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. It 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

back upon but the combinations of intelligence and such religion as may be got therefrom; admit conscience, and its verifying force transcends a mere order or impersonal power of righteousness. It places us in front of a living Spirit who not only governs us righteously and makes us feel our wrong-doing, but who is continually educating us and raising us to His own likeness of love and blessedness. We realise not merely that there is a law of good in the world, but a holy Will that loves good and hates evil, and against whom all our sins are offences in the sense of the Psalmist: "Against Thee, Thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in Thy sight."

So much as this, we say, may be realisedthis consciousness of sin on the one hand, and of a living Righteousness and Love far more powerful than our sins, and able to save us from them. These roots of religion are deeply planted in human nature. They answer to its highest experiences. The purest and noblest natures in whom all the impulses of a comprehensive humanity have been strongest, have felt and owned them. The missionary preacher, wherever he has gone to the rude tribes of Africa, or the cultured representatives of an ancient civilisation-has appealed to them, and found a verify

ing response to his preaching. St Paul, whether he spoke to Jew, or Greek, or Roman, found the same spiritual voices echoing to his call-the same burden of sin lying on human heartsthe same cry from their depths, “What must I do to be saved?" It is not necessary to maintain that these elements of the Christian religion are verifiable in every experience. It is enough to say that there is that in the Gospel which addresses and touches all in whom spiritual thoughtfulness and life have not entirely died out. It lays hold of the common heart. It melts with a strange power the highest minds. Look over a vast audience; travel to distant lands; communicate with your fellow-creatures anywhere, and you feel that you can reach them, and for the most part touch them, by the story of the Gospel-by the fact of a Father in heaven, and a Saviour sent from heaven, "that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have eternal life."* Beneath all differences of condition, of intellect, of culture, there is a common soul which the Gospel reaches, and which nothing else in the same manner reaches.

Now, in contrast to all this, the contents of any special theology commend themselves to a

* John, iii. 15.

B

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,"