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THOUGHTS
ON
ALFRED BEERY
BIBLE DEPOT
8 STATION ROAD
ASRFORD, KENT
THOUGHTS
ON
Hontion
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
I 891
Reprinted 1891
PREFACE
This volume contains, besides selections from the
well-known works of Dr. Westcott, passages from
his occasional Sermons, Essays, and Addresses
hitherto familiar only to a few.
To students of Divinity it is thought it will be
an advantage to possess in a compendious form
characteristic passages from Dr. Westcott's writ-
PART I
PAGE
The Vision of God is the Call of the
Prophet . . . • •
3
8
The Old Testament Scriptures .
PART II
PAGE
The Two Empires the Church and the
......
:
World 105
PAGE
The Universities and the Training of the
PART III
Aspects of ilifc
PART IV
^1-
PART I
T^
1 HE vision of God is the call of the prophet. No-
where is the thought presented to us in the Bible with
more moving force than in the record of Isaiah's mission
(Isa. vi. i-io).
Isaiah, a layman,as you remember, was, it appears,
in the Temple and he saw in a trance the way into
court,
the holiest place laid open. The veils were removed
from the sanctuary and shrine, and he beheld more than
met the eyes of the High Priest, the one representative
of the people, on the day on which he was admitted, year
by year, to the dark chamber which shrouded the Divine
Presence.
He beheld not the glory resting upon the symbolic
ark, but the Lord sitting upon the throne high and lifted
up not the carved figures of angels, but the seraphim
;
send me."
W HEN
sight,
the prophet Isaiah looked upon that august
he saw, as St. John tells us, Christ's glory he saw ;
For us, then, the vision and call of Isaiah find a fuller
form, a more sovereign voice in the Gospel than the
Jewish prophet could know.
VISION OF GOD THE PROPHET'S CAIL
©in ^Testament
1 HERE are difficulties in the Old Testament, difficulties
which perhaps we cannot explain. We have no desire
to extenuate or to hide them. It would be strange if we
had for it is through these, as we believe, that we shall
:
that " spirit of prophecy " which was in them they con-
verted to the service of their faith the treasures of their
conquerors; they lived on because they saw the invisible,
and they were inspired to interpret, for all who should
come after, the law of their life.
NO
seems
view of Judaism can be more
false than that which
be most common, that it was essentially ex-
to
clusive. It was exclusive, and necessarily exclusive, so
far as it was a beginning, a preparation, a discipline.
But it was always pointing to a consummation. It was
exclusive in its decay and fall, when general faithlessness
had reduced it to the level of a sect. But from the
first it was not so.
(ITfje ^lorg of t]^e ILorti \\\ tje ©ItJ antj i^eijj Ccstamtnts
ment is clear.
WE
. . .
must use ungrudging labour. Tlic Son of God
Jiatli given us an understanding that we may know
"Christ.
— " That one word is a historic Gospel
hallowing all time.
7
ranges stands out against the rosy sky, and at the next,
peak after peak catches the Hving fire, which then creeps
slowly down their rocky slopes, and woods and streams
and meadows and homesteads start out from the dull
shadows, and the grass on which w^e stand sparkles with
a thousand dewdrops.
Now all this represents in a figure what is the effect
of the presence of Christ in the world when the eye is
more manifold.
THE REVELATION OE THE FATHER 19
V_JF all the images of Christ this which has everis that
appealed most forcibly to the universal instincts of men.
It has been illustrated by art it has been consecrated
:
From the earliest times men have felt the beauty and
the truth of the image.
The oldest of Greek poets speaks of kings as "shepherds
of men," but for the Jews this aspect of authority was
set forth by living parables in each great crisis of their
national growth. The patriarchs were shepherds ; Moses
was a shepherd ; David was a shepherd.
lay the print of His Cross upon all the symbols of our
power, and enlighten our counsels with the insight of
His Love.
less —
He is the Truth. In Him ts, is essentially and
eternally, all that is presented to us in the images of
order and beauty and purity and love which surround us.
round the vine, and at the end Christ says that all those
thoughts were fulfilled in Him : / a))i the true — the
ideal — Vific.
JalloinctJ m C^tist
, It was as easy as
it was vain for philosophy to point
is more
Nothing perhaps surprising in the whole
sum teaching than the way in which the
of inspired
different appearances of Christ after His Resurrection
meet and satisfy the aspirations of man towards a know-
ledge of the unseen world.
As we fix our thoughts steadily upon them we learn
how our life is independent of its present conditions ;
^ursum (JTortia
only, but in this later age I will venture to say more than
then.
open our griefs to Him y;A\o indeed knows them better than
ourselves, if we keep Him by our side, if we constrain
Him to abide with us. Happy if at the end, when the day
is far spent and darkness is closing round, we are allowed
D
34 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION
^pfrttxml ^irjljt
JBoubts
WE
the doubter
must notice how tenderly the Lord deals wath
who is ready to believe, and with what w^ise
tolerance the Christian society keeps within its pale him
whom a ruthless logic might have declared to be a
denier of the Gospel.
W
till a
E must work.
new command comes.
We must pursue our appointed task
It may seem a poor and
—
raaititttj a fHartm*"Ciom
©eparturc m Blessmrj
i HE as the ground of
power of the Resurrection,
religious hope, Ues in the very circumstance that the
event which changed the whole character of the disciples
was external to them, independent of them, unexpected
by them.
built in part out of its ruins and not only upon them.
ness.
was bound up (so the apostles said) with promises
It
and blessings by which the Jewish people had been
moulded through many centuries. It answered to wants
of which the Gentiles had become conscious through
long periods of noble effort and bitter desolation.
46 THE RECORDS OF REVELATION
person of Cfjrist
and tlie wise and the good in the great army of kings
and prophets and saints and martyrs, there is not one
who has ever claimed for liimself or received from his
followers the title of having in any way wrought out
salvation for men by the virtue of his life and death, as
being in themselves, and not only by moral effect of
their example, a spring of divine blessings.
"
''
SEfje Hains of i^alurc
1 HE
kingdom of God" has been the watchword
equally of those who have cast aside the restraints and
claims of life and of those who have sought to mould its
form by the most merciless fanaticism.
And it may be
still that the faithful eye can see a
—
husband, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to
Christ."
W HEREVER
is To
ever :
we look
what purpose
question which arises
waste ?
the
is
first
On all sides
this
we see a prodigal wealth of powers which to us appear
to pass away without effect, of germs of life which never
fulfil what we think to be their proper destiny, of beauty
W E
want nothing new, but the old rekindled by a
fuller light.Our Creed is personal.
We do not say, " I believe that there is a God," that
"Jesus Christ came to earth," that "the Holy Ghost
was sent to men." In this sense, as St. James says,
" the devils believe and tremble." But we say, " I
believe in God the Father," "I believe in Jesus Christ,"
" I believe in the Holy Ghost."
That do not simply acknowledge the existence of
is, I
these Divine Persons of the One Godhead, but I throw
myself wholly upon their power and love. I have
O We
UR Creed
believe,
is historical.
not in the Holy Catholic Church, but
that there is a Holy Catholic Church.
O'UR
us :
Creed able to guard, to support, to animate
is
^ Practical ^tljcism
W
space,
HILEwe are constrained to use words of time and
and to speak of going up and coming down, of
present and future, in regard to the spirit world and
Christ's glorified life, we must remember that such
language belongs to our imperfect conceptions as we now
are, and not to the realities themselves that we must :
WE
the
believe that Christ bore from the grave the issues,
fruits, not only of His open ministry and of His
final Passion, but also of the unnoticed, silent years of
obscure discipline and duty, and shewed these in their
spiritual meaning.
Cominrjs of Cfjrist
^ present Cotnmtj
man made
has of man, upon the terrible disproportion
between human capacities and human achievements,
that He who lived for us and died for us and ascended
for us, shall come again to judge the quick and the
dead ; and the confession, if we enter into its meaning,
is sufficient to bring back trust.
rilE HISTORIC FAITH 73
N OTHING
forgiveness.
superficially
Nothing, if
seems simpler or easier than
we look deeply, is more mys
terious or more difficult. With men, perhaps, forgive-
ness is impossible.
— More end
than
" the — "
this
rises
we dare not lay down.
before us as the strongest motive
But that end
Of Him and through Him and tinto Hivi are all things.
WE
representation of the truth ;
for man's
acknowledge that outlines are a necessity
but they are
of things
a concession to his weakness and a symbol of it. There
is no outline in nature, and no form of words can
adequately express a spiritual reality.
The soul uses the outline, the formula, as an occasion,
an impulse, a help but it brings for its own treasure that
;
d^ommnnDtatiou of <Saints
O UR
service
cathedrals
w^hich constrain
are monuments
us to recall
of sacrifice
Christ's
and
working
through those whose benefactions w^e inherit. Most of
us have been deeply stirred by the commemoration
services of college and university.
We have wondered, perhaps, that the use is not
universal.
€\yi\%i offers an Etical for tis, for all fHcn anti for all 2Eimc
H
98 THE RECORDS OE REVELATION
was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. And the Word became flesh, and
. . .
N.O one who regards with calm, open eyes the super-
ficial prospect of the world can fail to feel its sadness.
—
That we might have hope hope for the single soul,
hope for the body to which we inseparably belong hope ;
AND GROWTH
^utjiistme
to help me."
The hungry beasts still rushed on, and already touched
his dress ; and then, as if stricken by his presence,
swept by and returned to the depths of the forest.
Such, in fact, was Columban's position always, and
almost such his power. The savage chiefs were awed
by the grandeur of his supreme self-sacrifice. Kings
sought his presence and trembled at his reproof.
He stood among wild and lawless warriors, a witness
to an unseen power greater than that of earth ; an
apostle of a spiritual service harder than their own
speaking with a stern majesty of acts which appealed to
their senses, and awakening hopes not quenched by the
battle or the feast. He was himself his message, and
that message of a life found many to welcome it. Before
he died, though baffled and exiled, he knew the truth of
his own words " Whoever overcomes himself treads the
:
Jrancis of ^Issi'si
^ Crisis at %lm\\s
The work of to-day is not for one nation, but for all
growth.
T HE
is
foremost leaders of change use language which
most part repellent by its one-sidedness and
for the
want of sympathy. But let no fastidiousness rob you of
their instruction, and no prejudice blind you to their
contributions to the sum of knowledge.
SCrcasuru of ©ob
It has been hitherto the Divine purpose to bring men
to a knowledge of the one infinite, eternal, unchanging
truth little by little in manifold ways.
fHfssions no Jailure
NO one will venture any more to speak of the failure
of Missions. Whether we look to India or to New-
foundland, to China or to the Southern Seas, we see
that Christianity can still count her new martyrs, can
still ennoble degraded races, can still make articulate,
and satisfy, the deepest wants of souls.
bid those who hear us remember that they are sent not
to hold a beleaguered fort but to win a kingdom.
We do wrong to the promise on which the Church
rests when we interpret it of successful resistance, and
not of irresistible advance. It is comparatively a poor
thought that the power of Hades will not prevail over
us :but the true thought of the promise is a thought
of which we have not as yet appropriated the in-
vigorating inspiration, even that the strongest citadel of
evil shall not for ever keep out the triumphant hosts of
the Cross.
sun —
that was the symbol of the quickening energy of
nature and the measure of time for the glory of God
did lighten it, and the lamp thc7-eof was the Lamb : he
saw the nations (not the nations of them which are saved,
according to the gloss of the common texts) walking
in the light of it, and so revealed in their true abiding
power he saw the kings of the earth bring their glory
:
\\\ Entiia
brought together.
The religious history of India is an epitome of the
religious history of heathendom. The religions of India
are the religions of the world. Every great aspiration
of mankind has found an embodiment there, and with
the same issue. Fragmentary truths have been made
absolute, and in each case have become dei^raded.
and man, their followers have been swept back into the
excesses of superstition. If, as in the last movement of
the kind, this idea is sacrificed, that is sacrificed by
which Hinduism has triumphed for Hinduism has had its
;
— it
in all things and all things in God " that it is not ex-
;
To
this end it must, we readily allow, vindicate to
itselfmore fully than heretofore every force of truth
—
and right and beauty of spirit and soul and body by —
which men are moved.
**
Jtje au tlje .Salt of tlje ^mSS) : ge arc tijc HirfTjt
of tljc OTorlti
The soul acts through the body ; and the body lives
by the soul. On earth there can be no divorce of the
spiritual and the material.
WE—
factors
take account of the gifts of our
wealth, order, language, art ;
unknown bene-
and at length
perhaps the words come home to us Oflier men have
:
made holiness more supreme : and for all this, and for
the innumerable pains of which we know not, we bless
their memory." Or will the voice of blessing be silent ?
absolute law —
to prefer his brother's good to his own. It
was made plain that all true human action w\as for God,
and through God. No one might determine his own
occupation or take upon himself without permission self-
chosen obligations and austerities. If any one was called
to an office, however humble, he was directed to fall at
the knees of the brethren and beg their prayers and when ;
The crown of life is not reached till the life has re-
vealed its energy.
It may be
that times of trial and disaster will come,
and be necessary, before the nation can enter upon
will
her apostleship. It may be that wealth and power will
be made instruments of divine service. But nothing
CO MB INA TION IN DI VERSITY 1 59
The one life in w^hich they all shared, may have been
often checked, hidden, disguised, but their life is still
We
can never want the form of any past time, but
we always want the spirit of the past.
cut ourselves off from the fellowship of those who will not
M
:
WE are so eager
ready to sacrifice the very
for agreement that we are often
element which it is our part
to contribute to the final harmony.
T HERE is
LirET us summon
before us in thanksgiving the many
leadings by which God has been pleased to bring us to
our present choice ; the many silent whisperings by
which He has made us feel His will the many signs by :
own souls.
That others may " wax riper and stronger " through
our service, we must wax riper and stronger ourselves.
And far beyond every success which can crown our
labours, is the issue towards which we are bidden to
strive when " no place shall be left among us, either for
error in religion or viciousness in life."
SOJIE THOUGHTS FROM THE ORDINAL 169
Eljc Mlitnrss
ministry.
WE
is
promote God's glory not by adding to it, which
impossible, but by acknowledging it, by displaying it,
by reflecting it.
has been finely said that " wicked men bury their
It
souls in their bodies." Something of the same kind, I
fear, happens also as to things without us. Our want of
sensibility, our deadness, turns creation into the tomb of
God's glory, when it is truly the living shrine through
which His glory is brought near to us.
(SrointJ
faint,it is that they may feel the new power which re-
N
;
W
3^1)0 t!)e
FR OM STRENG TH 7V S TRENG TH 1 8
lingers far off, dim and fleeting, through our great fault,
we cry again, bowed down with past failures, disheartened
by our present divisions, paralysed by the measures of
our hopes. Who is sufficient foi- tlicsc t/ii?i(^s ?
in its l^ancje
o 'F all
the widest
men the Christian minister
sympathies, the
is
most varied
enabled to cherish
interests, the
most passionate devotion to truth.
He has reached the central idea of all life, and
therefore he welcomes without jealousy everything, from
whatever source, which contributes to the greater com-
pleteness of its realisation.
1 HE
words of the Risen Christ suffer no change.
They were not exhausted by past fulfilments. Past
fulfilments, if we regard them rightly, serve mainly to
enlarge our hopes and to confirm our courage. They
shew us where we may advance and not where we may
rest. The promise looks forward as long as one fragment
of Truth remains to be realised. The power is given to
be used as long as one enemy of God remains to be
overcome.
There is a stirring eloquence in the shaking of states
and the restlessness of society which our hearts, if they
heed, cannot mistake. They are, I believe, a prelude to
some new victory of Faith to be won after patient
waiting.
**
STfjc EclatibittJ " of all JUiman IDcbcIopmcnt to be
taiirjfjt
divine grandeur.
WE cannot accept as
superstition or open
final alternatives for
unbelief, despotism or anarchy.
man abject
common good.
bid those who are tempted to accept their trials with the
;
Srjc 3jtinrj-prtrst
The apostolic words are true for us, true while there
is one sin to vex the overburdened conscience, one
struggle to strain the feeble wnll, s?fch a High Priest be-
eauie us.
of God.
"
' (!Bartf)'s Cjiiltircn clintj to d^artf) ''
the faithful which shall strike even those who are without
with reverent awe, and to find our divisions a common-
place with mocking adversaries. It is hard ; and if what
we see were all, the trial would be intolerable.
But what we see is not all what we see is not even
:
the dim image of that which is. The life which w^e feel,
the life which we share, is more than the earthly materials
by which it is at present sustained, more than the earthly
vestures through which it is at present manifested.
That is not most real which can be touched and
measured, but that which struggles, as it were, to find
imperfect expression through the veil of sense : that
which to the All -seeing Eye gildswith the light of
self-devotion acts that to us appear self-willed and
miscalculated ; that which to the All-hearing Ear joins in
a full harmony words that to us sound fretful and
impatient that which fills our poor dull hearts with a
;
immeasurable grandeur.
aspects of iLife
A POET'S VIEW OF LIFE
HBroiBUintj
earthly being.
These lets and limitations are not to be disparaged
or overborne, but accepted and used in due order.
No attempt must be made either to retain that which
has been, or to anticipate that which will be.
Each element in human nature is to be allowed its
proper office.
Unli}nited in capability
For joy as
^ this is in desire for joy,
And what does the poet say of the end ? For that
which is evil there is judgment of ufter destruction for ;
The high that proved too high, the heroic for earth too hard,
The passion that left the groiind to lose itself in the sky,
Are 7niisic sent np to God by the lover and the hard ;
Enough that He heard it once ; ive shall hear it hy-and-hy.
Patience —
that calm strength which sustains courage-
ously the burden which cannot rightly be thrown off,
which waits in sure confidence, as knowing that the
darkness cannot last for ever —has own victories. In
its
Hn patience (l^otih'nrss
T HE1 term godli?iess is far more than ^^ godliness ^^
in
our common acceptation of the word. It is that spirit
of devout reverence which springs out of the recognition
of God's immediate Presence, or, to present part of the
truth from the opposite side, that spirit of devout rever-
STEPS IJSr THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 241
Man did not lose the image of God by the Fall. His
essential nature still remained capable of union with
God, but it was burdened and hampered. The Word,
therefore, could still become flesh, but if He was pleased
to realise this fellowship of the Divine and human, He
took to Himself, naturally, humanity with its immeasur-
able obligations, life with its untold temptations and
246 ASPECTS OF LIFE
sorrows. But some one will say, " How can another's
suffering avail fo'r my offence?" Here the apprehension
of social unity is most fertile in suggestion. Fifty years
ago the term "solidarity," and the idea which it conveys,
were alike strange and unknown. \\q. had not appre-
hended in any living way that we are, as St. Paul says,
literally incmhers one of anotlier^ as men and nations. We
are beginning to understand that in the unity of the body
it is possible for one member to take away the infirmity
and disease of another by taking them to himself.
grace.
charm.
They are for the inspiration of our whole being, for
the hallowing and for the bracing of every power, outward
and inward, with which we are endowed, for use in the
busy fields of common duty.
W]E may despise from our position the rude and fierce
simplicity of Anthony's devotion, but the two great
representatives of the East and West witness to his
immediate power. Athanasius, his biographer, counts
it among his chief glories that he had been allowed to
minister to the saint. Augustine was inspired by the
study of his life when he heard the words that decided
him to become a Christian.
fears no light.
"
In a word, heaven is not for us so much a '* yonder
towards which we have to move, as a " here " which we
have to realise.
S^fje jFamils
Man or woman
alone represents only half of the
powers and capacities and feelings of humanity. And
no real approach can be made to the consummation of
our common nature by any attempt on the part of woman
to cultivate these elements in it which are characteristic
—
each in his proper sphere workman, capitalist, teacher
— is equally a servant of the state, feeding in his measure
tliat common life by w^hich he lives that work is not :
for the old Roman had but one word for stranger and
enemy. The Greeks sharply separated from themselves
all other peoples as essentially inferior. The Hebrews
alone of ancient peoples, in this respect true children
of Abraham, though in others the most exclusive of
all, provided from the first for the admission of strangers
never broken with the past, and yet it has put off the
accretions of age.
Present problems
WE
are
are suffering
suffering,
on all sides, and we know
from a tyrannical individualism. This
that we
but with the world, and then there will rise before us a
spectacle which must move the dullest with enthusiasm
and touch the most disconsolate with hope a spectacle :
Risen Christ.
u
290 ASPECTS OF LIFE
—
For thence a paradox
Which coviforts lohile it mocks-
Shall life succeed in that it seet?is to fail.
No
one who has considered the slow development of
the powers which man now enjoys in what appears to us
to be his maturity, would be willing to admit that his
faculties exhaust in kind or in degree the possible action
of being.
There is on
an overpowering passion for
all sides
which can be measured
clearness, for decision, for results
on demand. Art and history are trammelled by realism.
A restless anxiety for fulness and superficial accuracy of
detail diverts the forces which should be given to an
interpretation of the begin to think that when
life. We
we can picture to ourselves the outside of things we
have mastered them.
The present is for us not only the result, but also the
epitome of the past. It gathers up into one scene the
forceswhich have been called into play in successive ages.
WE
while
forget the
we murmur
harvest reaped
that the seed w^hich
from others' labours
we have cast upon
the ground remains long hidden.
To wait, even with dim eye and dull ear, for the
coming of the Kingdom of heaven is for us a sign that
the Spirit is active within us.
is never die."
battle.
by our darkness.
/tlT one time the change from the seen to the unseen
comes swiftly, in the full vigour of action, that so we
may learn that there must yet be scope in some new and
unknown field, in some new and unknown shape, for
the energy which is instinct with promise.
At another time the change comes through "calm
decay " first one faculty and then another is withdrawn,
:
1 N
the symbol of the Friendly Society the open hand
isthe minister of the open heart. There the wreath
round the world foreshadows the conquest of all earthly
claims. There, over the speaking signs, which represent
the facts of this life and the hopes of the future, is laid
the golden cross, the emblem of true service unto death.
There, around all, faith and hope and love are busy with
gracious duties ; there, above all, the eye of light is
ASPECTS OF LIFE 303
long ages, each stone of which fills its special place and
X
3o5 ASPECTS OF LIFE
T HE
refines
study of art generally enlarges, invigorates, and
very important powers, both of feeling and
thinking.
Pcterboroiitj!) (fTatfjetjral
irl OW
few of us pause to consider what life is, not in
itscircumstances but in its energy, in its capacities, in
its issues.
We all know, even if the knowledge has little practical
effect, that no measure of time or sense gives a standard
of its value.
Life is more than the sum of personal enjoyments and
pains through which it finds expression more than the ;
i^apolcon Wk
N EVER before, not even in the defeat of the first
Napoleon, have men been allowed to look upon so swift
and total an overthrow of personal dominion as that
which has finally been consummated in a lonely death.
Of all that kept Europe in awe for twenty years, nothing
remains except burning memories of shame and disaster.
The armies which were fabled to be invincible have
endured surrender and captivity. The city, which
boasted herself the indefeasible queen of pleasure, has
twice borne the extremities of war. I'he chief in whose
silent thoughts the destiny of nations was supposed to
lie, has acknowledged defeat and with patient dignity
ASPECTS OF LIFE 3 1
dBnrjlanti as a 2EcarJ)cr
dearest to you —
brother, husband, son is called away —
to trials which are not uncertain but only undefined ;
There have been, and there yet may be, times when
principles were and will be maintained not too dearly even
at this cost. Freedom, faith, religion, the integrity of an
empire, the fulfilment of a trust, claim as a ready sacrifice
all that we are and all that we have.But often there is
no principle at stake. The combatants meet in a mere
trial of strength. It is at the best a duel, and not a
conflict of nations. Some plea of wounded honour, some
rankling of old grievances, some strained susceptibility
—
3 1 .4 SPE C TS OF LIFE
Saintsljip
^utJorit2
We
must serve in order that we may understand.
We must not overpower by our own force the character
which we wish to appreciate and guide in its mature
vigour.
the acceptance.
—
"
the Peloponnesian ^Var (43 1 n.c.) His " Trojan Women
was exhibited in the year of the expedition to Sicily,
and the recall of Alcibiades (415 B.C.) He died in
406 B.C., the year before yEgospotamos. He belonged
wholly to the new order which is represented by the age
of Pericles. Though he was only a generation younger
than .'Eschylus, his works, when compared with those of
his predecessor, represent the results of a revolution
both in art and in thought.
But more than this the Myths mark also the shape
:
1 HE
spirit of man is the candle of the Lord." The
phrase, " over-frequently quoted " by AVhichcote, as his
opponents alleged, at once brings before us the central
characteristic of his teaching. For him reason was
" lighted by God, and lighting us to God res illuminata,
illumiiians.'''' "What," he asks, "doth God speak to
but my reason ? and should not that which is spoken to
hear? should it not judge, discern, conceive what is
God's meaning?" "I count it true sacrilege to take
from Ciod to give to the creature, yet I look at it as a
dishonouring of God to nullify and make base His
works, and to think He made a sorry, worthless piece fit
"
The idolatry of the world," as ^Vhichcote profoundly
remarks, " hath been about the medium of worship, not
about the object of worship." The testimony of con-
science —
" our home-God," as he calls it still remains, —
(keat hopes and great aspirations contend in the human
heart with the sense of weakness and failure.
2 A
354 LESSONS OF LITERATURE AND ART
"If you see not well," Whichcote writes, " hear the
better if you see not far, hear the more.
: The conse-
quence of truth is great ; therefore the judgment of it
must not be negligent."
;"
" He that is be as light of unbehef
light of belief will
and " of all imj^otencies in the world credulity in religion
is the greatest."
And for this end the whole Bible has been given us,
not a book of texts, immutable and isolated, but a vast
history, a clear mirror ofmanifold truth, to try, to correct,
to train us equally for thought and for action.
sense, which Art uses as its organ, that the most obvious
and universal dangers come to men, the natural conclusion
seems to be that this fact shew^s convincingly the
paramount importance of the study of Art. In this
region we need peculiarly to be trained in order that
we may enjoy rightly ; and not be called upon to
sacrifice that which was capable of ministering to a richer
service.
sense to " the desire of the eyes," which St. John declares
to be "not of the Father but of the world" (i John ii.
16), which shall not include works of sculpture and
;
su^ctmt l^ecorjuition
The old had to pass away that the new might find its
proper place.
This truth has even now not been fully mastered
but it will be seen more clearly if we consider the position
of Art in relation to Christianity in the apostolic age,
and the character of Christian Art in the first four
centuries, and the attempt to determine the relation
of Christianity to Art, and the peculiar office of
Art.
THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO ART 367
2 B
370 THE RELATIOA^ OF CHRISTIANITY TO ART
©pposinrj Enflucncrs
range.
It lays the greatest stress upon practical duties, upon
" the good part "
of moral discipline, but none the less it
finds place for the satisfaction of what we regard as less
noble instincts.
The single incident recorded in the Gospels in which
the Lord received a costly offering, seems to illustrate
tlie principles which hallow even the simplest gratifica-
tions of sense. When Mary lavished the precious
spikenard over the Head and Feet of her Master, " the
house," St. John tells us, " was filled with the odour of
the ointment."
Cmitatiije ^rts
1 T
would not be possible to describe the artist's feeling
more truly than in Lippi's words :
Victor irjnotus
be the same, but they will always have the same relation
to moral discipline. They will correspond with the
circumstances of the time. And the discipline of sense
has a positive and not only a negative value. It brings
into healthy action a power of goodness which a rigid
asceticism keeps unused and tends to destroy.
In this way Christianity is able to give back what
was lost by the corruption of the old Aryan passion for
Nature. All that was at first referred to limited divinities
is shewn to be essentially an expression of one Divine
Will.
The spiritual signs may be greatly obscured they :
likely to be misleading.
K\)z (irtuciftxion
2 c
386 THE RELATION OF CHRISTIANITY TO ART
T HE artist, we have
seen, must use every fresh help
and discovery he must make evident new thoughts, or
:
Jiccoratiije ^rt
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