THE DEVELOPMENTS OF RELIGION.

65

making-despite all retrograde tendencies-rectilinear progress towards a predestined goal.

Now it has become more patent that it is the high office of Christian thought to harmonise, unify, and perfect these different lines of development of which we have been speaking, and this it does in a way which Greek and Hebrew knew not, in the undying hope that, through the idea of God given to us in the consciousness of Christ, our thought shall not be put to permanent religious confusion. This perpetuation and expansion of whatever monotheistic belief did early exist has been more clearly shown in late years to constitute the crown of Hebrew and Christian religion. So have we found more of man's development in the knowledge of God in lines that tell how

"Quickened by the Almighty's breath,
And chastened by His rod,
And taught by angel-visitings,
At length he sought his God;

And learned to call upon His name,

And in His faith create

A household and a fatherland,

A city and a state."

And it does not seem too much to claim for recent philosophy of natural theology, that it has been pressing on to such a pure and worthy anthropocosmic theism as may prove a fitting synthesis of the Aryan conception of God as Ground of the world of nature and the Semitic stress on a God

Who is Lord over nature and Father of spirits. Has not the Christian philosophy of our time been endeavouring to show how truly the God of the universe is one with the God of the religious consciousness? At the same time Christianity has been more carefully—although not always-exhibited as other and more than merely the consummation of the world's other religions—as itself, in fact, a direct and independent revelation given in the manifold wisdom of God. "Such a religion," as Professor Edward Caird has well said, "must see God at once without and within us, yet it must be able to discriminate the higher sense in which He is within and not without." We cannot think the most spiritual and thoughtful philosophy of religion has been able to do otherwise than, in a deeper way than before, maintain the presence, in the evolutionary process of revelation, of supernatural elements in the working of the one living Spirit of God. Much, no doubt, has been achieved, but not a little, we cannot but think, still remains to be done in fully and satisfactorily setting forth the place and nature of that revelation which constitutes the objective factor in the genesis of religion—in what sense objective, and within what limits supernatural. We say "supernatural," for we agree with those who think that this term may be advantageously retained, so long, indeed, as we retain the term God itself, to mark off that which does not belong to the natural, as we view it. This is so even if the lines

THE NATURAL AND THE SUPERNATURAL.

67

of demarcation between these two cannot always be clearly drawn. There is no reason why religion— even the highest-should not partake of a double nature, and evince a twofold aspect, an earthly or natural side as truly as a divine and supernatural one. When Deity appeared on the earth, did He not do likewise? Was He not all the more Son of God for us because He was so truly Son of man? No doubt, He was from above, but He never could have become for us the Perfect Saviour He was had there not also been senses in which He was from beneath. Of the earth earthy He became, that we might become one with the Divine and heavenly. When Novalis made religion embrace in itself "the whole sphere of the so-called supersensible and super-terrestrial," he occupied (overstrained nature as men have thought him) ground substantially at one with that which the best philosophy of religion has since taken. No spiritual faculty on our part could possibly suffice for the ends of religion without the self-revelation of Deity. There is, as we must hold, a religion, no less than a morality, of which Matthew Arnold's lines may be used to express the view of Nature herself

"Ah! child,' she cries, that strife divine,
Whence was it, for it is not mine?'"

But there is no reason why the supernaturalism of the future should not--as appears to us growingly needful-have its affirmation in the spirit of man,

not less truly than in the objective evidences of revelation. Yes, for man is creative no less than created, co-worker with that Lord of the world Whose sovereignty over nature he shares, and shares so that he is shaping the great courses of evolution. Thus, though the historic power or Grösse, with which we have here to do, may not be able, from any of its sources, to take us clearly into the light of the absolute beginnings of religion, we are able to maintain through all a place for progressive development on the side of man, and a sphere for active participation on the part of God. The Divine Father worketh hitherto : we also work. And we have seen how the historic beginnings are no sooner reached than these unfoldings or paths of development grow marked and impressive, whereby the mind of man increases in correspondence with the Eternal Mind, and the Divine Mind communicates of itself always more largely

to man.

CHAPTER IV.

RECENT THOUGHT AND THE PERMANENCE OF

RELIGION.

IT

may

be allowed here, as the matter is one of transcendent moment and interest, to give expression, under this division of our subject, to some reflections on the recent course of thought as to the probable permanence of religion. Theistic philosophy has justly not suffered the recent deepened study of the History of Religions to remain unmindful of the great influence of sin, with its numbing and retarding effects, on the growth and development of religion. The persistence and progress of religion have been seen: what now of its perpetuity? May we not say that recent study leads to the belief that Natural Theology will not only remain with Nature herself, but will also increase with the increase that is of Nature, as she progresses towards manifoldness and perfection? Though it doth not yet appear what Natural Theology shall be, we know