I

courage, His gentleness, and all that makes Him the ideal of mankind. This is an exhaustless theme. have only spoken of what is perhaps less commonly present to our minds, of what He was not, but might have been expected to be had he been merely man. I have reminded you that He was not marked by any of the merely human and transient distinctions of nation, or party, or class, or character, but impartially and serenely above all; and how He planted the seed of an organism which has grown, and still grows, by the irresistible power of life in itself. You will find here matter for much thought. Such, my friends, as you well know, is our Christian faith, taught Sunday by Sunday, and century by century, in this ancient Church of England.

And now there is only time to add one brief word. If we believe this, and we cannot, I think, help believing all that I have said (and you know that much more might have been said), how profoundly ought such a belief to affect our lives! It is very good for us to think of Christ as a man, as well as to think of Him as the Son of God; for by thinking of Him as a man we think of Him as He presented Himself to the world, and learn the lessons His life teaches in the order and in the way He meant us to learn them. It is impossible now to expand this thought, but you may easily follow it out for yourselves. It is by thinking of His sufferings and disappointments as a man that we get the one lasting consolation in our own sorrows. Christ suffered, and it turned out well; and we may believe that our sorrows will also turn out well. It is the comfort in the death of our dearest friends, and when death draws near to ourselves. Christ died, and His Spirit yet lives-nay, He Himself lives

for ever. Death was no evil to Him, neither shall it be an evil for those who live in His Spirit, even though, as He tells us in His last parable, they knew Him not.

And it is by thinking of His limitations as a man that we get patience with the selfishnesses, the unhappinesses, and the terribly slow progress of good in the world. Why did not the Son of God, we feel inclined to say, why did not the Son of God come and turn the world upside down, and at one stroke make the crooked straight and the rough places plain, and make all men good and happy? It is because He came only as the Son of man, to work all reforms from within, by the slow action on human character. It will be a blessed thing for our country when we all realise this. I can fancy the hearts of the whole nation awakened to this truth that it is only by living in His Spirit, and by transmitting that Spirit by example and by teaching to our children, that we can ever hope for the kingdom of God on earth.

It is well to think of Him as our Saviour from sin, and with whom we may rest in the life after death, but it is even more to recognise Him as our Leader in this world against all the hosts of evil, and as the type of perfect manhood, to which all nations, all ages, all ranks, all classes, should try to conform themselves. There is a fine saying of Luther, which you will like to hear. "I repeat this," he said, "and I will say it yet again, whosoever would lift up his mind to a thought of God, a salutary outlook upon Him, must subordinate all things to the humanity of Christ. Let him always keep Christ in view, whether in His life or in His sufferings, until his own heart grows tender at the sight. Then he will not stop.

there; his thoughts will lead him further on." Yes, it will lead you further on. I believe that no one studies Christ as the Son of man without becoming filled with reverence and love for Him, and reverence and love grow into worship, and we exclaim at last with the centurion, “Truly this man was the Son of God," and then we submit our hearts and wills and our whole life to His Divine will, and find that peace which passes all understanding. We shall see (as we heard in the second lesson of this morning) “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

May I yet add one final word? This belief in Jesus Christ as the first fruits of a Divine humanity, such as we ourselves are, yet without sin, fills us with boundless hopefulness for the world, with toleration for others, with charity for all. We cannot despair of a human nature which Christ shared. None may be despaired of; for all are the brethren of Christ. Here is the true fount of the ever-flowing stream of Christian charity. And this belief gives us self-respect as well as hopefulness. As we cannot despair of others, so we cannot despair of ourselves. Whatever are our weaknesses or our sins, we share the human nature which Christ glorified. It is this thought which gives us that spring of joyful and bounding emotion, that sustained cheerfulness and confidence in God's everlasting love, which carries us through all times of sorrow and depression, and over all impediments of faithlessness and dulness, till we come to that eternal world where we shall see Him on whom our thoughts have so often dweltChrist, the Son of man and the Son of God.

XIII

THE PROGRESS OF CHRISTIAN CHURCH

LIFE DURING

FIVE YEARS.1

THE LAST TWENTY

IT is of course an unusual occurrence that a minister of the Church of England should deliver an address in a Congregational chapel. And I think it may be best to preface my remarks this evening by saying a few words upon the reasons which have led Mr. Thomas to invite me, and have led me to accept his invitation. It is a very simple explanation. It is because we are both convinced, and I know that many Churchmen, and I trust that many Nonconformists are equally convinced, that the right relations between the Church of England and the Nonconformist bodies are those of friendliness and hearty co-operation, and not of aloofness, still less of disparagement or hostility. My being here must not be understood to imply the slightest wavering in Mr. Thomas's principles or in mine. It is possible to combine a wide divergence of opinion on secondary matters with an earnest unanimity in primary

1 A lecture, given in the Redland Park Congregational Chapel, Bristol, 29th September 1886.

matters.

I hold that episcopacy is a form of Church government which has high Scriptural and primitive testimony in its favour, and has been proved by experience to have been suited to its work. I hold that the parochial system under an episcopal government has been the best method ever devised for the education of a whole nation in Christianity. I hold that an Establishment-though not our present Establishment, unmodified and unextended—and religious endowments have been and are very desirable for a Church that is charged permanently with the religious teaching of a whole nation, and is not only concerned with the spiritual edification of its own voluntary members. But it seems to be God's will, to speak with all reverence, and to be a result of deep-seated historical causes, that there should for the present exist, side by side, different associations which hold the negatives of all these propositions, and yet work effectually within their limited lines in spreading the faith and spirit of Christ. And, therefore, I cannot but believe that if Christ could stand among us He would say that nothing should separate us from one another which does not separate us from Him.

If I were addressing Nonconformists only, this is all I need say. But one1 for whose goodness I entertain great respect, while not denying the legality of my action, about which I consulted him, has asked me "whether my addressing you to-night may not be deemed to involve some measure of overt spiritual communion with that which in our Litany we disavow and deprecate-in a word, whether toleration, ever rightful and commendable, may not be regarded as 1 The Lord Bishop of the diocese.