ceived from the Example and Teaching of the LORD were confirmed and deepened as she reflected on the whole significance of HIS historic Advent. While the expectation of the Second Advent filled Christian minds, and disinclined believers for the tasks and interests of normal life, there was little disposition to think out a theology, which should include the new elements which the Gospel had added to the ancestral Theism; but when that great Illusion had faded, the necessity of religious thinking could no longer be concealed, and its recognition was assisted by many circumstances of ecclesiastical history. The doctrine of the Incarnation took shape in many controversies. It is the grand contribution of the Greek mind to the Church's tradition of truth. Among the Greek Thinkers few wielded wider influence in the early centuries than IRENÆUS. He represents the SAVIOUR as Incarnate in such wise as to consecrate and give direction to every phase of human life. Thus the doctrine of the Incarnation implied a frank recognition of life as a whole, and provided an intellectual foundation upon which could be built a practical and generous conception of Christian Duty. Let me borrow from DR. HORT this rendering of a significant passage from the writings of IRENEUS:

CHRIST was thirty years of age when HE came to the Baptism, thenceforth having the full age of a teacher, when He came to Jerusalem, that He might rightly be able to receive the title of Teacher from all. For to seem one thing, and be another, was not His way, as is said by those who represent HIM as being in appearance only: but what He was, that He also seemed. Being therefore a Teacher, He had likewise the ages of a Teacher, not rejecting nor transcending man, nor breaking the law of the human race in Himself, but hallowing every age by its likeness to Himself: all, I mean, who through HIм are born anew unto GOD, infants, and little children, and boys, and youths, and elders. Accordingly He came through every age, with infants becoming an infant, hallowing infants; among little children a little child, hallowing those of that very age, at the same time making Himself to them an example of dutifulness, and righteousness, and subjection: among young men a young man, becoming an example to young men and hallowing them to the Lord. So also an elder among elders, that HE might be a perfect Teacher in all things, not only as regards the setting forth of the Truth but also as regards age, at the same time hallowing also the elders, becoming likewise an example to them. Lastly He came also even unto death, that He might be the first begotten from the dead, Himself holding the primacy in all things, the Author of life, before all things, and having precedence of all things.1

There is, perhaps, an element of fancifulness in the patristic view, but at least it brings out two

1 Vide The Ante-Nicene Fathers, p. 72.

points of great importance for Christian Morality. The doctrine of the Incarnation is regarded not only as guaranteeing the proper greatness and Divine potency of human nature, but also as requiring Christians to find in the Example of the Incarnate the true law of human conduct. Thus the Theologian comes to the same conclusion as the Evangelist. Both find in find in JESUS CHRIST the Champion and Exponent of Liberty.

5. The mere association of the notion of Liberty with the Person and Example of the sinless SAVIOUR saves it in Christian Minds from that facile corruption into licence, which is the worst danger to Christian morals. For liberty was SON OF MAN,"

perfectly exhibited in "THE and "IN HIM WAS NO SIN." Therefore, every approach to Christian Liberty must imply a conquest of sin, a rescuing of natural faculty from its facile abuses, a redemption of man. The Incarnation passes into the Atonement, for in such a world as this the Witness of the INCARNATE must needs take tragic shape. JESUS must vindicate HIS human rights against the powers of Evil, and stand at the head of a tempted race as Himself TEMPTED

IN ALL POINTS LIKE AS WE ARE, YET WITHOUT
SIN."
So the sombre necessity of discipline grows

on the mind which reflects on the manner of our Redemption. "FOR IT BECAME HIM, FOR WHOM ARE ALL THINGS, AND THROUGH WHOM ARE ALL THINGS, IN BRINGING MANY SONS UNTO GLORY, TO MAKE THE AUTHOR OF THEIR SALVATION PERFECT THROUGH SUFFERINGS." Antinomians fall into their fatal error because they do not read Christian Liberty in CHRIST, and learn from HIM that every step away from Goodness is a falling into bondage, that every advance in Goodness is an enfranchisement of Nature. Liberty indeed is ever on their lips, but the servitude of sin has pushed its iron into their soul, and they are verily slaves. Their appeal is to the lawless appetites, not to the sovereign Spirit of Man. "FOR UTTERING GREAT SWELLING WORDS OF VANITY, THEY ENTICE IN THE LUSTS OF THE FLESH, BY LASCIVIOUSNESS, THOSE WHO ARE JUST ESCAPING FROM THEM THAT LIVE IN ERROR; PROMISING THEM LIBERTY, WHILE THEY THEMSELVES ARE BONDSERVANTS OF CORRUPTION: FOR OF WHOM A MAN IS OVERCOME, OF THE SAME IS HE ALSO BROUGHT INTO BONDAGE."

IV

CHRISTIAN LIBERTY1

ALL THINGS ARE LAWFUL FOR ME: BUT NOT ALL THINGS ARE EXPEDIENT.-I Corinthians vi. 12.

1. CHRISTIANITY was born into an enslaved world, that is, into a world disordered and corrupted, hostile therefore in many of its circumstances to the higher life of men, and for them always a scene of temptation and moral risk. Christian liberty has to be exercised under formidable difficulties, which in many respects must needs limit and restrain it. The Christian life is by the sacred writers expressed by metaphors which suggest anything but liberty, or the security which liberty presupposes. It is a pilgrimage, a stewardship, a work, a warfare, a service, a mission. The Christian puts his hand to the plough, bows his neck to the yoke, bends his

1 Preached in Durham Cathedral on the fourth Sunday in Lent, April 2, 1916, at Evensong.