The Gospels in the Second Century | Page 5

part, though not entirely, passed away. The nineteenth century is not in
very many quarters regarded as the goal of things. And it will hardly
now be maintained that Christianity is adequately represented by any of
the many sects and parties embraced under the name. When we turn
from even the best of these, in its best and highest embodiment, to the
picture that is put before us in the Gospels, how small does it seem! We
feel that they all fall short of their ideal, and that there is a greater
promise and potentiality of perfection in the root than has ever yet
appeared in branch or flower.
No doubt theology follows philosophy. The special conception of the
relation of man to God naturally takes its colour from the wider
conception as to the nature of all knowledge and the relation of God to
the universe. It has been so in every age, and it must needs be so now.
Some readjustment, perhaps a considerable readjustment, of theological
and scientific beliefs may be necessary. But there is, I think, a strong
presumption that the changes involved in theology will be less radical
than often seems to be supposed. When we look back upon history, the
world has gone through many similar crises before. The discoveries of
Darwin and the philosophies of Mill or Hegel do not mark a greater
relative advance than the discoveries of Newton and the philosophies of
Descartes and Locke. These latter certainly had an effect upon theology.
At one time they seemed to shake it to its base; so much so that Bishop
Butler wrote in the Advertisement to the first edition of his Analogy
that 'it is come to be taken for granted that Christianity is not so much
as a subject of inquiry; but that it is now at length discovered to be
fictitious.' Yet what do we see after a lapse of a hundred and forty years?
It cannot be said that there is less religious life and activity now than
there was then, or that there has been so far any serious breach in the
continuity of Christian belief. An eye that has learnt to watch the larger
movements of mankind will not allow itself to be disturbed by local
oscillations. It is natural enough that some of our thinkers and writers
should imagine that the last word has been spoken, and that they should
be tempted to use the word 'Truth' as if it were their own peculiar
possession. But Truth is really a much vaster and more unattainable
thing. One man sees a fragment of it here and another there; but, as a

whole, even in any of its smallest subdivisions, it exists not in the brain
of any one individual, but in the gradual, and ever incomplete but ever
self-completing, onward movement of the whole. 'If any man think that
he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.'
The forms of Christianity change, but Christianity itself endures. And it
would seem as if we might well be content to wait until it was realised
a little less imperfectly before we attempt to go farther afield.
Yet the work of adaptation must be done. The present generation has a
task of its own to perform. It is needful for it to revise its opinions in
view of the advances that have been made both in general knowledge
and in special theological criticism. In so far as 'Supernatural Religion'
has helped to do this, it has served the cause of true progress; but its
main plan and design I cannot but regard as out of date and aimed in
the air.
The Christian miracles, or what in our ignorance we call miracles, will
not bear to be torn away from their context. If they are facts we must
look at them in strict connection with that Ideal Life to which they
seem to form the almost natural accompaniment. The Life itself is the
great miracle. When we come to see it as it really is, and to enter, if
even in some dim and groping way, into its inner recesses, we feel
ourselves abashed and dumb. Yet this self-evidential character is found
in portions of the narrative that are quite unmiraculous. These, perhaps,
are in reality the most marvellous, though the miracles themselves will
seem in place when their spiritual significance is understood and they
are ranged in order round their common centre. Doubtless some
elements of superstition may be mixed up in the record as it has come
down to us. There is a manifest gap between the reality and the story of
it. The Evangelists were for the most part 'Jews who sought after a
sign.' Something of this wonder-seeking curiosity may very well have