power of love that can alone supply
these wants, is of its very nature. There must be knowledge in all
religion--knowledge of ourselves, and knowledge of the Divine. It was
the knowledge of God in Christ communicated by St Paul that had made
the Corinthians Christians. But the knowledge that is essential to
religion is a simple knowledge like that which the loved has of the
person who loves--the bride of the bridegroom, the child of the
parent. It springs from the personal and spiritual, and not from the
cognitive or critical side of our being; from the heart, and not from
the head. Not merely so; but if the heart or spiritual sphere be
really awakened in us--if there be a true stirring of life here, and a
true seeking towards the light--the essence and strength of a true
religion may be ours, although we are unable to answer many questions
that may be asked, or to solve even the difficulties raised by our own
intellect.

The text, in short, suggests that there is a religious sphere,
distinct and intelligible by itself, which is not to be confounded
with the sphere of theology or science. This is the sphere in which
Christ worked, and in which St Paul also, although not so exclusively,
worked after Him. This is the special sphere of Christianity, or at
least of the Christianity of Christ.

And it is this, as it appears to us, important distinction to which we
now propose to direct your attention. Let us try to explain in what
respects the religion of Christ is really apart from those
intellectual and dogmatic difficulties with which it has been so much
mixed up.

I. It is so, first of all, in the comparatively simple order of facts
with which it deals. Nothing can be simpler or more comprehensive than
our Lord's teaching. He knew what was in man. He knew, moreover, what
was in God towards man as a living power of love, who had sent Him
forth "to seek and save the lost;" and beyond these great facts, of a
fallen life to be restored, and of a higher life of divine love and
sacrifice, willing and able to restore and purify this fallen life,
our Lord seldom traversed. Unceasingly He proclaimed the reality of a
spiritual life in man, however obscured by sin, and the reality of a
divine life above him, which had never forsaken him nor left him to
perish in his sin. He held forth the need of man, and the grace and
sacrifice of God on behalf of man. And within this double order of
spiritual facts His teaching may be said