Christianity as Taught by S. Paul

Communion with one another, and with our Head. At the time he is writing, he knows that 'James the Lord's brother' is no longer the Bishop of his Hebrew friends. Faithful to his Lord, he had been removed by martyrdom before the last trial came. S. Paul bids the Hebrews 'not to forget him, or his faith, or his example.' How long had he been known among them as James the righteous!' and could they not remember others also who with him had been 'just by faith in God?' And to them he Heb. xiii. 7. points each wavering Hebrew now: 'imitate their faith,' he says, 'considering the noble issue of their whole course.'

Sphere for And for the present, he would beseech them all to the Priesthood of all, maintain carefulness in every social duty as members of one holy Brotherhood in Christ; giving obedience to the Rulers of the Church who now were watching for their souls,' Simeon and those around him, even in the Judæan synagogues; (some of which appear to have become Christian even at the time S. James had

Heb. xiii. 17.

S. James ii. 2.

Heb. xiii.

20.

written to them). Gently S. Paul urges them yet once more to Communion, and closes by the prayer with Benediction, that the God of Peace may yet make them Perfect through Christ,' Who gave the 'Everlasting Covenant in His own Blood.'

The Priesthood of each towards his brother, the Priesthood of the greater to the less, of the better to the inferior, of the prior to those who come after, of the gifted to the ungifted, or of the firstborn among many brethren, this is the inner

VII.]

NOT TO SHRINK BACK

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Priesthood

law which is of the essence of all Responsibility. It is this which upholds the duty of creatures to each other, and the immutable relation of the creature to the Creator, and vindicates the Sacredness involved in all Probation here. But the Priesthood after the and above all, for the order of the King of Righteousness,' the Priesthood High of the endless life,' touches higher mystery still, of Christ. the mystery that where sin abounded Grace doth much more abound.' And it is to this these lingering Hebrews must come. The Apostle does not dissuade them from the Levitical priesthood and worship without pointing to the New Covenant and its blessings sent down from on high. The argument of the Apostle would be indeed a series of premisses without a conclusion, if there had been no Church to which the Hebrews on leaving the temple worship could turn. The difficulty is solved, when he can direct the wandering Israelite to his Church as his home. 'We have an altar'-with us there are those who will watch for souls.'

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And is there no danger in our own times that men Dangers of should hold themselves back, and attempt to rest, as plete the Hebrews would have tried to do, in an incomplete anity. Christianity? to join the moral beginnings of the new creation to imperfect conclusions of the old creation? and aim to keep the name of Christian when content to be ignorant of, or willing to abandon, the reality -It is the temptation of an age too far instructed to venture on a return directly to heathenism, and yet ready to use only such parts of the Christian ethics as it may be able to assimilate; an age which has

The one condition of understanding

learned much of our Christianity and yet hesitates to take it all. But to yield to such temptation is to confess that we do not think Christianity to be true at all; for it is a whole, and if it be not true throughout, from the Incarnation to the Ascension, and from the Ascension till now, it is a great falsehood, or a great failure. No Christian's faith is safe for a moment if he is not willing to go on to Perfection.'

Let each man ask himself, whether he has shrunk from the genuine results of what he has owned as a Christian to be true?-Whether having risen with Christ' in his Baptism, he has failed to seek the things that are above?' That surely was an awful dialogue which Christ held with one who was attracted at first by His Gospel, and yet refused to advance. He was one whose virtue was not merely the Gospel. secular, but aspired to a nobler future, even life eternal.' So careful had that young man been in every social duty, that he was not far from the Kingdom of God;' and our Divine Master, Who 'knew so well all that is in man,'' beholding him, loved him :' and yet he was no disciple of Christ after all. He looked back, and was not fit for the Kingdom.' In the depths of his will he had a reserve which the Saviour's eye penetrated with these searching words, if thou wouldst be Perfect'.

It is a probe that goes to the very depths of our moral nature, whatever be our outward condition, `finding what manner of Christians, what manner of men we are,- If thou wouldst be Perfect!'

LECTURE VIII.

ἡ βασιλεία τοῦ Θεοῦ.

I. THE KINGDOM THAT CANNOT BE MOVED.'

2. THE PERFECTION OF ITS SUBJECTS.

3. ITS PRESENT ORDER, ETHICALLY LIMITED.

4. THE FINAL GIVING UP THE KINGDOM TO GOD.'

I. The Kingdom that cannot be moved;'.
The 'Kingdom of God among us.'

Historical reality is now felt to be indispensable.
Our recapitulation. Retrospect of the position.
Social decay; and attempted reconstruction
Begun in Churches, or Societies of Purity: '

In which everything is subordinated to the Ethical.
The Churches assert an Ethical Standard.
But the need is more than Ethical.

The assertion of the spiritual, or 'supernatural,' an historical fact. 263
This a postulate of Christianity always; not intermittent.
Historical examples of this; and our theory requires it:
And this is the teaching of S. Paul, in the Kingdom of God.'

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IL The perfecting' the individual subjects of this 'Kingdom.'
All is directed by the Apostolate; Christians united under it.
The Churches so constituted were in possession of our Religion;
And of the Divine means of our sanctification.
This is assumed by S. Paul.

264

265

267

Dilemma of those who deny that the de facto Church was sufficient. 271
True Baptism and Eucharist first notes of the Church.' (Divine)
Witness to Christ in the Eucharist: and sanctification for us.
Diversities of gifts; and of discipline.

Holiness to be had always in the Churches.

III. The Church's present order provisional : but should be sufficient ;
And have a moral perfectness, not purely organic.

This seen in S. Paul's treatment of the Hebrew Christians.
Duty to the de facto Church is thus moral.

The Church's power moral and spiritual. (Type of Abraham).
Formal authority is unethical. (Type of Babylonian power).
Probation of conscience, a present safeguard, to be asserted.
The Church's duty to her members is also to be affirmed.
Its neglect is a cause of moral weakness; hence, fewness of saints.
Failure of the use of Divine Gifts another cause.