THE GOSPEL OF Ifie. MANHOOD.* Turn book has a merit

rare in religious publications ; it strikes a religious note. As a rule, the literature of religion is funda- mentally irreligious ; the subject has a singular power of calling out all that is least pleasing in human nature. "The Almighty is compelled to do many things in His official capacity that, as an individual, He would scorn to do," said a Scottish preacher wrestling with the problem of eternal punishment. It is car. tainly so with His ministers. No sooner do they discuss religion

• Ike Good of the Manhood. By 7. U. Bkrine, D.D. London Skeffington4 Ps.]

than they deteriorate and descend to a lower level than that on which, to do them justice, they stand in general.

"Dull though impatient, peevish though devout, With wit disgusting, and despised without ; Slants in design, in execution men, Peace in their looks, and vengeance in their pen."

Why do not people go to church ? it is often asked. One reason— there are, no doubt, others—is that there is so little religion in

the churches ; what the Prayer Book calls "our unhappy divisions," and the still more unhappy temper in which we approach them, repel sensible men.

In the twentieth century, as in the fourth, disputes as to the Divinity of Christ leave a sense of intellectual and moral barren- ness: intellectual, because the terms used convey no definite meaning either to the disputants or to anyone else, being what Hobbes calls " insignificant " ; moral, because this confusion of ideas precludes an end of controversy. Where people quarrel without knowing what they are quarrelling about there is little hope of their coming to an agreement ; the controversy degene- rates into railing on each side. Dr. Skrine avoids these pit- falls ; the first by refraining from "insignificant speech "—his book is an attempt to learn the Divinity of Christ, not by "the canting of schoolmen," but by a study of His Humanity ;—the second by the vein of mystical piety which runs through his

pages. It is a bold book ; and much that the writer says may be thought startling. But it will give little handle even to that

melancholy creation of St. Paul, "the weak brother " ; because it is "the truth in love."

Whether or no the recent discussions as to the Divinity of Christ have shown the orthodoxy of those who provoked them,

they have certainly shown the unorthodoxy of their orthodox assailants.

"Shall I be pardoned if I confess to an apprehension that the Lystraoan and Docetic conceptions of the Incarnation are with us still, in suppression and disguise, but present and operative ? Many Christians would find, if they analysed their thought, that the credal article 'came down from heaven' brought. them a picture of a divine Spirit who for a term of years and for a special purpose took possession of a man's bodily and mental organism, and having accomplished that purpose resumed the divine estate. The better instructed escape from that crudity of carnal imagination by help of fleshless abstrac- tions, the Two Natures in one Person,' and 'The Manhood taken into God.' These definitions are what Bacon called Phantoms of the Theatre, ill-founded theorising of philosophers. Let us, in the spirit of the Baconian science, pass by those meta- physical shadows to the Interrogation of Nature. Let us question the human event which we call the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ. What experience of mankind is registered in that word ? "

Among the secret things which are too difficult to be understood in this life Melanothon numbered the question, How the two Natures are united in Christ. It is not one on which it can be said either that Scripture is conclusive or tradition uniform ; and, though the fact is often forgotten, there was an ante-Nicene age. Had the New Testament been subjected to a theological censor of to-day, who can doubt that such passages as Mark vi. 5, Matthew xxiv. 36, Luke ii. 33, 41, 43, 48, John xiv. 28, xx. 17,

xvii. 3 would either have been expunged or " edited " out of all recognition ? Happily, at an early date the text came to be regarded as too sacred to be tampered with. Its various

strata, therefore, lie side by side unreconciled, and show clearly that those who brought them together, and left them as they have come down to us, saw Christ in another perspective than ours.

The Achilles' heel of the Psilanthropist—or "mere man "— theory of Christ lies in the adjective. A philosopher, who was asked whether he held it, answered, "I will tell you when you have told me what a 'mere man' is." It has been asked, on the other hand, Did He claim to be, or believe Himself to be, in the sense in which the term is now used, God ? He was not the Eternal Father—this would be Patripassianism nor was He co- extensive -with the Godhead—" the Father Is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Ghost is God." But should we not rather retort upon our interrogator, "Can such questions be answered ? can anyone, even a theologian, know ? " St. Paul's words, that "being in the form of God, He thought it not robbery "—i.e., a thing to be grasped at or boasted of—" to be equal with God,"

suggest another atmosphere, one foreign to such inquiries. We shrink instinctively from bringing them into His presence ; it would be an irreverence to do .so. And, if we imagine the dis- covery of a lost Gospel, in which our Lord asserted His miraculous birth eta the resuscitation of His natural body, or proclaimed

the beliefs formulated in the definitions of the later Councils as matters of fact and of faith, the most conservative theologians wonld at once pronounce it a forgery ; it would be unthinkable that He should have spoken and thought in this way. When curious and indiscreet questions were put to Him, He would answer them indirectly and by another—" I also will ask you one question " ; or in such a manner that "no man from that day forth durst ask Him any more questions." Or He would, as we say, flank them when they were implied by His questioners : "Why callest thou Me good ? None is good save One, even God " ; or He would quote Scripture—" / have said, ye are gods." But, if we are to speak "after the manner of men "- which "is not expedient "—it may rerhaps be said that, to this particular question, a Gentile Christian would probably have answered Yes—in the Gentile world the word God was used loosely ; a Jewish Christian, No. The rigid monotheism of the Jewish religion would have made the thought impossible. "For this reason," writes Athimasius, "the apostles poached the human qualities "—the orthodox Petavius adds only the human qualities—" of Christ." While, even after later Trinitarian con- ceptions had taken shape, Epiphanius opposes the notion of a Monarchy among the three Divine Persons to that of a plurality of Gods. There is, indeed, a sense in which the Monarchy must be held by Christians ; and is implied when Christ is spoken of as "God, of God," or as "the Son of God." Modern theology has, to a great extent, lost sight of this ; hence its ineffectualness. Theism is the belief in one God.

The speculative conclusions of theologians embodied in the definitions of the great Councils of the fourth century have, indeed, added little to the V crtnim care factum est of the Evan- gelist. "In theology," says a great English teacher, "the less we define the better. Definite statements respecting the relation of Christ either to God or man are only figures of speech ; they do not really pierce the clouds which 'round our little life.' When we multiply words we do not multiply ideas ; we arc still within the circle of our own minds. No greater calamity has ever befallen the Christian Church than the determination of some uncertain things which are beyond the sphere of human knowledge."