trust) some growth also in the true conception of the law supernatural'—as the one principle which, before all others, we need to make clear in the abstract to our minds, and in practice to grasp with all the energy of our souls. We hold Christianity to be supernatural, not preternatural.' In relation to the conclusions of Natural Theology it occupies a position not of mere unison, still less of discord, but of true harmony. It can, we believe, prove its power over both mind and heart when it sounds absolutely alone, but its true position is as the leading note in the great symphony of truth.

Chris

tianity su

pernatural,

III. It will be the object of the present course of Lectures to make some contribution to the exposition of this most important truth, that CHRISTIANITY IS SUPERNATURAL AND NOT PRETERNATURAL, by examining the relation in which the doctrines of Holy Scripture not preterstand to the main conclusions and the main plexities of Natural Theology. In the former case, I take it to hold a complementary, in the latter a supplementary position. I hold that it confirms the known and reveals the unknown.

per

natural,

in respect of

darkness of

Natural

There are two great truths to which Natural Theology leads us, and which, as a matter of fact, have been all but inseparable in the faith of mankind. I mean the belief in a living God, having relation to us as our Creator, our Ruler, and our Father, and the consciousness of a the light and spiritual nature in man, through which he bears the Divine likeness and is destined to an immortal life. Theology. In relation to these Christianity appears to me simply complementary to Natural Theology, taking up its converging lines of conclusion, clenching them by authority, and carrying them on to unity in God. But there is one great and terrible difficulty which, in different degrees of force, appears to bar our way on all the lines of Natural Theology. I mean the mystery of evil, whether in its slighter forms of waste, decay, suffering, or in its darker forms of sin and death as the wages of sin. In regard to this mystery of evil Natural Theology seems unable to do more than take up an attitude of sturdy passive resistance, allowing that it must weaken, but defying it to destroy, the manifold cord by which the

great world every way is bound around the feet of God.' But Christianity here presents a far bolder front; for here it not only completes the arguments of Natural Theology, but supplements them by the enunciation of a new and transcendent doctrine. It first frankly recognises the existence of this awful mystery, and then so grapples with it in practice, as at any rate to scatter all darkness from our path of life, and to set the wings of the soul free from the burden which weighs them down. In fact, only by so doing can it present itself as a revelation, fit not only for man in his ideal nature, but for man as he actually is. No voice can really command allegiance in a world like this, except one which says, 'Come unto Me, ye that travail and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.'

The essen

tial idea of Chris

tianity :

IV. This will be seen if, putting out of sight for the time the many accessory and derivative doctrines of our faith, we consider what Christianity is in that essential and distinctive idea, in which it stands out from all other forms of explicit or implicit Monotheism. Now Christianity, so considered, is simply the doctrine of Christ; and that doctrine can hardly be put forth more The doctrine completely than in the remarkable passage from the Epistle to the Philippians, which unites all the freedom of enthusiastic adoration and all the clear-cut precision of a creed, in describing the manifestation of the Lord Jesus Christ in the two distinct acts of what the Church calls His great humility' (Phil. ii. 5–11).

of Christ.

There is first the manifestation in the form of man' of (a) in the One who, being in the form of God, thought it Incarnation; not robbery to be equal with God,' and who, as Son of Man, receives the Name above every name,' at which 6 every knee shall bow.'

In this declaration of the Incarnation and of the Ascension to the right hand of God, which is its counterpart-of which ancient Christian speculation delighted to believe that they might still have been, if sin had never entered into the world-we trace most distinctly the first office of the Gospel, in its transcendent power of confirmation of the two great conclusions of Natural Theology-the belief of a living personal God, and the conviction of the spirituality of the

human nature, as made in the image of God, and fit to be the means of revealing Him.

But there is next, the further declaration of the Passion, and of the Resurrection, at once its counterpart and its explanation; in which it is said that after He had (2) in the been found in fashion as a man, He humbled Him- Passion. self, and became obedient unto death, and that the death of the cross.'

In this we find the second office of the Gospel, to give a practical solution of that great mystery of sin with spiritual death as its fruit, before which Natural Theology stands half amazed, and which alone has any real power to shake our faith in a living God and a spiritual humanity. It is perhaps no wonder that, above all, this truth should be considered as characteristic of the Gospel, and that accordingly the chosen emblem of Christianity should be the sign of the cross.

tative of the

in both.

Now it is in these two aspects that Christianity stands out as the representative of what is called 'supernatural religion.' By universal confession, alike of its de- Christianity fenders and its assailants, the battle lies between it the represenand the various systems which altogether deny the supernatural supernatural. As we survey the great religions of the world, nothing is clearer than that Christianity alone can claim to have a future, and a power to foster and direct the unceasing progress of humanity. Judaism it claims as its own, as simply preparatory to its own development; and, where that claim is rejected, Judaism survives, indeed, with a tenacity of life and a practical reality of religious influence which often put Christians to shame, but shows no power of so expanding as to rule the world. Mohammedanism is little else than a bastard Judaism with some slight admixture of Christianity. Against simple Paganism and degenerate Christianity it prevailed once; against gross Paganism in North Africa we hear, without surprise or regret, that it prevails now. But it is a remarkable fact-testified by all who have any knowledge of the Mohammedan world, as it exists at the present moment-that, while among the simple and ignorant classes it still lives, and powerfully moulds their life both for evil and for good, its power seems

to die out at the first dawn of intellectual light, as being incompatible with science and education. It needs, again, but a single glance at the old religions of Asia-Brahminism, Buddhism, Confucianism (if, indeed, the last two deserve the name of positive religion at all)-to convince us that the doom of transitoriness, which Buddhism anticipated for itself, is coming, perhaps far sooner than is foreseen in that anticipation, upon them all. On their ruins we see at this moment in India that either Christianity, or a philosophic Deism, denying any revelation really supernatural, is destined speedily to rise.

Maintenance against other religions obsolete.

Hence of the old directions of the founder of these Lectures one is almost practically obsolete. He charged us to defend Christianity against Atheists and simple Deists; the defence is at least as needful as ever. He charged us also to defend it against Pagans, Jews, and Mohammedans; that defence has ceased to be important, because the antagonistic power is dying or dead. When we glance at the religions of the world now, it is rather with the desire of tracing in them embodiments of the great truths of Natural Religion,' and perhaps of showing how far they imperfectly represent parts of the full system of Christianity itself. All who study the question from any point of view will allow that among religions Christianity prevails, and will prevail, on the principle of the survival of the fittest.' The battle, indeed, still remains to be fought out between those who look on the difference between Christianity and other systems to be simply one of degree, and those who hold the difference to be one of kind. It is really a battle of life and death. Although the former party constantly use the watchwords of Christian faith and doctrine, it is perfectly clear that they cannot interpret them in the old Christian sense. But this conflict will turn on examination of what Christianity claims to be, and has proved itself to be, rather than on any assault on the other religions of the world.

Hence Christianity must be looked upon as the representative of supernatural religion against all systems which deny it—whether philosophic Deism, or the vaguer and more atheistic theories, against which

Its supernatural character essential.

Deism, standing alone in a cold and sterile bareness, has so much difficulty in maintaining its ground. For its supernatural character depends not on the truth of this or that miracle, on the reality of this or that instance of prophetic power; it is enshrined in the central idea, which makes Christianity what it is. Nothing can be more utterly vain than the attempt to frame a Christian system which shall be free from supernatural pretensions, and yet shall preserve any religious vitality; unless, indeed, it be the cognate idea that the sentiment and morality of the Gospel can be preserved, when all faith in its doctrinal truth has passed away. V. This being the case, it concerns the Christian to consider very carefully what the supernatural' superreally is.

What is

natural?

use of the

For the word Natural,' by contrast with which it is necessarily determined, is used in a strange variety of senses. In the phrase 'Natural Philosophy,' Nature is the Variety in world of matter and force; in Natural History,' word NaNature is the world of organic life; if we refer to ture." "Natural feeling,' Nature is then the world of humanity; if we speak of Natural Theology,' Nature may include all these worlds taken together. If these senses were always kept distinct, the variety of use would mark only a clumsiness or poverty of expression; but all experience shows how difficult it is to prevent these various usages from mingling insensibly with each other, and accordingly how often ambiguity of phraseology proves itself to be dangerous to clearness of thought.

natural not preter

Now, if we take the word 'Nature' in its various senses, and consider the method of contact of the sphere The superrepresented by each with any higher sphere of being, it will be found that the forces of that higher sphere natural: invariably manifest themselves as 'supernatural, not preternatural.'

Let us take first that sense of the word 'Natural,' in which, like its less ambiguous counterpart 'Physical,' it is applied to the world of force, matter, and organic (a) in relalife. Even within that world there is the division physical -to our science as yet absolute-between the two sphere. spheres of inorganic matter and force and of organic life, to the

tion to the