DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1322, 28 December 1911, Page 3

DIVINITY OF CHRIST.

WHAT BISHOP JULIUS SAID, SENTIMENTAL, TKASUY IIYMNS. Tho following is a fuller rcpoit of tho Mrmon of Bishop Julius on Hie "Divi'ilty of Christ" preached in C'hristchurcli Anglican Cut lied nil on Christinas morning (u very brief summary uf which appeared in yesterday's issue):— The Bishop said ho would be lacking in his duty if ho did not deal with the great question of all time, never wholly answered, and asked again in this lime, "iviiat tliiuk ye of Christ, whese r-an is lief" It was enough to say that the definition in the Creed was forced upou tlm Church ngaiifet its will. The Church had to make a definition, or others would have made a bad definition. The Church set forth its faith in the Godhead of Christ and His perfect, manhood. The question had been reopened again in these days, and it wa-. not altogether a bad thing that it had been. It was not well that these things should lio in the chest. They must' come out and be inspected. It was no use living on on antiquated dogma. If the dogma was not the truth, they must find out what was tho truth, and live on that. The blank materialism of fifty years ago had gone. Nobody uoiv rejected the incarnation because it was supernatural, but men, if they did not deny it, at all events questioned it, or came to some other conclusion in their minds. It was always very difficult to realise, the God-man dwelling amongst men—God Himself, knowing all things, yet ignorant; God Himself, doing all things, yet bound in some measure. The most competent me'i in Germany at tho present day were divided, tome rejecting tho divinity of Christ altogether, while others held to it. With tho people here it was much the same, but men did not to-day decide against the divinity p'n the ground that because it was supernatural it must bo impossible, but on grounds of want of sureties in the case. There were many in the Church, not among the priests, but amongst the laity, who had vcrjr grave doubts about the "divinity of Christ, and it was to them he wished to speak. He believed their difficulties had arisen through a false setting of the divine truth, in tho first place from a fajse amount of what was called Jesus-worship. They had stopped short of the Father in an almost idolatrous worship of the man Jesus. Certain of their hymns showed this error —a sort of sentimental trash was all he could call them. They were not called upon to address sentimental hymns to the man Jesus, but lo call through irini to the eternal Father. Wherever practical Christianity stopped short of that they had to pay for it, and they were doing so now. He did not desire to be misunderstood. Jesus Christ was God, and to Him they must pay divine reverence and worship. That was quite another matter. It was all very well to say Jesus Christ was perfect man, but they had not represented Him as perfect man, but as something other than a perfect man. There was a problem about a perfect Christ that could not lie avoided. It was Christ Jesus—God, yet ignorant; eternal God, yet growing "in knowledge as ill stature; eternal God, yet sHlTering. But what were these signs of Christ's divine nature which shone through all His earthly life and brought his disciples to their knees before Him? The donial of Ihe divinity of Christ would bo absolutely fatal to the life and progress of Christianity. The Germans would tell them that the belief was essential to tho growth of the spirit of Christianity, but that they had got over that. Their experience in the history of the Church was that when they had got beyond it they would get into a cold and lifeless condition, in which there , was ni> hope for the heart. It might satisfr tl )0 "J to1 1?£' bllt nevcr t,ID hcart: - !» 'tivi'cs of difficulty one always beli'evcd that God would reveal His truth. The science ol psychology had developed extraordinarily during the past twenty years, and now took into account the unconscious side of human nature. All men and-wo-men, he believed, wore dimly aware of powers within them which could not find expression, hampered as they were by infirmities of body. "If I could only get rid of infirmities of body," went on Bishop Julius, "infirmities of tongue dullness of brain and mind, and wits; if I ■could only toll you what I mean, dewn in the heart ot me, I would make you jump! Continuing, the preacher said that pn the unconscious side of the mind lay tho point of contact with the divine. Ihis was the point where the divine assumed humanity. Was there no li-ht in this great teaching of the present «lav? hnu rl™ I- ?' i th ? y • coul(1 understand lKn . C ?v r . lst x st «xl—beginning slowly t» realise His true place in the world His relationship to tho Heavenly Father Messiahship, growing j a Brace , iu £ £ hfliu/wnr" 1 / 0 ! , '? , , Xn «"Klnsion.Bishop Julius warned his hearers to be careful ere they, threw any belief awav. The r" searches ot recent years taugllt humility J. ho formation of judgments on Z%