PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. IN this revised Edition, it is my hope that I have corrected some of the many faults which kind friends and further study have made me aware of in the First Edition. I have to acknowledge much assistance from my Reviewers. A very helpful review in the Guardian (June 14, 1876) showed me that I had not been sufficiently careful to distinguish the cleansing efficacy of Christ's Blood as expressed in the "One Baptism for the Remission of Sins,” and its "strengthening and refreshing" efficacy, as we realise it in the other Sacrament. A pamphlet, as courteous as it was able, by the Principal of St. Aidan's College, replying to my chapters on the Atonement, and defending the theory of a Pana Vicaria, also helped to show me where I had failed to make my meaning plain. I trust that the Third Chapter (of Part I.), which has been almost entirely rewritten, will be found to set forth, more clearly than before, what seems to me to be the teaching of Holy Scripture and of Antiquity on this difficult subject,—that it was not the mere suffering of Christ, but rather His obedience under suffering, that made atonement for man's sin. In my study of this, as well as other doctrines of our Faith, I cannot express too strongly my obligation to that much neglected storehouse of Divinity-Jackson's Commentaries on the Creed. A greater service to English Students could hardly be rendered than a digest into one inexpensive volume of the most valuable portions of Jackson's three cumbrous folios. ST. MARY REDCLIFFE VICARAGE, Lent, 1878. PREFACE. IN the following pages I have endeavoured to meet a request often made to me by Candidates for Ordination, that I would put into their hands a compendious manual that might serve as a first book in Theology. In the First Part, the fundamental doctrines of the Creed are considered-the doctrine of God, of God the Son, of His Atonement, of God the Holy Ghost, of His sanctifying work by means of the Church and her Sacraments; and, relying mainly on the help I have myself derived from Hooker, Bull, Pearson, and (most of all) Waterland, I have tried to put the reader's thoughts into orderly shape on each of these subjects. In the Second Part, by way of illustrating what may be called the method of theological induction, the doctrine of the Atonement is selected, and the Student is invited to make a rapid survey of Holy Scripture, with a view to gathering there from what seems to be revealed to us respecting that mystery. In the Third Part, or Appendix, will be found a kind of stromata or panarium from my own. patristic reading, intended chiefly to excite the Student's desire to learn more for himself of what the early Fathers thought and wrote in days when the Church's Theologians had to hold their own against an adverse world. I shall be very thankful if some who read these pages find them helpful towards thinking out their own thoughts into clearness, and defining to themselves the common theological terms which they are daily using. COLLEGE GREEN, BRISTOL, Advent 1875. |