PREFACE. WHAT think ye of the Christ? is the question put to the Jews by our Lord. Scribes and Pharisees had taken counsel how they might ensnare Him in His talk. To compass their purpose they assail Him with political and speculative questions, seeking to expose His pretensions to wisdom by giving Him problems held to be the most perplexing; but He promptly silences their boldness and puts their hypocrisy to shame. Not in turn to ensnare them, nor merely to reprove their spiritual blindness, but in order to divert absorbing interest from matters of comparatively little account, He fixes serious thought on the question which for them is chief: What think ye of the Christ? The relation of the Church to the State, or the truth of the resurrection, or the relative claim to observance of this or that commandment, may each be worthy of discussion; but the matter which is paramount, and which before all others calls for absorbing interest and solemn reflection, is wholly different in kind. It concerns the Person and office of the Messiah. Who is He? What opinion have ye of Him? This is the principal question. It merited thoughtful inquiry then; it merits thoughtful inquiry now. To obey His words, to trust His saving grace and to follow Him, is incumbent on all who hear the Gospel; but it is no less incumbent on believers, especially on all teachers of the Christian religion, to form and to have an intelligent judgment respecting His person and His mission. The Christ challenges acceptance, obedience, devotion; but His challenge is not limited to our ethical life. He addresses the intellect as really as the will. He addresses the disposition and the ability rationally to interpret and construe objective truth, as certainly as He addresses the power of consecration and service. He is the Truth for the whole manhood of man: for the will, to be obeyed and honored according to the dictates of conscience; for the reason, to be apprehended and known according to the laws of thought. The obligation to believe answers to the psychological impulse which disposes us to credit the object of perception; the obligation to obey answers to the genius of the will which feels bound to affirm the right and to deny the wrong. The same correlation obtains between Christ as truth for thought and the structure of the human reason. An earnest Christian cannot do otherwise than think on what he believes. The necessity is peremptory from without and it stirs irrepressibly from within, a necessity which for the sphere of Christian knowledge is as imperative as is the obligation to believe and to obey for the sphere of Christian righteousness. The will may not ignore the intellect, nor may the intellect ignore the will; each requires and conditions the legitimate action of the other; neither may character be indifferent to science, nor science be indifferent to character. The science of ethics has, by common consent, a place in the economy of civilized society, as truly as actual morality. So theological studies have a standing in the court of Truth by the side of practical religion. The science of the Christian Creed insists on its right to recog nition no less forcibly than the Creed commands reverence. A superficial or defective theology sooner or later begets a defective or false proclamation of the Gospel; and a defective proclamation of the Gospel not only produces superficial or false conceptions respecting Christianity, but it will also issue in the development of a moral life lacking the distinctiveness, uncompromising firmness and spiritual zeal of the Christian type. No, age can disparage theological science without prejudice to practical religion. The state of religion and morals answers to reigning religious ideas. Recognizing the indissoluble connection between Christian thought and the Christian life, between theological science and the efficiency of the pulpit, the author has felt justified in devoting time and strength to the theological studies embodied in the preceding and in this second volume, studies which have been conducted on the basis of the central truth of Christianity, the union of sovereign Love and human autonomy in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the final revelation and the only redemption. When, in 1891, the first volume of this work was issued, nearly the whole of the second volume was written, and it was my expectation that it would follow during the ensuing year. On further reflection, however, I decided to re-study and re-write the whole of it, a task which, as a great part of my time is consumed by the duties of my Chair and by the miscellaneous claims of the Church, has occupied two years more than was anticipated. I repeat my grateful sense of obligation for valuable help received in various forms from my colleagues in the Theological Seminary, and from Professors of Franklin and Marshall College. Especially do I thank Prof. John B. Kieffer, Ph. D., for many acts of kindness. It is due the Rev. R. Leighton Gerhart, A. M., that I express my obligations to him for a careful examination in manuscript of anthropology and soteriology, and for many important suggestions. The Rev. A. Carl Whitmer has been my faithful coworker in reading proofs. I am greatly indebted to him for the time and patient labor he has from week to week been bestowing on this volume. The results of my researches and studies in the domain of systematic theology as wrought out in these volumes are consecrated to the service of the kingdom of God, with the assurance that sound thought respecting the nature, relations and compass of the absolute religion is an indispensable condition of zealous, steadfast and joyous devotion to Jesus Christ. THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, LANCASTER PA., November, 1894. E. V. G. |