another living writer,' "that Christianity is Christ. So He taught; so His disciples after Him; not a law, not a theory, not a code of morals, not a system of casuistry, not even an elaborate theology. But they ceased not to teach and to preach Jesus Christ.” "Jesus," writes Dr. Newman," "through His preachers imprinted the image or idea of Himself in the minds of His subjects; it became a principle of association and their moral life. It was the instrument of their conversion." Thus (to quote yet one other author)" the Platonist exhorted men to imitate God; the Stoic to follow reason. was reserved for Christianity to present to the world an ideal character which, through all the changes of eighteen centuries, has inspired the hearts of men with an impassioned love, has shown itself capable of acting on all ages, nations, temperaments and conditions, which has been not only the highest pattern of virtue, but the strongest incentive to its practice, and has exercised so deep an It 1 The Bishop of Ely, Lect. on Christ's Influence on History, p. 17. So also Canon Liddon (Bampton Lect., p. 308). "Christianity, as a creed and as a life, depends absolutely upon the personal character of its founder." Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, p. 288, writes: "In the strictest sense of essential, this alone is the essential in Christianity, that the same spirit should be growing in us, which was in the fulness of all perfection in Christ Jesus." See also an eloquent passage in Farrar's Witness of History to Christ, p. 79. 2 Grammar of Assent, p. 460. An illustration of this sentiment may be found in the early use of the word κυριακός; e. g. κυριακὸν δεῖπνον, κυριακὴ ἁγία ἡμέρα, κυριακαὶ γραφαί, τὸ κυριακὸν, dominica solemnia. μηκέτι σαββατίζοντες, ἀλλὰ κατὰ κυριακὴν ζωὴν ζῶντες, says Ignatius, ad Magnes., c. ix. influence, that it may be truly said that the simple record of three short years of active life has done more to regenerate and soften mankind than all the disquisitions of philosophers and all the exhortations. of moralists. This has, indeed, been the wellspring of whatever is best and purest in the Christian life. In the character and example of its Founder, Christianity has an enduring principle of regeneration." 10. The form and character of the New Tes- Relation of Scripture tament records involve, indeed, the consideration of to the their relation to the earliest standards of doctrine." 1 Lecky, Hist. Eur. Mor., II. 9, and see Hist. Rat., I. 337. Thus also Mr. Carlyle, Sartor Resartus, p. 155. "If thou ask to what height man has carried it in this manner, look on our Divinest Symbol-on Jesus of Nazareth and his life and his biography, and what followed therefrom. Higher has the human thought not yet reached: this is Christianity and Christendom: a symbol of quite perennial, infinite character; whose significance will ever demand to be anew inquired into and anew made manifest." We need hardly point out the fallacy and evasion which is met with in some quarters, of admitting to the full the perfectness of Christ's moral character while suppressing its supernatural element. 2 On Creeds as a peculiarity of Christianity, see Leibnitz, Théodicée, Pref. sub init.: on their employment in practice, Neander, C. H., I. 420, who connects them with oral traditions. Dorner, Hist. Prot. Th., I. 12, remarks on the tacit growth of dogma. "In order to a development of the system of doctrine, there is no necessity for Councils nor for the formal fixing of the dogma by a positive Canon. The opposite is proved by the three first centuries of the Christian Church, in which, without œcumenical synods, the progress of dogma was as rapid as it was sure and constant. Never, however, was dogma created or constituted truth by the sanction of the Church in a juridical, canonical form: but on the contrary, because it had in its substance established itself in the common faith, there followed the declarative sanction." See also Dr. Newman's profound and just observations, Arians, c. I. § ii., and c. II. § i.; Waterland, Works, III. 254; and Dr. Pusey's note in Library of Fathers, Tertullian, p. 490. Creeds. dientia estallladel. The var fresas me been larly is in the Deane of me a posis whether they be revel is a scel lepost a o dáte of Apostile Belt I IL Catives of derinal expressins de prodors of the earliest eerie B the Tomce and cocritate authority of the wines wird remains begood question: being proved by the costum of Scriptural citation federaci dhe Apostilal Fathers, though at first, as was mammal employed much more largely on the C11 than spa the Ne Testament! From the frst there would seem to Lave exired a body of traditional Apostille doe trine, according with the tenor of Holy Scripture and forming the nucleus of later and more elaborate Creeds. We are concerned, however, only with the recognition by believers from Apostolic times of certain revealed truths, and of historical 1 Thus Clemens Romanus quotes profusely from the Old Testament, but rarely from the New (.e. from the words of Christ). See c. xiii. In the Mecond Epatle, however, the New Testament quotations are frequent, and apparently from Apocryphal Gospels. One reason for this practice may be found in the fact that the Gentile converts would commonly be ignorant of the Sacred writings, while, at the same time, their antiquity, authority, and testifying power would be strongly felt. Thus the Apostles proved both for Gentile and Jew out of the Old Testament, applying the evidence of prophecy by the side of direct testimony. effective on events embodying these truths which contained implicit obligations of a practical kind. In this way a fixed character was impressed on the re- Belief ligion itself, and on its followers, sufficient in the practice. aggregate to produce distinct effects. "The growth of Christian faith became a permanent and hereditary belief by a natural law of transmission."1 Thus we might argue either from the contents of the New Testament, together with the Creeds, to the lives of believers, as exemplifying and verifying the nature of the doctrines believed; or inversely from the life and character of believers, we may argue up to the character of the truths believed. In either case it must be admitted that the first ages of a faith are those in which its tenets are most enthusiastically received and vigorously acted on, and which therefore exhibit most plainly the tendencies and characteristics of the system.2 The emotions are stirred rather than the intellect; and it is with these that religion, as a motive power among men, is principally concerned. But further, by the aid of the Canon of Holy Scripture, cautiously framed, gradually accepted and transmitted to after-times, the personal influence, which marked 1 Dr. Mozley, Bampton Lect., p. 140. 2 "The life of intense hope," says Mr. Goldwin Smith, with his accustomed beauty and strength of expression, “that is lived in the morning of all great revolutions, may partly make up for the danger, the distress, the disappointment of their later hour."—Lect., p. 59. Pascal, speaking of the Old Testament, says: "C'est le plus ancien influence conse quent on Testament. the primary records of Christian truth, was indefinitely extended and conveyed with individual force to succeeding generations. And here the Permanent importance of the form in which the New Testament was composed, becomes still more apparent. the form of For it is such as to guarantee permanence. The the New influences of the Gospel in the example and oral teachings of Christ and His Apostles are brought to bear continuously on successive ages in a degree much greater than could have been achieved by the bare institutions of ceremonies, however significant, or the enunciation of abstract doctrines, however pregnant with principles of action. The flexibility and power of self-accommodation essential to a religion destined for perpetuity are thus secured. In this manner, also, fundamental departures from the pure spirit of pristine Christianity have ever retained their antidote with them. For they have all along held firm to the Canon of Scripture, by which accordingly they may be tested and purged. In this fact, and not in any single doctrine of "justification by faith only" lay the true value of the Reformation as an ecclesiastical movement.' Print livre du monde, et le plus authentique ; et au lieu que Mahomet, pour faire subsister le sien, a défendu de le lire; Moïse, pour faire subsister le sien, a ordonné à tout le monde de le lire."-Pensées, II. 186. 1 It has hence been called "the resurrection of the Bible."-Compare Hallam, Literature of E., I. iv. § 58; Lecky, H. Rat., II. 227; Milman, Hist. Latin Chr., VI. 438. Mr. Hutton, Essays, I. 400, takes a different view; but see also p. 415. Erasmus, De Ratione Vera Theologiæ, p. 87, says: "Non paucos vidimus olim Lutetiæ, quibus si quid depro |