was anciently tinged; and while we may agree with the opinion of Nitzsch, which Dr Bruce appears to approve, that the fruits of recent Christological speculation cannot be fully weighed and measured, we yet think that some of the general results of such theological endeavours may, despite the fact that the weak point of a theology that has enjoyed so much favour within late years as that of Ritschl is just its Christology, with its repudiation of Autoritätsglaube so emphatic as to carry with it the rejection, not merely of all exterior attestations of Christ's divinity, but even of such special authorisation as may have been implied in the Christ's own utterances,-be here noted. These are for us illustrated in the setting in newer, fuller, light of such points as, the uniqueness of our Lord's humanity; its historic reality; its true personality, maintained through each moment of the Incarnation; its essential relation to His divine nature; its universality; the constitutive act of Incarnation, wherein is given us, in the union of the two natures, Christ's Person; the modern Kenotic representation-chief among the exponents of which have been Thomasius, Kahnis, Gess,

Liebner, Hofmann, Delitzsch, Gaupp, Hahn, Ebrard, Martensen, Schöberlein, and Godetof His "self-emptying," His actual, voluntary, self-limitations and historic growth, wherein emerged the divine after having for a time been lost in the human; and the absolute supremacy and significance of the Person of Christ as Lord of the universe.

Modern Christian theology, while not, perhaps, troubling itself overmuch about the Pre-existence of Christ, has yet more firmly apprehended the significance of Christ's pre-existence, spite of its rather unwarrantable dismissal by Holtzmann, Lobstein, and others, as not forgetful, however Herrmann and Kaftan may seem to be, that that alone can explain His subsequent Exaltation, and justify the whole teaching of the Scriptures on our subject. It has also grown in its interest in the inquiry as to the Divinity of Christ, asking, with a greater freedom than before from dogmatic prepossessions, what the eternal Son really became as He took human form and dwelt among us. It no longer forecloses inquiry into the question of His divinity by dogmatic interpretation of proof-texts, but starts from His pure and simple

humanity, and following, free from Docetic reservations, that unique and sinless humanity up to the full glory of realised Messiahship, culminates in unclouded conviction of His Godhead. Herein we have a satisfying growth in Christian thought which, so far from feeling need to have recourse to a Docetic spirit that would fail to do justice to our Lord's true humanity, finds that humanity to be itself the highest proof of His divinity.

Modern Christian theology does not profess to have got―for never shall it get-beyond mystery in the self-exinanition (Selbstentäusserung) of the eternal Logos, divinest of all Love's mysteries, but it claims to view with more satisfaction to intelligence the Kenosis (Erniedrigung) and the union of the divine and human natures in the Person of Christ, whose eternal divinity is for it, despite the dwindled Deity ascribed, as by way of compliment, to Him by Ritschl and his followers, chief corner-stone in the theological foundation. No one, viewing the amazing activities of Christian thought on this great subject, a subject entirely without parallel or analogy in things human, will seriously dispute that, not

withstanding extremes to which Christological speculation may have been carried in cases present to the mind of every one conversant with the course of the inquiry, substantial gain has accrued to Christian theology from the unwearied investigations that have taken place in our century, especially among the theologians of Germany, touching the indivisible Person of Christ.

The question of the Atonement, or rather of Reconciliation, has occupied its place in modern Christian theology, where it has been studied in a more historic and inductive spirit, less as a theory than as a stupendous and affecting fact, particular theories of an artificial and unethical character having been cast off as a slough; and it has borne less of forensic reference or materialistic representation because viewed less in its mysterious and unfathomable relations to God than in its ethical import and practical effect upon the soul of man. A truer union of the objective and subjective elements involved is what modern Christian theology has sought, so that the Atonement might remain neither something simply external to man, nor an influence working

only within him, but be properly recognised at once in its expiatory value and its ethical worth. It has ceased to regard redemption as an act or contrivance of sheer almightiness, and has come to view its grand accomplishment, with the recuperative power it has brought to our race, as accordant alike with God's ethical nature and our own rational and ethical being, though it still awaits a logically consistent, comprehensive, and ethically perfect presentation of the Atonement, which need occasion small surprise, since here, as in science, elaborate generalisations cannot be reached without vast increase in the area and time of our observation. It no longer disjoins the death of the cross from Christ's life, but views it as the culmination of His redemptive work it no longer makes the Atonement wear a judicial, arbitrary, uninviting aspect, but has regard to the fact that "God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself," by a process essentially inward and moral in its character, and that no dry legal theories must be suffered to rob forgiveness of its freeness. It feels that the Atonement must bear a remedial no less than a ransoming character, bringing the soul health and