removing the sting of particular texts on which the uncharitable, inhuman, and unchristian doctrines of orthodox theology are based, every earnest seeker after truth must be profoundly grateful. It is upon the ground so cleared that I have endeavoured to put together again a few of the corner stones of the Christianity which Christ gave to the world. Others, doubtless, have done the same before. I do not presume to claim the merit of any new discoveries, in stringing together the following texts, and commenting on them; but, so far as I am concerned, the plan of the following work is certainly original, and worked out at first hand.

It was only after the following pages were written that I perused the foregoing work, and also that of Mr. Matthew Arnold-" Literature and Dogma," which so ably prepare the ground for such a work as mine.

The latter writer, I found, had written a work which, though entirely different in his treatment of the subject from my own—as he also is superior in style and argument-comes substantially to almost the same conclusion. Notwithstanding this, I have ventured to think that my labours need not on that account be thrown away. The present work is necessarily so different from his, that it will doubtless appeal to quite another public, and the same truths, in homelier language, and differently treated, may perhaps find quite as useful a place in the world of literature.

As I have endeavoured to show that Christ preached benevolence, beneficence, and faith, and these only as necessary to salvation, so the burden of Mr. Matthew Arnold's theme is, that both the Old and the New Testament teach conduct or righteousness as the one thing needful to salvation, and not doctrine.

"And certainly," says Mr. Arnold, on page 19, "we need not go far about to prove that conduct or 'righteousness,' which is the object of religion, is in a special manner the object of Bible-religion. The word 'righteousness' is the

master-word of the Old Testament. Keep judgment, and do righteousness! Cease to do evil; learn to do well! these words being taken in their plainest sense of conduct."

"The great concern of the New Testament is likewise righteousness, but righteousness reached through particular means, righteousness by means of Jesus Christ." In explanation of 'righteousness,' according to Christ, we find on page 93 the following:

Self-examination, self-renouncement, and mildness were, therefore, the great means by which Jesus Christ renewed righteousness and religion. All these means are indicated in the Old Testament: God requireth truth in the inward parts! Not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure! Seek meekness! But how far more strongly are they forced upon the attention in the New Testament, and set up clearly as the central mark for our endeavours. Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup that the outside may be clean also! Whoever will come after me, let him renounce himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me! Learn of me that I am mild and lowly in heart, and ye shall find rest in your souls! So that, although personal religion is clearly recommended in the Old Testament, nevertheless, these injunctions of the New Testament effect so much more for the extrication and establishment of personal religion than the general exhortation in the Old, to offer the sacrifice of righteousness, to do judgment, that, comparatively with the Old, the New Testament may be said to have really founded inward and personal religion. While the Old Testament says: Attend to conduct! the New Testament says: Attend to the feelings and dispositions, whence conduct proceeds!"

The difference between the righteousness of the Old Testament and the righteousness of Christ is explained by Mr. Arnold. Christ's rule of action is found in what Mr. Arnold calls Christ's secret, of which the following may, says he (on page 207), “very well stand as pre-eminently representative: 'He that loveth his life shall lose it, and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.

Whosoever will come after me, let him renounce himself, and """This maxim," says

take up his cross daily, and follow me."

Mr. Arnold, "contains Christ's secret, the secret by which, emphatically, his Gospel 'brought life and immortality to light.""

Again (on page 220), he says, "This secret of Jesus, as we call it, will be found applicable to all the thousand problems which the exercise of conduct daily offers; it alone can solve them all happily, and may indeed be called ‘a fount of water springing up into everlasting life.' And, in general, wherever the words life and death are used by Jesus, we shall do well to have his 'secret' at hand; for in his thoughts, on these occasions, it is never far off."

Such maxims as those of the Sermon on the Mount "are but the applications of the method and secret of Jesus; and the method and secret are capable of yet an infinite number more of such applications."

Applying his interpretation of "Christianity according to Christ" to the "Christianity of To-day," Mr. Arnold comes to a similar conclusion to that which is come to in the following pages-namely, that orthodox theology is not Christianity.

He says (on page 382): "Now, Christianity is that which righteousness really is. Therefore, if something called Christianity prevails, and yet the promises are not satisfied, the inference is, that this something is not that which righteousness really is, and therefore not really Christianity. And as the course of the world is perpetually establishing the pre-eminence of righteousness, and confounding whatever denies this pre-eminence, so, too, the course of the world is for ever establishing what righteousness really is -that is to say, true Christianity-and confounding whatever pretends to be true Christianity and is not."

"Now, just as the constitution of things turned out to be against the great unrighteous kingdom of the heathen world, and against all the brilliant Ishmaels we have seen since,

so the constitution of things turns out to be against all false presentations of Christianity, such as the theology of the Fathers or Protestant theology. They do not work successfully, they do not reach the aim, they do not bring the world to the fruition of the promises* made to righteousness. And the reason is, because they substitute for what is really righteousness something else. Catholic dogma or Lutheran justification by faith they substitute for the method and secret of Jesus."

The world," continues Mr. Arnold, "does homage to the pre-eminence of righteousness," and Christian churches do recommend the method and secret of Jesus, "although the full effect is much thwarted and deadened by the false way in which the doctrine is presented.”

"It is often said: If Jesus Christ came now, his religion would be rejected. And this is only another way of saying that the world now, as the Jewish people formerly, has something which thwarts and confuses its perception of what righteousness really is. It is so; and the thwarting cause is the same now as then, the dogmatic system current, the so-called orthodox theology."

I need not quote further from Mr. Arnold's book. The foregoing extracts give an outline of his argument, and are in substance the burden of my theme, too; but, as before stated, my acquaintance with "Literature and Dogma" dates after the following pages were written, and, since my conclusions are confirmed by such an eminent writer and scholar as Mr. Arnold, I think I may reasonably be excused for advancing beforehand the foregoing quotations in support of the views I have myself expressed in the following pages.

I propose, in another chapter, which will more properly come in at the end of this book, to make some more observations on that portion of Mr. Greg's work

Mr. Arnold refers to Isa. 60: 18; 32: 5; 60: 21; Jer. 31:33, 34; Isa. 60:20.

which deals with the evidence afforded by the New Testament, in favour of the belief in prayer, in a future state, and other articles of Christian belief. After first stating my own views, and the grounds for them, the reader will be more prepared to understand how I presume to differ from Mr. Greg's somewhat gloomy and unsatisfactory conclusions on these all-important questions.