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That the Judgment of God is a Biblical notion of profound significance cannot be denied. But it has never been popular with man, and in some ages of the Church's history—apart from the Liturgy—it has been entirely dormant. In a recent article in The Congregational Quarterly Dr Lovell Cocks describes the Edwardian Nonconformist minister as one “who endeared himself to his congregation as a big, brotherly fellow by having ‘no use for theology’”—a very true description of more than Nonconformist ministers in that age of prosperity—and then says that the same man to-day would “merely write himself down as a charlatan or an ass”. I wonder how true this is! Have we really so completely left behind that Edwardian optimism? I doubt it. The heritage of the second half of the nineteenth century, the age of progress and expansion, is perhaps not so easily got rid of as that. Whilst it is true that amongst theologians in the past thirty years there has been a revival of the notions of the Holiness of God, the Judgment of God, and of eschatological matters in general; and whilst Barth and Brunner and Niebuhr are names to conjure with, I am inclined to think that the general run of men and women, including many preachers, are still prone to cling to the comfortable and somewhat sentimental doctrines of the Love of God which were fashionable amongst theologians a generation ago.
page 136 note 2 Liturgy is always less liable to change than theology, even where a Church has no fixed Liturgy except hymns and metrical psalms. Here the conservatism is shown in selection, and it is often surprising that in an age or place where theology is barren, Liturgy in the form of hymns and prayers (even extempore prayers) will reflect the full Gospel.
page 136 note 3 July 1948, “The Message of P. T. Forsyth”.
page 137 note 1 In its Harnackian form. It took a different form in the theology of Wilhelm Herrmann of Marburg, but his influence in this country was slight as compared with that of Harnack.
page 137 note 2 The substance of sixteen lectures delivered to students of all faculties in the University of Berlin, 1899–1900, produced in fairly non-technical language, translated from the German into English and published in 1901.
page 138 note 1 See his exhaustive study published in English in 1910 under the title, The Quest of the Historical Jesus.
page 138 note 2 It is instructive to re-read in our day Denney's Studies in Theology, delivered as lectures in Chicago University, 1894, and published 1895. Forsyth's main works range from 1905–1918 and are just now being republished by the Independent Press, but as far back as 1902 there was published an essay of his in a symposium, The Atonement in Modern Religious Thought, which is all the more illuminating seeing it lies side by side with one from R. J. Campbell!
page 138 note 3 See Positive Preaching and the Modem Mind, p. 8.
page 139 note 1 Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, p. 143.
page 139 note 2 It was in this existential way that Forsyth had begun to think, not of God as the Supreme Object observed by man, but as the Supreme Subject encountered by man, who by the encounter was challenged in the dialogue of Word and Action. So faith was decision and committal. See Positive Preaching and the Modern Mind, 1907, and The Justification of God, 1917.
page 140 note 1 The Book of American Poetry, ed. by Markham, Edwin, p. 622Google Scholar. Hagedorn was born in 1882.
page 142 note 1 This is less true of Plato—though not of Neo-Platonism—than of Aristotle. It is still less true of the Tragedians, though it must not be forgotten that for them the eschatological event was no more than Nemesis; tragedy and defeat were inseparable. It is, however, true of the general attitude of the Greek mind.
page 143 note 1 I use the word “because” in a provocative sense. God was never so absolute as when He created freedom, which He did when He created man in His own image.
page 143 note 2 All this was based on the idea that the difference between God and man was one of degree only and not the difference between Creator and created. “We are no partners with God, fellow-workers though we be,” said Forsyth and warned us that education and development in themselves were no Gospel for man: “Merely develop sinful man, and in spite of all the good in him, you only have a greater sinner” (Positive Preaching, p. 55). This was in 1907, and how true his words have proved to be!
page 143 note 3 This is the essence of the Biblical doctrine of election, God's call and choice without which there can be no salvation for man. This invasion is, however, no assault on the sanctuary of personal freedom, for it comes from the only One who can give us to ourselves and can grant us real moral freedom. As Calvin pointed out, man can have no freedom apart from the Sovereignty of God, for God's Sovereignty is never so Sovereign as when He creates freedom. St. Augustine pointed out a radical difference between the two choices of evil and of good. The choice of evil is the denial of freedom, while to choose the good is to be free; and this means that we are never so really human as when we submit ourselves to the Will of God.
page 144 note 1 See Martin Dibelius, Gospel Criticism and Christology; R. Bultmann, Jesus and the Word; C. H. Dodd, The Apostolic Preaching and its Developments; W. L. Knox, St. Paul and the Jerusalem Church; and especially the very full study of the question in W. Manson, Jesus the Messiah. Further light is thrown on this problem by the most recent study of W. D. Davies, Paul and Rabbinic Judaism.
page 145 note 1 This was the theme of Herbert Spencerapos;s Principles of Ethics, which was taken up and re-echoed in a supposedly Christian form from the pulpits of the land.
page 146 note 1 An example of this kind of thing is seen in the abolition of the slave trade and later of slavery in the British Empire in the early years of the nineteenth century. Before the abolition of slavery it was a relevant ethical question to discuss whether a Christian could be a slave-owner; in fact it was a very live question and one hotly debated. After the abolition, and very speedily after, it was a purely academic question.
page 146 note 2 An example of trying to force the hand of God may be seen in the attempt in 516 B.C. to set up the Messianic Kingdom after the return from the Exile, reflected in Haggai and Zechariah 1–8.
page 146 note 3 This is a common metaphor used throughout Oman's Grace and Personality.
page 146 note 4 An untranslatable Hebrew word which St. Paul transliterates into Greek to express the foretaste of the glory hereafter which Christians already possess through the Spirit. See 2 Cor. 1.22; 5.5; Eph. 1.14.
page 147 note 1 Holland, Henry Scott, 1847–1918, from The English Hymnal (Oxford University Press)Google Scholar.