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Register No.-
THE INDWELLING SPIRIT
THE
INDWELLING SPIRIT
BY
W. T. DAVISON, M.A., D.D.
PRINCIPAL OF RICHMOND COLLEGE, SURREY
MEMBER OF THE FACULTY OF THEOLOGY AND EXAMINER
IN DIVINITY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF LONDON
HODDER AND STOUGHTON
LONDON NEW YORK TORONTO
PREFACE
THE following pages obviously do not contain a
systematic treatment of the Christian doctrine of the
Holy Spirit. They contain suggestions only, not a
comprehensive survey of a great properly speaking,
an illimitable subject. Greater completeness in the
study of this topic is indeed most desirable, but
perhaps completeness of plan and systematic outline
are not the chief requisites in an attempt to describe
the influence upon the human spirit of that Divine
Breath which bloweth where it listeth, and whose
chief characteristic it is to surpass human thought
and expectation. Complaints have been frequently
made as to the lack of adequate treatment of this
central doctrine of Christianity, a deficiency largely
remedied of late by works such as are named in the
selected list of books that follows.
The Holy Spirit is God imparting Himself directly
to the consciousness and experience of men. Hence
the subject is approached in this volume from the
side of experience, rather than of dogma; of Biblical
exposition, rather than of philosophical discussion ;
of life and practice, rather than of theological specula
tion. An attempt is, however, indirectly made to
show that the Christian doctrine of the Holy Spirit
meets the needs and claims of modern religious life
better than certain philosophico-religious theorizings
vii
viii PREFACE
that ignore or disparage the teaching of the New
Testament. The connection between the various
chapters which compose the book, though not logic
ally close, is real and vital ; and it will be seen that
some of the chief aspects of the work of the Spirit
that are of present-day importance have been either
directly or indirectly treated. The writer s deep con
viction is, that greater emphasis needs to be laid
upon God s work in man, the presence of Christ, by
and through the Holy Spirit, in the hearts and lives
of Christians, even if it be at the expense of inter
esting questions of doctrine that are of necessity
largely speculative.
The substance of Chapters XII, XIII and XIV has
been delivered in the form of sermons on special
occasions, and the style of spoken address has not
been altered. Part of Chapter XV was given at a
meeting of the National Free Church Council, whilst
Chapter XVI originally appeared as an article in the
London Quarterly Review, and I am indebted to the
courtesy of the Editor for permission to re-publish
it. All these portions of the book are reproduced
at the instance of those who had previously heard
or read them. The bearing of the doctrine of the
Holy Spirit upon the myriad forms of mystical
religion, referred to in the last chapter, has, of neces
sity, been only touched in passing. It deserves
careful and continuous treatment.
Richmond,
February^ 1911.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Basil the Great, De Spiritu Sancto, 376 A.D.
John Owen, Pneumatologia, Works, Ed. Goold, 1869.
John Goodwin, Pier o ma to Pneumatikon; or A Being filled with
the Spirit, 1670; Reprinted 1867.
J. C. Hare, Mission of the Comforter, 1846.
Smeaton, Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, 1882.
W. P. Dickson, St. PauVs Use of the Terms Flesh and Spirit, 1883.
Gunkel, Die Wirkungen des heiligen Geistes, 1899.
Lechler, Die Biblische Lehre des //. G., 1899.
Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Geistes, 6-v., 1899.
Kuyper, The Work of the Holy Spirit, Translated by De Vries,
1900.
Walker, The Spirit and the Incarnation, 1 899.
Swete, The Holy Spirit in the New Testament, 1909.
Downer, The Mission and Administration of the Holy Spirit,
1909.
Denio, The Supreme Leader, Boston, 1910.
Irving Wood, The Spirit of God in Biblical Literature, 1904.
Arthur, Tongue of Fire, 1856.
Selby, The Holy Spirit and Christian Privilege, 1894.
Welldon, The Revelation of the Spirit, 1902.
J. R. Illingworth, Personality Human and Divine, 1894, and
Divine Immanence, 1898.
Inge, Christian Mysticism, 1900.
Von Hiigel, Mystical Element in Religion, 1908.
Rufus Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, 1909.
James Burns, Revivals, their Laws and Leaders, 1909.
Rudolph Eucken, The Life of the Spirit, 1909, Translated by
F. L. Pogson ; Christianity and the New Idealism, Translated
by L. J. and W. R. Boyce Gibson, 1909.
x SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
Also, the related portions of the works of Oehler, Schultz, and
A. B. Davidson on Old Testament Theology ; and those of
Beyschlag and G. B. Stevens on New Testament Theology.
Aso Schmiedel s article on " Spiritual Gifts " in Encyclopaedia
Biblica, Swete s on "Holy Spirit" in Hastings Dictionary
of the Bible, and Cremer s article " Heiliger Geist" in Herzog-
Hauck s Real-Encyklopadie.
CONTENTS
BIBLIOGRAPHY ,,.... x
I
DIVINE IMMANENCE I
II
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT . . 27
III
THE SPIRIT IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL . . 57
IV
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 79
V
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT , * , 97
VI
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 1 19
t
VII
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT ,. 135
xi
xii CONTENTS
PAGE
VIII
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 151
IX
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 171
X
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS . . . 193
XI
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH TEACHER OF TEACHERS . .213
XII
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 233
XIII
A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH 253
XIV
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 267
XV
THE HIDDEN LIFE . 295
XVI
MYSTICAL RELIGION , . . . . . ^1
DIVINE IMMANENCE
" Whither -hall I go from Thy Spirit?
Or whither shall I flee from Thy presence?" Ps. cxxxix. 7.
"God is Spirit ... in essence simple, in powers various,
wholly present in each and being -wliolly everyivhere; . . .
shared without loss of ceasing to be entire, after the likeness
of the sunbeam, whose kindly light falls on him who enjoys it,
yet illumines land and sea and mingles with the air" BASIL.
" To find God everywhere, you must everywhere seek for
nothing but Him." RUYSBROEK.
"No picture to my aid I call,
I shape no image in my prayer;
I only know in Him is all
Of life, light, beauty everywhere,
Eternal Goodness here, and there." WHITTIER.
DIVINE IMMANENCE
WHAT is the Christian view of God and the world,
especially of the relation which God continually
maintains to the world which He has brought into
being ? An Atheist finds no meaning in the ques
tion, because he denies the existence of God; an
Agnostic asserts that if such a Being exists, it is
impossible that man should know anything about
Him. In practice, an Atheist may mean only to
deny that the evidence is strong enough to prove the
existence of the Theist s God; and Agnosticism in
the person of Herbert Spencer, one of its best repre
sentatives, admits so much in relation to that Infinite
and Eternal Energy from which all things proceed,
that his exposition might include a considerable part
of natural theology. Still, it is vain to discuss with
atheist or agnostic the exact relation between "God"
and the world, when there is so small a measure of
agreement as to the very meaning of the word.
Dualism and Polytheism, as forms of religious
belief, hardly exist among civilized nations to-day.
According to them the ultimate Ground of Reality
in the universe is either Two or Many. The Zoro-
astrian holds that the facts of the physical and moral
worlds point to rival ultimate powers of life and
death, good and evil. The Pagan does not pass
beyond the idea of many Divine powers, amongst
which some measure of subordination, or CD-Ordina
ls 3
4 DIVINE IMMANENCE
tion, may be discernible, but the Manifold refuses to
be entirely brought into relation with the One, or
under its control. These forms of belief belong to
ancient rather than to modern history, or to existing
nations and tribes that have come least under the
influences of modern Western civilization. Whether
an exception ought to be made of the doctrine of
philosophical Pluralism advocated by Professor W.
James need not be at the moment discussed. Broadly
speaking, it may be said that thinkers of the modern
age are prepared to accept unity as the basis of reality,
though the methods of harmonizing the One in
whom, or in which, they believe with the Manifold,
obvious to the senses and the understanding, vary
almost indefinitely with the philosophical or religious
systems adopted.
A prevailing tendency in the thought of the time
is to emphasize unity in the universe at the expense
of multiplicity. Pantheism, indigenous in the East,
may not be in set terms accepted as a creed by many
Western thinkers, but Pantheistic tendencies, philo
sophical rather than religious for Pantheism,
properly speaking, is more philosophical than
religious prevail in many diverse quarters. Monism
is a name which covers fundamentally different
creeds. These agree in the doctrine of One only
substance in the universe; be it matter, or spirit, or
one " stuff" with double aspect. W T hether Monism,
strictly speaking, is compatible with Theism may be
questioned. Understanding by Theism, in the words
of one of its best modern exponents, a belief in "a
personal self-existent Being, infinite in power and
wisdom and perfect in holiness and goodness, the
Maker of heaven and earth," it is opposed both to
materialistic and idealistic Monism. But the preva-
DIVINE IMMANENCE 5
lence of these latter systems in our time brings the
Theist face to face with the question raised at the
outset. If the existence of One living personal God,
creator of all, be admitted, what is His continuous
relation to the universe He has brought into being ?
I
The chief conflict of Theism in the West to-day is
not against rival religions, but against "world-views"
which either dispense with religion altogether, or
attempt to provide a substitute for it, or use the word
in a sense which the Theist cannot accept. It is of
no use to denounce these alternative theories, or to
ignore them as unworthy of the consideration of a
religious man ; it must be shown that Theism accounts
more completely for the facts of life, and is itself a
more living and potent force in the thought of our
time than any other hypothesis of world-existence.
This can hardly be done without a clear understand
ing of what is meant by the phrase which is now
before us the Immanence of God in His own
universe.
Naturalism, as one prevailing method of regarding
the universe has come to be called, identifies reality
with nature, nature with science, and science with
physical science. By nature is to be understood the
whole of things viewed from the standpoint of
mechanical causation. Allied to Positivism in main
taining the doctrine that nothing is knowable except
phenomena, Naturalism meets the prevailing desire
for a unity of principle pervading the cosmos as a
whole, makes man the creature of conditions, the
product of evolutionary forces, and so far as it contains
a doctrine of man, emphasizes the importance of his
6 DIVINE IMMANENCE
own energy and activity, not his dependence on a
higher power. One important side of life as we know
it is undeniably represented by this doctrine, but the
question is whether justice is done to the whole, and
especially the higher, part of it. When Naturalism is
examined it is found to bean abstraction ; its victories
many, great and abiding have been gained because,
for the sake of investigating "nature" thoroughly,
certain leading factors of actual existence have been
for the time eliminated, in order that the work of
"science" might be the better done. The "laws " of
science are symbols only, shorthand notes, abstract
formulas, admirably calculated for the purpose for
which they have been framed, but representing only
certain aspects of the many-sided reality which man
seeks to study and understand. Naturalism fails to
recognize the relation of its science as a whole to
consciousness, freedom, and those higher instincts
and capacities which are at least as much a part of
"nature" as the unquestionable facts on which it
insists.
An opposite tendency, sometimes known by the
vague and ambiguous name of Idealism, makes the
intellect dominant in the interpretation of God and
the world, and with Hegel holds that Thought is
Reality and Reality is Thought. All is subordinate to
the development of the Idea, a process of system-
making from the standpoint of thought, which takes
iittle account of the external, except as material out
of which to furnish forth an abstract plan which alone
possesses reality and abides. In essence Idealism is
opposed to Naturalism, yet the two are found some
times in strange, yet quite intelligible, combination.
Joined together in a period of high culture, they con
stitute Humanism, which treats the world of nature
DIVINE IMMANENCE 7
and thought, of which man forms a part, as the whole
of things, with man himself as centre and crown.
Humanism denies the existence of a world beyond
our own, a life beyond the grave, and a reality beyond
phenomena so far as our faculties can take us, and
therefore it denies the relevancy of the question, What
is the relation between God and the world? For
though it is professedly theistic and often uses the word
God, He is not regarded as over the world, or over-
against the world, or other than the world only as
the whole viewed from a given standpoint. God is
an idea, says one such modern writer, "which serves
to generalize and idealize all the values one knows " ;
"the word involves a living process, law, or movement,
in the working of which human needs are satisfied,
justice and truth established, and distant ideals
attained." Room is left in this doctrine for the
emphasis which some would lay on the greatness of
the individual, or for the supreme claim which others
make for society and the race ; but in either case man
becomes a god to himself, or else the whole of which
man forms the crowning element is worshipped, if
any place be found for worship at all.
Hence a growing and deepening world-weariness.
The unsatisfying character of much of the most
"advanced" teaching of our time is notorious, and
it is due to the fact that religion has so far lost its
real power. Sir John Seeley s Natural Religion,
though published many years ago, remains still one
of the best representatives of a current quasi-theistic
world-view characteristic of the later nineteenth and
opening twentieth century. It is because Eucken, as
a philosopher and quite apajrt from Christian ortho
doxy, has pointed out this failure with so much
clearness and power, that many are turning to him as
8 DIVINE IMMANENCE
a teacher of promise and inspiration. He says, "A
weariness of the world and a deep dislike to its limita
tions are becoming more and more general. We feel
that life must forfeit all meaning and value if man
may not strive towards some lofty goal in dependence
on a Power that is higher than man, and, as he reaches
forward, realize himself more fully than he could ever
do under the conditions of sense-experience. Cut off
from the larger life of the universe, and shut up in a
sphere of his own, he is condemned to an unbearably
narrow and paltry existence, and the deeps of his own
nature are locked away from him." 1 It is his way of
looking at life which so often puts the man of culture
out of his place, and therefore out of gear. He is not
really self-sufficing, but dependent. The race as a
whole is not its own end, is not really isolated, but
bound up with a higher Order. The individual is
not transient, but immortal; God has "put eternity in
his heart." Modern attempts, such as Seeley s, to
substitute awe in the presence of nature, and the
solidarity of the human race for true worship of, and
communion with, the living God, have proved unavail
ing. The conception of human nature thus implied
is faulty and deficient; and that deficiency, only too
manifest in some of the highest and best thought of
our generation, Theism professes to supply.
II
The introduction of the term "worship" begs a
large question which it is not our object now to dis
cuss. The position here taken is that religion neces
sarily implies an adequate object of worship, that for
a personal being such as man a personal object is
1 Meaning and Value of Life, pp. 57, 58.
DIVINE IMMANENCE 9
needed, and that, rightly speaking, neither Pantheism,
nor Monism of any type, materialistic or idealistic,
leaves room for worship. It is fundamental with the
Theist to maintain the existence of Another than man,
Highest of all, on whom we depend, to whom moral
obligation is due, and who forms at the same time
the Source, the Sustainer, and the Goal of all
existence.
It is not denied that difficult questions arise some
of them probably far beyond our answering as to
the relation between a personal God and nature as we
know it. The Theist sums up his reply to these ques
tions by the use of two words, Transcendence and
Immanence, which must be combined in order to define
the full relation. The immanence of God implies that
God is everywhere and always present in the universe,
that from no conceivable corner of it is He absent, nor
is He separated from its life, but that He informs,
inhabits, pervades, as well as sustains and holds
together, the whole. His transcendence implies, not
that He is outside the universe, but that He is not
shut up within it, not limited by it. Whilst He informs
nature, He infinitely surpasses it, and while always
within it, He is always independent of it, and able
with infinite power and wisdom to act upon that
which He Himself has brought into being and ever
sustains in all its parts and operations.
There is no contradiction between the two attributes
thus defined, though it may not always be easy to
maintain them together and observe a just proportion
in their mutual relations. The word, however, which
calls for special study, and on which special emphasis
is laid to-day, is Immanence. Why is it made promi
nent? Why has it largely taken the place of Omni
presence as a Divine attribute ? Does its frequent use
10 DIVINE IMMANENCE
imply any change in the prevalent ideas of religion,
or in the relation of God to the world around us and
within us? And, especially in view of "new
theologies," which are to be "re-articulated in terms of
the Immanence of God," are there any dangers in the
use of the word which must be avoided, any limits
which must be laid down, if the teaching of the
doctrine is not to slide imperceptibly into Pantheism ?
The reason for the prevalence of the word in this
century is not far to seek. Undue insistence on
Divine transcendence puts God too far away from His
own universe. Judaism, especially later Judaism, in
unfolding the majesty of God, magnified His tran
scendence. Islam follows on similar lines. The
Deism of the eighteenth century virtually proclaimed
an absentee Deity, one mighty enough to bring worlds
into existence, wise enough to lay down laws for their
regulation, and then cold and careless enough to leave
them to the working of the secondary laws He had
established, vouchsafing no special revelation of His
will, still less providing a Saviour for a sinning and
suffering race. The God of the Deist was a mighty
Architect, a great Lawgiver, a sovereign Ruler, an
all-wise Judge : the world is the work of His hands,
the product of His creative energy. But within the
universe He is represented only by law and order,
and by the principles of beneficent government; in
the actual working of the world the living God has
disappeared, and the one thing men in the eighteenth
century could not believe was that God is "not far
from" i.e. most near to "every one of us." The
Omnipresence of such a God was, indeed, in theory
taught, but, as Dr. Martineau expresses it, "in that
Divine infinitude there is a death-like coldness; so
long as it is only a passive, though it be an observant
DIVINE IMMANENCE 11
presence brooding over every field of thought, it is
but Space with eyes, that can never leave us within
or without, yet will never help us, or so much as
return a whisper to our cry." 1
In the nineteenth century a great change passed
over all Western thought in these high matters.
Nature ceased to be a machine, and was understood
to be an organism. Further, if the name God was
to have any meaning at all, it was felt that nature
must be the organized expression of His indwelling
will, not a mere remote product of His almighty fiat.
"From no part of its space, from no moment of its
time, is His living agency withdrawn, or less intensely
present than in any crisis fitly called creative."
Wordsworth, at the opening of the century, antici
pated, as poets are used to do, results more slowly
reached by science. He taught the earlier nineteenth
century how to discern
"A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interposed,
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man;
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought,
And rolls through all things."
Before the end of the century the idea of the reign
of law had spread, and order had been traced every
where until men could no longer entertain the idea of
a God who manifested Himself only at exceptional
crises, who was manifest mainly in "gaps" and
" breaks " and exceptions. For the religious man nature
had come to be a living robe of God indeed, con
tinually depending upon and upheld by the living
presence of Him, without whose informing energy and
1 Study of Religion, Vol. II, p. 171.
12 DIVINE IMMANENCE
wisdom the whole would collapse and disappear. By
the end of last century it was clearly understood not
only that all things were made by Him, but that in
Him all things consist.
Ill
This position indicates a clear advance in religious
thought and feeling. True Theists cried out, not for
less of God, but for more ; they refused to be satisfied
without a God of whom it might be said He in all
and all in Him. But in what sense? For confusion
of thought here is easy, and just discrimination very
difficult. Wordsworth was by some accounted a Pan
theist, and Tennyson was not afraid to profess a
"Higher Pantheism." Some, like Dr. Allanson
Picton, began with "Christian Pantheism" what
ever such a paradoxical phrase might mean but,
naturally enough, ere long dropped the epithet and
professed the Pantheistic creed entire. Pantheism is
not so much an abyss into which men fall without
intending it, as an atmosphere which encompasses
them, and which they breathe without knowing it.
It has been said that "Christianity, if it is to triumph
over Pantheism, must absorb it," but what if Pan
theism absorbs Christianity in the process ? It is
possible, though not always easy, to preserve the
Pantheism of the best mystics and the mediaeval
hymn, "Intra cuncta nee inclusus, Extra cuncta nee
exclusus, Extra totus complectendo, Intra totus es
implendo." Immanence may be maintained without
teaching either that all is God and identifying the
being of the creature with His, or that God is all, that
He has no being above and beyond the universe.
But confusion has arisen in the use of the word,
DIVINE IMMANENCE 13
partly through not sufficiently distinguishing between
God s relation to inorganic nature and to organized
and sentient life on the one hand, and, on the other,
His relation to the higher, voluntary life of man.
Further, the essential difference between the relation
of God to man in nature and in grace must never be
lost sight of, if His indwelling in humanity is to be
adequately understood.
But the chief line of cleavage lies between spiritual
and non-spiritual existence. The relation of God
who is Spirit to creatures whom He has made spirits
in His own likeness is obviously different from any
that He can entertain to inorganic creation or the
lower organic creatures around. There are schools of
thought that reject the very idea of spirit in the life
of man, and with these we are not now concerned.
But it is unquestionably difficult in our time to
preserve this central landmark clear and firm amidst
the inrolling tides of naturalistic world-views. Eucken
is surely right when he urges that one main struggle
of the present generation is "that which we have to
wage for a spiritual centre for our civilization and
a perception of the meaning and value of life." It
is essentially a new kind of life when spirit appears
on the scene, and "its construction of a world from
within, with its own particular contents, value and
order, can never be the work of man by himself. It
is only to be understood as a movement of the whole
of reality itself which surrounds man, takes hold of
him and drives him on." 1 Not only does man as
spirit distinguish the I from the not-I, he is able to
transcend these distinctions and pass to a higher unity
which transcends all "nature."
It is obvious that the problem of Immanence arises
1 Spirit of Life, pp. 17, 18.
14 DIVINE IMMANENCE
specially here. God is in nature, not spatially, but
as Spirit, directing and controlling, the Source of all,
Sustainer of all, moving and impelling to a goal which
nature knows not, which He only knows. Only a
part of the Divine nature if the expression may be
allowed can be operative and manifested in this
region. Power, Wisdom, Beneficence can be dis
played, but no conscious response on the part of
the creature is possible. The world viewed as a
mechanical product is one thing, as the nursery of
a world of spirits it is quite another. Religion tells
of such a world of spirits, dependent on God for
existence as are other finite creatures, but each pos
sessing, because He has bestowed it, a nature which
separates him from nature and allies him to God ;
which enables him to say, Thou and I. Hence
arises conscious dependence, the possibility of com
munion and of alienation, obligation from without,
compliance from within, the power of resistance, recon
ciliation, renewal. The world of spirits is the training
ground of the moral creation.
If the Immanence of God be asserted here, where
most of all it is needed, it must be with all due regard
to the conditions of the case. How is God related to
the world of finite spirits ? All men are apt to think
in metaphors, and even philosophers would teach in
metaphors drawn from nature, which may confuse
rather than illumine. Analogies taken from the sun
and its rays, from fountain and stream, from root,
stem and branches, must be strictly limited in their
application to personal life.
Divine Immanence in the human spirit is not of
thought, or intellect, alone, as Spinoza and Hegel, and
to some extent T. H. Green, taught, each in his own
fashion. Neither is it one of feeling alone, as Schleier-
DIVINE IMMANENCE 15
macher was understood to maintain. It is not one of
will alone, as Kant would seem to intimate in his
doctrine of the Practical Reason, resolving religion
into morality and the right conduct of life in obedience
to the Divine will. The whole of human nature must
be included in its various relations to that Divine
Being who is not mere Intelligence, mere Power, mere
Beneficence, but the Highest Life of all, the only real
and complete Personality in the universe. He pos
sesses a personal life in its unimaginable perfection and
has entrusted His high gift in a measure to some of His
creatures, that they may continually press forward
towards its fuller realization. The Divine Spirit is at
the same time God over all human spirits, around
them and within them each word to be maintained
with equal weight and strenuousness. To apprehend,
maintain, enjoy and extend that many-sided relation
constitutes the true life of the finite spirit through all
its history.
This implies a human self, a world of "selves."
But what is to be understood by the word ? It cannot
mean the subjective experience of the passing moment,
and the principle of continuity is not easy to describe.
Do we as yet "possess our souls," or are we in process
of "acquiring" them? The differing translations of
Luke xxi. 19 suggest a distinction which may, or may
not, be implied in the Greek, but it must never be
lost sight of in the study of humanity. Every "self "
in the finite creation is, as Aristotle expressed it, Si^ajut?
passing into ei^y/aa, a capacity developed into a mode
of activity through assimilation and conquest. The
life of the spirit implies a "being for self," but by its
very constitution it implies something more. Eucken
has nobly vindicated this fundamental position, but it
may be questioned whether he allows sufficiently for
16 DIVINE IMMANENCE
the individuality which forms the germ of growth
and development. He contends that it is in virtue of
"spirit" that each man possesses the capacity of un
bounded assimilation in the spiritual world. But he
passes rapidly on to urge that this "selfhood" is a
"point of view" from which the whole universe is
apprehended, and without that universe in action self
hood has no meaning. It is personal action on which
he insists, so that his system is most distinctively
styled Activism. The principle of personality with
him is "not a mere state of personal experience which
exists in entire indifference to objective fact, but a life
of action which includes and envelops an objectivity
within itself, and transfigures it in so doing." l
When the relation of the human spirit to the Divine
is considered, a refuge from difficulties is often found
by describing it as "mystical " in character. Into the
various senses of that much abused word it is not
necessary here to enter ; more may be found upon the
subject in Chapter XVI. But it must imply that the
individual spirit is brought into immediate contact
with the Infinite Spirit, that being the very kernel of
mystical doctrine. And true Theism, not to say
Christianity, steers a middle course between a mere
external action of the Divine discerned by certain
effects of grace in the human spirit on the one hand,
and an absorption of the human in the Divine upon
the other, in such wise that the innermost centre of the
human soul becomes Divine. Vital union implies a
close relation in which, the finite creatureliness of the
soul being never forgotten, and its distinct, though
not independent, existence being preserved, God can
infuse true life into the soul from within in varying
degrees according to the capacity of each soul to
1 Gibson, Rudolf Eucken s Philosophy of Life, p. 94.
DIVINE IMMANENCE 17
receive, and its fidelity in using the measure of Divine
Presence already vouchsafed. Such union and com
munion is made closer and more intimate by the con
scious, willing, eager surrender of the finite to the
Infinite Spirit, this very surrender being maintained
by the communicated strength of all-encompassing
Divine energy. But communion is not absorption.
Immanence is not identity. Rapture is not extinction
of individual being. Rather is the true nature of each
distinct Finite Self more and more fully realized as
it experiences the Divine indwelling. As Browning
says, "man is not Man as yet"; the inchoate self
becomes the Self by union with the Divine.
" Our wills are ours, we know not how,
Our wills are ours, to make them Thine."
Communion implies two beings, however lofty the
one and insignificant the other. There may be com
munion in silence as well as in speech, but com
munion there must be, or the distinctive glory which
God has given the highest creature known on earth
is lost. Man does not rise in the scale of being by
approximating to the passive and unconscious from
the consciously active state. The inspiration of the
prophet is not at its highest when he is compared to
an unconscious lyre struck by the fingers of the
musician; still less if he should undergo an utter loss
of identity, as when a drop of water disappears in the
ocean. But the Divine communion which implies
the highest exercise of the human spirit is quite con
sistent with Divine action within, as well as without,
the soul a Divine energizing which "wells up" in
consciousness, as the sap in the tree, the source and
supply of all its life.
In the natural world the force which impels the sap
c
18 DIVINE IMMANENCE
upwards acts counter to gravitation ; "capillary attrac
tion " may be described, but not explained. The
power in the roots and stems and twigs of the grow
ing plant or tree to draw moisture upwards may be
described as "surface tension," or "cohesion acting as
a force at insensible distances," but such phraseology
covers our ignorance of the principle by which life is
maintained in a million trees of the forest, as in the
cattle on a thousand hills. Physical illustrations
carry a very short distance when used to expound
personal relations. It is enough that God, who
"stands as it were a hand-breadth off to give room
for the newly-made to live," does also so abide in the
human spirit if it will unfold itself to His presence,
that the new life, distinct but not separate from the
life of God, may be lived from Him, in Him and unto
Him increasingly for ever.
IV
Thus far religious philosophy, but what of the
Christian position ? Religion may be viewed as
giving a law for conduct, as embodied in ceremonial
worship, as a creed for the intellect and for faith ; or
as implying a certain significance, purpose and goal
in the scheme and history of the world. It is from
the last point of view that we have now to regard
Christianity. It is unquestionably a religion, not to
say the religion, of redemption. The idea of a com
plete renewal of nature as necessary for all men lies
at its very root. The possibility of such renewal is
taught in its characteristic doctrine of Incarnation,
the method of renewal in the doctrines of Atonement,
Justification and Sanctification, the climax being
DIVINE IMMANENCE 19
found in a proclamation of Resurrection and Life
Everlasting.
The part of Christian teaching with which we are
now concerned, however, is the mode in which Divine
Redeeming Energy is exerted in the human spirit.
A Mediator is implied. In the twentieth century
such a doctrine is not popular. Men are so engrossed
with "the course of this world," research into nature
and control of its resources, the mutual relations of
society in political, industrial, commercial and inter
national life, they are so anxious to exploit their own
powers, and those of others, in the development of
materials within their reach, that they resent the idea
of Salvation through Another, the need of revelation,
mediation, vicarious suffering and redemption. If the
gaze must be turned back at all two thousand years,
it is enough to find. a great Exemplar always reserv
ing the rights and powers of the present generation
but not a Saviour. There can, however, be no ques
tion, if Christianity be true, that a Saviour is needed,
that one has appeared in history, and signs are not
wanting that the characteristic self-sufficiency of our
age is in certain directions being broken down, and
the need of Christ as a Saviour for the world is
increasingly felt and acknowledged.
Be that as it may, such is the burden of the Chris
tian Gospel. A new relation of the individual to
God and a new order of the world are necessary.
This work must be carried on here and now in re
newed personalities. No new substance of human
nature is necessary, its existing substance is not evil,
but its bias, tendency, scope and aim are bent and
dwarfed, and man s powers can only be renewed as
his relations to God and his fellows are rectified.
Hence mere Theistic doctrine does not suffice for
c 2
20 DIVINE IMMANENCE
world-renewal, but Theism with a special revelation
culminating in Christ. The work of reconciliation
is already effected, the message is declared, "to wit
that God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto
Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them."
But the meaning and power of this can only be
realized by faith on man s part and the energizing of
the Holy Spirit on God s part. The believer is
brought into closer relation with God than is possible
to any other human being, a relation described as the
Spirit s indwelling rather than Divine immanence,
the latter phrase being postulated of creation as a
whole and especially of mankind as the highest crea
ture on the face of the earth. No man is, or can be,
outside the reach of these general influences of the
Holy Spirit. But He is now manifested as the Spirit
of Christ, with special characteristics and operations
realizable only by faith in Christ. Under these con
ditions the "indwelling of the Spirit" acquires a
meaning which cannot be understood outside Christian
experience, and that experience finds its consumma
tion in the present life ; not in some Nirvana or
absorption into Deity, but in that state of "entire
sanctification " which means nothing more, and
nothing less, than perfect love to God and man.
Under what conditions is this process of renewal
of the human spirit in communion with the Divine
possible? The Christian answer is through God the
Holy Spirit, spoken of as the third Person in the
Trinity. This may seem to be explaining the obscure
by the more obscure, and it has sometimes been so
taught as to darken rather than illumine a sacred
theme. But let us examine it more closely. The
doctrine of the Trinity is described as a "mystery,"
and such it undoubtedly is if the word be rightly
DIVINE IMMANENCE 21
understood in the New Testament sense. It does not
mean that which in itself is unintelligible, or self-
contradictory, or irrational, but that which has been
only partly revealed, or is only partially understood,
because of the imperfect capacity of those who receive
it. As a revelation from God to man, a mystery is
that which can be apprehended, though not compre
hended ; that which for a while was for good reasons
hidden, or which, when made known, appeals only to
those who are prepared by their own training and
experience to receive it. The Trinity is a "mystery,"
as the Personality of God held by the Theist is a
mystery, or it might even be said as the personality
of man held by the man in the street is a mystery.
For he who understands the "flower in the crannied
wall, root and all, and all in all," may understand
what God and man is.
The attempt to conceive Absolute Personality is
surrounded by difficulties metaphysical, emotional,
moral. If there is an absolute Subject, this would
seem to imply a corresponding eternal Object ; even
Aristotle asks what God contemplates, and answers
Himself. So with love and all other moral relations.
Tf these belong in any real sense to the eternal essence
of the Godhead, they require an object. Dr. Mar-
tineau would find such an object in an eternal uni
verse, but this would interfere with the fundamental
self-existence of the Godhead and make Him as much
dependent on the universe as the universe is on Him.
It is more reasonable understanding by reason the
human spirit exercising itself on high themes largely
beyond its ken to suppose that these moral and
emotional relations are interior to the Godhead, that
the Deity is not a bare, solitary unit, as set forth by
the Mohammedan and the Unitarian Theist, but Him-
22 DIVINE IMMANENCE
self a home of social relations. As Dr. Illingworth
puts it, He exists "in a mode of which the family,
the unit of human society, is the created and faint
reflection. ... A person is as essentially a social,
as he is an individual, being; he cannot be realized,
he cannot become his true self, apart from society :
and personality having this plural implication, soli
tary personality is a contradiction in terms." As
another writer has expressed it "The question of
theology was : What is God ? And the answer was :
God is a fellowship, a communion of persons." Dr.
Moberly goes so far as to say, " I am not sure that
this is not the one thing in respect of Divine Person
ality of which we can with most unfailing certainty be
said to have a real intellectual grasp. We see not
merely that an inherent mutuality is authoritatively
implied or revealed. We can see that it is intellectually
impossible that it should be otherwise. We can see
that Eternal Personality, without mutual relation in
itself, could not be Eternal Personality after all." 1
The words now used in the orthodox creeds to express
this truth may, or may not, be the best to convey the
idea. Words change their meaning in process of time
and no translation can convey the exact meaning of the
original. The doctrine of "Three Persons" suggests
to the English mind the idea of Tritheism, and "one
substance" might savour of materialism. The time-
honoured phrase, admirably devised when it was
coined, "neither confusing the Persons, nor dividing
the Substance," conveys little meaning to the non-
theological mind. If "persons" are individuals,
mutually exclusive, the word is not applicable to the
Deity. But a Personal God for the Trinitarian means
1 Illingworth, Doctrine of the Trinity, pp. 143, 144, 256;
Moberly, Atonement and Personality, p. 165.
DIVINE IMMANENCE 23
One indivisible Personality so much richer than ours
that what we need to find in others He finds in Him
self. The three "hypostases" in the Godhead are
more than three aspects, more than three characteristic
functions, of one personality ; they are three subsist
ences, the position and function of each of which pre
supposes the position and function of each of the
others as members of one organic whole. Each is
necessary to the other and indissolubly blended in a
Unity ineffably higher than the organic unity of the
individual, as that is indescribably higher than the
unity constituted by each plant or animal around us.
The Father is the Source and Origin of all. He
does not reveal Himself immediately, either in creation
or redemption, but always through the Son. The
Son is the revealing principle of the Divine existence,
the organ and medium of all creation. From within
He is the x a P aKT ^iP 77 1 J vjroarda-cwy, the " impress of the
substance " of the Father, and in revelation He is the
effulgence of His glory, the beginning and the end
in mediation and redemption. The position and
function of the Spirit, with which we are now espe
cially concerned, is not that of ultimate source, nor
does it imply the accomplishment of the actual work
of redemption, but He is throughout the "formative
and glorifying principle," in Creation, in History,
in the Incarnation, in Redemption, in the formation
and development of the individual Christian and the
Church, in the accomplishment of all Divine designs
for the whole world. The will is of the Father, ac
cepted and revealed by the Son, fulfilled by the Spirit
God over us, God for us, God in us. The Spirit is
the executing power of the Godhead; "by His imma
nent plastic activity He unfolds and brings forth into
realization and progressively to complete manifesta-
24 DIVINE IMMANENCE
tion the Divine idea of the kingdoms of the universe,
the natural and ethical," l in nature, providence and
grace. In all realms it is through the Holy Spirit that
possibilities in the creature become realities, so that
each is to be brought through processes of growth and
development to ultimate perfection and glory.
It may be that in such speculations we are trying
to "wind ourselves too high for sinful man below
the sky" ; that of the interior relations of the Godhead
we can think nothing, understand nothing, imagine
nothing. But surely, if we use the name of God at all,
it is more reasonable to conceive of the Author of ali
personal beings as personal than as impersonal. And,
in trying to conceive of His personality, it is reason
able to think of it as higher and richer than ours,
perfect where ours is imperfect. Surely also we have
ground enough in our own existence to discern unity
in multiplicity and multiplicity in unity. The higher
the unity, the more easily and completely is the mani
fold taken up into itself, without impairing its one
ness. The Christian revelation enables us thus to
think of God. As Dorner phrases it : "This principle
of union in the organism of the absolute Life we call
the Holy Spirit. . . . The principle of union pre
supposes distinctions ; but distinctions presuppose in
turn the principle of union, for God could not part
Himself unless He were sure of the principle of union.
Thus Self-origination is possible by means of the
mediation of the third : trinitas dualitatem ad unita-
tem reducit" 2
Absoluteness in the Infinite, rightly understood,
does not mean that which is utterly out of relation
with the finite, neither does it imply comprehension,
1 Gerhart, Institutes of the Christian Religion, Vol. I, p. 309.
2 System of Christian Doctrine, Vol. I, p. 421.
DIVINE IMMANENCE 25
or absorption of the finite; but a "fulness which is
master and conscious of itself," and which at the same
time informs and sustains the creature in all its rela
tions, both creaturely and Divine. In the case of
man this relation has been impaired and broken. It
is to be renewed in and through Christ, Son of God
Incarnate, and that restoration is being carried out
by the power of the Holy Spirit, partially now, but
to be realized completely at the last, when all God s
purposes are accomplished.
The life of the spirit means, therefore, for man the
process by which the human spirit, already possessed
of certain capacities, attains gradually its growth and
development in union with the Spirit of God. It is
from the Christian point of view that this spirit-life
is here regarded; and it may safely be said, with all
the theological and theosophical speculations of the
ages in view, that no higher, or more practically
effective, teaching on this subject has been known in
history. The "law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus"
means the Christian way of attaining this high goal.
It does "make free from the law of sin and death."
The redemption in Christ, ministered by the Holy
Spirit and apprehended by receptive faith, raises man
above himself as no other power has ever raised him.
The process by which "Paracelsus attains " in Brown
ing s poem is nobly expressed, but it represents
aspiration, rather than achievement.
"The secret of the world was mine.
I knew, I felt (perception unexpressed,
Uncomprehended by our narrow thought,
But somehow felt and known in every shift
And change in the spirit, nay, in every pore
Of the body, even) what God is, what we are,
What life is how God tastes an infinite joy
In infinite ways one everlasting bliss,
From whom all emanates, all power
26 DIVINE IMMANENCE
Proceeds : in whom is life for evermore,
Yet whom existence in its lowest form
Includes; where dwells enjoyment, there is He.
. . . God renews
His ancient rapture. Thus He dwells in all
From life s minute beginnings, up at last
To man the consummation of this scheme
Of being, the completion of this sphere
Of life. . . .
For these things tend still upward, progress is
The law of life, man is not Man as yet."
Prognostics in creation told man s near approach :
so in man as he is there are august anticipations of
what he will be, "types of dim splendour in that
eternal circle life pursues." Not Divine Power alone,
Divine Love is needed "love preceding power, and
with such power always more love." And yet all is
not told, the whole lesson of love is not yet learned.
He who has attained is still pressing forward.
"If I stoop
Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
It is but for a time; I press God s lamp
Close to my breast ; its splendour, soon or late,
Will pierce the gloom ! I shall emerge one day."
These are man s highest hopes and strivings, indicat
ing at least capacity and hope. The real secret of the
upward rise is contained in the words, Your life is hid
with Christ in God. The power by which the glori
ous summit is to be attained is expressed in another
well-known phrase of St. Paul "strengthened with
might by His Spirit in the inward man." Some steps
in the climb up this world s great altar-stairs to the
very presence and glory of God, sustained and animated
by His indwelling Spirit, are now to be traced in the
light of Christian revelation.
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
" The Father shall give you another Comforter. ... He shall
glorify me." JOHN xiv. 16; xvi. 14.
" We call the new life which came into the world the
burning love, the unstinted self-devotion, the infinite compas
sion, the sweet and beautiful innocence, the high ambition to
spend and be spent for God we call all this the fruits of
Christianity. In more exact words, all has flowed from the
great gift of Pentecost." R. W. CHURCH.
"T/ie belief in the Holy Spirit as a Divine Person living,
acting, quickening, elevating, sanctifying is the key to the
solution of many spiritual problems, or at least to the temper
in which alone it is possible to think of solving them." J. E. C.
WELLDON.
"All Christians profess to believe in the Holy Ghost. Had
only all Christians so believed, and lived up to their belief, they
would all have been mystics, and there would have been no
mysticism." R. C. MOBERLY.
II
THE HOLY SPIRIT IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
IT is frequently said that the history of mankind
includes three dispensations, or periods of Divine self-
manifestation. First is that of the Father, from the
Creation to the Incarnation; the second is that of
the Son, during the life of Christ upon the earth ;
while the third is that of the Holy Spirit, extend
ing from Pentecost till now and to the end of the
world.
Truth is, no doubt, implied in such a statement, but
it is not accurate, and may easily be misleading.
There is but one Triune God, continually operative
in the history of humanity, who controls and orders
all generations, age linked with age, and preparing for
ages yet to come. In this long history occurred the
great epoch of the Incarnation, during which the Son
perfectly revealed the Father-God to man in human
form and fashion. Since Christ left the earth, the
Spirit whom He promised has been carrying on the
work for the consummation of His Kingdom, and
during these two thousand years of Christian history
it is the Holy Spirit, as the Spirit of Christ, who has
been the one operative agent in the Church and in the
world to bring fallen men into fellowship with the
Father through the Son of His love.
But, if that is true, the Church has largely failed to
realize the importance of the work of the Holy Spirit.
We hear and read far more of the Fatherhood of God
29
30 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
and of the Person and Work of Jesus Christ our
Lord, than of the operations of the Spirit. Not that
this is necessarily ground of complaint. God is One.
Father, Son and Spirit are distinctions within the
unity of the one only and true God. To glorify the
Son is to glorify the Father ; and that men may do
either rightly, the Holy Spirit must glorify the Son,
as Christ said He should do. But if the full chord of
Christian music is to be rightly struck, due emphasis
must be given to each note. When the work of the
Holy Spirit is insufficiently considered, the missing
note is the immediate Presence and Indwelling and
Inworking of God in (i) Creation; (2) Humanity;
(3) the Church ; (4) the mediatorial Kingdom of Christ
and the world at large.
The reasons for such comparative neglect are toler
ably obvious. That which is spiritual is vague and
indefinite, while the actual life of Christ on the earth,
the words He spoke and the work He did, are concrete
and historical. Again, the work of the Holy Spirit
in human hearts lies on the border-line between the
Divine and human, and it is only natural to emphasize
the human side, the activities and manifestations of
human life, rather than the Divine energy which
prompts and animates the whole. Again, while lack
of spiritual experience is a drawback in the study of
any department of theology, it is absolutely fatal here.
Critics may discuss Christology from the point of view
of history or or of literature ; but, when they come to
deal with the work of the Holy Spirit, without
spiritual knowledge they are so far at a loss that they
give up the attempt with a sneer at its futility.
Whilst, on the other hand, those who possess spiritual
knowledge through their own experience do not find
it easy to convey such knowledge in words. For who
THE NEW TESTAMENT 31
among men knoweth the things of a man save the
spirit of the man which is in him ? And the deeper
things which the Spirit of God teaches are so dimly
apprehended that when they are expressed they are
often condemned as mystical and unreal.
The more reason, therefore, that from time to time
attempts should be made to redress the balance. The
Society of Friends in the seventeenth century, the
Methodists in the eighteenth, drew attention it may
be with somewhat disproportionate emphasis to
truths which the generations were in danger of forget
ting. There are indications that the twentieth century
has in this matter its own message to give and its
own lessons to learn. But if we would learn them
aright we must turn to the fountain-head. The litera
ture of the New Testament is, for evangelical churches
at least, normal and normative on this, as on all other
topics of Christian doctrine. If the infallibility and
inerrancy of the Scripture writers on all subjects of
human knowledge are not now insisted on, if the
documents are now studied with freedom as well as
with reverence, these sacred books are felt to be the
more, not the less, full of inspiration and authority
for the Christian. Guidance is here furnished for
those who trust not the letter which killeth, but the
Spirit who makes alive. A record of facts, an enun
ciation of fundamental principles, are there to be
found, which are of permanent import ; and the ques
tion has to be asked, How was the work of the Holy
Spirit understood and realized in the earliest days ?
What modifications, if any, has the passage of time
effected? How far is the Church following on the
lines laid down in the New Testament? How far
may the modern Church expect to reach, or to surpass,
the measure of the gift therein described? What is
32 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
the significance of the work of the Spirit in successive
ages of the Church, and how is it to be understood
for the needs of fo-day? These are large questions.
A wise man will think himself happy if he is able here
and there to suggest a fraction of an answer to them.
The work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament
has furnished material for more than one ample
volume ; all that can be given in a few pages is some
illustration of the way in which the New Testament
may be studied so as to solve some of these perpetually
recurring problems.
I
The working of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testa
ment cannot be ignored, and it explains much that
would otherwise be unintelligible in the manifestations
of the New. St. Peter s address on the day of Pente
cost points back to the prophet Joel, and the strange
upliftings of that memorable day were not wholly
new or alien to Jewish thought. From the first
chapter of Genesis to the, last page of the prophetic
volume, the Spirit is never forgotten. He appears
first, last and midst, often in unlikely places, and
with increasing significance as time goes on. Not,
indeed, as "The Third Person in the Trinity," nor as
distinguished from other "Persons" in the Godhead.
The Spirit of God is God Himself at work in the
world. The "breath " of God indicates the life of God
in active operation quickening, moving, energizing ;
so that as God is said to have eyes to see, ears to hear,
an arm to work, so also He sends forth His Spirit,
Himself the living God and the great quickener of
life everywhere.
In nature, He broods over chaos dark and rude, to
THE NEW TESTAMENT 33
bring out order and peace. The origin of life in man
is that Divine breath which God breathed into his
nostrils, and it is when He sends forth His Spirit that
the face of the earth is renewed. In art, Bezaleel and
Aholiab devise cunning works in gold and silver, in
brass and embroidery, because they are filled with the
Spirit of God. In government, His presence is needed.
It is the greatest of human tasks to rule well; and if
in the midst of anarchy the Judges introduced order,
it was because they were inspired of God to do so;
and Solomon was endued with the Spirit to perceive
and do the right as God s vice-regent in the land. The
inspiration of the prophets is of various types. The
Spirit of God came upon Elijah to dare and act, upon
Ezekiel to write, and upon Daniel to dream, as it came
upon Isaiah the son of Amos to fill a great place as
statesman, and his later namesake to anticipate the
ages and preach a gospel of comfort to the exiled and
disconsolate people. All moral and religious life was
under the special direction of the Spirit of God. His
Spirit gives man understanding, and the spirit of man
is the candle of the Lord, searching the inmost parts
of his being. In the latest utterances of all, that name
is occasionally used which in later days was to become
so sacredly familiar, and a tenderer tone breathes
through the words, "They turned and grieved His
Holy Spirit," and "Take not Thy Holy Spirit from
me." The prophets drew largely on this source in
the outline of their promises for the future, they had
their message concerning the Anointed One yet to
appear, but no gracious forecasts were richer than
these "I will pour my Spirit upon thy seed and my
blessing upon thine offspring"; "Your young men
shall see visions, and your old men shall dream
dreams, the servants even and the handmaidens shall
D
34 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
prophesy, for I will pour out my Spirit upon all
flesh."
Without this preparation under the Old Covenant
the richer grace of the New could hardly have been
conferred. Only a people trained like Israel could
have received and appreciated the revelation that was
granted in the latter days. This training had deeply
impressed on their minds the close relation of God
to His people, the Divine influence never far from
them, the tenderness which did not utterly forsake
them even when unfaithful, the intimate communion
ever possible, save when shut out from God by the
barrier of sin. Israel, before the coming of Christ,
had travelled a considerable way towards learning
what was uttered later in sublime words for all time
"God is a Spirit, and they that worship Him must
worship Him in spirit and in truth."
II
Turn to the New Testament, and the doctrine is the
same, yet how changed ! Mark the increasing fre
quency of the mention of the Spirit ; He appears now
on every page. Mark further, that, while there is no
mention of the word Trinity, the relation of the Spirit
to the Father and the Son indicates a fuller revelation
of the being and nature of God. The Spirit is not
only the Spirit of God, He is the Spirit of Jesus, of
Christ, of God s Son. And the change of emphasis
implies virtually a new doctrine. It is no exaggera
tion to say that in the New Testament the Holy Spirit
is everywhere, in all things. Dr. W. L. Walker,
who has made this subject his own, says, "The Spirit
is the great thing in Christianity"; "The essential
thing in the Christian religion"; this is "the dis-
THE NEW TESTAMENT 35
tinctive doctrine, vital, fundamental and permanent." 1
Speaking of St. Paul and Paulinism, Dr. Moffatt says,
"The most vital and central doctrine is that of the
Spirit, in relation to the person of Christ and to the
Christian experience." This is not to disparage
doctrines concerning the Father and the Son, for these
are the very truths which the Holy Spirit takes up
and works out ; it is the power and grace of both that
He applies and brings home to the hearts of men.
The Son appears in His own glory just in proportion
as He reveals and glorifies the Father; so the Holy
Spirit does not speak from Himself, but " He shall
glorify Me. All things that the Father hath are
Mine, therefore said I that He shall take of Mine and
shall show them unto you." I am leaving you, said
the Saviour, yet only going away so that I shall be
nearer to you than ever; for He is coming whom the
Father will send in My name. So He spoke, and so
it was done. All the latter part of the New Testament
is a commentary on these words. Christ s promise
was fulfilled, and these books, written between A.D.
50-100 teem with influences of the Holy Spirit, which
breathe forth from the pages to-day, as they have done
any day for these two thousand years.
The operations of the Spirit during the life of Christ
on the earth are described in detail, especially by St.
Luke, from the birth and infancy and growth of Jesus,
His baptism and temptation, down to His Cross,
where He offered His all-availing sacrifice "through
the eternal Spirit " and His resurrection, when He
was declared to be the Son of God with power "accord
ing to the Spirit of holiness." The latter two passages
are instructive, though the primary reference in them
is probably not to the Holy Spirit directly. It is
1 The Spirit and the Incarnation, passim.
D2
36 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
generally recognized that during the life of Christ on
earth the Spirit "was not yet," and that a great epoch
was made and marked on the day of Pentecost, when
the Church of Christ was born. What happened on
that great and notable day, and what changes came
about to justify the previous expectation and the
subsequent apostolic ministry?
In the narrative of Acts ii symbolism unquestion
ably has a large place. On this subject Dr. Sanday
says, "A broad recognition of the extent of symbolism
is necessary in any process of adjusting our modern
ways of looking at things with the ancient ways " ; he
speaks further of "a system of equivalence," so that
the critical method at one stage shall correspond to
the exegetical at another, the paraphrastic at a third,
and the symbolical at a fourth. "But the change is
only in the mode of presentation ; the essence of that
which is presented is unchanged. We need to remind
ourselves from time to time that the way in which a
thing appears to us does not affect the underlying
reality." 1 In studying the events of the Day of
Pentecost it is not altogether easy for us to translate
the account into modern language and answer the
question, Wliat happened then ? so as to produce the
same impression on the modern mind that the second
chapter of Acts produced on those for whom it was
written. St. Luke say that tongues oxret TTU/OOJ, like as
of fire, &4>Q r l crai appeared (as in a vision). Wind and
Fire were already fully recognized in the Old Testa
ment as symbols of the presence of God, and the
prophecy of John the Baptist in Matt. iii. 11 goes to
show that the baptism of the Holy Ghost would be
a baptism of fire. Lambent jets of flame appeared to
flicker in the air, and distribution of the gift to each
1 Christologies Ancient and Modern, pp. 221, 227.
THE NEW TESTAMENT 37
is made emphatic. On the nature of the "gift" of
tongues something further will be said in Chapter IV.
Whatever the nature of the accompanying pheno
mena, the important fact is that "they were all filled
with the Holy Spirit." The Divine power which
rested on the Apostles wrought a veritable revolution
how? If we compare the disciples as they were a
few weeks before, during the time of Christ s ministry,
the change is hardly credible. Even at the time of the
Ascension their naive question, "Lord, wilt Thou at
this time restore the kingdom unto Israel ? " shows
how far they were from understanding the person and
work of their Master. The great change wrought at
Pentecost is not explicable by any ordinary experi
ences, yet there is nothing in it contrary to the teach
ing of a sound psychology. What happened is in
harmony with principles now generally recognized,
though they are illustrated in an unparalleled and
supernatural degree. The full results were discernible
later, though even at the moment, as Peter s sermon
shows, a notable change had taken place. The address
which is not to be read as if it were a shorthand
report exhibits an early stage of apostolic training
and preaching. The following features, among others,
are very marked.
(i) An illumination of mind to understand much
concerning the Person and work of Christ that hitherto
had been dark and unintelligible. It included a clear
perception of the Messiahship of Jesus, an acceptance
of His death, not as an overthrow, but as ordered by
Divine Providence for a great end, the view of His
resurrection being specially illuminative. Now, adds
St. Peter, after the appointed period of waiting and
prayer, " He hath poured forth this which ye now see
and hear." "This "which the Apostles themselves
38 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
did not fully understand, but which made them to be
beside themselves with rapture, and the dawning per
ception of inconceivable spiritual glory yet to come.
(2) The po\ver to express themselves, or rather, to
proclaim the new truth as a message, llapprjaria indi
cates subjectively confidence, objectively courage. The
Apostles displayed both; they proved that at least
sufficient assimilation of truth had taken place to
enable them to utter it freely, bravely and powerfully.
(3) The power to impress others implied a still
fuller endowment. The impression produced was
doubtless due to other characteristics besides speech.
Even in speech it is what a man is, not what he says,
that speaks loudest; and unconsciously to themselves
the Holy Spirit had so changed these men that they
could speak with a "demonstration" which only He
could effect. He who spoke in them was working
also in the hearts of their hearers, hence the wonderful
immediate impression produced.
(4) All points to Christ. He is the one theme of
the first Christian sermon, Peter has nothing else to
declare. It is not the Spirit of God, generally and
abstractly, that speaks, though the prophecy of Joel
was fulfilled and the Divine character of the afflatus is
taken for granted. It is God-in-Christ who is pro
claimed and glorified. As in the solar spectrum the
dark lines prove the presence in the sun s atmosphere
of incandescent sodium or magnesium, carbon or
hydrogen, so the messenger of God testifies not only
to Divine truth in general, but to some special message
burned in by experience upon his soul. There is no
question what the special Divine truth was which
shone through all Apostolic preaching ; it was not
they, but the very Spirit of Christ that spoke in them.
(5) Others are to receive this Divine gift in their
THE NEW TESTAMENT 39
turn. The remission of sins was the first blessing
bestowed upon those who believed ; they must take
on them the name of Christ, enter the circle of His
disciples by baptism, be acknowledged as His, and
afterwards they should receive the Holy Spirit. This
was, however, only the beginning of what was to be
enjoyed; one main characteristic of the "outpouring"
being that all shared in it, young and old, high and
low, educated and uneducated, leaders and followers,
each in his measure, according to the power of each
to receive and the work given to each to do.
Whether three thousand persons were actually bap
tized and enrolled in one day, or not, is a small
matter. Acts ii. 42 is not a statistical return of Church
membership made upon the evening of the day of
Pentecost. The writer records that, as a result of that
first address, not hundreds but thousands were con
victed, converted and on the high road to salvation.
The significance of the day lies not in the exact
phenomena recorded in half-a-dozen lines which we
can only approximately interpret, but in the splendid
fulfilment of the promise of the Master, that when His
physical presence was removed, not only should His
spiritual presence remain, but much more than this.
Work was to be done such as He Himself could not
accomplish in His lifetime. A closer relationship to
Him began, deeper, more intelligent, more abiding,
than anything they had known before. And the most
remarkable feature of all was the quickening influence
which unconsciously went forth From them, streaming
through them as through a divinely appointed
channel. For the promise, "He that believeth on Me,
from his inmost being shall flow rivers of living
water " could not be fulfilled till Jesus was glorified
and the Spirit outpoured.
40 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
Enough that a new epoch had dawned, continuous
with the old, yet rising distinctly above it, and indicat
ive of a higher and more glorious one still to come.
So with the water in the lock upon the river; the lock
fills slowly, drop by drop, trickling stream by trickling
stream, the boat rises gradually upward and upward,
till, when the crucial moment is; reached, the floodgates
open of their own accord, the water rushes through,
and a higher level is attained for the vessel, never to
be lost again. Preparation was made before the day
of Pentecost, long subsequent processes followed, but
the hour in which the new level of life was reached
was momentous. Or one may think of the launching
of a great ocean liner. The vessel is in dry dock,
there is a ponderous apparatus of struts and stays until
the time of launching arrives. Then the cradle and
sliding \vays are put in place, and at the right
moment the locking arrangement is sharply removed,
and the great vessel slides down to the water. But
what no hydraulic machinery could do is accomplished
with golden ease as the tide rises and bears the great
keel out into the river and the ocean, ready to sail
round the world, laden with argosies for the very ends
of the earth. Pentecost marked a tidal movement, the
end of which has as yet hardly dawned upon human
vision.
A new type of life begins from henceforth, the
outward conditions and circumstances remaining the
same. It was new because it was animated from
within by a new indwelling energy, the Spirit of
Christ. The most prosaic records of history are
enough to prove this. Let any man underline in the
Acts of the Apostles all the references to the Holy
Spirit and watch the result; or let him strike out from
St. Paul s Epistles all that speaks of, and points to,
THE NEW TESTAMENT 41
the Spirit, and see how much is left. The religion of
the New Testament is a religion of the Holy Spirit,
and the Christianity of subsequent times that would
realize the New Testament type under new conditions
must also be a religion of the Spirit. Most of the
declensions which have marked the religious life of
Christendom have been due to forgetfulness of this
fundamental fact, and all striking revivals of Christian
life and power have sprung from its recollection and
reinforcement.
Ill
It is hardly needful to show that the Holy Spirit is
spoken of in the New Testament clearly and emphatic
ally as Personal. This was shown by several of the
Fathers, notably by Basil in the fourth century, and
his line of exposition is valid to-day. The "Spirit " in
the Old Testament is personal because it represents
God in action, and the God of the Old Testament is
described as personal, even to the verge of anthropo
morphism. But in the New Testament the per
sonal action ascribed to the Holy Spirit in distinction
from the Father and the Son is so marked as to form
a new and impressive feature. This fact does not
necessitate now an inquiry into the eternal personality
of the Spirit in the Godhead, or into the doctrine of
the Trinity, often misrepresented by non-Christians,
and often misunderstood by Christians themselves.
But when rightly expounded it makes the specific
New Testament doctrine of the personal work of the
Holy Spirit intelligible and appropriate, as otherwise
it could hardly be. But this aspect of doctrine may
now be left on one side.
The most explicit teaching on the subject is found
in Christ s discourses concerning the Paraclete in
42 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
John xiv.-xvi. If these stood alone they might be
represented as a comparatively late reflection of earlier
doctrine peculiar to St. John. But St. Paul s Epistles
are among the earliest New Testament documents, and
Rom. viii. is equally emphatic on the personal char
acteristics thought, feeling and action ascribed to
the Holy Spirit throughout. What we find in that
well-known chapter is not grammatical personification,
not subjective hypostatizing, but it implies a way of
regarding God s working within us as personal, just
as is the Father s care over us and the Saviour s work
for our salvation. The name napd/cA^ros, Paraclete, is
personal ; as Kcmjyopo? the Accuser of man is personal,
so is the Spirit as our Helper and Defender. He is
present as champion and advocate, One who
strengthens rather than consoles, though all kinds of
spiritual succour and invigoration are ascribed to Him.
He is another than the Father and the Son. A self
cannot pray the self to send another self from himself,
as Christ prays the Father to send the other Com
forter in John xiv. 26. It is the Spirit who in xiv. 20
makes the disciples to know that the Son is in the
Father, and that believers are in Christ and Christ
in them. His it is to bring to remembrance the words
of Christ, to teach them anew, with an understanding
of their meaning never enjoyed before. Jesus is the
Way, the Spirit is the Way-Guide, who will lead
them into all the truth, as only a living Divine Lord
can guide the children of men personally through
the ages. And the promise concerning Him is that
He will not only be juerd, in company \vith them, napd
by their side, but h t abiding evermore in the inmost
hearts of all true disciples.
In St. Paul s Epistles, though the same words are
seldom used, the same idea is presented. The leading
THE NEW TESTAMENT 43
of the Spirit in Rom. viii. 13 carries us beyond the
guide who points out the way. The intercession in
viii. 26 brings vividly before us the Divine Advocate
within, the personal communion implied in the inward
witness of viii. 15 is very close. Joining this verse
with Gal. iv. 6, we find now that it is the child of
God who cries Abba, Father; now, the Spirit in him.
Grieve not the Holy Spirit, urges the Apostle, for
He can be grieved; quench not this Divine fire, for
coldness and carelessness may cause Him not only
to mourn, but to depart. His is the power to
strengthen in the inward man, and when He is
so inwardly present, Christ dwells in the heart by
faith (Eph. iii. 16, 17). The Holy Spirit is the
earnest of redemption, heaven begun below; and when
this state is realized Christ is in you, the hope of
glory. Thus does St. Paul from his own character
istic point of view corroborate the teaching of St.
John ; and whilst emphasizing a personal Father-God,
and a personal Saviour and a personal Holy Spirit,
he shows, without seeming to show, that the Three
are One.
It may be said that there is danger here of anthropo
morphism, that all that is intended is a strong
"hypostatizing " of the Spirit. Danger of this kind
there is in all our language concerning God, but we
must not therefore be silent. The personal language
of the Bible brings us nearer to reality, nearer to the
living God, than the abstract language of the philo
sopher. The danger in our time, especially among
the educated, lies in the opposite direction. To
explain evil as an abstraction is to explain it away.
So it is easier to think of Christ as a man than as
God Incarnate, easier to think of the Holy Spirit as
an influence than as a personal indwelling presence.
44 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
But simply for lack of this personal realization many
nominal Christians are living without God in the
world. The Father is afar, none has seen or can
see Him ; the Son lived on the earth long ago, but the
records are scanty, uncertain, perhaps mistaken ;
while if unbelievers ask, Where is now thy God?
there is no living, present, operating Deity, whose
personal existence and power they realize, even more
fully than their own. "I was made to rest," says
Newman, "in the thought of two, and two only,
supreme and luminously self-evident beings, myself
and my Creator " ; but what men need to know in
personal experience is not so much the existence of
God afar off as Creator and Ruler, but God here and
now as an indwelling Spirit.
It is not the denial of this doctrine among Christians
that is serious, but the ignoring it. Such a habit is
in harmony with other tendencies of the time. If
the personality of man be loosely held, all hold of a
personal God is loosened also. And in proportion as
the mind and feelings are made dependent on the
body, as psychology is resolved into a department of
physiology, so that thoughts and emotions are
functions of the material organism the brain, the
nervous system and other organs we cannot wonder
if the very meaning of personal life dissolves and
disappears. Whatever be thought of some forms of
Idealism as philosophy adequate to the facts of life,
undoubtedly the assertion of the main principle of
Idealism during the last three or four decades has been
of essential service to religious thought in this country.
For of the soul the body form doth take,
For soul is form, and doth the body make.
Is soul "form," impress, stamp, or a mere transient,
ephemeral product of antecedent forces? The ques-
THE NEW TESTAMENT 45
tion is a fundamental one, and bound up with the
answer to it is our hold on the personality of man
and our belief in a personal God as something more
than the shadow of a. dream. Current tendencies are
only too strong which go to undervalue the import
ance of individual personal life, to loosen the root-
fact that it is the man himself, he who thinks and
feels, loves and hopes, grieves and rejoices, who is
all-important. The fact is, that nothing else matters.
What is a man profited the question has surely not
become superfluous if he gain the whole world and
lose himself? Spirit alone abides, though it needs a
tenacious faith in the unseen to realize it.
So God is personal Spirit, and as personal Spirit not
only has He brought personal spirits into being, but
He establishes union and communion with those who
trust and obey Him, by that personal Spirit who abides
within them if they will make room for Him. Belief
in a personal God preserves the dignity of man, his
moral freedom and responsibility and his personal
immortality. "God is Soul, souls I and thou, souls
should with souls have place." Belief in a personal
indwelling Spirit is the very nerve of experimental
religion. So it was in primitive Christianity. Its
power lay not in creed, not in ritual, nor even in
conduct, but in a certain new Spirit of life which
resulted from a new sense of the Divine Spirit within
man and a realization of this affecting the whole life.
If the power of primitive Christianity is to be renewed
it must be along these lines. The real presence of
Christ among His people is not in the consecrated
wafer, nor in the hands of communicants, though
sacred beyond words is the Table of the Lord and
His presence there. But the living Christ can only
be present in the power of the Holy Spirit, whose
46 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
very name is hardly mentioned in some sacramental
offices from end to end. The soul athirst for the
living God finds in all ages that "the kingdom of
God is within you."
IV
Another feature of New Testament teaching is that
the Holy Spirit takes the initiative with man, operates
in all men, has a function in the world as well as in
the Church. Still it is true in history, as at the first
creation, "in the beginning God." He comes first
as Creator, as Preserver though in the preservation
of life we co-operate with Him and as Redeemer He
comes first, not we. We love, because He first loved
us. As renewing Power, also, He is primary; men
are to work out their own salvation because God
works in them to will and to work. The technical
theological term "prevenient grace" may be seldom
used, but that for which it stands remains, or the
world would fall to pieces. It means that the God
in whom Christians believe is in all that is good
always and everywhere the Origin. His operations
are not to be enclosed within the bounds of eternal
decrees on the one hand, or appointed sacraments on
the other He is a God of free spontaneous goodness,
of undeserved and unbounded grace. God in and
through the Spirit ever moves within, as well as over
and around, every man; and all good in man s heart
is the result of the brooding of that Spirit over its
dark and troubled waters. The ocean of grace is
continually laving and cleansing all the coasts of
our sordid and unworthy nature; grace is the very
atmosphere in and by which alone men can live and
act. "Every human heart is human," but what makes
THE NEW TESTAMENT 47
it human in the best sense is Divine. Desires,
capacities, energies such as belong to men are open
from the very first, and always, to the working and
sway of the Spirit of God, who made men for Himself
and therefore makes men restless till they find rest in
Him. Scripture, conscience, experience, history, com
bine to prove the truth of this. "To draw, redeem
and seal is Thine." Man is never without the leadings
and strivings of the Spirit, though so often he dis
regards and not seldom stubbornly resists them. No
interpreter has the key to the New Testament doctrine
of the Spirit who neglects to take account of this
vital truth.
Hence what is called conviction of sin is part of
the office of the Spirit in the world. Whence comes
it that men should ever be brought to pronounce
themselves and their whole life wrong, to sit in judg
ment upon themselves, prompted by a standard
utterly and entirely above themselves ? It is easy
to account for some kinds of self-condemnation as the
reflection of the judgment of the State, of society,
or of man s better self, but such self-denunciation as
amounts to conviction of sin implies a perverted
relation to God of the whole nature and the whole
life, as well as an utter inability to set it right by
self-reformation. God in Christ represents the highest
standard of life man has yet known, and the Spirit
of Christ it is who brings this home to the heart as
the true life of which he has come so miserably
short. Man cannot raise this sense of guilt in his own
heart, nor remedy it by his own effort; he might as
well try to rise without assistance in the air superior
to the power of gravitation. A power from above is
necessary, and in Christianity it has a special char
acter, set forth in well-known words.
48 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
In John xvi. 8-u the word &cyx.civ has been differ
ently translated by "convince" and "convict," the
two words indicating a difference of method, rather
than of nature, in the Spirit s work. To convince
has reference to truth, to convict concerns character
and condition ; t\e<y\Lv would mean, therefore, either
to bring home truths otherwise doubted or discarded,
or to bring home charges made against the conduct
of life. The Holy Spirit does both, though the latter
meaning is intended here. But it is based on the
Spirit s work of convincing men of spiritual truth, as
described in John xiv. 26. Men do not know what
sin, righteousness and judgment really mean ; and as
Westcott says in his note on the place, "the idea of
conviction is complex. It involves the conceptions
of authoritative examination, of unquestionable proof,
of decisive judgment, of primitive power." None
but the Holy Spirit can make this plain to the man
himself and be a witness to him from within. The
message may, and must, come from without; the
Spirit s work is done within the walls, within the very
citadel of man s own nature, causing him, however
reluctantly, to acquiesce, to take up the new truth,
acknowledge, assimilate and make it his own. The
philosophy of a Roman Emperor, Marcus Aurelius,
may do this after a fashion ; the searching parable of
a prophet, Nathan, with its application "Thou art the
man," may find an echo in the conscience of a David;
but sin implies error in personal relation to God, and
conviction of sin in the Christian sense can only be
wrought by the Spirit of Christ.
Christ Himself is the supreme test of character.
What think ye of Him as the supreme revelation of
the Divine ? is the question which searches men most
deeply and sifts them most thoroughly. In this light
THE NEW TESTAMENT 49
sin is seen to be not merely a breach of command
ment, but a grieving of love, an offence against the
highest power of goodness within human ken. " Be
cause they believe not on Me " if a man cannot, or
will not, acknowledge the Divineness of Christ and
so see his own deficiency, failure and sin, that he
cries out, What must I do to be saved ? he has not
definitely entered upon the upward way. But only
the Holy Spirit can accomplish this work, though it
is in connection with "the Word," the message of
Christ s Gospel, that He does it. And the primitive
power of Gospel preaching is only to be realized by
faithful recognition of this primitive truth " He will
convict the world in respect of sin because they believe
not on Me."
Conviction in respect of righteousness is the com
plement of this. Does it mean the showing what
Divine righteousness really is ? or convincing men
that this ruling principle of Divine government will
win supremacy sooner or later ? Or the making clear
how true righteousness is to be attained among men,
that it is supremely incumbent upon each to attain
it, and that there is only one way in which it can be
done? Probably all these are included in the preg
nant phrase used. One feature of Christ s work is
selected as the basis of this conviction, perhaps not
one that His disciples would have chosen because I
go to the Father and ye behold Me no more. The
connection of thought may be thus explained: (i)
The example of righteousness in the life of Christ
could only be rightly understood when He was taken
away from the earth. (2) The power of righteousness
could only be shown when His work was done, death
and the resurrection preparing the way for His depar
ture to the Father. (3) He who is no longer visible
E
50 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
on earth because He has gone to the Father thereby
gives assurance, as from the right hand of God, that
He has established and will consummate the kingdom
of righteousness. The interpreter may choose among
these meanings, or attempt to combine them together,
but the message which brings home the fact of sin
to men s hearts is of no use without the further
message of righteousness. It is characteristic of the
Gospel that both are proclaimed in one breath and a
new meaning given to the watchword the Lord is
my righteousness.
These things take place within. But outside the
circle of believers the world continues to run its own
course. Other principles exist, will continue to exist,
in human life, but they shall not ultimately rule. The
world is judged, its true nature shown, its inferiority
patent, its evil made plain, the verdict on it has been
uttered and the sentence pronounced. Though it is
not yet fully carried out, the process of execution has
begun. The world has never been quite the same
as it was before Christ came. When brought into
the searching light He caused to shine, the shadows
in the picture were deepened, as well as the lights
heightened; one process is impossible without the
other. It had been said, Thou shalt not murder :
Christ said, Thou shalt not hate. It had been said,
Thou shalt not commit adultery : Christ said, Thou
shalt not lust. They of old time knew they ought
to love their brethren : men of the new time were to
learn to love their enemies. Never hitherto had the
prince of this world been thus "judged" known,
marked and branded, for what he truly is. But to
convict is to do much more than this. It is to bring
home the truth to the world itself, however complete
the condemnation implied. Only the Holy Spirit
THE NEW TESTAMENT 51
can do this. It has been done to a great extent
already, and if the Church had been more faithful
in discharging its duty the work would have been
by now effectively accomplished. But it must be
contritely confessed many Christians have sadly
marred this work of Christ, obliterated the outlines,
dimmed the colours, blunted the sharp edge of
truth, hampered and hindered the operations of the
Spirit. His power abides, but it must be distinctly
recognized if it is to be effective. The great Invisible
Ally must be enlisted on the side of the feeble human
forces, and the direction and control of the work be
given to Him. As soon as the power in sermons
becomes merely human, merely human work will be
done by them. To convict the world in respect of
sin, of righteousness and of judgment is absolutely
necessary if the new heavens and the new earth are
ever to become a great reality. Only the Divine Spirit
can accomplish this superhuman task, and it is pre
cisely here that so much modern preaching which
according to literary and critical standards is probably
better than ever it was ignominiously fails. He
who would see Divine work acomplished must himself
be the channel of the Divine Spirit.
Nothing is more characteristic of Christianity than
its teaching concerning the need for every man of an
entirely new life, beginning with a new birth. For
the most part it has been common amongst non-
Christians to sneer at the very idea, after the fashion
of Nicodemus, but of late, since Professor W. James
and other philosophers have recognized the possibility
and reality of such a change from the point of view
E 2
52 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
of psychology, some of these cavils have been silenced.
The change, as is recognized in John iii., must be
&v(*>0tv whether the word means u from above," or
"anew," or whether the doctrine of the " twice-born "
be implicitly contained in it. "Flesh" is flesh, how
ever improved or refined, and that which is born of
it remains flesh. Take human nature only as a stan
dard, make man the measure of all things, and only
human results will be obtained. Those who refuse
to recognize a higher power than nature cannot climb
above the natural level. To realize a new life a man
must indeed be born of the Spirit.
It is not always sufficiently recognized that this
implies a new personal relation between man and God,
brought about by the Personal Spirit inhabiting a
newly fashioned nature. This fact supplies a real
link between the old and the new life, and shows how
a radical change is psychologically possible. The
sneer at sudden conversions is from one point of view
intelligible, and unfortunately the unreality and
futility of many so-called conversions have brought
natural, though undeserved, discredit on the doctrine.
But personality has a power of its own. If close and
intimate relations between human spirits are con
stituted, it is hardly possible to set limits to the renew
ing power of personal influence thus exerted. Many a
sot has been raised out of the gutter and established
in a new life, not by preaching, but by the uplifting
power of a pure and strong and gracious personality.
If ye, being evil might not the words be fitly so
applied ? are able thus to help one another, how much
more shall the Holy Spirit of God work a great
renewal ? If there be a living God, if His Spirit can
and will indeed inhabit the human heart, who shall
assign limits to His working? The experience of
THE NEW TESTAMENT 53
millions of Christians goes to show that moral miracles
have been wrought generation after generation which
can only be described by the words, "born again of
the Spirit."
But the change is supernatural, not contra-natural.
The study given to psychology during the last half
century ought to be of great religious value. The
more that can be discovered and understood of the
normal workings of the human soul, the better. If
further light can be cast upon the obscure realm of
the sub-conscious, or subliminal consciousness, it
ought to be of great service every way, in the educa
tion of children, in the shaping of character, and not
least, in its bearing on religion. Meanwhile, how
ever, caution is necessary, and they are not wise who
are trying to solve obscure phenomena by others yet
more obscure. Whilst some amongst whom, strange
to say, Dr. Sanday would appear to be counted find
in the sub-conscious realm the abode of the Divine,
others regard this subterranean region as a world of
more than half animal desires, surging and chaotic,
which need to be tamed and yoked and harnessed by
a directing will before they can form the material for
a stable character. The phenomena of adolescence
which have of late been closely studied shed some
light upon an admittedly difficult subject. 1 The chief
lesson which it seems necessary to inculcate at the
moment is that those teachers are least to be trusted
who confidently dogmatize concerning the limitations
and possibilities of human nature. The more we
learn of what man is and may become, the more
does it become clear that regeneration, conversion or
whatever name be given to the renewal wrought by
the Spirit of Christ in the nature of one who is born
1 See Chapter IX.
54 THE HOLY SPIRIT IN
again is not a magical and unnatural change, but
the supernatural use, along the line of highest develop
ment, of material lying ready to hand for transforma
tion.
This is not to say that a "scientific" explanation
is to be found of the breathings of God s heavenly
wind, that a physical basis may be laid for every
spiritual operation. But as our Lord s miracles
observed laws of their own and in no sense violated
the order of nature, though they transcended all its
known powers, so with the work of the Spirit, which
while it uses human material, is in regeneration wholly
Divine. The book called Broken Earthenware has
only given point to lessons which were already written
so that he might run who read them. Myriads of
similar facts were well known, and conclusions had
been drawn from them long before that book was
written. But many will learn from fiction founded on
fact what they are slow to believe when published
in the reports of a Gospel mission.
A change in every man is needed at the very fount
and spring of being. Christianity promises that it
shall be effected, and claims that the promise has been
abundantly fulfilled. He who is "in Christ" is a
new creation, because the personal indwelling Spirit
of God rules, directing and controlling his own spirit,
so that a new life indeed begins. This is one reason
why Wesley and the early Methodists insisted on
what it would seem is the obsolescent doctrine of the
Witness of the Spirit. This emphasizes the privilege
and possibility of personal intercourse between the
human spirit and the Divine at the very outset of the
Christian life. The "testimony of our own spirit" is
real and valuable, but it is to be distinguished from
the direct witness of the Spirit of God, described in
THE NEW TESTAMENT 55
Rom. viii. 16 and perhaps referred to in i John v.
7, 10; and the clearness with which this doctrine was
taught in the Evangelical revival of the eighteenth
century went far to make the religion of the time
more vivid and practically effective. Other times,
other modes of speech. But no change in modes of
speech can alter spiritual realities. And if the power
of New Testament religion is to be realized in these
latter days, the conscious realization of the presence
and favour of God through His indwelling Spirit must
be renewed. Those will be the mightiest preachers
in the future, as they have been in the past, who are
able with greatest power to testify of this truth for
themselves and bring others to a knowledge of it.
Banned as enthusiastic, scoffed at as mystical, this
experience lies at the very heart of evangelical reli
gion. If one generation loses it, the next must re
discover it, if the Kingdom of Christ and the work
of His Spirit is to be maintained in the earth.
Such is a brief outline of the doctrine of the Holy
Spirit in the New Testament, in some of its salient
features. Others will appear later. Enough, how
ever, has been said to show that in the records of the
early Church lies a perpetually fresh source of inspira
tion for the Church of subsequent ages; not because
the early Christians were wiser, or more experienced,
or more numerous than their successors, but because
they were "all filled with the Holy Spirit."
THE SPIRIT IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF
ST. PAUL
" We received not the spirit of the world, "but the Spirit
which is of God." i COR. ii. 12.
"In seeking myself, I lost both me and Thee; In seeking
Thee, I found both Thee and myself. 1 AUGUSTINE.
"The true reality that is, and ought to be, is not matter and
is still less Idea, but is the living Spirit of God and the world
of personal spirits whom He has created. They only are the
place in which Good and good things exist." LOTZE.
" Held our eyes no sunny sheen,
How could sunlight e er be seen?
Dwelt no power Divine within us,
How could God s Divineness win us?"
GOETHE, Xenien.
"All our life is a progress, through the world and through
ourselves, to the God from whom we come, in whom we are
and to whom we tend." E. CAIRD.
Ill
THE SPIRIT IN THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL
IN studying the New Testament teaching concern
ing the work of the Holy Spirit in the individual
man, His methods and processes in the training of
each soul for God, we naturally turn to St. Paul.
He has made this subject his own. Other writers
have touched upon it, he has developed it and led
the theological thought of the Christian Church in
reference to it for centuries. In the Gospels of St.
Matthew and St. Mark there are only passing refer
ences to the work of the Spirit, while St. Luke directly
traces His operation in the life and ministry of our
Lord from first to last. Only in St. John do we find
a full account of Christ s utterances concerning the
Paraclete, and these describe the work of the Com
forter only in general terms. In the Acts it is the
influence of the Spirit upon the community which
engages the writer s attention ; and had the New
Testament ended with that book, the human spirit,
longing for Divine guidance, would have been largely
left to grope out its own way. St. Paul, whilst he
shows himself quite familiar with the special pheno
mena described as the "workings" of the Spirit in
the Churches an examination of which will be under
taken in the next chapter nevertheless realized the
pre-eminent importance of the ethical side of His
work in the personal life of the individual. In such
great, vital chapters as Rom. viii., Gal. iv. and v. t
59
60 THE SPIRIT IN
and i Cor. ii. he has laid down lines of thought which
have helped to change the spiritual history of the
world.
In order rightly to interpret St. Paul s teaching, it
appears desirable to examine somewhat carefully the
words which he employs to describe the characteristics
of spiritual life. What were St. Paul s views of the
constitution of human nature apart from the Spirit of
God, and of the way in which the indwelling of the
Spirit affects the living man ?
I
And first, what may we expect to find on such a
subject in St. Paul s Epistles, whence did he draw
his doctrine, and how far has he any special
psychology of his own ?
It must be remembered that St. Paul has left no
systematic treatise of any kind, nor were his Epistles
formal compositions, technically claiming a place in
"literature." Deissmann may have gone somewhat
too far when he says that the result of an examination
of them "can be nothing more than a sketch of the
character of Paul the letter-writer, and not the system
of Paul the epistolographer; what speaks to us in the
letters is his faith, not his dogmatics." * But in the
main this point of view is the right one. It is gener
ally accepted now that the language of the New
Testament, the KOLVTJ of the Levant, was not, properly
speaking, the language of literature, but of common
speech. St. Paul, in dictating to his amanuensis
glowing words of exhortation to the Churches, is not
to be interpreted as if he were an arm-chair philo-
Bible Studies (Eng. Trans.), p. 58.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL 61
sopher finely choosing his diction, accurately distin
guishing synonyms and building up a complete
scheme of psychology. But neither, on the other
hand, does he write carelessly or confusedly. The
spoken Greek of his day was susceptible of fine
literary use; St. Paul himself had a highly trained
mind and a power of weighty expression. The great
topics of religion on which he wrote had been familiar
to him from childhood; he was himself one of the
noblest early products of the new religious energy
which had begun to transform the world; he was, as
all his letters prove, specially guided by the Spirit of
God and of Christ to put into words the new thoughts
and feelings which, like new wine, were mightily
fermenting in the new communities called Christian;
and in him we find a new powerful embodiment of
them which must not be lightly treated as merely
casual utterances. The fact that they are not the
systematic product of late after-reflection should be
no drawback to their influence, but rather greatly
enhance it.
From what sources, then, did St. Paul draw in the
words which he uses to express the working of the
Spirit of God in man? (i) The Old Testament, in
the original Hebrew and notably in the Greek version.
Brought up at the feet of Gamaliel, a Hebrew of
Hebrews, he knew the Scriptures from a child, and
shows in many ways the influence of careful Jewish,
sometimes Rabbinical, training. His quotations from
law and prophets, still more the allusions, direct and
indirect, to their contents, show that his mind was
saturated with Old Testament knowledge, that he
thought very largely in terms of the Old Covenant.
(2) At the same time, St. Paul had enjoyed the benefit
of some of the best culture of his day. He was
62 THE SPIRIT IN
familiar with the Hellenism of Alexandria, which had
permeated the world of "the Dispersion," he had been
brought up in the capital of a Roman province, was
more or less familiar with Roman law itself a liberal
education his sensitive and susceptible mind was
quite capable of assimilating ideas which were "in
the air " rather than definitely formulated, and his
intense Judaism had been to some extent, though
probably not deeply, influenced by the current litera
ture of his time. (3) Above all, he had passed
through a deep, searching, transforming spiritual
experience. He was a "fusile Apostle," melted to
take a new mould as by a flash of lightning. In him
old material was metamorphosed by new thoughts
and aims acquired from a new point of view by
a finely tempered human spirit touched to fine
issues.
May we expect, then, to find in St. Paul s Epistles
a true Biblical psychology? The answer depends on
what is understood by the phrase. We shall not find,
on the one hand, the precision of a systematic treatise,
nor, on the other, the confused talk of the man in the
street. We shall find the product of a trained mind,
an eager spirit, a great teacher, using material such
as has just been described in order to express the
characteristics of a new spiritual life, intensely realized
in his own personal history and rapidly becoming
reproduced in thousands of other lives. These were
being newly shaped by a new spiritual power, the
very nature of which was as yet but partially under
stood.
Coming, then, to our immediate subject, we find
St. Paul using the word ww^a (Spirit) in the follow
ing senses
i. The Spirit of God, as in the Old Testament.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL 63
2. The Spirit of Christ, as specially sent by Christ
and revealing Him.
3. This Spirit at work in the Churches as com
munities, manifested by certain notable pheno
mena.
4. The same Spirit in His normal work upon the
human spirit, producing subjective changes,
transforming the character and conduct of the
individual Christian.
The last is the subject of present inquiry, the theme
to which St. Paul, if we may judge from his writings,
gave the larger proportion of his thoughts and which
he esteemed most important. In order to understand
his language and the exact bearing of his phraseology
concerning the action of the Divine Spirit upon the
human, it will be necessary to sketch in as back
ground some account of what may be called his
psychology, his use of such terms as flesh, mind,
heart, body, soul and spirit.
II
In the Old Testament three words are used to
describe the soul-life of man : nephesh, neshamah and
ruach, the first corresponding to soul, the third to
spirit, whilst the second occupies a kind of middle
position. The first is the most frequent, occurring
more than 750 times in different senses ; the second is
quite subordinate, being found but some 25 times in
all; whilst the third word, ruach, or spirit, occurs more
than 370 times, if its use to denote the natural mind
and supernatural influences, as well as the human
spirit, be included. 1 It would be a mistake to expect
1 See Prof. H. W. Robinson s paper in Mansfield College
Essays, pp. 267-286, entitled, " Hebrew Psychology in relation
to Pauline Anthropology. *
64 THE SPIRIT IN
in Hebrew writings of some centuries before Christ
the preservation of exact distinction of synonyms such
as obtained in Greek long afterwards. But a dis
tinction between ncphesh (soul) and ruach (spirit) is
found and may be considered fairly established in a
number of cases. According to Dr. Laidlaw, one of
the best modern authorities, "nephesh is the subject
or bearer of life, ruach is the principle of life," or
"life constituted in the creature as distinguished from
life bestowed by the Creator." Or, again, "the usage
is practically uniform which puts spirit for the
animating principle, and soul, or living soul,
for the animated result." 1 The usage which made
"soul" to mean the entire human being as a con
stituted life, and "spirit" to mean the life-principle
as belonging to God and bestowed by Him on man,
undoubtedly influenced the New Testament writers
generally and St. Paul in particular. When, how
ever, soul or spirit on the one hand was opposed to
body or the flesh on the other the immaterial as
opposed to the material side the distinction between
the two tends to disappear, and they are used almost
interchangeably.
The term "flesh" occurs in the Old Testament
more than 260 times, to denote the corporeal element
in human nature, in various shades of meaning.
Sometimes the material substance is emphasized,
sometimes its frail and perishable character, some
times the sensuous, rather than the sensual, element
in humanity, as opposed to the Divine nature in its
abiding spiritual essence. But the idea of flesh as
essentially evil does not belong to the Old Testament
at all, nor is the darker use of the word, with its
deepening tinge of moral evil, characteristic of Old
1 Bible Doctrine of Man, p. 88.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL 65
Testament usage. "Body" is not so frequently
found, but the pairs of words, "body and soul,"
"flesh and spirit," are employed to point the contrast
between the material and the immaterial parts of man.
Whether these two phrases can be distinguished
is not so clear. Dr. Laidlaw says, "Soul and
body links the individual with the organism ;
flesh and spirit links the earthly substance in
which life inheres with the divine spark or principle
of life." i
"Heart" is a characteristic Old Testament word,
the 850 instances in which the word is employed
psychologically not including many in which the
bodily organ is literally intended. But it is used, by
a natural metaphor, to describe the central power of
man s immaterial nature. As the blood which is the
life issues from and returns to the physical heart, so
the heart indicates the centre of man s personality as a
whole. Sometimes the emotions are intended hope
or fear, sorrow or joy ; sometimes the intellectual
powers, as in i Kings iii. 9, and in many passages
where technical skill is implied. But especially is the
will referred to as the very citadel of the soul of man,
and it is out of the heart, in this sense, that there
come forth all the issues of man s life.
"Mind" is not a characteristic Hebrew word; it
might even be said hardly to exist in the language
as an abstract term. Novs occurs occasionally in the
LXX, but it stands either for "heart" or "spirit."
On the other hand, the products of mind, as repre
sented by thoughts and reflections, are often spoken
of; binah ("understanding") includes the power of
moral rather than of intellectual perception, the two
being, indeed, constantly blended in Hebrew.
1 Op. cit., p. 112.
P
66 THE SPIRIT IN
Gathering up results, Dr. Hatch 1 says that in the
LXX Kapbia, irvevfjia and ^x 7 ? are largely inter
changeable as translations of the same Hebrew words,
and that the lines of distinction between them are not
sharply drawn, but that /ca/odfo (heart) "is most com
monly used of will and intention, tyvx>i of appetite
arid desire." It is, on the whole, more satisfactory,
following Beck whose conclusion is styled by Laid-
law to be "a clear and intelligible result which justifies
itself throughout the whole Scripture " to under
stand that "spirit represents the principle of life, soul
the subject of life, and heart the organ of life; defi
nitions which will be found to apply accurately to all
the three constituent lives which the human being can
lead (a) the physical, (b) the mental and moral,
(c) the spiritual and religious."
Ill
How does St. Paul use these materials? For the
most part he builds upon the Old Testament founda
tion, with hardly any modifications derived from what
might be considered the prevailing influences of con
temporary life. But the Apostle s Christian experi
ence, with the strong lights and shadows thrown by
it upon the whole field of human life, leads him to
use the familiar words with deeply intensified mean
ing. It is not easy to represent this change in a
sentence, since the varying shades of significance
attaching to the words in different connections intro
duce an element of complexity. But it may perhaps
be said very briefly that a new significance attaches
to St. Paul s use of ww^a as the highest part of
human nature akin to the Divine : that \jsvxij (soul),
1 Essays in Biblical Greek, p. 108.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL 67
whilst often employed in its old sense, takes a lower
position, and is sometimes even opposed to " spirit";
whilst the word "flesh " acquires a darker ethical con
notation, though never in St. Paul s writings is man s
material nature made the seat or source of evil.
" Heart " is used in the New Testament practically
in its Old Testament sense, and the same is true of
"mind," except in a very few passages. The former
of these two words is as important in the psychology
of the New Testament as the latter is unimportant
and rare.
"Soul," represented by nephesh in the Old Testa
ment and psuche in the New Testament, is a word
not often on St. Paul s lips; he uses it only a dozen
times or so altogether. In half these instances it
stands for "life," and has no ethical significance; but
where it has, it stands, very appropriately, for the
lower part of man s immaterial nature, the seat of the
emotions and desires. These are too often prompted
by bodily states, and are habitually opposed to the
intellectual aspects of a life controlled by reason and
its volitional aspects, which may be assumed to be
under the direction of a well-trained will, ruling and
subordinating the sensuous impulses of a nature
without any higher principle to control it. Hence,
as in i Cor. ii., the adjective "psychic" is opposed
to "pneumatic "; the former being the "natural " man
whose life is governed by the "soul " as the principle
of emotional and earthly life, contrasted with the
spiritual man, all the elements of whose life are under
the control of the God-given principle of "spirit."
"Flesh" is used by St. Paul between 90 and 100
times, but only in about one-third of these is the
ethical sense predominant. It is in interpreting these
passages that modern scholars are least agreed as to
r 2
68 THE SPIRIT IN
the exact shade of meaning intended. Some, includ
ing Pfleiderer and Holsten, seek to show that for St.
Paul the fleshly nature of man was more than the
channel of temptation, and they point to Rom. vii. ,18
as proving that it is the very source of evil. Others,
with whom Wendt and Professor Dickson 1 may be
classed, would understand o-ap in the Hebrew sense
as concrete man in his creaturely capacity. Wernle
says, "The Pauline conception of flesh seems to be
a tertium quid something intermediate between
Hellenism and Hebrewism." Dr. Bruce considers
that Paul himself is obscure. But a satisfactory
interpretation of the various shades of meaning found
in St. Paul s Epistles is easily reached if we under
stand the word " flesh 1 * to mean in the first instance
the frail, perishable, creaturely nature of man viewed
in itself and apart from Divine power and grace ;
thence, easily acquiring a tinge of moral frailty and
weakness and sometimes of positive evil, handed on
through the channel of the mortal body, but never
reaching the Hellenic and Eastern conception of the
essential evil of matter. To the present writer, at all
events, it seems clear that St. Paul, who believed in
the reality of Christ s body of flesh but held Him to
have been essentially without sin, can never have
intended to imply that the flesh, as such, was the
seat of sin. But it is equally certain that man, left
to himself, is not only weak as a creature, not only
frail and mortal, but wayward and disobedient, selfish
and evil, and it is not difficult to see how the milder
meaning of "flesh " passed into a morally darker one.
St. Paul is not concerned with philosophical theories ;
he is describing actual experiences, and mankind at
1 See his monograph on "St. Paul s Use of the Terms Flesh
and Spirit " in the Baird Lectures for 1883.
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL 69
large has accepted some of his descriptions as chapters
out of the life of every man. The flesh is not essen
tially evil, for nothing is good but a good will, and
nothing is essentially bad but a bad one. It is, how
ever, weak, and, left to itself, easily becomes evil,
and in it, as so constituted, there dwells no good
thing. In this sense "flesh lusts against spirit and
spirit against flesh," and in this sense also every man
who is Christ s has "crucified the flesh with its
affections and lusts."
" Heart " is used by St. Paul about 50 times, follow
ing the Old Testament usage above described. It
stands for the centre of man s life, intellectual,
emotional and volitional. It must not be narrowed
down, as it often is by English readers, to mean the
feelings, as opposed to the reasoning powers. Paul s
use of "mind" is perhaps the clearest example of a
modification of Hebrew usage in favour of the Greek.
It is employed more than 20 times to denote, not, as
in classical Greek, the understanding only, but the
practical reason as judging on moral questions.
Hence, as we shall see, an ethical connotation attaches
to it which the English word hardly permits.
But the word of highest importance in our present
inquiry is Trvtv^a (spirit), which occurs nearly 150
times in St. Paul, though in only about 30 of these
does it denote the immaterial nature of man in its
higher aspects. These may be further subdivided,
according to whether "spirit" means, as in the Old
Testament, the God-given principle of life in every
man, or his nature as regenerated by the power of
God in Christ by the Holy Spirit. Accurate classi
fication becomes impossible here, since several pas
sages occupy a kind of borderland, in which no one
can dogmatically say that the reference is to the Spirit
70 THE SPIRIT IN
of God alone, or to the regenerated spirit of man
alore, or to the natural faculty in which the Divine
Spirit deigns to dwell. It must be said, however in
opposition to some highly respected authorities, in
cluding Delitzsch, Neander and others that there is
no ground for the view that the irvtvpa in St. Paul
is a faculty of which the natural man is destitute,
and which is only imparted in regeneration. It is
contrasted with "flesh " in many cases where regenera
tion has not taken place; it is used in connection
with such words as disobedience and cowardice; and
its occurrence in 2 Cor. vii. i, "Let us cleanse our
selves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit," shows
that both parts of man s nature have been stained
with sin, and that both may be cleansed and renewed
by grace.
Into the controversy concerning the tripartite nature
of man it is not convenient here to enter. The prefer
able view, now very generally adopted, would seem
to be that spirit, soul and flesh are in St. Paul, as
elsewhere in the Bible, not three natures, but man s
nature viewed in three aspects. The spirit is the
self-conscious life-principle given by God, in virtue
of which man thinks and feels and wills. The soul
is the personal being so constituted, and is descriptive
of man s natural, earthly life; while man, as flesh,
inherits a frail, perishable body, which represents him
on the outer and lower and material side. The whole
man body, soul and spirit is redeemed by Christ,
and is to be completely sanctified by the renewing
power of the indwelling Spirit of God,
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL 71
IV
In the light of what has been said, what is St.
Paul s teaching on the mode in which this renewal
takes place, on the relation between the Divine Spirit,
the human spirit and the complex constitution of
human nature as a whole ? No analysis of St. Paul s
Epistles is possible here, but an examination of a few
leading passages in his writings will guide us to an
outline of his thought.
1. Where the Spirit of God or of Christ is expressly
so named, or where the phrase, the Holy Spirit, is
found, there can be no ambiguity. But -nvtv^a with
the article, the Spirit, though not expressly termed
Divine, may also have this meaning, as in i Cor.
ii. 10. Some grammarians have laid it down that
without the article only a Divine influence, not the
Third Person in the Trinity, is intended, as in John
xx. 21, "Receive ye Holy Spirit." But this is very
doubtful, ayiov irv^v^a being one of those phrases in
which the specification of the article is not necessary.
It is true, however, that the Holy Spirit is Himself
both Giver and Gift, both Work and Worker, so that
in some instances it is the inwrought grace of the
Spirit assimilated by man that it is intended, rather
than the Person of the Divine Agent operating.
2. The spirit as a faculty of human nature, self-
conscious, allied to God, but not as regenerated by
the Spirit of Christ, is to be understood in such pas
sages as i Cor. ii. 11, "What man knoweth the things
of a man, but the spirit of man that is in him ? "
Also i Cor. v. 5; xvi. 18, etc.
3. But in a large number of cases "spirit" means
the highest part of man s nature, renewed by grace,
72 THE SPIRIT IN
made the dwelling-place of the Divine Spirit and
constituted the organ of the new life. Thus we read
in Rom. viii. 10, "If Christ be in you, the body is
dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of
righteousness"; and in viii. 15 we find mentioned
the direct witness of the Spirit of God conjoined with
the witness of the human spirit, which He inhabits
and informs with new filial life.
4. Sometimes the word is found with a dependent
genitive, as in such phrases as "the spirit of life in
Christ Jesus," "the spirit of adoption," "the spirit of
wisdom," "the spirit of power, love and discipline."
In this case we must not be misled into interpreting
St. Paul by modern phraseology. Such expressions
do not mean a mere disposition, or frame of mind,
or tendency, as in the expression, "the spirit of his
speech was admirable." In many cases the allusion
to the Holy Spirit is tolerably obvious, and in nearly
all instances some indirect effect of His working is
intended. It is impossible, however, always to show
this in English, though we observe that in 2 Tim.
i. 7, Dr. Weymouth translates "For the Spirit which
God has given us is not a spirit of cowardice, but one
of power and of love and of sound judgment." This
rendering well brings out the direct operation of the
Holy Spirit and the resulting spiritual state of the
believer in whom He dwells.
V
It remains only to show by an examination of a
few passages the nature of the borderland between
Divine and human indicated by the somewhat am
biguous use of "spirit" in St. Paul. These passages
are valuable in their present form because they show
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST, PAUL 73
so clearly that the Apostle is describing an experience,
not analyzing a mental process. He writes, not as a
schoolman, but as a Christian.
The eighth chapter of Romans would furnish many
illustrations. In verse 9, for example, the Spirit of
God is definitely named and His indwelling specific
ally stated. The believer, however, is said to live,
not "in the flesh," that is, in a sphere or region of
fleshly influences, but "in the spirit," that is, under
higher spiritual influence, the Revisers showing the
distinction by their use of the capital letter. In the
latter part of the verse, "Spirit of Christ" is often
erroneously explained as if it were the spirit, or dis
position, or frame of mind characteristic of Christ.
The direct reference to the Holy Spirit must not be
missed.
In i Cor. ii. 10, 13, the Divine Spirit must unques
tionably be intended, but the revelation granted must
be assimilated by the believer, who thus alone can re
ceive spiritual truth. The phrase, "comparing spiritual
things with spiritual," shows that such revelation may
sometimes extend to the very words used, so that, in
contrast with phraseology marked by human wisdom,
the spiritual man "matches" spiritual words with the
spiritual realities he seeks to express. Two passages
from the same Epistle which describe the indwelling
of the Holy Spirit are iii. 16 and vi. 19. Of these
the former, "Ye are a temple of God and the Spirit
of God dwelleth in you," should be understood col
lectively of the Church; the latter, "Your body is a
temple of the Holy Spirit," should be interpreted of
the individual Christian. The thought frequently
recurs in St. Paul s Epistles, and the emphasis lies
now upon the individual, now upon the Church col
lectively, as "a habitation of God in the Spirit." But,
74 THE SPIRIT IN
obviously, neither of these two interpretations need
exclude the other, the two being, indeed, mutually
supplementary. The use of "spirit " in the paragraph
2 Cor. iii. 3-8 illustrates the blending of the human
and the Divine from another side. The living epistles
are written as by the ringer of God Himself, "the
Spirit of the living God," though on "tablets that are
hearts of flesh." The spirit that giveth life, however,
contrasted with the letter that killeth, is the result of
the Divine operation, and "the ministration of the
spirit " refers to the spiritually vivifying apostolic
ministry, in contrast with the hardness, rigidity and
condemnatory character of the Mosaic law.
A real difficulty occurs in the interpretation of
2 Cor. iii. 17, 18. This is the only place in St.
Paul s writings in which we find what has been called
"confusion" between Christ and the Spirit. These
verses appear to identify the two whom St. Paul is
usually careful to distinguish. But the identification
is one of function, not of existence. The interpolated
phrase, "The Lord is the Spirit," means that "turn
ing to the Lord" in verse 16 implies a turning to the
true freedom engendered wherever His Spirit is at
work. The last clause of verse 18, "even as from the
Lord the Spirit" (Revised Version margin, "the
Spirit which is the Lord "), must be understood in
the same way. The transformation into the image of
the Lord, accomplished by beholding and reflecting
His glory, is essentially a spiritual operation. Only
the Holy Spirit can effect it. Yet the whole process
is so essentially that of Christ the Lord, whom the
Spirit is glorifying in the believer, that the subtle and
paradoxical expression, "as from the Lord who is
the Spirit," or "the Spirit who is the Lord," is per
missible. It is readily understood by the devout
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL 75
heart, while it may be open to the cavils of the critical
mind.
The Epistle to the Galatians furnishes ample
ground for the student who would follow St. Paul s
exposition of the things of the Spirit. The Revisers
are no doubt right in rendering iii. 3, "having begun
in the Spirit," i. e. a life originated and maintained
by the Holy Spirit, though the latter clause, "per
fected in the flesh," might seem to require the mean
ing, "having begun with the principles of a truly
spiritual religion." Similarly in the fifth chapter we
should support the direct reference to the Holy Spirit
in passages sometimes understood as referring to the
spiritual life in man. In verses 16 and 17, for
example, the counter-influences at work in the
regenerate man who is not yet entirely sanctified
might seem to be both human, his own spirit and
flesh being "contrary the one to the other." But that
God s Spirit is intended seems clear from the con
text, "walk by the Spirit," in 16, and "led by the
Spirit," in 18. The tendency of modern times is to
resolve the Divine into the human, and many inter
preters understand "walk by the spirit" as indicating
merely a spiritual, not a fleshly, habit of life, and "led
by the spirit " as the renewed principle of life adopted
by the renewed man. This would seem, however, to
be a shallow exegesis of St. Paul s deep mystical
utterances. The Revisers are certainly right in their
use of capital letters. If we live by the Spirit, St.
Paul would say, as Christians certainly profess to do ;
if we draw our very existence from His inspiration,
let us walk accordingly, and let our actual conduct,
as well as the principle of our life, be determined by
Him. For He is not only the source of our life and
its living principle, but its motive energy. We are
76 THE SPIRIT IN
to be led by the same Spirit raised, wafted and borne
on our way by His indwelling energy, and the steps
of our earthly journey made easy and delightful,
because ordered by Divine wisdom and animated by
Divine might.
Over the rich and varied teaching of the Epistle to
the Ephesians we must not linger. But in ii. 18 the
phrase, "through Him " (i. e. Christ) "we have access
in one Spirit unto the Father," whilst it might mean,
as some have said, access in one common disposition
of prayer characteristic of Jew 7 and Gentile, can to a
careful student of St. Paul only mean access by virtue
of our common vital union in and with the one Holy
Spirit of God. The fact, however, that this inter
pretation is not universally accepted shows how
closely united in Paul s diction are the human and
the Divine elements of the spiritual life in the renewed
man and the renewed Church. The interpretation of
Eph. iv. 3, 4, "the unity of the Spirit," etc., follows
on the same lines. In iv. 23, on the other hand, the
human side predominates. " Be renewed in the spirit of
your mind " must be understood in the light of Rom.
xii. 2, "transformed by the renewing of your mind."
The vovs, or mind, itself is neutral ; it stands for the
principle of judgment or volition in moral action,
which may be rightly or wrongly guided. St. Paul
would say, whereas hitherto the intents and purposes
of your actions have been guided by your own desires
and these have repeatedly deceived you, let a new
principle, spiritual in its character, be established,
and perpetually renewed, so that you may prove in
practice what is God s perfect will, and yourselves be
restored in character to His image of righteousness
and true holiness.
What God has joined together, man must not put
THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ST. PAUL 77
asunder. The gracious ambiguity of some of St.
Paul s expressions can deceive no one. The reason
why in some passages it is difficult to say whether
the immediate working of the Spirit of God is in
tended, or the result of His operation reflected in the
human spirit, is that these two are strangely and
deeply one. We are in the Spirit if He is in us.
And without the Spirit of Christ Himself at work-
within us we can do nothing.
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
"Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit."
i COR. xii. 4.
"7 had rather speak five words with my understanding . . .
than ten thousand words in a tongue." i Cor. xiv. 19.
" The great conception of the New Testament . . . that in
the action of the personal Spirit there is a manifestation of the
divine freedom, whether in the form of the miracles which
were wrought by our Lord Himself in the power of the Spirit,
or in supernatural f gifts, or in the ethical and spiritual changes
which are the result of the work of the Spirit in the higher life
of man." R. W. DALE.
" When tongues shall cease, and power decay,
And knowledge empty prove,
Do thou thy trembling servants stay
With faith, with hope, with love." REGINALD HEBER.
IV
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
THE earliest Christian community was Spirit-filled.
The exact meaning of this phrase could only be
brought out by examination of the passages in the
Acts and Epistles which describe the phenomenon.
The variety of operations of the Spirit in the world,
as described in the Old Testament, is paralleled by
the variety of His operations in the Church, as de
scribed in the New. But the agent is one and the
same Spirit, dividing to each severally as He will.
It is noteworthy that Father, Son and Spirit are
associated together in i Cor. xii. 4-7, the Three
being One; but the executive power is the Spirit,
discernible amidst all diversities of workings.
The general impression left is clear. The early
history of the Church recorded in the Acts is a kind
of extended Pentecost. On that day a pellucid spring
of new life is seen pouring forth from the mountain
side, and the first years of the Church show us the
course of the stream, in its pristine freshness and
purity, the first effervescence of what can only be
described as a Vita Nuova, a New Life. The Spirit
is the name given to the animating energy of that
new life, the sum of all the celestial influences at
work to follow up and deeply impress the new revela
tion of God made in Jesus Christ His Son. Those
who belonged to the new "Way," as it came to be
G 81
82 THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
called, were marked by new views, new tempers, new
aims, but especially by a new spirit of unity and a
fresh access of courage. In Acts iv. 31, 32 the being
filled with the Holy Ghost is synonymous with
speaking the word of God with boldness and with a
cementing power in the multitude which made them
to be of one heart and of one soul. Intense spiritual
energy was needed thus to fuse and thus to inspire
the obscure and ignorant men who were to conquer
the world. Von Dobschlitz says in his picture of
the time, " It was in the full sense of the word a
communion of the Spirit which consisted in a con
tinuous and incredibly intensified enthusiasm, in an
inspiration which exalted every faculty to the mani
festation of miracle even in the natural domain. To
this Spirit nothing was impossible. He found utter
ance in ecstatic speech, imparted hidden mysteries,
and made prophets and teachers of the uncultured.
He inspired every sort of manifestation of ministering
love, of guiding wisdom, of self-sacrificing devotion.
He performed miracles, healed diseasbs, moved
mountains, and transformed men, who felt them
selves miserable and oppressed, into a cloud of wit
nesses overflowing with strength and courage." 1
I
The characteristic word for these various manifesta
tions w r as \ap La-para, gifts of grace, " spiritual gifts "
which were indeed earnestly to be coveted. Gunkel s
definition of the workings of the Holy Spirit as
"certain mysterious powers operating in the range
of the life of men . . . and which belong only to
such as are not unworthy of a connection with God "
1 Christian Life in the Primitive Church, E. T., pp. 15, 16.
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 83
is too vague and loose. Instead of beginning with a
definition, it will be well to examine the illustrations
given in Acts and Epistles and see what features they
possess in common.
They have been variously stated and classified.
Sometimes a distinction has been drawn between
natural and supernatural gifts, or between gifts
transient and permanent, or between those which
heightened the intellectual faculties and those which
elevated the moral character. Such distinctions be
long to a later period; they may help to a right
understanding of the phenomena, or may be only
misleading. The history recorded in the Acts sup
plies a commentary upon such lists as St. Paul gives
in i Cor. xii. On the whole the parallels are close,
though here and there is to be found a puzzling dis
crepancy. But both history and lists of gifts imply
a picture of a new type of life, with little sense of
such a distinction between natural and supernatural
as would appear to a modern observer to be funda
mental. The habit of mind of the early Church
differed from ours in this regard : we plume our
selves on our superior discrimination, how far legiti
mately may be questioned. The early Christians had
not, of course, a modern knowledge of the order of
nature, and herein we are better informed than they.
They had, however, a vivid sense of the presence and
power of God in their midst, a sense of the natural-
supernatural, as Carlyle would call it, which is in
no way inconsistent with a knowledge of the reign of
law, and which it would be an immense gain if the
modern world could recapture.
Classification of gifts will not help much. Schmiedel,
in his article on the subject in the Encyclopedia
Biblica, suggests a division into "three great cate-
G 2
84 THE GIFIS OF THE SPIRIT
gories," as in i Cor. xii. 4-5, x a P^ r l JLara charisms,
biCLKoviai ministries and erepy^/iara works, and his
remarks upon details, as suggested by St. Paul s
words, deserve study. But sharp distinctions, and
hard and fast lines of classification, are to be depre
cated. In any arrangement some will be found to
lie on the border-lines, unless violence is used to fit
them in with principles adopted a priori.
We find, however, the following distinctions more
or less clearly appearing
1. Gifts which would now be described as super
natural: Prophecy. Tongues; interpretation
of tongues ; and, perhaps, discerning of spirits.
Healings. Miracles, generally.
2. Gifts which might be described as extraordinary
endowments, such as : Wisdom. Visions.
Wonder-working Faith.
3. Gifts which were granted for the purpose of
service, such as : Helps. Governments.
Ministries.
4. Gifts such as would now be called graces of
character, imparted in an extraordinary de
gree, but of an ethical and spiritual kind, due
to the faithful use of natural gifts and
faculties. Such were the joy and unity and
courage of which mention has been made,
and which constituted such a distinguishing
feature of the first generation of Christians.
II
In subsequent days tendencies have appeared, now
to over-estimate, and now to under-estimate, the mean
ing and value of these gifts of grace. Language is
sometimes used as if only in this first generation of
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 85
Christianity were the true golden days, a high-water
mark never to be reached again by degenerate Chris
tians, a period distinguished especially by miraculous
powers, which constituted a kind of overflow from
the time when the Son of God wrought many mighty
works. But this rests upon a false understanding
of miracles. Signs in the sense of portents to make
men gape and wonder Christ always refused to work.
He set faith in Himself first, though He added, "Or
else believe Me for the very work s sake," as He had
said, "That ye may know that the Son of Man hath
power on earth to forgive sins, Arise and Walk."
So the "works " and "healings" of the Apostles were
not prodigies, but were all of them wrought "through
faith in His name," the great object being to set forth
the power of the One Name given under heaven for
salvation, when rightly used by those who owned
allegiance to it. Powers of this kind as existing in
the primitive Church are recognized both in the Acts
and in the Epistles, but in neither are they markedly
prominent.
On the other hand, the prevailing disposition of late
has been to under-estimate the miraculous element,
explaining it away if possible, or bringing it under
the category of unknown law. The extreme rational
ism which denies utterly the possibility of miracle,
attributing the otherwise inexplicable to hallucination
or credulity, is not scientific, and it would prevent
the advance of science if the same spirit were carried
into the region of psychology, for example. But the
truly scientific spirit, which claims that the law of
parsimony should be applied to all stories of pro
fessedly miraculous events, and which demands in
every instance as satisfactory evidence as the case
permits, is now characteristic of all careful inquiries,
86 THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
scientific or theological. The important point is to
preserve the unity of the one Divine kingdom,
natural and supernatural, under one Head. The line
of demarcation between these two great provinces of
God s kingdom is not always easy to draw. As the
generations pass the boundary line is not always to
be found in the same place. Its course is largely
determined by our knowledge of what can, and what
cannot, be explained by means of known facts, laws
and principles. God s manifestation of Himself, so
far* as this can be conveyed in the detailed order
unfolded by science, is not the whole of life. The
natural order serves rather as a frame for a picture,
a background against which stand out the more
significant lines of personal revelation, which in itself
is not out of order, but is not explicable by the laws
which determine phenomena in the lower sphere.
How much is possible to the human spirit under the
direct influence of the Divine ? The wise man will
answer, I do not know and cannot draw a boundary
line. He will add, however, that he does recognize
certain limits which God Himself appears to have
laid down for His own action, that these will not
lightly be overpassed, that men not of one age only
are often credulous and superstitious. He recog
nizes that it is a mistake to multiply unnecessarily
instances of the miraculous, and that the Church has
suffered before this by having to bear as a burden
imposed upon faith the task of maintaining the truth
of miracles for which there was no sufficient evidence.
But St. Paul, in his two lists of "gifts " in i Cor. xii.,
does not hint for a moment that some are "natural "
and that others again are beyond nature. His com
ment is, The same Lord worketh all, in all.
Those which would be styled supernatural in
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 87
modern times are prophecies, tongues and healings;
though in the treatment of these it will be seen that
the working of natural laws is not to be excluded.
"Prophecy" in the New Testament, as in the Old, is
not mainly prediction and not necessarily "super
natural." Prophecy is not to be confused with
mantic, the art of the diviner, the ecstatic utterance
of a soothsayer beside himself. Weinel s parallels,
drawn from history in the early and middle ages
down to the Irvingites of the nineteenth century,
illustrate rather the gift of "tongues." "Healings"
appear to imply miracle, unless indeed the psycho
therapy of modern times be erected into a science and
be considered capable of "explaining" what the
wisest do not as yet profess to understand the
action and reaction of body upon mind and mind
upon body. It may be said in passing that the whole
treatment of this subject in our generation is an
illustration of the danger of drawing artificial and
arbitrary lines of distinction between "natural" and
"supernatural" phenomena.
Ill
The Gift of Tongues requires separate handling.
Two accounts have come down to us, one by St.
Luke in Acts ii., the other by St. Paul in i Corinth
ians. Between these there appears to be discrepancy.
The usual method now is to take St. Paul s account
as guide, since it is at the same time more direct,
fuller and more intelligible than the brief reference
in the Acts.
From i Cor. xiv. we learn that the utterances
known by the name "Tongues" were not with the
or understanding of the speaker which was
88 THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
" unfruitful* and that they were not intelligible to
the hearers, an interpreter being necessary. The
speaker might himself be edified, as one who had
been in a spiritual ecstasy, but no edification was
conveyed to others. The utterance was not of the
nature of ordinary prayer, or praise, addressed to
God, or of prophecy addressed to man ; yet the
speaker might be said to "speak to himself and to
God," and the speaker might pray or praise with the
spirit, or with the understanding, or w T ith both. The
"tongue" was contrasted with revelation, knowledge
and teaching; the great drawback to its exercise was
that it did not contain these important elements of
education. Paul desires to pray, to sing and to bless or
give thanks r<3 voi with the understanding as well
as tv -nvev^oLTL in the spirit; and while the power of
ecstatic utterance had been granted to him in the
highest known measure, he preferred the ability to
speak but five words that might benefit others to ten
thousand words that were of no use to any but
himself.
The question has often been asked whether these
utterances were mere inarticulate noises, or words in
no intelligible order, or pious but incoherent ejacula
tions, or whether there be any room for the idea that
foreign languages were spoken. The last alternative,
suggested by the account in Acts of the day of
Pentecost, receives no support from i Cor. xiv. The
"interpretation of tongues" appears to have no con
nection with translation from a foreign language.
The parallels from the history of Montanism, of the
Camisards in the seventeenth century, of Methodism
in the eighteenth century and Irvingism in the nine
teenth, would indicate that these voices may have been
partially intelligible sounds poured out under intense
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 89
spiritual excitement. Those nearest our own time,
in Edward Irving s Church in 1832, were, according
to Mr. Oliphant s account, not utterly unintelligible,
but they certainly contained no intrinsic evidence of
supernatural, or divine, origin. Irving s own account
was that when "the power" fell the speaker was
moved to sighs and tears and unutterable groanings,
to joy and mirth and exultation, and that his utter
ance was "a regularly formed, well-proportioned dis
course, which evidently wanteth only the ear of him
whose native tongue it is to make it a very master
piece of powerful discourse." The specimens given
of utterances in known tongues are only passionate
religious ejaculations, though all agree that the tones
of these "passionate cadences and wild raptures of
prophetic repetition " were most impressive, always
thrilling and sometimes overawing the hearers.
It has often been argued that the account in Acts
is inconsistent with the account in Paul. As they
stand it is difficult to reconcile the two. Some would
delete erepat? in Acts ii. 4 as an interpolation. Others
interpret the miracle on the day of Pentecost as one
of hearing rather than of speech. According to this
view the Apostles had not miraculously conferred
upon them the power to speak in other languages,
but just as the deaf may learn a lip-language and be
enabled to understand a speaker by his use of eye
and face and gesture, so the Apostles hearers had
special power of perception and comprehension be
stowed upon them. This, however, is far-fetched and
hardly warranted by St. Luke s phraseology. It is
much more probable that in these two separate docu
ments we have two distinct accounts from diverse
points of view of what was at best a strange pheno
menon. There is no trustworthy indication from any
90 THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
other quarter of a miraculous power to speak in a
foreign language being granted to an Apostle or to
any one else. Such a gift is not in harmony with
the New Testament miracles, and if it had actually
been given it must have left a distinct mark in the
records of the Church. This is not the kind of miracle
that the Holy Spirit grants to men carrying His
message, who in every age must toil and study, if
they are to preach to men of other tongues.
But it does not follow that St. Luke s account is
wholly mistaken. The fact of interpretation points
to some kind of intelligible meaning attaching to the
words, when heard with sympathy and insight, such
as the Spirit gave. Gunkel adduces the cry "Abba,
Father " as an illustration of an outpouring partly in
Aramaic and partly in Greek, and the two watch
words mentioned in i Cor. xii. 3, Christ is Lord !
and Christ be Anathema ! may be specimens of con
densed utterances freely uttered in great religious
excitement. We shall probably be not far from the
mark if we understand the tongues to have been
ecstatic outpourings, in which men were led them
selves very near to God by the power of the Spirit,
but their expressions were so incoherent when they
were thus beside themselves, that the help of others
was needed to translate them into terms which could
be understood by those who did not share the spiritual
rapture. Nothing in later history warrants the idea
of any continuance of this charism. St. Paul s
account shows why it was comparatively useless.
What he himself saw in ecstasy, as in 2 Cor. xii., he
did not attempt to repeat. Rapture is not inspiration.
Ecstasy, as is shown in the history of Catherine,
Teresa and many another saint in the Roman
calendar, injures the body, disturbs the mental
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 91
balance and, as in St. Paul s case, may tend to a state
of spiritual self-confidence which requires a thorn in
the flesh to prevent it from being morally mischiev
ous. Yet rapture has its place in the worship of the
individual and the Church, if "the spirits of the
prophets are subject to the prophets."
IV
It is characteristic of the gift of prophecy that it is
distinguished from the gift of wisdom on the one
hand and of tongues on the other. The vovs, as we
should say the intellect, is engaged, but its operation
in examination and reflection is not the main factor
in prophecy. A careful reading of the graphic
description in i Cor. xiv. shows that St. Paul means
by prophecy the power to preach under the direct,
immediate and more or less overpowering influence
of the Spirit so as mightily to convince the hearers,
lay bare the secrets of their hearts, to teach, exhort
and comfort, the prophet being swayed by a power
not his own, which yet did not use him as a mere
passive instrument or vehicle. The seer of the Old
Testament had powers of perception into spiritual
truth, sometimes of conditionally declaring the future,
the power of utterance so as to move and sway his
hearers, perhaps imagination sufficient to see and
record visions of great practical import, and through
out to speak as a man with a message, not "from
himself." The New Testament prophet, about whom
we have much less information though the Apo
calypse forms one striking example of his gift was
apparently a worthy successor of the same order.
The element of revelation, not necessarily of entirely
new truth, entered into his speech, which might some-
92 THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
times be ecstatic, though it was not usually so. The
power was spontaneous and came from above. If
any man speak, says St. Peter, let him speak as it
were oracles of God. The utterance was recognizable
by the hearers as beyond the unassisted powers of
man. Dr. Lindsay describes the prophets as "men
of spiritual insight and magnetic speech." Such they
were, but undoubtedly they were more than this,
unless by magnetic we understand something higher
than the sacred eloquence which will now inexplicably
thrill and move the hearers. These men spoke under
such an immediate, personal afflatus of the Holy
Spirit that the gift was not communicable, transmis
sible; it was one of the first to disappear from the
Church. False prophets counterfeited the true, or
gave forth such a faint echo of the sonorous tones of
the original that their message sounded like a parody.
Lingering traces of the gift are found in Irena^us and
Tertullian, but long before their time the teacher and
presbyter had taken the place of the prophet. The
vision splendid by which the youthful Church had
been on its way attended too soon faded into the light
of common day. Had the Church been more faithful,
the light of common day would have been the most
splendid of all.
The gift of discerning spirits is handled not very
sympathetically by Schmiedel in his article already
referred to. He says that "it involves in principle a
complete abandonment of belief in suggestion of the
Holy Spirit." It would seem, however, to indicate
naturally enough another mode of operation of the
One Divine Leader. When all kinds of spiritual in
fluences were at work, many men claiming Divine
power and guidance, good men differing sometimes
in their judgment as to what the voice of the Spirit
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 93
really said, the gift of judgment, of insight, of fine
discrimination, would be needed by all and granted in
special measure to some. An example of such "dis
cerning of spirits " is found in i John iv. 1-3, where
a practical test of doctrine is suggested which is,
indeed, a kind of echo of St. Paul s distinction in
i Cor. xii. 3, the criterion between false and true
being the acknowledgment that "Jesus Christ is come
in the flesh." Simon Magus is not the only man in
the history of the Church who has desired power for
power s sake. He has gained an evil notoriety be
cause he sought to purchase a gift with money, but
the usual weakness of the ecclesiastic is to covet too
earnestly and cling too tenaciously to spiritual power
which he uses often for his own ends in the Lord s
name. There is needed in the modern as in the
ancient Church the power to discern spirits, and there
is no mode of gaining it but by the unconditional
acknowledgment of the sovereignty of Christ and
under the immediate direction of the Holy Spirit.
V
One of the most interesting parts of this study
it is for several reasons impossible here to pursue
in detail. The heightening of the ordinary faculties
for the service of the Church is indicated by the
mental gifts of "wisdom" and "knowledge," the
power of working in "faith " and "healings," and the
faculty of administration in "helps," "governments"
and "ministries."
Each one of these words would repay careful ex
amination. Some of them take us back to the list of
seven gifts of the Spirit in Isa. xi. Of the Messianic
scion of the dynasty of David it is there said that the
94 THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
spirit of Jahweh shall rest upon him and he " shall
draw his breath in quick delight " as he lives in the
fear of the Lord. Six gifts are to be his, arranged in
three pairs
Wisdom and understanding, moral and intellectual.
Good counsel beforehand, and brave execution in act.
Direct knowledge of the God he serves, and awe
struck but cheerful readiness in all things to obey
Him.
The "wisdom" and "revelation" spoken of by St.
Paul, while they do not shut out the need of effort
and acquisition on the part of man, emphasize the
inwrought grace of God which prepares teachers by
the gift of an insight that no study can impart.
"Faith," on the other hand, is more closely associated
with the will. It indicates the mighty spiritual energy
characteristic of a man who trusts with all his soul.
In human history there has been no power like it.
Mountains have been removed by it and sycamine
trees plucked up and cast into the sea. Men of culture
and education too often lack it, though there is no
reason why it should not be theirs ; but wherever it is
found pure, nothing is impossible to it. Stephen, as
a man full alike of faith and the Holy Ghost, was not
only a Christian protomartyr, but a prototype of such
faith as the Church needs to-day, for unless this
channel of the Holy Spirit s operation be clear, His
presence and energy remain ineffective.
"Ministries" are, or may be, spiritual gifts.
Ecclesiastical administration is so often unspiritual
that it is refreshing to think of helps and governments
under this highest control of all. Doles and charities
may be means of proselytizing; sanitation and social
reformation may be utilized in partisan politics;
"governments" may be another name for the worst
THE GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT 95
kind of tyranny, the autocracy of those who presume
to rule in the name of Christ and His Church. But
when giving and helping, organizing and arranging,
leading and planning are the outflow of one indwell
ing energy, itself inspired by the love of Christ and
the power of the Spirit, there are few gifts that can
surpass these.
It is well worth asking whether the Church of to
day has learned all that she needs to know from the
chapters which tell us of the gifts of the Spirit in the
primitive Church. Granted that some of these, bril
liant at the time, were transient, and intended to be
so, is the level along which the Church should move
under the leadership of the Spirit sufficiently main
tained ? The Spirit of prophesying, is it extinct ? and
ought it to be so? The complex organization of
modern times with its graded courts, its votes and
majorities, its multiplied offices and officers, is it under
the control of the only Power that can enable it to do
its work ? And in the life of the individual Christian,
was the standard of the Church in Corinth in A.D. 58
abnormally high as regards wisdom and revelation,
knowledge and discernment of spirits, the power to
believe and the power to teach ? Might it not be
expected that the standard of a Christian country in
the twentieth century after Christ would be indefi
nitely higher? These are questions easier to ask
than to answer. But one thing is certain. If there
be any failure or deficiency it does not lie either in
the power or the will of that Spirit without whom
nothing is strong, nothing holy, but in whom and
with whom the Church can achieve all things.
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
H
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering,
kindness, goodness, trustfulness, meekness, self-control :
against such there is no law. 1 GAL. v. 22, 23.
" Take Love, wherewith thou wilt ever go straightly, exactly,
lightly, attentively, swiftly, enlightenedly, without error, with
out guide and without the means of other creatures; since love
sufficeth unto itself to do all things without fear or weariness,
so that martyrdom itself appears to it a joy." CATHERINE OF
GENOA.
" Be good at the depths of you, and you will discover that
those who surround you will be good at the same depths."
M. MAETERLINCK.
"And every virtue we possess,
And every victory won,
And every thought of holiness,
Are His alone."
H. AUBER.
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
" COVET earnestly the best gifts," said St. Paul,
"and yet show I unto you a more excellent way."
The gifts of the Spirit are wisdom, revelation,
prophecy, miracles, helps, governments; the fruit of
the Spirit is love. Though I know all mysteries and
all knowledge, though I speak with the tongues of
men and of angels, though I bestow all my goods to
feed the poor, but have not love, I am nothing.
Why? The answer to such a simple question reveals
the characteristic attitude of Christ and His chief
Apostle, alas ! not always that of Christendom. As
we review the centuries of Christian history, it seems
as if it had proved impossible for the Church to pre
serve this original standpoint of our religion and its
standard as soaring above not only ordinary practice,
but ordinary standards of life and conduct. Creed,
ritual and ethics are three central themes of religion,
but no one of them rightly represents the Christian
spirit and characteristic attitude towards life, which
should embrace all, keeping each in its right place.
Christianity ought to mean in every man a recon-
stitution of his whole nature in relation to God and
his fellows, and this means the renewal of his inmost
spirit by the indwelling of the Divine. This is the
central reality ; then thought, worship, regulation of
conduct, social relations, will all be rightly ordered,
the stream flowing purely forth from a purified foun-
H2 99
100 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
tain. But whenever metaphysical definitions of doc
trine, theories of church government, codes of moral
casuistry, or schemes of social reform usurp the chief
place in Christian thought and effort, true relations
are perverted, and the result is as sounding brass,
as clanging cymbals. "Make the tree good and its
fruit good," said the Master; the tree is the human
spirit renewed by the Divine Spirit, and the fruit is
love, joy, peace and the golden cluster of ripened
graces, "against which there is no law"!
Christian ethics has a fundamental character of its
own. This will appear from the contrast between the
Four Cardinal or Classical Virtues of Paganism, and
the Three Theological Virtues of Scholastic Ethics.
Wisdom, courage, temperance, justice represent the
four points of the moral compass among the Greeks.
These will secure the harmony and health of the soul,
wisdom being the highest, and justice in a sense the
sum and substance of the four. Christianity under
values none of these. There has been indeed a false
wisdom, a knowledge in name only, which has puffed
up men of the Greek type in all times and countries,
a Gnosis which ends in Gnosticism, mischievous in
all centuries from the second to the twentieth. True
wisdom is one of the Spirit s best gifts, and Christ
is made both to Jew and Greek the very wisdom of
God. Courage ? Where has it been more robustly
shown than in the valour of Paul the Christian hero ?
God gave us not a spirit of cowardice, he cries, but
of power and love and discipline. The last word is
substantially the same as that for the third cardinal
virtue true sanity and self-control, such as every
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 101
real man desires to gain, but of which only the Chris
tian possesses the full secret. As for justice if one
sought for a single word to serve as a key to the
whole of St. Paul s life and teaching, (^/caiocrwr;, right
eousness, would certainly be chosen as its character
istic theme.
The ethical difference in Christianity is not one of
words, or order, or emphasis, but of fundamental
conception and ideal. It is a question of the centre
of gravity of character, of the central orb in the stellar
system, the pole-star of mind and heart. Aristotle
makes man, Jesus and Paul make God, the centre of
human existence. As the Greek philosopher phrased
it, everything in ethics turns upon the re Ao?, the end,
the aim, the ruling purpose. Nature can only be dis
covered when the goal is reached; potential capacity
and right determination form the subject-matter of
ethics. What the nature and end of man were in
the scheme of Aristotle are still studied in classic
phrases which are likely to last as long as humanity
itself because of the masterly grasp of the subject they
exhibit, from the writer s characteristic point of view.
What is the chief end of man ? The answer of the
Shorter Catechism is also classical in its way To
glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever. The term
"theological virtues" is due to the schoolmen, and
in modern ears the title is not a happy one. But
Thomas Aquinas shows the reason^ why the epithet
was given because "virtues" in the Christian reli
gion have God for their object, bring man into true
relation with God, and are imparted by God alone.
What man ought to be depends on what man is
capable of becoming and on how he sets about attain
ing his ends. On these fundamental points Pagan
and Christian utterly differ, and as they face in
102 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
different directions, so, with many ideas in common,
they none the less tread different paths.
The three Theological Virtues, Faith, Hope and
Love, are not virtues, neither are they theological. They
represent rather three states or three aspects of one
state which determine the very springs of action and
lie at the root of all conduct. "They are not merely
personal graces," says Dr. T. B. Strong in his Bamp-
ton Lectures, "but they force every one who possesses
them into relation with a wider end than any which
can fall within the sphere of a single life. All three
of them have their real importance in the fact that
they connect man with God and with a spiritual
order in which man s life finds its place." 1 If the
term three Christian graces be used, it points to an
undeserved gift from God, our relation to Him spring
ing out of His gracious relation to us. Here, as
elsewhere in Christianity, it is not we who plan and
originate and devise, but He first, both for us and
in us.
Revelation comes first, then our reception of it;
inspiration first, then our response to the new stim
ulus; God s love first, then man s in return. As
Christmas Evans used to say, God s love is an ocean,
man s response a dewdrop, and that dewdrop stained
by sin. Faith, Hope and Love are, all and each of
them, a response. Faith opens the whole nature
to God as revealed in Christ, Hope points to high
possibilities which He holds out, and Love is the
means of securing them. But it would be a mistake
to take St. Paul s "first three" mentioned at the
climax of his hymn to love in i Cor. xiii. as if these
were logically exhaustive of the Christian life. Nor
are the lists of virtues contained in Gal. v., Col. iii.
1 Christian Ethics, p. 85.
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 103
and Phil. iv. drawn up as with plane and T-square,
a geometrical diagram of excellence. The words are
not carelessly or arbitrarily chosen, but neither are
they arranged in logically systematized order. It
may serve as an epigram to say that faith founded
the Church, hope has sustained it, and it remains for
love to reform it. Bftt the three great names might
be reduced to two, hope being considered a form of
faith, or even to one, for it is " faith working by love "
that avails.
II
The ma4n point for the moment is to consider what
is meant by the lovely group of Christian graces
mentioned together in Gal. v. 22, 23 as the fruit of
the Spirit. A contrast is drawn with the "works of
the flesh." Flesh means here human nature in its
frailty and corruption, viewed apart from God ; what
man is by nature, together with the darker pos
sibilities that loom in the future apart from God and
His grace. These " works" make a black list, nine
teen in number ; though the number might have been
either reduced or extended, the series is grimly repre
sentative, (i) Sensuality and uncleanness in all their
enticing and debasing forms; (2) idolatry, as summing
up all evils which arise from putting anything in the
place of God; (3) selfishness as root producing a
coarse, rank crop of "enmities, strife, jealousies,
wraths, factions, divisions, parties, envy ings " what
section of society does not know these disturbers of
the peace, and who could not add to their number ?
(4) Intemperance standing for all kinds of self-indul
gence, to which many a man who would scorn the
charge of drunkenness succumbs ignominiously every
day.
104 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
Works of the flesh ? Some of these seem to be
the products of the world and the course of this world
in human society; others of the devil, who is always
busy with spiritual temptations ; others are of the
flesh, in the sense of the sensual side of human nature
yielding to such temptations and becoming corrupted
accordingly. After nearly twenty centuries of Chris
tianity the power of these evil forces is not broken
in human life and civilization, the wheel of their mis
chievous progress is barely scotched. The British
Empire, if it be not the foremost, is certainly not
the most backward state in Christian civilization, yet
how predominant in it still are many of these works
of the flesh ! The brutal image of the Bull-god in
the British Museum is made by D. G. Rossetti to
stand for the country in which it now stands, not that
from which it came.
" Those heavy wings spread high,
So sure of flight, which do not fly :
That set gaze never on the sky :
Those scriptured flanks it cannot see;
Its crown a brow-contracting load,
Its planted feet which trust the sod. . . .
O Nineveh, was this thy God,
Thine also, mighty Nineveh?"
Who that has seen it can forget Watts picture of
Mammon, with its crown of gold coins, the money
bags in its lap, crushing into the mire the vigour of
youth and the charm of fresh sweet womanhood ? But
it is the huge, immovable, intolerable weight of the
whole brutish figure which stamps it as the very embodi
ment of the flesh and all its works, a coarse, cruel,
impregnable monster of iniquity, by its very presence
blocking the way against all true life of the Spirit.
It is almost necessary to sketch in this dark back-
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 105
ground in order to do justice to St. Paul s exquisite
contrasted picture. Love, joy, peace, gentleness,
goodness these are fair blossoms and fruit of a fair
tree, the gracious outcome of new celestially implanted
life; if these lovely clusters do not grow upon this
tree, they cannot appear at all. The branches in the
true Vine must and will bloom in flowers that must
and will end in fruit.
But all is from and through the indwelling Spirit.
Philosophers are jealous of the introduction of religion
into ethics, but history and experience confirm St.
Paul s natural history of the Christian graces. When
the human spirit alone encounters the flesh, it is con
stantly worsted. Not perhaps at first, or obviously ;
victory of a kind and for a time may be gained, but
the human spirit by itself has no sufficient power of
leverage, and if it be not entirely overcome by the
flesh it is apt to lose its strength and beauty. But
with the new point of origin, the new aims and new
motive-power that are gained when the soul is rooted
and grounded in the love of God, energy is furnished
for better things. Here also is provided a resting and
rallying place on which the discouraged spirit may fall
back when discouraged by failure or overwhelmed by
defeat. It is reanimated, reinvigorated by mighty
Unseen Allies, chariots and horses of fire "they that
be with us are more than they that be with them."
Spontaneity is necessary for beauty and power of
character. It is a well-grounded objection against
the virtues of the moral philosopher that they are so
difficult to obtain, and when attained by much effort,
are so stiff and artificial as to be without true grace
and beauty. These are not the outflow of life, but
the products of design. Nature has not learned the
secret of that supernatural beauty.
106 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
"I saw, I felt it once but where?
I knew not yet the gauge of time,
Nor wore the manacles of space;
I felt it in some other clime,
I saw it in some other place.
Twas when the heavenly house I trod,
And lay upon the breast of God."
The Spirit who breathes where He lists alone can
charm that beauty from the skies to the earth. The
Spirit upholds, inspires, animates, because He informs
from within, and He alone can enable man to attain
the spontaneity of free and gracious service under
conditions so unfavourable as the life of frail mortal
man in the midst of the world. A serene outflow of
spiritual life is only possible when it is not the result
of self-centred, toilsome effort, but when a Higher
Spirit within originates and maintains it; when His
light shines through, His stream of inspiration pours
forth and His life is manifested even through the
hampering and disfiguring garments which swathe
the limbs and impede the movements. Life is there
if the Spirit is there. Fruit from such life is inevitable,
imperishable, inexhaustible.
Ill
The fruit of the Spirk is Love. This one word in
English has to cover a thousand meanings, and in no
shade of meaning can it be fully adequate for its
purpose. The instinctive love of bird and animal,
the tender affection of close family union, the passion
ate ardour of youth and maid, the pure disinterested
ness of friendship the same word that includes all
these meanings is profaned to describe the ease of
good nature, the gloating of lust, the tepid develop
ment of liking, and the amor intellectualis of Spinoza,
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 107
cold, dry and sublime, an affection wherewith man
may regard the One Substance God, not expecting
any regard in return ! What wonder that when
Christians began to speak of love they found a new
word necessary dya7r?j, which, however, the Church
has not been able to preserve pure amidst the stains
and smirches of the smoke-grimed cities of men. Yet
love shines on, bringing its own light; "from heaven
it came, to heaven returneth," but not before it has
purified the hearts and gladdened the homes of all
who would give it welcome amid the sin and sorrow
of the world.
We love because He first loved us. Hope makes
not ashamed because God s love is poured abroad in
the heart by the Holy Spirit given unto us. The order
must be observed. God is love in fount and origin;
from His love as a Father flow forth all the rays of
light that illuminate and gladden the universe. God
is love in fullest manifestation ; His only Son in utter
most self-sacrifice alone can show the length and
breadth and depth and height of a love that passes
knowledge. God is love also in gracious diffusion and
self-impartation ; only the Holy Spirit taking of the
things of love to show to the unloving children of men
can pour abroad in their hearts the streams of grace
that will make human life a watered garden. The fruit
of the Spirit is love.
Here most of all we see the need, not of virtues,
habits, modes of action, but of deep abiding life, such
as will bring the human spirit into right relation with
God and keep it there. Often a measure of spiritual
life is present, but it does not possess sufficient motive
power ; or it does not rise to a sufficiently high level ;
or it is not sufficiently assimilated^ it is worn as a
garment which hardly fits the man himself; or is not
108 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
uniformly and adequately maintained. The reason in
all cases is the same. Only love to God can maintain
the steady outflow of spiritual life in any man ; only
God s love in Christ can suffice to arouse and sustain
that love in man s heart; only the power of the Holy
Spirit is sufficient to kindle the human fire from the
flame of the heavenly. In Rom. v. 6 the figure is
not that of the animating flame, but of the refreshing
streams which can revivify even a desert. The foun
tain in the East is the "eye" of the landscape. In
millions of families pure affection is the spring of joy
which makes life tolerable in a dull house under grey
skies. And in the realm of the higher ethics love is
the one thing the world lacks and the one thing it
cannot supply. As a milligramme of radium will sus
tain its temperature for years, so the heart which is
made the home of the Divine Paraclete, pouring forth
continually the power of Divine pity and mercy to
melt hardness, subdue selfishness and quicken service,
can manifest continually joy, peace, gentleness, good
ness all the gracious currents of the one pure stream.
For the fruit of the Spirit is love.
Why does it come first ? Why last in i Cor. xiii. 13 ?
The same answer serves for both questions. Love is
the origin, as it is the goal the essence of salvation
now and itself the blessedness of glory for ever. It is
the fulfilling of the law, all the precepts of all the
codes summed up in a word. The wise man in
Proverbs had a glimpse of the truth "love covers all
transgressions." Even "a certain lawyer" acknow
ledged its excellence when the Master announced as
the first commandments in the law, Thou shalt love.
St. Paul and St. John vie in extolling its power, but
alike they point to the Holy Spirit as the Source and
Spring of all. Men praise knowledge and power, but
THE FKUIT OF THE SPIRIT 109
neither of these suffices for the structure of life. Know
ledge puffs up, love builds up. Knowledge can be
shared by few, it raises more questions and difficulties
than it solves, and when it is successful it inflates
with such a sense of self-importance that in its work
among men it cannot build up the structure of society.
The demons have their share of knowledge, and it
causes them to shudder. But man is made for better
things. Browning, who seemed by nature a poet of
knowledge, has made himself the poet of love.
"So let us say not Since we know, we love,
But rather, Since we love, we know enough."
And again, in almost his last words
"I have faith such end shall be:
From the first, Power was I knew;
Life has made clear to me
That, strive but for closer view,
Love were as plain to see.
When see? When there dawns a day,
If not on the homely earth,
Then yonder, worlds away,
Where the strange and new have birth,
And Power comes full in play."
The poet may be content to wait and dream, but
man needs love here on the homely earth, and there
is only one perennial fountain. When heavenly love
in quest of heavenly beauty flows forth from the one
indwelling Spirit of Love, all the rest follows. St.
Paul s hymn in its praise in i Cor. xiii. shows how
love includes all graces longsuflering, kindness,
humility, patience, hope; for
"Life, with all it yields of joy, or woe,
Or hope, or fear believe the aged friend
Is just our chance of the prize of learning love,
What love has been, may be indeed, and is."
110 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
The definition of hell is a place from which love is
shut out. And when the firstfruits of the Spirit are
seen in love, heaven is begun below.
IV
Joy and peace come next another indication that
St. Paul is not compiling a list of virtues. These
are two subjective states which may make for happi
ness, but can hardly find a place among enjoined duties
unless at last we come to see that the Christian con
ception of duty is the enjoyment and use of privilege,
and that the possibility of privilege brings duty in
its train.
Joy and Peace : these tw 7 o sisters are closely related,
the one with brighter eye, more animated expression
and more exuberant energy ; the other with more tran
quil and self-controlled benignity, benediction in her
very glance. They are two stones most precious ; Joy
with the warm glow of ruby or jasper, Peace with
the radiant purity of pearl or sapphire. Grades of
enjoyment are known amongst men, that rise one above
another like the steps of a celestial staircase (i)
pleasure; (2) happiness; (3) joy; (4) blessedness. The
lower or the higher name is appropriate according to
whether the emotion be temporary or permanent,
according to the part of man s nature that is gratified,
according to the degree in which his happiness depends
upon circumstances and conditions outside him, or
from a perennial fount of joy within.
Joy is mentioned in Gal. v. 22 as a fruit of the Spirit.
It cannot be gained by effort. The law of happiness
is a well-known paradox ; if we seek it, it flies, and
it will only come when unsought. Christian joy can
never be won by striving. It is a gift of the indwell-
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 111
ing Spirit, enjoyed sometimes under most unlikely
circumstances "having received the word in much
affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost " (i Thess. i. 6),
"the kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and
joy in the Holy Ghost " (Rom. xiv. 17). Here is found
a boon which belongs to the present life, the only
balm for a heart s bitterness, the only cure for a world s
woes. That it is a visitor from another world, how
ever, seems clear from the fact that even the Church
has so little assimilated it. One characteristic feature
of the earliest Christians was that they ate their bread
"with gladness and simplicity of heart." The two
words imply first, an exhilaration of spirit, w 7 hen "the
bosom s lord sits lightly on his throne," an exultation
which lifts above the depression and dulness of ordin
ary life, and then an ease and smoothness of spiritual
movement, an absence of inward friction, which is as
rare as it is delightful. Clearly such a state must
come spontaneously or not at all. Effort cannot secure
a light heart, a clear conscience, a sunny outlook ; it
must come as an inwrought grace of an indwelling
Spirit, and thus another Old Covenant ideal will be
realized in New Covenant power "the joy of the
Lord is your strength."
Peace also must be deep-seated if it is to be real.
It begins with "no condemnation," "peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ," and as it deepens
and grows it becomes the characteristic atmosphere of
those who live by the Spirit "to be spiritually minded
is life and peace." The power inwardly to be still, to
keep still, "central peace subsisting at the heart of
outward agitation," to preserve a tranquillity which is
not the inertia of feebleness, but the exertion of per
fectly balanced energies, is clearly not amongst the
elementary, but the very highest blessings of the
112 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
Gospel. Clearly also it is not attainable by effort.
The reason of its absence from many Christian lives
is that they know so little of the inward Comforter.
The overmastering joy of the Man of Sorrows, the calm
of Him who said, "My peace I give unto you, in this
world ye shall have tribulation, but in Me ye have
peace," cannot be understood except through the
presence of that Comforter, who is another Christ in
the heart.
These two words joy and peace furnish the colour
of the Christian life. The prevailing hue of most lives
it cannot be called colour is grey, well, if it be
not drab. The clear skies out of which a wreath of
light is continually transfiguring the whole landscape
belong to more favourable climates than that of Great
Britain. The deep glow of sunset, rich in purple,
orange, crimson and amethystine hues that have no
names, appears but seldom and is soon gone. In a
sense this is to be expected of spiritual life in a naughty
world. The moods of the soul are sure to change, and
nothing is more monotonous or exhausting than the
uninterrupted glare of a pitiless Eastern sun. But
religious life that has no colour has lost the secret of
beauty and charm, and perhaps there is no feature in
the Christian religion that would do more to convince
a weary, cynical blase generation of the supernatural
power of the grace of God than the fadeless colour it
can infuse into a Christian life by the joy and peace
which are a fruit of the Divine Spirit.
LongsufTering, gentleness, goodness, trustfulness,
meekness, self-control so runs on St. Paul s list, a
row of pearls in one gracious string. Closely akin are
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 113
the first three. Ma/cpo0u//ia, the patient endurance of
injury inflicted and of protracted hardship nobly borne
XpTjoro rrjs, the kindly disposition which prepares a
man to meet his neighbour pleasantly more than half
way, the readiness to help which is sometimes better
than help itself ayatfoxm^, the active exercise of bene
ficence according to opportunity, the doing good unto
all men made a habit of life these three graces are
three facets of one diamond. The fourth which be
longs to the same group marts, was in the Authorized
Version translated "faith," in the Revised Version
"faithfulness," and it may seem bold to suggest that
neither translation quite gives the meaning. That
faith in Christ which is the foundation of Christian
character would not be found in the middle of this list,
and on the other hand it is questionable whether in
the New Testament TTLOTLS ever means fidelity to duty.
Trustworthiness might seem nearer the mark, but in
all probability trustfulness gives St. Paul s meaning
better than any other English word. It means the
freedom from suspicion and grudging, the hoping
always for the best in men, the finding good in all
men and helping it to grow, which is proverbially an
unworldly virtue. It condenses into a word the mean
ing of the clause "Love believeth all things," and
when the Church and the world have made this grace
their own the new heavens and the new earth cannot
be very far off.
It is often easiest to define by opposites. The un
lovely counterparts of these four graces are (i) im
patience, resentment that is never far below the surface
and always ready to leap out on slightest provocation ;
(2) crabbed, cross-grained surliness of habit and
demeanour; (3) selfish preoccupation with all that
may tend to personal comfort and aggrandizement;
114 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
(4) suspicion, uncharitable construction, readiness to
believe the worst of men, rejoicing not in the truth,
but in iniquity. Love is the only cure for these evils,
and only such love as the indwelling Spirit can bestow.
For it is clear that the four fruits which grow here
in one cluster are not natural endowments, not acquired
habits, but Divine gifts. Some men have a measure
of some of them by nature, other men may attain to
a semblance of them by effort, but their real manifesta
tion comes through grace. This is not to disparage
natural virtues, which may often surpass the visible
excellencies of many Christians. But the actual attain
ments of average Christians are not now in question.
To be always strong, patient, gentle, kind, good and
trustful in a world like ours is not "average" excel
lence at all ; the character has only been perfectly
illustrated once in history. But the Spirit brings fruit
within reach of which all may taste and long for more.
As kindness and its congeners belong to a man s
relation to others, so "meekness" and "temperance"
refer chiefly to self. They illustrate two kinds of self-
mastery. The English word "meekness" does no
more justice toirpavTrjs than "patience " does tovTrojjLovri.
The absence of self-seeking and self-assertion, the
readiness to subordinate one s own interests, especially
under injustice and provocation, is not the mark of a
weakling. Military heroes have acknowledged that
"greater is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh
a city." The power to capture and subdue the strong
citadel of a masterful heart, the walls of pride and
prejudice, the armoured ramparts of envy and jealousy,
and keep them in assured subjection, requires strength
which is all too rare. Moses, styled the model of
"meekness," was not a milksop, but a mighty leader
of men. One who could lead the rabble-rout of serfs
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 115
out of Egypt and make of them a nation is not to be
confused with a spiritless creature who can hardly
apologize sufficiently for his own existence and has
not energy enough to claim his own just rights.
Nietzsche is never weary of denouncing the abjectness
of Christian virtues, but he does not see that his
Superman is a bragging and blustering boy when set
beside the man who has learned Paul s lessons of
meekness and patience. To commend "pushfulness "
is not necessary in the twentieth century, the quality
is as common as it is unlovely. Paul learned his
lesson of lowliness at the feet of a greater Moses,
meekest of the children, and strongest and most
stalwart of the sons of God.
The last word in St. Paul s list, cyKparem, implies
self-restraint, especially as regards the use of the
senses, the appetites and the desires. Its opposite is
self-indulgence, the luxiiria which figures among the
seven deadly sins of the mediaeval church, the self-
pleasing of Rom. xv . i, 2, so contrary to the mind of
Him who "pleased not Himself." It is easy to under
stand that those who in 2 Tim. iii. 2 are spoken of
as "lovers of self" are at the same time lovers of
pleasure rather than lovers of God," and this because
they are also "without self-control." Temperance in this
noble sense may be found in poor, or rich, or in the
comfortable middle-class folk who are glad that they
have neither poverty nor riches. "He denied himself
nothing that he craved, provided he could get it," is
a description of a man who is assuredly preparing a
hell for himself of unsatisfied desire.
" Who keeps no guard upon himself is slack,
And rots to nothing at the next great thaw,"
says George Herbert. Spenser sings the prowess of
I 2
116 THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT
Sir Guion, and Holbein draws a picture of the Faithful
Knight, who in every line of his figure, every muscle
of his body, every detail of his mien and armour
bespeaks the man that is fit to rule others because he
can rule himself. Self-control comes last in St. Paul s
list, not because it is least, or lowest, but because it
is the bond of all the rest. Many men attain a good
measure of self-control by effort, and none can gain
the grace without effort, strenuous and constant. But
he who would master himself completely and maintain
his control to the end finds that this "temperance " is
a gift of the Spirit. Te sopra te corono e mitrio
"Thee o er thyself I crown and mitre," said Virgil to
Dante, but only when he had triumphantly passed the
seven terraces of Purgatory. Man need not wait till
then for such high coronation, but the only man who
can conquer himself is he in whom the Divine Spirit
exercises complete control and sway.
VI
"Against such there is no law." Is this an example
of St. Paul s irony? The clause may be read as a
supreme example of ironical speech. Rather perhaps
it is added to show the Christian s true relation to
law, the victory which the Spirit gains just because
the law is not painfully toiled after, not punctiliously
performed, but easily and supremely transcended.
The Galatians, led astray by Judaizers, were being-
brought again into bondage by ceremonies and restric
tions, and were fast losing the secret of Christian free
dom. Law not only cannot condemn these fruits of
the Spirit, it cannot produce anything of the kind,
any more than a machine could fashion a lily.
History has pointed very sharply the lesson of this
THE FRUIT OF THE SPIRIT 117
contrast between law and grace. Stoicism in the early
Roman Empire exhibited a lofty ethical standard,
combined with poor and low achievement. It had no
message for the multitude at all, and in the few it
produced some noble traits of character, together with
much that was lovely neither in the sight of gods or
men. Roman austerity, settling into hardness; Greek
cheerfulness, passing into levity and instability; Ger
manic honesty, combined with stolidity such were
some of the virtues recognized in the world of the first
century A.D. Has Christendom proved its superiority
over these heathen excellencies of character ? Broadly
speaking, yes. But perhaps in Christianity more than
in any other religion is to be found the combination
of lofty theory with scant realization ; Christians more
than most men exhibit a great chasm between creed
and conduct, and the very nobility of their profession
makes more marked and more inexcusable the un-
worthiness of their practice. If failure there has been
in some ages, in some Churches, in far too many
individuals, many ingenious explanations of it might
be given. But the root-reason of all has generally
been an attempt to secure by determination and effort
traits of character which can only grow as the fruit
of the indwelling, all-controlling, all purifying Spirit
of God.
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
" Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 2 COR.
iii. 17.
"And His will is our peace; this is the sea
To which is moving onward whatsoever
It doth create, and all that nature makes."
DANTE, Paradiso.
"Love is watchful; and sleeping, slumbers not;
Though weary, it is not tired; though hampered, it is not
hampered;
Though alarmed, it is not affrighted; but as a lively flame and
burning torch it forces its way up and passes through."
T. A KEMPIS.
" There is nothing evil, or the cause of evil, to either man or
devil, but his own will; there is nothing good in itself but the
will o] God." W. LAW.
VI
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
THE Holy Spirit is the great Emancipator. The
seven lamps of fire burning before the great white
Throne, which are the seven spirits of God, symbolize
that radiant, quenchless, seventy times sevenfold
energy of His which without ceasing is at work over
men, around them, and especially within them.
Seven lamps, seven eyes, says Zechariah ; so the
Spirit searcheth, kindleth, quickeneth all things.
For every need of man the Holy Spirit is not so
much at hand with spiritual supply, as already pro
viding it in anticipation. The Christian thinks of
Him emphatically as the great Deliverer. Bondage,
of one kind or another, is so common among men,
true freedom so rare. The Christian has, indeed, left
behind him the time when he passed through the
struggle of Romans vii., "the good that I would I
do not, the evil that I would not, that I practise."
Through Christ he has risen above that level, seen
the dawn of the sunshine described in viii. i, "no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus," whom
"the law of the spirit of life in Christ has made free
from the law of sin and death." He has known what
it is to be released from Egyptian bondage and
started on his journey to the land of promise. But
the wilderness lies between. If the whole truth were
told, how many, after the first joys of pardon were
over, have been disappointed with their enfranchise-
121
122 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
ment ! The city of Destruction has been left behind,
but the pilgrims way to the City that hath founda
tions is not only long, but wearing. Still they toil
and aspire and strive to attain, but are sorely hindered
in the way, and the one thing they have not, as they
expected to have, is freedom. Rousseau opened his
Contrat Social with the famous words, "Man is born
free and everywhere he is in chains." The Christian s
inheritance is real and substantial, but to some it
seems to be so encumbered with debts and mortgages
that they fail to enjoy and to benefit by it. The
name, the style, the title, the status of Christ s freed-
men are all theirs, but only the Searcher of hearts
knows how many worshippers in the Churches groan
within themselves waiting, striving, panting for a
deliverance promised that never comes.
"Ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven," says the
hymn, u who like thee His praise should sing?"
Base indeed would be the ingratitude of the slave
who refused to sing the praise of Him who has
brought him out of darkness into His marvellous
light. But if He who struck off the fetters which
pinioned the body would but strike off the chains
from hands and feet ! If He who opened the doors
of the prison cell would also release from the first and
the second ward and make the great iron gate that
leads out to the city swing open on its hinges of its
own accord, that the prisoner might go free indeed !
It stands so in the charter and may be so in the life :
for where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
I
Few words have been more abused than that of
liberty. Madame Roland s often quoted exclamation,
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 123
"O Liberty, what crimes have been committed in thy
name ! " may really have run, as we are now told,
"How thou hast been played with!" (comment on
Va jouee!). Both words are true. And even worse
than playing fast and loose with a sacred name is
that its very meaning is so continually misunder
stood.
Often it implies absence of restraint from without,
at the hands of some state or community, or of some
lord or master, or in relation to certain regulations
and restrictions. The civil and religious liberty for
which men have had sometimes so long and so
earnestly to contend means the removal of all unjust
restraints upon citizens as regards their beliefs or
actions. Many can think of no other "liberty" than
this. The chains to which Rousseau referred were
those of unrighteous laws, of injurious privilege, of
proud oppression, or the artificial restraints of an
iniquitously constituted social order, and he pleaded
with enthusiastic rhetoric that these might be re
moved, and then the primeval reign of liberty would
return. The men of the French Revolution of 1789
believed him, and shouted, "Liberty, Equality, Fra
ternity," only to find themselves under the dominion
of a harder tyrant than ever.
Such freedom should never be undervalued. Its
attainment is worth many a sore conflict, and those
martyr souls deserve immortal honour who have lived
and died to obtain it for their successors, if not for
themselves. But when this liberty has been obtained,
man has not yet begun to live. All just opportunity
has been provided for each to think and act for him
self, so far as state or society can provide it no more.
What will a man do with that "free hand" he has
been so anxious to secure? Does he understand by
124 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
it liberty to do as he likes, provided he does no harm
to others ? Is it his chief desire to cast off authority
as that which would cabin, crib, confine energies that
crave fuller and unfettered exercise ? The boy at
school, the youth at college, the man in business,
the woman in society, are apt to think, If I could
but be free to do as I will, instead of being chafed
and fretted by rules and customs and proprieties !
If there were given to me the power of Emperor,
Sultan or Czar, with such abundance of wealth and
dignity as to be lifted above even the law of the land,
with none to consult but my own will, I should be
free indeed !
So many honestly believe this, and the opportunity
to realize the idea so seldom comes, that men are not
easily convinced of its untruth. Yet a small measure
of human experience might have taught them better.
If that principle be acted on in nursery, school or
home, what comes of it ? Children so brought up are
not only a nuisance in the family, and avoided as
spoiled children by friends outside, but they are
miserable themselves, though they cannot understand
why. Children of a larger growth might have learned
that this path, the acquiring liberty merely by free
dom from restraint, leads down a blind alley, marked
"No thoroughfare," for the instructed spirit. Even
if they enjoy unusual immunity from folly, mistake
and wrongdoing, they say with Wordsworth, "Me
this unchartered freedom tires." Or, as it has been
colloquially phrased, "What is the use of being able
to do exactly as you like, if you don t like it?"
Ability to follow the impulse of the moment will not
bring freedom or happiness for a single day, still
less a course of true liberty and success through a
lifetime.
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 125
II
What man really wants in his craving for " liberty "
is power ; power for himself as a living creature with
certain faculties to be himself in thought, word and
deed to work out his own nature without let or hin
drance. Power to be himself, but what is himself?
Each man has so many selves. It is sometimes said
that in each is a higher and lower self, but if we think
of the moods and changes, the varying conditions
without and within, of one individual life, it is hard
to say what the real self is. If full scope is given to
lower impulses, what is to become of the higher?
Hence arises an inner conflict, of which every son of
man knows something, and the best know most.
When Racine read his play of " Esther" to Louis
Quatorze, and came to the passage which describes
la guerre cruelle, the cruel civil war between higher
and lower natures within the soul, the Grand
Monarque interrupted him, " I know that war very
well." Epictetus, the crippled slave, stood in an
upper form of the school of humanity in which kings
and sages have often proved themselves dunces and
dullards.
To realize the highest Self if this were but as easy
as men have dreamed! "We needs must love the
highest when we see it," but we soon find how impos
sible it is to make it our own. It is not a question
of law and authority, or their absence ; not a question
of the indulgence of tastes and impulses. That man
alone is truly free who has the power to realize all
the best and highest capacities of his nature. The
Self is not formed yet, only forming, and freedom
means the power to form it in noblest and most
126 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
generous fashion. The only thing that matters for
every man in this life is that he should be what he
was intended to be. But who is to tell him what that
is, still more how to reach it ?
One word has thus far been obviously and inten
tionally omitted God. It is because He is left out
of the calculation that so many in their search for
happiness, and others in their endeavours after self-
realization, utterly fail. Direct attempts to secure
these high ends always fail. The only way to secure
happiness is not to strive after it for its own sake, but
to take the course that leads to it, the path where it
will always come in by the way. The only way to
secure true realization of Self is not to concentrate
thought upon self in attaining the great ends of being.
God, who is Spirit, has created spirits in His own
image, and we are so made that true self-realization
is possible only through harmony with Him who has
made us and the Order of which He is the centre and
the goal.
The first step towards freedom lies, therefore, in
reconciliation with God on the part of one who has
hitherto lived for self. The removal of the load
imposed by an unworthy and evil past ; the rolling
away of the burden of guilt for offences against a
righteous and gracious God ; the taking away of the
garment of shame for culpable failures and errors ;
relief from the impotence caused by long enslavement
to evil habit this is the beginning of a freedom which
man desires and cannot of himself secure. He that
committeth sin is the bondslave of sin, said Christ,
and emancipation, except through Him, the Son who
makes free indeed, is beyond man s reach.
So much the Christian learns at the outset. Who
shall deliver me from this body of death ? I thank
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 127
God through Jesus Christ our Lord. He has learned,
moreover, that only in and through the Holy Spirit
can Christ s work on man s behalf be appropriated
and assimilated. The truth of the Gospel is made
known, the message uttered and reiterated, it may be
with eloquent lips, but it is of no avail till the Holy
Spirit brings it home to the heart and enables the
penitent believer to make it his own. Thus it is that
moment which makes the epoch in a life, as the soul,
in the old-fashioned phraseology, " finds peace," or
" finds Christ," or " enters into liberty." Henry Ward
Beecher describes in a passage of autobiography "that
blessed morning in May when I found out that it is
God s nature to love man in his sin for the purpose
of helping him out of it, as my mother loved me when
I was in trouble that she might help me out of it.
Then I found God." Nothing else matters in a soul s
history compared with this, and every one who has
passed through the experience knows that it is the
work of the Holy Spirit. For where He is, He brings
liberty from guilt and fear, from doubt and shame,
from the law of sin and death and all its hateful
bondage.
Ill
The pity is that the brightness of the morning fades
away so soon. However it may be in natural life, in
the life spiritual "Heaven lies about us in our infancy."
and the youth, who "by the vision splendid is on his
way attended," too often ere manhood comes finds it
"fade into the light of common day." The infant
Church found it so when Pentecostal joys were over.
The religion of the average member of the Christian
Church to-day is far removed from the simple, child-
128 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
like glee, the spontaneous activities, the unfettered
exercise of powers in sheer hilarious delight, of those
who ate their bread in gladness and singleness of
heart, praising God and having favour with all the
people. Compared with much in modern Christen
dom, Acts ii. 46 reads like a satire. Modern religion
is largely formal and conventional, or anxious and
perturbed; it implies the continual asking of ques
tions, pondering of problems, contending with diffi
culties, toiling in duties, the being harassed by tempta
tions, till it would seem as if the pith and core of
religion had resolved itself into husk and shell, its
inner fragrance lost in the over-cultivation of the wood
and leaves, or at best of the petals of the flower.
Bushnell gave to his sermon on "I have somewhat
against thee, because thou hast left thy first love," the
title, "The Problem of Christian Experience" hold
ing that it may well be the aim of a lifetime to maintain
the freshness and power of the first rapture of Chris
tian experience undimmed and undiminished till the
end.
When the early liberty of the enfranchised soul is
in danger of being lost, is not one reason that men
lose the keen sense that they are not under the law,
but under grace ? Having begun in the Spirit, they
would fain be perfected in the flesh. At the moment
of first forgiveness it was the astonishing and over
whelming sense of undeserved grace that transformed
the whole landscape. Later on, the message of grace
may seem too good to be true. The fact is, it is too
good not to be true, because it is God in Christ with
whom we are dealing, God the Spirit who brings into
liberty. Law brings into bondage, love delivers.
Law restrains, prescribes, prohibits; love spurns hin
drances, prompts, impels, renews, exhilarates; one
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 129
animating and dominating energy gives the secret of
all glad effort to those who are freed from law and
constrained by grace. Such servants of God are sons
indeed; they do not toil in walking but fly straight to
their mark like the eagles and the angels. "The lover
flies, runs and rejoices," says Thomas a Kempis;
"he is freed and cannot be held. Love feels no
burden : counts no pains, exerts itself beyond its
strength; talks not of impossibility, for it thinks all
things possible and all permitted."
St. Paul, in 2 Cor. iii., contrasts two dispensations :
the one of law, of the letter, of condemnation, of death ;
the other of grace, of the Spirit, of justification, of life.
Who could hesitate in his choice ? Yet the Jews and
Judaizing Christians were rejecting love to cling to
law, and the explanation is given that a veil was upon
their heart, as a veil hung before the face of Moses.
When they should turn to the Lord the veil would
be taken away. A veil is over every heart as regards
the message of the Gospel, a black, heavy pall, darken
ing the sky and overshadowing the life, unless the Holy
Spirit remove it. As we read elsewhere, the mind of
the flesh is death, the mind of the Spirit is life and
peace. What is meant by "to mind" in this con
nection ? St. Paul means to care for, attend to, be
interested in and strive after, mainly and chiefly. A
thousand things may be cared for in their place, but
what has the chief place? A thousand things may
be interesting by the way, but what constitutes the
great End? Omnipotence itself cannot compel a man
to enjoy that which he refuses to care for and strive
after. The help which the great Deliverer effects is
given to those who place themselves in His hands and
let Him work His own gracious will especially His
work of bringing home the meaning of Christ s work.
K
130 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
"Neither passion nor pride
Thy cross can abide,
But melt in the fountain that streams from Thy side."
Law is not abrogated nor abolished, but abundantly
transcended, when the love of God in Jesus Christ our
Lord does its work. "Love and do as you like," the
doctrine propounded by Luther, sounds dangerous
enough, and the maxim has often been shamefully
abused. But it is the safest of all doctrines, the only
abidingly safe doctrine, provided the love is pure and
supreme. He who loves is free. Then shall I run
the way of Thy commandments, when Thou shalt set
my heart at liberty.
IV
All this is not inconsistent with a considerable
measure of conflict, else the doctrine would miss its
hold of actual life. So far from being inconsistent,
it is in and through conflict that liberty is reached,
that power is realized, developed, increased. It is in
conflict that the lessons of love are learned, the mean
ing of love understood, the capacities of love unfolded,
applied, multiplied. Conflict may be sharp and pain
ful, and yet welcomed because of its results; conflict
becomes joy when enemies are base and triumph is
assured. Temptation itself, like unbelief, may be
"Kept quiet like the snake neath Michael s foot,
Who stands calm, just because he feels it writhe."
But it is well to face the facts. A man who walks
by the Spirit is not freed entirely from the tremendous
power of past habits. Partly hereditary influences,
partly his own past actions, their effects perhaps in
grained through years, a pressure of circumstances
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 131
from without which he cannot control, may entail a
bondage of a deadly sort, quite opposed to the spon
taneity and joy of life in the Spirit.
A man who walks by the Spirit is not freed entirely
from the conflict of desires, recognized in Gal. v. 17
a verse which contains a graphic description of many
a Christian life. The desires of the flesh are not
necessarily sensuous, though some of them probably
are. They are desires of human nature, left to itself
and outside God a constant current setting in against
the Spirit, as the Spirit of God, working through the
spirit of man, counteracts these desires, condemns and
would fain annihilate them so that in either case the
Christian does not, and cannot do, what he would
accomplish if there were no inner conflict. Some
desires are from the body, some affect the intellect,
all disturb the feelings and tend to warp the will
spiritual wanderings, vagrant affections, strange,
subtle, poisonous airs which it is fatal to breathe long.
It is said that they who are Christ s have crucified the
flesh with its passions and desires. That is true as
regards resolve and purpose, more and more resolute
determination, but life is not over yet, and as long as
it lasts the "motions of sins," sinful, passionate move
ments, are found stirring within, often when least
expected.
Self is the long, low, ugly taproot out of which
nearly all these Upas-leaves spring. Desires that are
harmless, or even laudable, change their character
when perverted by self-love. Relations with others
remain pure and sweet till self sours or embitters them,
changing friendly regard and healthy emulation into
envy, jealousy, hatred and all uncharitableness. Self
creeps into churches and changes worship into idol
atry, drawing its slimy streak over sermons, hymns,
K 2
132 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
church work and philanthropic effort, till religion itself
becomes odious instead of attractive. Many tempta
tions come from without, but the chief cause of conflict
is within, in the unmastered self-will, seeking its own
ends, or what are called God s ends, by its own means.
One single false strain in the character may be of
itself sufficient to bring into bondage the whole of an
otherwise emancipated life. It is possible to be held
to earth by only one band. It may sound hard when
St. James says, "If a man keep the whole law and yet
offend in one point, he is guilty of all." But put it
another way : how if one course of disobedience be
enough to show the hidden mischief that is at work
and bring all the rest of the life to ruin ? One quiver
ing tongue of flame is enough to show that the house
is on fire. One spot of tubercle in the lung frightens
the physician and the patient. One crack in the wall
of the reservoir may let loose a flood that will sweep
away whole villages in its train. Lancelot, so noble
and chivalrous, fell by one fault, all that was pure and
good in him clinging
" Round that one sin, until the wholesome flower
And poisonous, grew together, each to each,
Not to be plucked asunder."
And when all the facts of our difficult life are taken
into account, it might seem as if spiritual freedom were
impossible.
Liberty is attainable only through the Holy Spirit.
As many as are led by the Spirit are not under the
law. So it comes to pass in the course of Christian
experience, as at its happy beginning, a Breath comes
SPIRITUAL FREEDOM 133
from above which we can hear, but not see, and does
its own work of enfranchisement in the struggling
soul. The breath of our own spirit is not nearer or
surer, but with an infinite energy which mocks our
puny endeavours the Divine Power lifts, wafts, bears
the spirit on and up, far beyond the regions of con
flicting desire and the cramping fetters of inveterate
self-love. Sinful movements and stirrings may be
present, but they are not felt, or their paltry feebleness
is scorned. In Wesley s phrase, sin may remain, but
it does not reign, and in the presence of the Spirit it
will have hard work to remain
"Give me Thy strength, O God of power,
Then let winds blow, or thunders roar,
Thy faithful witness will I be;
Tis fixed I can do all through Thee."
If these things are so, it might be asked, why should
a Christian ever be defeated in spiritual conflict ?
With such resources at their disposal, why are good
men overcome so often and so easily, why are not all
free indeed ? Is there some deception in a description
of this kind, where all seems so easy, while the practice
remains so hard and triumph is still so distant ? The
answer is that there is no question concerning the
amplitude of spiritual resource, but Christians fail
to realize their privileges. Of what use is it that all
provision is made for a great campaign ammunition,
arms, accoutrements, down to the last button on the
soldiers uniform all the plans of a Von Moltke skil
fully elaborated, so that it is clear that the enemy has
been outwitted, outnumbered, out-generalled, if all the
time the rank and file of the army are discouraged,
supine, inert, or half sympathize with the enemy?
"If we live by the Spirit," runs the timely apostolic
134 SPIRITUAL FREEDOM
counsel, "by the Spirit also let us walk." Stand fast
in the liberty wherewith Christ has set you free :
stand fast first, and then go forward. So victory
shall be realized here and now in a bloodless war, and
perfect triumph be reached at last
"The ultimate, angels law
Indulging- every instinct of the soul
There where law, life, joy, impulse are one thing."
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
"Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity." ROM.
viii. 26.
11 Nor prayer is made on earth alone;
The Holy Spirit pleads;
And Jesus on the eternal throne
For sinners intercedes."
JAS. MONTGOMERY.
"Nothing but Infinite Pity is sufficient for the infinite
pathos of human life." J. H. SHORTHOUSE.
* Lord, we are rivers running to Thy sea,
Our waves and ripples all derived from Thee;
A nothing we should have, a nothing be
Except for Thee.
Sweet are the waters of Thy shoreless sea,
Make sweet our waters that make haste to Thee;
Pour in Thy sweetness that ourselves may be
Sweetness to Thee."
CHRISTINA G. ROSSETTI.
VII
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
REAL prayer is the deepest act of the human soul.
The mere saying of prayers has more meaning than is
often assigned to it : it is at least an acknowledgment
before God, before men and the suppliant s own heart,
that it is a rational and necessary thing to pray. But
to say one s prayers is separated from true prayer by
a practically infinite gulf, and never does the human
soul find itself at so great a depth as when thus
engaged. It would seem then that earnest prayer
must be a man s own act, and that if it be not this, it
is worthless. Yet it is one of the paradoxes of
religion, at least of the Christian religion, that a man
is most himself when he rightly loses himself, and
the same is true of prayer. How can it be true that
my own deepest supplication is not mine, but that of
the Holy Spirit in me ? To answer this question is
to master one of the central truths concerning the
Indwelling Spirit, and it claims separate attention.
I
Prayer is used in a narrower and a wider sense as
petition, the asking of definite blessings from God,
and as communion, including all intercourse with
God on man s side. It is always well that the former
should be merged in the latter. True prayer includes
138 PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
adoration, the reverent contemplation of what God is
praise, the triumphant recognition of God s glory
thanksgiving, the acknowledgment of all blessings
directly bestowed confession, the humble recogni
tion of what he who prays has been and is in the sight
of God and many other elements besides direct sup
plication for oneself and intercession for others.
But throughout all the personal element must pre
vail. My prayer must be my adoration, my thanks
giving, my own tribute, just as every angel and
there are no two angels alike, no two even of the same
species, says Dante and every child of man, is called
on to contribute his own characteristic note to the
great diapason of worship. When Gabriel praised
God in place of Theocrite, the angel would not serve
in place of the boy, and He who sat on the throne
said, "I miss my little human praise." For His ear
a whole chorus of creation does not suffice; He
detects and mourns if any single voice be silent.
If it be said that the hymn of the congregation is
not the same as bowing the knee and can hardly be
called true prayer, the answer is that in devotion,
praise and petition can hardly be separated. Be brief
in supplication, said an ancient saint, that you may
be the longer in praise. But the soul in communion
with God passes imperceptibly from one to the other,
and there are moods, not infrequent, when a man
knows not whether he is glorifying God for what He
is, thanking Him for what He has given, or longing
and pleading for more in the present and the future.
Whatever mood predominate, however, the whole
strength of the soul should be thrown into the act of
prayer, if its true significance is to be realized and its
great end attained. One main reason why so much
asking from God is futile is the lack of this essential
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT 139
element the petitioner s whole force is not put forth
to wrestle with the Angel of Life and gain the mastery.
It is not so easy a thing to mean all that is said in
prayer. In human intercourse it is rare to find
sincerity such that the speakers never say what they
do not mean and always mean all they say. But in
speaking to God, where sincerity is most important
and insincerity most futile, a large amount of un
reality prevails. Lack of success in active life is more
frequently due to deficient will-power than to any
other cause. In prayer it might seem as if the human
will ought to be dormant. On the other hand, here it
is most of all needed. Not man s will as opposed to
God s will, but whatever energy of character is pos
sessed must be put forth in prayer, and here it is
most of all required, provided it be of the right kind
and rightly used.
For true prayer is a demand, and the energy with
which the demand is made is the measure of success.
True, the claim of the suppliant is put forward under
definite conditions, or it is condemned as presumption.
But it is not a common fault to put too much strength
into petition, unless indeed it be in asking for those
material blessings in regard to which we are least
sure that they are according to God s will or really
good for ourselves. The utmost power of the whole
nature put into the quest for the highest ends that
is the only secret of success in public life and in
private prayer. "Gird up the loins of your minds"
is an exhortation much needed by those who would
hope perfectly and those who would ask effect
ually. The "sin of each frustrate ghost " remains still
the unlit lamp, of eager desire and the ungirt loin of
resolute endeavour. The sleepless watching in stead
fast and unwearied persistence, which is implied in
140 PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
the Greek words used in Eph. vi. 18, is only an echo
of our Lord s exhortations to importunity in prayer.
Why should men be urged to ask and seek and knock,
if the door is already open and the King on the throne
is more willing to give than the humble petitioner is
to proffer his request ? What is there lovely or
admirable in the friend who disturbs a family at mid
night, or the widow whose tiresome pertinacity breaks
down the callousness of a selfish and unrighteous
judge? Why should men be urged not to "faint"
literally become exhausted and spiritless in prayer,
except that this is the chief danger man has to guard
against and the commonest cause of failure ? If ever
the whole man is needed, the putting forth of heart,
mind, soul and strength, it must be when the highest
is to be attained through making urgent and irresist
ible demands upon God, who is indeed defined as a
liberal Giver, but who does not give in response to
a languid plea, because it proves that the asker is
unable to receive and use the boon. A man with a
nutshell of a heart may ask for an ocean of love, not
knowing what he says, or that a shellful would drown
him. "More things are wrought by prayer than this
world dreams of " the italics are not in the poem,
but the word needs to be made emphatic. Prayer is,
or ought to be, work. The supplication of a righteous
man is exceeding strong in its working, says St.
James. That is, if he puts his strength into it. For
if he who is to enjoy the blessing does not throw
himself into the effort to secure it, who can help him ?
II
It is just here that Christian teaching comes in, as
it is wont to do, at the moment of man s uttermost
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT 141
need. Christ takes each man as he is, not as he ought
to be, and thus only can he become what he ought
to be. There are few commoner complaints, even
among good people, than that of inability to pray.
It may be the utter inability of a man who does not
care, though he knows he ought to care; more fre
quently it is the partial inability of one who does not
care enough. What a blessed thing it is to be really
hungry is only known to those who have been obliged
to turn away from food in the nausea of satiety. One
of God s earliest and greatest blessings to His
children is to make them want so keenly that they
will perish, rather than fail to obtain. That is the
kind of hunger for righteousness which always ends
in being filled. And that gift, like every other
perfect boon, comes from the indwelling Spirit.
Salvation, says St. Paul in Rom. viii. 24 and we
may read the words with a certain surprise is always
a matter of expectation, it comes by way of hope,
rather than of attainment. However far a man has
advanced in this road, there is always so much more
to come that his attitude is continually that of
airoKapaboKid, the outstretching of head and neck in
eager anticipation. Those who already have "the
firstfruits of the Spirit " know that it is only first-
fruits and they "groan " for full deliverance, as nature
groans and travails for complete realization, deliver
ance from that measure of purposelessness to which
creation is still subjected. Nature longs, Christians
long, but neither knows exactly why, or for what ;
and man, like nature, is largely inarticulate in his
yearnings, unable to translate them into the earth-
and-heaven-shaking petitions that will bring about
their own fulfilment. It is as if the Christian, in the
person of St. Paul, put forth as his chief need the
142 PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
very power to understand his own needs, the power
to express them in fitting words and then urge his
petition with all his power on an unreluctant God, so
that his life of prayer should be a life of perpetual
conquest and attainment.
Thus also does the indwelling Spirit long and yearn.
If a difficult passage in St. James has come down to
us in its right form, "the Spirit which dwelleth within
us longs and yearns for us, even unto jealous envy
ing." As alas ! there are few feelings among men
that have so keen an edge as unworthy jealousy over
others good, so no expression can be stronger than
that the Spirit of God jealously yearns for our
advancement. And therefore it is that He "helps " us
in our weakness literally, takes firm hold at the side,
or over against, so as to support us and joins His
might with our feebleness. What greater help could
be given than that of One who will do this, not from
without but from within, at the very fount and spring
of our nature, strengthening us rightly to desire and
ask. For we do not know what we ought to pray for,
nor how we ought to pray for it both statements are
true, and either is a permissible translation of the
Greek. For how can form and matter be separated
in prayer ? Sometimes it is the very substance of the
petition that is lacking, sometimes its appropriate ex
pression. But when fit expression fails the deficiency
is generally due to lack of knowledge. The inarticu
late longings which are so common at prayer-time are
but another form of the vague restlessness of the sick
child, who wants many things, but most of all an
understanding of that which would still all his crav
ing. Yet he cannot ask, for he cannot speak; and
if he tries to make signs, he can only be under
stood by the sympathy of the mother or the nurse
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT 143
who understands him better than he understands
himself.
Fit language may well be lacking when we think
of what prayer means. Man cannot pray as he
ought, if the Omniscience of God is considered, for
there can be no concealment from Him. He cannot
pray as he ought, if the real relation between God
and man is considered, including man s entire depend
ence on God, yet power to secure from God accord
ing to His gracious covenant. He cannot pray as he
ought, if his own actual feelings were adequately
expressed, still more if those needs were recognized
which are so much more important than his feelings
at the moment. Nor can he pray as he ought, if he
is successfully to plead with the kind of prayer that
cannot but prevail. Yet if a man cannot do these
things for himself, what a helpless babe he must be
requiring to be fed, but not knowing what food will
suit him !
Therefore the Spirit " makes intercession." He
vTTcpcvTvyx&vet goes out to meet the helpless creature
for the purposes of intercourse and consultation, then
intervenes by taking up his cause and pleading on his
behalf it is the work of a true Paraclete. The Son
of God is such an Advocate on high. We can hear
Him pray for both inner and outer circles of His
disciples in John xvii., and now that He has entered
upon the glory which He had with the Father before
the world was, we can imagine, and trust to, His yet
more efficacious High-priestly work on our behalf
yonder. But He is far away, and the wings of faith
and imagination are weak and often fail us. What
is needed is a Helper within, one who not so much
prays for us, as prays in us. If men had invented
such a phrase for themselves it would be laughed at
144 PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
as an impossibility, or rejected as blasphemy; surely
a man must do his own praying to the God who is
over him. But a characteristic feature of Christianity
is the oneness of the God over us with the God in us,
and the Spirit Himself undertakes our cause with
yearnings that can find no words. At first no words
are forthcoming, afterwards they may be poured forth
abundantly. But whether this is so or not, whether
the words are articulate but insufficient, or inarticulate
and therefore ill understood, He who is over all knows
the meaning of what He has Himself inspired and his
half-instructed child has made his own. It is the very
will of God that needs interpreting; this is communi
cated by the Holy Spirit and assimilated by the saint
in his weakness and struggles for expression. When
prayer is thus offered, the great Hearer knows, and
understands and answers.
Ill
Is this the work of man, or of the Spirit of God?
Both. In the combination of the Divine and the
human lies the power and significance of Christian
experience. It is a description of a whole Christian
life when St. Paul bids men work out their own salva
tion with tremulous earnestness, but with all confid
ence, because it is God who works in them to will and
to work. When God Himself works in man to will
and to pray, shall not prayer succeed ?
At the opening of the Christian life the cry of the
newborn child is Abba, Father. Whose is the cry ?
It would appear that there can be only one answer,
"We cry" (Rom. viii. 15). But another answer is
given in Gal. iv. 6, "He has sent forth the Spirit of
His Son to enter your hearts and cry, Abba, our
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT 145
Father ! " The co-witnessing of the Holy Spirit and
the human spirit begins at the outset of the Christian
life, and never ceases till the end. To be strengthened
with might by the Spirit in the inward man is neces
sary for the realization of privilege, for growth in
grace, for victory over temptation, and not less for
successful and effectual prayer. "Praying in the
Spirit with all perseverance " is the expression used in
Eph. vi. 18; "praying in the Holy Spirit" is the
phrase found in Jude 20. Or are we rather to under
stand that the Holy Spirit is praying in us? These
two can no more be opposed than our Lord s "Abide
in me and I in you": each implies the other. The
branch draws strength from the Vine, the Vine pours
strength into the branch ; the branch cannot exist apart
from the Vine, the Vine finds its own realization of
itself, not in the short bare stock or stem, but in the
spreading branches, the luxuriant leaves and especially
the abundant fruit. If the Holy Spirit is as the atmo
sphere which the Christian breathes, we pray in the
Spirit; if He be the inspirer who stimulates to prayer
and sustains us in it, He prays in and through us.
The fact is that no illustration, especially no im
personal illustration, suffices here. The closely unit
ing affections of the best beloved afford the nearest
line of approach to an understanding of what can
never be expressed in words ; but human spirits at best
are mutually exclusive, however closely they may be
entwined in tenderest regard. The I and Thou remain
and must remain. Though the bar be broken twixt
life and life, "one near one is too far." Love may
conjoin in human relationships, but it cannot identify.
It is the marvel of the union between God and man
that a closer than any human relation is possible with
Him, though still there is no fusion, no absorption.
L
146 PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
The error of the mystic and of the dreaming East
generally must be avoided, if the Christian doctrine
of the Holy Spirit is to be rightly understood. He
who is the Root and Ground of our being works in
us to will, without interference with our own willing;
He who is the very Inspiration of our life yearns in
us to pray, without overruling or overriding our own
prayer. It is His, yet ours; ours, because His in us.
The mother teaches the child to pray, and at first the
prayer is the mother s alone, but the child learns to
join, while prompted and sustained by the mother s
prayer. He who prays in the Spirit finds himself in
perfect harmony with the music of the spheres, and
He that searcheth the hearts hears the echo of the
lowliest human harp and the vibration of its chords
under the sway of the Spirit, who pleads in and for
the saints according to the will of God.
So when, in the very closing words of the New
Testament, the Church longingly cries, "Come, Lord
Jesus ! " the prayer is that of the Bride eager for the
Bridegroom. But it is the Spirit and the Bride, the
Spirit in the Bride who calls, else the yearning is not
intense enough and the cry is not penetrating enough.
May it not be said that the modern Church is not
found intensely longing for the coming of her Lord,
after the fashion of Rev. xxii. 17, 20, because she,
rather than the Spirit in her, is looking for the great
consummation ? What the individual needs for
growth in grace, what the Christian Church as a whole
needs more than anything else for the realization of
the coming kingdom, is prayer in the Spirit.
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT 147
IV
But what can such prayer do? How do petitions
thus offered differ from the cry of the child left to
himself? Access "in the Spirit," words "not which
man s wisdom teacheth, but which the Spirit teacheth,
comparing spiritual things with spiritual " what are
these ?
Self-knowledge is gained, or increased an immense
help in prayer. The difficulties of introspection are
great. Every psychologist recognizes them, even
when he is searching by the cold, dry light of intel
lect and no feelings are concerned. But the difficulties
are greater when emotions are aroused and their fumes
and vapours, their shimmering lights and shadows,
obscure the vision. To such an extent is this the case
that little confidence is given to a man who is able to
observe and analyze his own affections. The process
becomes more difficult still when evil and wrong
come in to darken the sky, the foul smoke of base
desires obscures and baffles altogether the vision of
the watcher in the spiritual observatory. The power
of keen discrimination is lost, and with it the power
to assign values, to approve and to condemn. Man
needs a higher power than his own to show him what
sin means, what God means, truly to feel sin as it
ought to be felt in the presence of God. A higher
power than his own is needed to prompt him to that
full confession which offenders are proverbially slow
to render. It is the last and sorest stab of the
surgeon s knife that brings relief, and it is the con
trite recognition of ultimate sinfulness as a part of
the very self which brings the joy of pardon. This
contrition a man cannot gain by himself, yet it is of
L 2
148 PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
supremest spiritual value. True repentance must pre
cede forgiveness, yet how can a man repent without
the Holy Spirit ? Probably no adequate repentance is
possible on this side of the grave, but the nearest
approach to it comes after long experience of the life
of sonship. Then the disciple, having learned more
and more of the mind of Christ, can see evil as it
really is, and the light of the Spirit enables him to
know himself in a fashion which makes all the
analysis of a Socrates and all the research of an experi
mental psychologist to seem as mere child s play.
Prayer in the Spirit opens up the blessings and
privileges of the Gospel as otherwise they could never
be seen. Even after these centuries of Christian ex
perience men are slow to believe in grace. Law they
know, order they know; justice, punishment, revenge,
apathy, neglect and scorn; but kindness undeserved,
unexpected, unrestrained, even to the unlovable and
ungrateful, is so unusual in human and earthly rela
tions that when it does appear it brings unwonted
tears to the eyes. That such grace, unmerited and
free, is the very mind and heart of God, is a truth not
so easy to believe, or, when believed, to understand
and appreciate. Therefore it is not superfluous to
pray that the eyes of the heart may be enlightened,
that Christians may know what is the hope of their
calling and what the riches of the glory of God s
inheritance in the saints. The history of the Church,
no less than of the individual, shows how much of the
unsearchable riches of wisdom and knowledge in
Christ are as yet hidden. And there are no moments
of insight into these treasures like those when it is
found possible to pray in the Spirit.
Other features of this inward revelation can only be
lightly touched, (i) It quickens spiritual desires, the
PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT 149
sense of deficiency deepening in proportion as the
knowledge of privileges and possibilities heightens.
So does perpetually recurring keen appetite make
possible the repeated enjoyment and assimilation of
more food. (2) It develops new ideas and a true con
ception of the right methods of realizing them. As
the inquirer who is always occupied with practical
problems concerning mechanical ends and the best
imans of attaining them locomotion, water-supply,
road-making, traction and construction has quick
perceptions of how things may best be done, and
leaps to conclusions that would never have suggested
themselves to the untrained eye, so the human spirit
that occupies itself in prayer with the great practical
problems of the spiritual life sees them in a fuller
and clearer light and goes forth from the inner chamber
ready for wise and prompt action. (3) It enlarges
the sympathies, which means partly an enlargement of
ideas, partly of the feelings which these ought to
inspire. An illustration of this is ready to hand in the
admission of the Gentiles into the primitive Church.
It was a " mystery " hardly to be credited that Gentiles
should be fellow-heirs, fellow-members of the body,
fellow-partakers of the promise with the Jews. " Away
with such a fellow from the earth ; it is not fit that he
should live," was the cry which greeted the preacher
of the Gospel of Christ when he uttered the word
11 Gentiles." It is so easy to see the folly of the pre
judices of other men, of other countries and other
centuries, so hard to pierce through the blinding
mists of our own. If there be one thing more certain
than another with regard to the Church of Christ in
the twentieth century, it is that it is the will of God
that race-prejudice and international jealousy and
strife should be broken down and done away. It
150 PRAYER IN THE SPIRIT
remains to be seen how far the eyes of the Church
are enlightened to perceive this and act upon it, and
it is quite certain that if the Church is to be lifted
above the level of its natural vision and enabled to
see beyond the party-walls which circumscribe its
sympathies and activities, it must be by its yielding
more fully to the guidance of the indwelling Spirit.
In a word, only such prayer can adequately preserve
the ideal element in Church life, the thought and the
hope of an illimitable future. The gift of the Spirit
is aTrapxn, appaftuv the firstfruits of what a harvest,
the earnest of what a possession ! The possibilities of
the Christian calling are unexpressed, inexpressible.
"All things " no word can promise more "all things
are yours," if ye are Christ s as Christ is God s; and
the Holy Spirit is the power of God working within
men the capacity to inherit all things. How thin and
poor are most human petitions in comparison with
the prospects thus opening up in never-ending vistas
of hope. It remains that Christians learn more fully
to pray in the Spirit
"Breaking the narrow prayers that may
Befit our narrow hearts, away
In His broad, loving will."
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
"Called to be saints. 11 ROM. i. 7; i COR. i. 2.
"That habitual disposition of soul which in the sacred writ
ings is termed holiness; and which directly implies the being
cleansed from sin t from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit;
and by consequence, the being endued with those virtues which
were in Christ Jesus; the being so renewed in the image of
our mind as to be perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect."
JOHN WESLEY.
"Teach me Thy love to know;
That this new light, which now I see
May both the work and Workman show;
Then by a sunbeam I will climb to Thee. 19
GEO. HERBERT.
" // God had wished to make of the creature merely an imper
sonal plaything, not an object of His love, then undoubtedly
it need not have passed through the discipline of evil." ROTHE,
Stille Stunden.
"But he who would be born again indeed
Must wake his soul unnumbered times a day,
And urge himself to life with holy greed;
Now ope his bosom to the Wind s free play,
And now with patience forceful, hard, lie still,
Submiss and ready to the making Will,
Athirst and empty for God s Breath to fill."
G. MACDONALD.
VIII
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
THE characteristic name of the Spirit in the New
Testament is Holy. His characteristic work is that
of sanctification, making holy the Church of Christ.
The characteristic title of those who belong to that
Church is saints, holy ones. It is, therefore, above
all things necessary that Christians should understand
what is meant by that word and in what sense it is
applicable in actual life to the followers of Christ
to-day.
The meaning of the word "holy " in the Old Testa
ment bears closely on the subject, because from the
Old Covenant both the word and the idea were derived.
It is of no use to search in classical Greek for the
meaning of ayios, when amongst the Greeks the very
idea of the quality was lacking, and if the thought had
been preserved, it would have been repudiated as an
ideal in life. The conception came from Israel, to
whom so many nations have had to go to school for
lessons in religion. And in that specially chosen
people the idea of holiness dawned but gradually,
only by a slow and difficult process was the nation
taught the full meaning of the words they had been
accustomed to employ.
It has been more or less customary among scholars
153
154 THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
to derive the Hebrew word Qadosh from a root
meaning "separate, apart," and to apply this mean
ing to the word from the first. Thus God was
esteemed holy because of His ethical uniqueness, His
utter aloofness from all evil ; whilst men and places
and objects were esteemed holy because they were set
apart and consecrated to His service. Considerable
doubt, however, attaches to the etymology, and usage
hardly bears out this line of exposition. It is usual
now to understand that "holy" was originally prac
tically synonymous with divine, that among Semites
generally it meant that which belonged to the gods,
with no particular quality attaching to the word which
would cover the whole ground. Dr. Davidson says
in his Introduction to Ezekiel (p. xxxix.) that "the
term was so far appropriated to the divine that when
coupled with the word god or gods it became a
mere otiose epithet, the holy gods meaning nothing
more than the gods (Dan. iv. 8, 9, etc.)." And
in his Theology of the Old Testament, whilst stating
that the early history of the name is very obscure and
one on which diverse views have prevailed, he points
out that among Phoenicians, for example, the term
holy is "a mere epitheton ornans, having no force,"
and that in its original use among the Jews, "when
applied either to God or to men, it does not express
a moral quality" (p. 145). Even so, however, an
emphasis is laid on the transcendent majesty and glory
which set Jehovah as the true God above all men and
all heathen divinities; and similarly men, places, times
and objects are viewed as set apart and inviolable,
because appropriated to the service or worship of the
One Divine Being. Hence "holy" is opposed to
"common " or "profane," not necessarily as implying
evil or unworthiness of any kind, but rather the
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 155
absence of any restriction which would " hallow" for
specially religious purposes.
It may be true that in the earlier stages of Hebrew
history the character of the God thus honoured and
adored was not prominent in the thoughts of the
people; the modern view is that it was to the earlier
writing prophets that Israel owed the full apprehen
sion of this thought. It is more probable that the
ethical idea of Jehovah was present in the religion, but
not sufficiently emphasized, and that Hosea, Amos
and the rest recalled the people to its importance and
necessity. 1 In some representations the righteousness
of God in the moral government of men predominated,
especially the fact that He visits the wicked with con
dign punishment. The refrain of Ps. xcvii., "Holy
is He," certainly carried with it this connotation.
Isaiah had pointed the same lesson long before
"Jahweh of hosts shows his greatness by judgment"
i. e. just decisions and apportionment in human
affairs "and the holy God proves Himself holy by
righteousness" (v. 16). A higher sense still is found
in Hab. i. 13, where the intrinsic purity of God is
described as such that He cannot bear the very
presence of evil; and in Isa. vi. the deep sense of
uncleanness attaching to the prophet and the people
round him makes him, though devoted to God s
service, to be unworthy of bearing His message or
carrying out His will. Dr. Skinner, in Hastings
Bible Dictionary, says that the word holy "never
appears detached from the underlying thought of
majesty and power," but unquestionably the ethical
and spiritual associations of the word are brought so
far to the front in the later writings of the Old Testa
ment, that the idea of moral uniqueness, flawless and
1 See Robertson, Early Religion of Israel, Chapter V.
156 THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
ineffable purity came to prevail as the distinctive
attribute of the God of Israel.
Consequently the idea of holiness among men was
purified also, and a new meaning attached to the com
mand, "Be ye holy, for I am holy." The lesson was
a hard one to learn ; only after generations of train
ing, repeated punishments for sin, and continually
reiterated warnings and promises through prophetic
messengers, was Israel taught how rightly to fill out
the concept of "holiness " as the consummation of the
Divine attributes. The nation came to regard a holy
God as including the idea of a righteous God, together
with as much deeper meaning in addition as the
word holiness transcends righteousness in its modern
acceptation.
In Greek, the word ayios corresponds to the Old
Testament "holy" at its highest, and is then corre
spondingly raised and purified by the superior spiritu
ality of the later dispensation. The adjective is freely
used in the New Testament, and fills a place of its
own. It is to be distinguished from fe/oos (sacred),
which denotes an external relation to God ; from oo-tos
(pious), which points to the one observance of religious
rites and all reverent and godly habits of life; from
a-cpvos, which means all that deserves reverence, all
true dignity of character, commanding respect, or even
veneration ; from ayvos, pure, chaste, free from carnal
sins; from bUcuos, the name of the just man, who
righteously fulfils the relationships of earthly life ;
from KaOapos, i. e. first ceremonially, then morally,
clean ; and from some other words of high and honour
able significance. As Dr. Stevens well expresses it,
"Ayios (holy) is more positive, more comprehensive,
more elevated, more purely ethical and spiritual. It
is characteristically Godlikeness, and in the Christian
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 157
system Godlikeness signifies completeness of life."
Sometimes in history a raised ethical standard has
given rise to higher conceptions of God, sometimes
higher views of God have raised the standard of human
relations. In Christianity the latter has been the
course of thought. The perfect life of Christ, His
revelation of the love of the Father, and the atmo
sphere of Divine grace substituted for that of righteous
law, gave new meaning to old words till they became
new ones aytos among them.
The family of words grouped around this stem
deserves more attention than can here be given to it.
The verb "to sanctify " and the three associated nouns
indicating respectively the process, the quality and
the state of holiness should be pondered for other than
etymological and expository purposes. An echo of
Isa. vi. is found in Rev. iv. 8, with added meaning
" Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty " ; and
Christ, in His mediatorial prayer, addresses not only
the "righteous," but the "holy" Father (John xvii.
n, 25). He Himself was the Holy Son and Servant,
in perfect harmony with the Father s will of righteous
goodness, discerned by His disciples to be "the Holy
One of God." So marked and characteristic did the
name become that " Holy Spirit " is the normal expres
sion for God at work among men, having for His main
object the manifestation of the highest conceivable
spiritual excellence and the transformation of men
into His adorable likeness.
II
The phrase, "spirit of holiness," which stands as the
title of this study has been variously understood. It
occurs once only in the New Testament, viz. in Rom.
158 THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
i. 4, where Christ is said to have been "declared the
Son of God with power, according to the spirit of
holiness." The interpretation of this phrase directly
of the Holy Spirit is hardly tenable. St. Paul says
that as Christ on the side of His human flesh was of
the seed of David, so was He marked out as the Son
of God in the most potent and impressive way by the
Resurrection, in accordance with the operation of the
(human) spirit which inhabited that flesh, one dis
tinguished by holiness as its specific and unique pos
session. That this human spirit was fitted and
equipped for its work by the Divine Spirit is un
doubtedly stated, or implied, in many passages, but
does not come into full view here. The phrase would
seem, however, to imply that it was the whole object
of Christ to impart the "spirit of holiness" to men in
and through the presence of His holy and sanctifying
Spirit.
If we are guided by the New Testament, the whole
Christian life is one process of "sanctification." It is to
be regretted that this word has for many modern ears
a formal sound and not altogether attractive associa
tions. The term "saint" needs to be redeemed and
rehabilitated. It forms, in the apostolic salutations to
the earliest Churches, a definition of a Christian. It
describes what the believers in Rome or Corinth were
by way of status and privilege ; it sets forth what they
ought to be, what every one of them in Christ might
be. It does not mean that they were wholly righteous
in the sense of fully discharging all their duties; it
does not point to an essential goodness and kindliness
of disposition, nor to their character as believers in
Christ and faithful in their allegiance to Him ; but it
does describe an ideal which they were to make real.
Briefly stated it is this. Every member of the Church
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 159
is ayios (holy or a saint), in the sense that, having
been redeemed by Christ and brought into a new
relation wiih God in Christ by faith, his whole inner
character has been changed; he is a consecrated man,
living a dedicated life. His whole life is maintained
by trust and love; he is being made like Him to whom
he owes his natural and his regenerated being, renewed
not only in external relations and actions, but in
thought, purpose and aim, so that he follows the
example of Christ and reflects the image of God.
These men are "called to be saints," more exactly,
"saints by way of calling"; that is, are designated
by God for a high purpose which it is their privilege
to carry out, called with a high calling of which they
are trying to walk worthily.
St. Paul s earliest Epistles show how vital this truth
was in his teaching. He says to the Thessalonians,
u This is the will of God, even your sanctification";
"God chose you from the beginning in sanctification
of the Spirit." No more central passage to describe
the scope and nature of the Christian life is to be
found than the paragraph Rom. vi. 16-23, in which
the one aim is to present to God the whole self, "your
members as servants to righteousness," so as to secure
the one end, "sanctification." The Christian is a man
free from sin, a servant to God who has his "fruit
unto sanctification and the end eternal life." It is God
who sanctifies, yet men are to sanctify themselves ;
the work is Divine, but it cannot be accomplished
without human co-operation. St. John presses the
same thought home continually under his character
istic phraseology concerning life, light and love. No
better synonyms for holiness can be found than these
three cardinal words. God is light, and the Christian
must walk in light if he is to have fellowship with the
160 THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
Father and the Son by the Spirit. The whole of
Christianity is summed up in the suggestive phrase
in which our Lord describes His own life and that of
His followers, "For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that
they also may be sanctified in truth."
The point of view in the Epistle to the Hebrews is
somewhat different, but the meaning is the same.
"They that are sanctified" is a standing expression
which contemplates primarily a worshipping people,
fitted by God under the new covenant to stand in near
relation to Himself, moving, as it were, in His pre
sence, priests in His temple, consecrated to His service
in all things. This great work has been accomplished
by Christ in His sacrifice offered once for all. "He
that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified " in other
words, the Saviour and the saved are all of one ;
Christ is made like to His brethren that His brethren
may be made like to Him. He and they are alike
Sons of God. By one offering He is Himself per
fected as a Saviour and has perfectly accomplished
the work necessary to bring men into right relation
with God under the new covenant. It is not ethical
perfection of character that is prominent before this
writer s mind, but a certain relation to God in Christ;
for if this be rightly attained all the rest will follow.
But for the author of "Hebrews," as for all other New
Testament writers, God s training of His people has
for its end that they should be "made partakers of His
holiness," and the aim and object of daily pursuit is
to attain peace and the "sanctification without which
no man shall see the Lord."
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 161
III
It is no part of our present object to trace the history
of the word "saint" and the idea of sainthood from
New Testament times onwards. The history, how
ever, is a very instructive one, and some know
ledge of it is necessary if the ideas of the New
Testament are to be made available for the guidance
of to-day.
There were strikingly various types of ayioi in
Apostolic days. Peter, John, Stephen, Paul, James,
Barnabas more diverse types and temperaments
could hardly be imagined. Alexandria, Jerusalem,
Ephesus, Rome for what various forms of Christian
devotion these names stood in the structure of the
early Church ! The fickle Galatians, the warm
hearted Philippians, the gifted and eloquent but
factious and undisciplined Corinthians, the eager
and unstable Thessalonians Churches formed from
among these elements were all followers of Christ, all
elect and faithful, but no two were precisely alike, or
received the stamp of saintship in precisely the same
fashion. Seven Churches are addressed in the Roman
province of Asia by the Lord speaking through the
mouth of the seer; but, though quite contiguous and
formed from the same material, they receive each its
own markedly distinctive message, which could not
be transferred to another. It is doubtful whether in
creed, government or worship the Churches of the
New Testament preserved the same uniform model,
as moderns understand uniformity, but theirs was one
Lord, one faith, one baptism, and one calling to be
"saints," with one glorious hope to crown it at the
last.
M
162 THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
The conditions of Christian service during the
Apostolic period were not long maintained. As the
years and the centuries passed, the definition of
" saint," rendered into the language of succeeding
generations, changed its form very often. Rules were
laid down by the Church for the ordering of life, and
the saint was the man who kept them most assiduously.
The influence of the world came to prevail within, as
well as outside, the Christian communities, and the
saint was the man who withdrew from Church and
world alike to worship God in the desert. Time came
and it has not yet passed when "the religious" were
those, and those only, who made and kept the monastic
vows of poverty, obedience and chastity the last word
meaning, of course, celibacy. At length canonization
was reduced to a science, and the roll of saints in the
Church of Rome came to be regulated by a complicated
process, which might well be surrounded by elaborate
safeguards, for those who pass through it are "elevated
to the altars " and commended to the perpetual venera
tion and invocation of pious Roman Catholics in all
lands. In Roman hagiology there are three degrees
of sanctity known by the names of Venerable,
Blessed and Saint. Benedict XIV laid it down that
for canonization, a servant of God must have practised
virtues in an eminent and heroic degree, and it must
be proved that at least two miracles have been wrought
through the intercession of the "Blessed" one since
beatification. The Church of Rome has frequently
put forth the challenge as one test of a true Church of
Christ, Does it produce saints? The challenge is a
fair one, and may well be accepted by those outside
her pale, provided that first a satisfactory definition
of a true saint be agreed upon.
It would not be difficult to show that the interpreta-
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 163
tion of the word "holy" throughout the history of
Christendom has been affected by many influences
from outside Christendom, since the time when
Oriental asceticism made St. Simeon Stylites to be a
pattern of uttermost devotion. The Puritan pro
moted, as he thought, saintliness of life by "precise-
ness " of dress and demeanour, by secularizing Christ
mas Day, and keeping "the Sabbath" with a more
than Judaic rigidity. Many types of Christians
through the centuries have disregarded the warnings
of St. Paul denouncing as doctrines of demons those
who should come "forbidding to marry and command
ing to abstain from meats which God created to be
received with thanksgiving by them that believe and
know the truth." The "things which have a show of
wisdom in will-worship and humility and severity to
the body, but are not of any value against the indulg
ence of the flesh " have appeared and reappeared in
the Church. And even to-day, according to the read
ing of history which commends itself to some, the
periods of special sanctity have been precisely those in
which these beggarly "rudiments of the world" have
been most prevalent in the Church.
But it is easier to criticize than to construct. Periods
of reformation are supposed to inaugurate moral and
spiritual improvement, and it happens that each of the
last four centuries has made its own characteristic
contribution to the meaning of true holiness. Let us
take the eighteenth and nineteenth, marked respect
ively by the Evangelical and the Tractarian Revival
movement. Christians of all types may agree without
much difficulty that John Wesley and John Henry
Newman were saints of the great Church Catholic, and
that each in his own fashion set about the tremendous
task of reviving true holiness in the Church and the
M 2
164 THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
nation. Each furnished definitions from time to time
of what he understood the holiness of the New Testa
ment to mean and how it was to be resuscitated in his
own day. It is instructive to consider the witness of
each of these eminent religious leaders, and it will be
convenient to take Newman in his pre-Catholic days
first, because he illustrates the type of sanctity which
Wesley professed to seek in his earlier life and after
wards discarded as mistaken and insufficient.
Newman points out in his description of the
Spiritual Mind that the religion of the New Testa
ment "is a very different mode of obedience from any
which natural reason and conscience tell us of dif
ferent, not in its nature, but in its excellence and
peculiarity much more than honesty, justice and
temperance." After dwelling upon the fundamentals
of Christianity, he goes on to say "We must have a
deep sense of our guilt and of the difficulty of securing
heaven ; we must live as in Christ s presence, daily
pleading His cross and passion, thinking of His holy
commandments, imitating His sinless pattern, and
depending on the gracious aids of His Spirit; that we
may really and truly be servants of Father, Son and
Holy Ghost, in whose name we were baptized.
Further, we must, for His sake, aim at a noble and
unusual strictness of life, perfecting holiness in His
fear, destroying our sins, mastering our whole soul
and bringing it into captivity to His law, denying
ourselves lawful things in order to do Him service,
exercising a profound humility and an unbounded,
never-failing love, giving away much of our substance
in religious and charitable works, and discountenanc
ing and shunning irreligious men. This is to be a
Christian; a gift easily described and in a few words,
but attainable only with fear and much trembling :
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 165
promised indeed, and in a measure accorded at once
to every one who asks for it, but not secured till after
many years, and never in this life fully realized." *
Wesley, in his Oxford days and down to 1738,
would probably have accepted as his own this view
of the Christian life as "one attainable only with fear,"
but "not till after many years," and "never in this life
to be fully realized." He says later that from these
his earlier sentiments and zeal for the Church " I bless
God He has now delivered me." Further, in describ
ing Methodism, he pleads that it is not a new religion,
but the old religion, the religion of the Bible and of
the primitive Church. It is "no other than love, the
love of God and of all mankind; the loving God with
all our heart and mind and soul and strength, as
having first loved us as the fountain of all the good
we have received and of all we ever hope to enjoy ;
and the loving every soul which God hath made, every
man on earth as our own soul. . . . This religion of
love and joy and peace has its seat in the inmost soul ;
but is ever showing itself by its fruits, continually
springing up, not only in all innocence for love
worketh no ill to his neighbour but likewise in every
kind of beneficence spreading virtue and happiness
to all around it." 2 From some standpoints they
do not so greatly differ, these two great saints of
God, whose lives covered between them practically
the whole of two centuries and whose works live
after them. And yet they do differ essentially, as the
religion of fear and trembling differs from the religion
of faith working by love. Christians can never dis
pense with the spirit of lowly fear, but they are
1 Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. I, p. 80.
2 " Earnest Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion." See
Works, Vol. VII, p. 423.
166 THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
never Christians indeed till perfect love has cast out
fear.
Sainthood undoubtedly means the life of the
ordinary Christian perfected. It differs from the
ordinary, not in kind, but in degree. M. Joly, in his
Psychology of the Saints, goes further than this.
" Great men and little, we are all of us formed out of
the same clay and the same spirit is breathed into each
one of us. ... The saint, though he is a man of
God, is still a man, and a man who has under the
influence of grace developed and raised himself not
alone in the direction of the supernatural and eternity.
. . . When the interior heart is filled with the spirit
of Christ, exterior action flows from it as from its true
source, and sometimes in one direction, sometimes in
another, fertilizes the field of this world s activities,
for the benefit of mankind. . . . The Church has not
only canonized monks, side by side with dukes,
duchesses, kings, queens, emperors and empresses,
but also merchants, school-masters, gardeners, work
men, shepherds and shepherdesses, lawyers, doctors,
publicans, a retired public executioner, jailors,
treasurers, magistrates, beggars, domestic servants,
artisans, shoemakers, carpenters, blacksmiths and
fishermen ! " Signs are not wanting that a larger and
richer catholicity than that of Roman Catholicism may
mark the course of the twentieth century, and that
" saints of the marts and busy streets, saints of the
squalid lanes," are taking their place with "saints of
the cloistered Middle Age and saints of the modern
home," so that not in mere theory, but in actual life, it
may be always borne in mind that there are diversities
of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things
in all.
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 167
IV
The point? however, which it is desired in this place
especially to emphasize is that a more complete recog
nition is desirable of the direct operation of the Holy
Spirit as Himself the great Agent in all true processes
of sanctification. Attention has too often been con
centrated upon methods and results, rather than upon
the true source and essence of holiness. Nothing but
the personal recognition of the Spirit s personal work
will suffice to preserve men from formalism, asceticism
and the many dangers that beset them when they set
about the work of sanctifying themselves.
The work of the Spirit on the heart in sanctification
is twofold. Negatively, He purifies from evil; posi
tively, He fills with purest thoughts and hallows to
highest service. Neither in contending against
temptation nor in consecration to God can strenuous
effort on the part of the will be dispensed with, but in
neither work is it sufficient. For one thing, the very
sense of effort interferes with the steady flow of pure
thought and feeling; holiness as a state is attained
when effort is no longer needed. The soul is freed
from purgatory when the ascent of the steep, heaven-
pointing hill is as easy as its descent. Another reason
why only the Spirit can purify is that the most subtle
forms of evil escape even the Christian s notice without
the gift of Divine eyesight. Another frequent cause
of failure on the part of a man who is only striving to
purify himself from all filthiness of flesh and spirit,
instead of looking to the Holy Spirit to direct and
crown his endeavours, is the attempt to secure a
spiritual end by the adoption of habits, the multiplica
tion of rules and the observance of external standards,
excellent in themselves, but useful only as means in a
168 THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
subordinate sense. Only Divine inspiration can so
cleanse the thoughts of the heart that men may, in
the time-honoured phrase, "perfectly love God and
worthily magnify His holy name."
It is the beauty of holiness that is lacking in the
most elaborate and comparatively successful efforts of
men. " Do you not wish you were a Christian ? " said
a sour-visaged Church member to Tom Hood. "If it
means to feel as you look no," was the answer of
the humorist, who was at the same time a moralist
and a true Christian. When Milton described "how
awful goodness is and virtue in her shape how lovely,"
he joined together the two qualities which impress the
idea of saintliness on the world. All that wins and
charms combined with all that commands veneration
the two qualities are often contrasted, but they blend
easily together in the life of one whose heart has
learned the secret of Christ. This serene summit of
experience can only be attained by the indwelling of
the Spirit, who at the same time softens the hardness
and asperity of a self-occupied nature, and raises to a
dignity and sublimity of its own all that is narrow and
unworthy in a mean nature. "There is no remedy
for a bad heart and no substitute for a good one,"
wrote J. C. Morison ; and if there be no Holy Spirit,
it can hardly be denied that his words are true. No
artificial fashioning of a laboriously purified character
can impart the spontaneity, grace and beauty of a holy
one. Holiness is not virtue, nor an assemblage of
virtues, but a new spirit breathed into a man, and
therefore easily and naturally breathed forth from him.
And this Spirit comes only from above and dwells
only in the humble and contrite heart.
Complaints abound of the Church s "worldliness "
in these latter days, and the evil complained of is
THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS 169
recognized as a very serious and very subtle one. But
the chief difficulty in dealing with it is to detect its in
most essence. Card-playing and theatre-going are not
its only marks ; worldliness knows well how to wear the
semblance of sanctity, and it has often clothed itself
with ecclesiastical zeal as with a cloak. Worldliness in
a Church is not easily expelled, and some methods of
driving out the evil spirit have ended in the introduc
tion of seven others, worse than the first. It is at
least important that the Church should know what
worldliness means, and this may show the way to its
cure. Wiser words on the subject have seldom been
written than those which lay on Dr. R. W. Dale s
desk when he died the last words he ever wrote,
broken off in the middle of a sentence. "Unworld-
liness does not consist in the most rigid and conscien
tious observance of any external rules of conduct, but
in the spirit and temper, and in the habit of living,
created by the vision of God, by constant fellowship
with Him, by a personal and vivid experience of the
greatness of the Christian redemption, by the settled
purpose to do the will of God always, in all things, at
all costs, and by the power of the great hope the full
assurance that after our mortal years are spent, there
is a larger, fuller, richer life in The great
preacher, whose hand was thus arrested by death, has
inherited now that larger and fuller life, in the hope
of which the Church militant toils and struggles in the
midst of an evil world. But those who study the
above weighty definition carefully will find the pith
and core of it in one of its middle clauses, which we
have underlined. The only secret for holiness of
heart and life is found in the closing words of the
Apostolic benediction "May the fellowship of the
Holy Spirit be with you always ! "
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
" He giveth not the Spirit by measure." JOHN iii. 34.
"God is not dumb that He should speak no more;
If thou hast wanderings in the wilderness
And findest not Sinai, tis thy soul is poor. 11
], R. LOWELL.
"For while the tired waves, vainly breaking f
Seem here no painful inch to gain,
Far back, through creeks and inlets making,
Comes silent, flooding in, the main."
A. H. CLOUGH.
" One accent of the Holy Ghost
This heedless world hath never lost."
EMERSON.
" Whatever God is in Himself, His manifestations to us do
not lie still before us in the sleep of a frozen sea; they break out
of this motionless eternity, they sweep in mighty tides of nature
and of history . . . and have the changing voice oj many
waters." JAS. MARTINEAU.
IX
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
IN a noble sermon with the above title Dr. Martineau
comments on the fact that "Jesus, as His custom was,
went into the synagogue on the sabbath day," vin
dicating what he calls the "Christian habit of seasonal
and local worship," finding in "the occasionalism of
piety, not its shame, but its distinctive glory." The
intermittency of devout affections, he adds, is a sign,
not of poverty or weakness, but of their intrinsic
grandeur and "their accurate accordance with what is
highest in God s realities." In one of the apt meta
phors which are characteristic of Dr. Martineau s style,
he says, "God has so arranged the chronometry of
our spirits that there shall be thousands of silent
moments between the striking hours."
If the thought be once admitted, it seems desirable,
or even necessary, to follow it further. The mystic
seeks to raise all moods to the level of the highest,
and always to live in the very Holy of holies. The
worldly man distrusts the very attitude of contem
plative dreaming, and finds a level path by immersing
himself in business and pleasure and leaving the
element of worship out of his life. If both of these
are wrong for different reasons, some kind of tidal
action must be traced in the workings of the Spirit.
Twice in twenty-four hours there may be high and
low water ; spring-tides and neap-tides are marked as
the months go round; now the wind drives the rising
waves shoreward, now, blowing backward from the
174 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
land, it retards their progress. The wind itself who can
measure and predict ? Yet mutable and unfettered as
are the air-currents, science is reducing some of them
to order. Trade-winds and monsoons blow steadily, in
winter from the north-east, during half the year from
the south-west, bringing welcome rains. Study of the
movements of the earth, of the action of high mountain
ranges, of the different temperature of continents, of
the currents that pass from land to sea, from sea to
land, has taught many lessons of regularity where
men have hitherto found only caprice.
When the Divine breath of morning moves, no man
can tell whence it comes, or whither it goes ; the Holy
Spirit quickens where and as He lists. But surely
none will say that His movements are without order
or meaning ? Law is traced in physics, in biology, in
psychology, varying in character with phenomena, but
order of some kind is discernible throughout nature.
It is less easy to discern and calculate as the scale of
being rises, least of all is it to be readily traced in
the complex history of man. But nowhere are prin
ciples of order lacking, and reverent search delights
to trace them in the workings of the spirit of man as
well as of his mind and body. That they are no less
present in the relations between the Divine and the
human spirit may well be accepted by faith, and it
may be said that it is increasingly becoming matter of
knowledge. Nothing but good can come from reverent
inquiry into the order and methods of working of the
Spirit of God among men, if we keep clear of the
danger of setting bounds to the Divine grace and the
foolish pride of supposing that our feeble general
izations are more than tentative guesses at the methods
of Him w r ho worketh all things after the counsel of His
own will.
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 175
I
In individual life we are compelled to recognize
periodicity. Day and night, summer and winter,
youth and age, sickness and health, constitute succes
sive conditions of human existence. None can evade
or ignore them, and spiritual life is in its own way
affected by them. Epochs occur in every life when
physiological processes are completed or when mental
development culminates ; there are periods when moral
habits become fixed, or when a new start is made and
new stages of the journey are undertaken. Spirit has
its history, as well as mind and body, though it is not
confined within the same limits, nor subject to the same
forces. It is impossible to draw an artificial line be
tween judgment, conscience, imagination, faith; and
if in some of these regions what may be called tidal
movements are recognizable, this implies no inter
ference with spiritual freedom, but it does show that
laws of spiritual growth are discernible in the midst
of a complex and often quite inexplicable history.
Changing moods what forms a more fruitful theme
of moralizing than the rapid, startling, unaccountable
succession of these in every life? Some are directly
attributable to more or less obscure physical conditions.
The " unstable " nervous temperament forms a recogniz
able type, yet even instability has its own laws and con
ditions which the physician at least partly understands.
The influence of the crowd on the individual, of the
individual on the crowd, the incidence of panic and the
control of its storms, the swaying of gusts of passion,
the rise of waves of enthusiasm are all these to be
marked merely as paroxysms forming irreducible
exceptions to a regular observable order ? No student
of human nature supposes for a moment that they
176 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
are merely disorderly, arbitrary or unaccountable,
though their occurrence raises questions more than
can be accounted for in his philosophy. All that may
be known concerning them is unquestionably of im
portance in a study of the workings of the Spirit of
God upon human life, whether in the individual, the
community, the nation or the race.
Special attention has been given of late years to the
phenomena of adolescence. The results of study as
given by Professor Stanley Hall and others are most
instructive in their bearing upon the whole life, and
not least the life of religion. Professor William
James s Varieties of Religious Experience is one of
the best-known contributions to a fruitful field of study,
and it gives the sanction of an eminent name to a
mode of treatment which a generation ago would have
been considered beneath the dignity, or beyond the
sphere, of science. The psychology of religion has
advanced rapidly within the last two decades.
Religious instincts are now recognized as part of the
essential furniture of human nature, their development
and manifestation are better understood, and an in
ductive study of the phenomena of religious experience
has opened up a new field in which already ordered
paths are beginning to be made.
Dr. Starbuck, an American scholar who is largely
quoted by William James, says in one of his books,
"Conversion belongs almost exclusively to the years
between ten and twenty-five it is a distinctively
adolescent phenomenon." 1 To some the statement
may sound absurd, others might call it profane. But
if we modify its epigrammatic form by saying that
experience shows that a radical, abiding change of
religious nature rarely occurs before twelve years of
1 Psychology of Religion, p. 28.
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 177
age, is most frequent from the fourteenth to the
twentieth year, that it is rare after the age of thirty,
and that "if conversion has not occurred before twenty
the chances are small that it will ever be experienced,"
we are moving in a region of undoubted facts which
most people can confirm, and which bear an important
moral lesson. Narrow down the inquiry still further,
and it will be found that the years just before and
after sixteen are in many respects crucial. Tables of
statistics are usually misleading, and in a subject like
this they are useful only within very narrow limits.
Dr. Starbuck s curves and squares are not diagrams
in a proposition of Euclid. Some of his phraseology
jars upon the reader. Instead of saying with him,
"We may safely lay it down as a law," it would be
better to say that some investigation tends to show
that in women "there are two tidal waves of religious
awakening at about thirteen and sixteen, followed by a
less significant period at eighteen ; while among the
males the great wave is at about sixteen, preceded by a
wavelet at twelve, and followed by a surging-up at
eighteen or nineteen." 1 And it would be more appro
priate to say that the normal period for a deep and
radical spiritual change in man lies somewhere between
the innocence of childhood and the fixed habits of
maturity, whilst the nature is still impressible and
preserves a certain capacity for spiritual insight which,
if then unused, tends in later life to diminish and
disappear.
The objections which arise to what may seem to be
a determination of religion by statistics are obvious,
but they do not apply to an inquiry carefully con
ducted. It is of course true that tables of averages
form no guide to individual cases. Of course it is
also true that no such careful observations in human
1 op. tit., p. 34.
N
178 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
psychology fetter the operations of the Spirit of God.
It may also be admitted that in one sense these figures
contain nothing new ; that every one knew long ago
that childhood and youth form the plastic period
during which all impressions ought to be made that
are intended to be deep and lifelong. The objection
is raised from another quarter that it is a dangerous
thing to make the processes of mind dependent upon
physiological processes, and to attempt to connect
the highest thoughts and aspirations of the human
spirit with the natural stages of puberty.
It spite of all objections it remains true that the
careful study of childhood and youth made by experts
like Professor Stanley Hall has not only been of the
highest value in education, but that it has an import
ant bearing on religion. It is not scientific to make
mental processes dependent on bodily functions, or to
resolve the spiritual side of man s nature into the
physical. But that the two are connected is certain,
and it is pure gain to know as much as we may about
the working of both that the relation between them
may be more clearly understood. Adolescence is a
crisis in the history of the human organism which has
many aspects and bearings, intellectual and moral and
aesthetic, as well as physical ; why should it be sup
posed that the spiritual nature is entirely unaffected ?
Conversion is not a matter of chronology, but all that
affects the history and growth of a man concerns those
who are chiefly interested in his highest development,
and it especially concerns the religious teacher to
understand all that may be known of the mutual
action and reaction of body, mind and spirit, thought,
feeling and will.
Especially may help thus be gained to understand
some of the tidal movements in the life of religion.
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 179
The Spirit of God is always brooding over the world of
human spirits, drawing, striving, seeking most of all
when mind and heart are most susceptible. It is im
possible to exaggerate the importance of these facts for
parents, teachers, pastors and all who have young life
in their charge, that certain tides of life should be
rightly caught and used and carried up to high-water
mark in the formation of noble characters and useful
lives.
But adolescence is only one phase of one period.
Some events in life form landmarks marriage, the
birth of children, sickness, bereavement, figure in the
lives of all, and none of them leave us just as they
found us. The most important epochs cannot be
named and timed. Periods of doubt, of deep dis
turbance of faith ; periods of enlargement of outlook
and sympathy ; periods when the mental and moral
strength is rapidly and mightily knitted and devel
oped; periods of the advent of power in character
who can define these, or describe when they came
and how they pass ? Yet they are as real as the pas
sage of callow youth into mature manhood, and some
of them are much more significant. If these had been
more carefully studied, more would have been learned
concerning the tidal movements of mental and spirit
ual life. It is enough for the moment to say that all
changes, great and small, subtle and patent, are great
opportunities ; that the Divine Spirit will use them if
human spirits are awake to their significance. It may
or may not be correct to render the obscure words
found in Ps. Iv. 19 : "Because they have no changes,
therefore they fear not God," but it is matter of
common experience that God is most easily forgotten
in a regular, unbroken round of prosperous, com
fortable existence. The wine that settles on its lees
N 2
180 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
and is not emptied from vessel to vessel preserves its
original taste and flavour unweakened. This process
may sometimes be useful for producing a fine vintage,
but in man or nation it is usually no commendation to
say that "his taste remaineth in him and his scent is
not changed." However unwelcome the process,
straining is necessary, and the refining produced by
pouring from jar to jar, but the stage is a critical one
and needs skilful handling.
Changes in human life are not chance occurrences,
but whether they are blessings or curses depends on
the use made of them. The Divine Spirit is always
at hand to make them minister to growth and advance
ment; intermittent epochs are to be expected in His
training of individual human nature, subject as it
necessarily is to the law of periods. If the sails of the
boat are set to catch the propitious breeze when it
blows, all is well ; but it may sigh idly through un
prepared rigging and pass unused away. It is sig
nificant that in the well-worn quotation from Shak-
spere the part which describes the "tide in the affairs
of men, which, taken at the flood," is so familiar, while
the latter part
"Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries,"
which is the more frequently illustrated in fact, should
be by general consent forgotten. The loss of oppor
tunities can only be remedied by the quickening Spirit
of God, who can bind all winds and times and tides
in humble ministration, to bring the vessel to her
desired haven.
II
The sacred words "Ye are a temple of God, and the
Holy Ghost dwelleth in you " are true both of the
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 181
individual and the community. But in both cases the
gracious inhabiting described is a dynamic, not a
static, condition ; it implies the ever fresh incoming of
a new energy, and no man can say by what steps it
will proceed, or what will be its history, course and
issues. As the principle of periodicity is discernible
in the growth and development of the individual, so
assuredly has it been present in the history of the
community. But to trace its operation is no light
task.
Pentecost was a great event. The records in the
Acts are so scanty that we cannot study its signifi
cance and its sequels in detail. But the narrative
makes it clear that in a short period there was a
change in the disciples of Christ corresponding to
the change called "conversion " in the individual, and
that they were endued with the power of the Spirit in
a very special sense. What has been the subsequent
history of the Church ? It cannot be described as
mere degeneration, it has certainly not been one of
uninterrupted progress. What we actually find is a
chequered history full of life, fascination, advance
alternating with failure and disappointment. The
ministry of charismatic gifts made way for the min
istry of appointed officers. As the age of persecutions
passed away, the Church developed her regular order,
her ecclesiastical codes, her more or less elaborate ritual.
The process may be described as one of consolidation,
and without such organization probably the Church
could not have survived; but it brought its own
dangers and difficulties with it. Ere long a protest
became necessary against the growing ecclesiasticism
and the substitution of form for substance, of letter
for spirit, which is always the peril of prosperity.
Montanism was anything but a satisfactory protest,
182 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
and in any case it was ineffectual. The slowly devel
oped history of the primitive, the mediaeval and the
modern Church is full of suggestion as to the actual
workings of the Spirit of God in Christian communi
ties. It exhibits neither unbroken progress nor steady
decadence, but progress on the whole, though in
unexpected ways. The advance is that of the in
coming tide, with flux and reflux of individual waves
and periods of apparent stagnation. Or it may be
more fitly compared to a spiral curve, which winds
round and round to almost the same point again, yet is
marked by a real, though very gradual, rise upwards.
It is perhaps truer still to say that the curves of pro
gress have hardly any distinguishable law to deter
mine them, but that they do possess a significance
which the lapse of centuries is slowly making more
and more intelligible. The working of the Spirit in
the Church is in any case a "tidal " movement.
If it be, we cannot be surprised. Such periodicity
is manifest wherever life exists, and in human history
similar phenomena attend the progress of civilization
and the rise and decay of nations. Intellectual
advance is marked by intermittent dark ages, with
bright gleams preparing for the dawn of brighter
days. Moral progress is discernible, but society after
each new advance sinks back, if not to its previous
level, still exhibiting a measure of decadence in com
parison with a recent zenith of attainment. If the
history of religion is marked by similar phenomena,
it is but what might be expected as we watch the
Divine Spirit at work with frail and mutable human
material. And if we ask at one stage, Why this
mighty quickening? the answer is that God s Spirit
has been energetically at work. And if again, Why
not steady advance under such Divine dynamic? the
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 183
answer is, Because the human material takes the
Divine impress imperfectly, or retains it feebly, or
generations rapidly succeeding one another prevent
the gain in moral and spiritual power from being
permanent. Such is the description briefly given by
St. John of the period from the Creation to the Incar
nation. The light shines in the midst of darkness, he
tells us in the first chapter of his gospel, the darkness
cannot wholly overcome it, but neither does the light
wholly banish the gloom, which seems alternately to
gather and recede, though gradually its dusky veil
is being withdrawn before the dawn of victorious
day.
The very phrase "religious movement" is sugges
tive. The word "revival" speaks for itself of a life
which seems continually to need renewing. Christ
came to earth at His first Advent, He will return to
earth a second time for judgment, but how often does
He "come" to His people meanwhile? The Holy
Spirit was "poured out" on the day of Pentecost;
there have been many "visitations " of the Spirit since,
and will be many more until the consummation of the
ages. But why should these be isolated, with long
weary intervals ? Why, as Jeremiah pleaded, should
"the hope of Israel be as a sojourner in the land, as a
wayfaring man that turns aside to tarry for a night ? "
The answer is returned for the modern Church, as for
the ancient congregation, that the Lord s arm is not
shortened, not His ear heavy, nor His love wavering
and uncertain, but that His people s sin and unfaith
fulness prevent Him from granting what they ask,
but are not in a condition to receive. The worst evil
of all in the history of Church and nation is when the
prophet has to declare in the name of God who is
ready to give waters in the wilderness and rivers in
184 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
the desert, "thou hast been weary of me, O Israel."
Plethora brings surfeit
"A lamp s death when, replete with oil, it chokes;
A stomach s when, surcharged with food, it starves."
Abundance of religious knowledge and privilege and
grace, when unused or abused, brings a state of dark
ness and deadness beyond all others dangerous.
Hence the sharp messages to some of the seven
churches, Repent and do the first works, or I will take
thy candlestick out of its place. The capacity of the
Church to receive is the measure of God s ability to
bestow at the moment. Only when the times were
ripe could Christ come as a babe born in Bethlehem ;
only in the fulness of the times can He come a second
time in glory at the consummation of the ages ; surely
the periods between, as the seasons are ripening, are
similarly ruled and ordered ? It becomes then impera
tive to ask, How much is being done meanwhile by
way of hastening the period of spiritual harvest?
Here lies the great problem of the Church in every
age.
Ill
Can anything like a law of periodicity be discerned
in the history of the Churches ? What are some of
the signs and causes of the alternating advance and
retrogression of Christ s kingdom in the earth ? To
give a few hints as to observed sequences is all that
is possible here. Even to attempt so much within the
compass of a few pages may well seem bold and
futile. But a glance along the line of history shows
some such successive pictures as these.
(i) The growth and advance of a church brings
prosperity, creates the need of careful construction
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 185
in order to conserve the increase realized. Then
follows a not unnatural dependence on external order
and machinery; formalism sets in, with a correspond
ing diminution of spiritual energy and deterioration
of spiritual character.
(2) The environment of the world is always present,
and is most powerfully felt, not in times of persecu
tion, but when the world is most favourably inclined
towards the Church. Prosperity increases the
numbers of the Church and lowers the level of earnest
ness and devotion. Spiritual energy begins to fail at
the source; there is not power enough to work the
elaborate machinery.
(3) A period of languor follows, of lukewarmness
in spiritual affections, of comparative apathy concern
ing the highest things. The Church holds its own
for a while in status and numbers, but progress is
arrested. No decadence is very markedly visible, but
life is perishing within ; regiments are not being
renewed, and the army is sinking into a mere force
on paper.
(4) But if the Church have any life at all, there
will be many who cannot bear that this state of things
should continue. The first sign of real change is the
dawn of a spirit of deep contrition and humility.
The Church s best friends are those who frankly face
the facts and fearlessly point out the mischief. They
may be called prophets of evil, but like Jeremiah
during the captivity, like "Mr. Recorder" in
Bunyan s town of Mansoul, the unpopular preacher
is the messenger of life.
(5) There follows secret and importunate prayer on
the part of the faithful few. The story of Malachi iii.
is repeated, and they that fear the Lord speak often
one to another. In a local church the whole turn of
186 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
the tide has been traced before now to one poor
invalid, or humble Christian in a garret the "quiet
in the land," who from the time of the Psalmist
onwards have proved themselves to be the salt of the
earth. In religion, at all events, it has been shown
again and again that "progress is not from above,
but from below." A return to first principles follows,
and that means the germ of new life. Secretly the
contagion of goodness spreads, and the ground is
being made ready for new seed.
(6) At this stage possibly a great leader may arise.
It is difficult to exaggerate the value of a great person
ality. Augustine, Bernard, Savonarola, Luther,
Loyola, Knox, Wesley, Newman, are but specimens
of names emblazoned in history, whilst a crowd of
undistinguished but faithful men have been as influ
ential in their own places for keeping the torch alight
and passing it on unextinguished to the next
generation.
(7) Often there has followed the formation of a
Church within a Church. In order to leaven the
whole mass, a morsel of leaven must be concentrated
to do its work. Such was the moving principle in
monasticism at the beginning; such the real signifi
cance of the societies of the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, Reformers before the Reformation,
Beguines and Beghards, the Brethren of the Common
Lot, the Brethren of the Free Spirit. Such were the
Mendicant Friars at their first institution, though the
ideals of Francis and Dominic had begun to fade and
die down almost before their own lives were ended.
Such were the Society of Friends in the seventeenth
century, the Covenanters in Scotland, the Camisards
in France, the Methodists in England before the time
when they began to spread over the whole world. In
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 187
these movements some new doctrines may have been
broached, more usually new power has been infused
into old beliefs. St. Paul has been re-discovered in
every great revival of Christianity; again and again
the watchword "Back to Christ ! " has been sounded.
If only men had rightly understood to what Christ
they were professing to return !
(8) Then, after crowds have gathered; after
interest has been awakened, a large ingathering
secured; after enthusiasm has been aroused and the
public mind been stirred, too often an inexplicable
change has come. The rising flame has been
checked and hindered and begun to die down, first
zeal has not proved lasting, a falling away begins,
and men exclaim, sometimes with a sigh, sometimes
with ill-concealed delight, that another religious
movement has spent its strength and run its course.
Much may have been gained meanwhile. Drunken
ness has passed into sobriety; a general reformation
of habits has taken place; generous contributions
have proved the genuineness of inward renewal ; envy,
jealousy and slander have given way before the spirit
of mutual forgiveness and tenderness; all are pre
pared to acknowledge that a mighty power for good
has been at work. But declension follows revival,
and the hearts of good men are made sad, as if God
had forgotten His people and the Spirit of grace had
taken His departure.
IV
But this current interpretation of history is not
adequate. Nothing is more remarkable in the history
of the Christian religion than its vitality in the midst
of serious, and, it might have been thought, fatal,
188 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
corruptions and its perennial and unquenchable
power of Renewal. There can be only one explana
tion of this. Christianity is an abstraction and can
not renew itself. Christians are frail and erring
mortals. The power of self-quickening, even in the
very midst of decay and death, which has marked the
history of Christendom, is to be traced to the change
less, tireless working of the Spirit of Christ, who is
the Spirit of the ever-living, ever-working Almighty
God. To the wandering children of men there is a
voice that says
"One band ye cannot break the force that clip
And grasps your circles to the central light ;
Yours is the prodigal comet s long ellipse,
Self-exiled to the farthest verge of night,
Yet strives with you no less that inward might
No sin hath e er imbruted ; "
and those who have felt the constraining influence
of the Spirit who brings home to the human heart the
power of uttermost Divine self-sacrifice on the Cross,
can understand how again and again when man s
wilfulness and rebellion, his blind folly, his selfish
lust and hate and greed, his formalism and apathy,
seem to have extinguished the Divine spark in the
world, and well-nigh in the Church, the Spirit of
Christ has wrought a new miracle, and not only
healed the sick but raised the dead. There is always
one answer to the question : Can these bones live ?
O Lord, Thou knowest. He who holds the winds in
his fists knows that the breath from the four winds is
divinely ready to breathe on these slain that they
may live.
The word "revival," like so many other noble ones,
has been degraded. In many minds it is associated
with a brief series of excited meetings, fiery exhorta-
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 189
tions and hysterical responses, producing a commo
tion in town or village for a few short months,
accompanied by transient reformation on the part of
many, and real and abiding good wrought in the
hearts of a few to be followed by reaction, relapse
and retrogression. The word revival should have a
broad and deep significance. It is well to leave watch
ing the fuss and foam of a few waves in a corner creek
to trace the ebb and flow of the broad sea. A movement
in a Christian nation, or in the Church as a whole,
which perceptibly renews the springs of religious life
and leaves the level of moral and spiritual life per
ceptibly higher than it had been before is a move
ment of revival, and its rise and progress can be
traced. Some have limited its utmost duration to half-
a-century, others consider that if it lasts a generation
of five-and-twenty or thirty years it is all that can
be expected. No arithmetic can make the calculation.
But the lifetime of a great leader is limited, and in
thirty years or so one generation of mankind passes,
and another, trained under different influences, suc
ceeds; so that, unless the self-propagating power of
the new spiritual life be vigorous, decline in energy
may be expected. But amongst the multitude of
Church historians none has yet been found com
petent to trace out the working of a "law of revivals."
Nothing of the kind is to be attempted here. The
natural impatience of the human mind with what it
considers to be the slowness and irregularity of the
Divine methods should, however, be checked by the
thought that Order is even to our vision discernible
amidst the welter and confusion of human history.
The history of the Church is not exempt from the
apparent confusion, and in it is to be discerned the
same gracious Order. But "short views" will not
190 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
suffice. And in the attempt to survey long periods
and use large maps, much will still have to be left
in uncertainty, and faith will often have to take the
place of sight. One principle, however, will carry
the devout student a long way. When King Arthur s
Round Table is dissolved and its good knights find
no successors, and its prince and leader is about to
pass away, it is natural for Sir Bedivere to cry that
"the true old times are dead," and that he goes
forth companionless, as the days and years darken
round him. He finds it hard to believe that one
good custom should ever corrupt the world. But it is
customs that do corrupt men. As soon as the valuable
use and habit, toilsomely acquired and strenuously
maintained, has settled down into a mere mechanical
movement of the soul, it dies and needs to be dissolved,
that from its ashes new life may spring. God fulfils
Himself, not in one way, but in many ways. He still
speaks iroXv[jipG>s KOL 7roAvrpo7ro)y,in many parts, by many
fashions. Though He has spoken once in His Son,
though the Spirit of His Son is one throughout the
ages, the languages of men are so many that the
Divine voices need to be multiplied if all are to be
reached. One generation hardly understands the
dialect of its predecessor, and those who mourn the
decay of old times and customs may take heart among
"new men, strange faces, other minds," that the city
of God remaineth and the Spirit of God, who in the
beginning brooded over chaos, can replace the old
order, which was good, by the new, which alone can
suffice for new needs.
A study of revival movements in the past shows that
no single type of leader is preserved, no uniform type
of method will succeed. Conviction of sin and whole
some fear of retribution are necessary as well as the
THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT 191
preaching of grace and a gospel of forgiveness. Francis
and Dominic differed, as Luther and Calvin differed,
and as Wesley and Whitefield agreed to differ, in
theology, in temperament, in utterance. Wyclif was a
forerunner of Knox, but Knox did not follow in the
lines of Wyclif. Any student of a reformation must find
room for an Erasmus before the movement begins,
and for a Melanchthon when it is over, if the whole
story is to be told. And he must not forget that when
the history of one reformation is over, a counter-
reformation which points in a different direction may
begin, and both may be necessary if those mighty
plans and processes are to be carried out that are to
prepare for the restitution of all things.
It is easier to study the past than to understand
the present, and it is impossible to forecast the future.
God s people are generally agreed that a revival is
needed, and there are times when it would seem to be
very nearly imminent. The darkest hour is before
the dawn, but it must be remembered that the dawn
is not the noontide. Those who profess to under
stand the signs of our own times have been telling us
that u the next revival must be ethical." That is
either a truism or an impossibility. No religious
quickening is worth anything which does not bring
moral improvement in its train. But no amount of
moral improvement will produce religious quicken
ing, though, as in the work of John the Baptist, it
may prepare the way. So with the social reforms
that are preached as a panacea. Improvement in the
organization and habits of society is a result, not a
cause, the fruit of a good tree, not its trunk or root.
Fuller light upon history has shown our generation
the need of more than individual renewal, if the
kingdom of God is to come indeed. But it is revival
192 THE TIDES OF THE SPIRIT
of religion that is needed, not revival of interest in
sanitation. The last step men are inclined to take is
the first that is needed the recognition of radical evil
in the human heart and earnest seeking after God to
set it right. The chief cause of decline in religion
is the neglect of regard for the direct work of the
Holy Spirit. The invariable sign that renewal is at
hand is to be found in a contrite, importunate, per
sistent seeking after His quickening power.
It is this fact which often delays the hoped-for
day. Men in the Church as well as in the world
shrink from confession and shun humiliation and
contrition. The self-reproach, self-denial and self-
discipline which prepare the way for self-renewal
are not pleasant or easy processes. It is proverbially
harder to raise a decaying Church than to start a
new one. Vested interests are the chief enemies of
civil and political reforms. In Church life, as in
society, "custom lies upon us with a weight, heavy
as frost and deep almost as life." It would seem as
if open sin were easier to cure than religious
formalism. Christ reserved His severest denuncia
tions for the religion falsely so called which was
hindering the development of new and vigorous
religious life. St. Paul strove hard to reach the
fossilized hearts of his countrymen and kinsfolk
according to the flesh, but again and again in the
synagogues he was compelled to cry, Since ye thrust
from you the new spiritual truth and the quickening
spiritual life, lo ! we turn to the Gentiles. The only
unpardonable sin is wilful, deliberate, persistent
resistance to the Holy Spirit. For the individual, the
Church, the nation, that will leave room for Him to
do His own work, all things are possible and all
things will soon become new.
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS
"And the Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him
that heareth say, Come." REV. xxii. 17.
" Only like souls I see the folk thereunder,
Bound who should conquer, slaves who should be kings,
Hearing their one hope with an empty wonder,
Sadly contented in a show of things;
Then with a rush the intolerable craving
Shivers throughout me like a trumpet-call,
Oh to save these! to perish for their saving,
Die for their life, be offered for them all! "
MYERS, St. Paul.
" God is nigh thee, He is with thee, He is within thee. I
tell thee, Lucilius, there is a holy Spirit who sits within us all,
the observer and the guardian of all the good and evil we do."
SENECA.
" That God which ever lives and loves,
One God, one law, one element,
And one far-off Divine event
To which the whole creation moves."
TENNYSON.
X
THE HOLY SPIRIT AND CHRISTIAN MISSIONS
IT is not by accident that just before the first
missionary journey of the first great Christian mis
sionary was undertaken, we read, "As they ministered
to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Ghost said, Separate
me Barnabas and Saul for the work whereunto I have
called them." Nor is it a mere form of speech that
St. Luke uses when he says that the Apostles went
through Phrygia and Galatia, "having been forbidden
of the Holy Ghost to speak the word in Asia," and
that when they attempted to go into Bithynia, "the
Spirit of Jesus suffered them not," but that thus guided
they came to Troas, and heard the voice of a man of
Macedonia calling, Come over and help us. True,
there are modes of explaining away this language,
familiar enough to the present generation. But the
believer in the New Testament account of the origins
of Christianity asks himself what this guidance of the
Holy Spirit really meant at the time, and what, if there
be one, is its modern counterpart.
For a deeply significant view of life underlies this
phraseology which applies to all aggressive efforts on
the part of the Church of Christ. By "Missions " w r e
understand attempts to evangelize, at home or abroad ;
and such attempts may be made with or without direct
Divine impulse and guidance. The human view of
mission work perfectly sound as far as it goes is
concerned with the truth that is preached, the men
02 195
196 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
chosen to carry the message, the study of languages
necessary for preaching, the organization of "native"
Churches, and a long series of similar processes. It
is conceivable that all this work might be carried on
under the control of secondary Divine laws, the natural
results following upon the earnest propaganda of the
Christian Gospel for mankind. Prayer to Almighty
God and recognition of entire dependence upon Him
would, of course, be an essential part of the process,
but direct operations of the Holy Spirit might be and
at certain periods of the Church has been regarded
as a doctrine of " enthusiasm," a belief in the super
natural worthy only of fanatics.
A very suggestive passage occurs in the Report of
Commission IV to the Edinburgh Conference, on
"The missionary message in relation to non-Christian
religions." Dr. Cairns says : "Much labour has been
expended in discussion on the place of the Spirit in
the life of God. But we still wait for any under
standing of the place of the Spirit in the life of man.
. . . Have we fully realized the immeasurable value
of the idea of the Holy Spirit in the light which Com
parative Religion, and in particular in the light which
India, casts on the inner nature of the religious
aspiration of man ? " 1
What difference would be made in actual w r orking
if the view of the writer of "Acts" be true, and the
direct operation of the Holy Spirit be regarded not
only as a reality, but as the chief reality in all mission
work ? For there have been periods in Church history
since take the early mediaeval missions for example
when this was the case. There have been com
munities, like the Moravians, and numberless indi
vidual missionaries, like David Hill of China or
1 Report of World Missionary Conference, Vol. IV, p. 255.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 197
Gilmour of Mongolia, whose every step was dominated
and directed by this great conception. Theoretically,
every Christian accepts the doctrine of the guidance
of the Spirit, but in this department of Christian
service, as in others, the realization of the immediate
personal working of God the Holy Spirit is apt to be
faint and weak. How would foreign missionary
work, for example, the tremendous importance of
which is now being appreciated by the Churches, be
affected by a mighty revivifying of the conscious
presence of the Holy Spirit in their midst?
I
It either is or is not true that the Spirit of God
works in the heart of every man on the face of the
earth. It is or is not true that God leaves not Himself
without witness in every heart, that there is a light
which lighteth every man, that the nations which have
not "the law," or "revelation," as generally under
stood, have the law or revelation written on their
hearts. It either is or is not true that when truth, as
truth is in Jesus, is faithfully preached, the Holy Spirit
convicts the world of sin, of righteousness and of
judgment. And if these things are true, according to
New Testament conceptions, the scattering of the seed
of the Kingdom throughout the whole is sowing in a
prepared field. To hold these things is to do more
than believe that "in all ages
"Every human heart is human,
That in even savage bosoms
There are longings, yearnings, strivings,
For the good they comprehend not;
That the feeble hands and helpless,
Groping blindly in the darkness,
Touch God s right hand in that darkness,
And are lifted up and strengthened."
198 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
It implies a belief in an active agency of that Right
Hand, that the yearning^ and strivings of which the
poet speaks are not mere human strivings, but move
ments of the Spirit of God Himself. It means that a
missionary, not only in India, but in Patagonia, not
only among Buddhists, but among Fijians, orders his
speech as to those in whom God the Holy Spirit has
already been at work, and that there is, and can be,
no man of whom that is not true. St. Paul believed
it and preached accordingly. To the Jews he became
as a Jew, and to those who were without law he became
as without law, that he might by all means save some.
At Antioch in Pisidia he pleaded in the synagogue
out of the Scriptures, so that many Jews and devout
proselytes followed him. At Athens in the Areopagus
he pleaded with his "unusually religious" 1 hearers
that God is not far from every one of us, and that his
message was to interpret the mind of that Deity of
whom their own poets had said, We are his offspring.
When Tertullian spoke of the human soul as by nature
Christian, he meant that there is no race, no nation,
no man under God s sun to whom Christian truth
cannot be made to appeal under some aspect, when
rightly presented.
But a belief in the Holy Spirit implies more than
this. It implies a living link between all human
spirits, because the same Divine Spirit speaks to all.
Carlyle s Irish widow in Edinburgh, when charitable
relief for herself and her children had been refused,
proved her sisterhood to those w r ho disowned her,
when the typhus fever, of which she died, spread and
killed seventeen others in the neighbourhood. There
1 This must be the connotation of $i<n$ai/j.oveffTfpoi here. St.
Paul surely never began an address by striking his audience in
the face and calling them "superstitious."
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 199
are many ways of proving the solidarity of the race,
but one of the soundest and most abiding is the fact
that under the strangest disguises the human heart
has the same needs, the same kinship to the Divine,
and is more or less effectively taught by the same
Divine Spirit.
Illustrations abound. A fresh sheaf of very interest
ing comparisons has been gathered by Canon Robin
son of the S.P.G. in his volume on The Interpretation
of the Character of Christ to Non-Christian Races.
He shows how the ideals and goals which the Hindu,
the Buddhist, the Confucian, the Moslem respectively
set before themselves have much in common, much
which can only be realized by the methods of Christ
and the Gospel. True, the ideals are not entirely the
same, and the sceptical conclusion that "all religions
are substantially the same " which is drawn by some
students of Comparative Religion is not justified by
the facts. There is much in the character of Christ
which does not directly appeal to the non-Christian
mind. But the argument is, that which the Mussul
man, or the Buddhist, seeks for in mistaken fashion,
Christ provides in the only satisfactory way. He is
the true Bread, the true Light, because, amidst the
blindness and hunger of humanity, He only can
bestow eyesight for the mind and food which can
permanently comfort and satisfy the heart of man.
These statements are now happily amongst the com
monplaces of missionary literature. But to grope
amongst abstract doctrines for points of contact and
correspondence is one thing, and to realize that the
same Spirit of Christ who is guiding the thought of
the missionary as he teaches has been, and is, guiding
the feeble gropings of the heathen who listen and has
not been absent from the subtle speculations of
200 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
Hellenic and Brahminical sages, is quite another.
One touch of that Spirit makes the whole world
kin.
II
It might be thought that Churches and Societies,
when undertaking foreign missionary work, would
always recognize the immediate operation of the Holy
Spirit. To a large extent they undoubtedly do, and
very few have any right to judge them. But all
human agencies and organizations are human, and
one ineradicable infirmity of human nature is to
become so occupied in the details of processes as to
forget unseen causes, and in laboriously perfecting
the means to lose sight of the End of ends. The
engineer must concentrate his attention upon the
machinery because it is his business to see that that
is in order, and for many who are engaged in Church
work the important feature is its machinery. If
money has to be raised, the best efforts of the Church
are apt to be centred on money-raising. If the train
ing of agents, the maintenance of schools, the organ
ization of effort in the mission field, be the immediate
work in hand, it is not in human nature as the phrase
ru ns to avoid being so absorbed in the details of the
process as more or less to lose sight of the operation
of that Power on which all the rest depends. The best
workers are often in the most danger of such undue
concentration, and without a measure of it the work
would never be done at all.
It is not inconsistent with this to say that these
tendencies need from time to time to be counter
balanced by higher considerations, and that the real
success of all aggressive effort depends upon the
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 201
measure in which they are counterbalanced by a
recognition of the direct work of the Holy Spirit. It
is well when any Church Council can say, " It seemed
good to the Holy Ghost and to us." A notable illus
tration of this was furnished in the Edinburgh Mis
sionary Conference of 1910. A gathering in which
human effort had been put forth to the utmost, in pre
paration for which incredible toil and pains had been
spent and organization elaborated almost to a fault,
found itself in a sacred Presence which banished all
these elements into the background, almost as if they
did not exist. God is in His holy temple, let all the
earth keep silence before Him. When God speaks,
men are instinctively silent, and in Edinburgh, men,
hearing His voice, were the more silent that He might
speak the more powerfully. It was this feature which
distinguished that particular Conference from a
hundred excellent conventions in which everything has
been admirably ordered, and from which men have
gone away commenting on the perfect way in which
everything has been managed. Talent works, genius
creates. All the efforts man can put forth for the
extension of the Kingdom are needed, but it is the
touch of the Divine which inspires, transforms,
vivifies. Any overpowering force which would com
pel all Christians always to put first things first in
spiritual work would revive the Church to-day and
regenerate the world to-morrow.
This may be seen if we think out the direct opera
tion of the Spirit in relation to (i) religious convic
tions, (2) Christian motives, and (3) the spirit and
temper of Christian enterprise. So many of the
religious ideas that are current to-day are not deep
convictions, and they need to be made such. So
many genuine convictions are held in reserve in the
202 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
background of the mind, and they need to be made
living, active, fiery, penetrative. Christian motives
operate, but languidly and imperfectly. It might not
be necessary to go far in order to find a congregation
that would hardly respond to the plea "for Christ s
sake," that would nevertheless gather in crowds to
hear a foreigner in outlandish costume tell strange
stories in broken English. The very phrase, "love
of Christ," whilst to every Christian it is a real force,
is very often found acting intermittently, irregularly,
at best feebly. A motive ought to move men. A
strong motive should move them mightily. A con
straining, compelling motive should move them irre
sistibly. But of the motive power which is all that
some modern Churches can boast, none of these things
are true. Further, if Christ s Kingdom is to come,
not only must Christian truth be taught and Christian
actions performed, but the teaching must be given
and the work done in a Christian way. Lack of Chris
tian spirit and temper is a cause of failure in Christian
enterprise, perhaps more frequently than lack of sound
and accurate Christian doctrine.
If it be said that these faults are freely recognized
and generally deplored, the answer is that the one
remedy is within reach, but the Church seems to have
lost the secret of its use. No power can deeply root
religious truth so as to make it a conviction and fill
it with a fervour that will make it glow and burn,
except the living Spirit of God. None can energize
the motive power of the Church and make it adequate
to drive her complex machinery but the Holy Spirit.
Therefore it is that the prayer is offered to Him to
"come with all His quickening powers, to shed abroad
the Saviour s love and thus to kindle ours." Finally,
no power that man can summon to his aid can endue
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 203
him with the Christian spirit and temper but the Spirit
Himself at work in the inner chamber of the heart.
One word spoken under His direction will accomplish
what human eloquence toils in vain to achieve. If it
be said that these things are truisms, there is but one
reply. Only the Divine Spirit Himself can so stir
and shake the Church to its very depths that truisms
may be translated into truths that will prove mighty
to the pulling down of strongholds and the bringing
of every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ.
Ill
Barnabas and Saul were called to their work, and
the call came to them before the same voice called to
the prophets and Church at Antioch. The Voice
that then spoke is not now silent, but it is more
difficult to hear it amidst the contending voices of
these latter days. The chief difficulty, however, is
caused not by the voices that oppose, but by those
that compete. The tempter who bids men to throw
duty to the winds that inclination may be followed is
known to be a tempter, but when duties seem to con
flict, and duties and inclinations are curiously and
inextricably mingled together, the servant of God
often strains his ears in vain to distinguish the one
calm, clear voice that points out the one pathway in
which he ought to walk. And, unless the habit of
listening has been cultivated, the obedient heart cannot
readily single out the note of the One Supreme Leader
of men even when it is heard. Yet it seems clear that,
if the Church of Christ is not only to live but to lead
men, if it claims to bring men into the one truth that
can adequately illumine and the one shelter that is
204 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
man s true home, if it is to be the means of conveying
religious inspiration and stimulus to an erring or a
slumbering world, it must be itself quickened and
guided by a living voice. No "dead facts stranded
on the shore of the oblivious years " will suffice ; no
order however admirable, no government however
strong and uniform, will serve. Men will hear and
heed those who are following at first hand the voice
of the living God; tenth-hand and twentieth-hand
knowledge is common enough, and known to be
hollow and vain.
In the Church of Christ where service is concerned
there is surely a voice that all can hear. The special
call to the elect soul for special kinds of service will
not, and cannot, rightly come except in the midst of
a community accustomed to listen for themselves.
"When the Lord gave the law from Sinai, He
wrought wondrously with His voice," says the
Shemoth Rabba, a Rabbinic commentary on Exodus.
"And each one in Israel heard it according to his
capacity : old men and youths and boys and suck
lings and women ; the voice was to each one as he
had power to receive it." As with the law of Moses,
still more with the Spirit of Christ. If the Gospel
of Christ is to fill and sway the world, every Christian
must hear the voice of the Spirit calling him to spread
it. "Every Moslem merchant is a missionary," said
a speaker at the Edinburgh Conference, who was
describing from his own experience the rapid exten
sion of Islam in the interior of North Africa. Where
as a worker of experience amongst Orientals in this
country has recently stated that "it is a notorious fact
that Oriental men who have come under Christian
influence in their Asiatic homes have definitely been
sent to England, because this was considered to be
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 205
the surest method to check any tendencies towards
Christianity." 1
The young convert as a rule does hear it clearly,
and tries his best to obey it. But the world is strong,
and the flesh is weak, and too often the Church does
not help him. Thus he becomes silent, and becomes,
if not deaf and dumb, slow of speech and hard of
hearing. But the indwelling Spirit is not silent, and
from time to time the call for service rings forth
sonorous. Through a student s volunteer movement
it may sound in the University, that little world in
which are so many ringing voices, full of vitality and
youth. Through an American layman s missionary
movement it may even sound in the midst of the
world of business, asserting it to be the noblest and
best business of every Christian man to play his part
in the evangelization and salvation of a world. But
in each case it must be the voice within that sum
mons. The sound may pass from lip to lip, and when
voices join in chorus the music is fuller and more
far-reaching, but each man, woman and child must
hear the voice within and recognize it for what it is,
the call of the Spirit of God for work in the service of
man.
The word "call" is often reserved for the clergy.
If they claim it as specially theirs, it is the more im
portant that they should show how distinctively and
emphatically God has summoned them. It is one
thing to be of those who were fascinated by the pure
and heavenly speech of Jesus the prophet of Nazareth,
another to be of those who, "when they had brought
their boats to land, left all and followed Him." It
is one thing to enter an honourable and learned pro
fession, which may rank with law and medicine, or
1 East and West, January 1911, p. 14.
206 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
even compete in attractiveness with the army, and
quite another to be ready to carry the message of the
Cross wherever lie who once bore it for men bids His
servant to carry it as a banner to victory.
Few short treatises are more needed than one which
should deal adequately with the "call to the ministry,"
as well as with the after-call which guides a minister
as to where God would have him labour. But who
dare write it ? What intimate knowledge of the
Divine voice, what absolute readiness to obey it,
what long experience of its accents and of the secrets
learned by obedience must he have who undertakes
to say how God speaks in the inner circle of His
chosen ones ! None the less it is certain that in pro
portion as the w 7 hole Church is charismatic filled
with the gifts and graces of the Spirit all kinds of
men will hear this special call to missionary service
at home and abroad who now are not likely to hear it,
because they never dream of expecting it. Especially
must this be so if world-evangelization is contem
plated. It is easy to count up the millions to whom
the Gospel has not been preached, but if they are to
be effectively reached the messengers must not be
reckoned by units, but by thousands. Till the whole
Church of Christ is moved it is vain to expect a move
ment Christwards through the whole world.
Side by side with the interior call of the man who,
when about to be ordained, declares that he "trusts
that he is inwardly moved by the Holy Ghost to take
upon him this office and ministry," it is usual to
speak of "the call of the Church." Undoubtedly
there are many qualifications for service of which a
man cannot judge himself, and with regard to which
he is ready to be guided by the judgment of others.
On some of these points spiritual discernment is un-
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 207
necessary. A medical examination, a literary ex
amination, even a Biblical examination, may be
conducted by general principles that all can under
stand. But the ultimate judgment must be spiritual,
or it will be vain. Not pseudo-spiritual, for the hollow
echoes of real voices are sometimes mistaken for the
true by the superficial and unwary. It is a solemn
question for every Church to answer How is the
final decision as to admission into the ranks of the
ministry, at home or abroad, definitively reached?
It may be the bishop, with the help of his chaplains
or the presbytery and the General Assembly or
the pastoral Conference or the rank and file of a
local autonomous community ; but the decision is so
momentous that every corporate body calling itself a
Christian Church is bound as in God s sight to see
that that work is well and truly done by the direct
operation of the Divine Spirit, or ruin follows. A
vast congregation in a cathedral may chant Veni
Creator Spiritus, or a handful of godly men in a
country village may be choosing a pastor, but unless
God the Holy Spirit calls the man and the same Spirit
is guiding the Church the whole procedure is little
better than a mockery. And when evangelists are
needed, not for familiar home spheres, but for foreign
lands, to do pioneer work, to stand alone, to control
large areas of enterprise, to enter into the thoughts of
an alien people, to touch w^;h prompt and many-
sided sympathies the hearts of multitudes belonging
to another race then it is absolutely necessary for
the Church to make the right choice. And no power
can guide it aright but the voice of the Spirit speaking
from the very shrine of that spiritual house which is
the very temple of the living God.
208 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
IV
The Holy Spirit alone furnishes the secret of true
unity. Unity in the ranks of the Christian army as
it goes forth to bloodless victory; unity amongst the
kingdoms of this world when at last they become the
kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ. Christians
at least profess always to be seeking for unity, but a
large proportion steadfastly refuse to adopt the only
promised means for obtaining it.
The New Testament Churches were at one because
they enjoyed "the unity of the Spirit"; they were
bidden not to make it, but to keep it (Eph. iv. 3).
St. Paul obviously meant a oneness which the Holy
Spirit Himself effected by His indwelling, the "one
Spirit " mentioned in the next verse. It is true he
mentions "one body/ and the mystical body of Christ
cannot be multiplied or divided. But it is the living
Head who makes it one, and the indwelling Breath
of God that keeps it one. St. Paul would never have
separated the two halves of Irenasus* sentence,
"Where the Spirit is, there the Church is; and where
the Church is L there the Spirit is and all true liberty."
But if he had been compelled to take either alone, he
would have chosen the former half the root which
would bring the fruits, not the fruit which is unable
to exist without the roots. If the Church was truly
one at first, it was not in virtue of a uniformly defined
creed, or a universally accepted code, or an exactly
identical mode of government in all the Churches,
but because all acknowledged one Father, one Lord
and one Spirit who was the very bond of fellowship
with the Father and the Son and the bond of union
in the members one with another.
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 209
The "unhappy divisions" which separate Chris
tians to-day are only too familiar. There are many
proposed methods of remedying them, but they all
rest on one or other of two contrasted principles. One
is external and depends upon the letter of a common
confession and the order of a common hierarchy ; the
other is internal and depends upon the welding in
fluence of a common faith, a common hope and, above
all, the fellowship in common of one Spirit. The two
are not necessarily opposed to one another, but in
practice men are obliged to lay the chief emphasis
upon either one or the other. Unfortunately the larger
part of Christendom to-day agrees to lay stress upon
external union rather than upon internal unity. They
persist in mistranslating iroi^vr] "fold," when it
should be "flock," in John x. 16, being quite sure
that unless there is one fold, there cannot be one flock.
Augustine led the way in substituting ovile for grex y
and the Vulgate, which in the Church of Rome has
the authority of the sacred original, has fixed the
meaning of Christ s promise in the same sense. But
one fold, even under a would-be-infallible head, can
not constitute the unity, even of a flock of sheep. The
living body of many members under one Head can
only be made one, or kept one, by one indwelling
Spirit. And if the Spirit of Christ in the unrolling
of the centuries manifests Himself by the bestowment
of "grace, gifts and fruit," such as are in accordance
with the mind of Christ and prove the presence of
Christ, often in unexpected ways and quarters, the
unity of the future can only be realized by following
His guidance.
The history of foreign missions which on the
world-scale is only now commencing proves this,
and is likely more fully to prove it. The older
210 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND
countries, inheriting an older civilization, are more or
less under the domination of venerable tradition based
on the gravely erroneous ideal of mediaeval times.
Hildebrand s dream was shared for centuries by some
of the noblest spirits of Christendom. Unity as uni
formity was the principle which shaped Acts of
vSupremacy and Uniformity, Five-Mile and Con
venticle Acts in this country. The cast-iron theory of
ecclesiastical uniformity is fast breaking to pieces
under the stress of new forces. The new w-ine is once
again bursting the old wine-skins. The Holy Spirit s
faintest breath is mightier than the most firmly
cemented structures of ecclesiastics. The missionary
enterprises of the nineteenth century have been pre
paring a new outlook for the churches of the twentieth.
Not that any sudden changes are to be expected, or
are even desirable. Two great churches of Christen
dom, the Roman and the Greek, were not represented
at the World Missionary Conference in 1910, and the
delegates of the Anglican Church could only be
present under special reservations. But those who
were present were constrained to recognize a mighty
unifying Power in the presence of which ecclesiastical
theories were as tow touched by living flame. No
one present would have been so foolish as to under
value ecclesiastical theories, or consider them unim
portant in their place; the great feature of the Con
ference was that they were made to keep their place.
No crude and flimsy resolutions on the subject of
"organic union" were dreamed of, but a passing
Vision illumined the assembly, and the very faces of
many of the speakers, as it was given them afresh
to see how a Divine Unity will one day flood the
Churches, so that lines of separation, which may for
a time have their value^ shall no longer be barriers
CHRISTIAN MISSIONS 211
to the influx and irresistible afflatus of the One Spirit,
the Lord, the Life-giver.
So with the ingathering of the nations. They are
coming in from north and south, from east and west,
very slowly as yet. But within the -last decade it has
been possible to perceive their possible lines of travel,
as never before. Movements in India and Japan, in
China and Korea, have shown us the unchanging
East beginning to change as the heavy pack-ice in the
Arctic zone yields in the opening springtime a
change which means not a revolt, but a revolution.
As the process of evangelization goes on and Christ
wins those victories which every Christian firmly
believes that sooner or later He will gain, how will
unity be reached and maintained? Is it to be sup
posed that when old races become new nationalities
inspired by a new faith, they will all keep exactly the
old moulds of creed and government that were
fashioned in Europe a thousand years before ?
Already they are saying, "Your denominationalism
does not interest us " ; is it likely, or desirable, that it
should? It is quite true that the spirit of independ
ence in mission-churches may develop too rapidly for
health and safety, that Japan and China may be dis
posed to tell the European missionary too soon that
it is his business to "open the door and get out of the
doorway." But though the child may sometimes be
in too great a hurry to become a man, a man he will
become if he lives, and the privileges of manhood
must accompany its fully developed powers.
It is idle to prophesy, but it is foolish not to mark
and learn from the signs of the times. A spiritual
Church carrying the message of a spiritual Gospel,
and being instrumental in founding spiritual com
munities in lands awakening from the sleep of
p 2
212 THE HOLY SPIRIT
centuries, must expect them to enjoy and use their
spiritual freedom. This will result not in a formal,
mechanical uniformity, but in that unity which only
the Spirit of God can inspire and maintain. Then
it will be the turn of the churches at home to learn
lessons from their children abroad ; and when the
"other sheep " are gathered in, "which are not of this
fold," all will hear together the One Voice and become
"one flock, one Shepherd."
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH TEACHER OF
TEACHERS
" When He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you
into all the truth. 1 JOHN xvi. 13.
"There is in her \Wisdorri\ a spirit quick of understanding,
holy, alone in kind, manifold . . . all-powerful, all-surveying
and penetrating through all spirits that are quick of under
standing. . . . For she is a breath of the power of God and a
clear effluence of the glory of the Almighty . . . and from
generation to generation passing into holy souls she maketh
men friends of God and prophets." WISDOM vii. 22-27.
" It was only through the successive breathings of the Life-
giving Spirit of the Truth throughout the ages that the Life-
giving Lord should yield for human use the virtue of this one
and abiding life." F. J. A. HORT.
"Scarcely I catch the words of His revealing,
Hardly I hear Him, dimly understand;
Only the Power that is within me pealing
Lives on my lips and beckons to my hand.
Whoso hath felt the Spirit of the Highest
Cannot confound, nor doubt Him, nor deny;
Yea, with one voice, O world, though thou deniest,
Stand thou on that side, for on this am /."
F. W. MYERS.
XI
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH TEACHER OF TEACHERS
FOR every Christian the Lord Jesus Christ is the
Truth, as well as the Way and the Life. But Christ
Himself gave the most suggestive comment on His
own declaration by adding, "When He, the Spirit of
Truth, is come, He will guide you into all the truth."
The Church of Christ has hardly yet assimilated this
doctrine. What is the connection between the teach
ing of the Master in the days of His flesh, and the
teaching of the Spirit who throughout the centuries
is to guide succeeding generations in the right under
standing and application of His words? A great
body of Christian teachers is continually at work
attempting to unfold Christian truth ; who is to teach
them, and how ? With the words of Christ on record,
with the Apostolic interpretation of His Person and
work as primary direction, with the traditions of two
millenniums of Fathers and Doctors handed faithfully
down, those who teach living men to-day the doctrine
of a living Christ still need to have a living Guide for
themselves. What is meant by the statement that the
Holy Spirit guides Christ s disciples now into all the
truth, and how may they expect the promise to be
fulfilled?
The office of the Comforter has, naturally enough
for the multitude, taken precedence of the work of the
Spirit of Wisdom. But teachers of all men, to-day of
216 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
all days, need assured guidance into truth. And it
is interesting to note that in post-Apostolic times, and
especially among the Greek Fathers, the Spirit is
identified with Wisdom. The first use of the word
"Trinity" in Christian literature is found in Theo-
philus of Antioch about A.D. 180, and it runs in this
unexpected form "In like manner also the three days
which were before the luminaries, are types of the
Trinity of God, His word and His wisdom," where
wisdom is clearly a name of the Holy Spirit. Else
where he says, "He then being Spirit of God and
governing principle and wisdom and power of the
Highest, came down upon the prophets," and
Irenaeus identifies the Holy Spirit with the wisdom
of God mentioned in the Old Testament together with
the word of God as creating, preserving and control
ling all things.
Doubtless the ante-Nicene Fathers are not found
using words with the ordered precision of later days,
or making the subtle metaphysical distinctions which
are characteristic of the later fourth century. But
they were careful not to let slip the teaching of the
Old Testament, that Wisdom was with God from
the beginning as a Master-workman, that the Spirit
of God is the source of all wisdom, and that all wisdom
in the spirit of man is drawn directly from the in
breathing of the Divine Spirit. Some of them were
familiar with the teaching of Philo, who identified
the Divine Logos and Wisdom ; and all of them knew
well the book called "The Wisdom of Solomon,"
which in its own fashion combined the best that was
to be found in the Hebraism and Hellenism of the
time. "For wisdom is more mobile than any motion
nothing defiled can find entrance into her. For she
is an effulgence from everlasting light, an unspotted
TEACHER OF TEACHERS 217
mirror of the working of God and an image of His
goodness." The great leaders of the Alexandrian
school who did so much to shape Christian theology,
Clement, Origen, Athanasius and the rest, never for
got that Christ is not only the power of God, but the
wisdom of God, and it is difficult to over-estimate
the value of the work they did in consolidating the
Christian thought of their own time and handing on
a weighty and well-considered system of teaching to
those who came after them.
But it is quite possible to follow these master-
teachers in the letter rather than in the spirit. They
were the able guides they proved to be because they
were led in the fourth century by the Spirit of Christ,
who is the Spirit of truth; and teachers of the
twentieth century are to be guided by Him rather
than by them. The faith once for all delivered to the
saints needed interpretation for the Christians of
Alexandria and Rome and Constantinople in the days
of the Great Councils, and so much is to be learned
even yet from the creeds and expositions of those days
that no wise Christian thinker of to-day despises or
disparages them. But the Spirit of truth who guided
the Fathers let it be admitted, amidst many mistakes
and failures, from which no human seekers after truth
are exempt is needed to-day as much as ever we
may be forgiven for thinking, more than ever. Surely
His guidance is to be expected. How? By what
celestial chemistry are old truths and new to be com
bined so that all that is precious in both may be
retained? What did Christ mean by His pregnant
words concerning the Spirit He shall glorify Me:
He shall take of Mine and shall declare it unto you :
He shall show you things to come ? Has the Saviour,
who promised to His Apostles that in time of need
218 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
and stress "the Holy Spirit shall teach you in that
very hour what ye ought to say," deserted His mes
sengers in the latter years? He foresaw the need of
guidance for " those who should believe on Me through
their word," and a study of His teaching may show
how He intended that that guidance should be sought
and given.
II
What, for example, did our Lord mean by the scribe
who was "made a disciple unto the kingdom of
heaven " bringing out of his treasure things new and
old ? Perhaps we cannot be sure of the exact scope
of the figure employed in Matt. xiii. 52. Is the house
holder providing food for the multitude, various pro
visions for various needs, "all manner of precious
fruits, new and old" (Song vii. 13), new confections
and old wine that is far better than the crude must
of yesterday ? Or is he, as is common in the East,
unfolding the resources of a rich wardrobe, so many
changes of raiment, brand-new fabrics of latest style,
old laces and gold-embroidered garments possessing
dignity and historic interest? Or rather, jewels and
furniture of diverse history and value, heirlooms from
a distant past, bright new ornaments, carved chests
from the stores of ancient kings? It does not matter.
We spoil the illustration by narrowing it down to
detail ; let it stand in its original breadth and general
ity he "bringeth forth out of his treasure things new
and old." The application to our own time, a period
in which so much is said of the old faith and the new
knowledge, may well prove to be fruitful and instruc
tive.
Every teacher must be first a learner, every real
TEACHER OF TEACHERS 219
learner ought to become in his own measure a teacher.
This is true in all departments of life ; we cannot teach
what we do not know, we cannot know without learn
ing by the methods proper to the subject. The learned
man is called a scholar because he is content to
acknowledge ignorance, to open his mind and sit at
the feet of those who are wiser than he. In science
we must observe, collect instances, experiment, verify.
In metaphysics we analyze, discriminate, reason, con
firm. In art students open their eyes and heart to
receive lessons of beauty, patiently toil over technical
processes, submitting to laws which it is painful to
obey in order to communicate delight which it is a
joy to impart. The successful manufacturer and the
skilled artisan, the craftsman and the labourer of all
types, are not exempt from laws which apply to all
human acquisitions and achievements.
Not least is this the case in the sphere of religion.
Those who carried God s message of old time were
men who had been taught of God. The prophet who
would speak a word in season to him who is weary
must be one who has learned divine lessons, who has
been awakened morning by morning to be taught the
highest love. The ready tongue can only be inspired
by the willing and waiting heart. The priest who was
to help in the work of revealing God to man and
bringing man near to God needed long and careful
training. The "wise man" who taught in proverbs
might be supposed to be educated in society, the
possessor of a shrewd eye and a ready wit, but he,
more, perhaps, than other teachers, had learned the
lesson that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom, and that the secret of the Lord is with them
that fear Him.
In later times another type of teacher had come to
220 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
the front, and in the time of Christ he was known as
the "scribe." He spent his time in mastering the
details of an ecclesiastical code, becoming familiar
with traditional precedents and decisions, that he
might hand them on and add to their numbers a
doctor, a lawyer, a rabbi, a teacher of the schools.
He is not lovely in our eyes. But it must be remem
bered that he had conscientiously taken much trouble
to master what was esteemed the highest knowledge
attainable : he had studied, arranged, codified and
made the subject his own ; he built a hedge round the
law and a hedge round that hedge, his whole object
being to keep God s commandments inviolate and
the name of Him who had given them sacred, as in a
very holy of holies.
Then had come One who taught "not as the
scribes." His words carried their own weight, were
stamped with their own credentials, proclaimed their
own authority. None could hear them unmoved and
their main teaching was concerning God. The Father
was made known by the Son as never before : the
truth revealed concerning Him lived, palpitated and
glowed in the very utterance; it was brought home
with immediate directness to men s business and
bosoms ; the kingdom of which others had had much
to say took on new meaning and character, it was
not to come with "observation" the craning of the
neck into the distance to watch for an unimaginable
portent it was in their very midst.
Christ proclaimed a new spiritual order, to attain
which there was no need to climb the heaven or cross
the sea ; men had but to look within and search around
them. No new God was declared, yet the new light
shed on the nature of Him, whom the fathers had
known and worshipped, gave an altogether new idea
TEACHER OF TEACHERS 221
of His mind and will, and altogether new conceptions
of what was meant by His tabernacling among men
and the establishment of His dominion upon earth.
The message came, Repent, change both mind and
habit from the old hard, selfish, conventional ways;
be born again, become as little children with simple,
wondering, trustful and obedient hearts; be baptized,
not only with water to cleanse from the evil of the
past, but with the Holy Spirit and with fire to purify
from within and inform with new celestial energy.
Above all, Love; love God with heart and mind and
soul and strength, love man as man, whether friendly
or hostile, generous or ungrateful ; so shall new rela
tions between God and men usher in a new heaven
and a new earth, a new social organism of renovated
spirits, a kingdom whose full coming shall mean that
the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven.
Ill
Hence arose a new w 7 orld, of which Christ Himself
is the centre. " My disciple " is a more frequent
phrase with Him than "disciple of the kingdom," but
the two mean the same thing. A new sort of scribism,
this. You shall learn, He says, not necessarily from
books and manuscripts. Not that there is any need
to despise a good book, "the precious life-blood of a
master-spirit embalmed and treasured up to a life
beyond life." You shall learn, not necessarily dogmas
of the schools. Not that men should decry healthy
doctrine, the best thoughts on the most sacred subjects
framed in the best words attainable. You shall learn,
not necessarily from carefully compiled ethical codes.
Not that any wise man will slight or disregard these,
precepts of highest sanction and most sacred obliga-
222 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
tion, the behests of a duty which may be the "stern
daughter of the voice of God," but which also means
"the Godhead s most benignant grace."
Doctrines, traditions, laws, principles are inculcated
but alive, not dead; no fossils, but instinct with
vital energy. The school of this kingdom is one of
spiritual experience ; its training is not one of poring
over musty tomes, or repeating parrot-like phrases
which are only half-understood and wholly uncared
for. A man cannot enter the kingdom, cannot even
see it, without a new nature ; wise men may miss it,
while babes enjoy it. Learn of Me, says the Teacher,
in simplicity and meekness, throwing aside prejudice,
selfishness and hardness of heart, opening wide the
doors of affection and trustfulness, gaining fuller in
sight into the will of God by unfailing obedience to
His voice when heard "if any man willeth to do His
will, he shall know of the doctrine." For all is em
bodied in Him who is the way, the truth and the life.
Whoever seeks to embody living truths in abstract
propositions and no true teacher ever does Jesus
Christ does not make disciples thus. He came to be
the truth, not simply to declare it. Only the Son
can reveal the Father, the nature of the kingdom can
only be seen in its King. His are words which are
spirit and life, indeed, and in Him is a fountain of
redeeming energy enabling men to realize their mean
ing in action. Learn of Me, says He who is the
lowliest and the loftiest of all masters; drink not from
the pool, not from the cistern, not from the reservoir,
but from the fountain of life indeed.
So the first disciples found it and generations of
Christ s followers since. Those who have learned of
Him have had placed in their hands a talisman, with
its secret watchword, opening up mountain-caves close
TEACHER OF TEACHERS 223
by their side, rich in treasure, a key to the knowledge
of nature, man and God. Jesus said nothing about
nature in the modern senses of the word, but the whole
world was His, as all our science cannot make it ours.
He knew man perfectly, the best as well as the worst
of human nature; none exposed more sternly than
He the evil of hardness and hypocrisy, none more
tenderly pitied man s weakness and waywardness,
yearning after the lost and giving Himself to the
uttermost in order to reclaim them. Christ understood
man and nature because He knew God. Others
guess and wonder and dream; He knows. Where
other religious teachers scatter a few clouds from the
lower firmament of the spiritual sky He shoots up a
straight shaft of access into the farthest azure, and a
vision of glory appears indeed, such as can never be
forgotten or lost. When a "scribe" is made a dis
ciple of this kingdom and knows God and man and
nature as Christ makes him, he has found a new
world such as eye sees not, ear hears not, and which
cannot otherwise enter into the heart of man.
He Bids all His followers still to receive His Holy
Spirit into their hearts, and to let Him do His work
of cleansing, renewing and purifying to the uttermost.
He says still to His disciples, Abide in me and I in
you ; and then, Ask what ye will and it shall be done
unto you. If ye abide in My word, then are ye truly
My disciples; and you shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free.
"Have ye understood all these things?" It is a
searching question. It is only too easy for men reli
giously educated, professing and calling themselves
Christians, having known the Bible all their lives and
accepting an orthodox creed, to fail to understand these
things because in the inner springs of their nature they
224 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
have not yet been made disciples to the kingdom of
heaven. But all may become disciples if they will;
the way is open and the grace is free. The blind from
birth may have eyesight given him ; the half-cured
who see men as trees walking, by an added touch
may be enabled clearly to scan the horizon far and
near. Those whose eyes have thus been opened will
easily follow on to explore.
IV
The abundance of the householder s store is ex
pressed by a notable phrase, "things new and old."
Why is it used ? Why does not Jesus say things
great and small, things useful and beautiful, things
suitable for rich and poor, old and young, wise and
simple ? The form may be proverbial, or it may be
considered generally suitable in describing a store
house. But it probably contains a deeper significance.
Jesus as a teacher had often to face this question of
old and new in the realm of truth and to declare what
was his attitude to both in a time of transition. The
Jews were particularly tenacious of tradition, and in
all ages religious people have been naturally conserva
tive. They are usually disturbed, if not alarmed, by
the cry "Thou bringest certain strange things to our
ears." It is, therefore, the relation between past and
future that is in the mind of the Master when He uses
this phrase; the relative claims of venerable, mature
experience on the one hand, and the fresh, vigorous,
earnest thought of the moment on the other; the
relation of successive generations to one another, the
perennial contest between the laudator temporis acti,
the tenacious upholder of the customary ideas of the
past, and the eager young life full of hope and clamor-
TEACHER OF TEACHERS 225
ous for the satisfaction of the pressing needs of to-day.
Hence our Lord describes the resources of a true
disciple of the kingdom as sufficient for all emerg
encies. The supply in His treasure-house is adequate
and abundant, both of things new and old.
How does the doctrine of the kingdom preserve the
unity of these two ? The arguments of those who
plead the claims of either old or new taken separately
are well known. Apart from that shallowest and
laziest of all pleas which obstructs all progress because
"what was good enough for our fathers is good enough
for us," the better part of human nature is rightly
enlisted in defence of truth already assimilated and
positions already attained. In religion especially the
value of existing grounds of trust causes men rightly
to cling to revelations already made and to contend
earnestly for the forms in which they have been deliv
ered. Further protection for the sacred truth is
afforded by ethical precepts or religious ceremonies;
these in turn become sacro-sanct, and further doctrine
is formulated to secure them in their place. Thus
the process of overlaying the original deposit of truth
is continued till the very significance of the original
is lost and the Jewish scribes, who most honoured the
law, made it void through their tradition.
On the other hand, the intellectually restless and
eager are represented by the vivacious and versatile
Athenians, who "spent their time in nothing else but
either to tell or to hear some new thing." Novelty
may become in itself an excellence, and accepted truth
be discarded merely because it is familiar. The para
doxical is considered in itself admirable because it
stimulates the intellectually jaded palate. The world
of ideas changes for some thinkers like the book of
fashions in dress; last season s garb is considered ugly
Q
226 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
simply because it is no longer worn. For them the
stigma of dulness attaches to all that is based on
precedent and authority; prejudice is raised against
the old, since by its very definition it has had its day,
and is fit only to make way for something else.
In true religion each of these tendencies is wrong
if it be taken alone. There must be a reasoned rela
tion between the abiding and the transient; no religion
can meet the needs of man which does not on the one
hand preserve unchanged the eternal principles of
right and wrong, both human and divine, and on the
other take full account of new conditions, new know
ledge, and new requirements, as the generations suc
ceed one another in unending procession. In Chris
tianity the unity between these conflicting elements
may always be preserved by men who are made dis
ciples to the kingdom that cannot be moved. There
may be a removing of those things that are shaken,
as of things that have been made; but the things
which cannot be shaken will remain. These house
holders bring forth from their treasure things new and
old, both equally valuable and easily and harmoni
ously blended.
Christ Himself furnishes the supreme example of
this. We know how, early in His ministry, the
objection was raised: "What is this a new teach
ing ? " How, in the Sermon on the Mount, He said
that He came not to destroy but to fulfil ; that no jot
or tittle of the law should fail till it had been fulfilled.
In the brief parable of Luke v. 39, Christ laid stress
on the value of the old, as such, and more than once
He upheld the judgments of those who spoke from
Moses* seat because of the place from which the words
were spoken. Yet He protested against pouring new
wine into old wine-skins. He superseded that which
TEACHER OF TEACHERS 227
had been said "to them of old time" by His authori
tative word "I say unto you," for a greater than
Jonah, a greater than Solomon, a greater than Moses,
is here. Without breaking with the past, He vin
dicated the rights and the duties of the present ; with
out proclaiming a revolution, He accomplished one;
while upholding the law and the prophets, He showed
how the gospel realized and surpassed both. If ever
there was a teacher who brought forth from His
treasure things new and old, it was He who speaks
to us in the Gospels,
The servant was to be even as his lord. Christ
declares here that those who followed Him would be
like Him in their blending of old faith and new know
ledge. The best-known example is that of the
Apostle Paul ; who more completely than he realized
this combination ? Brought up as a Pharisee, he
never lost his zeal for righteousness. When he
preached Christ crucified, it was only that that end
should be attained for w 7 hich the law had striven but
had not been strong enough to secure. He pleads
continually, "It is written," yet is so convinced of the
paramount importance of the message entrusted to
him that if an angel from heaven should preach any
other gospel than this, he must be anathema. So
with the other apostles ; from Pentecost onward they
followed their Lord faithfully and closely, but not
slavishly. They did not put fojth a replica of the
Sermon on the Mount, though echoes of it are found
in the epistles of Peter and James. But they were
enlightened by the promised Spirit to understand the
supreme importance of the Person and the Work of
Q2
228 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
Christ on earth and its consummation in heaven ; and
they rightly put this in the forefront of their message.
There were various types of apostolic teaching. The
writers of the New Testament do not mechanically
copy or imitate one another. The early sermons in
the Acts are, in some respects, unlike the teaching
that went before and that which followed afterward.
Peter, James, John, Stephen, Paul, the writer of
Hebrews and of the Apocalypse how various are
these, yet how true, every one of them, to the great
central principles of Christ and His kingdom ! We
need not go beyond the covers of the New Testament
to find striking illustration of how possible it is for
the Christian householder to bring out of the same
rich gospel treasure-house things new and old.
The history of Christendom is a running com
mentary on the same text. What a manifold and
complex development has been that of the Christian
religion ; how difficult it is at this moment to define
O
its essential character so as to include its almost
infinitely various forms and manifestations ! There
have been periods in its history when a clinging to old
and stereotyped forms has endangered the very life of
its spirit, as well as periods during which a readiness
to change the form of faith has well-nigh caused the
substance to disappear. But, on the whole, it has
preserved its continuity while spreading into all
regions of the world and translating its message into
alien climes and other tongues.
The curve described by the development of Chris
tian truth may be said to be determined by two foci :
(i) belief in Jesus Christ, Son of God and son of man,
and the historical revelation given in Him ; (2) the
gift of the Holy Spirit whose work it is to glorify
Christ, to take of the things that are His, bring them
TEACHER OF TEACHERS 229
to remembrance, and so to teach them to the Church
that it may assimilate, adapt and apply to new needs
the truth, "as truth is in Jesus." The process has not
been without its dangers. Serious mistakes have been
made, as all must acknowledge except those who
consider the Church, as such, to be infallible. But,
taking a broad view of Christianity through the
centuries, it is remarkable how the two extremes have
been avoided. On the one hand, the danger of
restricting its development as Islam is fossilized by
the dead hand of the Koran ; on the other, the snap
ping of those sacred links of continuity which bind
together all who call themselves Christians in loyal
allegiance to Him whose name they bear.
Doctrines have changed their form while preserv
ing their substance. It took three centuries to frame
the" creed of Nicaea, and some important articles of
faith, on sin and grace, atonement and justification,
were still more gradually wrought out. Some of
these, perhaps, need reminting if they are to be made
current coin for the circulation of to-day. The ethical
principles laid down in the New Testament are con
tinually receiving new illustration and new applica
tions which may sometimes seem to make the old
obsolete. But as Jesus drew from the old law the
two great commandments on which He sought to base
the conduct of His followers, so the great moral prin
ciples of the New Testament, tenaciously held by the
Church as beyond change and repeal, are brought
freshly to bear upon a perpetually changing civiliza
tion. New problems affecting the family, slavery,
the position of woman, or international wars, are
continually arising, and fresh appeal is continually
being made to the disciples of the kingdom for their
solution. These do not profess to be able to answer
230 THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH
all questions, to remove all difficulties; but it is part
of their work in the world to show how those who
have learnt in Christ s school can bring the old truth,
which they assuredly believe, to bear upon hitherto
unanticipated problems and practically revolution
ized conditions of society.
It is in this way that the kingdom itself is to
come among men. For the kingdom is coming, not
come; the Church is making, not made. Christen
dom is, in a sense, a word of the past; its history
may be traced out and written down. In a sense it
is a word of the present, representing a mighty living
force to-day. Still more is it a word of the future,
for as yet we have not been able to see what
" Christianity " fully means. He was right who, in
answer to the question, Is the Christian religion
"played out"? replied, It has not yet been tried.
The disciples of the kingdom are, as yet, far from
having exhausted the resources of the treasure-house
entrusted to their care.
Ours is an age of transition. Every age forms a
bridge between that which precedes and that which
follows it, but to our own seems to be entrusted a
specially difficult task of assimilating new knowledge,
meeting new conditions, abandoning old forms and
revivifying old truths. Those on whom such work
is specially incumbent need not be discouraged ; those
who see the process going on around them need not
despair. The Christ of the New Testament is for
us the way, the truth and the life; not the Christ
of the Sermon on the Mount, still less the shadowy
personage who is all that remains when certain critics
of the gospels have eliminated from the text whatever
does not satisfy their ideas of what probably took
place. The Christ of the New Testament, as the
TEACHER OF TEACHERS 231
Redeemer of men, is the treasure-house, and the Holy
Spirit whom He promised enables us to make its
contents our own. He is the way-guide into all the
truth, new and old, that we need for the journey of
life. Forms of dogma which have commended them
selves to the Church in past centuries may change,
but Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, to-day and
for ever. The gospel of salvation in Him is sufficient
for the individual, the nation and the race ; it need
not be changed, and it cannot be given up without
darkening the hope of the world. But the task of
bringing it to bear with new power upon new genera
tions and new intellectual and social conditions is
continually laid upon Christ s Church ; it is one of
which she must not complain and must not grow
weary. In accomplishing it, Christ s disciples fulfil
the design of their Master and work out at the same
time their own salvation and that of the world whom
He came to save.
" Spirit, who makest all things new,
Thou leadest onward : we pursue
The heavenly march sublime.
Neath Thy renewing" fire we glow,
And still from strength to strength we go,
From height to height we climb.
"To Thee we rise, in Thee we rest;
We stay at home, we go in quest,
Still Thou art our abode.
The rapture swells, the wonder grows,
As full on us new life still flows
From our unchanging God."
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
" Be filled with the Spirit."- Ern. v. 18.
" Be ye filled with the Spirit that is, let the Spirit advance
His presence and power in you as far and to what degree and
height Himself pleaseth; do not obstruct Him in His progress,
but comport with Him in all His applications unto you; and
do not think you have enough of Him, until you be filled even
to the brim and the receptacles of your soul will hold no more."
JOHN GOODWIN.
"/ saw also that there was an Ocean of darkness and death;
but an infinite Ocean of light and love which flowed over the
ocean of darkness. In that also I saw the infinite love of
God, and I had great openings." GEO. Fox.
" When I found Him in my bosom,
Then I found Him everywhere,
In the bud and in the blossom,
In the earth and in the air;
And He spake to me with clearness
From the silent stars that say,
As ye find Him in His nearness,
Ye shall find Him far away."-
WALTER C. SMITH.
XII
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
ST. PAUL, who preached to the nations the Gospel
of Christ, proclaimed also the Gospel of the Holy
Spirit. The two are one. They may be distin
guished, but they should never be separated; they
supplement and illuminate one another. Through
Christ we know God, through the Spirit we know
Christ. The Gospel of Christ brings the message
which alone can save the world, but only through the
Spirit do we understand it and make it our own. A
doctrine of God without Christ is a face without an
eye; a doctrine of Christ without the Holy Spirit is a
body without a hand, or a body possessing hands
and arms complete, but without life to quicken them
and energy to move them. The Apostle who cries
out in holy passion, "Though an angel from heaven
should preach any other Gospel than this, let him be
anathema!" declares also that "none can say that
Jesus is Lord but in the Holy Spirit," and "If any
man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His."
No letter of St. Paul goes forth without a testimony
on this head. The first extant pleads with the Thessa-
lonians that they "quench not the Spirit"; the last
beseeches Timothy to guard the trust committed to
him through the Holy Spirit that dwelleth in us. In
"Romans," "Galatians," and throughout his teach
ing Paul shows that only in and through the Spirit
can the Christian possess life or enjoy liberty; he
presses home the exhortation, If we profess to live by
the Spirit, by the Spirit let us also walk; and some-
235
236 THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
times in intense indignation he appeals with terrible
irony, Having begun in the Spirit are you for being
perfected in the flesh? So in "Ephesians," which
contains some of his richest and ripest teaching, he
prays that the Church may be "clothed with might
by the Spirit in the inward man," and it is here that
we find the poignant plea which pierces every careless
Christian s heart, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God,
in whom ye are sealed to the day of redemption ! "
Such teaching finds its climax in the words, "be
filled with the Spirit." Another rendering is possible,
found in Revised Version margin, "in spirit." The
latter means "be filled in the region or sphere of your
own spiritual nature," the former by the operation of
the indwelling Spirit of God. It would be tedious to
give the reasons which make it fairly certain that this
was St. Paul s meaning. In either case "be filled"
does not denote "become full of," as an empty vessel
is replenished with new contents, but "find your
fulness," the true realization and fulfilment of your
highest being, by and through the inworking of the
Holy Spirit. As in iii. 19, the climax of a series of
lofty petitions, "that ye may be filled with all the
fulness of God" means that you may realize your
own highest capacity up to the complete measure
of God s purpose and will for you and for all men,
so here the Church is bidden to attain complete
self-fulfilment in the Holy Spirit, for here and here
alone is the true pleroma, or fulness of a God-given
nature. As the effect of wine is to give a kind of
freedom to the weary and exhausted man from (i) the
cares and anxieties of life, (2) the bonds of custom
and convention, (3) the fetters of a hampering self,
because it loosens the restraint of the higher centres
of the brain and gives free scope to the lower, so
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 237
excess in wine represents precisely the way in which
the Christian is not to seek freer and fuller life. True
freedom lies only in the mastery of lower currents by
the steadily increasing might of the higher; and it is
fully to be attained in the spirit as the highest part of
human nature, through the presence of the Highest
Being of all, the plenary indwelling of the Spirit of
God Himself.
The real scope of the injunction seems then to be,
Turn to the stronghold, ye prisoners of hope ; turn to
the fountain-head, ye travellers on the journey of life.
Be not satisfied with the stream which flows by the
way, contaminated with earth in its turbid flow; still
less with the reservoirs, always stagnant and soon
drained dry; least of all, with broken cisterns, mere
fragments, potsherds holding a few drops of brackish
water, which is all that the world and some Churches
possess. Return to the Lord the Life-Giver, the im
measurable, the illimitable, the inexhaustible, whose
tireless energy pulsates through all the life of the uni
verse, who, as the Spirit of Christ, is the very spring
of life to the Church. Return again, and again and
yet again ; draw fresh inspiration from Him whose
breath originated and whose indwelling maintains
and reinforces all the spiritual life the world has ever
known. Return ! If to preserve sound doctrine it is
necessary to reiterate the watchword, Back to Christ !
so in experience, in effort, in service, it is needful con
tinually to urge, Back to the Holy Spirit ! Again and
again God s people need thus to return, not so much
as frail and meagre vessels soon emptied; rather as
living, growing organisms, tested by the one type
and woven of all Christian life, renewed by the one
restoring and reviving energy, that they may rise to
the full height of their God-given capacity and find
238 THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
larger issues and possibilities of service in the con
tinually new conditions which they are called upon to
meet, to satisfy, and to transcend.
What do Methodists, for example, need at this hour
more than anything else ? There are, happily, no
doctrinal differences between us; our opinions on
Church government vary, though not very seriously ;
we are fairly well agreed as to the scope and work of
Methodism in its relation to the world. We are agreed
not only as to the central verities of Christianity, the
Being of God and the Person and Work of Christ;
but also on the Gospel privileges of believers, the
paramount importance of Christian experience, the
need of true spiritual fellowship among the members
of the Church. We meet to consider the bearings of
these great truths on the conditions of our own time ;
to consult together how in these days we may best
assimilate afresh for ourselves, and bring home to the
hearts of others, the things that are most surely
believed among us.
What lack we yet ? What note of all others needs to
be resolutely struck at the opening of this Assembly, 1
till its resonant vibration penetrates every single heart ?
The answer goes up from all of you, almost before the
question is asked "a revival of true religion," "a
fresh baptism of the Holy Ghost." Alas ! those words
have been so often repeated that they have come to
savour of cant, i. e. sacred words only half understood,
only half felt, and more than half misapplied. What
is meant by being filled with the Spirit ? A score of
sermons could not answer adequately. The Greek
text consists of three words, while John Goodwin s
treatise based on them contains more than three
1 This sermon was preached at the opening of the Methodist
Assembly which met in City Road Chapel, October 1909.
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 239
hundred thousand. Yet his volume is not a mere
specimen of Puritan prolixity ; he never deserts his
great subject, so vast and various does he find it.
But do not Methodists, and all Christians at this
particular juncture, need of all things else, first to
understand, and then to enjoy this fulness ? There is
a far greater and more glorious work for these
Churches to do in the future. But whether the
Methodism we know and love can and will accomplish
it depends, not on its numbers, its buildings, its funds,
its ministers, its institutes, its enterprises, but on the
measure of its spiritual power. It is not merely the
presence of the Holy Spirit that is necessary that
we have by His grace but His fulness. The mere
tenure of Christian life will not suffice, the bare main
tenance of spiritual existence amidst dangers and
losses in the presence of an indifferent or hostile world.
We are called to more abundant life, to exuberant
vigour, triumphant victory. It is the gift of the Holy
Spirit without stint or measure which saves and renews
the life, whether of individual Christian, local society,
or widely ramifying Church. Nothing short of it will
suffice, and if we are deficient here we shall fail
pitiably, even in the midst of what the world calls
success. What is meant by the Plenitude of the
Spirit ?
The phrase occurs in a command or exhortation ; the
Apostle makes use of the imperative mood. We are
bidden to do, or to be a demand is made upon us.
Yet the verb is passive in form, and it is natural to
object that the process described is God s work, not
ours. That august Breath of God blows when and
where He lists; we can neither originate nor control
240 THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
Divine influence. The "baptism of the Spirit," the
11 outpouring of the Spirit," the "descent of the Spirit,"
do not denote action on our part, but the reception of
an essentially Divine -.gift. When we read of the
Primitive Church that they were "all filled with the
Holy Ghost," or that Stephen or Barnabas was "full
of the Holy Ghost," the impression conveyed is one
of supernatural power resting on these men. Self-
inspiration is absurd. To issue a command that men
should acquire what God alone can confer might seem
to imply eijl^r a blunder or a blasphemy.
For the difficulty is not merely verbal, it does not
depend on the turn of a phrase. It is the standing
difficulty of the individual and the Church in every
generation. The one thing we need, Divine inspira
tion, is the one thing that no human effort can ever
produce. The superiority of the Primitive Church
over later days did not lie in knowledge; in many
things we are far wiser than they. Nor in means and
appliances, in organization and institutions, for in
these the original community was conspicuously de
ficient. They were filled with the Spirit; are we? If
not, w r hy not ? So with subsequent periods the Re
formation of the sixteenth century, the Evangelical
Revival in the eighteenth it is a proverbial sneer of
the world that the earliest part of a religious move
ment is always the best, full of spontaneous Divine
energy, that declension soon follows, reaction sets in,
and no earthly power can regain lost inspiration.
"We cannot kindle when we
The fire which in the heart resides;
The spirit bloweth and is still,
In mystery our soul abides."
Canute laughed at his courtiers when they tried to
persuade him that he could bid the ocean retire from
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 241
before his royal chair placed on the sand; would he
have been any less of a fool if he had commanded the
sea to flood the shore when it was settling down to
low ebb ? Who can sway the tides of the Spirit ; who
can measure, who command, the tidal movements of
God in history?
Decline in spiritual power may not imply anything
actually sinful in the Church. It may, for man is
weak, and temptations are many. Envy and jealousy
may alienate Christian brethren who ought in honour
to prefer one another; party spirit and strife may
divide Christian comrades who ought to travel hand in
hand and march shoulder to shoulder; ambition and
love of power may work their mischief among ecclesi
astical, as well as civil, leaders ; formalism and world-
liness may eat away the heart out of religious life. But
there may be no sin chargeable, the primal impetus
which seems spent may have changed its form, found
a new course, dug a new channel. The strength of the
Church may be employed in consolidation, in organ
ization, which it would be folly to disparage in any
age, most of all in ours, for hardly anything can be
done without it. And yet if the Church be found de
clining to a lower level of life, so that instead of the
breath from the four winds of heaven there is to be
heard little but the rattle of ecclesiastical machinery;
and if amidst a thousand schemes for raising money,
organizing enterprises, promoting social and philan
thropic reform, it should be found that all is present
except sufficient animating and driving power? All
elements of success except the highest. A hundred
blameless, laudable characteristics, but the charm and
grace and winsomeness, the potency and mighty sway
of the early morning gone ! It was to the Church
of Ephesus that the message was sent, " I know thy
R
242 THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
works, thy toil and patience, but I have somewhat
against thee, that thou hast left thy first love." And
how can a man, or a Church, recover that? When
conscious that he has fallen back on the second best,
or the twentieth best, the temptation comes to make a
spasmodic effort of his own to regain the highest, to
"work up a revival " a ghastly mockery of the reality
which makes spectators shudder, the attempted gal
vanization of a corpse, the pretended reanimation of
a body in which the highest life of all has been allowed
to dwindle down or die out.
II
The remedy is found in St. Paul s words. The
injunction "be filled" means that we may, we can,
and therefore we ought to play our part. "Ye must
be born again " implies that we can be so born, and
then a glorious possibility of privilege becomes a
sacred duty. The relation between the Divine and
the human is not that of an alien supernatural power
energizing passive clay into fresh life. That is a
heathenish notion of inspiration which would regard
the Holy Spirit as a magical, external power which
must be invoked in the fashion of the prophets of
Baal, who cut themselves with knives to procure the
boon of supernatural fire from heaven. The Spirit
is here, waiting oh how He waits ! He is unspeak
ably near to every heart of man longing, wooing,
drawing, striving, filling each soul as far as He can
whenever there is room to receive Him, quickening
when the faintest movement of response makes it
possible for Him to infuse new life; or as a favouring
wind to fill the sails of the soul still further, and
carry the frail vessel on its forward, homeward way.
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 243
But that is not precisely the thought of the text.
It is addressed not to mankind at large, but to the
Church. It refers not to the vague indefinable
Divine Spirit of the Pantheist or the Mystic, but to
the Spirit of Christ. The Spirit who is known,
loved, understood, and obeyed; the Spirit who
originated the new life in the heart of every member,
and made each man who is in Christ a new creation ;
the Spirit who operates in us every moment, though
in scanty measure because of our meagre faith and
lukewarm love ; the Spirit who at every moment
at this moment, waits, longing to raise, inspire,
purify, and empower us as He has never done before.
We are directed to find our fulness in Him, and
in Him alone. That does not mean the cessation of
effort till a Higher Power shall quicken us. Nor
does it mean a feverish and anxious occupation in
good works and religious ordinances, as if we could
kindle loftier affection by sedulous attention to
detailed duties. It means that we are to go back to
the Fountain-head at once, and always with a direct
ness and immediacy that takes no denial ; that every
Church and every member is to be in his own place
an organ of a Higher Will, intelligently and earnestly
co-operating with a Power which informs and sustains
and animates the whole. The work that was done at
first was not done by us, but by a Higher Power in
us and through us; decline begins when men forget
this and concentrate attention upon their own efforts.
Renewal implies a requickening from the primal
source the love of God in Christ poured abroad in
the heart of the Holy Spirit given unto us.
Work out your own salvation, for God worketh in
you. Find your fulness in the inspiring Deity. If
only by the inspiration of genius can the highest
R 2
244 THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
work be done in literature and art, how much more
is inspiration needed in religion ! The truth must
possess me, not I it, if it is to accomplish its great
end in my message. The Power must use me, not I
it, if the best work is to be done. Cromwell said
that we never climb so high as when we know not
whither we are going. That is because Another is
raising us. We are never so mighty as when we
hide behind a truth too big for us to master, too lofty
for us to compass when we tremble in the grasp of
a Power which possesses us, seizes, sways, and wields
us for its own high end. This inspiration is not
intended for a few elect seers, but for every Chris
tian. Be filled with the Spirit means, Look for imme
diate inspiration from on high, yield to it,, realize
your own highest capacity in and through this power,
let all around see and feel its reality. For they know
whether that Spirit is at work or not. His work is
spontaneous, ours is laboured and futile; His work
is free and elastic, ours is toilsome, slavish, and life
less. His work is various, ours rigid and conven
tional, bound by routine and prescription ; He works
from within, welling up outwards, we toil mechanic
ally from without inwards; His work is full of joy,
of wonder, simplicity, and gladness, filling the heart
with a rare delight which flows abroad into every
channel of daily life. And all is to be realized in and
through the Lord Jesus Christ, whom the Spirit
exalts and glorifies. If Christ dwells in the heart of
faith, then are we strengthened with might by the
Spirit in the inward man. Thus it is that the Church
becomes, as Ignatius said in writing later to the same
Ephesian Church, a God-bearing, Christ-bearing,
Spirit-bearing community filled with the Holy
Ghost.
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 245
III
This principle of closest union between the Divine
and the human may be illustrated both from prayer
and work. It is usual to draw a distinction between
prayer, as emphasizing our dependence upon God, and
work, as embodying our own efforts. The distinction
has significance, but from a higher point of view it
disappears.
Prayer should be both human and Divine, or it will
never be effectual. In order to be either aright, it
must be both. Prayer is the putting forth of the
utmost energy of character in earnest desire, making
fullest and strongest demand upon God. It is the
absence of this energy of personal character, of will
as well as faith and longing, which is the cause of so
much feebleness and futility in prayer ; the whole man
is not behind it, putting forth utmost pressure upon
the storehouse of Divine energy. Prayer needs the
whole energy of man, but at the same moment his
whole nature must be sustained, pervaded, animated
by the Divine Spirit, who Himself fills man with
His own energy. This is prayer in the Holy Ghost,
who helps our infirmity and intercedes for us with
groanings which find no words. If we would under
stand what is meant by being filled with the Spirit,
we should think of those comparatively rare moments
in the inner life of prayer when the whole energy of
our nature was thus exercised, and its very capacity
to put forth strength increased by that Divine power
within us, enabling us to wrestle with God and to
prevail, so that the very kingdom of heaven suffers
violence, and the violent take it by force. The experi
ence of all-conquering prayer is one mode of comply,
ing with the injunction of the text.
246 THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
But the words are not to be understood merely of
prayer and ecstasy; if this "fulness" is not realized
also in effort, the raptures of inward communion will
prove deceptive and misleading. It is the whole man
who is to be wholly filled, his intellect wholly illumin
ated, his heart wholly cheered and comforted, his will
wholly steadied and strengthened not in religious
exercises alone, but in the whole life. "Fill every part
of me with praise," says the hymn ; every part is to be
filled with prayer, and praise, and fitness for service,
because every part is filled with the Spirit.
The heart that would be Spirit-filled must first be
empty. Empty, that is, of everything that would
prevent the Spirit from doing His characteristic work.
For there is no necessary antagonism between the
operation of the Spirit of God and a thousand varied
aims for which the Church legitimately strives, a
thousand interests in the world which she seeks to
promote. Distinguish between a true and a false
spirituality. Not by withdrawing the leaven from the
mass of meal can the lump be leavened, but by the
potency of a ferment mighty enough to quicken the
whole. Still it is clear that the Holy Spirit of God
cannot fill as He would an already full vessel, and
there simply is not room enough for the Spirit to
work in some Churches that are calling loudly for
His presence, in many hearts that are praying
earnestly for His indwelling. Apart from subtle
forms of sin, with which we are not now r concerned,
the pathways of the soul may be blocked, the Divine
channel may be obstructed, the soil of the heart
choked with a tangle of thorns and weeds, and thus
not the entrance, but the plenary work of the Spirit
be effectually hindered.
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 247
IV
It is a crucial question for the Churches of to-day,
perhaps the question of all others which we should
resolutely face in this Assembly. Does the Holy
Spirit rule, does His plenary power animate our
Church life ? Social, literary, political interests have
a place in the kingdom of God most assuredly. But
these and a hundred other aims are for the Christian
Church means only, not ends, and it is no easy task
so to pursue the great supreme End that all secondary
and subordinate aims shall be kept in due subjection.
There is no commoner cause of declension in Church
life than the settling down upon second-bests, upon
aims that are admissible, or laudable, but are not the
highest. May these aims be pursued ? Certainly,
so many of them as can be raised by indwelling
spiritual energy to the highest level and maintained
there. But if the End for which the means have been
employed should be overlaid, buried, lost sight of, in
pursuit of the lower objects, the searching question of
Paul needs to be pressed home Having begun in
the Spirit, are ye being perfected in the flesh ? It
matters not whether the temptation come upon the
side of ritual and religious ceremonies, or on the
side of philanthropic endeavour to ameliorate the con
ditions of social life; if the Church seeks first those
other tilings which the Father knows we have need
of, she must not complain if the kingdom of God in
its purity and power is not added unto her. The
Church is planted in the midst of the world, not to
do the world s work, but to accomplish the highest
purposes of all ; if Christ s own followers are not con
trolled, swayed, dominated, filled to the utmost with
248 THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
the Spirit of God, what hope is there for the world
at large ?
It may be asked whether these words are intended
to apply to the individual or the community. The
answer is, to both; neither aspect must be slighted
or ignored. In i Corinthians it is sometimes difficult
to tell whether the Church or the individual heart is
spoken of as the temple of the Holy Ghost. The
ambiguity is significant, for the Holy Spirit inhabits
both, and He will not fully dwell among men unless
both are thus quickened and sanctified. Be filled with
the Spirit, each member of the Church, and carry to
the assembly the warmth of the fire kindled on thine
own hearth. Be filled with the Spirit, in united
Church life, for separate flames will not burn long
apart, nor will they be able, while single and dis
joined, to kindle that great conflagration to which
the whole world at last shall be but fuel.
The one is not to wait for the many, nor the many
for the one. But it is in the individual heart that
God s work for the Church as a whole begins, the
single heart alone, with Him alone. In all genera
tions it has been the voice of the solitary inspired
prophet that has aroused a slumbering Church and
quickened a dying world. What" is needed now is a
succession of such Spirit-filled men and women,
instinct with prophetic fire. The man who stands in
the pulpit, cleric or layman, who is sent by God,
ought to be a veritable messenger from God; the
leader of the society class upon whom others are
depending for soul-quickening or soul-healing; the
teacher in class or school, who is called to the sacred
task of infusing into young hearts love of the
highest. How can these do their work unless Spirit-
filled? But those whose work is "secular," no less
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 249
the steward, the treasurer, the trustee may be filled
with the Spirit, whilst the minister, alas ! is only
touched by the Spirit. The obscure member who has
hardly power to pray in public, may be a very organ
of the Holy One, whilst the pulpit orator, alas ! is
thinking of his own eloquence, or the scholar of his
superior learning, or the prominent ecclesiastic of his
position and influence and the opportunity to secure
his own way. Oh, that all the Lord s people were
prophets indeed ! Every single altar-fire is to be
lighted immediately from above. But
" Heaven doth with us, as we with torches do,
Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues
Did not go forth of us, twere all alike
As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched,
But to fine issues."
Every man in every Church is to make it easier
for every other to realize the Divine presence, and to
enjoy the plenitude of the Spirit ; whereas, in fact, we
too often help to shut one another out from the
Divine atmosphere and make it hard for others to
perceive how near God is. Some Christians lower
the spiritual temperature of every society they enter,
while others instinctively kindle the decaying embers
of religious life wherever they go, as when a dying
match is plunged in a jar of oxygen. Let none wait
for the rest, and the work will be done. The story
has often been told of the Colonel who desired volun
teers from his regiment for a dangerous expedition.
He addressed his men, and asked any who were
willing to go to take a step forward in advance of the
rest. After withdrawing for a minute to give the men
time to resolve, he turned to find all in line as before.
"What, no single volunteer to offer himself?" "Sir,
they all stepped forward together ! "
250 THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT
A word must be said as to the repeated or con
tinuous "filling" which the present tense here used
implies. The process enjoined is not an act, once
done and then over. Why ? Does it imply some
thing essentially wrong with the constitution of the
Church, or in human nature, that this replenishment
of the Spirit is an endlessly repeated process, never
complete ? Nay, the repetition is normal, because we
live and grow. A vessel of earth or gold is either
full, or not full ; and when once filled it remains so.
But a living body spends its powers continually, and
needs to recoup and renew them. The organism lives
and grows by virtue of the action and reaction between
it and its environment, its capacity increases with its
development, and to spiritual development there is no
limit. So far from reproaching ourselves for con
tinually needing to come to God for fresh spiritual
supply, we ought to be terribly afraid when we feel
no such need. To be satisfied here is fatal. God has
an ever-advancing work for His individual servants
and His Church; He provides for both an ever-
increasing supply of His own life and likeness, and
an ever-growing capacity to receive and use it, both
being ministered continually by that Spirit who is
Himself both Gift and Giver.
Before leaving the subject let us understand that
the emphasis lies on the word fulness. At every
stage, plenitude. The one thing needful in spiritual
growth that is at every stage of development existing
capacity should be completely filled by Divine supply;
the one thing to be guarded against is that half-and-
half spirituality which is the despair of Christ and the
THE PLENITUDE OF THE SPIRIT 251
delight of the devil. "He that is not with Me," says
our Master, "is against Me"; "he that loveth father
or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me " ; " I
would ye were cold or hot." Nothing great is pos
sible in this life without that white-heat of enthusiasm
which makes the world consider the saints mad.
Moderatism in the Church is supposed to possess
some advantages; Montanism, with its excesses, is
open to serious dangers. But Methodism can never
hesitate in making her choice. It was for their
"enthusiasm" that Methodists were mocked and
persecuted at first, and if the lack of scoffs and perse
cution in later days be due to the loss of enthusiastic
devotion, the exchange is a poor one. It was no
"inspired cobbler," but a Cambridge professor of
sceptical turn, who wrote "No heart is pure that is
not passionate, no virtue is safe that is not enthusi
astic." Why? Because without the ardent glow of
passionate devotion righteousness will never be able
to do its work in a world where there is so much
green fuel, so little pure flame. Again, we hear the
Master s voice "I am come to send fire on the earth,
and oh that it were even now kindled ! " So much
in the heart of the Christian and in the life of the
Church needs to be burned out, and there is so little
consuming and cleansing ardour. The fire that will
kindle all the whole burnt-offering is the only one that
can make it acceptable for the Divine altar, fit to be
offered in Divine sacrifice.
"O that in me the sacred fire
Might now begin to glow,
Burn up the dross of base desire,
And make the mountains flow !
O that it now from heaven might fall,
And all my sins consume !
Come, Holy Ghost, for Thee I call,
Spirit of burning, come ! "
A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH
"Know ye not that ye are a temple of God, and that the
Spirit of God du elleth in you?" i COR. iii. 16.
" Behold, said the Prince to Mansoul, my love and care
towards you. I have added to all that is past this mercy, to
appoint you preachers and the most noble Secretary to teach
yon in all sublime mysteries. Take heed that you do not
grieve this Minister, for if you do, He may fight against you,
and that will distress you more than if twelve legions should
be sent from my Father s court to make war upon you." 1 "
BUN YAM, Holy War.
" Come then, my God, mark out thine heir,
Of heaven a larger earnest give;
With clearer light Thy witness bear,
More sensibly within me live;
Let all my powers Thine entrance feel,
And deeper stamp Thyself the seal."
C. WESLEY.
Believe me, count as lost each day that you have not spent
in loving God." BROTHER LAWRENCE.
XIII
A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH
ABSTRACT generalizations concerning the Holy
Spirit remain for the most part in the air, high-sound
ing, but ineffective; they need to be translated into
the language of actual life. How can a truly Spirit-
filled Church be realized in the concrete life of to-day ?
How may the difficulties of present-day Church life be
overcome by rendering abstract principles into prac
tice ? It is impossible briefly to summarize the
answers to these questions, but a few key-words such
as these Holiness, Truth, Power, Love, Joy would
provide us with five Lamps of Spiritual Architecture
which can only shine with their true lustre in a Spirit-
filled life.
I
The side of religion emphasized by the doctrine of
the Spirit is personal experience ; the kind of experi
ence emphasized is holiness of personal character.
The importance of experimental religion is happily
appreciated in the opening of the twentieth century,
as neither the eighteenth nor the nineteenth under
stood it. Philosophers and thinkers, as well as
Methodist preachers, are now insisting that while
creed and worship, ritual and dogma, have their place
in religion, experience is the spring and fount of all
the rest. But Methodism has her own special testi
mony to bear on this subject, and we should be rightly
255
256 A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH
jealous lest with our high traditions we should be
found behind other Churches and teachers in impress
ing our own characteristic doctrines. The witness of
the Spirit, direct and indirect, the conscious enjoy
ment of the love of God in the heart through the Holy
Spirit, entire consecration of personal character
through the indwelling of the Spirit these used to
be Methodist watchwords : how far are they being
sounded forth from Methodist pulpits to-day ?
Preaching these doctrines does not mean insistence
upon mere words, formulae or phrases that have lost
much of their original meaning and power, but upon
the truths they represent.
Holiness, for example, we are told, is a word that
"has lost its vitality." If so, it needs to be resus
citated. It is not a narrow word, though its noble
amplitude has often been narrowed down by those who
have used it. The term "saint " will never come by its
own till we remember how many types of true saint
hood there are, and how often those who have best
deserved the name have been men and women least
anxious to wear the garb of sanctity in the sight of
men, and least recognized on earth as saints. The
holiness Christians aim at must be sane, healthy,
practical, in closest touch with actual life. Why
should the words "brave, true, pure, noble" represent
ideals which attract men while the words "holy" and
"saintly" repel them? The fully-orbed character
which belongs to the Spirit-filled life will shut out
the narrow, one-sided, recluse, unreal holiness which
has usurped a splendid name. The type which the
Church insists on must be pre-eminently ethical. Dr.
Dale s name has been associated with a criticism
passed on the Evangelical Revival of the eighteenth
century that it was imperfectly ethical. If that be a
A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH 257
fact, the sooner and the more completely evangelical
teaching is ethicized, the better. Discredit will neces
sarily attach to the very name holiness unless the
ethical standard maintained by the Church is not only
equal to that recognized in the world of morality, but
incomparably above and beyond it.
For the highest morality is not holiness. The
utmost uprightness of character and conduct will not
make a man pure as Christians understand the word,
and it is at our peril if we lower the standard to suit
the tastes and habits of a moral world around us. One
who writes, not as a religious man, but as a high-
minded thinker and statesman Lord Morley, says
of holiness, "It is not the same as duty; still less is it
the same as religious belief. It is a name for an inner
grace of nature, an instinct of the soul, by which the
spirit dwells in living, patient, and confident com
munion with the seen and unseen Good." l This is
possible only to the man who is filled with the Spirit
of God. Lord Morley speaks of the human spirit as
purifying itself and communing not with God, but
with abstract goodness. The cleansing we need if this
high and rare character is to be realized cannot be
attained by man s own effort; it must be wrought in
him from above.
The special testimony of Methodism on this point
can only be furnished by fidelity to the spirit of the
text. Filled with the Spirit; not showing traces,
streaks, of spiritual influence here and there, but the
whole man dominated and controlled by the Spirit of
God. Entire consecration does not mean sinlessness
or faultlessness, but the whole nature with its char
acteristic imperfections permeated by the one Spirit
1 The whole passage from Lord Morley s Miscellanies (1908)
deserves study. It is more fully quoted in Ch. XV, p. 305.
S
258 A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH
of holiness. This has been expressed in the homely
phrase, "It does not take much of a man to be a
Christian, but it takes all there is of him, all the time."
That is, it is not his abilities, his gifts, the range of
his faculties that matter, though all he has will be
pressed into service, but his spirit which yet is not
his, but the Spirit of Christ that dwells in him. What
might not the Methodist section of the great Church
of Christ be fitted to accomplish if it were a company
of men and women wholly filled with the Spirit !
II
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Where He
is present there is illumination of mind from within,
such as no culture from without can ever secure.
"Much heat, little light," has been a reproach cast
upon Methodists from the beginning. It was not true
of John Wesley. He was as remarkable for the clear,
dry light of his intellect as for the fervour of his spirit.
Few religious leaders have paid as much attention as
he to the conveyance of clear, definite, accurate in
struction of the mind. If some of his followers have
come short of his standard, that was not his fault. In
every religious movement there is danger of mistaking
noise for power and excitement for inspiration.
Methodists have perhaps had special temptations and
been specially prone to err in this direction. But the
point I would make for the moment is that the plenary
gift of the Holy Spirit implies mental illumination of
a special kind, light such as is specially needed for the
Church s work to-day.
Love is to abound "in knowledge and all discern
ment"; the Christian is to be "filled with the know
ledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and under-
A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH 259
standing "; the spiritual man "judgeth all things, and
he himself is judged of no man " ; those who have "an
anointing from the Holy One know all things," for the
promised Spirit will guide into all the truth we need
to know in the way to eternal life. This truth makes
free. The letter kills, the Spirit emancipates. Slavish
bondage to the letter is as common as licence and
anarchy without it; what is wanted in the intellectual
realm of religion to-day is that service of the Spirit
which is perfect freedom.
I must not attempt to apply this to vexed questions
of modern Biblical criticism, but here is one region
in which Methodism, living in the spirit of this text,
may render service to Christianity generally. If the
best results of modern scholarship are to be rightly
appreciated and used; if mistaken traditions of ecclesi
astical dogmatism are to be relinquished, without our
falling into the vague unbelief of extreme rationalism ;
if in this generation any restatement not reconstruc
tion of time-honoured Christian doctrine is to be
undertaken ; if in these things there is to be liberty
without laxity, authority without bondage, it can only
be secured when the Church, and especially its intel
lectual leaders, are filled with the influence of the ever-
living, all-illumining Spirit, who, amidst dangers,
doubts, and difficulties innumerable will not suffer
them to stray.
Ill
The word Power was from the first associated with
the presence and operations of the Spirit. The dis
ciples, before the Church was formed, were to wait till
they were endued with power from on high. The
effect of Pentecost and subsequent visitations was to
S 2
260 A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH
impress friends and foes alike with the spiritual power
characteristic of Christians. The whole Church was
empowered for service ;
(1) To win men from the kingdom of darkness
and evil,
(2) To establish and carry on a new order, in the
kingdom of righteousness.
But especially was this shown in those who spoke,
preached, or "prophesied." Christ said that His
Spirit should convict the world in respect of sin, of
righteousness, and of judgment; St. Paul said that
w r hen men prophesied in the Church the unbeliever
entering in was convicted, was judged, fell on his face
and worshipped, declaring that God was among them
indeed. And this, not by way of exceptional, miracu
lous endowment, but in the ordinary worship, because
the ordinary worshippers were filled with the Spirit.
What is more needed to-day ? The time came in
the history of the Church when the "charismatic"
ministry passed into the official ministry, and though
all power was not lost, its character was largely
changed. The danger implied in this change is
perennial. It is so easy to learn to rely on oratorical
and persuasive will, "enticing words of man s wis
dom "; on unimpeachable orthodoxy, the accurate
reproduction of the formulae of faith; on scholarly
accuracy, literary finish and the charm of style ; or on
the very absence of these things, when a man plumes
himself on not being cultured, but relies on his power
of popular appeal and rough, homely eloquence. All
these gifts are valuable, but none of them can confer
spiritual power the power to grip and hold the con
science, to influence the will, to sway the spirit so that
it is brought under the influence of the Divine, in
change of heart and renewal of life.
A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH 261
No human effort can gain such power; only the
Spirit of God ca^n confer it. Conviction of sin can
never fully take place except by the Divine Spirit
under the preaching of the Gospel of Christ. Hence
the importance of the "evangelistic not$," and a decay
of the sense of sin in proportion as that note is absent
from the pulpit. If any in the Church need to be filled
with the Spirit, surely those need it most who are
commissioned to preach the Gospel. Unction not
unctuousness \vhat is meant by it, how is it gained?
Glow how far is it present in the preaching of to-day ?
A thousand other gifts which we rightly prize in the
modern Church might be readily relinquished for such
a plenitude of the Spirit as would enable God s mes
sengers always to preach with power, "such as may
every conscience reach and sound the unbelieving
heart."
IV
The word Power must not be employed in this con
nection without the kindred and explanatory word,
Love. The Spirit of whom Paul spoke operates in
love, or not at all. Love is the first in the list of fruits
of the Spirit first, last, middle God s command, the
Church s joy, the world s simple and effectual test of
character. The measure of the claim to be filled with
the Spirit of Christ is estimated by the power to
receive, enjoy, and manifest love.
We are not called now to distinguish the prismatic
colours in this solar spectrum, the rainbow hues into
which the single ray of white light may be dispersed.
Love to God and love to man ; love in the Church and
in the world; brotherliness among believers, large-
hearted charity for enemies and outcasts; gentleness,
kindness, forgiveness, generosity, and all the cluster
262 A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH
of ripe golden fruits growing from this one fertile
stem. But may we not learn a lesson in relation to
what is called the unity of Christian Churches ? The
bond which bound the Early Church together was
essentially spiritual, "outwardly loose, inwardly firm."
This is the precise opposite of the unity which man
eulogizes and sets himself to secure the external
uniformity of one organization under pope, or bishop,
or presbyter, such as is supposed by some to constitute
the true unity of the Church of Christ.
Do we believe that uniformity of creed, of code, of
government, of ritual, is the end chiefly to be desired
and aimed at, or the keeping of the unity of the Spirit
in the bond of peace ? The acceptance of the principle
of the text would relegate external considerations to
their own important, but entirely subordinate level,
in order to concentrate attention on the main question,
Do these Christians love one another ? Do they care
for one another, take interest in others, desire their
prosperity, help them so far as they may, and always
recognize them as brothers in Christ ? If not, what
is the use of schemes for external union ? If they do,
approximation in outward form and order and methods
of working \vill come about easily, sooner or later, as
the interests of the work of God demand it.
But the malady of the world and to some extent
of the Church is cold. The great need, if unity and
concord are to be secured among nations or Churches,
is that vital heat of ardent care for others which
only the Spirit of Christ can adequately supply. The
selfishness, isolation, jealousy, and resentment which
form the real divisive elements among men in the life
of nations and of Churches cannot be banished by
orthodoxy, by episcopal government or Methodist
Conferences, by ritual or orderly worship, or by any
A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH 263
human power or plan, only by the plenary energy of
the indwelling Spirit of God.
V
It may be thought that Joy hardly deserves a place
in this short list of primary forces and excellences.
It may be considered as only a state of feeling, per
sonal happiness, desirable, but not fundamental. Yet
St. Paul puts it second in his list, and knew what he
was doing. The Book of Acts constantly lays stress
on the fact that when the Church was filled with the
Spirit they were not only of one accord, but were filled
with a glad confidence which enabled them to speak
and act with the freedom which springs from inward
joy. "Joy in the Holy Ghost" is a standing charac
teristic of early Christianity. "The Holy Spirit is a
glad Spirit," says Hernias, "for every glad man does
what is good and thinks what is good." Such joy is
not a superficial and transient pleasure, but a sign
and source of moral and spiritual energy.
Is it disappearing from modern Church life ?
"Praising, we plough; and singing, we sail," said
Clement, in the second century, and the Primitive
Church was marked by an exuberance of sacred glad
ness such as Paul here commends in his reference to
psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, the outpour
ing of a melody which must first exist in the heart in
the form of joy. It is not a mere coincidence that
associates Methodism with singing; there is a deep
psychological reason for that well-known characteristic
of our Church life. Renewed life manifests itself in
music. As a bird in spring-time, or at the opening
day, pours out its gladness in full-throated song, so
the renewed heart is the joyful heart, and He who
264 A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH
regenerates the spirit puts a new song into the mouth.
But is it possible for the song-bird, or the soul, to
" recapture the first fine careless rapture " ? Is it pos
sible to keep the heart of the boy in the life of the
man, and never to lose the wonder, the simplicity, the
buoyant gladness of childhood through the anxieties
of maturity and the melancholy of age? In nature,
No; in grace, Yes. Senile decay is impossible to
those with whom the joy of perpetual youth is an open
secret, because they are ever being filled afresh with
the Spirit of glory and of God.
It may be said that the picture thus presented is
only an ideal lofty, pure, inspiring, but an unrealiz
able dream, an unattainable vision. Even if that were
true, we should still toil and strive for its attainment.
Ideals mould the actual, and the highest and best life
we know is found in the endeavour to realize our
dreams. "Great is the glory, for the strife is hard."
Only by rightly fulfilling each stage of development
as it comes can the organism be evolved, the child
grow, the man find out what true manhood means.
No Christian need miss the privilege and none can
be exempted from the duty of being filled with the
Spirit according to his measure and capacity, passing
from one grade and range of life to another, receiving
grace for grace, changed from glory to glory, as by
the Lord, the Spirit.
But whilst these words represent an ideal, they
describe what at each successive period of life-history
is gloriously within our reach. The Holy Spirit is
God within us, and every Christian man, every Chris
tian Church, may at every step of onward progress
realize fulness of spiritual life. Whether we do so or
not depends on the measure of our fidelity. We are not
straitened in God, but in ourselves. If the Methodist
A SPIRIT-FILLED CHURCH 265
Churches of to-day are to be worthy of the great oppor
tunities which confront them, attain the spiritual
nature which God intends for them, and accomplish
all the purposes for which He raised them up, it must
be through a mightier influx of power within to meet
the strenuous claims continually pressing from with
out. In vain we look around, or grope within, for
the needed energy, it can only come from above. As
the traveller in south-eastern France climbed a height
from which he was told that he could see the Alps
seventy miles away, but looked vainly into the mists
gathering from the plains below, till they bade him
Look higher ! and then far up in the air towered and
gleamed the snow-white peaks, so the word comes to
us, Lift up your eyes ! Sursum cor da, lift up your
hearts ! Our eyes are up unto the hills from whence
cometh our help. Our help is in the Lord our God,
who is not far from every one of us, but who waits to
fill the hearts of His people with His Spirit that the
whole earth may be filled with His glory. To Him
be our ceaseless prayer, to Him shall be our ceaseless
praise I
THE INDWELLING CHRIST
"Christ in you, the hope of glory; whom we preach."-
COL. i. 27, 28.
"0 the wonder of the two blessed unions! In the personal
union it pleased God to assume and unite our nature to the
Deity. In the spiritual and mystical union it pleases God to
unite every believer to the Son of God." BISHOP HALL.
"Deep strike Thy roots, O heavenly Vine,
Within our earthly sod;
Most human and yet most Divine,
The flower of man and God.
"O Love! O Life! Our faith and sight
Thy presence maketh one;
As through transfigured clouds of white
We trace the noonday Sun."
WHITTIER.
"Heaven is nothing but the manifestation of the Eternal
One, wherein all worketh and willeth in quiet love." JACOB
BEHMEN.
XIV
THE INDWELLING CHRIST
IT is the business, of the Church to "proclaim
Christ," to "preach Christ." What is the meaning
of this often used, and often abused, phrase ? What
did it mean to the Apostles? How has it been under
stood since ? And what is its real significance for us
to-day ? That is a question we must never weary of
asking and answering if Christ is to be for every
generation of men a living and a present Saviour.
I
In Col. i. St. Paul deals with this subject,
and he describes the theme as a "mystery," but he
means by the word a message of revealed truth. It
is not something dark, inscrutable, unintelligible ; not
a secret concealed, buried, a treasure hoarded, kept
close and meagrely doled out. It is "manifested," and
its magnificence dazzles the sight ! Hidden from
former ages in the past, still unperceived by many,
never fully discerned except by prepared eyes, it is
now God s good pleasure to make it known. You
Colossians, he says, can see and know its surpassing
glory, what vast wealth of spiritual treasure there is
for you and for all nations in this message Christ in
the midst of you, within your hearts and pervading
your lives the hope of glory, a resplendent blaze of
unveiled and all-illuminating light. It enlightens
the intellect, doubtless, but it quickens the imagina-
269
270 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
tion, kindles the affections, reinforces the will, and
vitalizes the whole nature. If it be true that the only
wealth is life, here is riches indeed !
It is my duty, says the great Apostle of the Gentiles,
to proclaim this message. It is a great trust, dis
charged not without pain and cost, as I fill up what
ever is lacking in Christ s sufferings, the measure of
affliction belonging to the members of the once-suffer-
xng Head. But, what is the unspeakable joy of such
pain ! A revelation has come to me and to you
through me, the first glimpse of which intoxicates
and bewilders, and as yet it is not wholly seen in order
that all may in due time search it out and find its full
scope. As when, in the early morning of a glorious
summer day, the wreathing mists hide the mountain
slopes and cover the valleys beneath, then, under the
breath of the freshening wind, gradually lift and open,
revealing some giant mountain top lost in the sky
or woods and rocks on the hillsides, a ravishing vista
of varied landscape, delighting the eyes and stimulat
ing the imagination, showing that what was at first
seen was cloud-like appearance only, and making
manifest the solid realities and dawning splendours
behind and beyond so a glimpse has been granted
to us of the great purpose of God, seen in Christ, but
only so far seen as to hint at unimagined reaches
beyond Christ in you, the hope of glory ! St. Paul
can hardly control his feelings as he approaches this
theme. You have watched a smouldering match when
plunged into a jar of oxygen burst into bright flame.
So, when this messenger of Christ breathes the atmo
sphere of this Gospel, he flames forth in its celebra
tion "preached in all creation under heaven, whereof
I, Paul, was made a minister ! "
There speaks the joy found in the apprehension of
a great truth. Have we lost the secret? In youth we
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 271
knew that strange beating of the heart, as of some
watcher in the skies when a new planet swims into his
ken ; has it been left behind with the visions and the
glamour of early days? Has the Church lost the
thrill and glow of her earliest years ? God forbid, or
never can it proclaim Christ aright. There are always
new truths and new aspects of old truths to be dis
cerned, and unless we see them afresh for ourselves
with an inexpressible rapture of the heart, our mes
sage will lose its characteristic power. In the history
of poetry the early period of the nineteenth century
has been described as "The Renascence of Wonder " ;
is not such new birth needed in theology and in
preaching? If wonder and rapture are lost, quicken
ing power will soon follow. Those who would follow
Paul in preaching Christ as in verse 28 must be able
to share with him his exultation in the wealth of the
glory of the message in verse 27.
On this theme I have, greatly daring, undertaken
to speak. I have no claim, fathers and brethren, to
address you on this, or any topic, except your friendly
and much-esteemed invitation. 1 I certainly do not
stand here to instruct, or to exhort, men who know
more about this central topic of the Christian religion
than the preacher can tell them. It is the vital im
portance, the urgent need of closely grappling with
the subject, that has made me select it. The whole
Church of Christ, and the Methodist portion of it in
particular, needs to ask itself how this paramount
duty and privilege is being discharged amongst the
intellectual difficulties and the moral and spiritual
temptations of these eager, crowded, and exciting
latter days. May the Spirit of Christ be our guide
and our inspiration !
1 This sermon was preached before the United Methodist
Conference in Nottingham, July 1910.
272 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
II
The theme is Christ in you, the hope of glory.
But we are not to understand that the whole mystery
and message are here condensed into half-a-dozen
words. One central aspect of truth is chosen and
emphasized advisedly ; other aspects are not excluded
because they are not named. The phrase "Christ in
you" probably means within, in your hearts; it may
simply mean among you, in your midst. In either
case it is closely connected with the doctrine of Christ
for us, in His redeeming work on our behalf, dealt
with in verses 20 and 21. The reconciliation through
the cross is carried out in order that the meaning of
union and communion may be rightly understood and
enjoyed. But the link of connection between Christ
for us and Christ in us is a matter of too great im
portance to be lightly passed by, if "preaching
Christ " is to be properly understood. They are two
parts of one organic whole, and neither element must
be under-estimated or over-estimated.
No follower of St. Paul can under-estimate the im
portance of Christ s work for us, if he W 7 ould preach
the doctrine of Christ in us. Verses 13 and 14 show
this. A man who is not " in Christ " needs to be " trans
lated." He is under the power of darkness, and needs
to be emancipated from that black bondage before he
can enter the Kingdom of the Son of His love. Re
demption is necessary that forgiveness of sins, for
which men toil and strive in vain, yet without which
they can never be brought into true union with Christ
at all.
How can any man be in Christ, or have Christ in
him, unless he enter by this door? He holy, spotless,
undefined; we evil and careless, headstrong and dis-
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 273
obedient, or hardened and obstinate ; stains cleaving
even to our best nature, selfishness and unworthiness
darkly patent as fit for intercourse with the Most
Holy as a cruel and lustful idolater for a pure and
radiant shrine, or as a sot from the gutter to sit down
at a marriage feast. The feast is open, and the out
cast may come in, but surely he must get ready, and
he will not seek to enter without a wedding robe.
Yet, if we listen to the facile ethics of many modern
teachers, there is no need of the Cross of Christ except
as an example of the way in which men should bear
pain and show self-sacrifice. Sin according to them
is no real barrier between God and man ; or, at least,
a word of repentance is enough to remove it. The
blot is on the surface, a little water will wash it away;
the stain is not deep, and it may quite properly be
ignored or forgotten. Any man may not only have
Christ in him ; he is himself a Christ so runs the
presumptuous phrase did he but know it. The death
upon the cross has no efficacy for his conscience,
because his conscience acquits him of sin as an offence
against God; it is only a form of selfishness which he
will give up, and then all will be well.
Is this the enlightened teaching of specially illu
minated men, or does it rather belong to that darkness
of which St. John says, If we say that we have no sin,
we walk in darkness, we lie, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. A man who can pass
muster in a crowd in the twilight may well shrink
from being brought out to stand alone, focused in
the white blaze of the Divine Holiness. The cross
of Christ shows what sin means, what it implies, what
it comes to, what it ends in. It shows what is needed
if the real significance of sin in human history is to
be stamped in upon the conscience, and what is
274 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
needed of Divine love in uttermost self-sacrifice if the
guilty conscience is to be freed. Rivers of oil and
seas of blood cannot wash that foul conscience clean,
and a man who presumes to be in true communion
with a Holy God, unless his conscience, tender to the
least approach of sin, is purged and cleansed, only
shows that he has yet to learn the first elements of the
Christian religion, and that he has not yet understood
the Lord Jesus Christ at all. Are there men preaching
Christ to-day who have little or nothing to say of all
this and of what Christ has done to make the way into
the Holiest open for the \vorst of sinners ? If so, no
wonder their preaching is vain.
Ill
But these great truths must not be over-estimated
as if they were the whole Gospel. This is the door,
not the house; the porch, not the abiding home of
the soul. Christian in Bunyan is not at the end of his
journey when his burden falls away at the Cross; he
is disencumbered in order that he may travel. To
separate in thought the prepositions "in " and u for "
is a serious error, and no one who reads Rom. iii. and
vi. together can charge it upon St. Paul. To take
"in" without "for" implies a failure to understand
the gulf which separates the sinner from God and
Christ s method of bridging it. To take "for" with
out "in" implies a failure to understand the aim and
object of Christ s work on our behalf, the attainment
of abiding purity in union with Himself. It is to
claim the discharge of a debt without understanding
the meaning of the ransom, to wish to escape the
consequences of wrong-doing without entering the
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 275
sharp and cleansing fires of self-destruction and self-
devotion. A man who has not learned that to be in
Christ is another name for the only salvation which
can give him a self worth having has not learned
Christ, as truth is in Jesus, and he must go back to
first principles again.
Men who preach Christ must burn this in on their
own hearts and the hearts of their hearers. You
remember St. Paul s bold metaphor in Gal. iv., "My
little children, of whom I travail in birth again,
till Christ be formed in you." Keen pangs of travail
are necessary before this marvellous new birth can
be accomplished. For it is not the birth of a babe in
Christ, but of grown men and women, perfected
because Christ Himself is wholly in them and they in
Him. The late Bishop King said in a touching letter
written to his people just before his death, "I have
tried to make you Christ-like Christians." But what
wrestling and agony of soul are necessary if that high
end is to be attained, especially on the part of a pastor
who knows that he is far from being a Christ-like
Christian himself ! It would make a searching test
for many a Christian community to-day to ask, Does
it produce Christ-like Christians ? They may be ortho
dox, orderly, harmless, respectable, and respected
members of a Christian Church, but in so far as their
trust in Christ for them has failed to enable them to
enjoy and to manifest Christ in them they have missed
their way. What scope for the preaching of Christ,
to occupants both of pulpit and pew, does the applica
tion of this all-searching criterion afford ! May it not
quicken our sense of the inestimable importance of
proclaiming the doctrine of "Christ in you," to re
member that that touchstone will oe applied to all our
work one day ?
T 2
276 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
IV
But perhaps that is unduly to anticipate. The
meaning of this great phrase is as yet most imper
fectly realized in Christian life. Christ is within us,
if at all, not as an achievement on our part, not as a
full and final blessing on His part, but as a begin
ning, as a potency, as a capacity, as a budding
energy. As a great yearning, with the prospect and
much more than the prospect, the assurance of
ultimate attainment. This is implied by the phrase
"the hope of glory," i. e. the potentiality of glory,
with the confident expectation of its realization.
Glory is manifested excellence; light shining, not
so much from without as lit up from within. It means
inherent brightness, recognized, radiant, resplendent.
Perhaps hardly enough stress is laid on this aspect of
the indwelling Christ, either in the theology or the
religion of the day. The doctrine contained in it pro
ceeds upon the basis that religion for the Christian
man is germinal and germinating; that, while we can
not fully understand the beginning or the course of
the Christian life without seeing the end, it is as yet
quite impossible that we should see the end. Hence
Christ in the individual heart, Christ in the Church s
life, Christ in the nation s life, is at present to be
viewed mainly as a great possibility. This is not, of
course, to deny the glory of the reality already within
reach, but to set it in its right relation to a larger
whole.
That larger whole men must ever keep it in view
if they would rightly preach Christ. His kingdom
and work among men are an unfinished symphony,
music of which the structure and composition may
in the main be understood and enjoyed, but only
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 277
certain movements are as yet complete. For the rest
look onward and forward. Some bars of the melody
float from the harp, some notes of the great chord
upon the organ may be heard, but they suggest
infinitely more yet to come. Of that we dream and
hope, but as men who already possess such security
for the complete fulfilment, the "restitution of all
things," that for its coming we are content to wait.
V
But what a theme to preach! "The key to the
riddle of the world is God, the key to the riddle of
God is Christ." That is what St. Paul means when
he says (ii. 2) that "the mystery of God" the key
to the open secret which tells all we need to know
about God " is Christ."
" I say the acknowledgment of God in Christ,
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
All problems in this earth and out of it,
And hath so far advanced thee to be wise."
Solves all problems ? Perhaps not, in the way ex
pected, but it answers some questions outright, shows
the direction in which the solution of other problems
lies, and leaves us content that the rest should remain
unanswered for a while. The assured ideals are to
be realized, but they are His, not ours, and His is
the way by which the great goal is to be attained.
It is impossible to linger over and illustrate a theme
when the bare statement of it is fraught with such
far suggestions. It runs thus
The fact of Christ in history that such a Man ever
was, that the God-Man lived, taught, suffered,
died, and rose again as He did ;
The fact of Christ in experience that the Lord
Jesus Christ has done for me, and for millions,
278 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
that of which I can testify as a new creation, life
from the dead;
warrant unspeakably glorious conclusions for
My own, your own, individual life : the character
that is being formed, the spirit that is being
fashioned, even the body, the vehicle of the spirit,
and all the relationships into which your and my
individual life will enter;
The Church, which is the Lamb s wife, whom He
has loved and will cherish, having given Him
self up for it till His work for it is fully wrought,
and it is made a glorious Church without spot, or
wrinkle, or any such thing.
The world, for which the Church is to live, and toil,
and suffer, as Christ has lived and suffered for
her; till the love wherewith the Father has loved
the Son is in them, and Christ in them, and the
music of the symphony, finished at last, pours
from the lips of the multitude of the redeemed on
high.
What a theme to preach ! We cannot live, or
breathe, without these far horizons. "Tis not what
man does that exalts him, but what man would do ! "
That may or may not be true; but it is quite certain
that it is not what Christ has already accomplished
for the sons of men which show r s His highest exalta
tion, but what He will do, when that which hinders
is taken out of the way and all His full designs are
accomplished.
Christ is our hope as well as our trust, and our
love, and our Lord, and our Life of lives. The hope
of the Gospel is an integral part of the Gospel. The
dignity of man ? We see not yet all things put under
him, but we see Jesus; manhood as yet is crowned
in Him alone. St. Paul looked out at the dawn of the
new day of Christendom, and his heart throbbed high
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 279
within him, when Christ had been preached among
men for only thirty years, because he saw Christ
among the nations as already the first-fruits of a great
harvest. We live in a later day, when two thousand
years of the Christian Church have brought about
triumphs of which no one then could dream. But
they have also brought disappointments, and these
prevail in the thoughts of many to-day. They sing
with dolour, "The world is very evil, the times are
waxing late," iniquity abounds, and the love of many
waxes cold. This is not the note for a Christian of
any age. A man who would preach Christ fully must
understand that the Christ that is in the hearts of
believers is but a faint foreshadowing of the Christ
that is to be. He must hear already the bells ringing
out the old, ringing in the new, though well he knows
that the fulness of the new glory is not yet. He must
be among those who
" Rowing hard against the stream,
See all the gates of Eden gleam,
And do not dream it is a dream."
Nay, are certain that it is not a dream, for the glory of
the End illumines both the beginning and the course
of the kingdom of God upon earth. The End is
coming when He shall have put down all rule and
authority and power, when the Son Himself shall be
subject to Him that subjected all things unto Him,
that God may be all in all. A vision as dazzling in
prospect as it is certain of realization by one who
has learned the meaning of the words, "Christ in
you, the hope of glory."
VI
Is not this a Gospel, if indeed it be true? What is
to be done with it? Believe it first, obey it second,
and proclaim it always. Some believe without
280 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
proclaiming ; whilst, in listening to some speakers,
one would think that they proclaim without believing.
A large number of so-called Christians in this land
neither believe nor proclaim ; for if every one in the
Church of Christ did both, the world would soon be
converted.
The word "preach" suggests a pulpit and one
particular kind of announcement by a duly-appointed
person. That kind of promulgation should not be
disparaged; a preacher of the Gospel may well
magnify his office. The word "preach" is not in
good odour with the world. "Defamed by every
charlatan, and soiled with all ignoble use," it still
remains supreme in its own order, and there is no
lever for turning the world right side up like the
Lord s own ordinance of preaching. All that is
needed is that the preacher should illustrate more
fully in his utterances what the Lord meant when He
sent forth His first messengers to preach the Gospel.
The word "proclaim" suggests a wider area, a more
resonant voice, a more general and effective declara
tion, not on the part of a professional advocate, but of
the Church as a whole. Karayye AAeiz; includes three
ideas to publish, to celebrate, to commend; in other
words, it implies something given, the speaker s
delight in singing the praises of his message and his
earnest commendation of his theme as needed by all
and sufficient for all their needs. These were realized
together in early Christian community, described in
i Thess. i. 8, "From you hath sounded forth as from
a trumpet the word of the Lord ... so that we need
not to speak anything." We need to hear the echoes
of that trumpet voice in the Churches of to-day.
Think of the Apostolic preaching. The Apostles
did not argue, though they could reason with cogency,
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 281
if necessary;, they did not denounce, they did not
discuss, they did not declaim. They brought a mes
sage in which they trusted as for life itself and for
all that made life worth having, and that message they
spread abroad by every means in their power. "As
it is written, I believed, and therefore have I spoken,
we also believe and therefore speak."
The Apostle was not a Rabbi, or a learned com
mentator, with saws and maxims, traditions and
precedents, authorities carefully cited, and modern
parallels ingeniously drawn we can hear Rabbis and
read commentators enough to-day. The Apostle was
not a Critic, with his abstract rationalistic processes,
his purely intellectual tests, his microscopical examin
ation of details, his hair s-breadth distinctions and dis
crepancies combined with a strange tendency to miss
the broad features patent to the naked eye with no
microscope to aid it we can find critics in abundance
when we want them. The Apostle was not an Apolo
gist, who has a whole armoury of carefully furbished
arguments, who declares that he is free from bias and
pursues a neutral inquiry, ready to prove to every
candid mind what must certainly be accepted as most
reasonable, if meanwhile the audience have not melted
away. In the twentieth century an apologist may be
engaged any day if he is needed. And I for one am
far from hinting that commentator, critic, and apolo
gist are utterly useless. Preachers cannot possibly
dispense with their aid. Every one of them may do
admirable work in his own time and place.
The preacher has another task. What the Church
wants, and the world must have, is proclaiming and
preaching Christ. Burning words from men whom
zeal for Christ has eaten up, and who have found their
true vocation in commending to others what they have
282 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
found, and abundantly proved, for themselves. The
occupant of the pulpit, in the first instance, is to be
and do what every Christian in his measure is to be
and do in proclaiming Christ, and the result will
depend upon the way in which the pulpit leads
the pew and the pew follows and reinforces the
pulpit.
How much of the true religious zeal, which fires
until it consumes, is found to-day in the Christian
Church? "Preach the Gospel and put down enthusi
asm," said an Archbishop of Canterbury in his charge
to a Bishop of Calcutta when he was going out to
India. What a combination of ideas ! A Confucian-
ist will commit to memory I know not how many
thousand characters representing many tens of thou
sands of words of his Chinese classics; a Buddhist is
content to be absorbed for half a lifetime in profound
meditation on the "Way" which leads to deliverance
of the soul ; many a Mohammedan can repeat the
whole Koran ; he will allow nothing to interfere with
his five prayer-hours each day, and is found proselytiz
ing in the interior of Africa with fanatical intensity.
Theirs may be zeal without knowledge, but knowledge
without zeal will never convert the world. Christians
may well ask themselves how many out of the four
million sermons preached on Sundays alone in this
country in the course of the year are the outpouring of
souls penetrated through and through with the glory
of a message that has saved the preacher and can
save every child of man. If the Christian does not
believe, or does not think, or does not know, or does
not care, he will not preach. And if he does not
preach the hope of the world is gone, for how shall
they call on Him in whom they have not believed?
And how shall they believe in Him whom they have
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 283
not heard? And how shall they hear without a
preacher ? And how shall they preach unless they be
sent ?
The Queen of the South came from the ends of the
earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, though Solomon
could only speak of the cedar of Lebanon and the
hyssop on the wall, of the words of the wise and their
dark sayings. Men are eager now for scientific know
ledge; they scorn delights and live laborious days, to
learn the truths of science, the story of organisms and
their development, of atoms and molecules, of the
strata of the rocks, and the orbits of the stars. But
surely a greater than Solomon, a greater than the man
of science who is deservedly counted great, is here.
Where is the corresponding fervour of proclamation
in those to whom is committed the message, Christ in
you, the hope of glory ? Methodism is said to be
Christianity in earnest, Methodist preachers are sup
posed to be ordinary preachers on fire. A sapless,
savourless preacher does discredit to his Master, to his
message, and himself. Let him take heed that at last
the very blood of his hearers is not required of the
unfaithful watchman s hand.
VII
We may kindle waning lamps again at that "thrice
Holy Fount, celestial fire," as we are reminded of the
great Subject of Christian preaching. The mode of
proclamation depends upon the subject. Some theses
have to be argued out, some traditions must be ex
plained, some propositions must be criticized. But the
theme of the Christian preacher is a Person WHOM
we preach. In other words A the subject of proclama
tion is
284 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
Not a theology. How important, how essential, a
theology is in its own place, I need hardly say.
Connected and ordered thought upon the highest
subjects that can occupy the mind of man, surely
every one values. How can a teacher possibly
dispense with clearly and steadfastly ordered
thought in the background of his mind when he
speaks ? But a preacher of Christ does not preach
theology.
Not a moral code. Laws and principles for conduct
are as necessary as well-ordered thought for the
mind, perhaps more so. In a world where so little
is to be known, so much is to be done, and so little
time is given to do it in, careful instruction as to
duty and the conduct of life can never be absent
from Christian teaching. But to preach Christ
does not mean to repeat the Sermon on the
Mount, or any modern ethical code based upon it.
Not the performance of any ritual, the compliance
with any ceremonies, however beautiful or help
ful to the spiritual life. Worship is, or should be,
a home of the soul, and all symbols which aid
imagination and support faith are invaluable in a
world where the seen easily dominates the unseen,
and the temporal rapidly ousts the eternal from
the mind. But no ceremonies or sacraments, no
observances well-pleasing to God, helpful to our
selves, or impressive to others, are ends in them
selves. They are at best means to a higher end,
and sometimes prove obstacles rather than aids
to the life of the spirit. A preacher is not a
priest, but a prophet, and it is at his peril that he
substitutes the performance of a rite for the
quickening word of inspired truth.
Not social reformation and philanthropic enterprise,
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 285
deeply interested as every Christian must be in
the promotion of such efforts. These follow, not
precede; they are fruits, not roots; they prove
adequate and permanent only as they spring from
a preliminary work which it is the business of the
preacher of Christ to carry out in his Master s
name.
The theme of Christian preaching is a Person, and
for us "persons" nothing is so lofty, so quickening,
so fruitful as personal life. Philosophy, science, art,
literature are all excellent, but that which comes right
home to the heart of every man, which satisfies the
varied needs of all men, and remains an inexhaustible
fount of suggestion and inspiration when other
streams run dry, is a living Person, provided he have
in himself the fulness of supply necessary. In this case
it is the Jesus of history who is the Christ of experi
ence ; neither without the other. The facts of history,
together with an interpretation of them, which have
resulted in that moulding of heart and life which we
call Christian experience ; and the Lord Jesus Christ as
the sum and centre of the whole. The facts which
unfold the mind and heart and will of God ; the facts
which prove the possibilities and potencies of the spirit
of man, when swayed and controlled by a Divine
revelation. But a revelation, not contained in a
formula, not to be expressed in a creed, rinding its full
expression only in a living Saviour. Christ not as
Teacher, not as Pattern, not as Ideal, but as Saviour;
One who once did a great work for man, and who con
tinually carries on and carries out that same work of
redemption in man. He it was whom the Apostles
preached, and whom the followers of the Apostles
must proclaim to-day.
286 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
There are so many Christs. There is the romantic
Christ, the mystic Christ, the rationalistic Christ, the
socialist Christ ; there is the Gallic Christ in Renan,
the Germanic Christ from Reimarus to Wrede, the
Hellenic Christ of the fourth century, the Byzantine
Christ of the seventh century, and the Archetypal man
of the twentieth century. It is the Christ of the New
Testament whom we preach. Not the Christ of the
three Synoptic Gospels, or of the Gospel of Mark as
the first of the three, or of such portion of Mark as the
modern critic may vouchsafe to accept ; not the Christ
of Paul, or of John, or of Stephen, or of Peter,
though all these are inexpressibly precious
"They are but broken lights of Thee,
And Thou, O Lord, art more than they."
It is the whole Christ of the whole New Testament,
a once suffering, now glorious risen and living Lord,
whom, having not seen, we love; in whom, though
now we see Him not, yet believing, we rejoice with
joy unspeakable and full of glory.
It is not the Christ-Idea that we preach an abstract
thought in the mind; not the Christ-Principle, an
operating thought in the life. Both these flow from
the Christ-Person. Theodore Parker said that he
could accept the teaching of Jesus as well if it came
from a Catiline or a Borgia, showing that he under
stood neither the sacred Speaker nor His \vords. It
is not true that we can be saved by the idea of
God stooping to help man, or the principle of self-
sacrifice, "Die to live." It is the Saviour who has
wrought a great work for us on the cross, who is
now the living conquering Spirit in the hearts of
all His followers, whom we preach, and none else
will suffice.
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 287
"None other Lamb, none other Name,
None other hope in heaven or earth or sea,
None other hiding-place from guilt and shame,
None beside Thee."
But to proclaim this Person implies much more than
believing in Him ; it implies a belief that in this mes
sage is all that the world needs. Three things that
were central with St. Paul were being denied at
Colossae, and it is to be feared they are still far from
being accepted in many a Christian country.
First, the complete sufficiency of Christ and Chris
tianity for all the spiritual requirements of the
individual man.
Second, the universality of His scope and mission,
the inclusion of all races, varieties, and types of
men, so as to shut out all rivals, all alternatives,
all supplementary helpers and saviours.
Third, the finality of the religion thus established,
so that men can never get beyond it, can never
exhaust its significance, never need imagine it
superseded or obsolete.
VIII
St. Paul asserted all these claims most vigorously
at the outset, and the experience of the intervening
centuries has confirmed the claim. The capacities of
the Christian religion, so far from being exhausted,
are only beginning to be understood. It is still so
far in front of the standards, as well as the attain
ments, of humanity that one of the chief complaints
concerning Christianity is that it is too good to be
true, and too lofty to be put in practice. As Max
Miiller said, we seem to be living two thousand years
B.C., rather than A.D., so far are we from having made
288 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
the teaching of Christ, and the example of Christ, and
the salvation of Christ, fully our own.
The greater need of true preachers. If, that is,
preachers are of the right kind and can rise to the
height of this great argument, proving themselves
adequate to the lofty scope of the message they carry.
The only answer to the often-suggested question
whether the power of the pulpit is diminished is that
of the old Scotchwoman, "It depends on wha s in it."
The one thing that never can be admitted is that the
man who seeks to fulfil this one aim of preaching
Christ has a narrow, meagre, one-sided, insufficient
subject to expound. Narrow? There is not one
preacher in ten thousand who is himself broad enough
to understand the true length and breadth and height
and depth of this theme. All heaven and earth is in
it, all human life, hopes and fears, joys and sorrows,
sins and remedies, failures and capacities "all, all I
want is there." Nothing is commoner than the use of
that phrase, nothing rarer than the power to prove
it true. And the standing problem for the preacher
is how he may get nearer and nearer to this power,
so that every hearer of his shall be made to feel the
all-sufficiency of the one message for his own needs,
which, as he truly thinks, are in themselves infinite.
St. Paul, in the opening of i Corinthians, propounded
the one theme of his preaching in terms which might
seem to forecast a narrowly restricted, rather than a
generously comprehensive ministry nothing else but
Christ and Him crucified. Yet before he has finished
this one Epistle he has soared to the heights of Divine
wisdom in chapter ii., he has dealt in fullest detail with
social problems at Corinth in chapter vii., he has laid
down far-reaching principles of Christian giving in
chapter ix., has sung an immortal hymn of love in
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 289
chapter xiii., has shown the value of gifts and graces
in chapters xii. and xiv., has penned lines of comfort
and inspiration in chapter xv. that have solaced
mourners and relieved doubters for centuries yet all
this has sprung with gracious and golden ease from
the simple creed propounded in it " How that Christ
died for our sins and rose again according to the
Scriptures."
It is true that St. Paul was an inspired Apostle, and
we are but rank and file men in the great company of
preachers. But the theme is the same, an enrichment
of its detailed application has been going on for cen
turies in the history of Christendom, the Holy Spirit
who guides and quickens is the same, and His opera
tions are wider and more diverse than in the first
century; therefore why should the preacher of to-day
fail or despair ? All that is necessary is that he should
be among those "to whom God is pleased to make
known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery
among the nations," the eyes of their hearts being
enlightened that they may know what is the riches
of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and have
the power to expound what they kilow. If men will
turn from the centre to the circumference, from the
infinitely great to the infinitely little, from the glory
of the Gospel to their own ingenuities concerning
events whose interest lasts as long as the posters on
the walls that advertise them, they know what to
expect. Recently there might be found among the
announcements in one town of sermons preached on a
single Sunday "God and the Trees," "Immigration
and Nationality," "The Wonders of Memory," "Does
a man s social position give him moral absolution?"
while at other churches a sacred concert was to be
given on Sunday evening instead of a sermon. A man
u
290 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
may give up the organ for a penny whistle, because he
finds the latter easier to play. But if preachers and
people are full of the organ-music of "Christ in you,
the hope of glory," and adequately proclaim that one
theme in all its richness and variety, they will never
be tempted to leave it, and they may be quite sure the
world will listen and follow the immortal strain.
IX
St. Paul adds the clauses, "Admonishing every
man, teaching every man, that every man may become
perfect by union with Christ." Surely, if any linger
ing doubt existed as to the richness and comprehen
siveness of the one theme, these closing phrases would
dissipate it.
"Warning every man" means urging "none but
this " ; plying due admonitions that no alternative be
admitted to the one Saviour, no adulterations be toler
ated of the truth as it is in Jesus. The exhortation,
"Neither is there salvation in any other," given within
a few days of Pentecost, has been needed in the
Church and round the Church ever since. What is it
that saves men ? Let the preacher always see that the
answer to that question is made plain in his proclama
tion, and that he warns men not to be satisfied without
it. Many topics will comfort men, soothe them, inter
est them, stimulate them, or perhaps lull them into a
welcome slumber. They need to be saved, and that is
radical work, strenuous work, terribly search : ~ 6 and )
testing work. He who preaches Christ must not blunt
the sharp edge of truth, must not rake with the teeth
upwards. He is probably not doing his duty if some
do not wince and shrink from his teaching; perhaps
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 291
openly complain and rebel. It is no kindness to
preach without "an element of warning, and some of
the feebleness, not to say flabbiness, of current Chris
tianity may be ascribed to the fact that preachers too
seldom warn men, or seem conscious that there is
anything very dangerous to warn them against.
"Teaching in all wisdom" reminds us how many
are the grades in the school of Christ, how great is
the difference between the infant class and the sixth
form, how many are the subjects taught, and how
manifold are their applications to the complex life of
man. If any man who sets out to preach Christ thinks
that he is limited to the A B C of religion, the sooner
he corrects his mistake the better. That some are still
occupied with the alphabet may be very true, but it is
their own fault. The Gospel is milk for babes, but it
is also strong meat for grown men, too strong for the
spiritual digestion of many weaklings. There is
danger of lingering over the primer and words of one
syllable, because the higher stages of knowledge need
effort. It is possible for Christian teachers to run in
smooth and easy grooves, worn so as to fit their own
wheels, in a kind of mill-horse round of doctrine which
knows of no real progress. But that is not the fault
of the Gospel. A few lines further on in this Epistle
we read, u ln Christ are all the treasures of wisdom
and knowledge hidden." The true preacher is the
man who has found some of those treasures and who
knows where the rest lie in their rocky bed, who can
bring out of his treasure-house things new and old,
and guide his people to search and find for themselves.
But let no man say whose duty is to teach himself and
others "in all wisdom" in Christ, that he has too
narrow a field for his energies, too restricted a scope
for his powers. If he exhaust an infinitesimal fraction
U 2
292 THE INDWELLING CHRIST
of it in a lifetime he will find enough to make himself
and those who hear him rich for ever.
"That we may present every man perfect in Christ
Jesus " reminds us that the Christian teacher is not
concerned with speculative doctrine, but with truth of
so vital and practical a kind that the end of all is the
shaping of character. Not the shaping of outward
conduct only, that does not go deep enough. It is
the man that is to be perfected, not one faculty or
one department of human nature, but Christian man
hood as such. The Church is not to turn out special
ists men clever enough to shape a pin-head, but
unable to sharpen a pin-point not mere thinkers, or
mere practical men, but each man fully fashioned for
all that becomes a man, in virtue of his union with the
Lord Jesus Christ, the One Perfect Man and Perfecter
of all men. We may admit that it is a fair test of a
Church whether it turns out saints, provided the term
saint be used in its own glorious breadth and height.
The end of all proclaiming Christ is to fashion fully-
formed Christians, not unworthy of Him whose name
they bear. And it is an end for which every Christian
may gladly toil through a lifetime, or a thousand
lifetimes if he had them.
Toil is needed. St. Paul is not likely to forget that.
He does not, however, here exhort others to expend
their powers, but says most suggestively that he finds
the need of putting forth all his own as in verse 29,
"I labour and agonize." Everything worth having
and worth doing in this world needs to be toiled after.
The reason is obvious, for it is the toiling and striving,
as well as the possessing, which helps to make the
man. But the toil and strife, which would be as
futile as they are painful, if Paul or any man were
left to toil alone, prove delightful and triumphant
THE INDWELLING CHRIST 293
because the measure of them is another Power, "which
worketh in me mightily." "According to the power"
means that the precise proportion of true work to this
end which I put forth is measured by the proportion
of the indwelling might of God which I appropriate
and use. "Live mightily," said John Foster; of no
one should this be more true than of the man who
attempts to preach Christ. And the only security for
the fulfilment of so lofty and so exacting a precept is
the welling up within us of the exceeding greatness
of the might of PI is power. Who is sufficient for these
things ? Our sufficiency is from God, who also made
us sufficient as ministers of a new covenant, according
to the working of that, power whereby He is able to
subdue all things unto Himself.
THE HIDDEN LIFE
" Your life is hid with Christ in God." COL. in. 3.
" We must therefore invoke God Himself, not with external
speech, but with the soul itself . . . when we approach by
ourselves alone to the Alone." FLOTINUS.
* There is in God, some say
A deep, but dazzling darkness; as men here
Say it is late and dusky, because they
See not all clear.
O for that Night! where I with Him
Might live invisible and dim!"
H. VAUGHAN.
XV
THE HIDDEN LIFE l
IT is well that the meetings of a busy week should
close with devotion. The melody should end upon
the keynote. Whilst devotion has never been absent
from the gatherings of this Council, we remind one
another in this closing session that whilst we may be
lawfully careful about many things, yet one thing is
needful.
That means that we emphasize in this hour the
cultivation of the Inner Life. By this it is not
intended to laud a life of contemplation as dis
tinguished from a life of activity, or some particular
type of "saintliness " which is to prevail over all
others. Cultivation of the Inner Life means that
whatever duties we are called on to fulfil in the study,
in the pastorate, in business, politics, or society-
whatever be our temperament and type of individual
service, there is for each of us an inner central
chamber of the heart which contains the ruling,
guiding, driving power of the whole ; and that, whilst
health and soundness of every part of our nature is
important, here is the spring, the source and the
inspiration of all the rest. The condition of this
Inner Life is the question of questions for every man.
Is sufficient attention paid to it? No fear need be
entertained as to the interest of more concrete and
1 An address delivered at the Free Church Council held in
Swansea, March 1909.
297
298 THE HIDDEN LIFE
exciting topics. An ecclesiastical council is sure of
a crowd when social, political, and some theological
questions are being discussed. But many shrink
from any reference to the deepest themes of all, as if
upon these the less said the better. It is not well
that the Church should countenance the habit of the
world and agree to shelve the things that matter
most.
I
This innermost life is the one reality. Poets and
philosophers teach this in their own way. Maeter
linck tells us of the threshold of "the third enclosure,"
behind which is the life of life. Browning, in his
"Death in the Desert," expounds the doctrine of the
three souls in man which in ascending order of
importance make up one soul : " What Does, what
Knows, what Is, three souls, one man." M. Arnold
has written words about the "Buried Life" which
can never be forgotten by those who know them, as
he tells of those rare moments when a "bolt is shot
back somewhere in our breast, the eye sinks inward
and the heart lies plain, and what we mean we say,
and what we would, we know." Carlyle, in a well-
known passage, declares : " Not what I have, but
what I do is my kingdom." That is hardly true.
Not what I have is my kingdom ; we have learned that
a man s life consists not in the abundance of the
things that he possesses. Not what I know is my
kingdom, so soon does knowledge become antiquated
and obsolete ; not what I say in w r ords always inade
quate and often unreal is my kingdom ; nor even in
what I do, so little can I accomplish of what I would
fain achieve, and my reach so far exceeds my grasp.
No; what I am is my kingdom; and then the ques-
THE HIDDEN LIFE 299
tion presses, What am I ? We turn from philosophy
and poetry to religion, and especially to the Christian
religion, and we are reminded of the "inward man,"
the "hidden man of the heart," and hear the memor
able words, "Your life is hid with Christ in God."
That life is the one thing that counts for each one
of us, and that alone.
Grant at once that it is in and through the outward
that the inward is realized; there must be no false
antithesis. What we know streams in and helps to
make us what we are ; what we are streams out in
what we do and is modified by it; what we say, and
even what we have, are elements in character of great
importance. Still it is the fashioning of the man, the
inmost individual being, that determines all the rest,
and in our days the close study of this side of religion
is at a discount. It is disparaged by some as
Quietism, Mysticism, Individualism, and these names
are supposed to be synonymous with the unpractical,
the ineffective, the selfish. Doubtless differences of
opinion that appear among Christians on this matter
are not so deep-seated as might be thought ; the ques
tion is not one of principle, but of precedence, of
emphasis. Every Christian believes that the inner
life must be manifested in the outward, and that
external activities cannot be rightly maintained with
out purity and power in the inward springs of life.
It may be open to question whether, at this moment,
stress needs chiefly to be laid upon the inward or the
outward aspect of Christian life and character,
though to my own mind the signs of the times are
patent enough. Of the supreme value of the Hidden
Life there can be no doubt whatever.
300 THE HIDDEN LIFE
II
What has been occupying the attention of the
Council during the last few days? Theological
questions have arisen, religious unrest has been
admitted, and we have been reminded of the para
mount importance of Christian experience as evidence
and the ground of ultimate appeal. What experi
ence ? Where is it, who has it, how much does it
amount to, and what weight of argument will it bear ?
Churches that appeal to experience must possess a
rich inner life of their own behind their words, or they
will appeal in vain.
Church organization has been much in evidence in
our discussions. Or if Congregationalists and
Baptists disclaim the use of a word which applies
more properly to the highly organized Presbyterian
and Methodist communities, the multitudinous meet
ings and activities of all Churches point the same
lesson. Whence comes the driving power that keeps
all this machinery going? Is it adequate to the
task ? Is it entirely Christian ? Without any lack of
charity it may be said of much ecclesiastical business
that there is in it little that is distinctively Christian.
Non-Christian, or even anti-Christian, considerations
too readily rush in to fill up a deficiency of Christ-
constrained spiritual energy. And serious doubt has
arisen in many minds of late whether the spiritual
force of the Churches behind all these manifold
activities is keeping pace with the demand made upon
it, and the work it is called on to accomplish. It is
not a question as to whether a Christian man should
take his part in social and political life; every Church
member should discharge these duties according to
THE HIDDEN LIFE 301
the measure of his capacities and opportunities. But
if he does so, it must be as a Christian. His own
inward life must be mighty enough to enable his
Christianity to prevail, so that his influence and action
may be distinguished from those of the mere politician
and philanthropist. A Christian is called on to pro
mote the advancement of the kingdom of God, not
the mere amelioration of the kingdoms of this world.
The two aims may to some degree overlap, but if
the distinctively Christian element is to prevail, the
tides of spiritual life within the Churches and their
individual members must be potent, adequate,
irresistible.
Cultivation of the hidden life is necessary if it is to
flourish. Our fathers understood by cultivation, the
practice of earnest prayer, reverent study of the Bible
and devotional books, with meditation and endeavour
to make their own by faith the life that is hid with
Christ in God. Their fathers before them for nearly
two thousand years used similar methods. Have we
outgrown them ? Are these amongst the old-fashioned
ways which we style "early Victorian," and, confident
in our maturity, are prepared to leave behind us ?
The Bible is it read, known, loved, thought and
prayed and wrestled over till its deepest religious
teaching is afresh assimilated? The chief interest
excited concerning it to-day is aroused by criticism,
which in some directions is doing excellent service.
But the Bible is essentially a book of religion, not a
collection of literary documents. There is a time and
place for examination into the details of its composi
tion, but it is as food for the hidden man of the heart
that it is all-important, and it is a question whether
the coming generation in any stratum of society knows
the Bible well or appreciates its value for the world.
302 THE HIDDEN LIFE
Every Christian prays; but how? One who would
know the hidden world of prayer must be a familiar
denizen of it; hasty and occasional visits will teach
him nothing. Whilst Sir Oliver Lodge is urging the
power in the spiritual world of filial communion and
those aspirations and petitions which "exert an influ
ence far beyond their conscious range," some Chris
tians, who ought to know better, plead that work is
worship, and that social reform is of more importance
than "pietistic communings." These things, there
fore, ought ye to have done, and not to leave the
other undone.
Besides, the life of prayer itself a lofty and arduous
experience is only a means to an end, the rooting
and grounding of personal life in God Himself, God
revealed in Christ and indwelling by the Holy Spirit.
It is the health, the vigour, the abundance of that
life in individuals and Churches which is the test of
real prosperity, as it is the spring of all external
influence and power. Prayer has its grades, steps
upon the pathway stretching towards "the shining
tablelands to which our God Himself is moon and
sun." Teresa, following earlier mystics, compared
the four stages of advancement in prayer to (i) the
toilsome drawing of water from the well ; (2) receiving
it from a revolving wheel; (3) opening the sluice of
a running stream ; and (4) drinking in of the spon
taneous rain from heaven. In the first stage the
labour of our own effort to gain a blessing is felt,
and little else. At the next, the toil of the soul is
relieved by the grace of God; at the third stage,
grace does most of the work, though effort is per
ceptible; whilst at the last, the highest and best, the
soul is bathed as in a Divine atmosphere, and its
strength renewed without any beating and striving
THE HIDDEN LIFE 303
of the soul s wings, any labour of spiritual ascent.
Prayer is a means to an end, but of many travellers
on the roacTcOO few reach the goal. Tennyson calls
it "that mystery where God-in-man is one with man-
in-God," and its life is maintained by the alternate
systole and diastole of the devout heart contracting
in eager, active, human aspiration, and dilating to
receive the sustaining and vitalizing influence of
grace. But the end of communion is union. Not
absorption, not passivity, not the loss or diminution
of personal life or power, but its interpenetration and
transformation by the Divine indwelling.
In modern psychology the unit of conscious life
is not thought alone, or feeling alone, or \vill alone,
but all three in movement, the will being primal
in personal life. Another well-known feature of
modern psychological teaching, though surrounded
as yet with some obscurity, is the existence of a
subliminal consciousness, or a sub-conscious self as
constituting a kind of raw material of character, gradu
ally shaped and fashioned, as in the course of
experience it emerges in conscious activity. If these
lines of thought are followed, they suggest a large
and various field for prayer. Prayer implies an effort
of will to bring the whole nature within the operation
of the Divine Spirit, an energizing of the whole nature
for the attainment of the soul s highest desires. But
in Christian prayer stress is laid upon the operation
of the Spirit of God, not only from above, raising
and purifying the human spirit, but from beneath in
the depths of the soul behind consciousness, as He
helps our infirmities and pleads for us in yearnings
that can find no words. The truest prayer is "in
the Holy Ghost."
This is hard work. Here, as in every department
304 THE HIDDEN LIFE
of life, achievement is proportioned to energy.
Whether the phraseology of James v. 16 means that
the prayer of the righteous man is "inwrought" by
the Spirit or itself " works effectually" to a high end
may be debated ; prayer can only avail much in
proportion as it is both energized and energizing. It
is the psychologist William James, not a preacher,
who describes this energy "the conscious person as
continuous with a wider self through which saving
experiences come," our small wheel being "linked
up with the Pow 7 er House of the universe." The
metaphor is mechanical, but the philosopher, though
he hesitates to use the name God, holds that this
"positive content of religious experience is literally
and objectively true as far as it goes." Men and
women in the twentieth century do not spend their
six hours out of the twenty-four in prayer, as
Catherine of Genoa did, or five, as was the custom of
Bishop Andrewes; some are well satisfied with five
minutes. It is not a question of length of time, but
of the energy of the soul desire of heart, concentra
tion of mind, strenuous exertion of the will and the
extent to which all the powers of man are thrown into
active co-operation with the will of God. Here is
the secret fount of that life which is hid with Christ
in God, the source and spring and strength of all
the rest.
Ill
The effect upon outward life of this nourishment of
inward springs is manifest. The manifold activities
of many good people are not the steady outflow of a
fully formed character; they rather represent jets and
THE HIDDEN LIFE 305
spurts of irregular energy and are correspondingly
uninfluential and ineffective. The restlessness of
fragmentary efforts and piecemeal enterprises produces
an altogether different impression from the steadfast
maintenance in all relationships of one course, deter
mined by the flow ot one spirit. Such a life can only
be fed and fashioned by the continuous indwelling
of the Divine Spirit, and this higher note is not
characteristic of the average Church life of to-day.
In an impressive passage in his recently published
Miscellanies, Lord Morley says : " By holiness do
we not mean something different from virtue ? It is
not the same as duty, as religious belief. Holiness
is the name for an inner grace of nature, an instinct
of the soul, by which, though knowing of earthly
appetites and worldly passions, the spirit, purifying
itself from these and independent of all reason, argu
ments, and fierce struggles of the will, dwells in living,
patient, and confident communion with the seen and
unseen good."
"But," adds the writer, with a certain pathos of his
own, "we are being drawn into matters too high for
us." He will not use the name of God, still less the
word Christ, but that which Lord Morley describes
is, as he acknowledges, the atmosphere of the saint,
not the philosopher, of the Imitatio, not the Nico-
machean Ethics. Flowers spring from hidden seed,
no ingenious machinery can produce them. The sim
plicity and spontaneousness, the fragrance and charm
of such spiritual blossoms can only be attained with
out effort by Christians, the roots of whose hidden life
strike deep in no earthly soil ; the fruit of the Spirit
grows only in the garden of God.
For the Christian, the Cross is the key to all the
open secrets of the hidden life. St. Paul makes this
306 THE HIDDEN LIFE
clear when he says, u Ye died, and your (real) life is
hidden." The word "died" is a strong one, far too
strong for the prevailing habit of mind to-day, too
strong for any except those who understand what a
foe sin is, and that the warfare with such an adversary
is one of life and death. Moralists of the twentieth
century deprecate violence, and would have men begin
gradually and go forward gently in the process of
reducing the amount of evil in the heart and in the
world, for after all, they say, evil is a necessary con
dition for the existence of good. Paul an over
estimated theologian in the view of many of our
contemporaries will have none of this. Continue in
sin, parley or compromise with Christ s arch-foe ?
How can we w 7 ho died to sin, died in and with Christ,
continue any longer therein ? The new life we enjoy
began in the death of the old nature, it is preserved
and flourishes now only by the continuous use of that
cross on which the old desires were crucified and by
which they must still be mortified right on to the very
last, when the body itself is put off and earthly tempta
tions cease. The inner life is one of continual joyful
self-crucifixion, the doing to death of all that in
tendency threatens the supremacy of the higher and
better self. The power of the Cross alone can free
from the guilt and stain of the past, as in it alone is
found the secret of a new, sacred, ineffable life, named
in St. John s Gospel "eternal," in one of Paul s
Epistles "life indeed."
It is named again life "in Christ." Bishop West-
cott said that if all the labours of the Revisers for ten
years had resulted in nothing but the liberating and
exhibiting of the New Testament phrase cv xpfa, the
time and labour would have been well spent. But the
phrase "I in Christ" must be balanced by that other
THE HIDDEN LIFE 307
sacred phrase, " Christ in me," if we would understand
St. Paul and St. John and Christ Himself aright.
" Abide in me" goes hand in hand with "and I in
you." It is, happily, no part of my duty to expound
the meaning of the Unio Mystica between the believer
and his Lord. But I hold that Professor H. R.
Mackintosh is abundantly justified when in a recent
issue of the Expositor he pleads for the word
"mystical" as indicating a deeper and closer union
than the word "moral." The believer s union with
Christ is "initiated on His side and sustained at every
point by Plis power." Our connection with Christ
does not consist in, nor is it exhausted by, "the con
scious feelings and motives which pass through our
minds." Christ holds me when I cannot consciously
realize His presence, and "regeneration makes a man
Christ s in a deeper fashion than he may ever dream."
But the life initiated and sustained by the Lord must
be cultivated and assimilated by the believer, or it
dies down, and may die out. Here is the weakness
of much which to-day goes by the name of religion.
For without constant care and continuous effort that
Divine Presence, which is one with, yet higher than,
our own consciousness, and its uplifting power as it
penetrates and transfigures without absorbing our own
personality, cannot be realized, and it easily comes to
be spoken and thought of as an empty dream. Nay,
it is unreal and vain for all except those who have been
initiated into the Master s secret, and these, be it ever
remembered, are for the most part not the wise and
prudent, but the babes who are wiser than they.
X 2
308 THE HIDDEN LIFE
IV
Some may be impatient of the ideas here imperfectly
described, and represent them as abstract and un
practical, producing no actual, tangible results. They
are greatly mistaken. As well might they describe
nerve-action as fanciful and useless because it is not
muscular. The shaping of the whole inner man is the
first product of the inner life, and this is the one thing
that will abide when all things earthly are fled away.
The secret between Christ and the believer lies partly
here, "I follow after, if that I may seize that for which
Christ seized me." The new name that He gives, i. e.
the new self that He is forming, forms the inscription
on the white stone which is the pledge of His personal
friendship, and none knows what that is but he who
receives it. New thought, new light, new vision
follow. Dante embodies the thought of many
mediaeval saints when he speaks of God as the mirror
of the new life. For all things are now seen in God,
God is seen in all things, and all things are seen
as He sees them. What a revelation and what a
revolution !
Other results follow that I am not called upon to
trace. But the same acts wear an altogether different
aspect, according as they are done by a man of this
world, or by a man whose life is hid with Christ in
God. The Father who sees in secret has many ways
of rewarding His children openly which they them
selves do not know. It is the unconscious shining of
Moses face after his sojourn on the Mount which
produces a brilliance that others can neither under
stand nor imitate. There are many kinds of light, all
valuable in their place ; but what the world wants from
THE HIDDEN LIFE 309
the Christian upon moral, social, and high political
questions is a. .distinctive, higher kind of light, such as
never was on sea or land, which the true Christian
alone can shed upon them. If the Church neglects
her highest function for the sake of adding one more
to the multitudinous cries vociferated round us in the
modern Babel, the world will be impoverished and the
Divine purpose unaccomplished.
Where real life exists manifestation will take care
of itself. The underground river, fed from hidden
springs, will emerge in due time as a clear, full stream,
at which the nations may drink. The coral polyp
builds steadily on under the water amidst the ceaseless
beating of the surf, and ere long there appears above
the surface the atoll reef with its waving palms and
still lagoon. Realities have their own way of assert
ing themselves, even in a world of shadows often
mistaken for realities. The hidden life is the most
potent life, even amidst the half-lights of earth, and
the time will come when the day will break and the
shadows flee away. "When Christ, who is our life,
shall be manifested, then shall we also with Him be
manifested in glory."
MYSTICAL RELIGION
" We all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory
of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory
to glory, even as from the Lord, the Spirit." 2 COR. iii. 18.
"And looke at last up to that Soveraine Light,
From whose pure beams al perfect beauty springs :
That kindleth love in every godly spright,
Even the love of God, which loathing brings
Of this vile world and these gay-seeming things,
With whose sweet pleasures being so possest
Thy straying thoughts henceforth for ever rest. 11
SPENSER.
" We begin by degrees to perceive that there are but two
beings in the whole universe, our own soul and the God who
made it." J. H. NEWMAN.
" Till your spirit fillcth the whole world, and the stars are
your jewels; till you are as familiar with the ways of God in
all ages as with your walk and table . . . till you delight in
God for being good to all you never enjoy the world. The
world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet no man sees it. It is
the Temple of Majesty, yet no man regards it. It is a reign
of Light and Peace, did not men disquiet it. It is the place
of angels and the gate of Heaven." TRAHERNE.
XVI
MYSTICAL RELIGION
MAETERLINCK in one of his earlier essays says in a
notable passage, "A spiritual epoch is perhaps upon
us, an epoch to which certain analogies are found in
history. For there are periods recorded when the soul
in obedience to unknown laws seemed to rise to the
very surface of humanity, whence it gave clearest
evidence of its existence and its power. There are
centuries in which the soul lies dormant and slumbers
undisturbed . . . but to-day it is clearly making a
mighty effort, and it would seem as though humanity
were on the point of struggling from beneath the
crushing burden of matter that weighs it down."
Some readers of these words would say that in them
the wish was father to the thought, and the hope they
express too good to be realized. Materialism in fact,
if not in theory, is, we are often told, in possession of
the field; it beclouds our vision, clogs our aspirations
and hampers our best activities. The soul of man, it
might rather seem, in the beginning of the twentieth
century, is still heavy with sleep, and though at times
tossing uneasily in its slumbers, it is unable fully to
open its eyes, or lift itself to face the light of day.
Broad generalizations on either side as to the spirit
of the age are usually to be distrusted, but one sig
nificant fact will not be lost sight of by the careful
observer the striking revival of interest in Mysticism.
It is as difficult to keep the word out of current dis-
3*3
314 MYSTICAL RELIGION
cussions on religion as to keep the word Socialism out
of politics. Twenty years ago in this country both
names seemed to belong to the kingdom of the air,
practical Englishmen had little use for either. But as
" we are all Socialists now," so now we are all supposed
to understand that Mysticism is of the very essence of
religion. "Every one is something of a mystic; no
one is nothing but a mystic," wrote Father Tyrrell in
what was probably his last essay, published only since
his death. The ideas of vague speculation and dreamy
futility that had attached to the name have now given
place to keen appreciation of its vitality and import
ance. Special attention is paid to any living voices
that can speak with authority on the subject, while
there is a growing desire to know more of the history of
Mystical religion in the past and forecast its prospects
for the future.
Thus the pendulum of popular opinion on great
topics swings to and fro generation after generation,
and refuses at any stage to remain still in a position
of central equilibrium. But the curiosity of to-day is
hardly more intelligent than the apathy or contempt
of yesterday. Mysticism is still too little understood.
Confusion prevails even among experts on the subject,
so that a student who would begin by defining his
terms finds his authorities almost hopelessly at
variance. Noack, the author of one of the best
treatises in German on the mysticism of the Middle
Ages, defines it as "formless speculation," and R. A.
Vaughan, one of the best-known writers on the subject
in this country, defines it as "that form of error which
mistakes for a Divine manifestation the operations
of merely human faculties." Again, whilst Troilo s
definition of mysticism is "a pallid fluctuating phan
tasmagoria which takes the place of reality," Pfleiderer
MYSTICAL RELIGION 315
describes it as "nothing but the fundamental feeling
of religion . . . the religious life at its very heart and
centre." With him stands Edward Caird surely no
visionary who speaks of it as "religion in its most
concentrated and exclusive form, that attitude of man
in which all other relations are swallowed up in the
relation of the soul to God." If this be true, we are
not surprised to find another writer describing "dog
matic as the skeleton," mysticism as the "life-blood
of the Christian body " ; whilst Dr. Inge thinks the
shortest definition ever suggested one of the best
"Mysticism is the love of God." l
It would appear after all that Professor Pringle-
Pattison is nearest the mark amidst this chaos of
opinions when he says in the Encyclopedia Britan-
nica, "Mysticism is a phase of thought, perhaps rather
of feeling, which from its very nature is hardly sus
ceptible of exact definition." But in the excellent
article from which that sentence is taken, an article
worth many longer treatises, the writer shows that it
is exact definition alone that is lacking. He describes
Mysticism on its philosophical or speculative side as
"the endeavour of the human mind to grasp the Divine
essence or the ultimate reality of things"; while on
its religious and practical side it is "the enjoyment
and blessedness of actual communion with the High
est." The words that follow are most illuminating,
and in our opinion touch the very heart of the subject
"The thought that is most intensely present with
the mystic is that of a supreme, all-pervading and
indwelling power in which all things are one." The
fact is that in English one word is made to cover
several meanings. In German Mystik is used in a
1 It is attributed by Joly in his Psycholopv of the Saints to
Abb Huvelin. See pp. 37, 38.
316 MYSTICAL RELIGION
good sense to indicate the legitimate share which feel
ing possesses in the constitution of the religious life,
while Mysticismus denotes the one-sided and excessive
development of a religious principle in itself sound
enough. It is clear that careful discrimination is
necessary if one name is to include Montanists and
Methodists pseudo-Dionysius and George Fox St.
Francis, Meister Eckhart, and Swedenborg Scotus
Erigena, Jacob Bohme, William Law, and William
Blake; and if Neo-Platonists, Anabaptists, and
Moravians are all alike to find shelter under the
comprehensive hospitality of this one roof.
The questions thus raised are not merely historical
and academic. Scholars may be left to discuss the
most appropriate classification of thinkers in the past.
The Christian minister of to-day wishes to know how
it comes to pass that the same convenient name of
"mystic" is given to preachers so different from one
another as Alexander \Vhyte and R. J. Campbell :
whether both are right or both are wrong; or, if one
be right and the other wrong, how far the mysticism
of either is responsible for the result, and why. A
brief answer to these questions is not easy to gain.
Many books have been published on the subject during
the last decade, of which two are specially noteworthy.
Baron von Hiigel s treatise on The Mystical Element
of Religion runs to nearly a thousand closely printed
pages and is largely concerned with Catherine of
Genoa, whilst the learned and exceedingly able
analysis of mystical processes which concludes his
second volume is written in so involved and technical
a style that the average reader can hardly be expected
to toil through it. Professor Rufus Jones s Studies
in Mystical Religion are mainly historical. He
surveys the movements in the Christian Church, which
MYSTICAL RELIGION 317
may properly be described as mystical, from primitive
times to the seventeenth century, though the treatment
of the Reformation period is avowedly scanty, in view
of companion volumes subsequently to appear. Dr.
Inge whose volume of Bampton Lectures of 1899
remains on the whole the most useful guide for the
English student of Christian Mysticism has in his
Margaret Lectures of 1906 described a few English
mystics in a popular, but not superficial, fashion. His
list includes Juliana of Norwich, Walter Hylton, and
William Law, together with chapters on Wordsworth
and Browning. The introductory Lecture on the
Psychology of Mysticism is the most valuable in the
volume.
I
Our present object is briefly to indicate some of the
widely differing tendencies which go under the general
name of Mysticism, to discriminate between them,
inquiring how much they have in common and where
they diverge, criticizing each according to the direc
tion, desirable or otherwise, in which they respectively
move. It will be convenient to begin by delimitating
the subject.
In its widest sense the name Mysticism is employed
to describe the sense of the Infinite, of a relation to a
Being within, above, and around us the transcen
dental element which belongs to philosophy, literature,
and art as well as to religion so far as this is realized
in personal experience. Hence Mysticism has been
found in Spinoza and Hegel, Burne-Jones and Hoi-
man Hunt, as well as in Augustine and John of the
Cross. Harnack says of Neo-Platonism, "The in
stinctive certainty that there is an eternal highest good
318 MYSTICAL RELIGION
lying beyond all outer experience, and yet not an
intelligible good this feeling and the accompanying
conviction of the entire worthlessness of all earthly
things, were produced and fostered by Neo-Platonism.
... It begot the consciousness that the only blessed
ness which can satisfy the heart must be found else
where than in the sphere of the reason. That man does
not live by bread alone, is a truth that was known
before Neo-Platonism ; but it proclaimed the deeper
truth, which the earlier philosophy had failed to recog
nize, that man does not live by knowledge alone." 1
So far Neo-Platonism was mystical. It was not con
tent to abide by the Arabian distinction between Abul
Khain the mystic and Abu AH Seena the philosopher.
When these conferred together, on parting the philo
sopher said, "All that he sees, I know," and the mystic
said, "All that he knows, I see." The true mystic
claims to "see " much more than any philosopher can
"know." But Neo-Platonism "led nowhere." It
exalted feeling at the expense of thought, and its
disciples were lost in a sea of vague emotion, whilst
Spinoza and Hegel identify thought with reality and
may be described as rationalists rather than mystics.
Only in a general sense can the term be applied to
poets like Spenser and Wordsworth, to the suggestive
symbolism of the artist Watts, or to transcendental
moralists like Emerson.
Mysticism is properly religious. By this we mean
that neither art nor philosophy nor literature can fill
out the proper connotation of the term. The mystic
does not merely reach forth towards the transcen
dental; he has been brought into immediate contact
with it by personal experience, and to the Infinite he
1 Dogmen-Geschichte, Vol. I, p. 725. Eng. Trans., Vol. I,
P- 344. 345-
MYSTICAL RELIGION 319
gives the name God. True, that sacred term may
be very differently interpreted. It is very variously
understood by the Pantheist of the Vedanta, the Sufist
of Persia, and the Buddhist seeker after the Way.
That which all mystical religionists possess in common
is a reaction of the soul against ceremonialism and
dogmatism, and a pressing after direct communion
with the great Object of all worship. The mystic
professes to find where others only seek, to enjoy and
appropriate by direct communion that which ordinary
men are acquainted with only by the hearing of the
ear.
The Christian believes that what other religious
systems strive after, Christianity alone attains in its
completeness. He is not concerned to deny the value
of the hints and suggestions given by poets and philo
sophers; he recognizes that in the religions of the
world God has not left Himself without witness, but
has "made of one every nation of men for to dwell on
all the face of the earth . . . that they should seek God,
if haply they might feel after Him and find Him";
but that in and through Christ vital union with the
only true God is made possible for all, even for the
disobedient and evil. The Christian student prefers
in this instance to define by type, not by history. He
takes the ideal of what Mysticism ought at its best
to be, not the unworthy vagaries in which professed
votaries have indulged under cover of a noble name.
As in attempting to define religion, we are lost if we
seek to include under one general term all the historical
manifestations that have claimed the name. It is
preferable to ask what is the " nature" of religion as
indicated by its highest capacities and potentialities,
disregarding the excesses and extravagances by which
ignorant and fanatical disciples have often disgraced
320 MYSTICAL RELIGION
the religious character. From this point of view
direct communion with God is possible and has been
partially attained by many, the true way of full-orbed
realization, free both from excess and defect, being
found in Christ and Christianity. Hence Dr. R. C.
Moberly says, " It is Christ who is the true mystic ;
or, if the mode of expression be preferred, it is He
who has realized all that Mysticism and the mystics
have aimed at. ... In Him this perfect realization
means a harmony, a sanity, a fitly proportioned com
pleteness. . . . The real truth of Christian Mysticism
is in fact the doctrine, or rather the experience, of the
Holy Ghost. It is the realization of human person
ality as characterized by, and consummated in, the
indwelling reality of the Spirit of Christ, which is
God." i
But as some definitions have proved too wide, others
have been too narrow. The term is employed by
Roman and Anglo-Catholics of "mystical theology"
and "mystical interpretation of Scripture." The
former is sometimes identified with ascetical theology,
the science which treats of virtues and perfections and
the means by which these are to be attained. The
experimental side of the subject deals, says a high
Roman Catholic authority, with "a pure knowledge
of God which the soul ordinarily receives in a luminous
darkness or obscure light of sublime contemplation,
together with an experimental love so intimate that
the soul, losing itself altogether, is united to God
and transformed into Him." Mystical Theology is a
science which considers "the acts of the experimental,
according to the authority of the Scriptures and the
contemplative saints, giving practical guidance for
1 Atonement and Personality, pp. 312, 314. We have slightly
altered the order of the sentences.
MYSTICAL RELIGION 321
those on the way to attain high contemplation." It
is clear that Roman Catholicism here assumes that
which it is our chief object to examine and understand.
By the " mystical " interpretation of Scripture is to be
understood the system of allegorizing. This kind
of exegesis distinguishes the " literal" from the
"spiritual" meaning of Scripture and professes to
penetrate through the husk of names and symbols to
an inner kernel of spiritual realities. But the method
is in itself so doubtful, and in some of its results
the treatment of the Song of Songs, for example so
mischievous, that it should be considered apart.
Disregarding, then, for the present the side-currents
of tendencies in ancient and modern philosophy on
the one hand and on the other the extravagances into
which Christian mysticism has too often been be
trayed, we may fasten attention on its main feature as
described by Professor Pringle-Pattison . " The mystic
maintains the possibility of direct intercourse with
this Being of beings not through external media such
as historical revelation, oracles, answers to prayer and
the like, but by a species of ecstatic transformation or
identification in which the individual becomes in very
truth partaker of the Divine nature. God ceases to
be an object to him and becomes an experience." Or,
as Dr. Inge puts it, "Mysticism is an attempt to realize
the presence of the living God in the soul and in
nature; or, more generally, the attempt to realize in
thought and feeling the immanence of the temporal
in the eternal, and of the eternal in the temporal."
Professor Rufus Jones somewhat more happily phrases
it as "that type of religion which puts emphasis on
immediate awareness of relation with God, on direct
and intimate consciousness of the Divine presence.
It is religion in its most acute, intense, and living
322 MYSTICAL RELIGION
stage." It is especially, we may add, a search for the
Divine within us, guided by an inward light of God
in the soul, rather than a revelation from without in
nature or in history. This knowledge being obviously
difficult to express, Mysticism largely uses symbols
to set forth its meaning. These, however, only too
easily lose their original significance and may be
mechanically and unintelligently employed. The type
of devout feeling thus indicated is, when sound, the
pith an d core of all true religion and pre-eminently
of Christianity, but as it is capable of perversion and
abuse, we proceed to inquire as to its legitimate
application and its healthy and harmonious realization.
II
The chief value of Baron von Hiigel s work apart
from its erudite investigation into the life and teach
ing of Catherine of Genoa lies in the analysis of
religion given by the author and the place assigned to
Mysticism in relation to it. In a philosophical intro
duction and again at the close of the whole investiga
tion see I. 51 foil, and II. 387 Baron von Hu gel
describes three great forces of the soul, with three
great elements of religion corresponding to them.
These are (i) sense and memory, by which we picture
and remember sights and scenes and symbols to
express thoughts and feelings supplied by society,
tradition, and environment. With this corresponds
the external, authoritative, historical, traditional and
institutional side and function of religion. (2) The
force by which we rationalize, analyze, and syn
thesize ; by which we weigh, compare, and combine
details and harmonize them in an intelligible whole.
With this correspond the critical-historical and syn-
MYSTICAL RELIGION 323
thetic-philosophical elements of religion, resulting in
positive and dogmatic theology. (3) Last and highest
come intuition, feeling, and volition. In this region,
by means of a dim but direct sense and feeling, we
gain an immediate experience of Objective Reality,
the Infinite and Abiding Spirit which penetrates and
works within the finite spirit and in the world at large.
We are thus brought to the Mystical and directly
operative element of religion the Experimental.
Each of these three elements of religion is capable
of being carried to excess, and of this the history of
religion furnishes abundant examples. An exagger
ated insistence on the first leads to a preponderance
of the objective, institutional ecclesiastical element, as
in Judaism, heathen Rome, Eastern Christianity and
especially the sacerdotalism and sacramentalism of the
Church of Rome. The second element when per
verted issues in Rationalism, as illustrated by the
Sadducees in the time of Christ, and the Aufkldrung
of the eighteenth century, in the critical processes of
which the heart of religion was eaten out and its
deepest essence destroyed. But the third element also
is capable of perversion, when it becomes Emotional
Fanaticism ; illustrated sometimes in an extreme
asceticism as in the Fathers of the Desert, sometimes
in excesses and immoralities, as in the case of the
Anabaptists of Munster. The three elements, how
ever, are always found more or less fully in combina
tion ; there is no example of either, taken purely and
alone. Von Hugel traces the development of each
in the various ages of man childhood, youth, and
maturity; in various races, such as the Latin and the
Teutonic; in the leading historical religions, which
show sometimes one element predominating, some
times another. The treatment given to this part of
Y 2
324 MYSTICAL RELIGION
the subject is for the most part excellent, though some
of the illustrations are strained and fanciful.
But it is clear that the soul can only attain full
development when due proportion is observed in the
characteristics of its religion. If the "Historical-
Institutional " element possesses affinities with legal,
social, and political history; if the "Critical-Specula
tive " element is cognate with philosophical insight
and general intellectual advance; the "Mystical-
Operative " element utilizes chiefly the emotional and
volitional gifts peculiar to certain ages and peoples
and lays special stress on experience and character.
It vindicates the importance of direct experience of
God as against mere traditional orthodoxies and
religious habits and ceremonies which in themselves
are but means of grace. So also it lays stress on
personal experience as against mere intellectual
reasoning on finite data which can only result in
human generalizations and cannot reach to the
Infinite. None the less it is dangerous to rely on
separate, individual, self-supported personal experi
ence. Von Hugel calls this " Exclusive " Mysticism,
and shows how one-sided and misleading it becomes
through ignoring other important elements of soul-
nature. He shows, in unnecessarily technical lan
guage, how the individual souls depends for the ful
ness and healthiness of even the most purely mystical
acts and states upon "its past and present contacts
with the Contingent, Temporal, and Spacial, and with
social facts and elements," as well as upon its inward
concentration and direct contact with the Infinite
within and around it. Only thus does Mysticism
attain to its full significance and real power. This
consists in being, "not everything in any one soul,
but something in every soul of man " and in its
MYSTICAL RELIGION 325
amplest development it presents in specially gifted
natures what in some degree and form is present in
every truly human soul. Thus "Pure" Mysticism,
as Von Hugel not very happily styles it, becomes false
Mysticism, whilst " Partial " or "Inclusive " Mysticism
retains the strength and avoids the weaknesses and
dangers of the "Exclusive" type by maintaining
alliance with all parts of a man s nature and all the
sides of his life.
Without accepting this analysis as adequate and
exhaustive, we may learn much from it. It would be
perhaps more satisfactory to describe Mysticism proper
as the experience of the Soul or Self as a whole, with
intellectual, emotional, and volitional elements, each
needing to be kept in its place. The same may be
said of Von Hiigel s "seven pairs of weaknesses and
strength," which he considers to be characteristic of
mystical religion. He shows how the mystic is strong
and joyful in his inward, contemplative life and weak
in his neglect of the absolutely necessary contact of
mind and will with the things of sense ; how he
delights in "all that approximates most nearly to
Simultaneity and Eternity," but is apt to be defective
and unsatisfactory in his attention to the successive
and temporal presented by history. Under five other
similar pairs of categories the author works out his
ideas in an interesting and highly elaborate way. We
may attempt in humbler and simpler fashion to point
out some of the dangers, as well as the inestimable
value, of the Mystical Element in religion.
Ill
One notable danger is on the side of Pantheism.
Corruptio optimi pessima. The higher that man tries
326 MYSTICAL RELIGION
to climb, the greater is his danger if he fall. The
mystic who seeks to attain direct communion and close
union with the Deity must beware; the waxen wings
of Icarus melt long before he approaches the glowing
splendours of the sun. If the danger of full-fledged
Pantheism is a real one, constantly recurring in
history, the danger of Pantheistical tendencies is still
greater. Serious mischief may be done without
accepting Pantheism in its logical completeness and
vigour; the sweep of the dliter currents of a whirlpool
may easily carry away and drown a swimmer who is
not sucked down and overwhelmed in its very vortex.
Such truth as lies in the heart of Pantheism a genuine
Theist must ever seek to maintain. He believes in
the Divine immanence in nature and in man, as well
as the possibility of direct unmediated communion
with the Godhead, but he must beware lest he "strive
to wind himself too high for sinful man beneath the
sky." The Pantheist boldly asserts that God is All
and All is God. These two statements are not iden
tical. They imply respectively (i) that God is the
Whole, the Substance of which all finite beings are
particulars; and (2) that every part of the universe
belongs to the essence of God, who is equally mani
fested in all details. The Theist may stop far short
of this extreme position and yet be in danger of error.
The mystic always rests on the fundamental position
that "God s all, man s nought," without sufficiently
considering that
"Also God, whose pleasure brought
Man into being, stands away
As it were a handbreadth off, to give
Room for the newly made to live,
And look at Him from a place apart,
And use his gifts of brain and heart,
Given indeed, but to keep for ever."
MYSTICAL RELIGION 327
It is the lack of belief in a personal God that con
stitutes the essence of Pantheism, and in our own day
the difficulty ot realizing the true personality of God
is felt by many very keenly. "Any philosophy," says
Dr. Flint, a high authority on Theism, "which is in
thorough earnest to show that God is the Ground of
all existence must find it difficult to retain a firm grasp
of the personality and transcendence of the Divine."
So, we may add, any religious man who considers
the end of religion to be, not the knowing God, fear
ing, trusting and obeying Him, but the being able
by transcendent experience to enjoy immediate and
complete union with the Source of all knowledge and
grace, must find it difficult to preserve a due sense of
man s apartness and alienation from God, all relations
seeming to him poor and distant compared with a
present realization of ineffable union with Him who is
the Ground and Goal of all being.
Hence we are not surprised to find in the history of
even Christians that a strong Pantheistical current has
been present throughout, flowing from Neo-Plato-
nism, through the pseudo-Dionysius into the mediaeval
Church, very marked in Scotus Erigena and appear
ing more faintly in Eckhart and Tauler. The mystic
longing for unity easily loses sight of the transcend
ence of God in His immanence ; insisting on the death
of self, he finds his consummation in absorption into
Deity; believing that it is possible for him to slip the
fetters of space and time, his world-view tends to
obliterate the distinction between God and the
creature. A man may go as far as this in practice
without accepting the full Pantheistic position. The
latter, indeed, so far from being exceptionally religious,
is, strictly speaking, destructive of religion. Rauwen-
hoff says, "Only in name is Pantheism a religious
328 MYSTICAL RELIGION
position at all, it is a simple view of the world, not a
religious conception." Professor Wallace in his
Gifford Lectures puts the matter thus : "The religious
man aims at a growing and increasing divinity or
likeness to God; if this likeness reach its ideal limit
in identity with the Divine nature, then it is no longer
strictly to be entitled religion." He who begins by
making God all, ends by making Him nothing. He
who strives to rise above reason shall find himself fall
outside of reason; he who would raise human nature
above itself to make it divine, will find that he has
only lowered the Divine to the human level. Eckhart,
whom Dr. Inge calls "the greatest of all speculative
mystics," is a conspicuous offender in the use of dan
gerous phraseology, which yet falls short of theoretical
Pantheism. In his view the Godhead is the abiding
potentiality of being, containing in itself all distinc
tions as yet undeveloped. As all the phenomenal
world comes from God, so all goes back to Him again.
The human soul is a microcosm which in a manner
contains all things. "At the apex of the mind there
is a Divine scintilla, or spark, which is so closely akin
to God that it is one with Him and not merely united
to Him." This is the organ by which our personality
holds communion with the Divine Being, so that "the
eye with which I see God is the same as that with
which He sees me." Dr. Inge says that this "un
created spark " is really the same as the grace of God,
but the change of phrase indicates a changed point of
view ; in Eckhart the grace of God is God Himself
acting. Thus Teresa says, "In the beginning I did
not know that God is present in all things. . . . Un
learned men used to tell me that He was present only
by His grace. I could not believe that. A most
learned Dominican told me that He was present Him-
MYSTICAL RELIGION 829
self this was a great comfort to me " (see Von Hugel,
ii. 324).
The language of true Christian religion is not
Pantheistic, but Panentheistic ; that is, it does not
obliterate the distinction between the Divine and the
human, but emphasizes the reality and intimacy of
the Divine indwelling where the necessary conditions
are duly complied with. Even this doctrine, says
Dr. Inge, which is an integral part of Christianity,
may be so taught as to lead to error. "In proportion
as the indwelling of God, or Christ, or the Holy
Spirit, in the heart of man is regarded as an opus
operatum, or as a complete substitution of the Divine
for the human, we are in danger of a self-deification
which resembles the maddest phases of Pantheism."
IV
A kindred danger of Mysticism is that of dispensing
with all mediators and mediation. The Society of
Friends reject sacraments and lay slight stress on the
use of Scriptures. But some mediaeval mystics would
dispense with Christ Himself as Mediator, or at least
would pass beyond Him to the Absolute, using Him
as a mere step to a higher grade of spiritual attain
ment. Christians of this type dwell much on the
doctrine of the Spirit an excellent feature in any
theology, when it is not carried to excess. But at
the time of the Reformation dangers were rife at
this very point. Of Sebastian Frank, Luther said
in his uncompromising fashion, "I will not even
answer such men, I despise them too much. If my
nose does not deceive me, he is an enthusiast or
spiritualist, who is content with nothing but spirit,
spirit, spirit, and cares not at all for Bible, Sacrament
or Preaching." Some of the best mystics dwell upon
330 MYSTICAL RELIGION
the doctrine of Christ in us rather than Christ for
us so emphatically that they find little need of Christ
at all except as a pattern of self-sacrifice. When
Ruysbroek writes, "Contemplative men should rise
above reason and distinction, beyond their created
substance and gaze perpetually by the aid of their
inborn light, so that they become transformed, and
one with the same light by means of which they see,
and which they see," it is clear that as a Christian
he is out of his depth and is in danger of being
submerged in a sea of religiosity. The thought of
the sinner saved by grace alone has vanished out
of sight. But the history of Christendom shows only
too clearly and painfully that the one safeguard of
true holiness in heart and life is to preserve this
central truth of evangelical Christianity supreme unto
the end.
Two opposite tendencies were present in mediaeval
Mysticism which have been called subjective and
objective. The subjective type became "entangled in
theories which sublimate matter till only a shadow
remains," whilst objective Mysticism emphasizes and
finds chief delight in palpable supernatural manifesta
tions. Curiously enough these strongly contrasted
tendencies which led men to the most widely separ
ated extremes of thought resulted in similar evils in
practice. Just as the earlier Gnosticism led in one
direction to extreme asceticism and in another to
unbridled self-indulgence, so mystical teaching may
lead either to contempt of the world by the pathway
of pure contemplation, or may result in excessive
attention to rites and ceremonies as the vehicles
whereby higher spiritual knowledge and experience
are to be attained. Both are seen in the monasticism
of the Middle Ages. The unio mystica of the monk
MYSTICAL RELIGION 331
implied such immediate vision of God that the eye
must be closed to the phenomenal world, the intellect
and will must be laid asleep ; and the world of nature
and of man was viewed as full of evil, tempting the
soul away from God. "The beauty of nature was
ignored, the beauty of woman was a snare and a
temptation " ; hence two main sources of higher know
ledge were closed, two chief methods of rising to
intercourse with Infinite love and goodness were shut
out as in themselves dangerous and evil. The God
of such a devotee is a blank. The highest spiritual
condition is described as "The obscure night of the
soul," detachment from all earthly light is so com
plete. The "three silences of the soul," as taught
by Molinos, are well known and form the theme of
one of Longfellow s sonnets. These are, the silence
of words, of desires, and of thoughts. "In the last
and highest the mind is a blank and God alone speaks
to the soul." In point of fact, w r hen man seeks thus
to abstract himself from appointed sources of Divine
knowledge, if he hears a voice at all, it is often not
that of God, but of the devil. Fenelon guarded
against the practical dangers implied in some of the
teaching of Catherine of Genoa and Madame Guyon,
though at the expense of his own logical consistency.
He had the good sense and the piety to perceive that
the line and plummet of logic could not sound the
depths of the ocean of the Divine love, or even man s
apprehension and enjoyment of that love in its length
and breadth and depth and height.
The mystic of another type is prone to sacrament-
alism. He lays excessive stress upon the symbols
which to him are sacred vehicles of Divine grace and
channels of Divine life. Dr. Inge finds even in St.
Paul and St. John traces of "that psycho-physical
332 MYSTICAL RELIGION
theory which demands that the laws of the spiritual
world shall have their analogous manifestations in the
world of phenomena." This connection between the
spiritual and the material is, according to the mystic,
not arbitrary or accidental, it is based on the life
that is within life. The "correspondences " of Sweden-
borg form a conspicuous illustration of this doctrine.
Its dangers are as obvious as its beauty and suggest-
iveness. But the field opened up by the use and
abuse of symbols is far too wide to be entered upon
here.
If Mysticism be preserved from these and other
perversions and aberrations, it seems impossible to
lay too great stress on its value and importance.
Even to enumerate its services to religious thought
and life would need considerable space. For (i) it
lays stress upon personal experience. It finds the
essense of religion, not in knowledge, not in feeling,
not in mere conduct, but in direct contact with spirit
ual realities. (2) It constitutes the vital principle of
all spiritual religion, and has again and again shown
its inherent power of accomplishing a reformation in
times of religious decadence and degeneration. Even
when alloyed with serious faults, as in the case of
Montanism, it has uttered an effective protest against
the numbing influences of formalism and ecclesi-
asticism. The sixteenth and eighteenth are not the
only centuries in which an evangelical revival has
found its life and energy in the principles of
"mystical," or, as many would prefer to say, "experi
mental," religion. (3) It vindicates the sphere of the
transcendental. The World beyond the world so
MYSTICAL RELIGION 333
easily fades from view. "The world is too much with
us," so much with us that men assure themselves
there is nothing beyond it, and the Church has often
lost the sense of its true vocation as a witness to the
Life which is above life. Thirty or forty years ago
all witness of this kind was laughed to scorn by many
" philosophers " and nearly all men of science. The
present generation has experienced a wholesome
reaction against the tyranny of materialism. The
influence of such men as Professor William James
and Sir Oliver Lodge has reached where sermons and
avowedly religious lectures would be powerless.
That glimpses into a higher region than that of space
and time are possible for men here and now has been
testified to in hundreds of instances, of which the
recorded experiences of Tennyson and J. A. Symonds
are notable examples. Mystics of all creeds unite
here; and the strong and sane vindication of the
reality and paramount importance of the spiritual
world which these have furnished is one notable sign
of the times outside, as well as inside the pale of
the Churches.
But (4) the immense practical energy which mystics
have infused into the Church must never be forgotten.
General Gordon was described as "a practical
mystic," but he by no means stands alone. If real
service to the world be considered, rather than the
kind of service which the world as such desires,
practical mystics must be accounted the rule, not the
exception. Professor Rufus Jones well says, "Far
from being the unpractical, dreamy persons they are
too often conceived to have been, mystics have
weathered storms, endured conflicts, and lived through
waterspouts which would have overwhelmed souls
whose anchor did not reach beyond the veil. . . .
334 MYSTICAL RELIGION
They have been spiritual leaders, they are the
persons who shifted the levels of life for the race."
This heightening of power for service can only come
from above to those whose souls are prepared for
supernal influences. Where ability to serve in some
capacity or other is not increased by communion with
the Highest, the reality of such communion may be
questioned. For the proof of this we should not
point so much to those rare, choice spirits who have
been finely touched for finest issues, but rather to the
working of true experimental religion in average men
and women. The healing of the world lies in the hands
of its nameless saints. As Professor Jones says.
"There are multitudes of men and women in out-of-
the-way places, in backwoods, towns and uneventful
farms, who are the salt of the earth and the light of
the world in their communities, because they have
had experiences which revealed to them Realities
that their neighbours missed, and powers to live by
which the mere * church-goers failed to find." The
chief mistake of Professor James s fruitful volume on
the Varieties of Religious Experience is that the
author builds so largely on the morbid experiences
of exceptional persons the hysterical and neurotic,
the fanatical and eccentric. To understand the work
ing of any force, its ordinary, not its extraordinary,
operations must be examined. In this case particu
larly it is necessary to ask, What heightening of the
powers, if any, is produced by the inward experi
ences of mystical religion, when there is no excep
tional genius to work upon on the one hand, nor any
ill-balanced and nervously excitable temperament on
the other ? The whole case may safely be rested on
the answer to this question. That sense of partaking
in a higher life, of being flooded by waves of broader
MYSTICAL RELIGION 335
influence from beyond, which marks the "inspira
tion " of the- artist, belongs in a still loftier degree
to the mystic. When the self as a whole, including
mind and body, feeling and will, is pressed into the
service of a Higher Self who pervades and sustains
and uplifts the whole nature of a man, it were a
marvel if spiritual energy in practical life were not
generated. "Where there is no vision, the people
perish," or "cast off restraint," says the wise man.
For spiritual insight furnishes both stimulus and
orderly control. The spirits of the prophets should
always be subject to the prophets; and when that is
the case other spirits are subject to them also.
"Tasks in hours of insight willed
May be in hours of gloom fulfilled."
False mysticism may produce disorder, true mystical
religion develops a divinely controlled and ordered
energy which becomes a very fount and spring of
beneficent service.
VI
Few better illustrations of the whole subject, with
its blending of light and shade, could be found than
those connected with the life and work of John
Wesley. With a brief reference to examples familiar
to the memories of many of our readers this article
may well be brought to a close. The spiritual crisis
which changed the current of Wesley s religious life
determined, as has often been pointed out, the char
acter of Methodism. This word, when first used as a
nickname at Oxford, bore a very different meaning.
It was given to the members of the Holy Club
because they laid so much stress on means and
methods, the externals of religion. And whilst
336 MYSTICAL RELIGION
Wesley and his companions were undoubtedly
divinely moved from the first and the activities of the
mission in Georgia were prompted by earnest
religious feeling, Wesley so far changed his views
after the experiences of 1738 that he questioned
whether he were indeed a true Christian before then.
The religion which he taught his followers and
which so mightily moved the people wherever he went
was not the rigid asceticism and laboured obedience
of his earliest ministry, but the mystical religion
which took its rise in the room in Aldersgate Street.
He was influenced, as he himself has told us, by
a Kempis and Taylor, Behmen and Spenser, and
especially by William Law. But it was the teaching
of the Moravians that moved him most deeply and
changed him most effectually. Humanly speaking,
if he had not met Peter Bohler the stream of his life
would have flowed down a different channel. In the
eyes of the historian, as well as of the casual observer,
Wesley s Methodism is one of the best examples of
Mysticism known.
Yet we find Wesley inveighing against the mystics
in vehement terms. They are of all enemies to
Christianity the most dangerous. "They stab it in
the vitals." The whole of Behmenism is "sublime
nonsense, inimitable bombast, fustian not to be
paralleled." The mystic writers are "one great anti
christ." Luther s Galatians, esteemed a classic of
Protestant religion, is condemned by Wesley as
"shallow, muddy and confused," because it is
"deeply tinctured with Mysticism and hence often
dangerously wrong." Here is a clear illustration of
the need of first defining our terms. Wesley was
charged by the sober-minded Anglicans of his time
with "enthusiasm," an accusation which he indig-
MYSTICAL RELIGION 337
nantly repudiated; he passed on the indictment and
in still more emphatic terms denounced now Zinzen-
dorf and his followers, now the " French prophets,"
now Luther and now Behmen, as if their mystical
enthusiasm made them to be worse than infidels. If
Mysticism meant Quietism, Antinomianism, or
fanaticism of any kind, Wesley would give it no
quarter. But if it is understood to mean immediate,
experimental knowledge of God and Divine things
obtained through Christ and the operation of the
Holy Spirit in the heart, it was the very life-blood
of Wesley s religion and the secret of his success as
an evangelist. The Christian Library in fifty
volumes, which represents Wesley s chosen anthology
from Christian divines of all ages, is rich in mystical
treatises. It contains selections from F6nelon,
Molinos, and William Law, whilst Wesley himself
published a Life of Madame Guyon and often quotes
writers of her school approvingly. He aimed, as he
says in one of his letters, at retaining the good that
is in them "without the dross, which is often not only
useless, but dangerous." Wesley s eminently sane,
self-controlled, and practical mind was not attracted
by the emotional extravagances which often dis
figured genuinely evangelical Mysticism, whilst his
passion for righteousness, for thorough Scriptural
holiness of heart and life, prompted him to denounce
in unmeasured terms the Antinomian errors which in
his judgment were making Christ the minister of
sin and turning the vti y grace of God into lascivi-
ousness.
But Wesley s Methodism is mystical to the core.
His definition of saving faith and the stress which
he himself always laid upon the crisis of May 1738
prove that in his judgment the essence of religion
z
338 MYSTICAL RELIGION
lay not in creed, not in worship, not in conduct, but
in inward personal experience. For better, for worse,
his followers have followed him in this. That this
principle was in the main right, true, and both world-
healing and world-purifying, history has proved.
That it also carries in its train dangers against which
the utmost watchfulness can with difficulty prevail,
history has also proved. But the dangers which
attended the movement in Wesley s lifetime and since
do not attach to the doctrine as he taught it. The
way in which he preached Christian perfection is a
proof of this. So many are the safeguards, fences,
and cautions with which Wesley surrounds his
description of the state and the way to reach it, that
many of his opponents say that, whilst explaining,
he has explained it away. This is not really the case,
as every candid student of Wesley s teaching con
cerning this loftiest of attainable Christian experi
ences must admit. But there is prima facie ground
for the objection, and the whole of Wesley s "Plain
Account " furnishes an instructive example of the way
in which a great Christian mystic set to work to prune
a too luxuriant plant of leaves and branches which
in his judgment were deleterious to the growth and
highest productiveness of a fruitful vine. That his
teaching has been misrepresented in controversy and
often perverted in practice is not surprising, but no
saner enthusiasm, no more practical Mysticism, is to
be found in the whole history of mystical religion
than that of John Wesley.
The result of our brief examination into the mean
ing of a much-abused word has been to demonstrate
the difficulty, if not impossibility, of defining exactly
so elastic a term, so protean a spirit, as that of
Mysticism. Professor W. James s "four marks"
MYSTICAL RELIGION 339
ineffability, noetic quality, transciency and passivity
prove little or no better than the "marks" of other
writers. To say that the mystical sense defies
expression ; that it implies states of knowledge, which,
however, speedily pass away; and that it includes the
obedience of the will to a superior power which
grasps and sways it, does not leave us with a very
clear idea of what the essence of mystical experiences
is. The reason for this vagueness is that Professor
James desires to make his definition widely com
prehensive and not distinctively religious. Lectures
1 6 and 17 in his Varieties of Religious Experience
deserve and will repay careful study, but they illus
trate the wisdom of Pringle-Pattison s refusal to
frame an exact definition of Mysticism which we
quoted earlier in this article. A critic who has a
passion for accurate definition must first subdivide
mystical doctrines and movements into their several
classes and then provide each with its appropriate
label. No one form of words can suffice to char
acterize the almost infinite variety of mystical teachers
and movements to be found in the history of
Christianity alone.
Perhaps this elasticity, versatility, or variety of
adaptation furnishes one reason why Mysticism never
dies. There is " nothing of it that doth fade, but
doth suffer a sea-change into something rich and
strange." Mystical utterances possess, as W. James
phrases it, "an eternal unanimity which ought to
make a critic stop and think, and which brings it
about that the mystical classics have, as has been
said, neither birthday nor native land. Perpetually
telling of the unity of man with God, their speech
antedates languages and they do not grow old." In
the "infirmaries of the human soul, where all thoughts
340 MYSTICAL RELIGION
come day by day to die," says Maeterlinck, "you will
not find a single mystic thought." The true mystic
thinks, lives and acts sub specie eternitatis ; he "feels
through all this earthly dress, bright shoots of ever-
lastingness." It is these which preserve his life and
teaching and influence from perishing with the chang
ing years. Hence his words
"have power to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the Eternal Silence ; truths that wake
To perish never;
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavour,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy ! "
He who, in the phrase of that quintessential volume
of Christian Mysticism, the Theologia Germanica,
"is to the Eternal Goodness what his hand is to a
man," need fear no touch of change, no disintegration
of decay. To him the Eternal is as time and time is
as Eternity. For here and always he enjoys that life
which begins, and has no end, in God. For him the
light of true mystical union with the Abiding One
has dawned in its tranquil splendour, and the shadows
cast by the transient, the imperfect, and the unworthy
have passed away for ever.
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