we ourselves, common mortals, see them, what do we get from him? We might do that as well as he, and leave him quite out of the question. As, indeed, one often hears people say that as we come more to think and analyze, the office of art will disappear. And the office of realism will disappear: the newspaper will take its place. But true art can never disappear. The true artist neither coins an imaginary world out of his own brain, nor does he strive to represent the commonplace of life in a commonplace way. He takes life, indeed, as he sees it; he takes it as we see it; but he shows us infinitely more in life than we could ever see. That which to us seemed shapeless and colorless and tame, in his hands, even while it remains the same, takes on a new color and majesty and grace. That which to us seemed to the last degree, of the earth, earthy, under the touch of genius becomes, in a certain sense, immortal and divine. That is what I mean by idealism: the sweetness, the amenity of romanticism, the earnestness, the truth of realism; but a something of light, of intensity, of aspiration, which is forever lacking in these as we know them now, in a word, the enthusiasm of the idea.

At the end of the last century, and in the beginning of this, under the influence of the French Revolution and the immense spiritual movement brought about by that, a reaction in literature did, indeed, begin. Goethe in Germany, Byron and Shelley in England, G. Sand and a few others in France, each in their different ways, set themselves to work on the foundation of a new school, a school which should have for its object, in G. Sand's own words, "To seek the cause and the end of life." But Byron and Shelley died having accomplished nothing. Goethe outlived his youthful illusions. George Sand alone remained true to her ideal; but with her the school is gone as it came.

Yet, until they have taken a lesson from writers like these, I cannot think that the realists will succeed. In art you must look up, not down. You must be a servant, not a master. As Heine, a true idealist, though a somewhat strange one, once wrote: "No, we do not possess ideas, but the idea possesses us, and enslaves us, and scourges us into the arena, that we may fight for it like gladiators, whether we will or no."

And what do we mean by the idea? In truth it would not be easy to say.. I have thought long over the matter, and the best answer I have found is this: the Idea is God. And, to tell the truth, I am often half tempted to take it the other way and say that God is the Idea. But whatever definition one adopts, he who

feels the Idea knows it and no one else can. That which ennobles the soul and makes it forget itself, passion and aspiration and faith, and pain also these are the idea. And I leave it to any of my readers if this is the spirit in which the realist works.

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And yet, after all is said, if one would write seriously at the present day, can one be anything but a realist? I have said much evil of them; but when one sees what the world is now, when one hears nothing but dollars and cents and machine politics, when one reads the newspapers and lives under the reign of poor Flaubert's "Bourgeois," can one be anything but a realist? Let him who is without sin among us cast the first stone.

CAMBRIDGE.

Gamaliel Bradford, Jr.

PAUL'S THEOLOGY.

I. JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH.

FOR some years I have been engaged in special studies on the writings of Paul, primarily for the purpose of my own instruction in the principles of life for my general work as editor and teacher, my aim therein being always a simple one, namely, to apply to the problems of modern life — individual and social - the principles inculcated in the New Testament; secondly, with the intention of embodying the results of these studies in one or more volumes in continuation of a Commentary on the New Testament, the preparations for which were commenced some twenty years ago. As a result of these studies I find my understanding of Paul's character and teaching different at some important points from those ordinarily found in the commentaries and theological treatises. In this, and a succeeding article, I propose to give the readers of the " Andover Review," by way of suggestion, and in a condensed form, a part of the results of these studies, referring such as care to pursue the line of thought here indicated further, to the volume on Romans which is now going through the press as fast as my other duties will allow, and which I hope will be issued early in 1888.

Every great teacher is the bearer of one great message to the world; and he rarely bears more than one. If we can understand that one message, we approximately understand him in all his teaching; if we misunderstand that one message, we are in confusion as regards all his teaching. All that he has to say to

the world in detail is either an amplification of that one message, or a preparation for it, or corollaries from it, or applications of it to the various phases of human experience. Thus, the message of Moses was the sovereignty of one spiritual God in opposition to the materialistic polytheism of surrounding nations, and all his teaching must be interpreted by that one regnant idea; the teaching of David, what I may perhaps call the anthropomorphic idea of God, as opposed to the naturalistic idea, that is, the doctrine that God is to be interpreted to us, not by analogy from natural phenomena, but by analogy from the higher types of human experience; the teaching of Luther, the doctrine of justification by faith, as opposed to ceremonialism and ecclesiasticism in all its forms; that of Wesley, the doctrine of liberty, with its corollaries of human responsibility and ethical obligation; that of Henry Ward Beecher, the Fatherhood of God, as opposed to the formerly current conceptions of God as a moral governor of the universe. Now the fundamental teaching of Paul is all embodied in the one declaration, that by the works of the law can no flesh be justified in the sight of God; that the soul can be justified only by faith. What does he mean by this? Specifically, what does he mean by justification? by the works of the law? by faith? My object in this article is to give a suggestive though not a complete answer to these questions. In a second article I shall endeavor to indicate what relation his teaching as here interpreted bears to the sacrifice of Christ. No candid reader will expect in these articles to find a full and satisfactory interpretation of the teaching of the apostle on these subjects. In the first place, he would be unreasonable if he were to expect any one to cover adequately, in two articles of the length here allowed, ground which a library of antecedent discussion has not fully covered; and, in the second place, if he believes, as I certainly do, that the apostle was inspired to be the teacher of all future ages, he will not expect any interpreter to do anything more than give some aid, from the point of view of a single student, to the understanding of certain aspects of his unfathomable teaching.

One other preliminary consideration, one which will enable us to pass by at the outset though in a full discussion it ought not to be ignored a great deal that has been written by learned exegetes on this subject. For an understanding of Paul's meaning we are to go, not primarily to the classical Greek, nor even to the Old Testament Scriptures, we are to go to Paul himself. It is always the characteristic of profound writers to use com

mon words with meanings more profound than common usage has attached to them. It is only thus that such a writer can express his meaning. He must take common words to interpret thoughts that are not common. No man would think of going to the Latin poet's use of the word deus to get his understanding of the English conception of deity. The missionaries in China are almost at a stand-still in their translation of the Bible because they cannot find in the Chinese language a word fitting to convey to the Chinese mind a conception of a supreme, spiritual Being. The word God is not in the Chinese language, because the idea God is not in the Chinese mind; and the Christian teacher can only take the word that most nearly approximates that thought, familiar to us but unfamiliar to them, and give to it a new meaning. The old carriage must be used, but it must be made the vehicle of a new idea. The manger is the manger of cattle; but the child that is to be laid in it is the Son of God. It is thus that Paul uses the two words "righteousness" and "faith." Both are words familiar in classic Greek; by universal consent Paul gives them a profounder meaning than they ever bear in pagan writings. Both are familiar words in the Old Testament; I believe that Paul gives to them, especially to the former word, a profounder meaning than it ordinarily bore in the Old Testament. He uses these two words to answer the old, old question, How shall man be righteous before God? He shall be righteous, replies Paul, by receiving through faith the righteousness of God. "By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be righteous in his sight;" that is his negative answer. "For the righteousness of God is through faith of Jesus Christ revealed unto all and conferred upon all them that exercise faith; that is his affirmative answer. What is his meaning?

It has been hotly discussed between different schools of theologians whether Paul's phrase "righteousness of God" means an attribute which God possesses, or a gift which He bestows; whether God's righteousness means the righteousness which He has, or the righteousness which He imparts. If all that has been written in the discussion of this question were gathered together, it would make a work of some volumes; and if all the sermons which have been preached upon this question were included, it would make a library of very respectable dimensions. The question is one purely about words. It has no real significance. It seems not to have occurred, for the most part, to the disputants in this theological controversy, that God's righteousness may be both his possession

and his gift; that the imagined alternative has no existence; that what He bestows is himself; that He pours his own being into the souls of his willing children; that He is a Sun of righteousness, imparting his own life and warmth to that which without Him would be cold, and dark, and dead. Any system of interpretation which compels us to accept this alternative and to give to Paul's phrase, "God's righteousness," sometimes one meaning and sometimes another, leads into endless confusion of thought.

The same thing may be said respecting much of the discussion concerning the meaning of the word "justification": it has largely been a mere logomachy. Does justification mean to make just or to declare just; is it a term applicable to character or to condition? Paul's doctrine is that God's justice justifies. Does this signify a change in the relations of the soul to God, or a change in the soul's inherent character? Sin works two evils in the human soul it separates the soul from God; it disorders the soul in itself: it is both an estrangement and a disease. If it did not separate from God it would still bring untold misery upon the individual and upon all connected with him. If it brought no misery upon him or his, it would still be a terrible evil because it separates him from his Father and his God. Both these evils must be done away in any remedy which is offered for sin. The soul must be brought back to God; it must also be restored to itself, to a normal and spiritually healthful state. Now the question which theologians have discussed through centuries of debate is, Which of these two evils does justification by faith remedy? Does it restore the soul to itself, working an inherent change in the character, bringing back health, and banishing disease; or does it restore the soul to God, bringing back the son to his father's house, and leaving for further and future remedies the restoration of the soul to its true nature? Protestant doctrine, dating from the days of Luther, is that justification imports simply the latter change, the pardon of the soul by God, its treatment by Him of his own free grace as though it were rightIt is declared to be a forensic term equivalent to acquittal, and almost synonymous with vindication. Luther declares that in justification we work nothing, but receive what he calls a "passive righteousness," and this has been the general view of Protestant divines. The Roman Catholics, on the other hand, with most Unitarians and some orthodox but liberal thinkers, maintain that justification is not an act of treating as just, but of making just; that it changes not the relations but the character of the soul.

eous.