TI Mr. Gladstone has eloquently sketched in a few words the power of the Christian church: "Christianity both produced a type of character wholly new to the Roman world and it funda- mentally altered the laws and institutions, the tone, temper, and tradition of that world. For example, it changed profoundly the
1 ,T. Flew, Studies in IJroivniuy, 45.
i CORINTHIANS m. 11-13 97
relation of the poor to the rich, and the almost forgotten obligation of the rich to the poor. It abolished slavery, abolished human sacrifice, abolished gladiatorial shows, and a multitude of other horrors. It restored the position of woman in society. It prosecuted polygamy; and put down divorce, absolutely in the West, though not absolutely in the East. It made peace, instead of war, the normal and presumed relation between human societies. It exhibited life as a discipline, every- where and in all its parts, and changed essentially the place and function of suffering in human experience. Accepting the ancient morality as far as it went, it not only enlarged but transfigured its teaching by the laws of humility and of forgiveness, and by a law of purity even more new and strange than these."
(4) In the fourth place, this Eeligion of a Human Christ offers a temporal and local religion in place of one that is as eternal and as universal as its Divine Author. Let Eobert Elsmere again explain his position : " If you wish, Catherine, I will wait — I will wait till you bid me speak ; but I warn you there is something dead in me, something gone and broken. It can never live again except in forms which now it would only pain you more to think of. It is not that I think differently of this point or that point, but of life and religion altogether. I see God's purposes in quite other proportions, as it were. Christi- anity seems to me something small and local. Behind it, around it, including it, I see the great drama of the world, sweeping on, led by God, from change to change, from act to act. It is not that Christianity is false, but that it is only an imperfect human reflection of a part of truth."
Tj It is a perfectly unique and very striking fact, that the views of Christ do not proceed from the concretely defined horizon of any age or any historical sphere, not even from His own. Mark the distinction in this respect between Christ and Socrates.1
3. The Foundation is the Person of Christ — Christ Himself. — This has been the teaching of the Church from the earliest day till now. In every age and in every land the Church has taught invariably that the one determining factor of the Christian religion is the Person of Jesus. That is the absolute, essential thing. The Christian religion is not a mere system of
1 R. Rothe, Still Hours, 213. I COR. — 7
98 THE TEACHER'S GREAT TEXT
doctrine. It is not a mere ethical code. It is not merely a redemptive social force. It is above all dependence on a Person. And therein lies its peculiarity and its novelty. A Church Father of the second century, being pressed with the question, " What new thing did the Lord bring by His coming ? " replied, "Know that He brought all newness in bringing us Himself." The distinctive feature of the new religion is the Person of Jesus. (1) It is Jesus Christ, and not doctrines about Jesus Christ. To say this is not to disparage the precious guidance of Scripture or Creeds or Councils. These Apostolic words, these later definitions, which furnish in our day the favourite topic for so much shallow declamation, are the voice of that Eternal Spirit by whom the whole Body is governed as well as sanctified. They guard and sustain in Christian thought the Divine Saviour's peerless honour ; they forbid, in tones of merciful severity, false and degrading beliefs about Him. Yet He, our living Lord, is the foundation ; and no one can altogether rest upon the formulae which uphold and regulate our estimate of His Glory. We prize both Scripture and the Creeds for His sake, not Him for theirs ; and to rest upon them, as distinct from Him whom they keep before us, would be like building a wall upon a measuring rule, instead of upon the block of granite, of which it has given us the noble dimensions.
^[ I do not agree with the saying imputed to some one, that God gave man religion, but the devil invented theology as a counterfeit. For theology is not the natural or proper antithesis to religion; still less its opposite or antagonist. It occupies a different sphere ; and though dealing with the same subjects in great measure, yet its aim is, or should be, different ; and it works by means of different faculties. Keligion aims at the production of faith, hope and charity, and all the proper fruits of those graces. It would teach us to trust in God, and love Him, and to obey that second commandment, which is like unto the first both in its scope and in its importance and comprehensiveness — " Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." It is that which brings the human soul consciously into relation with God, with an unseen world and a spiritual kingdom, and with a future state of retribution. Eeligion, therefore, is an appeal to faith and also to conscience, both of which it seeks to quicken and exercise; so that we may be godly towards God, and righteous towards our neighbour, performing all our duties from a principle of obliga-