the human natures in Jesus. We may intelligently propound and believe the fact, although we may not be able to explain its modus; just as we hold and teach many basal truths of science, the interior economy of which we cannot interpret. In a word, there is no more inconsistency in the tenets of a triune God and a dual Redeemer than there is in the aphorism of a combination of body and soul in a human unit, or of matter and force in a physical monad.

2. Besides these intrinsic difficulties in theology there are others of a more accidental character, but which operate, perhaps even more powerfully and extensively, in its truly scientific development. The most obvious of these is the denominational or ecclesiastical prejudices which have often created a rancorous bigotry on certain doctrines and engendered a haze of controversy amidst which truth has been lost sight of and candor extinguished. Rival churches and antagonistic creeds have been formed, and anathemas have been fulminated, as if an ipse dixit of a mortal could identify or uphold verity. Dogma has ruled and authority been invoked, rather than reason and argument; and so faith and charity have been sacrificed on altars really consecrated to the idolatry of self.

But a better and a brighter day has at length dawned upon the best and brightest portion of the world. Protestantism has measurably united its forces and consolidated its purposes, not only against the heathen and semi-heathen foe, but likewise for the ascertainment and systematization of its own doctrines. The Bible will yet yield up all its secret stores of information on the profound problems which we have touched upon, and every other source of knowledge is more and more contributing to its elucidation and confirmation. Archæology is exploring the past, philology is delving into the mines of comparative language, and philosophy is scanning the subtlest vistas of thought, in aid of revelation; and above all a devout spirit of consecration is wedded to an earnest zeal in intellectual effort to solve the doubts and establish the convictions of honest Christians who have read their Bibles with a faith that was clogged with much ignorance and that labored under many inconsistencies.

3. The only other important hinderance to the scientific development of theology that we shall name is the subjective one which the natural heart of mankind continually interposes to

the reception of divine truth in the love and practice of it. Ever since the fall this has been an active though unavowed factor in the satanic plot for thwarting the counsels of sacred wisdom. God's mortal children are alienated from him, and therefore from his teachings, and they refuse to come to the light lest their deeds should be rebuked. A secret bias in favor of sin is to be suspected at the bottom of all radical theological fallacy, and never does the soul arrive at thorough ingenuousness until it has surrendered its pride of self-opinion, which is the most insidious form of self-righteousness. At the foot of the cross only can the scheme of divine science be rightly comprehended. The God-man is the sole teacher of its deepest meaning, and a regenerate mind only is competent to understand the things of the Spirit in their highest and truest import. The root of genuine Gospel faith is a cordial love of the truth, and this the Holy Ghost must implant in the soul of the student in the school of Christ. There is no sound theology without this; there never was, and there never can be. But in proportion as the mind is thoroughly permeated with this leaven of the kingdom of heaven, a hearty search and sifting will be engendered, that will not rest until a satisfactory knowledge of God, the soul, and their relations is attained, whether humbly or professionally entertained and expressed.

Finally, we remark that, despite these and other limitations and drawbacks, immense and substantial and permanent progress has actually been made in the science of theology during the history of our race, and never more rapidly or surely than within the century now drawing toward its close. Not only did each successive dispensation after the Edenic unfold the theosophic scheme more fully, but Christianity itself has at every revolution digested and clarified its formulas of belief, from the publication of the Athanasian creed, which settled the first great and ever most important question of the trinity and the incarnation, down to the theses of Luther, who nailed the doctrine of justification by faith in the one Atonement to the doors of the evangelical Church forever.

James Strong

THEOLOGY A DISCIPLINE.

Theology, taking the word in its etymological and most restricted sense, is doctrine on God. God is the object that the eye of faith perceives and reason seeks to know. Taken in a wider sense, theology contemplates God in his relations to man and man in his relations to God, its aim being to furnish a systematic knowledge of the Christian religion.

The kind and degree of discipline resulting from the wise prosecution of a science will correspond, other things being equal, to the relative position which the object or theme of the science occupies on the scale of truth. The more noble and spiritual the living reality is which we study, the more ennobling will be the reactionary influence on the life and character of the student. The more profound and difficult the problems requiring solution, the greater will be the strength of mind and the skill in acuteness, perspicuity, and logic of thought developed by the effort to acquire satisfying knowledge. Thus equipped the vocation of an earnest theologian becomes a discipline of the whole intellectual man; will, reason, imagination, and memory-indeed, all spiritual capacities and mental faculties are trained, nourished, strengthened, and matured. His ethical life and his entire psychological constitution come under the elevating and stimulating influence of the highest order of truth.

1. This discipline is spiritual. "God is Spirit." The perception of God, the contemplation of his being, his will, his attributes, his relations to mankind, especially the constant endeavor to know the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit by doing the divine will, spiritualizes the mind.

Faithful contemplation of God may be likened to the vision. of the beautiful in nature and art. Divine works and human works of beauty cultivate taste for the beautiful; and as taste grows in acuteness, in purity and critical perception, the beautifying efficacy of the beautiful increases.

The truth of Christianity is concrete. It does not consist in abstract propositions. Truth is in the first instance personal, a living person, Jesus, the incarnate Son of God. "I am the truth," he says. Truth is pure, righteous, good, immutable in

being and character, uniting all human qualities and all divine attributes in ideal perfection. The portrait is drawn with inimitable simplicity, skill, and transcendent power by the New Testament writers-a portrait so peculiar, so rich, so transporting, that though critically examined by genius, tested by scholarship for many centuries, and more studied by multitudes than any picture, statue, or poem, it has not yet been justly estimated.

2. The study of the good, as sketched in the gospels and epistles, is a training toward a superior manhood, intellectually, morally, and spiritually. Neither Jew nor Greek attained to more than the faintest outline of the image of the man who became the Saviour of his people and actualized faultless goodness. By the wisdom of the Greek it was not anticipated. The extraordinary insight of Plato into the firmness and nobility of virtue did indeed foretell the sufferings of the "righteous man," should unsullied virtue appear in a real person. But the ideal as drawn in living characters by evangelists and apostles unites supreme authority with patient endurance of personal wrongs, almighty strength with gentleness and forbearance, unexampled wisdom with tenderest sympathies, spotless righteousness with unchangeable devotion to the salvation of the wicked, unwavering fidelity to a heavenly mission in the midst of corruption and hypocrisy with love and mercy to the poor, to the sick, and to the oppressed. The good in concrete form, as in the personal history of Jesus it confronts the eyes of men, presents an ideal of goodness which, when studied as a whole and in each of its particular characteristics, becomes, for the earnest student, a moral force exceeding in effectiveness any other sanctifying and ennobling power. No other culture discloses a disciplinary power in the service of moral goodness comparable with the fruits of genuine Christian theology.

3. Christianity challenges obedience, the obedience of faith. First of all, confidence in Jesus as the Christ is enjoined, a confidence which is to be active in the devotion and consecration of love.

To acknowledge and receive the truth with a believing will is the obligation imposed by truth. This obligation, before all other obligations (Matt. x, 37), demands recognition. Truth is its own argument.

Truth, however, when it has authenticated itself to the eye of the soul and has been appropriated by the obedience of love, is not a slumbering, a quiescent possession. Like "a corn of wheat" fallen into the ground, "it bringeth forth much fruit.” It develops itself in the sphere of consciousness, unfolding its riches in the form of knowledge no less than in excellence of character. The possessor of Christian truth is impelled to inquiry into its origin, history, and elements. The faith that clings to the cross thinks on the cross.

Theology is a necessary science. Belief gives impulse to reflection on the objects of belief. This proposition is applicable to all departments of knowledge. Belief in the veracity of the senses conditions the possibility of the empirical sciences. The reliability of testimony is the foundation of historical knowledge and of historical criticism. Confidence in the truthfulness of mankind inspires and justifies the sifting of traditional opinions. Faith in the kingdom of God founded by Jesus Christ prompts the desire after a full and thorough knowledge of the kingdom. The Christian scholar thinks; he must think, being impelled to thought both by the "object" on which he believes and by the nature of faith. The "object" on which he thinks raises problems at once the most solemn, most profound and practical.

The compass of theology comprises all the problems that chal-' lenge the scientist and the metaphysician: God and the universe; God and man; the relations of the world to its Author: the mystery of evil, moral and physical; and the repulsive darkness of the grave. Questions on these realities come to every thoughtful man, Christian or non-Christian, and he must, whether he chooses to do it or not, either give them a serious answer, or, ostrich-like, thrust his head into the sand. In addition, theology comprises problems still more momentous and far-reaching the original reciprocal relations between God and man as suggested by the incarnation; the historical facts concerning the birth, growth, temptation, teaching, miracles, death, resurrection, ascension, glorification, and second coming of Jesus, the Son of man; the advent of the Holy Spirit; the Church, with all questions involved in her origin and organization, her mission and perpetuity, including her conflicts and triumphs, the resurrection from the dead, the final judgment,