in the form of a question, such as“Why was not the world made in this way or that?”we shall find it a good plan, to follow out the line indicated in the complaint, and see what would have come about, supposing that Godhadmade the world in the way which is suggested.From the imaginary case here put, we see to what the common child's question leads us—the question“Why did not God make all people good and keep them so?”—If people had been“made good and kept good,”that is to say if they had been constructed by God so as always to act as His will prompted, then they would not in the proper sense of the word have been people at all; they would have been mechanisms worked by God, and so they could not have been“good”in the sense in which we use the word of a man, but only in that in which we apply it to a watch. There[pg 039]could be no moral life without freedom; there could be no growth of character without temptations and difficulties to overcome; no heroism, no self-denial, no sympathising tenderness, no forgiving love, without suffering or wrongdoing to call them forth.Moreover if not only people on earth, but all created intelligences had, in like manner, been constrained to respond to every motion of the Divine will, God would have been the one spiritual being in the world and would therefore have been absolutelyalone.Let us now suppose, and the supposition falls in with what our conscience and the Bible tell us, that in God all goodness dwells. This goodness cannot lie stored away as in a treasure-house, so as to be merely an object of contemplation, it must be active and in operation. This is essential to our idea of goodness, and it agrees with the view of God which Christ presents to us, which is that of a being everoperating.“My Father worketh hitherto,”says our Lord,“and I work.”For good to unfold, and advance toward perfection in its manifold ways, an arena is wanted. The world we know of affords the arena required; in this, God has been working from the first One kind of His work we can conceive to be the suggesting thoughts to men; but if it be so, He leaves the will free either to entertain or to reject the suggestions, as we might those of a friend.[pg 040]That we may not lose ourselves in the immensity of God and eternity, we will withdraw our gaze from the rest of the Universe, and fix it on this planet of ours, when organic life first began to appear upon it. The spiritual and material world might, before this, have been going on, each apart, through countless ages; but a moment came when the spiritual and the material were wondrously blended, and life began upon the earth. Different orders of being succeeded each other, and fresh forces came into play. We may suppose that God sympathised with all His creation, and that the qualities that appeared in it reflected something in Himself. God may have rejoiced in seeing the animal creation happy. The animals were in a degree free, but they were not self-conscious; they did not know that they were happy, or that they were loved, and God may have required for the full unfolding of His infinite capacity for sympathy and love, to be in relation with beings who could know Him and love Him, and know that they loved Him.Mr Erskine of Linlathen, in his excellent book on the Spiritual Order, says“Is there not a comfort in the doctrine of the eternal Sonship, as a deliverance from the thought of a God, whose very nature is Love, dwelling in absolute solitude from all eternity without an object of love?”We may extend this observation to other qualities besides love, from the exercise of which, a being who is[pg 041]alone in the world is necessarily debarred. Is it not likely that a God of mercy, truth and justice would frame a world of beings, in His dealing with whom all these qualities should find scope and exercise? Without self-conscious beings having free wills, how could this be done?Close by the side of this question of free will, lies that of the existence of moral evil, in a world made by a being who, by the hypothesis, is perfectly good. When we supposed the world to be formed for the evolution of moral goodness, we, perhaps without knowing it, introduced the idea of moral evil, implied in that of goodness; for actual good is evolved in resisting evil and repairing the mischief it has done; indeed many forms of it can no more exist without evil as an antagonist, than a wheel can turn without the friction of the road.Now, as I have said, if men be left free, they must have liberty to go wrong. For if they had been originally made so perfect that theycouldnot go wrong, this would only mean that they were like watches very excellently fabricated; they could only move in one particular way, viz. the way in which they had been designed to move by God. Inasmuch as such beings would not be persons, we could not feel gratitude or anger towards them, nor influence them in any way. If men were like this, there could be little or no growth, little or no action of man on man. If, to take another supposition, man had been so made that it would be[pg 042]possible for him to go wrong, but that he had been sedulously kept out of temptation and placed in an abode where innocence reigned undisturbed; then we come to a case very like that sketched in the foregoing parable.There is a third case possible. God might make men capable of going wrong, but might watch over them and protect them, whether they craved His help or not, whenever temptation approached. This constant supernatural interference would soon have destroyed all self-helpfulness; men would never have formed habits of avoiding or resisting temptation.“God,”the man would say,“will not let me sin—I may go as near to danger as I like, and need take no care of myself, because I am sure of God's protection.”We know that a child does not learn to take care of himself, so long as he feels that it is the nurse's business to see that no harm happens to him. We come then to this result. God requires free self-conscious beings, for the full exercise of the moral goodness in Himself and for its development and manifestation in the world.But He cannot give others freedom, and at the same time provide that they should act only in the way that He approves: because this in itself would be a contradiction, and a contradiction not even Divine power can effect. Hence these free, intelligent beings must be at liberty to go wrong, and God must, in exchange for having free wills about him, forego part of His absolute prerogative:[pg 043]and so He must allow evil a place in the world because this is involved in the“liberty to go wrong”just spoken of.This brings us to the mystery of the“origin of evil.”I shall not lay myself open to the charge made against divines,“That they no sooner declare a subject to be a mystery than they set to work to explain it.”I can see that if man is to be left free, evil must needs come, and that without evil in the world none of the more masculine virtues can be brought to the birth—that is to say, I see that evil, being in the world, serves to discharge a function—but I do not pretend to say how it came. I do not maintain that it came, solely, from man's misuse of his freedom.From what we see in the world arises a fancy that every thing must have its opposite, that light presupposes darkness, and pleasure pain, and so good may presuppose evil; but this fancy is not substantial enough to build upon. Our Lord's words on the occasions when He deals with evil, are, to my judgment, most easily reconciled with one another, and with the circumstances which call them forth, by supposing Him to recognise a personal spiritual influence, presenting evil thoughts to the minds of men; the man remaining free to choose whether he will entertain these suggestions or not.I return to my immediate subject—the function that evil performs in the existing moral world. We[pg 044]read in the Book of Genesis that the earth was to bring forth“thorns and thistles,”and that man was“to eat bread in the sweat of his brow.”7This is the result of a change worked, we are told,“for man's sake.”It was indeed for man'ssake—though in a different sense—that this was so. He would have remained a very poor creature if the earth had produced just what he wanted, without any labour of his. This illustrates the function of evil in the ordering of the world. Man's qualities, moral and physical, are developed by it. It subserves the progress of the human race.We should have less heroism, without cruelty and oppression from without; and could have no self-restraint, without temptation from within. Piety and love indeed, when they had once come into being, might exist without evil; we may believe that they satisfy the souls of the saints in heaven; but among men they commonly owe their birth to a feeling of shelter against evil, and to a sense of pardoned wrong.Another office which evil performs is this. The contention with it helps to bring out the difference between man and man. If any members of the family of my parable had possessed the germs of a strong character, they could hardly have brought fruit to perfection: the conditions of their innocent life tended to uniformity. But as soon as temptations came, latent differences would forthwith[pg 045]appear; the strong would grow stronger and the bad worse. Now there is need of strong men for human progress. They form the steps in the stairway by which the race mounts. If life were smooth and easy, men would, as it were, advance in line, and the stronger men would not so surely come in front of the rest. It is in times of trouble that men are most apt to recognise worth and capacity, and make much of them. So that the trials and difficulties of human life which come of evil, have this good effect among others, they help to pick out the men who are fitted to be the leaders of human movements and of human thought.It may have struck us as strange that Christ does not deal directly with these perplexing questions which trouble so many minds. We shall see, later on, that His not doing so is quite consistent with the uniform“tenour of His way.”But though our Lord does not lay down dogmas on these points, yet His own actions and expressions would, of course, accord with what He knew: if, then, when we hit upon some view of this“riddle of the painful earth,”which commends itself to our minds, we find that it clashes with what our Lord does or says, then we may throw it aside at once: and, on the other hand, if we arrive at a way of looking at the matter which seems to harmonise with what falls from Him; then, we may hope, not indeed that we have found a solution of the riddle, but that our hypothesis will not mislead us, so[pg 046]long as we own it to be an hypothesis, and nothing more.We may be supposed then to have arrived at this position. We assume the existence of a mighty Divine being, in whom all goodness dwells. We suppose that this world is an arena in which a struggle is to be carried on between good and evil by the agency of free intelligent beings; that by means of this struggle the better natures will be strengthened and developed, and come more and more into action; we suppose also that God whispers counsel and comfort on the side of good. Further than this we need not now go.As regards the presence of evil in the world, there are several sayings of our Lord which might be noted. I must confine myself to one or two of the most important.First let us consider the following passage from St John's Gospel:8“And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”Here the disciples take it for granted, that the blindness was a punishment for sin, either on the part of the man or his parents. It is our Lord's practice—and[pg 047]a practice so uniform that we may call it a Law of proceeding—not to enter into controversy about wide-spread mistaken views on merelyspeculativesubjects: He usually gives a hint, and leaves it to work in the hearer's mind.Our Lord's answer in this case means,not, of course, that the man and his parents had never committed sin, but that the blindness was not the result of that sin; and He passes rapidly on to state His view of one purpose answered by this infliction.In His few words of answer our Lord lets fall one of those hints,seed thoughts, as I have called them, which lie so thickly in the Gospels.Our Lord tells us, that the works of God were to be made manifest by this man's infirmity. A light is thrown by these words on one of the“uses of adversity.”Suffering gives room for moral goodness to come into play. The world is full of instances easy enough to note. Does not a sick child in a family educate all around it to tenderness and self-denial? What more touching lesson in patience can be given than the sight of the little sufferer, grieved at nothing so much as the trouble it causes, making the most of every alleviation, grateful beyond measure for every look or word of love. Rough brothers learn forbearance and gentleness; and to all the household it becomes natural to think of something else before, or at least beside, themselves. Wordsworth tells us of[pg 048]a half-witted boy whose helplessness and simplicity fostered a spirit of kindliness in all the poor of the village, and taught them to respect affliction.Again in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we are taught how there is“a soul of goodness in things evil.”The wickedness of the prodigal is made a means of revealing to him and to all the bystanders the Divine beauty and efficacy of forgiving love.We will now9turn to the history of the cure of the Dæmoniac in the country of the Gadarenes. I take the history in what seems to me the plain literal sense, and I must suppose that our Lord recognised some real evil existence, which had possessed itself of the man, and which, by its presence in him, had unhinged his whole mental or nervous organisation. This existence is separable from him, but it requires, it would seem, some body to inhabit and to work upon. The dæmon begs not to be suppressed or annihilated, and our Lord grants his petition and lets him go among the swine. He saves theman—what other evils this dæmon may work in the world, so that he lets men go, is no concern of His. The Son of Man is concerned only with lives and souls—not with property in any way.The point for us to note is this: Our Lord does notannihilateevil. He does not regard it as an outlawed intruder who had eluded God's notice,[pg 049]and who, as soon as he is discovered, is to be expelled from the universe at once. His Father has suffered evil to be, and He, Christ, follows in His Father's ways: evil may still do its work, only not on men. This evil influence, we must observe, is something external to the man; it would seem to belong to an order of existences, engaged in working ill as their congenial business; whispering bad counsel, something in the way that God's Spirit whispers good, only, of course, not in such deep authoritative tones; and, in these cases of possession, it masters the whole being of the sufferer.Whythis was allowed to be, is of course a mystery, but yet it is hardly a greater mystery than why evil in its other forms should be allowed to exist, and without evil in some shape, as we have seen, this earth would be a very imperfect exercise-ground for mankind.To represent this case to our minds, let us imagine some malignant“germ”that has caused a plague amongst men, and which in time takes a slightly different form, so that it is no longer adapted to human beings, but finds its prey in cattle instead. Then the plague among men is exchanged for a murrain among cattle, which, as a matter of fact, has been known to happen: this answers to the allowing the dæmon to go to the swine. Evil is not forcibly exterminated, but it is transferred from man to the lower animals.So our Lord is gentle even with the powers of[pg 050]evil. They had their function, or they would not have been there, and they were not to be crushed out of existence before the time.If it be, as I have argued, that evil had a function in the world, then we can see why it could not be removed by auniversaldecree. But asingleact of relief might be admissible in order to testify to the presence of an exceptional power; this would not engender in people the habit of helplessly throwing themselves upon God. For instance, Christ cures the son of the centurion merely by speaking the word, but if He had abolished all fevers by one decree, this would have been to disorganise the existing order in the universe. A King going on a royal progress relieves the misery that comes in his way; his own kindliness, his royal dignity, and the need of impressing on the people that their King delights in doing good, and can do it, require him so to do. But a regal donation for the relief of all distress in the kingdom would turn it into a nation of paupers. So our Lord bestows His bounty on those who fall in His way.He who asks, Why did not Christ suppress evil? may naturally ask also, Why did not Christ sweep away all human error as to the relations of God with man? And why did He not so vouch for the authenticity of His communication that any doubt about it should be impossible? Now we believe, that God has revealed Himself to man,[pg 051]and yet has left men in some degree free as to what they will think about Him, and as fully at liberty to examine the credentials of those who have claimed to be His messengers, and to judge of their authenticity, as they would be in a purely human matter.We find, as a matter of fact, that men who have accepted Christ's revelation are not fettered in mind by it; but are most often enterprising, energetic and bold searchers after truth. I believe that it would have been unfavourable to the preservation of this vigour of mind and to the temper which should“try all things and hold fast those which are good,”if the full and absolute revelation which some demand had been delivered to mankind, and all the problems which beset human life had thereby been settled once for all. To the questions“Why we are told what we are told?”“Why we are not told more?”and“Why doubt and ambiguities are not all cleared away?”—we cannot hope to giveanswers, but we may find ways of looking at them which shall help in some degree“To justify the ways of God to man.”It will be best to discuss this subject in a separate Chapter.[pg 052]Chapter III. Of Revelation.If I took the word Revelation in its widest sense I should not attempt to treat of it here, for it would comprise nothing less than God's education of the human race. We talk of Natural Religion and Revealed Religion, but all Religion has in it an element of revelation from God. If God had not provided man with a mind's eye suited to see Him by, and also something that shadowed Him forth which that eye could behold, we could have no religion at all. Of the processes by which belief has come about in men not the least notable is this. Men have recognised in some new tidings what they seemed to have been looking for, without being aware of it. Some new teacher has become the spokesman of thoughts which were lying in them in a state too vague for utterance. Thus“thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”10Now it is God who has planted these thoughts in men, and He brings about the occasions which reveal them.[pg 053]There are for man two worlds, that which is without him and that which is within. Some races from temperament or circumstances have been most taken up with the former, with the workings of nature and with active social life; while others have looked within rather than without;—their minds have found most congenial play in the contemplation of their own natures, and in brooding over the mystery of how they came to be what they were. Corresponding to these two leading diversities of the human mind, there are two modes by which men are brought to recognise a great spiritual agency in the world.The man of Aryan race, the type of the first variety, caught sight of an infinite force underlying all the workings of nature, and so conceived Deities, with a personal will like his own, animating the physical world. For the people of the Semitic race on the other hand, the surpassing wonder was their own selves—their minds turned to contemplating their own nature. In so doing they noted this; they found something within them which caused them to be happy when they acted in one way—when they had done a kindness for example—and made them unhappy when they had behaved differently. This was so, even when no one knew of the act, and when they looked to no consequences from it. They called such actions right and wrong; but they asked, Where can this notion of right and wrong come from? This conscience[pg 054]too which witnessed of it—which strove with them just as a friend might, and seemed to be something outside them—Where did that come from? They were led by this to conceive a spiritual personal Being in the world who had left some trace of himself in men's hearts, and kept up some communion with them through this voice of conscience. Thus men of different stamps of mind were led along different roads, to the notion of something Divine in the world; and we may say that God revealed himself to man in these two ways. Now for knowledge to be sure and solid two elements must go to the making of it. One from outside the learner, and the other supplied by him. This outside element is in physical science provided by observed fact, and what answers to it in theology is authoritative revelation. Men can never feel fully assured about what is wholly spun out of their own brains, and has no external sign or testimony to lend it support.Revelation, in the sense in which I have to do with it just now, means an authoritative communication from the Almighty, vouched by some outward sign, or manifestation. It is with this outward sign, and with the difficulties attending the ways of bringing it about, that I am now chiefly concerned.For the present we will suppose that among the elements of human knowledge aretruths revealed by God. How is this element of absolutely certain knowledge to be made to fit in with that which is[pg 055]only matter of opinion or provisionally true? Here we come on the great problem of Revelation. How can the infinite be brought into the same account with the finite? We know that if we give one term in an algebraical expression an infinite value, all the rest go for nothing; so likewise do probable judgments vanish in the face of absolute authority. But if Revelation is deliveredin such a modethat its declarations admit of no question whatever, then its statements possessabsolute certainty. Compared with such certainty all our judgments would be doubtful and dim, like candles in the presence of electric light. Would not this sharp contrast discourage man from using his own powers? But is it not by regarding this world as an exercise ground for these same powers that we come most near to understanding it? Is it consistent with God's ways, such as we make them out to be, that after giving us faculties which would find their amplest field in the consideration of spiritual problems he should preclude the investigation of them by solving them all Himself.Again the truth delivered in any Divine Revelation of the problems of the Universe would come into contact with views based on supposed facts drawn from History or Geology, or with truths discovered by the human mind, and difficulties would occur all along the line of demarcation between what was infallible and what was not. For instance, if the history of one nation were[pg 056]absolutely revealed, much of that of the nations contiguous would be revealed too; more particularly the results of the wars between them: and if isolated facts belonging to science, such as those relating to the formation of our globe, were communicated on Divine Authority, then systems of Natural Philosophy, starting from these facts as axioms, might claim, upon religious grounds, acceptance for every one of their conclusions. If an independent system essayed to rear its head, it would be crushed by coming into collision with some statement that brooked no question. Such scientific investigation as would be possible could only proceed by deduction from truths authoritatively delivered. Observation and induction, which have led up to the knowledge of nature we now possess, would find no place. Man would be discouraged from using his own endeavours to understand the problems of the universe, and instead of so doing, he would only pray the Almighty to tell him all he wanted to know.These ill effects do not follow in the case of Christ's religion for two reasons. First, because Christ does not reveal what man could find out for himself; and therefore this revelation does not come, so to say, into competition with human investigations. Secondly, because the genuineness of the revelation is not vouched for by evidence which isoverwhelmingand which finally settles the question; but is only supported by just enough[pg 057]external testimony to command attentive consideration and respect. The evidence that the Sign is of God is not so cogent that there is no escape from it. If it were so, it would silence all discussion about the fact of Revelation having been given, in the way in question, and would narrow the area for the exercise of religious thought.Reason may agree to bow to Revelation as being God's declaration; but she has a right to satisfy herself that itisGod's declaration, and she will call in learning and rules of criticism to help her in determining the question. Even when Reason has satisfied herself as to the credentials of this Revelation, there comes another question which gives play for human intelligence. It is asked“What does this Revelation mean?”Language is the outcome of the human mind, and all statements made in language, this Revelation among the rest, must be subject to the laws of the human understanding.We see then, that both as to its credentials and its meaning Revelation must always be open to question; and that a man is as much bound to exercise his judgment upon these points as upon the other problems of life. This would seem a very natural state of things, yet it causes dismay to some persons when they first begin to look into these matters for themselves. They had expected, moreover, to find such a balance of evidence on their own side, that no one except from wilfulness and perversity could decide the other way. Examination[pg 058]shews that, regarding the question as one of historical evidence, and putting all prepossessions apart, the two sides are more nearly in a state of equipoise than they had been supposed to be; and it is remarkable that this kind of equipoise has been maintained, as far as we can make out by history, from the time of the Apostles till now. Arguments and testimony have, from time to time, appeared on one side, and have been answered from the other; and now and then some discovery has been made turning the balance on this side or that; but soon some new idea has been started which has put another complexion on the matter. So that positive evidence has never been so complete and decisive on either side as to prevent a man's habits or the bent of his mind from swaying his verdict.When young men first look into these matters for themselves, having heretofore taken certain notions on trust, they are apt to be aghast at the unsettlement, and at the call on them to use their own judgments and make up their minds. Unhappily they have often been led to suppose that to hold a particular set of opinions,merely as opinions, without any effect being produced in their character thereby, gives them a claim to some degree of favour in the eyes of the Almighty: while to question these opinions, or to enquire too closely into the grounds on which they rest, is dangerous, and calculated to bring them into disfavour with Him. I cannot stop to combat this notion now.[pg 059]But whatever the reason may be, the fact is certain, that when persons begin to investigate for themselves the bases of their belief, they find that many statements which they had regarded as true beyond all question are found to stand on less sure ground than they had thought; and since they fancy that if the authority of any word of the Bible is shaken they will soon have no standing ground left, they become much disturbed.Then it is that we hear the outcry:“Why cannot all be made clear? Or, if we cannot be told every thing, why, at any rate, is not that which wearetold put so plainly, that there can only be one way of looking at it? Why were not things so written that one who runs may read? Why are we not given quite positive assurance of the truth of what is revealed? Why have we not a Sign in Heaven as the Jews demanded, or, what would suit our times better, an incontestable demonstration of the truth of Christianity?”“Why, in short,”to use the words of the objectors of the last century,“If God desired to make a Revelation to man, did He not write it in the skies?”To none of these“Whys”can we supply its proper“Because.”We cannot give the reasons of a man's conduct unless we can enter into his mind; and as we cannot enter into God's mind, we cannot give His reasons for having made the ways of the universe such as we find them. But though we cannot give the enquirer what he[pg 060]asks, we can do something to help him all the same.We may be able to shew him that it is better for him only“to know in part;”and we may also be able to explain to him that a certain fringe of shadow must needs encompass those portions of truth which are revealed; for if they had clear-cut edges and hard outlines, when we had to fit them together, like pieces in a dissected map of knowledge, we should meet with all those difficulties about a line of demarcation between truth absolute and beliefs of opinion of which I spoke just now. The service of all Revelation is to supply our craving after infinity; and if our demand to have this infinity presented to us in a finite form—for that is really what we are clamouring for—could be approximately gratified, then we should find that, though a certain portion of the infinite field lying outside human knowledge had been enclosed and added on to our intellectual possessions, still we were as far as ever from having what we wanted: this new possession would have becomefinite, and what we wanted was theinfinite. We should have got a new science in exchange for our old religion, but the craving after infinitude would still remain. The very definiteness introduced into these matters we should find destructive of their fascination for us.To take one point at a time, I will begin with a side of the question which fits on to the subject of the last chapter. These cries after certitude[pg 061]are, in fact, petitions to be relieved of free will and responsibility in deciding religious matters for ourselves. What the complaints come to is this: Why am not I and every one else compelled to believe certain truths about God's dealings with manwhether we like to do so or not?The point of the matter lies in these last words. If we had no part of our own to perform in accepting this belief, if it were no more a matter of our own choice and feeling whether or not we admitted the revealed truths, than whether we admitted some indisputable fact in history or some proposition in science; then this belief would not be religion for us at all, it would be a branch of science and nothing more. It would have no more moral significance than a proposition in Euclid. To admit that a certain system may be built up from premises that are undoubted, is merely a matter of intellect. One man may have a head to follow the steps and another not, but conscience has no part in the matter.It was distinctive of the Son of Man that His Gospel was to be preached to the poor; and a system which addressed only minds capable of clear reasoning, could not be suited to all mankind; in fact, it would necessarily set up a Hierarchy of intellectual culture. So our Lord did not speak to the understandings but to the hearts of His hearers. He dealt with His disciples on the supposition, that there was in them a germ[pg 062]which would respond to the quickening influences of His teaching, and grow into a capacity for eternal life. Just as the dormant seed germinates when warmth and moisture reach it, so would what was dormant in their hearts burst into life and growth, when the required vivifying influence was brought to bear. Our spiritual life is made to depend not only on what is delivered to us, but on our recognising the truth we want, and seizing on it as what we are craving after: so that we say,“I have always felt that there was something I was in want of; now I know what it is, and I have it here.”The Jews, who would not believe, wanted to be shewn a Sign from Heaven. They said,“Give us a proof which is beyond contradiction, and we will believe,”which comes to saying: If we cannot help believing, believe we will. But they did not mean the same thing by the word“believe”as our Lord did. Our Lord did not call on His disciples to accept notionsaboutHim, but to believeinHim, to trust Him as a child does his parent, or a soldier his commander. What the Jews meant was, that they would give credence to a particular kind of evidence, as to the fact of His being their Messiah.The demand for additional proof is dealt with by our Lord in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. The drift of a parable is usually pointed out in the concluding words; and the verse“If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe[pg 063]though one rose from the dead,”11spoken of the rich man's brethren, is, I believe, the key to one intent of this parable.12The state of mind here pointed at is a common one enough. It is that of the man who is rather uneasy at his own want of belief; but thinks the blame should be laid, not on any defect in himself, but on the want of proper proofs and external light. He thinks that his difficulty comes from the scanty evidence offered him; he has no idea that what he really wants is a better moral eyesight to see it by. So he begs for a little bit more of proof. If he could only be satisfied, he says, on this point and that, he would believe. But what would his belief be worth? Our Lord's answer goes to this:—No amount of external testimony can supply what you want, because the defect is within you. If a mandidcome to you from the dead, you might be terrified into acquiescence in everything he told you—you would probably be stupefied into the most abject submission—but instead of being elevated into trust in God, you would, very likely, be so cowed and paralysed, as to be incapable of any feeling of a noble or spiritual kind.In the present day people do not ask for Signs from Heaven, or that men should rise from the dead—but the same spirit shews itself in the same[pg 064]way. The corresponding demand is,“Give us an undeniable philosophical proof of the truth of Christianity.”“Shew us this,”say men,“and we will believe.”Accept the demonstration of course they must, if it be irrefragable; just as they must accept the truth that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; but such acceptance is a mental act of a wholly different order from adopting a religious belief—from feeling for instance that“Christ is with us to the end of the world.”Much confusion has arisen from this difference not being properly marked.From what I said at first, as to the nature of a revelation it appears that there are two elements in it, one within us and one without us. We must have“ears to hear”when God speaks—a faculty that discerns His voice—and also we must have some outward sign cognisable by human senses, or by such judgments based on experience as we form about historical evidence. I have just shewn that the first requisite is essential for any religious belief, and that it is a quality different from the logical understanding. But when we come to the attestation of the Sign which vouches the revelation, then the understanding assumes its ordinary jurisdiction. We are to judge by the common rules of evidence as to the authenticity of this Sign and the genuineness of our information. Reason and instructed judgment are to be used in these matters as in all others, and external evidence is allowed[pg 065]its weight by our Lord. When the Baptist sends his disciples to enquire, our Lord works cures before them, and bids them report what theysaw.A man wants some testimony to which he may turn, which is independent of himself. There are times when the surest believers mistrust themselves and their intuitions and ask,“How am I to know that this persuasion of mine is not a creature of my own brain, due to my temperament and mental conformation.”“How can I call on other men to accept it?”Men are not left, unaided, to the distress of this kind of doubt. The Apostles were allowed to witness the Transfiguration and the presence of Jesus risen from the dead that doubt might not overcome them in moments of physical weakness or distress of mind. They could always turn to these recollections and say“We know the glory of God; for we have seen it.”We are not to expect that the Sign which attests a Revelation shall be guaranteed by a standing miracle; because such a standing miracle would be out of harmony with all God's ways as revealed in the Universe. For a standing miracle means that God is always, in one particular direction, visibly displaying the power elsewhere concealed. If such a miracle existed there would be one set of facts in the world not of a piece with the rest. If instead of working the world as He does by self-acting machinery, God were to reserve one department for His personal management, He might as[pg 066]well interpose in all, and direct all the movements in the world; in which case, as I said in the last chapter, the world would cease to have any independent existence, and would become merely a portion of the Divine existence.So when it is demanded“That a revelation should be written in the skies”we may ask, How would you have God's autograph attested? The Jews, it will be said, had the visible Shechinah, the light between the Cherubim; but if this light existed now, there would be no proof of its being Divine: it would only be another phenomenon, and science would take cognisance of it. If we had an oracle declaring future events, all human enterprise would perish—for enterprise rests on hope and fear. The Delphic oracles would have paralysed action, if they had been unerring, unambiguous, and easy of access. A series of prophecies, it may be thought, fulfilled from time to time, would serve to authenticate revelation: and this aid is, indeed, admissible in attestation of the Sign we speak of; but it must be subject to the same condition which must attach to all external testimony: it must not be too clear or too strong. Men must always be able to reject it, if they like: either by ascribing the coincidences to chance, by declaring that the prophecy brought about its own fulfilment, or by some similar argument. If we had a series of prophecies all of which, up to the present time, had been fulfilled with due regularity, so that no one[pg 067]could doubt but that the rest would punctually come to pass, human action would be very much paralysed.The miracles of our Lord's life serve us for our“Signs;”and our assurance that they occurred is to be based both on the external evidence, which in this case is the testimony to the authenticity of the record, and on the internal probability, which comes out of the conformity of the miracles with the Laws of Christ's action and the declared purpose of His coming. The miracles could always be referred to Beelzebub in old days, and they can always be disbelieved or explained away now.Since the external evidence is not conclusive on this side or on that, the judgment formed must depend partly on the degree in which the Scriptures establish their own authority; and this degree depends on the mind and heart which the investigator brings to his work. One critic will see nothing but difficulties. Another will say, Our histories are photographs, imperfect no doubt, but what they show must have been there when they were taken: we see the main figures under different aspects, but we know them for the same. Some will feel as much convinced, from the character of thought and expression, that certain sayings came from our Lord, as a connoisseur in art might be that a certain picture came from the easel of a great master whose works had been the study of his life: he knows the touch.[pg 068]Christ's great Revelation was not given in a book, not in a history or a treatise, but in a Life and Death. He shewed the world a Man who knew not Self, and He also shewed it the Force that came from God. Men will realize this Revelation in different ways in different ages; part may come to light at one time, part at another. Sayings which have long lain hardly noticed are one day found to be keys to unlock a treasure, and give insight beyond what we dreamt of. But besides this Revelation, personal to individuals, broad Truths are conveyed which we should not otherwise possess.Some of the leading Truths are these. That Jesus came from the Father. That the Father loved men who believed in Him, and owned them as sons, and sent into their hearts13a filial spirit which should enable them to lay hold more firmly of this Revelation. Christ tells them that He came to manifest God to the world,14and that, whether they chose to believe it or not, the kingdom of God was drawn nigh to them.15He tells them that to know God is eternal life,16and that they who are counted worthy will attain a resurrection to such a life.17Above all he tells them—and this is the very charter of the Christian Church, without which her Doctrines would be only a set of notions, destitute[pg 069]of real vital power—“Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”18There is no clashing with human knowledge here, nothing that can tie the hands of the enquirer. The advance in spiritual knowledge is not brought about, simply by the communication of a new truth from without, which had never been dreamt of before: men feel rather as if they were reminded of something they must once have known. There appears, if I may so say, a tenderness of God in dealing with man, a carefulness so to reveal himself as not to obliterate a man's own personality, but to leave him to feel that any resolution he has reached is his own, arrived at, no doubt, by listening to God's prompting; without such prompting superseding the action of his proper self. No two men represent God to themselves quite in the same way: He was not the same for Peter that He was for John.I believe that a revelation of God is needed for the education of what is highest in man, and for bringing him to the highest point he can reach; and that God has been always revealing Himself in one way or another. But the revelation of every age must be suited to the character of that age. Man must be educated up to it, or he cannot receive it. Our Lord tells his disciples“I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now.”19Later generations are taught in this same way. The events related in the Acts, and the labours[pg 070]which came upon the Apostles fitted them by degrees for fresh revelations. If our Lord had declared to St Peter when he first joined him in Galilee that the Gentiles should have as full a share in Him and in the Kingdom as he would have; might not he too have turned away? Or if, as is likely, he had been personally drawn to Christ too powerfully to quit Him, yet such a sudden shock to all his notions might have closed his mind spasmodically against new ideas? For when a man recoils from a view which unsettles him and turns him giddy, he clutches at his supports with iron grip. Many have been made bigots in this way. Our Lord is careful to avoid for the disciples all turmoil of mind; the new seed must be left undisturbed that it may take firm root; so that for our Lord to have disordered all St Peter's convictions by a premature disclosure, would have been contrary to His ways of acting.An age must be ripe for the truth, and the truth must be ripe for the age for the last to profit by the first. If the theory of gravitation had appeared ten centuries ago, it would have passed unregarded away, for then, nobody thought the outer world worth scrutiny. On the other hand the neo-Platonic philosophy which once moved masses of men has now become so many words. How then is Christ's revelation to last for all time? It is enabled to do so, because there islifein it andgrowthalong with life; because Christ does[pg 071]not deliver propositions about God which men are passively to receive once for all, but his sayings fall upon the human heart, and are quickened there, some in one generation and some in another: each generation seizes on its proper nutriment, and brings out of His sayings the special lesson it requires.St Paul, to recur to the quotation which is, in fact, the burden of this chapter, speaking of the effect produced by the preaching of the word on the hearers says—“The secrets of his heart are made manifest.”20Christ's words reveal for a man the secrets of his own heart to himself. They interpret to him his own confused and dreamy thoughts. This was what drew men so mightily to Him. It was not so much the novelty of what He told them that attracted them, as that they recognised in His teaching old familiar puzzles, which had come and gone through their minds, times without number, only in such shadowy guise that they could not fix and scrutinize them. Christ spake and then men said“This is what has been always troubling us.”Here is what we have always been wanting to say, and could not put into plain words—and now these floating impressions of ours are found not to have come by chance but to belong to truths set in our[pg 072]being. God has“sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying Abba, Father.”21But He would not have done so if we had not had the capacity for being sons, to begin with.We shall see too, when we think of it, that a revelation to men can only come by man, or in a voice or words like those of a man. Man's understanding is fashioned in a certain way; his language is the creature of his understanding; ideas could not be conveyed to him unless they were clothed in language which he could understand; Revelation therefore must express itself in terms of human notions because they alone can be made intelligible in human speech. If God speaks, He must speak after the fashion of men, or His words will be an unknown tongue.To take an illustration: If a man, owing to something abnormal in his vision, became aware of a new colour, something which had nothing to do with red or yellow or blue; he could not communicate his new sensation because he could find no pigment which would in any degree represent it, and he could not describe it in words, by likeness to anything in the world. So God can only reveal to man about spiritual existence what man can conceive, that is to say only that to which he finds something analogous in his own being; for all must be put into that form with which man's understanding can deal; and the[pg 073]only spiritual creature he can conceive isman; the only ideas he can conceive are human ideas; his mind must work on the lines along which men's minds move; the only creature with whom he can sympathise, and whom he can believe to sympathise with him isman, and so—since there can be no real teaching without mutual understanding—bymanhe must be taught. Christ's revelation meets this need. It was as the Son of Man that Christ declared Himself, and in this character He conveyed to men the germs of all the spiritual enlightenment they can receive. Does not this throw light on the words,“No one knoweth who the Father is save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him,”22and again,“No man cometh to the Father but by me?”23[pg 074]

Chapter II. Human Freedom.I have spoken in the foregoing chapter of certain characteristics of our Lord's ways of dealing with men. In considering these ways we find ourselves, at almost every turn, face to face with the great enigmas of life which underlie all Theology. Questions about Divine government and human freedom will, I see, force themselves upon us.It would keep this book more close to its purpose, if I could proceed at once with the examination of what our Lord says and does, and leave all these difficulties on one side, taking it for granted that all my readers had arrived at their own views about them; or if I were to refer them to works in which they are formally discussed.But I trust my readers will forgive me, if I suppose that it may be with them as with those I have been used to teach—that is to say, that they will be attracted by these perplexities, and that they will be impatient at being told that just what they want to ask lies outside my province. Many too, I know, would never turn to any of the[pg 029]learned works on these matters, of which I might give them the names.I have resolved, therefore, to deal with these matters once for all, in as familiar a way as I can. I cannot, of course, give my readers solutions of these questions; I can only tell them how I manage to do without a solution myself, and put before them the view of these matters which I hold till I can get a better, so that they may more readily enter into my views of Christ's Laws of action, and understand what I write.The characteristics of our Lord's ways which particularly bring us in contact with these mysteries, and which therefore concern us most now, are (1) His care to keep alive in His hearers their sense of being free and responsible agents; (2) His tolerance of the existence of evil in the world.These questions of free will and the existence of evil have been for ages the battle-ground of divines, and they come before us every day.“Why did not God make every one good?”is a question which occurs to every intelligent child. He runs to his first teachers with it, and finding himself put off with an answer that is no answer—for a child is quick in detecting this—he gets his first notion that there are matters which even grown-up people know nothing about.So, that I may not serve my readers in this way, I give them all I have myself. I can no more tell them“How”or“Why”God brought about the[pg 030]present state of things, than I can solve the great mystery which is at the bottom of all mysteries:“How, or Why, God and the world ever existed at all?”But I think I can shew that free agency in men, and the existence of evil, and also a reserve in the revelation of God's ways—a question I shall have to deal with next—are consistent with our situation in this world; supposing that the mental and spiritual development of God's creatures is the proximate end and aim of the Spiritual Order. Some hypothesis we must make as to a purpose in the world, if we regard it as the work of amind; and this is the purpose which most seems to fall in with what I observe.Our Lord speaks of Divine action as“The mystery of the kingdom of God.”6He directs the thoughts of His disciples to these ways by telling them, not what they are, but to what they arelike. We shall never, while on earth, perfectly know these ways, but Christ thinks it well for His disciples to strive after this knowledge, and to look for lessons in all they see to help them towards it.Not only does Christ give us what I have calledseed-thoughtson these matters, but He puts us in possession of a unique method for leading men towards the truth about them. He takes an incident of familiar life, and uses it to set forth spiritual verities. So when we must discourse of these hard matters our safest course is to follow[pg 031]our Lord's way. No doubt, He meant to shew ushowto teach, as well as to tell uswhatto teach; so if we begin with a sort of allegory or parable, we cannot be far wrong in point ofform, however feeble and faulty the execution may be. I believe that the relation of a parent to his household affords likeness enough to that of the Father to His world, to be used as the ground of a parable on God's Will and Human Freedom.Let us suppose that the father of a family, a man of strong will, and steadfastly abhorring evil, should conceive the project of forcibly shutting it out from his home. We will suppose the household planted in a spot remote from human intercourse, in some self-supplying island or dale among the hills; and, as I do not mean to touch on physical evil, let us suppose that no external calamity comes nigh the dwelling. Here, let us suppose, the children grow up, uncontaminated by ill, knowing no temptation, reared in love and kindness, treated wisely and with such even justice that envy and jealousy find no room to enter.The parent proposes to himself to do away with all temptation, all chance of individual aberration, and to cast his children's character in a perfect mould. He would have them merge themselves in him as much as possible, repeating his thoughts and accepting his views without questioning them, or supposing they could be questioned. All society, all books, but what he approves,[pg 032]are banished from that house, so that no whisper of evil, no pernicious notions can possibly intrude. Evil is by him regarded as a pestilent weed, which only exists, owing to some oversight in the making of the world, for which he is at a loss to account. It is at once to be eradicated whenever it is espied.Let us suppose that all goes well in our imagined household—that the children love their father and believe implicitly in him; that they are so happy in their home and home pursuits that they do not look beyond; and that the healthy labour, which their common wants necessitate, gives room for all their energies. Hence, there is no repining at their narrow sphere, no longing for more strenuous activity or more varied life. Each does his daily work, and returns to pleasant rest and a happy home, and no more asks himself whether he is happy than he asks whether the valves of his heart are opening and closing as they should. The father, then, looks around him, and sees his ideal accomplished. He has a family of which no member does anything but what he approves, or has a thought but what he shares with him: not one of them sets up an opinion different from what he holds. It never occurs to them to doubt the wisdom of any injunction. Life presents to them no moral difficulties, because, as soon as any question occurs to them, they run with it to their father, and on receiving his reply put aside the[pg 033]matter, as being decided and disposed of for good and all.We might suppose the parent would look around with unalloyed satisfaction. But a moment comes when he finds something wanting. He is not so thoroughly satisfied as he had expected to be with the ideal which he has worked out. Some misgiving obtrudes itself. He asks himself—Is this condition, this merging of my children's wills in mine, what is best for them or what is best for me? Is not this goodness of theirs too negative? Is it not rather the absence of evil than the presence of good?Further he asks, am notIsubstantiallyalone? Is not mine the only independent mind in the place, of which all the rest are mere reflections? Am I not intensifying my loneliness and all the moral disadvantages that attach to it, by thus rendering all who surround me merely portions of myself? For my children are not separate persons, but bits ofme. Are not whole provinces of moral activity shut out from me, by the very fact of my having everything my own way? Are there not virtues which require opposition to call them out? Is it not good to have to ask ourselves whether we are dealing fairly with opponents? Is it not good to forgive wrongs? Is it not good to reach out a helping hand, and lift one who has stumbled, back into his self-respect? I engage in no struggles. In my world there are no misdoings[pg 034]to forgive and no misdoers to restore. Have I not closed against myself whole worlds of moral action and of moral life?Then, as to my children,“Have I not been wrong in supposing that they mustbegood because they have neverdonewrong? They have been so kept from the suggestion of evil that they could hardly help going right. But could they resist temptation if it came? They have never been braced by a struggle with it, nor marked the ill fruits of evil. They take it on trust from me that evil brings sorrow; but it usually comes in disguise and declares itself harmless, and how should they recognise it if it came?”So, question after question suggests itself, all destructive of his satisfaction.“Can it be,”he says at last,“that I have brought up these children so as to be fit for no world but that which I have carefully constructed for them? I used to delight in their goodness; but since I have suspected it to be mainly instinctive—an innocence that is the outcome of ignorance—my satisfaction in it is half gone.”At length, he is harassed with the idea that he may have given up his life to a mistake, that what he has done has cramped his own mental and moral expansion, and that the excellence of his blameless family is only fair-weather goodness after all. He casts about to think why it is that they have“neither savour nor salt,”and concludes“What they want ispersonality—and how should they have[pg 035]got it, living in a household where I have taken care to be all in all?”Then his thoughts run uponevil, which he has been at such pains to shut out, closing against it every cranny and chink.“God,”he may say,“has let evil into His world—was I right in keeping it forcibly out of mine? May not the resisting and assuaging of evil give occasion for good to grow up, and feel its own strength? Are there not many kinds of goodness, brought out in this way, which we could no more have without evil than we could have light in a picture without shade? If there is no room for my children to go wrong, what moral significance,”he asks,“is there in saying that they go right?”So he is disheartened with his project, and gives it up. He abandons his isolated way of life, and gives his children freedom. He encourages them to act and judge for themselves. Henceforth they can choose their own books, their own friends their own pursuits, and go forth into life, outside their charmed circle.Of course this involves the giving up of his absolute power; this is inherent in the nature of things. A man cannot be an autocrat and have free people about him. If he would have intercourse with free intelligences, in order to get the advantages to his own cultivation and expansion of character which spring from such intercourse; this must be purchased by abdicating some of his[pg 036]powers, or putting them in abeyance. So the parent forbears using his power, in order that his children may learn to be free, and that he may hold communion with free, loving hearts, and engage in discussion with unfettered minds.Soon, he finds that he has to encounter opposition. The children are free to go wrong, and wrong some of them will go: evil appears in that household where it was not known. The father sorrows over this, but when he reviews his condition he finds that he has a countervailing comfort; the good that is left about him is now real good. It is the good of persons who have known and resisted evil. Besides this, there is more life and greater vigour of character in his family, than there was before. They no longer sit with folded hands always waiting for direction; they have the air of persons who see a purpose before them; and they move along their way“with the certain step of man.”So he concludes that it is better that all should engage in the struggle with evil, even though some should fail, than that they should move along paths ready shaped out for them, shewing a merely mechanical goodness.A great change has come over his life in another respect, he is now no longeralone. Other wills come into contact, sometimes into collision, with his will; a host of qualities, which had been folded up and laid by for years, come again into use. He is no longer among echoes of himself, but there[pg 037]are real voices in his new world. His views may still prevail, but it must be, not merely because they arehis, but because they stand on solid ground. He may still lead in action; but it must be because he has the leader's strength, because he will venture when others waver, and decide when others doubt.Here we must leave him, and say a word or two before making the obvious application of the parable: We must not press the application too closely or draw conclusions from the mere machinery of the parable: it must not, of course, be supposed that I conceive God to have dealt with man as the father does with his children; that is to say, to have kept him at first in tutelage, and then found it desirable to enfranchise him. The sole object of the story is to familiarise the reader with the need of freedom in moral growth. It shews that for education to be carried out, thewillmust be free to act. When we have brought this home to his mind, we shall be the better able“to justify the ways of God to man”in some important particulars.The parable is designed to apply to the condition of men on earth on the supposition, that their education—in the largest sense of the word—is the main work held in view: all depends on the hypothesis that man is placed on earth to develop his powers. The need of freedom for members of the imagined family depends on their being in a[pg 038]state of growth. The parable would not apply to spiritual beings, if we could conceive such, whose qualities and character were unalterable.Perfectedbeings have done with growth and struggle, and have attained to the highest condition, viz. existence in unison with God. But forimperfectbeings, struggling on to their goal, freedom is required and the opposition of evil is indispensable, in order that the moral thews and sinews may harden.Whenever we come upon an objection to the ways of God's ordering of the world, which is put in the form of a question, such as“Why was not the world made in this way or that?”we shall find it a good plan, to follow out the line indicated in the complaint, and see what would have come about, supposing that Godhadmade the world in the way which is suggested.From the imaginary case here put, we see to what the common child's question leads us—the question“Why did not God make all people good and keep them so?”—If people had been“made good and kept good,”that is to say if they had been constructed by God so as always to act as His will prompted, then they would not in the proper sense of the word have been people at all; they would have been mechanisms worked by God, and so they could not have been“good”in the sense in which we use the word of a man, but only in that in which we apply it to a watch. There[pg 039]could be no moral life without freedom; there could be no growth of character without temptations and difficulties to overcome; no heroism, no self-denial, no sympathising tenderness, no forgiving love, without suffering or wrongdoing to call them forth.Moreover if not only people on earth, but all created intelligences had, in like manner, been constrained to respond to every motion of the Divine will, God would have been the one spiritual being in the world and would therefore have been absolutelyalone.Let us now suppose, and the supposition falls in with what our conscience and the Bible tell us, that in God all goodness dwells. This goodness cannot lie stored away as in a treasure-house, so as to be merely an object of contemplation, it must be active and in operation. This is essential to our idea of goodness, and it agrees with the view of God which Christ presents to us, which is that of a being everoperating.“My Father worketh hitherto,”says our Lord,“and I work.”For good to unfold, and advance toward perfection in its manifold ways, an arena is wanted. The world we know of affords the arena required; in this, God has been working from the first One kind of His work we can conceive to be the suggesting thoughts to men; but if it be so, He leaves the will free either to entertain or to reject the suggestions, as we might those of a friend.[pg 040]That we may not lose ourselves in the immensity of God and eternity, we will withdraw our gaze from the rest of the Universe, and fix it on this planet of ours, when organic life first began to appear upon it. The spiritual and material world might, before this, have been going on, each apart, through countless ages; but a moment came when the spiritual and the material were wondrously blended, and life began upon the earth. Different orders of being succeeded each other, and fresh forces came into play. We may suppose that God sympathised with all His creation, and that the qualities that appeared in it reflected something in Himself. God may have rejoiced in seeing the animal creation happy. The animals were in a degree free, but they were not self-conscious; they did not know that they were happy, or that they were loved, and God may have required for the full unfolding of His infinite capacity for sympathy and love, to be in relation with beings who could know Him and love Him, and know that they loved Him.Mr Erskine of Linlathen, in his excellent book on the Spiritual Order, says“Is there not a comfort in the doctrine of the eternal Sonship, as a deliverance from the thought of a God, whose very nature is Love, dwelling in absolute solitude from all eternity without an object of love?”We may extend this observation to other qualities besides love, from the exercise of which, a being who is[pg 041]alone in the world is necessarily debarred. Is it not likely that a God of mercy, truth and justice would frame a world of beings, in His dealing with whom all these qualities should find scope and exercise? Without self-conscious beings having free wills, how could this be done?Close by the side of this question of free will, lies that of the existence of moral evil, in a world made by a being who, by the hypothesis, is perfectly good. When we supposed the world to be formed for the evolution of moral goodness, we, perhaps without knowing it, introduced the idea of moral evil, implied in that of goodness; for actual good is evolved in resisting evil and repairing the mischief it has done; indeed many forms of it can no more exist without evil as an antagonist, than a wheel can turn without the friction of the road.Now, as I have said, if men be left free, they must have liberty to go wrong. For if they had been originally made so perfect that theycouldnot go wrong, this would only mean that they were like watches very excellently fabricated; they could only move in one particular way, viz. the way in which they had been designed to move by God. Inasmuch as such beings would not be persons, we could not feel gratitude or anger towards them, nor influence them in any way. If men were like this, there could be little or no growth, little or no action of man on man. If, to take another supposition, man had been so made that it would be[pg 042]possible for him to go wrong, but that he had been sedulously kept out of temptation and placed in an abode where innocence reigned undisturbed; then we come to a case very like that sketched in the foregoing parable.There is a third case possible. God might make men capable of going wrong, but might watch over them and protect them, whether they craved His help or not, whenever temptation approached. This constant supernatural interference would soon have destroyed all self-helpfulness; men would never have formed habits of avoiding or resisting temptation.“God,”the man would say,“will not let me sin—I may go as near to danger as I like, and need take no care of myself, because I am sure of God's protection.”We know that a child does not learn to take care of himself, so long as he feels that it is the nurse's business to see that no harm happens to him. We come then to this result. God requires free self-conscious beings, for the full exercise of the moral goodness in Himself and for its development and manifestation in the world.But He cannot give others freedom, and at the same time provide that they should act only in the way that He approves: because this in itself would be a contradiction, and a contradiction not even Divine power can effect. Hence these free, intelligent beings must be at liberty to go wrong, and God must, in exchange for having free wills about him, forego part of His absolute prerogative:[pg 043]and so He must allow evil a place in the world because this is involved in the“liberty to go wrong”just spoken of.This brings us to the mystery of the“origin of evil.”I shall not lay myself open to the charge made against divines,“That they no sooner declare a subject to be a mystery than they set to work to explain it.”I can see that if man is to be left free, evil must needs come, and that without evil in the world none of the more masculine virtues can be brought to the birth—that is to say, I see that evil, being in the world, serves to discharge a function—but I do not pretend to say how it came. I do not maintain that it came, solely, from man's misuse of his freedom.From what we see in the world arises a fancy that every thing must have its opposite, that light presupposes darkness, and pleasure pain, and so good may presuppose evil; but this fancy is not substantial enough to build upon. Our Lord's words on the occasions when He deals with evil, are, to my judgment, most easily reconciled with one another, and with the circumstances which call them forth, by supposing Him to recognise a personal spiritual influence, presenting evil thoughts to the minds of men; the man remaining free to choose whether he will entertain these suggestions or not.I return to my immediate subject—the function that evil performs in the existing moral world. We[pg 044]read in the Book of Genesis that the earth was to bring forth“thorns and thistles,”and that man was“to eat bread in the sweat of his brow.”7This is the result of a change worked, we are told,“for man's sake.”It was indeed for man'ssake—though in a different sense—that this was so. He would have remained a very poor creature if the earth had produced just what he wanted, without any labour of his. This illustrates the function of evil in the ordering of the world. Man's qualities, moral and physical, are developed by it. It subserves the progress of the human race.We should have less heroism, without cruelty and oppression from without; and could have no self-restraint, without temptation from within. Piety and love indeed, when they had once come into being, might exist without evil; we may believe that they satisfy the souls of the saints in heaven; but among men they commonly owe their birth to a feeling of shelter against evil, and to a sense of pardoned wrong.Another office which evil performs is this. The contention with it helps to bring out the difference between man and man. If any members of the family of my parable had possessed the germs of a strong character, they could hardly have brought fruit to perfection: the conditions of their innocent life tended to uniformity. But as soon as temptations came, latent differences would forthwith[pg 045]appear; the strong would grow stronger and the bad worse. Now there is need of strong men for human progress. They form the steps in the stairway by which the race mounts. If life were smooth and easy, men would, as it were, advance in line, and the stronger men would not so surely come in front of the rest. It is in times of trouble that men are most apt to recognise worth and capacity, and make much of them. So that the trials and difficulties of human life which come of evil, have this good effect among others, they help to pick out the men who are fitted to be the leaders of human movements and of human thought.It may have struck us as strange that Christ does not deal directly with these perplexing questions which trouble so many minds. We shall see, later on, that His not doing so is quite consistent with the uniform“tenour of His way.”But though our Lord does not lay down dogmas on these points, yet His own actions and expressions would, of course, accord with what He knew: if, then, when we hit upon some view of this“riddle of the painful earth,”which commends itself to our minds, we find that it clashes with what our Lord does or says, then we may throw it aside at once: and, on the other hand, if we arrive at a way of looking at the matter which seems to harmonise with what falls from Him; then, we may hope, not indeed that we have found a solution of the riddle, but that our hypothesis will not mislead us, so[pg 046]long as we own it to be an hypothesis, and nothing more.We may be supposed then to have arrived at this position. We assume the existence of a mighty Divine being, in whom all goodness dwells. We suppose that this world is an arena in which a struggle is to be carried on between good and evil by the agency of free intelligent beings; that by means of this struggle the better natures will be strengthened and developed, and come more and more into action; we suppose also that God whispers counsel and comfort on the side of good. Further than this we need not now go.As regards the presence of evil in the world, there are several sayings of our Lord which might be noted. I must confine myself to one or two of the most important.First let us consider the following passage from St John's Gospel:8“And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”Here the disciples take it for granted, that the blindness was a punishment for sin, either on the part of the man or his parents. It is our Lord's practice—and[pg 047]a practice so uniform that we may call it a Law of proceeding—not to enter into controversy about wide-spread mistaken views on merelyspeculativesubjects: He usually gives a hint, and leaves it to work in the hearer's mind.Our Lord's answer in this case means,not, of course, that the man and his parents had never committed sin, but that the blindness was not the result of that sin; and He passes rapidly on to state His view of one purpose answered by this infliction.In His few words of answer our Lord lets fall one of those hints,seed thoughts, as I have called them, which lie so thickly in the Gospels.Our Lord tells us, that the works of God were to be made manifest by this man's infirmity. A light is thrown by these words on one of the“uses of adversity.”Suffering gives room for moral goodness to come into play. The world is full of instances easy enough to note. Does not a sick child in a family educate all around it to tenderness and self-denial? What more touching lesson in patience can be given than the sight of the little sufferer, grieved at nothing so much as the trouble it causes, making the most of every alleviation, grateful beyond measure for every look or word of love. Rough brothers learn forbearance and gentleness; and to all the household it becomes natural to think of something else before, or at least beside, themselves. Wordsworth tells us of[pg 048]a half-witted boy whose helplessness and simplicity fostered a spirit of kindliness in all the poor of the village, and taught them to respect affliction.Again in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we are taught how there is“a soul of goodness in things evil.”The wickedness of the prodigal is made a means of revealing to him and to all the bystanders the Divine beauty and efficacy of forgiving love.We will now9turn to the history of the cure of the Dæmoniac in the country of the Gadarenes. I take the history in what seems to me the plain literal sense, and I must suppose that our Lord recognised some real evil existence, which had possessed itself of the man, and which, by its presence in him, had unhinged his whole mental or nervous organisation. This existence is separable from him, but it requires, it would seem, some body to inhabit and to work upon. The dæmon begs not to be suppressed or annihilated, and our Lord grants his petition and lets him go among the swine. He saves theman—what other evils this dæmon may work in the world, so that he lets men go, is no concern of His. The Son of Man is concerned only with lives and souls—not with property in any way.The point for us to note is this: Our Lord does notannihilateevil. He does not regard it as an outlawed intruder who had eluded God's notice,[pg 049]and who, as soon as he is discovered, is to be expelled from the universe at once. His Father has suffered evil to be, and He, Christ, follows in His Father's ways: evil may still do its work, only not on men. This evil influence, we must observe, is something external to the man; it would seem to belong to an order of existences, engaged in working ill as their congenial business; whispering bad counsel, something in the way that God's Spirit whispers good, only, of course, not in such deep authoritative tones; and, in these cases of possession, it masters the whole being of the sufferer.Whythis was allowed to be, is of course a mystery, but yet it is hardly a greater mystery than why evil in its other forms should be allowed to exist, and without evil in some shape, as we have seen, this earth would be a very imperfect exercise-ground for mankind.To represent this case to our minds, let us imagine some malignant“germ”that has caused a plague amongst men, and which in time takes a slightly different form, so that it is no longer adapted to human beings, but finds its prey in cattle instead. Then the plague among men is exchanged for a murrain among cattle, which, as a matter of fact, has been known to happen: this answers to the allowing the dæmon to go to the swine. Evil is not forcibly exterminated, but it is transferred from man to the lower animals.So our Lord is gentle even with the powers of[pg 050]evil. They had their function, or they would not have been there, and they were not to be crushed out of existence before the time.If it be, as I have argued, that evil had a function in the world, then we can see why it could not be removed by auniversaldecree. But asingleact of relief might be admissible in order to testify to the presence of an exceptional power; this would not engender in people the habit of helplessly throwing themselves upon God. For instance, Christ cures the son of the centurion merely by speaking the word, but if He had abolished all fevers by one decree, this would have been to disorganise the existing order in the universe. A King going on a royal progress relieves the misery that comes in his way; his own kindliness, his royal dignity, and the need of impressing on the people that their King delights in doing good, and can do it, require him so to do. But a regal donation for the relief of all distress in the kingdom would turn it into a nation of paupers. So our Lord bestows His bounty on those who fall in His way.He who asks, Why did not Christ suppress evil? may naturally ask also, Why did not Christ sweep away all human error as to the relations of God with man? And why did He not so vouch for the authenticity of His communication that any doubt about it should be impossible? Now we believe, that God has revealed Himself to man,[pg 051]and yet has left men in some degree free as to what they will think about Him, and as fully at liberty to examine the credentials of those who have claimed to be His messengers, and to judge of their authenticity, as they would be in a purely human matter.We find, as a matter of fact, that men who have accepted Christ's revelation are not fettered in mind by it; but are most often enterprising, energetic and bold searchers after truth. I believe that it would have been unfavourable to the preservation of this vigour of mind and to the temper which should“try all things and hold fast those which are good,”if the full and absolute revelation which some demand had been delivered to mankind, and all the problems which beset human life had thereby been settled once for all. To the questions“Why we are told what we are told?”“Why we are not told more?”and“Why doubt and ambiguities are not all cleared away?”—we cannot hope to giveanswers, but we may find ways of looking at them which shall help in some degree“To justify the ways of God to man.”It will be best to discuss this subject in a separate Chapter.

I have spoken in the foregoing chapter of certain characteristics of our Lord's ways of dealing with men. In considering these ways we find ourselves, at almost every turn, face to face with the great enigmas of life which underlie all Theology. Questions about Divine government and human freedom will, I see, force themselves upon us.

It would keep this book more close to its purpose, if I could proceed at once with the examination of what our Lord says and does, and leave all these difficulties on one side, taking it for granted that all my readers had arrived at their own views about them; or if I were to refer them to works in which they are formally discussed.

But I trust my readers will forgive me, if I suppose that it may be with them as with those I have been used to teach—that is to say, that they will be attracted by these perplexities, and that they will be impatient at being told that just what they want to ask lies outside my province. Many too, I know, would never turn to any of the[pg 029]learned works on these matters, of which I might give them the names.

I have resolved, therefore, to deal with these matters once for all, in as familiar a way as I can. I cannot, of course, give my readers solutions of these questions; I can only tell them how I manage to do without a solution myself, and put before them the view of these matters which I hold till I can get a better, so that they may more readily enter into my views of Christ's Laws of action, and understand what I write.

The characteristics of our Lord's ways which particularly bring us in contact with these mysteries, and which therefore concern us most now, are (1) His care to keep alive in His hearers their sense of being free and responsible agents; (2) His tolerance of the existence of evil in the world.

These questions of free will and the existence of evil have been for ages the battle-ground of divines, and they come before us every day.“Why did not God make every one good?”is a question which occurs to every intelligent child. He runs to his first teachers with it, and finding himself put off with an answer that is no answer—for a child is quick in detecting this—he gets his first notion that there are matters which even grown-up people know nothing about.

So, that I may not serve my readers in this way, I give them all I have myself. I can no more tell them“How”or“Why”God brought about the[pg 030]present state of things, than I can solve the great mystery which is at the bottom of all mysteries:“How, or Why, God and the world ever existed at all?”But I think I can shew that free agency in men, and the existence of evil, and also a reserve in the revelation of God's ways—a question I shall have to deal with next—are consistent with our situation in this world; supposing that the mental and spiritual development of God's creatures is the proximate end and aim of the Spiritual Order. Some hypothesis we must make as to a purpose in the world, if we regard it as the work of amind; and this is the purpose which most seems to fall in with what I observe.

Our Lord speaks of Divine action as“The mystery of the kingdom of God.”6He directs the thoughts of His disciples to these ways by telling them, not what they are, but to what they arelike. We shall never, while on earth, perfectly know these ways, but Christ thinks it well for His disciples to strive after this knowledge, and to look for lessons in all they see to help them towards it.

Not only does Christ give us what I have calledseed-thoughtson these matters, but He puts us in possession of a unique method for leading men towards the truth about them. He takes an incident of familiar life, and uses it to set forth spiritual verities. So when we must discourse of these hard matters our safest course is to follow[pg 031]our Lord's way. No doubt, He meant to shew ushowto teach, as well as to tell uswhatto teach; so if we begin with a sort of allegory or parable, we cannot be far wrong in point ofform, however feeble and faulty the execution may be. I believe that the relation of a parent to his household affords likeness enough to that of the Father to His world, to be used as the ground of a parable on God's Will and Human Freedom.

Let us suppose that the father of a family, a man of strong will, and steadfastly abhorring evil, should conceive the project of forcibly shutting it out from his home. We will suppose the household planted in a spot remote from human intercourse, in some self-supplying island or dale among the hills; and, as I do not mean to touch on physical evil, let us suppose that no external calamity comes nigh the dwelling. Here, let us suppose, the children grow up, uncontaminated by ill, knowing no temptation, reared in love and kindness, treated wisely and with such even justice that envy and jealousy find no room to enter.

The parent proposes to himself to do away with all temptation, all chance of individual aberration, and to cast his children's character in a perfect mould. He would have them merge themselves in him as much as possible, repeating his thoughts and accepting his views without questioning them, or supposing they could be questioned. All society, all books, but what he approves,[pg 032]are banished from that house, so that no whisper of evil, no pernicious notions can possibly intrude. Evil is by him regarded as a pestilent weed, which only exists, owing to some oversight in the making of the world, for which he is at a loss to account. It is at once to be eradicated whenever it is espied.

Let us suppose that all goes well in our imagined household—that the children love their father and believe implicitly in him; that they are so happy in their home and home pursuits that they do not look beyond; and that the healthy labour, which their common wants necessitate, gives room for all their energies. Hence, there is no repining at their narrow sphere, no longing for more strenuous activity or more varied life. Each does his daily work, and returns to pleasant rest and a happy home, and no more asks himself whether he is happy than he asks whether the valves of his heart are opening and closing as they should. The father, then, looks around him, and sees his ideal accomplished. He has a family of which no member does anything but what he approves, or has a thought but what he shares with him: not one of them sets up an opinion different from what he holds. It never occurs to them to doubt the wisdom of any injunction. Life presents to them no moral difficulties, because, as soon as any question occurs to them, they run with it to their father, and on receiving his reply put aside the[pg 033]matter, as being decided and disposed of for good and all.

We might suppose the parent would look around with unalloyed satisfaction. But a moment comes when he finds something wanting. He is not so thoroughly satisfied as he had expected to be with the ideal which he has worked out. Some misgiving obtrudes itself. He asks himself—Is this condition, this merging of my children's wills in mine, what is best for them or what is best for me? Is not this goodness of theirs too negative? Is it not rather the absence of evil than the presence of good?

Further he asks, am notIsubstantiallyalone? Is not mine the only independent mind in the place, of which all the rest are mere reflections? Am I not intensifying my loneliness and all the moral disadvantages that attach to it, by thus rendering all who surround me merely portions of myself? For my children are not separate persons, but bits ofme. Are not whole provinces of moral activity shut out from me, by the very fact of my having everything my own way? Are there not virtues which require opposition to call them out? Is it not good to have to ask ourselves whether we are dealing fairly with opponents? Is it not good to forgive wrongs? Is it not good to reach out a helping hand, and lift one who has stumbled, back into his self-respect? I engage in no struggles. In my world there are no misdoings[pg 034]to forgive and no misdoers to restore. Have I not closed against myself whole worlds of moral action and of moral life?

Then, as to my children,“Have I not been wrong in supposing that they mustbegood because they have neverdonewrong? They have been so kept from the suggestion of evil that they could hardly help going right. But could they resist temptation if it came? They have never been braced by a struggle with it, nor marked the ill fruits of evil. They take it on trust from me that evil brings sorrow; but it usually comes in disguise and declares itself harmless, and how should they recognise it if it came?”So, question after question suggests itself, all destructive of his satisfaction.“Can it be,”he says at last,“that I have brought up these children so as to be fit for no world but that which I have carefully constructed for them? I used to delight in their goodness; but since I have suspected it to be mainly instinctive—an innocence that is the outcome of ignorance—my satisfaction in it is half gone.”

At length, he is harassed with the idea that he may have given up his life to a mistake, that what he has done has cramped his own mental and moral expansion, and that the excellence of his blameless family is only fair-weather goodness after all. He casts about to think why it is that they have“neither savour nor salt,”and concludes“What they want ispersonality—and how should they have[pg 035]got it, living in a household where I have taken care to be all in all?”

Then his thoughts run uponevil, which he has been at such pains to shut out, closing against it every cranny and chink.“God,”he may say,“has let evil into His world—was I right in keeping it forcibly out of mine? May not the resisting and assuaging of evil give occasion for good to grow up, and feel its own strength? Are there not many kinds of goodness, brought out in this way, which we could no more have without evil than we could have light in a picture without shade? If there is no room for my children to go wrong, what moral significance,”he asks,“is there in saying that they go right?”

So he is disheartened with his project, and gives it up. He abandons his isolated way of life, and gives his children freedom. He encourages them to act and judge for themselves. Henceforth they can choose their own books, their own friends their own pursuits, and go forth into life, outside their charmed circle.

Of course this involves the giving up of his absolute power; this is inherent in the nature of things. A man cannot be an autocrat and have free people about him. If he would have intercourse with free intelligences, in order to get the advantages to his own cultivation and expansion of character which spring from such intercourse; this must be purchased by abdicating some of his[pg 036]powers, or putting them in abeyance. So the parent forbears using his power, in order that his children may learn to be free, and that he may hold communion with free, loving hearts, and engage in discussion with unfettered minds.

Soon, he finds that he has to encounter opposition. The children are free to go wrong, and wrong some of them will go: evil appears in that household where it was not known. The father sorrows over this, but when he reviews his condition he finds that he has a countervailing comfort; the good that is left about him is now real good. It is the good of persons who have known and resisted evil. Besides this, there is more life and greater vigour of character in his family, than there was before. They no longer sit with folded hands always waiting for direction; they have the air of persons who see a purpose before them; and they move along their way“with the certain step of man.”So he concludes that it is better that all should engage in the struggle with evil, even though some should fail, than that they should move along paths ready shaped out for them, shewing a merely mechanical goodness.

A great change has come over his life in another respect, he is now no longeralone. Other wills come into contact, sometimes into collision, with his will; a host of qualities, which had been folded up and laid by for years, come again into use. He is no longer among echoes of himself, but there[pg 037]are real voices in his new world. His views may still prevail, but it must be, not merely because they arehis, but because they stand on solid ground. He may still lead in action; but it must be because he has the leader's strength, because he will venture when others waver, and decide when others doubt.

Here we must leave him, and say a word or two before making the obvious application of the parable: We must not press the application too closely or draw conclusions from the mere machinery of the parable: it must not, of course, be supposed that I conceive God to have dealt with man as the father does with his children; that is to say, to have kept him at first in tutelage, and then found it desirable to enfranchise him. The sole object of the story is to familiarise the reader with the need of freedom in moral growth. It shews that for education to be carried out, thewillmust be free to act. When we have brought this home to his mind, we shall be the better able“to justify the ways of God to man”in some important particulars.

The parable is designed to apply to the condition of men on earth on the supposition, that their education—in the largest sense of the word—is the main work held in view: all depends on the hypothesis that man is placed on earth to develop his powers. The need of freedom for members of the imagined family depends on their being in a[pg 038]state of growth. The parable would not apply to spiritual beings, if we could conceive such, whose qualities and character were unalterable.Perfectedbeings have done with growth and struggle, and have attained to the highest condition, viz. existence in unison with God. But forimperfectbeings, struggling on to their goal, freedom is required and the opposition of evil is indispensable, in order that the moral thews and sinews may harden.

Whenever we come upon an objection to the ways of God's ordering of the world, which is put in the form of a question, such as“Why was not the world made in this way or that?”we shall find it a good plan, to follow out the line indicated in the complaint, and see what would have come about, supposing that Godhadmade the world in the way which is suggested.

From the imaginary case here put, we see to what the common child's question leads us—the question“Why did not God make all people good and keep them so?”—If people had been“made good and kept good,”that is to say if they had been constructed by God so as always to act as His will prompted, then they would not in the proper sense of the word have been people at all; they would have been mechanisms worked by God, and so they could not have been“good”in the sense in which we use the word of a man, but only in that in which we apply it to a watch. There[pg 039]could be no moral life without freedom; there could be no growth of character without temptations and difficulties to overcome; no heroism, no self-denial, no sympathising tenderness, no forgiving love, without suffering or wrongdoing to call them forth.

Moreover if not only people on earth, but all created intelligences had, in like manner, been constrained to respond to every motion of the Divine will, God would have been the one spiritual being in the world and would therefore have been absolutelyalone.

Let us now suppose, and the supposition falls in with what our conscience and the Bible tell us, that in God all goodness dwells. This goodness cannot lie stored away as in a treasure-house, so as to be merely an object of contemplation, it must be active and in operation. This is essential to our idea of goodness, and it agrees with the view of God which Christ presents to us, which is that of a being everoperating.“My Father worketh hitherto,”says our Lord,“and I work.”For good to unfold, and advance toward perfection in its manifold ways, an arena is wanted. The world we know of affords the arena required; in this, God has been working from the first One kind of His work we can conceive to be the suggesting thoughts to men; but if it be so, He leaves the will free either to entertain or to reject the suggestions, as we might those of a friend.

That we may not lose ourselves in the immensity of God and eternity, we will withdraw our gaze from the rest of the Universe, and fix it on this planet of ours, when organic life first began to appear upon it. The spiritual and material world might, before this, have been going on, each apart, through countless ages; but a moment came when the spiritual and the material were wondrously blended, and life began upon the earth. Different orders of being succeeded each other, and fresh forces came into play. We may suppose that God sympathised with all His creation, and that the qualities that appeared in it reflected something in Himself. God may have rejoiced in seeing the animal creation happy. The animals were in a degree free, but they were not self-conscious; they did not know that they were happy, or that they were loved, and God may have required for the full unfolding of His infinite capacity for sympathy and love, to be in relation with beings who could know Him and love Him, and know that they loved Him.

Mr Erskine of Linlathen, in his excellent book on the Spiritual Order, says“Is there not a comfort in the doctrine of the eternal Sonship, as a deliverance from the thought of a God, whose very nature is Love, dwelling in absolute solitude from all eternity without an object of love?”We may extend this observation to other qualities besides love, from the exercise of which, a being who is[pg 041]alone in the world is necessarily debarred. Is it not likely that a God of mercy, truth and justice would frame a world of beings, in His dealing with whom all these qualities should find scope and exercise? Without self-conscious beings having free wills, how could this be done?

Close by the side of this question of free will, lies that of the existence of moral evil, in a world made by a being who, by the hypothesis, is perfectly good. When we supposed the world to be formed for the evolution of moral goodness, we, perhaps without knowing it, introduced the idea of moral evil, implied in that of goodness; for actual good is evolved in resisting evil and repairing the mischief it has done; indeed many forms of it can no more exist without evil as an antagonist, than a wheel can turn without the friction of the road.

Now, as I have said, if men be left free, they must have liberty to go wrong. For if they had been originally made so perfect that theycouldnot go wrong, this would only mean that they were like watches very excellently fabricated; they could only move in one particular way, viz. the way in which they had been designed to move by God. Inasmuch as such beings would not be persons, we could not feel gratitude or anger towards them, nor influence them in any way. If men were like this, there could be little or no growth, little or no action of man on man. If, to take another supposition, man had been so made that it would be[pg 042]possible for him to go wrong, but that he had been sedulously kept out of temptation and placed in an abode where innocence reigned undisturbed; then we come to a case very like that sketched in the foregoing parable.

There is a third case possible. God might make men capable of going wrong, but might watch over them and protect them, whether they craved His help or not, whenever temptation approached. This constant supernatural interference would soon have destroyed all self-helpfulness; men would never have formed habits of avoiding or resisting temptation.“God,”the man would say,“will not let me sin—I may go as near to danger as I like, and need take no care of myself, because I am sure of God's protection.”We know that a child does not learn to take care of himself, so long as he feels that it is the nurse's business to see that no harm happens to him. We come then to this result. God requires free self-conscious beings, for the full exercise of the moral goodness in Himself and for its development and manifestation in the world.

But He cannot give others freedom, and at the same time provide that they should act only in the way that He approves: because this in itself would be a contradiction, and a contradiction not even Divine power can effect. Hence these free, intelligent beings must be at liberty to go wrong, and God must, in exchange for having free wills about him, forego part of His absolute prerogative:[pg 043]and so He must allow evil a place in the world because this is involved in the“liberty to go wrong”just spoken of.

This brings us to the mystery of the“origin of evil.”I shall not lay myself open to the charge made against divines,“That they no sooner declare a subject to be a mystery than they set to work to explain it.”I can see that if man is to be left free, evil must needs come, and that without evil in the world none of the more masculine virtues can be brought to the birth—that is to say, I see that evil, being in the world, serves to discharge a function—but I do not pretend to say how it came. I do not maintain that it came, solely, from man's misuse of his freedom.

From what we see in the world arises a fancy that every thing must have its opposite, that light presupposes darkness, and pleasure pain, and so good may presuppose evil; but this fancy is not substantial enough to build upon. Our Lord's words on the occasions when He deals with evil, are, to my judgment, most easily reconciled with one another, and with the circumstances which call them forth, by supposing Him to recognise a personal spiritual influence, presenting evil thoughts to the minds of men; the man remaining free to choose whether he will entertain these suggestions or not.

I return to my immediate subject—the function that evil performs in the existing moral world. We[pg 044]read in the Book of Genesis that the earth was to bring forth“thorns and thistles,”and that man was“to eat bread in the sweat of his brow.”7This is the result of a change worked, we are told,“for man's sake.”It was indeed for man'ssake—though in a different sense—that this was so. He would have remained a very poor creature if the earth had produced just what he wanted, without any labour of his. This illustrates the function of evil in the ordering of the world. Man's qualities, moral and physical, are developed by it. It subserves the progress of the human race.

We should have less heroism, without cruelty and oppression from without; and could have no self-restraint, without temptation from within. Piety and love indeed, when they had once come into being, might exist without evil; we may believe that they satisfy the souls of the saints in heaven; but among men they commonly owe their birth to a feeling of shelter against evil, and to a sense of pardoned wrong.

Another office which evil performs is this. The contention with it helps to bring out the difference between man and man. If any members of the family of my parable had possessed the germs of a strong character, they could hardly have brought fruit to perfection: the conditions of their innocent life tended to uniformity. But as soon as temptations came, latent differences would forthwith[pg 045]appear; the strong would grow stronger and the bad worse. Now there is need of strong men for human progress. They form the steps in the stairway by which the race mounts. If life were smooth and easy, men would, as it were, advance in line, and the stronger men would not so surely come in front of the rest. It is in times of trouble that men are most apt to recognise worth and capacity, and make much of them. So that the trials and difficulties of human life which come of evil, have this good effect among others, they help to pick out the men who are fitted to be the leaders of human movements and of human thought.

It may have struck us as strange that Christ does not deal directly with these perplexing questions which trouble so many minds. We shall see, later on, that His not doing so is quite consistent with the uniform“tenour of His way.”But though our Lord does not lay down dogmas on these points, yet His own actions and expressions would, of course, accord with what He knew: if, then, when we hit upon some view of this“riddle of the painful earth,”which commends itself to our minds, we find that it clashes with what our Lord does or says, then we may throw it aside at once: and, on the other hand, if we arrive at a way of looking at the matter which seems to harmonise with what falls from Him; then, we may hope, not indeed that we have found a solution of the riddle, but that our hypothesis will not mislead us, so[pg 046]long as we own it to be an hypothesis, and nothing more.

We may be supposed then to have arrived at this position. We assume the existence of a mighty Divine being, in whom all goodness dwells. We suppose that this world is an arena in which a struggle is to be carried on between good and evil by the agency of free intelligent beings; that by means of this struggle the better natures will be strengthened and developed, and come more and more into action; we suppose also that God whispers counsel and comfort on the side of good. Further than this we need not now go.

As regards the presence of evil in the world, there are several sayings of our Lord which might be noted. I must confine myself to one or two of the most important.

First let us consider the following passage from St John's Gospel:8

“And as he passed by, he saw a man blind from his birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Rabbi, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he should be born blind? Jesus answered, Neither did this man sin, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.”

Here the disciples take it for granted, that the blindness was a punishment for sin, either on the part of the man or his parents. It is our Lord's practice—and[pg 047]a practice so uniform that we may call it a Law of proceeding—not to enter into controversy about wide-spread mistaken views on merelyspeculativesubjects: He usually gives a hint, and leaves it to work in the hearer's mind.

Our Lord's answer in this case means,not, of course, that the man and his parents had never committed sin, but that the blindness was not the result of that sin; and He passes rapidly on to state His view of one purpose answered by this infliction.

In His few words of answer our Lord lets fall one of those hints,seed thoughts, as I have called them, which lie so thickly in the Gospels.

Our Lord tells us, that the works of God were to be made manifest by this man's infirmity. A light is thrown by these words on one of the“uses of adversity.”Suffering gives room for moral goodness to come into play. The world is full of instances easy enough to note. Does not a sick child in a family educate all around it to tenderness and self-denial? What more touching lesson in patience can be given than the sight of the little sufferer, grieved at nothing so much as the trouble it causes, making the most of every alleviation, grateful beyond measure for every look or word of love. Rough brothers learn forbearance and gentleness; and to all the household it becomes natural to think of something else before, or at least beside, themselves. Wordsworth tells us of[pg 048]a half-witted boy whose helplessness and simplicity fostered a spirit of kindliness in all the poor of the village, and taught them to respect affliction.

Again in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we are taught how there is“a soul of goodness in things evil.”The wickedness of the prodigal is made a means of revealing to him and to all the bystanders the Divine beauty and efficacy of forgiving love.

We will now9turn to the history of the cure of the Dæmoniac in the country of the Gadarenes. I take the history in what seems to me the plain literal sense, and I must suppose that our Lord recognised some real evil existence, which had possessed itself of the man, and which, by its presence in him, had unhinged his whole mental or nervous organisation. This existence is separable from him, but it requires, it would seem, some body to inhabit and to work upon. The dæmon begs not to be suppressed or annihilated, and our Lord grants his petition and lets him go among the swine. He saves theman—what other evils this dæmon may work in the world, so that he lets men go, is no concern of His. The Son of Man is concerned only with lives and souls—not with property in any way.

The point for us to note is this: Our Lord does notannihilateevil. He does not regard it as an outlawed intruder who had eluded God's notice,[pg 049]and who, as soon as he is discovered, is to be expelled from the universe at once. His Father has suffered evil to be, and He, Christ, follows in His Father's ways: evil may still do its work, only not on men. This evil influence, we must observe, is something external to the man; it would seem to belong to an order of existences, engaged in working ill as their congenial business; whispering bad counsel, something in the way that God's Spirit whispers good, only, of course, not in such deep authoritative tones; and, in these cases of possession, it masters the whole being of the sufferer.Whythis was allowed to be, is of course a mystery, but yet it is hardly a greater mystery than why evil in its other forms should be allowed to exist, and without evil in some shape, as we have seen, this earth would be a very imperfect exercise-ground for mankind.

To represent this case to our minds, let us imagine some malignant“germ”that has caused a plague amongst men, and which in time takes a slightly different form, so that it is no longer adapted to human beings, but finds its prey in cattle instead. Then the plague among men is exchanged for a murrain among cattle, which, as a matter of fact, has been known to happen: this answers to the allowing the dæmon to go to the swine. Evil is not forcibly exterminated, but it is transferred from man to the lower animals.

So our Lord is gentle even with the powers of[pg 050]evil. They had their function, or they would not have been there, and they were not to be crushed out of existence before the time.

If it be, as I have argued, that evil had a function in the world, then we can see why it could not be removed by auniversaldecree. But asingleact of relief might be admissible in order to testify to the presence of an exceptional power; this would not engender in people the habit of helplessly throwing themselves upon God. For instance, Christ cures the son of the centurion merely by speaking the word, but if He had abolished all fevers by one decree, this would have been to disorganise the existing order in the universe. A King going on a royal progress relieves the misery that comes in his way; his own kindliness, his royal dignity, and the need of impressing on the people that their King delights in doing good, and can do it, require him so to do. But a regal donation for the relief of all distress in the kingdom would turn it into a nation of paupers. So our Lord bestows His bounty on those who fall in His way.

He who asks, Why did not Christ suppress evil? may naturally ask also, Why did not Christ sweep away all human error as to the relations of God with man? And why did He not so vouch for the authenticity of His communication that any doubt about it should be impossible? Now we believe, that God has revealed Himself to man,[pg 051]and yet has left men in some degree free as to what they will think about Him, and as fully at liberty to examine the credentials of those who have claimed to be His messengers, and to judge of their authenticity, as they would be in a purely human matter.

We find, as a matter of fact, that men who have accepted Christ's revelation are not fettered in mind by it; but are most often enterprising, energetic and bold searchers after truth. I believe that it would have been unfavourable to the preservation of this vigour of mind and to the temper which should“try all things and hold fast those which are good,”if the full and absolute revelation which some demand had been delivered to mankind, and all the problems which beset human life had thereby been settled once for all. To the questions“Why we are told what we are told?”“Why we are not told more?”and“Why doubt and ambiguities are not all cleared away?”—we cannot hope to giveanswers, but we may find ways of looking at them which shall help in some degree

“To justify the ways of God to man.”

It will be best to discuss this subject in a separate Chapter.

Chapter III. Of Revelation.If I took the word Revelation in its widest sense I should not attempt to treat of it here, for it would comprise nothing less than God's education of the human race. We talk of Natural Religion and Revealed Religion, but all Religion has in it an element of revelation from God. If God had not provided man with a mind's eye suited to see Him by, and also something that shadowed Him forth which that eye could behold, we could have no religion at all. Of the processes by which belief has come about in men not the least notable is this. Men have recognised in some new tidings what they seemed to have been looking for, without being aware of it. Some new teacher has become the spokesman of thoughts which were lying in them in a state too vague for utterance. Thus“thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”10Now it is God who has planted these thoughts in men, and He brings about the occasions which reveal them.[pg 053]There are for man two worlds, that which is without him and that which is within. Some races from temperament or circumstances have been most taken up with the former, with the workings of nature and with active social life; while others have looked within rather than without;—their minds have found most congenial play in the contemplation of their own natures, and in brooding over the mystery of how they came to be what they were. Corresponding to these two leading diversities of the human mind, there are two modes by which men are brought to recognise a great spiritual agency in the world.The man of Aryan race, the type of the first variety, caught sight of an infinite force underlying all the workings of nature, and so conceived Deities, with a personal will like his own, animating the physical world. For the people of the Semitic race on the other hand, the surpassing wonder was their own selves—their minds turned to contemplating their own nature. In so doing they noted this; they found something within them which caused them to be happy when they acted in one way—when they had done a kindness for example—and made them unhappy when they had behaved differently. This was so, even when no one knew of the act, and when they looked to no consequences from it. They called such actions right and wrong; but they asked, Where can this notion of right and wrong come from? This conscience[pg 054]too which witnessed of it—which strove with them just as a friend might, and seemed to be something outside them—Where did that come from? They were led by this to conceive a spiritual personal Being in the world who had left some trace of himself in men's hearts, and kept up some communion with them through this voice of conscience. Thus men of different stamps of mind were led along different roads, to the notion of something Divine in the world; and we may say that God revealed himself to man in these two ways. Now for knowledge to be sure and solid two elements must go to the making of it. One from outside the learner, and the other supplied by him. This outside element is in physical science provided by observed fact, and what answers to it in theology is authoritative revelation. Men can never feel fully assured about what is wholly spun out of their own brains, and has no external sign or testimony to lend it support.Revelation, in the sense in which I have to do with it just now, means an authoritative communication from the Almighty, vouched by some outward sign, or manifestation. It is with this outward sign, and with the difficulties attending the ways of bringing it about, that I am now chiefly concerned.For the present we will suppose that among the elements of human knowledge aretruths revealed by God. How is this element of absolutely certain knowledge to be made to fit in with that which is[pg 055]only matter of opinion or provisionally true? Here we come on the great problem of Revelation. How can the infinite be brought into the same account with the finite? We know that if we give one term in an algebraical expression an infinite value, all the rest go for nothing; so likewise do probable judgments vanish in the face of absolute authority. But if Revelation is deliveredin such a modethat its declarations admit of no question whatever, then its statements possessabsolute certainty. Compared with such certainty all our judgments would be doubtful and dim, like candles in the presence of electric light. Would not this sharp contrast discourage man from using his own powers? But is it not by regarding this world as an exercise ground for these same powers that we come most near to understanding it? Is it consistent with God's ways, such as we make them out to be, that after giving us faculties which would find their amplest field in the consideration of spiritual problems he should preclude the investigation of them by solving them all Himself.Again the truth delivered in any Divine Revelation of the problems of the Universe would come into contact with views based on supposed facts drawn from History or Geology, or with truths discovered by the human mind, and difficulties would occur all along the line of demarcation between what was infallible and what was not. For instance, if the history of one nation were[pg 056]absolutely revealed, much of that of the nations contiguous would be revealed too; more particularly the results of the wars between them: and if isolated facts belonging to science, such as those relating to the formation of our globe, were communicated on Divine Authority, then systems of Natural Philosophy, starting from these facts as axioms, might claim, upon religious grounds, acceptance for every one of their conclusions. If an independent system essayed to rear its head, it would be crushed by coming into collision with some statement that brooked no question. Such scientific investigation as would be possible could only proceed by deduction from truths authoritatively delivered. Observation and induction, which have led up to the knowledge of nature we now possess, would find no place. Man would be discouraged from using his own endeavours to understand the problems of the universe, and instead of so doing, he would only pray the Almighty to tell him all he wanted to know.These ill effects do not follow in the case of Christ's religion for two reasons. First, because Christ does not reveal what man could find out for himself; and therefore this revelation does not come, so to say, into competition with human investigations. Secondly, because the genuineness of the revelation is not vouched for by evidence which isoverwhelmingand which finally settles the question; but is only supported by just enough[pg 057]external testimony to command attentive consideration and respect. The evidence that the Sign is of God is not so cogent that there is no escape from it. If it were so, it would silence all discussion about the fact of Revelation having been given, in the way in question, and would narrow the area for the exercise of religious thought.Reason may agree to bow to Revelation as being God's declaration; but she has a right to satisfy herself that itisGod's declaration, and she will call in learning and rules of criticism to help her in determining the question. Even when Reason has satisfied herself as to the credentials of this Revelation, there comes another question which gives play for human intelligence. It is asked“What does this Revelation mean?”Language is the outcome of the human mind, and all statements made in language, this Revelation among the rest, must be subject to the laws of the human understanding.We see then, that both as to its credentials and its meaning Revelation must always be open to question; and that a man is as much bound to exercise his judgment upon these points as upon the other problems of life. This would seem a very natural state of things, yet it causes dismay to some persons when they first begin to look into these matters for themselves. They had expected, moreover, to find such a balance of evidence on their own side, that no one except from wilfulness and perversity could decide the other way. Examination[pg 058]shews that, regarding the question as one of historical evidence, and putting all prepossessions apart, the two sides are more nearly in a state of equipoise than they had been supposed to be; and it is remarkable that this kind of equipoise has been maintained, as far as we can make out by history, from the time of the Apostles till now. Arguments and testimony have, from time to time, appeared on one side, and have been answered from the other; and now and then some discovery has been made turning the balance on this side or that; but soon some new idea has been started which has put another complexion on the matter. So that positive evidence has never been so complete and decisive on either side as to prevent a man's habits or the bent of his mind from swaying his verdict.When young men first look into these matters for themselves, having heretofore taken certain notions on trust, they are apt to be aghast at the unsettlement, and at the call on them to use their own judgments and make up their minds. Unhappily they have often been led to suppose that to hold a particular set of opinions,merely as opinions, without any effect being produced in their character thereby, gives them a claim to some degree of favour in the eyes of the Almighty: while to question these opinions, or to enquire too closely into the grounds on which they rest, is dangerous, and calculated to bring them into disfavour with Him. I cannot stop to combat this notion now.[pg 059]But whatever the reason may be, the fact is certain, that when persons begin to investigate for themselves the bases of their belief, they find that many statements which they had regarded as true beyond all question are found to stand on less sure ground than they had thought; and since they fancy that if the authority of any word of the Bible is shaken they will soon have no standing ground left, they become much disturbed.Then it is that we hear the outcry:“Why cannot all be made clear? Or, if we cannot be told every thing, why, at any rate, is not that which wearetold put so plainly, that there can only be one way of looking at it? Why were not things so written that one who runs may read? Why are we not given quite positive assurance of the truth of what is revealed? Why have we not a Sign in Heaven as the Jews demanded, or, what would suit our times better, an incontestable demonstration of the truth of Christianity?”“Why, in short,”to use the words of the objectors of the last century,“If God desired to make a Revelation to man, did He not write it in the skies?”To none of these“Whys”can we supply its proper“Because.”We cannot give the reasons of a man's conduct unless we can enter into his mind; and as we cannot enter into God's mind, we cannot give His reasons for having made the ways of the universe such as we find them. But though we cannot give the enquirer what he[pg 060]asks, we can do something to help him all the same.We may be able to shew him that it is better for him only“to know in part;”and we may also be able to explain to him that a certain fringe of shadow must needs encompass those portions of truth which are revealed; for if they had clear-cut edges and hard outlines, when we had to fit them together, like pieces in a dissected map of knowledge, we should meet with all those difficulties about a line of demarcation between truth absolute and beliefs of opinion of which I spoke just now. The service of all Revelation is to supply our craving after infinity; and if our demand to have this infinity presented to us in a finite form—for that is really what we are clamouring for—could be approximately gratified, then we should find that, though a certain portion of the infinite field lying outside human knowledge had been enclosed and added on to our intellectual possessions, still we were as far as ever from having what we wanted: this new possession would have becomefinite, and what we wanted was theinfinite. We should have got a new science in exchange for our old religion, but the craving after infinitude would still remain. The very definiteness introduced into these matters we should find destructive of their fascination for us.To take one point at a time, I will begin with a side of the question which fits on to the subject of the last chapter. These cries after certitude[pg 061]are, in fact, petitions to be relieved of free will and responsibility in deciding religious matters for ourselves. What the complaints come to is this: Why am not I and every one else compelled to believe certain truths about God's dealings with manwhether we like to do so or not?The point of the matter lies in these last words. If we had no part of our own to perform in accepting this belief, if it were no more a matter of our own choice and feeling whether or not we admitted the revealed truths, than whether we admitted some indisputable fact in history or some proposition in science; then this belief would not be religion for us at all, it would be a branch of science and nothing more. It would have no more moral significance than a proposition in Euclid. To admit that a certain system may be built up from premises that are undoubted, is merely a matter of intellect. One man may have a head to follow the steps and another not, but conscience has no part in the matter.It was distinctive of the Son of Man that His Gospel was to be preached to the poor; and a system which addressed only minds capable of clear reasoning, could not be suited to all mankind; in fact, it would necessarily set up a Hierarchy of intellectual culture. So our Lord did not speak to the understandings but to the hearts of His hearers. He dealt with His disciples on the supposition, that there was in them a germ[pg 062]which would respond to the quickening influences of His teaching, and grow into a capacity for eternal life. Just as the dormant seed germinates when warmth and moisture reach it, so would what was dormant in their hearts burst into life and growth, when the required vivifying influence was brought to bear. Our spiritual life is made to depend not only on what is delivered to us, but on our recognising the truth we want, and seizing on it as what we are craving after: so that we say,“I have always felt that there was something I was in want of; now I know what it is, and I have it here.”The Jews, who would not believe, wanted to be shewn a Sign from Heaven. They said,“Give us a proof which is beyond contradiction, and we will believe,”which comes to saying: If we cannot help believing, believe we will. But they did not mean the same thing by the word“believe”as our Lord did. Our Lord did not call on His disciples to accept notionsaboutHim, but to believeinHim, to trust Him as a child does his parent, or a soldier his commander. What the Jews meant was, that they would give credence to a particular kind of evidence, as to the fact of His being their Messiah.The demand for additional proof is dealt with by our Lord in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. The drift of a parable is usually pointed out in the concluding words; and the verse“If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe[pg 063]though one rose from the dead,”11spoken of the rich man's brethren, is, I believe, the key to one intent of this parable.12The state of mind here pointed at is a common one enough. It is that of the man who is rather uneasy at his own want of belief; but thinks the blame should be laid, not on any defect in himself, but on the want of proper proofs and external light. He thinks that his difficulty comes from the scanty evidence offered him; he has no idea that what he really wants is a better moral eyesight to see it by. So he begs for a little bit more of proof. If he could only be satisfied, he says, on this point and that, he would believe. But what would his belief be worth? Our Lord's answer goes to this:—No amount of external testimony can supply what you want, because the defect is within you. If a mandidcome to you from the dead, you might be terrified into acquiescence in everything he told you—you would probably be stupefied into the most abject submission—but instead of being elevated into trust in God, you would, very likely, be so cowed and paralysed, as to be incapable of any feeling of a noble or spiritual kind.In the present day people do not ask for Signs from Heaven, or that men should rise from the dead—but the same spirit shews itself in the same[pg 064]way. The corresponding demand is,“Give us an undeniable philosophical proof of the truth of Christianity.”“Shew us this,”say men,“and we will believe.”Accept the demonstration of course they must, if it be irrefragable; just as they must accept the truth that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; but such acceptance is a mental act of a wholly different order from adopting a religious belief—from feeling for instance that“Christ is with us to the end of the world.”Much confusion has arisen from this difference not being properly marked.From what I said at first, as to the nature of a revelation it appears that there are two elements in it, one within us and one without us. We must have“ears to hear”when God speaks—a faculty that discerns His voice—and also we must have some outward sign cognisable by human senses, or by such judgments based on experience as we form about historical evidence. I have just shewn that the first requisite is essential for any religious belief, and that it is a quality different from the logical understanding. But when we come to the attestation of the Sign which vouches the revelation, then the understanding assumes its ordinary jurisdiction. We are to judge by the common rules of evidence as to the authenticity of this Sign and the genuineness of our information. Reason and instructed judgment are to be used in these matters as in all others, and external evidence is allowed[pg 065]its weight by our Lord. When the Baptist sends his disciples to enquire, our Lord works cures before them, and bids them report what theysaw.A man wants some testimony to which he may turn, which is independent of himself. There are times when the surest believers mistrust themselves and their intuitions and ask,“How am I to know that this persuasion of mine is not a creature of my own brain, due to my temperament and mental conformation.”“How can I call on other men to accept it?”Men are not left, unaided, to the distress of this kind of doubt. The Apostles were allowed to witness the Transfiguration and the presence of Jesus risen from the dead that doubt might not overcome them in moments of physical weakness or distress of mind. They could always turn to these recollections and say“We know the glory of God; for we have seen it.”We are not to expect that the Sign which attests a Revelation shall be guaranteed by a standing miracle; because such a standing miracle would be out of harmony with all God's ways as revealed in the Universe. For a standing miracle means that God is always, in one particular direction, visibly displaying the power elsewhere concealed. If such a miracle existed there would be one set of facts in the world not of a piece with the rest. If instead of working the world as He does by self-acting machinery, God were to reserve one department for His personal management, He might as[pg 066]well interpose in all, and direct all the movements in the world; in which case, as I said in the last chapter, the world would cease to have any independent existence, and would become merely a portion of the Divine existence.So when it is demanded“That a revelation should be written in the skies”we may ask, How would you have God's autograph attested? The Jews, it will be said, had the visible Shechinah, the light between the Cherubim; but if this light existed now, there would be no proof of its being Divine: it would only be another phenomenon, and science would take cognisance of it. If we had an oracle declaring future events, all human enterprise would perish—for enterprise rests on hope and fear. The Delphic oracles would have paralysed action, if they had been unerring, unambiguous, and easy of access. A series of prophecies, it may be thought, fulfilled from time to time, would serve to authenticate revelation: and this aid is, indeed, admissible in attestation of the Sign we speak of; but it must be subject to the same condition which must attach to all external testimony: it must not be too clear or too strong. Men must always be able to reject it, if they like: either by ascribing the coincidences to chance, by declaring that the prophecy brought about its own fulfilment, or by some similar argument. If we had a series of prophecies all of which, up to the present time, had been fulfilled with due regularity, so that no one[pg 067]could doubt but that the rest would punctually come to pass, human action would be very much paralysed.The miracles of our Lord's life serve us for our“Signs;”and our assurance that they occurred is to be based both on the external evidence, which in this case is the testimony to the authenticity of the record, and on the internal probability, which comes out of the conformity of the miracles with the Laws of Christ's action and the declared purpose of His coming. The miracles could always be referred to Beelzebub in old days, and they can always be disbelieved or explained away now.Since the external evidence is not conclusive on this side or on that, the judgment formed must depend partly on the degree in which the Scriptures establish their own authority; and this degree depends on the mind and heart which the investigator brings to his work. One critic will see nothing but difficulties. Another will say, Our histories are photographs, imperfect no doubt, but what they show must have been there when they were taken: we see the main figures under different aspects, but we know them for the same. Some will feel as much convinced, from the character of thought and expression, that certain sayings came from our Lord, as a connoisseur in art might be that a certain picture came from the easel of a great master whose works had been the study of his life: he knows the touch.[pg 068]Christ's great Revelation was not given in a book, not in a history or a treatise, but in a Life and Death. He shewed the world a Man who knew not Self, and He also shewed it the Force that came from God. Men will realize this Revelation in different ways in different ages; part may come to light at one time, part at another. Sayings which have long lain hardly noticed are one day found to be keys to unlock a treasure, and give insight beyond what we dreamt of. But besides this Revelation, personal to individuals, broad Truths are conveyed which we should not otherwise possess.Some of the leading Truths are these. That Jesus came from the Father. That the Father loved men who believed in Him, and owned them as sons, and sent into their hearts13a filial spirit which should enable them to lay hold more firmly of this Revelation. Christ tells them that He came to manifest God to the world,14and that, whether they chose to believe it or not, the kingdom of God was drawn nigh to them.15He tells them that to know God is eternal life,16and that they who are counted worthy will attain a resurrection to such a life.17Above all he tells them—and this is the very charter of the Christian Church, without which her Doctrines would be only a set of notions, destitute[pg 069]of real vital power—“Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”18There is no clashing with human knowledge here, nothing that can tie the hands of the enquirer. The advance in spiritual knowledge is not brought about, simply by the communication of a new truth from without, which had never been dreamt of before: men feel rather as if they were reminded of something they must once have known. There appears, if I may so say, a tenderness of God in dealing with man, a carefulness so to reveal himself as not to obliterate a man's own personality, but to leave him to feel that any resolution he has reached is his own, arrived at, no doubt, by listening to God's prompting; without such prompting superseding the action of his proper self. No two men represent God to themselves quite in the same way: He was not the same for Peter that He was for John.I believe that a revelation of God is needed for the education of what is highest in man, and for bringing him to the highest point he can reach; and that God has been always revealing Himself in one way or another. But the revelation of every age must be suited to the character of that age. Man must be educated up to it, or he cannot receive it. Our Lord tells his disciples“I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now.”19Later generations are taught in this same way. The events related in the Acts, and the labours[pg 070]which came upon the Apostles fitted them by degrees for fresh revelations. If our Lord had declared to St Peter when he first joined him in Galilee that the Gentiles should have as full a share in Him and in the Kingdom as he would have; might not he too have turned away? Or if, as is likely, he had been personally drawn to Christ too powerfully to quit Him, yet such a sudden shock to all his notions might have closed his mind spasmodically against new ideas? For when a man recoils from a view which unsettles him and turns him giddy, he clutches at his supports with iron grip. Many have been made bigots in this way. Our Lord is careful to avoid for the disciples all turmoil of mind; the new seed must be left undisturbed that it may take firm root; so that for our Lord to have disordered all St Peter's convictions by a premature disclosure, would have been contrary to His ways of acting.An age must be ripe for the truth, and the truth must be ripe for the age for the last to profit by the first. If the theory of gravitation had appeared ten centuries ago, it would have passed unregarded away, for then, nobody thought the outer world worth scrutiny. On the other hand the neo-Platonic philosophy which once moved masses of men has now become so many words. How then is Christ's revelation to last for all time? It is enabled to do so, because there islifein it andgrowthalong with life; because Christ does[pg 071]not deliver propositions about God which men are passively to receive once for all, but his sayings fall upon the human heart, and are quickened there, some in one generation and some in another: each generation seizes on its proper nutriment, and brings out of His sayings the special lesson it requires.St Paul, to recur to the quotation which is, in fact, the burden of this chapter, speaking of the effect produced by the preaching of the word on the hearers says—“The secrets of his heart are made manifest.”20Christ's words reveal for a man the secrets of his own heart to himself. They interpret to him his own confused and dreamy thoughts. This was what drew men so mightily to Him. It was not so much the novelty of what He told them that attracted them, as that they recognised in His teaching old familiar puzzles, which had come and gone through their minds, times without number, only in such shadowy guise that they could not fix and scrutinize them. Christ spake and then men said“This is what has been always troubling us.”Here is what we have always been wanting to say, and could not put into plain words—and now these floating impressions of ours are found not to have come by chance but to belong to truths set in our[pg 072]being. God has“sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying Abba, Father.”21But He would not have done so if we had not had the capacity for being sons, to begin with.We shall see too, when we think of it, that a revelation to men can only come by man, or in a voice or words like those of a man. Man's understanding is fashioned in a certain way; his language is the creature of his understanding; ideas could not be conveyed to him unless they were clothed in language which he could understand; Revelation therefore must express itself in terms of human notions because they alone can be made intelligible in human speech. If God speaks, He must speak after the fashion of men, or His words will be an unknown tongue.To take an illustration: If a man, owing to something abnormal in his vision, became aware of a new colour, something which had nothing to do with red or yellow or blue; he could not communicate his new sensation because he could find no pigment which would in any degree represent it, and he could not describe it in words, by likeness to anything in the world. So God can only reveal to man about spiritual existence what man can conceive, that is to say only that to which he finds something analogous in his own being; for all must be put into that form with which man's understanding can deal; and the[pg 073]only spiritual creature he can conceive isman; the only ideas he can conceive are human ideas; his mind must work on the lines along which men's minds move; the only creature with whom he can sympathise, and whom he can believe to sympathise with him isman, and so—since there can be no real teaching without mutual understanding—bymanhe must be taught. Christ's revelation meets this need. It was as the Son of Man that Christ declared Himself, and in this character He conveyed to men the germs of all the spiritual enlightenment they can receive. Does not this throw light on the words,“No one knoweth who the Father is save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him,”22and again,“No man cometh to the Father but by me?”23

If I took the word Revelation in its widest sense I should not attempt to treat of it here, for it would comprise nothing less than God's education of the human race. We talk of Natural Religion and Revealed Religion, but all Religion has in it an element of revelation from God. If God had not provided man with a mind's eye suited to see Him by, and also something that shadowed Him forth which that eye could behold, we could have no religion at all. Of the processes by which belief has come about in men not the least notable is this. Men have recognised in some new tidings what they seemed to have been looking for, without being aware of it. Some new teacher has become the spokesman of thoughts which were lying in them in a state too vague for utterance. Thus“thoughts out of many hearts may be revealed.”10Now it is God who has planted these thoughts in men, and He brings about the occasions which reveal them.

There are for man two worlds, that which is without him and that which is within. Some races from temperament or circumstances have been most taken up with the former, with the workings of nature and with active social life; while others have looked within rather than without;—their minds have found most congenial play in the contemplation of their own natures, and in brooding over the mystery of how they came to be what they were. Corresponding to these two leading diversities of the human mind, there are two modes by which men are brought to recognise a great spiritual agency in the world.

The man of Aryan race, the type of the first variety, caught sight of an infinite force underlying all the workings of nature, and so conceived Deities, with a personal will like his own, animating the physical world. For the people of the Semitic race on the other hand, the surpassing wonder was their own selves—their minds turned to contemplating their own nature. In so doing they noted this; they found something within them which caused them to be happy when they acted in one way—when they had done a kindness for example—and made them unhappy when they had behaved differently. This was so, even when no one knew of the act, and when they looked to no consequences from it. They called such actions right and wrong; but they asked, Where can this notion of right and wrong come from? This conscience[pg 054]too which witnessed of it—which strove with them just as a friend might, and seemed to be something outside them—Where did that come from? They were led by this to conceive a spiritual personal Being in the world who had left some trace of himself in men's hearts, and kept up some communion with them through this voice of conscience. Thus men of different stamps of mind were led along different roads, to the notion of something Divine in the world; and we may say that God revealed himself to man in these two ways. Now for knowledge to be sure and solid two elements must go to the making of it. One from outside the learner, and the other supplied by him. This outside element is in physical science provided by observed fact, and what answers to it in theology is authoritative revelation. Men can never feel fully assured about what is wholly spun out of their own brains, and has no external sign or testimony to lend it support.

Revelation, in the sense in which I have to do with it just now, means an authoritative communication from the Almighty, vouched by some outward sign, or manifestation. It is with this outward sign, and with the difficulties attending the ways of bringing it about, that I am now chiefly concerned.

For the present we will suppose that among the elements of human knowledge aretruths revealed by God. How is this element of absolutely certain knowledge to be made to fit in with that which is[pg 055]only matter of opinion or provisionally true? Here we come on the great problem of Revelation. How can the infinite be brought into the same account with the finite? We know that if we give one term in an algebraical expression an infinite value, all the rest go for nothing; so likewise do probable judgments vanish in the face of absolute authority. But if Revelation is deliveredin such a modethat its declarations admit of no question whatever, then its statements possessabsolute certainty. Compared with such certainty all our judgments would be doubtful and dim, like candles in the presence of electric light. Would not this sharp contrast discourage man from using his own powers? But is it not by regarding this world as an exercise ground for these same powers that we come most near to understanding it? Is it consistent with God's ways, such as we make them out to be, that after giving us faculties which would find their amplest field in the consideration of spiritual problems he should preclude the investigation of them by solving them all Himself.

Again the truth delivered in any Divine Revelation of the problems of the Universe would come into contact with views based on supposed facts drawn from History or Geology, or with truths discovered by the human mind, and difficulties would occur all along the line of demarcation between what was infallible and what was not. For instance, if the history of one nation were[pg 056]absolutely revealed, much of that of the nations contiguous would be revealed too; more particularly the results of the wars between them: and if isolated facts belonging to science, such as those relating to the formation of our globe, were communicated on Divine Authority, then systems of Natural Philosophy, starting from these facts as axioms, might claim, upon religious grounds, acceptance for every one of their conclusions. If an independent system essayed to rear its head, it would be crushed by coming into collision with some statement that brooked no question. Such scientific investigation as would be possible could only proceed by deduction from truths authoritatively delivered. Observation and induction, which have led up to the knowledge of nature we now possess, would find no place. Man would be discouraged from using his own endeavours to understand the problems of the universe, and instead of so doing, he would only pray the Almighty to tell him all he wanted to know.

These ill effects do not follow in the case of Christ's religion for two reasons. First, because Christ does not reveal what man could find out for himself; and therefore this revelation does not come, so to say, into competition with human investigations. Secondly, because the genuineness of the revelation is not vouched for by evidence which isoverwhelmingand which finally settles the question; but is only supported by just enough[pg 057]external testimony to command attentive consideration and respect. The evidence that the Sign is of God is not so cogent that there is no escape from it. If it were so, it would silence all discussion about the fact of Revelation having been given, in the way in question, and would narrow the area for the exercise of religious thought.

Reason may agree to bow to Revelation as being God's declaration; but she has a right to satisfy herself that itisGod's declaration, and she will call in learning and rules of criticism to help her in determining the question. Even when Reason has satisfied herself as to the credentials of this Revelation, there comes another question which gives play for human intelligence. It is asked“What does this Revelation mean?”Language is the outcome of the human mind, and all statements made in language, this Revelation among the rest, must be subject to the laws of the human understanding.

We see then, that both as to its credentials and its meaning Revelation must always be open to question; and that a man is as much bound to exercise his judgment upon these points as upon the other problems of life. This would seem a very natural state of things, yet it causes dismay to some persons when they first begin to look into these matters for themselves. They had expected, moreover, to find such a balance of evidence on their own side, that no one except from wilfulness and perversity could decide the other way. Examination[pg 058]shews that, regarding the question as one of historical evidence, and putting all prepossessions apart, the two sides are more nearly in a state of equipoise than they had been supposed to be; and it is remarkable that this kind of equipoise has been maintained, as far as we can make out by history, from the time of the Apostles till now. Arguments and testimony have, from time to time, appeared on one side, and have been answered from the other; and now and then some discovery has been made turning the balance on this side or that; but soon some new idea has been started which has put another complexion on the matter. So that positive evidence has never been so complete and decisive on either side as to prevent a man's habits or the bent of his mind from swaying his verdict.

When young men first look into these matters for themselves, having heretofore taken certain notions on trust, they are apt to be aghast at the unsettlement, and at the call on them to use their own judgments and make up their minds. Unhappily they have often been led to suppose that to hold a particular set of opinions,merely as opinions, without any effect being produced in their character thereby, gives them a claim to some degree of favour in the eyes of the Almighty: while to question these opinions, or to enquire too closely into the grounds on which they rest, is dangerous, and calculated to bring them into disfavour with Him. I cannot stop to combat this notion now.[pg 059]But whatever the reason may be, the fact is certain, that when persons begin to investigate for themselves the bases of their belief, they find that many statements which they had regarded as true beyond all question are found to stand on less sure ground than they had thought; and since they fancy that if the authority of any word of the Bible is shaken they will soon have no standing ground left, they become much disturbed.

Then it is that we hear the outcry:“Why cannot all be made clear? Or, if we cannot be told every thing, why, at any rate, is not that which wearetold put so plainly, that there can only be one way of looking at it? Why were not things so written that one who runs may read? Why are we not given quite positive assurance of the truth of what is revealed? Why have we not a Sign in Heaven as the Jews demanded, or, what would suit our times better, an incontestable demonstration of the truth of Christianity?”“Why, in short,”to use the words of the objectors of the last century,“If God desired to make a Revelation to man, did He not write it in the skies?”

To none of these“Whys”can we supply its proper“Because.”We cannot give the reasons of a man's conduct unless we can enter into his mind; and as we cannot enter into God's mind, we cannot give His reasons for having made the ways of the universe such as we find them. But though we cannot give the enquirer what he[pg 060]asks, we can do something to help him all the same.

We may be able to shew him that it is better for him only“to know in part;”and we may also be able to explain to him that a certain fringe of shadow must needs encompass those portions of truth which are revealed; for if they had clear-cut edges and hard outlines, when we had to fit them together, like pieces in a dissected map of knowledge, we should meet with all those difficulties about a line of demarcation between truth absolute and beliefs of opinion of which I spoke just now. The service of all Revelation is to supply our craving after infinity; and if our demand to have this infinity presented to us in a finite form—for that is really what we are clamouring for—could be approximately gratified, then we should find that, though a certain portion of the infinite field lying outside human knowledge had been enclosed and added on to our intellectual possessions, still we were as far as ever from having what we wanted: this new possession would have becomefinite, and what we wanted was theinfinite. We should have got a new science in exchange for our old religion, but the craving after infinitude would still remain. The very definiteness introduced into these matters we should find destructive of their fascination for us.

To take one point at a time, I will begin with a side of the question which fits on to the subject of the last chapter. These cries after certitude[pg 061]are, in fact, petitions to be relieved of free will and responsibility in deciding religious matters for ourselves. What the complaints come to is this: Why am not I and every one else compelled to believe certain truths about God's dealings with manwhether we like to do so or not?

The point of the matter lies in these last words. If we had no part of our own to perform in accepting this belief, if it were no more a matter of our own choice and feeling whether or not we admitted the revealed truths, than whether we admitted some indisputable fact in history or some proposition in science; then this belief would not be religion for us at all, it would be a branch of science and nothing more. It would have no more moral significance than a proposition in Euclid. To admit that a certain system may be built up from premises that are undoubted, is merely a matter of intellect. One man may have a head to follow the steps and another not, but conscience has no part in the matter.

It was distinctive of the Son of Man that His Gospel was to be preached to the poor; and a system which addressed only minds capable of clear reasoning, could not be suited to all mankind; in fact, it would necessarily set up a Hierarchy of intellectual culture. So our Lord did not speak to the understandings but to the hearts of His hearers. He dealt with His disciples on the supposition, that there was in them a germ[pg 062]which would respond to the quickening influences of His teaching, and grow into a capacity for eternal life. Just as the dormant seed germinates when warmth and moisture reach it, so would what was dormant in their hearts burst into life and growth, when the required vivifying influence was brought to bear. Our spiritual life is made to depend not only on what is delivered to us, but on our recognising the truth we want, and seizing on it as what we are craving after: so that we say,“I have always felt that there was something I was in want of; now I know what it is, and I have it here.”

The Jews, who would not believe, wanted to be shewn a Sign from Heaven. They said,“Give us a proof which is beyond contradiction, and we will believe,”which comes to saying: If we cannot help believing, believe we will. But they did not mean the same thing by the word“believe”as our Lord did. Our Lord did not call on His disciples to accept notionsaboutHim, but to believeinHim, to trust Him as a child does his parent, or a soldier his commander. What the Jews meant was, that they would give credence to a particular kind of evidence, as to the fact of His being their Messiah.

The demand for additional proof is dealt with by our Lord in the parable of Dives and Lazarus. The drift of a parable is usually pointed out in the concluding words; and the verse“If they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither will they believe[pg 063]though one rose from the dead,”11spoken of the rich man's brethren, is, I believe, the key to one intent of this parable.12The state of mind here pointed at is a common one enough. It is that of the man who is rather uneasy at his own want of belief; but thinks the blame should be laid, not on any defect in himself, but on the want of proper proofs and external light. He thinks that his difficulty comes from the scanty evidence offered him; he has no idea that what he really wants is a better moral eyesight to see it by. So he begs for a little bit more of proof. If he could only be satisfied, he says, on this point and that, he would believe. But what would his belief be worth? Our Lord's answer goes to this:—No amount of external testimony can supply what you want, because the defect is within you. If a mandidcome to you from the dead, you might be terrified into acquiescence in everything he told you—you would probably be stupefied into the most abject submission—but instead of being elevated into trust in God, you would, very likely, be so cowed and paralysed, as to be incapable of any feeling of a noble or spiritual kind.

In the present day people do not ask for Signs from Heaven, or that men should rise from the dead—but the same spirit shews itself in the same[pg 064]way. The corresponding demand is,“Give us an undeniable philosophical proof of the truth of Christianity.”“Shew us this,”say men,“and we will believe.”Accept the demonstration of course they must, if it be irrefragable; just as they must accept the truth that the three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles; but such acceptance is a mental act of a wholly different order from adopting a religious belief—from feeling for instance that“Christ is with us to the end of the world.”Much confusion has arisen from this difference not being properly marked.

From what I said at first, as to the nature of a revelation it appears that there are two elements in it, one within us and one without us. We must have“ears to hear”when God speaks—a faculty that discerns His voice—and also we must have some outward sign cognisable by human senses, or by such judgments based on experience as we form about historical evidence. I have just shewn that the first requisite is essential for any religious belief, and that it is a quality different from the logical understanding. But when we come to the attestation of the Sign which vouches the revelation, then the understanding assumes its ordinary jurisdiction. We are to judge by the common rules of evidence as to the authenticity of this Sign and the genuineness of our information. Reason and instructed judgment are to be used in these matters as in all others, and external evidence is allowed[pg 065]its weight by our Lord. When the Baptist sends his disciples to enquire, our Lord works cures before them, and bids them report what theysaw.

A man wants some testimony to which he may turn, which is independent of himself. There are times when the surest believers mistrust themselves and their intuitions and ask,“How am I to know that this persuasion of mine is not a creature of my own brain, due to my temperament and mental conformation.”“How can I call on other men to accept it?”Men are not left, unaided, to the distress of this kind of doubt. The Apostles were allowed to witness the Transfiguration and the presence of Jesus risen from the dead that doubt might not overcome them in moments of physical weakness or distress of mind. They could always turn to these recollections and say“We know the glory of God; for we have seen it.”

We are not to expect that the Sign which attests a Revelation shall be guaranteed by a standing miracle; because such a standing miracle would be out of harmony with all God's ways as revealed in the Universe. For a standing miracle means that God is always, in one particular direction, visibly displaying the power elsewhere concealed. If such a miracle existed there would be one set of facts in the world not of a piece with the rest. If instead of working the world as He does by self-acting machinery, God were to reserve one department for His personal management, He might as[pg 066]well interpose in all, and direct all the movements in the world; in which case, as I said in the last chapter, the world would cease to have any independent existence, and would become merely a portion of the Divine existence.

So when it is demanded“That a revelation should be written in the skies”we may ask, How would you have God's autograph attested? The Jews, it will be said, had the visible Shechinah, the light between the Cherubim; but if this light existed now, there would be no proof of its being Divine: it would only be another phenomenon, and science would take cognisance of it. If we had an oracle declaring future events, all human enterprise would perish—for enterprise rests on hope and fear. The Delphic oracles would have paralysed action, if they had been unerring, unambiguous, and easy of access. A series of prophecies, it may be thought, fulfilled from time to time, would serve to authenticate revelation: and this aid is, indeed, admissible in attestation of the Sign we speak of; but it must be subject to the same condition which must attach to all external testimony: it must not be too clear or too strong. Men must always be able to reject it, if they like: either by ascribing the coincidences to chance, by declaring that the prophecy brought about its own fulfilment, or by some similar argument. If we had a series of prophecies all of which, up to the present time, had been fulfilled with due regularity, so that no one[pg 067]could doubt but that the rest would punctually come to pass, human action would be very much paralysed.

The miracles of our Lord's life serve us for our“Signs;”and our assurance that they occurred is to be based both on the external evidence, which in this case is the testimony to the authenticity of the record, and on the internal probability, which comes out of the conformity of the miracles with the Laws of Christ's action and the declared purpose of His coming. The miracles could always be referred to Beelzebub in old days, and they can always be disbelieved or explained away now.

Since the external evidence is not conclusive on this side or on that, the judgment formed must depend partly on the degree in which the Scriptures establish their own authority; and this degree depends on the mind and heart which the investigator brings to his work. One critic will see nothing but difficulties. Another will say, Our histories are photographs, imperfect no doubt, but what they show must have been there when they were taken: we see the main figures under different aspects, but we know them for the same. Some will feel as much convinced, from the character of thought and expression, that certain sayings came from our Lord, as a connoisseur in art might be that a certain picture came from the easel of a great master whose works had been the study of his life: he knows the touch.

Christ's great Revelation was not given in a book, not in a history or a treatise, but in a Life and Death. He shewed the world a Man who knew not Self, and He also shewed it the Force that came from God. Men will realize this Revelation in different ways in different ages; part may come to light at one time, part at another. Sayings which have long lain hardly noticed are one day found to be keys to unlock a treasure, and give insight beyond what we dreamt of. But besides this Revelation, personal to individuals, broad Truths are conveyed which we should not otherwise possess.

Some of the leading Truths are these. That Jesus came from the Father. That the Father loved men who believed in Him, and owned them as sons, and sent into their hearts13a filial spirit which should enable them to lay hold more firmly of this Revelation. Christ tells them that He came to manifest God to the world,14and that, whether they chose to believe it or not, the kingdom of God was drawn nigh to them.15He tells them that to know God is eternal life,16and that they who are counted worthy will attain a resurrection to such a life.17Above all he tells them—and this is the very charter of the Christian Church, without which her Doctrines would be only a set of notions, destitute[pg 069]of real vital power—“Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.”18

There is no clashing with human knowledge here, nothing that can tie the hands of the enquirer. The advance in spiritual knowledge is not brought about, simply by the communication of a new truth from without, which had never been dreamt of before: men feel rather as if they were reminded of something they must once have known. There appears, if I may so say, a tenderness of God in dealing with man, a carefulness so to reveal himself as not to obliterate a man's own personality, but to leave him to feel that any resolution he has reached is his own, arrived at, no doubt, by listening to God's prompting; without such prompting superseding the action of his proper self. No two men represent God to themselves quite in the same way: He was not the same for Peter that He was for John.

I believe that a revelation of God is needed for the education of what is highest in man, and for bringing him to the highest point he can reach; and that God has been always revealing Himself in one way or another. But the revelation of every age must be suited to the character of that age. Man must be educated up to it, or he cannot receive it. Our Lord tells his disciples“I have yet many things to say unto you but ye cannot bear them now.”19Later generations are taught in this same way. The events related in the Acts, and the labours[pg 070]which came upon the Apostles fitted them by degrees for fresh revelations. If our Lord had declared to St Peter when he first joined him in Galilee that the Gentiles should have as full a share in Him and in the Kingdom as he would have; might not he too have turned away? Or if, as is likely, he had been personally drawn to Christ too powerfully to quit Him, yet such a sudden shock to all his notions might have closed his mind spasmodically against new ideas? For when a man recoils from a view which unsettles him and turns him giddy, he clutches at his supports with iron grip. Many have been made bigots in this way. Our Lord is careful to avoid for the disciples all turmoil of mind; the new seed must be left undisturbed that it may take firm root; so that for our Lord to have disordered all St Peter's convictions by a premature disclosure, would have been contrary to His ways of acting.

An age must be ripe for the truth, and the truth must be ripe for the age for the last to profit by the first. If the theory of gravitation had appeared ten centuries ago, it would have passed unregarded away, for then, nobody thought the outer world worth scrutiny. On the other hand the neo-Platonic philosophy which once moved masses of men has now become so many words. How then is Christ's revelation to last for all time? It is enabled to do so, because there islifein it andgrowthalong with life; because Christ does[pg 071]not deliver propositions about God which men are passively to receive once for all, but his sayings fall upon the human heart, and are quickened there, some in one generation and some in another: each generation seizes on its proper nutriment, and brings out of His sayings the special lesson it requires.

St Paul, to recur to the quotation which is, in fact, the burden of this chapter, speaking of the effect produced by the preaching of the word on the hearers says—

“The secrets of his heart are made manifest.”20

Christ's words reveal for a man the secrets of his own heart to himself. They interpret to him his own confused and dreamy thoughts. This was what drew men so mightily to Him. It was not so much the novelty of what He told them that attracted them, as that they recognised in His teaching old familiar puzzles, which had come and gone through their minds, times without number, only in such shadowy guise that they could not fix and scrutinize them. Christ spake and then men said“This is what has been always troubling us.”Here is what we have always been wanting to say, and could not put into plain words—and now these floating impressions of ours are found not to have come by chance but to belong to truths set in our[pg 072]being. God has“sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts crying Abba, Father.”21But He would not have done so if we had not had the capacity for being sons, to begin with.

We shall see too, when we think of it, that a revelation to men can only come by man, or in a voice or words like those of a man. Man's understanding is fashioned in a certain way; his language is the creature of his understanding; ideas could not be conveyed to him unless they were clothed in language which he could understand; Revelation therefore must express itself in terms of human notions because they alone can be made intelligible in human speech. If God speaks, He must speak after the fashion of men, or His words will be an unknown tongue.

To take an illustration: If a man, owing to something abnormal in his vision, became aware of a new colour, something which had nothing to do with red or yellow or blue; he could not communicate his new sensation because he could find no pigment which would in any degree represent it, and he could not describe it in words, by likeness to anything in the world. So God can only reveal to man about spiritual existence what man can conceive, that is to say only that to which he finds something analogous in his own being; for all must be put into that form with which man's understanding can deal; and the[pg 073]only spiritual creature he can conceive isman; the only ideas he can conceive are human ideas; his mind must work on the lines along which men's minds move; the only creature with whom he can sympathise, and whom he can believe to sympathise with him isman, and so—since there can be no real teaching without mutual understanding—bymanhe must be taught. Christ's revelation meets this need. It was as the Son of Man that Christ declared Himself, and in this character He conveyed to men the germs of all the spiritual enlightenment they can receive. Does not this throw light on the words,“No one knoweth who the Father is save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son willeth to reveal Him,”22and again,“No man cometh to the Father but by me?”23

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