It will be sought through the theology of the future recognising the natural as the theology of the past has not done, while also modifying the exaggerated significance which it is the danger of science to attribute to the natural; through its pressing behind the natural into the arcana of the supernatural, and below the physical to the hidden fundamenta of reality which is spiritual, proceeding on the supposition, to use a late phrase, dass inmitten der natürlichen Welt eine andere geistliche Schöpfung, aus dem Erlösungsratschluss stammend, sich durchsetze; and through its rectifying the sphere and scope of the supernatural, that it may retain and enforce the supernatural, and that as no foreign, partial thing, but even "the natural more and more supernatural," as Carlyle said to him it seemed, in ways whereby the interpenetration of these twain in their higher unity, as the complete manifestation of the Absolute Reason, shall be better seen. This will be no small gain to the theology of the future, since "it is not to be forgotten that to-day the most serious dangers threaten religious faith from the side of natural sciencedangers which assuredly will not be averted by

being ignored, while it is thought possible to rescue faith in the realm of ideal feeling and to leave the realm of reality to unbelief.”1

For our own part, we venture to think that no one who knows what transforming effects the results of modern scientific investigation and knowledge, astronomic and terrestrial, have had upon our world - conceptions, and what transforming influences the advances of recent critical inquiries have had on the view taken by theology of the Scriptures, can fail to feel how far from easy, even on the new changed grounds, such a faith as that of our former theology in the miraculous and the supernatural must be for the theology of the future. But we record at the same time our well-grounded confidence that when the soul, insphered in the vast system of inexorable law, comes to reassert its sovereignty, to hearken to the voice of its own deepest, most spiritual intuitions, and to summon to its aid the God Whose relations to it in His Divine Personality are no more remote and inconsequential, but assume bold historic form and reality over against the certainties of physical science, it

1 O. Pfleiderer.

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will present the world with a more adequate rational expression than any that has yet been seen of the spiritual bases on which its thought securely rests, such bases lying for us in unexplored deeps and resources of personality, Divine and human.

The theology of the future will carry clearer currents of those Eschatological teachings which, it must still be said, nicht bloss unverstanden geblieben, sondern missverstanden sind, and will, in respect of man's temporal probation, more forcibly exhibit a theodicy in which destiny shall be regarded as determined by character rather than by death, in accordance with the slowly shaped law of man's own spiritual being within the sphere of free-will, and under condition of an adequate probation, as this last shall of God, Father of all the æons, be determined. It will also emphasise the fact of man's progress in wisdom and in goodness after death in the intermediate state, with its spiritual ministries; and its stress upon the resurrection of the body will not be as upon a detached, uncaused event, but only as upon a res

1 Dorner's Gesammelte Schriften, S. 17. Berlin, 1883.

urrection in, with, and unto Christ, Who shall therein raise us up in the beautiful, spiritual, incorruptible body of perfectness and of promise. Its utterance as to final judgment will bear an accent of conviction of its intrinsic equity rather than of its exterior declaration, and its whole eschatological teachings will be developed with larger reference to the ever progressive realisation of the world-purpose of Divine paternal love, towards which, in its unified fulfilment, the world in its teleological movement tends.

We are not without confidence in affirming that the theology of the future, while maintaining the independence of theological thought, will nobly evince the disposition to be of service to the Church of the future, of which it will ask only more trust and love and freedom, in putting within her reach such enlarging and enlightening apprehensions and presentations of the divine truth as shall strengthen the Church in her conflict with the powers of darkness and evil and in her endeavours to realise her super-earthly character, and shall bring to her faith ultimate gain

for any losses she may suffer in matters of dogmatic form. And the Church of the future, relaxing none of her practical functions in the winning of souls and making their λñσis effectual, their exλoyń sure, and in impressing upon the world the absolutely universal character of the Kingdom of God as rightfully claiming all men, must in her turn be more swift to bear in mind that she has a theological interest, not less, but more, vital and important than all that goes to form what she may regard as her most real religious interest, because ultimately conditioning for her all religious issues, and determining the direction of all practical activities, with which last the aims of theological activity are really consonant. We feel, as the vision of this vast undertaking on the part of the theology of the future rises before us, that nothing but a large and inspiring faith will suffice to sustain in us the enthusiasm needed for such self-discipline, and devotion to truth and spiritual discovery, as may and should become ours; and that nothing but such a living faith will seek and strive after a theology which shall gather