VII.—Now I have endeavoured to face and meet the points which are urged in the name of science against the Christian doctrine of the Fall. I have endeavoured to point out that what is essential to Christianity is to believe in the reality of moral freedom, and the consequent reality of sin, as something which need not have been in the individual, or in the race considered as a unity. This is all that Christianity is really pledged to maintain. In maintaining this we are maintaining what is absolutely essential to the moral well-being of the race, and, moreover, what has the deepest roots in man's moral experience and in the teaching of Christ. In holding this we hold the doctrine of the Fall, a doctrine, that is, that man's condition has been throughout a parody of the divine intention, owing to the fact of sin tainting and spoiling his development from the root. But Christianity is not in any kind of way pledged against the doctrine of development, only against the doctrine which no reasonable science can hold, that the actual development of man has been the best or only possible one. Nor, I have urged, can it be reasonably said that the Christian doctrine of sin and of the Fall is bound up with one particular interpretation of Genesis iii. All, then, that we must admit in the way of collision between Christianity and science is, on the one hand, that Christianity is not intended to teach men science, and that when there is any great advance in human knowledge it takes a little while for Christianity to extricate itself from the meshes of the language and ideas belonging to one stage of scientific knowledge, and to assimilate the terms and ideas of the new. But, on the other hand, there is perennial and necessary warfare between Christianity and materialistic science, or a science which denies the reality of moral freedom. And as to Christianity giving up what is proper to its own ground—its teaching about freedom and sin and the Fall, and God's purpose for man, and the love shown in his redemption—to give up this is to give up what is the best and deepest motive of human progress, and what is most surely certificated by the witness of Christ and the spiritual experience of Christendom. Indeed all schemes of human improvement are shallow and inadequate, which do not deal with man as what, in fact, he has been proved to be, a sinful, that is a fallen, being, needing not only education but redemption.

Before leaving this attempt to show that there is no necessary conflict between biological and theological science, it is important to call the attention of the intelligent public to the fact that what formerly appeared to be the solid consistency of the 'Darwinian' creed, has been broken up into a state not far removed from chaos. It has become apparent how very little way has really been made towards showing what have been the actual factors in evolution—how the fact of evolution through variation has actually occurred. Thus Mr. Bateson[14] remarks, 'If the study of variation can serve no other end, it may make us remember that the complexity of the problem of specific difference is hardly less now than it was when Darwin first showed that natural history is a problem, and no vain riddle.' What is the cause of variations occurring? What law do they exhibit in their occurrence? Do variations occur with a certain degree of sudden completeness[15]? Or how are we to explain the maintenance of variations, which in a more developed stage are to be very useful, before they can be shown to be useful at all? What is the place held in evolution by 'natural selection'? What, if any, the place held by use-inheritance? Is the factor of 'mimicry,' supported by Darwin, an important or even real factor in evolution? What is to be the issue of the controversy between the biologist and the physicist on the question of the time required for organic development? Are we to suppose that organic development at the beginning proceeded very much more rapidly than at a later stage? Or even that it exhibited laws of which we have no experience now, such as would admit of a 'natural' development of life out of what is not living? All these, and many more questions, appear to be so completely open that, granted the general theory of continuous evolution as against special creation, hardly anything as regards the factors or causes of evolution can be said to be scientifically settled. Thus on such subjects as the origin of the human race, its exact relation to an animal ancestry, and the right interpretation of the fact of sin, before science can make demands on theology, there must be more agreement in her own camp.

[1] See especially Ezekiel xxviii, xxxi.

[2] See vol. i. p. 193.

[3] Clem. Alex. Strom, vi. 12. 96; Iren. c. Haer. iv. 38.

[4] See also above, vol. i. pp. 78, 79.

[5] On the meaning of 'freedom of will,' see vol. i. pp. 230 ff.

[6] See above, vol. i. pp. 80-1.

[7] Romanes, Examination of Weismannism (Longmans, 1893), pp. 61-70, 153.

[8] The Last Link (Black, 1899), p. 79.

[9] Romanes, Darwin and after Darwin (Longmans, 1895), ii. p. 279.

[10] Examination of Weismannism, pp. 114, 115.

[11] Darwin and after Darwin, ii. p. 90.

[12] See also in Haeckel, Last Link, p. 148: 'We assume the single monophyletic origin of mankind at one place, in one district'; and passages cited above, vol. i. p. 196, n. 1. The science of comparative religions also suggests the same conclusion. Everywhere common underlying religious needs and tendencies appear. Acts xvii. 27 is justified by a comparison of religions.

[13] It must not be left out of sight that the idea of life as naturally derived from what was inorganic, has not yet been made to appear even scientifically probable, in view of the evidence.

[14] W. Bateson, Materials for the Study of Variations, treated with especial regard to discontinuity in the origin of species (Macmillan, 1894), p. xii.

[15] Biologists are now apparently more disposed than formerly to admit the sudden appearance of considerable and important modifications and rapid developments. Cf. Haeckel, l. c. p. 144, and Bateson, p. 568. He concludes that 'discontinuity of species results from discontinuity of variation.' 'The existence,' he says, 'of sudden and discontinuous variation, the existence, that is to say, of new forms having from their first beginning more or less of the kind of perfection which we associate with normality, is a fact that disposes, once and for all, of the attempt to interpret all perfection and definiteness of form as the work of selection. The study of variation leads us into the presence of whole classes of phenomena that are plainly incapable of such interpretation.' This relative perfection of variations at starting Mr. Bateson attributes in great measure to the principle of 'symmetry,' or 'repetition of parts' in living things. An organism is symmetrical, and thus what happens in one of many similar organs repeats itself normally in all the others. Change in one part is not an isolated fact, but there is 'similarity and simultaneity of change.'

The following passage in the Didache, c. 7, is of the plainest importance for the history of this matter: 'If thou have not living [i.e. running] water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. And if thou have not either [in sufficient amount for baptism, i.e. immersion in the water] pour forth water thrice upon the head into the name of Father and Son and Holy Ghost.' Cf. Dr. Taylor, Teaching of the Twelve Apostles (Cambridge, 1886), p. 52: 'The primitive mode of baptism was by immersion. According to the Jewish rite a ring on the finger, a band confining the hair, or anything that in the least degree broke the continuity of contact with the water, was held to invalidate the act. The Greek word "baptize," like the Hebrew tabol, means to dip: to "baptize" a ship is to sink it. The construction [in the above passage of the Didache] "baptize into other water," points to immersion, as likewise does Hermas, when he writes (Simil. 9): "They go down therefore into the water dead, and come up living;" and Barnabas (chap. xi): "Herein he saith that we go down into the water laden with sins and filthiness, and come up bearing fruit in our heart, and having our fear and our hope towards Jesus in the Spirit." This was still the normal way of administering the rite, but it was no longer insisted upon as necessary: "If thou have not either," not enough of "living" or "other" water for immersion, "pour water thrice upon the head," &c.'

O holy and eternal Jesus, who didst pity mankind lying in his blood and sin and misery, and didst choose our sadnesses and sorrows that Thou mightest make us to partake of Thy felicities; Let Thine eyes pity me, Thy hands support me, Thy holy feet tread down all the difficulties in my way to heaven; let me dwell in Thy heart, be instructed with Thy wisdom, moved by Thy affections, choose with Thy will, and be clothed with Thy righteousness; that in the day of judgement I may be found having on Thy garments, sealed with Thy impression; and that, bearing upon every faculty and member the character of my elder Brother, I may not be cast out with strangers and unbelievers. Amen.

O holy and ever blessed Spirit, who didst overshadow the Holy Virgin-mother of our Lord, and caused her to conceive by a miraculous and mysterious manner; be pleased to overshadow my soul, and enlighten my spirit, that I may conceive the holy Jesus in my heart, and may bear Him in my mind, and may grow up to the fullness of the stature of Christ, to be a perfect man in Christ Jesus. Amen.

To God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ; to the eternal Son that was incarnate and born of a virgin; to the Spirit of the Father and the Son, be all honour and glory, worship and adoration, now and for ever. Amen.—Jeremy Taylor, Holy Living; see his Works, vol. iii. p. 238.

The expression 'In necessariis unitas, in non necessariis libertas, in omnibus caritas' is cited by Richard Baxter in the dedication of On the True and Only Way of Concord of all Christian Churches, 1679, thus, 'I once more quote you the pacificator's old and despised words.' But the pacificator appears to be no one older than a Protestant who wrote (1620 to 1640), under the name of Rupertus Meldenius, a Paraenesis votiva pro pace ecclesiae ad theologos Augustanae Confessionis. In the Paraenesis occurs the sentence 'si nos servaremus in necessariis unitatem, in non necessariis libertatem, in utrisque caritatem optimo certe loco essent res nostrae.' See A. P. Stanley in Macmillan, Sep., 1875, referring to G. C. F. Lücke, Ueber das Alter, den Verfasser, die ursprüngliche Fonn und den wahren Sinn des kirchlichen Friedensspruchs: 'in necessariis unitas &c.,' Göttingen, 1850.

This information was supplied me in correction of a mistaken attribution of the saying of which I was guilty in a sermon; and has been verified for me by Mr. Arthur Hirtzel. The saying has been commonly attributed to St. Augustine, and indeed the matter of it is thoroughly in his spirit; cf. my Ephesians, p. 272; and see also De Gen. ad litt., viii. 5: 'Melius est dubitare de occultis quam litigare de incertis.' De Civ. Dei, xix. 18: 'qua [i.e. faith in scripture] salva atque certa, de quibusdam rebus quas neque sensu, neque ratione percepimus, neque nobis per Scripturam canonicam claruerunt, nec per testes, quibus non credere absurdum est, in nostram notitiam pervenerunt, sine iusta reprehensione dubitamus.'

The following passages are full of interest:—De Civ. D. x. 6: 'So that the whole redeemed city, that is the congregation and society of the saints, is offered as a universal sacrifice to God by the High Priest, who offered nothing less than Himself in suffering for us, so that we might become the body of so glorious a head, according to that 'form of a servant' which He had taken. For it was this (our human nature) that He offered, in this that He was offered, because it is in respect of this that He is mediator, priest and sacrifice.' Then after a reference to Rom. xii. 1-6 he continues, 'This is the Christian sacrifice: the "many" become "one body in Christ." And it is this that the Church celebrates by means of the sacrament of the altar, familiar to the faithful, where it is shown to her that in what she offers she herself is offered.' And x. 20: Of Christ's perfect sacrifice of Himself 'He willed the Church's sacrifice to be a daily sacrament. For as she is the body of Him the head, she learns through Him to offer up herself.' Again xix. 23: 'God's most glorious and best sacrifice is we ourselves, that is His city, of which we celebrate the mystery in our oblations, which are known to the faithful.' Cf. xxii. 10: 'The sacrifice itself is the body of Christ, which is not offered to them (the martyrs), for they themselves also are it' (quia hoc sunt et ipsi). Cf. Serm. 227: 'If you have well received (the body of Christ in the sacrament) you are what you have received ... He willed us to be His sacrifice.'

In all this we have a very plain and much forgotten teaching. But we must not misunderstand St. Augustine's use of apparently exclusive language—as if the sacrifice of ourselves was the only sacrifice offered in the eucharist. The sacrifice of the Church is offered up through Christ. Thus he also speaks of the celebration of the eucharist (on the occasion of his mother's death, Conf. ix. 12) in the phrase 'the sacrifice of our ransom (pretii nostri) was offered for her.'

We do well to remember by the way that in De Civ. x. 5, 6, St. Augustine twice over defines what he means by sacrifice thus: 'A true sacrifice is everything that is done in order that we may by a holy fellowship inhere in God.'