^J Man is the principle of the religion of the Neo-Hegelians, and intellect is the climax of man. Their religion, then, is the religion of intellect. There you have the two worlds : Christi- anity brings and preaches salvation by the conversion of the will, — humanism by the emancipation of the mind. One attacks the heart, the other the brain. Both wish to enable man to reach his ideal. But the ideal suffers, if not by its content, at least by the disposition of its content, by the predominance and sovereignty given to this or that inner power. For one, the mind is the organ of the soul ; for the other, the soul is an inferior state of the mind; the one wishes to enlighten by making better, the other to make better by enlightening. It is the difference between Socrates and Jesus. The cardinal question is that of sin. The question of immanence or of dualism is secondary. The Trinity, the life to come, paradise and hell, may cease to be dogmas and spiritual realities, the form and the letter may vanish away, — the question of humanity remains : What is it which saves ? l
II.
The Meaning of the Name.
1. In one sense, there is nothing in a name. The nature of the thing is independent of it. It is not in the power of any name
1 AmlcVs Journal (trans, by Mrs. Humphry Ward), 11.
ST. MATTHEW i. 21 7
to make evil good, or good evil ; and our Saviour, Jesus Christ, would have been what He is, by whatever name He had been called. But in another view there is something in a name. It stands for the thing, and, through frequent use, comes to be identified with it. It is therefore of the highest moment that the name should correspond with the thing, and convey a correct idea of it. Exactness of thought requires exactness of language. Knowledge depends for its accuracy on the right use of words, and the great instructors of mankind are as careful of the expres- sion as of the idea. Words are things. We deal with them, not as souuds but as substances, and look not so much at them as at the verities in them. Names are persons. When one is mentioned in our hearing, it brings the man before us, and awakens the feelings which would be excited if he were present himself.
Now, we may see this, above all, in the adorable name of Jesus. That name, above all others, ought to show us what a name means ; for it is the name of the Son of Man, the one perfect and sinless man, the pattern of all men ; and therefore it must be a perfect name, and a pattern for all names. And it was given to the Lord not by man, but by God ; and therefore it must show and mean not merely some outward accident about Him, something which He seemed to be, or looked like, in men's eyes; no, the name of Jesus must mean what the Lord was in the sight of His Father in Heaven; what He was in the eternal purpose of God the Father; what He was, really and absolutely, in Himself; it must mean and declare the very substance of His being. And so, indeed, it does; for the adorable name of Jesus means nothing else but God the Saviour — God who saves. This is His name, and was, and ever will be. This name He fulfilled on earth, and proved it to be His character, His exact description, His very name, in short, which made Him different from all other beings in heaven or earth, create or un- create; and therefore He bears His name to all eternity, for a mark of what He has been, and is, and will be for ever — God the Saviour ; and this is the perfect name, the pattern of all other names of men.
^| When Adam named all the beasts, we read that whatsoever he called any beast, that was the name of it. The names which he gave described each beast ; they were taken from something
8 THE NAME OF JESUS
in its appearance, or its ways and habits, and so each was its right name, the nanio which expressed its nature. And so now, when learned men discover animals or plants in foreign countries, they do not give them names at random, but take care to invent names for them which may describe their natures, and make people understand what they are like. And much more, in old times, had the names of men a meaning. If it was reasonable to give names full of meaning to each kind of dumb animal, much more to each man separately, for each man has a character different from all others, a calling different from all others, and therefore he ought to have his own name separate from all others. Accordingly in old times it was the custom to give each child a separate name, which had a meaning in it which was, as it were, a description of the child, or of something particular about the child.1
2. The name "Jesus," then, means Saviour. What does He save men from ?
(1) Jesus saves from ignorance. If we consider the incarnate life of the Son of God as a theophany and a revealing, we see at once what power it had, and still has, to rescue man from the blind error which is a part of sin. In Jesus, man sees God as He is. And awakened by this vision, he sees time and the world as they really are. The false theories of life on which he proceeds are all contradicted in Him. Every falsehood which the world's enchantment tells, every delusion which it weaves with its Circean spell, finds its refutation in Him. Part of the power of sin lies in its specious delusions. Among these delusions is the lie that the world is all ; the lie that sensual pleasure is good, that passion is strong, that pride is majestic, that disobedience is wise. Jesus came and refuted all these immemorial lies.