many friends of God and righteous men of the past ages, such as bore a greater fight than we and grew to greater ripeness in their saintly walk, bowed themselves adoringly before this holy mystery, and sang it with hallelujahs in the worship of their temples, in their desert fastings and their fires of testimony. And as their Gloria Patri, the sublimest of their doxologies, is in form a hymn for the ages, framed to be continuously chanted by the long procession of times till times are lapsed in eternity, what can we better do than let the wave lift us that lifted them, and bid it roll on Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen." 1 1 "The Christian Trinity a Practical Truth," Literary Varieties, vol. iii. Building Eras in Religion, pp. 144, 148 (originally in "New Englander," vol. xii. Nov. 1854). CHAPTER XI THE TRINITY: THE PRACTICAL SIGNIFICANCE OF THE REVELATION THE practical significance of the revelation of God as the Trinity has been considered. I proceed now to consider the distinctive practical significance of the revelation of God coming into humanity in Christ; the Word that was in the beginning, that was with God, that was God, became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth. This significance can be set forth only in the full history of the work of God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself, renovating individuals to the new spiritual life of love in Christ, and developing his kingdom among men. Therefore, it is possible here only to indicate some lines of practical significance in the work of God in Christ. In ascertaining this significance we must look at it from the points of view already attained. I. CHRIST THE REVEALER OF GOD. Christ in his oral teaching, and much more in his person, and in his work, sufferings, and death, is the revealer of God. 1. The self-revelation of God in the universe through the eternal Son or Word is one revelation, continuous and progressive through successive epochs, and reaches its highest plane or form in the God in Christ. The scientific theory of the evolution of the universe harmonizes with the Incarnation, and points forward to it as reasonable and probable. The theological doctrine of the Trinity is the true philosophical basis of the scientific theory of the progressive evolution of the universe. Before the creation and before all time God is eternal, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. In the creation God, in the Son or Logos, is expressing the archetypal thought of perfect Reason, moulding it, as it were, into types in the forms of space and time; and continuously in the evolution of the universe he is unrolling the imprint of this eternal archetype and progressively revealing what God is. In this sense the universe itself is a copy or imprint of God's thought, and thus an ever-progressive but never-completed revela. tion of him. The infinite can never be fully contained or expressed in the finite. God's revelation of himself in the universe is, therefore, necessarily progressive and at every point of time incomplete. And science discloses the fact that the universe has been evolved through successively higher stages of being. Accordingly in it God is continuously revealing his presence and power, his wisdom and love; and the revelation is progressive, reaching successively higher and higher planes. At first is the homogeneous nebulous matter, then motion, and the inorganic universe with its mechanical and its higher chemical forces. But motion can begin only from a power transcending the motionless homogeneous matter. Here the primitive homogeneous itself is in contact with a power transcending it, acting on it and thus revealing itself in it. Then comes a time when organic vegetable life appears. But life can be produced only from previous life. Whence comes the first liv ing germ? Here again the physical evolution directly confronts the unseen and spiritual. From this sphere of higher life, the living God, comes this higher form of being. A new power, imperceptible to sense and unmeasurable by any instrument of physical science, is brought into the universe and develops in it a new and higher order of being. Herein God's revelation of himself in the universe rises to a higher plane. Then again comes a time when an organism appears that is sensitive. Again, the physical confronts the spiritual, and from the latter comes the power that lifts the inanimate organism into sensitive life. Here is a new and higher plane of God's self-revelation in the universe. Then, after many ages of preparation, as soon as, in the progress of the evolution, a vital physical organism is developed, through which it is possible for a rational personal being to act, man appears, a being not only sensitive, but endowed with reason and free will, and susceptible of rational motives and emotions. Here not only is the universe confronted and acted on by a transcendent spiritual power, but in the universe itself appears a being in the likeness of God, a rational personal spirit, the same in kind with God the eternal spirit. In this new creation God's selfrevelation reaches a higher plane, that of rational beings, as such in the likeness of God, and therefore the highest in kind which is possible in the finite. Thus, in the evolution of the universe, so soon as any portion becomes elaborated so as to be capable of being the medium through which a higher power can be manifested, that power makes its appearance from God ever immanent in the universe, reveals itself in a new and higher order of being, and in it God makes a higher revelation of himself, of his presence, power, wisdom, and love. In man the physical evolution is transcended and becomes a moral and spiritual evolution under moral and spiritual influences; and moral law and government, discipline and education, redemption by the grace of God, begin. This is not the evolution from man of a higher order of beings that will crowd the human race out of existence; but it is the result of moral and spiritual agencies and influences which are fitted to develop men individually to the realization of the highest possibilities of their being, in immortal life, and to establish the kingdom of God on earth, to gather all the redeemed and renewed into it and to perpetuate it forever in the life immortal. And as in the physical evolution there is elaboration of material preparing it to be susceptible of receiving and manifesting a new and higher power, so it is in the spiritual process. The spiritual evolution goes on in the course of human history. God reveals himself to all men for their progressive education and development. We find also a special line of God's historical action among men leading on to the coming of God in Christ. In the Old Testament we see the Son or Word of God disciplining and educating men through many centuries in preparation for the new power of spiritual life which was to enter humanity and develop the kingdom of God into a universal and spiritual kingdom. At last in the fulness of time, when the world has become capable of receiving the Saviour, the Word becomes flesh and the God in Christ appears. Here is indeed a new creation, - not of a new order of beings, but of a human nature in which the Son of God personally and immediately reveals himself to men, and redeems them from sin. Here, indeed, something has entered into the universe that was never in it before. Here God's revelation of himself reaches its highest plane. The Spirit proceeding from the Father and the Son will take of the things of Christ and show them unto us; what men were not prepared to understand from the lips of Christ they know afterwards, as he himself promised; the study of all the ages has not yet grasped all the significance of the God in Christ, in whom all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hid; the Christian experience of all the ages has not measured "the breadth and length, and height and depth, and known the love of Christ which passeth knowledge"; the revelations of the heavenly world will show nothing brighter than the glory of the Lamb that was slain, standing in the midst of the throne of God. Through this revelation we shall be forever increasing in the knowledge of God; but God's self-revelation will never reach a higher plane than this immediate revelation of himself in Christ As the God in and through the finite spirit and nature of man. in Christ, when he comes into the world, is a new reality and power acting in the universe, and a new revelation of God on its highest plane, so "if any man is in Christ, he is a new creature." The Spirit whom Christ sends renews sinful man to spiritual life, wherein they are put in the way of realizing the true ideal of man; thus Christ becomes the head of a new humanity, consisting of all who are born anew by the Spirit of God. And at last, in the new heaven and the new earth, he will make all things new. It is a common error that the coming of God in Christ is an abrupt irruption into the universe, an interruption and disruption of the unity and continuity of its development. This error has occasioned much of the difficulty in believing the fact. But as from this highest plane, which we have now attained, we look back on God's action in the evolution of the universe, we see that it has been one continuous process of revelation, progressive through successive stages, till it reaches its highest plane in Christ, and is perpetuated in the Holy Spirit. Therefore, the coming of God into humanity in Christ is not abnormal or unreasonable. It is the legitimate issue of the progressive revelation of God in the finite in the creation and evolution of the universe from the beginning. 2. What God in Christ reveals is primarily the personality of God, the same in its essential characteristics with the personality of man. All finite persons are alike as endowed with reason, free will, and susceptibility to the influence of rational and spiritual motives, and as being every one conscious of himself as an in |