which should never be approached otherwise than with the feeling, "Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground."

2. Our opponents do not explain what most needs explanation, viz. the existence of the Christian Church, with its wonderful historical development, its moral influence, the spiritual and temporal blessings which it has brought to nations and individuals. Let any impartial person look at that very natural human demagogue of Schenkel's, or at that Galilean Rabbi of Strauss', who finally is guilty of "undue self-exaltation," or at that enthusiast and deceiver of Renan's who is constantly sinking deeper in the mire; and then let him say whether any of these characters will afford a sufficient explanation of such far-reaching and mighty events? No! must be the answernone but the Christ of the Gospels, the only-begotten Son of God, is great and mighty enough for us to attach such results to His holy name! The very existence of the Church is in itself the strongest proof for the truth of the gospel history. By its fruits the truth may be known to this day. Error may propagate itself, but only for a time. The undiminished-nay, the ever-increasing power of the gospel after the lapse of 1800 years, is proof enough that its contents are not legends and myths, but eternal truths.

3. These accounts do not explain to us the Person of Christ, notwithstanding-or rather because of-its depression to the level of natural human development. The issue on this question is simple. Here is a series of discourses and actions which the four Gospels attribute to Christ (even taking into account merely what is common to all, and undisputed). But no ordinary man can have said and done, or pretended to do, these things, without laying himself open to the reproach of arrogance, self-exaltation, fanaticism, and fraud. Hence the anti-miraculists are absolutely compelled to question Christ's sinlessness and freedom from error. Their merely human Christ no longer represents true, i.e. pure, humanity. Here, too, on the other hand, is the Christian Church, i.e. a world-wide series of wholesome moral influences which proceeded from this Person. How can both these things be reconciled? They are a complete enigma. For if Jesus acted and spoke as a deceiver, then the moral effects of His teaching

are inconceivable.

But since these effects are indubitably

certain, it follows that Christ cannot have been a visionary or a deceiver, nor can He have acted as such. But if He truly spoke and actually did what is related, then He was no mere man, but the Son of God.

4. They do not even explain to us whence the Christ imaged forth in the Gospels originated. How came Galilean fishermen to invent an ideal of moral and spiritual majesty such as has never been attained in history, poetry, or philosophy, if it did not walk before them in person? All endeavours to explain this by means of myths and legends, later inventions and exaggerations, accord neither with the character of that age, nor with the spirit and style of the Gospels, nor with the testimony of confessedly genuine Pauline epistles, nor with the character of the primitive Christian Church, nor yet with the behaviour of its opponents.

5. Not one of these accounts in the least satisfies the needs of the heart, which, above all, the gospel is assuredly intended to meet. He who yearns after help and consolation, peace and freedom, for a burdened conscience, an aching heart, or a restless doubting spirit, cannot look for this from a Jesus who has ceased to be the Saviour of the world.

6. Every one of these accounts is based upon a false conception of God, either deistic or pantheistic. Together with their negation of the miraculous, they deny the free, living, personal God and Creator. Their whole tendency is to do away with Christ as the great Witness for a supernatural world, and to "disable" His testimony against the modern naturalistic views. In so doing they lose the Father as well as the Son; or more correctly, because they will not know the Father, they cannot know the Son.

However, we may learn something from all our opponents, even from these. Fundamentally false though their antimiraculous standpoint may be, yet they contain certain elements of truth, just as the cognate systems of Deism and Pantheism. Does not the applause with which they were received proceed partly from the fact that the Church has not, as yet, given to the world an entirely correct representation of the life of Christ? True, here below the Church will never fully see through the great divine mystery of His Person; what the

apostles did not succeed in will scarcely be accomplished by men of our own day. A perfect representation of Christ can only be expected by one who does not believe that we know in part. Nevertheless, since these late disputes, certain theologians have truly pointed out that the Church has proceeded in too one-sided and dogmatic a manner in her delineations of the Person of Christ.1 It cannot be denied that there is a considerable gulf between the portrait of Christ in the Gospels and that of our dogmatic writings. In the latter we often miss the living historical reality of the Saviour. What with the great stress laid on the two separate factors, His humanity and His divinity, we have lost the living unity of the Person, the human and historical element in Christ; His learning obedience in constant and free self-surrender to His Father's will has been neglected as against His divine nature.

Yet

At this point of her doctrinal development the Church has still much to learn with regard to the great Christological problem of the present day,-a problem so great and difficult that it will never be more than approximately solved. we shall constantly approach towards its final solution, if only we do not forget, on the one hand, that the genuinely human does not stand in absolute antithesis to the divine, but is intimately related to it; whereas, on the other hand, in a race degenerated through sin, this true humanity cannot be fully brought out except by a fresh engrafting of the divine. The true, the perfectly beautiful, humanity of Christ is so far from being annihilated by His divinity, that it is only the latter which completes and guarantees the former.2

Let us therefore beware of sacrificing the divine nature of Christ to His humanity, and of removing the stumbling-block of His God-manhood at the expense of His supernatural glory. This dangerous extreme will best be avoided by constantly allowing the perfect sinlessness, the unique moral dignity of Christ, to work upon our hearts and consciences. In view of this, the more earnestly a man feels his sin, the more deeply will he be convinced that the divine Sonship of Christ far transcends all natural humanity. And finally, let us cast

'Cf. Luthardt, ubi sup. pp. 11 et ss.

2 Witness the perfectly beautiful humanity of Christ, combined with His no less perfect divinity, in the Gospel of St. John.

into the scale the fact that this same divine Christ of the Gospels at this day is still approving Himself to the souls of men as the One who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, sanctification and redemption. This, we know in our inmost hearts, is no delusion of fable or fancy; and this drives us to the conclusion, that the historical portrait given by the evangelists of the Son of God is safe against all attacks.

Jesus Christ is not only, as many at the present day would have it, a great Question; He is far rather the Divine Answer to all human questions and complaints. If we look at Him merely as a Question, He becomes more and more unintelligible. Let us rather strive to understand Him as the Answer to that most vital question of our hearts: Who shall save me from sin and death? Then shall we soon learn to believe and confess, "Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God!"

SEVENTH LECTURE

MODERN DENIALS OF THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST.

THE

HE discussion of this question is, as it were, the final test of all that has gone before. What I have hitherto been seeking to establish was the belief in the supernatural, in the miraculous power of the living God as manifested in His being and His revelations, and especially in the history of His Son upon earth. All these miracles culminate in the resurrection of Christ. If this be established as true, then all else stands firm; if it be a legend, then little more can be saved. Therefore the investigation of this fact is peculiarly adapted to serve as a test for the results which we have hitherto attained. For the dogma of the resurrection is the proof of all other dogmas, the foundation of our Christian life and hope, the soul of the entire apostolic preaching, the cornerstone on which the Christian Church is built.

We will first make ourselves acquainted with the views. and statements of our anti-miraculous opponents; after this we shall proceed to investigate the historical testimoniesespecially that of Paul-and the arguments of those who reject them; and finally, we shall inquire whether the denials of the resurrection are not contradicted by certain indubitable facts and circumstances.

I.--ANTI-MIRACULOUS THEORIES.

Not a few among those who deny the bodily resurrection of Christ seek to diminish the importance of the question by representing it as non-essential to our faith, and "the corporeal element" as of no special significance. What matter, they say, whether His body again issued from the grave, if only the Spirit of Christ continue to work in those who are His? "The risen One is the exalted and glorified Christ, the Lord