THE GOSPEL OF DIVINE HUMANITY.* THIS is an extremely original

and thoughtful book, though it is pervaded by that error which, as it seems to us, always tends to predominate in those forms of Christian philosophy which start from the divine side of theology, and which interpret everything which seems inconsistent with the divine goodness as either temporary or illusory. The late Mr. Maurice, whose whole teaching started from a theological ground, avoided what we deem the main error of this book, but only just avoided it. Even in his writings, the tendency, not indeed to make light of sin or moral evil, but to insist on the eternal purposes of God as hardly needing even human co-operation,—as hardly needing more in reality than human recognition,—in order to their perfect fulfilment, seems constantly leading the reader to the very verge of what looks like a sublimation of the free-will in man. In this very striking book the disappearance of human responsi- bility and free-will is complete. Sin becomes a mere temporary means to the victory of holiness ; evil a step towards more perfect good ; all the darkness of the world a stage in the perfect manifestation of light. The objection to this view is that it takes away all reality from the great conflict. If we know that at every stage we are, however low-minded and miserable, irresponsible for that low-mindedness and misery,—and not only irresponsible, but, in fact, mere instruments of a perfectly good and holy purpose,—what can be the justification for those agonies of remorse and agonies of atoning sacrifice which, for those who believe in free-will, witness to the infinite evil of sin ? For those who do not believe in it, we fail to sec why moral evil, which implies to them only the initial stage of moral good, should seem in any way worse or more oppressive than that intellectual and purely involuntary error which is the initial stage in the search of every finite intellect after absolute truth.

However, we do not wish to devote this notice of a very strik- ing and original book to the great fundamental difference between its author and ourselves. We would rather draw attention to those portions of his work for which we have nothing but sympathy and grateful recognition. The chapter on "Faith," for example, though it contains remarks in which we could not concur,—remarks the tendency of which we have already sufficiently indicated,—is full of original and striking thoughts, the soundness of which appears to us as unquestionable as their freshness. The author holds to the old translation of the verse in the Epistle to the Hebrews, "faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen," as being both • The Gospel of Dirioe Humanity. A Recorsideration of Christian Doctrine in the Light of a Central Principle. London: Eliot Stook. I554,

philologically and spiritually nearer the truth than the new ver- sion given in the Revised New Testament; and he explains faith as meaning that which gives us a grasp of the ultimate realities of things, of the true substance beneath appearances, instead of allowing us to be deceived by the superficial illusions of mere appearances. It would be difficult to illustrate the essence of faith better than in this passage:—

" When the faithful man has done his best and fails, as he often may, he can feel assured that failures, no less than successes, are threads of the warp or woof of his heavenly raiment ; for

God's greatness rolls around our incompleteness; Round our restlessness Es rest?

'Through calmness and peace, and in that confidence which is strength, he is less likely to miss even his immediate object than one who can rely on nothing better than his own wisdom or cunning. Worry, which is unbelieving labour, has slain its thousands. No doubt appearances may seem frequently to militate against faith, as they did in the case of the Psalmist who, on contrastiog the seeming prosperity of the unfaithful with that of the righteous, began to doubt, until he went into the House of the Lord ; in other words, when he judged by faith the mist of doubt was dissipated. We may not as of the household of faith, let mere appearances, which are fallacious, overrule that which we have known as certain ; else, for the time, we sink from the real into the phenomenal—from the rock of sub- stance and certain evidence into the shifting sands and quag- mires of partial and fleeting shadows. We walk by faith, and not by sight.' It is the invisible reality that is the substance and source of all visible manifestation of power, even in material mature. All force is invisible substance. Who ever saw gravitation, electricity, magnetism, or heat, save in their results P The evidence of things not seen is the source of all inventions and discoveries ; of all heroism and martyrdom in the cause of truth. Every doubt and perplexity in the pious mind has its origin in the acceptance of idols of the mind, or of partial and imperfect views of the Divine character, conflicting with the simple truth of God's unchanging and uncondi- tional love and power."

The whole of that is fine, and the sentence, "Worry, which is unbelieving labour, has slain its thousands," is one that deserves to be engraved on the memory as a proverb of the noblest wisdom.

In perfect accordance with our author's view of faith is his view of prayer. Prayer, he says, flows from the germination of seeds of life within. You cannot pray for that which you have not in some degree already got, or you would not feel the want of it so deeply. Prayer is the result of inspiration, though it expresses itself in aspiration. It is the language of a felt need, and the need would not be felt if there were not already some experience of the value of that which we crave. Prayer is the mere outgrowth of a desire which recognises the insufficiency of the life already attained :—

" Regarding prayer as the necessary ontflowinn. of substance or life, we may perceive the force of the words in 'Mark xi. 24 All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye have received them, and ye shall have them '; which agree with the words of the prophet Isaiah, lxv. 24: Before they call, I will answer ; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.' If prayer, like fragrance of flowers, or the odour of incense, is the outflow of substance, it is evidence not of what may be, bat of what is already, as magnetism of a magnet. The true worshipper could no more pray for what has not an actual existence in and for him, than could scent, colour, and beauty of form be discerned in a non-existing rose."

"Prayer," our author tells us, in another place, "is the circu- lation of the spiritual life into and through the hearts of men." Some of these apophthegms are very finely put. Thus, of illness he says, "the utmost that disease can do is to destroy itself." And, of course, being the necessarian he is, our author in a different chapter applies the same principle to sin, and regards it as the ultimate function of sin to destroy itself. Here, of course, we part company with him altogether. As the worst thing that physical disease can do is to destroy the physical life in which it inheres, so we hold that the worst thing spiritual disease can do is to destroy the spiritual life in which it inheres ; but, then, though this is the worst thing it can do, it is also the worst thing imaginable.

The chapter on the Trinity is fall of deep, and yet clear and simple, thought ;—nor can we imagine anything more effective or more to the point than what our author says on the modern doctrine of the Unconditioned and the Unknowable :—

"Modern philosophers, who assume the existence of the Absolute,' or the 'Unconditioned,' but deny the possibility of knowing such a Being, have merely set up an idol of the mind, more unreal than that of the men of Athens, since it is not only to an unknown but to an 'Unknowable God.' It is for Christians, in the name of sound philo- sophy, no less than of religion, to refuse to bow down in ignorant and superstitious awe before any such unsbapely image as that of an absolute and unconditioned deity, which can have no relation to its offspring nor sympathy with them. God, as unconditioned, is cer- tainly unknowable, because non-existent ; unknowable indeed, to any religion, most of all to the Christian faith, whose fundamental truth

is the incarnation or conditioning of God in fallen humanity, that it might be redeemed and brought into conscious union with the inmost Divine life. If the man of science, more than any other, truly knows that in its ultimate essence nothing can be known,' it is because there is no such thing as ultimate essence' apart from its qualities or existence. The essence or essential nature of anything is that by which it is what it is. Suppose form, colour, and odour abstracted from a rose, and there remains neither essence nor existence. The Christian, in affirming Fatherhood of God, declares that he cannot be known, because non-existent, apart from relation ; nor can Sonship be affirmed as having being in and for itself independent of Fatherhood. If we believe that God is Love, the notion of mere absolute or un- conditioned Being cannot be entertained, for love can have neither being nor existence except in and for objects of affection. Nothing can be known as it is in itself, or independent of the mind which perceives and knows. The spirit of sonship in man can know the Father, and in that knowledge standeth cur eternal life, as being of the nature and from the source of universal existence."

In our author's chapter on "The Last Judgment," we find, of course more fully developed, that fundamental disbelief in the reality and infinite significance of human volition and choice which seems to us to vitiate all that he writes on the subject of sin and its penalties. But the chapter on the "Sacraments," on the other hand, is full of point and valuable truth, pointing out that it is the essence of baptism not to add something to the true life of man, but to remove all obstructions and defilements which prevent that life from being really and simply itself, and that in the Eucharist Christ pre- sents the materials for a true transubstantiation in precisely the same sense in which the mother gives her infant the materials for a true transubstantiation when she feeds it from her breast.

It may be supposed that this book is what is usually called a mystical one. No doubt, in its wealth of illustration and analogy, it sometimes takes .a figurative aspect ; but to our mind it is, whether when it is true or when it is false, one of the clearest and most intelligible books that we have seen

for some time on the theology with which it deals. We wholly and profoundly differ from the writer in his view of the instrumental and partial character of all moral evil, and of the many closely allied conceptions which result from this view. But whether right or wrong, whether interpreting amiss the divine judgment on human sin, or interpreting more truly the divine significance of faith, prayer, and sacramental grace, the book seems to us vividly fresh and individual, and remarkable for its earnestness of con- viction and the felicity of its illustration. The writer is one who has studied and thought about revelation till it has assumed for him a reality and clearness of moaning which it has not for most even of those who profess to explain it.