slaves. He would have them set ends above means, and principles above ordinances. . . . And His own ordinances, such as baptism and the eucharist, are Christian sacraments and not Jewish laws. ... They are obligatory, but as food is obligatory; for to know their secret is to desire their use, as a son desires food and fellowship in his father's household' (pp. 178-181).

Thus Christian authority encourages inquiry, satisfies reason, and desires to commend itself to the minds of all men. Its true method is well represented in the ideal of the Church of England and has been forsaken by the Church of Rome. 'The Christian authority is simply Jesus Christ.' His Apostles are 'witnesses qualified for a unique function by a special inspiration' (p. 188), the Church is the primary depository of the Christian tradition,' the New Testament is 'the criterion of teaching' (p. 190). Our Lord recognises the Old Testament as authoritative, but His use of it does not bind us to the acceptance of the Jewish tradition in regard to the authorship and literary character of different portions of the Old Testament,' as, 'for example,' 'to the Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch as a whole' or the historical character of the flood or the entombment' of Jonah (p. 195). Moreover, our Lord's reference to Psalm cx. does not necessitate the belief that this Psalm is by David, because His object is not to prove or disprove anything, to affirm or to deny anything, but simply to press upon the Pharisees an argument which their habitual assumptions ought to have suggested to them, to confront them with just that question which they, with their principles, ought to have been asking themselves' (p. 198).

The subject of the last lecture is the high standard of life set before us by Christ, which, though His rules must be interpreted in their principles, may not be explained away or watered down, and which is practicable because our Lord Himself, who gave the example, dwells in Christians with the power which enables them to imitate it.

IV. It is a welcome task to call attention to some features of the Bampton Lectures which demand the gratitude of earnest Christians.

There must be few who could read the book thoughtfully without realizing the strength of the writer's grasp on central truth. His subject is to him a matter of vital moment. His conclusions are plainly parts of his own life, thought out, cross-examined, grasped as verities which cannot be denied. There is a sense of rest in reading the calm and measured words which tell of a meaning which is deep and real and valued.

This grasp on truth has its attractive and reassuring power not only because it is firm. We have been struck by the writer's historical sense. The lectures show the marks of an author who has accustomed himself to notice facts, to weigh evidence, to balance probabilities. He knows what allowances are rightly made for conditions of mind and surrounding circumstances. He would be likely to be one of the first to discern what had happened if human speculation and the lapse of time had developed the figure of the Divine Christ out of the life of a mere man.

The evident appreciation of much in modern thought tends in the same direction. We feel we are reading the work of one who knows what the men of the day are saying and has considered it. The regard for the science and criticism and philosophy of our own time shows itself in many places where it is not verbally expressed. Unless we misunderstand him, Mr. Gore has asked himself in patient study what is the real standpoint of those who differ from him, what doubts really mean, what is the strength as well as the weakness of different methods of denying the Faith of Christ.

These, among other, features give the lectures their great value as an apologetic work. We have noticed four passages which, from this point of view, have seemed to us specially admirable. The considerations which suggest the need of dogma in theology (pp. 21-26), the summary of the arguments from nature which tend towards showing that God exists (pp. 31, 32), the statement of the necessity of the sense of sin and the desire for holiness if Christianity is to be understood (pp. 36-39), the description of the qualities in the Apostles and in their testimony which make it reasonable to regard them as trustworthy witnesses (pp. 74-77), are, in our opinion, of the very highest worth both in their substance and in the method in which they are stated.

The lectures are a great deal more than a defence of the Faith. They contain expositions of Christian truth of great clearness and power. We have never, we think, met with a better statement of the revelation in Christ of the Personality of God and of one side of the doctrine that there was no independent personality in the human nature which our Lord assumed than in the passage where it is said :

'Christ attends to, respects, develops, educates personality in His little band of apostles; and that because to become like Him, they must realize personality in its depth, its fulness, its distinctiveIn Him it was no accident, nothing which He had assumed for a time or of which He could rid Himself; it belonged to His

ness.

eternal nature; over against the Father in the eternal world, He stood person with person, a son with His Father. It was because He was eternally personal that He had been able to give personality to a human nature. Yes, as we gaze at the personal Christ, incarnate God, we are sure that whatever else God is, above and beyond what we understand by personality—and we can depend upon it that He is infinitely above and beyond what we can comprehend—yet He is at least personal; for He has manifested His personality to us, and made it intelligible, in a human nature, while on the other hand the human nature loses not one whit of its humanity because the personality which is acting in it is the personality of very God' (pp. 118, 119).

And the statements of the existence of law in the workings of God (pp. 124-130), of the revelation of the Triune Being of God by our Lord (pp. 130-137), of the sinlessness and true moral freedom of Christ (pp. 165-167), are not less valuable. Other instances could be given of the lecturer's power of making difficult theological doctrines clear.

In these lectures, again, practical religion is never forgotten in the discussion of theological dogmas. The conviction that doctrinal truth reaches its proper issue only in religious life is incidentally shown in passage after passage, and is sometimes given emphatic expression. The teaching how the evils of society can only be adequately treated by the remedies of Jesus Christ (pp. 38, 39), the contrast which results from the setting up of our Lord's life as a standard for ourselves (pp. 205, 206), the assertion of the need of Christians being true to their own moral law (pp. 210-215), are impressive. From the last passage we extract the following

sentences:

'What I am complaining of, what I want you to complain of, with a persistence and a conviction which shall make our complaint fruitful of reform, is—not that commercial and social selfishness exists in the world, or even that it appears to dominate in society; but that its profound antagonism to the spirit of Christ is not recognized, that there is not amongst us anything that can be called an adequate conception of what Christian morality means. . . . We want the Christian moral law, the law of purity, of brotherhood, of sacrifice, to be as intelligibly presented and as clearly understood as the dogmas of the Christian creed. We want it worked out with adequate knowledge in its bearing on the various departments of human life. In a word, we want a fresh and luminous presentation of the Christian moral code and some adequate guarantee that one who is deliberately, persistently, and in overt act, repudiating its plainest obligations shall cease to belong to the Christian body. "Do not ye," writes St. Paul to the Corinthian Church, "judge them that are within, whereas

them that are without God judgeth? Put away the wicked man from among yourselves "' (pp. 212, 213).

It is added in a note:

'It is inseparable from the idea of a Church's healthy action that she should be exercising "the power of the keys," the power of including and excluding, by formal and free discipline, doctrinal and moral. ... Its liability to misuse is no excuse for a Churchman acquiescing in its practical disuse' (p. 271).

V. In our great appreciation of this valuable book we must not forget our duty as critics, and there are several points on which we feel obliged to express our dissent from what Mr. Gore says.

1. We do not think there is a fully adequate representation of the authority of the Church. A distinction is emphasized more than once between 'the Church to teach' and 'the Bible to prove' (pp. 81, 188), and it is said 'The Church is perpetually to teach; the New Testament is perpetually to prove, to verify, to correct the teaching' (p. 191). Now this distinction, with a certain amount of explanation, appears to us to be a sound one. The Fathers do say that the Faith is contained in Holy Scripture, and that the Bible, rightly interpreted, is the test of truth. Moreover, their main thought of the Church as a teacher is the thought of a witness. But we do not think this is all. It is a Scriptural and patristic doctrine that the Church is the organ of the Holy Ghost, and therefore a living voice declaring the truth. Our Lord's promises to His Apostles cannot otherwise be explained.3 When Irenæus says, 'Where the Church is there is also the Spirit of God, and where the Spirit of God is there is the Church and all grace, and the Spirit is truth,' or when Cyprian declares that those who have left the Church 'have left the head and source of truth,' or when Augustine appeals to the Church's deliberate decrees as binding decisions, such utterances are to be regarded as rightly representative, and as implying the belief that the Divine Spirit guides the settled judgment of the

4

1 See, e.g. Irenæus, C. Hær. II. xli. 1; St. Athan. C. Gentes, i.; De Incarn. Ivi.; St. Cyril Jer. Cat. iv. 17; St. Vinc. Ler. Commonit. xxix. But the above statement is even better supported by the use made of Holy Scripture by the Fathers than by what they actually say.

2

See, e.g. Irenæus, C. Hær. 1. iii., III. iv. 1, v. 1; Tertull. De Præscr. Hæret. xxxvi.; St. Aug. De Bapt. c. Don. iv. 31.

3 St. Matt. xvi. 18, xxviii. 20; St. John xiv. 16, 17, 26, xvi. 13. Irenæus, C. Hær. III. xxxviii. 1.

St. Cyprian, De Unit. Eccles. xii.

See, eg. St. Aug. De Bapt. c. Don. i. 27, ii. 4, 5, 14, iv. 8, 9.

Church into certain truth. Nor is such a belief inconsistent with the claims made for Holy Scripture, or with the view of the Church as a witness to the Faith which has once been revealed. When it is realized that in these different methods of declaring truth there can from the nature of the case be no contradiction, it is seen how there is infallible teaching both in the Bible and in the accepted beliefs of the whole Church. As was admirably stated by Dr. Pusey:

'The authority of the Church was given to her by her Divine Lord within certain limits. "Teach them," He said, "whatever I command you." All must admit, then, that she could not command anything which should be really contrary to Holy Scripture. Nor must she contradict herself. The Fathers of the later General Councils began their office by expressing their assent to the earlier, and considered their own work as only expanding what was contained in the earlier, with a view to meet the new heresy which had emerged. So neither is it any undue limitation of the authority of the Church to lay down another limit, that the Church may not require "as necessary to salvation" what is not read in Holy Scripture, or may be proved by it. This only implies the historical fact that the same body of saving truths which the Apostles first preached orally they afterwards, under the inspiration of God the Holy Ghost, wrote in Holy Scripture, God ordering in His Providence that, in the unsystematic teaching of Holy Scripture, all should be embodied which is essential to establish the faith. This is said over and over again by the Fathers. This limitation of the power of the Church does not set individuals free to criticize, on their private judgments, what the whole Church has decided. It is an axiom, "God cannot contradict Himself;" yet this does not set Rationalists free to deny any truth in Holy Scripture, because, in their private misjudgments, they think it at variance with some other favourite truth. . . . As the truth, "God cannot contradict Himself," does not set men free to criticize any portion of His revelation, so neither does the truth, "His Church may not lay down as necessary to salvation what God has not revealed in His Word," set men free to criticize what He has taught His whole Church to declare and receive as saving truth, any more than that other maxim (which also limits the power of the Church, but which all receive), "His Church may not contradict His Word."'1 We question whether Mr. Gore would regard it as possible that the Church as a body should err about the Faith; but we are afraid his way of presenting the Church's authority tends to make too little of the value of her decrees in themselves.

In connection with the same subject, we must express our doubts whether the lecturer allows sufficiently for the positive usefulness of dogmatic decisions. It is, of course, true that the 1 Pusey, An Eirenicon [part i.], pp. 40–43.