HISTORICAL BASIS OF CHRISTIANITY.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1259, 14 October 1911, Page 5

HISTORICAL BASIS OF CHRISTIANITY.

THE REV. R. J. CAMPBELL'S VIEWS. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright London, October 12. At the Congregational Union Conference at Nottingham, during a discussion on the Historical Basis of Christianity, the Rev. It. J. Campbell declared that Christianity was impossible without a living personal Christ. NOT UNITARIANISM, BUT PAUL'S DOCTRINE. The Rev. R. J. Campbell succeeded Dr. Parker at tho City Temple, London, in 1003. His book on the "Now Theology," published in 1007, caused some excitement in religious circles, and some of his critics were of opinion that the views therein expressed were scarcely distinguishable trom Unitarianism. A lew months ago a statement to the effect that Mr. Campbell had recanted eome of his New Theology views, and had proclaimed his belief in the deity of Christ, went the rounds of the press. ■ At a Ministers' Conference in Juno last he mado an important statement of his views. He said that what Christendom had thought of Jesus all the way through ought to be true. It was the result of universal experionce. Jesus was the earthly, limited manifestation of that Eternal Christ who had been tho light of every man who came into the world. That, he said, was no't Unitarianism—that was Paul's own doctrine, althrough perhaps Paul never worked, out the philosophy of it. In another statement of his view in August, Mr. Campbell.dealt with the view insisted upon by Dr. Forsyth, that the Christ of Christian faith is eternal and uncreate. He said: "I do not believo that the thought of tho future is in the least likely to dislodge Jesus from the position lie has held in the devotion of Christendom for nineteen hundred years as the One Being in whom divinity and humanity were perfectly blended, cr rather tho Ono Being in whom divinity and humanity wem completely realised as one. But if in Jesus divinity and humanity woro not two things, but one, then humanity is divinity self-limited. And if tho divine and the eternal imply each other, if that which is divine is that which is uncreate, which never needed a beginning and will never have an end, then there must be something in every human being which can only bo thus described. I venture to prophesy that in a few generations this will be seen to bo the greatest thing that the Gospel of Jesus has given to tho world, this discovery that tho spirit of man, the changeless reality hidden within both body and soul, is eternal, and uncreate—an out-breathing, as it were, of the very being of God Himself." ~?■