Now, when sacrifice is required of us, we know that no strange thing is come upon us. God Himself has borne sacrifice. Some have even said that there is an eternal cross in God. I do not say so. As He is most holy, so is God necesYet God has limited Him

sarily most blessed for evermore. self, has emptied Himself; sacrifice has mysteriously invaded His blessedness; He has been at cost for our salvation. Christ has lived and died. The power of a new life comes from Him.

In contrast with other pre-Christian moralities, besides that of the Old Testament, we are struck by the many-sidedness of Christ's teaching, by the completeness of His ideal. Admirable thoughts may be found on isolated points in the ethnic teachers; but the revelation of an ordered moral world, where the will of God reigns, and the grace of God works, is peculiar to Christ. Yet we cannot doubt that even the occasional touching of the ideal is acceptable to our Master. The world's sporadic goodness must be precious in the sight of the world's Saviour. All disinterested self-sacrifice is Christian; calculating self-sacrifice is a commercial transaction, as little divine or Christian as anything can be; but, wherever we meet with unselfish love, we recognise the Spirit of Christ. At His cross we are in fellowship, not only with prophets and apostles, but with all loyal patriots and all noble heroes,—with the martyrs of truth and of duty, no less than with the martyrs of faith. Profession is but the guinea stamp,' though it mark the character with the most sacred Image of all; love is golden, whether or not it have passed through the church's mint. Those who have counted life and happiness cheap things in comparison with honour are indeed our brethren, and our exemplars in the Christian race. Such deeds sweeten the air for centuries after them. Christ will acknowledge them,'Inasmuch as ye did it to these, ye did it to me.'

In regard to inwardness the modern Socialist ideal, whether religious or infidel, comes into sharp collision with the Christian ideal. Socialism would see all duty embodied in institutions. This demand, at best, is an anachronism, which

seeks to call back the pre-ethical ages. Vital as institutions are to moral life, there must be an atmosphere over and above law and the law's demands, or morality will die. In this atmosphere we draw our very life-breath; we commune in it with God. Christ requires of us sacrifices which society never can require or secure, yet which re-act in blessing a thousandfold upon society. This is one peculiarity of Christian ethic. In the loneliness of the heart God is with us; commanding what no other can command-accepting that of which no other is aware. The sacrifice may be embodied in doing and abstaining, or it may consist in the spirit in which we lead a commonplace life. Either way, so God is with us, all is well. Life without sacrifice is life without an ideal. Life with no secret chambers in it is an impoverished life, or a traitorous falsehood. We must aim at an ideal standard, doing all things 'as to the Lord, and not to men,'-giving alms in secret of our most precious treasures.

This quality of Christian ethic, I venture to think, makes its law very peculiarly a law of liberty. And therefore I think one might hold against Ritschl, that not only the Christian man's faith, but the Christian man's conduct, sets him free from the world,—that, diverse as they are, faith and works— the faith of the heart, and the works of a childlike obedience— co-operate to the same end in establishing our freedom. Mere social decency in behaviour has nothing supernatural or supramundane about it; but the cross is the law of every true Christian's conduct; and even the most commonplace Christian fidelity is fed from an inner life, and has its roots in the deep aspirations of the Christian soul.

(4) As a consequence of the three previously noted qualities, we may say that life, according to Christ's ideal of it, is an enthusiasm. The source of this enthusiasm is explained in both-may I not say in both ?-of the first two characters of the Christian ideal. It draws its strength both from the love of God and from love to men. The third quality of the ideal measures the strength of the Christian enthusiasm. The sacri

fices it requires and produces measure the resistance which it overcomes. This resistance may be of the nature exclusively of temptation, as with Jesus Christ, who was in all points tempted like us, yet without sin. Or the resistance may be due to temptation plus indwelling sin, as in Christ's redeemed. The very quality of man's sensuous nature makes moral progress a battle, even apart from sin; how much more where sin has reigned to death! Temptation is native to our earthly lot; sacrifice is the only garb under which we could recognise moral goodness. A force overcoming no resistance-we have no acquaintance with such a force. The cheap goodness of untried innocence can never be ours. We have to subordinate the present to the future, pleasure to duty, self to the impersonal law of morality. But in all its details, in all its perplexities, in all its self-denials, the Christian's life is to be a priestly service to God, a continual thanksgiving; and hence, in the grand phrase of St. Paul, the battle of life finds us more than conquerors through him that loved us.'

VII.

Process

(II.) In passing now to consider the effects or results of Christ's work as Redeemer, we enter on a somewhat larger subject than we have found in studying the effect or result of Christ's work either as Revealer, or as Reconciler, or as Comforter. We have not yet explicitly discussed how the redemptive life, such as we have described it, becomes ours. and result cannot here be separated. The importance of the process may therefore be expected to prolong our study of the result. Moreover, the result of our Lord's redemptive work is a time history; and to us who are in the middle of the historical process-children of His kingdom, heirs by faith of all things, but not yet nearly come to the fulness of our inheritance—to us the result of redemption necessarily has a twofold appearance-what Ritschl, I think, would call a moral and a religious according as we look at it as a finished thing, ideally complete in Christ, necessary, absolute, depending only on

God's faithfulness to His promise-or, alternatively, as we look at it as a growing thing, really imperfect in Christians, contingent, depending on our faithfulness to our vocation. Under the present head we shall consider the result of redemption as a whole, so far as its whole nature can show itself within the limits of earthly conditions. Under a subsequent head we shall study the results of redemption viewed as an incomplete process.

(1) In the first place, then, Christ as Redeemer manifests His presence in certain objective social institutions, among which the first place must certainly be given to

(a) The Christian Church.-In calling the Christian Church an embodiment of Christ's redemption from sin, I treat it, and mean to treat it, as a branch or province of the Kingdom of God; and this I do, fully accepting Ritschl's view that the Church exists for God's glory in His praise and worship, while the Kingdom of God exists for God's glory in the doing of His will. There is, no doubt, a relative distinction here; but the direct worship of God is one part, though a small part if measured in time, of what God's revealed will requires from us. And Christian worship has an immediate and strong influence on the moralising both of individuals and of society. Our labour is never so effective, or so indispensable, that we need fear to interrupt it for the purpose of worship. And there is no more 'productive consumption' of a Christian's time-if he is an active Christian, not a dreamer-than the time which he withdraws from activity for the purposes of meditation and prayer. Apart from the Church's witnessbearing, the world at large, and even the Church's own members, would speedily forget Christ's ideals. Through repentance and faith we pass into the ranks of the new humanity, and consecrate ourselves to the service of our God and Saviour in His redeemed world. The Church may be regarded as a continuous working in the world of a supernatural life. It is on one side, indeed, a natural historical

succession; but, on the other hand, every link in the true succession is supernatural,—every link is animated by faith in the unseen. Destroy faith, and the Church of Jesus Christ, with all its moral services and utilitarian advantages, passes away like a picture in the clouds or like a forgotten dream. The sacraments, which are one channel of intercourse between God's grace and man's faith, bear witness to us of all the diverse and mysterious workings with which God's grace encompasses His children.

(b) But Christ's Spirit also avails itself of extant moral institutions, which serve its purpose. In social, as in personal life, a previous moral process merges itself in Christ's redemptive process. The civil state is a province of the Kingdom of God. Government has a divine right, quite apart from its special form. The powers that be are ordained of God.' The State's servant is a minister of God'-so long, at least, as he does not fail to coerce evil-doers. In the field of politics, the ruling moral ideas of the present day, while they are not found in the letter of Christ's teaching, are quite in keeping with the spirit of the Gospel. The revival of the idea of nationality is perhaps the most noticeable feature in the contemporary politics of the world. And, in domestic administration, the principle is now admitted (at least nominally) that the State must act for the good of its members as a whole. A cosmopolitanism which presupposes patriotism—a patriotism which does not delude itself with a belief in special prerogatives, but which yearns after brotherly co-operation with all Christendom-these are the leading moral clues in presentday politics. Of course the modern international republic of sister states may not be the highest ideal for mankind; but, at present, it is the highest available ideal; and, even though it should tax the world in blood and treasure far more heavily than the rarer evil of civil war was wont to do under the world empires, still it gives the nations the possibility of a truer moral development than was consistent with the dead monotony and the stagnant peace of the ancient tyrannies.