diligently the things of the Lord," and yet who only knew "the baptism of John;" of the disciples of Ephesus who had "not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost; "+ think of all the poor and simple ones who have gone to heaven with Christ in their hearts, "the hope of glory," and yet who have never known. with accuracy any Christian dogma whatever,and you can hardly doubt how distinct are the spheres of religion and of theology, and how far better than all theological definitions is the "honest and good heart," which, "having heard the Word, keeps it, and brings forth fruit with patience." +

II. But religion differs from theology, not only in the comparatively simple and universal order of the facts with which it deals, but also because the facts are so much more verifiable in the one case than in the other. They can so much more easily be found out to be true or not. It has been sought of late, in a well-known quarter, to bring all religion to this test-and the test is not an unfair one if legitimately applied. But it is not legitimate to test spiritual facts simply as we test natural facts; such facts, * Acts, xviii. 24, 25. + Acts, xix. 2. Luke, viii. 15.

for example, as that fire burns, or that a stone thrown from the hand falls to the ground. The presumption of all supernatural religion is that there is a spiritual or supernatural sphere, as real and true as the natural sphere in which we continually live and move; and the facts which belong to this sphere must be tested within it. Morality and moral conditions may be so far verified from without. If we do wrong we shall finally find ourselves in the wrong; and that there is a "Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness" and which will not allow us to rest in wrong. This constantly verified experience of a kingdom of righteousness is a valuable basis of morality. But religion could not live or nourish itself within such limits. It must rest, not merely on certain phenomena of divine order, but on personal relations-such relations as are ever uppermost in the mind of St Paul, and are clearly before him in this passage. craves not merely facts but beings. Moreover, the higher experience which reveals to us a Power of righteousness in the world, no less reveals to us the character of this Power as a living Will or Being. Shut out conscience as a true source of knowledge, and the very idea of righteousness will disappear with it-there will be nothing to fall

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depreciate the necessity and importance of theological science for fixing and defining the great ideas upon which every form of the Christian. life rests. This would be entirely opposed to my own point of view, which especially recognises the value of rational inquiry into all theological ideas whatever.

But admitting that the theological and religious spheres everywhere in the end run into one another, it is none the less true that the facts of the Christian life are infinitely simple in contrast with the questions of theology, and that there are hosts of difficulties in the latter sphere which in no degree touch the former. It is my present purpose to point this out, and to show in what respects the religion of Christ—the life of faith and hope and love which we are called upon to live in Him-is really apart from many intellectual and dogmatic difficulties with which it has been mixed up.

I. This is shown, first of all, in what I have already said of the comparative simplicity of the order of facts with which religion-religion as set forth by Christ-deals. Nothing can be simpler or more comprehensive than our Lord's teaching. He knew what was in man. He knew, more

over, what was in God towards man as a living Power of love, who had sent Him forth "to seek and save the lost;" and beyond these great facts, of a fallen life to be restored, and of a Higher Life of Divine love and sacrifice, willing and able to restore and purify this fallen life, our Lord seldom traversed. Unceasingly He proclaimed the reality of a spiritual life in man, however obscured by sin, and the reality of a Divine Life above him, which had never forsaken him nor left him to perish in his sin. He held forth the need of man, and the grace and sacrifice of God on behalf of man. And within this double order of spiritual facts His teaching may be said to circulate. He dealt, in other words, with the great ideas of God and the Soul, which can alone live in Him, however it have sunk away from him. These were to Him the realities of all life and all religion. If there are those in our day to whom these ideas are mere assumptions-"dogmas of a tremendous kind," to assume which is to assume everything-at present we have nothing to do with their point of view. The questions of materialism, or what is called agnosticism, are outside of historical Christianity altogether. They were nothing to Christ, whose whole thought moved in a higher sphere of per

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sonal Love, embracing this lower world. The spiritual life was to him the life of reality and fact; and so it is to all who live in Him and know in Him. The Soul and God are, if you will, dogmas to science. They cannot well be anything else to a vision which is outside of them, and cannot from their very nature ever reach them. But within the religious sphere they are primary experiences, original and simple data from which all others, come. And our present argument is, that Christ dealt almost exclusively with these broad and simple elements of religion, and that He believed the life of religion to rest within them. He spoke to men and women as having souls to be saved; and He spoke of Himself and of God as able and willing to save them. This was the "simplicity" that was in Him.

Everywhere in the Gospels this simplicity is obvious. Our Lord came forth from no school. There is no traditional scheme of thought lying behind His words which must be mastered before these words are understood. But out of the fulness of His own spiritual nature He spoke to the spiritual natures around Him, broken, helpless, and worsted in the conflict with evil as He saw them. The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,"