Hooker. I know my poor weak intellects, most noble Lord, and how scantily they have profited by my hard painstaking. Comprehending few things, and those imperfectly, I say only what others have said before, wise men and holy; and if by passing through my heart into the wide world around me, it pleaseth God that this little treasure shall have lost nothing of its weight and pureness, my exultation is then the exultation of humility. Wisdom consisteth not in knowing many things, nor even in knowing them thoroughly; but in choosing and in following what conduces the most certainly to our lasting happiness and true glory. And this wisdom, my Lord of Verulam, cometh from above. LANDOR, Imaginary Conversations. Some men distinguish errour from truth by calling their Adversaries new and of yesterday; and certainly this is a good signe if it be rightly applied: for since all Christian doctrine is that which Christ taught his Church and the spirit enlarged, or expounded, and the Apostles delivered, we are to begin the Christian æra for our faith and parts of religion by the period of their preaching: our account begins then, and whatsoever is contrary to what they taught is new and false, and whatsoever is besides what they taught, is no part of our religion (and then no man can be prejudiced for believing it or not); and if it be adopted into the confessions of the Church, the proposition is always so uncertain, that it is not to be admitted into the faith, and therefore if it be old in respect of days, it is not necessary to be believed if it be new, it may be received into opinion according to its probability, and no sects or interests are to be divided up on such accounts. Bp. JEREMY TAYLOR, Sermon, Of Christian Prudence. Works, II. 275. 2 The idols and false notions which have already preoccupied the human understanding, and are deeply rooted in it, not only so beset men's minds, that they become difficult of access, but even when access is obtained, will again meet and trouble us in the instauration of the sciences, unless mankind, when forewarned, guard themselves with all possible care against them. Four species of idols beset the human mind, to which (for distinction's sake) we have assigned names: calling the first the Idols of the tribe; the second, the Idols of the den; the third, Idols of the market; the fourth, Idols of the theatre. BACON, Novum Organum, I. 38, 39. St. Clement of Alexandria, referring to the philosopher Herakleitos, wrote, Strom. V. 14: "If you wish to trace out that saying, 'He that hath ears to hear, let him hear,' you will find it expressed by the Ephesian in this manner: Those who hear and do not understand are like the deaf,' and, ‘eyes and ears are bad witnesses to men having rude souls.'"' What we call Christianity is a vast ocean, into which flow a number of spiritual currents of distant and various origin: certain religions, that is to say, of Asia and of Europe, the great ideas of Greek wisdom, and especially those of Platonism. Neither its doctrine nor its morality, as they have been historically developed, are new or spontaneous. What is essential and original in it is the practical demonstration that the human and the divine nature may coexist, may become fused into one sublime flame; that holiness and pity, justice and mercy, may meet together and become one in man and in God. What is specific in Christianity is Jesus-the religious consciousness of Jesus. AMIEL, Journal. 3 SYNOPSIS. 1. A new method in the study of Theology is demanded by the conditions of the present day, in order to eliminate from popular religious thought some pagan survivals. 2. Illustration of the mixture of ethnic religious notions with Christianity in the early centuries of this era. 3. An attempt to give some of the causes of the incomplete reception of Christianity: Among the Apostles, post-apostolic Christians, ante-Nicene and mediæval theologians. 4. This accounts for a survival in Christian Theology of some incongruous and alien elements which contradict the very essence of the revelation of Jesus, and enfeeble it as an instrument for the Salvation of the World. 5. Therefore we should eliminate these Survivals as elements which are practically injurious. For this purpose a method of Theological study is here suggested and the outline given. 6. The Subjects are to be treated in five lectures. 7. There is no authority competent to release us from the demands of a comparative, historico-genetic study of Theology. All Theology thus examined is seen to be the growth of the religious receptiveness of mankind, the growth of the God-consciousness. In this sense alone is Christianity an evolution. 4 THE INTRODUCTION. GENTLEMEN : If the crudities which may appear in these lectures were due solely to my own limitations of knowledge and thought, I should not advert to them, but, with confidence and tranquillity, leave that task to my critics. There is, however, a defectiveness due to the exigencies of the days in which we live. 1. It is easy to call any age a transition period, because time is always rushing forward, a resistless current, but surely it is plain enough to any observer that in an especial and marked way this age is a transition period in Theology. The cuneiform clay epistles of Tel-el-Amarna, the slabs of the great Babylonian epic, antiquities of the Nile and Euphrates valleys, the critical analysis of the Hebrew and Greek scriptures, and the comparative study of religions are casting upon Theology a light to which we cannot and ought not to shut our eyes. The old is passing away, and behold, all things are becoming new. The meaning of the higher criticism is manifestly the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things |