The Gospels in the Second Century | Page 5

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 given a colour to their account of events in which the really transcendental element was less visible and tangible. We cannot now distinguish with any degree of accuracy between the subjective and the objective in the report. But that miracles, or what we call such, did in some shape take place, is, I believe, simply a matter of attested fact. When we consider