the verses just quoted that they might pass as his. If in this day anyone claimed Divine Power either for himself or for another, it would seem rather madness than childishness to believe without any evidence at all. Yet if anyone ask, What evidence would suffice? it is impossible to reply, so extreme is our demand. If evidence quite stupendous in amount and unprecedented in quality would be justly required now, less cannot hav been really needed 1800 years ago: nor hav we any adequate proof that the pretension was ever advanced by or for Jesus during his life. It would seem that the Christian books regard as piety to accept such statements as if self-evident, or at least, as if the assertion "Jesus of "Nazareth is the Son of God, begotten of his Father "before all worlds," were a proposition of the same rank, and to be approved by the same faculties, as "The "visible Universe is the work of Super Human power.'

John the Elder wrote three extant Epistles, to which the Fourth Gospel is so like in style that it is natural to attribute them to the same hand. This Gospel, like many a bold romance, has been accepted as history, and has cast the three first narrativs into the shade, by its specious pretence of spirituality. address and prayer of Jesus, by audaciously supplants the agony singularly majestic and captivating. writers of history, so here style gains attention and accredits a tale, when there is no ostensible proof and no probability.

Undoubtedly the which the writer in the garden, is As with certain

Whether any of Justin Martyr's quotations (during the reign of one of the Antonines) came from the fourth Gospel, is hotly debated. Justin does not quote as from a separate book, nor attribute his quotations to the apostle John. But he definitly attributes to this apostle the authorship of the Apocalypse, a book written in a marvellously different Greek style.

From the Apocalypse, this Gospel borrows the title "Word of God" for Jesus in its opening. Neither in it, nor in the Epistles of John do we meet the topic of looking for the return of the Lord from Heaven, which was the cardinal gospel in the first age. A subtle effort is perhaps made to replace it by the promise of "the "Comforter," which is to supply a mystical interpretation of the words: "I will come unto you." All the facts converge to the belief, that this Gospel was written after the most thoughtful members of the Church had abandoned the primitiv expectation of that great event which the Apocalypse solemnly declared to impend.

With this book the Canon of the New Testament may seem to close; yet the Epistle of Jude was perhaps as late, and the second (or spurious) Epistle of Peter must be later than this of Jude.

A survey of near two centuries exhibits a rapid change of fundamental doctrin. First of all, the Gospel, or Good News, is, that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand. This formula belongs both to John the Baptist, and to Jesus with slight changes. After the death of Jesus, the Good News is, that Jesus, who has ascended to Heaven will speedily return in the clouds to reign on the Earth with his Saints. Such was the Gospel common to James and Paul. But Paul added details concerning Jesus, which were not accepted and incorporated in the Gospel of Jerusalem, making "One God and one Lord" a dual object of worship. "God and the Lamb" ar much the same as this. Sixty years later the belief in the return of Christ to reign on earth was dying out through the disappointment of hope. The primitiv gospel vanished; but instead remained, Washing away Sin by the Blood of the Cross, Predestination to Life, and a mysterious tenet concerning "the Son and the "Father." This doctrin of "the Blood" was subversiv

of all that had been taught in Judaism concerning God's free forgivness. Protestants hav now another fundamental condition of saintship,--a belief that "the Bible" is the Word of God.

Such a change of front is truly damaging; but as though this were not enough, Sacerdotalism also was set up. The primitiv peculiarity of the doctrin of Jesus is hereby overthrown. With him religion was a personal relation between the individual soul and God; but his degenerate followers hav gone back to the earlier conception of Jews and Pagans that religion is corporate and is attained only by becoming a member of a special community, which virtually mediates between the soul and its God. When we see such phenomena we may modify Paul's phrase, and say "ever shifting, and never "advancing towards truth."

What ar the Gates of Hades which, according to Jesus, shall never prevail against his Church, is a very obscure matter; but certainly nothing in its history suggests any divine exemption from unlimited error.

More than

CHRISTIANITY is no longer in its cradle. eighteen centuries hav passed since the Apostle John wrote these words: "The Revelation of Jesus the "Messiah, which God gave unto him, to show unto his "saints what things must quickly come to pass . . . "For the crisis is near."-Rev. i. 1--3. Already (the Apostle assures us) it was promulgated in heaven that "the kingdoms of this world ar become the kingdoms of

66

our Lord and of his Messiah; for the Lord God "omnipotent reigneth." Again and again it is repeated: "I come quickly;" he comes to accept his crown and to seat his saints on the throne with him. The Spirit and the Bride say, "Come!" Let him that heareth say, "Come!" He that testifieth these things saith, "YEA, I COME QUICKLY." The Apostle eagerly responds, "Come, Lord Jesus."

If we had no history of these eighteen centuries, and we formed a picture of them from such prophecies, very false would be our belief concerning the earthly events. We should suppose that the Heavenly King had long since come down with angelic guards, had overthrown the ungodly oppressiv rule of violent men, and had installed his saints at his side, to establish his Rule of Righteousness. Such was the firm expectation of the Apostles. But in the actual history we see not a single trace in this direction. The persecution of "the saints" ever became fiercer for two centuries and a half; and the baptized Rulers who succeeded the Emperor Constantine were collectivly a crew of self-seeking worldly men, not one of them superior to the best of the Pagan Emperors. Neither the dominant Paganism nor the Empire was overthrown by the descent of Messiah on his heavenly white horse (Rev. xix. 11), but by the civil wars of the Imperialists and by the inroad of fierce barbarians; and there followed, not a kingdom of Heaven on Earth, but more than a thousand years of tumult and confusion, of gross ignorance and vile superstition, sanguinary violence on one side establishing Might as Right, priestly assumption on the other teaching prostration of the private conscience and making itself mediator between God and man.

The modern Reformer has sought, naturally and reasonably, to reform by reverting to the primitiv doctrin :

but how is the word primitiv to be interpreted? Luther and Calvin and the Anglican Reformers thought it an Axiom that the Nicene Creed and indeed even the Creed called (with no right) Athanasian, was to be retained. In fact they barely went back as far as Constantine. The earlier the creed, the simpler and less ample it was found; but side by side with modern Science, modern experience in Literature, modern investigations in History, the demand of Evidence before belief in miracle becomes ever more imperious. Not only is it found that such miracles as the resurrection of the deceased Jesus and the ascension of his body into heaven hav no adequate proof, but even with the more thoughtful and deep-thinking Christians three questions raise grave embarrassment, (1) In what sense can any one reasonably interpret the assertion that a man named in history was a Divine person in disguise? in disguise? (2) What proof was offered to the world by the first preachers, that Jesus was superhuman? (3) What evidence can, or could, ever suffice to prove that a certain man was an eternal, incomprehensible, omnipresent being?

Any creed which is imbibed with the mother's milk will stand long and widely without evidence; because the bulk of mankind ar too busy to think fundamentally.

In

every nation a decisiv majority clings to the traditional creed. But such has been the reaction against sacerdotal pride and doctrin called orthodox, that wherever priests ar powerless to suppress literature, Christians who exercise unbiassed and reverent thought, largely embrace the modern doctrin called Unitarian, which, while seeking to glorify Jesus as a unique Saint and pre-eminent Teacher of true and undefiled Religion, yet insists that in nature and origin he was purely human and tied down by human conditions. In Calvinistic Switzerland this doctrin has largely triumphed over Calvin; in Huguenot