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Macfarland, Charles S.
The infinite affection

THE INFINITE AFFECTION

Other books by Dr. Macfarland

The Spirit Christlike
Jesus and the Prophets
The Old Puritanism and

the New Age
Spiritual Culture and

Social Service
The Christian Ministry

and the Social Order
Christian Unity at Work

The Infinite Affection

4w«/ior of ''The Spirit Christlike,'" etc.

CHARLES S.^ACFARLAND

SECOND EDITION

BOSTON

Xlbe pilgrim press

NEW YORK CHICAGO

Published in England by
JAIVIES CLARKE & CO.

LONDON

COPYKIGHT, 1907,
BY

CHARLES S. MACFARLAND

THE PILGRIM PRESS
BOSTON

To My Teachers
at Tale

INTRODUCTION TO THE BRITISH EDITION
By Dr. John Warschauer, of London

It is a great pleasure to be given the opportunity of
writing for the publishers an introduction — so far as
the British public is concerned — to a new volume by
one of the most "rising" preachers and thinkers in the
Congregational ministry in the United States. For
several years past, many English congregations have
had the privilege of listening, during the summer
months, to Dr. Macfarland's stimulating utterances;
and the great body of friends and admirers which his
pulpit gifts have won him in this country make it
altogether appropriate that this latest of his spir-
itual messages should be placed before English
readers.

Still youthful in years. Dr. Macfarland combines,
in an exceptional degree, the erudition of the trained
scholar with the devotional temper of the Christian
prophet, and adds to this the broad, free outlook of
the typical modern in theology. A Yale man, he is
intensely proud of his alma mater, which in turn has
reason to be proud of him; and while the learning
the foundations of which he laid as a student, and
later as assistant in the theological and Biblical de-
partments of that University, is attested in his schol-
arly volume on "Jesus and the Prophets," his gifts as
a spiritual teacher were well exemplified in "The

INTRODUCTION

Spirit Christlike," and will no doubt make a still
wider ai3peal through the present work, which is in a
very real sense a preacher's confession of faith — liv-
ing words addressed to living men and women.

In an age w^hen there is much religious uncertainty,
when old creeds are seen to stand in urgent need of
revision in the light of new knowledge — an age of
manifold bewilderment and perplexity — we need the
preacher who strikes the positive note with a convic-
tion which, under all our modern changes, has only
deepened and grown stronger; the preacher who is
thoroughly equipj^ed with the methods and results of
the scholarship of today, and who, just because that
equipment is thorough, is as constructive as he is
unfettered, as reverent as he is sane, as profoundly
assured of the essential truth of Christianity as he is
ready to acknowledge Avith the utmost frankness what
science, criticism and philosophy have taught us in
these latter days.

Among such preachers Dr. Macfarland, in the
early years of his life, already occupies an honourable
place, and can hardly fail in the years to come to
occupy one of great power and influence. The Chris-
tian teacher who has faced the facts, who ignores
nothing, who is determined to deal candidly with the
great problems of religion, may not always address
the largest crowds, but he is sure of his own constitu-
ency, and it is a constituency that will not merely
remain faithful and grateful, but will naturally and
steadily enlarge. In these days of transition, espe-
cially, when so many feel that they have outgrown
the old presentations of the truth, there is on every

INTRODUCTION

side a reaching out, an intense desire, for a faith that
will satisfy the aspirations of the soul without coming
into conflict with the knowledge of the mind. It is
because Dr. Macfarland is one of the company of
latter-day prophets who have such a faith to impart
to others, that I should like this volume of his to
reach a large number of thoughtful men and women,
both within and without our churches.

I will in this connection quote some words Dr. Mac-
farland once said to me — words of special interest
because they furnish a piece of self-jDortraiture, an
indication of his own aims and methods as a teacher
of religion : "If we are to preach the newer views with
the maximum of effectiveness and the minimum of
friction, we must use the minimum of negation and
the maximum of affirmation, and we must not be im-
patient or intolerant. It is possible to be illiberally
liberal. Most of all, we shall do well to bring out
and lay continual stress upon the distinctively moral
and spiritual implications of the new position, show-
ing that it is really better than that which it displaces.
While there is a lower and a higher criticism, let us
bear in mind that there is still a highest criticism of
all: that wliieh goes beyond the literary form of
Scripture, and penetrates to its spiritual truth. It is
this 'highest criticism' which we must consistently
apply and practise in our preaching."

That is the man; to which I need only add — and
this is his book.

J. Waeschauer.

Preface

The following pages contain a Statement
of Faith presented, in part, to an Ecclesiasti-
cal Council of the Fairfield West Consociation,
convened at the South Norwalk Congrega-
tional Church, November 6, 1906.

It is published mainly because the congre-
gation of the South Norwalk Church has ex-
pressed the desire that it be preserved, in the
historic interest, and also for their own use.

Charles Stedman Macfarland.

The Congregational Parsonage,
South Norwalk, Connecticut.

Contents

I.

Inteoduction : Religion and

The-

OLOGY

.

11

II.

The Nature of God .

.

21

III.

The Place of Man in the

Uni-

VERSE

.

35

IV.

The Moral Opportunity of

Man.

63

V.

The Person of Christ

.

73

VI.

The Sovereignty of Christ

.

129

VII.

The Spirit of God

.

145

Introduction:

Religion and Theology

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God . . . with all thy
mind. — Matthew 22 : 37.

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY

It is, for some reasons, a good thing for a
minister to be called to a new parish. It is
well that when he is so called, he should appear
before a council of his fathers and brethren to
bear witness to his faith, to indicate the sub-
stance of his gospel, and to set forth in order
its fundamental grounds.

I am speaking of the value of this experi-
ence for himself. When other men ask him.
What do you believe? What is the sub-
stance of your gospel? he is called upon to
put the same questions to himself.

For many years, perhaps, he has been fol-
lowing the bent of his thought, from time to
time abandoning some positions, taking up
new points of view, seeking to follow the star
of truth, and from week to week delivering
his message as it may come to him, without
always taking into account the larger impli-
cations of his new conceptions. His ^^ little

13

14 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

systems have their day; they have their day
and cease to be," only, however, to be suc-
ceeded by others.

That his faith is an harmonious whole, at
least in its fundamental points, he believes.
It may be, however, that he does not pause
very often, or very completely, to set his
intellectual house in order, or to apprehend
that order as an order. Therefore, it is good
for him, at certain times in his life, to be called
upon to submit his theology to the thoughtful
consideration of thoughtful men, because he
is thus forced to submit it to his own con-
sideration.

The transition from one pastorate to an-
other offers him an opportunity and imposes
upon him the obligation to do this. Instal-
lation councils have this great value, if no
other.

The author of this book has been recently
called to do this. During seven years at the
university and divinity school, followed by
six years of preaching, he has sought to sat-
isfy the desire of every serious man to find
and speak the truth. Upon the assumption

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 15

of a new ministry he found himself called
upon to submit to a council of his peers and
fathers '^ a comprehensive statement of Chris-
tian doctrine," and to justify himself as a
religious teacher.

Perhaps the only value this book can claim
is this: it sets forth, at the close of his first
pastorate, the theology of a young man who
has hospitably submitted himself to what is
termed '^ modern thought." Therefore, if it
is not worth while in itself, it may serve in
some measure to indicate the symptoms and
trend of present-day theology. However in-
adequately this may be done, the writer does
not stand alone. He knows that a great body
of other men share his feelings and accept his
interpretations. He believes that, with all
his personal limitations, he represents a school
of thought. This does not mean, however,
that he means to ignore the fact that other
men, in ages past, have also done some think-
ing. He, with his modern brethren, has fallen
heir to a magnificent inheritance of truth. It
is his intention to build upon it, to fulfill
rather than to destroy.

16 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

The following pages thus constitute an at-
tempt to bring together, in related order and
within a brief compass, statements of our an-
cient faiths in modern form and language and
with present-day emphasis.

I have called this book by its title, because
I conceive of all divine response to human
seeking for the truth as the expression of
God's love for man and his affectionate inter-
est in man. I have tried to find a term to
satisfy my own desire and to express what I
mean by God. The most satisfying one that
I can find is " The Infinite Affection."

In the quest to apprehend the moral order
of the universe I find everywhere the response
of the divine love. It is the witness of God's
own nature as Creator and Preserver. It is
the witness of the soul of man upon whom
God has placed his own image. It is per-
fectly expressed in humanity in Jesus Christ.
The Holy Spirit is its interpreter.

It was Jesus, be it remembered, who laid
the obligation on his followers to use the in-
tellect in religion. He put it in a very strik-
ing way. He spoke of the " affectioa " of

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 17

the intellect. Man must love God mth the
mind. He believed that God and the eternal
order were worthy of the thought of man.

In the life of religion the knowledge of the
truth and the affection of consecrated devo-
tion are thus by God joined together and may
not by man be put asunder. Religion is both
thought and feeling. Only an artificial dis-
tinction separates the two. Theology is not
a superannuated appendix. It is an eter-
nally enduring science. Religion, without it,
is like

" An infant crying in the night:
An infant crying for the light:
And with no language but a cry."

The deification of law and nature is neither
religion nor theology. Over against nature,
a God can have neither beginning nor end.
He is the infinite subject of which the con-
gregation of objects in nature is one expres-
sion. Nature is an organism of intelligible
things. God is the eternal intellect himself.
While there cannot be antagonism between
the two, antithesis there must be. No one
can bow in reverence to a nature below him

18 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

or to an idea within hini. Religion, therefore,
in its soul, is reverence and homage to a su-
preme Mind and Will. To such a Being there
cannot fail to be a pathway from the sensitive,
the intellectual and the moral highways of
human life. Conscience may act as human be-
fore it is discovered to be divine. It does not
reach its height until the discovery is made.

In both worshipper and worshipped there
must be the same conscious moral order; one,
the infinite archetype, the other, the finite
image, susceptible to appeal and capable of
response. The moral consciousness of man
brings us face to face with the profound and
momentous questions as to whether its sov-
ereign intimations are verifiable and its re-
lations eternal. Ethics inevitably perfect
themselves in religion or degrade themselves
into some lurking form of Hedonism. The
life of duty must become the life of an enlight-
ened affection. This moral relation between
man and God needs to be adjusted to the order
of the universe. Impersonal impulse must
become personal affection and intelligent
conviction.

RELIGION AND THEOLOGY 19

The deeper man's religious experience be-
comes in the realm of the temporal, the pro-
foimder is his earnest interest in the eternal,
as " deep calleth unto deep.'' Thus

" BeUef or Unbelief
Bears upon life, determines its whole course."

The object of this book is to reveal, or,
perhaps better, to suggest, some processes of
thought, witnesses of revelation, and some
means by which the mutual relations between
God, man and the moral order may be gained,
intensified, witnessed and apprehended.

The Nature of God

God is Love. — / John 4 : 8.

THE NATURE OF GOD

The supreme and sovereign concern of hu-
manity is the relation of the human soul to
God. The quest for the Infinite is the chief
end of man. The longing for the Eternal is
the finest aspiration and the most universal
yearning of his soul. As the hart panteth for
the water-brooks, so thirsts the human heart
to know the living God, in whom we live and
move and have our being.

The sublimest scenes of human life are the
child at his mother's knee uttering the lisp-
ing but eternal language of the human heart,
and the aged saint, as the visions of the earth
fade away and its voices are lost, commend-
mg the fleeing soul to the eternal, living
God. The finest sight on earth is that of
God's children kneeling together, with eyes
and hearts uplifted, as they together say,
" Our Father." For an earnest man or

23

24 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

woman, life without God is an unspeakable,
unbearable burden.

Our Puritan and Congregational ancestors
left us a magnificent heritage of truth, and
above all things else they believed in God.
That belief was no vague and shadowy thing.
They believed in a sovereign God, They be-
lieved in Almighty God. This is the supreme
article of any faith. Every other is but an
inference from it and a corollary to it. It
determines the length and height and breadth
of a man's moral being.

The Puritans believed in Almighty God,
Maker of all things, Judge of all men, before
whom men were to acknowledge and bewail
their manifold transgressi^ons against his
divine majesty, by which they had justly
provoked the infinite wrath and indignation,
to whom they repented and prayed, Have
mercy upon us.

This conception of the absolute, eternal,
unmovable sovereignty of the Infinite, and
nothing less than this, is the ultimate and
fundamental of a profound religious faith.
The man is not worth his weight in dust who

THE NATURE OF GOD 25

does not stand in awe of God. In all history
and biography, in every age and clime and
nation, this has been the spirit that has hated
iniquity, broken tyranny, induced righteous-
ness, wrought liberty and made men worth
making. And there never was an iniquity
hated, nor a tyranny broken, nor a righteous-
ness induced, nor a liberty wrought, nor a man
worth making made without it.

Does this conception deny the fatherhood
of God? No! It is essential to it. The
father who does not rule his household with
his wisdom, uphold it with his strong arm
and guide it with his love, is no father at all.

But the super-eminent operation of the
universe upon man is the appeal of God. The
superior reaction of the soul upon the universe
is its response to the infinite appeal.

To know that there is a sovereign God is
not enough. The relation of the human soul
to the universal order is determined by the
ultimate nature of the Infinite.

The mind of man has spent itself in loftiest
achievement in its effort to apprehend the
divine nature and to think over after him the

26 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

thoughts of God. In the infinite energy that
creates and eternally sustains the universe
men have found the divine omnipotence and
universal sovereignty. In the reason at the
heart of things they have discovered the in-
finite, omniscient mind. But these are mere
approaches and do not satisfy the heart of
man. Beyond this outer Gentile court lies
the Holy place within the temple, the uni-
versal moral order in the experience of the
race. Still beyond lies the Holy of holies,
the place where the individual human soul
faces the eternal reality and makes its serious
quest to know the moral character and heart
of God. The earliest human soul began it.
Through patriarch and prophet the search
went on. And it ever was a measuring of
God by man. There was no other way or
light. Like only could answer unto like.
The growing revelation was God within man
responding to the God without. Men carried
back themselves to God. The limitation of
their view was from the fact that, with their
moral virtues, they traced back to the Infinite
their moral faults. It was so until Christ

THE NATURE OF GOD 27

came. In his holy Hght those who beheld
with clearest vision could see through the
shadows which men had cast upon God's
nature, and one of them, reputed nearest
Christ, saw and exclaimed, as he beheld the
infinite vision, " For God is love "; and the
final word was spoken.

Note the unqualifiedness of the utterance.
It is not, God has love; it is not, God loves;
it is not a quality shared in contrast to, or
shared with, others. God is love. It is spoken
as though he could be no more. It is spoken
as though he could be nothing less or else.
Men had spoken of the infinite love as a qual-
ity. Men have said, and some say now, " God
is just and righteous; nay, God must be just
and righteous. He may be loving." Let us
not hesitate to reverse the proposition. Never
mind if it denies tradition and theologic
thought. Never mind though it goes beyond
the conception of patriarch, prophet, psalmist,
priest. Let us say, " Let God be true though
every man be false."

If these have said, '' God will love the
good who love him; the Infinite will care for

28 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

those who worship his righteousness and ad-
mire his justice "; let us, even though we go
beyond our teachers, say: "We love him
because he first loved us. Before we loved
him, before we did his righteous will, he first
loved us, ' for God is love.' "

May we know the nature and the quality,
the scope in time, and space, of the love which
God is. Two other attributes of the Infinite
the mind of man has determined. He is ab-
solute and he is universal. For if in power
and presence God should fail at any single
point, the universe itself is insecure and may
be lost at any moment. The most fatal error
of the human mind is any forced limitation
of the Almighty. It is a contradiction in its
very terms. If, then, God is love, and if the
love of God be limited by either space or
time, he is no longer absolute and universal,
and he is hence no longer God. The limita-
tion of his love in time or scope is an inevi-
table atheism.

The sole hope of man is God. The sole
hope of retaining God is in the absoluteness
and the universality of the divine love. His

THE NATURE OF GOD 29

righteousness must be the righteousness of
love. His wrath must be the holy wrath of
love. His retribution must be the recom-
pense of love. They are all determined, lim-
ited, described, if God is love, by love. If
God is an eternal being, and if God is love,
then the love of God is nothing less than an
eternal thing. If God be universal and in
communication with every human soul, then,
when you bring these things together, it yields
the truth that the eternal love of God extends
eternally to every saint and sinner of the
human race. There is no other issue, be it
true that God is love. The love of the Eternal
for every human soul is an eternally enduring
love. Its universality in space and time
means its eternal endurableness, not only
alike for poor and rich, for white and black,
but for every sinner as well as for every saint,
for the child who is the prodigal in the far
country as well as for the brother obedient in
the home. The door of hope is never closed
by the Father's hand. There is no other pos-
sibility if God is love.
The simplest and the best that men can do

30 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

to gain the apprehension of the eternal Father
is to take the highest and the best in them-
selves and move it up to an infinitude in God.
In the middle ages of the Christian Church
theologic thought gave men a forbidding God.
That age is pictured in the Sistine Chapel in
Rome, where Jesus Christ is awfully pre-
sented as the relentless judge of men. So it
happened that men really turned away from
God and Christ, and that was how they came
to worship Mary. They took the best and the
highest in themselves; they found that in
motherhood. They wanted an infinite moth-
erhood. It was denied them, by the inter-
preters of thought, in God and Christ, and so
they turned to Mary. There was no other
way, there is no other way, to find the highest
good but by an infinite extension of the good
in self. Man must make his God an image
of the best he finds in the human heart.

" Not mine to look where cherubim
And seraphs may not see.
But — nothing can be good in Him
Which evil is in me."

How widely and how long does a mother-

THE NATURE OF GOD 31

love extend? Is it confined to the children
that are good? Is there not love for the wan-
dering, wayward child? But how long will
such a love last? When does it fail? Go,
ask the question of any mother. Say to her,
" Mother, how many of your children do you
love? Mother, how long do you mean to love
the one that grieves your heart? "

Why, then, with the issue so simple, have
men bounded the love of God by time and
space? It is because both moral judgment
and moral retribution raise their rightful cry.
But these are evidences of a love that is true.
It longs for goodness in the loved. Here again
the best in the human soul may be lifted to its
height in God. Our ideals of the state have
risen. The punishment of crime is the oppor-
tunity for reformation, not for vengeance.
So judgment and retribution are among the
evidences of the eternal love. If thus the
best of human love is no better than the love
divine, it must be true that the heart of the
eternal Father will never be satisfied until
the last child comes home.

The supreme appeal of the universe to man

32 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

is the appeal of love. If love should fail, no
hope is left. The human soul that was simply
won by a slavish fear of retribution would not
be won. There is one kind of evangelism
which does not evangelize. It is that which
fails to win by the ultimate appeal of love.
The love of God is like a mother's holy prayer,
that follows the son to the very ends of shame.
It is the one thing that never dies and never
can be put to death.

" They sin who tell us love can die."
" Its holy flame forever bumeth."

It compasses the path of men. It besets
them behind and before. Whither shall I go
from its spirit or whither shall I flee from its
presence? If I ascend up into heaven, it is
there. If I make my bed in hell, it is there.
If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell
in the uttermost parts of the sea ; even there it
seeks to guide and lead me. If I say, Surely
the darkness shall cover me, its light shall
never fail. No matter where my human soul
may be. Thou, God, seest me, and with the
eye of love. Our God is a consuming fire. It
is the holy flame of love.

THE NATURE OF GOD 33

" The wrong that pains my soul below
I dare not throne above.
I know not of his hate — I know
His goodness and his love.

" I know not where his islands lift
Their fronded palms in air.
I only know I cannot drift
Beyond his love and care."

" He that hath seen me hath seen the
Father." This utterance of the supreme re-
vealer of the Infinite involves, in equal meas-
ure, two profound, eternal truths. The one
is the divinity of Christ. The other is the hu-
manity of God.

God is the universal, absolute Reason and
infinite Affection, a personal Spirit, conscious
and self-directing, a being of moral perfection,
who holds moral relations with mankind, who
in absolute righteousness and supreme love
directs the universe to a wisely foreseen and
beneficent end. He is the supreme Thought,
the essential Mind, the infinite Intelligence,
the eternal Tenderness, who in perfect holi-
ness and never-ending love guides the human
soul to goodness.

34 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

" All's Love, yet all's Law," and all is law,
yet all is love.

What is the chief end of man? It is to
glorify God and enjoy him forever. No pro-
fomider question was ever asked; and no
better answer ever given.

The other question is equally legitimate
and commensurately deep. What is the
supreme intent of God? The answer is
equally as true. To glorify man and to eter-
nally delight in him.

These two eternal verities are the speech
which day imto day uttereth, and the knowl-
edge which is shown forth from night to night.

The Place of Man in the Universe

"Who was I, that I could withstand God? "—Acts
11:17,

THE PLACE OF MAN IN THE
UNIVERSE

In his recent book entitled " Man's Place
in the Universe," Alfred Russel Wallace
gives to human nature a sovereign position.
Amid the many systems with their myriads
of heavenly bodies, in a universe infinite in
time and space, the earth occupies a central
position in this almost unthinkable universe.
It seems to be the only inhabited or inhab-
itable planet in our own or in any other solar
system. Among the multitude of living
creatures on this earth, by an age-long pro-
cess of evolution, all has culminated in man.
Thus man k the superior being, not only on
this earth, but in the universe of many worlds.
Whether this be so or not, man is a sovereign
being.

It makes little difference whether we look
at it thus from the viewpoint of evolutionary
science or from another point of view. If we
follow the thought of Bushnell, and find the

37

38 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

dignity of man revealed in the ruins amid
which he has fallen; if we take the order of
thought in Genesis, and behold him as fallen
from his God-bestowed ideal; if we behold
him ideally in the person of the perfect man
Jesus Christ, we shall unite in the psalmist's
refrain, '' When I consider thy heavens, the
work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars,
which thou hast ordained,'' and witness man
as the superior being in this great universe,
made a little lower than God, and come to the
same thought, — the inherent dignity and
power of humanity.

I do not propose to follow the thought of
the narrator in Genesis, or of the psalmist, in
detail, and consider man's power over nature,
and how he harnesses the wind to do his bid-
ding, and draws the lightning from the sky to
serve his purpose. I bear witness concerning
man's place in the moral universe.

'' Who was I, that I could withstand God? "
Peter shared the Jewish view of divine sov-
ereignty. Everything that happened was by
the direct intervention of the Infinite. Man
had no power against God. This view was

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 39

right as an ideal view and in a moral universe
which had attained its true being; but it is
not an actual truth at the present stage, nor
will it be until God's will becomes man's will.

It is possible for man to withstand God;
to foil his divine attempts, to frustrate his
eternal plans, to temporarily defeat his holy
will. Man has and exercises a tremendous
power against God.

It is generally realized that a chief fault
of the theology which we have just outlived
was its determinism. It did not sufficiently
recogniae the voluntary limitations of the
Infinite. It obscured human volition and
responsibility. We are all come to feel pro-
foundly to-day, that man is the ultimate
architect of his own character; the hewer of
his own statue; the arbiter of his destiny. He
is not mere mobile clay in the hands of the
divine potter; he is morally self-determining.
It is the final verdict of observation, thought
and conscience, that man has, at least to a
large extent, his own moral way. To him
has been intrusted the power to determine
whether he shall do wrong or right. While

40 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

this truth has its hmitations and modifica-
tions, we, in our consciences, profoundly feel
that we are responsible for our own moral
volitions and actions.

The truth, however, is larger than this;
man is not only self-determining, but, in a
large measure, he determines and directs the
universal moral order. He can, and may,
withstand God, defy him and temporarily
defeat his purposes and plans.

The Old Testament Scriptures give us this
truth at the very beginning. It would be
well if men would study these Scriptures and
find such truths, rather than exhaust their
powers in critical and literary discussions.
Eden is the picture of God's plan. The fall
was man's destruction of that Eden, repre-
senting man's power to frustrate God. The
result is that the trend and hope of good is
hampered by the presence of human evil,
and human life has become like that of nature,
a varied one of sun and clouds.

In one sense it is true that the idea of sin
is sometimes overstated. Sufficient account
has not always been taken of the forces of

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 41

heredity and environment. Men are becom-
ing more cautious in their moral judgment.
They are not so anxious to usurp the divine
prerogative of distinguishing between their
fellows. Nevertheless, while no thoughtful
man will become a pessimist, neither will a
serious-minded man become a careless opti-
mist, ignoring the reality of the moral con-
flict between man and God.

It is a wonderful thought, the thought of
this power, this moral ability which God him-
self has given us, to interfere, to prevent and
stay the hand of God, and to obstruct the
moral order of the universe.

Yet it is easy to see the truth by analogy.
Let us consider man's power for evil in smaller
circles than the universe or the world. Let
us take one man in our thought as an example.
Here is the circle of the home; it may have
many members; it may have many influences
for happiness and good, j^et how absolutely
one member of that circle can destroy the
order of that home! Let us take the larger
circle of social life. What awful woe one
human being can bring about within that

42 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

circle, what terrible suffering! How many
hearts can he break! Take, if you will, the
circle of the church. How frequently one
member can stay its progress, destroy its har-
mony and temporarily dispose of its effect-
iveness! The moral power of a single
individual is tremendous. It is like the rip-
ple of the stone cast upon the waters; it goes
on, and on, and causes endless consequences.
So it is with this moral universe in which we
hve. God's plan is for the reign of goodness.
On every hand man is frustrating that plan.
God wants it to be a universe of love. His
plan is foiled by human hatred. He desires
it to be a universe of charity. Men violate
his will by their miserable censoriousness. It
is to be a universe of purity, but human vio-
lations sometimes make awful its defilement.
Its civic life is to be one of righteousness.
How the civic plans of the Eternal are des-
troyed! Jesus tells us that it is to be an
organization of fraternity. Witness man^s
grinding commercial competition! It is to be
a universe of truth. The plan is defied by the
prevalence of human suspicion. Its society is

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 43

to be one of mutual helpfulness. Witness the
rigid, miserable social distinctions of mankind!

Its ideal is that of human brotherhood
under the divine fatherhood. Over against
this behold the bitterness and strife of the
industrial order! A world in which all men
are to be free and equal. Over against this,
look at St. Petersburg and Constantinople!
Every man is to have the same rights. Wit-
ness some proposed solutions of the race prob-
lem. It is to be a universe of peace. Look
on the underlying suspicious watchfulness of
nation over nation! At any moment to-day
the immediate action of just one man in this
great world of men might set the nations of
the world at war.

While no man of thought and vision can
be a pessimist, neither can he be a self-satis-
fied and easy-going optimist. It is a preg-
nant and wonderful thought that our human
sin not only affects our individual selves; not
only interferes with the peace and order of
some narrow human circle; but, as one small
part of an intricate machine when out of
order destroys the effectiveness of the whole,

44 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

so our sinful acts affect the whole moral uni-
verse, are powers and fcfl-ces against God,
which perpetually disarrange the plans and
purposes of the infinite love and goodness.

Another thought, equally significant. In
a moral sense, God is powerless in the hands
of man. He can destroy man; he can send
floods and earthquakes; perhaps he some-
times does, to make men thoughtful. One
thing he cannot do: he cannot make men
good by force. The nature of the universe
forbids it.

A story is told of Principal Jowett, of
Balliol College. A student came to him with
the conceit that sometimes characterizes a
young man, and said complacently, " Prin-
cipal Jowett, as the result of my investigations
I have lost my belief in God." Mr. Jowett
looked him sternly in the face and said,
'' Young man, find it by to-morrow morning
at nine o'clock, or you will leave this college."
It is perhaps good as a story, but it illustrates
an impossibility; man cannot be made mor-
ally good by force.
. That man might have the dignity of self-

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 45

determination, God has yielded his own moral
sovereignty. Men ask, " Why does the In-
finite allow evil?" There are various an-
swers. The frankest, the best, is, that God
cannot help it in a universe of moral beings.
If men were mere puppets they would not be
moral beings, and there could be no moral
order. God means to be, not a sovereign des-
pot, but a father, even though it takes a long
time to attain his holy end. To illustrate:
here is your child. You cannot command
him and say, '^ Love me." You cannot
threaten him and say, '^ You must love your
brother." No more can the heavenly Parent;
but God wants love and goodness in the world.
While he has not invaded the sacred pre-
cincts of personality with force of arms, he
gives us opportunity; he gives us incentive;
he gives as one of his best gifts to us the spec-
ter of retribution that he may make us good.
And we live in a hopeless world, if we do not
believe in the ultimate victory of goodness,
if we do not feel that in the end love will be-
come supreme. We need also to realize, how-
ever, that every bad, unloving, untruthful

46 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

act, or thought of ours, serves to foil and
defeat the eternal goodness.

We pray, and I believe that we have the
right to hope, for the final sovereignty of
love, despite its delay by human freedom;
that some day the Infinite, who knows no
sense of time, to whom a thousand years are
but a day, will gain his ends. Can it be by
crushing men? Can it be by eternal separa-
tion? There is, at least, with all of us the
infinite hope that the victory of the infinite
love will be greater than that. Most of us
find it difficult to feel sure of ever winning all
men. We need to guard against an easy-
going satisfaction. Yet we have the right to
hold it as ideal, and even to hope, that some
day this moral universe will be under the
control of the infinite affection; that there is
" one God, one Law, one Element," and that
at least there may be '^one far-off divine
event, to which the whole creation moves.''
We may be hopeful, for all God's forces are
for the conquest of love.

Nevertheless, we can never lose our sense of
the awfulness of human sin. We should feel

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 47

ourselves awed, moved, by the tremendous
thought, that by our sins we exercise a power
against God, which, for the time being, defeats
and delays the sovereignty and sway of good-
ness, truth and love.

This is a one-sided affirmation. There is
another aspect of this truth which we may
witness later on, for we must try to see both
sides of it. Man's place in the universe? In
a large measure God has turned over his
moral universe into our hands, has given us
the privilege of helping him to bring his plans
to pass, and with it the necessary power to
deter his own eternal purposes.

Given thus a moral God, and man a moral
being, and we have certain implications.
The first of these deductions is the sense of
moral obligation. In the light of a God per-
fect in character, absolute in righteousness,
man beholds himself in contrast. He sees
and knows himself only as he knows and feels
God. The consciousness of God inevitably
brings this personal sense of human sin. We
can afford to dispense with original and theo-
retical sin. There is enough left that is actual

48 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

and undeniable. We admit that there are
crimes. All else we are prone to look upon as
infirmities. There is something between the
two. It is sin. We do wrongs; we do them
intentionally and volitionally. We repeat
them. We sin; we are sinful. The sense of
it is the first step to holiness. The better
men become, the keener is their consciousness
of it. No saint ever lived who did not feel it
deeply. The complacent self-satisfaction of
our generation needs humbling in the dust.
The conception of sin as an offence against an
outraged and righteously indignant God must
not become an unknown, unheard and for-
gotten thing. We must relearn the preach-
ing of it. This conception and consciousness
of God, with man's self-consciousness, gives
hun his relation to the universe. I live under
that all-seeing eye. This Infinite demands
righteousness of me. He sees my evil deeds
and knows my evil thoughts, and abhors
them. He rightly demands confession of
them and the substitution of repentance,
issuing in good works. Sin is an offence
against an outraged divine justice.

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 49

Does this impair the heavenly fatherhood?
Will a true father encourage his children
in their sin by countenancing it? Is God
a seller of indulgences? The fatherhood of
God calls for the forbidding of sin, and if he
ignores it he is no true Father.

If thus we follow an adequate conception
of God and its consciousness of sin in the light
of moral obligation, we are led on by the un-
deviating march of law and logic to another
ancient and much execrated doctrine. Cause
has relation to effect. Moral acts have their
inevitable consequences. Is there a judg-
ment? It is the question of an imbecile
mind. Do moral paths lead nowhere? Can
men break laws without consequences? Can
men break eternal laws without eternal con-
sequences? Try it. There is yonder lofty
colunm. There is a law called gravitation.
Break it, and step airily from the summit. To
break that law means death. Has the Infinite
been thus exact in the physical realm of law
and indifferent in the spiritual? Is the ma-
terial universe a cosmos and the spiritual a
chaos? The age to which we are called to

50 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

proclaim the truth needs to be told that
while it blinds itself to the eternal future, the
eternal laws of God move to their issues with
as certain and as ceaseless and eternal march
as if men saw them. They may hide their
heads beneath the screen of the coverlet, but
the lightning does not thereby cease to flash
nor lose its pathway to its mark. They may
bury their eyes in the desert sands, but they
do not thus annihilate the danger. The sim-
ple and undeniable truth needs to be dwelt
on, that there are two ways and trends of life

— to ruin and to blessedness; that every moral
decision of every moral being, that every
moral act of every moral personality, brings
it nearer the edge or center of a path. We
are false to ourselves, and commit a crime
against men, if we do not tell them they are
moving, either towards the heaven of a grow-
ing life, or towards a day of remorse, by
whatever name we call it.

Will there be a judgment? It is — now.
Science dares to state it for us in appalling
terms. It is called the survival of the fittest

— correspondence to environment. Philoso-

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 51

phy calls it cause and effect. Judgment is
but another way of stating the law of the sur-
vival of the morally fit, of correspondence
to divine environment. The evangelist who
warns men to seek the glory or to flee the
wrath to come is but stating a proposition in
mathematics. Two lines going in different
directions will never come together. The doc-
trine of divine judgment is the simplest and
most apparent of all truths. It is that every
man is free to go as he wills, and that he will
go where he goes. He is his own witness and
his own judge.

Are love and fatherhood impaired? No,
it is essential to them. This moral law of the
survival of the fittest has for its end to pro-
duce moral fitness. It could be produced no
other way. The freedom of the human will
involves it. And as moral fitness could be
produced by no other method, so moral fit-
ness never will be produced by any other
preaching than the solemn preaching of this
truth. Would he be a father if he let his
children sin against themselves? Would he
be a father if he let them misuse his other

52 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

children without punishment? The true fa-
ther wants his children to be good. To gain
this end he must, if he be true, use every
means.

God is so good and loving that he is con-
cerned that his children should have more
than enough to eat and drink. He is su-
premely concerned for their moral welfare.
He wants them to be righteous. He has
placed the barrier of retribution between
them and evil that they might turn from evil.
Judgment, retribution, punishment, belong
among the evidences of love.

It is the tendency of men and women to
evade these deep and serious issues of life, to
shut out the things that make them tremble,
to close their eyes to remote consequences,
to live in the present and ignore the future.
The age in which we live is characterized by
this desire to neglect the serious consideration
of human destiny.

Were this not so, men could never, as they
are doing, use the opportunities created by
an agitation in the ranks of labor to fill their
pockets at the expense of the suffering, hun-

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 53

gering, starving and freezing poor. Were it
not so, men could not recklessly use the gift
of public office for the gain of private greed.
Were it not so, the great mass of men and
women could not forsake the duties and be
indifferent to the obligations imposed by the
religious sense of man.

Everywhere about us, men and women sail
merrily on over the surface of an ocean deep
with eternal perils. The danger of our time
is the dulling and the death of conscience, the
loss of the sense of Almighty God, the blind-
ness that refuses to concern itself with the
supreme and ultimate ends of human life.

It is this moral obligation, this spiritual
sense, this divinely imposed responsibility
and, in the ultimate analysis, only this, that
makes us better than the brutes. To the
extent that we realize and meet these ends,
and only thus, are we above the beasts of the
field. This truth, modern thought, philosophy
and science make clear. Physically we are
one with the lower orders of nature. In men-
tal operations there is difference only in de-
gree. Mentality exists in the scales of life

54 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

below us. The sole prerogative of man,
which ultimately distinguishes him from his
ancestors hanging to the boughs and chatter-
ing in the tree-tops, is his conscious and vol-
untary moral action. The difference is this:
they were pushed on and upward to their end
by resident forces from behind. We have
been, not only thus, but also drawn by ideals
revealed from above. We have a higher resi-
dent force, the impulse to attain, a higher
inherent quality, the sense of responsibility
for our attainment. The difference and the
distinction is that eternal trusts are com-
mitted to our care.

Thus, so far as we evade eternal trusts, so
far as we stifle the voice of God within, so far
as we deny or ignore divine responsibility
and obligation, we efface all ultimate distinc-
tion between ourselves and the lower orders
of the universe, and are nothing but creatures
of the dust.

Mark, then, the inevitable conclusion of
the laws of philosophic thought and scientific
fact. Operations of mind are not confined
to man but are shared with his progenitors

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 55

about him in the woods and fields. This evo-
hition has made clear. It is the distinguish-
ing sense of divine responsibility that we call
religion. Thus the man who declares himself
not a religious man wipes out, on scientific
and philosophic groimds, all final distinction
between himself and — his dog.

Religion is this sense of human personal
accountability to God. To deepen this and
meet its eternal demands is moral and spirit-
ual evolution. To deny it, to evade it, to lose
it, is devolution now, and death hereafter.
Such is the teaching, not only of Paul, of
Jesus Christ, of the prophets of the Church,
but the teachmg of modern thought.

" I saw the dead, the great and the small,
standing before the throne; and books were
opened; and another book was opened, which
is the book of life: and the dead were judged
out of the things which were written in the
books, according to their works." The mean-
ing of this is that human destiny is placed in
life's own keeping.

Here we are in a world and universe of in-
finite possibilities. There are two ways and

50 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

trends of life. We have two natures. We
have impulses to do wrong and to do right.
We live in an environment of evil and of good.
There is the double possibility of a ruined life
or a glorious character. The decision is with
us.

Review the varied realms of life and we see
the double issue. There have been, and there
are, human saints and human fiends : in the
striking biographies of Scripture, a Paul and
a Nero, a John the Baptist and a Herod, a
Christ and a Judas. History presents a par-
allel record. There are Francis of Assisi and
Lucretia Borgia, Thomas a Kempis and Henry
VIII, Oliver Cromwell and Charles II. The
pages of literature are but the reflection of
history and give us Bassanio and Shylock,
Portia and Macbeth. Civic spheres have held
a Gladstone and a Jeffreys, a George F. Hoar
and a Thomas C. Piatt. Business life gives
us its George Peabody in one column and its
Russell Sage in another.

He is neither a student of historic annals,
nor an understander and interpreter of the
human life about him, who can efface the lines

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 57

between heaven and hell. If eternity restores
a harmony and unity it will take a tremendous
work to do it.

There are, ignore it as we may, there are
both glorious and awful possibilities before a
human soul, call them by the terms loss and
salvation, heaven and hell, or any other terms
you please. Every moral decision of every
moral being, every moral act of every human
life, brings it nearer the edge or the center of
these paths of life, or, if you put it otherwise,
lifts it to a higher level or drags it back and
downwards.

We may blind our eyes, we may sleep the
slumber of content, we may quell the thunder
of conscience to an unheard whisper, but the
powers and the solemnities of eternity are all
about us. The laws of God move on. And
we move on towards the heaven of a developed
spiritual life, or towards a day of remorse over
a wasted and a lost life, by whatever name we
call it.

It was no mental imbecile, it was no shallow
evangelist, it was no weak-minded gospel
exhorter; it was Daniel Webster who, when

58 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

asked the greatest thought that had ever come
to him, answered, " My personal accounta-
bUity to God."

This is the first of our unevadible respon-
sibilities — for our own eternal life and char-
acter and destiny.

But human accountability does not end
here. It is not confined to the solitude of
individual personality. I often think of it as
I see the physician bending over one that is
hanging between life and death. I think of
it as I see the teacher in the school intrusted
with the care of hundreds of human minds
and hearts. I think of it as I see business
men moving among their fellows; — the sense
of responsibility for the lives of other men.

It comes to me with overwhelming force
sometimes as a minister of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. I am charged with the divine
responsibility of giving to thousands of men
and women their views of truth, their ideals
of character, their visions of eternal realities,
their inspiration to service. I have to do
with their immortal lives and with the deter-
mining of their destinies. This divinely-

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 59

imposed responsibility is not limited to the
leaders of men. We all touch and move and
mold each other. It is both an appalling and
inspiring thought.

Sometimes it is a conscious influence. We
sin against a brother and incite him to sin.
We utter the unkind disparagement and lead
him to forsake a moral effort. We are false
to a standard and he loses his faith in good-
ness and religion.

Much of this subtle influence is unconscious.
So closely are the elements of our moral and
spiritual life together bound that every ex-
pressed thought and every moral act enters
into the determining, not of self alone, but
of other men.

Nor does accountability end here. It ex-
tends beyond our contemporaries. It is not
confined to age or generation. Its waves roll
on to ages and generations to come. " Visit-
mg the iniquity of the fathers upon the chil-
dren, upon the third and upon the fourth
generation."

Humanity carries an awful load of respon-
sibility and obligation; as individuals, deter-

60 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

mining our own eternal destiny in view of
both glorious and grave possibilities; as chil-
dren of the great family of God, acting in
the determination of each other's ends; as
perpetuators of the race, deciding in some
measure the characters of men for ages yet to
come.

We are sadly blind and dull, our hearts are
hardened, if it does not sometimes overwhelm
us and lead us to say with the great apostle,
" Who is sufficient for these things ? " Who
is equal to it?

The ultimate end of the gospel is the regen-
eration and restoration of sinful men and
women. There is no other preaching that
will accomplish it than that of these funda-
mental doctrines. The awakening in the
souls of men of the consciousness of an abso-
lute, holy God, under whose all-seeing eye
they live, whose laws they cannot defy with-
out disaster, who hates their sins, who loves
them so deeply that he wants to give them
the gift of his own infinite righteousness, and
has put every obstacle he can, without in-
truding upon the inviolable solitude of their

MAN IN THE UNIVERSE 61

free personality, between them and sin, —
this, with the consequent consciousness of
sm, is the only way by which that sense of
need of redemption is awakened, by which
alone redemption can be gained. These
truths all stand or fall together.

The Moral Opportunity of Man

Jesus therefore said to them again, Peace be unto
you: as the Father hath sent me, even so send I you, —
John 20 : 2L

THE MORAL OPPORTUNITY OF MAN

In the previous chapter we saw the hu-
man possibiUty to withstand God, to foil his
attempts, to frustrate his plans and delay
the fulfilment of the divine intention. We
saw that man had the moral ability to inter-
fere and obstruct the moral order of the uni-
verse. Man has the power to defeat and
delay the moral purposes of God. We saw
that this involved a larger principle ; that God
has largely placed the moral universe in the
keeping of man. To a thoughtful man this
deepens the sense of human sin as it becomes
the violation of a holy trust.

This is a one-sided affirmation, and we will
now turn to the reverse aspect of the thought.
Let the lights pass over from humiliation and
confession to prophecy and aspiration, for
this placing of the moral order in the power
of man involves a finer truth. Over against
man's power to withstand God is also his
potency to develop the divine intention, to
bring to pass the purposes of God. Just as

66 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

God is powerless to stay the human will
against him, so it is also true that he not only
needs to have this opposition withdrawn,
but that he can only bring his eternal plans
to issue with human cooperation, as men be-
come workers together with him. The ques-
tion is often asked, ^' Why does God not bring
desirable things to pass? " It is because
these things are in the hands of man.

We have always seen this truth in Christ.
Our confessions affirm, from the Fourth Gos-
pel onwards, that the moral order of the
world was given into the hands of Christ.
This is the larger meaning of the Incarnation.
One aspect of Christ's mediation long ago
found its place in theology. He is the medi-
iator of God's grace to man. One other as-
pect of his mediation, which is just as true, is
that he is the mediator of man's divine op-
portunity and tasks. Christ is not alone him-
self to do his work in the world. He came to
reveal the place of man in bringing to pass the
evolution of the moral order. He is rightly
emphasized as the imparter of divine grace and
salvation, but he is more than this; he is the

MORAL OPPORTUNITY OF MAN 67

mediator of man's responsibility. He prays,
'^ For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they
themselves also may be sanctified in truth."
He says to them," I am the light of the world,"
and then turns and says again, " Ye are the
light of the world." His parting word is, "As
the Father hath sent me, even so send I you."

The idea of the gospel is, that what God
and Christ are to his disciples, they are to be
to other men. The Incarnation is not simply
a definite historic act in time; it is continu-
ous; it is ever repeating itself, whenever there
is an act of human goodness done, a deed of
love performed, whenever a holy prophecy or
aspiration finds fulfilment.

Behold how true this is, this truth that we
take the place of God to man, that the moral
and spiritual order is given over to us! Here
is the child. For many, many years the
mother and father are God to that child.
What he learns of the divine qualities is what
he sees and hears in them. How true it is of
the teachers in the school, and how sadly
often they forget it! This same thing is true
of all the associations of human life.

68 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

To take another series of illustrations:
The sympathy of God is to assuage the grief
of man; but it is seldom imparted except as
it comes through the touch of some human
heart. The tears of sorrow are wiped away,
but it must largely be by human hands.

It is thus that men learn the meaning of
divine qualities. How do they learn of
divine love? Through reading Bibles? To
some extent, no doubt; but they learn it more
from loving human hearts. How do they learn
the beauty of divine sacrifice? By hearing
men talk about Christ? Somewhat, no doubt;
yet they learn more from the divine un-
selfishness and sacrifice of some mother, wife
or friend. How do they gain their faith in
immortality? Through the declarations of
doctrines? Far more as some good and holy
life passes beyond their vision and leaves
behind its own undying goodness. How do
they find out about Christ? From the Chris-
tologies of men? Through the confessions of
their lips? Far more from the touch of Christ-
like lives. Thus it is that the gates of heaven
are opened by human hands. The Incarna-

MORAL OPPORTUNITY OF MAN 69

tion becomes a perpetual process. Moral
and spiritual life come by tumian imparta-
tion.

Witness, then, the two sides of our truth con-
cerning man's place in the universe. While,
on the one hand, he may interfere with the
divine order, on the other hand he has the
power to put into operation the infinite plan.
The divine intention is thus under conflicting
forces.

While this is to be a universe of love, men
mingle in it both love and hatred. While it
should be a universe of truth, men have
brought into it both truth and falsehood.
These individual personalities of ours work
together both to aid and to hinder the com-
ing of the kingdom of God. The eternal
Being is not seeking to be a sovereign with
force so much as he is to be a Father in love.
There is no such a thing as isolated individual
responsibility. Every man must bear his
share of the weight of the moral order of the
universe. That power is to hinder or fur-
ther the coming of the kingdom.

God is operating on this world in Christ

70 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

and through his Holy Spirit; but it is as he
does this through our human persons.

The immanence of God is the incarnation
in man. The darkness of our human hfe has
been dispelled by light from heaven in the
souls of good and holy men and women.
The message from the Father's heart has
come through human lips, as the Father^s
love revealed itself in human lives.

As the older messages of Holy Writ have
told us of their time, so in all time God has
put on the personalities of men and sought to
do his work of grace through them. Far
better than the sense of God in hill and vale,
in sun and star, and all the beauties of the
world in which we live, far better than in-
spired written page, is the inspired heart
which touches close our own in common
paths of daily life, whose very garment carries
healing in its touch.

Yes, God has touched life in many ways,
reveals himself in varied forms — through
far-off prophets and apostles, through tables
of his holy law, but in a nearer way through
humble men and women in our very midst.

MORAL OPPORTUNITY OP MAN 71

Man's place in the universe is to bring to
pass the will and the ideal of God, to bring
to pass the infinite intention.

This moral opportunity of man is eternal.

" 'Tis the divinity that stirs within us:
'Tis heaven itself that points out an hereafter
And intimates eternity to man."

Our true faith in the heaven that is to be
comes only as that heaven sheds its glow upon
the life that is. Our immortality is now% a
growing of the spirit-life within, the deepening
of our love, the softening of our hearts wdth
sympathy and tenderness, the sanctifying of
our lives. Thus shall we put on immortality,
thus shall our corruptible put on its incorrup-
tion, and thus, as Jesus by his life brought
immortality to light, we must do by follow-
ing in his way. Such hopes and aspirations
are the foregleams of eternity. There is but
one life, and we live it now.

It is not by the argument of men that we
believe the life that is to come. It is when
Tve see a good and holy life pass beyond our
ken that we are lured to faith in the eternal
goodness and we feel the certainty of heaven.

n THE INFINITE AFFECTION

Thus he hath brought immortaUty to hght,
and to the eye of faith the opening vistas
of man's untrodden future are invested with
a sweet attractiveness and a divine glory.
Man has before him an eternal opportunity.

The Person of Christ

God, having of old time spoken unto the fathers in
the prophets by divers portions and in divers manners,
hath at the end of these days spoken unto us in his Son,
whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom
also he made the worlds; who being the effulgence
of his glory, and the very image of his substance. —
Hebrews 1: 1-3.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST

Thus far in our consideration of the grounds
of theistic belief we have seen that man is
by nature constituted for God; inherently a
religious being; that the normal man is the
man of faith. The Christian faith rests on a
conception of God as the universal, absolute
reason; a personal spirit, self-conscious and
^elf -directing; a being of moral perfection,
who, in perfect righteousness and supreme
love, creates, governs and directs the uni-
verse to a wisely foreseen and beneficent end;
the supreme thought, the essential mind, the
infinite intelligence, who, in holiness and love,
is guiding the human soul to goodness. We
discover man to be a free moral being, self-
determining and self -directing; the hewer
of his own statue, the architect of his own
character, the arbiter of his own destiny.
We saw that he had abused his prerogatives
of choice and volition and had become a sinful
being.

It may be said, however, that other reli-

75

76 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

gions have dealt with these truths and prob-
lems m much the same way, and now we come
to the distinctive element in the Christian
faith, which lifts it infinitely above the reli-
gions of the ages and leaves it solitary and
supreme in the moral world of thought and
life. Other cults have sought to explain the
mystery of sin and suffering and have taught
methods of avoidance. The distinctive trait
of the' Christian religion is that it tells of a
way of salvation from sin, of a source of
infinite strength in suffering. And when the
weary soul says, " Where ? " or " How ? ''
its followers begin to tell him about a man
called Jesus Christ. The center of the Chris-
tian faith is Christ the Saviour.

Questions of Christology can be taken up
understandingly only when we have first be-
held the Christ of history and of experience.
Let us look first at the simple picture of the
three historical Gospels. It is the picture
of a natural and beautiful boyhood followed
by an undiminished manhood, a ministry of
less than three years, his followers a little
handful of humble fishermen. He dies im-

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 77

heard of by the world outside his httle circle
of devoted friends and followers. He is first
the disciple of a moving preacher, John the
Baptist, and becomes the successor of his
teacher. He is developed by disciplme. He
is tempted as we are. He suffered just as we
suffer. He needed to pray as we need to
pray. In the three synoptic Gospels Jesus
is a very human man.

When we have come to analyze his mind
and character we are moved by its greatness.
He is original in thought, profound in his in-
tellectual grasp of moral truth. His courage
is superb. He dares to mingle with despised
publicans despite the disapproving nod of
religious aristocracy. He stands before Pilate
and Herod and the high priest in indifferent
calmness. In righteous wrath he clears the
desecrated temple. In the face of certain
death he rebukes the expediency of his dis-
ciples, and calmly says, '^ I go up to Jerusa-
lem." He is as tender and compassionate
and sympathetic as a mother. He is perfect
in self-sacrifice, patient and humble. In all
this he is thoroughly human.

78 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

I think that in frankness it should be said
that other men may have been just as original
in other realms as Jesus in his. Doubtless
other men have had as large an intellectual
reach. Others have shown equal courage.
His self-sacrifice cannot be said to be alto-
gether unique. Other men have died for
their fellows. The world may have known
men of his patience and humility.

Taking Jesus as a man, then, what is his
peculiar significance? Every other character
upon the pages of saintly biography has been
one-sided. Does it exhibit great intellectual
acumen? It lacks patience or humility.
Has he superb courage? He is wanting in
tenderness. Is he bold? He is not humble.
Is he tender and self-sacrificing? He is not
courageous. Does he portray patience? He
has too little force of character. Take every
character you know and it will bear these
marks of contrasted strength and weakness.
That is why we all have our different heroes
among the great and saintly souls of biog-
raphy.

That which impresses us most strongly in

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 79

Jesus is his complete blending of contrasted
virtues. He is as unflinching in his boldness
as he is tender in his compassion. His mar-
velous force of moral and intellectual insight
is equalled by his consummate modesty. He
is almost sohtary in his self-sacrifice, yet
never abject or deficient in spirit. He is
eager and courageous, but just as patient as
he is glowing in enthusiasm. While tender,
sympathetic and compassionate to sinners, he
is never wanting in the fire of moral indigna-
tion. In his humility he never loses self-
respect. Jesus, the man, is the superb, the per-
fect ideal of manhood because of this perfect
blending of all the elements within the range of
character. When we see this perfect manhood
of Jesus we say. Whatever else we surrender,
it must never be the real humanity of our
Lord. It is an impulse and an inspiration
to know that he bore this character and that
he attained it as we must attain. It exalts
humanity's moral ideal and tells us something
of what we may become when we ^' see him as
he is."
Having witnessed this passing picture of

80 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

Jesus as an exemplar of manhood, we pass to
a doctrine concerning our Lord which the
Church has ever tenaciously held equally
with that of his real, unsimulated human
character. This man who has been for two
thousand years transforming human life is
declared to be a divine being. Men's hearts
have been so moved by their love and devotion
for him that they have not only followed him
because he is good, but have hallowed him as
God. Jesus himself has uttered words con-
cerning his nature which have been taken as
the basis of this faith.

When, however, we come to examine the
declarations of Jesus in their totality, we find
what appear at first sight to be irreconcilable
utterances. On one day he declares, ^^ I and
the Father are one " ; "He that hath seen
me hath seen the Father." The next day,
to the same hearers, with equal emphasis,
he asserts, "I can of myself do nothing";
" The Father is greater than I." Our ulti-
mate purpose will be to reconcile these appar-
ent contradictions by indicating the sense in
which Jesus asserts his oneness to God —

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 81

that is, his divinity — by showing that
which constitutes his divineness. It is not
to be wondered at that the Church has had
its controversies over the humanity and
divinity of its Lord. The problem is no
greater than that which confronts us in
our philosophy and psychology of ourselves.
Who has ever been able to define and dis-
tinguish the human and the divine elements
in man?

We have said that Christianity, in contrast
to other religions, offers a way of salvation.
It points men to Jesus Christ and asks them
to follow him. But suppose the earnest
seeker asks:

How do I know that this man, Jesus, can lead
me out of my sins and make me righteous?

The teacher answers :
Because he is a divine being.

The human mind always, instinctively and
justifiably, asks for evidence. Let us frankly
consider the attitude of a host of thoughtful
men and women toward certain types of evi-
dence. It is an infinitely higher attitude than

82 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

that of easy-going, blind credulity. This
seeker now asks:

But how do I know he is divine? Show me your
evidence.

The discussion then proceeds as follows :

Teacher. — This Jesus whom we serve was mirac-
ulously born. There were supernatural occurrences
in great number and variety incident to his advent.
Read the preface to the Gospels of Matthew and
Luke; the narratives of the nativity; the revela-
tions to the shepherds; the experience of the wise
men from the East ; the heavenly visions to pious
men and women. Do not these indicate the divine
character of the being to whom they relate?

Seeker. — I accept the main historical part of the
Gospels. But the scholars tell us that we must
discriminate between the actual historicity of the
main body of the Gospels and the legends which
grew up around this unique man. These scholars
tell us that these prefaces to these two Gospels evi-
dently did not belong to the original narratives.
They were added as a sort of introduction later on.
They are highly poetical in character. In fact, they
are just such legends as grew up about St. Francis
of Assisi; such as have always clustered about the
memory of every striking personality. Further-
more, they are contradicted by the main body of
the narrative. One of the genealogies explicitly

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 83

declares Jesus to be of the line of Joseph. In fact,
the earliest manuscript of the Gospels, the Sinaitic
Palimpsest, recently discovered, explicitly declares
that " Joseph begat Jesus." Everywhere through-
out the historical parts of these Gospels Jesus is
assumed to be the natural son of Joseph. Indeed,
these stories bear every mark of legend; they are
highly idealized, poetic. You remember that one
time in the early Church a council came together to
separate what they called the apocryphal stories
from the authentic narratives. Well, undoubtedly,
these legends ought to have been set aside with all
the others which, being of like character, were dis-
carded. The fact is, on the testimony of Christian
scholarship itself, on the evidence of the Gospels
themselves, I cannot accept these as historical.

Teacher. — This is only a part of the chain
of evidence. Behold the miracles he performed!
He cast out demons. He turned water into wine.
He raised the dead. He walked on the sea. He
quieted its waves and billows. Are not these un-
answerable?

Seeker. — No, by no means unanswerable. I
have been reading the works of your Christian schol-
ars, the men who teach your preachers, men who
give their lives and talents in consecration to the
work of studying these Gospels under every advan-
tage, and they say that there must be discrimina-
tion used here; that some of these are not well
attested; in fact, that the evidence for those which

84 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

seem to transcend natural law is uncertain. Some
are very late; earlier narratives know nothing of
them; they are late accretions of the same nature
with the other apocrypha. However, even if these
be granted, the same New Testament represents
other men as performing these same wonders.
Therefore, if Peter and Paul did these works, they
are divine, too, and we have more than one Christ.
These at least do not prove any unique divinity for
him who worked them. Jesus himself admitted
that some of his opponents cast out devils.

Teacher. — But there is the resurrection of Jesus.

Seeker. — That is true ; the evidence for a resur-
rection is there. But I find two views among your
Christian scholars and theologians. Many of them
regard the resurrection of Jesus as spiritual and in
no sense physical. They hold that most of the ac-
counts are more naturally interpreted on this sup-
position, and that those which seem to represent it
as physical are exaggerations or legends. Indeed,
Paul, whose letters are the earliest literature we
have in the New Testament, earlier than the Gos-
pels, and many years earlier than some of them, un-
doubtedly conceives of the resurrection of Jesus as
a spiritual phenomenon, and of the appearances of
Jesus, as like the one to himself, spiritual manifes-
tations. This seems to me the more probable view ;
in fact, the only possible one. Now, if this be so,
then Jesus' resurrection is the same one we await.
Paul is right in grounding our resurrection in that

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 85

of his Lord. Hence, it no more proves Jesus' divin-
ity than our resurrection hope and faith involves
our divinity. I think Paul was right in his view.
It is a higher spiritual conception.

And now you call my attention to the ascension
story. In all probability this is a highly poetic rep-
resentation and not to be taken as cold prose. It
is figurative, and the truth it contains is that of the
ethical and spiritual exaltation of Jesus. But, in
any event whatsoever, it does not prove Jesus*
divinity. The same Bible similarly pictures the
ascension of Elijah and the translation of Enoch.
Therefore, according to your proof, they are divine.

You ask me if I have read those Old Testament
prophecies which are, in a literal and detailed and
mechanical way, fulfilled in Jesus? Yes, I have
read the prophecies. I have also read what modern
commentators say of them, namely, that except
in an ideal sense, they have no reference to Jesus
whatever. We could take any one of them and apply
it to other men in the same way that the editor
of the first Gospel does to Jesus. At any rate, a set
of coincidences like these would have no bearing on
the divine nature of Jesus.

And at this point we could well imagine our
remonstrant adding in conclusion:

Let me point you to some things Jesus said and
to some things he did not say. He never once
mentions his miraculous birth. He not only does

86 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

not appeal to it when he declares his sonship to
God, but he never even mentions it. He rebuked
the scribes for their literalizing of prophecy relative
to the Messiah. And, marvelously enough, when
asked for " signs " he peremptorily refused them
and declared the generation seeking signs an " evil
and adulterous " one. Evidently Jesus did not pro-
pose to rest his claims on such evidence, and I do not
believe that he ever meant that you should do so. I
would like to love and follow Jesus. I would like to
believe him a divine being, but I cannot do it on
these grounds.

Again and again have we met this man,
and again and again, may I venture to say it,
he has left us unanswered and unsatisfied.
Such a thinking man sets us to thinking. We
go home and look into our Bibles and we find
things we never saw before, and we are
troubled. Now our question is: Is there an
answer to such a seeking soulf Is there a re-
sponse that will convince him that we love and
follow a divine Master? I profoundly believe
there is, and I am going to try to give it.

Let us take our New Testaments, turn to the
words of Jesus, and let him interpret his own
gospel, declare concerning himself. Then let

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 87

us examine him and see what manner of being
he is. Let us interpret his divinity from the
words that fall from his lips, and from his per-
sonality, his mind, his consciousness, his life.
Let us see just what Jesus means by his
" oneness " with the Father, and in what
sense he declares his subordination to the
Infinite, and whether these two affirmations
are consistent with each other. We may be
called upon to interpret these conceptions
somewhat differently from our past method.
It may be that we shall be called upon to base
our idea of Jesus' divine supremacy on differ-
ent grounds. Let this not disturb us if they
be loftier grounds. Let us not hesitate to
change our point of view for a higher one.
Remember that substitution, displacement,
is the eternal law of progress.

In order that I may avoid misunderstand-
ing of the purpose in view, I will make one
categorical declaration, whose grounds I pro-
pose to analyze. I make it unhesitatingly
and unfalteringly. It is this: The Christian
faith demands, as a -final and fundamental prin-
ciple of its being, that it he declared in unwaver-

88 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

ing accents that Jesus was, in a real and vital
sense, a consuhstantial member of the human
race. In equal emphasis with any other as-
pect of Christian truth Jesus must remain,
in the faith of to-day, a man who shared
man's every joy and sorrow, every conflict
and temptation; who attained by discipline;
who struggled and overcame, sharing every
experience of our humble, human life. Chris-
tianity must never for a moment lose from the
fundamentals of its faith the doctrine of the real
humanity of Jesus.

There is one other truth which, if it fall, in-
volves in its ruins the whole structure of the
faith. Christianity is bereft of its divine sanc-
tion and authority, and thus of all real author-
ity, if its belief, held unflinchingly through
these long centuries, in the divinity of Jesus
be disproved or doubted. The church that
discards it ceases to be, in any vital sense, a
Christian church. He who does not hold it
as the center and source of his gospel ceases,
at the moment of his denial or his doubt, in
the highest and completest sense, to be a
teacher of Christianity. The supreme faith

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 89

of the Church and the ministry is their certi-
tude that their Lord and Master is a divine
being.

Deny the sense of the Infinite in Christ, the
presence of the eternal love, surrender the
faith that his nature is the nature of God, and
the race has forfeited its moral ideal; the
pathway of human life toward its goal of in-
finite goodness is merged into desert sands,
trackless and lightless; for, with the denial
of the consubstantiation of the human Jesus
with the infinite Deity, humanity loses the
pledge of its own consubstantiation with the
Father. On these two truths hangs our whole
system of belief: the human Jesus of Nazareth,
the Son of man; Jesus the Christ, the Son of
God,

Our question is not, Is Jesus divine? It is
rather, What do we mean when we affirm
this? I feel sure that the answer to the sec-
ond will involve the answer to the first. I
have pointed out one line of interpretation,
and have given the objections to it, which
prevent many very good and earnest men and
women from accepting our Lord as divine

90 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

if they must do it on those grounds. I am going
to lay every one of those questions aside. It is
enough to say here that these problems con-
cerning Jesus' relation to the physical world,
the manner of his physical birth, his control
over nature, need not enter into our present
theme. Our faith in the divineness of our
Lord does not rest on these things. That is
not the way to interpret his nature. It is true
that Jesus taught nothing as to his metaphy-
sical relation to God or concerning his rela-
tion to the natural laws of the physical uni-
verse. It is true that he disclaimed " signs "
as evidence of his character and nature, and
sternly rebuked those who sought to test
them on these grounds. It is true that the
correspondence of his life to prophetic details
had no interest for him whatever. Hence,
I propose that we adopt the method of Jesus;
that we begin by a thoughtful study of his
character, and by that means seek to appre-
hend his nature. The final test of truth is not
the decrees of the Church or the elucidations
of the church Fathers. We must turn from
the disciples to the teacher himself. The

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 91

disciple is not greater than his Lord. There-
fore, when Jesus sets aside these things as
proofs of his authority, we must set them
aside, whether the traditional interpretation
of them be correct or not. I propose that we
look, first, at what Jesus said; then at what
he was and is.

When we consider the words of Jesus which
refer to our problem, we find two sets of dec-
larations, given with equal emphasis. In one
he seems to claim a unique and solitary divine-
ness; in the other he declares his human limi-
tation, his subordination to the Father. Con-
sider such expressions as these :

In the Sermon on the Mount he quotes an
Old Testament command. He abrogates it,
utterly sets it aside, with the declaration:
*' But / say unto you." He announces with-
out any modification, " Heaven and earth
shall pass away, but my words shall not pass
away." With the gesture of sovereign au-
thority he declares sms forgiven. He inti-
mates that somehow men are to be judged by
their faith in him. " All things " are given
into his hand by the Father. Likewise all

92 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

" authority." He calls men, " Come unto
me." " One is your Master, even Christ."
Seeking faith in himself, he asks, '' Dost thou
believe on the Son of God? " He bids men
pray in his name. He affirms, "All authority
hath been given imto me in heaven and on
earth." He delegates authority to his dis-
ciples. He associates himself with the Infi-
nite:" My Father worketh . . . and I work."
He is " the bread of life," " the light of the
world." Listen to these astounding words:
"I am the resurrection and the life " ; " I am
the way, the truth, and the life." All of these
statements are but affirmations of our text:
"/ and the Father are one"

It may be objected that these are from the
Fourth Gospel, written late; from a narrative
which does not altogether record actual say-
ings of Jesus. In answer, I candidly admit
that a large proportion of the teachings of
Jesus in the Fourth Gospel are put in the
writer's own language; but I suppose no
scholar denies that at least a large propor-
tion of the sayings in this Gospel are founded
on genuine logia. After a careful comparison

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 93

of this class of sayings in this Gospel with
others in the synoptic Gospels, I am con-
vinced that these rest in each case on a genuine
logion. In any event, there are enough say-
ings of this tenor in the first three Gospels to
bear out the idea that Jesus made a unique
claim for himself.

A careful study of these utterances indicates
that they are to be interpreted in what we may
call the ethical or religious sense. Take, for
instance, the phrase, '' All authority hath
been given unto me/^ He adds as a therefore ^
" Go and teach." Clearly his sovereignty is
with regard to moral and spiritual things, and
in no sense with relation to the physical uni-
verse. In every case he refers to the realm
in which he confined his work, the realm of
spiritual life. But this by no means lessens
the wonder. These claims are imique. The
voice sounds divine, not human, as we use the
latter term. In these expressions our Lord
definitely claimed divine authority.

Let us consider some of the other set of say-
ings. Here, again, he is just as forceful. He
says, *' I speak not of myself, but the Father

94 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

commandeth what I shall say and what I shall
teach." He declares that he does his work
by the power of God. He admits that he has
no authority to appoint positions on the right
hand or the left in the kingdom. It is not
his prerogative. He affirms, concerning the
judgment, his own ignorance. Even in speak-
ing of God he says, " I ascend to my Father
and your Father, to my God and your God."
He concedes, " I can of myself do nothing."
All these may be comprehended in one explicit
declaration: ''My Father is greater than 7."
We need to notice one significant thing,
namely, that while these sayings explicitly
declare limitation, they do so in such a way
as we should never think of doing. They
really declare Jesus' exaltation above our con-
cept of human prerogative as clearly as they
do his subordination to Infinitude.

"I and the Father are one J' Yet, "My
Father is greater than /." Can these be
reconciled? Are they consistent with each
other? Does the second deny the first?

Let us see what we mean when we use the
word " divinity." There are two ways in

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 95

which this term may be interpreted. We
use it in both senses in reference to our con-
cept of God. We speak of the divine as wit-
nessed in nature. We speak of an eternal
power controlhng the physical universe. We
see it in the lightning's flash, in the age-long
revolution of the starry host of heaven, in
the rising and the setting sun. It speaks to
us in the whirlwind's voice, the reverberations
of the thunder's roar among rock-riven hills.
Here, our conception of divineness would be in
the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience,
omnipresence, in the physical world. The main
concept is that of a God of power. This gives
what has been called natural religion. But
there is another idea of the God in the soul.
We see him in control of the moral universe.
Here we behold what w^e call the character of
God. The main concept is that of a God of
holy love. This gives us what we call re-
vealed religion. One set of concepts has
reference to the physical and metaphysical.
The other deals with the moral, the spiritual,
the psychological. What was Jesus' realm?
Did he come to make a physical and meta-

96 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

physical revelation, or a moral and spiritual?
Did he come to reveal the law of gravitation
or the law of living? Did he come to give us
science or religion? Did Jesus operate in the
realm of natural or of revealed religion? Is
the significance of the revelation of the Father
in the Son its portrayal of the laws of physics,
or is it the clear shining forth of the moral
goodness of God, his character, his love?

I think this is our clue. Jesus may declare
his subordination to the Father in the matter
of omniscience, and yet say that he and the
Father are one. Is he not dealing in spiritual
terms? Does he not clearly mean, ^^ My will
is the Father's will; my character is one with
God's " ?

Does this not bring us back to the human
Christ? Does it not make them one and the
same? Yes; for they are one and the same.
I propose now that we go back to the starting-
point, that we begin all over again with the
human Jesus. For it is the human Jesus that
is divine; it is the divine Christ that is human.
Let us join the Twelve and go about with him
for a little while, uniting ourselves to him just

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 97

as the first disciples did. On one occasion
these disciples went up into a mountain with
their Teacher. There they witnessed what
has been called the '' Transfiguration." " He
was transfigured before them; and his face
did shine as the sun, and his garments be-
came white as the light. ... A bright cloud
overshadowed them; and behold, a voice out
of the cloud, saying. This is my beloved Son,
in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him. . . .
And lifting up their eyes, they saw no one,
save Jesus only."

Let us come to the mountain and look at the
lineaments of the countenance of him whom
we call Master. If we will but gaze at that
countenance we shall behold it shining as the
sun; we shall behold him clothed with a
transcendent light; and we shall hear the voice
saying, '' This is my beloved Son, hear ye
him." And we shall look up and see no man,
save Jesus only. We go up to the mount
with Jesus of Nazareth; we return with the
transfigured Christ, the transcendent, divine
Son of God. And when, a little after, he shall
say unto us, " Whom say ye that I am? ''

98 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

we shall answer with Peter, '^ Thou art the
Christ, the Son of the living God."

There is a great host of earnest, Christian
men and women who accept Jesus as the
spiritual guide and teacher of the race, who
cannot accept the faith of the Church in his
imique divinity. Their attitude is illogical.
There is another class who accept it without
a thought as to what they mean by it. Their
attitude is self-debasing. Of the men who
meet the doctrine with outright denial and
those who do so with blind admission, the one
class is as far wrong as the other. The ultra-
Unitarian says, '^ The fine moral character of
Jesus is enough." The conservative Evan-
gelical declares, '' Acceptance of his divinity
is sufficient." The answer to the Evangelical
is that it is necessary to ethically apprehend
this divineness if it is to become our moral
ideal. The answer to the Unitarian is that
character involves a nature; there is no such
thing as abstract character. It inheres in a
being, and that being must have a nature.
The answer to both is that we come to the
one by means of the other. We apprehend

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 99

the divine nature of Jesus when we compre-
hend his ethical character, his rehgious con-
sciousness.

Lay aside all questions regarding the rela-
tion of Christ to the physical universe. We
must not first settle on our theory and then
say that the mind and life of Christ must
conform to this theory. We must ascertain
the mind and consciousness, the personality
of Jesus, and then on this basis construct our
theory of his nature. My purpose is to con-
fine our thought to the spiritual realm and
to show the ineffable transcendence of the
divine Christ by the unclassifiableness of his
character with what we call humanity. We
will not say, '' Christ is divine, therefore per-
fect." Rather we will say, " If we find him to
be morally perfect, therefore he is divine."

I profoundly believe that reason finds no
place for Jesus in what may be fitly termed
purely human categories. These categories
are the conceptions covering actual and uni-
versal human experience. The image of the
Son of man is in infinite contrast with the
image of the sons of men. The disciples be-

100 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

gan with Jesus, the Man of Nazareth, the
human teacher; they ended with a divine
Lord. Let us join the disciples and see if this
shall be our experience. We will begin with
an attempt to account for Jesus on purely-
human principles and see if these will explain
him.

One of the first of these principles is that
of heredity. Here it will be readily admitted
that we have no cause adequate to our effect.
Other principles are those of environment
and training. We find nothing in the he-
redity, environment, or training of Jesus to
account for a man who has transformed so-
ciety, who abides as the central figure of the
race for two thousand years and who com-
mands its well-nigh universal love and adora-
tion. Right at this point we touch the real
miracle of the four Gospels. We need not
to argue, for no one has ever sought to ac-
count for Jesus on the grounds of heredity,
environment and training.

Let us pass on to consider what manner of
man this is. As we do so we will mentally
contrast him, at every point, with the highest

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 101

single product of the race and with the com-
bined product of all the single characters that
the pages of saintly biography have pictured.

Who has ever claimed for the hero whose
character he records an unspotted childhood?
Who has ever given us the picture of a com-
pleted life which has in it no process of recti-
fication? Development there was, but it
was not by the way of correction. This is
just the picture we have of Jesus.

Consider his character in maturity. No
one thinks of denying its moral beauty. No
one affirms that Jesus was destitute of force,
of that spirit which we call manly. Where
else have we a character thus uniting and
blending pure goodness with a supreme, un-
hampered, solid manhood?

Most marked of all is the contradiction
to our estimate of actual human character
in the religious experience of Jesus. His pro-
cess is the inversion of that in other men.
Can you conceive of a human religiousness
that does not start with penitence? Are not
the most holy and righteous, and most saintly
of the saints, those who are most sorrowful

102 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

and repentant? Here is a man who never
expresses a single regret. He boldly chal-
lenges, " Which of you convicteth me of
sin? " Let the best man you know stand
forth before his fellows with any such defiance.
Let any man declare his religiousness in the
same breath that he denies the sentiment of
repentance, without a tear of sorrow for the
past, without a contrite heart, void of a single
confession of wrong. If Jesus did know sin,
then we have a sinful man becoming religious
in the profoundest sense, yet by some other
road than that of repentance. In other
words, we have a religion that is not human.
How profound a contradiction! On the other
hand, grant his sinlessness and how could he
be more divine? We have here an infinite ex-
ception to the course of human development.
There could be no wider deviation.

The most significant thing in Jesus' con-
sciousness and life is this perpetual reconciling
of human contrasts. It meets us at every
point. He never strikes us as gay and easy-
going, nor does he impress us with austerity.
Himself without sin, he betrays the deepest

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 103

sympathy with the deepest sinners. His
sorrows are so profoundly joyous that they
do not excite our pity. He seems thoroughly
human, yet never worldly; susceptible to the
compassion that sin incites, but never suscep-
tible to sin. Compare all this with our actual
humanity. Men have liberal views of the
joys of life, but never without merging at
some point into laxity. Are they rigid
against sins? They become overscrupulous
and lose liberty. Do they magnify freedom?
They become negligent and lose the sense of
moral obligation. I do not say that men
have never approached consistency at some
one of these points, but they have never
gained it. Note how perfectly he unites
what we call the passive virtues — himiility,
meekness, patience — with a character whose
total impression is that of grandeur. He
never fails or falters, whether it be in petty
disturbances or in great crises. He tells his
disciples that they must expect bitter perse-
cutions, in the same breath that he declares
to them his bequest of joy and peace.
Have you ever considered the vastness of

104 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

Jesus' undertaking in contrast with the means
at his disposal? He stands within the circle
of his little handful of fishermen and publi-
cans and seriously proclaims that he has
come to morally re-create the race. He as-
serts his work and influence to be timeless.
Even at the very end, when the little band of
foflowers have denied and fled, he still de-
clares that his mission is to elevate the race to
God. What man, with any such end, would
have selected the means and methods of
Jesus? He refuses elevation and honor.
He eats with sinners. Without, for a single
instant, descending, he yet associates with
them. He founds a moral nation on such
material as this.

Consider him as a teacher. He does not
draw from the stores of learning. He simply
instructs out of his own consciousness and
experience. He is the truth he teaches. As
he teaches he does not conform to human
expectations, nor does he use human methods.
His truth is that of intuition, yet he is never
called upon to rectify a single declaration.
He is as simple as he is profoimd, and as pro-

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 105

found as he is simple. His very supernatural-
ness is natural.

Looking at the character of Jesus as a
whole, we come upon a striking contrast to
the characters of other men the world has
called great. The halo that, seen at a dis-
tance, surrounds our heroes is always more
or less dispelled as we get closer to them.
But with Jesus it is not so. The nearer we
get to the other men who are above us, the
closer we find they are bound to our common,
frail humanity. It is this principle in human
relations that has given rise to the familiar
proverb concerning " familiarity " and ^' con-
tempt." But with Jesus, the nearer we ap-
proach him the farther away he is.

What I have called attention to in these
illustrations holds true at every single point
in the character and life of Jesus. It reaches
its height, however, when we try to analyze
his mind and heart. When we make a psy-
chological study we come upon an unaccount-
able consciousness in Jesus. Try to put his
astonishing assertions into the minds of men.
Listen to such words as these from the purest

106 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

man you ever knew: '' I came forth from the
Father"; ''I am the Hght of the world,"
^' the bread of Hfe " ; "I will draw all men
unto me"; ''Come unto me"; "Follow
me." And yet Jesus never gives us the im-
pression of what we term conceit. Imagine
the best of men the world has known declaring
"/ and the Father are one"; "My Father
is greater than /"; "My Father worketh
hitherto, and / work." We must, at this
point, either dethrone Jesus as a pretender,
set him aside as an insane enthusiast, or else
admit his divine consciousness. This self-
consciousness of Jesus must either determine
his worthlessness or his supreme worth. He
is either less than our humanity or more. If
a mere assumption, he has succeeded, for two
thousand years, in maintaining this stupen-
dous pretension. The fact is, whatever holds
true in all our experience in other men, is
reversed in him.

We worry about the miracles. Why, it is
all miracle. You ask at what point the unique-
ness of Jesus comes in? It is all unique. In
what is he transcendent? He is altogether
transcendent

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 107

Men have been going up and down, allying
themselves with a sinful and adulterous gen-
eration, joining the questioning scribes and
Pharisees, saying, " Show us a sign, give us a
miracle, that we may believe in thee." They
have been asking for some little spark of
light to shine out of some remote corner of
the heavens. And behold, the glorious sun-
light has been streaming into their faces for
two thousand years and they have refused to
see it. They have been trying to find some
one point which would indicate the transcend-
ence of Jesus, while all the time he is altogether
transcendent.

What is the difference between Jesus the
Christ, and our actual humanity? It is the
infinite difference between perfection and im-
perfection — the eternal contrast between
sinlessness and sin. Can anything be diviner
than that which is morally and spiritually per-
fect? What is the explanation of this great
moral miracle? There is only one. God was
with him in full measure. He was altogether
led, inspired, upheld, by the Infinite. What
is this that we behold in him? It is the reve-
lation of the Father. The apostle has ex-

108 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

plained it: ''God was in Christ, reconciling
the world unto himself." It is because he
and the Father are one. He who sees him sees
the Father. We believe that Jesus the Christ
is divine, because we see in his character a
manifestation of the character of God; in his
perfection, the divine life. As we gaze at his
countenance he is transfigured before us; his
face shines as the sun; his garments are
clothed with light. The bright cloud of a
divine glory overshadows us, and we hear a
voice saying, " This is my beloved Son, hear
ye him." We behold the light of the knowl-
edge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. Thus are we led back by the inevi-
table processes of thought to the divine na-
ture of Jesus Christ.

This careful consideration of the character
of the historical Jesus indicates at every point
his transcendence above our realized human-
ity taken at its highest and best. The great
miracle which we considered is not only one
that took place two thousand years ago. It
has been perpetually followed and continu-
ously verified during these twenty centuries.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 109

The perennial transforming power of the per-
son and teaching of the Christ of to-day bears
witness to the divine character and nature of
the Redeemer of the race. Signs and won-
ders are given before our very eyes — mir-
acles, which, not in the physical but in the
moral and spiritual realm, are the higher and
more significant just because they are opera-
tive in this higher sphere.

The supreme difference between Jesus and
what we call humanity is an infinite ethical
difference. There may be other distinctions,
but only that which is ethical has the highest
worth and nieaning. If character itself is
transcendent and has its springs in the heart
of infinite goodness, then a character which
is ethically perfect becomes supremely and
solitarily surpassing.

Goodness is the supreme and significant
element in divinen^ss. Jesus' highest evi-
dence of sonship to God is that he hears God's
liketiess, possesses the Spirit of the Holy, mani-
fests his love, partakes of his will and goodness.
There may be other evidences, but I confess
I care little about them. It is a miserable

110 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

waste of time to quarrel over them. The
immortal legacies of Jesus to the race are
these: (1) He gave us our loftiest concep-
tion of the will and character of God : God is
the Father of the race; (2) he revealed that
will and character in himself: he that hath
seen him hath seen the Father. The divinity
of Jesus is the divinity of this perfect righteous-
ness, of supreme love, of transcendent moral
purity, of holy virtue. He has left us the
sound of a divine voice, the reproduction of
a divine life.

Is the difference between Jesus and man,
then, a difference of kind or of degree?
This is mere juggling with words. There can-
not be two kinds of goodness. The goodness
of man, if there is any such thing, must be
the same in kind as the goodness in God. If
we talk about two kinds of goodness we be-
come polytheists. If there be two kinds of
divinity, there must be two divinities, and
God is not the one, only, all-comprehending,
sole-directing power of the universe. There
are, however, differences in degree which prac-
tically become differences in kind. Evolution

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 111

reveals all differences of kind as the resultants
of the accumulation of differences in degree.
Suppose we consider the difference between
man and brute to be a difference of kind.
Suppose we consider that between good men
and bad to be one of degree. The difference
between the best and worst of men is cer-
tainly greater than that between the worst
of men and the best of brutes. Thus does
our difference in degree become a greater
difference than a difference in kind. The
divineness of Jesus is that of a complete,
perfected, ideal goodness, which infinitely
excels and eternally exceeds our actual
humanity.

Let us now see the significance of this one-
ness with man and this oneness with God,
revealed in Jesus, as it relates to man and
his moral ideal and goal. Jesus is the pledge
and the interpretation of the truth; ^^ now
are we children of God." He is the pledge
of the consubstantiality of humanity with
God; the interpreter of the substantial kin-
ship of God with his children. Thus it is
that we believe in God through Jesus Christ.

112 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

Thus have we " one mediator also between
God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus."
In nothing is declared more explicitly the
identity in nature of himianity's childhood
with the divine fatherhood than in that lofty
ideal set forth by Jesus : " Ye, therefore, shall
be perfect, as your heavenly Father is per-
fect." There can never be attainableness
without essential unity between that which is,
and that which is to be. Upon this faith in
the presence of the divine life in the human
soul rests our sole hope of an immortal life.

Humanity is lost if it be not that the char-
acter of Jesus is imitable and reproducible in
his followers; if Christ be a mere portrait to
gaze upon, and not a model to follow. The
moral life of God in Christ is the moral life for
man, or he has none. The example of Jesus
is the standard for his brethren. Remove
this as an ethical ideal and we are absolved
from all moral obligation. The life of Jesus
Christ is the life for man. The will of Jesus is
the will for man. The spirit of Jesus is the
spirit to be nurtured in his true followers.
The character of Jesus is the goal of his

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 113

disciples. That which he is they are to
become.

If this moral ideal is perfect it can be noth-
ing less than that which inheres in God. If
Jesus is this perfect moral ideal he is divine.
We are sons of God. He is the Son of God.
He is actually what man is prophetically.
In him we behold affinity with the Father.
This is the pledge and the interpretation of
the essential kinship of the children of God on
earth with their Father who is in heaven.
If the moral life of Jesus has its source in the
Infinite, and if the moral life of Jesus is the
moral life for man, then it is only as conscious
sonship with God is elicited in us that we can
ever be hopeful of attaining unto the life
which he himself has declared we must strive
to gain. If the moral character of Christ is
the moral character to be sought by his fol-
lowers, that of his followers must have as its
source the same source that his life has. His
prayer is that as he is one with the Father, so
his own may become one with the Father
and with him. This is the lofty ideal and
the hope of its attainment as taught by Jesus.

114 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

Here, then, is the meaning of those two
attitudes of faith to which the Church has
unflinchingly held, — the humanity of Jesus
and his divine nature. The consubstantiation
of the divine Jesus with man reveals the con-
substantiation of humanity with God. He
is the revelation of the essential oneness of
the human and the divine. The principle of
identity and difference which prevails through-
out the universe, both moral and physical, is
here exemplified. Reason is one and the same
in God, the absolute, and man, the limited
reason. And yet the mind of God is not the
same as the mind of man. God is immanent,
and at the same time transcendent. Jesus is
immanent in our humanity. He is tran-
scendent at the same time. The actual con-
trast of Jesus and humanity is the actual con-
trast between humanity and God. The essential
kinship of Jesus with humanity is the revela-
tion of the essential kinship of humanity and
God. If we lose the idea that the Christ
is of the nature of God, we lose our pledge of
the essential relation between the human and
its divine ideal. Then our moral ideal is

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 115

gone as a possible attainment. Gone as a
possible attainment, it is as worthless as the
cup of Tantalus. We are in the midst of an
infinite ocean of which we may never drink.

We have seen that the contrast between
Jesus and humanity is made on the very
grounds of his human nature. Admit (and
who in the face of Scripture and consciousness
will deny it?) that there is a divine nature in
humanity. Admit that we have perfection in
Jesus, and you admit the divine transcendence
of Jesus. If moral character is good, if the
good is divine, with its source in the heart
of God, then perfection of character means
the realization of a divine perfection, and
we have a divine Christ, with his very be-
ing grounded in the Godhead, solitary and
supreme.

The question arises at this point: Does
this mean that mankind will ever realize the
perfection that is in Christ? With the apostle
we must say, " It doth not yet appear what
we shall be." It looks as though incomplete-
ness would be our state through all time; for
is it not a truth in our study of self-develop-

116 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

ment that the nearer we approach the goal
the farther it recedes? Are we, then, infinite,
viewed in the Hght of our possibiUties? This
I feel we can neither assert nor deny. Cer-
tain it is that every step in advance renders
the next step more possible.

And yet each advancing step only seems
to open our eyes more clearly to the immeas-
urable distance between us and our hopes.
The more we know of God, — that is-; the
more Godlike we become, — the farther does
the divine ideal recede. Is not this pursuit
of a flying goal, a goal which seems to fly
faster than its pursuers, dismaying? No; for
at the same time that we realize its growing
unattainableness, we realize that we are at-
taining. While it does not give us a detach-
able end which may some day cease to be
an end, it does give us a mode of life and
an incentive to moral development. The
question, What shall we be? leads us to an
unfathomable mystery. In kind we are to be-
come like Christ. In degree? We have no
answer. But we may rejoice that the shad-
ows of the things that be are eternally pierced

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 117

by the infinite sunlight of the things that are
to be.

Let us now review our thought so far. We
have seen that what might seem to put Jesus
on the level of the race, namely, that he is
the perfect moral ideal revealed in human-
ity for humanity, is the real indication of
his infinite differentiation from the race.

We have seen that the divinity of our Lord
does not rest upon one or two mysterious
signs, but that he is altogether one great
standing moral miracle. If his character is
divine, his nature must be determined by
his character. Be his nature divine, he is
a divine being.

We have asserted with equal emphasis his
real humanity and his divine character; that
this unity is the revelation and the interpre-
tation of the oneness of humanity and God;
that this unique and perfect sonship of Jesus
with the Father is the ground of the imperfect
but prophetic sonship of the children of men.

" Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall
shine out of darkness, who shined in our
hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of

118 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. '^
— Paul.

" Now are we children of God, and it is
not yet made manifest what we shall be. We
know that we shall be like him; for we shall
see him even as he is." — John.

The gromid of the one disciple's lofty ideal
and hope is in the truth of the confident
affirmation of his fellow apostle.

" I say the acknowledgment of God in Ghrist,
Accepted by thy reason, solves for thee
All questions in the earth and out of it."

The supreme and sovereign personage of
history is Jesus Christ. To grasp the mag-
nitude of Jesus' person is the divinest task
of human thought. For the intelligence of
men he is the source of an exhaustless con-
templation. The loftiest of human minds are
reverent in his immeasurable presence and
with the wise men of the East can offer but
their homage, and at his feet cast their slight
morsels of frankincense and myrrh and offer
at his shrine the incense of their genius.
This supreme Mind, whose words of holy
wisdom have transformed our thought and

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 119

life, knows no intellectual companions. Be-
tween him and the intellects of loftiest reach
there is a great gulf fixed. His greatness,
unencompassed by the mind of man, calls for
the heart. For the interpretation of his in-
effable, transcendent person only the clear-
ness of a pure heart suffices. The attitude
of men to Jesus is the final and determining
computer of their length and height and
breadth of vision and of life.

The fact of his eternal presence, his heal-
ing of the sick of heart, his raising of men's
dead and dying spirits, the translation into
life of the utterance of his lips, have been the
only glories of the race since his appearing.
The story of the fleeing shadows in the heart
of man and the world's larger life have been
but the fulfilment of his own annoimcement
that he was come to be the light of men and
of the world. Every advancement of the
human mind in the interpretation and the
deepening in conception of man's moral life is
but the fulfilment of this vision of himself to
his own soul, every growing love of man for
man its realization. The sacrifice and service

120 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

of our life, which are its finest beauties, are but
the adumbrations of his fight and testify to
the preeminence of Calvary.

He performed the loftiest mental achieve-
ment of the race. His ideal of a kingdom
of heaven upon the earth, his conception of
the fatherhood of God, his apprehension of
a universal brotherhood of men, his interpre-
tation of eternal human life, reached a moral
and spiritual height which absolutely knows
no end. All our upliftings of the moral ideal,
of our discoveries of goodness, are but the
mind of Christ translated to the minds of men.

To recover his unutterable vision is the
loftiest aim of human mind and heart. To
see his God, to grasp his interpretation of
our own souls, is the supreme achievement
set before the race. His consciousness, so far
as gained, is its superlative possession. To
know Jesus Christ would be to reach the
height and depth of spiritual knowledge.

God is the first and last, the beginning
and the end, of all his works. In him, human-
ity, the best of his creations, finds its meaning
and its end. The Infinite has ever been with

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 121

men, but in completeness, only once, in Jesus
Christ. And ever since the angel annunciated
to the mother, '^ The Lord is with thee, . . .
the Holy Spirit shall come upon thee, and the
power of the Most High shall overshadow
thee," Jesus has meant this to man. The
incarnation was this pledge of the divine
above, and with our human life, the revela-
tion of the heaven that lies about us in our
infancy and constantly follows all our days.

God with us! — a human form which was
the perfect garment of the eternal Spirit.
The meaning of it all is this: that Jesus had
the mind and heart of God and brings before
the race as its supreme attainment the gain-
ing of that mind and heart.

The person, then, of Jesus calls for the
homage of the race. He is an eternal contrast
to the human life to which he came and comes.
The difference between his sinlessness and
human sin is an eternal moral contrast.
Against the somber background of our dark-
ened human lives the perfection of his spirit
is as the sun at night. His exhaustless person
calls for a supereminent, unique distinction.

122 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

His eternal contrast between sinlessness and
sin is the eternal contrast between God and
man, and when men bow the knee to Jesus
Christ they worship and adore the God whom
he ineffably reveals.

And the reverent man who seeks, as men
will seek, and ought to seek, an adequate
interpretation of Jesus to the intellect — be
at the same time his heart and motive pure —
will find himself lifted beyond the humanity
in which he stands, will find himself upon
the height of Tabor, gazing at a countenance
transfigured before him, at a face which shines
as the sun, at garments white as the light;
while the cloud of a divine glory overshadows
him, and in his ears resounds the voice,
''This is my beloved Son: hear ye him."
The God of Jesus is the highest reach of human
thought. The Jesus of God knows nothing
higher, and he that hath seen him hath seen
the Father.

The solitary perfect moral human light
of these two thousand years is clouded with
ambiguous shadows, the nature of the Infinite
unknown, the faith of men and all their moral

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 123

life uncertain, the goal of their achievement is
unsure and the whole present scheme of
human progress fails, unless, with an author-
ity that is divine, with an ideal that is the form
of God, Jesus Christ is God with us.

But the vision and the revelation have not
here their final end for human life. The Son
of God is likewise Son of man. The unity
of Christ with men must be as clear as the
distinction. There is in Jesus a deeper ele-
ment, a deeper meaning for the race, than the
apprehension of the Lord's divine identity.
He must become revealer of the God within
our human life and selves; his mission to re-
store the broken image and the heavenly
superscription on the race.

The relation of the eternal Son with the
eternal Father is the ultimate ideal relation
between men and God — the actual in Jesus,
the prophetical in man. Without the im-
manence of Christ his heavenly transcend-
ence can have no vital meaning for the sons
of men. And as his actual contrast between
himself and men is the eternal ground of
faith, so must his essential kinship with the

124 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

race be its eternal ground of hope. And if
we bring these truths together, we shall
have a Christ who is the very substance of
the Father, with his being grounded in the
Godhead, solitary and supreme. And we
shall have a hun^ian Christ, the supreme
human soul, who lives among and moves
upon the heart and life of men, lifting the
race to his own vision of its divine ideal and
to a consciousness of its own inseparable life
in God. The incarnation was in man then,
that it might be in men. In Jesus, God be-
came partaker in the life of men that men
might be partakers in the very life of God.

The human life of Jesus was the life of
God in man, and the eternal life of men can
be none other. Thus hath he brought our
human immortality to light.

This, then, becomes the deeper meaning
of the advent; the witness of divinity within
our humble, human lives, touched by the
divine without in Christ, to bring it to ful-
filment. It is the pledge and the interpre-
tation of God's eternal life within his children.
The transcendence of the Master, by his imma-

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 125

nence, becomes the pledge of the transcend-
ence of our present selves.

No loftier view of Christ can human mind
conceive. No larger meaning in him for the
race could be invented. To apprehend the
moral magnitude and contemplate the spir-
itual force of Jesus is the solitarily supreme
desire of the mind of man, and to appropriate
his life the loftiest endeavor of a human soul.
In him the Infinite is reachable to human
contemplation. He is God with us. Through
him attainable to human aspiration, he is
God within us. The Son of God, the witness,
and the earnest of the heavenly childhood of
the race, he is the sovereign possession of man-
kind.

Jesus, thus, in himself gave the answer to
man's quest for the Eternal; " God is love.^^
This was the revelation that Jesus brought
to the vision of men. We affirm the God-
likeness of Christ. We must make the equal
affirmation of the Christlikeness of God.
Nineteen hundred years ago there occurred
the supremely significant scene of history.
It was the crucifixion of the Son of God.

126 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

Every upward movement of the race, and
all its finer life, have come simply as fast as
those who followed Jesus have w^alked up
the ascent of Calvary. Thus, the cross has
been the emblem of man's finest hopes.

What is its filial meaning? Is it a satis-
faction of the Divine wrath? There is an ad-
justment in the collocation of thought by
which it may be put that way with logical
sequence. Does it satisfy God's vengeance?
Yes, just as you would satisfy your vengeance
against the heathen by sending your son or
daughter to a mission field. Was it a reve-
lation of the awfulness of human sin? Yes,
not only as a defiance of the Divine sover-
eignty, but also as trampling upon the Divine
love. Its supreme significance was its reve-
lation of the appeal of the infinite affection.
That which is hard for the mind is often
simple for the heart. If you want to know
the nature and the character of God, go,
look at Jesus Christ.

By sin man may crucify, and crucify again,
the divine affection, but on the third day it
will rise to be crucified again.

THE PERSON OF CHRIST 127

" God, in the being of his Son, makes his eternal coun-
sels known:
Where love in all its glory shines, and truth is drawn
in fairest lines."

The Sovereignty of Christ

But I say unto you. — Matthew 5: 28.

While he was yet speaking . . . behold, a voice out
of the cloud, saying. This is my beloved Son . . . hear
ye him. — Matthew 17: 6.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST

The comprehensive note of the gospel is
that of absolute, final, sovereign authority.
It is the constant impression of the utterances
of Jesus. It is the eternal suggestion of his
mysterious personality.

We have seen that religious thought con-
cerning Jesus has wandered far afield in its
emphasis upon such questions as those relat-
ing to miracles. The supreme power of our
highest Christian thought is associated with
the moral and spiritual nature of Christ. The
Christian faith is not a set of philosophic ideas.
It is the power of a person. To the disciples
he said, " Follow Me," and they followed him.
They did not know why they followed him.
He did not silence disputation by counter-
disputation. He did it by the solemn affir-
mation of himself. In the Garden they fell
back, and at Calvary they trembled before
his sovereign person. It is true that Jesus
uttered striking truth. He rebuked; he

131

132 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

warned; he besought; he instructed. But
as one enters into the heart of the Gospels
the most impressive thing is an impression,
mysterious, solemn, compelling, the impress
of a solitary, sovereign personality. In the
highest sense it is this that is the finer element
in discipleship to Christ to-day. We really
do not believe in Jesus because of his gospel,
so much as we believe in his gospel because
of Jesus.

There are two schools of thought to-day,
the school of Ritschl and the school of Calvin.
In the displacement of the latter by the
former the idea of the sovereignty of Christ
has assumed a larger place than that of the
sovereignty of God because the Mediator
is closer to us than that which he reveals
to us. The sovereignty of God and the su-
premacy of Christ have become one and in-
separable, co-equal and eternal, now and for
ever. The mind of man has spent itself in
loftiest endeavor in its effort to comprehend
the Infinite. It has proved an unending
quest. The same thing is true of the person
of Jesus. It is as mysterious, as solemn, as

SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST 133

infinite, as the being of the eternal God. Just
as theology has succeeded theology, so Chris-
tology has followed upon Christology. In
each, man has ever been seeing, learning more
but never exhausting. It is the quest of a
receding goal. The more we learn of Christ
the deeper, the profounder, the more mys-
terious and transcendent he becomes; and
the Christlikeness of God is as real and as
illuminating a conception as the Godlikeness
of Christ. For the intellectual and spiritual
vision of mankind, the magnitude of Jesus'
person is the object of an exhaustless contem-
plation. Just as that personal compulsion
led those earlier disciples and transformed
them, so it is that the story of the fleeing
shadows in the world of human life now for
two thousand years has been but the fulfil-
ment of his own prophecy that he was come
to be the Light of the World. As his form
has become clearer, the world has become
better. The spiritual consciousness of Christ
is the eternally enduring object of the minds
and hearts of men. Thus, in him was intro-
duced into the world not merely a new deca-

134 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

logue, not only a restored prophetism, but an
absolutely new order of life. I utter it with
the confidence of absolute certainty; the
better moral, spiritual order of the world,
so far as it is better, is simply the light of
Calvary on human life. Any better life, any
finer vision, to be realized in any sphere or
time within the moral order, will come, and
can come, only by the yielding of the hearts of
men, and of the constitutions of human insti-
tutions, to the sovereignty of Christ.

'^ But I say unto you." His word has
never been transcended. The true appre-
hension of Jesus is not in the utterances of the
Sermon on the Mount, but in the mysterious
scene upon the mountain of transfiguration.
" This is my Son . . . hear ye him." It is the
eternal voice from heaven to the race to-day.
The vision and the voice must both be seen
and heard. This is the order of Christian
evidence; he who spiritually apprehends
the person will be mysteriously, solemnly
commanded by the utterance. The order
of experience will be both the mount of
vision and the Sermon on the Mount. To

SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST 135

those who see the vision, the voice will be the
sovereign compulsion of human thought and
life. This is the world's deepest need to-day
and the sole solution of its profoundest prob-
lems. To serious, thoughtful men its prob-
lems are serious and sometimes dreadful.
Without the help of God an earnest-minded
man would not be able to bear the weight of
his own heavy heart. Without the light of
Christ the shadows of human life would be
impenetrable.

First of all, the sovereign voice of Jesus is
the ultimate authority for Christian thought
and faith. Here we find much disorder,
unrest and doubt. Men are in question
concerning the reality and the nature of
God; the being of man; the reality of sin;
the certainty of judgment; and the deter-
minations of destiny. Where shall they turn
for the ultimate word? To the Council of
Nicsea? To the utterances of Chalcedon, or
Trent? To whom shall they turn? To the
remnant of John Calvin's thought, or to
Arminius? To the bishops of the Methodist
Episcopal Church who have recently seen fit

136 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

to form a final judgment? I dare say, No.
The supreme personal, individual authority
is Christ.

At the marriage feast in Cana, Mary simply
and confidently turned to the men and said,
" Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it." So
we may say : " Whatever he says to you,
think it, accept it." This is the first element
in the order of Christian discipleship. Learn
the thought of Christ and try to live by the
guidance of that thought. There is no other
name given under heaven or among men
whereby the world of thought can be saved
from its doubts, denials and distresses. By
submission to Christ the world of Christian
thought will emerge from the shadows. While
the wise men of the East were offering their
myrrh and the incense of their genius at the
infant shrine, the unwise men, as they tended
their flocks upon the plain, were also hearing
the heavenly hosts. So the simplest minds
and the profoundest intellects may sit to-
gether at the feet of Christ. " But I say
unto you "; " Hear ye him." Our theology,
our Christian faith, must be determined by
the sovereign thought of Christ.

SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST 137

The situation is more appalling when we
consider the solemn, serious problems of the
social order. Christ is interested in the way
that men treat each other. It may seem
preposterous, but I am willing to affirm it;
we have a solution of the deep, dark problems
of rich and poor, cultured and uncultured,
good and bad; of the questions of heredity,
environment and opportunity. Over all
this tumult a voice may be heard, '^ But I say
unto you "; and another voice echoing from
the other mountain, " Hear ye him."

And what does he say? Let us gather this
human society upon the mountainside before
him, first the one side and then the other,
for there would be two sides. He speaks:
" Blessed are the humble "; '^ Blessed are the
merciful "; ^' Blessed are the peacemakers."
Over against the selfishness of men, over
against the law of the survival of the fittest,
he puts his " I say unto you "; " Love your
enemies " ; " Forgive men "; " Judge them
not "; " One is your Master, and all ye are
brethren " ; "A new commandment I give
unto you, that ye love one another, as I have
loved you "; ^' He that saveth his life shall

138 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

lose it; and he that loseth his life shall save it '^*
^' As ye would that men should do to you, do ye
also to them likewise." And after the sermon
he lifts his hands above them, and he says,
^' Kneel down together side by side, touching
one another in common sympathy and com-
mon needs; now say, and say it all together,
' Our Father.' " After the gathering he goes
out to dine. A poor fallen creature comes and
sheds her tears at his feet. Simon has for-
gotten the sermon and the prayer, until the
Master rises, looks him in the face, and says,
^' Simon, she is a poor, low creature, but she
is also your sister. She has lost the beauty
of virtue, but she lost it living in that one-
room tenement of yours." This is the im-
perative word of Jesus to society, absorbed
in its corrupt pleasures and selfish isolations.
Jesus Christ is the socialist, his gospel is the
socialism for our day.

Who does not look in fear and trembling
upon the world of industry and the commer-
cial order? Jesus is interested in these prob-
lems whether his Church is or not. I mean
the questions of wages, of hours, of the servi-

SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST 139

tucle of women and children, of the conditions
of dividends and profits. His clear eye traces
much resulting iniquity back to the degrading
conditions of labor. He is supremely con-
cerned with the ethics of business. He sees
with a pierced heart these two great armies
encamped over against each other in their
mutual bitterness and hate. To the one he
says, " Your labor is a divine opportunity."
To the other he says, ^' The control of men is
a holy trust." This is his answer to the men
of business who tell us that these are business
questions for business men and not religious
questions for the pulpit.

Again Jesus calls them also together upon
the mountainside, that when he is set they
may gather before him. He calls them from
the labor union; he calls them from the or-
ganizations of their employers. Over against
the rule of gold he puts the Golden Rule. He
tells the Christian business man that he cannot
serve God and mammon. '' But I say unto
you. Love one another even as I have loved
you." Your business is not simply to buy in
the cheapest and sell in the highest market.

140 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

Your aim in life is not simply to work the
least you can for the most you can get. So
He calls them together and tells them to
kneel down, closely touching one another,
to lift their eyes to heaven and say to-
gether with him, " Our Father." He passes
out from this scene. He meets the Pharisai-
cal men of human privileges who have not
attended the gathering. He points his finger
at them and says, " Ye bind heavy burdens
upon men, and will not so much as touch one
of them with your fingers." The sovereign
Christ is the final arbiter of the industrial
order.

Jesus' most significant method we have yet
to see. While his words relate thus to bodies
of men who have come together under the
natural associations of human interests, his
words are always spoken directly to the indi-
vidual. He realizes that both the social and
the industrial order are made up of men and
women. So he went about to men and
women. He said most of his profoundest
words to but twelve men. Yet witness the
realization of his prophecy, fulfilling itself

SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST 141

for now twenty centuries, that they should
be the salt and leaven of the earth.

The supreme question of human life is that
of the personal relation of the individual to
Christ. Who, in these two thousand years,
have done the most to bring men to his feet?
The framers of the creeds? They have done
much, and yet, " Their little systems " had
^^ their day; they " had '^ their day and ceased
to be." The theorists of social reform? They
have done much, but it has been fragmentary
and transient. In the industrial order, the
organizations of labor? No doubt they have
accomplished a great deal for the uplifting
of men.

But more, infinitely more, has come from
the perennial power of simple personalities
who have been constantly shedding Christ's
spirit about them. Jesus saw these same
dreadful problems. They were worse in his
day. He met them by sending out twelve
disciples. He is meeting them to-day in the
same way. The sole hope of the world is to
make men disciples of Jesus. He is waiting,
as his parents waited in the inn, to find room

142 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

in the social and industrial realms of life. He
finds room as men get him in their hearts.

I said these things one day in conversation
in the office of a great business man. After
I had done, he smiled benignly and said, " My
young brother, your ideals are fine, but there
is no place for them in business." Christ is
waiting to find room in that man's business,
and he will find it when he finds it in that
man's heart. The New Jerusalem of a better
human order must descend out of heaven. If
we look for a city that hath foundations, its
builder and maker is God, its ruler is Christ.
The Infinite is the author and the creator, and
he must be the finisher of the moral order.
Jesus Christ, his Son, is the master workman
on this earth.

The solution of all human problems is the
answer of religion. There is no religion known
to man higher than our Christian faith. The
solemn questions of society, the serious con-
ditions of industry, with its bitterness and
hate, simply await the second coming of the
Son of man through his disciples. The world
to-day is full of Bethesda pools and of men

SOVEREIGNTY OF CHRIST 143

I
waiting for a Christ in the form of a disciple
to help them in. The whole creation groaneth
and travaileth in pain together until men shall
see the vision of Mount Hermon and hear the j

voice of the Sermon on the Mount. 1

" O Saul! it shall be j

A Face like my face that receives thee ; a man like to me ]

Thou shalt love and be loved by forever. 1

A Hand like this hand j

Shall throw open the gates of new life to thee, j

See the Christ stand! " I

There is no other name, no other name, S

given under heaven or among men whereby
the world can be saved. And the sovereignty
of Jesus Christ is the simple reign of human
love. " But I say unto you " ; " While he
was yet speaking . . . behold, a voice out
of the cloud" said, ^'This is my beloved j

Son . . . hear ye him.'' ;

The Spirit of God

Nevertheless I tell you the truth: It is expedient
for you that I go away ; for if I go not away, the Com-
forter will not come unto you. — John 16: 7.

But the Comforter, even the Holy Spirit . . . shall
teach you all things. — John I4: 26.

THE SPIRIT OF GOD

In relation to our conception of the revela-
tion of the Infinite in the order of nature the
two great discoveries in modern science are:
the extension of the universe in space, and its
extension in time. Coincident with these is
our resultant discovery of the law of con-
tinuous progression.

Likewise, in our comprehension of the
revelation of the Infinite in the moral and
spiritual order, the revealment of moral and
spiritual truth, and the molding of human life
by divine ideals, the field of spiritual vision
is wonderfully enlarged by these discoveries.
Thus science has been the handmaid and the
servant of religion.

The question of divine revelation is a much
larger one than it would have been con-
sidered a century, a half century, or even
a quarter of a century ago. To define the
contents of revelation is a much more difficult
task than the religious teachers of the ages

147

148 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

have conceived it to be. We are dealing with
the revelation of an infinite being, with an
infinitude of time and space before him and
with an infinite love which will eternally
constrain him to seek to fill that time and
space with his own goodness. Our attempt
to define the contents of the revelation, from
one point of view, is thus to define the inde-
finable, to state the limits of the boundless.

On the side of man, however, there are
limitations to his vision of this revelation, and
thus, for him, it is contained, and may, in a
measure, be defined. Yet, even then, the
history of the race, now extended, by the di-
vine discoveries of science, far back into the-
ages in time, and far out beyond the bounds
of any race of people in space, gives us a large
and glorious area and makes us cautious in
our efforts to determine and define upon the
side of man.

The tendency of modern thought is to find
the Infinite, as inspiration and spiritual
force, in every place where the heart of man
beats, and to recognize that the revelation is
defined only by the limits of human ability

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 149

or willingness to witness the vision, and that
it is determined only by the stage of human
moral progress. In stating the human forms
which contain the revelation, we must aim to
give the widest content and to cover the most
we can. And we feel, after our attempt to
thus define without omission, that we have
not exhausted by our definition, and that we
have been attempting, after all, to discover
the limits of the illimitable.

It has been this feeling that has brought
about the transition in our emphasis from
doctrines of Biblical inspiration, of the in-
carnation in a solitary person and the re-
ligious ownership of a single institution, to
the larger doctrine of the Holy Spirit, whose
work includes all these and is not bound by
any one or all of them.

These discoveries of an infinite moral uni-
verse, knowing neither space nor time, have
brought us to this larger doctrine of the
Spirit. Thus it is that science has helped us
to larger and better things in faith, and we
have made the further great discovery that
there is no contradiction between the two.

150 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

It may be said that we should avoid nega-
tions and only give the direct and positive
assertions for which the human heart awaits
the utterance of the prophet. But I am
writing for the discriminating and discerning,
and to such the affirmation is often best re-
vealed by the negation of its opposite, through
their knowledge of the inevitable law of
contrast.

If the infinite revelation is bounded by
neither time nor space, then it is only limited
on the part of man, as a whole, by the limits
of extent to which he fills, has filled and will
fill time and space. This being true, it is
certain, to begin with, that religious revela-
tion cannot be confined to a book or to any
collection of books, that does not at least
include every utterance of the human heart
on the remotest moral theme. For such a
book, or such a collection of books, is limited
by a space and time that are less than those
which have been occupied by the collective
life of man. This is not to say, however, be
it noted, that a book is not a revelation. It
is at best, however, but a single illustration,

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 151

or an epitome, of the larger revelation ever
going on in the larger time and space outside
its limit, a revelation which thus began before
the Book, which went on in larger measure
while the Book was being written, and which
continued after the Book was closed. Reve-
lation thus cannot be limited to the Book we
call the Bible, even though it were an errorless
book.

To proceed further, our thought has passed
beyond that doctrine of the mcarnation which
confines the revelation to a single person, or
to persons, until we have included every
human soul. It is true, I think, that Christ
alone of all human beings beheld the sum
total of the moral perfection of the Infinite,
and certainly no other whom we know has
ever perfectly embodied it.

But again, we have here, at most, but an il-
lustration, or an epitome, of the larger incarna-
tion which has touched every human soul that
ever lived. The difference is in degree and
not in kind, except in so far as a difference in
degree may become a difference in kind.
Our vision of the Christ is the picture in min-

152 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

iature of the larger incarnation. The historic
Jesus was filled with God's holy spirit, but
he did not exhaust it, and he himself de-
clared that it was God's universal gift to all
his children. Of this we shall treat more
fully a little later on.

Still further, if this revelation is bounded
by neither space nor time, it could in no way
be confined to any institution, whether it be
the Church of Israel, the Apostolic Council
or the Church of Christ. All these, again,
are but epitomes or single illustrations of the
larger revelation which went on before them,
which was contemporaneous with them and
of which they were but a part, even though it
were the larger part.

Thus we can no longer confine inspiration
to the Bible, the incarnation to Christ or
religion to a church.

It must be frankly admitted, also, that the
clear distinctions which once existed, or were
thought to exist, between a natural and a
supernatural revelation have passed away.

As we have seen, it has been our discoveries
of the truths of the natural order that have

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 153

led us to the larger truths of the moral and
spiritual order. And so, as evidences of a
moral revelation, the so-called miracles have
gone. The believers of our day who believe
in the miracles of Jesus beheve in them
because of him and his gospel. They do
not believe in him and his gospel because
of miracles. A contradiction, or a marvel
in the natural order, is no more proof or
evidence of moral principle than an athlete's
ability to lift a hitherto unlifted stone is proof
that he is a holy man.

The newer doctrine of the Holy Spirit
witnesses the supernatural in all moral action
and operation, and, so far as the evidences of
a moral and spiritual revelation are con-
cerned, miracles in the physical order are,
with those who still feel under obligation
to attempt to retain a place for them, a sort
of extra ornament, of somewhat doubtful
value even as such, and belief in them is at
best a work of supererogation. We shall
come, with Jesus, to consider those who have
the larger light of spiritual truth, and before
whose faces Jesus shines ; and who still insist

154 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

on seeking signs, as an adulterous and evil
generation.

I have stated these things in the form of
negation because it is necessary, as Christ
declared, to destroy the older temple that we
may erect a new and better one on its foun-
dations. It is expedient that these go away.

It must be admitted that, again and again,
age after age, men have been possessed with
the idea that at last they had gotten divine
truth enclosed and finally contained. We
feel to-day, however, that this cannot be
possible until all things are possible to man as
well as God. The fault has been that one
or two, or a very few, of the methods which
were designed to lead men to faith have
themselves become the objects of faith, the
means became the end and the partial and
temporary were conceived of as if complete
and eternal.

The modern conception of the immanence
of God has revealed to us in larger measure
the spiritual environment of man, that he
lives, not in an arid desert with only its occa-
sional divine oasis of Bible, Church and mira-

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 155

cle, but that he may find God on every hand,
and that the revelation of this God is not con-
fined to any book, to any historic people, to
any single person, to any institution or to any
occasional demonstrations, indeed, not con-
fined to anything that is limited by time and
space.

This is not, however, be it noted, to deny
those supreme differences of degree which are
so great that we may, for our convenience,
call them differences in kind, albeit in a moral
universe whose principle is unity there are,
strictly speaking, no such. And a moral
universe, with only one God, must be a moral
universe of unity.

These valid and necessary distinctions,
however, must neither deny nor obscure the
eternal truth that, ever since the dawn of
moral consciousness in man, there has been
an ever-present, continuous and personally
immediate revelation to every human soul.

The Rev. Edward M. Chapman, in his
illuminating work, '' The Dynamic of Chris-
tianity," has shown us that, again and again,
the very men who have been deemed the

156 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

deniers of truth have left their heritage of
truth, and the Gnostic and Montanist gave
to their persecutors a doctrine which, while
it has been too much obscured, has had its
implicit life in the inner consciousness of
Church and Christian, namely, the possibility
of continued and immediate revelation of the
truth to men, by the Holy Spirit, through a
multitude of varied approaches. Nor has
this Spirit come to man from a far-off God
who dwelt without, but is the flaming up of a
divine within.

This being true, to permit any form of reve-
lation to rule further discovery of the Infinite
out of court is simply to limit the presence of
the Holy Spirit, and thus to limit the opera-
tions of the Infinite, and the Infinite himself,
in time and space.

The third modern discovery of which we
spoke, the resultant and the corollary of the
other two, is the doctrine of the eternal prog-
ress of this revelation of the Spirit. It
illuminates Pascal's saying that " humanity
is a man who is to live forever and learn with-
out ceasing." Thus, as Sabatier declares,

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 157

from this point of view, the moderns are the
ancients, since they have a longer experience
behind them. The ancients, on the contrary,
are the children in truth, because they came
in the early ages of the world. Jesus himself
explicitly declared that he was not the ulti-
mate object of men's faith, and the beautiful
legend of the rending of the veil, while he
hung upon the cross, is a sublime picture of
the Holy place as accessible to every human
soul.

Jesus gave to the world a new Book. He
gave to the world himself. He gave to the
world a Church. But his supreme gift was
the consciousness of the Holy Spirit which
should ultimately guide men into all truth,
and who was necessary, in order that they
should behold and appropriate him. He
was the revealer of the revelation, but it was
not in the form of a set of doctrines. It was
something eternally living, the constant opera-
tion of the Spirit of God upon the human
consciousness.

Thus, the center of gravity of the religious
life, variously conceived as a book, person,

158 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

institution, and formula, is changed from these
things which are without to something
eternally within. The supreme gift of Jesus
was the principle of the fraternal equality,
the spiritual independence of God's children,
grounded upon their filial relation to the
Father to whom they were boimd by the ever-
present influences of the Spirit.

Christian revelation is thus not confined to
a closed canon, to a stereotyped letter, to a
divine person, to a divine confession; but is
only contained in the immanence and contin-
uity of that Spirit in the soul who inspired
the writers of the book, who bears witness to
the truth of the book, who makes the institu-
tion and the person themselves divine. Thus
did Christ declare that the only unpardonable
sin was, not even to stumble at himself, but
the sin of denying to one's self, or of denying
to any human soul, the influences of the Holy
Ghost.

We may unhesitatingly affirm that we have
emerged from deism, from tritheism, into a
glorious spiritual pantheism. Not a materi-
alistic pantheism, which is both the exagge-

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 159

ration and the limitation of truth, but the
pantheism of the divine immanence in human-
ity, without any confines of mediation.

It declares, as Martineau says, that " divine
guidance has never, and nowhere, failed to
men, nor has it ever, in the most essential
things, largely differed amongst them. The
veil falls from the shadowed face of all ex-
ternal authority as such, and the directing
love of the all-holy God shines forth." Under
such a conception, we may behold, all along
the pathway of life, sacred shrines like those
upon some Alpine road.

As one star differs from another in glory,
but all are set throughout the natural universe
by God, and are his beacons of the night, so,
while the moral lights of men which guide
them on their way have differed in their
splendor, they all reveal the guidance of the
Father. To say, as men have said, that
confessions and institutions may define the
revelation is to set bounds to moral progress,
and thus to close the way to heaven.

Our intellectual forms of faith are but at-
tempts to express, in the language of the mind,

160 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

the feelings of the human hearty to search out
the unsearchable and to express the inex-
pressible. All such are good and helpful, but
they can never be perfect until the knowledge
of man is equal to the knowledge of God.

Schleiermacher, one of the greatest of the
prophets, gave us a new order of thought in
declaring the religion of the heart to be the
irreducible fact of experience which is ante-
rior to any religious theory or form of doctrine
which can only imperfectly express it. The
common error of both rationalist and super-
naturalist was in considering faith as a
form of doctrine which one thought might be
deduced from reason as a purely intellectual
operation, and which the other believed to
have fallen, at a given point in time, from
heaven. And both rationalist and believer
came to reduce religion and revelation to the
contents of an intellectual operation.

The newer order of thought is that man
receives life, and then, in trying to express
that life in words, makes his own belief. This
is not to deny the reaction of belief upon
life. But the life is ever larger than any one

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 161

expression of it — indeed, than all expres-
sions. The attempt to interpret the life
has been treated as though it were the life
which it imperfectly expresses.

Hence all dogmas, doctrines and ortho-
doxies in relation to Scripture, to Christ and
the religious life of man are but the imper-
fect intellectual expressions of the common
religious consciousness of the race. Thus no
one man, no body of men, can give them
perfect expression. Such could only be
gained by bringing together the religious con-
sciousness of every human being of every race.
In the light of such an infinite task how mar-
velous has been the intellectual and moral
self-sufficiency, not only of popes, but of
councils of religious men! Thus neither
Bible nor Church can be a principle or first
cause, but only partial consequence and par-
tial effect.

Viewed thus, all human truth and goodness
are the consequences of revelation. It all
springs from one source, and is instinct with
one life — the life of the Spirit. Every hu-
man deed of love, every noble impulse, all

162 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

self-sacrificing service, is but this Spirit of
God clothing itself with human personality,
and all moral goodness is divine.

The result of this view is momentous, in that
it leaves no such thing as orthodoxy, except
as Sabatier defines it — the orthodoxy which
is officially consecrated by immediate and
temporary success. It transfers the em-
phasis of our evangelism from the acceptance
of superimposed intellectual formulas to the
moral action which is the resultant of the
inner life of the Spirit.

The larger aims of the Protestant Refor-
mation are only just being realized. The
larger ideal which it saw by the Spirit was
the transfer from the religion of a body politic
to the religion of an immanent moral force in-
teriorized within the soul — the principle of the
autonomy of the Christian conscience. Un-
fortunately, the older principle did not die, and
we lived, for a long time, under the halting
substitution of the external authority of the
revelation of Scripture for that of the Church.

It must be admitted that the controversy
concerning the ultimate authority of the

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 163

Bible, Church or reason has been settled in
favor of the reason, which itself is called to
pass judgment on both Bible and Church.
We must go further still, however. Human
reason is the gift of God and must be guided
by the Infinite mind. We have enlarged our
conception of revelation and have come to
consider it as the action of God upon both
mind and heart through the Holy Spirit.
The conception of the ultimate authority of
the Scripture is most emphatically disavov/ed
by the Scripture itself. The Fourth Gospel
explicitly denies that inspired utterance
ceased when the pen of its writer was laid
down. The very doctrine of inspiration in
this Gospel could be confined to no age or
apostolic circle, neither in kind nor in degree.
The free and unhampered use of the Old
Testament by Jesus was a freedom which
he bequeathed to his disciples for Testaments
both Old and New, or any other book.

The view of the Gospel of John is that the
religion of the Spirit existed before a single
book of the Bible was written, and it still
would have existed even if those books had

164 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

disappeared. Our modern reverent, so-called
criticism of the Scripture is simply the doc-
trine that prayer and the seeking of the Holy
Spirit must accompany the reading of the
Bible, in order that we may rightly divide the
word of truth.

The Church has disproved itself as ulti-
mate authority. The alleged warfare be-
tween theology and science has, as Chapman
says, really been the ^^ conflict between insti-
tutionalism and science," and the spoils of
battle are at least equal. While the Church
is, and always has been, a conservator and
mediator of the essential truth, it is, unfortu-
nately, as a body, still loath to admit that the
ultimate energy of the philosopher and the
resident forces of the scientist and the im-
manent spirit of the theologian are but dif-
ferent terms of revelation, while the enlight-
ened Christian conscience sees clearly that
they are.

Those who shrink from accepting the doc-
trine of the ultimate authority of the revela-
tion to the individual human soul, through
the Holy Spirit, fall back from their defences

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 165

of infallibility in the Bible and say that, at
least, then, Christ is the ultimate authority.
The difficulty here is that it serves little for us
to invoke the infallibility of Christ, when the
infallibility of the Gospels has been sacrificed
to historic criticism. The teachings of Jesus,
moreover, so far as the letter is concerned,
were limited by his age and environment.
The reason of man, under the guidance of
the Holy Spirit, is called for to interpret
their principles in order to apply them to
another age and surrounding. Jesus him-
self carefully told his disciples, not so much
that they were to learn what he said, as to
find for themselves the truth which he taught.
They were to share his piety and to behold
with their own eyes his vision of the Father.
The Church has not followed his teaching
when it has made him the object, instead of
the vehicle and source of religion, and, chang-
ing him from the author into the end of faith,
has many times put him in the place of God
rather than as one who was to lead them to
God.

Thus conceiving of the contents of reve-

166 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

lation as being nothing less than the imma-
nent Holy Spirit in the life of man throughout
all the time and space which he occupies, it
appears that, while the Bible was being writ-
ten to declare the revelation that came to
some priests and prophets, the same revela-
tion was being witnessed by other priests and
prophets, and also by those who lived before
and those who lived after.

Under this view, the incarnation is not
only an historical event, but a universal and
continuous process. Humanity was never
left alone without the God whose child it is.
Its theophanies have been in human forms,
and theophanies in human lives did not be-
gin at Bethlehem or end at Calvary. The
angel came in and said unto her, " Hail, thou
that art highly favored, the Lord is with
thee. . . . And the angel answered and said
unto her, The Holy Spirit shall come upon
thee and the power of the Most High shall
overshadow thee: wherefore also the holy
thing which is begotten shall be called the Son
of God." The first mark of the incarnation
was the stamping of motherhood with its

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 167

divineness. Page upon page of learned dis-
quisition has been written to interpret this,
and most of them have never touched its
deeper meaning. Is the story true? To ask
the question is to show that we have missed
its deepest meaning. Over every mother, if
she will but look and listen, is the angel.
Upon her is the shadow of the Holy Spirit.

The Son of man is not a picture to be looked
at by the sons of men and worshiped. He
is the actual of all the holy prophecies in men.
Not simply to behold him, but to recover his
unutterable vision for ourselves is the loftiest
aim of human heart and mind. To see his
God, to grasp his interpretation of our own
souls, are the supreme achievements set before
the race. His consciousness, so far as gained,
is its superlative possession. This Son of God
is likewise Son of man. He has revealed not
only God to men, but God in man.

Humanity can never gain its end by gazing
at a portrait of the Master. It must appre-
hend his mind and gain his spirit and his life.
Without the immanence of Christ, his heavenly
transcendence can have no vital meaning for

168 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

the sons of men. And as his actual con-
trast between himself and men is an eternal
ground of faith, so must his essential kin-
ship with the race be its eternal ground of
hope.

The actual contrast between the Son of
God and the sons of men is identical with the
moral difference between the finite and the
Infinite. Then must as well the identity of
the sons of men with Jesus be the ground of
their consciousness as the children of God.
The incarnation was in man then, that its
presence in men might be perfectly revealed.
This was Christ's ideal for his disciples, and
the eternally enduring evolution of the race is
first to apprehend and then to gain in partial,
but in growing, measure the mind, the heart,
and the life of the eternal Son.

This, then, becomes the deeper meaning
of the incarnation; the witness of divinity
within our humble life, touched by the divine
in Christ to bring it to fulfilment. It is the
pledge and the interpretation of God's eternal
life within his children. The transcendence
of the Master, by his iromanence, becomes

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 169

the pledge of the transcendence of our present
selves.

To apprehend the moral magnitude and
contemplate the spiritual force of Jesus is a
sovereign desire of the mind of man, and to
appropriate his life, the loftiest endeavor of a
human soul. As Son of man and Son of God,
the witness and the earnest of the heavenly
childhood of the race, he is the sovereign pos-
session of mankind. But to gain the view
and the interpretation of the Christ, which
the Gospel writers give us, is not enough. To
gain any view of Christ is not enough. The
unceasing effort of the human mind, its lofti-
est endeavor, is to see the things he saw and
feel the feelings that he felt, — that we might
do this, he left us the bequest of the Holy
Spirit.

So, while bibles are both read and written,
while creeds and confessions are both made
and re-made, while institutions seek to con-
serve, embody and reveal God's truth, no one
of these, nor all of these together, can define
or contain within themselves the revelation of
the Infinite to men.

170 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

It comes in many ways. It is contained in
myriads of forms. It is expressed and lives
its life on every hand. It takes the form of
many holy books and many sacred institu-
tions, but it is confined within no separate
sphere of action. It is the life of God, through
his Holy Spirit, taking the form to-day of a
righteous civic consciousness, as the revela-
tion comes and reveals the truth, justice and
righteousness against the present background
of fraud, injustice and unholy bribes. It
may take the form of burning, righteous pro-
test against accepting, in the name of God and
Christ, imholy gains, which are unlawful for a
sacred treasury, because they are the price of
blood.

The revelation sheds its light upon the host
of himaan beings who toil by day and night
for the support in luxury of Dives and his
friends, and its light shed upon a labor
union may transform it to a holy institution.
The revelation may take the form of the
vision of sacred brotherhood against the
somber background of despotism, cruelty,
hate, and imbridled lust, and may shine from

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 171

America on far-off Russia or the woeful
hell of Turkey; and the impulse of the Holy
Spirit may arm the warships and consecrate,
in the name of the Father, Son and Holy
Ghost, their every gun, under its other names
of human brotherhood and justice. It lives
in every human deed of righteousness and
love.

Everywhere the Holy Spirit does his work.
To write a bible, to experience an incarnation,
to possess a sacred altar, with its holy fire, are
the privileges of every human soul. A bible
writ by other men is not enough. The incar-
nation as an historic fact in a single person
must be as well a universal impartation.
No formulary of a council can express for
any human soul its own experience. No age
can do it for another age. No church can
take the place of the Holy of holies, where the
human soul, in the inviolable solitude of its
own personality, stands face to face with the
divine reality. The burning bush is ever at
the feet of every man. Nature, the Bible,
the Church, the Christ, — all these and count-
less other media, varying in their measure, are,

172 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

by the Spirit, the means of revelation, but no
one of them exhausts it.

This is the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The
hairs of every human head are numbered, and
there are as many revelations as there are
human souls. The content of revelation is
the total consciousness of God in all the human
souls from the beginnings of moral conscious-
ness in man to the very present moment.

" Speak to Him, thou, for he hears.
And Spirit with spirit can meet —
Closer is He than breathing,

And nearer than hands and feet."

It is expedient, then, that Scripture should
confess its temporary partialness; that the
Church should feel that it is smaller than the
kingdom; that men should look for spiritual
visions and not for puzzling signs; that creeds
should say, The truth is larger than us all,
and truer.

'^ Yea," says the Christ himself, " it is ex-
pedient for you that I go away, for if I go not
away, the Spirit will not come."

Does this mean that every book is a Bible,
every man a Christ and every human insti-

THE SPIRIT OF GOD 173

tution a Church? No, it does not mean that
any other book is a Bible, any other being a
Christ, or any other body a holy Church. But
it does mean that revelation and inspiration
are all-comprehending moral terms, that the
incarnation is a universal process and that the
kingdom of God, like the word of God, knows
no limitations of time and space. It does not
dispose of all objective authority, for we are
bound to take into account, not only the Holy
Spirit as it speaks to us, but also as it speaks
to other men. But the Holy Spirit within
the individual soul must be the divider and
interpreter, and such authority is not an im-
position, but is itself a gift of the Spirit. Evo-
lution is both an imfolding from within and
an infolding from without. The great idea
of unity does not deny diversity. Identity
is not inconsistent with variety. " There is
one glory of the sun, and another glory of the
moon, and another glory of the stars; for one
star differeth from another star in glory."

Under any other view than that of moral
identity and unity the incarnation is mean-
ingless. There can never be attainableness

174 THE INFINITE AFFECTION

without essential unity between that which
is and that which is to be. The unity and
universaHty of revelation are essential to a
moral universe.

Does this mean a lesser bible? No, it
only means that the Bible is the means and not
the end of revelation. Does this mean that
the inner circle of disciples which we call the
Church has lost its individuality? No, it only
means a larger Church created by it. Is a
superannuated Christ the consequence of this
mode of thought? No, it remains true that
there is one Bible, that the twelve disciples
are still existent as an inner circle of the Sev-
enty. Jesus Christ is sovereign and eternal.

" It is expedient for you that I go away."
" But I come again, and will receive you unto
myself; that where I am, there ye maybe also."
He it is who leads his own beyond the outer
Gentile court of institutions, beyond the
mediating sanctuaries, to the very Holy of
holies, where the individual soul in the in-
violable solitude of its personality stands
face to face with the divine reality, and all are
there, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost.

Amen.

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